BY ROMMEL YNION
I STUMBLED recently upon F. Sionil Jose’s indictment of our political environment:
“I remember what the historian William Henry Scott told me — how he came across an inventory in the 1896 revolution listing down broken pens, battered chairs, the trivia put down by outgoing bureaucrats illustrating their honesty.
“In the Thirties, politicians spent their own money for their election campaign. Many of them were impoverished by their aspiration to be town mayor, congressman or governor.
“Not now — politicians make money at the very beginning when they campaign. How did they go about then? I fondly remember the former Secretary of Health, Dr. Juan Salcedo, going to Pangasinan in a non-airconditioned Pantranco bus, Cabinet Secretaries Conrado Estrella and Emmanuel Pelaez traveling without any escort, Senator Juan Flavier using public transport.”
“Not the officials today — from the simple city mayor who goes around with a fleet of security vehicles. Look at the composition of the Senate in the Fifties — they were intellectuals, writers, Recto, Tañada, Pelaez, Manglapus and so on. Yes, there was one movie star — Rogelio dela Rosa but he was circumspect, competent enough to be ambassador, too.”
“Look at Senators today, and weep.”
Let’s read the last sentence again. Did he really mean that? Or did he just say that in jest? Or was he trying to say something we don’t know? This Filipino novelist, who has been revered as a national artist, is already pushing to 90 and ancient as he called himself, he must know whereof he speaks – an astute political observer that he is.
Matter-of-factly, I did follow his advice to look at our senators. And indeed, he was right – because, after doing so, my soul wept all day. The first sight that caught me was that of Bong Revilla – I refuse to call him senator because senators are supposed to be wise men in the mold of Aristotle and Socrates.
And frankly, in my eyes, he is just a dimwit, nothing else. The face was empty – yes, I peered into YouTube to examine his body language. And I didn’t know why the images just squeezed my soul dry. — I kept weeping within. Maybe, there is something about his countenance that didn’t fit into the role he was trying to play. Yes, he is – okay, I have to spit this out – a senator but he is not supposed to be in the Senate. His mien is that of a journeyman – and, if I may be blunt about it, a highway robber – who is just out to sow mayhem, somewhere.
Ah, that intuitive sense I once wrote about that God gifted me – with that, I can see the depth of the person’s ignorance, his stupidity, and ill motives. An evil incarnate? I hope not. But he seems to be…
Then another toad came along – this time, Jinggoy Estrada. I also refuse to call him senator because in my eyes, he is nothing but an ordinary man full of balderdash.
As if he can’t stand alone, he had to be with his father as his emotional crutch to submit himself first to the PNP custodial detention center – why so long a phrase for a jail when they could have just called it a jail – only to be told they had to go first to Sandiganbayan to get their warrant before proceeding to jail.
After they got back there in PNP, they went through the routine again – this time, unlike his buddy Bong Revilla who smiled before the cameras while his mug shots were taken – Jinggoy looked like a somnambulist – daze as he appeared – and simply put on a smirk on his face before facing the photographers and just before cameras flashed, he managed to look serious just like in his cinematic scenes in which he stood over dead bodies of men who had just been shot in cold blood.
Whatever – my soul still wept as I watched him on TV.
How right F. Sionil Jose was. Is there something about sages pushing to 90? Maybe, wisdom that has the depth of truth and magic in it?
After looking at Bong and Jinggoy, I stopped looking at the other journeymen – again, my refusal to call them senators – not because there are no more like them but because my soul has dried up, unable to weep any longer.
Maybe, my soul ran out of tears like MIWD that cannot supply water anymore.
And, what the heck – nobody wants to weep all day, anyway.
But, yes, F. Sionil Jose was right – we look at our senators today, and weep.
And it’s up to us how many of them we want to look at because there is a connection between their number and the duration we want to weep.
Frankly, it doesn’t take mathematical precision to decide how many of them we can look at – finite creatures as we are. But, believe me, our reservoir of tears can dry up as soon as we get past just the two of them./PN
