Who's lucky, who's not

Is he or isn't he? An internationally tagged terrorist, that is? Last Friday, it was reported that Jose Maria Sison, the self-exiled head of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army, had been stricken off from the list, and that his assets had been "unfrozen". The next day saw another report saying that was not true, he is still on the list, only his assets were freed. Saturday I saw again another item saying that neither report was true, and that the Dutch Embassy had clarified that Joma Sison was still on the list, and also that his assets were still frozen. I wonder what tomorrow's news will be.

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This time the questions are: Was it poetic justice, was it karma? This is what people asked upon hearing that Rod Lauren Strunk, the husband of the late popular movie actress Nida Blanca, had been found dead, apparently a suicide. Strunk had obviously jumped off, or had fallen from the balcony of his hotel room in Tracy, California. The signs showed that he had fallen on his head, which caused his death.

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His family are said to be disbelieving of the suicide angle because they do not think he was the type who would kill himself. Other people here also doubt it because he had fallen only from a second floor balcony, and that shouldn't be too deadly a fall. In fact, only last Saturday, an international wire report told of a 10-month-old baby girl in China whose own father threw her from a window of an eighth floor apartment, but survived.

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The news item said the baby was being returned to her father by her grandmother who said she did not want to take care of it anymore after the man broke up with her daughter. She pushed the child into the arms of the unwilling father who promptly tossed it out of the window. It must be true that babies are guarded by angels, because the infant's fall was broken by tree branches below the window and she landed on the concrete yard alive, suffering only a fractured leg. Maybe Strunk did not have a guardian angel. Even if Nida is now in heaven, it is doubtful that she would catch him. In fact he died in a parking lot; Nida's body was also found in the parking area of a condominium.

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The luckiest guy in national politics is not Miguel Zubiri who was proclaimed winner of the 12th senatorial slot Saturday, but Gregorio "Gringo" Honasana, who not only won a comfortable spot in the ranking of winners, but also got bonuses with the dismissal of the government charges against him. How lucky, indeed, can one get? He was able to obtain bail in time for him to join the campaign, he was able to make it in the election, had the Justice Department dropping its cases against him, had a first grandchild born, then had his other cases with the Makati Regional Trial Court also dismissed.

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He may not have been so lucky as a fugitive, having been captured in the most undignified and humiliating condition, but so what? What Gringo wanted, he got. Remember the first time he was caught after escaping from that Navy boat where he had been detained? He was flushed out by cops hiding under the bed in the maid's room of his hideaway. In the latest capture, he had to jump over the fence of a "friend's" house and broke his leg. But he created a glamorous image, limping on his way to court.

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Not so completely lucky, even if he got both the Commission on Election and seven of the Supreme Court justices behind him, is candidate Miguel Zubiri, who may have gained the title of Senator, but wil always be "the senator of Maguindanao" to at least ten million Filipinos. It has sunk into the minds of Pinoys that, but for the votes from that territory, the election results would be very different indeed. There was no "Hello Garci" or 'Hello Lintang" this time, but some names and places will continue to echo in the minds of the electorate. But, oh well. as someone who used to also win elections in whatever way. "There is no substitute for victory."*

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