Anarchy

It’s only been a few months since we heralded the dawn of the P-Noy era. I still remember the cheers of relief, the smiles of a newly born faith and the hope in the sighs of the entire nation. The country was once again united, the power of the people demonstrated before the very eyes of the entire world. The people have given their hopes and dreams of a better life to yet another leader. Our handpicked leaders are present together with the government to guide us to a third world’s Promised land, a land where poverty is of no existence, where everyone is happy and no one ever goes hungry. We are the sheep to our chosen shepherds. But it seems that parts of the country is again sinking to the ever persistent waters of forgetfulness and ningas kugon that has always dragged us down as we try to stand up from our current state.

Aside from the multitude of people that are masters to unwanted opinions and criticisms, we also witness those that openly (but in a subtle way) go against the government from simple rallies to threats of civil disobedience. Dictatorship may not be present in the government anymore since we are alreday run by a democratic one but I think that dictatorial attitude can be clearly seen lingering among the people that are under the government. Demands are voiced out in a multitude of ways ranging from the placards of rally goers to the press conferences held by the elite. It’s true that the president said that he is treating his people like his boss but I think that what some people are doing is overkill and very abusive, stretching this statement of the president far too much. How can we expect the government to function well if it has to answer to a myriad of pleas, a multitude of people with different demands?

It’s only been a few months after these people took the wheel and here we are already grumble about their driving. The streets are littered with rallies here and there protesting the lack of funds for their school, the approval of a certain law, for a certain right to be upheld, justice for a crime committed and more. One might not be observant enough to see it but the country is again facing an obstacle that hinders us from pulling ourselves back up from the state that we are in, an overload in complains and demands, the whining of a million babies each expecting to be attended to immediately.

Another crisis that burdens us as an entire nation is the number of leaders we have in our country. We need only to switch our channels to one that shows the news for us to see some person boldly speaking in front of a camera, in front of his entire nation about how a certain something was supposed to be done in a certain way or how the government should have done this instead of doing that. In a third world country, we are abundant with leaders that want to lead but refuse to follow. Aspirants that think highly of themselves, listening only to their own judgment and reasoning, their heads held high with pride, obviously not keeping in mind the old saying that the higher the pride, the higher the fall.

In our third world country where unity is of value and time is of the essence, we fail to be unanimous but we are very much successful in disobeying the government, being “better” and “knowing more” than our elected leaders and in the repetitive yet inevitable end, we will yet again be very successful in dragging the entire nation down with our very consistent attitude.

Maybe the recent elections weren’t as successful as most of us thought. We are trying to lead the same people that we have elected. We misuse our power as a people, our freedom of speech to intimidate and influence the actions of the people we handpicked ourselves to lead us. The flock of sheep is trying to subdue the shepherd.