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by Fernan A. Gianan

A Few Brave Men

Early Friday morning last week, while a couple in the rural barangay of Cabihian in the capital town had just awakened to the drone of heavy rain, a lightning bolt nearly sent them back to sleep, permanently.

When the thunderstorm abated, the husband - a skilled carpenter - went out of his newly constructed house and saw what one of nature's powerful and most mysterious forces did to his TV antenna `tower.'

The long, slender bamboo pole, as tall as nearby coconut trees, had shrunk to a thigh-high pile, most of its sturdy trunk shredded into pencil-thin fibers. The lightning also split the nearby wooden post of the couple's toilet. "Baging tini-ak," he said.

There was no trace at all of the aluminum antenna, which may have been vaporized by the heat of the lightning. Luckily, the bolt's awesome power somehow did not course through the antenna wire and wreak havoc to the TV set and the couple's home. The wire was still there and the TV was still working when they tested it. It was the main switch which bore the brunt of the lightning's power as it exploded and was blown a few meters away.

The carpenter said they had no inkling at all that a lightning strike would occur so near their home, the makeshift TV antenna `rod' just two meters away from where they slept. All the couple sensed was a sudden, brilliant flash of light. They never heard the thunder.

It is very rare to be so near such a display of nature's power and yet emerge unhurt. Some people would have wished it happened to members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan while they argue endlessly why their political interests are greater than the people's good. They would have seen the light, too, but never would have heard the thunder. To some who have chosen to be deaf to public clamor, nature's roar is inadequate to dislodge the roll of bills stuck in their ears.

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A confidential survey of voter preferences in the coming 2001 congressional and gubernatorial polls allegedly conducted by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) showed National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) chief Joseph A. Santiago and Congressman Leandro B. Verceles, Jr. on top of the heap.

The survey allegedly showed Santiago enjoying a big edge over his probable opponents even in northern towns. As much as three-fourths of those surveyed expressed confidence in the young Santiago's capability to win the seat to be vacated by the three-termer solon, who also cornered the nod of about six of 10 respondents across the island.

While the method through which it was done may be scientifically doubtful, there may be some grains of truth in the DILG survey particularly if poll takers concentrated on barangay chairmen. Village chiefs know the pulse of their constituents and they could predict to some extent how their barangays would vote.

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With Erap buddy and LAMP leader Mayor Cito Alberto watching from the second floor of the nearby municipal building, members of the Erap Resign Movement gathered in the rainy morning of November 14 at Plaza Rizal. They unfurled streamers, distributed leaflets and read a manifesto listing those by-now familiar reasons why the country's president should go.

They were few in number, but the strength of character they had in just showing up at the plaza indicates they strongly believe in what they are doing. Their courage in expressing their opinion on the state of the nation should hopefully encourage other timid souls to raise their voices, as well as their fists, at every transgression committed by the people they elected to public office.

Only vigilance, and the will to punish those responsible, will save the Filipino people from an increasingly popular perception as a lawless, undisciplined lot given to anarchy when it suits them.