In the end

IN the end, all this back and forth between anti-Duterte and pro-Duterte citizens won't come out as that mid-2020s battle between supporters of ideas of good government and those conservative proponents of evil's continuance, but simply as that communication war between two parties who both tried to convince a badly educated majority that they were the ones on the side of the good. Sad.

Ukol Sa Mga Panawagan ng Pagtiwalag o Di Na Pag-ambag

HINDI lahat ng ordinaryong Katoliko sa ating bansa ay naging anti-RH Law, o kasalukuyang anti-divorce or even 100% anti-abortion, to mention a few contentious positions sa Simbahang Katolika sa Pilipinas. I may even dare say that, bagamat lahat sila ay patuloy na nagsisimba at nag-aambag sa Iglesia Katolika, lahat ng Catholics are actually cafeteria ones. Naniniwala akong ganun din ang mga miyembro ng Iglesia ni Cristo at Jesus Is Lord Church, hindi ko nga lang alam kung ilang porsyento sa kanilang populasyon ang hindi nagpapadala sa anumang groupthink na mayroon na isinusulong ng isa o ilan sa kanilang mga lider. In my case, totally na titiwalag lang ako sa Roman Catholic Church, temporarily man o permanently, o ihihinto ang aking pa-₱20-₱20 na inilalagay sa collection bag tuwing nagsisimba (na, I admit, ay ilang beses lang naman sa isang taon), kung akin nang makikita na ang LAHAT ng lider, o ang MGA NASA TUKTOK, ng aking Simbahan . . . ay kampi sa mga tao o kaugalian na di ko kailanman maaaring kampihan.

Paniniwala at kasinungalingan

I ONCE asked myself, posible ba'ng i-imagine si Jesus at ang kanyang disciples as a platoon of Christofascists? Yes, it is instantaneously possible now. Mai-imagine nga kita as one of his disciples' disciples. But wait, I'm confused. Shouldn't you be thankful and proud instead of angry at me every time I quote your hero-evangelist's words? O sige na nga, he was a good man. Bahala ka sa buhay mo.
    Dahil wala akong kilalang bilib sa kanya ang matutulungan kong mabago ang pagtingin sa taong yon. So, sabi nga ni Vi sa Arcane, "let things play out."

    Kaya, heto na nga. Sigaw mo, giyera na sa Amerika! Hmm. So, oh my God, civil war's a-brewing, between those who believe in a liberal Christ and those who worship a conservative one, and in between are people buying NRA stocks. Now, in the June shootings of Minnesota legislators and their spouses, nobody posted a "THIS IS WAR!" exhortation. Bakit di dapat nagsimula ang giyera noon, noong June? Ang tanging exhortation na masasabi ko, at diretso sa kanya, ay ito lang: "Rest in peace now, in peace perhaps with all the victims of automatic rifle mass shootings you didn't care about."
    War, eh? You know, people who campaign for violence, aggression and war always have this strong faith that they'd come out the winner. Faith, yes. Dahil ganito: anumang kasamaan ang plinano niya sa mundo, dahil ginamit niya ang pangalan ni Hesus, sumusunod ka sa kanyang "kabanalan" at makikipagpatayan sa ngalan niya. Marami nga naman sa ating planeta ang kakain ng balat ng durian, kasama ka na, sa ngalan ng faith na pinagsisigawan ng mga gumagamit lamang nito para maging makapangyarihan.

MORAL of the story, huwag sanang gamitin ang pangalan ni Hesus sa maling posisyon at baka ito ay bumalik sa iyo. Again, "Be careful what kind of America you wish for, you just might get it in your neck of the woods" is the blunt moral here. So, right-wing Anerica and right-wing America sympathizers in the Philippines, sure about the new American civil war you're craving for?
    Sabagay nga naman, sinasabi mong Kristiyano ka, ngunit lahat pala ng Bible quotes mo . . . galing Old Testament. Teka. Kung lahat ng Bible quotes mo ay galing Old Testament, hindi ka Kristiyano, malamang ika'y isang Caiaphasiyano. Yes! After all, "Christian" conservatives believe Christ was a conservative, confusing Him with Caiaphas.

    Kaya pala. Bilang isang Caiaphasiyano, kailangan mo muna ng 'sang-milyong pruweba bago mo matanggap iyang katotohanan. Kahit madali ka lang mapaniwala ng kasinungalingan.

LEADERISTS ALL

Isabel Magkoeva, a Russian political activist and socialist opposed to strong leaderism in her country. (Photo grabbed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Isabel_Magkoeva.jpg)

1.
WHAT kind of leaders are our politicians and those leading government institutions? Well, I'd venture to say that probably 99% are leaderists, Vozhdists.

2.
But before that, we should congratulate Turkey for voting for a dictatorship constitution that emulates ours, and winning. Welcome to the club, Turkey!
    Well, everywhere you look these days, nations are all agog to see the fruits of leaderism.
    Are armies ever going to emerge to resist the trendy global rise of leaderism? As of the moment, I doubt it.
    So, back to our original question: How many Filipino politicians and government institution leaders are displaying a voice against leaderism?
    That is, of course, a statistical question, the statistical data for which would be hard to come by.
    But there are ways of proving the possibility of the number that purports to be the above conclusion, 99%. We can start with a backyard scan of, say, . . . how about a government institution with a reputation for independence? The University of the Philippines? You okay with that?

3.
Incidentally, ever heard of the rumor that the UP is going to bestow on Rodrigo Duterte an honoris causa?
    Talaga? Wow.
    Pero, hoy, teka muna. Ano ba ang honoris?
    A better and more specific question would be: sino ang mga naghonor sa hohonorin ng honoris causa na ito?
    Sabi at tanong ko pa nga sa anak ko na nag-graduate sa junior high with honors: "anak, nakuha mo ang honors na yan dahil sa dunong na nakuha mo at sa pagdisplay mo ng dunong na iyon. Ngunit sino ba ang mga kasabwat mo sa pag-absorb mo ng dunong na iyon? Sino silang mga pumapalakpak sa display na iyon?"
    "Isaisip mo," tuloy ko, "na ang honor ay nag-pre-presume ng existence ng isang hinonor at ng isang nag-honor o mga nag-honor."
    "Kaya," sabi ko, "pasalamatan mo hindi lang ang gods (o si God) kundi pati rin ang mga nagbigay ng honors (o nag-honor) sa iyo, silang mga naghonor sa honorable display mo ng dunong na tinutukoy, dahil malamang sa kanilang pagsusumikap din naman nanggaling ang mga bagay na iyon na na-absorb mo at siyang naging honorable dunong mo. In short, kasabwat o kasama mo sila sa achievement na ito."
    "Uhuh," sabi niya, sabay ngiti at kamot ng ulo sa sermon ko.
    Ngayon, mga anak, pag-usapan na natin ang honoris causa. Hehehe, sermon na talaga 'to.
    Maganda lang naman na malaman natin kung sino-sino ang mga nagbigay ng honoris causa sa isang tao at bakit. Kasama yun dapat sa kasaysayan ng isang honoris causa. Dahil malamang ay sa kanilang pagsusumikap din naman nanggaling ang pag-"honoris causa" na ito sa isang tao na inabsorb lang din naman ng mga ngiti ng tao na ito, totoong honorable man siya ayon sa mga naghonor sa kanya o hindi. Kailangan isaisip na ang honoris causa ay hindi lang dahil sa "achievement" ng isang tao, ano man iyon, kundi rin dahil sa mga kasabwat o kasama niya sa isang institusyon sa pagtukoy at pag-validate sa "achievement" na ito, ano man ito.
    Ang honoris causa ay tagumpay hindi lang ng pinarangalan, sino man siya, kundi rin ng standards ng mga nagsukat at pumalakpak, sino-sino man sila.
    "Hindi ako Duterte, Pa," bulong ng anak ko.
    "Alam ko," bulong ko pabalik. "Ginagamit ko lang ang honors mo sa aking alegorya tungkol sa isang suspect na honoris causa. Okey lang ba?" :)
    "Gets ko naman yun, ikaw naman," sabi niya.

4.
Sorry, we got waylaid there. Back to our question and hypothesis: What kind of leaders are our politicians and those leading government institutions? Well, I'd venture to say that probably 99% are leaderists, Vozhdists.
    On second thought, I think we were lucky to have been waylaid there, for it got us to an incident which probably amply proves our number, if you can put two and two together.

