Out of my mind

This is my column today. The circus, also known as the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona, resumes today. We expect the fireworks to be more spectacular this time around because it is the turn of the defense to take the floor at the Senate. We want to know how Corona is going to explain the discrepancies between the items declared in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth and the bank statements presented in the impeachment court. We are being conditioned to believe that the millions of pesos in Corona’s bank accounts didn’t belong to him but to his wife’s family corporation. It seems too much of a stretch to believe that yarn because as a banker I know that most people in this country do maintain separate bank accounts for funds intended for separate purposes. It’s just so much more convenient, intuitive and commonsensical to do it that way. Then again, he has not officially presented his defense so if we must judge the man, we must first give him his day in ...

This is my column today. What a relief to hear no less than the prince of the Catholic Church in the Philippines, the Archbishop of Manila Luis Antonio Tagle, slam the growing commercialization of weddings in this country. I’m not a conservative person, but I am not blind or deaf to situations that break social norms. In remarks delivered at the Manila Archdiocesan General Pastoral Assembly last week, Tagle chastised Filipino couples and their wedding planners and coordinators and told them to stop all the “ka-ek-ekan” (gayspeak for frivolities) associated with weddings. I also liked the fact that Tagle didn’t deliver his message in a scathing, fire-and-brimstone manner. Instead of issuing threats and condemnations and warning people of eternal damnation in hell, the archbishop narrated vignettes culled from personal experiences while officiating during weddings. About time someone put people to task for the way weddings in this country have become a pabonggahan (over-the-top) contest....

This is my column today. The irrepressible Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago is once again in the maelstrom of public opinion. She, once again, lost her temper at the impeachment trial last week, called the prosecutors “g*go”, and berated them publicly for dismal performance. She also exchanged heated arguments with private prosecutor Vitaliano Aguirre after he covered his ears in public purportedly to avoid “hearing her shrill voice” and, after Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile banged the gavel to declare a recess, reportedly confronted Aguirre by standing in front of him daring him to say something to her in person. The behavior was classic, very classic Miriam Defensor Santiago. The repeated use of the words “once again” in the preceding paragraph is deliberate. This is not the first time that the senator made a spectacle of herself. It won’t be the last. Which is why I am stupefied that people are going berserk over Santiago’s behavior. Oh come on, she got elected as senator and co...

This is my column today. The country commemorated over the weekend the 26th anniversary of the people power uprising that has come to be known as Edsa 1. The President, some members of his Cabinet, and some key players of Edsa 1 including former President Fidel Ramos and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile gathered at the People Power Monument to relive the heady days in 1986 when millions of Filipinos occupied the highway, stopped tanks with their bare hands, and pacified with prayers and flowers the armed soldiers sent to obliterate them to smithereens. The question that was top of mind over the weekend was: After 26 years, are we better off as a country and as a people? Put another way, have we successfully purged from our system the evils that we swore would never again bedevil this country and the Filipino people? After 26 years, can we categorically say that we have regained our freedom and our democracy? These are painful questions to ask because we all know the answer to each of...

This is my column today. Marvin Reglos, freshman law student at the San Beda Law School, died last week in the hands of people he aspired to call brothers. He wasn’t the first to offer his life in the name of brotherhood. He wouldn’t be the last. In the same week that Reglos was murdered, hazing was very much in the news as the Supreme Court handed down the final decision on the death of Lenny Villa, victim of the same circumstances that killed Reglos. It took 21 years before the Villas got justice — and it wasn’t even the kind that solved more than two decades of pain and longing. In the same period, key personalities in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona openly acknowledged each other in the middle of the proceedings as “brods.” Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile recognized the following as his fraternity brothers: Corona’s chief defense counsel former justice Serafin Cuevas, members of the prosecution team Raul Daza and Arthur Lim, and Senator Judges Edgardo Angara...

This is my column today. Aurelio Gonzales, the honorable representative from the third district of Pampanga, has raised a howl over what he perceives as unfair depiction of congressmen in Philippine movies and soap operas. He filed Resolution 2140 appealing to the local movie and television industry to “minimize, prevent, or stop typecasting congressmen and congresswomen as villains or crooks in movies and television telenovelas, in order not to create stereotypes or negative public perception against members of the House of Representatives.” I empathize with the congressman. In general, I object to any form of stereotyping, especially negative stereotyping. But I would have empathized with the congressman more and would have joined his advocacy if his resolution were more inclusive. Unfortunately, it seems the guy is also afflicted with an acute case of myopia—his ego is clouding his judgment and he couldn’t see beyond his interests as a congressman. Just like Niel Tupas, he couldn’t ...

