Still, ‘awa’

I heard one pretty funny thing early this week: The reason Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s surgery failed was that the titanium implants that were grafted into her spine were second-hand. They were sold to St. Luke’s for a fortune by Mike Arroyo.

I myself have been wondering about the location of the surgery to repair a thing gone south. Wasn’t she reported to have had an operation some time ago, one not resulting in a massive success either, not in the back but in front? Hmmm….

But all sorts of rumors have been circulating that have Malacañang confused and the public titillated. One is that Arroyo, or her family, has applied for travel abroad after her doctors apparently recommended treatment there. Another is that she became critical last weekend but was pulled back into the land of the living in the nick of time. And still another is that news of her affliction is grossly exaggerated.

Raul Lambino, her spokesperson, takes exception to the last. It is “un-Christian and merciless,” he said, to suggest that Arroyo was feigning illness to dodge prosecution. He waxes grandiose: “The disinformation campaign now has completely unmasked the character of the witch-hunt being orchestrated by the government with the unleashing of their political operators who are acting like mad dogs or hungry hyenas salivating to devour their prey.”

Well, one thing I do know is that it is un-Christian to tell people you are not running for president and run anyway. One thing I do know is that it is merciless to steal the vote and call it a lapse of judgment. One thing I do know is that you keep crying wolf, if not mad dog or hungry hyena, and you will not be believed when one comes along.

Is it the hardest thing to think that Arroyo will manufacture a disease to dodge prosecution? Is it the hardest thing to think that Arroyo will exaggerate an affliction to solicit sympathy, or at least stay the hand of the executioner, political or existential? Is it the hardest thing to think that Arroyo will lie about what ails her, or indeed whether she is ailing or not, for no other reason than that it is in her nature to do so?

I don’t know that you have to be Christian to commiserate with the afflicted, real or imagined. I don’t know that you have to be Christian to sympathize with the stricken, genuine or fake. By all means let us commiserate with Arroyo in her hour of suffering—it is not just the Christian thing to do, it is the human thing to do. But let us not forget the hour of reckoning too. By all means let us send her Hallmark cards that say, “Get well soon”—it is not just the diplomatic thing to do, it is the decent thing to do. But let us not forget to add, “So you can stand before the judge.”

It is not pagan to suspect that Arroyo will feign illness to dodge prosecution, it is rational. Indeed, it is not heathen to suspect Arroyo will try to squeeze every drop of pathos, or bathos, from her condition if it were true, it is Filipino. It is not merely that we know that she is not the paragon of forthrightness, it is also, and far more so, that we know that she knows that Filipinos are suckers for melodrama. Awa is a powerful sentiment in these parts, a potion that has been known to induce sleep and narcosis, forgetfulness and forgiveness. Indeed, it is a drug that has been known to alter perception. Look at Angelo Reyes and Miguel Zubiri, who have become veritable heroes.

One is tempted to say that Arroyo will not succeed in this simply because she is not a particularly good actress. “I looked at your eyes,” Susan Roces said after Arroyo apologized to the nation, “and I saw no contrition there.” One is tempted to say that Arroyo will not succeed in this simply because unlike Marcos and Erap, who have managed to rehabilitate themselves in the Filipinos’ eyes, the one nearly making it to the Libingan ng mga Bayani and the other nearly making it to Malacañang again, she has no avid following, only a few loyalists afflicted not with loyalty but with avidity.

But I’m not so sure. Stranger things have happened in this country. She can always ride or abet two developments that can help her dodge the hangman’s noose, not entirely metaphorically speaking.

One is the kind of thinking Fidel Ramos unveiled the other day. “Tabako” said the P-Noy government would do well to stop running after the Arroyos because it’s bad for business. It scares off tourists and investors. A batty idea, true, but batty ideas have a way of taking root in this soil. The more conventional versions of Tabako’s huffing and puffing are of course that government should stop hounding the Arroyos in the name of reconciliation, in the name of Christian charity, in the name of a burning need to be more preoccupied with the present than the past.

Two is the immense ability of wrongdoers in this country to divert public attention, and the immense capacity of the public to allow itself to be so diverted, to dubious causes. Look at how the congressmen and the bishops, many of them charged with corruption, are leading the charge against Mideo Cruz and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and getting the public more riled about phalluses than about thievery. Is it the hardest thing to think that Arroyo might slink away amid such smoke and mirrors the way she slunk into Malacañang amid the dark and chirping of the cicadas?

Little wonder the Ultimate Survivor is stacking the odds in her favor by being busy being sick, soliciting the public’s bottomless capacity to feel pity for the down and out, however the down and out richly deserve not just to be down and out but to be up and inside jail. About time we came to our senses. About time we directed the awa to the country. About time we felt pity for ourselves.

Maawa naman tayo sa sarili natin.