5. Leaderists! Leaderists! Leaderists! Leaderists! . . . [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]

ANG ATING LABAN SA ARAW-ARAW

from http://quotesgram.com/joseph-brant-quotes/

BAKIT daw ba ako nagrereklamo sa ilang mga pangyayari sa ilalim ng pamamahala ng gobyerno ni Rodrigo Duterte, gayung ibinoto ko ito at tila ikinampanya pa sa Peysbuk.
    Ang kritisismong ito laban sa kritisismo ko sa ilang hakbang ng gobyernong Duterte ay nagpapatunay lamang na may tatlong prinsipyong umiiral sa ating kultura:

1. Na ganun kalalim ang kumpyansa o tiwala natin sa ating mga manok sa eleksyon, na para bang sila'y walang magiging dungis kung sila ang nanalo at siyang magiging tunay na messiah tungo sa mas magandang umaga;

2. Na ang ating kaligtasan ay nasa isang presidente at hindi nasa mamamayan;

 At, finally,

3. Na ang ating kaligtasan ay nagmumula sa boto natin sa ating mga eleksyon.

KATANGAHAN.
    Dahil ang ating kaligtasan ay hindi nasa mga panginoong matatalino, kundi nasa patuloy na tunay na kritisismo nating mga tao, ayon sa ating kolektibong talino, laban sa mali ng alinmang manok na nanalo sa ating mga eleksyon, maging sila'y manok mo man o manok ko. Dahil sa paniniwala nating nasa kanila ang ating kaligtasan at nasa kanila lamang, diyan tayo patuloy na tinutuka ng garapata ng mga hayop na 'to na tinuturing ng ating representatibong demokrasya na siyang tanging may talino para sa milyun-milyon.
     Oo nga't dapat may binoboto tayo tuwing eleksyon. At oo, yaong sa palagay natin ay may mas magandang plano, isasakatuparan niya man ito o babaliktarin. Pero yan ay eleksyon lamang ng mga lider, mga kababayan. Nakakalimutan natin na ang lider ng mga lider ay tayo, at ang pamamahala ng mga lider ay dapat pumapangalawa lamang sa ating mga kagustuhan bilang pinakamataas na lider ng demokrasya, demokrasyang di sana humihinto pagkatapos mahalal ng inihalal. Kung patuloy nating kakalimutan ito, aba'y ano ang pinagkaiba ng kultura ng demokrasya natin sa royalistang kultura ng fans ng naglalaban-labang mga hari ng mga monarkiya?
    Sa tingin ko, kaya tayo di umuunlad o may mabagal na pag-unlad sa ating pulitika ay dahil tayo ang nag-aaway-away sa sabungan ng ating reyalidad na pinapatakbo ng partisanong confirmation bias na itinanim sa mga utak natin ng ating mga pinanigang partido. Tila ayaw na nating harapin ang katotohanan na ang dapat nating sinasabong ay ang ilang mga polisiya ng mga manok nating tila'y wala pa ring humpay ang katutuka sa atin sa araw-araw.
    Sabi pa nga ni Dana D. Nelson: ". . . our habit of putting the president at the center of democracy and asking him to be its superhero works to deskill us for the work of democracy. . . . the presidency itself has actually come to work against democracy."


ANG lalim ng ating kumpyansa o tiwala sa ating mga manok sa eleksyon, na para bang sila'y walang magiging dungis kung sila ang nanalo at siyang magiging tunay na messiah tungo sa mas magandang umaga, ay nagpapatunay lamang na di pa rin tayo makaalis doon sa ating paghahanap ng ideyal na lider sa katauhan ng mga manok natin. Ito ay nagpapakita rin na sa pamamagitan ng patuloy nating pagsandal sa ideyal na lider sa ating nanalong manok, o sa ideyal sanang lider sa ating natalong manok na sa ating paniniwala ay siyang may dalang liwanag ng umaga, ay nananatili tayong nakakulong doon sa mito ng "ideyal na lider" sa katauhan ng mga elemento ng plutokrasiya na may mga sagot sa problema na para bang hindi natin kaya.
    Nakalulungkot na ang ating mga laban ay, bagamat para sa atin din, unang-una ay para sa kanila.
    How I wish that every political critic (professional and not) owned this sub-definition of "politician" or "government official"---as one who is a friend in a cause and an enemy in another. It's sad that politicians and political parties or factions have become many of my friends' political end-causes themselves.  [S / -I]

BINABARIL BA KAYA NG BARIL MO ANG SARILI MONG PAA?

photo mula sa http://news.abs-cbn.com/news/07/07/16/3-lalaking-nanlaban-sa-mga-pulis-maynila-patay

ILAN sa mga napabalitang napaslang (sa ilalim ng anti-drug drive ng gobyerno) ay anti-drug activists na pinaslang ng mga drug trafficking organizations? Ano ang ginagawa ng gobyerno para di na dumami pa ang mga anti-drug activists na mapapaslang ng mga organisasyong ito?
    Ilan sa nabalitang mga napaslang ang napaslang dahil sa mistaken identity? Ilan na ang nadampot dahil sa mistaken identity?
    Ilan sa napabalitang mga napaslang ang wrongfully accused o biktima ng wrongful execution (na tinaniman pa ng ebidensya at baril)?
    Ilan sa napabalitang mga pulis na nakapaslang ng diumano'y nanlaban na mga suspek ang bahagi o nasa payroll ng drug trafficking syndicates at maaaring napag-utusan ng sindikato na paslangin ang lahat ng may nalalaman tungkol sa kanilang druglord? Ano ang ginagawa ng gobyerno sa pag-usisa tungkol sa usaping ito? Naniniwala ba talaga si General Rock ofthe Rose (Bato dela Rosa) na hindi ito posible, ayon sa sabi niya sa panayam sa kanya ng TV5 tungkol dito, dahilan kung bakit walang pag-usisa sa usaping ito?

KUNG walang ginagawa ang gobyerno para maprotektahan ang mga anti-drug activists na may kaunting alam tungkol sa ilang public figures sa illicit drug trade, ano ang impact nito sa anti-illegal drug drive ni Presidente Duterte?
    Kung walang gagawin ang gobyerno tungkol sa mga napaslang dahil sa mistaken identity, kung totoo ngang mayroon, o nadampot dahil sa mistaken identity, kung totoong mayroon, ano ang impact nito sa anti-illegal drug drive ni Presidente Duterte?
    Kung walang gagawin ang gobyerno sa mga kaso ng wrongfully accused at mga kaso ng wrongfully summarily executed, ano ang magiging impact nito sa anti-illegal drug drive ni Presidente Duterte?
    Kung walang gagawin ang gobyerno sa mga problemang nabanggit, dahil lamang sa kaniyang paniniwala na hindi posible maging totoo ang mga problemang ito, . . . dahan-dahan bang pinapatay ng gobyerno ang sarili niyang anti-illegal drug drive?
    Abangan na lang siguro natin kung saan ang lahat ng ito ay patutungo, at kung tataas nga ba ang bilang ng mga napaslang na di dapat napaslang. [S / -I]

ANOTHER RANT AGAINST LEGALISM IS NOT A VOICE FOR LAWLESSNESS; IT'S LEGALISM THAT UNWITTINGLY IS

photo from http://www.elitereaders.com/naia-source-disclosed-how-scammers-pick-their-targets-at-the-airport/

PRESIDENT Duterte's order to stop all "tanim-bala" arrests comes from the presumption that all past instances of finding single bullets in passengers' luggage came from an extortion scam practiced by airport personnel (with likely consent from their officials). Will the order stop the scam? No. The extortionists at the NAIA will move on to harder methods: planted drugs, for one.

Duterte's order, which some legalist media elements and anti-Duterte citizens would point out as ignoring a law (never mind that they didn't holler a bit about Aquino's having ignored a thousand laws, the anti-DAP ruling chief among them), is---I believe---just a temporary fix and a probe. I believe that Duterte knows that the ultimate solution to the complex set of NAIA's problems is to replace the very elements that man this airport's security department and its systems, or replace the system that doesn't allow this police to be policed. Sure, erring personnel (and their defenders sympathetic to the previous government) can cite once again certain laws that may legalistically protect their positions. But we should remember that toying around with legalism is playing with fire, with the possibility that some people's frustration with laws that seem to only protect the erring will birth the death of Law itself.

