Out of my mind

Foregone conclusion

2012-01-30T21:09:00.000+08:00

This is my column today.

Many among us try to project this impression that we continue to have an open mind as to whether or not the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is guilty of the crimes for which he has been impeached by the House of Representatives and being tried by the Senate.
There are those who go through the motions of following the proceedings of the impeachment trial purportedly for the purpose of discerning for themselves the real value of the tons of evidence presented thus far, or conversely, ascertaining the real merits of the spirited arguments of the defense panel.

There continue to be many who pretend that they have not made up their minds yet about the guilt or innocence of the Chief Justice—and I am not necessarily talking about Senators Frank Drilon, Francis Pangilinan, or Ralph Recto.

Let us get real, people. Most of us who give a flying fig about the issue have already made up our minds a long time ago. And many of us made the decision based on party affiliation, our degree of affection or dislike for the main protagonists, and other subjective considerations.

The only people who haven’t made up their minds yet are those who just don’t care one way or the other. These are the people who cannot and do not see how the impeachment of the chief magistrate will affect their lives or improve their lot, those who tend to see the whole thing as a very costly exercise with dubious practical value, or those who are disenchanted with the way the stink of politics tend to dirty everything else in this country.

Please spare me the lecture about how the impeachment process is the bedrock of democracy and how everyone should be presumed innocent unless proven guilty or at least allowed to defend himself against his accusers.

Please stop telling me that the whole process is designed to ensure fairness and to usher out justice. We all know that the impeachment trial is not about fairness or justice regardless of the number of times these words are invoked like an all-encompassing mantra by the senator-judges and the members of the prosecution and defense panels.

Impeachment is a political exercise. And sadly, the level of political maturity in this country is not something we can crow about. We’re still electing clowns and their wives to public office. We’re still relying on sheer charisma and political machinery to propel people into office. We’re still mistaking looks, eloquence and pedigree for competence. And worse, we still continue to strengthen political patronage and use political largesse to buy affections, affiliations, and yes, votes.

The prosecution panel wants to convey the impression that it wants to try the Chief Justice based on the rules of impeachment. What balderdash! Any person with eyes, ears, and half a functioning brain can see what the prosecution is up to. It just wants to overwhelm everyone with accusations. It is not interested in building a tight case—it wants to instigate a mob and force a decision based on outrage and emotions.

The defense wants to convey the impression that it is scoring points during the impeachment hearing because its lawyers are able to outwit, out-argue, out-maneuver the prosecution. They can score points inside the hall, but I doubt very much if they can claim that they are winning the public relations battle.

The bright boys at Malacañan Palace has been trying to pretend that they are leaving Chief Justice Renato Corona’s fate up to the senator justices. What hogwash! The government has marshaled the resources of the whole bureaucracy in support of the impeachment. Is there anyone in this country who believes the Bureau of Internal Revenue came up with the kind of information they were able to present to the impeachment court in a matter of days with just one person working on it?

And let’s all face it. No less that the President of the Republic of the Philippines has been strongly championing Corona’s impeachment. Benigno Simeon Aquino III has not made secret his overwhelming and consuming passion to oust Corona from the Supreme Court. In fact, if we are to interpret the President’s pronouncements on the issue sans the diplomacy that a head of state is supposed to observe, it would be this: I don’t care what it takes or how you do it, just get that son of a b*tch out of there as soon as possible, preferably right this very minute.

In fairness to some of the senator judges, in particular, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, there are efforts to imbue the proceedings with as much integrity and fairness as possible. But then again, we all know how politicians in this country conduct themselves when push comes to shove. Lest we forget, 2013 is an election year and half of the people sitting as senator judges are running for re-election. They cannot afford to waste political capital.

So must of us watch the impeachment trial for our own reasons. There are those who watch it for entertainment, like it’s the biggest and most spectacular soap opera ever produced. And if we come to think about it, the costs associated with this trial are staggering. For example, the legislation has virtually come to a halt with the trial. Lawyers and law students watch it mainly for its educational content, like it’s a law school on air where Justice Serafin Cuevas is professor and people like Niel Tupas are, well, the clueless students.

But seriously guys, who are we kidding? The end result of this impeachment trial is already a foregone conclusion. What we are seeing are valiant efforts to just prove a point or two.

Mamma Mia!

2012-01-24T22:30:00.004+08:00

This was my column last Monday. I was sick yesterday; thus, the late post.

Some of my friends who have bought tickets to the local run

of the touring production of the Broadway hit musical Mamma Mia are apprehensive.
There is the possibility that the curtains at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, where Mamma Mia is scheduled to run starting tomorrow, will not go up if the local association of Filipino singers, the Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit makes good its threat to secure an injunction or a temporary restraining order against the local promoters of the show for allegedly not paying equity clearance.
In fact, Elmar Beltran Ingles, Executive Director of OPM has issued a more ominous threat: OPM President singer Ogie Alcasid plans to bring up the matter directly with the President of the Republic of the Philippines himself, Benigno Simeon Aquino III. Oh, President Aquino is bound to listen regardless of how busy his schedule is or how preoccupied he is with impeaching the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Alcasid and his wife, popular singer Regine Velasquez not only campaigned heavily for Aquino in the 2010 elections, the couple wrote and performed the song that launched off Aquino’s campaign.
And Kris Aquino, who by the way, may not be a member of the OPM, but is a certified gold record recipient many times over for her “inspirational albums”—where she wears her heart on her sleeve and regurgitates what she passes off as profound words of wisdom—could always intervene and ensure that Alcasid and OPM members would get the justice they think they deserve.
Foreign artists who perform in the Philippines including back-up singers and dancers are required to pay “equity” to the local associations. This set-up is observed in most countries because, theoretically, local artists are displaced and lose opportunities to make a living every single time a foreign artists goes up a stage to perform. Filipino artists who are not members of, say the unions in the United States, are also required to pay equity every time they perform on Broadway. There was a major controversy when Lea Salonga and Jonathan Price reprised their roles in Miss Saigon on Broadway precisely because of equity issues.
The local promoters of Mamma Mia insisted that they have already secured a special permit from the Bureau of Immigration for the performers. Ingles refuted the assertion. The amount OPM imposes on foreign artists is quite steep—P5,000 per performer per show. For a production such as Mamma Mia that runs for four weeks and which has a cast of dozens, the equity clearance fee is nothing to sneer at. What makes the issue a little more intriguing though is the fact that OPM supposedly required the Mamma Mia production to pay double because “December to February is peak season for local shows.” This makes the whole thing seem like a case of extortion and bullying.
But first of all, why is the OPM the one collecting equity clearance fees on the actors of Mamma Mia? Shouldn’t it be the theater artists group that should be collecting and benefitting from the fees?
And someone please tell me OPM did not really say they use the money they collect from equity fees to pay for the “medical fees and other emergency expenses of singer members.” They make it sound like mendicancy, or worse, a mafia-like arrangement.
I am a zealous supporter of Filipino artists and local productions. I make it a point to watch most, if not all local musical and stage productions because I think Filipino artists are among the best in the world and deserve every support they can get.
However, I am against extortion under the guise of protectionism. Protectionism in the arts is already in itself a highly debatable concept particularly at a time when local artists are already making a name for themselves globally. For crying out loud, how do we expect to raise the standards of performing arts in this country and that of our artists if we isolate ourselves from the global artistic community?
And then there’s the matter of costs being passed on to the audience! OPM gets a fat check, but at whose expense? No wonder ticket prices to foreign acts are prohibitive in this country! Do you know how much good seats in Mamma Mia cost? They are beyond the reach of ordinary people in this country.
Please spare me the sob story about how local artists and local productions are forced to hobble along begging for sponsorships and practically doing cartwheels to get an audience for their shows. I know the drill. But OPM, Alcasid and company can use their influence to compel the government to give arts the necessary support. There’s a long list of woes and grievances that local artists know by heart—they basically subsist on, as a local director impudently quipped, Skyflakes and catfood. But how exactly does extorting from foreign acts help their cause in the long run?
If we are serious about raising the standards of local productions and helping local artists, we need to help ourselves and start the process from within.
The truth is that the music industry is dying because of a confluence of factors, but the local artists cannot wash their hands of their involvement in the slow death of the industry. Given the kind of collective output the industry has produced in the last two decades, what the heck are they expecting? Most of the stuff we have been hearing in the last decade are covers of music written by foreign artists. And we are already scraping the bottom of the list of hits from the seventies and eighties. At the rate we are going, it’s just a matter of time before American country music also get repackaged to suit local taste.
We can fight for our rights, but we need not be opportunists and extortionists in the process. Mamma mia, talaga!

Rant

2012-01-21T21:54:00.002+08:00

It took me more than an hour to get to my house from the main street about two blocks away. I had to go around and around like in a maze.

The reason? It's bisperas of the feast of the Holy Family, which is the fiesta of the whole San Andres Bukid area. And this means people take it upon themselves to erect platforms, stages, and play areas all over in the process blocking streets and pathways. I don't really mind if only the various groups or barangay chairmen coordinate with each other to ensure that people can still come in and out of the area without too much hassle.

Our house is virtually inaccessible at this point by transportation as all streets leading to it has been blocked. Behind our house there is a Miss Gay contest being staged. Two blocks away to the left is a singing contest. There's a disco at the street to our right. And our neighbors have also set up their own barbecue parties outside on the streets complete with karaokes blaring at full volume.

Sigh.

Side issues

2012-01-18T13:52:00.000+08:00

This is my column today.

If we are to believe the prosecution team, the issue is neither Chief Justice Renato Corona nor the Supreme Court. It is, as Niel Tupas whined publicly, about making officials of this land accountable to the solemn oath that they made when they assumed office. And yet, he heaped scorn at the man —who is not the issue at hand—and addressed him in the first person during his opening remarks.
If we are to believe the defense team, the issue at hand is not anymore Chief Justice Renato Corona but the independence of the Supreme Court and the judiciary as a co-equal branch of government. And yet, the defense took pains defending the supposed honor and integrity of Corona, the same man who is supposedly no longer the issue at hand. The rally that was staged Monday morning at the Supreme Court was not also about the Supreme Court or about Justice per se, but about Corona.
The networks also chose to focus their cameras on Corona so that a small window bearing the somber face of the Chief Justice was on camera the whole time the trial was ongoing and being televised.
Both spokespersons spent considerable time in their opening remarks last Monday addressing what the impeachment trial is not supposed to be about. Most of the main characters in the impeachment trial—with the exception of the senators who so far have succeeded in resisting efforts to grab the limelight—have also been spending time addressing these so-called side issues prior to the start of the impeachment. Corona himself delivered a scathing speech at the steps of the Supreme Court Monday morning answering the allegations directed at him, most of which he said were non-issues.
We should cut the bullsh*t and acknowledge the elephant in the room – this very costly exercise is about one man – and his name is Renato Corona.
It gets more complicated. Just as Corona was concluding his speech, the prosecution team’s own press conference started at the Senate. The members took turns lambasting Corona for answering the allegations they themselves fed to the media. This game of tag and one-upmanship will be a continuing source of amusement and befuddlement in the next few weeks. It’s a game where the first party commits a violation of the rules and when imitated by the second party the first partly readily accuses the second party of violating the rules. If you are confused, don’t fret. So is everyone else. And it’s intentional; this is, after all, the way legislators and lawyers make money in this country.
This running around in circles is exasperating. But this is the stuff that will make the impeachment trial interesting to many. It’s the verbal scuffle, the efforts to outwit and outmaneuver, the bombs, the surprise tricks and sleight of hand that many will look forward to. To get to the heart of the issues, we will all have to suffer a lot of fools and dig through a lot of crap.
And whether we like it or not, we will have to deal with very many supposed non-issues that are central to the issues at hand. Actually, I predict that the debate over what issues are central and which are not will become more and more contentious.
For example, Hacienda Luisita. For the longest time, the matter of the Supreme Court decision to redistribute Hacienda Luisita to farmers was whispered about as the real impetus for the President’s zealousness to impeach the Chief Justice. Well, Hacienda Luisita has finally been acknowledged as a side issue in the impeachment trial. Corona himself brought it up Monday morning at the rally. He said that the government wants him impeached because he is a major hindrance to the desire of the President’s family to retain ownership of the Hacienda. Given that the Supreme Court decision to redistribute the hacienda was unanimous, why the Cojuancos would vent their anger on Corona alone is a question that has not been answered in a satisfactory way.
But it is quite telling that the issue is already out in the open. The President’s loquacious youngest sister herself seemed to have acknowledged the Aquino family’s stake in the impeachment trial. In a television show, she was asked the rather frivolous question: If she were made to choose one, who among Former First Lady Imelda Marcos, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago would she choose to invite for dinner? She picked Senator Santiago because, and I quote verbatim: “We need her vote in the impeachment.” Since she is not a government official, nor has she packaged herself as part of the civil society movement, the use of the second person pronoun has been largely interpreted to refer to her family, or to be more specific, her family’s business interests.
The allegations that the Coronas have amassed wealth and the story about the mismanagement of the World Bank grant are side issues that are obviously propagandist in nature. Corona has only been Chief Justice for less than two years and most of the disputed pieces of property that Corona is supposed to own were supposedly acquired prior to 2010. The World Bank project has been there in the last decade. Both were not even included in the complaint transmitted to the Senate. The inordinate attention to the list is intriguing given the fact that based on independent verification, it includes original titles of previous owners, parking spaces, and properties owned by children of Corona.
An important side issue is the need to ensure that this particular impeachment trial does not repeat the mistakes and the consequent premature termination of the Estrada impeachment trial. A lot of efforts have been made to recall the controversial and contentious components of the Estrada trial, which has enabled Estrada to once again register his vigorous protestations and to submit his sanitized version of history.
And as the impeachment trial got under way last Monday, many noted just how this latest national soap opera is threatening to divide the nation once again. This particular comment struck me because it validated the observation that the supposed invincibility of President Benigno Simeon Aquino is showing signs of weaknesses. As proof, supporters of Corona dared to stage a rally and even came up with protest slogans complete with an effigy of Aquino. All these would have been unthinkable a few months ago given the supposed popularity of the administration.
And because we are in the Philippines where the primetime newscast has to include features on the lives of celebrities and on fashion, we have to note that an important sideshow to the impeachment trial was the color of the robes that the senators wore at the start of the impeachment trial. They wore maroon robes. The robes were a different set compared to what they wore when they took their oath as judges last December. They didn’t look like Santa Clauses anymore, but the resemblance to the Black Nazarene was uncanny. Fortunately, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago was absent due to sickness. Santiago would have pointed out that maroon is not exactly the same as Cambridge red, reportedly the color of choice of the senators.

Faith and love

2012-01-16T21:28:00.002+08:00

This is my column today.

Perhaps people are saving up for Mamma Mia, or are still

recovering from the mind-numbing fare that was the 2011 Metro Manila Filmfest, or probably bracing for the grandest of all soap operas that is the impeachment trial of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court that will be unveiled today at the Senate (and which I refuse to write about today on account of the bandwagon effect).

Whatever the reason, Next Fall, Repertory Philippines’ season opener began its run last Friday at Onstage in Greenbelt 1 in Makati to a seemingly slow start; there were less than a hundred people in the audience when my friends and I caught it over the weekend.

The lack of interest in the play is surprising. Next Fall was a smash hit off and on Broadway. Moreover, plays —and movies - that tackle relationships between gay men usually have a ready audience in this country. But then again, Next Fall is not really a gay play. It’s a meditation on faith and the dynamics that make love and relationships complicated. There’s also no nudity in the play, which sadly, seems to be an important ingredient for box office success in this country. But the play just opened over the weekend and will run until February 5. Hopefully, word of mouth about the play will bring in more people in the audience. Word of mouth is important, as media’s attention will probably be elsewhere in the next few weeks.

Next Fall is particularly relevant in the local context where faith and sexual identity are overarching issues that often get in the way of the pursuit of the proverbial life, liberty and happiness among sexually marginalized people.

Written by Geoffrey Nauffts and produced on Broadway by the likes of Elton John, the play takes place in a hospital waiting room where the main characters gather while the sixth character—Luke (David Bianco)—is in coma after being hit by a runaway cab. There’s Adam (Bart Guingona), Luke’s seemingly neurotic lover of four years. There’s Brandon (Niccolo Manahan), Luke’s mysterious best friend. There’s Holly (Liesl Batucan), the fag hag woman friend. And then Luke’s divorced parents: Butch (Miguel Faustmann), the take-charge father who barrels into the scene with characteristic fire and brimstone homily-inducing intolerance and Arlene (Juno Henares), the absentee mother who prattles endlessly about the most mundane stuff.

In between the hospital waiting room scenes are flashbacks told in non-linear fashion that try to thread Adam and Luke’s life together and trace the religious conflict that serves as the main issue of contention in the play.

Luke is a fundamentalist Christian who, on surface, seems to be comfortable with his sexuality but is later revealed to be deeply conflicted (he prays after they have sex). Adam is an atheist who is a potent bundle of contradictions – neurotic, confused, emotionally needy. The differences start out like romantic situational comedy sketches that escalate into major rows that are made to appear like earth-shattering moral dilemmas.

It’s not the local production’s fault, but the play is hobbled by the material itself. Sadly, the conflict is not really threshed out in profound and satisfying ways. In fact, all the verbal skirmishes come out hallow, as both characters aren’t seen as truthful champions of the religious-secular debate. The scenes are funny, interesting, absorbing; but in the end, are not really particularly instructive. The extent of Luke’s faith is manifested in the fact that he prays before meals. Adam’s lack of faith seems pretentious in view of all that emotional hara-kiri. The discourses on religion and faith don’t really go anywhere other than provide fodder for emotional highs and lows.

Luke’s inability to come out to his parents and the consequent comedy of errors are thrown in as added wrinkle to the plot but the complication has been done many times over far more successfully in plays like The Caged Birds, or even Torch Song Trilogy.

But make no mistake about this: Next Fall is definitely worth watching. The play raises important questions about intolerance, relationships, and yes, faith. It’s funny, ingenious, and in the end, totally heartbreaking.

The local production is directed by Audie Gemora, himself a fundamentalist Christian. We watched the play on its second run when the production was presumably still a work in progress. The set design was imaginative and adequately fluid but the scene transitions seemed to take longer than necessary. There was a problem with the sound halfway through the play and the static seemed as intolerable as Faustmann’s character. But the direction was competent and overall, the production was commendable.

As usual, the acting was worth the price of admission. One wishes that there was more chemistry between Guingona and Bianco, and the two actors need to work on being more sensitive to each other (when they kiss, it looked like they were just going through the motions). Bianco is a delight to watch as he lends the character with warmth, lightheartedness, and just the right tinge of insecurity. Guingona comes across as intense and conflicted. Manahan’s character is sadly not fully threshed out but he infuses it with touches of humanity; we could relate with his character even we’re logically supposed to be repulsed by it. Henares and Batucan succeed in bringing their seemingly “token” and “stereotypical” characters to life. Faustmann, however, steals the whole play and runs away with the most memorable scene in it.

At its very core, Next Fall is a love story with a premise that is as old as time, that of two ill-crossed lovers struggling with the fallout from seemingly irreconcilable differences. The more perceptive viewer will however walk out of the theatre with a life-affirming realization: In the end, all the philosophical swashbuckling about faith, religion, intolerance, and the many things that divide us are but mere distractions to what truly matters. It’s a sad but haunting reminder that life is best lived in the present because next fall might not come to pass.

Finally!

2012-01-13T20:29:00.003+08:00

Yey!

I finally finished updating this blog. All the columns I wrote between May 2010 and December 2011 (the period when this blog was in hibernation) have already been uploaded in this blog. It took me two weeks to do it, but I finally got it done.

Today is Friday the 13th. I don't really believe in that kind of superstition; besides, today was actually a light day at work, which was unusual for a Friday. My officemates and I descended on Sakae Sushi restaurant in MOA for lunch. I was expecting to have a grand time because I love sushi... but sadly, the experience was not something to rave about. Most of the sushi were 90% rice - and the rice was not even of good quality. Am not going back there.

Anyway, just wanted to sign in.

In the name of devotion

2012-01-11T23:19:00.000+08:00

This is my column today.

The feast of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo is one of the very few religious events in this country that gets prominent attention both from media and the general public. It is easy to understand why. It’s an event that draws millions of devotees— mostly male—although the number of women devotees has been increasing through the years.

The devotion has also started to attract the younger generation although there is heated discussion on what exactly is the motivation behind the resurgence of piety among the “younger devotees .” There is reason to believe that the bandwagon effect is the culprit; there’s a ton of anecdotal testimonies that illustrate how joining the devotion is a life-changing and affirming experience.

Many, however, insist most of the groups of young people who have latched on to the tradition do so mainly out of a misplaced sense of self-actualization, believing that hurdling the Black Nazarene procession gauntlet gives them a sense of invincibility; in addition to bragging rights, of course. Last Monday, I personally noted the presence of too many groups of adolescent devotees who created human chains that snaked in and out the route of the procession. But even more astonishing, it’s one of those events that precariously teeters on the edge of total catastrophe and yet, miraculously, does not. The Black Nazarene procession is one of those events that strengthen the power of faith. As Benjamin Franklin once said, the way to see faith is to shut the eye of reason.

This year’s procession, which started Monday morning and culminated early Tuesday morning (the carriage broke down several times, lost all of its wheels, and got stalled on Echague Street for almost four hours as devotees and church authorities debated over the final route of the procession), received further scrutiny on account of alleged terrorist threats, which thankfully, did not come to pass. The kind of mayhem that would have been produced by a terrorist attack on an event that is already chaotic is unthinkable.

People who have not experienced how it is to be swept or borne aloft a heaving mass of devotees in the throes of religious passion will never understand the Black Nazarene phenomenon. As newly installed Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle said, the devotion to the Black Nazarene is something incomprehensible to outsiders. There’s a whole system of meaning around the devotion that is shared only be devotees ranging from practices, norms, beliefs, and yes, superstitions.

I used to view the religious event with amused curiosity bordering on the sardonic until two years ago when I accompanied a brother who personally wanted to bring the case of his terminally ill wife to the attention of the Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno.

My brother, driven by desperation, threw caution to the wind and plunged into the sea of devotees all jostling for the privilege of being able to hold the twin ropes that pull the carriage of the Black Nazarene forward, inch by painstaking inch. He wasn’t successful; but if it’s any consolation, at least he didn’t suffer major injuries in the process. We learned later that there is a method to the madness; one does not simply plunge into the wrestling pit without the benefit of years of preparation or at least advice from veteran devotees. There is method to surviving the “agos” or current, “indayog” or movement of the crowd, and even the correct way of grasping the ropes and positioning one’s head and hands while clutching it.

Last Monday was the third year that I joined the procession although I still haven’t been able to summon the courage—or set aside mental functioning - to actually join the maddening crowd that jostle each other for the chance to kiss the image or pull the ark. I stay at the fringes, or at least walk a few paces behind the ark. But I can say that I have learned to get in step with the cadence and the natural rhythm of the crowd. I don’t get terrified anymore of being crushed because I have learned how to “surrender” to the mob.

The Black Nazarene procession brings to the fore many contradictions that are sadly representative of the state of things in this country.

It’s a religious event, one overflowing with raw passion and fervor. Millions of people risk life and limb just to be able to fulfill their annual devotion. And yet, the fiesta atmosphere is palpable. Because the procession coincides with the fiesta of Quiapo district, there’s a lot of bingeing that coincides with the religious celebration. One can see people imbibing alcohol, or holding singing or dancing contests along the route of the procession. They do stop once the procession is nearby, light candles, wave white handkerchiefs and join the chanting of “viva!, viva!” How many of us are able to balance the seeming irreconcilable paradox is truly a source of wonder.

The procession is best described as ordered chaos. It’s pure anarchy that operates as devotees push and elbow each other. And yet, there is and underlying system to it. All that a person has to do to get rescued from the middle of the mess is to raise his arms and people will reach out to pull him out of there. It’s every man to himself as devotees try to outsmart, outmaneuver, and overpower others. However, it is also there that one witnesses extreme acts of kindness and humanity. Last Monday, I personally witnessed how people rushed to the aid of a man who collapsed in the middle of the crowd. I saw how everyone automatically made space for the person, fanned the person with their shirts and bags, splashed water on him, etc. I saw how an old woman rushed to apply ointments on a fallen devotee. No one loses his or her temper even the midst of extreme provocation; in fact, everyone addresses each other as kapatid (brother).

The whole mayhem is created by the need of many people to clamber up the carriage to kiss the cross or the image itself during the actual procession (the image is made available two days for people to kiss it, for crying out loud) and to be able to hold the twin ropes of the carriage. The act of piety should be admirable. People go to great lengths and expose themselves to great harm just to be able to show reverence for the image. And yet, many actually end up defiling and disrespecting the very image they venerate. People often end up swinging from the cross, or destroying the clothes of the image, or splashing mud, water and other dirty stuff on the image. Actually, one can only see a very limited part of the image during the procession as it is usually protected by dozens of people who surround it.

Yes, there must be a better way to do it and the organizers of the procession do try to make things better every year. But how do you discourage devotion when the whole system is designed to nurture it? How do you tame a beast of your own creation? How does one manage a throng of devotees that has turned into a mob? The whole procession was actually hijacked by mobs that used force to get their way. They refused to have the image transferred to a firetruck, refused to shorten the route, and made sure that they got what they wanted. At a certain point, the authorities just let the mob be. Am not sure this is how we want things to be in this country, but do our leaders know it?

It's funnier in the Philippines

2012-01-09T15:15:00.003+08:00

This is my column today.

The Department of Tourism unveiled the

country’s new tourism slogan “It’s more fun in the Philippines” last week.
It’s a powerful commentary of the state of things in this country that the slogan turned controversial within a matter of hours. Someone was immediately able to unearth a photo of a 1951 ad from Switzerland, which used the same “it’s more fun in” tagline. A number of people found creative ways to derogate or reduce the slogan to a joke. Everyone weighed in with his or her own take on the slogan, whether for or against.
And just like that, we turned what could have been an occasion for drumbeating into a free-for-all melee.
What can I say; it’s truly more fun in this country.
We are able to complicate the simplest of issues. Thanks to the management skills of our leaders, we are able to turn what should have been a well thought out and straightforward proposition into a national debate.
Let me state for the record that I actually like the slogan. I like the way it comes across as a mere statement of fact. It’s not a slogan that is meant to conjure images of breathtaking vistas and jaw dropping extravaganzas. It’s not a slogan that ends in exclamation marks; in fact, it is a slogan that seems to end with an ellipsis. I like the fact that the slogan describes the experience rather than the product; and consequently, the challenge it poses to every Filipino to contribute to making that experience happen for every tourist that comes to this country. It’s a slogan we can all relate to because it is the truth.
So yes, I can see how such a slogan can boost tourism in this country. It can work.
Having said that, I would like to express my dismay at the poorly conceptualized and badly mismanaged launch of the slogan.
Given the flak Pilipinas kay Ganda (the tourism slogan proposed last year) received because of accusations of plagiarism, I think it is reasonable to expect that the Tourism Department and the advertising agency would move heaven and earth to check if the phrase “It’s more fun in the…” had already been used as a tourism slogan by another country.
Secretary Jimenez is correct, just because it had been used previously by another country doesn’t mean we cannot use it anymore. But for crying out loud, being caught flatfooted and having a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look in the eyes when confronted with the information that Switzerland beat us to the slogan by sixty years is definitely not encouraging. What, no one has heard of Google?
The way I see it, they could have been ready with a more cogent explanation or justification the moment someone confronted them with allegations of being copycats or plagiarists. They could have acknowledged that Switzerland produced a poster with the slogan in 1951, but that the Philippine slogan was not really a copycat since it is packaged differently and the slogan actually arose out of a series of discussions rather than just being lifted from some vintage poster. A little honesty and a carefully and proactively crafted disclosure would have averted the whole fracas and saved everybody from hyperventilating unnecessarily.
My second issue with the slogan is that the timing of the launch sucks!
A slogan that says “It’s more fun in the Philippines” sounds callous at a time when many of our fellow Filipinos are still reeling from the series of tragedies that struck barely a few weeks ago. Thousands of people in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, Dumaguete, Leyte, and Compostela Valley are still picking up the fragments of their lives from the flooding and landslides that cost them lives, homes, and their livelihoods. International donors are still trying to marshal resources to send to the Philippines and we choose the time to proclaim to all and sundry that it’s more fun in the Philippines? Oh yes, I also heard the famous lecture of the Presidential sister about how we should all move on with our lives after tragedies. But surely we are allowed time to grieve first and not expected to party immediately?
We could have delayed the launch of the slogan for a few more weeks. We could have used the time to pilot the slogan and gather better empirical data to buttress the proposition that such a slogan can work. Secretary Jimenez insisted that the slogan is meant for foreigners. Where is the data that says the slogan strikes a chord with foreigners?
A number of people continue to insist that Wow Philippines was a much better slogan. The reality is that a lot of work was poured into the conceptualization, design, and launch of Wow Philippines. The current administration justified the change by presenting statistics saying that the number of visitors to the country has not picked up – as if a slogan alone would do that. In case this administration has forgotten, a busload of tourists experienced an unfortunate incident at the Quirino Grandstand during its watch.
So once again, we have to make do with something because, well, it is already there. We are being asked to dig deep into our reservoir of patience and citizenship and support something because what can we do, it’s our country and this is our government.
The really good thing is that yes, we are a people very capable of seeing the fun side of any situation.
I’ve seen many variations of the slogan, some bordering on sarcasm and the not-so-funny. There’s that picture of a man singing his lungs out with the slogan “Death by ‘My Way.’ It’s more fun in the Philippines.” There’s that picture of a boy peeing against a wall on a sidewalk: “Watering the plants. It’s more fun in the Philippines.” There’s a picture of a dish of vegetables with a dead caterpillar on it “Fresh vegetables. It’s more fun in the Philippines.” It’s just a matter of time before someone comes up with pictures of tragedies. I hope no one comes up with pictures of the people who posed for photos at the Quirino Grandstand after that tragedy. I hope no one comes up with pictures of hungry children, overflowing canals, people picking through garbage for food, etc.
But yes, it’s more fun in the Philippines. When given a situation that we can’t make sense of, we just turn into a joke. We make do with what we are given to work with, even when it lacks substance. We poke fun at anything and anyone.
At the rate people are turning the slogan into a joke, we might as well qualify it some more: It’s funnier in the Philippines.
N.B.
I chanced upon the photos used in this post in Facebook - my apologies to the owner of these photos.

