Friday, January 04, 2008 Malilong: The year 2007 and Sakal, Sakali, Saklolo By Frank Malilong The Other Side
I WANTED to say that 2007 was a turbulent year until I realized that it was not different from the others.
Nothing has changed. The elections that we hold every so often at a huge cost are still the same useless exercise, the mother of all corruption. Indeed, they’re the stagnant pool where the larvae of political dengue are bred. And don’t tell me only the politicians are responsible for the epidemic; we are all carriers.
Thus we have, elections after elections, the same cabal of characters marching to renewed dates with power and the same slew of losers claiming to have been cheated when the correct word would have been out-cheated.
Oftentimes, I wonder if the proposal (that we quickly pronounced as weird) to bid out all elective offices deserves a re-visit.
And there were the ubiquitous congressional investigations. Nothing, it seems, could satisfy a solon’s craving to look into anything and in turn be looked at on television and the Palace was only too willing to provide the excuse. The ZTE broadband deal was scandalous but the Senate’s all too obvious attempt to milk every ounce of publicity from the controversy was no less nauseating.
And finally, there was the Antonio Trillanes caper. You can disagree with a person’s way of expressing himself but you have to salute him for doing what he believes in. There was no doubt as to what Trillanes was trying to do in leading the march to the Manila Pen. He, however, failed to rally popular support for his cause and his adventure ended up as quickly as it started.
I admired Trillanes’ courage in doing what he believed was the right thing to do. But the moment he vehemently denied that he was trying to mount a rebellion, he became just another politician who is accustomed to double-talk. Oh, well. *** I rarely watch Tagalog movies so I did not know about the slur that “Sakal, Sakali, Saklolo” committed against Visayans until I read that it had angered Sen. Nene Pimentel enough to demand that the movie’s producers rectify the wrong by deleting the scenes that portray Visayans as second class citizens.
I wouldn’t have wasted precious space on a scene or scenes in a movie that I would rather drown than watch anyway. But I expected the film director to show a little sensitivity in addressing an issue that could ignite regional passions and make it even more difficult for us to find a common identity.
However, he did not just ignore the demand, he insulted Pimentel and, by extension all, Visayans by saying that the country had more important problems to worry about. What arrogance.
In less enlightened societies, the affront would have resulted in the offender being meted out a death sentence or in movie houses that dare show the picture being burned. I would have suggested a boycott of the movie as just punishment for the movie’s makers but then that would have placed them and us on the same level of buffoonery.
So, let’s just pray instead: for us, that we continue to be blessed with an understanding and forgiving heart; and for them that they grow out of their inferiority complex and that they be cleansed of all envy of and resentment towards us.
If the prayers don’t work out, then perhaps we can try hanging someone by the leg from the Capitol flagpole until he learns to pronounce the word, “tingle.”
