The gospel last Sunday touched on the importance of marriage, and more importantly, on the sanctity of the sacrament of matrimony. It also cautioned on human propensities to take lightly the marital vows, to the extent of saying that: "Whatever God has joined together, let no man put asunder." The gospel also stressed that whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery with the second woman. This rule appears clear, explicit, and unequivocal. And so, we felt quite disturbed that our beloved Pope Francis issued a new Vatican rule loosening the procedure for the declaration of nullity of marriage in the Catholic Church. We have expressed our concern on this in our previous columns.
The book written by the iconic journalist Julie Yap-Daza has been made a movie of the same title. Both the book and the movie attempt to establish a set of ethical rules that should guide the behavior of the second, the third or the fourth and the fifth woman. They are reminded of the fact they are not the legitimate spouse, and that they should know where to position themselves. These two "magnum opus" are both attempts to establish a scientific and orderly positioning of people who are looked down by society as home wreckers and destroyers of legitimate marital relationships. The title sounds like "honor among thieves" or "right conduct among illicit lovers" or "good manners among cheaters."
As we approach an election year, we should remember that there seems to be a curious parallelism between, on the one hand, the political lives of many past and present politicians, and their somehow colorful love lives and salacious romances and entanglements, on the other hand. There were many iconic Filipinos who have had very interesting stories of love and romances. The great national hero, for instance, with his many women, ladies and girls. Even Heneral Luna, the currently showing historical masterpiece of facts and fiction, included a bed scene in between battles and armed encounters. Many writers say that great men are often great lovers.
Past colorful politicians included President Manuel L. Quezon whose biography is full of allegations concerning his well-noted propensity to womanize, and be linked to some women in hurried female characters, in his many campaign sorties and speaking engagements. MLQ was a tall, handsome mestizo who was a passionate firebrand and eloquent speaker and declaimer who could make women laugh and cry by the power of his spoken words. He was also noted for his sartorial elegance and his charisma. The only other presidents who could approximate his records are FM and Erap. We have heard a lot of tales and true stories about the loves and romances of Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Erap. Their lives are open books especially that of Erap.
The interesting thing about Erap is that all his women know each other, respect each other and they remain civil with each other. They are all well-behaved. They adhere to the rules of etiquette and good manners. Instead of diminishing the dignity of Estrada, they seemed to have added luster, if not valor to Erap's presidential proclivities. This coming election, it may be apropos to research on the love lives of Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, of Vice President Jojo Binay, of Mar Roxas (does he have any?), and of the putative parents of Grace Poe, even of her adoptive dad FPJ (many). The voters have the right to know if their women and men have remained compliant with the ethics of the other ones. Interesting, aren't they?