Category Archives: Law and Justice

Qwertyman No. 44: Again, America

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Qwertyman for Monday, June 5, 2023

I HAVE a good friend whom we’ll call Ted, a Fil-Am who retired a few years ago as a ranking officer in the US Navy. He was in town recently on some family business, and like we always do when circumstances permit, we had dinner and a good chat just before he and his wife flew back home.

Most of us have friends if not relatives in America, and all of this would be pretty routine except for one fact: I’m a flaming liberal, and Ted is a Trump Republican. Over the fifteen years or so that we’ve known each other—well before Donald Trump entered the picture—we’ve been aware of those political differences, but rather than politely skirt them in our conversation like many sane people would, we feel comfortable enough with each other to talk at length about them, and even exchange some friendly barbs.

Much of that level of comfort comes from my belief that, in his own way, Ted sincerely and deeply loves his country—and his ancestral home, the Philippines. He’s smart, curious, eager to learn and understand. In his former naval job and as a private citizen, Ted—who was born in the US but spent some of his formative years in his family’s hometown in Bicol, and speaks some of the local language aside from Filipino—has visited the Philippines as often as he can, trying his best to improve relations between the two countries on a personal level. (On this last visit, for example, he also took part in a ceremony to celebrate the commissioning of the USS Telesforo Trinidad, named after an Aklan-born Filipino petty officer who was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravely rescuing his shipmates from an explosion aboard their ship in 1915.)

Given his naval background—his dad joined the Navy in the 1970s—I’m not surprised that Ted is a Republican, like many military Fil-Ams are. (One notable exception is a mutual friend of ours, the former West Pointer, Army Ranger, and diplomat Sonny Busa, as staunch a Democrat as they come, and a key figure behind Filipino veterans’ causes in Washington.) His support for Trump despite the man’s many failings continues to mystify me, but I’m guessing that in his calculations, Ted chose to cast his lot with the man best positioned to thwart the liberal agenda. That includes items that Ted and other Republicans feel extremely uncomfortable with, such as what he calls the “celebration, beyond just acceptance” of transgender rights, and their judicial enforcement.

Perhaps with any other person, my liberal hair-trigger would have fired away at such comments with a fusillade of counter-arguments, but with Ted I find more value in listening and trying to understand a certain mindset, as different as some of its premises may be from mine. In our last conversation, what Ted had to say was profoundly disturbing. I’m paraphrasing here, but essentially it was this: “America is a mess. People can’t talk civilly to each other anymore. When I say I’m a Republican, people instantly assume I’m a racist.” To which I said that people at the top like Trump (and our own version of him here) greenlighted that kind of boorish discourse, with additional pressure brought on by right-wing militias armed with AR-15s. We talked about January 6 (which he opined was not an insurrection) and the Second Amendment (which I said seemed sacrosanct in American politics). “You have cancel culture,” he sighed, “to which the other guy responds by going bam bam bam!” He was deploring, not endorsing it, trying to get a fix on his own society’s ailments. “It’s in our DNA,” he said glumly about guns.

Thankfully Ted and I always have other things to talk about—like the Philippines, in which Ted said he feels much more relaxed than his own country. He knows how worked up I can get about politics and our own leadership (or the lack thereof), but as far as he could see on this trip, I and my fellow Filipinos (including those he met in Bicol) were just chugging along. “We’re survivors,” I said, “and we’ll do what it takes to get by from day to day.”

That brings me to another friend, “Tony,” who messaged me out of the blue the other day, obviously distraught by the Senate vote on the Maharlika Fund bill and asking if it was time for him and his family to leave the country, given how we seem to be back on the road to political plunder and economic ruin. It wasn’t just a rhetorical question; he was really thinking about it. Here’s what I said:

“Hi, Tony—If it’s a realistic option, I don’t think anyone can or should blame you for leaving or wanting to leave. We have only one life and we have to make the most of it in all ways. Politics is important, but it’s only one of many other factors that define who we are—love, art, family, and faith, among others. That said, it can have a way of complicating our lives and life choices. 

“Moving to the US has also been an option for me for some time now. Our only daughter lives in California and has been wanting to petition us. But my wife and I have been strongly reluctant to move there, although we visit almost every year and are familiar and comfortable with living in the US, where I spent five years as a grad student. We are artists, and our work is culture-bound. We feel appreciated here, within our small circle of friends. However good we may be, in America we would be marginalized; we don’t want to become an American minority and deal with all the issues that will come with it. And America has become much less inviting now, with all the intolerance and racial violence provoked by Trumpism. 

“So unless it were a matter of life and death, we’ll stay here, despite the present dispensation and many more aggravations like the Maharlika Fund to come in the years ahead, because I feel that my continued survival and success will be my best way of fighting back. Having survived martial law, we can survive this as well. Everyone’s circumstances are different, and again you should feel free to find your place where you can best live with your family and secure their future. Nothing is ever final anyway, and you can always come back. Follow your heart and conscience, and you should be all right, wherever you may go. All best!”

(Image from bu.edu)

Qwertyman No. 41: Living up to “Honorable”

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Qwertyman for Monday, May 15, 2023

I’VE BEEN following the saga of the Hon. George Santos, the freshman Republican congressman from New York, who’s been caught in a tangle of lies he made about his education and employment on his résumé, and who’s now been charged in federal court on 13 counts from wire fraud and money laundering to theft of public funds and making materially false statements to the House of Representatives. So brazen have been this young politico’s prevarications that even his fellow Republicans—many of whom had forced themselves to swallow Donald Trump’s gargantuan lies about the 2020 election—have called on Santos to resign, if only to spare their party from the prolonged embarrassment of nursing a self-confessed falsifier in their ranks.

Now this is what gets me: Santos had earlier admitted to having fabricated about four-fifths of his CV, an act he called “résumé embellishment” which involved a “poor choice of words.” He said he was sorry—but then just as quickly insisted that he was no criminal and intended to serve the rest of his term, and even run for re-election. He boldly reappeared in Congress—still dressed like the preppy he never was—and acted like nothing happened. Despite the ostracism, he stood his ground, knowing that under its rules, the US Congress couldn’t kick out one of its own—even someone convicted of a crime, unless that crime was treason.

The story fascinates me because it illustrates the utter shamelessness and disregard for the truth that now seems par for the course in politics, and not just in America. The fact that many of his colleagues found Santos’ behavior reprehensible offers hope that some people still know right from wrong. The other fact, that Santos refuses to take responsibility for his actions and resign—and that some people continue to support him nonetheless—reminds us of how degraded the idea of “honor” has become in contemporary society. 

