blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

Centennial of the University of the Philippines ROTC Unit

2012-02-12T22:49:00.000+08:00

2012 marks the centennial of citizen's military training in the Philippines which began at the University of the Philippines on 17 March 1912.

While Filipinos have throughout history responded to calls to defend their land (Filipinos resisted British occupation in 1762), the Spanish Army having earlier established a militia at the University of Santo Tomas (General Antonio Luna learned his basic military tactics here), it was only in 1912 when the citizen's army was really meant to defend the Philippines and not just the imperialist power which had sovereignty over the islands then.

This is the essence of a citizen's armed forces to defend the home and hearth. The idea wasn't new. The British Army established militias in their colonies and it eventually became the nucleus of the revolutionary army that forced the British out of the American Colonies. In other British colonies which had a peaceful transition to independence and sovereignty, the militias became the nucleus of the independent nations' armed forces. An example are the Australian Army and Royal Australian Navy.

This was the concept that the Americans introduced to the Philippines and this meant building a citizen's armed forces with sufficient training that would be for territorial defence and a small corps of professional but highly trained soldiers. When the Americans agreed to a transition program for Filipino independence, this formed at the core of building the Philippine Army under General MacArthur and President Quezon's plan. However budgetary problems and the hesitancy of the American government doomed the plan. The Filipino armed forces thus was under-equipped and poorly trained on the eve of Pearl Harbor.

The UP ROTC unit was one of two units (the other was the Ateneo unit) which refused to disband (upon orders of higher command) as a result of the Japanese invasion. Thus many UP and Ateneo cadets fell in battle against the Japanese. One UP ROTC graduate is remembered as the first Filipino soldier to kill a Japanese invader in Atimonan, Quezon. The freedom of this nation has been bought by their blood.

The UP ROTC unit has produced excellent professional soldiers, leaders in government and private enterprises, Presidents and Vice Presidents of the Philippines as well as men and women, in their ordinary way, who have defended the ideals that the Philippine Republic is built upon. The next 100 years will see challenges for the ROTC unit. Recent changes in the law has weakened the national ROTC program and has put a serious problem on ensuring the viability of the Philippine armed forces in ensuring a source of ready recruits. The national security environment has changed with external and internal threats much different than 30 years ago and there is the problem of environmental disasters as a threat to national survival. The ROTC can help in addressing these security concerns.

On March 17, there will be a parade of ROTC cadets and alumni as well as centennial dinner at UP's Quezon Hall.

SALN salacious!

2012-02-07T18:49:00.007+08:00

In what appears to be a result of excesses of the past administration, some civil servants are up in arms about the revised Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) form which they are required to submit to the Civil Service Commission. They believe it is an invasion of privacy as well as plain silly!

Anyway, especially for the benefit of those not in the civil service, I am posting what a typical SALN form of a civil servant really looks like! Enjoy. Judge for yourself. As the Roman adage goes "The more corrupt the Republic the more are the forms..." ooops I meant the laws!

STATEMENT OF ASSETS, LIABILITIES AND NET WORTH

AND DISCLOSURE OF BUSINESS INTERESTS, FINANCIAL CONNECTIONS

AND RELATIVE/S IN THE GOVERNMENT SERVICE

As of December 31, 2011

(Required by R.A. Nos. 3019 and 6713)

(Note: Husband and Wife who are both public officials or employees may

file the required statements jointly or separately.)

Jointly filed. Separately filed.

Name DELA CRUZ JUAN BIKTIMA Position: TAXPAYER

(Surname) (First Name) (Middle Initial) Office BUREAU OF UNDERPAID GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

Address ≈ NA 123 Bahaybahayan Street Office Address MANILA

_________________

I am married. I am not married.

Spouse _DELA CRUZ_MARIA ASA PA Position MAYBAHAY

(Surname) (First Name) (Middle Initial) Office: DE LA CRUZ CONDOMINIUMS INC

Office Address _ NA 123 BAHAYBAHAYAN STREET _________________________________

Unmarried Children below 18 years of age living in his/her household: (use additional sheet/s, if necessary)

Name Date of Birth

1. JUNIOR 1 JAN 2007

2. INENG 1 JAN 2009

3 GLORYA MAKAPAL ARRRREO 5 APRIL ….

I have no children below 18 years of age living in my household.

ASSETS, LIABILITIES AND NET WORTH

I. ASSETS (including that of declarant’s spouse and unmarried children below 18 years of age living in his/her household)

A. REAL PROPERTY/IES (use additional sheet/s, if necessary)

KIND (Res./Comm./ Agri., etc.)	NATURE OF PROPERTY (Paraphernal, conjugal or community)	LOCATION	ACQUISITION		ASSESSED VALUE	FAIR MARKET VALUE	ACQUISITION COST*
KIND (Res./Comm./ Agri., etc.)	NATURE OF PROPERTY (Paraphernal, conjugal or community)	LOCATION	MODE	YEAR	ASSESSED VALUE	FAIR MARKET VALUE	Land, Building, others	Improvement/s
RESIDENCE	CONJUGAL	SA BUKID	PURCHASE	2005	1.00	0.50	2.00	WALA NO!

TOTAL: 0.50

B. PERSONAL PROPERTY/IES AND OTHER ASSETS (use additional sheet/s, if necessary)

TANGIBLE	ACQUISITION		ACQUISITION COST*
TANGIBLE	MODE	YEAR	ACQUISITION COST*
CELLPHONE	PURCHASE	2010	2000.00
INTANGIBLE
ANGKING TALINO AT KAGWAPUHAN	INHERITANCE	1968	0.00
SEX APPEAL	PURCHASE	2009	1.00

TOTAL: 2001

*For computation purposes, use acquisition cost. Properties of unmarried children below 18 years of age living in his/her household shall be excluded as well as the paraphernal/exclusive properties of spouse, in case of separate filing.

TOTAL ASSETS (A+B)=_2006.50

II. LIABILITIES (including that of declarant’s spouse and unmarried children below 18 years of age living in his/her household)

NATURE	NAME OF CREDITOR/S	*OUTSTANDING BALANCE
KALULUWANG NAKASANGLA	SATANAS PAWNSHOP/ IMF/WB	1,000,000,000,000,000.00

(use additional sheet/s, if necessary) TOTAL: 1,000,000,000,000,000.00

*In the computation of outstanding balance, properties of unmarried children below 18 years of age living in his/her household shall be excluded as well as the paraphernal/exclusive properties of spouse, in case of separate filing.

III. NET WORTH (TOTAL ASSETS (I) LESS TOTAL LIABILITIES (II) = NET WORTH (III)

TOTAL NET WORTH: -999999997998.00

AMOUNT AND SOURCES OF GROSS INCOME

(ALL amounts received from ALL sources for the preceding calendar year)

NATURE (salary/income, business, etc.)	SOURCES	AMOUNT
SALARY INCOME	EMPLOYMENT	200,000.00

(use additional sheet/s, if necessary)

TOTAL: _200,000.00_

AMOUNT OF PERSONAL AND FAMILY EXPENSES

(for the preceding calendar year)

PERSONAL EXPENSES	ESTIMATED AMOUNT	FAMILY EXPENSES	ESTIMATED AMOUNT
PANG-TSIKS AT GIMIK	2,000,000.00	PARA KAY MISIS	1.00

(use additional sheet/s, if necessary)

TOTAL : 2,000.000.00 TOTAL : 1.00

AMOUNT OF INCOME TAXES PAID

(for the preceding calendar year)

NATURE	AMOUNT
Compensation	25,000.00
Business Income	1.0
Other Income	0

(use additional sheet/s, if necessary)

TOTAL : 25,001.00

BUSINESS INTERESTS AND FINANCIAL CONNECTIONS

(Declarant/Spouse/Unmarried Children below 18 years of age living in the household of declarant)

(Use Additional Sheet/s, if necessary)

I/We don’t have any business interests and financial connections.

Name of Entity/Business Enterprise	Business Address	Nature of Business Interest and/or Financial Connection	Date of Acquisition of Interest or Connection
RONALD NILAMAS Pirated DVD	Stall 007, Pasillo 1	STOCKHOLDER	1 Jan 2005

RELATIVE/S IN THE GOVERNMENT

(Up to the 4^th civil degree of relationship, either by consanguinity or affinity, including bilas, inso and balae)

(Use Additional Sheet/s, if necessary)

I/We don’t know of any relative/s in Government.

Name of Relative	Relationship	Position	Name of Office/Address
NOYNOY AQUINO	ITINAKWIL KO NA!	PENOY NG PILIPINAS	MALACANANG
RENATO CORONA	ITINAKWIL KO NA RIN!	TSIP JUSTIISIN ANG IMPITSMENT	SUPREME VICTORIA COURT
MANNY PACQUIAO	NINONG	BOKSINGERO/CONGRESSMAN	GEN SAN CITY

I/We hereby certify that these are my/our true and detailed assets, liabilities, net worth, amount and sources of income, personal and family expenses, amount of income taxes paid, business interests, and financial connections, including those of my spouse and my/our children below 18 years of age living in my household, and the name/s of my relative/s in the Government, as of December 31, 2011 as required by and in accordance with Republic Act No. 3019 and 6713.

I/We hereby authorize the Ombudsman or his duly authorized representative to obtain and secure from all appropriate agencies, including the Bureau of Internal Revenue, such documents that may show such assets, liabilities, net worth, business interests, and financial connections, including those of my spouse and my/our children below 18 years of age living in my household, covering previous years, and if possible, including the year I/we first assumed office in Government.

I/We further undertake to produce all supporting documents for each of the entries herein made when required.

Declarants’ Signature: __________________________ ______________________________

Date: ____________________________ Date: ____________________________

(For Separate Filing) Spouse’s Signature: _________________________

Date: ____________________________

SUBSCRIBED AND SW ORN TO before me on this _______ day of ______________, 20______, affiant(s) exhibiting his/her/their tax identification number(s) _______________________________ and employee number(s) ______________________________.

______________________________

(Person Administering Oath)

How UST awarded doctorates in the 19th Century

2012-01-12T01:21:00.000+08:00

The Royal and Pontifical University of Santo Tomas in the 400 years of its existence has upheld strict academic standards. Let us take the example of the academic career of our of our heroes, and that of Jose Rizal, Reverendo Padre Jose Burgos. Fr Burgos together with fellow secular priests Gomez and Zamora, was accused of mutiny by the Spanish military courts and executed in 1872. This marked the birth of the Filipino national consciousness and the Filipino nation.

Of the three, Fr Burgos was the most academically qualified, He had eight degrees, three undergraduate qualifications, three licentiates (equivalent to a Masters) and two doctorate degrees in Sacred Theology and Canon Law.

Burgos had to defend his theses starting in his Bachelor of Theology and he had to undergo the famous "Noche Triste" literally "Night of Sorrows" when his examiners gave him the propositions to defend the next morning in the Reelection exam. Burgos did this for all his degrees except for the Doctor of Sacred Theology where the examiners found nothing much objectionable in his thesis so he did not defend it. For the Doctor of Canon Law degree, he had to have the Noche Triste and defend the dissertation for five hours the next day!

Where the Rector Magnificus once confered doctorates in the old UST Campus

This all was done in Latn! The examiners then dropped their ballots in a silver vessel and counted by an auditor. In Burgos case, the decision to award the doctorate was unanimous or "nemine discrepante". He was then invested with the doctor's regalia at Santo Domingo Church. This was a solemn ceremony preceded by a procession of the doctoral candidate flanked by the rector and the dean. Burgos then petitioned the rector to confer the degree which the rector did by imposing the cap and gown. Burgos then embraced all the members of the faculty.

That was how the UST conferred doctorates then. But while many things have changed with UST graduations more in accordance to modern customs, one thing remains unchanged. All doctoral candidates have to defend their dissertations in an examination that could last for 5 hours! While they need not undergo a Noche Triste, the effect is still the same since I don't know of any doctoral candidate who could sleep soundly on the eve of his/her defence!

That was until Ms Marites Vitug reports that UST conferred Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona a PhD in Civil Law summa cum laude allegedly without submitting or defending a dissertation! Ms Vitug searched for the dissertation and found only a paper published in a journal. UST says it accepted this as equivalent to a dissertation but a quick check of the electronic link says the document is private. duh! (one can access it at Vitug's site but it is hard to read) PhD dissertations are public documents which anyone can access although the library may have restrictions on how one can access it and for how long. In most cases a person has to legally declare he/she accessed the dissertation. This is to prevent plagiarism (which is an issue and controversy another justice of the Supreme Court got embroiled in!)

Padre Burgos' biographer Sol H Gwekoh was able to access Burgos' dissertations and writings at the UST library and readers can't access Corona's paper. duh again!

Being a university, the country's oldest and most revered, UST has complete academic freedom to set examination standards. But perhaps in UST's history only two people have been awarded earned doctorates without defending their dissertations, Burgos and Corona. The question is whether Burgos and Corona are comparable at all!

Pater Dolorosus

2011-12-19T23:43:00.003+08:00

"Mindanaoan" posted this Twitpic of a weeping father cradling his dead daughter in the wake of the tragic floods that sank Cagayan de Oro city as a result of tropical storm Sendong (Washi) last Saturday evening. The little girl I presume is just a wee bit over two years of age. This is the age of temper tantrums and delightful innocence. Those of us who have children will know. The pain of small children taken from us at this age is unfathomable.

And so the photo broke my heart into a million pieces and that too of Mindanaoan. But this is the nightmare that I am waking up to. Environmental catastrophe is now at hand and there are no easy solutions. Whether this be a flash flood (which is the most dangerous of natural hazards) or even the chronic air pollution poisoning Metro Manila, people will die and most tragically children will die.

The photo is reminiscent of Roman Catholic iconography of the Mater Dolorosa or the Sorrowful Mother. Dolorosum (neutral gender) is the Latin adjective for sorrows but the Latin has more gravitas and thus much pain as compared to the English translation. The Sorrowful Mother however especially as seen in Michaelangelo's Pieta (Pity in Italian) is serene since she knows that salvation has been bought by the death of her Son. In three days her Son will destroy death. She knows this since Simeon had foretold this in a prophecy

But not for this Pater dolorosus. Death is all around but where is salvation? In a church or in Malacanang Palace or the Impeachment court?

Roman Catholic tradition lists the Seven Sorrows of Mary and this was a popular medieval devotion which we have somewhat lost. Perhaps we can have the Seven Sorrows of the Philippine Environment

1) Poverty and income inequity

2) Malthusian resource use

3) Mining

4) Loss of the forests, mangroves, reefs and sea grasses

5) Sedimentation

6) Climate change

7) Environmental refugees

[Note that I do not include overpopulation as bandied by pro RH advocates. The problem lies deeper than that and is really more on the first sorrow. Like the great scientist and biogeographer Alfred Russel Wallace, posited a century ago in contrast to mistaken application of Darwinian theory, simple fertility control is too simplistic a solution to population and environmental issues]

This pater dolorosus has now become part of the 7th sorrow, while the government tries to make cash out of the 3rd sorrow.

As an environmental practitioner, people have asked me so many times and most recently a group of medical doctors "What can we do?"

We can do something but it would entail sacrifice. The Virgin Mary had to undergo her sacrifice for the redemption that came.

There is hope still.

The Justice has the Crown: Fr Bernas quotes Thomas More

2011-12-12T23:45:00.002+08:00

Sir Thomas More, The Man for all Seasons

The Philippines House of Representatives has the necessary numbers to begin impeachment proceedings against Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. In an ironic but wry comment, for the first time a respected constitutional lawyer, the Reverend Father Joaquin Bernas SJ has quoted Sir Thomas More's timeless "the devil and the rule of law" soundbite. But Fr Bernas does not name More as the source of the quote and that is the real downer! Thomas More isn't your any ordinary lawyer. He is a Catholic saint and martyr. He was once Chancellor of England, which equivalent in our congressional system as the Chief Justice and President of the Senate combined. Ferdinand Topacio Esq will pale by comparison since More won't trade his eggs for mere "lawyer's drivel"! BTW, his wife Lady Alice Middleton was tempted many times to do so!

In my commentaries on Philippine politics and the rule of law, I have always alluded to Thomas More, who lost his head because King Henry VIII of England wanted the Crown to remain on his head and his male issue. As the story goes, it was a female issue from Henry's loins that brought England to glory for ever! But Henry never saw that happen. What Henry saw was the probably the first major change in England's constitutional arrangements since the Magna Carta. Henry had Parliament pass a series of acts culminating in the Acts of Supremacy, which made the King the Head of the English Church. Thus the English Church was separated from the jurisdiction of the Pope in Rome.

More argued quite correctly that Henry cannot have Supremacy over the Church since the canons of Christendom and his coronation oath deny him this power.

" this Indictment is grounded upon an Act of Parliament, directly repugnant ,to the Laws of God and his Holy Church, the Supreme Government of which, or of any part thereof, no Temporal Person may by any Law presume to take upon him, being what right belongs to the See of Rome, which by special Prerogative was granted by the Mouth of our Savior Christ himself to St. Peter, and the Bishops of Rome"

More and a host of English Catholics refused to recognize the King's supremacy and many lost their heads. Thus the Crown was secured from foreign intervention and a new Church by law established but at a inestimable price which resulted in England losing "things of beauty". With More gone, a new Chancellor, Thomas Cromwell executed the King's policies but in the end lost his head too!

In England then as now the Monarch is Sovereign. Legally she has absolute power, but she is limited and bound by convention and thus has really very little political power to speak of. This powerlessness is shown by the fact that if Parliament issues a death warrant for the Monarch's head, she will be bound by convention to sign it! However, convention dictates that she exercise her power through her ministers who advise her and the electorate provides a check on the absolute powers exercised in the Queen's name. Thus in practice, almost all these powers are exercised by her government who are responsible to Parliament. If the government loses confidence of Parliament it has to resign and an election is called. In the Philippines, then as now, the People are sovereign but the Constitution allows their power exercised only through the Constitution which defines three separate but co-equal branches of government. The President as representative of the people executes these powers of which he has competence. Similarly Congress as representatives of the people in assembly does what is within their powers and the Courts do so within theirs.

This is the context of Fr Bernas commentary. But in our case, the Chief Justice has the Crown and the President just his balding head. So it is a wry but ironic commentary. Noynoy wants to have the Supremacy over the Justices which the Constitution denies him. But like Henry he can get the parliament to bend to his will and so the impeachment steam locomotive is well steaming along!

The Reformation set the stage for the English Civil War which neither was much about religion but about who is Supreme over the realm. A King's head was the price for the battle between the supremacy of Parliament over the Crown. In the end, Parliament won and so we see the system of Constitutional monarchy in England today which Pope Benedict XVI praised in a speech to the British political establishment in Westminster Hall as

"This country’s Parliamentary tradition owes much to the national instinct for moderation, to the desire to achieve a genuine balance between the legitimate claims of government and the rights of those subject to it. While decisive steps have been taken at several points in your history to place limits on the exercise of power, the nation’s political institutions have been able to evolve with a remarkable degree of stability. In the process, Britain has emerged as a pluralist democracy"

But the EDSA constitutional system which Fr Bernas help aborning did not evolve into a way of moderation in our political life.

Thus he warns

"In this critical moment of our constitutional history, my hope is that the justices of the Supreme Court, imperfect though they may be, will not capitulate and that others in the judiciary will not tremble in their boots and yield what is constitutionally theirs to President Aquino. If they do, it would be tragic for our nation.

Impeachment. Impeachment is very much in the air. It is a legitimate tool enshrined in the Constitution. But it is a two-edged sword. It can be an instrument of reform but it can also be an instrument of vindictive persecution carried out by blindfolded followers. For this reason the Constitution has surrounded the process with safeguards which limit the number of people subject to impeachment and which makes its success difficult to achieve."

These issues remain the same issues that Thomas More lost his head for.

"Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!"

The famous Devil quote comes to us through Roper's biography of his father-in-law Thomas More and Roper wrote it as how he heard More said it. In any movie, stage play, teleseries on Tudor England, these lines are said by actors playing More's character exactly as the real More said it almost 500 years ago . These lines are so sacred for democratic societies where liberties are defended and lived!

Impeaching the Crowned Justice for the Devil's purpose is fall into the hole of Gloria Arroyo's making. The constitutional system will collapse and with it Noynoy Aquino's presidency.

The tragedy of Philippine democracy

2011-11-21T22:54:00.004+08:00

Few words can describe the tragedy. Filipino democracy has failed. The EDSA spawned constitutional system as expected has spawned madness.

2001

2011

We have to put a stop to this if we don't want President-elects to submit mug shots to save time!

With apologies to the late Laura Branigan

2011-11-18T23:28:00.003+08:00

Gloria the November 18, 2011 Remix

Gloria, you're always on the run now
Running away from somebody, you gotta get out somehow
I think you've got to slow down before you start to break it
I think you're headed for the jailhouse, so be careful not to show it

You really don't remember, was it something that you said?
Is Leila in your head calling, Gloria?
Gloria, don't you think you're lyin'?
If Justice wants you, why is only Topacio callin'?
You don't have to answer
Leave them hangin' on the line, oh-oh-oh, calling Gloria
Gloria (Gloria), I think they got your flight number (Gloria)
I think they got the alias (Gloria) that you've been living under (Gloria)
But you really don't remember, was it something that you said?
Is ZTE in your head calling, Gloria?

