By Joe America
Let’s break the Philippine population into three major component parts.
- The entitled. Politicians who are trapos, oligarchs, movie stars, and others who get rich and powerful by working within the class of entitlement and impunity to share opportunities and trade favors. The Philippines even has judges in this class, reflecting the gross ethical bankruptcy of this group.
- The educated elite. University professors, middle business managers (if they are honest), politicians who believe in democracy, and people who have traveled enough, and read enough, to understand the importance of human rights, laws, and the discipline of good ethical behavior. They are wiser than most which arouses envy and generates resentment from those in the other two groups.
- The needful masses. Lower-level workers who see others doing better than them, commuters waiting in lines, farmers and fishermen who can barely survive, tricycle peddlers, mothers with seven kids, the hungry . . and many, many more. There are a whole lot of people in this group. They operate more with emotions and superstition than knowledge.
A lot of Duterte supporters, most notably Senator Cayetano, like to point to Singapore to justify President Duterte’s autocratic style. The Philippines is on the path to success, they say, because this kind of authoritarian might is needed to cut through the crap of corruption, drugs and entitlement.
I’m gobsmacked. Never before in my life have I seen carabao pies packaged as perfume.
The dictator Marcos and the aspiring dictator Duterte put their power base together on the strength of group (1) manipulating group (3). The powerful and entitled are using and abusing the needful and needy, while telling them otherwise. Well, that is a personal opinion, of course. Not everyone thinks it is abusive for Filipino cops to murder innocent Filipinos by the thousands. Perfume in the Philippines comes in many different stenches.
The educated elite (2) are the opposition, the enemies, of this new authoritarian order.
The “dictator” Lee Kuan Yew put together his power base on the strength of group (2), period. His agency officials were honest, educated managers. Technocrats, not family. Economists, not friends. They did not manipulate the needy and needful, they took care of them. Furthermore, Lee was actually Prime minister, re-elected repeatedly. He won based on performance, not threat.
Singapore thrived.
Marcos failed and dealt the nation into poverty for decades.
Duterte is on the path to failure as he undermines the very foundations of the economy. Driving off the BPO’s, insulting nations that host Philippine OFWs and make material economic contributions in the Philippines, kicking out US intelligence resources and allowing terrorists an open, unprotected nation in which to plant bombs, driving off tourists by raising a terror warning nationwide, and portraying the Philippines as a drug infested cesspit. Investors hate risks and instability. Only those with ulterior motives like China consider the Philippines a good place to put money.
The 2017 budget was put together, not to focus on economic production, jobs and wealth, but to advance political goals. Praise and punish, not return on investment. Over 2 billion is allocated for trolls, which, if you think about it, is a destructive business. It does not build anything. When the measure of productivity is 75 insults per 1,000 words, you know this is not a government focused on unity or reducing poverty. (I made those statistics up, to show how easily the propaganda artists generate new facts.)
Lee Kuan Yew promoted promise and hope and opportunity, and built economic strength. The aspiring dictator Duterte promotes darkness and death and fear, and economic bankruptcy, or delivery of the nation to China.
See the difference? If you don’t, kindly accept my condolences.
President Ramos got it right. The ship is sinking. Social turmoil is building. Unity is not forming.
The only question is how long the government can function on the strength of the economy that President Aquino left behind, new debt acquired that pushes back the day the last shoe falls, the amount of perfume sold by cabinet members and trolls to call black white, and help from China that converts the Philippines to a new state of colonialism.
Protest is futile. Those with needs are blind in their desire for immediate satisfaction or revenge. Many of the entitled are also motivated by revenge . . . against civility. Jailing 9 year olds. Shooting innocents. Gleefully building a death state.
It’s a hell of a way to uplift a nation.
And no one in government is listening.
SHARED FROM THE SOCIETY OF HONOR : THE PHILIPPINES
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