Tag Archives: martial law

Qwertyman No. 85: Epilogue to a Novel

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Qwertyman for Monday, March 18, 2024

IT WAS in 1986, shortly after EDSA and my arrival in the US for my graduate studies, that I began thinking about what would eventually become my master’s thesis and my first novel, Killing Time in a Warm Place. It was published by Anvil in 1992 when I came home to resume teaching after completing my PhD. 

For those who’ve never heard of it, the novel is a semi-autobiographical account of coming of age during the Marcos years, from the point of view of a Filipino who makes the traditional journey from island to metropolis to the world at large, becoming, in the process, a kind of political chameleon. 

I had sent the first draft directly to several US publishers—my first try at getting a book published abroad—and one of them, Alfred Knopf, responded. They were interested, they said, but they needed some revisions. I knew very little about the book publishing industry then; I had no agent, wasn’t sure what lay ahead, and was in a hurry to see my book out, so I passed on Knopf—which turned out to be a titan in literary publishing—and went with Anvil, which had barely just opened.

I haven’t regretted that decision, although the Knopf deal, had it pushed through, would have been a tremendous break, not just for myself but for Philippine literature as a whole. I could understand that after EDSA, US publishing was hungry for books from and about the Philippines, so that opportunity was there, but I was also impatient to be read as a novelist by my fellow Filipinos, after having written short stories and plays. 

Anvil published the book in many printings and editions over the next two decades, as it got on the syllabi of college teachers who were looking for a novel in English on martial law, alongside Lualhati Bautista’s iconic Dekada 70. This has been my greatest reward and satisfaction from this book—knowing that somehow, it helped some of my countrymen understand what they went through.

It took a while for the novel to gain some traction overseas. In 2010, it was published in the US by Schaffner Press in a dual edition with my second novel, Soledad’s Sister. In 2012, it was translated into Spanish by Maria Alcaraz and published in Barcelona by Libros del Asteroide under the title Pasando el rato en un pais calido.

A few months ago, I received the happy news from my publisher Anvil that Killing Time was being picked up by the German publisher of Soledad’s Sister, which had apparently been doing well in the German market. So now the book is being translated into German, hopefully for a launch by Transit Verlag in time for the Frankfurt Book Fair this October, leading up to our big Frankfurt Guest of Honor year in 2025.

But I didn’t write this column just to tell you about the story of a book—rather, I wanted to say something about the story of its story.

In a message to Anvil a few days ago, my German publisher requested that I write a short epilogue to the novel, given that it’s been more than 30 years since it first came out, and that many things have happened since to the world and the Philippines—the Internet, Trump, and fake news, among others. 

So I sat down and wrote the short piece below, which I’m sharing with you since it’s highly unlikely that you’ll come across, or understand, the German translation of this epilogue if and when the new edition comes out. Here goes:

I began writing this novel in 1986, shortly after the downfall of the Marcos regime. That happened because of a massive uprising in Manila’s streets that made headlines and became a kind of model for peaceful anti-authoritarian movements worldwide. I proudly took part in that revolt, and felt the euphoria of liberation after more than a decade of martial law. It was a moment I would often return to and savor as the Iron Curtain fell and as various and largely non-violent revolutions took place elsewhere, including the Arab Spring.

I thought then that the best thing I could do was to write a novel that would try and explain how and why people fell under the spell of a dictatorship, as they did under Nazi Germany—not sparing myself, having been complicit in its later actions as an employee of the regime. I wrote it—in English—in America, mainly to fulfill my graduate school requirements, but also to celebrate our hard-won victory and share the good news with the world.

Almost four decades later, the seemingly unthinkable has happened: the right is back in power, not only in the Philippines but in many places we had thought to be reformed democracies. The optimism sweeping the planet toward the end of the 20th century has given way to a darkening horizon, a hardening of hearts, a closing of minds. Our most basic freedoms and values are under stiff and unrelenting assault, from forces we now realize had never really been vanquished but had merely been lying in wait, biding their time, seeking an opportunity for revival amidst the excesses of late capitalism.

And once again I am hearing the siren song of despotism, and see the eyes of people glazing over in the desperate desire for quick relief from their troubles, for quick salvation. I hear the march of boots, to which many young citizens—their ears plugged by loud music—seem indifferent. Even among many of their elders is a renascent yearning for the simple discipline of strongman rule.

I see all these and I wonder if I should write a sequel, an update for the new century, but what would be the point of repetition? My novel was supposed to be about the past. Why is it so suddenly pertinent again?

Qwertyman No. 64: The Death of a Crony

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Qwertyman for Monday, October 23, 2023

WHEN A friend asked me, about 15 years ago, if I would meet with another friend of his who wanted me to write his biography, I almost fell off my chair when I learned who my prospective subject was.

“It’s Rudy Cuenca,” I was told. 

I knew who he was, of course—a “Marcos crony,” which had become an almost generic term at one point, there being so many. I had actually met the man once before, on a bus trip to the Pahiyas festival in Lucban arranged by the late Adrian Cristobal. My first impression had been a surprisingly positive one: he was polite, urbane, funny, hardly the obnoxious and domineering person I had imagined a crony might be.

Still, he was who he was, and I didn’t know that writing a book about his life was the right or smart thing to do. I has already written Wash SyCip’s biography, and that man was almost saintly, or sainted by the acclaim of his peers and juniors. A Marcos crony was something else.

“How can I work with someone whose boss put me in prison?” I told my friend. As a student activist, I had spent seven months in Bicutan under martial law.

“Just meet with him, listen to what he has to say,” he said. “No commitments, no promises.”

And so I did. “I have a story to tell,” Cuenca told me over coffee. I knew what he was saying: he had been privy to the Marcos regime’s internal workings, and had been one of the President’s closest golfing buddies, but, at one point, had found himself fallen from favor, eased out of the inner circle by a more unctuous lieutenant. As stories went, it was irresistible. 

I took a deep breath and told him in so many words what I’ve said to many other clients since: “I’ll help you tell your story, but I won’t lie or lawyer for you; your story will speak for itself. What I leave within quotation marks will be you speaking, not me. I’m under no illusion that you will tell me everything you know, but to the extent possible, I’d appreciate your being honest with me, so I can tell your story the best way I can.” He agreed. What followed was Builder of Bridges: The Rudy Cuenca Story, co-authored by a former student of mine, Antonette Reyes. It was published by Anvil Publishing in 2010 and became a finalist for the National Book Award the following year.

