Surely, there are not too many out there reading this piece who have not heard of the hit Broadway musical, “The Sound of Music,” immortalized literally for the ages by the movie of the same name starring the ageless Julie Andrews who popularized so many songs from the musical.
Among the many hummable ditties I recall is “Maria” with the catchy opening line, “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” about a lovable but hopelessly ungovernable novitiate.
I remember that song in particular because of the appropriately similar impossible task of governing the Philippines, a country blessed with bountiful resources that is almost always on the verge of reaching its full potential but would always find itself stumbling in a myriad of comedic self-inflicted problems.
We boast of having one of the fastest-growing economies in the region. But the squalor and poverty of diminishing rural agricultural communities beside mushrooming exclusive gated “villages” and high-rise condominiums in the ever-expanding outskirts of the metropolis belie that boast of prosperity, neatly defined by government statisticians merely by the numbers instead of the realities on the ground.
And we remain mute to whispered innuendos that this growing prosperity is directed by the locations of vast heretofore farmlands acquired by the political elite, who have extrapolated to ridiculously inflated valuations their massive landbank.
We proclaim to the Christian world that we are the remaining bastion of our faith, and yet drug-related incidents of criminality in the streets are on the rise as the impressionable young are constantly besieged with easy access to stimulants and explicit images on social media.
And, of course, it is only now that we have come to the realization that our so-called leaders of the nation and guardians of our country’s resources are in fact the very plunderers who have wrought untold miseries on the communities rendered defenseless during typhoons and flooding unleashed by climate change as a consequence of the widespread environmental abuses of man and the unbridled corruption in the implementation of critical infrastructure projects.
The tribes of political dynasties have thrived for generations because of clueless hungry masses lured and blinded by promises of “ayudas” if elected. The dynasties have, in turn, spawned scions of these privileged political families, believing that regardless of their lack of qualifications, by their surnames alone, it is their birthright to assume the positions of their forefathers.
So what then awaits our nation? What kind of superhuman leader do we need to govern a country of 115 million people residing on 7,100 islands separated by various faiths and dialects, similarly disparate?
Is it a dictatorship disguised as a junta led by military, business, and religious leaders that will rule with a benevolent iron hand that can make sweeping reforms and ensure their enforcement? However, has there ever been such a country in world history that lasted with such a form of governance? Inevitably, a single leader will emerge to take over as a one-man ruler, and God help us when all the warts that accompany such governance will eventually emerge.
Is it then more of the same untenable “democratic” space we are presently in?
Unfortunately, I don’t know of anyone who could possibly still be at ease and satisfied with what’s going on. I believe there is very much a growing sense of desperation and exasperation that more and more of the influential so-called enlightened populace are seriously entertaining the notion that a people power type of change is what we need now, and so hopefully recreate the magic of 1986. Could this indeed be the answer?
Until next week… OBF!