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Our politicians don’t deserve
our country. They don’t care about party affiliations, ideology or
even past criminality. They switch political parties like their
parties didn’t stand for anything but alliances of convenience.
Cohorts and descendants of past dictators are now allies of those
catapulted into position by a people power uprising much like the
very one that deposed the dictatorship. People are clamoring to vote
against the current regime, alleging that it is corrupt. But that
would entail voting for minions of the regime before it, one that
was deposed on corruption charges.
Know-nothing
movie stars and athletes and inbred descendants of political
dynasties still comprise many on the election roster. People are not
voting for anything as much as they are voting against. No one has a
plan.
Hardly anyone
is presenting a detailed platform for governance. They don’t want
to debate about human rights and extrajudicial killings, electoral
reform and alleged vote rigging, graft and corruption. No one is
talking about the environment.
And nobody
cares about culture.
Always last on
the agenda and never on the budget, the arts are seen dispensable
and cultural development nonessential.
Yet all the
exposes into graft and all the people power revolts never address
the root causes of corruption: a culture that condones it.
We have some
of the most sound and advanced environmental laws, accounting
systems, gender rights and democratic processes for any country. But
we fail to effectively implementing any of them. Feudal ways of
life, patriarchal culture and blind faith in religions still hold us
down.
Our election
culture is still one of patronage politics and popularity contests.
The people themselves have yet to mature politically. They still
vote for whoever paved the road in front of our houses or
contributed to loved ones’ wakes and weddings, be they corrupt or
not.
What if
cultural as well environmental advocacy was part of the criteria for
selecting candidates?
Our history
shows that some of the staunchest supporters of the arts can be
truly horrid in governance. Imelda Marcos, wife of the deposed
dictator under whose regime billions disappeared, fostered the arts
and gave many institutions artistic freedom. Gringo Honasan, who
repeated staged failed military coups that ruined our economy and
who always escaped leaving the officers who followed him to face the
music, was also a staunch supporter of several environmental causes.
But I would never vote for the likes of them.
So what are we
do? Do what we have always done: do what we can. Provoke and incite.
E-mail
Culture Vulture at rome.jorge@gmail.com or log on to
www.hanepdesigns.com and blog.360.yahoo.com/hanepdesigns.
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