Duterte administration

[OPINION] Of penguins and surviving the brutality of the Duterte government

Ina Alleco Silverio

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'The predators cannot maim or kill all of us – even with their ripping claws and poisonous fangs, they cannot destroy an entire people determined not only to survive, but to overcome'

Every night before bed, I watch animal videos on Facebook. Between hours spent doing remote office work and reading news reports about the endless displays of incompetence and brutality in the government’s COVID-19 response, every day is filled with anxiety. Watching videos of cats, dogs, elephants, and other animals helps somewhat to relieve some of the stress.

The other night I got to thinking about penguins – specifically Emperors — and how they survive and thrive in the harshest of environmental conditions. Penguins mate, give birth, and raise their young in nine-month cycles. Imagine living in minus 40 degree-weather? And trying to build a family right then and there? The mother and the father take turns taking care of the egg, and after it hatches, the chick.

It’s nothing short of a miracle how they do this. They do a sort of synchronized dance to make sure that the egg is passed from between the stubby legs and from under the thickly-feathered belly of the mother to those of the father’s.

Two seconds that the egg is exposed to the brutal cold and it freezes solid, and there’s no hope for the embryo inside. There are only two colors in the Antarctic, and they’re even considered non-colors: black and white. The seemingly endless blank expanse is broken by the black and white of the penguins, and the deliberate and calculated movements they make to keep warm, but at the same time make sure that the eggs are never dislodged.

The father foregoes eating for 4 months as he protects the egg, and the mother leaves to feed and fill herself with fish and krill. It’s at least a 7 days’ walk to where the ice breaks and the ocean is exposed from where the penguins nest, and there is only cold, darkness and silence. The walk back, in the meantime, is often longer as the topography changes and shifts (glaciers form, cracks in the ice, small avalanches that put barriers in the path).

Watching animal videos, I am filled with awe and respect for animals in general and penguins in particular. It’s easy to see how penguins are such sentient creatures. One sees and feels their grief when an egg freezes, or when a chick is similarly lost to the biting cold. The anguish is palpable, unmistakable in the body language, the gentle movement of the father prodding the chick’s lifeless body.

All this has, as usual, gotten me to thinking about my own species. Most Filipinos raise their families under economic and political circumstances that are every bit as harsh as those environmental factors penguins have to contend with.

Instead of the killing cold, we are in the midst of a killer pandemic, and while there are very real and tested solutions to stop the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate the loss of life and suffering among health workers and the civilian populace both, we have a government that refuses to implement them. There is still no mass testing; there is still no effective contact tracing; and instead of using public funds to bolster the healthcare system, the government keeps throwing money into police and military operations.

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And as if this threat of infection was not already too much to deal with, Filipinos still have to contend with high prices of basic commodities, high electricity rates, and rising unemployment. In the provinces and in the mountain areas, bombs continue to fall on the communities of farmers and indigenous peoples.

As penguins struggle to keep their chicks warm, travel miles to get to the nearest fishing hole, and resist attacks from their predators, the Filipino people fight to keep their families alive and together, despite hunger, disease, and despicable levels of criminality which are the inevitable monster-children of the depraved, decadent ruling culture and profit-oriented society we are now trapped in.

The biggest enemy of penguins and their families (aside from lion seals and killer whales which are their natural predators) is the cold. To survive, they huddle tightly together to generate collective heat. The Filipino poor should do the same – unite to build the strongest front against their collective enemies – the destroyers of families, killers of dreams, the blood-sucking system and the government it currently represents in the Philippines.

If animals like penguins can survive the brutality of endless winter (even in the summer, the Antarctic  is a landscape carved out of ice and painted in snow), mate and raise their chicks and defend themselves from predators, then shouldn’t human beings – the exploited and oppressed, the victims of government corruption and violence – be able to defend themselves as well and fight back?

Penguins only have their fur-like feathers, their sharp beaks. They waddle through the ice or they belly-flop through it (their tummies are like toboggans, and they heave and push themselves along when their legs get tired). Sure, they swim very well, but sometimes not fast enough to escape the occasional sea lion.

The Filipino people and the mass movements that represent them – what do we have?

We have everything the thieves and fascists in government have except for the stolen wealth, the insatiable greed, the dead conscience, and the ruthless desire for endless control and power over the nation’s resources.

Their only superiority lies in the physical weapons they have. Outside of that, patas na ang labanan. (In fact we’re even superior. Who runs the factories and cultivates the land? Even without the corrupt and greedy ruling elite, the working classes can run this country. Of course, this with the help of patriotic economists, scientists, teachers, doctors, artists, engineers, writers, chemists, etc. – professionals and creative souls whose loyalties lie with the poor majority and the country and are not enslaved by love for personal gain and individual achievement).

There is always strength in numbers. This is something we should always remember. This is something the exploited should take advantage of, and wield both as shield and spear. This is why the twisted officials of this government always try to divide the people – make them think that there are other ways by which they can achieve their goals and overcome the viciousness of poverty, want, inequality.

Like, say, continuing to supported a militarist presidency that’s rapidly deteriorating instead of uniting to push for genuine social change and reforms for the poor, and defending national sovereignty and patrimony at all costs.

Penguins protect each other against the cutting wind and storms by forming one huge mass of bodies, and they put the weaker ones in the middle. There is always a sense of collective unity – the instinct that they can only survive if they help each other. This lessens the casualty rate, and increases the chances that the majority will survive and a next generation of stronger, hardier penguins will follow.

Let us shield ourselves from the relentless storm and fight for the next generation of Filipinos. The predators cannot maim or kill all of us – even with their ripping claws and poisonous fangs, they cannot destroy an entire people determined not only to survive, but to overcome.

If penguins can do it, so can we. – Rappler.com

Ina Alleco R. Silverio has worked as an investigative journalist, a congressional chief of staff, and a media officer for various people’s organizations. She currently works for a company advocating renewable energy and the teachings of Pope Francis in his encyclical calling for ecological conversion, “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.”

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