It’s been a slow and agonizing wasting away with the current crop of incompetent and corrupt empathy-devoid bozos that fill the political arena here in the country widely known as the Sick Man of Asia. This decaying remittance-transfusion-sustained corpse of a society/economy, the semblance of life being just the wiggling movement of infesting maggots under its easily butt-hurt Pinoy-pride skin, has survived for many decades since its independence from colonial masters. But that’s just about what constitutes many Filipinos’ dreams – mere survival. Ordinary Pinoys are no better than rats and cockroaches surviving on crap in damp stinking sewers, barely making it from one typhoon to another.
The big question is – why are Pinoys putting up with a system and leadership rotten to the core with outright audacious incompetence and corruption? Look at the slow-as-a-snail judicial system, with no light at the end of the tunnel for victims of massacres and heinous crimes; the jammed-up executive branch, which cannot seem to spend money without any scandal or irregularity involved; and the pork-hungry legislative body, which is just wasting tax payer’s money creating laws that if not useless (like renaming roads) are only meant to benefit themselves and those who funded their run for office.
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Fixing a Broken System
We have here a case of a broken political and economic system that is run and populated by a dysfunctional people. How do we fix something that is broken? Take for example a car. If one’s dilapidated car requires major repairs every month costing tens of thousands of pesos with parts breaking down every now and then, common sense dictates that we simply retire it as scrap and just buy a new one. Instead of the regular repair costs, we can then channel the money to monthly installments – minus all the trouble, risks and headaches.
The same goes for computers. When a part of a desktop PC such as the power supply breaks down, we do not try to open the broken component and figure out what’s wrong. It would be a waste of time. Plug-and-play computer parts are now cheap enough to simply be replaced with a new one. And if the entire PC is totally outdated, hangs intermittently, and is infected with viruses, we can just discard the whole unit and replace it just the same.
Often times, fixing a broken system is best done not by debugging and troubleshooting it, but by simple replacement with a new and better functional one.
Death of the Philippines as We Know It
A horse that has accidentally broken its leg in the midst of a long treacherous journey is no longer useful. The owner would usually just have to say goodbye to an old friend that has served him well and do the merciful act of putting it out of its misery.
In like manner, what the Sick Man of Asia needs is a quick and merciful death, otherwise known as euthanasia. A bullet to the temple while fast asleep is actually painless; a much better alternative to a long and torturous ordeal in agonizing pain. In the end, the current system in this country will be dead meat anyway – it’s just a matter of time. So why don’t we just get it over with FAST?
Many have espoused the idea of having some first-world neighbor nuking this country or its messed up capital so we can simply start from scratch. Other than being a rather practically improbable proposition, this is mostly just a sigh of exasperation from a people too tired and weary of the hardships they have been made to endure as inhabitants of P.I. (pun? you decide) – a failed experiment on freedom-loving democracy and its anti-competition elite-oligarchy-centric capitalist economy.
How about Metro Manila? Well, fixing Metro Manila has been the evasive holy grail of Filipino management and leadership. Achieving such would provide undeniable proof of competence and political will. To date, no president has by far been able to solve the puzzle of traffic, squatters, floods, pollution, and overall choking chaos of this metropolis that is only getting worse by the day (after APEC, it’s the dreaded Christmas shopping season in the offing).
The best thing to do is to simply create a new capital city from scratch and have it designed and constructed from the ground up (drainage, underground fiber optics, subway system, and all) by the best urban planners this modern age has to offer (BTW, Australians seem to be bloody good).
While we contemplate and decide on whom to choose as the next leaders of this country, try considering who among them can bring about the MAXIMUM amount of change. They are your pawns in your chess battle plan towards bringing your country to what you envision it to be. You can strike off of your shopping list those names that represent the “tuloy ang ligaya” biz-as-usual status quo. What we need are radical game-changing leaders who can bring about the speediest Death to the Philippines as we know it:
- Death of unabated crime and lack of discipline on the streets and sidewalks, day or night.
- Death of the incorrigible state of corruption in Philippine politics, inducing politicians to pocket millions as ROI for their election campaign spending.
- Death of an obsolete, progress-hindering, incompetence- and corruption-coddling Constitution by/for/of a heartless elitist oligarchy.
- Death of Metro Manila’s squatter, eyesore, and illegal peddler infestation through iron-fisted imposition of discipline and zero-tolerance leadership.
The best candidate is one who will send the current form of R.P. to its “R.I.P.”-labeled grave.
