Our renowned Culture of Impunity: All Filipinos are complicit

It's no wonder that everything in the Philippines is expensive. Insurance premiums probably cost more than the average in the region because insurance companies most likely factor into their risk models the generally high likelihood of a bunch of "soldiers" barging into a client's business premises and nonchalantly declaring mutiny against their civilian bosses. That certainly becomes a more likely risk now that more than a few precedents have been set for uniformed bandits routinely getting away with jack-all even after waving high-powered weapons at civilians' faces in the name of some made-up "revolutionary" stand.

Already the average Filipino consumer contends with the high cost of borrowing money owing that (pardon the pun) to the average Filipino's inclination to simply doing a runner on their obligations to creditors.

Such is the economic cost of a cultural malaise that we are all otherwise quite familiar with...

Impunity.

In many flaccid acts of slacktivism, we raise fists, display icons on our profile pictures, and publish "status updates" symbolising our trying-hard expressions of "indignation" against many acts of impunity. Yet we are all complicit by virtue of our own duly-elected representatives in Congress concurring to politically-motivated "amnesties" and "pardons" that are doled out, exchanged, and brokered in the way most forms of political currencies are.

Not only do Filipinos deserve each other, Filipinos simply reap the poverty they themselves have sown.