One Step Forward, One Step Back

A sudden downpour marked the end of summer and the arrival of a new set of things to complain about. The time came to stop whining about the intolerable heat and to start whining about the unbearable rain. It rained for only thirty minutes yet downtown, and other parts of Cebu, were flooded. You would think a tropical country would have figured out a way to prevent this from happening. The flood was bad enough that it made front page news. 

I feel like I've been complaining about the flooding problem since forever. It's like Alzheimer's. Every year, the political discourse turns to the issue of flooding and how we should fix the problem. Once the season is over, it is conveniently forgotten by the people in charge. Nothing is really fixed. When the rainy season rolls around again, it's the same thing again. It's a rerun. It's a tired joke that's overstayed its welcome.

But thinking about it, the problem of flooding is never going to be fixed regardless of the yearly rituals of moaning and promises. It's not because our leaders are forgetful or that there's some malice involved. The reason why things like this are never fixed is because the system is so designed against long-term planning and sustained efforts - both are necessary to solve the problem. 

Every few years we elect a new set of clowns into office. What happens to the government programs advocated by the previous set is a a toss-up. If the new rulers were rivals of the last ones, then the programs would most likely be scrapped. All the efforts of their predecessors would be scrapped or, if we're lucky, simply forgotten and left to die a slow death from lack of funding. It's even worse since the people who succeed in politics are all sociopaths by necessity. Especially terrible sociopaths take great glee in tearing down the works of their hated enemies, the people be damned.

What's worse is that due to the shaky nature of our system, the planning of our leaders tend to end at the point of the next election cycle. Long-term planning is unreasonable when you could be gone the next time the cacophonous circus of the next election season rolls around. Thus, the citizenry are doomed to suffer half-assed efforts, and stop-and-start torture.

So the problems persist. This is why I'm not so optimistic about El Jefe's drug war. In 2022, when (or if) Duterte steps down, what happens to his campaign against drugs? Drug trafficking is a constant evil which will outlive all of us. The drug problem will most likely return. There's no guarantee that Duterte's successor, even if he/she be a named "heir", will continue the fight or enjoy the same kind of support which allowed the tolerance of Duterte's methods. What if a rival wins? Then everything would just stop, wouldn't it? We'd all just forget and then whine about the newest knee-jerk "problem" the media decides for the day. Duterte could kill a tens of thousands of the "bad guys" and it wouldn't matter in the long run, the system makes sure of that.

It's all so tiring.