Category Archives: Philippines

Qwertyman No. 141: Purity and Perfection

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Qwertyman for Monday, April 14, 2025

LAST WEEK, former Commission on Audit Commissioner and senatorial candidate Heidi Mendoza—a staunch exponent of good governance and nemesis of crooks—drew flak from some people who would have been her natural allies on the liberal side of the political spectrum: the LGBTQ community. At issue was her expressed disagreement with same-sex marriage, as a personal belief she did not seek to impose on anyone else. That still wasn’t enough for some same-sex marriage advocates, who announced their withdrawal of their support for her candidacy.

Of course both Heidi and her detractors have a right to their opinions, but I can’t help thinking that the only people chuckling at this situation are avatars of neither good governance nor gender rights, but the enemies of both.

Heidi Mendoza hasn’t been alone in this position of being seen to have been right on many things but wrong on—well, something, but something big enough to destroy and erase whatever good they’d done before. “Being seen” is important here, because it’s a matter of perception; like beauty, “wrongness” is in the eyes of the beholder. 

Today’s social media is populated by such beholders who can’t wait to see personalities make what they deem to be mistakes, and often to point those out with all the hawkish attentiveness of dancesport judges and the ruthless certitude of Pharisees. 

I’m sure you’ve come across many more such instances of people whom you thought you knew and whose ideas you had largely agreed with, only to find them—suddenly one morning—the object of the nastiest vitriol the Internet can be capable of dishing. Once blood is spotted in the water, the sharks start circling and a feeding frenzy follows. Many comments simply echo the previous one, seeking to be even louder and crueler; little attention is paid to context and nuance.

Witness what has happened just these past few weeks:

A political scientist and commentator who had grown a substantial following for his liberal positions got skewered for comparing Mindanao to sub-Saharan Africa. Never mind his explanatory reference to a scholarly study which made that comparison based on certain criteria. In the verbal shorthand of a TV interview, the soundbite was all that mattered to many.

An expert on infectious diseases—globally recognized in that field—was savaged for opining that former President Rodrigo Duterte should have been tried by a Philippine court instead of being bundled off to The Hague. Never mind that the good doctor made it clear that he was against EJK and all the wrongs that the old man is now in the dock for. Netizens seemed to take it against him that he tried to explain how many Mindanawons felt about Duterte, and that he had worked under that administration to help stop Covid during the pandemic.

A prominent journalist and exponent of ethical journalism—also a fervent convert to evangelical Christianity—upset and lost many friends when he declared his disagreement with the idea of transgender athletes competing with their biological counterparts. (It was a view shared by a former student of mine, a lawyer and legal scholar of the same religious persuasion.) This man’s longstanding commitment to the truth and to justice seemed trivial compared to what he had to say on this one issue.

No doubt these issues are centrally important to some, the litmus test by which they judge people’s character and their “true colors.” But which color is truly “true”—the mass of blue or the spot of yellow? And what effect does single-issue politics have on the big picture?

I wonder what all those Arab-Americans who withheld their vote for Kamala Harris because she didn’t sound pro-Palestinian enough are thinking now that the man they effectively helped return to power is speaking unabashedly about Gaza as “an incredible piece of real estate.” I know that some continue to insist that they did the right thing in holding on to the one issue that mattered to them, and of course it was their right to do so. But I can’t help thinking of all those Fil-Ams who trumpeted the Orange Guy’s alleged support for the rights of the unborn, in disregard of all the pain and misery he’s causing to the born. 

Me, I’m as liberal as they come, with all of that word’s pitfalls and contradictions. I believe in civil liberties and human rights, in free speech, in freedom from censorship, in the equal application of the law for all. I also support divorce, same-sex marriage, abortion rights, transgender rights, and gun control. I stand neither with Zionists nor Hamas but for peace for the people of Israel and Palestine. I believe in and pray to God—a God who is good and just—but mistrust organized religion and both extreme Right and Left (indeed, anyone who claims to know how life should be lived) and resist doctrine of any kind, whether Church, State, or Party. If you’re my FB friend and you find any of these too reprehensible for comfort, feel free to unfriend me, or to stop reading this column. 

I have to admit that, following major upheavals like the 2022 election and the Duterte arrest, I’ve lightened my roster of Facebook friends by offloading a number of characters whose preferences I loathed. I didn’t have any qualms about that, because they were “friends” only in the shallowest Facebook sense of the word. (I find Facebook useful, but blame it for its degradation and devaluation of “friendship.”) Most had never interacted with me, and neither of us would miss the other.

But there are friends you have in real life who are arguably worth more than their politics or religion. By this I don’t mean that they fatten your bank account or make your life easier (although some might); if anything, they remind us how much more complicated people and life can be, and how ideological purity or moral perfection may ultimately be less important (and certainly more boring) than the challenge of finding some common ground and surviving together. In continuing to talk with them, we talk with ourselves and those parts of us still capable of doubt and wonder. 

So disagree as I may with her on this particular point, I’m voting for Heidi Mendoza. I suspect I stand a better chance of convincing her to support same-sex marriage than of straightening out the crooks and dimwits eager to take her place in our already benighted Senate.

Qwertyman No. 140: The City of Stories

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Qwertyman for Monday, April 7, 2025

THIS PAST weekend, I was down in Dumaguete City with National Artist for Literature Resil Mojares, historian Ambeth Ocampo, and scores of other writers for the 2nd Dumaguete Literary Festival. At my age, I’ve frankly tired of going to literary festivals, conferences, and workshops, preferring to work quietly at home—Dr. Mojares apparently feels the same way—but we couldn’t resist the allure of Dumaguete, a city central to the development of Philippine postwar literature, and always well worth visiting on its own for its gentle charms.

I personally have much to thank Dumaguete for, for what it contributed to my own budding literary and academic career. Early in 1981, shortly after I had returned from my first visit to the US, I received an invitation from Dr. Edilberto Tiempo to join the Silliman Writers Workshop which he and his wife Edith—the poet and future National Artist—had started two decades earlier upon their own homecoming from America. 