Simply because the intelligent powerful have been more concerned with the letter of the law (the intent of which concern had been to protect certain interests) more than with the spirit that birthed good laws (the intent of which had been to protect the people) does not mean that that is the only way to treat laws and keep ourselves from getting into utter trouble. In fact, we ought to be careful with what we're sowing by that very legalist culture. For when people get frustrated with laws, because our legalist thinking have been turning a blind eye to the legalist effects of these laws' usage (waiting for Supreme Court rulings to reprove those legalisms), God knows if it might be too late to realize that it had been our very legalism that farmed that crop that cropped a lawless monster. [S / -I]

Hindi Nasa Mga Kristo ng Eleksyon ang Ating Kaligtasan

cartoon mula sa http://www.abante.com.ph/op/editorial/36156/editorial-eleksyon-trapik-at-baha-.html

MGA KAPATID, okey lang siguro na nag-aaway-away tayo ngayon dahil sa mga manok natin sa eleksyon. Basta importante lang, pagkatapos ng eleksyon, manatili sa isip natin at sa ating kaalaman na lahat ng pulitiko ay dapat lamang na ituring na potensyal na kalaban ng tao, kasama na riyan ang mga manok natin ngayon.
     Iyon ay dahil sa loob ng kani-kanyang termino ay maaaring di tumalima ang ating mga idolong pulitiko sa kanilang mga pinangako, sa kanilang inanunsyong adhikain, sa kanilang pinangangalandakang prinsipyo. Huwag sana maalis sa isip natin na tayo ang dapat na pangulo, na senador, na gobernador, na meyor, at ang pangulo at mga senador at mga representante at gobernador at meyor ay mga representatibo lamang natin sa Pamahalaan na maaaring di tumalima sa mga hangarin ng mamamayan, bagkus ay kakalaban pa sa mga pangarap ng bayan.
     Oo, mga ka-nasyon, pagkatapos ng eleksyon maging handa tayo na magrali, o magsampa ng kaso, o maghain ng mga inisyatiba o ng recall election o ng petition for referendum, kung meron kailangang labanang mga polisiya o mismong mga pulitiko na kumakalaban sa ating tiwala.
     Totoo, manok natin ang isa sa kanila ngayong mga araw ng eleksyon, ngunit maaari rin silang maging kalaban natin sa sabong ng mga darating na bukas. Totoo rin, nagmumurahan tayong mga botante ngayon sa sabungan ng pulitka, at okey lang iyon, dahil nagmumurahan lang naman. Basta lamang---para bukas---ay di natin isusuko ang ating mga tari sa mga Kristong pagkatapos ng eleksyon ay akala mo'y naging mga hari. [S /-I]

Pangako Laban sa Virus na Walang Bakuna ang DOH

from http://ssu.org.au/election-ticket-registration-closed/

ISANG buwan mahigit na lang ang pangangampanya natin at pangungumbinsi ng boto para kay Juan/Marya o laban man, isang buwan mahigit na paninira sa "kalaban", at nariyan na ang eleksyon. Panahon na marahil para ilabas ko ang aking pangako: isang bakuna. Heto.
     Ako'y nangangako na matapos ang panahon ng pangangampanya para sa ang sa tingin ko'y mga may maiaambag sa mas magandang estado ng governance sa ating bayan, probinsiya, at bansa, may maiaambag directly man o bilang epekto lamang (ang pinaka-radikal na example ng huli ay isang pisikal o legalistang diktadurya na naman na magpapahina sa kawalang-pakialam ng nakararami at magpapalawak sa populasyon ng magrerebelde laban dito at sa uri nito), . . . ako'y magsisimula na muling mangampanya para sa pagpapanalo ng aking sarili, ng ating mga sarili.

ANG aking sarili, ang ating mga ordinaryong sarili, ay hindi kandidato at hindi pulitiko. Ang aking sarili, ang ating ordinaryong mga sarili, ay mga indibidwal ng lipunan na sana'y mangangakong hindi magpapaalipin sa star system sa pulitika ng ating bansa pagkatapos ng eleksyon, at sa halip ay magnanais na maging bahagi ng pamahalaan, hindi bilang mga opisyal kundi bilang mga simpleng mamamayan, mga mamamayan na sana'y hindi limitado ang karapatan sa pagrarali lamang na di naman pakikinggan ang mga sigaw.
     Kaya matapos ang panahon ng pangangampanya at ng eleksyon, ewan ko sa inyo, basta ako ito ang una kong magiging hakbang. Ako'y mangangako, ako'y magpapabakuna.
     Ako'y mangangakong hindi magpapabiktima sa isang nakahahawang mosquito virus na laganap sa ating lipunan: ito ang virus ng partisanong herd mentality na punong-puno ng molecules ng confirmation bias. Maiintindihan ko kung ika'y magiging bahagi ng susunod na administrasyon, kung kaya't wala kang magagawa kundi ang manahimik sa maaari mong mga makita habang kailangan mo pa ang trabaho mo. Maiintindihan ko nga rin ang iyong mga pagdepensa rito. Ngunit kung wala ka naman sa gobyerno o walang kamag-anak dito na gusto mong dipensahan para sa maluwalhati niyang pakikibahagi sa susunod na magiging manipestasyon ng korapsyon subalit depensa ka pa rin ng depensa sa idolo mo at tira nang tira sa mga kalaban niya, aba'y sasabihin kong nahawa ka na yata ng sakit na tinatawag na partisanong emotional contagion tungo sa mga simtoma ng group emotion at collective narcissism. Ang bandwagon effect ng sakit na ito ay isang spiral of silence na bubuo ng iyong master-slave morality sa ilalim ng idol mo. Bagamat spiral of silence ang tawag sa epekto sa isip ng sakit na ito, hindi ibig sabihin ay mananahimik ka na sa harap ng mga kritiko ng iyong idol; ang totoo niyan, ika'y magiging maingay sa kadedepensa mo sa kalinisan at talino ng idol mo na siyang tanging makikita mo. Magiging zombie ka ng groupthink, Liberal man o NPC o ano man.
     Paano maiiwasan ang sakit na ito? Simple lamang. Uminom lamang ng wisdom elixir na nagsasabing ang ating pulitika ay maruming pulitika ng pribilehiyo, at ang eleksyon ay ang araw kung kailan ibinibigay natin ang pribilehiyo sa iilang tao ng isang uri upang mag-representa sa atin sa pamamahala sa milyun-milyong Pilipino. Ang ibig sabihin nito, ito ang araw kung kailan ibinibigay natin sa mga pulitikong ito ang pribilehiyo na magdesisyon sa kung saan nila gagamitin ang perang binuwis sa atin, magdesisyon para sa atin, tayong milyun-milyon. Mula rito, silang mananalo ang magiging bahala sa bilyun-bilyong piso ng pamahalaan, at tayo'y babalik na sa ating mga mahjong at trabaho, wala na uli tayong pakialam sa pamamahala ng iilang mamamahala sa atin at sa pera natin.
     Pero siyempre, hindi rin. Kasi ang mga mahahawa ng virus ng partisanong confirmation bias ay naroon pa rin at magbabantay, patuloy na dedepensa sa kanilang idolo sa star system ng ating liga, este pulitika ng pribilehiyo, tuwing may susulpot na kritisismo laban sa idol nila, at iikot na uli ang insultuhan sa Peysbuk ng mga fans ng pro at con idols.
     Samantala, ang mga idols na ito naman na iniidolo natin---nating mga nahawa ng virus---, mga idols na nanalo o natalo man, mga idols na pawang miyembro ng uring political elite, sila-sila rin ay maglalaban-laban sa ngalan kunwari ng prinsipyo at progreso. At tayong mga nahawa ng virus ay di maniniwalang pare-pareho lang naman naglalaban ang mga pamilya at mga korporasyon nilang yan sa pribilehiyong binibigay ng tao tuwing eleksyon. Dahil, di mo pa ba aaminin, pribilehiyo ang simpleng skeleton sa likod ng balat at karne ng bawat katawan ng eleksyon.
     Kaya, heto na. Ito at inumin mo na at iluwa. Ito ang bakuna. Mangako ka sa sarili mo na hindi ka magpapaka-alipin sa brand loyalty disease na binebenta ngayong kampanya pa lamang ng mga kapuso, kapamilya, kapatid, kakosa, kadilaw, kaputi, kaitim, ka-anu-anong kabuwisetan man yan, at sunod niyan ika'y mangako ng ganito: "pagkatapos, ako'y muling magiging mga kritiko ninyo, pagkatapos, lalung-lalo na ninyong mga ikinampanya ko't nanalo! Pagkatapos."
     Pagkatapos, at sigurado ka nang hinding-hindi ka kailan man mahahawa, . . . dun lamang tayo maaaring magsimula. [S /-I]

TODAY IS MONKEY DAY

illustration borrowed from http://www.neatorama.com/2010/12/14/happy-monkey-day/

HAHAHAHAHA! This is a really fun and enjoyable moment in time to wallow in! Just look at everyone! Everybody's got a really bad thing or two or ten to say about the enemy camp and their negatives, and nothing bad to say about one's own candidate and camp. In the end, we'll all be the losers!

