While the rest of the peoples of the world grapple with the big issues — many of them existential — the Philippines’ citizenry are subject to the ongoing feudal machinations of its ruling oligarchs. Indeed, the Philippine Senate is basically that — a chamber composed of people who are mostly members of the same tony country clubs bickering over a little pot of spoils.
How’d the Philippines, despite not having much of a continuous 1,000-year history of consequence, end up with the equivalent of the equally nonsensical and truly ancient House of Lords of the United Kingdom? We can thank the Philippines’ 1987 Yellowtard Constitution which was crafted by the country’s most paranoid and mentally-colonial “thought leaders” in the aftermath of a “people power revolution”.
The Philippines, after all, is its former colonial master’s Mini Me and its form of government manifests this states-side obsession to this day. Filipinos now suffer a government with this “senate” clown show — an institution that is as detached from its constituents’ interests as it is from common sense — whose members are more fixated on the fortunes of their political and economic class than on those of ordinary Filipinos. The impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, after all, is no more than a monumental battle between the Marcostards and the Dutertards. “High stakes” is what some mainstream media “journalists” call this quaint exercise — high stakes, that is, for the fortunes of these two key players. Under Philippine law, presidents and their circles of cronies can only enjoy and profit from one six-year term as the Constitution bars them from re-election for a second consecutive term. This shapes the national political “debate” and polarises partisans along these lines.
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Thus Filipinos now suffer the outcome of the paranoia applied to the crafting of the 1987 Yellowtard Constitution. As if the Philippines’ being an American form of government weren’t enough (we see how, amongst the great First World powers, the US had, itself, become such a similar clown show), the additional layer of checks on Filipino political leaders’ ability to wield power ingrained in the Yellowtard Constitution has had the unintended effect of making battles to both seize and hold on to power even more vicious in the Philippines. In short, all we are seeing today as the spectacle of the impeachment of the Vice President plays out, is not the Filipino peoples’ “fight” as both camps, Marcostards and Dutertards alike would like everyone to believe this is all about. It is just a fight amongst politicians and oligarchs. And that’s all it is.
Back in 2012, Australian columnist Jackie Dent, observing what was then the raging political rivalry between the Marcos family and that of the then-powerful Aquino-Cojuangco clan, quoting Filipino journalist Carmen Pedrosa, noted how “It is just the same whether we have Marcos or Aquino.” Fast forward to today, and the statement still holds (replacing the latter clan or camp) and the answer to that confronting age-old rhetorical question just as elusive. The Philippines’ Imperial Manila politics, quite simply, do not pass the So what? Test as far as most Filipinos are concerned.
So what, then, if Vice President Sara Duterte is impeached or not?
So what?
When we begin to truly think about what the answer to that question really is, it becomes more evident what a monumental waste of time this obsession is.
More disturbing is the persistent mystery of why Filipinos continue to do the same things over and over again and then go on to expect different results. Why are the same crooks and showbiz personalities left to decide the country’s priorities? Why does such a crooked institution remain above public scrutiny? Why aren’t all the right questions being asked by the “thought leaders” of the country’s illustrado classes? These national mysteries persist.
