IT’S THAT time of the year again. The onset of glad tidings and joyous anticipation of the Savior’s birthday brings in me the opposite effect: a sense of angst that mires me in the pit of depression.
Issues – political and otherwise – that I eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and snack on in between lose all their gustatory appeal at this time.
Yes, even after all the kilometers of column inches and the hours of primetime spent on the Maguindanao Massacre, there are still a lot more to write about: to grieve for, to denounce, to condemn. The massacre being – in the words of the good Bishop Ambo – “one piece of news that seems to have a longer shelf life…because it hits the reporters really up close, because we know what can happen the moment you and the rest of your colleagues fall silent.”
So I summon Dylan Thomas’ call to my youth: “Go not quietly into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Only to find the fire in my belly extinguished, the bitterness in my heart numbed, the rage in my throat hoarse, the sharpness of my words dulled.
“You can fall into any of the three forms of journalistic silence,” the prelate warned: “the silence of the lambs, the silence of the Judases, and the silence of a volcano preparing to erupt.”
Sadly, my dear bishop, mine is only the silence of a spent shell casing, the powder of reason ignited, the projectile of criticism gone. On or off target, I could not even care.
Prayer – all that is left for me this time to do for my colleagues forever silenced in Maguindanao.
Prayer – and vigil too, the camp of embattled Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio desperately called for, his loss in the recount of 2007 votes hanging over his head like the proverbial Damocles’ sword.
The vigils that have started at the Capitol grounds, organizers say, seek to “gather voters in prayer and peaceful actions so that the voice of reason and truth shall prevail on the Commission on Elections’ Second Division.”
Reason and truth. Of who really won the 2007 gubernatorial contest. Isn’t that the very reason for the recount process?
That makes the Panlilio-pushing group Kapampangan Kontra Recount diametrically opposed to its own ends, a negation of its own raison d’etre.
On an earlier march before the local Comelec office by some 100 – as hand-counted by the Philippine Star’s Ding Cervantes – lonely souls, a pastor said: “This is a conscience march. We want to tell the Comelec that there are Kapampangans who are against the recount.”
Yeah, sure. All of 100 Kapampangans against the recount. All of 224,000 Kapampangans signing the petition to recall Panlilio from office. The shape of things to come in the 2010 polls clearly manifested there.
Be afraid ye Panlilio faithful. Be very afraid.
Depressing thoughts. I grieve the day Panlilio steps down from the Capitol. To paraphrase Richard Nixon: Just think what I’ll be missing, I won’t have Panlilio to kick around anymore.” Really depressing.
And mine has just started, descending to the abysmal depths on New Year’s Eve.
There, year-end after year-end, amid the bang of firecrackers and the spectacle of fireworks, I retreat into my shell, away from rejoicing family and friends, shut out of the world, to weep. Over what? I have yet to know.
I could not wait for New Year’s Day to get me out of the pits. From now till then, let me be in my own kind of lunacy.
Issues – political and otherwise – that I eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and snack on in between lose all their gustatory appeal at this time.
Yes, even after all the kilometers of column inches and the hours of primetime spent on the Maguindanao Massacre, there are still a lot more to write about: to grieve for, to denounce, to condemn. The massacre being – in the words of the good Bishop Ambo – “one piece of news that seems to have a longer shelf life…because it hits the reporters really up close, because we know what can happen the moment you and the rest of your colleagues fall silent.”
So I summon Dylan Thomas’ call to my youth: “Go not quietly into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Only to find the fire in my belly extinguished, the bitterness in my heart numbed, the rage in my throat hoarse, the sharpness of my words dulled.
“You can fall into any of the three forms of journalistic silence,” the prelate warned: “the silence of the lambs, the silence of the Judases, and the silence of a volcano preparing to erupt.”
Sadly, my dear bishop, mine is only the silence of a spent shell casing, the powder of reason ignited, the projectile of criticism gone. On or off target, I could not even care.
Prayer – all that is left for me this time to do for my colleagues forever silenced in Maguindanao.
Prayer – and vigil too, the camp of embattled Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio desperately called for, his loss in the recount of 2007 votes hanging over his head like the proverbial Damocles’ sword.
The vigils that have started at the Capitol grounds, organizers say, seek to “gather voters in prayer and peaceful actions so that the voice of reason and truth shall prevail on the Commission on Elections’ Second Division.”
Reason and truth. Of who really won the 2007 gubernatorial contest. Isn’t that the very reason for the recount process?
That makes the Panlilio-pushing group Kapampangan Kontra Recount diametrically opposed to its own ends, a negation of its own raison d’etre.
On an earlier march before the local Comelec office by some 100 – as hand-counted by the Philippine Star’s Ding Cervantes – lonely souls, a pastor said: “This is a conscience march. We want to tell the Comelec that there are Kapampangans who are against the recount.”
Yeah, sure. All of 100 Kapampangans against the recount. All of 224,000 Kapampangans signing the petition to recall Panlilio from office. The shape of things to come in the 2010 polls clearly manifested there.
Be afraid ye Panlilio faithful. Be very afraid.
Depressing thoughts. I grieve the day Panlilio steps down from the Capitol. To paraphrase Richard Nixon: Just think what I’ll be missing, I won’t have Panlilio to kick around anymore.” Really depressing.
And mine has just started, descending to the abysmal depths on New Year’s Eve.
There, year-end after year-end, amid the bang of firecrackers and the spectacle of fireworks, I retreat into my shell, away from rejoicing family and friends, shut out of the world, to weep. Over what? I have yet to know.
I could not wait for New Year’s Day to get me out of the pits. From now till then, let me be in my own kind of lunacy.
