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.

Anti-Semiotic, Ang Putik

(borrowed from httpbellyngot1.wordpress.com)

LAHAT ng bagay sa mundo ay may meaning. Kahit nga ang pambansang almusal nating pan de sal na imported mula China at Turkey ang ginagamit na arina ay isang maliit na bagay lang na may malaking meaning. Ang EdloSA pa kaya, na may kilokilometrong trapik na ngayon ay may problemang ayaw solusyunan (dahil malaki ang kinikita ng oil companies sa trapik na ito) . . . kahit pa nag-rebolusyon na sa abenidang ito ang maraming ordinaryong tao noong 1986! Diyan pa lang, may malaking meaning ka nang makikita! Kaya kung sasabihin mo sa akin na wala nang meaning ang EdloSA 1, isa kang nagbubulagbulagan sa katotohanan ng mga bagay-bagay tulad ng pan de sal. O baka naman iniiwasan mo lang ang totoo: na hinayjak ng elite, tulad ng idolo mong elite o royalty, ang naibalik na “demokrasya”. Hinayjak nila ito para hindi na ito maging mas demokratiko pa, maging sa participatory man o semi-direct na democratic direction. Di ba? Aminin. Pati ba naman ang mga meaning ay hahayjakin mo rin, tarantadong hayjaker ka. [S / -I]

Holy Week Issue

A social media post reacting to a PR firm's "win a date with Sandro (Marcos)" promo that resulted in a backlash against deniers of post-Proclamation No. 1081 atrocities/abuses. Photo grabbed from Twitter.