A college dropout, Cuenca taught himself the basics of business and civil engineering, and went on from small public-works contracts to some of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects such as the North Luzon Expressway and the San Juanico bridge. It was widely believed that Cuenca’s Construction Development Corporation of the Philippines (CDCP), then the region’s largest construction company, benefited from his closeness to Marcos, whom he had supported since his first presidential campaign.

Most interesting were Rudy’s stories of Palace life. Herewith, some excerpts from the book:

“I was a member of Wack Wack and Valley Golf for a number of years before I joined Manila Golf’s ‘Mafia’ group in 1973 with Charlie Palanca as the head man. Golf helped me gain some ground in business. I became a Marcos golfing crony around 1969. Marcos ended the afternoons at the nine-hole Malacañang course. Typically, a call came from the Study Room—either golf at 4:30 in the afternoon or party organized by the First Lady. The afternoon golf was meant to be the President’s peaceful time, but this was taken advantage of by those who wanted to get his undivided attention. The HIS and HERS were with their folders and envelopes for endorsement or approval. The HERS usually could not get to see him, so they were inserted as part of the regular golfing group.

“The Study Room was operated by Presidential Security Command personnel. Blue Ladies and cronies alike waited for this office to call them to major Palace functions. If no such call came, they would run around like headless chickens in search of that awaited invitation. One crony got the message that the President no longer wanted his company through the Study Room, obviously on Imelda’s instructions. As Marcos was the sole source of dispensation, those seeking approval tried to find parings or sponsors. Sometimes, those projects were so absurd that they were rejected outright.”

Rudy remembers that “Every morning, Marcos got a written report from Fabian Ver about what was going on in the country. But Marcos also got two more reports, one from Alex Melchor, and one more I think from Johnny Ponce Enrile. Marcos read these three reports at breakfast, so he knew what was going on everywhere. These reports contained lots of information—who was the boss of who, who went where, and even who was fooling around with who. He knew everything.”

Rudy doesn’t deny the systemic—but relatively small—pay-offs that got projects approved and claims processed and released in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. But he also says that they were amateurs compared to today’s pros, and that the scale of greed has grown exponentially. “In the old days, nobody asked you to give,” he says. “If you did, you gave them dinner. Today, people are told outright and up front what they’re expected to pay, and those amounts are outrageous. No advance payment, no contract.” 

When asked why, for example, Philippine roads seem visibly inferior to those of even other Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, he says: “It’s simply a matter of greed. In Malaysia there’s also corruption—I’ve lived there, I should know—but the thieves there make their money by overpricing the materials. Here in the Philippines people are extraordinarily greedy. Not only do they overprice, they also steal the materials. The cement’s deficient, the gravel’s deficient. So the thing crumbles that easily.”

Rodolfo Magsaysay Cuenca’s passing last week at the age of 95 reminded me of how many stories about Ferdinand Marcos and martial law remain to be told. Fifteen years ago, it might have been considered safe for the members of that generation to spill their secrets (or justify their choices—no one will deny that these biographies are essentially self-serving), but the present dispensation will likely make people think twice about being so candid. 

I will leave it to more qualified scholars and more intrepid journalists to sift through the material and annotate the margins of my Cuenca biography, but I feel privileged to have listened to the man and to put him on the record. By any measure, it was a remarkable life. (In an even stranger twist, another crony approached me after I had done the Cuenca book, wanting me to do the same for him—the late Herminio Disini, of Westinghouse fame. I completed a draft but had to walk away, and the book never came out—but that’s another story.)

(Photo from riles.upd.edu.ph)

Qwertyman No. 59: Counterintuitive

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Qwertyman for Monday, September 18, 2023

ON MY way to NAIA to catch a flight early one morning a few weeks ago, I snapped out of my half-sleep when I heard a song on the radio station that my Grab driver was tuned in to. I hadn’t heard it in almost half a century, and I was surprised to realize that I still knew the lyrics—not that I sang it back then, but because it was inescapable, flooding the airwaves with its bootstep optimism: “May bagong silang, may bago nang buhay, bagong bansa, bagong galaw, sa Bagong Lipunan!” The only difference—and what troubled me even more—was that it was a new arrangement, sung by a solo male voice, obviously a remake for a new generation. We were back in 1973, and whoever was behind that broadcast was making sure we knew it.

But of course, despite all the ironies that have been pointed out with the accession of another Marcos to power, and all the parallels that both the Junior and his detractors have drawn with the Senior’s reign, 2023 isn’t exactly 1973. The convenient conclusion would be to assume that Marcos Part II would be a replay of Marcos Part I—and many Filipinos, myself included, warned of that possibility in the run-up to the May 2022 election. But is there any possibility that President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Jr. might want to break out of his father’s mold and be, to some extent, his own man?

As soon as I say that—and before I get social media all riled up with my seeming revisionism—let me add that it’s the dramatist in me that appreciates the classic bind that Marcos Jr. must find himself in. Drama is premised on the possibility of character change—and even if the character reverts to his old self in the end, a brief flirtation with one’s opposite can be revealing.

In political caricature, characters are reduced to their extreme and basest versions—black and white, sinner and saint, damned and blessed. Oversimplification makes for effective propaganda, just so you don’t forget who the enemy is and which side you’re on. In realist drama, we move beyond types to explore the complexities of human character, taking the individual as a compound of many different—and sometimes even conflicting—traits and predispositions. Thus (goes the playwright’s conceit), no one is totally good or totally evil; the inner monster and the inner angel are in constant contention, and depending on the specific circumstances, one side will prevail at some key point that then defines that character for the history books. 

Motivations are key to what characters ultimately become—or decide to become, as personal agency and moral responsibility attend every important decision we make. Pride, love, honor, greed, revenge, and lust are powerful motivations, and often get the better of characters who are well aware of right and wrong, but who succumb to what’s been described as “human nature.” The good can become the bad; there’s a whole category of English Renaissance drama called “revenge tragedy” where, like Hamlet, a virtuous hero aggrieved by injustice plots to gain retribution, only to be so consumed by his vengeful passions that he becomes the very evil he condemns.

Now back to Marcos Jr. I’m trying, as the playwright and screenwriter I once was, to see him as the protagonist of our present play, shorn of my personal biases. Improbably—though some would say inevitably—he’s back where his father was, and with the weight of history on his shoulders. He’s firmly seated in power, and has all the opportunity and the resources to do what he wants. 

