|
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Niñal: The making of a trapo
By Lorenzo P. Niñal
Sun.star essay
Always, and in the same messianic tradition that drives men all over the world to conquer and rule forever, somebody in the family will be groomed to carry on the task of leading with an iron grip. Anticipating the twilight of his career, a politician father gathers his children and sizes them up for qualities that make for a strong leader, someone who will keep the family torch burning for the next hundred years.
The father takes his pick. The chosen one, usually the reluctant firstborn but not always, accepts his fate and starts following the footsteps of his father, learning from observation the virtue of tactical generosity and the power of the handshake.
Slowly but with a clear purpose, the son learns the trade. He learns, for example, that to control a people, a leader has to feed them with one hand and choke them with the other. Like his father, the son is morally convinced that this method is necessary, because the people, especially in a small town, are too dumb to be led by any other sophisticated means and too clueless to realize they're being choked at all. He learns that to relax hold of the people will make them feel abandoned. And, my God, no leader wants to abandon his people!
This is the most important learning the son acquires from his political exposure, that an acute sense of manipulation is vital in the noble mission of serving the people. The person who says that the manipulative approach--the sly, the devious, the controlling, the unscrupulous, the calculating--has no place in a post-Edsa society doesn't know what he's talking about. If a leader uses manipulation with the best of intentions, then he's doing admirable service to his constituents.
But manipulation is sometimes less cunning than how it is portrayed here, as the politician's son also learns from his father. Manipulation can take the form of the much simpler optical illusion, which in politics means the fooling of the eye into seeing that everything's okay with the world.
The gullible town folk will always marvel at the sight of a steel bridge construction that never seems to get done, at the made-over municipal hall that shines in the façade but rots from the inside, at the community hospital that smells of fresh paint but reeks of miserable public service. When the town folk returns home to find no food on the table and starts to realize something's terribly wrong, the politician always has the handy feed-and-choke approach at his disposal.
Soon, the father will leave his post to try other preoccupations befitting his age and experience, like farming. Oh, he will definitely agonize over the possibility of life in Congress. Why not, when there's always no other way but up in the political ladder, or if it is the clamor of the people? But no, he has promised to retire and serve the country as an ordinary taxpayer.
The son, in the meantime, still has a lot to know about politics. But at least for now, the most important lessons have been learned and it's getting irresistibly exciting. He knows the rest will all be easy in the field.
(September 4, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
[return to top]
[home]
[network page]
|
LOCAL NEWS
BUSINESS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFESTYLE
FEATURE
SUPERBALITA
WEEKEND
|
