Recent reportage is about two men who, despite being both vertically physically challenged, scaled unprecedented heights in social contests, always landing at the peak of popularity polls. Theirs is another example of the dualities in life (ying and yang, hot or cold, night and day, black and white, good and bad) being differently the same.
Both were to humble homes born, with parents so religious that one was named after St. John the Baptist, at whose feast day he was born, while the other was named after the Holy Family, Jesus, Joseph and Mary, whose names (Susmaryosep!) were, according to then "Make My Day" columnist Larry Henares, invoked by his parents the first time they saw the small baby at the moment he was born.
Both were to humble homes born, with parents so religious that one was named after St. John the Baptist, at whose feast day he was born, while the other was named after the Holy Family, Jesus, Joseph and Mary, whose names (Susmaryosep!) were, according to then "Make My Day" columnist Larry Henares, invoked by his parents the first time they saw the small baby at the moment he was born.
Both were educated under the public school system, graduating from the University of the Philippines, its college of medicine for one, the college of law for the other. Their choice of colleges charted their careers, one becoming a doctor for the barrios, head of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement, the other becoming a lawyer and, if news reports and critics were to believed, doctoring documents on the barrios and masterminding provincial rural reconstruction and landscaping movements.
Both entered politics due to presidential intervention, one was the choice of President Fidel Ramos who appointed him a department Secretary while the other’s was of his personal choice as he got President Cory Aquino to designate him officer-in-charge of his city. They both occupied cabinet positions: one headed health, the other has housing.
Both seemed to become President of the Philippines, one by popular suggestion, the other more because of personal ambition as he himself admitted that it has been his childhood dream to be so. But, while one doused the thought since, as he himself explained, he did not have the fire for it in his belly, the other is enflamed with a consuming passion akin to arson.
One distributed condoms and for this he was given the cold shoulder by the clergy. The other distributed cakes and he gets to speak before the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
Their respective ideas of public service can be gauged by their respective slogans. “Let’s DOH it” entails collective actions and responsibilities and greater popular participation. The claim of one that “Kung ano ang nagawa ko sa aking bayan ay magagawa ko rin sa buong bansa” smacks of a messianic complex and its concomitant dictatorial tendencies, aside from the fact that what he did for his city which he would also do for the country may be ambiguous, and, hence, ominous.
One remained poor, being the poorest even among his peers. One remains in the company of the poor so he could surpass his peers.
The Chief of Staff of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee would love to be in their company because even with their statures, he, though seated, would always rise above them. He has proven this to be so with respect to one as he had been with this one in the Senate. He has yet to know if this is so with respect to the other since this other one has refused invitations to appear at the Senate.
The pictures of one depict him as always smiling; the pictures of the other have lately shown him to be scowling. Senator Miriam Santiago once asked the first the reason why he was always smiling and he answered that the source of his joy was his grandchildren. For the other, satisfaction could come from the fact that he got his children to become a mayor, a congressman and a senator.
The eulogies for one have been nothing but, indeed, benedictions as nothing was said but good, disproving Shakespeare’s plaint that “the evil that men do live after them, the good is oft interred with their bones," apparently because no evil could be said about him (except arguably perhaps the condom condemnation by a few, but this was soon forgiven and forgotten since he was even given acknowledgment and prominence by no less than the visiting Pope John Paul II and by Cardinal Sin).
With regards the other, it remains to be seen or heard, although a letter writer to the Philippine Inquirer (11/3/14), by way of “just a fraternal reminder” to the other about life and death, cited an academician that “It is our deeds that will outlast us and tell all and sundry what we did with our time while we lived. All else is vanity, a fading flower of a dying summer." How true, the Juan is not a fading Flavier, his life will be fondly remembered forever.
Both entered politics due to presidential intervention, one was the choice of President Fidel Ramos who appointed him a department Secretary while the other’s was of his personal choice as he got President Cory Aquino to designate him officer-in-charge of his city. They both occupied cabinet positions: one headed health, the other has housing.
Both seemed to become President of the Philippines, one by popular suggestion, the other more because of personal ambition as he himself admitted that it has been his childhood dream to be so. But, while one doused the thought since, as he himself explained, he did not have the fire for it in his belly, the other is enflamed with a consuming passion akin to arson.
One distributed condoms and for this he was given the cold shoulder by the clergy. The other distributed cakes and he gets to speak before the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
Their respective ideas of public service can be gauged by their respective slogans. “Let’s DOH it” entails collective actions and responsibilities and greater popular participation. The claim of one that “Kung ano ang nagawa ko sa aking bayan ay magagawa ko rin sa buong bansa” smacks of a messianic complex and its concomitant dictatorial tendencies, aside from the fact that what he did for his city which he would also do for the country may be ambiguous, and, hence, ominous.
One remained poor, being the poorest even among his peers. One remains in the company of the poor so he could surpass his peers.
The Chief of Staff of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee would love to be in their company because even with their statures, he, though seated, would always rise above them. He has proven this to be so with respect to one as he had been with this one in the Senate. He has yet to know if this is so with respect to the other since this other one has refused invitations to appear at the Senate.
The pictures of one depict him as always smiling; the pictures of the other have lately shown him to be scowling. Senator Miriam Santiago once asked the first the reason why he was always smiling and he answered that the source of his joy was his grandchildren. For the other, satisfaction could come from the fact that he got his children to become a mayor, a congressman and a senator.
The eulogies for one have been nothing but, indeed, benedictions as nothing was said but good, disproving Shakespeare’s plaint that “the evil that men do live after them, the good is oft interred with their bones," apparently because no evil could be said about him (except arguably perhaps the condom condemnation by a few, but this was soon forgiven and forgotten since he was even given acknowledgment and prominence by no less than the visiting Pope John Paul II and by Cardinal Sin).
With regards the other, it remains to be seen or heard, although a letter writer to the Philippine Inquirer (11/3/14), by way of “just a fraternal reminder” to the other about life and death, cited an academician that “It is our deeds that will outlast us and tell all and sundry what we did with our time while we lived. All else is vanity, a fading flower of a dying summer." How true, the Juan is not a fading Flavier, his life will be fondly remembered forever.