EDITORIAL - Children of helplessness

In the same way that the entire Filipino nation would hoist Manny Pacquiao to high heavens each time he beats his opponents to a pulp, so are most Filipinos now ganging up on Jocjoc Bolante as if he were the Devil himself.

The reason for this is simple. We have found a cause for our redemption, in the case of Pacquiao, and an outlet for our frustration, in the case of Bolante. Both may stir contrasting feelings, yet both also spring from a single mother — helplessness.

An increasing number of Filipinos are being consumed by helplessness over how our country is spiraling out of control. Every conceivable type of embarrassment has backed us to a corner.

And then along comes Pacquiao, beating the daylights out of his opponents. In him we have found our redemption. We scream at the tv set each time he lets go of a punch, the force of its release carrying our national frustrations toward its freedom and release.

Bolante, on the other hand, has given us a face that swam to the surface from the sea of faces engulfing this country in a massive tidal wave of corruption. Before overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of it all, now we have a starting point from where to demand an accounting.

In other times when, unhampered by helplessness, Filipinos had greater chances to excel and actually had a firmer grasp of their own lives, there would have been little need for a proxy war involving Pacquiao. We would still love him, but not to the extent that we do today.

Bolante, one the other hand, would have been less of the hated person than would the things he is being accused of. In less evil times, while we would not countenance an evil act, we would have been more compassionate for the man.

But times have changed. We have been forced to the extremes by the madness around us. Boxing is not the most popular sports in the Philippines. And Pacquiao does not even have the looks of a hero. But boxing and Pacquiao lift our spirit from where it grovels on the floor.

As for Bolante, the P700 million plus fertilizer scam to which he is being linked is peanuts to the truly juicy scams that have slipped through our fingers. And he is not even the principal in this case. But he is the one at hand, the only one we have. So sorry na lang.