Finally, a blow for the silent majority

Let me admit it outright. When I learned that party-list representative Risa Hontiveros Baraquel was arrested during a street demonstration held to coincide with International Women's Day last week but which she used to assail the government, I said to myself, YES!

Now, do not get me wrong. I do not derive perverse enjoyment from the misery of others. I honestly believed that, all things considered, Baraquel was happy too with her arrest. Her anger, I felt, just came with the territory, the role she has assigned herself to play.

Look, Baraquel has virtually made the streets her place of employment. She has chosen to work in street demonstrations. People who spend that much working time in a single place must be having a good and beneficial time there.

In the course of her long-time association with the asphalt byways in the capital of our nation, Baraquel has been hosed down and dispersed. Yet she is still there. So, what is a poor country hick like me to make of her preference to be stay there than to assume she enjoys it?

Part of the enjoyment probably comes from the thrill of anticipation. If this was being played out on a gaming table, Baraquel could be waiting for the jackpot, which is to be arrested and be transported to a higher plane of importance. Well, finally last week, somebody obliged.

You may ask if it made me happy as well that her right to demonstrate and express herself got curtailed in the process? Of course not. Are you kidding? It is people like Baraquel who give me ideas on what to write. If they are silenced, my mind would go blank.

I am joking, of course. Bitaw, while I believe in rights, it is my equal belief that no right is absolute. No one can keep pushing a right on the assumption he or she can stretch it forever. Eventually, one right will have to overlap that of another, and a clash will ensue.

In a way, I admire the tenacity of Baraquel and those who think like her, especially their determination to keep testing those limits to see how far their rights can go. What I do not like about them is their stubborn refusal to step back when the limit has been reached.

Maybe this is because Baraquel and her ilk think the world owes them unrestricted access to anything. Well they do not. I have my own claim to some of those things, you know, and I just hope we do not reach the point where we need to settle matters outside of reason.

For instance, when Baraquel occupies a public thoroughfare to demonstrate, an activity that is not according to its designed use, she infringes on my own right and that of others to use the road for its intended purpose, which is to facilitate movement and travel.

That may be putting it too simply. On the other hand, no right is too puny to be run over by another. You can bear getting run over once, maybe twice. Beyond that, you feel you are being abused and you begin to resent this tyranny of the minority.

But because God works in mysterious ways, someone always seems to beat you in doing what you would have relished doing yourself. Last week it was the police that beat everybody else in putting a stop to all the madness. They arrested Baraquel. Yes!

The archipelago was hushed. The development was so unanticipated the nation did not know how to react. And then somebody shouted " YES! " I believe that was me. Believe me, the islands broke into lusty cheers. They are no sacred cows after all. And justice is indeed sweet.

There is, however, an ironic twist to this happy tale. The police, who did what many had secretly hoped of doing themselves, is now denying they arrested Baraquel. They merely invited her for questioning, they say. What out-of-touch wimps.

If the police only knew the pulse of the nation, they would have realized that the silent majority is behind what they did. Unfortunately, they seem to hear only the noisy minority. Worse is they believe what they heard and got scared. They finally did right and still they botched it.