Category Archives: Society

Qwertyman No. 44: Again, America

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Qwertyman for Monday, June 5, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Image from bu.edu)

Qwertyman No. 43: Perhaps It Takes a Fire

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Qwertyman for May 29, 2023

THE WORST fire I ever witnessed was that of the Family Clinic hospital near Quiapo in Manila in 1972. I was a police reporter for the Philippines Herald, on the graveyard shift at the MPD HQ, when the three-alarm alert came in and we sped out in our jeep to the fire. Flames were billowing out of the upper floors and people were on the roof when we got there, and soon, sickest of all, I began to hear the thuds of bodies falling onto the pavement, of those who could no longer bear the heat and chose the only other terminal option. When I called the night editor to tell him what I was looking at, he had an additional assignment for me: “Count up the bodies, we need a figure.” I spent the early morning making the rounds of the nearby hospitals and their morgues, seeing up close what fire can do to a human body, the weeping of burnt flesh. I was eighteen, a college dropout eager to work; that night was worth a year in journalism school for me.

Many decades later, early in the morning of April 1, 2016, I was playing poker with some friends when I got a text message from another night owl that the UP Faculty Center was burning. Ever the skeptic, my first thought was that it was the first of what would be many April Fool’s Day jokes, but then other messages confirmed the terrible news. I dropped my cards and drove back to the campus—where I also live, by the way—behind the blare of firetrucks speeding to the scene of the fire, their loudness and haste almost superfluous in the stillness of the night. 

I arrived in time to catch the sight of my office burning—the whole first floor, our whole department, was burning. Strangely at that moment I felt no pain, no sense of loss; I didn’t flail around or throw up my hands in anguish. I suppose that was a form of shock, the way our brain throws a cold, wet blanket around us to insulate us from the heat, to keep us immobilized and therefore safe in the face of catastrophe. Unavoidably my mind began taking inventory of what was in my room—books, paintings, the best student papers of thirty-some years, twenty first-edition copies of my book Penmanship I had saved for its special paper, a computer, flotsam and jetsam from an academic life. There were many precious and irreplaceable pieces in that office, for sure, but again strangely, as soon as I remembered them, I said goodbye; I realized that I was muttering what amounted to a prayer.

Two days later, when the smoke had cleared, I stepped into the gutted building and took a video with my phone. The embers were still steaming beneath my feet. I confirmed with my own eyes the finality of things. Everything but the shards of a ceramic cup was gone—and my book of stories, prettily charred around the pages as though for some theatrical presentation. My writer’s mind was compensating, salvaging scraps of beauty from the crushing loss. That comes to us like second nature; we want to give our grief exquisite form, hoping for meaning and consolation.

There is something about a fire, a compelling majesty, that Filipinos instinctively respond to—not necessarily to help, which is beyond most of us, but to watch and be spellbound by. Where is the child who didn’t jump out of bed and dash into the street at the shouts of “Sunog!”, followed by the festive clangor of alarms and firetrucks? Nighttime fires are especially dramatic, as the sky glows orange and the smoke curls into your nostrils. You are aware that something terrible is happening to someone, and the next morning the news will carry the grim details: a family trapped, a mother curled over her baby, a son who had just graduated the week before. We feel sorry for these victims, while being secretly relieved that we ourselves were spared. Perhaps what attracts us to fire is its anticipation of The End, with science assuring us that the sun will scorch the earth in its last embrace and religion threatening yet more heat for miscreant souls.

When I heard about the fire at the Manila Central Post Office building last week and began seeing the pictures coming online, I reacted with the same stunned silence, trying to absorb the enormity of it all, while morbidly, guiltily, indulging my fascination with fire. It was epic theater—the inferno raging behind and through the neoclassical columns that had withstood a war. I should have been mourning the loss of hand- and typewritten letters—rarities themselves in these days of email—and of other valuables in that building (oh, the stamp collection of the Bureau of Posts!), but my mind drew me back to my childhood, when my father was working at what was then the Department of Public Works, Transportation, and Communications, which was housed in that building.

