Tango

I was really more a fan of Audie Murphy than of Dolphy. Murphy, probably the most decorated American soldier in the Second World War, became a movie actor portraying mostly western films. In his pictures, the dialogue would not so much impress fans for any line to be memorable. Dolphy, on the other, was a top Filipino comedian whose lingo more often lingered in the minds of his fans. One Dolphy movie, if I may recall, introduced the term TANGO which, in the film, was a contraction of TANGA NA ug GAGO pa.

“A confession,” Congressman Eduardo Gullas once said during a Gullas Law School commencement ceremony, “is good for the soul.” Confession cleanses a man’s heartfelt rancor, subdues his anger and makes his soul at peace with the world. I do not dispute the words of Sir Eddiegul and in fact, today, I heed him. I confess that this administration of President Rodrigo Duterte imagines that I am TANGO - TANGA NA, GAGO PA, and I hate to concede that I may just be so.

Here is why I am making that harsh (and yes, embarrassing) concession. Few weeks ago, the TANGA in me was made to understand by this government that Pfizer was the first medical laboratory to have submitted documents to support an EUA application for a vaccine against the coronavirus. It was followed by another foreign company. Was it the producer of AstraZeneca vaccine? Their papers passed through rigid tests on efficacy and effectiveness. In a Senate inquiry the following next many days, I heard that while this government obviously preferred to use a vaccine developed in Communist China, no papers yet were submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. In other words, this Red Chinese vaccine from Sinovac had not shown its compliance to the standards of efficacy and effectiveness such that it cannot be considered for importation, much less use.

The TANGA in me innocently believed government pronouncements that the first batch of COVID-19 vaccine would arrive in the first two weeks of February. Considering that at the time such projections were made, only the two foreign laboratories satisfied the requirements, I thought the American-German Pfizer and English AstraZeneca vaccines would be administered preferentially on the so-called “frontliners”. That by February 15, the inoculation would start warmed my heart.

Few weeks before the arrival of the vaccines, the COVID-19 task force announced that some documents described as indemnity agreements were lacking. The shipment to our country of the injectables would thus be delayed. Very convincing to a TANGA like me. But, at the same time, the Communist Chinese laboratory that produced Sinovac reportedly filed with the FDA its EUA application. The TANGA in me did not see the coincidence. In fact, I became GAGO because I forgot that in my January 17, 2021 column I labeled our president as the best salesman of the Sinovac when he proclaimed to the world that it was “safe and sure” because “bright ang mga Intsik” who developed it.

The arrival of the American-German and English vaccines is pushed to a later date. If these injectables arrive our shores at about the same time that the Sinovac lands here, and the Chinese vaccine administered simultaneously, if not ahead of Pfizer and AstraZeneca, I will have reason to believe that this government has really made me a TANGO.