fool me once

By now every Filipino must've known that former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada has placed his bid for the 2010 presidential election. And while most of the local population may have taken this news with disdain and scoffing there are Filipinos who took this with jubilation. He is, after all this time, still their icon for hope and prosperity.

As most of you probably know already, I don't vote. Voting or even following the Philippine politics is like watching a crack addict shoot coke over and over. You'd think we'd be wiser by not putting into the highest office a guy who doesn't even know basic laws of economics and claims to address poverty. You'd think we'd be better by focusing on healthcare, education, environmental sustainability instead of condoning the congressmen fighting over who gets the biggest pork. You'd think we'd be more shrewed questioning why a mayor who's been holding office for more than a decade has not even made any significant improvements in his town. How they have the balls to run for office, how they can manage to sleep at night, how they can have the face to run for office again and again after being caught of crimes such as corruption, murder, or just plain incompetence is beyond my limited brain.

If there is anything consistent in the Philippines it’ll be corruption. Not only is it consistent, it’s also prevalent which can be experienced by everyone. Put aside (if you can) the red tape at government offices, the pay off given to cops and public officials, the countless people they’ve abducted and murdered because that person was against such public official, put those things aside for a moment. They’re actually extremes. Extreme compared to these: every public works construction has a signboard with the smiling face of the president and large print that such project was made possible by of his/her Excellency, books purchased for public school students but are left rotting in warehouses, floods high and low that occur because of a non-existent sewage system, crime scenes compromised because latex gloves are even insufficient, going to a public hospital most likely means you’ll end up dead, need I say more? Even as I write the last few phrases I feel anger coursing through my veins as I remember the headlines that have affected the Filipino people even when I was living in the Philippines.

The missing funds, excesses of politicians, self-aggrandizing of the military, or even the arrogance of the family by the legislators or any government official maybe something difficult to tolerate. It’s how they are able to win over and over, well... that just makes my brain shrink smaller than an my eyeball. We hope it doesn’t happen, we hope that the voting public will be more discriminating, we hope that the sacrifices of our ancestors and rotting heroes would hold some value in us, we hope that the memory span of the collective people will be longer than the 10 minute speeches that promise to provide education, end poverty, start jobs and livelihood programs, save the world. We hope for change and a better system. And it’s not the desire for certain things to happen that we lack, it’s the honorable candidates. When you are made to choose which apple to pick we pick the best, but if your options are all bad... how do you pick? We can’t demand for better options neither do we get a refund.

Carl Sagan once said, “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

I am not proud that I don’t go to the polls to cast my vote, but I cannot decide which is more difficult --- looking the other way or choosing the wrong one and paying the consequences for an entire term. I am tempted though to register so I can vote on 2010 mostly because I am alarmed by the possibility of an ousted president jailed for corruption will win again and be the next president of the Philippines. But as I am undecided the deadline to register will most likely have passed before I would have made the choice. I know I am not any different from those people who sell their votes to the highest politician, or those who pay bribe money, or those who watch the news then avoid the problems plaguing my country by flipping channels. Honestly, it is hard to love a country or even have an ounce of belongingness to a place that never really fostered a sense of heritage.

Yet I hope. Even if hoping is outwardly impossible because one hopes for too much. Maybe instead of seeing the corrupt politicians as bastion of prosperity they will for once question what has have they done with the previous years they were sitting in office. Maybe next year’s election people won’t be fooled twice.