Piety

2012-01-07T23:40:00.004+08:00

I went to Quiapo today. I usually attend the Saturday anticipatory mass in our parish but since I was cooped up in the house the whole day trying to finish some artwork that I promised some friends, I thought I would drive all the way to Quiapo to bask in the purity of the devotion to the Black Nazarene that many people display. I caught the 6:30 pm mass; it was perfect time since the procession of Black Nazarene replicas was winding up.

The piety that devotees during the annual Black Nazarene procession has always struck me emotionally. You just have to be there to appreciate it.

It's... raw passion and emotion. The whole thing is like a dance that's always teetering at the brink of complete and total mayhem; but it never does. Somehow, there is method to the madness. There is poetry in the chaos.

Sadly, this year's feast falls on a Monday. I would have gone on leave to be able to join the procession, but I have lots of important meetings. But I am hoping my meetings would end early and that I would still be able to catch the procession as it winds down towards the church. This would probably be around 10:00 pm.

Wish me luck.

And no, I don't really have plans of being able to hold the rope that pulls the image of the Black Nazarene through the sea of people; nor do I have intentions of scampering up the float to be able to touch the image.

#It's more fun in the Philippines

2012-01-06T23:53:00.008+08:00

The Department of Tourism announced today the country's new tourism slogan: It's more fun in the Philippines.

It immediately became a top trending topic in tweeter.

As usual, there was mixed reaction to the new slogan. Some attacked it

ferociously. Others thought the new

slogan was simple but more meaningful.

Someone very resourceful was immediately able to unearth a factoid the Tourism guys seemed to have been blissfully unaware of - another country has already used the slogan (Switzerland was first to use the slogan in the sixties). Really, how difficult is it to google a slogan to see if it had already been used by another country? And given what happened to the ill-fated "Pilipinas Kay Gandah" slogan, one would have thought that the DOT guys would be very, very careful this time around.

Anyway. We have been told the slogan is already THE ONE; it's not going to be subject to change anymore unless someone already has the copyright to it. Paninindigan na daw. Okay.

What do I think about it?

I agree that it's simple and brings home the message in an uncluttered way. It's value proposition is clear: Fun.

The problem is that given what is happening in the country today - we've been visited by natural calamities that have become more and more destructive - the possibilities of having the slogan subject to derogation is quite high. Really we don't want to be known as the country with a perverted or morbid sense of what fun is or should be.

But then again, a slogan is just one among many factors that make a campaign successful. The slogan can work depending on the kind of efforts and resources poured into fulfilling the promise being made by the slogan.

A showcase of inanity

2012-01-04T21:36:00.001+08:00

This is my column today at the op-ed section of the Manila Standard Today.

Still ongoing until the weekend is the Metro Manila Film Festival, which features seven movies as official entries. The MMFF is an annual Christmas tradition in this country and sadly, also an annual showcase of inanity and vacuity.

This year, the combined antics of Enteng Kabisote and Ina Montecillo proved formidable. Enteng Ka Ng Ina Mo emerged as the most watched movie of the filmfest. The film reportedly grossed almost P40 million on opening day, galloping way ahead of its closest competition—Senator Bong Revilla’s Ang Panday 2 and Kris Aquino’s Segunda Mano.

Enteng Kabisote is Vic Sotto’s character from a defunct television situational comedy from the eighties entitled Okay Ka, Fairy Ko. Sotto has been rehashing the same tired and trite comedy routines for almost three decades now. Ina Montecillo is Aiai de las Alas’s character from the Tanging Ina franchise, which produced three successful MMFF movies including that one last year which they promised would be the last of the series (obviously they lied). That the two movies had always been top grossers of the annual MMFF is testament to just how successfully Filipino audiences have been made dumb by movie producers.

The excuse that is being peddled out there is that these movies are made for children—which makes it even worse because it means we really have a very low regard for the intellectual capabilities or potentials of our young since we feed them this kind of drivel. I honestly think the MMFF is a good idea that deserves to be scrapped already. It has become nothing but an opportunity for some people in the local film industry to make money. It has become an exercise in extreme commercialism. In the larger scheme of things, I don’t think the annual MMFF does the cause of Philippine cinema any good. It’s not a showcase of the best in Philippine cinema. Heck, it’s not even a showcase of good filmmaking, period.

What is even more sinister is the fact that the MMFF is obviously being used for political purposes. Two of the most expensive movies in this year’s MMFF are bankrolled and starred in by politicians who are up for re-election (Bong Revilla, senator) or eyeing a national post (Jeorge Ejercito, Laguna governor) in the 2013 elections.

As an avid supporter of the arts, I make it a point to support the annual MMFF by watching as many movies as I could. This year, the lines were particularly long so we failed to watch a movie on Christmas day. But I did get to eventually watch Enteng Ka Ng Ina Mo, Ang Panday 2, and My Househusband. I wished I stayed home instead or did something more productive.

Friends have continuously discouraged me from patronizing the MMFF but I have persisted because of faith – I’ve always believed that Filipino filmmakers are among the best in the world and that they would eventually get their acts together. Well, not this year.

Let’s take Enteng Ka Ng Ina Mo, the top grosser. Because it is a crossover movie, it had the backing of the combined forces of Star Cinema, M-Zet, APT, and Octo Arts Production. The combined resources could have produced a movie in the league of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But all that combined experience and expertise in producing movies could not even guarantee a solid story and a good editor. We’re not even looking for a sensible storyline, one that was logical and sufficiently coherent would have been acceptable. And the editing was so bad even children noticed the gaps.

But then again, anyone looking for cerebral stimulation from the movies of Vic Sotto and Aiai de las Alas probably need more psychiatric help than those who patronize them. Enteng is a TV sitcom showing in a theater, period. It’s a hodgepodge of typical television fare: spoofs of popular Filipino movies, irreverent jokes, sexual innuendoes, slapstick comedy, and awful singing that is being passed off as comedy. In this movie, Sotto continued to act like he was an adolescent, de las Alas acted up a storm, and Eugene Domingo saved the movie by stealing some of the scenes effortlessly. The movie tried to be socially relevant by throwing into the mélange current day issues of gender roles, homosexuality, and changing family values and norms but the writers fail to make it work.

So why was it the top grosser of the filmfest? Because the movie had no pretensions – it just offered people some good laugh and two hours of escapist entertainment. And in this aspect, the movie delivered. I hope, however, that mergers and crossovers will not be a trend. I dread the thought of having Asiong Ka Ng Ina Mo, or Panday Ka Ng Ina Mo next year.

Ang Panday 2, unfortunately, had grand aspirations. The producers went to town proclaiming that this was a movie at par with global filmmaking wizardry. There were some great special effects, but cutting edge they were not. And sadly, the director seemed to have forgotten that there’s a limit to how much special effects the senses could take at any given time.

My main problem with the movie, though, was the fact that it tried to clobber people on the head with its ponderous message about peace and justice. And they were not subtle about it—the repetitive discourse was annoying and too self-serving, Revilla looked like he was preaching from a pulpit. This movie was pure election propaganda material.

The truly ironic thing is that Ang Panday 2 stars a senator who is supposed to be passionate about reviving the lost glory of the Philippine movie industry. Memo to Senator Bong Revilla: If you keep making these kinds of films and in this manner, it’s not going to happen.

The most disappointing of the three MMFF movies I watched, however, was My Househusband, Ikaw Na. This was actually the only movie I truly wanted to watch for personal enjoyment. The others I felt I had to watch out of a sense of duty or responsibility, or as research work for this column. But I sincerely wanted to watch real-life couple Ryan Agoncillo and Judy Ann Santos in the third installment of their own filmfest franchise. I particularly enjoyed their first two movies—Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo and Sakal, Sakali, Saklolo.

KKK and SSS were loads of fun. They weren’t cinematic masterpieces, but they were a rollicking fun to watch. Agoncillo was endearing, Santos’s comic skills were spot on. The idiosyncracies of their respective parents—the snotty Gloria Diaz and Ariel Ureta and the social climbing Gina Pareñno and the philandering Soliman Cruz were a riot. We had great expectations of My Househusband.

Sadly, I found it boring, pretentious and confused. It seemed they couldn’t make up their mind as to whether they were doing comedy or drama. The movie did win Gender Sensitive Award, which was well-deserved because the premise of the movie was commendable. Unfortunately, the change in the formula didn’t fly. The only time the movie became interesting was whenever Eugene Domingo was on screen.

The MMFF should have had a notice set up outside each theater: There are no assurances that the movie you are about to watch is sensible or logical. Check your mental faculties at the door.

Portents

2012-01-02T20:33:00.000+08:00

This is my column today at the op-ed section of the Manila Standard Today.

I woke up at dawn on Tuesday last week to frantic text messages from my hometown of Abuyog, deep in the heart of Leyte.

The messages were from various kith and kin—each one of them expressing increasing levels of alarm over the rising floodwaters in my hometown.

My younger sister’s text messages were particularly distressing. She said our parents were stranded in our ancestral home—a split-level house in the middle of ricefields and they didn’t have a way to rescue them. My mother was able to send just one text message, riddled with typographical errors, which made it obvious she was on panic mode. Floodwaters were steadily rising, she texted; or at least that is what I thought she meant. Tatay, who is in a wheelchair and my hypertensive diabetic Nanay, had no way of escaping. And there was nothing anyone of us could do except pray—and worry.

The flooding phenomenon has hit home and has become intensely personal to me - so personal I felt like I wanted to hit someone with anything. I wanted to hunt down each and every logger in our hometown, tie them down to a log, and feed them to those menacing giant saws that swing in the air like killer pendulums.

Mercifully, the heavens stopped pouring buckets and by mid-afternoon, the floodwaters started receding. My sister was finally able to cross a highway that had been transformed into a rampaging river and was able to check on my parents. She reported that the floodwaters were barely two inches short of reaching the elevated part of the house. I dread the thought of what could have happened if the rains continued for another hour or two.

The flooding in my hometown was banner material for the evening telecasts. Up until the weekend, the flood in certain parts of Leyte had not yet receded but the images and footages that the networks show continue to be those taken from my hometown. I know because our church is recognizable as well as other landmarks in the town.

How truly sad it is to see footages of one’s hometown being featured in the news because of a tragedy although grief is often difficult to read from the behaviors of many people who seem to think that being seen on television regardless of the circumstance is a reason to act like chimpanzees watching themselves in a mirror for the first time. This scene is all too familiar: Every time a newscaster does a live report from a remote site, a crowd gathers at the back of the reporter and starts waving at the camera, or worse, start behaving irrationally. I’ve always wondered what makes people do crazy things in the presence of a television camera, but I digress.

As I was saying, seeing one’s hometown being featured as site of a tragedy is heartbreaking. Sadder still is the fact that everyone in the town all knew why the flooding happened. In fact, everyone foresaw it happening at some point.

Here’s why. Abuyog is at the base of mountains that have become bald from deforestation. When I was a child, venison and the meat of wild boar caught from the mountains around the town could still be bought from the public market. We feasted on rattan fruits, honey from wild bees, and other exotic stuff that could only be harvested from lush forests. Unfortunately, lumber was also the main business of the local politicians so for many years the town’s mountains were mercilessly pillaged. The town’s oligarchs got richer and richer while the mountains became balder and balder. And now we are paying dearly for years of environmental abuse.

Overpopulation is also to blame for the flooding. Those who oppose the reproductive health bill can romanticize population growth all they want, but pictures speak far more eloquently. The flash floods in this country were exacerbated by the fact that informal settlers have blocked rivers and waterways and aggravated silting and pollution. Yes, in an ideal world, we can theoretically manage Earth’s resources better so that there is enough for everyone. But we don’t live in an ideal world and the quest to get there will not happen overnight if at all. In the meantime, the calamities and the tragedies will continue to happen and with increasing severity.

What was annoying though was that while my townmates tried to cope with the tragedy, the news story about the President was mainly about the 2013 elections. And yes, I also heard the President’s eldest sister’s lecture on how we should all move on from tragedies but I am sure she wasn’t expecting people to be able to do that within 24 hours from the time the tragedy struck.

The big to do was about who would end up in the administration’s slate in 2013 and whether there will be room for Vice President Jejomar Binay’s partymates in the slate. Oh for crying out loud, I know we cannot and should not expect the President and this administration to focus 100 percent of its energies on the flood victims, but a little sensitivity wouldn’t hurt either. The elections are 18 months away and we choose to talk about it at a time when the immediate concern of thousands of Filipinos is where their next meal is coming from and where they would be able to sleep for the night? Talk about misplaced priorities!

Even more dismaying was the fact that the President actually publicly announced that he supports the inclusion of Senator Antonio Trillanes in the administration’s senatorial lineup. But I forgot; the standards of morality has been changed in this country. Anyone who is against the former President and supports the current administration is automatically deemed to have better morals.

***

Most of us woke up yesterday with a cold, a cough, irritated eyes, snoot on our noses, or worse, a severe case of allergies - thanks to the people who, once again, felt the compelling need to patronize the local fireworks industry. Most of us were luckier, of course. After all, many lost an appendage, or a limb or two. I know quite a number of people who woke up late on New Year’s Day, staggering from a bloated stomach and groaning from a killer hangover.

This is how we greet the New Year each year and yet most of us expect things to be different or better; pretty much the kind of attitude we keep as far as this administration is concerned.

Okay. I apologize if I am spoiling your New Year buzz. It’s just that it’s difficult to be upbeat at a time when many of our leaders are behaving like children and most everyone else is content marching along the straight narrow path led by a Pied Piper.

But hope still springs eternal. I may have lost faith in many of our leaders, but I haven’t lost faith in the Filipino.

Here’s to a more empowering and enabling 2012!

Reconstruction

2012-01-01T14:59:00.000+08:00

I spent the first three hours of 2012 retrieving my columns from the archives of the Manila Standard Today and posting them here one at a time. It's a tedious job, but this is the price I have to pay for not being diligent enough throughout 2010 and 2011. :).

In the interest of keeping this blog organized, I have decided to antedate the posts in this blog that contain my columns. It would be unwieldy if I post at least two years' worth of columns in just a couple of posts.

Was it just me of did anyone else notice that fewer people seemed to have bought firecrackers this year. In my neighborhood, the "explosions" were over by 1:00 am. The kids and I were in Mall of Asia until about 9:30PM and our trip back home was relatively uneventful in the sense that there was hardly any firecrackers exploding on the roads. Some pundits say this was because the scare tactics of the DOH worked this time around. Huh? What scare tactics? I didn't see any television ad discouraging people from lighting up firecrackers. And since when did scare tactics work anyway? I think people simply got wiser this time around. And the economic crunch was another factor, too.

Anyway. Happy New Year!

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T01:11:00.003+08:00

Okay. This time I hope I can make it happen. As I posted in my Facebook account, my number one New Year's resolution is to resurrect this blog. So here I am again.

So many things happened since the last time I posted an update in this blog. I got elected national President of PMAP, the national association of human resource managers in the country and the post was more than a full-time job particularly since we didn't have an Executive Director this year. This, on top of my full-time job in PNB which is already stressful in itself and takes up so much of my time (naturally, they pay me full time as well, grin). And yes, I still teach evenings and weekends; and I still write a column Mondays and Wednesdays at the op-ed pages of the Manila Standard Today. Sadly we had to close down the clinic and drop in center of the Remedios AIDS Foundation although the foundation is still legally existent; am not sure when we will have the resources to re-open. It's really sad because money for HIV/AIDS work is drying up at a time when the country needs it the most.

On top of my resolution to resurrect this blog, I also will try to:

1. Lose at least 30 pounds this year. I lost 20 pounds September to November and then gained back around 10 in December. Sigh. Unfortunately, there really is no magic bullet for it - Herbalife worked for me until I got severe stomach pains. Apparently my hyperacidity and GERD was aggravated so I guess I will just have to hit the gym at least twice a week. At my age I really and seriously need to start taking better care of my health.

2. Submit an entry to the Palanca Awards. I have been thinking about it in the last two years and I think I am ready to give it a shot this time around. Wala lang, just thought I need to explore new pathways for my writing.

3. Do something more concrete for the environment other than just writing about it and helping out other groups. I haven't really thought about what exactly I will do but I am thinking of getting some friends to do a major reforestation of the mountains of my hometown. The town was in the news recently because of heavy flooding. It's a long story but my column on January 2 is partly about it.

4. I vow to be a little more assertive this year and stop allowing people to take advantage of my generosity. Sigh.

5. I will save more this year. I will make it a point to fatten my savings account somehow.

There. I just made my personal list for 2012. Now the hard work begins...

Unfinished business

2011-12-28T01:27:00.001+08:00

This was my column on December 28, 2011. This post is antedated in the interest of keeping this blog better organized.

The interlude between Christmas and New Year is opportune time to look back on the year that was and to ponder what is in store for the coming year. Around this time every year I usually reflect on the great and the not-so-great things that happened during the year and try—the operative term is try—to come up with resolutions.

A number of great things did happen in 2011 despite the lackluster performance of the Aquino administration in the areas of pump-priming the economy, getting critical programs the necessary boost, and even in terms of getting important legislation passed.

A number of global experts has offered relatively grim prognosis for the Philippine economy in 2012 on account of a combination of global and domestic factors although the government has remained oblivious to the threat and to the projections. We are being told that the government will hit the ground running in 2012, finally making up for the slack in 2011. How exactly this is going to happen is a major mystery.

It can be argued of course that the government in 2011 succeeded in getting the former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos detained and having Chief Justice Renato Corona impeached by Congress. The sad thing is that these “successes” also raised a lot of questions and there are lingering doubts about the long-term consequences of the rather Machiavellian way the so-called “moral victory” was rammed through people’s throats.

So anyone looking for really bright spots in the year-that-was will have to look at the feats of individual Filipinos. But then again, even professional boxer Manny Pacquiao’s victory over Mexican Juan Manuel Marquez was subjected to a lot of catcalls and protests. But yes, we produced another CNN Hero in the person of Robin Lim, a Filipino-American midwife based in Indonesia. Philippine movies made a comeback in 2011 with a number of mainstream as well as indie films breaking records at the box office. We didn’t do so badly in international beauty contests. Shamcey Supsup placed fourth overall in the 2011 Miss Universe while Gwendoline Ruais placed second in the 2011 Miss World pageant. I know. These are important, but....

President Benigno S. Aquino III on Christmas Eve vowed to work for a “brighter, merrier, and more prosperous Christmas for Filipinos” in 2012 and beyond as he and his sisters spent the day spreading cheer to 150 less fortunate children at the Don Bosco Technical Institute in Makati City. We shall have to add this promise to the growing list of promises he has made since he campaigned and eventually assumed office.

The big stories in 2011 were, unfortunately, about tragedies. The number of casualties created by the flash flooding that happened in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, and Dumaguete City in the runup to the Christmas season continued to rise even as disaster management officials have stopped the count allegedly due to a faulty reporting system. Barely two months ago, flooding also happened in Bulacan and Pampanga, leaving many towns submerged for weeks. The massacre of Filipino soldiers in Mindanao and the many road accidents that happened during the year likewise produced body count that caused many of us to hyperventilate.

As in the past, we continue to talk about the need to put in place programs that would ensure that the recurring tragedies would not happen again. But in this country talk is cheap, very cheap. Sadly, the political will to really pursue the programs remains wanting regardless of the much-vaunted commitment to serve the Filipino people and to trudge along the path of the righteous and the moral. In 2011, most of us were content to live in a yellow submarine.

The flooding in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan was already foreseen as early as two years ago, but nothing was done to avert the disaster. As I write, some quarters have raised the alarm regarding the possibility of similar flooding in Mindanao on account of another typhoon hovering in an island that is usually not along the path of typhoons. I am not sure what officials are currently doing to avert another major tragedy. It must be noted though that the problems require long-term and comprehensive solutions; it will take more than giving people warnings and evacuating people from disaster-prone areas.

And so we are starting another year with a heavy baggage of unfinished business that threatens to make 2012 a year of strife, or at least a year of further divisiveness although hopefully, less tragedies.

The first two—perhaps even three—months of the year will be spent on the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona. We expect the trial to be explosive given our legislators’ penchant for grandstanding and theatrics. Since the trial will most likely be televised live, it will eclipse all other teleseryes in terms of entertainment value. Sadly, I think that most have already prejudged the case. Some people have made sure that the minds of ordinary people are conditioned to think that Corona is guilty and I don't think any evidence or logical acrobatics can convince them otherwise. We can all try to convince ourselves that the trial will be impartial and that everything will be judged based on evidence and logic but we all know the impeachment is what the President of this Republic wants—he has made this clear on many occasions. This is a President that is uncompromising on matters that he considers an affront to his legitimate and moral authority. And impeachment, regardless of what our senators want to project to the thinking class, is a political exercise.

Currently relegated to the back burner owing to the tragedy in Mindanao is the fate of former President and now Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. She is currently on hospital arrest at the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City, but we expect the legal fireworks around her case to explode soon. Similarly, there is the case involving former Commission on Elections chair Benjamin Abalos.

The list of unfinished business is long, long one. There’s the long-delayed passage of the reproductive health bill, the freedom of information bill, the fair competition or anti-trust law, the Whistleblowers Protective Act, the Data Privacy Act, etc. One wishes our legislators have been as swift to act on these critical measures as they were on the impeachment of Corona.

Also part of the unfinished business is the confirmation of Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman. People are second-guessing whether she would be re-appointed (a likely scenario) or replaced as a result of her non-confirmation by the Commission on Appointments. Although the conditional cash transfer program of the government is an institutional program of the department and will most likely continue even without Soliman at the helm of the agency, it must be noted that the program requires the stewardship of someone like Soliman who is immersed in development issues.

A two-year-old unfinished business is the Maguindanao massacre. Secretary Leila de Lima can huff and puff all she wants in an effort to get a slate in the Senate lineup of the administration in 2013—but the slow pace of the Maguindanao trial is reflection of the real state of justice in this country.

I will end this piece by reminding everyone of an unfinished business that is deeply personal to me—the murder of Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. two years ago. Although the suspect is behind bars, justice for the Ebarles remains elusive.

Remembrance and thanksgiving

2011-12-26T01:32:00.002+08:00

This was my column on December 26, 2011. This post is antedated in the interest of keeping this blog better organized.

I personally get a little emotional during Christmas Eve and upon waking up on Christmas day itself because it’s when the memories of Christmases past come rushing back.

There is something about family gatherings on Christmas Eve that bring a tear to the eye even in the midst of the pandemonium and chaos of ensuring that the dinner table is groaning from the weight of the feast and that the gifts under the tree are all accounted for. These are the moments that make all the aggravations of the season—the traffic, the long lines at the mall, the crazy schedules—all worth it.

No matter how late we stay up on Christmas eve for the traditional Noche Buena and for the merrymaking that usually follows the feast, I have always woken up very early on Christmas morning because that was when my beloved grandmother and I would spend our special time together—just her and me, her favorite grandchild. Yes, I am a certified Lola’s boy who until high school couldn’t sleep without being cuddled in my grandmother’s bony and wrinkly arms. To this day, I still remember her scent—a powerful combination of baby powder, cooking ingredients, candles, and church incense (she went to church every day and sat in the front row).

Christmas morning was when my Lola would wake me up ahead of everyone else so we could open our presents together. I must have been a really dutiful boy because while my sibling and cousins couldn’t wait to open their presents (and would even cheat by tearing parts of the wrapping of their presents) I would usually wait until Christmas morning to open mine. Of course I realize now that the discipline was something my Lola ingrained upon me.

On Christmas morning, I would drag myself to the dining room where Lola would have already prepared a special breakfast just for me. The food were mostly leftovers from the previous night’s feast but she had a way of recycling that would make the ham and the embutido even more appetizing than their original form. The conversation we would have would be mundane but a lot more was unspoken, the morning air thick with genuine affection.

Of course, she also did it that way so she could privately give me my present, which was always much more special that those of my siblings and cousins. I always thought we went through the whole early morning arrangement so that others would not be jealous of the attention and of the special gift she had for me. It was only later on when I realized she really just wanted to have that special moment with me, just with me; she wanted to revel in the surprise and the glow in my face as I opened my special present—they would usually be books or toys that were more expensive (one Christmas she gave me a complete set of Hardy Boys books). Up until I was in high school, we would cuddle up in her rocking chair until everyone would wake up. This was our Christmas morning ritual, something I used to miss, but now look back to with fond affection and gratefulness.

My lola passed away when I was in third year high school. But to this day, I would still wake up very early on Christmas morning to open my presents and just sit in the early morning darkness of the living room deep in thought and reminiscences. It’s when I miss Lola the most.

Lola has passed on but her influence has remained strong in our family. She started many of our Christmas traditions and it is probably a tribute to her that we continue to sustain these traditions. These include the kind of food that you would find in our Noche Buena table— from the way the ham would be cooked (simmered in thick pineapple juice and mascovado sugar for hours and hours until the juices resemble a thick gooey concoction), to the kind of kakanin that we served as dessert. It was from her that I acquired my taste for very dark chocolate—the more bitter it is, the better.

Most of the special kakanin are, sadly, ordered all the way from Leyte because most of us among the younger generation just don’t have the patience and the temperament to prepare them from scratch. Lola slaved in the kitchen for days to produce those delectable treats at a time when everything was done manually; for instance, the grating of dozens of coconuts were done on a kudkuran (a bench with an iron grater).

There’s the special chocolate suman (called muron) that takes at least eight hours to prepare, I kid you not; a brown rice cake (puto) with a distinct taste because all the ingredients that are used are organic such as coconut vinegar instead of yeast, and my Lola’s almost obscenely rich leche flan with lots of lemon rind which melts in the mouth.

Of course, probably due to her strong influence, our clan continues to be ruled by women. My own mother cannot travel anymore so she stays in our home in Leyte but that hasn’t stopped her from trying to run my own household by remote control. And my own two sisters seemed to have inherited the genes in large quantities because they also take turns swooping down on my brothers’ and my own household to “fix” things and put sense where they think there isn’t.

