THE Spaniards call it “merece.” Negrenses call it “marisi,” a corruption of the Spanish term. Or as the Americans would say, “Serves you right.”
I can understand Romeo Baldevarona, the head of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Negros Occidental applauded the unseating of then House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.
Alvarez was ousted by his fellow congressmen this week just minutes before President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his third State of Nation Address.
I have to admit I find it hard to condone Alvarez’s outrageous remarks. As a human rights advocate for decades, he harassed the CHR by advocating a controversial P1,000 budget. That sounded like a blackmail, instead of a constitutional mandate. “Obey me, or else.”
I totally agree with Baldevarona’s advice that Alvarez should learn from the mistakes he made during his term as speaker of the House such as not having respect to his peers. As that Chinese proverb put it, a fall in the pit, a gain in the wit.
Touché on this for Baldevarona. “He thinks he owns the Congress which I believe is the reason why his own allies turned their backs on him.”
Now the ex-Speaker has this to say. “We cannot undo the past, but we can certainly shape our future. The House has chosen a new Speaker in the person of former president Arroyo. Alang-alang sa bayan (for the country), let us get back to work and move on.”
Sounds like a teen hugot moment whose girlfriend has just broken up with him.
Who can forget Alvarez’s justifying his philandering with quotes that would be remembered long after he exits the political arena. “Eh sino ba ang walang girlfriend? Hindi ko ’yan tinatago.”
Did he finally with his unseating as the third-ranking government official, learn to eat his humble pie? Not so fast. Alvarez is not exactly known for humility.
According to the Urban Dictionary, #Hugot means “Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.”
There are reports (or rumors), that he is bent on forming a faction within the ruling PDP-Laban. The scuttlebutt is that his group, along with that of former House majority leader Rodolfo Fariñas, will leave the ruling super coalition.
Why am I not surprised? I’ll be totally surprised if he follows Dylan Thomas’s poem, “Go gently into that night.”
Instead, expect Alvarez to “rage, rage against that dying of (his) light.
(bqsanc@yahoo.com)