With no less than President Duterte perfunctorily exonerating high-profile crooks in his government who squirreled away—or by their sheer incompetence, if not collusion, helped squirrel away—billions of public funds, juxtaposed with his boast that he has “sackloads” of money to bankroll the election of his candidates in 2022 (“Duterte to campaign for PDP-Laban bets; to bring ‘sackloads’ of cash,” Inquirer.net, 7/17/21), it takes no rocket science to figure out where that filthy lucre might be coming from. And this, coming from the man who used to say he hates corruption and cannot stand even just as “whiff” of it?
How is it that voters still give Mr. Duterte the “highest approval rating” despite his colossal failures? Can we really blame it on the mediocrity of the vast majority of our voters? If that be the case, are not Vice President Leni Robredo and some of the really brilliant members of Congress also products of that same mediocrity? We were trying to understand this dilemma from Richard
Heydarian’s “The foolish myth of ‘bobotante’ voters” (8/10/21) in light of the “inequality” in our society between those “wealthy enough to buy the electorate” and those too poor to have qualms about selling themselves. Alas, not much help there. A great thinker like him seems just as bewildered.
It’s a catch-22 proposition: Only an enlightened electorate can produce good government. But only good government can produce an enlightened electorate. So where do we go from here?
Yvette San Luis-Petrocelli, ysl.69996@gmail.com