Spurning God

DISOBEDIENCE BECOMES Eddie T. Panlilio.
At the altar of God he vowed obedience – along with celibacy – when he was ordained a priest.
Prodded by people who should have known better – many of whom are now in eternal acts of contrition for their misdeed, Panlilio disobeyed his very superior, the Most Reverend Paciano B. Aniceto, archbishop of San Fernando: refusing the five-fold pleadings of the good bishop for him not to run for governor in 2007.
And the rest is now unraveled albeit brief history, with administrative incompetence as recurrent event.
That notwithstanding, with but the self-proclaimed miracle of the multiplication of the quarry collection as take-off stage, Panlilio launched his presidential ambition.
Correspondingly to the position aimed for, the morality play of good versus evil so successfully staged by Panlilio in the 2007 Pampanga gubernatorial contest was raised to an even higher , nay, the highest level – divine intervention.
“God is calling me to run for the presidency.” So Panlilio proclaimed, after what he said was a long period of discernment – his own forty days and forty nights in the desert, so to speak.
With God’s call, Panlilio said he was prepared to leave the priesthood. But should he lose, he would seek reinstatement to the priesthood: “That’s the point. That (running for president) calls for a big sacrifice because I truly love being a priest. In fact should I lose I will still return to the priesthood if I could.”
Ah, indeed what higher sacrifice than ad majorem Dei gloriam – for the greater glory of God. With patria – country – as beneficiary.
“And so, to those whom God predestined he called, and those whom he called he makes righteous, and to those whom he makes righteous he will give his Glory.” So it is written in Romans 8:30
With God’s call, what can Panlilio do other than obey. So he did, appearing in talk shows and various fora side by side presidentiables; sniping at the sitting President every chance he gets – even threatening to take her and her family to court for plunder , once he gets elected president; ever on the eye for media exposure, as he did during the funeral procession for the sainted Cory Aquino.
With God calling him to run for president, how can Panlilio lose? For it is written in Romans 8:31, “…If God is with us, who can be against us?”
Alas and alack, with God calling him to run, how can Panlilio be now saying there is a “big probability” – “high” is the more apt qualifier there, pare – that he will drop his presidential plan and instead rally for Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to become the country’s next president.
Straight from the horse’s mouth: “I’m thinking of not running. That’s a big probability. I want to support Noynoy because with so many presidentiables from the reform movements, it would do our country more good if there is just one reform candidate. This would be Noynoy.”
Panlilio’s coming change of heart premised, thus: “The best interests of the Kapampangans and our fellow Filipinos should always guide our decisions.”
God totally removed even if only a minute factor for consideration there. This after saying God Himself called him to run for the presidency! How could you Panlilio?
Spurning God’s very call . There your suspended-priest-turned-governor is doing.
No Eli, Eli but Eddie, Eddie lama sabachthani here. That is God calling out again: Eddie, Eddie, why has thou forsaken me? Forgive Panlilio, Lord, even if he knew what he was doing.
Let us pray for him, as the good Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David said: “I can only pray for him. I think he’s in a state of delusion.”

