Lucky 13

Numbers have long fascinated humanity. Some consider certain numbers as lucky, others as unlucky. The Bible has much influence on these matters. On the first day God said let there be light, and there was light. And so on and on until God rested on the 7th day. Since then, our days have been framed at 7 days a week and 4 weeks in a month, usually. Number 13 took on a specific malaise because when the Last Supper was celebrated by our Lord Jesus Christ, they were 13 in all in the Upper Room which included the Traitor Judas Iscariot, thus commencing the human paranoia about the number 13 as an unlucky number. Buildings and elevators’ floor numbers have been affected by this mindset, resulting in missing floor numbers on buildings and lighted elevator listings inside the elevator. Thus, number 13 is usually missing in Christian countries. But lately, I have discovered that the number 4 is likewise missing for the same reason of being malas, due to Japanese influence. The recent turmoil in the Senate had not escaped this fascination/allergy towards numbers, such that the May 11 ascension of Senator Alan Peter Schramm Cayetano as Senate President. He has taken the number 11 as the sinister onse in Filipino folklore which has grown to mean being fooled or short-changed in a transaction. Thus the erstwhile Senate Minority of Tito Sotto was painted as a group of malevolent spirits. The magic # 13 evolved from an unfortunate number into the the mythical number that anoints a Senator to be President of his peers. Lo and behold, after 28 days of insisting that 13 has become a magic enabling number, the weight of its misfortune as a number caught up finally with Sen Alan on June 15 when Sen Sherwin won the Senate Presidency.