De Quiros' Column

There's The Rub : One night in La Salle

Conrado de Quiros dequiros@info.com.ph
Inquirer News Service

GOING to La Salle Greenhills last Friday offered a metaphor of sorts. I took the MRT, figuring it would be the hardest thing in the world to park inside or near the campus. What I didn't figure was that it would be a long walk from the nearest station. When I finally got to the place though, my shirt clinging to my back from sweat-it was a warm night, after intermittent rain in the day; thunder and lightning would break out later in the night-I was glad I commuted.

There was a fair-sized crowd gathered there, people with disparate political beliefs come to affirm a truth. Namely, that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) was not the President of this country. The pro-impeachment representatives were there, the resigned Hyatt 10 were there, the heads of various groups calling for GMA to resign were there. Above all, Susan Roces and Corazon Aquino were there.

My first thought was to wonder if I hadn't studied in the wrong school. La Salle has been far more consistent with its moral principles. Ateneo discovers righteous anger only with tyrants it doesn't like. Maybe being a "Brother" gives a sharper sense of right and wrong than being a "Father." Maybe, I am rooting for the wrong basketball team.

My second thought-which is really the metaphor-was that I might have underestimated the length and arduousness of the walk, but I was finally there. Seeing Susan and Cory sitting side by side, hearing Mass, I had a sense of another long and sweat-inducing walk nearing its end.

If the Church, the holdover businessmen, and an apathetic public still cannot see which is the side of the angels and which of the devils, then they will never see anything. Then this country will have been stricken incurably blind. The images offer stark contrast: Cory and Susan on one side, GMA and Joe de V on the other. Public officials who have gotten richer from the goodwill of their constituents on one side, congressmen and local officials who have gotten poorer from being bought by an unelected president on the other. The power of boundless faith on one side, faith in boundless power on the other.

I told a friend that I thought the gathering at La Salle was the most powerful statement yet issued by those seeking GMA's ouster. The mere fact of The Two Widows standing side by side, arm in arm, said a lot more than a hundred speeches or manifestos combined. This was potent symbolism, as potent as Ramon Magsaysay carrying the lifeless body of Moises Padilla (for the kids who've never heard of Ramon Magsaysay or Moises Padilla, go research), or Ninoy Aquino lying lifeless on the tarmac. These were two widows who lost more than their husbands, these were two widows who lost their innocence by the hand of tyranny. Seeing them together conjured a phrase that had been lost for a time in the haze of public apathy and forgetfulness, "Hindi ka nag-iisa." You are not alone. Except that there you wanted to say, "Hindi kayo nag-iisa."

My friend said, yes, it's the women who are doing everything in this country today. I said, yes, the good and the bad.

I just have a couple of quibbles with the gathering last Friday. The first is that the theme of the gathering being "Bukluran Para Sa Katotohanan," or "Unity for Truth," it could have done with proffering the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. One of those fundamental truths being that many of the people there were also fully to blame for the bane they now wanted to end. It wasn't just that they created the monster that was GMA-it was their support till well past midnight that emboldened her to become what she is. (Feel free to supply your own descriptions.) It was also that some of them actually helped her cheat in the last elections. Not least some of the leaders of the Black and White Movement, who called for that gathering along with the La Salle brothers, who used Namfrel to trend the counting and insisted afterward the elections were fair and clean. I have yet to hear them retract that contention.

I wish the next gathering for truth would have Bill Luz and Dinky Soliman, among others, vowing never to help create another Frankenstein monster and promising to atone for their sins by never counting another vote or serving in government again-quite apart, of course, from returning the ill-gotten Peace Bonds. What they say about GMA applies to them too: No rectification without admission. No contrition without restitution.

The second is that Susan Roces never spoke last Friday. For reasons I cannot fathom. She it was who did the heroic thing by agreeing to forget hurts and be one with the people now, fighting to restore justice, notwithstanding that many of them committed the injustice of helping GMA cheat her husband of his rightful place, which is Malacañang. She it was who had all the moral authority to talk about being aggrieved and tyrannized, who stood to coax the people into saying, "Hindi ka nag-iisa." By all rights, she should have been the one inviting the others to join her cause, not they she.

But I will leave all that aside for the nonce and join in the spirit of prayer. For the nonce, I will believe in the capacity of human beings to change for the better, to pull themselves up to their true height, which at its best is always higher than their physical one, after having fallen so low. Heaven knows nobody's perfect, though some are far more consistently imperfect than others. For the nonce, I will believe in the capacity of people to rise above themselves, and driven by the compelling force of God, history, or truth-however you choose to call it-move to rectify their mistakes. Heaven knows nobody's perfect, but some strive to be more so than others.

Who knows? Maybe God is a woman, too. That should make it three against one.