Tama na! Sobra na! Palitan na?

So you want Arroyo to resign? Tell me, who do you want to replace her? A former mediaman with barely four years’ worth of political experience and who may be still beholden to his former bosses? Or a chinless Senate President who seems keen on becoming Vice President? Or a Dumbo of a House Speaker who has made so many compromises that he’s already a compromised politician? And please, don’t get me started on Susan Roces, Loren Legarda or even Rez Cortez.

So you want to force her out of office by staging EDSA 4? Great, just what this country needs: another rave. Sure, let’s have another street party, bigger and better than the last one, complete with gatecrashers. And while we’re at it, let’s make it an annual event. That’ll be awesome. But wait, isn’t this whole EDSA thing getting to be as novel as a Yoyoy Villame or Louie Camo ditty?

So you want to impeach her? Fine. I’m all for that. Really. Let’s go through the whole grueling, melodramatic process. And this time, let’s make sure that we finish it. Let’s prolong our agony, putting up with the clowns and jokers posing as our legislators as they impress everyone except their constituents with their appalling rhetoric. Yeah, let them “entertain“ us while the economy continues to sink faster and further than the Titanic. Maybe that’s what the country needs to go through, painful as it is.

So you want our government to shift to a parliamentary one, as FVR advised? Do you think our problems will just vanish when that happens? Ha! The mode of government may change, but not the people comprising it.

Everybody is keen on a change right now. Maybe what we need to change or replace are our brains? Let’s admit it: as a whole, we ratified the Constitution, we elected those now in power, we let all these things happen. We all failed, in one way or another, to do our part in solving our problems. Instead, we just talk and talk and talk and talk about them. Come on, our country is not an Oprah episode. As a college friend once said, we get the leaders that we deserve.

Oh My Sad Republic, a nation full of Voyeurs and Savages.