Potentiating Effects

I have begun avoiding Cirilo Bautista now, whereas before I always looked forward to reading his columns.

When from several of his writings I detected the bitterness and moodiness of the man, I concluded that mid-life crises were at work. He considered many things as annoying: The daily traffic gridlock, the humid, sticky weather, the pollution, etc., and wrote about them as being contributory to the collective hardship of our people. All at once, I felt the perceptions I shared with this man, and my own dissatisfactions with life in this archipelago, previously accepted with resignation, now began to simmer.

In one of his paragraphs (this is my own understanding of it), he even toyed with the idea of "retroactive" possibilities: What if (I understood it this way), instead of being born in the Philippines he was born in some first-world country? I've also delved on this question as it applies to my personal circumstances, not so much for the philosophical exercise as in Cirilo's case, as for my genuine desire to try and live my life in an imagined and dreamed of better place. The result of discovering this common denominator with Cirilo has made the question a persistent, gnawing one, all the more made pronounced by daily doses of disheartening news: Floods, corruption, robberies, carjackings, rapes, massacres, murders, and other senseless killings. It is as if being born in a country made up of more than seven thousand islands shaped like a limping old man with a cane, is in itself a curse to live a life of vicissitudes.

Like Cirilo, I also see the flaws in the national psyche. As a people, we forgive and forget, and all too often, very easily. We simply do not persevere and persist enough to let justice and fairness take hold. News of crime and corruption are sensational only for days, or weeks at most. Afterwards, we simply stash them in our collective subconscious. It is only in our country where a previously disgraced and impeached president can plan and stage a threatening, fanfare-filled comeback; where a former police official suspected of "officially-sanctioned" murders can end up as a senator; where mutinous soldiers, election officials who cheat, cabinet members who steal, and businessmen who abscond with investors' money, can run for office and get elected, or otherwise spend what they have stolen to hire the best lawyers to secure for them the same rights which they have denied to multitudes of people.

Imbued now with the man's ability to force otherwise hidden or subdued issues into the limelight, I also notice, among other things, the proliferation of religious quackery in our midst. I do not worry about cults in far-flung villages and unheard of communities that exploit the ignorance of only a handful; what I do detest are the religious conglomerates that cater to the mainstream's need for spiritual security and meaning. This function is only secondary, I believe. They are no more than efficiently-managed businesses, with stocks in the form of souls and promises of salvation. They own high-value assets and are able to procure media time and space. They are mainstream faiths, as well as its fringes. They wear garish "clown" suits as well as priest's frocks. They hobnob with the rich and powerful; they profess to heal and deliver salvation, all of these in exchange for tidy sums called donations. They pray, plead, cajole, curse, and lead ostentatious lifestyles. Seemingly, they have other gods other than The God I know, The One who I try to make central in my life, and Whom I offend for countless times. During my occasions of profligacy, I lead or influence others to sin, but I do not do it mass-scale, I do not know if it is of lesser evil than these false prophets and healers who persuade many by blasphemous activities such as inverting umbrellas to catch financial goodwill from Heaven, or unblinkingly reciting biblical chapters and verses while at the same time cursing and belittling other faiths and persuasions. I leave this to the judgement of My God.

If I want a good week ahead, I skip Cirilo. I read the lesser writers who also write for the same Sunday magazine; those who write about events attended by the rich and powerful, their sons and daughters; by ambassadors, heads of states, captains of business empires, pretenders, social climbers; good-looking and nice-smelling creatures. On the other hand, if I want truths, like a face with no make-up, pockmarked and oily, I read Cirilo. But before I do, I commit to about a week's length of sulking and cynicism. I prepare to retire into a cocoon, to meditate and be over-critical of all things. He succeeds in making me feel a grain of sand in an eye, or the thickness of overpowering midday heat bouncing off a city pavement. I smell the scent of all kinds and mixtures of sweat and improperly laundered clothes on a commuter train packed like a can of sardines; the filth and grime of young and old street wanderers and vagabonds.

And to top it all off, Cirilo delivers the stark realization that life in these beautiful and exploited islands may be just this: A succession of pain, of natural and man-made disasters, murderers, rapists, robbers, opportunists, political turncoats, and a dopey-eyed, stupid-looking mayor who dances to the tune of "Nobody But You" on primetime television while bragging about his change of political alliance. This pathetic state of life (if we can call it that) is punctuated by occasions of "national happiness" (if you may allow me to call it that): The triumph of a boxer; the tv soaps religiously watched by the populace (everyone has his or her favorite); the tv gossip shows which exist solely to intrude into the lives of celebrities, and create and sow intrigue, all the while invoking the public's right to information; the home-grown reality tv shows (venues: a house and an island) which feature scantily-clad men and women (I have no objection to the latter), supposedly in natural human interaction (if knowingly done in front of a camera, hidden or otherwise, I call it acting); the town fiestas happening all over the country (each day in the calendar honors a saint's name, that's why), with its de rigueur parades featuring rambunctious gays and cross-dressers; and of course, the national elections which galvanize us all to take sides, proffer our political views, and kill each other, all in the name of our political candidate and party.

It is fortunate that I have the option of not reading Cirilo whenever I feel like having days devoid of questioning and suspicion. I want Life in its pure, unadulterated form. But images of the dopey-eyed, stupid-looking turncoat mayor strutting stupidly on primetime tv flood my mind, and I just have to see if it ever merited Cirilo's analysis. I am tempted. I succumb. I read.