Swine Who

UNCONSCIOUS Pacquiao returning despite the flu scare

WHEN MEMBERS OF TEAM PACQUIAO ARRIVED at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at the height of the AH1N1 scare,  also known as Swine Flu, despite the euphoria of sending Ricky Hatton in what might be perceived as the latter’s early retirement at that time, the Department of Health (DOH), who earlier that weekend advised the team to postpone their flight for fear of a possible contamination, was left with no real response as Pacquiao himself, together with a battalion of friends and relatives, ignored the DOH’s request and went on with the scheduled flight.

The apprehension of the team’s arrival was closely monitored by both DOH and the media, that in the event Pacquiao’s team would arrive in the country, the possibility of the entourage being afflicted, so to speak, by the dreaded contagion would put the nation on that increasing list of countries with the deadly flu.

Pacquiao, however, went on to brush aside the request, and luckily, the country was still very much at bay, but still, at that moment, feeling the magnitude of his punch on Hatton as he is now on his way, let alone his demolition of Miguel Cotto several months after, to one of boxing’s best, if not the greatest.

But what turned out to be a serious request from DOH came out as a cutting takeoff to the politicians who went to Las Vegas and watched Pacquiao punched his way through the British pugilist. Among the many spectators who came to see the pound-for-pound king at the fabulous MGM Grand were dignitaries, politicians mostly, from various high-ranking offices, who were the only ones who could, given the monetary stakes, afford those expensive seats and watch the fight under the glaring lights of Las Vegas. And yet, even then, Health Secretary Francisco Duque was impartial enough to include these same politicians who came in from the desert to undergo a DOH-induced quarantine to make sure that these people are safe since Nevada, where the Battle of East and West took place, was among the few states in the US that has its own breeding virus to share.

Back home though, after issuing a statement that politicians are not excluded from undergoing a quarantine, it literally came out as a sick joke to some, as House Speaker Prospero Nograles, who was in Las Vegas at the time of the fight, couldn’t escape the trappings launched by the DOH, and fell victim unintentionally to the parodies that continue to haunt them in retaliation of those they have punched out one way or another.

The prospect that our own politicians will have to go through the gauntlet by submitting themselves in a quarantine, physical or otherwise, is not so much a matter of public safety, as a matter of public perception. This perception comes in close proximity to how well we choose our policy-makers in the coming elections, of how well we perceive what kind of lawmakers we try to push into office; of how well we synthesize the stuff that makes that politician a punisher of graft and its second cousin.

But should we be doing this kind of method a long time ago? Not really in a literal sense, but in examining closely the politicians that would go into that box, to quarantine them like a doctor to his patient. Although we may laugh our hearts out at this absurd suggestion, but it is never too late to quarantine them before election, we may have saved a whole lot of sense in our political situation instead of experiencing a political epidemic most of the time.

We could only feel sorry for Nograles when he came out as a paragon of that politician needing a quarantine. His alleged fickle-mindedness in dealing with that overbearing Cha-Cha has even inflamed some of his associates, his hand-washing at that Legacy scandal where he was again allegedly implicated, all the more tainted his reputation as someone who taxes anything his hands could lay on. Even when he was still a local politician in Davao, Nograles was once criticized for undermining environmental concerns in favor of infrastructure and artificiality that, in effect, became an unpopular segment in his political career.

If there is a possible quarantine of politicians before May, we should, by all means, support it with all our hearts. Although that scheme sounds sparing and unanimously naive, since according to some politicos themselves, “You will know when you get there,” the joke, nonetheless, assures us that there really is something to be done before the automation starts. That, if indeed the automation would pull through.

A tune in the past reminds me of a pig which says, “Gusto ko ng Baboy”, where Lourd de Veyra was taunting the need to quarantine the whole nation by chanting a litany of swine-like people and their swine-like activities. “Wala na tayong magagawa, wala na tayong magagawa, napapaligiran na tayo ng mga baboy... Na nagtuturo ng kahit anong klaseng kababoyan,” so goes some of its not-so reassuring lines.

And so going back to Pacquiao, who would also undergo a political quarantine in the coming months, the very same refusal to heed the calls of protocol is now slowly ingrained even in the very people we emulate and admire, something that has clouded the very gesture of him entering politics as an indication of that joke intimated by no less than the Speaker himself. This makes the boxing hero a susceptible target of the outstretched hands of Philippine politics.

And so the constituents: we, the majority that will decide the outcome of this election (or are we?) has the responsibility to quarantine not only our choices, but our convictions as well. We should, at least in condition, if not in capacity, perform a surgical scrutiny before deciding who to vote, who we wanted to see in that office, who we wanted to call in times of infamy, and who we wanted to champion us in the same way we felt about Pacquiao every time he steps into the ring.

The scare of swine flu has already been contained, and a better part of that valor places the entire nation not in panic in case a contamination occurs. Somewhere along the line, quarantine was imposed to safeguard that all-imposing need to maintain a healthy, nourishing environment, not like the one we used to perceive about what a pigsty looks like. Not even Manny Pacquiao, with all of his boxing dexterity, could knock a good vote down, especially after a thorough check up.