System vs values

IN GERMANY it is illegal to display the Swastika. Forget freedom of speech and expression. That’s how determined Germans are to prevent a grim period in their history from disfiguring the new face of Germany, now a truly democratic federal republic and an economic powerhouse.

Here, we not only allow Martial law’s dark night to be changed into day but also put perpetrators back in power. We also allow a corrupt oligarchy to continue marginalizing us. Thus, we have remained a sham democracy and a laggard economy.

Surveys show that the front runners in the coming 2019 elections are the same thieving and murderous political personalities that refuse to change a system designed to exclusively benefit a privileged few.

We wonder why we can be so stupid as to elect over and over again the same people that consistently lead us to economic slaughter. What distorted values spur us to do such a terribly stupid thing?

But to my mind, it is not a problem of values but of system. The political system is effectively neutralizing whatever good values we learn from parents, schools, and churches. In this fundamentally flawed system, only the already rich and powerful have effective access to political power.

In our big joke of an electoral subsystem, no poor Filipino, no matter how qualified and honest, can run for office. Comelec will instantly disqualify her/him as a nuisance candidate for lacking the financial capacity to mount a respectable election campaign. Why, very simply, the corrupt keep getting elected because they alone can afford to buy, cheat, and even kill their way into office in our system.

In a true party system, political parties that meet the prescribed qualifications, such as a minimum number of card-carrying members, a socio-political philosophy, a program of government, and internal rules of discipline, become certified as public institutions. As such government provides them with a budget for the conduct of essential party activities like training on party philosophy, programs and discipline.

They could also use their budget to mount election campaigns that promote their political philosophy and program. Under the system it is the party’s program that is voted into office. The party selects the pre-listed members who will occupy the seats the party wins in an election.

Clearly now the poor can form a party. They can craft a philosophy and program of government that respond to their needs. And with their budget allocation they can educate members and mount respectable campaigns for office.

Otherwise, the good sense of the poor does not even have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving in the flawed system that values-starved leaders refuse to change./sunstar Cebu