I had dropped out of college for a decade by then, and was working at NEDA, which had sent me to the US for an observation tour. What that trip to the American Midwest—mainly the campus of Michigan State in East Lansing—did for me was to rekindle my interest in learning. Dr. Tiempo’s invitation could not have come at a better time: a summer devoted to talking about poetry and fiction at Silliman University felt dreamlike, and by the time the workshop ended, my head spinning with magical lines from Robert Graves, I had resolved to quit my job, go back to UP, and just study, write, and teach for the rest of my life. And that’s what happened.

I wasn’t alone in that kind of transformative experience; as the country’s oldest writers’ workshop, the Silliman summer workshop became a virtual rite of passage for young writers, especially in English (some writers in Filipino have also attended, with works in translation). Silliman itself (older than UP by several years) has produced many of the Philippines’ finest writers, aside from the elder Tiempos—among them Ricaredo Demetillo, Aida Rivera-Ford, Merlie Alunan, Leoncio Deriada, Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Elsie Coscolluela, Rowena Tiempo-Torrevillas, Marjorie Evasco, Lakambini Sitoy, Artemio Tadena, and Myrna Peña-Reyes. It also has a strong performing arts tradition, contributing the likes of National Artist Eddie Romero, Gilopez Kabayao, Amiel Leonardia, Junix Inocian, and Elmo Makil, among others.

For all these, Dumaguete has been formally nominated to be designated as a UNESCO City of Literature—one of many such distinctions listed under UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network program that was launched in 2004 to recognize and celebrate cities around the world—350 of them form more than 90 countries to date—for their signal achievements in Crafts & Folk Art, Design, Film, Gastronomy, Literature, Music, and Media Arts. So far, 53 cities in 39 countries have been named Cities of Literature—among them Barcelona, Heidelberg, Iowa City, Lahore, and Norwich. (Iloilo has already been named a City of Gastronomy, and Quezon City is vying to be designated a City of Film.) With the Philippines serving as this year’s Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Dumaguete’s recognition as a UNESCO City of Literature will raise our global cultural profile even higher, and let the Philippines be known for more than Boracay, Manny Pacquiao, and Imelda’s shoes.

Leading that charge for Dumaguete is Silliman University literature professor Ian Rosales Casocot, one of our best fictionists and co-director of the festival with Gayle Acar. Working with the Dumaguete City government, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Buglas Writers Guild which Ian heads, Ian notes that aside from developing writers, “Dumaguete itself has been a constant subject of many literary works, from novels to poetry, from essays to plays. It is high time that Dumaguete is recognized for its role in shaping literature in our corner of the world.” The well-attended Dumaguete Literary Festival, now on its second edition, offers proof positive of that city’s continuing centrality to our literary life and culture. 

We had been invited to share our views on various aspects of Philippine literature in this age of artificial intelligence. I joined a panel of writers dedicated to that specific topic—or, as they put it, “Can AI Win a Nobel Prize for Literature?”—which happened to be something I’ve given much thought to.

Understandably, there’s been a lot of fear and anxiety—even outright hostility—generated by the emergence of AI in nearly every aspect of human life and society. Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazawa, for example, has forsworn the use of AI in his work, calling it “an insult to life itself.” While it has been hailed for its contributions to such fields as medicine and criminology—shortening diagnostic procedures and sharpening digital forensics—AI’s application to less mechanical endeavors is more fraught with both ethical and technical questions. 

In previous lectures and again in Dumaguete, I showed how—at this point—AI poses little threat to the writer of truly good and imaginative literature, by yielding execrable responses to such prompts as “Write a paragraph about a summer night in Spanish Manila in the style of Nick Joaquin.” It’s worth a laugh, but I’m not sure how long we’ll be laughing; AI’s present ineptitude simply means it has a lot to learn—and it will, with the kind of training it’s being fed off our books, our texts, our manner of writing. It will only be a matter of time—I’d say less than a decade—before AI can mimic the best of global writing. For me, the best response is neither to hate nor to ignore it, but to understand it and employ it for helpful uses we have yet to find. (We’re already tapping AI every time we use Google, and no one seems to mind.) It should even be possible for authors to creatively interact with AI in what I’m calling a game of prompts.

What we can reasonably certain of is that while literary styles can be copied, the human imagination is far richer and stranger than we think. AI tends to homogenize; the good creative writer strives to be unique. Like Dumaguete, there’s a whole city, a labyrinthine cosmopolis, of stories in every writer’s mind to be discovered and explored.

Penman No. 473: New Light on (and from) the Philippine Short Story

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Penman for Sunday, April 6, 2025

FEW MAY have noticed, but this year, 2025, marks the centenary of what has been widely acknowledged to be our first classic short story in English, Paz Marquez Benitez’s deathless “Dead Stars.”

As I’ve often observed as both a writer and teacher of Philippine literature, there’s probably no literary form more popular among Filipinos than the short story and its predecessors—myths, legends, folktales, and such stories that draw on the power of narrative to tell and teach us something about human life. 

A lot of this has to do with the fact that people and cultures everywhere have made use of stories to make sense of things—to establish causality in human actions—often as a way of prescribing and also proscribing certain behaviors. Stories were there to learn from, like the biblical parables, Aesop’s fables, and the creation myths. The more exciting and entertaining the stories were, the easier the learning happened. Even the mere recognition of oneself in a story that could have taken place a thousand years ago in a place across the planet makes our lives seem more meaningful.

In the Philippines—as it did in the West, where the modern short story took form—the short story was a staple of prewar weekly magazines like the Sunday Tribune, where a story written by an American author would be matched by a local story during what our early literary scholars like Leopoldo Yabes would call our period of apprenticeship. This was in English, but the short story in Filipino (then Tagalog) and other Philippine languages had developed even earlier, and continued (as it continues) to explore new forms and material.

Why the short story and not the novel? That’s another long discussion to be had, and I’ve addressed it in a lecture titled “Novelists in Progress,” but the short of it is that, well, we Pinoys like things in small doses (think Nick Joaquin’s “heritage of smallness”), and the short story satisfies our craving for a touch of fiction and fantasy in our ordinary lives. We’re not marathoners, but great sprinters; we’re not summiteers or navel-gazers, but masters of the street and alley. 

