The last quarter of 2012 featured a lot of PNoy and Pinoy chutzpah in the so-called economic growth of 7.1%. Add to that the hype of PSE rankings and sovereign credit ratings upgrades which will allow the PNoy regime to acquire more public debt for government projects that will be awarded to Aquino’s cronies – Ayala, Aboitiz, Lopez, Pangilinan, Sy, and Tan.
WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.
Top it off with the circus of Corona’s impeachment, Sereno’s appointment, the zarzuela of legitimized plunder via the RH Bill, the Sin Tax, and the Pork Barrel and the convenient distractions of trash being peddled as entertainment on ABS-CBN.
Mix it all together – and like Pacquiao falling to the canvas like timber felled by Marquez chainsaw – you have 90 million Filipinos knocked out by joblessness, underemployment, poverty and hunger.
And if that’s not enough – Mindanao’s residents who are already suffering from frequent power outages (no thanks to the Aquino constitution protecting its cronies from competition) – typhoon Pablo comes to town.
There’s a lot of blaming to pass around. The Philippine media has already singled out illegal mining and illegal logging. It begs the question however, why have people resorted to illegal logging and illegal mining? Was it greed? Was it out of desperation of not finding jobs? Was it both? It’s easy to blame the “illegal bogeyman”.
Yet, we gloss over the banana plantations and corporate farms which have felled trees and caused erosion more than any illegal loggers combined. How did these agricultural corporations get big in the first place?
In case people haven’t been watching – the presence of competition and open markets would have provided venues for the growth of alternative industries that would have kept government protected crony corporations from expanding.
Who allowed these economic vampires to be protected in the first place – all in the name of the greater good and misguided Filipino nationalism?
The congressmen who passed the laws which protects cronies, who rape the tax coffers by way of the pork barrel, the sin tax, the CCT subsidy, the import/export controls, the RH bill – have our blessing, we voted for them.
When all is said and done – we need to pick up the pieces and rebuild our lives.
But we ought not just to rebuild our external environment – we also need to rebuild our ways of thinking. We get the government we deserve – we chose them in the first place.
Change does not begin with government – change begins in each individual’s outlook and attitude.
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