EDITORIAL – No need for April Fool's Day in RP

In many parts of the world, today, April 1, is celebrated as April Fool's Day. It is a day when people are supposed to play practical jokes on others, with those unfortunate others expected to take the jokes as, well, a joke.

In these other countries, they take April Fool's Day quite seriously, some even going to the extent of making practical jokes as realistic as possible, as when newspapers carry stories that can make the heart skip a beat, only to take them back as a spoof the day after.

Such jokes, however, are dangerous in countries like the Philippines, where most people, long immersed in misery and hardship, are understandably very short on humor. A misinterpreted joke can lead to murder. That is why April Fool's Day has very few adherents here.

On the other hand, life has been so hard on Filipinos that, perhaps owing to their natural resiliency, they have come to adjust and take things as they come in much bigger strides than most people. People who think the joke is on them do not need a day to be reminded about it.

However, Filipinos may not take misery with humor but they can take it. They have better means of coping. While laughter is uplifting, it is often short-lived. Apathy and resignation, on the other hand, with their numbing qualities, are better suited to cope with pain.

One keen observer of the human condition once said that for as long as Filipinos can sit for hours on sidewalks playing "dama" then this country, no matter how miserable it is, is yet in no danger of descending into anarchy.

Those people, probably hungry, are in no mood for humor. They are engaged in, what to them, is the serious business of playing "dama." The activity may not put food on the table. It may not earn them a centavo. But it preoccupies them, no matter how unproductively.

What that keen observer dreads is when nothing preoccupies these people with too much time on their hands. Estranged from humor, and no longer numbed by "dama," they can begin to get crazy ideas, most probably criminal. Then the joke will be on us. And it will not be funny.