Sue ABS-CBN

More than 60 people died this morning. And the whole thing
was so crazy that for long moments I failed to find words how to describe it.

 

ABS-CBN, particularly this noontime show and others like it,
has pandered to the desperation of the Filipino masses for a long time. It
actually created this peculiar mania among its audiences, probably to stir and
encourage word of mouth. Probably they measured the show’s success by how crazy
the poor can get, and the lengths they’d go to just to make it past the
ABS-CBN gate. It must have been fun watching all those people making a frenzied
beeline for that door with not a shred of human dignity just to have a shot
at a few thousand bucks. Or a bleeding million.

 

Now, the company and its people are saying sorry. Now,
ABS-CBN even has the nerve to declare, with the requisite show of regret, that it
is shouldering the funeral expenses of those who died—saying it as if expecting
you should thank them to high heavens for such “generosity.”

 

But no, those are cheap words, and the dead don’t need them.
No, it was not, as Noli de Castro said, “the responsibility of the MMDA.” The
whole thing was an ABS-CBN event, it was the anniversary of one of its shows,
and at least they should have had the sense of responsibility to ensure that it
remains orderly and safe.

 

Now, the company is saying sorry? I can imagine somebody like Chris Tucker
saying, “Why don’t y’all…shove it up your ass.”

 

But more than 60 people have already died so uselessly. And
among those who are dead, I see my own mother in them. Among those who are
dead, I see friends, neighbors—folks whose lives were so close to my own.

 

In any possible context, this is a very dark fucking joke,
the kind that makes you laugh and cry at the same time.

 

The company’s anchors, and particularly this actor Willie Revillame, are saying nobody wanted it this way.
Oh, sure. But you know what, you and your kind should stop tugging the
heartstrings of the desperate poor. You know what, their families should
sue you until you’ve bled out all the profits you’ve raked at their expense.

 

But maybe that’s just me thinking aloud.

 

[*as REM-dictated by the still-frozen subject straight from
his cryonic dewar.]

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