A few days ago, we were remembering yellow, remembering Cory. As the nation buried Corazon Aquino, the generation that I belong to got a taste of Power Power. We grew up never knowing the atrocities of Marcoss, and were either fledgeling to remember or too young to have lived through People Power. As we buried Cory, I heard songs of that generation. They were beautiful compositions that perfectly capture not just patriotism but that era in our nation’s history. I thought, as Lea Salonga beautifully sang “Bayan Ko” (My Country), Filipino does lend itself perfectly to poetry, more than English ever could.

Why then, for far too long has People Power for us, was this useless exercise of street protest?

Ricky Carandang makes sense, doesn’t he? He wrote in his eulogy for our fallen President Cory:

It has become fashionable these days to blame you for all of that. Because you didn’t do enough to prevent your revolution from being dismantled from within.

the people who say that fail to see what 1986 was really about. It wasn’t about you saving us from the Regime and everyone living happily ever after. You did your part everytime you were called upon to do so. The problem was we expected you to do it all by yourself while we stood on the sidelines. We didn’t realize that we had a role to play too and that one person would not be able to do it alone. You didn’t fail. We did.
That was the lesson of people power that you tried to teach us. It was a lesson we have still not learned. And now you’re gone. Today we weep not just for you, but for ourselves.

How then do we reconcile a public that privately grumbles and remain behind closed doors at their disgust while they watch the news or read the daily paper?

A few years ago, @mlq3 wrote about an immoderate threat when representatives fail the people. In largely the same vein, Sparks wrote about Civilizing Philippine Politics. They write from the heart. Their passion as do many across the different strata of our society is clear as is their sentiment. After all, every well-meaning Filipino is equally outraged, equally passionate, equally disgusted at the madness, the decadence, the decay of our society.

Arroyo’s recent US$ 20,000 dinner is just one of many, if not least in a long line of atrocities to the Filipino people that not only she, but Filipino politicians in general have done. They have been destructive to our aims.

How then do we fix it? Is a call for Transparency at this juncture a first step?

@rom on twitter (not the plurker) had asked me: “@cocoy and yet none of these politicos are transparent enough. WHY? That is the question.” And @rom added that there should be a campaign for transparency. This sentiment echoes across strata of our society. Again, spot on is Sparks’ The Return of Delicadeza:

I am afraid the past few months, if not years, has resurrected the call for delicadeza. I hear it now in response to the National Artist controversy and most recently the 1 million Peso dinner of President Arroyo and other government officials in New York. I am hesitant to attribute the death of President Aquino to the belated calls of propriety, of what is just and fair, especially of high-profile leaders of the country. But remembering Cory and her sense of delicadeza, I suppose it is not out of place to compare.

More importantly, I think the call for delicadeza is a sign that as a collective, we have allowed our leaders and each other to push beyond limits of basic decency. That is, beyond bounds of what is proper, what is just and what is fair.

If we talk of morality, let us talk of these values. I personally, shy away from talk of god. The deity is such. And we, we are human.

Romany of the House of Smoke aptly douses cold reality:

Well, what did I really expect? That politicians would keep their grubby, self-serving, paws off of the public upwelling of love for Cory Aquino? HAH! Pipe-dream!

She goes on to say:

Ironically, it’s the blatant lust for power – evidenced by the readiness to prostitute genuine public sentiment for their own selfish ends – of these people who are making a campaign platform out of GMA’s evils that is precisely making me think that, were they to assume the Presidency, they would be just as likely to blow twenny thousand dollars for dinner.

Maybe that’s why we’re not hearing too many cries of indignation yet. Maybe they’re still figuring out how not to sound too hypocritical about it. LOL. Y’see, all these politicians know that the Filipino people normally accept that there are certain privileges available to some in society. We have no huge problem with inequality per se; the rich do what the rich do, while the rest of us, well we do what we do. The problem arises when we have our faces rubbed in the equality of it all. And then comes the outrage; the righteous anger; and the choruses of “with so many people starving, how can they spend so much on food!” and “OMG! have they no shame?!” and countless variations and combinations of those two fundamental sentiments. Very Animal Farm-ish.

Since Gloria has gone and rubbed our faces in it, it should be open season on her. But see, the pols know that they’ll have to do Le Cirque now. I mean, since Gloria did it, it’d be a matter of pride and social status for the next president to have Bollingers at that fancy restaurant. So they have to tread carefully on this, always with an eye out for the possibility of them being in the next Philippine contingent to sit in that restaurant – either as President or as President’s sycophant.

Cory’s passing made us remember our better selves. Romany said what everyone has always known. Institutionalizing transparency is a first step in encoding unto our nation’s DNA, what Sparks call “values”. Our nation needs to institutionalize delicadeza: the values Cory Aquino herself lived as a public official.

Delicadeza is a dimension of People Power. It is the standard by which Corazon Aquino aimed for. Though others around her failed, it doesn’t mean, she failed.

With elections looming over the horizon, the two biggest clear and present danger to the Philippines’ democracy is 1) a continuation of Arroyo’s regime, in however form it takes and 2) we elect the same fools to every level of society. Take this guy who The Marocharim Experiment had called out for the great dishonor of even thinking of renaming EDSA in favor of Cory.

We must expect our leaders to be of higher quality. One iota of Corazon Aquino’s sincerity can take them a long way. We need serious and sincere leadership going forward. If “The State of the Filipino Nation”, “Number-crunching, Lying and Arroyo’s SONA”, “The Recession We Ignore”, (and even before Arroyo’s SONA) “Nielsen’s Report on Filipino Consumer Confidence, Concerns and Spending”, has not given you pause that tomorrow’s challenges are real and daunting, what then? Would you read those posts not as critic, but as a call for action?

This is true too:

President Aquino asked for our Filipino community to help the Philippines not just by sending money remittances and balikbayan boxes to the Philippines but in a more politically sophisticated way:

“You can help by becoming a strong political force in your adopted country and using that force to influence your adopted country’s attitudes towards your mother country. Follow the lead of the Jewish-Americans who, despite being a small minority, form an indispensable pillar of a strong and independent Israel. Surely they are no stronger, no smarter, no more imaginative or dedicated than you are. They may be more organized, more politically oriented, more helpful to each other. And certainly they work hard at keeping America’s interest in Israel alive at all levels of society—in business, in education, in government, in the arts and sciences.

