Coexisting with Rats

I am living in a house that is probably as old as I am. And if you are a 25-year-old house, the shelter you provide would not be limited to a pack of thinking, featherless bipeds but it would also extend to insects and rats. As much as it is shameful to admit that a sanitary freak such as myself is living in a houseful of creepy crawlies, I would not hesitate to say it. At least by doing so, the world will have one less phony.

Yes, I have learned to coexist with rats and the likes—filthy creatures that spoil whatever it is that you own even after silently allowing them to live with you. You are left with no other choice but to recognize their presence and, in your original way, to adapt to their inevitable existence. Then again, coexisting with rats is probably what life is like—at least in this land.

You wake up in the morning assured that the price of gas will go up—it is abnormal if it does not. You ride the jeepney on your way to work and you shell out extra pesos for the newly approved fare hike. You say a little prayer for the blessed soul of the Cardinal who is just died. After eating dinner, you see the President of the country say “I’m sooooo sorry” on TV.

Now, the latter is not something that happens every day. Seeing the haggard-looking president deliver her public apology on national television causes a twinge of pity to some of us, although not enough mercy to stop us from using our mental faculties and continuing to discern the right from the wrong. Since when did a bland smile automatically deserve pardon? After hearing an empty speech, we, thinking Filipinos, cannot pretend nothing happened.

It is no longer a media fest that is out there. It is a mockery of a nation that is barely hanging on. While some of our country’s citizens work their bottoms off to create a decent image of our 1,107 islands, those whom we look up to discretely farts in public and we all have to suffer from the stench they emit.

It is not just PGMA. We have had our share of leaders known for their intelligence who end up sucking our resources for their personal and their families’ gain. Furthermore they and their families are still there, sucking what-is-left-to-suck. We have voted for rich leaders hoping that they, being used to wealth, would stay civilized and take their hands off our national treasury; however during and after their office they come out ten times richer, maybe more. We have elected a poor son of a Doña because we thought that he, being the poor man he claims to be, would understand majority of us. Yet somewhere along an almost sober path he fails us. We can go on enlisting the types of leaders we have had and we would wind up frustrated.

Have we run out of good people in this nation? There are 46 million Filipinos and no decent one can protect our country’s interest.

It is the most terrifying thing in the world to lose a good supply of trustworthy rulers.

Have we all turned into rats? (ending is not yet final)