Trichotillomania (?!?)

We don't need another sex scandal


Just when I was recovering from a bout of spiritual dryness, my hands too full to notice things, here comes the news that a prominent bishop sexually harassed his female secretary.

I don't know what to feel anymore about this. The Church that I love and strive to serve I now see crumble before my eyes; how am I supposed to react? I've been shocked enough by the unthinkable case of pedophile priests and its unbelievable cover-up. I've been embarrassed and disgraced enough as a Catholic. Do I have to be chronically infuriated, too?

Wait, but these are interesting times. Already, I'm on the lookout for certain people to cast the first stone. I expect to laugh in their faces if ever they appear on TV with their unsolicited judgment. In this gossipy country and even more gossipy metropolis, nothing can be kept secret for long. It's like we're all living in one big bahay kubo, the traditional house with no discernible partitions. Even I, a timid person when among strangers, couldn't escape it. I'm surrounded by people with incredible access to, uh, information - from the BIR's Tax Fraud department to the legal department of the Civil Service Commission, from people in the construction business who routinely bribe politicos and media persons to a powerbroker who hands over bribe money to highly placed public personas who say virtuous things on TV, from closet queens/bisexuals who know everybody in Malate to someone who knows the identity of high-class whores, call boys and show biz people, not that these categories are generally to be lumped together. Lest we forget, there are the investigative journalists whose pieces of legal evidence are all over the email exchanges. Everybody knows everybody's tomfoolery in this town, so beware. (I, for one, could assemble all the information if I want to, but I'm not given to wasting my time.)

This bishop's unfortunate story should tell us something we always ignore: [Like Lhen Paredes reminded], priests can also go to hell, along with all the souls they have discouraged. After all, they're also human. We confess to them not necessarily because they are holier and never commit the sins we do, but because we believe they've been granted the sole authority to dispense God's forgiveness. For us humans, things have to be tactile and tangible, including the need to feel forgiven. Priests solely possess that grace to grant absolution and cause your head to feel a certain warmth (literally) and your spirit to soar (figuratively). Try confessing your sins to a friend and you end up making your sin public in no time.

This tragic story is a singular disincentive for me why I never want to be a religious. Fortunately it's not my calling, or else I would look at myself derisively as a coward and decide to prove it otherwise. We are all called to sainthood and holiness in our own way and in our particular circumstances, but they are called to be examplars of piety, devotion and uprightness. How more awful a job description could get? If it were a horror film, it would be The Exorcist. No one would ever want to be in their shoes. But then, Christianity is never for wimps. "If you want an easy religion, change religions."

But, for all their troubles - if serving in the name of love is trouble, priests and nuns get to be the apple of God's eye. Who knows what rewards of joy, peace, consolation and contentment reside in their hearts even now? Unfortunately, another reality we are reminded of by this sordid state of affairs is that Satan also works double-time on these sacerdotal souls. It's only logical, it's not even devilishly tricky. When a pastor falls, his sheep get disillusioned to the point of contemplating apostasy - unmindful of the fact that the clergy are not the Church; the Church is us, all of us. It makes a lot of sense that we pray for our pastoral leaders regularly.

Whenever I feel being besieged by the devil on different fronts, the more I recommit myself to working in the Lord's vineyard. That's my secret. I punish the devil back by soldiering on in being awfully good. I figure out he'd stop bothering me if I did so. So far, the strategy works

This is not to advice the bishop or any priest on what to do; certainly they know that even better. Yet neither do I allow myself to be easily forgiving and permissive of what is inexcusable. The bishop, whose conservative writings I read in Kerygma magazine whenever I can, should face whatever the consequences of his alleged actions may be.

I am equally loath to declare the woman involved inculpable. As of this writing, she chooses to remain in hiding in spite of her mother's making it explosively public. Let the Church's justice system run its due course and if heads should roll, so be it, if only for the truth to be served a deal of fairness.

6.10.2003


P.S.

I see the resurrection of the ff. issues: being an allegedly sexually repressed Catholic and allowing priests to marry.

I owe Ms. Reggie Reyes of PDI's People@Work a lot. I gotta send her flowers at the least. I don't know but I got her editorial nod on articles that would otherwise never see the light of publication. I wonder if my essays are being read, or whether they are making a difference, though. The following piece, published in P@W Sunday, is something I have given up on ever seeing published because it can be construed as anti-business. But if anybody is actually reading my work, I am not anti-capitalism/anti-business, I always err on the side of conservatism. I just want everybody to be happy. I can never take a society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. For me, it is a sign of a morally bankrupt, if not systemically inept, world order. The ff. is the unedited version.


Concrete Jungle is a Complex World


“This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did. Somebody got angry about this, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done!”

Or so goes an office anecdote from Joke-of-the-Day.com, the “daily joke network” online. If you didn’t get it at first reading, it doesn’t mean you have low IQ. But if it doesn’t drive home the point, you have to do something.

We know that the corporate world in the heart of the concrete jungle is not just a simple affair of steel and stone, glass and glare, cold bodies and warm cups of coffee. It is an environment that can get too complex for comfort it can't help but compel people to feel, well, complicated. It is only logical that we expect a highly urbanized place to be inhabited by a highly civilized people, right? So why is it constantly being referred to as the concrete jungle?

To explain away things quite simply, (as though we didn’t know), it is the elaborate dance of masquerade that makes living in the concrete jungle feel like hell – people interacting in doublespeak, meandering gibberish, double entendres, and highly nuanced non-verbals – the crossed feet, the seating arrangement, the lowering of the eyelash, the subtle snobbery…everything all too often loaded with meaning.

So loaded that even when things get silent, the silence can be quite deafening. Words left unsaid leave an unsettling sentiment. There grows a nascent air of suspicion, a suspicion that soon turns positive, then negative, then ambivalent.

Behind each other’s back, people unmask the hatred hidden by becoming utterly violent in speech, badmouthing each other as though words can kill. (As indeed they do in the inevitable resignations, terminations, betrayals of trust, and protracted litigation.) Sooner or later, the façade of civility crumbles and things take a beastly turn, until you yourself can say with conviction, “Man, it’s a jungle in here.”

We blame it on the office hierarchy which never fails to let us know our place. Or we blame it on the competition which always keeps us on our toes. Or we blame it on the pressure to beat the deadline, to meet the quota, to attain the bottom line. We never blame ourselves. It's the system, we say.

We are quite correct in our diagnosis. We wouldn't be constantly complaining, and we wouldn't feel as constrained and aggravated if we could do something about it, would we?

When it’s not the complexity of human interaction, it’s the high level of non-interaction, the zero human contact. Technology rules and an alien nation reigns, filled with unfeeling automatons, born specifically to toil all their lives, or else they are best left dead when they are "non-productive."

This kind of work environment, we need not add, is fertile ground for emotional, mental and physical distress, if not emotional, mental and physical breakdown. One is reminded of the cynical '80's movie Falling Down, where a perpetually harassed Michael Douglas couldn't take it anymore, conks out and falls apart.

Like the Falling Down character, we only have words of desperation issuing forth from our mouth, even when solutions are being proffered, precisely because we couldn't see our way out. We get to listen to the weirdest ideas. "Ironing out these kinks," someone just as desperately inclined volunteers, "may mean overhauling the system, I mean, nuking the entire shebang to get it back to the way things should be."

Hah! How have we come to this? Thankfully, from a more optimistic standpoint, helplessness oftentimes breeds the hope of a silver lining. And revolution often "comes from the fringes," a sage is quoted to have said. Hitting rock-bottom can only mean having nowhere to go but up. This is the time when the urban superstructure gives way to such basic things as grace - divine intervention or "acts of God" materializing from out of the blue like a thunderbolt, sending prophets of doom and destruction - as well as heralds of a new world order.

This domino reaction only follows the natural law. In ecology, there's the concept of homeostasis: No matter how much havoc man wreaks on the environment, the environment inevitably finds the state of equilibrium, the same stable state as before. After a part of the rainforest is razed to a charred stubble, sooner or later the grass grows anew, saplings rise from the ashes, deer and nestling find and build a new home.

Similarly, an organization too unwieldy to handle soon crashes, people too inflexible to change bow out of the picture, and management styles and industrial processes that are non-dynamic and obsolete end up as case studies or mere footnotes in history. With the old page of complexity expunged, there is a return to normalcy where simplicity is a forgone conclusion, a fait accompli. A streamlined, more efficient, better-oriented organization thus ensues.

The only problem left remains with the people involved, especially the powers and shakers, the bigwigs and top guns. Unlike the environment or the natural order, man has the unique ability to revel in insufferable complexity - and remain an intransigent, incorrigible fool.


2.2003

Hijacked by Kenji


The terrible twos and threes - tantrum years, wonder years


I have a toddler nephew, Kenji, who has this habit of going into a bratty tantrum whenever I send the slightest clue that I'd be leaving him from babysitting anytime soon. His name means 'second son' in Japanese - and he is. He was so named because his father, my cousin, was then working in Japan, which technically made him a japayuki.

Kenji would wail and run after me whenever he detects he's going to lose a playmate in the middle of a game. It's like being hijacked by a little terrorist but, strangely enough, I always relent at the last minute. Either I am a hopeless sucker or his helplessness is so empowering that it could melt anyone into a marshmallow. Sometimes, I get marooned at their place the whole day like none of my bosses at work can. Yet I hardly complain. As they say, kids can be a pain in the neck. But what a delightful pain.

This reminds me of my officemate Tom-Tom who still exhibits Peter Pan syndrome even well into his 30s. "I was a victim of child abuse," he once sobbed violently. "I was abused by a child."

This is one personality I can never understand fully. For starters, he collects all sorts of toys, from Spiderman to Star Wars characters, which he never meant to give as gifts to kids nor share with anyone. I collect all sorts of things but I outgrow them. Some days he fancies himself to be Kenshin of Samurai X, on other, just a plain otaku (anime lover). On other occasions he is Magneto of the X-Men or that guy who gets the girl in Final Fantasy. I get exposed to these otherwise juvenile things because of him. Fortunately I would find certain storylines interesting.

Children's guardian angels are said to have special access to God's throne, so you can mistreat kids at your own great peril. I bet all of us have heard a story or two involving babies falling from bed completely unscathed. I can understand why Jesus would go out of his way to notice the otherwise insignificant existence of two kids from a crowd of adults who couldn't care less, to tell people for all ages to come that He reserves heaven for people "such as these": unassuming, who don't put on airs, and thus, teachable.

Isn't it sad to see little kids grow up? They all grow up developing distasteful habits to become complete monsters before our eyes. The magic goes away so swiftly. I stumbled into this passage* by Scottish poet/novelist Walter Scott which puts this sentiment quite poignantly: "Like the dew on the mountain,/ Like the foam on the river,/ Like the bubble on the fountain,/ Thou are gone, and for ever."

This makes being with children feel like a sand or snow sculpture, or any ephemeral art. We ought to enjoy the company of kids while it lasts.

But being a kid also ought to have an end. I think we ought to be kids just once. We may choose to be kids at heart, but we must grow up sooner or later. A childish grownup is definitely not a very amusing anomaly.


* The Daily Gospel by Claretian Publications, as published in PDI. This essay is a third citation.

(1999?)
Revised 2.24.2000

If we want to protect the environment, let's fight for the protection of entire ecosystems.



The Spiritual Beauty of Coral Reefs


If you don’t believe in God, all you have to do is go see a coral reef. I had done just that in Balaoan, Luna, La Union, and went gushing like a newly baptized born-again. I don't know if the reef still exists. What I know is that words were useless in capturing what was breathtaking. And I knew next to nothing then about snorkeling, let alone swimming.

Cowfish (?), blennies (?), gobies (?), angelfish (?), damselfish (?), whateverfish - all swim in phantasmagoric profusion above the bed of seagrass and among the rainforest of kelp and other seaweeds - Padina, Dictyota, Desmia (red alga), Caulerpa, Sargassum, etc.

Red (Tubifora), white (Pociliophora) and brown corals also harbor these undistinguishable fingerlings aside from the usual clownfish residents. A variety of sponges dance together with all the plant-like animals to the beat of an invisible orchestra. Red, brown and blue starfishes further dot the seascape with a haughty kind of gaudiness against that vast panorama of hues not seen on land. Bright sunlight brings out the best of this world.

All this is tempered only by the danger hiding in jellyfish sting and crustacean bite, not to mention a host of other predators - dog-toothed tunas, black surgeonfish, snappers, jacks; and the predator of predators - stingrays, sharks, barracudas.

Yet even these menacing creatures are not incapable of commanding sighs of distant admiration. One cannot help but ask, "Why this so much beauty? If it's not accidental, then something or somebody must have intended it? Who did? What for and for whom?"

The experience is so indescribable it’s actually spiritual. The terrible rate of destruction of these patches of proof to divinity is therefore nothing but a blasphemy.


(1999?/2003)

Marriage 101

In keeping with the the month's theme…


A Second Look on Marriage (Though I Don't See Myself Getting So-Hitched)

This piece from Fr. Armand Robleza about marriage is a classic. Here’s what I managed to catch from the sermon, with my apologies to Fr. Armand.

“People get married - and stay at it - to prove that God’s love is possible. People don’t marry to prove their love for each other, but to trust that the love of God - impossible through human desire or will alone - can sustain it.

“Couples who manage to celebrate their 50th anniversary together as husband and wife deserve to be congratulated. But more than their love for each other, more than the sensual and sweet part, the times that called for forgiveness, sacrifice, long-suffering, all the more deserve to be celebrated and congratulated. We have a notion that married life is all affection. Husbands and wives themselves will attest that the feeling of ‘falling in love’ and ‘being in love’ won’t last forever. The things that have captivated each other and made them decide to seal the bond in marriage will not last.

“It’s the grace and blessing of God that enable the relationship to endure the test of time. Every time we see an old couple with that same loving gaze they have for each other, it's time to praise and thank the Lord: How wonderful and glorious is the love of God that two people, with all their quirks and inadequacies, would remain at each other’s side till death!

“Why do couples prefer to marry in June? More than the Roman tradition, this preference is, or should be, based on the fact that the Feast of the Sacred Heart falls in June, as though lovers want to declare and hope that their love for each other may approach the kind of love of God for His people - sweet, enduring, unconditional.”

To married and about-to-be-married people: Congratulations and best wishes, and thanks for your testimony!


6.14.2001

Jesus Christ, Superstar


(Distilled from the ECLP teaching)


There are three popular misconceptions about Jesus Christ:

1. He is merely a sociopolitical revolutionary.
2. He is merely a great religious leader/teacher.
3. He is merely a great moral leader.

What He says in the Holy Scripture, however, debunks all these errors:

1. He claims to possess all authority in heaven and on earth.
2. He claims to give life like God does.
3. He claims to judge the earth.
4. He claims to forgive our sins.
5. He claims to be our God.

If this is the case, then we must decide whether to take Him as:

1. a madman,
2. a demon,
3. or God.

(Excerpts from Romy S.'s talk)

If we believe that Jesus is God, then let's take Him for what He is. Faith or belief in God is not dependent on our emotion. He does not exist only when our life is a bliss, or when we are in the middle of trouble.

If we believe Him as God and king, then let's treat Him as king. (Let's shudder at how we treat Him as "a slob like one of us.")

There is something wrong with the phrase 'blind faith in God'. Our faith in God is not blind. Karl Marx said religion is the opium of society. This is a misconception. Our religion is logical. That's what theology is all about.

(Excerpts from Tony V.'s talk)

There are four things we can expect Jesus to do:

1. He confronts the devil.
2. He heals our sickness.
3. He forgives our sins.
4. He calms the storms in our lives.

8.23.1996

A Word on Over-Zealous Environmentalism


I've been waiting for someone in the academe to speak out against overzealous environmentalism, but as far as I know, nobody wants to do the job. Let me muster all my powers as a former Ecology student in UP Baguio (B.S. Bio in UP Baguio puts strong emphasis on ecology) in an effort to educate the people a bit and help us avoid being misled by "super-spreaders of pseudo-science," whom our favorite physicist from Harvard exhorts to repentance.

1. Not all tree-cutting activities are harmful, especially ancient trees. Believe it or not, trees also die. And the tiny pockets of green in the metropolis have very little to nil ecological value; at best, they serve merely as ornamentals. Most species require a certain minimum area of undisturbed habitat for them to flourish sustainably. Further, if we want a really voracious scavenger of CO2 and prodigious supplier of elemental oxygen (O2), let's try planting tree seedlings. The growth spurt of tree seedlings would demand nutrients in great amounts, naturally. Loren Legarda's massive tree-planting project is right on track.

2. Forest fires are a normal mechanism by which nature renews itself/herself, no need to panic. In the management of national forest parks, regulating forest fires is the thing. The whole ecological web of life in the forest depends on this cyclical phenomenon. Let us not underestimate nature's capacity for self-renewal.

3. Similarly, for lakes, there's the natural phenomenon called upwelling, wherein fish-kills naturally occur in cycles. Upwelling results from the interplay of water temperature and the density of the accumulated detritus on the lake floor (the benthic region). "Upwelled", these debris then serve as important, much-needed nutrients to life forms thriving near the shore (littoral zone).

Meanwhile, I will do my homework on GMO.

Message to media - Get the scientific facts straight from nonbiased sources.
Message to academe - Don't be shy to speak up. Tell us what you know.
Message to environmentalists - You are my friends, but before you tie yourselves to a tree, bone up on your science textbooks first.

Ref.: Odum's Fundamentals of Ecology

6.5.2003

An interruption to our regular programming.......

These two items almost escaped this blog's attention.

1. The incarceration (again) of Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi. If you happen to read this, join me in protest by letting the whole world know how we'd love to see the downfall of Myanmar's barbaric rulers. Reuters story

2. The road to peace for Israel and Palestine. I join peace-loving people in a collective sigh of relief over Sharon's singing of a different tune, a song he should have sung years ago - as well as the softening of the Palestine people. Let it never be said that we 'didn't give a damn.'


6.4.2003

Ent Moot / Mall Tour


GHQ, G4

I find myself in the unlikeliest place and unlikeliest company after Herbs texted me, asking if I want to watch The Monsters, Inc. together with Hagar, our half-German friend and Lee, our three-fourths Chinese, one-fourth Igorot friend. Monsters is the latest movie from Pixar, the creator of wonderful films like Toy Story. He told me to get to Gamers Headquarters at Glorietta 3. Lee is already there waiting.

GHQ turns out to be the former site of the Fashion Cafe, that whimsical resto concocted by supermodels Linda, Naomi and Claudia. Reviews of such establishments often went, “Good interior, watch your food.” From Fashion Cafe’s dramatic entrance (as though one is entering a camera lens), I see an uninviting, in fact distasteful and rundown, replacement entrance.

What do I see gathered in the place but men in their 20s playing computer games and magic cards? “Are those cards in any way related to The Lord of the Rings?” I ask Herbs when he arrives. I’ve actually struggled to read through the first book by J.R.R. Tolkien, a laborious read but nonetheless magical.

“No,” Herbs replies to my disappointment. He asks me to stay awhile. He actually wants us to play card games, something that bores the heck out of me. I can’t stand them all. It’s like entering that bar of freaks in Star Wars, to borrow a simile. Strangely, though, I feel greatly uninhibited, unrestrained here. The last time I felt like this was when I took college CMT.

With Japanese-looking, curly-haired Herbs looking like a poodle, Lee resembling a shih tzu, me the typical askal or mongrel, and Hagar the Horrible being the German shepherd, the place looks like an amusing kennel.

I go out to get a whiff of fresh air. I get a text message. Sheesh, Hagar got stuck in traffic, coming from the US Embassy in Roxas Blvd. I get back to GHQ to tell about it to the other guys.

Who would I see playing one of those mindlessly violent computer games but a celebrity. If I’m not wrong, it must be Ricardo Cepeda, the ramp model/actor/husband of Snooky Serna. This is what I like about the metro, particularly the malls of Makati. Nobody gives a hoot about celebrities, or at least gives an inordinate amount of attention. If I become a celebrity someday, I would have no reason to be bothered.

Just this part of Glorietta yesterday, I would get to see Suzi Entrata, who I like best as host of my past favorite game show on TV, Game Plan. The former Ms. Universe Gloria Diaz, who was wearing electric-blue skin-tight pants. The sportscaster Paolo Trillo and his girlfriend; was that Janelle So? The commercial model Illiac Diaz, who looked even taller in person and was garbed in office wear; did that mean he actually, er, works? And these are just the ones I have bumped into, not the ones I actually skimmed the crowd for, which I don’t really do. (D-uh?)

Hagar soon arrives, stuck between the elevators of G4, waiting for rescue (me).

“How’s your Maryland caper?” I ask him about his recent US trip. “Was that pre- or post-Sept. 11?”

“Three days before. Fortunately,” he answers. “These days in the office, there’s always talk about terrorists. It really made me paranoid when an American speaker talked about it in a seminar and glued his eyes on me all along.”

I advise Hagar to trim his eyebrows, clip his lashes, and braid his nose hair. I have a big problem with this guy. He’s half-German but he could pass for a Bumbay (Indian) or an Arab, never a German or a Filipino.

We proceed to GHQ. Hagar turns out to be kindred spirit - to Herbs, not to me. He’s a fan of the freaking card game, too. I feel so all alone.

I haul them off to Food Choices after they’re done. We join the long queue at Cucina, the new Spanish restaurant. Hundreds of years after colonization, Pinoys have become willing captives to their conquerors. It must be the little Spanish blood that managed to creep into our vessels.

I order seafood paella, Herbs gets something grilled, while Hagar gets a plateful of chorizo de something. Lee walks away to look for something Thai or is it Mexican.

Over dinner we plot on how best to terrorize all the world’s terrorists. We decide it can only be done by infecting their unadulterated gene pool with our blood. Mongrel breeding is the key to global understanding! Look at us.

?2002



Harry Potter and hurrying home for St. Hannibal's heart



Thursday sees me sneaking the movie Harry Potter into my schedule. I wasn’t as delighted as I was supposed to be after I’ve watched it. A PDI editor had the most intelligent comment about the movie version of J.K. Rowling’s novel, which in turn is apparently inspired by J. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: “The wonderful details got lost in the translation. More than the plot, more than the magic and adventure, it’s the wonderful details that keeps us reading and wanting for more,” or words to that effect. The exciting details got lost and I was disappointed – disappointed not by the two-hour limitation of the movie but because I’ve read the novel first.

After Harry Potter, I have to rush home for a most important occasion at our parish (where I am an invisible member, owing to the fact that I already belong to a transparochial community in Makati): The relic of a saint-to-be I have never heard before is coming right at our doorstep. It’s the ‘pilgrim heart’ of Blessed Hannibal (Fr. Anniballe Maria de …) The reliquary is actually in our neighborhood church. I have to hammer into my younger brothers’ brain the importance of this event, i.e., somebody from the 18th century whose uncorrupted muscle tissue was coming to our shores straight from Messina, Italy. (Reports said it has done the rounds of Korea and is on its way to India.)

The relic is under the care of the Rogationist Brothers. This name has always puzzled me. Now, the mystery is solved. The name comes from the Latin word, rogate, meaning to pray, specifically to pray for priestly vocations, Hannibal’s pet cause. How could a saint be named Hannibal? It sounds like cannibal. It reminds one of Hannibal Lecter.

The remains of the day had me coming into contact with the divine, carrying a hundred impossible wishes, wishes I could not bring myself to articulate. Strangely, I felt like communing with my prehistoric ancestors who worshiped anitos, proffered atangs to appease an angry rice god, and wrote the alibata on leaves and bamboo stem. This is one of the things that give a bad name to being Catholic, especially a Filipino Catholic.

?2002

Figures of Speech and Rhetorical Devices

According to Merriam-Webster's (10th ed.), a figure of speech is "a form of expression used to convey meaning or heighten effect often by comparing or identifying one thing with another that has a meaning or connotation familiar to the reader or listener." If you have been writing for some time, I bet you already know this definition by heart; what you might not be aware of is that there already exists a technical term for each one of the figures of speech you have been using or thought you yourself discovered.

Below is a list of commonly used figures of speech and miscellaneous literary tricks and devices, too. Beware of corny examples. This piece is based on an innocuous joke in the past, which I wish to inflict on you. Note that the word 'I' here does not refer to me, so don't make the mistake of making assumptions.


1a. Alliteration - the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables; favorite of writers and other weirdoes. Use this sparingly if you want to be taken seriously.

Bad example: You're such a wonderful, winsome, wasabe-smelling woman.

1b. Assonance- the repetition of similar vowels in the stressed syllables of successive words.

1c. Consonance- the repetition of consonants (or consonant patterns) especially at the ends of words.

(For examples of the preceding, look for Miriam Defensor-Santiago.)


2. Allusion - the use of implied or indirect reference

Ex. His attraction for anything wearing a skirt is his Achilles' heel.


3. Anacoluthia - An abrupt change within a sentence from one syntactic structure to another

Ex.:


4. Anacoluthon - see Anacoluthia

5. Anastrophe - see Inversion

6. Antinomasia - Substitution of a title for a name

Ex.:


7. Antiphrasis - see Irony


8. Antithesis - the contrast of ideas by means of parallel arrangements of words, clauses or sentences; preferred by lawyers, academics and others who hide their own confusion or fishy motives under the blanket of rhetoric

Ex. I only wished for platonic companionship. I ended up with murderous love.
I dreamt of happiness, not misery.


9. Apostrophe - the addressing of a usually personified thing; again, much preferred by poets and poseurs

Ex. O Beauty, what foolishness is committed in thy name! What price, oh Vanity! (Stop it!)


10. Apophasis - Mentioning something by saying it will not be mentioned

Ex.: It goes without saying that...


11. Aposiopesis - Breaking off in the middle of a sentence (as by writers of realistic conversations)

Ex.:


12. Catachresis - Strained or paradoxical use of words either in error or deliberately, as in a mixed metaphor; yes, a Mixed Metaphor may be used deliberately

Ex.: 'blatant' to mean 'flagrant'
'blind mouths'


13. Climax - a series of words, phrases or sentences arranged in ascending order of forcefulness; favorite strategy of copywriters

Ex.: Attraction. Affection. Enchantment. Union. (from a TV advert)

Note: Anti-Climax - the disappointing failure to use climax properly. Never commit this mistake.


14. Ecphonesis- see Exclamation


15. Emphasis - Special and significant stress by means of position or repetition (esp. the use of Parallelism - parallel words, phrases, and clauses). Or "the use of more words than necessary," in the case of Pleonasm, which is often disparaged as Tautology, or "useless repetition."

Ex. of pleonasm: "a tiny, little child"
tautology: "adequate enough"

16. Enallage - A substitution of part of speech or gender or number or tense etc.

Ex. editorial 'we' for 'I'


17. Epanorthosis - Immediate rephrasing for intensification or justification

Ex.:


18. Epiplexis - A rhetorical device in which the speaker reproaches the audience in order to incite or convince them

Ex.:


19. Euphemism- an inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive or vulgar

Ex. Her feet smelled of a mix of leather and tiredness. (from Bernhard Schlink's The Reader)


20. Exclamation - An exclamatory rhetorical device ('exclaim' implies 'sudden and strong')

Ex.:


21. Hendiadys - Use of two conjoined nouns instead of a noun and modifier

Ex.: 'beauty queen' for beautiful queen


22. Hyperbole - extravagant exaggeration, its usage abused by hopeless romantics

Ex. 'I'll take all the stars out of the sky for you.' (from a song.)


23. Hypozeuxis - Use of a series of parallel clauses

Ex. 'I came, I saw, I conquered'; Cf. Climax


24. Hypozeugma - Use of a series of subjects with a single predicate


25. Inversion - The reversal of the normal order of words

a. Chiasmus - Inversion in the second of two parallel phrases

b. Conversion - Interchange of subject and predicate of a proposition

c. Hypallage - Reversal of the syntactic relation of two words

Ex.: 'her beauty's face'

d. Hyperbaton - Reversal of normal word order

Ex.: 'Cheese I love.'

e. Hysteron proteron - Reversal of normal order of two words or sentences etc.

Ex.: 'bred and born'


26. Irony - the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result

Ex. Thanks for being so insensitive.

27. Kenning - Conventional metaphoric name for something, used especially in Old English and Old Norse poetry


28. Litotes - understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating the negative

Ex. She's not a bad date at all.


29. Meiosis - see Understatement


30. Metaphor - a word or phrase literally denoting the use of one kind of object or idea in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them; well-loved by writers, poets and other sorts of flatterers

Ex. I am drowning in your ocean of affection.
I can't fly in your cage of love.


30. Metonymy - the use of the name of one thing to denote or suggest another

Ex. This land belongs to the crown. ('crown' meaning 'kingdom')
Fifty hands helped in preparing for the wedding.

31. Onomatopoeia - naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it; best for those who are vocabulary-challenged

Ex. "Leave me alone," she whinged.

32. Oxymoron - a combination of contradictory or incongruous words

Ex. A child's helplessness is its very strength.
I am busy doing nothing.

33. Paradox - a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense yet is perhaps true

Ex. The best way to keep love is to give it wings. (from Joe D'Mango)
Walls do not a prison make…. (from a poem I've forgotten)
Nor iron bars a cage.

34. Paraleipsis- see Paralepsis

35. Paralepsis - Suggesting by deliberately concise treatment that much of significance is omitted

36. Paralipsis - see Paralepsis

37. Paregmenon - Juxtaposing words having a common derivation

Ex.: 'sense and sensibility'

38. Paronomasia - see Pun

39. Periphrasis - the use of a longer phrasing in place of a more direct and shorter form of expression, for use as emphasis; wrongly employed by lawyers and legislators who love beating around the bush but only end up pulling our legs

Ex. All I want us to do is, you know, to make things a lot better by avoiding each other forever.


40. Personification - attribution of personal qualities to especially inanimate things and abstractions

Ex. The table groaned at the sheer amount of food laid on it.

41. Pleonasm - see Emphasis

42. Polysyndeton - Using several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted

Ex.: 'He ran and jumped and laughed for joy.'

43. Preterition - see Paralepsis


44. Prolepsis - Anticipating and answering objections in advance


45. Prosopopoeia - see Personification


46. Pun - the usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound. Considered offensive in serious tones.

Ex. How do I love thee? Let me count the wastes.


47. Repetition - see Emphasis


48. Simile - a comparison of two unlike things; often introduced by 'like' or 'as'

Ex. You make me mad as a raging bull.


49. Synecdoche - substituting a more inclusive term for a less inclusive one or vice versa; favored by those who say one thing and mean another

Ex. I left her tonight smiling, with the moon on her cheeks and Andromeda on her eyes. (the constellation, hello?)
They walked down the aisle and tied the knot. (This is an oblique characterization, but paradoxically, it is so cliché.)
I was accused of defiling her femininity the night I took her out on a date.

Cf. Metonymy, Euphemism


50. Syllepsis - see Zeugma

51. Understatement - see Irony and Litotes


52. Wellerism - A comparison comprising a well-known quotation followed by a facetious sequel

Ex.:


53. Zeugma - Use of a word to govern two or more words though appropriate to only one. If a zeugma results in a humorous effect, it's called Syllepsis.

Ex. She opened the door and her heart to the homeless boy. (from Websters')

Update: Ex.: "He lost his hat and his temper." (from Wikipedia)

References:

WordWeb 2.0 based on Princeton University's WordNet database
MerriamWebster's Dictionary 10th Ed.
Personal knowledge

(Please acknowledge my considerable effort in this compilation (yes, I did the whole work of compiling), in case you want to use it or reference it in your class or elsewhere. Thanks. - Resty O.)

Is Choosing God Ever a Dilemma?

“Work (career), love (romance), the future, God...these are not necessarily in conflict. If you find yourself in a dilemma choosing between these, there should never be a question. Always choose God. You’ll never regret it.”

So said our elder in faith Tony Vasquez (otherwise known in the corporate world as a multi-awarded PR man) in a talk he gave single men at his Better Living residence. His words somehow got stuck in my subconscious. He was facing a group of upwardly mobile young men with seemingly complex problems, but he was unfazed. He knew. He’d been there.

He knew that our problems were a simple matter of having faith in God, that God knows what’s best for us, that choosing between several seemingly good options is just a temptation from the enemy, that dilemmas are excruciating only perhaps because of our conflicting desires and wrong priorities, or more accurately, our lack of love for and trust in God.

He cited events from his own life as an example. He said he, too, found himself at one point in his life as a charismatic leader with the same dilemmas. Should he just go abroad or leave his work in the Lord’s vineyard? Should he retire from community life or pursue a more detached private life? Thank God he knew how to listen to divine intervention. Even in the face of difficulties, he forged ahead in his work. Pretty soon, he was tasting his just reward – he began seeing the fruits of his labor, he grew in the Lord in a personal way, and the Lord even gave him the chance to have some pleasure trips with his wife Linda in different parts of the world. It was beyond his expectations.

From Tony Vasquez’s witness, we can say that truly, great surprises – never before imagined – await those who love the Lord. They just remain hidden for now.

“Am I bragging about all these?” he said. “No. All I’m saying is the Lord honors your decision to stay at his service. He never allows such generosity to pass unrewarded, never allows Himself to be outdone in generosity. ”

If we find ourselves in trouble after rushing to a major life decision without the aid of prayer and discernment, it could be a proof that we had made the wrong choice. At this point, bitter regrets come inevitably. “If only I listened to the Lord...”

Now there’s a dilemma if there ever was one.

8.12.2001

Vexed Text-Mate

“Wats ur l8est beef agnst d Church?” I texted my newfound enemy Haggard one lazy night, to continue our endless argumentation on the subject.

“Deyr a bunch of hypocrites,” he answered like an unrepentant heretic.

Haggard loves to address me in public as ‘Brother’ with a little sarcasm, as in Bro. Mike Velarde or Bro. Eli Soriano. He also loves to engage me in Biblical debates at the drop of a hat - with the sole purpose of, I strongly suspect, getting the upper hand, i.e., proving that I am awfully wrong.

“If struggling to be good despite the imperfections is hypocrisy to you, then everyone is a hypocrite.” I needled him. (In text lingo, of course, or MS Word might keep on lining my words in red.)

“But why look at the hole instead of the donut, why mistake the trees for the forest? Why can’t you overlook the little imperfections and instead focus on the better side of things?” I added.

“I can’t stand it,” he retched, “when they preach one thing and do another, like when they preach the evils of gambling but accept money from PAGCOR.”

“And now,” he grimaced, “there’s this noise about tithing the parishioners. Plus this nasty habit of raising the separation-of-Church-and-state principle every time Church money is put into question. What right does the Church have in probing government when it can’t lay itself open to the same kind of probing? Why meddle in government affairs at all when there’s such an official separation?”

Haggard used to be an active charismatic Catholic and I can clearly see the reason behind his apostasy. “Struggling to be good is not hypocrisy.” I said. “And church people are duty-bound to guide their flock on any issue having a moral dimension,” I went on.

“When you say everyone is, to some extent, a hypocrite, you mean everyone is sinning?” He was incredulous, his inner Pharisee disturbed.

“Who does not sin?” I pontificated. “You cannot be legalistic with Christianity. We need God precisely because we are all imperfect, prone to sin.

Beyond the letter of every law is the spirit of the law," I lectured on. "We should always aspire to fulfill the spirit of the law. We should avoid the tragic mistake of the Pharisees who couldn’t see beyond the letter.”

Soon the heated exchange turned to tithing, the day's burning issue.

