Torn and frayed in Manila

When it comes down to it, we are programmed to do what we are told

One of the most famous insights into human beings' capacity for unthinking obedience was an experiment by Yale professor Stanley Miligram, which involved participants administering electric shocks to someone in the next room:

"The shock generator that the "teacher" was told to operate had 30 switches in 15 volt increments, each switch was labeled with a voltage ranging from 15 up to 450 volts. Each switch also had a rating, ranging from "slight shock" to "danger: severe shock". The final two switches being labeled "XXX". The experiment was conducted in a scenario where the "learner" was in another room but the "teacher" was made aware of the "actor-learner's" discomfort by poundings on the wall. … At times, the worried "teachers" questioned the experimenter, asking who was responsible for any harmful effects resulting from shocking the learner at such a high level. Upon receiving the answer that the experimenter assumed full responsibility, teachers seemed to accept the response and continue shocking, even though some were obviously extremely uncomfortable in doing so."

I was reminded of this famous insight into human nature by the following story:

“When I answered the phone, the caller said he was a police officer,” the manager of the Taco Bell restaurant in Fountains Hill, Arizona told a press conference. “He asked me if there was a young female customer with a red jacket and long blonde hair sitting alone. I said there was, and he told me that she was suspected of theft, and that he wanted me to give her a body search. He told me it was my legal obligation, so I ordered her into a back room. Then he told me to order her to disrobe, and to give her a thorough all-over body search, so I did. It was only when he told me to make her stand on one leg and then do jumping jacks that I became suspicious, and asked him how I could be sure he was really a police officer. To prove that he was, he started to pledge allegiance to the flag, but forgot the words, and hung up. It was then that I began to realise that all was not as it seemed.”

The report was the latest in a series of hoax strip-search calls that have been plaguing fast-food restaurants throughout America. “It’s mind-boggling that he gets away with it,” said Sheriff Joseph Arpaio of Maricopa County. “Why would any responsible person do something like this just because some guy calls them on the telephone and tells them he’s a cop? Yet we’ve documented more than seventy of these hoax calls during the past two years, and in almost every case, the manager has agreed to perform the strip search. And even more incredibly, the female customers have almost always gone along with the scam.”

Bush catches Democrats napping

Stunning news from the Borowitz report:

"Inspired by the early handover of sovereignty in Iraq, President George W. Bush employed the element of surprise once more last night, holding the U.S. presidential election four months early.

The election, about which only top Bush administration officials were notified, went exceedingly well for the president, who carried all fifty states and garnered approximately one hundred percent of the vote.

Mr. Bush’s victory speech, which he had originally scheduled for eleven P.M. last night, was at the last minute rescheduled to nine P.M., once again capitalizing on the element of surprise.

In his speech, Mr. Bush admitted that he might have had a more difficult time getting reelected if the American people had actually been notified about the time and date of the voting, but added, “A win’s a win, right?”

Mr. Bush’s second inauguration is slated to take place on January 20, 2005, but administration officials acknowledged that it could happen “at any time.”

“For all I know it has already happened,” one aide said."

JP Donleavy and the Ginger Man

There is a fascinating interview with the author J. P. Donleavy in the Guardian, published to mark the fiftieth birthday of his tour de force, The Ginger Man. Donleavy comes across as a curmudgeonly sort of bloke and the article dwells on his long-running dispute with his French publisher, which ended with Donleavy buying the company. Still, I love
the way he takes no nonsense from anyone; I wish more authors had his combative approach to publishers who treat them and their work badly. As his younger brother TJ Donleavy puts it "people don't have a
lot of luck with him, when they take him on, because he's a very good lawyer. He's a logician. He could have been a chess master if he chose."

The odd thing about Donleavy is that he doesn't seem a very literary person at all.

"The poet Christopher Logue ... visited Donleavy in his house in Fulham in the 1950s. "I looked at the books. They were law books. On copyright. There were no other books in the house."

If you haven't read The Ginger Man, I'd recommend it for the force of Donleavy's prose, the extravagant plotting and (the main attraction when I read it at 19) all the sex.

God's mercy
On the wild
Ginger Man

Why do Filipinos need a bribe to compete for a gold medal?

So any Philippine athlete who wins a gold medal is to get P 10 million. Why? Without a huge financial incentive they won’t try so hard? Whatever happened to personal glory or even old-fashioned patriotism? I wonder why everything in the Philippines seems to revolve around money.

Jaworski and Jinggoy: peas in a pod

Here's a theory. Children of rich and powerful people can turn into spoiled brats anywhere (c.f. Mark Thatcher and the Bush daughters). But in weak states, where, instead of being a neutral arbiter, the forces of law and order are held hostage by personal interests, these people feel that they have a "right" to do literally anything (see post of 18 June on Jinggoy Estrada). Plus they have virtually unlimited access to guns. Because their fathers are often goons, or surround themselves with goons, these kids often receive little schooling (why bother when Daddy will give you anything you want) and end up with goon values.

