(Swiped from Grammarly's crowdsourced Facebook page comments. I'm posting it without permission because most of them are stolen anyway -- the exceptions are duly noted with an asterisk.)
Nudist colony: A place where men and women freely air their differences.
Cartoonist found dead in home. Details are sketchy.
I'm so broke I can't even pay attention.
I used to have a fear of hurdles. I got over it.
What is a mummy? An Egyptian pressed for time.
Menstruation jokes aren’t funny, period.
*Writing with a pencil without lead is pointless.
Police were called to a day care, where a three year old was resisting a rest.
A neutron walks into a bar and orders a beer. When he asked the bartender how much it was, the bartender replied, "For you, no charge!"
*Who cooks potatoes in a monastery? The French friar.
Energizer Bunny arrested: Charged with battery.
Did you hear the Velveeta Corporation is moving their headquarters to Jerusalem? They're changing the name of the company to Cheeses of Nazareth.
Where there's a will, there's a lawyer.
*My business, selling the ashes of famous fortune tellers, involves urning great prophets.
Nudist colony: Where men and women hang out together.
A backward poet writes inverse.
When it's warm out, I have the right to bare arms!
Blonde walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a double entendre, so he gives her one.
Why do Marxists drink herbal tea? Because proper tea is theft!
I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop at any time.
England has no kidney bank, but it sure does have a Liverpool.
A friend stayed up all night to see where the sun went. Then it dawned on him.
I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.
I have a friend who did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.
*Just got back from a holiday of a lifetime. I won't be doing that again.
*My sister said she has borderline personality disorder. Her husband said, "No, first you've got to have a personality."
Bonus joke:
*Son, call the bully helpline and ask how to become a better bully.
"Pope Francis has attacked the ''dictatorship'' of the global financial system and warned that the ''cult of money'' is making life a misery for millions.
He said free market capitalism had created a ''tyranny'' and that people were being judged purely by their ability to consume goods.
Money should be made to ''serve'' people, not to ''rule'' them, he said on Thursday, calling for a more ethical banking system and curbs on financial speculation. Countries should impose more control over their economies and not allow ''absolute autonomy'', in order to provide ''for the common good''.
The gap between rich and poor was growing and the ''joy of life'' was diminishing in many developed countries, the Pope said. ''While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling,'' said the pontiff... In poorer countries, people's lives were becoming ''undignified'' and marked by violence and desperation, he said.
'The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal,'' he told the ambassadors.
...Unchecked capitalism had created ''a new, invisible, and at times virtual, tyranny'', he said.
''The Pope... has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them,'' he said."
Amazing -- not everyone in what some camp loves to refer to as Babylon, Sodom, Gomorrah, or Gehenna -- Hollywood -- in turns out, is into Californication.
Looks who's spreading the good news that people can actually control their sex drives/urges if they want to.
"Whenever someone is a jerk to me, I always say, “You might be right.”
"This accomplishes a few things:
1. It admits that maybe they are right. I make mistakes. Maybe I did something wrong. Could this person bring it up without being a jerk? Sure, but just because they were a jerk doesn’t mean they were wrong.
2. It ends the conversation.
3. It releases me from carrying it around all day."
- As other observers have duly noted, MSM remains king in terms of reach, for almost all of those who had wide media exposure (TV, radio, broadsheets, tabloids) made it. (This means social media turns out to have shallow penetration.)
- Showbiz connection is also a big plus, but it's not so simple. While actors Erap Estrada, Vilma Santos, Herbert Bautista, and Alfred Vargas won big (Aga Muhlach almost won despite ostensibly not a Bicol resident/native), other actors also lost, namely Christopher de Leon and Rez Cortez -- an ironic loss for all their good-guy image (well, the bemoustached Rez Cortez often played the role of a rapist).
- Good looks, or at least, positive aura, may also play a part, because most of the winners for senator, for example, are hardly lousy in that department. Miriam Defensor-Santiago herself couldn't hide it: she finds the likes of Sonny Angara sexy enough to make it as partly (an irrational) basis of her vote.
- It figures the underdog card also matters. Despite the guiltless racism heaped upon Nancy Binay's dusky looks and the brickbats she received for her perceived non-achievement/lack of qualification, she still won. Observers say it's because Filipinos love rooting for the underdog.
- The clout of established political surnames, or dynasties, remains, in cases where a showbiz name is not enough. However, puzzlingly enough, several 'dynasts' also lost. (Personally, I am not sure what this development exactly signifies.)
- Sheer name recall, or annoyingly enough, close association with a favored surname -- that is, favored for one reason or another -- is certainly a big factor. What else explains the top position of Grace Poe, the adopted daughter of actor Fernando Poe, Jr., who rumors say won the presidential election before the last one but was cheated, thus the vote for Grace was a "sympathy vote," and Nancy Binay, the daughter of Vice-President Jejomar Binay, who's deservedly popular in Makati for the legacy of freebies his administration showers its citizens?
- What's quite hard to understand is the victory of former president Erap Estrada, who is supposed to have fallen big time with his conviction for plunder, supposedly a heinous crime; that of another former president, the presently bedridden Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who has figured in far too many supposedly anomalous transactions under her watch; and that of the Marcoses, Imelda and Imee, despite belonging to the country's most notorious political clan. Even the infamous Ampatuans won in Maguindanao! Worldwide and national infamy, apparently, does not guarantee loss when these personalities enjoy the benefit of a cult of personality in their own respective bailiwicks. A most mysterious phenomenon to outsiders, naturally.
- Another surprise is the big win of three names despite the big-time scandals thrown their way at the end of the campaign, obviously a last-ditch effort to discredit them in a major way: Loren Legarda and her allegedly undeclared property in New York, Chiz Escudero and the accusations of being a drunkard, etc. by the Ongpaucos (the parents of his showbiz girlfriend Heart Evangelista), and Sonny Angara and his old man's role in the creation of the controversial APECO or Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport.
- Other observers say it's a matter of money, money, money. Where money flows, votes are guaranteed. According to reports, vote-buying has become more brazen, ironically just when the election system was modernized.
- The results of the election, supposedly now automated, took quite a long time to be reported. The Commission on Elections might as well have stuck to manual count.
- Youth appears to be big factor as well. This must partly explain the wins of younger candidates in the Senate and those of the new, unbelievably young governors (23-year-old Migz Villafuerte, 25-year-old Jolo Revilla). Whether this generation (derided as bimpos or face towels) thinks differently from from their elders (derided as trapos (for traditional politician) or rags) remains to be seen.
- In the case of Migz Villafuerte, the very public exposure of his abs worked for him, instead of working against him. (The Facebook pic and skin mag act could have been a turn-off to voters, or some sort of a red flag, by thinking of it as highly narcissistic, but it was not.)
- The victory of Migz Villafuerte of Camarines Sur is oddest victory of all, because he defeated his very own grandfather, the province's long-time governor, whose running telenovela-like feud with his son Congressman LRay Villafuerte is well-publicized.
- The most embarrassing incident is hands-down actor Aga Muhlach's camp celebrating his victory, only to learn he lost to his opponent.
- Of the numerous amusing names of political candidates, nothing could top Camarines Sur's 'Wimpy' Fuentebella (4th District), as far as I am concerned.
- Meanwhile, there is supposedly no Catholic vote, as indicated by the defeat of Ang Kapatiran, and yet Catholic prolife group Ang Buhay also won as the number one partylist group, 50% of winning senators have a prolife position, and Risa Hontiveros, the most vociferous advocate of RH, lost for the second time despite her array of advantages: pretty face, showbiz connection, media exposure, and millions of donated funds.