“The Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament,” I bluffed, “speaks about 10% of things - tithing, but the thing about tithing is not the accuracy of the percentage being doled out but the recognition that God is our real provider and that He owns everything anyway, that it is but proper that we gave something back as token offering. It’s not so much a matter of giving 10% as much as giving from the heart.”

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” I quoted God. Can you believe that? I quoted God! “Religiosity is good, but we don’t equate it with being good. It’s just a means to what is essential. And what is essential is that we love others like ourselves, we love one another as God loves us.”

“What’s important is we are able to repent of our sins before we die,” he began to agree.

Gotcha!

“But since we don’t know the time, what’s important is we surrender our lives now,” I corrected him.

“Bad eggs don’t die young, haha,” he answered with nervous glee, referring to himself as the egg.

“Good luck!” I said with a trace of sneer. “But seriously now,” I pressed on, “all it takes to be saved is to surrender.” “Surrendering to God doesn’t mean never sinning again. We will sin. We will fall, especially in special areas of weakness in our lives....”

The last statement seemed to make him happy. I forgot to mention the case of Peter who had committed tremendous blunders in his tremendous zeal for the Lord. But God saw great faith beneath Peter’s faux pas He made Peter the first pope of the Church.

“...But we can always repent,” I quickly followed up as rejoinder and disclaimer. “God certainly notices if we are honest about our desire to be perfect. He may grant His grace of total conversion gradually or dramatically, depending on His will.”

It’s amazing that Haggard and I ended up exchanging God bless you’s at the end of the day.


7.21.2001

On Detachment - An Assurance to Us Who are Rich and Famous


Reflection on spiritual detachment according to St. John of the Cross’ Ascent of Mount Carmel (Book 1, Chapter 3).


One's irretrievable reflex reaction about detachment is, of course, one of total incredulity. How could God who created everything and made life on earth fun and beautiful and exciting now asks me to detach myself from the world? Isn’t that a rather Buddhist thing to do, what American author J. D. Salinger calls “detachment from all hankerings”? Isn't that a tacit admission that Buddhism is right for holding that everything about the world is bad?

As I read on, this one paragraph struck me: “As you can see, the point is not whether we have wealth and material goods or lack them. We are not talking about things at all....”

From this single line, the topic of detachment made much more sense to me. St. John is not talking about actual renouncement. He is not making a silly suggestion that it’s a sin to be wealthy, choose to be poor; if you are famous, strive to be obscure; if powerful, to be a slave. What he is talking about is our attitude towards the things of this world. It is our heart’s posture that counts with God. It’s what makes me truly happy – is it really God or His precepts which I treasure or is it wealth, fame, position, blood relations in themselves?

No one can relate with detachment better than I can. I used to be a very sentimental person; I was so attached to material things. I treasured and fretted over my favorite things and couldn’t imagine them getting lost or destroyed. I could "get high" just being in the presence of things, just thinking about my personal achievements, the moments of recognition.

When I decided to take my faith seriously, one of the changes I noticed about me was this sudden detachment from things. I lost my passionate feelings for things to the extent that I wouldn’t get hurt that much if my personal effects and precious mementos suddenly got lost, destroyed, or burned. Suddenly I had higher things as priority!

But this didn’t mean I threw all my things out of the window, donned a Carmelite robe and begged for food in the streets. What changed was the attitude, something internal, something deep within.

You can be very wealthy and stay detached, St. John seems to say, and be very poor and remain attached, just as you can be very wealthy and attached and very poor and detached. It’s all a matter of where your heart’s treasure really lie. It’s something you cannot fake. God knows and you’ll know it yourself the moment you are brought to the test.

One implication of all this is that wealth, fame, power, and earthly relationships are not bad by themselves. In fact, they are good. God could have favored these things on certain people who are ready for such things, who have had learned their lessons well.

This is where Christianity departs from Buddhism. As Pope John Paul II puts it in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, “Buddhist monasticism ends where Christian monasticism begins.”

We Christians do not, should not, view the world per se as bad. It’s our worldly attachment that is bad. It is our heart’s attitude, desires, priorities that really get corrupted, not the things of this world which are already corruptible in themselves.

* * *

Incidentally, this reflection with my prayer group was held in Alabang Town Center Food Court with shiny marble as tabletops. It opened my eyes to the fact that detachment not only refers to material possessions but also to fame, power and personal relationships.

My one strong attachment now is emotional attachment, especially to little kids. I happened to have lived close to two of my nephews whom I have treated like my own sons. When the time came for them to immigrate with their parents, I got quite distressed.

I can’t help but think: If I were to become a parent someday, will I be detached enough to correct my own kids and discipline them? Will I be strong enough to let go if it’s time for them to live on their own? I discovered that in this area, I find it hard to let go.

If we are to be attached at all, then we should stay attached to God, the only constant there is in the universe.


Prayer/Song:

“You O Lord are all my delight.
I long to behold you face to face.
To dwell in Your courts my Lord day and night.
For You are my only good and in You is the fullness of life
Spirit of God, come raise our minds
Beyond the love of earthly things
Train our hearts to seek the things of heaven
And fix our eyes on the hope of eternal life.”

10.2.2001

Do-Goodism Mini-Guide


If you are a do-gooder, read this:

The best way to shut up those who accuse you with hypocrisy is to admit that you are bad. That clips their mouth shut.

Somebody actually asked in my face, her eyebrows curling up with malice, "Feeling mo ba ang bait-bait mo na?" My answer surprised even myself: "I'm trying to be good because I am a bad person. I go to Mass because I am sick."

No one can fight with humility. My guru had taught me that whenever I find myself in grave danger, I should chant this humble prayer in faith: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Trust me, God will spare you when you chant it, because for once, you've been humble enough to admit to two great truths: (1) Only Jesus can save you. (2) Reduced to your essence, you are nothing but a poor sinner.

My guru also taught me to chant this prayer and make it my last thought before sleeping and, voila, I was sure to wake up chanting the same prayer! I was praying all night long! You can also use the short-cut: "Jesus, mercy. Jesus, mercy…."

I'm sure there's a psychological principle involved here, but here's a different case: If you want to know the name of your guardian angel, Fr. Armand Robleza has taught a way. Your last thought for the evening just before you fall asleep is the question, "Guardian angel, what's your name?" I have tried it and a male name popped up in my mind the soonest I woke up. The name came in a spontaneous way, it's something I never would have thought up.

Make sure this question is your very last thought, or else you fail the exercise. The name you get may or may not be of your own sex.

They say that humility is like underwear - essential but indecent if it shows. I don't agree. Do-goodism can be all for show, but any fool can tell that. The thing is, what's wrong with being good? What's wrong with being humble? What's wrong with telling the truth?

There is a better definition of humility, coming from one of the few women doctors of the Church: "Humility is the recognition of what is true." (St Teresa of Avila)

"If you're aware of it (humility), you don't have it."

To be humble is not to lower oneself unnecessarily. It is to just be.

6.3.2003

Impure Drivel

(In between aping Justin Timberlake's dance steps in a new MTV, the one with a million light bulbs, and waiting for the Philippine flag to show up (it did!) in Madonna's latest video….)

I was delighted reading several writers' profiles in a magazine I've recently discovered, Poets & Writers. I had picked it up together with Spin, Details, and Writing Fiction Today, which I mistook for Writers' Digest.

Spin (circa late 2002) I find annoying except that the artist on the cover is someone I like. Details (circa late 2002) is addled with abominable ads but generally tolerable except for moments of brilliance. I find the article by Horatio Silva extremely hilarious, which talks about the unseemly return of tight pants on men, as well as Rick Moody's interview of Ethan Hawke whom I admire because he writes - and hate because he's got everything, not the least Uma Thurman.

In Poets & Writers, I discover the murder and mystery novelist Donna Tartt, 28 years old, whose work is compared with that of Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley, the novel, not the movie). There's also another profile of an interesting Bosnian novelist, 38-year-old Aleksandar Hemon.

Reading from their novel excerpts, I must say that Tartt in The Little Friend writes like a man, making me feel so insecure. I like Hemon better for his humor and sheer subject matter (Nowhere Man, a novel about, well, a nowhere man), not to mention the fact that he writes in English as his second language - like I do. (Actually, it's my third because I'm fluent in Panggalatok.)

Also grabbing my interest was a 27-year-old girl named Lauren Winner, whose first novel, Girl Meets God, is something I could have done if only I could make a decent short story. (I need to check out the site http://www.zoetrope.com/ kindly recommended to me by Mr. Dean Bocobo.) In Girl Meets God, Winner talks about her conversion to Christianity from being a half-baked Jew (she being of WASPy descent) and her subsequent disillusionment with a campus fundamentalist group. With a captivating prose, she chronicles how she found the group become more and more asphyxiatingly restrictive.

Her plight reminds me of a recent story ('What Would Jesus Do' or something like it) by GQ's literary editor Walter Kirn which deals with that certain feeling of cultural and intellectual debasement you get as a member of a fundamentalist, narrow-minded group. Kirn unfortunately zoomed in on so-called Christian art which he found unbelievably 'baduy,' to use my own words.

I couldn't restrain myself from sending a hate email (okay a protest) to gq@aol.com not because I felt alluded to but because I was offended that whenever these Americans mention "Christian" they always exclude Catholics. I am offended that they always see Catholics as non-Christian when we Catholics consider Christian anybody who believes in the Trinity and in Jesus-Christ-as-savior doctrine. It was so revolting to me that I had to enumerate the great Christian art of the Catholic world in Kirn's white Protestant face, starting from Bernini to Tintoretto to Michaelangelo to Byzantine icons (more of Eastern Orthodox, though) to gothic, baroque, rococo, Romanesque, Renaissance, Tuscan, art deco, art nouveau, modernist churches, not to mention the innumerable paintings, frescoes, murals, sculptures, classical music, down to the intricate embroidery of papal vestments. The Catalan architect St. Antonio Gaudi's body of work alone is enough for anyone to sing hallelujah. If you want a study of truly magnificent Christian art, study your history books/encyclopedias, guys.

Back to Poets & Writers. This material's seriousness is a major turnoff, though. It took me a full week before I mustered enough will to turn a page - unlike, I must say, Jessica Zafra's Flip magazine, which I can read in three sittings at the most, no kidding. I am also delighted to read that Bino Realuyo is a member of the "international reading faculty" for Fairleigh Dickinson University, wherever that is. (Gotta read Bino Realuyo one of these days.)

There's an interesting ad for the book, "Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West" featuring the following names: Rabia, St. Francis of Assisi, Rumi, Meister Eckhart, Hafiz, St. Thomas of Aquinas, Kabir, St. Catherine of Siena, Mira, St. Teresa of Avila, Tukaram, and St. John of the Cross. Anybody who has a copy of this book (paging Spinning K. of pinoywriters.com), I beg you to throw it in my general direction.

One thing about Bosnia… If that kind of suffering need to be brought upon my own people so I could be a great writer, I'd rather live and die an illiterate man.

Because those writers I've stumbled on were too young to succeed (in defiance of Danton Remoto's belief that you have to be at least 40 to be able to write a good novel), I couldn't help thinking about our local writers.

Paging Jessica Zafra: Could you stop what you're doing and give us at least one freaking novel? I would also be glad to see the following 'young' writers (whose prose I read when I can) come up with at least an extended essay or short stories for our times, not a mere compilation: Clinton Palanca, Manuel Quezon III, et al. We have a lot of excellent young writers, how come they couldn't come up with a book when high schoolers in the US become instant bestsellers? Is it all about economics or is it laziness?

Kindly inform me if I'm missing anybody in this list of young-ish essayists/journalists I follow: Constantino Tejero, Eric Caruncho, Ruel de Vera, Lito Zulueta, Scott Garceau, those who appeared in 'pen and ink' magazine, and the regulars of Flip (too many to mention), and of course the yearly batch of Palanca awardees.

Somebody from our egroup asked how I manage to find time to write something like this. Of course the answer is that I have such a dull job and a very limited social life, not to mention zero romantic life. I have to thank God that these thorns are actually blessings naman pala.

Shut me up for now.


6.2.2003

Karma Sutra

On karma and the need for a little negativity

The unending interplay of rain and mud is Jackson Pollocking my clothes. This is the lowest of lows of living in the tropics, but I should not complain.

Our community founder Tony Vasquez was very mindful about grumbling. He used to say God punishes you with a multiplicative number of things to grumble about if you grumble. I miss this man whom I consider to be, like, my spiritual father. Although not everything he said brought me joy and peace (truth makes you anxious), he was almost always somewhat right.

Take grumbling. I really believe he was saying the truth. Actually he need not state it categorically. It's in the Bible and it is an unambiguous command: "Rejoice in the Lord, always, I say to you, rejoice!" (I will refrain from citing my Biblical reference because I know that it automatically turns off non-Bible reading readers, assuming I am being read by them at this point.)

Butch Jimenez's speech delivered to this year's graduating students of UP Diliman (as published in this Sunday's PDI) has edified and mortified me so much I felt being alluded to. "Look at the positive side of things," he said. I felt being accused as a very negative person. Was it my conscience or was it Butch?

It must be Butch. I decided that I'm not being deliberately negative. Look at every criticism I make and see whether it will benefit me personally. It will benefit others, that's for sure, but not me because I am making a lot of enemies for life. Butch's speech - which was nice, nothing against it, really - has made me rethink the title of my upcoming e-book, Worm's Eye: Note's from Underground Zero. I had meant it to be an eyewitness account of everything appalling that I went through in life as a way to bribe my way to heaven (if suffering is indeed salvific) and indirectly to indict everyone and everything who did us, the poor, wrong. Someone's got to do the dirty job, Mr. Jimenez. There wouldn't have been earth-shaking revolutions if not for the critics. If all of us refused to look at the negative side of things, we will never see the positive side of them.

Which brings me to the concept of karma, which an esteemed writer Gilda Cordero-Fernando brought up, too, in yesterday's PDI. My intellectual side refuses to believe in karma because it nullifies the existence of justice, or injustice, in this world. Having karma as this world's operating system implies a need to maintain the status quo. It means we would be a lot better off to turn a blind eye on the vile things we see, I mean whatever happened to evil and the devil? Because of the belief in karma, an abomination called the caste system persists to this very day. (Message to Mr. Dean Bocobo, if you're looking for the really abominable, go to India.)

I may be a romantic fool but I am capable of being a realist, too - to the point of being a surrealist. This is not to contest Ms. Fernando, whose autograph I'd gladly ask for, or her admirable work, (If Ma'am Jing Hidalgo admires your writing, you must be somebody.) but I just can't keep my peace without being noisy about it.

6.2.2003

Who is Jesus Christ?


In Don Moen's best-selling album, God With Us, he specifically enumerates who Jesus Christ is as accounted for in the Bible.

Genesis: The Ram at Abraham's altar
Exodus: Passover Lamb
Leviticus: High Priest
Numbers: Cloud by day and Pillar of Fire by night
Deuteronomy: City of our Refuge
Joshua: Scarlet Thread out of Rahab's window
Judges: Judge
Ruth: Kinsman Redeemer
1 & 2 Samuel: Trusted Prophet
Kings, Chronicles: Reigning King
Ezra: Faithful Scribe
Nehemiah: Rebuilder of everything that is broken
Esther: Mordecai sitting faithful at the gate
Job: Redeemer that ever lives
Psalms: My Shepherd and I shall not want
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes: Our Wisdom
Song of Solomon: Beautiful Bridegroom
Isaiah: Suffering Servant
Jeremiah, Lamentations: Weeping Prophet
Ezekiel: Wonderful Four-Faced Man
Daniel: Fourth Man in the Midst of a Fiery Furnace
Hosea: Love that is forever faithful
Joel: He baptizes us with the Holy Spirit
Amos: Burden Bearer
Obadiah: Our Savior
Jonah: Great Foreign Missionary that takes the Word of God into all the world
Micah: Messenger with the beautiful feet
Nahum: Avenger
Habakkuk: Watchman that is ever praying for Revival
Zephaniah: Lord mighty to save
Haggai: Restorer for our lost heritage
Zechariah: Our Fountain
Malachi: Son of Righteousness with healing in His wings
Matthew: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God."
Mark: Miracle Worker
Luke: Son of Man
John: The Door by which everyone of us must enter
Acts: Shining Light that appears to Saul on the road to Damascus
Romans: Our Justifier
1 Corinthians: Our Resurrection
2 Corinthians: Our Sin-Bearer
Galatians: He redeems us from the law
Ephesians: Our Unsearchable Riches
1 & 2 Thessalonians: Our soon coming King
Philippians: He supplies our every need
Colossians: Fullness of the God Head Bodily
1 & 2 Timothy: Mediator between God and man
Titus: Our blessed Hope
Philemon: A Friend that sticks closer than a brother
Hebrews: Blood of the everlasting covenant
James: The Lord that heals the sick
1 & 2 Peter: Chief Shepherd
1, 2 & 3 John: Jesus who has the tenderness of love
Jude: The Lord coming with 10,000 saints
Revelation: King of Kings and Lord of Lords

6.2.2003

What's Love Got to Do with It?


The accusations of Love


How does it really mean to love? Let's answer Tina Turner’s Grammy Award-winning question by ticking off the ff.:

Is it raising a kid so that you’ll have someone to take care of you and shoulder your retirement expenses when you get old, perhaps even buy you a coffin when you die?
Overindulging your kids with toys because you never had one when you were their age?
Treating a friend to a movie so you’ll at least have a warm body for company?
Being there for someone because he is famous and wealthy?
Standing by a friend even when it means being a partner to his crime?
Covering up your friend’s crime?
Because of your mate’s laser-corrected looks? Fat wallet and stock certificates? Kilometric surname? Medals and trophies?
Marrying a drop-dead looker so that you’ll have “an heir and a spare”?
Because of your partner’s mastery of Tantric sex?
Signing a humiliating prenuptial agreement?
Attending to your boss' every whim because your promotion depends on him?
Working for the company conscientiously because of the pay?
Treating your customers well because of falling profit margin?
Manufacturing quality goods at the lowest price to leapfrog the competition?
Lavishing your managers with a Caribbean cruise and a two-way ticket to a pan-European tour to ensure their loyalty in bad times?
Staging a closing-out sale?
Agreeing to a yearly bonus for your employees to dissuade them from forming a union?
Acting out in an overly respectful manner of speaking with your creditor over the phone?
Fattening the pigs now for slaughter later?
Kissing babies and visiting squatter shanties before the cameras?
Posing for your organization’s hand-over of a gigantic check to flood victims?
Suddenly acting chummy with someone because you have gossiped badly about him a few minutes ago?
Kissing your colleagues cheek-to-cheek because that’s how greeting tradition goes?
Joining your friends in a boarding house to divide the rent with?
Greeting the snobbish receptionist good morning to catch her attention?
Smiling to a stranger because you’re lost in the jungle and need a guide on directions?
Converting to your girlfriend’s religion because her family are rabid devotees?
The constant assurance of 'I love you’s?
The constant 'I am sorry’s that offer no atonement?
Doing pro bono work to be respectable to your peers?
Doing a ground-breaking, blood-curdling scientific research to “further mystify your curriculum vitae”?
Giving away money because you’re bored with it?
Winning a contest supposedly in the name of your Alma Mater? your mother? your motherland?
Lavishing love on a new girl you don’t even like, just to spite your ex?
Pairing up with you boyfriend’s most hated rival during a cool-off in the relationship?
Winning a girl with hypertensive bars of Belgian chocolates and endangered flower species that would rival the best funeral parlor?
Being attended to by ten thousand salesladies early in the mall?
Joining the priesthood because “Cristy had jilted you so you turned to Kristo instead”?
Obeying God because He might get angry and punish you?

"What's love but a sweet, old-fashioned notion?"

Quotes stolen from: 1. Newsweek, 2. Dolores Stephens-Feria, 3. Fr. Dave Concepcion, a parish clown/priest

8.2.2000

Today, I'd like to share an ancient prayer, a supplication for divine wisdom.



Prayer Before Study

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful and enkindle in them the fire of thy love.

V. Send forth thy Spirit and they shall be created.
R. And thou shalt renew the face of the earth

Let us pray:

O God who didst instruct the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in the same Spirit to be truly wise, and ever to rejoice in His consolation through Christ our Lord. Amen.


5.30.2003

The Cosmos According to Chopra



Whenever I mention the word karma, my favorite agnostic, Mac, never fails to mock me, "Hoy, Katoliko ka ba?" Then Tetcha would second the motion by calling me Deepak Topak.

I got my comeuppance. I had it coming. I call Mimi, our resident reiki master, Jemma Lichauco.

Maybe you have already heard that karma is not a Christian dogma, or at least not the whole conception of it. To act as the devil's advocate, though, isn't salvation history all about the question of 'What you sow, you shall reap'?

I think the major difference with the Christian viewpoint lies herein: Souls are not reborn into upper or lower planes, as in a man becoming a dog, or a frog becoming a prince (Wait, those fairy tales could be talking about karma!) In the Christian belief, each single soul is unique in the whole universe, not a recyclable entity. Each soul is created for a particular purpose. All of us are meant to be the replacement of all those rebellious souls who had joined Lucifer's rebellion. There is no tacit recognition of 'past lives,' notwithstanding Jaime Lichauco's arguments using Origen's writing and certain Biblical passages.

Who is Deepak Chopra? He is an endocrinologist known the world over not for his medical practice but for esoteric teachings that heavily quote Hindu and Buddhist figures in the same breath as Kahlil Gibran, Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein. (Did I hear 'Huh?'?) Why are his books snapped up like the proverbial pancakes? Why do many among Philippine society's who's who troop to swanky halls just to hear him talk?

Based on my impression of his seminal book, "The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success", it is easy to see why.

The book, at the least, is a prosperity gospel with a twist, devoid of Mike Velarde folksiness which turns off the economic and intellectual snobs. In its stead is a vocabulary that comes off as decidedly erudite on various disparate subjects. It's a vocabulary that spells 'wholeness,' 'wellness' and 'scientific journals,' if not 'literature.'

Consider the following: "All of creation, everything that exists in the physical world, is the result of the unmanifest transforming itself into the manifest. Everything that we behold comes from the unknown. Our physical body, the physical universe - anything and everything that we can perceive through our senses - is the transformation of the unmanifest, unknown, and invisible into the manifest, known and visible."

Take a look this novel definition of success: "The continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realization of worthy goals; the ability to fulfill your desires with effortless ease." "Success means material abundance, good health, energy and enthusiasm for life, fulfilling relationships, creative freedom, emotional and psychological stability, a sense of well-being, and peace of mind."

Leafing through his neatly packaged copy is an experience of newness. This feeling, though, runs in contrast to the reintroduction of the reader into some age-old philosophies that are discernible even in their updated version by way of modern lexicon.

One is tempted to use 'holistic' here but the key word to Chopra is more of 'eclectic', a careful blending of strains from Hinduism, Buddhism, psychology, quantum theory, and other fields.

What's striking about his ideas, from my point of view, is the astounding parallelism with existing Biblical concepts. This man seems to speak the same truths using another language. He comes off as someone who has discovered the secrets of the universe, secrets that may hold the key to unifying the world's religions. Is he the latest answer to ecumenism yet, denying no religion yet fully embracing none as well? Let's find out for ourselves.

Here are Chopra's seven spiritual laws of success and my knee-jerk reactions, both positive and negative:

1. Law of Pure Potentialities. The source of all creation is pure consciousness... pure potentiality seeking expression from the unmanifest to the manifest. And when we realize that our true Self is one of pure potentiality, we align with the power that manifests everything in the universe.

(This 'law' makes sense but (a) it is rather vague about who God is; (b) it reduces God into a mere 'consciousness' or a 'field of potentiality'; (c) it seem to equate man with God.)

2. Law of Giving. The universe operates through dynamic exchange...giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.

Here, Chopra cites two interesting etymologies: 'affluence' is from the Latin 'affluere,' to flow in abundance, and 'currency' is from the Latin currere, to run.

(Isn't generosity and being a cheerful giver one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit?)

3. Law of 'Karma' or Cause and Effect. Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind...what we sow is what we reap. And when we choose actions that bring happiness and success to others, the fruit of our karma is happiness and success.

Here, Chopra says that "We are 'essentially infinite choice-makers'", and everything we do, whether for good or ill, has repercussions. He further says that, "All actions are karmic episodes," that action generates memory; memory, desire; desire, action; action, gain, "with karma, memory and desire as the operational software of the soul."

(We sow what we reap..."If [our] body sends a message of comfort, that's the right choice. If...discomfort, then it's not the appropriate choice." Isn't this the Biblical equivalent of peace (of mind) and how our conscience work, i.e., a combination of intellectual and the Holy Spirit's workings?)

4. The Law of Least Effort. Nature's intelligence functions with effortless ease...with carefreeness, harmony, and love. And when we harness the forces of harmony, joy, and love, we create success and good fortune with effortless ease...Least effort is expended when your actions are motivated by love, because nature is held together by the energy of love. The law has three components: acceptance, responsibility (which doesn't mean blaming, but the ability to have creative response to the current situation), defenselessness.

(Now, isn't he talking of the Biblical 'miracle' and blessing? He thinks so, too. Doesn't this law remind as well of the virtue of being non-judgmental?)

In his exposition here, he quotes Lao Tzu: "An integral being knows without going, sees without looking, and accomplishes without doing." He explains, "Fish don't try to swim, they just swim." Etc. He also quotes Vedic Science's principle of economy of effort, or "do less and accomplish more".

Chopra believes that reality is an interpretation, so we should desist from defending our point of view. He quotes someone saying, 'The past is history, the future is a mystery, and this moment is a gift. That is why this moment is called 'the present'." Thus he advises to take the path of no resistance, taking every problem as an opportunity in disguise.

(Isn't this parallel to the 'harbor lights' suddenly aligning without our lifting a finger - to tell us that this is the Lord's will for our lives?)

5. The Law of Intention and Desire. Inherent in every intention and desire is the mechanics for its fulfillment...intention and desire in the field of pure potentiality have infinite organizing power. And when we introduce an intention in the fertile ground of pure potentiality, we put this infinite organizing power to work for us.

(For this law to be accomplished, Chopra mentions the need to meditate. Now, isn't meditation 'prayer time'? He also mentions the equivalent of the Biblical 'trust in God' and expectant faith.)

"Intention," Chopra says, "lays the groundwork for the effortless, spontaneous, frictionless flow of pure potentiality seeking expression from the unmanifest to the manifest. The only caution is that you use your intent for the benefit of mankind - desiring without an attachment to the outcome."

"The difference ...between you and the tree is not the carbon, or the hydrogen, or the oxygen. In fact, you and the tree are constantly exchanging your carbon and oxygen with each other. The real difference between the two of you is in the energy and in the information," which he says constitute the quantum field or the 'quantum soup'.

Here, he makes an important thesis that is central to his philosophy: "The past, present, and future are all properties of consciousness. The past is recollection, memory; the future is anticipation; the present is awareness. Therefore time is the movement of thought. Both past and future are born in the imagination; only the present, which is awareness, is real and eternal. It is the potentiality for space-time, matter, and energy. It is an eternal field of possibilities experiencing itself as abstract forces, whether they be light, heat, electricity, magnetism, gravity. These forces are neither in the past nor in the future. They just are."

6. Law of Detachment. In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty...in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning....[In] our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.

Quoting from the Upanishad, Chopra explains that "detachment is giving up attachment to the result...Attachment comes from poverty consciousness, detachment from wealth consciousness...In detachment, there's freedom to create...The search for security is an illusion... The solution to this is the wisdom of uncertainty...Uncertainty must be factored in in the goal from point A to point B..."Good luck" means preparedness for the opportunity."

"Relinquish attachment to the known, step into the unknown, and you will step into the field of all possibilities. In your willingness to step into the unknown, you will have excitement, adventure, mystery. You will experience the fun of life - the magic, the celebration, the exhilaration, and the exultation of your own spirit."

(Detachment to things of "the world" is the one tie that binds Christian mystics.)

7. Law of Dharma or Purpose in Life. Everyone has a purpose in life...a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.

(Isn't dharma the equivalent of 'calling'? Isn't he speaking of Christian service/servanthood? I am not comfortable with that goal of all goals, though, believing that our goal of goals is to adore God forever.)

The components of dharma are summed up as follows: 1. Each of us is here to discover our true self, our higher self or our spiritual self; 2. Express our unique talents; 3. Service to humanity.

"Ask 'How can I help?' instead of 'What's in it for me?'" (How selfless! How...Christian!)

In his summary, Chopra extols the DNA as "the material expression of pure potentiality": "The same DNA existing in every cell expresses itself in different ways in order to fulfill the unique requirements of that particular cell. Each cell also operates through the law of giving, law of least effort, law of intention and desire, and so on."

(At this point, I refuse to impose my own conclusions.)


6.14.2000

Aroma or Fragrance?


A man walks to my direction smelling of vanilla. It must be his car scent, but this doesn't matter. The aroma of vanilla is good, but worn on a man, it smells odd.

There are times when our office smells like a neighborhood panaderya (bakery) even when nobody's taking a pastry for snack.

My boss Titanic has this apple-flavored hand lotion that gives out a luscious essence. The lotion also attracts fruit-flies in the office.

It's not only that fragrance is becoming unisex or that more males and females are becoming bisexuals. (A theory propounded by someone claims that everybody is bisexual; anyone who wants to pick a fight with that?)

It is that even the line between aroma and fragrance is being successfully blurred.

Which brings me to the memory of the TV show 'Ang Bagong Kampeon' where Regine Velasquez made a name. The late Bert 'Tawa' Marcelo was always calling a miniskirt-clad Pilita Corrales 'amoy pinipig', and the scamp was actually flirting with her. He even got to smack Tita Pilita's face on a regular basis!


5.31.2003

Dear Mr. Bocobo,

Re.: Your PDI Monday article, Repent! Ye Super-Spreaders of Pseudo Science - Pilosopo Tasyo


You could also have cited the monk Gregor Johann Mendel, the father of genetics, as well as other monks, including the medieval monks who did science a favor by assiduously reproducing important scientific manuscripts. Also, where would Philippine botanical taxonomy be without the work of Fr. Manuel Blanco of San Augustin Church, Flora de Manila who is not even mentioned I think in our local botanical taxonomy textbooks?

I find it odd that there is what you claim a leftist-GMO connection. I mean, dogmas and ideologies have no place in science, maybe these people are really genuinely alarmed? Genetic pollution is something I would also prudently advise against, although I would be glad to hear the defense of the other side. In any case, the debate is no longer moot and academic for we have been ingesting GMO foodstuff for so long. My quibble should then lie in the fact that I've been ingesting GMO without my knowledge and explicit permission. I pray to God I don't turn into a two-headed freak for it.


Respectfully yours,

X-P

Those Angelic Fixers at LTO


I would like to appeal to authorities regarding this rampant scourge at LTO (and elsewhere) known as fixers.

I have a friend complaining to me the other day. She said she has always held that, in our society, graft has taken deep roots not because of corrupt government officials but because many of us motorists tempt government people with bribe money (‘lagay’) every time we get caught for a traffic violation. Being poorly paid employees, who in government service wouldn’t take bribes?, or so goes the argument.

Well, this perception has changed. She has realized that graft is rampant because the system gladly accommodates it.

My friend said she and her husband recently got reprimanded by the traffic police for not wearing their seatbelts. Because it is against the couple’s conviction, they refused to give the obligatory ‘lagay’. The husband surrendered his driver’s license like any law-abiding citizen should.

Next day she made that necessary trip to the LTO to pay the fine for their violation. My friend found herself lining up in a long queue dominated by male drivers. This intimidated her. She had to defend herself, especially her turn at the long queue which she patiently kept by her lonesome. What irked her so much and lost her cool as a gentle woman that she is was the fact that she had been lining up for about two hours yet the line was barely moving. When she finally checked why, she found out what was causing the delay.

It was fixers! Fixers offering their services to traffic violators! My friend couldn’t help but wonder if this was the right way of doing things. What is even more abominable, this was happening right under the nose of the LTO!

So my friend thought she was being a good citizen of the republic by going through the hassles of reclaiming their driver’s license by paying the right fine; it’s the law and she refused to get around it. She was, therefore, doubly aghast when she found out that it would be the same ‘lagayan’ she’d get to witness at the LTO, where fixers were having a field day, thanks to the agency’s tacit approval.

We all have heard about this for so long in rumor form. Now my friend saw this scourge for herself.

Hoy, mahiya-hiya kayo sa balat n'yo!

9.2001

Heritage Conservation and Pinoy-ness

To understand the Filipino is to forgive the Filipino. So what is a Filipino? He/she is someone belonging to a multi-tribal society, chiefly of Indonesian, Malay and Polynesian stock (also called Malayo-Polynesian or Austronesian to be more inclusive), unified by way of the Cross and the sword by Spaniards (with great failure in the South and some parts of the North) and democratized in the name of imperialism (“benevolent assimilation”) by Americans.

But long before Spain and America 'discovered' us, i.e., when we were technically not yet Filipino, we had been engaging in partnership with Chinese, Arab, and possibly Indian merchants. It’s a good thing the Dutch, the British and eventually the Japanese were thwarted before they could make an indelible inroad into the Pinoy psyche - or is it?

Given such a peculiar history coupled with the resultant cultural and genetic mix, it is only logical that Filipino society would evolve into a entirely new, not readily recognizable entity. It is only natural that the inhabitants of this archipelago would have a very fragile concept of nationhood. The islands ran the risk of becoming independent kingdoms had things not intervened, or could it have been far better that way?

This quaint history perhaps explains virtually everything that perennially bugs what would become Rizal's republic: a kanya-kanya mentality, palakasan/patronage politics, a family-focused instead of community-focused outlook, a “personalistic view of the universe” (to go by a more euphemistic and clinical term espoused and preferred by sociologists), colonial mentality, crab mentality, lack of pride of place, poor ethnic sense.

For all these perceived flaws, however, the Philippines can be construed as one case of a globalized society ahead of its time, in the sense that cultures and genes clash and mix in such a way as to produce a Peruvian president named Fujimori, a Chinese-looking swimmer representing Switzerland in the Olympics, jet-black Jamaicans speaking straight Italian in a beauty contest to represent Italy, and so on. That’s the reality we long have had to face, something which cannot be said of essentially more sober Asian monocultures like Japan, Thailand, China or Korea. It is a reality that would unwittingly result to a number of sociocultural eccentricities and paradoxes.

From that optimistic view, we can be seen as an evolving culture, and because we are doing so in the age of economic globalization, technologies of acceleration, and cultural homogenization, we at particularly at risk of staying "amorphous" as a people.

Happily, the global trend of cultural homogenization is the same driving force that's causing such unlikely abstractions as heritage and identity to become more and more of an asset instead of liability.

This is where the importance of preserving and promoting who and what we are as Filipino achieves a paramount importance. We can certainly take advantage of our unique heritage and history as a way of consolidating a young, pluralistic society like ours.

The glories of recent populist uprisings have shown that we are beginning to get there - towards the road to maturity in our concept of nationhood, of belonging to a society with shared history, hopes and aspirations. The fight towards heritage conservation, in particular, is sure to gain momentum in the coming days, as will other advocacies that promote nationhood. Weaned from infancy by Jose Rizal, the Philippine nation is now past its awkward days of adolescence. Heritage conservation is a grownup issue, in synchrony with a maturing democracy. The time has come for Filipinos to grow up.


8.4.2001

Not Just About a Garden

Dear Editor,

I stand up and allow myself to be counted in this unpopular battle. I believe this is not all a matter of opposing the “discothequification” of Intramuros, the pulverization of Jai Alai, and the unseemly encroachment on the Mehan Garden, but a matter of protecting what’s left of our flimsy identity as a people. It is a matter of pride of oneself and one’s place. It’s a matter of self-preservation in a world homogenized by unrelieved tackiness, blendered in environmental pollution.

