Boiling frog

Netnet Camomot .

SESAME Street’s Bert and Ernie are a gay couple. The show’s former writer, Mark Saltzman, revealed this recently, saying, “That’s what I had in my life, a Bert and Ernie relationship. How could it not permeate? The things that would tick off Arnie would be the things that would tick off Bert.” Arnie refers to Arnold Glassman, Saltzman’s boyfriend that time.

Saltzman later withdrew that great reveal, due to pressure from “Sesame Street” bigwigs perhaps?

Anyway, will SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star come out next? Hmmm. Abangan.

After the interesting news on children’s favorite characters, let’s shift to adult stuff. Coca-Cola is planning to use cannabidiol (CBD) for a new product. A Bloomberg piece says CBD is “the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that treats pain but doesn’t get you high.” So, it’s a wellness drink then.

The same Bloomberg piece says that soda sales have decreased, and Coca-Cola is looking for ways to gain back its formerly loyal customers. The focus on wellness has indeed increased people’s awareness about their health, with water as probably the only drink left for the weary dieter.

For those who want the high in addition to the pain treatment, well, good luck na lang if you’re here in Pinas where marijuana is as illegal as shabu.

But who has the time for news on gay couples and wellness? Not me, said Sen. Sonny Trillanes.

Oh my gosh.

If you watched the Facebook Live coverage of his arrest on Tuesday, you would say the same words, too: Oh my gosh.

There’s this story about a boiling frog. According to the ever reliable—hehe—Wikipedia, it goes this way: “The boiling frog is a fable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.”

On Tuesday, right before the arrest warrant was served to Trillanes, he said, “Democracy is dead.”

Presidential Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson then posted on Facebook: “Dahil hindi pabor sa inyo, talo na agad ang demokrasya? Excuse me po, hindi po kayo ang demokrasya.”

I was teary-eyed upon seeing the police van and the cops that would take Trillanes to Makati for his mugshots, “magpa-piano” or fingerprinting, etc. Memories of Edsa and the 1986 People Power came to mind. Hay naku, Pinas—never learns, huh?

In case you’re still clueless on this ado on amnesty revocation and what that amnesty was for, CNN Philippines posted these details on Tuesday: “Trillanes, a former naval officer, was involved in the Oakwood mutiny in July 2003, the Marines standoff in February 2006, and the Manila Peninsula incident in 2007—which were all against then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.”

He became a hero for going against the powers that be. In December 2010, even presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, who was then a human rights lawyer, had a blog post titled, “A Christmas Tribute to Trillanes,” where he expressed to “fully appreciate the heroism of Trillanes and his men.”

“Whenever I feel tired of standing up against evil in government and have the occasional urge to retire into the stereotype of an upwardly mobile lawyer, I think of Sonny Trillanes and the many years that he spent behind bars fighting a regime and a system that is rotten and evil to the core.”

The madlang pehpohl were convinced, too, of Arroyo’s, uh, sins based on her “Hello, Garci” phone call, her plunder cases, the $329-million NBN-ZTE deal, the P728-million fertilizer fund scam, misuse of Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration and Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office funds, ad nauseam. Remember her neck brace? But those days are gone. She’s now the House Speaker.

In this age of fake news and pro-Duterte bloggers, the Dutertards simply see Trillanes as a nuisance for his constant rants against President Rody Duterte.

The Yellowtards a.k.a. Dilawan, of course, support any move Trillanes makes, and his fellow yellows senators Kiko Pangilinan, Bam Aquino and Risa Hontiveros even accompanied him to Makati.

The madlang pehpohl used to look up to the yellows as their idols. But once Duterte’s term began on June 30, 2016, the yellows seemingly lost their luster and not even their yellow long gowns, T-shirts, pins and ribbons could bring back the sunflowery aura that used to embrace them. Somehow the madlang pehpohl realized it was all for show.

And here’s Duterte with his down-to-earth p***ng in*, a persona that they could easily relate with. The Dilawan’s goody-goody image became the fake kind, with Duterte’s non-politically correct image emerging as the real one. So, don’t be surprised if majority of the madlang pehpohl will sit back and do nothing as Trillanes faces another challenge in his mutineer life.

History will have another great reveal in the future. Let’s see—pronounced as the Spanish word for milk—if the boiling frog fable will be a perfect example again for gullibility.