Lines [Pet Peeves]

Credit: Nothing To Do With Arbroath

With exceptions for the elderly, pregnant, and the disabled, I get annoyed by people cutting in line. Earlier today, I fell in line to buy lottery tickets (don't ask me for lucky numbers - the most I got correct was 3). I actually took a bit of time to fix the line somewhat because it wasn't immediately clear where the end was, but everyone in front of me were pleasant, and we even made small banter about hoping some luck fall our way.

So far, so good. As soon as the guy in front of me finished buying his ticket, some jerk of a lady suddenly slid her lottery picks in front of me, and the sales clerk, who just turned around after putting the previous guy's money in the cash drawer, mistakenly took the jerk's ticket, thinking it was mine and started to process it.

Country =/= Corporation (Among Other Things)

I actually have no idea what photo to put here, so I settled for
something related to comments. (Credit: AttorneyMarketingProfits.com)

I promised a friend that I'd expound on a general thought I commented on a Facebook post of hers. She originally shared a post from some other guy (see here) where the latter was pretty fed up about how Filipinos were becoming belligerent and disrespectful with their complaints and suggestions, not to mention how they seemed to know better than the president (more on this later). He offered up an analogy in doing so, painting a picture of a company wherein the hypothetical president said the same Aquino catchphrase "kayo ang boss ko" and was now subject to suggestions from every worker under him.

The analogy falls flat for me. In trying to make the scenario more accessible to the poster's audience (I think), he oversimplifies, if not misses, the relationship between a democratic country's government and its citizens.

My Sole Bit About The Elections

There is no salvation in these elections. For sure, there are good candidates, but no salvation. I say this because for all the talk (or the lack thereof, looking at some candidate's track record with debates) about which candidate will bring the country true change, the elephant in the room (a mammoth, even) is that Filipinos themselves do not want to change.

We can have candidates composed of a selection of cloned Mahatma Ghandis, Winston Churchills, Abe Lincolns, Lee Kuan Yews, or whoever passes as a great leader, and we'd still have the same third world country we have now. Why? Because none of those names have surname cachet to Filipinos. We'd rather have tired old familiar names littering our government offices than people with real vision, a proven past performance record, and actually engages people in discussion over issues instead of song and dance.

Hence the surveys showing candidates who hardly have any platform to show for being firmly ensconced in the magic 12.


We blame the government for doing nothing, but we're the ones who wanted that government in the first place. We voted for those people. We fill up the rank-and-file positions in government. We only have ourselves to blame as even with ever-increasing PSE indices and investment-grade ratings, only a small percent of society (and they're already rich to begin with) will ever feel an uptick in their quality of living.

It seems as if we're stuck in a perpetual Homer Simpson-esque train of thought, which goes something like this:

Is it an educational deficiency which leads Filipinos to resort to the same pattern over and over again, ad infinitum? I hope so, if only so that there's still a chance to amend things by improving the educational system. But seriously. If I touch an open flame, I get burnt. Will I do it again? Er, no. It's not rocket science, it's plain common sense. I don't think I'll ever understand why it is so hard for Filipinos to translate the same basic common sense with their voting patterns.

When you go out to vote, vote on issues, vote on platforms, vote on previous track records and performances. Government positions should never be a birthright and should be earned, not granted.

We can't have change if we ourselves can't change. If we can't understand that basic principle, we'll forever be stuck in third-world lethargy, no matter how many millions we get in investment monies and remittances.