Independent and even critical observers I’ve spoken with have noted how generally cautious Marcos has been, so far, to avoid the kind of issues that will bring masses of people out onto the streets. Yes, the legitimacy of his election remains under serious question (something his handlers still have to convincingly address), but the “single IP” finding hasn’t been as politically incendiary as it probably would be in a more tech-savvy society (no, our appetite for TikTok and Facebook doesn’t count for tech-savvy). Yes, he travels and spends too much, but people—his 31.5 million, real or not—expect that to come with being a Marcos. Yes, he’s backed terribly risky if not silly ideas like a sovereign wealth fund and price ceilings, but again he knows that the economics of it will go over most people’s heads. 

On the other hand, he’s made all the right noises with regard to Chinese expansionism, in a dramatic and popular break from his predecessor. In our porma-conscious society, he looks and sounds more presidential than that predecessor who felt choked by a necktie and visibly lost in a roomful of younger, more articulate world leaders. Like his senior, Marcos Jr. understands imagery and pageantry. His rambling ad libs have been his bane, so he stays on script in his major speeches. He made some inspired and popular Cabinet choices such as the late lamented Toots Ople, although he quickly undermined any suggestion of sagacity with the appointment of the likes of Larry Gadon. 

Clearly he’s not going to repudiate his father’s legacy. His camp will continue to move to revise history and gild the rust and the rot of martial rule. In his recent speech before Singaporean businessmen, he couldn’t resist crowing that the Philippines’ 7.6% growth rate in 2022 was last achieved in 1976, “under my father’s administration.” Thanks to a DepEd edict, Filipino students will no longer learn about the “Marcos dictatorship” but simply “dictatorship,” which would be like talking about World War II without ever mentioning Hitler. The mechanical erasure of Marcosian martial law will be pushed forward by such measures as Sen. Robinhood Padilla’s proposed law designating September 21 as “Unsung Heroes Day,” to honor anti-communists.

But again the playwright in me wants to ask, is there room or possibility in Marcos Jr.’s character to make a clean break from the past and start over as his own man—or will self-interest, political habit, and family pressure prove too strong to overcome? One fellow columnist told me that his sense was that BBM was out to rehabilitate the Marcos name, to do better than his dad. Can that happen without admitting and making restitution for the wrongs of the past? We sentimental Pinoys will understand if the son will never speak ill of the father, but can he go beyond that to repair the damage done and build a bridge of trust toward his detractors—such as by releasing all political prisoners, squashing red-tagging, and putting the government’s massive intelligence funds to better use? Can and will he risk his political alliances to effect good governance?

Or will it be—to use that word that Executive Secretary Bersamin picked in his letter terminating Finance Undersecretary Cielo Magno for her unsolicited lesson in economics—too “counterintuitive” to do the right thing and accept wiser counsel? Only time and Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. will tell.

Qwertyman No. 58: A Long Grace Note

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Qwertyman for Monday, September 11, 2023

AT ABOUT this time fifty years ago, I was newly released from martial-law prison after seven months of what everyone euphemistically called “detention,” and wondering what to do with the rest of my life. I was just nineteen, so I suppose you could say that I had a lot of living ahead of me, but I felt very differently then. More than a dozen of my friends—all of them in their twenties or even younger—had died horrible deaths fighting the regime. We exalted them as the martyrs that they were, but grimly realized and acknowledged that given how things were going, we ourselves would be fortunate to see the ripe old age of thirty.

I had been arrested at home on a cold January morning in 1973, just past midnight. Like many student activists, I had dropped out of college during the First Quarter Storm of the early 1970s. But instead of joining “the movement” full-time, I improbably found a job with a newspaper as a general-assignments reporter. It was heady stuff at age eighteen, covering three-alarm fires, floodwater rescues, and the very same demonstrations I had joined on the other side of the police barricades. And then martial law was declared—I was actually covering a rally in UP, and thought I had a scoop when a radio station nearby came under fire from the Metrocom, only to be told by my night editor when I tried to phone the story in that we no longer had a newspaper to publish, because soldiers had taken over the office. 

Over the next few months I shuttled between part-time jobs and clandestine meetings with the anti-martial law underground, moving around the city. I wasn’t doing much, given how green I was, but I thought it was important to take part in the resistance in whatever way. And then when Christmas came, like a good boy, I went home to my parents and foolishly had a chat with a neighbor who turned out to be a military asset. Not long after, a posse of soldiers appeared at our door, and when my father nudged me awake, I had a gun pointed at my face. I was being arrested under a catch-all “Arrest, Search, and Seizure Order” or ASSO issued by the Defense Minister, Juan Ponce Enrile, for whom I would ironically be writing some speeches during his post-EDSA reincarnation (he won’t remember that, as I was a tiny mouse in the office).

My release in August 1973 came right out of a Kafka story. I was taking a shower one morning in our prison—which, by the way, is roughly where St. Luke’s BGC is today—when I heard my name being called over the PA system. “Dalisay, report to the guardhouse immediately!” The last time I had done that, after one Sunday dinner, I had been beaten up by some drunken guards just for the heck of it, so I groaned when I heard the announcement. Not again, and so early? As it happened, I was received by an Army officer with a stack of papers. He pulled mine out, squinted at it, and said, “Dalisay, you’re still here? Pack your things. We have nothing on you.” The first place I visited after I went home was the AS Steps in UP, where we had gathered for many a raucous rally; it was vacant and deathly silent, and I knew that I wasn’t going back to school just then. Only after a long detour—working as a printmaker, a writer, an economist, and meeting Beng and fathering Demi—did I return to UP and graduate with my degree at age thirty.

I’ve written about my activism and incarceration in my first novel, Killing Time in a Warm Place (Anvil Publishing, 1992), and it isn’t what this column is really about. Rather, it’s about the aftermath, about having a life after martial law, and an unexpectedly long one at that. 

For any activist from my generation who’s still alive, every breath we’ve taken after our 30th birthday is a grace note—what the dictionary describes as “an extra note added as an embellishment and not essential to the harmony or melody”—in other words, a bonus. Considering that we could have been gunned down like dogs or buried alive like some of our comrades were, you can understand why we feel that way. It’s almost absurd to contemplate, but education, marriage, career, success, fame, fortune—and all the downsides and flipsides that come with them—all these were a long string of surprises, any one of which might never have happened, but for a twist of fate or a stroke of luck (clichés, like life’s very milestones, but ones we appreciate).

