I strongly discourage advising any government-in-the-making, not least because advice is rarely taken, it is consistently ignored and rightly passed over. “After all, it was I who was elected president,” he will say. “I want your advice, I won’t ask for it. What for? I ran on a platform of promises, none of them was qualified or conditioned upon advice that might be given after I got elected. As for consulting experts, I should have done that before I promised what I should not deliver on second thought. Besides, there are no experts; except those who became experts because of the problems they created and are trying to solve. I will never ask advice from those with the temerity to offer it. But I will listen to reason.”
So listen to this. Ignore the suggestion that the new government should be a combination of continuity and change. Sure, there are things that must continue; they are part and parcel of the structure of our world; like the “conditionalities” imposed by the World Bank-IMF on Marcos for stealing the country blind. The World Bank-IMF continued them after Marcos left because we the people let him steal the country blind when we could have stopped him.
And the proof that we could have stopped him is that we did—in 1986, when we should have done it the day after martial law was imposed on September 21, 1972. These structural things are anyway the exclusive domain of the Bangko Sentral run by the best central banker today. Those things aside, all the rest must change, because all the rest is what you promised.
No more stealing, no more borrowing, no more smuggling, and far less duties and taxes; no more crime, no more drugs, and far less criminals alive—the big and even more the petty ones that prey on the small. A foreign intelligence officer said to me, “Your cops know all the criminals and all about the crimes because for the most part they are criminals.”
All we have to do is tell the cops, “Okay double your pay and spare your life by taking out everyone bad you know. Give them a minute to decide but keep your finger on the trigger—you never know. Offer peace to the communists and social justice for all—that is the only reason they fought the republic at all. Be the man who ended the longest- running insurgency in history.
Kick out the foreign diplomats who suggested, and the peace panel that proposed, carving out a homeland for Islamic terrorists so they will leave neighboring countries like Malaysia alone.
Cut the red tape, pare government down to bare bones, equal speed for equal pay for all Wi-Fi—all fast or all slow, no premium for those who can pay more. Punish the telcos, abolish the Customs bureau, cut taxes on the salaried, leave the honest rich alone, and repeal the withholding tax to equalize the opportunity to question taxes across the board.
And, finally, call Sumitomo and say, “So solly foh tulning ova a pah-fack-lee woking EM AL TEE to a talyer in Paniqui. Please take it back.”
Do those and the other things you promised. Not by the end of six years but, with regard to crime, as early as three and no later than six months. Then the people will know that the change that was coming has arrived; but not—no not—with the same old faces as before.
1 comment
Don’t mind me, I’m a “little” nuts (like you), … but I always find your editorial thought interesting and challenging. Hope you can keep it up for another 10 or 20 years, … if GOD allows. Oligarchy-driven “Democrazies” need people like you.