The Misadventures of Wonderboy and His Broken Hearts

Song Survey # 12 & 13

2010-07-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

Okay. Haven't written for a while. Been busy doing all sorts of things, and with review.

So what music have I been playing throughout the year so far? Here's a bit of it. It's a list long enough for two song surveys. Enjoy.

"Break Me Out" - The Rescues
"Pilot" - The Notwist
"Ball of Joy" - It's A Musical
"Lullaby" - Cara Beth Satalino
"Hermes Bird" - Remy Zero
"Something She Said" - The Working Title
"Keep the Car Running" - The Arcade Fire
"Forever Young" - The Youth Group
"Prisoner of Desire" - No Kids
"Too Late" - M83
"Tell Me What It's Worth" - Lightspeed Champion
"Run Rabbit Run" - The Hoosiers
"Kissing the Lipless" - The Shins
"Black & Blue" - Chris Garneau
"Just Say Yes" - Snow Patrol
"Pachuca Sunrise" (Acoustic) - Minus the Bear
"Digital Love" - Alphabeat (Daft Punk cover)
"Middle of Nowhere" - Hot Hot Heat
"1901" - Phoenix
"How Good Can It Be" - The 88
"Sweet Disposition" - The Temper Trap
"Take Me To The Riot" - Stars
"Girlfriend" - Phoenix
"Paris Is Burning" - Ladyhawke
"I Gotta Feeling" [FMIF Remix] - David Guetta
"Strawberry Swing" - Coldplay
"Maya" - Camila
"Daisy" - Fang Island
"Lizstomania" - Phoenix
"Bamboleo" - The Gypsy Kings
"Just Like Heaven" - The Cure
"I Think I Can" - Animal Collective
"An Olive Grove Facing the Sea" (2009 Version) - Snow Patrol
"Whoo! Alright - Yeah... Uh-Huh." - The Rapture
"Tessellate" - Tokyo Police Club
"Now" - Mates of State
"Talk About" - Dear And The Headlights
"Body Buzz" - Aloha
"Summer Romance (Anti-Gravity Love Song)" - Incubus
"Summer Angel" - Minus The Bear
"Under The Boardwalk" - The Drifters
"California Girls" - The Beach Boys
"Meet Me In The Basement" - Broken Social Scene
"Simple Graces" - Delorean
"First Train Home" - Imogen Heap
"Young Hearts Spark Fire" - Japandroids
"When U Love Somebody" - Fruit Bats
"Wait It Out" - Imogen Heap
"Scheme Eugene" - Red Light Company
"Popular Mechanics for Lovers" - Beulah
"No Puedo Dejarte De Amar" - Camila, Reik, and Kalimba
"Trains to Brazil" - Guillemots
"Red Cave" - Yeasayer
"World Sick" - Broken Social Scene
"Thriller" - Imogen Heap (Michael Jackson cover)

Many thanks to Pochi, Zoilo, Armo, Pao, Karla, Trina, Meg, Bea, Mika, Monina, Jill, Linda, Mel, Camille, Chinky, Nix, and everybody else who shared music with me and helped me build this list.

The 2010 Philippine Elections Series #2 : Campaign Prescriptions

2010-02-08T10:16:00.000-08:00

I started writing this series on the elections to gather insights from people and to share my own thoughts as we all struggle to articulate values and points for consideration when choosing our next batch of elected officials. In my first piece I touched upon the candidates, and wrote a bit about what I thought about them. After having to endure weeks of terrible campaigning from everyone, I've decided to write a few suggestions for their campaigns to consider.

The election season being what it is, we can expect more ads, posters, sound bites, and promises to fly from candidates as they shift into the high gear of the campaign season. Since the law sets limits on spending, one might expect candidates to try and maximize what they put out for voters to consider. Here's what I want to hear, and what candidates might want to do to try to boost their numbers.

Noynoy Aquino
Okay, so Noynoy Aquino dropped the ball. He's let his huge lead in the polls (which are terrible gauges, but unfortunately, the only gauges we have of possible success) evaporate into a statistical tie with his nearest pursuer (Villar). He's failed to use his front-runner status to define the concrete issues that voters should consider, leaving us with general overtures about fighting corruption. Well, if Noynoy really thinks that this is a "good versus evil" thing, he has to take advantage of everything he has going for him -- a general liking from the media, surrogates who command attention, and so on -- in order to define how "good versus evil" is a fight against corruption, is a fight toward the transformation of our politics, and is a fight for a strong post-GMA republic.

1. Make eradicating the "Hindi Ka Nag-Iisa" music video a campaign promise, and fulfill it. With all due respect to the people who put that particular video together, I think it was terrible. The song was bad, the visuals look derived from one of those baranggay-goes-to-kill-the-aswang scenes in some Filipino movies, and Regine Velasquez's screeching pretty much rendered a pretty meaningless show of showbiz support even more meaningless.

2. Do not rap. No matter what your campaign managers say, DO NOT RAP. Find some cool rapper to do the rapping for you. Heck, have Kuryente and Maestra rap for you. Just don't do it yourself. You're running for President. You have to appear somewhat presidential, at least.

3. In connection with #2, remove Baby James from any and all of your campaign materials.

4. As the son of Ninoy and Cory Aquino, you are the only candidate who can invoke the appeal of EDSA with any credibility. You can use that, and you should do so to the hilt.

5. Since we're talking about EDSA, since your campaign is supposed to be about transformation, about change, about hope, about building a better Philippines (I suppose) there's a song from EDSA that you should make your campaign song: "Magkaisa." There is no song from any other candidate for President that can match this song, and the patriotic feelings it can evoke from anyone who thinks that EDSA was a great thing that happened to this country. It also resonates with your whole "break from the past/GMA" theme, and more importantly, it talks about hope and renewal. It talks about the triumph of good over evil. It also gives you an effective "Yes We Can" equivalent. When you say, "come together," "magkaisa," you give yourself an opportunity to float above the fray and can make voters look at you as someone who is beyond the pettiness of the current state of our politics. It also is a convenient launching point for any major theme in your platform.

6. Take control of your campaign message. It's your campaign, and you should have absolute say about what comes out from your camp and what doesn't. If it's true that Kris and Boy Abunda are basically running your campaign, you've got to make them understand that cuteness is not a message that people need to hear.

7. Just to be clear: Say what people need to hear, not what they want to hear. If they want cute things, you have to remind voters that cuteness will not solve anything. (As Pol Medina Jr. might put it, we already have a Pokemon in the Palace, and look at where we're at...).

8. Be careful about your surrogates and anyone that speaks for your campaign. If they spew negativity, you'll lose points. If they spew stupidity, you'll lose points.

9. Make a case for your competence. Talk about what you've done. Talk about your track record. Talk about concrete accomplishments, not just about character. Everybody can make a case about character. You need to highlight a track record.

10. Remember that as I write this, you are still the frontrunner. Define the issues that voters have to think about, and tell them why you're the guy to act on those issues. Be concrete.

11. Make a speech, seen on all TV networks, radio, and so on, addressing the issue of Hacienda Luisita and agrarian reform in the Philippines. Talk about how this issue is not simple, and how your family pretty much dropped the ball on this, but that you intend to do something about it. I am of course, assuming you can do something about it. If you can't, say so. After you deliver the speech, leave. Take no questions.

Manny Villar

I still think that Villar's campaign has been pretty successful. For all of the negative press that he's been getting Manny Villar has tied Noynoy Aquino statistically in polls, and his campaign jingle "tunay na mahirap" is actually becoming a meme of sorts. The populist message is a powerful one, but the way it's presently deployed smacks of naïveté, falsity, and outrageousness. As I said, whoever tells you he can eradicate poverty or get you out of it in one term is either a liar or is delusional.

1. Hammer home your populist message. Highlight how you've helped create jobs and opportunities for poor people. Focus on things like these instead of the general delusion that poverty can be eradicated in 6 years. Otherwise, si Villar ang tunay na mahirap paniwalaan.

2. If you've got managerial competence, flaunt it. Talk about how your companies are great drivers of growth and progress, and how they're run like well-run ships.

3. I think that in spite of everything, you've managed to not let the C-5 row get you down. I wish you handled it better by talking about reform and economic progress instead of just avoiding this one issue.

4. If the C-5 thing comes up again, talk about how it actually allowed a part of the country to concretely benefit.

5. Give us a clearer idea of what you platform is. We have little idea about what it is.

6. When people harp about corruption, the only answer you have is to talk about competence and how you have superior knowledge about how the economy can be fixed for a lot of people. You might be able to say "It's the economy, stupid."

7. Disown any alleged support from Malacañang.

8. Stop misleading people with polls, especially polls that you've commissioned, and whose data your campaign has chosen to release piecemeal to reflect "progress."

9. Emphasize "sipag at tiyaga," and talk about how these values, adopted by people, and working with you, can mean progress.

Gibo Teodoro
Gibo Teodoro is, by appearance, the most presidential of the candidates. He looks pretty intelligent, reasonable, and capable. He also has the support of the administration and its allies (unless it's true that Villar is Arroyo's true candidate). But these are all appearances, and there are serious questions that Teodoro has to answer.

1. Explain in clear terms how you could not have possibly been involved in putting the Ampatuans in a position to pull off the massacre that's attributed to them. Clarify how the weapons, machines, equipment, munitions, and other devices of death which look like they came from the government were not put into their hands under your watch, or how you did everything in your power not to let this happen.

2. Demonstrate your knowledge of issues more, and set the tone for debate, since Aquino doesn't seem like he wants to do it and since Villar probably doesn't care about doing so.

3. Being related to the Cojuangcos who own Luisita, offer a solution. If it doesn't make you look more competent, it will at least make people see what a lackluster leader Aquino will be.

4. Get popular, charismatic, youthful surrogates to go on the stump with you and for you. Put them in your ads instead of an airplane.

5. Be more vocal about your disagreements with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. I am sure you have disagreements, and that you can frame them without looking like an ingrate.

Dick Gordon
For all intents and purposes, I should like Dick Gordon. I like going to Subic, where he's done some pretty amazing stuff. He's a pretty good speaker compared to the rest of the presidential candidates. Thing is, he's running a campaign that seems devoid of anything new. For someone who is a self-styled "transformer," he has to show why voting for him will be something transformative. Otherwise, he might come off as Raul Manglapus, which may be giving him too much credit.

1. Give us an action plan for "transforming" the Philippines. Concrete stuff only please.

2. Change your campaign posters. You look fine but Bayani Fernando looks like somebody kicked him in the nuts when the picture was taken.

3. DO NOT USE BAYANI FERNANDO'S PINK CRAP. Otherwise, you stand to lose a lot of votes in Metro Manila.

4. Talk more about having to make unpopular choices and how they can translate to solutions that work.

5. Subic's a nice example, but it's getting pretty old. So are all of your references to the United States. Talk about great things that have happened and can happen in the Philippines.

6. Use your rhetorical gifts. Issue challenges to voters and exhort them to take action. And while you do it, you have to look like you mean it.

Erap Estrada
Erap should not be allowed to run for President.

Nicanor Perlas
Some reactions to my previous post were pretty strong ones about how I pretty much dismissed Nicanor Perlas because he really has no chance of winning. One of them goes: "Nicanor Perlas will win if we choose to make him win." That's pretty obvious. And that applies to pretty much every single candidate. But as I said, I have little incentive to see why I should even vote for Nicanor Perlas given how his platform, while certainly more substantive than what some other candidates have to say, is still woefully general and nebulous. And at this point in time, registering less than 1% on any of the polls means one thing: Even if he cheats, which is something he probably won't do, Nicanor Perlas has no chance in hell of winning. But he can campaign.

1. Fill the internet with your campaign. It's cheaper than anything else, and I don't think Comelec has any way of regulating it.

2. Talk about your competence, what you've done, and how you are a better alternative than Aquino, Villar, and Teodoro, which are all unattractive options.

JC de los Reyes
Has no chance in hell of winning too, sorry.

1. I like the party name "Ang Kapatiran" because it sounds like "Katipunan." And if you want to talk about a new Filipino politics, you're talking about something revolutionary. Draw the connection.

Eddie Villanueva
No concrete platform to speak of, but pretty conscious of moral values perhaps, Eddie Villanueva is nowhere near the stature he enjoyed in 2004. I personally don't think a cleric or religious ideologue should be head of state, and Eddie Villanueva falls smack in that category.

Jamby Madrigal
Has some pretty good one-liners, used Judy Ann Santos to get into the Senate, and without really offering us anything, decided to run for President. Two options:

1. Run for President and campaign for yourself. At least that way, you cannot indirectly campaign for or against Manny Villar or his opponents.

2. Drop out and throw your support behind some other candidate.

The 2010 Philippine Elections Series

2010-01-25T09:20:00.001-08:00

In May this year, Filipinos will be heading to the polls to elect a new set of public officials, including a new President. After more than 9 years of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacañang (something I should probably write about later on), my guess is people have been looking forward to 2010 as a key point in Philippine history, a chance to make a serious case for change, a time when we can hopefully set the country on the right track on the way to a future of shared decency and prosperity.

Some friends have been talking a lot about these elections. A few have asked me to weigh in. I haven't been able to do that, having been stuck in the routine/vortex/matrix/hell that legal studies can sometimes turn into. So I've figured I'd write from time to time, just to add to the discussion, and maybe to help myself as even I try to grapple with the choices that lie ahead.

While I've been told that it's usually bad form to start any opinion article with a disclaimer ("Because you come off as apologetic," they said), I will: I have been pretty isolated from a lot of what's been happening, due to being busy, and will admit that sometimes I prefer just watching DVDs instead of catching the news. This is far different from say, how I followed the US elections last year (which seem so much saner by comparison). So, I might not have as good a grasp of the issues as I might want.

Here we go.

I think it will be a pretty fair assessment to say that people jockey for positions of power all the time. And in the context of the Philippine elections, I think things started brewing a lot when the whole "Hello Garci" thing broke out in 2005. We assumed then, and we assume now, that 2004 was the last time we'd ever see Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo find her way into the top executive post. While it's true that there has been a lot of talk about finding ways for her to stay in power (martial law, constitutional amendment/nihilism, and so on), I think that the reason people never really got around to setting fire to Malacañang to flush her out was because we knew, at some gut level, that 2010 would be different. 2010 would be a turning point. 2010 would mean change.

Well, it's 2010, and I think that there are a few interesting things that are happening. First, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her allies seem to have finally desisted from trying to cling to power by changing the rules by changing the Constitution. That's a pleasant development. I do not think anyone has the clout to push for charter change at this point in time. I also don't think that any ambitious politician wants to change the way things work if it means a threat to their future, and believe me, putting Arroyo in a position of strength will be a threat. That's why her running for a seat in the House of Representatives is something that bothers me until now. She and her party mates just might score a number of decisive electoral victories to secure a large-enough voting bloc to threaten any President, no matter how popular, with impeachment. That basically means any agenda aimed at making her answerable for whatever she's done as President can get seriously hampered. The reason why this is all very interesting, though, is that we just might see how colorful an interplay between the executive and legislative branches of government will be, now that GMA is not in a position to grab the top office in the country.

Second, we will be having automated elections, at least as far as COMELEC is concerned. While that means that a whole chunk of some of the pertinent laws are now irrelevant (i.e. all those dreadful provisions in the Omnibus Election Code and related laws on how to fill up ballots, etc.), it also means that the dynamic of the electoral narrative changes significantly. Automated elections mean that we will have results coming faster (in theory). They also mean, at least in theory, that cheating will either be ridiculously difficult to pull off due to all of the security and novelty offered by the technology, or it can also mean that cheating will be ridiculously streamlined and efficient. It is easier to eradicate electronic paper trails than physical ones. Hacking isn't something that will prove to be impossible for Filipinos. And because the whole process of putting together the automated election system has been pretty much politicized, because the COMELEC is itself politicized (it is, whether it admits it or not), we may have just built in cheating into the automated system. The narrative also changes because results get in faster, affecting how we will rely on things such as exit polls. We might have an unofficial winner declared early thanks to fast counting, giving whoever that person is enough media leverage to set the tone of political discussions. An unofficial winner based on the machine returns will have a lot of talking points and a presumption of victory, which will take the most insane acts of political maneuvering to reverse.

Of course, elections can just fail. The situations projected by some people are largely exaggerated. They are pretty stupid. Ideas like "the military should form a junta if there is no President or Vice President elected" are not only stupid, they are ideas that basically advocate a situation that is illegal, unconstitutional, and pretty much unacceptable. For your benefit, please go through the provisions of the Constitution on the election of the President. If there is a failure of elections, there is a line of succession. The only situation that I can think of that will result in a failure of elections is a concurrence of the following circumstances: one, there is failure to select a President and Vice President, and two, all members of Congress and the Supreme Court die at the same time on June 30. The first is unlikely. The second is also unlikely.

The third thing that makes this election pretty special is the field of candidates. There were quite a lot of people who submitted certificates of candidacy for President (the most interesting one coming from a person who claimed to be a six-star general, and whose campaign platform was essentially to try to become Emperor of the Planet Earth after he was elected President of the Philippines), but the mainstream media (I will refuse to apply Sarah Palin's choice of appellations such as "the liberal media") seems to recognize only a few as "serious" contenders: Noynoy Aquino, Manny Villar, Joseph Estrada, Gilbert Teodoro, Dick Gordon, Eddie Villanueva, JC de los Reyes, and Nicanor Perlas.

A lot has been said about the roster of candidates for ushering in the revival of two major political parties: Aquino is running as the Liberal Party bet, and Villar is running as the Nacionalista bet. Teodoro is running under the Lakas-Kampi party, Estrada is running under the party he created, Gordon is doing the same, as is Villanueva, and de los Reyes is running under Kapatiran, and Perlas, under the Partido ng Marangal na Sambayanan (PANGMASA).

Honestly, I think this would be much more interesting if the parties actually stood for something other than being convenient labels and clubs that end up reshuffling members between electoral cycles. I'm sure that the Liberal Party and Nacionalista Party probably used to stand for something, and that there is probably more to Lakas-Kampi than being a political creature fashioned by the ambitions of GMA allies. Kapatiran apparently has a platform, but I still wonder how popular it is. Right now, parties simply mean numbers of voting members in Congress. That's pretty much sufficient if you want to talk about congressional dynamics, but that really means nothing if you want to talk about clear positions and philosophies that, while perhaps all sharing the goal of moving the country forward, differ about how to get there. Of course, that may be a function not of philosophical differences in policy but rather one of how the electorate act: It looks like it is a cultural thing for Filipinos to simply gravitate towards the person who offers the most gimmick-ridden short-term fixes. Too few among us actually seriously think about policy or developmental direction, and too many are awed by ridiculously ambiguous motherhood statements like "good governance."

Now, it's either I haven't done enough research about how these parties are supposed to be different, or all of them have absolutely failed in reaching me. So I'd like to revisit how parties seem to work, but not in this piece. But I'd like to throw in the idea that there is something seriously wrong with how electoral communications happen. Aside from the fact that the idea of premature campaigning is pretty much dead, at least for now, thanks to the Supreme Court decision in Penera v. COMELEC (the reasoning of which is something I find pretty strange), there seems to be little effort on the part of anyone to properly frame issues that people should probably be thinking about. The media has been pretty irresponsible in this regard.

This is something shared by the candidates, about whom I'll ramble for a bit.

None of the candidates has given us a clear idea of what the issues are and what they will do in concrete terms about these issues. Not one of them. All I can find, if there's even any hint of a sort of platform in any of their materials, is a collection of sweeping, abstract, noncommittal statements, with the possible exceptions of the discussions by Nicanor Perlas and Gilbert Teodoro. But not even what they've posted on their websites is concrete enough for me to have an idea of what their presidencies will be like.

I don't know if this is their idea of reaching out to the masses, or if this springs from some contempt for complexity, or worse, from a failure to appreciate the complex problems of the country. Maybe people like me, or people like you who have read up to this point in this post, are just not the targets of these people. But if the candidates hardly have any communicable platforms to speak of, what the hell are they doing running for President?

First, the candidates that I do not really want to consider: I do not think JC de los Reyes will win. His performances in the presidential debates made him look weak, indecisive, and inarticulate, which is sad because he probably means well. Thing is, you've got to do more than mean well when running for President. Eddie Villanueva will probably end up preaching more than practicing, and I do not like the idea of a cleric running the country. I think that the Presidency is one of the offices that has to be as religiously-neutral as possible no matter how god-fearing the President is. Nicanor Perlas looks pretty smart, but he has little charisma. He won't win.

Noynoy Aquino is enjoying his lead in the surveys. He's got so much going for him: a good political pedigree, an office of national stature, and a party that is starting to come together. But I cannot shake the feeling that the media is going easy on Noynoy. I also do not understand why he has not simply come clean about Luisita--if he has no idea what to do with it, he should just say so, or say that it's not up to him. Period. He also needs to take better control of his campaign and its messages. The "Hindi Ka Nag-Iisa" music video was a waste of good airtime and money. It's really pretty bad--the song is bad, the singing is terrible, and the video is pretty incomprehensible as a political statement other than show biz stars are backing him, which defeats any pretensions of trying to beat back personality-based politics in favor of platform based political reform. But then again, Noynoy Aquino's candidacy is in itself an exercise in personality politics. I seriously doubt he will be anywhere as competent as Mar Roxas might have been as President, or that his understanding of the issues and his day-to-day ability to work on the loneliest job in the country will be enough to bring about lasting change. If he wants to be taken seriously, he should use his leadership position in the surveys and constantly hammer the media with his platform, which is something he has to retool into things we can actually talk about (what the hell is transformative leadership? how does he intend "making education the central strategy for investing in our people, reducing poverty and building national competitiveness" to happen?). Noynoy is in the best position to define reform in concrete terms, and the fact that he has not is utterly disappointing.

I sometimes find Manny Villar's campaign insulting to my intelligence. Consider this: His campaign song extols his being poor. Sure, it's a reference to how he might have started out, but seriously, he should harp on being self-made more than being poor. He should talk about his success story, and focus on the success more than being "tunay na mahirap." Otherwise, it's misleading. His campaign has populist objective of eradicating poverty. I find that pretty insulting because whoever tells me he can eradicate poverty in the Philippines is either an incredible risk taker, or is delusional, or is a liar. Call me cynical, but matter how hard people work over the next six years, poverty is not going away. Social inequality will not disappear after one term. You also have that time when his campaign put out survey results saying that he would significantly cut Noynoy Aquino's lead if it were a two-man race. Aside from the fact that there are serious questions to be raised about how his campaign likes to release results of a survey that they commissioned piecemeal, there is the more obvious fact that 2010 is not going to be a two-man race. To say so is not only misleading or delusional, it's downright insulting to the rest of the field. I don't care if Villar is a brilliant businessman or that he's self-made or that he's wealthy enough to not be corrupt. He's not getting any vote from me if he continues to run the way he's running.

Gilbert Teodoro's campaign is interesting to me, because he sometimes gives me the impression that he's the smartest among the candidates, or that he has the most astute understanding of what the job of the President entails. At least, he comes off that way because he's one of the most articulate among the candidates, and the one who looks like he'll be willing to cut the bullshit out of political discourse. Someone told me that his platform looks like what Fidel Ramos used, so there might be some promise there. But Teodoro has his own problems: He's GMA's candidate, which means that whatever negative press she gets might end up hurting him. The fact that he's GMA's candidate is probably one reason why his survey ratings are pretty down in the dumps. Of course, his party mates have a pretty scary proposition: Teodoro will win if he can pull a consistent 15% rating in surveys, since the party machinery is expected to deliver 25% more votes to him. That scares me because I know that at this point in time, given his survey ratings, Teodoro will not win unless a serious electoral upheaval takes place, which can happen through honest or dishonest means. Another problem is that for all of his purported intelligence and competence, people will probably remember how his work in the National Disaster Coordinating Council during the height of the whole Ondoy/Ketsana disaster was, to put it kindly, an utter disappointment. Teodoro looks like a President, but I don't know if he has the magnetism or charisma that voters look for in their leaders. He sometimes gives me the impression that he detests celebrity and would rather get to work. While I'm fine with that as a testament to his probably being the most cerebral of the candidates, that seriously undermines whatever promise he has.

Dick Gordon makes an interesting case. He's a decent orator (not the best I've seen, nowhere near the videos of Ninoy or Marcos or Reagan or Obama, but brilliant compared to Aquino, Villar, and the rest of the field). He's proven his competence in a number of capacities--a lot of Subic's success will probably (correctly or incorrectly) be attributed to him, he's gotten good press as head of the Philippine Red Cross, and he's got a bit of a record as a legislator. His choice of Bayani Fernando as his running mate is supposed to convey a sense of political will (if we strip away Fernando's detestable hard-headedness, we'll see that he's actually managed to change some parts of Metro Manila, for better or for worse) aimed at national transformation, even a streak of ruthlessness that a leader has to show from time to time in making politically unpopular, but necessary, decisions. He has no platform to speak of in concrete terms, though. And sometimes, he can be a bit unlikeable in some moments that don't get much press -- like how he is said to have hurled invectives at an Ateneo basketball player when they were losing (despite the player's being the team's scoring leader), or how he sometimes arranges for moments of grandstanding when the cameras aren't rolling.

The fact that Erap Estrada is still in the running for President is something that political science and law students will dissect over the next few years. I support the position that legally, Estrada should not have been allowed to run this time, since that appears pretty clear from a reading of the Constitution, and that's what the people who wrote the Constitution say that they meant when they put in the ban against presidential reelection. But there's a sense of twisted justice here: The COMELEC decision that has, as of now, cleared him to run for President looks like a bizarre response to the strange reasoning that the Supreme Court used to say that he had left office (for the record, please know that I am prepared to stick to my guns and have a healthy debate about whether the idea of Estrada's "constructive resignation" is one that deserves serious thought). But what disturbs me the most is why he says he's running for President again: He wants redemption. He wants to continue serving in the office that was stolen from him, as if the presidency was something that can be the subject of entitlement. He wants to be "king again." Other than his offering us a few funny sound bites here and there, I hardly think Estrada deserves consideration for the office he wants to regain.

All told, 2010 will be interesting because it is a year of change: The person in Malacañang will change. The way we do elections will technically change. But at the same time, some things indicate that things will stay the same: We still have a crop of candidates that do not have any indication of speaking very clearly to us about what change is supposed to mean and how they intend to bring it about. The way forward remains unclear. The tension and irony that we are faced with underscores the fact that 2010 will be an important year, regardless of what happens.

On the Sesquicentennial of the Ateneo de Manila University

2009-12-10T09:45:00.000-08:00

On December 10, 2009, the Ateneo de Manila University turned 150 years old. Having been able to witness the build-up to this day through the events of the past few years, and being a senior in one of the Ateneo's constituent units during this sesquicentennial year, and more importantly, having grown up at the Ateneo, I find myself driven by some sense of duty to reflect on what this might mean. So while I've been doing it for quite some time, let me speak Atenean today. Pardon me if this piece seems particularly endless--it seems to be quite characteristic of people of this academic pedigree to be verbose and long-winded.

Those of you who might have known me as a student at the Ateneo will know that I've considered myself, most especially as of late, rather "true-blue" when it comes to the Ateneo and things Atenean. I'd like to think it's not just because I've spent 19 (going on 20) years of my life as a student here, but also because I've done work that has immersed me in the school's history, lore, traditions, and culture. I've worked as a school journalist, which means I've done work documenting recent history as it has happened. I've helped write some versions of the school's written history, informed by hours and hours of reading through papers and documents in the libraries and the University's archives. In short, I think I know what I'm talking about, at least when it comes to the Ateneo. A joke I sometimes crack is that I know more about the Ateneo than I do about law, which is something I've been working on over the past few years. Even if I sometimes consider myself an amateur historian, at least as far as this is concerned, I'm no Horacio de la Costa (and I can say that his accounts are probably far more interesting mine). All I can offer are a few reflections based on some synthesis.

So where do we begin?

Everybody talks about how the school was founded in 1859. Not everybody realizes that this was an accident of sorts. At least, that's how De La Costa sometimes called it.

When the Jesuits returned to Spanish Philippines in 1859, they were doing so after having been expelled from the islands in 1768, because the Society of Jesus was shut down all over the world (except in some places like Russia). They were allowed to return to do missionary work, particularly in Mindanao. The thing was, the Jesuits were remembered (or so the accounts go) for the brand of education that they brought with them back in the 1500s. I am referring to, of course, their setting up the first school of the Western mold when they established the Colegio de Manila in 1590, which later opened in 1595. I don't know if we can talk of that school as a true college at least as far as we define colleges now, but I do know that there was a school run by Jesuits, teaching things like grammar, mathematics, and so on. Beside that school, another was established, the Colegio de San Jose, which if I am not mistaken has evolved into the San Jose Seminary found at the Ateneo's Loyola Heights campus. This was also in 1595. The Colegio de Manila was recognized by both Rome and the Spanish Crown, and was eventually elevated to a university: the Universidad de San Ignacio, a royal and pontifical university. Now again, I am not sure if this school was a university akin to the Ateneo, or if it fits our idea of an institution of higher learning, but I do know that it was at least called a university.

Why do I bring that up? Well, today we've been making a lot of noise about a sesquicentennial celebration, when in fact in the 1768, the Universidad de San Ignacio was almost 200 years old, and the University of Santo Tomas, which now claims to be the oldest existing university in the Philippines and in Asia (a claim I disagree with, because I must give credence to the ability of the University of San Carlos to trace its roots to the Colegio de San Idelfonso, another Jesuit school established in Cebu in 1595), had already celebrated its sesquicentennial. I don't know if there was as much fanfare then (for either school) -- I don't know if they talked about "celebrating excellence" (well, they were the largest schools in a far-flung but valuable imperial colony, so there might have been something there), "deepening spirituality" (they might have, especially since there was so much work in terms of Christianization still left undone), or "building the nation" (there might have been some talk like that, since they were probably crucial institutions that helped graft more and more of Europe's more cosmopolitan culture into a still pretty young Spanish colony).

Back to 1859. So the Jesuits were "remembered" for being great educators, and the good people of Manila, perhaps oblivious to the will of the Spanish Crown, asked that the Jesuits put up a school. After lobbying and getting support from the Ayuntamiento, the Jesuits were asked to take over a school that came to be known as the Escuela Municipal, then a primary school (read: kindergarten? prep?) for the children of the colonial elite. The paperwork was done in October (when they presumably managed to secure the necessary permission, on the condition that the Jesuits would still do work in Mindanao), and the Jesuits finally opened the school on December 10, 1859. It did so with some bright promise: The Jesuits were known for having some of the most advanced forms of instruction, thanks to the Ratio Studiorum they developed over the years.

Six years later, the school was allowed to offer programs in secondary education. Why? I guess it was because the kids attending the Escuela were growing up, and probably their parents wanted to keep them in the same school. That's the simplest explanation I can think of. But since "Escuela" was a name that was more appropriate to tiny schools, the Jesuits decided that it was time to also rename the school. In 1865, the school's name was changed to Ateneo Municipal de Manila.

What's in a name, and why do I bring that up? Well, if you ask a random Atenean what his school's name stands for, he'll probably say it's derived from the name of the goddess Athena. That's not entirely accurate, but not entirely inaccurate either. Some will say it's from a Spanish word for "school," which again isn't exact (since we all know of the word "escuela"). The name, more precisely, is derived from "Atheneum," which according to the Dictionary of Classical Antiquities defines as the was an educational institution in Rome, founded by the Emperor Hadrian, where "rhetoricians and poets held their recitations." This school drew its name from a Greek temple dedicated to Athena, where poets and men of learning were accustomed to meet and read their productions. A historical connection can be made to Plato's Akademia or Academy (which was in a grove sacred to Athena, and which I think was actually the site of the "temple" referred to in the previous sentence) or Aristotle's Lykeion or Lyceum, or even to the ancient gymnasion or gymnasium -- all were schools, schools for young men. And since these names have come to be names of schools that teach secondary education, what this basically means was that an Atheneum, or the Ateneo, was a school that taught things up to the high school level.

The word "Municipal" appears in the school name because the Ateneo was receiving funding from the colonial government. So the roots of the Ateneo, which is sometimes derided as an elitist private school, can be traced to the Ateneo being a public school. We only stopped being a public school when the Americans took over the Philippines, and the subsidy stopped. Hence the name "Ateneo de Manila."

It is therefore a bit funny that we still insist on calling the university the Ateneo, because it's a name that can be pretty confusing. We practically call it the School of Manila, or the Atheneum of Manila, or the School for Young Men in Manila. We've probably made things worse by affixing the word "University" to it now: School of Manila University. Doesn't sound correct, yes?

Anyway, the Ateneo was eventually allowed to confer the Bachillerato, or what we would call the bachelor's degree. Ambeth Ocampo often points out, though, that this doesn't mean we were really a college (again, at least as how we might recognize a college as a degree-granting institution of higher learning) at this time, but we were more of a high school that conferred a piece of paper called "bachelor of arts." If that sounds unclear to you, it's pretty unclear to me too. I have not understood how Spain used to call its schools anyway. Besides, a lot of that changed when the school came to operate in a country ruled by Americans who had their own system of education. We began conferring "real" college degrees from then on.

While the school was pretty young, it ended up admitting, training, and conferring degrees on a bunch of students that would eventually earn their place in Philippine history. The most famous of them was probably Jose Rizal (A.B. 1877), who was a reformist during a time when Philippine nationalism was slowly growing, and who wrote against what he said were wrongdoings of the colonial government. He ended up getting shot, but was later hailed as the national hero. Other young men who attended also became reformists and propagandists whom we know as heroes of the Philippine Revolution. Others became heroes in the Philippine-American War, such as Gregorio del Pilar. It is on the laurels of men such as these whom we rest on today, and from whom we derive some sort of comeuppance when it comes to other schools in the Philippines.

The 20th century saw growth and development. A fire in 1933 forced the school to relocate to Padre Faura. World War II came, and the campus was razed to the ground during the battle to liberate Manila. Images from this time are captured in fascinating detail in history books. More photos document how, after the war, the school reopened and resumed operations in huts. Meanwhile the Jesuits managed to acquire land in the far-flung realm of Diliman, a place where in the late 1940s the University of the Philippines would move.

It seemed, at least to Fr. Rector James Masterson, a good idea to build a campus on what was a beautiful hilltop. Other people thought he was crazy. Given the context of the Ateneo as a school that Manila's elite, the wealthy scions of Ermita and its environs, the future "lux-in Domino" or "light in the Lord," attended, who the hell would want to go study in a place whose name connoted darkness? It was bad enough that a fire had reduced the fine Intramuros building to ashes, and that the war had reduced the Ateneo to a collection of broken ruins and Quonset huts, and here was Masterson, talking about sending these same kids/brats/future national heroes/future leaders to study in the jungle. The question was: "Who's going to study there? The children of Tarzan?"

Masterson insisted on moving though. So in 1949, when U.P. had built new classrooms and had ferried the Oblation from Padre Faura (it sat practically across the street from the Ateneo at the time), we built a gym, the first structure in a place, thanks to the Jesuits (I am not sure if it is Masterson who deserves credit for this), that would eventually be called "Loyola Heights." And because we were so darned proud of our vaunted basketball team that we called the Blue Eagles, we built a huge, concrete eagle, painted it blue, and tacked it to the edifice. The NCAA's basketball games were held there, construction materials for the future campus were housed there, and the place became a revenue center of sorts so that we could raise more money to build the new campus. At this point, we may as well attribute this long-standing practice of sorts to Masterson: If you want Ateneo alumni, or members of the Ateneo community to eventually see things your way, use something related to the school's basketball team to make your case.

School units moved in the early 50s: the College and High School, and then the Grade School. Some of the other units, such as the law school, stayed in Padre Faura, where they would remain until 1976. The new campus was pretty well-received, I think. Or at least, Ateneans learned to love it a lot. It was huge, an airy eagle's aerie. So huge, in fact, that the school's leadership eventually thought it was too huge (or this is how I interpret the events, at least), hence we ended up selling land to the Maryknoll sisters, or back to the original sellers (if I am not mistaken, our original campus would have encompassed what is now Miriam College, some parts of La Vista and Marymount, even parts of what is now Loyola Grand Villas, and a chunk of the edge of what is now Marikina). This was probably a mistake. Nonetheless, the campus, a hill between the earth and sky, as the school song goes, became a place with a lot of headway for the future. And over the next 57 years, we ended up building more buildings--classroom facilities, athletic facilities, libraries (a new one was just inaugurated a few days ago), and so on.

And over the course of those 57 years, which I would like to reduce to a few more statements, we expanded our population, we eventually admitted female students (to the college and graduate schools only; it seems too much of a break with tradition to admit girls to the grade school and high school), came under the leadership of more Filipinos, received a university charter, reorganized into university with several rather defined constituent units, produced a bunch of more heroes, won more titles in basketball and other sports, got all sorts of organizational and academic accolades, and so on, until we come to the Ateneo of 2009.

