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Netnet Camomot

“I WANNA be a billionaire so f**king bad/Buy all of the things I never had/Uh, I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine/Smiling next to Oprah and the Queen.”

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Whenever the family’s millennials hear words such as the one above, they would always say, bad word! We, the oldies–I don’t know the generation we belong to, hehe–tend to say sh*t, WTF, and my favorite, P*ta and P*tang…and, no, that doesn’t refer to the dialect for mud. But better that than breaking someone else’s neck whenever we’re angry at that neck. The funny thing is, or what Alanis Morissette may call as ironic, it was the older generation–meaning, kami–who taught the family’s millennials to not say a bad word ever. So, now they’re the ones correcting us.

When Bruno Mars sang the “billionaire” for the first time, I’m sure he had no other intention but to express his thoughts about becoming a billionaire, a dream that he can reach as long as keeps on singing hit songs.

But with Election Day 2016 coming soon to the Philippine political theater, I gotta feeling some of the politicians and political wannabes are now joining the political fun run to become a billionaire through the national treasury: “Oh every time I close my eyes/I see my name in shining lights, yeah/A different city every night, oh I/I swear the world better prepare/For when I’m a billionaire.”

Public service is a noble vocation, almost akin to the priesthood. Oops. Nunhood? Monkhood? Any other hood?

The Urban Dictionary defines the hood as “a place where plenty of sh*t goes down like g*ngb*ngin, drug dealin, killin, a place where you wouldnt want to be.” The asterisks are all mine, to protect your virgin eyes from bad words. The lack of a grammar police is not mine–that’s simply how words are spoken in the hood, so raw, so real, no frills, they don’t care about grammar for they have more important things to think of, like money, food, survival. That’s another kind of hood of course. Like the bad neighborhood or barangay that you’re trying to escape from before it eats you up.

But then, you look at the hood’s definition again and wonder if it also defines the political arena:  “plenty of sh*t goes down like g*ngb*ngin, drug dealin, killin, a place where you wouldnt want to be.” Like in the movies? Hmmm. With the thin line between politics and show biz, yeah, possible. But could be worse than the movie. For real life is always worse than the movie. The movie has to have cinematography, actors, art. Real life has none of that. You don’t have to consider the right angle for the Botox face.

But the political life does have a script especially created to fool as many potential voters as possible. Gotta gain the madlang pehpohl’s sympathy and empathy. Gotta gain their trust, charity, and generosity. Gotta have their votes! So, politicians and political wannabes hire the best public image consultants that they and their financial supporters can afford. That’s why when “presidentiable” Mar Roxas and “vice presidentiable” Leni Robredo posed for photo ops with a group of sad Pinoys, some commented that they should fire the brains behind their public machinery for allowing that photo to be published or posted on Facebook.

The politician and wannabe joining the political fun run should have happy and contented people around him, and not those resembling a group of singing contestants after losing their first round of auditions. Have you seen any of the photos that the Cagayan de Oro orange congressman has, together with the yellow-to-orange city councilors, barangay captains, and the bigwigs of this one particular government agency that makes concrete roads? That kind of photo–happy congressman, happy barangay residents, happy government agency pehpohl. No sad faces allowed. Like “smiling next to Oprah and the Queen.”

But it doesn’t always follow that a happy face has billions in the bank. Or has stolen billions from the national treasury. A happy face is a happy face. No other real story behind the headlines there.

Besides, talking about billions simply means that the standard on which we gauge wealth has now progressed from millions to billions. You buy a car for, say, P1.2 million and that’s the simple one, not the one whose kph can zoom from zero to 500. So, what’s a million “pesoses” nowadays? Not even enough to build a two-story house. You meet a millionaire and you’re like, Ho-hum. There are families who can spend P60 million in a year. Millionaires today, poor tomorrow.

A billionaire, on the other hand, is another story. How can one spend that moolah in his lifetime? That’s why billionaires have foundations and they love to donate funds to their favorite charities–tax deductions, anyone? But it’s not always for tax purposes. You have all that money to waste, and you’re now feeling alone because money doesn’t hug you back. But people you help with your billions, they can hug you back. At first, the charity can be for gaining a good public image, but later, it can change that billionaire, gives him a good heart. And the whole world gains from that. By then, that billionaire won’t be looking forward to photo ops with Oprah and the Queen, for these two will be the ones eager to have those photo ops with him.

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