The Neanderthal scavenger

“Success has many parents; most of them illegitimate.”

Anonymous

Salakayan Festival of Miagao is the champion of the Kasadyahan during the Dinagyang Festival 2012. It is a fitting reward for the students who toiled day in and day out practicing their routine albeit sometimes on an empty stomach. It is poetic justice for teachers and school heads who risked the ire of parents for exacting slave labor out of their students. It is a profound and concrete lesson for parents that with their unqualified support, a child can be more than what he or she is. Take a bow, people; you earned your bragging rights.

Just as when those who toiled were savoring their hard-earned victory, Gerry Flores takes the center stage. In a media interview Gerry Flores claims credit for the whole thing. One wonders whether he also danced, choreographed or financed the endeavor. The entire Miagao knows he did practically nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero.

To label Gerry Flores as a credit grabber may just be the understatement of the year.

You see, in the animal world, organisms are usually either the predator or the prey. The predator hunts the prey and slays it for food. But there comes a third kind – not exactly the science fiction close encounter of the third kind of Steven Spielberg. It’s more of third sex, if I may say. They are called scavengers.

Sociologists have proof that the first humans did not hunt for their food; they scavenged. Hence, the Neanderthal tools we see in museums were not really meant for hunting but for slicing dead meat. The Neanderthals waited for their food to die and then feast on the carcass. They were inherently lazy and opportunistic. See the similarity with Gerry Flores?

In harder times, not one of the students, teachers, school heads or choreographers saw a shadow of Gerry Flores doing anything to help them out. Surely, Gerry Flores missed a good opportunity to get his hands dirty in the right way. But we do not fault him for that. Maybe he had more pressing concerns, like making sure that his political enemies do not easily get the business permits they are inherently entitled to under the laws of man and the law of God. Maybe, he was too engrossed with his obsession to put an end to all government projects delivered by his political opponents. Maybe … well, that’s a lot of maybe’s.

Yet, Gerry Flores has the gall to claim credit for a success for something he tirelessly did NOT support. That’s a lot of crap if I may say.

A-hole.