When my fellow FQSers and I—all college editors who were part of the SERVE book that I wrote about last week and that we launched last Saturday—gathered around a table before the launch to pre-sign some copies, we noted with much chuckling how surprisingly old we had become. We were beset by diabetes and hypertension, which were lethal enough but easier to bear than the four bullets one of us took to his face and body; he was with us that day, laughing, his spirits buoyed by his fervent Christian faith. 

We had become university presidents and professors, Cabinet secretaries, CEOs, magazine editors, pastors, and opinion-makers. I don’t think there was anyone in that room who believed any longer in the necessity nor the efficacy of violence, but neither did anyone imagine that our youthful goals had been met, that the country had become a kinder place, and that our work for justice and freedom was done. We had come to terms with our past, were busily in the present, and were hoping to enjoy what little we had left of our extended lives. But like those shaken passengers who stagger away from a crashed plane, leaving the uncounted dead behind, I’m sure that we felt driven by survivor’s guilt to make the most meaning of our gifted years, to do well and to do good, and to serve our people in any way we could. 

We learned that everything may be political, but also that politics is not everything, and that the road to happiness and deliverance may be wider than we had thought. I myself have resolved that even as I fight on for truth and beauty, I will not allow my happiness to be determined by our political vicissitudes, if I can help it. That will be my sweet revenge on my jailers. I will survive you, live a fuller life, and meet my Maker with a clear conscience and a smile.

Qwertyman No. 57: An Invitation to SERVE

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Qwertyman for Monday, September 4, 2023

AT 5 PM next Saturday, the 9th of September, a new book will be launched at Fully Booked in BGC. Published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press and simply titled SERVE, the book has 19 authors—yes, I’m one of them—and one editor, the much-respected Jo-Ann Maglipon. What connects all is that they were college editors during the first Quarter Storm of the early 1970s, and survived to go on to distinguished careers in media, education, business, and public service. The book dwells much less on martial law—a previous volume titled Not on Our Watch: Martial Law Really Happened, We Were There that came out in 2012 dealt with that—than with its aftermath, and the afterlife that the activists of our generation were fortunate to have, given how many of our comrades gave up their lives to the cause of justice and freedom.

What did these activists do after martial law? What are they thinking now? Some of the names in this book will be familiar to the contemporary reader, who may not even have known of their activist background (reg-taggers, pay close attention).

Some of us—like Jimi FlorCruz, Sol Juvida, and Thelma Sioson San Juan—remained journalists all their working lives, stationed in very different places and capacities but bound by a commonality of interest in the truth. Others like Sonny Coloma, Manolet Dayrit, Ed Gonzalez, Diwa Guinigundo, the late Chito Sta. Romana, and Judy Taguiwalo took the path of government service, finding themselves in a position to effect real change, although sometimes under very difficult if not adversarial circumstances. Yet others including Angie Castillo, the late Jones Campos, Mercy Corrales, and Senen Glorioso found fulfillment in entrepreneurial and corporate work, applying their progressive values to management. For Elso Cabangon, Bob Corrales, and Diwa Guinigundo, their circuitous journey led to a re-encounter with their spirituality, and to embracing their faith as their personal advocacy. Like many veterans of the First Quarter Storm, Alex and Edna Aquino were able to build new and productive lives overseas, without yielding their investment in Philippine concerns. Quite a few of us—Derly Fernandez, Ed Gonzalez, Judy Taguiwalo, Rey Vea, and myself—chose to pursue our activism in academia, if only to ensure the transmission of critical inquiry to another generation. 

The authors were under no compulsion to conform to an ideological standard, except to extol the spirit of service to the people, the overarching theme of their youth and now their continuing commitment, indeed their legacy. There’s pathos in these accounts, but also humor and, inevitably, irony, perhaps the defining tone of our postmodern age: Thelma Sioson San Juan finds herself seated across Deng Xiaoping’s granddaughter at a Ferragamo show in Beijing’s Forbidden City; Manolet Dayrit learns of his appointment as Secretary of Health on a visit to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacañang; Ed Gonzalez becomes president of the Development Academy of the Philippines under President Joseph Estrada, but then joins EDSA 2; Sonny Coloma looks out the window of his Malacañang office to where students like him had demonstrated against Marcos.

With most of the writers here now in their seventies or inching close to it, we could have been chronicling the joys of grandparenting, journeys to far-off places, exotic menus, succulents and bromeliads, and homeopathic remedies for the aches of aging. Having retired from the formal workplace, we thought we had settled into a privileged and imperturbable kind of peace, earned over decades of political, economic, and spiritual struggle. 

We celebrated our seniorhood as the ultimate victory, for a generation that did not expect to live beyond thirty, and not because of some acquired disease but because of the throbbing cancer at the core of our society that claimed many of our peers in the prime of their youth. We may have thought for a while that we had defeated and expunged that cancer, only to realize that it had never left, was always there, lying cruelly in wait for a chance to ravage us again—and not only us this time, but our children and grandchildren as well.

And so—albeit no longer lean and shaggy-haired, perhaps benignly forgetful of car keys and personal anniversaries—we gather again at the barricades we put up against a fascist dictatorship fifty years ago, of which our memories remain surprisingly and painfully sharp. They say that the old remember distant things more clearly than what happened yesterday, and we offer proof of that. The experience of martial law coded itself into our DNA, and even the few among us who surrendered their souls to Mephistopheles cannot shake away that indelible past—one we bear with pride, and they with guilt and shame.

This time our barricades consist not of desks and chairs but of memory itself and, more formidably, of hope, courage, and a continuing faith in the good. Beyond memoirs, more than recollections of our youthful selves, we now present the stories of the lives we built and the paths we took after martial law, along with our reflections on how time and experience have reshaped us, clarified our values, and strengthened our resolve to serve our people in multifarious ways. 

Our view of politics inevitably evolved over time as the world itself changed over the past five decades. These essays and stories cover a wide range of themes and treatments, and demonstrate how “serve the people” has grown and evolved with its advocates, taking multifarious forms from working in civil society and practicing good governance to promoting artistic expression, academic freedom, and insightful journalism. We wish to prove that even the worst of times and the worst of leaders are not only survivable but can be changed, so that whatever lies ahead, the better Filipinos in us will prevail.

