Accents
Are you a subversive?
Are you a subversive? I shot the question once at my brother, Simplicio Carreon, Jr. who used to roam the hills of Panay. His reply, I remember well, was a big smile which I took to mean that "I am my own person with my own ideals and idealism."
Toto Pising as we fondly call him has long ago joined the mainstream for more than twenty years now. Fact is he has been elected twice as town councilor of Oton, twice elected too to the Iloilo Councilors League as representative of Iloilo's first congressional district. Doing mighty fine, too, in that body politic -- keeping an unblemished record like his forebear, Simplicio Sr. who was mayor of Oton for twelve years.
Are you a subversive? Gosh, one doesn't joke with questions like that--especially with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's dangling of P1 billion budget to wipe off the NPAs in the country in the span of two years. Former Pres. Ramos, the military man, who certainly knows whereof he speaks, disagrees as to GMA's time limit.
Firstly, what is a subversive? The Oxford American Dictionary, copyright 2003, defines subversive (adj.) "of a person, group, organization, activity, etc., seeking to subvert (esp. a government)." I then looked up the term subvert and got a lot of synonyms: "overthrow, overturn, ruin, destroy, undermine, destabilize, topple, upset, disrupt, demolish, wreck, sabotage, corrupt, pervert." The same dictionary enumerates the likes of a subversive (noun): " traitor, insurgent, subverter, saboteur, fifth columnist, collaborator, collaborationist, quisling, radical, revolutionary, insurrectionist, dissident, defector." Whew-w-w!
The thesaurus in my laptop has five synonyms: "dissident, rebel, revolutionary, nonconformist, protester." You bet, nuances of meaning -- gradations from the extreme to the less extreme. I for one has been a protester several times of many an organization's flawed management, a revolutionary many times against popular beliefs, a nonconformist, more often than not, of the fad of the times, mind you, be it in what I consider trivial such as facial make-up or skirt length. Writing here is definitely not a dissident nor a rebel of the hills variety--just one, like my brother Simplicio Jr., her own person with her own ideals and idealism. And definitely, a columnist of the Fourth Estate (The News Today), and heaven forbid, not a fifth columnist.
Is the P1 billion appropriated does not by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to wipe out NPAs include the communists? I don't think so. My resident lawyer (Atty. Rudy Lagoc who is not a communist) likewise does not think so. Rudy was very emphatic about this: Include the communists as criminals only and only when they take up arms against the government. To be a communist is not to be a criminal. What is criminal, he said, is taking up arms against the government. He went on to explain that the repeal of the Anti-subversion Law has made the Communist Party of the Philippines legal. Relevant to mention at this point that the great US democracy has long ago legalized the Communist Party in their midst.
Interesting to note that the Oxford American dictionary (and I believe any dictionary for that matter) does not include communist as a synonym for subversive as popularly and wrongly believed. What is a communist but a person practicing or advocating communism, an economic theory derived from Marx which leads to "a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person is paid and works according to his or her needs and abilities." Having quoted that from the Oxford American dictionary, it becomes most interesting to bring forward what one intellectual, whose name I cannot now recall, spoke of Jesus Christ: "The first and the last communist died in the cross." I take it to mean that nobody but nobody among the so-called communists of ages past up to the present has equaled the Christ as the epitome of the ideal communist.
Brazilian Bishop Dom Helder Camara was in a quandary as to the tag his government gave him: "When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why the poor had no food, they called me a communist." All that the priest wanted was faithfulness to his Christ-like calling. Well, then, what label would fit do you think -- subversive, communist or saint? Like Dom Helder Camara, let's ask all the WHYs louder than ever.
Are you a subversive? Only with the pen, not with the sword. Every journalist is a little subversive for truth except, of course, the paid hacks who cannot resist the lure of the envelope.
(Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)