Social scientists tell us that “honor” has evolved over the centuries from the chivalric, even aristocratic notion of responsibility to a community—think of a hero undertaking a noble sacrifice, even at the cost of one’s life, for the common good—to something much more individualized and internalized, to one’s own sense of respect, dignity, and integrity. 

I’d argue even further that for most people today, “honor” has become a much more elastic term, one that allows for a range of justifiable behaviors. I’ll give you an example: would you rat on an officemate, perhaps even your best friend, who’s also your chief competitor for that AVP position? You could, and you would—if you convince yourself that becoming that AVP is a more important honor, something your family and circle of friends would appreciate. This is the difference, as one scholar noted, between “internal” and “external” honor, between integrity and reputation. If we equate, as many might, “reputation” with popularity, with a positive public perception of your image, then it’s easy to see how and why many people find integrity expedient and expendable.

These thoughts ran through my mind when I learned of the recent passing of former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, and read the many eulogies and encomiums following his death. All of them spoke of him as a man of honor, someone who fought for his country, stood by his word, and conducted himself with dignity. I had only occasional brushes with him, but can agree from those encounters with what was said. Some people communicate their integrity instantly, even wordlessly, just by their very manner. 

On the other hand, there are people who, by their swagger and arrogance (often a cover for some deeply felt inferiority), immediately invite mistrust if not repugnance. I’m reminded of a man who, from his lofty perch, drenched the good secretary with vitriol, accusing him of being “not a Filipino, you don’t look like a Filipino,” and threatening to “pour coffee on your face.” To which the diplomat merely reiterated the need to defend the country’s interests and to beware of the duplicity of our aggressive neighbor. 

The sad thing is how many Pinoys laughed along with that sneering man and thought that he was doing and saying the right thing. For years, he had fed them a diet of vulgarity, as if to reinforce the idea that that was the Filipino’s natural state and that he was one of them and spoke their language. In fact, he was cultivating and normalizing their basest instincts, an easier thing to do than the nobler alternative: appealing to their better selves, to what they could yet be. I see this innate goodness and decency, this desire for self-betterment, in Filipinos every day, even among the poorest of us. Overwhelmingly, this is still who and what we are. Those who believe otherwise debase only themselves.

But we are short on exemplary leadership—on leaders who value honor and integrity, on leaders who can feel shame, on leaders who can curb their profligacy out of respect for the poverty of the many, on leaders who will be genuinely missed and mourned by the masses when they depart. Our role models have become so few—and our expectations of our officials have become so low—that many of us have forgotten what honor truly means, assuming simply and tragically that it comes with wealth and power. The word “Honorable” is too easily affixed to certain high offices. Are they truly so?

I may be aghast at Rep. George Santos’ behavior in New York, but who knows how many lies are buried in our politicians’ CV’s, how many “résumé embellishments” and “poor choices of words” we have had to swallow?

And then again there’s a part of me that says, forget the résumé; it’s never been a trustworthy predictor of moral intelligence. Ability is the most basic we should expect of our “honorables.” Living up to their titles lies at the other extreme. But still I have to wonder: if a George Santos happened here, would he resign? 

Qwertyman No. 37: Time for Winter-Melon Soup

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Qwertyman for Monday, April 17, 2023

AS I SHOULD have expected, last week’s Qwertyman piece on a recent visit I made to Taiwan as an ordinary tourist provoked a small firestorm from readers who berated me for my “ignorance” of the “one-China policy,” because I had described Taiwan as a “country” in my column.

I replied politely to these objections, explaining that (1) while I was aware that our government, among most others in the world, subscribed to the one-China policy, I wasn’t the government, and (2) that “country” to this writer was more of a state of mind, if not of fact (and if we have to be persnickety about fact, then consider that Wales and Scotland are accepted as countries within the United Kingdom). 

One of my reactors was gracious enough to yield the point and leave me be, but another insisted that I had China all wrong—that it had no unfriendly intentions toward the Philippines, and that its occupation of what we hold to be our islands in the South China Sea was a mere enforcement of its historic rights to those territories. “Absolutely no intentions of invading the Philippines?” Hasn’t that already begun?

My column also prompted some reflections from an old friend and comrade in the fight against the martial-law dictatorship. Commenting on China’s threats to bring Taiwan under its heel, by force if necessary, my friend remarked: “It’s hard to comprehend how the leaders of big, powerful China could feel justified in unleashing death and destruction against the people of small but proud Taiwan, a country that poses no threat, and against fellow Chinese of near identical racial and cultural origin. After all, isn’t this the China that I, and many of us, not too long ago, emulated as the model for ‘liberating’ our own country, and whose proletarian ideology we embraced as the formula for ushering a new and better age for humanity? How is this a manifestation of Mao’s ringing slogan to ‘Serve the People?’

“But then we’re seeing the same perversion of once lofty ideals in the current behavior of Russia, the progenitor of ‘egalitarian socialism,’ now immersed in a barbaric project to decimate the people of Ukraine, members of their own Slavic family. Yes, Putin doesn’t call himself socialist but it was this system that trained and tutored him, and whose humiliation he’s trying to undo…. However, in light of the current behaviors of Russia and China, the two foremost homes of the Marxist experiment, and in light of the incontrovertible failure of Joma Sison’s project in our country, we who dabbled in this belief system need to step back and take a good hard look.”

I thanked my friend for his ruminations, which I completely identify with. Indeed, as fervent if naïve activists in the 1970s, we looked up to Mao’s China as a beacon of socialist virtue. Today’s Red-taggers would have fulfilled their month’s quota with the likes of me. I kept Mao’s “Little Red Book” in my shirt pocket, and could spout quotations like “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” and “A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” 

On my first visit to China in 1987, our guide was surprised that I could sing “Sailing the Seas Depends Upon the Helmsman” and that I wanted to visit Mao’s tomb. “What do you want to visit him for?” our guide asked in consternation. “He killed my father during the Cultural Revolution!” 

In various capacities as a tourist, a journalist, a writer, and academic, I have visited China many times since that first encounter, and have seen how its people—honest, hardworking, hopeful people like us—have managed to survive and prosper under a challenging succession of regimes and global conditions. I observed how the government was intent on modernizing its economic and physical landscape, razing down whole rows of hutongs or old communities in cities to make way for swanky new high-rises. On one visit to Shanghai, I couldn’t resist noting the irony of how the historic site of first National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party—a sacred shrine of that ideology—was located in the heart of what has become one of the city’s glitziest and most upscale districts, Xintiandi, in close proximity to a posh French restaurant.

