Editor’s Note: this article was supposed to be featured during our Anniversary week, since Connie is a trailblazer when it comes to blogging in The Philippines, but we seemed to have overlooked it, we sincerely apologize to Connie and thank her for her thoughtful piece.

This is a guest blogging piece for FV, written by Connie Veneracion.

Recently, Jon Limjap shared a link in his Tweets about the “5 Great Men Who Built Their Careers On Plagiarism”. I did not cross check the factual validity of the claims, I figured that’s for every reader to do, but I shared the link in my Facebook account.

In the ensuing discussion that took place in my inbox, I was told that a college student habitually “rewrote” my blog entries, changing a few words here and there, passed them off as her work and got high grades for her essays. It’s not grapevine information as my source was her classmate and one of those who knew her gimmick.

One student’s atrocious behavior might seem like a little thing compared to the life-and-death situation of so many Filipinos. It might even seem whimsical to mention it when there are bigger and more serious scandals rocking government, business and society – an insignificant fleck in a country mired by war, economic depravity and a government that has long since forgotten the reason for its existence.

But anyone who dismisses little things like that miss a glaring truth staring at us in the face – that this behavior characterized by lack of consideration for the rights of other people and disregard for the greater good is not only rampant in government, politics and big businesses. It is everywhere. That student is only one of many who is too concerned with her own chances of making it in the work market. She is joined out there on the streets by jeepney, bus, taxi and tricycle drivers block multiple lanes to compete for passengers and justify their actions by saying, “Naghahanap buhay lang po” and by who vendors refuse to acknowledge that the sidewalk is for pedestrians.

That girl’s mentality is illustrated by private vehicle owners who still refuse to stop texting and with their customers and clients regardless of the danger that they pose on other motorists and pedestrians. It is illustrated by doctors who accept largesse from pharmaceutical companies for dispensing drugs still undergoing trial and making guinea pigs out of innocent patients. It is illustrated by newspapers and TV networks that call news blackouts on incidents that may adversely affect big advertisers.

Everyone is engaged in a game of survival – including the government and everyone in it.

Philippine society is full of critics — in media, on the Internet and out there on the streets. While it is a good thing to be aware of the shortcomings of government and to be vocal and critical about them, there is something seriously flawed when these very critics see wrongdoing coming only from one direction – government.

Political commentary these days has become a litany of what everyone in government is doing wrong. The self-righteousness is simply mind blowing. The predictability has gotten tiresome. Most aren’t even good beyond rehashing newspaper headlines and reports. But what do these critics stand for? Can they – in all honesty – claim that they do not engage in the shitty game of survival and that they do not trample on the rights of other people day in and day out? Or do they hide behind their anonymity and insignificance, hoping that no one will ever find out what they really are and what they do in real life so that they can never be publicly criticized and never feel what it’s like to be at the other end of the whiplash?

We already know who they are against – they make that very clear in a very redundant manner – but what do these self-proclaimed guardians of freedom and democracy believe in and what are they willing to fight for? While they never seem to run out of criticisms, they fail to realize that any criticism is only as good as the counter proposal it seeks to promote. Without that counter proposal – without that bright idea as to how things ought to be done – then, political commentary is nothing but huffing and puffing, a form of high brow entertainment, pseudo-intellectual masturbation or all of that.

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