I don’t like the idea of finding “parallels” between United States politics and that of the Philippines’. They are miles apart. But it is hard to ignore the one thing about a recent development that Filipinos can relate with — the presidential candidacy of Jeb Bush and how he faces the formidable challenge of pitching his value to the American people despite his family name.
Jeb, brother of former President George W Bush and former governor of Florida has finally announced his bid for the United States presidency vowing to “take Washington out of the business of causing problems”. That statement alone would already sound familiar to Filipinos.
To be fair, unlike most Republicans, Jeb’s language skills are not limited to just American English. He speaks fluent Spanish, is a graduate of Latin American Affairs at the University of Texas and is married to a woman of Mexican descent, Columba Bush. If Bush becomes president, Columba would become the first Hispanic First Lady in US history. Obviously, all of these potentially endears Bush to the Hispanic vote.
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Enter the Filipino politician similarly saddled with family legacy. Senator Bongbong Marcos, for his part, has demonstrated statesmanship even further beyond his own comfort zone. He is from the province of Ilocos, the far north of the Philippines. Yet he has built strong ties with the Philippines’ restive deep south where, in the past year (and more) he tirelessly consulted with his fellow Filipinos there to get an on-the-ground pulse check on how they really felt about President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino’s fundamentally-flawed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) project which aimed to carve out a vast chunk of Mindanao and hand it over to the terrorist Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Unlike many Filipino politicians who spend their days delivering lip service on the subject of “social justice” from their offices in Manila, Marcos has, in a brilliant seizing of a rare opportunity over the last 18 months, imprinted his name in the minds of Filipinos across the Philippine archipelago from top to bottom on the basis of real results. He has averted the trainwreck that was the Aquino administration’s ill-conceived BBL adventure and broadened the discussion on regional autonomy to the more encompassing and universally-empowering idea of federalism at a truly national level.
So, like Marcos, Jeb Bush is also saddled by his family’s baggage — a big thorny bush (pardon the pun) to tiptoe around. He is running with a logo, just “Jeb”, that noticeably excludes his surname — perhaps to divert the public’s attention from this little detail.
“Our country is on a very bad course,” said Mr Bush. “The question is what are we going to do about it. I have to decide what I’m going to do about it and I’ve decided I’m a candidate for president of the United States of America.”
The US, indeed, is on a troublesome trajectory. Americans have, over the last couple of decades, watched helplessly as their industrial might eroded under their feet thanks to Corporate America’s wanton palming off of manufacturing capacity over to China taking along with it Western civilisation’s most prized technologies. Yet even as Western capital — led by Big American Corporate — funded China’s rise to economic and military dominance, America’s grip on the oriental shipping lanes through which commerce vital to its economy is shipped has softened.
Add to that Silicon Valley’s relentless churning out of technologies aimed at progressively rendering expensive First World labour increasingly obsolete and one can’t help but wonder too how Bush could make good on his promise of “creating 19 million new jobs for Americans”. He is up against two fronts in the jobs-creation challenge — goose-stepping cheap Chinese labour and the onslaught of cheap human-replacement technology.
While Bush still has to formulate his strategy for changing America’s fortunes, Marcos already has the kernel around which a truly transformational platform could blossom…
In a press briefing held at the Royal Mandaya Hotel, Marcos supported the idea of federalism being pushed by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
“In political theory, it is almost axiomatic to say that a single center of power is much less stable than many centers of political power. For a more stable government, federalism is a good idea,” Marcos said.
However, the process of overhauling the current unitary government into a federal form must be studied very closely.
Granted, as a Third World country, the Philippines’ opportunities are mostly low-hanging fruit. Indeed, it only takes a Filipino politician who can rise out of the Philippines’ Juan Tamad archetype of lying on the ground mouth agape waiting for said fruit to fall off in order to reap those opportunities. Jeb Bush is, of course, faced with challenges at a different level and on a different scale. But both men are, ultimately, politicians plying their trade in similar types of democracies in uniquely interesting times where doing things differently will spell the difference between failure and success.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, and it is equally undeniable, that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.
The smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression.
Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens.
too bad marcos is still unapologetic about his father’s record-breaking theft
Should Mr. Marcos apologize for this?
Sure. If Pinoys will apologize for their self-chosen ignorance that put us all to where we are right now.
Sir Naknak, ang layo ng reply mo! Parang sumagot ka lang na hindi mo naman nasagot! I wonder if you even spend some time to watch the video first and then reply after. No sense!