I must have been just five or six when my dad brought me there to his mezzanine office; I recall rocking on his wooden swivel chair, and playing with the double-tipped red-blue pencils on his desk. At lunch, we crossed an inner courtyard to the cafeteria. My father was just a clerk then, but to me, he seemed like the boss of the place, and I wanted to be like him, seated behind a big table with a pen in hand (in my sixties, I would buy a similar swivel chair). 

Editorials will and should be written about the MCPO building’s loss and for its reconstruction. Explosive words like “arson,” “heritage,” “accountability,” and “negligence” will fly up in the air. For a while, like the fire itself, they will consume us, hold us in thrall, until they flicker out and we return to our daily business, our outrage expended.

Once again we find ourselves loving what is gone too late. But perhaps it takes a fire to awaken love and memory, and to teach us important albeit bitter lessons about impermanence, and thus the need to care and to give value while we can. Whether started by accident or by diabolical intent, fires remind us that we are not what we accumulate but what we regret losing, and struggle to rebuild and recover.

(MCPO photo from philstar.com)

Qwertyman No. 42: Life Lessons for the College Student

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Qwertyman for May 22, 2023

TWO YEARS ago, well before I began writing this column, I was asked to share some thoughts with fellow teachers of General Education—that special recipe of college courses in various disciplines meant to give incoming students a basic but challenging introduction to the issues of life and society. Instead of giving a lecture, I decided to come up with a list of 12 “life lessons” that I thought every undergrad should learn, one way or another, over their four years in college. I’d like to share them here as well, with further notes from me in parentheses, to reach a larger audience—and yes, even well beyond college. Here goes:

1. You don’t have to understand everything right away. In any case, you can’t. Some things in life will forever remain mysteries—some of them wonderful, some of them perplexing. Staying curious is what matters to the lifelong learner. (Aside from being usually obnoxious and insufferably arrogant, know-it-alls never learn that they can’t possibly know everything.)

2. Engagement helps—and by engagement, I mean investing yourself, putting in your time, effort, and maybe even money behind some belief or idea or activity that means something to you. Sometimes engagement is the best way of knowing, learning, and finally understanding. (Talk is cheap; get off your butt and actually do something. Remember the “community pantry”? That was because somebody took charge of an idea and put it into action.)

3. Not everything has to have practical value—at least not yet, or maybe ever. Value can mean more than utility or money. Delight and discovery are their own rewards. (All art involves finding beauty in the abstract; even sport is the quest of abstract perfection. Of course both art and sport have ironically become big business, and their best practitioners deserve every reward, but just as ironically, their greatest feats are driven by love and passion, not money.)

4. You are not the center of the universe. Not everything has to do with you. However, every connection you can make to the world around you leaves a mark that you were here—and that, in your own way, you mattered. (Know the difference between history and Instagram.)

5. Learn to see time in years and centuries, not seconds or hours. If you want to foretell the future, look back to the past. We may seem to be headed for the future, but in fact we will all inevitably be part of the past. How will you want to be remembered? (Repeat: Know the difference between history and Instagram.)

6. Intelligence, cleverness, knowledge, and wisdom are very different things. Knowledge without values is worthless and even dangerous. The middling student who has a sense of good and bad and right and wrong is worthier than the summa cum laude who doesn’t. (The people who have methodically impoverished and destroyed this country are no idiots; they are experts at what they do, or can hire whatever expertise they need.)

7. The first thought that comes to your mind may not be the best one. Pause and think before you speak or write, especially in these days of Facebook and Twitter. Speech but also silence can require courage and good judgment. (Live and write as if there were no “delete” or “unsend” buttons at your fingertips.)

