What’s wrong with us?

The first time I saw it in quite a dramatic way was when Angelo Reyes shot himself in the heart before his mother’s grave. His preference for the heart rather than the head apparently held a symbolism of sorts. He had promised his mother he would never tarnish the name he carried. With his gesture, he begged her forgiveness, without necessarily admitting the things he was being accused of.

Reyes was in fact being accused of corruption. Specifically of soliciting, and receiving, millions in pabaon, or a send-off gift on his retirement. It was a grave charge that took him by surprise and embarrassed him thoroughly at a Senate hearing. This was his way of recovering from it.

Drastic doubtless, but it also drastically altered reality, or the perception of it, at least for a while. Overnight, he became not just an object of sympathy and compassion but one of praise and admiration. Overnight, he was seen to have hewed to conduct befitting an officer and a gentleman. Overnight, by the manner of his death, if not that of his life, he became one of the most honorable persons on earth.

By sheer contrast, the persons who had caused him to resign from life, chief of them Antonio Trillanes, were depicted as the lowest of the low.

The second time I saw this was just last week when Miguel Zubiri resigned as senator. The baseless accusations were taking their toll on him and his family, he said. His wife couldn’t sleep and his mother, who had had a couple of surgeries, was strung out. He himself worried about the family name being dragged in the mud. So he was resigning, if only to stop all this, without necessarily admitting the things he was being accused of. In fact, he was denying them completely.

Zubiri was in fact being accused of committing electoral fraud. Specifically of cheating Aquilino Pimentel III of his rightful place in the Senate. It was a grave charge and there was evidence aplenty to support it, evidence the previous administration, which had itself ordered the cheating, was naturally blind to. Unfortunately for him, the new administration had grown eyes and could not miss seeing it. The noose was tightening. Resigning was his way of dodging it.

Drastic doubtless, but it also drastically altered reality, or the perception of it, at least for a while. Overnight, he turned from being an object of suspicion and derision to one of praise and admiration. Overnight, his fellows in the Senate commended him for an act that was unprecedented in Congress. Overnight, the manner of his exit, if not the manner of his entrance, got rave reviews from media. Overnight he became a class act.

Thankfully in this case, the persons who had caused him to resign from his post if not from his life, who are the Pimentels, Koko and Nene, are not being vituperated as the lowest of the low. But the four years Koko Pimentel lost—and the same ones Zubiri gained—by the counting of votes in a land, or province, God and the Comelec forgot have been lost from view. The long and arduous struggle of the Pimentels to find justice in a land, or world, that appears to have banished it has been lost from view.

What the hell is wrong with us?

Has the culture of awa so addled our brains we can no longer allow a space for justice in it? Look at how prevalent it is. Look at how malevolent it is.

Just as witnesses were streaming forth to testify to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo stealing the vote in 2004, she suddenly found herself in a hospital undergoing surgery. At least it wasn’t heart surgery (the doctors wouldn’t have found any). Immediately, the senators vowed to take it easy on her until she recovered from whatever surgery she had.

Why? Why on earth would you let up on someone who left this country torn and bleeding and needing surgery in every part of its body, not least its heart, simply because she has an affliction? Or claims so, her real affliction being a monumental capacity to claim what is not true? Reminds you of Imelda claiming a miscarriage shortly before martial law, when the barbs against her and her husband became particularly strident.

One is tempted to say that Arroyo at least, unlike Reyes and Zubiri, will never manage to turn herself from heel to hero. But I will not yield to that temptation. Look at Marcos, the most hated person in this country before Arroyo came along. It might have taken time, but the sight of him before he died, an old man pining for country from lonely exile, deluded into thinking he was fleeing to Paoay rather than Hawaii, has done the trick. The sight of his body after he died, encased in glass and preserved to a mummified state, waiting to be buried among his peers has done the trick. It took time, but now Congress wants him buried in Libingan ng mga Bayani. It took time, but now Congress wants to turn him into a hero.

Look at Erap, whom the impeachment trial turned from reel hero to real-life jerk. The rewriting began the very day he was ousted, as a barge slipped into the Pasig to the glare of media, a barge that drifted slowly in the rain reeking of gloom and doom, taking him and his family from Malacañang to San Juan, from glory to misery. It went on with his imprisonment, which he himself depicted, not unsuccessfully as persecution from those who profited undeservedly from his fall, which the media in turn turned into a circus, depicting a man once used to creature comforts—and what comforts, a veritable harem among them!—reduced to being utterly alone and bereft. Kawawa naman si Erap.

The awa has restored his house completely. If P-Noy hadn’t been there, he would be our president again today.

Same question: What the hell is wrong with us?

Has the culture of awa so addled our brains there’s no room for justice in it?