Torn and frayed in Manila

Gaddafi might just cling on

The success of a large-scale popular uprising is usually determined not just by the hot bodies in the square, but also by those closest to the embattled leader. EDSA was one of the best examples of this, as it was only when People Power “heroes” (ahem) Enrile and Ramos captured the moment that Marcos realized he was out of the game. More recently, it was almost certainly his ebbing support among his many close friends in the Egyptian military that persuaded Mubarak to flee.

The critical importance of those immediately around the leader, the people he sees every day, makes me worry about the outcome of the Libyan revolution. Here is the excellent Kate Adie:

Farce mingled with fear. That is how the country ran. At the very heart of the mysterious administration was a clutch of men loyal to – but still very scared of – the Colonel himself.

There are few times when any of us experience total fear. To tremble with fear is a cliche. However, on two occasions I noticed officials in his presence start to shake. I wondered if they were ill, then realised that they were unable to control their fear, sweating and twitching and trying to edge out of his direct gaze. I once asked one of his inner circle – we were not in Libya – why his close colleagues behaved that way. He thought and then said that the Colonel's rages were occasionally so terrible that many thought he might kill. "It's terrible," he said. "But what can we do? He has the power. There are no alternatives in this kind of world. I'd rather not talk about it."

Sure the Libyan ambassador to the UN may desert Gaddafi, but he is thousands of miles away. How many of the “sweating and twitching” men still around the Colonel in his tent are willing to do an Enrile and Ramos? I can’t see Gadaffi uttering “Et tu Brute?” in Tripoli any time soon.

In addition to terrorizing the inner circle the embattled leader has to be willing to be utterly ruthless in the outer circle. Gaddafi will have no problem with this at all. The Communist Party’s successful crushing of the Tiananmen Square uprising is the best recent example of this approach.

I truly hope Gaddafi goes. I have never bought the idea that he is a relatively harmless eccentric, there to provide the rest of the world with a few laughs from time to time. He is a vicious and sadistic bully, one of the very worst leaders in the world. I hope the extraordinarily brave Libyans in Benghazi, Tripoli, and elsewhere can get rid of the mad clown of Tripoli but I wonder …

Food Inc. (or what happens when governments forget that the whole point of their existence is to check the unbridled desires of parts of society)

 

You would think that after 10 years living with a food activist there wouldn’t be much you could teach me about the evils of mass-produced food, but Food Inc. clearly shows that the state of the US food industry is much worse than almost anyone could imagine. If Super-size Me put you off fast food, this may put you off eating altogether!

Stringing together interviews with well known commentators as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and contributions from players from the various stages in the American food chain, director Robert Kenner paints a truly terrifying portrait of corporate greed, intimidation, disease proliferation, and utter disregard for animals, farm workers, the environment, and consumers. One of the most telling comments comes as the camera pans over a disgustingly crowded chicken run and someone says Perdue (the food corporation) has exactly same attitude to the farm workers as to the chickens.

As is often the case, it was a woman who broke the code of omerta—all power to you Carole Morison, a brave and principled farmer. I have attached her clip above.

This is a fantastic campaigning film that is right up there with Michael Moore’s documentaries, without his rather polarizing presence. I particularly liked the final message that we as consumers ultimately have the power to change things “one bite at a time.”

WikiLeaks: neither good nor bad, just inevitable

The latest round of not very surprising revelations from WikiLeaks ("Prince Andrew a boor? Never!) is part of an inevitable transfer of power from the holders of political power to the holders of technological power. If Julian Assange and his organization had not released this information, another techie would have done so sooner rather than later. This shift in the control of information will alter international politics for ever. I for one feel fortunate to be around to welcome the new age.

This being Bonifacio day in the Philippines, I have been at home listening to BBC World Service. This has meant listening to Hillary Clinton’s fulminations against Wikileaks every half hour and she seems more out of touch every time I hear her:

"This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community — the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations, that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity."

A better example of the patronizing, we’ll-take-care-of-it world view of the ruling political class would be hard to find.

If Clinton thinks the world we live in exhibits “global security,” she must have been too busy asking her staff to pinch senior UN officials’ credit card details to have noticed the prospect of war on the Korean peninsula, actual wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a nuclear stand-off between India and Pakistan, to name just a few.

As for “economic prosperity,” 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day; the European Central Bank has had to step in to avert economic collapse in Greece and Ireland and may have to do the same for Portugal and Spain; and 40 million people in Clinton’s own country are living in poverty.

To preserve the serene and affluent earth of the secretary of state’s imagination, she asks us to leave the “conversations and negotiations” of international diplomacy alone so the diplomatic pas de deux can continue away from our prying eyes (and they can slag each other off in private). However, Hillary “Metternich” Clinton can long for the good old days of ententes and “cables” (incredible that they should still refer to them in this way) as much as she likes, they ain’t coming back. She and rest of her privileged tribe had better wake up to that. There are many aspects of our no longer private world that I am uncomfortable with, but exposing the shenanigans and sheer stupidity of our “betters” is not one of them. Bring it on Julian.

Noynoy is repeating his mother’s mistakes

The duelling cabinet ministers in Noynoy Aquino’s cabinet are reminiscent of the internecine strife that crippled the administration of his mother, Cory Aquino (1986–1992).

Cory’s weak leadership and inability to control her squabbling cabinet members emboldened coup plotters like Gringo Honasan and led to a puny list of accomplishments at the end of her 6-year term.

Her first defense secretary, Juan Ponce Enrile, was in virtually open rebellion before he was forced to resign in November 1986. Her vice president, Salvador Laurel, sniped at the president and her supporters throughout their terms.

In the first 3 years of the administration, a faction led by NEDA Director-General Winnie Minsod (which argued that the Philippines should not repay debts incurred under the Marcos administration) battled a group led by Finance Minister Vicente R. Jayme and Central Bank Jose B. Fernandez (which believed the country needed to fulfil its international obligations). Monsod lost and resigned in 1989.

When Aquino did come down strongly in support of one side or another in cabinet rows she did not always choose her battles wisely. On one of the most divisive issues of her administration, the US bases agreement, she threw her weight solidly behind the retention of the bases, a position that was out of touch with the mood in the country and in the Congress. The Senate’s rejection of the renewal of the agreement in the last year of her administration was a humiliation for the president who’s pro-US stance on the issue typified her poor political touch.

And let’s not get into the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program …

Like mother, like son
Noynoy appears unable to accept criticism of his cabinet favourites, especially of his shooting range buddy, interior undersecretary Rico “they’re all out to get me” Puno, who claims to be the target of five other “groups” within the administration.

Here is the PCIJ’s description of the president’s reaction to the first report on the Quirino grandstand bus siege:

ON THE day he received the 82-page report of the Incident Investigation and Review Committee (IIRC) about the Rizal Park Hostage-taking Incident – and without even a full reading of its contents – President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III had blurted out: “Napatapang ‘ata masyado ah. Bakit kasama pa sila Puno, Lim, at Verzosa?” [It’s too strongly worded. Why are we implicating Puno, Lim and Verzosa?]

Noynoy’s solution was to send the IIRC report to another panel made up of his legal counsel de Mesa and executive secretary Paquito Ochoa. As a result of this second panel’s watered down report, the president has decided that none of the officials involved in the 23 August bus debacle were criminally liable. Not surprisingly, this has led to intense speculation that Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, chair of the committee that wrote the original report, was going to resign (de Lima said yesterday that she is staying).

The government’s response to the failed bus siege is starting to look almost as bungled as the event itself.

Amando Doronila sums up what all this says about Noynoy’s leadership style:

Although no severe penalties emerged from the two investigations—that of the IIRC and the Ochoa panel—the procedures revealed President Aquino’s style of handling crisis and discord in his Cabinet and higher bureaucracy.

He is not prepared to sack Cabinet members found wanting in the discharge of their duties, although at the earlier stage of the inquiry into the hostage crisis, he declared “heads will roll” for the hostage debacle. That he had to create two layers of committees to inquire into the episode suggests indecisiveness to act on delicate and sensitive issues.

In clearing Puno and then Philippine National Police Director General Jesus Verzosa, who was directly in charge of police forces, the President said, “All of us are people, none of us is perfect.”

A house divided against itself cannot stand
It’s early days and Noynoy, who has very little management experience to my knowledge, is presumably learning from these bruising battles. Let’s hope so because the country needs the son to be a better team leader than his mother was.

He has to be tougher than her, to squash the squabbling between his associates, and to be ruthless when needed. Unlike Cory, who, in the words of Joel Rocamora, “allowed her brother to sabotage the reform process by recruiting KBL and other unsavory trapo (traditional politician) types" into the ruling party, Noynoy has to end the perceptions of cronyism that the recent headlines about Puno have generated. If not, he will spend the next 6 years looking inward instead of focusing on the many problems and opportunities he was elected to address.

Philippine Chronology, 3 ed, by Carlos Quirino

Seeing the Philippines emerge from this beautiful book is like approaching a hill town from a great distance. A smudge turns into a shadowy outline and eventually to a detailed settlement.

Intriguingly, the opening chapter is called “Ptolemy and the Philippines,” which had me wondering whether I had made a terrible wrong turning somewhere in my notion of Philippine history. However, Carlos Quririno’s excellent text makes it clear that the islands identified by Ptolemy (90¬¬–168 AD) to the east of east of Malaysia (the Golden Chersonesus) were islands off Borneo. No smudge yet then.

Not surprisingly, the first foreigners to map the archipelago were the Chinese and the islands first appear, almost recognizably, in a map from 1402 by Koon Kun.

As for the Europeans, Quirino wonders whether it was the Portuguese rather than the Spanish who made the first landfall in the archipelago. It was a Portuguese, Tomé Pires in 1513, who was the first to mention an island in the Philippines (which he called the Luçoes), eight years before Magellan landed at Homonhon, near Leyte, and Quirino argues that it is reasonable to suppose that either Pires or his younger contemporary, Francisco Rodrigues, was the first European to land on an island that is part of the modern state known as the Philippines (a rather vague map “possibly the Philippines” by Rodrigues dating from 1513 is included).

Sadly, like Magellan, famously slain on a beach in Mactan by Lapu-Lapu, Tomé Pires had a distressing end. After serving as ambassador to Peking he was banished to northern China and “After terrible sufferings, anxieties, humiliations, and miseries, he died unknown, forgotten, and hopeless in some town of far-distant China,” according to his biographer.

I enjoyed the way Quirino surveys the evidence and balances the possible answers to the questions posed by over 500 years of maps of Philippines. He is good writer and maps offer an intriguing way of seeing the history of the archipelago, especially as it starts to come into focus. It is amazing how quickly the smudge in the map by Rodrigues (1513) became a beautiful and reasonably accurate map of Southeast by Mercator (1595), indicating that it was in the 16th century that the Southeast Asia crossed the border from myth to fact in the European consciousness.

Although the text is readable and informative; almost all those willing to shell out the hefty P3,200 for this book will do because of the maps themselves.

And what maps they are. One design feature that brightens up both Western and Chinese maps is the depiction of the sea. The islands of the Philippines often seems to be barely peaking over the churning seas that surround them, which is no doubt how the sailors who drew many of these maps perceived the unfriendly ocean. What a shame that we have to make do with bland expanses of flat blue in modern atlases.

Gorgeous swirling calligraphy adorn many of the maps, some of which also feature cute drawings of little sailing ships.

Another boundary, that between science and art, is also patrolled by these maps, some of which, such as “Baya de Manilha” (1647) and “Carta Hydrographica y Chorographica de las Islas Filipinas” (1734) are really works of art rather science. The latter map, which is one of my favourites, is bordered by beautiful vignettes of Philippine life, drawn and engraved by two Filipinos. Authorship of the map is credited to Father Pedro Murillo Velarde and Qurino describes it as “the best known map of the Philippines.”

The weirdest “map” is “Aspecto Geographico del Mundo Hispanico” (1761) which is essentially a drawing of a woman with the various Spanish colonies hanging off her naked frame. Spain is at the head and we, I am sorry to say, are at the feet. Still this hideous object does at least show that it was possible to be baduy in the 18th century as well as the 21st.

The reproductions are generally good although some maps appear out of focus, such as “Insulae Philippinae” (1605) on pp. 48¬¬–49 and “Les Isles Philippines” (1652) on pp. 78–79.

I should also mention that over half of the text is given over to a chronological listing of “charts, maps, plans, and views” that is likely to be of interest only to the specialist collector, although there are plenty of wonderful maps (including two foldout maps) reproduced in this section as well.

All in all, this a fantastic work that anyone with a Philippine book collection will want to own. The price tag may seem steep, but not when you consider that copies of the first edition (published in an edition of 100 copies in 1959) sell for P30,00–50,000. If you are interested in Philippine history and beautiful maps this will give you hours of pleasure. Give yourself a treat.

Is jueteng so bad?

Noynoy has told Jesse Robredo, the newly appointed Interior and Local Government Secretary, to clamp down on jueteng, an illegal numbers game that has been a thread running through Philippine public life for the last 10 years, touching both the previous two presidents.

Still, when it comes down to it, I can’t see that jueteng is so different from the many forms of state-sponsored gambling in the Philippines.

Jueteng employs tens of thousands of people, many of whom don’t have too many other options, as the film Kubrador showed. So a successful clamp-down on jueteng will take income away from many people who need it to survive.

The bets cast by millions of Filipinos every week indicate a demand for small-stakes betting that is not met by Lotto. Jueteng brings punters door-to-door personalized service and they like that.

If you believe in the market, surely the answer is to legalize jueteng, tax it heavily, and get the state out of gambling. The clamp down seems hypocritical when the state is so heavily involved in casinos and lotteries.

Noynoy’s instruction also seems to confirm a lack of empathy with the needs of the poor. In the short term all this will mean for poor people is hassle, greater police presence in the barangay, and ever larger pay-offs to corrupt policemen and politicians to encourage them to look the other way. It is revealing that the only candidate to support the legalization of jueteng was Erap, whose constituency is most affected by the criminalization of the game.

Let’s face it, Jesse Robredo ain’t going to be able to “stamp out” jueteng. I doubt whether there is anyone in the country who thinks that will happen. We will have the usual six-month fanfare, a few low-profile arrests, and then it will be back to where we were. So what’s the point apart from appeasing Archbishop Oscar Cruz?