And so must you with respect to the Philippines. You must guard the image of the Filipino that the February Revolution burnished so brightly. You must guide those joining your ranks so that you enhance the image of Filipinos here. All impressions of you, American though you might be, will hark back to the Philippines.

Strive for political power in this country. Unite. Learn from the new Philippines how people, acting together, have made the difference at home. You too can make a difference here, for your own betterment and that of generations to come.”

Cory also asked us to educate ourselves and our youth about our history and our provenance, our heroes and our pride: “Be proud of your roots. Do not let your children or your grandchildren forget that they came from a land that produced Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini, and yes, Ninoy—men who could stand shoulder to shoulder with the best that this country or the world has produced.”

Isn’t it?

Every moment we pander, is a moment of missed opportunity for the Filipino. The mistake of post People Power, as Ricky Carandang pointed out, was that we expected our problems to be solved by Cory Aquino. We expect the same of our leaders now.

Corazon Aquino is dead and we will not see her like again, not for awhile. Delicadeza, the values, the ideal, the standard that is People Power, she did not take to her grave. We saw it there, living with us as we the people gave her a hero’s send off.

We can not leave our destiny in the hands of our leaders. We expected it of Cory as we expected her successors to lift the people out of poverty. We expected them to answer everything for us; to open doors for us. There is a dimension of People Power we’ve not tapped. It involves entrepreneurship, the kind that is honest. The kind that build jobs and the kind that send kids to school. It is as equally important as the dimension that simply means to be better citizens as much as we enrich our civil liberties; to strengthen our democratically established institutions. Another dimension is in protest of the shenanigans our leaders impose upon us because they will always seek ways to get around the system, to benefit them. Still another dimension is greater civic involvement to build better political parties, to actively participate in an election, to elect our chosen representatives. And another, we be citizens, employed to raise up families and to live.

Teddy Locsin gave a beautiful eulogy for Cory Aquino:

From the moment I came in from the airport and reported for duty, and she gave me in return the same smile she gave me on her deathbed, I never noticed… Not when I was with her in the campaign when she corrected me for not looking at the people I was waving at… Nor when I was with her in the presidential limousine looking intently, for her benefit, at the crowds at whom I waved… I never noticed anything. Except that I was with the only person that I would ever want to be with.

I certainly never noticed that I had left my anger behind. I don’t know how it happened. Except that Cory Aquino ennobled everyone who came near her. I have tried to say it publicly but never could finish. If you saw me as I felt myself to be, anyone would fall in love with me. I saw myself in that hospital room, a knight at the bedside of his dying sovereign, on the eve of a new Crusade, oblivious to the weight of the armor on his shoulders for the weight of the grief in his heart.

And because she always doubted my ability to be good for very long… Indeed, when my wife told Ballsy that I prayed the rosary at Lourdes for her mother’s recovery, Cory said, “Teddy Boy prayed the rosary? A miracle! I feel better already.” Because she doubted my capacity for self-reformation, she made it effortless for me by being herself. I did not notice that I was doing right by serving a woman who never did wrong. I am not sure how to take this moral self-discovery. It is so unlike myself. But if it will bring me before her again, I am happy.

Our sovereign is dead. Just as she did in her life, and we the people didn’t notice: she embodied People Power and continuously asked of us, moral self-discovery. Would it be too far to hope Cory prays for our nation’s self-reformation? We must embody the values she lived in life, that she aspired her knights and subjects to be during her presidency and expected those who have succeeded her in that office to hold.

Maybe we are Teddy Locin. One day, we will not know when we’ve left our anger behind.

This is the Permanent Revolution of People Power.
* * *
1. image is from here and used under fair use.
2. a post “The Permanent Revolution of People Power” appeared on Filipino Voices before this. I wrote that but deleted that one because I found it incoherent when I reread it a few hours after posting. Consider this, Version 3.

“He is drifting from his original priestly mission. A priest is a servant of the city of God, not of the city of man,” said Aniceto, Panlilio’s immediate superior who strongly objected when Panlilio, a priest for 29 years, ran for governor in 2007.” -from Priest-turned governor angers prelates; Superiors reject Fr Ed’s plan to run for president
By Dona Pazzibugan, Tonette Orejas, Philippine Daily Inquirer

“Good” is as subjective as beauty. So forgive me for admitting my mistake: we don’t need “good” men and women in public office. We need serious people people with passion intent on solving real problems. We need deep thinkers, strategists and tacticians intent on solving the puzzle of the Philippines. If Ed Panlilio believes this is his calling, if he should use the gift of discernment from the Holy Spirit to do the job of the President of the Philippines, who is anyone of us to say otherwise?

If it takes someone from a priestly background to defend life, why not? If it takes a man from a priestly background to bind up our nation’s wounds, to care for him who has fought our battles for us, for all the widows and orphans this nation has made over the years, I ask you: why not?

Perhaps a nation state is like a symphony. We each play a different instrument. Every sound we make adds to the grandeur of Great Piece we are playing. We need all kinds of people from different backgrounds, from different expertise to play our Philippine symphony. We need a conductor to properly direct our performance.

Then there is this: Filipinos have an abundance of hope. This is hope that comes from being a nation that is deeply religious. “We say tomorrow is a better day”. More than hope, we need the willpower to use that hope to shine our light.

I’m not saying, Ed Panlilio is The One. I welcome him to enter the ring and giving it a go. And just maybe, he can be the rallying point for hope and to focus our collective will. Maybe he can get people, serious and with passion intent on solving real problems. Maybe he can gather deep thinkers, strategists and tacticians together. Maybe he can be the one to direct our symphony. Sure as the sun sets and rises that’s what this nation needs.

*image is from this wikipedia page, released in the public domain.

An advertising campaign like Ako Mismo, which in its basic, most simplistic way is saying, “stop being apathetic!” doesn’t resonate much with the blog crowd. I’m sure you’ve read the vicious pieces written about this campaign.

What irked people the most is the fact that it wasn’t signed, as if the proponents of this advertising campaign were ashamed to be associated with this call for civic duty. If this advertising was a means to use the entire country as one gigantic focus group to determine what people want then I’m sorry to say, that’s a load of crap. You shouldn’t be in any position of leadership, if you don’t know what’s wrong or got the balls to lead.

