Signed Sealed Delivered, Tax Included

by Jahzeel Dionne V Ybasco

Dear Actors in Business Suits and Polished Shoes,

I saw your advertisement. You have a new commercial again. And no, I did not say it is a political advertisement. How could I? Wasn’t it last year when I started seeing your face on television and posters, it was not even the election period then? You even claimed those ads had been paid for by your friends. Come on. How much did you pay for that? I wonder if the money you spent could have been used for a better purpose. I for one thought you could have started putting up the school you promised in the beginning of your term—but I guess you can’t remember that.

You were too caught up buying your car, and was that a new house you bought for your daughter? That’s fancy but the shanties you call ‘houses’ you donated for the poor have been destroyed by the last typhoon, haven’t they? Providing the best things money can buy and security is probably every parent’s dream and goal yet you shame my parents’ hard work by sitting comfortably in your office, siphoning their decades of taxes. A couple of terms cannot improve the country, I know, but it is enough for you to travel wherever you want to go, eat a feast any time you want and sleep peacefully with banknotes under your bed.

But back to your cringe-worthy-not-a-political-campaign commercial, a farcical mash up of hypocrisy and broken promises, I have some tips for improvement I am pretty sure you will only shrug off.

Don’t call your people poor because we are not. Don’t further insult us buy buying our dignity with few bucks. We pay our taxes. The budget you use for your projects come from our pockets. Do not expect me to thank you because I don’t have the habit of thanking myself. Do not expect me to give respect to the banners you put for yourself. Their glaring letters do not entice me. If the tarpaulins posted in your name equate to your service to the country, then I have to say you are cheap. And I don’t need a cheap leader.

Alas! Don’t mock our hearts with projects initiated a year before the elections. The comfort you are enjoying right now should have been ours. The cars, the houses, they have your name on it but that is our money you bought it with. Thank us instead. Repay us with the execution of the oath you ‘solemnly’ swore before God and men.

Your people deserve more.

Yours, tax included,

Fan