“Have hopelessness and despair at the state of the nation taken away even the joy of the season of grace?”
On the first Sunday of Advent, the candle of hope is lit. In the church where we attend Sunday mass, the priest in his homily said the flame of hope is the last to die.
No sooner had he spoken than the flame of the candle of hope died. The sacristan lit it once more, but as the priest ended his homily, the flame died again.
Is it a portent of the times? Have hopelessness and despair at the state of the nation taken away even the joy of the season of grace?
***
Out there in the cold of winter of Den Haag, our former president was denied interim release by his captors last Friday.
He did not appear at the hearing; only his lawyer attended, grim-faced as the decision of the appeals court was read by the lady judge from Peru. Likely the former president did not want his countrymen to see how frail and emaciated he has become.
Hope for his legion of believers has petered out. They will not see him back this Christmas, nor on March 28 next year when he reaches his 81st birthday. And if we go by the usual lengthy timeline of ICC trials, heaven knows when if at all he would be back in his homeland.
During the 2022 presidential campaign, he refused to endorse any candidate. Even when his daughter Inday Sara agreed to run with the current president, Rodrigo Duterte gave no endorsement.
And even as some in his Cabinet and close allies wished he would endorse Isko Moreno, so that his high popularity would give the young mayor the needed push to defeat the man Duterte himself publicly described as a “rich, spoiled kid” and “addicted to illegal drugs,” he remained adamant, seemingly above the fray.
Then in the early evening of April 5, 2022, after inaugurating the China-funded Binondo-Intramuros Bridge, the president called this writer, and said, partly in Bisaya, partly in English:
“Lito, dugay na kitang amigo, pero kanang imong kandidato, dili ko ganahan” (Lito, we have been friends for a long time, but I do not like your candidate”).
“He tried to talk to me earlier, but I refused. He has been saying that if he is elected president, he will not surrender me to the ICC” (Isko has always maintained the position that no Filipino, let alone a president, should be surrendered to the ICC).
“Wala ko’y labot anang ICC (I do not recognize that ICC), and if I am to be tried for my faults, it can only be done here. I do not need your candidate’s assurance.”
Crestfallen, I only meekly said, “sige po, Mr. President. I understand.”
***
His executive secretary, my close friend Bingbong Madialdea, confided to our small group after he returned from Den Haag where he was hospitalized, that after the former president was forced into a private jet by Gen. Nicolas Torre, and they were about to take off, Duterte told him to stay calm, and said “this is my fate as a leader.”
The day before, in Hong Kong, the president decided to leave early instead of his afternoon schedule, knowing that he was to be arrested upon arrival, but placed his trust in the judicial system.
He knew the law, and believed that he would first be brought to a local court, as provided even in the Rome Statute.
He was wrong. He placed his trust in the law, being an officer of the court, but the president denied him access to the processes of the law.
The man who won the votes of Mindanaoans and the Bisaya and all the Duterte loyalists because he was the presidential candidate of Inday Sara, denied her father his legal rights as a citizen of the Republic and derogated our sovereignty in favor of a discredited international court.
In the van that brought them from the airport to the Scheveningen prison, Duterte asked Medialdea: “May Euro ka ba diyan?”
Bingbong answered, “wala po, but I have my credit cards with me,” to which Duterte said: “paliti unya og baga nga jacket ang mga pulis, kay tugnaw ra ba kaayo” (buy them winter jackets, they are not used to the cold”).
***
Meanwhile, in the benighted land, the secretary of trade took pride in saying that ordinary folks can purchase the food items for the traditional Noche Buena with “just 500 pesos.”
She was seconded by the Malacanang spokesperson, along with snickers and feigned laughter.
To one or both, let us give the title, “Nuestra Senora de la Noche Buena.”
