‘Urban congestion, along
with joblessness and acute
lack of moral principles
among the poor, have
entrenched them in poverty.’
THE opposition should seek safeguards from the Commission on Elections on the P344.99 million contract awarded to a company linked to presidential top campaign donor and close friend Dennis Uy that will distribute vote-counting machines during the 2022 elections.
Apparently, the poll body couldn’t care less that a dark cloud of doubt may weigh down the credibility of the vote count after the contract was awarded to F2 Logistics, which is chaired by Uy. Outspoken Commissioner Rowena Guanzon does not seem confident enough to speak out on the controversial move of the poll body. Will the “Garci Boys” be out in full force anew?
***
No one believes a presidential or senatorial candidate swearing to high heavens that he or she will be able to eliminate poverty or bring it down significantly.
Governance and politics are hindered by uncontrollable forces from the people themselves from making poverty a thing of the past. Urban congestion, along with joblessness and acute lack of moral principles among the poor, have entrenched them in poverty.
As mentioned from the Peter Wallace Business Forum, in poor countries like the Philippines “only a small minority follows the basic principles of ethics, integrity, responsibility, respect for laws and ordinances and the respect from majority of citizens by right.” In our barangay in Marikina, for instance, 80 percent of violators of quarantine and health protocols come from depressed communities.
Someone from a squatter’s area turned into livable homes by Mayor Marcy Teodoro was hired to repair a rented studio-type unit and to put up another one on our street in Barangay Fortune. His work with an assistant was so inferior that the homeowner had it redone by another hireling, costing her three times the actual expense for the first job.
Many times, the first worker would be heard proudly saying, “Pwede na yan.” The second worker, thought to be more honest and more capable, was hired to renovate the owner’s big house. It turned out he was charging twice as much and after receiving huge advance huge payments left the job unattended for several months. He had taken another project in the next city. He also came from a squatter community.
***
It is interesting why Catholics and Born-Again Christians here have not been taken by pastors in the US who have been denouncing poverty and built megachurches and global ministries to prove that God bestows comfort and wealth. They have lived the spiritual dimension where poverty, sickness and want do not exist. Many times in the Old testament God has provided for “every need” and even exceedingly to the people who obeyed His commands, such as Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, David and many other men of God.
Catholic pulpits in our country do not proclaim the true Word of God on tithings, offerings and genuine worship. Jesus walked on earth not as a poor man but that He left a part of His Deity to become less. He became poor this way, as CS Lewis writes, “God comes down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity: down further still to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life: down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature He has created.”
