Yes, the Mahatma Gandhi did it. But then he was the Mahatma. Will the stunt currently being undertaken by SMNI anchors Lorraine Badoy and Eric Celiz deliver the same public indignation that launched the revolution of the sort that transpired in India that is credited to Gandhi? Very likely not. Will it move those who perpetrated their unjust incarceration to reconsider? Certainly not.
On the contrary, those who contribute to and support what many claim to be a demolition campaign being mounted against Vice President Inday Sara Duterte are gleefully watching and hoping Badoy’s and Celiz’s “hunger strike” goes through to its natural conclusion. One noted “thought leader”, in fact, quipped, “A person can survive maybe 21-60 days without food so matagal pa”.
The real question is whether Congress actually does possess the authority to detain people. This is an important point in light of people interpreting Badoy’s and Celiz’s “plight” as karma for the situation former Senator Leila De Lima found herself in during the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte. De Lima, however, was detained on orders of a Philippine court. Badoy and Celiz, on the other hand, were detained apparently on the bases of mere whims of legislators who form a congressional inquiry “in aid of legislation”.
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The Philippine Star reports further…
Badoy was cited in contempt for flip-flopping on the information she provided the panel regarding the network’s advertisements.
After apologizing for making the allegation against Romualdez, Celiz has asked to take back his apology from the record because he supposedly issued it without legal counsel.
Perhaps, indeed, these are grounds for citing the two in contempt as both had been found to have committed or technically admitted to perjury. For now it remains debatable whether engaging in publicity stunts while in prison helps any “victims” of state power (the legality of the latter being the subject of ongoing “debate” notwithstanding). It certainly didn’t help De Lima or, for that matter, the later former Senator and “national hero” Ninoy Aquino himself who had, since the 1980s, been the inspiration of illustrious copycats.
Indeed, throughout this drama, Badoy’s half sister and noted Yellowtard “thought leader” Gang Badoy sits in the sidelines snickering over her sibling’s “plight”.
Therein this sliver of insight into their internal family dynamics shared by Badoy above lies the irony in this so-called “hunger strike” waged by Badoy and Celiz. If one is not consistent, one opens themselves to scrutiny and derision when one engages in “activism”. It seems Badoy and Celiz had become the very characters they rail against. For what groups, after all, are most renowned for their inconsistency than those that form the Yellowtard-Communist Axis. Even if Badoy gets out of jail before Christmas, it is evident that there will be no Christmas cheer coming from her own family over the holidays.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Those two people who are trying to catch attention by doing those hunger strikes are not setting good examples for many; in retrospect they represent the ‘martyr-type’ or ‘daigdig ng mga api’ attitude that speaks of how weak and vulnerable we Filipinos are, as a people who lack a strong sense of firmness, grit and confidence to make things move. Which is also why we do not grow up and prosper as both a country and as a people–with their acts that are so counter-productive and which are based on emotional logic, not proper logic and emotional intelligence that must be also controlled. True, when the author mentioned Mahatma Gandhi, he stressed how he was THE Mahatma Gandhi. But the socio-political scenario has drastically changed since then! Yet the two hunger strikers, aside from getting attention in a very wrong, unproductive way in the end are making fools out of themselves!
Judging by the American driven obesity (disgusting us “food”) of many pinoys, there appears little hunger striking.