Where are we heading, we might ask ourselves. Do we turn to our mothers, our friends, or our lovers for answers. We may ask each other with eyes closed, between boisterous laughs or over shots of Macallan 18, either neat or on the rocks. Or we may ask the oligarchs over a five-star dinner of medium rare steak, or maybe the tambays over 45-peso bottles of gin and smuggled cigarettes.
We may ask it just as Hamlet did in a soliloquy, in the middle of a monstrous traffic jam, when lying restless in borrowed rooms, or while standing naked in front of the mirror.
We ask it wherever we may be – from Makati to Marawi or anywhere in between.
But there is no single answer. There can be many. Or there may be none.
It’s been two years now. But still we wonder – where are we heading? We ask ourselves the question again and again.
Doldrums
Here’s what we know so far – the economy is in the doldrums, so says the father of the land.
“There seems to be a semblance of a country on the surface, but on the inside it’s topsy-turvy,” he says.
The economic managers disagree. Everything is going well, they say. There are more jobs, there are more projects, the peso weakness is not bad, and if you’re complaining about rising oil prices, you’re just being a crybaby.
Here’s what we know so far – the stock market is in bear territory, the peso is among Asia’s worst performers, inflation is spiraling and hurting our pockets, and our trade deficit is the widest in years.
Wrong, all wrong. One department says.
“Real GDP growth is higher than six percent, inflation is within the neighborhood of projected levels, gross international reserves are in excess of eight months of imports of goods and services, balance of payment and fiscal deficits are financeable, and the debt ratios are declining.”
Here’s what we know so far – we don’t have a chief justice –“she’s bad for the country;” we can’t have the Pope, he’s not welcome here, “that son of a bitch.” And God? God is “stupid,” pray at your own risk.
Here’s what we know so far – there are thousands dead because of the drug war – killed in the dead of night, beaten until black and blue; shot in the head, shot in the torso, pierced through the heart – bloodied bodies drenched in the rain, strewn grotesquely in piles of trash, or covered in tattered cartons of Lucky Me.
The numbers vary, depends on who you ask – 200 or 20,000. But does it matter, really? Isn’t one death too many?
Here’s what we know so far – the jobless are killed for loitering around in their shirtless glory. Young girls are sold online, auctioned to the highest bidder. Our islands are taken over by the Chinese who go fishing in our seas in exchange for noodles and cigarettes.
Now we ask ourselves again and again. Where are we going? Joan Didion asked the same question about America years ago. There are no answers, she wrote in her essay “On the Road.”
Indeed, whether it’s America or Manila, nobody knows for sure.
What is clear is that it’s surreal as it can get. We’ve become unwitting participants in this Netflix-like series. The scriptwriter must be high on drugs; or too much Fentanyl, perhaps.
The State of the Nation
In a few weeks there will be a speech and it will be grand. It will be applauded, not once, not twice, but many times over. They will come in their thousand-dollar Barongs, designer gowns and Birkin bags, and they will stand and clap and stand again because he is great and almighty, the best one they know.
And the speech will make headlines and fake news, too.
But when the euphoria is over, we will be back in the daily grind, hustling in the morning and hustling at night.
And we still won’t know where we’re going.
But we can’t stop asking – not today, not tomorrow, not ever. We need to keep asking ourselves: “Where are we heading?”
We need to keep asking them. Especially them.
We need to keep asking the keeper of the purse, that official who likes to talk over breakfast. We need to keep asking the anointed one whose signature is in the money that we use. We need to keep asking the class valedictorian who promised that things will be better. We need to keep asking the man who clicked the railroad switch.
We need to keep asking the human rights lawyer-turned-apologist, never mind that he will peddle us with lies.
We need to keep asking the men in the white palace, in that building across that river stinking with trash.
Where, oh where are we heading?
We need to keep asking them, again and again. And we hope one day that things will get better.
There will be an answer, says the legendary Paul McCartney one afternoon in Liverpool in his pleasantly surprising Carpool Karaoke.
“It’s going to be OK. Just let it be.”
I sure hope he’s right. He has to be.
Iris Gonzales’ e-mail address is eyesgonzales@gmail.com