Duterte-phobic Notes of the Week

1. ONE basic thing you need to know about history deniers (historical negationists), fact deniers, fake news writers, and their ilk. They will name anything and anyone as a case to study and confront it/them so to avoid focus on themselves. Don't fall into this trap. They are the cases that you need to examine and confront! The focus ought not to be on anything or anyone other than them! They are the basic issue! Expose everything there is to know about them!!

2. Degrees of Corruption
    True, if you're a media or religious institution or persona fixing every now and then the function of your privilege in order to serve the interests of holding companies or specific corporations or of political factions, you deserve to be called corrupt by the President of the State.
    Then again, if you're a President of the State who has devoted himself to the facilitation of another state's natural resource and market interests in his state, you are not just displaying corruption of the third or second degree, but absolute treason, one being committed by no less than You as the leader of the government of this State. That is corruption of the supreme or highest universal degree.

3. Planning a Novel
    What if I explore this premise for a novel's plot?---
    The 21st century. China would only have to look at its history where, once upon a time, there was this British-instigated Opium War against it designed by Britain to get its silk, porcelain, and tea. In that looking back would be born enough inspiration for a now-rich China to plan a 21st-century fear-farming War on Drugs false flag on a neighboring state. They will have to do this through---or care of---a potential puppet in that state that they can sponsor and install as that state's new leader. Once installed, that leader can farm all the fear he wants through that new "Opium War", through which fear-farming war the leader can facilitate China's slow and smooth entry into the leader's state, not just to get this neighboring state's silk, porcelain and tea but resources more precious and ready for a hefty harvest. Does that sound like a good plot for a fiction novel to you? Or would I be plagiarizing life for a historical one?

4. In the Era of Simplified Psychometrics
    Garth Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell have provided a concise, workable definition of the term "propaganda," viz., "Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist."
    Following that definition, it should be easy for us to see why government would be busying itself presently with the labeling of everyone in the divided opposition as "bobos" (stupid people), most especially the Vice-President, Leni Robredo, in recent days.
    Is the intent of this propaganda move to shape the manipulable public's perception that it is the critics of this government's policies who are bobo, in order to hide its own series of boo-boos?
    Is it to manipulate cognitions that everything that it is doing is the smart thing, if not the only smart thing, which process of manipulation may involve the hyping up of the truly smart it's done and hiding beneath the quilts all the stupid moves it had committed?
    Is it to direct behavior towards a derogation of critics and the celebration of this government's supposed revolutions?
    I think we're all intelligent enough to know when propaganda is twisting us or sucking us in. Or are we?
    And if we are, or suspect we are, being sucked into it, how do we fight it? Do we fight by throwing the same techniques it is using? Or do we fight it by exposing its lies? By exposing all the truths behind its lying?
    Do we expose the whole anatomy of processes in its propaganda that aims to "achieve a response that (will further) the desired intent of the propagandist"?
    What are those desires?
    Are we as a nation intelligent enough to in turn desire answers to these questions? Or are we truly bobos enough to desire nothing, simply wallowing in never-ending trust?

5. THE argument that says Duterte's spitting on due process ought to be thanked because the drug pusher and his addicts that used to be the kings in one's neighborhood are now all gone . . .
    is no different from the argument that says Hitler's regime should be thanked because it furthered the popularity of Wagner.
    Or don't you see the similarity? If you don't, well, . . . perhaps you never will.
    Perhaps you never will see that that legitimization of Hitler by one's deep love of Wagner is the same sort of legitimization that you are placing on Duterte's aggressive wariness towards all his critics, in this republic and outside, a legitimization motored by your understandable love of peace in one particular anecdotal neighborhood.

6. UNTIL that day comes when good people in a land start invoking violent resistance in order to protect rights, violent evil will continue to prosper in that land and in other lands. That is not inciting rebellion. That is a mere articulation of a historical truism operative among frightened peoples in repressive, suspect regimes.

7. ARE we afraid? My friends: government is excited about, and not wary of, creating a fearful people, for the fear-farming reasons we articulated above.
    But it, government, seems to be ignorant of the fact that courage is actually 100% fear. Let us rejoice, then. For as government makes progress in creating more frightened people, its hold on the people is not strengthened, it is lessened. Fear pa more! [S / -I]

A Caveat to the Global Era of Post-Truth Politics

an international magazine acknowledges the phenom
as worthy of a cover treatment

NOONG mailibing ang supposedly mga buto ni Ferdinand Marcos sa Libingan ng mga Bayani mid-November, nagkaroon ng ineskedyul na malalaking rali laban dito, mainly ng mga ngayo'y oposisyon nang paksyon ng mga dilawan ng Liberal Party at ng mga pulahan ng Left na kaalyado ng Big Tent ng ruling party. Ngunit sa sidelines ay may mga nagkumento---kasama na rito ang isang Trotskyist at anarchist communist kong kaibigan. Aniya noong Nobyembre 25:
    "Mapapangiti at mapapakamot ka talaga sa salimuot ng realpolitik kung makikita mo ang mga nangyayari sa likod ng entablado. Halimbawa, ngayong araw ay may mga belated rallies sa Luneta o sa Plaza Miranda o sa Mendiola Street o sa kung saan man laban sa pagbabalik ng mga Marcos, at ang rali ngayong hapon ay pinangungunahan ng Makabayan group. Alam na natin ang conflict between the Left at ng Marcos family, obvious naman iyon, di ba? Pero mapapangiti ka sa sitwasyon na silang dalawa---ang Left at ang Marcos party---ay kapwa kaalyado ng business interests ng mga lider ng Nacionalista Party at ngayon ng Big Tent government ni Duterte, at diumano ay pareho sila mga benepisyaryo ng Generous Patronage at global neoliberal business interests ng Communist State of Imperialist China. Hehehehehehe. Sino kaya ang mangingibabaw? Ano kaya ang magiging desisyon ng kanilang mga Tatay?  :)"
    Now, of course it may be that the voice of the anti-Marcos rallyists, both from the Left-hating yellows and the yellow-hating Left, together might not reflect the majority's voice, which had yet to be polled during that period of the month and year (in lieu of an absent or inaccessible direct democracy instrument for a referendum call) on the issue of Marcos' burial post-burial. You may aver that rallies are not so much proper democracy as instruments of mob rule. But, you see, democracy also provides individuals the choice to participate or not to participate, to vote or not to vote, and only those who cry are heard. And rallies may prompt people to put up more rallies everywhere else.
    But as regards the Marcos issue or even simply the Marcos burial issue, I do not think democracy (through a majority or a minority) can help this anymore since it has not really been a conflict of beliefs on facts open to the possibility of one side being able to convince the other side of the latter's beliefs' or gathered facts' wrongness; from the git-go, this has always been nothing other than a conflict of faiths (beliefs, period) by the contending parties, faiths akin to religious faiths wherein there is no possibility of one side being able to convince the other side to change its perspective. This is a closed issue to all parties concerned that democracy can judge as a hopeless conflict that only needs a little push to be escalated to the level of war as the only resolution. According to Karl Popper, democracy requires an open society, and the Marcos issue has not for a moment been open to openness from either side.
    And, seemingly, the same might apply for many other issues under the Duterte government (care of its propaganda machine) in this same era that Donald Trump won the US elections (care of its own alt-right and neoconservative propaganda machines) and China's historical claims on the West Philippine Sea that has had an upper hand as another truth contrivance in today's world.

    Welcome to the global era of post-truth politics, the resolution for which set of problematics may not be found in a democratic battle of persuasive reasoning but in the power of propaganda to manipulate the psychology of crowds' or nations' propensity for confirmation bias as well perhaps as in the power of facilely resorting to brutal force. [S / -I]

Isang Maiksing Reminder Tungkol sa Anatomiya ng Pilipinong Botante at ang Ugat ng Abuse of Power sa Ating Bansa