We are a matriarchal society; this has been said more than often enough by many experts. Our families are tied together by strong women who often rule with benevolent dictatorship. This is certainly true of our extended family; to this day, we are ruled by strong-willed women who continue to preside over family matters, sometimes with assertiveness, often through gentle suasion.

Anyway. What got me thinking about the women in my family were the loving tributes given by the children of the late Carolina “Arling” Lapus Gozon Thursday night at her wake at Heritage Park. The four siblings— Benjamin, Carolina, Felipe and Flor —took turns sharing heartwarming personal stories about the courage and tenacity, the unshakeable faith and the overflowing affection, and the many sterling attributes of their Inay who passed away last week. She was 97.

I was personally moved by the many anecdotes about how the Gozon matriarch pretty much took control of everything in the family to ensure that her children would have the best education and the best future. I particularly liked the anecdotes that remind us that mothers truly know best and still manage to be full of wisdom even in situations when they don’t seem to make sense.

Truly, where would we be without our mothers? Or the other women in our lives—grandmothers, aunts, and our respective collection of ate?

***

Christmas is also a season for thanksgiving. There are many people I am grateful to. Family members and professional colleagues I could greet in person or send gifts to. But the people who read this column regularly also deserve my deepest gratitude and appreciation. I would like to thank all of you for continuing to read me. Thank you, George Sison for the vote of confidence regardless of what I write in this space. My appreciation also goes to regular readers who send me feedback every now and then—Grace Abella Zata, Reymyr Guantia, Aldous Viloria, Jonathan Chua, Nenette De Ono Molina, and the many others who go out of their way to pat my back on many occasions and sometimes point out typographical errors. Thank you, everyone.

Christmas amid a tragedy

2011-12-21T01:33:00.001+08:00

This post is antedated.

I know people who still cannot comprehend how the flash flood in Cagayan de Oro City and Iligan City in Mindanao and Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental in the Visayas that claimed hundreds of—perhaps even more than a thousand—lives could have happened. The death toll has been steadily rising and grim pictures of the devastation are making people shake their heads in disbelief. That the tragedy happened in the run up towards Christmas magnifies the pain. This is supposed to be a season of joy and rejoicing; this is not supposed to be a time of tragedy.

My friends from Cagayan de Oro recounted how unprepared everyone is in this city for this kind of tragedy. I know. We are a country that does not believe in preparations; but our brothers and sisters in Mindanao even more so. Cagayan de Oro—and the whole of Mindanao—is not usually along the path of typhoons. Of course some people have been giving dire warnings about flash floods being a possibility in an area where forests have been disappearing at a faster pace to give way to development and where rivers and natural waterways have become silted due to pollution. But for the most part, most have stuck to the belief that they lived in a promised land where nature is at its friendliest best. Well, not anymore.

I don’t know if there is a message more powerful than what we have seen in the last few days. Many years of environmental abuse are taking their toll on us. Nature is fighting back; and in truly vengeful ways. Typhoons are getting stronger and stronger and, consequently, more devastating. Other forces of nature have also become more powerful. A whole month’s worth of rain can now be unleashed in a few hours’ time. We need to get our act together and help reverse the cataclysmic consequences of global warming.

This is why I am glad to note that more and more towns and cities are embracing environmental protection as an advocacy. This week, Antipolo has joined the number of cities that have banned the use of plastic bags and Styrofoam containers. These are the two most common causes of pollution as well as clogging of waterways. Really, just imagine the sheer number of Styrofoam waste generated by the top fastfood chains!

Of course, we still have a long way to go to restore our forest cover, which is why we really need to have stronger political will in this country to ensure that first, we put in place a total ban on logging; and second, a total ban on mining. We just cannot afford to have more catastrophes of the kind that we are witnessing now in Iligan, Cagayan de Oro and Dumaguete.

My heart bleeds for our brothers and sisters who were severely affected by the flash floods over the weekend. My thoughts and my prayers are with them. We should really do what we can for them, particularly since it is the season of giving. We can scale down very lavish preparations for our Noche Buena and for the remaining parties and reunions and instead donate a percentage of the money to the victims. Let us donate to the National Red Cross—they are the ones at the forefront of the disaster relief operations.

I hope the President stops making excuses and shows the kind of stewardship that is most needed at a time like this. It is important that the President is seen as a leader who is on the ground, distributing relief, shaking hands with the victims, and condoling with those in grief. That yarn about how it wouldn’t be easy for a President to make travel arrangements is pure hogwash; he is President, for crying out loud, he can make things happen.

I don’t think it was a big deal that the President was out partying the night thousands of Filipinos along the swathe of the flash floods were disconsolate, trying to locate loved ones and salvaging whatever they could from the mud. It really wasn’t the fact that he attended a Christmas party and had fun; it was more because he still had to show that he cared enough for the victims. If only the President were seen directing relief efforts or personally condoling with the victims, that bit of news about his partying the night before would not have become an issue at all. Memo to the bright boys in the Palace: We don’t mind if the President attends parties as long as he does his job.

Given the scope and magnitude of the devastation in Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and Dumaguete, we should celebrate Christmas and greet the New Year with a little more commitment to truly make this world a better place for everyone. Here are some ideas about what you can do in this season of hope, love, and peace.

It’s not too late to give Mother Nature a Christmas gift. You can resolve to go easy on the non-biodegradable materials during the rest of the holidays and perhaps even the rest of the year. Instead of serving food on Styrofoam, you might want to consider buying biodegradable paper plates instead. Go easy on the fireworks—they pollute the air and create more waste. They are also bad for our physical wellbeing. You can plant a tree, or two, or even more. You can sign a petition to ban logging and mining in this country. You can practice recycling.

You can also help protect the environment just by conserving water and electricity. Water is actually a diminishing resource. For instance, if you are the average person, you probably turn on the faucet while brushing your teeth. You must stop this practice and use a glass instead; in the process, you conserve water. The same is true when washing dishes or clothes.

Do not overcharge your mobile phones. Most people charge their phones at night and leave them on while they go to sleep. This is an utter waste of electricity. You can try charging your mobile phone in the morning while you are eating breakfast or going about your morning rituals. This way, you do not overcharge your phone. You can also try unplugging electrical appliances that are not being used as they continue to consume electricity if they remain plugged to an electrical outlet.

On Christmas Day, recycle. Make sandwiches of the leftover ham and cheese from your Noche Buena table. With a few slices of apples and some strips of lettuce or cabbage, these can be transformed into delightful gourmet sandwiches. Wrap them in paper napkins and give these to the street children that are bound to come knocking on your car window at some intersections of the metro. These kids probably had to fight for a slice of ham and probably didn’t have queso de bola at their table on Christmas Eve. Your leftovers will definitely be a welcome treat for them.

Spend some quality time with your loved ones, especially the old and the young. Go to church. Pray for our country; God knows we need all the divine intervention we can get in these uncertain times.

Maligayang Pasko!

Neither black nor white

2011-12-19T01:37:00.002+08:00

This post is antedated.

That was quite a mouthful the irrepressible Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago unleashed last week during a confirmation hearing at the Commission on Appointments.

Of course we have come to expect the senator to constantly amaze, dumbfound and even amuse us with her trademark feistiness and distinct eloquence. But last week’s lecture on theology, Manichean philosophy and populist philosophy during the confirmation hearing of Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman was classic.

We are truly going to miss Senator Santiago when she packs up and relocates to the Netherlands in March next year, when she assumes the highly coveted post as one of six judges of the International Criminal Court. Santiago is the first Asian woman from a developing state to get a seat in the ICC. The woman is in a class all her own, and no one has yet come close to duplicating her famous outbursts. We will just have to get used to seeing the dour faces and monotonous drawl of our other senators.

But to go back to her outburst last week, which was covered extensively by media, Senator Santiago put Soliman to task for being a convenor of the Black and White movement, the group that has abrogated for itself the identity as “civil society.” The BWM has on many occasions likewise positioned itself as some kind of the ultimate guardian of morality in this country, often issuing statements that they pass off as the authoritative and only viable position on many contentious issues.

“You know what is good and evil because God says so? Oh, yeah? Did God speak to you, members of the Black and White Movement?” the Senator asked Soliman.

I am very glad the Senator said what I have been saying in this space for many years now: The problem with some people in this country is that they impose their theology on everyone else. Worse, they claim to subscribe to a higher moral order and insist on a black-and-white categorization of issues but sadly, only when the situation suits them or is in their favor.

And this has been my beef with the BWM movement for many years now. They expect everybody to live up to a stringent moral order but they don’t necessarily apply the criteria to themselves. For example, they’ve always made a big deal that many of our leaders have lost any sense of delicadeza. Ironically, many among them have openly jockeyed for political appointments and are in fact using the BWM platform as launching pads for their own political agenda and candidacies. Where’s the morality in that?

Conversely, this, exactly, is what I find disturbing about what is happening in the country today. This administration is hell bent on making the former President accountable for various acts of corruption while in office—bribery, usurpation of authority, abuse of power, etc.,—under the guise of establishing a higher moral order. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have problems with that. We should make our leaders accountable for wrongdoing while in office. But we must make sure that we take the higher moral ground when we do so – not by words and by empty posturing, but in deed and action. This means we must adhere to due process even when no one is looking, even when we can get away with it, and yes, even when we believe in our heart of hearts that the accused do not deserve the fair treatment. Only when we do so can we actually have the moral authority to move forward.

But what is happening is that at the same time that our leaders are lecturing us about morality and good governance, they indulge in exactly the same acts that they claim are immoral. They accused the Supreme Court of having short-circuited the process that led to the issuance of a temporary restraining order in favor of the former President, but did exactly the same thing to ensure that the impeachment of the Chief Justice would sail through Congress swiftly and without hitch. They insist that the former President should be made accountable for abuse of power and authority, shady deals, and other corrupt practices but used exactly the same modus operandi to ensure that lawmakers would sign the impeachment complaint.

“In the BWM, there is no such allowance for the so-called gray areas. You’re either good you’re either bad, you’re either light or you’re either dark. That is my basic concern with this nominee, to look at the world only in shades of dark and light and not make allowances for human failures or for human limitations,” Senator Santiago was quoted in various media reports. “In the first place, who determines what is good, and who determines what is evil? That is the egotistic problem with black and white… who is to decide what is black and white?” the senator asked.

Like the senator, my objection to the hard line posturing of the BWM and by extension, the rest of the people in this country who insist on foisting on the rest of the population their moral scruples, is philosophical. Excuse me, not everything is black and white in this country; there is a context to everything.

Case in point: Just because I advocate due process, respect for laws, and adherence to civility does not make me an apologist of the former President. Oh please, that kind of labeling is just so passé and so tawdry. Just because I am disaffected by the fact that this administration has held hostage progress and economic development at the altar of morality does not mean I am anti-government.

More to the point, just because I agree with Senator Santiago when she castigated Soliman’s affiliation with the BWM, this does not mean I agree with the senator’s filibustering of Soliman’s confirmation as Social Welfare secretary.

I happen to think that Soliman is one of the very few Cabinet secretaries who are actually doing a good job.

I honestly don’t understand why people balk at the huge amount of money that Soliman is entrusted with for the government’s conditional cash transfer program, known as four Ps. Surely everyone knows that we do have millions of people in this country who are living in abject poverty; when you divide the total amount allocated for the conditional cash transfer program by the number of family beneficiaries, the amount is actually not that staggering anymore.

The problem is not that the government is spending billions on poverty alleviation; the question is why only now and why only that amount? We all rile about the high incidence of poverty but we don’t match our rhetoric with political will and purposeful action.

Besides, when we put together all the piecemeal programs politicians supposedly pour into so-called poverty alleviation we’d probably come up with probably more than what Soliman is spending for the four P’s program. How many politicians spend tens of millions every year on substandard school supplies for schoolchildren and for Christmas baskets? The amount is better spent on poverty alleviation program that are better conceptualized and administered in a more organized way such as the four Ps program.

The four Ps program is investment in the future of human capital. It’s necessary and important. It would be sad if the conditional cash transfer program gets stopped just because of Soliman’s political baggage. It’s really shouldn’t be that black and white.

Because they can

2011-12-14T01:40:00.001+08:00

This post is antedated.

I’ve been asked many times this question in the last few weeks: Where do I stand in the midst of all these frenzied efforts to exact judgment at whatever cost and through whatever means possible?

The honest answer, which I have so far kept unarticulated until this writing, is that I view the whole sordid chain of events with pained resignation.

We’ve been down this road before and so far I haven’t seen any indication in the last few weeks that things would be different this time around. We still saw the same tactical mistakes that were committed in the past. They painfully illustrated just how easy it is for people in this country to bend rules in their favor when the situation calls for it and rile and flail around when others do it to benefit themselves. To my mind, it is the same kind of power play that marked the mad rush to judgment was still prevalent; the same smug attitude of the victors gloating over the prospects of seeing a vanquished foe reduced to a pitiful state, the same attempts to paint the government as cruel and oppressive and the same level of righteous indignation and protestation of innocence from the accused. Need we mention the efforts of some parties to squeeze themselves into the picture to bask in the deflected glare of the spotlight?

We know for a fact that we have a leader who wants to have his way at all costs. There are those who interpret his adamant posturing as political will; others label it as obstinacy borne out of a sense of entitlement and impatience. What we do know is that this is a leader who is not afraid to break protocols or be perceived as a bully, marshal his troops, and sink everything to get what he wants. History will be a better judge if this is necessarily bad or good for the country.

But I also know for a fact - and my nearly five decades of existence on this planet, gives ample proof of this - that what goes around comes around. Or as the wise and weary in this country tend to say, “weather weather lang yan” (it’s all a matter of who is in power). What is happening today is a variation of what happened a quarter of a century ago and even a decade ago. Sadly, we pretty much know how all these will end. The Marcoses and the Estradas are back in power and in the good graces of the current occupants of the Palace.

Strangely, people talk about how karma has caught up with certain people; in the process conveniently forgetting that they themselves are accumulating karmic debts that would have to be paid in some form in the future. This is the Philippines. We like doing the same things over and over again and yet expect different results every single time. That was how Einstein defined madness.

I am also aghast at the level of vindictiveness and the level of hatred being fomented all in the guise of accountability and justice. I have nothing against pursuing accountability and justice. By all means, let us make our leaders accountable for wrongdoing while in office and let us make sure that they pay for their sins.

But we don’t have to do the theatrics. We don’t have to foment hatred and encourage a lynching. We don’t have to turn ourselves into a mob. We certainly don’t have to destroy our institutions in the process. We don’t have to force changes just because we can, we don’t have to flaunt our power and influence just because we have the numbers. We don’t have to join the bandwagon just because it is the popular thing to do. We don’t have to shoot ourselves in the foot and commit another mockery of our democracy. We do not have to become the people we hate.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to argue with people in the throes of indignant righteousness. Not only do they fully believe in the infallibility of their positions, they also look down on those who happen to disagree with them, or even on those who simply happen to have a different opinion even if the opinion is not necessarily diametrically opposed to theirs.

And so here we are again caught in the middle of a contest of wills. We are being told that the battle is between good and evil, between what is moral and depraved. We are being made to believe that one side represents the true, the good, and the beautiful while the other side represents pure unadulterated evil. We are being conditioned to believe that all these is for our own good; that burning down our institutions and taking shortcuts that undermine what democracy is supposed to be about is justified because all these is for our own good.

Once again, the immortal words of C. S. Lewis come to mind. He said: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Things have gotten so bad that there have been days when it feels like we live in a parallel universe where everything is fueled by hatred; the level of which has to be maintained, otherwise the whole government and the country will come crashing down. So most everybody has gotten into the act including those who, barely a decade ago, were the most vilified in this country. Such is the tragedy of shortsightedness – most are just too happy to forget the sins of the past provided there’s a new object for vilification. Most are happy to ignore everything else as long as they get their pound of flesh.

So yes, I am mortified at how easily many among us become so consumed with hatred that we lose the ability to suspend judgment and allow due process to take its course. I am appalled by how easy it is for people to denounce perceived disrespect for due process and then turn around and do exactly the same thing that they have been condemning when doing so works in their favor.

The sad part is that all this negative energy that hangs in the air and this climate of hatred and discord make for bad feng shui.

Like I said, I view the whole thing with pained resignation. We’ve been through this before and I think we all pretty much know how it will end. Those in power will get what they want because that is just how things are in this country – whoever has power gets his or her way. Everything else is just good old fashioned moro moro. Lest we forget, however, we must remember that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Eventually, we see people for what they truly are, the chinks in the armor are revealed, and we discover that we cannot survive on good intentions alone. Actually, had there been anything in the form of accomplishment that this administration can crow about, all these would not be as bad. The tragedy is that the economy is in worse shape and government is on a virtual standstill.

What we know for sure is that we may go through great lengths extolling the virtues of democracy but when push comes to shove, we aren’t prepared to pay the price for strengthening it.

***

I wrote the preceding piece over the weekend in anticipation of a very heavy workload this week. At that point, the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona was still something that was being whispered about although deeply entrenched sources say the marching orders were already issued to congressmen. Why did they do it? Because they could.

Breaking traditions

2011-12-12T01:41:00.002+08:00

This post is antedated.

The season for partying, exchanging gifts, and endless binging on food and booze is upon us.

We’ve read all the dire warnings from experts: More cases of cardiac arrests, hospitalization for hypertension, and ironically, suicide, happen during this season of merrymaking.

Unfortunately, resisting temptation is particularly more difficult during a season when everyone makes an effort to be nicer and more generous.

How exactly do you say no to bosom childhood friends you only get to see once a year?

How does one disengage from a reunion with relatives who travel kilometers to bask in the warmth of familial ties?

Who has the heart and the, well, stomach to say no to former officemates who made life under the worst kind of boss more bearable?

So we show up at parties, line up at buffet tables, play yet another round of Pinoy Henyo and yet another variation of musical chairs, and yes, guzzle vats of alcohol like there’s no tomorrow; diets and medical conditions be damned. After all, we can always resolve as a New Year’s resolution to have more fortitude the next time around.

But seriously, there are other ways to celebrate the season without necessarily consuming dangerous levels of substances that are bound to clog our arteries or pickle our livers.

I attended three such events recently. What can I say, there are benefits, after all, to this increasingly becoming insane drive to stage Christmas parties “differently” every year. I’m usually indifferent to efforts to come up with unusual themes, new gimmicks, and creative flourishes to the traditional Christmas party, but I now think the energy can be channeled towards achieving more productive and healthier results without necessarily forsaking the need for fellowship and rekindling the warmth of bonds.

The People Management Association of the Philippines, the premier association of human resource managers in the country celebrated the Christmas get-together differently this year. Last December 9 we trooped to the Philippine Educational Theater Association Center in Quezon City to watch a special production of the highly acclaimed musical Caredivas. We had cocktails at the PETA Center just before the show where we partook of traditional Christmas fare – puto bumbong and bibingka cooked right on the spot, paella balls, pan de sal at kesong puti.

Caredivas is what it has been touted to be: A splendid production with a big, big heart. The generally laid-back HR managers had a rollicking great time most eventually shed their initial reservations about watching a “drag show.” Caredivas is about five gay men who worked as caregivers in Israel at the time of the intifada (the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation) and who at nighttime would transform themselves into glamorous drag queens in a Tel Aviv club. It’s yet another take on the difficulties Filipino overseas workers face while working abroad – this time, told from the point of view of gay men and presented with lots of wit, heart, and yes, feathers and sequins.

It was a great way to spend a Christmas party. We were in stitches from the time the play opened to the time the characters took their bows and ran in their stilettos to the lobby to mingle with the audience as they were streaming out of the theater and gamely posed for pictures.

Many of those in the audience thanked the organizers for “exposing” them to issues of marginalized people and for opening their minds to the many ways in which discrimination is institutionalized in societies everywhere. If we come to think about it, what better message is there to ponder about in this season of love, joy and peace?

Unfortunately, Caredivas ended its run last night (Sunday, December 11). But there are many other productions that are running in other venues. Groups can also ask local theater or performing groups to mount special shows for them. Just allowing people to sit, relax and enjoy a great performance is also a great way to celebrate the Christmas spirit. In addition, we are able to support Philippine productions. I have nothing against foreign productions per se, but hopefully, for every Mamma Mia, Cats, and Phantom of the Opera that we watch, we can also take the time and effort to go out and watch a local production.

Former graduate school students of mine set up another “unique” Christmas Party last week. The theme they picked was “Organic Christmas” and the invitation specifically asked that attendees come in attires and bringing with them Christmas giveaways and presents that were organic – in short, no plastic and artificial or chemically laced stuff were allowed. The food was superb and could be ingested without guilt. The rice was organic black rice, the salads and vegetables were all organically-grown, and even the chicken was free-range. The juices that were served were also fresh.

The games were quite inventive – one such game involved inventorying the number of non-environmentally friendly stuff we were carrying in our person and the one with the least number was declared the winner. And we all went home happy with the Christmas gifts we received – presents we all agreed we were more than happy to keep or consume. I received bayongs of various organic products – from coffee, to chocolate, to juices, etc. Stuff I would love to receive more of.

The third party I attended over the weekend was a simple get-together which involved a meditation session, a sharing session, and yes, eating food that was good for the spirit and the body. The focus of the party was healing and reflection. I know some people out there may think that such activities would be completely not in sync with the spirit of the season but I disagree. Christmas is probably the one occasion that we need to do more reflection and meditation. As one bishop said, it’s not Santa Claus that is coming on Christmas; it’s Jesus Christ.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-07T01:43:00.000+08:00

This post is antedated. I am trying to recover the online version of my columns before the Manila Standard Today deletes the archives for 2011. I made the mistake of assuming the archive will be online for five years. Sigh.

When a friend groaned last year about how the movable holidays that produced long weekends—which, by the way was yet another one of the long and growing list of “sins” of the Arroyo administration—have become a thing of the past given the Aquino administration’s supposed adherence to stronger work ethics, I told my friend not to fret. I assured him that it was just a matter of time before the practice got resurrected in some form.

I am a human resource management professional whose job description includes keeping a keen eye on holiday proclamations because of their impact on compensation and work schedules. Based on experience, I know that no leader can keep his or her hands off from tinkering with holidays. Our leaders may hem and haw and go through the motions of balancing the needs of industry (less holidays) and those of employees (more holidays) but at the end of the day, the temptation to yield to populist measures has always proven difficult to resist.

Let’s face it. Declaring non-working holidays particularly to create long weekends is the easiest way to get on the good side of working people. Even workers who are paid on a daily basis can’t resist the lure of enjoying a day, or two, or better still, three or four consecutive days off from work even if it means not receiving wages. And yes, there are millions of workers in this country who do not earn anything on days when there is no work for them—no work, no pay, remember?

But non-working holidays have become an important part of our laid-back and fun-oriented culture. When I was growing up, Ferdinand Marcos made popular the concept of “sandwich” days; the days that fell between a Saturday or a Sunday and a holiday were always declared non-working days simply because, well, they happened to be sandwiched between a non-working day and a holiday. Eventually, every President this country ever had regardless of political leanings or moral conviction invented his or her own justification to declare non-working holidays. And our politicians kept on adding more and more holidays to the growing (and still growing) list of holidays.

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo legitimized the practice with what was eventually called holiday economics, a concept that required logical acrobatics to truly comprehend because she tried to mix in local tourism, GDP, and other economic indicators; not that a holiday requires to be comprehensible at the cerebral level to be appreciated. An extra day or rest is an extra day of rest, thank you very much.

Declaring non-working holidays is one of those populist decisions that seem benign on the surface. Sure, the business sector riles about the added expense and the impact on productivity, but after everything is said and done, everybody hunkers down to enjoy the extended time off from work. Heck, even CEOs like to go on vacation!

Thus, despite the much-ballyhooed intent to trudge along the straight and narrow path, long weekends were created in 2011. And guess what, there are more long weekends we can look forward to in 2012. To be fair, not all the long weekends was created by declaring non-working holidays. Most of the long weekends were created by serendipity –regular holidays for the year just happened to fall around weekends. And in the event that legal holidays are indeed moved to the nearest Monday, industry will no incur added costs provided—and this is a critical proviso— the announcements are made way in advance so companies can adjust their production schedules accordingly.

Malacañang released last week Proclamation 295, which declares the holidays for 2012. Based on the proclamation, there will be 10 regular holidays, five special non-working holidays, and one special holiday (for schools) in 2012. That’s a total of 16 holidays. Actually, the list was short of two more holidays – Eid’l Fitr and Eid’l Adha, the dates of which are usually announced later in the year when confirmation is made on the actual dates of the holidays based on the Islamic calendar. That makes 18 holidays in 2012.

This does not include yet the local holidays decreed by local governments—for example, each city and municipality in this country observes its own special day. And then there are days when work is suspended because of force majeure such as during very heavy rains, or when a typhoon makes a visitation, or when there’s a transport strike.

We can add to the list the various leaves employees are entitled to such as 15 days vacation leaves, 15 days sick leaves, seven days paternity leaves, 75 days maternity leaves, emergency leaves, birthday leaves, solo parent leaves, gynecological leaves, union leaves, ad infinitum. Theoretically, there will be employees who can be on vacation for as long as six months each year. Would you believe there are quite a number of bills pending in Congress proposing more leave benefits for workers? This is because our legislators do not know any other kind of benefit except leaves. There is a bill that proposes a family leave for parents who need to take care of sick family members. There is another bill that proposes an OFW leave for spouses of overseas Filipino workers. There is yet another bill that proposes additional maternity leaves for women. Yes, am not kidding.

So yes, the business sector does have valid reasons to howl every single time our leaders declare non-working holidays. We do have more holidays compared to our neighbors; thus we should stop wondering why we continue to hit record lows in terms of competitiveness. But if it is any consolation, at least the dates of the holidays for 2012 were released very early so business organizations have time to fix their production schedules around it.

Although Proclamation 295 already specifies the dates of the holidays in 2012, there is reason to believe that some of the holidays may actually be moved to the nearest Monday. This is indicated by the fact that Proclamation 295 went out of its way to cite Republic Act 9492—the law which provides that holidays, except those which are religious in nature, can be moved to the nearest Monday unless otherwise modified by law, order, or proclamation.

If this happens, there may just be 11 long weekends in 2012.

The first will happen January 21-23 as January 23 has been declared non-working day (Chinese New Year). The weekend of April 5-9 will be a five-day long weekend (Holy Week and Araw Ng Kagitingan on April 9). April 28-May 1 might be a long weekend since Labor Day may be moved to April 30 assuming the labor sector does not raise a howl. June 12 may also be moved to June 11 producing another three-day weekend in June. August 18-21 may be another long weekend because of Eid’l Fitr and Ninoy Aquino Day. August 25-27 is a three-day weekend as August 27 is National Heroes Day. October 26-28 is another three-day long weekend courtesy of Eid’l Adha. November 1-4 is a four-day weekend since November 1 is All Saints Day and November 2 has already been declared as special holiday. November 30 to December 2 is another 3-day long weekend because of Bonifacio Day. And finally December 22-25 and December 29-January 1 will be four-day weekends.

I hope people will have the means to take advantage of the long weekends to travel.

Happy holidays, indeed!

Oblivious and prejudiced

2011-12-05T01:44:00.001+08:00

This post is antedated. This was my column December 5, 2011.

I have long ago stopped listening to Abigail Valte, supposedly deputy presidential spokesperson, because I still have to catch her saying something that makes sense, or failing that, at least something that I don’t already know from reading the papers or watching the news.

Every single time the woman is asked a question, she prefaces her answer with “as far as I know” or “based on what I know” which, if we really come to think about it doesn’t really inspire confidence. This is particularly since half the time she is simply regurgitating stuff that has already been said by another government official. The rest of the time, Valte tries to “think aloud” by issuing motherhood statements that doesn’t really reveal anything newsworthy, or every remotely noteworthy. Her stock answer amounts to something like “As far as I know, that topic is of major concern for the government and of course we will look into that.”

