Only from turbulence will change come
For several months, I had seen a visible and palpable shift in global dynamics, all pointing to a build-up of turbulence. It is not as though turbulence is not a part of life, but this time, the turbulence seemed to follow a predetermined direction – for the worse. When we review the most dangerous incidents shaking the world, we can easily point to several flash points. And when we connect the dots, a truly alarming scenario emerges.
We may wish to begin when Russia invaded Ukraine, then move on to the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. The conflicts in the world have not stopped piling one on the other since then. The Russian invasion of Ukraine put the world on a war footing, and the Hamas-Israel fighting drew several other nations into the fray. Meanwhile, driven by these two major conflicts, internal political intramurals broke out in many other countries.
The climate, too, chimed in, making matters worse. Whether it has been too much rain and floods, more violent earthquakes, droughts, record heat indices, blizzards and tornadoes, a pressured humanity has suffered attacks from all kinds of political and climate threats.
China has not been quiet all these years. It has tried to expand its territorial claims all around the South China Sea, provoking its Asian neighbors to loudly complain and seek their own defense alliances against Chinese intrusions and bullying. China is also trying to be, not just a superpower, but the superpower of the world. That makes the world a little tighter for everyone else, especially the US and Western Europe.
The challenges for Filipinos have not all been externally sourced. Within our own country, a vicious contest between two forces who temporarily combined in a Uniteam that is now a joke (except it got them to power) has been raging for over a year already. We have had domestic issues of high food and fuel price, unending corruption issues made uglier by infrastructure collapsing to the floods – and the last one is the Isabela bridge. PhilHealth services, too, that are so critical to the poor, have been inadequate yet PhilHealth money is being moved elsewhere.
Of course, we have seen through traditional and social media the work of the House of Representatives outlining the dark days of the Duterte drug war. It has been followed up by the issue of confidential funds of the Vice-President, and we have all been regaled with how cavalier the people’s money had just been distributed until no legal trace can be found. That is bad enough, but not really. Because huge amounts of confidential funds had been allocated to the Duterte presidency and the current Marcos presidency. Unbelievable amounts, even at the level of mayors. One day, a massive accounting effort must be initiated by future administrations to make everybody pay.
The political drama or zarzuela that we are being fed with is simply distracting our attention from deeper and fundamental issues destroying our people. We have a food poor people in one of the most fertile areas of the earth. Primarily, because leadership does not care for the small and the poor. We have generations of students who are crippled by their learning poverty; their flawed development will be manifesting itself – now and years to come.
The learning poverty has been hyped so loudly that one crucial cause of it is hiding in the shadows. The learning poverty studies of the World Bank has another face to the same coin – the teaching poverty that helps drive the learning poverty. But the government is reluctant to even talk about teaching poverty. Somehow, the political and social formula of the Philippines have put the teachers in a dominant position – by being used for election duties.
The worst, however, is not just being food poor or education poverty. It is the lack of accountability that public officials try to live up to, the lack of accountability that the public demands of its public officials and employees. We are not only allowed a corrupt environment, but we are also aiding and abetting it. We have a shared responsibility, but we want only to complain so that the government solves a problem they cannot solve by themselves.
Our situation has not improved because former president Duterte has been arrested by the ICC. Not either because VP Sara is impeached by the House. How do these developments increase our food supply and make them affordable? Or reverse the learning and teaching poverty plaguing our educational system. Did corruption already fly out of the window, our national budget corrected to delete the excesses meant to buy the poor in the coming election?
We cannot root out the poverty of the masses, their inability to feed themselves three nutritious meals. Our children are undergoing dumbing as public-school students, and our citizens are experiencing a numbing of their sense of right and wrong. Yet, surveys say that we probably will elect the same set of politicians who have orchestrated over the dumbing and numbing. Pitiful, but we have agreed to keep extending this.
It seems our only hope is the swirling of the world that disrupts and may implode, making possible changes we do not have the courage to initiate ourselves. That again means the young will lead the charge, as older adults have not really learned beyond griping. So be it.