Bishop Ambo's curse

SUSMARYOSEP, how could so religious a man, a bishop at that, go down to the level of the street punk?
What do you mean, I asked Manang Uriang, our laundrywoman.
There. She pointed to the banner headline of the Punto! I was holding: Bishop: Curse polluters.No, San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, better known as Bishop Ambo, did not spew any expletive – no damning hijo de pu__, not even a harmless taksyapo could ever emanate from his holy lips, even as he declared a curse on those who pollute the Sapang Balen creek that runs through the heart of Angeles City.
This is a curse of a kind totally different from your everyday ‘dana or ‘tang ‘na. This one is an execration, a sumpa, righteous one at that coming from a person of moral authority, inflicted upon people in grave error, if not sin. Consequent to this curse is the castigo…not simply de obispo – coming as it does from a bishop, but de dios, the bishop being a man of God.
Says Bishop Ambo in his blog hrp-sac.blogspot.com: “As a Filipino, I believe in sumpa (which) are very much part of Filipino culture and tradition. Usually pronounced by someone in retribution for an extreme act of disrespect or wrongdoing, a curse is believed to be effective especially when pronounced by a person of authority such as one’s elders or by a priest.”
And “to Kapampangans who are well known for their legendary love and respect for the clergy, being the object of a priest’s sumpa is a fearsome prospect.” Yes, our old folk still shudder in remembering the sumpa cast by Spanish friars on the pueblo of Masico prior to their execution by the Filipino revolutionaries. Or that cast by a dying priest on Mabalacat.
Bishop Ambo’s curse is totally removed too from the spell, magic or witchcraft that is also attributed to a curse.
Hence, there was no incantation, but matter of fact statements with Bishop Ambo saying: “Magmula sa araw na ito, binibigyan ko ng sumpa ang Sapang Balen. Sinuman ang lalapastangan nito ay magiging malas sa buhay. (From this day on, I am putting a curse on Sapang Balen. Whoever dares to show disrespect to it will be unlucky in life). This, over a portable sound system as he walked along the banks of the creek, his blog showed.
So how did the people take the bishop’s curse?
“Gasps and whispers from onlookers and passersby” were heard by the bishop, his blog reported. “Then, a handful of residents living near the river joined his group and hastily picked up some trash lying in heaps along the riverbank.”
Posed the blog: “Why would a Bishop go to this extent to help revive a waterway?”
Answered Bishop Ambo: “The river has life and anyone who dumps garbage without compunction is killing it slowly. Laws and ordinances do not seem to work at all; people just ignore these. Let us see how they will react to a curse from a bishop.”
No eternal damnation though is carried in Bishop Ambo’s curse. He himself provided “an easy way out.”
“Kung gusto ninyong pagsisihan ang inyong ginawang paglapastangan, mangumpisal kayo at ang tanging parusang ibibigay ko sa inyo ay magpulot kayo ng dalawang sako ng basura mula sa ilog. (If you want to make amends for the sin you committed, just confess to me. For your penance I will ask you to collect two sacks of trash from the river),” the blog quoted the bishop as saying.
So Bishop Ambo cursed polluters of Sapang Balen creek.
Ah, how the people of Barangays Sta. Cruz and Manibaug-Paralaya in Porac and those of Cutcut in Angeles City could only wish Bishop Ambo would cast a malediction on the piggeries and poultry farms that have long been the very scourge of their existence.
Ah, how they could only wish Bishop Ambo’s curse would provide no way out of eternal perdition for their tormentors.
That is but their just desserts, our beloved Among Ambo.

Macoy or Ninoy?

TIME FOR some reflection on the meaning of this day, the 26th year of the martyrdom of Ninoy Aquino.
Here’s Part V of an essay on The Hero in History that appeared in my column Ingkung Milio in The Voice from late 1983 to early 1984.

Macoy or Ninoy?