And so, over the past century, important anthologies of the Philippine short story have been published, tracking the development of the genre and its practitioners, from Yabes’ landmark Philippine Short Stories 1925-1940 (a project continued by Gemino Abad for 1956-2008) to Isagani Cruz’s Best Philippine Short Stories of the Twentieth Century (2000). Outside of English, Mga Agos sa Disyerto edited by Efren Abueg came out in 1964, proclaiming new directions for Tagalog short fiction, and the much-needed Ulirat: Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines was published in 2021, edited by Kristine Ong Muslim.

But the 21st century is now a quarter of the way through, and just in these past two decades or so, a fresh bumper crop of brilliant new stories has built up, awaiting harvest.

Five years ago, an American friend named Gerald “Jerry” Burns—a fellow academic and a scholar of Philippine literature in English, now Emeritus Professor at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire—decided to do just that: review the best of the newest Philippine short stories and produce a selection with which to introduce them to the world. He needed a collaborator, and having worked with Jerry earlier when he was a Fulbright professor at our English department in UP, I agreed to co-edit the volume with him. Because of our backgrounds, our stories would be mainly those written in English (and the excellent Ulirat had already covered much more ground in the other Philippine languages than we ever could) but Jerry wisely insisted that we should have at least some representation of non-English stories in translation in the book, if only to lead the reader to explore more in Ulirat.

The selection process was predictably long and bruising, with all the political, aesthetic, and practical considerations that go into anthologizing, but in the end we came up with 18 stories written by both familiar and fresh names, from within and beyond the Philippines, including the diaspora: Dennis Andrew Aguinaldo, Dean Francis Alfar, Mia Alvar, John Bengan, Ian Rosales Casocot, Richard Giye, Vicente Groyon, Ino Habana, Carljoe Javier, Monica Macansantos, Perry Mangilaya, Doms Pagliawan, Ma. Elena Paulma, John Pucay, Anna Sanchez, Larissa Mae R. Suarez, Lysley A. Tenorio, and Socorro Villanueva. We also found an agreeable and supportive publisher, Milflores Publishing, fortuitously run by Andrea Pasion-Flores, herself a fine fictionist who understood the need for a new anthology like this, especially on the threshold of the Philippines’ participation as Guest of Honor in this year’s Frankfurt Buchmesse.

The book’s title, What Light It Can Hold: The Philippine Short Story in the Twenty-First Century, was suggested to Jerry by an encounter with the piña weavers of Kalibo, Aklan, and a caption he saw that said: “How fragile a single thread of piña is, how delicate, but look how much light it can hold.” He explains that “What Light… is intended to recognize the limited capacity of the Philippine short story in this period to offer any widespread or definitive illumination of the nation’s life and culture. At the same time, a more expansive understanding of that title is possible. For the short story, as will be suggested in the next pages, is a signature Philippine product, too. And these slender narratives, fashioned by their makers with a skill, patience, and devotion comparable to the piña weavers’, bring what light they can hold to vital areas of contemporary Philippine and larger human experience.”

No anthology project will be without its perceived failures and omissions, and Dr. Burns and I remain fully open to criticism in that respect. But we believe the sympathetic reader still stands to profit from both the selections and the introduction, penned largely by Jerry, that makes salient observations on the changes that have taken place in this most favored literary form of ours over the past century. Happy reading! (What Light It Can Hold is available on Lazada and Shopee.)

Qwertyman No. 139: Filipinos for Nothing

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 31, 2025

THERE’S A part of me that wants to stop beating up on the Dutertes, lest I be accused of being part of the Marcos propaganda machine (which stands to benefit from all this anyway, whatever I say), but like the gift that keeps on giving, the D’s and their people just won’t let me let them be. Being no lawyer, I’ll have nothing to say on the legality or otherwise of the former President’s arrest and forced departure for the Netherlands—except to opine, as others have, that justice sometimes works in mysterious ways.

My beef for this week is how the Duterte Agitprop Department (let’s call it DAD, like Elon Musk’s DOGE) has spun the whole ICC affair in the public sphere. These days, you never expect people to stand on the truth and nothing but the truth in these political matters. But you do hope for s0me degree of sophistication, for the kind of professional finesse that will justify the multimillions that any PR crew tasked with saving Rodrigo Duterte’s skin—or barring that, at least his reputation—will have been budgeted.

There are three propositions by the Duterte camp that I want to focus on, among many others that have arisen since the arrest.

First, his supposed global allies and endorsers. 

Donald Trump, for example, reportedly took precious time out from dismantling American democracy to declare that “We will protect Rodrigo and the Filipino people from the oppression you are facing…. I and the United States will not allow any of our allies and friends to suffer, and we will impose sanctions against the Marcos Administration for the unlawful act they did.” Why, he had even called Xi Jinping—not about tariffs, not about Taiwan, not about American forces in the Philippines—but about the “serious matter concerning our good friend Rodrigo.” For his part, Xi Jinping—who on a state visit to Manila did say “Our relations have now seen a rainbow after the rain” in response to Duterte’s more prosaic “I simply love Xi Jinping!”—supposedly brought up the Duterte arrest and the ICC in his opening address to the Boao Forum for Asia. Not to be outdone, another Duterte hero, Vladimir Putin, was reported to have threatened (someone—not specified) with “grave consequences” for Duterte’s arrest, as it violated the Rome Statute (which Russia incidentally pulled out of in 2016).

It’s all good when a national leader of superlative virtue and achievement has been so badly wronged that the world takes notice and his peers rise up in alarm to protest the injustice. But really—Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin, all of them prime candidates for the ICC’s hospitality (Putin already is, along with Benjamin Netanyahu)? Never mind that all these supposed endorsements turned out to be fake; they still elicited applause from the DDS faithful, which I suppose was the intended effect. Q: Would it have been too much to expect an endorsement from the likes of Pope Francis? A: Yes.

Second, that call for OFWs to stop remitting their earnings home in a “Zero-Remittance Week” protest.

Our overseas workers contributed nearly $40 billion to the Philippine economy last year, so someone at DAD must have figured it would be brilliant to prick that bubble in the name of remitting Duterte home. But yet again, really? 

Granted, PRRD created the Department of Migrant Workers and the OFW Bank, and brought home hundreds of thousands of OFWs during the pandemic. Former OWWA chief Hans Cacdac even called him “the father of OFWs.” I don’t doubt that the Duterte name has a lot of traction in our expatriate communities, and that flexing a bit of their economic power in a week-long protest will ring some alarm bells, but you might as well ask people to chop off a finger to prove their fealty. For how long do you imagine will Pinoys postpone housing amortizations, tuition payments, maintenance meds, and grocery expenses to protest even the crucifixion of Jesus Christ?

