When Leaders Are Exposed as Uncouth and Unrefined

It saddens me, as I am sure many others are, to listen to our Dear Leader so uncouth and unrefined, so careless and inarticulate, in public pronouncements about subjects that require deliberate circumspection and careful preparation.  Stray and confused words that many of us still believe are so diametrically alien to what he holds dear and valuable in his heart.  But why utter them?

After a while, one is hard-pressed to even listen to him speak in public, which most times have become excruciatingly painful and grating to one’s social sensibilities and perceived rectitude.

It seems like a curse has been injected in our midst, after having been blest with a very rare opportunity to choose a leader that for once could make the country move forward after countless years of wallowing in the ugly morass of its own making.  His unabashed and transparent records had enlightened enough of us to anoint him as our leader.

 It seems like we have been dealt with a two-faced coin, though fused as one but estranged by a dichotomy of extremes.  A flawed leader no doubt, but with a great harbinger of a promise to bring peace and prosperity to a troubled nation. 

 But added to boot and to bedevil, a speaking style that is so out of this world.  A worrisome style not only of enunciation but of a convoluted manner of weaving words and ideas that run counter to the reservoir of social niceties and moral rectitude which we assume as in possession of our high elected public officials.

The economic and political gains, both domestically and globally. have been noteworthy by the reckoning of many.   But the heated rhetoric from his detractors have gone off the rails.  One has not before been witness to such venom and ferocity from some sectors of our society.

From all this radioactivity, where can we find shelter?  Can we take refuge in the argument that we ought to judge based on results rather than the dizzyingly vacuous and unkind words of a president who in public speeches appears to sleepwalk?

Maybe we can by finding cause in an obtuse way, with another person who was also such a controversial and divisive personality.  His life and claims as  judged by a slew of temporal judges from Annas, Caiphas, Herod to Judas and the rest of the people themselves had been  condemned as blasphemous and worthy of execution. 

Christ justified and redeemed all that he did in life and more by a result that proved most everybody wrong, including those most close to him.  He rose from the dead.

What is in store for us?

In life, the belief is that nothing comes in neat bundles. Everything comes as a pesky menagerie of good and bad. Asking us to take the good with the bad, or vice-versa.

Apart from being just pure bluster, I cannot see how this particular wishful statement of his could stand on its own. To me, this is yet another haphazard attempt on his part to portray his good intentions, which I personally do not doubt.

But how could anybody wishing and consigning himself to hell, have any direct part or hand in helping other people gain paradise? Ill-will and ill intentions could not produce goodness. Barren land cannot grow anything good.

Thus, a statement that could never be or happen. Delivered simply for effect.

Unless, by hell he meant taking on the sufferings of his people, and thus could be a “living hell” as we are wont to hear said by people. Thus, simply as hyperbole.

Sad to note that the president is of our generation, though age-wise we are a bit older, but I am hard-pressed to understand where he is coming from with his ideas and the ways he represents them.

Even his manner of speaking is quite different from ours. And we grant that he too was educated similarly with us having gone to Jesuit schools.

Rummaging through his rambling statements on Theology, one concept stands out for me as reminiscent of our early years in school.

In our representation of a God, we no doubt invests that Being with human or earthly qualities, like having feelings (so, can be insulted or mocked), having a body and a face, etc. And we understand that doing that reduces and limits God.

That we ought to go back to the reverence and regard the old Jews had. That the Yahweh was so limitless and incomprehensible that even the act of giving Him a name was not only limiting, but also irreverent. So he was referred to as the one with no name or as the one that could not be named.

Sadly, even the Church hierarchy of today has temporalized many of the more mysterious and mystical doctrines and beliefs of the Church. The many grandiose church buildings and elaborate rituals would appear to make the Kingdom of Christ one that is temporal and of this world.

So he does in his own peculiar ways come up with profound ideas that truly challenge and make us think twice about certain concepts we hold regarding our religion. He just needs to articulate them better, more precisely, and more importantly, in such a way as not to be misunderstood.

PHILIPPINE ELECTIONS: STILL TRYING TO UNDERSTAND PEOPLE

Extensively reading through the babel of social media posts, news articles, commentaries, etc. one could collect a litany of the reasons why many continue to lend support to the candidacy of a family member of the disgraced Marcos family .

In fairness, it would serve us better to sift through them and to glimpse at the whys and wherefores of such support.

As premise, I doubt any sane person sufficiently aware of the lamented regime would deny the collective corruption, murder, malfeasance, etc.,  found endemic under that despotic rule.  And by no means was it, just one rotten apple in a basket, but facts  point to the entire family being complicit in most if not all of them.

One recurring theme for this support has been that voters ought not to attribute the sins of the father to the son or the rest of the family.  But clearly incontrovertible evidence would point to the fact that the entire family, each and all already full-grown adults then,  was complicit.  Clearly this issue is beyond debate or that it needs to be re-litigated at this point.

Many throw their support because of their unconscionable disgust and loathing for the other leading candidate and her team.  And are therefore hell-bent on making sure they are denied the victory.   And the only most likely sparring partner would be the Marcos team.  But talk about cutting your nose to spite your face. There are other choices.  Thus, this development is  more like jumping from the frying pan to the fire.

