Bamboozled every day

By Reyshimar Arguelles

Is it just me or are governments so essentially corrupt that they can get away with just about anything? Then again, who wouldn’t get blinded by the idea of handling absolute power and doing the most idiotic things disguised as public service?

Perhaps the best thing that has happened to us during the course of this miserable pandemic is that we see governments for what they really are: fan clubs in support for whatever depraved yahoo gets the highest chair in the land.

Isn’t politics all about maintaining cults of personality instead of upholding the tenets of respectability? Apparently, it’s useless trying to interview experts in order to find out what’s obviously wrong with everything we hold dear. It seems as though the experts have wasted their saliva trying to explain the death of decency in governance when governance has in fact died at some point in our history.

What’s funny about this is that they will keep trying to point out the bad in a system that’s already bad from the start.

Indeed, there’s nothing close to profound you can possibly draw out from whatever this administration is doing, and during a pandemic at that. It’s clear as day how they keep justifying their shortcomings and pass them off as a normal thing in the realm of politics. The worst part is that they seem to pretend that people in this country are generally dumb and have no clear idea of what justice is all about.

From the looks of it, justice is never an ideal we all have to strive for. It actually functions as a useful tool for the preservation of those in power. Nothing more can be said of this because we experience such blatant displays of power mongering every single day.

If you count yourself among decent people who were triggered by Malacañang’s continued support for embattled NCR Police Chief Debold Sinas, then you’re lucky to have a moral compass that’s working properly. Sinas is under fire after photos of him celebrating his birthday with his police colleagues circulated online. In these days when ordinary citizens are subjected to the strict enforcement of lockdown measures, it would be absurd and downright inappropriate for the enforcers themselves to break the very laws they are tasked to uphold.

To demonstrate that a hint of fairness is still in place, the Internal Affairs Service of the Philippine National Police has filed criminal and administrative cases against Sinas and 18 others. The President, however, refuses to let Sinas go, citing a possible breakdown in morale among the ranks of the PNP considering the current health situation.

What’s hilarious about this is that just the other week, people were celebrating that the rule of law prevails over everything else. But now it appears that the law is just as fragile as glassware and you can always make a mockery out of it when you need to.

For sure, whether or not the PNP loses morale in its duties during this pandemic is not the issue here. The public is very much confident the organization is full of leaders who are just as capable for the position of NCRPO Chief. Bypassing common logic on the claim that people like Sinas are irreplaceable does a great disservice to the public.

But what do we know? We are just objects of the law. We don’t enforce it. We merely follow the rules and we have no right to point out the horrible and twisted things that people at the top are doing. But really, it is depressing at best to see how the system is bamboozling us every day.

We can be assured of one thing, though: the pandemic has shown us how the system is working for its own self-preservation and we can never undermine it if we’re fine with double standards.