Porque hindi mo na-gets malayo na? Ang punto ko gusto n’yo mag-apologize si BBM sa mga karumaldumal na nakasaad d’yan sa youtube video n’yo, siya ba gumawa ng lahat ng ‘yan? Gusto n’yo kasalanan ng nakaraan pasanin ng kasalukuyan? Eh kung tutuusin hindi lang naman siya ang dapat mag-apologize sa lahat ng karumaldumal na nangyayari sa bansa. Gusto n’yo ng apology eh kung napapakulong n’yo nagkakasala edi mas maganda ‘di ba pero patunayan muna kung nagkasala talaga. Kaya bang patunayan? ‘Yon ngang kasalukuyang pangulo n’yo proud na proud pa na apak-apakan ang sakripisyo ng 44SAF o ano masasabi mo roon? Sinabihan mo ba siyang mag-apologize? Sinabihan mo ba siyang mag-apologize do’n sa Manila Hongkong Crisis? Do’n sa bribery na ginagawa niya sa kongreso at senado para paburan ang desisyon n’ya apologetic ba siya? Gustung-gusto n’yo ng isyung tatabon sa kalokohan ng lider n’yo eh noh. Alisin mo nana mo sa mga mata para luminaw paningin mo sa mga bagay-bagay.
‘to protect the vested interests of the few and in total disregard for the many’, is what one Man said here about why he joined the ‘National Youth Movement’ then went into the NPA. That was 1971, 44 yrs. later , NOTHING HAS CHANGED. EDSA 1 & EDSA 2 were farces,not changes.
in 2021 or 2071 (if the country still exists or is not underwater) it will be the same way then, as it was in 1971,and has been ever since 1948 ! IT IS A CERTAINTY.
You want change? HA, give me a P500 note, and I’ll run away with it,why? Because Filipino’s you are not getting your change ! WHY?(its tiring spelling every-fuckin-thing out, u know?) Because you’ve been robbed of your future.
The issue I got from the I-Witness documentary of Howie Severino and to the question of Mr. Tubay (probably as a reaction to Mr. NT Yabut’s sentiment that the younger Marcos being unapologetic of his father’s actions/decissions of the past) is whether Mr. Marcos made the right decission and should be sorry for his imposing martial law considering the staus quo of the 1970s.
The former president died in 1989. He has been gone for almost 30 years, and up until today in 2015, unlike other previous leaders of this country, we are still debating about his legacy to this country! History will take care of that! Not ABS-CBN, Not Inquirer, Not GRP and certainly NOT Mr. KING KONG!
Getting back to the question of Mr. Tubay, I’ll leave it best to the former Philippine Leader to answer:
“I did not become President to preside over the death of the Philippine Republic.” ─FM
Ah, yes. I misinterpreted it. It was stupid on my part to fire away like that on the basis of thinking that people are again putting the weigh of the father’s sins and misgivings to the son. I guess it irked me that a BBM article should always be tainted by his late father’s so called atrocities. Nana sa Mata at Mr. Tubay, pardon the inappropriate remarks.
Two of the biggest ‘village idiots’ to ever reach elected office.
and it’s only because of who their family happens to be.
Just ‘Jeb’ said: that he ‘is going to fix the ‘troublesome course’ the USA is currently on’, by doing what ? Get this: ‘by running for President of the United States.’, that statement alone should tell people that he is a fuckin idiot not fit to be dog catcher in any town, or even his own back yard.
BING BING MARCOS is a MARCOS; like Father, like Son. The Republic of the Philippines,after what BINNY BINGS Father did, should never allowed he and his family to slither back into the country.
YOU WILL SEE, MARK THESE WORDS.Nothing will change,except for the worse, if either of these guys is elected.
THESE GUYS, HA, For President? Your kidding right? Sadly,nope.When the current writers here at GRP are in their 50’s (what? 30 yrs. from now? ) and the same stupid shit is happening in their country. Remember what you just read (and for the last 6 years +/- ).This is not a ‘prophecy’,no. It is a guarantee based on historical precedent and common sense.
Since I,and a few ‘other’ people, have commented here-in since 2009,nothing has changed,NOTHING !!!! it has only gotten worse,despite the promise of ‘change’. Change will cost dearly,and Filipino’s clearly are just not willing to pay that price. The Amputuans have yet to be put on trial for Crissakes!!!! HOLY SHIT !!! AND they will get out,if they aren’t already(LOL!!!), when all the witness’s have been executed.
I hate politicians , who capitalize on their family names: Bush , Marcos, Binay, Aquino , Estrada, Poe, etc..
Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., is no longer relevant to our political landscape. He cannot do anything, anymore. He is Dead, for 30 years. It is the present Thieves, who are Stealing , that we are concerned.
Corporations outsource jobs; because the labor in foreign countries are “dirt cheap”…
and, this produces, enormous profits on them.
No politician can stop this outsourcing of jobs. If some politician, is telling you this , that they can stop it: They are Lying thru their teeth…
We judge leaders on what they have done; and what they can do…Not what they say…it is easy to do , Rethorics, and Oratory Speeches. However, they will never get things for the better.