Lastly, and perhaps closest to my propagandist’s heart, there’s that inexplicably vague “I am not a Filipino for nothing” slogan.

Sure, it sounds brave and bold—like it actually says and means something. But does it, really? I’ve been turning the statement around and around in my head and maybe I’m extraordinarily dense and unreceptive but I just don’t get it. In rhetoric, double negatives are often used to suggest or even emphasize the opposite (the technical term is “litotes,” as in “That’s not a bad idea” or “She’s hardly destitute”). 

Rarely do double negatives make good copy for T-shirts and streamers, if you want to rally the masses. Well, there was Winston Churchill’s “We shall never surrender” (arguably a double negative) speech on the occasion of the Battle of Britain in June 1940, but that statement was preceded by a string of powerful positives: “We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall never surrender.”

Ninoy Aquino—who must be rolling in his grave at being compared to Digong Duterte—famously said “The Filipino is worth dying for,” a slogan ironically made all the more resonant by the fact that it turned out to be self-fulfilling. I doubt that Duterte will carry his emulation to that extreme, but he or his handlers can learn from its clarity and brevity, which contribute to its emotional appeal. “I am not a Filipino for nothing” means, well, nothing. It says nothing about freedom, justice, peace, love, patriotism, godliness, courage, or integrity—none of the grand ideals and ideas that our heroes exemplified. Might it be because these notions were never really associated with a president whom we best remember for his crude expletives and constant exhortations to kill? 

“Sampalin ang ICC!” sounds much more honestly him. It still sounds lame, especially given where he is right now, but it seems more purposeful, and should look good on a green T-shirt.

Qwertyman No. 137: ICC Ex Machina

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 17, 2025

IN PLAYWRITING and fiction, we call it deus ex machina—literally, the “god out of the machine”—which has come to mean a miraculously happy or fortuitous ending to a long and agonizing drama. 

You’ll find it, for example, when a virginal heroine—beleaguered by dirty old men and rapacious creditors—seems on the brink of yielding her precious virtue, tearfully praying on her knees for deliverance, when a kindly lawyer comes knocking on her door to announce that a distant uncle has passed away, leaving her his fortune. We rejoice with her—despite feeling, at the same time, that divine intervention came a bit too conveniently. This is why I admonish my students to refrain from employing deus ex machina in their stories, because in today’s hard-bitten and cynical world, nobody really believes in it anymore, and readers simply feel deprived of a more rational ending.

Like many things we know about drama, the idea goes back to the ancient Greeks, whose playwrights used it to great effect, Aeschylus and Euripides among them. Euripides most memorably turned to deus ex machina in Medea, where the title character—having been cheated on by her husband Jason—kills Jason’s mistress and their own two children. Guilty both of murder and infanticide, Medea seems hopeless and bound for damnation—until a machine, actually a crane shaped like a chariot drawn by dragons, emerges from behind the stage. It has been sent by Medea’s grandfather, the sun-god Helios, to pluck Medea away from her husband and from the coils of human justice and deliver her to the safety of Athens.

Was it fair of the gods to save Medea from the punishment awaiting her on earth? It’s arguable, but more than a device to resolve a messy plot, the “god out of the machine” was meant to remind the Athenian audience that a higher order of justice obtained, and that when humanity became too entangled in its own predicaments, then it was time for the gods to take over.

A lot of this swept through my mind last week as the drama of Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and express delivery to the International Criminal Court at the Hague played out on TV and social media. Had the gods come out of the machine to impose divine justice? It had seemed nearly impossible a few years ago, when Digong was still flaunting his untouchability and taunting the ICC to come and get him. Well, we all know what happened since then—and they did. 

We understand just as well that the Marcos administration performed this operation not out of some abounding sense of justice or because it had suddenly acquired a conscience and realized the evil with which it had “uniteamed” to electoral victory in 2022. “We did what we had to do,” President Marcos Jr. explained on TV, with deadpan truthfulness—referring superficially to the Philippines’ obligation to honor its commitment to Interpol, but subtextually to the irresistible opportunity to cripple someone who had become a political arch-enemy, and providentially gain the support of masses of people harmed and disaffected by Duterte’s butchery.

The outswelling of that support—at least for Digong’s arrest and deportation—was spontaneous and sincere. Not since the Marcoses’ departure at EDSA had I felt such relief and exhilaration—and surely the irony would not have been lost on BBM, who knows what it was like to leave on a jetplane, kicking and dragging, for an uncertain future.

And what I say next may go against the grain of everything I have said and thought about the Marcoses, but no matter what ulterior motives may have come into play in this episode of the Duterte-ICC saga, I feel thankful for the resolve and the dispatch that BBM showed in this instance. Along with his administration’s resistance to Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea, this will be certain to count among his most positive achievements. 

The great difference between this drama and Medea, as an example of deus ex machina, is that the intervention of the ICC (with BBM helpfully providing the crane) isn’t going to save Duterte, but rather the people whom his presidency soaked in blood. But as with Medea, the “gods” step in when local justice proves impotent or inadequate (and did anyone really believe that Duterte would be hauled before and convicted in a Philippine court of law, when even the Maguindanao Massacre took a full decade to produce convictions for the principals?).

The question now is what next—not for The Great Punisher, for whom a prolonged trial at a cushy court will not be punishment enough, but for the Marcos administration, which suddenly finds itself with more political capital at its disposal, and yet also put itself at greater risk? Surely it must also realize that it not only has committed itself to tearing down the entire House of Duterte and confronting the many millions of voters they still represent, but that it has also set itself up for higher expectations, on pain of suffering the same ignominious fate?

In the hopeful bit of theater playing in my mind, I imagine BBM parlaying the bonus of goodwill he has earned from this maneuver into a broader if not genuine resolution to distance himself further from his predecessor and create a freer and more just society. There are clear and immediate steps he can take in this direction. The first gesture would be the release of all remaining political prisoners, followed by the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC, which no longer serves any useful purpose (not that it ever did). He can root out and punish the enablers and perpetrators of Oplan Tokhang and eliminate oppression and corruption from the mindset of Philippine law enforcement. And then he can begin reforming Philippine governance, starting with the quality of the people he seeks to bring to power—senators, congressmen, and the like.

