If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
— US Supreme Court Justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis

MAYPAJO, Caloocan City — On May 12, we are about to establish a new legislature alongside the election of our country's leaders—from councilors in the municipalities and cities to our lawmakers in both chambers of Congress. And rather, now that the clowns, dynasty operators and dumbbells are rearing up to be elected and reelected, let us contemplate on some of the inane laws that have been passed or filed during the past Congresses.
Sometime ago, it was the non-renewal of the ABS-CBN franchise for no other reason than somebody's tantrum that he was not, as he said, paid due attention when he wanted to put in a campaign ad. So, vindictiveness was the reason and the minions he had in the legislature carried out his revenge. Thus, we lost an information system that was vital for weather alerts, current news and connectivity of the government with citizens. Plus, thousands lost their jobs in a job market that offers scarce positions.
Then sometime again in the past was the Salt Law, which someone had passed with the bright idea to demand that all salt made in the country be iodized. No provision for educating the salt-makers where, how and with what to get the iodine and no help about how to iodize the salt. No provisions for exceptions for animal feed where they do not need to have the salt iodized. The result was that salt-makers stopped making salt, and we were suddenly importing 98 percent of our salt requirements. It had to be amended but salt-making has not returned to what it was.
These two laws were followed by the Senior Citizen Discount Law that has become very popular. Most seniors who use it in fancy restaurants and other luxury outlets do not need the discount. The ones who do are eating in carinderias or doing their own cooking. While supposedly the discounts given are to be returned by government agencies (the Bureau of Internal Revenue?), try getting them. It will be Sisyphean. So, those mandated to give the discounts simply increase their prices. The result is inflation. It seems our restaurant prices are up there in the ASEAN community. The better way is to find out who are the seniors who need the discount or need assistance and give it to them directly through the proper government agencies, not the legislators in their patronage-driven efforts to buy votes.
Then comes the discounts for persons with disabilities (PWDs). These individuals need assistance in medicine costs and devices to alleviate their disability. But to give them discounts in restaurants and other food outlets is going too far with the resulting impetus to get PWD status in whatever rule-breaking way in order to patronize fancy restaurants. One witness saw a clan with a tribe of spectacles-wearing children, all with PWD cards, happily having a banquet at a restaurant. You can bet the restaurant has raised prices for such eventuality which, of course, impacts on everyone else, PWD or able-bodied citizens. Again, inflation.
The latest is a congressman proposing a bill to bring all Filipinos in foreign jails home to our jails. Obviously, the Bureau of Prisons currently struggling to decongest New Bilibid and without the resources to build new jails with more humanitarian features was not consulted. Where will they put prisoners who come back and still have to be imprisoned? The case of Mary Jane Veloso is different. She was betrayed by recruiters, sentenced to death and then meted life imprisonment for their crime and spent enough time in a foreign jail. And she is one prisoner that came back, not the hundreds being proposed to return. Unless we can offer better prison conditions here, we cannot bring more prisoners into our congested system.
One thing our legislators do is mimick laws in other countries which we are not ready for, or, if they are to become laws, must be tailored to our current social conditions but are not. What is the use of the Ombudsman if only small-time government officials are made to pay for their crimes while others go scot-free? What is the use of an Ombudsman's office if our prosecutors are not up to their job? How many times have cases been dismissed because of the failures of the prosecution? Like filing cases without the necessary evidence or leaving them to lay dormant and thus accumulate unconscionable delay?
Then there is the party-list, a good idea to have marginalized members of society represented in the legislature. Yet looking at the majority of party-list legislators as the law has been used, we see dynasties, higher-income persons, celebrities or impostors who claim they are leading security personnel while not being such and so on.
And finally, the term limits law which has backfired big-time. Some people are worth electing over and over again. If you take the worthy away because of term limits, the unworthy, be they good-for-nothing relatives or opportunists with means or impostors, will fill the vacancy. And that is clearly what has been happening since the law's inception.
The making of laws has to be studied from every angle not just for the good intentions but for the pitfalls that will upend those good intentions. And not every law that works somewhere else can work as well here because reality here can be hostile enough to make it ineffective or a travesty.
But then again, these are the lawmakers we are saddled with.