This is my column today. I have long given up illusions of the impeachment trial being fair, impartial and an exemplar of outstanding—or at least competent—legal wrangling. As I have said in the past, there is only so much certain people such as Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile can do to maintain the integrity of the proceedings. All the ingredients for epic failure just happen to be present. First, you have a complaint that was rammed through Congress without the benefit of a hearing and subsequently found to be so defective that the Chief Justice’s defense team has been able to make mincemeat of it without breaking sweat. Second, it now appears that the prosecution had no evidence to speak of prior to the impeachment hearing (no wonder it objected vigorously to a pre-trial). Third, the prosecution team has repeatedly shown what can only be described as gross incompetence all throughout the hearings, enabling the defense team to gleefully—and sometimes, irresponsibly - take advantag...

This is my column today. There are days when I wish there’s a device that automatically triggers off alarm bells when hypocrisy reaches untenable levels in this country. If there is something that we have a constant oversupply of, it’s hypocrisy. There are just too many people in this country who really need to subject themselves to regular and earnest reality checks. Take the case of the Catholic bishops’ recent thinly veiled threat to government on the issue of distribution of condoms on Valentine’s Day. Consider what the archbishop of Jaro Angel Lagdameo said: “The Church is against the distribution of condoms especially on Valentine’s Day because we know how the use of contraceptives affects the morality of our people and our society in general.” By saying “they know” how the use of contraceptives affects the morality of our people, are our bishops talking from personal experience? I’m not being facetious. The church is establishing a causal relationship between contraception and m...

This is my column today. There is an important factoid that many people seem to conveniently gloss over regarding the temporary restraining order that the Supreme Court released last week. The order stopped the impeachment court from compelling the Philippine Savings Bank to divulge information on the foreign currency deposits of Chief Justice Renato Corona. It was PSBank that sought the TRO. It wasn’t Corona or his defense team that went to the Supreme Court to seek relief. So I am aghast at the pronouncements of the bright boys from Malacañang that the TRO was “a brazen effort to derail the proceedings.” The TRO was issued because PSBank sought to protect its name and take up the cudgels for the banking industry. Peso deposits is another thing, but the law on foreign currency deposits in this country is clear and absolute: these deposits are protected by law and not even a court order can compel a bank to reveal information relating to these deposits. This law actually makes sense. F...

This is my column today. When I switched on my cellular phone upon landing in Manila from Cebu last Monday noon, I was alarmed by the surge of messages inquiring about my “condition.” From what I gathered, the earthquake struck Cebu barely a few minutes after the plane I was riding in took off from the Mactan International Airport. Thanks to the wonders of technology, by the time I was able to retrieve my baggage and leave the terminal building, I already had more than enough details about the earthquake including firsthand accounts from relatives who swore the earthquake was so strong they thought it was the end of the world already. But technology is truly a double-edged sword. It enables people to spread information rapidly. Alas, technology does not distinguish valid information from those that are not such as unfounded rumors and irresponsible messages that provoke panic and strike fear in people’s hearts. A nephew told me that they had to scamper to the top of the tallest buildin...

This is my column today. When presidential adviser for political affairs Ronald Llamas was caught on camera buying pirated DVDs, the public reacted with amused incredulity. Ang malas naman nya! What bad luck! Many eventually called for his resignation primarily to spare the President from having to agonize over what is presumed to be a difficult ethical dilemma. Oh okay, there were those who maintained from the very start that Llamas deserved the boot for giving face to a guilty pleasure many in this country indulge in. But if we really come down to it, most everyone in this country agree with the President’s dismissive posture when he said he has more important things to attend to than pirated DVDs, presumably the impeachment trial of the Chief Justice and the …well, the impeachment trial. I empathize with actor Ronnie Ricketts, head of the Optical Media Board and his team (which now includes another actor – Cesar Montano, rumored to be gunning for Ricketts’s post). How do you press o...

This is my column today. There was a time when traveling around the major cities in this country gave one a distinct feeling of being in a completely different place each time. I used to love going up to Baguio and browsing along the various little shops along Session Road and the stalls in the public market for unique finds. Most of the shops along Session Road are now closed and the stalls in the public market don’t really offer anything new anymore, as sales have not been brisk enough to encourage the development of new products. I know my friends in SM will put me to task for saying this, but big business is killing specialty shops. At the rate things are going, it will only be a matter of time when even the ubiquitous sari sari store will have to give way to 7-Eleven and the other convenience store chains that have sprouted all over our urban centers. Going to Cebu used to mean discovering finds along the many shops along Colon Street or Mango Avenue. Every city in this country bo...

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 affiliati...

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...

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...

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 ...

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 invincibili...

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 l...