Hey sorry if this is old news. I just found this article via Nathan’s twit.

I’d just like to add that the problem goes beyond lack of education. It also goes beyond failure to communicate.

I’m a Filipino. I want to know about politics. I don’t know anything about law.

Add the sensationalistic media causing me to become apathetic to the cause. Add the fact that I don’t know how to research stuff and I don’t know what HR 1109 is. Add to the fact, that I completely tuned out on local news and live under a rock.

What’s the key for me to learn about these? Should I just sacrifice everything and go by determination and patriotism?

Maybe that’s the right ethical and logical opinion but as you can see, that’s not the right emotional opinion.

It’s not enough for activists to say we need to act. There needs to be a rope. What we have is a cave full of echoes.

It’s just not enough to criticize the slogan, there must first be a unification of the message and the ideas. We’re in a spot where not only are the stupids (like me) ignorant of the politics, the activists are ignorant of the politics. (At least that’s how it comes off to me.)

I’m not saying you guys are also stupid for not doing the perfect thing. I’m saying politics in the Philippines from my perception is like a geek vs. mainstream thing still.

The activist know the system better but they only bother with communicating with the stupids when there’s a breach like a virus infection that affected the network. Equally, the stupids only bother the activists to fix their problem without really knowing how to understand “gaining” the proper security habits to keep their PC from being infected.

Meanwhile the average federal government candidates are like corporations who are the ones that understand the bridge and toe the line between the two while benefiting themselves.

This is why it should come as no surprise that the current situation is like this. Within the cracks there are different and willing souls who want to communicate, learn and understand the big picture but echoing is not a good way of communicating. Right now we are a country echoing for a singular message of uncorrupted truth. This is flawed because the top dogs can merely echo back.

That is why you get messages that are rub and shoved to the top of those people’s political lungs. What should be pursued instead is the adaptation of the model of crab mentality and apply this to political education and the message to be spread is no longer that of “our politics has been infected because we never regularly updated our political anti-corruptions” but instead a message defining and explaining the mechanics of the pot we are in by the people who know, understand and our passionate about getting all of our asses out of it.

Unfortunately, issues like the sex scandals are fodder for the media. Why do they feast on such? It’s what the masses like. And why do the masses like such things? Because most of them are uneducated and do not understand the implications of supposedly more important things such as HR 1109.

Political ads have never been more evident as compared to today, though I have to admit that since the Senate is not really in favor of Cha-Cha (since they have their own presidential aspirations to protect), there might be a slim chance for HR 1109 to not be implemented. In this case, it’s somewhat like choosing the lesser of two evils.

You are right. We need to act. We need to make people understand and actually care about’s what’s happening. What’s more dismaying than uneducated people who don’t understand are educated people who do understand but choose to not care.