Politicians' names on public works: a reflection of the character of the Filipino

People miss the point that the whole brouhaha about politicians' names embellishing public works projects revolves around. It's not about the lack of delicadeza surrounding the way politicians exploit available white space, say on a pedestrian overpass, to splash images of themselves and verbage about their involvement in the erection of said structure. It's about how the ordinary Pinoy, in all the renowned clueless and vacuous ways that we regard our politicians have exhibited a pathetic tolerance for such practices stretching back decades.

Such behaviours in our politicians (which the usual bozos now grandstand their false outrage about) are therefore just symptoms of the underlying problem of the appalling character of Pinoy society. In short, the blatant use of public works as free advertising space by politicians merely reflect the character of Filipino society -- a people who, themselves, openly piss in public on both private and public property as part of their typical day at the office.

To give credit to the man Conrado de Quiros he is right in what he observes in his latest blurb on the Aquino Family Newsletter...

It is simply that we tolerate them, and we tolerate them because we do not see [politicians who perpetrate such pracitces] as crooks. And we do not see them as crooks because we do not see that they are stealing. And we do not see that they are stealing because we do not see that what they are taking for themselves is our money.

Of course we make cluck-clucking noises about corruption and the theft of public funds, but we do not really take it seriously. Proof of it is that we get well-known tiradors in public office as godparents for our children’s baptism and marriage. We do not greet them with the same opprobrium, revulsion and recoil we do snatchers and pickpockets. Indeed proof of it is that we do not get violently pissed off when we see a sign that suggests a road, a bridge or a clinic is there because a public official has decided to donate it to us. We do not react to them as we would to a vendor in the thieves’ market who tells us to thank him for selling to us at great discount the cell phone we recognize as the one stolen from us.

All roads lead back to the core message -- that the ultimate source of the epic failure that is the Republic of the Philippines is none other than Da Pinoy.