THE IDEAL conclusion of revolutions is the liberation of the people. This liberation can come in various forms: from foreign or home-grown oppressors, from want and fear, from repressions of the basic rights of free speech, press, assembly, etcetera,
Now, if we believe that the ideals started by the Revolution of 1898 were continued and bore fruition in 1972;
If we believe that our people’s liberation was effected by Martial Law;
If we believe that President Marcos assumed all the ideals and aspirations of our people in his declaration of Martial Law;
Then, it is logical to conclude that Marcos is the Filipino Hero in History.
But do we believe in any of those basic premises?
For more than a decade we have been led to believe that everything around us is “the true, the good and the beautiful.” Thanks to the controlled media, we were spared the sordid realities of life in these islands where Asia wears a smile. Thanks to the manipulated press, our vision of this country for that period was constricted by high-rise hotels, networks of superhighways, beautiful edifices. The “development” of the City of Man was simply awe-inspiring, so mind-boggling that we were mesmerized to believe all that emanated from the Palace by the Pasig.
On account of these and more mind-bending bordering already on mass brainwashing, the general mass developed short-sightedness, rather, a myopic mindset – the people refusing to think beyond Marcos, failing to envision any alternative to the Marcosian thought, seeing impossibility to find any leader other than Marcos.
In a way, the ruling elite’s boast of no-alternative-to-Marcos was more hallowed than hollow. For the Opposition behaves like a bunch of Boy Scouts lost in the woods, each one wanting to take the whole troop to his chosen direction.
There was indeed a great need to unite the Opposition and subsequently form a common front against the regime. This by coming out with an alternative to Marcos. The more important thing though was to convince the people of the soundness of their alternative for their acceptance, and ultimately, support.
The call for national reconciliation by itself would have served as a call to arms. Its enhancement by the martyrdom of its firmest believer and foremost proponent adds the dimension of spirituality to it. By the assassination of Ninyo Aquino, national reconciliation transcended political lines.
To say that Ninoy’s martyrdom awakened the people is an understatement. It would be most fitting to state that Ninoy assumed the role of a political Christ whose Calvary did not only open the eyes of the Filipino people to realities but heightened their senses, strengthened their hearts and firmed up their resolve to attain liberation.
Events consequential to August 21 likewise provided an antithesis to the long-held Marxist thesis of class struggles. Current movement towards freedom, democracy and justice transcends status: plebeians and patricians, workers and capitalists – the traditionally warring factions have united in Ninoy.
All the rallies, political discussions and heightened conscientization of the people point to the direction of Ninoy in the process of being the Filipino Hero in History. Inasmuch as the process has no guarantee of successfully meeting its desired end, i.e. total liberation of the Filipino from oppression as catalyzed by Ninoy’s martyrdom, we cannot at this time say that Ninoy is our Hero in History. A hero in the company of Rizal, Bonifacio, Sakay, Abad Santos, he definitely is already.
Some years from now perhaps, history will pass a definitive judgment on Ninoy. As it shall pass the same on Marcos.
But even at that future time, the basic questions shall remain:
Who woke up the people from their deep slumber?
Who freed the people’s minds from imposed fixations?
Who liberated the Filipino from fear, from silence, from despair?
Who led the Filipinos to think, act Filipino?
Who brought back the dignity of the Filipino before the world?
A lot more are to be asked, Countless questions shall crop up begging for answers. But there shall only be one answer, of two choices: Marcos or Aquino.
Take your pick: Ninoy or Macoy?
I already did.
Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
A SHORT two years after this piece saw print, EDSA came. And the rest is history. Ninoy’s. And Cory’s.

