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Friday, March 29, 2024

Low and foul

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Some quarters have found a way to connect the series of earthquakes that rocked Mindanao in the past few days to how they feel about our leader.

A former spokesman of the Supreme Court, who really should have known better, took to Twitter to raise a provocative question.

“What’s with all the earthquakes in Mindanao?” the lawyer asked. He could argue, of course, that his question was innocuous. Scientists would be able to answer him in earnest through technical—thus, credible—explanations.

Alas it was not any scientist who picked up on the query. A former singer, affiliated with the hard-core opposition, responded: “Retribution?”

Low and foul

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The singer did not say anything else, but that one word was so rich with implication. Only a fool would miss the obvious reference to the many “sins” of the President Rodrigo Duterte, the former mayor of Davao City, a major Mindanao hub.

Yet another inflammatory tweet was posted by a supposed public relations expert, who addressed whom she called the DDS—the Davao Disaster Survivors. “Hindi pa ba NYO ma-gets? Gusto na kayong lamunin ng lupa. Magdasal na kayo at humingi ng patawad. (Don’t you get it yet? The earth wants to swallow you. Pray and ask for forgiveness). Quiboloy can’t stop earthquakes. He can only stop Kappa. Duts should seriously prepare for the afterlife. It’s getting hot, hotter, hottest.”

The tweet was punctuated with icons depicting fire.

The former High Court spokesman eventually deleted his tweet and asked for apology from the Mindawons if his “rhetorical, non-political, and personal” post had given “platform” to hurtful comments. “I have deleted a tweet and my reply-explanation to that tweet which, though unintended, have caused offense, pain, and hurt to family and friends in Mindanao where I am from, proud to be from, and which I love,” he said.

The PR executive also took down her post and said, in her defense: “I deleted my Davao disaster tweet even if the intention was clearly to jolt the DDS into an awakening. My Davao friends did not feel alluded to at all Anyway, to avoid anymore [sic] sensitivity…” One day later, however, she was at it again, telling the DDS who “protest the ‘politicalization’ [sic] of the Davao earthquakes, please put your money where your mouth is. Donate some of your earnings to the victims and survivors. Then we all shut up and pray. Good? If not, as always the curses [sic] will reap their just karma.”

The Duterte administration is clearly not without its faults, as has been pointed out not just by its hardened critics, but by simple, well-meaning Filipinos who only genuinely want this administration to succeed for the good of all.

But why turn biblical and attribute the tremors to a punishment for one man? Mr. Duterte might indeed come from Mindanao, but he is not Mindanao just as Mindanao is not Duterte. The island is composed of millions of Filipinos of various religious and political persuasions. Like us here in the capital and elsewhere, they just want to live every day in peace, earn a living for their families, and find some meaning in what they do.

As far as our finite mind could grasp, the god we believe in—if we believed in one at all—is kind and compassionate, and not one to strike down an entire island in retribution, or even on a whim. Perhaps these critics’ god has a different inclination—who knows?

There are many other things to do in the aftermath of disaster, and in anticipation of future, likely ones. Uttering divisive, hateful and ridiculous statements is certainly low and foul.

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