Friday, April 18, 2008 Arinday: 'Erap' and 'Jun' By GH Arinday Jr. Sunfare
WHAT an interesting, if not an exciting pair of characters.
Former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada, being a tough-looking hombre, could effectively essay the role of a crime-buster having played the role in reel and real life with a bevy of scantily-clad frustrated beauty title seekers.
NBN witness Rodolfo "Jun" Lozada Jr., on the other hand, could be a sentimental-prone sidekick of Erap, who, with a ready bucketful of tears could easily find the clue to the unsolved mystery of the disappearing rice grains from our bins.
The thematic musical background of the suggested film script would be sad to conform to the main subject on how "truth" was covered up by sophistication and other devices, which would approximate the way legal-thrillers are made of.
Perhaps, Erap could be the swashbuckler-type but dependent on the wisdom of Jun, who with his all-women security clad in penguin-looking uniforms could expose the villainous characters by flooding them with his lachrymose weapon.
If the script writer would be more imaginative than Miguel de Cervantes who created Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and Voltaire, with his Pangloss, Erap and Jun could become the legendary figures of the Third Millennium.
The lengthy telenovela must contain the mixture of daredevil actions, romantic exploits, and the method of gaining empathy through tearful sequences and with divine moments by cavorting with the messengers of God in an all-out campaign to cleanse the political forests of all undesirable denizens.
With his "wristband" as his secret weapon, Erap could fill it with bitter liquid concocted by Jun to spray the enemies of the State to make them more unseeing of the "truth."
The series must cover a good number of plots, say by starting with the vanishing rice grains only to discover that the cereals are used to cover the "kickbacks" intended for the 2010 national elections and the ZTE National Broadband Network deal to divert the people's focus on said issues and that the food crisis are purely imaginary.
Then probably in the series of investigations conducted by the Senate wise men, real-life characters like Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Panfilo 'Ping' Lacson, and Jamby Madrigal could play cameo roles to make it more authentic. Then throw in Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz who would ban the public sinners from communion and like the gods of ancient Greeks would unleash the lightning rods and thunderbolt to drive away the demons out of the palace by the filthy river.
Of course, the story must have refreshing sense of humor while Erap makes no secret about his romantic escapades; Jun would be opposite keeping his affair with cutting-edge secrecy like dew drops hidden among the foliage of the forests.
In the adrenalin-charged action Jun must portray his smartness superior to that of James Bond by outwitting his would-be assassins and keeping his "sanctuary funds" un-taxable. It would be a high-octane adventure of the duo rendering their friends and enemies alike in bewilderment.
Behind his well-trimmed moustache and piercing eyes, which made lovely women swoon, Erap's friends in the party could not make head or tails of his sentimental journeys to places where his "soul and mind" reside among the marginalized.
In the case of Jun, between tears and laughter, his audience is hard put to distinguish the color of truth, a badge of his ingenuity, unparalleled in the saga of an ordinary individual anointed as a living hero and thrown into heavenly aura.
The duo, the new heroes of our chaotic times could supplant the 'Malakas at Maganda' tales dished out to our young minds during the "smiling" Martial Law period.
Perhaps, it would be of great urgency that the pulse-pounding thriller-adventure of Erap and Jun be done immediately to record their unusual achievements for posterity sake.
Erap could be truly depicted as being dethroned by a usurper and Jun, the seeker of "truth" could be a modern Diogenes without the lamp. And once this is done, it must be heavily guarded in our national archives as part of our priceless national treasures.
Inventive storytellers could embellish the saga of the duo's heart-stomping adventures to rival Dan Brown's 'Da Vinci Code' or that of James Rollin' 'Map of Bones'-the latter another thought-provoking controversy about the skeletal remains of the Tree Magi. Of course, this is another story.
No doubt, Erap's and Jun's highlighted adventures in our political life could be a blockbuster.
