commentary

Everything is too slow today.

I slowly awoke after a dream of Dr. Chase (from the tv show House, played by Jesse Spencer) giving me a kiss on the cheek. I should be so lucky. I slowly dressed up for work and although I knew that I was running a bit late, no part of me was hurrying. I even took the longer route to work and though I was almost late, I didn’t feel it. Now everything seems so slow. I’ve been waiting for the clock to announce that it is time for class, but the tick of the seconds hand suspends me in a waiting daze.

I think the sands of the hourglass got clogged.

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So a man took a whole busful of kids hostage this morning. He sure knows how to be heard. I mean, wielding an unpinned grenade in a bus full of kids from your own day care center would surely get people’s attention. And parking the friggin bus in front of Manila City Hall, causing hell-induced traffic jams all over the metro in this heat would certainly make sure that every commuter in this city will know your name and will send mambabarangs (witches who use insects to pester their victims) to curse you to eternity. If you haven’t noticed, Mr. Ducat, it is summer in the Philippines. While you and your day care kids are in an airconditioned bus and have the luxury of being sent ice cream by meddling politicians who want in with the media coverage, everyone else is being baked by the noon time sun. I recognize the brilliance of the stunt, but couldn’t you have done it early in the evening? Then while you will cause more of a traffic jam and irk more people, at least they are not feeling like siomai awaiting death in the puto steamer.  

I’m not a complete airhead, I do care for the kids in that bus. If there is anything that I cannot stand, it is seeing children get hurt or worse, being murdered. Give me blood and gore anytime, just don’t do it to children.  No matter how annoying they are, there is still something intrinsically wrong with baiting children and ruining their innocence.

However, there is nothing wrong with bullying them. Nyahaha. (Let up. I am eldest in a brood of four and I am also one of the eldest cousins in our clan. Let me have a little fun.)

But back to the point. Jun Ducat, apparently a personal friend of Sen. Bong Revilla (who was interestingly mentioned as “movie star Sen. Bong Revilla” in an AFP article), booked a bus for a field trip to Tagaytay for the students of his Musmos Foundation. He boarded it with 32 students, two teachers, two of his associates, food and water good for two days, and firearms. Interesting combination. For what? For free education.

I understand his frustration. In this side of the world, all issues are eclipsed by the coming elections. Instead of working, politicians are primping for their reelection, or for the yet-to-be-smeared hopefuls, for their entrance to politics. It is so easy to lose hope and do something drastic. Say, detain kids from your own foundation. Of all the crazy things to do. Let’s see if parents would still enroll their kids into that institution.  Unless they find the educational trip involving firearms and crack police (it is how AFP described the police!), and apparently, drama with mood lighting, beneficial for their kids’ learning.

While hostage-taking and screaming atop Manila monuments will garner attention for today, I think it is not worth it in the long run. Ducat has only established himself as a big bully, or worse, as a kid who throws tantrums whenever he doesn’t get what he wants. This would be a classic case of means not justifying the end. It would hurt his cause more than help it, and he would ruin his name when he could have done so much more.

But even with his seemingly mentally-imbalanced move, I admire him. He has the balls to do what must be done (although I would have asked for less drama), a crazed yet strong move from a man who does not care of what others think, not scared of rocking the mediocre boat. We should be so lucky if he ends up as one of our heroes.

Small people talk about other people; Average people talk about things; while Great people talk about ideas.

-as was written on the beam above the 4th year classroom in highschool.

~ by denice on 28 March, 2007.