But then that would be the ultimate deus ex machina, and we have been shaped by experience into a stubbornly disbelieving lot.

Qwertyman No. 136: Bringing In the No-Shows

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 10, 2025

EVERY YEAR, about 100,000 Filipino high school seniors take the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT), hoping to get into one of UP’s ten campuses nationwide. It’s an annual ritual that’s been taking place since 1968, except for a brief period during the pandemic when the test was replaced by an alternative system. (I didn’t even realize until I looked these figures up that I was among the third batch of UPCAT takers in 1970; thankfully I got in.)

Of those 100,000 hopefuls, only about 13,000-15,000 make it. That passing percentage may seem cruelly if not needlessly small, but there’s good reason for it. While we’d like more students to come to UP, admissions are limited by how many incoming freshmen UP’s campuses (or “constituent universities” such as UP Manila and UP Mindanao) can optimally absorb. Classrooms, housing, teachers, and facilities all come into play. Large campuses like Diliman and Los Baños can obviously take in more, but even so there’s a limit to admissions that needs to be observed if UP is to maintain the quality of higher education that it promises.

The more troubling statistics have to do with the distribution of those “passers” (technically, no one “fails” the UPCAT, which is just one of several factors that determine admission, including high school grades; each campus also has a different qualifying standard to rationalize admissions, so you can “fail” Diliman but qualify for UP Cebu). 

Last year, according to UP’s own statistics, 44 percent of UPCAT qualifiers came from private high schools. Another 27 percent came from the country’s science high schools. (which are publicly funded, but offer a much higher standard of education). Other public high schools accounted for only 29 percent of the total. Consider these figures against the larger picture, in which around 80 percent of our students go to public high schools, and less than 20 percent to their private counterparts. 

Compounding this gross inequality, about 70 percent of UPCAT qualifiers come from the big cities, mainly in Luzon. This, of course, is no big surprise. A recent study by UP professors showed what we didn’t need a study to know (but being academics, of course they had to prove it): that “income advantage” weighed heavily on one’s chances of passing the UPCAT and getting into UP. If you went to a good private high school, you were more likely to get in than a poor student from the boonies. To top it off, with tuition now free in public universities, we actually end up subsidizing many students from affluent families who could well afford to pay their way in private colleges.

This lopsided situation has long been the cause of much concern within and beyond UP, which, as the country’s “national university,” bears the dual responsibility of aiming to be the best university in the country bar none, and yet also serve the interests of the entire Filipino nation, and not just those of the urban elite that has apparently become over-represented in its student body. Various UP administrations have sought to address this seemingly paradoxical “excellence vs. equity” argument through different methods aimed at more democratic access—without, as current UP President Angelo Jimenez emphasizes, lowering UP’s standards. This remains a work in progress, but the aim is clear: make it possible for poorer Filipinos to get into UP so it can truly be the “university for the Filipino” it was envisioned to be.

Against all odds—and this brings me to my present point—many surprisingly do. I don’t have the actual figure on hand, but they number in the low thousands, of the 13,000-15,000 in an incoming batch. Encouraging, yes? But here’s the rub: about 1,500 of them never show up—what we call “no-shows”—not for lack of ambition, but for lack of means to cover the cost of living at a UP campus. Imagine that: it’s hard enough to get a good public high school education in what are called Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDAs), and harder still to pass the UPCAT from where you are. You’re elated to learn you made it, only to realize that you’re not leaving home after all, because you can’t afford the transportation, food, housing, books, and computers that come with college.

Thankfully, UP has initiated a new Lingap-Iskolar program to help out with these expenses and bring more GIDA passers in, starting with 300-500 students. Over the next four years, P250 million has been allotted by UP for this purpose. It’s a great initiative, but it still falls far short of minimizing the no-shows so the yawning disparity between UP’s rich and poor can be more effectively reduced.

With the education budget being squeezed even more under the current GAA, this is a great opportunity for the private sector to come in and make a clear and strategic impact on the future of the Filipino mind. If you’re a corporation or philanthropist in search of a good cause to support, look no farther—make it possible for a young Filipino from our poorest and remotest regions to study in UP. Sure, democratizing UP will require much broader and deeper moves, going back to basic education; but this step is solid, immediate, and tangible. 

I’m happy to report that I made this pitch to a dear friend in the US who had spent some time here in the Philippines more than 50 years ago with her late husband, who worked to help improve Philippine education. Responding to my call, that friend, Julie Hill, sold two HR Ocampo and Ang Kiukok paintings from her collection at a recent Leon Gallery auction, the proceeds of which she will be donating to the UP Foundation for a fund to be set up along the lines of Lingap-Iskolar. Despite being away for so long, Julie remains deeply attached to the Philippines; she’s not Elon-Musk rich and lives very modestly, but has sacrificed her best pieces so some bright young Pinoys she will never meet can have a better future and serve the nation.

If a foreigner can do that, I don’t see why our homegrown billionaires can’t. Support a GIDA scholar, and make a difference right now.

Penman No. 472: Manila Pen Show at Manila Pen

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Penman for Sunday, March 9, 2025

FOR A group that began in our Diliman front yard with less than 20 people almost 17 years ago, the Fountain Pen Network-Philippines (FPN-P) has come an awfully long way. With over 14,000 members online, meeting physically by the dozens in regular “pen meets” held in hapless cafes and restaurants, and thousands more informal recruits among families and friends, FPN-P should really register soon as a partylist devoted to “spreading the joy of handwriting with fountain pens.” We have active chapters in Baguio, Bacolod, and Davao, among other places; quite a few members even reside abroad but keep in regular touch through the group’s FB page.

As I’ve often written here before, the allure of fountain pens lies in their rediscovery by digital natives as a means of self-expression—of recovering one’s uniqueness in a universe homogenized and anonymized by computer code. Our ranks include Supreme Court judges, Cabinet undersecretaries, artists, professors, doctors, and lawyers, but most of our members are young professionals in their twenties and thirties for whom writing in cursive is itself an adventure. There are probably hundreds of thousands of pen fanciers (as they used to be called) around the world, mainly in the US and Europe, but what distinguishes FPN-P is its youthful vibe and the infectious fanaticism of its members.

