Time is on our side

Butch Bagabuyo

“Time and tide wait for no man.” –English Proverb

IN his book “Summoned to lead,” Dr. Leonard Sweet wrote: “Time is life’s fundamental necessity but has become the ultimate luxury.” The prolific writer tells us that what we don’t need is more free time but more time to free us from desires and demands. And timing is as essential in life.

In malls and even in beaches–places for relaxation rather than brainwork–we find people with their laptops, tablets and even smartphones trying to make time for whatever and wherever. Ergo, advancement in technology has actually deprived mankind of more free time despite the proliferation of so many “instants”–noodles, coffee and even instant natural-born citizens–inspite of the clear definition in our Constitution of who are natural-born citizens, and sadly, a foundling is not one of them.

As man wants more to be like little gods, with his money and power, God has made it plain that without Him, neither money, power or both can provide us true and lasting happiness. Our compelling proof of our nothingness without God is the late dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos. With all the manpower, money, guns and bullets handled by ruthless assassins, the late dictator was kicked out strong and hard by the teeming millions of the poor, the deprived and the oppressed.

However, as I’ve repeatedly written in this column, what was restored in the 1986 People Power was not really sovereignty to the many who are poor but merely the modernization of debilitating greed. Hence, the heroics of Mindanao’s trail-blazing intellectuals cum statesmen–former Senate President Nene Pimentel, Bono Adaza and Ben Canoy–succumbed to disunity spawned by their own individual eager-beavers who were in a hurry to dip their dirty finders in the cookie-jar full of earnings from the blood, sweat and tears of the teeming millions of poor Mindanaoans and elsewhere in the archipelago.

Inspite of Mindanaoans’ excruciating pain in carrying the cross, as it were, we remained true and loyal to the Republic for the last 80 long, nay, too long, years.

But enough is enough. Our time has come.

We now have Davao Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte, the only presidential candidate among the four who does not want to become president; in fact, he did not file his certificate of candidacy for the presidency on the deadline imposed by the Comelec. But when our man answered the deafening clamor for a complete change in governance, from hypocrisy to true Philippine democracy, our choice became an overnight sensation all over the archipelago and is now the frontrunner among the “presidentiables.”

Based on the prevailing perceptions of the greatest majority of the voters, only “Super Digong” and nobody else has got what it takes to reinvent pronto governance, thus:

• He has track record to prove that he means what he says unlike the others who were never put to any acid test to wipe out criminality, broad day-light killings by mercenaries of drug-lords and queens even on busy and crowded places due to the culture of impunity spawned by debilitating greed.
• In almost 30 years of running after criminals and sending them to their graves, especially the drug-lords and the smugglers, Mr. Duterte’s name remains untainted by charges of graft and corruption. Further, no one has ever filed in our courts of law any charge of extrajudicial killings even to this day despite intermittent noise from hypocrites.
• It is only in Davao City and nowhere else that the police has the fullest support and respect of the citizenry unlike in Imperial Manila and elsewhere where the police are involved in “hulidap,” “kotong” and other unholy alliances with the drug-lords and the smugglers as well as the “trapos” who are infamous for graft and corruption.
• Duterte is the only presidential candidate today who has a track record of not failing to kill criminals in self-defense (remember that infamous criminal who came flying out of a chopper and crushing his bones to his death) and defense to strangers/relatives as in the case of that kidnapper who died inside a burning car. The other presidential aspirants are only engaged in wishful thinking if not, blah blah.

Duterte pa more.

Tsada, di ba!

• •

“A good listener is not only popular everywhere but after a while he learns something.” – Wilson Mizner

Today, the controversial SQA issued by a division in the Court of Appeals- Mindanao station in favor of dismissed Mayor Oscar S. Moreno expires. (Note: the CA granted the petition for a writ of preliminary injunction on Monday.)

Most Kagay-anons and well-meaning voters elsewhere are keenly interested in knowing, first hand, the rational for the Court’s verdict on the fate of the dismissed transition mayor.

Last week, the clown-cilors of our city filed a motion for intervention with some of their supporters staging mass action for oral arguments. And why not?

As a long-time litigation lawyer, I can only pray the Court of Appeals listened and conducted a hearing on such transcendental matter especially because we all know what happened in the case of dismissed Mayor Binay of Makati City a few months back, a similar case known among lawyers as stare decisis.

Tsada, di ba.