BY JAZMIN BANAL
“CONRADO! Conrado!”
My mother called his name, stretching her arm to touch his hair which was in ponytail.
It was January 2001 and my family and I were in Edsa. My mother made sandwiches to give to people who would also be there.
She thought she saw Conrado de Quiros in the crowd. We walked faster.
“Conrado! Conrado!”
My mother waved so vigorously.
We were fans of de Quiros. Of his writing, his words, his spirit. There’s no opinion columnist I quoted more than him. “Three” (09/30/09) on Typhoon Ondoy. “Rule of law” (02/20/12) and people power. “Threats” (01/27/14) about Duterte, Leila de Lima, and Etta Rosales.
He criticized politicians. He despised corruption. He exalted humanity and dignity. When he writes, he gets emotions high. It does not matter that you agree with him or hate his guts; we are all stirred up. He lambasted Pnoy and yet I did not stop reading. I did not stop learning from him and yearning for the same things.
The time came when he no longer wrote. I felt there was a void in Philippine journalism. The newspaper felt thinner, the morning cup of coffee a bit blander. My siblings and I would often say, “I miss CDQ.” And how I miss the way he ends every column.
So let me end this with his own words —
“Not all unities are good, not all peace and quiet is good, not all coming together is good. Uniting with wrongdoers is bad, harmonizing with crooks is bad, coming together with a–holes is bad. Burying the hatchet with the Marcoses in the name of reconciliation is bad. Forgiving and forgetting the Arroyos in the name of moving on is bad. Not ferreting out wrongdoing among legislators in the name of carrying out legislation is bad.
“I repeat my proposition yesterday: Government alone cannot stop corruption, it needs the public to help in it. It needs the outrage of the people to stop it. It needs the fury of the people to stop it. It needs the condemnation of the corrupt by the people to stop it. It needs the people marching in the streets, or its modern equivalent in Facebook, text messages, and blogs, shouting at the top of their voices,’“Tama na, sobra na, tigilan na,’ to stop it.
“Alongside an ardent campaign launched by government or civil society, or both, to make people realize that taxes are their money, that the corrupt are kawatan, no more and no less than pickpockets and snatchers, that corruption is in fact stealing from them, who knows? Maybe that televised hearing can rouse enough public interest and indignation to spark a cultural upheaval. That’s what an education is.
“That’s what an education does.” (de Quiros, Conrado. “An education.” Philippine Daily Inquirer. 5 August 2013. www.opinion.inquirer.net/58221/an-education)
Rest in peace, CDQ./PN
