SKIRMISHER

Information technology’s explosion must have sent us a curse instead of a blessing: one’s voice, if not consigned as “just another one of those daily petty squeaks”, is already drowned in an ocean of gazillion voices. Whichever medium you choose, your opinion doesn’t make any difference anymore, if at all, especially if the media is lorded over by crazy celebs and pricky politicians hungry for attention.

In short, a person’s opinion, no matter how valuable it may seem, is just regarded as mere asphalt dust, a road pebble, and not regarded as an eye-catching and attention-grabbing (pardon the term) dogshit that makes each finicky strand of our hair quiver.

Therefore, KALIPI (Kalipunan ng Liping Pilipino) founder Jun Dúcat has thought of a “unique” recourse to redress his grievances, something that not even sick, twisted, and demented whitemen of the Charles Manson fold has even thought of.

The difference is that Dúcat, who yesterday “hostaged” a bus loaded with seemingly happy kids, is a genuine millionaire and philantropist. And his actions may have not just been provoked by a lack of listeners or a platform; why, isn’t it that the crazy political world of the Philippines is experiencing “the best of times”? Truth to tell, that was one of the culprits.

But Armando “Jun” Dúcat, Jr. is different from the rest of ”terrorists.”

Take it from Manila mayor Lito Atienza himself: “I know him as a very, very passionate individual who has his own kind of thinking on the solutions to our problems.”

At the heat of the 10-hour hostage drama, broadcast journalist Wally Carbonell even mentioned in TV interviews that his friend Dúcat is incapable of violence.

According to Norma Soriano (Skirmisher Pepe Alas’ maternal grandmom), a close friend of Dúcat who is (sadly) running as one of Manila’s councilors this coming May elections, her “millionaire friend is pro-poor.”

“He’s my best friend”, said Soriano. “We’ve been through a lot. Several years ago, our group KALIPI (Kalipunan ng Liping Pilipino, a “progressive” but non-Leftist group) once protested the escalating price of rice as well as rice hoarding. We organized a rally, and walked several kilometers from Nueva Écija to Manila as a sign of protest.”

Dúcat and Soriano’s protest march (they had symbolic caravans of rice pulled not by carabaos but by KALIPI members) made the news, yes, but never hit the headlines. And only a few tabloids carried the story. But the more credible broadsheets hardly took notice.

Arguably, the disappointing result must have been the matchstick which would start subsequent fires.

Aside from that 60-mile “dead march”, the 56-year-old civil engineer has already made a ”name” for himself among some media folks and a handful of Manila politicians who still remember his unfathomable death-defying antics (innate in loonies?) — all done in the name of “progress and a clean and honest society”. Back in the late 80s, Dúcat, already a budding businessman (he owns a subdivision somewhere in Cavite), hostaged two priests at the Iglesia de San Roque in Blumentritt, Sta. Cruz, Manila over disputes on payments on the said church’s repairs. Then National Bureau of Investigation Director (later on to become Manila mayor and senator) Alfredo Lim was able to persuade him to surrender.

“Dúcat, together with Korean businessmen, owns a construction firm,” says Soriano.

Back in 1995, Carbonell and Dúcat joined forces in a hunger strike which was offered “for the Filipino people,” whatever that meant. Most people scoffed at it as just a show.

In 1998, he climbed a tower to angrily protest the candidacy of a politician whose Filipino citizenship he questioned.

During the 2001 elections, Dúcat attempted to run for a Congressional seat in Manila’s 3rd district, thinking perhaps that his good intentions will at last materialize in the form of (recyclable) bills and (tissue paper) laws. But he was disqualified for unspecified reasons (other reports say that his candidacy pushed through, but he lost to Nationalist People’s Coalition’s Harry C. Angping).

Throughout all the noise he made, nobody complained against him. Most noteworthy, of course, was when he escaped prosecution over his hostage case against the San Roque priests (one of the priests was an Italian, which could have strained relations between the Land of Bagoóng and the Land of Pizza) on account that the weapons he used were fakes.

Yup, nobody lifted a finger. Thus he was at it again. And he’s getting mighty crafty over his antics.

Still, we have to reconsider his motives. Of course, many religious and conscientious will contend that the end doesn’t justify the means. But here is a man who, perhaps thinking that he bears the brunt of this country’s problems over his shoulders, has lost a voice, a listener, an audience. And on top of it all, here is a man whose philantropic mind (he owns the Musmos Daycare Center, whose very students he held hostage yesterday) must have lost all hope on all the bureaucratic red tape and hypocrisy our government has to offer, driving him half-mad, half-desperate (according to Musmos teacher Elmer Calleja, Dúcat is a “very kind and helpful person”).

