Monday, October 25, 2010

Shifting National Focus

I don't have a say regarding the dreadful outcomes of politics: killings, oppresions, fights for power and influence. I intend not to say anything. It is a vicious cycle, seems inevitable, and no matter how much we contend to fight for fairness, nothing happens.

Media did its part already. But people's ignorance of the meaning of "power" in the society is the root cause. I don't want to say that Filipinos are ignorant. If I do so, it is just like facing the mirror and throwing my own image a glass.

Some Filipinos are not educated of the power of politics, what politics is, what should politics serve the people. The power of it should serve us, to defend us - and not to use it for their personal use, for their security reasons.

Maguindanao, specifically, views politics as a race to be the best. There seems to be a drive that maneuvers them, that infuses them with a different, negative energy to contest with the rest of politicans. They, instead, kill to win.

We then, for me, need to shift our national focus from POLITICS to BUSINESS. May times, I have read in books and internet about the difference of the progressive countries and the less-developed countries in the world and there is one thing that differs them - the what I call, national focus.

In our less-developed country, if we speak about "POWER" and "INFLUENCE", our minds jump into an auto-set image of a politican - could be a presedent, a congressman, or a mayor. But that shouldn't be the mentality.

If only we live in a country where we value business and thinks of businessmen as powerful, or even more powerful than politicians, the image of reality might somehow change.

The time we shift the national focus, we drag the importance of politcians a little lower. We still value them, but there will be another set of people to look up to, people whom we value and consider "INFLUENCIAL" and "POWERFUL" - these are people who does not eat the national budget, rather contributes to the economy's stability.

We should shift a little from norms. By changing our mentality, we might somehow make it.