The Third Farce

CLAIMING that theirs is the “moral alternative” that represented the good in a choice among evils for the Pampanga governorship, the so-called Third Force arrogated unto itself a monopoly of whatever morality that still obtained in this province bedeviled by the twin scourges of corruption – the pilfered quarry collections and jueteng.
As if it were a matter of birthright, the Third Force seized for itself the Reject-Evil-Choose-Good pastoral statement of the venerable Apu Ceto, exacting from the faithful their full acquiescence, if not their complete obedience as good Catholics. No matter the Third Force candidate’s perceived disobedience of the archbishop when he allowed himself to be pushed into the secular world of electoral politics.
There indeed is a holier-than-thou air about the campaign of Among Ed, the predominance of white – the traditional color of purity -- in the election paraphernalia serving as a dead give-away.
“Yes to a good Kapampangan leader” or some such declaration under the benign visage of Among Ed impacts in the mind of the beholder that, indeed, no candidate other than the priest is good, morally good.
Thus, a moral crusade is Among Ed’s campaign. Thus, a moral force is the Third Force rallying behind him.
This is neither to demoralize nor to demonize this Third Force but I see relativity in their morality. And more.
When Vice Governor Yeng Guiao was crying plunder over the loss of tens of millions in the quarry collections, where were these moral warriors?
Yeng raised a burning moral issue, but nobody came. Even if only to hear him out. Despite appeal letters sent to parish churches and to the Social Action Center of Pampanga, the acknowledged birthplace of the Third Force.
Where were these sentinels of morality too when the then Ex-Mayor Roy David and journalist Ody Fabian, now both deceased, and this columnist were burning the airwaves with exposés of the quarry scam? Where were they when our group was ambushed right at the very gate of station DWGV, resulting to the death of three of our confederates?
Did we get even just a whisper of sympathy from them?
You know where some of them were then?
Partaking of the very thing they are now condemning – as quarry operators, truckers or haulers, as “contactors” or suppliers at the Lapid Capitol.
When Archbishop Oscar Cruz was being grounded like beef at the Senate for his moral stand against the evils of illegal gambling, where were these moral guardians?
When Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. made the moral indictment of Pampanga as the “Vatican of jueteng,” where were these legions of morality?
Did we hear even but a murmur of protest from them?
You know where a number of your priests were then?
Benefiting from the very thing they are now denouncing as evil – receiving bulging red ampao after concelebrating Mass for the lord’s and his lady’s birthdays; gorging on lechon baka provided by the lord to cap their annual retreat; in endless acts of solicitation if not supplication to the lord for the construction or rehabilitation of churches, for the retablo, for the annual sabbatical to the USA.
A moral cause they did not find in Yeng, in Roy and Ody, in Apung Oscar and in Nene. A moral crusade they now embrace in Among Ed. A much delayed epiphany for the Third Force?
There is more than the aspect of relativity here. There is gross hypocrisy here – a farce of a force.
“Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out.” Famous last words, apropos our time, from the French humanist Francois Rabelais.