MOST of us don’t know or don’t care, or simply ignore because we may be too busy with our own little world, little things, little and simple happiness, that our country is increasingly under the tight grip of military junta in cahoots with big business moguls and local political dynasties; soon everything we do will have to conform with their dictates, wishes and caprices.
In a little over a year, we will go to polls again, be presented with people whom we will mandate to exploit and oppress us and plunder our national resource for another term. The next sets might be worse as we see today more hungry and greedy politicians and officials jockeying for ruling posts.
Meanwhile, the administration’s pursuance of neoliberal policies of deregulation of our economy, the privatization of our vital public utilities like water, power, communications, transportation, the liberalization of our agriculture, the de-nationalization of our national assets and resources to foreign capital, dependence on foreign debts and loans, and ignoring climate change impact and disaster preparedness, will soon bring bigger devastations and hardships to most of us, especially to our children and grandchildren.
In few months, the US president and vice president and their initial line up of Cabinet officials, mostly identified with past US regimes’ brutal policies of borderless wars of aggressions and genocides in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Iran, Central and Latin American countries, Balkan states, Southeast Asia including the Philippines, will resume the escalation of US’ self-imposed role as “policeman and merchant of the world.”
If tensions continue to escalate, and war breaks out between superpowers in our region, our country will be nothing than their battleground.
Even in Negros island, the continued plunder of our remaining frontiers, Mt. Kanlaon National Park (MKNP), the North Negros National Park (NNNP), the mineral ores-rich Damutan Valley in the CHICKS-Oriental areas, and our rich coastal stretches and islets in the south – will soon bring more environmental problems, mass dislocation of our basic sectors, and loss of our social identity and dignity.
Sadly, this bigger picture doesn’t seem to bother most of us.
Most of our officials and politicians don’t seem to be disturbed at all; they seem happy with what they have, what they do, who they associate with, along with their wishes and plans.
The medical community is tied in the fight against Covid, a fight that is obviously wearing them down physically and psychologically, because of so much uncertainty and fluidity that the bigger picture is giving no clues on how and when to end the fight.
Most mainstream media institutions are busy with their usual coverages and advertising projects, with some community services, to keep them profitably sustainable and relevant. Social media networks are busy with theirs as well.
Most civil society organizations, civic clubs, and people’s organizations are too engrossed in their own struggles for survival and social relevance that they could hardly be any better than their counterparts in the government and private sector.
Most of our basic sectors and MSMEs are also unhappy with the realities especially with Covid induced crisis, as one can see and hear those every day and everywhere, but the situation seems still bearable for them to live, or to survive, that any idea of bursting out in protest and for change doesn’t seem so challenging to them, at least for now.
I remember an old story popular in development circles about a frog in a well, who from the bottom sees the world as big only as the mouth of the well. To make the story short, the frog finally was able to get out of the well by internal determination and external factors. Once up, the frog concluded that the world is bigger than the mouth of the well. The frog sees the bigger picture and the smaller reality.
The lesson from the frog in the well is simple and complicated. We need to see the connection between the bigger picture and our micro realities to be able to form a concept of change, the meaning of our existence, a standpoint we have to make, and the tools we have to use to make transformative actions.
When the connection is present, our daily existence for survival and the demand to take part in addressing the bigger picture will no longer have a distinction or dichotomy but a unity that forms as a whole, and our perspective.
Our little actions contribute to changing the bigger picture. We struggle to survive, so we may have more strength and longer life to help change the bigger problems that confront us, individually and as a community.
Whether we live in fear, or for daily existence survival, or just waiting for right the time – will matter no more when we know who we are, what is up for us and the generation after us.