Will it make any difference if Among Ed, Chiz, Mar, Manny, Gibo or any other contender wins? No, it won’t! Elections bring nothing but false hopes and failed expectations. Mere changes in leadership never brought us relief. A few good men cannot deliver us from the abyss we have fallen into. What we need is a redistribution of tasks and resources by the government. It will boost individual initiatives.

Since my retirement from government service my participation as a private citizen in a small municipality has been less than fruitful or rewarding, but at least, the struggle keeps me alive and hopeful. Sometimes it may seem like trying to extract juice from a week-old bone, but, I would rather do it anytime than bay the moon, which we do with Gloria bashing or cursing distant villains.

I would support Among Ed or any candidate for that matter, if he includes in his platform a kind of fiscal federalism whereby more funds shall be placed at the discretion of Governors and City Mayors. Local chief executives could more effectively work for food security and poverty alleviation, if only because it is easier to work with and keep them in check. At least they would not be as elusive as the culprits in the billion-peso fertilizer and swine scams.

The greatest anomaly created by Senator Nene Pimentel was the devolution of function of health, agriculture and social services functions while retaining the funds that makes imperial Manila what it is, imperial, and awash with more funds and tasks than it can judiciously handle. Believe it or not, the solution is simple enough: amend the Local Government Code accordingly! The challenge is how to make legislators do it.

just my 2 cents..

Let us look into the impeachments of Clinton and Nixon in the US or indictments of CEOs implicated in corporate scandals. These men basically did their stuff just because they could. TO state the obvious, human nature is that if you could, you would — and that is especially most true in an environment where power and entitlement are a given.

Of course with the experience with Clinton, et al, there were legal and political mechanisms in place to make just punishments (censure for Clinton and forced resignation with Nixon and a host of cases against rogue CEOs).

In our case, our legal mechanisms are weak and fail to address the problems or impasse in times of abuse of authority. The problem has to be in our social make-up, in our society, not in our political system, per se. In our case, we have been allowing rent-seekers and rotten politicians (who as Puno correctly noted hold hostage our government) a merry romp in the park of power for so long — and we naively think that they would change: left to their own ways, there is no compelling reason for them to change because their lot offers the best that life could offer in this side of the world, as long as they stay in their gated enclaves, cushy offices and stay safely in their tinted SUVs while continuing on their plundering and looting ways (perhaps it’s not even conscious — the system probably partly makes and turns them into thieves, which is really the most horrific truth in this).

An appeal to decency or “morality” can only go so far. I’m not saying that we should do a Bastille or something of that sort — but just to keep an eye on what the real problems — the twin monster of oligarchical rule and elitism, one that even the dictator, Marcos has contemplated, tried to fight and dismally failed to solve. It is a formidable, complicated enemy and one that we should tackle with open and discerning eye lest we also become the very monster we are trying to slay, like what happened to the Apo Macoy.

In our case, or even in other countries, these people will change not because “we make them” to, we can never do that. They will change because they realize its in their best interest to do so, and make it look like they did it for us. Then again, its small increments of compromises that they make a big fuss of showing to everybody that they did it because we asked for it. Bottomline, they still need to get something out of the changes they will make…

Then I have a different viewpoint or speaking from my own experience, as a member of my own class and as a long-time voter as to the view whether that belief touches base with real outcomes. But the truth is, I think the time when most of our politicians rise to become statesmen is when our country can really have a big reason to hope.

“Lets face it, when you get to be in that position of power and influence (and affluence), you don’t listen to the little people, the little people don’t know whats good for them – only you do.” — only strictly true with fascists and degenerates