Black To The Future

In my previous post, you’ll see a picture of Darth Vader with the words, “Voting is pointless. It is useless to resist me. I am your leader now.”

It’s really a reference to what some have been saying about Vice President Jejomar Binay and that is, mainly, that he will win…

…some say “by default”, because there is no other candidate who can run for Presidency and win against him.

…and some say, Binay will win because they say that the masses are unthinking and that they outnumber those of who are convinced that they’re intelligent voters.

But really, I think, Binay will win because he truly represents how most Filipinos truly are. Most Filipinos may not admit it easily in public, but they’re more likely to do things they shouldn’t do just because they think they can and they think they can get away with it.

And really, we’re all like Luke Skywalker right now, shouting “NOOOOOOOO!”

Most Filipinos really admire people who seem to be able to overpower and outsmart society at large. As much as most Pinoys love the underdog, they love ‘bad boys’ even more and that’s why there are so many of them.

How many times have we seen one Pinoy chide another Pinoy for being “mahina” when he doesn’t get around some kind of rule or penalty? I’ve heard it often enough myself and usually, what it means to be not “mahina” is to use some kind of loophole in the rule, fake compliance, bribe/coerce the enforcer of the rule, or ignore the rule completely.

On the other hand, Pinoys admire people who are “malakas” or “madiskarte”.

Why is this so? One theory I have is that at the core of every Filipino is an anarchist, but not in the sense of an anarchist who has carefully studied prescribed rules and come up with a new set of rules that are more aligned with his own principles. Pinoys are anarchists by default because most don’t know what the rules are, why they are there, and how to work within those rules — either because they actually lack the intellectual capacity or they’re lazy, spoiled brats.

Either that or they’re really just “magulang” or “mapanglamang” — which, for the sake of my English reading readers, is a negative kind of shrewdness.

This is also, perhaps why most Pinoys need a ‘padrino’ or ‘connection’ to help them either do something or get away with something. And this is what inevitably draws them to people like Vice President Jejomar Binay — his reputation is so good among his constituents that they actually believe he can FIX anything.

 Thing is “fixing” things takes a lot of studying and actual work. The more important the rule and the harder it is to get around it or get away with breaking it, the harder you have to study and work to get around it.

Some people have actually made a whole lot of money just coming up with all sorts of ways of “fixing” things and this is the sort of person that is said to have a “criminal mind”.

If you’ve ever wondered why Binay had become affectionately called “Rambotito” by some of Cory Aquino’s relatives and cronies, there’s some talk saying that he was exceptionally gifted at “fixing” things for them. I don’t know if there was an actual exchange of money involved in exchange for “fixing” things, but perhaps some manner of “gratuity” or “financial assistance” or “Other People’s Money” wouldn’t be completely out of the picture.

What leads me to say that is that there are some people around Binay and some people who have “dealt” with the City Hall of Makati who have practically said that such were merely written into books as “business expenses”.

I’ve come across some people saying that such “business expenses” are actually just okay and businesses don’t mind it so long as they get what they paid for.

But, well, I don’t really buy that line at all. Friends who told me of one pretty huge technology firm’s big boss complaining that there’s no end to such “business expenses”.

The technology firm’s big boss was heard saying, “You would have thought that paying a fee here and there would be the end of it, but NO! You end up paying everyone who comes knocking at your door and you keep on paying, they find all sorts of ways to get money from you.”

Of course, I’m not a business journalist, but I’m thinking that… well… most serious businesses would not want to support such practices for a great number of reasons.