Campaign Wife: Of mice and men

The word “politics” comes from the Greek “politika.” Wikipedia furthers the word was modeled on Aristotle’s book Affairs of State. Other derived and evolved definitions: “the activities and affairs involved in managing a state of government,” “process by which groups of people make collective decisions” (as in policy-making). 

Hmm. From where I stand, these would be no less insufficient as real, applied politics is certainly much more than “arriving at consensus.” My favorite find in the web, so far: “social relations involving intrigue to gain authority and power.” Truly, politics is a poker game. Among other things, the campaign wife has to practice and learn the art of freeze framing the perfect poker face — for hours at a time when necessary — even and especially when you want to stomp your feet, pull your hair and scream your lungs out “I want outta here!”, all at the same time. If you can’t find art in that, it is totally understandable. Simple discipline will do. The best, of course, would either be total immersion in the game, be a player (out of the question) — or to go zen (that’s more like it). But how do you get there? In my limited, imperfect experience since crash landing into the Pinoy political planet, you have to either hit rock bottom or hit the ceiling first. And then the “Aha” moment. 

My “Aha” moment came August last year. The Aha! bubbles were popping all around my enlightened and slightly intoxicated head after a good glass of red wine looking into the beautiful, deep and wide Boracay seascape. Aha! I am not a politician, may never be, most probably never want to be. I’m a journalist trained to see it as it is, tell it as it is. Aha! Politics is disgusting. I’ve always disliked it, I dislike it more than ever. But, oh no. I’m married into it. What now? Aha! I will always have a choice. Misery is optional. I like who I am, therefore, I am myself, no matter what. Aha! It is all not to be taken too seriously. And that means not taking my self too seriously either. After a refresher course on John Steinbeck’s classic Of Mice and Men, a good provincial hilot (“‘Day, pwede mo rin bang hilutin ang kaluluwa ko?”, then the masahista looked at me with a blank stare), and a healthy tan (not the uneven kind you burn from under a scalding Pangasinan sun during a “palengke run” sortie) — I think I was right when, going back home, I then thought I was “ready.”

While in my most recent sorties in Isabela and Cagayan this past week, I found myself having to take unscheduled pit stops to take phone calls from Headquarters in Cubao. “Looks like it really will happen today,” said our campaign media head. I said, “Well, this was expected. We’ve nothing to hide. What will be, will be.” Weeks prior, we were already alerted about the stages of political black propaganda projects that were reportedly underway. Like clockwork, and as enumerated to us, projects 1 and 2 commenced, fizzled out, practically started and ended unnoticed. The candidate’s wife, moi, was Project 3. There aren’t enough bullets to kill my husband’s chances on election day. So they go after the highly-visible, celebrity wife. For a second there, I felt like a woman screaming her head off while giving birth for the first time — blaming everything on the husband. But, alas, such are what come with this kind of territory.

On the other end of the phone line I sensed our media relations officer keeping a chuckle restrained, “Just watch the news tonight, Korina. I think you’ll find it quite amusing.” After a women’s forum, two more palengke and TODA runs, a side trip to give rubber slippers to 500 “slipper-less” children in the local elementary school we drove two hours to sleep in Cagayan. Spent and exhausted, the news from Manila provided me and my hard-working team with the best appetizer yet before a hearty meal of local Tuguegarao batil-patong pancit and garlic longganiza. I couldn’t believe my ears while a completely entertained colleague was recounting what he heard on TV. The spin of the news reports allegedly backfired on the perpetrator. The common angle was on “political black propaganda.” None of the major dailies reportedly carried the story. Now I hear they’re trying to get through to provincial venues. They’re not done with Mar either.

I was never particularly fond of the piece. But it was a book assignment in college. I wanted to see if it would mean differently to me two decades later. Sparknotes has a comprehensive analysis of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. The dominant theme of the story is about humanity’s fall from grace as we succumb to the predatory nature of our existence. Big words. What it means is that we are and will always be monkeys who kill each other for food and space. Actually, not even monkeys do that. It talks about the “measurements” of one man against the other as a requirement — before we look for somebody smaller, weaker to destroy. In a real jungle the animal kingdom’s food chain is quite set. But among humans Steinbeck is analyzed to have labored through explaining what it is that makes a man either predator or prey. The characters in the story were portrayed as isolated and lonely. The interpretation of the symbolisms and characters in Steinbeck’s classic is tantalizing. “Loneliness is responsible for much of the suffering of human beings. And, unfortunately, loneliness can manifest as oppression and cruelty.” 

It is part of the universal karmic cycle that when you are oppressive and cruel you become isolated. The deductions come not just from reading a book. From enough exposure to the particular harshness of a life in politics and to politicians whose hearts are suffocated by an obsessive ambition to get to wherever one may be deluded to believe he or she is destined to be, isolation is imminent. Tragically, isolation indeed has a profound effect on our measurement of our own humanity. Specifically, self-inflicted or merited isolation causes the absence of a basis to measure one’s humanity to begin with. How do you measure yourself against anyone else when you are all alone? In the end, Sparknotes concludes, “the most blatant form of strength, used to oppress others, is itself a form of weakness.” My point: these black ops projects are just pathetic. And I’m hearing Mar in my ear again: “What isn’t true never sticks.”

Getting back home from two days of campaigning, my husband asks me the usual, “So what did you do? What did you learn?” We were about to have the regular storytelling but, this time, less light than usual while he has his haircut (the haircut he wants to vote in on May 10, he said). “You know I really think all of us as small and insignificant in the bigger scheme. But some make themselves even smaller, so small, by what they do or fail to do that they might as well just disappear,” I say, with a bit of a craving for some nasty, person-bashing pulutan. But I am cut short. Mar says, “We can also make ourselves bigger and more significant than how we started out by doing the right thing...” I agreed. I can’t say we aren’t monkeys but we certainly are set apart enough to have the will not to act like monkeys. I gave him an exhausted smile and, partially cross-eyed from campaign fatigue, I said, “OK, I’m getting us dinner.” On my way to the kitchen I’m thinking: I’m not lonely, I’m not isolated. I’m counting my blessings. I’m zen.