HOLY week is the time of year when not only the Catholic faithful but also, others of religious faith, can take the time to reflect on the life and sacrifices of Jesus Christ, with the hope that emulating his sacrifices to save mankind would not only help them get pardon for their sins but more importantly, give them, on the basis of their faith, the resolve to overcome the many crisis they daily face.
It is a sad commentary these days that majority of Filipinos who overwhelmingly voted President Marcos Jr. into office in 2022 now feel frustrated, burdened by three major problems they feel his administration is doing nothing to effectively address— violent crime, illegal drugs, and corruption.
As the country’s largest business groups noted in their joint statement on April 10, over the brutal kidnap-slay of businessman Anson Que and his driver, what happened was not merely a crime but “an assault on the soul of our nation, a grotesque violation of humanity itself, and a declaration of war against the principles of justice, decency, and peace that bind us as a society.”
Their frustration is evident too over the way the authorities have tried to wave off the incident by giving words of reassurance that our peace and order remains normal and downplaying it as just another of those “POGO-related” incident perpetrated by Chinese gangsters against their fellow Chinese.
“We reject—utterly and absolutely—empty platitudes, the hollow theories, the bureaucratic inertia that too often follow such horrors. No more excuses.
“No more deflection with side stories. No more tolerating the intolerable. We demand action—swift, unrelenting, and transparent—to bring every perpetrator, conspirator, and enabler of this evil to account,” the PCCI, PHILEXPORT and the FFCCCII said.
Too, no matter how the authorities downplay it, illegal drugs are back with a vengeance, especially at the community level.
This is also of course expected when you have the country’s Top Cop, PNP Chief General Rommel Marbil, excusing the use of illegal drugs and narrowing its use down to those who work long hours.
Drug traffickers and their corrupt law enforcement protectors are emboldened too after seeing convicted drug smugglers being hauled before Congress, turned them into “victims” and their libelous statements against innocent people being accepted as “gospel truth.” And everything for the goal of destroying personalities whom some people deem a “threat” to their hold on power down the road.
And yes, while Filipinos, nurtured in the belief of God’s grace, can accept their being condemned to live in a life of poverty, they find it disturbing—and revolting—to know that those in government are confederating with one another to fatten themselves thru the misallocation of the annual budget not only for the kickbacks and the commission but also, in aid of their political ambition with the midterm polls just a few weeks away.
You add all these major problems together and seeing them all festering and unresolved, one naturally asks, “May we know who is really in charge?”
This is a fair question to ask as an increasing number of Filipinos are now losing their faith in the government’s ability to address these major concerns.
If they cannot be addressed, would even the more “minor” ones like bureaucratic red tape and traffic add to their frustration too?