Armed

This is the scandal of it all.

If Sen. Jamby Madrigal cannot do without an armed bodyguard beside her, she should refrain from joining street demonstrations. That is the dictate of civic duty.

Video footage of last Friday’s hosing of what was claimed to be a religious procession show an armed man at the frontline of the protestors. The dolt apparently dropped the gun and picked it up while dispersal procedures were under way.

That sent shivers down my spine. Had that gun misfired, chaos would have ensured. Had chaos ensued, there could have been casualties and endless finger-pointing.

Had there been casualties, a political conflagration might have happened. Great but unintended consequences could have followed in the aftermath of that conflagration – and all because a dolt carried a gun to the frontline of what was billed as a peaceful and prayerful assembly.

That one detail completely justified what the police did Friday night. Hosing down a crowd that advanced on police lines with at least one gun at the frontlines seems an extremely mild response.

How, in heaven’s name could it be possible that a man with a gun was at the forefront of a march against police lines?

Ah, but the answer lies in another detail. The man captured on video had both a gun and an umbrella. The umbrella could not have been brought to the rally to protect the protestors from water cannons – unless that dolt was a dolt of the first order.

The armed man was – of course! – Jamby Madrigal’s personal bodyguard. Which is why he had an umbrella on one hand and a gun on the other.

Madrigal tells us her bodyguard’s gun was licensed.

But, dear senator, that is not the point.

The point is that the man brought his gun to the frontlines of a tense confrontation between the police and a political cult that was supposed to be engaged in peaceful protest. That might seem to be an act of minor stupidity. But it is nonetheless an act that put everyone else in the vicinity in great peril.

Imagine all the dire possibilities created by that single act of bringing a gun to a frivolous but shrill political rally.

On the frontline of that rally was a virtual who’s who of desperate publicity seekers: downhill politicians, clamorous clergymen and the usual leftist personalities who need to wave their fists all the time like pathetic epileptics. None of them have any notable record of being ready to die for the national interest.

But a dolt’s gun misfiring, under the cover of darkness and a truly sorrowful sprinkle of water from firemen who douse without much conviction, could have produced a truly useless tragedy. The desperate publicity seekers might have seen their wish come true – except that their names, in large font, are found in the obituary section.

Imagine if that gun fell on the pavement, accidentally fired and hit the balls of someone who we always thought had none of them. Imagine if that gun fell and fired and hit someone in the mouth – someone who we devoutly wished would finally be quiet. Imagine if that gun fell and fired and, in so doing, produced another useless uprising: would we proclaim the dolt a hero?

The possibilities are endless. Some of those possibilities might actually turn out to be unintentionally benevolent.

Notwithstanding, I think Madrigal owes the nation an apology.

Tito Guingona, former vice-president was there. I don’t think he had bodyguards.

Fr. Robert Reyes was there and, as always, believed he was protected by the archangels.

A host of others were there, bare as they should be as they profess a variant of politics we might not all agree on but could agree to respect. When someone goes to a political demonstration, it should be sufficient to feel that one is surrounded by others of the same belief and is therefore protected by number and comradeship.

If there were any other than Jamby Madrigal in that self-important crowd that might feel they need physical protection, those security aides were close by and safely distant. They must have lurked in the sidestreets, ready to rush in if their principals were ever beleaguered.

No one else had a bodyguard a breath away – and certainly not with a gun so close to the line of confrontation, the point of greatest friction.

No one else save Jamby Madrigal, who had her armed guard cum umbrella man on hand. It could be because she felt she was special and must be constantly protected by an armed guard. It could be because she thinks her life is endangered. Or it could simply be due to the force of aristocratic habit.

But that was wrong to have an armed person in a situation of confrontation where the rule is that the police be unarmed. It was very wrong to have an armed person right smack in the middle of flaring tempers and a lot of pushing and shoving.

Public security has been seriously breached here. Her rank and title notwithstanding, that breach of public security ought not to go unpunished.

How, pray tell, can we take her posturing seriously?

If she does not have the courage to march without armed cover for a cause she claims to hold, how can we call her a peaceful protestor? How can we accept the conviction she flaunts as sincere?

After that gun-toting incident last Friday, how could we ever, ever be relaxed whenever politicians gather for "peaceful" march. One dolt’s gun misfiring in the midst of a tense and agitated crowd could produce a carnage – due either to policemen firing back or demonstrators stampeding.

Instead of spilling bile, Madrigal should be offering profuse apologies – at least to her colleagues who she endangered by inserting an armed man into a hysterical mob. And maybe to the general public who, until we looked at the video carefully, did not even suspect we were so close to a useless tragedy.