Mr. Sorry Does Not Live Here
July 9th, 2008
“Mr. Sorry Does Not Live Here”
A favorite saying among philandering Filipinos is to “deny, deny, deny and deny even if caught with your pants down.”
In a funny twist of the bizarre however, our President, faced with mounting public outrage over election irregularities, was forced to go on national television to say “I’m sorry.” But her body language betrayed that her act of contrition was more on being forced to be contrite rather than for having committed something which could have forced the resignation of the highest leader in any of our “heathen” Asian neighbor countries.
Since the Filipino finds it below his dignity to say “I’m sorry” and do all he can, even to the pain of death, to never do again that which he is sorry for, the country is a perpetual disaster waiting to happen. The loss of more than 600 hundred lives is a pittance compared to our past losses in lives and other scant, albeit, valuable resources because we cannot say “I’m sorry.”
And this will not be the last
The Princess of the Stars, lying upside down in waters so close to salvation, is one among many of such disasters. What is significant about it is that this is the fourth disaster that struck the same company in a span of time too short to forget. Yet, it was allowed to sail on not withstanding its dismal performance in the furtherance of the safety and well-being of the very source of its revenues – its passengers. Why?
Characteristically, the company, in a show of insensitivity, arrogance and defiance, has blamed everything, rather than burn incense to the higher gods and ask forgiveness for its disastrous business practices. It even blames God. It blames the weather bureau for its delayed forecast, it blames the Coast Guard for clearing its vessel for departure, it blames an agricultural company for keeping “secret” a toxic cargo that has endangered, not only the rescue and salvage people, but the entire island near where its vessel sank.
In the rigodon of finger-pointing and passing the buck, the relatives of the victims have been made to suffer uncertainty, deprivation of sleep, food and shelter just to know the whereabouts of their loved ones. Never was their physical, emotional, and spiritual hungers been eased with the slightest show of sympathies from those who have wrought these hungers upon them.
Coffee shop talk has it that when things settle down and people start forgetting, the shipping line shall be acquiring a new vessel from its insurance claims. And this is not far-fetched. Currently Sulpicio Lines is bridging heaven and hell to prove its innocence in the mess. It has sued practically everybody, refused re-floating which could salvage the vessel over dragging which could ruin it beyond recognition, not minding the total destruction of the corrals beneath its structure, and has the relatives of the victims sign a quit-claim clause in their indemnities.
And once again, our jokers in Congress are starting their congressional investigations, which are nothing but opportunities for these ego maniacs to get media coverage rather than correcting the ills that are plaguing this country since Legaspi forced his belief on the unwilling natives through pain of en-slavery or death. All thunder and no lightning serving nothing but to make our people lose focus.
The Princess of the Stars lie upside down on shallow waters, perhaps as a testimony of our sins against a God whose Name we are so fond of invoking even in the most mundane things we do like going to the toilet. Perhaps, God is trying to tell us that, as the only Christian country in Asia, we stink like a toilet. The tragedy is that this is not the only one, nor is it the last.
Isn’t it time that we say, “we’re sorry,” and really mean it?
