Flight or bail

Netnet Camomot

ILOILO City Mayor Jed Mabilog has been out-of-country since Aug. 31. First, there was the CityNet conference in Japan. Then, the United Urban Environment Accords Summit in Malaysia. Busy ang life!

And since “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” er, makes Jed a sick boy, he’s now on sick leave from Sept. 11 to 30 for tests on his type 2 diabetes.

Here’s unsolicited advice: the mayor should choose a disease that’s not curable right here in our beloved country.

His wife and children have also left Pinas, inspiring people to suspect he will eventually seek political asylum abroad, no thanks to President Rody Duterte’s insistence that the mayor is involved in the illegal drug trade.

“Flight is a sign of guilt.” That’s what former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said when the National Bureau of Investigation couldn’t find alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles and her bro Reynald Lim in 2013. Same goes for incumbent Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II who also said the “flight” quote when Arthur Lascanas left Pinas earlier this year.

Lascanas who? The retired Davao cop who in a Senate hearing last year denied the existence of the Davao Death Squad, only to recant his testimony earlier this year. Hay naku these Senate inquiries—always in aid of constipation, er, legislation.

De Lima is also detained now for her alleged involvement in illegal drugs, the fourth senator to end up in jail in the last few years, with former Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Bong Revilla, and Jinggoy Estrada also detained in 2014 for plunder due to the pork barrel scam.

De Lima was then the justice secretary who investigated the alleged pork barrel scammers. Gosh. Mabilog, er, bilog nga ang mundo. But at least she stayed to face the charges against her instead of hibernating with Ronnie Dayan in his house in Pangasinan, the house that was reportedly built with her P2-million contribution.

And the mundo is becoming more bilog. Enrile has been out on bail since August 2015, same goes for Estrada who was released only last Saturday. Will Revilla be the next temporarily free man in this triad, er, trio?

Of course, Napoles is now hoping she’ll be granted bail, too. When that happens, de Lima will be left behind—behind bars, that is.

Environment Secretary Gina Lopez sings about the positive side of flight: “I believe I can fly/I believe I can touch the sky/I think about it every night and day/Spread my wings and fly away/I believe I can soar/I see me running through that open door/I believe I can fly.”

The movie, “American Made,” has the negative side of flight, with Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) as an ex-TWA pilot morphing into a drug smuggler, a story that must be familiar to Pinoys by now, after watching the live TV coverage of the Senate inquiry on illegal drugs.

Flight is freedom, although it may not save the allegedly guilty ones from their conscience, that is, if they have any.

But for the Marawi siege’s hostages who managed to escape—rescued?—from their captors, freedom is now most cherished. Fr. Chito Soganub’s fate was in the hands of the Maute group since May 23 when the siege began. He finally escaped, and then was rescued last Saturday night, several hours after Estrada left his detention cell. The fan of conspiracy theories asks, Any connection there?

Meanwhile, here in Cagayan de Oro, military planes and choppers are into a lot of flights as they continue to fly overhead on their way to and from Marawi. Which remind us of another flight—the one that former dictator, er, President Ferdinand Marcos and his family took when they were forcibly exiled to Hawaii in February 1986. Anti-Marcos Pinoys then hoped the exile would be a forevermore. Wishful thinking.

Tomorrow will be the 45th anniversary of Marcos’ martial law. We now have to add his name to that, to distinguish it from the martial law that still hovers overhead here in Mindanao.

The opposition may not be as rabid as they were when Marcos was still president, but last Monday, they launched “Tindig Pilipinas” as an antidote to the extrajudicial killings and most of the other perceived ills of President Duterte and his administration. Oh. It’s not Lipad Pilipinas.

Despite all that “tindig” against him, the president may continue to enjoy high approval ratings—82 percent for the second quarter this year, and that’s after declaring martial law.

In case the non-Duterte fan doubts this survey, it could have been 100 percent if only his loyal fans were asked.

My Facebook news feed reveals who among my FB friends are pro- or anti-Duterte. All I have to do is look at their posts. Some of them are also pro- or anti-Marcos, pro- or anti-Noynoy. But it doesn’t necessarily follow that the anti-Duterte is pro-Noynoy.

This country has been there, done that with all sorts of political colors, even CDO has had its share, from violet to yellow, with the addition of orange and green for a more colorful mural.

Moral of the story: bilog ang mundo. Yup, “the world is a circle without a beginning/And nobody knows where it really ends/Everything depends on where you/Are in the circle that never begins/Nobody knows where the circle ends.”