My Sad Republic

A Portrait of the Philippines In My View

By Pietros Val Patricio

There is this country of mine nestled in the haven waters of the western Pacific, a tropical sanctuary of diverse flora and fauna yet still mysterious with its long history and social diversity. It is an archipelago tucked within the tropic of Cancer and Capricorn just below the earth’s equator in a Pacific-drenched beltland with adequate rainfall and humid sunshine that has destined these islands to evolve as a food granary and a mineral paradise of endless natural resources with its sole fertility.
It is sad to know that this cosmic wealth has not been utilized and conducted properly to its full potential because of the social selfishness and incapability of its people who, themselves, are diversely unique and insane just as the world’s complexities and mysteries itself are hard to understand. According to geography alone, this place is blessed with breathtaking natural wonders that the rest of the world could only dream of. The vast marine sanctuaries of endless coral reefs and the wide valleys, visionary islands, picturesque mountains and seascapes, the lush forests and its bountiful landscapes have resulted to the foundation of a dynamic and empowered people living in human dignity that makes this piece of the earth the only one of its kind.
The country’s essential soul and frontier are in its water, for it is laced with myriad pristine lakes, streams and wetlands. Like the remote paradise in a distant dimension, these islands are probably one of the world’s best kept secrets. It very much resembles a sacred grotto isolated from the broke austerity and industrialized chaos of today’s technological automated world. But every domain that refuses to reveal its secrets must also be hiding many harsh realities that its very own society faces every day. Does seclusion from the rest of the world necessarily equal a nirvana paradise? Or could this be an under-dimensional nightmare?
Just try set your cards right for once and let’s have a game of poker the way destiny jumbles this world up around so badly that we often tend to overlook the mixed realities of our society. Let us undertake a second viewpoint of reality to understand the truth that the deadly joker of fate has always deprived of granting us and have a look twice before judging humanity from a narrow point of view. This Philippine dream has already gone way too far, indeed too compound by now for malice to plant its seeds forth. Beyond the broad horizons of this natural haven, inhumane mass poverty stretches out beyond the boundaries and plagues the virtues of this dreamland.

THE GLIMPSE PHILIPPINE POLITICS
ENTERS MENTAL HOSPITAL

There are endless appalling slums in every corner of every major urban city, while the industrial upper class continues to play the game of state monopoly, dominating every possible wealth to secure prestige and prosperity. Ethnic and social tensions arouse perpetually in every imaginable period of time. Spiritual clashes provoke and awaken an outbreak of civil unrest. The free-wheeling democracy promises to be one of the world’s most vibrant despite the abundance of human rights violations in the country. Taking a glimpse in Philippine politics is no different from entering a mental hospital and witnessing a bunch of clowns quarrelling and bashing each other in their assemblies.
It is often hard to trust the press and media since it is generally almost impossible to figure out what is true from false. This society is like a monstrous cake filled with too many ingredients, maybe too overdone that it eventually produced an overflow of sweetness eager to attract and swallow up its victims alive. Yet migrants, rich or poor, still continue to flock the country like locusts to attain a slice of this adventurous Wild Wild East of the Orient. Some 20 years ago, Filipinos invented a political tool that would later leave its mark to the rest of the world and make the visage of democracy change dramatically.
This instrument has lead down to the downfall of many vicious regimes and has since then made governments afraid of their own people. But throughout these years, barely anything has changed the lives of the common Filipino citizens. It is only the height and quantity of the private corporate towers that have grown taller along EDSA.

SURVIVAL OF THE URBAN POOR

Everyday, it is state of survival for the urban poor. Not long ago, the country’s agricultural dairy production and agrarian research laboratories have greatly contributed to the reduction of world hunger and the creation of innovative food sufficiency. Foreign agriculturists came to the country just to study agrarian production technology until the Philippines lost self-sufficiency in food production itself. Today, around 20 percent of the country’s children underage are malnourished and an estimated 2 million Filipinos experience famine or barely have access to a proper daily diet. In the Philippines, one in every six children is forced into child labor. Despite government restrictions, the country has a hefty black market in the sex industry, having a huge amount of laborers in this illegal business that is as large as the country’s manufacturing workforce itself making it among the world’s largest prostitution havens for sex tourism. Human trafficking alone accounts for the exploitation of around 50,000 women and children every year. The country’s lawmakers, police officials and judiciaries are indeed three blind mice who either do not notice or refuse to look at the malaise of society that is happening around them.
So true it may be that the Philippines has emerged as a drug smugglers’ paradise.

ILLEGAL DRUGS

The illegal drug trade in the Philippines is a billion US dollar business industry with even insurgent group dipping their hands into the finance operations. "Money makes the world go round" as they always say, from the immigration up to the customs bureaus, and to the police, the prosecution service and the judiciary, drug money can always make wonders. From Colombia to Afghanistan, the drug rings are now setting up shop in the Philippines, finding easy opportunities to manufacture methamphetamine hydrochloride in hidden laboratories.
These drugs are often imported through Chinese jars, garments and other apparel shipments that easily clear the Bureau of Customs. These drug manufacturing operations enjoy the protection of wealthy and influential drug lords in the country.

EDUCATIONAL ATTRITION

The standard of the country’s educational background itself is among the world’s tail enders and illiteracy is high since statistical data proclaim that in an average enrolment of 100 students in a public school, only 20 would finish the elementary level, only ten would graduate high school and only one would complete a college degree. But surprisingly, the Filipino talent and genius are being praised and rewarded throughout the globe. Reading and writing efficiency levels mark at a high 95 percent, which is unusually high for a developing nation.
Every now and then, huge industrial plants and commercial high rises would sprout throughout the cities and its rural economic growth areas. Philippine assets are set up abroad while foreign investments continue to flow into the bullish economy and its vast consumers and stock market. The rise of property growth rates in the real estate sector has never been this high since the Asian economic crisis in the mid 1990’s. Every year, many Filipino industrial magnates are frequently included in the Forbes Magazine’s top list of World Billionaires. National income would often vanish into the pockets of the abusive government and military officials.

CHURCHES’ ROLE

The Catholic Church itself is an influential dictator to the country’s social activities and has long brought conscience to the people’s minds in the evolution of a conservatively Catholic society. A country with one of the world’s lowest condom use rates may have brought a surprising HIV/AIDS miracle that has kept the country free from disease but is still responsible to about a million illegal abortions every year. Annually, masses of tourists would come and travel in the country’s seventh heaven sanctuaries. Early this year, a deadly human stampede has occurred in an arena in Manila in the dream of overcoming poverty. Later, an unexpected natural calamity followed in the countryside of Leyte. A massive landslide buried thousands people alive in the hilly town of St. Bernard. Government enemies and opposition leaders now take a second round in the crusade of ousting the current cute administration of president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, one of the world’s most powerful women despite her mini size. Her administration tried to pursue a charter change that would have shifted the country’s presidential to a federal parliamentary system of government. Whatever has happened to the constitution of Asia’s first republic in 1989? The 20th anniversary of the EDSA Revolution was celebrated by civilian protests led by opposition leaders and rebellious military coup d’ètat attempts. Is this the way Filipinos celebrate their nationhood? I think I must be daydreaming but the world could be laughing at us right now. Living in a magic-realist republic where the unusual and unexpected occur everyday and its very own people seem to achieve the impossible, all these events surprisingly appear to be like a fictional soap that has been lifted up to reality from the Land of Oz. Are we in Never-never land? /MP