"What is above so is below"

The dirty system--corruption, vote buying, red tape, cheating etc.-- that the latest baranggay election in my country only proves that I can no longer trust my future in the hands of the people/ politicians who say that they want to serve their people. More and more people are selling their votes for instant money and instant food, and most of them are the poor ones who are most often than not are lazy or the "bum" who would rather drink until they drop or produce babies until they reach the age of infertility (except for the poor ones who are working hard like the farmers and fisherfolks, thank God, have dignity and self-honor who despite of their humble lifestyle, they carry the good values and culture that their foreparents have instilled in them). Sometimes, I think that these people deserve to be poor all their life because they don't work and they don't think. You don't need a university diploma to realize that selling your vote is making your life in danger, and worse making your children and their children's children suffer a great deal. It would have been ok if they are the one ones who suffer but their vote reverberates and affects even the votes of the people who are trying to keep their town "proper and prosperous". The lazy ones are evil because they create a web of troubles and crimes.

Some people took advantage of the election, drinking everyday and asking the baranggay official wannabes to pay for their credit/debt. Some of them asked money to pay their fare to Manila. Some asked for a "jollibee or mcdonald's meal" for a vote. Some asked their wedding to be sponsored by these wannabes.

Some wannabes sold their house to have enough money to be given to the people. In remote places they paid 100 pesos to 300 pesos per person for a vote ($2.50-7usd). Some gave bags of groceries, or a kilo of rice, or a bottle of gin/beer. Some spent, 500,000 pesos for a baranggay chairman post. Why? Why are these people dying/gambling to get a position in the baranggay when you can only get a maximum 5000 pesos a month? Why spend all your lifetime materials gains? The corruption was rampant everywhere and who was to blame? Who was to castigate them? The very same government, the very same people who did massive cheating in the last national elections? The vote-buying-capitalists and the vote-buying-consumers are of the same type. They think, since the President "allegedly" did it, the congressmen and the senators did it, why can't they do it as well? And they did! And a lot of people tolerated it. Why? I don't know. I didn't vote because there was not a single candidate who's worth my precious vote. Most people voted officals who are corrupt and corrupted and for them that's ok because they got 100 pesos in hand, or they had some cans of goods on their table. They are stupid and they are lazy and this combination produces corrupted spirit and helpless situation. They really deserve to be poor because they have no sense of responsibility. The corrupt officials, on the other hand, deserve to receive bad karma 500,000 times (I'm thinking of the "allegedly" 500,000 redtape money). If our national hero Jose Rizal would witness this, he would probably retract his decision to sacrifice himself for his people and this country. The social cancer he talked about a hundred years ago, is now malignant and has spread all over the country and the only solution is death.

But what can we do, fellow concerned citizens? I am so sick and tired of these stupid and lazy people. I am so sick and tired of the system. But what am I to do? Migrate? Disown my citizenship as a Filipino and then what?

I remember a Hindu prayer from Rig Veda (?) and it goes something like this:

Make the corrupted souls peaceful.
Make the peaceful ones virtuous.
Make the virtuous ones aware.
Make the aware ones enlightened.
Make the enlighted ones spread enlightenment to others.