In 2009, our school has four main campuses: one in Loyola Heights, two in Makati, and one in Pasig. We've got four Loyola Schools (of Humanities, Social Sciences, Science and Engineering, and Management) that confer undergraduate and graduate degrees, four Professional Schools (Law, Business, Government, Medicine and Public Health), and a throwback to our roots in our grade school and high school. From a school whose first bachelor's degree class numbered 13 (my only reference is the class of 1870), we now have something like 13,000 or so students studying for college and graduate degrees. We've always been pretty well-regarded, and have even managed to snag the top rank in some league tables. Throughout our campuses is scattered our library collection (a key part of any university given any decent measurement), which numbers in the modest hundreds of thousands (a far cry from the collections of those Ivy League schools that we like to compare ourselves to; Harvard has a collection of over 15 million books). We've got a roster of esteemed and not-so-esteemed alumni and alumnae (or perhaps the better way of putting it is we have a roster of famous, infamous, and irrelevant alumni and alumnae, the last category having the highest number).

So, on this occasion of our school's 150th anniversary, what really are we celebrating?

The public relations spin that's been coming out of the school goes back to those themes I said that the San Ignacio and Santo Tomas probably never talked about: Celebrating Excellence, Deepening Spirituality, and Building the Nation. We're celebrating, in short, what we've achieved, how we've affected the lives of the people who walk our halls, and how we've made a difference in making Philippine society better (if not merely bearable).

If we look back at the past 150 years, we can probably say that we've probably done some things to deserve praise, and that we've probably done some things that we can say were right. Does that mean we've been excellent? I'm not so sure. We can probably say that we've tried to be good at what we do, but what is that exactly?

I don't know if the Ateneo has a very clearly defined sense of that aspect of its identity at this point in time. Essentially, we're a place where teaching happens. But the modern role of universities isn't simply a place where knowledge and tradition are transmitted. Research is something very important, and I don't know how much research we've really done, or how much we've essentially contributed to the continuing dialogue of the human race. I don't know how much research we can do given our tiny library collection (I say tiny because I've actually walked around libraries that literally house millions of books) or our modest collection of laboratories. We are a far cry from the universities we sometimes fancy our dear old Ateneo to be, who have atom smashers and million-dollar facilities for students and teachers to play around in.

But again, I am not sure if that is what the Ateneo wants to be. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

An excellent university probably keeps people curious enough to make them want to forge better ways of doing things. And aside from improving the hardware (buildings, etc.), it also has to make sure that its programs are top-notch and also inspire excellence. All I can say is that it might be a good idea to reevaluate our programs to see if they still work as effective instruments of inspiring critical thinking and learning. And while we're at it, it might pay be good to pay attention to how isolated some things in school are. We've probably got to find a way to make our otherwise remarkable law school work with our otherwise remarkable departments of political science or history or development studies or whatever, for example, or maybe to find some sort of cross-disciplinary thing to get our science people working with our management majors (and I am not talking about simply slapping together a degree program called BS Management of Applied Chemistry). Remember the definition of an atheneum: it is essentially a place where people gather. The Ateneo, to live up to its name in a manner that is excellent, might want to figure out how to bring people together better.

Can we seriously say we've deepened spirituality? Maybe. Last I checked, most Ateneans are still Roman Catholic. Quite a number are devout, or are at least practicing. Some claim to be agnostic, or atheists, with some saying that they are so because they can't stand how religion's been taught to them. Perhaps attending the Ateneo has made them think a bit about faith (especially when we make such a big case for it). We've got a bunch of graduates who have made going to Mass a bit more interesting, thanks to the liturgical music they've composed. We, uh, coerce our students to go on outreach programs. We preach discernment. We practically demand reflection and introspection. We have all sorts of rituals and religious celebrations.

But as the sesquicentennial video asks, "What does it mean to be spiritual?" And what does it mean to deepen that spirituality? If we think about spirituality in terms of a relationship with God Almighty, can the Ateneo really say that it has done work that has deepened people's relationship with said God Almighty? I am not referring to how the agony of accounting exams, or of midterms and finals at the law school end up indirectly boosting attendance at the daily celebrations of the Eucharist. I am not talking about people clutching rosaries and invoke the intercession of Our Lady to make sure a basketball player makes a crucial shot. I am not pertaining to how we tend to gather in Church during times of crisis. Those instances are instances that can occur independently of whatever it is that the Ateneo does, I think.

If we think of spirituality as a thing of habit, do we consider, say, how grade school and high school students are (used to be?) taught to carry around rosaries in their pockets? Or how it has become tradition to have Ignatian retreats? Things like that? I still don't know. In my case, I've been attending the Ateneo since prep. I carried a rosary in my pocket daily until a few years ago, because I felt that I was overstuffing my pockets. I no longer attend Mass regularly. My memories of saying confession (I have a pretty good memory; I remember these things) seem to be instances separated by decades. But I pray daily, even if only for a few moments. I do not know if that last one is the Ateneo's handiwork, or if it was simply something that I picked up from my parents. Maybe deepening spirituality happens in the mundane work of enforcing prayer habits taught by parents. Again, I don't know. Maybe I'm just a failure of sorts, so I don't get it.

Building the nation. Now here's an interesting one. What do we mean when we say we've had 150 years of nation-building?

Let's take what some historians might like to use: Some seem to opine that the emergence of the Filipino nation happened because people like Rizal pushed enough circumstantial buttons to make it happen. So if we follow their idea, in essence, the very idea of a Filipino nation might have been the product of the work of some Ateneans. I don't know if that's true, but the claim seems characteristically, arrogantly, Atenean. Hahahaha. So that might not be it.

A friend of mine, reflecting on what the sesquicentennial means, said on Facebook that our what it supposedly should mean is years and years of producing responsible decision-makers, leaders, and moral anchors. I'll extend it and say that it probably means having produced heroes (as nebulous as that may sound). Have we contributed to nation-building by having some people of national historical significance attend and graduate from the Ateneo? Was their contribution to society something inspired by what they've learned, or how their values were supposedly formed here? In Britain, someone said that the future of British society could be seen on the playing fields of Eton. Can such a claim be made in our case?

I do not know. I would like to think so, but I do not know. Sure, the program of learning at the Ateneo is, by design, one that aims to form leaders and decision-makers. But I don't know if that's what it really ends up doing. Leaders emerge out of the woodwork, sure, but I am not sure if their sense of leadership is a product of their Ateneo training, or if their desire to make a difference is something that is rooted in what they learned in class. We probably equip future leaders with skills. We probably teach future statesmen what they need to know in order to run some program of action efficiently, or what philosophical/moral/economic/etc. underpinnings given issues may have for when they consider them. We do that by telling them, for example, to read this or that book, on which they will eventually be tested and evaluated. But that sort of training happens everywhere. We are probably redeemed that our students have some intelligence (thanks to a measure of selectivity that we have when we choose whom to admit--but that itself is far from perfect). And that sort of training can pretty much produce anyone. It can produce heroes and leaders like Rizal or Manglapus, or other interesting characters in Philippine history as First Gentleman Mike Arroyo and all of the other bad eggs who have Ateneo diplomas.

Another friend reflected on how we seem to have grown soft, or how the blue eagle has lost his talons, when we no longer just come together as a community to take a stand on issues of national importance. He was referring to, I think, political issues. We seem to have become largely apolitical in terms of how we approach any work of nation-building. Instead of attendant criticism of government, which I agree with him works, we've devoted ourselves to working on improving housing, public health, and public education. Concrete solutions that seem to survive what might be dismissed as the triviality of politics. The main complaint is that this seems to largely ignore the university's long history of political activism. But what do we mean when we talk about Ateneo activisim in nation building today?

I cannot answer that question. All I know is that there are problems in the world, and that the Ateneo is home, in a sense, to people who have a duty as human beings to at least think about them and work out some sort of solution. How we do that, whether by criticism of those in power or by simply focusing on concrete ways that scale up or the obvious idea of resorting to a combination of both, I have no idea.

What is clear to me, is this:

At 150 years, we remain remarkably young as a university. Perhaps the difficulty of answering these questions springs from the fact that we have yet to discover what it is that we're really supposed to be. We've got an idea that the Ateneo is not just a place of learning, but is a place where learning happens for a reason. In that we find some meaning and some consolation.

Some schools that we like to compare ourselves to, such as the Americans' Harvard and Yale, are both far older than we are. I think at 150 years, both can be said to have been smaller than we are now. Harvard's growth into a modern research university began more than 200 years after it was established. After 150 years, Yale's major constituent units had just been set up.

So at 150 years, if we use standards like that, then we can say that we really are young. Maybe, like them, we are still feeling our way and finding our feet. Despite all that we've been through and what we've achieved and failed to do, the youth of our university is something we can only accept as true.

The fact that we refer to ourselves with the name of what is essentially a high school is probably symbolic and indicative. Or maybe so is the idea that if we think about our age as a school as being a function of our geography, that we are no more than 57 years old.

What history seems to have given the Ateneo is a chance to be young and young again, and there might be a cycle of sorts:

In the 1850s all the way until before the fire, a generation of Ateneans ended up playing roles in forming the Philippine nation and securing independence. After the fire of 1933, after moving to Intramuros, the school was reborn, and another band of Ateneans was formed, and they somehow found their way into either helping with the war effort, or later on in life, as leaders in the post-war rebuilding. In 1952, we moved to a new campus, another rebirth, and we've had some people who have figured somewhat in history.

So maybe, just maybe, we have yet to fully discover what it is that we are, as a university, as a place where knowledge is passed on and where ideas are incubated, are tasked to do, at least for this "cycle."

But if it isn't the prize of independence, or if it isn't the idea of building a new post-American Philippine republic, what is it that we, the current generation, have as our charge?

I'm not sure. But part of growing with the Ateneo after all this time is the joy of discovering what we can do when we work together, and of learning that there is always something that we are eventually called to do. And it is in the fact that we share this growing together in fellowship that makes life at the Ateneo worth celebrating, I think, and that makes it remarkable. That we are constantly aware that there is always some sort of mission might mean that the accident of 1859 was not really an accident. 150 years ago, the Jesuits returned, and instead of doing the missionary work they were originally tasked to do, they first built a school that is now the Ateneo that we have today. And since the Ateneo is called to a mission, whatever that is, and Ateneans are called to their own missions, whatever those might be, but all of which are somewhat tied in with the idea of making things better, of drawing on tradition and spurring innovation, of inviting others to celebrate excellence, to deepen their spirituality, and to take part in building the nation, as vague as all those ideas may be, maybe the charge given in 1859 was just translated into what is celebrated on December 10th: The continuing mission of being Lux-In-Domino, men and women for and with others. The Ateneo way.

Thoughts before the start of the last semester

2009-11-07T09:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it's been a full month since I last posted anything here. The last post before this one was a reposting of information on Ondoy/Ketsana-related relief operations at the Ateneo, which wasn't even something I wrote. The past few months have been pretty crazy in terms of what was happening (and what wasn't, but I'm not blogging about that), and I guess this is the only instance that I've really had time to sit down and just write.

Okay, a recap of what's been happening, and here's what I think:

1. J.D. Thesis Writing and Defense - If there was anything I could consider a real highlight of this school year, at least so far, it's being able to write and finally defend my thesis. What was it about? Peace processes, or more precisely, how the Philippine government engages in peace processes. If only to brag a bit, part of the recommendations is a proposed Executive Order. I think that all the President has to do is sign it in order to give my recommendations and thesis analysis legal effect.

Writing my thesis was pretty challenging, but thanks to the help of lots of people, especially my adviser, Atty. Aris Gulapa, I think I was able to produce something decent. At least now, the thesis has been defended, and I can now work on the final form for submission. What does that mean? Well, it basically means that all I have to do now is pass all of my classes, and I'll finally get my law degree. I am now a putative juris doctor. I think that J.D. (puta.) sounds so much more interesting than J.D. (cand.).

2. Ondoy/Ketsana - Okay, so we were hit pretty hard by that storm. I was at home when Ondoy hit, while Mom was off buying food in the market, and my dad had just fetched my sister from Makati. At first, I thought all those videos about how bad flooding in Katipunan was were pretty funny. Then I saw one about a van falling into a ditch in a construction site, and that wasn't funny. Then the rain kept pouring, then I learned that Neo swam away while at Ali's (I have learned to live with the reality that he is most probably dead and probably died within minutes), and then I started seeing messages about so many people getting stuck on campus. After working with some people to help pass info on (Karla Dalisay, Tatot Quiblat, Gio Tingson, Karl Santinitigan, and lots of others), thanks to the power of all these social networking things we have online (the Ateneo Facebook page saw a spike in the number of subscribers, as did the university's Twitter account, because I think people wanted to pass information on and we were probably the noisiest online), relief operations happened.

Relief operations were fantastic, and I was in school with the [o] boys and some other friends to help out (Leio and I even dropped by Marikina distribute goods near Riverbanks mall). I have never seen that many bottles of water, canned goods, boxes of instant noodles, boxes of toiletries, and all sorts of goods. Ever. Not even in those huge wholesale places (which makes sense, since relief operations in various parts of Metro Manila, if not just the Ateneo, ended up clearing out groceries and stores). And I think that it's awesome that people abroad (like my cousin Amanda) wanted to send more stuff over. But was was awesome was how I think a lot of people went home each day with new acquaintances (some even probably have new relationships).

Still, I share the widespread opinion that our government's disaster response is a disaster. But I will not rant about that here because I do not want to write something that might never end.

3. Ateneo wins the first double back-to-back championships in UAAP men's and juniors' basketball history - That's right. It was awesome. Much thank to the [o] boys + Sansan, Sabina, and Jella, and others for watching with me, and to Jun, Mon, Howie, Joe, Sarah, and Alan for keeping a viewing tradition alive (and for the tickets too), to Tita Sonia for trusting me with some coverage work, and to guys like Alan and Rick who exchanged insights. OBF also to Gabe, Jojo, Cara, and Migoy who had to endure watching the games from San Francisco, Washington, Waltham, and Singapore.

4. Finals Week - This was a blur. And thanks to Ondoy/Ketsana, extended at least for me and some other people.

5. Sem break - This is a lie. I honestly do not think a 2-week break is commensurate to all the shit that people had to go through. Managed to hit the beach, and that was both awesome and hilarious. Alpe and I, together with some other people have been running a bit more too, so that might be interesting.

6. Backlog - I am pretty pissed that I wasn't able to put a substantial dent into my non-school-related reading backlog. And in addition to that, there are more things that I want to read. And aside from that, there's also a movie backlog. This means I'm in deep shit, because I do not want to go through all this stuff during bar review. Which brings me to...

7. The last semester - Well, at least assuming everything turns out as it should. I actually should be approaching this semester with a little more sentimentality, since it's my last semester in law school, and more precisely, at least given my current plans, my last semester as a student reading for a degree at the Ateneo. My last year in college was a realization that unless I took up a graduate degree in Loyola that that was the last year of my studies in Loyola. A bit of the same feeling is present now, albeit largely diminished because the Law School seems to have diminished some of my sentimental attachment to places of learning. (Maybe I should write a piece giving advice to prospective law students.)

What's it going to be like? Well, I am already sure quite a bit of it will be a struggle, since I have exams that I have yet to take from the second semester of junior year (that's one of the snags brought about by joining the Jessup moot, but it's worth it). And there are still so many things left to be done. Finalize my thesis. Work on some other plans. Try to pull up my grades so that going for even further studies in law is not a ridiculous idea. Things like that.

Then there's also the uncertainty. I have no idea if the classes will be interesting, or if the shorter schedule will make the pace interesting. Leio's also been bugging me about competing again, and part of me really wants to, but I really don't know if I should do that now.

I only hope it's interesting. That, and that I turn out a better person because of all of it.

Ondoy

2009-09-27T10:03:00.000-07:00

For those of you who would like to help the victims of Ondoy --

The Ateneo de Manila University would like to inform its students that classes are suspended on September 28-29 (Monday-Tuesday) due to Typhoon Ondoy. Relief Operations are ongoing and will continue for the following days.

The Ateneo is accepting donations, both in kind or in cash/check. The center of relief operations is the Ateneo College Covered Courts. Most needed are ready-to-eat food, canned goods, drinking water, clothes, mats, and blankets. Those who wish to donate or volunteer for Ateneo Task Force Ondoy are welcome to go to the College Covered Courts, where they will be directed, assisted, and briefed.

For cash donations, direct deposits can be made to:
SIMBAHANG LINGKOD NG BAYAN (Account Name/Payee)
Bank of the Philippine Islands (Loyola-Katipunan Branch)
BPI Peso Checking Account Number: 3081-111-61
BPI Dollar Savings Account Number: 3084-0420-12

Checks may be addressed to Simbahang Lingkod Bayan as well. For GCASH users, you may send your donations by typing: DONATE__<4-digit pin>_SLB and send to 2992.

Operations start at 6AM daily, and deployment to the areas start at 1PM. Volunteers are welcome to help by signing up for three-hour shifts each, starting at 6AM ending at 12AM. For easier monitoring, people are highly encouraged to come at the start of the three-hour intervals. For volunteers, please wear comfortable working clothes. Bring umbrellas, jackets, extra shirts, and water. Please wear blue.

We are also consolidating a list of missing people and evacuation centers around Metro Manila. Please visit and update http://ateneotaskforceondoy.misa.org.ph. If you know people who are missing or who are at evacuation centers, please add their names and contact information at the website. The site is currently still down, but please check back in an hour or so. We are still finishing uploading files into the site.

Just today, September 27, we were able to raise Php 83,000 in monetary donations to aid the relief victims. 3,000 packs of relief goods have also been sent to Upper Brangka Bliss.

For inquiries, please contact Gio Tingson at 09178807427 or Kacci Morales at 09279818811.

Song Survey #11

2009-08-05T01:41:00.000-07:00

This list began when Jill and I were trying to put together a mix for the Jessup competition and for wandering around the city. After she left for Portland and the others left for Florida and California, I managed to put a few more of these together. After a bit more surveying and compiling thanks to tips from people all over, I've arrived at this list:

"Sunrise" by Yeasayer
"Houses of the Holy" and "In the Evening" by Led Zeppelin
"747" by Kent
"Thursday" and "Sunshower" by Asobi Seksu
"Sometimes Always" by the Jesus & Mary Chain
"Everybody Knows" by Echo and the Bunnymen
"Can't Say No" by The Helio Sequence
"Meccano" by Red Light Company
"Paris is Burning" by Ladyhawke
"I'm Not Alone" by Calvin Harris
"I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" by Ida Maria
"Sex on Fire" by Kings of Leon
"If You Only Knew" by Kara's Flowers
"Ghost Under Rocks" by Ra Ra Riot
"Hit the Wall" by Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene
"Við Spilum Endalaust" by Sigur Rós
"Kim and Jessie" by M83
"Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane
"This Tornado Loves You" by Neko Case
"Close to Me" by The Cure (as covered by The Get Up Kids)
"No One's Better Sake" and "Don't Watch Me Dancing" by Little Joy
"Strawberry Swing" by Coldplay
"Please Just Take These Photos From My Hands" by Snow Patrol
"Consequence" by The Notwist
"Lovers' Prayers" by Ida

A nutty little mix, methinks. And I also think this is going to end up as the midterms playlist, unless I suddenly find something interesting.

Thanks to Jill, Mark, Mika, Nix, Meg, and Nono for pointing me in the direction of these songs.

Thoughts on Cory Aquino

2009-08-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

I awoke at around 5 in the morning last Saturday, after about an hour of sleep, because my phone was going nuts. People were sending me messages, all containing essentially the same message: Former President Cory Aquino is dead. I didn't bother replying, or forwarding the message. I deleted the messages, tossed my phone under my pillows, and went back to sleep.

By the time I woke up (at around 9:30 or 10), the subject of those messages was all over the news. Comments and reactions were pouring in as politicians, ordinary citizens, and people whom I didn't know and people whom I knew all had something to say. The blogosphere, Facebook, Twitter, and all these other sites were full of all sorts of things related to Cory Aquino. When I came to catch the Ateneo Blue Eagles game, there was also a moment of silence.

If it seems that I'm not interested, or if I'm detached about this whole affair, I guess I am. People who know me well enough know that I have never been a big fan of Cory Aquino. I was too young to understand whether what she was doing when she was President was good or bad (although I remember my father cursing the nightly news whenever she was mentioned), although I do remember that it was during her Presidency that I had to endure these bizarre power outages, that there was a huge earthquake, and that Mount Pinatubo erupted.

Of course, people will say that those things are hardly her real legacy. Her real legacy was the role she played in the EDSA People Power thing that happened in 1986. Well, I've never been a fan of EDSA either. I was in the United States in 1986, sent there with my mom, because my dad thought the country was going nuts, and besides, it was high time we both had a vacation. And perhaps my aversion to that event is related to my opinion about the only other successful EDSA-related political thing, EDSA II, in 2001, which I think was a failure of law and democracy. Perhaps it's because I grew up the son of a lawyer that I have an aversion to things that don't fit legal frameworks, but we can all be honest enough and admit that the EDSA things were, regardless of whatever misplaced platitudes we can think off, coups d'etat (I have no idea if this is the correct plural form, pardon my French).

EDSA, to me now, was a dangerous idea. The first one was arguably noble, in fact, I think that it makes more sense to call it a restoration than a revolution (a distinction I borrow from one of my history professors). I guess I kind of understand it, because it was really the only way to break free from the Marcos dictatorship short of either just waiting for Ferdinand Marcos to die or of civil war. Of course, if we want to talk about Marcos' legacy, the atrocities narrated by history aside, we might have to concede that he was at least a decent, if not brilliant legal thinker. Perhaps I can be pardoned, like my father, for being the fan of an otherwise remarkable lawyer. But that's precisely why I think EDSA was a dangerous idea, because it set the stage and is a precedent for people to think that revolt is better when politics allows for no legal avenues. It was the excuse used by those people behind EDSA II, who not only resorted to illegal means when political convenience was not availing and when the law was not on their side, but who also failed to appreciate history and understand that the circumstances in 1986 and in 2001 were radically different.

Which brings me back to Cory Aquino. I will not be naïve and think that she did not get that EDSA was extralegal, or even outright illegal. From how I see it now, and perhaps this is me benefiting from the clarity of hindsight, she knew it, but that the role she had been appointed to by fate called for her to assume the mantle, however imperfect, so that a more perfect society could be built. She became President, and while still benefiting from the powers left by Marcos, which could have made her dictator for life had she so chosen, she decided to cast them aside. This led to the 1987 Philippine Constitution, an imperfect document, but an expression of the sovereign will nonetheless, one that our current crop of politicians want to shit on.

I have no up-close-and-personal stories of Cory Aquino. I cannot, say, do what Atty. Mel Sta. Maria, my Civil Law Review professor, did and talk about how I worked with her on this and that case -- I never did. I cannot talk about what a remarkable neighbor she was -- we never lived very near one another. I cannot talk about standing with her during EDSA II -- I didn't want to, because I thought she was wrong.

My memories of Cory Aquino are limited to few accounts: I once met her when I was covering the launch of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Peace Center, which was held in the Ateneo's Rockwell campus, for the school paper. I saw her several times during the annual Ateneo Simbanggabi, where she would, on certain nights, lead the praying of the Rosary. The last time I saw her in person was last year, also during the Simbanggabi, when she was leaving early while the Mass was ongoing. She was already sick at the time.

I do not remember her being particularly remarkable. She wasn't an excellent public speaker (not like her predecessor, Marcos, although light-years beyond anything Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of bangkang papel fame can muster). I don't think she was exceptionally distinguished in her appearance or bearing (unlike, say, Imelda Marcos, or one of Cory's own relatives, Imelda Cojuangco). I don't know if she was a remarkable President, although I do know that she survived several coup attempts, all those natural disasters, and willingly gave up the Presidency, and might have been responsible for why our outstanding international debts were never simply erased which is why my children's children's children might have to bear the burden of debt servicing.

My own personal impressions get in the way, and maybe that's why I must confess that I remain, up to now, slightly confused by all of the outpouring of thanks and support and tribute. I don't know if this is me in some sort of denial, or if this is an instinctive reaction born out of my having lost loved ones to cancer too.

I've read the articles, I've watched the videos. I still do not understand completely.

Perhaps that's the challenge--to assume the mantle of understanding, of trying to understand, however imperfect, in order to birth a more perfect understanding.

I remember the unremarkable woman who said the Rosary during the Masses. I remember the stuff I've read about her. I remember that I have the freedom to take her for granted, that I have the freedom to take many things for granted, perhaps because that's what she wanted 23 years ago. If that was the point, that the unremarkable may share in things we should, as people, be able to take for granted, then it begins to make sense.

When Cory Aquino is buried, and all we're left with is her legacy, you will not see me wear anything yellow, or tie yellow ribbons to my car or to anything I own. You will not see me flashing the "Laban" sign in the face of our politicians. You will not catch me on the streets with placards, unless it is for a cause I believe in. I was never a fan. I still am not one.

But I am not one to set aside what I have committed to memory, or to what is beginning to make sense to me: That when Cory died last Saturday, someone more important than I can understand passed away. When Cory died, something we thought we beneficiaries of the restoration could take for granted, died too. All we are left with now are memories and stories to sift through and think about, whose meaning we can only discover when we are truly called to clench our jaws, to raise our fists, and to cry out with loud voices prayers for a broken democracy.

We, the sovereign Filipino People

2009-06-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've been working on some stuff for school lately, and after running some errands today, the subject of conversation over dinner was the plenary debates ongoing in the House of Representatives regarding House Resolution 1109. I haven't seen the resolution myself, but was rather irritated at the level of brashness during the debate. Just as I was getting settled in front of my desk, hoping to finally get more work done, I had to deal with flood of status message updates from all over that could only mean one thing: The House had adopted the resolution.

My father and I spent a few minutes talking about what happens now. There are some questions that need answering: Is there a legal controversy that the courts can consider at this point in time (we agreed that there was none)? What do we make of the proponents' disagreement about whether or not both houses of Congress should vote separately (we agreed that the only way the Constituent Assembly could be put together legally was via separate vote)? What should the Senate do (we agreed that if the resolution is transmitted to it, it should do nothing, and if not, it should not sue unless the House takes further action)?

We then went on to the subject of what the possible constitutional amendments are. Aside from the alleged amendments to the economic provisions of the Constitution, we agreed that the Constituent Assembly, assuming it's convened, can actually propose anything it wants (that's imprecise, of course, but sufficient). It can propose extensions to term limits, it can change the form of government, and it can include some of the more controversial amendments from the proposals that were the subject of the moves for peoples' initiative debunked by the Supreme Court in Lambino v. COMELEC, such as textually removing the Supreme Court's power to review grave abuses of discretion by people in power.

The statements made by the opposition talk about a tyranny of numbers, about gang-raping the Constitution, about this being a farce. Well, the statements are true. It's surprising how insensitive members of the House are to what polls say about distrust in government. Of course, they claim that they have the support of the people (which might make sense because the people in the House are elected officials). Sometimes, I wish that one of the majority representatives will actually just come clean and say that they don't really give a rat's ass about polls or public opinion. Someone ought to clarify what one of the President's allies meant when they asked "what are we in power for?" and put his or her foot down: We're in power to get what we want.

When it comes to honesty like that, of course, I won't bother waiting for any.

The subject of changing the Constitution seems to be a touchy one. Cory didn't seem to bother doing it (her term saw the adoption of a new one anyway). Ramos didn't push through with it. Erap, well, was ousted in an unconstitutional manner. which was affirmed in the intellectually-questionable "constructive resignation" ruling. And after almost 10 years in power, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration has seen at least two attempts to change the Constitution, with the latest being this one.

But I'm glad that the subject of Constitutional change is a touchy one. The Constitution matters--and that's not just lip service. It's not just a "super law." It's the fundamental law. It is where the buck stops, legally. And more importantly, it is a contract, of sorts, between you and me and every other Filipino on the planet. The Constitution begins with the following words: "We, the sovereign Filipino people." That means one thing: Everything it says is something that we, the people, believe is in line with the task of putting up a government that will embody our ideals and aspirations, that will allow us to build the society we want. That's why it's rather basic that anytime a new constitution is proposed, the final arbiter of its acceptance is the people, who express their will in a plebiscite.

This brings me to the reasoning of the House of Representatives. Some House members think that the provisions of the Constitution on the subject of amendment will allow Congress to turn into a Constituent Assembly through a simple majority vote of all the members of Congress, taken together. They simply mean that the Constituent Assembly can be convened if we simply count the number of votes cast, because the number of votes in the House will overwhelm any House opposition and even a unanimous vote of opposition by the Senate. They say this and make reference to the language of the Constitution itself. The language is poorly worded.

But as poor as the language is, it appears that the intent of the people who wrote the document, at least if you subscribe to the view of Fr. Bernas, is for each house of Congress voting separately. This actually makes a lot of sense: Congress is bicameral, and the structure is such so as to provide an additional check to the exercise of legislative power. And because Congress is bicameral, the House of Representatives cannot simply pass a law without going through the Senate. Now, if the House can't create ordinary legislation without the Senate, what makes these congressmen think that they can actually legally achieve constitutional change without the support of the Senate? It's pretty mind-boggling, to say the least. Until members of the House understand that this is not a simple process that can function like ordinary legislation, we're doomed to go through another political circus.

It appears to me that it is becoming a political tactic to bait the opposition into filing suits before the courts. Sure, the courts hem the exercise of power in through jurisprudence, and point out boundaries when confronted with such questions. But it also means that the Supreme Court might end up defining the parameters by which a morally depraved Congress will operate. That's why the Supreme Court has to be careful.

If my reading of the American experiences is correct, the Supreme Court faces some political issues if it's forced to rule against the majority of the House. This is because the Court, in effect, is taking a legal position that seems to be contrary to the will of the people as expressed by their representatives. This is why the whole business of declaring things unconstitutional is such a big deal in the US. But what does it mean for us here, now?

I think that the Supreme Court should rule against any move by the House to convene the assembly without the Senate, even if the house votes unanimously. While legally, this can be discussed in somewhat clearer terms, as a matter of policy, it also makes sense. The whole idea of our constitutional setup, as agreed upon by us, the sovereign Filipino people, was to quell tyranny. And that means quelling even the tyranny of a congressional majority. In terms of being related to the aspirations of those in power like the President, even if the measure of the House has the support of the President, who is the principal actor, it seems, in Philippine politics, the Court should not hesitate to strike down anything illegal.

And a bit must be said about this particular bit of policy: Professors Levinson and Pildes, in one of my favorite HLR articles, argue that the Supreme Court should take a very restrictive stance in times when it appears that government is "united," that is, when the people in the executive and in the legislature are politically aligned. It makes sense in the context of quelling tyranny, because that will mean government cannot run roughshod over the people who might have made mistakes about whom they put into power, and over minorities who did not want those people in power in the first place.

We, the sovereign Filipino people, dislike the idea of tyranny, be it a tyranny of one or a tyranny of the numbers. And in the worst case, should the politicians succeed and begin the gang-rape of the Constitution, we can put a stop to it. We, the sovereign Filipino people, can muster and manifest our opposition by the millions. The machinery for achieving that, of course, is another story altogether.

The assault on reason

2009-05-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

No, this post is not me paying homage to Al Gore's book (and I sincerely apologize to Mr. Gore and to any of his fans who might think that I am doing so improperly). This is a reaction to a series of e-mails I received, quoting blog posts and an article by Robin Hemley that goes by the title "The Great Book Blockade of 2009" (click here to read it) . I received those e-mails when I was checking my mail, after several days of working on my thesis. Stuff like this will screw it up.

When I was much younger, I once pissed my mom off so much that she decided to punish me. And perhaps because spanking wasn't effective, or yelling at me wasn't effective (both remain ineffective means of rebuking me for misconduct), my mom resorted to something worse: Aside from grounding me, she locked my books away, leaving only schoolbooks. I was forbidden to read anything else. And because I was not in the mood to read my schoolbooks (having perfected the exercises and having understood and mastered the lessons already), I was quite naturally, bored out of my wits. That was pretty agonizing. She only relented when she found me spending quite a lot of time in front of the fridge or in the bathroom or in the pantry, reading the packaging of stuff I found there. That was how I broke free: I learned the ingredients in ketchup, the contents of shampoo, the directions for making gravy using Campbell's cream of mushroom soup, the sources of cooking oil, and how much bacteria our bathroom soap eliminated. It was useless information (which I am full of, even until today), but it wasn't schoolwork.

But the point was quite clear: I love to read. And now, in law school, I am perhaps going through a twisted recap of that particular method of punishment.

Anyway, apparently, for the months of January until March this year, few, if any imported books made it to the Philippines because imported books are now being subjected to customs duties. As it turns out, the books in the Twilight series were such a hit here that a Customs official took notice, and asked the importer to pay duties. The importer did, if only to avoid any undesirable entanglement with Customs, an act which has been decried as "a mistake." And because the importer caved, the Bureau of Customs has gone all the way and now mandates duties on books, and even put the squeeze on the importation of books by air back in January until March.

Much of this has turned on a government official's interpretation of the law. The basic principles for interpreting a law are: (1) laws are not to be interpreted in such a way as to lead to an absurdity; and (2) as much as possible, all the provisions of the law should be interpreted in a harmonious way, such that all provisions are given effect. These principles do not even seem to demand an "intelligent" interpretation of the law, just a reasonable one.

In my opinion, the interpretation offered by the government officials concerned, such as Undersecretary Sales, is unreasonable, absurd, and pretty stupid to a large degree. It also seems to run contrary to the otherwise clear language of other laws and of the Florence Agreement that we ratified in 1952, and is also absurd in the context of, if not downright contrary to, a BIR opinion issued in September last year. I will not even bother getting into the matter of how the government plans to determine what books ought to be subjected to the imposition of duties. That won't even be absurd, it just might be grotesque.

The reactions abound. Manolo Quezon, Jessica Zafra, and several others have blogged about this (this is how I found out about this thing in the first place). I suggest reading them (they're not imported books, you won't be taxed) and thinking about what this means.

Last I checked, it was public policy to encourage the development of an enlightened citizenry. At least, that's what I think the provisions in the Constitution mean to say, for example. I think that was also the point of the treaties and legislation. Public policy seems to abhor a situation where people end up being unenlightened or stupid.

So what the hell is this supposed to be, then? It's obviously a manifestation of corruption. But more than that, it's a manifestation of the attitude of our so-called public servants, aside from their own intelligence when it comes to interpreting, applying, and pushing public policy forward. It's a clear manifestation of a recession in terms of morals and mores and of intellectual pursuits. It is a clear manifestation of what is probably an assault on reason.

Some of the reactions basically state, rather humorously, that this is government cracking down on citizens who want to be enlightened. This is supposedly because an enlightened citizenry might begin to question government. The thoughts of citizens might be seen as a threat to the interests of those in power.

Okay, so that might really just be some sort of dark humor, or this thing being blown out of proportion. But responding to the assault on reason will require people to be more proactive about things like this, which means people will have to read. It might also mean that we have to encourage the development of local materials; we really need a boom in terms of research, scholarship, and expression, right?

Central to responding to an assault on reason is recognizing the changes in our own attitude as consumers, and how we will need to grow up even as advancements in technology happen and change the way we do things. More and more, we have to encourage people to read and keep reading. Media such as TV and the internet don't really cut it (there's a reason why the TV's called the idiot box), and the internet, even with things like Wikipedia, still does not encourage learning the way a book might. Of course, one might argue that the internet's changed the game and will change pedagogy. I agree. The point isn't about ditching the internet and sticking to books. The point is to read, which means both stuff on the internet and books, together.

Please, read more about what's happened. Please, read more. Please read.

After that, we can talk about thinking, and then action.

Refresh, summer 2009

2009-05-06T02:34:00.000-07:00

After quite some time of silence on the blogosphere, I'm finally back writing. I've decided to give my blog a little facelift, since the design was getting a bit old, as much as I liked it.

Some readers have been asking what I've been up to. I just got back to Manila about a week ago, after a month or so that saw me participate in the 2009 Jessup international rounds, run around a few cities, watch a few gigs, buy a bit of music, soak up some R&R in the mountains, and park my ass on a couch flipping through channels while both trying to catch up on my reading and writing a few papers. It's been pretty difficult battling those fits of laziness and total lack of productivity. After I got back, it's been pretty hectic, with work due, reading to be finished, tests to prepare for, and work on my JD thesis. Short-term karma's a bitch, but it's a price I gladly pay for the break I got.