Some fall in love not just with the pens but with penmanship itself, and become calligraphers. Others grow enamored of inks and papers of a bewildering assortment—inks that shimmer and sheen, combining lustrous gold with a deep oceanic blue, and papers that range from silken smoothness to almost parchment-like toughness.

Next weekend, hundreds of these penfolk (and the general public) will converge at the 5th Manila Pen Show that will be taking place March 15 and 16 at—fittingly enough—the Peninsula Manila. 

Top pen makers and dealers from Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia have been coming to the MPS, attracted and impressed by the level of sophistication—and the deep pockets—of Filipino pen collectors. While the MPS has pens for everyone at every price point—from the low hundreds for students to six figures for the big guns—Filipino pen collectors and users at any level have been known for their deep knowledge and obsessive familiarity with all aspects of the hobby. 

They can tell you how Japanese artisans produce the various kinds and textures of urushi resin that renders pen surfaces impermeable to even acid. They can discuss minuscule but hundred-dollar differences in Parker Vacumatics from the 1930s, or argue passionately for vintage Pilot Myus and exotic inks like the perfume-scented De Atramentis.

This year’s MPS will not only bring sellers of pens and assorted writing paraphernalia, but also feature workshops and panel discussions on topics ranging from nature journaling and nib care to Art Nouveau and Deco pens (and, most intriguingly, “Your Pen and Your Brain: A Love Story,” to be conducted by Gang Badoy Capati). A group of advanced collectors will discuss the finer points of pen connoisseurship (including that point when pens stop just being writing instruments but become jewelry or even art). 

I’ll be on the Art Nouveau and Deco panel, but this time, instead of discussing pens (which others will do this time, all of them experts at particular models and periods), I’ll talk about the peripherals and accessories of the writing trade—the desk pen sets, inkwells, and ink blotters of the kind you would have seen in a typical office desk of the 1930s. 

As with past Manila Pen Shows, nibmeisters or professional pen repairmen will be around to fix that Montblanc nib you dropped on the kitchen floor or your Lolo’s gunked-up Sheaffer that’s been lying in a drawer since he died. One thing most people don’t realize is that most pens, no matter how old, can be fixed (I myself routinely revive 100-year-old Parker Duofolds among other vintage pens in my workshop—you’ll need some special skills and parts, but it’s not rocket science).

You don’t have to be an FPN-P member or even a current fountain pen user to come and enjoy the show. Indulge your curiosity and feel free to see, touch, and test the pens on display (with the exhibitor’s permission, of course, as some pens may require very careful handling). Most sellers will take credit cards or online payment. There will be a modest charge for entry and for the presentations, but all funds raised will be donated after expenses to the Save the Children Philippines, FPN-P’s sponsored charity for the past MPSes. You can find more details about the show at https://manilapenshow.helixpay.ph.

(Image thanks to Raph Camposagrado)

Qwertyman No. 135: Fighting the Truth

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 3, 2025

BEAR WITH me as I begin this Monday’s piece with a quotation about last week’s celebration (or non-celebration, from another point of view) of the 1986 EDSA People Power uprising. It really doesn’t say anything we haven’t heard before, but I want you to read it slowly, giving it the full benefit of its sincerity and passion. If you were at EDSA as I and my family were, and no matter how distant a memory those four days in February may seem to be now, these words should still provoke even a flutter of patriotic fervor, and a wistful thought that, perhaps, the EDSA spirit does live on in these troubled times. 

“Martial law, declared by Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1972, left a dark legacy; countless lives were lost, freedoms were stripped away, and power was concentrated in the hands of a few. As we remember those who suffered and fought for our liberties, we must remain vigilant, especially now, when the threat of authoritarian rule once again looms over our nation. People Power was more than just a revolution; it was a testament to the collective strength of the Filipino people in demanding truth, justice, and accountability. It is also a reminder that we must remain united against any form of oppression…. Let us honor its legacy by ensuring that history is never distorted, our rights are never trampled upon, and our democracy remains intact for future generations. May the darkest times in our history never happen again.”

Just the kind of resonant exhortation you’d expect from a staunch defender of civil liberties and human rights, right? 

But would your appreciation of these words change just a bit if you knew that they were spoken not by the likes of a Leila de Lima or a Kiko Pangilinan, but by Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, whose EDSA Day message this just happened to be?

Truth? Justice? Accountability? “United against any form of oppression?” Where were these noble words when the good mayor’s dad was president, and announcing blatantly on various occasions that ““My order is shoot to kill you. I don’t care about human rights…. Let’s kill another 32 every day. Maybe we can reduce what ails this country…. I will assume full legal responsibility…. My mouth has no due process.”

That “legal responsibility,” of course, has yet to be assumed, full or otherwise. Instead, once he fell out of power, that man (and, last we heard, lawyer) who flaunted his wanton disregard of the law suddenly found religion, and the gumption to say this when his buddy Apollo Quiboloy and his cult followers were raided by the police:

“Our country has never been in a more tragic state as it is today. Rights have been trampled upon and our laws, derided…. We call on the remaining decent and patriotic members of our government not to allow themselves to be used and to be abusive and violent in enforcing illegal orders…. We call on all Filipinos, regardless of political persuasion, to offer prayers for peace and justice, and to spare our people of the unwarranted tension brought about by the reign of fear and terror by people sworn to uphold the law and protect the citizens of this country.”

It makes sense that this statement was published rather than spoken, because I can’t for the life of me imagine how The Great Punisher could say “unwarranted tension brought about by the reign of fear and terror” with a straight face and not burst out laughing—or maybe his listeners would, if they weren’t seized by, well, fear and terror.

Not to be outdone, on a recent sortie to Cebu, embattled Vice President Sara Duterte reportedly declined to answer questions about her impending impeachment trial in the Senate, preferring to leave the matter to her lawyers, but was quoted as saying that she was banking on her “loyalty to truth” to see her through. Ummm, okay…. Now can we please hear the truth, and nothing but the truth, about Mary Grace Piattos?

