Friday, May 16, 2008 Roperos: Here we go again By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
HARDLY had we settled down to take our misery over the tremendously hiked food prices than we are confronted again with renewed public attention on the NBN-ZTE scam.
I think---I really do---that we are a masochistic people, and we enjoy suffering more than we do the comfort of a peaceful home, a satisfied belly, and a prospect of still happier days ahead.
Indeed, I feel that the masochist feature of our contemporary culture also has—and perhaps, necessarily so—a companion: sadism. For how else can our masochist nature be met if it were not for the sadists who enjoy watching people squirm on their beds, thinking of where to scrounge for the next meal in order to appease the loud cries of hunger from the young ones in the family?
Yes, a NBN-ZTE scam witness has suddenly emerged out of nowhere to disturb the republic’s peace and equanimity once again in the midst of a food crisis that could very well ignite the poor Filipinos’ umbrage, and on to violence and rebellion they would go.
No, I am not trying to make people suffer Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s recalcitrance in the management of the affairs of this nation. I am just trying to point out that perhaps the coming up of new revelations is ill-timed.
Of what use would it be to a people who are not only facing the threat of a global food shortage but also the problem of getting the little cash needed to purchase rice or corn?
It is said that of the about a billion people, most of them from Asia, 600 million are in danger of starvation, living as they do only from an income of $1 or less a day.
The emergence of a new witness to the NBN-ZTE case will only generate another media circus that would draw the national leaders’ attention away from the food crisis and into a political rumble. The losers in this sad and disturbing encounter will be the hapless citizenry, victims of a power struggle that is of interest only to our power-hungry politicians.
Well, perhaps, if GMA steps down from her “throne” then the sadists can be appeased, but what about the masochists? Can they be satisfied not having someone giving them horsewhip lashes?
Well, they can always look once again at whoever would take the place of the fallen GMA, and start all over again. Which is, look for ways to get the sadists to inflict pain on our people who, the way they have been behaving, would enjoy suffering more since the new leader will certainly be no better.