Jessup was amazing, and I'm glad to have met all the people I did. Preparing for Jessup was long and difficult, and quite often, it wasn't even fun, but making it to Washington and being in an environment that was as exciting as what I saw made all that work worth it. More than the destination, the trip was special; it's been humbling and gratifying, and an incredible learning experience. I'm also quite happy that I met people who, at least hopefully, will buy me a drink if I find myself lucky enough to wander into their part of the world. Jessup's amazing, and everybody who can take a shot at it should. (The new header image of the blog was taken by Marck Macaraeg, one of our team administrators. This was a shot of me going over reference materials which I was trying to plug into my presentation.)

Of course, the sidetrips were also good for me. Getting away from Metro Manila and being thrust into places where I hardly know anyone, where I can fully realize how small (albeit rich) one's perspective can be if one just stays in one place, always helps me find my footing, see the bigger picture, and make out how things can be. I'm lucky to get breaks like this, which are a large-scale version of the running I like to do around in more familiar places. It helps me think. Being in the US for the spring cut me off from a lot of activity that happened with friends in Manila, who were all off to the beach or to some other thing while I was in crisp spring weather (I enjoy cold weather more than hot balmy weather, except if there's a beach involved).

It was also wonderful to run into old friends, mentors, and family, to share stories and experiences and good times. I'll probably talk about these things in future posts. There's work to be done for now.

Tuvok, 13 Feb 2009

2009-02-13T11:31:00.000-08:00

I found out when I got home a few hours ago that one of my dogs, my dog of dogs, Tuvok, the mangy mutt, died yesterday. I got him when he was 2 or 3 months old, in November 2002. I hope he's happy. And it's a tragedy for Chai, who won't have him around during Valentine's day.

MMDA kills trees along Katipunan

2009-02-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

On my way home tonight, I noticed that there were all sorts of MMDA vehicles along the southbound lane of Katipunan Avenue in Loyola Heights. Thinking that there might have been some sort of accident, I hit the southbound lane to see if I could drive by and satisfy my curiosity. What I saw wasn't an accident. It was more akin to murder. The MMDA was removing the trees along the southbound lane of Katipunan. The vehicles I saw were machines designed to cut up and transport the fallen tree trunks.

You might have gathered that last bit from the title of this post. And I may be entirely wrong about the fact of killing. After all, sometimes trees can be uprooted and moved somewhere else. But I don't know how that might explain broken tree branches and trunks strewn all over the street, being collected by the machines.

The MMDA's traffic schemes are supposedly meant to improve both Katipunan's traffic and overall traffic in the metropolis (Katipunan's supposed to be a major road). Traffic did improve, years ago, when they implemented the U-turn scheme that they did. Since then, traffic along Katipunan has never been really, really bad, except when it floods. Of course, to implement their little scheme then, which came along with projects for widening Katipunan, they had to destroy lots of the trees. And some people attribute the fact that Katipunan actually experiences floods now to the fact that there are less trees along the road.

But I wonder if the matter of killing trees and removing the small inner lane was really a necessary exercise. Again, traffic isn't really bad anymore. I do know, however, that feelings have been less than dandy between the MMDA (especially the insufferable Bayani Fernando) and residents of the area, who like the fact that Katipunan has trees. I also do not know if there have been proper consultations regarding this latest act of the MMDA. And like many of the other strange things that they've done, they did the tree-killing at night, very late at night, presumably to avoid scrutiny from members of the community. This is very much like the other things that they've at least been accused of doing, like destroying or vandalizing billboards and advertisements along major thoroughfares. Incidentally, to my knowledge, they've been sued and ruled against. But like cockroaches, the MMDA persists in doing what it does.

Suing Fernando and the MMDA won't bring the trees back. If they're dead, they're dead. They'll never come back. We'll have to plant new ones. Where is anybody's answer.

I don't know if the MMDA realizes that the trees have been part of the heritage of Loyola Heights. The trees are older than most people who live in the area, and have long been part of the relaxed urban and residential landscape that makes Loyola Heights such a special place.

Of course, we don't expect the MMDA to care about heritage. If they don't really care about ruining the appearance of the metropolis with their terribly indiscriminate use of pink-and-blue paint, internationally non-compliant pink road signs and markers, and those tarpaulins bearing Fernando's likeness (that's vandalism, if anything), don't expect them to care about trees and things that are actually good for the environment, and don't expect them to care about history. It's one of the tragedies characteristic of government, I think.

I can imagine that the MMDA's excuse is that it's just working to improve traffic conditions and to help "beautify"(in reality, ruin) the appearance of the city, and that the interests of the people of Loyola Heights must yield to greater concerns. We don't even know if the "greater concerns" exist, or if they warrant the MMDA's methodology. And I'd like to think that there's a process of consultation that must be complied with.

Bayani Fernando, if you're reading this, I hope you understand that the terrible things that you've done will come back to haunt you. And please, spare us all the agony of having to bear with you running for President in 2010. You will not win. You won't even be close to winning. Metro Manila will make sure of that.

UPDATE:

I may have not gotten all of my facts straight. I read in today's edition of the Inquirer that the MMDA claims that there's been a decision to resolve an earlier case for a preliminary injunction to stop them from removing the trees along Katipunan. Apparently, the petition was denied. I don't think the case was resolved definitively though.

But then again, that's the MMDA. They like pouncing on little breaks that they get (they pounce even when they have no breaks, so this is actually marginally better than their typical behavior). They also claim that they didn't really kill the trees, that they just balled them and prepped them for transport. Wasn't there some discussion a few years ago about how intensive their root systems are? If they aren't dead, but these trees depend on root systems like that then the probability that they die seems pretty high.

Song Survey #10

2008-12-30T14:17:00.000-08:00

It's the end of the year, and I haven't posted any playlists lately. I realized that I was on my 10th, and wanted it to be a bit special. So here's a pretty ambitious one: I tried to look for the 10 best songs of the past 10 years. I ended up with a list of what I think are some of the 24 best songs of the past 24 years (since 1984).

1. “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” by The Smiths (1986)
2. “With Or Without You” by U2 (1987)
3. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana (1991)
4. “A Letter to Elise” by The Cure (1992)
5. “Linger” by The Cranberries (1993)
6. “Only Wanna Be With You” by Hootie and the Blowfish (1994)
7. “1979” by the Smashing Pumpkins (1995)
8. “You Were Meant for Me” by Jewel (1995)
9. “Follow You Down” by Gin Blossoms (1996)
10. “People of the Sun” by Rage Against the Machine (1996)
11. “Crash Into Me” by Dave Matthews Band (1996)
12. “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters (1997)
13. “Breakdown” by Mariah Carey feat. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (1997)
14. “Doo Wop (That Thing)” by Lauryn Hill (1998)
15. “Everybody Here Wants You” by Jeff Buckley (1998)
16. “At the Stars” by Better than Ezra (1999)
17. “Once Around the Block” by Badly Drawn Boy (2000)
18. “The Scientist” by Coldplay (2001)
19. “3 Libras” by A Perfect Circle (2001)
20. “Let It Die” by Feist (2004)
21. “7/4 Shoreline” by Broken Social Scene (2005)
22. “Stoned in Love” by Chicane, feat. Tom Jones (2006)
23. “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” by Radiohead (2007)
24. “Walking on a Dream” by Empire of the Sun (2008)

It's a pretty representative and reasonably eclectic selection, I think, although the way the list came together really forced me to leave out music that I could have otherwise put in (I'm sure stuff from, say, Oasis, The Prodigy, 112, 2Pac, and Incubus should be there somewhere, for example. ). Of course, I had trouble even figuring out how to classify the songs on the list. So this is what I have, for now.

So you can listen to them, here's a thing from imeem (note that some of the that some of the tracks aren't complete) :

Song Survey #10

I'd like to thank everyone who took time out to help me put this list together, especially: Pochi, Saul, Billy, Julian, Nix, Alan, Anne, Adrian, Mika, Jill, and everybody else who might have forgotten.

Pochi's list (via e-mail):

"1. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service
1. Everlong - The Foo Fighters
1. Why - Annie Lennox
1. The Scientist - Coldplay
1. Once Around the Block - Badly Drawn Boy
1. I Can't Tell You Why - The Eagles
1. Communication - The Cardigans
1. Head Over Heels - Tears for Fears
1. Homebase - Dzihan & Kamien
1. What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie
1. Cayman Islands - Kings of Convenience
1. Mayonnaise - The Smashing Pumpkins
1. A Letter to Elise - The Cure
1. The Trapeze Swinger - Iron & Wine
1. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
1. Run - Snow Patrol
1. 9 Crimes - Damien Rice
1. Orange Sky - Alexi Murdoch
1. Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own - U2
1. Call and Answer - The Barenaked Ladies
1. Fire Eye'd Boy - Broken Social Scene
1. Boats and Birds - Gregory and the Hawk
1. Summer Romance (Anti-Gravity Love Song) - Incubus
1. Maps - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs"

Saul's list (via Yahoo):

"1. 1963 - new order
2. never is a promise -- fiona apple
3. fill me in -- craig david
4. there is a light that never goes out -- the smiths
5. nothing compares 2 u -- prince and the new revolution
6. breakdown -- mariah carey feat. bonethugs-n-harmony
7. huwag mo nang itanong -- eraserheads
8. you were meant for me -- jewel
9. 1979 -- smashing pumpkins
10. eulogy -- tool
11. hide and seek -- imogen heap
12. low sun -- chicane
13. 7/4 shoreline -- broken social scene
14. luha OR halik -- aegis (DAMN STRAIGHT, NIGGA!)
15. when one eight becomes two zeros -- glassjaw
16. deep love -- mandalay
17. ill be over you -- toto
18. interstate love song -- stone temple pilots
19. when your soul sings -- massive attack
20. 3 libras -- a perfect circle
21. digital bath -- deftones
22. where is my mind -- the pixies
23. this guy's in love with you -- faith no more
24. di mo lang alam -- indio i

in no discriminate order whatsoever, and with songs my itunes currently has. haha."

Billy's list (via e-mail):

"wake up - arcade fire
digital love - daft punk
three libras - APC
float on - modest mouse
once around the block - badly drawn boy
a lack of color - death cab for cutie
never is a promise - fiona apple
heartbeats - jose gonzalez
so here we are - bloc party
7/4 (shoreline) – BSS"

Julian's list (via Yahoo):

"Shiny Happy People By REM
Madonna (Either This Used To Be My Playground, I'll Remember, or Holiday)
Smooth Criminal
Step by Step, New Kids on the Block
I Never Loved You Anyway by the Corrs
One Week by Barenaked Ladies
Something's Always Wrong by Toad the Wet
Found Out About You by Gin Blossoms
Wishful Thinking By Duncan Sheik
Big Me by Foo Fighters
Supersonic by Oasis
Chemistry by Semisonic
Shimmer by Fuel
Changes (Tony Kenyon Mix) by 2pac vs Bruce Hornsby
Boys of Summer by Don Henley
move your feet by junior senior
upside down by jack johnson
regret by new order
ren by moonpools and caterpillars
time after time by INOJ
rock dj by robbie williams
the remedy by jason mraz
stars by the cranberries
consequence free by great big sea
winter by joshua radin"

Anne's list (via FB):

"1. Shiver by Coldplay
2. Linger by Cranberries
3. With or Without You- U2
4. All I want is you -u2
5. Crazy- Aerosmith
6. My Girl
7. #41 by Dave Matthews
8. Are You In? by Incubus
9. Always be my baby by Mariah/ David Cook
10. Let's Stay Together- Al Green"

Alan's list (via FB):

"1. you only get what you give--the new radicals
2. feel good, inc.--gorillaz
3. crazy--gnarls barkley
4. times like these--foo fighters
5. damaged--TLC
6. maroon 5--this love

and...

stupid love—salbakuta"

I wonder what these song say about us. All I know is that these choices aren't static. They can probably change. And they probably will.

If you want to add to the songs, post a comment.

Quibbles, qualms, and intellectual dishonesty

2008-11-25T09:27:00.000-08:00

Migoy sent me an e-mail earlier this evening, containing two editorials by The Varsitarian, the official student publication of the University of Santo Tomas. The first editorial was about the 2008 THE-QS rankings, which I wrote about a few days after the rankings were released. The second was about the position taken by some faculty members at the Ateneo regarding the Reproductive Health Bill.

I've spoken to a few people and have given quick reactions. But I'd like to to share the salient points, even if it does come off as me sounding like an Ateneo apologist. I am, admittedly, and quite obviously, a hardcore Ateneo fan, but I'd like to think that I can be pretty reasonable, especially when it comes to things like this.

(This is a long post, by the way.)

In very general terms, my main gripe with both editorials is this: Both of them share a similar theme calling for some "intellectual honesty." But in my own opinion, the authors of the editorials have failed to comply with the standard they have set for themselves.

On "Dazed and confused-at 500"

I found this reaction to the THE-QS results pretty interesting, mainly because it was the angriest one I've seen from any of the Philippine schools evaluated by the survey. UP's position has been pretty calm and clear: They did not participate in the rankings. La Salle's school paper has an even "cooler" reaction: The rankings are "no big deal," even if La Salle did make a lot of noise when it reacted to the rankings with jubilation, fanfare, advertisements, and brochures in 2006. The Ateneo didn't publish an official position unlike in 2006 and 2007, but was kind enough to publish the reaction I wrote (I do not know if that means we can take that as the de facto position of the Ateneo, though).

But this Varsitarian editorial was something else. Drawing on statements made by university officials, it makes the case that the rankings are problematic, if not flat-out wrong, and made the assertion that the best schools in the Philippines are UP and UST, not the Ateneo and UP. Their basis? Performance measures in government-mandated licensing examinations conducted by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), as well as their own analysis of the survey. That much, I can accept. But what caused me to nearly spill my coffee all over my desk was the way the editorial was crafted.

They began with a disclaimer: "This is not to disparage Ateneo..." and then proceeded to bash the Ateneo while making a case for UST. That's performative contradiction. That's dishonest.

They then go on to characterize the Ateneo as "an institution that’s barely an expanded liberal arts college and with only a smattering (sic) of degree programs tested by state licensure exams." Okay, two points.

First, an expanded liberal arts college? Last I checked, most major institutions of learning not just in the Philippines but on Earth are "expanded liberal arts colleges." I'm no educational historian, but last I checked, most of the models of Western education draw heavily from an expansion of the original liberal arts disciplines. Harvard therefore is an incredibly expanded liberal arts college. So is Yale. And Oxford and Cambridge, even if they are of the tradition of the guilds coming together as universitas all crafted some sort of liberal arts program (the "Trivium" and "Quadrivium" of medieval universities) which has been expanded into what they are today. So are a whole lot of schools in the list, including the Ateneo, including UST.

So were they saying that we're really just a tiny school with a tiny milieu? Then that means the editorial's authors have failed to appreciate the fact that our approaches to education differ greatly, at least in how we craft our program offerings. And they have likewise failed to account for the fact that we are small by design, because of what we want to emphasize and because of what our declared vision and mission are. Incidentally, expanded liberal arts college Yale University is even smaller than the Ateneo in terms of undergraduate enrollment, but it's way up there.

Is it because we do not have a lot of programs tested by the PRC with some sort of post-graduation exam? Then I wonder what they think about Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, UChicago, Duke, Louvain, and all those other schools with a "smattering" (sic) of programs that are tested by some sort of PRC. And I have been pretty adamant about this whenever this topic gets brought up: Why do we place so much emphasis on "performance" (in the sense of getting the ridiculously important #1 test-taker spot) as regards such exams? Performance in licensing exams is hardly the best measure of "academic excellence," much less "comparable" academic excellence. This is probably the very simple reason why no international league table uses them as a measure.

Then they bring up centers of excellence. The number of centers of excellence/development is an unreliable benchmark. This is because some schools offer more programs than others. And this also depends on the approach each institution takes as regards the development of particular programs. The Ateneo, for example, has been pretty adamant about not offering an Accountancy program, mainly because of its emphasis on organizational leadership rather than line-level work such as accountancy (this is with all due respect to accountants, of course, although any Ateneo management major will tell you that they go through hell with 9 units of accounting and at least 3 more of finance). What these measure, rather, is the quality of individual programs as compared to other programs of the same kind. Therefore, when we say that the Ateneo is a Center of Excellence in terms of Business Administration and Entrepreneurship, it means that it satisfies the rigid criteria for "excellence" in the field vis-a-vis other business administration or entrepreneurship programs. When we say that the Ateneo is a center of excellence in Philosophy, it means that among all those schools that offer Philosophy as a program, the Ateneo has (one of?) the best.

On their quip about national artists and scientists: First, yes, this speaks about the quality of a particular school's alumni or alumnae, but this does not necessarily say anything about the quality of academic programs offered at present, especially with regard to the criteria evaluated by a particular survey. Second, among these national artists and scientists, can we really, truly, and without doubt say that their excellence is the "fault" of their matriculating in a particular school, or are they simply brilliant on their own?

Then they go on to bash the Ateneo as an institution only affordable by the wealthy, hence the good student-faculty ratio. They have not even bothered to do research as regards individual scholarship programs offered by the four THE-QS-ranked schools (and might have found that close to one in five Ateneo students is receiving some sort of financial aid).

After that, they go into some rant about who would want to study in the third world. Um, first of all, the people who actually LIVE in the third world and have no choice but to actually study here? There are also those people who want to be exposed to the perspectives of our poor little third world!

But wait, there's more! They also rant about competing with Harvard. The thing is, the question is not about competing with Harvard. Competing with Harvard, if even imagined, is something that is going to be very difficult, simply because Harvard works very hard, regardless of the rankings, to maintain its preeminence. For one, it continually works to make sure that it has the financial wherewithal to run its programs and to do what it wants to do (it has an endowment of $36.9 billion), while allowing access to those who cannot ordinarily afford to spend $40,000++ a year on tuition. The size of Harvard is also another thing that allows it to simply churn out research with impunity (its college is roughly the size of the Ateneo's, but it does have around 13,500 graduate students, in addition to thousands of faculty members) and do work with impunity. But then again, size doesn't matter: Remember Yale.

And who the hell says Harvard's perfect? Harvard isn't even the top choice of many, many, many Americans, all of whom would be far happier matriculating at either Yale, Stanford, Dartmouth, or NYU. Many Harvard students, as reported in the US News magazine a year or so ago, find that Harvard can be a very impersonal place for a student, saying that some faculty are more interested in doing research than teaching. Or consider the fact that other schools have a far more "rock-star" faculty roster: The University of Chicago, for example, has, if I remember correctly, the most number of Nobel Laureates teaching in the faculty (it also once counted Hannah Arendt, T.S. Eliot, and some other school-of-thought defining names among its faculty, as well as the next leader of the free world, Barack Obama).

I don't mind the Varsitarian taking up the cudgels for UST. Or for wanting to boost morale.

But as a paper that actually thinks it is one of the best school papers around, it has certainly failed to engage in the journalistic practice of seeking balance. The greatest failure of this editorial is that it is extremely myopic, and that it failed to account for the official positions taken by the school it bashed. The greatest failure of the authors is that they have failed to do their homework in order to examine their agenda properly. But then again, I don't think that's measured in board exams.

On "Dishonest, mediocre, anti-poor"

This editorial was bashing right from the start. Allow me to quote the entire first paragraph in full:

"BY ISSUING a statement supporting the population-control bill, Reproductive Health (RH) Bill 5043, the 14 faculty members of the other Catholic university—Ateneo de Manila– betray the canker that may eat into any Catholic institution that, while inherently holy, has tendencies toward evil. Star Wars calls it the Dark Side, St. Thomas Aquinas calls it concupiscence. We simply call it intellectual dishonesty."

Excuse me? By issuing an honest, intellectual position, presumably done with some contemplation of their own faith, these people suddenly "betray...tendecies toward evil"?

The Varsitarian's set-up is as follows: "Since they teach in a Catholic institution, the 14 should either have the readiness to defend the Catholic position or at least have the sensitivity to refrain from doing something that would divide the Church. But not only do these self-proclaimed Catholic educators break away from the Catholic position and urge Catholics to do so: they twist Catholic teachings to suit their self-serving position."

Three points: First, last I checked, even Catholic institutions of higher learning have historically encouraged some form of intellectual exchange and debate, all in the spirit of what is called "academic freedom" or some form of enlightened inquiry. Second, I have always assumed that even if one teaches in a Catholic school, or any religious institution, he or she is still free to give his or her two cents on a matter of controversy, even if he or she is reasonably expected to "tow the line" when it comes to certain things. Third, I do not think the Varsitarian understands that the position of these faculty members is NOT the Ateneo's official position, which, according to University President Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, S.J., is in line with the position of the Church hierarchy (I disagree with it to an extent, but I will concede and respect that position).

Before I continue, a "disclaimer:" I am not a model Catholic. I do not attend Mass regularly. I disagree with many men of the cloth, and have had no qualms talking about my disagreements with them. Oh, and I am a sinner—whatever God you and I believe in knows this very well. But that said, let me offer in my defense the following: I will be the first to admit that I have yet to come to terms with my faith, even if I can very easily parrot the Catechism of the Church with fanfare and aplomb (and except for the few snags in my Theology classes, I've gotten very good grades in all of my religion-related classes ever since I can remember). I also respect priests, pastors, preachers, and religious people—and I believe that talking to them is worth my time even if I do not agree with them and even if I know that I am smart enough to even poke fun at them from time to time. And I am not proud of the wrong things I've done, and I am even less cheery about the fact that I know that I have not made reparations for all of them, and that I probably never will. Heaven and karma know that I have, in one way or another, been trying to become a better person. And I will be the first to admit that I probably have to go to church more.

That said, I was pretty interested when the first news of this new reproductive health bill came out, mainly because I felt that there could be some pretty interesting debate about that. Debate. Exchange. To use a Jesuit catchphrase, "discernment." And I welcomed the position taken by those faculty members because I found it remarkable that teachers in a Catholic school were putting up a rather direct challenge to official Catholic positions. Positions which, if I am correct, are the subject of constant discussion, even within the Church itself, especially since many Catholics want to live with a "thinking" faith.

I hope to high heavens that doesn't mean I'm "evil," or that I betray some sort of evil tendencies. Of course, the sarcastic or self-righteous will quote the Genesis passage about eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and how that led to our banishment from Eden.

I will not argue with the "extensive" list of citations (however self-serving) made by the Varsitarian's editors in order to justify their Ateneo and Ateneo-professor-bashing position. Nor will I engage them on the level of what may very well be their own "intellectual mediocrity." I will, however, hazard an opinion and say that: First, I think that the Philippines is too populated for its own good, especially in the urban sprawl of Metro Manila, and that this population problem contributes to the inaccessibility to or inability or lack of adequate health services, and that the population problem is a contributing factor to the very real state of poverty. Second, I do not think that we can sustain the current trajectory of population growth, based on whatever model we choose, because I do not foresee any change in living conditions in this country that can keep up with our population growth. Third, I do think that there is some sort of validity to the assertion that our population growth is not sustainable in a manner that promotes balance with our already fragile environment and resources situation—the more our population grows, the bigger our "footprint," the more taxed our resources, the less are available for distribution.

Okay. I hope that doesn't mean I'm evil yet.

On the point on the centrality of the human person, the Varsitarian makes the assertion that the RH bill seems to treat the unborn like a disease that must be checked. I agree that the unborn should not be treated that way. But I do wish that the Varsitarian's editors gave a bit more thought to what the bill means for the living. Contrary to their assertion that the bill allows government to "compel" people to purchase contraceptives or to engage in some form of state-regulated population control measure that "compels" them to have two children per couple. The text of the bill is crystal clear: No passage demands purchase of contraceptives, but merely making them available. And the "ideal family size" of two children per couple is, very clearly stated in Sec. 16, "neither mandatory nor compulsory." It is merely "encouraged." Before engaging in hysterics or parroting some official UST position, the Varsitarian editors should have read the bill properly. And if they doubted their ability to interpret its provisions, I'm sure that there would have been many lawyers in UST's esteemed Faculty of Civil Law that could have shared an insight or two as regards proper statutory construction. Their failure to do so, whether deliberate or not, seen in the context of their going trigger-happy when it comes to bashing, is utterly telling.

What the bill offers is choice. What sort of choice? The bill offers presumably mature adults choices as regards what sort of family-planning methods they may consider appropriate given their socio-economic circumstances. And it offers solutions and alternatives to families that are sensitive to the fact that people make mistakes, that scared women may want abortions, and that people may want to be more educated about what they can do. The bill makes sex education mandatory. I do not see how that can be wrong, or how it necessarily follows that kids who know a bit more about the birds and bees will want to make honey. On the other hand, I think that mandatory sex education is a good thing, because it provides an opportunity to come to terms, at least academically, with sex. Sex is not an evil thing, and being educated about it, about the issues attached to it, and the responsibilities that can arise because of it, is not a bad thing. In that regard, the bill cannot be said to be evil or against the unborn, because it allows for the strengthening of the living. The bill has no pretensions about protecting the living from life.

The bill is far from perfect, of course. And I am not certain if the policies can be implemented properly, or if the cost—quoted by the Varsitarian at Php1.2 billion—is something that we can spare. I agree that there is a need for government to address the health care situation in the Philippines and allocate funds properly and not merely push money towards more condoms or diaphragms or pills. I would think, of course, that this bill is one solution among others, and that it is not intended to operate alone. The fact that this matter is seriously being considered by government can be seen, if only to be optimistic, as some sort of positive action by government to address a social problem. Government isn't perfect—you can read my other blog posts and see that I agree with that point very much—but at least it is willing to consider doing something here.

Of course, that's my opinion, which I hope is not evil.

I understand that the Church has its official positions. And I understand that it has a duty to engage society, especially when it comes to matters of faith and morals, and that these matters are intrinsically tied up with actual living conditions. That's a good thing. But I do not think it is the Church's place to make impositions. Nor do I think the Church or its people can say that they are doing their job properly if they simply take a hard line stance on this matter without being willing to engage in meaningful discussion. This is why I welcome the opinion of some religious leaders to actually talk about this, or to propose alternative pieces of legislation. And I seriously do not think it is within the competence of the Church's hierarchy to determine, without bias, appropriate forms of social policy. But I do appreciate the fact that it is the Church's competence to at least tell us what the Christian faith says

I also understand that the Church is largely acting on matters of faith and doctrine. I will not be one to say doctrine is flat-out wrong, because I am certain that it comes from a good place and is also the product of the conscience of Church leaders, graced by God and His Spirit. However, even as a Christian, I will not be so irresponsible to simply take what the Church says as gospel truth without doing myself or my faith the proper service of thinking.

A strict, regimented, and unthinking subscription to doctrine has never been the point of any faith. Salvation is. Evangelization is. The point of the Christian faith can be summed up in two sentences: (1) Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. (2) Love one another. The Reproductive Health Bill does not change the first. It does not render the second impossible, and in fact may be an expression of the second point. Of course, that's me trying to wax philosophical.

Blind faith is folly. Blind faith is irresponsible. Blind faith would lead us to sustain the position that the universe revolved around the earth, and then cause us to apologize to Galileo hundreds of years later when empirical data confirms that he was correct. Blind faith is contrary to the freedom of will that I believe and that the Church teaches my Creator gave me. And while freedom is never absolute, I know that God respects me enough and loves me enough to let me act according to conscience. And if I am wrong, I will appreciate being told about it, so that I can I can ask for the forgiveness that I know God will give.

That, I hope, is not evil.

Perhaps I may be wrong, and perhaps the Varsitarian's editors meant the best of things when they wrote what they did. But I cannot deny the fact that these are skilled writers, who must have been able to properly calibrate their language in order to achieve the effect that they wanted.

And the language of the editorial reads much like the Pharisees and Sadducees that emphasized doctrine rather than the salvation of people, or in legal terms, the letter of the law more than its spirit. The language is clear and telling when it disparages, defames, and demeans the 14 individuals (there are more than 14 now, which the Varsitarian failed to note) who, exercising their faith and their conscience, applying what their own limited reason allowed them to perceive, issued a statement in favor of an imperfect piece of legislation. The Varsitarian editors crucified these professors, even as the editors tried to deceptively set the agenda as one that supposedly favored Christian faith and morals on the centrality of the human person.

I do not think I am wrong, but hope I am when I say: That's evil.

November 4th, 2008: Yes we can.

2008-11-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

Dear God,

Please let it be so.

Anyone who has been hanging around with me will probably know that I've been pretty interested in the US elections, especially this one. I was cursing at the TV when Al Gore was stripped of his victory by the US Supreme Court (I was also cursing at the same TV when the networks called it for Bush during election day) in 2000. I was pretty pissed off when Kerry lost to Bush and the swift-boat tactics of Karl Rove in 2004. So for this election, 8 years after I started getting really hooked in events like these, I've been paying lots of attention.

I'll confess: I was originally looking expecting to see Hillary take the Democratic standard and knock on the White House doors when she would have blitzkrieged her way to the presidency, even against Rudy Giuliani. I was surprised when she announced that she was forming a presidential exploratory committee to check on her prospects. She really seemed like she was on her way to simply steamrollering the opposition.

I wasn't even super interested in Clinton. The guy whom I wanted to run was Gore. But he didn't, and that was pretty disappointing at the time.

Then I heard on TV that the other guy, that one, Barack Obama, also announced that he was interested in the presidency. I heard about the speech he made in 2004, but I didn't really think he stood much of a chance. And because I really had no idea who he was, I told myself that if he could coherently tell me about his intentions for seeking the presidency, then maybe he was worth listening to. And after watching his announcement on TV, and comparing it with Hillary's, I sensed that this guy was someone that would at least sound nice.

Then I heard him announce his candidacy, and found it interesting that he was channeling preachers and Martin Luther King. He really knew how to give a speech. But even then, I wasn't convinced. I paid a lot of attention to the random homeless guy in New York, who decided to give a speech about why it was "important to send Mrs. Clinton to the White House," and felt that he made more sense than the other African-American fellow who asked him why he was picking Clinton when he could pick a "brother" like Obama.

Then I saw the debates leading up to the primaries. And Obama made more and more sense. Then the gaffes came. And it became apparent then that it was going to be Obama versus Clinton, with Clinton being the favorite.

Perhaps it was being Pinoy that made me appreciate Obama's status as the underdog. There was really no way that he could just pull off a win against Hillary, who was described as inevitable. And then YouTube links of his 2004 speech were sent to me, and I finally saw why this guy was really considered one of the rising stars of his party.

Later, little by little, listening to his stump speeches leading up to the primaries and to the other debates, it became clear to me that this guy knew how to campaign well, and that his speeches, while a bit vague and highfalutin at times, actually made a lot of sense. And when he gave that speech during one of those pre-primary dinners, I knew that this guy probably stood a chance to win. He had, at the time, started to close the gap in Iowa.

Then, he won in Iowa, and pointed to the significance of his victory with words that Joe Klein appropriately described as "gorgeous": "They said this day would never come." I was sold. If only for being a candidate who was far more inspiring than anyone else in the field, and with a sense that America probably needed a little inspiration, I genuinely started wanting Obama to win.

Then came the "Yes We Can" speech, a speech which he gave even when he was conceding defeat in New Hampshire. And after that, the will.i.am video. I was beyond sold at this point.

Ever since the Iowa primary, I've been following the progress of the race on a daily basis, with occasional refreshing of my browser and checking the TV to see what the news was saying. I was, for all intents and purposes, pretty obsessed. I've managed to catch a lot of the ups and downs of the campaign, and am glad to have been, at least as a distant observer, part of it, and to have shared in witnessing history unfold. I've been sold on Obama's candidacy. I like his policies. I like his ability to inspire with words. I think he should be President of the United States.

And so today, in a matter of hours, it'll all be over, and hopefully we'll see a brighter day for America and for the rest of the world tomorrow.

Filipinos like us probably like underdogs because they teach us a lot about having a will to live on, having faith to persevere, having hope in the face of adversity. Barack certainly hasn't been the underdog lately, at least as far as the polls show, but I think it's pretty hard to go up against centuries of history and decades of cynicism.

I wish I could vote for Barack, if only because he has given a lot of people a reason to believe.

The words pull at the gut with a taut heartstring:

"Change."

"Hope."

"Yes we can."

They speak to us and remind us of the aspirational character of our own humanity.

How can we possibly remain in the darkness of our disbelief?

One Big Fight!

2008-09-27T05:25:00.007-07:00

Glory to God in the highest, and peace to His people on earth.

Congratulations to the Ateneo Blue Eagles and Ateneo Blue Eaglets, 2008 UAAP Champions.

We remember, we celebrate, we believe, then, now, and always.

(Thanks to Philip Sison of the Ateneo Sports Shooters and www.fabilioh.com for the picture from which my new header was taken.)

Quaerendum: On state recognition by the International Court of Justice

2008-08-22T14:01:00.002-07:00

This week has been pretty eventful. A holiday, a typhoon, and my finally submitting a (possibly temporary) preliminary topic and outline for my thesis (after going through around five, six, or maybe even seven possibilities). A few hours ago, I was helping the Asia Cup team of the law school do drills, and before that, TJ, JV, Reese, Belinda, and I had a pretty interesting discussion on the BJE issue. After dinner, but before drills, as TJ and I were walking back to the law school, we were tossing around ideas, and we both think we might have stumbled upon yet another topic. Oh no.

I say "oh no," because I'm pretty tired of having to jump from topic to topic (although my friends say that it's something that can happen), and my esteemed thesis adviser, Atty. Aris Gulapa might rip my head off for thinking of yet another topic (Aris, if you're reading this, I know you can't rip my head off literally, being separated by the China and Japan seas, but please forgive me nonetheless. I'll try to stick with what I have now unless you think this is better. Hehe). I'd like to talk about it here, if only to unload my brain (God knows it's full of useless crap). By the way, if anybody else in my batch dares use this as a thesis topic before I'm done writing mine, I'll make sure he or she gets expelled. Hahahaha.

Here it goes:

Remember how some time ago, the people of Kosovo decided that they wanted to be independent, and then later on, declared their independence? That issue caused quite a ruckus for a while, especially since certain world powers were siding with the new, independent state of Kosovo, while others were siding with Serbia, from whom Kosovo declared its separation. Under international law, it is perfectly acceptable for a people to come together as a state, and it is quite acceptable for them to declare their statehood and independence. (If you disagree, bear with me, it gets interesting). And let's go back to the Montevideo Convention on what makes a state: a defined territory, a permanent population, a government, freedom from external influence, and an ability to freely enter into relations with other states (that's not the precise enumeration, but I think it's close enough). Under the same Convention, recognition is not a requisite for the creation of a state.

Now, what would have happened if Kosovo decided to file a case against, say, Serbia, for one reason or another (let's assume they have a perfectly valid one) before the International Court of Justice (ICJ)? Note that Kosovo, at this point in time was already recognized as an independent state by some other states like the United States, although technically, I don't think this should have affected its statehood.

Now, let's imagine for a moment that Kosovo was not recognized by any state as an independent and sovereign state by any other state by the time it had filed a dispute before the ICJ. Let us also imagine that even if it was not yet recognized, it had already met the requirements for statehood under international law.

The first question that the ICJ would ask is whether or not it has jurisdiction over Kosovo, Serbia, and the case. The most interesting thing would be jurisdiction over Kosovo. Why? Because according to the Statute of the ICJ, only states can be parties to a dispute before the court.

In theory, the question would then be a question of whether or not Kosovo is indeed a independent and sovereign state. The ICJ would have to decide on this matter in order to properly decide on whether or not it even has jurisdiction over the case, and even before going over the merits of Kosovo's claim against Serbia.

What does this mean, and why do I think it's worth writing about? There are implications if the ICJ decides that Kosovo is a state and that it can exercise jurisdiction. This, in effect, would be a determination by the ICJ, the UN's official judicial entity, and what is arguably the foremost world court, of the existence of a state. This, in effect, would amount to a recognition or non-recognition of Kosovo by the ICJ.

Of course, Serbia will probably oppose the jurisdiction of the court, on the ground that Kosovo is not a state but a separatist, rebel group from Serbia, and that therefore the matter is a domestic affair that Serbia alone is competent and allowed t resolve. The ICJ will have to decide on the dispute of jurisdiction, but that resolution will touch upon whether or not Kosovo is a state.

The implications are pretty interesting. First, recognition of the existence of a state would mean that the state of Kosovo, as a subject of international law, has the rights and privileges and powers of a sovereign state, meaning it would be able to make a claim (assuming the claim is valid) against Serbia (or against any other state, for that matter). Second, it would amount to a recognition, under the parameters of international law, of an independent, sovereign state. I earlier stated that recognition is not a requirement for statehood, but do try to imagine the weight of the world court thrown behind a new state that had recently proclaimed its independence.

The third, and perhaps more interesting implication-cum-question, is what happens when the court rules in favor of Kosovo. Note that international law has no central, coercive enforcement mechanism for judicial dispute resolution. International law relies on individual states to give effect to its judgments, using some kind of state-based incorporation, enforcement, and compliance mechanism. The question here is: How exactly will Serbia enforce the ICJ decision, when its position precisely is that Kosovo is not a state? How does this change when after the ICJ decision, or pending resolution by the court, other states start recognizing Kosovo, and others refuse to recognize it?

