The more I listen to the radio, the more I read the papers, the more I watch television these days, the more I want to pack my luggage and leave Manila. It has gotten to the point where I am willing to overlook the virtue of patriotism I have always kept and just cut it cool. I don't care if I end up in some place whose language would take my lifetime to learn. I don't even give a damn if I'd start out washing cars, bagging grocery items, cleaning toilet bowls, or even dancing in the nude.
I am sick and tired of all politicians, specifically congressmen and senators, who go around the town and masquerade as the chosen and enlightened lot but whose idea of public service is as twisted as their logic. I closed my eyes in shame and rage three years ago as the country suffered international embarrassment in the form of Erap's grossly inefficient and corrupt government. I clenched my fist so hard as one Japanese television reporter interviewed me on camera and asked me why I was out there in the streets at the scorching heat of the sun. I ended my piece several sentences later and said, Enough of this nightmare. I don't like to be ruled this way.
Some remorseless remnants of the disgraced Erap are on the loose again. They have been egging another actor, incidentally Erap's best pal, to run for president in the national elections barely seven months from now. It seems that politics in the Philippines has gone so inconceivably archaic they think popularity actually translates to expertise in governance. This move to root for another actor to wrest control of Malacanang is so bereft of sanity and reason that it makes you puke.
I used to be so idealistic that I wanted to work in government or at least do something related to public or social service. I did that when I was 23 years old when I went back to my hometown to "give back Caesar what is due Caesar's." I am afraid I have to swallow a bitter reality pill in the coming months and rationalize that I can still serve my country even if I'm across the globe.
I think that's sad. That's another good worker lost, good heart wounded, and good soul ruined, possibly for life.
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