EDITORIAL - Oh no, here comes Vilma

With so many problems begging for immediate official attention, it is just simply incredible that this country would even allow itself to be sidetracked by the issue of whether or not Nora Aunor should be given the National Artist Award.

We have said it before and we will say it again - the country does not rise or fall on the Nora Aunor issue. But it can rise and fall depending on how the other issues competing with Nora Aunor for attention get to be addressed.

There is for instance the looming power crisis, which is not really looming in the strictest sense but already upon us. Then there is the runaway crime rate and a soaring drug problem. Close on their heels come the instability of the rice supply and the rising cost of everything - from oil, to rice, to vegetables, etc.

And we have not even mentioned the unbridled population growth - we have already breached 100 million - and the culture of corruption that has not really been tempered but in fact just got exposed as continuing even in this supposedly anti-corrupt Aquino government.

And yet, despite all these big problems, plus all the other smaller ones too numerous to narrate, the country still refuses to be derailed from the Nora Aunor issue, as if resolving it either way will suddenly make us all worthy in the eyes of God and make Him make all our problems go away because the government can't.

But if you think that is the only incredible thing about this country, wait till you hear this: There is now a suggestion that if we cannot give Nora Aunor the National Artist Award, might as well give it to her main rival Vilma Santos.

And guess who made the suggestion? Why, no other than the husband of Vilma Santos himself, Ralph Recto, a senator of the republic. Wow. One would have thought that with all the troubles the Senate now finds itself in, Recto would have given serious thought to how he can help the Senate redeem its good name.

But Recto just had to step into the fray. And now we should all brace for double jeopardy. It was bad enough to for the country to get bogged down on the Nora Aunor issue, it is worst now that we have to contend with the issue of whether or not the award should be given to Vilma instead.

Expect the country to be torn down the middle over who should prevail, the Noranians or the Vilmanians. Expect the issue to sweep aside all the other more important and urgent problems. We just simply cannot seem to put a finger on what it is that we really want to be as a nation.