Epiphanies along Epifanio de los Santos

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Epiphanies along Epifanio de los Santos
Sunday, 12 11, 2005

Last week I found myself having had to take a taxi in order to get home to Quezon City after meeting a client somewhere in Makati City. As I made myself comfortable in the back seat, my driver started an unsolicited chatter about the spiraling prices of gasoline and basic commodities, the inconstant weather, the prospects of a bleak Christmas, the profusion of exposed navels and just about everything under the Philippine skies. All these commentaries in competition with the radio, which was blaring syrupy love songs a decibel too high for my taste and comfort. So I asked him to change the station. After much fiddling with the dial he zeroed in on a live broadcast of the hearing at the House of Representatives, where a disgraced former election officer was winding up his a capella performance before the honorable representatives of the people. I seized on the broadcast as a chance to turn his monologue into a conversation by asking him about the infamous Garci Affair and the other serious issues buffeting the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

From his seat, Elorde Arroyo — no kidding, that was his real name — turned to look at me and spat out contemptuously: “Wala! Kahit anong gawin nila, wala ring mangyayari.” Aha! another one of those cynics, I said to myself. So I switched on to my devil's-advocate mode and, in my best vulgate Tagalog, needled him with my improvised paraphrase of that George Bernard Shaw quote, “Nothing is ever done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.” “Kung hindi tayo kikilos o makisali,” I added, “e sino pa, pare?”

Elorde's reply was more contemptuous in its vehemence: “Tang ina nilang lahat! Administrasyon. Oposisyon. Pare-pareho! Mabubuhay ko ba ang pamilya ko kung sasali pa ako dyan?” End of conversation. And without giving me any more chance to impress him with dimly remembered nuggets of political wisdom, Elorde went on to say he no longer cares about the lies and inequities being peddled by Arroyo and her ilk, that he does not want anymore to go out into the streets to denounce anyone, but neither will he allow himself to serve as some beholden dependent of a dying government.

What impressed me was this simple taxi driver's insight into the encouraging upsurge of the peso against the dollar. “Hindi naman gawa ni Gloria 'yan. Gawa 'yan ng mga kababayan natin.” And he said what Gloria has done, the cunning political actress that she is, was merely to exploit the battered and weary hopes of the nation and claim the peso, at last, is on the rise, conveniently glossing over the fact that this is the consequence of the billions that our homesick and exploited OFWs traditionally remit at this time of the year. “Krismas na, pare,” he said, “at tayo namang mga Pilipino ay sadyang mapagpatawad sa mga panahong ito. Maswerte pa rin si Gloria.”

Elorde gave me one last thought to ponder as we passed by the Heroes Monument at the corner of White Plains road: “Buti pa mga yan (pointing to the bronze statues) tahimik na.” He probably meant the only good heroes are dead heroes, who are insensitive to the maladministration and corruption around them. I lost the nerve to tell him that in the outrage personified in the clenched and raised fists of the heroes in those statues, there definitely will be one moment in time when the smoldering emotions will break out into one conflagration, where the bad in government will not survive.

In this poverty-stricken country of ours, Elorde is but one soul who refuses to be dehumanized by the enormity of the problem of how to make ends meet in these perilous times. He could very well represent the millions out there struggling to survive. Like Elorde who is trying to survive by driving 20 hours a day to bring home a thousand pesos for his family, a fearful and great many number do not have the time to ponder on the need to be angry, go out into the streets to denounce Arroyo and call for her ouster. They don't care anymore if Arroyo or Garci lie some more. They don't give a damn if Rez Cortez can detail the fraud committed on Fernando Poe, Jr.. They are oblivious to the growing strength of Loren Legarda's protest to prove that she and FPJ were cheated. They are unmindful of the many things happening.

Simply put, they have stopped caring at all.

The current situation has generated into one like that of a jury secretly agreeing with — no, make that openly encouraging — the guilty. We have become the optimists who manage to smile in the face of adversity and inequity. Just like the person who is pushed from the top of a tower, and says in the midway of his fall: “See? I am not injured yet.”

Arroyo must indeed be blessed by a god whose mercies lie beyond the ken of our Christian tenets. The unintended consequences of her maladministration and her sins to the Filipino people are benefiting her immensely. The poverty that pervades the nation distracts everyone's attention from the rotten administration as survival has to come first. The financial benefits reaped by our best and the brightest who have left the country to escape the fiscal asphyxiation induced by an inequitable economy are now pouring in.

The Filipino's marvelous power of adapting himself to the necessity of keeping alive has extinguished any sense of outrage that, daily, a vicious crime is committed with impunity against him, and that he should feel intense indignation notwithstanding his efforts to stay alive in order to survive.

Absent this outrage, this anguished cri de coeur from the people, what more could a President — who has lied and cheated and stolen — ask?

For comments about this website:Webmaster@tribune.net.ph

The Daily Tribune © 2005