Self-inflicted Crisis

While having a late breakfast this morning, I caught the TV program Mornings @ ANC . Coincidentally, Marieton Pacheco was reporting about the present rice ‘crisis’ while the yayas were feeding the girls. After the report, one of the yayas related her younger siblings in the province have been getting 1 kilo of rice rations and grocery packs with Pacquiao’s name on it, EVERYDAY since January this year. She added that even the children of the agency owner who lives in Quezon City have also been receiving rice rations. She also told me that her siblings’ Principal at school have been hoarding sacks of rice and boxes of noodles intended for these students. That part doesn’t surprise me at all, I bet the principal idolizes Gloria as far as corruption is concerned.

DepEd in its website states there are more or less 12 million elementary students enrolled in public school for SY 2006-2007. Given these, let’s do some mathematical operations, shall we?

12,000,000 elementary students

x 5 kilos of rice a week

x 12 weeks (Jan-March period)

————————–

720,000,000 Kilos of Rice distributed since January 2008

Before you pro-Gloria start wagging your tongues, let me just say that I am not hitting the program itself. I think it’s a big help to the majority of filipinos who receive these rations. Who knows how many millions of Filipinos are subsidized by these and politics aside, they must be grateful. I’m just wondering why this was implemented when there is a pending crisis. I’m sure Gloria’s advisers knew and were adequately warned ahead. It’s odd to know that they pushed through with the program at this time when they know they won’t be able to import more to replace what was distributed.

My question remain: was this a self-inflicted crisis? A desperate act to wag the dog?

A Virtue

…patience is.

The Cynical Filipino

I wrote “Reflections” a few weeks back after contemplating on the Pinoy’s current state of mind and why, even after the blatant cheating, stealing and lying, you don’t hear the majority ranting and raving about it. The rage is simply not there, which made me realize that there must be really be a collective spiritual and intellectual crisis in our midst.

I do not understand the apathy, but I am trying to find a glimpse of understanding.

Amid all these happenings, Brian Gorell happened. In all instances, we should be like him. Somebody he trusted cheated on him, lied to his face, stole his money and hell hath no fury like a person’s intelligence insulted this way! He put up a blog and turned against his ex-lover. He is enraged. He wants to get back what was supposed to have been stolen from him and unless the Ex pay up, the blog will continue to run, and the high society ’secrets’ will cease to be… secrets. Meanwhile, the Pinoys went crazy over it, blog traffic was incredible in today’s standard for a personal blog. Some even left comments to commiserate, support, offered sympathy and best wishes. Nothing wrong with that, really.

But the way I see it, what happened to him is simply a microcosm of what this nation of Filipinos needs to do, now. You see, the collective Filipinos are in Brian’s shoes: cheated, lied to, stolen from by the person he trusted, in our case it’s Gloria and her government. But while he created a storm with his revelations and his fight to get back what was stolen from him, we did nothing of that sort.

Another observation. Take a hard look at Brian’s case. He’s a foreigner but he gets more sympathy than this country could ever get. How can we rant and rage to give him justice when we couldn’t even stand up against the real thieves and cheats in our own backyard? I am not saying he doesn’t deserve to get his money back, in every respect he should and must and with it, his sense of pride and self-esteem.

But if we can rally behind a foreigner against our own kababayan who he alleged to have duped him, why can’t we do that for the country and the future generations? If we could believe his allegations, how come it takes a lot more evidence and time to believe the exposes and investigations against gloria and her cohorts?

The answer came to me from where else but my trusty best friend, a book.

In the Foreword of his book, Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People he enumerated the present society’s Challenges, Blame & Victimism as one of them. He wrote that

“…the children of blame are cynicism and hopelessness. When we succumb to believing that we are victims of our circumstances and yield to the plight of determinism, we lose hope, we lose drive, and we settle into resignation and stagnation”.

He added that so many bright and talented people feel this and suffer the broad range of discouragement and depression that follows and that the survival response of popular culture is cynicism:

“Just lower your expectations of life to the point that you aren’t disappointed by anyone or anything.”

I believe this has got to be the best explanation of this pitiful condition.

Sad, but true. Now, my next question is how do we get back our collective sense of pride and fight the cheat, the liar, and the thief like Brian did?