It is what it is

Our favorite national pastime had come and gone and many had their wallets filled with a few hundred pesos for a day or two as ‘gratuity’.  A few hundred pesos in exchange for three years of perhaps uncertain directions.  It is what it is.

The contest was hard and bitter, in some instances fatal.  In this game of thrones, dynasties fell paving the way for new dynasties to rise and rule.  Many are looking forward to new beginnings that the new reign will be introducing and hopefully the good that was started by the previous will be continued, developed and improved.

Most of the winning local executives had been proclaimed and their supporters gloated of the victory and delighted in the defeat of the opposition.  Majority had gracefully accepted being outvoted but some just cannot take a beating and had started whining.  A few had started crisscrossing the streets rallying and seeking correction to the presumed cheating yet, they probably had not crossed the street to vote.

There’s the severely overused “stupid”, “ignorant” and “idiot” words that describe voters who supports somebody who takes pride in the size of his manhood, the present occupant of the palace along the murky river.  To the best of my recollection, these words were rarely mentioned or perhaps non-existent, when that someone who identifies their cause with the color of the banana used to occupy the same riverside palace.

The “stupid and ignorant” voters, according to those whose bets were mangled to near extinction, prevailed.  Since the time of Pontius Pilate, people had allowed themselves to be corrupted.  Remember Judas and his 30 pieces of silver?   In last Monday’s exercise of our right of suffrage, there were no inhibitions and the gratuities, monetary or otherwise, flowed.   Because we had been allowing ourselves to be devoured in this system, “stupid and ignorant” voters will always be the norm and our votes will always carry the victorious.  Pilate had the people elect between a thief and a holy man and two thousand years later, people still opted for thieves.  Like it or not, it is what it is, be it stupid, ignorant or wise.

Legislation is all about making laws yet in the senate and congress, these supposedly hallowed halls have in their sacred bowels actors, entertainers, jokers, plunderers, suspected drug and gambling lords, coup plotters and athletes overwhelming the lawyers and corporate types.  In this country, anyone can run for an elective position and that is the trouble.  To quote King Henry VII of England, “The problem with political jokes is they get elected.”  Then we have the nerve to ask what is happening to our country.

The local government units more or less have the same composition.  Most of the time it’s a popularity contest that in some instances, someone with nothing but fart between their ears but with obscenely fat wallets gets the nod.  But as always, there are exceptions to the rule, ones that are true to the call that had successfully crossed the finish line.

To fellow Bosconians in politics, specially newly elected Cebu City councilor Dondon Hontiveros and re-elected councilors Jun Gabuya, Junjun Osmena and Raymond Garcia, the people had placed their trust in your hands to come up with solutions to pressing matters.  Ardua Non Timeo.  Fear no hardships.

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