ANO ang mali sa pronouncement na ito?
    "Jojo, di ba ibinoto mo rin si Duterte? Tapos wala pa yatang isang buwan ay kung anu-ano na ang pinagsasasabi mo tungkol sa Duterte government na binoto mo? Kung gago nga ang Duterte government, ayon sa punto ng ilang kritisismo mo laban dito, aba, isa ka rin sa mga dahilan kung bakit ganito ang nangyari sa bansa natin under the Duterte government. Kaya ang masasabi ko sa iyo ay ito: dun ka na lang sa binoto mo, gago ka! Panindigan mo na lang, punyeta ka!! Di ka namin kailangan sa panig namin!!!"
    Obvious naman na ang nagsulat nito ay hindi bumoto o nangampanya kay Duterte. Dahil ang bumoto kay Duterte ay ganito ang isusumbat:
    "Ang problema sa atin, boboto tayo, tapos sa huli tayo ay magrereklamo. Ganun ba parati? Di ba dapat suportahan na lang kung sino man ang nanalo dahil yun ang pinili ng tao? O totoo nga bang mahilig lang talaga tayong maging parating opositor? Kaya siguro hindi umuunlad ang ating bayan."
    Hokey. At ngayon, ang sagot ko sa mga mungkahi na yan, na ilalatag ko ng mahaba at ng ganito:
    "Ser, ma'am, ang pagkakaalam ko po, lahat po tayo ay nalalagay sa single-issue activism o single-issue politics tuwing eleksyon. At least sa case ko ganun ang tingin ko sa sarili ko bilang botante. Ibig sabihin, binoboto ko ang tao na nagmumungkahi na gagawa ng solusyon sa single issue na nasa tuktok ng aking listahan. Oo nga't marami tayong nasa ating mga listahan na di angkop sa kandidatong iboboto natin at maaaring angkop dun sa kabila, kaya lang hindi iyon ang nasa tuktok sa listahan natin, at kahit man marami tayong magkakaparehong causa sa ating mga listahan ay magkakaiba tayo ng piniling issue na ilalagay sa tuktok ng ating kani-kaniyang listahan. At dahil alam ko iyan, ser, ma'am, nung ako'y bumoto, pinangako ko sa aking sarili na hindi ako magiging loyalista ng sinumang pulitiko at ng kanyang mga pagpangako kundi ng pagtupad sa mga issues sa aking listahan. Kaya . . . dun sa sinasabi niyong pareho na dun na lang ako dapat sa binoto ko parati, nagkakamali po kayo sa inyong pag-iisip na ang binoto ko ay yung tao at hindi yung causa na nasa tuktok ng aking listahan (na maaaring tinupad niya o tinupad niya ng mali o sinuway niya o iniwan na sa daan). Alam niyo, hindi lang naman ang kandidatong binoto ko ang nangako. Ako rin ay nangako. Pinangako ko sa aking sarili na lalabanan ko ang aking piniling kandidato sa ibang issue sa aking listahan na hindi siya angkop. At, alam niyo, ganun din naman ang pinangako ko sa aking sarili pagdating sa ibang kandidato, na kung sila ang mananalo ay hindi ko sila lalabanan sa lahat ng issue, dahil hindi sila ang kinalaban ko kundi ang maraming issue na hindi angkop sa kanila. Susuportahan ko naman sila sa mga issue sa listahan ko na angkop sa kanila. Muli, . . . sa mungkahi niyo, ser, na doon na lang ako parati dapat sa binoto ko dahil di niyo ako kailangan sa panig niyo, at sa parinig ninyo, ma'am, na tila adik na ako sa pagiging kontra parati, hindi po ako pumapanig sa inyo, ser, o sa kabila, ma'am, dahil sa tao ninyo/doon kundi dahil sa causa ninyo/doon kung saan kaisa ninyo/nila ako, dahil nasa listahan ko rin ang causa na iyon. Ser, kung ayaw niyo akong tanggapin sa rally niyo dahil binoto ko si Duterte, aba, okey lang. Kikilos ako nang hindi ko kayo kasabay, dahil hindi ako lumalaban sa ngalan ng isang pulitiko kundi sa ngalan ng mga causa ko. Hindi ko kayo kaisa sa inyong loyalismo, ser at ma'am, dahil tinuturing ko ring kalaban ang anumang uri ng loyalismo sa tao o partido."
    At dito ay biglang paakbay na pumasok ang aking Facebook friend na si Bert David ng may ganitong mga salita ng pagsuporta sa aking posisyon. Aniya: "Baluktot pa kasi at dapat itama ang pag-unawa ng mga kababayan natin sa kung ano ang demokrasya. Akala pa rin ng ilan, ang inihahalal sa mga eleksyon ay kundi man inihalal upang maging diyos, ay hinalal para maging hari o reyna o diktador, kung kaya't ang mga itoy ay nagiging mandarambong o manggagantso o mamamatay-tao nila. Di pa rin maintindihan na ang ibinoboto at dapat ibinoboto ay ang mga mabuting tao na makagagawa ng mabuti sa bansa at sa kapwa. At lalong di alam na sa demokrasya, kabahagi ang botante sa pang-araw-araw na pamamahala kung saan tinatalakay ang mga bagay-bagay na ginagawa para sa ikabubuti ng madla (hindi para sa ikabubuti ng mga ibinotong akala nila'y dapat lang na naging diyos o hari o reyna o diktador na naging mandarambong o manggagantso o mamamatay-tao ng botante."
    Mismo. Dahil kung ito nga ang anatomiya ng ating pagboto, totoo nga ang kasabihan na ang karapatang bumoto ng tao sa isang representative democracy ay isang karapatan nilang pumili ng kanilang susunod na magiging diktador.
    Matagal ko na ring sinasabi na tae talaga ang isang purely representative democracy na walang kasama o kaakibat na direct democracy instruments para sa tao. Hindi ito totoong "demos kratos" (democracy) o people's rule, dahil madalas rito, ang ibinoto mong tao ay nandun na, nagsisimula nang umalis sa kanyang ilang mga pangako at umabuso na rin sa kapangyarihang ibinigay sa kanya at di na mabawi ng mga bumoto sa kanya, salamat sa pribilehiyong ito na bigay ng taeng pure representative democracy.
    At kahit pa matagal na akong nagdadadaldal tungkol diyan, walang nakikinig sa kuto na tulad ko, dahil buo na ang paniniwala ng sambayanan na ang ating kaligtasan ay nasa mga inihahalal, mga inihahalal na sana ay maging mabuti at hindi masama. Buo na ang kanilang paniniwala na ang ating kaligtasan ay hindi nasa pagpalit o pagbago sa sistemang nagbibigay ng pribilehiyong bukas na bukas sa temtasyon ng pag-abuso. Kaya walang natututunan ang bansang ito tungkol sa kasamaan mismo ng sistemang bukas sa abuso ng masama (at ng mabuting maaaring maging masama), dahil sa kanilang malakas na paniniwala na ang taong inihalal lang ang maaaring maging masama (at mabuti), na ang taong mabuti ay di magiging masama sa loob ng ganito kalaking pribilehiyo at poder. At ako'y naging pessimist na tungkol sa future ng bansang ire na reklamo nang reklamo ngunit ayaw umalis sa sistema ng pure representative democracy na siyang ugat ng lahat ng abuse of power ng mga pulitiko. [S / -I]

What you consider as yours and what He considers as His are two different things: a comic report

A Philippine-American military exercise (photo from http://dailysignal.com/2013/04/19/americas-ally-the-philippines-requires-continued-support/)

DEAR lords and ladies of JoJolion’s Diet. Today I report to you this:

    I, Josuke of JoJolion, was there to personally hand to the King of the Philippines our Emperor’s invitation to visit the Empire of JoJolion immediately after that very period of His Lordship’s visit to the Empire of China. In all honesty, I was sent by our Emperor for the simple reason that I could speak English and some Tagalog and fully understand Tagalog and Bisaya; all of these three languages being what His Lordship the King has at His disposal. You also all know I know nothing much about Philippine ancient history, and I know that some of you have stated on Tokyo television that you would rather that the Emperor sent somebody else. Thankfully, my lords and ladies, you might like to know that while I know nothing much about Philippine ancient history, well, neither does much of the Filipino population! Anyway, my lords and ladies, that night in China when I watched and then sat with His Lordship the King of the Philippines, I was sipping tea and listening to him speak.

    "Today I announce my separation from the United States," said King Rodrigo I of the Kingdom of the Philippines that very night of October 20, there speaking at the court of the Empire of the Communist Partisans of China. Incidentally, my lords and ladies, the 71-year-old King said this between the 70-year old Philippine-US relations and the 72nd anniversary of General Douglas MacArthur’s Landing in the Barony of Palo on Leyte Island on October 20, 1944, whatever all those numbers might mean to you. I just came to learn about this from my Joestar family.

    Well, I am also happy to report that there is one thing you don’t know about this King, my lords and ladies. He actually likes the country music of Freddie Aguilar! As well as guns, of course. That makes Him a sort of cowboy in a Western film, doesn’t it? He even asked the Filipino country music singer to rewrite the lyrics to one of his songs so it can serve as a theme song for His reign, a fanfare of sorts to be sung by electronic minstrels wherever he goes. But here’s my question: Is superior love for Freddie Aguilar's country music enough to substantiate the King's claims of supreme love of country? For it seems he has a knack for claiming this. A knack, Anak, get it? [Pause here in case The Diet laughs]

    Anyway, my lords and ladies, after the King’s appearance at the court of the Empire of the Communist Partisans of China, we went to the balcony of the Imperial Communist Hotel to join a bevy of Filipino journalists on separate tables.

    “Naaalala ko ang lahat ng tinuro sa akin sa elementary tungkol sa mga pinaggagawa sa amin ng mga Amerikano at ako ay galit na galit hanggang ngayon,” whispered the King to me in a Tagalog with a Visayan accent that I could fully understand. We were seated at a merienda table full of what our Chinese chef called His Lordship’s Favorite Fried de-Lima Saba (all in all, five saba bananas on each plate, each banana halved right down the middle and fried and cinnamon-flavored).
    “Ang di ko maalala ay yung mga sinabi ng Nanay ko tungkol kay King Ferdinand of Marcos noong Queen Cory lady pa siya,” the King continued. “Di ko na nga rin maalala kung totoo nga bang si Queen Cory ang nag-appoint sa akin kaya naging Officer in Charge ako ng Duchy of Davao Siti (better known in all the Kingdom by the acronym DDS), wala na talaga akong maalala tungkol doon.”
    “Basta ang alam ko lang,” he continued, “salbahe talaga itong mga Amerikano. Bakit ba nila pinatay si General del Pilar, ang bata-bata pa noon at masunuring bata sa mga utos ni King Emilio del Aguinaldo, isa pang idol ko. Grabe talaga.”
    I attempted to ask the King details about the names he mentioned, but he was quick to follow up with:
    “Pero itong si King Ferdinand of Marcos, ha, di naman siguro totoo na salbahe ito kasi sa tingin ko kung naging salbahe man iyon, malamang dahil sa mga utos ng mga Amerikano, kasi salbahe talaga itong mga Amerikano, naalala kong turo ng mga titser ko sa elementary,” he said, looking at his plate of de-Lima Saba. I here again attempted to ask who---
    “Naalala ko rin yung sa collegium pa ako . . . iyan, mga classmates ko sa Ateneo de San Beda yang mga secretary ko na yan sa kabilang mesa, mga honor students yan silang lahat, gustong-gusto ng mga praile ng San Beda yang mga yan, sus ginoo. Ako 75 lang palagi,” he said, expecting laughter, which I promptly gave him and his joke.