Just where this can all lead was graphically illustrated last Monday night at a shootout in Greenhills between gangs led by Ryan Jaworski, 30, son of outgoing Sen. Robert Jaworski, and Elton Yap, 14, son of businessman Tony Yap (who was, apparently, accompanied by one bodyguard for each year of his short life).

The spat began – of course – with text messages, with the Jaworski camp apparently calling Elton bakla (gay). By the time the boys had really got going around 60 shells -- from an M16 assault rifle, a 9mm pistol, and a .45 cal. pistol – littered the scene of the shoot-out. The windshield of Elton's Honda CRV was shattered (this is the 14-year-old remember). At least six other parked cars were also damaged. Ryan Jaworski (nicely described in today's Inquirer editorial as "no stranger to the police blotter") was in hospital with bullet wounds in both his legs.

It is surprising therefore that lawyers for both camps have claimed that their clients were not armed (huh?). (Unfortunately for the Jaworski camp, the papers have discovered he has no fewer than 11 guns registered in his name. See the Manila Times story for a full listing of the Jaworski armoury.)

If Gloria really wants to make a progress on the law and order issue, she could do worse than make a few high-profile prosecutions of the "scions of wealthy families" as the press loves to call them. But of course she will do nothing as usual and the story of the great Greenhills shootout will end up in the Inquirer's "whatever happened to" column.

Republican sex scandal

"So they've got these whips, right, and they're like hanging from the ceiling..."

You'd be amazed how much headlines like that increase the traffic to your site.

There are a couple of things I particularly like about the scandal currently afflicting one of Dubya's candidates for the senate. First there is the lurid nature of the allegations:

"Mrs Ryan, now 36, accused her husband of taking her to clubs in New York and Paris in 1998 and in one asking her to have sex with him in front of strangers.

One of the New York clubs had "cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling", she said in evidence in 2000. He then asked her to have sex with him in front of another couple but she refused, she claimed. He also asked her "to perform a sexual activity upon him and he specifically asked other people to watch".

She again refused. Her husband apologised, promising never to insist on such a trip again, she continued.

However, he later tried to take her to a similar venue in Paris, she said in her evidence. "People were having sex everywhere. I cried, I was physically ill," she claimed.

In his evidence Mr Ryan called the allegations "ridiculous" and "smut".

The second is the fact that Mr Ryan's only concern is to protect his son:

Mr and Mrs Ryan opposed the release of their divorce papers. Mr Ryan said he wanted to protect their son, Alex, nine, not his own reputation, from the publicity.

Right.

Typhoon Helen: the storm that sunk a thousand bands

Weather in Manila sometimes seems to rise up from the ocean depths rather than descending from the skies. Yesterday for example, it was actually quite sunny and bright, yet the churning waters of Manila Bay looked more like the North Sea in February. About 20 little yachts zipped merrily across the whitecaps in the fresh Habagat wind.

One of Typhoon Helen's principal victims over the weekend was the Fête de la Musique at Eastwood, which was rained out. What a bummer. This year's fête had a fantastic programme, with over 100 bands covering everything from ska to lounge music. We particularly wanted to see Rivermaya, Nancy Drool, Tropical Depression, and Barbie's Cradle, among others, but ended up not seeing any of them. At about 10pm the heavens opened and that was pretty well it. Most of the spectators and a lot of the equipment got soaked, which meant that even the bands playing at the indoor venues cancelled. There were rumours that a couple of the outdoor stages collapsed.

Ah well, that's rock 'n' roll. And this is Christopher Marlowe (just to make you feel a bit better if your Saturday evening was spoiled):

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sack'd;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear'd to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

Michael Sheldon: George Orwell

If you like George Orwell’s books, find mid-20th century intellectual and political life stimulating, or just want to read about a stubborn, idiosyncratic and principled man who became one of the last century’s most influential writers, I can’t recommend this biography highly enough.

Orwell's fame rests almost entirely on two books, Animal Farm and 1984, both of which were published at the end of his short life. Without them, he would be remembered as a considerable essayist and the author of middlebrow journalism and fiction, but I doubt whether much of his work would be still be in print today. Yet Orwell had so much difficulty finding a publisher for Animal Farm (he wrote it while the Soviet Union was still a wartime ally of Britain and the USA ) that he was considering funding a private edition himself when Frederic Warburg agreed to publish it. The manuscript was also nearly destroyed when a bomb landed in the London square where Orwell lived. Yet, despite these inauspicious beginnings, Animal Farm went on to sell over 500,000 copies in its first four years -- and millions of copies in subsequent editions and translations. It remains perhaps the most famous political allegory of all time.

Like all visions of the future, Orwell's other masterpiece, 1984 is less about the future than a mirror of the time in which it was written. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to consider which parts of Orwell’s nightmarish vision have been fulfilled. The panoptical nature of the all-seeing modern state (with its CCTV, cellphone records, electrical bracelets for prisoners) was brilliantly predicted by Orwell, who would undoubtedly have felt, that in say, modern Singapore, his worst fears had been brought to fruition.

