Method in their madness

If last week’s congressional ruckus were to be an episode in a teleserye, it would have been the show’s most viral, easily getting more than several million views. Social media overflowed with memes about the spectacular power grab that only the likes of former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo could do.

The glorious lady in red with her vintage smirk has flooded social media pages, in memes that alternate from being corny to witty, such as the pun on the changing of “speakers” in the House of Representatives—from a big one with poor quality audio output to a diminutive one that delivers more power. That satirical story includes the pivotal role of the current equally powerful presidential daughter, Mayor Sara Duterte, in taking responsibility for the change in “speakers.”

Another statement gave a hilarious punctuation to all the confusion in Congress that fateful Monday morning: “They killed the wrong (M)ike!” in reference to some people’s apparently deliberate act of turning off of the microphones so nothing could be heard from the podium when Arroyo took over from Alvarez.

What we saw last week was pure madness, the height of all the crazy things that have happened in Philippine politics. And not one of those who made it possible is apologetic about it. Certainly not the obsequious 184 representatives who signed the resolution to oust the “bigger” Speaker from Mindanao.

To recall, after she stepped down as the country’s top honcho, GMA did not lose time cultivating another political trajectory—as the representative of her home district in Pampanga. Several pundits then thought of it as something demeaning, a rather shameless and crazy way of not giving up political power. After all, Arroyo had been a member of a political family for almost all of her life—as the daughter of the former representative of Pampanga (Diosdado Pangan Macapagal) who later became vice president (1957-1961) and then president (1961-1965).

Her father was the ninth president of the Republic of the Philippines, and she served as the 14th president, the second woman to do so after former president Cory Aquino. With the exception of President Ferdinand Marcos, who declared martial law in 1972 and stayed president until he was booted out of Malacañang via the first Edsa People Power Revolution in 1986, GMA held the presidency the longest—nine years (2001-2010).

Why would someone who used to enjoy the perks of holding the highest political position in the land seek the much lower post of representative in Congress, and be merely one among so many? It seemed an act of madness. But it was GMA’s method to worm herself back to power, using her transactional leadership style that invariably attracted to her camp rent-seekers among local and national political leaders.

In Shakespeare’s play, “Hamlet,” the main character, Prince Hamlet of Denmark, was called back home after the king, his father, died. Hamlet found out through a ghost that his father was murdered. To find out the truth, Hamlet pretended to be mad, a ruse his father’s counselor Polonius described thus: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

GMA became president in the 2004 elections under dubious circumstances. Her “Hello, Garci” confession on national television was an open admission of the anomalies that marred that election year.

Expect more madness in the days ahead, when the small but powerful new Speaker embarks on her payback schemes.

And expect more absurd memes to become our sounding board, for lack of a national will to collectively express our rage against all this madness that has brought us to where we are now as a nation.

rcguiam@gmail.com