We have had witnessed in the country how friendships and even family ties have been broken in the pursuit of political status. In the local scene, where such scenario is most vulnerable, close relatives and friends end up to be the fiercest political rivals. Thus, the line “blood is thicker than water, but water washes the blood,” is tested true in this instance. Moreover, those at the helm of society, invest so much in politics. Election in the Philippines would be abnormal and unfelt without the shed of money.
Money is such a paramount political capital as political race has utmost become a contest of money. This being the case, the influence of the wealthy and the elite class cannot be overemphasized. They are in great control of the nomination of candidates as they are the political bosses who are on the top behind of the political parties from whom campaign funding greatly erodes. This is just a glimpse of the monstrous panorama of Philippine politics.
What is it in political status that it tolerably washes the bonds of blood and friendship? What is the price of political contest that huge amount of money are unhesitantly gambled?
The answer is incomprehensively simple. It is the promise of power. A power that furthers gold, makes one feel prestigious, perpetuates one in control. And it is the lust for this power that social criminals emerge and multiply. In the name of power, political leaders breed into political slanderers. They manipulate the people through deceptive political literature by means of cunning speeches, and of their political fragrance the corporate media corroborates to fuse.
Furthermore, the lust for power creates institutional thieves. Graft and corruption has become endemic in the government as it now stands the rule rather than the exception. Since politics is propelled by money, corruption is used by those in authority as a means to perpetuate them in power. Throughout the hierarchy of government, from the soil of the barrangays up to the floors of Malacanang, corruption indubitably exists. The country recently took the dark side of the center stage as it ranked 11th most corrupt government in the world. Independent of such ranking, the economic stagnation of the country, if not backwardness, substantially accounts from such meditated corruption.
The direction and tempo of Philippine politics has been dictated, not by the needs and welfare of the body politic, but by the whims and pleasure of the political animals in and behind the government. The interests of the toiling majority are made incidental to that of the pleasure of the moneyed few. The substance of legislations and executive policies are
usually blown in favor of the propertied class. If there are so-called social legislations, they are, more often than not, mere palliatives. And others are implemented in selective rather than in general manner.
Indeed, the misery of the people is no longer a consequence of natural law, but of the political flaw, which stems again from the extreme pursuit for wealth and the obsession to stay in power. As the few are actively tolerated to persist to hunt for power, the majority would end up lethargic as they continue to focus on their struggle for survival. This cruel social imbalance in the Philippines, as in the world, is an inevitable result of the lust for power. Finally, the lust for power corrupts the innate goodness of man. When President Ferdinand Marcos was deposed, the Philippines was expected to bloom as the society thought it has ousted a political evil who dreamed to be the lifetime power. Significantly, this was a complete mistake. There is such a law of unintended consequences. When they got in the echelon of government and tasted the nectar of power, many of the political personalities who were at the frontline against the Marcos regime were soon corrupted by power and their idealism and progressive visions for the country they once had were expelled for the sake of vested interests. In fact, they had created a post-Marcos political turmoil which, to many, is far more reprehensible and greatly responsible for the present socio-economic malady of the Filipino people. Worse, the youth of today, who would be the next leaders, has either grown up critically apathetic in the affairs of the government and of their community, or at worst, has become one in the political jungle. The reason for the latter, among others, is that most of the youth who enter politics belongs to a traditional political clan. Expectedly, their tendency to be politically biased, at any means, for power’s sake and for the perpetuation of their familial career in politics is great. Again this boils down for the lust for power, which in this instance, is hereditary.
The reality of politics is, indeed, toxic. It dissolves idealism and debilitates moral initiative.It knows no tie and often betrays the nation’s decent destiny. “Too much love will kill you,” so is a title of a song goes. And it is all this discourse that has been saying. Too much politics is killing us. The obsession for political status is drowning us. The lust for power is a mental disease that will lead the Filipino nation and the human society into an unimaginable catastrophe.
In the words of Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, a well –rounded philosopher, he rightly said, “Slander, jealousy, party politics, lethargy, grandiloquence and so on are the various kinds of social evils, which, if given scope, make great criminals of people. These evils are very evident in the modern world, and the reason for this is political bias. The loathsome race for political status will not relax its grip over society unless the human mind is freed from the lust for power. It is the time for men to be very cautious lest this political tendency continue to shape people into criminals. If the nature of the entire human race becomes infected with criminality, if people become intolerant of others’ opinions and beliefs, if they become corrupt and sell all their good judgment and talent for the sake of status, then man’s age-old civilization will end in smoke.”
(I wrote this when I was a Senior Political Science student
for the 1st issue of our NGO's publication, Timpuyog Peoples Movement, Inc.
This was published in the Ilocos Times)
Leadership