I suppose it’s a sign of how low the value of words like “truth,” “freedom,” and “justice’ have fallen when the very people accused of spitting them into the garbage now spout them like nobody’s business. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re doing this, given the success of Donald Trump at doing the very thing he says he hates, e.g. weaponizing the justice system. There must be pages of advice in the 21st century edition of Playbook for Politicians for just this kind of brazenness, maybe under the Chapter “Reversals of Fortune.” What’s surprising—and scary—is how they continue to be believed by followers such as “Ging C.” whose fervor led her to gush, on PRRD’s FB page, “By God’s favor VP Sara you will win this fight. God of truth is on your side and those people who fight the truth!” (Ooops….there’s a “for” missing there somewhere, but really, does it matter anymore?)

And lest we think only the Dutertes have mastered the art of dissimulation, let me leave you to guess who the character implicated in the following quotes is.

On Independence Day in 2018, someone posted on Facebook that “Freedom is every human being’s birthright. But to claim that right, the time always comes when we are called to fight for and defend that freedom. The Philippines and her people fought long and hard, sacrificed life, limb, treasure and more to achieve our independence 120 years ago. The call for liberty and sovereignty was answered by our heroic ancestors, sacrificing their all at the altar of honor and freedom and country.

“Today we remember, and in remembering, we consecrate that memory of all the courageous and selfless Filipino patriots—our heroes—who gave their lives for that freedom, and to whom we forever owe our status as a free, independent and sovereign nation in the community of nations. Let them long live in our minds, our hearts, in our very souls, the heroes of our great country, our beloved Philippines.”

In a speech before the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas last November, the guest of honor declared that “Now, more than ever, our democracy depends on an informed and vigilant citizenry…. With the 2025 elections ahead, I am committed to protecting our journalists in championing fearless and credible reporting. Together with KBP and our partners in media, we will stand firm against disinformation, ensuring that every Filipino has access to voices of truth.”

I would love to cry “Amen!” Wouldn’t you?

Qwertyman No. 134: “Forthwith” and Other Adverbs

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 24, 2025

NEVER IN our modern political history has so much seemed to depend on the meaning and interpretation of one word. For the past week, politicians, lawyers, and columnists like me have weighed in with their sense of “forthwith,” as it appears in Article XI, Section 3, paragraph 1 of our 1987 Constitution, which states that “In case the verified complaint or resolution of impeachment is filed by at least one-third of all the members of the House, the same shall constitute the Articles of impeachment, and trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed.”

At bar is the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, which is hanging in the balance with the complaint signed by more than enough congressmen and forwarded to the Senate for action “forthwith.” That happened just before the Senate adjourned, whereupon Senate President Chiz Escudero announced that, hold your horses, we’re on break here with seven of our members trying to get their jobs back, and there’s a bunch of other things we need to do before the trial even starts like getting properly fitted for our judicial robes, so we’ll see you in June after the SONA. As an aside to the House, Escudero also wondered aloud why Congress was rushing him, when they had two months to get the damn thing signed and sent over. No, he insisted, “forthwith” doesn’t mean “right now”; it means “when we’re ready.”

This flew in the face of opinions by such as retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Adolf Azcuna, who argued that an impeachment wasn’t tied to the legislative calendar, and that the Senate was constitutionally bound to convene on the complaint. Minority Leader Sen. Koko Pimentel agreed, calling on Escudero to at least convene a caucus to discuss the trial.

English-major nerds like me should live for moments like this. I can fantasize about being called as an expert witness to speak to the etymology and meaning of “forthwith,” whereupon I would have sagely advised Their Honors that “Round the middle of the twelfth century, the phrase forth mid appeared (mid being essentially the same as the modern German word mit, with), later forth with, to go somewhere in the company of other people. Necessarily, if you go forth with others, you go at the same time as they do. It seems this sense of time eventually took over, though the process of transition isn’t very clear, and it’s mixed up with other phrases that also referred to time. Certainly, by about 1450 the phrase had condensed to a single adverb with the modern meaning of immediately, without delay.” Did I know that all along? Of course not. I googled it and lifted it from a source only named “Hugo.”

It does point to an interesting fact about language, however—meanings change over time, and, depending on the context, can be bent to suit one’s purposes and perceptions. While all modern dictionaries will say that “forthwith” means “immediately,” lawyers and judges (yes, that sneaky lot, with all due respect to my lawyer-friends) have opined that “surrounding circumstances” could loosen things up a bit. One Canadian commentator has noted that “Some courts have determined that the word ‘forthwith’ requires vigorous action, without any delay, and have suggested that whether there has been such action is a question of fact, having regard to the circumstances of the particular case. Others have suggested it means the action must be taken without pause or delay, or done at once, while some judges have commented that the nature of the act to be done is to be taken into consideration when determining the required immediacy…. The term ‘as soon as possible’ has been defined as meaning no more than ‘without reasonable delay’ or ‘within a reasonable time.’ Some cases have suggested that the length of the period of time involved for performance is subject to a reasonableness standard rather than a sense of urgency, and may be influenced by trade practice, custom and other circumstances.”

So if this “reasonableness standard” were to apply in the matter of Sara Duterte, would SP Chiz’s reluctance to convene the Senate now as an impeachment court be reasonable? Not being a lawyer, I’ll leave the legality or constitutionality of it to those who know better—even if, as we can see, it’s lawyer vs. lawyer in this case. I did learn from another retired SC Justice (not Azcuna) that the impeachment process does require many preliminaries before the actual trial, including reviewing the rules of the Senate—and let’s not forget the robes, which the SP emphasizes (at P6,000-P8,000 each) will have to be dry-cleaned by the senator-judges themselves, to save the Senate money (a laudable show of thriftiness, given that the new Senate building in Taguig is now expected to cost over P30 billion). 

What’s apparent to this pedestrian observer is that whatever “forthwith” means, it didn’t happen, at least not the way our framers probably intended it. We’ll be in for a few more months of what Henry Kissinger creatively called “constructive ambiguity” aka fudging, while the senatorial candidates (at least those not identified with the Dutertes) avoid the issue.

“I’ve yet to see and consider the complaint,” at least one reelectionist senator has said, likely echoing others. “If I’m going to sit as a senator-judge, then I wouldn’t want to prejudge the issue” has been another refrain. It’s a reasonable—and highly convenient—stance to take, especially during this election season.

