Category Archives: Pinoys

Qwertyman No. 113: My Lessons from Martial Law

Posted on by
Reply

Qwertyman for Monday, September 30, 2024

I WAS recently invited by a student organization at the University of the Philippines to speak to them about my martial-law experience, given that I had been a student activist in UP during what we called the First Quarter Storm, had been imprisoned, and had, against all odds, survived into a reasonably comfortable old age. It occurred to me, as I entered the SOLAIR building in Diliman where the event was going to be held, that I had last stepped into that place as a 17-year-old activist back in 1971 (that’s me in the picture, second from right, in that building). What had I learned since then? Here are some points I raised with my young audience:

1. We were always in the minority. Even at the height of student activism in UP and in other universities, those of us whom you might call truly militant or at least progressive were far smaller in numbers than the majority who dutifully went on with their studies and their lives and saw us as little more than a rowdy, noisy bunch of troublemakers. And the fact is, we were still in the minority in 2022, which is why Leni lost (yes, even in Barangay UP Campus). This bears emphasizing and thinking about, because sometimes we fall into the trap of believing that since we think we’re so right, surely others must think the same way. Which brings us to my next point.

2. We have to learn to communicate with other people with different views. The phrase “echo chamber” often came up in the last election, and with 2025 looming, it’s even more vital that we master modern propaganda as well as the other side does. This means sharper and more effective messaging. Enough of those two-page, single-spaced manifestoes written in the Marxist jargon of the 1970s and 1980s and ending with a string of slogans. Learn how to fight the meme war, how to navigate and employ Tiktok, Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and all the arenas now open in digital space.

3. When talking about martial law, don’t just dwell on it as the horror movie that it was for some of us. True, many thousands of people were killed, tortured, raped, imprisoned, and harassed. True, the trauma of that experience has lasted a lifetime for those involved. But most Filipinos never went through that experience, adjusting quickly to the new authoritarianism; many even look back to that period with nostalgic longing. That’s proof of martial law’s more widespread and insidious damage—the capture of the passive mind, and its acceptance or denial of the massive scale of theft and State terror taking place behind the scenes. Martial law imprisoned our minds.

3. People change; you could, too. One pointed question I was asked at the forum was, “Why is it that some very prominent student activists turned their backs on the movement and went over to the dark side?” It’s true—many of the shrillest Red-taggers we’ve seen these past few years were reportedly once high-ranking Reds themselves. So why the 180-degree turn? Well, it’s perfectly human, I said, trying to be as kind as I could, despite being at the receiving end of some of that calumny. People can hardly be expected to stay the same after twenty or forty years. Even if many if not most of my generation of activists have remained steadfast in our quest of the truth, freedom, and justice, one’s definition of exactly what is true, free, and just can change. Some people change their stripes out of conviction; some others do it for the oldest of reasons—money and power, or sheer survival. I’m saddened but no longer surprised by brazen betrayal. I learned from martial-law prison that people have breaking points, and some thresholds are much lower than others. 

4. We have to admit we were wrong about some things. This will vary from person to person, and there’s a line that could even constitute the “betrayal” I mentioned above. Some fellow activists will probably disagree with me on one of these key points: armed struggle didn’t work, and it won’t, not in the Philippines nor anytime soon. However we feel about the subject, the fact is, one armed Filipino revolutionary force or other has been at it for more than 80 years now—“the world’s longest running insurgency” as it’s often been referred to—with little gain to show for it. I don’t mean to denigrate the noble and heroic sacrifice of the thousands who gave up their lives fighting what they believed was a brutal dictatorship—many were personal friends—but how many more lives will it take to prove the efficacy of revolutionary violence, one way or another?

5. That leads me to the last point I made to my young listeners: live, don’t die, for your country. We can and will die for it if we absolutely have to (especially us seniors who have little more to lose), but today’s youth have options we never did. In the 1970s, if you were young, idealistic, politically aware, and daring if not brave, you could not but conclude that something was terribly wrong with Philippine society, and that change was badly and urgently needed. You chose between reform and revolution—and it was only a matter of time before you became convinced that the latter was the only way forward. 

Agreed, the basic problems of Philippine society may not have changed much—but one’s ways and means of addressing them have. The growth of civil society—the proliferation of NGOs covering a broad range of causes and concerns—offers practical, focused, peaceful, and professional alternatives to young people seeking social and economic change. One need not embrace the burdens of the entire nation, only to feel inadequate or ineffectual; one can do much if not enough by improving the lives of families and communities. Beyond feeling sorry or guilty for those who fought and died as martyrs, do what you can as a living, intelligent, and capable citizen to create a better Filipino future to the best of your ability.

If this sounds like the voice of a tired old man, it is. I’m tired of death and despair; I choose to fight for life and hope. 

Qwertyman No.112: Reversals of Fortune

Posted on by
Reply

Qwertyman for Monday, September 23, 2024

“ROQUE VS. Roque.” I wish I’d thought up that line, but it was Rappler—yes, that pesky news organization that’s caused many government officials past and present to choke on their soup—that used it for one of their stories on the continuing saga of Atty. Herminio “Harry” Lopez Roque.

In an article posted on September 7, 2020, Sofia Tomacruz reported how Roque had lawyered for the family of Jennifer Laude, the transgender person killed by US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton in October 2014. On September 3, 2020, Pemberton was ordered to be released by a Philippine court, prompting Roque—still in crusader mode—to recall Laude’s death as “symbolic of the death” of Philippine sovereignty. 

A few days later, however, his current boss, President Rodrigo Duterte, granted Pemberton an absolute pardon, claiming that the convicted murderer had not been treated fairly by Philippine justice (only to add, a few moments later, that as far as drug users were concerned, “Be cruel!”). Spokesman Roque then defended the move as a presidential prerogative—and later rationalized, in his “personal opinion,” that Duterte had made the move to secure American vaccines given the ongoing pandemic. So much for Philippine sovereignty.

It wasn’t the first and certainly not the only time Harry Roque had to eat his own words.

He lawyered for the families of the victims of the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre, where 58 people were killed; eleven years later, as presidential spokesman, he said that “justice had been served” with the conviction of two Ampatuan brothers, despite the acquittal of 56 others. 

