I got the copy of the statement at about seven in the evening yesterday, and the moment I read it, I felt a different kind of foreboding.
Suddenly I was very afraid. No, I was not afraid for myself, but for the future of the country, because the statement, in its entirety, spoke volumes about the mind and feelings of a man who has irrevocably lost—renounced—his faith in the system of justice to which he had submitted himself five years ago.
“What if millions of other Filipinos felt the same way as the man did?” said I to myself.
The man is Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV and the statement is his six-page soliloquy on his exit from the court, his denouement of a politico-revolutionary drama in which he was a principal player: the Oakwood incident of 2003.
For those who have not kept track, Trillanes was supposed to testify yesterday as a witness for the defense—for himself and his band of revolutionists who are undergoing trial for the so-called Oakwood mutiny.
For reasons that can be gleaned from his statement reproduced below, the senator, who garnered 11 million votes in the May 2007 election but continues to languish in prison, declined, refused, to take the witness stand.
“Statement
“I am supposed to testify as a defense witness today in connection with my coup d’etat case at the Makati RTC. However, after much reflection, I decided to forego my testimony and write this letter instead.
“There are a few undisputed facts in this case: 1) That on 27 July 2003, I, together with 300 other officers and men, spoke the TRUTH; 2) No person was harmed; 3) No property was damaged; and 4) Not a single shot was fired. Yet, after almost five years in detention, we still stand accused of committing a crime that could have us incarcerated for life. Is this just? No. Did I ever regret my actions? No.
“Now, the prosecutors have allowed themselves to be used as instruments to further this injustice and the presiding judge may yet be pressured into convicting us, but everyone in this courtroom knows—deep in their hearts—that we are not criminals and definitely not a menace to society. On the contrary, we, the accused, have rendered faithful service to our Motherland; we have lived by the ideals thst our alma mater, the Philippine Military Academy, has taught us—COURAGE, INTEGRITY and LOYALTY. The physical and moral courage to stand up against what is wrong and to fight for what is right; the integrity to resist the lure and trappings of power and wealth; and the unbending loyalty to God, Country and People.
“The question now is, “Why are we in prison?” Indeed, why are we in prison when the TRUTH we spoke of on that fateful day has been validated time and again through the despicable revelations of crime and corruption committed by GMA and her cohorts? Why are we in prison when, through the recent elections, the Filipino people have affirmed the justness of our cause?
“In my search for the answers to these questions, I came across Henry David Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience, and I quote: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”
“Today, I refuse to participate any further in this travesty of justice, just as the GMA administration has lost all moral authority to render any judgment over me and my companions.
Do your worst, for we have already been acquitted by the people.
(Signed) Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV”
No matter how you look at it, no matter where you sit, this statement is an indictment of the tyrant in Malacanang, and, if you ask me, the clearest call yet for the people to rise up and shake off the chain that keeps them in bondage, yes, hostage, of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and his coterie of liars and thieves. This is an exhortation from a persecuted, albeit, elected official whom we might see as a prisoner still, until when, we don’t know.
Do your worst.
But is there anything worse that Macapagal Arroyo and his band of cheaters could do to Sen. Trillanes other than continue sneering at him, jeering at him, that he is in prison while they, the authors and perpetrators of a monumental injustice, remain scot-free; free to roam around the country; free to loot; and free to spin a web of lies to keep truth out?
Last year, I saw it coming. I saw infinite patience—personified by Trillanes—ending its clash with infinite greed and lust for revenge—embodied in Gloria Arroyo—when Trillanes and Gen. Lim walked out of that courtroom on that dark Thursday of November to proclaim yet again their Filipinoness. I said to myself then: “Watch out.”
So here it goes. Trillanes has stepped out, out into the yard; away from the clutches of a court that plays the tango music of the powers-that-be. Ninoy Aquino did the same bold step many years ago, when he denounced Marcos’s military tribunal as a “kangaroo court” and refused to be bound by its inane orders, restrictions, and verdict that led him to his heroic death.
