Monday, April 16, 2007 Severino: Pacquiao and politics By Gil Alfredo Severino Think Economics
POLITICS is not dirty. No society or individuals can survive without it. Frailty and folly of human beings destroyed its magnificence that today's generation has nothing good to say about politics thus relegating the experience of its letters, figures and symbols to the walled classrooms. What makes politics attractive and materially satisfying is when it gets entangled with greed, Filipino literati like Jose Rizal calls it social cancer, economists calls it disequilibrium and the generation X simply calls it "politics". Whatever name is attributed to politics, we forgot that, once, our forefathers spent their precious lives hoping "without seeing the dawn" but that the sun will surely rise. Sometimes, the educational system reminds young learners about lives spent just so this generation can run, speak and dream. It is pitiable; these young learners appeared to be enslaved by the system's inadequacy to articulate the "politics" our forefathers' martyrdom.
I watched your fights, Mr. Pacquiao and followed news stories of your adapted celebrity lifestyle, I must accept watching you with a critical eye but not without reason. The rigors of the celebrity lifestyle can bring unnecessary psychological stress to your wife and children; I can feel it whenever your wife is interviewed on TV. Isolation is quite observable even if she clings to you in this latest Texas match. Even your mother has to be on camera while being manicured (Oh no). It does not look nice but these are your chosen "politics" now and people around you must think of "captives markets" which in reality is a farce. I can be wrong.
Your matches nevertheless fascinate me but my education in sportsmanship is not focus on victory. My discipline is history and boxing tournaments are instruments of diplomacy, I wrote about this many articles ago. I lament the absence of participating nation's leaders symbolic of world brotherhood except the singing of three national anthems and their singers as though competing in vocal solo as well. I lament the presence of Filipino politicians grabbing limelights with you, one of them is our very own Mayor Evelio R. Leonardia whose belt raising is totally symbolic of nothing but irrationality.
Painful of all is your decision to run for Congress. This time I am not alone in condemning such act. Politics is not dirty, you have all the rights to be involved. Our problem is that your decision is simply based on "tulong" (Money?) that does not go into the South Cotabato constituencies. If this is your problem, running for Congress is "Tulong through Legislation" and this makes everything doubly difficult.
The Philippine Legislature since Emilio Aguinaldo does not have any historical precedence in effective poverty alleviation, better still solution. Neither are those politicians around you, definitely not ours here. Who is Mr. Manny Pacquiao to effect change going against great historical forces? If manage properly, you can use your resources, prestige and influence working behind the Barangay networks and the civil society.
You can start from South Cotabato, slowly going national using the same network and continually engaged in matches before your physique succumbs to neurological disorders. Given the right advice, you can develop the politics of lobbying and pressure without being identified to any politician and wage a struggle towards social transformation. In the first place, do you have a clear vision of what social transformation is?
There are speculations that your candidacy is to neutralize Darlene Antonio Custodio. There are a hundred ways to do this without being "booed." We would like to see you honestly earning a college degree, Mr. Paquiao, and develop your concept of social transformation, the "politics" of our forefathers, before anything else. This time I am not mistaken. For questions and comments, please email gil_severino@yahoo.com.®
