Crossroad

We are now in, or approaching, a crossroad. Historic crossroad, one can say. I’ll not write about the Lozada revelations – everybody knows that. What I refer to is that all signs point to profound roiling of the Filipino soul. These stirrings have cut across social lines. The Catholic Church, through its bishops is calling for “communal action.” “Communal action” has not been spelled out as to its details. Suffice to say, its message is that we act together whatever we do. In our own backyard here in Bacolod, a rally is scheduled on Monday, February 25. I understand it’s also sponsored by the church.

On the other hand, a printed manifesto (in a national paper) is entitled – Time to Go. The manifesto is an eloquent, almost desperate call to all government officials who are privy to anomalous transactions to do a Lozada – spill the beans. The signatories, 69 of them, are chiefly department heads of previous administrations. They are admittedly the best and the brightest in the land. Names like Florencio Abad, Former secretary of Education; our own Rafael Alunan III, Department of Interior and Local Government; Ramon Cardenas, former head Presidential Management Staff; Jose Cuisa, former governor, Central Bank; and so on. 69 people, all previously top of the line in government, call to those in the GMA administration who know, to do a Lozada.

The bottom line of the manifesto reads – It’s time to cut clean! It’s time to go!

On the other hand, a big spread of GMA, in a leisurely walk (unity walk) with her cabinet is plastered on the front page of the paper. Believe it or not, it appears every one is sporting a smile. What are they smiling about, one is tempted to ask? Or were they told to smile for the camera. For you can not  really blame people when they cling to power. Even Musharraf of Pakistan who has been resoundingly rejected in the polls, refuse to gracefully fade into the sunset.

It is obvious that Malacañang is frantically trying to stop the Senate inquiry. Other probes are suggested. However, no credible results can be expected, if the government itself initiates the probe. That’s how low the credibility of the government has sunk. The whole spectacle has been greatly enlivened by the likes of Higher Education Chair Romulo Neri, who has allegedly said that GMA is “evil” and is at the “center of it all.” Neri has said he does not remember having said that. He could have denied having said it. But I suspect that he is catering to both opposing parties: to GMA, that I did not admit that I said it, and to the opposition: Look guys, what more do you want, my statement of forgetfulness is pregnant with meaning. Neri likes to eat his cake and have it too.

As if all this were not enough, comes the report that the First Gentleman heads a mid-nite cabinet, and that he is deeply involved in the affairs of the state. Naturally, this report is denied by the F.G. -- that he is just an ordinary lawyer and does not meddle in the affairs of the state.

This mish-mash of events, like witches’   brew being ladled in the pot, threatens to overflow and scald some people.

Again, we pose the question – where are we heading?

Would we be witness again to some form of people power, not necessarily the EDSA variety, but in some other format? Will GMA heed the plea of some elements, like the legal community at U.P. to take a leave? Are you kidding? Or will this matter so convulse the body politic so as to paralyze the government? Likely or unlikely?

As time passes, we will see the shapes of things to come.

FROM RALEIGH TO RENO: As I trace the way from Las Vegas to Reno on the map with a red pentel pen, I realize I was drawing a snake. This should not be a surprise because Nevada is the most mountainous state in the whole of U.S.A.

I have often wondered how a trip from Vegas to Reno would pan out. It has turned out, at least to me, to be an extremely memorable one.

Leaving Vegas one morning, Fe, my kid Jericho and his wife, Jovi, we took the usual route (95) and headed north. No straight line for long, because of mountain ridges that block the road line.

As we sped along through the desert passing by places like Snow Mt. Indian Reservation, Indian Springs, then Beatty in the Amargosa Desert. I had been in Beatty way back in 2003 when we visited the Death Valley.

Leaving Beatty, we are now on the Veteran’s Memorial highway, passing Scotty’s Junction where there’s another road going to Death Valley. These   areas are gold-rich; the nearby mountain (E.8,152ft.) is named  Gold Mountain, nearby is a place called Gold Point. But the focal center of the gold seeker’s activity is Goldfield where gold and silver were discovered in 1902. The place then swarmed with fortune seekers, armed with picks and shovels.

Those guys are gone now, the mines have run out of metals but one can see, in this forsaken and lonely town the stark castle-like Esmeralda County court house still standing.

But it was when we stopped at Tonopah, a virtual ghost town, and I stood gazing at the row of weathered crosses in the cemetery, that I felt that if one hankers for a lonely grave – get buried in Tonopah you can’t get a lonelier resting place.*

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