Those of us in our 30s and 20s, many of us in the blogsphere and a lot of people in their homes grumbling at the nightly news or peeved when they read the Sunday paper or you, dear reader aren’t apathetic. The same goes for every barber in town. We are disgusted by the pathetic, cumbersome and selfish antics of those in power. Like addicts we can’t get enough of the drama. An example of this angry train of thought is by Martin Perez who wrote:

And this is the dangerous game being played by Ako Mismo. By promising a movement of change and what not, they play on the hopes and dreams of many. Now they will have to follow through on that. For making good on promises is what they should do. We should do. I should do.

Ako mismo, pero paano sila?

Oh, wow! BREAKING NEWS! When have people NOT promised a movement of change, and failed to follow through on both sides of the aisle, whether administration and opposition, whether civil society like the lot of Jun Lozada? Haven’t we all played a part on ruining the hopes and dreams of Our People?

That’s the naked truth isn’t it?

The feel good mantra of Ako Mismo was negatively taken because people feel that they’re already doing their part. Whether in the personal lives, in their professional lives and in the way they try to feed their families as best they could. And like a woman who has her heartbroken too many times, people get tired of trusting. Who can blame our people when the air of deceit is prevalent? Where honesty and openness can hurt you faster than a speeding bullet or blog comment. People are disgusted by the pathetic, cumbersome and selfish antics of those in power.

That said, we’re not really a very open society are we?

This whole crap about Martin Nievera singing the national anthem badly reeks of minutia. Some people like it, some people don’t. That’s art isn’t it? Music is an expression of the soul. Mr. Nievera didn’t bastardize it, didn’t he?

Set aside that our ears were hurt when Mr. Nievera sang the anthem. Is that why people rarely sing it? Because we can’t sing? Anyway, I digress, why should Martin Nievera be punished? Why are we even talking about this non-event? Because Mr. Nievera broke the law.

People are correct in saying that the law must be followed. That the law must be obeyed. I’m no lawyer but does it even matter since he wasn’t the Philippines when he sang it? Is it also important that the spirit of the law be of equal importance in this matter? Does the spirt of the law mean it in such away that our national anthem isn’t bastardized?

Imagine this: Araneta Coliseum is packed. The air is energized, almost restless in anticipation. Lights go off. The crowd starts to yell. It is all about to begin isn’t it?

Stage right: slowly blue lights come on as a cloud of smoke is popped. Stage left: red lights on and more smoke! a second later, center stage rises. An electric guitar is singing the opening to Lupang Hinirang real slow. It is quickly joined by the lead guitar, bassist and drums. Back part of the stage is lit and it is a video of the Flag in all its glory, proudly flying.

You know the words: “perlas ng silanganan, alab ng puso” and yet no words are sung, just instrumental and hmmm from the backup singers, then it goes to a crescendo— they stop for one, two seconds and Ely sings and the crowd joins: “Ang Mamatay ng Dahil, sayo!!”

Is that disrespecting the Flag, and our Anthem or is it our pride and our joy and our creative and free expression as guaranteed by the Constitution that is being celebrated? Is that not an expression of love of country?

So I have to ask: just because we have a law doesn’t mean it is right. So why aren’t people saying we should change the law rather than oppress Free Expression?

It feels like there is a conscious effort to stifle reason and creativity. There is this negative air that wants to stay trapped in an endless cycle of mediocrity. Take this whole insane matter on books.

If this whole minutia about Martin Nievera singing irked you then this whole blockage against books speak volumes of something seriously rotten with this country and I’m not talking about just politics:

McSweeney’s, Robin Hemley wrote:

Over coffee one afternoon, a book-industry professional (whom I can’t identify) told me that for the past two months virtually no imported books had entered the country, in part because of the success of one book, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. The book, an international best seller, had apparently attracted the attention of customs officials. When an examiner named Rene Agulan opened a shipment of books, he demanded that duty be paid on it.
“Ah, you can’t be too successful in this country,” I said. “If you are, then people start demanding a cut.”

Let me be an airhead for a moment and say: that that last line of comment would be a nice tweet.

Seriously, it’s true isn’t it? It speaks volumes of how this country is. Not just the politics. Going back to the whole notion that this country is apathetic really is like fool’s gold. The dynamic of this country revolves around “The Cut”. From the smallest organ to the top. In my humble opinion, that’s an economic problem, which is caused by politics. Yet as simple as it sounds the underlying disease is far more complex.

Everyone wants their cut!

See, for all our anger and pain against say, at Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whenever a new scandal erupts, and we want her out? It is like cutting the head of a hydra. A new one would just spring out. And just maybe it could be far worst than the devil we know.

That’s just one aspect isn’t it? That’s the national politics that irks many, especially when you’re living in Manila. But don’t get me wrong. That doesn’t mean it isn’t horrible or wrong.

When you look at Philippine politics, there are two dimensions of it. The aphorism that all politics is local holds true doesn’t it? So why are the same crowd gets voted in, say for Congressman? When the husband is done with his term, the wife or the kid steps in. And why are certain families in control of various provinces?

Why are voters going for these kinds of people? Is it because they somehow profit or benefit? One would assume that they do, right if they are buying their local official’s kool aid? Is it because nobody else is interested or can’t run for lack of any sort of organization? Is it a problem of a lack of any sort of real, stable political party?

The Baron in City Hall can’t reply. The Duchess at the Provincial Capital rarely has an answer. The Upper and Lower House of Lords are too busy taping their reality show on television. The Empress, after nearly being in power for almost a decade has little progress to show for. And when the crown is passed on, Indonesia and Vietnam are healthier than the Philippines.

That’s not really the problem isn’t it? The problem really is that Maria Clara is working hard to feed her family of four. She’s in some old person’s home in Israel. Maria is washing an ancient lady’s excretions and tucking the old lady in bed. That’s her job. Juan dela Cruz is in Binondo pulling a hand trolly filled with supplies for the neighborhood store. Day in and day out he is slaving away, and in May 2010, they’ll be asking, “Where’s my cut?”

By May 2010, Manny Villar, Manny Pacquiao and maybe the contest would also interest Manny Pangilinan. These people would be on their knees, as if humbled. “We’ll Show you the Money (your cut), if you vote for us”. Guess maybe that’s why Mar and Korina are a team. Koring is miser in English, correct? So we’d assume their future government wouldn’t be wasting too much money?

Let’s zone out, shall we? Because by fall of 2010, it doesn’t matter who wins the election, right? There will be a new season of “The Senate at Work,” which is guaranteed to be aired on all the cable news channels and all the TV stations. Hey, you can’t stop a hit! We will watch intently as Miriam Santiago is on television grilling official after official on why they’re not doing their jobs or on some scandal involving school breakfast that just broke. Do you remember that time she dared to jump off a plane and when called out, yells at the top of her voice, “I lied!?” We laugh because, well, her catch phrases are funny. We’ll hope she’ll have funnier lines in future episodes. Who said reality television is farce?