Of course many people think she is simply a diversion—a talking mouth that is not supposed to be taken seriously. Unfortunately, Valte seems have become the de facto face and voice of this government more often than we care which is truly not a good sign. Valte doesn’t seem to know anything in terms of what the President actually thinks; so her official title of spokesperson is a sham. But then again, perhaps we are being too harsh. The poor woman is probably the typical official of this administration: clueless, detached from the real world, but nevertheless speaks with all the moral authority that can be mustered. In short, long on the morality aspect but short on actual performance. Unfortunately, we cannot feed people or make lives better with just good intentions. Nor can we stop HIV/AIDS infections with empty words and prejudice.

On occasion of the global celebration of World AIDS Day, Valte was asked to respond to concerns about the fact that the Philippines has been cited as one of only seven countries in the world that have rising HIV/AIDS infections. She responded in typical Valte-speak: “This is a point of concern for us but the DOH has already raised this in a previous discussion so we know the DOH is aware, the DOH is concerned and the DOH is acting and taking immediate steps to correct the rise.” Translation: I don’t have the faintest idea but I presume the DOH is doing something.

The poor woman was not only obfuscating, she was clearly oblivious to reality. Had she bothered to check, she would have known that officials of the DOH below the level of the secretary have been frantically pressing the alarm button on HIV/AIDS. Had she done her homework, she would have known that there is huge shortfall in funding requirements for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and that the DOH has refused to put more money into HIV/AIDS programs; its current secretary seems to think that HIV/AIDS is not a serious problem and by all indications wants to put it at the same category as renal diseases, his field of specialization. But of course, all these were too much for Valte to process.

I am not trying to be mean to Valte but the rest of the comments she made rankled because it showed in no uncertain terms just how officials of this administration are clearly oblivious of the real problems of this country. “We will wait for their update because the last time we talked—it seems it was early this year—they had a program to arrest the increase of these cases. This includes an information campaign.” Early this year? Oops, we forgot; this administration does not believe in Cabinet meetings. An information campaign? For crying out loud, this country has been doing information campaigns on HIV/AIDS since the time Juan Flavier was secretary of health but I guess Valte is happy being a vacuous talking head to bother with actually making sense.

Valte’s attempts to talk nonsensically about HIV/AIDS I can ignore. But Health Secretary Enrique Ona’s abysmal lack of political will to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS is unacceptable. Ona’s lack of awareness of the social and psychological issues around HIV/AIDS prevention and his utter insensitivity to the human rights issues of people living with HIV/AIDS and members of communities that are vulnerable to infection is unforgivable. What the heck, I will drop attempts at being politically correct since Ona did too: We have a Secretary of Health who is not only in denial in terms of the urgency and gravity of the HIV/AIDS situation in the country, his prejudice and tendency towards bigotry is showing.

According to a report posted by AIDS activist Jonas Bagas in his Facebook account, “Ona was booed and jeered at the Plenary Meeting of the Philippine National AIDS Council held Friday, December 2, 2011, after he practically endorsed a witch hunt of ‘homosexuals’ as an HIV testing strategy to address the growing HIV epidemic in the Philippines.” A video of the event can be seen on Youtube.

According to Bagas, “around 30 HIV and AIDS activists from organizations belonging to the Network to Stop HIV and AIDS in the Philippines jeered Ona and blew their red whistles, demanding that Ona exercise political leadership as chair of PNAC.”

“In reaction to the growing infection among men who have sex with men and transgenders in the Philippines, Ona proposed that the government’s interventions must be targeted, suggesting that parents should be contacted and asked if they have homosexual children and be told about their children’s ‘problem’,” Bagas reported.

This is the first time I actually heard a secretary of Health openly advocate a proposal that stigmatizes people. What was even ironic was that Ona raised his “brilliant” suggestion when the council was discussing the adoption of the United Nations Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS. The declaration strongly opposes interventions that increases stigmatization and discrimination against vulnerable populations such as men who have sex with men, transgenders, drug users, and sex workers.

The Philippines is one of only seven countries in the world that has seen a rise in HIV/AIDS infections. The rest of the world has been seeing a steady decline in HIV/AIDS infections while we are seeing an almost algebraic rise in reported infections. Clearly, there is a need to double, even triple HIV/AIDS prevention efforts.

But this government does not get it. A sizable percentage of money used in HIV/AIDS prevention in the past has been sourced through funds from international donors, which has become more and more difficult to source. With no money coming from global funds, it is given that government will have to come in and deliver the funds. This administration has refused to do so. Ona insists that the current amount of spending by the national government is enough. Ona’s logic stinks because the infections are tripling and yet the total money available is short by about half of what is required. To make up for the shortfall, Ona has come up with his stigmatizing proposal to conduct a witch hunt of homosexuals.

We will have to pay dearly, very dearly in the very near future for Ona’s and this government’s inaction and indifference on HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, being aware as to who is to blame for the rise in infections in the country does not help reverse the situation. As usual, we, the citizens will just have to do what we can because it really seems that nobody is out there in the corridors of power.

Celebrating Filipino Talent

2011-11-30T01:46:00.001+08:00

This post is antedated. This was my column November 30, 2011.

We can all continue to gripe about how democracy is being weakened in this country by what seems like a lynch mob mentality or continue to wallow in the negativity and the pall of doom and cynicism that have enveloped our existence as a people and as a nation.

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to argue with moral righteousness. In the immortal words of C. S. Lewis, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Fortunately for me, I was present in a few awards events recently that somehow rekindled hope and faith that despite what our leaders do or don’t do, there will always be Filipinos we can be proud of and make us feel good about being Filipinos.

I was a judge in this year’s Mabuhay Awards, the annual search for outstanding employees in the hospitality industry under the auspices of the Association of Human Resource Managers in the hospitality industry. At the awarding ceremonies, I met a person that made me believe once again that the Filipino is truly among the best in the world regardless of the tragic absence of concrete plans to effectively nurture and harness Filipino talent.

Recipient of this year’s AHRM Mabuhay Gold Award was Pablo Logro, more popularly known as Chef Boy. I’ve seen the celebrated chef on a number of occasions in some local TV cook shows where he dazzled with his culinary skills, wit and candor but television does not really fully capture the brilliance of the man.

At the awards ceremonies, Chef Boy spoke from the heart as he narrated his life’s journey described by many as a “Cinderella story.”

Chef Boy was the second of eight children of a fisherman and a housewife in Bicol. Poverty forced him to abandon his high school studies and to come to the Big City in search of better luck. He was barely 13. He found work as a houseboy in a Chinese restaurant in Quiapo where he picked up basic kitchen skills. Since he spoke little Tagalog, he would make illustrations of things he saw being done in the kitchen—the vegetables used, how to cut, put together, and cook ingredients. The man basically taught himself.

It has been said more than often enough that opportunities come to those who work hard to improve themselves. Chef Boy eventually found employment in a number of restaurants as a cook and eventually got mentored by some established chefs.

His life made a complete turnaround when he found employment as sous chef for the royal family of Oman. The Sultan of Oman was so impressed with Chef Boy that he was soon appointed as Head Chef of the Royal Palace. Chef Boy went places as he accompanied the royal family on various trips abroad and further honed his competencies as a global chef. As Head Chef of the Royal Palace, he was given benefits and preferential treatment almost equal to a cabinet minister.

Eventually, Chef Boy came home to become Executive Chef of the Manila Diamond Hotel. Soon after, he established his own culinary school in Cavite.

The rags-to-riches story may not be unique—there are many Filipinos from humble beginnings who also achieved great success in life.

But what makes Chef Boy immensely endearing and inspiring is the fact that he is always brimming with a “can do” attitude. He is passionate about his craft and just as equally passionate about sharing what he knows with others. There is a child-like quality that envelops him—he is always smiling, seems eager to please, and makes no apologies for his humble beginnings. Particularly important to note is the fact that this man does not make apologies for the fact that he does not speak “perfect” English. In fact, people at the awards ceremonies lapped up every word he uttered despite the badly fractured English and the local accent. Chef Boy has achieved global recognition because of his competencies and because of certain attributes. He is respected and celebrated for what he is and what he has achieved. We can meet global benchmarks without having to lose our soul and identity as a people.

I sat as judge for this year’s Mabuhay Awardee for the Managerial Category along with Department of Labor Assistant Secretary Joji Aragon and TESDA Executive Director Gabby Bordado. We spent a whole day reviewing the qualifications of the 12 finalists and interviewing them. Truly, we have great people manning our hospitality industry; our hotels have some of the greatest talents in this country. The 12 finalists we talked to each deserved to be given an award. Unfortunately, we were told to pick just one. Our unanimous choice was Gibeth Guzman Gloria of the Crowne Plaza Galleria Manila.

Gloria impressed us with the excellent way in which she has been able to balance the different demands placed on her shoulders. She is probably one of the very few women (if not the only woman) holding the position of Food and Beverage Director of a five-star hotel, a post usually held by an expatriate. She had a very global mindset and yet a distinct Filipino temperament. As a manager, she impressed us with her ability to balance being a stern taskmaster and being a people-oriented person.

Still speaking of awards, the People Management Association of the Philippines last week handed out trophies to the winners of the PMAP First Makatao Awards for Mass Media Excellence. The awards were designed to recognize and honor mass media institutions and practitioners who continuously champion the cause of genuine people management and development in this country. What makes the PMAP mass media awards unique is that the finalists and winners are voted on by the members of PMAP, who are human resource management professionals.

ABS-CBN garnered most of the radio and television awards including best news program (TV Patrol) and best news program anchors (Noli de Castro, Ted Failon, and Korina Sanchez), best radio news program (Radyo Patrol 630), Pasada), best radio news program anchor (Noli de Castro), best radio program (Dos for Dos), best radio program hosts (Anthony Taberna and Gerry Baja), and Radio Station of the Year (DZMM).

However, TV Station of the Year was won by GMA7. Best public affairs program was won by I-Witness and best public affairs program host was won by Jessica Soho. The Philippine Daily Inquirer won as best newspaper

Impunity and justice

2011-11-28T01:47:00.001+08:00

This was my column November 28, 2011.

This post is antedated.

The whole country commemorated last week the second anniversary of what will most likely go down in history as the most horrendous crime ever committed in this country.

The Maguindanao massacre which happened November 23, 2009 claimed the lives of 57 civilians, including 32 journalists (one more body has not yet been found - ed). Fifteen of the victims were women. According to eyewitness reports, all 57 were killed in brutal circumstances. Some of the women were mutilated. Many begged for their lives while the perpetrators pointed a gun at their foreheads pointblank. The bodies were later dumped into a common mass grave that was dug and pressed repeatedly using heavy equipment as if to make sure the burial ground was made compact enough.

International press freedom and media advocacy groups have designated November 23 as International Day to End Impunity.

Last week was an occasion to remember and to shake our whole justice system and demand better and faster delivery of justice. Maybe because it has been two years since the carnage happened, activities last week tended to focus on the latter.

Some media establishments tried to recall the gruesome events of November 23, 2009, but the general focus of the commemoration, the media coverage, and most of the discussion was on just how slow the wheels of justice have been turning in the case of the Maguindanao massacre. The perceived consensus was that yes, it is a given that the administration of justice in this country moves at turtle speed; the problem is that in this particular case it is moving at glacial speed.

As can be expected, there were lots of screaming, berating, teeth-gnashing and tongue-clicking last week. Many of our leaders grabbed the occasion to pontificate on the perceived weaknesses of our justice system. Some took the occasion to offer some helpful suggestions such as the need to hire more judges to declog our courts of the thousands of cases that overwhelm the whole system. Others took broad swipes at specific personalities – from the regional trial court judge who is trying the case (Jocelyn Reyes-Solis), to the government prosecutors, to the Fortun brothers who are defending the principal suspects – the Ampatuans, etc.

Others took the occasion to display the presence – or conversely, the absence - of mathematical abilities as they tried to determine how long it would take for the trial against the principal suspects and 196 others to be completed. Someone said 55,000 years. A senator offered another number: 500 years. Economist and writer Solita Monsod gave a more realistic number: 25 years. What was clear was that it would take a long, long time.

I can understand the impatience, and consequently, the exasperation. We are discussing murder committed brazenly and with impunity. Most of the victims were not even directly involved in the political war of the feuding families. The media people who were part of the convoy were just doing their jobs. There is no way to categorize massacres into gradations but the way it was conducted was just so inhuman and so evil. We all want justice to be served to those who were behind the carnage.

Having said that, I also think that it is important for people to acquire a sense of perspective.

The principal accused in the multiple murder case are not ordinary mortals. These are political warlords who have been in power for quite sometime and with almost inexhaustible resources to spend to defend themselves: former Maguindanao Gov. Andal Ampatuan Sr.; suspended Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan; former acting Maguindanao Gov. Sajid Ampatuan; former Datu Unsay, Maguindanao Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr.; Akmad Ampatuan; and Anwar Ampatuan. There are 196 others that are also charged with the multiple murder case. These are police officers, members of the private army of the Ampatuans, supporters of the Ampatuans, and others whose involvement in the murder was either complicit or just incidental.

We may have already formed our opinions about what kind of people the suspects are, but they are still accorded certain rights under our Constitution. We are a country of laws so it is a given that the suspects will exhaust all remedies to defend themselves or delay their conviction because these are among their rights. They are still presumed innocent unless proven otherwise.

There are more than a hundred prosecution witnesses. The numbers vary, from a high of 157 to a low of 107, depending on whom one talks to. It is a given that the defense would have more or less the same number of witnesses. Each of these witnesses undergoes direct examination by prosecution, or by defense lawyers. Each direct examination would take at least one hearing. The cross examination to be conducted by the battery of lawyers (each defendant has his or her own lawyer) can also be reasonably expected to take some time. And then there are the various legal maneuvers such as legal questions that need to be resolved by a higher court that are perceived as dilatory tactics. And then there is the appeals process, which can take a long time as well.

I know we all want official vindication; we want our courts to pronounce the suspects guilty as charged. We want the drama of having to see a judge bang a gavel and hand down a sentence.

I also think that there is a need to fix the gaps in our justice system and we should do so not just because of the Maguindanao massacre but because there are tens of thousands of other cases that need equal consideration.

But if we really come to think about it, what will an official conviction produce that isn’t already there today? The suspects are already in jail. They have been detained at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology Detention Center in Camp Bagong Diwa, Bicutan for a number of months now. The suspects have also been pronounced guilty by Filipinos – I don’t think there is anyone in this country who actually think that the Ampatuans are innocent. They have lost their influence. They are vilified and hated. These may not be the kind of justice that will satiate our collective rage, but we must admit that there is also basis to actually grant that our justice system is not totally worthless.

It will still be better if we see major improvements in terms of the way the trial is being conducted. The government can pour more resources into the case such as assigning more prosecutors. Everyone else can help by providing direct support rather than just criticism. Many of the private lawyers hired by the families of the victims hardly show up at all during the hearings but make themselves indispensable in the eyes of the media. And we can all be more vigilant by remembering the case not just when November 23 comes along.

Epic failure

2011-11-21T01:50:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

There are many ways to interpret the national drama that we witnessed last week. Of course, things are not over yet. By all indications, the war has just started and the main protagonists are just warming up. We’re in for more torture in the next weeks.

Foremost of all is the national torture of having to see just how utterly and hopelessly incapable we are as a nation and as a people to conduct our affairs in a civilized and mature way, sans the histrionics, the very public display of monstrous egos, and the puerile contest of wills.

Surely, there is a much better way of conducting our affairs as a nation! It does seem as if we haven’t learned from our previous experiences in persecuting two past presidents. I must, therefore, for the record, express my utter disappointment in the way this current administration has handled the current imbroglio. Epic failure is written all over it.

As a result, we have once again witnessed for ourselves just how easy it has become for our politicians to turn the whole justice system in its head with all kinds of power play and political maneuvering.

There were the accusations of wanton suppression of constitutional rights, the cinematic race to catch a flight at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, and a dramatic face-off that ended up with a frail-looking former President eventually being brought to a hospital.

On the other hand, there was the overwhelming presumption of malice and accusation of intent to evade prosecution—flight being presumed to be a manifestation of guilt regardless of the medical urgency. The order of the Secretary of Justice not to heed a temporary restraining order issued by no less than the Supreme Court was interpreted as barefaced defiance—a daring and brazen stand that shocked many.

But as can be expected in a situation that has gotten way out of control, most simply got engrossed in the drama. It didn’t help that as in the past, our predilection to turn news events into a dramatic production prevailed.

I watched the whole chain of events with utter dismay. Given the fact that this administration has made the prosecution of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as its main—if not its only—program of government, it was not unreasonable to expect some strategic plan of action, some contingency plan in place.

Oh please, this was not an unreasonable expectation given the fact that this administration has been in power for 17 months already and given further the many times in which officials of this administration have been crowing about the goods that they have on the former president.

As I write, President Aquino was once again blabbering on television about how the current chain of events is just the start of the government’s drive to bring make Arroyo pay for her many alleged sins. This administration just does not get it. The chain of events that we have seen so far does not inspire confidence. What we have seen have been nothing but monumental blunders of epic proportions.

As a consequence of the absolute incompetence of this administration—of the Justice Secretary in particular whose whole only strategy seems to be talking to the media—the whole caboodle of issues has been reduced into a series of showdowns and standoffs; first at the airport, then at the hospital, and then this week at the Supreme Court.

I dread the thought of how things could have spiraled way out of control if something happened to Arroyo at the airport. Actually, this scenario could still happen.

The absence of a carefully managed plan of action on how to effectively bring Arroyo to court has resulted in a most unfortunate situation. First, the threat of a constitutional crisis. Second, the commission of too many lapses and technical shortcuts that will potentially weaken the government’s position. Third, too much collateral damage in the form of erosion of credibility of many people and consequently, the weakening of social structures in this country. Fourth, the growing perception that the government has been caught flatfooted and is now moving heaven and earth to speed up the filing of cases without regard for respecting due process.

This administration is lucky that previous efforts to demonize Arroyo have so far worked. Arroyo continues to be unpopular and critics of the way this administration has been mismanaging the situation have so far refrained from speaking publicly. But let’s make no mistake about this: There is only so much incompetence people can take. Unless this administration does a better job, I see an erosion of credibility. As it is, the prevailing sentiment is that everything that is happening is a classic illustration of the “weather-weather” phenomenon (it’s all about who has the reins of power).

Elena Bautista Horn’s performance in the television show The Bottomline last Saturday evening was particularly instructive. Horn is Arroyo’s chief of staff at the House of Representative and the de facto spokesperson of the former President. At the end of the show, the usually critical panelists of the show were almost unanimous in saying that Horn came across as credible. Even more instructive, the panelists of the show were overwhelmingly unanimous in saying that Horn was infinitely more articulate and more believable than all the talking heads of this administration combined.

What is at stake in the issue is very crucial. There are those who insist that what is at stake in the issue is the inviolability of individual rights and freedoms as enshrined in the constitution. Others contend that a greater interest is at stake, the need to strengthen and uphold accountability in public service. The concept of “the common good” is once again being bandied about. There are those who insist that the bedrock of the judicial system of this country is the protection of citizen’s constitutional rights which is supposed to be sacrosanct; the logic being forwarded being that if a former President cannot seek protection from the Constitution, then what hope does an ordinary citizen have?

The other side of the argument insists that the Constitution exists as an integrated framework meant to prop up our social structures and therefore cannot be interpreted in a vacuum. Inevitably, provisions need to be interpreted with a bias for protecting the social order. Given the country’s dismal track record in making powerful people accountable for misdeeds while in office, the seeming mad dash to board a plane out of the country was interpreted as an attempt to evade justice.

These issues are worth debating about in a dispassionate and more objective way. Unfortunately, the discussions have so far remained at the level of a moral debate, which is not really a good development because such discussions inevitably become personal and highly polarizing

Divided over a victory

2011-11-16T01:52:00.002+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

Eight hours after Manny Pacquiao was declared the winner of the Pacquiao-Marquez fight, an American friend of mine sent me a message through my Facebook account. He said: “You Filipinos must be a nation of very righteous people; you bash your own champion and even side with the Mexican on a very subjective decision about a game that was too close to call.” The message was laced with barely concealed amusement bordering on disdain. I was at a loss as to what the appropriate response should have been.

I personally couldn’t make head or tails of the uproar over the judges’ decision. I truly cannot understand why we Filipinos do this to ourselves. Why do we shoot ourselves in the foot during situations that should be, at best, occasions to assert pride, or at least to make a sigh of relief that our fighter prevailed despite the odds and perhaps even to thank heavens that he pulled through by the skin of his teeth? Or, okay, at least, to suspend judgment and give others the benefit of the doubt.

Others thought Marquez clearly won, some thought that Pacquiao was still the rightful winner. But all things considered, everyone agreed it was too close to call. When pressed further, most everyone thought it should have been declared a draw. In short, there was a possibility that it could have been judged either way depending on what criteria one was biased towards. Some people are biased towards the number of punches that land on a body. Others put more emphasis on aggressive behavior, noting that Marquez was merely doing defensive counterpunching and spent more time waiting in ambush for Pacquiao. Others noted that if Pacquiao did not go after Marquez, they probably would not have traded punches at all.

The judges, however, gave Pacquiao more points and declared him the winner.

The Mexicans naturally reacted in protest. They booed and threw trash into the ring. For the longest time, Marquez has been whining about having been robbed of a victory since their first fight, conveniently forgetting that Pacquiao floored him three times on the first round of that bout. In fact, many believe it was Pacquiao that got robbed in that first fight.

And the Filipinos? Well, we went into self-flagellation mode. Rather than give the judges the benefit of the doubt, many among us threw our support behind Marquez. That would have been par for the course—we all think democracy allows us to make utter fools of ourselves when we feel like it.

But what I couldn’t comprehend was the way many Filipinos automatically dissed Pacquiao. I could not believe the extent to which many Filipinos heaped abuse on the guy. In many social networking sites, Filipinos who did not agree with the decision directed their disgust at Pacquiao—not at the judges, mind; they insulted Pacquiao, called him old, weakening, slow, a moneybag, etc. Someone I know even posted derogatory comments calling Pacquiao shameless, boastful, and a fraud. Whew.

It was as if Pacquiao had a direct hand in the judges’ decision.

It was as if it was his fault that Marquez was wily and chose to fight with his cunning rather than with his heart.

It was as if Pacquiao had personally wronged everyone for not being able to win convincingly.

It was as if Pacquiao had suddenly become much less of a boxer just because he didn’t succeed in knocking out Marquez halfway through the game.

It was as if he has failed the Filipino people because the judges saw him as the better boxer during the fight.

I was astounded by the sheer number of boxing “experts” that have suddenly sprouted in this country— “experts” who deemed themselves more knowledgeable than the judges who scored the game. Experts who were unequivocal about their opinions and even unshakeable in their moral righteousness.

I was just as astounded by the overwhelming numbers of Filipinos who have suddenly became experts in reading human behaviors. Given the numbers of people who categorically declared that even Pacquiao’s and his wife Jinky’s body language showed that they “conceded” the fight to Marquez, our justice system should have no problems trying suspected criminals —we have hundreds of thousands of peoples who can read behaviors!

But even more astounding was the way many Filipinos suddenly had a major change of heart. From being rabid Pacquiao fans, they suddenly became Pacquiao’s worst critics. Of course, many tried to wiggle out by prefacing their nasty commentary with the disclaimer that they are really Pacquiao’s fans, just that they subscribe to a higher moral order, one that gives them license to desert someone when he fails to measure up to some expectations.

Let’s make no mistake about this. I don’t begrudge people for believing that Marquez won. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.

But I do mind when people put down Pacquiao’s stature just because the judges saw him as the better boxer. I do resent it when people put down another person in an effort to boost their own arguments.

To my mind, Pacquiao fought Marquez with all he had, he gave the game his all, he put his life on the line for the sake of the country’s honor. Surely, he deserves a little bit of respect. Surely, he also deserves the benefit of the doubt. I think we owe it to him not to diss him and make him feel like excrement for not having won convincingly.

And I do mind when people start to drop insinuations about rigging and cheating. It’s bad enough that we openly express disaffection just because someone failed to meet some unreasonable expectations. But do we really have to go so low?

A friend of mine also tweeted and posted shoutouts in Facebook expressing his belief that Marquez should have won. He was egged by a friend to watch the replay Sunday night. He did. He watched it with a more objective eye. He then retracted everything he said and was quite happy to eat his words. According to him, any trained eye could see that Pacquiao truly won the game after all. I wish more people would follow my friend’s example.

The problem really boils down to just one thing: We had too much expectations. We expected Pacquiao to win convincingly and overwhelmingly. We expected to see Marquez reduced to a pulp. We expected nothing less than a knockout halfway through the game. Unfortunately, these didn’t happen.

What people refused to see was that Marquez didn’t knock Pacquiao down, either. It all boiled down to who was the better fighter based on points. The judges made a decision in favor of Pacquiao. That should have been it.

We won. But sadly, we have already been conditioned to accept only one kind of victory—one involving bloody annihilation, preferably with a limp body and a disfigured face. We wanted the opportunity to pump our fists into the air and scream superiority. When these didn’t happen, many felt cheated and took their ire on the fighter, a scenario reminiscent of the ancient days when Romans screamed for blood and death as they watched gladiators fight.

Clearly, there was nothing wrong with the way Pacquiao fought or played the game. It wasn’t his fault that he came up against someone who decided to play the game with a cunning strategy. Why blame him for the fact that we expected more?

Investing in human capital

2011-11-14T01:54:00.002+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

People are our only remaining source of competitive advantage; most of our other resources are gone or are fast going but what we do have in large quantities are people. It stands to reason, therefore, that we should be spending more in terms of investments in human capital. I know I have written about this so many times, but it is something that bears repeating because it is something we cannot keep on glossing over.

The sad fact is that far too many people in this country seem to think that Filipinos are naturally gifted as if competencies and talents are our natural birthright. When people sing paeans to overseas Filipino workers as among the preferred or the best talent in the world, many among us are lulled into thinking that everything is all and well as far as the overall preparedness and competencies of Filipinos to compete in the global arena is concerned and that Filipinos will continue to find jobs anywhere, anytime. This is farthest from the truth. The reality is that even in our own country, there are thousands of jobs that cannot be filled simply because we don’t have enough candidates that meet the requirements of these positions. The mismatch between what academe produces and what industry needs is becoming an alarming cause of concern.

Creating jobs is a difficult challenge, but a challenge that pales in comparison to the more critical question: Do we have a steady supply of talent that meets global requirements? We have achieved some measure of success in positioning ourselves as the outsourcing capital of the world, but we forget that this industry is human capital-dependent. The call centers and business process outsourcing centers will continue to locate in the country for as long as we have the people that will perform the jobs. But other countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, even China will soon catch up with us unless we scale up efforts in terms of proactive investment in human capital.

This leads us to the critical question, then. Are we really doing enough to ensure that Filipino talent will continue to have the competencies that will make him or her stand out – 10, 15, 20 years down the road? We need to think strategically if we are to strengthen our competitiveness. We need to focus our sights on Filipinos who are not yet in college today.

Most studies show that certain competencies are developed at an early age. For example many studies show that mastery of certain competencies such as assertiveness and even some skills associated with communications such as grammar and fluency can be traced to a person’s formative years. There are also studies that indicate, although the empirical evidence is not very conclusive, that interventions to improve certain competencies that are made in later years yield poor results. In short, if the foundation skills are not strong, the possibility of achieving dramatic development in competencies in college is slim.

Clearly, developing human capital is a matter that requires long-term investments. We need to start putting in place more aggressive programs to ensure that children are kept in school. Better still, we need to make sure that children who are in elementary grades have access to basic needs such as health and nutrition because of their causal links to skills formation.

This is why I have always supported feeding programs such as the milk program for elementary pupils initiated by Senator Frank Drilon a couple of years back.

And this is one of the major reasons why I support the Conditional Cash Transfer Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, known as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or four Ps.

Oh I know. Programs like these do not really directly fix the structures that create inequities in our culture. The four Ps program will not fix everything that is wrong with this country. It’s not a magic bullet, that’s for sure. To be honest, these were also my reservations about the program early on.

I have talked to a number of people in our farm in Leyte including farmhands whose lives have become a little less difficult because of the program. I have personally talked to a fatherless brood of five whose monthly source of income was the P3,000 sent by their mother who worked as a household helper in Manila – a figure that has been greatly aided by the additional P1,400 that they have been able to source from the four Ps program. As a result, they children have been kept in school and the number of times they have missed meals have been reduced. For many families in rural areas, P1,400 a month makes a major difference.

