How the termites help the International Criminal Court

Elson Elizaga

OUR household is under attack by a massive colony of termites. They consumed several volumes of research books and demolished the ceiling of a bathroom. I fumigated their hideouts with neem, but they survived. One humid evening before it rained, the swarm burst inside the living room, circling a bright LED lamp.

I consulted a termite expert who told me something unexpected:  “Do not kill the termites. We need everyone to help destroy the colony.” Then he placed several boxes inside and around the house. The boxes contain slow-acting baits. Termites click Like on these baits, eat them, and share them throughout their matrix. It’s like fake news, but they don’t know it until it’s too late. After about three months, the colony begins to drag. The workers who distribute food throughout the empire fall ill and die. The soldiers, and the male and female termites begin to starve. The Queen Herself gets disoriented, runs out of food, and eventually shrivels and die.

I had seen something like this happen in Facebook. TIME magazine issued a bait. It was clicked millions of times and shared frantically in cyberspace. Eventually, their president Rodrigo Duterte came up as the most influential person of the year. His supporters were overjoyed until they read the accompanying article written by the former president of Colombia, Cesar Gaviria.

While this was happening, Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano filed a case to impeach Duterte. It was sent to the House of Representatives. Alejano accused their president of being responsible for the killings in the drug war and “treason in conferral with China on matters of the maritime domain.” The bait was in the form of sheets of palatable paper, which was, as expected, quickly distributed and lapped up.

It was just another ordinary day until they realized, to their horror, that they had created a precondition for the International Criminal Court to intervene.

(E-mail: e.elizaga@gmail.com)