Power and Politics

It’s 2:17 am and I’m still awake…I actually fell asleep for like 10 minutes but my sister had to wake me up cos I’d forgotten that I was still doing my laundry…So, I went to get my laundry and now I’m fully awake, and listening to music. I’ve never written or posted a blog before, and never wanted to cos I thought it was a waste of time. However, I can’t fall asleep so I’m gonna go ahead and vent by writing to kill time.

Today I had my human rights exam and it was pretty easy, although I spent the whole 3 hours writing essays, and more essays, all about human rights and politics. Yes, so political science is my major and so now I’m so passionate about politics. In fact, I believe that everything is about politics because it applies to everything in this world. But the easiest way to understand politics is to relate it to POWER, which means, Material wealth/ Money. Yes, so I am a realist. I believe that politics is all about power, money, survival, self-interest, etcetera, etc…Sometimes it makes me so angry when I think how f*cked up our world is. The discrepancy between the rich and poor continue to increase especially with the advent of globalization.  Millions of people in the world particulary women and children become the victims of extreme poverty, famine, and deadly diseases. Sometimes I wonder how and why these bad lucks happen to the most unfortunate human beings on earth…

Well, the answer is simple. Governments around the world are driven by capitalism and want to follow the US model of governance, which by the way IS not the Best because it’s too state-centric and puts too much emphasis on the economic realm. The problem with the developing countries is that, they try to follow the US trajectory but the thing is, their levels of economic standards do not equal that of the US. Hence, they can play catch-up forever but will never match the economic power of the United States. However, these developing countries do not have a choice, but to adhere to free trade and open their markets because they must obey the conditions set forth by the World Bank and IMF, which were outlined in the Structural Adjustments Packages or SAPs. Why? Because they owe them money, lots and lots of money so they must follow these conditions. So while they try to develop and build all these nice, expensive and attractive skycrapers around the city, evidence of extreme poverty remain in the sorrounding area.

Do you wonder why Makati is so developed but at the same time the squarter areas still exists? And what about Hongkong, Beijing, Shanghai…they have developed infrastructures, yes, but on the other side of the country, more than half of the population live under the poverty line. For those who may not realize {although it may be obvious] this is all done by the so-called globalization which means free trade and free market between countries, that’s why they say, we now live in a borderless world. Yet, globalization is not beneficial to everybody, only those with money and power to control [i.e. multinationals or big firms from the West] could gain from it. It’s sad isn’t it? But it’s a harsh reality…

So what must be done??? Well…we as the younger generations probably can’t do much now, but we can be the future leaders. We can make a difference by not submitting to the wills of the powerful states, we can challenge them and not elect incompetent leaders in our countries who will only become the puppets of the West. It saddens me that my home country, y’all know Philippines, is still the same. In effect, it has not progressed much. When I left almost 8 years ago, the country was facing huge political disarray and economic disposition and today the problems remain. Now I currently reside in Canada and I meet a lot of our fellas at work and sometimes on the streets. More and more of them immigrate and choose to come and work here because of the abundant amount of money. They sacrifice not seeing their families for several years just so they can earn and send money to them. Yet, most of them get paid with minimum wage, but that’s already a lot in filipino pesos, so in a way it’s a good thing.

One time at work, I met a filipina in her 40’s who migrated here a few months ago. Now, she’s in college in Ottawa, re-educating herself to have a higher-paying job. She told me she is a CPA back in P.I., but she is having a hard time finding a job. You know why? Because the Canadian government would not recognize her CPA certificate and she graduated in one of the best schools in the country. Sad eh? So she’s stuck here, and if she goes back in the Philippines she would not be paid much either.

And I used to think that, where you get your education doesn’t really matter much, rather it’s how you educate yourself, because at the end of the day, science is science, english is english, and maths is maths. Nothing really changes until you do your schoolwork then quality comes down to subject. BUT, to some extent, if your parents have money and can afford to buy you a degree in one of the elite schools, then you are safe and can be a President like George Bush who graduated with a C [roughly 70%].

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