US President-elect Donald Trump walks with his wife Melania on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. AP/Molly Riley
Last week, a week studded with gasps and OMGs, we woke up virtually each day to realities that stunned like ice water from the shower. They were almost like miracles — I thought they were impossible. Or at the very least, not probable. Except that miracles I go down on my knees for and the Supreme Court decision allowing Ferdinand Marcos to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani was not something I begged for in prayer.
Democrat Hillary Clinton was leading in the surveys after both presidential debates — deemed crucial — till the day before elections, even if only by a hairline. I wouldn’t be surprised if his own supporters likened Republican Donald Trump’s win to a miracle.
Anong nangyari (So, what happened?)? As Pinoys like to say, “Anyare?”
In a demonstration at the Supreme Court, students of UP Manila express their sentiments against the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Photo by EDD GUMBAN
In the case of the Marcos burial, I believe it’s because of the direction the wind is blowing at the moment. And it’s blowing kindly, gently toward the Marcos plains during this season. Call it, “pana-panahon” or “weather-weather.”
There is also climate change in politics.
The high court voted 9-5-1 to allow the burial of the dictator in a cemetery whose name is in itself an exaltation and an exhortation. Burial place of heroes.
There are recognized legal cases against Marcos and he was ousted from power 30 years ago, and an angry, lethal mob was at the gates of Malacañang. Arguably, fleeing saved his life. Most of us who were old enough to witness EDSA 1986, or hear about it, at least, never thought we would wake up one day to see Marcos buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
Anyare?
Donald trumps Hillary
Margot Gerster and her daughter chanced upon former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton while hiking in Chappaqua, New York. It was the first sighting of Clinton since her speech in which she formally conceded the race to Donald Trump. Photo from Margot Gerster’s Facebook page
In the beginning, the US elections results were swinging like a pendulum — towards Clinton, then Trump. The fact that it was such a close fight when the counting began was a foreshadowing of the unexpected: a Trump victory.
Despite his well-educated, formal and seemingly well-behaved children, Trump seemed like a caricature to me. The way he parted his hair, the way he opened his mouth, the way he would stress a point with his fingers. He didn’t seem like someone I would take seriously after the cool elegance of Barack Obama, the poise of George W. Bush, the charisma of Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and JFK, the seriousness of Jimmy Carter.
But hey, I do not know how Americans think, and shame on me for thinking I’m an expert on how they think even if I watch CNN and its Monday morning quarterbacking every day; and even if more than 50 percent of my family are US citizens (my dad Frank was born American and my mom Sonia and two sisters are naturalized).
To be sure, there are also those who have been popping champagne bottles after 11/9, even as street protests continue all the way to the doorstep of the Trump Tower in New York.
What happened? Clinton blamed the FBI for her devastating loss in a reported conference call with those who funded her campaign. Trump, on the other hand, praised social media for giving him the keys to the White House.
I asked multi-awarded filmmaker Ramona Diaz, who lives in the US and is a member of the Academy Awards, “Anyare?”
And this was her reply, and she said responding to my question was “cathartic.”
“Hillary Clinton’s loss was a gut-punch. The loss represented a repudiation of everything I am: an immigrant, a person of color, and a woman. So, what happened? I think it was a triumph of base impulses that are still so prevalent in this culture: racism, sexism and xenophobia. Donald Trump managed to conflate these with the economic problems of the white working class in the heartland and he won. In the process, he managed to demonize immigrants, people of color and everyone who seemed like The Other. When people are hungry and fear rules their lives — fear of fast becoming a white minority by mid-century, which leads to a loss of power — they gravitate toward ‘strongmen’ who offer security.
“I think it has parallels with what’s happening in the Philippines as well. There is something happening worldwide that I don’t think is a coincidence, along with the Philippines, there’s Brexit, Turkey, Venezuela, Guatemala — and who knows, maybe France with (Marine) Le Pen, too. Germany might be the last democracy standing when the dust settles. What are the forces that are making these happen? That is the big question.”
(The Duterte juggernaut we saw coming in the last two months before the elections, and so his landslide win was no surprise.)
Ramona pointed out something puzzling: Filipino-Americans constituted the biggest number of Trump supporters among Asian-Americans. “Don’t they know that they are voting against their own self-interest?”
Dissecting this support, she elaborates, “What makes them do that? Some have suggested that it’s a kind of internalized colonization or that we can’t think of ourselves as people of color? I’m not sure what’s going on there but I’d really like to find out.”
With the amount of money Filipinos spend for whitening products and the lengths they go to be white-skinned, I believe they know they are of color but prefer to fight it. That’s why we’re the only people who refer to a power outage as a “brownout” instead of a “blackout.” There’s a tinge of a difference in the color wheel there.
So, what really happened? What is happening? The world is changing, and it’s not just the millennials, as expected, who are making their voices heard. We should listen to the silence of many groups who only speak loud and clear through the ballot, or through a court decision. It’s not all about us.
At the end of the day, or night, we just have to accept that the unexpected happens. And that it really ain’t over till the last note of the fat lady’s song.
Zonta Club of Makati Ayala (ZCMA) signs a Memorandum of Agreement at Elks Club in Makati City with major partner Cameleon Association in which the latter will be the beneficiary for selected projects spearheaded by ZCMA. Cameleon Association is a French NGO rehabilitating Filipina sexually-abused survivors aged five to 18. In photo are (seated, second and third from left) ZCMA president Rita Dy and Cameleon Association founder Laurence Ligier. With them are ZCMA’s (seated, from left) Remy Besinga and past president Yvette Carrion; (standing, from left) public information officer David Sta. Maria, director Michelle Sison, past president Vicky Abraham, Cynthia Stehmeier, past president Marily Orosa, Nini Layug, treasurer Cynthia Reyes, director Alice Villanueva, member Dette Aquino, Roi Phillips and member Helen Prats. For more information, visit www.cameleon-association.org/en/.