"Filipino has no choice but to laugh, or else he will kill."

Palagi na lang deskripsyon sa ating mga pinoy ang pagiging palangiti/palatawa. Kahit ano na ang nangyari/nangyayari krisis, kalamidad sa ating bansa, hindi puwedeng hindi magkakaroon ng pagkakataon para gawin natin itong katawa-tawa/katuwa-tuwa. I-share ko lang sa inyo ang article na ito galing sa www.inq7.net.

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JOKES

There's The Rub
By Conrado de Quiros
June 22, 2005

THE GENERATIONS that came after Jose Rizal did get something from him. That is the capacity for satire. That was what Rizal excelled at -- he was at his best when showing up the foibles of the friars, who, like today's leaders did not share his humor and retaliated murderously -- and that is what we excel at. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and company may not be laughing now but they did so uproariously when it was former President Joseph Estrada at the other end of the firing line, or text jokes. Firing lines and text jokes have been known to produce the same sensation.

Some of the current jokes are hilarious and reveal the Filipino's genius for creativity, something you wish he'd also put to other uses. The ones about Negros Occidental Ignacio �gIggy�h Arroyo practicing Ms Arroyo's voice and the President keeping silent about the tape out of fear the public might recognize her voice ("mabosesan") are absolutely witty. You want to catch the public pulse, you don't need to go farther than to listen to these jokes. I say this because I've heard Ms Arroyo's allies on TV repeatedly say that what the public wants today is not to hear the President confirm or deny it's her on the tape but to know who did the wiretapping. You will not hear a single joke, text or otherwise, about the whistle-blowers' inability to confront their crime, you will hear no end of jokes about Ms Arroyo's inability to confront the tape.

The jokes, of course, are not without the most serious implications. In this country, the world (of bad leaders) does not end with a bang, it ends with jokes. Or at least it is immediately preceded by them. That was how it was during Marcos' time, that was how it was during Estrada's time. In both cases, the jokes grew too plentiful and too inventive for the regime to stamp them out. Some could only have come from a Filipino mind, such as the one about the Japanese diplomat who praised Marcos by telling the Filipino people: "Why are you angry with your President? Your President robs you, your President robs you very much."

In Estrada's case though, I always thought the reality was funnier than the "Eraptions." Can anything be more hilarious than Estrada joining the countdown on New Year's Eve 2000 on national TV by counting, "10, 11, 12 ..." rather than "10, 9, 8..."? What a way for this country to start the third millennium after Christ.

My favorite among the current "Glorifications" is a tossup between two. One goes: Woman: "All the Arroyos are thieves." Man: "You're being unfair." Woman: "Why, are you an Arroyo?" Man: "No, I'm a thief." It's funnier in the original Tagalog. What can one say? The pickpockets of Quiapo steal only wallets. The pickpockets of Malaca?ang steal even votes.

The other is: "Flash: GMA's popularity has surged to an all-time high. Her CD has just gone platinum."

While at that, I do hear the pirated version of The Conversation has been doing brisk business in the various pirates' lairs of this country. Never have pirates done a more patriotic duty since Francis Drake scuttled Spanish galleons for loot for God and country.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez has become an entire joke unto himself threatening to arrest not just those circulating the tape but listening to it. I saw Senator Sergio Osme?a III on TV last week openly saying he was personally distributing copies of The Conversation to the public and even held up the CDs to the camera. He dared Gonzalez to arrest him for it. Which puts Gonzalez in a bind: Anyone he does arrest can always demand to know why he hasn't arrested Osme?a.

Psychologists have explained the Filipino predilection for making a joke out of everything, including the grimmest of things, such as 9/11 (gallows humor, some call it) as a coping mechanism. Given the unrelenting and unbearable adversity that comes his way, the Filipino has no choice but to laugh, or else he will kill. I agree with it but submit further that the Filipino's capacity for satire is not just a defensive posture but also an offensive one. I submit it is the most potent weapon of the powerless in this country.

The Spanish and Marcos regimes, of course, were open tyrannies, bereft of freedom of expression. So people like Rizal fought it with satire, which was the only way to get around it. The Estrada and Arroyo regimes were/are veiled tyrannies, where freedom of expression is observed, but nobody, the leaders above all, bothers to listen to the people anyway. In the last two governments, in particular, the leaders developed such thick hides you could call them thieves to their faces and succeed only in insulting thieves.

Ah, but there is something just as effective as insult, if not more so. That is ridicule. Estrada and Ms Arroyo have never been stung by being made to look avaricious, but they have been stung by being made to look asinine.

But as in Estrada's time, the truly funnier, or more profound, jokes today are not to be found in text but in life, not in fiction but in fact. I myself find nothing funnier or more profound than Surigao del Sur Representative Prospero Pichay and company demanding that the rule of law prevail, that we should dwell only on how the tape was obtained and not on what's in it. If I recall right, the rule of law was Estrada's theme only last December during FPJ's (Fernando Poe Jr.�fs) wake, his claim being that the voters voted overwhelmingly for him, and so he was still the rightful president. If I recall right, the rule of law was Marcos' theme to the end of his days, his claim being that he won the "snap elections," and so he was still the rightful president. (In that respect, Ms Arroyo has more in common with Marcos than with Estrada.) Strange how this country's most brazen lawbreakers are also its fiercest invocators of the rule of law. It's the kind of joke where you could die laughing.

But that is nothing. Can any joke be funnier or more profound than the reality that we have a President we did not vote for?

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Hmmm. Mabuti sigurong exercise na hanapan natin ng katatawanan ang mga nangyayari sa atin. At least, less stressful. Hehehe. Pero tama lang ba na iwan natin sa ganitong estado ang masalimuot na pulitikal na sitwasyong natin? Hanggang pagtawa na lang ba tayo? Sana naman hindi. Dahil kung wala tayong gagawing aksyon, baka tayo din lang ang pagtatawanan ng ibang lahi/bansa. Or worse, itong mga taong siyang objects ng mga jokes e patalikod din tayong pinagtatawanan dahil nasa sila pa rin ang nasa posisyon ngayon.