Given the number of authors and their families and friends, we expect a full house at the launch, so you might want to wait and get your copy of the book from Fully Booked or from AdMU Press’ online channels. However the book finds its way to you, it will be worth your while.

Qwertyman No. 50: Doro’s Times and Ours

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Qwertyman for Monday, July 17, 2023

THE NEWS of Amando “Doro” Doronila’s recent passing in Canberra at age 95 marked the end of an era, as Doro was the last of his generation of journalists who made newspapers and their Op-Ed pages compelling reading. Whichever side of the political fence they were on, these journalists and columnists gave it all they had; many reveled in their prominence and some shamelessly parlayed their influence into all manner of profitable enterprise, back when it seemed the sensible thing to do, before the darker complicities of martial law set in.

Doro seemed to me to be above all this. His personality was, shall we say, poorly suited for TV or even radio, which was just as well, because it drew a clear line between journalists who did nothing better than think and write deeply, and those who confused their calling with show business.

I didn’t really know Doro personally. My one memorable encounter with him was when I was 18, a freshman dropout from UP who was dying to get into the newspapers, by hook or by crook. (Like some precocious teenagers, I was convinced I had the writing talent to skip journalism school. I would later pay for that hubris in tearful rewrites in the newsroom.) 

One of the doors I knocked on was that of the Manila Chronicle, which Doro was the editor of in 1972. I remember striding into its office and walking up to Doro’s desk, sucking in my stomach. He seemed puzzled to see my pimply face, which probably belonged to a messenger boy’s, except that I came empty-handed. “Yes?” What did I want? “Sir, I want to apply for a job—as a reporter,” I must have croaked, mumbling something about my writing for the Collegian and my high school paper. “How old are you?” I said that I was “going to be nineteen soon”—“soon” being about nine months away. 

I can’t recall if he looked back at me with pity or sympathy, or if he was laughing inside. I do remember him saying something like “Why don’t we talk again in a few years?” I was disappointed but not dejected; at least he didn’t throw me out of the place, or ridicule me before a roomful of the kind of people I wanted to be—hunched over typewriters, smoking up a storm, shaping tomorrow’s news, their bylines embedded crisply and imperishably on fresh paper.

Eventually, sometime that summer, and through sheer persistence, I did land a newspaper job, as a features writer and then a general-assignments reporter with the Philippines Herald, very likely the youngest fellow working full-time for the papers then. With the Herald and later Taliba  just before martial law, I met all kinds of journalists on the job, and saw how human we all were, the creatures of our noblest ambitions and pettiest grievances. One reporter I was on the police beat with loved playing cop, interrogating suspects each one of whom he was convinced was nursing a confession. Many had an enormous capacity for alcohol and the unapologetically macho bluster that came with it. Despite their gruffness, some had marshmallow hearts; two or three even took me under their wing to spare me from the usual gauntlet that rookies had to undergo. We were the peons of the profession, entry-level Hemingways and Woodwards chasing stories down the city’s tenebrous alleyways, and we loved every minute of it.

That was our world, but when I reported to the newsroom in the afternoon to file my story, I was ever aware that even above the copyeditors’ desk was another tier of men (as they mostly were) who perorated boisterously in a corner office on the day’s politics over scotch and cigars, the people whose opinions mattered and who made opinion matter. Never having worked with or for Doronila, I could only imagine him in that company, sitting sagely with his fingers crossed while allowing the thunder to roll above his head.

Today, half a century later, and finding myself just as old or even older than those titans of Philippine journalism then, I can savor the irony of having the privilege to write an Op-Ed column in times that mirror, in many ways, the early 1970s—with a Marcos in Malacañang, an opposition at bay, a scandal a week, and yet a people hard at work, striving for economic and moral deliverance. 

The great difference is that newspapers no longer have a monopoly of opinion-forming; that ground has been taken over by the Internet and social media (and elsewhere, by early-morning and late-afternoon AM radio, perhaps the hardiest of public platforms). Certainly, some Op-Ed stars remain—again on either side of the political divide—with faithful followers in need of sharper articulation and affirmation of their own sentiments. But even those readers tend to be aged or aging, people with the time and patience to read prose in paragraphs instead of bullets and memes, and who might even look for and appreciate that elusive quality called “style.” (Doronila’s no-frills prose, to be honest, was straight and guileless to the point of being starchy.) These 1,000-word pieces we produce now belong to what they call “long-form” writing, as if to write and read them were a test of endurance. 

But against the cheeky punchiness of Twitter and the ugly street brawls on Facebook, and above all stylistic considerations, I have to applaud this new generation of journalists (not all of them for sure) for their adherence to the truth and to fact-based reporting, and for holding themselves up to a higher standard of ethical behavior than their predecessors. Battling the bots and trolls of disinformation, they put their lives and well-being on the line, story by story, column by column; most are young, many are women, some even gay—the old gray men of the newsroom no longer dictate the headlines or the editorial slant. I think Doro himself would have been happy to see this, having mentored many of his successors.

And so as we grieve Amando Doronila’s demise at an age few of us can hope to approach, we can celebrate the continuity of upholding courage, virtue, and incorruptibility in Philippine journalism, with deepest thanks for the example the man set for us to follow.

(Photo by Pablo Tariman on FB)

Qwertyman No. 8: The Secret

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(Photo from dreamstime.com)

Qwertyman for Monday, September 26, 2022

“LOLO, LOLO, was martial law really bad? We took it up in class today!”

“Bad? Said who?”

“Our teacher, Ms. Landicho. She said that awful things happened back then that people have forgotten about.”

“How old is this—Ms. Landicho?”

“Oh, maybe in her thirties? She’s just about to be married—to Mr. Arnaldo, our Physics teacher! We’d been teasing her about it for months!”

“In her thirties? Then how would she know what the heck happened under martial law? She wasn’t even born then.”

“Were you around then, Lolo?”

“Of course I was. I’m seventy-three now, so fifty years ago I was a young man. I had just left my first job because my boss was a tyrant! So I moved to another bank and that’s where I met your Lola Auring, whom I would marry two years later. If I hadn’t made that move, you wouldn’t be here!”

“Was that the bank you now own?”

“The bank we own, hijo! That’s why I want you to go to Wharton after college. I’ll be there for your graduation, and then I’ll give you the keys to that Mercedes G you’ve always wanted—”

“Really, Lolo? But that’s at least ten years away! Golly, a Mercedes G….”

