How Ludlum would write about us

There was a time when I spent my hard-earned pesos on the works of Robert Ludlum, starting with “Scarlatti Inheritance” to the Jason Bourne series, as much as I kept updating my SCRA. Ludlum always had my full attention the moment I opened his thrillers I could hardly do anything else until I reached the last page.

I admit that while Ludlum crossed the great barrier years ago, the plots of his fiction influenced my mind in viewing a wide range of socio-political developments worldwide. The rise and fall of George Duvalier, for instance, and the Israeli raid at Entebbe during the reign of Idi Amin Dada for another had, in my wild imagination, Ludlum characteristic strains. Believe me, the Ludlum influence continues. If he were alive today, he could have written a bestseller on the current happenings in our country. Perhaps he would title it as “The Road to Malacañang,” a sequel to his other paperback entitled “The Road to Gandolfo.”

Let me attempt to immerse my ordinary mind in my favorite writer’s creative thought certain though I am that I shall fall terribly short in my mental exploration.

Our Congress is Ludlum’s likely setting and the impeachment complaint recently lodged against seven Supreme Court justices his initial point of conflict. Ludlum might create a committee tasked to study impeachment complaints. To spice the thrill, he would compose it with men of opposing political persuasions the apparent intention being to approximate a modicum of fairness. But the fictionist would add specks of coercions and elements of threats to address the diverging interests of the congressmen masterfully enough for them to vote on the issue in stunning unison. Such could be comparable to the unexpected unanimity of our lawmakers in finding sufficiency in form to the impeachment article.

That in place, Ludlum, would leave Congress and start developing his central plot. His principal character should have irresistible charm, strong, almost warlike, personality, and is unafraid to face the devil. These are traits that are not entirely opposite those of Senator Trillanes. Ludlum would find in him an initial object of harassment by an overpowering ruler but Trillanes would eventually become the unlikely hero. To thicken the plot, Ludlum would dig up the lurid past in the lives of otherwise brilliant men working in the palace as compelling reason to force them to provide legal prop to what the devil schemed.

The finale of Ludlum’s probable magnum opus “The Road to Malacañang,” would be a fiery court scene. The dramatis personae would profess unwavering fidelity to the Constitution behind rhetoric. But unknown to them, Ludlum would have unearthed the painful truth. The magistrates were not without pressure points. Their individual intellectual profundity was wrapped in a garb of less ideal dignity. Independence of mind was, in Ludlum’s prose, more imaginary than real. The decision they reached became predictable.

The people, in Ludlum’s book, would have somehow long known the unpatriotic dimension of the devious ruler. His bloody reign has to end and his insuperable control of the ever-supportive magistracy extinguished. The one thing I could not guess would be how Ludlum ends his book. Perhaps our citizenry could supply it.