Just do it

Nike’s trademark slogan was coined in 1988 at an advertising meeting and was inspired by murder convict/death row inmate Gary Gilmore, whose last words before he was executed in Utah in 1977 were, “Let’s do it.” For sure the guys at Nike didn’t know that at the time; that bit of background trivia didn’t come to light until about two decades later, in interviews by adman Dan Weiden, who came up with the slogan and pitched it to Nike.

From that ignominious beginning, the slogan has taken off as an inspirational phrase, an admonition to “overcome hesitation, a call to actively push past limits and take action towards your goal.” Together with the Swoosh logo – also connoting motion – “Just do it” transformed Nike from simply an athletic shoe company to a global lifestyle brand, with $46.3-billion total revenue in 2025.

These three simple words are an admonition to put aside doubt, hesitation and any other obstacle that may be holding you back from going for your dream or heading toward your goal. Actor Shia LaBeouf made a growling one-minute motivational speech in 2015 that said in part, “Make your dreams come true/Nothing is impossible/No, what are you waiting for/Just do it.”

Former health secretary (1992-1995, the best one we’ve had) and senator (1995-2007, with perfect attendance), the late Juan Flavier, cleverly adapted that catchy slogan and turned it into the equally catchy tagline “Just DOH it” – a call to action for Pinoys to take part in the DOH’s health programs, like the anti-smoking Yosi Kadiri, Oplan Alis Disease, Contra Kolera and Doctor to the Barrios that sent medical workers to rural areas, something Flavier himself had done, as a “country doctor” for 30 years, serving in poor rural barangays in Nueva Ecija and Cavite.

Today, perhaps we need another catchy, to-the-point, call-to-action slogan, since “Mahiya naman kayo” isn’t working – nobody is nahihiya. It obviously didn’t work when the President made that statement in his State of the Nation Address last July 28 before members of both houses of Congress in joint session. The lawmakers gave the admonition a hearty, lusty round of applause – even though it was targeted at many of them who should have felt the sting of that rebuke.

Ang kapal talaga, walang hiya – that’s our “honorable” legislators. Even when documentary and testimonial evidence leads right to them, they still issue denials “in the strongest possible terms.” Some even with righteous indignation threaten to sue those doing “politically motivated demolition jobs” just to besmirch their reputations. Seriously? Excuse me while I puke.

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Just do it. The Office of the Ombudsman, the Department of Justice and the probably-soon-to-be-disbanded Independent Commission for Infrastructure should take heed. These offices, and even the Palace by the Pasig, should stop issuing statements and press releases about impending filing of cases and instead – just do it. Stop giving out cutesy statements like “they won’t have a merry Christmas” and “just wait, they’ll be in jail by New Year” – and then turn around and clarify that it takes time to build a strong case against them, so we can’t rush this, etc etc.

Yes, the latter is true; building an airtight case that will lead to conviction is not easy. The pencil pushers and bean counters have their work cut out for them going over voluminous documents and sifting through testimonies and affidavits, finding corroborative evidence and the smoking gun. But please, stop with the pampalubag-loob promises of swift justice that are just empty pronouncements.

Yes, Sarah Discaya is in jail and Curlee Discaya is still detained at the Senate; indeed, they didn’t have a merry Christmas. Sarah is turning out to be the poster girl of the flood control scam scandal, just as Janet Napoles was the poster girl of the PDAF scam scandal. Some DPWH usecs have surrendered part – just part – of their kickback loot and are provisionally in the Witness Protection Program, supposedly ready to tell all. But is it going to end there?

In the PDAF scam the big fish – the legislators who were named and even indicted – all ended up swimming merrily away (as the current ombudsman said the other week, the court seems to have all the reasons – maybe millions of reasons? – to acquit), indeed to steal again another day, as we are seeing in this floodgate scandal.

The President let the genie of massive corruption in government out of the bottle; he can’t put the genie back in, even with whatever abracadabra or magic incantation the spin doctors might conjure up. Mr. President, this can be your administration’s redemption, the legacy you are hoping for, or this could turn out to be what will prove your critics right: that your “Mahiya naman kayo” exposé was just a stunt to shore up sagging survey numbers, all sound and no substance; that the field of corruption does have sacred cows, and that the investigations may now be cutting too close to home; that political alliances are indeed proving to be the ties that bind…

We peasants slaving away – and paying taxes, though grudgingly – are hoping against hope that this sorry episode in our history will be a real tipping point, that the shockingly massive scale of corruption, the impunity of it all, will finally result in real and lasting reforms in our government agencies, more and more of which are being exposed as ridden with corruption (even the fire department is riddled with rackets!).

So please, what are you waiting for – just do it.