by: Erico Joseph T. Canete
“MORTALIZING THE OGRE IN GOVERNACE”
(Erico Joseph T. Canete)
YEARS BACK, I wrote an article which centered on the morale of the story, “The Ogre that
Never Dies.” I came across with this story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s column “Make My
Day” by Hilarion “Larry” M. Henares, Jr. I find this story apt enough in line with tomorrow’s
Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE).
Probably you’ve read or heard varying versions of this story sometime, somewhere. Yet, allow
me to recall, modify, narrate and deepen this story relative to our country’s political scenario to
know a footprint of realization that’s haunting the machination of war in Philippine politics.
The story:
A village once blessed with milk and honey was haunted and terrorized by a believed to be
immortal ogre that stole the bounty and killed the villagers. Consequent to the ogre’s
belligerence, the chieftain gathered his warriors to fight the ogre. Sadly, the village gradually
faced their waterloo as their warriors perished one by one.
This news came into the attention of two great warriors, brothers Abdul and Yossuf. Abdul
accepted the challenge and told his younger brother Yossuf that he has all the reasons to avenge his death if he won’t come back fighting the ogre.
Days passed and no news came from his brother Abdul. So, Yossuf decided to hunt and kill the
ogre to avenge his presumably fallen brother.
Alas! As Yossuf found, fearlessly fought and vanquished the Ogre, he metamorphosed into the
likeness of his elder brother Abdul. It turned out that all the men who came before him, including his elder brother Abdul, were able to defeat the ogre and turned into an ogre one after the other.
Yossuf became the next ogre that ruled the village until replaced by another one.
The morale: This is exactly what’s happening to our Philippine politics and governance. Just as it was easy to kill the ogre yet, how to resist the temptation of becoming the next ogre was the real problem. It’s easy to win in an election. But the problem is how to resist the temptation of becoming the next corrupt ogre in the position. On our end as electorate, the ogre’s vicious cycle of existence is not actually immortal. It can be entombed to its finality. It can be defeated by forces within us – that is – responsible exercise of our freedom by choosing candidates based on their integrity, moral ascendancy and vision for the common good. Equipped by this weapon, we can mortalize the ogre. And only then we can claim the veracity of the maxim “Vox Populi, Vox Dei – The voice of the people is the voice of God”.