I don’t think anyone can fault China for its transformation into an economic powerhouse, or even deny that its strong central planning was a key factor in making that happen, especially under Deng Xiaoping. What I’m sad about (and this statement will probably cost me my next Chinese visa, but no matter) is how this China has remained a tyrant to its own people and a bully to its neighbors—something that it doesn’t need to be, except to flex the almighty power of the CCP. 

If it wants to, it could yet become an example of a confident and benign socialism—something the CCP will never dare to embrace, for fear of seeming soft, especially in the face of American, Japanese, Korean, and yes, Taiwanese resistance. I can’t help thinking that while there may be “one China” in whatever configuration the politicians propose, there are indeed two Chinas in our hearts—the one we have been historically and culturally enmeshed with and want to love, and the other that won’t rest until we kowtow to its might.

And before the pro-Beijing troll machine springs into action, let me say this again: I separate governments and regimes from the people they theoretically represent and should be serving. (We also have to be reminded that there are significant political factions in both Beijing and Taipei, and that Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang were no angels when they “liberated” Formosa from the Japanese, only to take it over.)

I have written favorably (and critically when I had to) about both China and Taiwan without any sponsorship from either entity’s government. There are powerful lobbies for both sides right here in this country—one even offered to send me on an “observation tour,” which I gently declined, aware of the political subtext; I would go, I said, on my own dime, and I did. (Which is not to say I will refuse “observation tours” of the south of France, Tahiti, the Nordic fjords, the Patagonian forests, and other bucket-list destinations not likely to invade the Philippines.)

To Beijing’s and Taipei’s cheerleaders, chill out and enjoy the scenery; some calming winter-melon soup might help to keep the vitriol down.

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Qwertyman No. 35: The Ultimate Casualty

Qwertyman for Monday, April 3, 2023

I’M SURE I wasn’t the only one who looked up from his breakfast coffee last week to see, on the morning news, that another mass shooting had ripped through the heart of America—in Nashville, a city that usually brings to mind the twangy plaints of country music, in mournful songs about prison life and cheating hearts. This time the pain was much more brutal and direct, devoid of all poetry: six people were killed, including three nine-year-olds, their bodies savaged by bullets from AR-15-style assault rifles.

According to the Gun Violence Archive—whose very existence should be disturbing—it was the 130th mass shooting in the US in the first three months of 2023 alone. Last year, 647 such events were recorded; overall, more than 44,000 Americans died from gun violence in 2022. At this rate, 2023 will almost certainly be a much bloodier year for America. There will be hundreds more Nashvilles, thousands more families ambushed by unspeakable tragedy, choruses of angry wails to heaven asking God to explain why.

Like any other parent who witnessed that carnage, my wife Beng raised the question on every sensible person’s mind: “How could they let this happen?” 

“This” here would mean not only the mass killing itself, but the means to do it. Two AR-15-style assault rifles were used by the 28-year-old shooter. The AR-15 has been the mass shooter’s weapon of choice. It can rip people to shreds. According to the Washington Post, “The AR-15 fires bullets at such a high velocity — often in a barrage of 30 or even 100 in rapid succession — that it can eviscerate multiple people in seconds. A single bullet lands with a shock wave intense enough to blow apart a skull and demolish vital organs. The impact is even more acute on the compact body of a small child.”


The mere thought of children being mowed down like carnival toys is horrific, but apparently not enough for America’s powerful and richly funded gun lobby, which has insisted on looking the other way, sanctifying the Americans’ Second-Amendment right to bear arms above all other human considerations. 

In Tennessee, where the shootings took place, it is legal for anyone over 21 to carry handguns without a permit; that holds true for 24 other states, making fully half of America gun-friendly. And despite the mounting deaths from mass shootings, politicians in many predominantly Republican states—including Tennessee—are sponsoring even more permissive gun laws, to do away with background checks and facilitate the sale and transport of lethal weapons.

President Biden has rightly said that he has done all he could to help stop the violence by calling for a ban on assault rifles, but the opposition to such gun-control measures has been stubbornly successful. The National Rifle Association (NRA), which has been bankrolled by the gun industry for generations, has lost some of its luster and bluster following the public outcry over the mass shootings, but it still wields enormous political power by supporting gun-supportive candidates in elections.


The gun lobby argues speciously that guns don’t kill—people do; and further, that the problem isn’t that there are too many guns on the streets (there can never be too many), but that mass shooters are certified lunatics who in no way represent the millions more of responsible gun owners who keep their guns for target practice, for the joy of collecting, and for the End of Days, when hordes of zombie-like strangers will come over the hill to invade their homes, steal their food, and rape their wives. Mass shootings, they insist, are a mental-health problem, not something to be blamed on the proliferation and easy availability of weaponry.

Why does this concern us in faraway Philippines? First, because millions of us have relatives in America—who, as minority citizens, are prone to racial violence, as the recent spate of maulings of Filipino-Americans has shown. Many mass shootings have been racially motivated, and it will be only a matter of time before some teenage White Aryan barges into a Pinoy wedding or fiesta to prove his superiority through the barrel of an assault rifle. I fear for our daughter in California, who could be enjoying a night out with friends or shopping for groceries when the shooting begins. (Much to Beng’s and my surprise, our daughter Demi joined the UP Rifle and Pistol Team and became a sharpshooter, but has never felt the need to own and carry.)

Of course, in truth, we knew about America’s bloody history a long time ago, if only from The Untouchables, The Godfather, and America’s Most Wanted. What was a cowboy, a frontiersman, or soldier without a gun? And let’s not forget that it was the Krag-Jorgensen rifle with which US Army troopers “pacified” Filipino “insurgents” from 1898 onwards.

The second connection is our own gun culture—which, though not as pronounced and as strident as America’s, nevertheless exists, with the gun seen less as a means of self-defense than as a symbol and enforcer of power. With no need for a Second Amendment, our politicians and other bigwigs assemble arsenals for their private armies, such as the cache of arms and ammunition recently uncovered on the property of the Teveses in Negros Oriental. 

Oldtimers will remember when people boarded jeeps and buses with .45s tucked into their waists; congressmen used to enter the Session Hall bringing guns. Ironically, it took martial law to mop up most of those vagrant firearms—when someone decided that only he and his henchmen could carry them—but yet even more ironically, it was the military bullet that assassinated Ninoy Aquino that took the regime down.

I’m not so naive as to believe that we’ll see a gunless world in our lifetime and sing “Kumbaya” until we fall asleep. As societies undergo even more wrenching tests of the values that keep them together, our animal instincts—fear, belligerence, and survivalism—will become even more assertive, and the most brutish and inarticulate among us will let their firepower do the speaking. Unless reason prevails, the insanity will continue.