God and people

First, God. Now, the people. Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio seems to make the perfect synthesis of the vox Dei, vox populi dogma. So how can he lose?
“God is calling me to run for the presidency.” So he said just over a month or so ago. With just one call, Panlilio acceded. How can he otherwise, hearing the very voice of God Herself?
"Noong nagpasya po ako na i-offer ang aking sarili (When I decided to offer myself (for the presidency)), I felt at peace. I'm doing this not for me, not for myself. I felt God wanted me to go on a higher service.” Hence, Panlilio: “Accipio, fiat voluntas tua.” Thy will be done.
Ah, such total surrender to God’s will! Panlilio made me weep in religious ecstasy!
Now, now, pray tell, what about his disobedience to the call for him not to run for governor in 2007 – repeated five times at that?
Ah, that was not God’s voice. Only the archbishop’s, and no matter how saintly the Good Apu Ceto is, he can’t be God. At best, he can only be the channel of communication from the divine. And Panlilio only knows too well that statics do occur, some signals get tangled and garbled, in the transmission. Just like what regularly happens to your phone, land line or mobile.
So, suspended from his priestly functions, he went on to run and win the gubernatorial race, if only by a foot. Now that that sore foot of a difference is being questioned, it is time for Panlilio to invoke vox populi, no matter how circuitous, if not tangled, his (il)logic takes. .
Panlilio reduces all arguments of truth, of the integrity of the results of the 2007 gubernatorial elections to venganza politica, citing as basis, neither hard facts nor documentary evidence, but the perception of “the people.”
“That is precisely the point of the people, to get me out of the presidential race and I think more importantly, which is the feeling of the people, if GMA would run as (sic) congresswoman and if Mikey is to run as (sic) governor, they would not want a governor that is not favor of (sic) them. They want to get this governor out of office.” So Panlilio told his supporters at a “No-to-Recount “rally in the City of San Fernando last Tuesday.
“But it is the belief of the people that Malacanang is behind this, if not at the level of the President but (sic) at the level of Congressman Mikey. That’s the belief of the people.” Panlilio stressed.
Malacanang’s wrath was brought upon him by his criticisms against the Arroyos, foremost of which were statements that Mikey Arroyo was the “easiest candidate to beat” and that the President was “not certain” of winning in the second district, should she make a run for the House. That, Panlilio said, “the people discerned”.
When Panlilio said that it was God that called him to run, questions were immediately raised as to what god he referred to.
Remarked Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz then: “Talking to God is prayer but claiming to hear God speak is dangerous. Let us use first what God Himself has given to us by using our rational faculty which has the competence to see reality or fantasy.”
Lamented San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David: “I can only pray for him. I think he’s in a state of delusion. I still hope he’ll see the light before it’s too late.”
Can’t Panlilio – and we – discern the voice of our God there?
Now that Panlilio is invoking “the people”, questions are being raised as to what people he is referring to.
Supporters at his Tuesday rally varied in numbers, depending on who’s talking: about 300 according to the city police chief, bloated to no less than 500 by the rally organizers, downsized to some 100 by the cameraman of a local television station, with “curious passers-by included in the estimates.”
Given that Pampanga has nearly a million voting population, what “people” indeed, is Panlilio talking about.
Jested Panlilio-advocate-turned-adversary Willy Villarama in a text message: ”megrally la ri among gov panlilio napun sanfdo cathedral para kontra RECOUNT ! 30 katau la pati i gov panlilio. 31 la sana nung kayabe re i atty vivian dabu. (Panlilio rallied against the recount at the San Fernando cathedral yesterday. There were but 30 of them, 31 if only Atty. Vivian Dabu was with them.)
Beyond the joke, something not really that profound – the very pith of the issue we are discussing here – can well be discerned in that text message: Right there are god herself and the people Panlilio invokes!
Kyrie elesion. Lord have mercy.

Feeling 'pogi'

BEING GOOD looking has its downside.
No, I do not speak from experience, having been deprived of the gift of a handsome face. So I just write out of observation and the experiences of friends and acquaintances blessed with Adonis looks.
Being pogi is definitely a most valued asset. One is always lapitin, a magnet to the girls, truly a “ladies’ choice.” An overload of machismo there makes one supremely confident, inevitably.
“You’re so vain,” as Carly Simon crooned to the Hollywood lover boy Warren Beatty, pre-Annette Benning, that is. Beauty – in women as in men – is twin to vanity.
There is this mediaman-turned-politico, publicly acknowledged as guapo, who earned a reputation among the city’s masseuses for his apres massage antics.
To any attendant demanding payment for “extra services rendered” our guapo coos: “Nanghihingi ka pa ng bayad? Guapo naman ako, hindi ka agrabyado (You still ask for payment? I am handsome, you’ve not been disadvantaged.)”
The quick retort: “Tarantado, walang guapo-guapo dito. Trabaho ko ito. Bayad ka! (Fool! Pretty faces have no value here. This is my job. Pay up!)”
Or that aged Lothario among mediamen who takes any smile from any lady, known or unknown to him, as an affirmation of his handsomeness and his attractive pull: “Kalyan na ku. Kasi guapu ku, buri na ku. (She’s smiling at me. Because I am handsome, she desires me.)”
Ah, vanity of vanities!
Still, our two examples above are nowhere near in rank of that elected local official who regards himself as God’s own gift to women.
He preens himself every time he gets in the public eye, be it in a media interview, on the legislative floor, even when just munching a Champ at Jollibee. Ever on the look-out for ladies’ eyes meeting his.
So it came to pass that our gigolo won the heart of a young barrio beauty titlist.
“Mekua ya keng santing ku. (She fell for my looks.)” So he bragged to anyone who cared to hear.
“Mewala ya keng kabobuan na. (He lost her due to his stupidity.)” So we heard next from a colleague.
And then the hush-hush scandal of our gigolo stalking his erstwhile ladylove, harassing her new boyfriend, even threatening her kin with physical harm if she won’t come back to his arms.
He just could not take, much less believe, how one as handsome as he could ever be jilted: “Keng kasantingan ku, e malyaring lakuan na ku.”
Ah, the height of vanity.
A caveat to all pretty boys is the current issue on handsome Board Member Johnny “JQ” Quiambao.
With his matinee-idol looks, JQ has this reputation of being a dawayan (extremely attractive to the opposite sex). It is mayhaps because of this that JQ is now in deep sh…, okay, hole.
JQ has been slapped with a rape complaint by a 16-year-old student. No, the victim never said in her sworn statement that JQ used brute force to enter where angels fear to tread. Yes, they did it more than once, the girl said. And yes, she is pregnant.
The attraction clearly made lethal – for JQ – with the girl’s age.
Lesson for us: No need really to validate one’s handsomeness with the number of conquests among the opposite sex. And risk the high price of being a certified pogi.
Better then for all of us not so blessed with good looks to just be content with the thought: Pogi naman ako, maski itanong niyo sa nanay ko. (I am really good looking. Go, ask my mother.)
Asus, asus, asus.

