From a distance

After almost a decade of living outside the country in which you grew up, it is very easy to fall completely out of touch with what has been going on. Either that, or you slip into the pattern where recent political events serve merely as touchpoints in amusing cocktail conversations. It is sufficient merely to scan the headlines and
gather just enough of the facts to enable you to go through the motions of a debate that everyone acknowledges to be endless, even pointless. Eventually, you come to that predictably pat conclusion that things are "tough" or "complicated" or "not likely to be resolved in the near future." Living in Singapore, the distance is emotional and psychological and that breadth of space is so much more than the three and a half hours it takes to fly back to Manila.

It makes me wonder what people think...or if they think at all about the recent political problems in the Philippines (as opposed to thinking about those political problems that are not so recent). As a storyteller, I find it fascinating for its plot points - this story about a mouse ( a country mouse, by all accounts) caught in a trap that forces him to let his captors know where the bigger rats are. There are sexcapades in Hong Kong and "personal relations" and bribery at golf clubs, and more...

I am certainly far from the best person to explain what has been going on - for that, turn to The man with the mike under other Planes of Reality - who not only relates the situation more or less but also coolly comments on it, even while his reactive audience toss in their two-peso or two-hundred-peso views for all they're worth. She Rules also has a interesting take, an indictment on what people power has become. And this morning, I received a copy of the homily that was given at yesterday's mass for Lozada. Before reading it, I tried to predict its overall gist, and find I was not far off in my prediction. Once more, there is condemnation and a call to change. But from a distance, it sounds too familiar and unfortunately, rings as hollowly as a derivative pop song especially to someone who came of age during the first people power in 1986. It has made me ponder however. If I were at home now, would I have been at that mass? Very likely. Would I have been at that rally? It is possible. Would I be calling for change? And that is a question, to be sure.

Those in or out of the country who refuse to get drawn in, those who throw up their hands in exasperation or remain silent because they can propose no strategy or solution for what happens next, I feel give themeselves a convenient excuse. They say, it's a mess. What's the alternative? Who will take over? Corruption, especially excessive corruption, may make you feel outrage, but how can throwing out the regime be the plan, if the system itself is corrupt? How do we know that this won't happen again? And how are you sure that these tides of change the people are calling for won't be surfed upon or used and subverted by similarly corrupt elements?

All valid, to be sure, but these arguments ought not blind people from seeing the truth and condemning the wrong. It is very wrong. At the very least, shouldn't we be able to do that...condemn the wrong and uphold the truth?

Not to do so seems to me, to be just the same as saying, "It's complicated..." and letting those words trail off in silence. Some of us will refrain from taking a stance and leave it at that because we are fortunate enough to be in a position to do so, and from a distance to boot.