Baligtad na ang mundo

Now I believe Dona Gloria when she described the country as an “enchanted kingdom”. Truly, baligtad na ang mundo, as the Tagalogs would say.

Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada was arrested because he “perjured” himself in describing Miguelito el Defensor as a liar who tried to convince him to lie about the circumstances of his abduction from the international airport, to prevent him from telling the truth he knew about that sleaze deal called the NBN-ZTE.

A judge of the regional trial court of Manila, the same RTC’s that are the favourite of Don Jose Miguel Arroyo y Tuason, in whose loving care he lodged each of the 43 libel cases accusing almost every independent journalist in these benighted parts, sustained the allegation of Michael Tan Defensor that Jun Lozada perjured, and in the process, caused irreparable damage to the former’s reputation. Defensor wants to defend his “good” name, for the sake of the kids, said he.

That’s all fine and dandy, and well within Defensor’s rights, if only he could honestly say that the regime he serves and the leaders whose orders he religiously follows, are honest.

Prior to his sudden entry into the scene after Lozada was released to the brothers of De La Salle and the nuns, Defensor was last remembered as “Tol”, the senatorial candidate who lost in 2007, principally because people could not banish from their memory his perennial and relished role as gofer of the infamous couple. That plus an advertising campaign that competed with Prospero Pichay’s in its inanity.

But before that, people also remember Defensor as trouble-shooter during the infamous Hello Garci episode of his Dona’s political life, advancing the sonar theory that “it’s her voice, but it was not the president speaking”, after relying on the ultra-sonic hypotheses advanced by one Jonathan Tiongco, now deceased.

Now tell me whose word you would rely upon --- Lozada’s or Defensor’s? Even if you try genetics, you will note that Lozada comes from middle-class entrepreneurial parents schooled in the right values, while everybody who knows something about the mega-deal involving a sprawling golf course turned into a high-end housing venture in Quezon City knows how even Mike’s father is not above prevarication or obfuscation as legal practitioner. Now he is the powerful chair of the justice committee in the House of Pork, from which he serves their Dona fawningly in impeachment complaints. But that’s another story.

What Mike’s children probably should know is that with Jun Lozada’s arrest because of their dad’s complaint, “baligtad na ang mundo”. It ought to be a lesson in values. In the “enchanted kingdom” of their dad’s patroness, good is punished, and evil is rewarded.

Ang tama ay mali, at ang gumagawa ng tama ay parurusahan. Ang mali ay tama, basta’t ikatutuwa ng Donya, at nabibiyayahan ang bumabaluktot. Exalt the evil, condemn the good. That is the new “moral” order, in this reign of Dona Gloria y su esposo, she who is exalted by Catholic bishops of little moral probity, as an “honorary bishop”. (Did you see her picture among red-cloaked princes of the numerous church at the Cebu Cathedral? Didn’t you puke?)

Lozada’s arrest stands in stark contrast to the impunity enjoyed by minions of the current regime, who are not only scot-free, but are laughing all the way to the bank --- Joc-Joc Bolante, who plans to run for congressman of Capiz, Benjamin Abalos, who plans to retrieve Mandaloyon from his own son Ben-hur, Romulo Neri, who now husbands the billions upon billions of workers’ forced security savings, Virgilio Garcillano whose brilliance at electoral magic few can surpass, Lintang Bedol, Jun Paule, Maritess Aytona, Leo San Miguel and many, many others.

How can anyone explain this reversed state of justice to children, Mike Defensor’s kids included? Hindi ba kabaligtaran ng lahat ng tama ito? Ah, but you don’t know the Philippines; you don’t know justice, Philippine-style.

No wonder the FSGO led by the eminent Vicente Paterno could not contain themselves, their Christian values assailed and assaulted, that they asked: “What kind of message do we thus send our people --- that good is punished and evil rewarded? Whistleblowers and witnesses in behalf of truth are hounded and harassed, even as obvious prevaricators and practitioners of corruption are protected, promoted and highly rewarded”.”

So depressing is this state of things in the benighted land that one is wearied even in writing against it. “Nakapapagod na ang ginagawa natin”, I remarked to a man of the cloth who like many in civil society, refuses to be co-opted, so unlike his lord bishops who have sold their souls to Mammon.

But the erudite priest admonished me --- “Bilog and mundo”.

Together we looked up to the heavens, even if it was raining cats and dogs. “Sana nga po”, I replied --- “bilog and mundo”.