Netnet Camomot
SO, there was this burial last Friday. Should I go on? Hmmm.
People Power kicked them out of Pinas in February 1986. But then, they were allowed to return, they started to win in the elections, and the son almost became vice president last summer.
If you’re among those against the patriarch’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, better find out first who allowed them to come back to Pinas. It was his approval that made the family’s homecoming possible. Good thing there were no yellow ribbons tied round old oak trees for that otherwise it would have been a déjà vu: Ninoy Aquino’s arrival on Aug. 21, 1983 was welcomed by yellow ribbons tied around trees along the route he was scheduled to take from the airport to his house. But he never saw them.
If the Marcoses were only convinced to enjoy Hawaii for the longest time, then, Pinoys won’t be debating on the patriarch’s burial as a bayani.
Most probably you have friends on both sides: yellows and reds. They have their own interesting comments on the burial, and you should never be too tired to have your own opinion, too.
It has been 30 years since People Power, 33 years since Ninoy’s assassination, 44 years since the proclamation of Martial Law. All these historical details churning in the senior-moment brain can be tiring, make us ask if Pinas can ever move forward from the remnants of that history.
A Pinoy time-travelling from February 1986 to the present would be hopelessly confused once he learns about the former dictator’s burial as a bayani: What the...?
If time travel takes only a second, the scenario he’s facing would be this: one second, the Marcoses flying away in a chopper, and the next, there’s the Facebook Live coverage of the bayani’s burial. Talk of a nightmare for the yellows and noneds.
As expected, the burial has “inspired” rallies and protests. The goal is to transfer the body to anywhere but there, and the rallyists and protesters should be prepared to support their cause for about six years—yup, till the end of President Rody Duterte’s term.
Supporting a cause requires a generous dose of commitment. You’re not allowed to rest. Physically, yes, you may rest, but the minute brain should be working 24/7. To the clueless eye, a series of protests may look spontaneous. The been-there-done-that eye, however, knows there’s an organized team behind it all.
The best description for last Friday’s burial could be sneaky. There was no warning, it was noon, the former first lady and her daughters and daughter-in-law simply appeared at the burial site in their ternos. It was all seen via Facebook Live, of course. Unlike Leila de Lima’s FB Live coverage which is always peppered with battalions of angry emoticons, there was no angry emoticon for the burial, at least during the few seconds that I watched it, proving that Pinoys do respect the late dictator, or the ones watching it had the decency to refrain from clicking the angry emoticon.
The lack of warning was probably meant to surprise non-Marcos fans, to prevent the presence of protesters and rallyists along the way. By the time they were able to gather, the burial was already ongoing or had happened a few seconds ago, and no angry cry of “Marcos Not a Hero” could make his body bounce back to the glass crypt at the Marcos mausoleum in Batac, Ilocos Norte.
There are things that couldn’t be undone, and his burial as a bayani is one of them.
Bayani. What’s in a title, anyway? The issue, of course, is, Jose Rizal is a bayani. Marcos is not. Andres Bonifacio is a bayani. Marcos is not. Ninoy is a bayani. Marcos is not. You get this feeling the criteria are almost as tight as that for a saint.
And there are people who, while alive, consider themselves as heroes, and once another hero shows up in their midst, they rain on his parade, make him look as minute as their brains, thus, ensuring their so-called conquests continue to shine like the supermoon.
At least Marcos has fans, rabid and avid fans. Live heroes, on the other hand, may only have each other as fans.
Whether alive or dead, to insist that one is a hero, despite the evidence provided by history, requires loads of chutzpah. The kind that inspires the observer to exclaim, How dare you! The nerve!
I don’t know if heroism is like beauty, if it’s also in the eye of the beholder. We used to have the utmost respect for Sen. Leila de Lima when she was justice secretary. And look where we are now in that department. All because of what she called as the “frailties of a woman.”
Frail is the last word anyone would use to describe de Lima. She should have borrowed Facebook’s term for what she had: It’s complicated. In other words, s**t happens.
If only drugs were not a part of her story, other women would have said, You go, girl! But there was this query on whether harassment was involved in that story: the alpha female pressuring her male minion to do her, er, to do whatever she wanted to do with him.
Well, there was this story about an alpha female pressuring a male dictator to do whatever she wanted done. That could be the reason behind his fans’ insistence that he’s a hero: he’s the nice guy, she’s not. But they should ask, Why did he allow her to control him?
Their partnership was then called the conjugal dictatorship. It takes two to tango. Even if you look at other stories now, you’ll see it takes two: one is talking, the other listens, even if the one talking is telling lies.
