The Cebuano word "miresi" is unchristian

I could not believe my eyes! Was I reading a verifiably correct account? It just seemed to be an incredible story probably written by an insignificant someone trying to get his editor’s attention. This could not likely happen to the Hon. Tomas R. Osmeña, Cebu City South District Representative. These were my reactions when I read the news that he was unceremoniously shooed away like an ordinary guy from the scene where people were trying to search for the then missing DILG secretary.

I will not be surprised though if two people, a former village chief of a Cebu City Barangay and a media personality are amused, at the misfortune of the former mayor. Yes, Messrs. Jessie Jayme and Bert Empacis may succeed to suppress a boisterous laughter but not their smile. These gentlemen are good Christians, and so I do not think they will even utter the Cebuano word miresi (is this the correct spelling?).

Their smile can result from their recollection of similar past incidents. They would remember that the former mayor humiliated them without apparent reasons. One morning, Barangay Captain Jayme was invited to the city hall for a government function. He was supposed to represent the school in his barangay in accepting an award. It was good reason for him to come even if, at the back of his mind, he was hesitant having campaigned for the mayor’s opponent in the previous election. Worse than his worst fears, he suffered an unbelievably humiliating incident in the presence of a huge crowd of professionals. When the then mayor saw the captain, the former shouted at the latter to get out of the hall.

For his part, the media man would remember that he was critical of the former city chief executive. In his radio program, he minced no word lambasting the mayor where latter, in his mind, deserved it. But, the broadcast journalist erred one evening. He came into a private party, which, he learned much later, was hosted by the former city chief executive. The former mayor considered it gate crashing and so he had good reason to bowl the intruder out. Get out, get out, could be the words said.

Even if the situations whence Messrs. Jayme and Empacis got humiliated were similar to the fate suffered by the congressman, I was incensed. I felt outraged by the bossy attitude displayed by high ranked officials somewhere in Masbate. For all intents and purposes, our former city chief executive only went to the crash site to help because he might really have ideas. I was certain that like Mr. Jayme when he went to the city hall, the lawmaker did not go there to make “samok-samok”.  

Well, okay. Let us assume that the men and women and their officials doing the search and rescue in Masbate knew their jobs. From the TV footages, I could discern them to be elements of the armed forces and a bevy of civilian volunteer divers. They were experts working and the job at hand was their expertise. They trained all their lives to face the situation similar to that which they were working on. That they had every help needed, fed their haughty frame of mind. Yet, did those ground officials know everything about search and rescue that, to them, no other guy could offer any suggestion?

Having said that, it was not necessary for them to drive away our former city mayor. What they did was rude. And wrong. If the legislator got sanctioned by the Ombudsman for humiliating Capt. Jayme, he, in turn, perhaps could also invoke the same arrogance of power and grave abuse as his cause of action to discipline that authority who bowled him of Masbate.

From the hindsight however, the incident has its golden value in lesson. The former mayor will have realized that there is no place for the rude and disrespectful. Karma, which could very well be an equal dose of humiliation, will come his way to him who has humiliated someone.