By kicking the impeachment down the road, the Senate avoids making it an election issue for those candidates who need to straddle the fence for their survival. While the House complaint signed by 215 out of 316 congressmen might suggest that the VP’s goose is cooked, the Senate is a different arena altogether, with the present numbers inclined toward Sara’s acquittal. How the administration will tip that balance in its favor will be the game to watch (an AKAP-laden budget can’t hurt). The Dutertes don’t help themselves any with their proclivity to “kill” their enemies, but any assumption that they’re politically done for will be very foolish.

We’re told that impeachments are political more than anything, which means there should be political consequences for all involved. We wish the process had begun much earlier, a month or two ahead of the campaign period, so we could have partly based our senatorial choices on their performance as jurors, and their quality of mind.

Since “forthwith” didn’t happen, let’s hope that the trial, whenever it takes place, involves two other adverbs:

“Expeditiously,” so we can all return to our normal lives (at least until the next scandal—or, God forfend, the next impeachable official, comes along); and

“Fairly,” with incontrovertible evidence, so there will be no question afterward that the right thing was done. 

Qwertyman No. 133: The Finest of the Filipino

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 17, 2025

FOLLOWING THROUGH on my recent piece about our Senate becoming a family show, our constitutionalists probably had the right idea when they decided to amend the Charter in 1940 to provide for a Senate that would draw its members not from provinces or regions but from the country at large. (Under the Americans, Filipino senators were elected based on senatorial districts or groupings of provinces corresponding roughly to our regions today.)

It would have been a way to diminish regionalism and promote the sense of a nation in whose interest these senators would serve. With a countrywide electorate to woo, senatorial candidates would presumably address a broad range of national and even international concerns beyond the parochial claims of their native communities. It was a call to greatness. 

Time was when we had a Senate like that, when men and women with deep intellect, a sense of history, and the gift of articulation spoke to the issues that mattered to the Filipino people and their future. 

One such senator was Jose W. Diokno, who later in his life could speak inspiring words like these:

“There is one dream that all Filipinos share: that our children may have a better life than we have had. So there is one vision that is distinctly Filipino: the vision to make this country, our country, a nation for our children.

“A noble nation, where homage is paid not to who a man is or what he owns, but to what he is and what he does.

“A proud nation, where poverty chains no man to the plow, forces no woman to prostitute herself and condemns no child to scrounge among garbage.

“A free nation, where men and women and children from all regions and with all kinds of talents may find truth and play and sing and laugh and dance and love without fear.”

And then there was Sen. Jovito R. Salonga, who broke the 11-11 tie in the Senate to expel the US military bases from the Philippines in 1991 with these musings:

“I think all of us are engaged in a search—a search for the soul of the nation, a quest for the best in the Filipino character, a search for the true Filipino spirit.

“We summon the memories of those we honor, from Jose Rizal to Andres Bonifacio, from Jose Abad Santos to Ninoy Aquino.

“Their collective message, even on the eve of their death, was one of hope, not of fear; of faith, not of doubt; of confidence in the capacity of the Filipino to suffer and overcome, not of his unwillingness to stand the rigors of freedom and independence.

“In our history as a nation, our best years were when we took our destiny in our own hands and faced the uncertain future with boldness and faith. Those were the times when we experienced a sense of national renewal and self-respect…. 

“Therefore, I vote no to this treaty, and if it were only possible, I would vote 203 million times no.”

There are those who will say that these are just words, and that we don’t elect senators to make fancy speeches, that the Senate should be more than a debate society. I would agree—except that these senators were far more than orators; they worked hard to craft and pass important laws, many of which we still benefit from today.

A genius who topped both the CPA and bar exams, Diokno was behind pro-Filipino laws such as the Investment Incentives Act of 1967 that empowered local businessmen so we could move out of import substitution and the Oil Industry Commission Act of 1971 regulated the oil industry. Named Outstanding Senator many times over, he later set up the Free Legal Assistance Group.

Another bar topnotcher and a genuine war hero tortured by the Japanese, Salonga authored the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Government Employees and the Anti-Plunder Law. He was staunch defender of freedom and civil liberties all his life.

When I look at the list of candidates running for the Senate this year, and at the surveys predicting the seemingly inevitable victory of a number of them, I deeply doubt that the likes of Pepe Diokno and Jovy Salonga would stand a chance of winning today. Their old-man looks, dated rhetoric, and inflexible principles amount to little in our media-centric culture, where popularity and notoriety drive political success, with factors like “integrity” and “capability” hardly figuring in the equation. 

Among the most potent of images being peddled by current aspirants is that of the “action” star or “action” person who promises to deliver everything from instant justice, barangay roads, and hospital beds to basketball courts, photo ops, and fiesta lechon. “Action” means looking good and making smart-alecky comments for social-media consumption at Senate hearings; “action” means talking the language of the streets, being everyone’s kumpare or kumare.

There’s nothing wrong with these per se, as we do need politicians to be in touch with the everyday realities our people face. The loftiest oratory isn’t going to banish corruption, traffic, high prices, red tape, and abusive officials—unless it’s accompanied by well-crafted and enforceable laws that are the Senate’s proper business. 

And that’s where we should ask: what have these candidates actually done to deserve their seat? And never mind the rhetoric; some of our best senators were no barnburners when it came to speechifying, but—like late Edgardo J. Angara—they delivered where it mattered: in SEJA’s case, no less than the Free High School Act, Commission on Higher Education, Technical Education and Skill Development Authority, the National Health Insurance Act (Philhealth), Senior Citizens Act, the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act, the Renewable Energy Act and the Procurement Reform Act.

The Senate wasn’t meant to be a Department of Quick Fixes. The true senator’s sphere of action is in his or her mind. We should be choosing, electing, and paying senators based on how they think we should act and move ahead as a nation. 

The Senate is not a welfare agency. It is not a medical clinic or dispensary. It is not an action center or complaints hotline. It is not a job placement bureau. It is not a police precinct. It shouldn’t even be a representative body in the sense of having one senator represent intelligence and another represent ignorance so everyone can say it’s a body of equals. 

It should represent the finest of the Filipino—in intellect, character, and sensibility. Do our chart-toppers meet that standard?