Walking the talk

It is almost a year now since I started this blog. This blog has been my outlet in expressing my views and opinions on various political issues. But more importantly, this blog is the beginning, the foundation of a campaign that I have been wanting initiate as my share in helping my country. This I do simply because, INIIBIG KO ANG PILIPINAS.

My basic premise here is that we are all part of the problem. GMA is simply a reflection of the problem of what we are as a people. Removing her from office won't solve our problems. Things could turn to worse.

At the start, this campaign may appear to be governnmnet sponsored, but it is not. This is purely personal. If others will be willing to support this cause later, they will be most welcome as long as there is no hidden agenda. All for love of country.

An image designing company has been contacted and will be making the Iniibig ko ang Pilipnas logo. The final logo will be used as the standard logo throughout the campaign. This logo will be copyrighted to prevent others, specially the trapos, from hijacking the campaign.

I will be posting the developments on this blog as the campaign progresses.

The problem with Lozada

After hearing the statements of Lozada at the Senate, I have a problem calling what he did to be heroic. At best, I say, it's admirable. My judgment on Lozada is based on what I read and hear on the news. I learned about his person only because of involvement in this controversy.

Lozada never wanted to testify at the Senate. As he said, hindi niya gulo ito. But now all the anti GMA forces are calling him a hero.
The Inquirer lost no time in searching for his heroic deeds with the article Just a "probinsyanong intsik".

I believe that Lozada is sincere. That he is doing what he is doing to give honor to his father's name. That he is simply giving back to his country as what his father has told him. But my issue is, why do what he did only when pushed to the wall. If there was a legal option, where there is none according to the staff of a certain Gaite in Malacanang, would he still have testified? If he wasn't kidnapped at the airport, would he still be as emotional as he is at the press con and at the senate?

Lozada has his own "baho" and he admits to it. Malacanang is definitely going to squeeze all that it can to use Lozada's ghosts to their advantage.

On the other side, all the anti GMA forces will try to squeeze everything that they can from Lozada's revelations to link GMA to the controversy. Anti GMA forces has found a new ammunition to hit Malacanang. So what's new?

I posted the following on Manolo's blog.

This part of the controversy is what bothers me.

Questioned by Senator Loren Legarda, Lozada says he is privy to the contents of a conversation Neri had with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in which Neri reported Abalos' attempt to bribe him. Lozada, however, refused to divulge what he knew about the conversation, saying it had been given in confidence to him. link

Is his love for country below Neri's confidence in him?


If Lozada truly wants to be of service to this country, why do a Neri? Why not spill out all the beans out? I doubt if the anti GMA groups will force the issue. They would not want to put their hero on the spot. Malacanang, meanwhile, would also prefer to have Lozada keep his silence on this issue, Neri's conversation w/ GMA with regards to the bribery attempt. This is where GMA can be truly pinned down, that she knows about bribery and did nothing about it.

If Lozada is truly a hero, tell all. Don't be selective.

Why is our country poor

From the blog of PamagCUSA.

THE DIFFERENCE
by Dr. Arsenio Martin
Fort Arthur , Texas

The difference between the poor countries and the rich ones is not the age of the country.

This can be shown by countries like India & Egypt that are more than 2000 years old, but are poor.

On the other hand, Canada , Australia & New Zealand, that 150 years ago were inexpressive, today are developed countries, and are rich.

The difference between poor & rich countries does not reside in the available natural resources.

Japan has a limited territory, 80% mountainous, inadequate for agriculture & cattle raising, but it is the second world economy. The country is like an immense floating factory, importing raw materials from the whole world and exporting manufactured products.

Another example is Switzerland, which does not plant cocoa but has the best chocolate in the world. In its little territory they raise animals and plant the soil during 4 months per year. Not enough, they produce dairy products of the best quality! It is a small country that transmits an image of security, order & labor, which made it the world's strongest, safest place.

Executives from rich countries who communicate with their counterparts in poor countries show that there is no significant intellectual difference.

Race or skin color are also not important: immigrants labeled lazy in their countries of origin are the productive power in rich European countries.

What is the difference then? The difference is the attitude of the people, framed along the years by the education & the culture & flawed tradition.

