Get 'em from 'promdis'

Our national leaders have many things to learn from the "provincianos" we call "promdis." In Manila when you are "from the" province you are called in the corrupted Tagalog lingo as "promdi."

I read a news report, in Cebuano country Mayor Tomas Osmeña said there is no state of emergency. People can rally and demonstrate without the police arresting them. And media is free, he added.

In other cities and municipalities too, I'd like to believe, they also have this. It's obvious these are true leaders, not necessarily loved or hated, but respected by their constituents.

A leader has to be an experienced teacher. He knows how to handle mischievous or even truant kids. These are not bad children. It's just excess energy or what we call "NPA" "needing public attention."

I can just imagine these marchers and demonstrators calling Osmeña "Killjoy Tommy." How they wished Osmeña would have ordered the police to chase them with truncheon from Fuente Osmeña and covered by television and shown nationwide.

***

In Bacolod Police Chief Pete Merced is another killjoy. There's no more thrill demonstrating and marching.

In that Tuesday night march, demonstration, and media vigil it would have been interesting, even thrilling, had Merced brought a group of riot police, complete with shields and truncheons to break up the media people which surely we would have resisted with arms linked. We had no permit, reason for a police action.

Then with full television coverage for showing nationwide, police would chase us down Luzuriaga and Araneta streets. And it would have been better with more props, firemen hosing us with water like what Chino Roces and Lorenzo Tañada had at Mendiola during Marcos time.

Oh, how I would have loved it.

I can just imagine a scenario. Three of us elders of Negros Press Club, Rex Remitio, Rolly Espina and myself linking arms, dripping wet with water from the police water canons, looking dazed and helpless interviewed by media.

You are a real killjoy, Pete Merced. You deprive us a moment of glory.

***

I was there that night for the picture taking and the ritual of clench fist raising needed for the dailies' front page stories.

Then I left to fetch from Sunshine Channel the NPC president Amado Villacarlos installed that morning. Amado was still working, earning his keep but as NPC president he had to be where the action was.

Coming back Dolores told me she got a text Chief Merced was there. What did he do? I asked. She said, she greeted the media people, asked them not to block traffic and left. Killjoy! When I came, I asked why they were still there. I was answered, "We dispersed the police. That's why we are still here."

***

Levity aside, this is how our leaders and police should handle public protest. With understanding and tolerance

. As long as they are not creating trouble and not intent on toppling the duly constituted authority protest or dissent should be welcome and handled with understanding.

But government should be alert too. That news that Jose Maria Sison from far away Netherlands has ordered local insurgents to help in the coup d' etat in toppling GMA and the government is another thing.

For all her faults, people still prefer President Arroyo to Jose Maria Sison and his insurgents. And I don't think the military as an organization will choose Sison to Arroyo.

I believe too police, if they see a sincere protest, must grant rally permits. They just put up guidelines. Those who violate them must really face the sanctions of the law.

And the police must show it means business. File the charges. Pursue them in court. No hanky panky. A law may be harsh but it's the law. There are protesters who say they are not afraid of jails. This is because the police are not serious.

Clamp them in jail for a year or two. And you will see.

***

There is that Ilonggo song "Provincial Jail" made into a radio drama that is a graphic description of a miserable life inside the jail. The lyric is beautiful in Ilonggo. It is a ballad.

But you should read the famous Irish poet Oscar Wilde's "The Ballad of Reading Gaol." Gaol is jail at Reading near London. Wilde was sentenced for two years for, of all crimes, homosexuality.

I cannot quote the exact words but it's something like this, "I do not know whether the law may be right or the law may be wrong. But what I know is living at Reading Gaol the walls are strong, where a day is like a year and a year whose days are long."*

back to top