On days like this

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

On days like this
Sunday, 08 22, 2004

There are certain days when I get up in the morning unable to choose between a desire to set the world, for want of a better word, aright and the longing to simply enjoy the world. This makes it hard to organize the details of the day.

Shall I follow the biblical injunction to do good to my fellowman and lend without any hope of return? Alternatively, shall I take time for myself and savor the good fortune of being blessed with a loving wife and four children who are on their way to making decent citizens of themselves despite the trials and tribulations of growing up in a society such as ours?

There are days when the pro bono urge in the lawyer that is in me prevails, and drives me to reach out to a certain number of people out there, with just but seemingly hopeless causes but bereft of just and hopeful cases.

And there are days when the repressed epicurean desires take over (unusual and unnatural for an Ilokano, as my friends would say) and goad me to bundle up the members of my family into the family car and hie them off to some decent place where we could share a sumptuous Sunday brunch, without a care whether the rest of the world goes hang.

But, on this Sunday morning, which one shall it be? Decisions, decisions.

“I grow old, I grow old.” Thus runs the pathos-filled T.S. Eliot refrain about a man who could not even decide whether to wear the bottoms of his trousers rolled. That’s a long way off, I say to myself. I know it will still be quite a number of robust years before I get to that stage of helpless senility. Right now, I know certainly that I am going to make a decent living by what I have yet to get; I also know I have to make a decent life by what I could occasionally give.

There are days when the best way to make a decision is not to make a decision at all. So today, I have decided to forego action and, instead, simply lose myself in thought.

Today I think about the Sigma Rho, which accepted into its fold just last Friday Lean, the eldest son of my ka-batch Louie Liwanag. Having witnessed how Lean in his six-foot frame braved the rites of brotherhood, I am assured that Kenneth and Kevin, my two six-footer sons will likewise make it, next year. Not far behind in my mind is Nestor Sulpico, the honest Sigma Rhoan who is reaping awards worldwide; and Nonong Cruz, the defense chief, and Rene Villa the chief farmer, both Sigma Rhoans eminently qualified to tote a cabinet porfolio.

Today I think about how lonely it is for Loren Legarda out there, our real vice-president. With the recent media frenzy on reluctant “hero” Angelo de la Cruz; the overly loquacious, dubiously enhanced Keanna Reeves; and how our athletes are fading in the Olympics, Loren’s just and justifiable Protest has been virtually eased out from the news items that daily compete for attention of the public. What have been highlighted so far are the childish nitpicking of de Castro’s on the typographical errors in the Protest, and his dimwitted claim that the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) will take all of ten years to resolve it.

Instead of confronting the issues of electoral fraud raised in the Protest, de Castro chose to belabor trivial and irrelevant non-issues. Is de Castro interested in a clash of legal issues or on mere contest of ridicules? More ominous is the attempt through de Castro’s paid hacks in media to picture the proceedings as a theater of the absurd. In my mind’s eye, I see an insidious attempt by de Castro to denigrate the competence of the PET and to condition the mind of the public that this Constitutional process is a futile exercise. De Castro should be well advised that media sensationalism has no place in the cold and impartial neutrality of the PET, and should not mistake this process as yet another well scripted episode of his “Magandang Gabi Bayan” program.

Today I think about popular culture and a new word that has entered into the active, accepted realm of Pilipino vocabulary, namely, “canvas,” which is the Filipinized spelling of that venerable English word “canvass.” Last Tuesday, at a forum - Sawikain 2004, sponsored by the U.P. Institute of Creative Writing - about new or coined words that have crept into Filipino usage, one of the speakers was Prof. Randy David. Wearing his erudite, professional hat, Randy regaled a delighted audience with a scholarly yet entertaining dissertation of the etymology of the word (“to debate or discuss something thoroughly” or “to examine something in detail” or “to ask people for, say, price quotations, sales orders, etc.”) and how it has evolved in the Philippine context as a term to mean “to count or tally votes.” Ever as articulate and witty in Filipino as he is in English, Randy summed up his discourse thus: “Kaya, may mga tao na nagsasabi na ang Presidente at Bise-Presidente ay pinalusot lamang sa magaspang na pagkakahabi ng canvas.”

Today I think about the irony of our society honoring its living liars, nincompoops, backsliders, turncoats and scalawags - and its dead troublemakers. Yesterday came and went; it had been another Ninoy Aquino Day and just another day in these islands that pay lip service to the blood spilled in Bagumbayan, in Tirad Pass, and on a lonely spot of tarmac in 1983 at the then Manila International Airport. Meanwhile, with numbing regularity, we read in the papers, hear on the radio, and see on television a steady stream of accolades heaped by sycophants, fawning hangers-on and paid hacks whenever some government functionary, whether elective or appointive, makes a decision “as a supreme sacrifice, in furtherance of the national welfare.” Disgraceful situations like this makes me wish I could apply for citizenship in another country where people are judged for what they do, not what they say.

Today I think about the truth that talk is cheap - except when Congress does it. Congress, like some of the laws it enacts, is difficult to explain or understand. Within its “august” halls, a member rises to speak on a question of privilege - and says nothing while taking a good ninety minutes to vigorously say it. Nobody listens - and then everybody disagrees. I need not cite reactions to many a speech made by some of our senators and congressmen. Just read the papers.

Today I think that tomorrow will take care of itself. And I will decide what to do tomorrow.



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

The Daily Tribune © 2004