All this talk of overseas workers annoy and confuse me. Firstly, to those who complain about some of the horrid conditions that are subjected to our fellow workers abroad, I believe that in adversity lies strength, and the strength of the OFW is derived from the hardships he or she experiences, whether it may be abusive bosses, utterly pathetic pay, unlivable “living” quarters, or the possibility of death, or the worst of all, deportation. Secondly, whatever happens to the family of said OFW should remain in the privacy of the family. Neither do the government, the church, sane people, or anyone else have the right to prevent a family from sacrificing its well-being for the sake of financial stability. If a family decides to send one of its members overseas to generate income, then it is their decision; they still have the right to die of hunger, don’t they?
During the debate, I expected that the opposition would be able to use my arguments in defending the right of a family to screw itself. However, I was dismayed to know that the opposition was using the false dichotomy fallacy in most of its arguments. That is, the opposition argues that having a psychologically stable family is mutually exclusive from beaing a financially stable family if people are prevented from working abroad. While OFWs bring in the dollars, it pains me to say that it does not mean that being an OFW is not the only option (I’m speaking against my non-existent morals). In fact, saying that a non-OFW family cannot guarantee both emotional and financial stability is like saying that a person cannot buy something from both the cheese and non-cheese section of the supermarket.
On to another unrelated topic:
It is said that the private sector is on average more efficient in maintaining facilities than the public sector, the public sector has the upper hand in taking the initiative to provide said facilities. This is because there is no real incentive for being a pioneer; profit is NOT guaranteed, after all. However, once the facility is set up, competing businesses would take advantage of the situation by producing the services provided by the facility with the highest customer satisfaction possible while service production costs are at the minimum; the private sector as a whole can maintain while maintaining the cost of maintenance.
All this talk of problems have left me with no other choice… We must consult the bestest president this country has ever had:
FERDINAND. EDRALIN. MARCOS. A.K.A. Macro Z!!!
Press Secretary Crispulo “Jun” Icban himself said that McCoy “was able to build many infrastructure projects,” and today, “his image improved because he got things done” as compared to his successors. If Ichban’s claims about the similarities between Marcos and Arroyo are correct, then GMA was right: we really had substantial progress over the past nine years! We are utter fools in thinking that the problems of our OFWs and our educational system still remain unsolved. History (or at least Icban’s interpretation of it) has shown how Marcos was loved more and more throughout the years, as the achievements of subsequent presidents are not even close of that of the New Society.
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All of those statistics being trumpeted out by a who’s-who of crazies mean nothing if (as Albay governor Joey Salceda admits) the rich got richer, but the poor became poorer and more massive, despite the economic growth since 2001, if our infrastructure is highly underdeveloped, if we treat our working force (farmers, laborers, OFWs) as crap, and if we blindly follow the discourses set to us by the elite (about competence, corruption, and all that jazz).
The problem is that its ELECTION TIME, when the party (and the resulting hang over) begins. This the time where candidates give promises, platforms, sound-bites, diarrhea, and everything else that comes out of their goshdamn rear ends. This is the time when talking heads populate television, radio, cyberspace, and all other means of broadcast communication these, voicing out their views about candidate X and her policies vis a vis candidate Y and his projects, how his candidate is bigger than hers, and a cornucopia’s worth of dreams, wishes, and other flights of fancy being wasted on the senses of their readers, viewers, and listeners.
The worst part is, that was the optimistic point of view.
ELECTION TIME is also the time when the greatest and most baffling race the Philippines has ever seen in six years will begin (cue the oddly appropriate[?] Japanese progressive rock – American country [banjo-based] – European power metal – retro 8-bit song):
Think about it this way: this is like a horse race where the speed of each horse is directly proportional to the amount that is being bet on them by the utterly bored audience. Now, associate each horse to one particular candidate in the election, with each horse’s size in proportion to what office they are running. Then, imagine that the spectators are the elite, dumping money on the candidates that will promote their agenda, ruining the candidates’ non-existent souls in the process.
To beat this utterly screwed-up system, we the people may have to hijack the process, in a sense.
Something like what VoteForTheWorst.com did to American Idol (hint: read the URL).
Specifically, we the people should organize in such a way that whatever tomfoolery the candidates and their masters will do, we the people (I love-hate that phrase) will do everything pseudolegally possible to make the elections result in the worst possible outcome for the elite. It may be a win for an pitiful independent; it may be a majority abstain vote; or a presidential victory for Vetellano Acosta, no matter how utterly weird, insane, and horribly wrong it may be.
I repeat: for the sake of our country, we must screw with the political process, so that everyone dependent on its utterly broken state will fall down, down, down, until they shrivel up and die (preferrably by autocannibalism).
Given the many problems the Philippines has, in terms of our OFWs, education, economy, and so many other things, is it any wonder that only a fundamental change to the system (by using the system itself, no less) could give Philippine society a congressman’s chance in Heaven to be able to start reforming the country itself?
Postscript: I apologize for the utter rambling that occurred in this post. I am in fact dumping whole blocks of information from my mind to this post just for me to say something meaningful (to me and the readers) and helpful (to me and the readers). Oh, and the title is more of an afterthought; the proposal above for a form of revolution that is fit for a Phillipine-American-Japanese-Klingon melodrama just came from nowhere (except possibly from video karera, that is).
Word count: (1138 + 50 from the descriptive picture) = 1188 words