Incidentally, today’s Inquirer reminded me of this interesting little story:

In May 2005, Wilfredo Cimanis Mayor, a confessed jueteng operator, testified at a Senate hearing that then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s son, then Pampanga Rep.Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, two other congressmen, and a former lawmaker used to send bagmen to collect gambling pay-offs from him.

Mayor said he was given Mikey Arroyo’s alleged bagman, Arturo Naguit, a former vice-mayor of Minalin, Pampanga, P600,000 a month as protection money.

Mikey Arroyo denied the accusation.

Mayor was killed in an ambush in Pasay city in February.

So I guess that was convenient for Mikey then.

Knut Hamsun: Still an Enigma

Two new biographies of the great Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun were reviewed in a recent issue of the London Review of Books by Bernard Porter. The first paragraph sets the tone:

If Knut Hamsun is remembered at all in Britain – he never really caught on here – it is as the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian writer who became a Nazi, and a betrayer of his country during the Second World War. For the majority of his compatriots, suffering under the German occupation and yet still, many of them, courageously resisting it, this fall from national hero to traitor was hard to fathom, and even harder to stomach. Ways were found around it. It was attributed to senility: Hamsun was 80 in 1939. Isolated during the war years, and profoundly deaf, he simply didn’t realise what Nazism was like. Some blamed his second wife, Marie, who was certainly more active in Nasjonal Samling (i.e. Nazi) circles than he was. Or maybe it was in part a pretence; a guise he assumed to enable him to use his influence to save at least some resisters from execution.

I am not sure it is true that Hamsun never really caught on in Britain. When I was at university, many of his novels were available in English in a nicely packaged Picador series. A friend even talked about making a movie of Victoria, his only love story. The most recent biography before those reviewed, Enigma: The Life of Knut Hamsun, was by Robert Ferguson, a British writer.

However, Britain certainly never really caught on with Hamsun, in fact he detested anything to do with the Brits. In Ferguson’s view, Hamsun’s leaning towards Nazism, or perhaps more accurately, towards a powerful Germany, has to be understood in the context of his visceral anti-British views.

He also points out that Norwegian writers in the 19th and early 20th centuries were to some extent forced into taking public positions, with the leading writer seen as its fører (‘guide’), representing the ‘collective conscience of the nation’.

Even if you don’t accept either of these rationales for Hamsun’s behavior, the broader question—should a great writer be condemned by the mistaken political positions he took up as an old man?—remains.

Remembered or not, Hamsun was one of the outstanding European writers of the 20th century. A first reading of Hunger and Mysteries is an unsettling experience; they contain overtones of Sartre and Camus and even the Beats, yet they predate them by several decades. Hunger was published in 1890, but its tone is pure mid-20th century alienation. As Koestler put it: “The story of a semi-delirious ‘trip’ of a young drop-out writer in search of his identity … With a little scene-shifting it could have been written today … he created a new style of writing, a new form of prose narrative which has a hypnotic effect on the reader.”

Some people may find Hamsun's support of the pro-Nazi Quisling regime in Norway indefensible and in some ways that position is hard to argue against. Still, all in all, I prefer to separate the artist from the man, as did these two:

‘His Nazism was after all only one streak in him,’ the writer Sigurd Hoel said just after the war. ‘His writing flowed from quite different sources.’ ‘The stigma of his politics will one day be separated from his writing, which I regard very highly,’ Thomas Mann said in 1955.

[The review in the London Review of Books is available only to subscribers, but if you are interested I can give you my password.]

Gay soldiers in the Theban Army

The Sacred Band was a group of 300 hand picked soldiers “composed of lovers and beloved” and renowned for their heroism. Plutarch puts it like this:

For men of the same tribe or family little value one another when dangers press; but a band cemented by friendship grounded upon love is never to be broken, and invincible; since the lovers, ashamed to be base in sight of their beloved, and the beloved before their lovers, willingly rush into danger for the relief of one another. Nor can that be wondered at since they have more regard for their absent lovers than for others present; as in the instance of the man who, when his enemy was going to kill him, earnestly requested him to run him through the breast, that his lover might not blush to see him wounded in the back. Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas.

I can see the logic in that.

The Sacred Band was the most feared unit in the Theban army until it was defeated at the battle of Chaeronea by Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great.

Philip, after the fight, took a view of the slain, and came to the place where the three hundred that fought his phalanx lay dead together, he wondered, and understanding that it was the band of lovers, he shed tears and said, "Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything that was base."

Manny Villar and the limits of spin

“They should not underestimate the intelligence of the masa. Marunong na sila (They have already learned),” Estrada said.

Back in January I attended a talk by Manuel Quezon on Philippine political image making. He showed how the construction of the presidential myth had changed over the years, from being based primarily on personal appearances at mass rallies towards remorseless media presence, particularly on television.

He charted this process with an impressive range of data, leading up to the campaigns of the two leading candidates for the presidency in the early stages of the 2010 campaign, Aquino and Villar. After hearing of Villar’s much catchier campaign song, his wall-to-wall commercials, his bottomless pockets, and the fading impact of the death of Cory Aquino on her son’s campaign, I am sure most of the audience walked out into the night feeling that an ascendant Villar was destined to overtake Aquino shortly before the election. The spinmeisters had timed it perfectly and a tidal wave of TV infomercials would carry the man from Tondo to Malacanang.

February’s Social Weather Stations poll seemed to confirm this trend as Villar (34%) moved to within two points of Arroyo (36%) and overtook him among class E voters (see the Social Weather station charts in the media release of 11 March here).

However that was the last piece of good news for Manny. From then on Aquino’s second wind saw his curve flatten out and then start to rise. On 10 May it appears Aquino appears to have received 40% of the votes, Estrada made a last minute surge to finish in second place with 26%, while voters deserted Villar in droves and he failed to break through 20% (these are still estimates). Villar conceded less than a day after the polls closed (for which, incidentally, he deserves credit).

What happened to Many Villar’s campaign?

Talking to (not “at” or “down to”) the poor is a tricky business. Villar’s personal rags-to-riches narrative was pushed at every opportunity, but making poverty seem like a hell-hole is not always going to be attractive with people who are smart enough to know they are destined to remain there for the rest of their lives. His campaign slogan “Nakaligo ka na ba sa dagat ng basura (Have you swum in an ocean of garbage)?" proved controversial as at least some voters found the idea that they would let their children swim in garbage insulting.

In the end, class E voters preferred Erap’s jokey bonhomie to Villar’s depiction of them as sewer rats.

It’s also possible that the saturation point for Manny’s Ondoy-like flood of ads was reached too early; while he was the only person showing up on screens from December to February, survey respondents were happy to tick his box. However, as other, fresher, messages churned up the waters, Manny’s initial appeal seems to have dissipated.

Finally, there was the air of untrustworthiness that Villar never seemed to be able to shake off. The issues that arose in the last few months of the campaign about his shady role in the C5 extension road and whether he was really as poor as he claimed probably did for the his middle-class support. While only a tiny percentage of voters actually read Winnie Monsod’s articles and videos on these subjects, such criticisms have a strange way of permeating through the body politic.

So farewell then President Villar. You brought the largest pot to the meanest game in town and ended up busted. Ouch. Oh well, at least your well-funded but unsuccessful campaign demonstrated that unlimited cash and spin aren’t everything. That’s good news.

Police harassment of visiting OFW

Almost every week someone or other pops up and describes the 7 million Philippine overseas workers as "heroes" or "saviors." Words are cheap. Here's a story of how the country rewarded one "hero" on her return to the Philippines (from The nut box, via Sparks)

When my mother went to the Philippines to attend the graduation ceremony of my sister and to seek the opinion of Filipino doctors on her mild cancer two weeks ago, she had no idea she was in for the shock of her life. Last April 14, my mother went to visit a friend named Janet who lives in a slum area in Tandang Sora, Quezon City. That friend owes my mother some thousands, which my mother decided to collect because she needs money for her medication. My mother was accompanied by an old friend, Maximo Gabriel. At around twelve noon, just when my mother and Gabriel were about to leave Janet’s place, two plain-clothed policemen- one called Allan and another named Mar Palic- approached them, accusing them of drug possession. My mother and her friends aghastly denied this, and before the two cops could search them they showed their bags to the police officers and emptied their pockets to show that there was nothing incriminating inside. Still, the cops “invited” them for questioning. “Sumama kayo sa amin (Come with us),” said the cops.

Continues here.

Dumb diplomacy

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative. John Stuart Mill

The British Tory party has long been known as the “stupid party” and we didn’t have to wait long for its essential dimness to reveal itself.

Speaking to the Times, the new defence secretary Liam Fox spluttered that Britain was:

"not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy in a broken 13th-century country".

Let’s break that down.

Presumably the reference to “education policy” means Britain should not have a broader state-building agenda in Afghanistan, its goals should be purely military.

That was the initial approach of the coalition forces in Afghanistan and it has failed utterly, forcing many ordinary Afghanis into the arms of the Taliban. Military and development experts who know a lot more about Afghanistan than the bellicose Fox are united in their view that success on the battlefield is dependent on creating a viable state that is more attractive to Afghanis than the alternative offered by the enemy. The case was well made by Britain’s new international development secretary while flying to Afghanistan on a British mission (which Fox is also a part of):

Speaking on the flight to Afghanistan, the international development secretary appeared to contradict Dr Fox today. "We need to ensure that we help the Afghan people to build a functioning state," he said. "That's about providing basic education and healthcare facilities. But it's also about ensuring that there are opportunities for promoting livelihoods, that people have jobs.

Quite.

Fox’s reference to one of Britain’s key allies as a “13th-century country" could not be more revealing of Tory attitudes towards foreigners. You don’t have to be a Marxist to see Fox’s ignorant and offensive remark as evidence that the British Tory party has made no progress whatsoever from its jingoistic 19th century roots.

This week’s runner up for dumb diplomacy is another conservative, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Commenting on the report by international experts into the sinking of a South Korean warship in March the Amazonian secretary of state declared:

Let me clear: this will not be and cannot be business as usual.

Meaning what? By “business as usual” Clinton presumably means the largely successful policy of containment that has been followed for many years in response to the problem posed by North Korea. If not “business as usual,” then what? If she is to be taken seriously, presumably Clinton means military and economic measures against the North, steps that could easily lead to a rapid escalation of tensions and possibly war, given the unpredictability of the regime in the North. But perhaps we shouldn’t take her seriously—probably this general threat by Clinton is just bullshit, designed to make her and her sinking superpower sound tough. Let’s just hope Kim Jong-Il sees it that way.

Does the Philippines need a strongman?

A friend just pointed me to Josh Weinstein’s interesting blog on development in the Philippines. The subtitle of his most recent post on the recent election is “the case for a strongman.”

His main point of comparison is China, where in the last 25 years an authoritarian government has managed to raise an incredible 600 million people from poverty. During the same period the Philippines has puttered along, one step forward and two steps backward, with a political class growing bloated on public funds and poverty levels rising to 40% of the population.

In the most recent World Bank Ease of Doing Business Survey, the Philippines lies in 144th place (out of 183), behind all other Southeast Asian countries apart from Cambodia and Laos, both, interestingly, run by “strongmen.” This pitiful ranking, below 20 African countries and Iran (yup, it is easier to set up shop in Ahmadinejad’s Tehran than Arroyo’s Manila), surely drives a stake through Gloria’s claims to have improved the economy during her 9 long years in power. Incidentally, for the category “starting a business” the Philippines does even worse, it is 162 out of 183, a position among the world’s “failed states” that will not surprise anyone who has tried to hack their way through the tangled mess of licences required to start the smallest business here.

While the outgoing president has bragged of her achievements, the bare minimum has been spent on education, health, or infrastructure, again in marked contrast to China.

The results of last week’s election, though not the worst possible by a long way, don’t offer hope for an immediate escape from this wearying cycle of political stasis and economic decline. The president-elect, while personally clean, has a very limited record of achievement; the 12 new or re-elected senators are, by and large, clowns; congressmen and women are already showing much more interest in the spoils of office than in passing legislation to develop the country; the new chief justice was appointed under dubious circumstances, apparently with the main objective of keeping the person who appointed him out of jail … given all this, is it any wonder there is a desire to sweep away all this malfunctioning political machinery with one sweep of a strongman’s arm?

Except of course that the Philippines has already felt the lash of the strongman’s arm. Josh Weinstein points out that:

… if you ask a lot of Filipinos who was the best of the last five presidents, many will still say Marcos. He had some positive-minded reforms, despite helping himself and his cronies to the treasury of the country. And, at the very least, he could get things done, which is more than can be said about the current political system.

I guess he is right that you can find people who look back wistfully to the days of a man who could “get things done.” There may even be something in the claim of Blas Ople, the Secretary of Labour under Marcos, that the Philippines’ infrastructure was largely built during the first Marcos administration. But overall, I don’t see how it could be argued that the thousands of dissidents killed or imprisoned (3,257 killed, 35,000 tortured, and 70,000 incarcerated, as estimated by Alfred McCoy), the suspension of democracy during over 10 years of martial law, or the nepotism and breath-taking corruption of the last 20 years of Marcos could possibly form a model for the future.

A much better example would be the Ramos administration from 1992 to 1998, a period of political stability and economic growth. Ramos helped to deregulate the nation's major industries and put in place a more business-friendly culture than has existed before or since. One of his greatest achievements was to forge a workable political compromise in Mindanao. Ramos wasn’t perfect or free from the taint of the corruption himself (as in the AMARI and Fort Bonifacio deals), but he left his successor with a decent platform on which to build. Unfortunately, his successor was Erap.

The Philippines has to get itself back to 1998 and start again. By the end of the second Aquino presidency in 2016, the Philippines will not be an economic powerhouse, but doesn’t have to be a basket case either. The country has many advantages, a hardworking and creative people, a democratic structure, a nascent but rapidly growing call center and back office sector, vast remittances, enormous untapped tourist potential, and so on. Although Noynoy’s own record is limited, his administration promises to be progressive in tone. Many of the “Hyatt 10” who deserted the leaky Arroyo galleon will be back. Dinky Soliman has already agreed to return to her old post at the Department of Social Welfare. I am hopeful that Bill Luz will return to the Department of Education, possibly as Secretary.

If I can rouse myself from my blogging lethargy, I’ll try to talk about some of these specific areas of potential in the next few weeks. Despite everything, I am full of hope that the Philippines is wobbling back on track after 12 wasted years. It will need plenty of strong men and women to support it over the next 6 years, but no strongmen please.

