Home 
Congressman Ysmael Bukad cradles his cup of coffee in both hands as if to draw all its warmth. It seems strange that in the gathering heat of a summer morning he should require such reassurance that all is tolerable if not well with the world.
He drops his favorite paper to the floor hoping for the cat to come around and spray its refuse into it in that peculiar way a feline marks territory. He realizes, of course, it is only a hyperbole of hopelessness, a wish for poetic justice in a world where any other sort of justice becomes unlikely.
GMA's Supreme Court made quite a number of weird decisions lately but none as weird as what the papers reported that morning. GMA could now appoint the new Supreme Court Justice just weeks before elections. The constitutional ban for such midnight appointment was lifted notwithstanding previous rulings by the same court back when it constituted justices not appointed by GMA. Now, the fall would be complete.
The political implications of such a decision are obvious. But the+ foremost is that GMA now has added reassurance of escaping any consequence for her acts. She can look to the Supreme Court not as a body that would review her political actions from hereon. She might consider she can get away with anything.
Should the outcome of the coming polls become even moderately controversial and questionable, anything becomes possible. And as things are turning out, that might as well be the theme of GMA's reign: "Anything is Possible with GMA."
?There are several ways of looking at it,? goes the Maker. If one begins from the premise that only an armed revolution can change the country, then the decision is well and good. It is just one more nail in the coffin, which upholds the premise of inevitable cathartic upheaval. The Supreme Court's act serves simply to solidify the position of the current ruling elite. If they could heretofore do anything they liked without fear of consequence, they can now go one step farther. They can do anything they like and more.
If, on the other hand, one has operated on the wish and will to do something, however small, to get the country going on the road to sanity, then the decision can only be disheartening. And one may go off thinking just like Congressman Bukad that evil has become so institutionalized in our country, we are left with very little room for hope. We are zombie nation, as the kids might say.
Christina is, of course, just as demoralized by all these. But perhaps it is because she is the stronger of all of you, or the fact she is a woman that drives her to press ahead. Thus, while Congressman Bukad has thought of taking his sigbin and flying himself off to New Zealand for the rest of his life, she instead takes out her sack of used cardboard and continues making election book markers.
With scissors, she cuts cardboard into the shape of a small pocket-sized ruler. On one end she punches a small hole. She threads a short length of yellow ribbon into the hole. She takes a black marking pen and writes over the cardboard the names of candidates she believes may still save the country from the corrupt sea of garbage which now dominates.
You watch her lovingly from a distance wondering why you are incapable of such innocence and faith. Is it because you had not gone through cancer? Is it because you still carry with you a complete set of breasts? Is it because you have not ever had to hope against hope?
Christina is kneeling on the floor, her head bent down into her work. All about her, pieces of cardboard, ribbons and tools. She whispers a soft prayer to herself and her God with each book marker she makes:
May we always go beyond ourselves to see and do what is good for all and not just ourselves. May we always see that in the end the only answer is and has always been as in the time of Christ, sacrifice; to be precise, self-sacrifice. May we always have hope. May we always see the good of that, no matter how things turn out.
