A failed state that Mahathir left behind ...

A failed state

By TAY TIAN YAN
Translated by DOMINIC LOH

There was this joke: After a robbery case, the London policeman would rush to the scene in ten minutes; a Tokyo policeman would do so in five minutes, while a Manila policeman would be there in no time!

Incredible efficiency, huh!

He was right there at the crime scene. A policeman that doubled up as an evildoer!

After the bus hijacking incident in Manila, no one can be sure whether that is still a joke or an illustration of real-life Philippines.

A lunatic ex-police inspector, the uninformed commander, the clumsy SWAT team, grossly outdated contraption and a smiley president...

As if that is not enough, we still have an imbecile lady inspector posing with a group of naive students in front of the hijacked bus.

No one would forget merely a few months back a political family in southern Philippines wiped out its opponents and journalists, 57 of them altogether, in a bloody attempt to stop their rivals from taking part in the election.

Perhaps these things happen at such a regular frequency that the Filipinos have grown accustomed to them... that even the president could still put on a smiling face in front of international media... and that the cops could still pose with some school kids for the camera at the crime scene, with sunny smiles of course.

According to the Murphy's law, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

Manila gives the Murphy's law a new interpretation: Anything that can go so wrong with a country, will go so wrong.

Sociologist Max Weber said a successful state was one whose statutory administrators had organised an effective enforcement team to maintain social orders of that country.

If a country fails to put in place an effective enforcement team, resulting in rampant corruption, sky high crime rate, military intervention in civic administration, collapse of laws and order, etc., it will become what we call a failed state.

I think the Philippines has met most of the criteria for a "failed state."

It should have been a vastly successful nation. During the 1950s, it boasted a prosperous economy unparalleled in the region, with a rich legacy of physical infrastructure, constitution and democracy left behind by the Americans.

It had all it took to be successful, but alas, the past half a century has witnessed this archipelagic republic inching its way towards complete failure.

There are many reasons to expound such a twist of fate. Many political analysts have attributed that to farm politics.

During the Spanish colonisation, the Philippines inherited the Spanish feudal farm system in which farmlands were in the grips of a handful of wealthy families which also controlled the national economy and politics.

National administration has become a family business, more so one that is hereditary, to be passed down from one generation to the next.

This explains why Aquino, Ramos, Cojuangco, Marcos and Laurel are familiar names that have dominated Manila's political scene.

To vie for the lion's share of the national resources, these families will either team up with or confront one another, never taking public or national interest into consideration.

The election of Benigno Aquino III did bring some instantaneous hope to the impoverished nation, but being a constituent part of this deep-rooted farm politics, he may find himself powerless in fighting the system.

It appears that the failed state will very much keep going down the same path.

Sin Chew Daily