Election day, Manila,10 May 2010

It is 7.30pm and Comelec already has some official precinct results. The first consolidated results are due at 9pm. Fantastic really, especially after all the doom-mongering that has been going on for the last few months.

I’m not cracking open the Tanduay 8 Años yet, since as everyone says, under the old system the cheating occurred at the consolidation stage. Nevertheless, as the CNN reporter just said: “All in all it has gone fairly well.”

That is brilliant news.

The eager Filipino

However early you get to the airport for a Manila-bound flight you will never, ever, beat your Filipino fellow passengers. You won’t even be among the first 50 passengers to show up at check-in.

Something of the same mentality was evident today at the crowded precincts all over the country this morning. The Filipino’s natural get-there-first instincts combined with the novelty of the new PCOS gadgets and fear over the anticipated technical glitches led to huge crowds at precinct offices almost everywhere.

There were failures of some machines, apparently 300—400 broke down during the course of the day, but the main reason for the enormous queues was simply that voters were not spread evenly over the course of the day.

Fort Bonifacio High School, Makati at about 6pm: Quieter than this morning but plenty of voters

Take East Rembo Elementary School in Makati, where my driver spent five and a half sweaty hours this morning waiting to cast his vote for Nicky Perlas. I returned there with him after work and the school was relatively quiet, with voters making it through in just over an hour.

"Holding area" at East Rembo School, Makati at about 6pm: This morning voters had to wait here for up to two and a half hours

Mixed Fortunes

The amount of time taken to vote varied enormously. Not surprisingly, the precincts in poorer areas were the scene of the longest queues, 6 hours for a friend’s maid in Caloocan was the longest I heard of. And of course those in the villages did not exactly suffer (although a friend in Dasma did turn back when she saw the queues).

Yet the quickest votes were cast by friends outside the villages; a friend in Mandaluyong, Barangay Plainview, took only 10 minutes. Frayed in Malate claimed it took her 2 minutes!

Rage Against the Machine

All in all about 400 machines broke down, some because they were “too hot.” In Masbate two PCOS machine apparently caught fire ...

Having said that, it seems that most of the machines were either replaced or fixed well before the close of polling, so fair play to Smartmatic for that.

The famous PCOS in action

Rough hands cause voter failure

There was a lovely explanation for low voter turnout from an election official in Maguindano in answer to Ricky Carangdang asking why, out of 901 voters in the precinct, only 350 voted. Our official’s answer? Voters found it difficult to shade in the ovals because their hands were too rough. They were more used to holding ploughs. On further probing, it turned out that a bomb had exploded about 25 meters from the voting booth this morning.

UK election 2010: everyone’s a loser babe

Damn voters!

You wouldn’t think it possible, but all three main parties lost in last Thursday’s UK general election.

Labour got hammered, losing 81 seats, mainly to the Tories.

The Liberal Democrats actually lost 5 seats, despite the surge of optimism when they briefly overtook Labour in second place in the polls only two and half weeks ago.

Even the Tories, who gained 87 seats, fought a poorly focused campaign that never caught fire. As a result they failed to gain an absolute majority—quite an achievement considering the disillusionment with Labour across the entire political spectrum and the prime minister’s personal unpopularity.

In fact the only party that didn’t wake up with a postelection hangover was the Green Party, which captured its first seat, Brighton Pavilion. Good old Brighton, my old stamping ground.

The “moral right” to govern

I don’t agree that the Tories have some sort of right to form a government, just because they have the largest number of seats in Britain’s crazily unfair electoral system. If the Tories were supported by 36% of the electorate, that means 64% of the electorate voted against them, so who has the majority here?

Cameron’s failure

I have enjoyed some of the criticisms of smoothy David Cameron from his own party:

Another senior and normally loyal Tory MP complained that Cameron's big idea for the campaign – "the Big Society", under which armies of volunteers would come together to tackle the country's ills – was "complete crap". "We couldn't sell that stuff on the doorstep. It was pathetic. All we needed was a simple message on policy. We could have won a majority if we had not had to try to sell this nonsense."

Ha, ha, tough luck! That’s what you get when you put PR and spin ahead of serious practical issues.

This one from a “senior frontbencher” is even better:

He ran his campaign from the back of his Jaguar with a smug, smarmy little clique – people like Osborne, [Oliver] Letwin and Michael Gove. He should get rid of all of them. The party will settle for nothing less.

Love it.

Broon the Loon

Mind you, the Labour leader comes across as less likable every day. Fresh from his display of charm on the campaign trail where he in advertently called a voter a “bigoted woman” on TV ...

... according to a "very senior Lib Dem source who is involved in the negotiations with the Conservatives" Brown has now taken his bullying manner into the delicate negotiations with the Liberal Democrats:

The source told the BBC's Jon Sopel that during the leaders' conversation last night, the tone went "downhill" at the mention of resignation. It was claimed Mr Brown's approach was to begin "a diatribe" and "a rant" and the source said the Labour leader was "threatening in his approach to Nick Clegg". Mr Clegg was said to have came off the phone assured that it would be impossible to work with Brown because of his attitude towards working with other people.

If it is true that Brown’s obnoxious personal style has prevented a Labour—Lib Dem deal (which surely most voters for both parties would prefer to a Tory—Lib Dem alliance) that means that Brown has managed to carry his capacity for self-inflicted wounds right to the bitter end of his premiership.

What now?

This Liberal Democrat website has quite a good summary of the options that face the party, which amount to three: (i) a deal with the Tories, (ii) a deal with Labour, or (iii) no deal, but allow a minority Tory government.

The author reckons the third is the most likely, which means Britain could well be going to the polls again in 18 months.

Santa Ana Racetrack, RIP

I was expecting to be depressed when I cycled down to see the corpse of the Santa Ana Racetrack yesterday and that's how it turned out.

Luckily I had a chance to enjoy Santa Ana’s shabby glory before this remnant of the American era was bulldozed. The track and its grandstand appealed to me for so many reasons.

There was the sense of space; from your seat you had uninterrupted views across the Pasig and across Makati to Rockwell. Manila seemed a lovely city from Santa Ana at night.

Then there was the shady atmosphere; the touts with fags in their mouths, the old guys who had spent a lifetime at the track, the sense of collapse and decay.

Bringing all these together was the main grandstand, an art deco building from, I would guess, the 1930s, the same period as the Sy-Quia buildings in Malate and the former Jai Alai building on Taft (thank you Lito Atienza for destroying that particular historic monument). The grandstand really was quite grand and was an important historic link to a more elegant Manila. Nothing now remains of that impressive structure but a few stumps standing defiantly above the rubble.

It does not surprise me that the racetrack is being converted to more profitable uses. After all, it occupied a huge chunk of prime urban land on the border between Manila and Makati. Even if it the track had been a profitable venture (and the tiny entrance charges, small crowds, and insignificant bets meant it almost certainly wasn’t), the realities of property prices would surely have pushed the track outside the city boundaries sooner or later (just as happened with the beautiful Kuala Lumpur racetrack in the 1990s).

Still, I wish one of the architectural preservation societies in Manila had managed to save the grandstand, though such groups have had few, if any, successes in recent years. Couldn’t some imagination have been used to convert the grand old dame of Manila horseracing into something quite distinctive?

I wonder whether anyone even took any photos of the Santa Ana grandstand before they tore it down. Or whether anyone cares about these issues at all.

From this entry in WikiPilipinas it appears the Santa Ana site is to be a mall (what a surprise). It will be run, of course, by SM, who fatuously describe themselves on billboards as “the good guys.” Thanks a lot “good guys.”

For a good post on this destruction, see Ivan Henares.

There is another great post about the racetrack from Gogirl Cafe -- it has lots of atmospheric photos (the one above was borrowed from the site). It also has a number of poignant comments from people who either lived in Santa Ana or worked at the racetrack.

He’s nuts! Or is he?

There is still a huge stigma against mental illness and drug use, especially when they are linked to candidates for public office, so, while it is contemptible that Manny Villar should strive so hard to make capital out of a supposed psychiatric report of his rival Noynoy Aquino’s from 1996, it is not surprising. Of course it is beyond contemptible if, as the Aquino camp asserts, the document was forged by people working on the Villar campaign. A dirty trick like that would put Villar right up with Gordon Liddy, Chuck Colson, and the rest of the Watergate team.

We’ll have to see whether this will become just another speck of mud in an increasingly personal campaign, or whether it grows into something more substantial. I would think that the Aquino-Roxas campaign must be a bit concerned by this development since the image of the candidate that emerges from the document—depressed solitary drinker, heavy smoker of tobacco and marijuana, poor cognitive skills, sexually repressed—is not a reassuring presidential profile. Senator Eagelton's short-lived career as McGovern's running mate in 1972 is a good example of what can happen to a candidate once a previous history of treatment for mental illness is exposed.

The future of Gloria

The Inquirer has been quick to blame the collapse of the Lakas-Kampi coalition on the machinations of the First Gentleman. However, while Mike Arroyo’s clumsy interventions have probably hastened the disintegration of his wife’s support, the demise of President Arroyo’s congressional coalition was surely inevitable.

I have never believed in the doomsday scenario that has Congresswoman Arroyo controlling the largest voting block in Congress, getting herself elected speaker, and then forcing through constitutional change that would end up with her as an all-powerful prime minister.

For a former president to wield that sort of power, he or she would need at least two of the following:

1. A considerable personal following in Congress as a result of his or her achievements in office.


2. Significant influence in the country at large from the deep love and affection his or her countrymen hold for the ex-President.


3. A guarantee that congressmen would receive short-term rewards for their support in terms of pork barrel allocations and straightforward brown envelope bribes.


4. A guarantee that congressmen would receive long-term rewards for their support in terms of an anticipated return to power of either the ex-President or perhaps one of his or her children.

In Arroyo’s case, not one of these conditions is present. Given both the congressmen’s strong instinct for survival and the overriding follow-the- money imperatives of Philippine political life, it has been clear for months that the rats would soon be leaving the Lakas-Kampi galleon, which was itself a makeshift craft cobbled together by Arroyo in order to merge her own minor party (Kampi) with the larger Lakas, the political organization representing the post-EDSA consensus (see Manuel Quezon's historical analysis of the formation of Lakas-Kampi-CMD and of the party's current crisis).

Given the bleeding of her support, shortly to turn into a full-on haemorrhage, Congresswoman Arroyo seems certain to become a marginal figure in the next Congress, perhaps not even attending many of its sessions.

Love at the Test Match

Anyone who thinks that cricket is an unromantic sport should have seen this pair at the first Bangladesh—England test match a couple of weeks ago.

Various blokes in military and quasi-military uniforms accompanied the England fans and usually hovered around at the back, but towards the end of a quiet afternoon session these two came and sat down at the front of the “VIP stand.” That in itself was a bit unusual, but then they started to flirt with each other in the most flagrant way, touching each other and almost kissing. Obviously they were just madly in love and couldn’t give a damn what anyone thought. Cute.

When will Erap withdraw in favour of Villar?

Despite his typically bombastic claim that he will never drop out of the presidential election—“I will have to die first before that happens”—I am sure that Erap is only too aware that the price of his withdrawal will have increased significantly after the latest SWS survey.

The sudden increase in Aquino’s lead to 9 points (from 2 points in the February poll), reversed a worrying decline in his support from 46% (5-10 December) to 42% (21-24 January) to 36% (24-28 February). The widening gap between the two frontrunners in March had less to do with Aquino’s shoring up of his support (his share was basically the same—36% in February and 37% in March) than with the surprising drop in Villar’s support (34% in February turned into 28% in March) and the equally unexpected increase in Estrada’s share (from 15% to 19%).

Look at it from Erap’s point of view. He surely knows that this little fart of support will not be enough to propel him back to Malacañang. He doesn’t have the funding to sustain a serious challenge in the home stretch and, despite his overwhelming sense of grievance, he must know that coming in third is not going to prove anything. On the other hand, while the role of kingmaker will not gratify his vanity in the same way as the victory he craves, it will allow him to influence the destiny of the country again. And if he is sincere about his desire to improve the lot of the people, he will surely be able to add some of his policies (if he has any) to the Villar platform. Finally, there is the potentially huge financial pay-off he can demand (especially if the deal includes him campaigning for Villar). Erap has always had his price.

Meanwhile, Manny has had a tough couple of weeks and desperately needs to regain momentum. It has been an open secret for months that Villar and his ally Mike Verlarde have been trying to persuade Estrada to drop out and to avoid splitting the “pro-poor” vote. A survey earlier this year indicated that, if Estrada were to drop out, his vote would be split roughly equally between Aquino and Villar but I find that a little hard to believe. In any case, Villar’s masa credentials will surely be enhanced if Erap can be “persuaded” to prostitute himself on the Villar campaign.

Let’s see what would happen if two-thirds of Erap’s vote were to go to Villar and one-third to Aquino, based on the March survey.

Aquino: 37% + 6.5% (one third of Erap’s vote) = 43.5%

Villar: 28% + 12.5% (two thirds of Erap’s vote) = 40.5%

That’s an easily bridgeable divide.

Manny is bound to look at the cruel economics of elections from a business point of view. If he loses, he has just pissed away billions of pesos for … nothing. Absolutely nada. As Macbeth said:

“I am in pesos stepped in so far that should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”

Manny can’t stop wading now. Purely from a business point of view, he has no choice but to pay Erap to carry him to the other side (and to bill the Filipino people when he gets there).

I’m betting that the greasy fingers of the Erap and Villar camps are stitching up a deal as I type this.

Ping Lacson: They seek him here, they seek him there

Even by Philippine standards, the manhunt for Ping Lacson in the 188 member countries of Interpol has an absurd feel to it.

I especially liked the revelation that Ping was spotted by Jinggoy Estrada in Hong Kong.

The eldest son of ousted President Joseph Estrada said he saw Lacson strolling with wife Alice at the ground level of the famous Ocean Terminal and shopping center in Tsim Sha Tsui.

He said he and his wife Precy were likewise strolling on the second level.

Despite the bad blood between them, Estrada said he did not hesitate to call Lacson’s attention: “Ping! Ping!” he shouted, using the other man’s nickname.

He said Lacson appeared startled but yelled back: “Who’s with you?”

He said the Lacsons waved and then disappeared in the crowd of holiday shoppers.

Ha, ha – too good! “Who’s with you?” – did Ping think he had strayed into one of Jinggoy’s movies and was about to be rubbed out Kuratong Balaleng style in the final scene?

