Total eclipse of the aaargh!

Netnet Camomot

FOR a while there, Brangelina’s divorce eclipsed the issues on dilemma, bagmen, and the Bilibid drug trade. But then, the House had New Bilibid Prison’s concert star Herbert Colanggo aka Colangco as a witness, and that has given birth to a meme: “Atorni, ang resibo…”

Based on how he behaved in the congressional inquiry on the Bilibid’s drug trade, Colanggo is one person obviously used to calling the shots and, no, we’re not referring to tequila shots.

He has probably become, uh, nice, in the eyes of Pinoys, thanks to his concerts inside the Bilibid, his songs recorded and earning moolah while inside the Bilibid, the resort-like and red-light-district businesses he had inside the Bilibid. Add to that the cases of beer he sold at—gasp!—P10 thousand per case inside the Bilibid. Talk of monkey business! Bilibid or not!

But he’s a convicted criminal whose shots could send anyone to infinity and beyond. Whose wealth could afford to give millions per month to former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima—allegedly, reportedly, supposedly. What boggles the mind and heart of the Pinoy is this: De Lima was the justice secretary during PNoy’s term. Can’t help suspect others were also sharing in the loot, to keep them silent. Well, don’t judge a book by its cover, for it is a cover.

This is the PNoy whose parents, Ninoy and Tita Cory Aquino, are among the country’s heroes. So, where was he when the Bilibid thrived in its business-as-usual ambience? Was he sitting comfortably on one of the thrones in Malacanang, having a make-believe relationship with what his public relations team revealed as his girlfriend, solving the family’s crisis aka Kris.

That’s Kris who’s now with the kapuso TV network after decades of being nurtured by the kapamilya. Yes, while kapuso talents are all jumping to anywhere but there, with the exception of course of “Eat Bulaga,” AlDub, Dingdong Dantes, and Marian Rivera, Kris is doing the opposite—reminds you of De Lima’s media briefing which began with, “hindi ko po alam kung itutuloy ko itong pagharap sa inyo.”

The weeks-old video was reposted on Facebook lately, with a makabagbag-damdamin background muzak, the one used for radio dramas. She continues in that briefing: “Hindi ko po kayang labanan ang pangulo, na unang-una hindi ko nga ho alam kung anong kasalanan ko sa kanya.”

Uh, ah, to our formerly beloved justice secretary, if the Bilibid’s witnesses are telling the truth, your alleged kasalanan is not only against Duterte but against the whole Pinoy population.

By the way, after listening to some of the Bilibid witnesses’ testimonies at the House, the video, complete with muzak, is now funny.

If de Lima has her own public relations machinery, that briefing was the worst PR ploy ever. She looked angry and not kawawa, her words didn’t match the severity of the accusations being hurled against her, a “No comment” would have had a respectable impact than the briefing which proved to be not brief. They should have submitted her story to “Maalaala Mo Kaya.”

We simply can’t fathom how the drug trade morphed into the best trade ever in the Bilibid during PNoy’s term. PNoy’s background has always been nice, neat, clean, religious, pious even. His family’s favorite color is yellow.

“Tie a yellow ribbon ‘round the old oak tree/It’s been three long years/Do you still want me?” Heartily dedicated then to his father Ninoy’s homecoming on Aug. 21, 1983.

Yellow is sunshine. So, why this much darkness now associated with his term?

Well, now that we have reached the point of fathom, it’s time to acknowledge what Adele described as the “elephant in the room.” No, she wasn’t referring to “voluptuous” women whose curves are either in the right or wrong places, depending on the eyes of the beholder.

She was referring to the Brangelina divorce. She said it’s “the end of an era,” to which she dedicated her Madison Square Garden concert in New York last Tuesday.

The Brangelina divorce should make ordinary mortals like us more accepting of all the angst we have to deal with not only in the romance department but in all departments. Aaargh! If the most handsome man and most beautiful woman in the world can’t make their marriage work, anything is possible now. So, De Lima was receiving millions of pesos from the Bilibid’s drug lords? Yeah, must be true! Her political friends also had their share? Yeah, true! Drug money financed her Senate campaign? Yeah!

It’s like living a lie all these years, since Aug. 21, 1983, believing in both Aquino administrations—PNoy and Tita Cory—as the ones that would bring sunshine to this country. Not!

The Marcoses must be laughing now, with the dictator also laughing in his grave. Imelda’s 3,000 pairs of shoes don’t look that bad anymore.

But—and that’s a “but” as huge as the mile-wide butt—politics depends not on the truth but on PR, on how these politicians play the game.

In “A Few Good Men,” Jack Nicholson’s character says, “You can’t handle the truth!” And that’s exactly what happens to couples who are in constant denial that their relationship is not only complicated but also going nowhere. At least, Brangelina is dealing with the truth.

My kind of truth, however, is this quote from cosmologist and novelist Janna Levin: “Maybe truth is just like that. You can see it, but only out of the corner of your eye.”

I didn’t like Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Thus, when he married Angelina Jolie, it was like, Yay! I would never have him—hehe—but at least he was with someone I liked for him. Now that they’re moving forward to a divorce, I can now describe my own love stories with this FB post: “Out of all my body parts I feel like my eyes are in the best shape. I do at least a thousand eye rolls a day.”