Atmosphere of paranoia

ONE fatality is one death too many. A tragedy, conceded the dictator Stalin, who thereafter imploded his proffered humaneness by calling the death of thousands as statistics.
Statistically, not in the Stalinist sense now, the recent fatalities in Pampanga – all of two – do not constitute a “spate of killings.” Spate precisely indicating a large number or amount, per the word’s dictionary definition and common usage.
There is a spate, yes – in text messages that either “killed” very much alive barangay chairs – at least four in Mabalacat – or warned others of their impending demise.
One of Mayor Boking Morales’ barangay chairmen – that of Bikal, if I am not mistaken – had a blast doing a Samuel Clemens: “The reports of my death are grossly exaggerated” or something to that effect.
The scores of “texted” deaths found serious credence though in the two “actual” deaths and – with some media turns and twists – fomented the “climate of fear” said to be permeating the province today.
To me though, what obtains in Pampanga these days is less a climate of fear than an atmosphere of paranoia.
The rumored hegira of a number of barangay chairmen of the City of San Fernando and the towns of Bacolor, Arayat, and Guagua to parts unknown purportedly for their self-preservation is decidedly symptomatic of paranoia. It falls well within the ambit of “non-degenerative, limited, usually chronic psychosis characterized by delusions of persecution or grandeur, strenuously defended by the afflicted with apparent logic and reason” that defines the malady.
In the non-scientific language of the streetwise: “Gumawa ng multo ang mga kapitan ng barangay na kanila ngayong kinatatakutan.”
And where paranoia comes around, can hysteria be far behind? Calls for sobriety from the Church, multi-sectoral manifestoes of peace, militant denunciations of the “spate of killings” all amounting to nothing but reactive hysterics.
Selective hysterics even, if I may qualify.
For, where were these Church calls and civil society manifestoes when barangay chairs, kagawads and members of militant movements were falling like Baygon-sprayed and swatted flies in Mexico, Sta. Ana, Arayat and Angeles City during the encampment of GMA’s favorite general hereabouts which ended only last year?
For the record, in Mexico alone, three barangay chairmen and two kagawads lead the documented list of 44 fatalities from July 2004 to September 2006, exclusive of the 13 dead in the 2005 Independence Day encounter between Army troopers and the Rebolusyonaryong Hukbong Bayan.
For the record again, only the orphans and the widows grieved in sorrowful indignation, only the militants raised muffled cries of denunciation over their dead. Where, indeed, were the Church of the poor and the “moral alternative” then?
If anything, the current of events in Pampanga today once again proved the universality of the view of the red czar Josef the Steel: large numbers of death comprised cold statistics, one – or two made – unspeakable tragedies.
“Our situation in Pampanga now calls for calm and sobriety.” Thus spake the governor-elect in a “Statement on the Recent Spate of Violent Incidents in Pampanga.”
On that call, we join him. But in its delivery, we find the joke in him.
You make calls for calm and sobriety among your people, even as you are ensconced in a circle of full-combat- ready troops and covered in body armor.
We ain’t nowhere near Iraq or Afghanistan. So where’s the war, reverend governor?
Asked by your favorite newspaper “if there were concrete threats on the life of Panlilio, (PNP Director General Oscar) Calderon said there was none.” (Underscoring mine.)
So what’s to fear, reverend governor?
“There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” So said the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Fearing fear itself is paranoia in its advanced stage. So claimed the never-great alumnus of numerous hospital basements.
“Kung may mga pangitain ka ng multo saan ka man makatingin, tiyak diwa mo’y tumutulay na sa hangin.” So affirmed Kuhol, the taong-grasa bunking near that bankrupt restaurant named Patria’s.