But in what has to be the most ironic of these reversals, let’s give a listen to Harry Roque ca. February 2018. Duterte’s nemesis, former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, had just marked her first year in detention, falsely charged with involvement in the illegal drug trade in what clearly was political vendetta. (The charges would be dismissed and de Lima released—but only after almost seven years.) 

In a news briefing, Roque gloated: “Happy anniversary on your first year of detention. May you spend the rest of your life in jail!” Calling de Lima “the mother of all drug lords,” Roque claimed that “Senator de Lima’s incarceration shows that the criminal justice system in the Philippines is alive, effective and working.” 

Fast forward to September 2024. Asked to explain by a congressional probe how and why his assets in his family business rose from P125,000 in 2014 to P67.7 million just four years later, Roque refused to comply, and was cited in contempt and ordered arrested. On Facebook, he defiantly claimed to be a victim of injustice: “I am not a fugitive because I violated the law. It’s only Congress that considers me a fugitive, and I don’t care. The way I see it, if Congress cited me in contempt, I think Congress is cited in contempt by the people of the Philippines.” 

He had earlier been placed under 24-hour detention in the House, which was investigating him in connection with his ties to a notorious POGO. “I will not wish, even on my fiercest political opponents, to be deprived of their personal liberty and freedom,” he had sonorously spoken of that experience, amplifying his persecution with a reference to a rather more famous political prisoner: “Worse than hunger, said Mahatma Gandhi, is to lose your freedom.”

Let’s forget for a minute that lifetime imprisonment was exactly what Roque had wished on his fierce political opponent, Leila de Lima, who spent 2,454 days in incarceration without even being convicted (even longer than Gandhi, whose total jail time amounted to 2,338 days in colonial South Africa and India). So harrowing must have been his 24 hours in House detention that—faced with the prospect of a few more days in the guest room of an august chamber he once inhabited as a proud member—he declined to yield himself to further scrutiny, and vanished. Given his aversion to discomfort, we can be sure it will only be a matter of time before he resurfaces, perhaps leaner and sexier for the experience.

Indeed, never mind the news, which most people will forget in a week. Worry about scholarship, which, while obscure and often useless, has a way of defining you in perpetuity because of its pre-AI presumption of truthfulness. Harry Roque, I discovered, proved worthy of an academic paper titled “Turn-Taking Strategies of Secretary Harry Roque as a Presidential Spokesperson: A Conversation Analysis” by Janine Satorre Gelaga of Caraga State University, from which I quote:

“Roque had an aggressive and confrontational way of speaking, often responding to criticism or questions from the media with sarcastic comments and eye-rolling…. Roque’s conversation style did not develop understanding, let alone promote public trust…. As Geducos (2021) has put it, “Roque has been at the center of controversy for many remarks that did not sit well with the public.’”

To say the least. How the mighty have fallen, but then again, what can soldiers of fortune expect but, well, reversals of fortune? 

Qwertyman No. 111: Justice Fever

Posted on by
Reply

Qwertyman for Monday, September 16, 2024

A DANGEROUS outbreak of justice fever has hit the Philippines these past few weeks, threatening to make that country’s startled citizens believe that their government is intent on doing right by the people, no matter what and come what may.

In quick succession, Bamban ex-mayor Alice Guo, alleged to be a Manchurian candidate, was picked up in Indonesia and flown back to the Philippines; another on the Philippines’ most wanted list, the self-styled “Son of God” Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, emerged from his subterranean kingdom to surrender to the Pharisees, er, authorities; why, even former Palawan governor Joel Reyes, wanted for the murder of an environmental crusader and long out of sight and out of mind, turned himself in; and it should only be a matter of time before ex-Rep. Arnie Teves comes home from his extended Timorese vacation to face murder charges in Negros Oriental. (I don’t think the return of former Iloilo Mayor Jed Mabilog, hounded out of office by the former President on trumped-up charges of drug trafficking, counts in this category.)

What on earth, you might ask, is going on? Is the government running some secret—and wildly successful—“balik-fugitive” campaign? Were there possibly offers and assurances made of kid-gloves treatment, fully furnished jail cells, state-witness options, conjugal visits, and lifetime colonoscopies?

For a while back there, it seemed like the old regime hadn’t completely vanished—you know, the chummy-chummy-with-criminals vibe, which that viral photo with the chinita mayor smiling sweetly and flashing “V” signs between her two captors seemed to suggest. But justice fever is vicious when it takes hold of its victims, and by the time Pastor Apollo Quiboloy was caught in Davao, the afflicted authorities had learned their lesson, and quickly whisked him away in a C-130 to Manila. Why, President Marcos Jr. even fired the chief of the Bureau of Immigration, Norman Tansingco, over the Guo affair. Illegal POGOs were raided, and captives freed.

As if this spate of high-profile catches and prosecutions wasn’t enough, in the Senate and the House of Representatives—once safely Duterte territory—lawmakers were outdoing each other poking holes into Vice President Sara Duterte’s P2-billion budget proposal. Her friend Harry Roque was found in contempt of Congress and served a warrant of arrest for failing or refusing to account for his unexplained wealth. 

Duterte ally Sen. Bong Go also caught the fever, proclaiming in a tweet that he had always been against POGOs, seeing them as a threat to peace and order. “For the record,” he emphasized, “I really hate POGOs.” Justice fever apparently induces amnesia, because the good senator forgot that three years ago, he voted in favor of RA 11591, taxing and effectively legitimizing POGOs in the country.

All this would have been unimaginable then, but here’s something even more incredible: former President Rodrigo Duterte—who routinely ordered his supporters and the police to “shoot” drug suspects without worrying too much about the finer points of the law—seems to have woken up from a kind of coma, suddenly remembering that he was, once upon a time, a lawyer wedded to the idea that people have human rights. 

We know that because Atty. Digong, probably still in a slight daze but overcome with a resurgent sense of right and wrong, filed charges of malicious mischief against Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos, PNP chief General Rommel Marbil, and PNP Region XI chief Brigadier General Nicolas Torre III in the wake of his patron and spiritual adviser’s arrest. 

