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Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Obenieta: Stuck with the strange
By Myke U. Obenieta
So to Speak
Alien invasion still remains a bogeyman’s bluff, and doomsday looks a long way off yet.
But why did the President’s spokesman sound like he was out to sweep away Bill Pullman’s speech near the end of the bubblegum flick “Independence Day”?
Cuing in the 108th commemoration of the country’s freedom from foreign yoke yesterday, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye waxed theatrical: “We hope this will be an occasion for unity and not division, responsible protest and not muckraking, dignity and not putting down the sacrifice and heroism of our forebears. Our heroes of the revolution and the founders of our nation had a vision of faith and hope and we must sustain it for all time, as we march to the ranks of the first world in the years to come.”
Despite such sound and fury, Bunye’s address might as well be Martian to the ears of earthlings. So much is lost in translation, true.
Reckon how Bunye’s rhetorical flourish fizzled over the embers assiduously blown aflame by the enemies of the state. Consider, for instance, the red alert hoisted all over Central Visayas amidst dire prospects of protest rallies on the heels of two explosions in Metro Manila and Batangas.
Ho-hum, or so went the usual suspects of destabilization as they breathed sulfur once more at the face of the President whom they’ve accused time and again as someone spaced-out from her mandate. It’s about time her feet hit ground again and toe the line of fire, or so they would shout and stomp hard.
Then again, how sure are the President’s foes that the people whose voices they claim to amplify do walk their talk?
As we ordinary citizens valiantly strive to make ends meet—where political disquiet and economic drift have stuck us in the slough—are we up for the wear and tear from taking sides with the forces at loggerheads and on their toes to raise the stakes on our behalf? Could we find stability by sticking our necks out for either the government whose presence in our lives remains too patchy to be significant, or its detractors whose absence of restraint or prudence continues to chafe at our frayed patience?
Truth be told, there’s no need for yet another Social Weather Stations survey to figure out the extent of alienation endured by many of us displaced from all these discordant strains of one-upmanship.
Independence would be truly our own, and doubly worth dancing on our rooftops, if and when we’d be finally free from the posturing and the powder-keg whiff in the wind while we honor the memory of our heroes.
If our dead revolutionaries would resurrect, chances are they’d find themselves in the twilight zone of narrow-minded notions of nationhood and conflicting interests now too estranged from what they boldly died for.
Our mountaineers have hoisted the Philippine tri-color in this planet’s summit. But still many of us—whether in the corridors of power or down the street blooming with placards—remain caught up in their uphill struggle against selfish instinct for survival.
There’s so much to be mirrored in the indifference of our street vendors (in the front-page photo of Sun.Star Cebu yesterday) making a pittance out of the symbol of our race, selling out replicas of the Philippine flag along with cigarettes and rags. What a sigh, after all, when our very own identity goes up in smoke, disposable as dust.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (June 13, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
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