We can all dream about comprehensive solutions that will fix the problems in our country in a systemic, integrated way. But we all know such solutions are not forthcoming anytime soon given limitations in the abilities of our elected leaders. But this does not preclude us from doing what we can to help our countrymen now. The four Ps is not perfect, but this is what I firmly believe in – right now, it’s the only program of this administration that it can honestly take pride in. All other programs remain inchoate or lack the impetus to make a difference.

Many people have attacked the program, citing two main criticisms. First, that dole does not work and only promotes indolence and dependence. And second, that the program is far too ambitious and will cost the Philippine government hundreds of billions of pesos that are better spent somewhere else.

The program is called conditional cash transfer; the word condition is not there for rhetorical purposes because money is only released to a qualified family on condition that they avail of health services (pre- and post-natal care for pregnant mothers and immunization, weight monitoring, nutrition counseling, and deworming for children) and they keep their children in school. In this context, the cash transfer is not a dole-out.

Of course the intellectuals among us can debate endlessly about what does and does not constitute a dole – and the ethical and moral considerations around it. We can intellectualize, moralize, and romanticize poverty and concepts like self-reliance, but at the end of the day, we all know everyone deserves a fair chance of proving himself or herself and a little assistance from government wouldn’t be all that bad. I personally would like to see stronger social security systems put in place in this country such as unemployment insurance, better retirement benefits, more comprehensive health services, etc. From where I sit, giving poor families a little help to become responsible parents and citizens cannot be all that bad.

The matter of the hundreds of billions of pesos that the program will require over the years is staggering; but not if we divide the amount by the total number of families (around 2.3 million as of last count) that would benefit from it. If we look at the amount as investment in Philippine human capital - and it is investment in human capital because we are ensuring that future employees know how to read and write and do not have health problems, for crying out loud – then, the amount is hardly enough. It certainly is far less compared to what our politicians spend collectively just to get elected into office.

Regulating shamelessness

2011-11-09T01:56:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

Someone once shared a joke about politicians that I found really funny. Here it is:

Four surgeons are discussing who the best patients to operate on are.

The first surgeon says, “I like to see accountants on my operating table because when you open them up, everything inside is numbered.”

The second responds, “Yeah, but you should try electricians! Everything inside them is color coded.”

The third surgeon says, “No, I really think librarians are the best; everything inside them is in alphabetical order.”

But the fourth surgeon shut them all up when he observed: “You’re all wrong. Politicians—especially from the Philippines—are the easiest to operate on. There are no guts, no heart, no balls, no brains and no spine, and the head and the ass are interchangeable.”

This joke came to mind on account of the various reactions to Senate Bill 1967, also known as “An Act Prohibiting Public Officers from Claiming Credit through Signage Announcing a Public Works Project.” The proposed measure is being pushed by the irrepressible Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago. Malacañang has also thrown its support behind the bill.

The measure has come to be known as the anti-epal law. Epal is slang for “mapapel,” a Filipino term for attention grabbers, scene stealers, or people who are so hungry for attention that they impose themselves on others just to get a share of the limelight. It’s a malady that is most noticeable among the terminally insecure, a condition that seems prevalent among our public officials.

It’s embarrassing that we actually have to enact a law to regulate something that should be within the bounds of basic delicadeza. Clearly, public officials have no right to claim credit from projects that are paid by taxpayers’ money. Unfortunately, it appears that the shamelessness of many of our officials have become so unbridled that a law is now required to stop the atrocity.

Everywhere in this country today, public work projects are accompanied by giant billboards or signages that give credit to legislators or government officials as if the projects are funded by money coming from the officials’ own pockets rather than from everyone else’s taxes. In many instances, the shamelessness is so brazen—the officials even dare plaster their photoshopped faces on the billboards creating the impression that they are members of a royal family smiling benignly on their subjects.

Some officials are not content with just one giant billboard. In many cities such as in Tacloban City, the signages are plastered on practically every electric post. And horror of all horrors, in many rural areas, the signages are not just conspicuous, they assault the senses. I have personally come across many school buildings that had whole roofs or walls painted with the name of some senator, congressman or local executive!

Will the bill get passed? I highly doubt it. First of all, I am not sure there is a counterpart bill in the House of Representatives. In case people have forgotten, we have a bicameral system in place.

Second, it’s the kind of measure that will kill the political careers of many of our legislators, in particular, those who have nothing to show for their long years in office in the form of meaningful laws that they have sponsored or enacted. These politicians coast through two or three terms as congressmen or senator mainly aided by token projects implemented with the use of their pork barrel. The malady, however, is not limited to legislators. Local executives—governors, mayors, councilors, and barangay captains—are equally guilty.

So far, only a few politicians have come forward to denounce the bill. One congressman offered a meek objection, sputtering on television about the need for billboards and signage because as he said “how else will our constituents know that we are doing our jobs?” This kind of reaction is embarrassing mainly because it is indicative of either dementia or stupidity.

The job of congressmen is to enact laws, not to implement public works projects. Granting for the sake of argument that congressmen need to spur economic development or help deliver basic services in their respective localities, there are many ways to deliver the message without having to erect permanent billboards. And really, if they are truly competent and do a great job, word of mouth is always a hundred times more effective than 100 signages.

In reality, the proposed law does not even fully address the problem. The bill only seeks to address signages. In many cases, the public works project themselves have been designed like a shrine to some public official. In Leyte, for example, there are lampposts that have been designed in the form of the letter P (for Petilla, the family name of the former and incumbent governors). In Antipolo, we have waiting sheds in the form of the letter Y (for Ynares, the governor). In Makati, there are wrought iron fixtures attached to public structures in the shape of the letter B (for Binay, of course).

In many cities and towns, the names and faces of officials are etched on permanent structures such as welcome arches, town markers, pergolas, and even on public buildings. In some towns in Bulacan, the names of the mayors are painted on every post along with some sophomoric slogan or tacky illustration that is being made to pass as artwork.

And then, there are the officials who hijack welfare goods and repackage them in bags that carry their names. What about signages that purportedly greet constituents during special occasions such as Christmas, Valentine’s, graduation, etc?

The extent of the problem is not limited to ethical concerns. There is also the matter of aesthetics. Many of these signages are tacky and cheap. They stand out because of the abysmal lack of artistry.

Incomprehensible

2011-11-07T01:57:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

The whole country has been riveted on the circumstances around the death of Ramgen Revilla, son of movie icon and former Senator Ramon Revilla Sr. and half-brother of actor and incumbent senator Ramon Bong Revilla Jr.

I can understand why the death is newsworthy. Ramgen Revilla was murdered in his home. The fact that a young promising life was snuffed out by unknown assailants deserves attention. Unfortunately, it appears that it is his family background that has become the intense focus of media attention. There have been days that it seems Ramgen’s death has become a peripheral issue rather than being the issue in itself.

The mystery behind the murder and the fact that family members – his own siblings – have been implicated in the whole sordid mess have turned the whole thing into a complicated story with twists and turns that rival the most convoluted telenovela. There are now allegations of conspiracy among siblings, unfair treatment from other branches of the family, and of course, a money trail.

So yes, the story is compelling and I can understand the whole attention given to it.

What I don’t understand is why the whole case is being unraveled in public media. Even worse, I don’t understand why it seems certain media personalities have taken over the case and is now trying to solve it. There are even those who are already trying the case rendering judgment on the culpability and guilt of some of those implicated. Clearly, media has overstepped the bounds this time around.

At some point last week, one member of the Revilla clan issued an appeal to all and sundry to allow them some privacy during their time of grief. The appeal fell on deaf ears as media people hounded them for every bit of drama that could be wrung out of them.

Even stranger, I don’t understand why the Revillas have been scrambling all over themselves to grant interviews about what they know, what they think, and how they feel about every single development about the murder case. It’s as if every bit of evidence or theory related to the murder has to be cleared with, or deserves commentary from them.

I don’t understand why the various factions of the Revilla family are exchanging lurid accusations in social media and through television and radio shows. Surely someone among them have had the sense to remember that notwithstanding the various aggravations, they are still a family and that some things need to be discussed only within themselves, outside of the prying eyes of media.

I don’t understand why the police authorities are granting interviews left and right - explaining evidence, sorting out motives, and revealing theories in media. For crying out loud, surely this is not the way to handle a police matter. Can someone among our generals in the policy hierarchy please knock sense into the skulls of their subordinates and remind them that the protocol around murder investigations do not involve having to explain to media and to the general public every single detail of a case that is yet to be solved with finality?

I can understand why media people are all in a frenzy trying to get exclusive interviews and source information that would preempt competititors about the details of the flight and personal circumstances of Ramon Revilla (the sister of the murder victim who is also being implicated as a suspect). It’s certainly a matter of public interest. But what I cannot understand is why certain media personalities have abrogated among themselves the role of police investigator, prosecutor, and judge. I watched a clip of ABS-CBN’s Karen Davila in the network’s website showing her in a state of extreme agitation lashing out at Ramona Revilla and issuing a barrage of questions that she said she (Ramona) must answer, as if she was some magistrate that everyone was beholden to. I’ve also seen quite a number of other media personalities aggressively hounding members of the Revilla family and demanding answers as if everyone was a suspect that had to be absolved by media people.

In the last few days, we have been fed too many details about the Revillas that clearly violate their right to privacy. Media has become so intrusive and no detail has been spared.

People have feasted on that bit about how Ramgen’s branch of the Revilla family was receiving a million pesos in spending money every month from the Revilla patriarch. This has led to all kinds of speculations about the source of the money – a news story published in the front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer went into details about the Revilla’s financial worth and business interests – and many people in various social media have suddenly become qualified to render judgment on the morality of giving that much spending money on nine children! Another story in another paper detailed the various branches of the Revilla progeny, making an accounting of, we have been told, all 82 children and 16 wives. Some have unearthed details about the various wives and their ages when they first started bearing Revilla’s children. Even little details about the Revilla patriarch’s health have not been spared. What all these have got to do with the murder is beyond me.

But what stupefies me even more is why no one among the Revillas and among the pundits in this country have seen fit to point out that all these line of investigative reporting is way out of line. They are irrelevant.

I don’t understand why Senator Ramon Bong Revilla Jr seems to think he is beholden to the media on things that are clearly family matters. There he was Friday evening in a late news telecast sputtering inarticulately as he was put on the spot and confronted with details about his half-sister’s flight out of the country. Surely, we can allow a senator some dignity in the face of such a complicated family tragedy. As a result, he was forced to crucify his own half-sister in public media because as he said, he is “senator of the whole Filipino people not just of the Revilla family.”

When have we become so overzealous to the point of being unnecessarily - and therefore excessively – intrusive? It’s approaching bizarre proportions.

A state prosecutor I was talking to last week told me that the police has been pinned against the wall on this case and are forced to justify their actions because of the personalities involved and the aggressiveness of media. Apparently, one police general was left with no other choice but to explain what they were doing because television reporters would not let up with the questions and were already interfering with the official investigation.

Like I said, I understand the inherent curiosity that has attended this case. People want to know what really happened. We all want some form of closure. A young man is six feet under ground, his girlfriend is fighting for her life in a hospital, and a younger brother is languishing in jail without a warrant of arrest or a charge sheet. We don’t have to force the wheels of justice to turn faster in order to satiate what seems to be hunger for salacious details.

Water, water everywhere

2011-11-02T01:58:00.002+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

If I loved this country any less, I would probably be living and working in Thailand. I love many things about Thailand and the Thai people including the contradictions in their culture, which, by the way, are just as plentiful as ours. But what I love most about the Thais is the way they have valiantly tried to protect their cultural heritage even as they aggressively marched towards becoming a tiger economy.

Thus, it’s been with some measure of sadness that I have been monitoring the situation in Thailand over the last few weeks. The immediate concern, of course, was for an older brother and his family and some friends and former students who have made Bangkok their home for the last couple of years. Fortunately, keeping track of their situation has become a lot easier thanks to social media. Many of my friends in Thailand have been assiduously posting updates on their situations in various social networking sites for the benefit of everyone else who have to contend with what is often hysterical reportage from the traditional media. Truly, one of the great benefits of social networking is that one gets to hear about developments straight from the people concerned themselves, without the static that usually accompanies third-party reporting.

I was also worried for the temples and the other landmarks of the city. Initial media reports screamed about the possibility of the Grand Palace, Bangkok’s majestic main tourist draw and former home of Thai monarchs, being inundated by waters from the Chao Phraya river. Fortunately, while floodwater did enter the complex, the damage has not been massive so far. I am aware that some people might find my concern for Bangkok’s cultural heritage out of place given the fact that I am Filipino, but I have always believed world heritage sites belong to all people of this world regardless of where they are.

So yes, parts of Bangkok are under water. To be specific, about seven of the city’s 50 districts are under water, with some parts flooded by as high as four meters. Floodwater has reached the runway of Bangkok’s domestic airport Don Muang, forcing authorities to close it down. Those alarming pictures of planes seemingly floating on water, were taken from this airport. Reports would later indicate that those picturesque photos were of planes that have been decommissioned, in short, they were planes that had no engines! Many countries, including the Philippines, have issued travel advisories warning citizens against traveling to Thailand but the country’s main international airport, Suvarnabhumi Airport, has remained operational and is actually flood-free.

For now, the inner areas of Bangkok have survived the peak tides that were scheduled to hit over the weekend. Most were worried that the network of dikes and sandbags walls that have been built precisely to protect Bangkok would succumb to the rush of floodwater from other parts of Thailand. My friends asked me to convey to everyone else that the situation is not as dire as what others would project it to be. Of course, they are having problems sourcing drinking water and other basic commodities such as diapers for infants, but that’s mainly because of panic buying and hoarding. They expect things to normalize in the next few days as the flooding recedes and clear weather begins to set in. Actually, they said that the flooding in some parts of Thailand has been there for almost three months now and it was only when the floods threatened to hit Bangkok that everyone else in the world sat up and noticed.

But the rehabilitation work that needs to be done in Thailand is daunting. Many industrial estates were affected including those that produced most of the world’s computer parts. Some predict that there will be a spike in the prices of computer parts in the next few months because of the flooding. Thailand’s government has announced a massive rehabilitation plan that would cost around $30 billion. And there is ongoing debate over the capability of Thailand’s new Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra (sister of deposed PM Thaksin Shinawatra) to lead Thailand out of the mess. Thailand’s first female PM was widely seen as a political novice who has been unprepared to deal with complexities of managing a country. There are those who insist that this situation is similar to the one prevailing in our country at the moment.

The flooding that hit Thailand has parallels with the situation operating in our country. We’ve also been prone to flooding in the last months. What has been ironic though is that the situation in Thailand has happened despite a well thought-out irrigation strategy that aimed to collect rainwater during the monsoon months to be used for farming purposes throughout the year. This strategy has enabled Thailand’s agricultural industry to boom in the last few decades. Proof, indeed, that nature cannot be reined in although I dread the thought of people in this country using that justification to defend the absence of similar strategies to store rainwater during the monsoon months for use during summer.

The reality is that we’re in a “feast-or-famine” situation. Some parts of the year would see heavy flooding, but at the same time, experts predict that the drought season would also be severe. Our dams are bursting at the seams at the moment, but that doesn’t mean there would be more than enough to tide us over during the months when there would be no rainfall.

And like what happened here during the onset of heavy flooding, accusations that authorities deliberately sacrificed some areas in order to protect others were also prevalent in Thailand. Citizens around areas in Bangkok launched protests and even destroyed floodgates in order to help alleviate the flooding in their areas even as these meant exposing industrial estates in Bangkok to flooding. In our case, there have been accusations that flooding in some parts of the country happened because authorities tried to “protect” other parts of the country such as Metro Manila.

And just like what we see here, quite a number of citizens have refused to leave their homes even when the floodwater was already seeping into their homes. This is a cultural phenomenon that many people don’t understand; but really, the concept of “home” and the act of defending it defies logic. To most of us, a home is not just a structure of brick and wood—it is a reservoir of many things, memories, a sense of identity, etc.

But what we need to remember is that water—and nature in itself—is difficult to control. As we learned in physics, it seeks its own level. We can try to put in place mechanisms to re-route floodwaters, but there is only so much we can do. What we need are more collaborative and long-term strategies to address the problem that is expected to become a constant problem in the coming months. We need to learn how to see floodwaters as a force that need to be managed although we cannot possibly control it.

***

I would have to end this column with a rant. In the last five days, I have been largely difficult to reach because I lost my cell phone last week. I was issued a SIM card with my old number last Friday and was told that mobile services would be re-established within two hours. It didn’t happen on Friday. I called Globe’s hotline Saturday and was assured it was going to happen within twenty-four hours. It still didn’t happen as of Sunday. I called Sunday afternoon and they told me there was no record of earlier transactions and I had to make another report. I was still incommunicado as of Monday. They finally got around to reconnecting me to the world yesterday, after five frigging days.

What can I say, the service of Globe sucks.

When there is smoke

2011-10-26T02:00:00.002+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

The rumor that was spreading like wildfire last week was that certain elements in the military were restive and were on the verge of staging a coup d’etat. I know. How very eighties, right? Uso pa ba yun? (are coups still in vogue?)

When someone sent me a text message “warning” me about an impending coup d’etat, my immediate reaction was to dismiss the rumor as the brainchild of someone with too much time in his hands. I figured that a coup is not very likely under the current dispensation because of a number of reasons.

First, regardless of how anyone feels about the competency level or the sincerity of this Aquino administration, it is difficult to argue with its current popularity. It’s just unthinkable for anyone to even try to wrest control from a government that has achieved, and continues to achieve, approval ratings that reach the stratosphere.

Of course, cynics raise an eyebrow and ask what exactly is the subject of those approval ratings when the whole bureaucracy is veritably on a standstill and government programs, except the high profile ones that merit media attention, are virtually on hold. This is because everyone in government is suspected of potentially being a corrupt person and each transaction is forced through a sieve that’s almost as impermeable as a latex condom. They claim that what is happening is the perfect example of the axiom “less action, less mistake, less criticism.”

But like I said, it is difficult to argue with popularity. So those who are increasingly becoming disenchanted with this administration just have to gnash their teeth in silence, seethe in private, and wait for their time to come. In this country, most everything that goes up eventually comes crashing down. As the folks say, “weather-weather lang yan (it’s all a matter of time).”

Second, any coup needs the support of certain key segments of the population particularly business, religious, and civic groups. A military junta is clearly not an option in a country where political patronage is deeply embedded in its culture. In a system where even military generals owe political debts to senior military officials, politicians, and businessmen, everything is subject to political favors. The complicity of certain key people has to be secured in order for a coup to be mounted. Obviously, no businessman, religious or civic leader would be stupid enough to lend his or her name to a military uprising in these times. The stakes are just too high and the probability of success practically negligible.

Three, a coup requires a critical mass of loyal followers for an inspiring revolutionary leader. No offense meant to the current leaders of our military establishment, but there is no one with the charisma or the perceived idealism of a Gringo Honasan or an Ariel Querubin or even an Antonio Trillanes among them. At least that’s based on what we ordinary citizens can glean from media reports.

There are more reasons why a coup is not likely to prosper (we’re not even talking success here), but you get the drift.

Admittedly, however, there are mitigating factors that can potentially be milked into becoming major issues worthy of an uprising.

There is the massacre of 19 soldiers in Basilan by forces allegedly belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The attack happened despite the fact that there is supposed to be a ceasefire and both the government and the MILF have agreed to pursue peace talks. It didn’t help that a second carnage happened in Zamboanga a few days after, killing another 7 soldiers and bringing the total number of murder victims to 26 in just three days. The number of casualties would eventually climb to 35.

As can be expected in an emotionally charged environment, there were those who advocated an all-out-war response. Some senators have even joined the chorus for retribution, demanding that the President “do an Erap” (former President Joseph Estrada waged an all-out war against the MILF when he was President although most people are of the opinion that was a diversionary tactic). Senator Panfilo Lacson, an ally of the President, intoned: “Peace in Mindanao cannot be achieved unless a tactical victory is attained first by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.” The senator waxed eloquent, saying “It is time to untie the hands of our soldiers to fight the MILF on equal terms and not be handicapped by the so-called peace talks characterized by treachery and deceit.”

The President initially stuck to his guns insisting that “no one benefits from war.” Understandably, this stance was not popular among the ranks of the military men who have been itching to retaliate and avenge the death of 35 of their comrades. I talked to a relative who is in the military and he told me that many among his comrades saw the President’s decision as a sign of weakness and indicative of the disconnect that exists between Malacañang and the military hierarchy. There was also propaganda being spread among the ranks that the President was “sleeping with the enemy” as evidenced by his clandestine meeting with MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim in Tokyo last August. The President has since then authorized a military attack, although there has been efforts to downplay perceptions that the attack is retaliatory or directed at the MILF.

But what is probably more palpable among the ranks of the military and the bureaucracy is a sense of outrage over what many think as underserved second-class treatment from this new administration.

I was in a meeting with some career bureaucrats—all of them tenured CESO certified—recently and the conversation naturally drifted to a litany of gripes against the Aquino administration. Apparently, loyalty checks are now the order of the day in many departments and those perceived to have had ties with the former administration are now being eased out and not even politely. An example that was made was of this undersecretary at the Depatment of Transportation and Communication who has been unceremoniously told, in no uncertain terms, that she should consider her career in the public service over. Secretary Manuel Roxas II has reportedly asked for her resignation rather than having her placed in the CESO pool. No reason has been given except that she was identified with the former administration.

Listening to a litany of complaints against this administration has actually become the norm every time I meet up with career bureaucrats. The government prosecutors at the Department of Justice continue to be heavily demoralized because their secretary seems more interested in granting media interviews and speaking at various events rather than in actually managing the programs of the department. In fact, there is apprehension that the ongoing trial against the Ampatuans in relation to the Maguindanao massacre has been severely compromised by the ongoing search for witnesses that could pin down former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for electoral fraud. There are more stories of woe from the bureaucracy.

So yes, there is growing disenchantment among the ranks. But is there enough to bring the whole thing to a boil? I don’t think so. Not at the moment. But if this administration continues to treat bureaucrats with disdain and considers everyone as possibly corrupt, then we’re definitely in for rougher times ahead.

Foolish beyond words

2011-10-24T02:02:00.000+08:00

The norm of reciprocity is clear: You reap what you sow. If you submit a clearly ridiculous idea, of course you get pilloried and ridiculed in the process.

So I don’t know what Batangas Governor Vilma Santos Recto and her minions are complaining about. She was all over television last week expressing exasperation (in Tagalog nanggagaliiti) over what she thought was an “overreaction” to what she thought was a brilliant proposal: Putting up a sign on the slopes of Taal Volcano that proclaims to all and sundry that the volcano and the whole area around it belongs to the province of Batangas.

The proponents of the preposterous idea said it was about time that tourists who view Taal volcano from the slopes of Tagaytay City, which offer the best view of the “island within a lake within an island within a lake” are made aware that the world-famous volcano is not a part of Cavite but of Batangas. Taal is in Batangas, not in Cavite, the proponents of the idea want to insist. Someone who supports the idea said it clearly: “It’s time Batanguenos claim their stake in the Volcano.” I wanted to ask out loud: From whom? Who is claiming Taal Volcano as their own? Certainly not Tagaytay City.

But this kind of misplaced sense of ownership is the most harebrained idea I have ever heard.

The idea of putting up a sign on a natural wonder as if it were a property of a provincial government alone is clearly ludicrous. First, because the volcano is not anyone’s property—certainly not of the government of Batangas, nor of the people of Batangas alone. It’s a natural wonder that belongs to the whole country; in fact, if we are to be philosophical about it, it does not belong to anyone—it’s God’s creation and we are supposed to be mere caretakers of the wondrous creation.

Taal Volcano is not a piece of real estate that can be appropriated. What’s next? Will they charge admission for viewing the volcano? A “no trespassing” sign?

Second, because putting up a sign is clearly garish and tawdry and represents the worst kind of visual pollution. The inspiration behind the idea was supposedly the huge Hollywood sign in the United States. Copying an idea per se is not really a crime, but Recto and her supporters seemed to have glossed over the fact that the Hollywood sign does not mar a spectacular natural wonder—it was precisely put up to be an attraction in itself in the absence of anything else there worth gazing at. There’s a difference.

The people who have come up with similar examples of the same harebrained idea are of course indulging in parody, but they bring home the point. Who wants an “Albay” sign over Mayon volcano, or a “Banawe” sign on the slopes of the Ifugao rice terraces, or “Bohol” over the chocolate hills, or a “Laguna” sign on the side of the Pagsanjan falls? Why would we want a “Batangas” sign over the Taal volcano?

I know the other exercises in lampooning the idea bordered on the “personal,” but hey, people cannot be faulted for expressing outrage over what they thought was a personal affront. Taal Volcano and Taal Lake are part and parcel of national heritage and patrimony. Thus, the various parodies of the sign such as the ones quoting famous dialogues from Recto’s movies are par for the course.

Third, Recto and her minions are on the wrong track if their think they can boost tourism in the area merely by putting up a sign. I am aware that they talked about holistic approaches to tourism—although I honestly cannot fathom just how putting up the sign would directly increase livelihood - but tourists don’t come in droves to an area because there is a sign that proclaims where they are. As far as I know, tourists make a conscious decision to go someplace because they have heard of the area and do not just wander aimlessly around and then wonder where they are. And the locals don’t get a heightened sense of identity or love of province just because there is a sign that reminds them of their provincial roots.

Someone even pointed out in a social networking site that the proposed sign is pointless because the proposed dimensions are all wrong. Not that it really matters because adjusting the size of the proposed sign to the correct dimensions would not make it any more viable. But it illustrates just how half-baked the idea is. The proposed sign is supposed to measure 14 meters tall and 110 meters long. Given the size of the volcano, the proposed dimensions make the proposed sign hardly visible. It cannot be read from afar, the sign would merely look like a small house perched on the side of the volcano.

We are told that a parallel idea was to design the various floating restaurants and fish pens on Taal Lake in such a way that they form the famous Batangueno expression “Ala Eh.” An officer of the Batangas tourism office was quoted in some newspapers as gushing over the idea saying it would be “a dazzling sight especially if lit up at night.”

What can I say? The fount of ridiculous ideas seems bottomless. They really must stop ingesting whatever substance it is that they make them, well, stupid.

For the love of God, everyone and his grandmother—except the officials of Batangas, it seems—already knows that Taal Lake is gasping for breath because of the presence of too many fish pens in the area. Have people forgotten that we had a massive fish kill in the area early this year? Scientists have warned that the lake is in the advanced stages of eutrophication, which means more algal blooms and red tide. The solution that was being floated early this year was to stop allowing fish pens in the lake. And now, they actually want to provide the fish pens a veneer of legitimacy by turning them into a tourism attraction!

I am aware that cleaning up the Taal Lake and uprooting those unsightly fish pens is difficult because thousands of people depend on fishing for their livelihood. But it is an open secret that most of the fish pen operators in Taal Lake are foreigners who have introduced sophisticated ways of fish farming including the use of steel rather than biodegradable bamboo as main material for constructing fish pens and the use of sinking feeds that destroy the ecosystem. What we need are more integrated and coordinated mechanisms to save Taal Lake, not more signs.

The provincial government of Batangas should pursue more long-term programs such as cleaning up the lake so that it becomes safe for people to frolic in and for endemic fish such as the tawilis thrive once more. These would draw in far more tourists than any giant sign could.

The funny thing was that a friend actually brought up last week the possibility of someone conceiving of the idea of putting up signs as the only way of identifying natural attractions amidst the mushrooming of structures that mar anyone’s appreciation of their landscapes. Last week I wrote in this space about how Mount Makiling and Banahaw are slowly being covered by houses and other structures. My friend said that in the future, we probably need to put up signs that say “Mount Makiling” just so people would know they are already in front of the mountain. It would be tragic, we thought. Well, what is even more tragic is that there are actually people who think such an idea is brilliant.