I wonder whether the police forces of the Interpol countries will feel that their time is well spent hunting down Lacson when the authorities in his home country have proved so lackadaisical in taking action against him.

Ping has not exactly been cowering under a stone in the nine years since the grisly murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his unfortunate driver Emmanuel Corbito in November 2000. In fact Lacson has been almost too visible, running two successful senatorial campaigns and one unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2004 (in which he managed to split the opposition to Arroyo and let her in for a second term).

Nor is Ping’s alleged role in the double murder anything new. Ever since witnesses to the gruesome murder emerged in early 2001, Ping’s former staff have been busy fleeing to the States (Aquino and Mancao in July 2001, Dumlao in May 2003), getting conveniently murdered (Viña in May 2003), or spilling the beans (Mancao in February 2009).

Yet the glacial progress of Philippine justice meant that charges were not filed until 7 January 2010, by which time, as the Jinggoy anecdote above shows, Lacson had already flown the coop.

This timing may not be coincidental. Lacson was one of the main critics of presidential candidate Villar’s C5 road scam (see next post). If, as the rumours go, the administration has forged a deal with Villar, this sequence of events means that (1) a prominent Villar and Arroyo critic is out of the way, (2) the chance of a messy pre-election trial with claims and counter claims is reduced, and (3) the Philippine cops will be saved the unedifying task of arresting their former boss on a double murder charge.

The whole thing seems to be a charade and if there is even one reader out there who thinks it will end up with Ping serving time I’d be very surprised.

Finally, another bizarre twist to this tale is the unexpectedly high showing in the latest Senate opinion poll of Alex Lacson, an inoffensive Chauncey Gardner type figure who has written a book called 12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do to Help Our Country. If you find it surprising that having the same family name as a man being sought in 188 countries on a double murder rap would increase your chance of being elected senator you probably need a refresher course in Philippine political logic. There will be plenty on offer in the next three and a half months.

Winnie Monsod on how Villar benefited from the unnecessary C5 extension

Blair's love of war

Ever since seeing Michael Sheen’s depiction of Blair in The Queen, I can’t help wondering whether Tony Blair died back in 1997 to be replaced by an actor, so obviously scripted is his every move. Even "Blair's" thoughtful pauses in the clubby atmosphere of the Iraq War investigation last week seemed part of the screenplay, just so he doesn’t look too glib.

Anyway, Tony and war — he loves it doesn’t he? Give Tony a couple of choices and he will always pick the one that gives him a chance to look like a “great leader” and forger of destinies, especially if it involves dropping bombs.

Remember the illegal bombing of Serbia back in the 1999s, where “Blair” stiffened Clinton’s resolve to press ahead with attack? The British playwright Harold Pinter has it about right:

"He was well to the forefront. He loves to drop a few bombs. It gives him, I think, great excitement," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

What came out most forcefully from Blair’s testimony to the Iraq War inquiry was not his complete absence of any regret for having caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people for non-existent weapons of mass destruction (I don’t think great leaders express remorse) but his bellicose statements on Iran.

For if Tony were still in Downing Street he would be planning war with Iran right now. He mentioned Iran 58 times in his testimony and urged the international community to take a "very hard, tough line" (such a Blair line) over its banned nuclear programme.

Blair’s love of war seems to me some sort of sickness. His religious fanaticism and vanity over his “world leader” status have intermingled in a terrible way to create a modern crusader prepared to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Iranians in support of a few poorly defined and often false principles. The actor playing Tony Blair is a very dangerous man and I for one am very glad he has been written out of the script.

Erap: it's all about me

I've been meaning for weeks to write about how Estrada's reasons for running are always purely egotistical: I wasn't able to finish my term, I was robbed, and so on.

Today's Inquirer editorial says it perfectly:

MANILA, Philippines—The presidential bid of Joseph Estrada can be summarized in three words: it is about I, Me and Myself. He is the male counterpart of the faded silent movie-era star Nora Desmond in Billy Wilder’s classic film, “Sunset Boulevard.” It tells of a failed screen writer who gravitates to Desmond, who dreams of making a cinematic comeback. In the end she kills the screenwriter in a jealous fit, and ends up losing all touch with reality, thinking that the news crews covering the murder are a film crew that has begun filming her comeback role.

One of the Nora Desmond character’s famous lines is “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small.” In his mind, Joseph Estrada is still the big shot matinee idol, champion and idol of the masses; but the reality is it’s his fantasy of relevance that has enlarged over time even as his box office and electoral clout has diminished.

For more, see Erap's absurd pronouncement after Comelelec's spineless statement last week:

“I want to be king again myself (and) recover my throne that was stolen from me”

War and Dissent, National Museum of the Filipino People

This exhibition occupies only one hall, which is just the right size for a low-museum-stamina type like me. In addition to clear and well written presentations on the major events, it contains some unusual angles on the Philippine–American War. There is a separate section on African-American US soldiers, for example, and excerpts from diaries and correspondence throw light on the impact of the war on both young Americans and Filipinos. The exhibition is fair, covering both water torture by the US army (highlighted in a 2008 New Yorker article) and atrocities by the Filipino forces. Although it doesn’t use the phrase “war crimes,” it doesn’t hold back in its description of the US Army’s scorched earth policy in Samar.

Here are a few snippets I noted down:

• As is well known, the US war with Spain began with an explosion on the USS Maine in Havana harbour on 15 February 1898, which the US claimed was caused by a Spanish mine. However, an investigation in 1978 by Admiral Hyman, USN found that the probable cause was spontaneous combustion. That sets off some intriguing “what if” questions. If those molecules had not combined in such lethal way in the hold of the Maine, perhaps the Spanish–American war, which had such far-reaching consequences for the Philippines, Cuba, the USA, and Spain, might never have taken place? Or would the Americans simply have found another casus belli?
• President McKinley’s message to Congress on 11 April 1898 stated that forcible annexation of Cuba “by our code of morality, would be criminal aggression,” a comment that reads oddly when set beside his later authorization of exactly that to the Philippines.
• “Had the Filipinos been white and fought as bravely as they have, the war would have ended and her independence granted long ago,” Bishop A. Wuthers, speech to the National Afro-American Congress on 2 September 1899.
• About 20 African–American US soldiers went over to Aguinaldo’s forces, one of them becoming a general.
• This next quotation is well known, but loses none of its impact through the retelling. In October 1901, after Filipino guerrillas had killed 48 US soldiers at Balangiga in Samar, Brig. General Jacob H. Smith ordered marines under Major Littleton W. Waller to make Samar “a howling wilderness … I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn and the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms.” Smith applied the latter definition to all over the age of 10.
• In 1903, new President Theodore Roosevelt ordered “the most stern measures to pacify Samar” and Admiral Chaffee virtually declared war on the civilian population, incarcerating 300,000 people in “reconcentration camps.
• McKinley was not sure where the Philippines was when Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet.
• Although the war began because of events in Cuba, on 20 May 1902 the US Army withdrew from the island and the Cuban Republic was born (albeit as a de facto US protectorate). However, with the exception of the period of the Japanese occupation, the US was not to relinquish direct control over the Philippines until 4 July 1946.
• In 1999, the US Library of Congress reclassified the conflict from “the Philippine Insurrection” to “the Philippine–American War.”
• The exhibition contains a map of the colonial possessions of the European nations at the end of the 19th century showing the northern part of what is now Papua New Guinea as “Kaiser Wilhelm Land.” Gotta love that name.

Computerized elections in the Philippines: It’s too late to stop now

The sense of foreboding over the computerization of the 2010 election continues to swell. In yesterday’s Inquirer the chairman of the Makati Business Club, Ramon del Rosario, called for automated elections to be scrapped. In his view the consequences of a breakdown are too great: “A failure of the 2010 elections is simply not an option.”

Concerns about the insufficient time left to deliver the machines, fix the source codes, decide which names should go on each of 1,630 ballots (since each ballot will contain local candidates in each town and municipality), print the 1,630 ballots and distribute them to the polling stations, and train teachers and others to supervise the elections and the count were also voiced last week by former chief justice Raul Pangalangan (and reinforced by him in today’s paper).

On the possible implications of failed computerized elections, see Antonio C. Abaya’s scary column last month.

Still, if a failure of elections is not an option, nor is giving up the attempt to computerize them. Surely we are too far down the road to turn back now? Comelec and the outgoing Arroyo administration have to drive on and ensure that, against the odds, computerized elections are carried out efficiently in May. We can take solace from the fact that the Philippines has already conducted a successful computerized election, in ARMM in August 2008.

This is, of course, the second time the Philippines has tried to computerize elections this decade. Remember the P1.3 billion Mega Pacific Solutions poll automation deal that was scotched by the Supreme Court in 2005? Those counting machines remain rotting in a warehouse to this day, completely unused. Another failed attempt would mean we will be left with a manual system for the foreseeable future, driving the country further back into the 20th century while the rest of the world strides into the 21st.

Another costly and unsuccessful modernization attempt (to add to the NAIA 3 debacle, the counting machines already referred to, the ZTE scandal, and many others that we can all name) would add significantly to the international perception of the Philippines as a “cannot do” country.

Ballot visibility

India is often cited as an example of a chaotic developing country that successfully computerized its polling system. However, as Abaya points out, Indian elections are party-based, allowing illiterate or semi-literate voters to follow the party symbol, rather than trying to find their candidate in a forest of names.

The Philippines has higher levels of literacy than India, but even so the huge number of names on the ballot (whether computerized or manual) must make life tough for the many semi-literate voters.

For an indication of how important the candidates themselves take visibility in the ballot, see the desperate campaign being waged by the Aquino campaign to keep Vetallano Acosta off the ballot (the point being that without Acosta on the ballot, Aquino would be the first name listed, which according to a University of Vermont study would increase his vote by 2.5%).

Mindanao is different—or is it?

I recently had a discussion with a foreign friend who used the Maguidanao massacre as a symbol of the Philippines’ problems. I disagreed, arguing that Mindanao has a very distinct history, dating back at least to to the 18th century Sulu sultanate. The pathologies that have characterized the island in the last 20 years—violent secessionist movements, beheading terrorists, armalite-toting warlords—all these are a consequence of the numerous unsuccessful attempts to integrate this divergent past into the general flow of Philippine history.

Mindanao is more culturally rich than other parts of the archipelago, but, because of its warped relationship with the centre, it is the negative aspects of that culture, such as the rido or vendetta (about which every columnist has become an instant expert) that have been allowed to flourish.

Finally, since President Ramos’s attempt at a negotiated solution to keep the lid on tensions was discarded by President Estrada, himself a kind of wannabe warlord, large parts of Muslim Mindanao have been under military occupation, the tragic consequences of which were brought out in a recent article (Mindanao is Dying). Under such circumstances, it was only a matter of time before something like the grisly events in Ampatuan town came about.

A few days later, I found myself taking up almost exactly the opposite point of view with a Filipino friend, who was writing off the southern island and its inhabitants. All of elements that led to the rise of the Ampatuans can be found, to a greater or lesser extent, in other parts of the Philippines, I said. What about Ilocos, are not Chavit Singson, Rodolfo Farinas, and Ferdinand Marcos perfect examples of the criminal¬–political–military nexus that characterizes provincial politics in the Philippines?

The circumstances that allowed the Ampatuans to tighten their corrosive grip on the unfortunate residents of Maguindanao were driven by national, not local dynamics. After all, Maguidanao was at the apex of the defining moment of the Arroyo presidency, the “Hello Garci” scandal. Commissioner Garcillano was in Maguidanao when he received that famous cell phone call from his patroness and it was the Ampatuans who delivered the famous 1 million vote plurality that Arroyo sought.

Given this, how can you say the Mindanao is atypical? On the contrary, it is only years “ahead” of the rest of the crumbling Philippine body politic.

I am not sure what to make of this except that I seem to be in a rather argumentative mood these days. Mindanao, different or the same? Beats me.

Another disastrous week for the Philippine security forces

The only amusing part of the story on the discovery of an armoury of government-supplied weapons large enough to supply 1,500 soldiers in the Ampatuan compound was the feigned shock from the leaders of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police.

PNP chief Jesus Verzosa was taken aback on learning that the recovered firearms included two antitank weapons. He said only government forces were allowed to purchase and carry these kinds of weapons.

Pull the other one, Jesus! It has been known for years that military commanders sell arms and ammunition to anyone with the cash, even to the groups the AFP is fighting.
Selling bullets to the enemy that are used to kill your own troops, how low can you get?

This issue was brought out in Gracia Burnham’s book, In the Presence of My Enemies, in which she described her experience as a hostage of the Abu Sayyaf:

“More than once I heard Solaiman on the sat-phone calling Zamboanga, talking to a lady named Ma’am Blanco. He would give her all his specifications for guns, bullets, you name it. ‘Who are you ordering from?’ we asked him one day. ‘Oh, the army,’ he replied. ‘We pay a lot more than it should cost of course. So somebody’s making a lot of money. But at least we get what we need.’

The discovery that massacred members of the convoy were probably killed by guns from the government arsenal in Bataan comes hot on the heels of news that the army and police not only refused requests to protect the convoy but took part in the killings.

Nor did the AFP and PNP cover themselves in glory in disaster relief after Typhoon Ondoy. The very visible presence of the Indonesian military after the Sumatra earthquake was in stark contrast to the do-it-yourself approach here. Although I regularly see army trucks driving around in Manila when there is a perceived threat to national security (such as a small peaceful rally at the Edsa shrine), I saw only one army truck going down EDSA in the soggy aftermath of the typhoon, carrying unfortunate shivering young soldiers in T-shirts.

Presidential candidate Gilberto Teodoro was Defense Secretary at the time and came up with a perfect excuse for the military’s absence:

He said much of the police and military’s modest assets had been apportioned to internal security operations in line with the government policy to crush terrorism and the communist insurgency. “The thing is, we cannot just order the AFP or the police to shift roles.”

What an incredible statement. Why not? The military and police have the equipment and the discipline to respond to disasters, which is why all over the world they are pulled in to help out. Yet here the security forces are too busy chasing NGO activists and communist phantoms to do the same.

There are times when you wonder whether we might almost be better without any security forces. Sure, private armies would flourish, but they do anyway and without the AFP and the PNP around at least it might be harder for them to buy bullets.