“I remember, my first car was a used and beat-up Datsun Bluebird that your Lola Auring wouldn’t even step into until I got it fixed, because the door kept opening on her side, hahaha! I spent half-a-month’s salary just replacing that door. Oh, the things we went through….”

“Ms. Landicho said her lolo died under martial law….”

“So? So did a lot of people. People die all the time—of heart attacks, diabetes, even slipping in the bathroom can kill you, like my friend Pepito—”

“She said her lolo was arrested by the soldiers, and then they tortured him and dumped his body under the mango trees in Cavite.”

“Well—he must have done something to deserve that. You go against the government, what do you expect? There was a war with the communists going on. War is ugly, wherever you go. Was that was your teacher said about martial law being bad? Did she also say how many crimes and strikes were averted, how clean, peaceful, and orderly everything was, with people following the law?”

“She said her lolo did nothing wrong—”

“Of course she’d say that. Nobody’s lolo does anything wrong—right, hijo? Haha.”

“Yes, Lolo!”

“I did all the right things. I stayed out of trouble, focused on getting my life and my future together, on raising my family and raising my income. And then I went into business for myself, so nobody could boss me around. I showed everyone what I was capable of. I didn’t care about what everybody else was doing. You listen well, hijo. In this world, you take care of yourself first, and then your family next. If you can’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of your family.”

“You’ve always taken good care of us, Lolo. Papa always tells me, if not for you, I’d be taking the bus or the jeep to a public school—”

“Like I had to, at your age! We were poor as rats and sometimes I went to school with nothing but gas in my stomach. I made sure your papa never went through that. That’s why I had to succeed.”

“Mama also says that if not for the President, you wouldn’t have succeeded. She says that you worked for people who worked for the President—”

“Is that what she said? I have to talk to your mother one of these days. There’s a lot that woman will never understand. There’s a lot that women will never understand. What you have to do to keep yourself and your family afloat. Instead of gratitude, you get questions, questions, questions—”

“What did you do for the President, Lolo? I want to know! Was it a big job, a secret mission, something nobody else could do?”

“Well, I guess you could say, all of the above! Remember, I was still a very young man. But I realized—and my bosses did, too—that I was very good with numbers. And secrets! They could trust me with their lives. But shhhhhh, don’t tell anyone!”

“Like what kind of secrets, Lolo?”

“If I told you, then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore, would it?”

“Awww, Lolo, I promise not to tell anyone! You can trust me—like they trusted you!”

“Well…. All right. Since it’s been a long time and since the President himself is gone, I suppose I can share a secret with you—but just one secret, okay? And this will remain a secret between the two of us—never tell your mama or papa.”

“Okay! Cross my heart and hope to die! What’s the secret, Lolo?”

“I… took… care… of… the… President’s… money. There was a lot of it. I had to collect it and send it safely abroad.”

“Why you? Did you carry it in a bag? Couldn’t the Air Force or the Navy do that?”

“Hahaha, it’s not that simple, hijo, a 747 wouldn’t have been enough to carry everything! He had to keep it abroad because—there were bad people here who were after it. So I was sent on secret missions to make sure everything was okay…. I went to Hong Kong, to the United States, to Switzerland. I loved Switzerland most of all—oh, to be in my thirties again and to watch the fountain at Lake Geneva at sunset. Le Jet d’Eau est tres beau!”

“So that’s where you learned French!”

“Juste un peu, mon garçon! If she were still here, I would have loved to take your Lola Auring there again. You must go to Geneva—after Wharton!”

“Lolo—Ms. Landicho said—she said the President stole a lot of money—”

“Wha—I pay so much for that school and they tell you this? Your teacher keeps saying things she knows nothing about! I was there! I saw no stealing! And let me tell you something—even if I did, presuming I did, it was none of my business. Making money was his business, keeping it safe was mine. That’s called compartmentalization. Remember that word—compartmentalization! You put everything in its box, just worry about the things you should worry about, and you’ll be all right. Understood? Comprenez vous?”

“Yes, Lolo…. So I’ll put the lolo I know in one box, and then my secret lolo in another box….”

“They’re one and the same person.”

“That, Lolo, will be my secret.”

Hindsight No. 24: All Content and Settings

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Hindsight for June 27, 2022

CHARLIE COULDN’T tell exactly what the phone was until he slid it out of its case and, even then, its other specifications—model and memory size, which would determine its price—could be known only once he turned the phone on and made it work. The problem, of course, was that it was locked with a passcode, and if you didn’t know your way around, it was easy to turn next month’s rent into a brick. 

There were other, more elaborate ways that involved cables, computers, and words like “jailbreaking,” “DFU mode,” and “GPP,” but they were Nick’s specialty, for which he had a stall in Greenhills. Charlie was smart enough to know what he was good at, which was thievery, and to stick to it. Had he gone past second year in Koronadal, he might have become a Nick, or even better, a Mr. Garcia, who bought whatever Charlie could sell with cold cash and then disposed of them online through aliases like “Triciababy” or “Sweet Loreen.” 

Charlie had spotted a Samsung Galaxy Note on FB Marketplace that was being sold by Triciababy with the story that she needed a kidney transplant, and he knew that it was one of his pickups because it had a tiny chip on the top right of its screen. Mr. Garcia had paid him 3K for it and was now posting it for 8.5, which seemed unfair but then he didn’t even know how to describe the phone, let alone make up a story. He scanned FB Marketplace to get some idea of what to ask Mr. Garcia for, but it always came down to what the man was willing to pay, because he could come up with reasons like “obsolete” and “digitizer,” which simply meant that Charlie could have chosen better if he wanted to get enough to buy a new bike with. It was easier to steal a bike than to get something past Mr. Garcia, which probably wasn’t even his real name. 

He could have told Mr. Garcia to try it himself to find out how difficult it was to pick a specific model—on most days. You had to be in the right place, with the right kind of people, to score something high-end, like an iPhone 13 or a Galaxy S21. You didn’t find those in the malls and markets Charlie felt comfortable in, in the shirt and sneakers that made him look like a college student waiting for a date or shopping for jeans on sale, especially when he carried a book or two. 

But the Kakampink rallies changed all that. It was a pickpocket’s dream—tens of thousands of people massed on the street, all wearing pink, which meant that all he had to do was invest in a pink T-shirt to lose himself in the crowd, going along with the chants and finger signs. Many of these people looked and even smelled like they had stepped out of a shower. Charlie didn’t pay much attention to the simpler folk who could have been his uncles or cousins, seeking out the clusters of privilege.