That said, we’ve never really answered the question, “where’s my cut?” Have we?

Freddie Roach and Manny Pacquiao by Frederick Manligas Nacino

You know the communication tool called Twitter right? You’ve seen it raved on CNN. Twitter founder Biz Stone was on The Colbert Report and I’ve pretty much pimped it in my posts. Twitter, Apple (yes the iPod and Mac maker) calls it:

Twitter’s meteoric rise to ubiquity is proof positive that the world, in all its complexity, is eager to embrace simplicity. Wielding more impact on social networking than most communication tools this generation has yet seen, Twitter is one of those universal phenomena where the product name self-conjugates. To engage with Twitter is to “tweet.”

Anyway, yesterday, I was on deck as @FilipinoVoices on twitter when I retweeted @jmalonzo‘s tweet:

SAD but true: RT @JeromeGotangco: Lennox Lewis knows Philippine politics: http://tr.im/kbDh #boxing (via @jmalonzo)

What, you think the bot’s always on? Anyway, long story short @jmalonzo reply makes a good point:

@filipinovoices I don’t see why he can’t be a president. Becoming one and being a good one is different.

This isn’t beyond the realm of posibility: one day, Manny Pacquiao could be a President of the Republic of the Philippines. It isn’t a question whether or not Filipinos see Pacquiao as a Hero, nor is it a question whether or not he can effectively run a campaign on the national level. Ultimately, in my humble opinion boils down to, a question of leadership. Let me explain.

A few days ago, Connie Veneracion asked Political commentary: high brow entertainment or pseudo-intellectual masturbation? I can certainly understand where she comes from:

“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.”

Our national life is all sound and fury, signifying nothing. So much so that regardless whether you believe or not the story of Jun Lozada is immaterial or if you remember him at all. Whether or not you think Jun Lozada is a sacrificial lamb or that there is a bit of Jun Lozada in you.

Nothing substantial happens.

I want to add something equally important and related. It is something Manolo Quezon was thinking about regarding revolutions and why they fail in the Philippines:

And yet, the overwhelming number of our people stubbornly insist on political solutions to economic and social problems: the ballot remains the magic bullet. For its adherence to this view, the public is portrayed as either selfish, or silly, or even suicidal. But what if the people are right? And those insisting on the other solutions are wrong? As Rizal asked, what then?

What if they’re both wrong?

If revolutions have failed then equally, the magic bullet of the ballot has likewise failed. Election in and election out: nothing substantial happens. Look at our Republic’s history, not just our recent past. Look at the dynamics of our local government and separately our national government. Our politics on every level is an aristocracy masking itself as a democracy. Politicians run for public office for these things: name recognition; influence; to maintain family interest; to protect and grow their wealth. Civil Society and the Filipino middle-class for all their rage and fury, for all the talk of morality and ethics, for all their grumbling at the state of affairs of our national life in front of the evening news or Sunday paper, neither are prepared for the responsibility of changing the game.

The scary part is, maybe our people actually like the high brow entertainment and pseudo-intellectual masturbation. Most certainly it doesn’t interest our people to care about the effect of zombie oligarchs half a world away. They don’t care about banks negotiating stress tests. For one thing, the fall of Chrysler most certainly does not affect the lives of Filipinos, so why bother to know about that company filing for chapter 11?

Can you expect people to care about The Color of Doubt is Gray? How about the Presumptuousness of Uninnocence?

Laughable why a no brainer question such as will Congressmen going to Las Vegas for the Pacquiao-Hatton fight be quarantined if they get flu symptoms was ever asked. Maybe we should stop and look at Understanding Influenza and look at how the numbers compare to in this map prepared by the Wall Street Journal that mark cases around the world. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be prepared, so keep updated through the CDC and the WHO and let health care professionals do their job even as alarming as the word “pandemic” might be for people:

The World Health Organization (WHO) provides an influenza pandemic alert system, with a scale ranging from
Phase 1 (a low risk of a flu pandemic) to Phase 6 (a full-blown pandemic):
• Phase 1: A virus in animals has caused no known infections in humans.
• Phase 2: An animal flu virus has caused infection in humans.
• Phase 3: Sporadic cases or small clusters of disease occur in humans. Human-to-human transmission, if any, is insufficient to cause community-level outbreaks.
• Phase 4: The risk for a pandemic is greatly increased but not certain.
• Phase 5: Spread of disease between humans is occurring in more than one country of one WHO region.
• Phase 6: Community-level outbreaks are in at least one additional country in a different WHO region from phase 5. A global pandemic is under way.

As imperfect as the system in place is, they got our back you know?

Another scary thought is this. Maybe our people aren’t prepared to go beyond our provincial attitude. Maybe we can’t see the world with open eyes. Fellow Filipino Voices contributor Nick Nichols [Asian Energy Advisors blog] was in Kabul, Afghanistan recently on business. He has been tweeting about his experience [his son has summed up his tweets] with observations like this:

Kabul is a devastated city. I was shocked at the devastation. I can only imagine what this city was once like.

Maybe we can only see how bad it is, not how we can make it a better nation. As the song goes: You with the sad eyes don’t be discouraged. Oh, I realize It’s hard to take courage in a world full of people, you can lose sight of it all. And the darkness there inside you makes you feel so small.

Going back to why I think it is a bad idea for Manny Pacquiao to run for President stems from my hobby of reading comic books; particularly, of the superhero genre.

I was reading this post written by Julia from the Adaptive Path blog. She wrote about Superman being a hero. Superman, she said, was faster than a speeding bullet, and all that but not a leader. Leaders as she put it:

….empower others. Leaders don’t do all the work on their own, but instead inspire other people to create something amazing, to work towards a cause, or to move a project or humanity to a better place. When a leader is present, everyone works and often together. Gandhi is known for renouncing violence and empowering others to do the same. Really, what good is creating anything for people if everyone is injured or dead? JFK is known so well for asking people what they can do for their country. He empowered others.  When a leader is truly leading, people aren’t left behind, but brought along and inspired into action.

Julia is right, you know?

