Sunday, June 12, 2005

MANICOMIO

It is like a merry-go-round, Robert Jordan thought. Not a merry-go-round that travels fast, and with a calliope for music, and the children ride on cows with gilded horns... No it is not that kind of merry-go-round; although the people are waiting... But this is another wheel. This is like a wheel that goes up and around.

It has been around twice now. It is a vast wheel, set at an angle, and each time it goes around and then is back to where it starts. One side is higher than the other and the sweep it makes lifts you back and down to where you started. There are no prizes either, he thought, and no one would choose to ride its wheel. You ride it each time and make the turn with no intention ever to have mounted. There is only one turn; one large, elliptical, rising and falling turn and you are back where you have started. We are back again now, he thought, and nothing is settled.

This passage talks about Robert Jordan's (the hero of the story) analogy of the business of
killing Pablo (revolutionary leader turned drunkard), but as I was reading the words, I find
that they also capture the political situation in the Philippines. The similarity is so
striking: banishment of a president can be likened to a merry-go-round. It can be staged
again and again, yet nothing good will come out of it especially when the people themselves
will not change.

You see, here in the Philippines, revolutions are the ultimate telenovelas. People like to
watch it on television, then they are so eager to express opinions and hurl insults to the
oppossing side. And taking into consideration the state of Journalism in the Philippines, it
all results to nothing. Journalism in our country does not help in exposing the truth.
Networks take side, so the people only watch pre-digested versions of the truth, the way the
networks deem appropriate. Add to that the news reporters' habit of sensationalizing even
the most insignificant events just to get people to believe the "truth", man I hate
television.

And after all is said and done, the people sit back and wait for the new government to clean
up and make everything right for them. Lazy bastards.

I am not washing my hands clean of all these things... I am after all, part of this
nation... It just exaspareates me how these people like to stage rallies. It won't be half as
disgusting if it wasn't so obviously planned and if it wasn't a plot to grab power.

kakasawa na.
Morbid Indulgencestarted this journey at6/12/2005