There was a cancer in the time of our national hero Jose Rizal that he elaborately depicted through his novel Noli Me Tangere, metastasized in every fiber of Philippine society back then, having its roots in the prolonged oppression of the Filipinos by our Spanish colonizers. 

Today, we see cancer in the Philippines again, and our people and environment have shriveled badly from this cancer, which is on its terminal stage.

What is the main problem with the Philippines?  Put in another way, what is Philippine society’s cancer today? The main problem with the Philippines can be seen from the perspectives of different sectors; and thus, there can be many answers to this question.

From the point of view of the citizens, the main problem is the dirty politics of traditional politicians.  There is no end to election fraud and accusations of election fraud. Then there are also politicians in power who bicker and accuse endlessly.  Some even kill their political opponents, and the murders they commit to keep themselves in power are barbaric. Thus, our nation is in a constant mode of being destabilized from all sides – from those in power and those who are not in power.

From the point of view of entrepreneurs or the market, the main problem is graft and corruption in government offices.  It has become abnormal not to pay “under-the-table” to get a business permit or a government clearance.          

From the point of view of politicians, the main problem is a personality-based politics, wherein celebrities without any platform nor preparation for public service win by a landslide at the polls and end up mismanaging their public office and the public funds.          

From the point of view of public administration employees or civil servants, the main problem is their low pay such that they need to earn extra from extortion and sideline-selling to adequately provide for their families.

From the point of view of the Church, the main problem is the Government’s interference on matters of faith as it pushes bills that undermine morality and one’s religious beliefs, although advocates of those bills see them as timely remedies to socio-economic problems.

Just like the Indian tale of The Blind Men and The Elephant, wherein not one of the six blind men saw the elephant, but rather one claimed it was a wall, another a spear, another a snake, another a tree, another a fan, and the last one a rope, because each of them experienced only a part of the elephant and not its entirety, so also each sector of our society sees but facets and symptoms of the cancer that has kept us way behind the nations that used to learn at our heels.

What is our cancer?  What cannot we touch?  Rizal’s writings and martyrdom sparked the hearts of the Filipinos towards a fight for freedom from our foreign oppressors. But ironically, whereas our people’s struggles before were against foreign domination, our modern-day Noli Me Tangere is about the Filipinos’ struggle against fellow Filipinos entrusted with the role to lead and serve the nation. This is our cancer today:  Filipinos are against fellow Filipinos.

For more of Pinay@heart, visit http://www.journal.com.ph/index.php/opinion/pinayheart/ and http://www.rubycalo.wordpress.com