Category Archives: Philippines

Qwertyman No. 188: Art Misappreciation

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 9, 2026

I TRY not to get triggered by everything I read on Facebook—half of which is probably fake or trash, but which we respond to all the same—but one recent post I just couldn’t ignore came from the Department of Education, happily announcing the removal of 15 core senior high school (SHS) subjects and their integration into five new “interdisciplinary” subjects. 

The subjects removed were Oral Communication; Reading and Writing Skills; 21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World; Media and Information Literacy; Komunikasyon at Pananaliksik sa Wika at Kulturang Filipino; Pagbasa at Pagsuri ng Iba’t-ibang Teksto Tungo sa Pananaliksik; Personal Development; Physical Education/HOPE; Statistics and Probability; Earth and Life Science; Physical Science; Understanding Culture, Politics, and Society; Contemporary Philippine Arts from the Regions; and Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person.

They will be replaced by Effective Communication/Mabisang Komunikasyon; Life and Career Skills; General Mathematics; General Science; and Pag-aaral ng Kasaysayan at Lipunang Pilipino.

The rationale for the streamlining, says the DepEd, was that “Instead of treating the old core subjects separately, the revised core subjects integrate key competencies from related disciplines and will be offered across the entire academic year—supporting more sustained, in-depth learning and an interdisciplinary approach.”

That all sounds good on the surface—the word “streamlining” is one of those managerial buzzwords that instantly evokes efficiency, waste reduction, and forward movement—but I had to wonder at the wisdom of this decision, just looking, for example, at where the arts and culture will go under the new program, and how well they will be taught and learned under their new rubrics.

I can sense a general urgency to get the kids out of school sooner, to make them employable, and to get them employed. As it is, we already added two years with K-12 to their pre-collegiate education, with many parents, politicians, and even some teachers remaining unconvinced that those extra years were really necessary, given the added expense. I’m not sure if the reduction of 15 core subjects to five has budgetary implications, or was driven by them.

What worries me, going by the subject titles, is that once again, the arts (to include literature, music, dance, the visual arts, and art appreciation) are being subsumed into topics so broad that they will lose the specificity they require to make an impact and leave an impression on the student, to make it self-evident why the arts matter in human life.

I’ve often said in this respect that for far too long, the arts and culture have been treated by our government if not society in general as forms of entertainment, as intermission numbers to lighten the implicit gravity of business, politics, and science. (The guest of honor’s boring speech, following an equally long and tedious introduction, has to be framed by lively song and dance routines to awaken the audience.)

There’s value to that, of course—the ameliorative power of art is one of its primary functions—but as the dramatist will say, comedy is dead serious business behind the laughter. While science and math strive for certainty and precision, thereby addressing the best use of our increasingly limited resources, the arts remind us of our humanity—of our innate imperfections, of our capability to doubt, to weigh and choose between this and that, such as between self-interest and the collective good. 

That’s what happens when you read a good poem or novel or stand before a great painting: you begin to wonder more about yourself and your environment, about your standards of justice or beauty, about the distance between what should be or should have been and what is. Studying literature is about far more than learning communication skills (which you will, along the way)—it is, indeed, about “Life and Career Skills.” 

It is the arts that are inherently interdisciplinary; for example, when I discuss a short story by Manuel Arguilla, we will inevitably discuss history, geography, politics, economics, psychology, and language—while, at the same time, trying to understand the emotional experience we have just been put through. This is the specificity I mentioned earlier, which I fear will be lost in the abstractions of “interdisciplinarity.”

The EdCom II’s Final Report (Turning Point, 2026), where the SHS curricular changes are also noted, unfortunately sees this measure as mere “decongestion.” The report also tells us that the SHS streamlining will remove the dedicated Arts and Design track entirely as a recognized pathway. 

At this point, I’d like to borrow some words from a good friend and one of our leading arts educators, the sculptor Toym Imao, current dean of UP’s College of Fine Arts, who also pored over the EdCom II report and came away with these observations:

“Upon reflection, something becomes very clear to me. There is no substantial national discussion of arts and culture education. The absence is not minor. It reveals a blind spot in our imagining of national reform. Why does ACaD matter now?

“This is not nostalgia but strategy: in an AI-driven era, art, culture, and design are core competencies for critical thinking, ethical judgment, and human-centered innovation.

“We are living through a time of rapid technological change. Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than most institutions can process. Social media algorithms shape taste, identity, and even memory. Culture is packaged, flattened, and circulated at high speed. Labor markets are shifting. At the same time, we have the Creative Industries Development Act, Republic Act 11904, which positions creativity and culture as economic drivers, but sadly the EDCOM 2 reports is wanting in connecting this to urgent educational reform.

“As an artist and educator, I see what this means on the ground. Artificial intelligence systems are trained on massive global datasets that largely come from powerful nations and dominant languages. These systems are not neutral. They reflect the biases, priorities, and aesthetics of where they come from.

“In a country like the Philippines, with hundreds of distinct indigenous, regional, and linguistic cultures, this has consequences. If our own students are not deeply grounded in their cultural traditions, histories, and aesthetic languages, then what fills that space will be imported, automated, and algorithmically repeated. Without strong arts and culture education, cultural knowledge slowly thins out in global digital flows. Indigenous aesthetics risk becoming raw material for data, instead of living practices.

“Students become consumers of images and narratives without the tools to question them.

“In the studio and in the classroom, I see the difference. Arts education trains the eye, the hand, and the conscience. It develops judgment, sensitivity, context, and memory. It teaches students to ask where an image comes from, who it serves, and what it erases. These are not decorative skills. They are human skills.”

I can hardly overemphasize how important this is at a time when we are being roiled by massive corruption and when moral standards collapse or vanish to the point that a president can justify extrajudicial murder and be applauded by millions. A lesson in Greek tragedy is what you need for that.

Qwertyman No. 187: No Better Time for Philippine Publishing

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 2, 2026

I WAS asked by the National Book Development Board to give brief remarks last week at the media launch of this year’s Philippine Book Fair, which will take place from March 12 to 15 at the SM Megamall’s Megatrade Hall. I spoke alongside publishing stalwart Atty. Dominador Buhain of Rex Book Store, who laid out a legislative road map for the book industry in the Philippines.

For my part, I addressed myself to the young Filipino writer, speaking as a senior often accused of being a capo in our so-called “literary Mafia”—my tongue-in-cheek acceptance of which has been taken in dead seriousness by some parties intent on proving that a conspiracy exists out there to rob of them of their literary fame and fortune.

It was a happy coincidence that we were launching the PBF on the 40th anniversary of EDSA 1, because it provided a natural frame within which to appreciate the growth and progress of Philippine writing and publishing, from martial law to where we are today.