Frisco and Caffeine, a couple of old friends

I miss my early blogging days—not so much the writing, since only my laziness and other distractions prevent me from that, but more the camaraderie of the mini-blogosphere that was around when we early birds started out in the early years of this century.

I recently revisited two bloggers I have always had a close affinity for, frisco dude and caffeine sparks. I dunno why I stopped visiting them, just general overload coupled with my return to books over the past few years. Anyway, I am going to try to keep up with frisco and caffeine as their sites always make think and smile.

Frisco dude is such a varied site covering the whole of Asia that it is hard to describe any post as typical, yet his latest is indeed pure frisco dude. The Korean version of YMCA.

Caffeine’s current page includes this extraordinary exchange between Mareng Winnie Monsod and presidential son Congressmen Mikey Arroyo. As for Mareng Winnie, if there is a jugular why not go for it? Apart from anything else you gotta love her disbelieving uh-huh..? I don’t know what you can say about Mikey’s disastrous performance, except that his forced salesman’s smile, his pitiful explanations (many public officials do this also … the lawyers, when he comes back from abroad I am sure he can explain that ... .. if you are in doubt sue me for it), his patronizing smirks and revealing pauses, are exactly what you would expect. The only mystery is why his parents allowed him to enter such a mismatched contest.

The Clash—live

Many of the most intense moments of my life have been at live music events, none more so than the Clash at Brighton Top Rank in early 1980. London Calling, their highwater mark, had just been released and my mates and I had played it non-stop for weeks. I’ve never loved a product so much – from Pennie Smith’s iconic cover photo to the rock steady Revolution Rock and Wrong ‘em Boyo and flat out nuttiness of the Right Profile. They played the whole thing at the gig and as an encore Pete Townsend joined them for My Generation.

I’ll never have a night like that again for sure, but browsing through the Clash videos on YouTube really took me back to another place, time, and, I suppose, another person. I am so glad that I was able to spend my youth during such an incredibly creative period.

They don’t make ‘em like this any more.

This next one is from Paris at about the time I saw them. Oh man ...

Will Erap’s name appear on the ballot?

“The Philippines seems like the sort of country where anyone can do anything” a friend said on hearing that Mae Paner, the pleasantly plump actress known as Juana Change, is featured in an exhibition of nude portraits (a performance described by Jim Paredes as “fearless … a must see”).

However, there is a downside to the disregard for rules in the Philippines, especially in the electoral season.

What has surprised me about Estrada’s declaration that he intends to run for reelection is not just that it is obviously unconstitutional and violates his pardon (which prohibits him from engaging in political activity), but that the response from Comelec seemed so spineless:

Speaking at a media briefing, [Comelec Chair] Melo said the Comelec could not stop Estrada from filing a certificate of candidacy. “We cannot say if he is qualified or not. There is no case against him. Right now, it seems that he is qualified because there is no protest against him,” he said.

Isn't this the sort of issue where one would look to the Commission on Elections to make a preliminary ruling, even if the issue will eventually be decided by the Supreme Court? This point was well made in a letter in the Inquirer this week:

Is the Commission on Elections not supposed to check the certificates of candidacy and see if the applicants are qualified? Are they not supposed to approve or disapprove it? What if nobody files a complaint? Then the application is deemed approved. Comelec Chair Melo said that “it seems that he [Estrada] is qualified because there is no protest against him.” It is the Comelec who should say if a candidate is qualified or not.

However, if the ultimate arbiter in this matter will have to be the Supreme Court, this will throw up huge practical difficulties, as pointed out in another letter to the Inquirer:

The point is the high court’s rulings in these parts generally take at least three months, from when an issue becomes justiciable. And that is ignoring the time for motions for review, etc, after the initial ruling has been issued. At the earliest, then, Erap’s case would become justiciable after Dec. 14, when the Comelec shall have received all the certificates of candidacy and is ready to order the printing of the ballots. I seriously doubt the ballot printing process is amenable, if necessary, to a re-run. At that juncture, then, I ask: “What kind of ballot must the Comelec order to be printed?” Is it one that includes or excludes Estrada among the presidential candidates? I assume that would somehow depend on the Comelec’s own position on Erap’s capacity or incapacity to run. And so, assuming it believes Erap is qualified, and thus has put his name on the ballot, will the votes cast for him be counted even if he may be eventually disqualified? On the other hand, if the Comelec is of the opinion that Erap cannot run and has thus excluded his name in the ballot, what happens if the Justices finally rule in his favor?

I would imagine that a likely scenario is that Erap’s name will appear on the ballot paper, but the Supreme Court will eventually rule that he is ineligible. In that case I am sure that millions of hard core Erap fans will vote for him anyway. If in the final result the number of spoiled ballots (i.e., votes for Erap) is close to the number of votes cast for Villar and Noynoy, or even exceeds them, then where will we be?

Cinemanila 2010: Tulpan, Pandora’s Box, Hunger

The great Kazakh steppe saga, Tulpan

Cinemanila 2010 closes today. Although the standard of films has been extremely high as usual, the showings have been sparsely attended. That’s a great shame and I hope organizer Tikoy Aguiluz who does such a fantastic job every year of bringing the very best international art films to Manila, doesn’t give up.

I know the poor guy has received a lot of unsolicited advice on how to promote the festival, but I do feel that the lack of an overall schedule on the website was an unfortunate omission. That’s really what people need to plan their viewing.

There have been criticisms of Market Market as a venue for the movies, but I think that just goes to show how lazy most people in Manila are; if it is slightly off the beaten track, or a bit masa, they won’t make the effort. I was a Market Market virgin before yesterday, and although losing my virginity wasn’t quite as much fun this time around, I got a kick out of the loud rock’n’roll feel of the mall. The cinemas had nice wide screens, Dolby sound, and comfortable seats. What more do you want (apart from Greenbelt)?

Anyway, on to the movies.

The best movies can help you make sense of the strangest physical environments and social contexts and Tulpan from Kazakhstan did that brilliantly. Although the storyline hangs on the efforts of a young man from the steppe to wed a girl (Tulpan) from a neighboring yurt and therefore escape from servitude to his harsh brother-in-law, this is not a plot-driven movie. Or, if it is, it tells one of the oldest stories of humankind: large families living on top of each other and their livestock, battling an unforgiving environment to survive, and yet somehow creating moments of tenderness, song, and humour. That is pretty much how we have all lived for 99.9% of the time human beings have been on earth—my own family in Scotland practised subsistence agriculture up until less than 100 years ago, and you may not have to climb too far down your own family tree to find ancestors who would have also related perfectly to Sergey Dvortsevoy’s picture of life on the Khazakh steppe.

Technically, the film is a triumph. The performances, especially of the totally un-camera-conscious kids, were as naturalistic as I have ever seen on screen, and the cinematography brought the whole gritty reality of life on the steppe all around you. I felt as though I needed to blow my nose to get rid of the sand as I left the cinema.

Another film with plausible and interesting set of characters was Pandora’s Box, the box in this case being an old Turkish village woman’s descent into Alzheimer’s. As her three Istanbul-based children struggle with the dilemmas of coping with a dotty old parent, the old lady’s presence brings latent problems in their own lives out into the open. I guess that doesn’t sound too entertaining, but in fact the film is full of funny moments, most of them arising from Tsilla Chelton's quite brilliant portrayal of an old woman who is an unpredictable mixture of total confusion and brutal honesty.

Without laying it on with a trowel, the film also presented a vivid picture of a society in transition, from the mother whose life was probably much the same in its external aspects as those of centuries of her predecessors, to her nouveau bourgeois daughters and drop-out son, and onto her grandson, who is characterized by early 21st century ennui and alienation.

I honestly don’t know what to say about the British film Hunger. On the one hand, it is hard to credit that this is director Steve McQueen’s first film, so sure is his directorial touch. On the other, to describe it as unremittingly bleak would make it seem more optimistic than it actually was. I’m not great with on- or off-screen violence and I have to confess that after about 45 minutes of constant battering I left the theatre. Fortunately, Frayed coaxed me back by texting me with a prediction that the worst of the violence was over, so I returned for the last half hour, which, although incredibly depressing, at least did not involve fecal smearing or vicious beatings up.

I was living in Britain in 1981 and I can clearly remember the ghoulish way that the extended suicides of Bobby Sands and the other nine hunger strikers were covered on the evening news. “Has he died yet?” was often the first question people would ask as they returned from work. Hunger is an extremely well-made film about an important subject and I can understand why it won the prize for best film at Cinemanila. Still, I can’t say I took anything positive away from it, not even a deeper understanding of a sad and demeaning period of British history.

Estrada and Maradona

As long as I have a drop of blood left, I will fight to get Argentina qualified,"
Diego Maradona

This is the last performance of my life and I will not fail you.”
Joseph Estrada

I am having trouble telling the manager of the Argentina football team and presidential candidate Estrada apart.

Both are given to histrionic statements that tie the fates of their countries to their personal destinies.

Both rely for their mass appeal on a crude and cliché-ridden populism, yet both have expensive tastes; in Erap’s case for $1,000-a-bottle Petrus wine in Diego’s for fast drugs and cars, and flashy earrings.

Both have histories of substance abuse, womanising, and gambling.

Both are sort of chubby.

Both have had well publicized run-ins with the law.

Both are viewed in their countries with a mixture of adulation and acute embarrassment.

Perhaps they should swap jobs?

Candidate Erap

There are a few things to be said in favour of candidate Erap so, in fairness to the man with the bigote, I’ll start with them.

He can memorize a detailed speech. Unlike the appalling trapo efforts from Binay, Joey de Vencia and others that preceded him, Erap knows that you have to spice your denunciations with facts and names. So instead of “down with graft and corruption” (what’s the difference by the way?) Erap gave us names (Nani Perez) and figures ($40 million) to chew over. Never mind that Nani Perez has long ago left public life or that we can’t quite remember which Arroyo scandal was worth forty big ones, Erap did seem to have some sort of brief and to be roughly in control of it.

He stays on message and it is an appealing one. Unlike FPJ, one of the most out-of-his-depth candidates to have graced the democratic circus, Erap knows that being “for the poor” is not enough. He is for family planning, social spending (his claim that his administration spent more on education and health than any other may not be correct, but I doubt whether many in the audience will look it up), free health care for pensioners and so on.

He understands the socioeconomic structure of the country. Underlying the great things an Erap presidency will bring you is one simple sentiment: class hatred. This is the man whose son JV Ejercito (not there tonight) exhorted Edsa Tres demonstrators to look for a mestizo and punch him on the nose. Erap is too smart to be quite so quotable, but the message is clear enough: “The elite are not hungry for food, they are hungry for riches” and so on.

He’s got stamina. I am sure a few “elitistas” were hoping for the slurred and confused version of Joseph Ejercito Estrada (as the other speakers tirelessly referred to him) we grew used to at the end of his abbreviated presidency, but Erap’s 45-minute speech in Tondo this evening was no better or worse than the thousands he has delivered over his political career. He looked at home and, despite his jacket, he seemed a lot less troubled by the heat than his sweaty companions on the platform.

He can deliver a speech in a unique way. Erap’s humour consists of the worst sort of old man jests, how much more pogi he is than Jingoy and (yawn) his poor English, but he know how to deliver them and after all, this is what the crowd were paid their money to listen to. "This is the last performance of my life and I will not fail you" may sound corny as hell to you and me, but somehow I doubt whether that will bother Erap too much.

Erap is also a convicted plunderer, accused of at least two murders, a drunk and womanizer, a hypocrite who enriched himself while claiming to stand for the poor man, a Marcos-coddler, oh and disbarred from the constitution from running again. It will be interesting to see whether his rivals dare to point these out to the electorate. If not, tonight we may just have seen the start of a juggernaut that will roll them over.

Full circle: A tale of three women and a “simple late night dinner”

My plate was this big!

Philippine public life often has a novelistic, chiaroscuro quality to it; only it is the sort of novel where you think “how unrealistic, that would never happen in real life.”

Gloria’s now infamous $20,000 meal at the Le Cirque in New York is a good example of the Philippines failing the real life test.

Eight thousand miles away from GMA and her sycophants tucking in at the Le Cirque trough, a woman lay dying in Makati Medical Center. Cory Aquino devoted her life to ending the gross excesses of her predecessor, the conjugal dictatorship, the worst of which were committed in, guess where, New York. As a symbol of how we are back where we started that $20,000 bill could hardly be bettered.

Except that it could bettered. The knee jerk response to Malacañang’s excesses (as with the envelope handed out to Ed Panlilio and the other 190 elected officials who visited Malacañang duing the impeachment hearings) is always “oh the president wasn’t paying, it was one of her supporters.” And who was the generous host on this occasion? Leyte Congressman Martin Romualdez, Imelda’s nephew. You couldn’t make these things up.

The source of the story of the Le Cirque was not a journalist from the president’s home country where 40% of the population experiences hunger regularly. It was the New York Post. Even by the standards of one of the richest cities in the world, the Palace bill was so excessive that it made the New York papers. Just like Imelda.

The economic downturn hasn’t persuaded everyone to pinch pennies. Philippines President Maria Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was at Le Cirque the other night with a large entourage enjoying the good life, even though the former comptroller of her country’s armed services, Carlos Garcia, was found guilty earlier this year of perjury and two of his sons were arrested in the US on bulk cash-smuggling charges. Macapagal-Arroyo ordered several bottles of very expensive wine, pushing the dinner tab up to $20,000.”

The sad thing is that the hangers on complained it wasn’t even much of a trough:

The restaurant was “not fashionable” said Quezon Rep Danilo Suarez “the food is not bad. As for the place the surroundings were not pretty.” [That Martin is such a cheapskate.]

Not a single centavo of taxpayers’ money was spent for that dinner,” an angry Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said. [That “not one centavo” line is such a giveaway.]

What we had in New York was a simple, late night dinner because it was already late at night when we arrived there from Washington DC and, of course, we were all hungry,” Remonde said. (Altogether now: “Awwww”.]

Corazon C. Aquino, 1933–2009

“Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues.” St Augustine

Moved by the television coverage of the death of Cory Aquino, I visited the wake at La Salle Greenhills last night. As when I visited FPJ’s funeral four years’ ago, my intention was to play the curious foreigner and get the feel of the event, but joining the queue to see the body seemed the best way to avoid the torrential rain so that’s what I did.

