The principle of the thing
A Marcos administration ago, I found myself in London about to have dinner with an alleged crony whose vast holdings were enumerated in an exposé by none other than my mother, Ninez Cacho-Olivares, a feisty journalist known—and lauded—for her opposition to the regime.
Though I was living in Paris then, I would often cross the channel to see my boyfriend at that time, whose family was also much aligned with the Marcoses. It was an uncomfortable situation for me to a certain extent, but his father had been a journalist at one point, and while my mother was wary of his politics, she had a healthy respect for his writing and wit.
Moreover, I was in my early twenties, and it was winter. What else can I say except that sometimes, romance has a way of blurring political loyalties?
The porosity of society
But there are boundaries that even lust should not be oblivious to. I felt very strongly—that one November night in London—that it would be ethically remiss of me to accept the hospitality of someone whom she directly attacked in print after compiling evidence and substantiating claims, as any responsible journalist would do.
The old man, however, was not only a shrewd businessman, but a seasoned charmer and an adept politician. I think he thought me quaint and naïve. Such accusations, he shrugged, were pretty much par for the course, and he bore my mother no ill will.
So, he said, let’s all have dinner at my favorite restaurant, and off we went—my boyfriend and I—along with his family. His daughters at that point were already friends of mine, and have remained so to this day, despite our political differences, as well as alliances, depending on the administration in power.
Such is the porosity of society in the Philippines, to borrow once more from Walter Benjamin, that politics may appear divisive on the surface but personal and familial relationships—or perhaps more accurately, capitalist class affiliations—tend to override most political frictions.
Marx, if he were alive, would have a field day with the bourgeois lot of us. Throw Frantz Fanon into the mix, and he would probably come to the conclusion that decolonization is doomed in the Philippines. But then it is a truth universally known that revolutions do not begin with those comfortably ensconced in their delusions of democracy.
Everything is political
Indeed, the evil that is capitalism, and its equally evil twin, colonialism, often test the limits of principle.
Philippine presidents, vassals as they unfortunately are to empire, presumably often find themselves in the position of having to wrestle between principle and pragmatism. That is, if they have any principles to begin with.
Post-WWII, President Elpidio Quirino found himself in the personally painful position of sacrificing his principles under unrelenting pressure from the United States—a nation with no real principles apart from political expediency, despite its protestations to the contrary—to grant clemency to the very same Japanese war criminals who had tortured, raped, and butchered Filipinos during their brutal occupation of the country. Among them were Quirino’s own wife, three children, and five other members of his family. The Americans dangled Japanese reparations in exchange for pardons; in his book “Counting Filipinos,” Saul Hofileña writes that “according to the political equation of that time, [they] needed Japan to deter the spread of communism in Asia.”
Hofileña believes that Quirino, a decent man known for his deep love of country, must have been filled with “profound agony and sadness” when he made this very unpopular decision. The wounds of war were still fresh among a traumatized and struggling population. He was left with little choice, however, but “to agree to the grant of clemency. His country and people needed reparations from Japan for sheer survival.”
Quirino seems to not have disclosed to the public the pressure he was under. Instead, his official statement justified his actions by saying, “I do not want my children and my people to inherit from me the hate for people who might yet be our friends for the permanent interest of our country…”
As for my own principles, genocide for me is the ultimate red line. I have walked out of talks that provide the apologists for genocide a platform. There are brands I refuse to patronize because of their support for genocide. It can sometimes be quite the mission, for Zionist tentacles extend far and wide and have got consumers in a chokehold, from everything from coffee chains and clothes to moisturizers and mayonnaise. Streaming services. Booking apps. Art biennales. Textbooks.
Try explaining to the attractive trans sales associate at SM with better hair than you that you can’t buy the shampoo they’re recommending because the brand’s parent company sends millions to the occupation army that is slaughtering children in Gaza.
Complicating the issue even further is the fact that many such brands are represented in the Philippines by friends and their families, often perfectly lovely people shaped mainly by an imperialist Western media, who simply do not consider genocide a factor in their commercial calculations.
I understand how Israel’s ongoing violent, unimpeded ethnic cleansing—not just of Gaza and the West Bank, but also Lebanon, with complete impunity, not to mention the full support of the United States—may seem such a distant reality to many people here, yet no doubt the extension of that unprovoked and indiscriminate bombs-away aggression to Iran and the current fuel crisis surely must have brought home the point: that we are all impacted by genocide, if not economically, then morally.
Yes, everything is political. Even Lego. Just ask the Iranians. They’ve elevated Lego trolling to an absolute art, and I’m all for it.
I can’t wait for them to drop a Lego video about the Israeli babykillers intent on colonizing Siargao.
