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Teddyboy's homicidal view of politics


In the December 2011 issue of Rogue magazine, commentator and former congressman Teodoro “Teddyboy” Locsin Jr. referred to himself as “the smartest guy in Congress.” In case you think he was being too arrogant, consider the collective IQ of the House of Representatives. Nonetheless, there is something to be said about Locsin’s inability to equivocate during on occasions when he equates aplomb with intelligence. Locsin, for want of a better term, is the most self-assured commentator on Philippine politics, and it is precisely his brashness that makes him one of the most amusing online presences on Twitter. He debates everyone (in this regard, he is democratic), and is an equal opportunity name-caller. Recently, he’s pilloried everyone from the MILF, SM, the Chinese government, communists, to RH bill advocates, etc. He even criticized Mon Tulfo for failing to break Claudine Barretto’s nose, perhaps informed by a revision of the chivalric code that states real men don’t hit women. You are bound to find yourself disagreeing and agreeing with a contrarian like Locsin. Most of the time I disagree with him. I am, after all, a tolerant person who cannot stand the homophobia of someone who once claimed that “homeless gays” wanted to place “kneepads in the restroom” of NAIA. (This was when designer Kenneth Cobonque’s name was floated to redesign NAIA). Among the people in my rogue’s gallery of homophobes, misogynists, militarists, and rightists, however, I love Locsin the most. He writes well, and he makes me laugh. His stylistic qualities are rare in a mediascape where political punditry mirrors the drab proselytizing of the CBCP. Recently, however, Teddyboy threatened to kill me. Tweeting about Akbayan’s protests against the Chinese occupation of Panatag Shoal, he declared “Kill all Akbayan members if Chinese mob retaliate against Pinoy in China.” In another tweet, he added, “If any Filipino hurt in China by mobs, you must be hurt here.” The non-sequiturs here are almost as many as the insults in Locsin’s daily Twitter feed. First, why blame Akbayan for the potential violence of the Chinese? You’re barking up the wrong tree and dividing the opposition to Chinese imperialism.  Second, given the jingoism of the Chinese media, what Akbayan does or does not do here won’t really matter. Third, there is no need to choose between the right to protest and the right to safety of overseas Pinoys. We should fight for both. Fourth, under Locsin’s logic, kill anyone who irks the Chinese (that includes the President, the Coast Guard, and Winnie Monsod). Finally, advocating violence is overkill, and doing so makes Locsin just as irresponsible as the violent communists we both deplore (anti-communism being another streak in Locsin’s writings). It is this final point that I think is most germane. The quarrel with Akbayan is less important than the broader issue of intellectual responsibility. Given Locsin’s stature and skills as an essayist, what are the consequences of his homicidal view of politics? Why should we reject his “kill or be killed” thinking? And what are the consequences of writing prose that is so clear that it completely exposes the depravity of the thought it represents? The clear-sighted intellectual in the service of liberty often produces equally clear prose, while communist ideologues, fascists, and imperialists euphemize. Just consider the bureaucratese deployed by George W. Bush when he invaded Iraq: “collateral damage” to refer to civilian deaths, and  “enhanced interrogation techniques” when he really meant torture. But what happens when a straight-talking intellectual advocates murder? The prose, fortunately or unfortunately, remains clear, and we become witness to bloody visions refracted through the lens of linguistic transparency. Reacting to Locsin’s comments on Akbayan, I tweeted: “You supported the Iraq war, right? Did you ever threaten George Bush for making Americans prone to terror attacks in the Middle East?” Some of my friends thought a crackpot had hacked Locsin’s account when he replied: “Bush’s policy of kill us and we kill you all, men and women and children stopped all attacks on the US worked, right?” Locsin has advocated for equally brazen violence in Mindanao. It is easy enough to authenticate the tweet, given Locsin’s remarks in the same Rogue issue cited above: Mess around with Americans on American soil and we will mess you up good, kill Americans on American soil and we will kill you all: men, women and children, dogs even sheep. Trust the sympathetic Pinoy, unencumbered by the faux civilities of American journalism, to out-cowboy Fox News. Even Bill O’Reilly would not celebrate the killing of women and children. Oddly enough, Locsin’s rhetorical style reminds me of two disparate personalities: Robert Brasillach and Borat Sagdiyev. The former was a pro-Nazi French journalist who publicly called for the murder of Jews and leftists in Vichy France, while the latter was Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic rendition of a journalist who derived joy from the fact that “Premier Bush” had killed even the lizards in Iraq. Locsin likes killing dogs and sheep, while Sagdiyev prefers lizards. I never thought that the line separating an eminent Filipino journalist from a comic character would be the choice of bombed animal. In advocating the killing of Akbayan members and celebrating the murder of innocents, Teodoro Locsin reveals that, for all his rhetoric about democracy (manifested in the rousing speech he wrote for Corazon Aquino when she addressed the US Congress), he is willing to disregard the key element of civility that governs all democratic societies: the respect for life. I’m sure he will contend that butchery as a means towards democratic ends is warranted. But who is he to say what those ends are? And need I remind Mr. Locsin that this instrumentalization of life was the very same logic used by the autocrats, communists, and dictators he often writes against? The means can corrupt the ends, and lead you to the gulag. Let’s hope Locsin, with his keen eye for history, discovers this before he gets re-elected.  

Tags: leloyclaudio
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