There was a paperback that I read many years ago. I forgot its complete title. What I remember is that it was different from the other pocket books because its title was rather kilometric. It sounded somewhat like “things that I needed to know I learned in kindergarten.” I must have lent that book to someone else who forgot to return it because I could not find it in my shelves anymore.
I remembered that book because there was something I learned in my kindergarten quite vividly that Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, by simple deduction, wanted me to unlearn. This “something” (although not treated in the lost paperback) was a saying that continues to have a profound influence in my life until now that I am in my sunset years. I can never forget that “honesty is the best policy.” In my youth it meant for us to tell the truth as a forceful and somewhat unswerving way of life. For all the right reasons, it must still be. It was then as it is now wrong to lie. Perdition would come to the untruthful.
Purveying falsehood is satanic. Since I also learned in kindergarten a song sung by Pat Boone that it is a sin to tell a lie I was thrown off my seat when I heard Mayor Duterte telling her national television audience that all politicians tell lies. Oh, my goodness, if the truth were not an issue in this election campaign, we are doomed to imagine that this declaration could possibly be the only truthful statement the mayor has ever said in her whole life!
Let us attempt to assay the impact of what Mayor Sara said (“all politicians tell lies” or words to that effect) in relation to what she is currently doing. I heard no ifs or buts in her declaration. There was not even a qualification to her pronouncement. She was unequivocal. As a predicate, we must accept that this mayor of a Mindanaoan city is going around the country ostensibly to campaign for some candidates for senator. I opined, however, in a previous column that she is doing this tiresome round of nationwide campaigning as a legitimate cover to introduce herself as the next presidential hopeful of the republic.
Because it is unimaginable that a re-electionist of a senator like Koko Pimentel would ask a local chief executive to endorse him in areas where the mayor has zero supporters, I had to assume that Mayor Sara herself volunteered her supposed help to the Senate bets and assume further that in her offer she hinted on being the funnel of Malacanang assistance. If indeed politicians like her tell lies, she could have lied to Pimentel et al in her representations.
On the other hand, it was possible that the senatorial candidates themselves were the ones who came down from their privileged positions and, on bended knees, asked Mayor Sara for her favor of endorsing them to the voters, and to sweeten the proverbial pie, promised her that in 2022 they would rally behind her leadership. Still, if the Davao City mayor was correct in declaring that all politicians tell lies, then such assurance by the current batch of senate bets of their future support for her 2022 presidential bid must also be founded on an untruthful promise and an intricate falsehood.
Some paid political propaganda aired on prime time television showed Mayor Sara endorsing Imee Marcos in glowing language. This is the same Marcos whose alleged claim to some educational achievements have reportedly been denied (or disputed?) by some sources apparently including the universities from where she was supposed to obtain college degrees. Sara and Imee are politicians and since the mayor said that politicians tell lies, can we assume that: (1) Imee lied to the electorate in claiming that she finished difficult college degrees from Ivy League universities? and the city mayor lied in her glowing endorsement of Imee?
If I sound absurd in this article, it is because I am disturbed by Mayor Sara’s statement that since all politicians lie truth is not an issue. I’m sorry mayor, truth is the most important issue in the altar of public service as I do not trust liars.