AS IT WAS, IT SHALL BE.

No. This will not be about how suitcases packed with wads of cash are delivered by former members of the armed forces the Philippines to favored legislators and media personalities to obtain political influence. For what? To to destroy the chances of a constitutional spare tire for the highest position in the republic. This disclosurebhas become a social media staple when an retired marine gave his testimony before a senate blue ribbon committee. 

Neither will this be about a likely incentive a prisoner suffering reclusion perpetua for kidnapping under the republic’s penal system. What is the payback, if any, he receives for alleging, under the pain of an oath, a more than casual affinity with the sitting vice president and supporting the claim with a photo with her? On this basis, he claims he had more access to her persons for transactions than her chief of staff, security chief and other confidantes.

Neither will this be about mainstream media’s lack of intellectual capacity or honesty under a cloud of, maybe, “maleta” economics as underlying considerations. The question is why has there been failure or neglect to formulate an intelligent and academic material to elucidate the publlic how “nahuli” is not arrested when the subject matter where it was used was an alleged participant in the grand scam of 800 billion pesos from present to future taxes of the Filipino? 

We accept times brings changes. Perhaps, it can be better said today, “The spirit of the times have changed.” Like Chivalry is dead. Seldom are seats shared to ladies by men in public buses or long cues. But it has become a norm to give women equality. Honesty is the best policy is passe. With exceptions of course. And laws? If not stretched out of interpretation, some are blatantly being perverted without fear of repercussion or accountability. 

What was spoken thousand years ago has returned to relevancy in this time of the reader: good has become evil and evil, good. Is cleanliness still next to godliness? Why not? But where the generation in power are “tiré à quatre épingles” or well dressed to a tee like angels of light, engineering scams, funneling billions to their personal accounts (yet AMLA is largely quiet) and tax paying stakeholders are defrauded, the proverb which has inspired many young minds to holiness is facing irrelevancy.

For all its worth, it is more than the faces or characters involved in the political maelstrom. It’s all about the means and methods. The devil takes many forms in the structure of the world but its strategies are not new. “As it was in the beginning, it is and will be,” the prayer’s words declare. True for the God who expressly lets known he does not change and also declared in the beginning that lawlessness will arise. Also, this is true for the unchanging and unrepentant serpent present in the garden who works in the corridors of power anywhere today whose days are numbered. If one believes in God, let us believe and hope.