Published February 2, 2001

I've had it up to here about how we've shown the world democracy, people power and all that blah works. There's been so much self back-patting that it's a wonder we haven't pounded ourselves into the ground.

On the other hand, those critiques that the latest demonstration of so-called mob rule that deposed the incompetent and former tenant of Malacañang was a demonstration of undemocratic procedure simply rings hollow. Do I detect a note of envy somewhere there from westerners who self-inflict political hurt, or alarm from Asian autocrats who fear popular uprising will erode their pretended legacies?

This corner says, let them all go hang. Truth is that we have removed a clown where a President should have been. If, in his place, we have installed a questionable leader, that is for us to live with from hereon. Despite that, we now proceed as a nation.

Therefore, let us do just that. From that time in 1986 and till now, we have wallowed in self-congratulatory and delusive belief that kicking out a dictator or an acting president would be the end-all of our problems.

Recent history tells us that all about that illusion. From that high point short of twenty years ago, it has been a rugged and disappointing ride downward. The rich have become richer and the poor have become … never mind. We know it all. Better the dog on the street who can forage, self-supporting style, freed of the garbage that literally and figuratively litter the streets. He does not have to beg like the most of us.

Is that how we should now proceed to "show the world?" Just two weeks ago, we hoped, against hope, that the new dispensation would foist upon us a new battery of doers with their shields of non-compromise against the old and tainted propositions. What do we get? Look up and around and weep.

But, wipe that tear for now. An electoral process is at hand. One pundit has put forward the possibility that this could be the start of a reinvention - by the voters and those who really and intentionally care - of our political understanding.

This corner dare say that might be another dream. And yet, why not. There might all be the machinations up there for the former, the discredited, the moist-eyed, the whoever, to reclaim their undeserved sofas. For all that, the belabored workers and men and women toiling in the sweatshirts could just see themselves through to finally empowering (with apologies as to the use of the word to the real people) those who will actually do as their elective power tells them to.

To go back. We've shown the world. That much is true. Should we not now show ourselves what it is that we should have in the very first place: That, people power and all, we are thus and now ready to lift ourselves up by our pants and skirts, whether held up by coconut strings or simple knots.

The ills that bedevil the nation are real and many enough, maybe even more than any national administration can hope to cope with in the moment. Yet, they are there, not any of which can escape the urgent attention of whoever is mandated to realize them. By equal measure, these will not be squarely dealt with by dubious appointments to positions. The people deserve much, much more.

Is this the crossroads that saying talks about? And will we take the right path? We Filipinos have decided, by that most recent uprising, to fork the road. In doing so, we have also posed ourselves a choice.

In doing so, we have endangered ourselves. Never mind that the whole world might be watching which step we take. The concern should be how we watch ourselves. Here is when we take that fateful move.

At the top, an installed leadership seems to be taking faltering steps. Others opine those actions are more of accommodating type. Down here, where the millions and minions labor, the new leadership appears to be one more of the same as before: a government of doing-by rather than of doing-for.

As even now that an inherited subservient media plows us with images and promises of a new life, the heavy knowledge that it all might have been for nothing sinks in.

But, Juan and Juana, take heart, "we have shown the world." Can we now show ourselves? We're talking here of one country called the Philippines.