The autumn of the patriarch
Published Sep 9, 2021 12:02 am
OF SUBSTANCE AND SPIRIT
Diwa C. Guinigundo
Aside from his monumental work of literature, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ other celebrated novel is The Autumn of the Patriarch published in 1975. That was the time I was sworn in by the venerable then UP President Salvador P. Lopez as editor of The Philippine Collegian. UP Diliman was infinitely anti-Marcos’ martial law. Three years into military dictatorship, more and more revolutionaries, civil libertarians, as well as labor and student leaders continued to be rounded up and detained in any one of those military camps, some after surviving a few days of torture in undisclosed safehouses.
While many took to the hills and others remained in the city to challenge martial law, the powerless among us could only wish a time of reckoning for the dictatorship.
Utterly popular, Garcia Marquez’ Autumn was a great leap forward because while One Hundred Years involved a village, it was more national. The novel must have captured that sense of expectancy and as The Guardian put it,” the moral squalor and political paralysis that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of long-term dictator.” Marcos, by 1975, was serving his 10th year as Philippine president, two years beyond his constitutional limit, as dictator.
While The Autumn’s general was fictional, it was believed that the Nobel laureate for literature in 1982 drew his inspiration for the patriarch from among others, real-life personalities namely, Columbian dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla and Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco, still the Caudillo in 1975 when The Autumn was published.
The novel could be a difficult read because each of the chapters consisted of only one paragraph made whole by kilometric but definitely lyrical and magical, so much sustained sentences, with only one aim. That aim was to perpetuate the narrative of oppressive governments and their mode of keeping power.
Keeping power, for instance, within the family is not new. Marcos bestowed upon then first lady Imelda immense power as Metropolitan Manila governor and minister of Human Settlements. Her word was the law on matters of infrastructure especially the white elephants built in the 1970s. The three Marcos children were just too young to be empowered.
This is not the case today. The President’s offsprings are all of age and are in fact holding elective positions. While the Constitution prohibits him from seeking reelection, he decided to run for the second highest position in the land. It might be easier to secure the family’s continuity in the corridor of power. Whether this could lead to Plato’s philosopher leadership, or more competent and more ethical governance, is a good subject of endless conversation.
But what the COA is unravelling, and what the Senate is most surprised to learn about, and this is all about potential graft, corruption and yes, plunder, could always force one to question whether there is something worth continuing in terms of good governance, transparency and accountability. One sustains years of good performance, not bad performance like a prolonged pandemic spread, strict lockdown and economic recession.
Last Tuesday’s hearing at the Senate was most revolting because procurement policy appeared to have been skewed in favor of non-Filipino companies at the expense of Filipino suppliers who had to settle for a much, much lower price. Otherwise, the senators suspected the suppliers were forced to cut their losses in repurposing their manufacturing business to produce medical-grade surgical masks. Procurement rules appeared to be totally thrown out of the window to favor a small company, foreign-owned Pharmally, whose paid-up capital was a minute proportion of their billions of contracts from Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management. COA unearthed instances of overpricing, misallocation of public money and unspent portions of the budget when so much more needs to be funded.
Where has all the money gone?
Tweaking government priority to ensure military support could be another mode of consolidating power. For all it cares, the administration would rather give bigger support to anti-insurgency efforts than to the State University where young minds are shaped to think critically, to develop national consciousness and to pursue truth. How does one explain an anti-terror act at this time except perhaps to suppress opposition by branding its elements terrorists?
This is for every Filipino to discern, and to decide next May 2022.
Garcia Marquez’ patriarch assumed the magnitude of a legend, having lived between 107 and 232 years, so enormous he could not leave his own palace. So much for a solitary dictatorship of ages, perpetuating an atmosphere of illusion, alone in a palace full of cows. The patriarch refused to die, he refused to give up power. It was reported that one of the favorite biographies of Garcia Marquez was of Juan Vicente Gomez of Venezuela “who used to have his death announced and then come back to life.”
It is undoubtedly lonely at the top. Yet hordes would compete for loneliness, even for illusion. The Autumn’s dictator preferred to be lonely, for he could be whimsical if not idiotic: “the clock in the tower should not strike twelve at twelve o’clock but two times so that life would seem longer.” The patriarch went to as far as selling the sea to pay off national debt.
Garcia Marquez’ patriarch who had a penchant for any woman, including a nun, finally gave up the ghost and a mob invaded the palace and the country celebrated the end of the patriarch and his era. Would anyone who led a government for ages relish the idea the whole nation would rejoice at his leaving?
