Grief, Reason to Hope and Keeping our Minds Beautiful
Fr. Sid T. Marinay

In the history of Philippine revolts, there has been a pattern. Every revolution, peaceful or not, wise or otherwise, whose effects have been national in scale, has been preceded by either assassination or martyrdom or both that caused national grief.

The martyrdom of three Filipino priests who espoused the secularization of parishes – Gomez, Burgos and Zamora – in 1872 was widely believed to be the precursor of the revolution in 1896. The assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983 led to the peaceful EDSA people power revolt in 1986 otherwise known as EDSA People Power I which was instrumental in the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos. We may recall that the blood of the remains of Ninoy Aquino was never wiped out for the people to see and sympathize. The brutal killing of Benigno Aquino was widely perceived by the public as a martyrdom and a repetition of Rizal’s execution by the Spaniards. Sympathy for the political victim enabled the temporary forgetting of class differences. The peaceful ouster of President Joseph Estrada known as EDSA II was preceded by the killing of Bobby Dacer, who knew so many anomalies and corruption, whose death was widely construed as politically motivated and other acts of terrorism such as bombings which resulted in the carnage of so many innocent citizens.

Killing, for whatever motive, cannot be tolerated in this country. Graft and corruption regardless of scale in many sectors in the government, inequitable distribution of wealth, poverty in the sense of misery and destitution, election fraud and all other crimes to a certain extent can be tolerated. Right to life seems to be foremost in the hierarchy of values in our land. Killing that brings about national grief seems to be the ultimate form of tyranny, the most abominable form of suppression of human right. Murder for the sake of one’s ideology, party or office, or as a means to hide some anomalies, has led to the downfall of leaders in this country.

It is in the light of our political history that I offer an interpretation of the now-scrapped NBN deal with China’s ZTE Corporation. Let me begin with the crying of Jun Lozada which prompted the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol to call him “a crying lady.” Lozada’s crying won the sympathy of the people and was widely perceived as sincere in the light of the kidnapping scenario and the potential threat to his life. Plus the fact that he would endanger his life and his family in testifying makes his crying credible. In this telenovela-crazed Republic, people have the eye to distinguish between what is sincere crying from what is not. This is why to many, Jun Lozada has been considered as a crying hero.

The crying of Lozada, former President of Philforest, was a stark contrast to that of the officer-in-charge of Philforest, Erwin Santos, who appeared at the state-owned television stations to discredit the former. The crying of Santos did not win the sympathy of the Filipino public and was construed as mere acting. For this reason, he was not given a day in the Senate hearing. His crying was largely viewed as insincere for there was no threat to his life and was shrugged off as a total waste of tears and even ridiculous.

It is also in the light of our history of revolts and the level of Filipino tolerance that I would say that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will not be replaced as president via extra-constitutional means also known as parliament of the streets, like EDSA People Power I and II, for she has not yet been directly implicated in any murder case although there has been a lot of extra-judicial killings of journalists and activists during her highly contested stay in Malacaňang.

Besides, the direction now of the many sectors of our society, such as the Church, academe, business community, is to strengthen political and democratic institutions to be able to solve political problems and prevent political crisis. This kind of solution shall be by means of a constitutional process based on reason. This will be a long process but with a lasting effect. Solving our problems via extra-constitutional route like parliaments of the streets propelled by outrage cannot be sustained. It would be a fleeting solution, just like emotion itself, to systemic and endemic structural and political problems. The answer, therefore, to structural problems is structural solutions. This is why the efforts now of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) is to help strengthen political and democratic institutions to be able to solve political problems.

This NBN-ZTE controversy has led to the erosion of the credibility of our social institutions and largely contributed to the postmodern condition of the eradication of hierarchies, erosion of the divide between binary opposites like light and darkness and the merging of fact and fiction. I would leave the harm to our institutions caused by this controversy for the social scientists to explain.

As a priest, I am more concerned about the damage to the Filipino soul. Against the backdrop of mass poverty in the sense of destitution, the corruption is just unthinkable.

The cycle of political crises, most of which are unresolved like the fertilizer scam, caused the pervading apathy verging on paralysis, confusion leading to passivity and almost chronic cynicism especially among the young who are supposed to be the hope of the nation.

But according to Prof. Randy David during the symposium on the current political crisis attended by the clergy of the Archdiocese of Manila last February 26, in answer to the call of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) for a communal action, crisis is a reason to hope. This is something novel to me. I used to think, with my ecclesiastical background, that hope is a divinely revealed theological virtue. The good news is that “there is a crisis for there are still a few good men left in the government service who follow the dictate of their conscience and oppose the conspiracy of corruption in the government,” Prof. David elaborated. He continued to say that these few good men if they connect with each other through a political party can effect significant political change.

While it is true that our government under the Arroyo administration has become more dysfunctional, there are still principles which regardless of influence, power and wealth one possesses cannot be broken. These timeless principles are forever timely, just like the principle of honesty which has its own life and dynamism apart from any political actor. We cannot break these principles, we can only break ourselves against them. These are natural laws, just like the law of gravity. We better learn these principles to be able to respect them.

These powerful and moneyed politicians who have caused so much pain in our country may be able to get away with the laws of the land which they can easily circumvent with their money, but they will not be able to keep their ears close to the voice of their conscience which they cannot bribe. They cannot continue to be callus and win the respect of the Filipinos. They will reap what they sow. Our own history itself will be their just judge.

There are things we, ordinary mortals, cannot do anything about. But there are still so more things, each one of us can do to protect ourselves from the harm of apathy and cynicism. In spite of the dysfunctional government we have, we can still continue to sow the seed of goodness around us, within the circle of our influence. We can keep the institutions where we belong and our very own families from being contaminated and uphold their dignity. We cannot control what the corrupt government officials do, but we can still make our backyard clean. We have no control over the stimuli around us like the endless investigations of corruption in the highest office of the land, but we can control our mental reaction to them. We can still keep our minds beautiful.

We, as a nation, are not helpless. In this NBN-ZTE controversy, our country has produced a crying accidental hero. The more crises there will be in the future, the more heroes we will have. And one day, the good will triumph.

The cycle of political crises should never lead us to a paralyzing cynicism. It should rather challenge us all to organize ourselves and our actions so that evil may be conquered by good (cf. Rom. 12:21). The children of the light should not be less wise than the children of this world of darkness (cf. Lk. 16:3).”