Many like inveterate gamblers find themselves easily pushed toward the side of early uncrowned winners.  After all it is only human to associate with the winners and hop into the bandwagon.  But rather a reckless way to treat one's very critical future.

Many identify themselves with the political elites of the country because that is where life-giving resources are always coming from.  Nothing much in the self-aggrandizing scheme of things could be expected in the other groups.

Many still do practice identity politics, making their ethnic background, narrow regionalist bents, even their geographical loci, etc.  huge factors to determine where their political loyalties lie.

Gone are the time-honored practices of comparing candidates' track records, their accomplishments rather than heavy doses of verbal calisthenics.  Now it could be as simple as name recognition, wealth, machinery, etc. as the primary criteria for choices to be made.

Gone are even the most basic standards of ethics and morality as measures to align candidates with.  So it amounts not even to a hill of beans if the Marcos family, to the man or woman, whether with the current or younger generations, does not even acknowledge the sins of the past, expresses remorse for the damages done, or even pleads with promises of restitution against whatever purloined wealth is still in its possession and still not spent to support a most lavish lifestyle.  All this, juxtaposed against a cruel backdrop of a people in great suffering and dire want.

 In a reconciliatory mode and gesture, many compatriots declare that when all is said and done, after the election, all of us will be back to our normal lives, and should thus move on to rise above the rancor and enmity engendered during the campaigns.  Re-building damaged relationships with friends, relatives, etc.

It does sound Christian and altruistic to maintain such decorum.

One wonders though if all of us have made enough plans on what to do if and when the palpable fears and apprehension now felt become reality.  And that the new administration will indeed be  a continuation or a redux of that dearly lamented tyrannical rule that lasted decades and wrought incalculable losses both present and future.

Or are we simply ever ready to bow our collective heads and accept our lot, until such time as the despots' avarice and capricious whims have petered out, or that a miracle of deliverance re-appears to a benighted country?

To Rage and Rant Sometimes

 Sliding in a comment edgewise

Do we love our own voices very much, that when we post on Facebook we expect an echo chamber to follow, one that is loud and unambiguous  as our sign of self-affirmation?

Let it be said  though that that may sound good for many people, many may also find that unfair to expect.

This corner lets it be known then that the posts found here are not for that purpose.  That it is not expected for those who happen to visit to affirm or agree on the statements made.

One can disagree.

A self-indictment

The Filipino gene pool appears to have become so contaminated and diluted so that now those so-called malefactors that we constantly see and read about have become the models and exemplars of our society and politics.

And we see and listen to them ensconced high in society and politics, spout motherhood statements about good and profound things for society and the polity, and many of us are easily taken in by the hypocrisy and absurdity which every right-thinking individual ought to readily recognize as falsity.

But these same people go about their maleficent ways, none the worse and instead enjoy dubious renown and respect, most everybody else quite oblivious of where reality stands.  Or maybe they do, but the lard is too deep a siren call to ignore. 

Who to blame?

We all are, not just them.  As a matter of observation, these same people probably sleep better than the ordinary harangued citizen trying to make both ends meet.   Maybe constantly ready to break into a smile, with nary a tinge of conscience remorse.

We are now beyond language to resolve this highly metastasized cancer. Drastic collective action appears the only remedy

Always For The Greater Good

We humans do make conscious choices about the lives of other humans, though we accept the unassailable truth that each human life is precious, priceless, and that only God can take it away.  

And it is thus the ingrained responsibility of each human to exhaust all means to preserve any one human life, at all times without exception. 

 We know we are even averse to “rationing out” limited medical care resources primarily because we value human life as sacrosanct and no one life can be sacrificed in the altar of expediency.  But in reality, we do ration out limited resources.

Even in the rationalization of capital punishment, we gingerly tiptoe around it and justify it in our limited logical ways.   While we legally sanction capital punishment, it is not because we are justified in taking human life, but only because doing so is for the greater good.  Preserving life by taking away another!

Thus there is sufficient historical data to rely on when making choices about whether we aim to sacrifice some people so the greater good can be achieved.  Continue with strict lock-down regimes and risk destruction or collapse of the entire economy?  Or take calculated chances and focus on trying to preserve economic integrity and health?

The greater good always takes precedence.

Ode To Life

 Free verses flowing from a mind in idle gear, on a Sunday morn:

Ode To Life: Playing Mindlessly With The Words Plaguing Our Life

Do we have enough living in our life?

That is a most basic life-long question.

If it is not lived on our idea of what life ought to be, 

Can we continue to say that we are still living life?

In other words, if we live against our concept of life,

Are we still okay to refer to that living as living a life?

If death is forever in our mind as we struggle to live,

Are we said to be living life, rather than living death?

In dotage, we are apt to say we are tired with living,

Could we say that we are still living, with a purpose?

Is life an empty vessel where we store daily our living of it, 

Or could it be simply a veritable storehouse of living stuff?

Why are we admonished that to live a most useful life, 

We ought to turn our backs and begin to die from life?

Isn’t it very funny that we are blessed with our precious life, 

But we are always reminded that our fate is not in this life?

A constant reminder is that Christ is the Way of Life in this world,

Yet His tenets are fraught with thoughts of death from this world.

Truly, there are many lessons to learn from the living of life, 

All mostly requiring our wrenching ourselves away from life.

Oh, the woes and perils of living a life!