Coward

Almost everyone has said their piece on the whole hostage crisis where several Chinese from Hong Kong died. I grew irritated upon reading about how citizens of Hong Kong are holding rallies and demonstrations demanding justice from the Philippine government. "What a bunch of whiners." I thought. "If they want justice from the Philippine government, they should get in line with the rest of us." I snort to myself. But upon further reflection on the whole damn thing, I came to the stunning realization of a depressing truth. The truth is that it is us, the Filipino people, who should be rallying against our government not them.

I thought about it. Supposing I was in a life or death situation and my life depended entirely on the Philippine government, I would think it better to make peace and get ready for death. No offense, if the government somehow saves me, I'd appreciate it but my point is, like many people, I have grown cynical with my own government. It is generally accepted that the government is incompetent at best and corrupt at worst. This has led to us simply shrugging our shoulders and simply taking all the bullshit that government throws at us.

For example, in this city, occasionally people are shot and killed by masked men on motorcycles. These masked men are thought to be vigilantes or contract killers. It doesn't happen every day but it happens often enough. How do we react? Nothing. Nobody talks about it hell, even the former mayor was a rumored to support vigilante killings. He certainly wasn't against it and neither were we. Where was the outrage? Sure, some lawyers and human rights groups whined about it but generally nothing. Has society decayed so much that we don't find anything unusual at all about people being murdered in the streets and the perpetrators easily eluding justice? "That's just the way it is." shrugs some. No, that's not the way it should be. The point I'm making here is that we have become so used to the incompetence and the evils of our government that it would seem we have given up. Not all of people of course, but I don't see even half the amount of effort shown by the Chinese here in my country.

The truth is that it wasn't annoyance I felt towards the Chinese but envy. I envied them. I envied how motivated they were in voicing their grievances even to a foreign government. I wish we had that mentality. I wish that we would actually realize that killing people without trial is not how any society should carry itself and that people being killed in gangland style hits shouldn't be a common occurence. I wish we weren't so cynical and jaded and still believe in people power. But no. We seem totally satisfied wallowing in our own filth. It's our own filth because it is our government meaning it's our fault it's like this. We don't have an activist spirit nowadays but we used to I believe.

I must admit, I too am a cynical and jaded person especially concerning government. I joke about it on my blog and even take some misguided pride in it. But if I may be serious for a moment and assess my true feelings, I realize I am a coward. I am a coward who likes to pretend he's above it all. To be honest, I really don't like things the way the are. I wish I could do something, anything, but I feel the same powerlessness that many others feel. What could I possibly do? I'm just one guy. To take offense at every injustice, at every miscarriage of government's sacred duty to it's people would drive any person mad. So I hide it behind a veneer of indifference and apathy. That's how I cope but I am not proud.

Good for the Chinese. I applaud them for taking the Philippine government to task even when it's own citizens won't.

What happens when you cede the battlefield to the enemy?