Genuine Opposition As Political Risk

‘Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’ by WorldEconomic Forum

Team Unity As Political Rise

During the January 2007 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo represented the Philippines. Among other things, she said: ‘ASEAN is committed to establishing one of the world’s greatest trading blocs.’ In fact, a charter is now being written that will ‘enshrine the vision of the Southeast Asian grouping in a legal and institutional framework’ (weforum.org/). What about the other countries vis-a-vis ASEAN? She said there are ‘concentric circles’ of relationships that will take care of such.

In the same occasion, the Forum’s Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said:

We are living in an increasingly schizophrenic world where economies are booming and global signs are promising but underneath are economic, political and social risks as well as imbalances and inconsistencies. We want to make sense of this world and shape the global agenda, taking into consideration the fragilities of global development and global systems. This is the unique contribution we make each year – to analyze the state of the world, the challenges, risks and opportunities. We sort out our priorities and come out with solutions to our problems.

Would the Genuine Opposition (the GO) have appreciated all that if they attended the Davos forum? Of course. They are intelligent people as a whole, perhaps as intelligent as Team Unity as a whole. But it seems to me the GO aren’t interested about concerns political, economic, social; they can’t care less about agendas local, national, global. But the way I look at it, they can be bothered only about the challenges, risks and opportunities when it comes to GMA, that is to say, they only wish one thing, and that is to be funny (Table 1).

Table 1. Frank views: Genuine Opposition vs Team Unity senatorial candidates

Team Unity	Item For Comparison	Genuine Opposition
Support GMA	Campaign Strategy	Oust GMA
Serve the people	Agenda For Development	Serve the impeachment papers to oust GMA
Unity	Catchphrase	Unity to Oust GMA
Support the fight	To Fight Corruption	Support the fight to oust GMA
Build a strong republic	Nation-Building	Build a strong opposition to oust GMA
Building on positives to support GMA	Basis For Nation-Building	Building on negatives to oust GMA
Campaign to strengthen LGUs with releases of IRA	Empowerment	Press releases in a campaign to oust GMA
Legislative work to develop the islands	Work Plan After Winning	Legislative work to oust GMA

Team GO, let me be frank: You’re hilarious, did you know that?

But enough of the comical! Wish ko lang, do something much more positive and productive for the country aside from clowning around. Laughter is the best medicine, according to the Bible and the Reader’s Digest (and I have faith in both), but we can’t thrive on medicine alone. - f@h

~ by frankahilario on 22 March 2007.