Gladiators, even when they had to fight to death, had more courtesy towards their adversaries than what we see today among the most vicious of our politicians.
I can understand that burning ambition can sometimes drive men to do absurd things. But I do not understand the seething attitude that seems to have possessed some of those who occupy positions that demand the highest degree of statesmanship.
Our politics has had its moments of viciousness. But even during those moments, there seemed to be unspoken rules of the game – basically the code of gallant men.
Gentlemen may duel furiously, but they dealt honorable blows.
At this particularly vicious moment in our politics, even the unspoken rules appear to have evaporated in the heavily poisoned air.
I can imagine Ferdinand E. Marcos had no love lost for Benigno Aquino Jr. But, with all the power he had at the height of the tyranny he cobbled, Marcos never hit Aquino, well, below the belt. This even when the opposition at that time, led by Sergio Osmena Jr., threw everything at Marcos – including a supposed affair with American actress Dovie Beams.
At an earlier, more honorable time, Senator Sergio Osmena Jr. hurled charges against President Carlos P. Garcia. When he could not prove those charges, the Senate suspended the erring senator for 15 months.
That was an appropriate move. Senators may be elected at large. But that does not give them the license to desecrate the chamber by using parliamentary immunity as a shield for indulging in libel.
Otherwise the honorable chamber is degraded and its proceedings descend into an orgy of lies.
I have always been amazed (or more precisely, offended) by the queer culture that has evolved in our entertainment industry. It is a culture that freely accepts intrigue and unfounded gossip as part of the sport. It is a culture that seems to be driven by walking, talking caricatures of the blabbering homosexuals that does not do justice to others of that gender preference because it perverts their lot to the degenerative role of social freaks.
Over the past few years, we fretted over what seems to be a wholesale invasion of the political terrain by all sorts of creatures from the entertainment world.
Now, it appears the logical culmination of that invasion has been achieved. The tsismis subculture of the entertainment world has contaminated the terrain of our political processes.
This does not bode well for the quality of our political discourse. A dirty cloud of irresponsible speechifying has swept across our political landscape. It cuts our visibility to nil. It prevents the forthcoming political contest from becoming an engagement of contrasting visions and programs.
This is all very unfair. A whole nation is forced to swim through mud slung by unscrupulous political payers.
And through that muck and mud, how are we to find our way towards a better future?
In the controversy we have at hand, an incredible amount of cruelty has been unleashed. Black propaganda, in its crudest and most brazen form, has been dispensed with such callous abandon by men who call themselves senators and by their malicious operators who prefer to describe themselves as advisers.
Complaints are now piling up before the Senate Ethics Committee against Senator Panfilo Lacson.
He presented what he claimed was a check issued by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office to Jose Pidal. The PCSO has denied that there was such a check. And the agency, dependent as it is on the trust of millions who patronize its lotteries, have complained to the Senate.
He claimed there was a joint account between Jose Pidal and Victoria Toh. All the banks have denied having such an account.
He insinuated, to the delectation of the more irresponsible sections of media, a romantic liaison between the First Gentleman and Victoria Toh. Now, Victoria Toh is filing a complaint before the Senate. Her reputation has been so wantonly trampled upon by senatorial indiscretion.
The First Gentleman filed a slew of libel cases against the senator. That notwithstanding, the senator’s camp claimed that the First Gentleman unfairly treated his siblings by gobbling up the family inheritance. The Arroyo siblings denied this.
Will this cruel extravaganza just go on and on?
How many more innocent citizens need to be injured by irresponsible politicians driven by malice, possessed by low self-esteem and consumed by their own bitterness before the carnage stops?
To be sure, there have been fair efforts to restore sanity, decency and responsibility to our politics. House Speaker Jose de Venecia has been working the past few days to assemble a "political summit." Senate President Franklin Drilon has called for a moratorium on privilege speeches, the favored weapon of mudslingers.
Priests and pastors, people’s organizations and business groups, have come forth to call for a halt to the dangerous descent of political factionalism to the level of fishwives pulling at each other’s hair or to the level of cheap showbiz intrigahan.
There has to be a more decent, more honorable way of conducting our politics.
There has to be a more sober way of going about our political disagreement, one that enlightens a clear path through the maze of strategic problems that imperils the wellbeing of the next generation of Filipinos.
There has to be, in the deep recesses of our political life, some residual stock of statesmanship we may rescue to, in turn, rescue our political life from all the low-life we manage to elect to public office.
There has to be a more charitable way of resolving political rivalries, one that spares us from those driven by inexplicable hatred and disposed towards inflicting cruelty on others.
There just has to be a more honorable way of passing through this savage episode. Otherwise the nation is doomed.