We are a poor nation, yes, but this is not an excuse to further degrade ourselves by selling our soul. Yet if it’s a matter of one family’s decision to sell its precious heirloom just to tide itself over, then no one would hear a line from me because I know the face of poverty. The trouble is, we are not even selling our patrimony, like writer Luis Francia, et al. put it; we are pulverizing it from memory. Is our past really such a bad dream, a nightmare? We are not even talking here about tradeoffs and barters, we are talking of a disastrous self-obliterating attitude, we are talking about wrong priorities and morally bankrupt hierarchy of values and needs.

The fact that we don’t have a law against those who arrogate unto the whole land their penchant for tampering with history, culture and the environment is revelatory of who we are and what our values are. Why did we have to wait for issues such as these to act on a matter that is central to our very material (economic) and cultural advancement as a nation? All we have to do is remember the case of government-backed quarrying in the Chocolate Hills of Bohol - found nowhere else in the world, except perhaps in Indonesia - and the point is even clearer.

Arrequipa, Peru, was recently shook by an earthquake and its citizens ran out to see how their beloved cathedral, a UNESCO heritage site, fared. Rather than be immobilized by sadness or brush the whole thing off to oblivion, they vowed to bring the structure back to its feet, although this may be too hysterical by our own standards.

For all the communist ideology of Fidel Castro’s regime, the Cuban government reportedly saw to it that a separate agency be created to preserve the look of their Spanish-American landscape.

The people of Paraty, Brazil, did not think it to be a foolishness but one of foresight when they decided to preserve their charming seaside colonial town. Paraty is now among Brazil's favorite tourist destination sites.

Despite the tackiness of the structure involved, an American neighborhood rallies to save a donut joint with a gigantic donut on top which was about to be wrecked, for sentimental reasons, would you believe? (And we’re not even dealing with mawkish matters here; we do believe that we have to change with the times.)

For all the unfashionability and political incorrectness of singing paeans to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, we cannot help but view with respectful regard the couple’s efforts at championing cultural preservation and global promotion. They were certainly show-offy, but they surely were not ashamed to breast-beat their being Filipino.

Our myopic vision is so appalling when dealing with our endangered built and natural environment, and I am being very kind. I choose to assume no personal or political motives behind the scenes. This attitude is just the tip of the iceberg when we consider how we treat our roads like garbage bins, our rivers like sewers, our oceans like one big Payatas, our forests like unlimited wood factory, our endangered flora and fauna as nothing. The Jai-Alai and Mehan Garden issues are not just about saving dilapidated structures. They are about misplaced values and priorities, a painfully low self-regard, and a cultural vandalism which our laws do not recognize as crime.

I desire to live for good in this country and I want to see it grow old in beauty, wisdom and grace, and not choked by a web of something I wouldn’t be very proud to explain to our future children.

6.2001

Collage/Pastiche


St. John Bosco wasn't lying when he said that "Idleness is the playground of the devil." I am a Salesian by sheer circumstance. 'Salesian' came from 'St. Francis of Sales,' whose work and devotion Don Bosco was particularly inspired by. The 'Don' in Don Bosco does not mean 'wealthy man.' It means 'father' in Italian.

I frequent Salesian churches. My community's spiritual director is a Salesian. One of my favorite priests is Fr. Armand Robleza, who is the brains behind Yuppeace. A rather stern Salesian priest hears my confessions. I admire his superhuman diligence, though. I scour the Salesiana bookstore a lot. I always bump into street-children, the apple of Don Bosco's eye.

Sometimes, I turn Jesuit when people from Ateneo give a talk to us in community to let us experience an Ignatian-flavor spirituality.

The topic is idleness right? In community, we are taught that single people ought to have zero sex life. Impossible?

Well, let me put it this way: Rather than explore the nether regions of my anatomy for inspiration, I explore the nether regions of my soul, particularly my artistic soul - until I get tired and sleepy enough.

If I'm not working in the office at the computer, I am either reading, watching films, or helping out in the salvation of souls, including my own. At home, I can never hope to compete with the Taiwanese telenovela Meteor Garden or with NBA playoffs. I'm quite happy not to have my own TV. Wait, that's my TV!

I always run out of things to read. This pauper can only rely on Booksale's trash bin, his friend's generous lendings, and anything available in the office.

In between all these, I strive to do my collages. All I need in this lofty endeavor are the ff.: wooden panels, rugby or Elmer's glue, varnish, and my box of 20th century refuse. Ten years from now, this compost heap shall be called cultural ephemera.

Blame my silly collage idea for dealing a final death blow to that tacky Four Seasons Chinese décor my landlady left behind and refused to claim. I converted the thingamajig into instant rectangular panels for my collages. I take this decision as a kind of furious exorcism not just against feng shui but against superstition in general, no offense to those who believe in superstition. Members of my own family, if they compiled their superstitions, could come up with a book thicker than Brothers Karamazov. I am an outsider even in my own family. I have already accepted that.

All I need to do is sit down and sift through my Payatas Dumpsite for those perfect pieces to solve my collage puzzle - old CDs, movie passes, magazine mail cards, and other delightful debris. Color, texture, size, and the memory attending each - all these are major considerations. If all people turned their trash into collages, we wouldn't have a garbage problem.

I have threatened that box of refuse with total annihilation a number of times before because I fear arsons and 'anay' (termites), but every time, I seem to hear a voice say 'Hold it.' "Those are important tokens! Whenever you feel dejected, you can just stare at them as reminders." Keeping keepsakes is not materialism, I would be counseled by the voice, it is an act of remembering how much you've been loved.

In my former attempts at a total detachment from all hankerings, I practically gave away my stamp collection for the simple reason that I've outgrown them. Wrong move. All I left myself are two little stamps: an intricately gorgeous print of a congregation of gorillas - oddly, the stamp says 'Ceskoslovensko', and a long, long print detailing a Louvre-like French building. I have both of them framed.

I'm thinking about throwing away my coin collection, too, except the big coin with a hole in the middle from Papua New Guinea which I got from my missionary friend. My meager seashell collection shall definitely stay, though, because my latest passion in life is architecture and I'm impressed by mother nature's works.

I used to have a collection of rocks, too - smooth and round from a beach in Luna, La Union, luminous limestones from a Sagada cave, a fossilized leaf imprint from Pangasinan, a metamorphic rock from Baguio, I guess, even a specimen from a mining pit deep down Philex Mines n Benguet. I think my father mistook all of these rocks as excess construction materials and had them all thrown away.

How's that again? Forgive seventy times seventy times. My math is bad, but 70 x 70 = 4,900, right? I'm afraid I have thousands more to go.

Oh yes, we're on collages. I have three more boards to do, so you can go to Gehenna. (Bad joke.)


5.28.2003

Sometimes I Don’t Want to Believe in Democracy



I have strong suspicions about democracy. I’m afraid I don’t believe in it anymore. Well, sometimes.

For one, God doesn't seem to believe in democracy. He likes playing favorites. Take a few of the lessons we’ve learned from the Bible:

The Jews are God’s favorite people, the people whose genetic traits He chose to be His very own above all others, at least while He walked the earth.

King David was not a particularly good person. He was guilty of plotting the death of Bathsheba's husband. Bathsheba was his kept woman. Yet behind his crime, he remained favored by God. He remained as king. God gave him Nathan as true friend, someone who's not afraid to tell David the truth until the latter repented and reformed.

The parable of the workers in the vineyard alone is enough argument. "…I want to give this man who was hired last as much as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do as I wish with my own money? Or are you jealous because I am generous?" (Mt. 20:14-15)

And who doesn't know the parable of the prodigal son? The 'bad' son finally comes home after squandering his father's inheritance. The father welcomes him with an embrace, and worse, lavishes a feast on the rascal. The other son is distraught. He strove to be awfully good all his life but never tasted such an excess of affection. Worse, all he receives for his moping is a little lecture.

Another flaw of democracy is that, in a democracy, even stupidity is assured a powerful voice. The choice to be stupid is guaranteed and protected by no less than the constitution. Even if the majority acts stupidly, the majority is thought to be always right. The majority is God!

In the holy name of democracy, some things get sacrificed.

But in spite of it all, I still believe in democracy. "Democracy is the worst form of government there is, except every other that’s been tried." – Winston Churchill, former British Prime Minister.


2001

Extended reaction to the article, "Influence without Wisdom," Flip Magazine, 2002.


Dear Mr. Mario Taguiwalo,


To quote Fr. Jun Lingad, SDB, the Church is 'mater et magistra' - mother and teacher to the faithful. I am just an inconsequential member of the laity and I share your frustration about a hierarchy that is not noisy enough against economic inequity. I am of the opinion, though, that the Church hierarchy just want to avoid pitting the poor against the rich. After all, the very rich are also members of Christ's Church. After all, dualities like poor-rich are not always as simple as they appear to be.

But which hard teachings of Christ against social injustice and materialism are being withheld or watered down by the sermons? I refer you to the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 4:32-35*) where believers shared everything they had according to every member's need! Note, though, that this is not about social equity under atheistic communism/dialectical materialism, but within the context of monotheism. If only the Church and the faithful seriously considered a version of it as a viable socioeconomic alternative, we wouldn't have such a slap-in-the-face as squatter shanties right beside our exclusive villages. For a good example, China's economy alone, Fr. Jun reports, can be proven to be capable of self-sufficiency if the Chinese so choose it.

The truth is, even the Church is powerless against the greed of the oligarchs, their grip on the market economy and their so-called law of supply and demand, a law of miserliness and misery, to paraphrase Fr. Jun. This law dictates, or so I read from a Sunday misalette, that great amount of food and farm produce be summarily discarded, i.e., disposed of, just to keep the price skyrocketingly afloat - even in the face of subhuman deprivation. This law unconscionably dictates that unsold McDonalds and Jollibee hamburgers be thrown away - while children barely out of their diapers scrape the bottom of cesspools and the most fetid canals for loose change, and then scavenge and stir-fry leftover chickens from garbage bags. I hate melodrama but these are really understatements. Why not ask someone like Iskho Moreno, who, if not for his good looks and the kindness of Kuya Germs, would never rise from his miserable destitution to become a councilor of Manila?

Please bark up the right trees. Dedicate your writings to the ostentatiously wealthy of this world. It's the high and mighty big business and politicos who are calling the shots in this country, holding our collective necks in a noose. Yes, many of them are Catholics, too - at least by name.

If the subject of poverty sounds unbearable, it's because it is. The extent of subhuman suffering I witness everyday along the tracks of Magallanes alone is beyond words - and I am a writer with predilection for hyperbole, much as I'm averse to victim mentality.

Nevertheless, I thank you for your genuine concern. I hope we Filipinos can find the right solutions. I still believe that peaceful solutions are possible.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid people who have the power to effect change in the world for the better will never see the right solutions because they all look outside when the solution lies deep in their hearts.


5.2003

*Acts 4:32-35 (Today's English Version): "The group of believers was one in mind and heart. No one said that any of his belongings was his own, but they all shared with one another everything they had. With great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God poured rich blessings on them all. There was no one in the group who was in need. Those who owned fields or houses would sell them, bring the money received from the sale, and turn it over to the apostles; and the money was distributed to each one according to his need."

Nota bene: For the record, my apologetic stance is neither commissioned by the Vatican nor any priest for that matter. I am only quoting Fr. Jun Lingad's Mass sermon. This is my own private/public fight.

Criticophobia


Anything offered up for public consumption is fair game for bad reviews. My position about making reviews, generally, is never to make one if it's a bad review. Now there's nothing wrong with a bad review if it's done fairly, but a bad review can irreparably damage anyone who has an iota of resolve to improve.

I tend to change my mind, though, when it involves someone too successful or popular to get hurt. Like I can say Regine Velasquez's high-pitched wailing annoys me so much and it wouldn't make a difference. I mean, the whole world loves Regine and she can do no wrong. Regine is giving me tinnitus, but it's more about me, or my freaking ear.

Now there are products in the market that are so atrocious I can't help but badmouth them, I mean, who's being uncharitable to whom? Nothing personal, just a consumer's honest-to-goodness product assessment.

I couldn't quite forget the day I got so pissed off by April Boy's songs and singing that I had a field day lambasting his utterly popular style, my officemates as conniving audience.

But what do you know, when I got home, I would decide against habit to take the bus instead of the FX taxi and find myself trapped in a terrible crowd of passengers so thick I could've died if there was a stampede, I swear to Buddha. It was too much of a coincidence that I'd find myself getting trapped, of all places, right under the bus' radio speaker. And who would the bus driver play but April Boy?

The brilliant bus driver appeared to hate April Boy so much that he played the whole album, Side 1 and Side 2. I arrived home in an untold state of sexual harassment, if not violation.

Either I met my karma or God loves April so much. In whatever case, I swore I'd rather make rave reviews or none at all. I decided not to pursue a promising career as a brilliant critic. After all, to borrow a sour-grape of a quote from Finnish composer Sibelius, "No statue has ever been erected for a critic." (I doubt if this is true. Rizal was a terrifying critic, look where his statues are.)

Back to Regine...


5.28.2003

SEASONS

Of Fads and Vincent's Sunflowers

At a given time and place, certain things get so pervasive in our day-to-day life that they end up defining that time as a distinct era and that place as a distinct mental location.

(Metro) Manila of the years 1999-2000 have had the following: Buddha beads. Rave parties and techno music. End-of-the-world movies. Power Rangers, Pikachu and other Japanese pokemons. Playstation. Dance Revo. Cellphones with text-messaging feature. Pirated CDs and VCDs. Cargo and capri pants. Square-toed shoes. Ricky Martin's pauso (torso-hugging, long-sleeved shirts). V-necks. T-shirts in screaming colors (shocking yellow and orange topping the list). Cigarette smoking. Hair dye and hair gel especially among boys, in that gravity-defying bangs. Pearl shake. Miss Saigon. Tamiya (toy cars from Japan). And at the tail-end of 2000, the resurrection of "jukebox", i.e. utterly senti music. (The only difference is that the latest crop is more offensive.)

The absence of these things in one's life meant one sure thing: One lived in another era, in another place.

This list, which is short (I forgot expensive Nike trainers, plaid and table cloth polos, body bags and Jansport knapsacks, fitting blouse for women) is so powerful in defining who belong and who do not, that it elicits particularly in the latter an intense feeling of not belonging.

I am not one who would condemn fads, though I'm averse to seeing every guy I meet wearing nothing but cargo pants. In fact I gladly embrace a lot of these fads if they suit my budget (often they don't) and taste and, more importantly, if they don't clash with my beliefs. I have tried ignoring fads before, believing that it is virtuous to do so: (1) They can be harmful in a subtle, insidious way as they teach an entire people and generation to behave like a stupid herd of gnus. (2) They are capable of alienating people who cannot afford the trend.

Yet, tried as I might to remain different, I always ended up joining the bandwagon unhesitatingly. Fads, I would witness, are generally harmless. They are meant for people to have fun. Even those watching from the sidelines (our lolos and lolas) cannot conceal their amusement disguised as bewilderment or calculated annoyance at the fickle-mindedness of fads and the fun they engender.

Fads, it appears, are borne of tedium vitae. We've got to affirm life in all its exuberance - or we might as well just eat, sleep, defecate and die - to paraphrase Larry Henares' naughty witticism. It would be like Kurt Cobain with his infamous last words: "I'm getting erratic. The passion is gone. (Bang!)"

Fads are borne of the need to seize the newness of things or else they might wilt into a lump of ugliness like yesterday's bunch of pansies. Artists like van Gogh have depicted this fear and expectation of what is passing in their Sunflower or some other 'vanitas' series, with the vase of flowers always including ugly, wilting stalks. In earlier periods, this morbid yet easily forgotten reality is expressed by juxtaposing material luxury with a human skull placed in one corner to remind us of the inevitability and imminence of death.

Fads, more than a symptom of herd mentality or the vacuity of vanity, is a celebration of life's passing fancies. It is a reaffirmation of the panoramic wonders of life even as it is a realization that these shall soon pass. The romanticist ideas "Carpe diem" (Seize the day.) and "Memento mori" (Remember that you must die.) must have been conceived by people who missed out on the fads of their time.

Falling for the lure of fads may actually be prolonging what is enjoyably ephemeral.



12.2000






How to Sour-Grape on Feb. 14


Valentine's Day feels uncannily like Christmas. Commercialization has turned a lofty abstraction called love into a commodity that, if left unsold in the aftermath, contributes to the literally mounting garbage crisis. Brisk sales are everywhere - from chocolates to condoms to call cards. And of course, like Christmas, the bad news is, the lack of money and a significant other - faked or otherwise - is a surefire trigger for clinical depression.

Thank your lucky stars I wasn't a senator for, if I were one, I would move to ban Valentine's Day indefinitely.

As in the case of Mother's Day, we need Valentine's Day as an excuse to heap tender love and care and nauseating affection to someone we ignore the rest of the year. V-Day has fostered a society that warps things like love into a reduced form of feeling, or worse, into a feeling of "falling." V-Day is yet another form of lie that gets us equating love to mere niceties of emotion which find their profoundest expression in the latest batch of computer emoticons. Face it, V-Day is yet another form of deception.

What if the intensity of amorous desire has waned through the years? What if we just don't feel like it anymore? What if our wallets' bulk just couldn't keep up with stupid Cupid's arrow's speed? What if there's virtually no one?

The answer is, we are all forced to fake it like falsified orgasm, or else we would be tagged as three-eyed freaks.

Our society has gone so low we have to adopt another Western rubbish like V-Day along with all the non-biodegradable stuff clogging the sewers like bad cholesterol congesting the heart.

V-Day never teaches that true love means commitment, not the presence of romance, although romance is essential in the beginning; it gives us "the fervor of our first love" to hearken back to every once in a while. It never teaches us that anybody can be full of love even when he or she seems all alone. It never teaches that heartfelt reconciliation presupposes repentance of and retribution from the offending party. That it is not love if it is co-dependency, which, at its heart, is not love but narcissism. That love is not blind. That while love is patient and forbearing, love also requires firmness and decisiveness.

V-Day never teaches the evil of impulsiveness, whether it be in terms of buying sprees or taking the plunge to bed and the ball chain of forced and gunshot wedlock. It never teaches the virtue of chastity and self-control. It never stresses the occasional need for tough love and the willingness to embrace change for the sake of the beloved.

V-Day mis-educates people into acting like members of an asinine herd. V-Day is really a social disease of epidemic proportions. V-Day should be renamed V-D.

Down with Hallmark and fellow big-business conspirators! Down with motels and public display of affection and roses and all shades of blood and gore! Down with heart-shaped chocolates that give heart-shaped migraine and heartless allergies! Down with torrid kissing which spreads viruses, among other deadly germs! Let there only be maydays for V-Days! With one heart as our collective broom, let us bring about a sweeping change in the world!


2.13.2001




What Happened to Christmas?


What happened to Christmas? It's supposed to be a time of joy, peace and love but how did it become a vexation to the spirit? Why do I have to rush to the mall for that silly Kris Kringle item, only to find 99% of humanity looking for the same? Why do I have to line up at the cashier for an hour when all I bought was an overprized gift wrapper?

Why should I bother with blinking tivoli lights, Pampanga lanterns and Norfolk pine Christmas tree when they are worth my month's salary? Sales are everywhere, but why did I end up broke at the end of the day?

Why should I attend endless parties that make me fat? Why do I torture myself with a long list of people to give gifts to? Why should I give gifts to people who already have more in life?

Why does SM Megamall have that cheesy product-sponsored Christmas again?

Where are the taxis when I need them the most? And if there's one taxi wheezing by, why won't the driver let me in? Why should I end up stuck in EDSA when I have ten thousand things to do relating to the holidays?

Why should I feel that it's snow time around here when I am sweating from sheer exasperation?

Why have I not prepared myself for this early in the year? Why should I do that at all?

Why do fruits suddenly disappear as the night of nights near, and I have to contend with the evil fruit of overpricing?

If it's really Christmas, why are there beggars on the street in the aftermath of the holiday?

Why do I end up getting depressed in the end with all those bright, discarded tinsel? It's Christmas, why am I writing a piece like this?

Why does Christmas sound like a sellout? Since when did Christmas come with a price tag?

Why do I still celebrate Christmas this way after all these years?

12.20.1999

How will Erap be judged by history? Take a look at this report.


Eraption of Opinions


What's ailing this land? Just when I thought things were getting better, everything suddenly gives me the feeling that they were turning from bad to worse all over again. I thought it was all a matter of God pulling out the weed from the wheat field, separating the political goats from the political sheep.

It turned out mine was such a simplistic worldview. Indeed, life is painted in neither black nor white. Cardinal Sin may look cute to many people on a particular day; the next day, he becomes a mortal enemy to people preternaturally predisposed to porno, I mean, art.

Each person, I realize, counts as one opinion. Quot homines, tot sententiae. There are as many opinions as there are men. There are as many opinions as there are talking and presumably thinking heads. So you could just imagine the wideness of the spectrum resulting from Erap's downfall.

Here's a partial list of what I've heard people say (and others' bitchy reflex reaction). Watch how people say the darnedest things.

1. Democracy doesn't seem to be working for the Philippines. We really need a Lee Kuan Yew to get anywhere near being called a nation. We need to resurrect Marcos. We are truly a group of ungovernable tribes. Tell me, did life really improve post-EDSA? (So Filipinos face a better prospect being told not to chew gums, huh? Tell that to the children of Tamblot, Palaris, Silang, et alii.)

2. It's just that our society is evolving, from tribalism to feudalism to cronyism to true democracy. The United States of America had to go through the Civil War first before it became what it is today. (Excuse me, but our politics is far more sophisticated than theirs. Why do we always make anything American the benchmark of all benchmarks? Look at the recent Gore-Bush election returns debacle which was so...Pinoy. See, they're becoming a lot more like us.)

3. The fact that we have lots of dirt-poor people who would sucker up to someone like Erap strongly indicates a cancerous society. How can we allow such degradation of human dignity? Can we really say we haven't contributed to other people's suffering? Doesn't our being with the status quo make us responsible enough for the crime? Who are we to say that EDSA 3 is not valid? (Uh-hmm.)

4. Did we cry for Erap's head because we genuinely opposed grand larceny and immorality in high office, or because we personally suffered economic setbacks under his reign? It's all a matter of taking revenge, you know, all a matter of economics. After all, who among the powerful people had no credibility issue? Philippine politics has really been all about who got the nod of the military and big business. The military and big business are really the ones running this country, you know. (Don't look at me.)

5. It was all a media creation. Erap was judged on trial by publicity, impeached without (constitutional) due process. (Paging ABS-CBN, GMA 7, ABC 5, IBC 13, RPN 9. Please answer this.)

6. Where is the fabled Pinoy compassion? It's not as though Erap was the only one guilty. What he was being accused for, everybody in government is guilty of. Erap got so unlucky because he had a Chavit Singson ratting on him. (But when are we gonna start? Erap was not the first but he was the first big fish to get caught big-time.)

So everyone's opinion is valid, no matter how unappealing to other camps. That's proof that democracy works around here, where tolerance is the key, where there is an agreement to disagree. "Division is better than agreement in evil," one George Hutcheson put it. I agree - with Chesterton, not with the devil.

So, I guess, let us leave people be. We'll know the tree by its fruit anyhow. True peace does not consist in herd-like conformity with anything and everything, including stupidity. This is what Jesus Christ meant when he said, "I came not to bring peace, but division."

My only quibble with democracy is that the majority always wins. Why, is the majority always right? The concept of right and wrong becomes irrelevant to democracy when the majority rules, even when experience has shown that the dictates of wisdom and good judgment are not always popular. (Look at the popular views about the death penalty, pornography, and artificial contraception, for a few instances.) Vox populi is not always vox Dei.

My worry now is that, no matter what bizarre camp we are coming from, we have this one thing in common: We all lose as Filipinos. We are sealing our own doom like a self-destructing top-secret espionage tape recording message. We are rushing headlong to the abyss like lemmings from the precipice, like the gazillion of rats chasing after the Pied Piper. No matter the big and small victories, we always end up with pathetically Pyrrhic victories, for the simple reason that any form of political turmoil makes investors quiver in panic, and we end up all the poorer for it. Investors smell instability. They see a banana republic in the making. If democracy is supposedly good for us, how come we always end up as losers?

God, when will this ever end?


5.4.2001

My Beef with Dancing Briefs

The latest abomination afflicting the screen and the airwaves is the male counterpart of the highly successful Sex Bomb Girls. Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome the Masculados!

My inner Manoling (MTRCB Chair) has yet to catch them live. They are said to perform in only their underwear and kurbatas as outerwear.

But no one could escape them because, tadaaa --- they have released an album, which is on heavy rotation in our mental hospital of an office where nothing is sacred or outrageous enough. I am expecting Eric Caruncho to dutifully chase after the guys and get them to the cover of Sunday Inquirer Magazine.

But this is to heap neither vilification nor paeans to artistic freedom and sexual equality in relation to our subject du jour. That I'm writing about them at all is enough.

What really caught my attention is their usage, in one of their songs, of a word relatively novel to me. It is the word 'kurimaw,' as in 'mukha kang kurimaw.' Ignorant of its etymology, I asked my 'baduy' brother what it meant. He said it is cousin to 'jolog.' That's my brother, whose passions range from Ernie Baron, Margie Holmes, Dr. Love and Raffy Tulfo, the king of verbal abuse, on AM radio. (Not that these people are baduy. I mean, define baduy, it's indefinable. I admire these people for having found their respective passion and calling. To quote Bo Sanchez, your greatest passion in life is your calling.)

Sidebar: Raffy Tulfo, running true to the Tulfo form, deserves an entire article. He is known to harangue a mayor or general with, "Kenkoy ka naman Meyor/General, eh!" or a popular congressman with, "Dwende!" If you people are really concerned about true freedom of expression, you should be restraining Raffy's potty mouth. More on Raffy in future installments; I've gotta do my assignment first and actually listen to him - and expect to laugh hysterically for it. (Raffy's tack appears to be a pro-small guy crusade. That's admirable except that the small guy is just as capable as the big guy in being snooty and arrogant.)

I confirmed the meaning of 'kurimaw' with an officemate, ever the lookist Pinoy, and he said it means 'sobrang pangit'. This should offend the good people of Currimao town, Ilocos Norte.

The last time I was pleased to learn a new Tagalog word like this, it involved 'buraot' which Herbs used against me when, I think, I refused to part my lunch with him while I took a generous dip in his so-called 'situ', a chili-hot African sauce/dip. I took 'buraot' to mean anyone who has 'what's-in-it-for-me' as prevailing mindset. To be 'buraot' is to be the patron saint of selfishness.

Back to our subject du jour. The Muscle Boys are becoming as annoyingly popular as the Sex Bomb Girls that every time they're being played, I feel my biceps growing and my abs constricting like a Boracay bikini tilt contestant. I just missed 60% of my life when Michael V. and company spoofed the group in Bubble Gang. (Too busy to watch.)

"What did they wear?," I asked my baduy brother, who's ready to burst with flatulence. "Diapers!" they wore just diapers - and 'kurbatas'!"

Good grief! The things people do to earn money. I'm thinking about auditioning.

5.28.2003

By the River Pasig I Got Drowned in Putik


I'm still reeling from Paulo Coehlo's aftershocks. I don't know what hit me, but I was hit terribly.

(Spoiler Alert) I never expected anyone would write a novel touching on one of my hidden, real lives apart from my writing life: the Catholic charismatic renewal movement (with the exception of the romantic part).

Very few novels have prologues that grab me by the neck and keep me riveted up to the last page. Coehlo's prologue to 'By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept' does that, and I would buy his book just for the first page. Actually the prologue is the epilogue.

His is a very Catholic yet anti-Catholic book. It submits that the Virgin Mary and her maternal power are not merely a proof of the feminine side of God, but that Mary is the Goddess Herself, juskupu! And through his hypnotic lyricism, Coehlo makes you believe it.

Mysterious and profound, ambitious and unpredictable, this work I will remember for a very long time. My only qualm is that I would encounter near the end a classic O. Henry story I know by heart. Its usage was very appropriate but I was kind of disappointed.

Now I may be a fool but I cannot accept what Coehlo wants me to accept. Mary as Goddess? Aren't all women the feminine side of God? How can a creature of God be God? Weren't we taught that God is neither male nor female, but was called 'He' and 'Father' just the same, perhaps to emphasize His authority?

Nevertheless, By the River…, the title of which is incidentally inspired by the first line of Psalm 137, reminds me of one prayer I strive to pray everyday. It's the closest thing I can get to Mary-as-God, the Prayer to Our Lady of All Nations.

It goes this way: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, send now Your Spirit over the earth. Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of all nations, that they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war. May the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary, be our Advocate. Amen."

I quote the explanatory note verbatim from a reproduction of the estampita dated July 2, 1951: "From 1945 to 1959 a woman in Amsterdam, Ida Peerdeman, received messages in which Mary states that she wants to be addressed 'in these Our times' as 'the Lady of All Nations.'

"On May 31, 1996, the public veneration of the Mother of God under this title was officially authorized by the two bishops of Haarlem (the Netherlands). Our Lady also requests the official recognition of her vocation as 'Coredemtrix, Mediatrix and Advocate,' promising that 'The Lady of All Nations will then give peace, true peace to the world.'

In the official image of this devotion, a rather wide-eyed "Mary appears standing before her Son's Cross, to which she is inseparably and painfully united, and she gives the above prayer to the visionary. From Mary's open hands the three rays of 'grace, redemption and peace' stream down upon all nations. These gifts emerge from the Cross of Christ, and she promises to grant them to everyone who says this prayer daily before a crucifix or this image.

"The meaning of 'who once was Mary,' the Lady of All Nations explains herself: '…many people have known Mary just as Mary. Now, however, in this new era, which is beginning now, I wish to be the Lady of All Nations. Everybody will understand this.'

The Montinolas have taken it upon themselves to spread this rather unusually-worded devotion. They can be reached at P.O. Box (8) 814 Dasmarinas Village, 1222 Makati City, the Philippines. Fax (63-2) 8445572.


5.27.2003

Tempus Fugit

That's what columnist Adrian Cristobal uses when he wants to say, 'Time flies.' It's the gravitas or lordliness lent by Latin, you know. Just a couple of days ago, I was complaining of extreme humidity and copious sweating. Now everything is sopping wet and there's flooding on the road because the rain has been pouring in continuous torrents the whole day. The humming it made "became another form of silence," to plagiarize Gabriel Garcia Marquez a bit.

There are five crazy news stories I have read and heard lately:

1. A young man drowns in one of the water reservoirs of the metro and his body is yet to be recovered. If you're not careful about your tap, you might be drinking the essence of a human being.

2. Two pairs of male and female actors, including that Ilonggo guy in the PLDT ad, consent to do a naked acting workshop and complain after finding out that they were being videotaped. This is so confusing. Did they mean they weren't aware there were cameras? Is this another case of Jojo Veloso's hidden camera?

3. Extraconstitutionally deposed former president Erap declares that he is still the president. Ano ito, April Fool's Day in May?

4. Loi Ejercito finds herself entering Malacanang for the first since the former First Family's disgraceful exit. Despite Erap Estrada, or because of him, I've always looked at Dr. Loi as somewhat sainted that I cannot bring myself to say a bad word against her. Nonetheless, this item is weird.

5. Congress approves a Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Day. My personal message: You are all so uncool.

It's fun to do a Joe Guevarra (Manila Bulletin columnist) sometimes.

5.27.2003

D Gr8est Luv of Ol

There’s something awfully wrong with that hit song The Greatest Love of All, popularized by George Benson and Whitney Houston.

The melody is beautiful and inspiring and Whitney Houston’s rendition is especially brilliant but, to tell the truth, the lyrics has made me feel kind of guilty for as long as I was singing it uncritically. Deep inside me, I knew the song was contradicting something, particularly the heart of what Jesus was preaching.

The song is, to put it very kindly, a very divergent interpretation of love and loving.

While it’s true that we need an amount of self-love or self-esteem (which according to Maslowe, is the highest in man’s hierarchy of needs) before we are able to love others, our ability to love others does not depend on how much we love ourselves, but rather, on how much we have lost ourselves in order that others may live and be loved.

Christ demonstrated this kind of love on the Cross, a brand of love that means dying from oneself, dying for others. It is, of course, illogical, ridiculous, absurd in the thinking of the world, but it is the only kind of love that touches us to the core of our being, it is the only kind of love capable of converting souls.

The true followers of Jesus Christ have known, practiced and preached this kind of love through the ages. What would bind together such diverse personalities as Maximillan Kolbe, Mother Teresa, Saint Damien of Hawaii, etc., etc., but a reckless abandonment of self-regard in order that God may fill them up with His brand of love, one that is capable of transcending one’s own needs and wants for the sake of others,’ one that is sacrificial?

Now this is not to insinuate that I have personally achieved such level of loving (far from it), but every serious Christian must at least strive towards an incremental perfection of this kind of love. Every serious Christian must at least be willing to serve others without anticipating a cache of earthly rewards, although paradoxically the Christian life is full of rewards. Every serious Christian must know what unconditional love - and unconditional forgiveness - mean, and the rigors of struggle associated with them, which could take a lifetime.

The apostle James learned this central lesson the hard way. An ambitious and perhaps brash-tempered fisherman, he harbored a not-so-secret desire to be awarded with the best seat near The Throne, using his mother, no less, as go-between. He was slapped with what would become a classic line in salvation history, “Those who want to be first shall be last.”

No one can sugar-coat this brand of loving and be called a Christian. By this you shall know who are false prophets and self-proclaimed messiahs, by this you’ll be able to glean the wheat from the weed, cull the sheep from the goats. An anthropocentric shift of loving should always be very telling. Christ’s brand of living and loving is what makes Christianity seemingly hard and exacting; it's what renders the road to eternal life less traveled, aside from being full of thorns and not very-well paved.

But it is the only sort of love that makes life on earth worth it - one that gives life meaning, a sense of mission and fulfillment. And I’m afraid it is the only gate pass honored in heaven.

And it persists and shall persist against all odds because it is the only kind of love fueled not by man’s effort, intellect or merit but by God’s gift of boundless, sacrificial love, which, in my book, is the greatest love of all.

7.25.2001

Media Diet


I'm afraid I'm a nerd.

I start my work skimming through the Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, Jan. 2003. I leaf through a paper by Carl Goldberg titled, 'Fanatic Hatred and Violence in Contemporary America.'

I quote the abstract verbatim: "The paper is a social psychological and psychoanalytic examination of collective violence in the US in which fanatic hatred and sheer destructiveness are the central operating principles. The primary character structure of who's involved in fanatic violence are shown to be people who were raised in authoritarian-oriented backgrounds, who find themselves marginal and "unnecessary" persons in postmodern American society."

Gaad, this danged paper is talking about me!

It's Monday. Too early to be profoundly pissed off. I may sound a bit effeminate to you, but believe it or not, if gays are not looking at me with a certain degree of prurient interest, I actually manage to get by with suspicious once-overs from the few who are ostensibly female. I wonder what they think; I hope they think I'm normal.

Now let's get down to business. You might want to know what makes me tick and I'll answer right off the bat that I'd love any material that offers me new ideas, anything that urges me to think out of the box. Despite my conservative-by-choice stance, I'm liberal at the core. I'm always eager to know how other people view things from their own bird's eye or worm's eye standpoint. I am compassionate enough to listen to their side and open-minded enough to want to learn what I don't know. Yes, I do change my opinions to a certain extent.

