April 14, 2008, Carla, 26 years old, mother of three, did just what a mother should not do to her own children—hurt them. And it was as if God had forsaken our land, she hurt them with live embers. The reason: Her kids accidentally spilled a can of rice, the last one they had. Make no mistake, Carla stared straight into the ABS-CBN Broadcasting reporter and told her, “The chicken ate the rice and I wasn’t able to control my emotion, that’s why I harmed them—for the first time.”

Why in hell (pardon the language, but to those who earn less than P80 a day, our country these days is certainly that) would a mother do that? You need not be Otto Hirschler to know that it is wrong to harm children, especially your own. An evil genius could have easily told Carla to kill and cook the chicken. But even the evil genius has left our land. The kids, when interviewed by the reporter, still called her Mama. “Mama hurt us because we lost the rice.” Carla is pregnant with her fourth child.

I repeat—the kids still called her Mama. Yes, they did, for Carla is not the one to be blamed for these evil days. Academicians, the learned, just like this government, would say Carla simply needs some counseling. And the social welfare representative did just that.

But that’s the same patching up this government is doing to solve our problems. Somebody should have asked President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo how much of the P40 billion for agriculture will actually go to the farmers. I need not say that corruption kills. The very poor are not only in dire straits. They are at the very end of the road. Nope, not the road less traveled. Scott Peck would not make any sense now—it is the road to hell, and there’s no turning back.

Bright and brilliant, many of us would want to find an escape route—perhaps, to the flowers of Heidelberg? Right here and now, I no longer hear “Bayan Ko,” but “Edelweiss.” And yes, in the comfort of a heated corridor. But to remain here, and to be helpless, is not right. Ah, this I remember: Ian Kershaw said that the road to Auschwitz was built by hate, “but it was paved with indifference.”

Whoever called for a moral revolution must be joking. Nietzsche was right—this is beyond good and evil. Carla does not need a lecture on the “Groundworks for a Metaphysics of Morals.” She needs her government to do what it is meant for—to promote and protect the welfare of its people. When that government loses its raison d’être, then there would be nothing left, no recourse for its people, but to take that power back to where it rightfully belongs—in their hands. And then there will be chaos. As I’ve said, these are evil days.

RYAN MABOLOC (via email)