How primitive are we? How crude is our disposition still? The Philippines has long been dwelling in a dark cave. That’s not actually far from its figurative connotation if only we’d be more open-minded to see how we’ve been deprived of the amenities, services and supposed convenience from that of our own resources. Rather than reaping the benefits of a well administered bureaucracy and sovereignty, given as well the bounty from appropriate utilization of the Philippines’ rich natural resources and potential, we’ve become consenting if not restrained victims of corruption. As a matter of fact, even recent history could remind us how we’ve allowed corruption to not just rule over us but gain on us by co-Homo sapiens “stealing” from us.

Remember the then-President Gloria Arroyo’s NBN-ZTE deal corruption scandal amounting to $329M (take note, US dollars and the inflation rate back then), the Janet Lim-Napoles ₱10B pork barrel scam involving senators and congressmen, VP Sara Duterte’s ₱600M+ confidential funds and now the DPWH flood control issue since a few years back which accumulates to around ₱1Trillion, it just went to a few greedy people. Imagine if such amount in total were to be equally divided and responsibly given to the 117M Filipinos, we’ll all be financially capable. That’s of course if we capitalize on it properly; as an investment money through wage increase, benefits and what-have-yous, instead of the “bigay-ling ayuda”. Beguiling indeed and as beguiled as we are, we allow it to happen.

We’ve caved-in to their beguiling headship. We’ve become enablers of these government “execute-thieves” (representaThieves, SINators, oFISHYals, et al.) In every sense of the word, they execute. It’s a beguiling execution. They execute for the profitable protraction of poverty and adversity. They execute the thievery. And they even execute an instagrammable moment of their good life at the expense of our hardships and taxing life (pun intended). They cunningly and slowly execute us. Thus, from the lineage perhaps of Homo erectus (the upright man in stature not in character), they’re today’s “Homo executeus” kind of cavemen. Whereas, we’re executioners of our voices, our critical thinking, our sensibility, our common sense and our rights. We venerate them. We honor them. We enable them. We vote for them. And the enabling and executory motion there is “for them” at the expense of losing what’s for us.

The point is, we’re not supposed to be a Third World country. We’re not supposed to settle for a negligible percentage while they pocket a big chunk of it. What’s rather more scheming is that it’s even carried out like we owe them. As much as we’re in awe carrying the torch for their “inspiring” lifestyle and how they invest it for their personal gain even outside of the country. We butcher and feast on the mammoth in the room. Depictively (or defectively), like wandering cavemen just having the advantage of a cave for a shelter, there’s no address-ing a more permanent and modernizing way out of primordial crudeness, primal darkness.

With the right government program, sans the greediness of some (or quite a lot), we’d be a rich country as the Philippines truly is. There’s incompatibility, however, it’s taken advantage of as a “HARMonious match” between rich and poor… Much like living in the Stone Age …much of that friction is a “match” ~ much of that spark is true, two similar stones creating a spark but one gets warm, the others take the heat… one gets a roast beef, the others get a spark of hope, a morsel… Thus, “bato bato sa langit, ang tamaan matindi kumupit.” Spark to stark, as the stark reality is that we find gratification in being taken advantage of as if we’re serving such a purpose. To them, yes, it’s our little contribution to their accumulated wealth. We’re their handymen that serve them right.

From Homo habilis (handyman), our being “Home-o bahabilis” have been flooded with that drowning reality as we’re adaptable enough even so that we’re used to corruption… Our homes submerging in flood seems less of a setback but an accepted norm as what it is… Emerge from that cave and speak out. Out of that dark cave, more than figuratively and beyond the disparity from the kind of a “nepo baby life”, we could likewise be living with walk-in closets and ‘man caves’. But we’re not. So until when and then, we’re NAWALANderthals at the beck and call of the sabertooth-guarded Croc-Magnons. “Caveman speak, me want no umbrella, me want no Rolls Royce. Me want justice. Labas kweba no more silent, me want sigaw totoo Laban! Me want us make noise. Me want heard.” As voiceless as we may sound, together, it’s our little contribution for a loud cry that’ll serve them right…