Barangay politics still controlled by trapos

If you ever imagine that grassroots politics in the Philippines is the best illustration of genuine democracy, you must have been born yesterday, or should be just kidding yourself. Come on, be real. This is the Philippines, the land of the trapos, where political dynasties rule and dominate as if the country is their family corporation and as if the whole nation is their big hacienda.

The people are looked down with patronage and condescension. Trapos treat people as vassals and tenants as if the country is going to deteriorate without their powerful protection. A few families control the politics supported by the ruling economic class of landlords, taipans, tycoons, and magnates. Even the Church which, as the good book teaches us, has been called to feed the Lord's lambs and take care of his flock, has instead and in fact, allied themselves with the modern scribes and Pharisees, perhaps worried of their own survival and safety.

The religious people who are supposed to be immersed in the vow of poverty, have established and administered elitist educational centers to mentor and coach future exploiters of labor and oppressors of the working class, and future politicians who are corrupt.

Barangay politics is controlled by the mayors and the congressmen who themselves are allies or underlings, brothers and sisters, or sons and daughters of the governors who are either wives or paramours of senators and Cabinet members. No one can run, much less win an election in this country even in a homeowners association or a Parents-Teachers Association without the overt or covert blessings of the mayor. The mayor will never allow barangay elections without his or her active interference and interventions. The mayor anoints every candidate and even dictates the lineup down to the lowest kagawad and SK candidates.

Those who are really qualified and those who have the integrity and the independence of mind will always be deemed by the mayor as a threat to his own perpetuation in office. So, the mayor would usually choose the blind followers who are ready to jump from the rooftop if and when that is what the mayor wants.

Therefore, most of the choices by the mayor are either morons, imbeciles, or nincompoops who would be too ignorant and too afraid that they would never do anything and everything without consulting his honor, the mayor. That is why in this country, we will never have a clean government because the ones who are holding the powers are all dummies, robots, and fools chosen to be perennial subalterns, underlings, cronies, and partners in crime.

If there are few good men and women who manage to be elected, they must be extremely rich to buy votes on their own account, or extremely attractive like an actor or actress who become decorations in the halls of the barangay, municipal or city council, provincial boards, the House, or the Senate. This is a country where a Bar topnotcher like Gibo Teodoro can be beaten by an actor who was an ex-convict.

If we have bad government, it is because we have bad politics, perpetrated and perpetuated by bad trapos, elected by people who are either too afraid or too ignorant. The truly good and brilliant materials shy away. They have tried many times and were beaten by morons riding a Mercedes or a Ferrari. That is what is happening to our country, general.