We Laugh Because We Don't Want to Cry
This article appeared on the December 2000 issue of Metro Magazine.

By Jim Paredes

"We can't be doing this every fourteen years or so. We have to get it right this time", I told a friend during the first Makati rally asking for Erap's resignation as she looked at me unsure if I had said something funny or serious. The here-we-go-again feeling among the older rallyists in Ayala that day was evident. There we were, the usual suspects, the same cause-oriented people who laughed and danced our way to a revolution in EDSA '86. And here we are again exchanging, texting and laughing at the latest ERAP jokes this time around.

The night before, my group the APO had performed for a full capacity crowd at the Hard Rock Cafe in Glorietta. Any dig at Erap that evening, no matter how trivial was gobbled up by the audience like popcorn in a movie house. On the surface, it seemed like a déjà vu of the early "subversive" concerts we were doing during the dark days of the dictatorship. It certainly seemed like old times. But on a deeper level, the experience that night felt different. This time around, I noticed the audience was laughing more nervously, the way one does amid the specter of impending calamity not unlike the rustle of leaves before a killer storm. Or the way we release laughter in between terrifying parts of a movie like, say, The Excorcist.

In the late 70's and early 80's, to be outspoken was much more dangerous than it is today and the audience would always show its support. People applauded performers who walked the edge. And when we came out alive to do the next show, the audience was more emboldened to defy the dictatorship as well. To candidly express anti-Marcos views then was to make oneself vulnerable to media boycott, harassment, imprisonment, or who knows, maybe even the threat of death. But at the same time, to be funny and witty was to be charmingly outrageous. And THAT was irresistible! During those days, Danny, Boboy and I felt like the child in the fable about the emperor's new clothes. It felt both heroic and wise to be doing what we were doing.

And for us, taking on the dictatorship was easy pickings. The disdain and irreverence we had for the emperor came naturally. And to make things easier, the concert crowd was virgin as far as political humor was concerned. The EtonAPOsila concert series were defining moments for us as we concocted and performed jingles, skits, and one-liners with devastating effect. And we spared no one-not the Marcoses, the IMF-World Bank, not the media, the cronies nor the Americans.

Recent shows we have done and others I have watched still attest to the great power of humor especially lately. The ERAP jokes still hit the spot except that nowadays, the audience is less than the blushing 80's virgin we could so easily charm and seduce with almost any spiel laced with anything politically mababaw. With the phenomenal popularity of texting, and the internet, there is now stiff competition. Very stiff, in fact. The power of texting has put into the hands of practically everyone the capability to broadcast to the world any mischievously funny stab on any political issue (including the not-so-funny ones), and within hours, the whole Philippines has read and passed on the message. For us commentators, it means constantly updating ourselves with the latest political turn of the screw, and sharpening our wit to draw ever fresher blood....er.. humor out of the situation. Once a joke reaches the texters, it's as good as passe. And the more frenzied the pace of the political deterioration, the more demanding it becomes for performers and writers to concoct new, fresh and funnier jokes.

"We laugh because we do not want to cry", talented comic and friend Jon Santos quotes an anonymous source to explain why people laugh at political figures. For to make jokes about the political situation is to find relief through cynicism---false relief to be sure, but enough to tide us through the painful moment until a new gag comes along for the next one. To ease the tragedy of living under a political culture such as ours where the constant stream of scandals drowns us in hopelessness, we laugh from joke to joke-not unlike jumping from one punctured rubber raft to another. Tenuous as that may seem as a survival tool, it gets us through the night-as long as there are no shortages of rafts, that is! Thus, the raft supplier a.k.a. comic can be likened to our savior, or to be cynical, our pusher who rations us our daily fix of diversions.

In the early 80's, it seemed our laughter was more liberated. It was because we were in dire straits and getting the Marcos out was definitely the only way to go. Our humor was pointed and clear because the task was pointed and clear-we had had enough of this unpopular despot and we were going to force him out. These days, even if a lot of us are sure that ERAP has become unfit to lead and so must be thrown out, there is this unspoken uneasiness, even a great sense of shame at the realization that we had allowed the country to go to pot; that we had squandered our chances at becoming a nation to be taken seriously; that we had failed and have only ourselves to blame.

And so we again look to humor to tide us through even if we know that we probably cannot just text and laugh our way out of this fix; that we may have to (gasp) finally look at ourselves and ask why, why we have fallen so low. And to do THAT-meaning to examine our collective Filipino conscience and admit our culpability may be asking too much. After all, do we REALLLY want to get to the root of why we repeatedly sabotage ourselves? Are we ready to pay the price for real change or again just laugh our way out of another desperate situation?

And so we laugh at Erap. Why? Because we need scapegoats, and so we drag Jinggoy, Loi, Laarni, Guia, Jude, et al..into the picture. The more, the merrier! Besides, it is the easier thing to do because we put the burden of change solely on our leaders and not on ourselves. This article is by no means a defense of the President. Far from it. I, too believe as many others do that he must go! But to look at our problems solely as consequences of Erap's weakness of character and content ourselves by just making fun of him is to again miss our chance at real change. Let us examine our symbiotic relationship with Erap and this co-dependent relationship we've always had with our rulers whom we tacitly give authority to victimize us. And while we poke fun at him and his crowd, let us realize that we are missing the biggest joke of all-that the whole joke is actually on us!

Link to Jim Paredes' website

Other Articles by Jim Paredes

My Greatest Wish – Sunday Inquirer, June 10, 2001
The Craziest Thing I've Ever Done – May 2001
My Second Wind – Metro Magazine, May 2001
Music Videos vs. Pure Imagination – Musiko.com, March 2001
Diary of a Revolution – Metro Magazine, March 2001
We Laugh Because We Do Not Want To Cry – Metro Magazine, December 2000