Sara need not be Digong’s ‘yaya’

Batas Mauricio .

I DON’T know if our readers here and those who are from Davao City will agree on the proposal made by Mayor Sara Duterte on Friday that she will join President Duterte’s foreign trips from now on to act as his “nanny” (or yaya, in Filipino) to make sure he doesn’t kiss any woman again.

If I were to give an unsolicited advice on the matter, I will not be in favor of what Sara wants to happen. First, critics may misinterpret this as an abdication of her duties as mayor, which she must perform 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If she travels with the president frequently, she might face criminal cases after the Dutertes’ stint with power, like “dereliction of duty” or “graft and corruption,” since those trips would have nothing to do with her official duties as Davao City’s chief executive.

Secondly, whatever her father, President Duterte, is doing as the leader of the country and as its chief executive are his own lookout. Digong is an old hand as an official of government, having acquired his own style of governance. If this style of leadership is not acceptable among his critics or political foes, that is their problem.

What is clear here is that the people are one with whatever he is doing. So, let the President do what he fancies doing!

But let me ask our readers here: who are we to choose as our leaders–those who act with refined and formal manners but are in reality protectors and patrons of illegal drugs, plunderers of the country’s billions in government funds, and hidden patrons of jueteng and other forms of gambling in the countryside, or those who are brusque and rude but are truly gentle in spirit and who, despite having been in government for only a short time yet, already scored major accomplishments?

I know that readers know, too, what I am referring to here. We have had men and women leaders in government who looked good in their Barong Tagalog, or in their coat and tie suits and gowns, and who spoke with finesse in good English yet, but who were in reality responsible for throwing to garbage pits multi-million pesos donations intended for calamity victims, perhaps because they didn’t want their countrymen, the lowly and marginalized Filipinos, to receive those donations.

The truth is, on account of these abuses by the so-called “decent and refined officials of government” in times past, they have killed more Filipinos than those who are said to have been killed in the present fierce campaign against illegal drugs of President Duterte. These kinds of pretenders really do make me puke, and don’t deserve our respect and admiration!

These pretentious officials-efined and good looking in their attire, in their behavior and in their speech–can be likened to the Pharisees and religious leaders during the time of Jesus, our God and Savior, who is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus looked with disdain on them, and we can read this on Matthew 23, where He said: “… `Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!

“ `You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness’…”

If these pretenders think the people have not yet found them out on their true despicable character, they are dead wrong. But then, even if our countrymen would be blind to their abuses and would allow them to escape punishment, the pretenders would not be able to free themselves from the judgment that Jesus will surely mete on them, which will see them wallowing in endless pain and agony in the eternal lake of fire and worms that is hell.

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com