Charlie already knew who held which phone, and where they put them away when their hands were otherwise occupied. He had spotted the woman and her iPhone at least fifteen minutes before he moved in; her phone had rung and she tried to take the call but put it back in her shoulder bag when the noise made all talk impossible. Thirtyish and plain-looking, she didn’t seem particularly rich, but with the pink T-shirts you never knew.

It was during the candidate’s speech that everyone seemed most distracted. People cheered and raised their arms. Charlie had no interest in what they were all excited or angry about—like “martial law,” when terrible things supposedly happened, well before his time: killings, torture, rape, like some war movie, of which he had seen and enjoyed a few. None of that had anything to do with him. And if it was so bad, why did they keep coming back to it? 

It took Charlie no more than a few seconds to swipe the phone and to vanish into the monochromatic crowd. The woman never felt a thing. Charlie gave her a backward glance and saw that she looked ecstatic, swaying with both hands in the air, her eyes shut as if in prayer.

Back in his room in Paco, he turned the phone on—last among the four he had taken that day. A picture of the woman and a small girl filled the screen, typical wallpaper for people her age. It asked for a passcode. He had ten tries before it locked up for good, but Nick could take care of that, so just for fun he tried 1-2-3-4. It opened. People could be so simple. It was an XS, 64GB, a four-year-old model he could sell for, oh, 7 or 8K.

Instinctively he went for the photos. There was always something interesting to be found there, sometimes embarrassing secrets the owners would have been happy to pay for, so Charlie thought he was doing them a favor by wiping their phones clean and erasing the past. There didn’t seem to be too many pictures on this woman’s phone. One of her with a man, posing in front of a fountain, obviously shot from an old photograph. Many shots of a baby girl, the girl and mother, girl, girl, girl, mother in a bank teller’s uniform, girl in fairy costume. Here and there, office excursions, Hong Kong, Taal, Baguio. Third birthday party, then suddenly, girl in hospital bed, closeup of girl sleeping, closeup of girl’s hand, then a flower arrangement beside the girl’s framed picture. And then the girl with eyes closed, a dozen of them from different angles, because the light kept bouncing off the glass. He remembered the mother at the rally with her eyes devoutly shut; they looked alike. 

Charlie had lost his father when he was a boy and his mother was back in Koronadal grinding corn. He had not seen her in five years, but now and then he sent her pictures of himself through a cousin’s phone, posing in shades before a new car and on the Dolomite Beach. At least she knew he was alive.

He knew enough to wipe the phone; Mr. Garcia wanted them clean and usable, and doing it himself instead of Nick would save him money. But when his finger hovered over “Erase All Content and Settings,” he paused, and wished the passcode had been something other than 1-2-3-4.

Hindsight No. 21: Mr. Secretary

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Hindsight for Monday, June 6, 2022

(Note: This could be the strangest thing you will ever see on an Op-Ed page, a new genre I’m going to call “editorial fiction,” observations of the current scene rendered as short stories. No direct references are intended.)

THE CALL came at a little past one in the morning, well after bedtime for George and his wife Trina. Trina stirred in their bed and pulled the blanket over her shoulder in a gesture of irritation, but as soon as she gathered whom George was speaking with, she froze and tried to capture every word that was being said, over the hum of the aircon and the occasional screech of late-night traffic along the boulevard twelve floors below. She had wanted a unit as close to the penthouse as they could get, but the price was just beyond their reach, so they settled for a 14th-floor corner suite—the 13th floor, of course, was non-existent for superstition’s sake—with a broad view of the bay on one side and a long thread of highway on the other, fading into the southern suburbs.

George should have been annoyed as well to have been called so late, but he was not. He had not even been asleep, having watched an episode of The Blacklist without paying too much attention to what Raymond Reddington was whispering into Elizabeth’s ear. He had been swilling his Cragganmore, not bothering with his usual routine of adding a few drops of water to unravel its complexity; his taste buds felt dull and flat. Life itself suddenly seemed tentative and purposeless. He had been staring at his phone for an hour, checking its battery status, thumbing through his messages to make sure he had not missed anything important. 

When the phone rang he had to gulp down the whisky with which he was simply wetting his throat, utterly without pleasure, but instantly he straightened up in bed and took the call, curling a conspiratorial palm over his mouth, as if a spy lived on the 15th floor.

“Good evening—good morning—sir!… Oh, no sir—I was still awake—I mean, I read the newspaper and was surprised to see my name there, but…. Yes, of course, I mean, I wasn’t expecting anything, since you know how I feel about—well, about… things, things that happened in the past…. The future, of course, the future, I agree…. I appreciate that, I honestly never imagined that I would be talking to—oh, no, sir, no ‘doctor’ or ‘professor,’ please, just call me George, George is fine, everybody calls me George…. Haha, yes, I’m older than you by four years, but you’re the president! Or will be—I mean, in a few weeks…. I’m deeply, deeply honored, sir, of course I am….Uhhh…. Sir, could you maybe give me some time, a couple of days, just to talk it over with Trina?”

At this point, Trina had dropped all pretenses of trying to sleep and was watching George intently, making words with her mouth that George couldn’t be bothered to read. But George looked in her direction and continued talking as if she wasn’t there. In the background, at the other end of the line, he could hear people laughing and shouting, and the pounding rhythm of a Village People tune. His friend Estoy who had texted him earlier to expect a call was probably there; Estoy had been a consistent flunker in college, but now he seemed unusually adept, even prescient. 

“Yes, sir, Trina, Katrina Palileo, the sorority sister of your cousin Angie…. Our two children are both in the States…. She’s retired now but still consults for—oh, no, no, I don’t think it will be a problem…. 48 hours, thank you, sir, I’ll talk to her and get back to you…. Many thanks again, sir, and good morning!”

George slumped into his bedside chair, threw his phone on the bed, and poured himself a fresh shot. He grinned at the hapless Trina, waiting for her to pop the question.

“So? So what did he say? Did you get the position?”

George tried to put on a straight face, without much success. “I said I would think about it—I said I would ask you first.”

“Idiot!” Trina said, laughing, and threw a pillow at him, almost hitting his shot glass. “You call him right back, right now, and tell him I approve! Of course I approve, 110 percent!” She picked up his phone and held it out to him. “Call him now, while he’s still awake, and before he changes his mind!”

