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Powerlessness in power


To be in power is the most disempowered place you can be.
 
This was my realization as I attempted to make sense of the events that disrupted the narratives of our public political lives. I reflected on the tragedy of how someone named Manuel A. Roxas II, otherwise known as Mar, could be so damaged by simple laughter. I also sought perspective on the bombshells in the supposedly august halls of the Senate with one aging senator calling a lady colleague deranged, and the latter retaliating by labelling him a sex maniac.

And I pondered the fate of a boxer-hero turned singer, turned comedian, turned actor, turned politician as someone named Kim haunts him in the same manner that the jealous but all-powerful Hera bullied and made the hero Hercules suffer.
 
This is politics as we know it, or rather, the traditional brand. I have long argued that this is also the kind that makes for an entertaining side trip from the pain and the suffering of a people that has endured the most powerful typhoon of the century. 
 
In times of crisis, we turn the powerful into material to fuel our laughter. Reminds me of the Rabelaisan carnival that Bakhtin wrote about, where parody became a weapon of the citizens to make fun of the king. 
 
But the support for my thesis is not in the realm of politics of the grand type, but more in personal experience as people navigate their identities in the terrain called “everyday life” when they pursue their ambitions.
 
Many people covet posts perceived to be loaded with power and privilege. The goal of landing such a post has propelled many to suppress their natural selves and subordinate their being to the templates of the usual, acceptable, and “normal.” This produces so much pretension and niceness, that one so mean could project a smiling face, and one so arrogant could suppress the smirk to kowtow to the wishes of the appointing gods.

The autonomy that is vested in human subjects to chart for them their identities have to take a backseat if only to win approval, a mere brownie point when the name of the game is actually the big league, a seat in the front of the CEO's car reserved for bodyguards, a chance to carry the umbrella of the boss, or even the rare privilege to escort the spouse while doing her shopping, or chaperone their bratty kids as they play at a theme park.
 
It is in the same league as someone descending from the cacique class will pretend to be a guy from the “palengke” just to win the votes. 
 
You call this “sucking up.” And the art of it takes away so much of what is in you, it could even make you change your diet, or pretend you like a color that you actually hate. And in the process, you get accustomed to it that you begin to forget who you really are, and then you forget that you have forgotten.
 
And then they take notice of your simulated loyalty and acquiescence. You land the job you want.  For many, this is the reward you desire – a high-paying, powerful post that carries with it privileges and perks.
 
However, at what price?
 
People have always said that it is lonely at the top. You may have all the money and the power, but neither could buy you true happiness, as the cliché goes. People look up to you, perched in your office up there, but the sad part of it is that many of them are doing so not in admiration or awe, but maliciously anticipating or even betting when you are going to fall, and how. How fast? How hard?
 
Being Dean for four years in my college taught me a lesson about power. While some would literally die and beg, to get such a plum post, and while I am always thankful for the opportunity such a post gave me to be able to serve others, and the lessons I learned from such an experience that contributed to my being a better person, I can categorically state – as I have said on many occasions – that those four years were also the most disempowering years of my life.
 
I gained weight. This is what happens when physical activity is suborned to mental activity, and where endless meetings do not only produce stress that cause hunger, but also provide opportunities to eat and eat and eat while seated, to the point that the only muscle in the body that gets a hefty workout is the mouth. Hectic schedules ruin gym plans and mental stress drains so much energy that sleep and food become better alternatives than pumping weight or running the treadmill.
 
The list does not end there.
 
I was also forced to be more restricted in fashion – the boring, conventional type with long-sleeved shirts and trousers in black, blue, and grey. My earrings had to go. This caused my piercings to close. I could not have tattoos, which I dreamed of having, lest I would be seen as improperly adorned. I was forced to behave according to protocol. Well, at least, most of the time.  I could not just say things I wanted to say even if I was dying to. I literally forced myself to keep quiet and be poker-faced when, in ordinary times, I would have told off someone saying something stupid as that: stupid.
 
But the most stressful of it all was when I began to sense that a part of me was already acquiring the habitus and the consciousness of a conservative administrator when I began to dislike the behavior of subordinates who were assertive of their rights and were critical of some of my decisions. Things which I would have done too, had I been in their shoes. I was horrified when I realized I was turning into something I actually hated.
 
The irony is simply in being someone in a position of power and privilege, where you earn the badge of being called a “sir” and being treated like a little king, but you are in fact a slave to protocol, conventions, and mission and vision statements you may not like but you have to live by. This has severe consequences on one’s identity.  
 
It was so palpable that, when I stepped down as Dean, the very first thing I did was to go back to the gym and liberate myself from the fat I had accumulated from endless eating while in stressful meetings. I decided to wear my earrings again and I finally got my tattoo, not just one, but two of them. Now, I am able to call a stupid idea for what it is – stupid – with the frankness that only a liberated, blue-blooded iconoclast like me can muster. 
 
I was so glad to feel the new sense of power that resulted from being out of power. I was back to the real me.
 
Recently, I was being considered for a government post. I thought: maybe it is about time to again test the waters of being “disempowered” as a price, if only to serve our people? I was willing to again remove my earrings and was training myself to wear long-sleeved shirts to hide my tattoos. I was ready again to gain some weight. In fact, I was already practicing becoming “nice” when I began to temper my commentaries in social media in preparation for the larger restraint I have to endure to gag myself, submit to the script of the establishment, and be silent even if it is about an idea I simply find stupid. 
 
Fortunately, some people in the corridors of power were helpful enough to prevent me from getting such an appointment. I was told that I was not liked. Far from being depressed, I was so relieved. There is no word of gratitude I could use to thank whoever that person was for saving me from the punishment of being once again in a cage just to be powerful.
 
It is in this light that I now ponder on the sarcastic, forced laughter of Mar Roxas as one that was tragic simply because it emanated from his pained face and not from the face of a stand-up comedian, or the mortal combat of senators hurling charges of alleged mental instability or womanizing at each other as fodder for entertainment, even if there are ordinary people that are more mentally unstable and lecherous. Or to look at Manny Pacquiao as a victim of his own popularity as a public icon.
 
I began to realize that, indeed, and far from being the idols we worship, these political celebrities are in fact simply offerings at the altars of the gods of hubris and karma. In their coveted positions occupying seats that have some use in our political lives – as Cabinet Secretaries, Senators or Congressmen – the power they possess is simply a collateral benefit that can easily be eroded by one small mistake. 
 
They become guppy fishes in a bowl: swimming while being stared at. They may have power, but they would never be in control of how they will be painted in the eyes of the public – a public hungry for scandal and in need of comic relief.
 
Stand-up comedians are, in fact, even better. At least the laughter they elicit is genuine and that’s what they are paid for. — KDM, GMA News 
Tags: marroxas
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