1986 ConCom members’ pledge

Stories about a busload of politicians whom a farmer buried, Mocha Uson getting a UST alumni award, and how as a child Digong cussed and got the breakfast he wanted

Did you know that all the 48 members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission agreed (1) not to run for any elective office in the first national and local elections that were to be held under the 1987 Constitution and (2) not to accept any appointment to any government office while ConCom was in session and at least one year after their work was completed?

What prompted it was “delicadeza”: not to benefit from the Constitution they themselves crafted.

Then vice president Salvador Laurel who opened the Concom on June 2, 1986 told the members the pact not to personally benefit from the law they wrote had earned for them “the necessary initial credibility that is essential to the writing of a Constitution.” Lack of credibility could be fatal. This story was told by a Manila-based Cebuano who used to write for a national broadsheet:

A bus carrying a group of politicians on a field trip slid off the road and went down the slope, ramming into a farmer’s barn.

The farmer and his two sons rushed to the site of the wreckage.

Police later came and checked. They saw only the damaged vehicle that plowed into the barn. They asked the farmer: “Where are the passengers? They were all VIPs, politicians.” “My sons and I, we buried them.” “All were dead?” “Some shouted they were alive but you know you can’t believe politicians. Just buried them all.”

Opposite of ‘pro’

No Con-Ass critic has yet picked up the line of a late-night show host who said, “If con is the opposite of pro, then con is the enemy of progress.”

Progress is not always marked with change. It can be doing the same thing but doing it better.

Middle finger and Mocha

When Mocha Uson, asst. secretary at the Presidential Communication Operation Office (PCOO), was awarded as among the outstanding Thomasians in government service by the UST Alumni Association, a number of other alumni and UST’s central student council denounced the choice.

Uson once or twice said on TV “P**ang ina, mo, Leni Robredo.” Internet critics behaved just as grossly: they called the award “kadiri” (gross), writing “here’s the middle finger to you Mocha.”

But the award is only for Mocha to refuse or return. Which one past Thomasian awardee who couldn’t tolerate the award-giving did: he returned his plaque or certificate given years earlier. But could he impose his values on people like Uson?

Getting away with cussing

President Duterte can curse freely now with minimal consequences. Even when he was a child.

This story, most likely apocryphal, says Digong’s mother Soledad, a strict disciplinarian, called Digong and his brother Blue Boy for breakfast. “What do you want for breakfast: cereal or omelet?”

Digong’s sibling said: “I don’t want any f**king cereal or ‘pu**ng ina’ omelet.”

The mother exploded: “You don’t eat anything today. Go to your room. How about you, Rodrigo?”

“I want omelet that Blueboy called ‘pu**ng ina’ but not not the cereal that he called called f***ing. Plus your heavenly sausages.”

Digong got the breakfast he ordered despite the cuss words he threw in.