Politics, as is

 

REALPOLITIK. The “realist’s determination to treat politics as they really are and not as the idealist would wish them to be.”

The buzzword in the Kissinger era in American diplomacy has long descended from its rarefied niche in foreign policy to the street level, to its very roots – politics as practised, as is, where is.

So, the Colombia cartels conceived in coca and cannabis and birthed narco-politics. Reigned supreme, ruled absolutely the drug lord here. The elected reduced to mere vassals doing the lord’s every bidding, disempowered to sheer figureheads, albeit, well, extremely well compensated.

There is more to the politics of vice other than that taken to perfection by Clayton Olalia in the Province of Pampanga, lived fully by the late Tiger Lagman in the City of San Fernando and Ric Zalamea in Angeles City, and relentlessly pursued now by Vicky Vega-Cabigting with Jay Sangil tenaciously clutching at her ankles.

As a matter of course, the politics of vice meanders to different channels.

Bingopolitics capitalizes on the penchant of the barrio folk for their much beloved game of chance. Nothing to lose for the folk here as the cards come free – from the politico, and everything to gain with prizes galore, from electric fans and gas stoves to refrigerators and flat-screen television sets – ever windfalls even to the Pelco-disserviced brown-outed masses.

Raffle-itics is another very popular game now played in the pre-campaign hustings. All attendees are given designated numbers drawn against corresponding prizes, no more than the usual bingo fare.

Far, far superior – fearsomely graver, the moral minority is always wont to insist – to the two above is tambiolitics – after the tambiolo (the usually bottle-shaped rattan contraption) holding the bulitin (small balls numbered 1 to 37) used in drawing the winning combinations in the illegal numbers game.

Tambiolitics is but our euphemism for what suspended-priest-wanting-to-be-governor-again Eddie Panlilio derisively calls – in your face, Atching Baby – jueteng politics.

But how could you, Among? There’s no jueteng, there’s only STL (small town lottery) in Pampanga. Was that me, or did I just hear Senior Supt. R’Win Pagkalinawan’s strong protestation?       

The now-dispensation-seeking Panlilio himself introduced a brand of politics with his entry to the gubernatorial race in 2007 – clerico-politics.

The cry of clerico-fascism in the exclusive Catholic campuses in the ‘60s though did not resonate in the Panlilio administration at the Pampanga Capitol. It rather devolved into putativism vectored on his provincial administrator.

Religion as the people’s opiate going the way of Marx’s grave, the boob tube, the silver and digital screens took over as the addictive hallucinogens of the masses. With an even greater tama, er, high, er, intense effect. 

Whence rose, and now dominates, cinepolitics.

No matter the reel bida turning real villain once voted into office, moviestars make the very first of the people’s choices in any election they enter. Erap in Malacanang. In the Senate, there’s Jinggoy, Agimat, and Leon Guerrero (then as now, and joined by the hood named Robin, aka Sili, whatever that means). In the House, Lani and Lucy, Mikey too. Ate Vi in Batangas. Jorge Estregan Ejercito in Laguna. A host of others in provincial boards and city councils, not the least of whom is the beautiful Marang Morales in Angeles City.

More in the ways than in the who now is butterflyitics. We all learned from the elementary grades of butterflies going after the nectar of fresh flowers. The wilting and the wilted hardly meriting the slightest flitting. So goes the political party-goer too. At a Senate hearing, the once famous Lt. Victor Corpuz had a rather impolite term for this: political prostitution. Pimpolitics then, anyone?

Trending now is tarpaulitics. The stock-in-trade, aye, the only way of the epal – the publicity-obsessed credit-grabber, in street lingo. It’s just something no one can escape from, given the scale and scope with which every politico – current, wannabe, has-been, and never-been – has impacted his image into our consciousness, polluted our thoughts, and cluttered our environment.    

I most certainly though would rather be pestered by epalitics than fall prey to ampatualitics.

Yeah, that brand of politics in Mindanao that votes with bullets rather than ballots, and memorializes mediamen in backhoe-dug and –filled-up, unmarked graves.

And they say it’s only politics?

(Reprinted from Zona Libre, Feb. 6, 2013)