Not being a lawyer, I had to look up exactly what “malicious mischief” means. Here’s what I found online: “Malicious mischief is a crime of property damage. In order to convict someone of malicious mischief, the prosecutor must prove the damage done to the property was not accidental. A person is guilty of malicious mischief when he or she ‘knowingly or maliciously’ causes physical damage to another person’s property.”

From what I gather, malicious mischief requires a certain, uhm, finesse, a delicacy that appreciates degrees of injury, and even ironic humor. “Mischief” isn’t like the sledgehammer of bloody, first-degree murder; it’s more like a yap rather than a roar, a pinch rather than a punch. You commit malicious mischief by, say, kicking your neighbor’s dog or unpotting his daisies. It’s meant more to annoy and enrage rather than to kill. (Interestingly, under the Revised Penal  Code, “destroying or damaging statues, public monuments or paintings” and “using any poisonous or corrosive substance; or spreading any infection or contagion among cattle; or who cause damage to the property of the National Museum or National Library” also qualify as special cases of malicious mischief.)

I haven’t read the charges in their entirety, so I don’t know exactly what Atty. Digong was complaining about—I’m guessing door locks broken and, okay, egos pricked. But the mere fact of Digong the Terrible sallying forth into a court of law on a matter as grievous as upended flower pots suggests to me—as I wrote about a few weeks ago—that the man has truly undergone the kind of religious conversion that now allows him to believe in, well, judicial justice. He, too, has caught the fever, and now reposes his faith in a judicial system he once decapitated with pronouncements such as this one from April 9, 2018, referencing then Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno: “I’m putting you on notice that I’m your enemy, and you have to be out of the Supreme Court!”

The only problem with this rash of righteousness and conscience is, how long will it last, and what will happen when it wears off and we return to our old jolly, reprobate selves? 

The Dutertes are easy targets, no thanks to their patriarch’s resolve to establish himself as the least presidential president in Philippine history. His successor is reaping the low-hanging fruit of that unpopularity, enjoying, no doubt, the unfolding spectacle. BBM should be warned, however, that like many afflictions, the effects of justice fever can be long-lasting. Once its victims get used to it, their delusions could linger, and they’ll keep expecting and wanting more, and more.

(Photo from dzar1026.ph)

Qwertyman No. 110: The Truth Shall Make You Mad

Posted on by
Reply

Qwertyman for Monday, September 9, 2024

I’M WRITING this on a Friday morning with no particular topic in mind, threatening to be overwhelmed by a slurry of depressing and outrageous news flooding my inbox. As a news junkie, I get my foreign news in digests from the New York Times and the Washington Post, and of course I look up all the major local news websites. You’d think that would be enough, but of course I have to open CNN and the BBC online as well—and occasionally, when I feel obliged to do so, Fox News, if only to see what those people are saying. And then I turn the TV on to CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and Channel News Asia for onsite reportage and commentary, especially from a non-Western perspective. 

For all my efforts, this is what I got today, which I’m sure many of you did as well:

“Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegai dies after being set on fire by boyfriend” (CNN)

“Accused Georgia school shooter Colt Gray, 14, received gun used in massacre as Christmas gift from dad” (New York Post)

“Israeli attacks in Gaza kill 35 people as polio vaccinations continue” (Al Jazeera)

“Trump says he’d create a government efficiency commission led by Elon Musk” (AP News)

“Woman testifies husband drugged her for years, recruited dozens to rape her” (Washington Post)

“What was behind the viral photo of Guo, Abalos, and Marbil?” (Rappler)

On a day like this, you have to ask yourself, “What has the world come to?” followed quickly by “Do I really want to know?” You emerge with a sense of a world gone mad, a moral universe you no longer recognize, playing by different rules for different people. Each one of those news items I mentioned above was enough to make me retch. 

While the loss of human life naturally rises to the fore of our concerns, how does one diminish the horror of being abused while unconscious over 70 times for years, or the cruel irony of vaccinating children only to bomb them afterwards? On which planet is it all right for a father to buy his young son—already known and reported to be prone to violence—an AR-14-style assault rifle for Christmas? (Answer: Not Mars but the United States, thanks to lax gun laws and even laxer parental supervision.) And speaking of that country, what do Americans think they can expect from a government run by two egomaniacs?

Let’s go to that viral snapshot, which I saw with my morning coffee, when I was still half-asleep and not too sure of what exactly I was looking at—the secretary, the escapee, and the police general seated on a sofa, all smiling into the camera, with a raft of refreshments on a table before them. 

No, I immediately thought, surely this was from the recent past, when all was still peachy between Ms. Guo and the administration. Or could it have been another of those clever AI pastiches, mounted to embarrass our honest and hard-working officials in hot pursuit of a wanted criminal? How else could you explain Alice’s sweet smile and finger gestures, and the equally benign countenances of the gentlemen beside her? Where was even the slightest trace of the loneliness and fear that were said to have driven our favorite chinita into self-exile, which would have left her haggard and despondent? 

Not having read anything else at that point, I almost made a comment on the first FB post of that image to the effect that “No, no, this can’t be true, this is all fake!” Providentially I held back, and looked for what I was sure would be a vehement denial from those concerned that the picture was ever taken. Instead, I found a story and a video of the good secretary explaining that he had no idea what Ms. Guo was doing as their “documentation” photo was being taken. Good Lord, I thought—if that wasn’t the chummiest picture I’d ever seen of captors and their captive, like something from a high-school reunion. So, okay, the smiles can be explained away—Alice was relieved that the Philippine police will now secure her from all threats; Abalos and Marfil were happy to have completed their mission. Does that call for refreshments, for a toast? Where did decorum go?

Sometimes I wonder if we read the news just to get all riled up—like poking yourself in the eye—as proof of life, or of our ability to still think and figure out right from wrong.

There’s a great article by Brett and Kay McKay on a website called artofmanliness.com titled “Is There Any Reason to Keep Up with the News?” It notes that “In The News: A User’s Guide, philosopher Alain de Botton draws on the ideas of Hegel to posit that in fact, the news in modern cultures has in some ways replaced ‘religion as our central source of guidance and our touchstone of authority.’

