Persistent Cult of Personality and Lack of Development
The author has not spared any harsh words when it comes to describing just how awful physical infrastructure is everywhere in the Philippines. The lack of adequate roads and other transportation/communication networks present the country with a severe bottleneck in economic development, scaring off economic activities through prohibitively high logistics costs and lengthy time frame for getting goods and people from point A to B. Yet we see little investment in the upgrading or maintenance of the already inadequate infrastructure, with even major highways filled with potholes.
This observation on the infrastructural inadequacy is now even made more apt with the death of more than 1200 people (and rising too fast for comfort) in the latest and strongest typhoon to hit the country this year. The shoddy housing of most victims would have stood no chance against the powerful gales battering straight through their neighborhoods, but even then, had the proper infrastructure be in place, many deaths could have been avoided with timely arrival of search and rescue teams, evacuation of the wounds, and delivery of needed supplies.
Instead, support from the central government, as usual, was completely minimal in the disaster zone while a third of the country, including its second largest city of Cebu plunged into complete darkness with power outage for days on-end. Even with the routine cynicism the Filipinos display with governmental inefficiency and incompetence during times of disasters, with one at this scale and affecting so many people so deeply, there ought to be more visible discontent that we are not saying. Up north in sunny Ilocos region, the author had to find out why.
The destination was Marcos Mansion, the residential villa formerly occupied by the dictator for 26 years (pushed out by street protests) Ferdinand, and his famously shoe-collecting wife Imelda (who, by the way, still is a sitting Congressman today). On display is exhibits, in texts, photographs, and actual objects used by the Marcos family (clothing, furniture, utensils, and even a detailed life-size wax figure of the man himself) that detail the rise of a young politician hailing from the region to become the most powerful man in the country.
What completely angered the author in his visit is just how completely biased in favor of Marcos the whole thing was. In a language only reminiscent of Orwellian propaganda, the exhibit spoke repeatedly of the young genius ("graduated valedictorian," "top of class in law school," "youngest senator in history of the Philippines") was "a man of the people" who had to "break with his political allies repeatedly to adhere to his promises for bettering the lives of his people." It is perhaps no wonder that Ilocos remains the Marcos stronghold with also his daughter the governor and son the senator.
No mention whatsoever in the exhibit are his deeds are his election as the president, with declaration of martial law and endless embezzlement making his family (to this day) one of the richest in the country while even his constituent home region remained hugely undeveloped in an era when most of the Philippines' Southeast Asian neighbors rode a wave of foreign investment influx to surge ahead of this country in overall level of development. Traveling through much of Ilocos in the past few days, the author witnessed firsthand just how the Marcos legacy, contrary to the exhibit, didn't help the region.
North of Laoag, the provincial capital of Ilocos Norte centered by a classy provincial capitol building, government presence remains completely invisible. One paved two-lane road (the National Road) heads north toward the geographic tip of Luzon, framed on both sides by occasional village with small houses hastily put together with thatch and metal boards. Most side streets are unpaved, and even with the slight of rains, become a series of dirt puddles that prevent everything except the steadiest of motorized tricycles (and the human feet) from getting across.
Traveling in this sort of environment, of course, is not even on the wallet. Anything from "donations" to enter tourist areas, to mandatory "guide fees," to short tricycle rides, are in denominations of hundreds of pesos, when in even relatively expensive Manila, none of these will come close to a hundred. Yet the author cannot blame the locals. They are paying 3-4 times the Manila prices for gasoline, food, and daily necessities. With government absence, economic fiefdoms emerge, fighting for the few tourists coming through so much so that villages charge each other for tricycle entry.
Seeing all this can only make the words at Marcos Mansion drip with sheer irony. For a politician who cannot even take care of his local constituents economically, he has no right to lead a country to prosperity and title himself as a man of the people. If the killer typhoon had hit Ilocos instead of down south, the destruction would have been just as bad, and the fact that the region is ruled by the Marcos clan will no make the damage and death toll any less, not the least because of its so-called "heritage in political excellence."
But above all, the author takes offence in the Filipino voter, who allows such shameless propaganda to exist side-by-side with poverty and continue to vote the Marcos family back into office election after election despite a history of corruption and incompetence. The fact that the voters ignore all the past wrongdoings and reward them for political impunity has created a democracy of mediocrity where politicians are busy lining their own pockets instead of investing in infrastructure to encourage development while minimizing harmful effects of disasters. In essence, the Filipino voter is criminal.
This observation on the infrastructural inadequacy is now even made more apt with the death of more than 1200 people (and rising too fast for comfort) in the latest and strongest typhoon to hit the country this year. The shoddy housing of most victims would have stood no chance against the powerful gales battering straight through their neighborhoods, but even then, had the proper infrastructure be in place, many deaths could have been avoided with timely arrival of search and rescue teams, evacuation of the wounds, and delivery of needed supplies.