A-ha-ha, a-ha-ha, Gloria, how's it gonna go down?
Will you meet the Sheriff on the main line, or will he get you on the rebound?
Will you get a TRO for your honey, take a flight in the afternoon?
Feel your innocence slipping away, don't believe it's comin' back soon

And you really don't remember, was it something that you said?
Is "Hello Garci" in your head calling, Gloria?
Gloria, don't you think you're lyin'?
If everybody wants you, why is Lacierda talkin'?
You don't have to answer [not here but in court!]
Leave them hangin' on the line, oh-oh-oh, calling Gloria
Gloria (Gloria), I think they got your flight number (Gloria)
I think they got the alias (Gloria) that you've been living under (Gloria)
But you really don't remember, was it something that you said?
Is the conscience in your head calling, Gloria?

(Gloria, Gloria, Gloria, Gloria, Gloria)
(Gloria, Gloria, Gloria, Gloria, Gloria)

More apologies to Robert Bolt and Sir Thomas More

2011-11-16T14:10:00.000+08:00

Curtain opens and the scene is in the immigration holding room of the airport, Lei-low of Five is interrogating Glory Aray-ko, one time Queen of the realm.

Glory Aray-ko You don't seem to appreciate the seriousness of my condition. Talagang masakit!
Glory Aray-ko: I defy anyone to wear that horrible halo with screws and straps for a year and not appreciate the seriousness my condition.
Lei-low of Five: Yet the State has harsher punishments. But you seem to enjoy it for the publicity.
Glory Aray-ko: What do you think of me, a SM fan? You threaten like a palengke bully.
Lei-low of Five: How should I threaten?
Glory Aray-ko: Like a Minister of State, with justice!
Lei-low of Five: Oh, justice is what you're threatened with.
Glory Aray-ko: Then I'm not threatened.

With apologies to Robert Bolt and Saint Thomas More!

2011-11-15T23:15:00.007+08:00

The timeless scene in Robert Bolt's Oscar winning "A Man for All Seasons" is rescripted to reflect today's events

Dramatis personae

Lei-low of Five - Secretary of Just-tiis
Corolla- Chief Supreme of the Supremes
PeNoy - The bachelor King (except in the original script, the King had six wives!)
Lasherd-ha? - Palace spokesman

The curtain opens and the scene is in the Palace dining room.

Secretary Lei-low of Five: Stop her!

Chief Supreme Corolla: For what?

Lei-low of Five: She's dangerous!

PeNoy: For all we know she will run away!

Lasherd-ha?: Boss, that girl's bad! She's a habitual liar!

Chief Supreme Corolla: There's no law against that!

PeNoy: There is, God's law!

Chief Supreme Corolla: Then let God's immigration officers arrest her!

Lei-low of Five: While you talk she's gone to the airport!

Chief Surpreme Corolla: And go she should, if she were the Devil herself, until she broke the law!

Lasherd-ha?: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Chief Supreme Corolla: Yes! What would you do? Use a wang wang through EDSA traffic to get after the Devil ? [eh di ba ayaw ni PeNoy nun?]

Lasherd-ha?: Yes, I'd beat every red light in the Metro to do that!

Chief Surpreme Corolla: Oh? And when the last traffic light was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide from the kotong, Lasherd-ha?, the laws, I mean your tires and your stupid arguments, all being flat?

This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Congress's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down (and you're just the man to do it!), do you really think you could stand upright in the storm surge at the Baywalk that would flood you then?

Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Karmic disaster!

2011-11-12T14:07:00.001+08:00

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Noynoy Aquino continue to inflict their insidious kind of karma on the Filipino nation. In what can be described as a tragicomedy in the making we read that Mrs Arroyo wants to be given the go ahead to seek medical treatment abroad. Since she is a member of the House (and an employee of the civil service like yours truly), she had to apply for the requisite travel authority (TA) from the administrator of that government agency, no other than the Speaker, Sonny Belmonte. This was given and like in any travel authority, it spells out the itinerary and the reason of travel. The TA is a public document and has to been by the immigration officer at the airport. A government officer may demand to see it and one must present it.

Mrs Arroyo unlike most government employees on official business travel, faces suits that haven't been lodged in court (whatever that means, since without them being lodged, they aren't suits but possibly malicious accusations). She faces several possible plunder suits and an electoral sabotage suit all of which are not bailable. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima disapproved her request for travel citing inconsistencies in her request for travel authority and a medical opinion from the chief government physician as claimed by the press, Health Secretary Dr Enrique Ona. Dr Ona read Mrs Arroyo's medical abstracts as sent in by her doctors. He concluded that her medical condition wasn't life threatening. I wonder if Dr Ona is the right government physician to see Mrs Arroyo's medical history. Mrs Arroyo has the right to choose her physicians since she isn't in remand. First of all Dr One is a political appointee and has to toe the Noynoy administration line. In the US, the chief government physician is none other than the Surgeon General of the United States who is nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Surgeon General is an admiral of the uniformed services of the United States and thus cannot be political. We cannot say that of the Secretary of Health.

Thus several doctors have told me that Mrs Arroyo's patient's rights have been violated and she can go the Commission on Human Rights. However, I told the docs that if the Philippine Medical Association (PMA) had supported moves for a patient's rights bill (filed by Senator Bong Revilla in 2007) then Mrs Arroyo's rights would have been better protected. It should be up to the PMA to protest on behalf of patients. But many docs opposed the bill.

Hospitals have their "patients rights" notices but these hardly have legal enforcement. But international human rights legislation some of which the Philippines is a signatory protect these rights. Now the bill was filed in the Senate in 2007. If Mrs Arroyo who was then President knew what was in store for her, would she have moved heaven and hell to have it passed? We know she moved hell in order to win the last election she ran as prez!

Move it, I gotta win!

Well that is what karma is all about and this is found in every religious tradition in human society. Buddhism and Christianity even have the principle in their sacred writings. Contrary to what many Pinoys think, the Divine has nothing to do with karma (although some Hindu traditions say otherwise). It is part of the natural law. If you do good, expect good to come and if bad, expect worse to come! My late "ninang" godmother who studied Hinduism told me that karma is either a high performing investment or a credit card debt. The interest is higher after the fact and as shown in the fine print!

The Divine punishment comes at the Last Day of Judgment when the Divine Judge has to execute the universal law. But before the consequences of our acts are a result of our humanity.

And this is where Mrs Arroyo, Mr Aquino and Atty Leila de Lima are in now. They are playing what their karmic fate would have it

Supporters of Mrs Arroyo and her lawyers released this photo with the former President appropriately crowned with a halo vest. Obviously the photo is meant to elicit the Pinoy sense of "awa" or pity. But as karma has it, it hasn't and will never have it. With hunger increasing in our society and desperation too, pity on these characters will fly out the window. And it has something largely to do with what Mrs Arroyo's public and private conduct when she was in power. Also it has something to do with the next photo

Well we he can also wear a halo vest over his egg shaped head and the Filipino people won't have any "awa" at all! The Filipino people have been inured by the moral decay of their society ever since the Marcos regime imploded into Hawaii!

Mr Aquino's conduct as President and the idiotic comments of his subalterns while appearing opposite that of Mrs Arroyo isn't helping either. Remember the Luneta bus massacre? The central Luzon residents sinking in floodwaters and the presidential absence?

Still Imeldific in shades!

The problem is Mr Aquino appears not to have that sense of compassion like that Mrs Arroyo never had even if she has had those "GMA Cares" plastered everywhere. Thus the Imeldific who alone has survived Gadhafi, Sadat, Mubarak, the Shah etc appears to be a saint or angel in comparison! And one Imeldific fan told me that despite her faults, Mrs Marcos indeed had compassion for the less fortunate. I will have to agree. And perhaps karma had been less harsh, Mrs Marcos only wears shades and not a head contraption that would make an eye turner in a science fiction movie!

Karma doesn't care about signs like these!

The thing is the Filipino people consented and elected these people into power! That is our karmic disaster.

No amount of Feng Shui trinkets and charms can get rid us of these characters from the elite families who have ruined this country for so long. It is up for the Filipino people to remember the Katipunan and what it did!

Environmental change: A new threat to national survival and the importance of a citizen armed forces

2011-10-31T21:36:00.001+08:00

One of the major national security issues that face the Philippines and neighbouring countries is massive environmental changes that can cause the displacement of hundreds of thousands if not millions of citizens. As of this writing, metropolitan Bangkok is now being innundated by massive monsoon floods and the engineering interventions made by the Thai government in the last 20 years of rapid economic development are proving of very little use. The Prime Minister of Thailand Ms Yingluck Shinawatra, has to call on the Thai armed forces to offer relief and rescue. Like the Philippines, the massive evacuation of thousands of citizens is a logistical challenge that will tax the capacity of the government of Thailand. However the Kingdom of Thailand is in a much better position to respond. Why?

The Armed forces of the ASEAN countries have seen improvements in training, equipment and recruitment. These countries armed forces have enough strength to call in times of national environmental emergency. One factor is that political threats to the ASEAN countries have been neutralized by reforms in society. This was made possible by rapid economic growth and a nuanced and calculated approach to democratic reform. The ASEAN nations did not reject democratic reforms per se as misconstrued by 'democratic" Philippines, democratic reforms were nuanced in the context of these countries' political cultures all of which were affected by European and American imperialism.

The information I have says that Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia Indonesia, laos and, Vietnam have compulsory military service for citizens 18 years old and above (Laos conscripts men and women at 15 years of age). Indonesia does not have the draft but its constitution authorizes the President to call for one if there is a national emergency. Thailand has a random draft call. Vietnam has national service. Singapore and Malaysia have a continuous call for national service. The Philippines is the only one among this list that does not have compulsary national service.

The value of national service is that the armed services can identify suitable men and women for recruitment into the professional armed services. A larger proportion may serve in the reserves while the rest will serve in their repective civilian roles. I have blogged about the problems that the AFP have now because of national service being downgraded and will encounter if the ROTC is made mandatory once more.

One end result of our national service policy is that the average age of the Filipino soldier is in his/her late 30s, ( A Marine officer told me it is around 37) hardly the best age at which to respond to national emergencies such as environmental catastrophe. This compounded with an ill equipped AFP and if the defence pundits are correct, slipping training standards (which may have led to recent casualties) makes it unlikely that the AFP can adequately respond to environmental emergencies.

Personally, I have seen this since I do environmental work with some services of the AFP.

The truth is that the professional armed forces can never be enough to respond to these emergencies. Since these emergencies are of the civil kind, only a well equipped and trained citizen armed forces can adequately fill the need. Sadly with the "killing" of ROTC by a reactive Congress and the Arroyo administration, there are hardly any cadets who can respond to the needs of citizens in these situations. We have seen it in typhoon Ondoy in 2009 where ROTC cadets could have filled in on certain relief operations that are suited to their level of training.

The great earthquake and tsunami in Japan last March 2011 is particularly instructive. A large majority of Japanese citizens (77%) view the Japan Self Defense Forces (JSDF) as essential to responding to disasters and other environmental catastrophes. While the rationale of General MacArthur in allowing the establishment of the JSDF is for national security in the Cold War era, a significantly less percentage of Japanese citizens (60%) see it that way. Thus the training of the JSDF has focused on this aspect aside from its external defence functions. As a result of the pacifist Japanese constitution, the JSDF is legally a civilian service and thus can be considered as a citizen army.

The JSDF is the first armed service in history where almost all of the authorized strength was mobilized by the Prime Minister of Japan to serve in disaster relief.

Here is the official blurb:

" The JSDF began its search and rescue and relief operation only hours after the earthquake and tsunami. On March 13, Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered the mobilization of 100,000 JSDF personnel. As of March 17, approximately 76,000 JSDF troops had been deployed from JSDF bases throughout Japan and are engaged in activities such as search, rescue and recovery and the transport and distribution of relief supplies. In addition, 10,000 reserves have been called up for the first time.

This is an extraordinary experience for the JSDF in many ways. For one, the mobilization of 100,000 personnel - or as many as 180,000 when counting logistical support - is the largest-scale mobilization of the JSDF since World War II."

The JSDF is Asia's best equipped armed force. The Prime Minister of Japan as Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese armed services was able to mobilize the JSDF within two days.

If such an event happens in the Philippines, I do not think the Armed Forces of the Philippines can respond in such magnitude since the AFP has been historically underfunded and given the cultural traits of Filipino society when faced with national crises, a citizen army is essential in maintaining order. History documents that upon the withdrawal of the American forces from Manila during the Japanese invasion in 1941, public order broke down almost immediately.

The sure thing is that such an event will happen and the only thing the Philippines can do is to prepare its citizens. The nation needs a strong citizen army to guarantee its national survival.

They are soldiers too. That is something the Filipino nation should know!

2011-10-27T00:06:00.000+08:00

The families of the 19 soldiers killed in an MILF-Abu Sayyaf ambush in Basilan are now starting to bury their brave dead. The flag draped caskets are blessed by the priests, taps and the final salute is fired. The coffin is then laid into the tomb.

At the end of these military ceremonies whatever the rank of the dead soldier, the flag is lifted from the casket before entombment and folded in the way that every boy scout learns on the first days of service to God, Country and People. The folded flag is presented by the senior officer on graveside duty to the spouse, or if the soldier is not married, to the parents with the words

"A grateful Republic thanks your son/daughter/husband/wife for his/her service"

The Republic will forever be grateful. The soldier does not guarantee freedom as mistakenly assumed by some. It is the Constitution that does so. The soldier takes the oath to defend the Constitution and rest of the citizenry are just asked to live it and perhaps defend it too when called to service.

A family grieves for a fallen soldier.

And then the ceremonies end and the family is left to grieve for a moment more and then to soldier on! There is no choice but to soldier on. And to soldier on until victory and the elusive peace is indeed victorious!

The parents, spouse and children of soldiers are soldiers too and to the end of their lives for they will always carry the memory of their dead. I am a son of a soldier and to the end of my days I am a soldier too.

Dad and I at the start of my service to my country

When I was growing up I expected my father to come home in a box. And this is not some metaphor but a reality that we had to face. And of course the children have to bear the weight of duty, keeping the home front secure, to make the quick decisions that count, obey a command and to see that life is normal. And that is the only mission, to see that life goes on as normally as possible, not much difference from the family next door whose father has a civilian job.

And there were no "family days". Whatever family days we had were in an army camp. And as we grew into adulthood we had to do the duty of service for the country. And that is where you find us now.

My father did not come home in a box. He retired from the service and passed away 20 years ago. But we were to do our duty still and that is to soldier on for the country.

My heart goes to the families of the brave soldiers. The politicians who cry for justice for votes in the next election cannot fathom that idea of soldiering on. But the wife a slain corporal said it best

"I have no regrets. We have to fight on!"

The Church of Apple canonizes its first saint

2011-10-08T13:28:00.000+08:00

The Holy Church of Apple has given the Vatican a run for its money (or more accurately a run for its franchise on heaven) by ensuring by iPad acclamation that its founder Steve Jobs gets canonized as a saint. St Steve Jobs has been given a job as the patron saint of gadgets and this is just few days after his death.

The Vatican says that there is a heaven but Catholics have to accept that on faith while non-believers seriously doubt that given the recent peccadilloes many of which are scandalous, by priests and bishops. In a sense St Steve Jobs has had it better leading a rather mysterious life and having a lot of cash. Many of the Roman Catholic saints led mysterious lives in the cloister or seeing mysterious things as visions or by dying for the Faith, but the main requirement is and was, to give away the moolah to the poor. Sounds familiar? It's in the Gospel! All these are quite remote for the typical layperson. Similarly St Jobs led a rather mysterious life far detached from the Mac Faithful, who have lighted candle apps on their iPads and iPhones.

Saints (or more likely their fans) have to manufacture legends in their own time if they want to make it in the big league. Last October 4, Catholics and other Christians celebrated St Francis of Assisi’s day. St Francis was known to have preached to the birds, tamed the wolf, and of course levitated and had the stigmata. In contrast, St Steve was known to answer customer emails personally. This added to his mystique. The image of accessibility and vulnerability as well as seeing visions like seeing the prophecy of the Mouse and drop down Menus in a computer fair ensured Job’s canonization. Who knows? Jobs may have even levitated! St Francis wore the brown habit throughout his life. St Steve wore his Levis 501s throughout his life.

And One More Thing, St Francis inspired a lot of fans, St Steve inspired even more fans. St Francis was a product of countercultural 1260s, St Steve was of countercultural 1960s. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was also 60s countercultural and has a lot of fans, first of all was journalist Malcolm Muggeridge who made Mother Teresa known to a wider audience. He was so moved by Teresa's work while filming a documentary that he was instantly converted to Roman Catholicism. Thus you can be countercultural even in the heights of high society like the aristocracy. And so Our Lady, the Queen of Hearts, Diana Spencer was also canonized as saint and still has fans after her death in 1997.

But really what makes saint? How does one get converted? Saints got converted either by reading the Bible, seeing a vision or by some personal crisis. But many fans of St Steve Jobs were converted by using a Mac! But as I doubt if this were the same as filming Mother Teresa and seeing heaven. All that I have seen on an iPad are apps and many of these have to be bought using credit! That ain't heaven to me!

Nonetheless Steve Jobs is indeed a saint for things that entertain but die in two years. As like any saint, there will be devil's advocates all over with their kiss and tell stories. You can read one here. Even Mother Teresa wasn't immune. Remember that book about her "dark night" of the soul where she even doubted that God existed? We can read all sorts of negative things on St Diana, the Queen of Hearts. And what about that innuendo about St Mary Magdalene having sex with Christ and lusting over him? See, saints will be subject to such treatment. St Augustine jumped the gun by telling all about his sexual escapades and his famous "Lord make me chaste, but not yet" prayer!

And so it may be best and more fun to remain a sinner!

F. Sionil Jose rebuts critics re: on Filipino shallowness

2011-09-26T23:31:00.001+08:00

Perhaps I have a teeny weeny bit of right, by right as the English would have it, to comment on things about National Artist Sionil Jose's essays, novels, short stories and plays. I will have to confess, I have read all his books and I have all his books, save one "Vibora" which some idiot of a friend never returned (Never lend books. There was a legit reason why in medieval England they had them chained to the desks!). This is a fact that my mother was so proud of during one formal cocktail shindig at the US Embassy's historic Chuck Parson's ballroom. Mom, my sister and myself had been Fulbright grantees and so was F. Sionil Jose. During the usual literati banter that accompanies these events, my mother told Mr Sionil Jose that "My son has read all your books". To which Sionil Jose replied "Give my condolences to your son". This I heard within earshot since I was at a nearby cocktail table talking to then US ambassador Kirstie Kenney! (Kenny has been leaked out on Wikileaks since then!)

Today, Sionil Jose replies to his critics, one of them is yours truly. After all I have posted on Facebook that his essay was one of his shallowest, compared to "Our Moral Malaise" which is at the deep end of the Sionil Jose " Why we are Shallow" essay's theme. But perhaps the old man of letters had a didactic aim.

Nonetheless, I have publicly argued and got ad hominem FB posts from saying that all those "shallow" critics never got what Sionil Jose meant since many of the critics never got beyond "The Pretenders" (a part of the English lit canon at UP)... well some to their credit got to "Mass" but I doubt it if they got as far as "Ermita", with the "Gagamba" and then to "Ben Singkol"..... "Sherds" and one of my favourites "Sin"!

The critics failed to see that Sionil Jose's "Shallow" comment can be only understood in the nationalist ideology he proposes, which they will only find out if they read most of his works. Sionil Jose has called for Revolution in of all places, UP's FC conference hall! Some people took him seriously and many did not. It seems that age is a liability to calls for Revolution. Read the reactions here. His speech to UP Tacloban grads in 2003 is here.

The Lefties at UP won't be amused by Sionil Jose since his nationalist revolution ideology calls for the Army to take lead, not the masses idolized by the Left which Sionil Jose rightly or wrongly says are easily fooled. Nonetheless, a close reading of Sionil Jose will reveal that the Army is composed of soldiers who originally came from the masses. Sionil Jose points out that the masses had it almost right but they put Erap into power who ironically is not from the masses or even if he was not, he never shared any of the hardships of the masses except as mere illusion. He accuses the Revolution of Jose Maria Sison of the same thing. I can go on discussing Sionil Jose's ideology but it would be better for the reader to read Sionil Jose.

And so today, for his "shallow" critics Sionil Jose teaches them. He did have a didactic aim.

" So you out there who were outraged by the truths I flung before you — I said nothing new; I merely emphasized the obvious which is a writer’s traditional chore. You should be outraged at the gross obscenities in our country — the callous oligarchs who exploit us, our apathetic poor who whine and expect the government to feed them. Why don’t you be outraged at the politicians who lie to you, the corrupt police who condone the rampant crimes against us, the crooked judges who sell justice to the highest bidder. Why rage against this tired, old hack who merely confirmed what all of you know? The truth is out there for all of us to see but can’t, because we are blissfully wallowing in the shallows."

And so when the Revolution triumphs, you know what the brooms will sweep away!

Planking becomes a political protest statement

2011-09-21T00:13:00.001+08:00

Students plank at Palma Hall, University of the Philippines. Photo courtesy of the UPIO

I have seen people plank but as Wikipedia says it is just fad, or even a prank, or even an art form that draws attention. Some commentators have called it idiotic, but now one Filipino lawmaker wants it banned for compromising public safety!