“Morning and evening prayers have been substituted with checking one’s news feed immediately upon rising and retiring to bed. While the faithful once sought inspiration in scripture, it’s now in the news ‘we hope to receive revelations, learn who is good and bad, fathom suffering and understand the unfolding logic of existence. And here, too, if we refuse to take part in the rituals, there could be imputations of heresy.’

“If the news represents a new kind of faith, it is surely one of our least examined. The media rarely does stories on itself—reports that might examine their actual worth and credibility.”

The article goes on to dissect our hallowed reasons for following the news—e.g., our desire for the truth and for the betterment of humanity—only to show how narrowed and pliable the truth can be, and how the news actually dehumanizes people (quoting Stalin: “The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of one million is a statistic”) rather than sharpens our humanity.

This I know: if the news is still the bringer of truth as I knew it to be, then this morning’s news has made me mad, in both senses of the word.

Qwertyman No. 109: Digong’s Conversion

Posted on by
1

Qwertyman for Monday, September 2, 2024

RATHER THAN mock former President Rodrigo R. Duterte for his unflinching support for his bosom friend and spiritual adviser, the fugitive Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, I think we should praise and congratulate him for finally seeing the light and acknowledging the importance of human rights.

It must be age, or the reflection afforded by retirement, but the Digong Duterte we heard from last week in the wake of the massive police raid on Quiboloy’s lair was worlds apart from the apoplectic and coarse-tongued person we used to know. It took some time—likely aided by a sobering reversal of political fortunes—but gone is the swaggering Mussolini of the past, prone to profanity and what his apologists liked to call “hyperbole,” replaced by the pained and measured indignation of the aggrieved.

Of course, his statement could have been crafted by one of his former spokespersons, who must therefore take responsibility for the minor grammatical and stylistic infelicities in the text—but how can we even complain about language when gross human rights violations are on the table?

For those of you who missed it because you were wasting your time deploring Caloy Yulo’s filial impiety, here’s what PRRD said, in full:

“Our country has never been in a more tragic state as it is today. Rights have been trampled upon and our laws, derided.

“Early today, elements of the Philippine National Police Regional Office, led by Gen. Nicolas Torre Ill, forced their way into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ compound which resulted to (sic) a violent confrontation and the unfortunate death of one KOJC member and the requiring of (sic) immediate medical attention of many others.

“We sympathize with the members of the KoJC for having become victims of political harassment, persecution, violence and abuse of authority. This certainly puts a dark stain on the hands of those involved in today’s incident, led by no less than the top police official of the region.

“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.

“Again, let us ask this administration how it can guarantee the preservation of the constitutional rights of our fellow Filipinos when even the most fundamental of these rights are being blatantly violated? (sic)”

Why, minus the edits, this could have passed for something that PRRD’s arch-nemesis, former Sen. Leila de Lima, could have said a few years ago, before she went off to prison. Or it could have been mouthed by the late Chito Gascon, whose Commission on Human Rights PRRD sought to abolish for meddling in police investigations into dastardly drug deals, even getting Congress to pare its budget down to a more suitable P1,000. 

That Rodrigo Duterte could now speak so eloquently and convincingly of the need to uphold human rights is a testament to the possibility and power of redemptive conversion, which such famous miscreants as Paul of Tarsus and Ignatius of Loyola underwent. Gazing out on the horizon on the beaches of Davao (or in the Quiboloy compound, in his new job as its administrator), the former president must have felt a pang of remorse for all the lives that were needlessly lost under his administration—all because his followers in the police failed to understand, as his spokesmen were at pains to emphasize, that he was “only joking” and was given to “exaggerating” for rhetorical effect.

How in heaven’s name could they have taken him literally when he told a controversial police officer whom he assigned to a southern city in 2019, “Go there and you are free to kill everybody. Son of a b****, start killing there. The two of us will then go to jail!”

The following year, at another event in another province, PRRD was quoted by the newspapers as saying, in Filipino, “All addicts have guns. If there’s even a hint of wrongdoing, any overt act, even if you don’t see a gun, just go ahead and shoot him. You should go first, because you might be shot. Shoot him first, because he will really draw his gun on you, and you will die…. Human rights, you are preoccupied with the lives of the criminals and drug pushers. As mayor and as president, I have to protect every man, woman, and child from the dangers of drugs. The game is killing…. I say to the human rights, I don’t give a shit about you. My order is still the same. Because I am angry!”

Now, there’s every possibility that the president may have been misquoted by journalists hungry for incendiary news. But even granting that PRRD did say horrible things like that—perhaps in a fit of desperation over the fact that the drug menace he promised to eradicate in six months was still very much around toward the end of his presidency—that allegedly murderous despot is a ghost in the past. Today’s Digong is a sensitive soul with a nuanced sensibility that understands and will not countenance “abuse of authority” and “illegal orders,” especially when these are implemented by ingrates in the police force whose base pay he doubled (shame on the 2,000 cops who apparently forgot this in their brazen assault).

Indeed, if Rodrigo Roa Duterte can undergo and manifest such a miraculous conversion, then hope yet exists for the rest and the worst of us, who wallow in unproductive cynicism. Indeed it might even be that his resistance to the idea of yielding Pastor Quiboloy to the authorities stems from the deep debt of gratitude he feels toward his spiritual adviser, with whom he must have read and parsed many a Bible story. If there’s anything we Filipinos and especially the Dutertes understand and respect, it’s the value of friendship—right? Something in me already misses the old Digong, but I’ll gladly march with this new one in defense “of the constitutional rights of our fellow Filipinos.” I hope Sen. Leila can find it in her heart to forgive and forget, and link arms with Lady Justice’s latest convert.

Qwertyman No. 108: The Owl and the Parrot

Posted on by
Reply

Qwertyman for Monday, August 26, 2024

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat.

