The Circus is in Town

It's the campaign season again for the Philippines and you can be sure that the great circus is in town. With a plethora of candidates coming from the local film industry to a bunch of bureaucrats who do not know what they are doing -the campaign period is full of excitement, smear tactics, bad theme songs, and lots of wasted tree trunks. Mix that with a little disappointment from those who knows where this is going and you got a carnival or maybe a fine brew of corruption and pretentiousness.

Corruption, we do not need to elaborate on that. Pretentiousness, well well, the Philippines, a third world country just got an automated voting system from Venezuela. There are so many things that the Philippines cannot afford and automating the elections is one of these things. Talk about being very pretentious. If you've been following the news during Macapagal-Arroyo's first term, the Philippines sent troops to Iraq to help its former lord, the US. The money should have been spent on something that will sustain the country's economy or maybe even fund the already low budget for education in the said country.

This air of pretentiousness can be traced back to the Spanish who ruled the country for over 300 years. It can be seen during both countries' fiestas or festivals -families have to borrow money just to be able to serve food on their table during these celebrations. No one is saying that celebrating is bad but Filipinos should be mindful of the economic situation before spending so much on unimportant things.

The Filipino middle class is intelligent but the rest vote for those who are popular. In fact, through my interaction with Filipinos, they feel that no one is going to get out of this kind of system. Filipinos actually flourish in other parts of the globe but if left in a country like this with a rotten system patterned on the American model (which is inappropriate for the Philippines) only the smart and practical can actually rise above poverty.

Photo Courtesy of PinoyXpression.com