Submerged Effects

 

In my village, and likely in many others across our town, flooding has become a regular crisis, triggered by a few minutes of heavy rainfall. The culprit? Clogged drainage systems overwhelmed by tons of improperly discarded garbage. But why does this persist? Proper waste disposal should be an instinctive civic behavior. Yet a culture of negligence has taken root: plastic bags, spoiled food, and household trash are casually thrown into gutters or deliberately dumped into canals. This is not just a failure of discipline - it is, I believe, the result of a deeper political strategy dating back to 1986.

Flooding itself is nothing new; it has plagued us since the Spanish era. What’s tragic is that in all this time, we’ve seen little to no meaningful modernization of flood control infrastructure. Why? Because somewhere along the way, aside from corrupting the allocated funds for flood control, politicians realized that chaos could be profitable. Letting citizens spiral into apathy - through tolerated addiction, crime, poor hygiene, and systemic corruption - creates a population easier to manipulate. In the absence of critical thought, the masses become pliable, and oligarchs secure their business empires while politicians protect their dynasties.

Brainwashing isn't confined to overt instruction or propaganda. It can also take the subtler form of granting unchecked freedom, without clear consequences, gradually eroding accountability and reshaping perception under the guise of autonomy. Mainstream media has become a tool in this manipulation: it serves not to inform, but to obscure the truth and bolster deception.

Sadly, fabricated crimes are used to discredit truth-tellers or those who fight against corruption, while lawbreakers are celebrated and protected.

Unfortunately, beneath all this lies one unspoken rule always comes out: In order to preserve power, the people must remain poor. The poorer the masses, the more entrenched the elites become. It’s a brutal, cynical equation - and one our political class has mastered.