You’ve probably seen that meme of a dog wearing a hat, seated at a table while around him a fierce conflagration rages. He is unperturbed by the flames. The caption goes, “This is fine.”
That seems to be the zeitgeist of the moment as the Filipino people slump into apathetic stupor as more instances of government incompetence and impunity are revealed. One after another in quick succession, they are sucker punches to the gut, and the winded community reels in disbelief and anger.
Punch One: “Eat the bukbok rice.” What? Really? As far as I know Manny Piñol is the first Agriculture secretary who’s ever told fellow Filipinos to eat rice infested with weevils. I know when I was a child there was the occasional bukbok in the bilao—that’s why rice was picked over before being cooked—but that was during the Marcos dictatorship when he didn’t care much either what people ate or whether they had anything to eat (remember the famine in Negros?).
Rice got better in quality after that, and now we can cook rice straight from the sack. But with the weevils and all, we are back to the old days of, yes, the French revolution, when Marie Antoinette lost her exquisite but clueless head for saying of the peasants, “Let them eat cake,” or rather, fine bread (Quils mangent de la brioche).
We are still primarily an agricultural country. We have centuries of expertise in growing rice. We have rice terraces that are a global marvel. But why can’t we feed ourselves?
Punch Two: “Eat the imported galunggong.” What fresh hell is this?! The last time I looked, the Philippines is still surrounded by water on all sides. We are an archipelago. Why do we have to buy fish from China or whoever, fish that could possibly be tainted with formalin and quite likely comes from our own West Philippine Sea? If our fisheries are incapable of ensuring adequate supplies, then government should support and strengthen them.
Our goal should always be food security. We should have more than enough so that we’re exporting rather than importing, particularly when it comes to basic commodities. We should be able by now to feed ourselves.
Punch Three: “Davao has a lot of rape cases because the women there are beautiful.” President Duterte is sexist and misogynist. An attitude such as this stems from toxic masculinity, the belief that women are objects to be used by men. Rapists rape because they are evil assholes; what women look like or wear has nothing to do with it.
Duterte’s language, his so-called “jokes” (that are nowhere near funny, someone please tell him already) only serve to reinforce and normalize the patriarchal culture which has oppressed Filipinas for decades.
Punch Four: “Revoke Trillanes’s amnesty and arrest him!” These are murky waters and frankly I do not see how this has a legal leg to stand on. There is video documentation of the filing of the amnesty application; there was an amnesty certificate issued; the whole matter was laid before the public years ago.
For the Armed Forces of the Philippines to say that the documents are lost point to their incompetence in keeping records. This is very hard to believe. Perhaps the papers were lost on purpose? The President considers Senator Trillanes an enemy because the latter is an outspoken and feisty critic of this administration. This entire ploy is fishy and it stinks. I hope the courts remember their independent nature and rule properly on this matter.
Punch Five: You know what, I’ve run out of space. Columnists only have so much room to maneuver. But you get the gist. One after another, the blows keep landing and we are only rolling with the punches.
But we are not entirely powerless. The people need only to shake off their apathy in order to bring about change, no need to wait for 2022.
As the Twitter account Alt Team AFP said in a recent tweet: “MOVE. YOU ARE NOT A TREE.”
True that. We are not trees, rooted and immovable. We don’t have to be that dog just sitting in flames. We are the people, and we have the power.
Dr. Ortuoste, a writer and researcher, has a PhD in Communication. FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO