A race to the bottom

Teddy Benigno is taking his annual one-month hiatus from journalism, but not before firing off this column deeply lamenting the sorry state of Philippine politics. Nostalgic for the bygone years of our country�s history, he is so melancholy that the column reads like Antigone resigned to her cruel fate, unable to find succor in any quarter. His grief is so great that he seems to run out of the signature metaphors in his writing.

Is Teddy Benigno merely being a laudator temporis acti or does his memory serve him right in characterizing the present juncture as especially wretched? (A little caveat: Old men are wont to wax poetic about things past.) But still he has a point. Government, these days, has indeed been transmogrified into one ugly wrestling bout, with politicians forcing each other off balance. As a nation, we are in a race to the bottom, and one can only hope that we get to it soon.