Now if you enjoy the imagery of artistic doublespeak, you'll find literature rich with game-playing and fun-poking. Jonathan Swift was a master at biting the pompously powerful, especially attorneys, and even got England's Queen Anne riled up at his wit, which she found lacking in decorum. Well, you know how those queens are, rather snooty and pinched about the corset.
Humpty Dumpty is another icon of royal fun-poke. He emerges every few hundred years as a new icon of puzzlement. I asked my wife if she knew the Humpty Dumpty rhyme and she said, in her profound way . . . “Huh?” I guess such tales, used relentlessly to instill wisdom in American kids, never got fully downloaded to the Philippines. Aesop and Mother Goose weep, I'm sure.
Let me provide some background on this woebegotten Egg before kicking it to the Philippines for lessons learned. I prefer the 1810 version of the rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sate on a wall,
Humpti Dumpti had a great fall;
Threescore men and threescore more,
Cannot place Humpty Dumpty as he was before.
The original idea was a punful play on words. Humpty Dumpty in the 1600's was a mix of brandy and ale sure to knock you or any egg off the wall. It was also slang for a short clumsy person. You see them here and there falling off walls or occasionally serving as president or king. The humor was in figuring the rhyme could be read both ways.
The Brits assigned the egg image to King Richard III who fell from power and couldn't manage his way back. It was also assigned to tools of war like modern cannons or grappling devices that would not stay up on the wall once blasted by the enemy.
Lewis Carroll in “Through the Looking Glass” imaginatively postured the Egg as a master of words. Humpty Dumpty coined the oft repeated wisdom used by bloggers to erase their tracks after a particularly bad rendition. He exclaimed to Alice who had questioned one of his definitions:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."
One should always use scorn whilst backpeddling away from blog statements that went awry.
I think Philippine government service is one royal Humpty Dumpty. The Egg has fallen off the public service wall and cracked up. All the logic or hopeful prayers of the good people of the Philippines can't put it back together again.
The Philippines is more a realm than a democracy for sure. Those in power seem to run it for personal gain rather than public benefit. And the Chief Filipino seems, from the days of Aguinaldo, to tend toward ostentation. I fear this infatuation with self-wealth runs all the way down to the local township, judging from all the ladies white of skin and large of demeanor who ride 'neath umbrellas upon the floats in the Gingoog City fiesta day parade. They certainly have the queenly wave down pat, nose slightly upward of tilt, Mona Lisa smile slightly liquored up and hand lazily fanning some moth out of the way.
That's not the way the Los Angeles Lakers do it when they ride their victory truck down Figueroa Street. They point and smile broadly and shout and high-five people and look happy and thankful as they pass by all the fans who pay their salaries. Those rich jocks get it, people with a high school education or a year or two of college. Yet the Ivy League graduates hereabouts seem not to appreciate just exactly WHO it is that is funding their glorious ride.
Democratic government is supposed to be of and for the people, broadly, not just of and for the people with money and power. So I herein nominate Humpty Dumpty as official icon of the Philippine realm, and offer a suggestion that he be taken up to Pinatubo and boiled in hot sulphur water until his innards get some stiffness. By stiffness, I mean courage, brains, compassion, logic. And a big heaping helping of, yes . . . honor.
If I look at the main purpose of Government hereabouts, it seems to be to raise money. Every agency is a taxing agency. They don't provide good service, for sure, for when you walk in the door you are invariably met with a snarl, not a smile. You always feel that you have imposed upon their royal time.
Customs feels no responsibility for building the Philippines as a trading force competitive to Singapore or Hong Kong, or even Malaysia. The only Asian country in the rear view mirror is Myanmar, for crimminy sakes, and that asylum in North Korea. Philippine Customs taxes books, loads people up with paper and assesses them fees for filling it out, and does all it can to suppress both exports and imports. I had DHL send me my monthly mail from the US last week. I got four letters of value precisely zero, but Customs levied a P548 charge for opening the package and looking at the four envelopes therein. That is two days worth of labor for a day-worker out here in the province. Labor that will not get hired because I spent it on Customs. So Customs beautifies its tax collections and damns the jobs. Furthermore, the tax incents me not to get my mail as often. Assuming I am not alone, in a few months we can expect DHL will quit the Philippines and fire several hundred people and delivery service to the hinterlands will get even more provincial.
You see, the problem is, the P548 tax is not correlated to the value of any service government provides or I create. It is correlated to the fact that the global economy sagged, the Philippine government was generous on its election year hand-outs, and now all the taxing agencies are being whipped by the Lords to get caught up. No matter the cost. Government departments are simply taxing agencies, raising pieces of gold for the Realm. Why does the story of Robin Hood log into my brain about now?
Taxation unrelated to value is punitive and destructive. It is theft.
Anyway, Customs gives you a perfect Humpty Dumpty approach to government. Off the wall. Cracked. Like taxing books, a dark ages practice if ever there were one.
Other agencies are no different. Immigration is really a hoot. They are gold diggers extraordinaire because they get to deal with all the rich people from overseas. Immigration taxes them everywhichway, which is why the aforesaid rich people decide it is better to live in Costa Rica than this monetary sink hole. The jobs, of course, go to Costa Rica.
And it is with clear intent the international airport terminal fees are about 10 times what the domestic fees are, though the terminals probably cost about the same to build and maintain. Mabuhay and open your wallet, sucker. On your exit, they don't search your purse for explosives. They look for any pesos other agencies might have missed whilst you were visiting. Wow, Philippines.
Now I don't want to sound like I am just a bitchy complaining foreigner, for I know you citizens get your collars stiffened up about that.
But I heartily suggest that you remind any snarling, surly local government office workers for whom they actually work.
Give those who are surly and inefficient a hard boiled egg. Make it the new symbol of the realm, a message from the people, that we know, we understand, that government service is supposed to be PUBLIC service. And when it is NOT, you're off the wall and you've earned your Humpty Dumpty egg.
Maybe we can run a Humpty Dumpty award contest, like the Oscars.
“The Humpty for Painfully Poor Prior Planning for 2009 goes to . . . Mr. G. Teodoro for losing the rubber boats meant to rescue victims of Typhoon Ondoy!”
Yes . . . yes, when my blog is better known, I'll sponsor the contest . . . that's good, really good . . .
I'm sure you can come up with a few nominations yourself . . .
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