The quality of political ads that we see and hear nowadays are insulting to our intelligence. These trapos perhaps believe that all Filipinos do not use their coconuts and would continue to buy their shallow lies hook, line, and sinker. These dyed-in-the-wool traditional politicos might think that none among us would have enough common sense to detect and discern their incorrigible propensities to lure us, hoodwink the most naive among us, and mislead us into thinking that they are the promised messiah. These politicians might be thinking that we are stupid enough to believe them and repose our future on their irresponsible hands. They need to think more. The Filipinos are not stupid.
These ''politicos'' would usually claim that they are running for sheer love of country. Not for the love of their own pockets. Tell that to the marines. The truth of the matter is that they are really running for their love for themselves and for their close family members. They are running to have access to public funds, for the free use of government equipment and even the free use of government personnel. These politicians do not run for the country at all. They run because they want to protect their own turfs, their private businesses, their various properties. And they run to have access to top secret information and data that can give their selfish interests a big boost. Roxas runs for the business community. Grace for the elite with US visas, Binay for his family, and Miriam for lack of other exciting things to do.
Politicians also love to brag that they have helped a lot of people especially the poor, the marginalized, the powerless and the oppressed. They never acknowledge the indubitable fact that all the politicians do not spend their own money but financial resources taken from us and from the national budget. They want to project an image of being socially responsive to the needs of the people. These trapos would unabashedly claim credit for public works, for multi-million public projects that are designed to fatten the pockets of both the contractors and the politicians themselves. They should be ashamed of themselves. These projects make them richer by the billions.
These incorrigible liars always claim that they come from the poor, that they were orphaned at a very young age, that they have experienced going to bed without dinner, going to school without ''baon'', and going to work without fare money. They would claim that they know fully well the meaning and implications of being truly poor. They proceed to make a pitch by ending their story: with a conclusion that there is always hope for the poor and the powerless in our society. They do not really understand the problem And so, they do not qualify to become the solvers of said repeated social maladies. The people are sick and tired of this refrain and hackneyed mantra. They should think of new gimmicks.
The liars in almost all politicos would often lead them to make outrageous and preposterous promises of prosperity and peace for all. They promise to address the high poverty incidence, the run-away population, the alarmingly high degree of unemployment and underemployment. They promise to improve our infrastructures, which are deemed generally as the worst among the ASEAN member nations. Politicians even promise the lowering of income tax rates. They promise to increase salaries of civil servants. They never intend to keep these election promises. Most of them are incorrigible and congenital liars.
The intriguing part of these avalanche of daily lies is that there are still many Filipinos who allow themselves to be fooled all the time. Today's politicos are experts in misleading people. And many among us often say that they have no other choices. There are still a good number of naive, innocent and somehow neophyte Filipinos who would believe everything that trapos say. Well, as for me, I cannot be fooled anymore. I have learned my lessons the hard way. Now, whenever I hear these trapos with their incurable braggadocio, I just tell them: TELL IT TO THE MARINES. We Filipino voters may be silly or even crazy for you at times. But one thing is sure: we are not that stupid.