The question, and the answers to it are, of course, political. But this looks like it might become an alternative means of a state getting recognition. It seems pretty dangerous, though.

Of course, one of the questions thrown around when TJ and I were talking about this is why haven't belligerent or self-determining groups fighting for independence done this in the past? Our only guess was that it was a possible question of politics: A group that declares itself a state is probably wont to seek recognition from other states rather than risk non-recognition by the world court. Why? Because the former situation, of a group seeking recognition of statehood granted first by states, might not only be easier, but is also something that involves less risk (of course, there are also political risks and consequences on the part of the states that give or withhold recognition). In seeking recognition from the world court in the manner described above, the group assumes the risk of its existence being denied. But what happens if other states openly defy the ICJ pronouncement (not being bound by it, since the ICJ's decisions are only binding on parties to states before it) and recognize the group anyway? This might, in effect, undermine the ICJ itself.

Upon reflection, this is an interesting topic in light of all the brouhaha on the BJE. I am convinced that the Bangsamoro people can, under international law, provided they meet the requirements of statehood, simply declare themselves independent. Of course, depending on the state of global geopolitics, countries like the US may or may not recognize the Bangsamoro state, although I'm sure they'll gain some sympathy from Muslim states. This might even lead to a situation akin to the China-Taiwan thing, although surely slightly different.

But what happens if the Bangsamoro state file a claim against say, the Philippines, for one perfectly valid reason or another (let's assume there's one), and the Philippines (and some allies) refuses to recognize it? What happens if the ICJ rules in favor of the Bangsamoro state?

Negotiating beyond the Constitution

2008-08-12T10:59:00.005-07:00

In response to my previous blog post on the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE), someone pointed me in the direction of this article by Atty. Soliman Santos Jr., who is of the opinion that negotiations beyond the framework of the Constitution are not (necessarily) unconstitutional. The issues raised by this BJE situation have gotten me thinking lately, and this article deserves a lot of consideration. With all due respect to Atty. Santos and all other like-thinking minds, I have some points of disagreement.

The basic premise on which Atty. Santos predicates his arguments, as I have paraphrased and interpreted, is this: The government is empowered by the Constitution to negotiate, especially when this means improving the quality of life and situation of peace of a people. And if the matters contemplated by the negotiation necessarily involve the possibility of the government moving for amendments to the fundamental law of the land, this is not necessarily unconstitutional, because it is precisely because of the need for change that the negotiations are happening. This is well within the recognized framework of the Constitution, which is a living document that provides avenues for its own revision and amendment.

I agree that the government of the Philippines (GRP) is given power to negotiate and work for peace by the Constitution. That's pretty self-explanatory. I also agree that the GRP can lead advocacy for making changes to the Constitution, which it can properly do in the framework that the Constitution provides.

But what I feel is missed by Atty. Soliman in making his points is this: In matters of negotiation, the question necessarily arises as to how you treat or view the other party. And in the context of this situation, in its negotiations, how does the GRP treat the other party to the proposed Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)? More importantly, how does the GRP view the MOA-AD that it is negotiating with the MILF? Finally, what must we consider regarding the peace process and the MOA-AD, particularly within the framework of the Constitution?

Is it possible that the MOA-AD be treated as a treaty? In my opinion, no. The definition of what a treaty is is quite clear. Article 2 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties clearly defines what a treaty is: "... an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation." A treaty is necessarily an agreement between states, which are defined by the Montevideo Convention cited in my earlier article. By the clear definition of what a treaty is, the MOA-AD cannot be treated by the GRP as a treaty, right? Not necessarily. There is one possible exception: If the GRP already recognizes the MILF as the representative of a separate, independent, and sovereign Bangsamoro state, then the MOA-AD can be called a treaty (or at least a draft of it), and the negotiations are cloaked with the mantle of diplomatic negotiations. Is this why the GRP has suddenly been invoking executive privilege? Is this is a negotiation with a sovereign power that it feels has yet to be concluded that might be covered by executive privilege?

But what would that mean? That would mean the Philippines has already lost the territories occupied by this Bangsamoro state. In fact, it might even mean the Philippines NEVER had these states in the first place. But that seems absurd, because why would the GRP then be negotiating for the creation of a state within a state if the state already exists? Is this some sort of concession by this separate state? The idea seems bizarre, to say the least.

Let's assume for the sake of argument, then, that the MOA-AD is not a treaty. What is it then? It appears to be, quite simply, a document embodying the results of political peace processes. It is a mere contract, perhaps given color by international law, between the GRP and the MILF. The question may now be how does the GRP view the MILF? What is its official position on the MILF? This is no longer very clear.

Let us now consider the negotiation process. Atty. Santos points out that the MOA-AD is being "assailed now for being unconstitutional because some of its provisions admittedly go beyond the framework of the 1987 Philippine Constitution." He then says that this is not necessarily unconstitutional, because to seek constitutional change and reform (as seems inevitable when we examine this situation) is not unconstitutional. A peace process is not necessarily unconstitutional. In fact, in the MOA-AD, he says, the MILF even recognizes the framework of the Constitution. This is why the MILF, it is said, is not even pushing for the upper limit, which is independence or secession, but rather, the creation of a "state within a state." But the current structure, it is said, does injustice to the Bngsamoro identity, way of life, and longing for self-rule. The current structure of having autonomous regions, Atty. Santos writes, has been inadequate.

I agree that seeking constitutional change and reform is not necessarily unconstitutional. I agree that a peace process is not unconstitutional. I am encouraged by the fact that the MILF recognizes that there is a constitutional framework. In fact, I agree with Atty. Santos when he says that the peace talks with the MILF are a special matter, "with much indications that the negotiated political settlement this time must go beyond the framework of the Constitution, if it is to be a real and lasting solution to the Bangsamoro problem." That is true. Any change that will resolve the matter, especially one creating the BJE, will need to see changes to the Constitution and its framework.

It appears to me that the question of unconstitutionality is not one that pertains to whether or not we need constitutional change in order to achieve peace. The question is whether or not, within the framework of the Constitution, the manner by which such a peace process is pursued is proper or not. It is true that the Constitution has provisions that allow for its change through amendment and revision, and it is also true that the Constitution is a living, not static document. Does this mean the GRP can negotiate a process, and then make commitments, qualified by being subject to its pursuit of all legal means, including amending the Constitution in case the Constitution does not allow such commitments?

Let's examine the key commitment: the creation of a BJE within the greater Philippine state, a "state within the state." To the present Constitutional set-up, this is an alien concept. The framers of our present Constitution were clear in their deliberations when they said that the Philippines was not being turned into a federal state. Rather, the autonomous regions were instead created. It is this solution that the framers wrote into the Constitution.

And what is the significance of this? Let us recall that the Constitution was ratified by the Filipino people, and at that time, even people in Mindanao, and yes, the territories covered in the ARMM, participated in that process. I do not have the precise statistics that will establish definitively that the Bangsamoro people boycotted this process. (What I do know, however, is that the MILF boycotted the process that eventually created the ARMM (by law), and instead continued with armed struggle.) In short, it is the sovereign will of the Filipino people, which I assume at that point in time was meant to include the Bangsamoro people as a significant part, that ratified the Constitution and created the GRP as we have it. The operative framework is therefore one of one Filipino people contemplating one Philippines with one territory as defined by the Constitution.

The GRP is created within this framework. It is therefore created with the framework as a limit to what it can and cannot do. Its powers are limited by the Constitution, by the express will of the people.

The negotiations themselves are not unconstitutional. They fall precisely within the Constitution's framework. What is questionable, however, is the GRP's making commitments to establish a BJE, with it taking the necessary steps, including charter change if necessary.

I am of the humble opinion that the GRP cannot make such commitments without the express mandate of the Filipino people who created it. The framework of the Constitution, which includes a framework for amendment and revision, appears to require first the necessary constitutional change that will accommodate the possible federation of the republic and the creation of states within the Philippine state. In short, the fundamental flaw of the negotiations, and of the MOA-AD, is that the GRP seems to have made promises that it was never empowered to make. This is especially true if one considers that the GRP must at all times be conscious that it is working for one Filipino people, one Philippines. Thus, the GRP must have first worked for the necessary consultation among the people, and for the necessary constitutional change, and achieved it, even before it could make the promises to the MILF that a BJE would be created.

Why? One, the Constitution contemplates a unitary republic. Two, the Constitution currently contemplates one Filipino people living within one Philippines, not subdivided into little states, but one State which happens to have autonomous regions as what the Filipino people have deemed in their sovereign will as the acceptable solution to the questions or "problems" of having to accommodate indigenous peoples with their own culture and identity, peoples which it nevertheless contemplates as Filipino. Note also that that the expansion of the ARMM into the BJE will mean an expansion that will mean a substantial inconsistency with rights of non-Bangsamoro people who are currently living (in some instances rather peacefully) with the Bangsamoro. Any change to the Constitution will have to take rights which are currently vested into account. Naturally, a possible response is that these people never had any right to take what could not have been theirs in the first place.

Unfortunately, and I admit that this is a rather conservative take on things, the Filipino people (including the Bangsamoro) seem to say otherwise, when viewed in the context of the Constitution. This operative fact, inconsistent as it is with the perspectives of some, has the weight of the sovereign Filipino people behind it! Is this oppressive and unjust? Perhaps, perhaps not. But that is precisely the political and legal question that needs to be answered, and which I submit can only be properly answered by the Filipino people pursuant to a proper process, as outlined by the Constitution. In short, the Filipino people, yes, including the Bangsamoro, seem to need to decide on charter change and decide on federation or the creation of states within the Philippine state before the creation of a BJE, as a new solution to an old problem, can be promised by the GRP to the MILF as representatives of the Bangsamoro.

I will of course be responded to by those who say that no promise yet exists, no commitment on the part of the GRP legally exists yet, as the MOA-AD was not signed. That's precisely the point. It appears that signing the MOA-AD will be an act that is, on its face, given the present Constitutional set-up, an unauthorized, unconstitutional act by the GRP, because it is not empowered by the Constitution, as of yet, to make such promises. That's why the Supreme Court should prohibit the signing of the MOA-AD as it is. It's not because we do not want peace or do not believe our Muslim brothers and sisters deserve the solution promised by the BJE.

We want peace, and yes we want to be able to work with the Bangsamoro people to achieve that peace. But that does not mean we can throw caution to the wind, put the cart before the horse, and promise what we probably aren't allowed to promise yet. The Bangsamoro deserve a proper solution to the situation, not something like a contractual commitment or promise that appears (at least to me) as rushed, half-baked, and as of the moment, patently unconstitutional. They deserve more than an empty promise, or a promise that is actually shadowed by the political darkness concerning our present government. This is the only way we can have any real peace, or what we hope will be a lasting solution to this long-standing debacle.

On the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity

2008-08-07T00:01:00.006-07:00

One of the [o] boys has a rightful claim to a sultanate in the Philippines, being a datu. The last time we spoke of the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity, the current issue wasn't splattered all over the news, but was probably being quietly negotiated by the Philippine government with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). It would have made an interesting thesis topic for my J.D., but that's another story altogether.

I can probably say that my first serious academic "engagement" with this issue was last semester, when Prof. Candelaria brought the matter up in our Public International Law class along with other Philippine issues that touched on international law (such as the Spratlys, for example). The Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) was something that came up whenever we talked about the right of peoples to self-determination as well as issues of the emergence and recognition of states. And in one of our exams, our discussions came to a head when we were practically told to resolve the key issues concerning the creation of the BJE.

What is the BJE? The BJE is, reduced to very simple and rough terms, an expanded ARMM (Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao), with the expansion covering territory as well as the grant of certain powers such as exploitation of natural resources, having an internal justice system, and the ability to enter into international relations, among others. The objective is, as far as I can understand, to create a "state within a state," that is, a Bangsamoro state situated in the political and territorial structure of the Republic of the Philippines. This means the BJE will be an entity granted considerable autonomy, with certain ties binding it to the Philippines, whose government the BJE recognizes as the "Central Government."

The issue is controversial, to say the least, because of certain issues: What does the creation of the BJE mean? Can the Philippine Government really engage in such an enterprise? What are the implications, considering the Constitution and international law?

The problem with the situation is that in spite of the efforts of the media to cover the controversy, the information we have is so scant and the ideas that we have are nebulous. I cannot claim to be an expert on the Constitution or international law, but I'd like to try to tackle the questions as best I can.

What does the creation of the BJE mean? The creation of the BJE is the latest foray of the government into a peace process with the MILF. The government claims that this is being done in the name of peace. The memorandum of agreement (MOA) that creates the BJE, therefore, is a peace accord. But what does it contain that makes it so controversial?

The BJE created by the MOA will have its own government, its own security force, considerable autonomy vis-a-vis the Philippines, and capacity to enter into international relations. And because it is going to be the "Bangsamoro homeland," it hopes to bring together in an entity that can be located geographically and politically, the Bangsamoro. This sparks controversy for two reasons: One, there are widespread fears that this is tantamount to creating an independent state and ceding Philippine territory and resources. Second, there are areas affected by the expansion of the ARMM which do not seem too happy (to say the least) about their (unsolicited?) inclusion into the BJE.

Is an independent state created? According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, a "state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a ) a permanent population; b ) a defined territory; c ) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states." The Bangsamoro people meet the standard for a permanent population, especially since they claim the territory as their homeland, there is a clearly defined territory outlined in the MOA, there is a government created capable of exercising the various powers of government, and the BJE has the capacity to enter into international relations with other states. As has been pointed out by many pundits, this clearly shows that the BJE is, indeed, an independent state.

The government has conveniently pointed out, however, that the fact that there are some concessions regarding the exploitation of natural resources, and that there is recognition of the "central government" of the Republic simply shows that the BJE is not an independent state (the nebulous name calling it a "juridical entity" instead of unequivocally calling it a state demonstrates this). By their reasoning, there is no recognition of an independent Bangsamoro state, but merely a "state within a state," a BJE within the greater Republic of the Philippines. The issue seems to fall to recognition. Under Article 2 of the Montevideo Convention, "[t]he political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states. Even before recognition the state has the right to defend its integrity and independence, to provide for its conservation and prosperity, and consequently to organize itself as it sees fit, to legislate upon its interests, administer its services, and to define the jurisdiction and competence of its courts." Going by just this particular set of rules, the BJE is an independent state.

But let's assume for the sake of argument that the BJE is not rendered an independent state by those conditions mentioned above. How do we treat the BJE? It appears that one of the things that we'll have to consider is the fact that international law recognizes the right of peoples to self-determination. Thus, under international law, a struggle for independence is something that is recognized. What makes things more complicated is when other states begin to throw their support behind a group struggling for independence, or when that group after a period of conflict declares itself independent. For more recent examples, we can turn to what happened when Kosovo declared itself an independent state earlier this year.What happens, for example, if the Bangsamoro simply declare themselves independent, and such an action is recognized by some countries sympathetic to their cause?

Recognition is clearly not an essential thing to determine whether or not an independent Bangsamoro state will then exist, but it does lend it some legitimacy. And going back to an earlier line of thought, that the BJE is an independent state as far as international law is concerned, in spite of what our public officials and other members of the negotiations say--what happens when the BJE within the Philippines decides one day to declare itself independent, instead of being a mere "part" of the Philippines? What happens when they garner enough political support from other members of the international community?

It is very clear that the MOA, while buying peace, puts the Republic of the Philippines in a situation where it is very likely to lose the BJE, which can secede from the Philippines if it chooses. It is something that, as it stands, sets the Philippines up for failure.

The other key question involves the Constitution. The Constitution is supposed to be the formal expression of the will of the people, defining the parameters they have chosen in their sovereign capacity for the Republic of the Philippines to work. And as such, the people have reserved rights to themselves as a check against the powers they have given the government they create through the Constitution.

Within the Constitutional framework, the territory of the Philippines is defined, the rules regarding exploitation of our national patrimony are listed, and the ARMM is created.

The Constitution outlines the powers of government. It does not list these powers exhaustively. However, it does place limits, and allows for judicial review of government actions. The most nebulous powers belong to the President, because the definition of "executive power" is one that is broader than most definitions can capture. In some cases, the Supreme Court has conceded that there are certain unwritten "reserve" powers.

The question here is whether or not the government of the Philippines, or particularly, the executive branch of government, has the power to create the BJE, or, perhaps more fundamentally, to enter into agreements that will pave the way for the creation of the BJE. Does the executive have the power to negotiate for peace? Certainly. But does the executive have the power to pave the way for the expansion of a constitutionally-defined ARMM? Does the executive have the power to usher in the creation of a new state in a manner that will deprive the Philippines of territory, among other things?

The answer seems to be "no." The powers of the executive are limited by the Constitution. It cannot simply truncate the Constitutionally-defined territory of the Philippines. It also cannot simply redefine the ARMM. Nor can it simply create a new state by consenting to secession.

Government officials involved in the peace process point out that the agreement simply states that the government will take "all legal steps" to ensure that the MOA regarding the BJE is carried out. But what are these legal steps? I am of the opinion, as are many others whose expertise exceeds mine (if you can call this incoherence "expertise"), that there must be an appropriate amendment of the Constitution in order to accommodate the desired arrangement, especially one that creates a "state within a state." The Philippines, by design, is a unitarian Republic: there is one sovereign authority, one central government. We are not a federal state which has numerous sovereign components all operating under a federal framework.

In short, to create the BJE as contemplated, or as the government would have it created, the Philippines must become a federal republic, with constitutionally-defined parameters for the creation or inclusion of states into the federated republic. Until then, it seems that the existence of the BJE as a "state within a state" is incompatible with the Philippine Constitution, or is, at best, lip service, which is absolutely not what the Bangsamoro people deserve.

Since the constitutional framework does not exist, can the executive even enter into this agreement at all? Can it even enter into an agreement which is, on its face, incompatible with the Constitution by reason of the fact that the Constitution does not contain anything about this sort of situation? Remember that the creation of the ARMM was intended to accommodate the desires of the Bangsamoro people. Or at least at that point in time, it was the "proper" compromise as determined by the Constitutional Commission.

One will be quick to point out that I've obviously limited my discussion to what the Constitution says or does not say, and that I perhaps ought to give the Constitution a more liberal interpretation so as to give effect to what is best for everybody. That may be true. But consider that the Constitution is the will of the sovereign Filipino people--I do not think it was within the contemplation of the Constitution's framers (acting for the people) that the government should be allowed to create something like the BJE.

Could the executive even contemplate entering into an arrangement that seems to be clearly beyond the scope of its powers? Contemplate, sure. But to actually sign an agreement, promising to the MILF that the Constitution will be altered if necessary? Res ipsa loquitur. The arrangement is void on its face. The executive cannot to create power it never had, nor was in its sphere of competence to give rise to.

I agree that the Bangsamoro people are entitled to their homeland. I also agree that perhaps the ideal situation, at least for the time being, is to create a Bangsamoro state within the Philippines. Unfortunately, at the moment, this cannot be done. And so the deal will have to wait.

The scary thing about having to amend the Constitution is what else will happen during the process. I have no faith in the promises of the government officials of a "surgical" amendment to the Constitution. A Constitutional Commission or Convention is the only thing above the Constitution--God knows what else might get amended or changed, given the nefarious nature of our politicians.

What is unfortunate is that this seems to be the government's only solution to address its obvious failures in Mindanao as far as peace and security are concerned. And what makes it tragic is the fact that it remains something those in power will try to exploit. What, they will ask after all, are they in power for?

Song Survey # 9

2008-07-15T09:20:00.002-07:00

It's been a while since I last put up a song survey, and this is one list that's been sitting around for quite a while. I'm pretty happy with how I put it together, which saw me scribbling song titles and artist names on scraps of paper every time a good song came up. And I guess it's a good reflection of how settled I've become lately, or how relaxed. It's also inspired by what I've been up to, and the places I've been to. I guess I can only hope to capture a sense of the awesome feeling that running around, both in campus and cities all over (take, for example, "City of Blinding Lights," in a previous survey, which I think perfectly captures the experience of seeing Times Square and Broadway at night).

In many ways, this list is also best described as me going back to basics. I've picked through my little song library and chose what I thought (at least at the time the list finally got cobbled together) did great in terms basic stuff: guitars, vocals, drums, and so on.

1. "Good Times Bad Times" by Led Zeppelin
2. "Something In The Air" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (you can also use the Thunderclap Newman version, but this one's a bit more upbeat)
3. "You Could Make the Four Walls Cry" by The Zutons
4. "Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
5. "Girls & Sunshine" by Dirty On Purpose
6. "Sun Is Shining" by Finley Quaye (Bob Marley Cover)
7. "Keep It Together" by Guster
8. "Hard Times" by Eastmountainsouth
9. "1979" by Young Love (Smashing Pumpkins cover)
10. "Rough Around the Edges" by Teitur
11. "Tomorrow Stays the Same" by Thomas Dybdahl
12. "In The Sun" by Joseph Arthur
13. "Nobody But You" by Trembling Blue Stars
14. "If Everything Fell Quiet" by The Reindeer Section
15. "Four Seasons In One Day" by Crowded House
16. "On Your Side" by Pete Yorn
17. "One" by U2

Not quite what we hoped for. But I'll take it.

Jose Lorenzo A. Tan, [o] boy

2008-07-01T09:38:00.001-07:00

Requesiat In Pace

Jose Lorenzo A. Tan

Like us, an [o] boy.

Our stock is diminished.

And if we are stars, then the universe is a shade darker.

Memorial Day

2008-05-25T23:10:00.006-07:00

Below is a poem I mooched off from a blog co-written by Joe Klein. I haven't had time to read much poetry lately, so reading this has been quite refreshing, if refreshing is the proper word for something like this. I guess it's also partly appropriate, because June 12 is approaching.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--Lt. Colonel John McRae, 1915

.

Song Survey # 8

2008-03-12T10:54:00.005-07:00

The last week has been bizarre. I've been so sluggish lately, and I think my body clock's out of order again. I have, of course, attributed this to the greater "body calendar," which is probably wondering why I'm not relaxing now that it's close to Holy Week already (of course, Holy Week is early this year, but I guess that also means I'm sort of in touch with the universe on some ineffable level). The week's also been pretty bizarre: surprised surprise witnesses in the Senate, that god-awful Binibining Pilipinas contestant and her lack of coherence, and bitching hot days and slightly cool nights.

But hey, school's been going great (thanks to those of you who asked), I've found time to run around a bit more, experiment in the kitchen, read other stuff, and even spend good time playing go. And I've been listening to more music, and thanks to the supernatural sense of iTunes' shuffle function, I've managed to put together this 8th list.

- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" (acoustic version, non-negotiable) by Tears for Fears
- "It's A Wonderful Night" by Fatboy Slim featuring Lateef
- "Saturday Morning" by Eels
- "I Think I Like You" by The Black Box Revelation
- "Knights" by Minus the Bear
- "Killing for Love" by Jose Gonzalez
- "All The Old Showstoppers" by The New Pornographers
- "7/4 Shoreline" by Broken Social Scene (I've listed this before, but it sounds nice here too)
- "All Those In Favor" by The Owls
- "Hell No" by Sondre Lerche & Regina Spektor
- "Piano Blink" by Hawksley Workman
- "Somersault" by Zero7
- "Let It Die" by Feist
- "When Your Mind's Made Up" by The Frames
- "If You Leave" by Nada Surf (it's a cover of OMD, I think)
- "Don't Ever Think (Too Much)" by The Zutons
- "Put The Sun Back" by The Coral
- "Follow You Down" by Gin Blossoms

I'm trying imeem out, and have got some of the songs on this list.

Oh, and since I've never mentioned this before, let me just say:

Obama Girl is hawt.

Moderate your hubris, etc.

2008-03-05T06:12:00.005-08:00

Okay. So Jun Lozada's testimony has caused quite a stir.

Now that he's a celebrity, he should moderate his (newfound) hubris.

If Jun Lozada wants to be honest, he will not say that he is not a celebrity. He obviously is one. And while I think he's entitled to his own opinion, he should realize that he is under scrutiny.

During the recent inter-faith rally thing at Makati, Jun Lozada, whether or not he acknowledges it, was basking in the limelight, and felt that the moments he spent before the crowd were really his. He talked about himself, about what he did, and asked people to stand by him.

Now, that seems normal, yes?

Sure, but normal doesn't cut it, I think. Wouldn't Lozada's appropriate stance have been to ask the crowd to stand by, er, the truth, instead of a personality?

But no. He went on and on and made the moment revolve around him, the way celebrity might seize the stage. At that point, he was no longer the endearing, self-deprecating, "probinsyanong Intsik" whose sense of humor might have been his salvation. At that point, he sounded like every single stupid politician.

Reports say that Lozada has lamented on Sunday the seeming "indifference" of certain groups, including the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), regarding the movement for the resignation of President Macapagal-Arroyo over corruption charges during a recent mass at the University of Santo Tomas.

And former President Cory Aquino told him: “Jun, just more patience, please. Perhaps, you were chosen as the one to open our eyes to the truth. If it were not for you, Jun, only a few would know about what's going on in our government, so thanks a lot, Jun."

Lozada, however, said near the end of his speech that a certain priest whom he described as being "close to the cardinals" sympathized with him. The said priest allegedly told Lozada that he would have had "no problem" had Jaime Cardinal Sin been alive.

So that seems fine, right? Sure. But then again, Superstar Jun Lozada had this to say:

"He told me, you know Jun, the cardinals and bishops are now careful of political activism because some Asian countries are afraid that the Catholic Church in their nations will become like ours. I replied, Father, if you're telling me now that the Church where I seek refuge is being indifferent to the truth and justice just because of your own geopolitical considerations, Father, you have to teach me to unlearn all the homilies, all the liturgical sharing, all these doctrines that you have [taught] me before, because I have to renounce my faith if that is how you will answer me."

What was that, Jun?

Not even Chavit Singson had that much cheek. And before we forget, Chavit Singson was never completely blameless either.

(And besides, who the hell says the Church needs Jun Lozada?)

***

I do not understand why there is suddenly an intellectual vacuum regarding executive privilege and E.O. 464. The Supreme Court has in a number of cases, the most recent one being Senate v. Ermita (when it declared certain provisions of E.O. 464 unconstitutional), ruled on executive privilege, and has categorically stated that the rule is that it is the PRESIDENT and the PRESIDENT ALONE who can invoke Executive Privilege although the President can probably extend this privilege over a particular Cabinet member, who is merely the President's "alter-ego" anyway, PARTICULARLY when concerned with questions that might involve STATE SECRETS, NATIONAL SECURITY, and DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS.

In short, ROMULO NERI CANNOT INVOKE EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE. He can only be benefited by an extension of it by the President, but it must pertain to STATE SECRETS, NATIONAL SECURITY, and DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS. In short, in the context of ZTE-NBN, NERI CANNOT INVOKE EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE.

I also do not know why the Court did not hold creatures who invoked the struck-down portions of E.O. 464 in contempt before it was revoked.

Why the hell was there a need for a compromise agreement? The government was on the defensive. The Senators should have pushed the Court to ask Neri why he should not be held in contempt. Or the Senate should have just ordered Neri's detention.

In any case, the latest news is that the Senate has properly REJECTED the compromise agreement.

Let's see what happens.

Metro Manila Music Scene, 2008

2008-03-03T21:35:00.002-08:00

This has been circulating for a while, but 2008 looks like it's going to be one of the best years in terms of foreign artists performing in Metro Manila. The tentative list of events (c/o) MTV after the jump.

Julia Fordham - Feb 15 @ A.Venue (DONE)
Incubus - Mar 9 @ Araneta
Harry Connick Jr - Mar 15 @ PICC
Duran Duran - Apr 11 - Under Negotiation
Matchbox Twenty - Apr 27 @ Araneta
Damian Marley - April @ Sofitel
Dave Matthews Band - May @ TBA
Michael Buble - June 24 @ Araneta
Madonna - July @ MOA or The Fort
Josh Groban - July @ Araneta
Justin Timberlake - October @ MOA or The Fort
U2 - October @ MOA or The Fort
Usher - November @ MOA or The Fort

Okay, so this is an awesome list, the only one I probably don't care for being Harry Connick. Everybody else seems pretty awesome.

But the reason why this year might be one of the best is that entry for October. If that's true, I will move heaven, earth, and more to get a ticket.

For those of you who do not understand why (and I will not understand why you do not understand why):

You say you want a revolution? part II

2008-02-28T08:26:00.005-08:00

Just a quick quip, this time on the bishops' statement.

Earlier today, I read an email where Leland de la Cruz pointed out how absurd it was that the bishops' latest statement called urged "the President and all the branches of government to take the lead in combating corruption wherever it is found." The judiciary, maybe. But really, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, take the lead in combating corruption? Our esteemed congressmen, take the lead in combating corruption?

As Leland put it: "That is like asking a suspected jueteng lord to combat jueteng in his province. That is like asking a suspected smuggler to combact smuggling. That is like asking a suspected drug lord to combat drug pushing."

In my reply, I registered my agreement. And I added that I also think that a Church that helped the present occupant of Malacañang due to the perceived loss of moral ascendancy of her predecessor will find calling for her resignation (which I think it will only do when it perceives another loss of moral ascendancy) a bitter pill to swallow. Our bishops seem to lean toward consistency, and perhaps at least subconsciously fear some sort of backlash if they start joining calls for Arroyo to resign.

Can we please wake up now, and have a Catholic Church, or at least bishops, that take the position that they might have made a mistake, or maybe even some rationalization that it chose what it thought was the lesser evil when it stood against Estrada in 2001? Please? I wrote in my previous post that we should at least find that this is partly our fault too.

I read something in an online forum about our deserving the government we have. This might be true to some extent. But any calls for "revolution" or finger-pointing are irresponsible if we don't acknowledge that we're all partly responsible for the mess we're in. And so yes, we may have to consider that if we want to do anything about this mess, we might not have to be tied down by or wait on our religious leaders.

You say you want a revolution?

2008-02-26T09:15:00.009-08:00

It is now officially two days after the 22nd anniversary of the 1986 EDSA event (I will avoid calling it a revolution in order to be politically correct), and I've been sifting through my e-mail, reading thoughts of individual groups and parties as well as a whole slough of position papers, statements, and "stands" on the political situation. It's a shame that none of this happened before February 15th, because I would then have had enough material to write for that Supreme Court essay writing contest (to those of you who have asked me if I joined, I didn't, because I didn't think I was going to be able to write an essay of the caliber I wanted). The long weekend and the past few hours have allowed me to somehow collect my thoughts, though. And so, if you've got the stamina and the time (this is another dreary, long-ish post), read on.

Last Monday, lots of people gathered in lots of different places to celebrate the anniversary of the EDSA event. There was that mass in Baclaran, that Gloria rally in Cavite, those marches along Mendiola. All of these were follow-ups to events such as the mass for Jun Lozada in La Salle Greenhills, the Truth and Accountability Mass at the Ateneo de Manila, Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan's Kuwentong Bayan forum, as well as assemblies in UP Diliman, UST, Adamson University, and so on. The subjects of EDSA and People Power have been hot topic these past few days, thanks to the latest Senate drama, the hearings on the ZTE-NBN broadband deal. And with these topics, we hear such sentiments such as those calling for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to resign, for standing for truth just like Jun Lozada, for Malacañang and its officials to come clean, and even for Romulo Neri to come out of the closet (there have been rumors and jokes about him being gay, but that's not very relevant to People Power).

And this marks yet another dramatic spectacle in the story of what Fr. Bernas has called "the troubled Arroyo presidency." Just as a recap, we've seen the following controversial issues (among others, and I'd appreciate it if anyone can add to these) over the past few years:

- EDSA III
- Jose Pidal
- Northrail
- The Fertilizer Fund scam
- Hello Garci
- Extrajudicial Killings of political activists and journalists
- Various coup attempts (including those in February 2006 and the Manila Peninsula Incident)
- EO 464
- PP 1017
- The (failed) Charter Change/People's Initiative attempts
- ZTE-NBN

These things make for blockbuster events on the ABS-CBN News Channel, as well as real-life drama and entertainment in the nightly news, the newspapers, and the internet. Our culture being one where we are simply captivated (in either a positive or negative way) by drama and intrigue, issues like these find their way into our daily lives and vocabulary. Public reaction is, conservatively put, mixed: People are angry, others are frustrated, some are indifferent, others are jaded, and more people are simply clueless about what to make of these events. Of course, what makes the news is the more negative, the angrier public reaction, which is where we can really start talking: People don't like what they see on TV, and people have been making all sorts of reactions: "Gloria resign," "resign all," and so on. Some people write letters to the editor. Others take it to the streets. Some others think taking over a hotel's the way to air their grievances.

But the most interesting and fascinating part of the interplay between our politicians and the pundits has been the courses of action taken by the government in response to what it perceives to be dissent, destabilization, or civil unrest of any sort. Government action has been written of by some analysts as classifiable into any of the following: Coercion, threats, or actual violence. These actions are given some sort of legitimacy or mandate or support by the coalition of sorts running the government: Many of our (idiot) congressmen and local government officials, as well as many of our military leaders express their unwavering loyalty to the President/Commander-in-Chief. And as basis for this loyalty, they cite all sorts of things, with the favorites being either the President's character or her commitment to development (and some even cite the ground gained by our little economy thanks to her economic know-how). Others simply dismiss public reaction or political opposition as sourgraping for not being in power, or as attempts to destabilize our fragile democracy, or even siding with insurgents.

While we can discuss the unfathomable stupidity of the reasoning of some of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's allies (I'll touch on some of it later on), the more fascinating (fascinating the way Spock would put it) things are the concrete actions taken by Malacañang.

As a first example, let's take Executive Order 464, which is an order barring executive officials from appearing before Congress hearings without the consent of the President. Through EO 464, Malacañang asserted "executive privilege" to withhold some information from Congress, information which Congress might find valuable in hearings "in aid of legislation." It was an attempt to extend some blanket of executive privilege for a variety of reasons, such as national security. But what it really was, and I'm sure most will agree, was an attempt to simply withhold information that Malacañang did not want brought under public scrutiny. In short, EO 464 was an assertion of executive privilege in a dramatic attempt to effect a preemptive cover-up. In the end, in the decision in Senate v. Ermita, the Supreme Court declared that certain key components of EO 464 were unconstitutional: Only the President had the right to assert executive privilege, and she could withhold her consent only with regard to certain officials (such as members of the military) for reasons of national security. What has come of that, though? Not much. Even today, Malacañang officials still invoke EO 464 and executive privilege when they decline invitations to appear before Congress.

Let's take Presidential Proclamation 1017 (and the related General Order No. 5), wherein Arroyo declared a state of emergency allegedly in response to allegedly serious attempts to overthrow the government. With it, Malacañang declared that it would not hesitate, among other things, to take over public utilities or private enterprises imbued with a public interest that showed signs of aligning themselves with "enemies of the state." And among the enterprises it threatened were broadcast companies (especially given the negative tone of the news). Policemen even raided a newspaper's offices. PP 1017 and GO No. 5 were struck down by the Supreme Court.

But stripping Malacañang of options such as those only seems to have made the political situation a bit worse, because it can resort to actual violence. Take, for example, the allegations that the government and the military had a hand in the extrajudicial killings of political activists and journalists (who, perhaps by coincidence, were critics of the government). The commission that led the investigation did link some military officials to the killings, and there was even a conference on the subject, where the bone of contention was whether or not the President could be held responsible for the killings by virtue of her command responsibility. This issue isn't settled: some experts are of the opinion that one cannot hold the President liable because she is too far removed from the actual killings to be held accountable. Stupid responses by Malacañang allies include the assertion that assuming the military is involved, Arroyo cannot be held responsible because she is not a member of the military, as she is a civilian. Other writers are of the opinion that Arroyo can be held liable because she's President and commander-in-chief of the military, and they even go so far as to cite international law precedents. Again, this is far from settled.

Aside from the assertions of executive power and of resorting to violence are the measures of coercion taken. Take, for example the response of the government to rallies and gatherings of activists. Permits are strictly construed against rallyists, who are subjected to either police truncheons or water cannons (the most famous one perhaps being former Vice President Guingona). All of these actions are said to be directed at ensuring security and stability. One of the most disturbing acts of coercion also includes the baseless and stupid illegal detention of journalists who covered the events that transpired in the Manila Peninsula a few months ago.

