DEMOCRAMATA

I am one to neither quibble about surveys nor argue about inclusive growth; too many moving parts. However, the apocalyptic dimension of the latest Social Weather Station (SWS) survey indicating 15 million children hungry and malnourished while 12.1 million families (43% of the entire Philippine population) considering themselves poor would surely jolt even the most jaded observer. Notwithstanding the devastation of “Yolanda”, I was sure somebody from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) would challenge the SWS data as soon as it was published. To my disappointment, no such protest to the validity of the survey happened and as it turned out the immediate response instead came from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to assist Senator Poe in her feeding program.

Yes it’s the right answer but it’s for the other question.

Without any challenge, are we to assume the SWS data correct? Questions upon question would have to be asked given this revelation. One such question would have to be the actual destination of the conditional cash transfer (Pantawid Pampamilyang Pilipino) the administration’s much cawed winning strategy against poverty. Since 2008 and after availing of almost a billion dollars in loans, 2.3 families in 800 municipalities of 80 provinces are enrolled in the program. PESOS FIFTY BILLION and change I think was appropriated for 2014. How come the number of families under the poverty line seems to be getting bigger? The current DSWD head was the same one in the past administration when it was rolled out sometime 2007, does she have answers?

Oh, she’s going to help in the feeding program, that’s right.

Then there’s the published improvements made since 1991 when official sources quoted 31% as the population under the poverty line. Were all the reports about poverty alleviation for the last 20 years merely hogwash? I have heard of rigid parameters and size of samples that probably explains the differing indication of the NSCB AND SWS surveys but the disparity is ridiculous.  Surely, the government could not have been wrong all these years.

Mang Pandoy, remains the ghost of poverty past, present, future, chronic, transient and near poverty and by all accounts he is here to stay to haunt.

How can sensible programs to alleviate poverty be formulated when basis continue to be wrong information? This is like a shade lighter when somebody thought of repealing the law of demand and supply to counter inflation.

It seems that even government surveys now also populate the universe of things that don’t work if things did work at all before on top of slow rehabilitation programs , trains over-shooting their ramps with doors typically opening while in motions; traffic jams that keep getting worse and civil security continuing to deteriorate into an oxymoron . One can very well call the current situation as organized incompetence. People handling the different portfolio, with the way things are going, look like the result of an acute shortage of qualified personnel. The President has his fingers on every dike of debacle his trusted people have sprung. Tsk.. tsk… blessed with only 10 fingers, I can only surmise how his fingers will look like after 2016.

Manuel L. Quezon, 2nd President of the Philippine Republic, rolls in his grave; I am sure, with the failure  of the succession of leadership to counter poverty in over 50 years of democracy, adhering, as it were, most unfortunately to his famous words, ‘a country governed like hell by Filipinos’.

Newsflash, the Philippines is expected to lead ASEAN in economic growth is the next five years. In truth we are nowhere near the aspiration of the general population for a better life, notwithstanding the credit upgrades and predictions of being the next Asian miracle. The only miracle we can discern is the daily output of 5,000 babies. Where does all that energy come from?

Soon the country MLQ loved so much may not even appear in the map at all. The country is going to be sliced with the Bangsamoro law, however you look at it. Meanwhile some politicians urge for a federal form, more slice and dice. So now the politicians want to institutionalize feudalism and oligarchy. Maybe dividing the country in bite sizes is the answer to all our national woes, who knows?  We might as well give up our territories to the Chinese who have invaded our zones having built structures off the Scarborough shoal. The Chinese made leaps and bounds in poverty eradication compared to the Philippines, in spite of the form of government and its draconian implementation typified by the incident in Tiananmen Square. They might do a better job than the leaders we have. Does democracy really work? The Chinese managed to slash their poverty rate from 80% to less than 20%. The achievement of China in poverty eradication in fact encouraged the UN or some agency to issue a threat of a very optimistic forecast for poverty alleviation world wide by 2015.

Whatever they’re smoking in Washington, I think they’ve had way too much.

You and I know that the only thing our people are good at is politics. Everybody is at it. Still a year and a half early, give or take a few months from the national election and we have politicians already in campaign mode using every available tool. A member of the blue ribbon committee has his ad on TV capitalizing on what he may perceive as a political coup in the bashing of the vice-president’s presidential ambition. I guess he thinks he’s next on bat; subtlety is not his strong suit.

Elections are the only time the citizenry called the electorate can have a voice in governance. After these events, the citizenry becomes hostage to bad governance and still we can’t seem to have learned anything.

Democramata. The nation is permanently on economic intensive care because of its citizens’ almost uncanny ability to choose the wrong leaders. After bloodletting to fill an ocean for democracy, the paradise promised by a land bountiful in resources has inched further away. The succession of leadership failed to curb equality and freedom by clinging to dynasty as its political culture while raising the audacity for corruption and incompetence.

For 2016 the picking is severely thin consisting of bashers, pretenders, coffin dodgers, big spenders, the neurotics, the convicts and the psychotics.

Somebody quoted PNoy as saying that the vice president should run in 2016 for the presidency then manage the country however he deemed fit in response to the diatribes against the administration. I remember former president Estrada saying the same thing with “Magpresidente muna kayo” Is PNoy becoming the ghost of President Estrada past? Since former President Estrada and former President Marcos share traits (both are bar topnotchers, Marcos for the exam to practice law; Estrada for the place where they keep Andy Player Special;  Both were accused of murder, Marcos for Nalundasan while Estrada for murdering the English language), is PNoy fast becoming the ghost of Marcos past?

But then aren’t they the same old, same mold? We have had several presidents from dynasties: DM, Marcos, Cory, Ramos, PNoy, Erap, GMA among them. 75% of people congress and the senate also come from dynasties.

It is alleged that more senators and congressmen are to be charged with pilfering the national treasury in the days to come. These people have been in power too long and think they can get away with just about anything. Democramata. Is democracy is killing our future? Imagine 15 million hungry children.

Thing is, in whatever size and form, organizations need good leadership. We have been most fortunate to know firsthand what good leadership is not. Now we can put the lessons to work.

1.      The noble truth about political bashers is that it is a one trick pony.

2.      The noble truth about dynasty is that their product is not always bad; just that the concept of family member succeeding each other in political position crowds out equality and freedom.

3.      The noble truth about leadership is that it does not come about because of a martyred father and a celebrated mother.

4.      The noble truth about crimes is that sooner than later it will catch up. That move of allegedly bribing senators to impeach a sitting Supreme Court justice for ill-gotten wealth (which senators are in turn now troubled with the same charges) was a sure formula for one of the senator-beneficiaries to squeal.

5.      The noble fourfold path to alleviating poverty includes taking the catholic church view on any matter with more than a grain of salt; somebody must oversee the NCSB work; people should stop watching too much blue ribbon committee hearing; for the legislative bodies to do legislation, the DOJ to prosecute and courts to judge;