Power is ephemeral

There is one other All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day message that is often overlooked during the celebration aside from those days being a time for remembering our dear departed. It’s from Ecclesiastes 3:20: “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.” A variation to this, which is really the point of this column, is the one made by the painter Nicolas Poussin: “We have nothing that is really our own; we hold everything as a loan.”

That was something that struck me while listening yesterday morning to a news-cum-commentary program emanating from Metro Manila and aired on a nationwide radio network. The anchors were reporting about the latest statement of newly minted presidential spokesperson Harry Roque, who figuratively threatened to throw hollow blocks at the administration’s critics. One of the anchors then commented: “Hoy, six years lang ang term ninyo.”

Actually, the count is a little less than five years. But the point was made. Power, like life, is ephemeral. “All come from dust, and to dust all return.”

There was actually a time when I didn’t realize that. When I was younger and then dictator Ferdinand Marcos was in power, I did think at times that his rule would last forever. I once wrote a Cebuano song at that time about the dictatorship (unfortunately I have forgotten the exact lines) that mentioned Ferdinand Marcos and then defense chief Juan Ponce Enrile and didn’t see how their rule would end.

Then 1986 happened. Marcos was ousted and died in exile in Hawaii. Enrile was instrumental in Marcos’s ouster and held on to power mostly as senator. After three decades, the man has become an after-thought in Philippine politics and in his old age is facing a plunder case. Life and power are indeed ephemeral.

How often have we seen presidencies rise and then wane? How many presidents have we seen walk the corridors of power and then are gone forever? The greatest tragedy is when the powerful end up as pathetic caricatures. Remember Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein, who ended up snarling while being led to the gallows? Or another strongman, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed while hiding in a drainage pipe with some of his men?

In the Philippines, we have seen how presidents become the toast of politicians and after his or her term ends is abandoned and become the subject of litigation. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo swaggered around for nine years but after her term ended she faced a plunder case and walked around with a neck brace under hospital arrest. Joseph Estrada delivered a stirring speech during his inauguration as president; three years later he was arrested and incarcerated also on plunder charges.

When I look at those who are in power now walk with a swagger like they own this country, I remember Poussin’s words. I could already imagine what would happen after all of these shall have passed, or after their power is gone. Marcos, Hussein, Gadaffi and to a certain extent Estrada and Arroyo, and all those who rode with them to power (“mga langaw nga nakatungtong sa bukobuko sa kabaw”)-- they didn’t swagger around forever.

“All go to the same place...”