ON REINVENTING OURSELVES
By Caloy Bueno
22 October 2025
Everyone is now realizing that if we truly want to progress and advance into a better future for all, we shall have to abandon a lot of our cultural baggages and wrong habits (social, political, economic, even technological traditions or customary practices that are an unnecessary burden to maintain, as well as spineless dependencies on foreign "beneficence" or charity) ~ in short, we need to wholly reinvent ourselves.
Easily said than done, most would say or dismiss. But that's exactly the attitude that led us into this state of depravity or incompetence and incapacity to address our own weaknesses and failures. Our people can no longer stand the predatory interests of those that take advantage of our short-sightedness and stubborn refusal to take the hard journey or difficult road toward becoming a better nation and country. It is our own inability to recognize that we have been wrong in leading our lives into corruptibility and dependence and sheer blindness to our own potentials for good that has made us all suffer up to this point in our existence.
We have to rethink our whole way of life, if we want to ultimately survive and decently provide a better future for our unborn generations. We've always thought that outright and unfettered competition will enable "the best of us" to lead and responsibly exercise power for the better good. Instead, we have again and again been proven to be no better than suckers fooling ourselves to compromise with our own stupidity (and labeling it as "trying our best").
But if we convince ourselves that rethinking our way of life and reinventing ourselves are impossible, then we surrender ourselves to this hopeless situation ~ maintaining our entirely being dependent upon the "tender mercies" of those who only take advantage and prey on our foolhardy ways. Reforms and progressive development can only happen if enough people can accept that our entire way of life has to change for the better. We need to simplify and go back to our best fundamentals ~ and build up from there in a more conscientious and innovatively more stable and secure manner, where power cannot be used against the people or abused for greedy ends and elitist whims and caprices.
It is very possible to change for the better from a multiplicity of perspectives, backgrounds and capacities. We just need the courage to recognize it ~ and selflessly really work together as equals with only the best interests for our country.
But if we don't believe it can happen, then we can only be sorry for our nation's morass and incapability to change for the better. We deserve what we get from our own intentions and actions ~ or inaction and whatever nefarious or self-centered interests will get the upper hand in our state of affairs where power struggles are a ruthless free-for-all ~ and ordinary people will never be able to really benefit from such a system nor be protected from its predation and abuses. We will just sink even farther into our own loss and depravity . . .
#PagMayTime
***
Why is our legislature so corrupted? Because the Constitution allows discretionary funds to be allocated in the national budget every fucking year ~ which enables legislators to participate in the implementation of programs and projects (which are the work and principal responsibilities of the executive branch). And they also invented ways (programs and/or projects) to dangle public funds as tempting offers to the poor ~ to ensure that they always toe the political line and follow what they are told (particularly during elections ~ "in aid of reelection").
If they couldn't participate (only appropriate funds through the budgeting process, over which they have exclusive authority), then they would make sure that those funds are used properly (principle of "checks and balances," ostensibly). But since they are also participating in how such funds are actually used, and especially in accordance with their "discretionary" privilege, it can readily be seen and grasped just how easily it can be utilized according to their own interests only.
What is the rationale behind such discretionary (or "dictionary" ~ since they can use it for any purposes from A-Z!) fund allocations for legislators? So they can augment government spending for the particular interests or needs of their own districts (or pet causes) which they represent. Whether such funds are used legitimately or abhorrently, it still somehow goes against the grain of ensuring honesty and integrity in pursuing the purity and honor of governance functions. We wouldn't want to have judges to be adjudicating cases that they have personal interests in, would we? And yet legislators have the fiat to not only control where the public funds go, but also in how exactly it is ultimately used.
But our Constitution allows it, along with other provisions that effectively also hampers our economic potentials, among others. Why? Because that Constitution favors only the elite and oligarchic interests in our country ~ not really the welfare of the masses (save for some generic rights and freedoms, standard among many other constitutions, and even policy promises ~ largely undelivered, needing legislated statutes). But the legislative power to have discretionary funds for their exclusive use (even though certain actual usage instances and abuses of it were decided as illegal and unconstitutional by the Supreme Court itself ~ during the term of abnoy) still continues because it is in fact provided for in the Constitution.
Which means that whatever we do, we're still fucked ~ whether we like it or not ~ because the Constitution says so . . .
#PagMayTime 🤪😂😜
