PASAWAY

By Daniel Franklin E. Pilario, CM

“Well hindi po natin ma de-deny iyang datos na yan. pero ang ginagawa po natin unang una, nananawagan, nakikiusap sa lahat ng mga Pilipino ang dami pong pasaway sa atin at dahil po diyan, number 1 na naman po tayo sa ASEAN sa dami ng COVID-19. “Nakakahiya po ‘yan. Itigil niyo na ‘yang pagiging pasaway.”

That was Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on April 16, 2020 – just a month after the lockdown.

The same consistent narrative was said last night about the spike of COVID-19 cases in Cebu. If they would not have been over-confident and complacent, if they were only more disciplined, not stubborn, “di gahi’g ulo” and less “pasaway”, this would not have happened.

If you “use” the gospel today, the preacher will say: if people would have been willing to pass by the “narrow gate”, they would have achieved bliss not death (Mt. 7: 6, 12-14).

I can still vividly remember the picture in my Lola’s altar. There were two roads: the first wide and paved with many people on it, drinking and joyful, and at its end, anguish in hell where the devils wait. The second was narrow, stony and dark but at the end is happiness with God and the angels. I can still hear my Lola’s voice: “Lisod ug batoon ang dalan paingon sa langit.”

This is a popular view. You can hear statements like: “no pain, no gain”, “no Calvary, no glory”. One can even find it in work-out videos: if you want your body to be in shape, sweat it out! The philosopher Nietzsche also said: “What does not kill you, will make you stronger!” Welcome the hard way. It leads to bliss.

Discipline. Self-restraint. Sacrifice.

Even St. Vincent told us to be mortified – one of the virtues of a missionary. He compares it to the knife the vinedresser uses for pruning grapes. If a grape is not pruned, it does not bear fruit. In discernment, he says: between two things – one you like and the other you don’t – choose that which you don’t. In short, self-restraint, discipline, sacrifice, mortify. Those who are “pasaway” do not possess these virtues which are intended to build up one’s character.

But let me pause. I would like to put that popular view into question. Injunctions always need to be read in context.

If you have a lot of fats, you need to sweat it out; but if you are malnourished, please don’t try. You need to eat more not mortify. In short, sacrifice or discipline is an injunction in privileged locations. There are people who have sacrificed all their lives, they almost break their bodies just to live. You don’t tell them to follow the hard way in order to achieve bliss. They live the hard way and their lives are wasted. One does not consecrate poverty and misery, and tell the poor that it is the way to go to heaven because Jesus said “Blessed are the poor”!

This is the problem of the “pasaway” discourse peddled by this government. They blame the people not the system. If the plans were only clear, if the system were only fair, if the processes were only more humane, it would have been easier for people to follow.

For discipline and sacrifice have their social conditions of possibility.

People will be in their homes if they have something to eat. People will not chase buses if public transport provision has been in place. But they need to eat; they need to travel to work. It is not the “pasaway” who are killing us. It is the system and its functionaries who are killing them.

Our political debts of gratitude to China made possible the early entry of the virus in the country while the rest of the Asian neighbors said No. The incompetence of this government – at the DOH, DSWD and in all departments – led to the death of our health workers or hunger of the citizens. The brazen use of military power imprisons hungry individuals or shot them dead. To cap it all, those midnight ramblings tell me one simple truth: that no one is really in charge. It is not the people's stubbornness which is the problem. It is this callous and inefficient system that is killing us.

Enter by the narrow gate. Take the hard road. Only if this road does not lead us to death. But if it leads us to hell, as it does now, we need to take charge of ourselves. Liberation theology marks this as the call for the poor “to be subjects of their history”, for us to be “agents of our own liberation”.

Then the first part of the gospel today truly makes sense: “Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.”

If the dogs and swine of this government will never respect our lives, as dogs and swine are known to do (though some dogs and pigs are even better and are more humane), then we need to take care of ourselves. We do not let ourselves be trampled upon and torn into pieces.

Wake up, people. Wake up!

Daniel Franklin E. Pilario, CM
St Vincent SchoolofTheology - Adamson University
danielfranklinpilario@yahoo.com
06.23.2020

Photo credits: (CTTO)