Wormtongue for Senator

Took me more than two hours to get home last night. A miting de avance of some politician (who happens to be a son of a former QC mayor, and who happens to father a sexy actress) running for congress was being held along Commonwealth Ave. and of course, the traffic was horrendous. Well generally, traffic has been really bad because of the coming elections. The volume of vehicles usually go down during summer because school is out. However, this summer is an exception. You just have to look at the vehicles on the road and you will know why. Stickers and streamers of political campaigns adorn vehicles of every kind, making you wonder if the vehicles are transporting political campaign materials or just roving around the roads for maximum exposure of the campaign ads. It's not only the traffic that's affected by the ongoing campaigns. Try to watch local television channels and you'll be bombarded by senatoriables' commercial ads. Even radio airwaves carry campaign jingles and political endorsements.

All these set me to thinking. The Philippines must really be a rich country for all these politicians to be scrambling to get the people's attention and votes in order to be put into position. I even got an email containing Miriam Defensor Santiago's exposition of how much budget a senator gets and I was astounded by the figures. This is where the people's hard-earned money go? Money that could have been put to better use by funding infrastructure development and quality public education were instead going straight to the politicians' pockets. No wonder political rivalries sometimes even reach the point of killing and violence. Those government seats are so worth fighting for because with the fame and victory come the power and the gold.

And they say that they are pro-poor.