Ours is a nation frequently battered by God-sent or manmade calamities that bring our people down on their knees in prayer and repentance.
Today’s pressing issues are like dark clouds above, now and then letting off flashes of lightning (read: shocking revelations) that are, more often than not, followed by thunderous bursts of public outcries, like the ones that reverberated following the unearthing of the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam allegedly masterminded by Janet Lim-Napoles. That is, billions of pesos of people’s money spent and gone for good… in a puff?!
Right under our very noses something smells of machinations by a genius—or is he/she a wizard?—with a knack for words and figures, who makes a fool of us.
Let’s pause awhile and view the state of the nation in a bigger picture, and answer some questions: Do Filipinos need change in order to improve their lives under the present dispensation? We have had this form of government with us for almost eight decades now but where have we gone? It’s a straitjacket with its hooks and straps.
Should we therefore change our structure of government? Don’t we need shoes instead to enable ourselves to walk the “tuwid na daan”?
Our Asean neighbors are doing great under a parliamentary system of government. It’s a sad thing to say, but for the past 30 years or so our country could brag of nothing better than our so-called unsung “mga bagong bayani.”
What about the brain drain, the decline or lack of quality education, the rise in crime rate, our ignoble labor laws, selective justice, corruption at the highest levels of government down to the lowest which is the barangay, the disparity between the rich and poor, to cite some of our never-disappearing problems.
Raul C. Pangalangan says we need no lawyers (we’ve got lots of ’em), “our country needs a statesman.”
We can’t just wait for the light at the end of a tunnel to appear, nor wish upon a star. We better open wide our windows to let fresh winds blow in, shouldn’t we?
—LOURDES OBEN SANTOS,
lobensan@yahoo.com