    You laugh, my lords and ladies. But I expected that, that refrain of His Lordship’s overplayed song: “ako 75 lang palagi.”
    Anyway, after a pause I again attempted to ask about where Ateneo de---
    “Naalala ko, . . . ang daming rally noon dito sa Duchy of Maynila (better known throughout the kingdom as DOM). Kasi, siyempre, kaya siguro kami pinag-iinteresan ng mga Komunista noon kasi nandito kasi ang mga Amerikano, salbahe talaga, tsk,” he said, shaking his head.
    There was, again, a bit of pause here as the King rolled up a sleeve and reached out for a fried saba on my plate while side-glancing toward a female journalist. I felt like peeing from all the many cups of tea I had drunk and there stood up, and---

    “Kaya sabi ko, . . . para di na kami pag-interesan uli ng mga Komunista, pabalikin ko na lang si Joma, yung Robin Hood na titser ko, naalala ko, tapos makipagkaibigan kami with the Empire of China and KGB tsars-ruled Rusya, para wala nang gulo ba, o di ba? Mag-share na lang kami sa West Philippine Sea na yan. Tapos, laswik, pumunta ako ng Vietnam ni Bảo Đại, isa pang Komunista yan. O. di ok na ang Pilipinas, di ba? Sus ginoo, believe me.”
     At that moment I wanted to ask permission to go pee, but---

    “Kaya, sabi ko, itong 2016 Philippine-American military exercises, this will be the last, kasi mga salbahe talaga itong mga ito, naalala kong sabi sa akin ng mga titser ko sa elementary. Dito na lang ako sa Empire of China at sa KGB tsars ng Rasya---baka mababait pa itong mga ito, sabi ko, kasi biruin mo binigyan pa nga kami ng perang pangtayo ng drug rehab centers dito sa, saan ba yon? Basta meron dyan. Isipin mo yan! Saan ka ba---” I couldn’t understand the rest of the words he was munching on at that moment as he chewed on more saba. “On the other hand,” he continued, after wiping his mouth with toilet paper he got from one of his pockets, “wala talaga akong maalala na may ginawang salbahe sa amin itong Tsina at itong Rusya o Rasya. Wala talaga. . . . Well, wala akong maalala. . . . Ang parating naaalala ko ay itong Amerika. Sus, ginoo. Elementary pa lang ako, salbahe na talaga ‘to, putang ina!!!”

    I ran out to pee.

WHEN I got back I saw the King winking at a female journalist. I said to Him:

    “My Lord, can we get serious about this?”
    He looked at me as if to say he is always serious about anything and everything under the sun, even when he’s joking.
    “Let's say your Kingdom becomes more pro-China and -Russia than pro-Westeros from this moment forward,” I said, “okay, but what do you give away and what do you get?”
    A lady at a nearby table with her back turned to us almost half-turned at that moment, as if to listen harder to what might be the answer to the question I just threw at the King.
    “Let's do some real math and realpolitik here, my Lord,” I said. “Your subjects are warring with each other on abstractions like ‘sincere leadership’, ‘His caring presidency at the Presidium of Lackeys’, ‘nationalism’, and ‘independence’, which are---for now---still really nothing more to most than noisy, empty kettles of nice words they can't get water from for a jasmine tea of substance.”

    I didn’t notice Prince Wilfredo of Gallinero, son of the King’s estranged brother, sit at the table. He proudly swung the saba on his fork from left to right as he loudly, sarcastically said:
    “Instead, let us ask the former satellites of the KGB-Tsardom of Russia why they broke away from the USSR. Why the Tibetan Empire, The City Formerly Known as Her Royal Highness’ Hong Kong, Bảo Đại’s Vietnam and the Kingdom of Tungning (oh, Taiwan to you, ser Josuke of JoJolion) do not like mainland China. Why not ask millions of Chinese émigrés scattered around the globe why they ran away from their homeland? Why not ask millions of later Chinese and Russian immigrants to the United States of Northern America the reason why they chose to live there instead of in China or Russia? Why not ask Guaicaipuro’s Venezuelans what they got from switching sides? Why not ask Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar’s Cubans if they think they do deserve a 2016 Ford Everest instead of a vintage Chevy Cadillac?”

    Ser Dexter of Amoroso, son of a cousin of the King, was now also at the table. He said, joining the conversation, with the King not minding anyone as he busied himself with his saba, “If we are allied with the US of North America and the KGB Tsardom of Russia starts war, China as our ally would most likely be in charge of the Pacific front and use our islands for bases. And having the US of NA as our ally, well, they’d most likely request use of the burghs of Clark and Subic. That would make us a primary target, and same goes with the Empire of JoJolion and South Goguryeo.”

    We all stared at him, even the King.
    “Well,” ser Dexter continued, “if we are allied with China, same goes din. Either way, no choice. Two-edged sword ang pagiging strategic ng bansa natin. Di ba, My Lord?”
    “A, ewan ko sa iyo; not my cup of tea,” said His Lordship, who quickly went back to winking at the female journalist while he sipped tea.

    “So, siding with China is safer with that Pacific front scenario?” I asked ser Dexter, in my English with a Nihonggo accent.

    But before ser Dexter could answer, ser Wilfredo there addressed the King, again sarcastically: “Just asking, my Lord, but why are we so hyper about changing our status quo? Our big problem before was Drugs and Corruption. Now we are so involved in geopolitics?”
    “I think they belong to the same category, ser Wilfredo,” I hastened to offer an explanation on the King’s behalf, who might find the good ser not his cup of tea of a conversation mate. “One seems eager to sacrifice all geopolitical complexities in exchange for rehab centers.”

    I couldn’t believe that that was what came out of my mouth. The King there turned to me, stared at me, but soon smiled and moved back his stare to another female journalist at whom he also winked tirelessly.

    “And as for the corruption of others,” I ventured to utter a joke, sensing that the King was up to receiving jokes at this hour of the night, “I dunno if theirs are bigger corruptions than the rumored one that says One actually got his prime campaign money from the AIIB.”
    Sers Dexter and Wilfredo looked at me, shocked, then giggled. The King turned to me again, stared at me, but after four seconds on a grandfather clock smiled at me for having the ambassadorial charm to crack such a joke, only to be frightened by the Kingly stare, haha. He threw his cooking oil-stained fork at my livery, over which act sers Dexter and Wilfredo LOL’d.

SER Wilfredo was saying: “China will deal first with JoJolion, South Goguryeo, HRH Australia, Bảo Đại’s Vietnam, and most likely the rajas’ India and Indonesia. If we remain neutral it will be worse. Warring factions within our country will be armed by each’s opposing powers. We become like Syria, killing each other 'til the fight between the superpowers end.”

    I suddenly realized that Ser Hubert of Posadas, a freelancing knight of sorts, had been standing behind Ser Wilfredo, holding a cup of tea. He said then, “I do not think there is an exit from this. We have always been primed for proxy wars, so either end of the situation we will still be like Syria. We cannot escape playing the geopolitical game at this point in history. We have to at least take initiative, or be, as always, victim to the external manipulation by foreign powers. And how could we not, with our strategic location and weak military? The end goals, gentlemen, however you play it, are 1) industrialization while expanding our agricultural base, 2) equitable growth, 3) a strengthened local military’s technical capability, and 4) unified internal warring factions. The homework is more internal, regardless of the externalities, because once we achieve internal technology to a level of sustainability and equitably utilize our resources, we can then start to assert control of the strategic location that we have been blessed with by the Lord Bathala. Play them against each other is what I say. Eh, my Lord King?”

    But the King was suddenly not there. Ah, he was now standing in front of a bunch of seated and smiling journalists.

    “Why not concentrate on improving our economy to solve our poverty problem?” asked ser Wilfredo, turning to face the freelancing knight. “We are rich in everything. All we need to do is manage it well and share it fairly among us. That is how our leadership should show genuine love for its people.”

    “Yup,” said ser Hubert, “but as someone exposed to risk organizations and the intelligence community, that is the crux of the problem. If you try to do exactly that, foreign special interests and powers will neutralize you. This is well documented in our own Alexandrian libraries, and if you talk to any careerist in the NSC and NICA or even ISAFP, they will privately say so. It’s just that we are so enamored with our relationship with the US of NA and, as ser Josuke of JoJolion has been wont to point out, the internal colonizers are easily swayed by US of NA companies, Indonesian big money, China money, Malaysian money, that you will find that goal unattainable. Many have tried and literally died.”