Party lines

PAMPANGA IS “99.5 percent” the bailiwick of the newly merged Lakas-CMD-Kampi Party.
So enthused 2nd District Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo as 311 elected officials at all levels took their oath of office as members of the adm admtration party last Monday before a beaming President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
“Higanteng partido (giant party),” Mikey’s enthusiasm could not be contained, notwithstanding the conspicuous absence from the oath-taking rites of notable Pampanga political leaders Senator Lito Lapid, his son former Gov. Mark Lapid, Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao, governor-in-waiting Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda, and 4th District Rep. Anna York Bondoc-Sagum.
Their very absence may well tell a story totally different from Mikey’s.
For now though, let us indulge Mikey’s fancy
So what’s with the “99.5 percent”?
Said Mikey: “That 0 .5 percent, we can do without that person. But he’s free to join us.” You’re a dummy if you did not know whom Mikey referred to there.
“This is a party of politicians and sectors,” Mikey said. A potent combination in winning elections there, he did not have to say.
And to the President, the devotion of the son and the obeisance of a vassal:
“We believe you…We love you. These are the generals of your army that will ensure the votes for your presidential anointee.”
Even as he admitted to some “squabbles “ within the ranks, Mikey affirmed that local officials have “united for GMA.”
In union there is strength, hence there’s Union cement. Popped the corn there.
In union there is strength, hence that GMA-sealed unity among elected officials shall seal administration victory in 2010. Maybe, even some premiership for a member of parliament from Pampanga’s 2nd District thereafter.
But that is going ahead of the story.
Watching Monday’s oath-taking event and reading accounts of it pricked my sense of déjà vu: some trip down memory lane with all feeling of dread and none of nostalgia.
It’s the Marcos era there all over again.
“Higanteng partido” was the Kilusan Bagong Lipunan (KBL), the lone monolith built upon the remains of the Liberal Party (LP) and the Nacionalista Party (NP). Yes, Viring, we once had a two-party system here, just like in the States. Patterned after the States’, as a matter of fact: the LP, a poor clone of the Democratic Party; the NP a third-rate trying hard Grand Old Party copycat, to paraphrase Sharon there. Cuneta, the megastar that is, not the Israeli hawk Ariel.
Not only 99.5 percent but all of 100 percent was the whole Philippines a KBL bailiwick, all semblance of opposition – no matter how rag-tag – losing either the elections or life itself. A case in point: the 1978 Batasan elections in Metro Manila where Ninoy Aquino was soundly beaten by one unknown septuagenarian named Floro.
More than “we believe you…we love you,” it was “we adore you…we glorify you” then, total obeisance to the Great Ferdinand and the Beautiful Imelda being the order of the day.
Yet, for all the power, the kingdom and the glory of Marcos’ KBL, it took but a widow in yellow to end its reign, it took but a simple housewife to sweep it to history’s dustbin.
Déjà vu, nay, some karmic cycle ominous here?
For all the power and the glory of the Lakas-CMD-Kampi, it will take but a simple suspended priest to demolish its invincibility.
God forbid! I abhor to even think about it.

