Nagpapakasaya, Willie? The word is not nagpapakasaya. I can think of numerous words and terms to describe what you are doing, or who you are. Opportunistic. Calloused. Vile. Deceptive. Un-Filipino.
Nagpapakasaya? You feel irritated because the live stream showing Cory Aquino’s wake is spoiling the fun. How can you provide entertainment to the public when death is being rammed down on everyone’s throat? Lunch time is for cheap entertainment – rice tastes better with Wowowee.
I will not even try to compare you with Cory Aquino, whose death – and its commemoration – you find ill-timed and inconvenient. Doing so would insult Cory. You callousness deserves a more apt comparison. The first is to a French Queen who, when when told that the people had no bread, responded, “let them eat cake”. Incidentally, her head was chopped off when the revolution won.
But there is an even better comparison. There is another woman, one who, like you, sees giving false hopes and acts of opportunism as public service. You share the same character – you treat the people as a joke, and rake millions in the process.
The nation is not just mourning, Willie. We haven’t seen anything move the public for a long time, not after Garci or GMA. Despite grief, the nation has at least found an anchor to look for its soul. You may call it nostalgia, a melodrama, a wet blanket. For others, though, for most of us, this is called hope, and a deep yearning for it. Your show – and may I say you’re not even witty, because wit presupposes intelligence – can never encompass this emotion: your sense of humor is neither a replacement nor an equivalent of the mood of the people today.
So go ahead, have your fun. Your hubris is that one day, you’ll find yourself sharing the same spot in history with the most unpopular, most unloved woman in the country today.