What's going on is no different from seeing fans of basketball teams slugging it out outside of the coliseum after a game, not knowing that the basketball "enemy" players are already at that very moment celebrating together in a million-peso party!

We've really become such victims of manufactured groupthink in this questionable system of ours called representative democracy that none of us wants to question. We are a really funny species. Happy Monkey Day. :) [S / -I]



smile emoticon

WHAT IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH SIDING WITH THE ENEMY

image borrowed from http://oelje.deviantart.com/art/Black-and-White-15914568

First, ugly politics is alive and well again.
     And we, the people, are being drawn into it again. You and I are again being sucked into the agenda that there can only be black and white, and the propaganda that our very own white backyard cannot have brown stains on its many paths. And so we are being asked to choose once again if we want to continue to side with white or if we're already beginning to side with black (or gray or green), after being told to weigh an "obviously" continuing virtue in white against the proven dirt of everyone in black. So, some of your allies make pronouncements that they are opting to stay, while some slowly begin to blurt out brief sermons akin to the enemy's. You, meanwhile, choose to put your faith in white.
     But your present devotion blinded by white's light is making you forget what once was your original side, the side that had an original loyalty to a cause that then offered the same to a loud political color only because that color supposedly wanted to serve this cause of yours. And, having been convinced by its blinding light, you closed your eyes to the fact that that color can anytime choose to side with causes other than yours, causes conflicting with yours. Not necessarily the enemy's cause but simply another conflicting cause. A cause within. Which, as the others see it, can be a bit similar to the enemy's.
     But you are not blind, you say. Perhaps. But, you see, because you have chosen to pin your prime loyalty to that color that preached the side of your cause, you have been blinded to the possible presence of the fact that the color you have sided with for siding with your cause has through all these years also been gradually siding with those others' causes, and you continue to embrace the illusion that the color still has your cause in mind as a priority. A part of it, perhaps, which is what you know, but definitely not entirely, which is what you deny. Not entirely anymore.

     But you've closed your mind to that possibility and tell yourself over and over, and tell your friends the same, that this can never happen, and that should this happen it will only be as an illusion painted on the wall by the enemy.
     And your allies that have begun to realize the stains on the paths you have all been walking on? You have labelled them as spies, as corrupted individuals slowly being swallowed by the rhetoric of the enemy.
     You fail to see now that, unlike you, these allies of yours have never lost their loyalty to their original cause, and have never forgotten that they only offered the same loyalty to the color you both pledged allegiance to because the color supposedly wanted to serve that original cause. They have never forgotten that their loyalty to their original cause comes first, and shall forever retain that status in the eternal changing of colors. That their loyalty to any color must anytime turn to nothing in the betrayal of that original cause.
     That, my friend, is not synonymous with siding with the enemy.
     You've seen some of them dine with some elements of the enemy's side? Well, remember, at least, what you've told each other before you pledged your allegiance to a color? That whatever happens, wherever you go, you will never lose your allegiance to your original cause?
     Do you remember? Do you? Have you forgotten your promise to each other, written in blood, that in the eternal alternation of colors you will never ever lose yourselves in the control of colors but shall forever endeavor to control back? To control back! To control back what you can still control back! Have you?
     Have you?

Miss Universes and "Universals"

1. No such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid situation

FIRST things first. There's no such thing as a stupid question.
     Even Lea Salonga's supposedly inane question to Miss Angola Leila Lopes (who'd go on to win the Miss Universe crown this year), dubbed by CNN.com feminist columnist Jessica Ravitz as "the dumbest question in the universe," isn't actually all that dumb if you put everything in context. "If you could change one of your physical characteristics," Salonga asked Lopes, "which one would it be and why?" According to Ravitz, ". . . it's absurd to be dismayed that a question like this would be posed at a beauty pageant. In my worldview, the mere fact that pageants exist is absurd. And I'm not alone."
     Well, I don't think she gets it. Context is everything, and, in this case, Salonga's question---actually all the questions were pre-written by the pageant committee and assigned each judge, says Salonga---was "a standard beauty contest query" that should only nudge us in our turn to ask about the motive behind the asking. Salonga hit the nail on the head when she wrote to CNN, "At the end of the day, it wasn't so much the question asked but the manner in which it was answered." After all, weren't all those questions asked during those Miss Universe pageants in the past designed to primarily test how a candidate might respond to future "stupid" questions that are going to be hurled her way in yacht parties she'll be attending as Miss Universe? Look at it this way, if you are to apply today for an account executive position at an ad agency, a position servicing that agency's stupid clients, and you wax philosophical during your interview about the world today as though you were Bell Hooks, I'm perfectly certain you wouldn't get the job.
     My Facebook friend JCA said, "But I guess the shallowness of the questions is telling of how the organizers view their contestants." That's almost a given, similar perhaps to how designers and fashion show organizers view their adolescent models. But, again, that truth would still have to be put in context. After all, what use is the Miss Universe contest and winners to, say, Mr. Donald Trump, in the first place? The most creative and most introspective mind potentially useful to a long life of struggles in the business world never does win the "apprentice of the year" prize in Trump's The Apprentice (U.S.), does s/he, the same way that the best singer does not necessarily have to win the American Idol of the year plum. At the Miss Universe, it's not really the questions and the answers to any question that matter, it's the delivery, as Salonga rightly observed. Otherwise, the Miss Universe Q&A portion would be traditionally done in an interrogation room with cameras and would invariably last the length of a David Letterman Show interview, complete with a band to break the boredom. That is, a faux pas of an answer here could always be clarified or retracted there. Nobel laureates, after all, don't give quick answers, do they? We do not measure their intelligence by the swiftness of their replies nor by an absence of an "uhhhm, well". And as for defensiveness, Hillary Clinton's has no place in the Miss Universe contest, yet she's universally counted as one hell of a charm.
     To recap, the Miss Universe position is an account executive or account manager position. It's a low, starter's position in high society. There's no way Filipino ad industry stalwart Emily Abrera could now win a Miss Universe spot, is there? I'm not saying, of course, that pretty-faced account executives can't possibly know anything about, say, Edward Said's postcolonial theories. I'm just saying they'd seldom be allowed to use that knowledge in their financial district jobs.
     But, still, there's definitely room for improvement regarding JCA's concern, reiterated by her friend Lea: "If the Ms. U. organizers are the ones preparing the questions, aren't they also underestimating the intelligence of their judges?" Well, Lea, Donald Trump underestimates the intelligence of everyone in the whole universe. But, then again, you and JCA are actually right. So that presently it might be useful to suggest to the Miss Universe owners that perhaps, next time, Miss Universe contestants can come onstage in office attire for the Q&A portion. Or, if still in their gowns and in a pose, maybe while holding a wineglass, so for these candidates to be able to feel a sort of corridor meeting or yacht party situation in their heads, within which role-playing they could be led to display their real brains beyond those by merely smiling, nervous candidates onstage who have to pass a stupid test while a klieg light burns. This role-playing segment might have an effect likewise on the question-writing staff. . . . Now, even if we are to adapt this role-playing sort of Q&A segment to an in-their-swimsuits situation, supposedly a more frightening experience, the candidates can still be rendered wet and in the process of drying themselves with towels while being asked their questions, if only so that our ideal resultant could be achieved. I can assure you, such role-playing---whether with gowns or swimsuits---would break the ice. Because any candidate necessarily placed in a situation of utter nervousness when confronted with a question needing a quick answer cannot predict how her posing in front of a lot of people in an uncomfortable gown or Speedo can affect her alertness. Even a female Einstein would be trembling in that situation, and would likely feel as though she were in a Guantanamo prison being played on by a bunch of US Marines. When the most intelligent candidate fails to come through that nervous field, she gets demerits and ultimately fails to grab the crown. The merely charming and merely most diplomatic wins.

