Welcome to your House!

Shortly after this column came out yesterday with the mention of the New Government Center of Bacolod being renamed as the New People’s House, I got this text message from a reader: “After this, people can now bring food and eat their meals at the People’s House, and also bring pillows and blankets to sleep there, after all, it’s our house, not a government center”. Indeed, that is a very good idea, and those arriving from other towns or provinces who have no place to stay, can now be assured of a place of their own to stay. I’m sure they will all be welcomed.

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Yesterday was a sort of “Happy Text Day” for me, too. Earlier, I had sent messages to several relatives telling them that their lola (grandmother) had a stroke and was in the hospital, giving the room number. Within a few minutes, I got a call from somebody who asked if I had sent the message to him, because, he didn’t recognize the number. Since he was speaking in Tagalog, and his voice was not familiar, I asked him if he was calling from Manila.

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“No ma’am,” he said, “I am calling from Saudi, and got worried, because my lola also had a stroke”. What a coincidence! Both of us could not explain how the message got to him, but we ended up laughing, he in relief, and me in amusement, at how technology can sometimes play the funniest tricks. But I wish I had told him that I admired him for being such a concerned grandson. His lola must be very proud of him.

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How perverse people can really be. When he was defending the supposedly indefensible cause of ousted Chief Justice Renato Corona, a lot of people regarded former Justice Serafin Cuevas as a bad man, trying to whitewash someone they believed to be as guilty as sin. Now that he has died, they cannot say enough in praise of this brilliant lawyer. That is why Mark Anthony was truly a master of satire when he recited about Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones”. In the case of Cuevas, only the good will live after him.

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A report from Davao City says that its mayor, Rodrigo Duterte is vehemently protesting against moves pushing him to run for president. Duterte, the report said, is warning those who are posting on facebook and in websites calls for people to support him for president that they will be sorry. He does sound as if he means it, but me, I think of what Shakespeare said about Lady Macbeth: Methinks the lady doth protest too much”.

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Because, of course, Duterte, being an astute politician, could only be using what is known as reverse psychology to find out what Filipinos really think about having someone like him as president. There are people all over who admire the way he threaten criminals, and whose city has shown perpetrators of crimes found dead or salvaged. In an interview recently, Duterte was asked if he was not afraid to be imprisoned if he did what he has been threatening to do about criminals, and his answer was typically Duterte.

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He told the reporter that he would be happy to be in jail because, being already elderly, he would find time to rest, and read up on all the books and reading materials he had no time for while in public service. With his popularity and leadership qualities, I am sure he will not only be a “cabo” or group leader in any jail he is sent to, he would probably lead protests or demands for better prison conditions and annoy wardens and Bureau of Prison officials.

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Meanwhile, another porter at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport has hit the news for returning the money misplaced by an Australian traveler. Why is it that we only hear of janitors and porters at the NAIA displaying traits of honesty and concern for people who lose their possessions? Me, my worst experience with NAIA personnel – not with janitors or porters – concerns those in charge of cargo.

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Two years ago, when our flight from Los Angeles was delayed and we had to stay overnight in Manila, I discovered later that my balikbayan box had been pilfered and seven pieces of signature men’s shirts I had bought at a sale in Las Vegas outlet for my brothers, had been stolen. I am sure they were stolen because shortly after, CCTV cameras in the cargo area had shown staffers opening and stealing from passengers cargoes. More dishonest ones there in that section, obviously.*

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