- My friends online observe the lack of connection with the masses, the lack of the common touch, did Risa in. They say: "What was she doing with that alampay?" True. It is essentially pashmina.
- One winning candidate reportedly died after his victory.
- Thirteenth placer for senator Dick Gordon became the subject of mean and green jokes in social media at the tail-end of the counting, with the naughty hashtag #ipasoksiDick.
- The enduring win of former top-ranking military officers, Antonio Trillanes and Gringo Honasan, with their colorful history of plotting and carrying out coups d'etat, is a special case. A significant part of the population apparently prefers ultra-rightist/militarist ideology and, I hypothesis, is nervous of the rise of leftist leaders in the legislative branch (Risa Hontiveros, Teddy Casiño, et al.) and elsewhere in government (the present dispensation has employed several prominent leftists in Malacañang).
- Oh, but the leftist group Bayan Muna placed third in the partylist tally. What does that say of the present electorate's politics? Is there a balancing leftist-vs-rightist act somewhere?
- Based on the debates I've heard, the most 'senatoriable' of all candidates, in my opinion, the constitutionalist (and teacher, commissioned lay preacher, catechist, apologist, and Mariologist) Marwil Llasos, O.P., suffered a disappointing loss. I was also rooting for someone like Jemy Gatdula of Ang Prolife for the same reason, but he, too, lost. It could be that Filipino voters have gone anti-intellectual, perhaps after feeling betrayed by some smart people in the past.
- Most voters are reportedly young, and yet they stuck with the old patterns of electing government officials.
- On a more personal note, I am a long-time supervisor in the KPO industry, online English tutor, freelance writer//editor, but I find it very hard to find a new decent job, while here are the scions of political families finding it very easy to become senators, governors, etc.
Did I miss anything else that's odd?
So, all in all, the Filipino electorate seems to have a very complex set of standards/criteria when voting. Whether that is sophistication or more of a scheming strategy is a mystery. What is certain is that we are still in this same mess after all these years.
I am glad to have finally gotten hold of this as-expected subversive film, which practically canonizes the pretty-faced Argentine-born doctor and Cuban revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara as a Marxist saint. In this sense, it does not disappoint; a story is a story, and a diary is a diary: self-serving (perhaps mindful of immortality) and most likely driven by selective memory.
However, certain essential things can get easily lost in this first-hand account of motorbiking through the arid stretch of the Andes in Latin America. Alarm bells just kept ringing through my ears, as I thought of today's youth, who know next to nothing about Che Guevara except as an embossed iconic mug on shirts. I just had to balance what I saw by immediately watching The True Story of Che Guevara the Documentaryif only to remind myself of the other side of the coin. The documentary easily proves to be the superior material in the politics of truth-telling. It can be relied upon to be fair even to Marxists, Leninists, and Maoists, by making the right, delicate judgment: the morality of the left is not all-evil, but more complex, just as the morality of the right is not all-good; leftism is essentially a mix of seemingly pure intention or idealism that lapses into monstrously messianic methodologies (OTOH, capitalism's excesses are violent in more subtle, more insidious ways). This documentary even makes this additional connection: the communist/socialist movement in Latin America is a reaction to the evils of European colonialism, American imperialism, and the excesses of capitalism in general, an erroneous, oversimplistic reaction surely, but a reaction nonetheless, with a logic that's crystal-clear to the proponents, especially when considering the great economic and sociopolitical divide this has created: in other words, great wealth and great power in the midst of, or maybe even because of, great poverty.
It just so happened that I had absorbed many of Billie Joe Armstrong's punk pieces years ago because a younger brother got addicted to Green Day during his angry juvenile days. Hearing the same tachycardic beat and angsty songs given the Broadway treatment in American Idiot, the rock opera, is, therefore, a marvelous novelty, a neat treat. It turns out to be a thoroughly enjoyable rock musical that makes the subjects of youth disaffection and political alienation during the divisive George 'Dubya' Bush era sound so wonderfully spiffed-up.
The dark (i.e., punk) nature of the material is edged with the sheen of fine soaring vocals and sweetened by orchestral and choral accompaniment. The result will surprise even the most ardent haters of punk rock, as soon as they realize how the parallelism with the reaction of America's youth during the US-Vietnam War of the late '60s and early '70s. Just as Woodstock, the Beatles, flower power, tie-dyed shirts, hallucinogens, and the sex revolution were the preferred alternatives to sticking out the dirty finger at the establishment then, so are neo-punk rock and gothic fashion -- faux mohawk, kohl eyeliner, jet-black tight-fitting jeans -- are the preferred modes of rebellion during the US-Iraq War during the late '90s.
Not since Rent have I been this enthusiastic and at the same time this guilt-ridden watching a musical, the guilt owing to the pleasure of watching a material with potentially questionable presuppositions. I can't vouch for the narrative arc of American Idiot, but the song numbers speak eloquently to my heart, bringing me to places where I once felt desperate for an anesthetic/analgesic, hopeless about the future, alienated by the lovelessness of the workplace/business world/trade, generally discontented with my lot in life, and blissfully clueless about the consequences of many wrongful choices I took along the way. Who knew such deeply dark, neo-/hyper-realist places are capable of letting proverbial fruits and flowers grow?
American Idiot is the singing voice of idealistic, angry young men who never got old or never died. It is a voice, not entirely of cynicism, but maybe just despondency, an upending of the Great American Dream, reminiscent of the rapper Eminem driving a dagger in the heart of corporate (that is, white) America in his earliest works; this time, the target is imperialist America, stabbed by no less than one of her children. But it is an upending that is edged with unexpected kinds of expectations. It is, however, inevitably and necessarily punctuated by crisp bleep-worthy language. Given its complex tapestry of emotions, its live-wire energy, in the end, can only strike as ironic yet apt.
Two similar talk shows on TV have caught my attention lately -- Face to Face (TV5) and Personalan (Channel 11) -- and you know what that means: a compare-contrast review.
Face to Face - Virtually nothing prepared me for this talk show. Okay, I've skimmed through Lourd de Veyra's feature and review of this show before, detailing all the craziness you needed to know about the show, but actually watching it on TV is an unbelievable experience. Needless to say, I am hooked, though in an odd, unexpected way. Let me figure out why:
1. The controversies the show capitalizes on are simply out of this world: A man discovers his mistress to be his daughter. Two sons accuse their father of being in a relationship with their male friend. A guy in a live-in relationship with a woman denies having been a flamboyant gay guy in the past despite the claim of his former gay lover and friends. Perhaps the random titles in Tagalog best capture the flavor of this tabloid TV show: "Video Scandal ng Kaibigan." "Inahas ang Papa." "Tsismosa Kaya Plinantsa." "Mga Kalaguyo Raw ni Misis Buking Dahil sa Singsing." "Hate Ko Bilas Ko."
2. I can't get over how the former TV variety show host and actress Amy Perez has evolved seamlessly into an excellent moderator of domestic tiffs, calling herself "Ang inyong Pambansang Kapitana, si Tyang Amy," then closes with "Para sa inyo ito, Kapatid!" with a straight face. I suddenly remember that Amy Perez has long been at this game -- on AM (or FM?) radio, so for her, switching media platforms is just a matter of facing the cameras again (long after her hosting stint at a couple of noontime shows).
3. It's equally incredible how Amy Perez takes sides when called for, bashing the head of the deserving in that gentle way only women are capable of doing. It takes high IQ to judge on the spot which character is a jerk in a given situation. It takes even higher IQ to sort things out for the confused and contending parties and make each of them sing the right tune. For the most part, Amy is fair, but she knows who is fair game for teasing, whenever she sees one.
