DAY 15: ECQ

Fifteen days and so many lessons.  Too many realizations.

Some are heartwarming, uplifting.  Others are heartbreaking ... even disgusting.

What you have suspected all along are now confirmed.

What you chose to ignore, gloss over or simply take it with a sigh you can no longer just accept and say whatever.

And with each and every day that passed through this uniquely difficult time do you realize that the world will never be the same after this.

These are necessary pains.

Sometimes you need to be jolted out of your comfort zone, shaken from the insulated world of yours to see how you are a mere particle to a universe so large for you to control.

If this pandemic is the revenge of Mother Nature, then it is because we deserve it.

We have depleted resources, raped the environment and allowed the power of money and commerce to take priority over the safekeeping of the planet we live in.  So what did we actually expect?

More than that, there are the particulars about the things immediately around you that shake you into the truth. Let me run down some of them because if I become too ambitious to cover all possible grounds, this blog might just go on past the lifting of the quarantine.

First: we finally have to learn to put leaders who are leaders rather than to be charmed by myths and personalities.

If there is one thing immediately proven by the turn of events is that you can easily weed out the pebbles from the nuggets of gold.  You can easily pinpoint who deserves your respect or even adulation --- or who has succeeded in bamboozling you into thinking that he or she is of any value to his or her constituency.

I need not mention names because you can easily fill in the blanks.

We have been discussing (or even laughing about ) this for the longest time and always threw in that excuse that it is the five hundred pesos that purchased the vote that brought about this catastrophe of having the highly unqualified hold positions of responsibility not only in our community but our country.

The "enlightened"and "educated" always pointed to the basement dwellers (to use Bong Joon-ho's metaphor) as the ones who sold their ballots to empower the undeserving.  This excuse can be so casually used to wash off any sense of accountability or responsibility for the perpetuation of the corruption of democracy.

But then again one asks: who actually implements or employs this machinery but also the "enlightened" if not the "educated"?  

Add also the rich and powerful --- who, of course would do everything humanly imaginable to be richer and more powerful.  

Who also perpetuated this myth that leadership is in the genes?  Or that it is a family tradition to be enthroned in corridors of power because it is a Divine Right of sorts, anointed by imaginary gods?  Who actually immortalized mythologies that it is the duty of the children to follow the footsteps of their ancestors to reign over domains in the country?  

That is not defined as democracy but a permutation of fiefdoms.

O, eh, di ngayon nagkabukuhan, di ba? 

In moments of great crisis --- when leadership is needed, when determination and vision and focus are required --- the truth about who we put into office is blatantly revealed.  All the burloloys of propaganda prove ineffective --- inasmuch as two cans of sardines, a cup of instant noodles and a ganta of rice do not constitute fulfilling a responsibility to someone who voted for you to take care of him.

Secondly, we realize the dire need for a larger and more ennobling vision for us as a country.

What is most apparent is that those who were able to handle this pandemic most successfully are not necessarily the richest of countries but those who governments and citizens shared a common vision and goal.  For instance, Vietnam was able to contain the pandemic because it had foresight and was not beholden to anybody but its people.  If one looks at Thailand, despite the earlier outbreak, it did not take them long to put a lid to the exploding problem and give a sense of direction to what they identified as solutions.

There again we go back to the amount of divisiveness we have in this country --- and how we seem to thrive on it.  What the more excitable among us do not see is that divisiveness has always been a tool used to blur the formulation of effective solutions with opposing camps screaming at each other about what is the better way to go. 

That boils down again to the need for trust and not blind faith on leaders who will steer the ship of the nation to its right course.  Now that we are treading rough waters, we do not only need a strong-willed captain but lieutenants as well who will tell us where to go and how we must do things --- and we are convinced enough to trust them for what they want us to do.

Only then can we really survive this worldwide catastrophe.  Only when we hear voices telling us that it is going to be all right because somebody we put into a position of power is taking care of us --- only then can we believe that we are going to be all right.