“DEMOCRACY is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.”--George Bernard Shaw
“He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”--George Bernard Shaw
It is not hard to imagine what prompted the eminent Irish playwright and political activist to make these cynical remarks because the same can be said about our politicians and their politics in the country today. We deserve no better governance because we insist on electing career politicians who know nothing but think they know everything.
They think they know everything and insist on exclusively deciding what is good for the country and what is not. Unfortunately they lack a political philosophy and corresponding program of government that might respond to the nation’s needs. Hence, all they do is incessantly maneuver for positions of power for the benefit of their families.
Recent events in the House and Senate illustrated this rather starkly.
Traditional congressmen did not like Speaker Alvarez’s no-el stand. Hence, they plotted his ouster the better for them to position themselves for a win in the coming elections. Because the people’s welfare was farthest from their minds they had no qualms delaying and jeopardizing the passage of the Bangsamoro Organic Law. They thought nothing of disrespecting the President and the nation’s guests at his SONA.
Then an also know-nothing-yet-all-knowing Senate was quick to find in the speakership of Gloria Arroyo a stupid excuse for opposing charter change or federalism. As expected from people of their stature, they ought to oppose or favor federalism on the basis of what they think will be good or bad for the nation. But no, they oppose it because they know (all-knowing right?) that Gloria Arroyo is gunning to be the Prime Minister.
They must think we are such political idiots as to let them get away with a self-serving political reason to oppose federalism. The truth is they oppose federalism because Senators elected at large do not have a meaningful place in the representative democracy of a federal form of government.
They represent neither a sector nor a region. Speaking, therefore, for themselves, they oppose federalism because they stand to lose the glory, prestige, wealth and power of their good-for-grandstanding-only positions in the unitary form of government.
That is why we should reject a federal constitution, as finally drafted by whoever, that lacks the essential (to representative democracy) provisions of genuine political parties and proportionate representation. Otherwise, we will continue to be governed as we deserve by people who “know nothing” but think “they know everything.”