4. It also takes high EQ to keep one's cool through it all. That, er, Tyang Amy is able to handle all that after all these years without getting premature wrinkles or catching serious illness is no mean feat. She must be a master at personal debriefing. How does she do it? One gets this horse sense that Amy Perez is, first and foremost, having so much fun in this, winking secretly at all of us, even if we don't get the drift as easily ("It's all a game!")
5. I can't believe how the contending guests are goaded by the show to give a blow by blow account of their private dramas (the usual poverty sob stories), little and big scandals (adultery), darkest secrets (selfish motive of vengeance) in all their gory details, with the prospect of an entire nation (or even the whole world, if the show could be subtitled for YouTube) witnessing the washing of their soiled laundry. Different narrative versions from the contending parties and their allies and/or frenemies soon intertwine, unfolding cringe-worthy misinterpretations and revealing the machinations of the malcontent and the ill-willed, until the show is enveloped in forbidding ugliness. The eruption of violence is ever-present, which admittedly makes for a great, though alarming (because unsavory and aggravating), spectacle.
Even if they were bribed with scholarships, salon makeovers, and sari-sari stores for the stint, it is still inconceivable how the guests, all men/women-from-the-street types, could agree to the arrangement at all. My guess is that they were all desperate to resolve their problem, but couldn't find the right venue, until the opportunity came along.
6. Further, it's a wonder how these warring people are separately recruited at all before each episode, how they are convinced one by one, knowing that they would be up against an uncharacteristic/un-Filipino confrontation, in full view of the world.
7. Are those inevitable scuffles, slapping galore, and curse and insult festival -- which the on-air sabong (confrontation) unfailingly degenerates into -- staged or scripted? I guess not. Then again, maybe yes, or at least those scenarios that could be staged to elicit the right kind of on-air conflict. In any case, one can't resent the show's foresight in supplying the right number of bouncers on standby.
8. It is equally jaw-dropping that the audience is part of the show, freely giving inputs, even throwing unseemly taunts at certain parties on stage ("Malandi ka!" ["You flirty slut!"]), like it's their business. They are aptly called 'Sawsaweros' and 'Sawsaweras' (essentially, busybodies), egged on to share what they think and feel by an animated co-host (Hans Mortel) who, apropos of nothing, segues into a shameless commercial, announcing that each winning busybody (the one chosen to officially air his or her judgmental opinion) will receive this brand-name cell phone model for his or her effort.
9. At the end of the show, Amy Perez gets to have the last word by reading a prepared editorial. Then it's election time. Flashing either red or white placards and cheering like they are in a major sports tournament, the recruited Sawsaweros and Sawsaweras act like God on Judgment Day by proclaiming which side of the fence they are on. The guest on whose side no one dares to be must deal with a very public embarrassment. One can easily see that person desperately opting for evaporation as an option.
10. The show suddenly turns dead-serious when it is the Trio Tagapayo's or the panel of advisers' turn to speak, comprising of a counselor/psychologist, lawyer/legal adviser, and a priest (a priest! in a circus!). Their advise are, incredibly enough, almost always listened to by the day's guests on the hot seat, with nary a question or sign of protest. In case an adviser suggested something awful, we televiewers won't know it, for the pressure of a neat ending for the show can only force the episode's most offensive character (there's always a guilty party) to concede his defeat/shamelessness/immorality/sin.
11. Long-standing family problems, word wars among workmates, cold wars among former friends and lovers are often suddenly resolved to the tune of the most melodramatic background music within the limited time frame, with the offending party being urged to make a promise to one and all to quit being an idiot and become a better person. This is done in the manner grade-schoolers are punished: by writing down their promise on the board. Years of years of distressful back-and-forths and deep-seated emotional wounds, including quite possibly psychotraumas, are magically resolved and reversed! How is that even possible when people with serious issues would need decades of counseling and therapy just to stay afloat in life? (Well, apparently, it is technically possible. That's what I learned from the Landmark Forum: The past, if reframed right here and now, can be 'erased,' ending the present 'issue' instantly -- no multi-episode telenovela dramas needed. The show seems to employ this ultrafast psychological processing technique.)
From start to finish, I watched Face to Face open-mouthed, if not struggling to repress a hearty guffaw, so the neighbors wouldn't think someone in the vicinity was going crazy. One letter-sender on the show hits the bull's eye when she observes how every shade of emotion and every possible reaction is felt while she is watching the show: joy, laughter, ridicule/mockery/contempt, envy, incredulity, surprise, horror, anger, fear, hurt, sadness. What an awful, wonderful, terrible show! Personalan - This is a far more sober version of Face to Face. I think I saw an episode of this much earlier than Amy Perez's show, and I remember wishing to salute the host at the time, Ali Sotto, for her admirable willingness and ability to tackle other people's terrible personal problems.
The tenor of this show is more serious and respectable in the sense that the guests on the hot seats are never made fun of. But the seriousness may be its own weakness, with the ratings game considered.
With Sotto's departure -- she reportedly quit after being saddled by her guests' personal issues long after the sho -- it has been hosted by a number of other willing and able female stars in showbusiness. I remember seeing Manilyn Reynes, Jolina Magdangal, Isabel Granada, and Jean Garcia. Among the replacements, Jean Garcia seems to fit the role best.
Here, the audience is restricted to their place: as audience. But I noticed the recent addition of a celebrity watching the proceedings from the audience seat and being asked for his/her opinion/inputs every now and then. Maybe this trick works in terms of sustaining the audience's attention.
Furthermore, no cheeky, intrusive advertisements are inserted out of nowhere.
If one is aiming for fireworks or a wild ride, there may not be an intensity similar to what Face to Face offers, but one need not be disappointed: The drama/conflict being featured for the day is often unexpected, convoluted, and discombobulating enough as to be as entertaining. As they say, real life is stranger than fiction. It is even stranger when real life is staged as a 'reality show,' no matter which channel is telling the story.
Personalan, however, will always be that show that came long after Face to Face.
***
In both shows, it can't be denied that there's so much to learn from, even as there's as much material for gossip/rumor-mongering to absorb from otherwise unsung, hidden lives. Of course, the latter is not the intent of both, but the danger to the lives of private individuals concerned is real when they get back to the real world.
Then again, what is privacy, from the perspective of eternity? There's none: In Catholic theology, except in case of absolved sins, which are erased, every private action is recorded, together with the unatoned impact it had made on the universe, and everyone will eventually learn about it. However, in the realm of the present world, keeping delicate matters private is the most judicious route, for practical reasons. One consolation, however, is that the show gives all parties in the conflict a fair chance to air their side of the laundromat; unlike in showbiz talk shows and broadsheet/tabloid blind items, no one is stabbed dead with an ice pick on his or her back.
I also can't help but make this additional point, which I deem important, after learning about it from an expert on human communication: "If you break [people]'s shell, will you be able to stitch back the pieces again?" What if, on a rare occasion, one of the guests is a bipolar or borderline case and snaps/loses his mind/flips out/breaks down uncontrollably on air after being properly provoked/aggravated? Aren't private, delicate matters best addressed in the safety of the counseling room? Maybe the answer is no, because the professional therapists/counselors on the show have given their implicit imprimatur.
***
It is striking how those old, incredibly head-shaking American talk shows like Dr. Phil or Jerry Springer have finally invaded Philippine TV. Filipinos are apparently now open to invasion of privacy with consent. Transplanted to the local setting, however, these shows assume a character of their own, as De Veyra astutely observes for Face to Face in particular. The roller-coaster revelation of personal lapses in judgment owing to character defects, which on a higher level, are revelatory of a serious family dysfunction, remains intact. But there is this peculiar add-on: most of the conflicts are a function of poverty, which the show host herself admits in an interview, and this gives the wild, fun ride an undercurrent of depressive sadness.
