SENATORIAL candidate Bong Go could very well be the Social

Welfare Secretary, given his many acts of assistance pervasively and

suffocatingly published just about daily with pix even. With his
seemingly bottomless resources, he even has full-page ads on how
lucky we are to have him. Scandalous, from where I sit, even in our
scofflaw nation, with decency and delicadeza going, going, going….

Or Bong could consider being local mayor or governor but for the
Senate, I’d prefer candidates with articulated thoughts on
Bangsamoro, the budget and pork, taxation, Sabah, climate change,
nuke plant, China’s irredentism, etc. We cannot just rely on his being
a presidential go-fer. What will Bong do in the Senate anyway?

In memory serves, I find it hard to find a stronger tsunami-like

campaign than that being inflicted now by Bong. He could be a fine
civilian head of the Department of Social Welfare and Development
(DSWD), but a senator? Like Congressman Digong Duterte in 1998-
2001, as an action bang-bang guy, he would likely realize that
lawmaking is so boring Digong even once offered to resign, hardly
attending sessions or taking part in deliberations.

Be careful what you wish for, Bong, it may come true.

Bring back glory of old Senate

Bong reminds me of Sen. Money, oops, Manny, Pacquiao who seems
to open his mouth most any time only on his future mega-dollar bouts.
I wouldn’t mind if Manny had not run and won as a senator, and then
lets his colleagues do all the work as he focuses on his seemingly
insatiable and certainly not illegitimate desire for more fame and
money. But Senate work should come first instead of lining up three
2019 bouts.
“Bring ‘em all on – Pacquiao.” Boxers, not Islamic terrorists. His
stand is a secret on many national issues. Nabababoy na po yata ng
todo-todo ang Senado. He should simply resign or be expelled to help
bring back the glory of the old Senate for the people, not self.

For instance, what do Bong and Manny think of Consigliere Sal

Panelo finding nothing wrong or disturbing in a foreign country
putting up facilities in our territory? Will they take the floor to express
their concern?

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This dilletantte-ish attitude seems to me to be violative of the
interdiction found in Sec. 25 of Art. XVIII of the Constitution (have
Sal, Bong and Manny read the provision?). China is treating us as its
24th province, while majority of our people may fantasize for us to be
the 51st state of the Union. Of course, the Kanos would be aghast at
the prospect of having another state with 105 million rabbits, a
nightmare, while many of us daydream of being Kanos.

A dream-like occasion was last Saturday night’s event at the Manila

Polo Club of San Beda HS ‘59. I, a Rizal High alum of 1955 who then
entered San Beda, am some kind of Kuya to the group, which
validates that there is no need to have a frat to have friends at one
another’s backs.

Scattered all over the country and the world, they keep in touch,
emailing or meeting for joyous and sad occasions, like helping a
member in need. I am reminded of the Ateneo for a Better Philippines
group, another real frat, with no demeaning ritual required to get in.
Band of Brothers then, in our time (and now, also of Sisters). It kindly
invited me to join, through Alex Gaston, with whom I go to way back
when.
The only real friends
Robert Penn Warren wrote something like the only real friend one
may have is that of one’s youth, and I could see the logic and link in
these two groups.

It was a magical enchanted evening last Saturday with a lovely

chanteuse (Stefanie Quintin?) dishing out songs of our youth, and led
us, con brio, in belting out No Mas Amor Que El Tuyo, O Corazon
Civino. In the end it was Kako Lacson who led us in chanting Umpa,
Umpa, Beda Beda Beda, fight-fight-fight, hey-u-kim-ka-wa, our
patented Indian Yell, with even more effervescence. A driver of
fellow Pasigueño Nora and fellow Quezonian Rudy Robles took me
home. No cab at Manila Polo.

No talk of politics but Paul Aquino, along with Dr. Louie Kodumal,
was one of the ringleaders of the rousing successful event (headed by
tireless creative impresario Mon Pasicolan); it was assumed that
Paul’s son, Senator Bam, has our wholehearted support, who deserves
it. And I have to fret about an apparent paradigm shift.

In 1959, our senators included (in alphabetical order) Oscar Ledesma,

Paddy Padilla, Cipriano Primicias, Gil Puyat, Claro Recto, Quintin
Paredes, Manny Pelaez, Soc Rodrigo, Amang Rodriguez, Lorenzo
Sumulong, Lorenzo Tañada, Turing Tolentino, et al. Uncle Jovy
Salonga came later. He had been a hardworking congressman from
Rizal who differed with Prez Macapagal (a former congressman) on
dealing with corruptor Harry Stonehill, who Malacañang scrambled to
deport. Uncle said the truth could not be deported, even if Harry was.

