By TONY LOPEZ
Our politicians, our public servants, are deaf and blind. They do not hear the sentiments and wishes of our people. And if they ever hear the people, our politicians simply ignore the people’s demands and wishes. They play deaf. Worse, our politicians are playing blind or are totally blind. They cannot see or refuse to see the mass poverty and suffering stalking the length and breadth of the land, the failure of the educational system, of mass transport, of food supply, of basic services.
One of four kids stunted
Take a look at our kids—the one-day-old up to eight years of age. Four out of every ten of them are stunted, the result of severe malnutrition. Our three to five-year-olds eat just 80% of their minimum protein needs, 60% of the fat, and 65% of the carbs. Why? Because the government neglects them.
The DSWD is supposed to feed two million severely malnourished children daily. Of the two million, DSWD reaches out to only 800,000—just 40 of every 100 of the severely malnourished. And the 40 who are fed, they are fed something close to drivel—plain BS, worth just P25 per meal because the meal meets only half of the kids’ nutritional needs—with “significant nutritional gaps particularly in vegetable and fruit servings”, to use the language of the final report of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EdCom).
Congress report on education
Read the EdCom II final report. It was produced by Congress, many of whose senators and congressmen are thieves. It shows that somehow our senators and congressmen know about the problems of our kids—why they are malnourished, why they grow up to be stupid—not knowing how to read, write, and count. And yet, our senators and congressmen are members of what is now the largest criminal syndicate in the land—the group that stole P1 trillion in the first three years of the BBM of flood control money, at the rate of P50 billion per day. Hey, the P50 billion is enough to feed all the two million badly malnourished kids daily.
Why are nearly all our kids stupid? Per EdCom II, among kids from day one of their life to age eight, the brain forms one million neural connections—every second, every second. Neural connections are the links between one cell to another cell in the brain so that the brain learns how to read, how to write, how to compute, how to be logical, how to discern, how to be creative, how to connect, and to experience wonder, and awe. In other words, to enable a person to differentiate himself from animals like dogs and apes, and non-living things like driftwood.
Synapses
“The links between nerve cells, called synapses, allow us to learn and adapt, and hold clues to conditions such as autism, schizophrenia, and more,” says the Center for Neuroscience at UC Davis. Age one day to eight years, says Edcom II, is “when care and stimulation yield the highest lifelong returns” for the brain.
When the brain is malnourished, its 86 billion nerve cells are also malnourished; they cannot function properly.
Thankfully for our politicians, they are not malnourished. Most of them are dynasties, after all. Atrociously rich, dynasties feed their children well. But most times, if not all the time, our politicians employ their brains for some other activity, something nefarious.
The Senate Blue Ribbon, under its chair, former national police chief Panfilo Lacson, has tried to indict at least three incumbent senators for being part of the flood control syndicate, for stealing hundreds of millions. One of them tried to claim P1.5 billion for himself, in one deal alone.
But the suspect senators’ colleagues tried to overthrow instead Lacson’s partner, the longest serving senator, Tito Sotto as Senate president and install Loren Legarda as the first ever woman Senate president. A case of political tit for tat—a basic brain function.
Legarda-smarting
Loren, by the way, is smarting from the way her son, neophyte Batangas Congressman Leandro Legarda Leviste, was chastised by the Department of Energy and slapped with a colossal P24 billion fine for his failure, after seven years, to roll out a single panel of solar for the people, out of a committed 12,000 megawatts, despite having a super electricity franchise that enables the kid, a dropout, to invade anyone’s electricity territory once that territory or barangay suffers from 12 brownouts in any 12-month period.
Had the 12,000 mw been rolled out on time, as promised or committed under the law, it would have solved our energy crisis and cut electricity rates by 40%, if not more.
The Senate Blue Ribbon hearings became a case of the accused, the plunderers, trying to punish the investigators, the gentlemen with clean hands. They call it due process.
Status quo
Thankfully, somebody from Malacañang, the presidential palace, placed a call to the senators and told them to please, status quo muna. Tito Sotto remains Senate president. Loren was allowed to preside the Jan. 5 session and adjourn it, enabling the affable Migz Zubiri to address her, “Madam president!” That’s smart thinking, the use of the brain’s capacity for wheeling and dealing.
Meanwhile, the usually reliable OCTA Research surveyed 1,200 people last December. Its findings are disturbing: About 61% of the people believe elected officials in Congress and in local government DO NOT value their views. Six of every ten voters believe they are ignored by their elected officials, their public servants. Only 31% of the people think their views are valued by their politicians.
“This highlights a clear representation gap: while institutions may retain trust, many citizens feel personally disconnected from the politicians who represent them,” says OCTA Research. Disconnected. Yeah, that means the brain’s synapses were not working.