Gung ho and going

Chito Gascon should resign as chairman of the Commission on Human Rights if he wants Congress to restore the proposed budget CHR had been seeking. That was how Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez threw down the gauntlet. Now see if it is any different from the similar gauntlet Antonio Trillanes threw down: Paolo Duterte should show the tattoo on his back. If he does not, that means he is a member of the Chinese mafia.

If you are the objective, openminded type, you will see absolutely no difference. From the perspective of what is being sought to be achieved, both challenges are absurd and full of nonsense. They prove absolutely nothing and can accomplish even far less. All that give them impetus is the prickly desire for mollification by giant egos wounded by nothing more significant and substantial than the intransigence of even bigger egos.

Alvarez is to the House of Representatives what Trillanes is to the Senate. If they are any different at all, it is only that they happen to sit on different sides of the same fence. Other than that mainly circumstantial difference, both men are exactly the same. They exhibit the character and temperament of those who never had it so good as kids.

Amazingly, they both seem to go after similarly obstinate characters. Gascon and Duterte are unblinking in-your-face jaw-thrusters. The only way to tell them apart is if they get into a physical fight. Other than that, they are bound to hold on to their positions. Right or wrong, they will dig in, and the only way to take them out is if you carry them screaming away.

This is the state of affairs of the Philippines today — getting distracted by the antics of a few men who truly do not deserve the attention of the nation. In the meantime, away from the glare of news that sells, the country manages to move forward in the directions that it should, if undeservedly unheralded. The economy continues, by all impartial indications, to outpace its neighbors except for the notable exception of China.

Great strides have been made to advance education, health, labor, social services. Without the distracting overfixation on the big city woes of Metro Manila, the rest of the Philippines, with the notable exception of Marawi, is actually doing quite well. We may have gotten a raw deal from China but we could have been worse off under the circumstances, so it all depends on how you look at the glass of water. The drug situation is, of course, still bad. And given what all of us now know about the situation, it is even worse than expected, which is why the president deserves the benefit of the doubt, if for nothing else, for at least really trying. Many have died. That cannot be ignored. But given what we now know, we are bound to reach the same point whether we like it or not.

Given such inevitability, I would rather face the music with the kind of president we have now at the helm than any with similar pretensions. In fact I shudder to think of a Philippines skewered by drugs with a Noynoy or a Leni, or even a Mar, at the helm. So if you think things are bad, console yourself with the fact that it could have been a lot worse. For despite the drugs, and the Alvarezes and Trillaneses of the world thrown in, good ol 'Pinas is still gung ho and going.