2028 is far off, but…
Our elections are more than choosing WHO will govern us but more about HOW Filipinos will be governed.
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Our elections are more than choosing WHO will govern us but more about HOW Filipinos will be governed.
In Philippine presidential elections, "no day is too early" is an insuperable cliché.
Frenzied, in fact, are the salivating dreams of some of our national leaders about the next presidential election cycle that every passing day without gaining meaningful political points counts as a bad day.
The frenzy is, by and large, unexpressed, bursting out only when coursed during very private one-on-one conspirational chitchats.
Irrespective of whether it's just distorted fantasies or the imaginings of a deluded few or — in light of recent publicized rants of a former president — mere febrile political commotion, rest assured that 2028 political machineries are already oiled and fired up.
It's not strange, therefore, that nowadays, hot-under-the-collar allies of perceived 2028 electoral rivals so far — like Vice President Sara Duterte and House Speaker Martin Romualdez — privately interpret and frame whatever is suspect political gamesmanship as nothing but fine-tuning a 2028 roadmap.
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But once privately held 2028 political framing barefacedly goes public as recently happened — where bitter reproaches against perceived political rivals and justifications of shaky political postures bubble up — it signals that an internecine political struggle involving worthless but ambitious politicians has begun.
Ludicrous words presently spoken by paid fringe social media commentators are, of course, facile attempts at stanching perceived political damage to justify unjustifiable murders or to quickly absolve present or past political sins.
Nonetheless, such ribald, often crazed, political ministrations from these attention brokers — who, by the way, if you look closely enough, are all settled comfortably abroad — are all to be expected from the general leprous contours of our patronage-addled, personality-based political landscape updated for the digital age.
It's actually a boring ritual, this ceaseless perpetuation of one of the original sins of Philippine democracy in need of soul-searching penance: The personality-based popularity contests of the long trip from the halls of power into the jail cell.
Certain political ideas, of course, are tiresome, sometimes even pointless.
Pointing out our personality-based politics as the aggravating culprit in our broken politics actually counts as one of our thoughtless, commonplace political fetishes.
Yet, even if most of us have held this political fetish far too long — even held by the jaded among us who think ourselves politically up-to-date with their acquaintance of the newest furtive libelous whispers in power cliques — it's also worthwhile reminding repeatedly.
Repetition, of course, doesn't effectively salve our increasingly cynical hopelessness about our politics and government. But we all have to persist.
We still need to have enough strength to hold on since aren't we all choking with disgust at all the clowns populating our scarred public spheres, mouthing worthless platitudes about Filipino hearts and resilience?
Truly, we must vomit all these poisonous conmen out of our forsaken guts, these confident conmen who swirl our political narratives around their personas while preparing to quickly fly out towards their stolen offshore stashes once real trouble knocks down all barricaded doors.
These conmen aren't really confident, however. They're scared shitless men and women coldly sweating profusely behind heavily guarded bullet-proof windows.
Devised charisma and invented mass appeal just can't cut it anymore when we're truly desperate for workable policy platforms or honest track records in tackling insurmountable socio-economic problems.
We also must take down disparate political parties supporting these loathsome creatures, these "catch-all" political parties sporting "democratic" labels actively seeking only political stars but are really no more than slickly garbed vehicles servicing their members' personal and clan profits.
In short, all these means our political choices are severely limited to persuading more and more Filipinos that our elections are more than choosing WHO will govern us but more on HOW Filipinos will be governed.
But if none of us urgently choose to do these difficult things now and completely resign ourselves to encouraging our children and grandchildren to migrate abroad, do you sincerely believe there still can be a place our children and grandchildren can call home?