This naturally makes me an avid fan (of the back issues) of the following magazines: Granta, Story, Harper's, Utne Reader, Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, GQ, Time, Newsweek. I also dig such publications as National Geographic and the Lonely Planet (now the Pilot Guides). I wish I could read on a regular basis the Jesuit publication, America. Of course, I read the Bible daily, supplemented by the reflections in the Word Among Us.

On the local front, I watch out for interesting articles and features in the broadsheets and their Sunday magazines and try to see what's cooking with the 40 or so columnists/writers I watch out for, with emphasis on writers. I also watch out for the latest work of local literary luminaries. I would name names if you'd insist.

This should be my bottom line: I seldom watch TV.

I'm normal, aren't I?


5.26.2003

Ütne's Reader


That I am an (irregular) Ütne reader should be telling enough. Ütne, formerly Ütne Reader, is one of the most liberal-minded and provocative yet intelligently perceptive publications I've ever encountered. The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based publication provides alternative views on anything and everything.

I perused a copy of the Jan.-Feb. 2003 issue just this Sunday - in between Paulo Coehlo's 'By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept' (my judgment later) and Carrie Fisher's unevenly hilarious 'Postcards from the Edge'. In just this issue alone, I get to read about the life of a gay couple raising kids borrowed from dysfunctional families. I hear the voice of wilderness enthusiasts fighting for the right "to enjoy nature gratis." It's here where I get to read one-sentence epiphanies like this one taken from the psychological essay, 'Why We Love War and What We Can Do to Prevent It Anyway': "Portraying humans as basically hating war might actually hinder the important work of deterring it." It is posited that, "(i)n accepting and understanding this hard truth, we may be better equipped to bring peace on earth."

The magazine is the Readers' Digest of the alternative press, culling articles from here, there and everywhere. It's here where every popular wisdom is routinely questioned using quotes gleaned from surprisingly eclectic sources - from the distant past to the state-of-the-art. In an essay about the modern conception of time, arguing that the clock is running modern life, I have stumbled into Bertrand Russell: "There is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous. Aristotle: "..nature requires us not only to be able to work well but also to idle well."

Strangely I also encounter Dante's Inferno: "Abandon all hope, (ye who enter the gate of hell)."

I read a review devoted to the book "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. To lift a quote from the book, "…(T)he past and the future are not real - just projections of current fears and hopes - but nonetheless dwell in their illusory realm, endlessly rehashing past error, endlessly anticipating future goods, and running the Now entirely." Side by side with this review is an essay quoting Meister Johannes Eckhart, the German theologian and mystic (1260-1327): "There exists only the present instant…a Now which always and without end is itself new." These ancient and new ideas (aren't they connected? Eckhart?) must be playwright Jonathan Larson's inspiration for Rent.

Then there's a piece voicing out against corporate copyright deals and the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act in 1998, which, I read, grants 20-year extension to existing individual and institutional copyrights. It is argued that with the ensuing copyright deal, "while providing incentive for artists and inventors to create, may actually choke off the supply of shared culture…crucial both to the Internet and to creative enterprise…"

An entire section is devoted to the World Wide Web, ten years hence. These are the stories that caught my attention: The use of personalization software in surfing the Internet is killing serendipity. Internet-based indy media reinvents the news, away from the PR- and government-controlled mainstream. The advent of blogs may pave the way for democracy even in the most tightly controlled Islamic states. Argentina survives in the middle of political chaos through grassroots-initiated, community wide vegetable gardens. Contemporary museums are redefining urban landscapes from Bilbao to LA to Milwaukee.

The essay that touched me the most is the one by Sikeena Karmali, a Kenyan-born Canadian citizen born of Indian parents who practice Islam with Hindu-Buddhist aspects. Her argument: The East-West divide is a myth.

"[C]ertainly it is not set in stone, this age-old, heavy-handed notion of East versus West. It has been invented, like everything else in the world.

"The self is the orienting principle of the West, perhaps even of modernity as a whole. All things - community, the nation, religion, spirituality, even God - are subordinated to the individual, which is the highest form of good. If we take a cursory glance at contemporary Western media, we find that the self is the supreme subject of conversation - my mind, my body, my home, my fashion, my spirit. There seems tobe an earnest endeavor - in talk shows like Oprah and sitcoms like Friends, in the proliferation of lifestyle coaches, personal trainers, nutritionists, and shrinks - to perfect the individual.

"The East, with its heavy hand of tradition, functions through concensus. Loyalties and duties are ascribed by birth. Community, and not self, is the orienting principle. If we even peek at the curret social affliction of the East, we find communities fighting each other, sacrificing the individual, sacrificing the ethics of a good God, using religion as their rallying cry.

"When did this splitting apart take place? If we accept a divided world, then we must also consider a divided self. It is here that I find difficulty, that I find myself rejecting the divisions of East and West. Here the thought stops and will not flow. I know that I am whole, integrated."

I heard an intellectual detonation when she finishes her essay with this line: "There can be no East without West and no West without East."

It is in Ütne where I truly experience the joys of freedom of expression. Their writers notice the darnedest things, from the plight of transgendered people to the delight of eating oatmeal. They bring me back to my days as a college student when, at a time when mainstream media refused to notice the very poor (circa 1987), I would read an account of a beggar written by my classmate, a sosyal colegiala. There's of course a preponderance of leftist leanings but I can't complain - these provide the necessary reciprocal to all the facts and ideas that mainstream media bombard us every minute of the day. To think that I'm allergic to ideologies, even as I can be very dogmatic myself.

Another thing that keeps me reading is, this publication never shies away from ruminating on the eternal verities - beauty, truth, freedom, fate.

Made from "elemental chlorine-free, 80% deinked recycled fiber," founded by Eric Ütne, edited by a dude named Jay Walljasper and supported by carefully selected sponsors, Ütne makes me feel somewhat virtuous and fairly informed.


5.26.2003

32. What’s Ailing Philippine Business?


PDI’s resident news analyst has an answer to that question which I really, really like: shirking of social responsibility. Amando Doronila recently slapped Philippine business with the right article after the latter took to task media’s perceived abuse of freedom (“sensationalism”) and politicians’ petty politicking in hard times (which I won’t contest).

Doronila hit the jugular for saying (in a different terminology) that business is just as guilty of the sin of self-indulgence. At the first sign of trouble, businesspeople are guilty of massive capital flight, executing it faster than they can say ‘stagflation,’ an observation seconded by many others.

We are all accountable to what’s happening in our country and to whom much is given, much is expected. I would like to believe my officemate when she said she wasn’t impressed by the anti- Erap EDSA 2 people power revolution. It’s because, according to her, we were barking up the wrong tree. It’s business that really running our lives, she said, and it’s business that should be taking the most of the brickbats. Who the hey holds the almighty peso anyway but big business? she fulminated.

My officemate, who offended me with that tack (not that I’m a businessman), turned out to be making a lot of sense. Money is power and big businesses have a lot of it in their hands to change the world for the better, or at least their part of the world.

From my proletariat perspective, I would be glad to see business lobbying for things other than profit. I wouldn’t mind them bribing politicians for it as long as the intention is clearly benevolent for the rest of us. They are in the position to do so. It is they who have the clout and the awareness of the inner workings of Philippine politics as to whip it into the line of good behavior. Big businessmen, we are told, are connected to each other by some kind of brotherhood. All I’m waiting from them is the resolve to make a difference, to let this most trying of times be their shining moment.

Business is business and it will always be profit-oriented, but surely, it is not without conscience? Perhaps they should listen to that inner voice behind the clinking of gold and silver, a voice that whispers “social responsibility”? A voice that says media and politics do not necessarily exist in exclusive service of business. A voice that says “we are in business to serve, too.”

Perhaps businessmen should take a break from work and once again familiarize themselves with the Protestant work ethic, a Christian work ethic that looks at profit as gift to be stewarded by a good servant. The profit is theirs at the moment, not to be kept in vaults where they are eaten by rust in time, but invested at home anew as a means to let the people they profited so much from, eke out a means of sustenance.

Businesspersons should stop that tasteless practice of tokenism, documented and published yet all over the papers. It’s like government pathetically asking our praise for some cosmetic and palliative job.

Business should submit itself to global market forces instead of - if allegations are to be believed - forming cartels in cahoots with government and colluding on prices to create all sorts of economic crisis at the expense of an impoverished public.

Or at the very least, business and industry should be at the forefront of abiding by the law: paying the right amount of tax, initiating the remediation of an environment they had defiled, observing the minimum wage, acknowledging consumer rights, and so on.

At this juncture, it is important to remind ourselves that the Philippine revolution of 1896 was an initiative not of oppressed fisherfolk and farmers and masons but of the ilustrado - business leaders and native-born intelligentsia. In the face of this fact, how do today’s businesspeople fare? We don't even have antitrust laws!

11.21.2001

3. Hunted Down by Predators
Those Annoying Sales Reps at the Mall


I always run into pleasant surprises whenever I hang out with this friend of mine whom I shall call Prince Serendip. Well, not today.

We were walking briskly in Greenbelt Mall when suddenly we felt the need to stop and smell the proverbial roses. Roses came in the form of a tenor and a pianist. They were performing for a modest crowd in casual wear who were seated on white monoblocs. It was such an unexpected, anachronistic sight, considering how we associate arias and stuff to evening gowns, grand chandeliers, black ties and tuxedos. We positioned ourselves upstairs near the car park and viewed the acculturation of the masses from the ledge where a faux waterfall gargled.

Then on our way to our business, the unbelievable happened. We ran into this well-groomed female agent of a firm offering free guaranteed-seat movie tickets if we agreed to rush off to this new building in Ayala Ave. She told us the promo involved inserting a key (literal) that would open the door (figurative) to nouveau riche status: A house-and-lot in Ayala Alabang and, like Bob Barker of The Price is Right barks, “A NEW CAAAR!!!”

I winced at the rudeness of being waylaid on my way to an appointment (no matter how feigned the appointment) but I was certainly tempted by the lure of mammon. By contrast, Prince Serendip took everything coolly like a cucumber. Understandably a prince has no need for awful things like barya (loose change).

We agreed to sit and fill out a form just the same, just in case this was for real and we might win a prize or two. The form inquired about my salary, among other essentials like my phone number.

I felt some amount of caution. “Are there any strings attached?” I sort of protested.

“Absolutely none. You won’t be asked to buy or sell anything,” a male assistant suddenly assured us, who popped out of nowhere like a bird of prey. Then the lady reminded us of our free movie tickets to calm us down.

But when we reached the stage whereby we were asked that we be accompanied to Ayala Ave., we begged off as gracefully as we could (I hope), although I though calculated rudeness was in order. The woman raised her two eyebrows to the stratosphere and told us she’d just give us a call tomorrow.

We realized we were able to extricate ourselves from the tight situation at the soonest possible time. One day after, I was to learn from my fellow suckers for freebies (gullible officemates who’d been through it) that the promotional gimmick necessitated the purchase of an insurance policy, ha ha.

There was an option to say no, they reported. But then who would say no after being bribed and publicly embarrassed with gifts?

Apparently, there’s no such thing as free lunch, let alone free movie ticket. Apparently, a personable, highly motivated, aggressive character is an asset to any organization.

What is not very apparent is that, inventive rudeness and artful guile are not an advantage. We hate it when salespeople beat around the bush before getting down to brass tacks, making their prefabricated pitch. We hate it all the more when we are cut to the chase by grabbing us by our collars and hostaged by Osama bin Ladens in dapper ties. A captive market need not be traumatized by marketing terrorism. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Life is too short but there’s always a time for courtesy.” Yes, it pays to be courteous even in strictly business matters.

After the attempted invasion of privacy among other criminal offenses to our persons, Prince Serendip and I repaired to nearby Luk Yuen and ordered a glass of iced tea apiece. On our way out, Prince Serendip gasped at the sight of a gigantic pink meringue at Dulcinea while I focused my eyes on the beautiful people taking their siesta with their chocolate y churros. I had to keep my faith that people are basically good and the world is still such a beautiful place.

9.2000

100. A Case for a Four-Day Workweek

Some people say, if there's such thing as absenteeism, then there should be presenteeism. Presenteeism is defined as the workaholic’s counterpart to habitual delinquency. (It’s amazing how Americans invent words and rule the English language.) Presenteeism is an outmoded concept - a work ethos, if it may be called that, hinged on the assumption that one’s presence at work necessarily translates to efficiency and productivity.

Real-world observations, however, show that an employee’s constant presence in his cubicle or workstation does not necessarily translate into productivity, efficiency and quality work. Quantity does not always mean quality.

But here in the Third World, we tend to think that things like “downshifting” and a reduced workweek are just amusing First World predilections. We think presenteeism is just fine. Indeed, the Filipino labor situation, it has been observed elsewhere in an editorial, is summed up this way: “When we Pinoys are abroad, we won’t have second thoughts about getting a second job just to earn extra bucks. At home, we tend to scrimp and make do with what we earn.”

Either way, we try to make sure we’re there all the time, always present. We don’t care as much whether we’re stressed out or courting certain health risks. Because of our bloated unemployment rate, we’re more than willing to work, we slave it off.

We are not so keen on the Aristotelian concept of work as a satisfying thing – a very Western notion. So it's not surprising if we do not demand ergonomic chairs; it is only natural to contract repetitive strain injury and carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s the job we have chosen, so we must accept the attendant risks, expect no hazard pay. A sabbatical leave is unimaginable. A leisurely job is synonymous to being lazy. The concept of a ‘bum’ or what they call ‘willfully unemployed’ is quite alien to us. In the US, exceeding a maximum of 40 hours of work per week in a given job is illegal. In a postmodern country like the Netherlands, it is reported that the Dutch are so spoiled that the system encourages people not to work; if a Dutchman goes to work, it's because he doesn’t want to be idle.

By contrast, the local situation fosters a sorry atmosphere where businessmen and corporations view themselves as philanthropists, and consequently employees view themselves as a charity case. The philosophy is summed up in the arrogant line “Binigyan ka na nga ng trabaho, gusto mo pa ng suweldo.” In this way of thinking, employees are reduced as objects to be used, perpetually groveling and sniveling before their ‘owners,’ if they are not being perceived as ingrates.

But I really doubt a lot whether we are really immune to such First World problems as the reduction of workdays. An increasingly technological society – with a surfeit of “technologies of acceleration” - operating under a fierce, if unbalanced competition have exposed us to the same set of conundrums bugging the West for years - i.e., ever since Henry Ford’s assembly line resulted in the division of labor and, consequently, the creation of highly specialized, boring, and repetitive work fit only for machines, and the shift of conceptualization and creative work to the new breed of workers, the managers and supervisors.

It is plain to see that presenteeism robs employees of their lives, competes directly with personal relationships through sheer constraint on connections, and has made nearly obsolete the very concept of neighborhood and community.

With a minimum of 48-hour workweek a mother is robbed of critical quality time with her kids, a husband or wife with his or her spouse. People are unable to give their folks the visit they have been longing to have. Overspent workers expend all the energy they should have spent for tennis or swimming, the garden or the farm, or tending to bonsai tree or pet parrot. We have no time to talk to our neighbors, let alone know their surnames. We couldn’t travel to far-off destinations as we please if it’s not business-related.

Now these are hardly a problem to a loner like me, but who would quarrel with an enhanced life, indeed a life of belonging and connectedness? Who would quarrel with quality of life?

The French and the Germans reportedly have gone out of their way to legislate for a four-day workweek - usually with self-imposed pay cuts, in exchange for a longer vacation – just to accommodate those who would become unemployed through the usual route of downsizing. A lot of Western intellectuals reportedly bat for the creation of not merely jobs, but new careers – work that’s not repetitive and mind-numbing, but meaningful and, needless to say, fulfilling. No doubt these progressive thinkers equally loathe the very concept of presenteeism.

Recently a ruckus caused by Sec. Emilia Boncodin’s proposal for a four-day workweek raised the hackles of labor groups. “Why reduce the number of working days, why not raise the salary grade instead,” they asked, “when we have to contend with rising prices constantly?” They have a valid point.

But a four-day workweek under the same pay scale would also rid employees of their on-the-job expenses (chiefly food and travel), which they now could re-channel to other important things. After all, an invaluable commodity – quality time – has been paid for but freed up, in favor of the more essential things in life.

10.4.2002

48. Is Casualized Labor a Fair Deal?

It surprises me no end that nobody is taking up the cause anymore against former Senator Ernesto Herrera’s bill mandating the casualization of labor, signed into law by then-President Corazon Aquino. If I remember it right, it was only Ms. Rina David who wrote a column attacking this wide practice. Where are the noisy activists when their voice is needed?

It’s still an issue that is very much valid. I know a lot of people who were, and are, severely affected by this disastrous policy. I saw how they endlessly shuffled from one company to another after spending a little below six months on the job. Or how they extended beyond that term without the benefit of regularization; their expired contracts were simply renewed over and over again.

Apparently, this arrangement ingeniously created a legal loophole, benefiting manufacturers and the service sector most especially, as they are able to do away with the usual employee benefits. But for those who are adversely affected, the bill smacks of plain exploitation.

If the spirit of this law is to give the chance for gainful employment to the most number of workers while protecting business interests, I now question its wisdom. I saw how people in between jobs went unemployed for long periods of time, whether or not they are being managed by their respective agencies. They are made to be helpless, always at a loss on where to find their next job, especially because an increasing number of younger and more impressionable hires are ready for the taking, year in and year out. While it’s true that the arrangement offers at least a job experience to many young people, they are oftentimes paid the minimum wage, too small to allow them to move on after their services are terminated. They are, in effect, stripped of their right to join trade unions and, more importantly, their right to career advancement. Business is protected but workers’ rights are swept up like dirt. Now I no longer wonder why Sen. Herrera lost without mercy in the last senatorial elections.

Mr. Herrera, we’ve been had by the bill you have authored. You were once a formidable name in the labor sector but you have betrayed us with your monumental mistake. You might want to redeem yourself by lobbying for your pet bill’s amendment? And Tita Cory, how could you have glossed over such a bill; you’ve made the poor feel further alienated.

We lowly employees also have dreams and the desire to improve our station in life. We also have the right to profit from our labor. There’s no need for employers to be afraid of us; the things that benefit us will redound ultimately to their own benefit. What can be more productive than a happy, well-motivated workforce, indeed a more stable society? I understand that this bill implicitly was born of the need to counteract left-leaning groups’ strategy of sowing discontent among workers. But this bill didn’t solve the problem; I’m afraid it all the more heated up a social volcano to eruptive proportions. This bill, if I may appropriate leftist sloganeering, is pro-capitalist and anti-labor.

Everyone is amenable to the need for protecting business interests, especially in the face of stiff global competition, but please, not at the expense of the poor and the powerless. I hope and pray that our collective conscience is piqued enough as to initiate the steps needed for the abolition of this policy.

1.2.2002

56. It’s a Deal (The Essay that Will Never Make It to the Business Page)


In a world run by business, someone observed, the spirit of service is lost.

True enough, if you find yourself penniless in an emergency hospital, you wouldn’t be accommodated until you produced a cash deposit. If you use a good road, you pay the corresponding toll fee; high quality comes with a high price; good service, more so. Service has been commercialized.

In the US and elsewhere, there has been a raging debate whether to treat health, in particular, as a public good or a commodity. One letter-sender in an Australian medical journal conscientiously asks, “Do we believe that we service patients (patiens meaning the sufferer), who by the fact of having an illness, are vulnerable? or informed customers who know what they should buy from the doctor?”

The problem, if I may annotate, is not that we need to pay up; of course basic services mean huge capital outlay. The problem is that our lives are always treated like a business deal so that we end up feeling less than human and more of a commodity. We are viewed as spare parts of a vast machinery, dispensable at a moment’s notice. Our existence is seen in terms of where we are in the economic equation, according to how we are situated in a pyramid or a hierarchy of values where the topmost position means having the most money.

We enter the university with our mind set on how we’re going to carve our own share of the pie, and how we’d be able to feed the industry and be swallowed up whole in the corporate world.

We don’t go to work because we love our job; we’re just after the salary. We run for political office because of the perks. We are lured into show biz because of fame and fortune.

Our society has reached the point where playing ball games has become a career because, face it, they're even more financially rewarding than being president or senator.

When we are not working, we find ways to spend our disposable income. We hardly get entertained for free – movies, CDs, books and magazines, computer games, and outings all have a high tag price. Traveling on the road, we witness a long march of billboards pushing things in our face. We are bombarded by the same intrusive advertisements on the radio, TV and just about every medium so that nothing is left sacred anymore. Our public and personal space has become one giant invasive airtime and advertising space. The trimedia, which cry Censorship! all the time, is guilty of censorship themselves when they shun news that won’t sell. We are all Mr. Trumans traipsing on a world of make-believe spun around the finger of a giant chaebol or conglomerate.

Basic goods and services – water, electricity, fuel, telecommunications – come with an ever-skyrocketing price so that living becomes suffocating and deadly.

Gee, even dying is expensive! Visit someone you know who’s in mourning and wonder whether you should be commiserating about the funeral bills instead.

Food production is dictated by market prices. Medicines and technological know-how are patented in aid of profit. Scientific research grants are dependent on what commerce deems top priority. The nadir is when we patent mother nature herself – scientists stealing ancient tribal knowledge and forest specimens and claim them to be theirs, theirs, theirs.

Thieving is legalized and made lucrative, and real owners and discoverers – most of whom have no thoughts about private ownership - end up “infringing” on their own stuff. The same goes for silly copyright laws that make Freddie Aguilar infringing on the patent of his own song and Madonna’s face being used to sell condoms without her tacit approval. Try to listen to the Material Girl herself protesting about this commercial phenomenon and realize the depth we have plunged into.

So-called art is manufactured with a view to how much the market would lap it up like hotcakes. Law and justice, supposedly blindfolded, are biased against the poor on account of their inability to pay the lawyer’s fee. Even religious organizations are run like they need to earn. And it’s no accident that big-time crimes are big businesses, too, totally tax-free – kidnap for ransom, terrorism, drugs, the flesh trade, smuggling, illegal gambling, illegal logging. If we are not watching, our lawmakers may deem prostitution/white slavery, child trafficking, and pedophilia legal. Other more ‘liberal’ countries have done so, on the pretext that running these crimes like a business enterprise opens them up for government regulation, which in time becomes synonymous to protection.

Thus if the dollar exchange rate shoots up to the sky and the stock-market plummets to record lows, our lives are properly nervous, profoundly impacted. The globalization of trade has further ensured that we’d be leading a life of constant uncertainty, totally left at the mercy of the fickle-minded market.

And we when die, like already mentioned, we think our woes on money matters would end, but death turns out to be a major source of headache as well, worse than making a living. Funeral parlors scramble for their latest account; they make a living on the casualties of death. Heirs fight tooth and nail in court over insurance, stocks, trust funds, and real estate left by the deceased.

When I was but an embryo. I thought I was conceived in love. Today, if I’m not very careful, I could get cloned without my express stipulation. In a world run by business, the gospel of love is debunked in favor of Profit, the new deity. Man is reduced to a cash cow. Life is milked dry to death.

Can’t we make good business by being good?

9.2.2001

74. On the Mechanization of Boredom



Angst, anomie, alienation. We all know these are repetitive work’s adverse effects that impinge on the personal, social, and ultimately economic level. Advances in technology have indeed consigned much of boring labor to mechanization and outright automation, but there remain certain jobs that require human intelligence and yet prove to be just as repetitive. Look around your workplace and see how much of the workload is more fitting for machines and yet computing and mechatronics experts have yet to invent the right actuators and fuzzy logic systems because, basically, the human brain’s complexity remains out of the reach of robotics, computing and artificial intelligence.

It’s no news either that automation can be a bane. It eliminates jobs and displaces people. It renders the already underemployed practically unemployed. But then, automation also gets rid of the more dehumanizing jobs available; whatever alienating effect it has created is softened by the fact that humans don’t have to do alienating work. And in the long run, machines are more cost-effective to purchase. Complex and costly personnel problems and overhead are done away with. Machines are more reliable, robust and efficient; they can be expected to churn out work products and services that are uniform and consistently of high quality.

Not a few people are allergic to this replacement arrangement - or shall we say displacement? Understandably, who would not balk at pre-recorded answering machines, canned laughter, and automated tellers that ask for PINs?

Well, it’s true that machines can never replace immediate human interaction, together with all the feel and smell of a human being. But I, for one, am not happy either to see people working on the graveyard shift, factory workers keeping themselves wide awake at unholy hours, construction workers exposing themselves to tragic accidents, traffic enforcers inhaling all the toxic fumes on the road, firemen and linemen on duty, farmers subjecting themselves to harmful levels of UV radiation.

Unlike a lot of people I know, I’ve learned not to begrudge it when I call the information hotline of whatever and get something like this for an answer: “If you pressed 1, press 5. If you pressed 2, press 6.” (That’s a line from one hilarious comic strip by a cartoonist named Glasbergen.) The point is, automation can do more good than harm.

American poet Edwin Markham’s (1852-1940) poem, The Man with the Hoe, comes to mind, a favorite poem among labor groups, I heard. The thing to say here is, Markham would not have lamented the oppressive forces that shaped the farmer into an ugly gnarl had he lived in the time of computer-aided hydroponics, greenhouse farming and the host of modern farming implements. In turn, we would have been consuming farm produce with a lesser dose of guilt (if at all).

A more transcendent view of work holds that labor is man’s God-given duty to transform the world into a state that transforms man. I’ve always held that work is God’s punishment for Adam’s disobedience and so, work today is necessarily punishing – tedious, boring, hopelessly hard. Work is a consequence of Adam’s sin (human pride), one of the defining “limitations of the fall.”

This idea can only lead us into thinking that, for any worker to find happiness and contentment at work, there has to be meaning behind the toil. There has to be the knowledge that one is working for a purpose, that one is a participant in this great enterprise to change the world. And if one finds himself in a work that’s not only a tiresome toil but a meaningless drudgery, that kind of work must be left at once and consigned to the power of mechanization.

We must work more and more toward the automation of dehumanizing work and find us jobs that would give us meaning, jobs that would restore our inherent pride and dignity as human beings. These jobs will be most likely creative types, in keeping with our divine nature (i.e., children of the ultimate Creator).

Surely this idealistic vision cost jobs in our less idealistic situation of high unemployment rate and slave wages. But this is no excuse to keep the status quo. The abolition of anything that can be done away with mechanization is an eventuality that is necessary, side by side with the need to find better forms of employment of people.

Who is the human being who would find joy in packing ten thousand cans each day of his life? Nobody but the idiot savant, and I am not being disparaging of the handicapped. What worker would be dismayed by a variety of tasks and a work that fosters personal and professional fulfillment? Not one, except perhaps the catatonic. If the thankless task of plying the streets in the cold of the night or the heat of the sun just to hawk candies and cigarettes can be dealt with the use of a vending machine, why not?

Let’s face it: Machines can only do so much; they can only go so far. But human beings - there’s no limit to what our species can do. Artificial intelligence will only be artificial, who’s afraid of it? It’s human intelligence that should frighten any form of artifice. We thus have every reason to invest in automation. Everybody deserves a better job description.


2.21.2002

80. Sooo Out
‘Palakasan’ System in Government Service

Why the heck do certain practices in government service persist in this day and age?

A friend of mine who’s been employed in a government agency for years was over the phone one day, aghast. He said he had been encouraged to apply for a promotion because the Personnel saw for him a chance of making it to a higher position with his qualifications. And so he did as he was told - apply for the position, show up for the panel interview.

After another set of interviews and a long, torturous wait, he was told flat out that he couldn’t make it. The alibi? He can not possibly rise up the corporate ladder by leaps of five levels or grades. Fuming, my friend checked with someone from another government agency who had a similar experience. The latter was privy to such rules and she seethed, “There exists no such provision. It was all a matter of management discretion.”

My friend then confronted the Personnel staff who had invited him to apply for the position. The staff failed to produce the pertinent document that could explain away his failure to make it.

But this is not the worst news yet. Another opportunity knocked at his door and like the first time, he gave it try - only to be told that his salary grade is the highest possible level he can go. It was clear: Advancement is no longer possible in his cul-de-sac of a division.

To be sure, there are other options open, like vacancies in other divisions. But he has lost the guts to try it the third or fourth time around. The experience simply traumatized him.

The temerity of these people involved in this unfair game! They have unwittingly ganged up on one poor employee, giving him the feeling of a world closing down on him. It was like saying he can kiss his dream of career advancement goodbye. He felt like a bonsai, snipped in the bud, his development as an employee and a person stunted, arrested, retarded.

He was obviously given nothing but alibis. For things to make sense, there must be a better reason. And the more plausible reason, the poor guy would discover from somebody else in the organization, was this: His competitor for the position had a more formidable backer in the selection committee or in the upper echelons of power. Dirty, old politics of palakasan.

What’s even more unnerving, my friend would find out, is that this was no isolated case. He would hear that at least somebody else in the agency had been in a similar quandary. The difference is that the Civil Service Commission intervened after they smelled a dead rat. They reportedly called the attention of the agency about the unseemly rise of someone from a position so low to a managerial grade. Guess what? This particular employee allegedly had a top-ranking officer as his backer. He almost made it, were it not for the CSC’s restraining action.

It was a bad thing the outlandish promotion didn’t push through. Had it been pushed through without scrutiny, some people sympathetic to this case was poised to make some noise and bring to the fore other cases of unjust promotion and improper job screening in this agency.

I can only express my sympathy for my poor friend. I myself had fallen victim to this kind of outdated style of doing things. Like my friend felt, I, too, felt used. I felt like having been twirled around somebody’s finger, only to end up with nothing - just so that it can be said an effort was made to seek the right person for the job. It’s shameless. It’s not right. It’s unfair.

In his helplessness my friend sought the advice of a priest, who could only console him, “Forgive and accept it. It’s the harsh reality.” My friend conceded by quoting Stephen Covey: “We can only change the things within our sphere of control” and began reciting a revised mantra: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, but the courage to face those I can.”

For once, why can’t we hire or promote people solely on the basis of their merits? For so long, we lowly employees are crying out for succor from this gross, brazen violation, right in government service yet. Let’s stop making a farce of democracy is democracy is what we want.

3.5.2002

82. Bombed, Scared


Life in the P.I. is freaking me out. I was on my way to the Enterprise Center in Ayala when I saw men in yellow suits fiddling with the ornamental plants in the vicinity. They’re certainly not gardeners in fancy outfits, weren’t they? Geez, it’s the police bomb squad!

What if they found something that might actually explode within inches of my life? The horror, the horror of it all. All I ever wanted was to make a living, and here I was, being threatened to turn mincemeat in nanoseconds. The Norwegian printmaker Edvard Munch would have had a new version of his well-known ‘howling face’ work, The Scream.

To those responsible for this abominable irresponsibility, listen: This is not the USA. Certainly not the World Trade Center. You and your felonious ilk are barking up the wrong tree, scaring the wrong people.

I’m a witness to the various injustices being committed against workers and the harshness of life in a competitive workplace. I, too, am crying out for change, but please, not in such a cowardly way. We workers in capitalist Makati are scraping the bottom just to make both ends meet. We don’t need reality checks. Our unsung struggles are so real enough they are surreal.

We rush through our morning ablutions to beat the rush hour. We are harassed by the traffic and elbowed at MRT, our intimate belongings inspected by burly and surly security guards and ferocious German shepherds. We gasp in horror at our skyrocketing bills. We worry about the future of our families. We spend sleepless nights hounded by thoughts of migration.

Then we report for work late, lorded over by our bosses. We are told to meet the monthly quota, beat the deadline, and focus on the bottom line. Our very survival is threatened by our competitors’ performance. We are furious about the subtle violence of slave wages, contractual work, union busting and all sorts of unjust labor practices.

Then you scare us with bomb threats. The last thing we need is a sick joke. We are terrorized enough.

But if you think you scare us, you’re mistaken. We are more afraid of the people who depend on us. We, the nation’s workforce...our lives are not entirely ours, that’s why we’re so afraid we say yes to ridiculously onerous insurance policies and pyramiding scams. And if you have a member of your family who works, you should know better than to hurt your own.

Thanks to you, everybody is a harassed mall-goer - eyeballing suspicious policemen at every doorstep, a hesitant tourist who’d rather visit Rwanda, or a businessman frantic over a capital flight. Thanks to you, every heartbeat is an impending coronary and myocardial infarction, every leg turns into soggy spaghetti.

I am hereby constrained to say an exorcist’s prayer: “May you drink your own poison, may you step on your own deadly traps.”



3.24.2002

83. Hoy, You're Stealing from the Company!

Face it. We all steal from the company in one way or another – whenever we send a text message, spend too much time in the bathroom, have an extra coffee break, get a tiny paper clip for personal use, do our resume in the office computer and even print them – the nerve, surf the Internet for purposes other than what’s necessary, use the phone for personal messages. The litany of our picadilloes is 10 kilometers long.

Of course this is not to say these offenses cannot be undone and honesty is impossible. All I’m saying is, we do it not because we want to ‘get even’ with a company whom we perceive to be wringing the last drop of blood extractable from us. We do it not because we want to pull a fast one over our employers. Of course there are people who couldn’t help but wish the company ill – and even this cannot always be invalid, either. But the point is that, we ‘steal’ office supplies and official time because it’s convenient for us.

My personal policy about corporate stealing is: Avoid it at all cost. If that’s hard to follow strictly, I make sure I replace what I’ve used up in the same exact species. If that’s still not possible, like using the Xerox machine to photocopy a birth certificate, I repay what I took by doing good works, working extra without getting paid, volunteering knowledge and skills outside my job description, helping out in tasks below my competencies, even reporting for Sunday as needed. Call it over-scrupulousness or being prissy, but this is better than guilt, I believe.

Of course there are actions that will always be considered forms of embezzlement and are therefore always wrong: asking somebody else to swipe the time card for you, carting away office equipment in the dead of the night or in broad daylight, reporting nonexistent hours as official work hours, and so on. If you are this type of person, then you ought to be ashamed, you need to ackowledge that you committed a major transgression, repent of it, and repair the damage - or else I'd pray that you be put behind bars.

But this is not to say employees have a monopoly of stealing. Companies, too, are guilty of stealing from their employees whenever they break the Labor Code. They rob employees whenever they deprive them of the right to a safe workplace, or access to nutritious food, potable water and sanitary restroom, and – most companies forget this – the right to personal advancement. Indeed, companies rob the employee of his very life whenever they are hell-bent in making profits without any regard for the employee’s wellbeing. They steal the human dignity of a worker whenever he is treated like a machine, a low-life, or a beast of burden.

Now, who is stealing from whom? The company and its employees are indeed one, but only when there’s a presupposition of mutual respect for each other’s rights.

Having blathered through all that drivel, let me state the disclaimer that honesty remains the best policy: it is still best to observe a black-and-white kind of honesty at all times. A person who is honest in small things can be expected to be honest in big things. It remains the right thing to remain blameless and untainted even when you are being ripped off and scalped, whether you are the employer or the employed.

5.9.2002

30. Why Don’t We Try the Policy of “Equal Opportunity”?


We Filipinos fancy ourselves to be the most exuberant (and licentious) democracy in Asia yet why do we still have to catch on with such catchphrases as “equal opportunity” and “affirmative action”?

My experience as a job applicant at the US Embassy was a major eye-opener for me. For starters, the application form, I found out, gives a choice whether to declare one’s age or not. What stumped me most, though, was this - the Embassy never requires a 2x2 picture! - something which I was only too willing to give.

