Rat on one's own

     These past couple of weeks, this old man can’t help it but be incensed anew with quite a number of issues.  There was the repeated punching of a court sheriff by the Davao City mayor caught live on TV cameras.  It gotten generally positive reaction from the ordinary people but this, at least to this old man, is another clear proof of how sick local governance in the Philippines has become.  I was indeed disturbed to see the people, but not of course her vice mayor-father, approvingly lauding her actuations.  Had Mayor Sara Duterte been a man, the scene could be apt for the next Wild Wild West movie.  I hope I could write a piece on our ailing local governance in a separate article to explain why such an act elicited generally positive response from the masa and why I completely agreed with our kabalen, UP Prof. Randy David (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 3 July 2011), in his analysis that from hereon “it will be difficult to defeat her in any election for any public position in Davao” for her braggadocio in pacifying a near mayhem “in a chaotic demolition of squatter shanties” and, in the process, affirming her support for her downtrodden constituency.

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     But the issue that really got my ire was the Senate probe on Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) intelligence fund.  Watching the hearing live in a TV news channel unmade my day; who would not with the answers given by the PCSO general manager.  I don’t want to imagine what I would do if I was Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan and I was physically present in that Senate hall.   I could not only empty the full load of my .44 Magnum on all the hoodlums in that august hall but could have spent another reload as well.  Oh my, what a heinous crime I could have committed!  On deeper contemplation, that would be the one crime I would not have second thought committing for that would merit applause, more deafening I would assume, from the ordinary masses—except from a few bishops, of course.  That would be a fitting cap to a life well-lived.

     One that I would love to speculate though is what an upset Mayor Sara would do to former General Manager Rosario Uriarte on hearing her incredulous responses regarding the PCSO’s intelligence funds.

     Kidding aside, that was clearly another proof of how pervasive graft and corruption has practically entwined itself in the lives of Filipinos.  But, what really earned my ire is the emerging fact that the most prominent among us all Kapampangans, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, appears to have upped the practice to a level never seen before in any previous administrations, including the highly discredited Marcos dictatorship.  Would we be blind, just because she’s one of us, and the Kapampangans would accept hook, line and sinker her protestations of innocence in the light of the tons of evidence being unearthed to the contrary?   

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     No, I certainly don’t buy the flawed reasoning of her apologists and political allies that it was a politically motivated demolition job of the current dispensation and, at the same time, the latter’s way to divert public attention away from its lackluster accomplishments one year after it got elected.  Although there’s truth to their claim about PNoy’s first year in office, GMA’s spin doctors had to try harder to weave more credible tales to extricate her from this mess and the imminent loads of graft and plunder cases that she’ll have to face.  Even if the charges that she amassed ill-gotten wealth are not true, her personal net worth, on the other hand, has swelled during her 9-year stay in Malacanang, thus, she could afford to, and should, hire better and more intelligent peddlers of tall tales to counter the alleged lies of the present administration. 

     Most likely, Kapampangans won’t differ much from the Ilocanos who still venerate Marcos despite the glaring proofs of his fake war exploits and medals and his plunder of the national coffers.  It won’t matter even if GMA’s looting of the country’s treasury would make Marcos look like a kid still learning the ropes of the trade.  At the rate testimonies of the plunder committed during her watch are exposed, she would most likely dislodge the dictator from the top of the list of the greatest thieves. 

     It would speak a lot on our character as Kapampangans if we do otherwise, though.  The question is, do we have the fortitude to do the unimaginable and rat on one of our own?  This old man would, especially if she or he is not the quintessence of the best among us Kapampangans.  That’s the character and trademark we should always try to uphold.  (30)