Residents of Davao City’s 8-A village listen as local politicians ask for their support and votes for the May 2013 elections. (davaotoday.com file photo by Ace R. Morandante)
So convenient is this practice (or habit?) of attributing “political motives” to every conceivable incident or controversy such that the word POLITICS has acquired an obnoxious connotation in the social life of the Filipino people.
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Shortly after the national elections in 2010, a popular host of a TV Program was immersed in a controversy that caused his transfer to another TV channel. The TV host attributed his fall of grace from his former employer TV network to politics, saying Napolitika ako!
Perhaps he surmised that his unstinted endorsement and vigorous campaign for a certain presidential aspirant caused the ire of Somebody Up and his case was a form of political persecution. Or a kind of vendetta? Anyhow, he survived the charges against him and is still lounging in the glitters of media limelight.
But whether he was correct in his conclusion is still a question devoutly to be determined.
In several other unrelated events which usually involved controversial issues and even killings or murders of certain personalities, the victims invariably attribute to “politics” as the compelling motives behind the incidents.
Many unsolved crimes are outrightly given a political color, whether perpetrated as killings in the street or done with willful intent inside offices or at the residences of the victims. And the suspects or real culprits often go scot free.
Of course a violent death of a politician, or a political persona for that matter, is certain to be taken as an unmistakable outcome of a longstanding feud between political adversaries. And there is every reason to claim that it is “politically motivated.”
So convenient is this practice (or habit?) of attributing “political motives” to every conceivable incident or controversy such that the word POLITICS has acquired an obnoxious connotation in the social life of the Filipino people.
It has become a “dirty word.”
But what are the origins of this deplorable practice or habit? Why has the Filipino mind been set into this kind of diagnostic pattern? Does “dirt,” in all its evil implications, really inherent in the word “politics?”
Webster Comprehensive Dictionary gives us the following significances of politics, namely: 1. the science of civil government 2. political affairs in a party sense; party intrigues, etc. 3. One’s political sentiments: construed as plural —to play politics 4. to speak or act for political reasons; hence to scheme for an advantage.
Let us take the phrase to play politics. It gives us a clue and a reason to be alarmed, because it seems this is the wellspring of all that is dirty in the word. For after all, a word is but a representation of a reality. A word is an abstraction. What it represents is real or concrete or current.
A word exists in the mind. Its representation exists in the real world as a practice or as an activity or as an undertaking. Or, as what most observers would put it, “What happens on the ground.”
The phrase “to scheme for an advantage” is revealing. It allows for a very wide area of possible moves, acts, deeds. Certainly, it can include all sorts of scheming, all sorts of devising, all sorts of maneuvering in order to get ahead in the political race. And here in the game of politics, the contest involves the grab for power.
No wonder that the politico, insofar as he has the resources, will buy votes, cheat, make intrigues, character assassinate, kill, murder and massacre, and terrorize voters. He (she) will do anything possible, in order to win.
And winning, he (she) will wield POWER.
If we ask a politico with the items above in a multiple choice question, his (her) answer will surely be NONE OF THE ABOVE.
On the other hand, the same question if asked to an ordinary citizen, his (her) answer will be ALL OF THE ABOVE.
Yes, all of the above is what makes politics a dirty word. This is the word that stands for all the devilries and evil tactics our politicians are guilty of. And these are the current acts and deeds which the common tao witnesses every time, everywhere in our country every electoral season.
Don J. Pagusara is a native of Mindanao, a multi-awarded author and a Palanca-awardee.