Forty years ago, in 1986, I had exactly one book, my first collection of stories. Today I can count more than 45, both fiction and nonfiction, so I guess I’ve been pretty busy (in fact I have another book deadline to meet over the weekend, after I turn in this column). But what many people don’t know is that it took me about a decade to come up with that first book, which was launched in December 1984, and I might have waited longer had it not been for a bet I had made with a dear friend, the late playwright Bienvenido “Boy” Noriega, that we would both come out with our first books by our 30th year (we did).

Having dropped out of college as a student activist after my freshman year, I had very little literary training beyond my own reading. I knew no one and no one knew me; no literary network, no doting mentor or sponsor. I sent out stories to the very few publications open under martial law, like Focus and the Manila Review. I joined all the literary competitions in sight, and lost as many times as I won. I never attended the UP Writers Workshop as a fellow, although I did get invited to the Silliman Writers Workshop in 1981 after the Tiempos came across a published story of mine, after which I felt fired up enough to resume my studies in UP and graduate with my AB in 1984 at age 30. 

My biggest stroke of luck was having a friend from martial-law prison, Raffy Benitez (who would found the Erehwon Arts Center), who ran a small printing press in Quezon City, and who offered to publish my first book from the scrap paper left over at his press. And so Oldtimer and Other Stories (Asphodel Books, 1984) was born. We had no marketing, no bookstore access. Somehow, the books got sold. 

I told this story—which wasn’t mine alone, but my generation’s—to emphasize that there has never been a better time for Philippine writing and publishing than the present. The PBF, now on its fourth year, is the best proof that hundreds of publishers exist out there for all manner of material, from ghost stories, romances, and comic books to big novels, biographies, and collections of essays. Add to that the support network that writers get from writers’ workshops, writing programs, book festivals like the PBF and Frankfurt, literary contests, and of course social media, print-on-demand, and online marketing.

What every writer needs to do to get published is what all writers have done from the very beginning: persevere, get those words on the page, and find a publisher (who will also hopefully provide good editing and marketing). 

There are, of course, writers who believe that “gatekeepers” like me (professors, editors, publishers, reviewers, etc.) merely stand in the way and spoil what should be a great literary experience accessible to everyone. To them I say that if you want complete control over your work and not have to engage in mainstream publishing, you can always publish yourself online, for free, without having to worry about contracts, royalties, launches, and such. 

Otherwise, if you want your book published and put out there, do your homework, find a publisher or agent, and prepare to compromise and negotiate. At its core, publishing remains a business, which has both its good and bad aspects, so learn to navigate the territory, because for the professional writer, it doesn’t end with that final period on the screen—you’re just halfway to your reader. If you think this is too sordid for you, too much of a sellout, then stay away and again, publish yourself (or look for an academic publisher, if your book is worthy enough) and be happy with your reading circle Contrariness can be a virtue; just don’t preach like you’re the only virtuous soul left on the planet.

I may sound like another hard-hearted Boomer, but I won’t echo what one senator said about Gen Z’ers being “weak”; they just deal differently with their realities. Still, there are realities that cut across generations. No one in the world owes you a reading, a publishing contract, a positive review, a spot on the syllabus, and a fistful of money. The demands that matter most are those you make on yourself. Sure, as in any business, contacts and networks count in publishing—but only to a point; again as in any business, no publisher will invest in something too poorly conceived or executed to connect with an audience.

Just write, and don’t let yourself get too distracted by the politics of writing or even of everyday life. If you believe strongly enough, the politics will find its way into your poem or story in the best ways possible—organically, without the shrillness or snarkiness of those who can’t make themselves heard otherwise. If it resonates with others, it will find its way to publication. The usual critics will pile on me for this, but I think there’s too much noise, too much drama, too much flag-waving out there; indulge in it if you will, but I’m too old to care, and I’d rather hole up in my home office with a cup of coffee and peck away at my next novel than prove that I’m more, uhm, Polynesian than thou.

Write your heart out, but with craft and composure; write something moving and memorable, and get that book out with your name on the spine. Me, I’ll be at the PBF to sign books all day on March 15.

Qwertyman No. 186: Countering the Sara Saga

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 23, 2026

TO NO one’s great surprise—except perhaps for the “why now”—Vice President Sara Duterte publicly announced last week her plan to run for president in 2028. 

I’ll leave the more informed and more nuanced readings of this event to the professional analysts, but from my pedestrian point of view, the timing’s the thing. By throwing down the gauntlet so early, more than two years before the actual election, VP Sara is leaving no doubt as to her intentions (which we all knew, already). 

It doesn’t take a PhD in Political Science to see that, more importantly, with her impeachment being revived in the House, presumably to be raised to the Senate, she is serving notice to our notoriously opportunistic politicos that they better fall in step now—or else. The Dutertes still hold sway over vast swaths of political territory especially in the south, where pro-impeachment legislators can be easily picked off and punished in a Duterte restoration. When it comes down to a vote, the math will tell the story of who’s afraid of Sara Duterte.

The question really is, what are we progressive-minded citizens and our leaders supposed to do? 

Right now, the DDS side has one advantage over everyone else. It’s fighting for its life, with whatever power and influence it retains. With its patriarch in prison and his successor in peril for her political future, it has to go all-in on Sara’s candidacy or face even greater and perhaps permanent debilitation. That gives it a clarity of purpose that’s easier to translate to specific actions, to a tight script and playbook, than it is for the yet amorphous, once improbable, and still highly hypothetical Pinklawan-administration united front to agree on the most basic terms of coalition.

I can sense the hand of AI in fleshing out the details of the aforementioned script, but as one recent DDS post puts it, here’s the winning scenario:

“…. A story, the kind of story that does not need advertising, does not need media allies, does not need oligarch money, because it tells itself. A father who loved his country enough to die for it in a foreign prison. A daughter who loved her father enough to fly across the world to sit with him in chains. A people who loved them both enough to wait, and watch, and when the moment came.. to roar!!!

“The grandmaster played his greatest game not from the presidential palace. Not from the campaign trail. Not from a position of power and comfort.

“He played it from a cell. With nothing but his mind, his daughter, and his unbroken faith in the Filipino people.

“And when Sara Duterte raises her right hand in 2028 when the Philippines renders its verdict on everything that has happened, everything that was done to them, everything they endured and refused to surrender — Rodrigo Duterte will not be there to see it. Or maybe he will, we do not know.

“But he will have made it happen.”

