Noli's folly

Was it heckling or just pure chants that made Noli de Castro lose it when, for a fleeting moment, prescience — that ability to know where an action or thought is headed — seemed to have escaped his mind, he fell into the trap of a group of activists who were simply looking for an ingenuous way to express a grievance?


If it was a trap, which Noli should have known, as a former member of the media with a keen sense for a story, which the Kadamay sought and got with his reactions, extending the issue further and exposing the vice president to the bone, then the left-leaning group seems to have shown the uglier side of Kabayan, as Noli would like to be known, somebody who is more than a Kapamilya or a Kapuso, but one with whom we belong, regardless of regional, religious, economic and ideological splits, as once, he embodied the poor man’s savior.


It was this false thinking that sent what other more veteran and respected media personalities branded as a "mere newsreader" to the Senate, and then to the vice presidency of our nation, and for another brief moment, he had even flirted with what used to be the possibility of his becoming president.


But very soon, with words that normally come from a tambay’s mouth, he revealed himself as nothing more than a worthless piece of paper that becomes one of his reports soon after they have been read. Or at least the papers would make for a useful scratch, or a fuel, or a recyclable material, and not a vice president who is fast on a dive to oblivion and cursed at by the poor from whom he once got his votes but will never give him that chance again.


Noli called them lazybones, the tambays without work or simply, as many among us think, those who simply don’t want to work, spending their days in animated conversations about anything under the sun to kill time. But they are the same ones whom we seemed to have forgotten to take care of, as we did not nurture their chances to better their lives, because as long as we see these tambays — these lazybones — huddled in the the sari-sari store of Aling Maria, gin in hand, then we have not yet succeeded in tilting the balance of power and money onto the masses’ hands, proof of the old order where the rich get richer through the toiling of those who care to work, for the minimal of cents for every drop of their blood, sweat and tears, which Noli seemed to have overlooked, because he is richer now than the days when he had to meet production deadlines and toil his days with ABS-CBN.


Or maybe his years in government only made him see the things before him and not beyond, as a broadcaster worth his salt does in knowing the true state of the issue being laid in front of his eyes. This may explain why he just became a jewel in Gloria’s watch, until his usefulness ceased as her term winds down. He is now being discarded for a trash, like the paper ball he used to make and send straight to the basket after his days in media were done.


Had he looked further, he may have had a different view of these poor people than just being lazybones who could not afford to pay the houses these lazybones’ money have paid for in the first place.


Had he allowed his journalist’s senses work, Noli would have known that their problems with government lie deep in the abyss of helplessness. He would have known that since these so-called lazybones were born, they were already denied their chance to health care, which would have made them better babies; that they were denied a chance at having a better education, a chance to earn degrees for most of them could go past high school, and get better-paying jobs; that they were denied a chance at improving their lives, with a better house and better living conditions in better communities because, as soon as they were born, they were already denied that chance.


Or maybe Noli just thinks rather simply, as some tambays do.