    Everyone stared at ser Hubert, shocked at the reality bite he shared, their hands stopping short of bringing their sabas to their respective mouths.

    “The SOP,” ser Hubert continued as he strolled around the round table, “and I have worked with mining companies and contractors, is to start with AID while they steal the land, and many times stealing the health of the community as well. If the community is not compromised, brand their leaders as communists and place them in the OB! Then it will be easy to kill them.”

    Everyone slowly pushed their sabas to their mouths, still eager for ser Hubert to continue.

    And ser Hubert continued. “The AID,” he said, “is used to get baseline data and a social survey. Third parties then use bribery to buy the local dukes, extract resources. All standard playbook procedures.”

    Everyone slowly chewed on their sabas, looking down at the linen of realization on the table of globalization, as ser Hubert moved on to another table.

I DIDN’T know it was Lady Melanie of Victoriano at the nearby table. She swung around and asked: “So, ser Josuke of JoJolion, what items are on your ‘give away’ and ‘get’ list?”

    “Sa Those Chinese-American Companies In Manila That Cannot Be Named na lang ako manghihingi ng get list ko, ma’am Melanie,” I said, smiling, as I struggled to flaunt my Tagalog with an anime accent. “As for King Rodrigo I, I think rehab centers okey na sa kanya; yun lang yata hinihingi niya, simpleng probinsiyano lang naman daw siya. Tsaka isda promdi Iskaroboro?”
    She smiled and turned back to her table.

    Ser Wilfredo said: “We give away our natural resources and we get low-paying jobs as promoters of their products at the expense of our Overseas Filipino Workers.”

    I said, “Your country is so used to doing those, ser Wilfredo. What's to stop your lumpenbourgeoisie from giving away the same to a new colonial party? :)”

    He smiled and returned to his saba.

    Lady Melanie turned back again, saying: “We won the case at the inter-nations arbitration table, didn’t we? The King won't even get what is ours?”

    “Madame,” I said, “I think what you consider as yours and what He considers as His are two different things? And I think His definition of ‘bayan ko’ is not so different from the definition of it by seemingly China-funded Bayan Muna? A China-centric Asia Union would be their definition of a supreme bayan, different from your definition of the word, true?”

    “Hmm,” she said. “Do you think His ‘Bayan ko’ (pre- & during the election of Kings) is different now, now that he is the King?”

    “Rumor is creeping in, my lady,” I said, “that what we're witnessing now are the repercussions of that equally rumored pre-election Rodrigo-AIIB connection.”

    Ser Wilfredo looked up from his saba, saying, “Silk road, too, eh?”

    “Silk bridge,“ I said.

    “AIIB controlled by China,” ser Wilfredo continued, glancing with a tinge of bitterness towards his Uncle, “will finance that ambitious bridge project. All member states' banking and private sectors will put in their share. Most material and labor will be from China. It is business as usual for China. They have to think faster because their temporary prosperity is diminishing. In the long end, it will be faster to spread their products throughout the continent. Sounds good, but are we sure China will not use that leverage against the AIIB’s member states? As far as we are concerned, what do we need them for? We have more than enough wealth for every Filipino. All that this wealth needs is proper management!”

    He glanced bitterly towards his Uncle, there flirting with the media.

    Suddenly, Ser Raymond of the Red, the jester-puppeteer, passed by our table, saying to us as he danced to Freddie Aguilar’s music, “One for you, one for me. Two for you, one, two for me. Three for you, one, two, three for me . . .”, as he disappeared into the crowd of standing and talking journalists, among whom was the King, dancing with His cup of tea.

    And that is my report to you, my lords and ladies! Arigato! Here’s hoping you will have use for it before His Lordship arrives for his visit! Just remember this, though, my lords, my ladies. To the King of the Philippines we are a friend. We are not the anime. Get it? Not an anime at all, hahaha. Kanpai!!! [S / -I]

Another advice to the foreign tourist

pgoto borrowed from http://www.factmag.com/2012/07/07/bloc-2012-and-why-speculative-coverage-of-last-nights-chaos-leaves-a-bad-taste/

SIR/MA'AM/MADEMOISELLE, there's nothing to fear, really---in spite of all the news you're hearing, there's absolutely no conflict in our islands; instead, there's total harmony! You often hear that our government here is in shambles? There's absolutely no truth to that bit of propaganda. Let me give you this advice that I have the habit of giving to foreign tourists like you.
    For instance, Sir/Ma'am/Mademoiselle, in the Philippines there is no difference between a majority bloc and a minority bloc; they both belong to the same bloc. In our Congress, it's true that our congressmen are divided into two blocs and the blocs are given different names (majority and minority). And, true, there are times when the minority appears like a true minority, in conflict with the President on a number of policies. But that would be a mirage in the desert, sir, ma'am, mademoiselle. You see, the names majority/minority are just there for the sake of giving tourists the impression that they are different, because, in fact, they're not! It's all theater, you know? And what do they say in theater? They say, "where there's no conflict, there's no story." We have total harmony in our theater, er, country, sir/ma'am/mademoiselle. All right? Absolutely nothing to fear! [S / -I]

UNLESS WE PUT BACK THE L IN EDLSA, CHANGE WOULD STILL BE STUCK IN TRAFFIC AND WON'T BE COMING AT ALL

hiram mula sa http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/video/380824/balitanghali/rep-salceda-mas-nagdudulot-ng-traffic-sa-edsa-ang-pokemon-go-kaysa-provincial-buses

EMERGENCY powers. Ito ang hinihingi ng Malacañang sa Senado para malutas ang traffic at transportation crisis sa Metro Manila. "Change is coming" with those emergency powers, pangako ng paulit-ulit na campaign at government slogan ng Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte. Subalit, teka, kung ang departamento ehekutibo ang nanghihingi at hindi ang Senado ang humingi ng hearing tungkol sa usapin na ito ng emergency powers para sa Pangulo, ito ang tanong: Di ba ay may inihanda at isinumite ka na dapat na plano sa Senado bago ka pa man pumunta roon para pormal na manghingi ng emergency powers? Bakit kailangan ka pang tanungin kung ano ang mga plano mo ng mga taong hinihingan mo ng emergency powers?
    Huwag na natin isa-isahin ang mga planong inilahad din naman ng departamento ehekutibo sa Senate hearing tungkol dito, pareho yung wow, na naman at yung maganda o tumpak na plano; kayo na ang bahalang mag-research kung ano ang mga ito at kumumporme o kumamot sa ulo sa bawat isa sa mga ito. Ngayon, gusto ko lang balikan ang mga nakaraan para mailatag ko ang aking pananaw sa buong polisiya sa trapik at transportasyon ng gobyernong ire.