It is tragic, but it is now autumn for such a patriarch.
Diwa C. Guinigundo
Aside from his monumental work of literature, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ other celebrated novel is The Autumn of the Patriarch published in 1975. That was the time I was sworn in by the venerable then UP President Salvador P. Lopez as editor of The Philippine Collegian. UP Diliman was infinitely anti-Marcos’ martial law. Three years into military dictatorship, more and more revolutionaries, civil libertarians, as well as labor and student leaders continued to be rounded up and detained in any one of those military camps, some after surviving a few days of torture in undisclosed safehouses.
While many took to the hills and others remained in the city to challenge martial law, the powerless among us could only wish a time of reckoning for the dictatorship.
Utterly popular, Garcia Marquez’ Autumn was a great leap forward because while One Hundred Years involved a village, it was more national. The novel must have captured that sense of expectancy and as The Guardian put it,” the moral squalor and political paralysis that enshrouds a society awaiting the death of long-term dictator.” Marcos, by 1975, was serving his 10th year as Philippine president, two years beyond his constitutional limit, as dictator.
While The Autumn’s general was fictional, it was believed that the Nobel laureate for literature in 1982 drew his inspiration for the patriarch from among others, real-life personalities namely, Columbian dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla and Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco, still the Caudillo in 1975 when The Autumn was published.
The novel could be a difficult read because each of the chapters consisted of only one paragraph made whole by kilometric but definitely lyrical and magical, so much sustained sentences, with only one aim. That aim was to perpetuate the narrative of oppressive governments and their mode of keeping power.
Keeping power, for instance, within the family is not new. Marcos bestowed upon then first lady Imelda immense power as Metropolitan Manila governor and minister of Human Settlements. Her word was the law on matters of infrastructure especially the white elephants built in the 1970s. The three Marcos children were just too young to be empowered.
This is not the case today. The President’s offsprings are all of age and are in fact holding elective positions. While the Constitution prohibits him from seeking reelection, he decided to run for the second highest position in the land. It might be easier to secure the family’s continuity in the corridor of power. Whether this could lead to Plato’s philosopher leadership, or more competent and more ethical governance, is a good subject of endless conversation.
But what the COA is unravelling, and what the Senate is most surprised to learn about, and this is all about potential graft, corruption and yes, plunder, could always force one to question whether there is something worth continuing in terms of good governance, transparency and accountability. One sustains years of good performance, not bad performance like a prolonged pandemic spread, strict lockdown and economic recession.
Last Tuesday’s hearing at the Senate was most revolting because procurement policy appeared to have been skewed in favor of non-Filipino companies at the expense of Filipino suppliers who had to settle for a much, much lower price. Otherwise, the senators suspected the suppliers were forced to cut their losses in repurposing their manufacturing business to produce medical-grade surgical masks. Procurement rules appeared to be totally thrown out of the window to favor a small company, foreign-owned Pharmally, whose paid-up capital was a minute proportion of their billions of contracts from Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management. COA unearthed instances of overpricing, misallocation of public money and unspent portions of the budget when so much more needs to be funded.
Where has all the money gone?
Tweaking government priority to ensure military support could be another mode of consolidating power. For all it cares, the administration would rather give bigger support to anti-insurgency efforts than to the State University where young minds are shaped to think critically, to develop national consciousness and to pursue truth. How does one explain an anti-terror act at this time except perhaps to suppress opposition by branding its elements terrorists?
This is for every Filipino to discern, and to decide next May 2022.
Garcia Marquez’ patriarch assumed the magnitude of a legend, having lived between 107 and 232 years, so enormous he could not leave his own palace. So much for a solitary dictatorship of ages, perpetuating an atmosphere of illusion, alone in a palace full of cows. The patriarch refused to die, he refused to give up power. It was reported that one of the favorite biographies of Garcia Marquez was of Juan Vicente Gomez of Venezuela “who used to have his death announced and then come back to life.”
It is undoubtedly lonely at the top. Yet hordes would compete for loneliness, even for illusion. The Autumn’s dictator preferred to be lonely, for he could be whimsical if not idiotic: “the clock in the tower should not strike twelve at twelve o’clock but two times so that life would seem longer.” The patriarch went to as far as selling the sea to pay off national debt.
Garcia Marquez’ patriarch who had a penchant for any woman, including a nun, finally gave up the ghost and a mob invaded the palace and the country celebrated the end of the patriarch and his era. Would anyone who led a government for ages relish the idea the whole nation would rejoice at his leaving?
It is tragic, but it is now autumn for such a patriarch.