Plankers want to plank in the most unusual of places. Then the photo is uploaded onto a social network platform like Facebook. But a few people have been killed in accidents for doing so.

But lately, Filipino students have planked in a usual place like Espana Blvd in Manila as a protest against budget cuts to the higher education sector by the Noynoy administration. Lying on the pavement is not a novel way of peaceful and confrontational protesting. In Mike de Leon's film Sister Stella L, there was a scene on the picket line where the strikers and the nuns laid down to prevent scabs from entering the factory. But that was not planking. "Die ins" were common in the 1980s, when protesters rallied against nuclear weapons. But that isn't planking. A die in is not an Internet fad like planking is.

And it appeared planking was effective in getting their message through even if it annoyed motorists. But in die ins, police drag the "Dead" and bring them aside to clear the way. The "dead" as in dead, can't resist and this is the protest statement! But how can they drag a plank? Planking may have a stronger political meaning that similar kinds of protest actions!

The filing of a bill banning planking is the silliest response. Why would anyone lessen the space for PEACEFUL PROTEST? Since planking is first and foremost and artistic statement, one can expect other similar forms like owling and teapotting to emerge and they already have. What next, ban these forms?

Congress may ban these forms until we are left with this

The President should inspire a new form of Internet fad cum protest!

Which is the inspiration for PeNoying. And once the militants and the rest of the citizenry get fed up with the PeNoy and peacefully PeNoy, I am certain the government will resign!

Our Rights, Our Victories courtesy of the Supremes

2011-09-18T14:57:00.003+08:00

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The Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the Philippines remains as the most relevant part of the charter for the citizen. In the latest book "Our Rights, Our Victories" (Cleverheads Publishing, 2011), authors Marites Danguilan Vitug and Criselda Yabes tackles landmark cases in the Supreme Court of the Philippines which deal with the rights and protections afforded by the Bill for the citizen.

Ms Vitug and Ms Yabes both respected investigative journalists have to be lauded for coming out with this book that deals with civil rights in the whole tumult of our history as an independent nation. This is indeed a first in Pinoy publishing history. The book is written without much of the legalese that accompanies ponencias by the Pinoy Supremes. This would make it more intelligible for the educated Pinoy reader who knows English. Even among the educated, civics was hardly ever taught and thought about unlike in the days of my parents and grandparents during the Imperial days of American rule. Then they had a text book entitled "Philippine Civics" written by George Malcolm (of UP Law fame) which dwells a lot on the Bill of Rights as necessary to liberty in Republican form of government.

When I taught in Louisiana just right after Katrina, I learned from the undergrads that civics is still taught in US High Schools. One afternoon I went for coffee at the Student Union bookshop and I found this on sale at 1 buck! It turned out to be one of the best bargains I have ever bought. Michael Trachtman's book starts out with the Marbury v. Madison decision that made the Supremes' really Supreme. The "Greatest Hits" also brings home the idea that major decisions by the Supremes, bad or otherwise have been turning points in American history. An example is the infamous Dred Scott decision that became one of the causes of the American Civil War. The civil rights decisions starting from Brown vs. Board of Education outlawing segregation and the ones limiting the powers of the President in Nixon and executive privilege were positive for the most part. Also I learned that while the Federal courts under the Sixth Amendment are required to provide the accused with an attorney, the state courts were not until in Gideon vs. Wainwright made the Supremes rule that the Sixth Amendment applies everywhere.

The thesis in Trachtman's book is that when the Supremes decide society changes.

Vitug and Yabes' book takes on a similar thesis but with rather mixed results. No doubt the cases brought before the Supremes of Padre Faura Street defined our civil liberties since some of them appear trivial like the right of lovers to have a tryst for a short time in motels (White Light Court vs. City of Manila), some upheld the rights to religious beliefs of members of minority churches (Roel Ebralinag vs Division Superintendent of Schools of Cebu and, Alejandro Estrada v. Soledad Escritor) and censorship and freedom of religion (Iglesia ni Cristo vs. Court of Appeals). There are some decisions that tackle constitutional issues like ancestral domain and the IPRA law (on which the Supremes were split and thus revealed what Pinoy society thinks about indigenous peoples) and, the people's initiative in proposing constitutional amendments. Some cases dealt with human rights like the necessity of the Writ of Amparo, recognizing that a battered woman may kill her husband in self defence and the real costs of the death penalty in the case of People of the Philippines vs. Leo Echegaray. A particular favourite of mine as an environmental practitioner is how environmentalist lawyer Tony Oposa successfully argued in the Supreme Court and got the decision in Antonio Oposa vs. Fulgencio Factoran that ordered the Executive department to clean up Manila Bay. For the first time in Pinoy jurisprudence history, the Supremes chided the various government agencies responsible for their "narrow views".

The book closes with how the Supremes caved in to the Marcos Dictatorship in Josue Javellana vs Executive Secretary. Here Justice Concepcion dissented on the Supremes deciding that the 1973 Constitution was legitimately ratified. The Javellana case would be years later, after the Marcos dictatorships has been dumped into the rubbish bin, taken by Law professors as a supreme example of moral cowardice.

So our question is if the Pinoy Supremes decide, will Filipino society change? The answer is both yes and no. In the case of the right to sleep for a moment's pleasure in motels, I don't think that shook up all of us except those who patronize motels! This is in contrast to the Writ of Amparo decision and the decisions on religious rights of minorities. The IPRA split decision should make us reflect on the rights of the IPs to their own land now that the Noynoy administration has decided to lift the moratorium on mining exploration permits. But the whole course of Pinoy history did change in Javellana vs. Executive Secretary. We as a nation are still paying the huge price for that decision. The price included them lives of the best and brightest of our young people.

"While Our Rights, Our Victories" describe how the rights of religious minorities have been upheld, there are no decisions on how the rights of the religious majority are limited if they infringe the consciences of those in the minority. The case of Iglesia ni Cristo vs. Court of Appeals comes close but the MTRCB chair then Atty Henrietta Mendez . But she was not acting as an official representative of the most numerous church in the country. We may see the Supremes confront this if and when the Reproductive Health Bill is passed which is vehemently opposed by the Roman Catholic Church.

Also I would suggest to Ms. Vitug and Ms. Yabes to have a version of the book in Filipino. The more people get to read it, the more chances our society will change for the better.

However all legal eagles know that the Supremes won't decide if there is no petition presented before them. They are at the apex of the legal system. They in the words of American Supreme Robert Jackson (the most famous of the prosecutors in the Nuremberg trial), are not "Final because they are infallible, but infallible because they are Final".

The citizen through a good lawyer can ask the Supremes to rule. But in the case of Clarence Gideon, without access to a lawyer, he wrote the American Supremes directly. The Supremes agreed to hear his petition and now we have the right to counsel if accused of a crime.

Our society will change if we are aware of our individual rights and liberties and if we are willing to defend it.

For more information on how readers can get the book. Please see and like the book's Facebook page here.

Alfredo E Pascual is formally installed as University of the Philippines President

2011-09-15T23:59:00.001+08:00

With the University of the Philippines (UP) and the rest of the public higher education sector facing Noynoy Aquino's budget cuts which resulted in UP slipping down in international university rankings, Alfredo E Pascual was formally installed as UP President today at the University Theatre in Diliman. The following photos are from the UP Information Office

Pascual is presented with the University Mace as symbol of his authority as chief academic officer

Mr Pascual reviews the Rayadillo Honor Guard.

The following photo is from my camera

Giving the investiture speech

In a ceremony with medieval roots, Pascual received from CHED Commissioner Dr Patricia Licuanan the symbols of office, the Mace and the Chain of Office. In one video spiel presented before the ceremonies, Fred Pascual seems to carry the Mace as if he were to hit and bludgeon those who threaten the UP with a budget cut! Very appropriate and true to the medieval ideal! For the original use of the Mace is for professors to hit students who doze in class or the Sovereign and his lieutenants who would proscribe the liberties of the University. The University in medieval times enjoyed liberties that cannot be violated without a riot! And true to medieval fashion the riot is led by students!

Of course int he 21st century we don't riot but hold peaceful protests. The Noynoy budget cut in reality proscribes the freedom of the University in fulfilling its mandate to educate the young and advance knowledge, science, arts and culture. In his investiture speech Pascual reiterated that any money spent on the university is not an expense but an investment. Well said since Pascual was an investment banker who was with the Asian Development Bank before being elected by the Regents last year.

Pascual's speech focused on making the university more efficient in order to be globally competitive. He proposes an "e-UP" which would link up and harmonize all IT systems between campuses. He also proposes a "one UP" which would mean that all academic standards for programs in all campuses will be at par with each other. He also proposes reviewing the UPCAT admission procedure. He notes that there are many poor but deserving students who even if they passed the admission tests, can't enroll due to financial considerations. He also proposes reviewing the RGEP (general education) curriculum to ensure students are able to think, be grounded in ethics and the need to be introduced to entrepreneurship for national development.

For the faculty and staff, he proposes that there should be effective HR management and equitable benefits in health care and housing. To the applause of the professors, he reported that negotiations with partners are underway to realize these goals. He also promised to boost efforts to ensure research and creative work productivity in the goal of making the UP a globally competitive university.

To maximize the real estate assets of the university, he proposes a rational land use plan and also an initiative to make UP a "green" university. Of course this would require sustained alumni support and participation.

Surely the six year term of Pascual is not enough to see that all these goals are achieved but if he is able to do it, then the foundation for success should be assured. Future university presidents should build upon these necessary initiatives and reforms for making UP the great university it was and should be.

An answer to a Ms Universe question appears to generate ecumenical discussions!

2011-09-13T15:47:00.001+08:00

Whoever thought an answer to a Ms Universe question would make Pinoys ask about what they think of their religious beliefs and to what extent will they give them up?

Ms Philippines, Shamcey Supsup's answer to juror Viveca Fox's question

"If I had to change my religious beliefs, I would not marry the person that I love because the first person that I love is God who created me and I have my faith and my principles and this is what makes
me who I am. And if that person loves me, he should love my God too."

Anyway, at least on Facebook or Twitter, Pinoys have as expected, discussed what this answer is all about. Some consider the answer to have shot down Shamcey's chances of winning the crown (she got the 3rd Runner up plaudit), which fell on Ms Angola, another woman who would not change what she was for something else! ABS-CBN was the first to start the trend by asking Shamcey's dad what he thought about his daughter's answer. Dad replied that he raised his daughter to stick to what she believed in.

Nonetheless, we have to laud Shamcey for her honesty and sticking to her core beliefs. Her answer is truly ecumenical. In any relationship, there should not be any compulsion to change beliefs but to respect beliefs whether they differ from yours or not.

Also her answer should pour cold water on the elitist Freethinkers and secularists in the Philippines. Religious belief is a core value of the Pinoy. Most Pinoys respect religious choices if these were made freely. Any compromise of religious beliefs short of sincere and heavenly choice is often met with scepticism

Perhaps we should aim to be a more ecumenical people where there is no compulsion to accept a belief, change it or impose it.

Zombitaongbayan: Patayin sa Shokot ang mga Politiko!

2011-09-07T23:09:00.003+08:00

Di masasabing hindi ka mamamtay sa katatawa sa pelikulang Zombadings: Patayin sa shokot si Remington na ngayo'y palabas pa rin sa mga sinehan. Sa pamagat ng komedya, ang salitang "shokot" ay marahil nagmula sa "shock" at "takot". Isang katagang nanggaling sa "gayspeak" nag karoon ng ibayong ibig sabihin ang bagong kataga.

Ngayon nasa balita ang kaso ng isang sikyo na sinuntok daw ng isang congressman or representante ng isang distrito sa Mindanao sa UP Ayala Technohub ng kinailangan para sa seguridad na suriin ang sasakyan ng congresista. Hindi daw itutuloy ng sikyo ang reklamo dahil isa lamang siyang maliit na tao. Si pelikulang Pinoy, may mga sinasabing "memorable" na eksena ng mga "maliit na tao" na lumaban. Kasama na dito ang ginampanan ni FPJ na isang maliit na police sergeant sa "Kapag Puno na ang Salop" laban sa di makakalimutang Judge (na ginampanan ni Eddie Garcia). Hay naku napuno na nga ang salop. Kaya lang maagang pumanaw si FPJ at ang kanyang katunggali ay may neck brace sa ngayon at labas masok sa St Luke's!

Isa pa ang pelikula ng La Aunor tungkol sa isyu ng base militar ng mga Kano. Napagkamalang baboy-ramo ang utol ni Nora bilang nars na may American dream, si Corazon de Jesus. Dito at sa huli lumaban ang dating maliit na "Minsa'y Isang Gamugamo" at ang klasikong linya sa pelikula na "My brother is not a pig" ay di malililumtan. Kaya nga isang katutak na ispoop na ang nagawa sa eksenang ito.

Ang Amerika noon at sa ngayon pa man ay ang super, o mega, o gigang "malaking tao". Ang lahat ng mga namuno sa bayan natin ay super dyutay kung ikukumpara sa mga Kano.

Klik na klik sa mga manonood ang ganito. Ngunit pantasya lang ang ito. Ang pagaabuso ng mga "maliit na tao" ng mga "malalaking tao" ay patuloy , mga sikyo, kasambahay, tsuper, titser, ground stewards/stewardess ng mga airlines at op kors ang mga OFW.

Sa isang tunay na demokrasya walang maliit. Ang konsepto ng :"maliit na tao" ay hango sa kasaysayang kolonyal at piyudal ng lipunang Pilipino. Dala pa rin natin ito. Ngunit kung magbabakas bakas ang lahat ng mga maliliit, magiging malaki sila. Ito ang buod ng tunay na demokrasya.

Ani nga ni Frankie Sionil-Jose, ang tanyag na manunulat sa Philippine English, hindi mangyayari ang tunay na demokrasya sa Pilipinas hanggat may mga malalaking tao. Ang mga malalaki na bumubuo lamang ng di hihigit sa 3% ng populasyon ng bayan ay tinuring ni Sionil-Jose na mga daga sa kusina na nagpapasasa sa yaman ng bayan, sa mas maanghang na wika tulad ng Kastila mga "ratones". Ang mga ratones ay kumukulong sa higit na malaking kalabaw sa loob ng aparador (ang nakakarami sa lipunan). Tanong ni Sionil-Jose, "Kailan nga ba magwawala ang mga kalabaw?"

Sigurado naman na ma-shoshokot ang mga daga pagnakalaya na ang mga kalabaw!

Ang isang rebolusyon lamang ang papatay sa shokot sa mga garapal. Ang taong bayan ayon kay Sionil Jose ay gutom. Mala-zombie na nga ang maraming mamamyanan sa Pilipinas.

Tingnan niyo si Gadhafi. Halos ma-tae na sa shokot sa disyerto!

ENGLISH TRANSLATION (for the benefit of people like James Soriano)

No one can deny one can die laughing after viewing the movie "Zombadings: Patayin sa Shokot si Remington" which still plays in theatres. In the title of the comedy, the word "shokot" likely came from the combination of "shock" and "fear". This neologism which came from gayspeak has accrued a meaning that is quite different now.

It has been lately in the news that there was a congressman from a Mindanao district who punched a security guard at the UP Ayala Technohub when it was required by security regulations for guards to inspect incoming vehicles. The guard won't pursue the complaint since he considers himself as an ordinary man. In Pinoy movies, there are memorable scenes of ordinary people who fought . To be included here are roles that FPJ played like that ordinary police sergeant in "Kapag Puno na ang Salop" versus the unforgettable Judge (played bt Eddie Garcia). Hay naku! the ladle is really full. However FPJ passed away so soon and his opponent now has a neck brace and is in and out of St Luke's!

Another is the film by La Aunor about the contentious issue of American military bases. Nora's (played the nurse Corazon de Jesus who had the American dream) brother was mistaken for a wild pig. And in the end, the once small moth "Minsa'y Isang Gamugamo" gave the classic movie line "My brother is not a pig" which is unforgettable in the history of Pinoy cinema. That's why this has been the subject of a zillion spoofs.

America then and as now is the mega, giga "big man". All those who have led this country are super dyutay when compared to the American.

This subject is a hit with Pinoy audiences. However, this is but a fantasy. The abuse of ordinary people by the "big ones" continues among security guards, chauffers, maids, teacher and even airline stewards/stewardess and of course, the OFW.

In a democracy there are no ordinary people. This concept of "little people" or ordinary people come from our colonial and feudal history. We still carry it to this day.However if all the "little people" band together as one they will become big. This is what democracy is all about.

And according to Frankie Sionil-Jose, who is a celebrated writer of Philippine English, true democracy in the Philippines won't come into fruition if there are "big people". They who make up just 3% of the of the country's population are considered by Sionil-Jose as "rats in the kitchen" who have feasted on the nation's wealth. In stronger languages like Spanish they are the "ratones". The "ratones" imprison the much larger carabao in the closet (the masses). Sionil-Jose asks, "When will the carabaos revolt against their masters?"

Surely the rats will be scared when the carabaos get mad!

Only a revolution will kill the corrupt and abusers by "shokot". The people according to Sionil-Jose are hungry. Ther are like zombies in hunger.

Behold Gadhafi. He almost shits in fear in the desert!

Missing the point about James Soriano's essay!

2011-08-27T15:15:00.003+08:00

I do not know James Soriano but those netizens who know him say he is an Ateneo de Manila senior. The essay he wrote for the Manila Bulletin is honest on his experience in the use of English and Filipino in Filipino society. The mass of Filipino society especially on the net will label him as conyo, but we cannot fault him for that.

The class stratification in Philippine society is sharply demarcated by language use as this blogger writes. This cuts across regional and cultural boundaries. Since in almost all political jurisdictions, those who are elected to public office belong to the elite, we can observe that signs in public buildings are in English or may be bilingual but the sign in a Philippine language is less conspicuous than the one in English. I have seen and stared at these while peeing in countless toilets in the Visayas and Mindanao, where a warning (pahibalo) in not flushing the toilet will result in a fine. The warning is in large font English and the one in a Visayan language is in a small font. And forget the national language by law established, Filipino. It does not figure at all in a Visayan toilet. English as stated by Dr Mike Tan (an Inquirer columnist, and dean of social science science and philosophy in UP Diliman) in a recent lecture to my Science Technology and Society undergrad class, is a medium for enforcing the law, and since the enforcement of the law and justice in this country is defined by class lines, the language becomes a barrier to keep the lower classes away from the upper classes. This is exactly what the American colonizers hadn't intended.

And does not the policy of a school with a tarpaulin banner stating "English speaking school" reinforce that class barrier? It is not just the language but the school fees that reinforce the class barrier and this is extremely true for many schools in the Philippines which include the Ateneo and the nationalist University of the Philippines. While the latter universities do not have an English only policy, the medium for most discourse is in English. We cannot fault James Soriano for pointing that out. And for rights to language use, we have to doff out hats to the French high court justices who ruled in the late 1980s that it is against human rights to force a person to speak a language not of his choice.

The Americans, who had no experience in administering an empire, but forced to have imperialist policies after defeating the Spanish in the late 19th century, embarked on a program of democratizing access to education in their new colonies at the start of the 20th. And with it came the English language. Some products of this era are alive like the celebrated writer and Magsaysay laureate Frankie Sionil Jose now in his late 80s who in his essays has always insisted that the English language liberated him. In the "nationalist" 1970s some people have criticized him for not writing in Filipino. In no way did the English language made him less of a Filipino or even as an Ilocano. His novels, essays and short stories prove that is not the case. But Sionil-Jose does not belong to the conyo class that Soriano does. Sionil-Jose comes from the peasant-working class. And in his social realist novels and much later essays, the language is used as a call for Revolution (not in the Marxist sense but the sense of the Katipunan of 1896), similar to what Dr Rizal used Castillian for.

Criticism against Sionil-Jose is somewhat similar to small minded criticisms against balladeer Jose Mari Chan for his refusal to sing in Tagalog/Filipino but in English. Chan said that he can't express his being Filipino in a language he wasn't used to. Chan offered to write and sing songs in Ilonggo instead. But is Chan less of a Filipino than let us say labour leader and national artist Amado Hernandez (who wrote in Tagalog)? Little do people know that Chan composed a hit song in Tagalog but had another balladeer sing it.

The English language thus for Sionil Jose must become a medium of liberation and not a way to cling to privilege. Of course the use of English does confer privileges but perhaps that should make one realize and work for reducing the inequities in Philippine society. English can be a medium for that too. The use of a certain language does not make a Filipino less than a Filipino. It is what he/she does for the nation and the national identity that counts. One of my professors at UP learned Filipino/Tagalog in middle age but he gave the Filipino nation an international reputation in the sciences. Is he less Filipino than a Filipino who just spouts nationalist rhetoric?

The blogger linked in this post shoots the painful barb. The conyos who were offended were themselves conyos too. It is like the pot calling the kettle black. If the conyos truly read Soriano's essay they should have seen the problem with James Soriano. Mr Soriano appears to be unwilling to trade his privileges and connections as being part of the elite, for a Filipino identity.

Some thoughts on offensive art.