They took some honey, and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

WHO’S THE English-educated Pinoy of my generation who doesn’t remember this verse by Edward Lear, a so-called “nonsense” poem which we happily recited even if, as expected, it made no sense? It had animals who had fun doing outrageously improbable things together, and we were so caught up in the magic of a pig who sells his nose-ring so the owl and pussycat could get married by a turkey that we even believed a word like “runcible” existed, even if it didn’t, at least not before the poem. After the poem—and because of the poem, first published in 1871—“runcible spoon” entered the English dictionary as “a sharp-edged fork with three broad curved prongs.” That’s why MS Word no longer flagged “runcible” as a misspelling as I typed it on my computer a few minutes ago.

That’s the power of true literature, something that gets beneath your skin and deep into your subconscious imagination, more effectively than reason or logic can, so that it becomes more real and more credible than reality itself. There’s a disarming honesty to nonsense poetry that doesn’t pretend to be anything else but. (Of course, given how students of literature have to sound deathly scholarly to earn or deserve their PhDs, a lot more nonsense has been written and published in ponderous journals about what “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat” really, really means.) 

As adult readers or reciters, we can all just enjoy the image of the owl and the pussycat dancing “by the light of the moon,” and think about how good that would be to do with our owl, our pussycat, so why can’t or don’t we? We’re amused but wistful at the same time, and that’s a complex emotion—wistfulness or “regretful longing” especially cuts backward through time and experience to make spot valuations, mostly about losses.

But let’s get back to the fun part—or maybe not so fun. 

Last week, it came to our attention that our multi-talented Vice President Sara Duterte—fresh out of her role as the “mother of Philippine education”—is apparently also an author of children’s books, having come out with one titled Isang Kaibigan (A Friend). We should all be happy when our political leaders turn to writing (presumably without the aid of a ghost writer), because it offers proof that (1) they actually think; (2) they still know their subjects, predicates, and objects, and therefore understand that people commit acts that lead to consequences; and (3) they know they won’t be in power forever, and want to be remembered in a good way for a long time.

That said, it’s a pity that most politician-authors throw away their chance at real greatness (in literature, if not in politics) by churning out some commissioned biography inflating or embellishing his or her accomplishments while leaving out the tricky ((and truly interesting) stuff. Good business for peons like me, but usually so poorly done as to be forgettable, the worst fate a book can suffer. If you think of pole vaulting, the bar was set highest at 7 meters by Winston Churchill, who became both Prime Minister and Nobel Prize winner for Literature (yes, literature). At around 5.5 meters we have genuinely talented fellows like Jeffrey (now Baron) Archer, the colorful Conservative MP who wrote popular novels, one of which sold 34 million copies (out of 320 million total for his entire oeuvre). Most others can barely hop over the bar at one meter. 

Enter VP Sara, whose maiden venture, a 16-page book, reportedly touts the virtues of friendship among people in dire straits. While it makes me wonder why the VP’s thoughts are drifting in this direction, it’s surely a worthwhile message, given all the unfriendliness in Philippine politics—even in the Philippine Senate. 

That’s where VP Sara went to ask for a P2-billion budget for her office, including a paltry item of P10 million for the printing and distribution of 200,000 copies of her book. Rather reasonably, Sen. Risa Hontiveros asked the VP what her book was about, prompting this strangely tart reply:

“This is an example of politicizing the budget hearing through the questions of a senator. Her problem is, my name is listed in the book. And we will be giving that book to the children. And those children have parents who will be voting. And my name will be spread wherever the book is given.”

I became even more curious about what was in the book, so I went online and discovered that it was the story of an owl whose nest is destroyed by a typhoon and who then finds refuge with a friendly parrot. So, okay, maybe it won’t win any PBBY book prizes for writing for children. And I’m afraid to say that with answers like that, Author Sara won’t fare too well in the writers’ workshops, where the panelists are far nastier than Sen. Risa.

But Isang Kaibigan establishes an important point, right? Friendships are important; friendships can save you; what you do for a friend in need today will be remembered tomorrow. (Never mind what the naughty wags will say about the VP being left out in a political storm—who will offer succor? Who will prove her true friends while she rebuilds her house toward 2028?) And where more pretentious authors typically load their “About the Author” pages with cloying lists of “awards won” and annoying cliches like “He divides his time between Bacolod and Berlin,” VP Sara keeps it simple and gets straight to the point: “Isa siyang kaibigan.” She’s a friend!

So what’s not to like? Well, maybe the P10 million bill, which lesser writers like me can only be envious of, having to wait years to watch our print run of 1,000 copies vanish book by painful book. VP Sara’s 200,000 guaranteed sales will surely break bestseller records, and we can gnash our teeth all we want but it still won’t answer our question, “How to be you?”

I don’t know how many millions of pounds Sir Winnie asked for and got from His Majesty’s government to print and distribute his books during the war, but it must have been a lot and the Brits must have read all of them because they certainly came through with just their blood, tears, and sweat. Sometimes, some honey and plenty of money is all an author needs to shine and be happy.

Qwertyman No. 107: The Epalympics

Posted on by
Reply

Qwertyman for Monday, August 19, 2024

FIRST OF all, a definition of terms, particularly for the benefit of our foreign friends: “epal” is a Filipino word that has nothing to do with friendship over the Internet, although it does presume on some (unearned and likely bogus) level of familiarity between two people—one an achiever (e.g., an Olympic champion) and the other, a politician. The term is rooted in the Filipino word “kapal” or “thickness,” the complete phrase being “kapal mukha” (aka “kapalmuks”) or “thick-faced,” referring to the utter shamelessness some people can be capable of. (EDIT: I’ve been told that “epal” more likely derives from “papel” or “pumapapel” to mean “promoting oneself,” which makes even better sense.)

In the case of “epal,” the specific context is credit-grabbing or publicity-seeking, such as when a politician plasters his or her name all over a civil works project to suggest that it wouldn’t have happened without him or her—or, in recent weeks, when a politician posts a meme supposedly congratulating an Olympic champion, as if he or she had anything to do with that person’s sterling achievement. 

Closely related to “epal” in the Pinoy political vocabulary is “trapo,” which started out as “tradpol” for “traditional politician” but which quickly and sensibly devolved into the Filipino word for “rag”—yes, that piece of cloth you mop up the dirty and yucky stuff with. Trapos will find nothing wrong with being epal—it’s central to their trapo-ness—as they are pathologically incapable of modesty or self-awareness, and equate anything that promotes their well-being with the public good, the people being privileged to be served by them rather than the other way around.

