'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin'

To some it may be mere coincidence. For me, life is all about timing.

First Gentleman Mike Arroyo has now struck out twice for disrupting a presidential excursion. First time out was in Baguio City where Mr. Arroyo’s gastric discomfort prematurely ended a cheery break in the City of Pines.

And now the First Gentleman has single handedly “forced down” a commercial airliner and diverted a presidential excursion because he had serious breathing problems. But is that all there is to this life threatening, multimillion- peso disruption? Should we view such an event as a mere hiccup in our currently boring political reality show?

I can’t explain why, but when the news came to me, I thought about the image of “a finger, writing on the wall”.

For the record, the First Gentleman is rarely on my mind, I generally hold a neutral view of him and in the past year, I have often told some of his critics that they could achieve more praying for an “ill” or “weakened man” than to heap curses upon him. In short, I don’t hate the guy nor is he on any hit list, if I ever had one.

The image of “The finger, writing on the wall” is in many ways a biblical classic, which is also the source of a classic Filipino movie Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang.

In the book of Daniel (chapter 5) the story goes that some dude named King Belshazzar was hosting a major event for his boys in the hood. Just to put some Bling and some Attitude to his event, bad boy Belshazzar decides to use gold goblets for his guests who were guzzling wine. The only hitch was the goblets did not come from his F&B department but from the Temple of God, which pillaged by Belshazzar’s Dad King Nebuchadnezzar.

As a final show of BAD Attitude, Belshazzar and his “Homies” started praising the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone. In short they were just having a party for all the loot they had.

Out of nowhere a finger appears and starts writing on the wall: “ MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN”.

The King could not read or figure out the words and none of his smoke and mirror dudes could. I’m sure they would have called Nicole Kidman to be their “Interpreter” if they could, but they had to settle for a Refugee named Daniel.

Daniel shows up and unloads on the King:

“You O Belshazzar have not humbled yourself though you knew all this. Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, of iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand.

But you did not honor the GOD that who holds in his hand your life and all your ways, therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription. This is what these words mean:

Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and has brought it to an end.

Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.

Peres: Your Kingdom is divided and given to the Persians.

 Soon after the party the Persians terminated the King.”

As I said in my intro, Life is all a matter of timing.

Just before the Presidential entourage left Manila, the big news was about how the Administration was just 12 votes shy of making moves to amend the constitution or Cha-Cha. Congressman Mikey Arroyo was dubbed the Point Man of the movement and as a measure of their confidence they even had time for an excursion.

Since then, people regularly expressed disbelief over this “brazen or naked lust to extend power”. Others have talked of their commitment to camp out in the streets, while others have decided to go on with their lives. I have stood pat on my conviction that GOD is in control.

So I personally believe that this recent mini-medical emergency that befell the Arroyo Family and disrupted the Presidential entourage is not some shallow day-to-day health problem. I believe that it is the “Finger of God” gently reminding the misguided or the ambitious or even those losing faith, that GOD holds our “life” and all our “ways” in his hand.

He may regularly comfort the afflicted but he also afflicts the “comfortable”. The excursionists need only to gaze at the many “once proud and powerful” people they vanquished. Their enemies were once mighty and in power, but now, they are no more. In like manner the same future awaits the proud because “Pride comes before the fall”.

ANOTHER WAR IN THE MAKING

The Philippine government may have won the battle for the “Cheaper Medicines bill” but judging from the history of other countries, the battle will be nothing compared to the coming war against counterfeit medicines.

As a consequence of public information and debate over the potential effects of the “Cheaper Medicines” bill and its subsequent program, concerned parties are now paying more attention to countries affected by the manufacture and proliferation of “cheap medicines”.

Collected information indicates that many countries are discovering high numbers of medicines to be counterfeit, fake or adulterated. Most commonly faked medicines are for antibiotic, anti-malaria, TB, diarrhea and even insulin. Even developed countries such as the United States has not been spared where a reported 95 deaths occurred as a result of taking “heparin” used to thin the blood consistency.

In the “heparin” related deaths, the US discovered that an alternative chemical was used just like melamine was used in Milk. Both problems came from China. As for the favored country of India, it is reported that the World Health Organization suspects that 20 percent of their “produce” is fake or adulterated.

I have been victimized by fake “Imodium” that I bought from a sari-sari stored doubling as a botika ng bayan. Drinking fake medicines overnight almost killed me. I landed in the emergency ward of a provincial hospital where a pharmacist pointed out the cause. Since then I will only buy from a nationally established drug store or a hospital pharmacy!

Be sure you are buying medicine, not poison!