I AM not
religious but for the love of God, please enlighten me how some people,
especially from progressive, liberal and leftist backgrounds in the Philippines,
can be livid at Trump's ineptitude and stupidity yet support the same sick
values championed by Duterte (no need to explain anymore to non-Filipino
friends who Duterte is as he is now a household word in progressive circles
here in the US for the wrong and f--ing embarrassing reasons)?
Do not
make it a competition please on who is worse, as Filipino culture is wont to do
(like, eh si Trump ganito, buti pa si Duterte ganito because that is motherf--ing
bullshit). Both are a disgrace to humanity. Am I missing something?
Posted on Facebook our former colleague in local journalism, the then very
young S. Chandler Ramas III, now well-established in the US of A as labor union
organizer, political strategist and social activist.
Even as he pulled no punches, Chandler ceded some benefit-of-the-doubt
objectivity: I try to see the light in
this twisted position, maybe disliking Trump and supporting Duterte is better
than supporting Trump and Duterte altogether?
To no avail: Now, that is f--ed up,
lol.
Conflicted values, somebody made a shout out at this same-same-but-love-one-and-hate-the-other
complexity. Or should that be dichotomy?
Mindful inconsistency – whatever that means – cried another.
Deviant intellection – whatever that is – howled one more.
Whatever. As they flock together, birds of a feather get to be plucked just
the same way. Falsity goes the truism embedded in that oft-cited idiom as
instanced here: Trump and Duterte posited as one of a kind, but totally
different just the same. Oxymoron played out there too.
Harrumphed Chandler: Kung makatuligsa
ke Trump, wagas, which the orange buffoon deserves I know. Pero pag makapuri at
magdepensa sa kabulastugan ng a--mal at hay-p na Duterte, daig pa sa wagas. Lalu
na ang mga pulitiko na dating lumaban sa diktadurang Marcos, ano kaya, nakulam
ba (ang) mga ito?
No, Chandler. Neither kulam nor barang, not
even the most potent voodoo spell, might have been cast on these politicians
self-aggrandized as having been “forged in the crucible of the Marcos
dictatorship,” arrogating unto themselves the honorific “champion of human
rights,” bequeathing to them and them alone the monopoly of the people’s
struggle against martial law, and gaining for themselves and for their extended
kin more than enough political capital stock to both rule and reign in the
public domain.
They are those the unrepentant, unrecognized aktibista of the old order spit at as queso de bola – as much for the color: bloody
red on the outside, royal, if craven, yellow inside, as for their propensity
for beguiling the masa with their…what
else, pambobola. Cheesy as they can
get, and stinking too.
Yes, they are the first and noisiest to cry Nunquam Iterum! – Never Again! – clenched
fist up in the air, every September 21, in somber remembrance of the day Marcos
snuffed out democracy in the country, ever reminding their audience of their
role in the struggle which gets ever bigger through the years.
Conversely, theirs too were the first and
loudest shouts of “Yes, Yes Yes” last May 23, the day Duterte put terror-besieged
Mindanao under martial law, if only to please their current patron.
So, ferociously they fought Marcos’ martial law.
So, totally they support Duterte’s martial law.
Glaring inconsistency glossed over, unreasoningly,
as “different stand for different fellas in different times.” The irrationality
all too conspicuous in Duterte himself proclaiming affinity of his military diktat
to the Marcosian martial misrule: “So kayong mga kababayan ko, you have
experienced martial law it will not be any different from what President Marcos
did. I’ll be harsh.”
Harshness, Duterte justified thus: “I have to
do it to preserve the Republic of the Philippines.”
Instantly evoking the Dictator’s similar
justification for his: “I did not become President to preside over the death of
the Republic.”
Indeed, as Marcos’ martial
law was grounded “as a last defense against two grave dangers to the state. One
was a rebellion mounted by a strange conspiracy of leftist and rightist
radicals. The other was a secessionist movement supported by foreign groups,”
so is Duterte’s against the strangest conspiracy of drug lords founding a
terrorist group backed up by right-wing coup pals and supported by foreign
Islamists. And that is but the most recent permutation of Duterte’s casus belli for his martial (mis)adventure.
Still, the red-once
unceasing in their hallelujahs to Duterte’s golpe
de gulat. Proving not so much the depth of their supposed immersion in
dialectical materialism as the obvious perversion in their diametrical
contradiction. Indeed, their corruption of historical materialism most manifest
in their acquiescence to the revision of Philippine history, and their
reduction of a Marxist philosophy to plain human greed. Ay, the much heralded conscientization
of their youth ageing most disgracefully to unconscionability. Anyare, kasama?
Marcos is dead!
Marcos is buried!
Marcos is resurrected,
Duterte, long live!
Unlearned of our past, we are a people dumbed. We are a nation damned.
Santayana, alas!
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