As I have said before, we must ask them: “What can you do for us , and our country?”…
We want your platform ; your solutions to problems; your vision for the country; and your sincerity…we do not like you charms…
@ HT, the Legisative bodies of ANY COUNTRY CAN STOP OUTSOURCING. This is accomplished by placing punitive ‘IMPORT TARRIFFS/TAXES’ on the corporations that outsource jobs basing the taxation on ‘place of manufacture’. It is, IN FACT, The olny way to stop the corporations from doing it.
In the EU/USA 70 million jobs have been shipped/outsourced over-seas and the EU/USA have brought out the printing press’s to pay for all the social spending and wars that the West and its allies are waging due to the decline in tax revenues from middle class wage earning manufacturing jobs would produce.Even banks outsource ‘call center’ jobs so as to pay peanuts to Filipino’s and Indians that gobble these ass-wipe jobs up as if they are prizes.India has now sickened of this dead end bull-shit though and is leaving the field to Filipino’s.BUT SOON,the West, they will not be able to ‘kick the can down the road’ and you best have some ‘GOLD’ & ‘SILVER’ stockpiled because countries ‘paper money’ will be worth not even as much as wiping your ass would cost….and that is what their money will be worth doing with,Zimbabwe style. $5,000 sweaters.LOL !
@Bing Bong:
They cannot do it in the U.S. Many of the U.S. Politicians get their campaign funds from corporations. They are indebted to corporations. You cannot run a political campaign, without money…
Besides, Corporate greed on Wall Street will always be there. Corporations are also answerable to their stockholders. Stockholders want a good share of their investments.
Jeb has to know Mexican since he is very good friends with a certain Mexican drug cartel. The Bushes are one of the most richest families in the US ruling class, along with the Carnegies, Harrimans, Mellons, Rockefellers, etc. The Bushes got their start when patriarch Samuel Bush worked in cahoots with the Harrimans as a government official during ww1. His son, and Jeb Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, was an advocate of the eugenics movement. His pursuit for racial purity led him to becoming a financier of Nazi Germany before and during ww2. The family held control of Auschwitz factories, making lotza Nazi profitz with prizon labor. Jeb Bush’s great-grandfather, George Herbert Walker who’s in the Hamburg-Amerika shipping line, is also in cahoots with the Nazis. He uses the company’s ships to smuggle weapons made in the Rockefellers’ Remington factories from the US to Germany, Nazi spies and propaganda from Germany to the US. Jeb’s father, George Bush Sr. was with the CIA, allegedly connected in the JFK assasination and later as prez invaded Iraq and Panama in the name of the “new world order”, according from a 1990 speech of his. The apple does not fall far from the tree. The family’s history is just as evil and convoluted as the Cojuangcos and the Marcoses.
@ Bugs Bunny, YO BUGS, I am soooo glad someone else here knows about these things.Prescott Bush and the rest of them wanted to finance Hitler and The USA led Allies to be sure of being on the winning side, not so much as the racial purity thing. Witness GHW Bush’s Inauguration speech,you mentioned it was 1990 ,but it was actually January 1989, and the ‘NWO’ which is led ,for the most part, by ZIONIST BANKERS…The Rothschilds. The USA, in fact, has most of its foreign policy dictated to it, today, by Israel. Hitler wanted to be rid of the Jews because he hated the fact that the JEW BANKERS were rich and had inflicted ‘austere’ measures on the German people after WW1, they could never have paid it off (until 1986!) and built an army the size of the Third Reich without help from the European and American Industrialists.They were scared shit of Lenin and later Stalin and their ‘Worker’s Revolt’ spreading to the West and prompted Henry Ford to start paying his workers a fare wage.If he hadn’t FORD Motor Co. might be owned and operated by the worker’s today(but that is neither here nor there).Prescott Bush even attempted to overthrow the USA in 1934, by imprisoning Franklin Roosevelt for treason, disbanding congress and suspending the US Constitution and declaring martial law. Only U.S. Army Major General Smedley Butler stopped him. Bush should have been put in jail for ‘sedition’ maybe even ‘treason’ and could have faced a ‘firing squad’, but ‘Grandpa’ had way too much money.Just like the criminals that run all the countries these days. Especially, GUILTY are his Grandson “W” (‘DUBYA’ to his hick town buddies) and that drunkard Cheney and Rummy Rumsfeld….Tony Blair as well.
Marcos Jr. for President
By Tony Lopez | Jun. 17, 2015 at 12:01am
http://goo.gl/9rZnSu
Ok. I get it now. GRP is critical of every person in power except any of the Marcos’s.
Tell us how you arrived at that conclusion plez.