On analyzing the behavior of the people in rich & developed countries, we find that the great majority follow the following principles in their lives:

1. Ethics, as a basic principle.
2. Integrity.
3. Responsibility.
4. Respect to the laws & rules.
5. Respect to the rights of other citizens.
6. Work loving.
7. Strive for savings & investment.
8. Will of super action.
9. Punctuality.
10. and of course...Discipline

In poor countries, only a minority follow these basic principles in their daily life.

The Philippines is not poor because we lack natural resources or because nature was cruel to us. In fact, we are supposedly rich in natural resources.

We are poor because we lack the correct attitude. We lack the will to comply with and teach these functional principles of rich & developed societies.

If you do not forward this message nothing will happen to you. Your pet will not die, you will not be fired, you will not have bad luck for seven years, and also, you will not get sick or go hungry.

But those may happen because of your lack of discipline & laziness, your love for intrigue and politics, your indifference to saving for the future, your stubborn attitude.

If you love your country, let this message circulate so that many Filipinos could reflect about this, & CHANGE, ACT!


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My comments - In as much as I agree 100% with the statement that we are poor because we lack the correct attitude, I just can' agree with the concept of the author of making the above essay to be another pass around email. We cannot change attitude by simply passing forwarded emails. Only very few takes those "pass around" seriously. If we truly want to achieve character change, again, it is all about capturing the imagination. Even us who want to make a difference for our beloved country has to change our mindset. We need to re invent the wheel.

Character change not charter change

For the nth time, charter change is back in the limelight. This time, the Mindanao problem is being used as an excuse to push for charter change.

Back in December 2006, the House of Representatives changed its rules to push for charter change and the Church took the lead to oppose it. CBCP called for character change before charter change. The howl of protest against charter change made our honorable representatives to shelve their plan.

At a forum in UP, Gov. Panlilio was asked about federalism. His response was "Our problem is not the form of government, but values and disvalues.” In his speech at the Ateneo de Manila University, he said, "Good citizenship must take root until following the law, paying taxes honestly, respecting the environment and upholding one's dignity shall become second nature to every person." Who is heeding the call?

Archbishop Lagdameo made the news when he called for
moral revolution in his blog. Except for the news agencies being the head of CBCP, nobody really took his call seriously.

Again, we hear the noise of charter change. I myself sincerly believe that nothing will really change even if we change our constitution unless we change collectively first as a people. The problem is, who will initiate the character change?

The politicians, having no credibility, cannot be part of any campaign for character change, much more be its initiator. We cannot expect the trapos to change in their ways. They are too inebriated by wealth and power that they hang on to it by whatever means.

The Church is an ideal leader for character change but unfortunately it has failed miserably. If the people only practiced the teachings of their religion, then we won't be where we are now. But we are. The Church has become merely a crisis manager, but not a change instigator.

So now, we only have ourselves to push for that character change or moral revolution. Unfortunately, even when a large chunk of our population believe that we as a people have our own faults, nobody, no group takes the cause of good citizenship seriously. This is not because they dont believe in it. It is simply because they don't know how.

What we do is what we know how to do, and that is to form groups, movements, alliances, political parties, federations, unions, associations, etc. That is where we are good at. But none of these groups ever made a dent, an impact because not one truly captured the imagination of our people. Not even Gawad Kalinga. Gawad Kalinga captured the imagination of overseas Filipinos but not the locally based Filipinos.

This is a battle for the hearts and minds of our people. If we want them to heed our call for character change, we need first to inspire them, get their attention and capture their imagination. We can start by inspiring patriotism. Then we remind them of their civic duties namely (1) Knowing the rules and following them (2) Falling in line and waiting for their turn (3) Keeping on'es word and coming on time. Then the call for character change will go on a higher level and so on. Character change will not happen overnight. But it will never happen if we don't do something about it. The Church is unable to inspire our people. So we only have us to inspire ourselves.

WANTED: A few good men (and women)

By Dr. Rusty Balderian

Most of us overseas Filipinos talk a lot about the problems in the Philippines with passion. We praise ourselves as modern day heroes. We think that we are better morally than those in the Philippines because they are corrupt, poor, and less educated. We think we have the best solutions to improve our country. We talk and write with highfalutin words to show others that we have the best verbal and written command of English. That’s all we are good at. But talk is cheap.