DIYOS ko. Holy Week na Holy Week ay gusto akong hatakin ng isang Marcos loyalist sa debate tungkol sa katotohanan ng mga nakasulat sa mainstream History tungkol sa Marcos martial law atrocities at abuses. Gusto niya akong hatakin sa kanyang alternative facts. Ano ang tingin niya sa akin, tangang isda na papatol sa bulateng pain niya? Hindi ako hangal na kakagat sa gusto niyang mangyari, na ako ay magalit at maglitanya tungkol sa maraming facts ng kasaysayan at tuluyan na ngang mailagay niya sa posisyon ng may burden of proof na siya ngayong magpapatunay na totoo nga ang lahat ng detalye ng History na binanggit ko. At sa bandang dulo, may alas siyang itatapon sa mesa na magtatanong sa akin kung sigurado ako sa aking mga facts at kung ilang units sa History ang nakuha ko sa kolehiyo at sa kung saang paaralan, and so on. Trial niya, at History ang nasa defensive sa aggression ng kanyang confirmation bias. Hindi ako mangmang na kakagat sa gusto niyang mangyaring ang History ang mailagay niya sa gitna ng kanyang dakilang imbestigasyon sa ngalan ng gaslighting.
    Pren, sasabihin mo, pero di ba dapat ding mailabas ang katotohanan? Totoo, dapat ilabas ito. At sasabihin ko sa iyong ilabas mo ito sa madla. Subalit dapat mo ring malaman na walang patutunguhan ang pakikipagdebate sa deniers ng anumang kasaysayan, dahil sa either of two reasons lamang. Ang one of the two reasons, malakas ang paniniwala ng isang denier sa kanyang sariling bersyon ng katotohanan, kung kaya’t wala kang mararating sa iyong mga facts. May mababali ka bang relihiyosong malakas ang paniniwala sa kanyang relihiyon o bersyon o konsepto ng Godhead or Godness? Wala. The other reason, mayroon siyang motibo. Kung kaya’t ikaw ang paglalaruan niya. May makukumbinse ka bang isang tao sa prinsipyo ng katotohanan kung alam niya rin naman ang katotohanan at alam din niyang nagsisinungaling siya sa ngalan ng kanyang mga sikretong motibo?
    Wala akong oras makipagdebate tungkol sa katotohanan sa mga taong either may malakas na paniniwala sa kanilang bersyon ng katotohanan, at di kailanman makukumbinsi ng anumang ibang bersyon, o dili kaya’y may suwapang na motibo sa likod ng kanilang mga salita, at di kailanman magpapatinag sa talino ng anumang may saysay na interpolasyon.
    Kung mag-aaksaya man ako ng panahon sa kanila, hindi ang isyu nila ang papatulan ko kundi ito—sila, bilang ang isyu. Itatanong ko sa akademya ng tao, sa bawat nakikinig na may sariling isip, kung ano ang interes ng isang tao sa isang kasaysayan. Bakit niya ba kinikuwestiyon ito? Ano ang motibo niya? Maganda kaya ang motibo niya o hindi? Kinukuwestiyon niya ito sa ngalan ng ano? Sa ngalan nino? Sa ngalan ng anong korporasyon o paksyon pulitikal? At kung sasabihin niyang pure ang kanyang motibo at walang halong selfish interest, dapat ba siyang paniwalaan? Ano ang power o supremacy na makukuha niya sa pagkapanalo ng kanyang metanarrative?
    Para sa akin, sapat nang malaman na natural lang sa isang apologist ng dictatorial system at militarismo na maghanap ng isyu tungkol sa kasaysayan ng anumang dictatorship at militarist rule. Sapat nang malaman na galing siya sa isang pamilya, barkada, ethnic o linguistic group, o anumang sistema ng groupthink, na nakinabang o makikinabang sa sistemang diktadurya o militarista, para maliwanagan ako sa tunay na dahilan sa likod ng kanyang behavior o mental anatomy bilang isang denier o historical negationist.
    Uulitin ko. Sa harap ng mga taong ganito, pipilitin kang hatakin sa isyu nila, kung saan ang History mismo ang magiging isyu. Subalit ang isyu ay hindi ang History, Ang isyu ay SILA at ang MGA MOTIBO NILA. Kung may pagdedebate, dapat ito umikot sa pagkatao, o sa mga facts and figures sa likod ng pagkatao NILA. Take it from there. . . .
    Hay, sus. Pasensya na, mga bes, at binulabog ko ang Holy Week ninyo. . . . Pero, on the other hand, baka Holy Week issue rin naman ‘to. Di nga ba’t may mga denier din dyan, mga deniers na nagsasabing mas mabuti ang naging kalagayan ng Ancient Israel sa pamamalakad ng Roma, o na si Satanas ang tunay na maka-kapayapaan dahil hindi niya hahayaan ang mga sakuna? Well, wala namang masama sa pagkuwestiyon sa anumang mga detalye ng kasaysayan o ng mitolohiya per se, na tinatawag ng history professors na historical revisionism. Ang masama ay kung ayaw mong isama ang sarili mo sa imbestigasyon, kahit ikaw ang may dala ng mga kuwestiyon, na maaaring maturing na isyu ng historical negationism. Pag ganito ang nangyayari na hinahayaan natin ang imbestigasyon sa anumang teksto nang walang pag-iimbestiga sa masama o mabuting motibo ng kumukuwestiyon, may mga rewriting na nangyayari at nagtatagumpay nang ganun-ganon na lang. Tulad, halimbawa, yaong pagkarewrite sa kuwento tungkol kay Maria Magdalena upang palabasin na siya ay nagbagong prosti at hindi babaeng disipolo ni Hesus na ka-lebel, kung di man mas mataas sa lebel, nina Pedro. And for what motive? To deny women the priesthood? Go, take it from there! [S / -I]

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]

WAS THE AQUINO GOVERNMENT ALSO TO BLAME FOR THE MARCOSES' COMEBACK?