2011-08-13T19:16:00.001+08:00

Former UP Law dean Raul Pangalangan wrote probably the most sane comment on the "Poleteismo" brouhaha at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). He exposes Philippine society's "grave misconceptions on why we offer communal protection for expressive freedoms". The law dean notes the hate mail and messages sent the CCP which threatened the safety of CCP employees and so the center shut down the exhibit.

For starters following Thomas Jefferson, I swear to be"in eternal enmity over any tyranny over the mind of man". I am against any entity that censors and/or vandalizes art. Rightly so because the Nazi Holocaust started by vandalizing "degenerate art", then burning books which then led to burning people!

However not all art is uplifting, some are offensive. For me the only way to deal with offensive art is not to look at them. Another example: offensive literature cannot be banned without shooting liberty and democracy in the foot. In Germany where the de-Nazification laws are still in the books, Hitler's offensive "Mein Kampf" (which is no work of art!) cannot be be banned by German authorities but they can restrict access to it to researchers and scholars after signing an affidavit. The Germans have learned the lesson that censorship always comes before a monstrous tyranny that even Hitler's ideas have to be protected IN ORDER TO GUARANTEE THE DEMOCRATIC ORDER. But the Germans are sane enough to learn the lessons of the Thousand Year Reich and so Hitler's ideas are marginalized in democratic Germany.

Readers should not take this to mean that I like Mideo Cruz's work. I don't and I find it unappealing since I can't get what it means. I have seen it and I don't want to see it again. I have an example of a work of art I find particularly offensive which I don't want to see ever again!

It is offensive to me because it goes contrary to everything what the Catholic faith teaches about the nature of Jesus Christ which the work of art purports to represent. However unlike "Politeismo" this one hangs not in an art gallery (where one can choose not to see it) but in a post-modern Roman Catholic chapel and over the altar where those attending Mass can't avoid not seeing it!

However, I won't write the Archbishop of Manila to shut down the Roman Catholic place of worship just because there is an offensive crucifix there.

Why because as we have learned in Hitler's Germany. Offensive art cannot kill. But offended people do. So I do not agree to the CCP closing its exhibit or the closure of that "heretical" Roman Catholic place of worship.

I worry that the recent controversy has set the Philippines on a path that eventually constrains the freedom of worship (especially for religious minorities)

Pascual's Wager

2011-08-09T00:17:00.000+08:00

UP President Alfredo Pascual gives his views on research at the UP

With apologies to Blaise Pascal we paraphrase his famous wager as

"If the fact that UP is really a top notch university cannot be revealed by reason alone, then a rational UP alumnus should wager as if UP really is tops!"

This probably was in the mind of UP President Alfredo Pascual when he spoke to the scientists and researcher academics at the latest "Kapihan" at the UP Marine Science Institute newly refurbished auditorium last Friday, August 5, 2011. Diliman Diary has reported on what was discussed.

Do you notice what is wrong with the above wager? Answer: Any rational mind will be able to conclude that the wager has a false predicate! UP is not tops! To insist it is, is to hold on to a delusion!

The University of the Philippines is faced with a serious and increasing budgetary shortfall. The coming fiscal year saw the university budget slashed by Congress to the tune of 800 million PhP. This piece of news was told on the eve of the UPCAT (admission) exams, which 70K high school seniors took, the highest in UP's history. The situation is serious enough that the frank Fred Pascual had to entertain the possibility that the undergraduate admission may be reduced so that academic excellence many not be compromised. But Mr Pascual said that he hopes it doesn't come to this.

The 2008 UP Charter names the UP as the "national university" which also is a research university. The university has to give emphasis in research but it is hindered by many factors. Foremost of which is that the median age of professors is in the early 50s. Since the retirement age is 65, many of these professors will retire before 2025. And there will be very few who would replace them. Without younger replacements, no graduate students can be trained and ergo, no research outputs that will make the university more competitive.

The longstanding debate on the standards for research was noted by Pascual. But it is clear to him and most of us that UP needs to identify specific areas for research prioritization. This will entail a large dose of political will in central administration since some pet research foci of some academics will not be prioritized. Since the budget is small, there is a need to consolidate resources at the university system level. This would make research grant applications more competitive. With the increased competition, those who come up with innovative ideas will be more likely to win grants.

Academic Affairs Veep Professor Giselle Concepcion unveiled the plan and mechanics of this new systems grant. What I noticed as major innovations include the emphasis on external review, publication output, patents (for technology research) and the training of post-docs and graduate students. If the plan works, then it is possible that the UP will be able to attract post docs (most likely Filipinos who are based abroad) to eventually be appointed as assistant professors. This may be a great opportunity to rebuild and reorient UP as a real research and innovative university. We all know that the majority of post docs abroad don't get faculty appointments.

Only when you have these outward looking young professors can we see real change in how UP does research. But this has been implemented at the department scale by Professor Ed Gomez of marine science. It has to be replicated in all departments but according to their competencies and disciplinary bounds. An MSI clone will not work!

But that would require a major cultural change in UP, especially in the Diliman campus. Pascual also mentioned his concept of a "one UP" which would link and make operations of all the constituent universities more efficient. Since I have worked with an international agency for most of the 1990s, I see where Fred Pascual is coming from. He spent most of his working life in the Asian Institute of Management and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). At these international institutions, there is a different kind of accountability associated in coming out with outputs whether these are for development or planning. The top honchos of institutions like these are accountable to the board of trustees who obviously are the representatives of States that fund these development organizations. Such is not part of the UP culture, which is premised on academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

Thus one colleague remarked to me that the research plan just unveiled is like what an academic has to come up when he/she applies for EU or USAID funding! If Pascual's wager works then we can expect that institutional autonomy will be less at UP. It is the "corporate scenario" that UP academics fear!

No one in Diliman ever mouths the words "educational provider". But in foreign universities, the corporate nature of the university is simply that. Academics will have to face this reality and work with corporate planners to ensure the university is successful and efficient.

If Pascual's wager works then the UP will make its final transition from being partly medieval, colonial, ideologically petrified to post-modern!

Of course we cannot hold to the old wager I first stated. To do so is to hold on to the Diliman Delusion which I will discuss in the future. I am in discussion with UPIS alums now professors. They have a good view on what this delusion is!

An open letter to Christopher Lao

2011-08-07T00:01:00.001+08:00

Dear Chris

You were never my student in Environmental Science 1 but some of your classmates from Malcolm Hall were. One of them told me the tale of the floating car before I saw it plastered on Facebook! But despite you being taken for a fool, I don't think you really are! You were just one exasperated taxpayer!

As I have written earlier, Metro Manila is an extremely dangerous urban environment where the mere act of using the streets as a pedestrian or as a motorist (as you have found out to your humiliation by an unkind Pinoy social networking community) can kill!

Example: At one flooded street in Manila, several people were reported to have been electrocuted when they held on to a fancy lamp post for support during a flood. It appeared that the lamp post had no insulation that makes them "all weather"!

I heard you are about to take the Bar and some of my lawyer friends hope that you will pass so that ALL will be informed (the networks included). But more than that I hope you TOP the Bar, be a good lawyer with the following legal advocacy.

We learned in our Environmental Science 1 class that there are so many laws and ordinances passed that suppose to make sure people are safe on the streets. Now we have seen those diggings of utility companies that wrecked streets and may cause your car to ruin its suspension. People have been known to have fallen into these "holes" and ditches. Even at UP, one non academic staff employee fell into one and she had a minor fracture and was treated at our famous, beloved and butt of jokes "Infirmary". I think the utility company is liable and so is UP. While the employee did not press charges, the fact is there was no sign that informed all of the "DANGER"! Now did those utility companies who subcontracted the work ever inform the residents of these neighbourhoods that their streets would be trashed? Now they do have signs saying "restoration. Restoration my butt! It is like the Japanese praying that another tsunami restores the town of Otsuchi in Japan to its former and picture postcard state!

On our streets we wish the disabled dead! Disabled access with that trademark wheelchair sign leads often into ditches and manholes! I'm pretty sure you know we have laws protecting the disabled!

Perhaps you can take all these groups who take our safety for granted to court!

You have been the victim of the Filipino's penchant for taking these matters not seriously. But you may have the last laugh. Karma will play its part and one or a carload of wags who ridiculed you will fall into deep water because they were not informed. Then I hope you agree to provide them legal services!

The "floating car" is not a joke.

Sincerely

Prof. Ben Vallejo

Why a little environmental awareness counts!

2011-08-04T14:16:00.000+08:00

Almost every year I teach an undergraduate course in environmental science where towards the end of the semester we discuss relevant issues. In the first half of the semester we discuss and learn about the physical and biological processes that make the environment an interesting thing to observe and in the latter half, we deal with how we poor humans have to deal with a changing environment using our 1) wits and 2) technology!

It is no secret that Metro Manila is one of the most dangerous urban environments to live in. Architects and city planners Paulo Alcazaren and Gerard Lico have written so much about how Metro Manila's unplanned urban sprawl, booming population and bad governance has made the problem worse. The two gentlemen have pointed out that these problems bedeviled Manilans even in the Spanish colonial period, except then, there were only less than a million Manilans compared to the 13-14 million today.

Thus in a time of rainfall shifts, a moderate downpour of 10-15 mm/hr can cause a flood. And in many cases the water rises fast. This was brought home to every city resident during the Ondoy disaster. But it has to be remembered that Manila has had similar events before. And this is where we find poor UP Law student Christopher Lao (and his car)!

Poor Mr Lao! His only fault is that he has little environmental awareness at all. An increased level of environmental awareness is needed if ONE HAS TO SURVIVE Metro Manila (or Boracay, Panglao, Phuket etc)! What I teach students is this: When you see a stretch of open water anywhere and you have to cross it, STOP and take stock of the situation.

Let's say you have to swim to the nearby paradise island from a crummy beach resort and there is a stretch of water. Check first for dangerous currents and for sharks (as well as the outrageous entrance fee)!

Let's say you have to ford a river in the Aussie outback with a Range Rover? Check first for a croc! Steve Irwin ain't with us anymore, mate!

Let's say you have to cross a Metro Manila flood? Check first for manholes, live wires etc.

All these are common sense decisions. A sure sign of idiocy is when one demands that someone tell him/her about common sense!

Lack of environmental awareness means death in many cases. So it pays to be observant and alert.

Perhaps to paraphrase and give a due apology to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, we should teach ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE IN A GRAND MANNER!

An academic rank tempestuous tale at UP!

2011-07-15T02:11:00.005+08:00

I am in the process of finishing lectures to the Science, Technology and Society (STS) class and we were discussing the medieval origins of science. In this tale, two popes are significant. Pope Sylvester II or the mathematical pope reigned from 999-1003 and is credited by setting the mathematical foundations of modern science in the West. The other one Pope John XXII (reigned from 1316-1334) is not very known to us today but he issued an edict that all scientific studies must have experimental proof since alchemists were into making fake gold at that time.

Also we discussed that the university is really a medieval institution and what we call pompous rites of passage like the college recognition and university graduations are medieval survivals in a 21st century University of the Philippines. The students don't realize that there is even a more significant medieval survival at UP. And this is none other than the closed door election of the Board of Regents of the UP president!

I have spoofed many times that this scene is like the conclave in the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican. The BOR is in closed meeting and the BOR secretary of the university like the dean of the cardinals pronounces the "habemus papam" on the portico of Quezon Hall to the faithful (those who support the status quo of university governance) and the fallen (those who advocate democratic governance and do away with the "college of cardinals"). What Quezon Hall lacks is a chimney that churns out black or white (or should it be green or maroon?) smoke! If the cardinals burn their ballots to produce either colour, perhaps the Regents can burn past UPCAT exam papers to produce the same effect! Of course the University has inherited from the medievals the concept of academic freedom. Academic freedom is infallible dogma in academe! You can't kick out the faithful and the fallen from the portico without attacking academic freedom. After all the faithful and the fallen worship at the Holy Catholic Academic and Apostolic Church of Diliman in the hope of redemption or probably more about academic promotion and salary raises.

Now here comes the latest "heresy" as we may have it at the Church of Diliman. Econ prof Winnie Monsod writes about it here. The question posited is whether "the University President as chief academic officer as per the UP charter be given the highest academic rank of professor 12 automatically?" The National College of Public Administration and Governance "invited" UP President Alfredo Pascual to teach at the college with a rank of Professor 12. Now this wasn't a problem in the past since the term of Carlos P Romulo. All the presidents since then were professors with the sole exception of Edgardo Angara whose law college recommended the highest academic rank. In the university, the departments and the colleges have powers of recommendation. It is the BOR that actually has the powers of appointment. But convention (and this rule of collegiality has medieval roots) dictates that the BOR more or less honours the department and college recommendation unless there is good reason to suspect the recommendation process was flawed. Monsod tells the tale and in her post better than I could but one thing is clear, subsidiarity was short cut. The usual process is to send the recommendation to the Chancellor who then forwards this to the appropriate university committee for further review and then to the BOR. The Chancellor of UP Diliman did it by the book and sent the request to the appropriate university personnel committee who reviewed Pascual's CV and academic credentials and came to the usual offer of giving him a rank of Assistant Professor 3 (which is the usual initial offer to a new hire). This was returned to NCPAG for action.

And if that ended the tale, the Dean of NCPAG sent the request with the original recommendation directly to the BOR and the Chancellor was informed that he was going to be bypassed. Of course in Ancient Rome a Roman citizen had rights to directly plead to the Emperor but as St Paul did, But it was when an injustice has been done to him. This a right based on natural justice principles. But has an injustice been done in this case?

And so we expect a ruckus at the next University Council (UC) (which unfortunately I will miss since I will be in Phuket, Thailand for a scientific meeting). The UC jealously guards its prerogatives and rights as the highest academic body but the appointment of professors is not one of them. This belongs solely to the BOR.

And to end this post, we go back to the system of collegiality the Vatican invented which was transplanted to the modern university. Collegial decisions have to be respected unless it is intrinsically flawed by not following procedures. Pope Benedict XVI was asked in a recent interview if he could as Pope overturn some of the "bad" decisions of the Second Vatican Council and he that said he can't. The Pope he says is bound by the collegial decision of the council as long as this did not go against Catholic doctrine. If it did then as Benedict XVI says, he would be forced to intervene.

What is signified by this academic rank tempest as Monsod writes is the shift from collegial governance structures in a university to a managerialist one. This was blogged about by Dean Roland Tolentino when the UP Charter was signed into law in 2008. In managerialism skills and academic qualifications are not that important as generic skills in managing organizations. In a globalized world where academe is expected to engage with business a modus vivendi has to be reached. The university president can be a corporate manager while the chancellors should be experienced academic administrators. The President need not be a professor, but the chancellors have to be. This is somewhat analogous to the British commonwealth universities where the Chancellor (President) is a nominal figurehead (who may even be a celebrity!) who shows up at degree conferments and has a role in promoting the university especially in fund raising . The vice-Chancellor (Chancellor in the UP system) runs the university on a daily basis and is a professor. But unlike in the way the UP is governed, both officials are accountable to the university council. Perhaps Mr Pascual should just leave the academics alone and their ranks and he should focus instead on solving the university's chronic funding shortfall. After all he told the alums in the last homecoming that he was not cut out for teaching chemistry (he was a Chem major) and so he went to the banking sector and he takes pride in understanding fund raising strategies. Well Pascual is cooking the pudding and what is needed is the proof in the eating! (And for the academics these only mean two things: promotions and salary raises).

Quienes son amigos de la patria Filipina?: A movie review of "Amigo"

2011-07-09T21:13:00.002+08:00

A still from "Amigo" by John Sayles

The late William Henry "Scotty" Scott, esteemed American historian and lay minister of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines wrote in "Ilocano Responses to American Aggression 1900-1901" that a few years after the Philippines was finally recognized as independent, the nationalist trend of the 1950s led the Department of Education in 1951 to interview the few surviving veterans of the Filipino War against American Imperialism a.k.a "Philippine-American War" and the then present generation of Filipinos about the war. So thorough was the American colonial education system and its historical cleansing of that period in history that Filipinos knew more of the revolt against "backward" Spain and friar abuses than the American atrocities of the anti-imperialist war.

This historical amnesia poisons US-Philippine relations to this day. No amount of dancing to the beat of "Papaya" by former US envoy Kirstie Kenney or an Ambassador Harry Thomas supporting a typically Obama brand of liberalism can cure this. The government has this irritating knee jerk reaction to look for US assistance (most recently in the Spratly spat over Chinese intrusions to Philippine territory). The recent John Sayles directed film "Amigo" about a fictional Philippine village caught between a faltering guerrilla war of the Philippine Republic and the strengthening of American occupation and the introduction of US civil institutions by force of arms is an interesting take on a subject present Filipinos were hardly taught about.

Capitan del Barrio Rafael Dacanay (excellently played by Joel Torre) was put in an unenviable position of upholding the sovereignty of the Philippine Republic (even if this meant discarding due process) and later on collaborating with American military government policy (even if this meant acceding to human rights violations). Torre excellently essays the character of Dacanay. In any society occupied by superior arms the head of the community faces this quandary. In films about the Holocaust such as Spielberg's "Schindler's List" and Jon Avnet's "Uprising" this is excellently portrayed in the character of the head of the Jewish Council. The head of the community eventually ends up dead and friendless, forgotten in infamy.

The characters of the US soldiers in "Amigo" are a refreshing departure from similar depictions in similar films. The America that came out of the Civil War is essayed in the characters of the men. From the WASPy architect turned Lieutenant Compton (Garret Dillahunt) who is torn between his belief on American liberal principles and the necessity of imposing martial law as directed by Col. Hardache ( well played by Hollywood veteran Chris Cooper) to the characters of the privates, sergeants and corporals like Gil (Dane de Haan), Shanker (Lucas Neff) and Sgt Runnels (James Parks). The privates and NCOs are also torn between this American imperialist adventure and the moral chiasma it opened. The American soldiers are your usual "nice boys" corrupted by this unjust and dirty war. The essaying of soldiers characters as someone who can show empathy and even fall in love with "the brown monkeys" is I think is for the American viewers. All the Pinoys in the theatre cannot help but chuckle at this whole shenanigan! Sayles had the characters essayed as Southerners and having done a post doc in the American South, I do know that the Civil War is not a dead issue among Southerners. It is still hotly debated and the issue of slavery still being discussed.

But the American soldiers had to bow down to civil authority and towards the end of the movie civil government was established (with the first barrio election which Dacanay won). But Spanish Friar Hidalgo ( quite hilariously played with a dash of gravitas by Yul Vazquez) tells the Americans about the contradiction between the kind of democracy they wanted to impose and the kind of society the Filipinos had. This is at the root of the tragedy of America's experiment to create the Filipinos (and the Chamorros, the Puerto Ricans, Samoans etc) "in their own image" which was obviously a flop. The Puerto Ricans even if US Citizens by statute know truly this even if they enjoy Uncle Sam's benevolent protection and as a compromise, maintain their Commowealth status. But the "Ricans" still are discriminated on the mainland even if they need no US visas to enter there. Also they are very aware that Congress can strip their US Citizenship by statute also.

Of course the portrayal of small town Filipino society is very interesting to watch especially for the 21st century urbanized Pinoy. Much of what was depicted are now long gone in our rural barrios which are themselves being rapidly urbanized. The procession in honour of San Isidro has been long replaced by more secular events like Ms Gay Barangay! But American occupation also did not change the political dynamic but only changed the characters. If WASPy Lt Compton in his Protestant work ethic idealism forced Dacanay to till his own plot of paddy, this was for naught since the Americans did not really redistributed land. They just did transfer these to a rising collaborationist elite essayed in the movie by John Arcilla as Nenong. (Warning spoiler ahead!) Nenong was then appointed Cabeza after Dacanay was hanged for aiding the "bandits".

A Philippine Collegian staffer reviewed the movie but fails to see the underlying theme of this political dynamic as a result of American occupation and imperialism. This weakens her analysis leaving it like any of the analysis the usual lefty characters in UP regularly dish out. A dose of more reading up on history and reading fiction should be the remedy.

"Amigo" leaves the viewer to conclude if the Revolution flopped or not. I believed it was paused and it is up to the present generation of Filipinos to continue it. It will eventually succeed and when it does Noynoy and Kris should be tilling Luisita by the sweat of their brows like Dacanay and not bore us with their present or nonexistent love lives. Or better yet redistribute Luisita to the farmers that till it. Noynoy or Kris can be Revolutionary too but I don't bet on that at all!

Until then the tragedy continues. The elite continue to benefit from collaboration and the people remain poor and happy with 30 Mexican pesos! The friends of the Philippine nation are none but the Filipino people alone.

One viewer wanted to know what happened to Joaquinito, Dacanay's son. Perhaps he was elected to the American sponsored Philippine Assembly!

John Sayles deserves laud for tackling a subject with the requisite balance!

"Amigo" directed by John Sayles, starring Joel Torre, Pen Medina, Rio Locsin, Yul Vazquez and Chris Cooper opened on 6 July 2011 (Philippines) will open on 20 August 2011 (USA)

The Smoke of Satan*

2011-07-08T01:24:00.007+08:00

Pope Paul VI famous for the "Smoke of Satan" homily

"The smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God" quote is probably Pope Paul VI's most (in)famous soundbite. He allegedly said it during a homily at St Peter's basilica and delivered in Italian on 29 June 1972. I remember very well that in the turbulent 1970s, a fiendish spell of "Devil" and "Antichrist" movies starting from the iconic "Exorcist", "the Omen" and to the equally infamous and atrocious "Amityville Horror" became the staple of cinemas. And my sisters were fans of this genre and so I got to see them all!

