Agot, their straw man

Feast day greetings go today to the people of Talisay City, Cebu, who celebrate the passing over into heaven of Saint Teresa of Avila. She is the saint in whose honor others like Therese of Lisieux and Teresa of Calcutta took their names. We will forever be grateful for her teaching, particularly that golden line, “God alone suffices.”

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In the middle of the nineties, singer Agot Isidro rose to the top of the charts with her single “Every Day.” It was the late golden age of the cassette tape and the “songhits” — that compilation of lyrics with chords that we would buy time and again to help us learn to sing by heart the songs we came to love.

To achieve this juvenile goal, the alternative method was to take a blank tape, put it into the cassette player and press the record button when the disc jockey played the track of interest.

Apart from Agot’s soft, mellow and clear alto that was a pleasure to hear, I think what made “Every Day” a hit was that it tugged many a heartstring across the archipelago that could relate with the theme of keeping love strong from a distance. The song belonged to the tradition that includes Asin’s “Bayan Ko” and Smoky Mountain’s “Mama,” sung in the voice of a daughter whose mother works in London.

The lyricist in “Every Day” speaks of receiving a letter from a loved one in New York City, impliedly her husband, who speaks to her of the cold. She speaks of how she and her daughters are just fine though they pine for his presence. She declares her everyday love for him and tells him that she is counting the days to his homecoming.

Note that Agot’s rendition was released as more and more Filipinos found themselves in an occupational diaspora and that the trend continues today with at least 10 million of our compatriots working abroad notwithstanding the promise of at least three presidents, from Gloria Arroyo all the way to Rodrigo Duterte, to turn overseas work into an option rather than a necessity.

If Malacañang is even a tad serious about serving its current occupant’s global constituency, the chief executive’s team ought to be mindful that they build and maintain rather than burn bridges with world leaders under whose contexts many of our compatriots live and work.

Even if the day should come when a Philippine government achieves full employment for its workforce, as it has not, officialdom has a duty to outgrow its tribalism that has no place at a time where the best of men and women are pouring their efforts into building a cohesive international community. We cannot afford a leadership that behaves like a brat on the global stage, high on noise and entertainment but low on the quiet, delicate project of diplomacy.

No one is arguing against seeking for the Philippines a level of self-sufficiency that makes it less and less dependent on foreign aid. This dream, however, is not realized by the sanctioning of gangster demeanor, much less by a recalibration of our alliances by strengthening ties with Russia and China and turning cold towards the European Union and the United States. That is not less dependency, Mr. President; that is just playing musical chairs with our international partners that would at best change the features of the donors but do nothing in the way of releasing the nation from the mendicancy that you claim to despise.

And lest the foreign affairs team delude themselves into thinking that nations like Russia and China are less likely to intervene in the affairs of other states, let them be reminded of Russia’s takeover of parts of Georgia and Ukraine, and of China’s uneasy chess game with India and Japan over lands and seas.

Not even a million trolls condemning Agot Isidro for calling Malacañang to task over uncalled for presidential tantrums will get us out of the complications that will arise from a vain search for pro forma but unsubstantial self-determination in an era of regional and global integrations.