I commented on this post by saying “I wonder what the AI prompt was,” because it displays the kind of verbal cadence, the dramatic buildup employing sentence fragments, the repetition for emphasis, so common to AI-assisted compositions. 

But AI or not, it does create the kind of simple but spinnable story that appeals to soft-minded and soft-hearted voters, drawing on a long and deep Pinoy tradition of melodrama that sanctifies the api, the unjustly oppressed. The day before Sara’s announcement, Digong had played his part by casting himself in a letter to the International Criminal Court as a man “old, tired, and frail,” prepared to “die in prison” with his “heart and soul (always remaining) in the Philippines.”

Those of us who know better lost no time pointing out the hypocrisy of the old man’s demand for the “respect” he never showed his political enemies and tokhang victims, and we can all go to sleep convinced of his guilt and wishing for his expectation to be realized. But the truth, in a sense, is almost irrelevant now in what will be a war of narratives, which Sara hopes to win. 

From her side of the story, her father is already lost—and therein lies his political value, as sacrificial martyr, which can only rise should he in fact perish in prison or appear even more “old, tired, and frail” closer to 2028. Her impeachment, if it happens, will also amplify her kaapihan. Her disqualification from running for public office will require another step—a separate vote in the Senate, as far as I know (do correct me if I’m wrong)—or at least a separate and possibly concurrent criminal conviction. She could also resign before impeachment, surfacing the unresolved question of whether she can still be impeached and disqualified after. Clearly, if the point is to appear at a constant disadvantage to project persecution, Sara will not want for options.

And she shouldn’t, because if we believe in her guilt as much as we do in her father’s, then the only way forward is forceful prosecution, the awa factor be damned. Criminal convictions for both will provide a definitive conclusion. But on the safe assumption that nothing in this country, including some Supreme Court decisions, is ever truly final, it remains possible that Sara Duterte will be on the ticket in 2028. 

Whatever kind of opposition emerges to contest the DDS will need a powerful counter-narrative to the Sara saga—which, I suspect, will wear thin as the evidence of criminal wrongdoing piles up against the Dutertes at the Hague and in Manila. 

An ascendant story could emerge from someone who has her own underdog story to tell—of being diminished and marginalized in Digong’s regime, but of serving nobly nonetheless—and, more significantly, of keeping herself busy all this time far from messy Manila, improving the lives of her constituents in concrete and tangible ways. 

I think we all know who that person is, and what a compelling and positive comeback story she can offer, against the vengefulness and the sordidness of the successor who turned her office into a junk-food dispensary.

Qwertyman No. 185: A Joke for World Peace

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 16, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump places a note in the Western Wall in Jerusalem May 22. (CNS photo/Jonathan Ernst, Reuters) See TRUMP-JERUSALEM-HOLY-SEPULCHER May 22, 2017.

I JUST love it when a piece of mine about the goings-on in the US gets a rise out of some MAGA expat—and you’ll be surprised how many of them have chosen to reside here, forsaking what I would have thought would have been the sweet comforts of life in Fortress America. 

A message from a guy we’ll call “Bob” reacted to my recent column on “What I Told the Fil-Ams” by suggesting that I had imbibed too much “Cali water,” referring to that state’s trenchant liberalism. I responded by sending him a joke about an American President in the Holy Land, which I hope he appreciated. (I’ve resolved that this is how I’ll deal with my critics from now on, as long as they remain friendly enough—which to his credit Bob was—kill them with kindness, or at least with corny jokes, of which I have a barrelful. I’ll save a special section for MAGA Pinoys, who keep telling me to butt out of their business but who can’t help doling out prescriptions for their ex-countrymen to find their way to the light.)

I’ve often wondered if our world can get much worse than it already is, knowing all the while that the answer can only be yes, yes, emphatically yes. Still, it comes as a rude shock every time fresh confirmation arrives of a new Marianas Trench in human greed, crassness, and stupidity. 

All by himself, Donald J. Trump accounts for more than half of every week’s lows, and I’d like to think that I’ve become immune to further aggravation by this man, only to be roundly disabused. Last week, Trump outdid himself in crudity by putting out a meme on his social network depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys. 

When called out by even his own, usually docile partymates for the patently racist post, Trump passed it off to some unnamed “assistant” who supposedly made the mistake, which Trump claimed to have been too occupied to pay close attention to. Why the President of the United States would leave his personal account open to some junior flunky is ludicrous enough; that he would expect anyone to believe his lame excuse is beyond laughable. His spokesperson derided the ensuing protest as “fake outrage” and called for renewed attention to “the things that truly matter to the American people,” as though racism, decency, and honesty no longer mattered.

But Trump isn’t even the issue here any longer; the man is irredeemably vain, vile, and vicious. (Let’s not even mention—but heck, let’s—his offensiveness to beauty and good taste, with his insistence on gilding the White House, plastering his name all over the place, and picking Kid Rock over Bad Bunny.) Like our own Rodrigo Duterte, he has long cast his lot with Darth Vader & Co., not even pretending to be good, or to be aiming for such banalities as truth, freedom, and justice. In the words of one of his chief lieutenants, Stephen Miller, the age of “international niceties” is over; the only things that count today are “strength, force, and power,” which Trump & Co. have liberally deployed—not against global bullies like Vladimir Putin, but chiefly against the American people themselves. 

But again, let’s put the Orange Man aside for a minute. The real danger is that there are tens of millions of people who think the way he does, and who probably thought that way even before he gave Trumpism a face, a voice, and a name. These are people for whom daily doses of falsehood have become the norm, and I really couldn’t care less if they believe that Satanic Democrats drink the blood of kidnapped children, except that their weirdness creeps up to the White House and into the kind of domestic and foreign policy that makes life difficult for us 8,000 miles away, and emboldens other despots.

I’m not saying here that we don’t have our own version of Trumpers to deal with (and I’m adding this paragraph for the MAGAs who’ll remind me to stick to the local, a description I expect them to extend, in MAGA logic, to Greenland). Our DDS, in many ways, offer a parallel constituency; like many MAGA members, their grievances are rooted in historical neglect and a sense of displacement in rapidly changing times. They pinned their hopes on a man who was supposed to improve their lives—but who didn’t, distracted by a megalomaniacal drive to reshape society to his grim vision. 

This is why I haven’t given up on Digong’s faithful; there’s a valid cultural dimension to their disaffection in terms of Mindanao and Manila-centrism, but their issues can be addressed by attentive and equitable governance. The corruption issues that have gutted the country have devastated them as well. Except for the shrillest and most invested in a Sara succession, I feel that many can yet be persuaded to choose responsible leadership. 

