Commonalities July 4, 2006

I DON’T greatly mind that they’ve made it appear as though Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has conquered the hearts and minds of the Italians and Spaniards. If they want to delude the Filipino people along with themselves, well, that has always been their favorite sport. Though while at that, clearly the bright boys in Malacañang did not do their homework. Nobody seems to have wondered if going to Europe at this time wasn’t a thoroughly stupid idea. The reason for it being that a monumentally earthshaking event, one that has been known to stop wars and time itself, was even then taking place up north in Germany. An event called the World Cup.

Had George W. Bush called on the Pope and Jose Luis Zapatero, he himself would have met with rulers of heaven and earth in the throes of distraction. Oh, yes, the Pope watches the World Cup, too, and might have found a visitation from a worldly vassal an ungodly intrusion into a divine preoccupation. Certainly, the media of both countries would have been at best marginally aware that the president of the most powerful country on earth had landed on their shores.

As for the visit of a fake president from a country called Lilliput, well, only the Lilliputians could be made to believe it actually created ripples. But like I said, I don’t mind that greatly. What I do mind is that Arroyo actually visited the monument of Jose Rizal in Madrid, images from which were splashed in newspapers and TV last weekend. Prospero Nograles was just proposing last week that a strict separation be made between Church and State. I myself am proposing that a strict separation be made between Rizal and Gloria Arroyo. Or that an injunction be made preventing Arroyo from coming within 100 yards of any monument, street or bakery that has the word “Rizal” on it.

The only two things Arroyo and Rizal have in common are their height and their fluency in Spanish. Everything ends there. By his works and deeds, Rizal showed he stood 10 feet taller than all of his countrymen, with the possible exception of Andres Bonifacio. By her works and deeds, Arroyo shows she stands four feet shorter than all of her countrymen, with the possible exception of her husband. As to being able to speak Spanish, well, Rizal spoke a host of other languages, but the one that he was truly proud of was the language of truth, quite apart from the language of love. He paid dearly for the language of truth as much as he gained sublimely for the language of love.

At the very least, my proposal for the separation of Rizal and Gloria comes from the fact that she has done him a horribly ill turn already. Forever engraved the mind of this country will be the image of her in Baguio City in December 2002, on the day devoted to recalling the heroism of Rizal, which was the day he was shot to death in Bagumbayan, vowing not to torment this country some more by attempting to lead it one second longer than the remainder of Joseph Estrada’s term. Because, as she said presciently there, to do so would to be to plunge this country into “never-ending divisiveness.” That was the last time she would tell the truth. Rizal is still waiting for her to apologize.

At the very most, my proposal for the separation of Rizal and Gloria comes from the fact that the latter is the very antithesis of the former. Gloria is the very opposite of what Rizal was and is. Rizal loved this country so much he was willing to die for it. Gloria loves power so much she is willing to kill activists and journalists for it.
As I wrote during Rizal’s birthday last month, Rizal was an exceptionally gifted man, a jack of all trades and master of all. He was a doctor, ophthalmologist, novelist, poet, essayist, botanist, linguist, sportsman (excelling in fencing and shooting), a veritable Renaissance man. He could have taken the safe path, living the salon life in Barcelona, tolerated, if not entirely accepted as peer by his colonial masters, content to earn a living doing marginal OFW work if he could not earn a license to practice his art or craft. Instead he chose to risk life and limb by exposing the tyrannical rule of the friars in particular (they were a temporal power as much as a spiritual one, and ruled in both respects viciously) and came back to his “patria adorada” [beloved country] despite the importuning of his friends not to, and paid the ultimate price for telling the truth.

If Arroyo has any bone in her body inducing a capacity for self-sacrifice, only she knows about it. The only self-sacrifice she has taken before and after she was accidentally thrust into power by Edsa People Power II was exiling her husband to Las Vegas during the height of the “Hello, Garci” scandal. That was a sacrifice? That was a reward -- for both of them. And for a crime the likes of which has not been seen in this country before. In any case, it made about as much sense as Charter change: Arroyo has stolen the vote? The solution is to exile her husband. Arroyo is not the rightful president of this country? The solution is to change the Charter.

I don’t know which is worst: Arroyo acting as though she is president of this country, as though she is in constant communication with God, or as though she is the repository of the legacy of this country’s heroes. Rizal did dream of Filipinos being proud and free. Yet today, we see a nation where people, especially journalists, are murdered for telling the truth, where selfishness and ruthlessness and lust for power are paraded as virtues, where the youth, who are the hope of the motherland, are pilloried as upstarts for heckling impostors, and we do nothing. Well, we send text jokes.

I myself wish Arroyo would have a third thing in common with Rizal, which is that she would be shot at Bagumbayan. I can at least safely say she will not go on to become a hero, national or “barangay” [village].

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