Saving the towns of Laguna

2011-10-19T02:04:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

I have been shuttling to San Pablo City and nearby towns in Laguna in the last month and while I continue to be captivated by the many charms of Nagcarlan, Liliw, Majayjay, Cavinti, Luisiana, Los Banos, Bai and Calamba, there is very little doubt that development has arrived in these once rustic towns.

There was a time when traveling to, say, Pagsanjan was a relaxing drive across rolling plains of green, or when the ricefields were ripe for harvesting, swathes of orange and gold. I remember having gone with friends to the town of Liliw some ten years ago to frolic in the cold waters of a river that, we were told, was then still safe to drink. Back then, people dipped right into the river, not in some man-made pool where water from the river had been diverted into by some enterprising person.

The changes brought about by development are becoming more and more evident each day, in a pace that has become faster and faster.

I am afraid that at the rate “progress” is happening in this historic home province of the national hero, large parts of glorious Mount Makiling would soon be covered entirely by houses and the breathtaking view of mystic Mount Banahaw will also be obscured soon by trappings of modern-day conveniences.

The sad thing is that most people I got to talk to were quite happy with the modern-day “improvements.” I don’t hear of activists screaming about cultural heritage preservation. As it is, many, most particularly the younger generation, were actually quite impatient with the pace of development. They bewailed the fact that Chowking halo-halo, for example, can already be had at Liliw and not in their own towns. Of course they’ve always had their own halo-halo stalls in their own public markets, but, well, it’s not served with a flourish, Chowking style, even if the ingredients are the same or perhaps even better because they are organic, or fresher.

In Nagcarlan and Luisiana for example, many couldn’t wait for Jollibee and Goldilocks to set up shop. I like eating Jollibee chickenjoy every once in a while and the cakes at Goldilocks are not bad either, but surely there are local equivalents that are just as tasty, perhaps even more nutritious. Fried itik (duck) at Cavinti is tasty, although in my opinion not quite as delectable as the ones in Angono, Rizal. But as if to make up for the lack of official Jollibee chickenjoy, a number of makeshift stalls have sprouted selling fried chicken, supposedly done with ingredients exactly the same as those of the national foodchain. I don’t vouch for the reliability of the information, in fact I really doubt if it is true , but someone whispered to me that the chicken pieces supposedly came straight from some Jollibee commissary.

Of course many think that having their own SM Department Store would be the ultimate measure of finally having arrived. It would be difficult to begrudge folks of modern-day conveniences. There is value to having Internet facilities even if one is relaxing in the pristine waters of one of the waterfalls in Majayjay or if one is simply contemplating the placid waters of the lake named after the town of Bai. And surely, a few other conveniences such as reliable cellphone signals, 24-hour drugstores and others would not be such a bad idea either.

But still, it would be tragic if, for example, the many stores selling shoes and slippers in Liliw were to disappear just because SM has opened a mall nearby.

Think how sad it would be if the makeshift stalls that sell local fruits in season and native delicacies such as special varieties of rice cakes and various food stuff were to disappear from the streets of Nagcarlan and Luisiana because bigger pasalubong centers have sprouted up, gobbling the little businesses in the area the way 7/11 has killed sari-sari stores in many areas of Metro Manila.

And just what would our lives be like if the rambutan and lanzones trees of Nagcarlan and Rizal were all felled to make way for the building of more subdivisions?

We have got to learn how to balance development with the protection of culture and the environment.

As it is, Calamba, Biñan and Los Baños are hardly worth visiting anymore because, quite frankly, they are now indistinguishable or difficult to tell apart from say, San Pedro, which is quite nearer to Metro Manila and therefore involve less travel aggravation.

If it is any consolation, there are efforts to try to save the environment. In San Pablo, for example, the use of plastic bags has been prohibited. In case you haven’t heard, plastic bags are the number one cause of waterways clogging. Those darn things pollute the environment for many scores.

We shopped at SM San Pablo Supermarket the other weekend and were pleasantly surprised to find that they use biodegradable paper bags instead of those ubiquitous plastic bags. The paper bags were more cumbersome and prone to easy tearing, but customers were allowed the use of shopping carts while inside the mall anyway, so one didn’t have to hug those paper bags the whole time. The lesson is that there is always a creative alternative to every wrinkle.

Unfortunately, our very short visit to SM San Pablo coincided with a major activity of the San Pablo Central School. They dubbed it their annual “playground demonstration.” I remember having gone through the same annual ritual as an elementary pupil when all of us would be required to wear a silly costume and made to gyrate to some improvised dance number or rhythmic activities (my parents referred to the annual embarrassment as character building). The difference was that we did ours in the Town Plaza or the school quadrangle, not inside some air-conditioned mall. We spent a few minutes watching little toddlers go through the motions of dancing an improvised “folk dance” that was as Filipino as a dish of pink salmon heads sinigang. The whole mall was teeming with kids in various stages of hyperactivity and their kith and kin. This is how we make our kids victims of consumerism.

At any rate, it would really be great if the leaders of Laguna would make a conscious and deliberate effort to preserve the various facets that make the province a natural heritage site. They can begin by saving old houses and structures. It’s probably too late to do that in Biñan where many of the old structures have already been torn down, but perhaps not too late for Pagsanjan, Nagcarlan and Liliw where a number of old houses remain. Efforts should be made to preserve old Municipal buildings as well as other historic sites such as underground cemeteries, etc.

I fervently pray that the churches in the towns of Nagcarlan, Majayjay and Liliw are left as they are and conserved properly because they are truly wondrous beyond words. In case you haven’t marveled the centuries-old heritage sites, Nagcarlan Church was the setting of the ABS-CBN soap Kampanerang Kuba (Hunchback Bell Ringer) while Majajay Church was the setting of the Filipino film classic Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Godless Years).

Otherwise, I would encourage everyone to visit the towns of Laguna while there’s still some facets and artifacts of our culture remaining. These would probably be gone in a few years if nothing is done in the area of cultural preservation.

Wake up call

2011-10-17T02:05:00.002+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

I was deeply immersed in preparations for a national conference in the last two weeks and I didn’t have time to think about anything else. I still have tons of emails to wade through, but there is one thing that I needed to get out of the way. So to the many friends and readers who cared to send me emails and the links to Geoffrey James Quartermaine Bastin’s scathing blog on Manila, yes, I got your ardent pleas for me to weigh in with my own two cents’ worth.

For those happily unaware of this latest tempest to hit the blogosphere, Bastin is a British economist who “has been traveling to the Philippines since 1991.” He recently wrote a scathing piece on Manila in a recent post in a blog (the original link of which, for some strange reason, has been inaccessible since Saturday night). The post went viral and seemed to have hit a raw nerve among many fellow Filipinos who felt that Bastin committed the most grievous of mistakes, which was to diss his hosts. I think most of the indignation directed at Bastin is borne out of the fact that we truly are onion-skinned about criticism made by “guests,” sometimes forgetting that the businessmen and tourists that come to this country don’t really owe us any favors for coming here. Because we are ingratiating to a fault, we tend to take it personally when foreigners say bad things about us, and our country. Yes, we love Inang Bayan to bits, but it’s really time for us to see the grime and the smell the decay.

Bastin prefaced his post with what seemed like an attempt to justify his negative review. He said he hated writing negative posts and that one “cannot and should not generalize about such a large country spread over thousands of islands.” And then he went on to rant about Manila being “a dump.” Ouch, indeed.

He said Manila “has got to be the disgrace of South-east Asia, all the more so because twenty years ago when I used to come through here en route to Papua New Guinea it was THE place in the region to come to for shopping and R&R. How the mighty are fallen!”

In Bastin’s opinion, “Ninoy Aquino International is exactly the same as it was all that time ago; the same awful green lino when you arrive, the same over-crowded Departure Hall, nowhere to sit if your check-in desk isn’t open. Once through security you find the same down-market shops, toilets that don’t work or are “under repair” and very few F&B places… The coffee in this over-priced lounge is awful…. Over-boiled and they don’t have a modern machines (which these days can be purchased even for home use) to produce fresh coffee from beans. NO ONE uses this old filter method anymore, at least no one that likes good coffee.”

And then he dissed the hotel he was staying in, the Discovery Suites in Ortigas Center: “It used to be very good and remains convenient for my business meetings. But the owners have invested nothing in upkeep and I stay in a room that has the same furniture, same carpet as it has always had; it smells musty. The TV is years old. The water heating system provides limited hot water for my bath. My room is not cleaned until I have to go and ask. The Internet (OK, free wifi in the room) is dreadfully slow and the room service food lukewarm.”

Bastin did say nice things about Filipinos: “The Filipino people are nice, and indeed they are polite—we Brits might say “smarmy”—obsequious or ingratiating are maybe less pleasant words. But they do try. That does take the edge off the sheer misery of a crumbling, filthy, depressing city and an economy that exists only on the remittances of the smart ones who have left.” Again, ouch!

And then he offered some armchair analysis, saying the Philippines “has the WORST growth history of any of the ASEAN countries—Cambodia which was torn apart by civil war up until 1997 has a first-class airport (fresh ham and cheese sandwiches on foccacia, freshly brewed cappuccino , clean lounges) and some great restaurant food and hotels. But the Manila, where the intelligentsia sneer at their Asian brothers and sisters for their lack of English, is beaten hands down even by little Phnom Penh and left standing by every other mega-city in the region.”

There’s more. “There seems to be a theme here: the Philippines has many natural advantages and in fact a talented people who provide services everywhere in the world. But there has been no re-investment in the country, neither by the public sector (hence the terrible airport facilities), nor by private industry. People might build a hotel, but they run it into the ground rather than trying to build a long-term institution. Philippines can be described as an extractive or exploitive economy, not one where people want to build sustainably long term. As I say, the smart one’s all want to leave.”

Bastin concluded with a suggestion: “If you want to see the Philippines: get through Manila as quickly as you can, it has nothing to recommend it. Go out to the islands, Cebu, Mindanao, up to the cool of Baguio and see the people in the countryside and some of the spectacular scenery. That’s probably worth the trip. Otherwise pick almost anywhere else in Asia and you’ll get a better deal. “ This hurt because I would pick Manila anytime over, say, Timor Leste.

Once I got through my own anger at the harsh words Bastin used, my rational mind kicked in and I realized that the guy didn’t say anything I haven’t said in the past in this space or elsewhere, although I would like to think, with a little less venom.

If we sift through the tons of indignant verbiage heaped on Bastin and his post, three things stand out. First, people felt Bastin failed to balance his views with a more constructive context, in short, he compared apples and oranges. Second, many thought Bastin should not blame Filipinos for the lapse of judgment in choosing a hotel (which people thought triggered the rant) that many Filipinos agreed is not exactly world class; many suggested other “better” hotels in the area. And finally, many thought he was being a “racist” for spewing insulting comments and making unfair and hurtful generalizations on the basis of one experience.

I, too, was hurt by Bastin’s rant. It’s always painful to hear bad things being said about us. I was particularly offended by the very grim prognosis he offered at the end of his piece when he wrote: “For the Philippines the question is surely will it ever emerge from the mire into which it has sunk? Very frankly based on my very long experience of the place I really doubt it, in fact it is a “disappearing” country if there is such a thing.” He didn’t have to be snippy. He could have toned down the anger. He could have resisted the urge to put us down as hopeless.

So yes, I think we cannot be faulted for reacting with equal indignation at the tone he used. But at the same time, let us not bury our heads in the sand and dismiss the observations made just because it was done in bad taste. The mature response is not to shoot the messenger but to show Bastin that we are, in fact, more “gentlemanly.” Let’s resist the urge to give him the dirty finger and instead use the message as a wake up call.

I remain hopeful that we can make still make things work in this country regardless of how many Bastins tell me otherwise.

People first

2011-10-12T02:06:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

Barring any act of God, forces of nature, and other unfortunate events, human resource managers from all over the country will converge at The Atrium of the Limketkai Mall in Cagayan de Oro City at 3:00 in the afternoon today for the annual conference of the People Management Association of the Philippines. The event is the biggest gathering of people managers in the country. This year marks the 48th year that the association is mounting the conference.

There are a number of interesting issues that the conference is tackling but before we get to these issues, allow me to tell you about how particularly challenging it has been to put together this year’s conference.

First, there were the problems brought about by the visitation of the trio of unwanted visitors, namely Pedring, Quiel, and Ramon. The frustrating part was that we actually chose to hold the PMAP conference in October this year (it used to be held regularly in September every year) precisely because everyone said typhoons usually visited the country during September so holding it on October would be wiser. Of course we now know that global warming has really altered whatever weather patterns we’ve been accustomed to in the past. Lesson number one: There is no longer such a thing as a typhoon-free month in this country anymore.

Unfortunately, everything comes to a halt in this country when there is a typhoon. Electricity goes kaput, transportation systems go haywire, prices of food go berserk. Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez has his job cut out for him if he truly intends to put the Philippines in the map as a conference destination.

When we announced that the PMAP conference was happening in Mindanao this year, many heaved a sigh of relief thinking that the conference would not be affected by weather disturbances. Mindanao is an island rarely visited by typhoons. People figured that unlike the other year when hundreds of conference delegates got stranded in Manila because of Typhoon Ondoy, at least people wouldn’t have to go through a similar scenario in Cagayan de Oro. Lesson number two: There is no such thing as a typhoon-free place in this country.

We now know Mindanao is not typhoon-free anymore. As I write this piece, Typhoon Ramon is threatening to wreak havoc on the Northeastern part of Mindanao and Central Visayas. We are storming the heavens with prayers that flights coming out of Cebu and Manila would not get canceled because this would definitely affect the conference as most participants and speakers will be coming in from the two key cities.

But the most frustrating challenge that we had to respond to, and which gave us the biggest headache, was the Philippine Airlines fiasco. It would require more than one column to narrate the many stories of woe that our participants had to go through in the last few days trying to make sense of or find fixes for canceled or rescheduled flights.

As human resource management professionals, we empathized with the situation of our colleagues at PAL and tried to make allowances for glitches brought about by the labor strike. Many of us chose to stick it out with PAL despite availability of flights in other airlines because we truly wanted to help the flag carrier project the impression that it is “business as usual” despite the difficulties. Still, we couldn’t believe the extent of unpreparedness that most of us witnessed in the last few days. It was as if there was no contingency plan in place. In many cases, check-in time took 30 minutes for each passenger. Lesson number three: Anticipate all kinds of scenarios, including a labor strike.

At any rate, we hope to be able to hold a successful PMAP conference this year, particularly since there is a lot weighing on in this event. It’s the first time that a major conference is being held in Cagayan de Oro and we truly wanted to showcase the city’s potentials as a conference venue. They are building a bigger and hopefully more modern airport, which they will share with Iligan City, and it is expected to be operational next year. There’s a lot of infrastructure being built around the city—flyovers are finally being built in strategic intersections to manage traffic better. And the tourism attractions of the city are unique and more sustainable (think white water rafting, ziplines, and forest canopy walks).

The theme of the PMAP conference is Tao Muna (People First), which is a reiteration or re-statement of what is probably the most overused cliché in management literature, which is that people are an organization’s most important or most valuable asset. The reality, however, is that while many organizations profess to put premium on people, far too many simply do so because of social guilt; they feel it is their social or moral obligation to do so.

There continues to be a wide gap between theory and practice particularly in terms of effective talent management. Many organizations don’t see people as capital; they think it is products, or technology, or facilities that underpin business success. Many organizations continue to consider payroll as overhead cost, benefits as superfluous, and training and development as perks rather than as investments.

Over and above the philosophical issues of what and how people should be treated in business organizations, there is the critical need to develop sound and sustainable strategies to manage people in the emerging business environment.

There is very little doubt that the world has changed and is still changing radically and yet there is very little being done both in terms of crafting national strategies or promoting best practices to protect, nay, effectively harness, Filipino talent as the main source of the country’s competitive advantage. For example, we all know outsourcing has become an inevitable business reality but we don’t really have a strategic plan that will guarantee sustainability of jobs or promote equity in the long run.

What we have at the moment are various knee-jerk responses from everyone. Most of the proposed laws that impact on labor that have been filed in both houses of congress are tragically either reactive or irrelevant, are designed to promote protectionism which renders them unsustainable in the global business environment, or have potentially disastrous consequences in the long-term. Government seems content in doing a balancing act—trying to establish a middle ground for the various conflicting needs and interests. Business and labor are often left to their own devices and try to make things work, but unfortunately, there’s just a lot of ideological issues that get in the way.

“People first,” the theme of the PMAP conference is therefore timely. It is also an urgent call to action. People are our only lasting source of competitive advantage. We need to craft better strategies, promote best practices, and encourage more proactive collaboration to better harness Filipino talent. Indeed, Tao Muna.

Thank you, Steve

2011-10-10T02:07:00.002+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

Add this piece to the thousands of tributes the world has heaped on the memory of Steve Jobs – visionary, marketing genius, innovation guru, maverick businessman, father.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want the chance to change the world?” he once asked John Sculley, Vice President of Pepsi Cola (Sculley resigned from Pepsi to join Steve Jobs at Apple).

Steve Jobs didn’t invent the microcomputer, or digital audio, or even digital video. But there is very little doubt in the world today that he pushed the boundaries and expanded technological frontiers. He changed people’s listening habits with iTunes and iPod, broke new grounds in digital filmmaking through Pixar, introduced products that didn’t pander to populist demands but instead catered to what he thought people needed, etc.

Of the many tributes made to the man, the one that probably struck a chord was this eulogy, reposted across many social networking sites and reprinted in many newspapers: “There were three apples that changed the world; the one that Eve ate, the one that fell on Newton’s head, and the one that Steve Jobs created.”

I am a proud Apple user. This column has always been composed on a MacBook. I do most of my office stuff and surfing at home on Macs despite the hassle of having to check for compatibility when sharing files. I own three iPods (an iPod nano which I bought eight years ago and which I have kept for sentimental reasons, an iPod shuffle which was given to me as a token during a speaking engagement and which I use when I am on the go such as when on a treadmill, and a trusty iPod touch which I carry with me everywhere). Although I still buy books, most of my reading is now done in my iPad. I used to own a Kindle, but since the Amazon software was made compatible with the iPad, I have decided to send my Kindle into early retirement.

My fascination with Steve started in the late eighties when a professor in graduate school used Jobs’ fall from Apple and his subsequent preoccupation with building NeXt Computer as case study in strategic management. I remember being awed by the man’s capacity to nurture a vision. I don’t remember the exact words of Steve’s vision for NeXt computers, but I distinctly remember just how revolutionary they were. He didn’t talk about building a business empire, or producing x number of computers, or other business indicators of success. I remember listening to him talk about changing the way people learn, about revolutionizing education, about building the future. He talked about introducing a breakthrough computer 10 or 20 times more powerful that what was there at that moment. It was very inspiring.

Through the years, the man’s ability to blaze trails never waned simply because he refused to be anything but a revolutionary. “We’re gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make “me too” products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it’s always the next dream,” he once said in a speech to launch a new Macintosh computer.

What added to the enigma was the fact the man didn’t mince words. He was renowned for making statements that shook up the establishment.

He shot down the use of focus group discussion, a staple among product managers and everyone else who want to make sure that whatever it is they are designing meet the needs of their target audience. “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give it that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new,” he said.

He took digs at Microsoft, IBM and the makers of the traditional computers: “The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into their products.”

He also took potshots at Bill Gates. “Bill Gates’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger,” he told the The New York Times in 1997.

Steve didn’t get to finish college but was asked to deliver the Commencement Address to graduating students of Standford University in 2005. That address is probably one of the most popular speeches in history now as he reflected on what matters most in life and about his own mortality. I’ve read that speech many times and have shamelessly quoted liberally parts of the speech for various lectures. Here are some parts of the speech that I think bear repeating:

“Death is the destination we all share, no one has escaped it. And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life.”

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinion drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

As a human resource management practitioner, I have always admired the ways in which Steve introduced innovation even in the way he set up his companies and ventures. He recognized the value of people and hired only the best. He developed unique ways to induct and integrate employees into the Apple “family.” Each new hire at Apple had to meet everyone else – like in a fraternity. He would go out of his way to meet with everyone – in conference rooms, at hallways, even at the water station. He did away with bureaucracy in his organizations and focused on building a corporate culture that did away with conventional corporate structures, building “families” and “communities” instead.

Steve succumbed to a rare type of pancreatic cancer last week. But the man is even bigger in death. It is a testament to the great power of dreams that one man could make such a huge impact on the world.

Indeed, the world loves talent; but pays off big time on character. Steve Jobs (Steve to Apple fans) was hugely talented, but in the end, the major outpouring of affection that the world is bestowing upon him and his memory is mainly on account of the fact that he changed the world as we knew it and probably made it a better place.

Good night, Steve. Thank you.

Flooded

2011-10-05T02:09:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

A friend who was recently on board a plane that passed through Central Luzon told me that he almost broke into tears when he saw the extent of the flooding from high up. It looked really sad and desolate, he said. Large swathes of Luzon looked like giant lakes and in many parts one could only make out a few forlorn-looking roofs and the tips of some trees protruding from the waters.

We know the flooding in Central Luzon in the last few days has been the worst we’ve seen so far. We know this because we have seen the pictures, we have viewed the videos, and we have heard the plaintive cries for help and deliverance from thousands of victims - many of them soaking wet to the bones, hungry and thirsty, and with fear and panic written all over their faces.

I saw this video of a grandmother who was rescued after having been trapped inside her house for two days while the floodwaters were rising around her. She couldn’t articulate her feelings; there were simply no words to express the pain, the terror, and the helplessness. In the end, all she could say in a voice trembling with unspoken pain, “Tulungan nyo kami, parang awa nyo na” (have mercy, please help us).

We’ve seen pictures of various animals stranded on roofs. One such picture ended up occupying almost a third of the front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It showed what seemed like an idyllic tableau of a dog, two cats, some chicken and ducks stranded on a roof (they were eventually rescued, thanks to the efforts of animal rights activists who weren’t amused at the picture). Although we’ve also seen images of people wading in the floods while tightly clutching in their arms their beloved pets, we have been told the rescue teams could only take in people, not animals. I dread the thought of how many animals—farm animals and domestic pets—drowned in the whole of Luzon.

We saw right in the front page of this newspaper a picture of a funeral procession being made across floodwaters, the coffin perilously perched on top of a boat. We are a people who honor our dead, come hell or high water. We learned that at least 59 people had perished in Central Luzon alone due to the flooding. And the numbers continue to rise. At least 16 villages in the town of Calumpit in Bulacan remain inaccessible as I write this column; we don’t know what has happened in those villages.

We heard stories of how mothers gave birth at the height of the flooding; some of them forced to immediately get up from their recovery beds and made to ride makeshift boats just so they could get to an evacuation center. One mother rode on a soft drink cooler while her newborn floated alongside on a washbasin. Thousands of children were cramped in evacuation centers, many of them eventually contracting colds, cough, and other diseases. In a bridge somewhere in Pampanga, a community of Badjaos took over a bridge and turned it into their temporary shelter, much to the dismay of the townspeople who want them evicted and sent back to wherever they came from.

The flooding has brought to the surface the extent of our problems in the area of population management. We’re seeing far too many children growing up under dangerous environments just because their parents don’t have access to reproductive health information and services. And as we pondered on the phenomenon, we heard that the Senate President has just expressed the opinion that even masturbation is a crime; it constitutes abortion. In a country where far too many children are growing up without access to basic care, education, and other necessities, he thinks sperm cells are alive and exist only for one single purpose—to mate with a female egg.

Meanwhile, everyone is talking about forced evacuation in the event of calamities and disasters such heavy flooding. Our leaders debate over the wisdom of forcing people to leave their homes to relocate temporarily to God knows where. Nobody seems to notice that the evacuation centers—actually, classrooms—are hardly habitable anymore. These structures were not meant to be live-in headquarters of thousands of people. The mayor of Calumpit was heard on television chastising people who have been talking non-stop about evacuating people from the flooded areas—“with what and to where?” he asked. He said it would take 200 rubber boats to transport 20,000 people. Nobody had that many boats. And where would the 20,000 evacuees stay? In this country, talk is cheap.

And so once again, there are many of us who have expressed annoyance over the stubbornness of people who refused to leave their homes even when the floodwaters were rising. How could they put their lives at risk just so they could protect a few worldly possessions, we openly wonder. Actually I am aghast that there are people who actually ask the question. Some of us don’t just get it. For the very poor, a few plates and glasses, a television set perhaps, and a few chairs and tables represent their only claim to respectability. Many of them saved up for their television sets for years! This might not make sense to those who preach from their air-conditioned cars while sipping their designer coffee, but there are people in this country who take their slippers off when wading through mud because they don’t want their slippers to get soiled or destroyed. If their feet get wounded, at least it would heal, they reason out; but where in the world will they find the money to buy a new pair of slippers? How can one argue with poverty?

As usual, the search for someone to blame has started and many of our leaders have jumped into the quest with guns blazing and tempers on full throttle. What caused the flooding? Why didn’t we evacuate people at once? Why are the relief goods taking so long to arrive at the evacuation sites? What is taking the floodwaters too long to recede? Where is the President in the midst of all the chaos?

What is clear now is that the flooding was not directly caused by rainfall spawned by Typhoons Pedring and Quiel. Experts said the rains generated by the two typhoons did not reach 30 percent of the volume of rain released by Ondoy two years ago. What caused the massive flooding was the fact that all six dams in Luzon released water almost at the same time. Apparently, the people responsible for the dams did not coordinate with each other. As usual, the problem boils down to lack of coordination at the top levels.

But there are other factors that need to be taken into account. An expert from the University of the Philippines has pointed out that Pampanga and Bulacan are actually sinking every year because of the presence of too many deep wells in the area. It seems people are simply digging up wells unaware of the consequences to Mother Nature. There’s also the problem of rivers and canals and other floodways being overly silted and virtually blocked by garbage. And yes, our mountains are almost bald so their capacity to absorb water has also been severely reduced. What goes around comes around. In the end, we all know the search for someone to blame will eventually lead back to us.

The President of the Republic has not deigned to shake hands with the flood victims or even hand out a few token relief goods to the families who have suddenly found themselves homeless. We are told the President does not want to take away focus from the victims and is shying away from photo-ops. To this day, I still couldn’t believe that at a time of great tragedy when leadership by example is badly needed, when actual presence of the president is required to boost sagging spirits or to communicate concern, all the bright boys at the Palace could think about was politics?

This is the Philippines. We see the best and the worst during crises.

Not an ordinary labor dispute

2011-10-03T02:10:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

One of the most frustrating things about the media coverage—and consequently, public perception—of the ongoing Philippine Airlines debacle is the effort to oversimplify the conflict as a simple labor-management dispute.

Bias, haste, inability to see the total picture, and just plain lack of information or resourcefulness are just some of the reasons why some media people tend to oversimplify the issue.

Of course the Philippine Airlines Employees Association wants to reduce the issue to a few simple and dramatic sound bytes. They know that for as long as they can project the impression that they have been oppressed, that their rights have been wantonly violated, that they just wanted to protect their jobs against the evil machinations of uncaring management, a significant part of the population will take their side. The wildcat strike they pulled off last week, which left thousands of people stranded during a typhoon, did not endear them to the general public, though. I don’t think any of those stranded passengers (and their friends and relatives) empathize with the union after what happened.

But in the overall scheme of things, it is a given that PAL management will lose the media game. The real issues are far too complicated to be reduced to a few sound bytes.

Thus, most people cannot be blamed for thinking that the issue boils down to a simple matter—greed on the part of either PAL management or if one had the time and the inclination to find out more about the issue, of the employees’ union. Depending on which side of the divide one happens to empathize with, either PAL management is at fault for being heartless and overly profit-oriented or the members of PALEA are just the usual bunch of militants who just want to continue to bleed the company dry.

At the heart of the PAL issues is the question of whether outsourcing is a valid business strategy. PAL wants to become more competitive (if we are to be honest, it just wants to survive at this point) and therefore wants to outsource its ground handling services—something that the other airlines, including Cebu Pacific has already been doing for the longest time. Most of the major business organizations in this country have also embarked on a similar business strategy —from SMART Telecommunications, to IBM, even Jollibee.

The jobs aren’t lost—they are just contracted to another company. So the claim that jobs are lost through the outsourcing scheme is just plain propaganda.