George brushed the suggestion away, turning pensive. “No, no, I shouldn’t look too eager, like I really, really want it—”

“But you do, right? I mean—a week ago I never would have thought this would happen, but when your name came up in the news, I thought, oh my God, really?”

“That’s what I’m asking—why. Why me?”

“And why the hell not? Nobody knows the field more than you, you’ve published zillions of academic papers, people hold you in enormous respect, you’re better appreciated in London and Geneva than you are here, and you were never known to be his flunkey!”

“No,” said George, “I never was. That’s why I think he wants me. Maybe I could change things.” He looked at Trina, who was about forty pounds heavier than when they first met, across a barbed wire fence in martial-law prison. He himself had been thin as a rake, having had very little to eat in their Marikina safehouse. He took it as a blessing to have been arrested in a raid; there was more food in prison, and he would have died within a week of scaling the mountains. And there was Trina, whose pageboy bob had been replaced by shoulder-length curls dyed some shade of sunset. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to forget what she had gone through, and he never brought it up. To survive and to live well—that alone was sweet revenge.

“We used to talk a lot about the future—is this it? How did this happen?”

She put her arms around him and pulled him back to bed. “You think too much,” Trina said, and planted a wet kiss on his cheek. “Congratulations and good night, Mr. Secretary! Let’s call the kids in the morning!”

Out the window, the lights of a tanker flickered on the pitch-black bay, the only way to tell that there was a horizon.

Hindsight No. 7: Disinformation and Democracy

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Hindsight for Monday, February 28, 2022

(Image from designtaxi.com)

LAST FRIDAY—the 36th anniversary of EDSA 1—I spoke to a group of university students who wanted to know what I thought of Filipino democracy. 

I told them that at EDSA, along with millions of other Filipinos, I jumped for joy at the news that Ferdinand Marcos had fled with his family. We did not know—and might not have cared too much then—that they had brought two planeloads of gold and cash with them to Hawaii. All we wanted to hear was that they were gone, presumably for good, and that we were off to a fresh start at peace, freedom, justice, and prosperity. The darkness of the past twenty years would lift, and a new Philippines would emerge, truly democratic and firmly opposed to any form of despotism.

Today we realize what a fantasy that was, what a temporary reprieve. Under Rodrigo Duterte, if the polls are right, most of our people have once again embraced authoritarian rule, implicitly accepting its attendant excesses. The dictator’s son is back, and may even become our next President—to the delight of his supporters for whom martial law never happened; or if it did, then it was a golden age to which we will soon be returning, an age of new roads and bridges, clean streets, industrial peace, Miss Universe pageants, and eternal sunshine. 

Indeed it would be as if the past half-century between 1972 and 2022 were a confused and hazy dream, and now we were waking up where we had left off yesterday, when Ferdinand E. Marcos was poised to “save the Republic and build a New Society.” His son is making sure that we don’t miss the connection by heralding his entrance at his campaign rallies with the anthem of martial law, “May Bagong Silang.” Most of his followers today have never heard that song, or understand its chilling context, or the price we paid—in blood and in billion-dollar loans—for that “new dawn.” To them, it is a catchy jingle, in marching tempo. It comes with the smell of money and power in the air, the promise of a shower of gold for the hopeful masses. 

This, of course, is also a fantasy, but a powerful one—and I think I will be correct to surmise that many of the students I addressed, and even their teachers, fully believe it. And why not? They were never taught in school about the horrors of martial law. Instead, they were told that those were good times, that the Marcoses were good leaders who were deposed by their enemies and the CIA, that rich people don’t steal, and that the Marcos billions came from the gods, Yamashita, and anywhere but the Philippine treasury. That diet of lies has now become a catered banquet. 

The biggest enemy of democracy today—more than at any other time in our or even the world’s history—is disinformation: the willful distortion or fabrication of information to create false beliefs or impressions in the minds of people, turning bad to good, wrong to right, and vice versa. 

This is happening not only here in the Philippines, but in many other places around the world—including America, where Donald Trump has been pushing the “Big Lie” of a stolen election, despite the lack of any credible evidence. Even earlier, in what has by now become a cliché, Josef Goebbels thundered that if you repeat a lie a thousand times, it becomes the truth. 

During and after WWII, military experts engaged in what was called “psywar” or psychological warfare to weaken the enemy’s mental defenses, lower morale, and make people switch sides. This was done through radio, leaflets, newspapers, and other media available at the time.

Today the prevalence of the Internet and social media has magnified the means for disinformation by a magnitude of millions. And this is scary, because according to a recent survey, every other Pinoy can’t tell real news from fake. How can a society so prone to disinformation—to fake news—function well as a democracy?

Last month, the Akademyang Filipino (on whose Board of Trustees I serve) sponsored a forum on the topic of “Can Democracy Win in May 2022?” Most such questions are meant to be rhetorical, with obvious answers. But this time, the more I thought about it, the more I was bothered by its actual complexity. The problem, I realized, is that we no longer have a clear and common idea of what “democracy” means.

There are as many definitions of democracy as there are politicians eager to appropriate it. “Democracy” has to have been one of the most ambiguous and most abused words of the 20th century, going into the 21st. When a brutal totalitarian state like North Korea styles itself as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” you know something somewhere has gone awfully wrong. Dictators will call their actions democratic—as Ferdinand Marcos and Muammar Ghaddafi did—by asserting that they are acting on behalf of the people, a responsibility that presumably entitles them to extraordinary powers and compensations.

In my layman’s understanding, democracy is the rule and exercise of power by the people through representatives they choose by a free and fair election. It seems simple, but immediately we can see how vulnerable this definition of democracy is to interpretation and manipulation. What is a “free and fair” election? Does it simply mean an election free of vote-buying, coercion, and fraud?

If a candidate wins more than 51% of the vote without obvious coercion or cheating, then will that candidate have won a democratic election? But what if those voters had been fed provably false information? What if they willingly believed that information to be true, and voted on the basis of it? Would this still be democracy at work? 

Arguably, yes, because democracy never promised only intelligent outcomes. Elections are emotional, not rational, exercises. This disturbs me deeply, but again I have to ask myself, am I idealizing democracy as something that can be perfected? Or should I just accept that democracy, like society itself, is inherently messy, mercurial, and manipulable? 

What kind of democracy do we Filipinos have, and what kind of democracy do we want? The vote this May will help provide the answer.