Getting combobulated in retirement

For a word that, according to how Filipinos use and attach meaning to it, has no real and specific equivalent in English, it is surprising how "delicadeza" seems to have acquired a certain propensity to get hijacked and misused, even abused.

Filipinos take great liberties in their use of the word "delicadeza," often to describe with aplomb and equanimity certain expansive situations that are actually no more than their own well-embellished but tailor-made biases.

In the original Spanish, "delicadeza" means softness or gentleness, or a certain degree of delicacy. But Filipinos have hijacked the word to mean something else, the closest translation being a "sense of propriety." Having then so, the then proceeded to quickly debauch it.

For example, "delicadeza" is often used as a demand on public officials, for them to act according to the dignity and respect accruing to their offices. Yet those who are demanding to exact "delicadeza" from others do not exactly possess any "delicadeza" themselves.

Recently, self-styled anti-illegal gambling crusader Oscar Cruz, a retired archbishop, took to task several senators who went public with the admission that they, too, have been lured into buying lotto tickets because of the huge prizes being offered.

Cruz, consumed by the piety of his previous office, self-righteously demanded of the senators to have a little "delicadeza" by leaving the placing of bets on lotto to the ordinary citizens.

Yet, it is this same retired archbishop Cruz who bristles everytime he lectures about the evils of gambling and how he often takes these same "ordinary citizens" to task for embracing games of chance.

To tailor-fit his diatribe against senators, Cruz craftily lowered his moral expectation of "ordinary citizens" playing gambling, affording them the suddenly lesser evil status compared to senators playing the same game.

So now the gravity of the offense depends on who is the starring evil. If it is the "ordinary citizens," they are the wayward flock who need to be spanked. But when the senators enter the picture, it is they who now deserve the fire and brimstone from Cruz.

But wait, why is the retired Dagupan-Lingayen archbishop trying to exact "delicadeza" from senators when, consumed by an entirely different mood, he often harangues these senators as having absolutely no "delicadeza."

 Mr. Cruz is truly getting very difficult to fathom. He is starting to get incoherent. Depending on the circumstances and his mood swings, "ordinary citizens" are told not to gamble, lest they incur the wrath of God.

But when it is the senators who gamble, Cruz tells them to have the "delicadeza" to quit and leave the gambling to "ordinary citizens." Yet how can senators now have any "delicadeza" when, as Cruz would often lambast them, they do not have any "delicadeza" in his eyes?

There seems to be a little Catch-22 at work here. According to Cruz, "ordinary citizens" must not gamble. But if it is the senators who gamble, they must have the "delicadeza" to stop and leave the gambling to "ordinary citizens."

But if Cruz insists senators must have "delicadeza," then they must have "delicadeza" to begin with, otherwise Cruz would not have demanded of them the "delicadeza" that he often says they never had in the first place. Whew. Cruz must surely be getting combobulated in retirement.