An office mate, in Melbourne, purchased a cigarette pack at a small booth for A$20. or P720. He complained about the hefty price tag but understood the wisdom behind the Australian government levy. Their purpose was to make it less affordable. The pack’s label summarized the rationale of the excise tax. “Smoking causes lung cancer.” The collection goes to fund health care.
For me, neither high price nor caveat bothered my economic sense. I agreed. I am a non smoker. I couldn’t care more. But internally, I disagreed why one pay for the overprice? The trade off for the smoke from 20 rolled tobacco leaves in a box and the declared risks did not make sense. I thought, his body, his life? Mind my own business?
Disagreements are as old as the biblical beginning. The first disagreement was between the Great Manufacturer and his creation. Using the gift of free will, they went against the explicit instruction of the Great Manufacturer not to eat from the fruit of the forbidden tree. Influenced or tempted, they chose to eat it. In their estimation, they did what was right in their eyes. The guidance of their Maker was disregarded. The product called man and his partner overrode the command of the Creator.
That in this world, there is disagreement, we will not disagree. Yes, we can agree to disagree. When 64 year old Bato, after six months of absence in his job, defied age, outran young steeds of the NBI on the staircase toward the senate floor and cast the mountain moving 13th vote, the newsrooms of mainstream media erupted with disagreement of varying intensities at the manner power suddenly tipped in the hands of the new majority.
Unlike the first landmark disagreement in Eden where the conflict was between Maker and his obra maestro, our disagreements are with each other - man vs man, woman vs woman or man vs woman. Our world has become a battleground between gods and their selfish pursuits for more divine territories to rule. Formerly, there was Zeus in Mt. Olympus vs Chronos in Mt. Othrys. The new deities of this day are the politicians. There was Marcos vs Aquino. Now? Marcos vs a Duterte - a clash between political scions.
And God? He is relegated to a cursory character. In the preamble, the Almighty is a by word. The Name who created worlds, seen and unseen, has been reduced to a grain of rock salt lost in the sea of 21,000 words of the 1987 constitution. Section 2 of Article 6 is the coup de grâce. “The separation of church and state is inviolable.” The word of the Almighty or his testaments on earth are barred. If heaven sent a message similar to the Jonah’s to the pagan Nineveh, the heavenly prescription would fall on the deaf ears of an uninterested state. Seen. No reply.
After Bato, vernacular for stone or rock, altered the status quo in the senate, a particular biblical account entered my mind. “A stone was cut out but not by human hands and it struck the image (selem in hebrew)…, and broke them in pieces.” Of course, the Lord Yeshua is the stone which broke the statue. Yet, it amuses me to no end that a statue, representing a man made status quo was ended by a Bato. The voice behind the heavens may come with thunder and lightning but by some degree of familiarity, he communicates with “hugots” and I snicker.
Will the new majority establish who is the mastermind of the flood control scam and the 800 billion heist of the national treasury in its investigations? The pun from heaven only says the political status quo was broken. We may disagree. But I will agree with Him. Or am learning to agree with Him more.