8. Learn to love something larger than yourself, your family, and your prized possessions. “Nation,” “freedom,” “justice,” and “equality” are very attractive ideas, but you have to learn to bring these big words down to earth, in concrete forms, actions, and decisions. Can you accept that you are your housekeeper’s equal as a human being? (Good citizenship is always personal. Bad leadership is no excuse; be the example to your family, friends, and community.)

9. Be prepared to take risks and to make mistakes—and even to fail. You can learn more from failure than from over-performance. Everybody—even the very best of us—will fail sometime, and it will be good to believe that we are all entitled to at least one big mistake in our lives. (Being humbled by failure is always a good starting point; as we like to say in Diliman, you have nowhere to go but up!)

10. Be prepared to change your mind. As you grow and learn, some things will become more simple, and others more complex. You are not a fixed entity; you are changing all the time, and you can change faster than the world around you. (In my twenties, I thought I had the world all figured out in black and white, and would have been prepared to die for my causes. I’m glad I didn’t—I needed more time to learn that the world is mostly shades of gray, and that “compromise” is not necessarily a bad word.)

11. Technology can be deceptive. It can lead us to believe that the world is changing very fast and for the better. That may be true for some of us and for the way we live. But for many others left behind, the world is no better than it was a hundred years ago. (Technology, even artificial intelligence, is amoral. It’s only as good as the person who uses it, and his or her intentions.)

12. Competition is good, but cooperation is often better—and necessary. Poems are written by solitary genius, but bridges, cathedrals, and nations are built by many minds and hands. The best way to deal with loneliness is to find meaning in the many—to learn from and to contribute to the experience of others. (And I’m not talking here just about networking online; indeed nothing has made us lonelier in this century than the Internet. Share a cup of coffee, and learn to listen—their causes could be more urgent than yours, and you might even have the answer.)

Qwertyman No. 41: Living up to “Honorable”

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Qwertyman for Monday, May 15, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Qwertyman No: 40: Teaching History

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Qwertyman for Monday, May 8, 2023

I HAVE a subscription to the New York Times, which I enjoy for its features and commentary as much as its news coverage, and the other day my attention was piqued by a small headline: “It’s Not Just Math and Reading: US History Scores for 8th Graders Plunge.”

According to the article, recent test scores reveal that young Americans (about 13-14 years old for eighth-graders) have become much less knowledgeable about their history and civics over the past decade—with 40 percent scoring “below basic” and only 13 percent ranked as “proficient.” 

I immediately wondered how our students would score given similar tests. Would they be able to answer even simple questions about why Ferdinand Magellan sailed to the Philippines, what prompted Filipinos to revolt against Spain, why the Americans occupied us, what led to our involvement in the Second World War, and what martial law and EDSA were all about? I’ll probably be safe in my prediction that they would score dismally, from what I’ve seen in my own classes in UP (yes, in UP), where I’ve been dismayed to find a yawning ignorance of history and literature among my students, supposedly among the best in the country. 

Don’t get me wrong: these are bright, idealistic kids, desirous of all things good for their people and their families. They perform well in class and will likely succeed in whatever career lies ahead of them. But when I ask a roomful of English majors if they know or have read NVM Gonzalez and only a couple of hands go up, I get worried. When I ask when or what year the Americans arrived to conquer us and I get strange answers like “1945,” I get worried. 

However shocked we may profess to be, we can’t blame the students. In 2014, following the passage of the Enhanced Education Act of 2013 or the K-12 Law, the Department of Education issued Order No. 20, Series of 2014, effectively removing Philippine History as a high school subject and subsuming it as an “integrated subtopic” under “Asian Studies,” supposedly to provide students with a wider global perspective. The idea sounds nifty, but as many educators have since pointed out, its practical effect has been to dilute the teaching of Philippine history to the point of oblivion. The result is that we have young Filipinos with no knowledge of the most basic facts and issues of their past, and no appreciation of how that past brought us to where we are today.