Now if no one is up for the challenge, there’s always China in our backyard ready to take the helm of a defenseless country (high-speed inter-island bullet trains anyone?). Or there’s our ever faithful ally Uncle Sam who may be open to welcoming us back to their fold (51st state of U.S. anyone?). But for sure deeply ingrained Pinoy pride will keep anything close to these options from ever happening.
A New Beginning
Death with its bloody aftermath is not a beautiful sight. However, what is death but a transition from one state to another? Having studied numerous near-death experiences (NDE’s) myself, I see death to often bring about beauty in the end, the same way a caterpillar dries up in a cocoon to come out as a butterfly; the way a fruit falls, decays and yet springs forth with seeds of new life; and the way the mythical Phoenix rises from its ashes.
Die my country to your old self, and awaken in newness of life. We as enlightened Filipinos here may be labeled radical rebels in our quest for change, but as history always goes to show – “the rebels of today are the heroes of tomorrow.” Now who’s with me in facing this nation’s death with a loud united echoing battle cry… “Bring it on!” ?
Zealous revolutionary advocate of bringing back common sense for the common good in a land of dysfunctional and delusional zombies.
this is the Symbolic of 32 years of MADPnoy hacienda luisita self interest of a fake Pilipino hero NINOY Aquino in cooperation of the Economic Hitmen of Marcos destruction that brought down the Philippines into third world status country as revealed by JOHN perkins book and actually Apo Lakay Marcos Predicted this” as what he said “in twenty years bagsak na ang pilipinas” not only that he told Imelda about this, and I quote “The Sun will Rise Tommorrow, The truth will set us free”
Zaxx, your views have merit because it hues closely to natural law. I shall not give up the view that total change is what needs be done and quick. Tinkering around to fix what is broken is a waste of energy and time. The team to place in the pilots cockpit is Miriam Bong Bong.
What happened to Miriam? Is she even still in the race? Maybe one more “forever stupid” joke book will do the trick.
No matter how competent, if popularity is not on one’s side, it’s a lost battle even from the get-go.
I already tried voting for a very competent but low-ranking bet (based on surveys) before and as expected, I just saw my vote go wasted down the drain. Been there, done that. good lessons that stick to the brain are usually those we learn the hard way.
Miriam-Robredo
We don’t really have to vote straight. We can have the programs from the People’s Reform Party (c/o MDS) and those from the Liberal Party (c/o Leni). I like this pairing so far.
Man, the wordsmith extraordinaire is at his best. I am amused because I am not sure if you are serious or not. Man, you are funny, and I am laughing. But, if you are hinting at something, you certainly did it, and I get it. You are certainly veering towards the ideas of a certain candidate, but I won’t say, but at the same time, I also won’t disagree. Cheers to your very active and profound mind.
Hang on to your seat Add, once the candidate that fits the bill on this article gets into office – we’ll have a lot more to feast over with blog articles & comments here at GRP.
Cheers too to your upcoming book, Anvil Publishing will soon be printing all your articles here at GRP, entitled “Add’s Greatest Hits” – just kidding 🙂
You’re right, don’t take everything I say seriously/literally – a lot of it is just figure of speech. Waiver: I have no responsibility for any literal bloodshed that could happen as a result of this article.
what PH needs is a purging fire League of Shadows style.And to stretch the sick man analogy we need chemotherapy to expel the cancers of society currently in government. this is why most people are clamoring for a Duterte Presidency because all other options are more or less the same corruption-ridden blood injected in the system yet again.
Which reminds me…I am in the process of writing a dystopian SF story which is essentially inspired by John Carpenter’s seminal movie “Escape from New York”. This time it’s going to be Manila, epicentre of a Luzon rendered uninhabitable by a stray Chinese nuke, now serving as a dumping ground for Beijing’s and Shanghai’s toxic waste.
Here, a plane carrying top world leaders is shot down and forced to make a landing in the veritable “no man’s land”. It becomes the task of my female protagonist – an FBI agent with Filipino roots – to locate and retrieve the plane’s passengers.
However, everything is not all that it seems…and it appears she and her crew would not be prepared for the terrors facing them….
Sounds good…
Um, would it be asking too much if you were to add monsters into the mix?
Sure thing, there will definitely be monsters…
and make them abnormal looking and colored yellow too please – just kidding 🙂
If she’s a Filipino, she’d leave them all to die. That’s how selfish and backstabbing we are as a people anyway.
She’s going to be part-Filipino.
Welcome to the dark side, zaxx.
there are failed states, and there are failing states. there is no state on the planet that is totally efficient, functional, egalitarian, virtuous, just, and overflowing with the milk of human kindness.
there are worse states than failed states, like the one in H.G. Wells’ Time Machine, between the morlocks and the eloi, a dystopia beyond the pale.
