BY ABP. OSCAR CRUZ
GREED. Avarice. Covetousness. The words are different. Their spellings are different. Their sounds are different. But they say the same thing. They mean the same reality. They imply the same vicious way of thinking and behaving.
They refer to personalities who are insatiable in accumulating wealth through all ways and means. They point out at individuals who never have enough, who must always have more and more.
They are relevant to characters who have but two hands to hold with, and but two pockets to fill in but who act as octopuses with many tentacles to grab with, as crocodiles with big mouths to fill in. The word “enough” is unknown to them.
They each have but one body to be driven here and there, every now and then. But each of them buy and have three, five or more expensive cars to place in the garage, to choose from which one to ride in for the day.
They have personally each but one body to house, to herein live and rest but each of them have two, four or more houses to choose from where to go and relax in. It would not be surprising that although they have but one body to be buried once and for all, they might reserve and have more than one coffin to choose from upon breathing their last.
If the Philippines remain much underdeveloped in its socio-economic condition notwithstanding all formal yearly promising and delightful declamations to the contrary, if the Filipino people remain in poverty and misery despite all well-paid and repeated survey results to the contrary, if the country somehow still survives through the hard-earned remittances of overseas Filipino workers – most of which are realized through practical slavery abroad – the overall cause of this pitiful and detestable phenomenon is concretely rooted in the said greed, avarice and covetousness of a rather big number of politicians from the local to the national levels of government.
Once elected into public office by dynastic connections and/or use of wealth, by show of brute power and/or through but vain popularity, by employ of downright deception and/or unbridled cheating – all these mean one and same consequence: the “elected” public officials regain their capital expenditures through shameless graft and callous corrupt practices.
And the more stolen money they pocket, the bigger and deeper their pockets become – with the common citizens as the infallible victims thereof, always.They are taxed from sun-up to sundown for the food they eat, the electricity they consume, the water they use.
They are taxed for the clothes they wear, the shoes they use, the canned goods they need.
They are taxed even for the use of supposedly public utilities and supposedly paid for by public funds.
They are taxed from birth to death. And where to most of these direct and indirect taxes – “blood money” – eventually go?/PN