Of course a Pope giving a public address with something like "Satan" in it would, to understate it, attract public and media attention (and thus became the inspiration for the "Devil" movies of the 1970s) So to this day Catholics and non-believers want to find out what the Pope really meant. And so that will include combing all of Paul VI's encyclicals, homilies, letters, bulls and his diary.But Paul VI was not known as "the Hamlet Pope" for nothing (something his predecessor John XXIII foresaw). Since Hamlet was a complex and brooding personality, and so was Paul VI.

The Vatican for very understandable reasons won't comment on the "Satan" quote. No English translation of the homily has ever been officially provided (lest it cause another evil spell of "Devil" and "Antichrist" Hollywood flicks!) So it is up to the faithful, those stuck in purgatory and, the fallen to "read between the lines".

Of course the Pope was not literally referring to Satan lighting a mosquito coil in St Peter's with the smoke driving away the Cardinals! (although as a kid, I imagined it as such!). Some readers think he was referring to the organizational and liturgical chaos right after the Second Vatican Council. Or some think he was referring to the complete chaos among Catholics as a result of the publication of "Humanae Vitae" in 1968 which most Catholics ignored by still using contraceptives.

But another and more relevant reading is that Paul VI foresaw the corruption that would engulf the Church and bankrupt it. And it did in the pontificate of Benedict XVI as the clerical child abuse scandals. In these scandals, bishops and their dioceses protected pederast priests by transferring their assignment somewhere else. In many cases, they ignored the issue or paid "hush" money.

The Church traditionally believes that Satan is the greatest "corruptor" since he corrupts the Word of God and God's goodness. And often the Devil uses cold cash or 30 pieces of silver which can be used to buy devilishly fast 4WDs! And that is exactly what befell the infamous "Pajero Bishops" of the Philippine Church. The moral of the story is the old "The Road to Hell (even when cruising on a Pajero) is paved with good intentions!"

In the Gospels, Jesus was brought by Satan to the high mountain and he offered the Christ dominion of all the kingdoms of the world if He would bow down and worship Satan. But Jesus bluntly retorted "Be off, Satan, Scripture says you shall worship God and serve Him alone"

And so we have the sordid tale of a hierarch asking for a birthday gift and easily getting one. After all the Devil is a master of corruption, He corrupts Jesus words not by changing the words "Ask and you shall receive" but by changing the meaning!

Satan's smoke has indeed entered the bishop's conference. The Catholic Church's credibility is in tatters and won't be repaired unless the bishops concerned resign. If they know what real penance means, these bishops should wear ashes and sackcloth and walk barefoot to the Canossa of the Filipino taxpayer. Reparation is the first step to authentic justice and healing. Hiding in lawyer's talk of justifying "incidental benefits" won't absolve them of their sins. And please don't add problems to Holy Father Benedict about meting your punishment. The Pope has so much other problems to attend to!

*has entered the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines!

Noynoy Aquino grows up, finally (to the dignity of his office)!

2011-07-06T22:37:00.002+08:00

The blurbs have it that President Noynoy Aquino sold his Porsche. He says it puts undue "risk" to his security detail. It's about time that the President develops a sense about the office he was elected into. Besides he wasn't elected against his will!

The Porsche ended up as a PR disaster and caused the President's approval ratings to crash and burn. The Juana Change spoof tells it all

But despite the Palace apologists saying that he used his own money to buy, the question is what on earth will he use it for? This is the same question is now thrown at the "Pajero bishops" of the Catholic Church!

He was reported to need it for "stress release" and the rumor mill started to grind. The "tsismis" mill said that he releases stress and the accelerator on deserted Hacienda Luisita roads. Any idiot would know that it would be easy to make the Porsche crash by 1) putting a roadblock without reflectors, 2) put a pipe laying type of digging, and 3) Have a grazing cow or carabao cross the road! It is just fitting that the President should stop putting his safety at risk. Or else someone Dark and Politically astute will automatically inherit the Presidential seal!

But it puzzles me and many people why the President took one year to realize the importance of his office. Most Presidents realize it immediately after taking the Presidential Oath. Noynoy is no longer a private citizen even if he has private money!

I hope Mr Noynoy Aquino is NOT our version of the medieval King of England named Ethelred the Unready, whose failure of governance due to personal whim and fancy is synonymous with incompetence.

Some "pasaway" and subversive thoughts about a book.

2011-06-19T21:39:00.005+08:00

Dr Jose Rizal died so that people can read books!

One of John Steinbeck's less known essays but perhaps the most remarkable is the one entitled "Some Random and Randy Thoughts about Books" which came out in his collection of Americana essays in "America and Americans". The prescient Steinbeck foresaw a day where there would be no reason why there should be books but he bravely predicted that there will still be books. This was the subject of my 2007 blog post on books and libraries being obsolete.

Steinbeck who lived through the Depression, World War II and pre and post war totalitarianism as a reporter knew that books are the most subversive but magical thing our species has ever created. In fact he writes that in these oppressed countries, people don't ask for food first (since dictators make sure no one is hungry at first) but books. "A book is somewhat sacred" Steinbeck writes, because they invariably TELL THE TRUTH. People will distrust the networks and the newspapers since these can be a fount of lies and so has little authority. But books carry authority. And so people have been known to die for a book and people have been known to fight for books! Any prior restraint on a book is fought to the bitter end (and to victory as a matter of course)! Even Hitler's odious "Mein Kampf" should be available since it can still serve for good ends like spreading the message of tolerance (even if there are some requirements) for to ban it is to do exactly what the Nazis believed was right!

Anyway I write this blog post since a publisher wrote me an email to say that his donation of books to the University of the Philippines Library has not yet been processed and the publisher alleges it is taking a long time for the library to put the book on the shelves since someone higher up is not thrilled with the book. Now I wouldn't take much note to this but the reason why the publisher wrote me is that I wrote a positive review of the book here. And of course my name was mentioned in correspondences with the university higher ups. I don't mind but being a Darwinist, I am a captive market for iconoclastic books, even if I don't particularly agree with their contents. I am willing even to spend a small fortune for these. For example, I was first in line at the university union bookshop for Richard Dawkins' "God Delusion". This shows the fact that even how unpalatable, offensive or unflattering a book is, there should be a chance for anyone to read it. (but not necessarily to buy it! And that is why we have libraries where we can borrow books!)

In this book brouhaha at UP, it was alleged that someone in the university is blocking the availability of the book at the library. It is no secret that this book is extremely critical with some major reforms in the curriculum and the "academic entrepreneurship" ideological direction of the university. But any initiative invites reasonable criticism and any criticism requires a reasoned rebuttal. So if a book is extremely critical of the something or someone, then someone who is a fan should write a convincing rebuttal in the form of another book.

And that exactly is what the ex Anglican cleric, Catholic convert and now Catholic beato John Henry Cardinal Newman did. Several withering articles came out in the London papers about the sincerity of his conversion to Roman Catholicism. The intellectually astute Newman who clearly understood that a book has infiintely more authority than a blurb op ed, wrote his "Apologia Pro Vita Sua" which today ranks with St Augustine's "Confessions" as the best spiritual autobiographies ever written.

In no way did Newman sue his critics with libel. Newman never believed in banning books even if the Church had an Index Librorum Prohibitum at the time. Pope Paul VI and the Second Vatican Council rightfully made that index history. The Church no longer proscribes books but does warn Catholics that a book may be damaging to a Catholic's faith! If a Catholic reads a "dangerous" book and has problems with it, then he/she should talk to his/her priest.

However in a university such as UP, we don't have priests or bishops telling us that a book is "dangerous reading". Final decisions on books should be done by readers alone and be extension, the reading public. The faculty may recommend books to read but can never proscribe the reading of these books. The only decent thing anyone can do is to write a scathing review (which we hope will dissuade readers from reading the book!). If UP's professors taught their students well, then they can rest assured that their students have been taught well enough to know what is good reading or not.

Not even university collegiality may even be invoked without damaging academic freedom to proscribe a book so that it does not occupy shelf space in the library, especially if there are readers who want to read it. The American Library Association has a Library Bill of Rights which challenges prior restraint on the availability of books. A library should be the one to go ballistic.

And so allegations that a certain book is being given some prior restraint at the university should be viewed with concern. This means that the level of intellectual debate and dissent at the University of the Philippines is certainly approaching the event horizon beyond which they fall into a black hole! And given recent issues on the grant of tenure to some assistant professors, many are not surprised!

After all Jose Rizal, whose 150th birthday is marked today, died because of two books. Thus the best tribute we can give the good physician is to ensure any book can be read!

One year of Noynoy Aquino

2011-06-17T17:56:00.002+08:00

What's in a name?

2011-06-14T00:46:00.001+08:00

The Noynoy administration by fiat has called a part of the South China Sea as the West Philippine Sea. All government agencies like PAGASA and the blurbs have followed suit.

However I do not agree that the President had to make the name change at this time. It will just inflame the geopolitical situation with China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan and the Philippines having claims overlapping or otherwise in the possibly oil rich area. China has the most powerful military in the region and has warned all countries to desist in conducting oil exploration work.

The Philippines has the weakest military in the region with very little capacity for external defence. China has been putting markers to claim its territory so close to Palawan and definitely within the country's EEZ.China bases its claim on historical grounds for the sea was a vital trade artery. It is still today.

But if we look at the origin of the sea's name, it was named by European traders first by the Portuguese, then the Spanish and Dutch and later on by the English. The name South China Sea is the one used in English but its name in the European languages means the same thing.

In China, the sea is simply known as Nan Hai or the Southern Sea. In Vietnam it is known as the East Sea. These names reflect the location of the sea with respect to the locations of China and Vietnam.

The new Philippine name reflects the same idea but there is a claim to the area by appending the name "Philippine". This may cause some confusion since we have a Philippine Sea,east of the archipelago which defined by a tectonic feature, the Philippine plate.

If the Republic of the Philippines really wants to stake a geopolitical claim to this sea, perhaps it should name it as the Sea of Palawan. After all Palawan really defines what that sea is and the Kalayaan Islands is a political geographic unit of the Province of Palawan. Some Filipino atlases use the name Luzon Sea for part of the South China Sea within Philippine territorial limits. Fishermen have been using the name "Dagat ng Luzon" for ages.

However this again is an annoying legacy of EUROPEAN COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM in Asia. The Europeans had only one objective, subjugate China and put her under their influence and demand trade concessions, which the British did and succeeded after whipping China in the Opium War. China was humiliated and thus began a century of humiliation wherein France, the US, Britain continued to exact unequal trade relations well into the 20th century. Only another IMPERIALISM, that of JAPAN was able to get the Europeans out. But Japan exacted a savagery on China that poisons further normalization of relations even in the 21st century. And by 1949, Mao's Communist revolution did away with a return of the Europeans and the Americans to China. However, one festering reminder of the humiliation remained with Hong Kong under British rule until 1997. But China now on the road to capitalism had to accept a one country two systems scheme since it was apparent that Hong Kong under British non-interference in capitalism guaranteed its crown colony's financial success . Hong Kong retains its British institutions even if the whole of China is now one big capitalist system.

Commodore Miguel may have to revisit his statement that there is a subliminal message in the European name for this sea. It is not China's claim that is subliminal but IMPERIALISM that is!

Thus imperialism is the root of all these squabbles. But China has become very capitalist and by Lenin's logic it should become imperialist. As an imperialist capitalist dictatorship, it has been infected by the same virus that infected the West in the last 300 years. Thus the irony not even the Chinese ambassador could hide.

A far cry when in pre European colonized Asia we referred to bodies of water by the compass directions!

The challenge is to resist all forms of IMPERIALISM in Asia!

Rizal for RH!

2011-05-29T00:39:00.087+08:00

The Patron Saint of RH!

Of course, Dr Rizal did not say he was for RH (reproductive health). During the late 19th century, the problem was not overpopulation but people ejected out of their land by the abuses of the friars. The problem was the friar, the over abusive friar! Rizal's family was a victim after the Dominicans kicked out the people after they had raised the rents.

But if Rizal were alive in the second decade of the 21st century and practising medicine at a clinic/surgery at traffic choked Calamba City, I dare say he would be for RH! He would come to the conclusion that the bedlam that is Calamba City is due to overpopulation coupled with poor city planning.

Even the most liberal of Catholic theologians would consider Rizal as "shipwrecked in faith" since he by the time he was writing the Noli, he had denied orthodox Roman Catholic dogma. The late Father Raul J Bonoan SJ published a study on the Rizal-Pastells correspondence and came out with the undeniable conclusion that Rizal fell away from the Catholic faith.

But what made Rizal fall from Catholic grace? Any Pinoy would say it was due to Rizal's politics. Of course it was but there is more to that. Fr Bonoan writes that Rizal's studies in a Spain breathing in the last air of the Enlightenment was the reason. Even Dr Blumentritt noticed that in his letters after Rizal's martyrdom. In Spain, Rizal saw a society where the authority of the State was weak and with Republicans and conservative Carlists at times opposing theocratic absolutism. Rizal was introduced to Krausian rationalism. For Rizal, reason became the norm for knowing the world through experience and in this he caught "the divine spark of Science".

If Rizal were to look at the points for and against RH, I am very sure he would side with RH since he had already accepted that in the judgement of moral issues, one has to look at the "prism of one's private judgement" enlightened not by Church guidance but experience of nature. While Fr Pastells assumed Rizal's putting primacy of his own private judgment over that of the Church stemming from Luther (hence the accusation that Rizal was a Protestant), it is clear that Rizal's idea stems from the Enlightenment's philosophes.

Rizal also writes that if one is small minded then one abdicates their own private judgement. Rizal believed it was an offence against God.

And so we come to the context of the RH debates in the Philippines. The controversy is not rooted in whether there is a need to manage population or not, but whether the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines will relinquish her de facto established status and be contented as a significant player but one without special privileges in the Filipino body politic.

Rizal would have noted that is a tragedy for this country that the debate on RH never took off from morality, theology and outdated ideologies. Rizal would also be prescient enough to note that the anti RH movement would implode.

The implosion is due to the latent anti-clericalism of the Pinoy who while remaining loyal much to the culture and beliefs of Catholicism , has a tendency to ridicule the clergy in issues where they know that the clergy have no expertise or practical experience on. And one of these big issues is raising a family and not necessarily sex (since many Filipinos honestly believe that the Catholic clergy are not fully celibate).

This ridicule of the Roman clergy is part of the nationalist tradition that this nation is founded upon. While many Filipinos really won't turn Protestant, they would not want to see political clergy favouring sectarian political policies. Historian Teodoro Agoncillo writes that the only living (and continuously existing) result of the Philippine Revolution is the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (more popularly known as the Aglipayan Church after its first Supreme Bishop) who went into schism over this issue. One of the IFI first acts aside from rejecting the Roman obedience and having the mass in the vernacular, is to allow its priests to marry. This is again to state difference from Roman Church discipline.

The IFI like almost all of the non Catholic churches support the RH bill again to differentiate from the Roman Church position. Almost 70% of Filipinos surveyed are in favour of the RH bill

And so, the pro RH position has appropriated Rizal's image in their advocacy in the bowler hatted Carlos Celdran. Some hierarchs in the Roman Church have irresponsibly threatened excommunication the President of the Republic for his support for the bill. This has fanned anti-clericalism once more. The RH battle will be probably the last major skirmish of the Philippine State with the Roman Church which really started with Rizal and the Propaganda and continued by the IFI, kept alive throughout the American occupation and on to Recto's sponsorship of the Rizal Bill. It has to be noted that the Roman Church went into similar ballistic mode over Rizal's two novels! After this the Church will remain influential but will have to play just like any secular or minority religious party in forming political consensus in the Philippines. The Church by then will be disestablished but still held in affection by the people.

The disestablishment of the Roman Church in the Philippines is what Rizal wanted and only a sovereign people can make it happen now at the 150th birth anniversary of the National Hero. There is irony that the trigger for this is a bill on contraceptives and sex! The satirical and sarcastic possibilities wouldn't be lost on Dr Rizal!

Some in the Catholic clergy used boxing champ Manny Pacquiao as a icon in the anti RH fight, we can almost certainly be sure that the anti RH lobby is in dire straits and desperate. But this is not surprising and in line with how some Catholics think about believing in what is right means. The whole message would not be lost on Dr Rizal too! Recall that even Rizal and Fr Pastells were in agreement that if you accept a dogma purely by abdicating intelligent reason for authority, God wouldn't be served!

Proof of Death

2011-05-05T19:39:00.001+08:00

The Philippine government provided as his proof of death, Abu Sabaya's fashion statement!

The Obama White House doesn't want to release photos showing Osama bin Laden dead. Bin Laden was did in by a team of US Navy SEALS in a northern Pakistani city in a daring and well executed covert raid.

The refusal has fueled a lot of conspiracy theories about bin Laden escaping and that he is still alive. It also fueled a zillion gags. It also infected unsuspecting computer users of the "bin Laden" virus.

In a bid to convince the public, the Obama administration has told the public that they identified bin Laden's body via "facial recognition software" and DNA matching. The administration also said that they used tissue from bin Laden's sister to make the DNA match.

This gives an interesting insight on how people judge evidence. People still want to see the body. At least for forensic investigations (that is the staple for a lot of cable TV shows), we know that the subject is indeed DEAD, for the shows always parade the skull on the screen. The fun is finding out who the person behind the skull is. Of course the early part of the show would have these forensic molecular biologists trying to determine ethnicity etc from DNA extracted from bones and bits of tissue. But that is not the crescendo of the whole show. It is always the face! And this is why these shows always have these forensic artists who put clay on the skull and voila, the face is reconstructed! And then the end credits roll in. Time for another show!

In the case of bin Laden, the opposite is true. We know from a zillion "wanted" posters and images how bin Laden looks, but we want to see how his bullet ridden body looks! There is indeed a morbid fascination for death in all of us and this is why these forensic TV shows are a hit!

This is exactly what the Obama administration doesn't get. It is part of human nature for one to know if someone is truly dead! And for a personality like bin Laden, that is essential. President Obama says that the photos will incite more violence. I think it incites more violence from like minded jihadists to see an American gloat over the news of bin Laden's death. But if many people who never were thrilled at bin Laden's antics are willing to concede bin Laden was indeed dead, his jihadist fans are not convinced.

DNA as any scientist knows cannot be conclusive as a proof-of-death evidence alone. The body needs to be produced Recall that for 80 years there was no clear evidence that Anastasia Romanov survived the Bolshevik murder of the Russian imperial family. Thus many "pretenders" came along the stage , including the most convincing of them all, Anastasia Manahan. When Ms Manahan died, a pathological sample of her tissue remained. Later on the remains of the Imperial family were discovered in Ekaterinburg, Russia. From the DNA match from the Imperial remains (whose identities were confirmed by DNA and photo imposition facial reconstruction methods) and Ms Manahan's tissues, scientists concluded that Ms Manahan couldn't be a member of the family. Until Anastasia's remains were found in 2008 and DNA analysis were made once more, only then were people convinced that she was killed with the rest of her family.

For Filipinos there was a similar case to bin Laden's. Terrorist Abu Sabaya was did in by US trained Philippine forces in a shootout at sea. The body like Bin Laden's sank into the seal. And so the body wasn't produced but the government provided as proof-of-death, his trademark fashionable shades. The US confirmed his death from DNA evidence, but Pinoys did not put much weight on that!

In a quintessentially Pinoy way, the sunglasses can be convincing proof-of-death for Filipinos since on Manila's streets, vain men have been killed for not parting with their shades when held up at gunpoint!

The Catholic Church will lose the RH battle, but it will do it and the secularists good

2011-04-28T00:54:00.004+08:00

IT WILL KNOCK THE NOGGINS OF THE BISHOPS AND THE CELDRANITES ON WHY THERE IS A NEED TO THINK ABOUT DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITIONS AND FATES

At the rate things are going, Noynoy Aquino cannot afford the accelerating downward trend in his approval ratings so he cannot afford to lose his liberal constituency. Except for the most doctrinaire everyone from the Catholics to the non-believers agree that we need to manage our population. The question is what method to use? The Philippines is probably between the late stages 2 and the very early of 3 of the demographic transition but it appears that this transition is rather slow. The country is not closed to the outside world and exchange of ideas and commodities, so the question is why this is slow?

The Roman Catholic Church opposes the use of artificial methods of fertility regulation on moral grounds. The idea of natural law is central to Catholic theological understanding. I will not dwell on this issue but it is testament to the consistency of Catholic doctrine that this position has remained unchanged although other aspects of Church life have radically changed. Changes in the Church will make it almost likely that the RH bill will be passed. The Church will lose since a majority of its members support the RH bill's passage.

However, some countries notably in ASEAN, Thailand, have progressed quite rapidly in its transition. This is attributed to fast social and economic change. The democratization of access to economic gain, opportunities and education has provided the basis for this fast transition. At the start of stage 2, the Philippines and Thailand were at almost at the same situation. But why did Thailand move ahead and the Philippines became a laggard?

