THE most watched teleserye that ended last week was “Honesto” which is about a young boy whose nose gets swollen every time he tells a lie.
“Honesto,” played by child actor Raikko Mateo, is capable of looking at people’s past by just holding the hands of anyone who has problems squaring off with his past.
The teleserye is also about government officials stealing from government coffers and killing people (both kith and kins) who get in the way. The soap opera ended with corrupt officials changing ways and coming to terms with their family and willingly accepting prison terms.
Eddie Garcia represented the good public servant Samuel Galang while the one who virtually worshipped the Golden Calf was played by seasoned actor Joel Torre who played the part of Governor Hugo Layer. The character did a lot of crying in the last episode to show he has changed his wicked ways.
The man robbed of gold bars, Felipe Lualhati and grandfather of Honesto (played with aplomb by actor Spanky Manikan) might as well represent the helpless Filipino people. True to his surname, Lualhati visited Layer in jail and forthwith offered his forgiveness.
It could have been the soap opera’s statement that Filipinos have short memories of people who steal from them.
The teleserye was indeed timely, airing as it did (and getting top ratings to boot) at a time when the country was reeling from scandals about public officials and private partners stealing billions from taxpayers through well-oiled NGO scams.
For what it is worth, “Honesto” was virtual parable of evil on television and it was a big surprise it rated high in audience acceptance. Most often than not, TV shows preaching good virtues almost always lose in the TV ratings game.
But “Honesto” survived and actually topped the ratings game.
Like it or not, the soap opera was an endorsement of the President’s “Tuwid Na Daan” advocacy.
But is the teleserye actually a reflection of how people will vote in the 2016 national elections?
Last week, the prime news is on cadet Aldrin Jeff Cudia who belonged to the PMA Siklab Diwa Class of 2014. A candidate for salutatorian in this year’s graduating class of the Philippine Military Academy, Cudia left PMA in virtual disgrace for breaking the school’s honor code which revolves around “lying” about being late for two minutes.
For those who don’t know, the honor code in this military school prohibits lying, cheating, stealing or tolerating and condoning fellow cadets who commit these offenses. The PMA’s motto is “Courage, Integrity, Loyalty.”
Meanwhile, a casual look into some graduates of the Philippine Military Academy belies the existence of this honor code once some of the PMA graduates leave the school.
Last year, retired PNP chief Jesus Verzosa — who is a member of the PMA class of 1976 — posted bail in the Sandiganbayan for the graft case in connection with the P131-million allegedly irregular purchase of rubber boats by the PNP in 2008.
Three years before he figured in that graft case, he was telling officers, staff and cadets of the Philippine Military Academy to “live by the honor code that every PMA-er is expected to live by.”
In 2008, PNP ex-comptroller Eliseo de la Paz and former PNP director Jaime Caringal along with other officers and their wives were intercepted at the Moscow airport for carrying cash beyond the $3,000 limit. In the course of the investigation, De la Paz and Caringal — who are 1976 graduates of the PMA – have since been referred to by the Philippine media as the “Euro” generals.
A 1970 graduate of the PMA, former AFP comptroller Jacinto Ligot has been accused, together with six family members, of amassing P740 million, P666 million of which was withdrawn before the Anti-Money-Laundering Council (AMLC) could freeze his accounts. A broadsheet reporter wrote that Ligot – who comes from a poor family in Pozzorubio, Pangasinan– cried on his first day at the PMA because it was his first time to use a spoon and fork. His PMA classmates were Roy Cimatu, Dionisio Santiago, Hermogenes Ebdane and Guillermo Parayno.
One of the top ten 1966 graduates of the PMA and former boss of Ligot, former Defense chief Angelo Reyes committed suicide on February 8, 2011 after being accused of corruption.
The alleged lying of Cudia for two-minute tardiness pale in comparison to the charges of plunder and corruption of these “distinguished” PMA graduates.
Indeed, as French classical liberal theorist Frederic Bastiat once said, “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in Society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.
For reportedly lying why he was late for two minutes, the PMA honor committee disregarded four years of a young man’s struggle to free his family from abject poverty and threw him out of the school a disgraced young man.
By this time, Cudia could be back home in his San Mateo village in Arayat, Pampanga. All that his stunned father could say was his poor son needed “some peace of mind and more time for prayer.”
Those who follow Cudia’s case are concerned that cadet would end up a classic example of what Socrates once said, “The greatest way to live with honor is to be what we pretend to be.”
As it is, the ways of the PMA honor committee and the actuations of some of the PMA graduates confirmed what Plato once said: “There are three classes of men: lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor and lovers of gain.”