Normally, a State of the Nation Address is news for an entire week after its delivery. “Analysts” read between the lines. Pundits try to dissect and even tear down the claims of the sitting president. And of course, except in the era of Digong, the lifestyle section oohs and aahs with the fashion sense (or lack of such) of the bejeweled ladies who make an annual show of the political event.
Of course, the sitting president is sui generis. What is there to analyze when he has bared all, in his colorful fashion? Why the need to read between the lines when he has ditched crafted lines into impromptu remarks that shows the real him?
Coming from our nearest neighbor to the north for the Sona, which was followed by our board meeting the day after, I observed that the expected flurry of post-Sona mortems came few and far between, eclipsed by scandals real or imagined, as usual using congressional investigations as stage.
First to come, which one of our MECO directors watched on live TV coverage from his cell phone while having lunch at Clark Freeport’s Binulo (very, very good Kapampangan food!) on Tuesday, was the Imee Marcos-Rudy Fariñas face-off in the House.
Suddenly, a sprightly Juan Ponce Enrile came as a surprise in cameo role. Was he playing the North Star guidon to the surface cooling of tensions that followed? Where revelations sparked little fireworks, confessions turning into placid denouement that ended the hearing because the Ombudsman should now take over, as there was little to aid prospective legislation?
And would the Ombudsman, herself a proud daughter of the North, step up to the plate? Given her reputation as a stickler for the evidence, should the younger daughter of the North, heiress to unbridled power, have reason to fear?
This saga ain’t over. It just moved to a different theater.
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Right after, we had the Customs imbroglio, where a huge shipment of shabu worth more than 6 billion deadly smackeroos came to the limelight. From what was touted as achievement by the BOC to an interesting layer-by-layer striptease of accusations of corruption so vile, or incompetence so patent.
And then you have the interesting side story on a pretty young lady lawyer who called the House Speaker an imbecile. Social media trolls and quick-reactors praised the “gutsy” lawyer for speaking her mind out. While the more savvy and jaded saw through the sidebar as an attempt at cover-up over the larger story, which as Senator Panfilo Lacson on Monday’s Senate hearing succinctly wondered, was how a certifiably “red” lane shipment got shunted off to the “green” lane go and go-quickly get-away.
BOC Commissioner Nick Faeldon has more to explain than just dismissing the picture of him and a certain Richard Tan (or Chen, which is just the difference between the Fukien surname and the Mandarin, but same-same).
The case becomes curiouser and curiouser, with as many characters involved as in Alice in Wonderland.
* * *
Not to be outdone, the police do their own thing, this time in Ozamiz, where a political clan that sprang from bank robbery provenance into the less (or more?) lurid world of political dominance was decimated in the dead of a Sunday dawn.
Whether it was a case of defending themselves against violent resistance towards a search warrant or a rub-out as the remnants of the political clan claim, the public does not seem to mind at all.
Even the usually loquacious Commission on Human Rights has yet to speak up. The political clan, after all, was accepted into the “immaculate” yellow brigade during the previous regime, without vetting, as is usual in the asinine world of Philippine politics.
Will we witness another round of Senate, or House hearings in aid of more political theater?
* * *
One week in Manila and you get to hanker for the “staid” news in Taiwan, where often the headlines speak of the Hon Hai electronic giant wanting to invest billions of dollars in Trump’s America, or residents of a province demanding the closure of an environment-polluting factory.
The same “boring” news you get to read in The Bangkok Post, or in Singapore’s papers. All of which are relegated, as in “Build, Build, Build” in the business pages, where more often than not, the column gossips about big businessmen and their political padrinos make for more interesting news.
Aaaah, the “inside stories.” Interesting times indeed, all within a week.
* * *
Which brings me to a real story: a “big” businessman who is wanted in Taiwan for embezzling billions of dollars flew out and into mainland China, where he allegedly “invested” his purloined wealth.
Years later, he turns up in the Philippines, and is lionized by a government official who was enchanted into la-la land by promised billion-dollar investments. Without proper background check, the government official got business journalists writing about the big-ticket items her agency would soon shepherd into our economy, including a skyscraper in Roxas Boulevard that would rival Taipei’s 101, and an industrial park encompassing all of western Pangasinan’s ten (wow!) municipalities.
Think of “big bucks” turning into a diplomatic row.
* * *
And more interesting times to come, it seems.
In the next few weeks, expect sudden “resignations.” For some, the news would be dismissed as a long time coming.
For others, it would be an eyebrow-raising, “what happened? Bakit?”
Best to keep some reasons within the “silence of the lambs.”