The Funny Thing About Cha-Cha...
It's painfully obvious that GMA is looking for a quiet way to slip into the night, and thereby avoid future challenges to the legitimacy of her mandate, by revamping the entire system of government. While her motives are entirely self-serving, one cannot help but wonder: is it possible she has the right idea after all?
My family and I live in an old house, which was built in the sixties (or perhaps earlier), in a subdivision which seems highly prone to termite infestations. This house will not last much longer than ten or twenty years from now, because by then the termites will have eaten through most of the major load-bearing wooden structures, and it will collapse under its own weight. It is impossible to treat the house for termites, because they have had too long a time to entrench themselves and their queen is stashed several feet beneath the structure.
What, therefore, is the solution? Well, according to the architect commissioned by my cousin, who plans to build his house on this very lot next year, the solution is to tear the house down, dig up the foundations of this house, and obliterate the infestation. This operation involves digging very, very deep.
Looking around, I see infestations everywhere, and not just in the system of government. Bad attitudes and habits which have been years in the making have become second nature to many people, like people crossing the street scant feet away from pedestrian overpasses, or tricycles driving the wrong way down one way streets, to name a few examples, not to mention the corruption which many people appear to have accepted as a way of life here.
Although I don't think Cha-cha will bring about any real change in the way things are run around here, I think that its philosophy of rebuilding our social structures from the ground up is something which we should think about long and hard.
We thought we were shifting social paradigms when we took out Marcos twenty years ago, but it turned out all we were doing was shifting the power from one entrenched elite to another. At the very least, the people at large recognize that by deposing GMA and installing Escudero or Susan Roces or whoever the hell else the opposition want to push (and apparently, they aren't really pushing anyone anymore), they'll be doing more of the same; that is, just rotating crooked politicians, without setting the stage for any real, lasting change.
Something fundamental has to take place, something that shakes this country to the very foundations of its being, that will inspire that change. I don't really know what it form it should take, but there's no denying that it's what has to happen. Let the intelligentsia and the social movers and shakers ponder over it for awhile, though they probably shouldn't take too long.
Or else this country could collapse under the weight of its own stupidity someday.
My family and I live in an old house, which was built in the sixties (or perhaps earlier), in a subdivision which seems highly prone to termite infestations. This house will not last much longer than ten or twenty years from now, because by then the termites will have eaten through most of the major load-bearing wooden structures, and it will collapse under its own weight. It is impossible to treat the house for termites, because they have had too long a time to entrench themselves and their queen is stashed several feet beneath the structure.
What, therefore, is the solution? Well, according to the architect commissioned by my cousin, who plans to build his house on this very lot next year, the solution is to tear the house down, dig up the foundations of this house, and obliterate the infestation. This operation involves digging very, very deep.
Looking around, I see infestations everywhere, and not just in the system of government. Bad attitudes and habits which have been years in the making have become second nature to many people, like people crossing the street scant feet away from pedestrian overpasses, or tricycles driving the wrong way down one way streets, to name a few examples, not to mention the corruption which many people appear to have accepted as a way of life here.
Although I don't think Cha-cha will bring about any real change in the way things are run around here, I think that its philosophy of rebuilding our social structures from the ground up is something which we should think about long and hard.
We thought we were shifting social paradigms when we took out Marcos twenty years ago, but it turned out all we were doing was shifting the power from one entrenched elite to another. At the very least, the people at large recognize that by deposing GMA and installing Escudero or Susan Roces or whoever the hell else the opposition want to push (and apparently, they aren't really pushing anyone anymore), they'll be doing more of the same; that is, just rotating crooked politicians, without setting the stage for any real, lasting change.
Something fundamental has to take place, something that shakes this country to the very foundations of its being, that will inspire that change. I don't really know what it form it should take, but there's no denying that it's what has to happen. Let the intelligentsia and the social movers and shakers ponder over it for awhile, though they probably shouldn't take too long.
Or else this country could collapse under the weight of its own stupidity someday.
posted by Jim Arroyo at 12:30 PM
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