Xixi Maturan's THIRD WORLD LIVING

RODRIGO {Photo: Duterte Today FB Page] All of us who are worth anything,  spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth. -SHELLEY While  for some twisted loop and leap of destiny our third world country elected a president who dared promise a decent society free of the ills of mind warping substances, sticky itchy fingered officials who dipped on public funds as their own, and the elimination of pseudo humans who only did intriguing tasks that created havoc upon a race systematically razed of moral decency and self-value in the distant and immediate history; so to speak.  A charming puck faced crowned by a dominantly fat disproportionate nose rose from the ranks of mayoralty of a southern city became the highest elected official of the land; amazing as it may seem but his notoriety was totally ignored just for the sake of 'someone' unorthodox and therefore new.  New but jaded that he is, one cannot deny but join...

'Tis mad idolatry, To make the service greater than the god -Shakespeare In some scenario, there might be two kinds of people : The Greater and The Lesser ones. Of course, the former bear the power to influence, manipulate and enslave the latter.  Scanning through social media , it is interesting to note that minions work overtime for their gods.  They must come cheap since you cannot count them with your pubic hair. They abound and embrace the thought that there are no moral standards in building up and defending their choice of a modern day flesh and blood idol who reign supreme in owning them skin and soul.  They are basically called TROLLS, since they dwell in the dark caverns of their beliefs and are presumed to only have ugly intentions of confusing issues at hand and provoke teeth and blood argument as well as maximum disruption.  They are indeed the lesser ones who assume almost respectable as well as mediocre names to surf through the widest platfo...

He's a fool, who thinks by force, or skill To turn the current of a woman's will. -Tuke. Rodrigo had it coming.  With Leni Robredo as his VP, he must have shrunk in dismay when the final results blasted into the tally boards.  He must have cringed with the idea that she wasn't going to be a peeble but rather a rat on his shoe who would chew away the nastiness that he was accustomed to.  Those who doubt the democratic exercise screamed [and filed protests later, and ongoing still] anomaly to the highest order.  But she was proclaimed and well went to her way as the second most powerful person in the land.  Known to be naughty and oddly disrespectful to women, the Bicolana widow readily was outspoken with every single malicious thought, deed or insinuation thrown at her. Frankly, Rodrigo's treatment to a lady is beyond wits for comfort.  Imagine an old man ogling at the length of her dress to a meeting ; or a supposedly respectable man firing her ca...

Nothing indeed , but the possession of some power  can with any certainty discover  what at the bottom is   the true character of any man. -Burke EJK  or Extra Judicial Killing crept into global consciousness with a brown flavor.  Definitely.  Overwhelming and undeniably alarming, its wake gave the islands a rather twisted picture.  Rodrigo* , true to his character lambasted his critics in a trail of presidential speeches which were not only tainted with anger and a cuss here and there, but rather an alzheimeric [not a real word] oral diarrhea whatever the occasion or audience.  He hammered on his promise to wage war on drugs and whoever was into it within his breathing space he would 'PATYON KA NAKO!' [I will kill you!']. While the I-will-kill-you-slur is embedded into the colonized culture, it offers a myriad of effects on a diverse inter island population not to mention the persistence of several generations sharing a na...