2. No such thing as an easy question, only easy situations

NOW let's go visit the question for Shamcey Supsup, who would become this 2011 contest's third runner-up: "Would you change your religious beliefs to marry the person that you love? Why or why not?"
     Some were saying this was a tad more difficult than the one given to Miss Angola. But, if my backyard statistics is right, most said this was way too easy, the too-obvious answer being a quick no.
     A Philippine Star write-up titled "How they would have answered that question" interviewed five former Filipina beauty queens. Interestingly, or not surprisingly, depending on where you're coming from, all gave that "obvious answer" in varying modes of articulateness.
     But was it really an easy question deserving of an easy answer? I believe an easier compound question would have been something like: "would you change your political beliefs to marry the person that you love? Why or why not?" But even then, putting aside the submission element in it, any answer is actually correct. "No," if one's beliefs are deep and passionate and utterly personal, "yes" if one's politics is shallow or if one has the heart of a spy. Now, having written that, I wonder if we could apply the same formula to the question for Supsup. "No," if one's religious beliefs are deep and passionate and utterly personal, "yes" if one's religious beliefs are shallow (cafeteria or cultural) or if one has the worldly heart of a multi-cultural syncretist. As for the submission part, there are a lot of reasons why one would do that. A certain tribe might require a would-be spouse's religious conversion for him/her to gain access to a conjugal wealth which might include a chain of hotels or oil derricks. Uhm, Mr. X, would you change your religion in order to marry Paris Hilton? Not that easy a question now, is it?

3. No such thing as one Universe, only universals

STILL on Supsup, my Facebook friend J- called his friends' attention to an ABS-CBN report which seemed to have been oddly written. The report zoomed in on Supsup's admission that her boyfriend had actually changed his religion for her. She is a "Christian", she's supposed to have said, and her boyfriend was formerly "Catholic".
     J- wrote: "Since when were Catholics not Christians? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big Catholic but we were the first Christian church!"
     I had to correct J-, of course, with my modest knowledge of Christian history, thusly: "Actually the first Christians were the Jewish Christians before there were even Gentile Christians. The Jewish Christians included the Corinthians, the Ebionites, the Elcesaites, the Essenes, and the Nazarene/Nazoraean sect. Then, the first post-Jesus Jerusalem church was established by James the Just (some say with Paul), the leader of the Jewish Christian Church (Catholics insist with Peter as the "Rock" and "Chief Shepherd"). Then, even before Peter and Paul could arrive in Rome, Eastern Christianity was already being established in Asia Minor in what would later branch out to become the Church of the East, the churches of Oriental Orthodoxy, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Eastern Catholic Churches, and the Saint Thomas Christians. Even the Early Church in the Roman Empire, the prototype of the Latin Church of Constantine I (that was itself proto-Catholic), cannot be said to have already been the Roman Catholic Church as we know it today. The Roman Catholic Church, as we know it today, actually started when it was established by the emperors Theodosius I, Gratian and Valentinian II in 380 AD, when Latin Church Christianity (instead of the other Christianities, like that one by a group that would later be called Gnostic Christianity) was declared as the empire's state religion. This was at the same time that Damasus I was the Pope (who reigned till 384), when the Roman aristocracy started to take over the Church at the start of the decline of the Roman Empire. Damasus commissioned the Vulgate translation of the Bible, the early Roman Catholic Bible, and called for the Council of Rome during tensions with Bishop Nectarius of Constantinople."
     Notice that I always modified "Catholic" with the adjective "Roman". J- Facebook-liked my comment and thanked me.
     J-'s friend A- joined me, saying: "Of course not. You're not the first Christian church."
     Notice A-'s use of "church". She didn't write "yours is not the first . . ." but "you're not the . . ." Bear that in mind, because Christian authorities would repeatedly teach that the church is neither that building by the marketplace nor that institution with a flag but the people, the following of Jesus. That following can exist without a church building or a flag, and thus A-'s use of the word in her clause "you're not the first church" makes complete sense.
     J-'s friend JC chimed in, refuting my and A-'s offers, saying: "The first Christian church was the Catholic Church. Other Christian churches were just offshoots and splinter groups. Isn't this true, Kuya J-?"
     Another of J-'s friends, JBC, also joined us: "Regardless, all Christians believe in one Judeo-Christian God. Why do we have to argue about who came first when, at the end of the day, we all believe in the same divine entity?"
     JC had to add this: "Sure, dissension happened. But the original is the original."
     "Go ahead," I wrote. "If you think the Roman Catholic Church was established in 12 or 30 AD or thereabouts instead of in 380 AD by Theodosius, suit yourself, JC, I wouldn't be surprised. Nonetheless, JBC is right."
     J- Facebook-liked this, but so did JC, adding: "Thank you!"
     JC also Facebook-liked another comment from another of J-'s friends, Father V-, when the latter entered the conversation. Father V- wrote: "That's quite a splintered understanding of what the church is," referring to my splintered understanding. "When one associates the Church with a mere political faction, because Paul did this or Constantine did that, one cannot get the full picture of what the Catholic church is all about. This is seeing the church as a mere institution. But the Church is more than just a human society, and it's more than just a title. The Church, Catholic and apostolic, began when Christ brought it into the world, founding it upon his apostles, especially upon Peter. This is the Christian Church, which is only One, and which subsists in union with Peter and the successors of the apostles, who have kept the faith whole and entire despite the passage of time, despite the errors of the centuries."
     This is true, too, at least for 2nd-century claims to universalism and for claims to continuity from the church of Jesus' Apostles, for even when Protestants use the word "catholic" (with a lower-case letter c), they also use it not to refer to the Catholic Church alone but broadly to the Christian Church (regardless of denominational affiliation) and all believers in Jesus Christ all over the world, across all ages. Therefore, put aside Father V-'s Roman Catholic "especially upon Peter" emphasis and Father V-'s institutional claim that the Christian Church as One subsists in union with Peter. Put aside all the Romanism, and you'll be able to imagine the idea of inclusivism in catholicism (even via Catholicism), wherein one can embrace even those who believe Mary Magdalen was Jesus' right hand instead of Peter (Gnostic Christians, for instance).
     Now, JC loved what Father V- wrote, writing: "Yes, Father. Got it! We are the original."
     Well, if universalism (or "catholicism") also means being inclusive and Father V- would nod his head in agreement, then obviously JC couldn't have gotten it.
     I wrote, "@Father V-: Would that it were so," and I meant that the Catholic Church was not also---or was not firstly---a political entity with a divisive history and policy, "then the world would have been a much better place."
     "JC and A-," wrote J-, now seeming to have changed his mind about his post, "being 'first' is beside the point, is it not? The decorous bearing of the matter is, we are a Christian church, too. Right? :)"
     JC Facebook-liked this.
     "Ok," he wrote, "the Catholic Church is a Christian church. Christians are followers of Christ. Catholics follow Christ and his teachings . . ." and so on. I thought that was that with JC.
     Father V- came back: "By the term Catholic, meaning universal, we mean that Christians follow and believe all of the doctrines taught by Christ handed down to His Apostles by way of Scripture and tradition, teachings necessary for one to fully heed the call of Our Lord to holiness. In this sense, to be truly a follower of Christ, one needs to be catholic, universal."
     JC and another A- (A2, let's call him) Facebook-liked this. Actually, there's almost nothing worth protesting against in this statement if only the Father wasn't confusing "Catholic" with "catholic" in his explanation, almost as if to hide a logical fallacy (the 'God is love, love is blind, therefore God is blind' kind of logical fallacy) to service a metanarrative.
     I had to call A-'s reaction to this: "@A: By your comment above, I gather you're Protestant? If you are, then by Father V- you do not follow and believe all of the doctrines taught by Christ blah blah blah, you can't fully heed the call of our Lord. You are not a true follower of Christ. The only way by which you can be that is by becoming C/catholic, by becoming 'universal'."
     Father V- promptly answered my satire with a confirmation: "Well, basically that's what being a disciple is, right? It basically means following everything that the Master did and said and taught. Otherwise, what kind of disciples are we? By the word 'Catholic' (Father V-'s capitalization, not mine) I'm referring to a reality, not a denomination. We don't call ourselves catholics (Father V-'s lower case, not mine) for nothing. The name Catholic stemmed from the fact that in the Reform worked by Luther his followers broke away from Christian teaching and praxis, selecting those that were in accord with their personal beliefs and ideals and rejecting those with which they were not in accord."
     JC Facebook-liked this. Well, put aside the Father's confusing catholic with Catholic, as if catholicism or universalism is exclusive to Catholics. Lay aside the fact that Martin Luther was mainly questioning the papacy's corrupted adherence to the bright ideas concerning Purgatory and the selling of indulgences. Put aside the fact that Luther was only seeking reforms (thus Reformed) from within instead of from without, but kicked out instead by the corrupt Catholic hierarchy of his time. Put aside the fact that to imply in our time that Pope Leo X's indulgences salesmen were following Christian teaching and praxis could be tantamount to qualifying and reiterating Pope Leo X's virtue on these same indulgences-selling during his time, and thus for our time. Put aside the fact that to call Pope Leo X's corruption as "within Christian praxis" could reintroduce a scandal. Put all those aside, . . . if only because Father V- was not yet finished with the Luther question.
     He continued: ". . . this is far from the logic of discipleship; the disciple is bound to his master insofar as his master is concerned. Either he accepts his master totally, and all of his teaching and the practices that he has taught him, or he is no follower of his. This is perfectly logical, and this is more so true of Christianity. When the Lord came among us as man he showed us the Father; by His teaching and actions he instituted the norm by which his followers would be known . . . this was entrusted to his Apostles, who---because of their ministry in the Church of Christ---continue the presence of Christ on earth."
     I see. From a self-contradictory explanation of catholicism as exclusive to Catholics (contradictory because while claiming he was not speaking of Catholicism as a denomination Father V- was at the same time equating catholicism with loyalty to Catholicism, in which case JC was right in Facebook-liking Father V-, for it would seem that Father V- does not include inclusivism as part of his "catholic" context), Father V- now moves to a second stage, that of equating Luther's hatred for Pope Leo X with a hatred for Jesus, as if Pope Leo X's sins and Jesus' virtue are one.
     Father V- was not done.
     He continued: "There is no need to be polemical here, by the way, Jojo Soria . . . what I'm trying to express is, that being a Christian necessarily means that you have to accept all of the teachings and commandments of the Lord, whether they are in accord with one's taste or not. This in Greek and in English amounts to being---what it means to be---"katholikos" or catholic. . . ."
     "@Father V-:" I wrote, "If there's no need to be polemical, then why have you and I become polemical? Was it perhaps because there was a need for it? Where did that need come from? Could it be that the polemics just grew from nowhere? If it did, then do you mean that when I write I'm being needlessly polemical, but when you write you're not being polemical but yet need to be for my enlightenment? If that is your approach, I'd fully understand the consistency."
     "Hahaha," my Facebook friend J2 butted in at this point. "Polemics," she wrote, "all but polemics."
     I wasn't exactly sure whether J2 was referencing Father V-'s polemics, my polemics, both our polemics, or the entire humanity's polemics, so I just Facebook-liked what she wrote, since it looked polemical in itself. :)
     "No," Father V- instantly wrote, "I'm just explaining things from my end. Honestly, I had no intention of being polemical. In fact, aside from the fact that I just wanted to share my view, I got interested in the topic, since expressing it here also enlightened things up for me. As a student of history I'm beginning to see that there's more than meets the eye with the term 'catholic', that its being fundamentally synonymous with 'Christian' was penned even long before the Reform; it goes way back to sources of the Christian faith."
     I Facebook-liked this.
     "Anyway," Father V- continued, "if it seems to you that we're being polemical to each other, then this won't serve us any good . . . aside from the fact that I was just trying to give reason to anyone who calls me, to give an account for the hope that is in me (cfr. 1Peter 3:15), I was beginning to see it as a stimulating conversation, both based on reason and on faith, which always need to go hand in hand in the search for the Truth that liberates. Anyway, frankly I got something from this. . . . Peace :-)"
     I Facebook-liked this.
     "Pacem in terris," I wrote, "as Pope John XXIII would have it. :)"
     Father V- Facebook-liked this. JC didn't.
     Well, not everyone among Roman Catholics ever liked what John XXIII and his Second Vatican Council tried to introduce ("to restore unity among all Christians, including seeking pardon for Catholic contributions to separation"; "to start a dialogue with the contemporary world"). Not everyone in the Church likes the idea of reconciling or breaking bread with Protestants and the Orthodox churches, much less with other religions which Pope Benedict XVI controversially is trying to realize today in spite of his conservatism. Pope Paul VI, who would continue John XXIII's mission, was another Vatican liberal, but not everyone heeded his apology for Pope Gregory's having turned Mary Magdalen into a prostitute via a simple sermon, if Catholics today are even aware that that apology and a series of revisions concerning Mary Magdalen ever happened. Not everyone in the Church liked John Paul I too, who didn't last long in the papacy. And John Paul II, who voted against a lot of tracts in John XXIII's Second Vatican Council, is probably the most loved Pope in the Roman church today, partly perhaps for his having continued facets of John XXIII's efforts, as in the area of trying to reconcile with the Jews and other Christian sects. Pope Benedict XVI, a close confidant of John Paul II, seems to want to continue John Paul II's efforts to extend just facets of the Second Vatican Council tracts---specifically that one seeking a dialogue with other religions. . . .
     But if Popes could marry, if Pope Gregory VII hadn't required clerical celibacy, then John XXIII would probably have been the sort of Pope who wouldn't mind marrying a Protestant. And I don't think that would be because his religious beliefs were shallow or that he was a syncretist. He was, rather, the one most open to differences, the one with an open ear.
     In short, he was the first to respect the various catholicisms (universalisms), in effect fulfilling the embrace of the catholic doctrine of inclusivism. He was the Vatican's Stephen Hawking, who might have theorized that there is no one universe, but universes which finally are all the same, wherein hypertravel through cosmic wormholes can be done. He was the Vatican's company merger guru.