Do your worst.
In a way, by ending his participation in a Malacanang-produced and GMA-directed moro-moro, Trillanes issued a challenge that none of us who are free, but who are not as courageous as he, can verbalize and stand up for.
In a way, his decision not to participate any longer in the continuing travesty of justice will free him more than it will free us. In a way, this alsa-balutan, which he should have done long ago bud did not because he is one of us, like us, patient and forgiving, will unclip his wings and immensely expand the boundaries of his patriotic imagination.
Maybe, his true place really as a just man is the prison, as he said it himself in quoting Thoreau. But come to think of it. Isn’t he the freer man than all of us? Are we not—who claims to be free—living in a bigger prison under the watchful gaze of a jailer gone berserk who “imprisons any unjustly”? If yes, where do we seek refuge? What do we do?
We do our worst. We rise up, for that is just.
Senator Mar Roxas said, three days before Trillanes walked out of the court hearing on November 29 last year, that “today, one cannot be a true Liberal and not be angry.”
“Where the people are thirsty for the truth, facts are withheld.
“That where the people are keen to engage their government, power is not shared.
“And where the people express themselves through the ballot, their votes are miscounted.
“And because people believe that their leaders are more preoccupied with self-interest rather than with a genuine public interest, we see and feel the helplessness, the cynicism, the despair, and now even the estrangement of the people from their government.”
It might be that Roxas was speaking of what Trillanes—and millions of other Filipinos—finally felt.
“Oras na!” as Roxas said last November.
The last straw snapped yesterday. Trillanes had the will and courage to break it.
Now, do your worst.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Not people power
The mainstream media is making a lot of fuss over the seemingly overarching intent of the people to oust Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from power through people power.
It is not to be blamed for this. The blame should be on those who salivate in making it to the six o’clock news and the headlines of the next day’s newspapers, and who wittingly use 15 minutes of fame to fan the flames of tension, to foment chaos, and to rally support for their cause.
But who are the people and do they really urgently desire to do another people power skit?
The people are only a front. They exist, they are real, but although they are aware of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s evil empire and of her lying, thieving, and murdering band, they are not in a rush to lay siege to Malacanang. They seem to be in no mood to join what to them is already a familiar game. They suspect, and rightly so, that they have seen this before and knew of the dire consequences, of the dismal results of such a political act. Particularly to them.
The people are the ordinary Filipinos. The Juan dela Cruzes who without fail daily go to the farms and factories for fear that they will go hungry the next day.
They are the teachers who, against their will, are forced by the State into election duties only to cheat.
They are the marginal fishermen, the construction laborers, the cleaners, and the market and ambulant vendors who are taxed to death by the ingenuous methods of government.
They are the underpaid government employees who cringe under the abuses of their officials, but because of economic insecurity, are forced to bear their sufferance in silence.
They are the upright soldiers and police officers who choose to get out of the chain-of-command because remaining there will infect them with the corruption of their superiors.
They are the drivers who are mulcted daily by the corrupt cops.
They are the OFWs bled dry of their hard-earned money by the vulture banks and remittance companies, by the illegal recruiters, and by an insensitive government.
They are the child laborers, the unemployed and unschooled youth, and the women who rush to walk their children to school because they have to hurry back soon to do the house chores.
These are the people, but they are powerless in influencing the outcome of political events, contrary to conventional wisdom. They only become powerful because the usual suspects imbue them with power at their convenience and for selfish motives. They have power, it is true, and they recognize this, but this they don’t easily tap and exercise. Thus, it is in this context that I say there is no such thing as people power in the truest sense of the word. The so-called EDSA people power was mob power, aided by military and police power—and anger at being so blatantly helpless to use real people power.
And the usual suspects?
They are not different from Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her ilk. They are the most vociferous of the lot.
They are the traditional politicians who are meek as lambs during election, but who become thick-skinned as crocodiles when they are in power.
They are the bishops and priests and nuns—the so-called arbiters of morality—who secretly accept State donations from gambling.