Sadly, the wake was much like Cory’s presidency; despite all the talk about “the Filipino people” the people had to stand still while a parade of the entitled ones waltzed past with their newly coiffed hair. After moving about 50 yards in an hour I gave up (though not without shaking Satur Ocampo’s hand, which gave me a thrill).

***

Cory’s passing is a huge landmark in post-Marcos Philippines. We are no longer living in a post-EDSA world, but in a medium-sized country with king-sized problems, most of which have been either exacerbated or ignored by the four administrations since 1986.

Although Cory’s administration was reviled by contemporary critics, her presidency doesn’t look that bad now that we have the Estrada and Arroyo governments to compare it with. At least Aquino could legitimately blame the seven coup attempts for some of the lack of progress during her six years in office. Erap and GMA can blame only themselves for their failures (not that they will of course).

Aquino’s gender made her task much particularly difficult. Although in comparison with its neighbours the Philippines has an excellent record of female participation in business and government, an acceptance of female equality was not universally held in the 1980s, certainly not by the macho thorns in her side, Honasan and Enrile. To them Aquino was simply an amateur in the game of power, a “mere housewife” as Marcoss called her during the 1986 election campaign.

It is hard to see Aquino’s appointment of Juan Ponce Enrile as Defense Secretary as anything other than a disastrous mistake. On a high from the fortuitous timing of his betrayal of Marcos, Enrile spent the whole of his time in office trying to undermine Aquino and when he was finally dismissed, he was accused of masterminding the 1987 coup attempt.

At critical points in history, the character of the leader is at least as important as the achievements of his or her programs and the immediate post-Marcos period was such a time. It was Cory Aquino’s essential goodness and her humility (the hardest quality to fake) that brought the crowds to La Salle and caused former cabinet colleagues to sob yesterday as they recalled her graciousness. She was a “good boss” one of them said—a minor quality perhaps, but I wonder how many heads of state you could say that about?

***

For those under 35, the television coverage of Cory Aquino’s death will have brought back vivid personal memories of a now closed chapter. The endless coverage of the assassination of Ninoy, Cory giving the Laban signal with her outsized glasses and pleasant Tita’s smile, the hosing of demonstrators, Laurel, youthful versions of Teddy-Boy Locsin and Nene Pimentel … all this is now part of History.

So too is the only moment when the Philippines genuinely led the world. People Power was used as a model for peaceful uprisings from Chile to the Ukraine (in fact according to Katrina David in an interview yesterday the anti-Pinochet crowds in Santiago even chanted “Corazon, Corazon”).

What is lost above all with the death of Cory Aquino is the sense of hope that she gave the country; the possibility that just once simple goodness and a spirit of human togetherness might be enough to win out over naked self-interest. Future historians may look back on that aspiration as hopelessly naïve, yet its impracticality increases rather than diminishes the people who held it.

***

Here are a couple of other appreciations of Tita Cory that I liked.

Say what you will about her administration, the illusions dashed and opportunities missed, but she was decent to us. She never mocked us, made fun of our hopes, or knowingly insulted our intelligence. Born to privilege, she never acted the spoiled brat. ... In mourning for Tita Cory we’re really mourning for ourselves and what could’ve been. Jessica Zafra

I truly marvel at how, with every single challenge, Cory did her best.

She was the sheltered daughter of a wealthy clan who suddenly found herself subjected to the indignity of being strip-searched on her visits to her jailed husband.

She was a housewife with five children who was asked to unite a nation in fighting a tyrant.

She was an old woman, content in her retirement, who never faltered in her fight against corruption and made a stand against two presidents who succeeded her.

Carla Montemayor

Melissa Roxas and the real state of the nation

Melissa Roxas’s simple and matter-of-a-fact affidavit recounting her abduction, torture, and eventual release by the Philippine military deserves to become one of the key primary sources on the Arroyo presidency.

I had to keep reminding myself that this was not a story from Argentina’s “dirty war” or Pinochet’s Chile, but of an event that happened a few weeks go and a few miles from where I sit. For all I know something similar is going on as you read this. As the recent Inquirer retrospective on Arroyo’s presidency pointed out, military abuses and a culture of impunity have been a hallmark of her rule.

The affidavit is only 5 pages, here is an extract:

22. I was brought back to my cell blindfolded again and handcuffed at the front and I was made to lie down and after a short while, the iron barred doors were banged making clanking sound and I was taken aback and two men entered my cell with one of the man calling the other, “Tatay”, and a man pulled my cuffed hands up raising me on a sitting position and then a fist struck me at my upper sternum and it hurt and then a thumb was pressed strongly to my throat (I heard somebody saying “huh!...huh…huh.”) choking me, making me suffocate for quite a time and when he released the pressure I gagged and I coughed and then he struck me with his fist on my left jaw ringing my ears and numbing my jaw and they were telling me, “Ang tigas ng ulo mo. Sasagot ka na sa mga tanong.” He kept repeating the questions and his pressure on my throat and fists to my jaw. An hour after, they left. But before they left, he said, “matigas ‘to. Barilin na lang natin” and I prepared for the worst;

23. It must have been very late night or early dawn, when he came back to me and he dragged me to the first room and I sensed that there was a kind of leader of the group who kept on whispering on that person who was manhandling me and two other men and the man who got me from my cell asked me, “handa ka bang mamatay?” and I answered, “Opo” and then he told me, “bago namin patayin ang isang tao, mapapaihi at mapapatae muna namin siya”;

24. The whispering man kept whispering questions to be asked and the manhandling man kept asking the questions and I told him that I have rights and that I was demanding for my lawyer but when he asked me about my name, I told them but when they asked other questions, I did not answer and he would hit me on the chest strongly and I would lose breath and gasped for air after and then he would press my throat with his thumb and say “Huh…huh…huh!” and I would gag and then he would hit me on my jaws, ringing my ears and numbing my jaws and he repeated this and added another one by holding my head with his two hands and banging the back of my head repeatedly and each time it hit the wall, I would see a flash of white bright light and ringing in my ears and again the pressure to my throat with the “Huh … huh…huh.” And saying to me, “ayaw mo pa din magsasalita” and then punched me in my rib cage and I crumpled …

Bulgarian goes beserk in Bulacan

For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

I thought I would post this video of an amok Bulgarian buffalo masquerading as a Philippine carabao both because it is of interest in itself, and because it will give readers from outside the country some idea of provincial life here (and of our inimitable news presenters). I saw the video on Howie Severino’s site—Howie is the journalist in the video and this is the description of the event on his blog.

This water buffalo was anything but gentle. After creating havoc along a kilometer-long stretch of the parade route, it stopped to catch its breath next to a waiting shed. Some brave souls detached the wagon and tied the carabao to the waiting shed. A policeman hit the carabao on the head with a plastic chair, provoking the crazed creature into charging spectators who until then were enjoying the rare spectacle. The carabao ripped the waiting shed from its moorings and dragged the metal wreckage a few hundred meters.

No other carabao has run amok in the long history of the Pulilan festival, according to town mayor Vicente Esguerra. He also approved of the town police’s decision not to shoot the Bulgarian buffalo in the midst of its rampage, despite some calls from spectators. “There are so many people here because of the fiesta. If the police used a gun, someone could have been hurt,” Esguerra said.

About an hour after the carabao became the unexpected attraction, it was too tired to resist any longer and was loaded on a trailer for its trip home to Plaridel. Mayor Esguerra said he would not allow Bulgarian buffalos to participate in the parade any more.

I do like that deadpan last sentence.

Although I am sorry for those members of the audience who were scared or hurt by the buffalo’s rampage, I can’t rid myself of all sympathy for this poor beast who must have been very confused and irritated by the festival crowds. After some days at work I feel like behaving in exactly the same way ...

Manila’s beautiful climate

People complain a lot about Manila’s pollution without giving much credit to the generally very pleasant weather here. Compared with the humidity in other Southeast Asian cities such as Singapore and Bangkok, Manila’s humidity levels are very low. I lived in Singapore for four years and, although I am generally a hot weather kind of guy, I did find the soup-like clamminess a bit much from–-it also played havoc with my book and vinyl collections (OK it was a while ago).

In fact it takes a spell of really miserable weather such as the interminable grey days we had in early June to make me appreciate how congenial the climate is in the Philippines. Sure, we have a hot season in April/May but by the standards of, say, Delhi, it is isn’t that hot. Our hottest day a few weeks ago was about 37 degrees, compared with top temperatures of around 45 degrees in the Indian capital—-that’s a shift from the uncomfortable to the unbearable.

Climate doesn’t seem to matter much to some people but it sure does to me. Serene cloudless mornings like the one outside my window are an important reason why, despite everything, I have always been very happy here.

Why they like to criminalize us

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!

Walter Scott

Let’s imagine you are engaged in some enormous scam. Let’s also assume it is about something improbable; hmm, how about manure?

You are huli (caught). Would you rather your evil manure schemes were judged by a jury of honest men and true, or by a group so hopelessly compromised that to find you guilty would be to open themselves to prosecution?

This of course is exactly the situation facing the House panel investigating former agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc Joc" Bolante’s involvement in the P728-million fertilizer fund scam.

Although the absurdity of distributing funds for agricultural fertilizer to congressmen representing districts in Quezon City and Bolante’s flight from justice might seem to a jury of honest men and true evidence that something stinks in all this, the panel is expected to hold its nose and clear Bolante for the simple reason that, as Rep. Teddy Casiño points out: “more than a hundred administration representatives benefited from that scam in 2004.”

Bolante’s smelly dealings lead me to a broader issue.

It seems to me that the current set-up in the Philippines helps to criminalize virtually all of us, limiting our capacity, and even our desire, to support justice.

Do you pay all your taxes? If you run a business, have you waited patiently for the endless licences the state requires, or have you “eased” the process with a few hundred pesos? What about that time a cop pulled you over for swerving, did you hand over your licence quietly or slip him a couple of hundred?

I won’t go on, but even you have stoutly answered “yes” to all of those questions, what about your family? Is your dad’s business 100% legal? Your mother works in government service, are you sure everything she does is by the book?

The fact that almost all of us are forced or at least encouraged to commit these misdemeanours is an enormous advantage to the high rollers in the grimy game. To return to Bolante, the real beneficiary of the fertiliser fiddle was not the congressman who received an addition to his election war chest, it was not even Joc-Joc. The spider who wove the web was the president, who through this and similar schemes managed to manufacture an unlikely election victory and to ensure that everyone along the way was caught in her trap.

Those of us in the outer circles of the web are not caught as tightly as those in the middle, yet still we can’t quite kick ourselves free. Even businessmen and women who support a fair taxation regime baulk at the idea of even more BIR interference in their companies. At a philosophical level, our enmeshment breeds a kind of resignation, almost a kind of solidarity with the playmakers.

If convicted plunderer “not one centavo” Erap were seen as an aberration, his interest in another run at the presidency would surely be laughed out of court. As it is, although I doubt whether he is quite as popular as he thinks he is, Erap benefits from a sense of hopelessness that no one else is any better. He, Gloria, and the other king pins may sit at the centre of the web, but we have all been caught in its sticky embrace.

The meaning of Manny

Manny Pacquiao’s demolition of Ricky Hatton last weekend was an opportunity to see political scientist Benedict Anderson’s concept of the nation as an “imagined community” in action.

It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.

On Sunday morning the image of their communion was the man from Gen San being hoisted shoulder high in the Las Vegas ring while Ricky Hatton slowly and painfully reacquainted himself with consciousness.

And how did we all participate in this imagined community? Through text messaging of course! As soon as I heard the result, I texted my Filipino colleagues in Indonesia, but they already knew. Globe and Smart must love the imagined community.

Another feature of Anderson’s vision of nationalism is its essential levelling character: "regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship.” This was one of the only events to be celebrated as fervently in Forbes Park as in Smoky Mountain. To be uninvolved in that left hook was to be unFilipino.

Or as one report put it:

At least 10,000 people watched a free live screening in Pacquiao's dirt-poor home city of General Santos, while in Manila's depressed Tondo area another 2,000 people packed an airless gym to watch the fight. … Across town, a well-heeled crowd of 200 including politicians and celebrities watched at a cafe in Manila's upscale The Fort district.

Alas, squatting in Manny’s corner looking to profit from this glorious moment of deep, horizontal comradeship were the sleaziest members of the Philippine political class. The degree of a politician’s Pacquiaoness almost acts as a barometer of political sleaze, with Lito Atienza somewhere off the scale.

All nations celebrate sporting success, but is seems to me that victory strikes a deeper national chord in some than in others. England’s victory in the 1966 football World Cup, for example, is a far more prominent part of the national consciousness than France’s lifting of the same trophy in 1998. Great though Pacquiao’s victory last Sunday was, this was not a major title fight and I doubt whether Manny would have been feted to quite the same extent in many other countries. (Cebu City Council even plans to erect a statue to commemorate Pacquiao’s victory).

Why is this? For a country like France, secure in its own cultural superiority, sporting victory is enjoyable, but a defeat would not shake most Frenchmen’s conviction that they enjoy a higher quality of life than other less fortunate nations.

For less secure countries like Britain and the Philippines, a KO or a goal is an aspirin offering temporary relief from the contradictions posed by problematic national identities. I have written before abou how Filipinos tend to underestimate their international image and the outpouring of joy at Manny’s flooring of Ricky Hatton contains within it an element of a score being settled, of the little guy’s moment in the sun. England’s victory in 1966 was of the same kind, a final breakout from the post World War II blues.

That brings me to a final characteristic that is common to the insecurity of Brits and Filipinos. Both countries have suffered a collapse of expectations. When my mum was born in 1925, about a quarter of the map of the world was coloured pink, signifying the extent of the British Empire. Her generation saw all of that disappear; by the famous World Cup victory Britain had acquired the nickname “the sick man of Europe.” No wonder some national cheer was in order.

The decline in Philippine expectations has been less spectacular, but no less damaging. In the 1960s, some estimates rank the Philippine economy as second only to that of Japan in Asia, yet the succeeding decades have seen the country slide steadily down the Asian ladder, overtaken first by the Asian tigers, then by China and (hard to take for many Filipinos) India. I remember a friend telling me that when he was a kid his mum would warn him he would end up “like the Indians” if he continued to misbehave—nowadays that would be more an incentive than a threat. In the meantime, the Philippines has become famous only as an exporter of labour; yet the jobs Filipinos perform are often menial, which has contributed to national sense of grievance that I mentioned in my earlier post.