Abetting the murder of children—whether in Nashville or Bakhmut—means condoning the death of our humanity. That will be the ultimate casualty.

(Image from cnn.com)

Qwertyman No. 33: The Gunman

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 20, 2023

(This story may seem inspired by recent events, but it has nothing to do with the facts of specific cases.)

CPL. ELMER Kabigting heard the hornbill minutes before he spotted it on his PVAR, a kind of a honk followed by a murmur. He knew the sound from the long days and nights he had spent in forests, an almost hourly reminder of time passing, until human footfalls and gunfire broke the spell and sent the birds and monkeys scattering overhead. Through his gunsight, Kabigting watched the hornbill hop from branch to branch until it found just the right one to perch on, peering down at the landscape over its bright red mouth. 

He tried to imagine what the bird could see. A scientist he had befriended in Bukidnon once told him that birds saw colors that humans could not, and that their eyes worked well in the low light of dawn and dusk, enabling them to hunt while other animals stumbled around or waited for things to clarify. The corporal wondered if a gunsight could be made that could see like a bird. The sun was beginning to drop on the horizon, and in an hour it would be hard to tell one van from another, especially if they came in a convoy—not that it mattered, given what he had to do, but something in him revolted at the thought of unnecessary waste. There were things he did not care to see in sharp detail.

Even without pulling the trigger, Kabigting felt the power of the weapon in his hand. The Pneumatic Valve and Rod Rifle was almost new, and if he had had it in Marawi, he might not have lost so many friends. It was supposed to be superior in so many ways—less recoil, less muzzle rise, better accuracy, lower maintenance—and he had heard that it was favored by the Special Forces, which made him feel like he had been promoted, using it today. He didn’t ask Sgt. Galicia where the cache had come from; even while in service, the sergeant had been remarkably resourceful, finding extra rations, gin, and cigarettes for the men, bringing tears even to Capt. Reyes’ eyes. Reyes was an academy graduate who was honest to the core and whose men rolled their eyes when he spoke of “courage, integrity, loyalty” and had them kneel in prayer, but even he could not and did not ask Galicia to stop what he was doing.

Kabigting turned his eye from the hornbill to the road. He knew that, a kilometer up, where the road ascended from a deep valley, a spotter was waiting to let him—let them—know by radio that the convoy was coming. There were six of them, three on either side, two with grenade launchers, the last men a couple of hundred meters down, a gauntlet through which no one would pass alive. Elmer knew three of those men, Marawi veterans like himself whom Sgt. Galicia had located in the bars and slums of Ozamis and Dipolog, people who no longer had much to lose but everything to gain for themselves and their families. 

“What if we get caught—or if we die?” asked one of the six, when they had gathered together to discuss the operation in a carinderia in Dapitan.

“Then your families get everything. They’ll be set for life. If you don’t talk,” said Sgt. Galicia.

“We might be better off dead,” said another, with a chuckle. “If we die, we can’t talk.”

“I don’t have a family,” said yet another man, stubbing his cigarette onto his plate and burning a scar onto the cheap plastic. 

“Then we’ll divide your share among the others,” said the sergeant. “They’re your family now.” The other men laughed but the ex-soldier remained glum. He was one of those whom Elmer knew, and Elmer knew as well that the man’s wife had left with their children after he had broken her nose once too often. 

Elmer thought about his own family—his mother, his wife, and their five children back in Kabankalan, the youngest not even six, the eldest a high school senior who wanted to be a doctor. His daughter’s ambition made him laugh—they couldn’t possibly afford to send her to medical school—but he stopped laughing when she told him that it was for her to cure him if he ever got shot. He did come home once with a bandaged head, telling the children he had been grazed in a firefight with rebels, but he had been roundly bashed in a brawl with fellow soldiers over a card game debt. It wasn’t long after that incident that he found himself on the street and out of uniform, along with the sergeant and several of his buddies, after a local merchant complained to the governor—who happened to be his cousin—that a group of soldiers had broken into his warehouse and had carted away two truckloads of rice.

Yes—Elmer had admitted to his superiors—they had taken the rice, but everyone knew that it had been smuggled in from overseas, so who was the bigger thief? But nobody heard him, Elmer thought, they weren’t even listening.

So when Sgt. Galicia called for a gang of the boys to get together for some jobs, it was easy for Elmer to convince himself that they were still at war, except that this time the enemy was whoever Galicia said was as bad as the rice merchant, whose children went to private schools in Manila and whose wife served as the hermana mayor in the town fiesta. Their first target was the merchant himself, for no money but just to exercise their trigger fingers and feel good about themselves. This was followed by hits on a couple of rural banks, a vice-mayor, a radio commentator, and a regional bureau director, and despite some touch-and-go moments, it all became more routine, especially as the money flowed in and they began buying motorcycles, fishing boats, flat-screen TVs, and smartphones for the kids. Even Elmer’s daughter began to think he was serious when he teased her about taking up plastic surgery, so she could fix his cauliflower ears. 

But those targets were easy and never shot back. Today was going to be different—an armed convoy of a van and two SUVs, including a police escort. They said the vice-governor was going to be in the van in the middle. They knew he preferred to ride the HiAce instead of his armored Montero when he was with his family. Elmer had seen them in church once, at a friend’s wedding. The older boy had a cowlick in his hair. He heard the hornbill’s call again. His radio crackled. The corporal did not want to see whatever the bird could.

Qwertyman No. 31: A Homecoming for Anwar

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 6, 2023

TODAY WE pause our fictional forays to focus on some happily factual news—the visit last Thursday of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to the University of the Philippines, which conferred on him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.

I’ve been missing many university events especially since I retired four years ago, but I made it a point to attend this one because I’ve long been intrigued by Anwar’s colorful if mercurial political career—one that witnessed his meteoric rise from a student leader (who majored, at one point, in Malaysian literature) to minister of culture, youth, and sports, then of agriculture, and then of education, before being named Finance Minister and Deputy Minister in the 1990s.

As Finance Minister during the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Anwar imposed very strict measures to keep the Malaysian economy afloat—denying government bailouts, cutting spending, curbing corruption and calling for greater accountability in governance. His zeal and effectiveness gained him international recognition—Newsweek named him Asian of the Year in 1998—and put him on track to succeed his mentor Mahathir Mohamad as Prime Minister. 

However, his growing popularity came at a steep personal price. In what he and his supporters denounced as political persecution, he was imprisoned twice following a fallout with Mahathir. In the meanwhile, Malaysia sank into a morass of corruption under the since-disgraced Najib Razak, making possible the brief return to power of Mahathir, who enabled the release of his sometime protégé Anwar. Anwar’s eventual accession to the prime ministership in December 2022 was for many a just culmination of decades of near-misses (in our lingo, naunsyami).