In the world of the comic book, particularly the superheroes of the DC Universe, the theme of Superman as a world leader has been explored countless times over the past ten years and is still being explored. Mark Waid and Alex Ross back in the Mid-1990s wrote a most awesome Graphic Novel, “Kingdom Come” that dealt with the ethics of super heroics. In that novel, one of the questions they asked was: What if Superman gave up on his never-ending battle? You can guess that the world was shit and that the Second Coming of Superman didn’t exactly turn things around.

There is another side of Superman. While Batman has always been seen as the “general,” the Dark Knight with the plan. The man you should take out first when facing the Justice League, Superman on the other hand wears bright colors of blue, yellow and red because he needs to be seen. He is a symbol of hope. Just his mere presence on the field of battle, you know things will be all right.

And the DC Universe event Infinite Crisis where Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman were at cross purposes and found themselves at each other’s throat at the smoking ruins of the Justice League Watchtower. This happens when Superman can’t inspire. Wonder Woman can’t relate and Batman judges:

Batman: You relate too much. You’re not human. You’re Superman.

Superman: I know that.

Batman: Then start acting like it. All hell has broken loose and you’re on the moon with me? The world needs you.

Superman: Telling people what to do? I’m not a god. And I’m not like you, Bruce. I don’t need to control everything.

Batman: After all these years, you know it’s not about control. It’s about trying to do everything I can. And for you, it’s about setting an example. Everyone looks up to you. They listen to you. If you tell them to fight, they’ll fight. But they need to be inspired. And let’s face it “Superman“…the last time you really inspired anyone— was when you were dead. We’re done.

Then Batman and Wonder Woman walk away.

Wonder Woman: Yes. I guess we are.

The last time you inspired anyone was when you were dead.

But Manny Pacquio is like Superman.

Manny Pacquio is a hero. He steps on that ring, he brings pride to Filipinos everywhere. He’s the Filipino everyman. Manny Pacquio is a rags to riches story. His story is the poor boy who turned himself into a champion and win or lose against the fight against Hatton that will not change. But there could be another side to Manny Pacquio. He can be a leader. He can inspire others. With his wealth, Manny Pacquio could start training schools and companies that can create jobs. With his vast wealth, he can inspire people to be better than who they are and actually help them out in a more positive way.

Maybe we need an out of the box idea to fix things in this country. Alexa of Adaptive Path wrote about Creativity for Left-Brained People and is a good method to use. So are you good to throw some ideas on the board?

Anyway, the dedication that Filipino entrepreneurs across this country give to grow their business is important. The work they do and that of our countrymen like the poor soldier out there in Mindanao dedicating his life to his country by following orders is important. Filipinos from across the world in all sort of occupation, often in demeaning jobs are heroes for putting kids in the Philippines to school, for dedicating their blood and toil and sweat to try to get their families out of poverty. This is the half that thrives because of our individual endeavor, because of our love of family and the passion we feel towards our own. While this country need heroes, it is in short supply of leaders. That’s the other half of the solution, in my humble opinion.

This is interesting. Primer wrote Paradox of the Party-List System:

Again, we are interested to know if Party List A, or PL B, or PL C – all alike – actually earned their votes not from the general population but from some local population alone. For if this be so, it means that any winnable regular congressman can tag along another of his own, say a brother or a sister.

Given this scenario, it is clear how one can hit two birds with just one stone. Serious observers of trends or legal scholars must try to really do a work in profiling. At the rate it has gone, we are seeing a pattern where supposedly new politicians actually come from the same families – over and over again.

That’s an aristocracy right? Does it matter? I don’t think it matters that there is one. It matters what they do with the responsibility.

We need leaders who will use the aristocracy to grow this nation. I’m not saying our leaders need to be ethical. I’m not saying they should be morally clean. I’m not even saying the drama that they perpetuate on television and the farce that is the news should be stopped. I’m not even saying they should explain or raise the standard of discussion or understanding of our people. All i’m saying is that given positions of power and public trust, they should advance this country’s interest.

The Philippines is like an old Spanish house. It is time to upgrade it to have modern conveniences. It is time for a renovation and the only place that will happen is from the inside. CIvil Society and the Middle Class won’t take power or the responsibility associated with it. They don’t know how to. It isn’t in their nature. Half of the changes that this country needs must come from our Aristocracy. That’s where leadership must come from. The sad part is, our nation’s political life is like a singularity and that’s the chicken and the egg paradox we have.

*the image of Manny Pacquiao and Freddy Roach is by licensed by Frederick Manligas Nacino, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0

update: **sorry forgot to add that the comics I embedded was “Infinite Crisis”, written by Geoff Johns, pencilled by Phil Jimenez, inked by Andy Lanning, colored by Jeremy Cox and Guy Major, Lettered by Nick Napolita and published by DC Comics, December 2005. The comic is owned by DC Comics and I evoke fair use.

Take this bit of a picture from Calculated Risk’s US Trade Exports and Imports Decline:

and how about this imagery from Time for a Reality Check:


According to the New York Times, the International Labor Organization said that by the end of 2009, 50 Million people could be jobless. And in the same post, the International Monetary Fund’s deputy director for research, Charles Collyns was quoted to be “expecting the global economic growth will reach its lowest point since the Depression.”

The ominous feeling is felt across every strata. Even as Twitter gets US$35 Million in venture funds, and Opportunity Knocks, even as some cry, “Web 2.0 Dies – Enjoy Hell,” the common battle cry: how do we monetize all this, and fast?

The news saying Philippine Star was bought by MediaQuest was a yawner and Cacho-Olivares’ quoted comment on it made me laugh and made me sad at the truth of it:

For Cacho-Olivares, such a multimedia push does not necessarily threaten existing papers. “It’s always a matter of content, credibility and independence that make a newspaper.  No matter how tech-savvy a newspaper is, in the Philippines, there are very few computers and while mobiles can now connect to the web, it still costs too much for the average Filipino.”

Did I just hear a sigh over at that back room?

This post from Howard Lindzon made me nod in agreement:

In the meantime, I must say, what a bunch of ‘Panzies’ old media has become. As for Telecom, they make me puke. We will be bailing both our soon with TARP at the rate they run their businesses.

What waste you know? The Philippines should really make a conscious effort to improve broadband and the mobile internet. It would sure be great to come out of this typhoon, better, smarter, faster, you know?

Then again, when elephants go to war, things like Mamanwa hold strong seem to slip off the cracks.

Read off Abs-CBN that there was a Leadership Elocution Competition and high school seniors delivered speeches on Leadership. I found it ominous and poignant:

For Chinese-looking (but purely Filipino) John Xavier Valdez from Ateneo de Manila High School, “Leadership is not about power or charisma. It is not social class or distinction. It is not about job experience or education.” 

