A fugitive pastor… warring heads of the country… aggression in the high seas… sexual misconduct issues in show business… and the advent of another exotic disease. If it weren’t for the daily headlines screaming words into your bedazzled eyes, you might think you had gotten tangled up in a never-ending nightmare. Either that, or a Netflix mystery just became your reality.

One would think, coming from a pandemic that had people saying hallelujah to many silver linings, that the world would warm up with a light coming from human kindness rather than global warming.

But no — no such thing seems forthcoming.

Media is agog with all these juicy headlines just waiting to be blared on broadsheets that still see the light of day in these times of so-called digital supremacy. See, even the news has its own challenges to face — always a struggle for survival.

Survival, longevity, continuity. It’s probably the reason why Pastor Apollo Quiboloy’s loyal followers would protect him to the death and let the blame fall on the enforcers of the law. They do not want their pastor, the “Son of God,” arrested on sex crime charges. It’s a standoff for the times.

What else is new? Standoffs, deadlocks, dead ends. It pretty much can be said of many times in our history when former political allies became enemies and a flurry of words get exchanged until the next controversy comes along. Before you know it, these former friends-former enemies are again locked in a dangerous embrace — although, too often, the danger is not to them but to the people they are supposed to serve.

People throw blame and flames of regret, much like the apology that Vice President Sara Duterte recently issued to members of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, saying she should never have “urged” them “to vote for President Bongbong Marcos” back in 2022.

When VP Sara is mad, you know it. A fist hitting a jaw cannot begin to compare with words said with barely contained contempt. Of course, water cannons hitting our brave marines or fingers breaking and ships colliding — these are not realities we want to contend with, but as they say in the movies, “here we are.”

The question uppermost in our minds is likely “how did we let it get to this?”

How in the world did we let one Alice Guo become mayor of a tiny municipality in Pampanga, home of a former president? How did fake credentials get past our eagle-eyed Commission on Elections who can never do wrong?

How in the world did we let Beijing believe it could take our space and our resources without so much as a by-your-leave?

How did we let so many of our so-called politicians talk their way into our head space and give us empty promises that are making our independence and democracy the stuff of situation comedies?

If one were not so cynical, one might scoff at this new allegation surfacing in many a frustrated mind — that these monkeypox cases surfacing and the Quiboloy brouhaha are mere distractions from the real issue, the Alice Guo conundrum, one that the President has promised will be investigated till kingdom come until heads roll.

That is the alternate ending I am looking forward to, if you ask me.