There are several hypothesised factors that speed up the demographic transition. But one that has the strongest empirical support is accessibility to education especially for females and the length of time they are in school. Education remains as the best contraceptive (by reducing the length of a woman's fertility years since the longer a girl is in school, the less likely she will start a family at a young ange) and the Catholic Church does not oppose this at all.

The other strong correlative factor is the available access to contraceptives and proper knowledge on how to use them.

Fertility rates in the Philippines have fallen from 5 in the 1960s to just 3.19 in 2010. However the differential between births and deaths or the rate of natural increase has declined very slowly from 3 in 1970 to 1.9 in 2010. One factor is that the rate of natural increase remains higher than in other ASEAN countries. While falling fertility rates will continue and the median age of the population will be older, the number of reproductive females and males will be higher. This will contribute to an expected slower demographic transition.

While contraceptives have been available in the Philippines and are not banned, economic and income factors have limited their access and use is clearly demarcated between class, residency (e.g. urban vs. rural) education and income lines. However the stronger determinant for a desired and expected fertility is still the length of time a woman has spent in school. Contraceptive access remains a significant factor but not as strongly evident as school retention rates at least in the Philippines situation.

The predictions of Malthusian theory hold more strongly in pre-industrial societies and early stage 2 in demographic transition stages. In the other stages, it is more likely that a more Marxian approach to the theory of population and development may be more powerful in explaining trends and eventual goals. If this holds, then Marx is right, there is no population theory that can hold true for all stages of human society's development. Marx's "theory of reserve army of labour" is his critique of 19th century political economy. Surplus workers (who are ALWAYS UNDERPAID) are needed in assuring capital accumulation! If capital is being lost, then the workers will have to be laid off.

Thus Marxian approaches go counter against Malthusian approaches. Marxian approaches are predicated on redistribution. Since a major determinant of fertility in this country is access to education and school retention rates, then redistribution is a priority in the education sector. It will then follow that fertility rates will result in a further decline. Then the country will go into an economic "Goldilocks period" wherein fertility rates will be at near replacement rates where a skilled and educated population will eventually power economic growth.

However structural inequities in Philippine society cannot be simply be undone by prioritizing education alone. There are other factors to consider. While UP School of Economics Professor Arsenio Balisacan suggests that government must intervene in making sure more women participate in labour and business, invest in maternal health and education, falling fertility rates alone and increasing GDP does not automatically translate into development. A demographic and economic structural analysis of the 2011 Arab Spring would suggest that at least in Egypt something else caused the political explosion. Everything that Balisacan would want to happen to the Philippines (pop. growth rate <1.7, low unemployment in general) happened or is happening in Egypt and this economy is not as bad as it could be.

But what caused the political explosion? A moderate corruption index and a newly created "bulge" of relatively well educated young people (resulting from a delayed but inevitable demographic transition) but unemployed entering the workforce were likely factors say two Russian economists. Even if the Mubarak regime (which had enough resources) was able to subsidize food and transport prices, it failed to arrest discontent. These young people were internet savvy and thus had the means for rapid self-organisation. And let me emphasize that Egypt's corruption index is just moderate. The only consolation is that Egypt did not fall into the demographic trap. However predictions that the Philippines is falling into this trap is becoming more likely. The country has always been subject to natural hazards but the costs of these hazards are becoming greater and the government has little resources to mitigate the effects. The costs of human migration is known and the OFW phenomenon is likely delaying the inevitable trap according to a renowned biogeographer I have spoken to and in communication with. The danger of the demographic trap is that Philippine society will slip into stage 1 in a stressed out global environment.

The Neoliberal bent of the Noynoy administration still is focused on generating employment through increased resource extraction. See what is happening in Palawan. In the same town that resource extraction is assumed to generate employment, we have cholera, which is typical of a society in a stage 1 of transition.

The environmental and demographic writing is on the wall. I will leave it to the readers to conclude which is the better option for the inevitable redistribution.

And yet we talk of excommunications and Padre Damasos! This shows how intellectually abyssimal is the discourse on the RH Bill between its supporters and detractors.

(One of thing that will be a cause of schadenfreude is to see Carlos Celdran and Oscar Cruz in the same jail cell when the Revolution is triumphant! LOL!)

I do not agree with the purely Malthusian approach of the RH bill but I will concede that it's passage will knock the senses of all of us!

My Holy Week in the 1970s

2011-04-21T00:50:00.001+08:00

The 1970s may be what some 40yish-50yish Pinoys would consider as their "Wonder Years". In a Marcosian age, where things were politically hushed up (and there was practically no entertainment whatsoever), Holy Week for us kids meant going to church (more accurately churches) in our sturdy, tank-like Vauxhall (you see we had a Brit car then). This also meant doing the Stations of the Cross. Our grandparents who remembered the 13 Churches of Old Manila would regale us with tales of how they spent their Holy Week. On Good Friday, we all went to Pasig (which was a town then) and watch the Roman Catholic procession. If it were not proper Roman Catholic catechism from my mom, I would think those Catholic icons were straight out from a Dracula movie! Nonetheless, I always, until now, think parading those giant nails by which Jesus was pinned to the cross is too much for me. But that is Roman Catholic piety!

My family is not 100% Catholic since some family members were Anglicans, Protestants, Baptists and Aglipayans. So during some Holy Week days we would show up as a matter of ecumenical solidarity, at their church services. What I remember most is showing up at a Good Friday Protestant service in Quezon City lead by a Reverend London (who ain't British at all but a Genuine Ilocano!). And since this was 1973 and right after Martial Law, there was a Lenten concert whose musical renditions were subversive! I remember a rendition of Psalm 23 that was really anti-Ferdinand Marcos! The Anglican services are very similar to the Catholic ones with Mom telling me that the only difference between the Catholic and Anglicans were that their priests are allowed to marry!

The Church then was the only place something subversive can be played! During the Marcos years TV wasn't banned but the Dictatorial regime during Holy Week allowed the showing of

The Seven Last Words, naturally! On a fit of being "pilosopo", I did try to count all the words said during the televised service and told my folks that it was much more than Seven!

Cecil B de Mille's "Ten Commandments" and a host of other "biblical" films.

But the censors failed to see that these Hollywood sacramentals have a lot of sexual content. Do you recall that Golden Calf scene in the "Ten Commandments"?

Jesus Christ Superstar: One of the liberalizing results of the Vatican II council is the popularity of "Jesus Christ Superstar". In the 70's my sister played her vinyl on her sofa sized Panasonic stereo when Holy Monday kicked in. This of course irritated my pre-Vatican II Lola (a quintessential church "Manang") who in her last years was trying to make sense of the religious revolution then raging.

My sister and I over all those years have memorized the libretto. To this day I can still sing that campy "Caiphas and Annas" operatic exchange or that "Herod's Song".

"Superstar" was always shown on Good Friday on Channel 9. That is now a lost Good Friday ritual (Whatever happened to Channel 9 anyway?)

Again, the Dictatorial regime failed to sense that JCS is indeed not just heretical but subversive!

Protestant bible show on TV: After we saw the "heretical" re-run of "Superstar", the Church of Hollywood "bible" movie and the orthodox "7 Last Words" we would tune in to Ernest Angley. Now whatever happened to those repent and be saved TV shows?

But on Good Friday, the screen went blank!

Today, people have DVDs, the Internet etc to pass away the penitential days. But when I was growing up, the mere thought of spending Good Friday on the beach is a mortal sin and is heresy! But I always insisted that there is penance to be done on the hot sand! To which my mother would say that if I really wanted to do penance, then I should join that aunt who has a "panata" of walking barefoot in a pilgrimage in Nueva Ecija, on broiling sand!

Too bad or is too good? The Philippines is rapidly secularizing but then many people remain poor. In many countries, secularism meant an improvement in living standards. Today, people can fly to Boracay for Good Friday or hie off to Baguio. In Baguio at least many people try to put on a religious face and say their quick prayers at Baguio Cathedral, before zooming off to Wright Park. In Boracay, the local government has banned beer for Good Friday. However I was told by a theologian that beer is one of the few things one can have and not break the Roman Catholic Lenten fast! We can thank the German monks for that!

Perhaps what the Roman Catholic Church should do is to raise Boracay to a diocese (currently there is one small Catholic chapel there) and put a Cathedral there. In Las Vegas, we have the Guardian Angel Cathedral, which Catholic high rollers go to in the morning to 1) Give thanks to the Lord (for a Jackpot), 2) To ask the Lord's forgiveness (for losing all one's money). Tradition dictates they give their unused casino chips during offertory! The best prick to Catholic conscience is a Church spire on an island of sea, sand, booze and sex!

I have stuck to my holy tradition. I make it a point to be in Metro Manila on Good Friday and go to the churches. The city becomes renewed. People are gaga over that "orange" Lenten moon without realizing that the colour is due to the daily sulfuric haze we have here. But isn't it a foretaste of an Environmental Resurrection to see Manila's sky as azure blue? We can only have that when we commemorate the Lord's sacrifice and Resurrection!

Hanami: everything is transient and therein lies beauty

2011-04-15T15:33:00.002+08:00

Japan just had it's cherry blossom (Sakura) viewing season or hanami. In the depths of winter the trees are bare but almost suddenly the flowers burst out but only for a while. The flowers are nice to behold but they are just for a week or so, after which they fall and there lies poignant beauty. This year's hanami is even made more meaningful for the Japanese since it happened just a month or so after the tragic Tohoku earthquake. A thing of beauty is always temporary if it is in a material sense. Human beauty fades no matter how much Vicky Belo promotes her wonders via Jinkee Pacquiao! But what lasts is hidden and immaterial. And the cherry blossoms seem to help people reach out to what is hidden, immaterial and can be seen only by the soul at its dead centre, the heart!

In tropical Philippines where all is green even during the driest seasons, we don't notice the transience of flowers but we do have the Palawan cherry which burst into bloom at almost the same time the Japanese cherry blossoms do. The Palawan cherry is not a true cherry but a legume but has flowers that approximate the Japanese sakura.

And like the Japanese flowers, the Palawan cherry blossoms won't last, when I caught them in the Manila Seedling Bank, they were about to fall in the strong La Nina induced easterly breeze!
And here is an English translation of the first stanza Japan's most famous folk song "Sakura"

Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms,

Across the Spring sky,

As far as you can see.

Is it a mist, or clouds?

Our life is like a mist and will fade away!

Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Marcos all heroes!

2011-04-13T16:13:00.002+08:00

A hero is always a genuine hero to his/her fans. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Marcos are heroes. It is a fact that the following people just named were dictators who dreamed that their countries will be the number one of them all. Unfortunately they all became redundant in one way another. Lenin's Soviet state is history and deserves to be in the dustbin. Stalin inspires no one save for the party in North Korea and the Filipino cabal in Utrecht. Mao's portrait still hangs in Tiananmen but presides over a hypercapitalist wonderland. Hitler is fodder for hundreds of best selling books still mostly printed in England, but only the insane would think the English are big fans of der Fuhrer! The English are fascinated by the Nazis because they want to know how their democracy was able to defeat totalitarianism.

With the sole of exception of China, all the countries of once led by these dictators are all democracies. Russia is a democracy but is on the way to becoming a functioning one even with lapses to Tsar-like rule. We just don't know how long it will take. Germany is a liberal democracy and the Philippines is a sputtering democracy!

It is a feature of a strong democracy that while these fans are guaranteed to acclaim their heroes ( through their right of free speech) they will always be confined to a fringe. In Russia, there is a Soviet Stalinist "Disneyland" which at first attracted the nostalgic but as the fans began to die off, the Stalinist theme park had to shut down. Mao only survives as a Great Helmsman since the boat he helmed ended up on a capitalist shore thanks to Mr Deng who-loved-Parisian-croissants! Mao should be eternally grateful in Red Heaven that the Chinese boat did not break into a zillion socialist pieces! In Germany, it is illegal to display the Swastika unless you have a permit to do so. Academics can screen movies dealing with swastikas at universities under academic freedom guarantees. But their students are not likely to goose step as Brownshirts. There are neo-Nazis in Germany still but they will always be on the fringe unless German democracy collapses like it did in 1933. But Germans have learned their painful lesson and this is unlikely to happen in an integrated European Union where Germany is a major player.

The worrisome aspect in the Philippines with support from many people in power is that the lunatic fringe appears to be in Congress! These Congressmen believe that Mr Marcos deserves to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB). This will involve redefining the idea of hero for the majority of Filipinos.

Of course Ferdinand Marcos is a hero to his fans but more than that this whole affair exposes the sputtering EDSA system democracy we have. Philippine EDSA system democracy is so weak that it wasn't strong enough to sideline the Marcoses into the fringe (and it prevents Mr Noynoy Aquino from paving his "daang matuwid"). In a real revolution, Imelda and her fans would have gotten the Marie Antoinette treatment and perhaps Ferdie would have gotten a Louis XVI cut. But that did not happen. While I do not wish they got the French treatment, the only thing we on EDSA would have wanted is to see them get their dues in court. But that too never happened! And so the Marcoses claim they have nothing to apologize for. At least the Seyss-Inquart and Eichmann descendants had the decency to apologize for the atrocities of their Nazi grandfathers . The descendants pledge they will prevent that from ever happening again.

Does anyone think that the Germans will bring home Hitler's teeth from the KGB museum in Moscow and give the dentures State honours by a democratic and prosperous Germany? The Germans will never allow that nor have they forgotten what the Fuhrer did.

Thus this whole idea of interring Mr Marcos at the LNMB is a sign of the possible collapse of Philippine democracy and should be viewed as such, nothing more. If the reader values democracy, he/she will have to oppose this lunacy and at the next election get rid of the lunatic fringe in Congress.

The Death Penalty

2011-03-27T15:05:00.002+08:00

St Nicholas of Myra (a.k.a. Santa Claus) saves an innocent man from execution

On March 30 three Filipinos will be executed in China for drug trafficking offences for which they have been convicted under Chinese law. They were convicted of trafficking more than 50 gms of heroin into China. The Noynoy Aquino government has done the little too late effort of pleading clemency and sent the Vice President Jojo Binay to speak with the Chinese. However he was reminded that under Chinese law, there is no one who can grant executive clemency not even the President of China. The authority to issue death warrants or take them lies only with China's Supreme Court. In most countries, the Head of State has the power to pardon or commute sentences. This power derives from the Divine Right of Kings. While the whole idea of a King being above the law has been largely abandoned, the power to pardon, commute or reprieve penalties is the last remaining vestige of this right in a republic and the President has this sole power which cannot be reviewed.

Mr Binay was able to get a reprieve for their execution but this did not do much good as in other countries, a reprieve is granted so that convicts can mount an appeal, a review or plead for mercy. In the case of the 3 Filipinos, these avenues were largely closed even if the continue to maintain their innocence. The government has no choice but to accept the end game to the sorrow of the families of the doomed men and women.

This is the reality of the death penalty. Justice may have been done if the truly guilty are executed, but if the innocent are executed, then Justice has been terribly wronged. This is the reason why throughout the ages, the list of crimes that prescribe the death penalty has been whittled away and in today's world many countries have abolished it. The Roman Catholic Church is the biggest entity that has long campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty. Several popes have said that there are very little reasons to use it and in many countries these are non-existent. The Church looks on the positive side of rehabilitating convicts. However it must be said that the Church has not "outlawed" the death penalty since under natural law there is always a possible reason to use it. The Church cannot abrogate the natural law. The provision for the death penalty lies in the principle of self-defence.

In Western popular tradition, if you survive your execution (most likely due to a bungling executioner) then you are automatically pardoned! The medievals believed that survival is a miracle and that the convicted was in truth innocent. Of course with the development of more technically savvy ways of killing people, the chance of living after your execution is almost nil. There has been a trend to make death more humane and that is the idea for the lethal injection, but still execution kills. In the past methods of execution included aside from the usual decapitation, "trampling by elephant" and being "eaten by wild beasts"!

Societies throughout the ages have debated the use of the death penalty and their approach to it followed changing ideas of how people are treated and generally followed acceptance of democratic values. It was only after people found slavery abhorrent that the move to abolish the death penalty has snowballed. Today a majority of countries have abolished the death penalty. Ninety five countries have abolished it completely, 8 have abolished it save for a few heinous crimes, 49 have it still in the books but have never used it and 41 still have it. Russia is the biggest nation that still has the penalty in the books but has never used it after communism collapsed. Ironically it is China which is the first country in history to have abolished the death penalty in 747 AD by order of the Tang Emperor. It was unfortunately reinstated 12 years later due to a rebellion. Japan followed in 818 AD under the orders of Emperor Saga until 1156 AD when the Shogunate brought it back. Today China and Japan still have the death penalty.

The move to abolish the death penalty followed global acceptance of democratic values and human rights. Most democracies have abolished the death penalty with the notable exception of the United States of America. The USA is founded on the idea that all men are equal, bans under its constitution "inhumane punishment" but still has the penalty for aggravated murder and rarely for felony murder. Some states of the USA have abolished the death penalty but they are in a minority. However there is a trend for a moratorium on executions. China has executed 6000 or more convicts mostly for aggravated murder and drug trafficking. Chinese law automatically mandates a death sentence on anyone caught trafficking more than 50 grams of heroin into the country. The Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau do not have the death penalty. Taiwan still has it. Other countries who have it in the books have began to impose the penalty more sparingly, especially in Asia.

One major reason why the death penalty is finding less and less favour with societies worldwide that it has been historically used for political and religious oppression. Other reasons include the fact that members of minorities are likely to more convicted with the death penalty than members of the majority. However with the surge of heinous crimes some of which are drug related, many people have raised proposals to reimpose the penalty for these crimes, even in societies that have long abolished the penalty.

One of the morally vexing questions asked is this "If we have Adolf Hitler in our midst, we arrested him and he was convicted of his crimes in a court of law, would you opt that he be jailed for life?" Israel came close to this conundrum in the Eichmann trial. Israel has executed only Adolf Eichmann under proceedings of a civilian court. It has never executed anyone else since then.

The answer to the question is whether we see the need to impose the death penalty once more (in countries which have abolished it or in countries that still have it).

In the Philippines we have a knee jerk reaction about the death penalty, especially when a heinous crime has been committed such as aggravated murder or drug trafficking. This is particularly true of politicians. But in a society which has accepted the everyday fact that one can be killed for alleged crimes without a judicial warrant, then all this talk of re-imposition of the death penalty is hard to swallow. We have to put an end to extrajudicial murder first and let Justice rule over the land.

I am against the death penalty for one reason. Death is too kind for these kinds of criminals. We will all meet the Just God via death. Let them rot in jail!

As for the doomed OFWs, there are more on death row in countries which are not much different from China! Why do they have to leave their country to meet this fate? Again this is proof positive that the Filipino poor are the ones most likely to be meted out the death penalty if convicted for crimes.

Japan will be able to recover

2011-03-17T01:03:00.000+08:00

I received news of last Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake on Manila Bay since I was supposed to go on a boat and check my research sites. The skipper got a tsunami warning and so the boat ride was cancelled. At the office 30 minutes later, I was able to view in real time the arrival of the first tsunamis. In one video feed, I saw one town completely obliterated by the waves. Then came the videos of the unfolding Fukushima nuclear disaster, where the earthquake destroyed the reactors' backup power systems and that exploding nuclear reactor building. The exploding reactor building is now iconic. It permanently nukes the claim that nuclear power is disaster-proof and safe!

Japan by destiny gives us reasons to really go No Nukes. The photos of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are iconic and so is the mushroom cloud over Fukushima's nuclear reactor. Japan renounced war and nuclear weapons and perhaps Japan may renounce nuclear energy, the first industrialized nation to do so.

The disaster has now become news fare for many Filipinos. This must be the first mega-disaster that Filipinos saw in real time. It is probably the first globalized natural disaster and this is the reason why an SMS rumor about a radioactive cloud drifting towards Manila made people panic buy Betadine!

Seriously, the disaster has become personal for me since I received news that some of my research colleagues were casualties of the tsunami in northeast Japan, where I trained in 2004. But I believe that the Japanese will be able to recover.

First of all the Japanese have experienced worse situations. The American defeat of Imperial Japan in 1945 proved that Japanese society can endure what their Emperor then described as "the unendurable". The Japanese will be able to endure this present one. So far to the amazement of everyone on the planet (save for the Japanese), there was no breakdown in law and order. The Japanese queued without a word for relief goods. They followed their Prime Minister.

But as the governor of Fukushima said, there may be a limit to this resilience as the disaster goes into its 2nd week. This necessitated a remarkable address of the Emperor Akihito to his people. This is the first time that a reigning Sovereign addressed his people since 1945, when his father the Emperor Showa announced Japan's surrender. The Emperor is rarely heard by the public except in giving New Year's greetings. This is the first time that an Emperor gave an address live on TV.

The unprecedented address of the Emperor is a sign that the government is having a hard time in managing the situation as Japan faces three disasters, earthquake (still on going), tsunami (a persistent threat) and nuclear meltdown (extremely critical). The Emperor under Japan's constitution is the "symbol of the State and unity of the people" and has no political role whatsoever except for ceremonial duties. Thus his address in its vastly understated words like "deep concern" is really an expression of grave worry and displeasure at the government.

