Found floating on Facebook. We don’t know whose photo this is.
It’s half-time for the Aquino Administration and despite the press releases about how well the economy is doing, the dark shadow looming above the Office of Presidential Propaganda spells out the fact that corruption may either be just as bad or even worse.
During the first few months of the Aquino Administration signs that the slogans “Daang Matuwid” and “Walang Mahirap Kung Walang Korap” were being peeled off and replaced with “Business as Usual” were already there.
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There were some indications that the country didn’t change a brand of leadership as much as it did a brand of corruption. Perhaps the only thing more disappointing than the fact that corruption continued or got worse under the Aquino Administration is the fact that the “new” brand of corruption used the same people and processes. Even in doing the wrong things lies the thick mark of laziness and stupidity.
Perhaps, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, some of us who never believed the propaganda can gladly say, “We were not deceived by the professions of the private adventurer, — the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons; but we appeal to the sanctified preamble of the messages and proclamations of the public sinner, as the proof of sincerity.”
People who believed that a man wearing a yellow shirt could ever solve the Biblical problems of poverty and corruption in 2009 ought to have been slapped in the face till they lapsed into a coma. If Moses and Jesus didn’t do it, what made them think that a balding, fifty-ish moocher could ever solve two of mankind’s longest standing problems?
Duh?!
And so we have it… poverty remains at its height with the disparity between the rich and poor being substantially the same… corruption continues unabated and now highlighted by the alleged Ballsy Aquino-Czech $30 Million Extortion Attempt as well as the P10 Billion Pork Barrel Scam…
The thing that made it so easy to predict that this would be the mid-term outcome didn’t involve using acute powers of prescience or magic — which what dumbasses usually attribute it to.
What made it easy to predict is the fact that the Aquino administration, in its incipience in the months before the 2010 elections, didn’t call out the specific and detailed directions it would take to systematically reduce poverty or corruption beyond incarcerating one of its biggest scapegoats, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
It’s a no-brainer to arrive at the conclusion that the government spending is the biggest source of corruption. If back then, we had heard that the current administration would pursue a policy of reducing the size of government spending by reducing the size of government itself, it would perhaps be a clear sign that there was some substance to its rhetoric.
There are a number of ways that one can conceive of reducing the size of government and perhaps the more radical approach would be to knock off the number of legislative positions this country has.
You’d think that the country’s legislators consist only of 24 senators and 300 congressmen/congresswomen. However, to arrive at the real number of legislators, we have to add the hundreds of provincial board members, thousands of municipal board members, and thousands more barangay board members.
Of course, calling that out as a direction during election period would be just about as politically deft as calling for an end to political dynasties in a country ruled by political dynasties.
So perhaps another approach would have been, perhaps, to take a long good look at unnecessary public spending — like the pork barrel.
Guess what? The current pork barrel allotment is now about twice what it was during Arroyo’s supposedly more corrupt administration.
Stuart Santiago pointed out the rather obvious flaw in the Pork Barrel System:
“even if there were no bolanteses or napoleses, even if no one were diverting the monies into ghost ngos or sticky legislative pockets and private bank accounts and ritzy condos and grand mansions here and abroad, palpak pa rin ang pork barrel as “share of the people” because it is a scatter-brained disorganized affair that encourages corruption while failing to address the people’s long-term needs.“
“the senators and congressmen addicted to pork could say, of course, that long-term development isn’t their mandate, after all,but the president’s. and they do need funds to dole out to poor constituents who are forever asking for help pang-ospital at panlibing, pangmatrikula at pantawid. but really, magkano ba ang napupunta sa ganitong gastusin? surely just a small fraction of the 70 M that each rep gets, and even a smaller fraction of the 200 M that a senator gets, EVERY YEAR.”
Anyway, in lieu of an actual solution to the Biblical problems of poverty and corruption, I’d have to give the current administration an “A” for its ability to come up with one distraction after the other to cover up for its ineptness.
Then again, it doesn’t take much to distract Da Pinoy… A new sex scandal here… or a basketball game there… et voila!
Writer.
Jeanne napoles tagline on her twitter & facebook account is ” i couldn’t give a shit”, and that seems to sum up pnoy, the administration and the politicians in the senate and congress. Only lies ,confusion, diversions, and propaganda are in evidence as ghost employees, ghost projects, spirit away taxpayers money through endless means, mechanisms and scams.
There is neither the intellectual capacity nor the political will to resolve pressing problems, move the country forward, or instil a modicum of genuine pride through success, simply play the blame game, rely on manipulated surveys, and an endless stream of propaganda and motherhood statements which look more and more ridiculous by the day.
Greed and self interest has become unbridled as a free for all with complete immunity and impunity.
Bigger budgets simply mean more corruption since it certainly isnt being spent on infrastructure projects.
Pnoys government will prove to be the most corrupt in history and are already racking up staggering sums as everyone helps themselves to the peoples money.
I notice my local congressmen have both bought luxury new cars in the past year. Mmmm, wonder if they are on napoles’ payroll.
Shameless scum
are you related with napoles family?
No. I am related to Bill Gates.
I have no idea why anyone would expect things to change giving the reins to that Juan Tamad? The guy did not even have recorded evidence of being able to change a tire. The women relatives in his life provided his identity. This guy was going to move mountains? He never demonstrated the ability to get off the couch?
Well, 3 years have already passed and Mr. Baldyfuck still hasn’t improved anything.
Only idiots like BK would still insist that aquino is a great leader, problem is that only morons would believe his stupid propaganda.
The mere fact that Baldyfuck hasn’t done anything when he was a congressman and senator should have warned the people of his incompetence and now we are suffering for the typical pinoy’s idiocy in choosing incompetent politicians.
Funny how I wanted change…all I got were loose coins..and they are obsessed with coin circulation rather than the billions of pesos of pork..lol.
Eventually, this is what the people who voted way back wanted..and this is what they got. They don’t really have any right to complain..after all they might have shares together with that(like balato, land, money, or whatever item that can be given as returning the favor).
Seriously though, they get what they deserve so if they chose to suffer more now than ever then so be it. Freaking masochists I say, for they now tend to enjoy pain instead of eliminating the tormentor.
No wonder why our current government is an exact mirror of the people..and don’t get me started with “some, not-all bullshit” because eventually everybody accepted the current government after the elections were done. All the real opposition I knew were either dead or in prison or not in this country, or maybe in too deep kissing someone’s ass just to appease them.
Oh well, just another day for the proud pinoy. Still drunk from that kool-aid from two decades ago and still haven’t gotten over the hangover that left him in a delusion-filled vegetative comatose soon-to-be rigor mortis state of mind.
I will only comment about the smuggling graph.
It is also possible that the smuggling were not being accounted for in the past administration, as, well, you know, nearly all of BOC’s personnel, that we heard today were involved in those syndicates.
And now that the national government are closely monitoring their movements, it made easier for foreign orgs to come up with better, but realistically awful results.