Luckily, the debt restructuring was finally completed last year, freeing me to pursue other interests. Here is my first attempt at a comeback as a columnist. The timing of it, Valentine’s Day no less, makes my choice of topic practically mandatory.)
Filipinos pride themselves in being a romantic lot, and on this day more than any other, they go out of their way to try and live up to the label. Whole fields of roses are slaughtered for the sake of conveying all sorts of amorous intentions. The parks, moviehouses, and restaurants swell with the human traffic of countless couples exchanging their sweet nothings. And as darkness falls, many of these couples descend upon the motels clustered in odd parts of the metropolis, ebbing and flowing into these anonymous structures like some concupiscent tide.
For many of us, of course, our motel-trysting days have become mere memories. As often as not, the spirit may be unwilling, and even when it’s willing, the flesh can be proverbially weak. But more importantly, the lustiness of our youth has already given way to the companionability of marriages that work well, like worn-in shoes. No flowers need to be proffered, just the occasional smile that shares private experiences. No sweet nothings are exchanged, just the common chores of day to day around which the happily married couple have built their life together.
If they do go out, in fact, it becomes a family occasion, joined in by their children, living reminders of their lustier, youthful days. The candlelit dinner in an out of the way Italian bistro gives way to the bustling efficiency of Chinese restaurants with gigantic tables and rude waiters. The exchange of sweet nothings is replaced by gossip, bickering, and the constant chatter of text messages on everybody’s cell phones. Reality incessantly intrudes, always threatening, but somehow never breaking, the enveloping spirit of mutual affection that has grown from the original love of two into the filial love for each other of many.
A memorable moment at the hearing was the interrogation of a finance undersecretary by one of the senators, the well-known son of a former president. With his characteristic sneer, His Honor asked the hapless official, "Your plan to raise the VAT... is it pro-poor or anti-poor?" The poor official hemmed and hawed but really couldn’t argue his way out of the false choice he’d been presented. Obviously, what he should have replied was this: "It’s really a question of pro-poor versus pro-growth, Your Highness!"
This got me thinking about the different ways we can show our love of country. Politicians naturally don’t count – by nature of their profession, they really love themselves first, and the country just provides convenient cover. But in order to love our country, is it necessary to love the poor alone, or even above everyone else? And if we do profess to love the poor, are ostentatious charity and forcible distribution of wealth the only way to show it?
This whole fetish about being pro-poor is toxic. It has about as much substance as the empty nothings exchanged on Valentine’s Day by sweet couples. And like those empty nothings, what it really ends up in is a lot of people getting screwed.
I had lunch that day with a group composed mainly of writers and journalists who meet regularly at one of Larry Cruz’s excellent restaurants in Makati. Upon seeing me, one of the group’s newer members – a founding father of the local Left who has nonetheless managed to avoid spending a single day in jail for his beliefs – pointed to my forehead and proclaimed in his loudest faux-British accent, "Look at him showing his piety in public!"
As with other similarly unpleasant incidents, this one got me to thinking again, this time about love of God. The Church – which I love as only a recent convert can – fashions its observance of faith around ceremonies, rituals, icons, very public formalities of speech and action passed down over the centuries. The very structure of the Mass itself involves a succession of ritualistic behaviors, stripping away what is profane around and inside us and drawing us ever deeper into our spirituality until we are prepared to encounter the Christ Himself in the Eucharist.
It is all very different from the Protestant ethos in which I was raised, with its focus on the personal and private relationship between a man and his Maker. But I do not think that Catholic ceremony by comparison is demeaned in the least by its public and formalized character. Nor does its observance speak less of the sincerity of one’s intentions. The mystery of the Godhead is not accessed so easily, and there is value in following the codes, the map that can bring us, each Sunday, from the natural world to the boundaries of the next one.
Well, as it turns out, not much assistance was forthcoming from either the governments or the wealthy classes of affected countries like Indonesia and Thailand and Malaysia. Perhaps it was embarrassment among these proud tiger and would-be tiger economies at being rendered charity cases by Mother Nature. Or else it was another case of the haves not caring about the have-nots. Maybe it was also a display of that stereotypical Asian quality of fatalism, of resignation that, when confronted by the unfathomable, moves us to try and cut our losses rather than inspiring us to maximize the wins.
But the western countries, particularly the United States, responded with a magnificent outpouring of what can only be described as the aggressive love of fellow man. US naval forces in the region responded within hours to the crisis while the bureaucrats at the United Nations were churning out their press releases. Celebrities have been signing on to the cause, most recently led by former Presidents Clinton and Bush. This show of charity – most of it private – has been described as the largest one in memory, and continues still.
How then should we love? In the comfort of the everyday, as with our families. With toughness and principle, as we conduct our civic affairs. Respectful of form and mindful of propriety, as in our relationship with our Maker. And at all times, never forgetting that the misfortune around us is always, at the same time, an opportunity to show love and to earn love in return.
There, honey, are you happy now?