ALL THE virus-scared and scarred 100 million or so Filipinos are asking for is simple and basic, a birth right and, therefore sacred. It’s not that the government giveth and government taketh away. No such thing in the moral universe as we know it.
Section 15 of Article 11 of the Constitution mandates the state or government to protect and promote—not provide, mind you – the people’s health. It’s clear as day and as compelling. Is that too much to ask?
Well, it is, if you parse the remark, unguarded and, without doubt, uncouth by Presidential spokesman Harry Roque in connection with the Filipinos’ preference for a vaccine. You can’t be choosy, his exact words.
Whence came that cutting, insensitive, bold and brazen voice?
Power can be a heady, head-losing brew. Lord Acton had long ago known this and had warned about it. Power poisons, and more of it addles the brain of the wielder, even the holder of the whip, borrowed because it doesn’t belong to him.
It’s how molds enter the brain, devour it and, according to Machiavelli, can be the source of unedifying comment or unwanted malice.
Isn’t Roque the same guy who called his countrymen in a knee-jerk fashion ‘pasaway’, unabashedly describing them as an embarrassment to the country and putting the Philippines in bad light in the global landscape blighted by the invisible bug? Hasn’t his eyes seen nor his ears heard that the administration he idolizes has been dubbed a pariah in the international community for human rights desecration? The guy really has the nerve and the dermis.
Is it possible, even remotely, that sometime before all these gaffes fell from his slippery lips, he attended a third kind party and that, unbeknownst to him, something mind-altering was sneaked into his cocktail, and the rest is sad history?
That might require a Senate probe or something close because our national survival could hang in the balance.
Unless he thinks he is Aslan, the Lion, in C.S. Lewis “ The Silver Chair”. It’s deep theology in literary fiction. Roque’s unimaginative prose is plain trash when compared, junk and joyless.
In Lewis’ story, Jill wanted to drink from the river nearby. Aslan, the Lion, however, was standing in the way. She asked if Aslan eat people. He said he had eaten men and children. Then, another way is an option, she said. Aslan was blunt: there is no other way. Jill said she would not try to go to the river. Aslan told her the inevitable: she would die of thirst.
Roque nearly said as much. You don’t want Sinovac, then sign a waiver. You would also be in the bottom of the jabbing list. Which means, choose at your own peril.
It turned out, after the two-day Senate hearing on the government’s vaccination plan, Roque was untethered, unmoored, a loose cannon. No less than Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., chair of the Inter-Agency Task Force against Covid 19 assured the elders in the House that there were seven– not one–vaccine brand that are on the list.
Sinovac is not the single silver bullet there isthat’s bruited about dizzily around Pasig River. Notwithstanding the gratuitous paeans of Roque’s principal that Chinese are as bright as their Western counterparts. Lacson had discovered that the Chinese invention was below the threshold efficacy of 50 per cent. Other vaccines available have a much higher efficaciousness of as high as 95 percent — and much cheaper to buy.
And to top it all, it’s not even authorized by Director General Domingo of the Food and Drug Administration. Meaning, it’s an illegal and, can be a dangerous, drug to be injected in humans, pending official stamp that it’s not. Meaning, those already jabbed with it, particularly the praetorian guards and some unsuspecting Cabinet member, are the guinea pigs, to borrow the words of Sen. Ronald dela Rosa. Of course, the president is supposed to be smarter than the “guineas”.
In a virtual repudiation of Roque’s imperious voice, Secretary Vince Dizon assured the senators that if the vaccine panel disapproves Sinovac, it’s a no-go. Galvez said as much: the Sinovac deal can be abandoned anytime as no final deal has been inked yet.
So, common sense, science and Roque’s co-workers convince us that heeding Roque’s inappropriate dicta on vaccine choice is a fool’s errand.
As the virus is reportedly mutating with the emergence of new variants, our own policy makers appear to mutate,too. Filipinos can have a choice, after all. Roque has been curiously silent after the issue ever since the Senate has taken over the debate with the helpof Filipino health and vaccine experts who came out of the woodwork. Enough of the blind leading the blinded.
Maybe Roque’s inappropriate gaffe was a blessing in disguise. Filipinos worth their salt have spoken with gravitas as opposed to Roque’s mere gravy, the Senate is wiser, the choir of the Administration is ready to change its pitch, and Roque is shaping up to be the escape goat.
In the end, it might just be a heroic redemption, however unintended.