In this respect—and this may not be shared by many, given the lows to which our own politicos have fallen, with some in need of growing a spine and others a brain or at least a heart—I feel more hopeful for the Philippines in the medium term than I do for America, and I think that’s saying a lot.

Now let’s wait for the MAGA backlash; I have lots of Trump jokes lined up to brighten their day, restore their sense of humor, and maybe help bring about world peace. 

Qwertyman No. 184: What I Told the Fil-Ams

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 9, 2026

LAST WEEK, at the Executive House of the University of the Philippines where he officially resides, UP President Angelo “Jijil” Jimenez graciously hosted a delegation of about twenty Filipino-American business and community leaders from San Diego, California, led by our honorary consul there, Atty. Audie de Castro. 

I was happy and proud to have helped facilitate this visit, having some close personal and professional ties myself to San Diego. Our unica hija Demi married a San Diegan, and has happily lived there with her husband Jerry for almost 20 years now. My wife Beng and I visit her nearly every year if we can afford it. 

San Diego also happens to be where a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Julie Hill, lives in a lovely home in Rancho Sta. Fe. Julie stayed in the Philippines for some years many decades ago when her husband was the Ford Foundation representative here and fell in love with the country and its people, and despite having traveled and served all over the world, the Philippines retains a special place in Julie’s heart. The last time I dropped in on her a year ago, Julie (who’s approaching 90) announced that she was donating what came out to more than P20 million to help the poorest of UP students. Atty. De Castro helped to formalize that donation as our consul in San Diego, cementing our relationship.

Professionally, but through Julie’s recommendation, I also served as Pacific Leadership Fellow in 2014 at the University of California San Diego, where I had previously lectured on Philippine-American affairs. Beng, meanwhile, observed operations and state-of-the-art techniques at the Balboa Art Conservation Center.

In other words, we’ve established rather close ties to this sunny and vibrant city in Southern California, where many generations of Fil-Ams have taken root, mainly because of the US naval base there, where thousands of Filipino sailors recruited from the Philippines have served. That’s how Demi’s in-laws came to San Diego from Bicol, their children born as Americans but deeply mindful of their Filipino heritage.

Many of our visitors never saw the Philippines until they were grown up, and I think most were setting foot on the UP campus for the first time. So we gave them the warmest reception and the best orientation we could, and engaged them over lunch in a lively discussion.

One of them asked: “What is the Filipino dream?” My UP colleagues responded to that in various ways, coming from different technical and academic disciplines. I tried to give a pedestrian answer: “The Filipino dream is actually a fairly simple one: a roof over one’s head, food on the table, a good education for the children, peace and justice in our communities. We dream for our families. But like all seemingly simple things, achieving that dream is difficult and complicated.”

The visitors had earlier asked President Jimenez about UP’s role in national leadership, and beyond citing how many presidents, senators, and Supreme Court justices we’ve produced—which, to be honest, has also contributed to the ruination of our nation—Jijil emphasized the value his administration places on service to the Filipino people, which can manifest even from beyond our shores. He spoke of UP sharing its knowledge and resources with other SUCs, of UP assuming its responsibilities as the country’s national university—a concept perhaps alien to the American situation but entirely relevant to ours. (I was aware, of course, that UP has many internal issues and priorities of its own to sort out—it always has, regardless of administration.)

A more challenging discussion was one that I had on the side with two ladies who admitted that they represented two ends of the American p0litical spectrum, but had managed to remain friends despite their differences. Their question for me was, what did I personally think of what was happening in America?

No longer in UP spokesman mode, I could have answered as bluntly as possible, but I wanted to give them the more nuanced answer their friendship deserved. 

I began by saying that I considered myself an exemplar of American colonial education, having gone to a private elementary school in the 1960s where I learned about “heifers” and “mackinaws” long before I ever got to see real ones, and even memorized American states and their capitals, to the dismay of my future American friends when we played Trivial Pursuit. I shed off much of the mystification as a student activist in the 1970s and took a far more critical view of the American influence over our history, economy, and politics. 

But the indoctrination was so effective that I retained a fundamental affection and even admiration for many aspects of American culture and technology, and maintained a lifelong and ultimately professional interest in the US. I studied and worked for five years in the Midwestern heartland, in Michigan and Wisconsin, I taught American literature—not just in UP but in America itself, to college students who seemed surprised that I seemed to know more about their country than they did. Not just because our daughter lives there, I continue to follow American affairs keenly, starting my day with the digital editions of the New York Times and the Washington Post (the latter now sadly degraded).

What I told them was that this America was no longer the America I once thought I knew and looked up to, despite its excesses. I said I thought I understood, at least in part, where MAGA was coming from, in the neglect of the American working class and their anxieties in a rapidly changed world. At the same time, Donald Trump had ridden on those grievances to empower and aggrandize himself and the billionaire elite, trampling on the very liberties that had once defined American democracy, imposing his racist and imperialist vision of America, and endangering global peace and security. The shootings in Minnesota were profoundly shocking and depressing. I said that as much as it saddened me, with loved ones in the US, I did not plan on visiting America again until this madness had passed. If even American citizens could be dragged by masked men into vans and summarily deported to El Salvador, then I did not want to risk an encounter with the American Gestapo.

I could have added that both Americans and Filipinos, as polarized as we have become, need to find some common ground, as we share problems that cut across our differences. Bu the time was short, and we sent our guests off with a smile.

Qwertyman No. 182: Artists, Athletes, and Avatars

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Qwertyman for Monday, January 26, 2026

SOCIAL MEDIA was abuzz last week with mainly praises for but also some questions about Hidilyn Diaz’s appointment to teach weightlifting at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. 

I don’t think anyone doubted the Olympic gold medalist’s mastery of her subject. One post that went viral, however, wondered whether the athlete had what it took to teach at UP, considering that all the preparation she would have received was a four-day orientation the university gives all new faculty members. 

To be fair to the questioner, her concern was legitimate, taking Hidilyn the sports celebrity out of the picture for a minute. As I’ll discuss later, proficiency in a talent or profession doesn’t necessarily translate to good teaching. 

To be fair to Hidilyn, unlike many Filipino athletes, she’s no stranger to the classroom, having graduated in 2023 with a bachelor’s degree in business management from St. Benilde, after several interruptions because of her training and the pandemic.

I have no doubt myself that despite her lack of teaching experience, Hidilyn will be a fine, welcome, and indeed a prize addition to the UP faculty roster. Her presence alone will galvanize student interest in her sport, and in UP athletics in general. 

Her teaching, I’m pretty sure, will take care of itself. Having trained with some of the world’s best coaches, she will not lack for topics and techniques. What will probably challenge her the most will be her transition from star to student—as the learner of teaching that she will have to be. Her students will have to get over their awe of her celebrity to imbibe her lessons. 