They are the retired top bureaucrats who do not worry as to their next meal, because they have skimmed off fat commissions when they were still in the State’s employ.
They are the regular militants who see every issue and event in this country as a cause for yet another street march, and the communists who see armed revolution as the only way to gain power, but in the process scheming how to screw the people when they get a chance at governing.
And of course, there are among them the hangers-on, the carpet baggers, the discontents, and the scum of society who exude holier-than-thou attitudes but whose character and behavior are as abominable as those of the current Malacanang occupant.
All these, including the capitalists who cannot obtain contracts or favors from the present dispensation, are in the crowd on-stage, waving flags and banners and shouting slogans when the TV cameras are on and when the press is shoving their microphones and tape recorders for a sound byte.
They are in a conspiracy to get Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s head, as Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is in a conspiracy with her subalterns to screw them—and the people.
Again, the people. So many crimes have been committed on their name and against them that one wonders what our country would be like without the people consenting on their being used as pawns in the abominable game of political power play.
The people have been used in the so-called EDSA revolutions. What did they get in return? A free press? But they don’t have earth-shaking sound bytes to deliver.
The right to vote? Maybe. But as Philippine election goes, the people don’t really vote in the strictest concept of democracy, another abused ideology by both the opposition and the administration. They are paid to vote, and on occasions they are not paid, their votes are regarded as stray, usually not counted, or often miscounted.
The opportunity for a better life? The people came to EDSA once, twice, thrice, yes. But they came to EDSA hungry, ill, naked and dispossessed. After three EDSAs, until now, they are still—perhaps more—hungry, ill, naked and dispossessed. After EDSA, a majority of the people are still jobless. They have no clean water. They can’t send their children to school. No healthcare. No houses. No land. No voice. Powerless.
Yet, the usual suspects that herded them to EDSA are the ones strutting like peacocks, wielding the levers of power of life and death over the people. And amassing enormous wealth, never mind if these are ill-gotten. This is the most unsettling and insulting of all.
And so, the national situation has come to this, when those who benefited from the so-called people power revolutions are now so afraid of their own kind, their own ghosts, actually--the usual suspects who were marginalized and unable to obtain power for themselves.
It’s a me-versus-you game, an administration versus the opposition power play, with the administration resorting to cheating, lying, and thieving to hold on mightily to power, and the opposition exhorting the people—yes, the people—to side with it so it can grab power for itself. Alone.
It’s never the game of the people, us, who are back to our silent suffering and unspeakable woe.
Again, as in previous upheavals, it has come to a stalemate, a painful wait-and-see scenario where everyone is eagerly watching if the people will succumb to yet another temptation of playing a marginal and surrogate role in the conflict of their selfish masters.
Chances are they will not, we will not, and I’m willing to bet my one year’s supply of gin that, absent a genuine people’s revolution, a national cleansing akin to a civil war, lead by one of us and from us, the oppression and abuse of the people—who are many—in the hands of the usual suspects—who are so few—will continue unabated.
It is not to be blamed for this. The blame should be on those who salivate in making it to the six o’clock news and the headlines of the next day’s newspapers, and who wittingly use 15 minutes of fame to fan the flames of tension, to foment chaos, and to rally support for their cause.
But who are the people and do they really urgently desire to do another people power skit?
The people are only a front. They exist, they are real, but although they are aware of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s evil empire and of her lying, thieving, and murdering band, they are not in a rush to lay siege to Malacanang. They seem to be in no mood to join what to them is already a familiar game. They suspect, and rightly so, that they have seen this before and knew of the dire consequences, of the dismal results of such a political act. Particularly to them.
The people are the ordinary Filipinos. The Juan dela Cruzes who without fail daily go to the farms and factories for fear that they will go hungry the next day.
They are the teachers who, against their will, are forced by the State into election duties only to cheat.
They are the marginal fishermen, the construction laborers, the cleaners, and the market and ambulant vendors who are taxed to death by the ingenuous methods of government.