How’s that for a lesson in equal opportunity, huh? I have friends who work there and I was given to understand that if the form asks for your ethnicity, it must only be due to a positive reason: “affirmative action.” In interviews, the interviewer never asks your religion as though it matters a lot to the job. If it is asked at all, it is to protect the prospective employee from his culture and belief, vis-a-vis the inevitable occupational issues you are sure to encounter such as food and medical check-ups. Someone reported to me that it’s also illegal to consider as basis for rejection one’s past criminal record.

All this was big deal to me because I’m a veteran job hunter in what I perceive to be a grossly unfair playing field, a field unaccustomed to, and afraid of, real competition.

All we have to do really is to check out the newspaper ads, including PDI’s. That’s all it takes to realize, in particular, that there’s nothing more depressing for the country’s unemployed than to look for gainful employment in the ads.

Much evidence would show that we are an elitist, image-driven, lookist and racist people. Others might say, “What people are not bigoted anyway?” The difference is, we institutionalize this by expressly looking for “personable” applicants, preferably from a top university. We require 2x2 color photos in resumes. If it were an Aeta or an Igorot in G-strings or a handicapped applying, we would most probably faint.

Age discrimination is blatant. I bet your fingers won’t be enough to count the number of ads looking for people below 27 years old in the Manila Bulletin Sunday ads alone.

Nepotism is perfectly acceptable it is actually rampant. If I were also the manager or personnel head, I would admit to readily hiring all my istambay relatives until I solve my family’s unemployment problem.

Corollarilly, the practice of palakasan is equally brazen. We consider recommendations from Senator so-and-so, fraternity brod of this and that, and the mayor of this and that town top priority. Having been referred by someone, especially a big shot or an insider, counts and has much weight.
NBI clearance is oftentimes a must - and it needs to be. Who won’t be paranoid about our crime rate?

But the point is, can a silly clearance certify one’s good moral character? No wonder, we ask for certificates of good moral character, too. Who among us have not sinned as to judge a person by his police record? Apparently none of us have. We’re all scared of criminals no matter if they’re only alleged to be; who wants to work with a marked man? Yet how else can ex-convicts be re-integrated into society?

We are not just lookist, age-ist, racist, elitist and bigoted but patently sexist as well. Let’s troop to SM for prima facie proof - a statistically improbable coincidence of properly bleached, nicely sculpted women who look good in fitting navy blue. We may not bring ourselves to actually grumble about “pleasing personalities,” but our conscience should.

We Filipinos still have lots of mileage to take up on the road to democracy. It’s not that we’re not ready for a more mature democracy. I strongly suspect we really don’t want democracy at all. Look, if the above-mentioned proofs are any indication, we don’t really believe in it.

Let’s stop then calling ourselves a democracy, let alone a strong republic.

11.20.2001

Neo-Nazi Nightmare



If there’s a type of person I despise with Hitlerian revulsion, it’s the neo-Nazi.

A neo-Nazi is someone who has existential superiority as his mindset. He believes that he alone or people like him alone have the right to live – to the exclusion of others whom he looks down upon as inferior.

At its root, the trouble with a neo-Nazi is not that he thinks he is God’s favored creation, but that he doesn’t believe in the rubbish that each person has a unique role in the mysterious scheme of things, and that God alone has the prerogative whose life to terminate and whose life to sustain. The trouble with a neo-Nazi is not just that he doesn’t believe in the wisdom of God, but that he doesn’t believe in a God who is good to all.

So when a terrifying earthquake kills hundreds of thousands of Chinese, for instance, he believes it is but a justifiable event to keep the world’s population in check. He thinks the blacks of Africa are deserving of death by starvation and AIDS. He advocates the distribution of condoms for the entire male population of Thailand because it prevents the further spawning of inferior Sino-Malay races. He is a staunch supporter of equality – but only among his fellow Aryan male supremacists, only among his fellow fascists.

It was a shock for me personally when I happened to meet one such fellow. I was telling him how appalling it was to learn in the news about hundreds of people drowning en masse when a ship sank in the Mediterranean, or was it when teenagers turned into charcoal when a firetrap of a disco burned down in South Africa. Where a Christian fundamentalist would have turned in a predictably judgmental stance – “They had it coming, these evil, unrepentant sinners. All that sensuous, worldly revelry!" – my neo-Nazi enemy nonchalantly proclaimed these things to be a matter of random circumstances keeping in check the ever-burgeoning world population, or that they are an automatic mechanism to ensure homeostasis or ecological equilibrium.

He may be right from a biological perspective. If the carrying capacity of Mother Nature’s womb is breached, it will burst, leaving its fertilized eggs stillborn. But where I am unconsciously seeking to be appeased or be calmed down in the ugly face of life’s horrors, something like compassion and empathy for one’s suffering brethren suddenly has become irrelevant.

In the face of a neo-Nazi, my animal instinct to exterminate a soul by gassing is awakened, to the extent that I become a neo-Nazi myself.


11.30.2002

Modern Art History: A Lesson on the Dynamics of Man's Creative Process

"Think," I told Mac, "think of an original idea, something outrageous yet plausible, plausible enough to explain your ugly artworks, and presto, you're a novel artist of note! - an iconoclast, a maverick, a renegade espousing a revolutionary art form."

Mac nodded which I took to mean absolute concurrence. "By the way, that just about sums up the whole history of modern art, or literature or even philosophy, if I want to be mean about it," I boasted.

I am reminded of that slim, gossipy book by Sarah Newmeyer, 'Enjoying Modern Art' where I would glean that the history of modern art (chiefly European) is nothing but a series of actions and reactions, stimuli and responses, syntheses and antitheses.

The story commences with the story of the classical revival school, also known as the academic or neo-classical school. The eye of the storm is 18th century Paris, France, and the major characters involved are two guys named David and Ingres. Paintings comprised largely of portraits of aristocracy and nothing more.

From the uptight subjects of neoclassicism sprung the idea of romanticism, an art movement that chose to revel on the beauty of nature instead of the wonders of human civilization. Gericault and Delacroix led this movement. There arose the so-called pre-Raphaelites who rejected subjects preferred by the elite, and instead focused on scenes from medieval tales, the Bible, classical mythology, etc.

There also arose the Barbizon Group - Corot, Millet, Daubigny, Daumier - who rejected ideal landscapes in favor of a normal portrait of nature.

As we can see, realistic painting was originally meant to capture idealism in nature and the elitism of the monarchy/royalty. Subsequent work on commoners would therefore give credence to a new idea - that art with themes quotidian and low-brow can be executed without defiling the idea of art as an ennobling thing. This novelty saw the rise of realism through Courbet's and Manet's everyday scenes.

Some artists perhaps got tired of painting the traditional way and discovered, largely through Manet's paintings, that the same scene can be painted differently depending on the lighting or the shade - or the corresponding time of day. This gave birth to impressionism, a genre distinguished by the daubs of unmixed colors, impressing upon the viewer a reflection of light. It "captures fleeting impressions, particularly the changing of light on surface" Needless to say, this movement elicited controversy, if not ridicule. The leading impressionists of the day were Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Renoir, Manet, Degas and Cezanne.

Impressionism would soon give birth to a technique called pointilism and the movement called neo-impressionism. Pointilism, developed by Seurat, is the application of paint in pointy strokes or dots.

Pretty soon, some painters realized that they could paint without necessarily copying their subject as seen through normal lenses. They tried to paint with their feelings and emotions. This would give birth to fauvism, a movement preferring the use of vivid yet unnatural colors coupled with simplified forms. In its time fauvism was appropriately ridiculed as some kind of primitive art, if at all - just tie a paintbrush on the tail of a cow and place a canvas near it and, voila, a bovine masterpiece! Or so the critics scoffed. Critics failed at first to see the pleasant, highly decorative effect this kind of painting lent to the artwork.

What eventually emerged as an outgrowth of fauvism is the genre called expressionism. An art movement early in the 20th century, the artist's subjective expression of inner experiences was emphasized. Like the fauvists, Vincent van Gogh's expressionistic drawings initially didn't draw the attention it deserved.

Soon enough, there came into the entire modern art world a variety of artworks never seen before - landscapes, still lifes, allegories, exotic settings and portraits of the foreign-looking - in various styles, namely classical, romantic, impressionist, fauvist, expressionist.

Influenced most likely by Cezanne's ("the father of modern art") postimpressionist idea of stressing the components latent in nature, a man named Pablo Picasso would realize there's a whole new way of representing the different aspects of reality - neither through varying light and shade nor by emotions and inner reactions, but by drawing simultaneously together onto a canvass the various movements made by a subject, portraying these as surfaces of geometrical planes. Drawing as well from primitive African art, particularly African masks, this seminal idea paved the way for a more and more different way of looking at and representing the world.

Eventually, realistic or representational painting was met with some sort of a formidable challenge with the advent of photography.

Painters like Kandinsky and Miro soon entered the scene; the viewer saw discernible objects on the canvas but he couldn't quite tell what it was. The paintings were representational and non-representational at the same time.

Another thinker burst into the scene and proposed that art can be further distilled into its very essence - form, structure, color, proportion. Piet Mondrian's intersecting lines in right angle and squares in primary colors certainly created quite a stir. Developing a style he called neoplasticism, Mondrian headed the group that would come to be known as de Stijl. Into the first light of the 20th century, abstract or nonrepresentational painting was born.

This movement would see its peak (or nadir) in Kline's bare blue canvas where only the color, his favorite trademark blue, mattered.

Some saw through these revolutionary ideas something further different - that these opposing ideas were marriageable. So the art world would be treated to such developments as abstract expressionism (Kandinsky and Jackson Pollock's drip technique), suprematism (Mondrian), and geometric abstractionism (Malevich).

Meanwhile other thinkers had long thought that the canvas itself was restrictive as a tool, in spite of all those ideas, and this resulted to the paintings of Braque which extended outside the frame, and the rebirth of the marriage of painting and sculpture. Then there was the marriage of sculpture with mechanics, resulting in kinetic art. New knowledge about how human vision operated gave rise to op art. There also arose the school of constructivism, the use of industrial materials to construct nonrepresentational objects. Eventually, not content with all that, artists came up with full-blown installations and interactive art

The art scene never failed to become tiring, and each cycle would eventually turn ripe for yet another iconoclastic idea. The mavericks that would rise to the occasion questioned what art was for. They answered the question by creating art that was free from all rules, art that shocked the world - in the Dada movement. These rebels rejected the idea that art should always be pleasing, thus creating art that was deliberately ugly and repulsive. Among the rebels were Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray in New York, Grosz in Berlin, Tzara and Arp in Zurich, and Max Ernst in Cologne. Ernst developed the technique of collage.

Yet even in the time of ruling styles, there always emerged some other rebels in the fringes, artists ahead of their time. Just as Spanish mannerist painter El Greco's (mid-1600s) elongated human forms presaged the distortionist bent in representational art, renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch's bizarre and monstrous paintings (1500s) antedated the flowering of surrealism. With the advent of Dadaism, surrealism was given the impetus it needed to develop into a separate genre, one that fully exploited dreams and the unconscious, in contrast to representational art's more obvious realities. Among the proponents of surrealism were Redon, Marc Chagall, de Chirico, Dali, Mirò, Roy, Dove and Tchelitchew.

In reaction to abstractions, pop art would emerge as a triumphant return to representational art, albeit choosing popular, everyday objects as subject. (Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein).

Eventually the excess of pop art is tempered by the minimalist movement.

Modern art has been besieged by various rebellions and counter-rebellions, and these are not likely to let up. This must be how the dynamics of man's creative process goes….

5.24.2003

Unsolicited Advice on Covering Nature



The editor:


The following are the several angles I have observed being taken in the coverage of endangered species and nature in general in aid of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation.

1. In-depth profile of a species' natural history.
2. Straightforward reporting of current environmental conservation projects.
3. Tourism angle. (e.g. birdwatching)
4. Commercial possibilities angle. (e.g. raising endangered animals for specialty food and animal products, or as pets such as farmed aquarium fish and captive-grown butterflies)
5. Problem-solving at the grassroots level by giving locals a stake in the conservation effort. (e.g. stories about converting dynamite fishermen into coral reef protectors)
6. Outright campaign against all destructive practices. (e.g., reports zooming in on or amplifying the tragedy of greed and negligence in illegal logging, cyanide and dynamite fishing, out of season- or over-hunting, genetic pollution by foreign or non-endemic breeds, pathologic infection from outside populations, etc.)

Another essential angle I would like to delve on is the ecological significance angle. What is this species meant for? What is its particular role in the balance of nature? How would it upset the ecosystem with its absence? What species and ecological processes would be directly and indirectly affected?

Readers, generally ignorant about these things, should see the bottom line that protecting these obscure species is not inimical to people's means of livelihood. Protecting these species means preserving ourselves in the long run, to talk nothing about the quality-of-life, aesthetic and sociocultural merits or impacts.

Other guide questions in covering endangered species in the ecological perspective are: What is the present headcount? What is the current carrying capacity of a species' habitat? Will it able to support the species in 10 to 20 years? How large is the species' required range?

I request the relaying of this message particularly to government authorities who have the power to effect concrete actions. I think it is also crucial to educate children and the public at large about our biodiversity wealth and the urgent need to preserve them because it is powerful in fostering national pride and identity. It would be laudable to see, for starters, our zoos and museums, together with the DENR and NGOs, work towards better-packaged museums, botanical and zoological gardens by highlighting our biodiversity pogi points. (Is asking for an oceanarium too much?)

2003

Intelligentsia, Get Off Your Intellectual High Horse

I had caught the Channel 23 morning show Breakfast with "maverick director" Lav Diaz as guest, then-show host JC Gonzales interviewing him. JC asks, “What do you think should we do about Hollywood movies like Spiderman and Star Wars?” Lav Diaz’s answer floored me: “Dapat sunugin lahat ‘yan.” ("They should all be annihilated.")

Ouch. The director of Batang West Side and Hesus Rebolusyonaryo drove me running for the Star Wars and Spiderman posters stuck inside my closet – for safekeeping.

I’m a lover of art films, make no mistake. But I couldn’t, for the life of me, automatically dismiss anything having met with commercial success as a product of mediocrity. I think the quaint demographic segment called the intelligentsia is missing the point: Not all people are as bright and intellectual as they. Not all people get the drift and the subtexts of subtly-told stories with ambiguous subplots and characterization that the more sensitive artist is fond of making.

Face it: The avant-garde bunch can be such a snob. Common folks can’t reach them, unlike the Hollywood stuff they are so fond of, which are easily digestible while remaining very likeable. A lot of movies indeed cater to the baser instincts and the inner boor of the general public, but a substantial number are genuinely entertaining and stimulating without being too much of a brainwork. Of course, this is not to say Hollywood stuff - generally plot-driven - is synonymous to nutritious food for the soul. But there’s nothing more disconcerting for a common moviegoer than walking out of the cinema feeling dumb, or worse, feeling even dumber than before. There’s nothing more frustrating for a cineaste than to be tortured with an inscrutable, enigmatic story.

Is it really impossible to create stories and movies that are commercial in taste - i.e., entertaining, edifying, uplifting, intellectually accessible - but just as uncompromising in technical aspects, story-line coherence and theme, and appeal as an art form? Can we not make on a regular basis something like Ghost or Joey Reyes' May Minamahal (starring Aiko Melendez and Aga Muhlach)? Perhaps all the bright people out there should get off their intellectual high horse for once so they can look at the world as most of us see it? Of what use is a poem, for instance, when even acknowledged poets couldn’t “read” it? Of what use is a good film when nobody cares to finish it?

Yes, even the most self-absorbed artist has a calling to serve. To whom higher IQ is accorded, more understanding is expected.



??

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Miriam?

I wonder how my sister is faring these days, now that she has a monumental disappointment for a namesake. How does she cope with all the catcalls - "motormouth," etc. - with the mere mention of...ugh, don't even mention it.

Just a few years ago, she was our heroine - a feisty Ilongga (fresh from Switzerland) at the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation, known as one of the most corrupt agencies, if not the most, in government.

But like a bad dream she turned into our nightmare. Oh, that was redundant.

We should have read the early signs. Her disdain for non-UP graduates ("They don't exist in legal contemplation.") Her unladylike dare for her enemies - our enemies - to stick their fingers in the socket. The lookist remarks ("fungus-faced"¨). Her insult of animals ("they have the skin of a pachyderm"). We should have deciphered a clue or two from there.

It used to be that her wholesale judgement of people in government ("corrRRrrupt") made us regard her as a living saint, if not a messiah. It made the rest of us who struggle with our fallen nature feel guilty as sin.

Now her magical turn of phrase haunt us more than they probably haunt her. She made us ashamed that we ever set foot on her school.

How people change with the times. The national experience of Miriam has shown us that one's expertise in international law can turn one into a legalistic machine capable of churning out provisions and microscopic minutiae to one's advantage. We'd kill anyone to have a brain like hers - encyclopedic knowledge neatly packed like zipped files. Wasn't her incitement to sedition at so-called EDSA III enough prima facie evidence? But even in that tightest of situations, she managed to extricate herself - and it's hard not to agree with her!

She has reduced the socialites of Forbes to "anonymous little insects, which makes the rest of us nematodes, with a worm's eye view of the world. She said she would never ever be a traitor to her party-mates. What explains her sudden conversion as Erap's sycophant? Convince us that this had nothing to do with her husband's and brother's appointments to high places.

Until now the whole nation awaits her execution at the Luneta, and her skydiving without a parachute from her business-class airplane seat - two public announcements that issued forth from her mouth.

Now that she'd tasted bitter defeat, we can expect her to launch into a barrage of soliloquy and colloquy, expounding, extrapolating on the existential definition of the word.

But, hey, isn't that the reason why she is such an attraction to us? Doesn't everything start to feel so empty without her? If I could personally meet her, I'd beg her to please stay in the limelight, keep being verbose on TV for the nation's own delectation and linguistic enrichment, and keep on spewing vitriol on our common enemies.

Rats, we are missing a lot when she's not around. Don't we miss her just the same?

6.2001

On God’s Will and Battered Wives

I cannot agree more with Ms. Anna Leah Sarabia and others’ observation that the use of “it’s God’s will” line by a battered wife is a disastrous reason for staying put with her monster of a husband after having been repeatedly beaten to a pulp.

However, I would like to partly take exception with this statement because it puts belief in God’s will in a bad light. I don’t claim to have read the mind of God, but from what I’ve been reading in the Bible for years, the God I believe in never wills anything evil to anybody. He only wills what is good, if not what is best for us. “The joy of the Lord is to see a person fully alive.”

Now, if you are a battered wife or a victim of any form of domestic violence, you have all the right to flee from the clutches of evil. And no, I wouldn’t look at you as a woman who divorced her husband. It’s your husband who has forsaken his sacred oath.

It’s certainly not the will of God for a woman to become her retarded husband's punching bag. And, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been canonized by Rome for condoning what is clearly evil and condemnable.

??
Written after the time Maria Theresa Carlson reportedly leaped to her death from Ilocos politico Rudy Farinas' condo unit in Annapolis, San Juan.

On Feminism

To Ms. Rina Jimenez-David:

Re: Church’s teaching on wife’s subordination


Ma’am, with all due respect, I think there is some misinterpretation about the teaching of the Church on the wife’s subordinate role in marriage vis-a-vis her husband’s role as authority figure.

First off, there is, I believe, a degree of fallaciousness about the prevalent notion of "equality" between men and women. While both sexes are indeed entitled to equal respect, dignity and stature as children of God, they are fundamentally different in that they have been tasked with different roles, roles which are certainly not meant to be hostile to each other but complementary. If we find it hard to accept this basic difference, maybe we should also ask why God took the trouble of coming up with distinct physical, physiological and psychological makeup for the male and the female.

As I see it, the Church teaches female subordination not because it is headed traditionally by dogmatic, narrow-minded, opinionated geezers but because it has a clear Biblical basis. (“Wives, submit to your husbands....”) How else would anyone interpret this passage?

I acknowledge that this interpretation is being abused by the male chauvinists among us, hoisting it like a badge at every marital conflict as though it were a preternatural male birthright. They forget that the kind of subordination St. Paul preaches is one that presupposes honor, dignity and mutual respect. The kind of subordination foisted by ultramacho men on the female half of the world conveniently ignores the latter part of the passage: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves His church.” Thus what we now have is the kind of subordination that unlocked a Pandora’s box of social ills victimizing women and, consequently, spurred the stronger among them to fight back.

However, the trouble with the ensuing woman’s lib movement was that it had this for a motto: “If men can do it, women can do it even better.”

Therein lies our bone of contention, the point, I believe, where there is some degree of departure from an unambiguous Christian teaching. I'm afraid the brand of feminism you have chosen to espouse verges on the same train of thought that gave rise to distorted, abused concepts of “freedom,” “equality” and “human rights.”

Pray tell, when did a subordinate role ever become less honorable, less dignified, and less worthy of respect? It’s like saying that just because a clerical and a maintenance job are subordinate work, they should be seen as less honorable, less dignified and less worthy of respect. But we are not even dealing here with a master-servant, hierarchical relationship but one that's on an equal footing.

Your genuine concern and inestimable efforts for the cause of oppressed women are certainly laudable, but perhaps a little reconsideration of a cherished feminist tack would be prudent? Moreover, instead of looking at the Virgin Mary with contempt as a weak role model, we can perhaps try to view women and womanhood in the light of their role according to the will of God: one “of quiet, gentle spirit,” a role which Mary exemplifies.

I believe there is genuine strength in being feminine without necessarily bending to an antagonistic brand of feminism. The sexes have their respective roles in life, and these do not include enslavement and sexual harassment. Neither should they include competition and emasculation.




11.24.2001

Blast Ople*


I would like to express my support for Mr. Amando Doronila and all the more sensible people in this country.

If we are outraged, Senator Ople, it is because we refuse to forget.

Mr. Doronila may be a little left-leaning to my own philo-political predilection, but I don’t see in his news analyses, indeed in his editorials (if indeed he ghost-writes them), any agenda or dark motive to hide and protect. It is preposterous that you use literary characters associated with the downtrodden, least of all Victor Hugo’s Valjean and Javert, to draw analogy from, for they are the wrong characters, just as, in Mr. Doronila’s words, you are the wrong man at the DFA.

The issue at hand is not about Mr. Doronila’s supposed envy; it’s not even about being legalistic, if that’s what you want to imply. The issue is that you have committed grievous sins of omission and you are being rewarded for it. This is no denying the fact that you’ve been one of the more brilliant bureaucrats, but you also have something big to redeem about your track record, something so unsettling that your appearance in the DFA lends further proof to the observation that the political in contemporary Philippine affairs is nothing more than farcical.


*With profuse apologies to the The Blast Ople Band


Sanitized version

Mr. Tulfo’s Simplistic Argument


Dear Mr. Ramon Tulfo,

Wow, your opinions are so extremely fearless that, every time I get to read your column, I cringe in utter fear.

Fearless, yes, but balanced? Teka muna.

You called the Catholic Church a meddler in the population issue, but what about her duty to proclaim God’s word, however hard it is to swallow the Word - failure of doing which renders the Church an effete congregation of figs best flung into the furnace. (“I must proclaim God’s word or I’d be damned.” – St. Paul) Government and the private citizen alike always have a choice not to listen, but the Church always has the right to speak out as well. That's how it works in a democracy. If you beg to disagree, then please do so without attacking our right to say and do what we want. We can lobby, too, can’t we? We can pressure politicians and legislators, just like anybody else can, can’t we? As a member of media, you must defend that right, however averse you are in subscribing to the idea being advocated.

You failed to take note that it is the Church’s belief on sex that is at the center of the population controversy, not the desire of a presumably larcenous hierarchy to further fatten their coffers. How malicious an insinuation can someone get? And it's not even an insinuation, it's a wholesale accusation. The Church believes that sex has the sacred purpose of procreation and the promotion of intimacy between married couples, and for this reason, we, mere creatures, have no right to arrogate our own designs upon Divine contemplation.* Catholic theology holds that each human being is sacred, fearfully fashioned for a unique purpose, and not to be denigrated merely as a cold statistic, even as its being subject to Earth’s carrying capacity is undeniable. Thus all manner of contraception (except the natural) is frowned upon and deemed a presumptuous imposition on heaven’s perfect design.

Consider the ff.: Could it be that it is our own doing - or undoing - as a materialistic, consumerist society that’s doing us in? It’s unjust socioeconomic structures that render the rich to become richer and the poor even poorer. On a personal level, it is our insatiable desires for lucre in the face of the planet’s finitude that’s directly causing other people’s misery. (And yet the last time anybody flew over the archipelago, almost every patch of earth appeared reassuringly green and uninhabited.) Even the issue of population explosion should be subject to criticism, and the issue appears to be at best debatable.

What kind of church would want its faithful to be poor, naked, diseased and hustling each other in the streets like dogs? Besides, if people but followed the teachings of the Catholic Church on sexuality – purity, chastity, fidelity, monogamy - no one would ever be born poor, and not a lot of people would be born by accident, born out of wedlock, born in the streets, adopted by hospices, sold as prostitutes, sold to willing foreigners, born unwanted, aborted, and become a costly burden to the government and a headache for people with problems on population growth. Come to think of it, Catholic teaching is the most efficacious antidote to population explosion! Catholic teaching is the most effective contraceptive of all, if contraception is what you want!

Lastly, shouldn't we blame ourselves as a society for being extremely civil status-conscious? We express unbelieving surprise whenever we find our young adults to have no affairs, aren't still fornicating, still single or having no kids. We find something wrong when they are still in that disgraceful state of ‘single blessedness’ and virginity upon reaching a certain age. We accuse them of all sorts of psychological dysfunctions and incapacities. The pressure to settle down and spawn clones like Buddha is so great it could turn carbon into diamond, like someone joked. And then we wonder why on earth there are so many of us!

Mr. Tulfo, shouldn’t you be barking up the right tree(s)?

??2002
Revised to effect a less belligerent tone, in the awful name of peace.

*a belief disparaged as 'absolute natalist'

On the (im)morality of pirated VCDs

Mr. de Quiros,

I’m disappointed that you refuse to tackle the morality behind piracy when it lies at the very heart of the pirated-VCD-is-lesser-evil argument. If I may give my two centavos’ worth, I personally hold that piracy, which intrinsically and essentially remains a form of stealing, should be seen vis-a-vis the immorality of overpricing in the legitimate market. While I find nothing wrong with marketing intellectual property, if only to encourage creativity, I find it immoral just the same to market it beyond the means of the majority. It is akin to the immorality of overpriced medicines, even though medicines are a basic commodity and not a supposed luxury - ‘supposed’ because I don’t think entertainment is only for the rich and thus a luxury. Piracy in general thus becomes a lesser evil in the light of the elephantine greed of commerce, which is ensured the deceptive legitimacy of legality.


8.4.2002

Akashic Record: Cosmic CD-ROM?


If you pray the rosary everyday, you realize that Pontius Pilate is among the names you utter every single day of your life. It is a great honor for one’s name to be remembered - and mouthed - by millions of minds - and mouths - everyday, that is, if you are remembered for the right reasons. Conversely, then, it should be an appalling form of dishonor to be just as eternally remembered for one’s moment of frailty or folly, especially if committed within a seemingly insignificant time period, considering the whole scheme of things.

In the case of old Pontius, he is being remembered for eternity for being ambivalent in his morality, for being neither hot nor cold, for escaping responsibility for the crime of killing an innocent man. This singular folly has been viewed from Pilate’s perspective himself by Anatole France in his wonderful short story The Procurator of Judaea. Supposing Pilate is in hell now, how does he feel being remembered? Does it expiate his sin somehow, made somewhat eternal by an earthly remembrance? Suppose Pilate is in heaven now, how does he react to the constant murmuring of his name the world over? Is he irked or embarrassed? Is he somewhat flattered that people of every clime knows of his infamy?

I use the example of Pontius Pilate only because I do not want to make myself an example. Lately I’ve been thinking about akashic records or the belief that everything we have done, good or bad, leaves an imprint on the material world, or time and space as we know it. This record thus becomes an unimpeachable evidence pointing either to our personal virtue or lack of it in our lifetime.

Imagine every single word you have uttered against every person being replayed for your delectation sometime in the future. Imagine everything being replayed with all of creation listening in. How more public can an accusation against your person get? How more shameful and disgraceful? How about all the things you did in the dark, whether all by yourself or with another, or several others? The documentation must be acutely painful you would’ve been better off dead?

Every object in this world carries the akashic records of events in relation to its use during the different periods of its existence, or so I read from the columnist on things hitherto unexplainable and paranormal. As I understand it, the record may especially be lucid if that object has been the subject of especial fondness or obsession or emotional attachment by its former owner. This explains why certain exotic objets d’arts, for instance, bring either good or bad ‘luck’ to someone in possession of it now, or why an heirloom piece seems to bring with it a curse or taken up as residence, portal or whatever it’s called, by ghosts or disturbed souls or plain devils.

In the world of imprints, all thoughts, words and deeds are eternal and not to be expunged ever. In the world of imprints, earthly death becomes but a brief transition - from the world of hidden things to the world of horrific revelation where no secret, however scandalous, is spared the accusation of light and universal knowledge.

If I am unduly disturbed by the idea of akashic records - as though my quibbling with it changes the truth, it is because it challenges my convictions in ways I never expected, hewing close to them and far away at the same time.

First, it complements the belief in the great cloud of witnesses - the host of angels and the communion of saints being able to see and hear every action made and every word said on earth, however concealed by walls or the complex nuances of man's deception. To be sure, all the devils and demons of hell are also let in on the ‘secret’?

Second, it complements the belief in Judgment Day when everyone’s darkest sins shall be revealed to one and all, good or bad, and presented for divine adjudication.


But the idea of akashic records runs counter to the belief in forgiveness, the kind that doesn’t look back on past deeds, the kind that erases and deletes, as in the case of writing anew on a palimpsest. Akashic records are only logical in that what is done cannot be undone; the record is constantly out there in the vast expanse of the universe. In comparison, a forgiven conscience may not necessarily be deemed released from the consequence of sin, but the soul can assume to start anew from a clean slate, its guilt pardoned, washed away and bleached snow-white. In the light of the latter, akashic records are somewhat inconsistent to the doctrine of plenary indulgence or the total remission of sins.

If you are disturbed by these ruminations, well, you should be. Don't blame me, blame Jimmy Lichauco.

8.2002

LOL, ROFL


But It’s Funny!

Some people are afraid to laugh, or refuse to laugh, thinking it to be a kind and charitable thing to do. I think the hesitation is more of fear – fear that one might be mistaken as making fun of other people. But the way Visayans and other non-Tagalogs unapologetically get their Tagalog and English all wrong is genuinely funny there's no need to feel guilty.

I used to feel very guilty laughing over somebody's wayward diction and pronunciation until a priest said “St. Peh-ters fesh” – no doubt an oblique reference to folksy preacher Mike Velarde’s ‘St. Peter’s fish.’ I took it as some kind of imprimatur from that time on. I believe the priest really meant no offense; he found the unintended joke amusing without being disparaging to the one speaking - or did he?

Many are hopelessly incorrigible in this area we might as well declare our e’s and o’s obsolete. I am reminded of Manang L. who used to sell sandwiches to me in the office. There was a time I was pulling her leg about something when she said in a sing-song, “Uy, it’s bad to tell a lie. Liars go to hill…”

Things can get blasphemous in these otherwise funny blunders. A typical Sunday recitation of the Rosary in the church where I hear Mass can be hysterical. I remember the man-and-woman praying partner who had shocked me with something like this as I entered the church gate: “Hell, Mery, full of gris…” which is then answered with, “Huli Miri, mader of Gad….”

Which brings me to my former landlady in Baguio, too, a very religious woman from Samar, with whom we are practically required to recite the Litany to the Blessed Virgin on Sundays: “Mother undefiled, Mother immaculate, Mother most chest...” she would go. No offense meant to the BVM and I love my landlady dearly but I just couldn’t control myself from splitting up in the middle of a solemn prayer.

One time she regaled us with the story of an Iraqi lodger she had had, a student in SLU (Saint Louis University), most likely. She said the Iraqi student called her ‘Mommy’; the name of her ward was Mahmood. So every time they saw each other, you would hear them in an exchange of “Mami!” and “Mamod!”

One time, she caught her children watching a soap opera on TV showing a compromising scene. She ordered her son to shut off the TV quick. The son protested, "Ma, kissing scene lang naman, e." On the breakfast table one morning, someone heard her lecturing to her brood, "Alam n'yo… yang six… (sex)"

Those were my UP Baguio days. Now that I live in Manila, you'd think that things have taken an improved turn, but no…

I distinctly remember Liza, a basketball team coach in La Salle Zobel High School. She was being interviewed on TV and the host asked her, "O, ba't hindi kayo nanalo ngayon?" So tensed at being broadcast live, Liza answered, "Hindi ako frefared."

Another time, a friend and I took the bus on Edsa. As we approached Camp Crame, the lady kunduktora announced in all self-confidence, “Crami!”

We couldn't believe what we heard that my friend and I just exchanged wordless stares. When we were nearing Ortigas Center, the lady kunduktora again announced in all self-confidence, “Ortega’s!” My friend and I could only exchange another round of wordless stares.

All the pent-up laughter only exploded after we got off the bus.

One text message I have received naughtily sums up this Visayan predilection: "Mga Bisaya'y di ko maintindihan. Inglis ng isda pis, ng mukha pis, ng pandikit pis, ng kapayapaan pis, tinanong pa ko kung san ako nakatira. Pis 1 of Pis 2? Pisti!"

There’s the tall tale of my roommate Glenn, reporting for Bicol region this time. It's a story unadulterated by hyperbole, he insisted. One day, a barrio in Sorsogon had a German meister for a visitor, who came over ostensibly for his engagement with his Filipina fiancée, the daughter of a fisherman. He was such a big man, the German. A whole barrio of eyeballs bored through his guts like X-ray machines when he arrived.

It’s a good thing the visitor was someone who’s not ashamed of public display of affection, Glenn reported. The German was so demonstrative that when he finally came face to face with his prospective wife, he blurted out, “Oh, my Filipina!” It was a time when mail-order brides and ‘domestic helpers’ were still unheard of.

Ever the dutiful wife-to-be, the Filipina introduced the German to her parents. “Helmut (not his real name), this is my mother,” she said.

“This is mother?” Helmut’s eyes bulged. “Oh, my mama!” he greeted her, as though he were a long-lost son.

As if to make up for the uneasy silence, which in reality only covered up for being at a loss for the right English words, the mother of the would-be bride smilingly exclaimed, “Oh, my Germany!”

Then the visitor asked for the father, who was out at sea fishing, “Where is Papa?”

The mother answered, “Under the sea!”

Glenn once walked out in the middle of a Mass in the Baguio Cathedral when a native priest exhorted devotees to "Bow your heyds and pray for God's mercy." Glenn resumed the unceremonious abbreviation of his Mass, unrepentant, at the Pink Sisters convent chapel. "Na-distract ako, e." he explained later.

When they catch themselves committing such mistakes, non-Tagalogs often laugh with a dismissing air or say self-deprecatingly, “Hahaha, Bisaya kaayo.” Or, “Panagalatok kasi.” But then these atrocious slips, especially the grammatical, are not the monopoly of non-Tagalogs. We Filipinos in general commit the same blunders, a number of which have become normalized just because famous ungrammatical media persons have made them so. Here’s to list just a few:

“Pinaka-latest”
“Pinaka da best”
“At ang maswerteng lucky winner ay si…”
“And the winner is, goes to…”

This one, though, is more irritating than funny: “Safety ka ba diyan?” which sounds like a cousin to “Are you sure ka na ba?”