MGA kababayan, may paborting salitang Bisaya na ginagamit ang Pangulo kapag nalalamyaan sa isang tao: bayot. Sa Tagalog, ibig sabihin nito ay bakla. Alam ko naman na ang ibig sabihin ng Pangulo ay malamya lamang, o walang tapang, o mahina, at hindi tunay na bakla, dahil alam naman niya siguro na maraming bakla ang may tapang at lakas ng loob, tulad nalang halimbawa ng tapang na marahil ay nakita niya kina Behn Cervantes at Lino Brocka noong panahon ng Martial Law. Gayunpaman, ayokong gamitin ang salitang ito kung ako naman ang malalamyaan sa isang polisya ng gobyernong ito dahil homophobic ang dating, tulad ng pagka-sexist ng pagsabing "para ka namang babae." Kaya ang gagamitin kong salita pag ako ang malalamyaan sa isang polisiya o kawalan ng isang pagkaklaro at pagkadiretso at pagka-malakas ay . . . malamya lamang. O di kaya walang kuwenta. O di kaya supot. Oops, di rin yata politically correct yon.
    Huwag na tayong magpaligoy-ligoy pa. Ito ang tanong ko:
    Kelan kaya tayo magkakaroon ng gobyernong may buong tapang na i-nationalize ang lahat ng sasakyang pampubliko sa metropolis o di kaya gawin ang ginawa sa Melbourne na di man nationalized ay nasa ilalim ng consortia kung kaya't di magulo, dahilan kung bakit nakaya niyang ipagbawal ang pribadong sasakyan sa ilang daan ng metropolis (maliban sa business cargo vans), at inobliga ang lahat na gumamit ng sasakyang pampubliko, maging janitor man o CEO ng mga korporasyon. Parang sa Japan din, kung saan pati ang mga CEO ay kumakain sa cafeteria ng mga sararimanu (salary men). Kelan kaya tayo makakakita ng ganitong uri ng tapang para sa pagkakapantay-pantay ng lahat sa daan? Kelan? Kailan?!
    Sa ngayon kasi, tila may pagsandal na naman sa rason na ang trapik ay di naman parating "matrapik", at ito ay pinapalala lang din ng isang kathang-isip nating mga komyuter. Hmm. Kaya pala't narito pa rin tayo at may patuloy na pakikinabang ang oil companies sa malalang trapik na nagpapalago sa kanilang mga negosyo, salamat sa pagsunog ng mga sasakyan ng gasolina kahit di umaandar ang mga ito.
    Naroon ang nakapagtatakang mga naunang utos ng LTFRB kung saan ipinagbawal ang pagdaan sa EdlSA ng isang uri ng public transport (UV Express) pabor sa isang public transport (buses), na di ko malaman kung ano ang naitulong sa trapik sa EdlSA gayung dumami lang naman ang nagcolorum na mga vans at naglipana na rin ang mga Uber at Grab. Ito ay habang nagkakakanta ang gobyerno na priyoridad daw nila ang public transport, gayung wala pa namang nagagalaw na paggalaw ng mga pribadong sasakyan at ang UV Express pa nga ang unang pinagdiskitahan, at pinaglakad pa ng malayo ang ilang mga mananakay nitong working class patungo sa kanilang mga MRT connecting stations. At sasabihin ng gobyerno na socialist daw siya at maka-working class? Sus, ginoo.
    (Mabuti naman at pagkaraan ng ilang linggo ay binawi rin ito ng mga taga-Dabaw na nagpatupad nito na tila may weird na konsepto tungkol sa trapik sa EdlSA, bagamat may mga kondisyon pa rin itong di ko pa rin maintindihan. O naiintindihan ko kung umaalis ako sa sosyalistang perspektibo na pinangalandakan ng gobyerno na siya rin daw perspektibo na pinanggagalingan nila. Pweh.)
    Meron ba talagang solusyong bago ang gobyerno natin ngayon maliban sa mga imprastaktura na naman na makikipaghabulan na naman sa dumaraming sasakyan na humahabol sa bilang ng mga indibidwal sa lumulobong populasyon ng lungsod?
    Ang problema ng trapik ay hindi ang trapik, kundi ang kathang-isip ng mga rehimen na ang tanging solusyon sa paglobo ng populasyon ng mga pribadong sasakyan ay nasa paggiba ng mga bahay para matayuan ng mga kalsada. Saan ito hihinto, pag naubos na ang mga bahay? Ang problema ng EDSA (at hindi ng EdlSA) ay sa patuloy nating pagsamba sa pagkasanto ng mga pribadong sasakyan nang walang pagtatanong man lang kung alin at sino ba talaga ang dapat na ituring na santos ng highway na ito. Matagal na nating tinanggap na santos ang mga pribadong sasakyan dito, nang walang pagpreno at pagmunimuni tungkol sa kung sino ba talaga ang los santos. The saints. Napapanahon na siguro na ibalik natin ang L sa EdlSA, silang mga tunay na los santos, ang public transport commuters na siyang dapat na sinasamba ng mga polisiyang pang-transportasyon.
    Sa ngayon, wala. Wala akong nakikitang solusyon na magpapahinto sa pagpabor ng gobyerno sa pribadong sasakyan. Ang future transporation utopia kung saan wala nang pribadong sasakyan ay di pa darating sa Pilipinas sa mga darating na siglo. Kailangan pa siguro natin ng liderato na sa isyung ito ay may totoong tapang, tapang na may dalang pagbabago sa buhay ng mga taong di pinagkaitan ng kaukulang pansin ni Lino Brocka. Tapang di lamang sa pagtanggap sa katotohanan na kailangan na natin ng nasyon ng mass transport at di nasyon ng mga pribadong sasakyan na wala na ngang maparkingan ay siya pa nating sinasamba, at lalo ng tapang na igiit ang solusyon na para sa nakararami, o para sa kanila na araw-araw ay gising sa reyalidad na hindi pinalala ng kathang-isip itong mga nangyayari.
    O di kaya, let's gather our heads on this, people! And I mean, let's gather the real bravery of working together on this in a participatory democracy, instead of relying on just the macho bravado of a Department of Transportation that keeps on giving us nothing but the drugged view of a promise of a bogus socialist transport policy that shall be coursed through diktats. Let's believe in us together, instead of just a Tugade. Together, not Tugade, and rally for real change sans the kowtowing to private interests via emergency powers. (Concerning PPP projects, here's a caveat to all optimistic about new government PPP arrangements expected to come from the emergency powers setup, marketed as the Duterte solution. . . . which, for our information, were actually also marketed before as the Noynoy Aquino, Macapagal-Arroyo, Estrada, Ramos, and Cory Aquino solutions: read about New Zealand's "promised electric trains derailed by misguided enthusiasm", for example).
    I say again: Let's take back our EdlSA, this time with the L that refers to the real santos, the los santos, Lino Brocka's santos, the public-transport-commuting masses. Yan ang epipanyo (o epifanyo, o epiphany) na pinapanangalin kong makita sana ng lahat bago pa man sumambulat ang mga lumang uri ng solusyon na dala ng emergency powers na ito. [S / -I]

An Open Letter to a Socialist President

DEAR President Rodrigo Duterte:

Sir, for describing yourself as a Socialist I already salute you. Not many in our country have a proper appreciation of the word/concept “socialist”; most equate it with being a “revolutionary communist,” even as armed revolutionary communists regard mere socialists as lame while the socialists regard the armed revolutionary communists as party fascists. I salute you for the boldness in your unabashed self-tagging using that word, Mr. President, the same way that I continue to salute Ninoy Aquino for calling himself a Christian Socialist during that time when “confessing” to being a socialist was equal to confessing one had leprosy.

Pero ito lang, Mr. President. For almost a week now the UV Express-using commuting working class has been made to suffer by a memo made by your LTFRB chair appointee, Martin Delgra, care of a legalist rationale. The memo banned UV Express vans from using the length of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue immediately after its release. The objective of the memo? To relax the heavy traffic along EdlSA—as if the UV Express vans ply the entire length of EdlSA and number in the thousands. Mr. President, who are profiting from this memo? There are the bus lines, of course, who now have to carry the UVE passengers from the provinces dropped off by their UVEs at an EdlSA or near-EdlSA corner 200 meters away from their connecting MRT stations. (Some would take the bus for such a relatively short distance to avoid perspiring on their office clothes in a 200 meter walk). And right now, colorum vans (even cars) have cropped up along the highway in question to exploit the shortage of a faster alternative to the slow buses and the cramped MRT (the faster alternative, the UV Express with licenses, are now missing). These colorums don’t have to pick up passengers at UVE terminals, and their passengers don’t have to walk 200 meters to get to them.

In short, Mr. President, the objective of the memo is not at all accomplished by its targeting the UV Express as a culprit, especially since the number one and number two culprits for the heavy traffic along EdlSA are the staggering number of private vehicles and buses plying the route, as well as the taxis and gentrified Ubers and Grabs.

Mr. President, the legalist rationale used by Atty. Delgra has not only resulted in working class commuters’ equating their current suffering (at the heavier traffic now traversed by the UVEs and at their having to walk 200 meters to their connecting MRT train stations) to what they’ve suffered in the long MRT queues from the start of DOTC Sec. Jun Abaya’s secretaryship in the Noynoy Aquino government. And they now equate Atty. Delgra’s use of the law with the Aquino government’s use of the law in relation to laglag-bala victims (which, you'll remember, victimized the victims twice and supported the extortionists).

Therefore, Mr. President, Atty. Delgra’s seeming insensitivity to the working class commuters’ suffering, a suffering produced immediately after his memo’s diktat, does not seem to reflect your Socialist sensibility. In fact, it seems to negate it, defy it, and defame it.

I have no connection with any UV Express operator, Mr. President. I merely have relatives and friends who belong to the UV Express-using working class who have suffered enough, Mr. President. And—like you—I too have claims to a Socialist sensibility.

And speaking of Socialist sensibilities, Mr. President, I would not be surprised if—by your Socialism—you were to nationalize the EdlSA bus route, Mr. President, as well as limit the number of private vehicles using the highway during the rush hours, instead of continue to allow Atty. Delgra to sacrifice one mode of public transport (some of which have ceased to invest in trips) in favor of another public transport (the buses, and the new colorum vans and cars along this route) in order to indulge his mysterious understanding of EdlSA traffic.

Mr. President, I believe that if there is one leadership that can stop the long-standing Filipino culture of favoring the private vehicle over the public transport vehicle, the favor for the vehicle over the pedestrian, as well as a ludicrous favor for a public transport over another public transport, it is your Socialist presidency, Mr. President.

The working class commuters of our republic have suffered enough, sir. That is why we rely on your socialist awareness and here hope and pray that Atty. Delgra will imbibe the same amount of empathy for such suffering that you have used to express yourself through this past year, Mr. President.

