By DAVID M. BERMUDO
HA! I DO not want to compare him with my father because people suffer by comparison and I do not want my father to suffer…he-he-he…
But I do not want to perish an idea which deserved to live…more like surviving a tokhang of the mind so the uncanny comparison survived.
Father did not even finish high school. It was the 1940s but within and without our own universe we had everything but money. We had love, affection, respect, honesty. It would be the height of fiction to think that Father can make a promise to solve the Great Divide Issue (although he hated being poor) within three to six months or plant the Philippine flag in the heart of Beijing in contrast to the father of Pulong who is a braggart of the first order…daw taga-Lambunao…no offense meant to Board Jason.
Tatay’s interest in politics was primarily confined to casting his vote but he was also conversant of his political milieu – the “politics of rice” during the Macapagal Administration, the Great Central Bank Heist and the blatant human rights violations during the reign of the Conjugal Dictatorship including some morsels on Dovie Beams, the unexpected and seemingly magical (miraculous if you are of a different persuasion, but wait, my good friend Barsky would ask: Does a coup d’etat partake of something miraculous?) transition from dictatorship to democracy, the advent of a housewife President, unthinkable! So my father said between exultation and curses.
Next in line would have been Pinoy, GMA, Erap, Tabako — not necessarily in that order. Who cares for order when their administrations were marked essentially by disorder, my father opines. Dispensa mi padre. Unlike his son, he decided without the benefit of a legal mind.
So there…We rain on the parade of these leaders – some genuine, some pseudo – with the exception of the Tokhang President. But the reader should understand that nowadays we are in the midst of very interesting events and the guy who hurls curses in Bisaya is seemingly cut from a different woof. He does not govern, he rules (Your favorite phrase, Atty. Jose Niego…retired already from Napolcom, pare?) and by fear, not love. (Prince Mac you are correct!)
So there is a little…just a bit…of trepidation to mess with the guy from Davao (he should have been born an Ilongo like Drilon – a little on the fat side perhaps but not intimidating).
Anyway, my father was always hounded by a lack of comprehension of things – that – in his own mind – did not matter anyway. As Nanay used to say, in the end all things work together for good./PN