They are the underpaid government employees who cringe under the abuses of their officials, but because of economic insecurity, are forced to bear their sufferance in silence.
They are the upright soldiers and police officers who choose to get out of the chain-of-command because remaining there will infect them with the corruption of their superiors.
They are the drivers who are mulcted daily by the corrupt cops.
They are the OFWs bled dry of their hard-earned money by the vulture banks and remittance companies, by the illegal recruiters, and by an insensitive government.
They are the child laborers, the unemployed and unschooled youth, and the women who rush to walk their children to school because they have to hurry back soon to do the house chores.
These are the people, but they are powerless in influencing the outcome of political events, contrary to conventional wisdom. They only become powerful because the usual suspects imbue them with power at their convenience and for selfish motives. They have power, it is true, and they recognize this, but this they don’t easily tap and exercise. Thus, it is in this context that I say there is no such thing as people power in the truest sense of the word. The so-called EDSA people power was mob power, aided by military and police power—and anger at being so blatantly helpless to use real people power.
And the usual suspects?
They are not different from Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her ilk. They are the most vociferous of the lot.
They are the traditional politicians who are meek as lambs during election, but who become thick-skinned as crocodiles when they are in power.
They are the bishops and priests and nuns—the so-called arbiters of morality—who secretly accept State donations from gambling.
They are the retired top bureaucrats who do not worry as to their next meal, because they have skimmed off fat commissions when they were still in the State’s employ.
They are the regular militants who see every issue and event in this country as a cause for yet another street march, and the communists who see armed revolution as the only way to gain power, but in the process scheming how to screw the people when they get a chance at governing.
And of course, there are among them the hangers-on, the carpet baggers, the discontents, and the scum of society who exude holier-than-thou attitudes but whose character and behavior are as abominable as those of the current Malacanang occupant.
All these, including the capitalists who cannot obtain contracts or favors from the present dispensation, are in the crowd on-stage, waving flags and banners and shouting slogans when the TV cameras are on and when the press is shoving their microphones and tape recorders for a sound byte.
They are in a conspiracy to get Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s head, as Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is in a conspiracy with her subalterns to screw them—and the people.
Again, the people. So many crimes have been committed on their name and against them that one wonders what our country would be like without the people consenting on their being used as pawns in the abominable game of political power play.
The people have been used in the so-called EDSA revolutions. What did they get in return? A free press? But they don’t have earth-shaking sound bytes to deliver.
The right to vote? Maybe. But as Philippine election goes, the people don’t really vote in the strictest concept of democracy, another abused ideology by both the opposition and the administration. They are paid to vote, and on occasions they are not paid, their votes are regarded as stray, usually not counted, or often miscounted.
The opportunity for a better life? The people came to EDSA once, twice, thrice, yes. But they came to EDSA hungry, ill, naked and dispossessed. After three EDSAs, until now, they are still—perhaps more—hungry, ill, naked and dispossessed. After EDSA, a majority of the people are still jobless. They have no clean water. They can’t send their children to school. No healthcare. No houses. No land. No voice. Powerless.
Yet, the usual suspects that herded them to EDSA are the ones strutting like peacocks, wielding the levers of power of life and death over the people. And amassing enormous wealth, never mind if these are ill-gotten. This is the most unsettling and insulting of all.
And so, the national situation has come to this, when those who benefited from the so-called people power revolutions are now so afraid of their own kind, their own ghosts, actually--the usual suspects who were marginalized and unable to obtain power for themselves.
It’s a me-versus-you game, an administration versus the opposition power play, with the administration resorting to cheating, lying, and thieving to hold on mightily to power, and the opposition exhorting the people—yes, the people—to side with it so it can grab power for itself. Alone.
It’s never the game of the people, us, who are back to our silent suffering and unspeakable woe.
Again, as in previous upheavals, it has come to a stalemate, a painful wait-and-see scenario where everyone is eagerly watching if the people will succumb to yet another temptation of playing a marginal and surrogate role in the conflict of their selfish masters.