Her first year will be fraught with both exhilaration and frustration, as the enthusiasm and even the ecstasy of teaching are weighed down by the drudgery of academic bureaucracy—particularly in UP which, despite its leadership in many fields, remains a laggard in the prompt payment of salaries for new hires.

The fact that we’re even talking about this shows how far we’ve come from the past, when a good reputation was enough to get you in front of the blackboard.

The problem here isn’t Hidilyn, and not even just UP itself, but a global academic culture that seems to have been taken over by the accountants and professional managers from the dreamers. 

I have nothing per se against the numbers crunchers, who are central and vital to every modern university’s survival. But the seemingly ceaseless demand for performance metrics to justify budgets, promotions, and bonuses—a mind-numbing exercise for staff already exhausted from their regular chores—can produce a false dazzle that favors consistency of delivery and even of mediocrity over originality, non-conformity, and inspiration.

As a writer and also a professor and former university administrator myself, I can appreciate the peculiar challenges of recruiting and sustaining what we might call non-traditional academics like creatives and athletes in this kind of environment. You need them to identify and develop their successors among their students; conversely, many of them also need the security of a job. 

But teaching is its own art, its own sport, its own discipline—and I know, from sad experience, that not all artists and athletes, no matter how gifted they may be in their fields, can teach. Some lack the people skills and the empathy the classroom requires; the most expressive artists can be woefully inarticulate, the lithest athlete inexplicably clumsy. 

Those who do connect—performers who know their audiences and who value contact and feedback and continuous learning—become the best teachers.

Many of them might not even meet today’s stringent entrance standards. UP’s College of Science, for example and for good reason, now requires a PhD of its teaching applicants. The humanities and athletics obviously can’t enforce that rule, given that there are Literature PhDs who can’t write a decent poem and SportsEd PhDs who can’t swim.

On the other hand, some very fine writers have taught at UP without even a bachelor’s degree because of their extraordinary talent, notably NVM Gonzalez, IP Soliongco, Jose Lacaba, and Ricky Lee. 

This will be self-serving, but no better example of that kind of avatar exists at UP today than my wife June, who has been teaching the very first course in Art Conservation at the College of Fine Arts as a senior lecturer for the past three years.

Now 75, June came into teaching late in life, after a long career in the arts as a graphic designer, watercolorist, and for the past quarter-century as an art restorer and conservator running her own studio. Few people in this country (excuse the proud husband speaking) have her skill and experience, having worked on all the Filipino masters from Luna, Hidalgo, and Amorsolo onward, including the Spoliarium. She had always dreamt of teaching, knowing how few authentic and scientific conservators there are in the Philippines, and the need to train the young.

The only problem was, as a student activist, she had left UP under martial law a few units short of completing her Fine Arts degree. She married me, worked, became a mother, and never went back to school.

But she did train long and hard in conservation and restoration with the Agencia Internacional of the Spanish government, practically every day for a full year, in a program more rigorous than a master’s. On the strength of that training and her experience—she and her team have restored the collections of the Central Bank, the Philippine National Bank, and the GSIS, among others—she was taken in by UP to advise the administration on conserving the university’s vast art collections, leading to her appointment as lecturer (for a subject that, frankly, no one else in UP can teach right now). Aside from her classes, June has been advocating for UP to set up its degree program in conservation and an Arts Conservation Center to serve as both a teaching and service facility. She still runs her own Artemis Art Restoration company for private clients. For a 75-year-old dropout, that can’t be too bad. She complains of fatigue and of being perplexed by the world of AI, and says she wants to stop before dementia sets in, but I know her students love her and wish she would teach forever (because they tell her so).

I myself was a dropout for a decade and had worked as a journalist and screenwriter before returning to UP to finish my degree so I could teach—which I ended up doing for 35 years and still do long after retirement. 

When I think of Hidilyn Diaz coming in to UP amid all the fuss, I want to tell her to just relax, and to enjoy the campus and her students. Teaching in UP will be full of joys and aggravations, but the heaviest lifting will be within her—of doubts, fears, and the catcalls of the rabble in the bleachers. Welcome to the home of Honor, Excellence, and Service—and never mind that it also happens to be a hornets’ nest.

Qwertyman No. 179: Omitting Flowers

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Qwertyman for Monday, January 5, 2026

THIS COMES a bit too late to affect the box office in any way (and it’s not as if anything I write sends people scurrying anywhere), but my wife Beng and I just saw “Manila’s Finest,” and we left much impressed and hopeful for Philippine cinema.

We were out of town for most of the Christmas holidays so we unfortunately got to see only this one film among all of the Metro Manila Film Festival entries. We’d heard good things about the other entries as well, and the fact that “Manila’s Finest” ended up in only third place for Best Picture tells me that we probably missed out on what seems to be a bumper crop. But this isn’t about the MMFF, and I won’t even call it a formal review. It’s more of an emotional reaction to a period and a milieu I happen to have some familiarity with.

“Manila’s Finest” is set in a precinct of the Manila Police from 1969 to 1972, a time of great social and political turmoil. It revolves around the character of Lt. Homer Magtibay (very capably played by Piolo Pascual), a policeman who, despite his flaws, holds on to an old-fashioned sense of duty just when the police service is becoming more politicized in preparation for martial law. He has his hands full with a gang war, only to realize that an even deadlier kind of factionalism is emerging within the force itself, with the rising power of the Philippine Constabulary’s Metropolitan Command, or Metrocom. He also has to deal with trouble at home, as his daughter has become a student activist, the kind that he and his fellow cops have to face with truncheons at the rallies. It dawns on him that it isn’t petty crooks creating chaos in the streets, but the government itself, setting the stage for a crackdown. The movie ends, rather abruptly, on a dire note of warning, hinting at darker times ahead.

The film appealed to me on many levels—the political, the aesthetic, the narrative—but most strongly at the personal, because of the memories it inadvertently brought up. To begin with, my late father Jose Sr. was a cop—or almost. A law student who never finished (like the movie’s Homer), he joined the police academy, in the same batch that produced the future MPD chief James Barbers. The very first picture in my photo album is that of him in police uniform, at parade rest. He never joined the force, perhaps because he married, but he did become an agent for the Motor Vehicles Office, and I remember how impressed I was by his silvery badge when he flashed his wallet open on the jeepney rides we took. That was the kind of thrall in which lawmen at the time were held, or at least I so imagined; they kept the world safe and peaceful, and held evil at bay. (I was too young to understand that my dad’s MVO badge got us free rides.)

