ORAGONX: THE NEW BIKOL REPUBLIK

Last night, my wife had the best sleep in weeks in her life. When we had our usual evening chat, she was so in a hurry to go to sleep she lost in the week-long campaign for the recent barangay election. She lost that one too, i.e. her bid for barangay captain in our village, not because she sleeps a lot but because her opponent won. As simple as that. We do not have excuses. I was helping run her campaign, at least the strategic part, long distance. She is in the Philippines, I am in California. Yet, that is not the reason for her debacle (because it was a very negligible margin that could have been easily gained earlier during the campaign). It is the delicate balancing act called Philippine local politics. Earlier on, some had advised her to resort to the one G of Philippine politics, that is buy votes. We did not buy that because not only we do not have the money, and even if we do, we wouldn’t have done it just the same, for the simple reason that my wife was running on a hope and a belief that our voters have values beyond the pensive Ninoy Aquino, which my moles reported did circulate during the campaign. She believes in respecting the integrity of the voters and their capacity to chose their leaders freely without undue pecuniary influence as a political exercise of their rights. As it turned out, some voters voted under the influence. She thinks she will be in the wrong start by starting with the wrong footing; and she stood pat on that. Some had also advised her to ask the help of politicians. We did not also follow that, knowing not only the non-partisans nature of the barangay election but also the vested interests of politicians. Some said, “ay dugay ka naman bay sa politika.” Yes, in the sense of her running as a candidate. But we know for long the low depths where Philippine politics had sunk in, so we thought of lighting our own candle.

Because she had a good night sleep, we feel she still won and that is reason enough for celebration and thanksgiving she said she will do the following morning. Is she coming back with this kind of valuable voters. Oh, she believes in the ninja rule that defeat one day only gives her another day to come back. Hmm. I thought I heard Schwarzenegger there. But really, it may be Sisyphusian to roll a rock over again a hill which is the seeming hopeless kind of our political culture we have; but we should, on the other hand, have faith each in our selves and in our people that one day, we can go over the hill in triumph against the hopelessness and helplessness in our midst by standing up and doing something about what we believe in. Everything passes, St. Theresa of Avila said. So, even Muhammed Ali did not escape this thing called Alzheimer’s disease.

So, next time you think there is no end to these sad, sad state of affairs in our country. Don’t just wait for time to do its work. Let’s do something about our times, instead. Even if you lose some sleep.