We witnessed this in abundance in the wake of the Paris Olympics, from which the Philippines came home with two golds and two bronzes. In what Netizens quickly dubbed the “Epalympics,” our medalists, especially gymnast Carlos Yulo, were showered not just with congratulatory memes from the usual politicos but with tons of cash and other goodies from both public and private donors. 

There’s nothing, of course, preventing our distinguished and hardworking public officials—and even those seeking to replace them—from sharing in the post-victory jubilation. Lord knows we needed that boost to our spirits, even if our national fantasies still revolve around basketball like nothing’s happened since Berlin 1936 (there’s something to be said here about our propensity for self-punishment and martyrdom, but we’ll leave that for another time). 

It’s possible that Caloy was looking forward to the chorus of fulsome praise from his favorite senators and congressmen, if only as a relief from all the messages urging him to either disown his mother or to find another girlfriend shaped more like, well, a gymnast. A politician, after all, represents a constituency and presumes to speak for them, so it has to be extra comforting to realize that it’s not only Cong. X speaking for himself, but all 250,000 voters in the third district of his province, even if none of the appear in the meme; heck, even Caloy himself may not be in the picture, but does it matter? He has all the glory he needs; let him share it with the less fortunate.

As a writer, however—and speaking on behalf of my fellow artists—I must register my complaint over the apparent partiality of our esteemed epals, who have never congratulated me or my colleagues despite our considerable achievements on both a national and global scale. Not even my local councilor or barangay captain greeted me when my novel was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, nor did the UP Singing Ambassadors and UP Madrigal Singers receive online hosannas for their triumphs in Arezzo. (This list can go on and on to include our prizewinners in film, painting, sculpture, etc.) No, sir—our epals are staunchly and singularly sports-minded, perhaps in commiseration with athletes who have to run, vault, gyrate, box, and even shoot their way to victory; politics, after all, is an ancient blood sport, at which not necessarily the best but the strongest survive.

Come to think of it, I can’t recall a senator or congressman congratulating journalist Maria Ressa (save for a few brave souls in the opposition like VP Leni)—let alone give her a million-peso bonus—for winning the Nobel Prize, which will probably take another century for another Pinoy to get. 

Yes, let’s talk about those bonuses—which all of us are happy our sports heroes are receiving and frankly envy them for, there being no such generous windfalls in our line of work. It’s another sure sign of ka-epalan when the “incentive” is given after the fact of victory, and not before when it might have mattered more, and not just to one champion but to an entire program in dire need of such basics as food, uniforms, shoes, and transportation money. (One deathless politico even offered Yulo an extra P5 million if he were to reconcile with his estranged mom—awww, so touching! You can bet he’ll be there with an outsize check when the tearful moment happens.)

Yes, Yulo & Co. did receive government and private help on their way to the Olympics, for which they’ve been properly thankful, and yes, those investments clearly paid off. But where were all these mega-millions for the grassroots sports programs that could have produced a dozen more Caloys? Yulo himself has nobly announced that he will share his bounty with up-and-coming gymnasts, and bless him for that, but that’s not even his job. 

The most cringeworthy prospect yet lies ahead: who among our Epalympians will succeed in getting Caloy Yulo on his or her campaign poster come the elections in 2025? And God forbid, will Yulo himself do a Manny Pacquiao and tumble his way into the political arena down the road? As we say in these drama-dizzy islands, “Abangan.”

Qwertyman No. 106: For Our National Peace of Mind

Posted on by
1

Qwertyman for Monday, August 12, 2024

FOR A country starved for heroes, Carlos Yulo’s double-gold performance at the Olympics provided a sumptuous feast—a bacchanalian one, to use probably the newest and most notorious word in many people’s vocabulary. In one YouTube replay after another, we marveled at his seemingly magical flips and tumbles, and our eyes welled with tears when the Philippine anthem played over the stadium’s loudspeakers.

The euphoria effectively drowned out the previous week’s near-manic howls over the controversial Dionysian tableau of the opening ceremonies and the chorus proclaiming Paris as the most evil and corrupt city on the planet. Suddenly Paris acquired a golden halo; Yulo was beatified on social media as the exemplar of perseverance and tough-mindedness, and rightly so. His feat—sterling victories achieved despite overwhelming odds—was unprecedented and not likely to be equaled by another non-hyphenated Pinoy anytime soon.

But no sooner had Filipinos united in that moment of jubilation than they, almost by instinct, found cause to divide once again, this time over one’s choice of villainess in poor Caloy’s life: the bitter mother or the sexy girlfriend, behind either one of whom platoons of supporters rallied. Team Nanay exalted motherhood and filial piety above all else; Team GF cheered for the pursuit of happiness. Who will get to the podium remains to be seen.

I’m sure Caloy Yulo isn’t alone in his predicament. An assiduous journalist just has to comb through the life stories of all the 400+ gold medalists in the Paris Olympics to discover that 87.93 percent of them have problems with mothers, fathers, girlfriends, boyfriends, siblings, in-laws, best friends, neighbors, and pets. (For these, I would look most closely into places like Uzbekistan, Uganda, and, yes, Italy, where families seem to be big and noisy.) Statistically speaking, there has to be a champion shotputter or a synchronized swimmer somewhere whose miserable mama hates his shapely squeeze. (I’ve even heard someone posit over breakfast coffee that maybe EJ Obiena needed a mother/girlfriend problem to clear the bar at 6.0 meters.)

The big difference is that no one goes to town with family dramas quite like us Pinoys, especially Pinoys with social-media accounts normally given to showing off what they just ate or their OOTD. To show, at least once in a while, that there’s actually a thinking and feeling person behind the avatar (and online, feeling equals thinking), we post a strong opinion—never mind that it’s the millionth repost of someone else’s meme. We find it important—nay, obligatory—to take sides on vital issues (that do not include PISA scores, ICC probes, or jeepney modernization). We have to decide if the mother or the girlfriend is at fault; our national peace of mind depends on it. Never mind what Caloy Yulo himself thinks—this is bigger than him (like most things are).