If we are really serious in our desire to help our nation, let’s go back to the Philippines and do the job right, the way we want it done. Let us stop complaining. Let us stop talking. Let's roll our sleeves and do it ourselves like the retired navy officer from Vallejo, California, Congressman Teodulo "Doloy" Coquilla of Eastern Samar, and businessmen from Los Angeles, California, Congressman Rosendo Labadlabad of the 2nd District of Zamboanga del Norte, Ronald Golez, Mayor of Dumangas, Ilo-Ilo, and myself Mayor of TabonTabon, Leyte, to name a few. Each one of us have been "successful" in our own way while living in the land of milk and honey. We decided to go back to the Philippines because like most of us, we believed that our nation needs help. We were newbies in the Philippine politics of the last May 2007 election. But we won. We surrendered our American Citizenship and Green Cards and left our comfortable homes and gas guzzling cars because we believe that we can make a difference in our respective communities. We plan to implement the best practices that we have seen and learned in our adopted countries.

Before going back to the Philippines, we had our visions how we can help improve our nation. However, we are having a hard time because we are very few, a little voice that can not be heard in the hollowed halls of Congress. We need more people to run for elective offices so we can make an effective change. Alone, we will just be eaten by the corrupt system. We will be infected by the same deadly virus that we call graft and corruption. We are ineffective to make the change because we don't have the number. Politics is a numbers game. Good intentions doesn't mean a thing if we don't have the right number in the Municipal Council, Provincial Development Council or in Congress and Senate. We need more Congressmen who can not be bought by the President for Five Hundred Thousand Pesos to prevent her impeachment. We need more few good men and women. Let us stop criticizing the leaders running the country. Let us be the leaders running our nation,. Let us replace the "trapos", actors, and musicians in Congress and the Senate for an effective governance of our nation. Stop dreaming for a better Philippines. Let us work for it.

"Kung hindi dito, saan? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan?, Kung hindi ako, sino? Ang gagawawa nito para sa Filipino."

Let this be a challenge to all the leaders of the global Filipinos to go back to the Philippines and run an elective position in 2010 so we can solve the problems that beseech our nation. Let us stop talking about the problems. We need a concerted effort to get rid of the problems. We need to form a party whose candidates will all be coming from the overseas Filipinos. Idealistic, vibrant, educated, technologically savvy, full of good ideas, noble, morally upright and most of all, free from the deadly virus of graft and corruption. I'm sure we can find among the eight million Filipinos in diaspora, one thousand five hundred good men and women to run as Mayors in their respective towns, two hundred forty good men and women to run for Congress in their respective districts, Twelve good men and women to run for Senate, and one good man/woman that we can rally behind to run for President.

It cannot be done on an individual effort as what some of us have done. Dr. Martin Bautista a successful medical practitioner from the East Coast had the same dream to help improve our country. He returned to the Philippines and ran for the Senate in the last election under the Kapatiran Party, a very noble organization, but lost. Individually, we are weak even if we have the best resume, good intentions and sizable personal resources to back us up when we run against the well entrenched traditional politicians.

A united overseas Filipinos is a very strong force to reckon with. Imagine the 8 million Filipinos in Diaspora who send 12 Billion dollars annually to the Philippines can dictate their dependents in the Philippines who to vote for in this coming 2010 election. At an average of 5 voters under his sphere of influence, that is a whopping 40 million votes. Candidates of the United OFW will no longer have to buy votes to be elected.

If the 8 million OFW donates Fifty Dollars to the United OFW Party, that is Four Hundred million dollars as party funds. This can be used as a counterpart to the amount of campaign funds that a candidate can raise through donation only. Elected government officials will no longer have to take the ten percent "SOP" in all infrastructure projects since they have no massive campaign expenses to recoup. Graft and corruption will be history. There will be no political debts to pay except to the Filipino people.


MABUHAY ANG OFW !

MABUHAY ANG FILIPINO!

Human Capital

This blog is about our damaged culture and the necessity to fix it if we want to move forward as a nation. The politcial solution has to wait. We need to do something about "us" first.

Through Manolo's blog, nakalkal uli ang isyu ng pag uugali nating mga Pilipino. Through a link, I was able to read an essay written two decades ago by James Fallow entitled A Damaged Culture: A New Philippines?. And Newsstand noted, "Has anything actually changed?"

One thing that really prevents us from taking off is our penchant for a political solution. Again, the politcal solution has to wait. We need to change first as a people.

Artemio Panganiban noted on his Inquirer column today the three L's of our survival instinct, lusot, lagay and lakas. He noted that the World Bank identifies three sources of wealth; natural capital, produced capital and human capital. Natural capital accounts for 5% of the total wealth, 18% for produced capital and 77% for human capital. It is just too obvious why we are not progressing. There is so much that has to be desired with regards to our human capital.

