Under a new President—a comic turn

ILLUSTRATION BY STEPH BRAVO

JUST a few days more and we will know our next President, one of the five candidates who slugged it out on the campaign trail—Digong, Grace, Mar, Jojo and Miriam.

It has been a very serious campaign with a lot of mudslinging. Even the political opinions in media—especially in the wake of Digong’s offensive jokes and comments—were dead serious. If words could kill, some candidates would already be off the list.

Time for fun and laughter! As a people we have relied on Willie Nep and Jon Santos to crack the jokes. There have been too little farce and satire in the media lampooning the candidates. These can impoverish us as a people as we need humor to spice up the boring ordinariness and seriousness of everyday life. Which is why societies then and now—
from the paleolithic to the postmodern age—need the jester, the joker, the comedian.

Before we go out and cast our votes, perhaps, we can crack jokes about the next Malacañang resident. How will each of the five candidates fare as President of the republic? What would be the most interesting constitutive elements of his or her presidency? Allow me to imagine the scenarios.

Miriam

If Miriam wins, the madlang people will be on their knees begging God “not” to be ready yet for her for another six years. Imagine if her running mate Bongbong wins and God gets ready with her within a week or two? Que horror! Imelda will be back in Malacañang with all that was good, true and beautiful of the “golden” years of martial rule, complete with butterfly sleeves and pink parasols! (Martial law victims—aging and “without” support from their grandchildren who voted for Bongbong—will be marching on the streets again!).

But if God decides “not” to be ready for her in six years, a lot of interesting things will arise in the republic. The Ilonggo-accented English will become fashionable! All her security aides will eat death threats for breakfast like their bossing. Every morning and evening broadcast news will give daily health updates of the President before the weather forecast. Talk of cancer will be so ordinary that no one fears the disease anymore.

She will invite FVR and a socialite friend to a state dinner in Malacañang and then introduce him as the man who stole her presidency in 1992!

Before her term ends, she will have a film made of her life story, detailing all the awards she received all these years. Jon Santos will, of course, play her.

Jojo

What if Jojo wins? Outside of his family and inner circles, the criteria for hiring Malacañang employees will be height. Tenured employees whose height is over 5 feet will be fired. This way the President—when he walks in the halls of Malacañang—will stand out, which is but fitting for the person holding the highest post in the land.

There will be changes in lighting design where he goes as darkness is vanquished. (P.S. The author pleads guilty if this remark is racist! Sorry!)

By the end of his term, titles of all state properties—from Bonggao to Basco and Baguio in between—would be claimed by the Binay real estate business. Sige na lang, those properties are not earning anyway! The Binays may turn them into top-earning assets to pay for more cakes. (Someone has to remind them though what happened to Marie Antoinette.)

The senior citizens across the archipelago will have the time of their lives, especially when they celebrate their birthdays. Like seniors in Makati, cakes will be delivered at their doorstep, courtesy of a Binay bakeshop with outlets in all urban centers. This expense will be charged to an account known as Predeparture Bring Happiness, a presidential prerogative.

Jojo will do everything he can to duplicate the Ayala urban center of Makati in all corners of the archipelago so that he can tax the rich to give to the poor. Alas, he will realize Ayala is difficult to replicate outside of Makati since Pinoys continue to seek their fortune in Metro Manila or go abroad.

Caught in the complex role of administering the entire country, he will have no more time for Makati. Businessmen in the premier city of the country will have a reason to rejoice!

Mar

If Mar wins, journalists will be an endangered species as they will collapse under the strain of boredom along with their bored reading public.

Who will appear at the Malacañang press cons to be bombarded with statistics and data only economists understand? Only those given extra honorarium will be enticed to be present. The color yellow will be abandoned pronto after Mar takes over. Whatever is Korina’s favorite color will dominate the color schemes inside the Palace. And her TV program—oh yes, ABS-CBN will gladly welcome her back—will be broadcast from the presidential office or Malacañang’s Heroes Hall.

The good news, however, especially for taga-Davao is the major increase in PhilHealth funds available, if only to spite you-know-who. But bad news for Tacloban and Zamboanga where he got zero vote during the elections. These cities will be ignored by the state machinery in the next six years!

Ayala and even the global city in Taguig will have to be relegated to lower status compared with Cubao where an ultra-modern city will rise! Meanwhile, Mar’s home province—
Capiz—will benefit from a Capizeño President. More tourists will flock there to join the aswang festival. But as money will pour in Cubao, sorry Capiz folks, your infrastructure and basic needs’ facilities will remain Third World.

Grace

And goodness Grac(ious)e! What if FPJ’s daughter becomes President? Side by side with Rizal will be FPJ monuments in every town plaza, especially in the Bangsamoro territories. Her family members, who will remain Americans, will make sure the US bases are well-established at the nearest point of the Philippine archipelago facing China. (They have no plans to jet ski their way there.)

Mother Susan Roces will do an Imelda taking over the management of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Folk Arts, the damaged Film Center, Metropolitan Theater near Manila’s City Hall and all other centers of culture. Coco Martin will be appointed secretary of culture. (No, Kris will be relegated to the margins; she’ll be too busy raising funds for her brothers’ cases in court!)

Grace will be a hit at international gatherings of heads of states as she will stand out as the youngest, cutest, slenderest, coolest chick among mostly aging male prime ministers and presidents!

