In the wake of the spate of killings that victimized prominent persons in the community — most of whom happened to be in Davao City — the city mayor and the law enforcement authorities are greatly alarmed. Mayor Duterte has dangled bounty money amounting to more than a million pesos for the capture of the criminals. Likewise, concerned agencies in the national government are jolted to imperative action. DILG Secretary Mar Roxas has formed a special police team to concentrate on the high profile case of a big businessman murdered in his office in the city of Davao.
Over all, the rise in the country’s criminality hits hard the sensory walls of Malakanyang such that the President cannot but blurt like a cry baby, “Di ito katanggap-tanggap!”
But this state of affairs in our society has long been endured by the people to the point of desperation. Does government have an acceptable analysis of why criminality has flourished and criminals have propagated like mushrooms? And if it has, what acceptable— or welcome—solution does it have?
No. This country’s leadership if it at all it has knowledge and clear-headed analysis of the root cause of criminality in our society, it is utterly incapable of solving it. It is easy to perfunctorily say that “poverty is the primary cause of the worsening crime situation in our country”. But it is another thing to prescribe the right medicine for its ultimate therapy.
But why? Are there no legislations to curb its obstinate occurrence? Are there no programs or items in the agenda of government’s concerns that focus on its total obliteration?
Well, as far as legislations are concerned, it is safe to aver that anti-crime laws are abundant and may have exceeded far more than necessary. But as far as anti-poverty programs is concerned, even with the existence of legal–based programs such as that which intends to implement agrarian reforms, they are not given priorities. And if their implementation is at all pursued, these are but half-hearted or token exercises— sluggish, lacking enthusiastic thrust and thoroughness.
Behind all these shortcomings and failures, granting that these attempts did grow out of conviction on the part of their proponents, is the absence of sincerity and seriousness on the part of the people who hold State power and the reins of government. It’s them—the ruling class whose interests are bound to be adversely affected in the honest-to-goodness pursuance of the legal mandate of these failed programs that put the roadblocks for genuine action. This is the real reason why poverty resides eternal in the social matrix of our society.
To be very concrete, why doesn’t President Noynoy, or any and all the other previous presidents, heed the crying demand of the farmers to abolish landlordism in the country? Why hasn’t there been a nationalist industrialization as demanded by the nationalist and progressive sectors of our society? Why are the foreign monopoly capitalists accorded favors in the exploitation of our mineral resources?
Indeed, they — the US imperialists, the big comprador capitalists, and the big landlords— are the very elements in our social pyramid responsible for the perpetuation of poverty in our country! How can they be sincere and serious in breaking up social inequity. backwardness and underdevelopment when they thrive ‘logically, philosophically, and practically’ on this deplorable state of affairs? These constitute the fertile soil on which flourish their exploitative enterprises and wealth-raking ventures.
And so, poverty thrives. And poverty begets criminality. This is an incontrovertible fact and an unassailable truism.
Now, who are the real criminals? Who supply the rationale for the dregs of society to keep their obstinate grip on the blades of criminality?
We pose this question: Doesn’t President Noynoy know, as an American puppet and as a lover of American society, know why many criminals thrive during the era of the great US Depression in the 1930s? It was an epoch of abject poverty in American society! And Madam Barker mentored her own sons “to steal but not to get caught”! And in no time her sons became the equals of such notorious gangsters in US history as John Dillinger, Baby-face Nelson, and Machinegun Kelly! And President Noynoy should be familiar with Al Capone and the “high and mighty” crime ring Mafia?
If the national leaders of our society would stubbornly hold on to their ruling-class ideology and keep on exercising their immoral and decadent politics, there is no future to Philippine society. If they continue to ride on the political carriage of puppetry our society will sure as hell lead to the carnival of dogs! If the Status Quo remains the status quo that the present and future leaders adhere to, never — O yes, Virginia! — never can the people expect real Change.
The sole hope for an alternative society to sprout and blossom on these lands is for the people to take destiny in their own hands! Such is a truism long evidenced by the historical development of societies in the world.
