Grassroots

By Rolo B. Cena

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Dumaguete Star Informer

July 31, 2016

Touching base with the grassroots has always been an effective channel to find talents:  Talents whose credence in their fields may and would later become highlights or pride of the country.

“Tayada sa Plaza” was once again launched in July 24, 2016 at the grounds of Dumaguete’s Quezon Park.  Running for years now since Mayor-Elect Remollo initiated the program 13 years ago, the initiative intends to showcase the grassroots talents from different schools of Dumaguete City, including out-of-school youths.

Grassroots have always been there as the source, or more than that, as the inspiration.  Take the case of self-made grassroots talents like Miss Lea Salonga, whose humble beginnings dates back to her singing ventures at the age of seven.  Local stage shows and talents searches paved the way for her.

In 1989 when Cameroon Mackintosh, the producer of Miss Saigon launched its search for talents in the Main Theater Lobby of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, chose Lea Salonga to portray the role of “Kim,” the former never knew his production would make the latter a big name in West End theaters and later in Broadway, a high-end brand of theater talent and a by-word in theaters and films in and out of London, New York, Manila and other parts of the globe.

Flipping the other side of the coin, touching base with the grassroots may not be as good as what it does to finding would-be arts icons.  Take the case of the present administration that uses the grassroots in creating the “kill list” of drug lords, peddlers and users.  It may actually have benefited the administration for now for it is able to produce the list that becomes the basis for their all-out war against drugs.  Contrariwise, the glitch is that these people may be feeding erroneous or malicious information to whoever is in-charge of collating these names; worse, these grassroots are also giving grassroots.

Rationally, if the exercise produces the list of those politicians, businessmen, and personalities who are believed to be nvolved, then I would salute to the move.  As of even date, we still hear people say that there are those who are still freely doing that, although the onus of proof is on these people claiming to know them.  However, validation must be the key here.

Tweaking it more!

In June 2016, when President-Elect Rodrigo R. Duterte waged war against drugs, he knew he would make his war a big initiative in the political arena of the country, a brand of political will and a by-word in the drug-torn streets of cities, towns and municipalities where they circulate the prohibited drugs.

The Catholic Church has a different view of the action, though.  At present, they are staging nation-wide protest through the regular masses as a way of expressing their own defiance to the move.  Understandably, they oppose killing, as that is not how God plan to discipline his believers, so to speak.  But somewhere along the thin, red line, realization must dawn upon all of us now because the menace is no longer an archipelagic problem; it has become a global.  And somewhere along the line, the separation of the Church and the State must be fully understood, if not underscored or observed.

We have to bite the bullet!

Albert Einstein, the famous Physicist-Scientist of all generations once suggested that if he’d solve a problem in one hour, he would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes solving the problem.

Make sense, right?  Defining the problem must be the first thing to do:  scrutinizing the problem, identifying the root cause, dissecting sub-causes, analyzing cause and effect, plotting alternative courses of actions, and finally, implementing the best alternative course of action to solve the problem.

Unless this suggestion from the world’s famous and most admired scientist does not make sense, then the President can proceed amidst allegations that he and his team is actually not hitting the cherry bull’s eye.  After all, the number of big names identified and announced is inversely proportional with the number of grassroots already killed.  What a way to underscore the grassroots in the war known as drugs navigated by the country’s famed and powerful!

When Lea Salonga was listed in the cast of “Miss Saigon,” Mackintosh never knew she’d become a star.  After the first run of the play in the West End, Mackintosh realized he started to make the name Lea Salonga bigger than any celestial object in the universe.  She was a grassroots. 

In contrast, when fellow grassroots listed Michael Siaron as a drug peddler in the “kill list,” they never knew he’d stole the sixty-second spotlight and a page in several morning dailies. After Michael was shot and killed by motorcycle-riding gunmen near Pasay Rotonda on EDSA in July 6, 2016, the public realized that the salvaging gained ire and sympathy.   Surely, the public and his fellow grassroots realized that the puny suspect shouldered the consequence of the game maneuvered by the rich and mighty.  He, too, was a grassroots.

Or, you might have a better way, let him know!