She’ll be CNN’s, BBC’s, Al-Jazeera’s favorite head of state to cover, as she looks and sounds terrific on TV. However, she will have to be prescribed more medicine to make sure her memory cells are intact. All that memorizing of lines do take a toll after a while!

Side by side with President Hillary Clinton as Grace goes to the United States for a state visit, Americans will be able to welcome two Presidents who are Americans on both sides of the plane.

How will she handle the military machinery with its intense machismo culture? Simple—organize the TV/film’s action heroes from Erap and Bong Revilla (he will be immediately pardoned after Grace takes her oath!) to the Lapids, promote them as generals and lead the army to fight the state’s enemies—from the rebels to the Abu Sayaff!

Following her Ninong Erap, she just might declare an all-out war if she could not get away with her “inclusive strategy to peace negotiations.”

Despite all efforts, she will realize that it is impossible to get the machos—Nur, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters commanders, JoMa and the death squads—to sit at one table!

Digong

And what about Digong? Would he ever change his wardrobe, his facial expressions and his language when he becomes President so he could win over the middle-upper classes, fashionistas, feministas and intelligentsia of this republic?

Well—go to hell, all of you who want to fashion him to their expectations! No way he is going to change; take him or leave him. Malacañang will return to the days of The Guy—President Magsaysay.

Gates will be open to the masa; Mondays for landless peasants and agricultural workers, Tuesdays for lumad, Wednesdays for industrial workers and urban poor, Thursdays for battered women, Fridays for fisherfolk (selling seafood that day!), Saturdays for beggars, street children, vendors, taxi/jeepney drivers and all the proletariat groups.

State dinners at the Palace will no longer take place (as the President of the United States and prime minister of Australia will definitely not come for state visits). Protocol will be damned; those dealing with Palace protocol will be out of work. So also couturiers, flower arrangers, chefs and all those mobilized for elite affairs in the Palace.

To make up for his rape joke, Digong will field women with strong leadership in major government offices where corruption is rampant. The ones now in the Office of the Ombudsman and Bureau of Internal Revenue will keep their jobs. Miriam will return to the Bureau of Immigration. To protect her, Digong will give her all the weapons she needs so she could deal with her death threats.

If Leila doesn’t make it to the Senate and if she is open to reconciliation, she can take the post at the Bureau of Customs. Etta will be head of Ninoy Aquino International Airport and have power over all the airports in the country. For the national defense post, Inday S will be posted there to lord it over the generals who will need to undergo gender sensitivity training.

When Digong jet skis to China, she will back ride with him. Of course, Grace will occupy either the Department of Social Welfare and Development or the Department of Tourism, or return to her post at the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. And the nuns, who have no qualms dealing with Digong, will be the foot soldiers to deal with erring policemen, barangay officials and tanod.

Magnanimous in victory, Digong will offer Jojo and Mar key jobs. A deal will be reached: no cases will be filed against Jojo and he can keep his properties. In exchange, he will take over Edwin Lacierda’s job since he loves the spotlight, anyway. Every day he will read all the positive achievements of the Duterte administration. Eventually, he will believe what he reads. As for Mar, he will be made the National Economic and Development Authority head where his love for statistics will be put to use.

Reconciliation and moving on will be buzz words. Thus, bury Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Host a big party where everyone will embrace one another: FVR and Miriam, Erap and Lim, GMA and Butch/Dinky/Ging, the Ayalas and the taipans, Manny P. and the LGBTs, Bayan and Akbayan, La Salle and Ateneo.

But with Trillanes and BPI, there will be no mercy. “Patay kang bata ka!” (Please reader, do not take this literally for it is used here in a colloquial sense among friends, meaning watch out you devil, you!). Will Trillanes go UG or end up in prison once again?

But will Digong declare martial law? Not in the first six months of his administration, as he will be busy fulfilling his campaign promises. But watch out human rights advocates for it might be a blue Christmas in 2016 (blue as in bruises).

To feed all those put in prison, the state will have to raise more funds. One investment area to consider whose profits can then be used to feed the political prisoners—build more funeral parlors! When Digong goes dictatorial, red graffiti on the walls will scream—DOWN WITH US-DUTERTE REGIME! No basis then for labeling him a communist coddler?

Oh yes, Digong will make sure to sign as a decree—the freedom of information bill (one isn’t sure if there will be a Congress that can pass the bill).

Urban legends

Finally, we will find out the truth to dispel all the lies constituting a few urban legends. Who really ordered the shooting of Ninoy? Is Grace really the love child of FM and Rosemarie? Is there a she-snake lurking in the dressing room of Robinsons stores?

Did a key martial law figure order the shooting of his daughter’s actor-boyfriend? What is really Digong’s sickness? What is the connection between his illness and the alleged billions of hidden wealth? (The author did hear a Balinese shaman’s conjecture as to the cause of his illness—Digong uses far too much Viagra! But are these that expensive?)

I could still go on and on. But then I see dark clouds hovering as the days move to May 9. I fear comic may turn to tragic! May this intuition not come to pass at all for I would still want to laugh after May 9.
(Carlos Gaspar was born and continues to reside in Davao City. He finished Ph.D. in Philippine Studies at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. He teaches Anthropology at Ateneo de Davao University and is a longtime advocate of the rights of the lumad peoples in Mindanao. [This article first appeared in the author’s column in MindaNews, Mindanao’s online paper, with permission from the editor.])