VIEWPOINTS

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BY OSCAR CRUZ
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Something is wrong

SOMETHING is wrong. Why? When was everything right?

Something is getting worse. Why? When was anything getting better?

While these questions may be asked by pessimists, they may also be posed by realists. In other words, the Philippine scene appears to be anything but promising. And the basis thereof is anything but a secret.

The main reasons for such well-existing and very unsettling phenomenon in no less than the national level are well-known – if not also well- felt and thus lamented by those still concerned with the plight of the country as a whole.

In other words, these are unsettling days, these are trying times. And some of the more outstanding indicators that something is markedly wrong in the country are sad and saddening factors.

There is the long since ongoing mortal situation in Mindanao, more specifically in terms of the emergence of the so-called warring “ Maute” in cahoots with the deadly “ISIS,” not to mention the “BIFF,” the “MILF,” and the like. These times, the more important articles are guns, cannons, bullets, grenades included.

There is the unending problem of poverty in the country, the sight of people living by and sleeping at sidewalks, not to mention the curse of the overseas Filipino workers phenomenon that separate families, that enslave workers, that violate women. Alive and hopeful they left the Country but some of them came back dead.

There is the long existing manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs, especially in Luzon – without altogether excluding the Visayas and Mindanao – one overall outcome of which is extrajudicial killings night and day, 24/7. The number of people killed in the past months is more than those during dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law.

There is either but the ceremonial if not actually unstable relationship respectively between the Philippines and China, between the Philippines and North America, both of which said Countries look at the country as some kind of a play station. To claim that standing peace and harmony reign among them is wishful thinking.

There is too long and still ongoing animosity between groups pro- and anti-Marcos whose dictatorship was said to be something someone might be entertaining to impose on the country presumably for the sake of peace and order. True or not, the mere thought of the possibility is disturbing, unnerving – to say the least.

There is the enigmatic up and down prices of fuel, the forever and ever without end traffic jams that try men’s souls, the thereby continuous poisoning of the environ that violates nature and eventually make people miserable and sick. This is not to mention the recently found truly poisonous element mixed with gasoline.

There is a Vice President whose election is still being questioned, whose Cabinet position has been nonchalantly taken away from her and whose basic task wherefore is to assume the Office of the President when this is gone during his tenure of Office. What happens next is anybody’s guess.

The more fundamental truth to be remembered during these trying times is that “hope springs eternal” – allthe markedly disturbing national facts notwithstanding, despite all the given signal negative circumstances all over the land. But some optimism is certainly still in order./PN
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