There’s also Gulliver’s strange lands populated by lilliputians etc.
It’s hard to describe what sort of state we find ourselves in, other than it could be a whole lot worse incrementally, or a whole lot better by light year spans.
Better to start with ourselves, and we’ll soon enough find that the world will have changed just as well.
There is such a thing as a totally efficient, functional, egalitarian, virtuous, yada yada yada state….it’s our neighbour to the west, Singapore
After EDSA1 all of the elected President instead of creating a new project for Masses they sold all of the project by the fast President to all Oligarch friends thats one of the reason why Filipinos killing day by day due to all basic services are going up, and working Pinoys are all contractuals no benefits.. It’s better Pinas become one of USA state..
I don’t think America – with its deteriorating peace and order, along with social security structures stretched to its breaking point – would welcome the Philippines as a “51st state”.
The rabid influx of hundreds of millions of Filipinos demanding their rights as sovereign Americans will be a headache for whoever may be sitting in the White House by that time
Yup. No first-world country would want to inherit a headache.
The most that they would probably agree on would be to use a sizable piece of land as a military base.
So here’s the plan – we lease Metro Manila to the Americans as a base for their Pacific fleet; they can manage and clean it up however they want (it will soon look clean&green like Subic or Camp John Hay in a few years).
The rent we can use to build a new capital city in the Subic-Clark area. Aesthetically designed by Australians, and the city services managed by Japanese.
Let’s follow the path of the smart guys:
– Canberra of Australia,
– Washington DC of US,
– Brasilia of Brazil
were all well planned capital cities established outside the main densely populated metropolis.
International gateway airports should also be outside the main metropolis – connected by railway, as in every major city nowadays.
if i’m president i would teach my countrymen to work and never depend on government. i want a fair, not welfare, society. my country is not a begging bowl where people depend on freebies. i want my people to work, save money for medicine and pension for old age.
You’ll have to do a bit of hand wringing and big brothering to get results on what you’re trying to do. As past history has shown, the masses can’t discipline themselves.
I’d just like to point out that Metro Manila is never evaded when it comes to “fixing”. It actually receives much of the focus of this country. Nevertheless, you are right that trying to fix Metro Manila is a waste of time. Because… Law of diminishing returns anyone? Efforts could have really been applied elsewhere. It needs to be dispersed.
Nonetheless, I have to say that I do agree with this article. I admit that there are times that I’ve wished we would just get involved in another war like with china for example. But it seems we actually have another choice? Yes, there maybe a huge number of deaths and everything but I do feel that this country needs to experience great destruction again. For with this destruction comes rebirth. And hopefully, this rebirth would be for a better one.
As I suggested elsewhere, we can hire all the squatters in MM to serve as soldiers to fight the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan. As incentive, they get 1 square meter of land in the Spratlys for every bandit they pin down. China will be scrambling out of there once our squatters flood those islands.
3 birds with 1 stone.
The government is too cheap to even properly update its military. What makes you think they’d bother to train these wastes of oxygen short of being clueless meatshields?
@serge. Hardly any training is needed. Any Pinoy with minimal common sense can use a handgun. The most they’ll need is to watch an FPJ film, point and shoot.
1 machine-gun armed Abu bandit will be no match against 100 paltik-armed squatter soldiers in a jungle warfare setting. This will be really low cost on the part of the govt./military. No need to send your best SAF forces.
If you want extra income – have US drones monitor the gladiatorial combat from above. The pay per view show will be like the hunger games – rated M (military personnel viewing only).
Great…now I’m imagining something out of the bloodiest battles of the Eastern Front. “Not one step back,” anyone?
We do not want to commit a National Suicide. We want our Political Leaders, starting from Aquino, to Mar Roxas, to Porky Drillon, to the Swine Belmonte, to amorous De Lima and her driver/lover, etc…to be subjected to euthanasia.
They would do a favor to our country; if they would all commit suicide.
Our country is the Basket Case of Asia: economically, politically and morally. Everything is broken down, since the Aquinos took over. The Systems of government is broken down. The government leadership does not work. Metro Rail is obsolete and broken down. The Biggest Criminals and the most notorious thieves are elected, again and again to high political offices.
Do we deserve what we got?
Yes, because you voted for them!
And this is why China is the best bet for changing the country. Because they have the balls at least to do what needs to be done. We Filipinos like bending the rules. So, get someone who punishes them so the others will eventually learn that bending the rules isn’t smart. After all, a society only works if people follow the rules.
