A Tail whipping its own Head

They say the first day of a new year is an illustration of how the whole year will be. If we would adapt that principle and make January 1 a premonition of the rest of the year, it would be cloudy, relentlessly rainy and gloomy year. Mind you, it wasn’t typical rain; it was torrential, and it went on for hours and days, and did not seem to want to stop. It was so notorious, we made it to the nightly news. So, is this symbolic of the whole 2021? At least, incidents of fireworks injuries dramatically and drastically decreased. Extraordinarily, bloody blasted, horrid hands didn’t hit the headlines. This is what I have been long waiting from President Duterte to take from Davao to the national level. I just wonder why we had to wait for four years and a virus for this to happen. Now, we have learned that it is possible. That itch of tradition to burn money in baby bombs can be beaten. Let’s do this again next year. Flush those fireworks down the drain. Now, if we could only exert the same policy over a pandemic.

For so long a time, throughout the past year, we have yearned like to a lost love for a vaccine. Now, some sights of silver lining are lighting across the landscape. The Chinese vaccine may be less than 100% efficient; the Health Secretary may have missed out on a good deal with a good vaccine; neighboring nation, Singapore may have made its way first on the line in Southeast Asia; all of that can get lost in the fog of the fray, but what matters most is the vaccine is concretely within reach. It is all just a matter of time before we get some immunity from this insanity.

Now, here rolls a ridiculous roller coaster ride. The Palace itself confirms the declaration of vaccination of PSG personnel. IN case, you don’t get the picture; these are able-bodied military men in charge of the sensitive security of President Rodrigo Duterte. Yet, specifics on the acquisition of the medication are marred in obscurity. Filipino-Chinese community leader Teresita Ang See who gained prominence at the height of the kidnap for ransom cases of Chinoys back in the ‘90s, made comments on the propriety of the shots on the PSG personnel. In fact, allegedly, a large number of Chinese POGO employees also have gotten the shots. So, if this were a puzzle, you can start connecting the dots.

On the other corner, DOH, NBI, doctors, and no less than the National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has categorically considered the injections under question to be “smuggled”. I guess, we could expect a congressional or senate inquiry on this issue. Would Gen. Durante be cited in contempt if he declines attendance in any form of investigation, as no less than the President himself has ordered him to do so? Every government agency which can justify responsibility to conduct investigation on the issue seems to want to pounce on the problem.

Don’t we all want to solve this Covid crisis? Don’t we all want to be protected? Don’t we all want to get vaccinated so we could get to normal or whatever version of it is available nowadays? So, shouldn’t we be happy that some of our fellow countrymen had already received shots, so at least a few of us are already protected? In times of crisis like a house on blazing fire, it doesn’t matter anymore if those expensive china and Ming dynasty vases get smashed, if those are what it takes to escape from getting roasted alive.

But should not processes follow procedures? Are we not a nation raised in the rule of law? It is our basic understanding that in the implementation of policies, all members are subject to abide by it, including the head, even on policies on priority on vaccination, and smuggling of medicine. Procedures matter.

What is humorously horrendous about this issue is that all bodies and agencies that move to investigate and set the matter in order, are of the government. The highest officer of which and his representatives even hail the act in question as heroic. To whom do the investigators answer to? From whom do they receive their memoranda and orders? Who gives authorization to their assignments, projects and programs and inversely withholds them? Yes, they have their immediate superiors. But are they not alter-egos of the very person who is at the center of the question? What do we make of this? Are we witnessing a beast with a tail trying to whip its own head? So, where is all this going?

“You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” John 19:11