I got this from www.utahrockhounds.com/. ../flat_tire.gif. Although not directly related to my post, I just thought it would make things a little more interesting.

The Flat Tire Government

“The Philippines could be compared to a car. If one of the tires of the car is flat, we need to replace it with our spare tire. But what if our spare tire is also flat? We can’t use the car if there are only three good tires so we have to go to a shop to buy a new tire.”

This was more or less what my classmate in Social Science 2 (aka the study of the Dead White Male Philosophers or DwhiMPs) answered the other day when our prof asked us if we would we allow VP Noli De Castro to take PGMA’s place if ever she would resign. Pretty philosophical answer if you ask me. But there was something bugging me about his statement so I told my seatmate and dear friend April, “Why would you bring a flat spare tire? Eh di ang tanga mo naman.”

Thanks to April (who is, by far, the more outspoken of the two of us), my concern was shared to the class, and I learned that what I said actually made a lot of sense.

If our government is filled with flat tires, then we have no one to blame but ourselves. We put those flat tires into office, didn’t we? So if De Castro is a flat tire then we don’t have a choice. By constitution, if PGMA resigns, he will take her place. We just have to accept that. We can’t always go against the constitution. If we always result to bending the laws, then they would be rendered useless, and there won’t be any real order in our society anymore.

We also can’t keep on going into revolutions. We can’t always have rallies in order to oust a leader. The problem with our country is that every time we face a crisis in our economy or every time we are dissatisfied with our leader, we always want that leader removed from his or her position. We don’t stop and think of other ways to resolve the problem anymore. If this keeps up, we might even have an EDSA 30 or 40 in the future, and that is certainly not a good thing if you ask me.

In the end all our problems with the government can all be traced to the fundamental problem of democracy, as what my prof said. The fundamental problem of democracy is that the majority gets to choose our leaders, and sadly, the majority of Filipinos are easily swayed by the popularity of artistas and the promise of a little money in exchange for their votes. We can’t change the fact that sometimes (or maybe most of the time?) the majority chooses the wrong leaders for our country. All we can do is hope and pray that someday the Filipino people would be wise enough to choose the right leaders, the best tires for our Philippine SUV. Until then, we just have to go on driving our country with flat tires. After all, we have been doing that for the past several decades. What are a few decades more?