“And by the way, Inday Sara’s decision not to attend SONA 2024 is no different from then VP Doy Laurel’s not attending the third SONA of then President Cory”
When Inday Sara’s quip about appointing herself as the “designated survivor” came out, I laughed and thought “pilya talaga ito.”
The “sutil” daughter of the former president was being playful with what could probably be likened to a slice of wry British humor, using a popular Netflix series as point of reference.
Yet she did not go to Oxford or Cambridge, and finished law only at “Baste,” that monicker for San Sebastian College in Quiapo run by the Recoletos.
The forever serious Ping Lacson saw through, and described the VP’s one-liner as “rhetorical, a good soundbite.” SP Chiz would “not give any special or deeper meaning” to the quip either.
Ah, but not the pork-addicted members of the HoR, who lined up trying to dig some “profound” meaning into a playful quip. No sense of humor, gentlemen?
Is it because the kind of jokes they are used to is confined to Vice Ganda and, in younger days, to Dolphy and Panchito’s slapstick? Have they ever laughed at Alex Calleja’s attempts at elevating Filipino humor?
Or is it perhaps a lingering fear that if something should happen, God forbid, to our president, and Inday Sara, by Constitutional fiat and not by Neflix creation, would rule over them from the palace beside the not-so-stinking river?
Worried much?
And by the way, Inday Sara’s decision not to attend SONA 2024 is no different from then VP Doy Laurel’s not attending the third SONA of then President Cory.
Laurel gave no public reason, other than a private remark he did not want to be a hypocrite, as their relationship had publicly soured by then, not dissimilar to the state of relations between today’s president and vice president.
Then again, the current HoR secretariat rules out “protest” attires the thinning progressives among its members displayed in previous SONAs, stressing an exclusivist sense of decorum, while it allocates P20 million of the people’s money for the grand SONA to cover meals, renovation and other accoutrements, which the Kabataan party-list member labelled “insensitive” as it could pay for “400,000 kilograms of rice.”
Ikaw naman, Raoul. 400,000 kilos times 20 pesos is only P8 million, following that fixation over 20 as a magic number, be it for rice or for renovating the Batasan.
Why multiply 400,000 by P50, which is the real price in the market? Are you trying to inject sarcasm, satire even, just like the vice president you dislike?
Meanwhile, the secretary-general of the HoR warns Raoul Manuel and his cohorts not to use the SONA as a forum for their incessant protests, flatly declaring “This is not the place or time to express anything.” Anything, really?
He follows this ex-cathedra declaration with a threat: “If you don’t follow, you’ll be arrested and detained in our detention center.”
So guys and gals of the HoR, wear your designer outfits costing hundreds of thousands per, as you sashay into the “hallowed” halls of the Batasan to listen to our President deliver his State of the Nation Address next Monday, and follow the “tradition” of tasteless and insensitive extravaganzas of the high and mighty.
But let’s get back to a bit of history, recalling this was the same venue where the Senior was proclaimed by then Speaker Nicanor Yniguez as the duly elected president after the “snap elections” of 1986. Weeks after, EDSA happened.
Not that it will happen this time.
What we proudly called our “People Power” bloodless revolt was actually preceded by the April 25, 1974 event in the other hemisphere, in Portugal to be exact.
It was a military coup against the dictator who ruled over the Estado Novo (sounds similar to New Society and Bagong Pilipinas?) for close to 50 years, and where the leaders, first Salazar and then Caetano were eventually ousted, with the populace cheered by the public who then placed carnations (flowers, not the milk brand) on the muzzles of the soldiers’ rifles.
The revolt was bloodless and, after a few years of transition, democracy was unveiled, this time a true revolution where the forms of democracy such as elections and balance of power ushered in a democracy of substance where equal opportunity and progress transpired into what is now modern Portugal.
History calls it the Carnation Revolution, perhaps the accidental template, almost 12 years after, of our EDSA Uno.
But in Portugal, bloodless uprising turned into a true revolution while our “people power” in 1986 has not given power to our people, but reverted us over 38 years back into a feudal society where dynasts and oligarchs rule over teeming millions of the poor and the hungry.
