Why Can't We Act Up together?

Everyday, my inboxes are flodded with emails containing news pertaining to the Philippine politics, the present condition, the discontentments of the people, the worldwide crisis etc, etc.

I also receive regular emails from my connections worldwide, those people who are passionate and cling for a change, for a better Philippines. They come from different walks of life, different political views, different opinions and yet one thing sure is that we all want to see the Philippines in a better perspective.

We all cry for a change and for a better Phlippines. In different discussions, we all want to have new breed of leaders and that we have to dump the “trapos.” There’s no place for them. They have created so much trouble in the Philippines and have looted enough in the government coffers and rich enough to sustain their families, friends and cronies until the end of their life. We all agree and know that.

And yet…despite of all these desires for change, why can’t we manage to act up all together? I think one of the reason is…the “me first" attitude.I have noticed that when we talk of something, like a project. People could be very fast in giving suggestions and will never ever run out of great ideas. But when implementation comes. no matter how simple it could be, when it comes to opening their wallets…that’s where the problem comes. All is double closed to some.

The “me first" attitude… wanting to be in the frontline. Be the first, be the leader and second to none. No one would like to be the followers. Many e-groups are being created. When one is not satisfied and if one does not agree with the e-group he belongs, he/she creates his/her own group and asks the others to join, so you are not suprised if you see the same people in different groups discussing the same thing and they do cross postings.

It’s overwhelming to read some postings. Some are very eloquent. I wonder how much time they spend infront of their pc just to express their opinions, their knowledge, their experiences. It’s amazign to read their postings. You feel intelligent when you read…but after that, you finally end up frustrated because nothing is comprehensive with their high falluting words after all. Excuse me is that simple English? Such a waste of time for me.

As the presidential election is fast approaching. many political opposition parties emerge. Many new faces of politicians are coming into the scene. In the OFWs alone, there are already many aspiring parties emmerging officially or not Some have practicaly the same objectives. Crying for change and better governance. When we ask for creating just one and unite other groups…forming a bigger group. The answer is a polite “no”.

We claim to have 10 million Pinoys in diaspora. This could be a very strong group to represent the Filipinos outside the country and let their voices heard. After all, we are the ones making the Philippines a great contributor for its economy. Twenty six billion dollars remitted yearly makes the economy in full swing. Without the OFWs, Philippine will never exist.

There is about 70-75% of people who are not satisfied with the way the Philippine government is being run. We cry for our discontentments, we cry for the injustices to the poor people. We denounce the corrupt leaders. And people go hungry. And yet nothing is really happening.

The OFWs can be a big and powerful tool to topple the present govermment. If we could only show our solidarity…by simply going to register and vote because we are sure that being abroad, the politicians can’t buy our votes. At this point, out of 1 million voters expected to register for the upcoming election, only 52,000 have registered worldwide! What a shame! Imagine the 10 millions worldwide if they all come out and vote?

And some people claim to be saying “Mahal ko ang Pilipinas” and yet we don’t really mean what we say.

If we really love the Pilipinas then let’s move our butts and do something and get involved. Let’s not content ourselves in our comfort zone, in front of our computer spending time getting in touch with our hundreds of friends in Facebook or in Friendster or contenting ourselves watching TV Patrol or WOWOWIE and yet nothing productive is happening and we have already wasted so much time.

We cry for unity. Unity here and unity there. Conferences, meetings, dialogues are being organized everywhere. Apparently, nothing is concrete being made. People go home with the same thing in mind….my “party first”. Or kami muna.

One of my close friends told me…”Susie, you are so idealistic and so naive. In the Philippines, there is no such thing as clean politics.”

And my question comes again….For God’s sake, for people’s sake, for our love of the country’s sake, why can’t we act up together? In the meantime, while we remain divided. Even though we belong to the majority of oppositions, we will never make it. We will continue to allow the trapos enjoy their great lifestyles, looting the people’s money, continue their-extra judicial killings, continue sending educated and over qualified maids worldwide and be abused, continue sending our hard- earned money to our familes and relatives, continue doing our little projects which is supposed to be the governments duty to provide them and we continue forever complaining up to the rest of our lives.

My challenge is, shall we allow this to happen forever?

This time, why don’t we give it a try and make the difference as we always try to preach and claim?

Susie Barbieri see my bloghttp://larigolotte.blogspot.com/ see my blog:http://laptitemere.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/ see my bloghttp://wfa-ngo.ning.com/profile/SusieBarbieri pls. help my OSYs project in Urdaneta:http://www.ipangasinan.com/myproject/urdaneta_UCLSTC/ pls. support our community livelihood programwww.freewebs.com/urdanetapiglets