Fine, let’s talk about the freakin’ weather.

The January air breathes a winter’s breath. Without the promise of Christmas, the gentle breeze is reduced to that—a cold, meaningless, and distant air wandering aimlessly, falling in the way of others. Now devoid of holiday jeers and jitters, the city hums a silent tune. Everything’s quiet, as if a million secrets are being passed around in between whispers. The midnight sky hangs heavily too. And without the silver and gold baubles, the cradler of the stars has become nothing but a blanket of black…and blue. It is true that time has a way of expanding in the cold. But tonight is the last night of the month; tomorrow should mean sleep.

In the dead of the night, the January air heaves a cold winter sigh.

***

The term is acclimatization. In physiology, it is the adaptation of an animal or plant to the changes in climate or environment such as light, temperature, or altitude. If there’s one thing I’m proud of about being a Filipino, it’s our cockroach-like ability to acclimate. Ashes will return to ashes, and dust will return to dust—but the Filipinos? They will most likely find a means to live on and procreate. With the resilience and tenacity like that, nobody deserves the world’s wealth better than they do.

Things have started to change lately though.

***

Now let's talk about the political, social, and economic climate.

Recently, there had been so much debate about whether the Philippine economy is really headed for stability or not. After intimate conversations with people in the know, I have learned that the true status of the Philippine economy depends on the bearer of the information. I’m talking about the media. They are mostly underpaid but surprisingly, they are the ones who are ruling the country’s flow of consumption. They have become so powerful that with the slightest twitch they can easily manipulate the ancient law of supply and demand. And I'm not just talking about Kris Aquino or Lucy Torres endorsing whitening soaps.

Take for example the explosive war between ABS-CBN and GMA over TV ratings. Much has already been said about integrity and competence, but come on, what are TV ratings for anyway? Isn’t it just an advertiser’s cue on when and where to place their ads? TV ratings only measure the number of people hooked up at a TV station at a particular time. It DOES NOT measure the quality of the TV shows. If it does, then there wouldn't be room for shows like Wowowee, Eat Bulaga, and scores of badly dubbed Koreanovelas. There wouldn't be good-looking commercial models making awkward movements or crying crocodile tears in cheaply produced telenovelas.

This media war is also a clear depiction of the kind of democracy we have here in the Philippines. Democracy here is just a politically correct way of saying “majority wins.” In a country where the majority is underinformed if not totally ignorant, the rule of the majority is nothing more than a mob rule. How else would you explain the rise to power of popular actors and political neophytes?

How much power should really be bestowed upon people? Is the majority the ultimate judge of the rightness and wrongness of things? Just because a great number of people believe in something, is it enough to make that something legal? And just because it’s legal, does it make it right? Maybe. But sadly, it only happens in a civilized society where the majority is educated and capable of making intelligent decisions.

Let’s move on to the print media. An Inquirer headline read: “GMA Most Corrupt President, Says Poll.” I’m probably not the best person to comment on this one, let alone give serious political commentaries. Unlike my colleagues, I haven’t been a good citizen lately, consciously passing up the chance to read newspapers or watch news programs for insignificant pursuits. But if a formidable newspaper company like the Inquirer can make powerful headlines out of perception surveys, then I guess it’s perfectly safe for me to share my views on the matter in my own blog.

I’m not really particular about the credibility of the agencies behind these polls. As to how they get funded—or how come out of a million surveys no one I know had been asked to take part in it—that’s none of my business. My only concern is what are they getting out of it? So we know that most Filipinos hate their president—anything else? Has it shed light on anything new now that we have exact figures to back this up? Why does a perception survey deserve a space in the front page, let alone, a banner story?

I’m just wondering…how many of those who answered have given a valid argument? How many are literate? How many have read the constitution? How many have taken specific measures to investigate or challenge the widely held accusation? How many of them had genuine efforts to reach political enlightenment? What was the political climate at the time of the survey? How many actually know the Webster meaning of the word “corrupt”? And just because majority of the people think this way, do we have to hold it as a doctrine?

