What use is power if it never touches the ground? Too many of our so-called leaders strut across the national stage with bloated egos and inflated titles, yet remain strangers in the very towns they claim to serve.
These politicians, addicted to the limelight of Manila, treat local communities as mere stepping stones—votes to be harvested every three years, pawns in a power game played far from the realities of hunger, potholes, and crumbling schools.
They thunder about “nation-building,” yet cannot even set foot in the barangays where nationhood is lived day to day.
This disconnect is not harmless—it is dangerous. Policies crafted by those who never listen to ordinary people become cold, irrelevant, and often cruel. Programs meant to “uplift” end up enriching contractors and cronies.
Budgets flow like rivers in Congress, but on the ground, the wells remain dry.
Democracy rots when leaders forget they are servants, not overlords.
A seat in the Senate or the House does not grant moral authority if it is divorced from the pulse of the people. Authority without presence is arrogance. Influence without accountability is fraud.
We must stop applauding politicians for their empty theatrics in Manila while their own backyards decay. National clout means nothing if it is not anchored in local trust. The real measure of leadership is not how loud you speak in the capital, but how deeply you listen in the province, the city, the sitio.
Power without roots is just vanity on a podium. And vanity builds nothing.
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