Brotherhood of Bigots
In the Church of Nicodemo Ferrer, God is a bigot, and his apostles fly first class.
In a decision penned with commissioners Elias Yusoph, Armando Velasco and Lucenito Tagle, Commission on Elections Commissioner Ferrer proclaimed multimillionaire Juan Miguel “Mikey” Macapagal Arroyo, son of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the legitimate representative of the nation’s security guards and tricycle drivers. Ferrer, Yusoph and Tagle make up the same holy trinity that replaced the Constitution with the fire-and-brimstone rantings of a Pennsylvanian Baptist preacher from an online website when they justified banning gay representatives from government.
In the learned opinion of Ferrer and his colleagues, party-list group Ang Ladlad did not belong in government on “moral grounds,” because “practicing homosexuals are a threat to the youth.”
These gentlemen, with the addition of Velasco who suddenly reversed his opinion, are the “gallant commissioners” that Mikey Arroyo thanks, “who, despite pressures from our critics, upheld the will of the people who voted and put their trust in Ang Galing Pinoy and its nominees particularly this representation knowing fully well I am its first nominee.”
Late last year, then Presidential Spokesman Gary Olivar defended Mikey Arroyo’s nomination, saying that a nominee does not necessarily have to be in the same line of work as his party-list minority. Olivar said that what is vital is that the representative possesses skills enabling him to perform effectively in Congress. This is the same logic Ferrer and his colleagues employ, an assumption that anyone can represent anyone, for as long as he has a college degree, and, hopefully, a name that includes “Macapagal Arroyo.”
Mikey Arroyo—who at no time before the election season manifested any sort of public interest in the hand-to-mouth existence of tricycle drivers and security guards—has passed the standards of the Comelec with flying colors. That the nation’s largest security guards’ organization, the Philippine Association of Detective and Protection Agency Operations Inc. (Padpao), does not recognize Arroyo does not seem relevant to the Comelec. Arroyo, says Ferrer, was able to show proof that he has been a member of Ang Galing Pinoy since December 2009, and that he advocates for the rights of its members.
What is important, says Ferrer, is that a person truly understands the advocacy of the party-list group he is representing.
It is difficult to imagine what sort of proof the son of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo can show to prove he “truly understands” the plight of a security guard on minimum wage working a 12-hour night shift and providing for a family of six, or of the security guard’s family whose breadwinner was gunned down in one of the bloodiest robberies in Cabuyao, Laguna. It is possible the former action star presented his Regal Films’ acting stint starring opposite the sexy Katrina Halili, where he played personal bodyguard and driver “Eric” to the voluptuous “Raven.”
This is where Ferrer manifests his bigotry at his patronizing best. In an interview on ABS-CBN’s morning show, “Umagang Kay Ganda,” the Knight of Columbus said he does not think a tricycle driver or anyone from the country’s marginalized sectors is capable of drafting laws.
The party-list law is founded on the single principle that men are equal, but power is not. It offers the marginalized citizen the opportunity to represent himself and his people in government. Education does not matter. Experience does not matter. Income, family, dirt under the fingernails, none of these matter, for as long as a man stands for those forced into edges of democracy. It is why it is offensive that the millionaires of this country have bought their way into their congressional seats by stomping on the shoulders of those they are supposed to protect.
A minority is not about numbers; it is about power, and the lack of it. Women are minorities, and are represented by women who understand what it can mean to be held down weeping on a bed by a sweating man with a hard-on and told to spread her legs. The elderly are minorities, represented by the men and women who are turned away by government welfare and cheated out of benefits. Under Republic Act 7941, farmers, urban poor, fishermen, the indigenous, the youth are minorities, because unlike the Ateneo-educated, four-car-owning, Forbes-residing members of the Filipino elite who occupy congressional seats, they have no voices, no power, no pull with presidential mommies.
“Can you imagine a tricycle driver being able to draft a law?” Ferrer said.
It is this, more than anything, which demands the impeachment of men like Nicodemo Ferrer from the Comelec. There are bigots and jackasses in this country. There are men who believe marital rape and battery are rights and that women have none. There are still men who fire gay men for being gay and corporations who have left farmers barefoot and desperate. That these people exist is another function of growing democracy. But for a commissioner of the Comelec tasked to protect a system for the empowerment of minorities to believe a minority is too stupid, too uneducated, too much unlike the Mikeys of this country to sit in Congress is an offense against democracy. It is as ridiculous as putting a fascist at the head of the United Nations, Jovito Palparan as chairman of the Commission on Human Rights. This decision, and the men behind it, further discriminate every security guard who stands in front of a coffee shop, compelled to clear tables and wipe down chairs, and every tricycle driver stopped by a policeman out for cigarette money. Ferrer and his colleagues put their faith in Mikey Arroyo, because he is one of them.
In the Church of Nicodemo Ferrer, God is a bigot, and his name is Nicodemo.
