Shenanigans

Filipinos may complain about lacking food – nationwide, one in three says being able to eat enough daily is an embarassingly urgent personal concern – but no one grouses about being short on fun. A full menagerie has been regaling this nation with comedy across the years. Sharks, octopuses, crocs, wolves, foxes, coyotes, monkeys, vultures, cockroaches and even termites have all attended the daily lives of Filipinos and made their existence most laughable. Whether one speaks of the nation’s governance, its economy or its overall society, this bestiary has provided much drama, excitement and of course black humor, albeit at a cost that has clearly beggared its popular audience. So far, this company’s performance has forced the nation to run a debt of over two trillion pesos.

The national circus currently features several foxes chasing each other’s tail. These agile protagonists traipse over each other and prance across several continents in a frenzied hunt for bank accounts, real estate and other material assets. The game is aptly called "Exposé" or "Discovery" and the main challenge is to identify and expose what the other party might have ingeniously secreted wherever.

Assisting the foxes are some coloful songbirds, the kind that readily warbles any tune their patron foxes might at any moment call for. All these dramatic warblings are perpetuated by some notarial seal that is affixed to certify to their originality. The revealing tunes are then held to be absolutely legitimate until the next arresting warble is sounded and subsequently also notarized. In the course of a month, resourceful foxes and obliging songbirds amass a wealth of incriminatory warblings, enough to supply every newspaper, radio and TV station with incredibly tittilating information, leads into lifestyles that square meager incomes with sybaritic practices and probes that seduce virginal minds into contemplating x-rated relationships.

"Alam ba ni Mrs. ito?" is a kicker that currently slams into quite a few asses. "I apologize" is a sophistic intro that augurs nothing good, nothing sincere and nothing soon to end. Not even when someone incredibly named a Goodman and surnamed Skillful to boot proffers the apology. "Ask my brother, my truly richer brother, the question your Honor" is a convenient coda for someone who would not be his brother’s keeper. Most convenient indeed when the more affluent brother appears unable to pay income taxes that the country’s grossly underpaid teachers regularly surrender to a regressive government.

The circus’ dramatis personae do not lack for those who competently sit, mull and bray as they perform the extremely difficult role assigned to asses in this menagerie. "Senator" and "senility" do share a common root but it still is a most marvelous accomplishment when the most gifted performers leave a cynical audience no doubt that these two terms must be absolutely identical in meaning. (Some of the actors unfortunately spoil the fun when they refuse to act the asses’ role and perform as if they were clear-minded, purposive senators searching for whatever might aid responsible legislation.)

The circus goes on. Mostly everyone in this country is laughing himself to death as the merciless clowns and their motley retinue put their audience in stitches and force tears out of near-tearless eyes. With or without bread, people here insist on being entertained and thus the show goes on and on and on.

No one dares to stop the cruel performance. Some of the more sullen decide to leave — quietly, for much quieter shores. The great majority insist on staying and being part of the revelry. For them, only utter exhaustion ends the long-playing shenanigans of an extremely juvenile nation.

It may be a good thing that more and more Filipinos are now showing signs of increasingly deeper exhaustion.