MEDIUM RARE

TV coverage of the first day filing of certificates of candidacy provided a fresh dose of hope as expressed by presidential hopefuls with grand ideas to solve the country’s problems.

What a pleasure to meet the lady speaking as the “medium of white elves.” I listened to her, intrigued, considering that the only trick our politicians haven’t tried is white magic. Next, meet the guy who would collect human waste and convert it into perfume and fertilizer – an environmental mission that would deodorize the rot in government and society! Then there’s that “ordinary citizen” who would import “international scientists” to put an end to the never-ending pandemic.

On second thought, how are such pie-in-the-sky promises any different from those made by “serious” and seriously ambitious contenders and pretenders who entertain us seasonally, every three years? They would streamline processes and procedures, no red tape. They would send notorious crooks to jail and make them pay. They would use the people’s money to create jobs, eradicate hunger and poverty, build livable homes, dispense justice by being fair and honest.

How are such goals not as impossible as relying on elves to do our work? If we have survived generations of bureaucratic regulators, don’t we deserve free fuel, electricity and water, as one COC filer vowed? Why not believe cockeyed aspirants with plans to end floods once and for all?

To the unimaginative, there may be humor in their imaginations, but the ritual of COC filings has acquired a life and now, a myth of its own. There was a time long long ago – the memories tinged with a veneer of innocence – when one aspiring, inspired candidate presented his vision of a Philippines fully airconditioned, all 7,000-plus islands, under one humongous dome. Somehow that image has stayed with some people (of my generation, that is) who have been caught in a time warp, forcing them to look back and smile at the lunacy, the foolishness of it all. Who knew then that decades hence, in the Year of Our Lord 2020 the entire capital region of the Philippines would be living under one dome, called a bubble, not airconditioned but conditioned by a deadly virus?

If only I could remember the name of the proponent!