Election Epilogue Ushers in Real Prologue

 

 

 

In its earnest attempt to wrap itself on the relevant issues of the day, my puny mind sizes certain things up this way.  Many of us that do social media regularly, may not really want to aim for changes that will drastically change the landscape of the country, physically, economically, and socially.  Maybe “want” is not the right word, but more along this line, that given our fortunate status in life, it would be difficult for us to fathom the kind of fundamental changes that would be needed to bring about real meaningful reforms in society, governance, and in the economy in general.  So “cannot” is the better operative word.

After all, many of us live lives that can be considered comfortable and affluent enough.  And in any context, it is a difficult choice to try and upset the status quo, with its warts and all.  But truly, our privations in life are not anywhere near the same degree and caliber as the poor in the country, which by any worthy standards number too much.  Not just discerned from cold and hard statistical facts, but by cursory ocular observation around where we live and spend our days.  What the poor suffer are glaringly worse in comparison with the challenges in life that we perceive and imagine.  At times, worlds apart.

 And the poor gather in such great numbers, we can categorize them into different groups. We not only have the sorry multitudes of the very impoverished  poor, but the hardly-visible working poor, and the under-employed poor donning a  false façade of physical respectability and success.

 These great numbers are truly the ones in dire want of real reforms, but whether they are aware of the magnitude and requirements of their needs is another issue. One is not even sure if their numbers know what kind of reforms are necessary to ameliorate their unacceptable situations.  So it will be necessary for us the “enlightened” to lead the way to their “promised land”.  Noblesse Oblige.

And in a rare confluence of events, their numbers are joined by those in the upper echelons of society who are tired of the too-long tried and failed rule of the oligarchic elite.  In their utter frustration and restiveness, they too want change, great and novel change.

All this amidst the entire country enjoying good advances in domestic production and services to give it a justifiable claim as a surging tiger economy trailing the  hot heels of progress and development. Except that in micro-economic levels these good stuff do not trickle down any lower than maybe the upper 5% of the population, giving it a very bad case of very uneven and lopsided distribution of wealth and gaping income inequality.

The preponderance of rhetoric and issues in this election then centered around and about that crappy and unrefined outlier, but who was one perceived as divorced from anything and anybody connected with the lamented status quo.

 Maybe it is time to stop paying lip service to that old Magsaysay adage many politicians like to quote in times of wakeful reverie, which shiningly declares that one who has less in life should have more in law.  First to understand what it means, and next how best to make it reality.