His visit to Diliman last week was actually a homecoming. Anwar had visited UP more than once as a young student being mentored by the late Dr. Cesar Adib Majul, our leading specialist in Islamic studies. Like other Malaysian scholars, Anwar has also had a deep and lifelong appreciation for the life and work of Jose Rizal, with whom he shared the notion of a pan-Asian community of interests.

Most instructive was the new UP President Angelo Jimenez’s summation of Anwar’s political philosophy, in his remarks welcoming and introducing the PM:

“Beneath Anwar Ibrahim’s sharp sense of financial management lies a deep well of moral rectitude, a belief in right and wrong that seems to have deserted many of today’s political pragmatists. Much of that derives from his strong religious faith—which, unlike the West, he does not see as being incompatible with the needs and priorities of modern society. To him, this is a native strength that can be harnessed toward an Asian Renaissance.

“Like Jose Rizal, who self-identified as ‘Malayo-Tagalog’ and who was a keen student of the cultural and linguistic connections between Malays and his own countrymen, Anwar appreciates the West as a source of knowledge but cautions against neglecting or yielding our cultural specificity.

“At the same time, he has championed a more inclusive and pluralistic Malaysia, arguing—and here I quote from his book on The Asian Renaissance—’not for mere tolerance, but rather for the active nurturing of alternative views. This would necessarily include lending a receptive ear to the voices of the politically oppressed, the socially marginalized, and the economically disadvantaged. Ultimately, the legitimacy of a leadership rests as much on moral uprightness as it does on popular support.’”

In his talk accepting the honorary degree, Anwar argued strongly and eloquently for the restoration of justice, compassion, and moral righteousness to ASEAN’s hierarchy of concerns, beyond the usual economic and political considerations. He was particularly critical of ASEAN’s blind adherence to its longstanding policy of non-interference in its members’ internal affairs, noting that “ASEAN should not remain silent in the face of blatant human rights violations” and that “non-interference cannot be a license to disregard the rule of law.” 

Extensively quoting Rizal, whom he had studied and lectured often about, Anwar urged his audience to free themselves from the self-doubt engendered by being colonized, while at the same time remaining vigilant against subjugation by their “homegrown masters.” I found myself applauding his speech at many turns, less out of politeness than a realization that I was in the presence of a real thinker and doer whose heart was in the right place. (And Anwar was not without wry humor, remarking that as a student leader visiting UP, “I was under surveillance by both Malaysian and Philippine intelligence. Now I have the Minister of Intelligence with me.”)

Speaking of honorary doctorates, I recall that UP has had a longstanding tradition of inviting newly elected presidents of the Republic, whoever they may be, to receive one, as a form of institutional courtesy. As soon as I say that, I realize that many readers will instantly recoil at the idea for reasons I need not elaborate upon. But let me add quickly that not all Malacañang tenants have accepted the honor. Some have had the good sense to find a reason to decline, knowing the kind of reception they will likely get from Diliman’s insubordinate natives, beyond the barricades that will have to be set up for their security. For everyone’s peace of mind, I humbly suggest that it may be time to retire this tradition, which agitates all but satisfies no one. 

For the record, UP has given honorary doctorates to less than stellar recipients, including the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu and the martial-law First Lady Imelda R. Marcos. Even some recent choices have stirred controversy and dismay. 

As a former university official, a part of me understands why and when a state university dependent on government funding employs one of the few tools at its disposal for making friends and influencing people. But as a retired professor who has devoted most of his life to UP and its code of honor and excellence, I find the practice unfortunate if not deplorable. 

I don’t make the rules, but if I did, I would automatically exclude incumbent Filipino politicians, Cabinet members, and serving military officers from consideration. This is not to say that they cannot be deserving, as some surely are, but that they can be properly recognized for their accomplishments upon leaving office. This will also leave much more room for the university to hail truer and worthier achievers of the mind and spirit—scientists, artists, scholars, civil society leaders, entrepreneurs, other outstanding alumni, and fighters for truth, freedom, and justice in our society.

Qwertyman No. 30: Alternatives to Cha-cha

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 27, 2023

WE PINOYS know—as night follows day—that every time a new administration comes to power, a fresh initiative emerges to amend the 1987 post-EDSA Constitution. Fidel V. Ramos tried it with his ill-fated PIRMA campaign, followed by Joseph Estrada’s “Constitutional Correction for Development,” the attempt of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s congressional allies to form a constituent assembly without the Senate, and even Noynoy Aquino’s reported openness to giving the President a second term. Rodrigo Duterte included “charter change” or cha-cha in his platform and tried to push it until Covid came.

Most Filipinos, let’s admit it, don’t even know what the Constitution contains, but a few of us seem hell-bent on changing whatever is in there. Never, of course, for selfish reasons like extending term limits (now why would we even suspect our politicos capable of such nefarious designs?) but for “economic provisions only” (although extending one’s term limit is a very healthy economic provision, as far as I can tell). 

Cha-cha is in the air once again, fellow citizens, going around the House and Senate like a marching band, despite President Marcos Jr.’s public disavowal of support for the proposal. 

Even the National Economic and Development Authority’s estimate that cha-cha—the convention and the plebiscite—could cost as much as P28 billion (yes, that’s a B) isn’t likely to deter its proponents from advancing their cause. With more than five years to go under BBM, a lot of plausible reasons could be found for coughing up that money. Why, even the President could change his mind over that period, persuaded perhaps by a groundswell of demand for cha-cha that he can’t possibly ignore. (Why am I suddenly thinking of that pool resort in Cavite with the artificial wave machine that we so enjoyed last summer?)

Perplexed by this insistence on the need for cha-cha now, I turned to my favorite chatmate, sounding board, and political counselor—ChatGPT—for some answers and explanations. (I know what you’re thinking—I’m just making all of this up—but no: I actually paid good money for this app, so I’m going to get  my money’s worth. If you don’t believe me, try asking it the same questions.) Here’s a transcript of my conversation with ChatGPT:

ChatGPT: Hello, How can I assist you?


Qwertyman: How important is cha-cha to the Philippines?


ChatGPT: Cha-cha is an important dance to the Philippines, as it represents their culture and traditions. It holds a special place in the hearts of many Filipinos and is regarded as a national dance. It is often performed in public gatherings and celebrations to bring people together and express joy and happiness.

