Author’s Note: This post is with regard to Tingog.com’s writing project. Given what I’ve been through for the past month, I’d be honest that politics and current events have been out of my radar. And this piece is about the shooting of Musa Dimasidsing, the whistleblower in the election fraud matter in Maguindanao. I rarely turn down requests from fellow bloggers and Nick’s been a reader so I’m compelled to oblige him. I have to pardon this very unpolished piece of writing on the matter though.

The rule of the street is that you don’t snitch. That’s how people wind up on the street dead.

But this case in not some punk on the street matter, it’s a case of national security and integrity. Well, too much spy, FBI and CIA movies probably have taught us that if it’s the government at work, there’s pretty much nothing you can do. Still, even far from the context of the United States, we feel that, even with our own government’s incapacities, there is still much that it can do. This is not a democracy after all but an oligarchy. There is that concealed engine that drives the rest of the cogs, belts and wheels in the grand machine we call our country.

The facts surrounding are plain and simple. He blew the whistle, now he’s dead. Many would dismiss this as a case of election-related violence. I personally could care less about two oligarchs blasting each other’s camps to oblivion. But Musa Dimasidsing is a teacher who never compromised the truth when everyone else tried to hide it.

It is in the greater scheme of things that reminds us that we have been drowning in our own corruption for far too long. Why even have an elections when there isn’t credibility left in the process any more? And it is once again disheartening that a hero like Musa might just be a flash in the pan issue doomed to obscurity in the elaborate dance that is politics.

I couldn’t say anything more on what’s happening to our country. Many are trying to make a difference in their own ways. But with one fell swoop, the corrupt government machinery cancels everything out. Dropping the dime, maybe it is time for us to drop the hammer on our own government’s corruption.

Then again, the question remains, “How?”

Check out these other posts:

1. Zombied
2. Raising Awareness through MyBlogLog Community Exchange
3. Apathy towards the NBN scandal?
4. Pinoy “citizen journalism”, politics, and campaign period
5. Surreal