While the 2012 French-Canadian romantic science fiction movie entitled ‘Upside down’ depicts twinned worlds – the ‘Up Top’, a wealthy and exploitative world and the ‘Down Below’, a poverty-stricken world- with gravities that pull in opposite directions, and while its story entails nothing but a big picture of making heaven and earth romance a quite literal way, the Philippine also has an ‘Upside’ ‘Down’ societies almost the same with that of the movie less its science fiction and the heaven-and-earth romance.
When I say ‘almost the same’, I do not only mean the movie descriptions of the twinned worlds per se. The Philippines ‘Upside’ ‘Down’ societies are worse than that. In the Philippine setting, not only it is for a wealthy and exploitative opportunist but worse, the ‘Up Top’, is also for corrupt and greed officials who live in rich and comfortable lives . Also, not only it represents the poverty-stricken situation but above all, in the Philippine background, the ‘Down Below’ also represents the underprivileged and abused masses who live in scarcity and misery.
In the Philippine timeline, graft and corruption, exploitation and capitalism, to cite a few, have long been become a culture. Millions to billions sum of money of different scams and scandals, questionable rechanneling and dealing of public funds have become the lifestyle of some of our ‘beloved’, ‘highly-favored’ and ‘blessed’ public servants. For almost every day, we hear reports exposing the debauched acts- may it be graft, bribery or any form of corruption-of our political leaders.
If I were to trace back the history and enumerate all the drastic involvement of our political leaders in different kind of already-forgotten issues concerning not only millions to billions worth of public funds as well as the election manipulations, extra-judicial killings, ect., it would take me forever to consume them all here. The most important episode of this story which truly enrages us all is that it, if not all, most of them have slipped away the judicial system.
It’s quite abvious that this and a lot more have contributing not in building the nation, but building their own self-interest. Of course, if they are after building their self-interest, extending their power and expanding their properties will follow. In short, it has become their business. It has become their culture. It has become their society-a society for superior, elite and powerful ‘Up Top’.
In the movie, the waste from the ‘Up Top’ directly pours down to the people ‘Down Below’. Likewise, in reality, the corruption, bribery and dishonesty have not just resulted to superiority and power among the ‘Up Top’ but also caused poverty and deprivation among the Filipino people ‘Down Below’. This correlation leads us to the second society- a society of the deprived, ill-treated poor people ‘Down Below’.
Poverty indicent in the Philippines remained an unending problem. According to the latest poverty data released by the National Statistical Coodination Board (NSCB), the percentage of Filipinos living below the poverty line has remained almost unchanged in the past six years. 27.9 percent was the recorded poverty incidence in the Philippines for the first half of 2012, slightly less than the figure in 2006 which was 28.8 percent and 28.6 percent in the first half of 2009 and 2011. Interestingly, in 2007, a year in between 6 years, the Philippines was perceived as the most corrupt country in Asia by expatriate businessmen based on the annual corruption survey conducted by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy replacing India in the spot.
Taking into consideration that the unemployment, illiteracy, crime rate, health problems, are some of the dreadful results of poverty, the cliché “rich becomes richer while poor becomes poorer” will remain as it is.
Up Top people bent on making profit at the expense of the entire population of the people Down Below. For as long as they will continue to use their power in corruption, dishonesty and bribery, people from ‘Down Below’ will always be the exact opposite of them. For I believe that whatever doings from the top will always pour down below. The structure of relationship of these societies is that if things turn bad to the people down below, bad things also manifested from the people up top.
Seeing things like this in our country, the two societies really need to be changed. Change is constant but people’s disposition is also constantly developing, either developing for good or developing for worse.
Although making the Philippines a corrupt-free country is too idealistic and as hard as the heads of our political leaders, soon they would that it’s not as difficult as pocketing the public funds. Also, although getting the Filipino people out of poverty quite needs a long time, soon it would just surprise us that we are already out of it.
Just like at the end of the movie wherein the two worlds live both wealthy and happy lives, I would be happy if one day I see Philippines completely the same with that of the movie. It would be a great feeling, no more greed and corrupt officials Up Top and no more deprived and poor people Down Below.
