By: Atty. Marlo T. Cristobal
President Marcos 3rd SONA last July 22 is like statement of events, tidings and images in the tradition of the Book of Revelation of the Bible. But unlike this Book, the SONA brags and blusters details without the awing significations typical of the Revelation’s verses, and like the Book, it sends forth a revelation.
The more objective political commentators and analysts do chorus that Marcos SONA are detached from reality, its data and figures asserted not truly factual or just outrightly plucked out of the air, and the luscious situations it paints are just realm of fantasy. They back up their commentaries with more detailed facts and real figures. Their assertions impel me to imagine that President Marcos could have as well delivered his SONA above the clouds in the heavens where the Bible establish as the abode of the “principalities, … the powers, … the world-rulers of this darkness, … the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places,” since he was blustering matters that are not from the ground, and therefore the earthly people could not connect. These spirits in the heavens could have been utterly pleased as audience for they were not hearing the truth.
To bring home the classic mismatch of his asserted facts before the hall of congress and the reality in the ground, Marcos highlighted in his SONA the government adequate efforts geared at combating floods with its supposed 5500 flood projects, but a couple of hours later Metro Manila and its adjacent areas were bedeviled by rampaging deep flood waters prompting people to comment that they have not experienced such floods before. And aggravating his bruised ego, the raging flood waters dredged up all the garbage in their paths bringing them up to the surface that painted Metro Manila one whole garbage mess ironically several hours after Marcos proudly declared in his SONA that his government had undertaken a clean-up drive to give the people a clean environment. Marcos tried to desperately save his comical speech by explaining that a vessel hit Metro Manila flood control apparatus, hence, the flood and the garbage spectacle of tearjerker. That added more comic for him and his speech.
It is not our agenda here to touch on and repeat the commentators’ detailed observations on Marcos’s speech contents but to draw the signification of his SONA.
President Marcos’ penchant for statements removed from the reality of the ground which he presents formally to the public in a fashion so cavalierly as the truth, speaks volumes of his character.
This apathy to candor spills into his relationships with the members of his political family and others whom, at all costs, he must have held in high esteem for their unflinching loyalty and, in trying times, daring help they bestowed on him. He, instead, paid them back with unimaginable acts of ingratitude, or more appropriately perhaps, acts of treachery, that moral men dare not even think of.
Former Executive Secretary, Atty. Vic Rodriguez, for instance, his longtime friend and legal counsel that stuck to his side in his entire journey to the presidency with his arduous toil and guidance, and former Press Secretary Trixie Cruz-Angeles, who helped him in his campaign for the presidency were unceremoniously removed, after only a brief tenure in office 3 months and less than 4 months, respectively, from their cabinet positions allegedly upon the pressure of some influential personalities around him, leaving his two loyal henchmen twisting in the breeze. His two cabinet secretaries declared they resigned, but they were just being euphemistic of their removal in keeping with their refined breeding.
Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy of the KOJC poured the resources of his congregation into the campaign thrust of Marcos for the presidency, only to be rewarded with a raid and ravage of Marcos’ more than two battalions of special action police forces on his Kingdom religious grounds and his congregation members. And climbing the apex of his cheek, he put a ten million bounty on the head of the poor, betrayed Pastor.
VP Sara, who was then a runaway aspirant for the presidency in the survey of 2022 national elections, gave way, for some stroke of extreme weirdness, to Marcos, the bottomer in the same survey, and campaigned for him and carried him eventually to the presidency. She was definitely instrumental to his winning the presidency. For her heroic act for him, Marcos paid her with his typical Judas’ act. He left her to be humiliated, defamed and thrashed by his close political allies, giving her nothing but apathy. She, too, was left twisting in the breeze, and had no recourse but the decency of resigning from his administration.
VP Sara’s father, FPRD, gifted the Marcos family with something awesomely magnanimous — the burial of the family’s patriarch, Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. in the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig, Metro Manila. While no President or any public officials before him thought of or dared allowing such burial, FPRD, in a display of sheer guts, braving opposing public opinion and the resisting noisy and powerful so-called yellow brigade, and putting his presidency on the line, he bulldozed his principle to pave the way for Marcos, Sr.’s remains buried at a cemetery supposedly dedicated for genuine national heroes only. Marcos, instead of admiring and showing his gratitude to this man of raw guts and conviction who chose to serve his family’s peace of mind and honor, he shamed and challenged this man by disgorging his police special forces of more than two battalions into Davao, the envy and wonder of Asia for its ideal peace and order and cleanliness, an Asian bestowed honor now gone with his policemen overwhelming the city that sows fear and terror. Judas style is apparently a permanent fixture in Marcos’s psyche.
All these demeanors stem from Marcos plain apathy to truth and reality and to burning government issues. That his two previous SONAS exhibit the same genre of cavalierism only confirm a psyche of apathy. Apathy is definitely the result of something else. Perhaps this result may be understood in the light of FPRD’s one-time public statement. Days before the 2022 national elections, he publicly accused candidate Marcos that he is “a weak leader” and “a drug addict.”
Certainly, there is reasonable ground to believe that Marcos’ ubiquitous apathy stems from either his being “a weak leader” or “a drug addict.” Take your pick, your guess is as good as mine!
