Politicians and emotions of the masses

Ricky Poca

I am really amazed at how politicians play with the emotions of the people especially when they side with the “emotions of the masses” on the government’s proposed tax reform program which includes imposing taxes on sweetened beverages.

The store owners are complaining about the proposed hefty tax that will be imposed on sweetened beverages because it will direly affect their sales, which is the main reason they are against the tax proposal. Please, take note: The hefty tax on these sweetened beverages is basically to regulate the drinks because these have caused obesity and diabetes to many people.

But the politicians do not believe the reason for imposing taxes on these drinks because they are more interested on supporting the selfish motives of those people than the proposed measure that aims to address health issues that can benefit the public.

Now that I am a diabetic, with the ailment affecting my heart and kidney, I now choose to drink water to address my thirst because belatedly I realized that drinking these beverages has not brought anything good to my health and body. And mind you, the medical expenses are not a laughing matter; they are draining and painful.

For the politician, the primordial interest should be a community of healthy people and not one with sickly people especially since politicians do not appropriate a large budget for the medical needs of the people.

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Lately, the marital squabble between Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Andres Bautista and his wife, Patricia, has taken center stage with the wife revealing and wondering about the alleged unexplained wealth of the husband, who is a government official.

Patricia accused the husband of allegedly accumulating so much wealth, and presented a number of bank passbooks and ledgers to prove her point. She also emphasized that her husband’s net worth is now about P1.3 billion, which is not reflected in his SALN (Statements of Accounts, Liabilities and Net worth) that showed only P176 million. Chairman Bautista countered and said that it’s all about the money. He accused the wife of allegedly blackmailing or extorting a hefty amount of money from him.

It is, however, best that the chairman explain the allegations of unexplained wealth before the court because their marital squabble is a private matter but the unexplained wealth is a public matter.

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US President Donald Trump has upped his verbal attacks on North Korea, putting the world in danger of war. The North Korean regime has threatened to attack a country under the US like Guam. It has threatened to fire a missile near Guam in answer to the verbal attacks by the US president. Some experts say that in a war nobody is a winner, and it will be catastrophic for humans. So they suggest taking the diplomatic route instead of saying irresponsible verbal assaults that will exacerbate an already tense situation.