That vacuum has been an open invitation to misinformation and historical distortion, the stock-in-trade of political propagandists, trolls, and spinmeisters. It’s become much easier to sell myths like a golden age under martial law to impressionable youngsters who were never told or taught the truth. Not surprisingly, Order No. 20 has been attacked by its critics as a means to lobotomize the youth and to render them more susceptible to alternative narratives (aka fake news) concerning our history. 

And yes, I have to acknowledge that all this began under the late President Noynoy Aquino, a champion of K-12, whom I prefer to believe had no such nefarious motives in mind, as he and his family would have had little to gain by erasing history. But the policy was upheld and sustained by the following administration, with DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones arguing strenuously that History (including our martial-law experience) was being taught in Grade 6 under Araling Panlipunan, and again in high school as a component of Asian and World History.

Given the current DepEd’s expressed desire to review K-12, it might be a good time to test how effective that policy has been: just how much Philippine History are our high school students learning and retaining? How much should they know by the time they get to college, where thornier issues such as nationalism, agrarian reform, and foreign policy will be threshed out in all their nuances?

Long before these questions arose, it was a common complaint among students and even teachers that our problem with History was how badly it was taught, often as a collection of names and dates rather than a coherent narrative (which I must say I sometimes wonder about, fact often being stranger and messier than fiction). We generally agree that History should involve more reasoning than rote memorization. But as the New York Times reports, “That emphasis can contribute to a troubling lack of background knowledge,” with experts observing a “rapid and very significant decline in what students know about history and geography—like the fact that Africa is a continent, not a country.” So the basics of names, dates, and places remain important—getting the facts straight before getting into more complicated arguments.

It’s even more troubling to note that on top of this decline in historical knowledge and awareness among young Americans, there’s now a ham-fisted effort from conservative politicians to purge school curricula of what they see as “woke” content—subjects that have challenged the longstanding impression of America as a nation forged by whites. Governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis—eager to present themselves as the flag-bearers of political and moral rectitude—have supported moves to eliminate African-American and LGBTQ studies from the curriculum. Others have called for banning books that threaten their view of traditional America, including books titled “The Infinite Moment of Us” (a young adult novel about love and sex) and “How to Be an Antiracist” (a nonfiction book about racism and ethnicity). This reminded me of how some Philippine state universities, not too long ago, went on their own book-banning spree, on some silly suspicion that books by such authors as National Artist Bienvenido Lumbera were “subversive.”

The New York Times piece came with an irresistible teaser: a brief five-question, multiple-choice history quiz for readers to test themselves on how well they know American history. I scored four out of five (failing a question about post-Civil War reconstruction)—not too bad, I thought, for a guy living seven thousand miles away. But then I come from a generation schooled on American textbooks, who know American history and geography better than many Americans. That’s a topic for another column.

In the meanwhile, let’s ask ourselves: how well do we know our history, and how important is that knowledge to understanding our present and shaping our future? Is “Maria Clara and Ibarra” pointing the way forward?

Qwertyman No. 38: Getting into UP

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Qwertyman for Monday, April 24, 2023

(For this week, let me offer a little family drama about my favorite school, this being exam season, and before I get the usual calls from anxious friends.)

“HEY, UPCAT is back, they’re holding UPCAT live again!” Marides waved the newspaper in her husband Bong’s face. Bong was watching a car show on TV where they found old cars in barns and turned a bucket of rust into a gleaming, raging roadster. Somehow it gave him hope that, down the road when he became a senior and ached all over, they could ply him full of oils and sealants and make him go like a teenager again.

“What UPCAT?” At least the question proved he was listening. Marides had that godawful habit of intruding on his most blissful moments with some real-world problem, and then getting on his case when he ignored her. Twenty-five years of marriage, four kids, and she still didn’t know when to leave him be. 

“UPCAT—the University of the Philippines College Admission Test, the same one I took and passed thirty years ago, which led to me representing UP and meeting and beating you in an inter-collegiate debate, remember? After which you got my number and asked me out and proposed to me three months later, remember?”