NOW, what has all this got to do with Shamcey Supsup and her formerly-Catholic boyfriend?
     Well, picture that scene again when Hollywood actress and contest-appointed judge Vivica A. Fox asked Supsup her question. Then, picture that moment when she answered the question. Now, put her boyfriend in her place, in a sort of scene from a Mr. Universe pageant, with him being asked the same question. His answer, of course, would be something like "I already did."
     If Supsup can embrace her boyfriend's secular heroism or sacrifice at the same time that she would preach an adherence to religious loyalism among females, we could surmise that Supsup is either sexist and another religious bigot who considers other religions as crap (Roman Catholicism perhaps as anti-Christian instead of Christian for putting Church laws above Christ's laws, according to some denominations), or . . . she believes there is no one Universe but a bundle of valid universes that could access one another in mental hypertravels via physical wormholes of acceptance. Matter turns into anti-matter and becomes matter again in some other universe, then vice versa, all perfectly acceptable. Nothing is illusion anymore, everything is embraceable. So that by answering her question at the pageant with what she had or what she could come up with, she was also recognizing that stupid questions are really only stupid situations, that easy questions are really only easy situations, and that the Miss Universe is really just a construction of various beauty queen claims to various valid universals. Remember, the first requisite of beauty pageants is congeniality, not basketball-like adversity. Its objective heaven includes yacht parties. So, therefore, you just tell people what they'd want to hear and save them the trouble of religious faux-universalist noise.
     That quick choice I can understand. Even Facebook-like. [END]



Photo of Shamcey Supsup borrowed from REUTERS/Nacho Doce as used at http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/213018/20110913/miss-philippines-2011-shamcey-supsup.htm




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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.

A battle of faiths (or, In defense of journalism)

While debates in Congress continue on whether to revoke or uphold the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s declaration of martial law in Maguindanao, a martial rule that would presumably quell any massing of arms by loyalists of the Ampatuan clan (prime suspects in the Ampatuan massacre of 57 individuals), other Mindanao-based expressions keep coming in, adding themselves to the equation. This morning alone, December 11, 2009, TV news reported an attack by three men on a Philippine Army and national police convoy in Maguindanao, the abduction of a Basilan college vice president, and the kidnapping of schoolchildren and adults by an Agusan warlord’s CAFGU men. Although the last report mentioned an earlier release of the schoolchildren, as of this blog’s writing 57 adults are still being held hostage and government forces are reportedly “negotiating” with the warlord. Meanwhile, a Lanao del Sur representative and Macapagal-Arroyo ally belonging to the Dimaporo clan was at the Congressional hearing on the martial law declaration, testifying on a situation in a town in his province, requesting for the inclusion of his area in the scope of the Maguindanao state of martial law.

     Expect this new round of reports to be picked up once again by the critics of the Macapagal-Arroyo government in their ongoing display of a long-standing suspicion towards anything the Macapagal-Arroyo government decides to do, is planning to decide on, or is testing the waters for. Commission on Human Rights chair Leila de Lima conveyed her own fears that the nearing commencement of the trial at a Metro Manila court of one of the suspects in the Maguindanao massacre could be used as an alibi for declaring martial law in the metropolis, offering as rationale another supposed Ampatuan-supportive massing of arms. In fact, only days after the arrest of the prime suspect in the said massacre and his detention in the National Bureau of Investigation headquarters in Manila, a parked van near the said NBI compound was purportedly raided and found to contain muddied M16 rifles, presumably demonstrating an intent by some parties to rescue the said prime suspect. Was this already the starting ingredient for that martial-law-in-Manila stage of a martial-law-2009 recipe that de Lima fears would be fed into our media?

