13th
Beyond Good and Evil On the Road to 2010
It was easier, I’d imagine, in 1986. The battle line was between good and evil. It was an epic battle for the ages: Marcos versus Cory, winner take all. It was Dictator versus Housewife in a battle between excesses and moral compass. t was an epic struggle of a totalitarian regime versus the promise of freedom, of democracy. It was easier to know who you’re fighting against. It was easier to cast 2004 as the day evil won like it is far easier to wallow in the mistakes of the past. Just as it is easier to let our anger fester at the abuses, arrogance and lack of propriety of Arroyo and her ilk. Thus, both our past and present continue in their quarrel unabated.
Amidst Population, Development, the RH Bill, Knock Knock Bernardo Villegas, and the stranded cost of incompetence is where we are, while this single mom put up a blog for her five year old who is waging an epic battle against cancer. Speaking of cancer, women should go see their doctor about vaccination against cervical cancer. On a less serious but likewise important matter, will you also take this challenge for bloggers?
As we near the end of the road to 2010, voices cry out in the desert saying, “Rock the Vote!” It is a call to change the course of our society, to shift a lack of propriety towards a more civilized society by engaging our leaders through an election. It is our civic duty, after all and we’ve surrendered much by not being part of society already. If these summons, heard you have, then what? Here are a few words on dealing with black box amidst calls to elect a new Senate president to avoid a possible power vacuum, should there be failure of elections, next year.
Where does the Road to 2010 lead us? Whose banner do we flock to? Whose flag do we raise? What is this War we’re fighting for in 2010?
In light and darkness, Manolo Quezon wrote: “…at the heart of it, is the real referendum this election will be about: to care so mightily about the country one can still dare to hope, or to surrender to the past while cloaking it in appeals to pragmatism.”
Is it easier to subscribe to an uninspiring candidate? How about the unknown politician whose pathway to power is to subscribe to the policy of the old guard? If you side with them, does it make you a cynic hiding behind a mask of pragmatism?
Is it easier to subscribe to youth that thinks superheroes are there to hold our hand like a power that descend from the sky to set things right rather than to inspire human achievement, to catch us only when we fall? Is it easier only to subscribe to hope and a certain moral compass, while that voice continue to remain silent on ways to solve real problems? Where then is the imagination? Where then is the dream? Where then is the Will to turn that dream into reality? Will Hope be joined by Willpower, because Hope is empty without the latter?
Should we stop at defeating cynicism and pragmatism? Should we stop at hope?
In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy spoke of a new American Frontier. He said: “We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier– the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats. The New Frontier is here whether we seek it or not. Beyond that frontier are uncharted areas of science and space, unsolved problems of peace and war, unconquered problems of ignorance and prejudice, unanswered questions of poverty and surplus. It would be easier to shrink from that New Frontier, to look to the safe mediocrity of the past, to be lulled by good intentions, and high rhetoric.”
The next election is not about good and evil. This is where the Philippines is. It stands on a crossroad between embracing a new frontier or to remain standing still. It is a choice between ending the quarrel of our past and present or continuing on the same tired path. The election of 2010 is a War between The Armies of Cynicism and Pragmatism versus The Forces of Hope and Willpower in an epic battle for Tomorrow.
Winner take all.