Instead, support from the central government, as usual, was completely minimal in the disaster zone while a third of the country, including its second largest city of Cebu plunged into complete darkness with power outage for days on-end. Even with the routine cynicism the Filipinos display with governmental inefficiency and incompetence during times of disasters, with one at this scale and affecting so many people so deeply, there ought to be more visible discontent that we are not saying. Up north in sunny Ilocos region, the author had to find out why.
The destination was Marcos Mansion, the residential villa formerly occupied by the dictator for 26 years (pushed out by street protests) Ferdinand, and his famously shoe-collecting wife Imelda (who, by the way, still is a sitting Congressman today). On display is exhibits, in texts, photographs, and actual objects used by the Marcos family (clothing, furniture, utensils, and even a detailed life-size wax figure of the man himself) that detail the rise of a young politician hailing from the region to become the most powerful man in the country.
What completely angered the author in his visit is just how completely biased in favor of Marcos the whole thing was. In a language only reminiscent of Orwellian propaganda, the exhibit spoke repeatedly of the young genius ("graduated valedictorian," "top of class in law school," "youngest senator in history of the Philippines") was "a man of the people" who had to "break with his political allies repeatedly to adhere to his promises for bettering the lives of his people." It is perhaps no wonder that Ilocos remains the Marcos stronghold with also his daughter the governor and son the senator.
No mention whatsoever in the exhibit are his deeds are his election as the president, with declaration of martial law and endless embezzlement making his family (to this day) one of the richest in the country while even his constituent home region remained hugely undeveloped in an era when most of the Philippines' Southeast Asian neighbors rode a wave of foreign investment influx to surge ahead of this country in overall level of development. Traveling through much of Ilocos in the past few days, the author witnessed firsthand just how the Marcos legacy, contrary to the exhibit, didn't help the region.
North of Laoag, the provincial capital of Ilocos Norte centered by a classy provincial capitol building, government presence remains completely invisible. One paved two-lane road (the National Road) heads north toward the geographic tip of Luzon, framed on both sides by occasional village with small houses hastily put together with thatch and metal boards. Most side streets are unpaved, and even with the slight of rains, become a series of dirt puddles that prevent everything except the steadiest of motorized tricycles (and the human feet) from getting across.
Traveling in this sort of environment, of course, is not even on the wallet. Anything from "donations" to enter tourist areas, to mandatory "guide fees," to short tricycle rides, are in denominations of hundreds of pesos, when in even relatively expensive Manila, none of these will come close to a hundred. Yet the author cannot blame the locals. They are paying 3-4 times the Manila prices for gasoline, food, and daily necessities. With government absence, economic fiefdoms emerge, fighting for the few tourists coming through so much so that villages charge each other for tricycle entry.
Seeing all this can only make the words at Marcos Mansion drip with sheer irony. For a politician who cannot even take care of his local constituents economically, he has no right to lead a country to prosperity and title himself as a man of the people. If the killer typhoon had hit Ilocos instead of down south, the destruction would have been just as bad, and the fact that the region is ruled by the Marcos clan will no make the damage and death toll any less, not the least because of its so-called "heritage in political excellence."
But above all, the author takes offence in the Filipino voter, who allows such shameless propaganda to exist side-by-side with poverty and continue to vote the Marcos family back into office election after election despite a history of corruption and incompetence. The fact that the voters ignore all the past wrongdoings and reward them for political impunity has created a democracy of mediocrity where politicians are busy lining their own pockets instead of investing in infrastructure to encourage development while minimizing harmful effects of disasters. In essence, the Filipino voter is criminal.
I'm interested in how much this phenomenon of "criminal" voting on behalf of constituents of a relatively undeveloped area voting for their corrupt regional "patron" persists in other countries. Perhaps Filipinos are just culturally less assertive with their complaints, or value their "sons of the soil" more than in other countries? This same thing happens all the time in Nigeria, and my take on it is that those uneducated masses who do end up voting for their patron do gain tangible benefits come election time. But those benefits are usually commodities like rice and palm oil and often even cash, items which aren't invested into their local communities. Nigerians love complaining about the political and developmental status quo, yet often continue aligning with certain corrupt political families from their home region who use ideology or short-term benefits to gain their vote...
ReplyDeleteThat initial wave isn't demographically insignificant throughout the region - image search Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, etc!
ReplyDeleteyou know what talked about this back in LSe for CPE a lot. Its fundamentally a lack of confidence in governance in general. The masses beleive that no matter who they vote for they are not going to get any concrete long term benefits anyways, so might as well get short term benefit like a little cash when they vote. And guess who can afford to get more cash than other candidates? The incombant, of course! If your family is been in office for three decades, you guys embezzled so much cash from the government coffers that you can afford to give voters much more money than other candidates.
ReplyDeleteSadly, too true...
ReplyDelete