I became an activist in college and joined many rallies and street marches; this changed my view of the police, who became fascist pigs, the enforcers of laws for the rich and powerful. During the Diliman Commune of 1971, I held a kwitis that I was supposed to fire if I saw cops approaching on the perimeter of UP’s Area 14. And then something happened that would reverse my perspective: I dropped out of school to find a job. At age eighteen, I finagled my way into becoming a reporter for the Philippines Herald, with zero units in Journalism but with loads of pluck and some writing talent. Seeing what they were dealing with, my editors led by Oskee Villadolid and Joe Pavia decided to give me a crash course in journalism by designating me as General Assignments reporter and making me do the rounds of the beats: police, education, sports, and so on.

Of course, the police beat turned out to be the most challenging and instructive. I was stationed at MPD headquarters on UN Avenue, and put on the graveyard shift that ra through midnight until the morning. When nothing much was going on, we played ping-pong and waited for the fire alarm bell to ring (we ran out only for major fires, like the Family Clinic fire where my job was to count the dead). I kept a little black book of phone numbers where I could ring up hospitals to ask if any major accidents had come in. I learned of a restaurant near the Luneta where killers could be hired for not too much. Being a snot-nosed newbie, I trailed veterans like Ruther Batuigas to avoid being kuryented or bum-steered. I covered murders and suicides, visited the city morgue at three in the morning, and joined cops on their drives along Ermita, checking on vagrants, just like in the movie. It was all heady stuff for an eighteen-year-old.

But what proved to be most stressful was covering demonstrations, now that I was looking at them from the other side of the barricades, parked in a Herald jeep with a driver and photographer. Despite my job, my sympathies strongly remained with the activists, and I dreaded watching the police donning their riot gear and preparing for certain trouble. These being the days long before cellphones and pagers, there was no way I could warn my comrades about what I thought to be snipers or provocateurs or just agents taking their pictures from the rooftop of the Shellborne Hotel near the US Embassy. When the tear gas canisters began flying all I could do myself was duck and run, and I remember visiting some wounded marchers in the ER later. After I covered the funeral of a rebel killed in combat, praising him effusively and playing up the drama, an editor cleaned up my prose and gave me a very dry lesson in reportage: “Omit flowers.”

That’s the kind of treatment director Raymond Red gives his material in “Manila’s Finest.” Nothing is romanticized, no hero left unsullied, except perhaps for the young activists whose further awakening yet lies ahead of them. This well-crafted and well-acted film deserves all its plaudits; the mature Piolo Pascual is outstanding, as is the period production design (except again perhaps for everyone’s new-looking uniform, the bane of period movies, and a few questionable references time-wise—“barangay,” “the New Society,” and Pierre Cardin-style barongs all came after 1972, if memory serves me right). Most of all, “Manila’s Finest” deserves and indeed demands a sequel, into the time of tokhang, when the moral choices facing the police became even starker. But as it is, at least for me, “Manila’s Finest” may indeed have been the finest of its kind this year.

(Image from walphs.com)

Qwertyman No. 177: Another Way to Lose Money

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Qwertyman for Monday, December 22, 2025

NEXT WEEK, after Christmas, my wife Beng and I are flying to a southern city—I won’t say yet exactly where—for a short break from the stresses of the season. (Surely you’ll agree that there’s no time fraught with more anxiety—and the entire gamut of emotion from euphoria to depression—than a Pinoy Christmas, from its tinkly inception in September to its grim, budget-busting conclusion post-New Year. Let’s not even talk about the traffic.)

Beng and I have done this for years now, making it a point to visit some local place the two of us have never been before—among them Balabac, Camiguin, Dipolog, Roxas City, and Virac, destinations usually passed over by tourists in search of thrills and spills outside our septuagenarian menu. 

We’ve done this out of a deep love for and interest in our country and culture, despite all the inconveniences we associate with local travel. We’ve never been first- or business-class-type passengers to begin with, and despite our age can take a few bumps on the road in search of native fabrics, fresh iterations of suman and fish tinola, and a dip under a waterfall.

In other words, tourism-wise, we’re the easy sell, the low-hanging fruit, with modest expectations and demands and a developed tolerance for discomfort (delayed flights, rough roads, no aircon, the occasional mosquito or cockroach).

Not surprisingly, it isn’t people like us who lift up the Philippine tourism industry. We remain heavily dependent on foreign visitors bearing dollars, won, and yuan, and those tourists—typically educated, digital-savvy millennials seeking leisure and adventure experiences—have literally a planetful of destinations to choose from, and the figures clearly show that even within Southeast Asia, we’re hardly their first choice.

A comprehensive report by Zhan Guo on the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Office (AMRO) website notes that while Philippine tourism has rebounded somewhat since the pandemic, major structural bottlenecks continue to restrain the sector from achieving its full potential.

The report notes that “Compared with ASEAN peers, the Philippines’ international tourism market remains relatively small. Even before the pandemic, the country lagged regional peers in foreign arrivals—8.2 million foreign visitors—well below Indonesia’s 16 million, Malaysia’s 26 million, Thailand’s 40 million, and Singapore’s 15 million. Moreover, foreign tourists remain concentrated in a few destinations: the National Capital Region and Central Visayas (home to Cebu) account for over 60 percent of total foreign overnight stays. Many promising sites remain underdeveloped or difficult to reach.”

In 2024, foreign arrivals barely reached 6 million. As of November 2025, we haven’t even hit 5 million. 

Completing the picture, AMRO notes that “Tourism has long been a cornerstone of the Philippine economy. In 2024, the sector’s gross value added reached ₱3.5 trillion—7 percent higher above pre-pandemic levels—and accounted for 13.2 percent of GDP. It also supported 4.9 million jobs, or 13.8 percent of the labor force. AMRO’s analysis shows that tourism-related industries—such as hotels and restaurants—can generate higher domestic value-added per unit of production input than the average for all sectors, making the sector a key driver of the country’s post-pandemic recovery.”

Now, these figures are helpful, and AI can spout them any time, but what we really need to hear are ground-level stories from real people—tourists and expats—who’ve been here long enough and who can tell us in all candor what we need to do to catch up with our neighbors. I know we Pinoys can be extremely sensitive to criticism, especially when it comes from white people who fly in from their comfort zones and begin to expect everything here to work just as well as they do back home, and who then broadcast their woes and gripes to the world like the Philippines was the foulest and most benighted place on earth, ever. I’m sure we’ve all met louts like these.