What we can see from this sort of set-up is a continuing effort by Malacañang to, as Prof. Sedfrey Candelaria of the Ateneo Law School has put it, "push the boundaries of executive power," and for its allies to lend some semblance of political legitimacy to these efforts. While some of the above-mentioned measures are resorted to, Malacañang and its allies continue to flaunt their numerical superiority in Congress and in terms of local government officials, and so on. Malacañang allies have killed impeachment complaints and engaged in political witch-hunts directed at keeping the ranks loyal to the President. They remain loyal to the chain of command, and quite particularly and pointedly, to the President, rather than to the people who created the Office of the President. And when criticized, Arroyo's allies have a simple retort: Politics is a numbers game. Period. Another example of this is the effort to take our current political framework and turn it into a parliamentary system, where members of parliament (our esteemed politicians) would choose the head of government from among themselves.

Enter Jun Lozada, the ZTE-NBN deal, and the ensuing political brouhaha. The scary thing about Jun Lozada's situation is the allegation he made in his testimony that he was kidnapped upon his return from Hong Kong which Malacañang allies insist was for his "protection," forced to sign certain affidavits and requests for security, and worst, that his cellular phone was tapped and that those who held him were able to intercept his text messages.

I got the chance to meet Lozada personally during the Truth and Accountability Mass at the Ateneo's Church of the Gesu. And in that brief encounter, I came to see what might have endeared him to so many people: He has a sense of humor and can continue to laugh at his own misadventures. "It's so nice to be with a mob once in a while," he said as he shook my hand, referring to how he had complained that it was him versus the mob in a recent news special where he had to "face off" against the likes of Abalos, Formoso, Razon, and other people affiliated with Malacañang. "Your sense of humor will save you," I replied.

The drama surrounding Lozada has elements of coercion and threats which I brought up earlier. He was abducted, he claims. He receives daily death threats, he says. And even today, last I checked, he hasn't gone home and has been forced to hole up with members of the religious community. Why? Because he continues to fear for his life and for that of his family, he says. And so it's amazing that he still makes it to Senate sessions to testify. Why amazing? Because if Malacañang wanted him dead, he would be dead--all of the security of the Senate cannot possibly protect him from what other forces Malacañang has been said to be capable of unleashing.

Lozada's testimony is controversial because it brings to light anomalies in the now-dead ZTE-NBN broadband deal, that (stupid) broadband development project which supposedly would have helped government efforts for developing IT infrastructure, education, and whatnot. What sort of anomalies? Overpricing, for one, so that officials like former Commission on Elections Chairman Abalos could receive kickbacks of around $130 million. It was yet another government deal that was full of corruption. In spite of that, the deal was originally approved, because according to Arroyo, they could not just cancel it because they were dealing with another country.

Of course, what I found most disturbing about the testimony was how casually Lozada talked about corruption in government. Sure, this is nothing new, and transparency in this country is a sick joke because corruption happens before our very eyes. But what makes my skin crawl is not how he said he discouraged Abalos from taking such a huge kickback because it would be obvious, but rather how Lozada himself says he does not know what he would have done if Abalos actually heeded his advice and accepted a smaller kickback ($65 million, instead of $130 million).

This only underscores how casually corruption can be treated in this country. We take this as something for granted, as something that is even necessary to get things done. People seem perfectly capable of tolerating a certain level of corruption to accomplish tasks and conduct business (bribing government officials to expedite the processing of applications for business permits is easily dismissed as a cost that can be categorized as a "potentiality," for example). That I can write about it in a manner that can be characterized as disinterested is even perhaps more terrifying.

Okay, so what can we do that's concrete? I'm not sure where to begin, but as I pointed out, telling ourselves that we're part of the mess is one step we can take in the right direction.

People Power again? I don't think so. We've already seen how EDSA II was stupid, how EDSA III became violent. EDSA IV, or some other people power revolt will only undermine our democratic institutions. And as Winnie Monsod has pointed out, if People Power means having to beg the military to lend its support, then we will only be further politicizing something that we never wanted to politicize in the first place.

It is natural for me to insist on a solution that has sound legal basis. EDSA II was stupid because it was, in my opinion, merely the knee-jerk, irresponsible reaction of an obvious minority to a failed or weak attempt to resort to the constitutional process of impeachment against Estrada (one which took more than half a decade for the Sandiganbayan to rule on, in what has been called a politically-charged decision, and one that will never set a precedent because it never made it to the Supreme Court). It had absolutely no legal basis, and was justified by the Supreme Court in what I think was a ridiculous doctrine ("constructive resignation," the unhappy freak of political law). EDSA I, for all of its merits, was an extralegal solution that was meant to restore democracy to a country under the heel of Marcos, but any responsible take on EDSA will have to acknowledge that it did set a precedent when it came to taking things to the streets for one to air his grievances.

Again, why legal? Remember EDSA I and the institutions it ushered in. The 1987 Constitution is one of the longest written constitutions of the world, and it is full of all sorts of attempts to create a system of checks and balances. It was a reaction to years of martial law, to dictatorship, to basically the "dark days" of the Marcos presidency. In it, we, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, promulgated the constitution because we sought to "build a just and humane society, and establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace.” And while power is supposed to reside in us, the sovereign Filipino people, I will argue that this isn't any justification for another people power effort.

We will need to work within a legal framework if we want to move forward properly. Dean Villanueva once told our corporation law class that while the world was busy developing frameworks for commerce and commercial law, Filipinos were busy fighting for their civil liberties. One one hand, it shows that our priority is not economic development, but the upholding of civil and political rights. On the other, it shows that we do not recognize any development, allegedly legal or not, if it is not consistent with what we deem to be our rights as a social community.

Okay, let's assume that we've got the necessary institutions set up, at least as our laws provide. Can we move on now? We aren't sure. On one hand, we have a government that cites its constitutional mandate to operate, and on the other, we've got parties saying government is trampling on their rights. And we often point to this squabbling as something that scares off investors and screws up our development. We are therefore left with a choice between learning to stomach the atrocities of government and the trampling of certain rights but make economic gains (perhaps like some countries like China, which is criticized for what some people say are horrible human rights violations), or we can insist on rights and liberties and upright moral society first, progress later.

This is, of course, a non-choice. We will insist on having both liberty and progress. Why? Because we know we can have it if we want it. But again, we will have to realize that we're all part of the mess before we can seriously discuss proper solutions to progress.

So again, a legal framework. One that allows us to hold people accountable, one that is supposedly sensitive to our economic aspirations, and one that guarantees civil and political liberties. A legal system that, through checks and balances, enforces this framework.

Okay, so if our laws provide the framework, and assuming we have a legal system that enforces the framework, can we move on now? Again, we are unsure. Because decisions in a democracy, even policy decisions that are replete with numbers and figures and formulae, all become related to our individual political perspectives and convictions. And when you take democracy and politics, we find ourselves faced with a numbers game, one that can set up a government that is perfectly capable of resorting to coercion, threats, and violence backed by some sort of legitimacy accorded by its allies. And even if the courts have the gavel and can issue writs of habeas corpus, amparo, habeas data, and whatever, if we have an executive that holds the police and military by the balls, and has Congress under its heel, the courts will be powerless and irrelevant.

And for this situation of attrition to occur, we don't even need evil government officials. Assuming there is zero cheating during elections, zero corruption, and zero scandals, all that seems to be needed for a political deadlock to occur is a sufficiently popular executive and a sufficiently popular set of allies occupying key positions. Revolt against that will be revolt against the people; courts will be wise to abide by the deadlock lest they be accused of being undemocratic.

I will now be accused of being incoherent. I apologize, but this is not incoherent: this is simply an illustration of how democracy is a muddled work in progress.

It also means that sometimes, we'll have to rethink democracy and liberty. And it means realizing that even our legal frameworks will have to engage in an interplay with morality.

People say that they want change. People say they want a revolution. That's cool. That's brave.

And so I will now pontificate (and you may crucify me soon after, as this is the conclusion to this already bloated post):

The thing is, and I am stating the obvious, the political crisis that continues to shake the nation finds its roots in systemic, widespread, moral depravity. Indeed, the signs of our times that we can easily see are not merely problems of today, but problems which we have been trying to resolve even in days we think have passed. We cannot help but recognize the many faces of injustice today. It is easy and convenient to simply blame our politicians for these failures, and it is even easier to simply point fingers at unpopular personalities. To simply do so, however, is unacceptable and irresponsible.

If change is going to happen, we must accept that we too are equally accountable, because many of the choices we make and the lifestyles we lead contribute to the continuing downward spiral our society has been experiencing. Our own desires to get ahead in life and to live in material comfort are often pursued without any regard for our fellow men and women. And so, in spite of our sincerest efforts to succeed without stepping on others, we may, without even noticing it, trample on those who need us the most. Our obsession with our own shortcomings as individuals has made us indifferent and numb to the greater needs of society.

We cannot afford to be so naïve to think that all is well, or that what ills we have will pass with time. Nor can we be so conceited as to say that we are not even partly to blame. The first step toward national renewal must be an understanding that our nation is broken, and that we have, in some way or another, contributed to this state. This is perhaps the first step we can take to being truly worthy of being "the sovereign Filipino people," of having the democracy we seek to build.

Aegis 2006

2008-02-11T06:42:00.000-08:00

It's 2008. The yearbook was supposed to come out before graduation in 2006.

WHERE THE HELL IS MY YEARBOOK?

All we've been getting are incoherent updates which are utterly meaningless.

Updates like this latest one:

"DATE:January 27, 2008
TO: The Ateneo Class of 2006
FROM:The 2006 Ateneo Aegis (c/o Ateneo Alumni Association)
RE:Update on the status of the yearbook

Good day to all.We would like to update everyone on the status of our yearbook. It would please you to know that we are just about finished. In fact, the bulk of it was scheduled to be turned over to the printers in late 2007. Before we submitted it, we did some final checking.

It was discovered then that there were a number seniors whose write-ups were not in our possession. We counterchecked this with our list of submitted write-ups. We found that we were not in possession of close to 60 write-ups. Rather than to push through with the printing with missing write-ups in the book, we have decided to hold off until we have completed the recovery of these write-ups.

We have contacted the people with missing write-ups, and we have recovered write-ups for over 20 of our batchmates. We are currently in contact with the rest of the people on the list. We are now exhausting all our efforts in recovering the write-ups through all necessary means, and are continually following these up to hurry the process.The deadline we have set for the recovery of the write-ups is on the 16 th of March. Printing will commence immediately once all the write-ups are complete.

We humbly apologize for the inconvenience caused by this delay. Please rest assured that the group remains committed to the effort of releasing the yearbook at the earliest possible date, without compromising the quality of our yearbook.

If there are any questions, please course them through AAA@admu.edu.ph. We will get back to them as soon as we can.

Our best regards,

The 2006 Ateneo Aegis"

Scratch that. Updates like this mean one thing: OUR YEARBOOK ISN'T HERE YET, AND WILL NOT BE HERE ANYTIME SOON, CONTRARY TO WHAT WAS PROMISED ORIGINALLY (2006), AND WHAT WAS SUBSEQUENTLY PROMISED (THAT IT WOULD BE OUT JANUARY 2008).

I find myself flabbergasted. The utter lack of any sense of urgency or accountability, as well as what looks like a haphazard, unplanned, and utterly stupid production scheme, at least evidenced by stupid reasons in stupid updates like this, is revolting.

We want answers and concrete solutions.

We want those responsible for this shit held accountable.

We want a yearbook. NOW.

I am expecting responses to this post along the lines that I should have helped instead of making a fuss about this, or that I shouldn't be one to talk seeing as how I have had little to no involvement in putting the yearbook together, or that I'm not enough of an insider to understand the problems that plagued Aegis 2006.

Those things are supposed to be the least of my problems. All I know is that my batchmates and I were badgered into submitting requirements on time, under the threat of fines. And now, Aegis 2006 wants to include write-ups that are suddenly discovered to be missing? What sort of organizational response is that supposed to be, and what purpose are the fines supposed to serve if Aegis 2006 is willing to bend over backwards anyway? (Note that I have been referring to Aegis collectively, as "Aegis 2006." This is because nobody seems to want to be directly named or held accountable.)

For things like these, members of an editorial board should be denied clearance by the university and barred from either progressing or graduating until the yearbook is finished. And aside from that, Aegis should be willing and able to REFUND the money paid by students (including fines collected, which are utterly meaningless at this point), who should be given the option to cancel their yearbook order if it takes more than a month after graduation (or the promised deadline) to come out.

Song Survey #7, safety, yes we can

2008-02-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

Midterms week was weird: Hardly any trips to coffee places (I stuck to coffee and tea in my room for quite a bit). I wasn't too crazy, and I actually felt good this week. Even managed to catch a movie (Cloverfield, twice). Now, midterms week, like Joe de Venecia's speakership, is over. But hey, my life, just like the insane ZTE scandal that's been simmering nicely on the news, isn't.

This is my seventh playlist, which I've been meaning to post for a few days. It's music that kept me sane throughout midterms week. Now it's also a response-cum-tribute to Saul's newest list. Music, after all, is not only a conversation piece. It's a conversation.

"2080" by Yeasayer
"Am I Demon" by Bonnie Prince Billy
"Into The Flood" by As Tall As Lions
"Cracked World View" by Wisely
"Destroyer" by David Gray
"A&E" by Goldfrapp
"Fill My Little World" by The Feeling
"One Evening" by Feist
"Furniture" by Amy Studt
"Heat Dies Down" by Kaiser Chiefs
"Lucio Stars Fires" by Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong
"Broken Watch" by Orson
"Expectations" by Cut Off Your Hands
"Morning Sun" by Andy Gower
"Out Of Time" by Jason Collett
"Baby It's Fact" by Hellogoodbye
"Shine" by Shannon Noll
"All The Old Showstoppers" by The New Pornographers
"Peppermint Patty" by The Owls
"Balloons" by Foals
"Sam's Town" (the Abbey Road version) by The Killers
"Jigsaw Falling Into Place" by Radiohead
"Falling Stars" by The Whiles
"All Right Peace" by Rings
"We Get On" by Kate Nash
"Nightingale" by Laura Veirs
"Colours" by Hot Chip
"The Trapeze Singer" by Iron and Wine
"Somersault" by Zero7

With much thanks to Mika, Saul, Pochi, and everybody else who helped me find music.

***

Members of the House of Representatives make me sick.

They ousted Jose De Venecia from the speakership in a pretty screwed up session. I'm not for JDV at all, and I've never liked him. But I like him more than Mikey Arroyo, but I'm sure the entire universe does too, so no biggie.

I don't mind the majority of our politicians politicking. I do mind, however, politicking on our payroll. And I do mind stupidity. I do. And we did hear some of the most stupid reasons for the vote to remove De Venecia from office. Stuff like (and I'm paraphrasing)

- I was originally for JDV, but after I heard his privilege speech, I now vote "yes" to the motion to declare the spearkership vacant.
- I want change. I vote yes.
- There's a term limit for the President, the Vice President. Maybe we should have term limits for speakers too. I vote yes.
- My loyalty lies with Malacañang. I vote yes.
- Speaker JDV has overseen a lot of our projects and growth in Congress. But politics is a numbers game. We don't need to explain our votes. I vote yes.
- I was supposed to vote no, but after hearing JDV attack the President, I now vote yes.

Some stuff which was probably more stupid, I thankfully did not catch, or could not comprehend due to bad grammar or horrendous (!) diction.

The constitutional framework that governs government contemplates a separation of powers. This means we have a separate executive, legislature, and judiciary. The Americans who sort of invented the system, which we adopted and have tried to ape (like brown monkeys, I guess), envisioned a system where there would be an ambitious President, ambitious members of Congress, and ambitious judges. The system was meant for everybody to keep tabs on everybody. Madison and company, however, didn't seem to foresee the rise of political parties and blocs. The Federalists, after all, abhorred the idea.

Professors Levinson and Pildes, of Harvard and NYU, respectively, co-wrote an article I was reading months ago. I wonder how it applies here.

All that I know is that it's actually revolting to the system of government envisioned by our own constitutional framers to have a Congress subordinate to Malacañang. Members of the House are playing things safe. Politics, after all, is keeping your head above the water, playing safe.

So we see that safety has consequences.

***

Oh, and one more thing. I guess those of you who have been talking to me lately would have run into me talking about how I've been plastered on the couch watching CNN, following the US primaries with great interest. I was talking to Nix a few days ago about that, and we were talking about how civilized US elections seem to be, compared to the circus we have here.

And those of you who might have gotten to talk to me would have probably figured out that I like Barack Obama more than any of the other hopefuls. There's an often told joke during election season in the States that people from other countries ought to have a chance to vote, since the US President is, whether we like it or not, the de facto leader of the free world. And among all the hopefuls, even if he doesn't give us the precise low-down on his policies, Obama has been at least the most captivating and inspiring.

Here's a Barack Obama video, done by supporters without any prodding by the Obama campaign. will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas just cobbled it together. It's interesting, nicely done, and deliberately black and white (postracial and all that).

Yes we can. That was my battle cry of sorts during midterms week. For the rest of the year, I guess.

Yes we can.

Safety, 1

2008-01-20T08:19:00.000-08:00

I went over to Moro with Yael and Jesse for my usual weekend run, after watching the Ateneo Blue Booters beat UST, 2-1. We had originally planned to run around campus, but it started to rain. It wasn't the gentle drizzle that can be refreshing during a run; it was the bitching, it's-not-pouring-but-it-isn't-raining-so-haul-your-ass-indoors rain. It was an interesting break from the usual route around campus on the unyielding concrete and asphalt, especially since the track oval in Moro's got some sort of rubber flooring that spares knees and joints from the hazards of impact.

Yael and I managed to run two miles before deciding to slow down. Jesse, who used to be on the track and field team, started breaking into a faster run. So after a quick workout, Yael and I sat down to talk while waiting for Jesse to finish his run so he could have his turn with the bars.

We started talking about the house that we could see through the window, and I spent a few minutes explaining how Marymount is supposed to be part of La Vista and such. When the subject of real estate started boring us, Yael began talking about a new song he was writing. It was supposed to be finished, if not for one problem: Yael wasn't sure if it was going to be offensive.

My usual objectivity would have demanded that I ask him to sing a few lines, or to at least recite them. But I dismissed the idea, and asked him what it was about (I won't talk about the subject matter here). After listening to him explain the point he was making, I told Yael that the thing was, his song's subject wasn't something safe. It wasn't something pop-ish, and given their audience, I supposed (in what might be condescension) that he was correct in wondering if people would understand, or at the very least, not be offended.

The next few minutes were rather interesting, since we started talking about how we used to rant about "artists" who "sold out" to become mainstream performers (pop, in short). We also managed to review the criticisms thrown at different bands, especially one like his. And Yael even went on to say that sometimes he felt like he had, in spite of his idealism, sold out. After discussing that point a bit more, and even talking about the state of OPM (which I must admit I'm not very well-versed in), we decided that it would still be interesting to write songs that were far from being just "safe."

It makes me wonder now if the advice I had given made any sense (this post doesn't seem to make any, yet). It makes me wonder if we can even really write anything that's "safe," or if "creative expression" should even fall within that category. Sure, people sometimes develop solutions to problems in a manner that can either be impressive, or with such calculation as to avoid scrutiny and criticism. Writers will write without expletives to keep from being censored, or filmmakers will pay conscious attention to amounts of nudity to garner acceptable viewing ratings. Safety, it seems, allows people to achieve some objective. Efforts to make things palatable seem to be best bets because people serving things up want to appeal to the most number of people.

I wonder, then, if safety is something that we can ascribe to the idea, or to the medium of expression (or manner), or both. And after that, I tend to wonder whether or not we can be safe at all.

Lots of things, properly pondered, can be terrifying, painful, insulting, and disturbing. A song about class divisions? Sensitive topic. You can pick a side, or choose to sing from the perspective of an observer. Whatever you'll be observing, though, will probably not be easy to observe. A song of praise to God? That doesn't seem easy either, since God never seems to listen, much less understand. Especially if it's a song of praise from an insignificant little speck like you. Or say, you want to write a song about love. Cheesy shit. Lovey-dovey shit. It's you and me against the world shit. Why won't you love me shit. Since when has writing about love been easy? Love which should come easy, never does. Love is never easy, especially if you mean it.

Right?

So what's this about re-writing lines, so as to play to an audience? It seems hard to talk about writing about society, when there's no social challenge. It seems impossible to genuinely write about love if all we have is cheese, and no real risk.

Writing songs, or writing verses. It's hard to think about that without thinking about pronouncing what life is about, without being able to touch on something that touches on everything. And if we are blessed with the chance to write, who are we to compromise for fear of some sort of retribution?

Enough. I'm incoherent.

Because the press must be free.

2007-11-29T07:20:00.000-08:00

(This is going to be a long post, so I hope you have a cup of coffee.)

I found myself glued to the TV all day today, with most of my reading and paperwork left unfinished because of the events that happened in Makati, that day-long drama of the "standoff" at the Manila Peninsula Hotel. The Dean was understanding enough to call off classes, so I figured I'd do a little extra reading and prepare for work on Saturday. Of course, none of that happened, since the stuff on TV was pretty exciting.

Not a few of you who might have met me in college would remember that I worked for the college paper, and even founded an independent magazine when I felt that the college paper was going too far downhill. I remember spending nights poring over factual notes, statements, and drafts of articles, as well as spending hours on end correcting grammar, layout and design problems, and cleaning photos up. I've also spent time going around the community, and finding myself in all sorts of places, talking to people, scribbling notes on small sheets of paper. Images, I'd store in both my mind and on digital cameras.

Naturally, I was steeped in all of the pep talks about responsibilities as a (student) journalist, about why press freedom is important. Being together with Jamie, who was the journalist's journalist when she was in college, undoubtedly contributed to this, but there was a point in time that I really was very serious about journalism and work as a journalist. To a great degree, I still am.

One of the most important ideas I've had to deal with was that a journalist must be neutral. Objective. A calm, collected observer, recorder, and reporter of what was going on, whose task was to process information and communicate it for the sake of an enlightened public who could hopefully draw on what was reported to make informed decisions. Some of that changed when I founded KATIPUNAN, because I started coming to an understanding of what Kapi used to write about journalism: "Tapos na ang panahon ng obhetibong pamamahayag. (The time of objective reporting is over.)" "Pagtatangka ang sumulat. (To write is to choose.)" And true enough, I found myself wanting to put my qualities as my own best armchair politician to the test, and wanted people to know what I had to say and think about things that went on. Naturally, I wanted to retain some sort of credibility, so I strove for "balance" (rather than the antiseptic "objectivity" I used to harp about).

And when the Hello Garci thing blew up in 2005, and when Gloria signed Presidential Proclamation 1017 in 2006, I was hanging around people in school who were mobilizing and wanting to make a difference, people who were taking a stand. At that time, I was one of them, and I still am. Just as then, when I stood up and was counted among those who went around campus calling for a demonstration, and was with members of the community when we stood and prayed together. These things mattered to me, and now, after two years of being jostled by the law and what it says, I find that these things are still very important to me.

I'm writing now because I felt sick when I saw journalists being arrested. In the past, all I saw was policemen shoving activists aside, or hitting them with water cannons and night sticks and riot shields. I've read news and seen footage of policemen storming media offices and confiscating copies of newspapers, because the owners of those papers were allegedly part of destablization plots of some sort. I also was in ABS-CBN's newsroom when PP 1017 and General Order No.5 were announced, together with the government's unveiled threat that it had found some (ridiculous, selective, idiotic) legal basis to take over private media facilities to make sure that they didn't contribute to any plots to undermine the government.

I remember drafting a statement about that. And there, I wrote:

"We realize and uphold the high value of the media in times of political crisis. The media’s aim is to be one with the people in the pursuit of the truth, and to serve as a catalyst for enlightened action. It is the media which delivers relevant information and opinion to thepeople, and without a free media, our capacity for enlightened, united, and conscientious action is seriously undermined.

.... We affirm the freedom of the press and expression enshrined in our Constitution. In times of political uncertainty, the national media—as both a force for truth-seeking and as a catalyst for action—is more crucial than ever. A free press is crucial to the guarantee of freedom and basic civil liberties, and is perhaps the best check of a democratic society against anyone who wishes to undermine it. We therefore call for constant vigilance on the part of citizens toward the preservation of the independence and freedom of media and the press.

....Finally, we call on everyone, especially our fellow journalists, to take a proactive stance with regard to the seeking of the truth. This country cannot be rebuilt without the truth. Through discernment and deliberate political involvement, we shall hopefully come to the truth that we seek, and use it to rebuild our national community."

I write tonight because the press must be free, and with what little readership I might have, I may as well share the insights which I think are important.

What I wrote last year in that statement holds true (at least for me) today.

People need information (yes, partly because information is knowledge, and knowledge is power). People need information in order to make intelligent decisions that hopefully change this world for the better. And the work of the press is of primary importance in today's world, when there is so much data that needs to be processed, and so many decisions that need to be made.

Today, when the police arrested journalists, and confiscated their footage and equipment, they not only did so with shaky legal basis, but also deprived the public of public servants, of volunteers of a sort whose vocation is to help the public know what they need to know. They crossed the line marking the realm of press freedom, and in doing so, trampled on the public's interest in being informed. Naturally, the objection to this is that the arrest of journalists this evening did not totally undermine all of journalism and all news organizations. But that is not the point at all. That objection completely misses the point, and trivializes the importance of the journalistic enterprise.

It is a fundamentally settled aspect of most democracies that the freedom of the press is a fundamental right. It is something imbued with so much interest that it is regarded as something practically sacred. And so it should be. If democracy means "rule of the people," or as I like to put it, "power to the people," then everything which empowers the people should be sacred. And the press is one of these things.

But let us look at the issue differently: Is press freedom absolute? Of course not. Like the right to freedom of expression, it is not. The limits have been extensively discussed and covered in our constitutional and political law. Journalists cannot hide behind their work in order to defame someone, for example. Nor can they rely on the mantle of the journalistic vocation to justify, say, breaking into an office in order to secure material for their reports, or engage in wire-tapping.

The government has the following justifications for the arrest of the journalists: First, it was possible that some members of the Magdalo group were disguising themselves as journalists. And since it was going to be very difficult and impractical to "process" everybody at the hotel lobby, at least to be able to ascertain who was a journalist, who was a mere civilian, and who was a rogue soldier, it was far easier to simply whisk everybody away to a secure location, all under arrest, and process them there. Second, the police also say that before they stormed the hotel, they asked the journalists inside to vacate, in order to facilitate the police's arrest of the Magdalo group and their supporters. Naturally, as this was at least something worth covering, many members of the media refused to vacate, and so the police say that their mere presence prevented the effective arrest of Trillanes and company, and so these journalists were actually obstructing justice. And their catch-all justification was so that the journalists could help resolve the crisis, having been witnesses to the events.

Without going into too much legalese, this is why the government's arguments are ridiculous:

Let's take a look at this from a practical standpoint. First, members of the media typically have some form of identification. This is what allows them access to venues where newsworthy events are unfolding. Thus, there would have been a very easy way to segregate the members of the media. To address any concerns about possible faking of identification, here's a practical response: It seems highly unlikely that the Magdalo group, much less any of their supporters, who marched along Ayala Avenue after walking out of court would have the necessary equipment to produce fake IDs. Thus, one can reasonably suppose that the IDs which identified the journalists were authentic. Thus, the police should not have even arrested members of media who had IDs. Second, some members of media, especially reporters, are public figures in the sense that they get seen on TV. It would have been even easier to realize, for example, that Person X was Pinky Webb, a journalist and reporter for the ABS-CBN News Channel, than to ask Person X for her ID badge saying she was Pinky Webb, reporter of ANC. Third, the media and news organizations who sent their reporters sent them in groups. These groups would have been able to identify themselves and point out who was a reporter and who was a mere civilian and who was one of the Magdalo men. This is underscored by the fact that the journalists and non-Magdalo group people outnumbered the people whom the police were supposed to arrest. It would not have been unreasonable to expect that the policemen present were sufficiently briefed as to who was supposed to be in court that day, who walked out and marched to the hotel, and who they were supposed to be looking for. If these guys were really supposed to stand trial, the policemen, trained as they are, could have simply looked at file photographs of the people they were looking for, and singled them out. They could at least have done this on the buses instead of whisking everybody away for detention.

And the journalists were being obstructive? No. They were simply doing their job, as Maria Ressa put it. Our police are supposed to be trained to handle situations like this, where there are lots of civilians that can get caught in the cross-fire. And how could they have obstructed justice, when the end goal--arresting the Magdalo group, etc.--was ultimately fulfilled, to the point that the administration even considers this a political victory of sorts?

Let's look at things legally. It is a fundamental principle of law that everybody is entitled to due process of law. Nobody shall be deprived of his liberty without due process. Everybody has a right to be secure in his person against unreasonable seizures.

Was there due process in the arrest of the journalists? None. Before an arrest can be effected, there must be a determination of probable cause which leads to either the issuance of an arrest warrant, or perhaps a warrantless arrest wherein police officers can reasonably assume that a crime has been committed, and that the person they are arresting committed it. In this situation, there was a warrant of arrest, but it did not specify the journalists. A warrant is effective only as regards the individuals specified therein. The police could not (and thankfully) did not use their warrant to justify their arrest.

Moreover, in effecting an arrest, in depriving of a person of his liberty so that he can be placed under investigation, an individual has the right to be informed of his rights. There was nothing on TV which showed that the journalists in question were even informed of their rights. All they were told was that they were going to be taken in for questioning/processing/whatever.

According to the journalists, they were not even informed of the charges against them. In fact, it was after this was brought up numerous times on TV that the government finally added the "obstruction of justice" contention to its list of responses to questions posed by reporters who showed concern for their colleagues. This is perhaps the flimsiest, legally feasible justification for the arrest. But even then, the journalists must be informed at the point of arrest that they are being arrested for obstruction of justice. A press conference saying that government lawyers are checking whether or not they can charge the journalists for obstruction of justice does not cut it.

While we're talking about "obstruction of justice," note that the law (Presidential Decree 1829) penalizes a person who "knowingly or willfully obstructs, impedes, frustrates, or delays the apprehension of suspects and the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases" by committing any of a certain enumeration of acts. The key here, I think, is that such obstruction is done "knowingly or willfully." How does one argue that journalists doing their job by covering a newsworthy event "knowingly or willfully" commit any of the acts enumerated in PD 1829? Note also that since this is a criminal statute, it must be construed strictly against the prosecution, and in favor of the accused.

Finally, to address the government excuse that they took the journalists for questioning, especially as witnesses, it must be stated that they could have properly refused to go with the police (and probably, if better informed, would not have gone with the police, except for sheer fear for their lives). In the absence of charges against them and a lawful arrest, the members of the media were under no obligation to go with the police and subject themselves to questioning. They could have been merely invited for questioning, to which they could have validly refused. This is recognized both in our criminal and constitutional laws. And even under detention, the members of the media must be accorded certain rights, especially if their detention was caused without any sound legal basis.

Marichu Lambino, a lawyer, law professor, and media law expert, condemned the arrest, and said that even during martial law under the Marcos regime, mediamen were not arrested. This underscores the seriousness of the situation: If a dictator, who had arrogated unto himself practically absolute political power, did not have mediamen arrested, shouldn't police officers, answerable to a President whose powers are vastly different from Marcos', know better? Or are they willing to be the agents of a government that continues to test the boundaries of its power? Of course, one might say that Marcos did not have to actually arrest mediamen, since there was salvaging and intimidation going on anyway, and people were basically just so afraid. But that doesn't change Lambino's contention, nor does it provide any justification for these most recent arrests.

The arrest of journalists, especially under the watch of an administration whose catch-all justification for everything is the "rule of law," is something reprehensible. It is something which a democratic society such as ours cannot, and should not, tolerate. And while I don't expect a lot of people to raise hell in light of these events, much less after reading this already over-extended post, I still think that we should seriously consider the repercussions of today's events. If a government is willing to curtail the press, then things do not bode well. I do not know of any government in history which tried to supress the press and not fall later on to some sort of revolution. Perhaps this administration will be the first, and perhaps it will make history. And sure, the arrest of journalists today might not really be a curtailment of the press, and perhaps I'm being a bit paranoid. But arrests and deprivation of liberty certainly seem like the end of a long shadow that casts itself before us. Today's events might only remind us that things can take a turn towards a darker direction.

I remember sitting in my high school history class, where my teacher (who is, I think, now a lawyer) paraphrased something that Voltaire said: "I may not agree with what you say, but I will give my life to make sure that you are able to say it." Our media isn't perfect. It is far from it. And I do not always agree with, say, how reporters ask questions (some can be banal and stupid), or I do not agree with how they present facts. But I feel compelled to say what I have said because I know that what they do is an essential service. My disagreement or disappointment with how media can sometimes be is far from the point here. And I write for those who were arrested today, because they were our eyes and ears, because their work should help us come to some kind of decision, whether it's continued indifference or a turn towards constant vigilance. I write tonight, instead of working on schoolwork, because this is important. I write because the press must be free, and by writing, I have hopefully helped it.

Song Survey #6, Waking Up

2007-11-14T08:59:00.001-08:00

I've been spending the break trying out a new routine, doing chores, running around (literally), and driving around city and looking for awesome places to hang out or study or talk.

So here's the sixth song survey, another slightly neurotic playlist, a tribute to the break, to the bumpy roads and getting lost in this insane metropolis. And maybe a little more than that.

All of the songs can be easily found online, or can be bought off iTunes cheap.

"Beautiful" by Under the Influence of Giants
"Rock City Wankers" by The Ark
"Teddy Picker" by Arctic Monkeys
"This Ain't A Surfing Movie" by Minus the Bear
"Love Rollercoaster" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Sucker Punch" by Fujiya & Miyagi
"Made-up Love Song" by Guillemots
"All I Really Want" by Alanis Morisette
"The Canals of Our City" by Beirut
"Parentheses" by The Blow
"Looks Just Like The Sun" by Broken Social Scene
"Some Party" by The Constantines
"Sing" by The Dresden Dolls
"Close To Me" by The Fairways
"Androgyny" by Garbage
"Hercules" by Henry Neville
"All We Ever Needed" by The Early November
"Let Go" by Frou Frou (as covered by Boys Like Girls)
"The Way Things Are" by Fiona Apple and Counting Crows
"Ageless Beauty" by Stars

(Thanks to Pochi, Jill, Maita, and Nix, as well as everyone else who made song recommendations.)

***

It's been pretty crazy these past few weeks. I'll be sleeping in a bit, and I'll be enrolling for the second semester when I wake up. That means one thing: the break's mortal, it's almost dead. And that means that I'm off to the dungeons again.

The craziness has found itself manifested in a zillion chores and things to do, with few moments of real downtime. But tonight, I had just that, and decided to take a short walk out side the house. I used to risk getting hit by passing cars or mauled by stray dogs whenever I did that, because I'd spend most of the time with my head craned up, my eyes fixed on the sky. Between lampposts, concrete, and stray leaves, I'd see stars.

I've made it a point to do that whenever I can, and even if I knew I wasn't seeing everything (what lights the city has kills the view somewhat), I still did it. Mainly because it gave me a sense of purpose, or a realization that everything I held in my hands was so small.

Tonight, the sky was red, a dark crimson like blood that was no longer warm. No stars. Even my little breaks like that, it seems, are mortal. They bleed, and when they do, they do so profusely.

I guess the break's also been crazy because it seems all a bit blurry: a few parties, a shitload of hours stuck in traffic, realizing that I was in the grocery, and all finding myself staring at a screen. I seem to have lost track of time.

I've regained a lot of the focus I seem to have lost over the years, which is a good thing. I wonder if I can regain the old sense of things I used to have. Quite literally, heightened senses. My eyesight's always been excellent, and I'm able to see detail to an amazing level. Have you ever heard a leaf bend? I used to be able to hear that. And I guess all the noise has gotten to me, beginning a few years ago and hanging around for quite a while. And I sort of let it take me.

But tonight, while walking, I heard the wind whistle between bending tree branches. I heard the quiet bouncing of tiny raindrops. And I heard leaves bend, while going pitter-patter when water struck them.

I have, as stupid as it sounds, re-learned how to feel. And maybe that's what the big lesson these past few years has been. Not that I haven't felt before, not that I've never known feeling. But I've learned to let the brain step back, relax, and simply not analyze what I've been feeling. This is probably why Jamie called me emo-ey, and not the rational person she used to know.

In many ways, I've stopped being rational. But I've learned, at least by being a little less cerebral, how to live a little more. In so many ways, I think I'm much nicer than I used to be. Much kinder.

I am now incoherent.

I have just and am still acknowledging incoherence.

Okay, enough.

It's time to wake up, to be me, and to start living.

Woe to all who get in the way.

Ask

2007-10-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

Finals week finally ended, and with it, the semester. I'm exhausted from a trip to the beach. It was a lot of fun, all things considered.

I enjoy trips like that because I enjoy lounging around, and I think it was pretty awesome that that little apartment-esque thing we stayed in had its own pool, which meant we didn't have to hit the beach itself (which I didn't find very appealing), or the more public pools. The trip itself was fun, even if I did get lost because the map from the resort sucked and all the rural roads look the same (especially with all these strange detours going on). I actually got lost twice, which is a trip record, because I usually never get lost.

