Cock and bull  

If there’s anything to be learned about the current mystery surrounding the disappearances of cockfighters in these islands, it is that despite the fact that we pretend to be a civilized nation, our civilization levels are actually pretty rudimentary.

It’s just a veneer. We pretend to have law and order, we pretend to have a competent police force, we pretend to have justice. Yet, cockfighters are fighting shadow wars and stabbing deadly spurs in each other’s breasts, and really, there’s nothing inhibiting them from getting their (literally) bloody way. The police aren’t lifting a finger. No thorough investigations. No thick piles of reports. No results. And yes, still no cockfighters. They’re still missing.

There are many reasons for this. There’s the lack of relative importance of the missing folks. There’s the fact this is all tied to gambling, and the powerful gambling lords that accompany the “sport”. And of course, there’s the instant assumption of big money overflowing into pockets to hush the outcry.

When multiple persons disappear, when they are snatched in front of many witnesses, when these crimes are unsolved --that just shows us how perilous these times are. Justice is in the hands only of those who can command the resources, and only if it serves the interests of the powerful.

But we know that already. We know that in the case of Senator Leila de Lima, still held in prison despite the skimpiness of the evidence against her. Where even a powerful senator who has crossed the wrong persons cannot extricate herself from jail, we know we cannot rely on the system to protect just us.

We know that in the case of lumads, our indigenous brothers who suffer rapacious encroachment and perpetual indignities at the hands of the military and those they really work for. We know that in the case of a doctor who is picked up without a warrant of arrest for the crime of helping to better the lives of lumads, and who is denied access to her lawyers and relatives.

So, are we surprised that these lowly handlers of fighting cocks, numbering at least 31 at last count, are given such short shrift?

Sure, the Senate is now investigating these disappearances. There are hearings and press conferences. The good Senators are threatening to suspend the valuable licenses of the e-cockfighting operators, quick to draw a connection between the operators raking in the gambling revenues, and attempts to control the outcome of the cockfights by playing god with its players.

But is this circus just more white noise, a front to shake some election contributions for their respective campaigns? Or is it really a genuine desire to seek justice and control lawlessness?

We shall see. Either the press releases designed to assure the public that something is being done will peter out, in which case we have been treated to some bull, or there will be further fire and fury, and actual squeezing of licensees. That will be done until they squawk the right answers (and they promise to stop the internecine carnage). Plus, the senators will have been assuaged in the ways most desirable to them.

This breakdown in law and order bodes nothing good for our banana republic. The oligarchs and the warlords, however theoretical they may have been for the past two or three decades, are now slowly manifesting and taking concrete shape before our eyes. The already-delicate fabric of this society is being stripped of the ordinary protections we naively expect. Pretty soon, what will we have left?

Oh, there is always hope. We can always hope for better leaders and better governance. Hope that those in power see the bigger picture. Hope that their greed does not get the better of them.

That is why these elections are so crucial. And why our hopes should sustain our choices.