In his grand prize-winning piece, Valdez said that leadership is “something that transcends age, class, social distinction, gender, even the shape of one’s eyes. Leadership is about influence, nothing more, nothing less.” He added that, “Under this definition, every man, woman, child, in this nation of 90 million is a leader in his own right.”

Great men and by extension— leaders, are willing to sacrifice to save the world. And their common denominator has always been to wallow in the past and obsess about the future. There is a reason why Command is a lonely pace to be. Great Men and Leaders, they decide and they do.

Of course, this too is just business:

World Bank explained in its statement that it conducted the investigation and banned the involved construction firms “To help the Bank safeguard the funds entrusted to us…This is why the Bank conducts its own investigations under its own administrative rules and procedures.”

Who would trust the World Bank if it goes on to destabilize however inadvertently, governments and nations?

The Washington Post had this a few days ago:

Geithner did not directly press other nations to adopt the same approach as the U.S., officials said. But in describing the U.S. response, he delivered a clear message to the other nations: Develop rescue initiatives sooner rather than later. And make them big enough to meet the challenges ahead.

“You’ve seen the new administration in the U.S. move with unprecedented speed, not just to work with the Congress to authorize new resources to help strengthen the financial system, but to move very, very quickly to put in place this very powerful economic recovery plan,” he told reporters after the meeting. “What’s important now is you hear around the world a much greater sense of urgency and commitment… We all recognize that the power of what we do individuadlly will be much more effective if we move together.”

Geithner’s message was well received at the international talks, known as the G-7, which gather the U.S., Japan and five major nations from Europe. Russia and world financial organizations also attended.

For Globalization to die, just as it did after the last Great Depression would be a serious mistake. The world is a better place because we each trade freely, where there are no fewer boundaries. Wouldn’t it be a nice step forward that as we celebrate our differences and diversity, we challenge each other in new and positive ways. And perhaps after this depression, the world can figure out a new kind of Economics and Politics that celebrate hard work and sacrifice and punishes greed and self-interest. A pipe dream, maybe. If King, sixty years ago did not dream then a son of a Kenyan wouldn’t be sitting on the White House facing unprecedented challenges.

Depression isn’t a word used lightly. There is something in the air that just says, “it won’t quit”. Don’t you think we should have a sense of urgency and commitment to face these challenges with open eyes?

So amidst facing reality like @mlq3′s slowly but surely, and with Jon’s IT and electronics industries in a binary of fuzzy fate we find government putting up a brave face:

In my humble opinion— believe or not government’s opinion that this economy is “resilient”, I think is beside the point.

There’s a broader picture. So bear with me, would you?

Last week, I was listening to Apple’s Earnings Call, for Q109 Earnings Release. Apple’s press release quoted Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs:

“Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history—surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time ever,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

Awesome performance coming from a company that in 1997 was near death.

This stellar performance speaks of a disciplined and extraordinary corporate culture:

▪ The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t mean we don’t have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that’s not what it’s about.
▪ Process makes you more efficient. But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.
▪ And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We’re always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it’s only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.
▪ from Business Week, 12 October 2004, quoted Steve Jobs in “The Seed of Apple’s Innovation”

The most important part I think is that last one. Saying no to 1,000 awesome things so they won’t get on the wrong track. I’d like you to set that though aside for a bit. I’d like a conversation about bad dreams.

If anybody could doubt that Batman couldn’t frighten a criminal, they should have a look at “Batman on Gargoyle” by Keiji Iwakura. Fritz took uber-awesome snaps of his ceramic statue:

Go ahead and open a new tab and take a peak at Frit’s awesome work, but come back here, ok?

That could cast really bad dreams on superstitious criminals as we are having a living nightmare of If Bayani were Prez, and of Monsour = Obama. Then there is Patricia Evangelista’s In the Court of the Crimson King. She wrote:

More ominous is this: that this symbol of justice, of law and order, announced to all who would listen that the people should not pin their hopes on the legal system—the one bulwark at a time when there is little left to believe in—but instead pin their hopes on a moral system, on some vague notion of a moral revolution.

He talks about “character,” as “who we are when no one is watching.” Who is this man, when nobody watched? He is the man who represented the Marcos government in the martial law years with Marcos’ solicitor general Estelito Mendoza, his mentor. He is the man who defended the 1973 constitution that extended the term of Ferdinand Marcos. He acted as both solicitor general and minister of justice in Mendoza’s stead at a time when many were lost and killed in the same fashion that those he stands for now were lost and killed. He is the man who has failed to inhibit himself repeatedly in cases involving his friends, including decisions that favored his erstwhile mentor. And he was conveniently on leave during the momentous decisions on the CPR (calibrated preemptive response), Proclamation 1017, and RA 464.

Three posts that unscientifically sample what our generation think. It is a generation looking for direction and finding the short list of candidates floating ideas that they want the top job to be… wanting.

Several months back, I wrote a post on Political Triage:

Doctors are familiar with triage. In war or some disaster where there are many patients and not enough doctors and/or resources: you pick the patients that you can help the most. It is gut wrenching. it is what some people would say “evil”, but we’ve got to pick and choose which ones to fight, make the most impact.

It’s sort of like battlefield tactics: hit-strike-kill-move on.

This style also has its benefits in that as we tackle those problems that we can resolve, right here, right now: we learn new strategies and new tactics and gain new insights and strength that may help us solve the other pressing issues of our time (but more on that in subsequent posts).

This is what it means for Filipinos. Given our own limited resources, maybe it is time for us to consider, which ones are we going to choose first to accomplish. of the long myriad problems facing our nation, isn’t it the moment for us to be serious about making a dent in it? What should we prioritize? Let’s get serious: it is time for Political Triage. Given our limited resources, what issue do you think we should solve first?

Here we have a nation so griped with indecision, and a people so pulled down by the increasing and heavy weight and daunting task of nation building— they’re suffocating. Let’s not kid ourselves or have pride on “the resilience”– if any of this nation in the current economic storm.

The one thing that our Leaders can’t seem to wrap their minds is that— it shouldn’t matter. It isn’t enough. This nation needs to be on the road, on the path of growth with or without an economic downturn. It needs to do more. It needs to be better than it is, every time, like clockwork.

Oh, that reminds me, go take a look at GDP Growth and Missing Energy by Chuck. He wrote about GDP per capita and Energy Consumption per Capita.

