A politically obsessed nation

We are a people obsessed with politics – breathing, thinking, acting and dreaming as if politics were the centerpiece of our national existence. We normally breathe its highly polluted spirit as numerous scandals provoked by corrupt politicians assail first our nostrils, force their way through our constricted throats and eventually scorch the very linings of our protesting lungs.

Thinking of politics automatically conjure images of self-serving, hypocritical creatures who have dominated our national landscape for as long as memory can remember. Far too few are those who tenant our thoughts as patriots who indubitably served their political community well and made their personal interests a most secondary consideration while holding public office.

The historical context of our political action is typically one of deliberate deception, manipulative illusion and – when kalukuhan, kataran-taduhan, santong dasalan and mostly everything else fails – the resort to naked force, to santong paspasan na walang sasantuhin. Much of our political history drips with blood and the least adept and the most innocent are often the victims of violent political action. Particularly during elections – ostensibly an occasion for celebrating the rational process of democratic selection – our politics often deserts reason and, in making of winning everything, willfully embraces even the most criminal passions. "Guns, goons and gold" are still a potent trilogy in the arsenal of those who wage electoral campaigns in this country.

We dream politics, too. Dreams that have a way of transmogrifying into nightmares. As we went through the euphoria of the first EDSA, we closed our eyes and dreamt of how our universal mantra – Magkaisa! – would bring about a government and a people marching in national unity, gaining for all of us an aptly deserved place in the world’s community of nations.

Alas, more than a decade and a half later, with a caricature EDSA Dos attesting to how our elite’s immature impatience will not allow us to finish an impeachment trial of a wayward president and yet another EDSA Tres revealing the mean anarchic streak in our national psyche, the country remains saddled with the image of being the sick (sickly?) man/woman of Asia, arguably also the world’s undeniable capital where the Big C (for corruption) as well as KFR (kidnap-for-ransom) is concerned! No less than the current president attests to the increasingly sad state of the nation. (Apparently, nothing less than her own glorious sacrifice suffices to stay the evil hands of whichever gods of politicking rule the Philippines and instead cajole these creatures into uncharacteristically unifying the country towards its national redemption and respectability. So, the president no less must uncompromisingly repudiate any interest in political resurrection come May 2004. Such terrible sacrifice! Most underwhelming, to say the least as most – two weeks after her sacrificial declaration – have unfortunately increasingly come to say.)

Why is there such obsession with politics in this country? Obsession is usually associated with several things. We may be obsessed with something precisely because we are in dire need of it. Some wags say for instance that nations that are most obsessed with honor are probably those who do not have it at all, perhaps the most dishonorable of nations.

Another angle is that obsession is concerned with something that is grossly misunderstood. Someone becomes obsessed with another precisely because the objective reality of the latter is terribly misperceived and thus easily misunderstood. One romanticizes unnecessarily, even perversely. Love at first sight, it is said, is easily cured with a long second look. Many Filipinos are enamored – more precisely, infatuated – with American foreign policy. It would be extremely helpful if these Filipinos tried to locate what Filipino interests are served by Washington.

Of course, one may be obsessed simply because one immensely benefits from the object of obsession, whether male, female or it. Many husbands, wives and consorts are properly obsessed in this most transactional sense. As for politicians, they are similarly naturally obsessed with politics and politicking because they gain immeasurably from it. The political overlords of this country have a clear interest in sustaining whatever perpetualizes their rule over the kindly citizenry. Their obsession is easy to understand

But why should the people themselves – the vast majority of the citizenry which this country’s politics has neglected, maltreated and even impoverished – continue to be obsessed with it? Another column will have to tackle that highly provocative subject. It is not enough to suggest that Filipinos might profitably read Maugham’s Of Human Bondage and find in that novel the ultimate explanation for this nation’s obsession.