Theoretically, the people who perform the jobs need not lose their jobs as well provided they are willing to agree to the new employment relationship. Necessarily, they have to resign or be separated from the original company, which admittedly is psychologically painful in a culture where prestige is derived from the status of one’s employer. In this country, the second job related question asked of anyone after “what do you do?” is “what company do you work for?” In the case of PAL, the jobs are being outsourced to three other companies and the incumbents in the jobs have been offered a handsome separation package on top of their regular retirement benefits, and the opportunity to get back their old jobs; this time, though, not with PAL anymore but with the new companies to whom the jobs have been outsourced.

PALEA objected to the arrangement for a number of reasons. It is an employees’ union so it is incumbent upon it to oppose anything that threatens to change the employment arrangements of their members. At the same time, their numbers would be severely decimated by the outsourcing decision. Lest we forget, numbers are everything when it comes to labor-management issues and negotiations.

The issue has far-reaching implications on labor. Thus, it is not surprising that PALEA has the support of all the other labor groups. I don’t presume to know what is exactly in the hearts of the leaders and members of PALEA, but I think that it is understandable if they feel that it is their moral responsibility to stand up against outsourcing. They probably think that they owe it to the cause of the labor movement to sharply define the issues and their implications to people and consequently, to advocate for fairer treatment.

The Department of Labor and Employment has already ruled that the outsourcing program of Philippine Airlines is valid and legal. PALEA appealed the decision with the Office of the President, which also agreed with the DOLE Secretary’s ruling. PALEA has brought the case to the Court of Appeals where it is currently pending.

To my mind, however, we’re really just dribbling the ball, so to speak. In the end, it would be futile to rule against a global phenomenon. The issue of outsourcing is a phenomenon that, like globalization, cannot be stopped anymore. And it actually doesn’t make sense for us to try to stop it. The truth is that this country has benefited immensely from the outsourcing phenomenon. The industry has been employing hundreds of thousands of employees locally. Indications point to massive growth in this sector in the next few years. The projection is that the industry will be able to overtake the volume of remittances of overseas Filipino workers in five years if it is given the appropriate support by government.

It certainly smacks of hypocrisy if we rile against outsourcing and consider it invalid and illegal when we happily enjoy its benefits!

Thus, the PAL issue has grave repercussions on our overall ability as a nation to respond to global trends. While it may look like it only affects PAL or the employees who have been affected by the company’s decision to outsource its ground handling services, what is at stake is actually the viability of outsourcing as a business strategy in this country. What is at stake is not just sustainability, nay, basic survival of the flag carrier (incidentally, the PAL situation is not unique; it’s the same situation that many national flag carriers have gone, or are currently going, through); but the future of other industries as well. What is at stake is overall competitiveness of the Philippines.

One wishes, though, that we were more prepared as a country to manage the impact of the outsourcing phenomenon. Obviously, what is happening at PAL is indicative of utter lack of foresight. Of course the labor sector will not take the matter sitting down. We could have prepared better for all these.

Parenting cannot be delegated

2011-09-28T02:12:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

How can we ever ensure overall preparedness for major disasters if we cannot even get our act together on a relatively simpler matter such as when to suspend classes due to heavy rains and flooding and how to announce the suspension in a more efficient manner?

As usual, parents and media commentators were all agog Monday evening trying to second-guess official announcement on whether or not there were going to be classes yesterday. Actually, I think media commentators were trying to apply pressure on government officials and the weather bureau people to make a definite announcement while their evening newscasts were ongoing so that they would have a scoop. It was very clear that they were trying to egg on parents and students to make an emotional reaction so that there was something “controversial” that could be discussed on air. As can be expected, officials and the weather bureau people were being very cautious. They’ve been burned before when they made premature or delayed announcements.

It has become really easy and convenient for everyone else to heap blame on our officials when they make premature or delayed decisions and announcements about suspension of classes. They are called inefficient or worse, inutile. People forget that despite advances in meteorology, predicting the weather is not yet an exact science. The reality is that the weather forecasts are really just predictions—they cannot be expected to be 100-percent accurate.

I do understand the consternation of parents who have to go out of their way to pick up their children barely minutes after they have brought them to school. It’s inconvenient and yes, it is infuriating to see schoolchildren being drenched in rain or having to wade through floodwaters when they could have been spared the difficulty with just a little more proactive thinking.

But then again, I don’t think parents are exactly blameless. Parents do have the authority not to send their children to school during days when there is inclement weather and if they think the health and safety of their children are at risk. It’s called parenting and it cannot be delegated to government, school officials, the weather bureau, or even media.

***

I don’t know what I will expect to see tonight when I go to Baclaran Church for my regular novena to the Perpetual Mother. It’s been pretty unpredictable in the last month or so. There were Wednesdays in the recent past when the streets around Baclaran were passable and one could actually walk to the National Shrine without having to go through a gauntlet as perilous as those set up during the medieval times. And then there were Wednesdays when everything was as it has always been—meaning, total and utter chaos and pandemonium.

I really don’t know why the Parañaque government cannot clean up the Baclaran area. If Mayor Lito Atienza of Manila could clean up Quiapo and Mayor Alfredo Lim could sustain the cleanliness and orderliness of the area, why cannot the local executives of Parañaque do it? Sure, Baclaran is not as chaotic as Divisoria. But Baclaran is host to a national religious shrine, for crying out loud. And as if to add insult to injury, the most chaotic area in the whole Baclaran district is right around the Baclaran church where every man and woman, every devotee, is left to fend for himself or herself against the elements.

The vendors around the church are so shameless they actually lay their wares right on the street and deliberately obstruct traffic so that pedestrians will have to go around the makeshift display stalls. It’s a disaster waiting to happen as people are forced to press themselves tightly against each other and maneuver to squeeze themselves in and out of whatever little space is opened up for pedestrians to pass through. I dread the thought of what could happen if a stampede were to occur. There would be lots of fatality as the exit points are quite narrow.

Devotees have had enough of the aggravation so a few months ago, a movement was launched to gather petitions aimed at pressuring the city government of Parañaque to finally do something about the chaos and the mess around the Baclaran church. I was told the organizers were able to gather hundreds of thousands of signatories.

Thereupon, the changes became evident. There were Wednesdays when the streets around Baclaran could actually be seen and people could walk through without having to bump into another person. These were the times when policemen and their mobile cars could actually be seen in the area to ensure that no vendor would dare set up their makeshift stalls and their mats along the streets. This went on for about… two Wednesdays.

But apparently the officials could not be bothered to make sure that the changes become permanent. The number of policemen and mobile cars started to become less and less each week and the vendors started to trickle back, emerging from the shadows with their pushcarts and movable clothes hangers. As of last week, the vendors were back in full force. And they were back with a vengeance. While in the past they would only occupy two-thirds of the streets and would allow at least space for one car to pass through, they occupied the whole street last Wednesday causing traffic to come to a complete halt as no vehicles could enter the side street leading to the church.

This is another reason why we cannot fix things in this country. We lack the political will to make changes sustainable and permanent. Of course we hear that the reason why the vendors in Baclaran cannot be eradicated is because most of them are squatters who produce the votes during elections. There are rumors that there is an untouchable syndicate that controls the operations in the area. And yes, a policeman has died while trying to get vendors out of the area so policemen are quite wary of being assertive and in doing their jobs.

***

Within every few meters, one could see signs along Macapagal Avenue reminding motorists that the speed limit in this particular strip of road is 60 kilometers per hour. Some of the signs are even festooned with twinkling lights—one can see the number 60 blinking up at you in red Christmas lights as you travel down the length of this expensive avenue. Are all these effort really necessary on an avenue that has very little traffic?

Of course, friends tell me Macapagal Avenue’s reputation as the most expensive avenue in the Philippines has come to acquire a newer dimension—it is the most expensive avenue because of the presence of too many cops out to mulct motorists for the simplest of all offenses—swerving, changing lanes, and yes, going above the speed limit.

The speed limit was prescribed allegedly because of the number of accidents in the area. But the presence of too many cops in the area belies the justification. And boy, oh boy, what a conscientious lot they are! There is hardly any traffic to manage except at the corner of Edsa so the cops are all eyes and ears at every vehicle that passes through this strip of road. Anyone who goes even just a tiny bit beyond the limit of 60kph is automatically flagged down and fined. And yes, most of them don’t issue tickets, they just mulct unsuspecting motorists.

No to budget cuts for state schools

2011-09-26T02:14:00.000+08:00

Thanks to this administration’s incomprehensible decision to cut subsidy for state colleges and universities, we’re seeing a resurgence of student activism. Thousands of students from all over the country walked out of their classes last week. In Manila, they converged at Mendiola, reminiscent of the heady days when the student protest movement was a major force to reckon with in this country.

And as if to spite the lawmaker who filed what is probably the most badly written and most reactionary bill in the history of Philippine legislation, thousands of students across the country prostrated themselves on streets and on various strange surfaces, all in the spirit of planking.

What made last week’s protest actions even more remarkable was that these were sanctioned by their teachers and school administrators. Teachers dismissed classes so that students could join the demonstrations. School administrators provided various kinds of support—logistics, talking points, physical presence.

If plans push through, or until some sense gets into the head of our leaders, we’ll be seeing more student demonstrations in the next few weeks.

As can be expected, Malacañang’s talking head, Abigail Valte, tried to play down the issue with something that sounded like misplaced, if not insincere, parental advice: She said students should be spending more time studying than joining demonstrations. Of course, she also parroted the same yarn that Budget Secretary Florencio Abad has been unsuccessfully trying to sell since the issue of budget cuts for education cropped up—that the budget allocation for SUCs for 2012 is higher than last year’s. Newly installed University of the Philippines President Alfredo Pascual and a number of academicians have already debunked Abad’s claims with figures and facts, many of which were taken directly from the Budget Department itself.

I don’t think anyone is supposed to take seriously whatever Valte says. We’ve noted that when there is something really important that needs to be announced, one of the three secretaries for communications usually takes over the job. In short, she takes over the microphone only when the issue is deemed inconsequential or when any of the three is unavailable.

But as a teacher, I feel I need to remind Valte three things.

First, the Palace should not take student protests lightly—aside from the fact that Benigno Simeon Aquino III (and the late Corazon Aquino, for that matter) owe the presidency to the student protest movement, history has shown that the collapse of many governments can be traced to sustained student protests.

Second, Valte probably needs someone to explain to her that the students are protesting something that affects them directly. In fact, if students take matters sitting down, they may not have the opportunity to do exactly what Valte tells them they should be doing; they may not be able to go to school anymore.

And third, I don’t know if Valte joined protests when she was a student (if she did, she probably didn’t learn anything from them), but there are a lot of things students can learn from joining rallies and demonstrations. I am not embarrassed to admit that I attribute many of my competencies (dealing with all kinds of people, public speaking, writing manifestos in ten minutes or less, even assertiveness, among others) from having joined and led student demonstrations when I was in college.

Truth be told, there are days when I feel school administrators must make joining protests obligatory for students because those of us in human resource management have been noting that fresh graduates today just seem to lack the kind of assertiveness, initiative, and sense of purpose that come from a heightened sense of citizenship. It seems that many of our fresh graduates just don’t care enough—for country, for fellow Filipinos, for issues, for anything other than themselves.

So yes, there’s a part of me that’s glad that our students are marching on the streets again. I wish though that they were protesting about something else; or that this administration didn’t have to force backs against the wall on something that is so basic and commonsensical to begin with.

Education is the most important investment any nation can make. This is not debatable. This is not subject to conditions. There are no ifs and buts about it. We just have to put more money into educating Filipinos. We cannot expect to become more competitive if we don’t invest in training our teachers, building more classrooms and laboratories, if we don’t give research grants to our colleges and universities. It is futile to aspire for greatness if we cannot even guarantee adequate funding for state colleges and universities.

If this means we have to forget about building a skyway over Edsa, then so be it. All our other projects can wait. We can afford to scrimp on other things. What we cannot afford is to have a generation of Filipinos who are totally unprepared to take over the reins of this country simply because a budget secretary or a whole administration had a paradigm that said spending less is better than opening up possibilities for corruption to thrive. Someone told me this is exactly the rationale for the budget cuts—the belief that SUCs can subsist on a lower budget if they cut corruption in their ranks.

I don’t know if corruption truly exists among SUCs although I would not be surprised if it does—corruption is a systemic problem in this country. But we must learn to cut the fat without hurting the meat; we must learn to pull weeds without killing the rice stalks. Unfortunately, this has become the default thinking of this administration and it is evident in the actuations of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and other agencies—the belief that most everyone is corrupt until proven otherwise.

But really, let’s not scrimp on education. This should really be commonsensical. Doesn’t any parent practice the same tenet in their households? Next to food on the table and perhaps medication, money for education is top priority for any household; anything else can wait. It takes precedence over renovations and beautification. It certainly takes precedence over donations for the church.

The proposed cuts on subsidy for SUCs come at the worst possible time.

Not a single Philippine college or university made it to the top 300 in the latest world university ranking of the London-based Quacquarelli Symonds. Only four Philippine universities (University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila, De La Salle University, and the University of Santo Tomas) made it to the top 600 list; and all four slipped in the rankings compared to last year.

We also know that enrollment in SUCs have increased in the last few years on account of rising tuition fees in private universities. Obviously keeping the budget at the same level, or even granting a token 10 percent increase will not do the trick. In fact, even the Commission on Higher Education has come out in support of the call for higher budgets for SUCs, calling the proposed budget for 2012 “survival budget.” How can we thrive under a budget that is just enough for our schools to survive?

Who would have thought that such a scenario would come to pass under an administration who has always claimed to have nothing but an abundance of good intentions for Filipinos?

Nice try but not yet

2011-09-21T02:16:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

Quezon City Representative Winston Castelo shot to national prominence the other week when his bill, the “Four Day Work Week Act of 2011” got picked up by media. Employer groups and the labor sector took turns lambasting the proposal. It was one of the few times employers and the labor sector were on the same side of an issue.

Castelo’s bill aimed to institute a ten-hour four-day (10/4) workweek in the country. In a perfect world, such a proposal would have merited praise and commendation. Unfortunately, not only do we live in an imperfect world, we also are a country that has low tolerance for new ideas, particularly those that require acrobatic shifts in paradigms. Thus, public reaction was mixed but mostly negative. There were a few who thought the idea was an inspired one. And then there were those who denounced the proposal calling it nonsensical. They thought it promoted indolence. And then, because we are in the Philippines, there were those who attacked the messenger. Some attached colorful adjectives to Castelo’s name, many of which cannot be repeated in polite company.

It’s really sad that we seemed to have come to a point where we have lost our capacity to see pure intentions in the actions of legislators. I cannot blame people for mistrusting our legislators. Congress is jammed with bills that boggle the mind. Do you know that there are bills that propose more leaves for workers? There’s even a bill that seeks to further increase maternity benefits for women, another bill that aims to provide prenatal leaves for every month that a woman is pregnant, and yet another bill that proposes family leaves for spouses to take care of sick family members. Thus, people can be forgiven for seeing Castelo’s 10/4 proposal, which seeks to reduce work hours, in a negative light.

To be fair, though, there are merits to the proposal. And really, many people simply engaged in verbal diarrhea without bothering to understand what Castelo really proposed.

The 10/4 proposal will not change the traditional 40 hours of work every week or cut back on service or productivity. “It will still be 40 hours a week, but the work schedule will run from Monday to Thursday instead of until Friday. Public- and private-sector employees will put in two additional hours of work daily,” Castelo said. The proposal cited a number of supposed benefits that would be derived in terms of savings in transportation and other related costs for workers and for companies, savings in overhead such as energy, water, etc.

Unfortunately, it seems Castelo has not really thought through the other details. For example, changing the number of work hours will invariably require changes in computing daily wages, overtime costs, leaves and other benefits, which incidentally are covered by legislation that needs to be amended, revised or changed. It’s not going to be that easy. One bill will not do the trick; if he really is serious about it, Castelo needs to talk to more legislators and develop a more comprehensive bill. For example, surely we cannot keep the current number of vacation, sick, and other leaves if we give employees three-day weekends. Surely we have to rethink the number of holidays in this country. This would mean amending many, many laws.

And then there is the matter of changing production schedules and syncing these with global and seasonal demands. Not everybody in this country works in offices or in jobs that can be done at home and therefore subject to schedules that can be turned flexible. Manufacturing plants, for examples, have fixed production schedules that require at least 12 months of planning.

It can be argued of course that all these can be changed with a little more political will and with strategic thinking. And there’s the rub. I am not sure that our leaders are prepared to go out on a limb to make 10/4 work.

The prevailing notion is that a compressed workweek scheme will promote indolence and will negatively affect productivity. Actually, the empirical evidence that shows otherwise is quite robust. In many countries where the scheme is practiced, they noted that productivity levels actually soared higher, employees reported less health problems, and volunteerism for social causes, which naturally helped promote social equity, surged. Of course the studies were conducted in the Western setting where work is no longer predominantly manual and where unemployment is significantly lower. My point is that we should not be too quick to dismiss ideas.

In fact, I think the quick reaction about how a compressed workweek will reduce productivity and promote indolence is a hypothesis that seems more indicative of a paternalistic paradigm that hues more closely to Theory X—the belief that people are lazy by nature and that metaphorically, if they give them a hand they will grab the whole arm.

Work-life balance is not a just for people have been working hard all their life, nor is it a concept designed exclusively for the harassed, the stressed, and the burned-out. These people probably need more than just work-life balance. Besides everyone is probably harassed today regardless of their station in life (someone once told me that even the jobless do get tired and stressed out worrying about their lot). Work-life programs need to be seen as investments in people’s welfare, not necessarily just as reward for those who are deemed to have earned it by virtue of long years of hard work. We implement work-life programs precisely to avoid burnout.

Having said that, I think it is also important to recognize that there is wisdom in knowing what our priorities should be as a country and as a people. Today, the need is to enhance our competitiveness. The challenge is to generate more employment and enhance employability. Although these can be pursued hand-in-hand with the proposed 10/4 scheme, we need to accept that pursuing both is counterproductive. As the old Chinese saying goes, “If you chase two rabbits at the same time, both will get away.” In short, let’s focus first our efforts in producing more jobs before thinking of ways to redesign them.

This does not mean though that we cannot recognize efforts to think out of the box when we see them. The 10/4 proposal is an innovative idea. What I really like about the idea is its potential impact on efforts to save the environment. In many countries, compressed workweeks significantly reduced carbon emissions as well as usage or energy, water, as well as volume of waste generated. This will work in the Philippines if everyone agrees to cut back on work schedules not simply rearrange work schedules of people around the same seven–day work schedule. Otherwise, the impact to the environment would be the same and the whole exercise would have been pointless.

The 10/4 proposal is a good idea. But unfortunately, it’s ahead of its time for this country. We’re not ready for it. More importantly, we need to think through the various implications of the proposal more thoroughly and more comprehensively.

Nice try, but for the moment, no cigar.

A rollicking fun

2011-09-14T02:17:00.001+08:00

I will make a confession: At some point in the recent past, I stopped watching Filipino independent films. Actually, I simply stopped watching Filipino films in general. I just got tired of having to sit through the same plotline movie after movie; and watching the same themes being rehashed over and over again.

I still believed that indie films represented our best chance to resurrect the dying local film industry as the chances of mainstream cinema being able to increase its annual output has become almost nil, thanks to the prohibitive costs associated with traditional filmmaking (a huge chunk of which goes to the talent fees of superstars), the oppressive taxation system in the country, and the rampant proliferation of film pirates. Indies films were the way to go. And we have been able to produce quite a number of really great indie films in the last five years. There’s Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Olivares (The blossoming of Max), Kubrador, (The Bet Collector), Ang Panggagahasa kay Fe (The Rape of Fe), among others.

Unfortunately, the local indie scene had also become quite trite and predictable. The recent smash hit indie film Ang Babae Sa Septic Tank (Woman in a Septic Tank) cleverly illustrated the many ways in which we have reduced to a cliché what local indie filmmaking is about. If it’s not about poverty, it’s about homosexuality. Otherwise, it would be about the pains of growing up, or gang wars, or violence against women, or May-December love affairs, or if not any of those already mentioned—it would have to be about, sigh, incest. It’s as if someone developed a formula and decreed that everyone stuck to it.

I’m not sure it’s really about the gaya-gaya (copycat) syndrome although there’s a part of me that thinks the bandwagon effect may have been at play at some point.

For instance, a friend theorized that the reason why there has been a preponderance of gay-themed films in the local indie scene is because he suspects many of the budding filmmakers are gay and have a wealth of stories to tell. I told him it’s a convenient excuse, although it must be noted that even the great Lino Brocka did direct a number of films that tackled homosexuality. Perhaps gay people in this country lead more complex, more cinematic lives that bear retelling in pictures– but surely, there are limits to how many times the same plotline can be rehashed regardless of the approach or the twist in the presentation. It is also possible that the phenomenon has been basically driven by the basic law of supply and demand—it seems there is a market for gay-themed films, which should say something about the purchasing power of this segment of the population but that’s another column altogether.

At any rate, I am glad I acceded to a persistent invitation of a friend to watch Zombadings: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington (Zombie gays: Scare Remington to Death). We caught it over the weekend (I’ve been told it had been running in moviehouses for two weeks already) and I tell you, I don’t think I have had such great fun inside a moviehouse prior to Zombadings. We got out of the moviehouse physically weak from laughing too hard.

The title of the movie already promised loads of rollicking and campy fun (did it really have to be in swardspeak?) and I am pleased to report the film delivered in this aspect.

This was a hilarious, laugh-out-every-minute film. One doesn’t have to be immersed in the local gay culture to fully appreciate Zombadings although those who are I think have a distinct advantage. They get the jokes a split second ahead of the others. Subtitles are provided when the characters lapse into colorful swardspeak, but really, a lot of the nuances are lost in translation.

The whole Zombadings experience is enhanced if one can relate to campiness brought to extremes (think fireworks, stars, and bursts of colors coming out the main character’s body and a magical flying red scarf). In short this is one of those movies that is better enjoyed when one leave inhibitions and intellectual pretensions at the door. Oh yes, this is a gay-themed movie, but I noticed that majority of the people inside the moviehouse when my friend and I went there were heterosexual couples. In fact, I made a survey among my friends and was pleasantly surprised to note that most of those who have watched the film were heterosexuals. And they said they enjoyed it immensely. So as Neil Patrick Harris sang in the recent Tony Awards “it’s not just for gays anymore.”

Camp is something that is difficult to achieve—it doesn’t have a middle ground, it either works or does not. Something is either done with a certain flair that sends people on a laughing fit, or just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. To my mind, the campiness of Zombadings works because, pretty much like the original Temptation Island movie by the late Joey Gosiengfiao, it is largely unintended. I think the people behind Zombadings just wanted to make a movie that was fun, period.

Thus, what I really liked about Zombadings is its unapologetic tone— the film doesn’t bombard you over the head with metaphors and symbolisms nor does it attempt to overexplain things. They leave things as they are and leave it up to the viewers to make sense of. I am sure there’s a meaning behind why the female “authority figures” in the film from the main characters’ mother to the town mayor seemed masculine or why the main character delivers certain dialogues in English and the others in swardspeak, but this isn’t one of those films where such attempts at nitpicking is material.

Zombadings reminds us that watching a movie is supposed to be a sensory, not just an intuitive, experience. Here the colors are bolder, the actions are over-the-top, the dialogues are campy, and the whole point of the movie seems to be focused on just one goal: Telling a story in the most cinematic and fun way. I have nothing against movies that throw people into bouts of reflection and deep thinking, but if you just want to be entertained, Zombadings is a movie you should not miss.

And oh, it’s actually a well-made film. The acting is superb (Eugene Domingo is in it), the editing was tight, the musical direction was competent. This an indie movie, yes, but it’s one that is clearly notches above many mainstream movies. I think I will begin watching Filipino indie films again.

Go catch Zombadings: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington if you still can.

More of the same

2011-09-07T02:19:00.001+08:00

The more things change, the more they remain the same. In fact, a cursory look at the top issues of the last few days will bring us to the inevitable conclusion that certain things in this country have not changed at all. We seem to be caught in a time trap where the same things happen over and over again.

The President’s state visit to China was trumpeted as a huge success but the news bit that many members of the international press picked up was Mr. Aquino’s off-the-cuff remarks about his zero love life. Aquino started his address to the members of the Philippine community in Beijing by poking fun once again at his love life. “Someone asked me, how is your love life? I said it’s like Coca-Cola, before it was regular, then it became light, now it’s zero,” the President cracked. People found it funny. What was funnier actually was the rejoinder of Pepsi Cola, which were full-page advertisements published over the weekend showing a can of Pepsi max and the tagline: “Love life? Go from Zero to Max.”

Only in the Philippines can such an equation be possible: President + love life = cola wars.

I am not sure this is funny, but the President’s remarks about the state of his love life and the subsequent cola wars that it ignited are probably what people will remember most about the state visit to China. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot!

This is something I continue to be flabbergasted about and will continue to rile about for as long as the President keeps doing it: Why this President persists in making references about the state of his love life in major public affairs when he claims he doesn’t want people to speculate or even talk about it. As a consequence thereof, local media went all agog over the supposed brewing romance between him and actress Iza Calzado, a rumor that the actress quickly squelched. I can understand his youngest sister’s incessant desire to tattle about the state of her heart – Kris Aquino is extremely fascinated with anything that has to do with Kris Aquino. But surely a President has many more important things to talk about other than the state of his love life.

Of course when I say that the President has better things to talk about, I don’t necessarily recommend that he pick a fight with Kristie Kenney, former ambassador of the United States to the Philippines, currently holding court in Thailand. But again, some people’s amor propio got the better of them and compelled to dignify the “alleged slur” on the President.

Revenge is a dish best served cold— so a simple “we will not dignify the issue with a response” would have been more appropriate. Actually, Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang was already on track when he said “we normally don’t comment on purportedly leaked cables but it’s quite consistent with talk that went on in the diplomatic community at the time that Ambassador Kenney had been co-opted by the Arroyo regime.” Unfortunately, Deputy Spokesperson Abigail Valte didn’t follow Carandang’s lead.

And then the President, himself, joined the fray, which was quite unfortunate because of a number of reasons. First, the comments attributed to Kenney came from non-official sources—anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. I don’t think it makes for good policy to respond to unverified information. Second, the supposed analyses attributed to Kenney are really mere first-hand observations of someone on-the-ground; they are hardly definitive conclusions drawn from empirical processes of data collection. In short, they were subjective perceptions. Third, Kenney’s alleged perceptions were quite representative of those “critical” of Aquino during the campaign. Fourth, the reaction only served to validate perceptions that the President is onion-skinned and cannot roll with the punches.

In fact, we could all have gotten a hint from Kenney’s reaction on her Twitter account. The ambassador simply tweeted: “Good morning! Don’t believe all you read.”

Former First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos was not part of President Aquino’s official delegation during his state visit to China last week but many kibitzers noted how the Imeldific managed to upstage most everyone else. It’s almost tragic, just how the former First Lady seems intent on recapturing the heady days of the dictatorship when she couldn’t be anywhere else but in the spotlight. Why, just a few weeks ago, she managed to put herself in the maelstrom of that unfortunate controversy over Mideo Cruz’s art installation, even to the extent of claiming credit for that ill-advised edict from Malacañang to pull the curtain on the exhibit.

Our senators continued to shoot their mouths off over the plunder case filed against former First Gentleman Juan Miguel Arroyo and 25 others including former military officials over the allegedly anomalous sale and purchase of two helicopters in 2009. Of course we all know there is now intense competition among our leaders as to who gets to outrun the Arroyos and be the first to pin them down to the ground, but really, we don’t have to do the game of one-upmanship so publicly. Senators bewailed the fact that someone beat them to the chase in terms of filing a plunder case against Arroyo. And then they announced that they would file their own cases as if doing so was their main job description (weren’t the hearings supposed to be done in aid of legislation?). I can understand the need to pursue cases against the Arroyos; do our leaders have to salivate in public while doing so and act like canines fighting over spoiled meat?

