Saturday, April 23, 2011

EVIL IN MODERN PHILIPPINE TIMES

When Pilar Pilapil, former beauty queen was hacked and left for dead by criminals in an isolated area in Antipolo, and then rescued by kindhearted individuals whom she had approached after the incident, her description of her attackers was classic. She was assaulted by devils.

Now some quarters have asked why use the word, devil, instead of criminals? Her background was unearthed and she was found out to be very spiritual, married to a pastor and has been active in many undertakings related to spiritual upliftment.

But is it simply thus, that she would describe her enemies as devils? Why should she not use that word at all, devils or evil?

In our times, we seem to gloat on the fact that we are well read, that our vocabulary, our social consciousness is so deep that we can analyze to death any issue from a philosophical or sociological perspective and come out erudite. But no, no longer at this time when there are drugs that make the mind convoluted.

That's it, the attackers of Pilar could have been drug-induced and so they could use all kinds of murderous methods to kill life. And those drugs destroy the brain cells to make the human less human, or probably to make the human beastly, no longer thinking, caring or humane.

And so with those drugs, the word devil, and its real character has surfaced in our era because of those drugs that cause hallucinations, murderous thoughts, and unleash inhibitions to make the individual feel all powerful over his or her reality and over other people.

Why not call any murder an evil act? After all, if we believe that life is God-given, then we must also accept that evil, the devil, still exists among us. Why for are there greedy people, who would destroy our legal institutions just so they could pockets millions of dollars, not pesos, but dollars?

I am sure those people are taking drugs that make then crave for more and more material things so that their lust for wealth becomes insatiable. And that's a pity nowadays.

Instead of focussing on what are evil acts in our country, the Catholic Church chooses to debate and earn enemies by concentrating on the Reproductive Health bill, which only pertains to the unborn. Why could they not focus on the real crimes against the soul, against humanity, against those who kill people and dreams of a better life?

We should not make the devil so powerful in our land that we could no longer distinguish between good and evil. Evil should not be allowed to exist, persist, especially in the higher echelons of power.

To cite an instance, I have been asking for water connection to my condo units since October. The barangay denied they have the power to make the governor of the building connect the water line. Then I went to the Department of Interior and Local Government and from the public information unit my request was farmed out to the legal office which then assigned it to the trial division whose officer then asked me to appear there. I asked what for? To massage their egoes again? I had gone there three times already, and even typed my legal arguments for my request, that water is a BASIC RIGHT. But the lawyer insisted that I go there.
And so I called up the office of Secretary Robredo for intervention. Now, I have been told to wait for a reply from the Undersecretary.

How would you call this? Is this humane at all, to be denied water? Why doesn't the governor provide water to my unit? The governor told me that I owe them something like 4 thousand since many years back, when actually I had not lived there since 2002, simply because some residents there made my stay untenable. Unscrupulous individuals entered my unit to pilfer my articles in the computer, to steal the locks, to make me feel unsafe, and this was at the time I was writing for the Philippine Post about the unconstitutionality of deposing Erap, for Manila Times Kabayan when I was writing against the invasion of Iraq and my preference for FPJ who had his heart in the right place.

I had to leave the place, as I was living alone there, because as a writer, I felt very much unsafe with my life, my things, my writings. On top of that, I was writing my dissertation.

How else could we describe those intruders except as devils out to make life hellish for me in the name of gross power so that the political leaders at the time could insure their hold on the people's coffers?

Of course, I refuse to pay condominium association fees when there was only a loose organization headed by someone then with a convoluted sense of power and who could not insure my safe there. And so to day, I have used all legal arguments to make my case: that my unit deserves a water connection if only to make me reside there humanely. Hopefully, the new governor under a newly registered organization will be able to see the light and finally give me the water connection that I need.

Maybe it is time to resurrect the word "evil" and "devils" so that we could be clearer on what we are up against in our society. We have been mincing our words too much, thus failing to provide accurate solutions to our problems.

Words are important in understanding how our realities become so, and thus allow us to act accordingly. They provide us with images, and meaning that will give us the imopetus to act on our lot with dispatch or to wait for sometime meditating on how to act to effect our desired ends.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

WHERE SHOULD TAXES GO?

I have not heard anyone talk nicely about taxes. It seems human beings have always rejected the idea of paying the government money for governing. But taxes are really the ones that could propel a country to prosperity. Without taxes, how can a government, local or national function? I remember when I was in London, my friends hated paying taxes. It was really atrocious, but then we could see where the money was going. London is a top attraction to tourists because the city is well planned, no telephone and electric cables running haywire; most of the streets are clean, the huge buildings some of which date back to the medieval ages are well taken care of, cleaned up to make them look light gray or white as the pollution from the factories tend to blacken their walls. Then of course, bus is cheap and reliable, and does not emit pollutants. Also, London has those public baths, hot baths where for something like 120 pesos way back in the 80’s one could have a good relaxing moment there. But the greatest come-on of London are the theatres which have running shows at the West End, daily. And if you come late to the show, you could get in for a discount.

