Accents
Are you who you say you are?
Are you the person pictured in the I.D.you are presenting as your own? Are you sure you are what you claim you are? Really, are you who you say you are? Hey, silly you, don't joke with me with questions like that. Take me at face value, yes, look closely--I am the person in that "green card" I.D.--although I must admit I did look younger there, thanks to the camera that didn't lie.
Gosh, these are the times that try not men's souls (sorry, Thomas Paine), but times that try one's patience, strain credibility in the other fellow, and make doubting Thomases of us all. Take the case of opening a bank account here in the country of our birth. You need two proofs of your identity. One isn't enough.
Assistant Vice President of Banco de Oro Ana Chu Llorente was most accommodating to my husband Rudy and me on our first visit to the Valeria branch of the bank. Ana personifies service with a smile as she showed to us the list of the bank's identification requirements. To bolster our identities, we said we'll bring our passports next time. But not to bother. She remembered me as the English instructor in the University of Iloilo. "I remember the mole," Ana said And Rudy who was former regional head of the NLRC (National Labor Relations Commission) knew the bank's legal counsel. No iota of doubt anymore: We were what we say we were.
As it was in the first, so was caution exercised in the succeeding bank transaction. This time a few whys. Why a big wire transfer? What for? Why a big withdrawal? Will you please confirm? And some such questions. Ms. Llorente called for Richiel, a gracious lady employee, to attend to us. Even if Richiel had seen us in friendly talk with her boss to discount all doubts, she said she still had one more thing left to do before finalizing the business at hand: Check Rudy's signature with their copy in the bank. I would say Richiel is a model employee for following standard operating procedures, no matter what, regardless of who you are. Well and good at these times of proliferating scams.
I'd like to draw from the world of fiction the most cunning loss of identity ever made by a would-be assassin. In Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal, Carlos the Jackal plots to kill Charles de Gaulle, President of France. Dissembling is complete when Carlos transformed himself into a disabled old man. The principal character, now faceless and nameless in the workaday world, easily passes through security and makes it to the ideal firing range. Forsyth is in league with today's hottest, Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons), both writers of suspense thrillers, experts at break-neck speed, you just have to race with them page after page once started after supper to the finish before the break of dawn or before morning coffee. Suspense must be satisfied to see the antagonist come to the fore and face the reckoning.
A bizarre humor once circulated that Ferdinand Marcos is alive and kicking in the world of the living, that the corpse frozen in Batac, Ilocos Norte, is an impostor. A Pinoy tall story that didn't hold water because the real Macoy of the infamous Martial Law had long been meted out judgment by the Big Guy Up There.
Times there are when the actual world competes with fiction as borne by the hearings in congress. The dramatis personae involved are who they say they are. I.D.s are unnecessary. Only a bit of camouflage. A face as white as snow looks squarely into the camera; a guilty conscience doesn't show. A saintly mien hides the crocodile within. Methinks acting awards should be given to the tradpols who continue fooling the people and enriching themselves by making a mockery of these congressional hearings.
Do banking institutions exercise as much caution over government bureaucrats as they do over private individuals when the former handles public money? Double standard is an ugly term. I hope they are not being cowed by power. How much of the public kitty is being pocketed? This is for the Senate and the PCGG (Presidential Commission on Good Government daw) to wrangle over. The Supreme Court will judge on the legal aspect. Juan de la Cruz waits and sees to finally judge on the personalities' intrinsic value even if the face value shows otherwise.
(Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)