The Soliman flap / The prayerful Filipino

There is a French saying: L’essentiel n’est pas dans la chose regardée mais dans le regard. The English equivalent would be something like: Truth or the essential thing is not in the thing regarded but in the regard. Which is exactly what the the flap about Dinky Soliman is all about. The truth is how you see the whole thing, how you see the smoke, how you see the mirrors. And soon you find out the the whole shebang does not, never stands still.

Who’s really at fault for Dinky Soliman’s ouster from the cabinet?

"I feel betrayed," she was quoted as saying. Indeed she was. The event could have been handled with more tact, more subtlety and decorum. But that is not GMA’s strong suit.

Right off, the "culprit" is President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. She’s the Big Boss. On a cabinet level, only GMA can hire and fire. And here, normally, el fallo del juez es inapelable. Yes, the umpire’s decision is final and cannot be appealed. GMA is president of the republic, head of govrernment, commander-in-chief. What she says goes. No nay-sayer can stand up and knock her for a loop. And so it must be in the case of Dinky Soliman. The interests of the country come first. That’s the prevailing logic.

But it ain’t as easy as that. Vice President Noli de Castro has come in for a lot of criticism. Critics say he was arrogantly demanding his pound of flesh in the person of Dinky Soliman. He sought this post many months ago as a quid pro quo for agreeing to join GMA’s electoral campaign as her vice presidential candidate. GMA agreed. After all, she was gettting Noli, at the time topnotcher of all presidential surveys, the inimitable Kabayan of Magandang Gabi, Bayan.

It looked like a very fair and equitable bargain at the time. But at bottom, it was transactional politics. Nothing really sublime or transformational.

Except that, in retrospect, the bargain knifed deep into the culture of the Filipino. Dinky Soliman was no ordinary underdog, or slab of solomillo dangling from a meat shop, to be bought and sold. She was a lady that deserved all the respect in the world. She was perceived as the most selfless member of GMA’s cabinet, the most loyal, the most hard-working, probably the most competent. Dinky Soliman would lay her life any old time for her president, follow her to the ends of the world and back.

She was that faithful.

Given that perspective, she should never have been for sale, or auctioned off. Given that perspective, GMA should have prioritized merit over Noli’s popularity. Give that perspective, GMA looked like a female ayatollah, ruthless, insensitive, imposing her power for power’s sake. Never mind the sensibilities of people who have slaved for you, worked the salt mines, forded the gorges, hang from the cliffs, walked the Long March. They can go to you-know- where.

So now we need the wisdom of Solomon to get GMA, Noli de Castro, and even Dinky Soliman herself out of this sorry mess.

I don’t know about Solomon. But if I were Noli de Castro, I’d play the role of hero here, if not hero, the perfect gentleman. The vice president should don the coat of Sir Walter Raleigh, lay it on the ground, and relieve GMA of her commitment. That way, Dinky Soliman gets her job back and Noli de Castro can choose another cabinet position. C’mon, Noli. The DWSD portfolio is not a matter of life and death. If you’re really good, the Kabayan you are touted to be, you can prove yourself in so many other endeavors.

If you stick to the DSWD, you’re a loser.

The perception will be that you are holding a knife to GMA’s throat, that you have an ego surmounting that of the Three Gorges Dam, and that you don’t give a good hoot about how Dinky Soliman feels, how people feel. Culture, Noli. You are dealing with two highly prominent women here. In the Philippines you just don’t push women around. You do, and you’re looked upon as a bully, a big and bloated blowhard, who thinks he’s the only game in town.

Well, you ain’t, Mr. De Castro. In fact, you goofed. As a public official, you are completely untried, and all the more so as vice president. Dinky Soliman has amply proved herself. And you haven’t – not yet anyway. So okay, you poured a great number of votes into GMA’s presidential campaign, and she has to be exceedingly grateful for that. But that doesn’t give you the right, Kabayan, to behave like a overgrown brat and like Scrooge, demand your pound of flesh.

It just isn’t in our culture.

* * *

What is in our culture is prayer. My neighbor columnist, Prof. Felipe Miranda of Pulse-Asia fame, attests to that in his latest column titled: A most prayerful nation. One of the very few academicians in the Philippines who regularly writes for print media and appears often in the broadcast media, Pepe Miranda tells us the Philip-ppines, alongside Tanzania and Puerto Rico, are, in a list of 48, the most prayerful countriess of the world.

That really doesn’t come as a revelation.

The famed Jesuit priest, Fr. Horacio de la Costa, years ago wrote that although the Filipino was in rags, you would find two jewels inside those rags – the jewel of prayer and the jewel of song. And on both counts, he was dead right. The Filiipino prays more than any other national I have encountered. Former president Corazon Aquinio prayed a lot, still does. When I was a member of her cabinet, I often saw her head lowered in prayer. Often, she summoned others to pray with her. Another person who prayed just as much was the late Betty Go-Belmonte, overall boss of The Philippine STAR. On occasion, she collared me to a corner of the room so we could pray together. Our publisher Max Soliven came late for STAR rites so he could avoid the prayers.

What do Filipinos pray to God for?

Professor Miranda said millions prayed for better health, for better chances or opportunities to finish their education, for jobs, any kind of job, for more food so they could eat adequately, for good or better government because, here, they felt they had either been betrayed or forgotten by the powers that be.

What object lesson do we get here? Filipinos are an extremely patient lot, meek, submissive, subservient even, seek from God whatever they cannnot get from their government – which is almost everything. In other countries, the citizenry is not that pliant, patient or pious. They inveigh against the rich and the powerful. Oft-times they rebel or they revolt. They feel it is their right to demand a better life from the government. And if the government doesn’t give in, they organize protest groups, or they take to the streets. They fight.

For them, national progress is a matter of right, not a favor from the powers that be. So they seethe inside them, scrape layers of anger from their psyche, raise their fists, smoulder, and, when the time comes – fight. Here, the Filipino prays. Lacerated he may be, wounded he may be, insulted and exploited he may be, the Filipino does not or hardly revolts. He prays. He is Sisyphus who keeps rolling his boulder up the mountain. Each time, he nears the top, the boulder falls and he falls with it.

And the Filipino does this again and again. And he keeps smiling, even when double-crossed time and again by the government.

And so what do Filipinos do when he does not get what he rightfully deserves? Professor Miranda says they pray in the churches, resort to pious genuflection. All this despite, the professor says, Malacanang’s repeated flouting of the people’s rights. "They will suffer the authorities’ political incantasions over and over gain and – just as fecklesly – continue reciting their own feckless prahyers, unmindful of the truth that God – or the gods – will help only those that truly help themselves first. Not so much with hopeful prayers, but with decisive political action."

In rounding up the subject, Professor Miranda points out that "at the other end of the scale, with less than 20 per cent of the public praying at least once a week, are Vietnam (9 percent), Czech Republic (15 percent) and South Korea (40 percent). Japan (20 percent) Singapore (45 per cent), score significantly lower than the Philippines in prayerfulness."

It goes without sayiing that as a result of more than 300 years of colonial rule under Catholic Spain, religion was drilled into the Filipino like a jackhammer. He was not yet a Filipino then, but a tribal member, since the appelation Philippines (Las Yslas Filipinas) came only when the revolution came.

The revolution came and went. The Amerian colonial regime came and went. Hundreds of years came and went. But the mystique of ultra-conservative Catholic prayer, its power of incantation, its exhortation to meekness, patience, suffering, humility, has remained.