Chances are they will not, we will not, and I’m willing to bet my one year’s supply of gin that, absent a genuine people’s revolution, a national cleansing akin to a civil war, lead by one of us and from us, the oppression and abuse of the people—who are many—in the hands of the usual suspects—who are so few—will continue unabated.
From Batlaw to Kusog: A journey to empowerment
This is a story that, however vainglorious, needed to be told.
As a person, I never had interest in holding any position of leadership chiefly for a personal reason: I am impatient. I always wanted to act on a problem at once. Most leaders are into making decisions for a group, not acting on group decisions. I decide mostly only for myself.
I also hate meetings. Leaders, to me, needed to attend—and stay alert in—meetings after meetings that eat a lot of time and often require mediation skills. To me, discussions are fine, but when these degenerate into debates, out I am. I am short in temper when discussing generalities. I want specifics.
This is why, when I was elected class mayor in my high school class of 1980, the first thing I did was to resign, which my teacher, I remember, Pepe Ferriol, did not accept.
In the university, I never accepted any position in school organizations except that of a member. I had no time then to lead, for I was working at the same time that I was studying.
When after graduation people invited me to head or lead this or that group, I politely declined, offering various reasons why leadership is not my cup of tea. I am clumsy in being a leader. In our alumni class organization, I remain a member up to this day.
All this have changed though. Today, I preside as chairman of Kusog Sibalenhon, Inc., a mutual benefit, self-help group which I organized from scratch in January this year.
Kusog Sibalenhon—Sibalenhon strength in English—before it came into being, was a basketball team with a strange but catchy name—Batlaw sa Lim-aw. Non-Asi readers will not understand what Batlaw sa Lim-aw means, so I will explain.
Lim-aw is pool of water, nature’s impounding system formed by the terrain in a stream in the mountain. Thus, lim-aw in my island of Sibale is a water catch-basin, where the women wash clothes and the men bathe. It’s the place where children sail their play boats, pretending the lim-aw to be an open sea. Lim-aw is a noun.
Batlaw is another Asi term. It is an adjective meaning “light of load”. A ship or boat that is batlaw sails fast, although a batlaw is makilis, meaning it is easily tossed by strong current or treacherous waves. At sea, it is preferable to sail batlaw when the sea is calm, and a little bit heavy-loaded—kargado—when the waters are rough.
Enough for this brief education in the Asi language.
As I was saying, Batlaw sa Lim-aw was a basketball team, and a champion at that. Vision, organizational unity, and strong commitment to achievable goals made that possible.
When in December 2007 I brought up the idea to transform the team into a formal non-government organization that will promote the interest of its members, not a few raised their eyebrows in disbelief.
You see, many Sibalenhon organizations have come and go, but very few ever make it past their registration stage. Many die a natural death, unable to accomplish what they set out to do in the first place.
A simple diagnostics of organizations tell me that without a vision and a common goal, without commitment and clear idea of where to go, organizations die as quickly as the moon fades after full moon. This has something to do with organizational leaders as well as members. In setting up an organization—whatever type it is—it must be very clear among members of a group what do they really want. The late Sen. Blas F. Ople, my mentor, used to tell me this in eloquent Tagalog: “Sa mundo, ang daming ipinapanganak at namamatay na hindi alam kung ano ang gusto sa buhay.” I have always lived by this tenet in all my life activities.
In organizing Kusog Sibalenhon, the members and I spent endless hours in debating what we really want to come out, to happen, to accomplish, after the basketball games. Having made it clear to everyone that there is much we can do if we stick together and utilize the productive, not destructive, values of the Sibalenhon, we decided to elevate the team to a higher level.
The championship game was the first test. Going to the last game as a heavy underdog, Batlaw sa Lim-aw beat the favorites by a huge margin. Focus, teammanship, resolve, hard work, belief in ourselves, and of course, sheer luck, enabled us to accomplish a seemingly impossible goal.
