Proj. No. 4 - Some thoughts on the fuel price hike

A speaker is like a painter. He uses words to paint pictures in the minds of his audience such that when he leaves the stage, these images continue to resonate in the hearts of his listeners. If he fails to do this, his speech merely becomes a bunch of words.

In the Toastmasters Competent Communicator (CC) Manual, Speech No. 4 is aptly titled, “How to Say it” and the speaker is encouraged to use words that will distinctly illustrate his viewpoints. For this project, I decided to talk about a recent event - involving the global fuel price increase - that I read about in the papers. Click on the links below to know more:

Angry protesters raid oil firm in Makati
Saksi: Protesters storm Shell headquarters in Makati

I’ve always delivered my speeches in a light, humorous manner but since this was a sensitive topic, I decided to take a more serious and somewhat provocative tone. I hope that it makes sense to you, as much as it did to me, when I first wrote it.

*****

I am alarmed by what I read and by what I see on the news. And I distinctly remember this vivid image of a group of protesters storming and defiling the corporate office of a petroleum company – in protest of high fuel prices.

Bulilit Marquez / AP Photo

What are some of our countrymen coming to? Do they actually think that their violent reactions will trigger a price rollback? Generally speaking, the prices of petroleum worldwide are determined by several factors like consumption, distribution, import taxes, even wars, to name a few. Most of all, fuel prices are greatly affected by market speculation – a perception of the global supply and demand relationship based on the fearless forecasts of international economic experts.

I am not one of these economic gurus nor do I believe that there are economic experts in this room.

Because, if one of us is an expert, we would have trooped to that corporate office and faced that “angry mob” to explain why the fuel prices have gone up, wouldn’t we?

I know I would, because I am tired of sitting on the bleachers and watching the mindless spectacle – the baseless finger-pointing. And I am sick of the violent demonstrations where people lose all accountability.

You know why there is strength in numbers? I believe that it’s not the collaborative effort at all, but the faceless mask that this group collectively creates for every individual participant. People hide behind this mask – this sea of people – because they know they can get away with anything. Almost anything – until they are singled out.

And when they do, what usually happens? There’s always a convenient one-liner that they pull out of their pockets — “I’m only human.”

If you sincerely acknowledge your mistakes then it’s time to stop blaming other people for your own failures. It’s bad enough to know you’re at the bottom of the barrel. It’s worse when you don’t put in the effort to move up or out of your horrible situation.

Filipinos are a lazy lot, aren’t they? It’s all about the weather. The heat encourages us to move and think a little slower. Put it this way, if we had winter, would Filipinos be sitting their romps all year-round? Guess not.

But this hypothesis doesn’t hold true for all warm countries, does it? We have Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong doing really well in spite of the heat. And this, my friends is the last piece of the puzzle. Most of our countrymen are content to be where they are and for the answers to be provided in front of them.

The ladies and gentlemen who trooped to and bastardized that unfortunate corporate office did not have the answers with them. They didn’t know the whole story behind the price increases. But someone told them that the solution was to pelt the building with black, blue and red paint.

I didn’t have the answers that day either. Perhaps not tomorrow, the next day … not even next year. But, I will try to find them and when I do, only then can I reason with unreasonable people. Yes, I can always resort to violence but I believe that fundamentally, respect begets respect.

If, in this lifetime, I never find the answers to life’s more difficult questions – like fuel price increases, then that’s the day that I would take the fight to the streets and appeal to emotion. Maybe, that’s what actually happened to our desperate countrymen. I just hope that someone - hopefully, someone in this room - stops me from making a fool of myself and from becoming part of the larger mindless spectacle we now call Philippine society.