Real Leaders To Elect, A Rarity

BIMBO CABIDOG

Leaders make the difference. They advance change, ahead in idea first in action. They don't just get people to do the same thing over and over again. Used to it, the people don't need them anymore to do so. 

To blaze trails is what leaders are for. When it's the usual course, leadership is irrelevant. It is in change that there has got to be someone to show the way and direct advance. Such is to lead in the real sense.

The country abounds with personalities down to every village who presume or claim to be a leader, but could not do things differently. They tarry at the tail of the futuristic march, hesitate before the new path, and convince others not to go. 

These are pseudo leaders who pull back progress to their cozy old worldview, self-serving pretenders to public service who actually think only of their personal comfort and gain. 

No one truly leads if he/she is up to merely contenting with outcomes, but would not pioneer in making new things happen. Such is not leading, but following. To lead is to take the bold step away from the past, and saunter into the novel way.

Are elections Philippine style about choosing leaders? The people are made to believe so. The so called democratic exercise is presumable the form in which every citizen decides the future of the country by choosing the ones to lead it. In theory, this seems right. But in practice, it's not.

The current barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections are a case in point. For all it seems, the exercise is but an exercise of sidelining real leaders. It excludes those who would have nothing to do with the ways of traditional politics and cannot really pass under them. 

If you cannot stomach fooling the people every time you speak, and hypocritically campaigning about desiring to serve them but actually do not mean it because you buy their votes anyway, then you're out.

Leadership occurs in a particular situation, brought about by it. The present situation of the country conducting elections to put officials in government unfortunately is not the one for candidates to exemplify genuine leadership. It has only been a contest for who is the more degenerate in championing the rotten system of personal seeking for entitlement, privilege and economic spoils.

When the aspirant for government position wins via the road always traveled – the one of deception and bribery of voters, he/she is no leader at all or in a position to lead. He/she is merely a follower of the decadent system, afraid to lose by making the difference.

Because of the fear of defeat first of all, and the desire to win by all means, the would-be leader shirks genuine leadership by resisting the responsibility to change. Desisting from change is failing leadership. One cannot lead clinging to the old way, fearing the new.

The courage to be different and make the difference, faced by the likelihood of suffering from bad outcomes, is not easy to have. But it is the stuff that makes ordinary folks exemplary leaders. 

If the criterion is daring to be new, most of the contestants at present vying to be captains or leaders of their respective villages will not pass. What the overwhelming number of them do to win epitomizes the very antithesis of change.

Misleading the people of the true stakes in the political exercise, fooling voters with empty promises and falsehoods, and taking chance of the ignorance or lack of information of the masses show only gross disrespect and exploitation on the part of the candidate, not sincere intent to serve.

Isn’t leadership about serving the led? The pretentious would-be leader doesn’t think so. He is only after fiefdom to lord over, not the noble role of public servant. He is just after entitlement along with the position, the right to extract tribute, squeeze lifeblood from the oppressed.

All he wants is the privilege to take a slice of the pie, grab anything to grab that the heart desires sans accountability, and freedom from paying back good work. He is not in the act of championing change, nor putting the welfare of the people above everything, 

The bat for election as shepherd of the flock is nothing but pretense. The discourse of holding high the paramount interest of the people is just a lot of BS. That “sovereignty resides in the people and all authority of the government comes from them” is hogwash.

In office, who bothers with what good the people can get from having government? The token concern for the general welfare during the campaign entirely vanishes in the scramble for greater influence over the affairs of men, and private accumulation of wealth from the public appropriation.

Instead of right and responsive governance that strives to improve the lives of the citizenry, graft and corrupt practices dominate. Shenanigans, greasing under the table, fat kickbacks and the contractors’ SOP shape public affairs. Immoderate greed rule the day.

Individual enrichment with money stolen from the people's coffers is not held as an offense, but a custom the one who doesn't indulge is laughed at as fool. Taking liberties with public resources is embraced as the way things are and an entitlement of politicians no one can do anything about.

The true leader doesn't need profound discernment to realize that those are not what his calling is for. They are what betrayal of his calling is all about. They are the shards of dreams that his country has broken up into and must rise from.

Today, tens of thousands throughout the archipelago are ranged in contest presumably to be barangay leaders, but actually to capture coveted share of government largess in honoraria for such positions as kagawads and chairmen, as well as occasional cuts on funding of projects. 

In lieu are the bribing of the electorate with goodies during the campaign and money on voting time. Ideologically bankrupt campaigns strewn with shallow cliches try to regale the people. Candidates attempt to attract voters with rehashed stereotypes and promises election after election. 

The personalities offering themselves for leadership have no sound plans about it, nor depth  of vision and purpose. Superficiality takes the field. Humanity is cheapened by a price. All over is a political landscape barren of ideas for dreams of the good life to bloom into concrete reality.

Does it matter if the people elect one or the other?