I find it interesting that Filipinos are so shocked about how 2020 was such a “shit” year. While it is true that the Philippines is one amongst the worst sufferers of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the country coped badly. After all, we are talking about a people who get hit by typhoons and heavy monsoon rains year in and year out yet continue to fail to prepare for and respond to these climatic events as a matter of national routine. What more a global pandemic, right?
Consider too that Filipinos haven’t historically shown exceptional ability to capitalise on opportunities either. We dropped the ball after coming out of World War II with one of the most promising economies in the region and pretty much missed out on the high-growth “Asian Tiger” era of the 1970s through the 1980s that catapulted many of our peers in east- and southeast-Asia to “newly-industrialised country” (NIC) status. Most important of all, a so-called “revolution” that supposedly “freed” Filipinos from “tyranny” in 1986 failed to deliver on what had turned out to be a dishonest over-promise to an entire people made by its communist-allied instigators.
Filipinos are evidently collectively neither good at solving acute problems nor seizing rare opportunities to prosper. As such, one is led to question what exactly these Snowflakes of Manila are whining about as they reflect on the year everyone is eager to see the end of. As I’ve long asserted, the evidence is strong that the solutions to the Philippines’ ills don’t lie in politics. The Philippines’ problems are very likely profoundly cultural in nature. You can’t change culture using a system that interrupts focus on long-term strategic initiatives every six years with expensive “democratic” circuses. When one considers this bigger and deeper scheme of things, it becomes easy to see just how lame the petty partisanism that characterises Philippine “democracy” is. It is an exercise that knows nothing beyond politicising issues of national consequence.
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For that matter, what is the New Year but an ephemeral figment of human civilisation that means nothing to the rest of the planet’s “non-human” biomass? The coronavirus won’t look back to 2020 and reflect on its evolutionary triumph then rest on its laurels. It will continue to do the one job Mother Nature demands of all forms of life (or proto life forms such as viruses) that inhabit this planet — find new ways to ensure the continued propagation of its DNA pattern (and its variants).
Science may be the only human endeavour that might pose a challenge to all that nature throws at us, but one thing’s for sure, politics won’t save the day — specially for a people who know nothing but politics. The fact is, Filipinos can’t do science if their life depended on it. If there’s one thing 2020 proved about the Philippines, that would be it. Scroll through the whinery that is the Philippines’ social media chatter and all you will find is an overwhelmingly political regard for COVID-19. The Vaccine is just another one of those foreign goodies that members of Filipino victimdom will be clambering over one another to acquire as a matter of individual (or clan) private enterprise — a fancy English translation for the all-too-familiar kanya-kanya culture Filipinos are renowned for.
And that, folks, is my fearless forecast for 2021. The Year 2021 will be the year of The Geat Filipino Scramble for the COVID-19 vaccine. While people of the advanced world will quietly queue in an orderly manner for their turn, Filipinos will likely lie, cheat, pull strings, grovel, and kill one another to get their hands on it. Perhaps Filipinos will one day turn that approach to getting what they want into a science. For now it makes for a good show and good fodder for social media chatter. Are you not entertained? The answer to that question depends on what side of the social equation you sit.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Pinoys fell in lock step with Duterte’s ccp virus policies. No mass protests due to lack of critical thinking.
If it’s a zombie virus, how would they distribute the vaccine?
And what make matters worse is that the President has become too desperately entitled (“Ang kanila lang kasi ay iyong Visiting Forces Agreement, matatapos na. Ngayon, ‘pag hindi ako pumayag, aalis talaga sila.Kung hindi sila maka-deliver ng maski na lang a minimum of 20 million vaccines, ah they better get out. No vaccine, no stay here.”) that he even needed to threaten the Americans on the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) as a bargaining tool in exchange for the Pfizer vaccines. To be fair, the President only thinks of the national interest. But this sort of combative, even though selective, diplomatic approach only highlights our collective National and Third World entitlement.
20 million vaccines is not comparable to the VFA agreement. Third world classification and entitlement have no relevance.
We have the “Culture” of electing, idiotic people, who knows nothing, but enrich themselves, while they are in power. We have the “Culture of Corruption”, done by our politicians. Look at how many, are multi millionaires in our politicians, who are in the Senate and Congress.
These politicians, were not millionaires, when they were still ordinary citizens. Once, they are elected in public office; they become millionaires. The “Pork Barrel Fund System” is one of the sources of corruption. They also receive, money in the form of “lagay” from corporate businesses, to advance their business agendas, and to prosper their businesses.
We must remove/ban these, commies, like : Zarate, Elago, Culiamat, etc…from our Legislative assembly. These commies, get the money, from the Pork Barrel Funds, to finance the Communist Party of the Philippines, and the New Peoples’ Army…
These commies, were placed there by their commie supporter: Cory Aquino, to accommodate them, and finance the insurgency. The Aquinos are known commie supporters.
Unless, we prosecute/remove these: crooks, thieves and “do nothing people” who are in the Senate and Congress…nothing will change in this country !!!
Skipping out on the vaccine. I am not taking a shot until I can determine that this is not a Dengvaxia case all over again.
Can’t blame you on that. In a world where healthcare wasn’t a priority then now they rollout vaccines for “protection”. I’m not against vaccines but there’ some good amount of BS in that.