A spitting story

Hung out with my friend Atty. Edre Olalia last weekend, and we saw this exhibition on the supposed 20 Most Important Men (or something like that) in the country today at the Shangri-La in Ortigas.
We were guffawing over how Piolo Pascual was included in the list, but Edre became livid when he saw that Executive Sec. Eduardo Ermita's picture was also there.
Had to exert a measure of force to stop him from spitting at Ermita's visage.I said it was a waste of spit, and also, spit doesn't stick. It would be a different matter if he were to, uh, accidentally throw up all over Ermita's portrait (he had just finished eating California Maki; we could say that that the articifial Kani was spoiled); but spitting isn't effective.
"Edre," I said, "You are not a camel."
"I don't care. He's one of those in charge of the extrajudicial killings campaign of the AFP."
"Tell me something I don't know."
"There's no one looking."
"There's a guard here, somewhere. How embarrassing if you got caught spitting!"
"There's no law against that; that's not a crime. Just let me hawk up a little phlegm..."
He was visibly upset. Understandable how his anger and outrage is easily triggered by something like a mere picture of a government official. As a human rights lawyer, he is inundated day in and day out with cases and reports of atrocities being perpetrated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against civilians and members of the progressive party-lists and people's organizations.
If I were ever sickened and saddened by the killings, imagine how the lawyers of these victims feel. Next to the families themselves of the victims, its the HR groups and their lawyers who are most burdened by the grief and outrage and need to demand justice for the murdered.
Edre works till he is almost blinded by exhaustion, and if spitting at Ermita's picture (or Raul Gonzalez', Norberto Gonzales' or Hermogenes Esperon's for that matter) would take away some of his exhaustion and stress, then maybe I should have let him have a go.
But I didn't. I wished, instead, that I had with me a thick black marker or even a stick of black glitter Krazy Glu. Kaso wala e.
Edre kept circling Ermita's picture like a wolf closing in on its prey, but I stood in front of the picture and pulled him away.
"Isang dura lang, sige na..."
And so on and on until I managed to distract him by pointing to a pretty girl walking up the escalator.