Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao

The song “Do You Hear the People Sing” in the play Les Miserables has been appropriated as a tool of persuasion and influence in the social conversation. Experts in mind control or marketing professionals liken this powerful song to a “cheep-cheep” sound that triggers the desired response, which in this case is to alienate the people against the President.

The song was a literary creation, an artistic expression composed by Claude-Michel Schonberg and the lyrics were written by Alain Boublil in a time of plenty in 1980.

Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables was the inspiration for the play. Set against the backdrop of social unrest in France, it is the struggle between a fugitive who committed a crime because of poverty, escaped from prison, his erring soul saved by a monsignor who led him to a righteous path and a constable who later realized that there is a higher law, which is forgiveness.

The song’s message has a timeless appeal. It could have been in the hearts of the French in the last days of Louis XVI who died by guillotine in 1793.

What best typifies the song’s call was Marie-Antoinette’s notorious remark, “Let them eat cake” when told that her French subjects have no bread.

It was the ultimate insult. The people bore the brunt of sustaining the monarchy with their taxes. It was double irony, with the nobility and the clergy spared from taxation but were one with the king enjoying the largesse. In today’s constitutional parlance, it’s a tax exemption for religious organizations.

In the birthplace of liberty, equality, fraternity or death, the French were careful not to violate the divinity of the crown. They respected the crown but not the man. They beheaded the king not as Louis XVI but as Louis Capet, his birth name.

Whether we like it or not, such principle of respect applies in a democratic system for those elected by the divinity of the people’s will.

You may have noticed the President made a special greeting to the elected Vice President Leni Robredo at the start of his State of the Nation Address. Vox populi, vox Dei.

So far, President Duterte has dominated the conversation in the people’s mind. He has been successful because he listened, “sang” the people’s voice against the menace of drugs and the corruption in government.

Even the sacrosanct religious realm has not been spared. He prefers direct communication with God or the Supreme One. When he disclosed that a Jesuit priest fondled his private part, he is saying that too much religion, relying on men in lamb’s cloth, whether a priest, a pastor, an imam or rabbi, without a critical introspection, had made us meek, compliant and ignorant.

In the area of foreign policy, his critics are baffled but what they do not understand is that national interest is dictated by circumstances. There is the art of negotiation and also timing in taking action. The Bible speaks of a season for everything.

Exploiting the song “Do you hear the people sing?” in today’s social conversation is undoubtedly misplaced.

If the song has no loaded meanings, or if it is clearly a part of an ongoing political campaign, then it can be understood in that light. In politics, all is fair game. But then while we are grappling with the pandemic, the song is like hitting one in the back.

Granting the song has merits in the context of today, who has the right to sing the song given the song’s history?

I dare say – the medical front-liners, the “hand to mouth” who cannot work, the poor who need government support and financial assistance.

The enforcers of social distancing want to be heard as well.

We, who are in fear, are also crying for everyone’s sense of responsibility.

The better song is one asking for patience, understanding and cooperation.

Perhaps, someone would rewrite the lyrics of the Italian partisan song, “Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao” for our medical frontliners and enforcers.

I rewrote the first stanza, to wit:

“In the morning I got up

“Oh Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Bella ciao, ciao, ciao

“Oh my god, what a torment

“To protect the people, from morn to dawn”!

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The author, former dean of the University of the East College of Law, is a legal luminary, educator and constitutionalist.