High and addicted

While we tend to limit addictions or dependence to substance or alcohol abuse, experts have added new things to the list of addictions or dependence. There is “emotional” dependence or why good girls end up with bad boys. Reality TV now features “Hoarders” or people with an addiction for stuff, or shopping addiction. There is even an addiction to thrills, risks and danger.

Many parents are still stuck with 30- to 40-year old dependents or addicts to the comforts of “home” and there are a number of “children” who are perpetually doing “pay back” to dependent parents who actually have the capacity to work and take care of themselves.

There is however an addiction or dependence that Filipinos exhibit on a national scale; this addiction is not determined by class or ethnic background. It is not even determined by educational attainment or intellect. A lot of rich, smart people are just as addicted as the teeming masses of the poor and the ignorant.

And just like all the other addictions and dependence, it weakens the “addict” or the “dependent” and causes a lot of problems and financial loss to society and our country.

We are all addicted to politicians and dependent on them to give us a “high”.

We get “high” or carried away in promoting and campaigning for them to the point that couples squabble, friends part ways and neighbors get into fist fights. Many people even kill or get killed for them!

We get “high” when we interact with them during their fund raising events and debates completely forgetting that you just paid to be in their company.

And we actually believe that what they tell us during the campaign will ultimately result in bringing us to an economic, material and political “high”.

But just how many of the thousands of politicians we have been dependent on have actually given us something to be high about? I know that there are “some” but the rest are adulterated placebo Idols and False Prophets.

W all want to think and act like “involved, responsible citizens who are politically mature, but if you actually spend time to think about it, our so-called political involvement is all based on “what’s good for me”, our business interest, our family ties or our provincial links.

How can we talk about political involvement or maturity when most of us don’t even belong to a political party, don’t follow some program or platform, or have not consistently supported a person with whom we share visions and goals that go beyond the “Kapuso” versus “Kapamilya” commercial competitiveness.

But how would you react if you learned that our national addiction or dependence on “politicians” to solve our problems may be or is the very reason for our collective misery?

While studying how Filipinos have become so passionate and carried away with the campaign and the elections, I thought to myself how once again we are trying to apply “proxy leadership” to provide needed solutions.

The solution begins with us, and not the proxy problem solvers we vote for. You and I are the ones who face our day-to-day problems. Fifty to a hundred thousand politicians simply can’t solve all the problems of 92 million Filipinos.

To make matters worse, you may not realize it but our national addiction or dependence on politicians comes with…..a curse!

Yes you read it right. If you consider yourself a Catholic or a Christian I suggest you start reading the Bible concerning “voting proxy leadership” from Old Testament time to New Testament time.

I accidentally stumbled on a specific verse yesterday from the book of the Prophet Jeremiah: “This is what the Lord says; Cursed be the one who trusts in man, and who depends on flesh for his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord.”

“He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives” Jer. 17: 5. 

Just compute, how much time do you spend promoting, debating, discussing, convincing and listening about your candidate and politics and how much time do you REALLY spend in actual committed prayer and dependence on GOD to take care of you and your needs? Be HONEST, write down the minutes, the hours and the days. Then you’ll get the point.

If we have one national sin, I would say it’s idolatry. Not just the bowing to statues kind of idolatry but our collective act of calling celebrities and athletes as “Idol”. Looking up to politicians as “Idols” and relying on them for our relief and our prosperity.

If you strongly disagree with me, please be fair enough by reading the Old Testament writings and study how GOD punished “idolaters” who chose proxy gods and solutions. Check how many times God said: I will scatter your people to foreign lands you never knew to serve foreigner masters. 

Why have we gone from the top to the bottom of nations in Asean? Why have we become dependent on two and a half million overseas servants to keep our economy afloat, while the best and the brightest of Filipinos are stuck as under employed statistics?

Yes I have a list of candidates, yes I will vote. I will do so because it is my duty and my privilege. But I will depend on the grace of God and the sweat of my brow to provide for my needs and prosperity.

Politicians are God’s servants, our public servants and not my idols.