Stealing Christmas?

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Stealing Christmas?
Sunday, 10 09, 2005

I once read somewhere that if you want to make a speech you will later regret having made, you should do it when you are angry. By the same token, I would probably regret having written this column because right now I am discombobulated, discomfited, and disgruntled by the way I see how some people bend, staple and mutilate situations and events just so the bidding of their masters could be served.

True, the greater part of us who engage in this craft and sullen art are parasites, so to speak. If nothing had been written, spoken or done by others, those of us who are parasites would find nothing to write about. So off we go to our computers and hammer away at the keyboard with the speed of summer lightning so that our columns, our reportage - or whatever it is that we like to call our puny mental outputs - could make it for tomorrow’s edition. But the trouble with this haste is that sometimes one says something that one hasn’t thought of yet.

Take the case of the lady whom many call the Malacañang Media Mouthpiece. The sycophancy she does to her writings in order to insure that her spouse remains appointed to a juicy position in every administration is an admirable act of connubial fidelity. It is also an admirable act of journalistic infidelity and obsequiousness. Her reputation grows every time she stoops to earn brownie points from Malacañang.

I wonder how many points she earned (again) when she accused our senators of stealing Christmas. As usual, her tongue has again outraced her brain. The metaphor, as usual, is misplaced and only comes off as a transparent attempt to deflect the accusing finger from the real thieves. But then, what should one expect from one who is expected to cover up the truth in the same way that election returns, birth certificates, telephone conversations have been faked by others who get their orders from Malacañang?

In my other and often more financially rewarding vocation - as a lawyer who has dealt with people of various moral persuasions - I have discovered that it’s not the lies that sorely bother me; what I hate is the inaccuracy.

I hate the inaccuracy of that statement that our senators have stolen Christmas.

Our senators, notwithstanding their other faults, are the guarantors of our Christmas. Today, in the face of the Palace offensive, our senators stand in the way of the juggernaut that has rolled out of the Palace, where the Constitution and all laws seem to have been squashed to a clutter of meaningless pulp. The Palace has let loose the dogs of war and silenced government officials and turned them into meek, cowering lambs. But not the members of the Senate.

Amid the silence of the lambs, we still hear Drilon railing against the North Rail Project. Enrile continues to expose the grand theft that accompanied the changeover in 1986. Angara calls for civility among the three great branches of government. Biazon patiently enlightens us of the Articles of War in relation to the soldier's vain effort to expose electoral fraud. Arroyo (the good one) stands unmoved in his face-off against the Palace on Executive Order No. 464. Gordon uncovers the veil of smuggling perpetrated in Subic. Villar contends that Loren Legarda should be allowed to air the plaint of her principal witness in her electoral protest. Lacson tells us not to be afraid to search for the truth. The Estrada mother-and-son duo continue to bewail the persecution of a leader who should still be leading us. Magsaysay digs deeper into the fertilizer-for-votes scam. Pimentel offers the Senate as the proper forum to expose everything that is wrong in this government .

Of course there are the exceptions: the diminutive one who breaks his long silence by his tired and worn-out jokes; and the loudmouth whom the gods wish to destroy and whom people find hard to believe that she is telling the truth.

We know our Christmas shall have been stolen only when not a squeak will no longer be heard from our senators. As long as the voices of 21 men and women continue to ring in the halls of Congress, along with the cries of those manning the parliament of the streets, we can be assured our Christmas is guaranteed.

The perversion that the Malacañang Media Mouthpiece has done to Christmas is understandable. Her fortunes are fundamentally intertwined with the good times that she enjoys in and with the Palace. For as long as the Palace is not battered at its gates by the cries of the oppressed, or for as long as the people do not march in the streets to cry for justice, or for as long as our senators do not expose the greed and the filth at the Palace, then it is Christmas for her and her ilk. But to the ordinary Filipino who has no access to the Palace, it is Christmas every time he hears a senator stand up against the Palace. This gives him hope - and that is what Christmas is all about: hope for salvation, in much the same way that the Savior brought salvation to a weary world on that first Christmas in Bethlehem.

So the Malacañang Media Mouthpiece had better leave the theft of Christmas to the Grinch and his evil counterparts at the Palace.

To the rest who have read this piece this far, I give you this wish coming from Ogden Nash: “A merrier Christmas than I to mine may you bequeath to yours.”

Hope for salvation, and march, for Christmas' sake.


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