LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION?

Breaking Away and Spilling the Rottenness?

Five years of an unholy alliance. Five years of sleeping with his enemies. Five years of keeping the dark secrets of an inept presidency.

But the dissonance of the country's second highest official,  Jejomar ( from the initial letters of Jesus, Joseph, Maria) Binay,  is always surfacing even if the Palace and detractors did not pry open the lid of his Pandora's box.

The political opposition in the Philippines is no longer without a leader, an analyst said, referring to the person--Binay-- who has been accused of unexplained wealth and other anomalies.

Is he a credible leader who can speak for us whose combined "voices are as weak as Padsan and the dying rivers"? Should he not, first and foremost, explain his alleged enormous riches?

He was then a poor human rights lawyer during the time of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. He came into power after the Edsa Revolution, having been appointed s Officer-in-Charge of Makati, the country's richest city. And the rest is history--an economic empire that boggles the imagination.

Too late to become the hero of the poor and the downtrodden?

Nevertheless, he may yet become the top honcho in the palace by the dirty and highly-polluted Pasig river.

In the dysfunctional Filipino culture, men of honor and integrity and high ideals, do not become President of Las Islas de Los Ladrones. The voters, the great unwashed, elect into powerful public offices men of ill-repute and criminals like the convicted economic plunderer.

THE TRINITY OF CHANGE A FAILURE?

"Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Re Dr. Agca's essay on fraternities at the state university in Diliman

If  his beloved University of the Philippines is a failure as member in the trinity of change--the school, the family, the church, not necessarily in that order--do the rest follow the domino effect?  If this is so, will it explain the widespread poverty and lawmakers as the biggest thieves of state funds?

They say that the country is no longer the sick man of Asia. Does this claim match reality on the ground? Can one explain the squalor and beggary in Manila, which is supposed to be a model in development in Las Islas de los Ladrones?

And what about this dysfunctional Filipino culture where criminals are voted into powerful offices? Like the convicted economic plunderer they call "Erap." Where dynasties rule with impunity. Like the Binays--father, son, wife, daughters-- and amass mind-boggling wealth.

TRINITY OF EVIL

Quotes of the Day:

"Light your candle before night overtakes you."--Greek saying.

"In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."--Friedrich Nietzche

The Bangsamoro Basic Law is a concoction of the trinity of evil: President Aquino; the governmennt panel composed of the University of the Philippines professor Coronel- Ferrer and Secretary Teresita Deles; and Mohaqher Iqbal and his murderous MILF. The law will give a big chunk of Philippine territory to the Muslim rebels in a part of Mindanao, where Christians, lumads and other ethno-linguistic groups have lived for centuries, and comprise the majority of the population. Billions of pesos will also be alloted to the sub-state for its annual expenditures.

Senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. and other legislators have questioned the Constitutionality of BBL, at least in some provisions, and vowed to make changes to conform to Philippine laws. For all the tirades against the son of the dictator, the senator makes sense with respect to a law that would give a beachhead to Muslim terrorists now stoking the fire that is burning the lands of Islam He has shown he is at par with the best minds in the Upper Chamber.

Congress, controlled by The Big Boss, is again noisy -- make changes in the Constitution to accommodate the BBL?

FASCISTS AND ILOKANO FASCISM

   Philippine national artist Virgilio Almario has reportedly developed orthographies of the country's different ethno-linguistic tribes that include Ilokanos. Almario is a Tagalog writer who once tampered with a Malacanang document but he got away with the misdeed.

     He is supported by a certain Joel Lopez, a high education official in the province of Ilocos Norte. He is a non-writer and can not write one single Ilokano sentence, according to a universal/prescribed orthography. He has also developed his own Ilokano orthography that is now being used in the public schools in Ilocos Norte. The Ilokano orthography is used in widely-read publications in the Ilocos.

     For imposing their respective versions of  orthography, Almario and Lopez have been criticized by writer's group like Gumil Filipinas, the national association of writers. The duo has been thrown  various derogatory names and been branded fascists.

     We understand the megalomaniac Almario and his deluded acolyte Lopez. Their outside behavior is just a reflection of their respective mind-set.

      This is also the case in the Ilokano writing community, where fascism is endemic. Needless to say, there are Hitlers like the editor who has banned writers in the pages of the magazine because the latter made snide remarks against his close relative,  who allegedly mismanaged the funds for a planned house of mannurat.
   

     

    

Aurora Park in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, Northern Philippines

FIGHTING OUR UMBRA

To friend Sonja and grandchild Denise:

Remember our subversive nature.

The battle is always within: To rescue ourselves from our own umbra and be whole and glowing again albeit impermanence.

Impermanence. As in nothing is permanent, as the body that will eventually weaken and die. In the interim, our dark side may be a shade but it will break out like a prisoner in isolation and destroy us in the blink of an eye.

So where do we go from here? To earth, to dust that will be carried away and scattered by the wind that goes on and on and on?

Marga Denise De los Santos  Julian 

"Your mind is an instrument, a tool. It is there to be used for a specific task, and when the task is completed, you lay it down. As it is, I would say about 80 to 90 percent of most people's thinking is not only repetitive and useless, but because of its dysfunctional and often negative nature, much of it is also harmful. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy. " --Eckhart Tolle, in "The Power of Now"

The Girl Coming Out Of Padsan River

     She was a wisp of a girl, no more than 12 years of age. She was coming out of the river, a water jug on her head. Seconds later, she was making the ascent on the river bank, balancing  with her small brown hands the vessel containing sweet drinking water. When she walked the flat ground, the street where I lived, I caught her smile but her eyes essayed a long narrative of sadness. They were poor like us, with no source of water except the river.

***
     "The patient has to start by treating his illness not as a disaster, an occasion for depression or panic, but as a narrative, a story. Stories are antibodies against illness and pain."  ---Anatole Broyard

Notes To Josefino Zabala, Ex-future Nationalist Writer*

*the whole poem is included in the blogger's anthology of English-Ilokano poems, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger"




1.

Aristocratic fingers
Neither walk the yellow pages
     Of history.
Nor do they feel the pulse
Of the now-barren country
Whose impatient offsprings
Have gone away, lost
.....
,,,,
---
And the longing knows no end:
Who will miss the cool hills
     Of Sagada and Samoki?

2.

,,,,
Pinned against our cheek.

3.

The last stanza consists of 19 lines
,,,,
...
Tat end with:

By the tongues of fire-throwers
     And the politicians