Bong hated it when Marides reminded him of that first encounter and its outcome, which became a given of sorts in their household—she was smarter than him, she had all the better arguments, and who knows what she could have become—a corporate genius, a Supreme Court justice—if he hadn’t saddled her with babies and insisted on working for the both of them. He was good with the money, she had to grant him that, because he was the agreeable type who made all the right connections and who could hustle his way out of a guilty verdict if he had to, as he more than once had to. 

“So what if UPCAT’s back?” he asked for the sake of asking. On the TV, two mechanics were staring at a big hole where a Corvette’s engine should have been.

“Dondon is in his senior year. He’s supposed to be taking it soon. We need to make sure his papers are in order. Where’s that boy? Dondon! Come out for a minute, will you?” 

A teenager with frizzy hair and a phone glued to his ear straggled out of his room and deposited himself in the nearest chair, across the room from his parents, still mumbling on his phone.

“You know UPCAT is happening, right? Have you filed your application yet?”

“Yes, Ma—mumble mumble….”

“Will you please put that phone down while your parents are talking to you? Bong, could you teach your son some manners—”

Bong: “Mumble mumble….”

“I’m serious! You two listen to me—our family’s reputation is on the line!”

“What reputation, Ma?” Dondon grudgingly put his phone aside, and Bong yawned and stretched his arms to acknowledge that he was in for a long spell.

“The one I started, by passing the UPCAT, getting into UP, and serving the people any way I could!”

“But, Ma, all you ever did was to bear us babies, and look what we became—Ate Glo is divorced in the States, all Kuya Jeff does is drive Papa around, and Kuya Milo thinks more tattoos will make him a better rocker. And all of them passed the UPCAT because you told them to!”

“Well—that was my service—to them, and to our people. I give you the opportunity, and what you make of it, well, that’s your business….” Marides started sobbing, and Dondon ran across the room to embrace her.

“Aw, Ma, that’s not what I meant. I just wanted you to see that getting into UP doesn’t guarantee anything.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying all these years!” Bong added. “We’ve been sending our kids to a school for communists, and they don’t even make good communists anymore!”

“No, they don’t,” Marides shot back, “because those communists took the top five places in the bar exams!” She sniffled and Dondon handed her a box of tissues.

“Don’t cry, Ma. It’s all right, it’s all okay. Applications are done online now and my school sent all my papers in last week. I just didn’t tell you both because—well, Papa wanted to explore other options—”

“Other options? Like what?”

“Like sending him abroad to a school of his choice. We have the money—”

“What, you’ll be sending my baby, our bunso, away for the next four years?”

“Or he can pick any other school here he wants to! UP’s not the only good school for engineering or science in this country—”

“I don’t want to be an engineer, Pa….”

“What? You’re a science high school scholar! You have to be an engineer—or a chemist, a physicist, do something with numbers, you don’t have a choice!”

“I never did, Pa, you and Ma chose my high school for me, I just took the exam. Maybe I should have just failed it.”

“So what the hell do you want to do with your life? Who’s going to take over the business when I’m gone?”

“Maybe you should trust Kuya Jeff more. Keep him in the backseat with you. Me, I want to draw, to paint, to design, do something creative. I know I’m good—you’ve seen my sketches, you just haven’t paid much attention to them.”

“We just want you to be happy, son,” said Marides. “We’ll support whatever you decide—won’t we, Bong?”

“Uhm—yes, okay, sure, if it makes you happy, but will you stop crying? I’ll make sure Dondon gets into UP, even if he fails the UPCAT—”

“Pa!”

“I’ll call an old friend of mine, you know me, I know all the right people. He used to be a VP in Quezon Hall, I’m sure he can pull a few strings and get you in—”

“Pa, that’s not how I want to get into UP, that’s not what UP’s about—”

“Oh, you mean that guy who now writes a column about funny things like fountain pens and his wife Weng for a newspaper? Forget it. Chuchay called him last year to ask for the same favor, but he said sorry, no, he won’t do anything of the sort, that it’s just not done in UP!”

