Welcome back, Garci!

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Welcome back, Garci!
Sunday, 11 27, 2005

But first, a scenario: The year is 2015. Inside a palatial residence called La Vista. A consultation between mother and son takes place amid an atmosphere of panic.

SON: (With great agitation) Mother, I have just murdered somebody who knows about the billions you and father stole. I did it to protect both of you. I don’t want to go to jail. What should I do before the police catch up with me?

MOTHER: Leave everything to me, son. First thing we do is ensure your disappearance.

SON: You mean...you’ll have me terminated with extreme prejudice?

MOTHER: (Angrily) Maybe I should, so shut up, you bungling son of a stupid, rotund father! Even before you came, I already made calls to people we know who will smuggle you out of the country, to take you far from the prying eyes of media.

SON: But they’re watching the airports! Surely.....

MOTHER: (Interrupting) The watchers there will be blind, deaf and dumb. They won’t see anything, they won’t hear anything, they won’t say anything - unless they want to spend the rest of their lives watching the sun set in Manila Bay.

SON: I like that: watching the sun set. Mother, I didn’t know you could be poetically imaginative even at a critical time like this!

MOTHER: You don’t know the rest, my stupid son. (Assumes a dramatic pose, as if in front of cameras) I can also be emotionally creative - I’ll go on TV and shed a couple of my crocodile tears as I offer a handsome bounty for your arrest. My reputation as an honest and upright lady should not be tainted. The law should be upheld.-

SON: But you have broken…I mean, you are breaking the law…I mean…Shit! You know what I mean.

MOTHER: (Haughtily) And who’s going to prove it? We’ll hire the best lawyer that money could buy, to plead your case before a judge who can be both intimidated and bought. For good measure, there’ll be a lot of stuffed envelopes for the blue-and-yellow media who dearly love the color of money.

SON: But surely a number of people will find out the truth.

MOTHER: To hell with the truth! When money speaks, especially jueteng money, everybody starts to listen. True, there are some who occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry on as if nothing had happened. In no time - about six months should be enough - you and your crime will be a fading memory. Then you can come back to the country and turn the tables around right back at your accusers.

SON: How?

MOTHER: We’ll have the ground prepared for that. First, a series of press releases about you being sighted in various places in Mindanao - to establish that you are ready to face the music and defend yourself from a baseless, unfounded accusation. You’ll be an aggrieved victim instead of a dumb perpetrator. We’ll ask the court to strike out testimonies made against you, while you were in absentia. We’ll have the arrest order for you quashed. You’ll only appear in a court with a new judge, no longer Gilbert, where you will be exonerated. And we can always get a fall guy, whom the police will arrest at the proper time.

SON: Hijo de puñetera! That sounds really neat. But what will I do while I’m in hiding?

MOTHER: I don’t know. Probably, you can write a book for all I care…or make peace with your wife. Do you think she never caught on whenever you had to offer a silly excuse each time you were dallying with that lady at Starbucks in Bayview?

SON: Mother! It was just a harmless diversion.

MOTHER: Puñeta! Enough of your excuses! I have a complete file of all your capers - thanks to my friends in ISAFP. Do you realize I’m not taking you to task only because some of those illegal activities will go right back to this house - this mansion which we acquired with the help of gov….(Realizing she spoke a mouthful, takes a few seconds to calm herself) You’re lucky I made sure the paper trail was erased.

SON: Mother, how will I ever survive without your brilliance? But tell me - how do you know it’s all going to work?

MOTHER: Trust me. This game plan has been done before - ten years ago, to be exact, when you were still a stupid teenager wasting the family fortune on fast starlets and slow horses, when the government was corrupt, and the people were numbed and reduced into apathy by the oppressive weight of corruption, widespread poverty, and untrammeled abuse of power by those who were supposed to govern. It even acquired a name. It was called The Garci Gambit.

SON: Pray tell, Mother - what exactly was The Garci Gambit?

MOTHER: We don’t have much time, so I’ll be brief. Listen well and learn before Kit our neighbor visits us: Once upon a time ten years ago, there was an election officer who constantly received phone calls from the President…

• • •

Here is what I fear: I fear that we Filipinos have forgotten what our dreams are. For of late, we have undergone a large-scale change from a nationalistically-driven people, to a confused rabble of individualists, shoving and bumping against each other on a campaign of furious search for the truth.



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