Balimbing

Netnet Camomot

PRESIDENT Rody Duterte declared Sept. 21, 2017, the 45th anniversary of Marcos’ martial law, as a “National Day of Protest.” Like as if Pinoys needed a reminder on their right to protest.

There are Pinoys who don’t know their priorities in life. Instead of accomplishing their work’s to-do list for the day, they’re “communicating” with friends instead through Facebook, Viber, Messenger, text messages, phone calls, somehow forgetting that without the work’s salary, they won’t have money to pay for their phone and internet. Remove that work away from them so they’ll have more time for “communicating,” and give the work to people who will appreciate it.

Protesting becomes work when you’re paid to do so. I don’t know if it includes preparing slogans and placards. But if your heart is not in it, the words churning out of your mouth would be empty, sans the passion on what you’re supposed to be fighting for. And then, your photo ends up on the above-the-fold front page of a national broadsheet, giving you 15 minutes of fame and instant celebrity status in the barangay, and there you are now, obligated to maintain your rage for a while, until the next opportunity to earn as a protester comes along, which may or may not be the same group that approached you the first time. If your photo ends up again on the front page, but with a slogan opposite of the first protest, your career as a balimbing has begun.

And your being a balimbing is not a rare phenomenon. Politicians do it all the time, hopping from one political color to another, depending on who rules the country at the moment of their hopping. That’s why you have to appreciate those who remain loyal to their political party no matter what, for their ability to stick to their version of the tried-and-tested. It could be fear that’s keeping them there—i.e., the boss knows too much about their shenanigans—which now requires blind loyalty to the powers that be. Or the sharing of the loot is much more generous in this political party, and blind loyalty is the only way to continue receiving their share.

Head honchos eventually become old and too weak to lead, and the wise ones among them have learned to train their children to take over and ensure the survival of their political color. But the children can never copy-paste their parents’ charisma. They have to cultivate and water their own chutzpah.

Politicians, however, cannot remain neutral, they have to choose sides to prove they do have chutzpah. Here in Cagayan de Oro, for example, they can’t forever be hovering overhead, in between yellow and violet, always undecided on where to go. They can’t enjoy the best of both worlds. They have to be either yellow or violet. They can enjoy only one world.

The desperate will now try to remove power away from the ruling color, so they can easily convince voters once campaign season is here. People whose financial success depends on the political color that happens to be out of power—low batt?—will now ensure it’s recharged so happy days will be there again for them.

On the “National Day of Protest,” I was seated on the Iron Throne—the one at the Department of Science and Technology Region 10’s National Science and Technology Week exhibit at the Limketkai Atrium in CDO. Since I’ve watched only one episode of “Game of Thrones” (GOT), from which that throne was copied, I had no idea how to sit on it. Should I smile? Frown? Roar?

I ended up making pa-cute, on this throne of swords.

Swords have been used in many movies and TV series, from “Kill Bill” and “Wonder Woman” to, well, GOT. Guns allow the warring parties to have some distance between them, but swords need hand-to-hand combat. In real life, terrorists and extremists have also used swords and other bladed weapons to behead their enemies.

It’s a cruel world we live in. Betrayal, frat hazing, extrajudicial killing, the Marawi siege, add natural disasters to that, and it’s a mad hatter tea party. That’s why you have to appreciate people who remain loyal to their political party unless it now demands blind loyalty a la Adolf Hitler.

In the next “National Day of Protest,” if ever there’s one again, let’s aim our protest at the spineless balimbing who’s neither here nor there but ends up here, there, and everywhere.