“Why, that useless jerk! Doesn’t he know how things work in this country? I’m sure UP’s just as full of jokers and crooks as Customs, Congress, the Palace, you name it! Don’t half the people in those places come from UP?”

“Maybe, Pa—but that’s why I want to go there, because it still has people like your friend who won’t let me in unless I pass the UPCAT! Don’t worry, Ma—I’ll do my best, I promise.”

“Oooh, my son’s going to be the next Amorsolo!” Starts singing: “UP naming mahal, pamantasang hirang….”

“I have a friend who owns a gallery….” Bong began.

Qwertyman No. 36: A Tourist in Taiwan

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Qwertyman for Monday, April 10, 2023

MY WIFE Beng and I visited Taiwan with friends on a five-day holiday just before Holy Week, and returned home dog-tired but deeply impressed by what we had seen: a country not just surviving but staunchly moving forward, progressive and optimistic, despite living under the constant threat of invasion by its hulking neighbor and self-declared owner, China.

It was my fourth visit to Taiwan and my wife’s second, so we had witnessed the island’s wonders before. But we went back—this time with friends who had never been there—precisely because it had much to offer as a vacation spot. For me, Taiwan has largely been about food (especially the beef-brisket noodles and fruits like the giant atis and cherimoya), technology (like the exhilarating 3D I-Ride it has exported to Hollywood), and culture (exemplified by the legendary jadeite cabbage at the National Palace Museum). Economists and political scientists will surely have much more to look for and investigate in Taiwan, but my unsophisticated cravings were fully satisfied. 

The tourist in me observed that Taiwan had achieved First-World status, with elevated expressways, high-rise housing, clean waterways, and extensive transport networks. Taipei’s shops were open past 10 pm, catering to a busy nightlife. We took a day trip out to visit the Chimei Museum in Tainan, and boarded the High Speed Rail that zoomed down the island’s west coast at 236 km/h. Despite Taiwan’s high level of industrialization, the countryside remained lush with forests and greenery, and Taipei’s streets were litter-free. True, there were homeless people gathered around Taipei’s Main Station, living out of shopping carts and camping tents, but we had seen far worse in New York and San Diego. Some old-school courtesies persisted: on the subways and buses, younger riders still stood up to yield their seats to seniors.

That said, it was hard for me to shake off the feeling that we were experiencing an ephemeral pleasure. As we took a bridge over a river in Taipei, and reveled in the vista of a thoroughly modern city rising from its ancient roots as a Spanish trading outpost, I remarked to Beng, half-facetiously, that a few Chinese bombs could pulverize all that. China, I said, could “Ukrainize” Taipei, and blow the 101-storey Taipei 101 building, the National Palace Museum, the Shilin Night Market, and all the other attractions we associate with this city into smithereens. Beng said that I shouldn’t be making such horrible jokes, but I had to wonder how much of what I said was indeed a joke and how much of it was dire possibility.

The threat is certainly there—and has been there since 1949, when Chiang Kai-Shek’s losing Nationalist forces retreated to the island, took it over, and turned it into a thorn in Communist China’s side. China has repeatedly used shows of force around Taiwan to demonstrate its readiness and capability to employ “resolute and forceful measures to defend (its) national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” and while no explosively significant confrontations have taken place, China’s saber-rattling has only grown louder, provoked by presumptive American guarantees to help defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack, and possibly emboldened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (The US, of course, has been rattling its own sabers, particularly with the acquisition of more basing rights in the Philippines.)

You’d think that the specter of invasion would switch Taiwan into full military mode, with air-raid drills and sirens and tanks and soldiers in the streets, but no. When we were there, it was business as usual, with no sense of urgency, even as Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California, raising the cross-straits temperature further.

