In the world of modern politics, Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian political mind, became notoriously known for his controversial political ideas.
Quite too many of our politicians now seemed to have explored his provocative philosophy of politics. And to a lot of power-hungry politicians, those with insatiable political greed who cannot be contented with the prescribed terms of service, the disreputable Machiavellian politics has become their favorite tactic. They will do everything just to stay in power. And their resort to Machiavelli’s infamy, in their haste to secure permanently their political pursuits, cannot be any more evident than what is so obvious and so evidently, and universally apparent.
A Universal Tendency
But while Machiavellian mindset is a universal tendency – a vicious concept influencing much of the global and geopolitical issues of today, it too is becoming more and more a profound local political malaise, a disturbing issue even in the remotest of places, even in the least of local government units.
The End Justifies the Means
For a Machiavellian mind, everything is necessary. It is an attitude of the mind that will resort at doing everything, getting whatever it takes, in order to achieve a clear political end. It won’t give up, it won’t back down, it won’t put a stop, regardless. Even if it would mean the deployment and machination of crimes and acts of violence. The means, however cunning, however deceitful, and however criminal, are all justified, that is, if its end result is something good and something benevolent.
The Machiavellians in us
If there is truth to the claims of recent killings in the country – the killing of a young man, an SK official in Laguna; the alleged shootout in Calbayog City a month ago now, that resulted in the death of Mayor Ronaldo Aquino, and the reported successive killings of Barangay Chairmen in the said city months before; the recent explosion of a suspected IED (identified by authorities as “badil”) inside the compound of staunch political supporter in Tanauan, Leyte, a town supposedly delightful and in peace; notwithstanding the continuing armed struggle of political organizations tagged as reds, particularly the CPP/NDF and NPA rebels in hiding in the mountains of Samar – all these are unmistakable demonstration – a witness – of the Machiavellians in us all.
Feared and Loved
If it is possible for a political figure to be both feared and loved by its constituents, perhaps, the Machiavellian maxim “it is better to be feared than loved” would never have been told and would never have been written in blood all this time.