isn't it better to make everyone a multimillionaire?

"what do you do when you fall?" Thomas Wayne asked. this post from Sigaw ng Bayan was flagged to me by a friend, which in turn reminded me about that quote. I am sure true or not, Mr. Monsod or the people behind One Voice will answer that sigaw post or choose to ignore it.
The mud thrown by Sigaw makes no difference at all.

follow this arrogant and idiotic train of thought: i have a confession to make. i voted for gloria macapagal-arroyo when she ran for senator. i voted for gloria macapagal-arroyo when she ran for vice president. at the time it was happening, i supported EDSA 2, much to my family's opposition. if one follows that train of thought, by being one of the people giving gloria macapagal-arroyo victory upon victory in elections--- led her to an opportunity to become president and by supporting EDSA 2, i and many people who did exactly all those things is guilty of putting this nation in our current predicament. there is a kernel of truth in this: we in our small measure, help bring about this world. hindsight can show us many things.

i have blogged about this many times before: usurping power through EDSA 2 was a mistake. it created this environment, it weakened our institutions and tainted our democracy. for all those "negative" things, i do hope we have learned, painful as it is to work within our framework of Government however long it takes to make things better. There are sadly no magic answers or quick fixes neither do we have supermen descending from the sky to right our wrongs for us.

this may be true or not: "I’m saying this to underscore the hypocrisy of certain people and groups who try to create an illusion to our people that they are pristine and have not done nothing wrong in their entire professional career,” Veloso said. if it was true does it matter? we all make mistakes and life isn't perfect and some mistakes are just bigger, especially as responsibilities grow. And even if it was true, between, one--- Sigaw's pointing to a consolidation of power by an elite or One Voice that is focused on social justice, i'd rather choose the latter.

Sigaw's post said Veloso said this: "the country is too poor to have too many expensive national elections which have also become the source of corruption among election officials and so-called election operators."

I have never seen a poor country with malls like ours. certainly there are many who are hungry in the streets--- and one too many i might add. it all falls down to those people who want to fight poverty. i ask you this: isn't it better to make everyone a multimillionaire?

We don't need constitutional change to enable electoral reforms. We need stronger political parties. Political parties that are focused on delivering results to the masses and like all organizations, Political Parties can only thrive as a Community that is composed of people who believe in the same thing: ideology. Certainly if we continue on the thread we are in today, wherein personalities form the kernel of political parties, it does become more expensive. If we continue with our manual system, we will certainly make it more expensive. These reforms need not come from Charter Change, it can be done today if there was political will to do so.

Though it is not to say, we don't need Charter Change. It is to say that Charter Change should be done properly, within the context of our current system and that Change--- comes from myriad sources and not some wishful miracle cure.

in the same post Veloso said: “I think the opposition should look at the charter change as a positive development in our effort to overhaul our electoral system. They should embrace the fact that after their second failure to impeach the president, the best alternative for them is to work with us in fighting electoral fraud like Dagdag-Bawas through a total systems overhaul."

I agree with him especially with regard to how the Opposition fumbled the ball on impeachment. that was a strategic and a public relations nightmare. It did not separate the Opposition's crowd with that of the Administration. It did not improve their "image" which we can all lump them in a corner. They acted foolishly and childishly. the resounding defeat strengthened Arroyo's position further. it questions why we should in the next election vote for the Opposition when today, they have shown us no proof they can do a better job or distance themselves from the mediocrity of Arroyo's and her ilk's performance.

I similarly agree that there should be a complete systems overhaul, but not in the context that they choose to do so. Countries like the United Kingdom exists as some constitutionalists regard as having "no (formal) constitution". We ought to look at how New Zealand resolved their own constitutional problems, there maybe a lesson there.

Reforms can be instituted today. Electoral reforms, Social Justice reforms, Political Party reforms and we can take baby steps. Individually, we can erect personal change, and as we become better citizens in our own private lives these things will translate to our national life.

Let us talk about an analogous situation. In the computer industry, Microsoft, has taken a hit because they have failed to ship the next release of their popular Windows Operating System. It has been over six years and will be close to seven years since the launch of Windows XP that the next release--- Windows Vista will be launched. Microsoft wanted to do a whole lot of change. Ambitious really, but very logical. It would greatly improve the technology of their software. But the sheer volume of work, the immensity of the project has led to feature reduction after feature reduction, delays and added complexity. On one hand Apple has shipped six versions of their growing with popularity Mac OSX operating systems in the last six years. In each iteration, OS X has had major improvements over the previous ones because they have taken baby steps. All this has led Microsoft to reconsider their methodology with Steve Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft acknowledging during a keynote address at a Microsoft launch event that the company needed to get more agile and to produce software faster, to the tune of delivering technology every 18 to 24 months.

And what can we gain from this lesson? A complex problem such as our country can not be solved by one huge monumental thing. "Charter Change, Now!" sounds grandiose, and sexy and the glitter can fool you into thinking, "oh, wow!". Like EDSA 2 that one quick change to sweep everything away is a pipe dream.

We take it baby steps--- because it is pragmatic to think that we can make small mistakes, which at least we can rollback much more easily rather than building this immense thing and you wouldn't know what to do because it is just too big. Put in simpler terms, chopping a problem into small pieces can be more manageable in the long term.

No one disputes we need change. We do so over the details. And after the debacle of 2004, of edsa 2, of Erap Estrada, would you blame people for not wanting to drink the kool-aid Arroyo's (and to an extent even the Opposition's) camp wants this country to drink?

we need clear reforms today, which we can do. we have the foundation, the framework all in place if only we choose to enable them properly like the Local Government code for example. And if Arroyo's kool-aid is to be believed, we have money in the bank, why not deliver true reforms rather than press releases? Charter Change can happen as all these things are happening because it is an important step--- but not the be all and end all of things. We've all made a lot of missteps in the past, but what do you do when you fall? That is an easy question to answer. it is "hard to say, i'm sorry" as the song goes. the easiest way to do both is to pick yourself up and that is action and it is the best way we can achieve fairness and equal opportunity for all.