Unctuous ululations

“E KAMI memirait anyang pengampanya at binoto mi ya y Among Ed (We did not cheat when we campaigned and voted for Panlilio). We didn’t have the means to do that.”
So cried one Virginia Manuguid of Betis, Guagua town.
“We didn’t have guns, goons and gold. How can we cheat?”
So asked one Adriano David.
“Di ko hahayaang sabihin, kahit pa ng Korte Suprema, na ang sagrado kong balota noong 2007 para kay Among Ed ay nabili, nandaya at kailangan usisain uli. Hindi para dito ang luha ko para kay Cory. Laban Pampanga! (I will not allow – even the Supreme Court – to say that my ballot for Panlilio in 2007 was bought, a cheat and needed to be restudied. The tears I shed for Cory are not for this. Fight Pampanga!)”
So ululated one Fr. Raul de los Santos.
“Cory Aquino stands for democracy. People behind the recount are for pera (money)-cracy.”
So punned one Fr. Marius Roque.
“I forgive them all for their abject ignorance.”
So remarked – in his characteristic cool and casual manner – my seminary elder Don Luisito on the various reactions to the 2007 gubernatorial vote recount quoted in the story here yesterday of intrepid journalist Tonette Orejas.
That’s a harsh judgment, especially on the reverend fathers, I told my elder over cups of latte at Starbucks SM City Pampanga.
“That’s the truth, harsh as it is, and therefore hurts. Although I believe in what they’re saying.”
Contradictions there, you believe what they are saying – that they, the Panlilio camp for that matter, did not cheat in the elections. And yet, you call them ignorant. How’s that?
“Yes, your compadre did not have the capability, much less the guts, to cheat in the elections. But that did not mean that there was no cheating in the 2007 elections.”
Now I am completely befuddled, please enlighten me.
“I don’t know why a lot of people take you for an astute political analyst when you are as ignorant as these people we’re talking about.”
Stop the insulting intro, go to the brass tacks.
“In all probability, Panlilio is an indirect beneficiary of dagdag-bawas (vote shaving).”
An improbability, I see clearly. As the moral alternative, Panlilio can’t be a party to any immoral act!
“Bobo! Panlilio, and his ululating – to use your word – minions, are completely ignorant of this. It is another party that could have fomented the cheating.”
The Pineda camp cheated to lose?
“Mal gran bobo! Board Member Lilia Pineda is the victim here. Votes in her favor could have been taken from her – that’s the bawas part – and credited to another – that’s the dagdag part. While the votes shaved from her tally and given to the beneficiary were not enough for the latter to win, they were more than enough to reduce her lead over, and be overtaken by the votes of Panlilio, untouched as they were.”
Wow. Such novelty!
“Nothing new there really. In the ‘70s, it was done in the province with the same results as maybe in 2007. The front-running candidate at that time, also nicknamed Baby, suddenly lost – by a small margin too – to an unknown political upstart who made megabucks from the forests of Indonesia. And yes, the incumbent was a poor third too.”
Swell, but a successful dagdag-bawas requires expertise and practice, much practice.
“So what do you make of the quarry collections at the Capitol before Panlilio? There is where your practice of dagdag-bawas came to perfection.”
Aaaagh!