The trip also gave me enough material to finish an old draft. Finish is relative. Enjoy.

Ask

I speak to you with words of God:

Ask, with whispered words dribbling
on your rose-colored lips.
Refuse to let the alcohol
arrest the thoughts which
meander in your head,
ideas thick and wet as
over-chilled vodka.

Receive, as you wish it,
round eyes wincing as you tip the glass,
letting all fall onto your tongue.
Feel the flames lick you beneath the
fabric of your skin, with heat
filling your mouth,
your bosom, your gut.

We have come to our journey's end.

Tonight, we drink on gentle dunes
before the sea's flat expanse,
lit by light curved like the small of your back.
And I ask you to ask for what we both want,
let our words become flesh,
that we can receive cups of our
wet, warm wanting.

Finals Week

2007-10-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

Piece of cake.

Piece of cake that's fallen into a godforsaken, sea-salt-and-shit cesspool, stomped on by morons with athlete's foot, infested with angry, orange-colored maggots with cream-colored, pulsating rectums.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Song Survey #5

2007-10-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

Finals are upon us, after an up-and-down (and lower) semester. As a tribute to the gods, with hope that they'll make this Hell-on-Steroids week a little easier to bear, I offer a song survey, the fifth.

(It's also going straight to a roadtrip playlist for the post-finals beach trip. High speeds + highway + beach + vices = Kick-ass post-semester shiznit.)

Set 1

"Aisle 10 (Hello Allison)" by Scapegoat Wax
"Energy" by The Apples In Stereo
"Tears For Affairs" by Camera Obscura
"Sky Starts Falling" by Doves
"Houston We Have Uh Oh" by Minus The Bear
"Cause = Time" by Broken Social Scene
"Today" by Zero7
"Friction" by Morcheeba
"Roxanne" by Sting
"Get In The Car" by Echo & the Bunnymen
"Starless" by Evening Lights
"I Melt With You" by Nouvelle Vague
"You're So True" by Joseph Arthur
"Last Sunset" by Glen Philips & Teitur
"Close Your Eyes" by Dave Barnes
"Be Here Now" by Ray LaMontagne
"I'll Walk Away" by James Hunter

Set 2

"Ache For You" by Ben Lee
"The Forecast" by Jason Mraz
"I've Just Seen A Face" by The Beatles
"Song For Someone" by The Frames
"Bridge And Tunnel" by The Honorary Title
"Looks Just Like The Sun" by Broken Social Scene
"Late Night In Zion" by Matisyahu
"Earthquake Body" by Still Flyin'
"All The World Is Waiting" by Elf Power
"Silent Sighs" by Badly Drawn Boy
"After All" by Sondre Lerche

With thanks to Mika, Pochi, and everybody else who's been sharing songs with me this year.

Lines, between the

2007-09-15T12:36:00.000-07:00

Life in the metropolis is obviously a life of contending with lines and lines and lines. You line up for food in a cafeteria. Buildings have edges, which are usually straight lines. Traffic's a line, being a queue. On TV, on billboards, on the radio, you put up with scanlines, lines of text, and lines of dialogue. We talk on phone lines. We transact using lines of credit. Of course, I can imagine life in the more rural areas: lines and lines of crops.

We talk about lines of thought, about directions that go in straight lines.

Certain songs I enjoy listening to have fantastic lyrics. Great books have fantastic excerpts. The best stories have memorable pieces of dialogue. Poetry, life-changing potshots and shout-outs and cuts that determine even how one's supposed to breath when reading. All lines.

It's very easy to be tempted to think that life's linear (because time can be said to be linear). But life's not straight. It's not even curved. It's often crooked or broken or dotted, depending either on personal taste or individual levels of maturity.

Of course, we talk about reading between the lines, about finding deeper meaning, about discovery. And between or behind lines, which we read, which we see, or which we whatever, there's always a story. And in that story, more lines.

It almost sounds like a fractal. But that's the only comparison I can draw at the moment.

And since today's today, some lines:

A book
Dearest darling,

Since I know you are
are fond of books, here
is my heart, which you could
always read anyway.

Please take care not
to overwork the weak binding.
At least its not-so-sturdy
spine will make it lie flat.

I beg you not to mark the
pages, whether with
a sharp pen, a brush,
or a blunt pencil.

I've already marked
the cheap leather cover
with your name,
using fine foil stamping,

and have sewn in
a small silk ribbon, so
you can mark what you like
for easy rereading.

6 years later.

2007-09-11T11:22:00.000-07:00

We are still startled by absence.

Naked Girls Smoking Weed

2007-08-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

Sounds like a lot of fun, eh? It should be, if you like to read.

I stumbled on this link to a book called Naked Girls Smoking Weed. If the title isn't straightforward enough for you, you must be stupid.

It's by Rob Griffin, who runs this site, http://www.420girls.com, a website dedicated to his marijuana awareness campaign.

A review of the book says:

Griffin was arrested in 1992 in Maryland carrying some weed in his pocket, was convicted, and as a result of this was banned from exercising his right to vote ever again. Griffin was so pissed off at this that he decided to delve in to the archives to learn all he could about marijuana and especially the politics of drugs...Before he knew it, he was busy with a consciousness-raising campaign to bring to public attention the many abuses of the War on Drugs in general, and the 'War on Weed' in particular. And since as everyone knows, 'sex sells', and because Griffin is a hobby photographer with an impressive troupe of ex-girlfriends (among them well-known porno stars from LA such as Brittany Andrews, Chaisy Lain, Keeani Lei and Giselle Yum), the concept of his awareness project fell quickly into place.

And the author/editor himself says:

I started 420 Girls in 1993 to bring attention to the most important cause ever known to mankind. Millions of innocent people all over the world are being arrested; their families and futures are being destroyed and patients are suffering from side effects from chemical drugs that Medical Marijuana could treat. Once known to man as the most "superior" herb on Earth, it's now treated differently, governments all over the world refuse to legalize Hemp, claiming that "It will confuse law enforcement officials and send a wrong message to our children." My mission is to Legalize Medical Marijuana and Industrial Hemp by creating awareness through entertainment, and education.

The War on Marijuana and industrial Hemp is in fact, a war of information.

Hemp can be used as our sole source for fiber, fuel, paper, plastic and fiberboard. Hemp fuel can provide us with the world's energy needs, while eliminating the global dependency on our depleting fossil fuels. Industrial Hemp can solve our planet's problems by making over 420,000 different biodegradable, environmentally safe products that grow 100% herbicide and pesticide FREE, unlike other products which only continue to destroy our environment!

The term "420" started out as underground slang for its users to secretly announce they had weed, or were about to smoke, and its believed that the first origins came from about the late sixties. Today, it is a common slang used by millions worldwide. A 420 Girl is a female who smokes weed. It's no secret that sex sells and it's thanks to the 420 Girls for their dedication to this project. To help spread the word, most of them donated their time for this cause! Playboy Bunnies, Penthouse Pets, Amateur models and more, all promoting and standing behind Mother Nature!

I have compiled this coffee table book to send my message that the days of little camp fires and acoustic gatherings are indeed fond memories, but it's time to bring out the artillery, its time for change. I'd like to think this book will be used to educate people around the world for many years to come.

Saul and I were of the instant consensus opinion that this book ought to be an instant bestseller.

Brilliant.

Thinking

2007-08-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

Last night, while going through a whole slough of readings for my Partnership & Agency class, I realized that I had gone through a small pile of paper, and that I would be able to parrot a lot of what it said. I wondered if I had really mastered the material well enough, if at all.

Mastery, of course, is no simple thing. It means, at least to me, that I've reached some sort of understanding of the material, to the point that I can turn things over well enough, and twist the material well enough to suit any purpose I can imagine. Memorization, I've come to realize, sometimes helps, because I'd like to think that I've got enough comfort with words and language that I can play with words. But the fact that I've memorized something obviously does not mean that I've mastered it. In fact, lots of the stuff I think I've mastered I didn't even bother memorizing.

But when I wonder if that counts as me really learning, as me really growing, as me actually thinking. People who have heard me rant about law school will remember me ranting about the boring, cumbersome method we usually use: memorization, and mastery of material such that we are able to summon pertinent facts, principles, and doctrines and regurgitate them at will. It's pretty tiring, and pretty challenging, and sometimes I wonder if it's just a matter of personal taste or discipline that stops me from fully appreciating things that I encounter in the material I read. Or is it a question of pedagogy, of teaching methods, of failing to get me to contextualize things properly?

In the movie "The Paper Chase," the fictional Harvard Law School Professor Charles Kingsfield says: "You teach yourselves the law. I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush, and if you survive, you'll leave thinking like a lawyer."

Sure, I'm forced to think from time to time. Mostly about what a particular principle's supposed to mean, and how I'm supposed to apply it, or about what statute or case is applicable to a particular legal controversy. Does that count as seriously exerting myself with thought? Maybe.

I often make jokes about how I feel like a drone, or some sort of search engine. But drones and search engines don't really think. They process information, sure, but I doubt drones, much less search engines, really get "startled into thought" the way, say, I get when I'm presented with a philosophical question (such as a question involving ethics). I can't just regurgitate a principle if I want to think "philosophically," and I can only use a particular writer's insight to back mine up if I want to answer an ethical question. But a lot of the insight, it seems, comes from my head, comes from my personal experiences, comes from me.

So is originality the key? The question might be if we ever really have an original thought or not, or if that's even possible. Some of you might say, "But Miko, your particular use of certain principles in order to answer certain (legal) questions entails thinking!" True, and I might be very wrong about my whole take on approach to this, and maybe I'm probably just being a dick who doesn't want to be satisfied with such a simple matter of fact.

The bottom line, is, however, I don't feel satisfied, and I don't think this is quite enough (and in reply, I can hear, "But Miko, that's not really thought, is it? That's personal taste! That's an irrational response. And quit ranting about law school, Miko, because your grades are quite disappointing.").

Maybe, I'm just bored. Maybe, I'm trying to use reason to justify an irrational feeling. Maybe.

Back when I was a college freshman, I arranged to have special, informal, ungraded classes in philosophy (which I was interested in) under the tutelage of a former member of the philosophy faculty. And because things were largely informal, and because there was some prefacing that needed to be done, he made me read this article by Mark Edmundson, from a 1997 issue of Harper's Magazine. It talks about how some students see a liberal education, and how an educator struggles to reconcile his own beliefs about how education ought to be with the consumerist reality that seems to be the norm in colleges in America.

My own offhand reading of the article yielded the following insight: Lots of students today act like consumers, favoring learning methods and subjects that appeal plainly to interests; colleges (that presumably want to make money, etc.) play to these interests and these kinds of behavior; not everybody thinks properly.

Maybe it's true that there's no such thing as stupid people, just people who don't think enough. (Okay, fine, so there are such things as stupid people.)

But at the risk of sounding like an asshole, I quite agree: a lot of people, even in higher education, don't seem to think enough. Thinking takes too much effort. Thinking takes up too much time, and time is a precious commodity. Other people resort to intellectual snobbery (like me, I guess), and that, instead of spurring thinking, cuts off genuine dialogue.

Why is this so important to me?

Again, at the risk of sounding immodest, and at the risk of sounding like a mosquito asking that a castle's drawbridge be lowered, I'd like to believe that it is possible for people like me to place ourselves in positions of sufficient power/influence/etc. to be able to do anything and get anything we really want. It's easy for people of a certain perverted bent to get away with murder. Imagine placing omnipotence in the hands of someone who doesn't even bother to calculate, and who has utter disregard for such things as truth, beauty, morals, ethics, or anything fundamental.

In short, thinking's important, because we can very easily become monsters when we don't think.

And as rational as I'd like to believe myself to be, I think I can very easily become a monster if I don't exert myself and think about what I'm doing.

And this world does not need more monsters.

I do not believe that thinking is something we just do; it's something we must do.

I've also heard responses that instead of thinking, we should instead take decisive action. Take note that there's a word "decisive" attached to "action." Action alone, is clearly insufficient. And again, even monsters take "decisive" action. But they're monsters, and they cause hurt, destruction, and pain. And besides, I am concerned with "thinking"--clearly, I am concerned with some sort of decisive action. Of course, I don't want to think just for the sake of thinking--that's terrible, and that's not the point--since I suppose that the results of my thoughts probably ought to go somewhere.

Or consider this cute insight from a Star Trek:Voyager episode. Q, a being with attributes of what we'd call a "god" (omnipotence, etc.), minus some maturity, wants to commit suicide. He asks the human captain of the starship Voyager for asylum from the rest of his race, the Q Continuum, in order that he can become mortal, and that he may take his life. And when Captain Kathryn Janeway confronts him about his desire, he says (I am quoting what I remember, not verbatim): "Captain, you're an explorer. What if there's nothing left to explore? What if you've seen everything, and can do everything. Would you want to live forever?"

While I don't want to question the insights of a fictional godlike being, I'd say that mulling a few things over might help. Because maybe thinking's about more than just knowing everything.

In the face of boredom, and in the face of the reality of moral evil, thinking might offer us a way out. But even that deserves some thought, and I have no idea if I've gotten anywhere, or if I'm headed nowhere.

The only thing of substance which I suppose I've said might have been obvious: I don't want to be a monster, and I to do that I suppose I have to think. Or maybe, I want to think just so I don't act stupid.

After parties

2007-08-18T01:28:00.001-07:00

( A rejoinder to the most recent song survey.)

Two weeks. Seven exams.

Three nights, three parties.

Lots of chaos, lots of people.

I

Midterms are finally over. Our last exam was supposed to be on Land Titles, last Tuesday, but since classes/exams were cancelled two weeks ago due to inclement weather, a test I was supposed to have taken two Thursdays ago got moved to Wednesday, after Land Titles. The weather forced another move to Thursday, and yet another to Friday. So after two weeks of exam week anxiety, it's finally over, and we can all finally move on with the usual stress.

Tita Lorna and Monica flew in from the States on the 17th, smack into a typhoon, and they had plans of hitting the beaches of Bohol for some much deserved rest and recreation (Monica celebrated her birthday on the 15th, and this long-overdue trip to the Philippines was her idea of a good time). Since she hasn't been here in ages, I decided to take her out after my exam and after dinner with the rest of the family.

We had a fantastic dinner at Tita Carmille's. Fantastic food, even if it was nothing fancy--just adobong Tagalog, steamed crabs, and squid, and a whole assortment of tropical fruits which were new to Monica--and we were all enjoyed the conversation and old stories. After a slightly mushy talk and gift-giving ceremony held by Mom and her sisters (Tita Lorna was getting sentimental; I don't blame her at all though), I decided to take Monica out so she could see the city at night. We didn't really plan on going very far, just to the outskirts of Quezon City, and then back to Katipunan for a drink with Bea. Monica was amused at the fact that carding is an alien concept here, and at the fact that lots of people here learn to drink in their early teens. She enjoyed the loud music from the band too (or at least, she was being appreciative), and I tried to cram as much as I knew about the metropolis (quite a decent bit) into the quick driving tour we did.

Last I heard, Bohol's weather is halfway decent, which is good.

II

Mika and Cam invited Leio and me to their sorority party on Saturday night. While I wasn't really up to going (I missed my bed, the couch, and my unfinished pile of non-law books and DVDs), I obliged, especially since I knew that hanging out with Mika, Cam, and Leio was going to be great. Leio and dropped by a McDonald's at the Fort. We had a quick bite, talked about the merits of cheeseburgers, and watched someone from the next table get picked up. We then drove over to the club.

The place was more packed than I expected (especially since they were selling tickets for Php500 at the gate [and incidentally, I still owe Mika and Cam for our tickets]), and everybody was having a good time. The invitation said that some of the newest club tracks were going to be played, so I kept my ears tuned to the music and some of the conversations I found myself having with the people I got to meet. It was nice seeing Iñigo, whom I haven't seen in a while, and Rois, Iocis, and Migoy. I also saw some other people whom I recognized from some strange parties I've been to, before I finally settled down near the bar. Cam introduced me to some of her college friends, including this girl named Suzy who I found myself sitting with, and their other friends. My brother Luigi was there with some friends from college, and we had them dance with Suzy's other friends.

It wasn't exactly a wild party (apart from one track the DJ played which featured a remix of heavy breathing and moaning you'd hear from a particularly throaty lady who was playing with herself), but it was the most fun I had in a while. What was pretty wild, I imagine, was the way I drove as I picked some stuff up from Dad's office, and dropped Mika and Leio and Luigi off at home.

III

After dinner with the family, I headed for Mel's house, since Mel's going back to Canada to finish grad school. It was nice being with the [o] boys and our friends again. Since no one really got smashed, we all had our wits about when we started going through old stories from high school, unearthed issues we didn't spot in previous conversations (I guess we were all too smashed when we talked before), and went to talk about everything from Shakespeare (with spontaneous recitations of soliloquies, of course) to cars to dinosaurs to to iambic pentameter to movies to the merits of Phillip Morris to marketing to Batman to Wonder Woman to Maria Ozawa to pornography to computer games to TV shows to practically everything except current events (since we didn't want to get confrontational).

Yes, we talked about a whole lot of shit, and yes, we can talk about a whole lot of shit. That's actually a nice problem to have, as Pochi and Armo pointed out, since we all enjoy mental calisthenics more than actual physical exertion. This is why we need extended vacations: we all enjoy talking, we all enjoy the sounds of our own voices, and we really have stamina for talking about boatloads of crap. We're full of it, and it mean's that we're the shit.

Seriously speaking though, I think it was the most fun a lot of us had in a long time. And it was great to be with my brothers after a harrowing exam week.

Saul and I drove back to Loyola Heights, and then we started talking about music and then more movies and then the merits of Angel Locsin's joining ABS-CBN, and then talked about how corporations manage human resources. Two hours later, we had to go home (since I suspect the KFC we were in front of could have opened if we stayed there long enough).

And right now, I'm still amazed at how all of that went by so quickly.

I popped in a CD with a video which we shot in high school, called "Alimuom." It was a short film that we put together for Filipino class, back then when life seemed much simpler, and when world domination was a little less inevitable.

Then I saw the dedication we put in before the credits: "Para sa Kalon," it read, before fading into the credits.

Today is Aldo's birthday. He would have been 23.

Now, this is what we have: a hodgepodge recollection of random memories, a few half-baked turns of phrase.

And then we have much more than that.

P.S. Thanks to Meghann for telling me about Musicovery. (www.musicovery.com)

Song Survey #4 (Midterm Exams Edition)

2007-08-12T06:32:00.000-07:00

Sunday evening, 3 midterm exams to go.

Spotted playing, c/o iTunes "Recently Played" list:

"Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz
"Strange and Beautiful (I'll Put A Spell On You)" by Aqualung
"Benefits of Lying With Your Friend" by The Apples In Stereo
"Fluorescent Adolescent" by Arctic Monkeys
"Revolution" by The Beatles
"No One Else" by Amel Larrieux
"The Canals of Our City" by Beirut
"Windsurfing Nation" by Broken Social Scene
"Passenger" by The Secret Society
"Writers Block" by Just Jack
"Just Like You Imagined" by Nine Inch Nails
"Who Left The Lights Off Baby" by The Guillemots
"Don't Explain" by Herbie Hancock (featuring Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan)
"Lonely Day" by Phantom Planet
"Over & Over" by Hot Chip
"You're All I Have" by Snow Patrol
"Walk Alone" by Jack Johnson
"Replaceable" by The Killers
"Together in Electric Dreams" as covered by Lali Puna
"Run To The Water" by Live
"Live With Me" by Massive Attack
"Late Night In Zion" by Matisyahu
"Let Me See" by Morcheeba
"Poor Maude" by Pas/Cal
"Make A Baby" by Robin Thicke
"Awesome" by The Satellite Party
"Instant Pleasure" by Rufus Wainwright

Corridor Talk 1

2007-08-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

He was shuffling the small stack of papers, trying to stuff them back into his bag as he walked, when their eyes met.

And then she said, "Are you ready?"

And he said, "Nope. But when are we ever truly ready?"

She let out a small laugh, squeezed his shoulder when she passed him, then walked away.

He watched her as she disappeared into a throng of people surrounding an bulletin board. He got back to working on the papers and trying to put them into the bag. A few of them had fallen out of the stack, and lay scattered all over the floor. Some of them were trampled on. He went back for them, stuffed them into the bag, and walked on.

She didn't get the last sentence. He didn't either. He found the door he was looking for, and shook the thoughts from his head as he turned the knob.

Song Survey #3

2007-07-04T08:31:00.000-07:00

I've been asked what stuff I listen to when I study. Here's a list of some tracks that I've been playing lately, aside from those in Song Surveys 1 & 2.

- "Message In A Bottle" as covered by Brandon Boyd and Gwen Stefani
- "Make This Go On Forever" by Snow Patrol
- "Throw It All Away" by Zero7.
- "New Shoes" by Paolo Nutini
- "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" by Stars
- "Serena" by Duncan Sheik
- "Je N'en Connais Pas La Fin" by Jeff Buckley
- "This Life" by Mandalay
- "Heartbeats" by Jose Gonzalez
- "Teenage Kicks" by Nouvelle Vague
- "Starz In Their Eyes" by Just Jack
- "Earthquake Body" by Still Flyin'
- "Three Seed" by Silversun Pickups
- "Wish Upon A Dog Star" by Satellite Party
- "Here Comes the Flood" by Peter Gabriel
- "Thursday" by Asobi Sesku
- "Boston" by Augustana
- "Revolution" by the Beatles
- "I Can't Make Me" by Butterfly Boucher
- "Really Don't Mind" by Luomo
- "I'm Sorry Mary" by Matt Wertz
- "Let's Call It Off" by Peter Bjorn And John
- "Miss You Love" by Silverchair
- "What Happened to the Sands" by Pas/Cal

I've got a lot more. But these are the songs that keep playing whenever I turn the shuffle function of my iTunes on. It's a healthy mix, methinks. Look for them online or bug me enough and maybe I'll put them up on a playlist that can be downloaded.

June 12.

2007-06-11T06:35:00.000-07:00

In a little less than 24 hours after I write this, the first semester of the new school year is going to begin. God has a sense of irony and humor. Tomorrow is June 12th, Independence Day, and I'm walking back into the cloister.

In my previous post, I wrote about having some apprehensions, and of a little excitement that the year is starting. I wrote about wanting to do better, and that's pretty much the same feeling I have right now.

People have asked me why I think I've been doing badly in school. I don't know if that's their way of being polite while lecturing me about getting back into an old academic form when thing seemed to be so easy.

I guess that's what happens when you seem to do one or two things right, in a manner that's got enough flair to be impressive: you end up raising everybody's expectations. Everybody feels entitled to some sort of satisfaction knowing that things are as they expect, and everybody likes to freak out when you don't live up to ridiculous expectations.

Well, it's never been easy. Never.

Anyway, let me start my school year right by thinking aloud.

Ideally, law school prepares students for two things: passing the bar examinations, and for actual practice if admitted to the practice of law. Thus, day in and day out, students are asked to read, re-read, and re-reread provisions of the positive law and decisions of the courts. This is especially true where I go to to school. The Ateneo, at least as far as my casual, non-mathematical surveys tell me, assigns the heaviest reading load among all major Philippine law schools. On any given day during the school year, I have a pile of anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 pages of material on my desk (to be read over the course of several days, weeks, or months, of course), in addition to books and notes. I only have two eyes, one brain, and one body. I also have one consciousness that I am aware of, so I can't exactly cut my time by reading several different things all at the same time.

In many ways, going through law school seems like going through a blizzard of material that one has to mindlessly plod through. And I say mindless, because there really is very little time to think about certain things in the material; there's other material that's asking to be read. Besides, more often than not, when we're called to recite the law in class, the key concern isn't really what we think, but rather, what the law says, what the courts say the law says. The effort of memorization sometimes ends as memorization as an end. And the regurgitation of law, the parroting of provisions and of judicial decisions is something that comes to many of us as mechanical.

This has got to be one of the most humbling ways of going through stuff to study. At the same time, it's also one of the most pretentious. Upon graduation, I'll get a few more brownie points: No longer just a "bachelor," but a "doctor." Doctor of Jurisprudence.

My problem with that is two-fold. First, the word "doctor" is derived from the word doctus, the fourth principle part of the verb doceo which means "teacher" in Latin. I have no idea if I'll have what it takes to teach effectively. And teach who? Who would want to listen to me?

My second problem apprehension, which I think is more serious, has to do with the title Juris Doctor, which stands translation as either "Doctor of Law" or "Doctor of Jurisprudence."

Our training steeps us in collections of material that hopefully will bring us to a competent knowledge of what the law says. That, for all intents and purposes, is okay. Sure, we'll even get to know a bit of why the law says what it does, if we go through some other material to get an idea of how certain laws came to be and how some other decisions were arrived at.

The thing is, even today, thinkers aren't fully settled about what the law is. We are able to arrive at some sort of understanding of law as a body of rules that gives order. But even that idea has some sort of rational underpinning, which a whole lot of people don't agree upon. When one talks about the law imposing order, one will necessarily have to acknowledge the validity of the counterargument that there is a pre-law order to nature and among creatures, and perhaps law only elucidates what that order is.

And that's just the beginning. Most students will go through law school without seriously considering these questions. Their concern is for what the law says, not necessarily what it is. And although we all have some idea of the ideal world we'd like to live in, since many of us can't even get the ontology of law right, there's an even slimmer chance we can get talking about the normative aspect of law, the ethical aspect, that discussion of what law should be.

Let's talk about jurisprudence. The Latin word, juris is the genitive form of the Latin word jus, which means "law." So, juris, roughly translated into English, means "of law" or "legal." The Latin word prudentia is the Latin word for "knowledge," and it translates directly to English as "prudence." The native English word is "wisdom," which also originally meant "knowledge." So we're talking about legal knowledge. Knowledge of the law. Or, at the very least, a theory of law, a philosophy of law (which is usually the conventional meaning of jurisprudence. For judicial decisions as "jurisprudence," the more precise term is often "case law.").

A philosophy of law. And so the burden gets even heavier. I can now be accused of being too stuck up with definitions and concepts which I've had to digest over the past few years. But I'll stick to a few things I like, and see if that works.

When we speak of a philosophy of law, we inevitably touch on the nature of philosophy. This is a subject matter that deserves a lifetime of discussion altogether. But if I'll be allowed to take things and cram them into a nutshell, maybe we can revisit what Heidegger said about philosophy. We keep asking, "What is Philosophy?" as if we know something about it. And if my reading of Heidegger is correct, he says that this whole manner of asking questions is wrong, if we're going to be serious about asking the question he proposes we ask instead: "Philosophy: What is it?" The manner of asking spells the difference, he says, because we have little idea what philosophy is. And in an essay, he traces the ontology of the word, going back to the Greeks and their idea of philosophia. In some ways, our idea of philosophy as "love of knowledge" makes sense, since we love to pick up on the word "philia" as a Greek word for love, and "sophia" as a Greek word for knowledge. Few people will even bother going through the phrases, hos philein to sophon, or an even deeper question, "Ti to on?" (translated, "What is being?").

Heidegger says that the Greek idea of philosophy eventually finds its root in a constant, arguably neverending, fascination with what is, with being. And if my reading of all those philosophy texts I had to read is correct, then our fascination really never stops, because our ability to comprehend things seems to come to us only in discrete pockets, in boxes, in concepts. We end up abstracting, and miss out on so much in the process.

Law seems to be the same way. It is, arguably, constant abstraction. It defines rules and parameters of engagement between people and people, and between people and social structures. It does so with little idea (so it seems) that at the heart of the concept of "people," of "State," of "government," of "social structure" is the ever-fascinating human being. You and me and they. All of us. All who are not "us" but like us, and even those unlike us.

Perhaps the abstraction is necessary: it might be the only rational, sensible way we can discern how to do things, what things we can allow, and what things we frown upon. Perhaps the idea of law as reflective of some sort of social consensus necessarily implies abstraction, because we cannot, at least as we know how to do things, realistically listen to each and every single member of society.

Von Jhering and Roscoe Pound, as I've written about before, insist on the idea of law as a means to an end. If it seems pretty obvious, it can also seem that it isn't. Perhaps Von Jhering's concept of the Germany of his time persists until today. The legal thinkers of his time were pretty much obsessed with The Law, something great and which they practically put forward as an end-all-be-all of something, a thing unto itself, an end in itself.

Sometimes, that's how it seems in law school. We are called to be in awe at the majesty of the law. To advocate the rule of law.

Isn't that a terrifying thing? To be ruled by an abstract set of ideas that supposedly reflect an ever-changing social consensus (if that's what law is, in the first place), one that heartlessly reduces human beings with lives and stories to tell into mere concepts, statistics, and catchphrases?

Whenever I think of it that way, I find it chilling. Suddenly, even this thought in this blog entry doesn't matter to what's supposed to govern us.

Hobbes and Locke, as well as numerous other thinkers have thought of the way we do things as part of a great social contract. It seems, that in order to pursue the great human interest in self-preservation, we have willingly allowed ourselves to be subjected to the rule of governments, of social structures, of laws and men (who must work within the framework of the laws). And in doing so, in sacrificing certain liberties, we are free to live our lives with a little less fear.

And the law jealously guards this stature and status we have accorded it in exchange for a guarantee of some form of civilized living on the earth. Dura lex sed lex. The law may be harsh, but it's still the law. Pacta sunt servanda. Pacts must be respected. Law must be respected. Social consensus, the dictates of the many, must be allowed to take precedence over the voice of the minority, inspite of all checks and balances developed in the name of equity.

Equity. Fairness. Rawls talks about justice as fairness, about how the rules should be set up to at least offer a chance to the least advantaged. Is this what justice is? Or is justice what the law says it is? If the answer is not in the positive law, where is it? In the hearts of men? In their minds? The law does not seem read minds. It does not seem to read hearts either.

The picture of what law is gets more confused if we consider what more people have to say. Dworkin says, for example, that law is whatever follows from a constructive interpretation of the institutional history of the legal system. A biographical sketch of him says further: "Dworkin argues that moral principles that people hold dear are often wrong, even to the extent that certain crimes are acceptable if your principles are skewed enough. In order to discover and apply these principles, courts interpret the legal data (legislation, cases etc) with a view to articulating an interpretation which best explains and justifies past legal practice. All interpretation must follow, Dworkin argues, from the notion of 'law as integrity' in order to make sense." It also says that one of Dworkin's most interesting and controversial theses states that there is only one right answer for most legal cases.

If court decisions are supposed to be rendered for the sake of justice, does this mean that justice is only served by one answer?

Justice according to whom? Fallible human beings? An imperfect body of law, created by fallible human beings?

And what the hell is justice anyway?

And the questions continue to bewilder me, perhaps as bewildered as you are. (By the way, the biography goes on to say that: "Dworkin's critics argue that not only law proper (that is, the legal sources) is full of gaps and inconsistencies, but also that other legal standards (including principles) may be insufficient to solve a hard case. Some of them are incommensurable. In any of these situations, even Hercules would be in a dilemma and none of the possible answers would be the right one.")

These are concerns and questions which I think are valid, and which I often find myself getting frustrated over, because I don't think I can find a sufficiently satisfying answer. Maybe I never will, and maybe I am doomed to live this frustration out.

Since I'm enjoying trying to philosophize, and since philosophy is something that is done, then perhaps I can revisit some things that concern me.

Unlike, say, life, I can actually imagine my sort-of-purpose in deciding to go to law school.

When I was going over the application materials, I saw that one of the things I would have to submit was an essay on why I was going to law school, and why the Ateneo School of Law was the school I wanted to attend.

I don't have a copy of the file anymore, but my answer went something like this: I was pretty unhappy in college with how bored I was, which made my grades suffer, and which made me rather unmotivated (I'd have occassional fits of megalomania, but not really any motivation). And so, one day, life and the universe seemed to open up to me, and it made perfect sense for me to go to law school, and when I told my father that I had decided to apply, he asked me, over his obvious joy, if it was what I really wanted to do. After all, he joked, there was no justice in the Philippines. And that was a notion I could not get out of my mind, one that I found absolutely abhorrent. And all of a sudden, I (probably deluded myself into thinking that I) had a purpose to go to law school, after all: I'd learn, and then I'd do what I could to make the world a better place. Yes, I would be a champion of justice, a modern-day superhero with genuine concern for my fellow children of God, and so on and so forth. All of a sudden, I wanted to go to law school, because it was what the world wanted me to do. It was what the world needed me to do.

And now, a year of law school later, I find that I am nowhere close to learning what I need to learn, because some questions which I think are basic and fundamental are questions that I will probably never find any satisfactory answers to. Whether or not this is supposed to deter me is something that I have yet to fully grasp. And who knows, maybe one of these days, I'll just decide to delude myself into thinking I have some answers that are worth sharing, that are worth teaching, that are worth advocating and dying for and all that.

But then again, maybe, just maybe, this feeble attempt at an answer will satisfy me for the time being:

Law is, perhaps, something that finds whack jobs like me, and that calls me to want to do something to make this world a little better. Perhaps it's something that can tolerate me enough to call me to push myself, so that when the time comes, I can help people be a little more free.

Happy Independence Day.

The rains have come.

2007-06-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

The rains have come, finally letting some cooler weather happen. The heat has been ridiculous, and I've found it hard not to break a sweat because of the humidity in Metro Manila. I've been trying to get back into shape, and in spite of how slow life seems here, I think I've been pretty productive. I've moved new cabinets into my room so Mom could keep the older stuff I used to have (they're older than both of us). I've also managed to shake off some of the weight that I put on during my last two weeks in Los Angeles, so the clothes I managed to shop for are finally starting to fit properly (and since using a dryer to dry my clothes is bad for the electric bill, I don't have to worry about them shrinking any more).

And with the rains comes the start of the school year, which will begin for me and some of my friends on the 12th. June 12th, Independence Day, and I'll be stuck in traffic, the library, or the confines of a classroom again. How fucking ironic. I'm actually thrilled that the semester's starting, because I figure that the start of every semester's another chance to do better in school. My grades from last semester don't make me very happy, but I'm too relieved that I survived to actually feel disappointed.

In the spirit of getting back into academic shape (mens sana in corpore sano, after all, does talk about mens sana, after all; although my corpore isn't exactly sano), Dad's been bugging me about getting started on some reading. It's not as if I haven't actually been reading anything related to law school during my little U.S. trip (I spent some of my free time poring over this paper, "Separation of Parties, Not Powers" by Levinson and Pildes, as well as the reaction by another professor), and I did visit two law schools too. But the books that he got me are starting to gather dust.

I'm procrastinating. Again.

I have a copy of the Civil Code beside me, with the pages I need to read all marked and prepped for me to go through them. I'm actually done going through the provisions (reading's pretty easy if you just mindlessly plod on without trying to think or retain anything), but I haven't really buckled down and gotten serious.

I've resolved to go through all of the stuff again tonight, and maybe tomorrow morning before going out for a quick run. I've also programmed my schedule so that I'm forced to sit down and get cracking.

I probably sound like a nerd.

The problem is, the temptations which I've tried long and hard to exorcise are back. The TV's been showing some pretty interesting stuff lately (like the usual Philippine poltical drama). Ali's needed some help writing a brochure for the Ateneo, and I've helped him with that. Bea's gotten a set of DVDs, which include some pretty neat movies and old TV shows ("Felicity," anyone?). There's also new music to be listened to, although I do manage to just appreciate music played in the background when I work. New restaurants are popping up everywhere, and food is always good. And everybody's around me again, so there's a whole lot of people to see. I've also got a pile of blank paper, pens and pencils, and drawing skills that are dying to be put to good use.

Law school, I figure, really is like rain. When it starts, the downpour is constant, and sometimes it's really nice to just stare out the window. It's also tempting to just let laziness take hold, curl up in bed, and sleep things off. It can also be very annoying, depending on one's tolerance to getting wet. It's can be a tempest that has to be braved, or a storm that will drown you, or for those who want a nice mindfuck, moisture for parched earth. It's coming, like the dark clouds that form on the horizon when a storm's coming.

Now, I'm gushing.

I've always liked the rain. It makes the heat bearable. It gives people an excuse to bundle up. And it makes hot coffee or chocolate seem like a good idea. And like I wrote in a previous column, the rain makes sense.

It's awfully hard to shake off the last summer vacation I'll ever have. The last one with few consequences, at least.

But the rain makes sense, and the rain has come.

And my books are waiting to be opened.

Little Volcano #2 - On winning the elections

2007-05-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a lot of e-mail about the elections back home. I guess I can write about that.

