Hecklers

How may one best deal with hecklers?

Heckle them back.

That seems to be the thinking that induced some members of the ANAD party-list group to attend the maiden session of the so-called "people’s court" at the UP Theater the other day. They might have regretted doing that.

The ANAD party members were beaten up by the thugs of the "people’s court." One heckler ended up looking like Manny Pacquiao after the boxer lost to Morales. They were then arrested and detained by the UP Police – a force trained to act on the behest of the country’s best crackpots.

Later that day, Luis Sison, who was part of the gang that convened the "people’s court" claimed on television that the bashed face was self-inflicted. The TV clips showed otherwise.

The "people’s court" should have at least bothered to try the hecklers, even in summary fashion. The "court" was after all convened and its mock majesty was challenged by hecklers and hooters who might have sincerely wanted to inject a sense of reality into this circus. And this was a "court" where the prosecutors were also the judges, were also aspiring to be the executioners.

I can understand that the self-appointed members of the "people’s court" would be irritated by the hecklers. These hecklers threatened to pierce the bubble of contrived solemnity its instigators were trying to inflate.

The members of the court, after all, came to the venue dressed in their finest clothes – mimicking the garb and demeanor of congressmen, judges, lawyers and other personages who think they need to dress well because they are important. Even the facial demeanor of the members of the "people’s court" was self-consciously glum, mimicking the ponderous expressions of judges in their best caricature of themselves. The "court" thinks that by looking glum, they might have a chance at winning some suspension of disbelief for the farce they are indulging in.

The glummest of all was Teofisto Guingona, who "swore" in members of the "people’s court." By what authority he had to swear in anybody to anything, his colleagues did not bother to ask.

The hecklers probably deserved the heavy-handed treatment received from the leftist thugs protecting the farcical proceedings: how dare they employ the same tactics that leftists routinely employ when they are in the mood to disrupt anything, from congressional sessions to traffic flow in our congested streets.

Unfortunately for the leftist organizers of this "people’s court" charade, they hold no intellectual property right for the tactics of heckling.

Heckling is almost a natural right, inalienable from people determined enough to say the emperor wears no clothes. Like the urge to laughter, it is difficult to suppress.

Besides, as the leftist agitators know fully well, heckling is an economic way of delivering a message. A small band of individuals can capture the same amount of media space as an elaborately fabricated "people’s court."

See what happened last Tuesday at the UP Theater: a small band of ANAD members managed to convey the message that this convention of political clowns deserved to be heckled. That message has its own constituency.

By beating up the hecklers, the organizers of this useless farce unwittingly communicated to the rest of us what we all suspected: this "court" cannot stand opinion contrary to theirs. This is not just a kangaroo court. It is an absolutely intolerant kangaroo court.

From the television clips of the proceedings, it is clear to me that this convention of clowns does not need to be heckled. It is already indulged in auto-heckling.

The whole enterprise seems intended for one purpose and one purpose alone: to humor Teofisto Guingona. With every theatrical detail attended to assiduously, everyone on that stage seems to be a conspirator to an effort to guile Guingona with the illusion of a place of importance in a juridical and political black hole.

It was absolute pain watching this once venerable politician reduced to playing his centerpiece role in a farce.

He was the last person of any standing willing to lend whatever credence he had left to a procedure that practitioners of the black art of media manipulation call "event engineering." Here was a "trial" bereft of fairness, presided over by a bunch of play-acting jurors who can never be accused of objectivity.

And what new "truth" does this effort at event engineering bring?

Nothing so far but the recycling of old charges – the same ones that the majority at the House of Representatives appraised to be unworthy of impeaching a sitting president and throwing the nation into turmoil. It was an appraisal that the pathetic minority of pro-impeachment legislators could not accept. An appraisal the minority tries very hard to bless with closure.

The activists of ANAD were not there, by the way, to indulge in mindless heckling. They, too, had their message to deliver: that this whole circus was being orchestrated by the communists as part of the effort to prolong the instability and create conditions, no matter how improbable, for a power grab. It will be a power grab meant to eventually kill our democracy.

It is a message that is not without its own truth. Take this "people’s court" effort in the context of the shrill and desperate protest activities organized by the forces of the political left, including yet another "national day of protest" scheduled for today. Taken in that context, political effect appears more important to the organizers of the "people’s court" than any "truth" that may be unveiled in a one-sided exercise.

Perhaps the members of ANAD might consider convening a real people’s "people’s court" to prosecute those engaged in this circus. They may be charged with demeaning our collective sense of justice and fair play.

Or maybe they should be charged with frustrated attempt to produce a comedy, with gross waste of the people’s time, with heavy handed treatment of contrary opinion and with the aggravating fact of a total lack of acting talent.