Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Pnoy's end---a mandate of Heaven?

The Chinese has this philosophical belief about the Mandate of Heaven. According to Wikipedia, the mandate of heaven is:

"a traditional Chinese philosophical concept concerning the legitimacy predicated on the conduct of the ruler in question. The Mandate of Heaven postulates that heaven (天; Tian) would bless the authority of a just ruler, as defined by the Five Confucian Relationships, but would be displeased with a despotic ruler and would withdraw its mandate, leading to the overthrow of that ruler. The Mandate of Heaven would then transfer to those who would rule best. The mere fact of a leader having been overthrown is itself indication that he has lost the Mandate of Heaven.
The Mandate of Heaven does not require that a legitimate ruler be of noble birth, and dynasties were often founded by people of mean birth (such as the Han dynasty and Ming dynasty). The concept of the Mandate of Heaven was first used to support the rule of the kings of the Zhou Dynasty, and their overthrow of the earlier Shang dynasty. It was used throughout the history of China to support the rule of the Emperors of China, including 'foreign' dynasties such as the Qing Dynasty.
The Mandate of Heaven is a well-accepted and popular idea among the people of China, as it argues for the removal of incompetent or despotic rulers, and provided an incentive for rulers to rule well and justly. The concept is often invoked by philosophers and scholars in ancient China as a way to curtail the abuse of power by the ruler, in a system that otherwise offered no other check to this power. The Mandate of Heaven had no time limitations, instead depending on the just and able performance of the ruler. In the past, times of poverty and natural disasters were taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement."

IN JUST ONE MONTH, the Philippines had two (2) very strong typhoons which devastated North and Central Luzon and yesterday, the Central Philippines suffered a 7.2-magnitude quake that affected more than 2 million people and caused the deaths of more than a hundred people.

Aside from nature-induced disasters, we were struck with a war which left scores dead and 2 billion pesos worth of structural damages in Zamboanga, and an impending issue about the misuse and abuse of public funds. In a span of two and a half months, this country got flooded, drenched with blood and shaken to the core by strong quakes. Are these signs of Heaven's displeasure?

Many people can't help but ask---are all these signs of an impending regime change?

I just cannot help but say that this regime started with a values-oriented campaign slogan---walang mahirap kung walang korup (no one is poor if there is no corruption). Then, when Pnoy won, he tried to follow this up with another slogan---tuwid na daan or the straight road.

Three years hence, and we have an issue about the immorality of our leaders, of how a few people got rich from misusing or actually stealing public funds. And what is unveiling right now is the very fact that every single one of our leaders has gotten himself richer still from stealing the people's monies.

The poor, the widows and the orphans in affliction have cried out to Heaven. Will heaven respond?




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