THE PITY CARD

 Actually we should already be used to it.  The so-called Pity Card.

Every other time somebody of prominence or warranting media value is caught red handed with his or her shenanigans, he or she deals out her pity card.

What is the Pity Card?  Oh, bring out the wheelchair.  Look shriveled, disheveled, discombobulated.  Flash those tearful eyes for the cameras to see and for the public to consume.  In other words, go for public sympathy by feigning failing health ... or let's try the utang na loob trope by making people feel guilty that they are treating you so badly whereas you only wanted to help or you were trying your very best.

It is all about pricking the Filipino's preoccupation for konsiyensiya. Going hand in hand with that is pagpapatawad or the more casual hayaan mo na lang or a choice between Ipaubaya mo na kay Lord or Bahala na si Batman.

Well, reality check:  Sobrang busy na ni Lord sa dami ng problema ng mundo to pay attention to just another textbook corrupt/ambitious/careless/stupid official who has bungled it up and get caught with his or her hands in the cookie jar.  Or worse, Bruce Wayne has also been badly hit by the pandemic to give an eff about the consequences of our unconditional capacity to forgive.

Isa pa yan. I am sorry (said better than the last time those three words were spoken while addressing the nation after --- again --- getting caught) but I am not a fan of the whole forgive and forget kind of philosophy.  Sige, I will forgive you but do you think I will forget?  Will I ever shove the very thought that you tried or even ripped me off, lied to my face and given me all the reasons to lose all my trust in you?  Fat chance.

And please don't give me that sort of crap reminding me that even the Lord Jesus was able to forgive ... and how can I be so tough, mean and unrelenting?  I agree but you see Christ was the Son of God and I am not: I grew up in Pasay City, learned my street smarts in F.B. Harrison Street and Libertad.  How can I just forgive and ... oh, yes, move on ... when there is no closure to whatever wrongdoing has been done not only to me but to a lot of people? Even the whole nation?  

That, I believe, is not being Christian-like.  That is called being an imbecile.

Fool me once: shame on you.  Fool me twice: shame on me.  Fool me three times --- and I have no shame.

You can only forgive someone who has actually repented for his/her wrongdoing/shortcomings ... not someone who merely says so.  

The three words I am sorry is as cheap as I love you nowadays: they cannot be vouched for sincerity especially when muttered post-0rgasm.  

Or worse are those who are not even sorry at all, stricken by such epic proportions of pride to think that they do not owe anyone any apologies because they sincerely believe they have done nothing wrong.  And you ask me to forgive and forget and to move on?  

I cannot stand the Pity Card but I understand why it is so mabenta with Pinoys.

What with our love for telenovelas where the inaapi is the trump card of the bida and pagtitiis and pagmamalasakit are the pre-requisites to greatness?

Undeniably, we love the sight of people suffering because it makes us feel good to feel so kind.  There is almost an act of redemption on our parts every time we are nagpapatawad because it boosts the assumed nobility in our spirit as well as the plus points we earn in the scoreboard in heaven.  But it cannot and should not be that reductive.

I cringe each time some manipulative public figure  goes in front of the cameras in a foray of interviews using that pakawawa and pahumble look with matching nagigilid ang luha sa mga mata to plead for his or her case.  I almost find it laughable each time somebody accused of a crime or misdemeanor suddenly announces (complete with drumroll) that he or she is actually very ill, on the verge of death or only has a few days to live.

"Ladies and gentlemen ... may cancer po siya."

(Gasp! Goes the audience.  Karma, screams others.  Kawawa naman siya, muttered a number ang T--g ina mo! exclaimed an even bigger number.)

Roll out the wheelchairs, Folks.  Wheelchairs have not only become the accessories of the invalid ... but the mode of transportation of the cancelled.

How convenient it is to be rolled out in front of photographers, looking limp as an overcooked frankfurter on a wheelchair (perhaps attached to some medical contraption like a dextrose bottle) and to be caught in a crossfire of video cameras for the world to see. Kawawa naman me is the subtitle right under this deliberately pathetic image of a man who just happened to have stolen millions and billions. 

And with this fleeting image, our conscience has again be challenged to the limits of our Catholic conditioning. How heartless can we be indicting a man suffering, fighting for his life ... and perhaps clinging onto his last days on earth?  How can we even think ill of somebody all suffering ... to make him suffer all the more by our accusations, our vindications?

How can we even demand justice when justice is already served by a seeming punishment sent by the Lord?  Or so we are made to believe.  Or so we are conditioned to respond in a typical mapagpatawad and maka-Diyos na Filipino.

One thing about being Pinoy is that we have the span of memory of a mayfly.

Regardless of how ngitngit we are with  indignation, bring in the next scandal ... and we conveniently shove aside to the back burner and then eventually the dirty kitchen together with all the issues we deemed as so important because of the vulgarity of corruption and media manipulation.  And regardless of how mad we are at the moment, the next diversion will provide us enough reason to go into our self-inflicted amnesia and move on to the next highlight of the media circus.

In the meantime, it is our addiction to the martyrs of the world, all the suffering Pinoy telenovela heroines who equate nobility and greatness with resilience, patience, tolerance ... and yes, subservience.  We equate suffering with the key to the Kingdom of God ... inasmuch as our preoccupation of Romantic Agony almost makes us attracted to masochism.

So regardless of closure or demand for retribution, we simply shrug and say, Ipaubaya na natin kay Lord or Makakarma rin siya or worse, Bahala na si Bruce Wayne. That way we feel ennobled. Or maybe just forgetful, dismissive, defensively apathetic.

We love exercising pity because it makes us feel so good even if the whole point of the exercise is to make us all look stupid.

I am sorry.

I cannot take pity on anybody who I know is bullshitting me or swindling the nation ... regardless of alleged failing conditions of health or capacity to cry on cue in front of the TV camera.  I mean, that is so predictable: to cry sick ... or simply to cry when you can't get out of the hole you found yourself entrapped.

I still prefer justice, retribution and/or dismissal.

Postscript:

When issues have either been resolved or forgotten, by some miracle from the heavens, the afflicted individual suddenly becomes cured --- and the crying ladies go back to shaking their booties and partying.  It is much easier for them to move on --- especially if they made idiots out of all of us forgiving God-fearing people.