Every three years, a whole slough of idealists, young politicians, assholes, movie stars and has-beens, morons, and lots of other genuinely nice people try their hand at the elections, all wanting a shot at public office and either the responsibility or opportunity that come with it. And because election season in the Philippines can floor any reality TV show (except, perhaps, the whole impeachment drama that went on several years ago), one can expect that candidates go into the process with some sort of hype: some want to be planted in the senate, others have their superstar wives help promote their cause, others say they want to represent the homosexuals in society, and so on. Everybody trumpets a cause. Everybody is holier than everybody else. Everybody wants what's best for the Filipino people (what that term means, however, is up for debate). Everybody wants to put an end to poverty, corruption, crime, and the moral degeneration of society.

That's all pretty noble. And when people say they will fight for such lofty causes, they mean it. I don't have the exact figures, but several hundred people have died due to election-related violence. That's right: people will not only fight for their cause, some of them will kill you or have you killed if you're not one with theirs. This year's elections have been "relatively peaceful," according to some officials, since only several hundred people have died instead of thousands. I'll say it again: If you've been orchastrating political and extrajudicial killings since 2004, you'll probably need to kill less people in 2007.

Everybody prays for honest, orderly, and peaceful elections. We don't like the idea of people cheating (even if some of them might be sitting in Malacañang right now), and so civil society comes up with several poll watchdog groups, and every candidate fields private armies, whether armed or not, as poll-watchers to supervise the casting and counting of ballots. Hence, the sight of several thousand trumpeteers each trumpeting for a different candidate shouldn't be surprising. Nor should we be surprised that our elections aren't orderly. Wanting honest elections probably should probably include the honest realization that the way we do things today is absolutely stupid. And let's not even talk about our elections being peaceful anymore.

What way of doing things is so stupid? Well, we insist on counting our ballots by hand. That's several million ballots. We've come up with schemes to automate our elections, but local politics prevents that from really taking off.

People are so scared of technology, and because of that, they entertain this stupid paranoia about machines providing even more opportunities for cheating (our public officials, many of whom probably do not know how to use microwaves, try to be fashionable and deploy such terms as "hacking," "tampering," "network" and so on.). I'm unsure if people understand that if you build the system right, you will be able to at least make the the using the system to cheat very, very hard, or maybe reduce the "margin-of-cheating." We don't necessarily have to go all-digital. We can use punch cards, but then again some of our officials might bring up the possibility of what happened in Florida in 2000 being repeated in the Philippines.

And so, what happens? Utter chaos. Glorious chaos.

Every single losing candidate claims that he or she was cheated. There must be some sort of electoral fraud going on. Every single winning candidate says that he or she won, in spite of the cheating against him or her. There must be some sort of electoral fraud. At least they agree on something.

It's rather sad that in spite of all the calls by civil society for vigilance, electoral fraud does happen. Our elections remain dishonest, chaotic, and violent. Clearly, changing officials isn't enough. Nor will automation of elections be enough. Cultural change might be the way to go. But this is the Philippines, and it seems that sometimes, not even that is enough.

As a parting shot, a few words about and to our candidates.

During our elections, it's a rare thing to see someone concede. Everybody declares victory, finding some pathetic excuse, finding some obscure silver lining in the face of utter defeat. There have been presidential candidates in the past who have refused to concede even if they were behind by over 5 million votes with about two million votes left uncounted. Other polticians say, "it's okay if we lose the Senate, at least we've got the House and the local elections."

But dear candidates, that's a good attitude. Never, ever concede. You're doing what you believe is what's right. You're doing what you believe is best for the country, and for ordinary citizens like me. You've fought hard. Good and God are on your side. And I'm sure, that you certainly did your best. That, in itself, makes you all winners. Congratulations!

Song Survey #2

2007-05-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

By popular demand, here's a new playlist. Like the first song survey, this stuff's arranged according to theme.

Oh, all of them will work as roadtrip music. Just set your player on random. Or arrange them so the slow songs hit the third fourth of all the tracks.

Saturday night street walking/roadtrip
"Clamour For Glamour" - The Ark
"Collarbone" - Fujiya and Miyagi
"And I Was A Boy From School" - Hot Chip
"D Is For Dangerous" - Arctic Monkeys

Getting smashed together
"When I Get You Alone" - Robin Thicke
"Wouldn't Get Far" - The Game feat. Kanye West
"6 Underground" - Sneaker Pimps
"Girls" - The Prodigy
"Damn Girl" - Justin Timberlake
"Canned Heat" - Jamiroquai

Errands/Downtime
"Sad Boys Dance!!" - The Secret Society
"Revolution" - The Beatles
"Aisle 10 (Hello Allison)" - Scapegoat Wax
"All I Want" - Toad The Wet Sprocket

Excuses, notes to self
"Lover, You Should Have Come Over" - Jeff Buckley
"In The End" - Scott Matthew
"Nightclubbing" - Iggy Pop
"20,000 Seconds" - K's Choice
"Keep It Together" - Guster
"Coffee and Cigarettes" - Michelle Featherstone

Long Drives
"This Piece Of Poetry Is Meant to Do Harm" - The Ark
"Lazy Eye" - Silversun Pickups
"Lust In The Movies" - The Long Blondes
"The Bird Is Aware" - Still Flyin'
"Lebanese Blond" - Theivery Corporation
"Consequence" - The Notwist
"Nothing Left To Lose" - Mat Kearney
"I Don't Do Crowds" - Camera Obscura

Midnight, Peet's Coffee/Let's Get Smashed Together
"My Funny Valentine" - Chet Baker
"Come Lie Down With Me (And Sing My Song)" - Elf Power
"How My Heart Behaves" - Feist
"Lazy Eye" - Silversun Pickups
"I Want You" - Massive Attack
"May I Have This Dance" - Copeland
"Lost Without U" - Robin Thicke
"The Blowers Daughter" - Damien Rice
"Is You Or Is You Ain't My Baby" - Anita O'Day

Escaping flatland
"City of Blinding Lights" - U2
"Wish Upon A Dog Star" - Satellite Party
"Thursday" - Asobi Seksu
"Beautiful" - Goldfrapp
"Speed of Sound" - Coldplay
"Winter's Love" - Animal Collective

Starting a fire
"Future Foe Scenarios" - Silversun Pickups
"Eleanor Rigby" - The Beatles
"People of the Sun" - Rage Against The Machine
"Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" - Cyndi Lauper
"Last Goodbye" - Jeff Buckley

With much thanks to Trina, Isa, Monica, Nicolo, Gabe, and everybody else who helped me discover these songs.

Introducing Little Volcano

2007-05-16T02:18:00.000-07:00

Starting today, I'll be running a little experiment to see if I can be made to write on this thing a bit more often. I call it Little Volcano.

It's pretty simple, actually. Since I've been getting a lot of interesting stuff in my e-mail, and have been seeing some interesting stuff on TV, and have been reading even more interesting stuff on the little shoutbox on the right side of this blog, I've decided to take the most interesting stuff and write little reactions, maybe on a weekly basis.

Pontification is something readers ought to expect. A little arrogance, and maybe one or two apologies every so often. But just like the rest of this blog, this is anything goes.

If you want to send stuff or ask questions, I can write about those too. Send an email to writetomiko at gmail.com. I'll just reply to the ones that catch my interest the most. Spam and other crap will be deleted.

For this first "issue," I'll be writing about the following topics:

- Jamie
- acting
- writing about Philippine politics

Jamie
I've often been asked if Jamie and I are (still) together. The answer is no. We're not. We technically broke up quite a bit ago. But Jamie and I have been great friends, and I think that's how things will always be. We often still act as if we're together, or at least we still have the same comfort around one another. It goes without saying that I still love her to pieces. Right now, we don't need the whole boyfriend-girlfriend label, which comes with expectations that tend to make people focus on the relationship and "technicalities" or conventions, instead of just the caring for the other person.

Acting
People on the shoutbox have written about how they used to see me on TV. That was years ago, when I was still acting on TV. I had that little stint for a good four years, from 1998 to 2002, with most of my working hours eating into the precious weekends which I had during high school. I quit after four years (even if my contract did say that I could go for it for another year) mainly because I was going to college (and we all know how THAT turned out), and also because I was already extremely bored and rather unhappy. Bored and unhappy? Contrary to what a lot of people think, working in Philippine show business isn't exactly glamorous, nor is it just glitz and fun and photo-ops. It's a lot of waiting, hard work, putting up with absolute morons and having to deal with so much petty bickering that our politicians actually seem like they're having decent discussions in comparison. One also has to deal with the fact that one can't simply be an actor--he has to be able and willing to sing or dance or act like a shithead on TV. It's also being able to put on so much airs and maintain some sort of image. People who know me will know that I'm all about being real, and would rather get into a huge fight rather than have to act all fake and artificially pleasant around certain people. It's also knowing that there's hardly any real art in it, just spewing out crap which we think the masses like, in effect failing to elevate the consciousness of the masses. I think this particular phenomenon is still apparent when we think of such ideas as "Boom Tarat Tarat."

Pay was halfway decent (although if you must know, I blew practically all of my savings on some pretty neat things). That's all I'm going to say about that. Ever. Case closed.

There's an upside, of course. First, I got to learn about earning and handling money at a much younger age than most of my peers. Second, I met a lot of interesting people, and the experience was an excellent balance to my rather sheltered life as a student at the Ateneo. Third, there was the real chance to make the day of some people. Especially kids. To this day, one thought that continues to make me smile about working in show business was seeing a kid smile because he or she liked me or liked what I was doing.

People often ask me if I want to come back. I don't know. It certainly is tempting. But I'd rather not do things that way. I'd rather do independent films and work more on being an actor rather than being an "artista."

(And then I'll run for public office. And if I get stereotyped as just another dumb actor trying to break into politics, I'll feed anyone who does the stereotyping photocopies of my degrees.)

So much for that.

Writing about Philippine politics
Writing about Philippine politics is fun. It's not just ranting and raving (well you can do that, but you'll be wasting bandwidth), but rather, actually trying to use your brain to come up with some thoughts about the good, the bad, and the administration. Right now, though, I honestly would like to see more people writing about things, if only to create discourse. And then maybe when we've actually started THINKING about things, maybe we can start DOING things about what we think.

H.P.O.S.

2007-05-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

I am a hypocritical piece of shit. After months of ranting about how the Philippines has been so fucked up because of our fucked up politics, I passed on my chance to vote. I was supposed to head home on the 11th of May, just in time for Mother's Day and so I could troop to a precinct and vote the following day.

Instead, in a fit of disillusionment (there goes some attempt at deflecting any flak thrown my way), I called the PAL office and told them I wanted my flight rescheduled to May 18th. Now, since disillusionment is usually never enough, what could have possibly tempted me, armchair politician, to choose to stay in Uncle Sam's backyard for another week?

Vegas, baby.

I went to Vegas over the weekend with Tito Gerry, Tita Nilda, and Nadine, hoping to make a small fortune. After watching "Love" at the Mirage and calling Mom to give her a little Mother's Day greeting (I've been getting a bit mushier with family ever since I got here. I guess my cousins' collective mushiness for family is starting to rub off), I decided to try my luck in the casino.

While the jackasses near me started raking in thousands of dollars from their tables and slot machines, the only card I managed to play right was my ID. I ended up losing $20 in five minutes, which isn't a big amount, considering the circumstances. But it was big enough for me to realize that karma was more than willing to kick my ass for not being a good citizen.

Fuck that. I just wanted to have a good time, that's all. And I guess it wasn't my lucky day. No need to go into karma and stuff like that.

After a surprisingly fast 4 1/2 hour drive from Vegas back to LA (which included a few stops to grab quick bites), I managed to catch the opening of the polls, and found myself glued to the TV until around 1 in the morning. And even now, I find it hard to shake the nagging notion that I should've been there.

Oh well. Boo hoo.

The most amazing thing about it all is that I haven't gotten a lot of flak from people about my decision to stay for a week longer. In fact, I haven't gotten any flak at all, not unless you consider people saying, "Oh well, so much for that, there's always next time" flak.

There's always next time. Sure. That's classic Filipino optimism. And I'll buy it.

Having been glued to the TV for much of the day today, I was watching the figures come in, and must say that I'm quite pleased with the results so far. That good feeling, however, has been slightly ruined by some pretty stupid commentaries by grumpy old folks who are partly responsible for electing the current crappy politicians, some let's-try-to-act-like-good-sports-even-if-we're-being-clobbered commentaries by some of hte gandidates, and by GMA Network's horrendous coverage (then again, I've always been biased for ANC when it came to Philippine news on TV) which I mistakenly though would be halfway decent every time I decided to switch between Filipino channels.

What's been quite sad is how some morons are saying that this year's elections have been relatively peaceful. Apparently, only hundreds were killed, instead of the usual thousands. Yahoo! Only hundreds of lives were wasted in the name of electing our politicians for the sake of our primetime entertainment on the evening news! Yahoo! Seriously, if you have poltical killings SINCE 2004, you're probably going to have to kill a lot less people in 2007, right?

I was talking to a friend, and I wanted him to take time off from work, since it's supposed to be end of the campaign period. Days like these, when we are supposed to be liberated from the endless bullshitting by candidates, bad commercials, and wasted newspaper space, ugly billboards and other urban junk, should be made holidays. But no. The commentaries from some candidates sounded exactly like their campaigns.

It's so funny how everybody's afraid of being cheated. And it's sad how cheating during elections seems to be a cultural fact. Pretty soon, it might be normal for our news media to show "margin of cheating" statistics as possible margins of error for election figures.

There's still something sinister about how the outcome of all of this is going to be. The opposition will win the Senate, and will be capable of removing Arroyo through an impeachment trial. But Gloria never seemed to really care much about the Senate. She's all about abolishing it, and all she really wants to secure are the House to prevent any impeachment bid, and the local authorities, so that another people's initiative bid can be launched.

And the current poll rankings are equally sinister. Chiz Escudero, whom I like, is leading. But I've always been pretty afraid of Chiz Escudero. I've often made comments about how he seems like someone who will become the next Ferdinand Marcos. A friend of mine thinks he's already like a young Palpatine. I thought the artista days were over, but Loren Legarda's #2 (but then again, she's not really an actress, she was a newscaster, so there might be some distinction there). Trillanes is in the top 12 so far. But then again, if the objective is to abolish the Senate, then it doesn't matter. None of the hoopla on media does.

I can go on, and on, and on. I still think that we're playing into someone's hand. Not necessarily Arroyo's, but someone is playing all of us. A few years back, after the farce that was EDSA II, I imagined that one day, our politicians would all appear on TV, take a bow, and tell us we've all been had.

We should be so lucky.

We often talk about our fragile democracy. And yet we fail to fully digest that democracy, crudely put, means "power to the people." People are at the heart of democracy. It's not simply the one who gets the most votes, especially since one can cheat to get the most votes. It's not simply the rule of the majority, because that can degenerate into tyranny predicated on sheer numbers. Nor is it anarchy.

It is, I'd like to think, realizing that people matter, that the people matter. And sometimes, my vote should be weightier than yours, and your voice should sometimes be louder than mine. Not because that's against what democracy is, or because I don't believe in people having equal opportunities. But sometimes, that is precisely what we need, not because it's romantic, but because it is right.

With every political upheaval we've had, I usually hope we get shocked enough to want to change things. I know I would like to help that happen. Instead, I decided to stay away from home.

I should have been there.

I am a hypocritical piece of shit.

Table manners

2007-05-01T01:15:00.000-07:00

People have been asking me where I've been, or why I haven't been writing in this blog for weeks on end. I've just been around taking planes and trains to cities in the States, soaking up some rest, enjoying the recreation, and going on fact-finding missions which may spell some pretty serious implications about my near future. There are photos up on Multiply, by the way.

It sucks that I forgot my journal back home, which means that aside from the photos and I guess the choice of music that I've been buying (I'll probably be called an idiot by some spendthrift friends, since I could've just mooched the music off somebody's iPod instead of buying the CDs for myself, but fuck it, I like the idea of having records around the house), I've been keeping up the great feeling of this trip bottled up. I did promise Mika and some other friends who also like music that I'd probably draw up a playlist just so I can communicate this much better, but I haven't gotten around to doing that. I probably will when I get back home to lovely Loyola Heights.

So, without a journal, I've been scribbling on toilet paper and napkins, and the occasional pad of paper that I get to encounter.

(By the way, grades just got in. I'd love to be disappointed. But right now, I'm just relieved.)

Here's something I've been working on, drawn mainly from the times that I get to sit down and eat with people. It's probably going to be obscure, but I've been in a sort of obscure/anonymous/if-you-don't-get-it-or-like-it-who-gives-a-fuck phase. Pardon me if that seems arrogant. It is.

Table manners
The air, with a playful finger
traces a line up from my ankles,
and reaches into my pants.
My hairs are standing on end,
and the goosebumps on my skin are quivering.

And this is just what happens under the table.
My eyes stare out into space, and I ask
about what the fuck is happening.
Nothing and everything, depending
entirely on how I'd have things turn out.

My hands grope the table as I reach
for the ale beside my plate.
The wet glass surface is cold;
the beer holds a candle near my ears,
breaks the ice between us.

We clink glasses to celebrate the sunny day,
wishing each other health with our glasses raised.
Inebriated, we fall into chuckling, and then silence.
We grope for the forks and knives so we can get busy.
Maybe with our mouths full, we can avoid unnecessary conversation.

After sipping your drink, after licking your lips,
you ask me for a piece of my roasted chicken.
Pleasantly obliged, I raise the piece I've forked
to your mouth for your happy consumption,
and feel your eyes burn me with hungry expectation.

The rain makes sense

2007-03-23T03:02:00.000-07:00

In literature, there's an often-cited image of a hush before the storm. I've observed it once, when I sat outside my house waiting for the rain to fall, precisely to see if there's such a phenomenon.

It's almost undetectable. One has to really keep still and silent, hopefully in a quiet place. Given enough luck, one will be able to make out a moment of silence just as the first drops of rain begin to hit the pavement. All of a sudden, there's a cacophony of splattering, and then he sound of a great rush of water falling down. If the storm's a real storm, the wind begins to howl, adding ot the strange, wet symphony.

Clearly, I overanalyze.

I'm a fan of the rain, and of nice, cool weather, when it's not stupid to get dressed up, and when the cold weather makes sitting down with close friends over steaming cups of coffee (or chocolate) wonderful. It's when cuddling should be proper, and when laying in bed, refusing to throw the sheets off and get up should be rewarded.

For the more sentimental (or, as someone once told me, "emo-ey"), the rain offers a chance to reflect on one's state of being, and if one's friends are not around, on loneliness and maybe a sense of purpose.

I think we enjoy the rain because the rain makes so much sense. We enjoy how tactile it can be: cold and wet and soaking, seemingly never-ending when we play in it in times that we can afford to be that carefree. We enjoy the idea of a parched earth getting its drink, of an atmospheric cycle cleansing the air, of our roads getting soaked and the dust we create being washed away. We like the rain, perhaps because it cools and cleanses.

It brings to mind Thales of Miletus, arguably the first Greek philosopher, who proposed the idea that everything is water, or more precisely, the stoicheion, or what binds the cosmos is water. Hence, we love the rain because seeing it allows us to see that everything ought to make sense, everything is closely tied together. Throw in the notion of sharing body warmth, or of realizing how alone one can be, and that idea seems to make even more sense.

As I write, the momentary hush before the storm of finals weeks is upon me. Everything is supposed to make sense. And yet I'm sure, as the week goes by before my first year as a student of the law ends on April 4th, I'll be bewildered, confused, and angry, and will soon be ranting about how nothing seems to make sense, how pointless this all seems to be, how I ought to be living my life in a far more entertaining manner, or perhaps a more productive one, than being holed up in libraries and carrels and my room, poring over books for the sake of classroom work that forces me to memorize more than think.

I remember a question thrown at me: "So, what's so civil about the Civil Code?" I had no answer. I still don't have one now. None that's worthy of the question, at least. All I can do is guess: It's about being civil. Abide by it, you'll live and let live.

I'll offer some cheese and say that sunshine beckons past the stormcloud, and that a rainbow is in the making. Past the gloom, the raging downpour (of either rain or senseless information), past the calm eye, and past the storm's wake, the sun beckons.

The sun beckons with promises of sunshine and clear horizons. The sun beckons with the promise of my last summer vacation, ever. There's a rainbow of things to be discovered, arrayed like the clouds sweeping over sunlit shores.

Again, an old prayer: "Lead us not into temptation." And with that, another prayer, for certainty and fortitude. And for a raincoat.

The Internet is full of shit.

2007-03-11T09:18:00.000-07:00

The Internet is full of shit.

I get a shitload of spam everyday, and that clogs up my e-mail.

There's a lot of stupid information, too.

It was on the Internet that I found this.

What. The. Fuck.

Apparently, it has something to do with the name "Miko" being a girl's name in Japanese. And according to my friend, it means, "Sacred Maiden."

Right.

I also found out that I apparently own a gambling site, or a "lotteng," as reported by Raffy Tulfo. Wow.

The Internet is full of shit!

Trekkies, can this be a sign?

2007-03-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

I've always enjoyed watching Star Trek.

And if you think that it's only something nerds will watch, you either suck, or you're an asshole. The Star Trek franchise is one of the best on the planet (or the universe, assuming we're not alone).

The insights offered in some of the movies are really simple. If we band together as a planet, we'll make it. And in the Star Trek franchise, after Earth nearly gets obliterated because of World War III, some scientist decides to try and make some money by building a ship that can fly at light speed (he ends up going a bit past that).

And when he does so, he catches the attention of aliens, who realize that hey, there's a warp-capable civilization. This little solar system isn't so backwater after all.

First contact happens, and so because we realize that we've got to fend for ourselves amid a galactic community, we've got to get our act together. The remnants of the UN consolidate a planetary government. Inspired by the aliens, we do away with currency(!), and we espouse a system of altruism where we allocate resources where they're needed. People get some sort of "currency" to trade for little luxuries, but they're not really needed, since eventually we develop stuff that just allows us to create matter from energy and replicate stuff.

Fifty years after warp flight, disease, poverty, and war disappear from the face of the Earth. Humanity flourishes, and if we believe Star Trek, becomes the center of the universe (and of course, because the series was developed by Americans, the main base of the United Federation of Planets is found in San Francisco, USA) in a way.

Lofty stuff, yes? Sounds good, yes?

Yes. So good that this guy wants to campaign using a foreign language: Klingon.

Apparently, Earth-standard English isn't good enough. So go for the language of an empire that prides itself in its system of honor.

Who knows? Maybe he'll catch the attention of some aliens.

Maybe they'll even be Klingons.

Trekkies, can this be a sign?

Searching for a place of power.

2007-03-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

(After a post about me and my high school classmates, which I imagine has ended up offending some readers, this entry might be more refreshing.)

Philosophers, writers, and really, everyday people, often talk about places of power. Sacred spaces, where we are at our best, where the world and God are suddenly connected in a place (or person) that, as hierophany, is a potent center where we are sure we are listened to (if you're a philosophy professor, and you disagree, go right ahead). We talk about places where feel we are most comfortable, or where we can say that we both have no fear and are full of it, as we are steeped in the awesome majesty of the human connection between people, between people and the world, and between people and God.

More often than not, we seem to be quite ambivalent when it comes to our lives, simply because we haven't "found our center," or we haven't located a place where we can simply let be. We are, more often than not, in search of a place of power, of hierophany, of sacred space.

Those of you who may have heard me rant about how, say, the Ateneo in Rockwell lacks a place of power might understand what I'm trying to say: the law school's a building where every second counts, where every moment is spent in search of either the truth of the law, or perhaps cramming to get an ever-important set of facts and doctrines forced into memory. Gone, at least for me, are Loyola's quiet little nooks and crannies, where I could simply sit among the trees, and keep quiet. There's a rooftop in the Rockwell building, but it doesn't quite fit the bill. And even the prayer room, with its impressive, iconic crucifix doesn't quite do it for me. You see, I've long considered the Ateneo campus in Loyola Heights my own place of power, where I can walk, run, clear my head, think, write, and simply let myself be.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, as Conrado de Quiros did in his column in yesterday's Inquirer, we ask: What's in a place? De Quiros says, everything. In the same column, he wrote about how it was such a great idea for a political debate to be held in Plaza Miranda, where allegedly any law can be defended, where transparency is the norm, and so on. He also wrote about how EDSA was marked, by say, Cardinal Sin, and how the political movements on EDSA were powerfully marked by a connection between God and Church, between grace and Sin. He was, in short, writing about the value of places. Special places. And to some, sacred spaces.

A lot of the people from my generation (to which De Quiros cannot claim to belong) have long since been disconnected from the great historical significance of Plaza Miranda. We were taught in our history classes that that's where the opposition against Marcos held rallies, until that fateful day when Plaza Miranda was bombed. Today, Plaza Miranda is just that: a plaza in front of the Quiapo Church, a reminder of long-gone days of halfway better politics compared to today's. Plaza Miranda, at least the way I see it, is nothing more than a museum piece that will not effectively serve the same purpose that it used to serve.

My generation can perhaps lay some claim to EDSA. After all, that's where people from my generation, and that of my parents, and maybe even theirs, toppled Marcos in a "bloodless revolt" that was hailed the world over. EDSA I, they say, was a feat, a gift of the Filipino people to the world. It was the potency of EDSA that Gloria and her co-conspirators tapped, together with an irate minority from Metro Manila, to topple Joseph Estrada from the presidency during the coup pretentiously called EDSA II (which I am proud to say I was not part of). It was also this potency that hordes of the poor tried to channel in their outpouring of rage during EDSA III, which, sadly, was only broadcast on TV through the channel of the Iglesia ni Cristo. In any case, EDSA set a dangerous precedent: if you have a bone to pick with a politician, take it to the streets. Hence the rallies that we have today.

EDSA's significant because it's a huge street, and is arguably the most important thoroughfare in Metro Manila, and because on the site of the EDSA shrine we have a center that connects north, south, east, and west. The fact that a shrine is in fact located on it only underscores the reverence and sacredness that we have given EDSA.

I believe that many will agree with me when I say that EDSA is dead. It was killed not solely by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her policies like calibrated preemptive response, nor by Raul Gonzales' threats to sue people for sedition/rebellion/inciting to either, nor by the Catholic Church which has in the aftermath of EDSA III refused to allow the use of the EDSA Shrine as some sort of focal point for mass action on EDSA. EDSA was killed by the same people who channeled its power: the middle class (although one might say that the power of EDSA died with Cardinal Sin). The middle class demystified it (blasphemed it, even), when it committed the sin of EDSA II, which led to the throes of EDSA III. The middle class killed EDSA when it tolerated the non-use of EDSA by some members of civil society when it came to mass action.

It must be a really terrible slap in the face, how Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who herself was a beneficiary of EDSA, locks it down every time there is a political rally that might be brewing, with hordes of soldiers and armed policemen. It must be quite ironic (or poetically just) that the person whom the middle class placed in power through EDSA has practically shat on the spirit of EDSA. We will remember how she signed Presidential Proclamation 1017 on the anniversary of EDSA, for example, and how some people were unjustly arrested on the orders of a person who may have cheated her way into the power she currently holds, and who refuses to be accountable to the people the way she demanded accountability and advocated change when she came to power on EDSA.

Now, EDSA's a dead relic as a place of political might, and I seriously doubt whether it will ever be an effective place for the people (at least of Metro Manila) to express their anger and petition government for redress of grievances. Its potential is as dead as the quality of the road itself, marked as it is by potholes and uneven surfaces, with the air above it choking with pollution.

My generation, this country's future, is without a place of power now. And while it might be an interesting proposition that the magic of Plaza Miranda be revived, I still don't think people will care enough to troop there and listen so that we can change the country with our ballots.

I have no idea where we can go now. I know of no place that we can sanctify with our sacrifices of effigies, that we can make holy with our prayers of a better tomorrow for our country. I know no place where we, as the sovereign people, can come together to make our sentiment definitively known. Of course, there's a problem in bringing people together effectively now, but that's not the point. I'll even argue that people don't go to rallies because nowhere's as good, as, say, EDSA, or simply because there has been no place for people to really rally. There's no rallying point, no more center of power.

We can turn to our churches, our schools, and our own little office spaces. We can turn to our hearts, and fight within ourselves. But introspection will not work with the same efficacy as coming together.

We are in search of a place where, because of its nature, people will be drawn to, where they are sure that they will be heard by both man and God, where every word drawn from a quivering lips will echo through the air like a storm that sweeps the streets clean of scum. We are searching for our center, our rally point. We are searching for a place of power.

The [o] Boys and Pinoy Big Brother

2007-03-06T08:40:00.000-08:00

In one of those rare instances where I actually got to watch TV, I caught an episode of Pinoy Big Brother. And in the course of the discussion about what was going on on TV, a friend brought up the once tossed-around idea of the [o] boys guesting on Pinoy Big Brother, or having a Pinoy Big Brother, [o] Boy Edition.

Some insights:

1. It will be the most boring show on earth, because it'll feature nothing more than a bunch of boys in their 20s, sitting around, lounging, sleeping, cursing (in different languages), drinking, smoking, or lying atop each other in a pile of humanity, which is something the world should be used to (especially since history shows us that this happens practically anywhere).

2. It'll be the best fucking show on earth, because it'll feature nothing more than a bunch of boys in their 20s, sitting around, lounging, sleeping, cursing (in different languages), drinking, smoking, or lying atop each other in a pile of humanity, which is something the world should be used to (especially since history shows us that this happens practically anywhere, but since the [o] boys are the ideals of model human beings, nobody will be able to pull it off the way we do.)

3. ABS-CBN will have to change the rating from PG to R-18 or X. Whatever happens, viewer discretion will be necessary.

4. Since we'll probably be uncooperative, and act like a bunch of spoiled, conceited neanderthals with a flair for culture and the true and the good and the beautiful, and since we'll likely castigate Big Brother, we'll probably get kicked out, en masse, after a few days, which will cause ABS-CBN to totally botch its programming schedule, screwing up its profits, and since they're supposed to be in debt, they'll lose all their property (which also means the world will be rid of Sam Milby, which is a good thing).

5. Since we'll probably be uncooperative, and act like a bunch of spoiled, conceited neanderthals with a flair for culture and the true and the good and the beautiful, and since we'll likely castigate Big Brother, we'll probably get kicked out, en masse, after a few days, and act like a bunch of rockstars, which will cause ABS-CBN to totally get more profits, and as rockstars we'll get to do anything we want, which means that the world will be rid of Sam Milby, which is a good thing.

6. We will refuse to allow anyone to head for the confession room alone.

7. We will treat the confession room like another bathroom, since bathrooms are also great confession rooms.

8. On a good day, we'll just be happily smoking, eating, drinking, and lounging in the pool. On a bad day, we'll be doing the same thing, while Big Brother tries in vain to beg us to doing some sort of task.

9. One of us will tell the MTRCB to go fuck itself. And he'll be right.

10. One of us will tell the MTRCB to go fuck itself. And we'll kick his ass around, just for kicks. We'll still love him. He'll still be our brother, after all.

11. We'll get arrested for inciting to war, to sedition, to rebellion, and to the commission of other hate crimes (although we'll probably vote for Ang Ladlad's Danton Remoto if he runs for Senator, because he's not a nuisance candidate unlike, say, Mike Defensor or Pichay or Victor Wood).

12. ABS-CBN will send Carmelo Caluag to try and pacify us, hoping that the Ateneo High School connection will work wonders. We'll promptly remember that Caluag is, unfortunately (and I mean this), no longer a Jesuit, which means his main ascendancy over us (if any) will be seriously impaired, if not gone altogether.

13. ABS-CBN and the government will try to send our parents after us. The law students will have to remind them that we're emancipated.

14. ABS-CBN and the government will try to send our girlfriends after us. Our girlfriends will then be part of the Big Brother House.

15. Nobody will get voted out by the group. All or nothing, and if you don't like us, bite us.

16. We will die of hunger.

17. We will find a way to produce food. Or if not food, procure alcohol, since when you're punch drunk, you might forget you're hungry.

18. We'll ask/demand that our friends from the music and other artistic scenes come and join us. But ABS-CBN will have to think hard about it, because we might be able to match MYX.

19. The TextTube channels will die. Why? We'll be killing their ratings. People will either text ABS-CBN to praise us, or to tell them tha we're corrupting their children. In either case, we have no pretensions about building consensus in the outside world, as long as polarization happens because people are actually starting to think.

20. The Ateneo will revoke our diplomas. And then when we die, years from now, we'll be made heroes just like how the Ateneo kicked out a bunch of activists and then named them heroes.

So there. You want Pin[o]y Big Brother? Let ABS-CBN know, and we'll happily provide you with entertainment.

First year, homestretch.

2007-03-04T08:42:00.000-08:00

I was flipping through my planner this afternoon, and saw that there's practically a month to go before the semester's over.

I'm beginning to feel the stress, too.

The homestretch is upon us, and that means that finals week is fast approaching, with professors struggling to wrap up the stuff on their respective syllabi, with papers and projects and all the other stuff piling up. And since this semester hasn't been going as well as I hoped it would, I can only imagine how tired I'll be once this is over.

I've been up until 4 or 5 every morning, on the average, and I get up at around eight or nine so I can brush up a bit, maybe grab some breakfast, and hightail to Makati in time for class. When classes for the day end (which is usually at 3 or 5, depending on the day of the week), I either grab a bite with my blockmates, or troop to the nearby Starbucks so I can sit down and read, or if I feel like reading in a quiet environment, I find myself a cubicle in the library. I sit and read until around 8:30 or 9, sometimes even going as late as 10:30 if I'm in Starbucks. The excuse I often give myself and people who ask why I'm still out so late is that I'd rather have the traffic ease up before I head home, which is partially true, because if there's anything that can wear me out, it's the stress and agony of having to sit in slow-moving Metro Manila traffic.

By the time I'm back in lovely Loyola Heights, I usually just take a quick shower, maybe grab a bite, check my e-mail, and then get cracking. I've stopped watching TV, except to catch the news (and American Idol, on occassion), and watching DVDs is a luxury. My exercise schedule's been thrown out of whack ever since I engaged in this sort of hardcore studying, which means I haven't been able to run around or lift weights (which means I'm less-than-fit again, dammit). I sometimes don't even have enough energy to make it to my bed if I start reading in the dining room (which is what I do, since my room's full of books and has this computer, which can be quite distracting), so I end up passing out on the couch. Mom's dog (or the househelp) wakes me up.

The upside is: the amount of stuff I've managed to cover is quite amazing (judging, at least, from numbers of pages read), and I've managed to get ahead in terms of material read and prepared for. This means that I'm in better shape when it comes to class preparation, and that's a good thing, especially if I want to make up for some dismal midterm exams.The learning experience, I think, has been quite exhilirating (in addition to downright exhausting).

I've said this once, and I'll say it again. Law school isn't something that I'd force on anyone. Of course, I wouldn't see the harm in making law school a penalty for a crime (instead of say, 20-30 years in jail, just have someone take law school twice over, for example). We'll at least be educating people about the law they've broken, and be giving them some means by which they can defend themselves before the courts.

I'm glad the books make me look away from the horizon.

The horizon has this huge banner, screaming "WELCOME TO YOUR LAST SUMMER VACATION EVER, MIKO!" The horizon has a beach with booze and bitches and booming music. It has poetry and airplanes and television and DVDs and places which I haven't seen and which are all calling out to me.

And in reply, like someone exorcising a demon, I recite from a prayer: "Lead us not into temptation."

The Melo Report, Alston's Statements

2007-02-24T23:56:00.000-08:00

Malacañang recently released the Melo Report. And UN Rapporteur Philip Alston from the UN has also released a statement about the extrajudicial killings of activists and journalists here in the Philippines.

The full text of both pieces are available here:

The Melo Report
Alston's Statement

Both files are in PDF format, so you'll need Adobe Acrobat.

Election season blues

2007-02-20T06:26:00.000-08:00

It's election season once again, both in the Philippines at large and at the Ateneo School of Law. For the rest of the country, local government and congressional (Senate + House) seats are up for grabs, while at the Ateneo, it's a battle for seats in the student council.

Both are becoming sources of irritation, bewilderment, and near-jadedness.

Let's start with the national elections.

With their victory over the Republicans in the recent U.S. midterm elections, the Democrats managed to clinch the majorities in both the Senate and the House, giving them significant leverage vis-a-vis George Bush. Inspired by the American example (in true colonial-mentality fashion, if I may say so), the local opposition thinks it can duplicate the same feat, and hopefully gain some leverage vis-a-vis Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The antics have been pretty entertaining and infuriating. First, there's the administration, which, knowing that it's probably going to get crappy people to run to protect its interests in the Senate, decided to push for a "unity ticket," featuring some people who are both affiliated with the administration and opposition. The coalition's name: TEAM (Together Everyone Achieves More) Unity.

Then there's the opposition, which has changed names from "United Opposition" to "Genuine Opposition" (so I guess they're not united, but claim to be genuine), whose candidates are currently leading the surveys.

