“My political mentor Doy Laurel always said: ‘You don’t lose anything by being polite.’”
The vloggers, the trolls, and even so-called political analysts are making much ado about the visit of Inday Sara Duterte, vice-president of the Republic, to Leni Robredo, her predecessor in elected office.
So much meaning, real, imagined or illusory, is being attached to the visit, as if it would result in more rice and more jobs.
My political mentor, the late Salvador H. Laurel, always said, “Lo cortes no quita lo valiente”, a Hispanic saying that means “ you don’t lose anything by being polite”.
And indeed, to friend and foe alike, Doy Laurel was always polite, always civil.
Did Leni Robredo commit such a grievous error to the cause of the “pink movement” by allowing Inday Sara inside her abode?
Why are the same “frothing in the mouth” critics not mad that Leni also allowed a Napoles super-client inside her immaculately clean presence? Okay lang si Bong Revilla, but not Inday Sara who succeeded Leni to the vice-presidency?
And then again, whatever is wrong if Inday Sara, visiting Naga City and participating in some of the traditional religious rites of La Virgen de Penafrancia, sought to pay her respects to Leni Robredo, despite whatever snide remarks she may in the past have said about her host?
Yet, the same analysts, politicians, and whoever else have said nothing about Duran Duran jetting into the country for a one-night stand, serenading the President in a very exclusive “strictly by invitation only” birthday bash.
Of course our President wouldn’t be so stupid as to have the treasury shell out 60 million pesos to fund the visit of a washed-out circa 80s band, but was it right to accept the “gift” from private businessmen, as his newly minted press secretary justified?
The same self-styled analysts have not said anything about a Bible-thumping pastor turned congressman flaunting his Rolexes and Benzes’, or a congresswoman from one of the country’s poorest provinces going to the Batasan with multi-million peso Richard Mille wristwatches, or over the top handbags from Rue Faubourg St. Honore’s luxury fashion labels.
Or some other congresspersons wearing flashy but tasteless ternos while grilling poor resource persons in never-ending committee hearings in aid of publicity?
Or the supposed purchase of a building in Paris’ Rive Droite by the fabulously entitled and uber-powerful party list congressman?
“Katas ng pork barrel”?
The former president who now represents a district in Pampanga, whose landed aristocracy once upon a time preened each year at the Manila Hotel in exquisite gowns and ear-tearing diamonds for La Mancomunidad Pampanguena to compete with the Negrense’s Kahirup Ball, is the epitome of simplicity in her business attire while attending hearings and sessions in the House.
Neither did these commentators, the undisputed “marites” of YouTube, who conjure political significance in everything and anything, question the boorishness of the “honorable” members of Congress when they make salacious remarks on the purely private concerns of their intended victims, or badger them into incriminating themselves even as they already face charges in legitimate courts of law.
Some barangay chairmen probably sporting the prefix “honorable” to their names may well deserve the appellation more than some of our legislators.
Now the latest brouhaha is about the vice-president taking a side trip to Calaguas Island in Camarines Norte after visiting the venerated “Ina” in Naga, thus missing (intentionally they know) the hearings in Congress about her expenditure of funds illegally transferred by DBM from the allocated funds of the Office of the President.
But then pray tell, is visiting a heretofore unknown slice of paradise in the Pacific that is incontestably Philippine territory so grievous as against jetting to Singapore for the F-1 event which mercifully our President did not do this year, a self-abnegating sacrifice as touted by the newly minted chief communications officer of the palace?
Human beings have a right to relax and unwind, and at least in the case of our beleaguered because ill-advised Numero Dos, visiting an island in the Pacific demonstrates her commitment to “LOVE the Philippines.”