The Prime Minister's statements have been criticized by mostly non Japanese as vague and some have suspected a cover up. However like the Emperor, the words are understated as expected in Japanese society and they are not meant to alarm Japan's citizens. But as one who knows Japan, the words really express exasperation and berate the appropriate authorities in their handling of the crisis. Surely how democratic Japan will judge the present government will be seen in the next election of the Diet.

But given the present state of things, Japanese society, their government and Emperor have done their roles very well. These respect of appropriate roles is a plus in their road to recovery, which I expect to be short, within 5 years. The Japanese have not as a reflex action sought foreign assistance. They have now done so but in dealing with the Fukushima nuclear accident which is a worst case scenario of safety system failure.

One thing is that there is no Japanese politician who grandstands in this unfolding story. The Emperor has set the example.

People power "virus" infects Saudi Arabia: Will the Philippines implode?

2011-03-07T12:06:00.001+08:00

Latest to be infected with the Twitter and Facebook vectored democracy "virus" is absolutist Saudi Arabia. This Islamic Kingdom supplies the world with much of the oil, earns over 90% of its revenue from oil sales, and over the years had to "walk the talk" with the USA. Thus the Kingdom had to back the USA in its wars and interventions in the region short of sending the Kingdom's army to these trouble spots. The Kingdom also hosts the largest contingent of Filipino workers who have no rights of permanent residency. The USA hosts the biggest group of overseas Filipinos but many have rights of residency or have been granted American citizenship.

The Kingdom's monarchs are also the Guardians of the Islamic Holy Places of Medina and Mecca. The state according to its constitution is governed according to the Quran and Islamic law. It is one of two sovereign states where a religious constitution is absolute, the other one is the Vatican. However like in Christianity, there are several strains of Islam, the two major ones roughly analogous to the East -West differentiation of Christianity, are Shia and Sunni Islam. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni state although it hosts a sizeable Shia population in the Eastern Provinces. Religious or political dissent is not tolerated and all demonstrations are banned.

Since many Saudis have lived or studied overseas, they have seen the advantages of a democratic polity even within an Islamic context. So just like in neighbouring Shia dominated Iran, they are demanding an end to absolutist and theocratic rule and a more pluralist society. This appears to be at the root of protests in the more Shia Eastern Provinces.

The West worries that these democracy movements may disrupt oil production and may cause oil prices to break the 200 dollar per barrel barrier. This will surely arrest the global economy's recovery from recession. In the Philippines things will become more dire as the Philippine economy is kept afloat by OFW remittances. The political turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia and most recently Libya have seen the repatriation of foreign workers. In Libya with 30K Filipino workers, the Philippines proved it has not the logistical capability to support the repatriation unlike economic superpower China, which has strategic economic interests in the Arab world and the rest of Africa.

Saudi Arabia hosts 1 million Filipino workers. Political turmoil there will force the repatriation of these workers. Also the "virus" which has earlier infected Bahrain and Yemen will surely infect the various emirates and shiekdoms all over the Persian Gulf. These small states host Filipino workers in the tens of thousands!

And on the Pinoy home front, we expect the price of gasoline to exceed the 100 peso per liter level with diesel not far behind. The millions of repatriated OFWs will find little or no job opportunity for most of them did not invest their earnings in job generating businesses. One reason is that the corrupt government bureaucracy is not favourable to small and medium scale businesses. Together with soaring food prices as a result of possible climate change effects, and a widespread public perception of insane corruption by the ruling elite, the recipe is ripe for an implosion of the social and political order.

BTW, climate change too has forced the repatriation of OFWs. Madagascar based OFWs were sent home due to a threat of a malaria outbreak which was worsened by rainfall shifts in that country.

This is the end of the country's addiction to OFW remittances and flings into the face of ideas of labour export fantasies for growth by economists like Bernie Villegas. Economic growth is guaranteed by investment both domestic and foreign, but can only be sustained by robust domestic investment.

Can the Aquino administration deal with a possible implosion or would it just wheeze by it by driving a Porsche?

Professor Caesar Saloma is elected as new UP Diliman Chancellor

2011-03-02T14:28:00.001+08:00

Professor Caesar Saloma, Dean of the College of Science has been very recently selected as chancellor of the University of the Philippines Diliman campus by the university Board of Regents (BOR). Prof Saloma is credited for seeing the eventual completion of the National Science Complex (NSC). The complex is near completion as the buildings of all the science institutes are in their final stages of construction. This is no mean achievement given the scale of the project and the funding shortfalls of recent years.

Professor Saloma was chosen in what is believed to be a close contest between two other chancellor-nominees, all of whom are capable administrators.

Prof Saloma is a renowned physicist and is a Galileo Galilei awardee for optics research. A capable administrator who despite years in Diliman, hasn't completely lost his Boholano accent, Saloma will have to deal with issues that have plagued the Diliman academic community for years. These range from staff benefits, faculty tenure and promotion, student welfare, campus security, and the perennial problem of illegal settlers on university land. Dealing with these issues will surely test Professor Saloma's patience, tact and diplomacy. These are traits that he surely doesn't lack as shown in his tenure as Science dean.

The Diliman campus is a rambunctious federation of colleges and departments, each zealously guarding its prerogatives. Prof Saloma will have to craft a consensus and compromises on the various issues one of which is the thorny issue of continued commercialization of university assets.

Prof Saloma is the first Diliman chancellor who will serve completely under the terms of the 2008 UP Charter. His selection by the BOR shows the direction of the new UP president's administration will go. The appointment will be surely noted by the country's political establishment. It is good politics for the occupant of Quezon Hall's North Wing (President) to be on the same wavelength as that of the South Wing tenant (Chancellor)!

Saloma will serve a three year term as chancellor. He may be reappointed to a second term if the BOR sees it fit.

Mabuhay! All the best for Prof Saloma!

Keeping the EDSA spirit alive

2011-02-28T18:55:00.000+08:00

If we want to keep the EDSA spirit alive, we have to ensure she is victorious everywhere. Perhaps the President of the Philippines will consent to putting up a copy of this statue on EDSA. She is the real icon of People Power. If the President has enough moral courage, then once the statue is up, the Republic of the Philippines will no longer boycott a Nobel peace prize conferment. Also we will have to stop kowtowing to the political party that destroyed this statue's original.

Goodbye UP High. But really it is hello commercialization hello!

2011-02-27T00:25:00.006+08:00

The University of the Philippines high school department (now known as the UP Integrated School) will be moved from its Katipunan Road site on the periphery of the Diliman campus to near the UP College of Education.

The move has been talked about for years. Katipunan Road over the decades has been turned into an extremely busy highway and students have been in real danger of being run over (and indeed some have and a few have been fatal). Just for this reason alone, moving the school nearer to the university academic core is most sensible.

However the site has sentimental reasons to generations of old UPIS grads. But a cursory look at the campus would suggest that time has done its work and a new building on a new site is best. But the University of the Philippines had not much the funds to rehabilitate the buildings (the "new" building is 35 years old!) and so any talk of relocation or renovation was just that talk.

And here comes Ayala Corporation, just fresh from putting up the Technohub (a.k.a. call center wonderland) on the Commonwealth north end of the campus. Ayala in early 2010 presented an unsolicited bid to develop the Katipunan site into a mixed use commercial, office and retail complex. The Board of Regents (BOR) thumbed it down saying a development plan must be submitted first. However the BOR had long accepted the principle of converting the site into what Ayala intended. After a bidding participated by two other well known developers and,Ayala Land, Ayala won the bid. It will spend 3 B PhP to develop the site while allocating 100 million for the new UPIS building.

However some quarters in the UP community have voiced concern about Ayala's alleged monopsonical relationship with UP. You can read all about this here and it is connected with UPIS. If Ayala is a monopsony vis a vis UP, then whatever UP academics and researchers produce as part of their academic entrepreneurship responsibilities, then Ayala is the first to buy and the only to buy, and so can discriminate prices.

R Kwan Laurel in "Philippine Cultural Disasters" notes that UP has "danced with the devil" with temptations of late capital and slams the academic entrepreneurship paradigm. It was the Marxist UP President Dodong Nemenzo while following materialist logic that "technology is salvation", realized the technocratic dream of having UP tie up with capitalists while renting its real estate assets. However it must be noted that in the Philippines and that whoever is the capitalist, be it Ayala or someone else, the closing of business deals is always within the context of rent seeking. Surely Ayala's alleged monopsonical practices with UP falls smack into a rent seeking mango basket!

Kwan Laurel states that UP is enamored by Ayala since it is a technological leader, has the cleanest image among the big corporations and did not get involved with Marcos crony capitalism. Kwan Laurel adds that Ayala protected itself from Marcos' dismantling of old oligopolies (to be replaced by crony new ones) by partnering with multinational capital. This allowed it to be an industry leader in technology in the 1990s to the present. But Kwan Laurel adds, this technology cannot be apolitical.

This is where the transfer of UPIS has to be seen, despite the pangs of sentiment, nostalgia and pragmatism. The context of this move cannot be separated from contentious issues being discussed in the UP and the rest of the Philippine education sector. Almost 75% percent of education is provided by private entities and they in a hypercapitalist system can drive up tuition fee rates and they have. This is whilst keeping wages low hence the perennial complaints of education generators a.k.a. teachers, while the education providers a.k.a. schools, colleges and universities, pocket the profits. Now under an academic entrepreneurship paradigm, the capitalist technology provider will share in the profits and under the model that UP operates now, is about 40%, Much of the knowledge generators will be the students who are after that piece of paper. Since UP is now a research university, the graduate students and PhDs will be the major generators of this knowledge. A monopsonical relationship will not ensure that the benefits of this new knowledge will be directed to the mass of Filipinos in terms of job generation which is made possible by a level business playing field and encouraging small to mid sized enterpreneurship. In fact the new knowledge is likely to be exported and given the structural defects of the Philippine economy (largely we never had a real economic and opportunities redistribution) and an servile kowtow to neoliberal capitalism, the benefits won't trickle that much.

My thesis is that the paradigm of academic entrepreneurship has eaten into the nationalist identity and ethos of the UP. You can read it all about it in my recent blog post on the RGEP. As I have pointed out, the UPIS and its educational tradition is not separate from that of the UP. It is nationalist while ensuring that graduates are able to enter university well equipped with the critical thinking skills. The UPIS is the most exclusive high school in the country and the alums know that. There is no high school in the Philippines that puts a premium on love for country and people and that is the main reason that alums sing the University hymn with defiant pride. Since the BOR and various UP academic reform committees have been considering turning UPIS over to DepEd (remember the post EDSA 1986 joke that UPIS will be renamed as KRIS, Katipunan Road Integrated School?), this have come to naught leading one UP president to note that "it is amazing that the graduates could be so fiercely loyal to their high school". However the UP has succeeded in cutting down the allocation for UPIS. It is now more of a lab school than anything else.

Nonetheless, basic education (indeed all of education) in the Philippines is now determined by market forces and much of that is determined from overseas. This has resulted in the sprouting up of gadzillions (pardon the exaggeration, but Prof Felipa Tintero taught us that it was a necessary literary device!) of "international schools" and for nursing grads, market forces have forced them to pay hospitals up to 100K for an internship! As education becomes dearer, a UPIS which can just provide a quality education to a few kids just because UP won't pay for it, is abhorrent to me.

UPIS wherever it may be on the site of Narra dorm or anywhere on the campus, must be able to provide more chances for the bright, qualified and less privileged kids to get a quality education that will prepare them for university. C'mon, our Blue Eagle friends led by Father Ben Nebres have come up with a "Pathways" program. UP High has been traditionally something like that! And come to think of it, as time passes, the kids of government employees become more and more less privileged.

The construction of the new UPIS (which I jokingly call as the UP-AYALA Technohigh!) on a new site will seal the future of the school. It is unlikely that an academically entrepreneurial UP system will invest more on a basic education unit. It is time to throw the question to the new UP President Mr Fred Pascual. What is your plan for UPIS? (and the rest of UP basic education at UPLB, UP Visayas and UP Cebu?) The whole issue cannot be separated with the Noynoy administration plan to put another 2 years to basic education. It can't be separated from the spineless neoliberalism of this presidential administration.

UP tuition fees are now 21 K a sem, to the shock of many alums. We can't separate this from the fate of UPIS. But given the animated discussion in the UPIS "Goodbye UP High" Facebook group, there is hope. The alums even if nostalgic have questioned the rationale of all of this. And this will pay tribute too to the former residents of Narra dorm, of whom many are nationalists and "pasaway"!

BENJAMIN VALLEJO JR PhD
College of Science, University of the Philippines
UPIS Class of 1984

To fight the continuing betrayal of EDSA, we have to take the road once more!

2011-02-25T01:41:00.005+08:00

February 25, 1986, 10 AM Camp Crame. After spending the long night at arms. My dad took this photo of me with Mrs Luz Magsaysay at General Ramos' office

The true spirit of EDSA 1986 does not really lie with those who politically benefited from the uprising. It lies with the people who were on the road, at the barricades or with like me with weapons at the ready, ready to fire at any armed group who would want to destroy the revolt . This photo with former first lady Mrs Luz Magsaysay remains memorable since in the morning of Feb 25, my dad at great risk to his safety pulled me out of that armed cadet outfit. An uprising like EDSA even though with noble intentions still is not worth the shedding of young people's blood. I was just 19 years old then. If you look closely at the lapel, I was wearing the badge of the UP ROTC marksmanship unit. The unit I was in were composed of UP ROTC cadets. Mrs Magsaysay I remember was greatly relieved that none of the cadets were shot at. At 19 it is easy to believe that one can take a bullet until the bullets are aimed at you!

We have to laud God that at EDSA that no shots were fired and no blood was spilled. The blood was to be spilled later near the famed highway during the 1989 coup against Mrs Cory Aquino ( I was again so near the area of conflict with dad since we were to meet a veteran at Camp Aguinaldo that day, but we were in a worse situation, we were both unarmed. I had to drive my new car and dodge the firing until we got to 15th Avenue)

Whatever the Left or Right would say, EDSA is a real revolution. The problem is that it is an unfinished one. And because it was unfinished, it was easily betrayed largely by those who benefited from it. Of the images that still haunt me prior to EDSA 1986 is the photo of malnourished tot Joel Abong who died a week after the famous photo was taken. After EDSA, at least we had hoped that there will be no Joel Abongs anymore. Urban Manila citizens saw the photo but were very sure that those kids existed only on Negros haciendas. But after so many EDSAs you will find Joel Abongs in almost every Metro Manila street.in Gloria Arroyo's "ramdam and ginhawa 7% GDP growth era" That there still are children like Joel Abong in PNoy's "tuwid na daan" a year into the 21st century's second decade is a continuing betrayal for what we risked our lives at EDSA. The fact that Noynoy Aquino's family has a hacienda is a continuing betrayal!

That Filipinos still have to risk their lives in oppressive Middle Eastern countries or carry drugs in desperation and is a continuing betrayal of EDSA. The Generals who take "pabaon" are a continuing betrayal. That Gloria Macapagal Arroyo tried and has succeeded in staying in power is a betrayal. The list of betrayals are long and almost endless. We have elected the oppressors into the legislature and they are mouthing Hitleresque promises that this country could have been another Singapore.

But the betrayals have to end and we have to take the highway once more. We are jadedly glad that the Arabs are taking the highway too in the age of Twitter and Facebook. We hope their Revolution will not betray them. But sadly it will. That's if they leave the highway and into complacency and then apathy.

We cannot leave the highway that is EDSA and neither can the Egyptians leave their Tahrir Square. The Revolution demands we stay on the highway or the square. At almost 44, as young EDSA revolutionists are now, we have children to think about and the thought of taking a bullet and dying as a revolutionary martyr is not that attractive anymore. But still if we can't inspire the younger ones, then we have been complicit in the continuing betrayal.

Aming ligaya na pag may mang-aapi,
ang mamatay ng dahil sa iyo!

The Nationalist Revolution started by the Katipunan will succeed and this photo of the Philippine Flag at Camp Crame I took on the moment the announcement that the Marcoses were whisked by their American patrons to Guam, tells us that in the future, EDSA will be redeemed and we will be fully victorious.

No uprising is a failure despite all the betrayals, each is a step towards liberation!

But we cannot get off the highway. Let's tweet and Facebook and get them on the road again!

Ten reasons why Bongbong Marcos and a lot of Pinoys are delusional about what Singapore is

2011-02-24T14:31:00.001+08:00

Here are some reasons why the Philippines under any president be that may be The Great Apo Ferdie, Santa Corazon de Aquino, General "Daimos" Tabako, Asiong "Erap" Salonga, the Gloria in Excelsis Arroyo and the Noynoy the PNoy, will never be another Singapore as long as we don't get out of our delusions.

We have to remind Senator Bongbong Marcos that in Singapore

They send people to jail or the gallows if convicted and the appeals process has run out. There is true Rule of Law in Singapore. In Flor Contemplacion's case there was no "consideration for a friend". Walang kai-kaibigan sa Singapore! And that is why Singapore is less corrupt than China! A "pasaway" American teen gets caned for vandalism and so does a Brit! And so Americans respect Singapore laws. If an American GI did a Corporal Smith there, he would have been detained not at the American Embassy but in the new Changi prison.
They fine people who deserve to be fined, bubble gum chewers, toilet non-flushers and jaywalkers alike (walang pakiusap sa Singapore!)
Mrs Lee Kuan Yew never owned 400 pairs of shoes. She was a lawyer like her husband but never had any ambitions of becoming Governor of Metropolitan Singapore or Minister of Human Singaporean Settlements! When she passed away last year at age 89, Singaporeans and Malaysians had nothing bad to say about her.
Singapore has the most open economy in ASEAN. We never had heard of insider trading there unlike in Ayala and Ortigas! They also collect the right taxes in Singapore.
Nothing political is preached by religious ministers. At Mass, priests preach only the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Walang obispo na nagbabanta mag-excommunicate doon ng politiko dahil sa policy ng pamahalaan kungdi kulong siya!
Singaporean universities have the facilities to make learning attractive and competitive.
The President of Singapore has the power to check on the Prime Minister's spending. Now who in the Philippines can check on how Malacanang spends the people's tax money?
No one has seen the Prime Minister of Singapore release stress by driving a Porsche. But people have seen the PM take the subway! Prime Minister "BG" Lee releases stress, I was told by Singaporean friends, in the gym! Besides the idea of the PM driving a Porsche even if he can afford it with his own money, is in extremely poor taste.
Public servants are the best renumerated employees. Thus there is no attraction for "pabaon" If they take "pabaon" they end up in Changi prison.
Citizens have to serve in the Singapore Armed Forces to defend their country. Defending the nation is a duty and not something to avoid.

And so we have to greet our Singaporean friends "well done!"

And may I add, People Power is unlikely in Singapore!

Ten reasons why EDSA 1986 is A MAJOR FLOP!

2011-02-22T22:40:00.000+08:00

None of the Marcoses have seen the view through the window of a jail cell but can look at the view from the Batasan and Senate office windows!
The Cojuangcos still own a hacienda!
There are still VALID reasons for Joma Sison to pontificate even after Communism has been thrown into the trash bin everywhere!
Media, power and industry oligarchies are back. And they dupe their workers. Workers not getting their due. They also bleed the people in power rates!
The 1987 Constitution
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo takes the Presidency from Erap at the EDSA Shrine. The 1987 Constitution is thus stabbed fatally.
Corrupt generals having "pabaon" while the AFP doesn't have decent air, naval and land forces assets.
Congress
Vietnam outpacing us economically. Remember they got pounded by the US of A.
Noynoy Aquino was elected on mom and dad's platform. And the government becomes like a badly run student council!

BUT WAIT, WE STILL HAVE HOPE.

Growing up Army brat and How to save the PMA and ROTC programs!

2011-02-17T00:11:00.002+08:00

All set to bravely defend the Republic against its enemies!

My father who was with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and retired as a general officer had a son and once he could walk did not put him into a Gucci but into a Philippine Army uniform! The only "pabaon" General Vallejo ever had upon retirement after 30 years of service was a pistol and a high powered automatic rifle (which he was entitled to after serving the Republic in its wars against enemies sworn to destroy it). However after the 1986 EDSA revolution, he donated these weapons to the Philippine Army museum so that young soldiers will have an idea of what it means to defend the Republic.

Dad also spent countless hours training me to be a marksman and that began as soon as I first opened my eyes as a baby. By the time I was in high school, I was already trained to shoot and be deadly accurate at it!

But I never had that weapons fetish. I never got the wind about using guns as a way to project one's personal power. All I know is that a gun is a tool and a weapon with one uses to hit the target, and legitimate that target is. Dad imparted that Zen idea about using weapons. We hone our skills to a perfection which apparently will never be used. I have never fired a gun in offense or in self-defense (although at EDSA 1986, I was almost near to doing so!) I have never fired a gun in order to hunt animals too! That is something Dad found so abominable!

As for my weapons training, the US, Australian and UK governments know how well trained I am and I will not hesitate to use the skills I learned legitimately. I never lied on my visa applications! And in college, I had to undergo ROTC!

So I think that Tim Garcia bloke had it much better. He wears a Gucci and YSL boots while we Army cadets were condemned to wear AFP issued boots in ROTC training. Dad saw how bad the boots are and gave me a pair of boots issued to the US Marines. This is the closest thing I ever had to having YSL boots! The boots served me well in Ranger training and still is in my kit bag!