Being a mix of Panggalatok and Ilocano ancestries myself, I hold a special pride for my own tribe’s brand of faux pas. I am of the opinion that we are the most horrible in demolishing just about any other language. If it’s any consolation, though, we sound less Greek than…French.

Wen manong, whenever I encounter things French, I get a strong suspicion that the French are just Ilocanos hiding behind the facade of European pizzazz. Note how the French pronounce quoi (French for ‘what’) – no different from the usual Ilocano sound of hesitation, cua. Awan ti cua… Anya ti cua…je ne sais quois.

Secondly, the French people are passionate about their food. Being a gourmet means being able to eat exotic concoctions like snake soup, toad torte, and other surprises. What other cultures regard as vermin, the Ilocanos receive with a fondness usually reserved for kosher protein. I’ve read about how some French people feast on a certain fowl dish, a bird called ortolan, and the dish has to be eaten up with a blanket covering the diner’s entire head to savor the delicate flavor most fully. Most likely it’s a gamey flavor they’re trying to trap, surely a turn-off to most palates. If that is not crazy to you, even if you were a confirmed epicure, then you must be a Frenchman/-woman, or maybe an Ilocano since birth.

And yet, once you acquire the taste, you end up swearing by Ilocano cuisine. The intrepid Ilocanos takes a fancy to the lowly, mucilaginous herb called saluyot, (which incidentally is also made into a traditional soup by Egyptians), an equally mucilaginous seaweed called ar-arusip, a dish of goat brain and singed goatskin called dinakdakan, the pharmaceutical-smelling fruit of the malungay (horseradish), thrown into a dozen other vegetable ingredients to form the unappealing goo, dinengdeng. These dishes are all extremely physically repulsive, and I haven’t mentioned all those buro and bagoong. But once you are convinced by at least their nutritious-ness and be tempted to take a little bite or sip, you can start to claim having an adventurous palate. Or you might begin to insist that a better pronunciation of pinakbet is /pi-nak-beau’/.

But I am digressing. For sheer defiance and pride in mispronunciation, the award singularly goes to Bro. Wilde Almeda, that colorful preacher of Jesus is Lord Fellowship, a born-again Christian church. Viboy, an acquaintance of mine, recounts that whenever he’s afflicted with insomnia and wants to be entertained in the middle of the night, he’d turn on the TV and surf for that channel where the hysterical Almeda is being shown. Viboy calls Bro. Willy, “Brother Wild’.

A typical tirade of Brother Wild, he says, goes something like this: “Yang mga repest, communest, drag adekt, pupunta yan sa impyirnu!” “Ang Papa sa Ruma, patayen!” One is reminded of Bardagol, that silly character in Funny Komiks’ Planet op di Apes.

Alas, after having been kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf in Lamitan, Basilan, we haven't heard about Mr. Wild.

I can understand it if we mispronounce a highly irregular language like English, but how can we mispronounce and murder our very own? If Pilita Corrales, for instance, exerts such an effort to pronounce English words properly, how could she not exert the same effort for Tagalog?

In fairness, she tries, albeit in a laughable way.


8.2002/12.2002

Guilty of Laughing


Call me prissy or call me a killjoy but I always feel guilty laughing out loud as I watch a lot of comic stuff being marketed these days. I’ve always been uncomfortable with local rapper Andrew’ E’s song, Humanap Ka Ng Panget, not just because it pokes fun at cosmetically challenged persons but that the song is so plain…illogical. The song pontificates about beauty not being skin-deep, true beauty being found in the heart of the person, but in the process, the song mocks the apparent lack of conventional pulchritude in a Zorayda Sanchez-lookalike.

This illogicality, I think, is the result of residual guilt. And the same guilt gives me a reason to be equally uneasy about having taken an active part in the joke.

It’s nice to know that people, especially they who claim to be artists, still get second thoughts about what their creative juices churn out; it implies a trace of conscience strong enough to wrestle with; it means people still care. But I don’t really mind people getting self-righteous or preachy or even more popish than the pope – that is their choice, no matter how mistaken. As I see things, all people, without exception, will always be, straightforwardly or subtly, preaching their own version of gospel truth.

However, in their effort to blunt or even mask the contempt or ill will against society’s marginalized or perhaps to give artistic depth to their work, some artists end up preaching a moral. I am uneasy because, behind the show of apparent caring, I feel a form of intellectual dishonesty, I see a shade of schadenfreude. I probably would rather have an out-and-out politically incorrect body of work like that of Eminem's with all the evil double entendres (although that would certainly make me feel remorseful as hell) rather than something that apologizes for a conduct it doesn’t really see any reason to be sorry for. The notorious South Park, for instance, makes no apologies. Nobody’s safe, everyone is fair game - from Satan and Saddam Hussein to grandmothers and God. It’s outrageously funny, twisted, and perverted, not to mention offensive to a lot of quarters, if not to every quarter.

But at least it can’t be accused of being dishonest. To paraphrase Scott Adams, the creator of the crazy comic strip Dilbert, “There’s no way you can avoid hurting somebody by trying to be sensitive. Someone always gets hurt no matter how careful you are.”

Today, works that have furthered this illogicality that owes largely to a residue of guilt etched in the subconscious, include the Farrelly Brothers’ recent movie, Shallow Hal. This movie purports to be a case against mainstream society’s skin-deep, appearance-based shallowness in dealing with people - while at the same time poking fun at the horizontally challenged Gwyneth Paltrow character in a fat suit.

Recently I viewed the work of R(h)ex Navarette (creator) and Dino Ignacio (animator), Maritess and the Superfriends, as downloaded from www.fractalcow.com. On first viewing, the sketch appears to be a rip-roaringly funny social satire, an indictment of the shabby treatment Pinoy OFWs get from their employers. But one need not be a genius to see that Navarette also ends up trivializing if not mocking the suffering Pinay maids routinely go through. For sure, it is a suffering he doesn’t understand fully because he never has rendered servile work to anyone?

Maritess likes to take the cudgels for or even champions the cause of the lowly katulong (pejoratively called longkatuts by so-called coño kids), but the resulting comedy, though genuinely funny, is disparaging, as though to belabor the point that the lower classes are indeed a magnet for derision: Maritess’ grammatical fumbling, lapses in logic, etc. And, by the way, what do they mean by that rosary being fingered nervously by Maritess? I couldn’t help laughing along the entire run of the short sketch, but is that part supposed to be funny, too?

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m just being prissy, maybe I couldn’t take the social satire genre. Maybe I’m too uptight and don’t know how to have fun.

But the satires I’ve known are not at all that inconsistent. There’s the late lamented Sic O’Clock News, for one. And nerd that I was, there’s Voltaire’s Candide, which did not appeal to my religious and philosophical predilection, but at least, I could clearly see that Voltaire was being vituperative about the idea of hope in the midst of unbearable suffering and misfortune. I could clearly see that Rizal was scornful of the character Doña Victorina who was trying-hard to be an orofea - to no avail. It was clear to me that Charles Dickens and Jane Austen found something outrageous in England’s Victorian society in their respective characters (Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice, etc.) as Oscar Wilde did in his play The Importance of Being Earnest. These works were all effective because they were quite clear, consistent, coherent – all alliterative synonyms of ‘logical.’ They were clear and consistent because the sense of right and wrong was far more acute and their being empathetic to the problems besetting the common folk was only honest and true.

Of course, this is not a fair comparison. I don’t mean to pit the contemporary artists mentioned above with literary luminaries of the past. All the former ever wanted to do, after all, is to make people laugh and see the world through a humorous prism. So far they are successful at it, no doubt, and it’s easy for anyone to ride on their success. After all, everyone loves a winner, a winning comic especially so.

But their works clearly aspire for the social satire genre and I find it appropriate to weigh recent products against the art form’s benchmarks. As such, they have to make up their mind: Do they just want to be (im)purely funny and mean, to parody and to ridicule, which is at least logical - or do they want to make serious statements while being funny? Are they earnest about “holding up human vices and follies to ridicule or scorn” (Webster’s Dictionary, 10th Edition) – which is serious business? Does it have to be at the expense of the weak? Why do they make me feel uneasy the way Steve Martin’s work or even Woody Allen’s psychotic sketches don’t?

Call it political correctness, or being persnickety and rectitudinous, but all I ever want is get my dose of guilt-free laughter, for there’s such a thing as a bad joke. And I am not just being moralistic.


8.2002

Denial/Disclaimer


I am not a pauper. I am the son of a great king. Why am I behaving like a beggar? Why am I bumbling like a bum? Why am I so ashamed? What am I so shy and timid about? Why can’t I live up to my birthright? Why do I insist on my lowliness? It’s a lie. If I am lowly, it’s only because I am dependent on the mercy of God, my creator. But I should not be shy about the fact that I have no less than God for a father. I shouldn't be shy about the fact that I have Jesus for a savior.

Yes, who are they that think themselves to be so high and mighty? Who are they to consider themselves superior and unattainable? Everybody’s entitled to his or her own delusion. But one’s being a child of a King is no delusion. If God is with us, indeed, who can ever afford to be against us?

We who love God are all children of God. We can afford to claim our place near the royal throne. For we haven’t been created for nothing, and we have been redeemed for a high price.

8.2002

The Necessity of Fearing God

The second Sunday of Easter, the feast of the Divine Mercy (also called Mercy Sunday) is not your usual feast in the Catholic calendar. It promises no less than plenary indulgence to anyone who'd confess his sins and take communion. It used to be that plenary indulgences are given only during a Holy Year or Jubilee Year. With Mercy Sunday, it's as though Jesus it telling us "come, abuse my love and tender mercy some more."

I find the essence of this wondrous feast to be in stark contrast to the teaching of the Church regarding mortal sin. A well-known local bishop was quoted as saying that anyone dying in mortal sin goes to hell.

I felt terrible when I heard that. Don't you? It made me become so paranoid not just about instant death but also about committing sin. Men are said to think of sex every few seconds, or so say some anecdotal evidence or some spurious surveys. If a 'mere' impure thought is said to be a mortal sin, will it mean everybody goes straight to hell for it? Gaad, this is enough to provoke everyone to go to confession all the time, I mean, every few seconds!

Now what if someone who's pure and holy all his life committed some mortal sin at the moment of death, will he suffer eternal damnation for it? Won't his goodness be ever accounted for? Doesn't he deserve 'a merciful savior more than a harsh judge'? Won't he be judged by how much he has loved?

I brought this matter to a Catholic leader I respect and this was his reply: "Maybe the Church had to put it that way to ensure obedience to God. If the Church emphasized God's mercy over God's justice, man is sure to abuse that mercy."

People are generally stupid, I thought, so it makes sense. Indeed, how many Catholics are complacent if not abusive of the sacrament of confession? Note how confession has now become the less severe 'sacrament of reconciliation.' How much have Catholic laity and clergy - even the strict ones - become more and more permissive? How many times do Catholics confess, only to repeat the same transgression because, 'anyway, I can confess it again (and again and again)'?

I can't help but ask: What is the plain truth? Does the Church really have to spin-doctor God's word like a badly paid hack? So there's a necessity of instilling fear of God, there's the necessity of cautioning against the abuse of God's grace because it awaits a higher penalty compared to those who never knew Christ's redeeming love. (Will non-Christians, particularly tribe people, be penalized for their ignorance in the first place?) But when it comes to God's precepts and edicts, does anyone have the right to emphasize something and downplay another?

I heard one non-practicing Catholic complain that Catholicism puts too much emphasis on fear. "Why can we not live our faith in love?" he wondered, by which he meant free, unrestricted 'love.' I hear this sort of grumble routinely from the so-called bohemian types whose concept of freedom and liberty is the absence of restrictions of any kind. They just can't get that "restrictions are not meant to oppress or repress but to protect."

Notwithstanding my skepticism, I choose to believe the bishop is telling a hard truth. I refuse to impute on him any hidden agenda no matter how well-meaning it might be. Nonetheless, I couldn't take it as easily that the same God who would fling a soul to the boiling furnace is the same God who forgives seventy times seventy times though one's sin be 'the color of scarlet.' This is too mind-blowing for my own understanding.

If I presume too much on God's mercy and love, I run the mistake of trivializing my sins. If I mind pleasing the Lord with the target of committing zero sins - at least the mortal ones, I end up in a state of paranoia and over-scrupulousness.

I suppose the truth lies in between - as always, "virtue lies in the middle"?

Still, nothing shall ever console me, nothing will ever blunt it, if it were true that dying in mortal sin leads to hell. If it's the truth, then so be it. Let everyone shudder in his pants and learn how to live with it. So God is so good and loving, but what if He's holy and just at the same time?

Honestly, I am afraid to take the risk.

4.27.2003

Apocalypse This Year?


“Welcome on 2003 the Coming of the King of Kings!” screamed a sticker in my face this morning. I was stunned. It was apparently an innocuous, if a bit ungrammatical New Year’s Day sticker, but I was stunned.

I had a good reason to be. Last December 30 or 31, I had a dream, or a vision, or a nightmare. Now this is not to imply that I’m a seer or a visionary or a mystic but I dreamt of an apocalyptic string of images.

The first involved the changing of the color and shape of the sun (or is it the moon). A lot of people witnessed it. Next I saw a great ball of fire descending from the sky then falling on Earth, annihilating many. I presume I survived because I next saw an army of Caucasian-looking soldiers on horseback treading on an altogether new landscape; there was an air of the newness of spring. The soldiers seem to have been going somewhere to rest.

I texted a friend about this dream. She told me to pray for a possible war in the Middle East. Okay.

Then just last Sunday, somebody I know to be of creditable character told me an earth-shaking news, which she got from a letter in the hands of an unnamed nun. It was that, before Mother Teresa died, she had a vision. One day, she called her fellow Sisters of Charity nuns to gather around and told them about what she saw. It was reportedly a vision from the Lord where Mother Teresa saw the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

The first horseman was Plague, and the contagion he was bringing must be today’s incurable diseases.

The second horseman was War. What is shocking about this part is that it concerns not some date far into the future but now - precisely, a war on April, 2003, to be started not by Saddam Hussein of Iraq but someone from Iran! (My friend points out that many Iranians are long known to be of fundamentalist temperament like Ayatollah Khomeini.)

The third horseman was Famine and he would bring hunger especially to certain Asian countries being ignored by the UN. (It should remind us of North Korea.)

And now for the real shocker, Mother Teresa allegedly saw the fourth horseman not as Death, the dark hooded figure with a sickle, but…Hope.

Yes, Hope. And what could that Hope mean? Wrong question. “Who is that horseman named Hope?” To His believers, that Hope is a person and He is no other than Jesus Christ Himself! (Cf.: The biblical meaning of “hope” is not a thing but a person, our only hope for salvation, Jesus Christ.)!

Mother Teresa’s vision reportedly showed that in this year’s war, America will be devastated and her economy will collapse. But with the coming of Jesus, lo and behold, the Twin Towers of New York City shall rise from the ashes! It was added that those below 80 years old today shall witness the Second Coming. And those who are living in the fear of the Lord need not fear.


1.15.2003

P.S. As if these were not enough, I would receive an email saying that the hit single The Ketchup Song by the trio of Spanish girls, Las Ketchup, may be a song of praise to the devil, particularly the unintelligible part, the chorus. This proves, the email says, that the Apocalypse is at hand. Gotta find those blessed candles.

Rio's Remission (And Relapse)


So you have claimed before the whole wide world that you’ve been miraculously healed of an incurable disease, like, cancer. What if the disease came back one day like a recurring nightmare? How would you handle it personally? What questions would you ask God? Would you find things anticlimactic? Would you feel it was all some kind of a bad joke? How would you deal with the intrigue from your skeptical detractors? Would you end up doubting God yourself?

I’ve always been intrigued by how TV star Rio Diaz is taking everything. Having cancer, of course, is no goofy day at Eat Bulaga, with clowns for co-hosts. I once saw Rio Diaz in person doing her groceries at Landmark (Makati), choosing from among a variety of ice cream that lay before her. I happened to be just four feet across her and nearly fainted at the apparition of beauty that lay before me.

Her unexpected healing was all over the papers. She came back from the States pretty and bubbly as ever, as though nothing happened. But she’s now a different celebrity, someone who wants to tell the whole world she encountered a Great Healer in an amazing way.

And now, it was reported she’s going back to the US for chemotherapy. When she came back home shortly, she was sporting a cap all the time.
I was surfing the TV channels one Sunday morning when I stumbled into a Rio Diaz on relapse. It was the 700 Club with Carla Martinez as host.

“How did you take it when you learned the cancer cells are back?” Carla asked. She was asking a question millions of people would have asked.
“I was prepared for any news from my doctor. Whether or not I die, I would give everything to Jesus.” Rio answered, almost unemotionally. “...The fact that I’m alive today is miracle enough!” she then enthused. “I leave things up to God.”

“If there’s something I realized from my relapse,” Rio went on, “it is that God’s grace is moment by moment.”
Rio was saying, if you’ve been healed today, thank God! If you were able to go through the day at all, no matter how easy or difficult the day might have been, rejoice! We should savor God’s grace as they come. God can take anything and everything in an instant if He wants to. Like, one’s health. Or hair.

Rio talked about how it was to finally lose one’s shiny tress. “I would rise up from bed and find much of my hair on the pillow. I would say, ‘Lord, You gave me this hair. Take it, it’s Yours. I know You will give me back my hair and it would even be more beautiful.”

Rio is not just a TV celebrity but a politician as well, the mayor of Pontevedra town in Negros province, and married into an old wealth, the Cojuangcos. “I’m sure there are a lot of intrigues?” Carla asked, again echoing millions.

“One is ‘You say you are healed and you have God because you have the money.’” Rio stated one such bitchy intrigue herself.

“This made me think awhile, but I got reminded of King Hussein and I say to them (her detractors), ‘Look at King Hussein (who had died of cancer), wasn’t he far, far wealthier?’ The point is, God gave His life to all, rich or poor. It just so happened that I am a celebrity and married a Cojuangco (Danding’s son Charlie). Maybe God wants me to use these advantages for a cause, particularly for cancer patients who couldn’t afford the staggering costs.” Rio said she has started setting up something like a foundation for this purpose.

With total remission and subsequent relapse, one half-expected a rebellious soul, but Rio just the same proved to be a radical for the Lord the second time around. This gives one the freakish hope that everyone go through the motions of near-death experience at least once in their lives. Perhaps, the world wouldn’t be in such a bad shape if people kept in mind the importance - and inevitability - of the eschatological or “the last things”?

6.29.2001

In Vain

Have you heard about the story of a nun who possessed a pair of eyes so beautiful they drove a male admirer nuts? The nun allegedly decided to gouge out her eyes and presented them to her admirer so he wouldn’t bother her any longer.

What about the story of another nun who prayed so hard to God that she’d grow a beard so she wouldn’t be similarly bothered for her beauty? What happened was she indeed grew a beard!

And the one about yet another nun, I suppose, who sliced off her two breasts to get rid as well of a male admirer pestering her for the shapely part of her anatomy? She placed her sliced breasts on a plate and after several years, she came to be known as that patron saint who holds a platter of two bells, the breast totally obscured as some other instrument.

(I gathered these freakish stories from Ambeth Ocampo’s column in the Inquirer.)

While these women literally took great pains to fight off vanity, perhaps in accordance with Qoheleth's (Ecclesiastes') admonition ("vanity of vanities; all is vanity"), today’s women, and especially so, men, do the opposite of taking great pains to augment their vanity.

I am vain myself and I’m the last person who would condemn efforts at making oneself pleasing to the eyes (magandang tanawin in the colloquial language of young men). I remember beauty queen Gemma Cruz Araneta who, in an article, referred to the Bible itself as an excuse to keep oneself arrayed in jewels and steeped in perfume even if one will just be washing the toilet bowl. (Of course I’m exaggerating.) Boy, she made me feel good about the fact that I used Eskinol for my whiteheads back then. Indeed, while a Biblical passage extols beauty that comes from within (wear the cloak of compassion, deck yourselves with love and kindness, etc.) there are also passages that gush at the loveliness and regality of certain women, indicating levels of feminine refinement impossible to achieve without the right blush-on, mascara (henna?), face powder, conditioner (aloe?), and hair gel.

I wonder why such courageous nuns never made it to feminists’ list of heroes considering their targets were lascivious men, the arch-enemy of militant sisterhood the world over. The greater motive of those sainted women, as I see it, must be to keep their focus on loving God, not to explicitly condemn vanity. Anyone or anything distracting them from their Lover must be dealt with immediately at all cost. It just so happened that essential parts of their femininity got tragically involved.

Ah, but I’m probably deluding myself. What’s the definition of vanity in the first place? If it is about being overly conscious about how we look, then it must be vanity, right? Especially to the point when it hinders us from doing what we ought. Whereas if it’s just a matter of wanting to feel good about oneself or wanting to be charitable to thy neighbors, then it ceases to be vanity, right?

But where do we draw the line? When is overly overly? What if it’s a matter of wanting to actually please and attract others, particularly the opposite sex, and not just to avoid offending them? What if it's our job to look our best? When does self-love start to become selfish? Is it wrong to love ourselves at all? Is it wrong to want to be attractive? Isn’t it but right that before we can love others, we should feel good about ourselves?

Apparently yes. These questions, however, can be put to the test if we are suddenly met with physically disfiguring events in life. Like, if you grew a zit the size of a lemon that left an ugly scar, would it affect your self-esteem? If you met someone with no legs nor arms, would he be a lesser person than Cindy Crawford or Brad Pitt? Would Mother Teresa be credible if she were clad in a revealing Prada and high heels, sported a Piaget watch with obscene studs of diamonds, and bathed in Estee Lauder?

Hahaha. Did I make you feel unnecessarily guilty? It made me so, too.

Perhaps the wisdom in vanity lies in staying minimalistic, in the usage of the barest essentials. Besides, who needs cosmetological finery, correctives and augmentation when an aura of beaty-from-within is more than enough to make us radiate, dazzle and scintillate?

7.13.2001

Not Yet, God, Not Now


The Catholic prayer Our Father, “the only prayer taught by Jesus,” has a most uncomfortable part: the one where we call on God that His “kingdom may come.” It’s uncomfortable because the implication is clear: “May Your kingdom come NOW!”

It strikes me as funny to the point of being hypocritical that whenever I prayed for God’s kingdom to come, it always had this attendant anxiety: What if it suddenly did? What if I was caught unawares? For the longest time I suspected most people had the same fear.

My suspicion was confirmed once and for all when I heard a naughty priest test his parishioners with the now-classic question, “Who among you want to go to heaven?” Then backing it up with the punch line, “Who wants to go to heaven now?”

See, the question is almost a taunt. The truth is obvious. We all want to go to heaven. We all want to be saved. But we are afraid of total surrender. We are afraid of seeing God face to face. We are afraid to die.

We enjoy living too much that we are attached to life, particularly to our favorite things in life, like our favorite sins. We echo St. Augustine’s famous line of hesitation prior to his conversion, “Lord, make me pure, but not yet.” My Humanities professor in college, an art lover, had that as his personal motto. It is diametrically opposed to St. Expeditus’ most courageous personal motto, “Death rather than sin!” which scares me so.

I caught an officemate of mine utter a variation of the Augustinian complaint by lifting from a song by an annoying rapper, “Gusto kong bumait pero di ko magawa.” (“I wanna be good but I can’t.”) He didn’t realize he was expressing something universal.

Why the dilemma? It could be that (1) He’s so used to evil that he thinks he’s beyond conversion or (2) He wants to experience conversion but something is making him hesitant: his favorite sins and his comfort zones which he might no longer avail of soon. My college professor thought that he would no longer be enjoying life’s objects d’arts once he turned ascetic. He must have believed that living totally for God means renouncing all possessions, putting on a habit, eating a monk’s meal and staying awake for the vespers.

In my life as a practicing if struggling Catholic, I would discover that these fears are all unfounded. There is great joy in surrendering to God. God rewards our generosity and He is never to be outdone for it.

The “kingdom come” part of Our Father is really a test revelatory of our innermost disposition, particularly the degree to which we are attuned to God.

The lack of longing or outright fear of the Second Coming exposes our burden of guilt, our attachments in life, our priorities.
If we should be scared, shouldn’t it be because Jesus’ kingdom may indeed come anytime? Shouldn’t it be because we can die anytime, because we might be staring at God face-to face anytime, because our personal Judgement Day can come like a thief in the night?

But the fact that we get scared at all is itself revealing. Souls who love the Lord have no fear at all. (“Perfect love casts away all fear.”) Theirs is a life of an ardent longing to see God, an impatient awaiting for His kingdom to be established here on earth, and beyond.

7.29.2001

Possess Me

“Lord, tighten your grip of me that I might not become so free as to fly far away from you, too strong as to defy you.”

Remember that I am Yours, Lord. I may not always be pleasing to Your eyes, but I am a surrendered soul, totally Yours. You can do anything with me as You please. My life is in You, my thoughts, my ways, my future, even my sins, are at Your own disposal.

Let every action of mine be done for Your glory. Let my health, my looks, my intellect, my memory, my dreams and desires, my passions, my earthly possessions, be the cause of Your joy. Let my heart beat for You, my soul long for You, my every nerve and sinew, every cell, work according to Your unseen designs. “I surrender to You my desire to control my life. I choose instead to live in You and discover the freedom that comes from remaining in Your will.”

Thank You Almighty God that You gave me the freedom to submit to You. In choosing freedom, I have found myself deciding to say yes to service, yes to discipleship. In abandonment of my self to You, I learned to rely on You alone. “Be my strength and hope in the midst of trouble. Let my heart rest content in You.”

7.2001

Ref: Galatians 10:1, 13-18
First sentence in quotes is taken from Didache; the others from The Word Among Us (Easter 2001)

Taking Sides

Dear Editor:

This is in response to Ramon Tulfo’s article, “A professional journalist,” dated June 13, 1995, where the columnist upholds the need for a totally unrestrained access to and giving of information in pursuit of a balanced news and the people’s right to inform and be informed.

I don’t think the role of journalists “to inform without fear or favor” is not without its limits. With total freedom, journalists could well be demanding AFP of its military secrets and government's classified information. “Being “professional” by not taking sides under ALL circumstances is, I think, an ill-conceived position.

Journalists, or media, in general, should always be taking the side of that entity which protects their existence; they should take the side of that entity which guarantees them freedom to air the truth in the first place. This is not my original idea. I've read Manila Bulletin's Napoleon Rama saying this during Gringo's or some other putschist's coup d'etat. Granting unlimited media access to the Abu Sayyaf and other criminals without the proper annotation or commentary, in the sacred name of objectivity, is no different from permitting coup plotters to air their propaganda during coup d’etats. People tasked with airing the truth unwittingly coddle plain criminals, even catapult them to superstardom, whose gain in terms of a positive media mileage is anathema to freedom of expression.

Media people should not be misguided by thinking that the right of people to be informed is paramount or absolute. They should always weigh things relative to the absolute truth, to what is right and wrong; when morality is at stake, everyone, most especially our self-appointed conscience, the media, should take sides.

6.1995

Taking Sides

Dear Editor:

This is in response to Ramon Tulfo’s article, “A professional journalist,” dated June 13, 1995, where the columnist upholds the need for a totally unrestrained access to and giving of information in pursuit of a balanced news and the people’s right to inform and be informed.

I don’t think the role of journalists “to inform without fear or favor” is not without its limits. With total freedom, journalists could well be demanding AFP of its military secrets and government's classified information. “Being “professional” by not taking sides under ALL circumstances is, I think, an ill-conceived position.

Journalists, or media, in general, should always be taking the side of that entity which protects their existence; they should take the side of that entity which guarantees them freedom to air the truth in the first place. This is not my original idea. I've read Manila Bulletin's Napoleon Rama saying this during Gringo's or some other putschist's coup d'etat. Granting unlimited media access to the Abu Sayyaf and other criminals without the proper annotation or commentary, in the sacred name of objectivity, is no different from permitting coup plotters to air their propaganda during coup d’etats. People tasked with airing the truth unwittingly coddle plain criminals, even catapult them to superstardom, whose gain in terms of a positive media mileage is anathema to freedom of expression.

Media people should not be misguided by thinking that the right of people to be informed is paramount or absolute. They should always weigh things relative to the absolute truth, to what is right and wrong; when morality is at stake, everyone, most especially our self-appointed conscience, the media, should take sides.

6.1995

Pedestrian Opinions Aired at the Start of the War


II. The Pursuit of Truth

In the pursuit of truth, to paraphrase someone from a media organization, always be wary of lobbyists or ideologues, government's official statements and military minds, but never be cynical of them.

Indeed, we cannot expect credible, accurate and balanced information from sources with hidden agenda or entities who have interests to protect. We cannot expect to ferret out the truth from people who have loyalties.

But this is not to say a disinterested group like the media is always credible. Let's face it, people are people. We are always bound to believe strongly in some personal or institutional philosophy or other. Perhaps the best we can do is to follow the scientific or empirical method of investigation? That way, nobody will dispute anybody because what we have is a set of unadulterated data, replicable under the same set of conditions anytime, anywhere.

If we ourselves, the observers, would only look honestly deep into our hearts, we would know that our interpretation of the world is inevitably colored by what we value and what we don't, notwithstanding the cold data and hard facts staring back at us. Our belief system, religion, philosophy, even personality - all these somehow color the truth.

Look at PDI columnists Conrado de Quiros and Dean Bocobo, though they are not strictly being paid for their journalism but for their opinionated opinions. I, for one, see de Quiros as certainly left-leaning. I see Bocobo as secular humanist in thinking. I don't know if that is left or right; what I know is that his desire to have a democratic world is as genuine as de Quiros'.

Yet look how differently they see things, how diametrically opposed. I am not saying we should look for our own truths, because that is tantamount to moral relativism, that is tantamount to saying we have different realities - I mean, reality is reality, from an omniscient point of view. What I'm saying is, we should always be keenly aware of bents. We should be able to read between the lines. We should note the things left unsaid.

It could be that the two are speaking at least a part of the truth. I say 'at least' because we should not preclude the possibility that someone might be telling the whole truth, or barefacedly telling a blatant lie. Weighing what is true from all these facets is our own judgment call.

Let's take a look at the Bible as another case study. How many versions did it end up with? For a book so obsessed with "the truth," how could people come up with different versions of it?

Investigations would show that the process of its translation is an inexact science. It involves words with complex nuances, words with no translation at all. And, on top of that, 'Omnis traductor traditor,' i.e., 'Every translator is (known to be) a traitor.'

And we haven't even begun to talk about interpretation.

The better question then is: As observers or searchers of the truth, are we detached enough, open-minded enough?

Somebody quoted Nietzsche as saying, "Conviction, not lies, is the greatest enemy of the truth." Whether you like Nietzsche or are repulsed by his anti-Christian worldview, it's hard not to agree.

"The purpose of education," it has been said by another sage, "is to replace an empty mind with an open one."

I hope that no matter how stupid we look at other people's opinion, we do not deny their right to say it, nor brush off the remotest possibility that they might be telling the truth, or at least a part of it.


4.1.2003
This piece was posted at pinoywriters@yahoogroups.com where I risked being called a little brown American. Yeech, I won't even defend myself.




III. Still on Truth


Truth is said to be the first casualty of war, but peacetime is hardly a guarantee, either. Heck, even the twin vantage points of time and place have proven to be as troublesome.

In a conference of historians, writer Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo is said to have stirred the hornet's nest when, as guest speaker, she likened the writing of history to the writing of fiction. "There's not much difference between the two," she bravely generalized.

Naturally, the historians present were offended. What they saw all their pedantic lives as precise art was summarily dismissed as a function of human subjectivity.

If the historians were hurting, it could be that the truth indeed hurt - even as it presumably set them free.

In Galileo Galilei, the oft-quoted play by Bertolt Brecht, the famed astronomer was confronted by his supporters for retracting his findings against an Earth-centered universe. Galileo, being a practical man of science, chose to backtrack, fearing excommunication and torture by the Inquisition.

"How could you turn your back on the facts?" his supporters lashed at him.

"What does it matter if Earth is said to be the center of the universe," he answered, "when in reality it continues to move around the sun?"

"Eppur si muove." ("And yet it moves.")

Bertolt Brecht is, of course, the iconoclastic German progenitor of the epic theater. Instead of verisimilitude, Brecht opted for verfremdung, the alienation effect. Instead of sentimentalism, analysis. Instead of localized events, panoramic sweep; a hero, an anti-hero; Stanislavsky acting, non-empathetic acting - all in the name of upholding reality. Brecht didn't believe in cathartic endings, as though to say that conflicts in real life are an ongoing and continuing process, hardly ever being purged.

One defining element of Brechtian theater is that it never preaches. It regards the spectator highly enough to leave him/her decide for himself/herself. Like a quote I have stumbled into said, "When I transfer my knowledge, I teach. When I transfer my beliefs, I indoctrinate." (Arthur Danto, in Analytic Philosophy of Knowledge, 1968)

This line, quite frankly, is sure to give anyone a headache: Can we therefore indoctrinate on the truth? What do we do when the truth is twisted, turned into half-truths?

Silas Marner, the unforgettable novel by George Eliot, is among other things, a book about lies - people living a lie, entire lives irreparably damaged by a false accusation, and families and a whole narrow-minded village giving in to the temptation to believe it.

In the end, however, truth is accidentally divulged, and the irrevocable is revealed. Those who've long been oppressed by the lie are redeemed, as are the ones who'd been hoodwinked.

There's no use denying the truth. Galileo's line - "Eppur si muove" - brings to mind somebody else's statement: "There is no truth, just facts. Let the truth come out of the facts."

It took a guy named John Paul II to make a belated apology for the errors on both Galileo and the Inquisition.

The truth speaks for itself and no one can stop it from outing itself. "The truth shall unfold as the Galilean world turns."

***

Clearly, the pursuit of truth shall remain tricky, like [an egroup member rebutted]. The omniscient point of view is preposterous. After all, who else but God knows the truth?

Some novelists are acutely aware of this that they would prefer to use multiple points of view to present a story. They tell the story in the eyes of the various witnesses (i.e., characters) to the story. That way, they get to at least approximate what really happened.

One is indeed reminded of the movie Pulp Fiction, but in this movie, different characters have different views of the same event. In contrast, Amy Tan's novels, likewise told from various point of views, complement each character's observations.

I wonder if we can write history this way.


4.2003
This piece was also posted at pinoywriters@yahoogroups.com when the arguments began to simmer down as the war became fait accompli.

Pedestrian Opinion Aired Before the War


I. On Philippine media and academe's anti-US, anti-war bias (and an appeal to Muslims)

The way the Philippine trimedia and the academe interpret this war, you'd think that US troops were deployed to the Middle Eastern desert to have a party. You'd think that it's a very enjoyable thing for America to kill and kill and spend millions for it. You'd think that it's only Iraqi women and children, Iraqi livelihood, arts and culture that are being collaterally damaged. Just imagine the backlash of this war in the future: all of Western civilization should quake in its boots, if all this is wrongly interpreted and magnified by media as a matter of jihad.

Since media's objectivity is a myth like UP's Carolina Malay herself said, they might as well take sides. So CNN and BBC are liars, do you mean to say al-Jazeera is telling a better version of the truth? C'mon! Baka naman a better version of the lie? You might as well side with that entity that upholds the very values and system you are operating in, that entity you hate oh-so-much.

