liar liar

i lied.

but not in the same magnitude, or rather, hilarity, as miriam defensor santiago's lie. as some of you might remember (which is, in itself, a miracle, given the pinoy's typical amnesia regarding such matters), she announced publicly that "I will jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta if Estrada gets removed from power". to probably much of her enemies' rejoicing, things didn't turn out as she had anticipated. people power kicked erap out of malacanang after. she would have to jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta, as promised. later, when reporters found her skull intact, they asked miriam about her promise. in characteristic candor, she replied smiling: "i lied".

and my lie certainly wasn't in the same league as gloria macapagal arroyo's, when she said on rizal day 2002 (or, on rizal's grave, as conrado de quiros would unceasingly point out), that she, so as to not bring even more divisiveness to an already divided country, would not run for president on 2004. ladies and gentlemen, such is the sad state of our politics.

nonetheless, given the puniness of my lie compared to the immensity of both elected (or not) government officials' lies, we still cannot gloss over the fact: i lied.

it happened like this. even with my shampoo's packaging declaring it to be anti-dandruff, one saturday morning found me with a severe case of it. apparently, my shampoo wasn't working. so later in the afternoon, i rushed to our neighborhood grocery to buy me another shampoo.

now that i think about it, i guess you people didn't really need to know about my dandruff... so let's continue...

i got myself a bottle of another anti-dandruff shampoo, which was worth 99 pesos. before reaching the counter, i scanned the contents of my wallet and found just one 100 peso bill, the rest being 500 peso bills (which is not to say i have plenty of spare cash. most of it was for our electric bill and rent). the 100 peso bill would have been convenient, not just for me but also for the lady manning the grocery counter. but then, i thought, i might need some change. so i decided to just take one of my 500 peso bills. the lady in the counter scanned my bottle of shampoo on the barcode reader, then i handed her my money.

the lady frowned. she asked, 'wala kay 100 lang sir? (don't you have 100 pesos?)'. for a millisecond there, a part of me was saying 'maybe i should just admit it'. but it was too late. unwilling to wait for my conscience to enforce its decision, my neck muscles then acted independently and proceeded shaking my head to tell the lady 'no'.

the lady sighed in resignation. she opened her cash register and took her last two remaining 100 peso bills, took four of her last five remaining 50 peso bills (i noticed that there was just one left), then took a single peso coin to give me my exact change of 401 pesos. she practically had no more change left.

i *could* blame my neck muscles for the incident. but my conscience didn't see it that way, and then went on bothering me for the next 2 hours or so.

but had i been strictly honest, i would have told the lady, "yes ma'am, i do have a 100 peso bill in my wallet, but i need the change. so, no. sorry, here's 500 pesos, and please give me my change." but... damn it... that's plain rude. and the choices look stark: either you lie (or at least not tell the truth), or, you do tell the truth and then end up being a complete asshole.

for some reason, i feel like quoting the nationalist historian teodoro agoncillo, who once said, "those who are afraid to make enemies cannot be expected to tell the truth". or something like that. i think. which is not to say he was encouraging us all to be assholes. or that i'm using it as an excuse to lie. or am i? wait a sec... am i making sense here?

i could have just given the lady my last 100 peso bill. period. maybe it's not really an issue of telling the truth. it's an issue of self-sacrifice. not that i'm trying to sound noble here, but it now seems to boil down to this: "am i willing to suffer the minor inconvenience of not having change instead of bothering the lady in the counter in addition to lying to her?"

so i guess that's it. i would have avoided bothering the lady. i would have also avoided being bothered by my consciece. gloria arroyo would have avoided being so despised. and miriam... well, she can be very entertaining, so let's just leave it at that.

but then, had i not lied, i wouldn't have been able to write this piece at all. i guess lying still has its uses.

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it took me one and a half months to finish this piece. i guess that's how long it took me to admit to myself that either way, even if i lie or i don't, i'm still being an asshole hahaha.

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published in the philippine daily inquirer 3/14/2009 :)
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090314-194116/Liars