Think about it
What broke the Espino-Orduna l’affair?
By Jun Velasco
“What is love? Two souls and one flesh; friendship? Two bodies and one soul.” – Joseph Roux
WE were browsing on Niccolo Machiavelli, most quoted guru on military and political power because of his much quoted, “there are no permanent friends; only permanent interests.”
Here’s another one from the Italian philosopher, “for the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by things that seem than by those that are.”
What brought us to this “politics as power” philosopher, casually credited for all the pomp, grandeur, glory and ugliness of our present cloak-and-dagger game is our shock, sheer disbelief, utter surprise over the reported break-up of our two friends, Governor Amado “Spines” Espino Jr., and his senior executive assistant and all-round trusted man, Col. Pat Orduna including their families.
But it seems the break-up was authentic because there was the election of the local mayors league president because Pat’s brother Mayor Rodrigo Orduna resigned as president irrevocably.
Those of you who knew Spines and Pat and their families could not believe the report, right?
We’ve known them since several years back; the love-friendship, we thought, would never end — or as the Beatles would say, “breaking up is hard to do.”
The Espinos and Ordunas were like “café o lait” (coffee and milk), soul mates, so we thought. But human as they are, like most of us anyway, could only acknowledge our mortal fault; some relationships indeed though sealed with all our heart and soul could end up in an unexpected turn. Then we ask why? Answers are not sufficient. The break up just happens … beyond our power to prevent or do anything about.
And so analysis after analysis have been advanced. Because some members of their Espino and Orduna families, particularly the young ones figured in a bloody “basket brawl?’ Would you believe that? If you knew Spines and Pat, you’d dismiss that as tell-that-to-the-marines stuff.
And so, gifted as we are with a natural suspicion that some people couldn’t really expunge their power-driven souls, we opted to give credence to the theory advanced by Dennis Mojares that the physical altercation between the family siblings was not what led to the breakup which, let’s face it, is very superficial, skin deep. Dennis said “it’s politics.”
We said early on that, knowing Pat and Spines, who were more than soul mates could never resort to any form of divorce or legal or illegal separation.
But the fact that we now have a new mayors league president should show – to us, dismally – that their friendship after all was made of clay. If that be so, we’ll start taking another view of them.
But we refuse to stop believing in the power of love, which the two families have, if you allow, a limitless reservoir of, to take a new turn.
As Frank Sinatra swoons, “love is lovelier the second time around.” But as to what way or form, we can’t tell at the moment.
* * * *
Did you know that the country’s first national hero, Lapu Lapu, crushed the Portuguese colonizer Ferdinand Magellan, not with a kris or bolo, but with a hard stick called arnis?
Our friends – General Joseph Sevilla, national czar of the Reserve Officers League of the Philippines (ROLP) and Philippine Tourism’s former Director Jose Dion Diaz, president of the Advocates of Reform for Native and Indigenous Sports (ARNIS) – believe so.
But PDI sports columnist Recah Trinidad wants the arnis authenticated. So, too, with our kin, Philippine Star columnist Bill Velasco of Bugallon and Mangatarem.
For some time now, we’ve been boning up with nitty gritty to make arnis, the Pinoy version of eskrima, the country’s national sport, an equal if not better than all the other combat sports. Why? Well, because it’s our very own, local, native, indigenous.
We thought we should focus on its philosophical supremacy over the rest. It’s not harmful as the gun. Practitioners use more mental than physical in mastering it.
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