Heart to Heart

The President is planning a little heart to heart talk with “certain” mayors. I see the whole thing in my mind’s eye — complete with soundtrack (Think ‘Reservoir Dogs’).

The mayor, who by now, has some idea why he’s been summoned to Malacañang, shakes like a leaf as he timidly enters Rody’s lair.

Badass Rody then approaches him – wearing his boots, of course. (Hello. Can you imagine the president in anything but boots in a scene like this?) and throws a stack of stapled papers on the man’s chest and says to him, “O ano, sir? Kamusta? Nangaon ka na? Eto, narco-list. Eto muna kainin mo. Hanapin mo pangalan mo dyan. Tangina, pag nandiyan pangalan mo, may problema ka. Talagang papatayin kita.”

Sarap.

I wish this were made into an event and tickets sold. I bet you MILLIONS of Filipinos would be scrambling for those tickets. And the popcorn sales will just be sky high crazy!

And already I’ve read some reactions to this here on FB. And it’s the usual disente ngaw ngaw of “Graaabeeee so unpresidentiallll…. Parang hindi pangulooooo… grabe.” (From the barong-maong ensemble to his Visayan accented English, the President just doesn’t make the cut with the disente crowd) Cluck cluck cluck of tongues.” And the usual accusations of how the president encourages impunity.

Which makes me laugh. I could scoff at the faces of those who say this.

Encourage impunity?

How is getting a stranglehold of someone who is a traitor to his own country impunity?

And I dunno about you guys but nothing says impunity to me more than a public servant who not only breaks the law for years but knowingly destroys the lives of those he is supposed to serve and protect – while using as protection the mantle of the law.

Nothing says impunity more to me than a mayor who coddles drug lords and protects those who destroy our lives and the lives of our children. Surely you’ve heard of how pushers go scot free because the mayor/barangay captain/konsehal/police officer intervenes on his behalf.

That’s how impunity looks and sounds like to me.

And let’s not forget those other useless bastards we called presidents who not only turned a blind eye and might have even been on the take so that now we need to deal with this burgeoning problem, this multi-headed Hydra, this ticking time bomb that was all set to blow at not just our faces but the beautiful, innocent faces of our children.

(And I am guessing, nothing is more unpresidential than a president who sells his country for 30 pieces of silver or who sniffs indifferently while a horde of public servants sell our country for their own 30 pieces of silver?)

But now, thanks to this President, some time has been bought. I don’t think this bomb has been defused yet. I don’t think we are on safe ground now. So far from it. There’s still so much that needs to get done before we get to slay this multi headed monster.

But we are, at last, getting there.

And it starts with attacking the problem at its very roots — and that would include dealing head on with traitorous public servants.

Not only is this the right thing to say but this is EXACTLY what a great President says to those corrupt mayors — those who have destroyed our country: “Tangina pag nandiyan ang pangalan mo, may problema ka."

At dahil hindi naman ako literal na tao, wala akong problemang tanggapin ang “Talagang papatayin kita.”

I see this for what it is: a stance. One only need look at the staggering number of voluntary surrenderees (close to a million!) – those who wave the white flag while making a beeline to the police station with their tails behind their legs to know that that stance of Badass Rody works.

Magnificently.

Maybe you’ve lived under a rock for ages — or at least in your gated subdivision and maybe all you know is to sit in your air-conditioned car as you go about the metropolis. So let me spell out some things for you.

Life has a dark underbelly and this dark underbelly asks that we be dark ourselves and to be cunning. To practice sleight of hand with those who have dealt us a rotten hand. It won’t do to be the wide-eyed, buttoned up man who insists that rules – of etiquette, of protocol, of civil society etc etc – be followed even when we deal with lowlives.

You don’t talk nice to drug coddlers. They speak a different language. And if you go, “Uy ano ba kayo. Stop na.”, what they hear you say is, “Fuck me over a million more times please.” And this is what they’ve done all these years Badass Rody wasn’t around. Fuck us a million times over.

Clear now?

And the reason I think that smackdown event of Rody and the corrupt mayors would be a smashing sellout is because Filipinos are enraged. We now realize just how much we’ve been lied to and to such a horrible extent. And just how terribly callous and greedy these public servants have been. And just how abused we were.

So yeah. There are a whole lot of us who want front seats to finally see the abusive, arrogant, greedy bastard of a public servant shaking in mortal fear.

And yes, mamser, how wonderful to FINALLY, have a president who is truly enraged at the abuse that we’ve suffered in the hands of these criminals and is doing all he can to make that abuse stop.