Through the smoke

By Rolo B. Cena

Hushed Poppies

Dumaguete Star Informer

August 26, 2012

Manila, Philippines - They came in throng; in fact, about five buses were commissioned to ferry them from the farms of northern and central Luzon to the far flung imperial Manila for the planned and politically-designed move purportedly to thwart the session.  Orchestrated by the prime movers of the industry, the trip was made in such a way that no one would ever forget it; much less, regret he had joined.   

Apologies but they disturbed the night with their sheer naiveté and ignorance of the troubled flesh-controlled commercial district of Ermita.   They attacked the still of the night everyone was enjoying since it had fallen including my somber sleep and of those who have been in the hotel ahead of them.  They arrived in the middle of the night supposedly to cut through the painstaking land trip to a different road show ever re-invented for them. 

They were made emissaries whom their handlers believed they could articulate the statements in their behalf by their mere presence in the session.   It was not by happenstance; it was a planned participation, one that is controlled by their respective biases and sentiments.  There were about three hundred of them whom their organizers believed they could declare their own sense of nationalism more than their extensive share of the issue at hand or patriotism more than economic condition their respective families experience at the moment;

Arguably, extensive wasn’t in fact the appropriate yardstick to measure the thing; it was their scant share of the issue at hand that mobilized their intentions more than their need or their curiosity more than their desire to be listed.  I said scant because taking the whole picture into play their participation is actually smaller than what they believed to be.  The masters of the game, whose objective is always anchored at the bottom figures this commercial world were made to produce, wanted one and only one thing from them:  business.

To put it bluntly, the major players of the tobacco industry used and mobilized the ordinary tobacco farmers to appear and participate in the Senate hearing of the bill that would stop cultivating tobacco and consequently discontinue the tobacco industry.

Bad as it has labeled, smoking kills; and smokers, or those who produce filtered sticks with tobacco shreds are actually killing them:  Killing in the sense that their modest means of living was interrupted with temporary economic relief of joining the rally-for-a-fee with the perks of staying at the four-star hotel in the suburbs of Manila. 

In the post-modern Philippines, where reality shows take control of the mindset of the people, stealing the sixty-second spotlight from others in the show is already an achievement.  Whereas, to the organizers, having these farmers moved from their modest mid-country farms to the portico of the Senate just to deliver a clear and concise statement of objection is gaining the first stronghold of the battlefield.  Whereas to the farmers, having participated in the once-in-a-lifetime event that could even make unfavorable twists and turns in their socio-economic lives is already winning the battle.

Talking to the farmers at the hotel lobby sans the smokes around twitted one and only one question from an insider:  How can these farmers survive if farming is stopped?

For the sake of argument, assuming that the bill is passed into law, the land these farmers till would always lay flat on the surface of the earth.  It goes without saying then that it is always at their disposal; they can always plant anything that can grow and be a source of living.  Assuming further that this is going to happen, the tobacco industry will be a goner and the social and medical diseases smoking brings into humanity will literally and figuratively be stopped.

Conversely, these farmers don’t have to worry; the industry players do. This is precisely the reason why these farmers are commissioned to appear behind the picket fences to make it appear as if there is a potential problem on the part of the farmers.  But obviously, there is none.  Tobacco manufactures definitely do have!

Very evidently, there are dreams that are built on smokes; and these dreams obviously lead to one and only one thing:  People die.  No matter how stringent the law would be, for as long as there are players, at the end of the day, smoking still kills.