Desperately sicking answers
Forget all the scientific studies. Forget all the exhaustive research papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Forget all the clinical trials plotting decades’ worth of health data. With the way things are going these days, the strongest indicator of one’s susceptibility to conditions requiring sudden medical treatment could very well be one’s proximity to corruption charges being filed against them.
The playbook is so predictable, the plotline so stale, and the performances so cringeworthy, we ought to be yawning with boredom throughout the mediocre soap opera that plays ad nauseam in the national consciousness in never-ending installments.
Only we can’t afford to be the least bit blasé, not when it’s our own values at stake, and our future as a country and a people.
It’s been said and done
And so it goes: A scandal erupts. Billions are stolen. The rot penetrates deep into the heart of the government. Some of the alleged culprits flee the country. Terrified witnesses bravely come forward only to recant soon after, or disappear altogether, along with crucial evidence. And then, somehow, fearless investigators are able to assemble a strong case.
Previously hale and hearty politicians, as well as their associates—family members, business partners, contractors, and the like—mysteriously fall ill. A flurry of wheelchairs, neck braces, and oxygen tanks begins to fly off the shelves, becoming the most desirable accessories to sport as medical leaves are filed and doctors are cajoled into ordering extended hospital stays.
Mere days before, they had their party shoes on as they danced the night away or belted out “Everything I Do, I Do It for You” on the videoke. If only they had dedicated that song to their own country.
As a trial nears, the phantom syndrome intensifies. The symptoms are unmistakable: puzzling blood pressure spikes, unexplained dizzy spells and shortness of breath, baffling lapses in memory and cognitive function. And for added drama in the courtroom, especially timed to occur right before being called to the stand, a mystifying collapse necessitating an ambulance straight to the hospital, and voila—justice postponed.
Exhibit A: Former First Lady Imelda Marcos collapsing at the defense table at her 1990 racketeering trial in New York (yes, the symptoms cross the oceans)
According to a UPI report, she was “suffering from stomach pains and bleeding from the mouth” and had to be “carried from the courtroom on a stretcher.” Doctors said she had “a severe inflammation of the stomach lining,” which would require several days of hospitalization. “The condition is not life-threatening, they said in a statement.”
Of course, her condition isn’t life-threatening. She’s still alive, isn’t she, 35 years later? Perhaps it’s simply allergic to truth and accountability.
Exhibit B: Former president Rodrigo Duterte, currently in detention at The Hague for crimes against humanity stemming from his violent (and manufactured) war on drugs
His legal team is mounting a vigorous campaign to prevent him from testifying, claiming he is unfit to stand trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) due to a host of “debilitating medical issues,” which apparently include severe memory loss and the inability to perform basic cognitive tasks required for his defense, according to his lead lawyer Nicholas Kaufman.
“In fact, he is not even able to process the reasons for his detention,” Kaufman says.
Kaufman himself is allegedly chummy with another war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu. If one is defined by the company one keeps, as the adage goes, it does seem that he holds in high regard those who take particular pleasure in wholesale murderous sprees. Of entire peoples, even. Go figure.
Exhibit C: Another former president, Joseph Estrada, brought up that old reliable, stomach pains, to skip his own hearing at the Sandiganbayan in 2006, where he faced plunder raps
He claimed to be suffering from the standard dynamic duo of Filipino excuses, “diarrhea and dehydration,” notwithstanding the fact that he was at his own mother’s birthday party the night before. His doctor, a relative, surmised that the lechon did him in.
Exhibit D: Yet another former president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was charged with election fraud in 2011, and then plunder in 2012
She had a preference for the season’s hottest titanium neck brace, which she paraded along the halls of the airport in a wheelchair, no less, hoping to be allowed to leave the country for medical attention.
Her legal team would later say she suffered from a condition known as multilevel cervical spondylosis, conveniently diagnosed after she left office in 2011, and not during her nine years in power. As soon as Duterte—the very same one now feigning selective amnesia—came into office, she was cleared of all charges by his Supreme Court, in what many called a travesty of justice.
To celebrate her putative innocence, she embraced her new life of liberty the way a snake sheds its old skin, and the neck brace was nowhere to be seen.
And I guess right now, here’s another one
We could go on and on and make our way down the alphabet, not to mention the political food chain, to examine the afflictions of senators and congressmen facing imminent corruption charges. Such a remarkably curious coincidence that for all their bleating about looking forward to having their day in court, they all fall inexplicably ill on that very day.
A medical enigma, or merely a cynical legal strategy?
It is so glaringly obvious to every Filipino that what really ails these politicians is the trifecta of shamelessness, greed, and the pathological refusal to face accountability. Not to mention cowardice. We hardly need a medical degree to diagnose that.
Aren’t we all just sick and tired of this charade?
