DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
‘P&%@*$ ! Maligayang Pasko!’
Sunday, 12 21, 2008
Some people thought that Sen. Mar Roxas turned from his usual decorous self to a profane SOB when he screamed, “P&%@*$ ina, Ano ba to? Patayin ang Gloria-forever Cha-cha,” at the interfaith rally against Charter change in Makati.
Given the disturbing effect those words have on people who are otherwise insensitive to what is happening around them, the indignation coming from the Palace is understandable — but not righteous. Malacañang, in a typical knee-jerk act of self-preservation, had to neutralize the messenger, lest the entire nation be infected with the wrath that the cuss words embraced.
Roxas has nothing to apologize for. He was just expressing the sentiment of the people. He was not cursing at the current situation in the country, not at President Gloria Arroyo either. “Ang punto ko dito, nakamura ako dahilan sa napakasama talaga ng ating sitwasyon. Yung sitwasyon natin, yung kalagayan natin, ang aking minura,” Roxas explained.
Everyone is aware that everything is rotten, even in this season of hope. Roxas was just articulating the dire situation. In a rally at the same site in Makati soon after the stolen elections in 2004, I recall uttering the same words of indignation. Like Roxas, I refused to apologize for that outburst. As Mark Twain had observed, “Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”
The Supreme Court, in Reyes vs. People, 27 SCRA 689, upheld the acquittal of the accused for oral defamation, who had uttered the exact same words that Roxas is now being either praised or condemned for. Said the Court: “This is a common enough expression in the dialect that is often employed, not really to slander but rather to express anger or displeasure. It is seldom, if ever, taken in its literal sense by the hearer, that is, as a reflection on the virtues of a mother.”
With Christmas four days away, we cannot even expect good tidings of comfort and joy for the “hopes and fears of all the years” that we have nurtured during the reign of the Empress at the Palace who wants to stay there for some more time beyond 2010.
The Senate resolution of all 23 members condemning Cha-cha and asserting the Senate’s right to vote separately in a Constituent Assembly mode of amending the Constitution may have been couched in the appropriate parliamentary language, but there is no denying the seething anger behind the phraseology. Virtually, the resolution expressed the same wonderful thoughts that Roxas let loose in Makati.
The OFWs, looking at their hard-earned dollars in their peso equivalent, can have no words more appropriate in describing the bind they are in. After years of hard work abroad, the OFWs returning home cannot be faulted in cursing whatever — or whoever — is responsible for their debilitated purchasing power. Don’t expect them to apologize.
The grieving families of innocent bystanders killed in Mindanao or Quezon City or Parañaque have every reason to express their anger and displeasure at the indiscriminate pull of the trigger. The military and the police responsible for the deaths deserve as many invectives as there were bullets spent on snuffing out the lives of innocents who would have lived many years in good health.
Leina de Legazpi, my critic, blurted to no one in particular the more expressive Bicolano equivalent — hijo de gran p&%@ — when he heard that an arrest order had been issued against Maritess Aytona and Jimmy Paule, who failed to appear for the third time before the Senate committee investigating the fertilizer scam, whereas Joc-joc Bolante was not even rapped on the knuckle despite the revelation that he and Paule are really known to each other. This double standard really deserves a double invective.
And who would not be angry at the insistence of people at the House to perpetuate in power the current occupant of Malacañang? And why should we not express our displeasure at the prostituted process that the supporters of the occupant wish to change the Constitution?
In a few days, we shall be commemorating the holy day of the birth of the Christ. As we reflect on His life, let us remember that he, too, got mad like hell at those who defiled the house of His Father. The Constitution is as much the house of our hopes as a nation; it must be held sacred at all times. Whoever wishes to pervert and defile our Constitution deserves our anger and displeasure.
Come to think of it, Roxas’ expletive could very well reflect on the virtues of these supporters who happily sacrificed principle for expediency when they extended the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program for another six months but called for a moratorium on compulsory land acquisition. If the bishops were also allowed to swear, they would probably mutter a sacred oath against this betrayal of a 20-year-old promise to free farmers from bondage to the soil. The congressmen who walked out of the plenary session during the approval of the resolution most probably did.
Having written this, we feel liberated of the baggage of our anger. We can now proceed to Baguio to once more take a respite from our expletive-laced existence arising from the helter-skelter, jingle-jangle of the traffic of Manila.
Have yourself a Merry Christmas, everyone. And to my favorite brother-in-law Thomas Ganzon Guirey of Atok, Benguet, Naimbag nga maika-67 nga panagkasangay mo ita nga aldaw!
(Send your comments to djraval2001@yahoo.com)
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