Villar the Intelligent

“AKO, MATALINO akong tao…”

No one in contemporary governance, not even the President, has so pronounced an intelligence as Sen. Cynthia Villar. Self-pronounced, that is. And contextualized in her wise, thus:

"Bakit parang lahat ng inyong budget puro research? Baliw na baliw kayo sa research. Aanhin ninyo ba 'yung research? Ako, matalino akong tao, pero hindi ko maintindihan 'yang research niyo, lalo na 'yung farmer. Gusto ba ng farmer ang research? Hindi ba gusto nila tulungan niyo sila?" 

(Translation: Why does it seem like all of your budget goes to research? You're so thoroughly crazy on research. What are you going to do with it? Me, I'm intelligent, but I don't understand your research, what more the farmers? Do they want you to conduct research? Don't you think they want you to help them?)

So, the honorable chair of the Senate committee on agriculture scorched the Department of Agriculture for allocating a big chunk of its proposed 2020 budget – all of P150 million – on research for the National Corn Program instead of offering direct assistance to farmers.

How’s that for intelligence that cares – for the poorest of the poor, for the last of the least? Aye, the spirit soars, it sears the soul.  

Livid over P150 million for research, Villar the Intelligent was, on the other hand, all too frigid over the gargantuan P1.6-billion budget the House allocated itself primarily for research. Yeah, that which Villar’s Senate peer Panfilo “Ping” Lacson red-flagged as congressional pork which by any other name is just as…fatty and fattening.

Hefty, yes, but extremely necessary, one never-say-die DDS justified the budget, given the adverse impact of the African swine fever to the local pork industry. Seriously?!!!  

Clarified House Speaker Allan Peter Cayetano though: “The P1.6-billion, first, is to enhance research, hindi puwedeng nakikipagdebate tayo dito na 'yung executive o 'yung mga industriya kumpleto sa research tapos tayo hindi (we cannot engage in debates here with the executive branch and industry players backed with complete research while we are not)."

Now, now, Her Honorable Intelligence: If the DA is research-crazy with the measly P150 million, what height of craziness has the House leveled up to with that whopping P1.6 billion?

Yay, I forgot, the senator is bound by inter-parliamentary courtesy against making even but the slightest criticism on a member of a legislative co-equal body, more so its head honcho.

Still, it cannot be helped that this smacks of a selective infliction of her intelligence – hard on the nobody, as in the DA functionary; hardly on the biggie, as in Cayetano.

Come to think of it, was she not at one time quoted as virtually calling poor farmers dense, to wit: “Many of our farmers do not earn money because they do not have the proper business sense. They do not understand how to run the farm efficiently to make it profitable…

“Many of our farmers do things the hard way. They do things on their own, not knowing that there are easier and faster mechanized way of getting things done.”

Simply put, she tagged the farmers as bobo.

At another time, in some candidates’ forum of not so long ago, another segment of the Filipino population that were (still are?) prized abroad – the nurses – was inflicted with her intellectual condescension, to wit:

"Ang sinasabi namin sa kanila na 'actually, hindi naman kailangan ng nurse na matapos ang BSN (BS Nursing). Kasi itong mga nurses, gusto lang nilang maging room nurse… sa Amerika or sa other countries, ano lang sila parang mag-aalaga... Hindi naman kailangan silang maging ganon kagaling.

(Translation: What we are telling them actually, a nurse does not have to finish a BSN degree. Because these nurses, all they want is to be room nurse…in America or in other countries, they’re sort of caregivers only. They don’t have to be that good.)  

Ako, matalino akong tao…

Effete intellectual snobbery, characteristic of an aristocracy, nay, of plutarchy – dumbed down in that rendition of the Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold, rules.

Ako, matalino akong tao…

No. No. No. No. Mayaman lang po kayo.