COMING OUT IRRELEVANT

j.e.masagca

 

#advocatusdiaboli

#chasinglightschasingdreams

 

 

The 2022 National and Local Elections are now but history and the nation as people are in the sequel of moving forward to the goals of governance, administration, and popular expectations.

 

Yet there are still few attempts to sound relevant on issues but end up injudiciously extraneous. These cries of nothingness are but like the "pockets of rebellion" as what the American colonizers said of the Philippine Revolution after the surrender of Gen. Miguel Malvar. Pockets indeed which by analogy are either empty of reason or full of ideas wrongly considered.

 

Like the large percentage of the more than 30 million Filipinos that voted for BBM for President, I was also once a harsh critic of the Marcos regime and had openly joined public protests, and I am no stranger to the parliament of the streets.

 

That was the time of limited access to truthful news and information that, with the voice of the dominant church, public opinion was easily swayed, and men with weak ambition are easily hoodwinked. Facts were twisted, events painted in different colors that were mostly "iconic yellow" - which is peddled as the good, the divine, and the source of hope. Such delusions trickled and persisted even to this day in the mind of those that chose a foreign land as their permanent home. Conversely, one has all the right to remain in the dark shadows of ignorance and stupidity.

 

It's no reason to be desolate just because a friend, an acquaintance, or a colleague has intelligently chosen what is right over what is gravely wrong, to bring to light all falsities, and correct the unduly revised history.

 

Everything changes, even faith for some. Nothing is permanent, not even relationships, institutions, or ideas, and "nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky". Not even the law is permanent as it is subject to amendments to be responsive to the needs of the times, not even jurisprudence is perpetual despite the doctrine of stare decisis, and not even judicial procedures are so rigid that the interest of justice is subverted by ignoring newly discovered evidence. 

 

How much more personal preferences, reason, and intellectual perspectives do not change? and to question the inescapable, to hang on to disillusions as the truth is, therefore, grossly irrelevant.

 

"Hudas.... Hestas …. Barabas! (Doña Delilah, in Ading Fernando’s John en Marsha, 1973).”