Mr. Conrad de Quiros, Amando Doronila and Randy David, do you mean to prefer all of us to sport two-meter long beards as required allegedly by Koran? Ms. Rina David, would you rather support the strict compliance in the wearing of burqas and chadors, the treatment of women as third-class citizens, a little above pets and furniture? Christian columnists from Mindanao, would you rather rejoice to see all the crosses in that island confiscated and die-cast into crescents, all the churches razed and ransacked? All you great artists out there, would you rather that your work be treated like that of Salman Rushdie's? All you leftists and communists, do you prefer to be gassed by the greatest killer of Muslims like what he did to about 10,000 Iraqi Kurds, instead of just battling police lines in front of the US Embassy? Esteemed newspaper editors, would you rather have a newspaper that is bamboozled by its mysterious, arrogant owner? All fence-sitting meat-lovers, would you rather have halal beef but none of the impurities of pork fat? The horror.

If it's not taking the-hell-with-evil-America, peace-peace-peace line, you accuse the US of coveting Iraq's oil if not of plain invasion. Hello? Why can't you accuse and pronounce as positively evil the motives of Islamic terrorists, especially the forcible claiming and subjugation of lands under the crescent moon, or at least the sacrificing of innocent lives? How could some people spare the pig and dispense with human beings like beasts?) Everybody should bat for Muslim-Christian unity and equality, but not in the name of mutually exclusive privation.

So what if Iraq had a glorious history? Does that make this war any less illegitimate than toppling the twin towers of the more recently constituted World Trade Center? What has that country achieved in spite of being led by the likes of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar? In spite of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? In spite of Ur being the birthplace of Abraham, the patriarch of Jews, Muslims and Christians alike? In spite of the Tigris and Euphrates being the twin cradles of human civilization? In spite of Ashurbanipal? In spite of all that Assyrian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Old Testament splendor? Gaad, in spite of being the putative site of the biblical Eden?

What of it? Nada, nothing but the advent in power of dictator Saddam Hussein and a host of sadomasochistic Saddam-lovers who would rather die of starvation than offend their Saint Saddam Hussein.

If there's anyone to blame in this (other than media), it is largely the Iraqi people.

For all our numerous cultural flaws, no one can fault us Filipinos for not rising to the occasion in the face of an oppressor, whatever kind of grotesquerie he is wearing at any particular moment in history. From Lapu-Lapu to Dagohoy, from Tamblot to Silang, from Rizal to Bonifacio to Ninoy Aquino, Filipinos have raised the hue and cry of revolution against Spanish colonialism, America's "benevolent assimilation," Japanese empirialism, home-grown dictatorship, shameless coups d'etats by the power-hungry military - we have weathered them all, thanks to Filipinos who refused to be cowed by brutes and cowards.

Iraqis abroad could have banded together and formed an overseas resistance against hero Hussein. Iraqis at home, on the other hand, always had the option of people power, and yet, what have been their clear and unequivocal choice but to waltz with the ugly apparition as dance partner? These people couldn't read the ugliness of a face if it would give them freedom and democracy in return. I mean, isn't Saddam's ungovernably unrelieved ugliness infuriating? Isn't that ugliness clue enough? Call me lookist, I don't care.

I can understand the restrictive choices made by Muslims anywhere, but I've long been of the belief that something has to give way with the manner they view the world. While we can do nothing about their belief that non-Muslims are all infidels and satanic beyond redemption, surely they can temper certain things? My observation is that most Muslims are simply unable to function under secularism, freedom and democracy. Devout Catholics, too, can be faulted for this, but at least they don't raise cells of extremist and fundamentalist mujaheedins who see hasty jihads and fatwas and suicide bombings as salvific judicial options. At least they will never coalesce into a global group to snatch legitimate governance just to have a Catholic country; after all, Christians will always be strangers and just-passing pilgrims in this world, so what's the point?

Muslims cannot seem to coexist side by side with us devils. They always want to be separated from the rest of the world. To them, all of US and Western media is propaganda. The landing of man on the moon, for example, is just a Hollywood advertisement in their conjecture. In their baseless estimation, they are always being victimized and willfully marginalized by the Great Satan America and her abominably licentious, Godless and ethnocentric culture. A portion of this may be true, as in the case of Zionist Hollywood. But then Goldwyn, Mayer, et al. are Jews, what can we expect? There are reportedly more Jews in New York than in all of Israel!

Can Muslims of the world at least forbid their beloved brothers, in the holy name of Allah, not to detonate themselves - at least where innocent people might be involved? Can't they at least oppose Osama bin freaking Laden and the Talibans, Saddam H. Hussein and all Islamic fascists and terrorists? Can't they stand in solidarity with the rest of humanity, a humanity that is tired of war and all kinds of structural evil? The world has weathered and demolished the plague, smallpox, the slavery of blacks, colonization, Nazism, the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, apartheid, dictatorships. We have seen the historic return of Hong Kong Macau to communist China as well as the reunification of Germany and Korea. Will everything come to naught because of Islamic fascism and biochemical terrorism?

Granted that Muslims around the world are being oppressed by their enemies, can't they at least reconsider a nonviolent option like the Koran or Islam, a religion of peace, teaches? Can't they air their grievance in a multi-cultural, multi-racial, diversely religious, consensual arena? Can't they possibly presume on the vestigial goodwill of infidels? Can't they contemplate at all the remotest possibility that God might love all of us? That after all, we all are His creatures? That before we are Muslims or Jews or Catholics or Hindus or Buddhists, we all are created in His (or Her) image and likeness?

(Ms. Bel Cunanan, in her recent column, wondered why Iraq never developed its sacred sites as tourist attractions. I wonder if she was being serious. An Old Testament tour of Iraq would boost Christianity, not Islam, and the very thought of tourism dollars from heathens and gentiles in the hallowed grounds of Islam is tantamount to blasphemy!)

I pray and rally for peace, but I pray for the end of Saddam's reign first. Think of what would have happened if only media and all that rallying for peace, if Russia, China and Jacques Chirac's but threw their support. We could have properly pressured Saddam Hussein to leave us in peace. We could all have prevented the war.


4.2003

(This is, quite surprisingly, an echo of Dean Jorge Bocobo's opinion, which is a courageous objection in a sea of populist and leftist sentiments. My apologies to Mr. Bocobo for encroaching on his turf.)

War Song



A non-mediagenic perspective: War's spiritual dimension


You never sing songs of peace with the devil. You never compromise with it, not even an inch. What you do with the devil is reject, exorcise, defeat, keeping constant vigil against it. This is war! And the way to it is to arm yourself with all the powers of goodness, especially repentance and faith, acknowledging that you are powerless with the devil unless you embrace the light fully, not in parts, but as a whole.

The Bible is not averse to war; in fact, it speaks the language of war, if you want to be explicitly biblical about it. Paul's Letter to the Ephesians says, "Put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground. So stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances hold faith as a shield, to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit. To that end, be watchful with all perseverance and supplication for all the holy ones." (Ephesians 6:13-18)

What is peace? It is not a détente with the devil, it is an active defense in the hope of defeating it. Preemptive strike, if you will.

Despite the moral ambiguities of this war ("The US is a terrorist, too, in fact, the world's No. 1 terrorist." "Who taught and armed the Talibans anyway?"), this war remains to have a spiritual dimension, though strictly not in the Christian-versus-Muslim terms (although Islam is said to be an enemy of Christianity). My personal solution to this war is not merely to pray for peace but, first of all, to acknowledge the evil currently oppressing the world. Only when we acknowledge evil can we ever repent of it. With repentance inevitably comes self-exorcism - exorcism from greed, injustice, envy, lust, bitterness… I would want to arm myself with the strength that comes from a lightness of spirit, a guilt-free conscience.

It is not inconsistent: We cannot fight a good fight with anger and bitterness in our hearts. If we are angry, we are angry because our civilization is being attacked in the stealthy manner of a traitor. This is righteous indignation!

The problem is that many people won't entertain the argument of war in the war against terror. As I understand it, the premise of this war is that terrorism is evil, terrorism being a deliberate, malicious attack of innocent civilians and non-military staff and installations. A Christian, being reduced to a forgiven soul, unconditionally loved, redeemed by pure grace, cannot afford to hate. What is being invoked here is the necessity of self-defense.

We have a duty to defend ourselves, our country and its people, and any nation in need of our help when what's at stake is freedom and democracy - all-important cornerstones of our civilization , as indeed, our very own existence. So what if Saddam Hussein has no reported nuclear warhead? This is not a war of warheads. The point is, his government doesn't find anything wrong with terrorism, his wisdom cannot see through the evil in his beloved brother-fascist Osama, who use Islam and Muslims as fortification for their cowardice. This is not to say that the rest of the fundamentalist Muslim world are being dragged unknowingly.

Peace is an easy proposition to take. Who doesn’t want peace? Peace makes for an artsy, fashionable statement. "War is never good or moral, victory will always be pyrrhic." they say. But war becomes a moral option when all roads to peace have been repeatedly mocked. War is a necessity because evil is a reality.


Before the war, 2003

Sick in the Metro, Sick of the Metro


Ramblings on a sick metro
(dedicated to MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando)


1. Not even the pretty, expertly photographed billboards from Globe Handyphone and Nokia wallpapering the expressway could appease my irked sense of aesthetic. Advertising billboards have simply become our landmarks, our guideposts, our monuments. The sheer impact of their size reduces Rizal Park into the inconsequentiality of a postage stamp in the age of emails and websites. You get off at Jollibee. You turn right to 7-11. The bus stops at Mantrade. I live near Shell.

2. It follows that brand names become not just household names but grammatically correct verbs, not to mention wearable apparel. Have you DHL’d or Fed-Exed this document? Did you have it Xeroxed?

3. The air I used to know as occurring in gas phase the last time I checked, has now turned into aerosol, particulates of every known dirt, atomized into allergens, choking the lungs and straining the heart. The surgeon general warns that smoking cigarettes is dangerous to one’s health, yet he keeps mum on the subject of a basic carcinogen known as the urban outdoors.

4. I’m missing the sun lately as well, 30 minutes of it on at least 18 sq. in. of skin per day at the minimum, like the doctor recommends. This explains why I sneeze each time I wake up and feel sapped of the extra energy needed to last the long day, and in possession of bones dangerously getting brittle ahead of my years. The skyway snaking above the expressway has taken the sun away. The behemoths known as billboards trap whatever light gets reflected. The haze, which makes the skies seem constantly overcast, further deflect the solar radiation back to the cosmos where no alien or extra-terrestrial need it. People are sneering at me. How dare I complain about not getting enough sun when I’m too dark-skinned? No kidding.

5. Air-conditioned transport brings me to and from work. Escalators and elevators lift up my spirit upstairs. I get cash using the ATM. I relay information by text-messaging. Remote controls take care of switching TV channels. I get instantaneous replies from my various correspondences via email. Push-button machines make coffee, vends Coke, logs my time-in and time-out. Pages of research materials get accessed and printed in a few clicks. With everything mechanized, my muscles waste away, turn into fat that won’t melt. (If my muscles atrophy, then why am I getting fat?)

6. Everywhere I go are people and all of them strangers. We share the same cramped space and breathe the same set of pollutants. I like the anonymity, but does it have to involve everyone? I’ve never known who my neighbors are, not the least their surnames.

7. This artificiality of life – with its attendant hazards – has made me want to switch to anything organic and all-natural. Like freshly squeezed orange juice in place of powdered juice. (How on earth did a juice get powdered?) Brown sugar instead of white sugar and protein-based sweeteners. Green leafy vegetables instead of vitamin pills. Backyard chickens instead of GMO-fed fowl.

8. But I’m totally helpless about the water. The chlorine level in tap water is too high. Fluoridation is a suspicious thing. The minerals in bottled mineral water may get deposited in my system as corrosive salts. Distilled water is allegedly safe, but isn't distilled water artificial? This leaves me with rainwater, which, needless to say, is pure acid rain.

9. This place, too, glories in its garbage such that one locality’s filth is another’s livelihood. No need for garbology here, the study of garbage. No need for institutional sorting and recycling. Somebody’s going to do it for society; it’s his miserable life’s calling. They are the residents of Smokey Mountain (now the Payatas Dumpsite), the scavengers, the children who eat fastfood store refuse for dinner, and those who scrounge for coins lost in the meanest canals, esteros, and poso negros.


I need to get out of here some time or I go crazy.

But no, this doesn't mean shirking off all the benefits afforded by urban technology and going back to living in the farm, though there's nothing wrong with living in a farm. I can't imagine living in a city like this for the rest of my life, but neither can I imagine going around on a horse or a carabao-drawn sled, even though that would be romantic.

I just want a city that knows how to plant a garden, a city that knows how to sleep and take some rest.


9.19.2002

1995



From my forgotten notebook


Barely have the Filipino people recovered from the euphoria that was the Pope's charismatic presence when the final verdict on Calauan Mayor Sanchez's crime brought the entire nation into a resounding applause for justice. Our system works after all, we said.

Barely have our collective anger on the famous rapist defused when the hanging of Filipina maid Flor Contemplacion in Singapore, widely perceived as unjust, united the nation into an EDSA-style protest.

This, while President Ramos was busy doing the rounds of Iran, Turkey, the Netherlands, Belgium and others we missed. Nobody we knew was actually interested in the fact that FVR was on a foreign junket, much less be privy to the details of his itinerary.

And now this! The Abu Sayyaf went on a killing rampage, ruthlessly, savagely claiming the lives of about 100 people not unlike the World War II Japanese did. Why, the Gancayco Commission has yet to determine the real cause of Delia Maga's death and now we have to investigate the deaths of a hundred! We also have yet to familiarize ourselves with the confusingly similar faces of those eight Arab-looking men accused as terrorists and recently nabbed in Kalookan City

No wonder we hardly noticed the visit of Spain's King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia; Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India; and the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel. Imagine royalties, a 'living saint', and a highly regarded writer visiting our land almost at the same time. There are not too many living saints and writers-turned-presidents in this world, are there? And the reigning Spanish monarchs' visit to a former colony was supposedly a first, a momentous milestone in the annals of Philippine history.

Ah, but we have no time for such luxuries. The world is still reeling from the war in Chechnya, the war in Bosnia, the massacre of Hutus by the horrible Tutsis in Rwanda. Etc. Etc.

We were future-shocked, Alvin Tofflered.

5. 22.2004

Conservatism is a Valid Choice


People think that just because I’m an active Catholic, it follows that I’m the ultraconservative type - raised up by puritanical, serrado-Catolico parents, prayed the Rosary together with the whole family, served as an acolyte in our parish as a boy, studied in the Ateneo, or that I’m an ex-seminarian.

My standard reaction to these silly presumptions? “Ha ha ha ha ha!”

Things aren’t always that they seem, we can never overemphasize that. My folks have never been active Catholics; my father almost never goes to church, and the practice of praying the Rosary died with my lola on the father side. Come to think of it, the prayer was most probably said as a last-resort talisman in times of calamity. My grandma on my mother's side is a Baptist. I’ve never been an acolyte, so I grew up wondering how it felt to be one. I wish I were an Atenean so I can interact with the Jesuits. And I never contemplated walking into a seminary because it scared me that I might hear God’s call.

How then did I become what I am now? I don’t know, but I’ve always been like this as far as I can remember, always walking my walk mindful of that big eye in heaven who always looked upon me from on high, a strict but loving, distant yet constant, presence.

The stage has been set for me to become a rebel early enough. I remember an invisible stranger inviting me to join the leftist League of Filipino Students by handing me a letter through my schoolmate. I’m thoroughly a product of public school - from kindergarten to college. Jose Rizal’s genius and iconoclasm fascinated me. I’m from UP, for Pete’s sake. I never got to sit in a Theology class. The closest thing I had was to be an inconsequential member of the UPSCA (Student Catholic Action). I love people with acerbic wit and a radical way of thinking. I once had an atheist Geology major for a roommate whom I tortured with questions, and met agnostics and all sort of people of different religions. UP is veritably a haven for non-Catholics, I would discover. And now, I find myself writing, a major turf of rebels and radicals.

I had a choice. I saw both sides of the coin. And it was a decision to stick it out with tradition, or most of it anyway, particularly organized religion. To err on the side of conservatism was a conscious choice.

This decision stems from the fact that, from my personal standpoint, the correlation between what I deem iniquitous vis-à-vis a modern, liberal lifestyle or way of thinking is just too high. It just so happened that I am far more at peace with tradition, even though not necessarily at home with it all the time. Tradition can make you feel boring and stuffy and uptight, like some televangelists of a certain sect I see on TV - annoyingly ramrod straight they're actually funny. But given the choice between being unpopular and being openly welcomed, between peace of mind and guilt, I would choose the former anytime.

Conservatism is a personal policy I can sleep soundly with, even over an avalanche of issues having gray-area complexity: art, pornography, euthanasia, death penalty, suicide, abortion, contraception, homosexuality, transvestitism, sex change, human cloning, etc.

So who said erring on the side of conservatism is a boring thing? With things going the way they do, it is conservatives who are increasingly the subject of angry attacks instead the other way around. It is conservatives who are increasingly put on the defensive. Today, people who espouse beliefs and notions previously perceived as inimical to morals are referred to as “progressives,” implying that their followers are marching toward advancement of humanity at long last. And traditional ways, which have kept human civilization intact for centuries, are becoming obsolete, not in step with the times, and stunt or arrest the development of humanity.

I know I have produced and will always produce bitter enemies with this personal stand. But, the way I see it, better to have a lot of
enemies than forever hold my peace.

6.24-25.2001

Catalytic Reaction



I would have had a heart attack even if I were in the pinkest of health were I to live as a Catholic in America today. This is how violently I recoiled after I stumbled into Catalyst, the newsletter of the Catholic League, a non-profit association of Catholics in America commissioned by the pope to safeguard Catholic spirituality and to serve as watchdog for civil and religious rights of Catholics in the land of sour milk and green honey. (Okay, I'm being a sour grape.)

All I did was skim through one such newsletter to drive me into an apoplectic fit. When I came to, after being clinically dead for hours, I found myself on a bashing spree.

What's especially hurting about the American picture is that it's mostly other Catholics and other Christians themselves who are the perpetrators. Bill Donohue, the newsletter's editor in chief and president of the League, gave this idea of hosting a coming-out party for these...these...politically incorrect horde (that's putting it very kindly).

Now, friends, please help yourselves with the pink champagne and hors d'oeuvres and let's join Bill in unveiling the infamous Anti-Catholic List:

1. Topping the list is the movie Dogma which blasphemously caricatures sacred Catholic figures. Directed by Kevin Smith, the movie is top-billed by Matt Damon (How could you, Good Will Hunting?) and Ben Affleck as fallen angels and Alanis Morisette as...hold on to your blessed crucifixes...God. Okay, Kevin Smith's movie is a caricaturization, but that's not a good excuse.

2. Fr. Andrew Greeley, a novelist heavy on sex themes, for defending Dogma.

3. The movie End of Days, directed by Peter Hyams, starring Arnold Schwarzenneger, for literally and figuratively pulverizing the Catholic Church with impunity.

4. Andres Serrano, artist, for Pissed Christ, a crucifix drowned in urine.

5. Chris Ofili, artist, for The Holy Virgin, a dung-and-porno collage splattered on the Virgin Mary's image.

6. Terrence McNally, playwright, for Corpus Christi, which portrays Jesus as gay.

I will skip TV sitcoms and infotainment segments that routinely harangue Catholics. Maybe I could add the following:

6. Nikolas Kazantsakis' The Last Temptation of Christ which has a scene with Jesus being seduced by Mary Magdalene.

7. Jesus Christ Superstar, the musical, for its interpretation of a cowardly and confused Christ, not to mention a Mary Magdalene similar to the preceding.

8. Madonna - need I mention her banned MTV Like A Prayer and her equally pornographic body of work?

The trouble with America, from the Catholic League's eyes, is its perverted, double-standard interpretation of equality and freedom of expression. Try doing the same profanities to Jewish and Moslem icons and see how fatwas hang over the heads of Salman Rushdies faster than you can say 'excommunication'. In fairness, Catholics are a lot more open-minded.

It appears that in Land of the Free, it's alright to grant free speech to con men, boors, and scalawags but when it is the Catholics' turn to voice out, America's thought police are quick to label as bigotry and demagoguery. This can be likened to the leftist movement's definition of human rights violations: It's human rights violation if government and the military commit the crime, but if it is rebels who do, it's called social justice.

Humor me.

6.27.2000

My Angry Guru


A sad day for America


Sometime last week was a sad, sad day for America when no less than the US Supreme Court upheld that God was unconstitutional. This was never covered by local media, as far as I know. At least the US-based Yahoo site did.

One can only join the sweet chorus, “Hurray! Long live democracy!” It was a day long dreamed of by Voltaire and his disciples. Now they can sleep in peace, complacent in the knowledge that “freedom” is finally won.

Oh wait, one thoughtful soul has raised one small thing left to worry about in this whole fiasco. “What about the ‘In God We Trust’ in the US currency?” he despaired. "Isn't that a violation of the Constitution, too?"

“You fool!,” my profoundly pissed-off guru in the Philippines fulminated. “No problem, there. I will telephone that guy," he volunteered, "to tell him that all the American government has to do is add the letter ‘l’. 'In Gold We Trust.' That's easy enough.” Gold has long been materialistic America’s god anyway, their version of the Jewish Baal."

"But let’s give where the credit is due, eh?" I countered. "The European Union is actually the real trailblazer in this, when they sagely excluded God from their recent economic summit statement."

“Clearly,” my angry guru agreed, “an advanced, sophisticated, self-sufficient civilization has no longer need for God, who has now been reduced to a concept long passe, irrelevant, useless.” These countries have realized that, to quote that evil movie South Park the Movie, “God is the greatest bitch.” Now He is a white elephant, if not a non-entity.

It is supremely ironic that this came on the heels of September 11 when snooty New Yorkers are reduced to imploring, “God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

“This is a modern fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy (in the book of Amos),” noted my angry guru, now calming down, “which says, ‘The time will come when God’s people is brought to famine, not one of bread and water, but a famine of God’s word. They will seek far and wide and not hear God’s word,’” (because all His prophets have been silenced.)

It is so depressing beyond words that one great nation, the United States of America, singularly founded on God - and singularly favored for it - should turn her back on the One who brought her into freedom, prosperity, and power.

“It’s a terrible thing, this kind of famine, can you imagine?” my guru said, now dismayed again. “God’s word being a lamp to my feet and a light for my path, one can only expect America to stumble and fall.”

May the few good Americans left save that nation for she’s now officially dead.

7.5.2002

Jose Carreras Meets Mikhail Baryshnikov


I haven't met a priest this...spontaneous. If all Jesuits are like him, then I fear for the order. You know, not all people like weirdoes.

Fr. Guido Arguelles is one of those people whom you will either love or love to hate. How would you like your priest doing an impression of Jose Carreras one moment, then pirouettes like a primo ballerino - in full priestly regalia. Not really pirouetting but arching his body in a way that says, "Look ma, I'm not afraid of osteoporosis." He is 60+ years old.

"To love is to call someone to life," he quotes a favorite quote in one of his sermons.

"To call what…?" all ears nictitate towards his direction.

He explains to all those who went ballistic, "To love someone is to let him or her realize what he or she is meant to be."

"As parents, you cannot dream for your children. You have to let them dream their own dreams. As a husband, you cannot tell your wife 'I love you' and 'I would love you to stay at home for me' in the same breath. I'm all for submission, but what if your wife is meant to be a brilliant teacher, like one UP professor I know? In effect, you have caused one's premature death. As a wife, you cannot nag your husband about his delayed promotion.

"Always see the good in people. As employers, you don't shout at your people or reprimand your maids in front of others like they are your slaves. We must show extra kindness to those who have less in life, the janitor, the elevator person. That way, we affirm other people's self-worth."

Fr. Guido glowers, "I am not impressed if the ______ (names some wealthy people) claim to possess the heart for the poor. Love is expressed in concrete ways. I don't care what they say but the truth is, they don't really care. Wealthy does not necessarily mean better. It can mean isolating yourself from the bigger community."

Fr. Guido, retired from being a parish priest of Sta. Ana, has the mien of a prepubescent boy. You know what they say about faces like his.

He caps his sermon with a plug: "I do silkscreen printing. I also accept jobs for election posters. I love it when my client is a "magnanakaw na politiko. I get to earn a lot."

Then he follows up with another plug to please drop some more for the second round of the collection plate. He mentions about someone's unpaid hospital bills in Zamboanga, another one's next meal in Manila, and so on.

"To love is to call someone to life." That's Love 101 from someone too old not to know and too crazy to ever want to be understood.



2.2001

Pinoy, Amboy


A puerile paean to the lowly palay


I am foremost a rice-eater, a rapacious one. I am what I am because I've eaten too much rice. I can make do with a teeny-weeny piece of dried fish for lunch for as long as I could have at least one basin-full of my fluffy white grain.

One time in a fit of whimsy, I had cold turkey sandwich from Subway for dinner and guess what? My body convulsed in every possible way. Apparently my Filipino DNA has gotten so used with its favorite seeds that anything other than these for dinner would be met with physiological protest, if not genetic unrest.

The Beatles were somehow right when they allegedly insulted us, "Filipinos eat grass." One only has to survey the countryside for the incontrovertible proof: huge swaths of green, and not just rice: sugar cane, corn, bamboo, too - grasses all, botanically speaking. And I'm discounting those herbs that are always looked down upon as belonging to lower level: kamote, kangkong, etc. And of course that other, more notorious 'weed.'

So we gobble up lots of grass, what of it? Has anyone died from eating too much of it? Oftentimes, our indolence is blamed on eating too much of it. They say that all rice and no protein makes Juan Tamad lazy, but the truth is, the humid tropical weather is more to blame than our nearest equivalent to wheat.

A mischievous officemate of mine, PJ, proudly claims he's an Amboy. He doesn't mean 'American boy' but one who is pinalaki sa am (had excess rice broth as growth formula), an infant diet reputedly rich in niacin, in amounts enough to ward off beri-beri, a vitamin B-deficiency disorder. To PJ, to be a Pinoy is to be an am-boy.

Because of their ravenous desire for rice, our ancestors had to build an architectural wonder that rivals the great pyramids of Egypt, with a bul-lul, the rice god, standing guard - or rather sitting pensively. Because of their greedy fondness for the grain, our forebears were able to establish an international institute devoted to its study. Students from all over would come over here to learn. They learned too much, in fact, that they no longer need our own rice, which we used to sell is shiploads.

There are myriad varieties of rice. There's wag-wag, milagrosa, California rice, Vietnam rice, and so on. Depending on how the grain is cooked, there's Java rice, bagoong rice, Thai rice, garlic rice, rice pilaf, rice crispies, rice cakes. Then there's tapey or Igorot rice wine. There's more to rice than meets the eye, or the jaw. In the Visayas, they treat rice like gold. They cook it in a puso, wrapped in a mat of coconut leaf, suspended on a string and steamed.

Had the prayer Our Father been conceived in these islands, it would have gone "Give us this day our daily rice." What is bread to the West is rice in these parts. What they mean bread and butter, we take to mean rice and fish, bread of life as grain of life. We shower newlyweds with polished rice with this belief, as though to say, "May you never run out of it. May you have sacks of it for life."

We are who we are because we've eaten one plate of rice too many. We accord it a certain degree of reverence. A ringing-tone handbook for cell phones once translated the lively planting-season folk song Magtanim Ay Di Biro to Planting Rice is Never Fun (instead of the accurate Planting Rice is No Joke). That's not so funny. We owe it to our lowly grass. We have to give it to our gracious grain.


4.5.2000

Mercy is Thy Name


Fr. Socrates Villegas is easily one of my favorite priests. Like his namesake, he's a great thinker. He writes well and consistently jumps for the jugular when it comes to his sermons.

I was at the Edsa Shrine when he talked about the parable of the prodigal son. "We have heard about the parable over and over again," he opened his sermon. "That's why we have a computer program running in our brains even before we hear the parable being read."

"By this, I mean that we always view the parable as a contrast - the prodigal son versus his jealous brother. One abused his gifts, squandered his inheritance. The other used them well and now feels deserving of his father's reward. One is disobedient; the other dutiful.

"We fail to see that there actually is something common between them. And that is, both of them are legalistic. The first thinks he has made a grievous mistake and therefore deserves punishment. The second thinks he has led a virtuous life and thus anticipates his just reward. Both failed to see the point.

"The point is we merit neither the Father's mercy nor His reward. The point is we don't deserve anything in this world. In the face of His love, it's inappropriate to say I have sinned, I don't deserve Your forgiveness. Or I did well, now give me what I deserve.

"If God actually gave what we really deserve, chances are we would think twice. God's mercy doesn't depend on us. We miss the point if we think otherwise."

Fr. Soc then relates a story: "During the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, there was a soldier who was accused to have deserted the army during the height of battle. The truth, though, was that he only failed to catch up with his comrades for some reason as they were trying to advance or escape. Napoleon learned about the 'deserter' and had him immediately court-martialed. The soldier was sentenced to death.

During the trial, his mother came over to plead with Napoleon. "Have mercy on my son!" she cried.

Napoleon answered, "You son does not deserve mercy."

The mother replied, "It wouldn't be mercy if he deserved it."


('So much mercy has been given us, why can't we be as merciful to others?')



3.25.2001
Written before Fr. Soc became an Auxiliary Bishop of Manila

The Queen Bee was Stung


I was bumming around the TV one Saturday afternoon when I chanced upon the show S.I.M. on Channel 2, hosted by Mario Dumaual. The show was tackling the issue of closet gays in show biz when, with nary a warning, it segues into the controversial actress Amalia Fuentes. (Was she ever a gay icon? Hala kayo!)

Feisty and long-suffering, Amalia strikes us as someone who has lived a life of suffering and poverty. She was the eldest in a brood of eight, and thus driven to high-flying ambition. Her beauty during her prime was strikingly classical and legendary you'd wish to have been born in her era.

Amalia was recently in the vortex of a new controversy involving her nephew Aga Muhlach and his manager Ethel Ramos. The former queen of Philippine movies (a title she shared with rival Susan Roces), who rose under the tutelage of "Doc." Vera-Perez of Sampaguita Pictures, was sore for not having been given a hand in the wedding of her favorite nephew with Keep on Dancing host and beauty queen Charlene Gonzales - when she was practically the Muhlach clan's matriarch, etc. etc.

She had every right to be sore about it, we must agree. It was she who was single-handedly responsible for lifting the family out of poverty, their stepfather being a lowly pastor who, as pastoring went, didn't earn enough. Amalia was reportedly given the chance to be a scholar in the US but she chose showbiz over education. She knew she had to work, she had to earn. Thanks to her selfless decision, showbiz didn't turn out to be a chore and all her seven younger brothers were able to finish their studies.

She had to sacrifice even her romantic life. Showbiz, in turn, rewarded her well. It opened up doors for the family: adorable nephew Niño would rise to become child superstar, brothers Cheng and Alex set up D'Wonder Films, only child Leizl, nephew Aga and niece Arlyn were also lured, even marrying into the business. Aga would emerge to have arguably the shiningest star.

In the middle of her showbiz career, Amalia's devotion to her family got even more intense, Mario Dumaual reports. That she became one feisty woman ahead of her time was not inborn, he avers. She had no one, except her family, so she clung to it as best she could. It therefore hurt this part-Scarlett O'Hara, part-Dorothy painfully when strains in their relationships began to crack her one supportive shell.

Being poor became somewhat a blessing, claims Amalia. "It was very easy to be close with your siblings because you shared everything, you shared all the troubles." "Trouble brewed when we became rich," she continues. "I don't need you; you don't need me."

"How would you want to be remembered?" Mario further probes her. "I'd like to be an inspiration to the youth,...that poverty is not a hindrance to improve one's lot in life," she says.

I was disappointed, however, when two things I'd love to hear didn't issue forth from her mouth. One, she didn't say that even if she loved, and loved much, she's not waiting for rewards because loving is its own reward.

Two, that she was lucky she was extraordinarily pretty - a Liz Taylor lookalike - and intelligent, too, that's why the chances of making it big in life were too great to miss. Or better yet, that God blessed her abundantly with gifts and she owes everything to God. How about us who are not half as blest?

The queen is obviously hurting so badly. Indeed, loving deeply comes with the risk of being hurt as deep.

God save the queen.

6.10.2001

Raising Hell

DEMONOLOGY 101

To my skeptic friends,

Hell, according to the doctors of the Church, is the absence of God. No one goes to hell without his or her permission; one is in hell because it is his or her choice or decision.

Hell happened because there was a need to. Tradition has it that Lucifer led a coup d'etat in heaven before creation and time began. That's how he became "the ruler of this world." Adam and Eve came into Eden and Lucifer, now Satan (Belzeebul), tempted God's new creation. Adam and Eve fell from grace, and Satan lost no time in taking hold of their lives, including their will.

Now remember that Lucifer was purely a spirit and, it is told, a special angel of God, one who shone more brilliantly than the rest. It was Lucifer's ensuing pride and his envy of man that motivated his rebellion. Lucifer realized that he could be like God and be worshipped and adored. He resented it that man was given the gift of choice, the choice to decide whether to accept God or not, effectively putting them above the angels, who were deprived of such a privilege.

Salvation history is the logical result of these "pre"-historic developments. Lucifer's error was so grave and irreparable that perhaps, the only way to punish it is to send him and his rebellious cohort (the various demons and bad spirits on prowl today) into the eternal fires of hell. Doesn't an eternal punishment for an irreparable mistake make sense?

Perhaps hell had to be created precisely to avenge the goodness of God, which is eternal and peerless. The goodness of God is such that no sin - not even a trace of it - can ever endure His presence. Hell is in itself the best explanation for the length and breadth of God's love as it is an expression of the heights and depths of His holiness.

The point of the-Word-of-God-becoming-flesh, or the coming of Christ into the world, into time and space, is to rescue us from Satan's victory and save us from his inevitable punishment. Christ is the new Adam (as Mary is the new Eve).

I have met people like you who give this argument: "If God is so good, then why is there such a place as hell? We didn't choose to live, why should we be punished for our failure to live according to God's standards? Nobody asked that he or she spring to existence."

All we can say for now is that the devil, indeed, Gehenna or hell, exists as ugly realities in our lives and in the life to come. Just take a look at the world around you and you're staring straight at the devil's myriad depredations. We did not choose to live, true, but unfortunately, there was this "pre"history to consider and contend with. To deny it is to put ourselves at high risk.

Forces of mass media today tend to "demythologize" the reality of Satan and "de-dramatize" the life and passion of Christ, specially the spiritual warfare aspect of the Christian life. As observed by the pope's personal retreat master Fr. Rainerio Cantalamessa, no less, this is supreme cowardice, an inability to face one's worst fears. What a tragedy it would be if the devil's existence were true!

But we should not unduly focus on the unfortunate part of the story. There is good news behind the story, and I'm afraid it's cliche to most people by now: Because of God's love, He took it upon Himself to send His only begotten Son to deliver us. Jesus came into a world ruled by the devil to save us, promising us what God intended for us at the outset - eternal life and happiness, if we but accept the invitation to believe, repent, and do whatever He says. Never make the mistake of putting God and the devil on an equal level, though. God and Satan are not equals, unlike the devil in other religions; Satan is "one of God's creations gone bad."

Yes, there is such a thing as free lunch. All we have to do is to accept the invitation. It won't be a walk in the park or a romp on the beach, certainly, but there's no cause for worry because He knows. That's why He promised that His grace would be enough. The thing is, we have to say yes first.

The devil has already been defeated, scary as he may seem. He knows it, that's why he is afraid at the mere mention of the name of the God-who-saves.

To those like you who don't believe in hell anymore, we can only repeat this statement: "Don't worry, you will believe in hell when you get there."