Taiwan-watchers such as David Sacks, whose post was republished by the influential Council on Foreign Relations last November, have warned against complacency, especially in the wake of Russia’s Ukrainian misadventure. According to Sacks, “Despite these growing worries and initial steps, actions remain far below where they need to be to deter China and respond to potential Chinese aggression. The increases to Taiwan’s defense budget over the past six years are commendable, but at 2.4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), it is still well below where it needs to be…. While there is a recognition that the civilian population will need to play a large role in defending the island, the conversation about how to reform Taiwan’s reserve force is still in its infancy, with little consensus on what its role should be. Taiwan’s military lacks the munitions it would need to withstand an initial Chinese assault and its military services continue to pursue legacy platforms such as fighter jets and large naval vessels that will have little utility during a conflict. It is far from certain that there is buy-in across the military for adopting an asymmetric defense strategy.

“Beyond the military realm, Taiwan needs to do much more to increase the resilience of its society and decrease its reliance on trade with China…. Over 40 percent of Taiwan’s exports go to China or Hong Kong. While there is wide agreement that this is a major vulnerability, there is a certain amount of defeatism, with few ideas of how to reduce this dependence without massive government intervention.

“While the government is taking steps (albeit insufficient) to address the growing threat China poses, there is a worrying gap between officials and the public. Opinion polls reveal that Taiwanese people are not concerned about an invasion and believe war is unlikely in the next decade…. Understandably, most want to focus on improving their lives. There is a fine line, however, between stoicism and complacency.”

Is this a fatalism that we Filipinos seem to share? If China attacks Taiwan, can the Philippines be next, and what will we or can we do about it? (In my admittedly  pedestrian view, China has no need for a military invasion of the Philippines—which will be costly and troublesome, given our geography—so long as it achieves full control of the South China Sea. It will be cheaper and easier to subvert and suborn the government, if it wants pro-China policies to prevail.)

I was glad to be just a tourist in Taiwan, enjoying my cherimoya, instead of being a defense analyst pondering the medium term—or, for that matter, being a local fruit seller who might one day find a gaping hole where the orchard used to be.

(Photo from thetimes.co.uk)

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Qwertyman No. 35: The Ultimate Casualty

Qwertyman for Monday, April 3, 2023

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Image from cnn.com)

Qwertyman No. 32: This Business of Titles

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 13, 2023

THERE’S BEEN a lot of buzz online recently about the use of titles like “Doctor” and “PhD,” a topic of inflammatory interest to Pinoys for many of whom those extra letters before and after one’s name can mean everything between abject inconsequence on the one hand and celestial esteem on the other.

While nobody seems to question why public officials from the president down to the barangay kagawad use their titles with gleeful abandon, academic degrees—which are arguably harder to earn honestly than votes—provoke much hand-wringing, notably among academics themselves who like to worry about things that would make ordinary people happy.

To put it simply, some people like using their titles, and others don’t. Those who do believe that they deserve it, having worked their posteriors off to gain them. Those who don’t apparently think that it’s unseemly to earn an exalted degree like a PhD and then to wear it on your T-shirt so nobody forgets to address you by your honorific, “Doctor.” The only “PhDs” I know who are above all this are those who got them for being, say, a generous taipan, and who feel elated to be called “Dr.” for the rest of their lives.

As it happens, I have a PhD in English, which I got more than thirty years ago from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, after my Master of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. As soon as I say that, I feel like I’m boasting, which I suppose I am. But I only brought it up to make the point that, well, I hardly ever bring it up. Nobody ever calls me “Dr. Dalisay” or “Prof. Dalisay” except in an academic or professional context (they do call me “the Prof” at my favorite poker hangout, where I play with guys going by monikers like Daga, Todas, Hot Sauce, and Paos). I pull it out now and then when I suspect it will enhance my credibility and maybe even my paycheck by 200 percent. But most of the time I’m quite happy to be just “Butch” or “Sir Butch” (or “Ho-zay” when I’m in the US, to save myself the long explanation for why my father Jose Sr. chose to call his first-born “Butch”). 