And this is just the beginning, although it’s inextricably tied in with the next big question that 115 million Filipinos have to grapple with: what should Caloy do with all his money? (I don’t even want to think about whether he should go into showbiz or politics next—my friend Ige Ramos’ post on those prospects was probably the sanest of the past week, and one Caloy would do well to heed.)

In addition to all the lifetime supplies of ramen, litson manok, and colonoscopies that come with being a Pinoy Olympic laureate, will it be too much to offer Caloy Yulo a lifetime supply of peace? It costs nothing but our willful silence.

Seriously now, silence is a virtue, and withholding opinion can be as valuable and as helpful as giving one. It doesn’t mean you’re dumb or uncaring. On the contrary, it might mean that you know enough to understand that staying out of the fray and keeping your thoughts to yourself is the more sensible if not kinder option. But we Pinoys, the reigning world usisero and pakialamero champions, have never been known for excessive self-restraint, which manifests only when the neighbor’s wife is being beaten senseless by her husband (“Wala tayong kinalaman diyan”) or when witnesses are called to testify to their boss’ or their congressman’s misdeeds.

Sadly, social media has empowered everyone from nitwits to geniuses (and of course, everyone thinks of himself or herself as a genius, especially the nitwit) to hold forth on every conceivable subject, even and especially if the issue at hand is none of one’s bloody business. 

I say that with the ironic awareness that we opinion writers do pretty much the same thing, with some sort of official license; we even get paid for it. Indeed we may even be the ultimate pakialamero, poking our noses into all manner of secrets and scandals, particularly the government variety (or maybe not me, because I don’t hobnob with politicians or their secretaries, and so am useless when it comes to the saucy stuff). But the difference is that having to write 1,000 words instead of a ten-word tweet, we actually have to stop to think about how we feel, to contextualize, and perhaps even to decide that we have nothing truly important or useful or even amusing to say about the matter, and so should move on to something else.

At least Caloy can rest assured that given the nature of the beast, this tempest will blow over soon. (Is anyone still posting about the Last Supper? That’s so last-week!) And before too long, he can rightfully enjoy the pommel horse in his P32-million condo. Wait—it does have a pommel horse, right? If not, it should! What do you think?

(Photo from rappler.com)

Qwertyman No. 102: Retaining the Fools

Posted on by
Reply

Qwertyman for Monday, July 15, 2024

A RECENT Rappler report on “The Philippine Senate: From statesmen to showmen” by James Patrick Cruz told us much of what we already knew, but didn’t have the exact numbers for—that political families dominate that institution, that most of them come from the big cities, that most of them are men, that older senators (above 50) outnumber young ones, and that many come from the glitzy world of entertainment and media.

Surprisingly (and why am I even using this word?), most senators are highly educated and even have advanced degrees, mostly in law. However, the study says, “the high educational background of senators has not produced ‘evidence-based policymaking.’…  Some lawmakers, for example, have used the Bible to argue against the reproductive health law in a secular setting and have relied on personal experiences in discussions on divorce.”

And not surprisingly, the academics consulted for the study concluded that “If you want better policy, we should go for better inclusion, better representation, and not just be dominated by political families.” Indeed, from the very beginning, it notes that “Political analysts have observed a decline in the quality of the Philippine Senate over the years. The shift from a chamber filled with statesmen to one dominated by entertainers and political dynasties has become evident.”

And then again we already knew all that. What the Rappler study does is provide a historical overview—quantitatively and qualitatively—of how the Philippine Senate has morphed as an institution over the decades, reflecting changes in the electorate and in Philippine society itself. It opens with resonant passages from the speeches of political leaders from a time when the word “senator” bestowed an aura of respectability and consequence upon its bearer. 

It quotes the luminous Jose W. Diokno: “There is one dream that we all Filipinos share: that our children may have a better life than we have had. To make this country, our country, a nation for our children.” Sen. Jovito R. Salonga, another legendary figure and war hero, follows with “Independence, like freedom, is never granted. It is always asserted and affirmed. Its defense is an everyday endeavor—sometimes in the field of battle, oftentimes in the contest of conflicting wills and ideas. It is a daily struggle that may never end—for as long as we live.”

It’s entirely possible—and why not?—that this kind of elevated prose can be uttered today by a senator or congressman backed up by a capable speechwriter, if not AI. The question is, will they be believed? Will the words ring true coming out of their speaker’s mouth—especially if that speaker were one of today’s, shall we say, non-traditional senators, reared more in showbiz and social media than in Demosthenes? 

“Non-traditional” applies as well to political families, which notion we can expand beyond DNA matches to communities of convenience, of shared geographical, economic, and cultural origins—the entertainers, the media stars, business moguls, the Davao boys, and so on. (There’s probably no better guide to how traditional families have ruled the Philippines than An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines, edited by Alfred W. McCoy and published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2009.)

It might also be that the problem lies not so much or not only in the dynastic nature of Philippine politics, as in the fact that the quality of these families has badly deteriorated. And by “quality” I don’t mean anything by way of economic or social candlepower—none of that “de buena familia” silliness. (To be sure, no family—however celebrated—has ever been perfect, coming with its fair share of black sheep, eccentrics, and outliers. Our social lore abounds with barely whispered stories of the abusive father, the spendthrift mother, the gay son—yes, in Pinoy archetype, gay is wayward—and the mad daughter.) 

I suppose we keep looking for some defining virtue, a reputation founded on academic excellence, intellectual prowess, philanthropy, moral ascendancy, and the like. How many families in the Senate and Congress today can lay claim to that kind of legacy? Today, prominent families achieve and maintain their status through their economic and political clout, through popularity or even notoriety, and even through sheer staying power, thanks to the muscle memory of many Pinoys in the voting booths.

