Ode to a Leader

      Your excellency, it is my pleasure to have the chance to write for someone with such a high stature in government, someone with great power emanating from the citizens of the beloved Maharlika. Mr. President, I extend my felicitations to you for your decisive victory in the 2022 presidential elections, you have won the gullible minds of your people. Your victory is a reminder to us young learners that anyone can be a leader with intergenerational influence and unexplainable wealth. 

        As you may know already, no administration is perfect, some are even riddled with scandals and issues. Despite that, the imperfections that lie beneath even the fundamental institutions of the government, can be fixed. And so, your excellency, I take this opportunity to express my worries for this country my beloved under your presidency as to provoke your excellency to take action on the challenges you, I, and the people all face today. 

        Prices of essential goods are going uphill, and the value of our currency is steadily decreasing; to the gullible minds that support you, this is apparently a symbol of progress to our country. Your own people are being misled by information disseminated around the net designed to glorify you, your family, your comrades, your past, and your administration using inexistent achievements, wrongful reasoning, and omission of information that taint your golden image. Critics are withheld of their freedom to express, some even murdered; our country ranks quite high in the list of countries with lowest levels of press freedom, it tickles the Filipino pride. Government workers are still getting low paychecks, the very workers that make the cogs of government institutions turn are being rejected of the salary they deserve. An educational crisis is ongoing, teaching personnel are taking money out of their own pockets to maintain a classroom, parents are contributing their hard-earned money for simple things that the government cannot provide, and there is an overwhelming lack of teaching facilities to sustain the rising student population. 

        I might not have mentioned all the problems for it is countless but ultimately, the primary victims of the problems that you are at least willing to resolve with temporary solutions, are those living under the poverty line – those that can’t afford even essential goods. And yet, you are there, Mr. President, just got home from a trip to see the F1 Grand Prix at Singapore. Was it fun to watch them cars drift along as your people starve in slums and suffer from the economic crisis? Mr. President, I admire you for your outstanding level of incompetence as the president of the republic. 

        You are the president, you are the most powerful man in the Philippines. All that you may have dreamt of you have; please do not feel a discontent, Mr. President. The Filipino society needs you, your excellency. May your administration exceed the expectations of your constituents and of the opposition. Your excellency, I wish you luck for the next six or twenty years of rule.

        Let's work hard to drive progress in our country! 🦖

        Thank you for stretching your attention span long enough to read until the very end! 🧡

REFERENCE/S:         Reyes, R. (2016). Senator Bongbong Marcos [Photograph]. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO. https://technology.inquirer.net/47623/marcos-dominates-facebook-conversations-during-vp-debate