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E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE
RAVAL
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The
Daily Tribune © 2006
Sunday,
02 11, 2007
In
the next four months, the election fever will rise to such pitch
that would prompt observers not familiar with our brand of
politics to wonder whether the anticipated global warming has
come a bit too soon. As it builds to a climax in May, this state
of intense excitement will not only be confined among the
candidates but among the voters as well.
Indeed,
we have seen how a seemingly casual discussion regarding the
merits of one candidate over another has turned neighbor against
neighbor, son against father, spouses against their respective
in-laws, et cetera. This enmity goes on even long after the
elections are over, and revived when the next election comes
around. Never mind if the subject of the feud — the candidate
himself — has turned out to be a no-goodnik after all. Beyond
all reason, it seems that the voting preferences of many have to
be anchored on the outward “glamor” attached to the
candidate, if nothing else.
One
might ask, what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that what elections
are all about — the freedom to choose? Yes, definitely! But
when the choice turns out to be wrong, do we have to make the
same choice the second time around?
At
the risk of being labeled as a “nattering nabob of negativism,”
(thank you for this, William Safire) I venture to say what we
need in the next four months is a nootropic. Yes, I know — the
term is out of nowhere, so let me explain. Simply defined,
nootropic is a drug used to enhance memory and discernment.
We
need to administer a nootropic to dispel the national amnesia
that has caused us to forget the sins of those who have
trespassed the laws of human decency. We need a nootropic to
bring back to memory those who cheated their way to government.
We need a nootropic also to help us discern between form and
substance among today’s array of candidates who either out of
convenience or principle have chosen to align themselves with
one camp or another.
We
need a nootropic, for instance, to refresh in our collective
memory how in 2004 lawyer Ed Escueta, myself, and the other
counsel of Fernando Poe Jr. were shouting back at the members of
the Canvassing Committee of the Congress of the Philippines, who
refused all importunings to go to the elections returns and
compare them with the certificates of canvass.
We
need a memory drug to bring to mind once more the sight of the
head of the committee, Sen. Francisco Pangilinan, banging his
gavel — not once, not twice, but countless times as if on a
video gone awry on a loop — at the same time shouting “Noted!”
“Noted!” “Noted!” until the gavel broke at the handle by
the sheer intensity of his determined haste to drown out our
objections, and put the proceedings on a track that led to an
indecent dawn proclamation of then presidential candidate Gloria
Arroyo.
We
need a nootropic to replay in our minds the spectacle of
Pangilinan holding on to a broken gavel, grinning like a
Cheshire cat, a grin that not so much masked his embarrassment
as betrayed his shameless and shameful deviousness. Was he being
exposed in public by some unseen god that his job was indeed
despicable, so his symbol of authority just had to be broken?
Up
to that convenient time that the Liberal Party broke away from
Arroyo in 2005, Pangilinan was very much a part of the machinery
for cover-up of the many anomalies in the Arroyo government. And
even after that breakaway, his limp and unconvincing voice has
not been heard of. There is not a drop of opposition blood in
his veins; rather, the blood of the opposition drips heavily
from his hands.
One
still recalls how he maneuvered to have the report of Sen.
Edgardo Angara’s committee — finding Ricardo Manapat guilty
of depriving FPJ of his (natural-born) Filipino citizenship —
trashed by a Senate packed with apologists of Arroyo. (The same
pack of apologists is now knocking at the door of the opposition
to be included in its Senate slate).
Now,
Pangilinan is seeking reelection, not under the ticket of the
government he helped install into power and coddled, but with
the opposition he has been treating with contempt. So who could
blame opposition torch-bearers such as Linggoy Alcuaz and Rez
Cortez if they object to Pangilinan’s inclusion in the
opposition slate?
Sen.
Kit Tatad might as well have been alluding to Pangilinan when he
derided those who want to ride the opposition bandwagon — who
supported Arroyo in 2004 and now want to be in the opposition
— because it is no longer profitable to be identified with
Arroyo. Paraphrasing Tatad further: Pangilinan is one impudent
gambler who wants to collect on every throw of the dice even
after he has lost the game, a case of plain and simple crass
opportunism.
We
need a nootropic to replay that television show where he made an
admission against interest, telling his wife: “I would not be
what I am today were it not for you.” Or some such words.
Indeed, Pangilinan once performed miserably in some local
election. He then got married to a very popular movie star. That
was his passport to the Senate in 2001, to join what Tatad aptly
describes as the parade of celebrities and popular incompetents.
As
long as we cannot remember the past trespasses of Pangilinan —
and the incompetence of others like him — because it is being
continually altered or glamorized, we will have no control over
the present, neither over the future. And if we vote just
because we put too much credence on the images in the crystal
ball of the surveys, we will wind up eating and choking up on
shards of broken glass for the rest of our lives. |
