La femme extraordinaire
A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE. Even a man of great mettle would have crumbled at all the brickbats – kitchen sink and toilet bowl included – thrown her way but she is truly made of sterner stuff, titanium perhaps, and courageously withstood, nay, defiantly repulsed all the assaults on her very character.
Why, an almost similarly placed woman – publicly perceived as even stronger than her – succumbed to the vise-grip of pressure that tightened not around her neck but on that of her superior. Resigning her post, if only to give some breathing space to him she has served for decades.
No, our woman here could not be pressured. No amount of protest actions and rallies, no matter the ear-shattering decibels of cries for her resignation from all sectors, the loudest shrieks from her erstwhile associates, would even budge her a bit from her post, a putative one at that, given her non-recognition by the confirming powers.
Were the Imeldific and the Dame Margaret Thatcher not conferred the title Iron Butterfly, she would have deserved it most. But then again, somewhat wanting of the aesthetic brilliance of the Madame and somewhat short of the intellectual prowess of the once most powerful woman of the world, let us just be content in naming her Teflon Moth. The non-stick substance in her persona repelling all charges and complaints heaped on her.
A woman of substance, she is more Virago than Virgo. Never coy. Somewhat cocky. Always steadfast, resolute to the point of stubbornness in getting what she wants. In the process, stepping not just on a lot of toes but knocking on a number of heads. As when she bearded the sangguniang lions in their own den – more apt now, when she sheared whatever hair was left of the follicle-challenged board members -- jigging out of her non-confirmation hearings.
Truly a Dominatrix – even without the iconic thongs, whips and leather – as when she castrated the whole provincial engineer’s office out of their machismo. A lawyer – and a woman at that! – heading the whole engineering corps of the province! Beat that!
A WOMAN OF EXTRAORDINARY MEANS. What sustains her? Denounced as the root cause of all the mess at the capitol, damned as the very monkey on the governor’s back, even maliciously labeled – and very much libeled – as some conjugal partner in misgovernance, still she labors on, doing what she sees fit, proper, moral, legal. Without a salary to boot!
Really, what sustains her?
Working even beyond the regular hours – many times burning the wick to the wee hours at the capitol and at the Clark staffhouse with her perceived working partner – without getting a single centavo for it for over a year and a half now.
Wow! She really must own a bank from which to withdraw her daily sustenance and that of her loved ones. No, I could not by the stretch of my malicious mind imagine such a morally upright woman engaged in some shenanigans. No, way.
Hence, I could only behold her as the very reincarnation of that wadi woman that fed the prophet Elijah and was amply rewarded with a cornucopia that sustained her and her son for the rest of their lives. Indeed some parallelism here: Her continuing sustenance sans pay from the capitol is her own reward for feeding, in some way or the other, the reverend governor, himself the prophet of good governance hereabouts.
Woe unto us people of little faith! Not by bread alone doth man liveth!
A WOMAN OF TRUST. Absolute, resolute, radical, total trust. To use the very words of her man at the capitol.
That trust so manifest in the governor letting go of 15 of his own confidence team that run afoul of her; of the governor easily forsaking one he called “Mama” for nurturing his very campaign for the governorship; of the governor foregoing with the braintrust offered him by co-advocates in good governance and his very own civil society groups that conflicted with her.
In her he trusts. And that is that. A woman the governor could not do, mayhaps even live, without.
The provincial administrator, as the alter ego, draws power from the governor. Shift from that fossilized mindset: This provincial administrator is the very source of power of the governor.
Ah, what a woman is this Attorney Vivian Dabu.
Why, an almost similarly placed woman – publicly perceived as even stronger than her – succumbed to the vise-grip of pressure that tightened not around her neck but on that of her superior. Resigning her post, if only to give some breathing space to him she has served for decades.
No, our woman here could not be pressured. No amount of protest actions and rallies, no matter the ear-shattering decibels of cries for her resignation from all sectors, the loudest shrieks from her erstwhile associates, would even budge her a bit from her post, a putative one at that, given her non-recognition by the confirming powers.
Were the Imeldific and the Dame Margaret Thatcher not conferred the title Iron Butterfly, she would have deserved it most. But then again, somewhat wanting of the aesthetic brilliance of the Madame and somewhat short of the intellectual prowess of the once most powerful woman of the world, let us just be content in naming her Teflon Moth. The non-stick substance in her persona repelling all charges and complaints heaped on her.
A woman of substance, she is more Virago than Virgo. Never coy. Somewhat cocky. Always steadfast, resolute to the point of stubbornness in getting what she wants. In the process, stepping not just on a lot of toes but knocking on a number of heads. As when she bearded the sangguniang lions in their own den – more apt now, when she sheared whatever hair was left of the follicle-challenged board members -- jigging out of her non-confirmation hearings.
Truly a Dominatrix – even without the iconic thongs, whips and leather – as when she castrated the whole provincial engineer’s office out of their machismo. A lawyer – and a woman at that! – heading the whole engineering corps of the province! Beat that!
A WOMAN OF EXTRAORDINARY MEANS. What sustains her? Denounced as the root cause of all the mess at the capitol, damned as the very monkey on the governor’s back, even maliciously labeled – and very much libeled – as some conjugal partner in misgovernance, still she labors on, doing what she sees fit, proper, moral, legal. Without a salary to boot!
Really, what sustains her?
Working even beyond the regular hours – many times burning the wick to the wee hours at the capitol and at the Clark staffhouse with her perceived working partner – without getting a single centavo for it for over a year and a half now.
Wow! She really must own a bank from which to withdraw her daily sustenance and that of her loved ones. No, I could not by the stretch of my malicious mind imagine such a morally upright woman engaged in some shenanigans. No, way.
Hence, I could only behold her as the very reincarnation of that wadi woman that fed the prophet Elijah and was amply rewarded with a cornucopia that sustained her and her son for the rest of their lives. Indeed some parallelism here: Her continuing sustenance sans pay from the capitol is her own reward for feeding, in some way or the other, the reverend governor, himself the prophet of good governance hereabouts.
Woe unto us people of little faith! Not by bread alone doth man liveth!
A WOMAN OF TRUST. Absolute, resolute, radical, total trust. To use the very words of her man at the capitol.
That trust so manifest in the governor letting go of 15 of his own confidence team that run afoul of her; of the governor easily forsaking one he called “Mama” for nurturing his very campaign for the governorship; of the governor foregoing with the braintrust offered him by co-advocates in good governance and his very own civil society groups that conflicted with her.
In her he trusts. And that is that. A woman the governor could not do, mayhaps even live, without.
The provincial administrator, as the alter ego, draws power from the governor. Shift from that fossilized mindset: This provincial administrator is the very source of power of the governor.
Ah, what a woman is this Attorney Vivian Dabu.
posted by A.Caesar Z. Lacson at 1:34 PM
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