keys of d

If you happened to visit the Marikina City Sports Center and have to
respond to the call of nature, chances are you’d have to use a public
utility. And you’d have to take out your spare two peso coins from your
purse as service charge. There’s a person waiting in front for your
payment.

What a life! In these days, a peso isn’t enough to let you relieve
yourself. (Note: The words IHI and DUMI mean urine and stool,
respectively.)

—-
Sent using a Sony Ericsson mobile phone

I have to say this: The Philippine election system is like this:

My illusionary years of believing in it as a means of reforming the government are over. I came to this conclusion when I could not stomach the way the oligarchs and opportunistic elements wash their dirty linens in public. I would puke everytime I see the faces of trapos and big liars on TV, even if it’s not yet time for campaigning. One TV ad shows one Congressman boasting of a bill that he sponsored as if it is already being implemented and has made dramatic change in the people’s lives. Another shows a young trapo (despite his activist roots) waving his hands to a couple who calls his name. Insane, right?

Today, while I was on the road inside a jeepney, I saw the posters of Senatoriable Ping Lacson splashed all over the center island of Aurora Avenue. The feeling even grew when I saw the posters of Anakpawis and Amin splashed, three to five every five meters approximately, all over the center island of Kalayaan Ave.

I got nothing against Lacson and the party-list candidates, though. It’s the thought that lots of money are spent for this kind of campaign scheme. It’s completely a waste of time, labor and money when the posters you mounted overnight would be shed off the next day by government forces. Look at the picture. It’s the trash that resulted from the ‘cleaning’ operation of Metro Guapo men, who flocked to Kalayaan Avenue’s center island to do their stuff. You see, the election campaign has just begun, yet the MMDA has done their stuff as if elections have just occurred.

In the next weeks in the run up to the May elections, expect lots more of energies oozing from the candidates, most of whom would speak nothing but trash. They will sling muds at one another and will utter promises once again to the electorate. And then when they get to power…

It’s sad that progressive candidates must get by under this very backward election system. Many of them gradually get sucked by the stream where sharks and crocodiles live (pardon the analogy). They become a ‘few good men’ no more.

I’m really sick of the system. I want it changed, like NOW. And since it won’t happen, I will just have to live with it. I will just have to continue joining the struggle for a change in the political system. But I cannot wait.

‘Election fever’ in the Philippines is so called because it implies trapos who are sick and sections of the electorate who are sick of the system.

(Originally posted on Activism 102.)