No matter what his
critics—and mine—may say, I will always be a big fan of Robert S. Jaworski. It
was not just his basketball ability and prowess that got me attracted in him in
his sport, but chiefly his rarer-than-blue-diamond attitude each time he would
nonchalantly but dramatically enter the hardcourt.
When he’d start
playing, I would see no nonsense in him. It’s because he would always treat
each game a do-or-die game. He was a defense specialist that any opposing offensive
player then in the league. Against whom
Jaworski was assigned to defend, would find a hard time shaking him off to
evade.
For me still, I’ve yet to see any other local player who could play with
the same intensity like him, except for the many-time national champion the
flamboyant Samboy “Skywalker” Lim. What I liked the most with Samboy was his
uncanny ability to evade a defense in the air. He could twist any part of his
body in suicidal way that each and every dare was enough to raise a spectator’s
hair. No wonder, he retired without completing a season in the PBA. He did
spend most of his time on the bench due to various injuries.
In the senate,
movie actor-current senator Bong Revilla alias “Pogi,” a true-to-life
brother-in-law of ex-Senator Jaworski, is likewise too good in evading an issue
that would come his way, especially about his alleged involvement in a
controversial PDAF scam story. Instead of answering matter-of-factly one by one
all of the charges, he chose to evade the issue and segue to immaterial and
irrelevant matters in a privilege speech.
Just like Senator
Jinggoy, reportedly coded “Sexy” by Janet Lim Napoles and company. Instead of
refuting all evidence against him by producing evidence to the contrary, he too
obviously evaded the issue simply. Well, you can’t blame both good senators for
doing similar tricks. Even the impeached Mr. Renato Corona, an ex-Chief
Justice, now formally charged by the Ombudsman, employs as well the same
tactics.
If the ghosts of
girl friends past—please take note of the words “girl” and “friend’s” gap—would
confront me and ask, “Talk honestly in telling us, who is your all-time greatest
love?” I think it is evasion likewise if rather than giving a straight answer,
I’d just sing it like Rod Stewart: “I don’t wanna talk about it, how you broke
my heart…”
But on the flip
side, evasion is commendable if we do it because we don’t want to be caught
lying, or be compelled to commit sin, as what’s said in the Bible: “Blessed is
the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way
of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful…” (Psalm 1).