Former Representative Gualberto Lumauig now writes about destroyed image of the Philippine Military Academy.

Now I don't know if Tim Garcia ever had ROTC training. But there was a time, a more gentle and honorable time when sons of Philippine Military Academy (PMA) generals followed their fathers "to the mountains" as we at the UP ROTC used to say. And in the mountains, these sons become the lowest creatures in all of evolution. Not a few of them fell in battle as young lieutenants later. I have uncles and cousins on my mother's side who are Mistahs and all of them are honourable men. My uncle is a Mistah and two of his sons are also too. On my dad's side, all are ROTC men.

So what has happened then? Public perception is that the PMA's image has suffered with all these corruption allegations in the military top brass . The Macapagal-Arroyo government (with an accomplice Congress) dealt a nearly lethal blow to the ROTC program that the AFP is in peril of not being able to get good young men and women as officers to replace officers who are fading away. PMA authorities recently said that fewer applicants are applying for cadetships. The military is no longer an attractive career choice for many young people. The AFP is really in danger of not being able to get a "few good men (and women)"!

And soldiers are not just tasked to battle our Republic's enemies but to battle natural hazards too. After all the heroes who died in the Ondoy floods were all soldiers! If we had a good ROTC program, then we would have a lot of volunteer cadets who could have helped in the relief efforts.

Soldier's families traditionally supplied officers to the military but with changing values and mores and the lack of appreciation of sacrifice and a goal of getting wealth at all means, many military brats do not even consider a soldier's life. A soldier is under obligation to serve under command and have that strong faith in the performance of his/her duties. And that is why the Faithful Centurion of the Gospels is a patron saint of men and women under command.

But it is not just a soldier's life, even in civilian life, military brats know that there is this duty that has to be done and that not to do this duty endangers the community they serve. But this mindset disappears if we just value our own personal comforts.

Is there hope for the military and military training? I believe there is. The PMA and ROTC can only be saved by the cadets themselves since these military training institutions still have those ideals that never fade. They should at all cost desist from following the "traditions" set by their corrupt alumni.

New UP President Fred Pascual comments on UP's financial sustainability

2011-02-15T17:36:00.001+08:00

New UP President Alfredo Pascual last Feb 10 took over the reins of the University of the Philippines in a simple ceremony in Quezon Hall. Mr Pascual served until Feb 9, 2017.His speech is here. The theme of Mr Pascual's speech focused on the never ending effort to raise the standards of the university, modernize its infrastructure, turn it into a competitive research university without compromising the university's reputation for teaching excellence.

However Mr Pascual, a chemistry graduate but development banker by profession, spilled out the necessary numbers. It is no secret that the salaries of professors are abysmally low and definitely uncompetitive. The same is true for the loyal staff which are even more disadvantaged.

The numbers include that to make the salaries really competitive (professors on average should get 100,000 pesos a month from the measly 25,000 or so at present), the UP should have an endowment of at least 8 billion pesos (that is about 181 million US dollars at present exchange rates). Or the university has to get at least half a billion in extra revenue.

Mr Pascual should be credited for defining on what terms UP's financial sustainability should be based on. He differentiates from commercialization of assets from commercialization of education. He is in favour of the former but not on the latter. He says he won't agree to an increase in fees, but will continue to lobby for government's sustained financial commitment to UP over and above what it gets now.

His mantra appears to be to "change mindsets". How this is to be achieved in a university with eclectic views need to be seen. Mr Pascual's success or failure in his program of governance will be measured on this alone.

His cabinet of vice presidents which includes two of my former professors are known to be familiar with how a 21st century financially viable educational operates. In this way, even if Mr Pascual does not know them personally, he is assured they share in his vision of how UP can become financially sustainable.

Facebook and Twitter destroy an authoritarian regime

2011-02-12T11:48:00.002+08:00

After 18 days, President for 30 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was forced to quit by massive demonstrations of Egyptians fed up with autocratic rule. Mubarak who is a general in Egypt's armed forces is considered as a hero in Egypt's war against Israel. Egypt and Israel have since signed a peace treaty.

The protests occurred in all major Egyptian cities. Mubarak tried to give concessions but eventually this was a little too late. Nonetheless, the regime tried to shut off Egypt from the rest of the cyberuniverse. But that failed, Egyptians found a way to tweet! Shutting off Egypt also resulted in massive economic losses in a nation with high unemployment.

This popular uprising is most significant (even more significant than EDSA in 1986) for it proves that no regime can effectively shut the flow of social networking. Thus dictatorships and unelected rulers in the world and in the Forbidden City are now shell shocked. They know that they cannot hold on for long and give in to democracy.

Tehran and Beijing feel the coldest chill. China cannot throw away all its political power just for blocking tweets and Facebook. And so too will Iran. Communism with Chinese characteristics and the rule of the clerics will have to give way and that will happen very soon. There can never be any effective Great Wall or fatwa against social networking!

And recent developments suggest that doing a Ferdinand Marcos on an unsuspecting Philippines is also now impossible.

Two February tragedies

2011-02-11T14:19:00.001+08:00

The death of General Angelo Reyes should be viewed within the context of the EDSA phenomenon which spawned the current political system we have. This system is showing the inherent decay of this system.

General Reyes has been truly eaten by EDSA II. The moment he stepped on the platform of the EDSA shrine and guaranteed the ascendancy of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, he sealed his destiny. But I wonder if he had foreseen that the EDSA II 'revolution" will eventually digest him?

The Macapagal-Arroyo years while it brought improvements in Philippine society has sealed its place in history as probably the most corrupt government Filipinos ever had.

The tragedy is that a then promising young and competent officer like Angelo Reyes was eventually digested by the corrupting and digestive acids of the EDSA constitutional system. Thus it is a about time we cease celebrating EDSA and work for a revolutionary arrangement in which we have a new constitution and a new political settlement. If Noynoy Aquino is just daring enough, he could have started this. This revolutionary arrangement can easily be achieved even within the present constitutional arrangements. Mrs Cory Aquino could have done it 25 years ago, but she failed.

But Noynoy Aquino while not being digested by the EDSA spawned body politic, he is in the process of being embalmed by it. The Porsche could be his political funeral hearse if he doesn't wake up!

And this is greater and more horrible tragedy for the Filipino nation.

Suicides and Samurais

2011-02-10T18:15:00.001+08:00

The unfortunate death of ex AFP Chief of Staff, Angelo Reyes has sparked a discussion of suicide in Pinoy society. I think the discussion is good since Pinoy society has to face up to the problem of suicide aside from the religious aspects of this.

In a sense suicide is a taboo topic in Pinoy society and this is a reflection of the generally conservative Roman Catholic culture of the country. But economic and social pressures have driven many to take their own lives. Just last December, a couple hanged themselves on the MRT pylon at EDSA Mandaluyong, snarling traffic for hours. We read about financially desperate breadwinners committing suicide, but aside from the reports, this isn't really news! When a student of Ateneo tried to commit suicide, this became news.

What drives people to suicide are many but medical science considers this as a mental health concern. Suicides are considered as "cries for help" or attention and is linked with lack of coping mechanisms for depression and anxiety. Roman Catholicism has greatly recognized the mental health aspects of suicide that for the most part and even if the Church still recognizes it is a sin, a history of the suicide victim is known first, before the Church denies a Christian burial to the victim. A priest told me that for pastoral reasons, most priests give Church rites to the suicide victim and his/her family.

We can only in conjecture determine the reasons for General Reyes' suicide but based on circumstances before his death, it is likely he lost the ability to cope with the corruption allegations he was subject to. Op ed columnists in the Philippine blurbs have likened his suicide to what the Japanese samurai did when dishonoured. They commit seppuku. But the op ed columnists miss out on what really is. The Shogunate considered seppuku as a capital punishment for the GUILTY! The samurai are just given the honourable way of inflicting capital punishment with their own hands on themselves! The Meiji Emperor in 1879 abolished this kind of capital punishment and let the State's executioner perform the task. However this did not stop some Japanese from committing voluntary seppuku.

This it is plainly ridiculous to maintain that General Reyes did like what samurais of old and to assert that he is innocent until proven guilty! If one believed he did like what a Samurai should do, then one must accept he was guilty of corruption. If one believes he was innocent until there is evidence to say otherwise, then one must cease comparing his act to that of the Samurai. To do so is to dishonour the Samurai.

They Juana Change the Porsche for a Porsche cart!

2011-02-04T22:37:00.003+08:00

The now famous Porsche spiel had me laughing and wincing at the same time. But that was before former UP Law dean Raul Pangalangan dissected the whole issue in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I agree with many of the points raised by Dean Pangalangan especially that the Noynoy presidency for all intents and purposes is a "symbol presidency". The Porsche spiel is a cruise missile that is targeted with smart accuracy at the center of the Noynoy symbol. And I have no one to blame but the bachelor president himself.

The fact is that there are several nations that are headed by symbols. For example, Queen Elizabeth II reigns as a symbol of unity over Great Britain. And like Noynoy, she has lots of untainted money and can afford to buy what her heart desires. But to the surprise of non-Britons, in the 1970s she was reported to have gone around Buckingham Palace, switching off the lights. She wanted to save on electric bills. And her kids spent their babyhood days in nurseries with the thermostat kept low! This was in the late 1970s and I remember my mom and aunts asking why the Queen, a woman of so much wealth and privilege, needed to save on electric bills!

The Queen knows she has to maintain the esteem of her subjects but she knows all too well that becoming too common would displease her subjects too. (The British recoil with horror in contemplating their Monarch to be like her Scandinavian relatives, cycling to the Royal Palace!) Her subjects want to see her wear the crown, ride in the Royal Carriage but they also want that she shouldn't be extravagant. For the more than 60 years she has reigned she has maintained this precarious balance.

The Japanese have a "symbol Emperor" and he carries no money although the Imperial Household Agency has managed the Imperial family's finances quite well. The Emperor can afford to buy a new limo if he wanted to but this would require the approval of the Prime Minister and the Diet who will obviously choose a Japanese make. The Emperor like the Queen of England, has to maintain the respect of his subjects.

And this is why Noynoy has no sense what it means to be a symbol. He is just a symbol for fighting corruption and he has to maintain that. The success or failure of his rule will be measured only on that and nothing else. Even if he bought his third hand Porsche with his own money, he has to take into consideration the situation that his Bosses are in.

The Porsche spiel really is all about the Boss!

And the spiel is a masterpiece of propaganda. If Herr Doktor Goebbles were around to hand in the best (and damaging) in propaganda awards, this Juana Change spiel has a chance of getting the award. I have studied Nazi propaganda and Juana Change's Porsche spiel can match or even surpass anything the Propaganda Ministry ever dished out. Not even the satirical material made during Mrs Arroyo presidency can match. The material on GMA's presidency focuses on her being vertically challenged. But she having been a college professor in an earlier incarnation, is likely to have been inured by such stuff.

In contrast the Noynoy subalterns are not inured (or even immune!). The "pikon" expression and retort of Sec. Ricky Carandang is enough proof that the spiel had inflicted the most damage.

And Noynoy Aquino is not even a year into his job!

How secular really is the University of the Philippines?

2011-01-30T14:22:00.003+08:00

If this isn't a Christian religious metaphor,
then I don't know what Christianity is!

The Anglican Use Society Philippines prays regularly in the University of the Philippines Parish of the Holy Sacrifice. The society which is composed of Catholics and Anglicans meet once a month for prayer with intentions for the country, the world at large and the university.

After the prayers, the members hardly talk much about religion but various issues that affect Philippine society.Of course this is seen through the lens of Christian experience but recently the topic on secularism has popped especially in this debate about reproductive health which the Catholic hierarchy opposes.

Our Anglican cleric, the Reverend Dr Father Joe Frary who in his first visit to the church wanted to see if the main church was full. So he asked if he can join the Catholics for Mass. And he was amazed that the whole church was filled and most of the worshipers were students. And this was not Sunday Mass but just the regular weekday Mass.

The Reverend Father immediately concluded that the secularist agenda advocated by some vocal Filipinos is doomed. He rightly concluded that in the Philippines "there is really no space for the secular" and that for harmony in a multi-religious society we have to keep secular appearances! And I concurred that this would work since Filipinos are really religious but their religiosity is tolerant. Sects that preach an "exclusive" faith are really imports and are imports from America!

One of the myths that we have to bust is that of UP being a "godless" university. At UP God is all over, what differs is how people see God. For instance there is a student organization of atheists. They are accepted even if they see God nowhere! And that is what makes UP such an interesting place to study religion! It is only at UP where you find a Marxist attending Mass on a daily basis. In fact one of the pastors at the Protestant church in campus once proposed a religious studies center as part of the university. Rev Frary thinks this is sensible since in this country, religion plays a large part. I have to admit that studying it should be not in a sectarian setting but in the setting of a secular university.

The UP's first Board of Regents had the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila, The Most Reverend Jeremias Harty sitting as a regent. But the Archbishop was not assigned in things dealing with curricula and teaching at all. He was tasked on improving the University's infrastructure and did not impose a Catholic presence on campus. A secular appearance was thus maintained. Abp Harty's appointment did not draw controversy.

The third President Dr Guy Potter Benton was a Doctor of Theology and an ordained minister. He incurred controversy not because of his religious beliefs or affiliation but due to his attempts to impose a higher standard of scholarship in the university, managing a budget cut and reforming the tenure system. The UP's problems on academic standards is still the problem hounding the university in 2011!

In the 1950s, Dr Gumersindo Garcia sat as a regent. He was a prime mover in the Protestant ministry and the Protestant church in UP has its pastoral center named in his honor. He persuaded the Regents to allow the building of a Protestant chapel on campus in 1954. In 1955, the Catholics has their Church of the Holy Sacrifice which is now a national treasure because all the architects and artists involved in its construction and appointments became National Artists.

It was in the 1950s when the most memorable clash between the secular and the religious happened. Fr John Delaney SJ who was instrumental in building the Catholic chapel, drew controversy for his involvement in student catholic action whose members backed candidates for the student council elections. This was seen as political meddling by a cleric.

The UP is a secular university but it maintains that for appearances only. Another member of the society Ren Aguila (an Ateneo alum) credits the UP community for being honest in not denying the religiosity of the students, faculty, staff, alumni and residents of the university. So we had to tell Fr Frary that if one really wants to see a real secular university, one has to cross Katipunan Road to Ateneo! In Ateneo, the Catholic chapel rarely gets filled to the rafters by students. And Ren quipped that Ateneo has religious appearances but really is secular, the opposite of UP!

Some university rituals are almost copies of Vatican practices. In the election of the new UP President, the Board of Regents goes into closed door session (Not much different from a conclave). In the latest election, I saw a crowd at the peristyle of Greek-inspired Quezon Hall waiting for the Board secretary to proclaim the results (not unlike what the Dean of the Cardinals does). What UP lacks is a chimney that spews smoke. It could be green for "We have a President" and maroon "We have no President!"

And the University icon. the Oblation is really a Christian metaphor of the Crucifixion. The Roman Rite of the Mass still refers to the Sacrifice of Christ as an "oblation"!

Well as long as students are in perennial danger of flunking their courses and the chances of getting into the UPCAT lessens and lessens as each year passes, the UP will never be secular.

If there was no UST, then there would have been no Filipino nation

2011-01-27T12:51:00.001+08:00

This week the Universidad de Santo Tomas celebrates her 400th year. The Dominican run UST is the Philippines' only ancient university and all others including Ateneo (a Jesuit re foundation in the 1850s) and the 112 year old University of the Philippines are very much younger. Although the Jesuits established an older college which became a short lived university, this was closed when the Jesuits were expelled from the Philippines in 1767.

The truth is there would have been NO FILIPINO NATION had there been no UST. The UST trained many firsts, starting with Filipino priests, theologians, lawyers, artists, pharmacists, physicians and surgeons and scientists. Despite her most famous alum Dr Jose Rizal's unflattering portrait of how UST taught science in El Filibusterismo, UST in truth advanced Science in the Philippines . Her professors of natural history wrote the first scientific publications on Philippine biodiversity. She has produced the first eminent scientists like Anacleto del Rosario, Leon Ma Guerrero and of course Antonio Luna. She also produced eminent jurists like Cayetano Arellano, the first Filipino Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The UST also produced literary greats like Fernando Maria Guerrero and F Sionil Jose.

It doesn't surprise us that the Royal and Pontifical University will be the seedbed for reform and revolution for she trained her students to critically think and while she initially sided with the Spanish colonizers, she later accepted that the Filipino nation is largely her doing. Manuel Quezon, Emilio Jacinto and Apolinario Mabini were alums of the Faculty of Civil Law. This is the context by which we have to remember UST's contribution to the Philippines this year.

At the foundation of the state run and secular University of the Philippines, in 1911 the first President Dr Murray Bartlett paid tribute to UST's contribution in to the nation by saying "In our infancy, we felicitate the venerable University of Santo Tomas for graduating many illustrious Filipinos from her halls"

For many years afterward, following medieval tradition, at every UP President's inauguration the Rector Magnificus of UST had precedence over all visiting professors from other universities.

The UST has committed itself to teaching and research excellence while maintaining affordable tuition fees. And this is the reason why many of the seniors in my family attended the Royal and Pontifical University despite many of them holding views that ran contrary to the Catholicism of the time. Nevertheless, they have expressed a large debt of gratitude to the Dominicans of the UST.

And so the UST continues to build the Filipino nation.

Mabuhay ang Unibersidad ng Santo Tomas!

Does anyone really have his own money?

2011-01-18T20:02:00.000+08:00

Jesus Christ is known to have only held money once in the whole Gospel and it wasn't his own, it was from one of the crowd who was trying to frame him! The coin had the Image of Caesar and Jesus said it belonged to the Emperor and not to him!

In contrast, Judas held the Apostles moneybags and probably held money every day. In the end it is the money that did him in!

And so do we really have our own money? The Catholic Catechism says that money is for the universal destination of human goods (and that means for the good of all as God willed it to be). This is my take on the President's defenders when they say that if he used his own money to buy a Porsche then that is his own business.

I believe that many people who share that view are Catholics who go to Mass. Well I have to say that your money is like your life, it isn't yours to keep forever.

The reason why God allowed cash to be is that it should be for God's purpose just like your life. The only difference is that if you keep money and hold on to it, you will lose it. With life once it is freely given and lost, only then it is gained.

And that is the gist of the Gospel. Every transaction we make has a social dimension. We have to order these according to the will of the Creator. Your life belongs to God and your Money to the BSP. But as Dorothy Day once said if we realize that, the truth is everything belongs to God, there is nothing left for Caesar or the BSP!

When your Sign is changed!

2011-01-16T22:59:00.000+08:00

A lot of Pinoys (and many other people worldwide) had an adverse reaction when they learned that their Zodiac sign changed. Thanks to the Minnesota Planetarium Society, blurbs reported that there is a "new" Zodiac sign named Ophiucus or the Serpent bearer! According to the society, the Earth's precession or wobbling of its axis made the dates of the Zodiac signs move forward by a month. So some Pisceans like me became Aquarians, some Geminis became Taurus, some Scorpions became Librans etc. The worst cut was for the Scorpions whose time in the Gregorian calendar was cut to 7 days!

This is as close what 21st century society will get to having people's religious affiliation changed without their consent! While many of us don't take astrology that seriously (take note of the word "that"), we still read those horoscopes! It is part of the Pinoy identity to identify oneself with a Zodiac sign. Filipino children are told their Zodiac sign at an early age. I got my Pisces baby shoes at 1! Some people wear their "Saguitarius" tees with pride!

And what would you call those born under the sign of Ophiuchus? Ophiucians? Ophiuroids? Well that sign can be called too by its Latin name Serpentarius! Serpentarian from London's Serpentine sounds nice!

No wonder I am upset! I now share the Aquarius sign with my sister!

Noynoy gets a Porsche

2011-01-15T00:38:00.000+08:00

The Palace announced that the President bought a 3rd hand Porsche by trading in his old BMW. The Palace carefully notes that the President used his own money and not that of the public coffers. This is quite refreshing to learn.

However the whole buy and sell affair has become the butt of jokes. Wags have posted the following

Better to have a 3rd hand car than a 3rd hand wife!
Shalani can afford a brand new car and a brand new man!
Would a nice girl want to get into a 3rd hand car?

But let the man have his car! I'd say.

Defenders of the President say that if he used his own money then it is none of our business.
True....

But Mr Aquino told all of us that we have to live simply. I wish I could afford a Porsche but I can only amortize for a Toyota! And for that I have to live simply and with increasing gas prices, even more simply!

Some observers say that Mr Aquino is sending a wrong signal. I would agree since his mother faced also an almost bankrupt treasury and she did not upgrade her Presidential car as an example and this was a security concern for the PSG. She sent a consistent signal to her constituents.

It was only during the term of her successor Mr Fidel V Ramos did the Presidency get a new car.

The problem is that the President's defenders and the President himself still haven't got the drift that as a Malacanang tenant, his private life becomes a public life!

And for goodness sake, Mrs Michelle Obama's cookies served in the White House to her guests (which she pays for with her own money) is enough fodder for the press! More so with her clothes (which she also pays for with her own money)!

Mrs Obama won't comment on her cookies and neither would her husband.

When will Noynoy get what it really means to be President?