(Hmmm, I don’t know where you got that, ChatGPT. Pinoys who remember Nestor de Villa and “Dancetime with Chito” might have a hankering for the cha-cha, but I don’t see any great demand for it from millennials or even their parents. Are you sure it’s that special to us?)


Qwertyman: Why cha-cha? Why not the twist or the shingaling?


ChatGPT: The cha-cha is a distinctive Latin dance with an easily recognizable beat, which makes it easy to follow. It’s also more graceful and flowing than other partner dances, making it well-suited to more formal events. In addition, its pattern of three steps forward and two steps back is easy to learn, making it a great choice for beginners.

(That’s what worries me, ChatGPT. As you say, it’s “a great choice for beginners,” which is probably why a rookie senator is on top of the process. Some of us are also worried that cha-cha will mean two steps forward and three steps back.)


Qwertyman: But what if people just want to sit down and not do the cha-cha?


ChatGPT: That’s perfectly fine! There are many ways to have fun and enjoy one another’s company without having to do the cha-cha. You could play board games, cards, watch a movie, listen to music, engage in conversation, etc. Whatever makes you and the people around you comfortable and entertained is the best way to go!

(Totally agree! Someone should tell our esteemed lawmakers that they can do this, too—play board games, cards, watch a movie, listen to music, engage in conversation—rather than tinker with the Constitution, especially if it’s beyond their comprehension.)


Qwertyman: What are the dangers of doing the cha-cha?


ChatGPT: The dangers of doing the cha-cha include: 1. Potential for pulled muscles or sprains due to improper form, which increases the risk of injury. 2. Risk of slipping and falling since the cha-cha can involve quick, sharp movements. 3. Risk of strain on the joints due to the fast, jumping nature of the dance. 4. Risk of overheating due to the amount of movement required for the cha-cha.

(To which we can add: 1. The potential for a further decline in the quality of our leadership, by the extension of political dynasties into future generations of inbred politicians, raising the genetic potential for imbecility. 2. Risk of slipping and falling back into old ways and faces of governance. 3. Risk of strain on the national budget. 4. Risk of overheating the political climate.)

Qwertyman: Is it better to do the cha-cha today or some other time?


ChatGPT: That depends on what you have planned for today. If you have other commitments or would like to save the cha-cha for another time, it is best to choose an alternate date.

(Other commitments? Hmmm, let me think. Defending our patrimony in the West Philippine Sea? Achieving price stability for basic commodities? Fighting corruption? Raising the competencies of our children in STEM? Dispensing justice, especially in long drawn-out cases like the Maguindanao Massacre, the tokhang murders, and Leila de Lima’s incarceration? Providing housing, livelihood, and adequate social security to the poorest Filipinos? Is this list long enough?)


Qwertyman: What are the best alternatives to the cha-cha?


ChatGPT: 1. Bachata 2. Salsa 3. Merengue 4. Cumbia 5. Samba 6. Paso Doble 7. Tango 8. West Coast Swing 9. Bolero 10. Contemporary Latin Dance.

(I have to admit you got me there, ChatGPT. I’ve never heard of the bachata—unless you mean “ban charter talk”?)

(Image from The Adobo Chronicles)

Qwertyman No. 28: Catching Fluffy

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 13, 2023

(Disclaimer: Our story today has nothing to do with the recent capture and deportation of the Japanese criminal mastermind known as “Luffy,” for which we congratulate our brave and vigilant law enforcers, although I have to admit to being inspired by that diabolically fearsome alias.)

HIS PHONE rang at the worst possible time. The chief of the Metropolitan Investigation Division was just about to reach the climax of his story—the ladies around him all open-mouthed and wide-eyed in anticipation—when the Tiktok “Moonlight” song, which he had been using as his ringtone, broke the spell, instantly sending some of the girls into their habitual gyrations.

“Chief!” exclaimed Melanie, his special girl in the club, “I didn’t know you liked that song! You’re so cool! Come, let’s dance!” She took his free hand and tried to drag him to the dancefloor, but he resisted. It was unusual for Chief Tiny (short for “Agustin”) to resist Melanie’s persuasions, but she could see from his look that this was something serious.

Chief Tiny had spotted the name on the call—Bungi, his lead investigator—and he knew that Bungi knew not to call him at this hour for any reason less than to report the mysterious sighting of a bearded man walking on the waters of Manila Bay. If this was just to tell him that his wife was at the station looking for him again, for which Bungi was supposed to have had a dozen excuses at his disposal, why, he was going to make sure Bungi was demoted to jail guard in charge of sanitation. Tiny was especially annoyed because he had been trying to impress the girls with his story of how he had found and captured Don Waldo—the country’s most notorious drug and gambling lord, compadre to this senator and that congressman, master of a reputed harem of 100 women, and ruthless widow-maker dozens of times over. Tiny had geo-located him through the Facebook feeds of his then girlfriend, the previous year’s Ms. Matabungkay, and had negotiated his peaceful surrender, much to everyone’s relief. Of course, he wasn’t going to tell them that Don Waldo posted bail one hour after he was arrested, and that the two men had exchanged winks at the station after the media photographers had had their fill. It was all part of his standard MO: catch the bad guy, work out a deal, and let him off the hook on some technicality. 

“Boss,” said Bungi in a whisper over the phone, “we found him—Fluffy.”

“Fluffy!” Tiny screamed with all his 250 pounds, jolting everyone. “Are you sure it’s him, the Fluffy, ourFluffy?”

“Yes, sir. Of course they call him ‘Fruffy’ in Japanese, but I saw him myself—absolutely no doubt he’s our man.”

As Chief Tiny continued to chat with his caller, Melanie shrank back into her seat beside the chief, trying to catch as much of the conversation as she could while collecting her own thoughts. She knew this man called “Fluffy”—personally, professionally, biblically, in all kinds of ways. When the chief wasn’t around, Fluffy took his place in her private quarters, in a condo overlooking the Pasig River, from the other side of which she had triumphantly risen. Initially there had been a language problem—his vocabulary would have been considered coarse even in Japan—but what they needed to communicate did not require too many hand-signs. What didn’t need explaining was his nickname, made obvious by the two clumps of steel-woolly hair on his head, like a poodle.

From his Pinoy bodyguard, Melanie learned that Fluffy ran an extensive Japanese mafia in the Philippines, which controlled the distribution of everything from fake Japanese car parts, Ebisu dolls, Voltes V figurines, and ramen noodles. They competed with an equally vicious Korean mafia engaged in pushing fake Korean car parts, BTS coffee mugs, CLOY T-shirts, and kimchi, as well as a Chinese mafia flooding the market with fake American, European, and everyone-else’s car parts, imported galunggong, POGO workers, and tikoy. Sometimes the rivalry got too hot and blood was spilled on Manila’s streets, giving Chief Tiny unnecessary headaches that required a few hours with Melanie to cure. But now Melanie herself felt the onset of a massive migraine: if her two patrons found out about the other and their common interest, then all hell would break loose.

