“You may look cool and affable to the people who couldn’t care less about politics. But to me, you sound intoxicated with your own inauthenticity”
YOU may not know me. You may have not seen me either. But I recognize you.
I first came across your presence some time in 2023. You were the first person to greet me as soon as I’d drop off from my nightly commute along Service Road, near the skimpy market. You had a smile of a typical politician against a Christmas-themed backdrop, wishing us the best of our holidays amidst the physical toll of being a resident in the city.
You were the party-list congressman who happened to be a resident of an exclusive community within your opponent’s turf. You were slowly peeping into us before the campaign period had even started. Possibly because you could be taking advantage of the sentiment from the then-incumbent’s underperformance during his new three-year term.
You must have milked that chance. After all, your face was slowly growing ubiquitous.
From the electrical post to the sari-sari store, your name became the talk of the town. Your braced smile grew omnipotent across the barangays that comprised the second district. But your face got extended through your social media presence. Your community outside the legislative work. Your own karaoke sessions with his band. Your extensive politicking.
You may look cool and affable to the people who couldn’t care less about politics. But to me, you sound intoxicated with your own inauthenticity.
I have seen some music programs that had its hosts sing whenever needed. And they execute their performances palely. But they are not pretentious about it. They could only perform within their means from their disposal.
However, your pretensions show whenever you sing. I glanced upon your “Sessions” as I watched how you do your bit. You were not engaging with the crowd as you hosted your little show. You tend to sing like a soon-to-be drunken man in a karaoke bar, trying hard to make your renditions lively and entertaining. And your smile. It was simply vomiting to look upon.
But that didn’t matter to you anyway. Your splashing aid, ostentatious presence, merciless gig appearances — that was your strategy. And it worked, bigtime.
Yet as soon as you stepped inside its halls as a party-list representative, it seemed as if your silence was slowly growing.
It’s a typical notion for anyone in Congress to reclaim their euphoria back to their own zen. They need to find a way to survive and keep their seats within them. But there is something in you that keeps your hunger until today. As such, you take your own circus show to the world of a dying medium — television.
With the same band, you don’t wear your usual casual clothing. Your approach was consistent, trying to sound like a fool in tune with the songs you get to sing. And a smile that screams of mockery was the cherry on top of them all.
However, outside the lights is your silence that seems to ignore the issues concerning your own turf. As flood control projects are being investigated, some areas there were met with the same old waist-level flooding. You could have used your popularity to demand the city government for its own probe. But nowhere were you in sight, online or on the ground.
I remember a few lines from “Killing Me Softly.” “He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair, and then he looked right through me as if he wasn’t there.” You, our congressman, try so hard to serenade your crowd that you might have already forgotten the ills of your area. Tell me Y, ain’t it sunshine for you to be with the community again?
For all that’s worth, I’d like to make my short request. Kindly play “The Sound of Silence” in one of your shows. It’s a personal one as someone from your area. And sing it with all your own indifference. I’ll wait.
(The writer is a 20-something year-old who floats around between writing and keeping himself company inside his room. For comments, you may send them at ngrolando2003@yahoo.com.)
