Politicians without vision, businessmen without love of country

When it comes to love of family, perhaps no other race on earth can surpass the Filipinos. For the sake of one's family, many politicians would steal money from government coffers and some businessmen would cheat on taxes, ravage the environment, and refuse to pay enough wages to workers, just to amass wealth in order to provide not just enough for spouse and children, but a life of comfort, leisure, and prosperity. At the expense of the poor.

I miss the gentlemen among our political leaders in the past, who served our nation with clear vision and impeccable integrity. Men like Don Sergio Osmeña Sr., Don Vicente Rama, Don Filemon Sotto, Don Mariano Jesus Cuenco, and many others. And I feel very sad that we don’t have business leaders today like the grand old lady, Dona Modesta Singson Gaisano, and Don Ramon Aboitiz. Those politicians of the old school were really visionary with genuine love of country and dedication to the peoples' welfare and interests. Those old brand of business taipans built their empire on the virtues of hard work, frugality, and humane treatment of employees. I hope the pandemic lockdowns should have given them enough time to contemplate on their sins, mostly of omission.

I know that Congressman Eddie Gullas has all the right answers, but I’m not sure about the rest of the seven districts of the province of Cebu, and the two districts in the city, as well as the lone district of Lapu-Lapu. If I ask these questions: What is your vision for your district? Do you know the per capita income of all the citizens in your jurisdiction? Do you know how many live below the poverty line? What legislative measures did you propose in Congress to address the rising poverty of your constituents? Do you know what’s the unemployment rate in the LGUs you represent? Have you gathered the baseline figures when you assumed office, and what are the scores now, after many years and terms? Do you know how much the taxpayers pay to fund your stint in the legislature? How many consultants do you have and how much are they getting paid? What have they done? What returns in the peoples' investments can you claim resulted from your efforts?

Do you remember your people only to prepare for the next elections? What are your priorities? Do you have a program for poverty alleviation, for job generation, for hastening industrialization? What have you done for the farmers, fisherfolks, small entrepreneurs, laborers, teachers, security guards, construction workers, daily wage-earners? Do you have special interventions for OFWs from your district? Have you embarked on capability-building measures, on disaster preparedness, and community development? These are very dangerous questions. If our members of Congress cannot answer them, then why have we sent them there in the first place? Just because they have the money and they have the names and the organization.

And to our businessmen, I know that most of you are honest and fair. But there are still many who cheat on minimum wages, and do not provide a safe, healthy and secure work environment. I know that there is an exception. I need to mention Mr. Philip Tan. He is a very compassionate and developmental businessman. He even employs persons with disabilities and trains them to become more productive. I also admire Michel Lhuillier's group of companies as well as the Aboitiz groups because they are well-managed and professionally-led. Yet, among other companies, I still hear of many union-busting, many unfair labor practices, and a lot of violations on the strict rules against labor-only contracting. They should learn from Fr. Francisco "Paking" Silva who runs and manages the CEBECO operations and leads the people with excellence and care.

We cannot build this nation with myopic, incompetent and inept politicians and with greedy businessmen. The people should start to rethink their choices and send really excellent leaders with vision and competence, integrity, and passion. We, the powerful consumers, should band ourselves and boycott establishments owned and run by selfish tycoons and business moguls, who amass profits on the backs of oppressed and exploited workers. We cannot lend a semblance of legitimacy to all these evils by remaining silent and uncaring. Our inaction gives strength to our oppressors. Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. So, if not now, when? If not us, who?