So for me, it’s entirely situational, and no one should be made to feel immodest if he or she insists on being called “Doctor,” as Dr. Jill Biden does. The only caveat I’ll make is that, among writers, nobody seriously gives a hoot about academic degrees, unless you plan on teaching, which is really what the PhD is for, practically speaking. In UP these days, particularly in the sciences, you can’t teach for long without a PhD—the idea being that going through a doctoral program pushes you beyond your practical experience and innate talent toward some appreciation of theory and into research. 

In the Philippines, for many reasons, it’s still easier for teachers in many universities to become professors before finishing their PhDs, and so there’s a tendency to value the “Dr.” above the “Prof.”—which is not the case in UP and in most foreign universities, where the title “Professor” (meaning a full professor and not an assistant or associate professor) remains one’s ultimate career goal. The presumption is that a PhD should be an entry-level qualification for higher teaching, an early step in one’s ascent to full professorship. (Which reminds me to say that there’s no such degree as “PhD cand.” or “MA units”, as I’ve seen on some CVs—you’ve either done it or you haven’t.)

Why do we fuss over these titles? Because, in a society that offers few material rewards and consolations for academics, they can assume inordinate importance, and invest their holders with an intellectual and moral authority that demands or at least deserves respect—never mind that academia, like the rest of our institutions, is home to any number of crackpots and charlatans in togas, as corruptible as every other traffic cop. Let’s not forget that Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, had a PhD in Drama from the University of Heidelberg, and that PhDs from Stanford and Harvard, among others, greased the wheels of Marcos’ martial law.

But lest we think we’re the only ones seemingly obsessed by the trappings of imagined power, there’s at least one other country more retentive down there when it comes to academic titles, perhaps for the opposite reason—not because they’re rare, but because they’re part of such a long and prolific tradition that an elaborate hierarchy has to be put in place. 

That place is Germany—where, until 2008, and thanks to a Nazi-era law, you couldn’t call yourself “Dr.” unless you secured your PhD in Germany itself or was the kind who could fix broken bones. Ian Baldwin, a molecular ecologist from Cornell, found himself charged with “title abuse” when he put “Dr.” before his name on his card, as were at least six other American PhDs working in Germany. The law was later relaxed, but you get the point—when it comes to degrees, Deutschland still thinks of itself as being über alles.

The Germans make one more formal distinction—the precedence of the professor over the PhD, again on the assumption that while PhDs can be had for a dime a dozen, professorship is a career-capping accomplishment achieved only by exemplary research, publication, and mentorship. And thus, if you were teaching at, say, Humboldt University of Berlin (which as of 2020 had 57 Nobel laureates and almost 3,000 PhD students), your full title would be “Prof. Dr. XXX.” And because some people can’t find happiness and fulfillment with just one PhD, they would be called “Prof. Dr. Dr. XXX.” (I kid you not—go ahead and Google it. The Guinness record stands at 33 PhDs for a guy from Hyderabad, whom I don’t even want to begin to address.) Some titles would include variants like “ir” for “ingeneur” or engineer, and “hc” for honoris causa (often conveniently forgotten by hc recipients). The Austrians, I’m told, can be even more particular than the Germans, and can legally use their titles on their passports. The Dutch, by the way, have a “Drs.” degree which can be a bit confusing—it’s short for doctorandus, which means you’re studying for your PhD.

But who cares, other than the title-holder? Certainly not the Quakers, who value equality between people to the point of eschewing all titles, including (until recently, and only in America) “Mr.” and “Mrs.” If you’re familiar enough with each other, you can use first names. If not, then full names will do. When I visited the Quaker HQ in Philadelphia many years ago, I was “Jose Dalisay.” British Quakers were said to have referred to the late Queen as “Betty Windsor.” 

But something tells me that notion of equality won’t work here, where calling people “Digong,” “Bongbong,” and “Sara” won’t bring you any closer to the kingdom of heaven (or some such dominion). 

Qwertyman No. 31: A Homecoming for Anwar

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 6, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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