Divert our attention

By Alex P. Vidal

“I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart.” — Pope John XXIII

WE need more inspiring and success stories like the Alex Eala phenomenon that recently swept the national imagination to divert our attention from the endless political muckraking and silliness of sycophants who tolerate, protect, abet, and endorse bad, terrible, and incompetent leaders.

Aside from tennis, there are sports familiar to Filipinos that can produce Alex Ealas and embolden the young athletes to also take the magnificent route traversed by the sensational 21-year-old tennis beauty and brains.

To mention a few: weightlifting, gymnastics, boxing, billiards, pole vaulting, and chess, where we have produced Olympic, if not world, champions.

More Alex Ealas and her extraordinary conquests mean less focus on toxic politics and the tedious impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio (of course we must still continue to monitor it from time to time).

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Filipinos have been overdosed with politics and divisiveness, and there seems to be chaos and tumult each time they scroll down the social and mainstream media items on their gadgets.

As a result, many Filipinos become wound collectors and “victims of life.” We choose not to move on, and one of the reasons is that suffering and pain create sympathy from others.

Alex Eala’s dramatic and sensational performances in the recent Mubadala DC Open in Washington, DC, and National Bank Open in Toronto gave many mentally and emotionally worn-out Filipinos a chance to heave a sigh of relief and forget politics and economic despair for a while.

Filipino fans are expected to follow the young tennis star’s impressive imperium on the hard, clay, and grass courts in the succeeding weeks and months to avoid and escape from the sweeping national woundology.

There is no quick fix to all our problems. We have been saddled by natural calamities like storms, floods, tremors, and volcanic eruptions these past weeks, and we need to draw inspiration from truly heroic Filipinos like Alex Eala, who has already brought us enormous pride and international fame aside from uniting us in one fleeting moment.

We need more.

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A devastating earthquake that has resulted in the death of at least 130 people and reduced thousands of buildings—old and newly built—to rubble across western Colombia has presented an immediate challenge to Abelardo de la Espriella just as he took office promising drastic spending cuts.

Bloomberg said the president faces immediate pressure to direct resources to some of the hardest-hit areas, including parts of his own electoral base.

What’s more, according to Bloomberg, the 7.4 magnitude quake struck Colombia’s coffee region, raising the prospect of wider economic damage.

The disaster could give De la Espriella’s government political cover to retreat from one of his most ambitious campaign pledges: slashing public outlays by 40 percent.

How he funds reconstruction while pursuing those cuts will offer an early indication of how his economic pledges can survive the realities of governing, observed The Bloomberg.

It’s a baptism of fire for the political novice who rode a Trumpist agenda to power. The crisis also complicates De la Espriella’s push to decentralize power.

The first president in recent history to be sworn in outside the capital, he found himself away from the center of government on his first full working day, weighing whether to return to Bogota or travel directly to the affected areas, added The Bloomberg.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)