Lopez
Whether you like him or not, Duterte is your karma. If you’ve been good, he’s your good karma; if you’ve been bad, he’s your bad karma. For what goes around truly does come around. Or if you listen to my friend Francis Niufortaliza’s version: “Diba, friend, what goes around — must come down!” (Yes, he was serious when he said that.) Still, for anything we’ve done, a day of reckoning will come.
For the rest of us who waited patiently and suffered not too quietly throughout Noynoy Aquino’s gloriously duplicitous reign marked by out-of-this-world hypocrisy, he is our good karma, our oh-so-delicious serving of delayed gratification for dessert. And we are, after a long enduring wait, most gratified and grateful for the generous graces from up above.
Imagine what some of us have had to endure. For six long years during the Aquino regime, I swam against the Yellow tide, a tide so strong it was supported by the wave of popular opinion, or so it seemed. It was a long lonely struggle. For some of us, it felt like we were lone wolves huffing and puffing and howling amid a creeping darkness that slowly but surely swallowed the land whole. The darkness encompassed everything so much so that the hypocrisy so pervasive then nearly crippled the very hope we clung to.
I was trolled relentlessly when trolling or trolls were not as big a deal as they are now. Through comments and private messages, I faced them all. Petty insults, baseless accusations, and threats to my life, name it! They were always ready to pounce, ready to leave their venom.
Six long years I endured them and so I’ve become rather desensitized to attacks. Attack me now and I unflinchingly move on with the rest of my day, and yes, the rest of my beautiful life I take a break from from time to time to fight battles I believe are worth fighting for.
I had very few friends who fought the same war, friends like Ryan Villaflores who swam against that Yellow tide of peril and poison so bravely and eloquently. But then I discovered other lone wolves, those who bravely stood up and fought the vicious regime because they also saw through the fakery and forgery of our very democracy.
Through Facebook, I came to know people like Jojo Robles, former editor-in-chief of the Manila Standard, and the irrepressible Darwin Cañete (now even more popular after appearing at a Senate hearing recently), both bold, brave, and brilliant patriots, and suddenly I was sure it was not going to be a losing battle after all, that not all hope was lost.
We were no longer lone wolves, and we huffed and puffed and howled together, and others heard. As we would realize later on, there were more of us, countless more, more than we ever imagined. From a pack, in May 2016, we became a multitude.
Looking back, I must’ve endured those six dark years because of people like Sir Jojo, Darwin and Ryan. And so they will always have a special place in my heart for making those years a little more bearable, a lot less harrowing and even, to an extend, somewhat exciting.
Through it all — the Hong Kong hostage crisis, the unjust and vindictive persecution of Arroyo, the impeachment of Corona, the bribery of senators through DAP, the thousands of Yolanda victims who suffered and died because of corruption and incompetence, the Mamasapano/SAF 44 carnage, massive electoral fraud, the mediocrity and ineptitude, all the blaming and credit-grabbing, self-righteous pontificating and finger-pointing — we made it, emerging from those six years definitely stronger, wiser, braver.
And the long, excruciating wait culminated in the election of one Rodrigo Roa Duterte who is the supreme antithesis to all that is Yellow we so detest and despise with our lives.
All the Philippine presidents I’ve had the honor of speaking with (that’s all of them living presidents sans Aquino) all say the same thing: The presidency is a matter of destiny. And it surely is, so even Noynoy’s election and Cory’s death months before were all part of the divine plan, for better or for worse.
Duterte’s victory is no different. Especially since his historic win was by way of a massive landslide — Vox Populi, Vox Dei (the voice of the people is the voice of God) — a scathing and stinging rebuke of his predecessor and his monumental hubris.
And because of the vindictiveness and divisiveness sowed by the once-almighty Noynoy, there is no other way to see Duterte’s win except as divine justice, the universe correcting a serious glitch in the matrix, the well-deserved and long-awaited comeuppance of those who worshipped and glorified the unholy Yellow Baal.
To those who worshipped at the feet of the two-faced yellow beast who lied through his even more yellow teeth, this is your karma.
The more evil you think Duterte is, the more you suffer and cringe from the idea that a crass and uncouth probinsyano leader now leads this wretched land, the better. It only means you deserve him.
The more you suffer from his being president, the more you contemplate suicide at the sight of him, the more you feel like going crazy trying to understand why 9 out of 10 Filipinos continue to support and love him, the worst you think of him, the better.
Once more, Duterte is your karma, and with bad karma, you don’t really get to enjoy and have a blast. You suffer.