By Atty. Antonio P. Pekas
President Biden is the second US Catholic president. Last January 6, the word on that Washington D.C. insurrection was that many Catholic Filipinos joined the riot. From where we are, it appears that so many Fil-Ams there love Trump. A TV commentator here said that such Filipinos might think that they have also become white. With Trump’s obvious support for “white supremacists,” it boggles the mind why Fil-Ams are enamored with him. Trump also cancelled the privilege of Fil-Ams to petition their close family members here to migrate to the land of milk and honey.
But then again, our colonial mentality seems to have been reinforced by the free flow of people all over the globe. Instead of looking at our compatriots who made it yonder and are looked at with awe by others, the whites and other “coloreds”, a lot of our countrymen who left our shores became mentally subservient to those like Trump. There are so many reasons but am sure being looked at with awe by the whites and others is not one of them.
Those Filipinos who joined the Washington D.C. insurrection would benefit from, or even exploit and enjoy the libertarian inclination of the new president, though they will still be mouthing Trump’s name. They might have been loudly cheering Trump’s ad lib speech before boarding Air Force One even if what he was saying were mostly lies. I don’t know if the word balimbing is the appropriate one to describe them.
It was good that Trump did not brag that he was able to drain the swamp because from a number of sources, it was not drained at all. During his administration the crocodiles there greatly increased in number. Many of them he pardoned just before he left the While House.
Now about us back home, will there be something for us with the American turnover of power? We should not bank on it. We should stand on our own and further roll our sleeves up, put our nose close to the grindstone longer everyday for us to live well. Relying also on our government is not the right way to go. There is nothing to expect there. The people running it are not thinking of you and me. They are thinking of themselves and their own pockets.
It is of course not easy to make a good living in an impoverished country, but there are also good things here. Firstly, we are home. We know the nooks and crannies that we should be able to wriggle ourselves out from any trouble. We should have also accumulated enough tricks in our bags to be able to thumb our noses to the powers-that-be.
Anything that will be blown our way by the new US administration such as the benefit of its rejoining the Paris Climate Change Accord should be considered gravy. More relatives would also be able to migrate to the US due to immigration reform and that’s good.
Same thing with new moves to reconcile with the World Health Organization. Perhaps that UN body might become more capable to deal with the pandemic which, inevitably, will benefit us. And with the emergence of China, a lot of attention or even resources will be redirected to this part of the world.
Engaging also the new oriental powerful countries like China and India might only affect in the form of teeny weeny trickles but it might prevent a third world war. That is big a reason for ius to rejoice no matter how wretched our individual situations are.
**
