Unhappy Marriage

So we're "separating" ourselves from the United States now, whatever that means. You can never tell with Duterte. 

"Separation" is a loaded word. This joke has probably been made before but perhaps he meant it as a lawyer would. We are legally separated from the US. It wasn't an annulment or a divorce. The marriage is still on because the state has an interest in keeping Filipinos miserable together. Thank God for that! 

Does this mean the US still has visitation rights? What about support? Seems we don't want any of their aid. That's an interesting question. Can support be waived? I'm sure a child can't. But the Philippines is all grown up now and doesn't need his white papa telling him what to do. We don't need papa Sam to deal with that Chinese bully on the playground; a bully that happens to have more soldiers, tanks and planes that we can even begin to fathom. They have nukes too but our constitution forbids us from having nuclear weapons. Our moral high ground is unassailable at least.

So what did we get out of Duterte's trip to China. Well, we got some deals of questionable value. It's interesting that we respond to China's saber-rattling by indebting ourselves to them, as if China needed any more leverage. But good news! China just recently gave us permission to fish on our own territory. Isn't that kind of them? Now we're getting contracts from Chinese companies drenched in corruption. It's a perfect fit.

This deal is getting worse all the time.

Pass the Fare Money

It goes without saying that traffic in that hellhole, Manila is downright intolerable. Congress plans to grant the President "emergency powers" to solve what is now considered a national crisis. Right, because Manila's problems are also problems for the rest of us backwoods yokels. 

Autocalypse

In fairness, the traffic situation in Cebu is nearing Manila levels of awful too.

When one uses the term "emergency powers", what comes to mind is usually the image of troops deploying, collapsing buildings, flash floods, typhoons, epidemics etc. It really says a lot that the traffic situation is so horrible that it's considered on the level of a natural calamity, as if people are starving in their cars. Oh, but this is a man-made disaster, don't you forget that. So now Congress wants to undo years of poor planning and/or outright neglect and wants Duterte to cut through the bureaucracy and get things done.

While Congress probably has the ability to grant the President this power, as some legal smart ass can probably look up/cook up one,  there are some genuine concerns. What powers exactly are they giving the President? For how long? How long is this "emergency" going to be and when will it be considered over? Does it cover the entire Philippines or just that cesspit, Manila? What other agencies will be involved, if any? What is the system of accountability in case of abuses? Have you ever noticed that news articles covering this issue are terribly vague about everything?

Unless armed rebels are actually blocking the public roads, it's hard to imagine what the people are honestly expecting the President to do. Has it ever happened in the past that a President was given emergency powers to solve what is basically a municipal issue?

Ah, there it is. Enough questions. It's time to analyze.

Here's a thought: giving emergency powers to the president will not allow something to be done which cannot already be done now without having to give president emergency powers. Really, giving the president these powers will not add anything new to the mix. All it does is pass the buck from the people who are supposed to be in charge of the problem to the president and THAT'S THE POINT of this whole exercise; to pass the buck.

It's not about the traffic.

Nobody wants to admit this but enacting genuine solutions to the traffic problem is going to be painful. For example; the government wants to widen the roads or build a new highway. In a metropolis like Manila, that will require exercising eminent domain which means paying just compensation. You're gonna have to pay the landowners and in some parts of Manila, you might as well be donating your organs too. If the government wants to expand the MRT network, the government is gonna have to spend a lot of money too and government officials (if they're really serious about solving the problem) will be forced to curb their tendency for corruption. Even reclaiming land occupied by squatters to make room for new infrastructure, will be costly and not just in monetary terms if you know what that means. To add to all of this, Metro Manila is composed of many cities so that means the local politicians will have to -ugh- put aside their politicking and work together! L'horreur!

So really, the geniuses in charge don't want to have to deal with this. Decades this problem has simmered and the people and institutions that were supposed to be on top of this just wet the bed. Whether it's a lack of political will, resources or just plain laziness, they don't want to have to get their act together and would rather just let the president tell them what to do. Besides, the president is still popular and can absorb the negative repercussions of the hard decisions that will have to be made. If that doesn't work, he can put on the tough guy act and ram whatever he wants done through. Ladies and gentlemen, if you've ever wondered what's so appealing about a dictatorship, here you go. 

Isn't it ironic that in a time when people are supposedly clamoring for "federalism", they're begging for a centralized response to a problem the local governments are too impotent to fix? Pathetic.

So if anyone talks about the president needing emergency powers to solve the traffic problems, know that that person is an idiot unwittingly engaging in the government's mind games. The talk of emergency powers serves a second purpose. Instead of asking about how we're going to fix the problem, the question now is when are we giving the president emergency powers. Excuse me, powers to do what, again? Oh, see? It's the president now who has to tell us the how of the matter. Not only are they passing the problem to him but also the responsibility to come up with solutions. In the end, the government is still stalling even now!

I want off this ride.

Genius or Idiot?

There are two ways to look at Duterte.

The first way is to look at him is that he is a master politician, a real Machiavellian type. After all, he has thirty years of experience as a Mayor and practiced Law before that as well. Everything he does is tactical and with good reason. The whole lashing out against the international community, America in particular, is just red meat for his supporters. He will bring about genuine change and put the country on the right track politically, socially and economically. Duterte knows the real score and in the end, he will do what's in the best interests of the Philippines.

The second way to look at him is that he really is an idiot. He's a dirty loudmouth who believes his own hype and got elected merely by virtue of the sheer ineptness of the previous administration and the people's hunger for change. He's  a one-trick pony whose only gimmick is summary executions of criminals. He's a no-good leftist who honestly buys into the red propaganda and blames "the West" for all our problems and is putting our standing in the world at risk. It's possible he's an agent or a shill for the Chinese.

Take your pick. You know, life is full of ironies. One of my favorites is that we live in an age when so much information is at our fingertips yet people are still as uninformed as ever. So go with whatever version of reality you want, you idiot. Whatever happens, happens.

Pray reality never rears its ugly head.

Ernesto Nazareth - Brejeiro