By: Henrylito D. Tacio
(Published in its print edition on August 17 – 23, 2024)
“From a spiritual point of view, anger is never healthy, natural or useful,” British author Mike George writes in his book, Don’t Get Mad, Get Wise. “Anger destroys the ability to create meaningful relationships and consistently good work.”
But anger, which Horace considered as “short-lived madness,” is a natural, biological and physiological response that’s part of human survival. “For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness,” someone said.
No one can escape from being angry. Even Jesus Christ himself succumbed to it. The Holy Bible gives us this insight: When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem . In the temple courts, he found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves, he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:13-16)
Jesus reminded them that the great temple, according to prophet Isaiah was “a house of prayer for all nations” (Isaiah 56:7). Instead, they have turned it into “a den of robbers” (Jeremiah 7:11).
This Bible episode came to my mind while watching Davao City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte- Carpio punched a court sheriff in the face in the middle of a chaotic demolition of squatter shanties in Agdao.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t put side by side Mayor Inday Sarah (as her constituents fondly called her) to Jesus Christ (God’s only Begotten Son). But what I want to point out is their response to the event.
Inday Sara lost her temper so much that she wasn’t able to control the punching incident. For doing so, she earned the moniker “The Puncher,” in contrast to her father’s “The Punisher” from the media.
Was she there really to stop the demolition, as some Manila-based journalists pointed out in their reports? Was it really Inday Sara’s fault? Or the court sheriff was asking for the punches?
An editorial, which appeared in Sun Star Davao, said: “Earlier on, City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte had already made it clear that she cannot do anything about the demolition since it was a court order and that it had to be implemented. She’s a lawyer, and she knows that is how the law works. But all she was asking for was to be there. Thus, she was trying to ask for just two hours, just to take on the heat of a court-ordered demolition. The court sheriff didn’t see wisdom in that; he simply has to do his job and that is to serve the demolition order and have it implemented. As the mayor anticipated, a riot erupted before she arrived.”
The editorial of Mindanao Daily Mirror was very explicit in explaining why the brouhaha happened: “It is not difficult to understand where the Mayor was coming from. From all media accounts, Ms. Duterte’s request to the sheriff was borne of a desire not to stop the demolition, but to be with the residents and be able to talk to them before the wrecking crew began its business. But because the sheriff chose to act on his own despite the Mayor’s express appeal, a riot had ensued. It seemed a needless consequence resulting from a simple insubordination. Compounding all that was that fact that she had been in the thick of relief operations following last week’s flash flood; it was all she could do from bursting at the seams. So, but naturally, when she laid eyes on the sheriff, ‘dumilim ang paningin ko.’”
For doing so, she divided the people. To others, what she did was “unbecoming of a government official.” Some considered her act as “grandstanding.” To most, she’s the “epitome of what should a good leader should be.”
“… In this postmodern age of swift justice and new heroes, it may be simplistic to judge Ms. Duterte as wrong, period. In ways that may not be palatable to polite society, modern leaders improvise, become more creative and daring to achieve results,” the Mindanao Daily Mirror editorial reminded.
The editorial compared Inday Sara to that of Fiorello LaGuardia, the mayor of New York City in the 1930s. “(He) may be remembered for wrecking slot machines with a sledgehammer,” the editorial said. “But, more importantly, he is credited to this day for having reformed and rebuilt one of America ’s greatest cities.”
This was what Time magazine commented: “It is tempting to judge our mayors for the little things that make city life livable, the depth of the potholes, the smell of the streets, whether or not the traffic lights are in synch. But the best mayors have also been those who act on a grand scale, building bridges, saving schools, finding the funds that cities forever lack.”
As this piece is written, the Department of Interior of and Local Government (DILG) is investigating the incident. For her part, Inday Sara said she’s ready to face the consequences her act and filed a leave of absence from her work. “It’s good that she took a leave of absence,” DILG Secretary Jesse M. Robredo said. “This means she will not use her position to influence the case.”
The question remains: Will Inday Sara be reprimanded, suspended, or even dismissed from office? Your answer is as good as mine.
But in the meantime, allow me to quote the words of Randy David about what he thought of the scuffle in his column, Private Lives: “To become agents of the modern, they need to think of their feudal birthright as no more than a ladder they need to climb to the top, which they must gradually discard as their constituencies become empowered to fight for their own rights. This is not an easy thing to do. In a society where institutions are weak, such leaders often need to repeatedly validate their personal authority in the traditional way before they can begin to use it to give birth to the new. I want to think that Sara Duterte is this kind of leader, and not just another goon.”
“Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools,” commented Albert Einstein. Angry if you must but don’t make it your master. “Sometimes when I’m angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn’t give me the right to be cruel,” someone once said.#
