Politics
.JPG)
Presidential Elections
Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D.
May 28, 2022
In a few day's time, presidential contenders will become what and where the Filipino people would want and like them to be. They will be in the right place they deserve. The first 100 years are the most crucial.
After that, a prediction of what will happen in the remaining six years can be approximated. In the meantime, we’re in limbo (purgatory) as far as our future is concerned.
Will we be in heaven or hell for the next 6 years? Continue to shout out, Guys!
I Love My Country
Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D.
April 26, 2022
“I love my country and I’m willing to die for my country!”
Excuse me, but: “I don’t love my country and I’m not willing to die for my country!”
My country is already owned by only a few families (one percent and their number is dwindling, inversely proportional to the riches they stole on our land).
Many of my fellow Filipinos are homeless, sickly, jobless, squatters on the land that gave them birth and life. It’s not my country that I love but the Filipino people who have been marginalized, ignored, deprived, and excluded from the mainstream of progress and development.
The Healthcare System, Pagibig, Social Welfare System, Social Security System, Medicare, and other government services are weak, exclusive, or not working at all. Worse, public funds intended for their implementation are invested for other purposes, other than for the poor, sick, and homeless.
The “Preferential Option for the Poor” is not working. Instead, it’s being used, until now, as a deodorant by the Church, televangelists, religious pastors, and clergy who proclaimed themselves messengers appointed by their respective God.
The problem has become systemic. For centuries, it has been ingrained in our society’s system of economics, politics, leadership, governance, beliefs, and culture.
Meanwhile, one can be justified to ask: “who or what can change our corrupt and oppressive system?”
The results of the coming electoral race cannot give us a clear answer. We will just have to wait and see. And we have been waiting for so long a time already.
Will the real Messiah emerge on May 9?
Voting for the Right Person
Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D.
April 22, 2022
If the people still vote for the guy considered as corrupt by others, then, they must have seen something more in the guy that our country may need more badly but is not present in other presidential contenders.
Or if the people still vote for this guy we consider corrupt, then, one still asks: “Who amongst all the contenders is not?” Let them cast the first stone! (John 8:7).
I am raising these issues simply to highlight the fact that each of us has different perceptions of the reality outside. Each of us has a different understanding of the other person.
For some, I can be perceived as a devil incarnate, the epitome of the vilest of all evil, a hypocrite, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing. For others, I may not appear so.
A thousand individuals seeing and perceiving me can have a thousand pictures of what or who I am.
I can’t say that their perception of who and what I am is wrong. Who am I to judge them? I was not given a blanket authority to judge anybody.
It’s only they who can give judgment on their own subjective perceptions. And I see no use in arguing, just to prove them wrong of their perception of my personality.
To insist so would only mean endless debates and arguments that could only lead to violence and perhaps bloodshed as what is happening now in the relationship between and among nations.
As long as we’re imprisoned in this 4-D world of duality and contradiction, we will always be enmeshed in this tug-of-war relationship between good and evil.
But for every given thesis and anti-thesis, there is always a synthesis, a way out, a new perception that is able to unite the dialectics of matter. In the final analysis, it is this integrating synthesis or principle that matters.
Politics
Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – April 12, 2021
Politics should give way to science in these times of global crisis. It must only perform subsidiary functions by giving health and economic assistance like monthly cash allowances for food, medicines, vitamins, educational benefits, health-care assistance while speeding up nationwide testing, contact tracing, and inoculation processes from the village way up to the national level.
A Solid Catholic Vote?
Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D.
March 30, 2022
But is there such a thing as a solid Catholic vote? Unlike the Iglesia ni Cristo (INC), there is none.
But in cases of smaller societies like LSSAJ, XVDs, youth movements, women’s groups, labor federations, indigenous peoples, senior citizens, disabled, or ACA partner communities, unity, in terms of voting the same list of candidates from the national down to the village level, could be possible.
The only hindrance that stands in the way of solid voting is whether or not this is advisable, given our diverse philosophical and theological standards.
This is a sensitive issue. But if we’re not able to achieve this kind of strategy, then, we really deserve disunity within and among our ranks and our society’s leadership and governance since we were in the first place divided in our votes. And we have elected into public office those who are already fiercely divided among themselves.
It’s high time to reflect on the most quoted motto: “In diversity, there’s unity” (In pluribus, unum).
No! There can be no unity when there’s diversity. The Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are one triune God precisely because there’s no diversity in their actions.
They are diverse, three persons, yes, but united as one in all things. “Unity in diversity” (e pluribus unum). There can be no diversity when there’s unity.
A divided society will continue to be divided geometrically, especially because of our archipelagic landscape and regionalistic culture.
That’s one viewpoint. Another one is even more organic.
We live in a world of duality. The good and the bad are in each of us. We screen our list of candidates based on our personal preferences and beliefs.
These beliefs can be religious, cultural, social, political, medical, ecological, or technological. To us, it is the right thing to do. It is not fake, it is not false, it is not untrue.
But it is good to be reminded also that while our list may be true and accurate, it is not completely true and accurate either. For our perception of what is true and correct can be clouded by our senses just like the proverbial seven blind men.
Our understanding of the world is subjective and phenomenological. We know our candidates based on our own interests and idiosyncrasies. We can also be carried by what sociologists and psychologists refer to as band-wagon mentality.
Unlike the seven blind men, it would be likely more productive for us and our member communities if we compare our list of voters and come up with a common list of names. In this manner, we are able to ensure the likelihood of increasing the benefits and advantages that go to the common good of our member communities.
The cliché “To each his own” has long been proven to be more damaging and disastrous to us. This is what has been happening nowadays under too much unbridled capitalism, extreme socialism, and too much populism under the guise of liberal democracy, which is no different from totalitarianism, authoritarianism, and fanaticism.
Again, to wait for the government might be too late. To act as individuals might be too little. But to act as communities might just be enough, given our resources and limitations.