Critics’ Faith

The suspiciousness of Filipinos critical of the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s declaration is not entirely caused by memories of the martial law years under Ferdinand Marcos. After all, Philippine society has a very short memory; it doesn’t put a premium on its history, and even when it does it hardly puts a premium on the contexts of historical data and their continuing significance to the present (Jose Rizal is regarded as only important to the past and certainly not to the globalized present). Were these Marcos memories the sole ground for the present anti-Macapagal-Arroyo suspiciousness, the numbers of those expressing that suspiciousness would be decidedly small. Considering the masses of people who have shown up at rallies against the government through the years since the Hello Garci Scandal, I would say the suspiciousness has to be with the Macapagal-Arroyo government itself and towards Gloria Arroyo herself, not via a fear of a past almost forgot.

     Yes, it’s not because of Marcos’ use of martial law, which not many remember, that we fear some same declaration. Filipinos today wary of Gloria Arroyo and her martial law declaration in Maguindanao province are wary of it because of her recent past and continuing use of all the loopholes in the laws of our land and Constitution for pushing the legality of all her actions. They suspect now that the Maguindanao martial rule will not entirely be for the purpose of reining in the lost Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)-employed civilian volunteer army formerly at the beck and call of Datu Unsay municipality mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr., the prime suspect in the above-mentioned massacre that triggered international outcry and the government’s late martial law declaration. They suspect that martial rule in Maguindanao could be “practice” for a gradual expanded one. Some even suspect the Ampatuan-Mangudadatu families’ escalating enmity was government-taunted, with one side supplied by arms from the Department of National Defense, so martial law can take place in the aftermath of whatever resultant violence, and consequently prolong Macapagal-Arroyo’s stay in power. After all, the Ampatuan clan, through its patriarch, the warlord and governor of the province, Andal Ampatuan Sr., along with his two sons, Andal Jr. and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao governor Zaldy Ampatuan, and eighteen more Ampatuans in government posts including an energy undersecretary, are longtime favorite allies of Gloria Arroyo’s government. Unfortunate though the aliance may have turned out to be for her, the alliance and mutual trust was real, with support brimming with arms supplies and (seemingly now) funds for this poor province, funds that may have paid for the Ampatuans’ eighteen mansions scattered in Maguindanao, Davao City, and Makati City. But the government likes to claim that the Mangudadatus, victim-clan of the massacre, were also Macapagal-Arroyo allies, although it turns out that the Mangudadatu clan became the less favored clan; the massacre is now creating a breakdown of clan detente some pundits say wasn’t allowed to happen during Cory Aquino’s and Fidel Ramos’ time. (Is the present martial rule also a way of saving the Ampatuans from the multiple murder charges, sublimating all this deed onto a bailable and amnesty-friendly rebellion charge, as has been suggested by many a lawyer?)

     In the 2004 presidential election, the Hello Garci Scandal provoked by the incumbent president’s tapped phone call to Commission on Elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano (“Garci”) resulted in a congressional investigation, hampered only by the said commissioner’s hiding, purportedly in Maguindanao. The president’s chief opponent, Fernando Poe Jr., got a zero vote in the province, “miraculously so” as critics put it, with voter turnout at an incredible 94%. In the 2007 senatorial elections, the administration’s twelve candidates swept the province, 12-0. After the unceasing report of vote rigging in the province, a fall guy was finally found in the person of provincial Comelec supervisor Lintang Bedol, who also figured in the Hello Garci case. He was charged with fraud but soon went missing; his person is still at large today. A teacher whistleblower, Musa Dimasidsing, was advised by family members to escape Maguindanao but was soon gunned down outside an Islamic school. Two other teachers on their way to Manila to testify on the alleged vote rigging were abducted in Cebu by armed men.

     We might also remember that in the “Oakwood mutiny” of Navy and Marine officers and their men in 2003, one of the mutineers’ complaints was the shortage of supplies and materiel purportedly being diverted by a gunrunning clique in the higher echelon of the AFP to the highest bidders in the private sector. Fast forward to the present, and in the two weeks that the AFP raided houses and lots of the Ampatuan clan, even mortar rockets were recovered, buried underground or in septic tanks, or hidden inside thick concrete walls.

     The recovered weapons could well keep a marauding Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) battalion off Maguindanao. Unfortunately, reports came in by December 10 this year that the Ampatuan clan may have murdered even before the massacre at least 200 more people in the province who were not MILF people, and that these reports have actually been known by Mindanaoenes for a long time now. Some residents of Davao City, where the Ampatuans own a mansion in a hectare-wide block in a prime subdivision, now suspect some of the summary killings that happened in Davao City in 2008 may have involved the Ampatuans (one resident even swears that Aldan Jr. is a drug user who purchases his dose from a squatters’ area in the city). But, let’s be honest—the abuses of CAFGUs and civilian volunteer groups have long been a given among those living in areas where they are present, and governments since Ferdinand Marcos’ have been made aware of these abuses.

     But, hey, the abuses do not seem to be exclusive to CAFGUs. The legitimate armed forces and the national police themselves have long been held accountable by critics for the murder and disappearance of more than 1,300 individuals since 2001, many of whom were journalists or NGO workers on mere suspicion of being coddlers of leftist movements or being simply critics of the national government or local government officials. We might remember that one of the squealers on the Fertilizer Fund Scam of 2004, journalist Marlene Garcia-Esperat, soon disappeared. The scam involved then-agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante who allegedly diverted P728 million in fertilizer funds to the presidential campaign of Gloria Arroyo. We might also remember the abduction from the airport of witness Jun Lozada by Presidential Security Group men. Lozada was set to appear in a Senate hearing on the NBN-ZTE Scandal, and was only rescued from the PSG men by the tense media airing of his abduction at Manila’s international airport; he was turned over to his wife the same night of his airport abduction, and to the nuns of La Salle Green Hills where Lozada’s family took refuge.

     We might remember further on the “2007 Glorietta Bombing” that killed eleven. At the height of the processing of the 2007 impeachment complaint against Gloria Arroyo, an explosion occurred at Glorietta Mall in Makati City, which explosion the police initially confirmed to be the result of a bombing (citing terrorism, due to the presence of C4 explosive components). Police authorities later recanted the report (citing methane explosion from a sewage tank as the cause). University of the Philippines chemical engineering professors and students disputed the possibility of a methane explosion, as did private investigators hired by the mall, the latter citing presence of the AFP-issue explosive’s components that the police investigation kept dismissing from then on. Later in November of that year, a Batasang Pambansa bombing occurred, killing a congressman’s driver.

     Critics of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration often point their fingers at then-National Security Adviser (now National Defense secretary) Norberto Gonzales whom they have long suspected (some say been aware) of being a terror-tactic specialist, along with then-Interior and Local Government secretary Ronaldo Puno. Many a critic have mentioned Puno as their suspect in the Rizal Day bombings in 2000 at the height of the impeachment proceedings against Joseph Estrada (under whose administration Puno was also serving the DILG secretary post). The purported architect of Marcos’ declaration of martial law (critics say Juan Ponce Enrile staged an ambush on his own person) is a staunch Macapagal-Arroyo ally and current Senate president ironically co-presiding the current Congressional joint session on Macapagal-Arroyo’s martial law declaration.

     Some journalists swear to the veracity of Gonzales’ and Puno’s involvement in terror tactics, as does Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago; but most can only rely on faith in the two’s evil, evidence to support the suspicion being elusive. Up to now, no proof of their involvement or testimony in relation to that involvement has been presented, whether in court or any other government office or the media.

     But this impression on the two can only be seen in relation to Gloria Arroyo’s (like Joseph Estrada’s before her) unbridled desire to prolong a stay in Malacañang, a desire that not a few times tried to force an attempt to change the Constitution through Macapagal-Arroyo’s sons and allies in Congress, happily thwarted though these were by the meager opposition at the time and by critics in the noisy media. Macapagal-Arroyo has made the now-undying impression on her person as a consummate liar, with no amount of lying by all the brilliant men around her (from Secretary Eduardo Ermita to Press Secretary Serge Remonde) able to bend the faith of many Filipinos regarding her person as a symbol of a superior PhD in Government Lying and Doublespeak attained atop all the corruption allegations that have clouded her credibility, her supposed loyalty to country and the Filipino nation, and her supposed godliness presented in many a photo-op shots where she has been in prayer mode. This belief in her lying habit is not entirely out of blind faith or as a result of black propaganda by the opposition. It is in fact faith that derives from her own consistent refusal to be transparent, refusing to show papers of any deals, all in the name of a divine statute called Executive Privilege.

