Thursday, May 31, 2007 Speak out: Saving our politics By Fr. Roy Cimagala Center for Industrial Technology and enterprise
AFTER going through hell in the last elections, the seemingly only positive lesson to learn and action to take is to hurry and salvage our politics.
Why are we still in the primitive age? We need to modernize, and computerization can help a lot. It can reduce cheating into acceptable and irrelevant levels.
But a lot more is needed: nothing less than individual and collective conversions, a circumcision of the heart. If we don’t start there, no amount of sophistication in our computerization can solve our most shameful problem.
Soon after the elections, there were talk shows assessing the political maturity of the Filipino people. It’s like rubbing it in.
How can there be political maturity when a good sector of our populace are still poor, ignorant, and very vulnerable to be taken advantage of by our almost completely conscienceless politicians? Apathy and cynicism are obvious.
How can there be political maturity when many of our politicians do not even know the true essence and purpose of politics?
For them, it’s just about ego-tripping, whether personal or family.
Or politics for them can just be the field to give full play to their avarice, greed, lust for power, their talent and skills in deception.
How can there be political maturity when many of the elections officials in all levels, from the poorest clerks and watchers up, are just dripping with dishonesty? They cannot even mask it. Their rationalizations and even the very tone of their voice give them away.
And the media, how did it behave? There were many shining moments. Sad to say, there were also many lapses. Partisanship ruled in many instances, not objective and balanced views.
It monitored the events well. But it still needs a lot to learn about how to educate people on politics. There were also many shallow, knee-jerk reactions that were sensationalized and made to scream in the media.
The whole experience approximates the case of a demonic possession urgently needing exorcism. I pity the many good-hearted citizens who tried to help but were swept away by the savage force of our sick electoral system.
Ok, let’s stop lamenting. Let’s just hope that this nightmare be an occasion for everyone to do something drastic to make a change for the better. God always has to come to the picture.
There should be more stable and ongoing initiatives in this regard, not on-the-spot improvisations. Advocacy groups for this purpose should abound.
Church leaders have to do their part in actively evangelizing our people to infuse true Christian spirit in our political exercises.
