Creeping anarchy

The strong will always overpower the weak, or at least try to. And nowhere is this more evident than in this country whose severely weakened institutions are increasingly coming under threat by strong lobbies and powerful interests. As a result, the creeping anarchy that has been unobtrusively threatening to swallow up the nation just might eventually do so.

That is, unless the keepers of these institutions, which are not frivolous creations of fancy but are there for a real and meaningful purpose, wisened up and arrest this silent slide into total social breakdown. The manifestations are already apparent. The problem is, they are simply being mistaken as part of the normal course of things.

But they are not. There is nothing normal when a rebel group that has been threatening to break away from the republic is allowed by the very republic it is trying to break away from to attain a certain leverage where it is able to dictate the course of negotiations that are stacked heavily in its favor. Under normal circumstances, it should have been the republic that dictates every aspect of negotiations.

But the republic is weak. It is the rebel group that has been negotiating from a position of strength. So weakened has the republic become that its very own commander-in-chief was forced to parlay the lives of his own men in favor of saving the deal with rebels, who have threatened to go back to war if they do not get what they bargained for.

When a certain chunk of the population gets pampered with every conceivable privilege and concession in recognition of an economic contribution that, while vital, does not make up for the entire economic picture, it is easy for that chunk of the population to get the adulation all the way up to their heads. Regarded as nothing less than heroes, they now possess the strength and the ability to dictate on the republic what policies to implement and who to exempt.

When a powerful sect that has often seen its political clout provide the tipping force in many crucial political contests hits a rough patch, it is able to demonstrate that clout in a fashion that makes its political beneficiaries tremble, thus enabling it to dictate how and in what manner the government may proceed on certain issues crucial to its own being.

When many things are falling apart in many sectors of public service and governance, from power to transport to telecommunications, you will know that the applicable positions of government are dictated not by what is in the public interest but by what interests the influential forces behind these sectors. So weak have the institutions of governance become that even the president can do no more than offer a limp and pathetic odd and even traffic scheme to solve the traffic problem.

One can really grow weak in the knees just listening to how the keepers of the institutions that hold this country together fashion their positions on a given issue to suit their own political interests instead of ensuring that the institutions that are being assailed at a particular moment survive to live another day. One can almost puke at how these keepers argue their positions from one case to the next, often in conflict and in contradiction from one to the other.

Instead of working for the general welfare, selfish interest is always at the root of any position taken by the keepers of our institutions. The keepers of one institution assail the keepers of another over judicial orders that have unfavorable political ramifications, not in the processes provided by law but in public where it is easier to abuse and malign.

And yet the same abusers and maligners can get woefully quiet when the shoe is on the other foot, as when friendly or allied politicians are judiciously recommended for dismissal but are not dismissed for political considerations, thereby allowing those politicians recommended for dismissal to share the same stage as the abusers and maligners at political rallies, all looking happy and given to singing.

Our society as we know it is disintegrating because the real things that matter are ignored in favor of the politically expedient. It has become perfectly all right to bend or completely ignore the law if in doing so political capital is made. When government is no longer able to do its job or gets pushed around and told what to do, and then submits meekly or cooperates gleefully, then you know it is simply scared to step on some toes.