Lessons in the mud

President Arroyo could not have become unpopular for nothing.. There has got to be some truth to many of the things people accuse her off. But it is also likely her unpopularity feeds on itself, that lies about her seem believable only because they are about her.

Yet, for all her misery, the woman is still there, has stayed in power longer than anyone else except Marcos, but only because he used the military to establish a dictatorship. So either the woman is pretty adroit, or plain extremely lucky.

Or maybe there is something at play here that is greater than all of us. At this point in her life, with just eight months to go before she has to hand over power, Arroyo is for all intents and purposes already a lameduck president.

It is about this time when she will be having difficulty cracking the whip to make people toe the line. Just keeping her house in order will become more contentious. Those with an eye at a life after Gloria may start considering jumping ship, if they haven’t done so already.

Yet developments conspired to see to it that she keeps her place firmly, at least right up to the end of her term on June 30. Whether she actually prayed for, and got, natural disasters is a matter for conjecture. But there is no denying the disasters strengthened her position.

On the other hand, since God is not a matter for conjecture, it can be said with a fair measure of conviction that the Divine Will that brought in those devastating storms also played a strange gambit that denied Arroyo her anticipated slide into a lameduck presidency.

God works in mysterious ways. So it is always best to look for a few signs that may give us an idea about what God is trying to say.

My feeling is that a fair and ever-loving God finally took pity on Gloria and, in His unfathomable ways, did what was required under the circumstances.

Let’s face it, this great religion of ours is founded on that great abiding principle of redemption through forgiveness of sins. God gave His only begotten Son so that sins may be forgiven. It is the sinners who give this great religion its challenge and its meaning.

God, in His infinite wisdom, while cognizant of the sins of Gloria, must have also realized how she is being used by the self-righteous and the hypocrites to promote their own interests by ascribing to her every evil that has descended on this unfortunate land.

God, by the way, has been known to resort to great destruction to remind people how wayward they have become. The Bible is replete with stories of terrible punishments God has exacted on people — obliterating entire cities and wiping out whole generations.

This is not in defense of Gloria. I am too puny and insignificant in the face of what wrath God may have in reserve for the president. Besides, why should I defend somebody who I sincerely believe is guilty of some of the accusations against her.

 But I am also morally convinced that a lot of the accusations against Gloria are not only false but hurled automatically by a people gotten used to finger-pointing as a means of avoiding their own contributions to nation-building as responsible and law-abiding citizens.

   It has become a sort of fad to blame Gloria for everything when even just by shutting up we could have done this country of ours a very great favor. God must have grown weary and tired of all the mud.

I hate to say this in light of all the suffering being endured by our countrymen, many of whom were only trying to eke what they can out of life. But because nothing ever happens without the will of God, then He must have willed us a taste of the mud we love to hurl at others.

As we pick up the pieces and move on, with tremendous help from anonymous others, maybe we can also pick up a few lessons in love, fairness and humility along the way. If we received so much help from people we do not even know, maybe we can also be considerate of those that we do.