That said, we need a vision for the future. And we need to transform our society to meet that vision. Several posts back I wrote Tomorrow On the Road to 2010, and in it I basically said we should legalize “For the Boys” and give commission to every transaction as a response to the present and growing problem of corruption.

Is that what we need?

In that same post, scroll down to the comment section and you’ll find a healthy discussion and one of them, DJB had asked, “why should we keep funding public schools?”

Is that what we need to do to raise the quality of our people’s intelligence?

If our National Life was boxing and the Filipino is Pacquiao and Hatton is the sum of all the challenges our nation has to face, then come May 2, Hatton would be in the ring and guess what? Manny Pacquiao wouldn’t be on it. Manny Pacquiao would be right out of his mind, with the right hand of Administration hitting the left hand of Opposition.

We need leaders who can decide what is the first thing that we’re going to do. There is a job at hand and that is to get more than 80 million Filipinos better lives than they were born into.

I wrote about Apple’s corporate culture and their discipline is a recipe of success. Twenty Eight Billion Dollars in the bank. That’s phenomenal! Their corporate culture comes from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. His work ethic, and his beliefs permeate everything Apple does, even when he isn’t there.

What has that got to do with the Philippines? That same thing needs to happen to our country. More than a need for Moral Compass, our people need Courage and Direction and Discipline. It needs to be certain what exactly is it that we want. It needs every resource we have firing on all cylinders. All hands on deck, and every man, woman and child onboard. Our nation needs leadership that can focus everything. Our people need someone to follow, who is honest with them and can say with sincerity, “Yes these are trying times but this is what we’ll do. And we will face these challenges.”

As businesses need to keep their costs down, in the same way we need leadership. The current crop of contenders for the throne has wowed us neither with ideas nor action to make us believe they’ll be any different.

So far.

Just like Apple, to get ahead of the game— if this country ever decides to, then it must innovate itself out poverty. First, it must decide, do we really want to? The painful reality is, that’s the broader picture, that’s the bottom line.

First: Mike Abundo wrote:

I’m attending a hearing tomorrow on a proposal by the Philippines’ National Telecommunications Commission that will require licenses for online content developers.
Yes, you read that right. The Philippine government wants to require licenses for people to create and post content online. Under the proposal’s extremely broad definition of a content developer, you would need a license just to comment on this post.

Also, momblogger raised the question of “Blogger’s Rights“.

Go read his whole post and momblogger’s and judge for yourselves. I’ll just be right here, twiddling my thumbs. Done? Great! My thoughts on the subject:

ONLINE is about being OPEN. It is a wild, free frontier that no one should contain or govern by themselves. That said, we should have Blogger’s Rights.

The proposed measure says:

WHEREAS, the 1987 Constitution fully recognizes the vital role of communications in nation building and provides for the emergence of communications structures suitable to the needs and aspirations of the nation;

WHEREAS, the promotion of competition in the telecommunications market is a key objective of Republic Act No. 7925 (RA7925, for brevity), otherwise known as The Public Telecommunications Policy Act of the Philippines, which mandates that “a healthy competitive environment shall be fostered, one in which telecommunications carriers are free to make business decisions and interact with one another in providing telecommunications services, with the end in view of encouraging their financial viability while maintaining affordable rates.”

WHEREAS, RA7925 further defines the role of the government to “promote a fair, efficient and responsive market to stimulate growth and development of the telecommunications facilities and services”;

WHEREAS, the provision of contents, information, applications, and electronic games to the consumers creates demand for telecommunication networks and services – the development of contents, information, applications, and electronic games should therefore be encouraged and facilitated;

WHEREAS, the entry of more contents, information, applications and/or electronic games providers in the market will result to lower prices benefiting the consumers;

WHEREAS, to further encourage the development of contents, information applications and electronic games, the prevailing access charge regime between the contents, information, applications and electronic games providers and the networks providers which is revenue sharing should be replaced by fixed access charge;

NO more added layer of REGULATION. Government should know the Importance of Private Enterprise in Economic and Social Development.

Seriously.

It just fraks the market up. The market is doing just fine without government poking its nose into something, it clearly has no understanding or interest in learning the culture and norms.

How do you stimulate growth?

Reduce taxes on computers and books and Internet access, and bring the cost of electricity down, to start off. Hell, encourage private enterprises to put up very fast, and reliable Internet access. Look at Japan, and South Korea and take a page from them.

Get better power sources. Heck, if you can encourage the use of Solar, wind or hydro, why the heck not?

Raise incentives for people to do business here and generally lower the cost of doing business in the country.

Encourage literature and creativity because, hello— Online requires creativity as much as intelligence. It requires you to be multi-disciplinary. And this requires being exposed to just about everything.

That is by FAR the best way you can encourage content developers in the Philippines.

Second:

“First of all, our President is ahead of Obama and probably, I would think that if there’s anything to be learned, it should be President Obama learning from President Arroyo. And wouldn’t we be proud to say that the Philippines continues to be an ‘island of calm’ because of the present crunches?” he said, when asked by media what lesson Arroyo could learn from Obama.

So full of ourselves, aren’t we? Bring yourselves back to the ground, would you? We have our own problems to worry about than Barack Obama who is doing just fine, I’m quite certain. And who doesn’t need “Leadership” advice.

Oh, one more thing: this particular Press Release from the Palace on Obama being POTUS.44 (thanks to gareon for the heads up),

We are two nations blessed with two leaders bound by the same vision and ideology.

I think someone forgot to change the prepared statement. This is more apt for Bush and McCain regime. Obama is about HOPE and CHANGE, not ARROGANCE and FEAR.

I’ve responded to their plurks but holistically, I think pretty much, whether you design a nation or a car or computer software or computer networks or if you paint on a canvas or build cities, this quote from designer Bill McDonough holds true and relevant. He said,

“Well I think as designers we realize that design is a signal of intention but it also has to occur within a world and we have to understand that world in order to imbue our designs with inherent intelligence so when we look back at the basic state of affairs in which we design we, in a way, need to go to the primordial condition to understand the operating system and the frame conditions of the planet and the exiting part of that is the good news that’s there because the news is the news of abundance and not the news of limits and I think as our culture tortures itself now with tyrannies and concerns over limits and fear we can add this other dimension of abundance that is coherent driven by the sun and start to imagine what that would be like to share“.

What do you think?

Seriously?

