A rainy Sunday afternoon is perfect if there’s no important appointment to attend to in a place far, far away from the house.
The most recent Sunday afternoon was that kind. For the first time in many months, I was savoring a siesta, which I rarely indulge in since I’d rather read, write, and do some spring cleaning even on Sundays. But my body wanted to sleep and I gave in.
A few hours later, I woke up to the sound of raindrops falling on my head, er, on the roofs of the next-door neighbors’ abodes.
My immediate response was not to continue listening to the sound of rain, though, but to continue reading the book that had been in my to-do list for several weeks now, it should be in the “read” pile already.
But I realized I had fallen asleep without inserting the bookmark in between the last read pages. The bookmark was lying there on the bed, as asleep as I must have been. So, I now had to look for that last read page.
I have this hard habit to break of putting checkmarks on my favorite lines using a pencil, and that’s how I found that page.
Nope, I wasn’t reading Vice President Sara Duterte’s book, “Isang Kaibigan.”
I could have written a book about friendship, too, similar to that of VP Sara’s book which is “about an owl whose nest was destroyed during a storm, and all his fair weather friends ignored his pleas for help, except for the parrot who helped him rebuild” (source: “Philippines VP Sara Duterte’s children’s book sparks controversy over misuse of funds” by Raissa Robles, South China Morning Post).
I gotta feeling the book attracted controversy because of VP Sara’s photo on the last page and its caption: “She is one true friend.”
So, she’s the parrot? But parrots are noisy. The wise politician should prefer being compared to an eagle—the better choice for her since Davao has the Philippine Eagle Center.
VP Sara trying to write is like my trying to score a three-pointer in throwing garbage into a trash bin: the attempt is real, but achieving the goal requires a miracle.
Public relations teams write speeches for politicians and political candidates and the same PR teams train their politically inclined bosses on how to deliver those speeches.
Lucky are the teams whose boss is a genius and an excellent public speaker like former President Ferdinand Marcos. But if he’s not, he needs guidance even on what clothes to wear, including shoes, bags, and accessories, depending on the image that the PR team wants him to project.
It’s easy to see the PR team that’s having its own problems. Once the boss’s image can no longer be described with one word, that means his PR team is already debating on how he should be presented to the madlang pehpohl. Is he yellow or red? Red or pink? Pink or yellow? Yellow or green? Green or violet? Violet or orange? Oh, he’s both violet and orange? The two political parties have merged?
Whew.
If ever I’ll write that book about friendship, I’ll focus on politicians who are friends today, enemies tomorrow, friends the next day, enemies the day after, and so on and so forth. No owls and parrots there. Instead, I’ll use fruits like the balimbing.
