Rebel without a clue
The state of their nation
By Patricia Evangelista
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:47:00 08/09/2008
Filed Under: Politics, Government
PRESIDENT MACAPAGAL-ARROYO MADE MANY PROMISES. She said the country needed the VAT, and that the poor were being helped. She said that the population was being trumped by natural family planning. She said we must come together as a people.
The state of the nation, after all, depends on who is telling the story.
To Adonis, the burly freelance gaffer who came to Manila as a teenager, the day the President delivers the State of the Nation Address is the day traffic chokes the highways, along with the protesters who have nothing better to do. For him, the fools who fill the sidewalk with their placards should be pounding out a living instead of coming home hungry. Adonis did not finish third grade, he grew up hacking away at rice fields and jumped at the chance to deliver water to actors’ dressing rooms. Today, he carries lighting equipment for production companies and lives in a small, green-painted room with his sisters, their children and his tiny mother.
He does not vote, and will not vote even after the pleading of local officials. He has seen too many voters regret the result of the elections. He will not be responsible for putting a corrupt government in power.
They can declare whatever state of the nation they want, he says. At least, even with a third grade education, he knows that all their promises will be broken.
For Antonio, the 67-year-old man who sleeps stretched out on a grimy blanket by the glass doors of Banco de Oro, Ms Arroyo’s Sona was something he would have liked to watch, but he had no television, and he spent the afternoon collecting tips for helping cars park in front of a restaurant in Morato. On a good day, he makes up to P80 in tips, enough to splurge on a serving of chicken adobo with rice. Antonio was a painter who came to Manila “dahil dito pwede ka dumiskarte.” His wife has left him, his son died in a knife fight. He carries his life in two pink plastic bags.
Antonio wants to vote, but he doesn’t have the time—or the resources—to go back to Nueva Ecija to register again as a voter. He does not remember his last name.
For Luisa, the Sona is something she watches when she can. Her husband owns a car that he used to drive to his Makati office every day. Now, he drives it once, or twice a week. She runs a small sari-sari store in Paco, just under the small apartment where she lives with her family, across a yellow basketball court. She has a son she is sending to school in De la Salle, a feat she says would be near impossible for many families, but something she and her husband managed by dint of sheer hard work.
Luisa is a voter. She does not care if her vote is not counted. What matters is that she votes.
Jun Lozada, the NBN-ZTE witness whose stunning revelations about corruption in high offices catapulted thousands to the streets, worked for government and all its various forms of corruption and machinations until he made the choice, before millions in an impromptu press conference, to disassociate himself from the administration.
Lozada says he is a good engineer. Now his family sleeps on the floor of the La Salle Brothers’ sanctuary in Greenhills. His daughter was nearly kidnapped. His son does not believe in God. His young boys do not understand why they cannot go home. He has an impressive collection of cases filed against him by government entities. He is thinking of allowing his family to leave the country. He says he could not finish the President’s Sona.
Gov. Joey Salceda, the gentleman who has long been known as the President’s economic adviser, says his choice to stay with the much-vilified President is a matter of constructive engagement. More good, he says, can be done with working with Ms Arroyo than opposing her. He says she is underestimated, but that “she can do better.” The economy has done well under her watch, he says, very well. The national debt has been cut down. The VAT has raised government income. At no time does the government have more capacity to do good.
The President says removing the VAT will only benefit the rich. Salceda approves of the VAT. The logic is to take from the rich to give to the poor. And yet the poor are not exempt from the VAT. Salceda says that the poor buy instant noodles, the poor buy cooking oil, the poor ride jeepneys and tricycles that raise fares because of the tax on petroleum. The poor have no choice because the elite are the ones who run the country. The weight of the economic crisis and the additional load of the VAT fall so heavily on the average Filipino that the VAT must be returned to them immediately, whether in infrastructure or financial aid.
On television, Salceda says, he saw a housewife pay almost a hundred pesos in VAT after buying P683 worth of groceries. And that is what keeps tripping him, he says, that’s what keeps him up at night, the P100 that the woman wished she could have spent on the cooking oil she returned to the grocery shelf.
VAT not spent on the poor, he thunders, is cardinal sin. VAT not spent on the economy is another bad policy.
Salceda talks about the oil crisis, the food crisis, the slowing down of the global economy, the overpopulation—he says, about contraception, that the President should transcend her Catholic origins. He says that he may be cynical about the Philippines, but he has faith in the Filipino. The Filipino can take care of himself. If all national boundaries were lifted, the Filipino would vote with his feet, and the country would be barren.
Lozada says that all he wants is to go home. Go home, start his own inasal business, go back to work and die in the country. He hopes the truth he spoke will matter. He hopes his family will be OK. He says the Philippines is in the darkest part of the night, but morning will come.
Luisa’s sons want to go overseas when they graduate. Her one hope is that they will finish school, and that they will have better lives. She says that if she focused on the state of the nation and simply gave up, her children would not have the opportunities they have now.
Antonio says he still believes in government. The President probably has so many concerns, and besides, he’s still strong enough to take care of himself. He hopes he will help the others who can’t.
Adonis does not care about the state of the nation. He has a job, and he thinks everyone else should do theirs.
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(This column was written with resources from ABS-CBN News Channel’s Sona “Storyline” episode. Send comments to pat.evangelista@gmail.com)
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