I mean I don’t know how corrupt GMA is, but I don’t think GMA or any Philippine president has ever surpassed Erap in terms of corruption. I mean mansions, women, gambling, excessive drinking—how many of the seven deadly sins has he not committed yet?

Another columnist, whose name I’m not going to mention, wrote:

“In a good economy, everybody would be employed, everybody would have enough to eat, and everybody would live in decent homes. Just one look at all those squatter colonies and at the unemployment rate and you know that something is very bad in the Philippine economy. Filipinos are working abroad in greater numbers not because of a policy or encouragement by the government. They are forced to go there because there are no jobs here at home. Who made it that way? Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.”

I am no fan of GMA, but this blame-the-government-because-there’s-no-food-on-the-table attitude is really absurd. We have heard a lot of rags-to-riches stories; we all know that poverty is not an excuse for failure. Check out jobstreet, or even our good old classified ads, you’ll see thousands of positions opening up every day. Call center companies are even giving big incentives to both recruiters and new recruits. I’m not saying that the working condition here is ideal, but the increasing unemployment rate stems out not from the fact that there are no jobs. There are jobs but there are not enough competent people to fill them. There are jobs, but most people would rather work abroad because for the same blue collar job, they get paid a little higher. Only a few has a capacity for ambition. Only a few has a burning desire to advance themselves professionally; most exist just to survive.

“Prices were much lower during the administrations of Presidents Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon Aquino, Joseph Estrada -- even that of Fidel Ramos.”

This is so obvious. During the time of Marcos, Aquino, Ramos, and Estrada, the global demand for oil is not that much. China and India were not yet the powerhouse that they are today. If the demand is weak, the prices are much lower. Consequently, the prices of the goods we buy in the supermarket also enjoy a lower price. Another factor is the peso-dollar exchange rates. We used to enjoy a twenty-something to a dollar rate until Erap spent his first two years in Malacanang.

“The main prop to the claim that the Philippines has a “strong economy” is the escalating exchange rate of the peso against the dollar. The peso-dollar exchange rate is going up not because the peso is strong but because the dollar is weak.”

Wrong again. If you’ve been reading the business section of your own paper, you’d know that the stock market all over the world had just hit an all-time low because of fears of a US recession. It means that much of the world’s economy (including Europe's and Japan's) is dependent on the US economy--and the Philippine economy is no exception. If the peso is not as strong as they are claiming it to be, then a steep downward movement of the US Dollar could reverse any hint of progress made by the Philippine peso. In a nutshell, a weak peso would not withstand a downward US economy.

“If Ms Arroyo learned anything in the school of economics, it should have been that in a nation with a healthy economy, everybody would be prosperous, there would be no poor people. But about half of our population consider themselves poor, millions have little to eat, and young children are forced to commit suicide because of poverty.”

This is really superficial. It's like saying, "if it's not black, then it's white." Poor people exist even in first-world countries. And when children are forced to commit suicide because of poverty, the first thing that one needs to keep in check are these children’s mental and emotional health, and the first that you should blame are the parents. A lot of people are struggling to survive, but only one in a hundred commits suicide. Of course it would be ideal if a country is wealthy enough to feed and clothe everybody without requiring anyone to lift a finger. I don't want to sound matapobre, but let's face it, while there are exceptionally talented and hardworking Filipinos, madami ring hindi. In short, to borrow a simplistic phrase from Bob Ong, "maraming bobong pilipino." These are the poor people I know. These "poor" people do not pay taxes either because they don't have an income or it's too little to be taxed. And since we don't get contributions from them anymore, the least that they can do is to stop asking for subsidies straight from the taxpayers' pockets. There is no such thing as free lunch. Instead of staging rallies in mendiola or ayala avenue for a meager carpenter's meal, why don't you just make yourself useful? Why don't you go out into the world with a sense of aspiration?

Much has been said about freedom and responsibility but it seems that none of the point got across. There’s a world of difference between being radical and free and being spoiled and whiny. And I think this time, the media has gone too far.