Wednesday, May 15, 2013

MILF: Editorial--All candidates are losers

Editorial posted to the MILF Website (May 16): All candidates are losers

The sad of part of confrontational politics especially after elections is that all candidates whether winners or losers are losers. After elections, those who lost suffered a shattered image, revolting heart, and punctured pockets.
The winners, of course, will rejoice but at the back of their minds, they are figuring out how they can get back their money --- with tripled, quadrupled, or perhaps more profits.

Confrontational politics is contrary to what all experts on conflict management that the best way is to look for win-win solutions. Except those who run as a way of business, meaning those who withdraw after getting paid by whose turfs are affected, imagine everybody engages in mudslinging, vote-buying, intimidation, and other forms of cheating. This breeds only animosities, hatred, and even violence in society.

Perhaps with few exceptions or none at all, candidates’ only motive in running for office is power and money. Those using the people as reason for running is nothing but rhetoric.  The people are merely used as rubber stamp.

Power is addictive, while wealth satisfies no one. The duo are inseparable. Power bestows benefits on those who have it, and it is easy to create a system which allows a few to exploit others for personal gain. Similarly or worse, money is treated as god by many, because it can command and it can create more wealth. One MNLF commander in Cotabato once said in 1973, “Money is nothing but if you have no money you are nothing.”

Whether power is for them, or in solidarity with others, the act of redistributing power and resources is a great challenge. The more power is distributed vertically, the more those at the top prefer to see it become aggregated in them and the more they will resist its distribution, using both coercion and persuasion as necessary, usually simultaneously.

To strengthen their control over society, those in power will accept only those freedoms that are granted through them, rather than recognizing the right to self-determination by each individual. They will further legitimize their authority through claiming control of resources. Economic necessity becomes a tool of oppression, thus putting access to resources such as land or the means to making a living at the center of incessant struggle.

Contrary to popular view especially in the Western Hemisphere, election is not the only way to measure whether or not there is democracy in a certain country. In truth, the lesser confrontational politics such as in federalism where the head of state is elected or selected by the majority party or coalition the better chance for it to develop and advance faster. Surveys show that most advanced countries follow the federal or parliamentary systems, because there is less politics and rate of elections.

http://www.luwaran.com/index.php/editorial/item/352-all-candidates-are-losers

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