Given such gloomy skies, it is any wonder that Filipinos and Brits make the most of the passing shaft of sunlight sporting success brings? Let’s hope the little patch of sunlight Manny brought the Philippines continues to last, if only to postpone his inevitable entry into political life.

These Crooked Things, Remind Me of You (Erap)

All perfectly legal

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I saw that there is finally to be a criminal prosecution over the BW Resources scandal. The scandal even took place last century—the worthless stock, inflated by the stale gas of Erap’s cronies, peaking on 10 October 1999. At that time it was a mere 5,000% its value the previous January.

The funny thing is that the facts are so well known and Dante Tan and Erap’s guilt so palpable that it would take a jury of 5-year-olds half a day to convict the defendants. One of the best summaries of BW is by Greg Hutchinson in Hot Money Warm Bodies. In it he identifies Estrada as a joint owner of BW, a fact that came out during the impeachment trial. He also quotes Edgardo Espiritu, Estrada’s finance secretary from June 1998 to January 2000:

“[Estrada] was a bit excited as he told me ‘Ed, I’m earning quite a lot from BW Resources.’”

You can just see old Erap drooling into his bigote can’t you?

In fact so addicted was Erap to his tumescent stock that he telephoned the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Perfecto Yasay (remember him?), no less than five times to “persuade” him to clear his friend Dante Tan.

Well it may have taken over nine years for a prosecution and a revival of interest in the murder of Bubby Dacer, but better late than never I suppose. Incidentally, while pondering the incredible period of time this has taken, I glanced down to the next story, on a large sale of stock in Lucio Tan’s companies. One sentence in particular stuck out: “The PCGG has been running after Tan since 1987.” So perhaps the BW Resources prosecution isn’t so slow after all.

The Maias by Jose Maria Eça de Queirós

Almost all of the wonderful 19th century European literature that has come down to us depicts a bourgeois, or haute bourgeois, universe. This is certainly true of the great chronicle of a Lisbon family in decline, The Maias, by the late 19th-century Portuguese writer Jose Maria Eça de Queirós.

From a moral perspective, there is little to admire in the decadent and self-indulgent main character, Carlos de Maia, who wastes his talents and his family’s wealth on pursuing a number of dalliances, seems incapable of bringing any practical plan to fruition, and idles his way through the novel’s 600 pages.

Still, that’s not the point. What I loved about The Maias was de Queirós’s leisurely and ironic style and the effortless way he brings Lisbon and the nearby coastal town of Sintra to life.

The slow and inevitable caving in of a once great family is a poignant thing. We see it in Manila in all the time—think of the families you know, the dynasties that once controlled business empires, produced senators and presidents, now surviving on the rent from their one remaining property or on the kindness of relatives overseas. Of course it is in the nature of progress that families should rise and fall, and it is just as well that they do, but it would take a hard heart not to be moved by the frittering away, rather than the spectacular Bernie-Madoff-like collapse, that leads a once famous house down the road to obscurity.

Gathered around the somber main theme of The Maias are some wonderful and memorable characters: the blackguard Damaso, Carlos’s upstanding grandfather, Afonso de Maia, and his wastrel friend Ega; the mysterious Englishman, Craft; the aging poet Alencar … taken together, they bring to life a society that is in itself in a decline. Nineteenth century Lisbon is cosmopolitan, educated, and urbane, yet like the house of the Maias you sense it is going down, that Portugal’s great days are already in the past.

Perhaps I have made The Maias sound rather gloomy, but it isn’t really. The rather melodramatic plot, including its tragic, though rather prefigured, denouement, easily maintains the reader’s interest, as does de Queirós’s pitch-perfect understanding of the world he subtly satirizes. It is a melancholic book in a way, but then isn’t all great literature?

Governor Panlilio will need his mountain boots in 2010

Outsiders’ stars usually shine brightest just before serious campaigning begins. In the UK, this manifests iteself in claims the next election could provide a “break through” for the Liberal Democrats (the perennial third party). In money-dominated US politics, this is when the billionaires, the Bloombergs, the Forbes, and the Perots, start to fish for support.

The hard truth is that it is very difficult to break established political blocs in any country. The Liberal Democrats have never received more than 25% of the vote in the UK and Ross Perot, the most successful US third party candidate of modern times, received only 18.9% in 1992.

The possibility of a Panlilio-Padaca ticket in the 2010 presidential ticket has been greeted with tremendous enthusiasm in some quarters, including this one, but we will need to wait until the provincial strongmen start beautifying the landscape with their handsome campaign posters before we know how realistic its chances are. As the dawn breaks on the campaigning season, the mountain that lies before Among Ed is going to appear through the early morning mists and it’s a steep one.

Nevertheless, there are pointers in favour of a Panlilio run this time.

Even if we forget the surreal prospect of another shot at the presidency by Erap, at this stage the field looks quite dispersed. It is futile to talk of Philippine politics in terms of “parties,” since these form and dissolve as quickly as high-school cliques, but recent years have been dominated by two main “blocs”: a populist bloc congregated boozily around Joseph Estrada, and a neo-conservative bloc led first by Fidel Ramos, then by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (in the executive branch) and Joe de Venecia (in the legislature), and since their falling out, simply by Gloria. The dominance of these two blocs can be seen in the results from 2004, when their combined tally represented 76% of the vote.

The Erap and administration blocs will be heavily represented in 2010 and presumably heads will be knocked together to stop a repetition of Ping’s disastrous campaign in 2004, which split the Erap bloc and effectively denied FPJ the presidency (along with the Garci shenanigans of course).

Let’s say for the sake of argument that the Erap bloc puts up Binay and Escudero (sorry Loren) and the administration fields de Castro and Bayani.

That still leaves Manny Villar and Mar Roxas, who will almost certainly run very well- funded campaigns, not to mention the usual crazies (Eddie Gill, Imelda, et al) who pop up to brighten our mundane lives at such times.

These four teams have the money and machinery to pick up at least 5 million votes (about 15% of the electorate) each. That leaves about 40% to be divided between them and a credible fifth candidate. If Panlilio runs a decent campaign, that could be him. If the votes are spread fairly evenly, 25%-30% might just win it. The victor would have great difficulty in claiming a mandate, and we can expect the usual post-poll protests, but that will be the case whoever wins.

Panlilio’s greatest ally will be public dissatisfaction with the current system and the desire for a moral alternative. Still, such disenchantment has been building for a long time and look who was voted in last time. Panlilio also has to expect opponents to work hard to blacken his pure image; criticisms have started already, and it will be difficult for him to make it all the way through campaigning season without some muck sticking to that white shirt he usually wears.

Panlilio’s two most notable achievements have been increasing the revenues from quarry operations from Mount Pinatubo (he collected P29.4 million in his first month in office, which was about the same as his predecessor collected in a year) and his return of a paper bag containing P500,000 after a meeting between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and local officials in Malacañang. These are impressive, but will they be enough to take him all the way?

Panlilio’s victory in 2007 was remarkable, but it took place in very particular circumstances. Even by the standards of Philippine elections, his two opponents (the corrupt and useless Lapid and the wife of the provincial gambling lord, Bong Pineda) seemed to come straight from Third World Politics for dummies. He won’t have such easy targets in 2010.

One of the most important questions Panlilio will have to answer has been posed by blogger Carlo Ople: “If you really want to stay in politics, why not focus on Pampanga first?” That’s a legitimate question, I think. Among Ed has been governor of Pampanga for less than two years, shouldn’t he complete his work there before aspiring to national office? There are legitimate answers to that question but Ed and his advisers are going to have prepare them because it is a point that is already being made.

I am not trying to pour cold water on Brother Ed’s prospects; personally I would love it if he ran and won, especially if he is in tandem with the courageous governor of Isabella, Grace Padaca. If I had the vote, I would certainly put my cross against their names. But winning against the entrenched patronage network that has led the country into its current mess would be an enormous feat, greater in its way even than Obama’s victory last November.

The odds against a fifth candidate, even one comparatively well known like Panlilio, are enormous. His supporters may argue that Panlilio and Grace Padaca won the gubernatorial races in Pampanga and Isabella with no funds and no machinery but surely it would be impossible to run a national campaign on a shoestring. As Nicanor Perlas points out, politicians from outside “the system” can win, but only if they manage to mobilize civil society on an almost unprecedented scale. If there is to be a fifth column in 2010 it will need more than Brother Ed’s sincerity, it will require a campaign with enormous organizational expertise, support from the traditional leftist parties (Bayan Muna is already making positive noises), a huge fundraising effort, and possible links with Mar Roxas's campaign. All that is possible, but since it is starting from zero, the campaign has to start right away.

PS A half hour interview with Ed Panlilio can be found here.

The “Gentleman” Kidnapper

It really turns my stomach to hear kidnapper Albader Parad try to claim the high ground after the release of Mary Jean Lacaba yesterday. Here is what Richard Gordon had to say about the Parad’s behaviour after the release:

Gordon said Parad, in their talk, sounded more aggressive than before. “It was as if he stands on moral ground because of the release of Mary Jean,” he said.

Parad himself claimed that the release was part of a “gentleman’s agreement” with Gordon:

“We just wanted to show that we fulfill what we promise,” Parad said in an interview in Filipino at around 8:30 p.m., adding: “They know no ransom was paid.”

Well what a great guy. Yet this is the same gentleman Parad who has subjected three people and their families to unimaginable distress for the past 77 days. The same Parad who has been hogging the headlines with his gruesome threats of beheadings of innocent people. I doubt whether too many people will be impressed by his new found trustworthiness.

Parad even tried yesterday to shift the blame onto the government:

“But if [the government] will not try to understand us — didn’t they say that life is precious? So, let them show us that the lives of these two are precious. If not, we cannot do anything. The lives of these two are even less important to us.”

Quite sickening.

Meanwhile the Silvio Berlusconi award for tactless sexism goes to Sulu Vice Governor Sahidullah, who described Mary Jean Lacaba as “slimmer, prettier,” after her hellish experience. Nice one Gov!

Jose Rizal: The Man Who Refused to Give Up His Reason

Leon Ma. Guerrero’s biography of Rizal, The First Filipino, is a rambling life, punctuated by too many lengthy quotations, and written in a discursive style. However, it contains genuine insight into the Philippines’ enigmatic national hero and presents a consistent and convincing picture of Rizal as a torchbearer for rationalism and humanism martyred by an essentially medieval colonial government violently opposed to independent thought.

One thing I have never understood about Rizal is why he did not save himself while he could. Having moved most of his family to Hong Kong in 1891¬¬-1892, why did he not settle for life as simple bourgeois eye doctor with a second career as a novelist? Instead of returning to the maelstrom, why did he not decide to have an arms-length relationship with the politics of his country? As Guerrero recounts in great detail, by then he had already fallen out with many Madrid-based exiles, particularly Marcelo H. Pilar, and had refused to write any more for the journal Solidaridad. Even after his return to the Philippines and exile to Dapitan, it was not too late. Why did Rizal not take the advice of Governor General Blanco in 1894 and go to Spain? Or simply escape from Dapitan as many of his friends urged him to do?

Rizal’s own explanation of his return from Hong Kong is contained in a letter “to the Filipinos” dated 20 June 1892.

The step I have taken or am about to take is very risky no doubt and I do not have to say that I have given it much thought. I know that almost everyone is against it but I know too that almost no one knows what goes in my heart. I cannot go on living knowing that so many suffer unjust persecution because of me … I also want to show those who deny our patriotism that we know how to die doing our duty and for our convictions. What does death matter if one dies for what one loves, for one’s country and loved ones?”

This is fine as far as it goes, but it is too general to provide the complete answer—it is possible to imagine Ninoy Aquino saying the same 94 years later. It seems to me there are at least four main ways of explaining why Rizal made the choices he did.

1. He was a true intellectual who valued ideas above everything, even his own life—“a man should die for his duty and his convictions” he wrote to his parents (note not “be prepared to die for his convictions”). Rizal knew, with a certainty only the truly brilliant can ever have, that his ideas were correct and would conquer the forces of obscurantism that overwhelmed his country. Even on his last night, while assailed by priests trying to force him to recant, he clung to his Enlightenment beliefs: “But Father, what do you want me to do? It seems I cannot give up my reason” he told one persistent Jesuit.

2. Rizal found the mantle of leadership of the Filipinos impossible to shake off in favour of bourgeois respectability. Since his patriotic speech to celebrate the gold medal awarded to Juan Luna’s Spoliarium in 1884 (“the Oriental chrysalis is breaking out of its sheath”), he had been anointed the leader of the illustrados (although Guerero points out that “Rizal did not have the temperament that makes for success in politics”).

3. Rizal’s tragic and in part self-inflicted death was consistent with a dominant trait of Filipinos, a love of melodrama and the dramatic gesture.

The fourth possible explanation comes not from Guerrero, but from Rizal from Within by Ante Radaic, who refers to Rizal’s “Hamlet disposition.” (See Nick Joaquin’s essay on the two works here.)

"Rizal, the bold dreamer, strikes me as weak of will and irresolute for action and life. His withdrawal, his timidity, proved a hundred times, his timorousness, are no more than facets of his Hamlet disposition. To have been a practical revolutionary he would have needed the simple mentality of an Andrés Bonifacio. He was, I think, a faint-heart and a dubitator."

This is too strong to describe a man who displayed such heroism in his final hours, but at key points in his life Rizal did show great indecision. None of his numerous relationships with women ended in marriage until his wedding to Josephine Bracken in his death cell two hours before his execution. He travelled continuously around Europe, and his inability to settle down anywhere, or even to decide on Europe over Asia, suggests a man overwhelmed by the many and competing choices that lay before him.

This indecision pursued him to the end. Despite the statement in the letter to the Filipinos quoted above, when Rizal was finally arrested in 1898 for the crime of subversion he had just arrived in Barcelona on his way to Cuba to join the Spanish forces fighting the revolutionaries as a doctor, surely a curious occupation for a revolutionary. It is fascinating to speculate what would have happened to this brilliant man had Bonifacio not begun the revolution a few months earlier, which Rizal was unjustly executed for leading. The fourth reason for Rizal’s refusal to leave danger before it was too late would therefore read something like this.

4. Unable to decide on a career (doctor, writer, political agitator), a wife (Leonora, Tottie, Josephine, to name just a few), where to live (Madrid, London, Paris, Heidelberg, Hong Kong, Manila, Borneo), he remained in the Philippines, paralysed by indecision, until events overtook him.