We thank you in advance,

Respectfully and humbly yours,

Jojo Soria de Veyra
Citizen

WHAT TO EXPECT, WHAT NOT TO EXPECT FROM BILATERAL TALKS WITH CHINA: A TAOISTIC FORWARD VIEW

map borrowed from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ph_Territorial_Map.png

ABOUT entering into bilateral talks with China concerning the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines in the West Philippine Sea and China’s claims to geomorphological forms within the same sea as well as to the sea itself, I trust that the Duterte government realizes this: that such a venture, while welcome for the benefit of letting China announce to the world what it now has to say to a “cooperative” Philippines in these talks, remains a very tall order for attaining any target result due to the following unchanging reasons that would make it impossible for those talks to please the various parties:
    For one, collectively the Filipino nation will maintain its position that it cannot give up its sovereign rights in its EEZ and in some, if not all, of the shoals, reefs, and/or islands within this 200-nautical-miles-from-the-main-archipelago’s-shoreline EEZ. The thing is that it would even be ludicrous to imagine the Filipino people still debating today on the issue of whether we should give up our EEZ claims (or parts of it) or not. We also know that we cannot abandon the principles of freedom of navigation in seas as per the demand of international trade between nations, which freedom of navigation in the waters and airspace in question has its own historical background that runs centuries long prior to China’s recent occupation of the same waters and its conscription of the same airspace; in short, this same freedom of navigation had hitherto and heretofore witnessed a long and stable situation of international use. Therefore, given all this, the Philippines cannot be other than persistent in staying put—that is, cannot have a sympathy other than for remaining where it stands with the overlapping claims to zones within its EEZ as well as to the free seas beyond (and in managing claims to these through a sea and airspace Code of Conduct).
    Many, therefore, are curious or would like to know as soon as now the target of the Duterte leadership in relation to the bilateral talks it is planning to humbly launch with China. Yes, it is understandable why it is now looking to experiment with alternative ways of resolving the problem, from parties other than our own international law and history experts, the United States’ and other Western powers’ advice, the United Nations, or the ASEAN as a body. But here are the givens, which we trust the Duterte government knows full well:
    The Philippines cannot be other than prepared, not least for negative results concerning what China has to say, for it is almost certain that China will put on the table tempting pictures of expanded opportunities for the Filipino nation that it—directly or through the AIIB—can offer “as a neighbor and friend” and as a “co-investor in progress”. Those temptations by economic cajoling we can, and must, resist if in exchange we are expected to give up our sovereign rights within certain geologic features within our EEZ that we have hitherto strongly (peacefully) demanded. The bone China will offer will be just that: for us to give these claims up, to which withdrawal China would presumably reciprocate through an offer to share access to, as well as resources and profits to be derived from, the area; in short, China will grant the benefits of paternalism to any nation that kowtows to its international patrimonialism. But we are not fools, of course, who would bite into non-binding concessions or compromises that the Other can at anytime withdraw. Or into binding concessions that the Other can anytime announce as expired, as per instructions that may suddenly be downloaded from its centralized patrimonialist wisdom.

    We are weak and are an easy target to those who would like to take advantage of that weakness, of that state of being open season to empires’ sudden macho hunting urges. Thankfully, though, we have our strength in our faith in the natural persistence of correctness, in our adherence to international law that China—in contrast—would not allow itself to submit to, and in our belief in the right and the fair. This persistence is gentle, which is also fortunate, in contrast to persistence that is hard. True, from the perspective of impatience, our kind of persistence is the persistence that is difficult to fulfill, but it is also the sort that is more likely to succeed. In fact it’s the sort that has the potential to convince the Other (and most of the world), presenting fertile opportunities to improve the situation through means that—however difficult and far—could in the end shorten the problem instead of prolong it.
    Prolong? Well, prolonging is precisely what the other sort of persistence could threaten to move us into. Which, fortunately, we still have the majority wisdom to dismiss. For there are no drastic solutions to this dispute that can avoid an easy slide towards breaking up everything into another series of problems; thus the correctness of a delicate treatment of it by leaders from both sides and all sides who may have honest hope for things to go well.
    We don’t know if China has such a leader—with honest hope for things to go well, in ways other than what its pronouncements have been envisioning for itself (through preponderance over the small and weak). But we can be thankful for the fact that to the eyes of the world the Philippines inhabits the humble position of the non-threatening claimant armed solely with a law or set of laws (and a history of being abused by power). Some sensibilities see this as a humiliating position, the position that can have no other means to deliver its resistance than through terrorist demonstrations of non-submission. But the humble position can actually be a position of strength where, albeit one cannot make demands from it, one can make claims to the international sensibility of being one ambitious superpowers’ imperialist victim. To be the occupant of an oppressed body is to be threatening enough in the eyes of the civilized world. That’s not being threatening in the Communist sense, which is probably the only threat that China can understand; that’s being threatening in the sense that one’s commission of oppression by sudden ambition towards the humble instantly commits the demeaning and discrediting of oneself, of one’s respectability, the possibly irreversible painting of oneself henceforward as unworthy of anyone’s trust. [S / -I]

Why Are We Writers Shallow?: A Voltairean Exploration

My friends' Facebook walls have been calling everybody's attention to F. Sionil Jose's quoting of a well-loved former senator in his latest column essay on Philstar.com titled "Why we are shallow". Okay, the essay has my attention, and now---having nothing better to do---I'd like to offer my own conjectures regarding what's behind all this rampant shallowness Jose is talking about.
     But first things first. The idea of Filipino shallowness that visited the novelist-columnist came from a friend of his from another Asian country, an idea which initially floored him. Then, recently while watching a presentation of Asian dances with former Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani, Jose observed that there was but grudging applause from the audience for the stylized movements of a stately Japanese dance while a near-standing ovation was accorded to the energetic jumping in the Filipino-cum-Vietnamese tinikling. Jose said anyone can learn the tinikling in 10 minutes, and Senator Shahani was supposed to have asked, "Why are we so shallow?"

Well, let me see, we have been shallow for centuries.
     It was probably one of the things the Japanese hated us for, the reason perhaps why they treated us and our women like the Chinese during World War II, because we couldn't understand their dances which they didn't have the time to elucidate on for our modest collective comprehension. Meanwhile, our long-standing enthusiasm for the tinikling only demonstrated this alleged shallowness, because---as Senator Shahani would know---we as audiences often approach the dance with merely the eye of tourists, laughing and clapping only at the dancers' meager feat of avoiding the bamboos. Senator Shahani, being a Sorbonne University Doctor in Philosophy in Comparative Literature, would know that there is more to the dance than what my favorite cooking television personality could drunkenly and metaphysically say about it in the Vietnam episode of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations Season One. There is definitely something about the rich presence of thick bamboos in this feasting dance, as well as about the allusion to the tikling bird of the rallidae species and the tikling farm traps made of bamboo, the erotic and taxing accelerando rhythm in the fourth quarter of the dance, its relation to Philippine martial arts and tribal war dances, its possible role in Leyte among Bankaw's people prior to the Bankaw Revolt. However, we are not all trained to be dance historians, much less as semioticians, to ever get---or want---anything more than the fun we're already getting from the tinikling at face value. In fact, we didn't all have that privilege of getting to know anything about our own dances, much less the Odori, and so we remain shallow.
     As Jose's foreign friend would say, this shallowness is manifest even in our major papers. I'd read the Philippine Star, for instance, and what would I get? Apart from F. Sionil Jose's column, there's practically nothing to read in there except the comic strips, the classifieds for preferably female applicants, and the boring crosswords and sudokus. It's a total waste of recycled paper. Another Star columnist, the poet and novelist Alfred Yuson, was probably wryly acknowledging this shallowness in his newspaper after he was indirectly asked for his opinion about Jose's column and assumptions: "Shallow shallow me. Shallow me wherever you may be... tra-la-la...," he said.

Our universities and colleges are all to blame for this epidemic of shallowness.
     Instead of putting much emphasis on the culture of Late Antiquity, they spend too much time teaching our preppies everything about the binary structures of HTTP cookies used to hack the CIA headquarters or eBay with, or the way Florence Nightingale would assist a doctor performing a burn debridement or escharotomy, which all totally mean nothing to either Heraclius or Phocas. Look at the Hindus, for instance, even while often high on bhang lassi their continuity with their past would be retained through the centuries, so that even today you can see sacred cows still plowing their own dung on the cobblestones of Jaisalmer Fort. And the Buddhists of Thailand---who up to today can perform sacrifices of not dirtying one's soul with the mud of modern economics, relying solely for their food on the age-old charity of a modern-day profiteer with a store. So why, oh why, don't our universities and colleges bring back all that Greek that up to now is being studied in Greece, or all that Latin that up to now is still being studied at Pontificio Seminario Vaticano, for God's sake?
     The classics teach us wisdom. The Web teaches us nothing but wiki-knowledges about protons and American Idol winners. Thus the arrogance of TV personalities who have been fed these wiki-knowledges by their scriptwriters, mistaking these bits for wisdom. The classics' wisdom lead us to Western culture and all its metanarratives of superiority over tribal wisdom, which we---if we could only immerse ourselves in these holy waters---could in fact use to build our own counter-reifications.
     This failure of ours to appropriate the wisdom of Western culture has in fact led us to a level of ignorant arrogance, a broadcaster's type of arrogance, that is unable to see the role each of us is playing in the system, be it the system of government or the system of citizenship. All we can do now, therefore, is lean on the luxury of slogans and abstractions and sweeping views that are averse to the devils in the details. Thus the vicious cycle of crab-criticalities that are, being crab-criticalities, by themselves averse to criticalities. We thus end up hurling invectives at each other, calling each other stupid and ignorant and shallow, while each is without a desire for the hard task of discoursing further on rococo details of qualifying truth (the way either Michelangelo or Michel Foucault would feel happy about) regarding the fisherman's son's inability to comprehend the basics of TESDA's electrician's course or his ability to call Mike Enriquez's confused conservative or progressivist politics crap.
     We have chosen to be Westernized and yet not Westernized enough. Our embrace of democracy fails Karl Popper's dictum of owning likewise the responsibility of accepting "obsolescence" when it comes in an open society. We hold on to our animist faith concerning the divinity of our persons assigned seats of authority, be it as government authorities or culture authorities, and own nothing but a confirmation bias in favor of our ability to call anyone and everyone shallow. Western culture, if only we studied it well, would have taught us the rigors of rationalism, so that instead of sweeping conclusions regarding ourselves we could slowly tackle each man's behavior the way Spinoza tackled God, as an individual expression in a dynamic equation. Because of this inability, we have been reduced to behave like writers pretending to be sociologists, with nothing but the rhetoric of fallacies that we mistake for social science. We are thus rendered shallow---unable to see who we are, those mere writers, and the limits to what we can do.
     And if only we had Romanized ourselves well, the way South Korea has Americanized itself well, we would have armed ourselves with the capacity to hurl crockery at the quackery of Restorationist and evangelical voices on TV. If we had been Romanized enough, we would see---beyond Latin-American liberation theology---the superiority of Vatican to these discards of Calvinism and the Great Awakening. Look at South Korea, its perfect Americanization has shaped the prosperity theology of the Yoido Full Gospel Church. Meanwhile, our Catholicism is not as strong as the death threats of an Opus Dei follower on the artist Mideo Cruz in our supposedly open-ended society.