“Sorry, girls, but I have to go,” Chief Tiny announced, getting to his feet. “I have to catch a master criminal.” With that, he gave Melanie a quick hug, and hurried off.

Melanie had to think fast. Chief Tiny made her feel protected—not only when he encircled her in his ham-like arms, but more importantly when she or her friends ran into trouble or needed a big favor like a police escort for a relative’s funeral. Fluffy was strange but sweet, gifting her with exotic desserts like green tea cookies and mochi; she was scared but also thrilled by his insistence that she take on his tattoos. Whom would she choose? She thought of sending Chief Tiny an anonymous text message telling him where Fluffy was, but then they already knew that. She thought of sending Fluffy another message to tell him that Chief Tiny was on his way to get him, but if he ran away then that would only prolong her own predicament. She decided to let fate take its course and to stick by whoever survived. Meanwhile, she wasn’t going to waste her time, and moved on to the next cubicle to make the acquaintance of a Korean gentleman who reminded her of that oppa Gong Yoo.

Two hours later, Melanie and her new partner were happily warbling BTS’ “Butter” on the videoke: “Smooth like butter, like a criminal undercover / Gon’ pop like trouble breaking into your heart like that, ooh!”Suddenly she heard two all-too-familiar voices from the other side.

“You’re very hard to catch, Mr. Fluffy! You’re very good!”

“No, Mr. Tiny, you’re better because you caught me, haha!”

“Next time, don’t hide under the table, haha! That’s the first place we look!”

“Thank you for not shooting me, haha!”

“How can we be friends if I shoot you, haha! Now, let’s have a good time—I will introduce you to my very pretty girlfriend!”

“You also have a very pretty girlfriend, also here? Me, too! But my girlfriend is prettier, haha!”

The Korean gentleman in the next cubicle was perplexed. “Melanie! Where you go? Why you hiding under the table?”

(Photo from bbc.com)

Qwertyman No. 25: Courtesy Ca. 2023

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Qwertyman for Monday, January 23, 2023

THIS TOPIC wouldn’t have occurred to me to write about if I hadn’t come across—in my meanderings online as a collector of antiquarian books and papers—a copy of a slim pamphlet published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1936, titled “Courtesy Appeals by the President’s Committee on Courtesy.” But as soon as I saw that title, I knew I had to get that pamphlet and reflect on the observance (most likely in the breach) of its prescriptions today.

To be honest, I never even heard of a “committee on courtesy” in UP. Neither, as a former student and professor, did I ever instinctively attach the word “courtesy” to UP, although I will not agree to any collective condemnation of “Iskos” and “Iskas” as boorish and uncultured. Granted, UP lore is rich with tales of what we’ll call youthful insolence toward their elders, in ways that would make even millennials cringe. (Who was that young poet who, in a writers’ workshop, supposedly stole a famous lady poet’s underwear—don’t ask me how—and strung it up a flagpole or hung it on a line, prompting her friend—another professor known for her fiery temper—to curse the laughing fellows: “I wish your mothers had aborted you!”) 

Meekness may not be one of a UP student’s strongest suits, because we teach them to assert themselves. But we also teach them to criticize or comment with style and intelligence, as when a young wit responded to a customary recitation of then President Carlos P. Romulo’s kilometric list of honorary degrees by saying, “Why, Mr. President, you have more degrees than a thermometer!” (In fairness to CPR, that fellow went on to an illustrious career accompanied by much—and some say self-generated—pomp and circumstance.)

Courtesy, of course, is not about sticking out but about staying in—behaving oneself for social acceptability and harmony, living up to someone else’s expectations by observing a strict code of do’s and don’ts. At least that’s how it was appreciated in the 1930s, when President Jorge Bocobo created the committee that came out with the prescriptions in the pamphlet. Although he served as one of UP’s most hardworking and effective presidents—someone who pushed UP students to go out and serve the masses—Bocobo was also known to be a rather prudish disciplinarian. He had been on the committee that censured Jose Garcia Villa for publishing his “obscene” and “ultramodernistic” poem “Song of Ripeness,” leading to Villa’s suspension and hastening his departure for more liberal America. He also cut down on the popular student dances that Rafael Palma allowed, and enforced the rule for student uniforms. When Guillermo Tolentino presented his design for the Oblation statue, Bocobo had one important comment: protect its modesty with a fig leaf, which was done. Not surprisingly, although again a bit too simply, he was called “the gloomy dean” by the editorialists of the time.

In 1936, when the pamphlet came out, Jorge Bocobo was almost midway through his presidency (1934-39). I learned that 8,000 copies were printed to be handed out to all students, and teachers were required to discuss its contents—all 20 pages of them—in class.

Some of its prescriptions are entirely understandable for the period:

“A young lady of social position does not go to a ball without a chaperon.”

“When a gentleman is introduced to a lady, he does not extend his hand first. It is the lady’s place to show whether she wants to shake hands or not.”

“When a lady leaves a gentleman to whom she has been introduced, she never says she is ‘glad to have met him’ or that she ‘hopes to see him again.’’

Some would be perfectly applicable today:

“Annoying the ladies by staring at them or making remarks about them as they pass cannot be countenanced.”

“Avoid being a bore by talking too much. Be a sympathetic listener.”

Some would be difficult to enforce:

“It would be nicer if gentlemen should remove their hats on entering a building.”

“Do not wear a tuxedo at daytime.”

“(Do not) thrust the individual knife into a butter dish or the individual fork into a pickle dish.”

“Bananas are peeled into a plate and taken with the fork.”

I was amused, as many of you would be, but these social commandments (yes, they were far more than “appeals,” and students and faculty were disciplined for disobeying them) invited me to wonder how we look at courtesy today or even think about it, let alone practice it. Thanks to the anonymity provided by the Internet and to a toxic political environment, rudeness if not obnoxiousness seem to have become the norm. It’s almost customary to assume that the other fellow is uninformed, hostile, stupid, or just plain wrong, and I have to confess to thinking this of many people I encounter for the first time, especially online. 

I’ve been on the receiving end of these assumptions as well. An expat American—a Trumper—once tried to convince me that I knew nothing about America, as did an expat Brit who lectured me about the monarchy like I’d never read a book (I could’ve lectured him back on Elizabethan revenge tragedy, but he could have been just a regular fellow who didn’t know anything about me, and why should he, so I desisted and let it slide).