Ok, here’s the scenario if China or Taiwan takes over the Philippines.
We will become part of what is called the China circle. It is feverish region of manufacturing and trade consisting of Taiwan, HongKong, and the coastal provinces of Guandong and Fujian (PRC), hardly able to be controlled by the independent governments.
Since Pinoys will be the lowest cost in labor, factories/assembly plants will flood the country bringing about near zero unemployment rate.
All infrastructure will be upgraded as the Chinese invest heavily for the efficient transfer of goods / raw materials. You will be riding on hi-speed trains connecting Ilocos – Manila – Bicol – Visayan Islands – Davao. New ports will be created. Airports all world class.
PRC will likely allow an independent political structure like in HK to persist (to keep Pinoys happy and feeling like they’re still in charge). We will get new passports that allow visa-free access to many countries.
Crime will drop as jobs rise. Imagine 100x more Henry Sy’s and Ayalas developing the entire country, as the present oligarchy gets dwarfed by Chinese giants.
Best of all – high-speed reliable internet with 24/7 customer service, so you can blog all you want even at the height of a Typhoon.
But as I said – that won’t happen. PINOY PRIDE is the only thing we have left to boast to the world of. We can’t lose that can we?
looks like I better brush up on my Mandarin
“We will get new passports that allow visa-free access to many countries. ”
Sorry, but this bit isn’t gonna happen if the Philippines becomes part of China (at least its sphere of influence) because China isn’t included in the Visa Waiver Program. Everyone is pretty much in the same slow boat of Visa application.
I just looked it up and having a Chinese passport is even worse than a Filipino one. The latter allows visa free access to 60 countries while the former only has 45. Here’s the source:
https://www.henleyglobal.com/files/download/HP/hvri/HP%20Visa%20Restrictions%20Index%20151001.pdf
Just goes to show that being gobbled up by China isn’t all rainbows and butterflies.
Good link there serge. Although HongKong (152) and Taiwan (129) aren’t so bad.
when the Law of Unintended Consequences collides with the Law of Diminishing Returns, there’s a scramble for the remaining seats on the Titanic, but we must remember that women and children come first.
The political landscape appears to be splitting into two large umbrella camps:
Nothing-new-to-offer camp:
Mar-Binay-Poe
Iron-discipline+Change camp:
MDS-BBM-Duterte-Cayetano
Remember, Obama won using the “change” platform. So you can more or less predict what’s going to happen.
Here’s the “Nothing new to offer” camp in a nutshell:
Binay, Poe, Roxas bare poll platforms
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/727917/binay-poe-roxas-bare-poll-platforms
For the other camp, please do the research … it’s past my bedtime already …. need to recharge ….ZZZZzzzzzz
Well the coming 2016 elections won’t be much of a difference. They just add a different flavor this time but it’s still the same old dirty ice cream…
Reforms are difficult, especially when nobody knows what the eff they’re going to do once they hold the damn keyboard to reprogrammed the whole system. A lot of factors also affects the reforms such as the iron bank of the world and the immaculate money fackers. So let’s just sit back relax and enjoy the show. For we can do nothing but watch.
We can locate the capital city over at Camp Iranun, Maguindanao. Lovely spot. http://the-exiled-prince.blogspot.com/2015/04/turning-bangsamoro-region-into-politico.html
Just turn it into a campus style complex. Nothing too extravagant.
Dick, Love the proposal!
Mindanao, the vast typhoon-free land mass, is like a virgin lady in her prime just waiting to be noticed by handsome suitor.
Looks like you and Joe America have it all figured out for Mindanao:
http://joeam.com/2014/09/19/manila-is-to-new-york-as-davao-is-to-los-angeles/
Way to go – Dream big! Think big! Press hard towards the goal! (http://zaxxun.com/creed/)
Next step: Become Pinoy dual-citizens, run for public office, and practice dodging bullets…
https://i.imgur.com/H7w2U.jpg
I think we should also focus on VP bets for 2016 here in GRP. They will be the next in line. We should plan not only for the here and now, not just the next 6 years, but way into the future.
To get the ball rolling, here’s one of them:
http://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/107438-fast-facts-alan-peter-cayetano
I recall Alan was proposing a dual capital city setup some time ago – one in the north and another in the South of Manila. Wonder what happened.
Twin capitals:
Cayetano: Make C. Luzon, Calabarzon next PH capitals
you can add Trillanes (of all people) to that list of vice Presidentiable who wants to relocate the capital.
http://trillanes.com.ph/media/press-releases/trillanes-relocate-national-capital-government-center-to-ease-traffic/
The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.