In 1998, in my biography of the accomplished, fascinating, and resolutely revolutionary Lava brothers, I noted that “For anyone familiar with the history of the Philippines over these past one hundred years, it will not tax the truth to suggest that so much of that history has been family history. In many ways, modern Philippine history is an extended family picture album in which a few names and facial features keep recurring, with only the characters’ ages, expressions, poses, and costumes changing from page to page. Most ordinary Filipinos have lived in the shadow and by the sufferance of such dynasties as the Marcoses, the Lopezes, the Aquinos, the Laurels, and the Cojuangcos, among others—families which have ritually sired presidents and kingmakers, tycoons, rakes, sportsmen, and society belles. But none of them were like—and there may never be another Filipino family like—the Lavas.”

For those who never knew them, over the mid-20th century, five Lava brothers—Vicente, Francisco, Horacio, Jose, and Jesus—emerged from a moderately affluent landowning family from the heartland of Bulacan to become progressive intellectuals, some of them even leading the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas. Ironically, these were no workers or peasants. Vicente, a government pensionado, held a PhD in chemistry from Columbia University; Horacio and Francisco also held advanced degrees in economics and law from Berkeley and Stanford, respectively; Jose was a lawyer-CPA whose University of the Philippines thesis was adjudged the best of his class; Jesus was a medical doctor, also graduating from UP.

Just so we know, the Lavas and their comrades were operating legally and openly right after the War, and were even elected to Congress under the Democratic Alliance in 1946—only to be expelled on trumped-up charges of fraud and terrorism, with their votes on the key parity rights issue discounted. Under threat of extermination, they went underground, followed by two decades of bloody struggle.

That’s what happened to one family with real brains and convictions, even pre-NTF-ELCAC; we expel the thinkers and retain the fools.

(Image from constitutionnet.org)

Penman No. 464: A Fantasy Memoir

Posted on by
Reply

Penman for Sunday, July 7, 2024

THE AUTHOR calls his book a “fantasy memoir,” and if it’s a genre you’re not familiar with, you wouldn’t be alone. Or maybe that’s just because you’re a dour and straight septuagenarian like me who doesn’t go out too much, watches true-crime shows to relax, and presses his pants and shines his shoes because, well, that’s the way it should be. I later googled the term, just to see what’s out there, and much to my surprise, it does exist—a genre defined by “imagination, escapism, and dreams,” with the stipulation that these fantasies, or products of the mind, are just as valid as memory in recreating one’s life.

Thankfully, from the cover onward, Michael Gil Magnaye’s La Vie en Pose makes it purpose clear to the most casual and non-literary of readers: to have fun—while raising some very serious questions on the side about who and what we are (or pretend to be), what poses we ourselves assume, consciously or not, in our everyday lives, and how our identities are constructed by something so simple as what we wear.

La Vie en Pose is one of those rare books one can truly call “inspired,” resulting from the kind of half-crazy “What if?” lightbulb moment that strikes you over your tenth bottle of beer at 3 in the morning. Unlike many such flashes, this one stayed with Gil, took firmer shape, and turned into a virtual obsession—a first book to be completed by his 60th birthday, not just any book, not one of dry prose between the covers, but one certain to make a personal statement for the ages.

Magnaye, who works as an advisor to an international NGO, describes the book as “a fantasy memoir told in a hundred photographs of the author in costume, striking a pose around the world. Designed and photographed over a decade, these vignettes depict media celebrities, politicians, literary characters and wholly fictitious figures drawn from Magnaye’s fertile imagination. The collection offers satirical, often hilarious commentary on noteworthy personalities in pop culture, politics and history, from Game of Thrones to Bridgerton, from Jackie Onassis to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

Divided into eight chapters and edited by the celebrated Fil-Am writer Marivi Soliven, the book takes Gil around the world (none of this is AI—the photography took many years and plane flights to complete), posing in various locales and contexts, often in costume, to mimic or to pay homage to familiar figures and situations. The pop-culture setups will likely elicit the most laughs and smiles—Tina Turner, Maria von Trapp, and of course Barbie all get their comeuppance—and the UP Oblation poses (thankfully just backsides) show the malayong lupain that our iskolars ng bayan have reached (Gil studied and taught Humanities in UP before going to Stanford for his master’s). The levity aside, he strikes thoughtful, almost architectural, poses against spare backdrops. He draws his husband Roy, a normally reticent software engineer, into take-offs on couples (Ari and Jackie, Ennis and Jack). The effect is both riotous and reflective, a visual essay on how pop and political culture have overwhelmed us, but also how we have appropriated and domesticated them for our own purposes, if only to say, “Hey, I can be as good that!”

The poet and queer theorist J. Neil Garcia explains it better in this note he posted online about the 30thanniversary of the landmark Ladlad anthology he co-edited with Danton Remoto: “Queer creativity is itself an integral component of the equality message, and not simply a means to an end. Since the freedom of the imagination is perhaps where all freedom begins, it is clear that giving the queer artist the power or the ability to create their own texts and art works needs to be seen as a vital objective of the equality movement, one of whose primary interests must be in securing this imaginative and/or cognitive ability above all. Hence, we need to insist on the truth that queer creativity isn’t simply a tool to promote the equality message and other activist agendas; rather, queer creativity itself is part of the agenda—is part of the equality message itself (and so, queer creativity is not just a means to an end; quite crucially, as the best evidence and enactment we have of individual and collective agency, even against the harshest of odds, it is an end, in itself).”

For Gil—whom I was friends with back when he still had a girlfriend and confronting his sexuality—the book is more than a personal celebration (he launched it in UP last June 23 to mark his 60th birthday); it’s also an assertion of his rights as a queer (the preferred term these days to “gay”) person—and by extension, of all other LGBTQ+ people as well—to express themselves creatively. In his introduction, he notes that “This book is born at a fraught moment in gender politics. Some states in the US have passed legislation that attacks transgender youth for their chosen wardrobe or preferred pronouns. A drag artist in the Philippines has been jailed for performing an irreverent dance interpretation of a Catholic hymn. Such adverse events would seem to suggest that cross-dressing is an act of subversion. I would argue that cross-dressing and mimicry are strategies that drag queens, drag kings, non-binary performers, and gender benders employ to resist, challenge, navigate, and extricate themselves from systems imposed by traditional constructs. And it’s a lot of fun.”

La Vie en Pose most surely is. Copies might still be available at the UP Center for Women’s and Gender Studies.