But then there are foreigners who actually and deeply love this country—sometimes more than some of us do—despite everything they and we have to bear with, and these are the friends we need to listen to. It was an online encounter with one such expat last week that triggered this column, when I came across the blog of a European who goes by the moniker “The Lazy Traveler,” who’s been living in the Philippines for over a decade now and has traveled quite a bit around the country and the region. 

Let me quote what he wrote (with some minor edits just to improve the flow):

“Main problem: accommodation is bad and overpriced. I’m planning a motorcycle route in Vietnam from south to north. Almost everywhere there, you can sleep for $3–$4. $10 already feels like luxury. In the Philippines, it’s hard to find anything under $10. The average is $25–$30, and the quality is usually terrible.

“I remember sitting at White Beach in Puerto Galera with a resort owner. He showed me rooms priced at almost $100 per night. Inside, everything was broken—doors, toilet flush, fittings. I told him, ‘Don’t be offended, but who is paying 5,000 pesos for that crap?’ His answer: ‘They come fifteen people, so it’s cheap.” (Sleeping on the floor and everywhere.) I asked why he doesn’t fix the rooms. He said, “It will be broken again in two weeks.” That mindset explains a lot.

“If I ride from Pagudpud to General Santos, the trip will cost me at least thirty times more than Vietnam, with more hassle and less comfort.

“Another big issue: transportation. If you don’t have your own transport like a motorcycle, roaming around the Philippines can be a horror—slow connections, overpriced tricycles, limited public transport, and wasted time. Mobility here often feels like a struggle, not freedom.

“Second issue: domestic flights are insanely expensive. Not long ago, Manila–Siargao was close to $400.

“Third issue: too many restrictions, no real freedom. Hiking? Register at the barangay.

Simple trail? Mandatory guide. Then come the fees: ‘local support’ fee, environmental fee, parking fee, toilet fee, shower fee…. That’s why some foreigners call it Feelippines.

“Not to mention the official Facebook page of the Department of Tourism—it’s full of Frasco and Marcos faces instead of destinations. With 1.4 million followers, their posts get 30–40 reactions. Sayang. (I checked the page, and it’s true—JD)

“I love the Philippines. That’s why I’m still here. But if tourism wants to improve, these problems need to be called out—not ignored.”

I’m sure this isn’t the first time we’re hearing these things, and that the government knows what it needs to do. The AMRO paper lays it all down: better transport connectivity, basic utilities and infrastructure, digital readiness, and visitor facilities. 

Now we need BBM to treat this like flood control: another way to lose a lot of money aside from thievery is not to make it when we very well could.

Qwertyman No. 175: A Lid on a Dream

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Penman for Monday, December 8, 2025

LAST WEEK I used the words “tone-deaf” and “cross-eyed” to describe certain quarters with admirably exact and exacting political positions, people of stature and authority—but who then do or say something incomprehensibly off-the-wall that betrays a fundamental disconnect with reality, or with what most people feel. 

In the wake of last weekend’s huge anti-corruption rallies at the Luneta and EDSA, critics were quick to chastise, albeit politely, Cardinal “Ambo” David for seeming to drive a wedge between the two crowds by declining to ally himself with those calling for a transition council. Was he being unnecessarily divisive? 

I almost thought so (we were out of town and couldn’t attend either rally), until I read the statement from Tindig Pilipinas explaining that “The organizers chose… not to adopt calls for the simultaneous resignations of both the top two leaders of the country, or a transition council, because they recognize how easily such demands can be weaponized by insidious forces waiting in the wings…. There have always been differences because the people… are not homogenous. Unity arrives when a critical mass comes together to effect change, through the open and deliberate discussion of differences between actors of good will.” I think that’s something I can understand and even identify with; difference is not necessarily division, for so long as we share a common overarching goal.

“Disconnect” seems more applicable to the case of Trade Secretary Cristina Roque, who got a ton of bricks dumped on her head on social media for proposing that P500 could be enough for a Pinoy family’s noche buena, or traditional Christmas-Eve meal. What planet is she living on, most comments asked. Doesn’t she know that the current price of (name your ingredient) is X per kilo at (name your public market)? What do they expect us to eat at noche buena, canned sardines? Why don’t the DTI secretary and her undersecretaries stick to P500 for their own noches buenas? And so on. 

Never mind that the government later whipped out its calculators to prove, mathematically, that a P500 Christmas dinner was possible—and here’s the magic menu, if you missed it, from the Philippine News Agency: ham (500g): P170; spaghetti noodles (250g): P30; macaroni (200g): P24; mayonnaise (220ml): P121.30; cheese spread (24g): P12; queso de bola (300g): P211.60; fruit cocktail (432g): P61.76; all-purpose cream (110ml): P36.50. 

Maybe it all adds up when you punch the “equals” sign, but not politically, it doesn’t, because a Pinoy Christmas isn’t a numbers game. It’s laden with emotion and not a little illusion—the fantasy of a family coming together for a shared meal, despite the past year’s tribulations, of a door opening and Papa or Ate making a surprise appearance from Dubai with presents in hand, of sick Junior miraculously rising from his bed, to ask for some sweetened ham.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I know the DTI meant otherwise, to show possibilities rather than limits. But that P500 figure dropped like a lid on a dream, a clattering reminder of how difficult things are rather than how hopeful we should be. I guess it’s just the old playwright in me, attuned to the urgings of human hearts and minds, that keeps scripting this scenario of mismatched intention and reception.

At the bottom line, it’s never a good idea, whatever the math says, for the well-off to tell the poor to live within their means, and especially to blame them for their poverty (like “You make yourselves poor and miserable because all you do is make babies, you lack initiative, you don’t save for a rainy day” etc.). That just makes them resent you even more, and start asking questions like, how’d you get so rich, anyway? 

Now of course Sec. Roque never said or even suggested any of those nasty things. All she probably really meant was, hey, let’s all have a merry Christmas—look, even you can afford it at this price point, with the economy doing so well. But again—ooops—up goes the red flag, because however the government may argue that the Philippine economy is performing at a faster clip (reportedly 4.0 percent during the third quarter of 2025) than even neighbors like Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, that can’t mean much to consumers grappling with the rising costs of living (in New York and much of America, the “affordability” issue that the Democrats have seized upon as a winning theme, and which Donald Trump of course dismisses as a figment of his enemies’ imagination). 

It doesn’t help that Christmas comes at yearend, a time for stock-taking and reflection, for year-on-year comparisons of one’s well-being. What was 2025 all about? Did it make our lives any better, or give us something to feel better about in 2026? I suppose that depends on whether you’re looking at the problem (can you help it, if it’s right in your face?) or at the solution (which remains largely wishful thinking).

