"This is a beginning that could end in a tsunami of rage."
Fist bumpers, citizens and followers of the Dolomite Republic, drive with caution—a bumpy road lies ahead.
I scanned my social media window and out popped photos of community pantries offering meager and assorted goods for those in dire need of food. These community-based initiatives were followed and replicated across Metro Manila, and even beyond, and perhaps in the coming days will be cloned over and over again in other cities, provinces, regions, across our peninsular islands. Citizenship in word and deed.
The next few posts in my timeline are petitions asking the viewer to sign a petition that demands the ouster or resignation of the incumbent president Rodrigo Duterte, who is barely a year away from formally leaving his office. That’s not a good sign when a lame duck president would not even be given a chance to just leave, but instead be rather seen booted, unceremoniously, out of office.
Social media are a weather vane for public opinion, showing where the winds are blowing. Those in power may ignore the rumble that goes undetected or would simply react in knee-jerk fashion by ruthlessly crushing public resentment with steel-clad knuckles. Unfortunately, brutal might has never been effective in blowing things away. It’s similar to a domino block where inertia obeys the latent energy that has accumulated, and those who cannot fix the mess they created will simply collapse under the dead weight of their own failures.
When citizens take the initiative to come to the table and take the offered food — a sure sign that the government is running dismally short of fulfilling its core duties, the basis of its mandate. When public trust is slipping past the lowest level, it’s a warning for those in office to get their act together. Woe to that government, but what is lost can never be regained with the snap of a thumb.
For the Fist-Bump government these warning signs are the portents of dire things to come. It’s similar to the slight tremors reaching the earth’s upper crust, seemingly harmless, while deep down volcanic collapse and chaos have already turned things into final motion. In other words, it’s too late— there is no way back. Damage has been done, there is only the exit route: pack your bags and leave.
Fist-bumpers, the happy days are over. Matatapos din ang masasayang araw.
What has gone wrong? A lot. Below are some of the most visible examples that made the Fist-Bump government a regime of supreme inadequacy.
First, who in his right mind would create a more than 300-million peso Dolomite Sand Beach Retreat when more than 60 percent of the population are cracking their heads on how to get their next decent meal? The Marcoses have tried during their two-decade reign their own build-build-build project. They failed. The Dolomite Beach’s sell-by date is even shorter because even as I write this now, that Dolomite strip has been turned into an absurd version of a Japanese rock garden. Maybe Marie Kondo would approve together with the mental health promoters of Hariruki, but not the sensible taxpayer whose priorities are more urgent than finely crushed dolomite stone.
Second, the climate of death created by a gunned-them-down-obsessed leadership began with a Drug War against the so-called ‘laylayan’ drug addicts. That War was built on cuss words, fear, unregistered guns, clandestine bullets, a lot of gung-ho swagger and pure hate for social pariahs. But nowhere is the deadly brew complemented by real and effective strategies that directly address social, economic and security issues. A government that relies on short-cuts, hired guns, and prejudiced minds will only end up in the cul-de-sac of more social and legal problems they themselves created. It’s like asking the only chair in the room to cut one of its legs.
Third, a sycophant, zombie-like foreign policy. The West Philippine Sea debacle will one day be a rich source and endless inspiration for future diplomats and scholars who will dissect and analyze what was fatally flawed in a government that looks to its bigger neighbors with sheep-eyed sentimentality. Just listen to Duterte when he prostrated himself belly up before the Chinese and uttered the inglorious words: “Just make us a province of China. If China was a lady, I would court and claim her love.” It may be a silly joke, but its core of truth is not lost to conspirators bound by megalomania.
Our ‘300 years in a convent and 50 years in Hollywood’ history already provided clear examples that independence is not a word, but an active verb that requires proof from leaders. Why do we punish ourselves by electing officials who lack vision? Worse, we have one whose vocabulary ends with the letter C, and whose ideological inclinations are more vintage than 1960s wooden clogs and bell-bottom pants.
Fourth, the COVID-19 pandemic has only revealed that the highest officials in our land are tin soldiers. They are cardboard figures whose dimensions are measured by their real estate ambitions, the size of their cars, number of mistresses, and are simply sweating it out to ensure the future of their political dynasties. The pandemic has opened a can of worms. Worst what came out of that tin can are not only creepy critters— the critters even hauled the earth on their way out.
The community pantry/kitchen initiatives are small-scale, micro, a minute jab against a wall of Fist-Bumpers. But it’s a start. A beginning that could end in a tsunami of rage. The ouster-resign Duterte movement may not pull it off in the next few months, but people are fed up with a cardboard leadership and the response to that call will soon be made clear. More importantly, the ouster call is a red flag and that a crucial strand of thread is unraveling somewhere in the bowels of a delusional regime.
Joel Vega is author of “DRIFT,” a poetry collection which won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry. He lives in Arnhem, The Netherlands, where he works as a freelance publications editor.