Who the heck is this little, pleasantly plump girl? Where did she come from? Why on earth does she have her own TV show at such a very young age? Why are people watching her? There must be something special about this kid!
I discovered Ryzza Mae through a Facebook post by a friend who swore he laughed so hard at an episode of the show even though he didn't really watch noontime shows (he just happened to be in front of a TV set at the right time). The episode featured as guest young basketball star Kiefer Ravena, who gamely answered the host's series of questions.
The girl, who according to a quick Google search, is the latest Little Miss Philippines champ in Eat! Bulaga, turns out to be a natural, despite the apparently scripted Q&A. She elicits the laughs with her precocious answers and often unexpected reactions.
Particularly amusing is the way she throws tantrums on air, as though she's 78 years old, as she herself jokingly claims. She is unpredictably entertaining this way.
Watch here how she is pissed off by unruly boys and an excessively nice member of the audience:
From the looks of it, Ryzza Mae seems to have discovered romance in advance, too. We hope the lucky boy can catch up.
We've been enthralled by Niño Muhlach's endearing antics before, then by Aiza Seguerra's precociousness. We find Ryzza Mae (Dizon) even more phenomenal as a child star, if there must be a comparison/competition. To quote my friend, "She is an alien! She's from another planet!"
No wonder Ryzza Mae Dizon is today's trending star. May her success not be short-lived.
The Ryzza Mae Show - reviewed separately here Face to Face and Personalan - reviewed separately here Annie Hall - Glad to finally see this famed title by the controversial (to the point of scandalous) Woody Allen, "unreliable narrator" and all. I managed to laugh at certain parts, even though the jokes can get too cerebral. So this is the precursor to Manhattan. I will have to watch it again to appreciate it more fully, as I did Manhattan.
So this is the production Mac was raving about. I must agree it's grand:
Fidel: The Untold Story -- Says the blurb, it "is a documentary released in 2001 by Estela Bravo about (Cuba's famous/notorious) Fidel Castro." The film feature(s) interviews with such a remarkable lineup of personalities, including "ex-CIA agent Phillip Agee, the boxer Muhammad Ali, the jazz singer Harry Belafonte, former bureaucrat Ramsey Clark, communist activist Angela Davis, the Cuban baby boy tagged at the time as 'anchor baby' Elián González, the Nelson Mandela, the Gabriel García Márquez, the Ted Turner, and the Alice Walker. What is downright unbelievable about this docu-biopic is that it is almost like a praise release for the still-alive, maybe second-to-the-last icon (after some quirky line of North Korean dictators, that is) of communism-socialism. Whew -- I need to listen to the other side of the story, please. Will this do? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU1M5cH8zWo
I should not fail to note that, though not as pretty-faced as Che Guevara, Fidel Castro shares Che's charisma. Why are these supposedly evil, cigar-chomping men good-looking? Mystery.
This article, which I have abstracted below, reminds me of the book Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman, which posits various theories of time or how it may be perceived. I had so much fun reading the book, that a visit to the National Museum resulted in this article: http://restyo.blogspot.com/2003/05/einsteins-dreams-at-national-museum.html
--------------------- "10 Mind-Blowing Theories That Will Change Your Perception of the World"
1. Great glaciation - The theory of the final state that our universe is heading toward, in which, when the universe's limited energy finally runs out, the universe will devolve into a frozen state, where heat loss, particle motion, and everything else stops.
2. Solipsism - A philosophical theory which asserts that nothing exists but the individual’s consciousness, making it impossible to verify anything but your own consciousness.
3. Idealism (George Berkeley) - The belief that everything exists as an idea in someone’s mind, what with an omnipotent and omnipresent God who sees all and all at once.
4. The idea of logos - Plato's argument that, beyond our perceived reality, there lies a world of “perfect” forms, of which everything that we see is just a shade, an imitation, and that by studying philosophy, we have a chance of catching a glimpse of how things truly are, of discovering the perfect forms of everything we perceive.
4.1 Monism - Plato's argument that everything (diamonds, gold, dog feces...) is made of a single substance.
5. Presentism - The belief that the past and the future are imagined concepts, while only the present is real; time cannot exist before and after it happened (St. Augustine).
6. Eternalism - The exact opposite of presentism, it is a philosophical theory that says that time is multi-layered, like a pound cake; all time exists simultaneously, but the measurement is determined by the observer, with what he sees depending on which point he is looking at. This makes the future seem hopeless and deterministic free will illusory.
7. The "brain in a jar" thought experiment - The belief that human understanding of reality depends solely on his subjective feelings.
8. Multiverse theory - A belief in the existence of an infinite number of parallel alternate worlds very similar to ours, with little (or in some cases, large) changes or differences.
9. Fictional realism - A branch of multiverse theory which argues that, given an infinite number of universes, everything -- Superman, Harry Potter, et al. -- must exist somewhere.
10. Phenomenalism - The belief that objects only exist as a phenomenon of consciousness -- no existence without perception.
These are notes from Artemio Panganiban's lectures in his column. The following dichotomy is related to Monstesqieu's distinction between the spirit of the law and the letter of the law, with the spirit of the law taking precedence over the letter of the law.
This ongoing Star Wars in the legal world is no different from the Traditional versus New Criticism wings in the interpretation of literature, with the former advocating the interpretation of text according to how the original author intended it, with a consideration of the historical/biographical context, and the latter advancing the position that all interpretation must be limited to what's apparent on the text, if not how the reader perceives it. In Biblical interpretation, in particular, this dichotomy is the battle between pharisaicism (letter of the law is king) and, um, non-pharisaicism (spirit of the law is king).
-------------------
"Two main ways of constitutional interpretation: 1) strictly according to the original intent of the framers; or 2) liberally according to how our people who ratified the Constitution understood it, given its underlying principles and overarching aspirations."
"[There is a] great divide in interpreting constitutions and laws. Should they be read according “to the letter that killeth or to the spirit that giveth life”? Should they be construed on the basis of their text and words, or on their underlying rationale and philosophy? Should the Constitution be understood strictly on what its framers originally intended, or liberally taking into account the ever changing economic, social and political milieu?
"The textualists or originalists interpret according to the original intent of the framers, regardless of the dire consequences on current and future events. They rely on “dura lex sed lex.” Their self-imposed duty is “to apply laws faithfully and desist from engaging in socioeconomic or political experimentations,” which they denounce as “judicial legislation.”
"On the other hand, the liberals or progressives believe in a living Constitution; one that grows with time, solves the vagaries of the present, and anticipates the needs of the future. Chief Justices Davide, Puno, Sereno and I belong to this latter group who believe that jurists are not mere social technicians and legal automatons. Rather, they are social engineers who courageously fix their gaze on the underlying principles and overarching aspirations of the Constitution to nurture a free and prosperous nation.
In another matter, namely, on the Supreme Court's power:
"In her lecture at the 500-seat USC Audio-Visual Room packed by Court of Appeals justices, trial judges, lawyers, business leaders, professors and students, Largo explained that our Supreme Court is armed with three judicial prerogatives: (1) the “traditional power” to settle “actual controversies that are legally demandable and enforceable,” (2) the “judicial review” authority to determine whether the acts of the other branches of government are “in accord with the Constitution,” and (3) the “expanded extraordinary certiorari jurisdiction” to strike down grave abuse of discretion of any branch or instrumentality of the government.
"In most countries, supreme courts are granted only the first (traditional) power of settling actual controversies, but not the second and third. In most parliamentary governments, the second prerogative (judicial review) is given to especially created constitutional courts, not to supreme courts."
