A Thank You Letter for Senator Kiko and Megastar Sharon from Richard of Bisaya Short Films
"I'm not starstruck. I'm MEGASTARstruck." - Richard Abad
Dear Kiko and Sharon:
Thank you Kiko Pangilinan that you said in the Press Conference we had at Parklane that you will support Federalism if it's for empowering the Fisherfolks and the Farmers and the rest of the people who are in the forefront of things, such as the janitors, soldiers, artists, entrepreneurs and everyone else who is NOT a bureaucrat and who is NOT a University Professor overpaid to teach gullible students wrong information, which ruins the economic system, according to Nicholson Taleb, a New York Times Bestselling Author whom I respect the way I respect Daenerys Targaryen.
By the way, can we do something about these Church-run universities, Kiko, to enforce them to pay taxes because University of San Carlos alone seems to be a really big money-draining business that extracts the money saved by our farmers just so these farmers can get their children a university degree that will never guarantee them a job at a tremendous cost?
Nicholson Taleb invented the Theory of Anti-fragility, whose one idea says that universities can actually make students dumb because of the lack of practical real-world experience-based lessons in the university's curriculum to the point that he argued this: university professors should be sued because of spreading misinformation to BS Economics students, and ruining the global economy because these academics just keep on churning out useless "knowledge" at the cost of draining our people's money in the form of tuition. If Duterte wins, will this change happen? If Mar does, will it not?
About your reservations on Federalism because of Political Dynasties: Political dynasties seem to be not all ugly, and Nassim Taleb's book will prove that "France, Japan and New Zealand" are progressive because they started from a really super small and barangay style nation, where government officials sort of know their citizens directly face to face, and people treat each other with more sympathy because they see each other as people and not just merely as SSS and NBI Numbers.
Put it this way, Senator Kiko: to whom would you be kinder if you're a government official? : a person you see everyday because you're childhood friends and he lives next to you in the same region? or a person whose face you didn't know because he's from Manila and you're in Cebu and you only know him in the computer profile of the NBI, and you don't know his favorite color, his favorite movies because you're not friends?
People are kinder to people they actually know.
And the fact that there's this more personal connection with the people can be good for lowering crime rate of the Philippines because people are less likely to steal and cause hurt to someone they know in a nuanced, face-to-face kind of way. Put it this way: if you're a thief who only steals because you need money for your kids and you're not on drugs, who would you rather steal from: your mother or someone you don't know?
Also, politcal dynasties seem to be only okay if we have more of them! If we have more but different political dynasties, then we can learn more from each other's diversity, and the more varied our government styles are, the smaller the national impact of the failure of one style is.
Right now, we only have one system spread across the whole nation, and if one mistake happens to that system, such as the Pork Barrel mishap that cuts fund transfer to the whole Philippines , the whole nation gets horrible damage.
When we put that one system in one small region and disconnect that from the rest of the nation, only that region is affected when a failure happens, sparing the rest of the nation. Federalism lowers the damage, like wearing a helmet, so let's put a helmet on our country's head!
And let's find a way to change to a small-government style faster than amending the constitution because that's going to take so muuuuch time; our time is important because we have so many movies and Game of Thrones episodes to watch yet. The appeal of Duterte's promise of Federalism comes from the fact that he seems to be open to start a civil war and let the whole nation fight itself. Violence is gross, and it's boring. Let's solve this by dancing instead! Like in Will Ferrell's movie, Daddy's Home!
Right now, we only have one system spread across the whole nation, and if one mistake happens to that system, such as the Pork Barrel mishap that cuts fund transfer to the whole Philippines , the whole nation gets horrible damage.
When we put that one system in one small region and disconnect that from the rest of the nation, only that region is affected when a failure happens, sparing the rest of the nation. Federalism lowers the damage, like wearing a helmet, so let's put a helmet on our country's head!
And let's find a way to change to a small-government style faster than amending the constitution because that's going to take so muuuuch time; our time is important because we have so many movies and Game of Thrones episodes to watch yet. The appeal of Duterte's promise of Federalism comes from the fact that he seems to be open to start a civil war and let the whole nation fight itself. Violence is gross, and it's boring. Let's solve this by dancing instead! Like in Will Ferrell's movie, Daddy's Home!
So here's my solution as a graduate of AB Political Science at University of San Carlos: do another EDSA revolution but this time, let's threaten the Constitutional Convention to change to Federalism with dancing!
Invite everyone to rally around EDSA and Fuente Osmena and all central areas in all our cities and let's demand that if they don't amend the constitution within a week, we will dance for the whole week and annoy the entire nation with Justin Bieber's Love Yourself and Hailee Steinfeld's Love Myself blasted out in Olympic-size speakers! We will dance all day and night until we change to Federalism and we can also do a referendum through dancing. Let's take the entire country hostage through dancing!
Invite everyone to rally around EDSA and Fuente Osmena and all central areas in all our cities and let's demand that if they don't amend the constitution within a week, we will dance for the whole week and annoy the entire nation with Justin Bieber's Love Yourself and Hailee Steinfeld's Love Myself blasted out in Olympic-size speakers! We will dance all day and night until we change to Federalism and we can also do a referendum through dancing. Let's take the entire country hostage through dancing!
And thank you Sharon for planning to watch Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis, the 8-hour-long movie of Lav Diaz that was so stupendous, I watched it twice. Yes, 16 hours in total of watching Philippine betrayals in history replayed to me in stunning black and white while Ely Buendia lullabies me to tears.
And the movie arguably helped me with my Traffic situation while living in Cebu City: the movie's scenes kept me so still and taught me how to detach from the illusion of time so I can deviate from suffering and ego-attachment, and so every time I ride through Cebu City traffic, I just remember scenes in Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis to remind myself that there is beauty in being patient.
Yours,
Richard
And the movie arguably helped me with my Traffic situation while living in Cebu City: the movie's scenes kept me so still and taught me how to detach from the illusion of time so I can deviate from suffering and ego-attachment, and so every time I ride through Cebu City traffic, I just remember scenes in Hele Sa Hiwagang Hapis to remind myself that there is beauty in being patient.
Yours,
Richard
