In Hans Christian Andersen’s classic folktale, the emperor was fooled into paying a fortune for what was said to be the most exquisite, most priceless, and most beautiful clothes ever made.
Of course, it was a con job like no other, nothing short of grand larceny. The clothes didn’t exist. But the emperor and his subjects fell for it and played to the illusion that they could actually see and touch the thing after being told that, aside from its unworldly beauty, the emperor’s new clothes had mystical powers such that only wise and noble men could see it.
At first, they were happy to live their lies, until somebody suggested to have the emperor parade in his new clothes all over town to impress the constituents. That’s when everything came crashing down. A child heckler put the emperor in his rightful place by making him realize what a fool he had been, parading in public butt-naked.
“The Emperor’s New Clothes” has been told for ages, but the moral of the story continues to be overlooked — because of the irresistible temptations of vanity among those who lead, and because of the blindness of idolatry among those who follow.
We have, for instance, been fooled by the nonexistent patriotism of one who promised to plant the flag on a remote desert island seized from us by the enemy and then to happily let himself be shot dead afterwards in exchange for that one single moment of moral victory.
We have been fooled by the nonexistent intelligence of one who bragged to know every solution to the food shortage, traffic, unemployment, and illegal drugs when the truth, it turned out, is that he knew next to nothing about effective leadership, choosing to ignore and leave the problems unsolved and to gradually aggravate while he and his minions got busy with other thingsʍperhaps getting richer?
We have been fooled by the nonexistent love for his people by one who regularly disappears in the face of natural disasters and, during this deadly pandemic, has slept through the crisis and reduced his workload to once a week at the office, while the public clamors for those in government to work double time.
We have been fooled by the nonexistent courage of one who said he was ready to go to war with other countries except his friend China, someone who has made a habit of threatening to sucker-punch dissenters and throw the gauntlet at perceived enemies, only to back out from the fight he started and have someone else do the fighting for him.
We have been fooled by the nonexistent word of honor and delicadeza of one who promised only the best and the brightest in the bureaucracy he leads, but has hired crooks and incompetents for government positions with unlimited access to public funds, bleeding the likes of PhilHealth dry and throwing away hundreds of millions of the people’s money on a dolomite sand beach, with not one single crook being thrown into jail.
We have been fooled, and fools we shall always be unless we say enough is enough and admit that what we thought was brilliance in a leader was nothing more than “bravado,” in his own words; that what we thought was patriotism was mere sweet talk; and what we thought was courage was reverse psychology from a coward.
We just have to come to terms with the fact that the emperor’s brain, like his new clothes, never existed.
* * *
Adel Abillar is a private law practitioner with a small office in Quezon City where, he says, “I alternate between being boss and messenger.”