"First, you need to remember that plainly expressed language is out of the question. It is too realist, modernist and obvious. Postmodern language requires that one uses play, parody and indeterminacy as critical techniques to point this out. Often this is quite a difficult requirement, so obscurity is a well-acknowledged substitute. For example, let's imagine you want to say something like, ``We should listen to the views of people outside of Western society in order to learn about the cultural biases that affect us''. This is honest but dull. Take the word ``views''. Postmodernspeak would change that to ``voices'', or better, ``vocalities'', or even better, ``multivocalities''. Add an adjective like ``intertextual'', and you're covered. ``People outside'' is also too plain. How about ``postcolonial others''? To speak postmodern properly one must master a bevy of biases besides the familiar racism, sexism, ageism, etc. For example, phallogocentricism (male-centredness combined with rationalistic forms of binary logic). Finally ``affect us'' sounds like plaid pajamas. Use more obscure verbs and phrases, like ``mediate our identities''. So, the final statement should say, ``We should listen to the intertextual, multivocalities of postcolonial others outside of Western culture in order to learn about the phallogocentric biases that mediate our identities''. Now you're talking postmodern!
"Sometimes you might be in a hurry and won't have the time to muster even the minimum number of postmodern synonyms and neologisms needed to avoid public disgrace. Remember, saying the wrong thing is acceptable if you say it the right way. This brings me to a second important strategy in speaking postmodern, which is to use as many suffixes, prefixes, hyphens, slashes, underlinings and anything else your computer (an absolute must to write postmodern) can dish out. You can make a quick reference chart to avoid time delays. Make three columns. In column A put your prefixes; post-, hyper-, pre-, de-, dis-, re-, ex-, and counter-. In column B go your suffixes and related endings; -ism, -itis, -iality, -ation, -itivity, and -tricity. In column C add a series of well-respected names that make for impressive adjectives or schools of thought, for example, Barthes (Barthesian), Foucault (Foucauldian, Foucauldianism), Derrida (Derridean, Derrideanism)."
I couldn't access the rest of Noel Vera's top 100 Filipino films, so I had to resort to my default comfort food, er, more like junk food: Hollywood and, if all else fails, Broadway (as well as a little off-Broadway and off-Hollywood). Angels in the Outfield - This story, while sweet and kind-hearted, is too appalling to review. Good intention is not enough. Art demands exactly that: craft, artistry. I'll only mention how I was thrilled to see here now-familiar faces at the time they were relative 'nobodies': Matthew McConaughey, Adrien Brody, Dermott Mulroney, and the talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Also: I watched it because it was a title I missed wasting time and allowance on while in college.
Basketball Diaries - This gritty biopic set in the seamy side of New York City is unforgettable in understated way. A Catholic-school boy in a fatherless household falls into bad company and into a downward spiral of truancy, drugs, and petty crime, or did I just copy-paste that from IMDB? Unraveled in a first-person recollection, it is a life story pockmarked with priestly corporeal punishment, sex molestation, gay prostitution, and other unpredictable incidents set in hell. Personally, the appearance here of the rapper formerly known as Marky Mark, now serious Catholic actor Mark Wahlberg, is a pleasant surprise. But the impressive teenage actor DiCaprio is the star of the show through and through.
The Frat House (documentary) - Oh, the lengths men would go through just to find male love! Not that kind, silly, but the affirmation that only fellow men can give, the acceptance that only alpha males can confer. This NSFW documentary (the sexual realism is downright pornographic -- no pixelazation), which is hounded by controversy, particularly the accusation of faking the closing segment, brings us "barbarians" past omerta and fast into the secret world of college fraternities (and sororities). Though I, for one, expected to be treated to a shock attack, I ended up much too shocked for comfort that I had to stop watching a great deal of times. If such is the only sort of men willing to affirm and accept my application for manhood, then I'd much prefer to be an uninitiated barbarian. This documentary gives such a bad name to fraternities that the onus of disproving the serious accusations lies on the good ones, supposing such a variant exists.
But let's not kid ourselves. Men will always find some sort, any sort, of brotherhood, because they will always want to meet an essential need: As iron becomes stronger if forged in iron (to paraphase Scripture), men can't be men without other men. This Boy's Life - An absorbing tale of juvenile delinquency and paternal abuse. Robert de Niro shows here why he is a global acting icon. As expected, Leonardo DiCaprio gives justice to the lead character, and it's a great injustice that he did not collect acting trophies for this role. The decision to limit the scope of this biopic of a relatively well-known novelist (Tobias Wolff) to his boyhood years is wise; after all, life is too long and far too complicated for a two-hour film. The music, however, is shamelessly, manipulatively maudlin -- the most unsubtle I've ever heard. American Idiot (the rock opera) - reviewed separately
Hairspray - I saw the film version as well as the local production of this musical set in Baltimore of the '60s, so watching it again is a nostalgic trip. Actually this reminds me of my friend Malou, who collared me into watching this on the surface girlish musical at a new theater venue in Manila. It must be the last one we watched together when she was still alive, or is that the jaw-dropping, if not downright scandalous Avenue Q? One thing odd about Hairspray: not one song sticks out as memorable the way Broadway hits are memorable.
One day, a New Jersey-based Filipina-American friend
on Facebook posted this status: "I will be cooking a 24-bean soup for dinner!"
The next thing
you know, I was imagining whether I could whip up the same with the variety of
beans I knew are available at home. Sadly, I couldn’t even come up with at
least 10.
I realized we Filipinos have limited exposure to beans, compared with other cultures.
The following
is a survey of the existing varieties of beans in the local market so far.
1. Green mung bean – Called munggo or monggo, this little yellow-green
to dark green legume (Vigna radiata) is reportedly the only bean indigenous to the
Philippines, meaning the rest of the beans in the country were introduced,
chiefly from Mexico via the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade. This comes in two
varieties, the easy-to-mash variety and the slightly larger harder-to-mash
variety. Monggo guisado is a common peasant dish cooked as a porridge or with a
soupy consistency, often topped with pork cutlets, pork cracklings, or hibe (dried shrimps), and
ampalaya (bitter gourd) shoots and leaves. Sometimes, in the Ilocos region, burnt monggo is used as accent ingredient in the glutinous rice porridge snack called lilot balatong. 2. Red mung bean – Red monggo is a bit bigger
than green monggo. It is often preserved as sweets and used in halo-halo. I once tried cooking this the way green monggo
is cooked, but because of its shocking color, no one else at home dared try it aside from myself. 3. White bean – This variety
of Phaseolus vulgaris is bigger than monggo but smaller than the white bean
used in pork and beans and fabada. This bean has a creamy taste if seasoned
right. It is cooked the same way as monggo beans. 4. Black bean – Even though this variety is
also a Phaseolus vulgaris species, it tastes more bland and drier than the above variety. The color black supposedly indicates an extra-high content of anthocyanin, an antioxidant/pigment. No matter how much it is stewed, black bean never softens as much as the above variety. It is cooked the same way as above, except when fermented then canned in brine and soy sauce (called tausi), which is used in Chinese-themed dishes, in which it becomes magically flavorful. 5. White kidney bean – This is probably
another Phaseolus vulgaris variety. It differs from the usual white beans in that it has elongated shape. It is familiar to Filipinos only as the
hard, candied ingredient in halo-halo. 6. Red kidney bean - This is most probably another Phaseolus vulgaris variety (meaning,
they were all harvested from dried Baguio beans, in case you don't know).