The main parties were the Liberals and the Nacionalistas. Wala pa po
yatang Lapiang Pinabili Lang ng Suka (LAPISUKA) nuon. Our
children and grandchildren deserve better than our current pork-
obsessed lawmakers in this Year of the Pig.
Even our 1987-1992 batch was inferior to our predecessors. Is our
nation really decaying in its values, processes and institutions?

State of president’s health

I continue to hope and pray that Prez Digong will change and not
continue to preside over the liquidation of our values, institutions and
processes. For as long as only Sal Panelo and he himself, and other lay
persons, tell us he is healthy, many people will remain skeptical. Real
doctors have to tell us. The more Digong et al. and other lay people
proclaim how healthy the former is, the more we will wonder: what is
Digong afraid of, for his doctors to disclose? This may be Macoy Part
2. Are they protesting too much?

How I wish those impersonating doctors would honor our right to

know. But kidney specialist Dr. Potenciano Baccay, who had treated
Macoy, was murdered in 1985, apparently for honoring such right.
But, a Prez is public property. Other wishes of mine follow.

How I wish the House would honor our intent behind the SALN law,
requiring only the cost of copying to get a SALN (I co-authored RA
6713 and sponsored it on the floor all the way to the bicameral
conference committee). What is the House hiding?

How I wish Manny Pacquiao would stop talking about his three bouts
this year. And he could resign; it’s the decent and honorable thing to
do. We all recognize and appreciate what he has achieved for the
country but senatoring is not a sideline or hobby. All his colleagues
seem to be looking the other way instead of advising him to do the
right thing — and to work, and pay his tax arrears. This kind of
fraternization is not in the country’s best interest as he does not even
rule out a possible Fighting Prez persona in 2022, when he may leave
the country’s affairs to Veep Mocha Uson and Senate Prez Lito Lapid.
I keep saying I do not underrate anyone’s capacity for change and
subjective growth, but they have to prepare now.

Eighty percent of Senate life is about showing up, to borrow from

Woody Allen. And one not showing up like Manny would reportedly
get P7 billion as pork. Indeed, the Star’s studious Jarius Bondoc says
pork is now 14 times larger than when it was outlawed.

We are decaying, wallowing in hypocrisy, I’m afraid.

The Scarlet Letter, novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in 1850. It is

considered a masterpiece of American literature and a classic moral study.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, photograph by Mathew Brady.The Granger Collection, New York

Summary
The novel is set in a village in Puritan New England. The main character is Hester
Prynne, a young woman who has borne a child out of wedlock. Hester believes herself
a widow, but her husband, Roger Chillingworth, arrives in New England very much
alive and conceals his identity. He finds his wife forced to wear the scarlet letter A on
her dress as punishment for her adultery. After Hester refuses to name her lover,
Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding his identity. When he learns that the
man in question is Arthur Dimmesdale, a saintly young minister who is the leader of
those exhorting her to name the child’s father, Chillingworth proceeds to torment him.
Stricken by guilt, Dimmesdale becomes increasingly ill. Hester herself is revealed to
be a self-reliant heroine who is never truly repentant for committing adultery with the
minister; she feels that their act was consecrated by their deep love for each other.
Although she is initially scorned, over time her compassion and dignity silence many
of her critics.
In the end, Chillingworth is morally degraded by his monomaniacal pursuit of
revenge. Dimmesdale is broken by his own sense of guilt, and he publicly confesses
his adultery before dying in Hester’s arms. Only Hester can face the future bravely, as
she prepares to begin a new life with her daughter, Pearl, in Europe. Years later Hester
returns to New England, where she continues to wear the scarlet letter. After her death
she is buried next to Dimmesdale, and their joint tombstone is inscribed with “ON A
FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES.”

Analysis
The scarlet letter A that Hester is forced to wear is finely embroidered with gold-
coloured thread. As both a badge of shame and a beautifully wrought human artifact,
it reflects the many oppositions in the novel, such as those between order and
transgression, civilization and wilderness, and adulthood and childhood. The more
society strives to keep out wayward passion, the more it reinforces the split between
appearance and reality. The members of the community who are ostensibly the most
respectable are often the most depraved, while the apparent sinners are often the most
virtuous.
The novel also crafts intriguing symmetries between social oppression and
psychological repression. Dimmesdale’s sense of torment at his guilty secret and the
physical and mental manifestations of his malaisereflect the pathology of a society
that needs to scapegoat and alienate its so-called sinners. Eventually,
personal integrity is able to break free from social control. Perhaps more than any
other novel, The Scarlet Letter effectively encapsulates the emergence
of individualism and self-reliance from America’s Puritan and conformist roots.
 Ronan McDonaldThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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