Thus, we are rendered shallow.
     And so we fail to see the shallowness of media as product of the subconscious plan of the local Illuminati to keep the status quo, wherein education remains the privilege of the post-Gomburza children of former caciques and public education is the shame hurled on the laps of Jesus' working class.
     We are rendered shallow. We can't use our pens to expose the real identities of the jokers on morning radio who are on a secret mission to destroy the seeds of social liberalism in the service of network-owning bosses with holding companies with interests in the fuits of conservative elitism.
     We are now eternally shallow. We can only choose to ignore the fact that all that entertainment fodder is what goes on in the drawing boards of corporate profiteering and, in surrender, we proceed to ourselves write shallow exegeses about our own shallowness, contributing in effect to the perpetuation of such profit-motivated mass dumbing.
     We: you, with me, are forever shallow. So we can only spit on our neighbors who can't understand our essays in English. We are totally shallow. We can only complain about their Tagalog-based intellectual incapacities deriving from our missionary and patronizing teaching-in-English failures. We are shallow. We can only ignore the fact that we are not Belgium divided into a French-speaking territory and a Dutch-speaking territory but Belgium divided into several languages inside our every territory and spot. We are shallow. We can only close our ears to the fact that linguistic differences are often also class differences. We are shallow. We can only close our eyes to the reality that the lower class aspires to become the middle class and upper class, and the upper middle class and upper class aspire to become Americans and Europeans.
     We are, safe to say now, shallow, and so choose not to write about the cost of sending our kids to schools that teach how to read, about the price of books, the language of books, the stupid marketing and distribution of books, the inaccessibility of books, the technological variations on the concept book.
     We are shallow. We continue to debate on the virtue of books, hoping to find enlightenment for everyone, while the sidewalk downstairs aims for the depths of our garbage, deeply hoping to find bread. [END]

UPDATE:On September 26, 2011, Jose uploaded a new Philstar.com column piece titled "A reply to you out there who disagree with me": click here to read.

Men of Irony (sa Buwan ng Wika)

FOR those of you who don't know who he is, Representative Sergio Apostol is that new Liberal Party balimbing who quickly switched parties in post-election 2010---when Benigno Aquino III won the presidency---from the then-ruling Lakas Kampi CMD party where he was also a recurrent lawyer for then-embattled president Gloria Arroyo. (Himself, then, as evidence of the existence of ironic twists in things.) He is also of the Waray people from Leyte province, but is no stranger to the Tagalog-speaking National Capital Region, having been a national legislator since his ruling-Kilusang Bagong Lipunan party days in the Marcos-era Batasang Pambansa. What I mean to say in this paragraph is that I don't trust Sergio Apostol when he implies, as he did last August 24, that he can neither recognize Filipino as an official language (which he never seems to have had any problem with since his early days in the legislative halls, until now) nor understand it very well. I, too, am a Waray, by the way, and---though not as intelligent as Sergio Apostol---do understand Tagalog very well.
     But let's assume that Apostol speaks the truth, having myself been witness to Silliman University professors who could not speak/understand much Filipino, preferring to teach in English and sometimes in Cebuano. It's pretty common among Cebuano-language speakers to find this Tagalog-free culture among them, but must be a rarity among the Warays, who've mostly been friendly with the Tagalogs and their Tagalog radio dramas. But riding the assumption that Apostol truly cannot understand Tagalog very well would help us understand him when he tried to revive at past 5 in the afternoon of August 24 the debate or national issue around Filipino as an official language. Apostol was demanding---in English---that Representative Arlene "Kaka" Bag-ao (Akbayan Citizens' Action Party) answer Apostol's interpellation, on the pending and controversial RH Bill, in English instead of in Tagalog/Filipino. Although at first the two lawyers argued over Filipino's current position as an official language, with Deputy Majority Floor Leader Magtanggol Gunigundo (Lakas Kampi CMD) insisting that it is an official language and presiding officer Maria Isabelle Climaco Salazar (Liberal) ruling that the parties can proceed in whatever language they choose to use, and with Apostol later threatening to demand an interpreter if Bag-ao does not relent, Bag-ao did finally agree to answer the interpellation in English. But not without Apostol's stance's being called deplorable by party-list representative Antonio Tinio (ACT Teachers), which speech Apostol promptly rebutted in plenary session. (Read the ABS-CBN report here)


COINCIDENTALLY, an essay titled "Language, Learning, Identity, Privilege" was posted by Manila Bulletin Newspaper Online writer James Soriano at 4:06 AM, also on August 24. The essay would get much more notice among Facebook aficionados than Apostol's rant, I'd say with about half of its readers agreeing with the author and the other half getting quite offended.
     The essay presented (once again) the reality about the English language as that language used by the privileged class in our country. But ironically also as the language of learning, as the most used language medium of education as well as in the textbook/book/newspaper/magazine publishing industries. Ironically, I say, for isn't education presumably one of the state's activities geared towards socializing learning instead of propping up elitism on a social pedestal? The real situation of the Filipino language, on the other hand, was also presented in the essay as that intra-social class everyday-medium of communication used in the streets and on free TV, but largely ignored by both the education system as well as by the law profession and the corporate boardrooms. There's another irony there, for isn't the legal practice meant to serve justice for all instead of justice for a privileged few? And isn't it funny that boardrooms argue in English over their advertising materials in Tagalog? . . . There may be questionable entries in Soriano's essay: I'd say doctors and nurses in most operating rooms actually converse in Filipino or Taglish more than in English or Englog, but I'd also say the presentation was mostly quite right on the money, especially with lines such as "(Filipino) might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned". (Read the Soriano essay here, where it was transferred)
     My friend the painter Marcel Antonio was the first on Facebook I read to be in agreement with that essay's presentation of the reality concerning our languages, even defending the essay as one that actually used the ironic stance with its doublespeak to those who he thought didn't get it. "This article, particularly the writer's unapologetic privileged positioning, will surely draw a lot of haters. What is scary, though, is he might actually be right," he wrote. Citizen journalist and freelance writer-editor Jenifer Aquino agreed that the essay was indeed a work of irony. She wrote: "It's a sarcastic note that's meant to slap all the 'feeling elite' elements in this country. Ako gets ko ... yung iba, malamang hinde. . . . He's right." "Just yesterday," my painter friend wrote back, "we were watching (Rep.) Mitos Magsaysay (Lakas Kampi CMD) berate Sec. (of the Presidential Communications Group) (Ricky) Carandang in the vernacular (during the hearing on the budget for his group); I imagine the rhetorical effect would be less if she argued in straight English. Mas may talas ang Tagalog, mas gusto natin ang bigat ng dilang kanto kaysa sa mala-coñong dila (that speaks Konyo or Coño English or Englog). . . . I'm hoping that you are right, Jen, that the sarcasm isn't lost on his readers. Sometimes I think most of us are not too appreciative of irony, much more various forms of sarcasm like understatement."
     Allow me now to interpolate unto this manuscript of comments in the vernacular (that Rep. Apostol might deem abominable), Mitos Magsaysay-fashion. My view would lean towards an affirmation of Soriano's points in his web of irony.
     But as regards Soriano's irony itself, ito ang masasabi ko riyan. Isa sa mga pinakamahirap i-handle ang irony. Si Alanis Morissette kinantyawan dahil di raw niya alam kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng "ironic" nung sulatin at kantahin niya ang kanyang awiting pinamagatang "Ironic". Muntik na rin di maisama sa In Utero album ng bandang Nirvana ang kanta nilang "Rape Me," dahil di raw klaro ang irony sa kanta, sabi ng mga execs ng DGC Records-Universal. Nakakatawa pa, nung makumbinsi ng banda ang mga executives na iyon, ni-release ang single CD ng "Rape Me" with a B-side song called "Moist Vagina." Ang tanga-tanga talaga. Wonder what the irony was in that. Ironic, di ba?


