Meet Your Candidates : This Jesus Must Die (with apologies to Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber)
Mike Banos
July 23, 2009
I find the part where Annas sings particularly hilarious:
Listen to that howling mob
Of blockheads in the street
A trick or two with lepers
And the whole town's on its feet
And the collective priests and Pharisees reply as one: "He is dangerous! He is dangerous!"
I find these lines absurdly funny when sung in the context of the fallout from Interior Secretary Ronnie Puno´s recent two-week trip to the United States to attend the wedding of his youngest daughter.
Just because Malacañang named Public Works and Highways Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane as OIC-secretary of the DILG while Puno was on vacation was enough fuel to fire up the Palace´s rumor millers and churn out the absurd notion that Puno had lost GMA´s trust and confidence, and was literally "outside the kulambo" of the president´s inner sanctum.
Still another moronic scenario was that Puno was already completely out of the DILG and his replacement by Ebdane—one of the retired generals fiercely loyal to the President—would signal the stealthy start to the takeover of the topmost AFP and PNP echelons by members of the pro-Arroyo military-police clique that would provide the muscle to a would-be emergency rule.
Puno quashed all rumors on TV Thursday by officially returning to his office at the DILG. He left at once for Ozamiz City to meet with local officials on peace and order issues and turnover communications equipment to top local officials.
In a meeting with DILG officials upon his return, Puno issued a batch of directives, indicating he was still the man on charge.
On top of that, Puno would meet with Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro and PNP chief Director General Jesus Verzosa to plan the eradication of all on all kidnap-for-ransom groups in Mindanao. He would also have a separate meeting with Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan to rid that province of the Abu Sayyaf.
Puno had ordered the stepped-up implementation of the Department´s priority programs for the remainder of the year, such as the reorganization and revitalization of regional, provincial, city and municipal peace and order councils; the gun amnesty program ahead of the 2010 elections; and the distribution of equipment to the PNP, Bureaus of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and of Fire Protection (BFP).
As Puno himself quipped during a news conference regarding his alleged departure from the DILG: "The rumors of my physical and political demise have had put in the proper perspective been greatly exaggerated."
Arroyo herself had called up Puno when he was in California to solicit his opinion about Ebdane´s appointment as OIC-secretary considering the security situation in the wake of the series of bombings in the island.
Puno himself admitted he and Ebdane are "kindred spirits" especially regarding national security and peace and order matters, and that they are the "closest" to each other in the Arroyo Cabinet.
Thus it was Ebdane who was chosen because of his close ties with Puno and his background as a former PNP chief at a time when the national security situation was threatening to get out hand.
That was the script, and following are the last stanzas for that song which couldn´t be a more apt a metaphor for the situation at hand:
He is dangerous, dangerous
That man is in town right now
To whip up some support
A rabble rousing mission
That I think we must abort
He is dangerous
I see bad things arising
The crowd crown him King
Which the Romans would ban
I see blood and destruction
Our elimination because of one man
Blood and destruction
Because of one man
Fools! You have no perception
The stakes we are gambling
Are frighteningly high
We must crush him completely
So like John before him
This Jesus must die
For the sake of the nation
This Jesus must die
Must die, must die
This Jesus must die!
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