On top of everything else that needs our attention, this is one of those things our senators are busing their brains off on? Don’t we have better things to do with our time than to think about these things? Troubling financial markets, unemployment, education, health care not to mention, figuring out how best and how quickly to unshackle this nation’s dependence on Oil as well as freeing our people from the bondage of political enslavement.

Come on!

Maria Clara has one of the world’s most beautiful smile, if not the most beautiful. What she needs is the same as every other Filipino— economic freedom. Give her opportunities to use her brain. The answer is education, not obscenity laws.

Raise our people’s intelligence, please! Don’t blind our people to ancient ways. Let them decide for themselves what is obscene. Let parents be responsible to police their own kids. Let us create a people that can discern for themselves. Trust them to discern for themselves what is right and what is wrong.

The question of morality isn’t for the state to decide. It is religion. It is fate. It is about individual parents and families. The state needs to take care of things that individual people can’t.

Then again, I often forget how idiotic, shortsighted our politicians are. On the other hand, how often does the Filipino forget, in a democracy, sometimes, people get offended?

Oh, one more thing, Manny Villar will not be getting my vote for any position whatsoever.

“We advocate federalism as a way to ensure long-lasting peace in Mindanao,” President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Monday told visiting Swiss President Pascal Couchepin.

(Updated) Madam President, with all due respect— please let me be forward and direct in my opinion: “That’s a lot of bull“. Smart lady that you are, would you please step out of your ivory tower, read and ask for the opinion of those beyond your provincial thinking?

Based on the discussions here at Filipino Voices, across the Filipino blogging community on DJB‘s and MLQ3′s just to name few, it is clear that the road to peace in Mindanao involves first, the de-armament of not just the MILF but all armed groups in Mindanao. Second, a just peace in Mindanao revolves around all the stakeholders in the region.

The Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) at this stage is appropriately tagged as a “Terrorist” group. They act under the guise of a legitimate grievance, but simply their end goal is their own self-interest. Where is the Justice in that, Madam President? 

Where is the Justice for all the lives lost to allowing a Terrorist group to hold towns this Republic promised to safeguard? Your way towards Peace is the coward’s way. Your vision of the future is flawed, perhaps because of your understanding of what Mindanao needs. A war against the kind of violence the MILF pursues, I believe is a Just War. If only to finally end the reign of terror they have perpetuated on the people of Mindanao. If only to allow the economies of Mindanao to properly prosper without a gun pointed at their head every time.

I’ve been to Davao and Cagayan de Oro and they’re beautiful places. 

Even if one argues the MILF wasn’t a terrorist organization with their own selfish agenda, Government simply can not talk with just the MILF— it needs to involve everyone in Mindanao.  What’s clear in the discussion revolving around Mindanao and the question of Peace is that even the stakeholders in the region disagree. Therefore even a Federal State of Mindanao or states in the region will not guarantee any lasting peace in the region and may even spark our own brand of Civil War. We need only look at ARMM at what a federal system at this juncture will do to Mindanao. 

(update starts here) MLQ3 in The Sultan Sa Ramain speaks, 1934 quoted a speech made during the 1934 Constitutional convention on the problems of Mindanao, which is most appropriate I think. The quote goes, with emphasis mine:

I wish to bring to the attention of the Members of this Convention as representatives of the Filipino people that the Mohammedan Filipinos have been protesting against the name “Moro”. We do not like to be called “Moro” because when we are called “Moros” we feel that we are not considered as part of the Filipino people. You als know that the name Moro was given to us by the Spaniards because Morocco had been under the rule of Spain like Mindanao and Sulu. Therefore, I would like to tell the Members of this Convention that we prefer to be called Mohammedan Filipinos, and not “Moros” because if we are called Moros we will be considered as enemies, for the name “Moro” was given to us by the Spaniards because they failed to penetrate the Islands of Mindanao and Sulu. Another fallacious theory that I would like to invite your attention to is the impression that the Moros are warlike marauding criminals branded as “juramentados”. That is not true, my friends. In the Islands of Mindanao and Sulu there are many Christian inhabitants and they can get along all right with the Mohammedan Filipinos. It is natural that even among brothers, there is a quarrel; so, how much more among people? I would like to call your attention to the fact that we expect much from the Members of this Constitutional Convention; that the customs and traditions of the Mohammedans are granted to them by the present government should not be ignored to them by the Members of this convention. Religion does not in any way bar us from joining one another, for anybody can profess any religion he wishes to. It is true that the men assembled in this historic hall are going to draft the Constitution for the future Philippine Republic and it is true that the Constitution to be drafted is not to last for only one year but for all ages; and upon us rests the serious responsibility to give to our beloved country an enduring constitutional foundation in this period of transition. The Constitution to be drafted must not only be for the satisfaction of a tribe or of a particular group of people but must be for the satisfaction of the while Filipino people.

(end of update)

To Mar Roxas , Manny Villar, Bayani Fernando, Noli de Castro and every contender to Gloria’s throne, this I say: It is imperative that Mindanao be solved in the next administration. That farce has gone long enough. The greatest legacy any Filipino president can leave his or her people is a Just and Proper Peace in Mindanao.

A few days ago, I had written a post on Federalism, “Decentralize Tomorrow“. In it I wrote these lines: 

If the last hundred years of the American experiment is to be judged, even a federal government can be willed to be centralized. If peace in Mindanao does lead to a federal government, will future states be decentralized enough to be independent of everything save those when dealing with foreign nations? if Mindanao’s peace does lead to a federal republic, will it be Arroyo’s vision of Federalism that will prevail?

The most plausible scenario in an Internet-paced world is rapid everything. A plausible scenario is that tomorrow will be about creative destruction and massive decentralization. And our people seriously need to get a handle on education to meet that future.

Do we seriously need to transform into a Federal Republic to allow greater decentralization? Will less complexity, greater decentralization and more accountability allow every city, and every province to deliver services that the National Government today can not? However the answer is, clearly in order to transform this society, however you call it and however shape it must take, is to win the primary theater of war— the back-room game. Everything else is window dressing.

I add emphasis to those lines because clearly, the road to revitalizing this country’s broken down political system is through the back-rooms of power where the game is really played. We can debate all the issues in the world. We can debate the merits of systems or how flawed or right this one is or a federal system is, but unless those playing the game themselves are willing to change the rules and right this ship of state, nothing will come out of it. That is the only way to bind up this nation’s wounds. So step up, will you?! We need leadership, not greed. We need leadership, not incompetence.