The boomerang curse

With politicians more focused in the campaign than anything else, it is easy to overlook how a campaign period and the upcoming elections could create more headaches than the present administration expected.

From the beginning, the PNoy administration had simply set its sight on winning as many senate slots as they could or if possible getting 12-0 tally for 2013. But from the way things have been going, the administration will soon have a second serious concern, which is damage control from all the exposés, and criticisms that the opposition has started to hurl at Malacañang in relation to issues and negative developments.

With so much media coverage given to the opposition candidates, people are beginning to get a different view on political issues besides the rose tinted views of the Aquino media group. So far Mitos Magsaysay, Dick Gordon and Gringo Honasan have captured peoples attention with their views on how the administration is mismanaging issues.

So far the comment that registers the most is Mitos Magsaysay’s comment that the President should choose if he want to be the campaign manager of the Liberal Party or President of the Philippines. What ever his personal sentiments may be, it might be good for the President to consider that his presence and pro-LP comments have had divisive effects in general. As you yourself have said: you are “President of ALL Filipinos” and not just the Liberals or the Yellow community.

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“What the enemy had meant for evil, the Lord had turned into good”. This is a phrase that many Christians often say when God turns a bad situation into good. Unfortunately there are also some situations when people turn the good into bad.

About four or five years back, I knew a young aspiring female executive who worked so hard to succeed and be recognized in her chosen field. She dressed the part, worked the territory and networked herself to success and public recognition. In spite of all her efforts, and typical of the male dominated business community, she also got her fair dose chauvinism and being treated as an ambitious upstart. This of course was not news to her as she continued to do whatever it took to rise to the top.

What came as a shock to her was to be verbally bullied and intimidated “up close and personal” by a politician-businessman who made no difference whether you were a man or a woman. As far as he was and is concerned, if you’re a competitor, you’re the “enemy”. I could only offer my support and friendship to the lady executive who to her credit dug her heels in and worked even harder to be “top dog” in her male dominated industry.

Through the years, I watched her from a distance, which unfortunately was not far enough away from hearing how the lady had slowly become infected by the language and the conduct of men and that she herself had started to manifest a “take no prisoners” mentality. To copy Yoda the Jedi teacher: “like her tormentor, she has become”.

As a mere business acquaintance, I have no “right” or opportunity to approach this self-made Queen Bee. Yet I struggle with the knowledge that at one point, deep down inside, I knew her as a kind and sensitive person, who experienced and knows what it’s like to be threatened. I know that business and competition can make us do or say things that are actually out of character from our true self.

Once upon a time, I too had a “take no prisoners” attitude. I would be the first to confess guilt for foul and vile language hurtfully hurled at the competition as well as teammates. I gleefully reviled and danced with pride for victories and achievements. But one day, while living in a foreign land, where my family name, diploma, titles or achievement mattered not, I found myself in tears reflecting over the falsehood of my corporate and personal life.

For many months, I was “reminded” of how selfish one can become, especially when you are only accountable to yourself. I share this story with all of you just as a gentle reminder and “pre-mortem” reference to help evaluate where you are in your personal and professional life.

If I asked you to write an honest eulogy about yourself, would the words kind, fair, honest, compassionate, loving, moral, Godly, respected, and loved, find a place in the final testament to your human existence? (Go ahead take the test!) When you’re no longer powerful or influential and without a title, how differently do you think will people treat you. Try being jobless and becoming a nobody 6 months before Christmas and you will quickly find out who sends you a card or a gift.

As far as stories and fairytales go, it’s ok if Little Red Riding Hood beats the big bad wolf. But when she herself turns into the wolf, that’s not a happy ending, it’s a horror story.

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The last place I would have imagined seeing her was Robinson’s Pioneer. I was not even sure if it was her or just someone with a similar hairstyle, but that streak of color on a head of black hair was a hint. But where were her “close in security”? It was so unbelievable that I really had to know. So I let her walk off a few meters further and I insolently shouted “Dinky!”

I guess that said it all as far as how relaxed and secure I felt that “Dinky” a.k.a Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman would not take any offense if I addressed her on first name basis. Besides it was the safer option over shouting out the more formal “Madame Secretary” is that you?

Yes, it was DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman whom I have always admired for constantly being on the ground wherever disaster strikes or where government social services and support is needed. In fact, I find it ironic that everybody else get phrased for performance improvements but no one praises the DSWD and Soliman, considering they are the most overworked and taken for granted agency. More than the PNP and the AFP, the DSWD staff and volunteers have had more work and more problems to deal with.

The tragedy is that, as shown, in what happened at their office down south, the DSWD regularly gets left behind to deal with the problems, the mobs, and especially the troublemakers. When a typhoon passes, everyone packs up and follow suit, but not the DSWD. President Noynoy Aquino needs to rethink this situation and tell the DILG and the DND to stop being “short-timers”. Disaster relief is not a motel where they stay “short time”, stay and help the DSWD until the job is done!

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