History as entertainment
IT IS SO TRUE—the Tourism Department geniuses who brewed that new come-on, “it’s more fun in the Philippines,” have uncovered the pith of the Filipino psyche—our addiction for entertainment. As a people we can easily morph as comics and rewrite our history as comedy.
Look at our newspapers—the thickest section with the most number of pages is entertainment. Surf the prime time TV programs. Again, more entertainment, more soapbox and fantasy serials and those moronic movie talk shows dominated by loquacious gays and menopausal press agents.
Even the front page news: when Thailand’s Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra—tall, vibrantly pretty met with our bachelor President, that TV Queen of Crass, his sister Kris trivialized that meeting the way many saw it as entertainment “they make a romantic pair.”
What most readers do not realize is that it takes a particular genius to write funny, to satirize. We have had really too few humorists—the late Anding Roces, the short story writer, D. Paulo Dizon, the journalist Joe Guevarra, and still at it, the aging Gary Lising. The new TV icon, Lourd de Veyra and Ricky Torre can do slashing satire and coming up, the retired diplomat Jose A. Zaide, Jr.. His memoirs are lifted from the mundane by his salty humor, now flavoring as well his newspaper column.
Some lucky people can be funny without half trying because they actually look funny, because acting funny is in their bones—fun as funny, not funny as crude slapstick. And now, this first rate drama, the Impeachment telenovela which has all the elements of gripping detective/spy fiction: hidden bank accounts, murky conspiracies, and maybe, just maybe, saucy, illicit relationships. Abangan!
When it started two month ago, expectations were very high. We eagerly waited for it to begin, but when all the perorations were in English, the ratings dropped. They climbed again when Tagalog for the masa was used. It was amazing how those Senators tutored in English (except one) argued lucidly in the national language.
The term “honorable” is the sonorous mantra that punctuates each statement, anointing all the actors/actresses automatically with a noble aura. Then recall the lurid past of these actors—some of them anyway—and you wonder which is more black—the kettle or the pot.
The senators are resplendent in their scarlet robes. As the TV camera closes in on their faces, it catches every nuanced gesture. Joker Arroyo, always proper in his eloquence and quiet in decorum, Jinggoy Estrada and his smiling sneer, Lito Lapid — the movie star — finally opening his mouth and spewing a trite mouthful.
The octogenarians Juan Ponce Enrile and Serafin Cuevas, how urbane and civilized they are. Decades in the public arena, matured, refined, mellowed and defanged them. How easily they navigate those muddy and swirling legal tides. Senator Enrile—he is truly the star of the show, the nation’s father figure. And the defense, focus on Justice Cuevas—how wise and blasé he is, twisting around his fingers those teenagers, those charging young squires in the prosecution. How easily and meekly they retreat.
Except one be-wigged veteran. He shut off all that noise and clutter by cupping both ears with his hands thereby creating that most memorable scene in the history of Philippine jurisprudence. What is his honorable name again? The Impeachment trial will henceforth be remembered always, emblazoned in the public mind, because this man refused to be entertained.
This is her cue. So the curtains open for the Maid, Miriam. Every afternoon, I await her imperious entrance with baited breath and then I am inexorably glued to the TV screen. Her hyper genius instantly lights up our benighted firmament like a fireball asteroid. That microscope which is the TV camera defines clearly the mobile, middle aged face, the voluptuous lips that curl in contempt, the eyes that flash deadly scorn. Verily, she is the Sarah Bernhardt, the Greta Garbo and—if I be allowed to mix my genders—the Dolphy of the Senate center stage. Even without the audio which brays her legal brilliance, her histrionic bravura glitters through. Now she has minted that ultimate put-down. Wha! thus revealing a linguistic profundity which can articulate a 25 carat (no period before the figure 25) mind.
If I were to choose between her and Erap should both of them decide to run again for president, I will even campaign for her in my senior group which includes some afflicted with Alzheimer’s. When she is finally grafted to the International Court of Justice in Holland, she will epitomize that Hitlerian swagger. “Today, the Philippines, tomorrow the World!”
Alas, as that ancient anodyne goes, “It only hurts when we laugh.”
Let us pray.
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(Next week: Religion as entertainment)