Courtesy today clearly involves more than etiquette or protocol, more than observing antiquated codes of behavior requiring you to use this fork or that spoon. It’s more a matter of attitude toward other people, of assuming them worthy of respect and an intelligent and civil response (until they prove otherwise, as many inevitably do, especially in politics). 

Unfortunately we also too easily conflate courtesy with external manners, with opening doors for ladies (which I still do, although my wife Beng sometimes has to remind me there’s a door in front of us). On a higher order of behavior, aren’t profligacy and ostentation extreme forms of discourtesy to a people struggling to make ends meet? Do arrogance and impunity invite respect, or resentment and disdain?

What could a “Courtesy Appeals” for 2023 read like? “Do not waste the people’s hard-earned money” seems like a good place to start.

(Some factoids mentioned here come from an unpublished, unofficial history of UP. You can check them out against an official history published recently by the UP Press.)

Qwertyman No. 23: The Glass Sibuyas

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Qwertyman for Monday, January 9, 2023

(With apologies to some of our readers who might not catch the reference to Benoit Blanc. A little Googling will help.)

THE INTERNATIONALLY famed detective Benoit Blanc knew immediately what he was up against the minute his airport limousine stopped in Manila’s infernal traffic and he found himself staring at a Burger Queen outlet with an unusual sign: “NO ONIONS TODAY.” It seemed inconceivable that Wimpies could be sold anywhere in the world without onions, but here it was, the living proof of the mystery he had been engaged to figure out. He had initially declined the assignment, being more interested in the case of a dusky Brazilian heiress who had gone missing on a yacht off St. Tropez after imbibing vodka laced with one-carat diamonds—that sort of intrigue being more down his alley—but the anonymous party who had hired him (wiring a million euros into his Bahamian account) had been persistent. 

The sudden shortage of onions in the Philippines was proving to be nothing short of a national embarrassment that was threatening the stability of the new government, and it had to be explained. Local law enforcement could not be trusted because they had long been in the pocket of the onion lobby, explained the other party (whose voice had been digitally distorted, but whose cadence of speech—punctuated with many uhms and uhhs—sounded strangely familiar to Blanc when he looked up some YouTube videos on the Philippines). Blanc didn’t bother to verify his suspicions; detectives of his caliber could not afford to be distracted by politics, which was messier but also simpler than murder, with the perpetrator often in plain sight, and where crime was rarely followed by punishment.

On the first of his three days in Manila, Blanc put on his best disguise as a French tourist in search of the best onion soup in the city. Even in the poshest hotel, all he could find was a tepid bowl of caramel-colored water with a few token rings of the spice and the grainy evidence of flavored powder. When he queried the chef about the omission, the exasperated man urged Benoit to go to the public market and see for himself what the real situation was. 

So the detective got his driver to park a block away from Farmers Market; he could go no further, because large and noisy crowds had massed around the block, bearing placards decrying the severe shortage of onions and demanding social justice. A fat lady in a polka dot dress emerged from within the market nervously clutching a big bag that was clearly marked “RICE,” but the little round bulges in the bag gave the ruse away and before she could make it to her car, the crowd pounced on her and her bag like a pack of wolves, spilling onions that rolled onto the ground, for which grandmothers and little boys socked each other to grab. Benoit gasped as he saw one onion being thrown like a football from a quarterback to a receiver, only to vanish into the heart of chaos as the latter was tackled by a chorus of slipper-shod defensive linemen. Goodness me, said Blanc, something terrible is happening in this country. If I can’t unravel the mystery of the missing onions soon, a bloody revolution could follow.

The following day, Benoit Blanc visited with Dr. Luzvimindo Bimbo, Chief Research Scientist of the Omnibus Institute, to get a more scientific handle on the problem. Dr. Bimbo flashed a series of PowerPoint slides onscreen to orient the detective. “Among 151 countries surveyed, the Philippines ranked 135th among 151 countries in onion consumption per capita, varying from an all-time low of 0.42 kilos in 1964 to 2.47 kilos in 2018, according to Helgi Analytics. Compare that to the Americans, whose consumption rose from 5.53 kilos in in 1982 to just over 9 kilos in 2018. And even that’s nothing compared to the Libyans, who couldn’t survive without consuming 30.3 kilos per person—the highest in the world. On average, people eat 6.2 kilos of onions every year.”

“Well, I’ll be,” said Blanc. “So we can safely conclude that Filipinos actually don’t consume onions as much as most other countries in the world.” 

“Certainly not,” said Dr. Bimbo. 

“And yet there’s a shortage?”

“Apparently so, as we can see from the onion riots that have now led to five deaths and countless injuries. Part of it may be artificial demand—when people hear something’s in short supply, the more they want it—but that doesn’t explain the lack of onions at Burger Queen. Even my wife can’t get onions for my bistek Tagalog!”

“Bustique Tagawhat? Never mind…. Someone’s been hoarding the commodity, for nefarious reasons we have yet to establish. Who, why, where?”

Later that day, Benoit mulled over the possibilities as he nursed his Hennessy in his hotel suite overlooking Manila Bay. Quite likely, the solution was in plain sight—like a many-layered glass onion which you still could see straight through. The plain-sight answer was profit—someone was making a killing retailing the stuff at P1,000/kilo—but it seemed too simple, too prosaic, for him to have been brought into the picture. 

But as the sun dipped into the horizon in a spectacular display of radiance, Benoit forgot all about onions as his memories drifted to another sunset he had spent with his girlfriend in the Maldives, just before he flew off to another mystery in Copenhagen, and before the tsunami struck. His eyes welled with tears at the thought—and then he realized he had his answer.

The next morning, before packing his bags for his flight home, the detective called the number of the one who had engaged him to report on his findings. Again he was answered in a raspy digital voice, but Blanc knew exactly who it was. “You already know who has all the onions, probably stockpiled in a high-security warehouse next to a top-secret manufacturing facility. Syn-Propanethial-S-oxide. Onions release this chemical irritant to produce tears. I estimate that with the onions taken out of the market, you would have synthesized a metric ton of the substance by now. Why did you need to bring me in?” he asked with obvious annoyance.

“Because I wanted someone else to appreciate my predicament,” said the voice after a pause. “It gets very lonely when you and you alone can’t cry. Where have all my tears gone, Mr. Blanc? Answer me that, and I’ll give you another million euros.”

Benoit thought of saying something like “Where has your heart gone?” but it felt too mushy for someone of Blanc’s sangfroid, and he decided that his job here was done, and shut his suitcase for the next flight to Dakkar.