When grown-up men like Locsin and Trump have social media meltdowns
Thank you for your editorial “Shell game” (4/23/19) about Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. and his frequent displays of silliness and rash thinking (through casual acts of self-betrayal called tweeting), which both would be wholly unbecoming even if he weren’t chief diplomat.
Locsin used to be admired as an opinion writer (I recognize “Shell game” as the title of one of his articles) and I had thought he would contribute some amount of intelligence as well as fine language to an administration known for its chief’s foul mouth.
The problem may be that, as your editorial said, he has “no clear grasp of what is at stake” in China’s poaching in Scarborough Shoal. There may also be this: that even if it is the highest position he will ever get in his life, he doesn’t have his heart and mind in it—certainly not like he did when he was writing opinion and when he was serving President Cory Aquino.
Something else: What is it about tweeting that reduces septuagenarian men like Donald Trump (formerly admired as a businessman) and Locsin (formerly admired as a columnist) to unthinking little boys? Could they be so well aware of their age that they don’t care what the world thinks as long as they get their instant gratification? Whatever it is, all we get is so much disappointment.
ATIS ALTAMIRANO,