Yours faithfully,

Expectorant

6.6.2001

And the Devil Went to the Penthouse



Suddenly, a lady 'participant' stood up in the middle of that talk and raised herself on a monobloc chair, screaming derangedly, “Yes! Yes! No! Yes! No! Nooo!” It was a Catholic ;charismatic' prayer meeting held at the penthouse of some tower in Makati. In attendance were roughly a hundred people from all walks. A speaker was on the microphone giving a sort of closing remarks.

Everyone present was distraught. What was this lady, an otherwise respectable high school teacher, yelling about? And in the middle of someone’s speech yet!

The participants were in the last stages of the Christian Life Program (CLP), otherwise known as the Life in the Spirit Seminar (LSS) among born-agains.

Then the woman made it somewhat clearer for all: “Yes," she shouted, "I will follow you! No, I won’t! No! No! Yes! Nooo!”

The screams became louder and louder as the words became more and more unintelligible. Then she dropped to the floor and shook violently. Her seatmates stood back, unmoving.

But the leader of the charismatic group knew what to do. It seemed that it wasn’t his first time to witness such a scene. Immediately he instructed the members to lay their hands on and pray over the woman, now slithering like a snake on the floor, her teeth gnashing, the corner of her eyes snapping pointedly.

The ten or so people who had thronged at her were having a hard time restraining her. Her beastly growling lent an air of indescribable agitation, at least to those who were new to this. The throng couldn’t help but counter with mutterings of “Jesus, Jesus” as they helped vainly in casting out the devil.

The rest of the members chose to remain calm as they recited together a common prayer delivered by the leader on the microphone. Prayer-hymns were sung, in the belief that singing in prayer was like a prayer said twice over.

Just when you thought you’ve seen, read about, and heard everything about things supernatural, you realize that nothing beats a first-hand account. A 'demon' 'took possession' of the woman, and it was quite hesitant to leave. A member ran away to procure a blessed scapular. Another ran for holy water. The praying and singing turned even more fervid.

But the devil apparently took offense and bristled anew with roars. The confrontation seemed to last forever. Finally the group leader approached the possessed and uttered a prayer of deliverance and showered her with holy water. He practically played the role of resident exorcist.

Soon the otherworldly strength of the possessed waned and her growls turned into harmless gibbers which turned into moans of “Abba! Abba!” (“Father! Father!”).

Hands of members and the other participants, tired from being held aloft for quite some time, suddenly broke into enthusiastic applause.

But the woman’s fellow CLP participants remained wide-eyed, too stunned to process what had transpired.

There was silence soon after. The leader then encouraged the flock to sing joyful songs of victory in thanksgiving. The Hail Mary was chanted thrice. St. Michael the Archangel was also called upon. The spiritual warfare was over.

After realizing what came over her, the possessed woman came up in front of everybody and tearfully gave some word of thanks.

__________
Postscript: The woman was said to have long been depressed, saddled with long-standing personal problems when she decided to attend the CLP. CLP participants are routinely advised to make a thorough confession before making a commitment.


2.23.1999

Miss Metallic

There's something mercurial about her - or the way she dresses up. One moment she's all platinum-blonde - or is it electric blue; the next moment she's all coppery, like when she hosted an event in Glorietta wearing a stage-costumey number by Gabriel Barredo, whose sculptural pieces are normally horrifying. Trust her to pull it off.

A constant fodder to society page news is she, and it hardly surprises. Her fashion statement alone is headline news but she's said to be far from vacuous. She's actually witty, charming and fun to be with, according to those who really know her.

I first came across this figure through a whole newspaper spread devoted to her wedding. Who would miss her in her English medieval outfit and matching entourage? Well-orchestrated is her name: from the quaint, suspicious-looking gown to the silky-haired Afghan, to the tableware at the reception. Pity the groom who had to endure wearing an unfamiliar contraption from another age and clime.

I came within an inch of this personification of joie de vivre at the Don Bosco church in Makati. It was a Thursday afternoon Mass when I found myself seated right behind her curious figure. All it took me to figure out who that was was the unexpected presence of a strange-looking straw hat, her hat, sitting beside her. (Was I somewhere in England having afternoon tea with the Queen?) From this vantage point, I espied all the other details of her, at the expense of the priest's sermon which naturally I fail to remember by now. This woman is such a distraction.

She came with a gold-streaked almost-beehive hair which looked like she'd re-style any minute from now. She had on a frost-white blouse and, um, black capri pants that hugged her limbs. Her skin was fair and flawless Chinese. She wore a pair of dainty, black heels apparently to augment her height, or lack of it. To effect that singular new-millennium feel, she had with her a silver-finish leather handbag, a cell phone and a plastic bottle of mineral water. But as I have said, it's the hat that would give her away. Who in the entire Philippine archipelago would carry with her a high-domed, narrow-brimmed straw hat on a Thursday afternoon if not…her?

I confirmed my hypothesis come communion time. People were right: she was charming in a telluric way. Those little oriental eyes glowed softly like a child's, making them appear like she couldn't hurt a fly. Her whole face was not just luminous, but shining like a tungsten filament, enhanced by a microscopically thin golden necklace that stuck to her skin and whirled around her neck. Her neck itself gleamed like polished aluminum against the barely-lit Don Bosco dome.

Of course I'm raving. But I couldn't help wondering: someone who has the gumption to parade around constantly attired in paint-the-town-red apparel is not just one of those sweet-and-gentle social butterflies, but an iconoclastic iron alloy hiding beneath a patina of femininity.

I was eternally amused nevertheless that a party girl like her would need God as much as I did. In case you don't read papers, particularly her family's paper, let it be knowm that she comes from a family with that famous surname connected to a gleaming glass tower down Ayala Avenue, not to mention other sundry top-brass businesses.

It has been reported how, as a guest in one wedding, she floored everyone when she came in a wedding gown herself! At another wedding, she styled herself less attention-grabbingly, that is to say, as a more subdued Mother Earth, thick topical foliage winding about her. Or was that supposed to be Poison-Ivy-meets-Greenpeace-girl?

In a related news item, she once explained her outrageous zest for life as resulting from a brother's sudden demise. Life is too short, it dawned on her, and we have to make the most of it. How can anyone accuse her of trying so hard? An interior designer by profession, she interpreted this realization by way of outlandish get-ups that stunned the living daylights out of faddist, boring Pinoys.

I certainly wouldn't dare dismiss her malleable whimsy as superficial, for this girl rocks. She is...heavy-metal.

8.1.42000

Memory Loss


Have you ever woken up to a day when all the torments your worst enemy has caused you are mysteriously gone? Darn it, you couldn't even remember why he disgusted you so much in the first place. Instead of curses, this morning brings you a warm breeze, a birdsong. Don't you just wish all days were like this?

I just went through one such day. Inexplicably that day, my bitterest enemy would turn to be suddenly pleasant that I would begin to treat him as though nothing nasty happened between us. Suddenly we're starting anew, back from scratch. And I had no choice but be awfully nice as well.

I've encountered this strange behavior before and knew it to be quite dangerous. It could mean a stupid repeat of past mistakes, but what does that matter now?

The surprising part is that I myself was left wondering where all my erstwhile seething and gnashing went. Shouldn't repression of anger bring about a volcanic outburst, if it doesn’t implode into a kind of depression? Why hasn't it? Shouldn't negativity spawn more negativity? How did it manage to cancel itself out? Who took everything away? What kind of pain doctor would do it?

I remember a funny line about this: "Those who say they have a clear conscience often have a bad memory."

But sometimes, memory loss can be a form of healing.

I wish the same amnesia on God when it comes to my own sins.

3.16.2001

Those Hysterical Tabloid Jokes

A sleazy tabloid I once spotted along the road (12.27.2002) had a joke so terrible it had me laughing all the way to work: Its front page screamed the headline, JIMENEZ MABUBULOK SA AMERIKA. But the accompanying photo showed NOT Mark Jimenez, the controversial congressman from Manila, but Joyce Jimenez, the controversial bold star, in a perilous state of dishabille.

Following are some tabloid headlines I gathered from my crazy coworkers who buy and read certain tabloids (I will be charitable enough not to use 'trashy') on a daily basis because of the ff.: (1) cheap price, (2) sexually frank content, (3) gory crimes, (4) entertainment gossip, (4) free fortune telling, (5) intimate letter-advice with topics other than sex, and (6) the newspaper is a big joke.

1. Parada ng mga Litson, Binaboy

2. Babaeng Mababa ang Lipad, Natapakan

3. Babaeng Kaladkarin, Sugatan

4. Gabby Concepcion, Pinaslang

(Text: Isang 20-anyos na security guard na nagngangalang Gabby Concepcion ay pinaslang ng di pa nakikilalang mga lalaki….)

For sheer entertainment value to the suffering masses, I think the government should bankroll these publications and convince them to get serious about joking once and for all - or they'll be shut down, if not shot. Student organs always have their flipside, as in 'Philippine Comedian' for the Philippine Collegian. Maybe we can fashion our hysterical tabloids in a similar way - as flipsides to our numerous broadsheets. That way, they become more, er, respectable even as they are rendered more serviceable.

If this idea sells - and I know it will, I shall demand a royalty - or I'll sue.

5.20.2003

Satori


This just in: It dawned on me that the reason I don't get published as easily as others is that my pieces are so unpublishable, my harrumphing essays and orations are so proud and prejudiced and certainly censor-unfriendly. The only publication brave and foolish enough to take on me is the Philippine Daily Inquirer. I like the way PDI's Op-Ed page allows Conrado de Quiros' There's the Rub and Dean Bocobo's Commentary kiss each other every Monday. (I guess Today would be a far second in terms of daring. I mean, anyone who would generously publish someone like you-know-who has a certain degree of craziness.)

The rest of the publications print horrible things and yet refuse to print something like my…my work. That's freedom of expression in the Philippines for you, hehehe.

Thank goodness I have this godsend - a blogspot where I can post my work as seldom as I want. No editors, no deadlines. No physical contact, no SARS. (No pay, too, bo-hoo.)

I know I'm also exposing myself further to the dangers of plagiarism this way. What I'm really sore about is that I don't earn a single cent for my work. (Okay, centavo.)

So, c'mon, people, feed on my ideas, but at least quote me, okay. Because I'll make sure I will be feeding on yours, too, if I catch you. I don't deny it: I also feed on other's ideas - at least not intentionally. In the process of processing our thoughts, we writers (ahem) often realize as an afterthought that we have made use of somebody else's idea; it's just that we were clever enough to provide some twist or a novel angle and then we claim the whole thing as our own.

This then is how we get back at each other: Latch on to my ideas but make sure it's expressed in an unrecognizable-enough lexicon so as not it won't be accused of plagiarism - and I latch on to yours. Fair enough deal.

After all, to quote an old journalism hand, there's no such thing as an original idea. I once earned the ire of a churlish coworker when I cut her in the middle of her sentence. I snapped that the movie 'What Dreams May Come,' which she was gushing about but which gave me a tremendous headache, was not so original at all. "It is largely based on a classic Greek tragedy, Morpheus and Eurydice," I told her, even though I've never read Morpheus and Eurydice. She snapped back, "So?"

"There's no original idea"…that's a nice thought. I remember my Social Science I and II classes in college where we were required to read long-dead white men like Aristotle, Plato, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Adam Smith, et al. and you couldn't help but think, "I could have thought about this, too! It just so happened that this schmuck lived first and wrote it down first." [For such a liberal GE (general education) syllabus, I can never thank the UP system enough. (One, two,….UP Naming Mahal….)]

On second thought, there must be an original idea. How else would I call my ideas that crop up at the unlikeliest hours which have me writing as though I were under a trance? Will I attribute those to some spirit or two? Those are mostly the ones that got published, by the way.

Freedom of expression - this is another mythology of Greek proportions. Even a conservative-by-choice like me, or at least the voice I represent, is being stymied through non-publication.

Viva la vie bloggie!


5.20.2003

Grim Rapper

Life is really unfair. Rapper-of-the-moment Eminem spews out lines with one cuss word per second in his so-called songs and he makes gazillions of dough for it. Apparently there’s a hundred-dollar bill waiting behind every scandal, it would be stupid for music labels not to bank on it, never mind the artist's politics, or political incorrectness.

Note further that this American jolog is a white man, a multisyllabic, swearin' white man appropriating black music for general consumption. If I were a black guy, I would take that as an affront. (In this light, all that beating this "white trash male" received in his recent movie 8 Mile in the hand of black rival gangs is even more understandable.)

So this is the lesson Eminem has inadvertently taught. “Throw your do-gooder crap out the door for it would bring you nowhere.” One could've taken it as easily had it been Bone Thugs 'n Harmony busting the charts instead, or even R. Kelly, an avowed born-again now being accused of, of all crimes, statutory rape. Or anyone, anybody who doesn't stutter with a wonderful variation of curses at breakneck speed.

The thing to be said here is, Eminem is such a conundrum; a person like me ought to loathe him at every turn, yet how come I can't help but like him? I can count in my fingers the musician or group of musicians entering the mainstream these past few years that I really appreciated - Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, Lighthouse Family… Despite the saccharine etymology of his screen name (which is actually from Marshall Mathers), his songs reek of such multi-syllabisms as political incorrectness, anomie, nihilism, violence, sexism, homophobia, etc. etc. His lyric is so…how do they put it…so in-your-face, so contemporarily vulgar. Practically no one is safe from him: ‘N Sync and silly-sounding boy bands, Britney Spears, Moby and techno music, not even the US of A. He's the South Park of rap, reminding us of the time we guffawed in glee at the sight of Saddam Hussein as homosexual lover of Satan.

And yet Eminem's incendiary songs always turn out to be a series of nonstop commercial hits, even down to that silly number dedicated to his daughter ("My Dad's Gone Crazy"). It’s as though the devil rears his ugliest grimace yet, and it sells. Linkin Park may sound sneering but their lyrics are actually consumer-friendly; they sound far sanitized compared to such lines as "And since birth I've been cursed with this curse to just curse…" (from "The Way I Am")

Attending vicariously a typical Eminem concert, it is stultifying to see how his gospel of hate unifies, or at least unifies a certain demographic - the ostensibly young. Black, white, male, female, everyone's aping his or her idol, from the platinum-blonde 'do to the extra-baggy jeans with the hem shoved inside the shoes, or at least the hip-hoppy hand movements, if not the attitude attending the ball-grabber and his ball-grabbing posse. What the equal rights movement took decades to fight and die for, it took only Eminem's concerts to achieve.

More than his censorial and censorious lyrics, the attraction of Eminem's show seems to lie in his sense of rhythm - while managing to tell a dark and intimate story. Somebody has described his musicality as futuristic jazz and that person is right; this guy has a keen awareness of the experimental. Never since Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice Baby" has a white rapper made rap music so danceable (where's Vanilla Ice now?) the way Nirvana's Kurt Cobain invoked rock and metal to dance and hop and created in the process the grunge genre.

It doesn't matter whether his narrative is outright gruesome, melodramatic and socially irresponsible. Darn it, he is practically cursing in glossolalia. (That's the technical term in religious circles for 'speaking in tongues.') In "Cleaning Up My Closet," for example, he cries, "I'm sorry mama," as he digs a grave after killing his own mother with his own words.

Of course, there’s Eminem's likeable voice and decent-enough looks, which overpowers his bad-boy aura (which may translate to "appeal" to others) and all that requisite attitude inherent in rap and hip-hop. “But how can a man full of bitterness ever look good?” I wondered allowed to Tammy, a doting fan.

“For all you know, he’s a nice guy.” Tammy replies defensively. “He's obviously got a soft spot for those guys he has left behind after he became a whopping success." Perhaps, he is right. Perhaps, too, it helps a lot that he has fathered a little girl whom he dotes on like any first-time dad would?

If there's one thing clear and certain about Eminem, it is that his music boils down to one good thing: anger management.

MTV Ink magazine dubs the 30-year-old artist as a “blond time bomb,” an apt phrase considering personalities of his type are known to self-destruct in no time, and what with all the defamation lawsuits and charges of felony to his name. Like a dutiful advocate to his cause, he’s got the feathers of the whole political spectrum ruffled, starting with his own mother and father. What else is left for someone like him to harangue? And what else lies in wait for someone like him but the threat of the proverbial sword over his head?

Then again, in life, things are not always what they seem. How many times have we seen exemplars of notoriety being blinded by the light, taking Redemption St. instead of Perdition Rd.? We cannot just close our human logic on Eminem, can we?

What Eminem has in his hands, indubitably, is a genuine gift, and this precious gift cannot possibly come from someone or something that’s ugly and vile - no matter the undying rumors that rockers and such are devil-worshippers and their songs are backmasked to conceal wicked messages meant to hypnotize the unwary listener into doing. (I have a big problem with these rumors, although I've once dabbled in playing backwards a tape of Queen's "Another Once Bites the Dust" with my college roommates and I swear I heard a muffled, "Let's start to smoke marijuana.") For one, the devil isn’t known to be creative. And he is supposed to be literally ugly. Then again, the devil is also known for duplicity and deceptiveness. Oh well…

People like Eminem often have three fates later in life: either they hasten their self-destruction through illicit medication, or they are gunned down for no reason at all (e.g. Tupac Shakur) - both of which fall under the "blond time bomb" line - or that they become born-again Christian (R. Kelly). One cannot help but wait and see what happens to him after surviving beyond his 27 years. They all die at age 27, don’t they? Would he remain as interesting if stripped of everything verboten by then?

A psychologist has facetiously diagnosed the rapper as borderline schizophrenic. Indeed, for all we know, everything just might be an elaborately prepared set of fronts (Eminem a.k.a. Slim Shady a.k.a. Marshall Mathers - can you see the pattern here?), hyped up according to the needs of the market at the moment, like Madonna's long-time ploy. Then again, who would buy a complete fake? What fan doesn't know that he's being taken for a ride?

Perhaps Eminem is being too honest for comfort? Perhaps his tensions are just too transparent for all to see? It figures. He has been inviting us to listen to his dirtiest family secrets, and we have been falling for the trap. Who's not a sucker for that kind of embarrassing melodramatic honesty? Perhaps all that attitude indeed wells up from a deeply felt, genuinely human anguish, something which strikes an awfully resonant chord in all of us who have suffered so deep, in our own scars and unarticulated pains?

Eminem must be a secular prophet of sorts, an artist of his time, expressing our collective rage within, our righteous wrath which we haven’t let out for the longest time.

Taken with the right attitude (i.e., listening beyond the F_ck yous and the sh_ts), prescribed and administered under the right dosage, Eminem's music may yet prove to be actually therapeutic and cathartic, the better to help us out in our own anger management.

Revised 4.1.2003
Written before Eminem won an Oscar award

(Update 11.06.2004: Eminem now looks exactly what he should be - a maturing but still-potty-mouthed rapper.)

In Flight



Your takeoff is as smooth as silk, to steal a phrase. Before long, you are looking down at rusty rooftops. Then at tree crowns. Then at building rooftops. Then at Makati's skyscrapers. Talk about bird's eye view. Soon, you could see an enlarged engineering blueprint of a metropolis. Then a map. Then a satellite image. Then you see the clouds, fluffy-white above and below you, like being on top of a high mountain.

Perspective. That's one thing you get from flying: the humbling feeling that you're a dot, just a dot. You recognize that you've blown everything on land out of proportion. You remember that you don't control the world, can't control the world. Not the whole of it, anyway. This reminds you of a pueblo Indian poem quoted by someone: "When troubles seem too heavy/ Fly like a bird into the sky/ And see how small the earth becomes."

Five thirty in the morning gives you a sun hiding shyly somewhere on the horizon. It reminds you that light can never be hidden for long. It should always be revealed, announced, like truth. You see a sky dyed with all conceivable gradations of gray. You get the same thought in reverse: Darkness can never overcome light. Darkness has its time and it shall be banished when it’s due.

Due time is around 6:00 o'clock AM. The sky turns blue, the clouds turn chalk-white. The ones near the center of the sun are favored with a burst of pink, or a color that's almost orange. You know what they say. After the dawn comes a new day, peeping at the moment but no one can delay its coming.

Down below are the specks of green that appear unmoving, undisturbed. Islets and islands of pristine green floating on a serene sea like a dream. Must be how the world looked like before the onslaught of man.

It's 6:30 AM when the sun finally begins to reveal its glory in full. It glows deep yellow. And the clouds turn cotton-white, the sky an impossible expanse of blue. Down there, you scan a terrain that getting ever bigger. In the east you spot a perfect cone in a faint bluish shade. The famed volcano.

You stare at the 7:00 o'clock sky and see a sun burning brightly now, edging the clouds with gold. The wavelets below scintillate to a mysterious beat and appear paved with sparkling jewels. Then it hits you: You have walked into not just an airplane, you have walked into a postcard, like a magazine ad said.

A little past seven and the sun is a ferocious plate of silver, and the clouds edged not anymore with gold but with lightning. You almost hear angels singing. You probably experience what they call synaesthesia, the ability to appreciate two art forms simultaneously, like hearing the strains of a Rachmaninoff in a Kandinsky abstraction. (In which case you’re probably a genius.)

That's another thing you get from flying: you get to watch the canvass of an unseen painter whose work is as striking as it is ephemeral.

You crane your neck down and the plane starts to descend, and you see a patch of green blisters longing for attention. A safe distance away from the blinding white up in the sky, you identify this clump of round earth as hills. Chocolate Hills! In no time, the plane touches down the Tagbilaran airstrip uneventfully.

You and your fellow passengers couldn’t be more grateful that it’s all over. All that time spent pondering the beauty and splendor of creation is just a foil, you admit, against your fear of flying The last thing about flying is surrendering your life to what-could-be. You take solace in this profound piece of folk wisdom: "Pag oras mo na, oras mo na." (“When it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.”)

You stretch. You yawn. You get off.



1999?

Einstein's Dreams at the National Museum

I happen to have visited the old and new wings of National Museum for the first time after breezing through Alan Lightman's first novel, Einstein's Dreams. Lightman, a resident physicist-slash-writer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explores 29 hypotheses of time in this touching, thought-provoking, whimsical novel. I couldn't resist noting the serendipitous parallels between this book and my museum experience. Allow me to be as whimsical by jumping at random from one of Lightman's hypothesis to another. I toured this museum without a guide, so I tramped from here and there as I pleased.

Hypothesis No. 2. Time is like a flow of water, occasionally displaced backwards (past) or forward (future). I start my lonesome trip. (I couldn't ask people to join me here. They would all cringe at the very mention of the word "museum.") I stagger forward and backward like a drunk, ready to get a sensory overload, a cultural, historical, artistic indigestion. As a result, I get a mishmash of historical dates and schools of artistic thought. My fault.

Hypothesis No. 1. Time is a circle; the world repeats itself, precisely, endlessly. Surprise! The museum adjacent to the old one is indeed spanking new, like a recently opened mall. Given the chance, I would go up and down its four stories again and again. (Just remove all those cameras.) Anyway there's always those posh, industrial-looking elevators. Am I inside Glorietta 4 or what?

Hypothesis No. 3. Time has three dimensions, like space; it has three perpendicular futures. I check out the art work on the first floor. I feel at once like a split-up Onib Olmedo portrait gawking at all the surrounding Napoleon Abuevas, Ramon Orlinas and Abdulmari Imaos (sculptures) from three different perspectives all at the same time.

Hypothesis No. 4. There are two times - mechanical and body time; either people live on schedules or by making up their mind as they go along. The museum is almost empty. I can make up my mind as I go along. The staff have to remind me when it's 5 PM, though.

Hypothesis No. 28. Imagine a world of shifting past. The "Spoliarium" is the centerpiece of the old museum (no entrance fee). This wing is, of course, tightly guarded. The famous painting is held in place by metal chains. Someone is said to have folded or, horrors, cut up the painting into six panels and rolled each panel in transit as the painting was being moved to its home base from Europe or something. The painting is now mercifully restored. I stand before Juan Luna's masterpiece with my eyes wide open: The horror! The gore! Luna's tamer pieces, cliched European country scenes, are exhibited on both sides. Which painting came first?

Somewhere in the basement, two foreigners are puttering with some tools to restore one of the earliest Spanish-era religious artwork. Other pasts are even more distant than "the past."

Hypothesis No. 21. Imagine a world without future, where people cannot contemplate the results of their actions. The world of Fernando Amorsolo gives no hint of the future, where the bucolic and immaculate are preserved. Or could it be that he was aware that everything would be gone soon, thus the need to document?

Hypothesis No. 22. Time is a visible dimension, where someone may choose his motion along the axis of time. I stand before a big painting. From the left, I seem to be part of a scene I imagine to be from the past. I walk slowly toward the center, which, I realize, is the present. As I amble along towards right, I can see a depiction increasingly of events in the future. Is this supposedly how the murals of Botong Francisco affect the viewer? Not quite.

Hypothesis No. 16. Time flows backward. At the archaeological wing, I enter through the exit and time-travel to the Iron Age, then move towards the entrance where I ponder the bones of the woolly mammoth, a prehistoric leaf imprint on volcanic tuff, and petrified rhinoceros molars. Yes, there were evidently rhinos and elephants in prehistoric Philippines!

Hypothesis No. 12. What if you lived in a world where there's no time, only images? Keep the museum open day and night, and I'll put up a residence there.

Hypothesis No. 9. What if you lived in the past?... Sometimes, I get so numbed by what I see that I feel neither pain nor joy. And I am alone at it. That's what I feel while staring at an ammonite fossil: I am reduced to a mere possibility, a mere idea. I'm also turn into a Neanderthal before the various stone implements; a tribesman burying my kin in a Manunggul jar; a corpse floundering with the Pandanan wreck (13th-14th century) beneath the Palawan sea; or Jose Rizal carving "Mother's Revenge" (bronze; 1894) and "El Ermitaño" (terra cotta; 1893) all by my lonesome in Dapitan.

Hypothesis No. 19. Imagine a world where people live forever, where each action must be made and verified a million times in accord with the past. How many generations have come and gone while these pieces of work endure?. You know the relevant Latin words. Ars longa, vita brevis. It is art that lives through the ages. It is I who die.

Hypothesis No. 11. Time stands still. That's what I see in frozen contentment before all the well-preserved mounts of Philippine eagle, tamaraw, Eastern Sarus crane, bearcat, and mousedeer - all at the old Zoology wing. Time stands still, the taxidermist arresting death and decay by making zoo still-lifes.

Hypothesis No. 14. Imagine a world of fitful time, of changed plans, sudden opportunities, unexpected visions. I hop from one exhibit to the next. A few hours ago I was staring at a shriveled specimen of Pandaka pygmaea. Then I am inside the San Diego wreckage (ca. 1600s), counting cannonballs. Next I am at the St. Louis (USA) Exhibition of 1904. Then I am a geologist studying the eventual formation of land bridges from the Cretaceous Age up to Jurassic. Then I'm gobbling up chicken burger at Wendy's with a friend at nearby SM Manila. (Food is prohibited in the museum.)

Hypothesis No. 15. Imagine a world in constant motion. One thing I notice the new museum lacks is an exhibition of op art. Perhaps there were no Filipino op artists. But there are nice computer graphic user interface and other interactive opportunities for the techno-savvy generation. For this type of visitors, time passes slowly because one has to move at high velocity to gain time. (How's that again?)

Hypothesis No. 17. Imagine a world where a lifetime is lived for just one day. If you come here on a tight schedule, there'd be no time to lose, no last-minute-change-of-mind afforded. Every second of the experience counts.

I remember the tektite samples, dark as the primordial universe: They are really no different from an asteroid crashing into Earth, like in Deep Impact and Independence Day.

Hypothesis No. 18. Time is a sense, like a sight or smell; a sequence of events may be quick or slow depending on the history of the viewer. I try to decipher a Hanunuo's ambahan (Mangyan poetry written on a bamboo slat) and the cryptic Siniloan copper plate "paleograph" and the Calatagan claypot alibata. I study Malang's barung-barong and try to learn how to build a balanghai (Agusan boat). I compare and contrast the sculpture of the Ifugao bullol down to its naïf penis with that of a Maranao torogan with its intricate okir (sarimanok design). I peer at the starting kit for weaving a Batangas barong. I chuckle in amusement at the photographed detail of the wedding cake-like contours of the Tumauini brick church (in Isabela).

Hypothesis No. 23. Time is discontinuous. The world stops. Then starts. Then stops. A midden is an ancient accumulation of kitchen refuse (usually seashells) left by tribesmen. It evidences how the tribe feasted and fasted through time. Viewed from the present, the cross-section of a midden looks like a geologic stratigraphy where time indeed seemed to have stopped at some point, then proceeded to another, producing layers and layers of proofs to cyclical feasts and famines.

Hypothesis No. 24. Imagine a world where people are pilgrims waiting for their turns to enter the Temple of Time. Relics from the San Agustin Museum collection remind us that time is but the period encompassing the physical universe's existence; the end of time is the beginning of a new world, a world no longer governed by time. Meanwhile I stare at temporal treasures that speak about things eternal.

Hypothesis No. 5. Time flows more slowly the farther from the center of the earth. Somehow the second hand of the clock pauses a tad too long on the fourth floor where all the nude portraits are ensconced. The human body is a most beautiful work of art, so beautiful that it had to be kept under wraps most of the time.

Hypothesis No. 6. Time is visible, predictable. I study the intricacy of a Mandaya weave. It's getting late. I could see myself bilocating, my other body already bent, peering into the Manobo and Ifugao ikats a few feet away.

Hypothesis No. 20. Time is not a quantity but a quality. Time exists, but cannot be measured. Events are triggered by other events, not by time. Take your kids or significant others to the museum instead of shelling out P1000 just to cool your heels off in a mall.

Hypothesis No. 7. Time does pass but little happens. I could see myself spending one whole day in the museum doing nothing but ogle, gawk, ogle, gawk...

Hypothesis No. 10. The passage of time brings increasing order. The puzzle of my being Filipino slowly reveals answers: I am a product of a whimsical confluence of history and cultures, a confluence that is unique and tragic, maybe embarrassing but always enriching. It is something I have to accept and live with.

Hypothesis No. 26. Time is a fixed future, where there can neither be right nor wrong - nor freedom of choice. I visit a high school friend at the zoology lab at the basement of the old museum and help her sieve the seaworms from the samples of sand taken off Quezon Province. I should have been working in a lab, dressed in a lab gown, going by common wisdom. I could have become like, er, Edward O. Wilson, who devoted his entire life to ants, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction (with Bert Hölldobler) for it. What happened? Was I wrong in my choices? I don't know. Too old to reverse my fate. No use of regretting. After all, is one's life worth giving up to ants?

Hypothesis No. 27. Time bounces back and forth, like the light between mirrors. Inside the zoology lab (inaccessible to the public, by the way) is a lepidomosaic, a mosaic of discarded butterfly wings. The violet gossamer wings glint in the light like a hundred pairs of eyes. Sitting in a corner is a mounted specimen of the bird-wing butterfly (Trogonoptera trojana Rothschild), which is endemic to Palawan. The species exhibits a biological quirk known as sexual role reversal. The male is the one prettified in black and green, while the female is unobtrusive brown. Who does the courtship and who lays the eggs?

Hypothesis No. 25. Time is a local phenomenon, flowing at different speeds in different locations. I came alone here pacing like an antelope in an African savannah. Outside this elegant American colonial edifice, I imagine all my friends were doing things fast-paced, eating to-go fast-food junk inside their fast cars. How do you sell a museum to people who don't care?

Hypothesis No. 8. What if I lived in a world that will end on a precise date? The museum now closes at 5 P.M. I rush to visit the gift shop. The world ends with me clutching a little, alien-looking Ifugao wooden statue.

Hypothesis No. 13. Imagine a world without memory, where present-day people have abandoned the past. That's what I see when I return to my workstation the next day in Makati, ready to get bored to death: I see another world floating by in ignorance, with no sense of history, only a scary future. That's what I see when I finally go home to my rented apartment. People couldn't care one bit where I came from, what I saw. In the living room, I rest on a monobloc chair and ponder a plastic Tweety Bird clock, among other disgusting ephemera.

Hypothesis No. 29. Time is a bird that flutters, fidgets, hops. Trap one bird and time stops... In truth, these birds are rarely caught...The children, who alone have the speed to catch birds have no desire to stop time. For the children, time moves too slowly already. Children are natural-born museum visitors. (On Thursdays, the National Museum - old and new - is open to all Filipino children and children-at-heart who can't afford it. If you're one of the luckier ones who could, please come some other time.) We all need to be like little children sometimes, constantly in awe of a world that never ceases to amaze. Those who can't appreciate museums must be very tired of life.

3.16.2001

Uncool, Dude

Hey, you! Yeah, it's you -- you who call yourself cool.

You know what? You assume too much. Just because you have the latest trademarks doesn't mean you're cool. Just because everybody seems to like you doesn’t mean people really like you.

Don't be so smug. Everybody knows how phony you are, how many boots you're licking, how many bottoms you're kissing. You don't know what to think anymore because, basically, you don't think. You wait for others what they say and think and, from there, you choose what is safe.

You're a sellout. You're so scared of what other people would think and say. You're desperate for their attention, their acceptance. You only want to be adored, afraid to be rejected.

You're unable to take a stand. You lead a double life. No, you're a bad case of multiple/split personality. You never mean what you say or say what you mean. You're afraid that someone else is listening.

You're a great copycat. That's the only thing you know best - to be a third-rate, trying hard copycat. You never rise up from being the next best thing because that's what the world is all about to you - how you look and how they'd look at you.

You never believe in yourself because you don't know who you are. You are hollow at the core waiting for someone else's person to fill you up.

You don't know the truth when it hits you because you're filled with lies - somebody else's set of 'truths.' The lies inside you cancel each other out, turning you into a walking black hole.

You suck - just like everything around you sucks. You know you're only deceiving yourself, but who cares? No one would know the difference, anyway.

Nobody knows you're a fashion victim, so you don't deny it. Nobody knows you're a captive market hostaged by brand names, so you refuse to resist. Nobody knows you're a creature of comfort, so you never try to hide it. Nobody knows you're being tyrannized, so you never raise a question.

Wake up. Everybody's dictating to you except you.

Listen up. You are not hip. You are not cool. You are not one of them. Your world is a pathetic place, a black hole where everyone is desperately trying to be cool.

Grow up. Get out of that world. Trust me. No, trust yourself; you can hack it. It's hip to be a square peg in a black hole.

5.18.2003

Ghosts of Manila: Haunting Truths About Our Ugly Lives


James Hamilton-Paterson's Ghosts of Manila is one book that has haunted me for a very long time for two reasons: One, it accurately chronicles lives often dismissed as belonging to the low-dive category. Two, it does so using the best prose the English language could possibly hope to use. I haven't encountered any other author, especially Filipino author, save perhaps for Jose Rizal, who dared to cast such a glance of deep empathy for the confusing phenomenon that is the Filipino.

The characterization particularly of a megalopolis at once repulsive and interesting is unforgettably mesmerizing that one reviewer describes the book as "unbearably painful" yet "so beautifully written."

Paterson's exquisite lines of thought coupled with multisyllabic words and a sprinkling of foreign phrases would have turned off many an uninitiated or amateur reader. But the fact is, each word is carefully chosen not to impress but to dissect a curious world for telling details with the precision of a top-notch surgeon.

This is perhaps what comes closest to a Lino Brocka film, stark realism about Manila's underbelly, minus the ideology.

As a technical writer coming from the Hemingwayesque KISS ("Keep it short and simple, stupid!") school, my initial reaction to the book was, indeed, one of metaphysical groaning at the grim prospect of an unenjoyable rea