BUT let's get back to the main issue.
     Let me focus on those guerrilla English words that are appropriated by our expanding education not based in the English language but in Tagalog/Filipino, by which I mean the expanding education derived from the streets. Again, let me argue in the vernacular, Mitos Magsaysay-fashion:
     Assuming this writer James Soriano was not being ironic but just being honest, tama ka, Marcel Antonio, ang final line ng article---"So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language"---is still right on the money. At kung ating aalamin at sisiyasatin, kahit ang mga Tagalogero na hindi Inglesero ay mag-a-agree na kailangang bigyan-pugay ang wikang Ingles. Ito ang matagal ko nang sinasabi sa mga kaibigan kong purists, na automatic nationalists daw by virtue of their purism, na ang totoo niyan, ang majority ng mga Pilipino sa Tagalog Luzon ay Taglish ang salita at di nila naiintindihan ang mga tula sa purong Tagalog ni Lope K. Santos. Ang labandera namin, maraming English words at phrases na ginagamit na galing TV at showbiz. Ang mga ka-banda ko sa Groupies' Panciteria ay hindi naman mga galing U.P. Conservatory of Music or U.P. Department of English, pero kumukonsulta ng mga tipa sa gitara sa mga websites ng buong mundo, at hindi ko pa sila narinig na nagsalita na wala man lang Ingles sa kanilang bawat pangungusap, kahit man lang sa mga simpleng tanong gaya ng "kuya Jo, may noodles ba tayo riyan?" Ibig sabihin, lahat ng tao rito sa bansa natin, nakakakuha ng edukasyon gamit ang mga salita ng English language. Pakinggan mo na lang si Ka Gerry Geronimo sa agriculture show niya sa TV, parang ako magsalita rito, nag-so-sow ng maraming seeds ng appropriation ng English words para sa Tagalog ng mga magsasaka ng kasalukuyan at ng future. Nakarinig ka na ba ng mag-aayos ng dingding niyo na Tinagalog pa ang concrete nail? Kung di ako nagkakamali, sabi ng makatang si Virgilio Almario sa isang preface o foreword ng isang Tagalog/Filipino - English dictionary, pag ang Ingles na salita ay ginagamit-gamit ng Tagalog na tao sa pananagalog niya, Tagalog word na rin iyon. Dati babaguhin natin ang spelling, tulad ng "driver" to "drayber". Ngayon, hindi na, especially na maraming kolehiyala o colegiala girls dyan na pumapara sa driver para maibaba sila sa corner. Ang mga bata sa elementarya ay binibigkas ang bagong alpabeto ng wikang Filipino thus: "a, b, c, d". Wala na ang dating "a, b, k, d".
     Pero, on the other side of the coin naman, totoo ngang me mga may kultura na nagsasabi sa kanilang mga sarili na "mas superyor ako dahil marami akong alam na Ingles kesa sa mga tao sa kalsada".
     Aktwali noon pa 'tong presumption ng superyoridad na 'to e. Noong panahon ng mga Espanyol, sabi nila, "mas superyor ako dahil mas marami akong alam na Espanyol kesa sa mga tao sa labas ng aming bahay na bato". Kung tutuusin, inferyor ang pananaw ng nagsasalita ng gayon dahil ininvade ang utak niya ng isang aroganteng kulturang Espanyol. Ang indibidwal na nag-Tagyol o nag-Espanlog ang masasabi kong naging superyor, dahil siya ang kumuha ng makukuha niya sa mga lenguwahe na nakahain sa buffet ng kaalaman.
     Kasi lahat naman ng languages may kanya-kanyang kakaibang yaman, maliban pa dun sa mga "talas" na unique sa kanila. Marami kang makukuhang kaalaman sa wikang Ingles. Gayun din sa wikang Tagalog/Filipino. Anong African language ba 'yon na may napakaraming tawag sa ulan, gayung sa Tagalog me buhos at ambon lang? Sa Japanese daw me 50 words for rain. Ayon sa isang writer ng Miller-McCune magazine sa kanyang report na pinamagatang "Rescuing Endangered Languages Means Saving Ideas": "This suggests language systems don’t merely translate universal ideas into different spellings; they encode different concepts. And when we lose a language, we risk losing those concepts." Still, kung ang foreign concepts ay accessible naman, bakit nga ba natin lilimitahan ang isang tao na gustong mag-aral ng as many words as he can keep in his skull's hard disk and who wishes to be able to use them in his daily grind as he speaks to the taxi driver? Unang-una, komunikasyon naman ang objective, di ba? Oo nga't di mo malelectyuran ang taxi driver tungkol sa metanarratives ng colonial literature, kahit purong Tagalog pa ang gamitin mo ("metanaratibo ng mga likha at literaturang kolonyal"), pero di ka lang maiintindihan hindi dahil wala siyang alam na Ingles kundi dahil hindi niya alam yang mga bagay na pinagsasasabi mo. Buti pa pag-usapan niyo na lang ang mga spark plugs na patok at ang iba't-ibang tread ng gulong, baka ilibre ka pa niya sa "flag-down fare" mo.
     Kasi naman, labas sa Kongreso at sa broadsheet journalism, sa mga tao sa araw-araw---tulad ng mga tao sa mga airports---hindi isyu ang language. Ginagawa lang 'tong isyu ng mga ayaw makinig sa sinasabi mo.


NOONG August 26, naglabas ng parodic essay ang Singapore-based writer and blogger na si Kat Nisperos sa wikang "Bekimon" (baklang jejemon) o swardspeak sa kanyang Facebook Notes page. Kinontra nito ang gist ng essay ni Soriano by translating his essay to become his/hers. Read the essay here.
     Do read, however, Nisperos' nota bene regarding his essay, which offered an apologia against judging Soriano's person and person-qua-social-symbol, quickly campaigning for a more magnanimous view, preferably one taking notice of a larger issue. Why the post-Note note?---I ask. Would it seem that there had been readers of Nisperos' essay who mistook his humor for being one by a deeply-offended voice? Ironic, di ba? Dahil isa raw sa mga rason ng pagsulat ni Nisperos ng essay na ito was to "put a lighter note on the entire issue, because too many personal attacks were being made against James".
     Oo nga't kung pagbabasehan lang natin ang parody ni Nisperos ay tila di niya binasa ang essay ni Soriano bilang isang ironic take on an issue. But, nonetheless, his/her essay demonstrates amply well na maraming wika sa Metro Manila, at lahat ng ito ay sources of knowledge. Ang maraming niches dito, whether these involve population segments drawn around social classes, regional classes, various small groups, or whatever, are more diverse than we've come to expect. There are the jejemons that offend some. There are the pure Tagalog speakers that preach Iglesia ni Kristo and Ang Dating Daan gospel truths. There are the bus conductors with three-voweled Visayan accents that would forever be the butt of Manila sitcom and mahjong jokes.
     But yet, Metro Manilans are deemed as belonging to one nation instead of as a compendium of mini-nations or intra-nations or nations within a nation.
     Which should make us conclude, based on this fact alone, na tulad ng mga tao sa mga airports hindi nga dapat isyu ang language. Ginagawa lang itong isyu ng iilan dahil ayaw nilang makinig sa mga sinasabi mo, kahit ilang dekada na silang nakikinig sa wika ng mga tulad mo sa plenaryo ng cosmopolis.
     (Oh, and kasama na rin do'n ang mga sinasabi ng wika ng Irony. At ng wika ng plain humor.) [END]


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ADDENDUM (September 2, 2011):
Tila ngang me irony sa essay ni Soriano, ito'y ayon sa kanyang bagong sanaysay dito: click dito. May mga di naniniwala sa kanyang apologia. Nasaktan sa mga sinabi niya sa unang essay. Ganun kailap ang irony, ang claim sa irony, o ang absence ng irony na sabi ng ilan ay naroon. Pero sabi ko nga sa taas: "sa nakararami, hindi isyu ang wika. Ginagawa lamang itong isyu ng mga ayaw makinig sa sinasabi mo." Ano ba talaga sa palagay ninyo ang sinasabi ni Soriano? Ano ang sinasabi ninyo? Tila tatlo ang naging isyu: 1) ang Filipino language bilang simbolo ng bayan na sing-tatag sa puso tulad ng bandila o ng imahe ni Hesus ng Nazaret, 2) ang privileged class na tulad ng kay James Soriano raw at ang pagkantyaw sa wika ng may wika, at 3) ang irony. Tapos na ang buwan ng wika. Setyembre na, ang pampitong buwan ayon sa mga Romano at sa astrolohiya. Subalit walang pumapansin sa pangalan ng buwan na ito (na ang ibig sabihin ay seventh month), kahit narito na tayo sa Kalendas Ianuarius (o Julian calendar na may dinagdag na Januarius at Februarius). Pa'no kasi, sa mga tao sa kalsada sa araw-araw, hindi isyu ang pangalan ng buwan. Ginagawa lamang itong isyu ng mga taong ayaw ng nasisinagan ng araw.
     Subalit tila ngang me depekto sa depensa ni Soriano sa pangalawa niyang sanaysay. Dahil tila nalimita niya ang isyu sa dadalwang wika lamang, ang wikang English at ang wikang Filipino (o academically-expanded Tagalog). Sabi ko nga sa main essay ko sa taas, ang mas angkop na deskripsyon sa wika ng nakararami sa Tagalog Luzon ay Taglish. O sabihin na nating Tagalog pa rin. Ngunit hindi ito ang Tagalog na mababasa mo sa pangalawang sanaysay ni Soriano. Ito ang Tagalog na maririnig mo sa TV.