In the on-going drama that is Philippine politics, Jun Lozada is a simple bit-player; one of many “witnesses” to the equally numerous misdeeds of the persons holding the highest office in the land. His script – bombshell revelations about a corrupt President – isn’t even new; Jibin Arula was the sole survivor of the Jabidah massacre, presented by then-Senator Benigno Aquino Sr. against the Marcos regime’s plot to sow insurgency in Sabbah. Bobby Dacer would have had a story with similar nuances to tell, had he lived. Thankfully, Clarissa Ocampo was able to share hers, when former President Joseph Estrada opened the infamous Jose Velarde account. Lozada isn’t even the first person to be called to the Senate as a witness to the scores of corruption charges leveled against Gloria Arroyo, Mike Arroyo, et. al. Northrail, Hello Garci, the Fertilizer Scam; these all had “star” witnesses, both credible and not, come forward.
And yet, none but Jun Lozada have gone on to become something of a cult icon, touring campuses and giving speeches to rapt listeners. None have had his – for lack of a better term – charisma. His flair for the melodrama. Theatrics, even. And that’s what makes him so dangerous, not just to GMA and her cronies, but to every man, woman and child rallying to his banner.
To wit: every major revolution this country has had has been led by a charismatic leader at some point or the other. Someone who, with the strength of his or her personality, was able to unify an intrinsically diverse people: Andres Bonifacio, Nur Misuari, Jose Ma. Sison, Ninoy Aquino, Cory Aquino, Jaime Cardinal Sin. It has been bandied around that the only reason GMA is still in power is because there’s no one personality that’s charismatic enough to challenge her. And that is precisely the problem.
People change, people die. People have faults, and there’s a skeleton in everyone’s closet. Even the Pope, despite Church doctrine, can make mistakes. That’s the problem with how we’ve always fought our wars: we fight for a person, not a cause. And when that person is shown to be just as human as the rest of us – in all our inadequate glory – we become disillusioned. Which is where we as a people are now: politically apathetic, socially indifferent.
Jun Lozada, the man, is neither here nor there. What’s important is what he’s rallying for. Edmund Burke once said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, and I applaud Lozada for having the testicular fortitude to be a good man in these times that try men’s souls. But we for the most part have been summer soldiers and sunshine patriots, standing only in the service of our country because it’s in vogue, with the most common reason being: there’s nobody to lead us.
Jun Lozada is not the plucky hero, his battlefield is not the grand arena. He is merely doing the right thing in stepping forward, as all good men should. It’s not his fight. It’s our fight. We should stop focusing on the slings and arrows of his outrageous fortune, and start to realize ours. What does it matter that he was kidnapped by the PSG in comparison to the over 700 victims of political killings since GMA assumed the post of the President of the Republic of the Philippines? What does it matter, compared to the massive vote-rigging that happened in 2004? Or the hundreds of millions of Pesos in fertilizer the farmers in Central Luzon will never see? Or, for that matter, facilities and improvements we will never have access to, as well as the shoddy infrastructure work we have to put up with, because of numerous instances of misappropriation?
Lozada’s saga is just one piece of a puzzle we all know the solution to. It isn’t his banner we should be rallying to, it should be ours.
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