"From being a mere instrument of patronage, the pork barrel and its associated perks [have] become the primary reason for seeking public office, transforming politics into a lucrative enterprise. This attracts the wrong kind of persons into public service, and makes elections the costly affairs they are today. I believe we have reached that stage when our society must free itself from this obsolete system if it is to survive. People are angry and are communicating with one another in ways never thought possible. Stealing from the public coffers has become too brazen for the ordinary citizen to ignore. Who can feel good paying taxes to a government that blindly dispenses hard-earned money to cynical, incompetent, and corrupt officials? We have to begin from the recognition that Philippine society today not only has a very high proportion of its people living below the poverty line. It is also probably the most highly unequal society in this part of the world. The poor in our country barely have anything to eat; they scour garbage dumps looking for usable trash, live in makeshift shanties along dangerous waterways, beg in the streets—in the shadow of the most expensive condominium buildings and exclusive housing communities. A social order that imagines this to be normal, and coasts along as if government belonged to its elected officials, is ripe for revolution."
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 00:17:25 +0000
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