SIYENTISTA NG MASA! This is the what friends from the media and communication departments of some colleges told me. Thanks to the media, unassuming and inoffensive weatherman Dr Prisco Nilo has become not just a government scientist but the scientist of the masses!
Now the tibak profs of the UP College of Science could only dream of this "canonization" on their heads. :-)
We have nothing to thank but P-Noy for sacking him and making him a "martyr"!
It all started when ABS CBN described his dwelling as "payak" or poor and humble. This is quite archaic Tagalog and is rarely used outside the context of priestly sermons and the St Luke's Gospel narrative during the Christmas Eve Mass. Ang sabsaban ni Jesus ay payak! Remember? Cardinal Dency Rosales of Manila is fond of using the word.
My Mom who is a true blue Tagala says that the word means more than poor but downtrodden and oppressed like how Joseph and Mary were by Herod and the Romans. And since she came from humble origins, she couldn't help it but compare Nilo's humble abode from the ones in La Mesa heights (Subtext: The Noy didn't sack those directors with cushy sinecures!).
And the woman selling banana cue, the barber, the sikyo in the mall, the jeepney driver and many in the underclass were able to connect. They told me that Nilo was NOT INCOMPETENT as a weatherman.
My doctor who serves indigents also told me what her patients thought about Nilo's sacking by the Noy! The doctora asked me if Nilo was really incompetent.
The P-Noy doesn't realize that his pro-masa credentials have been damaged beyond much repair. And he is not even into his first quarter as Prez! With the previous Queen cum President now Congresswoman, people were willing to give her some slack before casting judgment on her masa credentials which they found out soon enough were like the sando bags which tinderas use as packaging, thin and made of plastic!
The masa now equates the Noy with a callous Management that is anti-labor!
The inoffensive Prisco Nilo got the message and now has bared his feelings on TV.
I can't help it but compare Nilo with Rosa Parks. Nilo has THE RIGHT FACE! Like Mrs Parks had for Dr Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement. Of course the context of the struggle are quite different.
I am amazed at how the Noynoy administration can bungle this one!
Comments
If we can compare it with something, it was akin to Pope JPII excommunicating Archbishop Lefebvre. He wasnt excommunicated on doctrinal grounds -- indeed the present pope as head of the Holy Office then thought Lefebvre was on solid doctrinal footing -- but was excommunicated because he disobeyed the Pope and ordained bishops against the Pope's expressed wishes.
The Noy obviously is whitewashing the issue with the incompetence issue and this has backfired obviously.
I don't think we can compare Noynoy to the previous Pope. John Paul II had political sense to use his brain properly. Also Lefebvre by consecrating bishops without Vatican approval did a schismatic act and all heretical acts start out this way.