When the newscasts mentioned his name as the victim of that tragic incident that happened Wednesday evening last week, I refused to believe it was really he. I tried to convince myself it was someone else; must be another guy who just happened to have the same name, I told myself. Going into denial was the general reaction among people who knew him. No, it couldn’t be Victor was the same lament that got posted and reposted in Facebook, Friendster and other social networking sites. The denial was improbable, but so were the circumstances around his death.

Many people including the police and media kept referring to the tragedy as road rage as if doing so could explain why someone’s life was suddenly snuffed out by an assailant who—it seems pretty clear by now based on the psychological profile being drawn publicly about him—should not have been allowed to drive a vehicle in the first place. There is simply no way to deodorize the tragedy. Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. was murdered.

Ebarle Jr. really didn’t seem like someone who would be involved in something so senseless. I had close interactions with the guy for a number of years and never, not even once, did he mention or give any indication that he was the son and namesake of a high-ranking government official who worked just a few rooms away from the President of the Republic of the Philippines. In fact, many among us learned that his father worked as undersecretary at Malacañang only last week.

There’s this baseless and therefore grossly unfair insinuation that there was something more to what happened other than it being a tragic case of Ebarle Jr. being in the same place at the same time with someone else with a dark past. The facts as presented by those who witnessed what happened are pretty straightforward. There was a traffic altercation. Thereupon, Ebarle’s car was blocked by the assailant’s car (bearing diplomatic license plates), who then alighted from his car and pumped bullets into Ebarle Jr.’s chest and arms like he was a sitting duck at a shooting gallery.

The victim of that incident was Ebarle Jr. and there was no way he could have provoked his death. The tragedy was not a consequence of a proverbial pissing contest between two scions of highly influential people—one the son of a high-ranking government bureaucrat, the other an economist of the Asian Development Bank with diplomatic immunity and privileges. Many will see this as an attempt at defense by a former mentor, but I say this with conviction and with utmost objectivity: Ebarle was not a brat. He was not the typical offspring of ranking government bureaucrats who walked with a swagger, called attention to himself, flaunted his connections, and got involved in mischief. He was soft-spoken and almost painfully shy. Everyone who knew him personally will attest to this: Victor was a gentle soul and he looked like it, too. He never cussed, never ever figured in a brawl, never got drunk in public, and never bullied anyone.

There is this speculative drivel being passed around that the tragedy is being blown out of proportion and given way too much media attention because the victim’s father happens to be a government official with direct ties to the Office of the President. Like many others, I also felt uncomfortable with the pronouncements of certain Palace officials who hinted at using the full powers of the Presidential Management Office to get the assailant at all costs.

But on second thought, why shouldn’t the government or the Office of the President be concerned with the death of young people like Victor? We all should feel outraged and the fact that his father is a government official should be irrelevant. The circumstances that attended the tragedy are more than enough to be outraged.

In a country where tens of thousands die every day, many for reasons that are also just as inconceivable, there is the temptation to dismiss the death of one more young person to statistics. We really shouldn’t allow ourselves to become numb and desensitized to senseless tragedy, particularly those that could have been avoided with just a little more responsible oversight—paternal or otherwise.

The truth is that there are just too many people who drive around as if they own our streets. There are just too many people who drive around in cars with diplomatic plates, or with special plates assigned for certain government or elected officials, who expect everyone else to pull over and kowtow to them as if they were monarchs. What is even infuriating is that very often, these cars are driven by relatives—wives, children, mistresses, friends—who expect, nay, demand, that whatever imagined perks and privileges due to the registered owners or assignees of the cars are also afforded to them as if rank, functions and official business were also transferable.

The sad thing is that it seems we’re supposed to accept that road rage is a phenomenon that happens spontaneously; something that cannot be avoided. I can already see the line of defense forthcoming: That road rage happens to the best and the worst of us, that it is a medical condition, that it is involuntary. I will not discount the possibility that all these are contributory factors to road rage, just as traffic congestion, extreme heat, or the sight of a half naked model peddling underwear on a billboard are potential antecedents of road rage. Actually, road rage is a complicated thing but all empirical evidence point to one thing—it can be stopped and managed.

Besides, I refuse to accept that Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. died simply because of road rage. It happened because there was another person on the road that night who either had unspeakable evil in his heart or simply should not have been allowed to drive a car, particularly one with diplomatic plates on it.

I think that making generalizations is a dangerous thing but it’s difficult to argue with people with strong convictions based on years of observation. It’s almost impossible to single out politicians who have remained untainted with accusations of corruption or abuse of power while in office. However, I still think that politics is a career that requires certain competencies. Thus, getting any Juan, Pedro and Jose to run for office without any regard for qualification, or skills, or platforms is potentially disastrous.