     It is in this light that no one trusts her government now as her people announces (on her currently hiding person’s behalf) that the Maguindanao martial rule is not “practice” at all for a later Manila and national run. Arroyo’s critics can at least turn to press spokesperson Lorelei Fajardo and laud the young spokesperson’s honesty when she announced earlier that Macapagal-Arroyo will not abandon the Ampatuans even while they remain suspects.

     In all this Arroyoan dishonesty and propensity to lie through half-truths, we can say that the Macapagal-Arroyo government has actually started the murder of the journalism profession itself, and I’m not even talking about the arrest of the ABS-CBN journalists present at the Manila Peninsula rebellion of 2007 (later, the bus was called to return and arrest all journalists, so as not to make it appear that the government was targeting ABS-CBN journalism merely). All in all, by its constant spitting on the name and virtue of truth-seeking and investigations, we can give it to the Macapagal-Arroyo administration that it has done quite well in the manipulation of the human intellect, even abusing as it did its control of government channels, turning these into Lakas Kampi CMD official channels for the republic.

Apologists’ Faith

But take away the long-standing Macapagal-Arroyo critics who have decided to give the government the benefit of the doubt on the Maguindanao martial rule, critics like Teodoro Locsin, Jr., who may have turned things over in his head and come to believe that martial rule in Maguindanao may perhaps be right, along with others who have come to believe that this was the apt demonstration of government obeisance to international calls for swift justice to the massacre victims and the journalism profession.

     Take away those and there are still the blind loyalists of Gloria Arroyo’s government who are the prime demonstrators of strong faith operative among many in this country’s citizenry.

     My neighbor’s aunt, who has figured in two of my blogs (see blogs with the “My neighbor’s aunt” label), comes to mind once again. Just yesterday she was once again defending her president Macapagal-Arroyo against the conjectures of friends eating at her eatery, insisting that if the recent decisions of the Commission on Elections against two opposition-party governors in highly-populated provinces are products of a Comelec design to take control of those provinces in favor of ruling party governors, then we must castigate the Comelec instead and leave her president and her Malacañang out of it. Malacañang cannot have anything to do with these Comelec decisions to nullify the said governors’ election after all these years, with only five months running before the new elections, she says. The anti-Macapagal-Arroyo eatery customers were talking about how the Comelec may be looking at manipulating results in these provinces in favor of Lakas Kampi CMD candidates in the coming 2010 elections through the supervision of the newly-appointed governors, but my neighbor’s aunt says Malacañang cannot have anything to do with that, sounding so much like a PhD-in-journalism graduate working for National Broadcasting Network’s Channel 4 (otherwise known as the official Lakas Kampi CMD channel supported by taxpayers’ money).

     Every time a corruption anomaly jumps out in the media, my neighbor’s aunt has a recurring line weapon that says, “Malacañang and the president cannot be held responsible for the corruption happening around her. If we are to hang anyone, it would have to be the men around her, not her.”

     You might think this kind of thinking funny, albeit classic, which—I’m sad to say—is not logic exclusive to lazy minds but is rampant among many yuppies and students as well as pro-administration journalists with high IQs. It is not funny. It is precisely this kind of apologism reliant on faith that spits on any evidence laid on the table (whether this spitting is in communion with corruption or not) that has oiled the machines of Marcos loyalism, Erap Estrada loyalism, Gloria Arroyo loyalism, Ampatuan and other warlord loyalism, as well as the new loyalisms of the coming elections.

     Apologism by faith despising evidences of truth and journalism has become widespread in this country’s articulate intellection with an attached disgust for investigations. This apologism by faith is murdering journalism itself.

The Future Culture of Impunity

Only recently, a little debate ensued between two Noynoy Aquino supporters, with one supporter dressing down a fellow supporter for writing an open blog letter to his presidential candidate. It seems that the latter supporter was asking his candidate, Noynoy Aquino, to up the ante please so as to show his command of his own intelligence and leadership ability and so as not to allow hits on his being a mere puppet of people around him (including new people around him that used to come from the supposedly dirty Macapagal-Arroyo administration) to take momentum. The latter supporter obviously had faith in his presidential candidate’s abilities and sense of ethics but didn’t have faith in his campaign and the people at the helm of his campaign, thus the open letter. The latter supporter was not necessarily aiding the opposition, merely illustrating as well as exposing the agenda of the opposing parties on his candidate’s persona that these parties’ propaganda machines were now eager to launch (e.g. “Noynoy abnoy,” which read: abnormal Noynoy). In fact, while echoing the hits on his candidate’s person, he was also lambasting the opposing candidates.

     But the former supporter, taking offense at the open letter to his candidate, called the latter a “slacktivist,” which means a slacker activist whose support of social causes is limited to internet postings and petitions. This word is in fact an unfair liberal pejoration on intellection or self-examination inside liberalism or activism itself. The word is a slur by those with a claim to true activism against activist writing or even Internet use itself as a part of activism. The slur is a slur against Rizal in favor of Andres Bonifacio’s actions on the ground, Bonifacio’s adulation of Rizal notwithstanding. The slur is a slur against editorialists and bloggers in favor of rallyists, even as some rallyists appreciate the criticism of certain of their rallies by certain editorialists (even the criticism that many rallies displaying more of an organization’s banners than demand placards are looking more like a party-list parties’ campaign sortie than a rally for or against something). Or, “slacktivism” is a slur against journalism in favor of the “next level,” that is, Action.

     Therefore, the slur is a slur on the intellect and criticism of one’s own candidate or one’s self. It is, finally, a denunciation of the car break in favor of the accelerator. It is a joyous word raising the flag of blind faith. It is the activist’s new Nazi uniform. In its denunciation of thoughts in favor of sole “next level” action, the slur is practically trying to murder journalism itself.

     And so anti-“slacktivism” is the new apologism that ironically is the one aiming to battle it out with the apologism of the Gloria Arroyo loyalist (of which my neighbor’s aunt is only a minor entity), the Manny Villar-Danding Cojuangco loyalist, the Gibo Teodoro-Danding Cojuangco loyalist, the Erap loyalist bashing Noynoy alone (this loyalist will curse any theory that Erap is a Macapagal-Arroyo probe sent to divide the opposition vote in favor of Villar or, remotely, Gibo), and even Liberal Party loyalists for Noynoy Aquino. But loyalism is precisely what “slacktivism” wants to check! Slacktivism is one among a few vehicles that checks the psyche of actions and emotions when they begin to veer away from an original cause or intent! Slacktivism is what parallels action with its reflection! Slacktivism is intellection!

     As we approach the 2010 elections with no bills or reforms tackled or heatedly debated on the table, we are all only expected to rely on our faith in our singing and dancing candidates, content with their platforms and slogans devoid of detailed whys and hows.

     And given this cultural proposal of faith coming from many a man’s passion, I say we have, by that alone, lost any moral authority to denounce the Ampatuans, who did everything they did only out of blind faith in the new popular ethos of winning and winning big as an end in itself.

     Thus, assuming that the opposition’s Noynoy Aquino or Eddie Villanueva is to win over the administration’s Manny Villar or Gibo Teodoro or Dick Gordon or Erap Estrada, we can only rest assured that he (the new president) will still be surrounded by new anomalies, new powerful murders, new moves for power prolongation, and so on, care of the people who propelled him to power by their blind faith. And although it may be true that he himself may not be directly to blame for these new ills (should that blamelessness look true), given the greed of people or family and friends and corporate greed around him, I will not emulate my neighbor’s aunt’s way of thinking and will definitely hold the new president responsible for his lack of scruples or balls in his failures to put his foot down. I will, in short, emulate the self-examining or constantly measuring slacktivist.

     My fellow Filipinos, unless we get rid of this culture of apologism by faith, we will all have been Ampatuans ourselves, like my hating neighbor’s aunt, believing only in our virtues as we denounce our enemies’, denying our flaws as we hype up our enemies’ evil, cursing these most violently without check. Our love for truth is good. But the line between love and hate, as well as that between truth and lies by selective truth, is thin.

     The culture of impunity in this country cannot be redeemed by the sowing of more hatred between political faiths. It can only be solved by more intellection, freer intellection, un-manipulated intellection, and unbridled investigation, able to criticize everything and everyone, including one’s self and one’s party.

     If it is to be otherwise, we might as well be Macapagal-Arroyos and Ampatuans ourselves, sowing fear in our quest for the fulfillment of a utopia. [END]

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