WAS the Aquino government to blame for the Marcos family's comeback, as hinted by former Vice-President Jejomar Binay and as per the legalist defense of President Duterte himself re his funeral honors for Ferdinand Marcos?
    Well, partly, yes. A big part? Yes. Binay's and Duterte's technicalities aside and the people's pulse as the primary measure, when the Aquino government used the Marcos era as the very opposite to its own, and then the intelligentsia itself failed or refused to call the Aquino government's own little Marcosian atrocities and tag as Marcosian its sporadic dictatorships by liberal legalism, and then also call that government's members' own business with---or alleged tax accommodations for---Marcos- and Romualdez-affiliated business interests, e.g. Benguet Corporation, among others. . . . the Marcos comeback road was definitely paved by that government, ripe for loyalists' long-awaited historical revision and historical negation programs.
    So, was the Aquino government also to blame for the Marcos comeback? Again, definitely yes. But so is the Duterte government's loving embrace of the late dictator's family, as was Binay's own transformation from being a human rights lawyer during the Marcos years to being a symbol of Marcosian kleptocracy in later years. As were all those post-Marcos acts of governance (or absence of governance) that failed to demonstrate Good opposite to the historical metanarrative concerning Marcos' Evil. So was the intelligentsia's failure to see that the history it was academically writing was not the history that the people were reading. [S / -I]

WHAT BROUGHT ABOUT THE SCHEDULED STATE BURIAL (WITH HONORS, AS A MATTER OF COURSE) OF FORMER DICTATOR FERDINAND MARCOS AT THE LIBINGAN NG MGA BAYANI?

cartoon borrowed from paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com

1.) The Filipino oligarchy's leadership under various faces, with its filial penchant for forgiving, even if only a bit, and permitting people in exile to return to their regions of wide support in exchange for the surrender of a few centavos of their stolen wealth. Along with this, the dismal performance of the Presidential Commission on Good Government in running after the Marcoses' stolen wealth in offshore accounts, not to mention the reported corruption of some appointed officials of the commission. Along with this, the oligarchies' lack of transparency with regards to the amount and whereabouts of all the recovered ill-gotten wealth from the Marcoses' haul.

2.) The Filipino oligarchy's leadership (through one of its own or otherwise a puppet), with its treatment of Philippine politics as a game wherein its leaders can nurture an anti-Marcos image, complete with TV documentaries about the Marcos era and annual anniversaries reflecting on the Marcos oppressive years of horrors, while entering into business jointures and secret political alliances with elements of the Marcos family; in the case of Noynoy Aquino, fanning anti-Marcos rhetoric on PTV4 and ABS-CBN care of the Lopezes even as he patches up differences with the Danding Cojuangcos and the Floirendos and other former Marcos allies to build both business and political alliances for his Liberal Party machine, one of which products may have been getting back a larger influence on Hacienda Luisita stocks that would result in Kris Aquino's sitting on the board of the corporation, to mention a few such arrangements beyond our masses' full comprehension.

3.) The Filipino oligarchy's leadership and its failure to govern beyond the (legalist) ways and habits of the crony-serving Marcos era, which led to people's disillusionment with these post-Marcos governments that led in turn to a popular belief that perhaps Marcos was just a victim of black propaganda and that maybe what those Marcos-supporting white and grey propaganda releases have been saying were probably more right than not.

4.) The Filipino oligarchy's leadership with its secret arrangements that may have given the Marcoses leeway to enter the various propaganda media, which entry would lead the Marcos machine to convince millions of disillusioned Filipinos of old and new generations to consider the possibility that maybe Marcos was not that bad, culminating in an almost-win for the vice-presidential candidacy of Bongbong Marcos.

5.) The Filipino oligarchy's leadership, with its failure to strengthen a continuing knowledge of all the recent Philippine history of abuses and inculcating all this into the memories of both old and new students and teachers.

6.) Finally, the irony of a newly-elected President who unabashedly proclaims that he is a socialist (partly true, perhaps, while also partly false) while confessing to a close friendship with the rightist Marcos family, and---after the elections---confessing to having been primarily funded by a Floirendo (a former Marcos ally in Mindanao) during his presidential campaign. (Incidentally, it was purportedly thanks to this Floirendo that a Duterte-Marcos 2016 tandem became the most common tandem on the presidential election posters on the walls and fences of Davao).

7.) And. oh, we almost forgot: the Filipino people being too divided on their impression about the Marcoses, thanks to all of the above, that would now render it impossible for them to launch a revolution against all of Marcos' friends in government (if there is even such an animal as a true enemy of the Marcoses in the highest roster of government since the presidency of Ferdinand's cousin, Fidel Ramos). [S / -I]