In response to the call of the times, there are those who have shamelessly abrogated unto themselves the mantle of “new politics” even if they represent the status quo. Like Chiz Escudero, they use the mantra of change, or as Escudero likes to say so himself, “new change,” merely as a convenient political slogan rather than as an advocacy.

Thus, in Leyte, and I presume anywhere else, husbands are giving way to wives or vice versa, parents are giving way to children, or siblings to another sibling. Political dynasties are playing a game of musical chairs. The strange thing is that these families actually expect voters to believe that the change in candidates already represent change in politics.

And then there is this new development of politics by affinity—that is, husbands or wives of residents of the province gunning for elective posts in the province.

Actor Richard Gomez is seeking to represent the people of the Fourth District of Leyte, home turf of his beautiful wife, Lucy Torres Gomez. Former actress Christina “Kring Kring” Gonzales Romualdez, currently councilor of Tacloban City, is reportedly intent on becoming its next mayor.

I talked to a number of voters in the Fourth District to get a sense of how people are responding to Gomez’ candidacy. I didn’t meet anyone who had a nice word to say about it. Everyone I talked to felt that Gomez didn’t stand a chance of winning. First, he is up against a powerful political clan—the Codillas of Ormoc—whose family is well entrenched in the district. Practically all the mayors of the towns in the Fourth District are related either by blood or marriage to the Codillas. Second, Lucy Torres Gomez’ family is not exactly endeared to the masses of the district. The Torreses are hacienderos who don’t socialize with the poor. Third, there is a backlash directed at celebrities like Gomez who are perceived as opportunists.

“But what about Gomez’ matinee idol appeal?” I asked. Apparently, Gomez is not that popular in Leyte, which is Kapamilya country. “It would have been a different story altogether if it were Piolo Pascual running,” the women I talked to shrieked.

Christina Gonzalez Romualdez, who is married to Alfred Romualdez, current mayor of Tacloban, already won the most number of votes as councilor in the 2007 elections. If we are to believe the scuttlebutt, Alfred Romualdez will challenge Jericho Petilla for the governorship leaving his wife, the former actress, at the helm of the city. If things go as planned, she will be up against Dan Palami, a young charismatic leader who seems to have the support of the youth. Palami was born and schooled in Tacloban City while Romualdez’ ties to the city is purely by marriage. The talk around the city is that most people have had enough of politics by affinity.

* * *

Like everyone else, my family and I were glued to the television set last Sunday as Emmanuel “Pacman” Pacquiao pummeled the daylights out of Manuel Cotto of Puerto Rico. As usual, GMA-7 loaded the delayed telecast with advertisements although mercifully, did not cut off telecasts in the middle of a round to accommodate a political advertisement. Pacquiao’s victory over Cotto has already been discussed and written about extensively—in fact, many broadsheets gave the news the proverbial “second coming” treatment— and there’s really very little else that can be written about the fight itself.

A friend who watched the fight live at Las Vegas gave a minute-by-minute update via twitter and Facebook using his cellphone. It was a wonder he was able to watch the fight itself. He reported that the audience chanted “We want Floyd!” immediately after Pacquiao’s victory like spectators at a gladiator fight screaming for more blood. This is the basic nature of the sport—it celebrates one man’s physical victory over another; and one of the sad consequences of Pacquiao’s phenomenal success in boxing is that it makes us forget about the cruel nature of the sport itself. Pacquaio won; but he didn’t exactly come out of it unscathed. Doctors had to drain blood out of his right ear after the fight and his face was all puffy.

Barely a day before Pacquiao went up the ring to face Cotto, another Filipino boxer Z Gorres was knocked down on Round 10 of his fight against Colombian boxer Luiz Melendez and had to undergo emergency surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain. Although Gorres’s condition has already improved, indications point to many months in rehabilitation. He will never be able to return to boxing again or take up other competitive sports.

One can therefore empathize with Dionisia Pacquaio’s request for his son to give up boxing already. It’s a mother’s sincere plea for a son’s well-being, something that will most likely get drowned in the mad scramble to sustain one of the country’s few remaining tickets to global sports renown.

When Pacquiao comes home in the next few days, he will, however, have to face more frenzied attention to talk about the state of his personal life, in particular, about his marriage. The gossip mill has been working overtime over the last week spilling out really juicy and scandalous bits about his supposed affair with a starlet who was lording it over at Las Vegas. All the drivel is really sad because media projection of Pacquiao has already been largely positive in the last year or so and his stature as a Filipino role model has been gaining ground. A scandal is the last thing he needs right now.