A—holes December 11, 2006

(I wrote this piece last Thursday simply to get the bitter taste of the constituent assembly off my mouth. I decided to come out with it as is—notwithstanding that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered it to stop and Jose de Venecia now wants a constitutional convention—to register the disgust I felt then, and now, which I imagine most of us did.)

WE MAY BE GREETING EACH OTHER “MISerable Christmas” rather than “Merry Christmas” the next few weeks. That is courtesy of the tongressmen who have just made it so.

Certainly they have single-handedly raised high blood pressure in this country to epidemic proportions, to go by the text messages I’ve been getting. Most of which end in punctuation marks that exhaust the range of symbols in the gallery of cell phones. “Ang kapal talaga ng mukha ng mga tongressmen (Those tongressmen really have thick faces)!” one message summed it up succinctly.

They actually have the gall to say they are doing this for the nation, notwithstanding that they betray the most fundamental tenet of lawmaking, which is that no lawmaker may pass a law to benefit himself. Easy to test the self-proclaimed altruism of the tongressmen, as my friend Oscar Orbos points out. All they have to do is to put down on paper in triplicate, using their own blood for ink, that they would resign at once and never run for public office again if they should succeed in turning this country parliamentary. For the good of the nation.

I have only one problem with that test. It presumes that the tongressmen’s word, like GMA’s, may be trusted. GMA vowed at Jose Rizal’s grave that she would never run for president again because to do so would be to wreak never-ending divisiveness upon the country. The last was the only thing that proved true. We ask the tongressmen to make the same vow, and all we’ll be left with is poisonous liquid on tissue paper, whose best destination is deep down the bowels of toilet bowls.

Which brings me to why the tongressmen, despite having no backing from the Constitution, the courts, or the people (the only sigaw you will hear is not fit to print), are doing this. Which is: GMA got away with murder, they reckon they can, too.

The fact that GMA cheated in the elections and got away with it has flushed all rules in this country down the drain. The only law left in this country is the law of the jungle. If you’re a public official, you now think: Who the hell cares if something is undemocratic, unconstitutional, or unpopular? Or never mind unpopular, an object of undiluted detestation by the public? GMA has shown by the fact that she is ruling to this day—an iniquity the tongressmen themselves contributed mightily to when they struck down the impeachment bids against her—that all it takes to hold power in this country is to want it. The voters be damned, the public be damned, the nation be damned. Or indeed more than want it, want it with every fiber of your being, enough to lie, cheat and steal for it. No, more than that, enough to kill for it. You’re capable of that, you can do anything you please in this country. You’re up to that, you can do anything you please with this country.

It’s the rule of thugs. It’s a gangster state. Nothing more or less than the one Marcos presided over during martial law. Or probably even less: Marcos had so much more finesse. Today, the presidential emblem has become a mailed fist. Today, the tongressional one has become an upraised middle finger.

There is a caveat to this, which is that all this has happened, and is happening, because we have allowed it to. Call it political fatigue, call it cynicism, call it stupidity (which it is: Life goes on? Death goes on!), but we’re party to the making of that gangster state. There are no tyrants where there are no slaves. There are no wolves where there are no sheep. There are no gangsters where there are no terrified victims. The tongressmen are doing this not just because they think they are powerful enough to do it, they are doing it because they think we are powerless enough to stop it.

Ah, but that is where GMA and allies have finally made their (fatal) mistake. Rizal, GMA’s favorite whipping boy, did say it once: The indios may be patient, but they are not infinitely patient. When they are insulted and branded idiots apart from being injured and branded serfs, they rise with hatred in their eyes and put down tyrants. And Marcos, GMA’s favorite non-president (and non-prime minister; he claimed both titles), did find out once (and for all) that when Filipinos are abused beyond even the national animal’s capacity to take abuse, they rise with bolos in hand, crying “Tama na, sobra na, palitan na!”

Listen to the sounds of a nation heaving. Listen to the groans and flexing of muscles of a nation rousing from stupor. Listen to the gnashing of teeth and the thrashing about of Florante recovering his wits only to discover he is bound to a tree. Listen to the cries of the bishops discovering we are God’s creatures after all, made after His image, which is not the image of a mongrel crawling on all fours. Listen to the sighs of the businessman and the road dredger, the NGO worker and the overseas worker, the nun and the whore, the leper and the whole, the sinner and the saint, rediscovering they are human beings after all, born with dignity and deserving of respect. Listen to the shouts of a nation, like a man experiencing pinpricks of pain after feeling returns to his numb arm or leg, remembering he was once proud and free. Listen to the rumbling of marching feet down the streets and alleyways, gathering force like a storm. Listen to the trumpet blasts sounding the hour is at hand.

There may be a reason to wish one another a “Merry Christmas” this Christmas after all.

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