This is often encountered as the elongated red bean in Wendy’s Chili con Carne. 7. Lima bean – Known here as patani, Phaseolus
lunatus is a mid-size flat bean that gives off a fragrant aroma when cooked,
imparting a special taste to any dish it touches. The outer coat needs to be
removed, though, which is painstaking kitchen work. 8. Green pea – Pisum sativum needs no
introduction. It is familiar to all as those nice green globules found in a
variety of foods. What a flexible bean! Wait, are peas beans too? Calling horticulturalists for confirmation. 9. White chickpea – Locally called garbanzo, this bigger-sized, yellow-colored pea (Cicer arietinum) is only available here canned and denuded, and often used in such native pork
dishes as menudo. Jews love to pulverize this into falafel, and Arabs and
Greeks are fond of mashing it into hummus. This pea is reportedly called fava
bean, too, so I suppose a pea is also a bean; it’s just that it is a round bean. 10. Pigeon pea – This round black globule (Cajanus cajan) is locally
called cadios or kadyos by Ilonggos, who love to use it in their homespun broth-y
dish called KBL, which stands for kadyos (pigeon pea) + baboy (pork) + langka (unripe
jackfruit slices). This bean is generally unknown in the rest of the archipelago. Like black
beans, it is so tough to soften it even by extended boiling. Even
the secret method of softening beans – abruptly putting out the
fire or setting it to a flicker after boiling -- will not work. As in other tough beans, the solution may be soaking the seeds in water overnight. 11. White soya or soy bean – Soya (Glycine max) is quite
common but not as a soupy bean dish but in another form, the fermented tokwa or tofu. To this day, I have
no idea how it tastes like when cooked as in the style of the above beans. But I
have tried the addictively crunchy and tasty Japanese snack edamame, which turns out to be immature green
soybeans. 12. Pop bean or Broad bean – This broad-bodied
type of bean (Vicia faba) is available only as a dried and salted chichiria or snack.
That’s it – the lineup of beans I could
use, in case I go for a multi-bean soup for dinner, one that will need beef
and/or pork cutlets, bacon bits, ham squares, and diced tomatoes, potatoes,
carrots, and celery. The spices used should meld the resulting complex of
subtle favors.
Wait, I remember I discovered two foreign beans in SM
Hypermart. Of course, I have experimented with these, too, as though I was titrating
chemicals in the lab. 13. Green lentil – This round,
flat bean (Lens culinaris) tastes just like monggo. I had so much fun cooking it the traditional
Arab way that I repeated the procedure not just twice, but thrice. Too bad the dish needed
so many vegetables as ingredients. The Indians have a far simpler lentil recipe, the stew called dal. 14. Pinto bean – At first glance, one thinks
this is a different species, but it is actually a painted (thus “pinto”)
variety of Phaseolus vulgaris. If it looks familiar, that’s because it is the variety
of bean used in burritos. I tried using this in a chili con carne dish once, and the
result is marvelous (or so I claim in all honesty; just don't ask my ungrateful housemates).
So, it appears one can have, at most, a 14-variety bean
soup here at home (in Manila). Searching for all 14 seeds under the same roof, however, would be like searching for the Holy Grail.
In case it failed to strike you, I just broached the business idea of packing these beans in a 'bean bag' for a multi-bean soup suggestion to shoppers. It
would be fun testing the waters, yes?
I confess that, whenever the
topic of my past teachers comes up, I can not relate much to other people’s memoirs
extolling their most cherished teachers of old. For a long time, this has given
me a feeling of guilt, thinking I am too ungrateful, too focused on the
negatives. In a way, there’s truth to it. Add to that my melancholic nature,
and I am bound not to remember the best of times in school, but instead focus on
the mishaps, which for me are far more interesting. If I dig up
memories of my teachers, it will be mostly a mix of thoughts and emotions that I’d
rather not revisit.
For some reason today, I am
compelled to write about the most memorable teachers I ever had in grade school. Even though I was
hesitant at first, for fear of slandering anyone, I decided to 'put everything down on paper' after I noticed how I had never written about the subject precisely because I had been holding memories vastly different from most ex-pupils.
Of course, we all know how memory
can be tricky and self-serving, prone to editing unwanted details. I figured it
would be unfair to expose anybody’s fault of long time ago, especially with a possibly faulty memory. I quickly resolved the
problem by deciding not to name my teachers and avoiding any giveaway hints. Suffice
it to say that:
There were teachers that often annoyed me. There were teachers that terrorized me. There were teachers that often made me laugh. There were teachers that I respected. There were teachers that I kind of liked. Then there was one teacher that I loved.
The public annoyance
This grade-school teacher was fond of raising
funds and launching little projects in which everyone felt like he just joined
a "Bring me" game. “Class, bring me a broom each.” “Bring me a potted plant from
home.” “Bring me a Christmas lantern.” ...All ostensibly for the improvement of
our homeroom. My mother kept on complaining about these school “projects,”
questioning the reason why everyone had to bring these things each when my teacher surely was not setting up a department store.
On one occasion in school, the class had a song
number in a school-wide program. My teacher brought her daughter along, to
teach us how to sing “Yellow Bird” using her guitar. I’m sure I learned a lot
of things from my teacher, but that’s all I can remember from her class right
now: the things she asked us to bring, and what her daughter did for us.
The terror
This teacher was a stern old
woman who intimidated me. On the first day of class, she asked the early birds
like me to help her rearrange the chairs. She modeled how the work was to be done,
then like a military drill sergeant, she barked, “Move!” This prompted me and
the rest to reposition the rest of the chairs the same exact way she did, or
there might be hell to pay. She taught me that some women were like men even
though they were not lesbians.
I can’t forget this teacher for another
unappetizing reason. Of all my classes, it was only in her class that I
finished Top 2 (I was always Top 1). At home,
my family immediately accused her of favoritism, favoring my number one rival,
Vilma, that is. My grandmother was especially livid at her, insinuating that
maybe my teacher was best friends with Vilma’s mother, who was her co-teacher.
It’s entirely possible that Mrs. ____ was fair and that my performance that
year was not as good as before. It could be that she was not impressed with me
as much as she was with Vilma. I learned to eat humble pie with this
particular teacher; specifically, I learned how appalling the taste of defeat was.
***
Of the few male teachers I had, this one, who taught a subject for boys, was the most notorious for being old-fashioned. He told us really funny jokes (meaning really gross and crass, as is inevitable in an all-male company), but when he punished us for an infraction, it really hurt.
One practicum session, he excused himself, saying he had to have a quick meeting with someone outside the room and that we should continue working on our assignment. When he got back, he caught many of us in the middle of bunong-braso (arm-wrestling). From the look of his face, we knew Sir ____ was shocked and scandalized.
What he did next was unprecedented. He pointed his finger at one guilty boy (caught in flagrante delicto, that is), bid him come to him, then with a dos por dos (broad piece of wood for whipping) he whipped out from nowhere, beat the boy's bottom bad while he was standing up. Then he asked the boy, "Whom did you play with? Who was your partner?" He repeated the same one-man fact-finding procedure until he was able to ferret out the last offending party without going on an undercover witch hunt.
Nobody ever considered that what happened was a case of physical violence and child abuse, until that incident with our classmate X, which happened just a few days after. What got the maestro's goat this time was disobedience even more barefaced than the one we exhibited a few days before. That afternoon, during a lecture, he told the whole class to sit down, but X remained defiant, standing his ground by the workshop table where he slouched, one hand brazenly cupped to his face. Without further ado, Mr. ____ walked up to X's corner, pinched both of the poor boy's ears, and lifted him up by the ears to his chair to forcibly make him sit. The feat was so amazing a pin could be heard dropping. I learned X's parents complained to the principal the next day because the boy's ears swelled. Sir _____ taught me to appreciate discipline as an answer to unruliness, be fearful of punishment of wrongdoing, and consider the intriguing intersection between physics and anatomy.
