The 12 Apostles of the audacious, ragtag 1Sambayan

Like the small cadre of Jesus' apostles, the so-called pro-democracy coalition, 1Sambayan, led by retired and multiple by-passed chief justice wannabe Antonio Carpio, and convened by red-tagged Neric Colmenares, can be classified as ragtag because it is a hurriedly put together squad of very different people, unified only by their common hatred against the ruling Romans and the local collaborators, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sanhedrin, which was also an alliance of the Sadducees and Pharisees.

These are the dreamers, and perhaps we need people who still can dream, despite all the pains and the burdens of the times. They are like Don Quixotes de la Mancha who dare to fight the windmills of suppression and oppression, to dare challenge the giants who are in power and try to kill a mockingbird, with a slingshot like what David did to Goliath. These are not unlike the suicide bombers sent on desperate missions to rescue the queen lady in distress. These are the modern versions of Dr. Jose Rizal, who are willing to be shot in Bagumbayan for the sake of the motherland. These are the sons and daughters of Andres Bonifacio, who can be betrayed by their own comrades and be peremptorily charged with treason and be summarily executed, after a ragtag trial, composed of corrupted jurors, just like how Jesus was tried viva voce before a highly-corrupted crowd of cowering and terrorized hoi polloi.

These guys like former DFA secretary Albert del Rosario, a dignitary whose dignity was desecrated in the Hong Kong airport, when he and former Ombudsman and Supreme Court associate justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, cousin to Justice Antonio Carpio and related by consanguinity to the husband of Mayor Inday Sara Duterte-Carpio, were refused entry by the Chinese government. Didn't he know as a top diplomat par excellence that he was a persona non grata to China, having dragged China to the international court? Would you be suing your neighbor and then insist to visit that neighbor in his own house? If he did not remember that, could he not be properly advised by his comrade Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, a justice of top caliber and an ombudsman at that?

It is a ragtag group because in that squad, the right and the left are being bundled together. The right is represented by the church with the Jesuit priest Albert Alejo and the La Salle brother Armin Luistro, and the left is represented by Renato Magtubo and Neric Colmenares. There is also Rear Admiral Rommel Ong, COA commissioner Heide Mendoza, and former Negros governor and haciendero Rafael Coscuella. Who will mediate the extreme right represented by the admiral and the extreme left led by Magtubo and Colmenares? Maybe the centrist, FFW national president Sonny Matula, our good friend, a fellow Law professor and labor cases arbitrator. I do not know how Carpio and Del Rosario can keep the balance and the equilibrium of this diverse coalition.

This is a group that is very hard to lead and impossible to manage, like the 12 apostles of Jesus with a Zealot, Simon, who was a rebel, filibuster and rabble rouser like Magtubo and Colmenares, walking together with Matthew, a tax collector and collaborator of the Sanhedrin, like the former justices, Cabinet members, and COA commissioners. And yet, they are 1Sambayan because they have a common enemy in Malacañang. The enemy of your enemy is your friend. Pinag-isa dahil iisa ang kinamumuhian. But one of them is a Judas, though.