However, I have to say further that there is an admirable minority somehow present in the configuration that is our legislature that have earned credentials of intelligence, hard work, incorruptibility, patriotism, even humility, that gives us hope they will be honored and appreciated by electing more like them. One of them was Edcel Lagman, who recently lost. Whence comes another? Let us hope soon.
So now we realize there are costs to having wrong leaders.
Anyone who has traveled abroad gets a new pair of eyes equipped with a differently sensitive perspective and with this upgraded vision, we see our country in comparison to advanced societies. We become conscious of our degraded status as a nation and our deprivations as a people, because of the kind of leaders who have ruled and continue to rule over our nation.
We begin to experience indignity even before we leave the country. As a precondition to being allowed to visit almost all developed countries, we are required to obtain a visa. We are burdened with the presumption that every Filipino—rich and poor alike—has the intention of staying as an illegal immigrant in rich countries. It is our obligation to overturn the presumption by showing substantial bank deposits, proving ownership of valuable real properties, and presenting qualifications as a business executive/respected professional/eminent public official. Citizens of developed countries can visit the same countries without being subjected to the same expenses and indignities.
Even with an approved visa, we are looked upon with askance by immigration officers abroad because of our Philippine passports. We are prone to being asked questions, which are not asked other nationalities because of the stigma associated with our poor country.
We get green with envy at the public transportation system of developed countries, which consists of a network of interconnected trains, trams, and buses. Whether there’s an absence or overflow of passengers, their public transports arrive right at the exact minute of their scheduled stops at every station. Even the rich take public transportation because it’s efficient, fast, accessible, and clean. Public service is the underlying purpose of their public transport while, in contrast, private profit is the principal objective of ours because our public transportation vehicles have been farmed out to private businesses. Instead of heavily investing in trains, trams, and buses, our government funds the expansion of highways, the building of skyways, and the construction of diversion roads. Roads serve the private vehicles of the rich and minimally benefit the public transport needs of the poor.
We see wide sidewalks that show genuine care for pedestrians in highly developed countries. In comparison, we remember with infuriation the lack of functional sidewalks in our own cities. Even on our streets that have sidewalks, we see inauthenticity, insincerity, and utter lack of empathy because obstructions abound that make walking difficult for pedestrians.
Our sidewalks are obstructed by electric posts, vending stalls, road signages, trees, and the foundations of elevated pedestrian walkways.
We see public parks, gardens, and tree-lined boulevards that abound in highly functional nations. We see monuments and public works of art standing in ample open spaces around their cities. In contrast, parks, gardens, and roads with trees are only found inside exclusive subdivisions in our country. One problem that we have in this regard is that the leaders of our provinces, cities, and municipalities view public parks as the sole responsibility of the national government. Local leaders must be equipped with the vision to comprehend the dire need for more parks outside of the small gardens surrounding their city and municipal halls. Our local leaders should become park builders in order to provide their constituents with open spaces to enjoy community life.
We see rivers, lakes, and coastal shores that are tidy and unpolluted in developed countries. Promenades and parks are created around their bodies of water, and the private properties that surround them are the priciest real estate in their towns and cities. In contrast, properties surrounding our bodies of water are undesirable residential areas because our waters are heavily polluted. Only the poor build shanties near them.
We see food prices as reasonable relative to the purchasing power of ordinary workers in developed nations. One gets this sense by going to their grocery stores where high-quality food items are purchased even by ordinary people. In contrast, the same foodstuffs are affordable only to the rich in our country. Food expenses constitute a reasonable fraction of a family’s monthly budget for them, while they represent a prohibitively large monthly expense for many of our citizens.
All these consequences of having the wrong kind of leaders become clearly visible when we see societies that are governed by leaders with the right values and foresight. We see that the costs of having wrong leaders go way beyond the amount of public funds that we lose to corruption—our country is stripped of the kind of public good we desperately need in so many aspects of our nation’s life.
With the coming elections, we have another chance to choose our path. Either we choose leaders who have principles and vision or we continue flagellating ourselves with comedians, fraudsters and pillagers.

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FOR your comments or suggestions, complaints or requests, just send a message through my email at cipcab2006@yahoo.com or text me at cellphone numbers 09171656792 or 09171592256 during office hours from Monday to Friday. Thank you and mabuhay!