To be not to be

NOT EXACTLY a Hamletian enigma for presidential pretender Mar Roxas here, hence the Bard’s quote excised of its comma and alternative indicator “or” to lose its interrogative element.

Yes, this takes on another Shakespearean extract: A rose by any other name will smell as sweet.

Aye, Roxas by any other moniker will still spell loser. Read on.    

As 2016 nears, Mar Roxas resurrecting ‘Mr. Palengke.’ The Inquirer headlined Thursday last week of the LP standard bearer’s visit at a public market in Bukidnon.

“Nagpapasalamat ako sa napakainit na pagtanggap nila dito sa palengke ng Valencia at nasasariwa ang mga alaala ko noong ako ay nakilala bilang Mister Palengke (I am thankful for your warm welcome. You remind me of when I was known as Mr. Palengke),” Roxas was quoted as saying.

Refreshing remembrance for Roxas there indeed, having parlayed his Mister Palengke persona into some 20 million votes in his 2004 senatorial run, making him the third highest vote-getter in Philippine electoral history that set his trajectory to the presidency. 

Triggering now his re-assumption of that image, justifying: “Hindi naman nawala sa akin ang pagiging Mister Palengke. Nag-iba lang ako ng tungkulin. Sa kahit anong trabaho, parating nandoon pa rin tayo, (Mr. Palengke never left me. I just took another responsibility. In everything I do, it remains with me).”

Roxas is not exactly being true-to-life there, at least to his public life as recorded by media. While his public persona may have started with Mister Palengke – which, on hindsight now, he should have kept and cultivated – it sadly devolved to other bumbling characters.

In his presidential run in 2010, prior to ceding his sure slot to the then newly orphaned boy BS Aquino III, Roxas was Boy Padyak, as chronicled in the television ad of him  switching places with a pre-teen out-of-school tri-sikad driver after knowing the plight of his poor family in some slum area. Its objective: To push the elitist Roxas into the masa consciousness as really caring even to the least of them.

Boy Padyak miserably fell short of pushing Roxas past Jojo Binay in the veep sweepstakes.

In the BS Cabinet, Roxas promptly took a new incarnation – Boy Kargador ­– with the series of raids by the police of rice warehouses suspected of hoarding the cereal to manipulate supply and prices. This, after he – for no other apparent reason than a good photo op – heaved a sack of rice on his shoulder during the conduct of “visitorial powers” of the National Food Authority with the police in the warehouse of Purefeeds Corp. at the First Bulacan Industrial City in Guiguinto town.

It was promptly ridiculed in the web as one more desperate instance of epal-itics. And Boy Kargador as quickly receded to oblivion.

But Roxas would not be deprived: surfacing as Boy Traffic when, drenched to the skin, he tried to untangle a gridlock of people and vehicles at Commonwealth Ave. during the President’s State of the Nation Address. That was a year or two ago. And again, netizens had a ball ridiculing him for epal-ness.

Then, when the MRT mess first came into the open, Roxas personified the hapless Mister Commuter, braving the rush-hour crush of everymen and everywomen, with his PR lensman in tow. Only for him to turn out as classic trying hard, second-rate, copycat, Sen. Grace Poe having been there and done that – more credibly and most creditably – much earlier.

So, after all these failed characters, it’s back now only to Roxas’ original, lucky, moniker of Mister Palengke?      

Not quite yet, as the Inquirer also headlined Friday Mr. Palengke does a Miriam Santiago, drops pickup line. Instantly earning Roxas the alias “Boy Pickup.”

Originally one-liners men use to get the attention of women at the first encounter, pickup lines have been re-crafted by the Maid Miriam as witticisms to arouse audience interest, invariably bringing the house down wherever she spoke.

At the Friday meeting of the Mindanao cluster of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, Roxas quipped: “While I was on my way here, I told myself I wish the LMP were Saturday and Sunday. That way, I will be the future of LMP. Is that OK?”

Polite applause.

“I wish the LMP were a guitar. Why? So that I can embrace you every time I sing.” Polite applause. Deferential laughter.

“I wish the LMP were an airport and I’m an airplane so that wherever I go, I will land on the LMP.”

Polite applause. Quizzical looks.

Bombed out, naturally. Spiritless, soberly dry Roxas epically failing to channel the sprightly, feisty, witty Miriam. Boy Pickup succeeding only as one more entry in, aye, even the whole subject of, yet another sequel to her bestseller Stupid is Forever.

Haay, Koring.