A Dry Try for Humor

by: Cyla Icban

The name of Atty. Larry Gadon has become popular for his famous tagline “ang mga tao/grupo
ay hindi bobo” which originated when he attended an event in De La Salle University-Dasmarinas. This
line caught the attention of the students, thus making it as a new “challenge” in which order students
across the Philippines adapted.

But this humorous line does not originated from a humorous thing or event but rather from an
insulting line of the Atty. Gadon himself. Before this humorous “hindi bobo challenge” went viral, a
video clip has gone across the internet wherein Gadon called the rallying supporters of ex-Chief Justice
Maria Lourdes Sereno “bobo”. The attorney eve raised his middle finger while mumbling these words
which led supporters of Sereno to file a disbarment case against him.

This “hindi bobo challenge” has made the name of Larry Gadon popular, thus covering up the
controversies he was once involved with. It is heartbreaking to know that just because of a hollow
challenge that went viral, citizens already forgot the offensive statements he uttered like hi threat for
genocide the Muslims just to achieve piece in Mindanao and his insult to people knowing that he is a
professional and professionals should not behave that way.

Despite all of these facts, it’s funny how the crowd “bobo” used by Gadon as an insult to
someone fighting for the rights has become a word used derive humor and be a content update on
social media accounts of clueless netizens.

Yes, it might be okay if we take that as a plain joke, a dry try for humor. But giving an
incompetent man the publicity he does not deserve, knowing what is political intentions are, then it is
not helping anybody aside from the temporary laugh it could provide.

If we only knew where the statement came from, on how it originated as an attack of someone
who has false thinking he is superior to the mass, then we should see that it was directed to the
progressive masses, the people who rallies for basic human rights that the laws of land are given the the
privileges to have but these same law people denies them to have.