Baguio City, which used to be the cleanest and the most popular summer destination in the country (long before people discovered getting seen naked in Boracay was more fun) was in the news all week long last week, thanks to the landslide of garbage that happened at the height of the last typhoon that descended on these islands. We all know Baguio City is decaying—it’s a tragic shadow of what it used to be. And the decay is getting worse every year. We still have to see more concrete actions to stem the decay. Nothing is being done to preserve Baguio City.

Another congressman is alleged to have been involved in another mauling incident, this time involving a security guard who was simply doing his job at an Ayala Mall. Denials were initially made, but as more information and more witnesses came forward, revisions in the story were made. We don’t expect anything to come out of this regardless of how many people feel outraged.

Increasing concern over the fate of four overseas Filipino workers supposedly part of the household staff of one of the family members of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddhafi threaten to come to a boil as media begin to pay attention to the issue. We smell attempts to sensationalize as media networks begin competing for better coverage of the emerging human-interest issue.

Some things never change.

All these, however, seem less important with the Christmas spirit already hovering in the air. It seems most everyone wanted Christmas to arrive earlier this year. Why not? We probably need cheering up today more than ever.

Lost in translation

2011-09-05T02:21:00.000+08:00

While on vacation the other weekend in my hometown in the heart of Leyte, I chanced upon a spirited conversation among some members of my extended family during one of the usual impromptu gatherings. It seemed they were in a fix trying to find logic about something that an aggrieved relative—a widowed mother of five children with barely any means of support for her brood—was seemingly smarting about. They were talking about something that initially sounded like “por piyes” (Waray for four feet). I thought they were contesting pieces of lumber. I was not really paying that much attention to the discussion until a cousin asked me what I thought about the “four peas” that was being discussed in the small huddle.

What four peas, I asked. “For peace,” my cousin repeated, which just added to my confusion. It turns out they were discussing the government’s conditional cash transfer program, locally known as the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s four P’s program—or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. Four P’s, I exclaimed with great relief. Alas, the problem was not limited to another case of “lost in translation.”

From what I gathered, certain relatives in the sitio where the family farm was located were chosen beneficiaries of the program while the widowed mother of five was not. This was most unfair, everyone thought. If there was anyone who really needed a lifeline, she was it, they chorused with all the indignation they could muster. She was the one having the most difficulty making ends meet what with five young hungry mouths to feed, four of them in school. She made a living washing clothes and an assortment of odds and ends for the neighbors. Were it not for the vegetables she painstakingly grew in the grassy knoll around her house, her children would have already died of hunger, she offered plaintively.

She was interviewed by the people who conducted the survey for the four Ps. But when the list was released, she was not in it. Some of her neighbors, among them people who really didn’t need as much help, were. She figured it was because she was living in a brick house that was really owned by and which she was keeping for a relative who was abroad. She went to the barangay chairman who took her case to a sanggunian bayan member, who allegedly brought it to the attention of the mayor. Everyone promised to look into her case but apparently the screening system was not open to interference from local executives. The chairman insisted she was in the initial list. Someone who was on the list even offered to switch places with her. But apparently, the list was final; but as if it was any consolation, everyone at least commiserated with her. I called up a friend in Tacloban, a media person who knows someone in the DSWD who promised to look into the case. Everything was not lost, I was assured. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I don’t want to make conclusions about the whole Four Ps program based on one anecdotal evidence, primarily because I know it’s not fair to expect the system to be perfect at this stage. I want to believe that poverty reduction programs can only work if people work together to make it work. As I told my aggrieved relative, her exclusion can be chalked up to a gap in the system that could be fixed. It was a good thing, I assured her because it meant DSWD people were not being lax doing their jobs.

But the story, and the feedback I gathered from the people I interviewed revealed insights that are telling.

First, the perception that the program promotes indolence and mendicancy persists, particularly among those belonging to higher social classes in Philippine society. The negative perception persists because, let’s be honest about this, there has been little social marketing being done about the program. This is sad because poverty reduction programs need a whole ecosystem to be successful. The last thing we need in this country is to create stigma for the beneficiaries of the program. In reality, conditional cash transfer programs are not handout, hence the term conditional—beneficiaries are supposed to receive aid in exchange for certain non-negotiable deliverables. In reality, the whole cost of the program is peanuts compared to what is gobbled up by corruption in this country.

Second, most people don’t understand what the program is really about. Even public schoolteachers had the wrong impressions about it. One of the main goals of the conditional cash transfer program is to ensure that schoolchildren are kept in school—it’s supposed to be a direct investment in human development. Schoolteachers, community leaders, even neighbors are important elements of the system— they will have to provide the necessary support system that will ensure that the funds are used for the purpose they were meant to achieve.

Third, the mechanisms for the cash transfer system remain inchoate for most people. People talked about producing receipts, having made to account for expenses, attendance records of schoolchildren, etc., but nobody knew exactly what the guidelines were. As can be expected, unfounded rumors swirled about how funds were tied up somewhere.

Fourth, a number of local executives seemed skeptical about the program. Apparently, many feel slighted for having been bypassed or overruled in the targeting process. I have two minds about this. There is wisdom in insulating the system from the machinations of local executives who have the tendency to use government programs to favor supporters. But there is also wisdom in taking into account the advice of community leaders who know first hand the real conditions of the poor in a given community.

I really wish the program would succeed because empirical data from Latin American countries show such a program can do wonders to alleviate poverty. It is a palliative effort; it will definitely not eradicate poverty altogether but then again, we must start somewhere. But above all else, I want the program to work because darn it, billions of aid money is involved! We must make it work.

I am not exactly a fan of Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman and I am aghast that she seems to project this idea that she invented the whole program (former DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral piloted the program, for crying out loud), but this is not about her. This is about the millions of poor Filipinos who need a lifeline. This is about ensuring that millions of Filipino children are given the necessary break to make it in a world made increasingly more difficult by conditions beyond their control or making.

What government needs to do is marshal the spirit of bayanihan in making the program work. Programs like the conditional cash transfer program need to be contextualized within a set of cultural values—from a sense of pagbabahala (responsibility or social obligation) to a positive sense of hiya (self esteem and integrity). But above all else, the program must promote a collective sense of accountability. Regardless of how we feel about the government, we have to make it work. We must make it work.

***

In a recent column (Up close but not personal), I wrote about a social encounter I had with Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte and Pagsanjan City Mayor Maita Ejercito at the lobby of a hotel in Davao City. I mistakenly identified the latter as lady mayor of Tagaytay City instead of Pagsanjan. A number of readers pointed out the oversight to me. I’ve always known Ejercito was the mayor of Pagsanjan because I have seen her in action many times in Pagsanjan, where my favorite training program venue is located. I apologize for the oversight.

Women in the workplace

2011-08-31T02:22:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

I was asked by Zontians to sit at a panel to discuss education and the job market for women at their international conference last week at the Hotel Sofitel. The main speaker at the panel was renowned advocated of women’s issues, Commission on Higher Education chairperson Patricia Licuanan. Three of us—an academician from the Ateneo de Manila University, a science and technology advocate, and myself—were asked to pick points from Licuanan’s talk and to present what we feel were the challenges facing women in the area of education and employment.

The consensus derived at the discussion was that women have indeed come a long way in their struggle to achieve equal opportunities in education and the workplace, but that a number of challenges remain.

In response to a comment from one of the participant, I (as the only male panelist and in fact the only male person in the whole room aside from the production people of the conference) made the observation that the concept of equality in education and in the workplace, particularly in the local context, needed to be defined as I didn’t think there was a clear definition of what the concept truly meant. I made the observation that cultural traditions and social norms probably needed to be taken into account in developing a framework of what gender equality really entails in the country, particularly when applied to conditions in the workplace. I was hoping that a spirited discussion on the topic would ensue but I guess it was the wrong forum and audience for the purpose.

I shared with the audience the results of a study on the anatomy of the glass ceiling conducted by Accenture (the glass ceiling is a symbolic barrier that blocks the upward mobility of women in social hierarchies). The study analyzed the existence and the “thickness” of the glass ceiling in six countries, namely, Australia, Austria, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Germany and the Philippines. Values were assigned on three dimensions: Individual, society, and company. The values measured the presence of social support on each of these three dimensions—the higher the value derived by the study, the greater the presence of obstacles or barriers that in effect contributed to the relative thickness of the glass ceiling.

According to the Accenture study, the thickness of the glass ceiling in the Philippines was more pronounced at the individual (3.4 in a scale where 6 was the highest) and company (3.8) dimensions. The values across the six countries in the individual and company dimensions were not spread out, which indicated that the glass ceiling continues to be present even among the most developed countries with individuals and companies still contributing the main sources of barriers. What was really most interesting was that the study found that the Philippines fared best among the six countries in the third dimension, which was societal support. The country attained a total value of 2.8 with Australia, Austria and Switzerland tied at second place (a far 4. 2), Germany (4.8) and finally United Kingdom (5.0).

The relatively good standing of the Philippines in the society dimension was attributed largely to the matriarchal nature of Philippine society. I also noted that the presence of many influential women thought leaders in the country was also a key factor for the presence of established social support for the issues of women at the macro level of Philippine society. It’s not accidental really that we’ve produced two women Presidents, a woman Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a number of highly respected women legislators and civic leaders. In contrast, most of business is still dominated by men and industries remain largely as an exclusive boys’ club, with a few exceptions.

As a result, we have been greatly successful in the area of passing key legislation designed to break institutional barriers against, provide for the distinct needs of, and put in place safeguards for, women.

For example, we were able to pass the Magna Carta for Women early this year. It is a landmark law that removes all forms of discrimination against women and provides for adequate protection and welfare benefits for women. A key provision of the bill is the provision of special leave benefit of two months leave with full pay following surgery caused by gynecological disorders for women, support services to enable women to balance their family obligations and work responsibilities, including but not limited, to the establishment of day care centers and breastfeeding stations.

Also this year, the 37-year prohibition on night work for women was lifted courtesy of RA 10151. The Anti-Sexual Harassment Act, the Solo Parents Act, and the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children are some of the other laws that supposedly ensure protection for women.

So yes, we have been very successful in hacking away at the glass ceiling in the area of societal support. The problem is that there is a wide disconnect between initiatives at the larger social level and at the level of industry and among individuals. For example, the general perception among industry is that legislation is imposed on business organizations without consideration of the costs entailed by the measures. Not that industry is not willing to shoulder the costs, just that it would be a lot better if attempts to share the costs are made, particularly by government. The issue really is that there have been very little attempt to dialogue with industry and to arrive at a more strategic framework that situates all these initiatives within a larger human resource management and development agenda that takes into account the real needs and concerns of both industry and workers – women, specifically.

For example, many of the pending legislation in congress are hodge-podge measures that provide all kinds of additional leave benefits for women—such as increasing further the number of paid maternity leaves, special leaves for spouses of overseas Filipino workers, temporary medical leave for birth-related emergencies, pre-natal leaves, family leaves so that women can take care of sick family members, etc. In fact we really should all be wondering why our legislators seem to think the whole issue of benefit for women is limited to providing extra day offs.

In general, however, the statistics and the anecdotal evidence that were presented in the forum validated what many of us already know: There are more men in the workplace, the average pay for women is slightly lower than those for men although the rate women’s rate of employment is higher than that of men’s, and that the traditional gender stereotypes about what jobs are for men and what jobs are for women continues. There are more men at the higher levels of power in industries. The glass ceiling is still there. Discrimination against women is no longer rampant, but ironically, the same measures that have been designed to protect and safeguard the rights of women in the workplace are paving the way for newer forms of discrimination.

I thought I would end by sharing another interesting bit that came up during the forum. A participant stood up to gently chide Licuanan for the continued existence of nursing schools in the country that deserve to be closed off already. Licuanan, ever the congenial diplomat, promised that CHED will continue to crack the whip. Being the only male in the forum, I figured I was allowed to be politically incorrect, so I lashed by reminding people that really, the reason why we have a surplus of nurses in the country is not because the CHED allows nursing schools to continue to operate. The reason is because parents continue to send their children to nursing schools. Sometimes we really need to get our perspectives checked: It is not government’s fault that students continue to go to nursing schools—this is a parenting issue and one that we cannot abrogate to others.

Up close, not personal

2011-08-24T02:24:00.002+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

Last Monday I wrote about my impressions of the Kadayawan Festival held in Davao City last week. The occasion also provided an opportunity for me to observe at close range the public behaviors of certain politicians who have been in the news lately.

I was actually in Davao for a conference where the keynote speaker at the opening ceremonies was the honorable mayor of the City, Sara Duterte, more popularly referred to as Inday Sara (for those unfamiliar with the nuances of the Visayan culture, Inday is both an honorific and endearment title. Thus it denotes both social status and supposedly a measure of charisma). Duterte shot to national prominence a couple of months ago on account of a very public display of temper—she pummeled a sheriff in front of her constituents and in full view of television cameras who were more than happy to record every single millisecond of the incident. What triggered the incident was the sheriff’s refusal to heed the mayor’s request for a two-hour extension of the demolition of a row of shanties, which resulted in violence. The unprecedented behavior became subject of intense debate. There were those who condemned the mayor’s actions as unbefitting an elected local executive. There were those who praised her for taking up the cudgels for the poor and the lowly. I wrote about the incident in this space basically calling the behavior wrong and unjustified without necessarily condemning her motivations for doing what she did.

Duterte and I had a few minutes of interaction at the conference as we waited for our cue to enter the conference hall, as we sat next to each other at the presidential table, and later as we waited for her official car to arrive at the entrance of the Hotel. I wouldn’t say we got to know each other, but it was my first time to actually observe her up close.

Duterte arrived at the conference without a coterie of assistants although I was told there were bodyguards nearby who made themselves scarce. She was wearing a no-frills turquoise blouse, ordinary khaki slacks, and open-toed emerald shoes. Her only accessories consisted of a pair of south sea pearls on her earlobes, a plain silver watch on her wrist, and a Nokia cellular phone, which she clutched in her hand. She only wore a lipstick. She had very clear skin that glowed. The whole packaging screamed “no-nonsense person.” She was also quite soft spoken and struck me as almost shy and introverted.

She didn’t complain when people mobbed her afterwards and gamely posed for pictures like a celebrity. She wasn’t chatty, but she wasn’t snobbish either. In fact, she was quite gracious. When she learned that I would be staying on in Davao for the Kadayawan, she offered me a seat onstage at the main staging area of the festival. But for the most part, she just listened and smiled politely, nodding at conversations and making short and direct-to-the-point responses.

The mayor and I were on our way out of the hotel lobby when we bumped into Tagaytay City Mayor Maita Ejercito and her posse of city officials and assistants. Ejercito was on vacation mode, which probably explained her very casual get up of tight jeans, even tighter yellow t-shirt, huge sunglasses, and baseball cap. But the contrast in personality was very evident as the two lady mayors interacted. Ejercito was bubbly. She chatted everyone up, in the process drawing attention to herself. Duterte was calm and collected.

I had the opportunity to observe Duterte’s public demeanor during the streetdancing and the floats parade as well (I had to take up the mayor’s offer of a seat onstage after suffering for two hours on the streets crushed amidst a sea of people pushing around barricades). Whenever she had to give instructions, she would stand up and go to where an assistant was rather than calling someone to come to her. When someone started serving food, she asked the server to serve everyone else. Probably noting that she was in full view of thousands of people who were probably hungry while suffering under the intense heat of the noonday sun, she didn’t take a bite of the sandwich offered to her. She took a sip of water directly from the bottle. By the way, lugaw was served to all participants and spectators of the events—nothing fancy really, but at least they were able to serve most everyone.

On both days of the Kadayawan, she wore maong jeans and a simple collared t-shirt, pretty much the same outfit she was wearing when television cameras caught her at that most unguarded moment a couple of months ago. During a lull at the floats parade, she climbed down the stage to talk to a little girl in ordinary houseclothes who was perched on top of a makeshift scaffolding. She probably was cautioning the little girl to be careful lest she fall and injure herself. Or she was probably just bored and wanted to stretch her legs. And then she held the little girl’s hand and taught her to wave to the cameras.

People get elected into office today on the strength of visual images—how candidates come across as individuals rather than based on verbal messages or what they are actually saying. People observe behaviors and make judgments based on how the behaviors come across to them—whether the candidate is sincere, caring, aloof, motherly, etc. People want to see action, not listen to lectures. People want leaders who reach out and are seen walking the talk.

No wonder then that public perception of Sara Duterte among those who have seen the lady up close is that of a hardworking leader with a heart that beats for the masses. Listening to many Davaoenos’ interpretation of that pummeling incident was very insightful—most thought it was wrong, but it seems everyone was in agreement that what she did was commendable because it showed the extent of her commitment to fight for the poor. If elections were held in Davao today, Duterte would definitely win hands down.

How can one argue with perception? Truly, there is immense power in body language and visual packaging. And either Duterte is operating from sincerity and therefore behaving naturally or she has mastered the craft of impression management.

There are many things we can learn from the Sara Duterte phenomenon, foremost of which is that people are hungry for strong leadership and are grateful when they witness manifestations of such. One can only wish our national leaders are listening.

Politics, the nauseating kind, was centerstage at the Kadayawaan as well. Senator Chiz Escudero and former senator Juan Miguel Zubiri were guests of honor during the streetdancing competition and they were asked to say a few words of greetings to the people of Davao City. Escudero very wisely kept his remarks brief and limited himself to greeting everyone and wishing the people of Davao a meaningful and relevant celebration of the Kadayawan. Unfortunately, Zubiri chose to go into full campaign mode. He used the occasion to once again explain why he resigned as senator basically indulging in shameless self-promotion talking about his virtues as a person of integrity, honor, and honesty. And then he went into full sipsip (apple polishing) mode and talked about his closeness to the Duterte family.

The people around me started muttering about how the festival was being cheapened by Zubiri’s politicking. I got the feeling people were about to start hissing but mercifully, Zubiri remembered his manners and shut up.

Notes on the Kadayawan

2011-08-22T02:26:00.001+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

Climate change—and its profound impact—was an issue that was palpable all throughout the celebration of the Kadayawan festival over the weekend in Davao City.

I was in Davao City for a conference, which luckily for me, coincided with the celebration of what is dubbed as the “king of festivals” (what can I say, even the various festivals in the country have to have their own advertising taglines nowadays). Secretary Lualhati Antonino of the Mindanao Development Authority was asked to speak at the conference about the business outlook for the island and she devoted a considerable amount of time talking about the impact of climate change on a land that is mostly agricultural. She eventually talked about her pet project to save the environment, which I hope to write about in the near future.

Of all industries, it is agriculture that is probably affected the most by climate change. Plants suffer the most from prolonged droughts or excessive rainfall. Harvests are likewise affected when the seasons are delayed or come early.

The annual Kadayawan festival is supposed to be a celebration of life, a thanksgiving for the gifts of nature, the wealth of culture, the bounties of harvest and the serenity of living. The festival is supposed to showcase the best of Mindanao—the whole island, after all, has been blessed with fertile land and weather that’s very conducive for agriculture. In case people don’t know, Mindanao has been practically feeding the rest of the country for many years now. Almost a hundred percent of the high-grade pineapples, papayas and bananas that Filipinos eat come from Mindanao. A sizable percentage of vegetables as well as rice are also produced in Mindanao.

Around this time of the year, the streets of Davao normally start to get flooded with the various bounties of nature, the harvest season reaching its peak sometime September. In previous celebrations everyone would have his or her fill of durian, marang, rambutan, mangosteen as these fruits were practically given away because of oversupply. For example, my cousins told me that around the same time last year, the sweet pungent smell of durian enveloped the city—everyone had durian at home because it was being sold dirt cheap at P15 a kilo. And one didn’t have to walk a distance to find a fruit stand as vendors were everywhere. Last week, durian could only be found at certain parts of the city and they were quite expensive—the going rate was around P85 a kilo. Some said that this was because the harvest season had been delayed; others claimed that the harvest this year was not as bountiful.

Climate change has messed up nature’s production cycle. The weather in Davao City used to be very predictable; almost like clockwork. When I was growing up in this city, large parts of the metropolitan didn’t have a water system because it rained every single day—and the rains would not be so heavy, just enough to water the plantations and to enable households to have water for their daily needs. Each household collected rainwater and stored these in cisterns. We were told that the weather in the last six months had been characterized by too much rain. A typhoon even hovered around the island, something that has not happened in decades as the island is usually not along the path of typhoons. Certain parts of Mindanao even got flooded, something completely unheard of in this island of mountains.

Davao City is supposed to enjoy balmy weather this time of the year, which is why the Kadayawan is scheduled in August. Well, the weather was particularly unpredictable last week —it was scorching hot at daytime and heavy rains poured in the afternoons and evenings. The uncooperative weather made the staging of activities scheduled in the evenings very difficult. Fortunately, the mall culture has arrived in Davao City so activities scheduled inside the many malls were impervious to climate change. But then again, the Kadayawan was supposed to be a celebration of and by the people and meant to be staged on the streets and the many public places of the city.

The issue of climate change also found its way to the two major events of the Kadayawan festival—the streetdancing competition and the parade of floats as the various participating groups inevitably found a way to include the environmental phenomenon in their productions.

Of these two major events of the Kadayawan, the one that usually gets a lot of media attention is the parade of floats that majestically roll down the designated route. This year, the floats were—as usual—a sight to behold proving once again that Filipino ingenuity is unparalleled. What makes the Kadayawan floats parade unique and marvelous is that the floats are truly a showcase of the Mindanaoan’s rich cultural heritage as well as nature’s bounty in terms of fruits and flowers.

One wishes, though, that the same commitment to celebrate and sustain local tribal color and culture were also prevalent in the streetdancing competition. Alas, this was not the case.

Although the various contingents that participated in the Indak Indak sa Kadalanan (merrymaking in the streets) tried to present local color and culture, one couldn’t help but notice how the gaya gaya (copycat) and the bongga (over the top) phenomena has stifled creativity and diluted the essence of the festival, which was to showcase the unique culture of the various Davao and Mindanao tribes.

To be honest about it, the only thing that differentiated the various Kadayawan performing contingents from say, the groups that participate in the other major festivals such as the Sinulog or the Panagbenga, were the costumes of the performers. The performers still wore tinalak and various indigenous weaves and colors but even these have not been spared contemporary influences. I was dismayed to note for example that some contingents wore leggings and had costumes that had embroideries rather than intricate beadings.

The production elements of the various contingents seemed to veer towards making a bongga statement rather than showcase authentic and indigenous sounds and movements. All of the contingents featured the same tired production contraptions such as moveable props that were transformed into risers and backdrops. Anyone who expected to witness authentic movements that called to mind the grace, skill and balance that characterize indigenous dances of the various tribes around Davao were in the wrong place it seemed. In fact, the movements were more of the Showtime and Eat Bulaga variety with lots of head and leg throws, shoulder contractions, and acrobatic drills coupled with a lot of shouting a la Ati-atihan.

Most of the contingents also relied on huge drums that produced ear-shattering beats rather than the melodious cacophony of gongs and brass instruments. Many of the contingents even featured, believe it or not, bugles and xylophones! The only thing that was missing in the whole extravaganza was giant images of the Santo Niño and it could have been the Sinulog.

I am not knocking down the Kadayawan because truly, we need such extravaganzas to nurture local indigenous culture. But we really need to make an effort to ensure that such festivals do not degenerate into a mere pabonggahan contest, where cheap tricks take the place of artistry and where local culture is lost in the mad frenzy of commercial styling. We need to rethink the essence of these festivals and ensure that these remain true to the task of preserving our rich cultural heritage.

Postscripts to a resignation

2011-08-17T02:27:00.002+08:00

This was my column on the date indicated above.This post is antedated.

Parts of this piece were written two weeks ago. However, I didn’t submit it for publication immediately because as you will discover, my reaction to Juan Miguel Zubiri’s resignation as senator was not really nice. Iit bordered on disgust, and I didn’t want to rain on the parade the senator organized for himself. Although I knew it was going to be a Herculean task, I wanted to try to keep an open mind. I tried to see the silver lining that some people kept chirping about. I truly wanted to give Zubiri the benefit of the doubt. I even tried to empathize with the melodramatic posturing of the Zubiri womenfolk.

Unfortunately, his resignation rankled because it dripped of hypocrisy.

He thundered pompously in his farewell speech: “Without admitting any fault and with my vehement denial of the alleged electoral fraud hurled against me, I am submitting my resignation as a duly elected Senator of the Republic of the Philippines in the election for which I am falsely accused without mercy and compassion.”

Without mercy and compassion? Oh please. He sat as senator for four years, wielded the full powers of the office, and enjoyed the full benefits due him as an elected national official despite nagging questions about the legitimacy of his supposed victory. Not that I wished that somebody did, but nobody pelted him with eggs and tomatoes, poured water all over himself, or even berated him publicly as a cheat. Did he expect people to thank him profusely for sitting as senator for four years despite damning proof that he wasn’t the rightful winner of that post? If anything, he was treated with utmost courtesy and respect. What the heck was he whining about?

Zubiri continued: “I am resigning because of these unfounded accusations against me and these issues have systematically divided our nation have (cast) doubts in our electoral system which has affected not only myself, this Institution, but the public as well.”

I don’t want to nitpick on the awful sentence construction. I do want to point out to Zubiri, though, that while we don’t think it is something we should be crowing about, our electoral system is precisely faulty and prone to irregularities. The system has been the subject of intense doubt for the longest time. Let’s stop deluding ourselves that politicians don’t cheat; that they don’t violate election rules; that they don’t buy votes. Our electoral system is beyond bad and the sooner we accept it, the sooner we can fix it. And it certainly won’t get fixed as long as politicians who are proclaimed winners continue to insist that they have no knowledge of the problems or of the cheating that happens.

I didn’t expect Zubiri to admit guilt and publicly beg for forgiveness. But he could have been a little less sanctimonious and self-aggrandizing particularly since he was aiming for some brownie points.

I didn’t buy the whole emotional charade. Okay, so I am not exactly a fan of Zubiri – but I don’t dislike the man either. It is possible I am simply a cynical fool who can’t see sincerity even if it was packaged with a lot of caterwauling and chest thumping. It’s possible that I simply have very high mistrust for the antics of politicians. But there’s a limit to how much hypocrisy I can stand. Even more important, there is a limit to how much crap I can take part in, particularly if it defies logic and reason.

To my mind, what happened was pretty obvious. The resignation wasn’t the great sacrifice that Zubiri’s handlers wanted to project it to be. Perhaps we can credit the man for fortitude – I am sure there were many people who tried to dissuade him from resigning the post. But the resignation didn’t strike me as an act of great courage. Courage requires confronting one’s fears and weaknesses in the pursuit of a greater good; it requires moral clarity and quality.

I am willing to concede though, that the resignation could be interpreted as an act of decency. Given the mounting evidence that Koko Pimentel was the rightful winner, giving up the post was the decent thing to do.

People have made a big deal out of the fact that Zubiri could have dribbled the ball for another two years when the term of office of the senatorial seat was up. He didn’t have to resign, they say. I disagree. Zubiri had to sacrifice short-term consequences for long-term gains.

Had Zubiri chosen to stay on as senator despite the damning accusations of the likes of Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao governor Zaldy Ampatuan and former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol—which, by the way somehow make sense of the incredible results of the elections in Maguindanao —there was great probability that he wouldn’t survive, at least politically, the onslaught of condemnation and denunciation. It was really just a matter of time before someone came up with more and more damning evidence. The noose was tightening.

Zubiri’s resignation was simply an act of self-preservation; it was a face-saving gesture. I firmly believe that Zubiri resigned because it was the only way he could save his political career. It was a cunning political strategy designed to elicit public sympathy and win sympathy points from the electorate. Simply put, Zubiri resigned because he had no other choice—that is, if he still wanted to run for national office. He made the best of a lousy situation.

It would be unfair for anyone to categorically say that Zubiri was complicit in the cheating. However, it is difficult to imagine a beneficiary not being aware of machinations designed to benefit him; at least not in the scale and magnitude that we saw in the 2004 elections. But this is another story that continues to unravel.

More than just knocking Zubiri, I do want to point out in this belated piece our penchant for proclaiming people as heroes for dubious actions. Zubiri was hailed by certain sectors mainly for resigning his post—a post that was never his in the first place. It’s the same as hailing thieves for giving their victims fare money after they have divested them of their valuables.