Why the Lims keep on running

By Al S. Mendoza

DEMOCRACY is what makes us going.

But who was it who said freedom must have limits to individuals but not to nations.

Quite profound.

But let me expound.

We can love to our heart’s content but there’s a limit to loving.

When the one we love feels suffocated by our loving, time to stop.

A nation’s freedom must never be compromised or it loses its character, identity, dignity.

We fight for our nation’s freedom at all costs, even to the point of sacrificing our own lives.

Freedom is what defines a nation in the family of nations.

For its sheer promise of life consisting of milk and money, America is the choice of migration for all the peoples of the world?

Limit America to its citizens and it will cease being the world’s bulwark of freedom and democracy.

America is the world’s policeman as well as benefactor.

In our beloved Pangasinan as well as anywhere in the archipelago, every individual’s freedom is protected to the hilt.

We have free speech, the right to choose our creed, to act the way we want.

But there’s a limit to any one of that.

Like, you badmouth someone and you could be charged with slander.

Or, you advocate Satan and you could be thrown to jail for being a heretic.

Or, you walk the streets completely naked and you could be arrested for alarm and scandal, if not indecent exposure.

And even as freedom can really be absolute, almost, in so many ways, it can be interpreted crazily by even the sanest persons in our midst.

Benjie Lim ran for congressman in the province’s fourth district in 2007 and, unfortunately, he lost to Joe de Venecia.

Benjie Lim’s son ran for mayor of Dagupan City in 2007 and, unfortunately, he lost to Al Fernandez.

Nothing wrong with father and son aiming for different political seats in the same election year.

Freedom we call it.

Democracy at work.

Benjie Lim is running again, this time to challenge Al Fernandez in Dagupan.

Is Benjie’s son running, too?

Nope.  This time, it’s Benjie’s wife, Celia, entering the fray.

Celia Lim is up against Gina de Venecia, the wife of graduating Joe DV, in the May congressional poll in the fourth district.

From father-and-son tandem to husband-and-wife duo.

What drives the Lim family to run all the time?

Democracy.

Do they have the money to do it all the time?

But, of course.

Will they win – finally?

Judging by the 2007 results, it could be uphill for the Lims as father-and-son lost badly in the 2007 derby.

So, will history repeat itself and the Lims will lose again?

Again, only the people have the answer.

All I can say is, the Lims seem to exhibit their adherence to democracy with unadulterated passion.

It looks obvious they don’t care anymore if they would win or not.

For freedom is also like that:  It blinds, makes the sane insane.

Sadly, there’s no cure for insanity.

Not even democracy.

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