What else is new?
A foreigner visiting the Philippines for the first time reads the papers and watches TV news, gets alarmed, and asks his Filipino friend: “What the hell is going on in your country?”To which the Pinoy replies, “Nothing to worry about, pal. These are normal times in the Philippines.”
Normal means our senators are running all over the place to initiate one investigation or the other, and our congressmen probing their favorite anomaly.
It means a number of Cabinet and sub-Cabinet members are getting embroiled again in scandals and the administration is circling the wagons in self-defense.
The police are helplessly looking for the slippery suspects in cases that threaten to join the Hall of Unsolved Crimes.
The military must fight in two or three fronts because no president has succeeded in smashing the 40-year-old New People’s Army insurgency and the three-decades old Muslim insurgency.
The foreigner takes a look at the headlines and the opinion columns and sees—day after day—new revelations and charges flying around the flavors of the month: the $329-million national broadband network project, the cyber-education program and the replay of the “Hello, Garcia” soap opera.
Coming soon: a reopening of the Kuratong Baleleng rubout by the police in Quezon City a dozen years ago and the kidnap-murder of PR guru Bubby Dacer and his loyal driver.
The police, meanwhile, could not solve the rape-murder of a seven-year old girl or the death of a UP student after a hazing ordeal in school. The authorities could not explain the whereabouts of the missing activist Jonas Burgos.
The 100,000-strong Armed Forces is tied down by the Abu Sayyaf—who number less than 200—in Sulu and Basilan. If you recall, the Philippine National Police, also with more than a hundred thousand officers, has the added responsibility of fighting the insurgency.
You have more than 200,000 troops and lawmen chasing the ragtag Abu and 7,000 NPA regulars. They are receiving expert training and advice from US soldiers who are also building camps in parts of Mindanao and Sulu.
The Bureau of Immigration has admitted at least 700,000 Illegal aliens are working and running their businesses in the country. The number of unwanted guests is increasing everyday.
The photo of the week appeared in the Malaya newspaper yesterday: a group of children staring at the body of a man shot and killed by the police reportedly for carjacking in Quezon City.
The foreigner grabs his friend and asks, “Where can we relax? This place is scary.”
Whereupon the Pinoy takes him to a dimly lit girly bar where teenage girls dance naked in front of rich businessmen, politicians and policemen looking for sex.
