Theres The Rub
by Conrado de Quiros
from Philippine Daily Inquirer
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It’s almost enough to make you believe in an invisible hand that guides human affairs. Twice already the
best laid plots of mice and Manny have been thwarted by an unexpected turn of events. Unexpected at least
from his end.
The first was Cory Aquino dying and reviving something everyone thought was dead. Before that, Manny Villar
was the leading presidential candidate, aided in no small way by a culture of apathy that made people settle
for the lesser evil, the mediocre, the pwede na rin. But with Cory dying and Noynoy’s bid being born, the
culture changed suddenly, the Edsa spirit returned with a vengeance, with its hallmarks of idealism and
voluntarism, people now demanding not just the lesser evil but the good. And just as suddenly Villar—as
well indeed as Arroyo and Erap (Joseph Estrada’s nickname), who had loomed large in the landscape—
was swept aside. Condemned now to languish in the shadows, Villar finds himself desperate to catch up
with the new frontrunner, resorting to interpreting a commissioned survey in various ways, not unlike the
devil quoting Scripture to suit his purposes.
The second is the Senate censure of Villar for unethical conduct. He hasn’t been attending the sessions,
preferring instead to plead his case before media. But whether before the one or the other, he has been put
on the defensive at a time when everyone, not least the Aquino camp, expected him to open the year with
guns blazing. He did try to, conjuring images of the Mendiola massacre and reviving the specter of Hacienda
Luisita. Neither has flown off, which has little to do with the Aquino camp putting them down with brilliant
ploys. Or indeed with doing anything to put them down. It has to do simply with Villar himself offering, if not
ample refutation of them, ample diversion from them. It’s his sordid case that has grabbed public attention.
It’s not just SOBs, as Joey Salceda observed of his favorite one, that turn out to be lucky. Decent ones do too.
Or the wind has changed, it’s no longer Arroyo’s enemies who are dying. The religious of course are bound
to say this is not luck at all, somebody up there must be making pakiusap to the Big Boss.
Whatever the outcome of the Senate hearings—and this is not going to go away easily, to go by the
shrillness of the exchanges—this case will hang over Villar’s campaign like an albatross, giving it the aura
of a doomed ship. His own defense little helps to shoo away the accursed aerial apparition, being either
extrinsic (it’s politically motivated) or glib (what he did was perfectly legal, if arguably unethical). Of course it’s
politically motivated, but he didn’t particularly rail against the concept when the Department of Justice filed
murder charges against Panfilo Lacson at the very time the Ampatuans were going to trial. As to his
justifying the C-5 diversion as legal, it doesn’t make things better, it makes it worse.
Villar’s argument is that the diversion has greatly benefited the residents of Las Piñas and environs. Of
course it has also greatly benefited him, the extension traversing his land and increasing its value.
Unfortunately for him, that is not an incidental point, that is the heart of the matter. If the road had been
diverted to other towns, then they would have greatly benefited from it. Far more importantly, that simply
means that anything Villar does to improve his fortunes can always be argued to be legal by being beneficial
to at least some people, thereby raising the prospect of a national policy—a chilling one should he become
president—that says: What is good for Vista Land is good for the country.
That is a variation of “What is good for Standard Oil is good for America,” a concept that has driven the US to
imperialistic wars, at great cost to its citizens, for the good of a few multinationals. On a smaller scale
(though not for us who have to bear the brunt of its ravage), that is a concept that can drive the country nuts,
neither government nor the citizens knowing where Villar ends and the country begins, and vice versa. The
day you start arguing that what is good for you is good for everybody else is the day you should land in a
nuthouse or in jail in lieu of Malacañang. Of course it’s not always easy to see where a nuthouse or jail ends
and Malacañang begins, but that’s another story.
I am glad Satur Ocampo has found his voice, bidding his standard-bearer face the music, however the
music sounds like Faure’s “Requiem.” It can’t help his cause harping on Hacienda Luisita while turning a
blind eye on this, unless the argument is that corruption fells only the rich and not the poor, the landed and
not the landless.
I have always wondered why of all the possible themes or images or identities, Villar had to choose being
“mahirap.” The last time somebody tried it, who was Ramon Mitra, who projected himself so in an ad where
he rode a horse and looked every inch like a cacique, he only shot himself in the foot. Villar repeats the farce,
projecting himself as poor in a campaign that teems with money, reeks of money, regurgitates with money—
of the ill-gotten kind given the way it is spent, which is not unlike that of a sailor hitting port. And whose
standard bearer is named Manny. His foot is the last place he will shoot.
Mahirap is a curious word that translates in English both as “poor” and “hard” or “difficult.” The way things
are, Villar may have just have found the perfect label for himself. Mahirap: mahirap kausapin, or hard to talk
to, refusing to stand before the Senate to explain his conduct; mahirap pagkatiwalaan, or hard to trust, you
never know what kinds of extensions he will justify in the future; mahirap ang kalooban, or depleted in the
inside while endowed on the outside.
Someone like that proposes to lead you, you’re bound to say:
Mahirap na.
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