Family Business
An old saying goes: You can choose your friends but not your family. There are upstanding families as there are criminal families. Either way one cannot belong to any by choice. One can find pride in being part of a morally upright family or one cannot escape the dregs of belonging to a family of criminals.
“I feel bad that our names are being dragged without any reason, just because our surname is Arroyo. Maybe if I’m not Arroyo, I would have not been dragged into this controversy,” lamented Iggy Arroyo after he and his nephew Mikey Arroyo were tagged anew by two more jueteng operators as being bagman and protector respectively of the illegal numbers game.
Perhaps Iggy is thinking that by assuming another name will save his and his kin’s hide from being exposed of their alleged illegal activities. He should think again. Iggy should remember that he was dragged into a more damning controversy about money laundering because his big brother asked him to assume another name by claiming that he is “Jose Pidal”!
Being an Arroyo is one thing. Being an Arroyo that holds power and never runs out of supply of controversies is another. The former simply gets a brand name by accident of birth. The latter gets exposed to controversies by their own wrongdoing by virtue of power and greed. The family name is not the issue here but a transgression committed by the family itself. If it’s an issue of family names, then Joker, the other Arroyo, must be already contemplating changing his.
Indeed, one cannot choose a family. But one can always stand to correct or condemn the wrongdoings of one’s family. To commit a sin of omission is to be guilty as hell. My family right or wrong is a cry only for those who don’t want to right a wrong.
The series of scandals involving members of the First Family can no longer be believed as a mere destabilization plot. It is already fast becoming a Family Business.
Somehow Iggy is correct in saying that “maybe if I’m not Arroyo, I would have not been dragged into this controversy”. He is correct if posited in the context that among his kin, malevolence is a familial trait.