To accept at least part of Radaic’s thesis does not seem to me to diminish Rizal. He was an intellectual and an artist, why should we expect him to be a Napoleon as well?

There are so many sides to this fascinating man that I can well understand why historians such as Ambeth Ocampo have dedicated much of their lives to try to figure him out. However, it is the preternatural calmness with which he awaited his (completely unjust) execution that is the most impressive part about him. To the end, he was vigorously debating theology with the many friars who pestered him to recant, writing poignant letters to his family (“Tell our father I remember him. How? I remember his tenderness and love. I ask him to forgive me for the grief which I unwillingly caused him”), marrying Josephine, and of course writing the beautiful poem Mi último adios. Perhaps the most affecting part of Rizal’s final preparations is in the last line of a letter to his family, in which he asks them to look after the dulce extranjera of Mi último adios

Pity poor Josephine.

This Bigote Business

Me bigote?

There is some justice in the fact that it is former President Estrada’s bigote (moustache), for so long a critical prop of his roguish image, that is now causing him so much grief.

Jinggoy Estrada’s claim that “There are so many men sporting a moustache,” is simply not correct. Compared with, say, India, this is a clean-shaven country; Erap the actor knew that when he was constructing his on-screen persona, hence the bigote. Therefore, whatever the truth of the rest of Cezar Mancao’s statement, his claim that “bigote was the commonly known pseudonym of Erap” rings true.

The most intriguing article I have read about the Dacer-Corbito killing is “Dacer’s Killers: Who and Why?” by Supreme Court Justice Antonio F. Carpio, originally published on 24 June 2001 (when Carpio was in private practice) and reprinted in Friday’s Inquirer. Please read it—I think it is important for two main reasons.

First, Carpio points out that an affidavit by one of the accused policemen Glenn G. Dumlao, “is like a map that leads us right to the very doorsteps of Dacer’s killers.” In essence, Dumlao links the killing to papers on the BW resources scandal supposedly held by Dacer, thus providing a motive for the rub-out. According to Dumlao, Michael Ray Aquino, one of the shadowy figures who people this murderous cast, had been ordered by Lacson to enter Dacer’s office at the Manila Hotel to steal documents. The hotel surveillance cameras made that impossible, with the result that we all know. Dumlao’s affidavit was eventually withdrawn, but if it can be corroborated by other evidence this version of events could prove very damaging for Erap.

Second, Carpio’s article recreates the atmosphere surrounding Erap’s mafia presidency. A stock market fraud carried out by the president and his business cronies that virtually destroyed the national stock market; policemen stalking hotel corridors in an attempt to carry out illegal activities; an abduction in broad daylight on one of Manila’s busiest thoroughfares, almost certainly by policemen; a grisly murder in an isolated spot; a key witness (Teofelo Vina) gunned down at a party in Cavite before he was able to execute an affidavit—it is a poisonous mix of Watergate and the Sopranos, carried out by PNP goons.

I really hope that the media and the Department of Justice pursue this, so we can get to the bottom of this bigote business.

Were Ninoy Aquino and Bubby Dacer killed on presidential orders?

The release of the 10 remaining soldiers convicted of assassinating Ninoy Aquino in 1983 in the same week as an announcement that a former policeman is willing to spill the beans on the murder of publicist Bubby Dacer and his driver in 2000 is an intriguing coincidence. How high do orders for assassinations go in this country? Did the instructions to kill Aquino and Dacer come from Presidents Marcos and Estrada?

Aquino Assassination

Most commentators have argued that the Aquino assassination was too crude and blatant for an experienced operator like Marcos. In America’s Boy, James Hamilton-Paterson tells a nice story: “The president was alleged to have thrown a dish from his bedside table at the faithful Ver, furiously exclaiming ‘Idiot! Now they’ll all blame me.’”*

However, Hamilton-Paterson’s claim that “Oddly enough, Marcos was the one person not to have been seriously blamed” is not correct. In Waltzing with a Dictator (pp. 348¬¬-349), Raymond Bonner notes the following.

In July 1983, after Aquino had let it be known that he planned to return to the Philippines, Marcos asked one of his most trusted assistants to research political assassinations and expressed particular interest in the killing of Archbishop Romero, a human rights activist gunned down with a single bullet while saying mass in El Salvador.

US intelligence reported that Marcos sent Colonel Abdilla, a notorious torturer, to the USA to trail Aquino. Some intelligence officials felt that Abdilla was under orders to assassinate Aquino if the opportunity arose.

Bonner continues:

Abdilla’s mission and other evidence led one [US] diplomat, who was a in a senior position in the embassy at the time of the assassination, to conclude, “It was Marcos. He wanted get to rid of him. In effect, there was a standing order to shoot on sight. The order had gone out to take care of Aquino. It wasn’t an order to kill at the airport.” The operative words were the last three. Marcos wanted Aquino killed. But he didn’t give the order to do so at the airport.

Nevertheless, Bonner concludes that “most people believe that the cumulative weight of the evidence points to Imelda Marcos and her brother Kokoy Romualdez … The two were motivated, some American officials concluded, by their belief that Marcos was dying and by Mrs Marcos’s desire to run the country if he did.”

The official inquiry into the killing of Aquino, the Agrava Commission, was split, but unanimous on the involvement of the military, which most have taken to mean the head of the armed forces and Marcos’s fellow Ilocano, General Fabian Ver. In the words of Roberto Ongpin, the trade and industry minister, “Galman did it. Ver set him up” (America’s Boy, p. 372).

There is also plenty of evidence to implicate Imelda Marcos in the assassination, not least because the Agrava Commission found that, at an operational level, the operation was masterminded by General Luther Custodio, whose relationship to Imelda was succinctly described by a US intelligence official, “She owned him, lock, stock, and barrel” (Waltzing with a Dictator (p.350).

My guess is that, while Marcos probably didn’t issue a direct order, he certainly thought about it. By 1983, he was a very sick man, and in the atmosphere of paranoia that surrounds the sickbed of a strongman, it is reasonable to look for those who might be looking to establish a chain of succession, a chain that would be threatened by the arrival of Aquino. That seems to point to Imelda in concert with Ver, a conclusion that is also reached by Mark Thompson in The Anti-Marcos Struggle (p. 115). It is a shame that the assassination is rarely if ever raised in interviews with Imelda, which mainly concentrate on banal questions about her shoe collection.

Dacer and Corbito Assassination

Former Senior Superintendent Cesar Mancao has apparently signed an affidavit identifying the perpetrators and the mastermind behind the brutal killing of publicist Bubby Dacer and his unfortunate driver Emmanuel Corbito in 2000, a skeleton that has been rattling around in the Estrada-Lacson closet for the last eight years. I think someone had better tell Ping that running around all over the town denying a crime no one has directly accused you of might not be such a smart move. On the other hand Ping, as head of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, was Mancao’s boss, so it seems unlikely that he is going to escape an accusation of involvement.

The really intriguing question is the participation of Erap. Did he issue an order? Or did he, as writers have argued above for Marcos, simply set the context for the killing and allow his subordinates to figure out what he wanted? Or did he have nothing to do with it?

Option C is clearly the one Erap himself wants us to believe. Speaking of his meeting with Dacer (“one of my good friends”) in Malacañang shortly before Dacer’s abduction, a meeting he can’t deny, since it will have been officially recorded, Erap reminiscences in today’s Inquirer “We talked about many things, for old time’s sake.”

That’s not quite how I remember contemporaneous reports of that meeting. In fact after Dacer’s disappearance newspapers reported that his meeting with Estrada had been acrimonious, shouting had been heard from inside the room, and Dacer had left hurriedly. Given that Dacer was abducted and killed in November 2000, at the beginning of the impeachment proceedings that were to lead to Erap’s fall two months later, there was conjecture that Dacer had tried to blackmail Erap by threatening to expose some more of his good friend’s shady dealings. Someone should dig up those old newspaper articles I think.

In all this interesting speculation, we should not lose sight of the pure horror of Dacer and Corbito’s last moments. Here is the account of Diloy and Jimmy Lopez, both of Indang, Cavite, who witnessed this ghastly scene:

Lopez said a group led by SPO4 Soberano arrived at his home in Barangay Buen Alejos I, Indang, on the afternoon of Nov. 24, and asked him where they could hold the two victims for safekeeping.

Hog-tied

Dacer and Corbito were already hog-tied and their eyes and mouths covered with masking tape when they were brought to Lopez’s house, according to Wycoco.

Lopez recalled that the party arrived in two vehicles. Dacer and Corbito were still alive and were inside a white Toyota Lite Ace, he said.

Soberano and the two other PAOCTF agents, Escalante and Purificacion, were aboard another vehicle, he said.

From Lopez’s narration, it was not clear which car carried SPO3 Torres.
"When they arrived, they were looking for a place to hide the two men they brought with them. I said I would find a place, so I brought the group to the garage of my brother, William," Lopez said in Filipino.

Lopez said the group waited until it was dark. Around 8 p.m., the party left for a nearby creek, bringing the two victims along, he said. He told reporters he stayed behind because he has trouble walking long distances.

At this point, Diloy took up the narration.

Face down

Upon reaching the creek, Diloy said, he was ordered to gather firewood for the pyre.

Dacer and Corbito were made to lie face down, he said. Three men used the electrical cord to strangle them to death, he told the news conference.

Asked by reporters to identify the killers, Diloy replied, "Mauro Torres, William and Diego."

The murderers placed the bodies on top of the pyre of wood and tires, doused them with gasoline and set them on fire, he narrated.

They let the corpses burn for about half an hour, he said. When it was over, he walked toward nearby Binakayan town, leaving the others behind.

* In the version in Waltzing with a Dictator, Marcos throws something at Imelda (not Ver), hitting her on the cheek.

Meanwhile the killings go on …

For people who are basically charming, decent, and gentle, Filipinos spend a lot of time killing each other. After a lull in the extrajudicial killings that were attributed to the Armed Forces of the Philippines by the report of UN special rapporteur Philip Alston in 2007, another atrocity has been reported from Davao

Believed kidnapped by military agents only 24 hours earlier, the daughter of a ranking communist guerrilla has turned up dead with stab wounds and torture marks. A farmer found the body of teacher Rebelyn Pitao, 20, late on Thursday near an irrigation ditch in Purok 5 in Barangay San Isidro, Carmen, Davao del Norte. She was the younger daughter of Leoncio Pitao, aka Commander Parago, of the New People’s Army (NPA).

The President has announced an investigation into the killing, which will no doubt prove to be as effective as all the previous commissions and inquiries into brutal killings that might lead to inconvenient places.

Still, everyone knows it is very hard to receive justice in Philippines unless you have powerful friends, and there is one intriguing element to the despicable killing of this young woman:

Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, a close friend of Pitao or Commander Parago, called Rebelyn's murder "a deed most foul." "Kung galit sila (NPA), mas galit ako (If the NPA is angry, I’m more angry)," he said.

Duterte is a pretty big man in Davao and this killing of the daughter of one of his friends on his home turf is big loss of face. Let’s see how he responds.

The Big Queasy: Magnet Café, Sarah’s, Likha-Diwa, and Conspiracy

Sunset at UP Diliman

The first thing you notice about a night out in QC is how much cheaper it is than drinking in Makati. A few early evening beers, dinner, music, and drinking to midnight at the places above would buy you a couple of glasses of wine in Green Belt.

QC joints are also just that much bigger than those in Manila and Makati. Many come with small terraces, taking their cue from QC’s broad thoroughfares and old trees, which give it a more open feel than the rest of Metro Manila.

My friend Raju and I opened up with a couple of ice cold pales at Magnet Café on Katipunan, which is conveniently placed to break up the journey to the Diliman area. From there we moved to Sara’s, a congenial outdoor student bar on the fringes of UP. It has been a long since I have been to Diliman and returning there reminded me of my first year in the Philippines in 1997. Apart from anything else, I love the dark pockets on the campus, which offer some relief from our light-polluted Manila.

Right next to Sarah’s is Likha-Diwa, a funky little vegetarian place. This is a little bit of Brighton (my old stamping ground) in the heart of the city, with arty furniture, some Japanese-style seating, area, an extensive menu, and tasty and incredibly cheap food. My way of judging a vegetarian café is to taste their burger and Likha-Diwa’s soya burger was disposed of in about 30 seconds. It was a wee bit small to be honest, but hey it was about 85 pesos so you could have a couple and still be some way short of that Green Belt glass of wine. We shared some pokoras (which were freshly cooked and met with Raju’s approval) and I washed them down with a carrot and apple juice from the extensive list of juices. It was bloody great—just my sort of place.

Our last port of call was Conspiracy to see “Salinawat ni Pete”, an evening of standards translated into Tagalog by Pete Lacaba. This was an outstanding end to a fine QC evening. Apart from anything else it was fun trying to recognize the songs, here are some of those I spotted:

Cooky Chua
I’ll never fall in love again
Cold cold cold heart
Kat Aggarada
As time goes by
The look of love
Susan Fernandez
In the wee small hours of the morning

I loved the crowd; a bunch of long-grey-hairs fresh from a First Quarter Storm rally. There was some curiosity as to why a couple of foreigners with about 50 words of Tagalog to rub together between them should be at such an event but everyone was extraordinarily welcoming, even by Filipino standards (thanks guys!). We ended up swapping stories and rums with Cooky and Conrado de Quiros before melting back into the night.

Postscript: We did Conspiracy to Makati in less than 20 minutes, yet the reaction from a couple of friends I mentioned this evening to was “You went all the way up there …?” C’mon, it ain’t that far!

Thanks for the tip (and the nickname) Butch and thanks to Dahon for the pic.

From another evening at Conspiracy, Cooky does the Look of Love

Jackson Browne Versus John McCain

Even by the standards of Republican party logic McCain's arguments in this case take some beating.

The legal dispute between Jackson Browne and Senator John McCain over Mr. Browne’s song “Running on Empty” will keep running: a federal judge in California has denied motions filed by Mr. McCain and the Republican National Committee to halt a lawsuit brought against them by Mr. Browne, according to court documents. Mr. Browne said in his suit that Mr. McCain and the committee had infringed on his copyrights by using “Running on Empty” in a presidential campaign commercial without Mr. Browne’s permission. Mr. McCain and the committee had argued that First Amendment and fair-use rules permitted the use because the song occurred in a political context, but Judge R. Gary Klausner was unconvinced.

I hope Jackson pushes this as far as he can and refuses to settle.