In review and in prospect
Pork is here to stay. Politicians see pork “commissions” as the whole point of “public service”. Voters see pork as their ticket to easy money. The business community rely on the commerce stimulated by pork to prop up their five-year business plans. In short, Filipinos are stuck with pork because pork is at the centre of a win-win triangle linking public officials, business taipans, and Pinoy voters in a lucrative pyramid of social dysfunction.
The only way to break that triangle is to yank the pork out from within it. How do we do that? Well, saying “Please Mr Politician, could you find it in your little black heart to do the right thing?” certainly will not work. Millions of pesos at stake is worth the little black stain in their consciences. Asking voters to vote wisely has a poor track record of delivering results. And, yes, asking the business community to throw their resources behind a movement to “scrap pork” has proven futile as the average Ayala Avenue rallyist had long ago discovered.
Where do we go from here then?
Parenting is not a popularity contest and parents who try to be “buddies” with their kids are pretty much setting them up for a life of chronic failure. So if activists want to pitch an unpopular but right solution to a country spoiled-rotten on a diet of democracy candy like the Philippines, they cannot use methods that require popular support — certainly rallies whose success is measured by crowd numbers can only go nowhere.
So we have to find a better approach to activism and put a stop to the same old costumed clowning around, idiotic poetry, emo appeals, religious diarrhoea, and social media triumphalist posturing that traditional “activist” leaders are so hung up on. In fact, perhaps it is high time a new generation of activist leaders whose minds are not imprisoned by 1970’s populist commie rhetoric and 1980’s and 1990’s “people power” telenovela melodrama to step up and replace the Old Guard.
Last week's blog posts
The Philippines as the Pariah in ASEAN
January 20, 2024 by Ramon Ortoll
"So far, the Philippines has not received much except investment pledges from America and a renewed commitment from the US Millennium Challenge Corp. which is the State Department conduit for the US Agency for International Development."