Then there's also a whole slough of independent candidates running, including some people who were denied a chance to instead get party-list seats (like Danton Remoto of Ang Ladlad, a lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender party), some nuisances (like this guy who also claims to be called "Peter" Cayetano even if his full name has nothing like it), and some people who are trying to, and this is a hasty generalization, preach and use God to get them party seats (like Kapatiran).

The full list of candidates for the senate is available here.

So it looks like a pretty colorful Senate race, except for the fact that we have some assholes and morons running for posts (if you don't like those last two adjectives, bite me). The Senate's usually always more entertaining, because it's a small group that gets significant airtime on the media. And it gets interesting, because the Senate, once charged to do so, actually gets to try the President in an impeachment trial.

In this country, the main (and seemingly only other weapon aside from, say, filibustering, appeals to emotion, and actually decent platforms) weapon the opposition tries to brandish against the President (or at least, the one currently in Malacañang) is impeachment.

But it's not the Senate that should be considered. It's the House, stupid.

All Gloria wants now is to win more House seats. Without the House, the opposition's hopes of impeaching the President and using impeachment as leverage doesn't have a prayer, especially since the President's allies love to use the tyranny of the majority to get their way in anything (I don't see why they don't realize that if one just wants to get political, they can all use it as leverage to get what they want, but then again, our Congressmen claim to be men and women of some sort of moral fiber). Gloria's plan is simple, and quite public: cut down the numbers of the opposition in the House even further. Keep them away from getting a third of the House seats.

But that's not all. I have no doubt that Gloria's also pushing her local government candidates, who will, without a doubt, try to orchestrate another "people's initiative" movement of sorts, in hopes of screwing up our democracy even further in order to perpetuate themselves in power. (Okay, so that's not exactly fair. Fine. They'll try to turn the country into something with a unicameral parliament, which means the tyranny of the majority can assert itself without having to go through a secondary check and balance in the form of the Senate, in order to be more efficient and pass pertinent legislation and policy, for whatever ends the politicians see fit. Fair enough?)

Unless the opposition has anything to offer other than some faces, and can turn the elections into a matter of issues other than impeachment, electoral fraud, and instead focus on matters like poverty alleviation, they're going nowhere except maybe getting the Senate majority.

The House elections are no less entertaining, but I'm really just too tired and to pained to talk much about them. Here's a key point of exasperation: Manny Pacquiao's running for Congress.

God save our country.

But wait, there's more.

The election campaign at the Ateneo School of Law is in full swing. And things have been pretty crazy. In this morning's miting de avance of sorts, we saw the members of one frat (who's had two members kicked out of school and two suspended because of on-campus violence, etc., after previous incidents) obviously rallying behind a set of candidates that it feels will serve its interests better (I guess it really doesn't help if your rival fraternity has a member who happens to be the Dean of the law school, right? I mean, you can't help but perceive bias if you're in that sort of fix, right?), as well as some other people who are, well, just better friends with one set of candidates.

One set's a rough mix of generally independent (but not necessarily non-affiliated) candidates, while the other's more or less a "party" of sorts.

Both sides have pretty decent platforms. Both claim to have solutions to real problems. Both claim to want to put an end to animosity.

That didn't make the miting de avance corny though. People were yelling, crying, and bitching. And attacks were pretty personal, which isn't surprising because the crowd was pretty partisan. Then there were petitions to disqualify certain candidates. Mudslinging. Typical-politico-style pontificating.

It makes me sick.

In college, the elections were decent, even though the elections people had to chase people to vote just to meet the voting quota. But at least there was no useless drama like the stuff in law school.

Law school, ladies and gentlemen. Graduate school. I thought that we were supposed to be grown ups about these things. (Part of the condescending me wants to say that's what happens when you have a law school that accepts even people who don't pass the Ateneo's college entrance test, but then again, the Ateneo in Loyola also has its share of idiots who can drive you nuts with their useless drama).

So I'm torn. Part of me wants the happy, hardly-felt election campaigns of my college days. But part of me's glad that some people are actually trying to use the student council elections for something. Too bad that some people are only out to protect their own skin.

Song survey #1.

2007-02-08T10:22:00.000-08:00

Mika sent me a song survey, which I found pretty hard to answer (which is one reason why I usually avoid these things with a passion). So here's a list of songs that I enjoy, which might change depending on my mood or state of mind, as a soundtrack to my life (or so the original survey wanted)/themes/moods/whatever. I just think they're pretty apt.

(Some of the stuff here can overlap.)

Opening Credits:
"Fake Tales of San Francisco" - The Arctic Monkeys
"Music to Watch Girls By" - Andy Williams

Waking Up:
"Love of the Loveless" - The Eels
"Banana Pancakes" - Jack Johnson
"Sleeping In" - The Postal Service

Average Day:
"We Only Come Out at Night" - Smashing Pumpkins
"Newport Living" - Cute Is What We Aim For
"Under Pressure" - Queen + David Bowie
"Time and Time Again" - Chronic Future
"Dig" - Incubus
"Hopeless" - Train
"The City" - Joe Purdy
"Specialist" - Interpol

First Date:
"Are You Gonna Go My Way?" - Lenny Kravitz
"I Want You Now" - The Feeling
"Take Me Anywhere" - Tegan and Sarah
"Young Folks" - Peter Bjorn and John
"Lucky Man" - The Verve
"Girl I Wanna Lay You Down" - Jack Johnson
"Throw Your Arms Around Me" - Pearl Jam
"Everybody Here Wants You" - Jeff Buckley

Falling in Love:
"Somewhere in the Middle" - Nine Sky Wonder
"Let Your Shoulder Fall" - Matthew Jay
"Hold You In My Arms" - Ray LaMontagne
"If the Rain Must Fall" - James Morrison
"1963" - Racheael Yamagata
"I See You, You See Me" - The Magic Numbers
"Spiderwebs" - No Doubt

Love Scene:
"Orinoco Flow" - Enya
"Desert Rose" - Sting
"If I Handle You With Care" - Trembling Blue Stars
"This Year's Love" - David Gray
"Booyah Achieved" - Minus the Bear
"Nothing Like You and I" - The Perishers
"Wonderwall" - Oasis (also the cover by Ryan Adams)

Fight Scene:
"If You Want Blood (You Got It)" - AC/DC
"How I Could Just Kill A Man" - Rage Against the Machine

Breaking Up:
"The Scientist" - Coldplay
"A Letter to Elise" - The Cure
"Colors" - Amos Lee with Norah Jones
"With or Without You" - U2
"My Best Wasn't Good Enough" - Anouk and K's Choice

Getting Back Together:
"That's All" - Rod Stewart
"Alison" - Elvis Costello (even as covered by Brandon Boyd)
"Against All Odds" - Phil Collins

Secret Love:
"Foolish Games" - Jewel
"Look After You" - The Fray
"Tiny Dancer" - Elton John
"Mona Lisa" - Guster
"The Curse of Curves" - Cute Is What We Aim For
"Free Fallin" - Tom Petty (or the cover by The Summer Obsession)
"Weekends" - The Perishers
"Crowded Elevator" - Incubus
"Put Your Hair Down" - Matt Pond PA

Life’s Okay/Steady steady:
"Top of the World" - The Juliana Theory
"Canned Heat" - Jamiroquai
"Fotograpfia" - Juanes & Nelly Furtado
"Shakespeare in Love" - Layla Kalif
"7/4 Shoreline" - Broken Social Scene
"Sex and Candy" - Marcy Playground
"Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" - The Flaming Lips
"This Will Be Our Year" - OK Go

Mental Breakdown:
"Parabola" - Tool
"Fabulous Muscles" - Xiu Xiu (or heck, XiuXiu's "Doncha" cover)

Driving:
"Getaway Car" - Audioslave
"Learn To Fly" - Foo Fighters
"Shade of a Shadow" - Teitur
"The Boys in the Bright White Sports Car" - Trooper
"Take on Me" - Tears for Fears
"Funny Little Feeling" - Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers

Deep Thought:
"Quiet Little Place" - K's Choice
"Maybe Tomorrow" - Stereophonics
"For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" - Sufjan Stevens
"Notice" - Gomez
"Hide and Seek" - Imogen Heap
"Brothers on a Hotel Bed" - Death Cab for Cutie
"Four Seasons" - Vivaldi

Partying:
"The Beach Party" - Hot Chip
"Everybody Got Their Something" - Nikka Costa
"Tainted Love" - The Cure (as covered by Dishwalla)
"Love on the Run" - Chicane
"Pachuca Sunrise" - Minus the Bear
"Dice" - Finley Quaye and William Orbit

Happy Dance:
"Dancing in the Moonlight" - Toploader
"Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off" - Panic! At the Disco
"Bamboleo" - Gypsy Kings
"Rock Your Body" - Justin Timberlake
"The A La Menthe" (from the Ocean's 12 soundtrack)
"Dancing Shoes" - The Arctic Monkeys

Regretting:
"Lightning Crashes" - Live
"Under the Bridge" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Careless Whisper" - George Michael (as covered by Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds Five)
"No Way Back" - 8mm
"Lullaby" - Shawn Mullins

Long Night Alone:
"Brick" - Ben Folds Five
"Up All Night" - Counting Crows
"Street Map" - Athlete
"To Be Alone With You" - Sufjan Stevens

Death Scene:
"And The World Spins Madly On" - The Weepies
"The Untouchables: Death Theme" - Yo-yo Ma

Closing Credits:
"La Niña de Puerta Oscura" - Paco De Lucia
"A Song For You" - The Carpenters

With much thanks to Saul, Pochi, Meg, Mika, and everybody else who helped me discover these songs.

Midterms.

2007-01-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

No, this isn't about my ongoing slough of examinations (like the one in Obligations & Contracts which I probably botched yesterday and the one tomorrow for Legal Technique & Logic that I'm supposed to be resting or preparing for instead of blogging). No, it's not about what America did right in the recent landslide that made the Democrats take Congress. This is about Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, yet again.

I first saw Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in person when I was headed for one of the offices in ABS-CBN (yes, dear reader, I am Kapamilya), and was pleasantly surprised that the security guards were kind enough to walk me to the elevator. It turned out, more to Mom's disappointment than mine, that they were actually headed for a corridor where some politician was in, presumably coming from the news studio.

I'm not too tall myself, but I had a hard time finding whoever this supposed VIP was. Lo and behold, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo walked past, smiled at me, and waved.

"Good morning," she said.

Who the hell is this again?" I thought. Oh. Gloria Macapagal. The Vice President.

I nodded, then entered the elevator. Inside, Mom and I were talking about how Gloria was acting like some Filipina actress (well, she was in ABS-CBN, after all). The conversation ended with us comparing her to several actresses that we loved to laugh about.

I next ran into her when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo joined us on the set to play the part of my grandmother. Yes, unsuspecting reader, Gloria was Tonsy Rodriguez's grandmother. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Now if you think I played the part of an on-screen asshole, you might think that I actually got some part of it right.

Naturally, having the Vice President of the Philippines on set is bound to get people excited. Laurenti, our director, left us after shooting a few scenes so he could freshen up and put on something more "appropriate" (the buzz going on then was that he had a piña or jusi barong in his car).

We were going to shoot at 10:30 in the morning, since this was supposedly the only time that our dear Madam Arroyo could accomodate us.

And so, with practically everyone at their best (except me, I think), 10:30 came.

11:00.

11:30.

12:00. Lunch break. Our producer finally got through to Gloria's staff.

Gloria was coming, all right. At 10:30 in the evening. 12 hours later than expected.

After shooting throughout the rest of the day, Laurenti went to change at around 9:30, and the crew started getting ready. By 10:00, we saw the flash of warning lights as Gloria's lead security detail arrived to inspect our set for anything that might put the veep's life in danger.

At 10:30 sharp, she arrived. I expected some sort of hysterical fan-ish reaction from the crew, but everyone was pretty professional about things. Gloria was escorted to the waiting area where she could get a bit more dolled up and where she and I could exchange lines.

"Good evening," I said. I think my smile was sincere. I was, after all, being polite.

"Why, good evening," she said. "What's your name?"

"Miko Samson, ma'am. I'll be playing the part of your grandson."

"Really," she said. "That's wonderful. Just let them finish retouching my make-up, and maybe we can practice." I think her smile was genuine.

And so, after she got dolled up, Gloria asked her lady bodyguard to hand her a copy of the script. We rehearsed for a good half-hour before Gloria got her lines right (yes, I had to endure listening to that voice repeat the same line for half an hour). To be fair, I thought it was her first time trying to do this sort of thing, and I thought that she was doing it quite well.

The assistant director, Retchie, told the veep that she didn't have to say everything verbatim if it would help her with her lines. After all, she claimed, I was trained (like a dog) to be able to work with ad lib or changes that she might need.

Sample change: "Mabuti naman at ginamit ninyo ang bahay ko..." was changed to "Buong puso akong nagpapasalamat na ginamit ninyo ang aking bahay..."

Wonderful, I tell you. Beautiful.

The shooting of the scene went quite well. Gloria handled it all very well. And when she did that part when Lola Gloria called Tonsy's attention for letting a hundred orphans into her house, she really looked like she was capable of putting my head on a spike. And I think the hug she had to give me was genuine. Aww.

After the shoot, Gloria signed autographs for the people on the set who, and I honestly found this unusual, were practically scrambling for autographs and photo-ops. She obliged, and signed autographs, t-shirts, posters, and even had her staff give away little pocket calendars with her face on them. Just like a star.

Sorry Lola, but your grandson isn't fond of your pictures. Especially if you actually scare him. Especially if your campaign materials tried to make you some sort of local celebrity, with the line, "Mahal na mahal ko kayong lahat"("I love you all very much."). Lies, I tell you. Lies!

While we're on the subject of campaigns and campaign materials, perhaps one of the possible reasons that I'm not really fond of Gloria is this simple fact: She was Joe de Venecia's running mate.

I remember that campaign well. They had photo-ops galore. Dancing on stage. And they got all sorts of blessings from these charismatic religious leaders who predicted their victory, and who literally jumped with them for good luck. End result: Gloria beat Angara for the vice presidency by a significant margin (we all know that Senator Angara, a nice man as he is, really doesn't stand a chance versus a celebrity wannabe in terms of charisma), and JdV refusing to surrender in the face of Estrada's five-million vote spread.

Fast forward to 2000, to Chavit's double-crossing and to the biggest TV drama in Philippine history, the Estrada impeachment trial.

I remember watching the trial intently, being glued to the TV set for hours on end as Estelito Mendoza and the other Estrada lawyers creamed the prosecution. (If you disagree with this, you're probably not thinking right. No one in is right mind will actually say that the prosecution was actually making a decent case and was actually succeeding. I mean, if they were really all that good, and if their case was really compelling, they wouldn't have needed to walk out, now would they?)

Fast-forward to the victory of the "no" votes against the opening of the controversial (in reality, trivial) second envelope. Fast forward to the weeping of Loren Legarda, to the dancing of Tessie Aquino-Oreta, to the resigning of Aquilino Pimintel from the Senate presidency. Fast-forward to the prosecution walk-out.

(Aside: The non-opening of the second envelope, at least as far as my dad and some other lawyers are concerned, was properly achieved. However, it did turn out to be a blunder in terms of political strategy. Oh well.)

Fast-forward to the so-called "EDSA II."

What are my EDSA II memories?

Sitting in my classroom at the Ateneo, with around eight other classmates, playing Jenga and watching DVDs instead of reading in class. Most of our teachers, and a whole lot of the other students, had joined the boycott of classes and headed to the EDSA Shrine. My other memories were sitting in Starbucks in Shangri-la Plaza Mall in Ortigas, reading a book.

I didn't go to EDSA II. I didn't believe in it. It was, to me, and to some of my friends who actually went, just a place to be seen, some big street party. My simple reasoning was: If the prosecution was so sure that they had a viable impeachment case, they should have dug deeper and fought it out in the impeachment trial. But maybe they didn't have a viable impeachment case--it was, after all, transmitted from the House of Representatives to the Senate via a now-famous Gloria approach to politics: the railroad.

I had friends who went to EDSA. My then-girlfriend was in EDSA. And they all asked me to join them. And as much as I would have enjoyed their company, I said no.

And amazingly enough, "civil" society managed to beat Estrada through EDSA. The military, perhaps seeing that there were around 1.2 million people (as opposed to the far larger number that brought Erap into office) on the streets on that fateful day they withdrew their support from Estrada, joined in. 1.2 million people of the upper and middle classes, with some participation from people of the lower economic strata managed to oust a President who had the largest margin of victory ever.

Fast-forward to the last days of April. Another huge gathering at EDSA. Estimated by the non-Gloria politicians and some reporters to be packing more people than EDSA II, this so-called EDSA III saw people who were pissed off that Estrada was arrested and brought to jail in light of plunder charges against him. I had the misfortune of having to pass EDSA on my way to the airport for a flight to Iloilo on the night the crowd peaked: an estimated 3 million people were there. And all I remember was how we had to traverse through a very narrow path that they cleared for passing cars, and saw the crowd packed from Camp Crame to the edge of Guadalupe bridge.

What did Gloria do? She sicced the military on the people. She managed to quell that particular uprising, which saw a huge part of the crowd actually storm Malacañang and fight it out with the troops she had there. She would later have electrified barbed wire installed to secure the Palace. Fast forward to her big fat lie about not running for the presidency in 2004.

Fast forward to the 2004 elections, where she allegedly beat Fernando Poe Jr. on account of two words that were her secret campaign slogan and prayer: "Hello, Garci?"

Fast-forward to failed impeachment builds, fraudulent attempts at Charter Change, more evil, and more arrogance.

As Conrado de Quiros wrote in his January 22 column, as of that date, Gloria has been the occupying Malacañang for the longest time since Marcos. And according to De Quiros, she is the longest-sitting non-elected President in Philippine history.

I feel vindicated.

Some people ask me what my beef with Gloria is. All in all, she's been a pretty decent President. She's got infrastructure projects going on, economic reforms that are starting to work, and so on.

Let me state for the record that I have no problem with Gloria's qualifications. I know that she's smart. I know that she's got a master's and a doctorate degree in Economics. I've heard that she's a brilliant economist, and that she can take on anyone who might want to debate economic policy with her. I have no qualms about the infrastructure projects. Yes, all things considered, she's been quite decent with regard to those things (although Estrada, who was unfortunate enough to inherit a Philippine economy that was struggling in light of the Asian economic crisis and which *might* have been plundered by Fidel Ramos who built us such wonderful failures as the MegaDike and the Expo Filipino, insists that economic growth was better during his short stint in office).

But I had serious doubts about her being our "legitimate" President in 2001 (I would've accepted her as Acting President, come to think of it). And with regard to 2004, my simple take on it is this: If she cheated, she should vacate office. Period. And while some readers will protest and say that everybody cheats, my answer still holds. If you cheat, get out. Period. It's all a matter of principle.

In a couple of months, the mid-term elections are coming. And as is usual in a country that still imagines itself to be working as well as the United States, the political opposition is saying that like the Democrats, they too will prevail.

My biggest problem with groups like the opposition is that they're not a true opposition. I'm sure that when push comes to shove, their policies are practically the same as the administration's. The problem with Philippine party politics is that our parties are based primarily on who brokers power, on who the leaders are instead of what the leaders plan to do. Ask Politican X what he says this country will need, and he'll give you such motherhood, catch-all statements as "economic reform," "moral reform," and "political stability." Ask Politician Y that, and you'll get the same response. There's very little debate between parties on the level of policy. Or if there is, it probably gets overshadowed by petty politicking and entertaining soundbites that make watching the evening news quite infuriating.

The more recent debates have been about charter change. That's not really policy. That's evil, lies, distortion, fraud, et cetera. That's politicking, not statesmanship.

I have little doubt that the elections will see the opposition gain some ground. And that's good. In order to get serious legislation done, the opposition must show that it will at least be able to handle the administration bloc's tyranny of numbers. When they've got that sort of trump card, maybe everybody can grow up and buckle down and get to work. Whether or not the opposition gets enough numbers to be capable of impeaching Gloria is, personally, immaterial to me.

What makes me sick is that some people act as if there's no alternative to Gloria (people fear a Noli de Castro presidency). I disagree. This is a country that has its share of people who can make things work. We've got to have more faith in our countrymen than simply saying that there is no alternative.

Seriously though, we need a serious alternative to Gloria's administration. The opposition, if it wants to win, must not only win with better personalities, it must offer a better platform, with items other than impeaching Gloria such as economic policy, a review of our internal revenue and taxation, health care and public education legislation, and so on. Otherwise, we can vote either way and just get the status quo (or crap, if you elect guys like Garci, who incidentally, said he's running).

As expected, there's a lot of drama. And Gloria likes this. She's the star.

Today's new metaphors

2007-01-05T06:38:00.000-08:00

After class today, some blockmates and I decided to play basketball at Play Underground in PowerPlant Mall. Since we were all in need of some physical activity other than lugging around books and stacks of paper, and this is especially true after all the holiday revelries, I think this was a pretty good move.

And since I'm in the habit of picking things up from everyday drudgery, here's what might be important. Pardon the rambling and meandering.

First, I'm not really into basketball. I watch games, sure, but I've never really been very inclined to sports. It was mostly books for me, growing up, and I relied on other physical exertion to keep from turning into Jabba the Hutt. Of course, I'm still a bit more plump than the idealized version of myself. I'm glad I've decided to try and get back into shape, by running around (yes, the sightings are true), lifting a few weights, and trying to get into some sports.

I'd like to think that I'm not exactly unfit or hopeless. There's a little history. When I was two, I was asthmatic, and so my mom had me take swimming lessons under the venerable Bana Sailani when I was three. Asthma was solved (and if you've seen me between classes, you'll know that's true, haha). They tried to get me into sports, enrolling me in one of those Milo Best Basketball Clinics. My heart wasn't into it. In grade school, I pretty much sucked at every sport except swimming. In high school, I was a bit more athletically-inclined (I guess it came with the territory), and being an [o] boy, got to play on a straight volleyball team, which went on to win every single championship except for that time when we were suddenly eliminated in the inter-P.E. class games (we even joked around that we were the Ateneo High School's Team B for volleyball, and even played against the varsity teams of the likes of Miriam College, Poveda, and Immaculate Conception Academy). In college, I had pretty decent grades in all of my physical education classes: volleyball, fencing, and running. In law school, some blockmates and I (including a Leio, also an [o] boy) signed up for the inter-law school varsity games (volleyball and football this time). And I can bowl halfway decently, play pool quite well for someone who plays practically just annually, and can putt and on occasion drive better than my dad, who's been playing golf since he was a teenager. You can put that eyebrow down now.

So, there, I'm not exactly hopeless. And if I can be allowed to brag, I can still run around three to five kilometers straight, and often jog around ten to fifteen whenever I go out for a run. This, in spite of the cigarettes, in spite of drinking, sleeping late, and so on. I've started hitting the gym again (which I used to do when I was in high school and in college), and hopefully, all this effort will pay off.

There. So, back to the basketball story.

As stated earlier, I'm not really a guy who plays basketball. I wasn't one of the kids back in grade school who'd play during lunchbreaks, out in the open concrete court under the sweltering Philippine sun, where there'd be anywhere from five to ten games going on simultaneously. I usually only play when the [o] boys get together to shoot some hoops, and so I practically have zero skills. Driving into the lane? Nah. Slashing? Fancy finger rolls? Nope. Heck, I sometimes end up being a total klutz just dribbling. But what I have managed to pull off, over the years, is the jumpshot. I used to be able to score on occasion from long and mid-range. This, of course, meant that I was usually the last offensive option. The one who tried to pull off either the wide-open-just-shoot-it-you're-wide-open-if-you-miss-this-you-go-straight-to-hell shot, or the Hail-Holy-Queen-Mother-of-Mercy-Hail-our-life-our-sweetness-and-our-hope desperation shot.

Since the last time I played with the [o] boys was in the summer of 2006, and the few games I've played since then really had me on the floor for just a few minutes, I've had zero practice (I know, I should probably buy a ball and try practicing when I can. I've heard it before). To cut the long line of excuses short, the shot wasn't there today (again).

Every time I threw a shot up, it was either short, or too strong, or simply clanged against the rim. Nothing went in. After I was hurling invectives inside my head for bungling a shot, Roger, Mr. Three-Time-UAAP-Football-Champion walked up to me and said that I should aim higher and give my shot more of an arc. The shots I took had direction, had the right line, but didn't have the right trajectory.

And whaddaya know, in one sequence, I received the ball, and aimed higher, and managed to can a trey. Applause. Screaming. Pandemonium from assembled blockmates.

And at the end of the game, Roger was probably trying to make me feel good (I mean, I scored 3 compared to his, what, 300?) when he was telling people to watch out for the day I managed to keep canning the treys, the day that I'd score at will. (I like the thought of scoring at will.)

On the drive home, I was playing a mix disc which I prepared. As some of you may already know, my love life's basically been either limbo or latrine lately, and the only thing that's been keeping me from getting too depressed was the fact that law school was a convenient distraction to have (it's also the most expensive speed-reading-cum-weight-loss program ever). In fact, as I was trudging through cases at around 3 this morning, the songs that iTunes' shuffle function seemed to want to play were all songs that reminded me of certain people.

At 3 in the morning, when you're probably the only one in the house, or worse, your circle of friends who's still awake, and the only company you have are stacks of paper and an impersonal computer who seems to be deliberately choosing songs that remind you of heartache, you're wont to realize that you're alone. And it can get pretty sad.

The songs on the CD had some of the songs that iTunes was choosing. I managed to put the disc together this morning. I guess I did it because I enjoyed the wallowing while driving.

You will perhaps be able to anticipate that I wasn't exactly jolly when I got home today. And after firing up the computer and logging on, one of the first few things I got to read were stuff like this latest blog entry by Annelle (Aside: This girl is one who I could never, ever "read." I used to be able to read a person's mind or personality pretty easily, and I can still do it from time to time, but this girl is impossible to read. I have no idea what she thinks of me today, since the only time we were introduced even if, strangely enough, our fathers are officemates, was when I met her at Meg's birthday party last October. And I still wonder why I find her opinion in particular pretty important. And no, she's not the reason why this writer's lovelife is in shambles.).

She talks about never just settling. She has this quote that goes: ""Life is too short to wake up with regrets... so love the people who treat you right, forget the ones who don't, and believe that everything happens for a reason... know a good thing when you see it, and don't let it slip away... if you get a chance, take it... if it changes your life, let it... nobody said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it."

Right.

When I was thinking thoughts of love, and tried using Jill's new Book of Answers today (those thick things with lots of pages and lots of one-liners that can make or break your day such as "Gentle persistence will get you through," or "Remember, he/she/it loves you."), what did I get?

First attempt, thoughts of love: "It's not worth the struggle."

Fuck.

Second attempt, thoughts asking 'Are you sure?': "It may already be a done deal."

Teardrop. Sad sad sad sad sad. Mad. Feel bad.

But hey, Annelle also wrote something which I found pretty striking:

"You know how when you're sick, you can't remember how it feels like to be healthy? It's funny how there are things about ourselves we don't notice until someone else points it out. A couple of weeks ago someone said that i looked really happy. It was the first time in a while that i realized i was happy. Not the "can't complain, content with nothing bad but nothing great either" kind of happy but the "damn, it feels good to laugh" kind of happy. It kind of feels like the first time on a roller coaster or the first time you have a crush or the first time you get a meaningful compliment or the first kiss with someone you really love...a crazy mix of kilig, butterflies and laughter all at once. To be perfectly honest, i didn't think i was missing out on anything. I mean i'd get sad but not that sad, angry but not that angry, the downside was that i'd be happy but not really happy. I didn't realize i was kind of being (for lack of a better word) "eh..." about everything. It's amazing how long i lasted being lackluster and lukewarm about everything. Never again. Don't ever want to feel anything less than kilig, butterflies and laughter..."

Actually, I remember quite a lot of that. I guess that's what keeps me going, in a way.

I was lucky enough to have someone to chat with at around 4 in the morning, when I started having that little fit. And one of the things we talked about was, cheesy as it may sound, hope.

How does that poem go again?

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me."

Ah, Dickinson.

I'm not sure if the thing with feathers has headed south because it's winter. But if it did, at least I know it's probably just down south.

Aim higher, Roger said. Add a little arc. Then watch out for the day I score at will.

Aim higher? Jesus Christ, the two girls who matter to me today won't even talk to me. One's the ex, so there. The other, who I've dreamt about several times recently, well, won't talk to me.

And you want me to aim higher? How out of my league do I have to aim?

But then again, fine.

Aim higher.

Add an arc.

Practice makes perfect.

Hope.

One day, when he was practicing, Tiger Woods phoned his coach and said, "I can hit the ball anywhere I want."

And his coach said: "Stop practicing."

I don't know if I want to wait for the day I can score at will, because that might very well be the day I become a monster.

I would, perhaps, want to wait for that day when I get a pat on the back, and can see that I can hit the ball anywhere I want, and have the option to just let the ball be, knowing that the ball, the hoop or hole, and I, are at peace.

I'll never look at Lilo and Stitch the same way again

2007-01-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Red Constantino, on whose blog I noticed this. I heard that this is actually several years old. Still, the depiction's adorable. I mean, isn't Stitch just one of the cutest Disney characters?

Some old poems ("Yaya's Sinigang," etc.)

2007-01-02T10:18:00.000-08:00

As I was sorting out some papers during my beginning-of-the-year-rearranging-of-my-room-cum-workspace, I stumbled on a several sheets of paper held together by a rusty staple. They contained some old poems (or to the snooty critics among you, "proto-poems") that I wrote over the years I was in college, revising whenever I could. The ones I'm publishing here are old favorites. I have no idea if they're finished, or if they can be said to have any literary merit at all. I like them (as expected, since I wrote them).

One of my friends and writing mentors told me that I should keep writing. I guess I will. I mean, I'm sure I'll have my hands full drafting papers, sample pleadings, sample forms, criticism, and a whole ton of shit. Maybe I can try writing stuff that's just a little bit less boring. I'm no poet, no bard. But I'd like to think that I've got enough wit to justify my cutting lines.

Yaya's Sinigang
(Published in Heights, Vol. L, No. 2)

I wonder if the sweat on your furrowed eyebrow
adds sourness to the sinigang you are cooking for me,
sourer than sampaloc in its breaking the barriers of your skin.
To the very least, it must be saltier than all your shed tears,
biting in its making your open wounds sting.

Watching drops of it drop accidentally into the broth
I understand that your aching can be no accident.

This is the recipe for a flavorless salary.

Roller Coasters
(Published in Heights, Vol. LI, No. 1)

With the clanking of cars
crawling up rusted tracks,
roller coasters prepare
to let all loose.

Hapless, helpless riders
fall without knowing
what sudden turn, drop,
or twist of fate awaits.

They shake their riders
with each rush
as a red car dives,
turning them upside-down,
shackling them to seats
as they are turned inside-out.

Why this need
for roller coasters?
Maybe the world
smiles when shaken,
and exults when upside-down.
Maybe the world
deserves some shocking.
Maybe the world
needs to be turned upright.

Learning a foreign language

A condom slipped
over my tongue—
words dry
in spite of depth and girth.
No easy coming
of ooh-speeches,
of aah-poetry.

Morning

I.

Father puts the phone down,
finally, after making us
stay our saying grace.

God, his client, can't wait.

He will
poke at his sausage
spoon his rice,
take a sip of coffee.

He cannot stay.

There's a race
to be run.
So he says.

II.

All Mother wants
is quiet time
at the table.

Right now,
she has to
rip heads from fish
on the blood-stained
kitchen counter.

Hers manages
to stay on.

III.

The TV greets a good morning.
The paper says good news.

On a breakfast platter
there awaits
a heart attack and allergic reaction.

In the glass,
there's calcium
and cancer.

Crucifix

Before You, You know I cannot stay
yet you say I must hear the final gasps
of Your bloodstained valediction.

So what, now, Jesus, will you have me hear?
Should I shed my flesh too and try for You—
fester in fighting, shatter my soul on stone,
all for agony, for glory, or for never?

You say nothing, and speak in taciturn tongues—
a call to quiet, to the screaming end,
an invitation to Your piercéd breast,
to a meeting with redeeming Death.

Your bleeding arms outstretched, You embrace the air,
a final friend, and wretched companion unto the last,
caressing you as you bleed without weeping,
resolute in her reticence.

You love the silent wind, I know.
Shall you have me hold my piece as well?

For Jamie

Your fascination for it,
this crescent moon earring
you hold in your hand,
sets moon-fire to your day.

You say the moon
is not an ornament for the night –
It is destined to flatter your day,
a silver charm adorning your ear.

I watch as you try it on
and find you ablaze,
burning away sunlight
with your moon-ray.

Cats

Strange how mating cats sound like children crying,
shattering silence with wails that one can't tell
if they do it out of pleasure, or pain.
All one can hear are the pussies playing plaintive
for minutes and hours on end. And even stranger
how it might be a son screwing its mother,
or a daughter being done by Daddy.

Where they do it is another mystery.
Streets or shadowy corners find themselves frequented,
cat-motels or little crammed spaces where
race-saving quickies can be consummated.
In this, the world we've built, it seems quite okay
for cats to indulge in their nightly escapades,
and it's no longer strange that family trees
go bonkers with the way cats breed among themselves,
birthing bastard brothers and their sisters
who will one day do as they were made.

In a matter of moments, it is finished — reassurance
that cats will go on, live on, bearing little broods
that will one night crack open a night's quiet.
After a purr, a nuzzle, they'll be gone without word
or looking back, letting what was become what is,
letting shadow and silence swallow up the world again.

2006 in a nutshell

2006-12-31T11:43:00.000-08:00

The year in review.

2006 was a wild year. Wild, because it met and exceeded expectations. It was surprising, infuriating, gratifying, frustrating. A pretty wild ride.

The country's economy grew while its political institutions, well, stretched. Pushed limits and boundaries. We were nearly conned into con-ass, nearly made to dance to cha-cha, and had a state of emergency. We saw a lot of bashing, a lot of water cannon shooting, a lot of lying, pontificating, and petty politicking. And here we are, still able to sit back and laugh every now and then. My favorite political quotes:

"The Constitution talks about allowing amendments through people's initiative. Amendments. So we can make lots and lots of little changes to the Constitution until we get what we want."

"Maximum tolerance is graduated. Before reaching the maximum, we must first start with the minimum."

I just LOVE these Malacañang lawyers.

Okay. Enough about that.

The first song I was listening to was one by David Grey: "This Year's Love." This year's love, it seems, will last.

Early this year, someone gave a short description about me, which seems to have marked me for the year: "Miko, too late the hero."

Well, I guess it's true. I've crammed. Worked a bit too late. Missed stuff by a hairline. Cared too little. Maybe, in some ways, cared too much.

And like the rest of you, I've had little successes (graduation, law school, etc.), some frustrations, and collected stories. I've fallen in love, had had my heart broken, and continue to love. I've been pissed off, pleased as hell.

I've finished college (to the surprise of some), and entered law school (as expected by others). I've done a bit good, and can do better.

The year's been a year of extremes. And yet through it all, I think I managed to find a lot of myself that I (and I guess a lot of people) have been missing for quite a while. And as I embark on the continuing discovery trip, I can only hope that everything is worth it.

What have I learned to pray for, constantly? For acceptance and a heart that's accepting. For forgiveness, and for a heart that's forgiving. For courage to see things through. For a calling, a mission, and a chance to be in God's service. And most importantly, for a heart that learns and learns to be more loving.

2006 was a blast, as can be read from either this blog, or seen from my pictures. And for those of you who were with me throughout the journey, here's to you.

And you, who drive my dreams, who fuel my aspirations, who make me want to be a better person, and whose eyes still burn me whenever I think of you, here's to you, most especially. Thank you.

2007? The best has yet to come.

The first song I heard: OK Go's "This Will Be Our Year."

I hope the lyrics (see below) hold true.

The warmth of your love’s
Like the warmth of the sun
And this will be our year,
Took a long time to come.

Don’t let go of my hand
Now the darkness is gone
And this will be our year,
Took a long time to come.

And I won’t forget the way you held me
Up when I was down.
And I won’t forget the way you said
“Darling, I love you.”

You gave me faith to go on,
Now we’re there,
And we’ve only just begun.
This will be our year,
Took a long time to come.

The warmth of your smile,
Smile for me little one.
And this will be our year,
Took a long time to come.

You don’t have to worry,
All your worry days are gone.
And this will be our year,
Took a long to come

And I won’t forget the way you held me
Up when I was down.
And I won’t forget the way you said
“Darling, I love you.”

You gave me faith to go on,
Now we’re there,
And we’ve only just begun.
This will be our year,
Took a long time to come.
Yeah, we’ve only just begun.
And this will be our year,
Took a long time to come.