So, with grenade in hand –and an accomplice whose got firearms, too–, he hostaged a bus filled with his very own students (they were supposed to be on a field trip to Tagaytay), and from Tondo, Manila, where his daycare is located, drove towards Manila City Hall, right in front of historic Intramuros (”the heart of the Philippines, the original Manila”). There he ”demanded over several media interviews that some 145 students be given an assurance of scholarship up to college.”

Right smack in the heart of Manila (“when Manila sneezes, the Philippines catches cold”) he was once again given an audience, this time to a much younger audience equipped with a newer breed of telecommunications gadgets and know-how. But this one was different compared to his what we may deem as “previous foolishness”. Dúcat’s demands for a united front against “corruption in the government” was heard not only in the Philippines. Over at CNN News, Metro Manila Development Authority Bayani Fernando was answering nervously half-baked answers to a reporter’s aggressive curiousness over the hostage situation. Adding more embarassment to the matter at hand.

***

A few “Onli In Da Pilipins” highlights:

1. During the standoff, Senator Ramón “Bong” Revilla was, for a brief moment, able to relive his action star days by “rescuing” one of the hostages (if they were hostages at all; the children inside the bus where even smiling and playing inside the bus, chanting “Jun Dúcat” as if our protagonist was the hero) who had a high fever. People who were watching the scene on TV had the impression that “Captain Barbell” scored some “pogi points” once more. Actually, it was Dúcat who had the kid released. His genuine concern for the kids’ safety is genuine. The problem is, in his twisted state of mind, he never thought of the danger posed by the grenade he was holding.

2. When Dúcat was addressing his grievances over the airwaves, a police chief was heard laughing over the speaker phones. Dúcat cut him off, asking what the hell is so funny about what’s transpiring. Hmmm. A very relevant question from a seemingly mad man (this scene aggravated my opinion of cops even more).

3. Luis “Chávit” Singson, normally seen in a boxing ring after a successful Manny Pacquiáo bout, saw another opportunity in the hostage-taking to win the minds of ignorant Filipinos. Like Revilla, he, too, went to Dúcat, making a fool of himself to a large number of intellectually observant Filipinos.

4. Dúcat requested for a candlelight ceremony. ”He wants Filipinos who support his cause to light candles,” said Revilla. But candles are just candles.

5. Another proof that Dúcat was ”losing it” was when he called upon all Filipinos to support President Arroyo’s fight against corruption.

***

The hostage drama ended at nighttime. Dúcat peacefully surrendered, and the kids he held captive where reunited with their worried parents.

“I scolded the parents who were crying,” said Soriano. “I told them that they owed Dúcat a lot, and that their children were not in danger.”

“We have no ill feelings toward him. He is a good person,” said a shaken Gemma Arroyo, one of the captive children’s parents.

But Atienza added that ”we cannot agree with his ways.”

The issues which Dúcat raised –obviously simmering within him for a very long time– was at last heard. His teeny voice in the speaker that he used was heard everywhere, his modus operandi proven to be effective. It was, to him, a personal victory of sorts. Eventually, what he did will definitely earn him a forced visit to a shrink. But the issues he raised were not new. Everybody knows about it. Those were the same old issues which have haunted us like an unfading shadow. Ghosts from the past. Wounds from yesterday. Wounds that won’t heal. Or are not allowed to heal.

Everybody knows what Dúcat was ranting. Everybody has been talking about it. No, what Dúcat cried out was not new.

But he amplified it differently, allowing the listeners to stop, look, and listen to it once again. Those issues were given a new voice. Dúcat was able to dress it up, quite amply, in an atmosphere of fear, making us realize that those day-to-day issues are actually goblins and ghouls that shouldn’t just be talked about in siestas and office canteen debates.

Dúcat was, like his hostages, himself a victim. He was victimized by a mad world, busy with technology, greed, corruption. He knew there was evil, but he fought it like a desperate Quijote of lore and fable. He challenged it, but realizing in the process that the evil he sought to eliminate has the support of powers that be, he asked for help. He dared others to listen to his pleas, but to no avail. This drove him into becoming what most of us perceive as a madman. But it was his kiind of “madness” for progress and social justice which put everyone yesterday to a halt.

Jun Dúcat is not a hero. His acts should be condemned. He should be imprisoned once and for all. He should be sent to a mental specialist. Despite his good intentions, the law should get rid of him once and for all. He may not have any intentions of violence, but imagine what could’ve happened if he accidentally let go of the grenade (Revilla noticed that his hands were shaky).

No, Dúcat is not a hero. But so are opinion makers and others who keep on babbling about the same old shit we wake up to, who keep on ranting about it but not doing anything tangible to resolve it. But it was Dúcat’s sheer desperation that might earn him a ticket to heroism.

In a mad way, yes. But just like the dictum that we get the government we deserve, in yesterday’s hostage drama, we get the crazy wake-up call that our equally crazy society deserve.

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