On the other hand, all-seeing state has not been the only beneficiary of technological advances – digital technology has also empowered individuals to a degree not anticipated by Orwell, opening up whole new avenues of self expression and dissent, which even repressive regimes like the Chinese communist party cannot entirely extinguish. On balance, I would say that in the constant war of attrition between the state and the individual, the technological progress that followed Orwell's death has increased rather than restricted individual freedoms, though I guess that could be argued either way.

Sheldon is fair and judicious to a degree that even Orwell might have admired. When dealing with Orwell's second wife Sonia, for example, who married him on his death bed on 13 October 1949 (he died on 21 January the following year), bought herself a engagement ring made up of rubies, diamonds and emeralds with his money and of course inherited a fortune in publishing rights, he simply lets the facts speak for themselves. "Her period of mourning was short", he observes, describing the long holiday she took in the south of France with a former boyfriend two months after Orwell's death.

As I said, this is a well written and enjoyable book – go out and buy it immediately.

Text tax: no tax is popular but some are fairer than others

Which is more just, a 1-5 centavo tax on each of the billions of text messages sent by Filipinos every year, or arbitrary and oppressive fees such as those now being levied on jeepney drivers?

Opposition to the text tax proposal has come mainly from the Philippine middle class. If the well-organized and articulate opponents of the tax are successful, I suspect the government will look to the poor, who already contribute disproportionately to government revenues and are less able to defend their interests, to help it bridge the ballooning budget deficit.

Max Soliven’s column yesterday had an example of what we can expect. Before they can implement the new increases in jeepney fares, drivers now have to buy a one page “fare guide” for 520 pesos each. If they do not have the guide displayed in their jeeps, they face the prospect of being fined. Not only that, the burden of paying the tax is placed on the drivers:

"As a result of this imposition, thousands of drivers and operators have been forced to queue up in the heat of the sun, from 5 o’clock in the morning to late in the afternoon, to secure those required fare guides. Last week, one of the drivers who lined up under the blazing sun simply collapsed – and died."

The burden of a tax on text messages would not only be spread thinly over the Philippines 30 million cellphone users, it would also be an incredibly simple tax to collect. There would be no queuing up in the sun. The government would merely need to pop along to Globe, Smart and Sun Cellular every month and pick up a cheque. Even the inefficient GMA government might manage that. Nor would there be the monumental avoidance of taxes and duties that characterize the current tax regime; I can't see any reason why the collection rate for the text tax should not be 100%.

It is true, as opponents of the tax say, that if the government were more efficient at collecting the taxes that are already on the statute book, the new tax would not be necessary. It is also true that even the small percentage (approximately 25%) of taxes and excise duties that are collected are mostly wasted by bloated and inefficient bureaucracies and corrupt officials. The next president has to do something about that, but these are not matters that can be fixed overnight. In the meantime, the government has huge and immediate obligations and the infrastructure in the Philippines is one of the poorest outside subSaharan Africa. If the tax on text is not the answer, what is?

Jinggoy: the worst is yet to come

A few weeks ago I met one of imprisoned former president Estrada's Chinoy drinking buddies at a dinner party. He was realistic about Erap's failings as President, although he remained personally loyal to him (and had visited him at Veterans' hospital several times). We had a good chat about Estrada's undoubted personal charm, but my new friend's face darkened when the subject turned to Erap's sons Jinggoy Estrada and JV Ejercito. "Incredibly stupid and arrogant" were two of the nicest things he had to say about them.

Jinggoy has been out harvesting the sympathy vote for his deposed father and last month got himself elected to the Senate, where he will sit alongside his mother. Although out on bail from his plunder charge, he is clearly not going to allow that little matter to prevent him from assuming his rightful position as one of the nation's spoiled brats.

First he requested permission to travel to San Francisco to deliver a speech at an independence day ceremony. When he was granted four days he asked for, and was granted, an additional two days. Surprise, surprise -- today's paper reports that Jinggoy is having such a good time that he has given the Sandiganbayan's the finger and stayed in California. After all, he is now Senator-elect Estrada and can do what he wants.

Here is Ramon Tulfo on Jinggoy's boyish antics when his father was still president:

When he and a couple of friends went to Los Angeles, California, also during his father's presidential tenure, Jinggoy turned off his fellow passengers at the first class section of the Philippine Airlines plane. While a stewardess was serving food on a cart, Jinggoy and his friends, already tipsy, touched with their hands the food meant for the other passengers. As a result, many of the other passengers lost their appetite.

Jinggoy and his friends then went to the lavatory on the first class section and smoked inside. Smoking is prohibited on board aircrafts bound for the United States. Smoking inside a US-bound aircraft, even if the plane is still out of US territory, is a federal offense.

The pilot was told about Jinggoy and his friends' smoking. The pilot sent word to the presidential son not to do it again as he (pilot) would be penalized under US laws.

Jinggoy's retort was, "Siguro anti-Erap yang piloto. Ano ang pangalan niya (Perhaps the pilot is anti-Erap. What's his name)?"

"Mon, ngayon lang ako nakakita ng ganoong kabastos na tao (This is the first time I've met a very uncouth person)," referring to Jinggoy.

We can expect plenty more of Jinggoy's bastos behaviour in the months ahead.