Glitch

Netnet Camomot

IN a message that Marawi City Mayor Majul Gandamra posted on Facebook on Wednesday, he said, “I have never seen greed for power and wealth at the expense of others, as the one that gripped our world for the last few days.”

There are Pinoy billionaires who do help through their companies’ foundations. We’re hoping they can become good examples for other Pinoys to emulate.

Mayor Gandamra’s message, however, didn’t focus on the greed. “As I sit here, waiting for developments, looking intensely at the ruins of my beloved city, and deeply concerned with the situation of my fellow Maranao, I can’t help but weep,” he wrote. “I weep for all the civilians who were mercilessly killed, I weep for the lost homes of my people and I weep for the loss of the true essence of Islam in the people who caused all these destructions to our lives and properties.”

The moment I began reading it, I remembered May 21, 2017, two days before the siege, when I and other Rotarians were in Marawi for the unveiling of the Rotary Club of Metro Ranao’s Rotary marker. After lunch at the provincial capitol, our host, RC Metro Ranao past president Mic Gandamra Taib, toured us around so we could see how peaceful Marawi had become.

Now, why would anyone want to destroy that peace? You see this not only in countries and cities, but even in friendships, with at least that one so-called friend spreading gossip and lies.

Recent photos of Marawi reveal some parts of the city now resemble Aleppo, the city that has been the recipient of the worst of the worst in the Syrian Civil War.

I hope our prayers for the Marawi siege to stop won’t end up as mere wishful thinking. Wikipedia does say that a glitch “is applied to all types of systems, including human organizations and nature.” So, is the Marawi siege a glitch?

But the ever reliable–hmmm–Wikipedia defines a glitch as “a short-lived fault in a system.”

I guess we can’t call the Marawi siege as a glitch since it’s obviously not short-lived.

Neither was the Resorts World Manila attack a glitch–much shorter than the Marawi siege but it wasn’t short-lived at all when finding the lone gunman slowed down to a turtle-ish speed. The gunman did steal P113 million worth of gambling chips which, we learned later, could not be converted easily into cash because he had the “nonnegotiable” aka “dead” chips which high rollers get through fund transfers. Rico J. Puno’s version of “The Way We Were” comes to mind: “Namamasyal pa sa Luneta/Nang walang pera.”

Even if he’s a high roller, if the bank itself has a glitch, that automatically ends his supposed luck with the P113 million.

Wikipedia adds that a glitch is “particularly common in computing and electronics industries, in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games…”

In the movie, “The Matrix,” Neo (Keanu Reeves) discovered a glitch when he saw the same black cat walk by twice. It’s also called déjà vu, which should never happen to you and a black cat in real life outside of the matrix because seeing a black cat is bad luck, and if you see it again, well, prepare for doom.

Wikipedia also says that a glitch “is often used to describe a transient fault that corrects itself, and is therefore difficult to troubleshoot.” I wonder if this is true for the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI). BDO always assures us with its “We find ways.” BPI, on the other hand, may have fixed the glitch, but that’s after depositors panicked upon discovering their hard-earned cash vanished without a trace. It’s “Namamasyal pa sa Luneta/Nang walang pera” again.

Now you know why that Marawi house owner prefers to keep his P52-million cash and P27-million checks inside his own vault.

Conspiracy theories, however, are having a fiesta in these Philippine islands. The BPI glitch happened almost at the same time as the discovery of that multi-million moolah in the Marawi vault, as if to justify that banks in Pinas cannot be trusted, thus, better keep your money right beside you where you can see it 24/7.

Donald Duck’s uncle Scrooge McDuck, literally diving into and swimming in the mountain of gold coins and dollar bills in his Money Bin, comes to mind. But animators later developed McDuck’s character into a generous duck with a good heart. Was that a glitch? Hmmm. Most probably not. Billionaires sharing their wealth have become the norm. Warren Buffett together with Bill and Melinda Gates created the Giving Pledge, encouraging their fellow billionaires to pledge more than 50 percent of their wealth to charity. Buffett himself has pledged more than 99 percent of his fortune to philanthropy.

Greed is no longer politically correct. If only each person in this world will realize that. Should we quote John Lennon’s “Imagine” again? “Imagine there’s no countries/It isn’t hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/And no religion, too/Imagine all the people/Living life in peace…”