Archive for July 18th, 2009

Confessions of Måröchárîm II: The Road to 2028

Confessions of Måröchárîm II: The Road to 2028

alter_ego_wallHmmm… fuzzy.

My name is Måröchárîm, and I am declaring my intention to intend to run for the Presidency of the Republic of the Philippines in 2028.  The gloves are off, the race is on.  Yes, you heard me right: I am declaring an intention of an intention to run in 2028.

The bulk of you are fixated with 2010, so obsessed with it, that you don’t look beyond.  The 2010 elections – and all elections that precede 2028 – are merely transitional governments that will lay the foundation of a new Filipino order.  A foundation based on justice, fairness, and freedom.

But you don’t want that.  You have heard that from just about every presidential aspirant from 2010 and back, and 2010 and beyond-a-little-under-2028.  Where’s your justice?  Where’s your fairness?  Where’s your freedom?  The Presidency has been trivialized.  Criticized.  Circumcised.  Castrated.  Spayed and neutered.  In 2028, I am going to deliver what this Presidency needs: balls.

I am going to carry the balls of this country and dribble along the fastbreak of economic progress.  A crossover into a politics of offense and defense.  We will take shots from the line, and lay it up from the inside, and if need be, we will dunk the balls of the Presidency right smack to the goals of our nation.

I am a man with a plan.  And every man has to have balls.

When I win the Presidency in 2028, my focus is on nutrition.  I will put sin taxes on instant noodles, bromate-filled pandesal, and other unhealthy foods that have been force-fed to our people just because that’s what they can afford.  No more processed foods for my people.  I will level every redundant eyesore of a mall, and replace it with a community farm so that people will be able to grow their own food at very little cost.

When I win the Presidency in 2028, my focus is on employment.  I am going to evict abusive tech support industries in this country because my people are not being worth chained to headphones and inhumane protocols.  I am going to distribute the budget in such a way that we have enough to form a vehicle industry, an agriculture industry, and other national industries vital to the growth of our country.  My government refuses to pay a single centavo of debt owed to the World Bank did not benefit from.

When I win the Presidency in 2028, my focus is on education.  Everyone’s going to go to school for free.  The national industries producing income and revenue for our country will pay for salaries of teachers, and classrooms and tools for students.  College will be mandatory.  We will encourage healthy dialogue and criticism in classrooms: no class session will be held in a lecture hall, and no onerous fees will be charged to any student under the watch of the Department of Education, which I will personally run.

The Måröchárîm Administration is going to put a stop to the injustices of people making anti-drug legislation just because they never tried it, or just because they are moralists about it.  The Måröchárîm Administration will take the first step to legalize medical marijuana in the Philippines.

The Måröchárîm Administration is going to put a stop to Church meddling in affairs that define an individual’s right to free and informed choice.  The Måröchárîm Administration will take the first step to legalize abortion in the Philippines.  The Måröchárîm Administration will take the first step to legalize divorce in the Philippines.

The Måröchárîm Administration will take the first step to make corruption and incompetence in the discharge of Government duties a crime punishable by garrote.  More that that, the Måröchárîm Administration will sponsor free pornography for the people.

And why is that?  Balls, ladies and gentlemen.  Balls!

Postscript: Marocharim was imprisoned by his reified alter-ego, Måröchárîm, in a concealed cell after Marocharim saw a trail of Snickers and Butterfinger bars leading to a place filled with free crane games.  Marocharim managed to escape, attacked Måröchárîm with a nuclear bunny rabbit, and the world is safe from that diacritically-named maniac  for now.

July 18, 2009 2 comments Read More
No Crossing

No Crossing

DSC00464

If you don’t believe in glass ceilings, you must believe in handrails blocking a perfectly good pedestrian lane.

It’s not that life’s in Ortigas Center, but life’s like Ortigas Center.  I don’t have to get it.  Somewhere in the grand scheme of urban planning, it makes perfect sense to paint fresh lines for a pedestrian lane just across Holiday Inn, while blocking it with this handrail project that has been going on for months now.  It’s the way things are.

Methinks that as you grow older, you develop an immunity – even an appreciation – for the way things are.  You start to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the errors and mistakes of the world, and the guilt-trips don’t happen at all.  If they do, the instances are just temporary and fleeting.

Oh sure, the way things should be is grand.  You hit a certain age, and then you start to develop theories and ideals about how the world should work.  That air of jadedness is shattered, and for the next few weeks or months or even years, you draw upon your life’s experience to point out what’s incorrect, what should be done…

And then you realize that you’re only doing this to compensate for your own past.

After passing by this strange pedestrian lane for the nth time, I realized I’ve had enough.  I’ve had enough of the way things are, the way things are supposed to be, and I’ll be damned if I’ll wait for years to write an apologia for a pedestrian lane, much less the rest of my life.

I could have done what everyone else was doing.  I could have walked to the proper pedestrian lane along Robinson’s Galleria, but I didn’t.  I made a run for it, vaulted over the handrail, and ran along the blocked pedestrian lane to the surprised looks of onlookers.  No police officers, no security guards.  It wasn’t Parkour, but it wasn’t everyone else’s pedestrian lane, either.

Just me, a blocked pedestrian lane, a handrail, and the way things are.  When confronted with those things – or just the way things are – you just do things your way.

July 18, 2009 2 comments Read More