Something wrong about…

Cong Corrales

“The real cynics are those who tell you everything’s going to be alright. It’s not.” -George Carlin, Jamming in New York

WHEW! That was some list —a list of 158 names. Well, technically it’s a list of 157 names because one of the “entries” has been dead for eight years. Still, that list affects 157 families across the country, uhm, maybe double or triple for the Muslims in the list.

Just so I could get it out of the way, please don’t expect to read the list here in my column. I don’t want to be a party to shaming families just because the President named them on live TV.

Not when but if they will be indicted in a court of law then the case information should be the source material of the list and not a presidential announcement.

If Mayor Salic’s “surrender” last week was portent of how things will be for big-name drug personalities then nothing significant will come out of this witchhunt.

I remember my neighbors elbowing one another just to be in a list. There was this list after Typhoon Sendong. Then there was PNoy’s dole-out program, “four piss” or something. Suffice it to say, it’s depressing to see long-time neighbors perfectly capable of gouging another’s eye just so they could be first in the lists.

However, the President’s list now has everyone on their toes tagged — no pun intended, although it’s implied. With hundreds killed under the pretext of war on drugs, those who have been in his list has had their toes tagged at the morgues.

The problem with lists is any dimwit can make one. As we all learned in the later part of Sunday that the President’s list was inaccurate and most probably lacking. Scanning the social media of friends on Sunday, most were ranting why their narco-politicos weren’t listed? I am among those disappointed since some politicians weren’t in it.

Remember the flood of money in May 9? Where do you think that moolah came from? Certainly not from the public coffers since it almost always have a paper trail.

If anything, the list puts to fore my all-time favorite oxymoron.

I must say I wasn’t surprised. Remember the “Badac” lists? We have a dimwit village chairperson. Naturally, he’d list anyone he deems would be detrimental to his campaign come October. The President, however, is not a dimwit. His staff members who made the list probably are.

Manang Rhona, you wanted to know the breadth and depth of the culture of impunity?

It is 157 entries long which activated an insane number of assassins for hire, aired live on national TV, and carried on by the myriad die-hard unthinking fans on- and offline.