Thus, our Cory

LEADERSHIP – the word as well as its application – has been so much abused and misused that we now have a warped sense of it. So shallow is our notion of leadership that we automatically affix “leader” to any elected official, to presidents and chairs of just about any organization with at least two members.
So long as there is one to command and another to follow, there exists leadership. There too bogs down our concept of the word. For leaders and followers do not make the whole dynamics of leadership. There is the third element of goal.
From the book Certain Trumpets, the thesis on the nature of leadership by Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills, I quote: “The goal is not something added to leader and followers. The goal is the reason for the other two’s existence. It is the equalizer between leader and followers. The followers do not submit to the person of the leader. They join him in the pursuit of the goal.”
Wills further expounds “…the leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leader and followers…all three elements (leader, followers and goal) are indispensable.”
Critical indeed is the requisite of a goal shared by both the leader and the followers in the holistic perspective, in the true nature of leadership.
Sadly, it is there – in the element of goal – that political leadership in the Philippine context is much, much wanting and thereby we the people almost always suffer.
More often than not, in fact as a matter of practice, the goal – as translated to interests – of the leader does not match, if not altogether contradicts, the goal or the interest of the followers.
No self-respecting presumptuous leader would ever accede to that. Thus, we all hear our so-called political leaders on the campaign trail vow their very “sacred honor” to the interests of the people. See those screaming streamers posted around: Bayan ang Bida, Serbisyong Tapat, Serbisyong Totoo, Serbisyong Todo-todo, Paglingkuran ang Bayan, ad nauseam.
Behold what political leaders do after getting elected! Conveniently forgetting their campaign promises, dishonoring their very vows to work for the interests of their constituency.
While honor may still obtain among thieves, it is a rarity among Philippine politicians.
So how and why do they get away with it? I mean thieves getting positions of leadership and robbing us, the followers, blind.
It is in the manner we choose our leaders. As a rule, Filipinos vote with their emotions, rarely with their intellect. Comes here the magic word charisma.
We are mesmerized by anyone with a flashy lifestyle: moviestars, entertainers, athletes, the pa-sosyal crowd, the perfumed set. Instantaneously, we stamp the word charisma on celebrity.
From the essential “divine grace,” the meaning of charisma has been so twisted that it is now a synonym to just about anything that is “attention-compelling” even to its essential antonym of “infamy”. Yeah, the infamous we now call charismatic.
And so we appended charisma on Joseph Estrada. To invest “divine grace” in one who makes the grandest mockery of the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Commandments of God is the most detestable sacrilege, the most damnable blasphemy. But did we know any better?
Star-struck, blinded by the flash of celebrity, bewitched by their larger-than-life personae, we readily elect fame over capability, choose passion over vision, favor make-believe over hard reality.
Erap has been deposed, tried, imprisoned, convicted and pardoned. Erap is again a front-runner in the 2010 presidential race.
Again, Santayana’s damnation is upon us: We are a nation that cannot, that refuses to remember the past. We are a nation damned.
In the 1970s, a great political mind distilled the nature of Philippine politics thus: “Personalist, populist, individualist.” Then he went on to arrogate unto himself all the powers that can be had, and more – elevating himself to the pantheon of the gods, assuming the mythic Malakas of Philippine folklore with, naturally, the beautiful Imeldific, as his Maganda.
A keen student of history, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos took unto his public persona semblances of the charismatic leaders of the past: his World War II exploits – later proven false – invoked Napoleon, if not Caesar; his political philosophies gave him an aura of the Borgia and Medici clienst of Machiavelli; his vision of a New Society paralleled Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal; his patronage of the arts that of Frederick the Great of Prussia.
Marcos even exceeded himself in self-cultivating an image of being his country’s hero-in-history in the moulds of Napoleon of France, Bolivar of Latin America, Lincoln of the USA, Garibaldi of Italy, Lenin of the Soviet Union, Ataturk of Turkey and Mao of China.
A wee short of divine rights, Marcos took upon himself a Messianic and Mosaic mission for the Philippines: Save the country and its democratic institutions from anarchy, lead the people to prosperity.
Indeed, what other Philippine leader did possess “charisma” greater than Marcos?
EDSA 1, the Cory Magic swept the land. Ridiculed as “walang alam” (know nothing), plain housewife Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino brought down the towering intellectual, the almighty Marcos in one bloodless revolution – a contradiction in terms there, invoking what could only be some divine guidance.
There was charisma, in its purest essence . There was our Cory.