By Rex Catubig

 

POPPING up like a repressed traumatic memory, amid the heartbreaking stories in the wake of Typhoon Odette some years back, is the brave birth of a baby on a sidewalk lashed by rampaging wind and rain. It harks back to similar stories, in different locales, but under like circumstances.

Stories of the persistence of life under dire straits and the most inhospitable circumstances are the stuff legends are made of.

In one instance, some 2,000 years ago, it even made biblical headlines and was the foundation of what became Christianity.

Oddly enough, the much-awaited event had been romanticized as some silent night in the middle of nowhere, disregarding the incipient turmoil surrounding it.

And the aftermath was not exactly a hallelujah moment worthy of Handel, either.

Joseph and Mary’s trip to Bethlehem was not a staycation but a compliance with a tax edict mandating villagers to return to their hometown to register for the tax census.

Irreverent Facebook memes made a case against Joseph not booking a reservation, resulting in their being turned away from an inn, thus starting the myth of the silent night that owes to Mary’s silent treatment of the spouse.

As memes go, the Three Magi were not exactly the wise men they were purported to be. In fact, their naive inquisitiveness, asking indiscreetly about the whereabouts of this much bruited about Messiah, made them the original Marites (Mare ano ang latest), Marina (Mare ano na?), and Mariposa (Mare post mo na).

And unknowingly, this uncanny, attention-grabbing, open search by the trio in their flamboyant royal finery left a dusty trail of the dreaded news and triggered dire consequences.

King Herod, the authoritarian ruler of that part of the world, heard of the birth of this potential rival and pretender to the throne, being heretically touted early on as King of the Jews.

That turned him into a frenzied ‘Praning’ state of mind and ordered posthaste the precursor of modern-day ‘Tokhang’– the killing of thousands of innocent children, to eliminate the perceived threat to his rule.

That initial chaos subsequently led to the final inequitable, gruesome tragedy, where a robber was freed, and the poor child born in a manger, raised as a carpenter, but stowed away to become a preacher and fisher of men, was made to pay for mankind’s crimes.

It’s not a fair deal. But as humans, we learn and accept that life sucks.

And it smacks so much of the current state of affairs, where hearings upon hearings, so much dust is swept under the carpet, yet no actual cleaning is done. No one among the named culprits is yet crucified, while the people are left hanging on their cross.

The people are treated as mere collateral damage to their fellow man’s greed and insatiable obsession with power. And no one is made to pay for the suffering inflicted upon their neighbor. Cleverly, reams of press releases are patched on people’s minds to mask and deaden the psychic wounds.

Thus manipulated in the grip of budol, we unabashedly sing incongruous Christmas carols, and in some insanely delusionary way, dream of White Christmas– totally out of touch and unmindful of the devastation of many a dark typhoon’s apocalyptic wrath, and the brewing fire and brimstone storm of unconscionable politics in our area of responsibility that put us directly in harm’s way.

It’s perhaps another tale of persistence, of perseverance amid chaos and calamity. If that were so, the real story of Christmas has been hacked and replaced with fake news.