CREAM RISES – AND VALUES DIP?

IAM delighted to see the list of San Beda University Alumni Association honorees that SBU Alum Association Executive Director Dr. Joffre Alajar furnished me. I see not a single commie there, contrary to what the military would have us believe. Fake news.

Heading the list is new Supreme Court Justice Joey Reyes. I first met him when he was a staffer of Justice Felix V. Makasiar, who would call me occasionally from the SC during the Dark Years and thunder: “’ Ne, you hit us again!” I’d say, “Sir, ‘yan po ang natutunan

ko sa inyo.” Even then, it was evident that my head was not properly and tightly screwed on; I marched to the beat of a different drummer, taking the less- travelled road, as it were.

No. 2 honoree is new SC Justice Ramon Paul L. Hernando, who I understand is 52 and should be in the SC until he is 70. ( In January 1987, I, then 47, was handed a signed SC appointment, which I declined. I had tried to convince Bobby de la Fuente, to join the SC; he declined. I was successful with his compadre, Flor Regaladado, 96.7 percent in the 1954 bar; Bobby, 95.95 percent, grades to stand till the end of time.)

Justice Makasiar would only pick the best and the brightest. His other staffer at the time was Marino de la Cruz, my stude, who retired as an RTC Manila judge.

The other honorees are equally deserving of recognition and reward. To them, I add my felicitations. I was just wondering whether Mayor Jaime Rusillon should also be included. He’s the bossing of Siargao, just rated as No. 1 tourist destination hereabouts by Conde Nast

Traveler , which ranked it as “best island in the world.” There has to be a nexus. I hope Siargao is not as choked with overregulation as Boracay, with reports of visitor limits, electronic bracelets, etc., as if we perceive tourists as meriting disrespect, like fugitives on the run. Many are running in the May 2019 elections, a great Pinoy pastime. From Binibining Palanggana to the presidency, mahihilig, when the bell rings, Teng! Teng! takbuhan na

po sa gitna ng rueda. To the question whether I am running, my stock response is, with my cane on uneven surface, “di na nga po makalakad, tatakbo pa?” Urged to run for the presidency even, I’d retort, “of what country naman kaya?” Better to be asked why I am not running than being asked why.

I hope the winners will agree with Bill Bradley, Princeton and Oxford alum, and New York Knicks star who ran for the US Senate after— not before— retiring from the NBA. A book about him, by Phil McPhee, was entitled A Sense of Where You

Are. He later wrote Life on the Run where he said that winning an election “is not supposed to be a thrill. You have just won the right to serve the people… an honor but not a thrill.”

The candidates should have a sense of where they are, know their place, and remember what they have been elected for— to toil for, and serve, the sovereign people; no show of the arrogance of power and greed. We expect them to “choose the harder right, instead of the easier wrong, and never to be content with a half- truth, when the whole can be won.” As is said, good people should go to the priesthood or the nunnery but the best ones should go to politics, which should not be the oligopoly of rascals.

This week, I was asked by certain candidates to accompany them in filing certificates of nomination and acceptance ( CONAs). There were newsmen and picture- taking and videotaping. Prez Duterte need not worry. We are too busy texting and pix- taking to launch a coup, a cure worse than the disease. I just gently told the local Comelec personnel concerned to take good care of the forms we filed so that these may not join the ranks of the desaparecidos , “pakiusap lang po, huwag naman kami sanang

ma- Trillanes,” haha.

The other day Mayor Abby Binay filed her CONA. The