Pastilan! Living the dog-eat-dog world of a Global Pinoy!

It’s been a while since I have not written anything about politics in the Philippines. I do not have an excuse but my absolute distaste with the personalities made my self a bit cold to ventilate or stimulate my reasoning. I am worried that I might just end up discussing bitterness and be tempted to instigate a downright assault to the situation at hand.

But for the sake of those friends who wanted to know my opinion, here is my 10-cent worth of rant.

The other day, while I was cooling down from my gym workout and waiting for my friend finish his, I had the chance to read about Sorley McLean, one of those 70’s writers I got acquainted with from my modern literature class back in school. While reading some of his work, I was stricken with his unreserved love of his country and the Gaelic culture.

I began to contemplate about how much love I still have for my country. I was surprised that my patriotism remained unscathed despite the unending blunders and shameful endeavors of many of our almost “delusional” politicians. But why do I feel this way? I have lost the enthusiasm to even discuss matters involving Gloria and about those people who I swear seem to me an “All-Star Cast” for melodramatic tele-novela about hypocritical and delusional government servants. They remind me of uncanny thugs that are unmindful of the greater good of the people.

Find me an institution in the government that has decency plastered across their foreheads please and quick. The House is just devastated, divided (no pun intended) and full of craps. I told a friend that in the Philippines, there are two major forces in the government. Those who are intelligent and those who are competent, the sad thing about it is that this two distinctiveness can hardly be found in a single person. The supply of “intelligent” personalities actually floods your TV screen sounding so eloquent but disappointingly lack the ability to put the words into action, they don’t even have any substantial “put-into action agenda”.

They were not even mindful to file a respectable legal protest. It happens when the opposition reveals an honest display of impure motive to protect the nation. They were too obsessed with jumping into the hype and to further infuriate the masses to cry their dissent instead. I hope they would just stop playing with the sentiment of our poor Filipino people.

The people in the Congress know very well that when antagonism and impure motives seeps in (which always happens), being rational becomes elusive. The Filipino people have just enough of your stupid display of incompetence and selfish determination to gain your personal agendas.

Or maybe, it is about time now for the Legislators and defunct-like government officials to rethink their strategy to cause further instability to the already sinking Philippine economy. Maybe this is not enough yet, there are still more tricks these dog fools can imagine instead of focusing on what is more important. Never mind the starving millions of Filipino people. I bet you my 10-cent plea, these people we see on TV enjoying the awe of their idiocy will continue with their political bickering and soon enough, the Filipino people will just become another race full of maligned political squabbling and indecent withering aspirations.

How far would man go with his hate? I wonder what would the world be with out hate. Oprah Winfrey once said that, "You cannot hate other people without hating your self.” Let’s see this based on why man hate. Hate is the absence of love and there are hundreds of reasons why a man can’t love. But there are even thousand of reasons why man can avoid hate too.

In a world such as ours, hating is as easy as anything you could imagine of. Rene Descartes, a great philosopher, once thought that, “It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.” Ever wonder why?

I will try my best to separate my view regarding the intrinsic evil in man but rather, endorse seriously that man does evil not necessarily because of his natural tendencies but because of the external concentration of opposing factors - our differences. We were never made alike. Our personalities, add up the culture and personal biases have cultivated a tremendous disparity among each other. The problem is, we are growing less tolerant of our individual differences.

Our humanity shows a constant increase in the rate of murders and homicides. And among these murders, the numbers of hate-motivated killings occupy the top position. To many of us, we thought hate do not get is toll among our normal lives since we do not show even a slightest inclination to commit murder. In our work environment and relationship with our neighbors, colleagues, friends, families or acquaintances, if we let disagreement pile up and fill the gap in our hearts, we might never notice how hate begins to make us shut from the bright side of human bonds. Hate is very counter-productive. It acts as life’s stumbling block to see others as beautiful beings; it makes us more succumb to the very evil of human incapacity to love and compassion.

We can hate easily because being meek is harder. We easily detest somebody because we find agreeing less appealing to our ego. Hate is easier because pride is more valuable than humility. In a confrontational world like ours, we have become wrongly influenced that whoever can subjugate their fellow beings and who can raise from above the rest are more superior, the most viable feeling then after envy becomes hate.

It is absurd to think that we can’t hate but to be full of hate makes a person less appealing to me. I mean, look at our world today. There are millions of things that can infuriate us already, the world can snap us unto the brink of fall and the last thing I need would be someone who eats hate 3 times a day. It’s impossible to thrash out hate out of man’s pile of feelings but the test of human decisiveness lies on his ability to distinguish what is more favorable to our being and what would potentially wreck our judgment.

Hate clouds our judgment. We put a blockade before us making us less trusting, cynical and gloomy about almost everything else. I may sound a bit preachy and my tone is an inch closer to my religious belief but what harm could there be if only man can learn to appreciate life more positively?

I’ve realized that I ceased to be a fighter. I have lost my candor to confront life’s challenges and had given up one of my most important battles. I have become less intense in keeping my feet on.

Now that I have finally come to face the ultimate resistance of my very own specter, I know that I ended up a loser. I hate to be one of those who brood over what has become water under the bridge but I know that what is left for me is nothing but a complete surrender of my ignorant passion to keep something that in fact will never be mine.

I know now that it is not for me or will never be. My adoration brought me to my senses that what I really want is to be truly happy. God forbids that someday I will wake up every morning hating myself for giving up because I know, what stayed behind me is the last remaining hope that I can still face the world and step on the ground where I really want myself to be.

They say that water makes its way. For no soul who have truly desired and poured affection will be destitute of what is really meant for him. My thoughts shall then be toward the resolute aspirations of this hope, I rest myself and yield to what awaits me and see that happen.