The comic
This Araling Panlipunan (Social Studies) teacher was an old maid, but was kind of an oddball. Although she belonged to the conservative religious sect of Iglesia ni Kristo, she was always dressed up to the nines. Her fashion sense – horn-rimmed eyeglasses, crimson lipstick, primary-color blouse, etc. -- tended to rival that of a flamboyant gay guy that it was impossible to miss her if you happened to be moving within her orbit.
But what really made her unforgettable was the way she conducted the recitation portion. She had this set of index cards, on which our names were written, the cards containing one name each. She often introduced the question by saying it aloud, but ending it with an ellipsis, like this: “Papaano….?” (“How on earth…”). After the considerable suspense was created, she kept everyone hanging by shuffling the darned cards at length, then picking one lucky winner at random. Then she announced the name aloud, and proceeded with the rest of the question. For example, “Papaano….” (shuffle, shuffle, then pick a name) …”Don, stand up!” “Papaano nadiskubre ang mga Tasaday?”
Mrs. ____’s method was as funny as her getup for the day was too Christmassy for comfort, but no one dared laugh during those Q&A sessions. If your name was picked, you avoided having a premature heart attack by standing up and risking not making a fool of yourself by answering right and direct to the point. If you failed, you got zero for recitation. Her class was scheduled after lunch, the perfect time to catch a nap, but nobody ever got sleepy. Mrs. ___ taught me how unorthodox methods can get impossible things done.
The highly esteemed
This another old maid of a teacher was quite strict, but I learned well every lesson she taught because she was such a good teacher. There was no day that she was not effective. From her, I learned formalities like asking, “Ma’am, may I go out?” whenever I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom.
Under her tutelage, I won a lot of geeky wordplay contests outside school. I must have made her proud, apart from my parents. I learned from my experience that I could excel in school and feel superior and rejoice over my winnings. I learned how breathtakingly sweet, not to mention addictive, worldly success was.
The favorite
If there’s one teacher my
mother liked, this teacher was the one. I don’t know why she stood out. Maybe it’s because she
mirrored her own simplicity and good heart. One day, my mother asked me to
bring a large freshly picked papaya from our yard for her. I was so ashamed to
give it because I felt my classmates might see it and think I was trying to be a teacher's pet. But I brought it to her in person anyway, wagging tongues be damned.
“What’s so shameful about doing something good?” my mother demanded to know.
This teacher was quite amazing because she
had photographic memory. She was fond of holding these math contests in which
she flashed math-problem cards (“6X6=__”, and so on), and I can distinctly
recall how she remembered ordering the problems as she originally presented
them one after another in class, even after these were shuffled. His
mini-contests made me nervous as hell because she would ask two contenders to
find out who answered faster. I was not particularly good at math, but I was a
consistent first-honor student, so anyone matched to me was up against someone
who had something to prove (or reputation to protect). My classmates Hernani and Dennis (who was also my cousin) were
certainly better at it, so I dreaded being exposed by being matched to them.
I myself considered this teacher one of my
favorites. The reason? She never shouted at anyone or got angry, her mild
manner a refreshing exception among our grade school teachers. One time, I was asked in class to sing a
Tagalog song against my will – it was the first time I had to sing in public
and one that was overly melodramatic too: Rey Valera’s “Malayo Pa ang Umaga,” which I chose because it was being played on AM radio most of the time.
Maybe in great embarrassment, or maybe I was carried away by the songwriter’s depressive
message, I broke into tears in the middle of a line. Everyone let out embarrassed giggles at
the spectacle, but my teacher fought the urge to join in. I felt like she
rescued me from total embarrassment. She taught me how to be protective of the
underdog.
***
One grade-school teacher stood out because
of her motherly charm and loveliness. She was so smart, yet not stodgy like
many other teachers. She, therefore, did not deserve that one horrible twist of
an incident, which happened one fine morning. It turned out our classroom was broken
into last night by a burglar, and the culprit even had the cheek to leave an evidence
of his crime. It was a piece of evidence so unspeakable, and there is probably
no other way to put it more delicately: The culprit defecated right on the
table of Mrs. ____. The public scandal was, of course, immediately reported to the
principal, who had the room vacated by everyone for the rest of the day. But Mrs. ____ took things so
calmly.
Another day, in a fit of rebelliousness that I barely understood, I thought
of scribbling secretly, using a chalk, some senseless graffiti on the wall of our room,
right while the whole class was cleaning it up. It was meant to be a naughty
and funny game to me. I thought it would surely be seen by a classmate, who would then mop
it up, with me secretly enjoying the result of my foolishness. Alas, Mrs. ____ saw
the offensive markings herself without catching the culprit. Although clearly scandalized, she merely asked,
“Sinong mabait ang gumawa niyan?” (“Which kind soul did that?”) Her use of irony
put me off that it made me want to evaporate right then and there. Like they
say, “Ang tatahi-tahimik, nasa loob ang kulo” (a subtly wicked version of “Silent
water runs deep”). With this teacher’s elegant gestures, she taught me grace
under pressure, she taught me how to act in a dignified way instead of being hysterical
at something that invited hysteria.
The friend/mother/sister
My first impression of this teacher was not
so good after she saw me for the first time acting all bashful around her. She
smirked in my face and said I was like a snail curling up in my shell. I am glad she did not
say shrinking violet. She taught me not to be shy when there’s no reason to be
shy.
Eventually I grew fond of her, as she grew
fond of me after I proved myself in class and showed how capable I was of
winning various academic competitions outside school. She must have thought that
bringing home the bacon was bringing honor to her and the school as well. After
that, she took good care of me; she always gave me advice outside of academics,
and I felt like she was my mother in school. I can’t quite forget her for the extra mile she took. When I learned she
got seriously ill upon retirement, I felt so bad I could not bring myself to see
her at her sickbed at home. She taught me how to be grateful for having such a caring mentor. She
taught me that first impressions are not always lasting.
***
If I recall my past teachers, the more horrible memories are the bits and pieces that stick out the most, but even then, there was always a lesson or two to be gleaned, lessons my teachers did not intend to teach. I do not know what this says about me, or my teachers, but that was what public-school life was for me. These recollections will probably never make it to my Recognition Day speech, in case my school makes the mistake of inviting their former pupil over. These memories are certainly best edited out, but they are the ones that bring the loudest, most tearful guffaws among my contemporaries come reunion time.
I've spent the better part of the sizzling afternoon listening to Joel Rocamora on TV. He is currently the head of the National Anti-Poverty Commission. I wish he'd put all that into writing, as his knowledge on the subject is nothing less than impressive.
"In considering a wide range of solutions to poverty in this country, one glaring fact must be kept in mind: the government is responsible for generating under 15% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It therefore cannot be expected to be the sole agent for dealing with poverty. In contrast, the private sector's contribution to GDP is over 85%, but most of this wealth continues to be monopolized by corporations and better-off families.
"Indeed, as some economists have argued, government agencies the world over have a limited capacity to create jobs. Job generation ultimately happens through the invisible hand of the economy itself, although it can certainly be buttressed by programs for inclusive growth. A natural corollary to vigorous economic growth, then, is the generation of jobs by the private sector.
"Unfortunately, much of this sector’s growth has come largely in the form of luxury real estate development and elite consumption of non-essential products, which only accrue benefits to those who are already wealthy rather than generating badly-needed jobs for the poor.
"The Philippines has one of the greatest social inequalities in the world, with much of the new investment going to luxury real estate and too little going to public housing. Hence, many Filipinos still live in informal settlements.
