The power and glory

The Maker waits sitting in the basketball court of Tapon, Dumanjug, writing this article on his laptop. There is a street dancing fest about to happen. His brother, Vicente, is the new Baranggay Captain here. It is a hot early afternoon. The speakers are blaring away, children running everwhere, some looking over his shoulders to marvel at this strange magical thing he is doing. They watch the letters march away forwards wondering why a person would do such an unlikely thing when a computer is obviously for games. What is so great about letters and words? the smaller children ask themselves. The older ones understand. One explains, “He is making a story.”

“Do you know how to make a story?” the child asks the small crowd around him. “Nindot kaayo no?” He finishes his discourse with a measure of knowing pride. The Maker is quite moved. The older ones have an inkling of power and the wonder of it.

It must take an amount of power in this particular instance to get people to do these: Practice the dance, hire choreographers (mostly of the gay community), make and don costumes for an afternoon of festive music and dance. It must take an amount of leadership over people. This is the barrio kapitan’s first big fiesta project. The Garcias will be here. Congressman, governor and Dumanjug town mayor, respectively: Pablo Sr., Gwen and Nelson.

The Maker watches from a comfortable distance. In his late middle age, he is more inclined to exercise whatever power he has towards the more personal things, love and the carving of wood, the crafting of words hopefully to be enjoyed by those who are inclined to these things. He has become wary of the whole idea of exercising power over people. He is not cynical. Infact, he is sympathetic. After all, someone has to do it. He is sitting in Tapon but his thoughts are of his own workplace—at the University of the Philippines Cebu where powers fly, hiss and sizzle. But it is a lightless fireworks display.

One must strike at the core. It is the nature of humans to move things this way and that. Failing anything else, a person will move a piece of rock up a hill for no reason at all other than to demonstrate that it can be moved thus. Notwithstanding that as with Sisyphus’ rock it will by its own nature roll downwards at the earliest opportunity. If not that, another person will, in the course of time, come along whose nature it is to push rocks down a hill for no reason other than to see that he has the power to do so.

It is the nature of power to be subject to the physical rules of entropy. It always moves around because there will always be an imbalance of it. And so the core issue is always the transition of power. One of the functions of civility and governance is always to see to it that these transitions are within rational human control. Humans make culture and draft laws to do this. But, of course, there will be times when it becomes the responsibility of people to revolt and escape the bounds of what is civil and legal such as we did in Edsa to end the reign of the Marcoses. But always this extra-legal act must be well thought out. It must be tested by time. It took almost 20 years of constant struggle to end martial law. Some gave up their lives. Their deaths eventually rationalized the upheaval that would end it.

Thus, whenever and wherever people move to affect an extralegal recourse to transfer power, such as when they call for the ouster of a government official for instance the dean of a college, the first question to ask is always why. Is the official corrupt and abusive? Is there convincing evidence of this? Did he go beyond the proper use of his assigned powers? If not, then the thinking person must raise the principles of good governance that protect both the governed as well as those who govern. Otherwise, we will cease to be a civil and orderly society.

If the dean’s sin is only to displease us or things against our own specific parochial interests, this is not proper ground to remove him. We may go to the streets with placards to air our views and protest his acts. But calling for his ouster despite the absence of sufficient grounds is certainly deplorable if only because it casts a bad light on the whole idea of protest. After all, the dean has a specific term. And when that term runs out, there will be sufficient time to undo whatever acts he did that we disagree with. That is why in a civil society, there are such things as “terms of office.” But it is a double-edged sword which protects everyone including the duly appointed official.

Is there a power more powerful than the power of patience? Fools thirst for it anyway. It is their nature. If we oust this dean, who will lead us from then on? To be sure, there are many who now wait in the shadows. But they would be the worst ones.