I was at SBMA in the last couple of days. We stayed at the Binictican housing renting a four bedroom house. I ahve been to SBMA several times. It is quire notable that once you are inside SBMA, the aura is different. There is so much order. Everyone is very conscious of the rules. In boarding a vehicle, it is quite automatic to facten one's seatbelt. In the housing where we stayed, there is zero trash. At stop signs, drivers do come to a full halt even when there is no other vehicle around. Everytime I visit the palce, I kept saying to myself, kaya naman palang gawin kung gugustuhin. I am not a regular visitor of Marikina but from reports, I reckon there is also a lot of sense of orderliness in that city. Again, kaya naman palang gawin. The human capital is capable of making things work.

But as a nation, as a race, as a people, there is so much to be desired on the Filipno human capital. The poor survive with the three L's. The middle class see the solution to their woes outside the borders of the Phlippines. While the rich continue to benefit from an expanding economy. Everythin is about the "I", my interest, my future, my survival. Nothing about my country. Oh yes, we have so much debates about our country. But that is as far as it goes, debates. Some took the extra step to form groups. Now we have thousands of groups but not even one truly making a dent. Not even one because no single group or cause has truly captured our imagination.

Our human capital is our biggest liability. The World Bank considers it as an intangible asset. But that asset is not really working for us. The human capital retards our growth. Our damaged, decadent, superficial (whatever we call it and it is pointless to debate on terminologies) culture needs correction, redirection and guidance. We can do it one small step at a time. We only need to be creative and imaginative to get the attention of everyone. Once we get everybody's attention, we can start to influence the collective mindset. It can be done.

Merry Christmas!

Moral Revolt II

The following post is a response to the comments made from the previous post.

to pmcsi and nw49socal:

thank you for your comments and inquiries.

Our common concept of capturing the imagination is something that involves a person just like how Cory captured the imagination of the middle class in 1986, Erap to the masses in 1998 and Fr. Panlilio to the Kapampangans this year. Hitler is an excellent example of someone capturing the imagination of an entire race. I am not sure if Lee Kwan Yew captured the imagination of Singaporeans. Maybe he did. From the political point of view, capturing the imagination is often associated with a person.

But capturing the imagination is not just about politics. Everytime Manny Pacquiao goes to the ring, he captures our imagination and there is no politics involved in it except for politicians waiting for photo ops. Capturing the imagination is a marketing tool. Capturing the imagination gets the attention of a target market. In my advocacy, to capture the imagination is to get the attention of each and every Filipino. It is just the very first step in a long journey. Nothing preachy. Just get their attention and also for confidence building. Getting the public's trust.

Texting is one activity that has captured our imagination and that is faceless. It just happened. Everybody got hooked to texting that made our country the texting capital of the world. Technology has greatly influenced our lives. Therefore, it is possible to capture the imagination with a "faceless" campaign.

Why "faceless"? Because the moment you give the campaign a "face" the public will only be interested on the who and the motives instead of the objectives of the campaign. It deflects the attention. Secondly, it creates an aura of mystery. To keep the interest. To keep the attention. "Faceless" is a marketing strategy. It may be difficult to grasp at this point as we are used to campaigns with "faces", with endorsers.

The issue of citizenship, moral reorientation, good values, proper conduct are very sensivitve subjects. We are a very sensitive people. Balat sibuyas. You just don't tell people that what they do is wrong because their normal reaction is, "Sino ka? Santo ka ba?"

The call for moral revolt by politicians will never be heeded. As I said previously, they are the epitome of corruption. Even the calls of the Church will not be heeded. In the first place, we are what we are is simply a reflection of the Church having failed to guide its flock in the right direction. The Church has been with us for centuries but why have we become like this? There are many devout Christians among us but why are we what we are? Because the Church has its own agenda.

So to whom do we go to? Who will lead us? No one. There is no single individual, not even Tony Meloto or Father Panlilio, that each and every Filipino will listen to or trust. When someone calls for moral change, the usual reaction is "Bakit santo ka ba?" But if you hold a "faceles" campaign with a pure heart and intentions, people will listen because there is no face that they can argue against with. But that is already getting ahead of the story, influencing their mindset. We need to get first their attention by capturing their imagination.

This blog is my simple way of starting this campaign.