"Witness the booming economies of Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and India, where the economic elites have stepped up to invest in domestic manufacturing. This has led not only to higher GDPs in general but also to a significant improvement in both the quality of labor and amount of income generated for their workers."
The two abovementioned sources are essentially the present government's mouthpieces, needless to say. (What refreshing and remarkable erudition, I must say.)
"The objective of building these industries is to maximize self-sufficiency in the local industrial production of capital, provide intermediate and consumer goods for domestic needs and to ensure food security and self-sufficiency in the country. In generating and mobilizing domestic capital, we create real jobs and ensure rapid and sustained economic growth."
Reaction: This runs in direct contrast to Bernardo Villegas' position: we should focus on modernizing the agricultural sector and abandon the Marcos-initiated idea of national industrialization in favor of it.
Why Prolife? Personally, my answer is: because the prolife thought is increasingly marginalized in our society, often mistaken or slandered for being a cause/movement that wishes to stay stuck in obscurantism/the medieval ages/Dark Ages, Third World poverty, obsolete way of thinking, and general backwardness. This is far from the truth. To quote the Partylist's Facebook page:
What is Pro-Life? Essentially, what Ang Pro-Life Party-List stands for: the good life - education for the young, healthcare for mothers, better retirement benefits for the elderly, better employment for Filipinos, and a country rooted in shared values and lasting faith. We believe that good families make good citizens, and good citizens build families that become the nation’s engines of authentic and total growth. Consequently, we are also against the culture of death embodied in bills on divorce, euthanasia, abortion, birth control, reproductive rights, population control, and same-sex marriage. Pro-Lifers (and Ang Pro-Life) believe that this election is a fight for the soul of the nation. The primary objective and mission is, therefore, to Reclaim the Culture of Life in the Philippines. This nation needs Filipinos who will stand for authentic and timeless Filipino values: values that have seen us reap the blessings of the best of times, and have seen us survive the scourges of the worst of times. Values that will guide our economic, trade, fiscal, security, diplomatic, and social policies. This is what pro-life and Ang Prolife Partylist (No. 42) is all about: reclaiming the Filipino spirit and his values, and upholding those which he holds dear: life, marriage, and family.
Mang Berto Cruz has come a long way from being a scrap boy once upon a time -- or has he? The way his life story is unfolding, it is more like he is coming full circle, but in a bad way.
Now an IT guy at a company in Manila and wearing pin-striped long-sleeves for his day job, no one would ever guess he had been into scavenging for scraps in his youth, scraps of metals, discarded glass and plastic bottles, used coupon bonds, and old newspapers and cardboards. He was just in grade school then, and he found his parents unable to meet his needs in school, so he was forced to scrounge around for extra funds.
Coincidentally, he had a classmate who lived near a junk shop and took advantage of the opportunity to sell scraps. It was a lightbulb idea for the young Berto. He turned the novel idea of making a living from scraps into a reality by deciding to float the idea to his friends in the neighborhood who were in the same dire straits. Together, they agreed to wander around their part of town looking for sellable scraps lying anywhere, especially near trash heaps and inside garbage bins.
If the sheer idea was embarrassing to their neighbors, Mang Berto says he did not mind the potential shame, to himself and to his family, which was not exactly what they might call indigent in the first place, when he focused on thinking of how much he’d earn from it. He even risked the danger of catching disease, being exposed to toxic chemicals, and running into angry dogs.
His friends caught the same attitude. Whenever they could, they hunted down scraps by going house to house, training their eye like eagles on their various preys made of plastic, paper, metal, and glass. They were, in their own words, “mangkakalkal ng kalakal” (scrounger of scraps). Soon, they learned from the only junkshop in town how much each item cost and which items were highly prized and which items could not be sold.
Their individual earnings, he said, helped tide them over. It came to a point at which Berto no longer asked his mother for his pocket money for the day. He even had enough extra to give away.
Mang Berto always recalls these memories whenever he hears small boys his age (back when he was a scrap boy) knocking on his porch day in and day out asking for used plastic bottles and whatnot. “I know what they are up to, these little wily rascals,” he says with a knowing smile. “I have an idea how much they are making. Even if they offered to buy my scraps – which they will never do -- they could still earn some bucks.”
“At first, I was generous. I could no longer count the amount of scraps I gave away to them. I must have given them sack-fuls and drum-fuls already.” But not anymore, Mang Berto says, not when he finds his monthly salary of Php15,000 inadequate to meet the day-to-day needs of his family. Even if he took account of his wife’s salary of the roughly same amount in the family budget, he says the total figure is not enough for both of them and their growing child, who’s about two years old.
Even in their humble station, their daily/weekly/monthly bills are numerous: electricity, water, gas, landline phone, Internet connection, cable TV connection, cell phone load, garbage collector, mineral water, rent.
Their own grocery list, excluding the baby’s (milk, diaper, etc.), is quite lengthy as well: food: coffee, sugar, creamer, fruits, vegetables, red meat, fish, poultry, dairy, rice, spices, noodle packs, canned goods, snacks/junk food, etc. Toiletries, laundry, and personal care items will include soap, shampoo, liquid detergent, toothpaste, toothbrush, shaver, detergent, fabric conditioner, etc.
The miscellaneous items equally prove daunting: medicine, clothes, entertainment, occasional furniture and personal effects, house repairs/maintenance. Then there's also the commuting fare, which eats up a huge chunk of the budget, and the village association dues, emergency fund, and travel/vacation fund.
Mang Berto and his wife, needless to say, have a hard time saving for the future.
Coincidentally, Mang Berto lives near a clump of junkshops in Pasay offering competitive prices. The same lightbulb moment visits him when he notices how much nonbiodegradable and recyclable trash he accumulates every week and every month: piles of scraps, stacks that reach to perilous heights, mountains that threaten to topple one day. One day, he decides to sift through his garbage from day to day, sort his finds, and pack the loot in plastic bags and sacks. Then he ventures into the nearest shop.
This is the current price scheme he has found:
Php18 per kilo of plastic of all kinds
Php250 per kilo of copper wires
Php7 per kilo of coupon bond paper
Php6 per kilo of old newspaper
Php56 per kilo of first-class aluminum
Php50 per kilo of second-class aluminum
Php40 per kilo of third-class aluminum
He says the earning from his new sideline is still not enough, but it's not bad. It augments what he makes in his day job.
The one-time scrap boy is now a scrap man. Isn't he ashamed of what he's doing? After all, in his neighbors' eyes, and in his housewear carrying all those junk, he could easily be mistaken for a garbage collector. He answers with another question: "Are those people going to feed me if I go hungry?"
Doesn't he feel bad he competes with those dirt-poor little boys and the roving men engaged in junkyard buy-and-sell?
"Well," he smiles, "they all look at me now with a sidelong glance."
One can tell that glance must be a mix of pity, contempt, hate, and fear.
The grown-up men who collect scraps using carts and pedicabs -- who are hired by junkshops as 'regulars' and given purchasing funds for the day -- must be especially hurting. Mang Berto is up against hundreds of them cleaning up every nook and cranny of Metro Manila in the searing heat, perhaps enough to keep the megalopolis trash-free without intending it. "Imagine the profit they will lose for every big bottle (which they buy for Php2), small bottle (Php1 apiece), plastics (Php10/kilo), copper wires from discarded electronic appliances (Php20/kilo), old newspapers (Php5/dangkal or spread-out hand's length), etc. that they collect."
"But I believe there's enough refuse to go around," Berto Cruz impishly winks. "I am just helping them protect the environment by recycling trash into raw materials."
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