Bad parent

Cong Corrales .

I WAS going to write about how being a “tambay” before has actually added items to my skills set, marketable skills at that.

Like, I learned how to do fast arithmetic from a tambay who was a seasonal jeepney barker-fare collector. I learned how to do fabrication and ironworks from an unemployed neighbor whose wife bought him a welding machine. If you live in one of the houses in Scions Subdivision, chances are, we made those iron grills on your windows. I learned to hone my skills with the guitar by playing with the tambay almost every night during summer breaks. As author Sidney Sheldon wrote on Stranger in the Mirror: “How can you expect to draw in the champagne crowd if you can’t even win over the beer crowd?”

However, all that I’ve started to write went down the drain when it took back what it said about arresting the tambay late last week. It said in a gathering in Davao City, the alternative seat of government, it never ordered the National Police to arrest the tambay.

Now, it said the police should tell the “unruly” tambay to go home or be arrested. It even challenged its critics to rewind what it supposedly said. Apparently, it is devoid of the concept of “recording.” Of course, the people can and will go back to what it said. “Hulihin mo at ikulong ninyo. Tutal may PAO naman bukas magpa-release, eh di sige,” it said to the police.

Naturally, the approved-without-thinking coercive arm of the state went out and rounded up some 5,000 tambay. I’m reminded of the Gen. Fabian Ver joke of old. Strongman Marcos supposedly told Ver to jump off a building and Ver, without batting an eyelash, asked Marcos which floor to jump off from.

But the police, in this case, got the shorter end of the stick because it now appears that they acted on an order that wasn’t even issued in the first place. It did so, but only after the death of an “unruly” boy who was waiting for his phone credits be loaded without his shirt on.

I say there are far more malevolent people wearing barong and suits than people without shirts on their backs.

Lawyer Florin Hilbay is correct when he pointed out that the order to arrest the tambay (an order it said it never gave), empowers the police to arrest arbitrarily. Given the “sterling” human rights reputation of the police of this administration, the order is prone to harassment and extortion. The order will encourage profiling and violates the citizens’ rights to liberty, association, and free movement.

But wait. As I’ve written above, it has taken back what it said about arresting the tambay, it doubled down by saying that it can arrest anybody invoking the doctrine called parens patriae (father of the country.)

It even challenged its critics to contest the order it supposedly did not issue to the police before the Supreme Court. Yeah, right. Like we don’t know how the SC would rule after what it did to former Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno?

Going back to that “parens” doctrine it invoked, it only shows how lousy a parent it is to the country. It has favorite offspring. It has offspring that blatantly corrupt its administration yet recycles them by reappointing them to a different department.

Let’s not forget the security contracts its favorite son garnered while in public office; the P60 million its favorite trio have yet to return to the public coffers; the favorite drug cartel it has allegedly been protecting; the loans with prohibitive interest rates it borrowed from its adoptive foreign brother; and more importantly, the thousands of its sons and daughters it killed under the pretext of war against drugs.

I say if it insists on being the parent of this country, then it has committed the biggest filicide in the history of the world. What a bad parent. Pfft.