That is how taxes are spent. But here in our country, where do we find big time returns from our taxes? Nada, nada, nada. When we go out of our homes, what we see are hundreds and thousands of electric wires where birds have a neat time swinging about. When a huge truck passes by and its roof gets entangled with them we would find ourselves negotiating the street where this happens, with great caution as we could get electrocuted. The barangay cleaners hardly clean, or they clean only those streets which they like to.

What about Manila? Manila, the shining city of the Spanish era is terribly abhorrent. The streets are dirty, with pedestrians just throwing their cigarette butts, plastic and foil empty packs around. I would even question now if Mayor Alfredo Lim ever walks through the Manila streets at all.

My dentist, Dr. Hao showed me pictures of her sojourn in Vigan where she conducted a medical mission with other doctors under her evangelical church. My goodness, I was really amazed to see the pictures because the location was a street where nary a piece of white paper or garbage was lying about. That Vigan street where they posed was truly clean, and with the beautiful background of old houses dating to the Spanish era. It is really well-kept. Now compare that with the Balic-Balic and Legarda streets where you could still find the same architecture of houses. Zero, man. Getting off to walk through those streets you would feel as if you could catch tetanus or TB.

I really think now that taxes should have a caveat. Okay, we will pay taxes when we shall get good plans and programs for our country. Taxation should be connected to what the government will do with it, not just a ritual of paying.sums of money, no matter how big or small. Yes, that’s it. We should move the tax period to that time after the government has given us its blueprint for what it will do for a year. By doing so, we would feel confident and sure that it would be performing its functions well and then we could also get back at it should it not perform according to what it had planned.

Now with regard to paying taxes correctly, I do think many of our businesses are willing to pay their correct taxes. The problem is that the oil prices, the major anti-business factor, keep going up, thereby making the pricing of their products and services go gaga all the time; worse, the government looks helpless about this. I recall that former Representative Enrique Garcia of Bataan has a plan to topple the oil cartel in this country,. He wants the government to buy the oil itself from the oil producing governments abroad and then sell it to the different companies here for refining. In this manner, all the prices of oil could be measured if they are based on normal pricing. Now what happened to his idea? Nada, nada, nada. Again.

Truly now, how could the Philippine government expect the people to be good citizens, to pay our taxes promptly, and dutifully when the very basic problem is not being addressed, and that is the skyrocketing oil prices? I think that PNoy and his cabinet have to really sit down with Mr. Garcia now and map out a strategy on how to carry out his plan to make the oil companies truly serve the needs of the Filipino people.

I have been reading the problems of some affluent foreign countries in raising taxes among the rich sectors of the country and I wonder greatly why that could really be a big problem. I think that would stem from the lack of visible poverty-stricken areas. Their media could be partly to blame, I guess. The newspapers and television hardly carry those scenes. Most of the time, they just depict the debates, the rational perspectives in looking at their problems. If ever there would be such scenes at all, usually they are situated somewhere out there in Africa, or southeast Asia, and not really within their perimeter. The normal reaction to that of course is to shun poverty and say, “Thank God it is not happening to us.” But is that being a Christian?

That’s it. A news report said that many churches in the west have been desanctified simply because people do not go to worship anymore. And in a place where godlessness prevails it is very easy to close our eyes to the next door neighbor and say “That’s his problem, not mine.” Yesterday, I was appalled to watch on an NBC TV news how in New York, a mother of three children in her twenties drove down the Hudson river, eight feet below. Her son survived by opening the car window and swimming out He said that his mother tried going to the driver’s seat to reverse the happening and said, “Oh my God, I made a mistake.”

All morning, I could not erase the images of that report from my mind. I really felt numb because it could have happened here as well. The children were beautiful and I could not understand how the mother could possibly prefer an afterlife to the life now.

Here is where a need exists for leaders to be inspiring for people to live. They should make the people understand that “We are in this together,” not the officials saying, “I am just doing my job, and that is fiscalizing.” No, a leader must show that every act, every step of his or her is geared towards enhancing the lives of the people, towards making them feel that this country, or this planet is ours to live in, to prosper in, and to protect in order that we would also be happy.

Yes, it all boils down to that. Everyone could be happy. Or that should be the goal of governance – the people’s happiness, not just of a few. Now, is that too much to ask?