“I HEARD you sold the Amazon
To show the country that you’re from
Is where the world should want to be
For fine something all people need
I’m faithless now though we win
Every time and I don’t know how
‘Cause I haven’t bought you
And I haven’t sold me
But the people are dying to, to get on TV”
These are lyrics from the first single of English singer Declan Mckenna. The name of the song is “Brazil.”
What inspired it was when he heard that the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics would both be held in Rio de Janeiro. That decision caused a lot of controversy.
After both events, cases of fraud and plunder were raised. Brazil is a developing country and the money used to fund these two events really took a toll on the citizens. The buildings and the people involved are now all under investigation.
Sound familiar?
This is exactly what is happening here with the issue of the SEA Games. We just suffered a huge earthquake, people are starving, and the government spends millions of pesos on a cauldron for the SEA Games.
Ask anybody on the street and they smell something fishy with that. The amenities and the food were all disappointing, too, and we received countless of tirades from our fellow SEA countries.
I guess the earnings from all the extra taxes ended up here but couldn’t they at least have given it more effort?
If the ones in charge are also called out for the things wrong, they retort with calling us “traitors” and “not like Filipinos.”
Well, Brazil had its big challenge several years later when the Amazon rainforest caught fire. For us, calamities are not anything new, but I wonder if something even bigger comes up, will there be anything left that the government can turn to for the support of its people?
Or will it have to depend on foreign aid again?/PN