True, it was good that—by design or inadvertently—President Bongbong Marcos opened a can of worms with that speech on corruption, leading to the flood-control exposés and to an explosion of public outrage not seen since EDSA days. But now those worms are all over the place—some crawling back to the Palace—and it looks like Junior’s going to need a nuclear solution to bring them under control, at the risk of some damage to friends and family, maybe even himself. Whatever happens, the people’s awareness and rejection of massive corruption can’t be undone, and will be a major issue come 2028. That’s progress by any standard. We’ve rediscovered our voice, found our footing, and won’t be duped or silenced. 

On the other hand, it’s never good to realize you’ve been stolen from in the crazy billions. If PBBM can only get that money back into the treasury—and toss in a few billion of his own—then we’d have a truly merry Christmas to look forward to in 2026, with considerably more than P500 to budget for the holiday ham.

Qwertyman No. 174: Doing the Doable

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Qwertyman for Monday, December 1, 2025

AS NOT a few placards in yesterday’s big anti-corruption march would have said, both President Bongbong Marcos and VP Sara Duterte should resign, along with everyone in public office implicated in the flood-control scandal and all the other shenanigans that have come to light over the past couple of months. 

That probably means half the government, but given the current public mood, the more the better, to give the nation a chance to rebuild itself on new foundations of moral rectitude and accountability. At least that’s the long view, supported by the Left among other parties who think that anything short of a national reset will simply paper over the problems and guarantee their comeback. 

It all sounds good, and it does make sense—except that, as we all know, it ain’t gonna happen. 

It’s about as realistic as the expectation that BBM will fall to his knees, own up to the Marcos billions, and ship all that money back to the Philippines on a FedEx plane for mass distribution, any more than VP Sara will admit to her father’s drug-fueled bloodlust, seek forgiveness of all the tokhang victims, and forsake her presidential ambitions. Let’s face it: the Marcos and Duterte dragons will be clawing at each other all the way to 2028. Meanwhile, what are we mere mortals supposed to do or to hope for? 

In the very least, we can ignore the DDS calls for BBM to step down and for Sara to take over, because there’s even less appetite for that than the Both-Resign demand. The Dutertes want to make hay of the moment, but the sun isn’t exactly shining on them. Despite their strong and well-funded social media efforts, the DDS camp seems pretty much in disarray, with Digong in jail, Sara in limbo until February (it tells me something that they approved the OVP’s 2026 budget in full—it’s for the office, not VP Sara, although she doesn’t seem to know the difference), Bato de la Rosa suddenly scarce, and their shot at a junta takeover badly misfiring. 

(The ICC’s predictable decision not to grant his interim release could in fact prove to be an ironic win. Digong at this point is useful only as emotional capital for Sara’s survival and triumph. His camp, I suspect, secretly wants him to stay in The Hague as a symbol of the Marcoses’ unforgivable perfidy. Bringing him back home will mean having to take care of a grumpy old man whose greatest ability—cursing—isn’t helping him much in his present situation; he was never a Leila de Lima, and certainly no Ninoy Aquino.)

All the players’ moves are interesting in this grand melodrama. I frankly can’t trust the Left, either, to show the way forward. Like a religion (did I hear someone say “Iglesia ni Cristo”?), the Left likes to flaunt its moral ascendancy—to “virtue-signal,” in today’s parlance—and its rock-solid grasp of the global and local situation from the Marxist standpoint. And yet it gets all tone-deaf and cross-eyed when it comes to picking its horses—ditching EDSA, but backing billionaire capitalist Manny Villar and then pseudo-nationalist and butcher Rodrigo Duterte for the presidency (should we even mention slaughtering comrades it deemed wayward in the Ahos campaign?). 

Interestingly, the INC also supported Duterte in 2016, and then BBM and Sara Duterte in 2022. While adopting some progressive liberals like Franklin Drilon, Risa Hontiveros, and more recently Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan into its senatorial slate, it has also flexed its machinery behind Duterte surrogates Bong Go and Bato de la Rosa, as well as corruption-tainted Senators Joel Villanueva and Jinggoy Estrada. During its last mass rally last November 25 for “peace, transparency, and accountability,” however, it was careful to distance itself from recent calls for BBM’s resignation. In other words, the INC is the perfect straddler, the seguristathat makes sure it will survive and prosper under any administration, reportedly to secure key government appointments for its favored nominees.

That leaves us and our own wits, which—considering everyone’s else’s brain fog—might yet prove the most trustworthy.

In the realm of the doable, I want to see heads roll—as close to the top as the situation will allow. One way of looking at this, and strangely enough, is that the Filipino people aside, the party with the greatest stake in seeing this anti-corruption campaign through to the end (i.e., just short of the Palace) is PBBM himself. Having opened this Pandora’s box, he well knows that the only way he can keep his own head and hold sway over 2028 is to catch all those demons he released. I don’t know about you, but right now I’m desperate enough to let BBM finish his term in relative peace if he achieves nothing else than the herculean task of cleaning up the stables.

VP Sara’s impeachment trial should resume in February and will be a more efficient and definitive way to shut her out for good. But we have loads of senators, congressmen, department secretaries and undersecretaries, and lesser flunkies all caught up in this mess who should be held to account for their thievery. Hold the big bosses, the ultimate signatories, accountable, sure. But don’t let the second- and third-level enablers and functionaries off, because the message needs to be sent that complicity won’t pay—and that your sponsors will ditch you when things get too hot.

I want to see our courts work, overtime, to expedite the prosecution of these corruption cases. No pussyfooting, please, no Maguindanao massacre here. Let’s put a quick and decisive end to the kind of legalistic foolishness that lets a senator off the hook for a P30-million “private contribution,” with the judgment rendered by the Comelec commissioner who had previously served as that senator’s lawyer. How the heck can that be allowed to happen? What ethical universe are we in? The same goes for former Ombudsman Samuel Martires’ “forgetting” why he had kept secret his decision junking his predecessor’s carefully crafted case against Sen. Joel Villanueva. 

If the Comelec accepts Sen. Rodante Marcoleta’s ridiculous excuse that he kept millions of political donations off his report of campaign expenses because they were meant to be “secret,” then we should launch a million-people march not just against the likes of Marcoleta but also specifically against the Comelec to hound those charlatans out of office. That commissioner who couldn’t find the shame to recuse himself from his former client’s case should be impeached if he doesn’t resign.

I have no problem with people marching and screaming “Marcos, Duterte, resign!”, because we have billions of reasons to be upset with both. But I hope that doesn’t keep us from going after immediate and tangible if less-than-perfect results. Look at it this way—gut the body, and you’ve effectively chopped off the head.

(Photo from rappler.com)