Why politics matters

MANILA, Philippines -I’m writing this as someone who tends to be disinterested in political matters, because I know there are a lot of people who would say the same about themselves. There are many reasons to have an aversion to politics. You can be sick of the game and prefer fields where playing dirty doesn’t seem to be the norm  where people plainly and efficiently just do their jobs, keeping in mind that the more power they are given, the less it becomes about them.

 You can be sick of the politicians; hearing about rotten, entitled trigger-happy as*holes who shoot people for the most mundane things, like stepping on his foot, or failing to recognize his vehicle. It gets tiring wondering how far the universe had to reach into its ass to pull out such people.

You can be sick of how the common man deals with politics. How the majority of our masses keep voting for the same kind of people when it’s they who stand to suffer the most from such repetitive patterns in government. But then they are also the ones deprived of the kind of education that ought to teach a person to think critically; of electricity and the Internet, which has become our new highway of information and exchange of opinions.

Lastly, maybe you think you can afford not to care about politics. Maybe you’re good at living your life, and things like the minimum wage don’t matter to you, because you’re fully aware that you can negotiate this straight and give the “I’m busy” middle finger to cheap, freeloading clients. God bless free enterprise.

Politics in our day to day

For the longest time, I’ve always believed that if someone was doing a less than spectacular job, I didn’t have to wait for them to in order to take charge and live the kind of life I wanted. But the truth is, whether we like it or not, whether we’re aware of it or not, politics is in our day-to-day life. The 12-percent VAT on everything we buy is politics. How many hours of work we put in before we earn our taxes, and then can start earning for ourselves, is politics. How it’s impossible to commute without looking like you’ve emerged from one and a half hours of manual labor is connected to politics. Start-up businesses, enterprises, films, TV shows, publications, and all sorts of other projects are asked for an assortment of permits, and again, taxes. Even getting to post whatever we want on Facebook without the risk of imprisonment has tragically and ridiculously entered the realm of political debate.

The apathetic and ignorant have a tendency to compartmentalize. There’s us, and then there’s the government. But the two are actually so connected that you can’t fully look out for yourself and your loved ones if you’re convinced that politics has no impact on your personal life and aspirations. Even the masses lacking education and access to crucial information seems like a far-off issue, until you realize that they are the ones who bring in the numbers to elect our government. Compartmentalization is only for those who don’t fully understand that everything comes back to bite us in the ass.

Going beyond ourselves

Taking it a step further, there are bigger causes that are worth fighting for, and we don’t always have to figure out how they’re connected to us in order to care. Excuse my bias in terms of issues, but the RH Law is one of them. Many of those who want to see it through actually don’t need it to be passed. They are already educated, take good care of themselves, and have the means to keep their reproductive health in tip-top shape. But there are people for whom, economically, it’s always a toss-up between food and condoms, between feeding the mouths they already have to feed, and making sure they don’t add another. There are people who stumble upon repercussions because they were grossly misinformed about the birds and the bees for the sake of an illusory ideal called “purity.”

When I checked out the pamparegla at Quiapo on a fieldwork assignment, it was an adventure of sorts. I laughed, was shocked, and couldn’t wait to tell my friends how the vendors eyed my tummy and asked, “Ilang buwan ka na?” But for a lot of girls it’s real. They don’t get to walk away from that place unscathed and eager to write a blog entry like I did. They’re kept in the dark, denied the information and the options, are heaped with dread and guilt, until they find themselves facing scorn, premature responsibility, and seriously considering ingesting these questionable “herbal” concoctions. Suddenly, it’s not funny. Suddenly, it’s highly irreverent to have been collecting amusing anecdotes in a place where women dealt with such grave consequences.

And there are many other problems that plague people in this country, like access to quality education, proper nutrition and health care, having one’s basic rights respected and honored. I don’t believe in righteously guilt tripping people into caring. I’ve said that the world doesn’t owe it to us to be fair, and it’s true the other way around. Fundamentally we really don’t owe anyone anything. And that’s why it takes a certain liberating bigness to constantly go beyond one’s self  to take the time to listen and figure out what kind of injustices really get your gut. For some people it’s gay rights, for others it’s illiteracy, the environment, empowering the poor, the issues that hound their respective industries; for me it’s girls and women.

It’s not supposed to end

Caring about causes and a mass of people you haven’t even met yet is again all tied to politics. And I think that taking the time to hire the people who care about the same things is the least anyone can do. I’ve also been honest enough with myself to admit that there are certain issues and sectors that, while crucial, don’t exactly move me into action. And it is for this very reason that I look forward to hiring people who will see to those areas  because someone has to, and I know I won’t.

Politics isn’t just a field of professions or a game of disillusionment. It’s about people’s lives. And since we’re discussing this in the Philippine setting, I’d like to say that I don’t equate cynicism with being smart. I think it’s just a cool way of being scared of further disappointment and giving up. And it’s an absurd attitude to have because societal problems aren’t meant to be resolved by single sweeps, like an election. You don’t feed your pet a few times, then it’s okay. Say “I love you” once, then it’s okay. It takes continuous involvement, continuous analysis, continuous breakdowns, continuously tackling the same problems from different angles, and continuously voicing our opinions and keeping our leaders in check.

So if your complaint is along the lines of “It never ends,” well, it’s not supposed to end. We’re supposed to wake up every single day and care.

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