It is these values—plus a lot more—that we brought into Kusog. Last February 15, the organization conducted a successful fund-raising benefit dance at the social hall of the Lions Club in Lipa City. It was also an occasion for Kusog’s new officers to take their oath before a very successful Romblomanon, Manong Tiquio Famatigan, the first Bantonanon to establish a public accountancy office in the province of Batangas.
Kusog earned from the event a little over P10,000. With the championship prize money of P10,000 still intact, Kusog Sibalenhon is off to a good start. Our funds will be used to train members in practical skills that they could use to increase their employability and income. We have a lot of upcoming plans and we are encouraging other Sibalenhons to join us. The only requirement is a day of training on the values that every Kusog Sibalenhon members must imbibe.
As a community organizer, I have helped set-up many self-help groups in various provinces and towns in the Philippines. But helping organize your own kasimanwa—and Kusog Sibalenhon is my first organizational baby in Sibale which I have agreed to lead—is more satisfying and vastly different. The feeling is captured in the refrain of our theme song, Batlaw sa Lim-aw, which I composed:
Batlaw sa lim-aw, batlaw sa lim-aw
Ka Sibalenhon’y perming yutaw
Batlaw sa lim-aw sa pagyagadaw
Makusog ag a-usa ka ukaw
Gis-ak sa lip-ak, gis-ak sa lip-ak
Ka Sibalenhon ay nasupak
Miskan makusog sa kalalawran
Sa ato kina’y nupa’y kilis yang.
Readers may post comments here or e-mail them to balinsasadaw@yahoo.com or kanugkog@gmail.com.
As a person, I never had interest in holding any position of leadership chiefly for a personal reason: I am impatient. I always wanted to act on a problem at once. Most leaders are into making decisions for a group, not acting on group decisions. I decide mostly only for myself.
I also hate meetings. Leaders, to me, needed to attend—and stay alert in—meetings after meetings that eat a lot of time and often require mediation skills. To me, discussions are fine, but when these degenerate into debates, out I am. I am short in temper when discussing generalities. I want specifics.
This is why, when I was elected class mayor in my high school class of 1980, the first thing I did was to resign, which my teacher, I remember, Pepe Ferriol, did not accept.
In the university, I never accepted any position in school organizations except that of a member. I had no time then to lead, for I was working at the same time that I was studying.
When after graduation people invited me to head or lead this or that group, I politely declined, offering various reasons why leadership is not my cup of tea. I am clumsy in being a leader. In our alumni class organization, I remain a member up to this day.
All this have changed though. Today, I preside as chairman of Kusog Sibalenhon, Inc., a mutual benefit, self-help group which I organized from scratch in January this year.
Kusog Sibalenhon—Sibalenhon strength in English—before it came into being, was a basketball team with a strange but catchy name—Batlaw sa Lim-aw. Non-Asi readers will not understand what Batlaw sa Lim-aw means, so I will explain.
Lim-aw is pool of water, nature’s impounding system formed by the terrain in a stream in the mountain. Thus, lim-aw in my island of Sibale is a water catch-basin, where the women wash clothes and the men bathe. It’s the place where children sail their play boats, pretending the lim-aw to be an open sea. Lim-aw is a noun.
Batlaw is another Asi term. It is an adjective meaning “light of load”. A ship or boat that is batlaw sails fast, although a batlaw is makilis, meaning it is easily tossed by strong current or treacherous waves. At sea, it is preferable to sail batlaw when the sea is calm, and a little bit heavy-loaded—kargado—when the waters are rough.
Enough for this brief education in the Asi language.
As I was saying, Batlaw sa Lim-aw was a basketball team, and a champion at that. Vision, organizational unity, and strong commitment to achievable goals made that possible.
When in December 2007 I brought up the idea to transform the team into a formal non-government organization that will promote the interest of its members, not a few raised their eyebrows in disbelief.
You see, many Sibalenhon organizations have come and go, but very few ever make it past their registration stage. Many die a natural death, unable to accomplish what they set out to do in the first place.
A simple diagnostics of organizations tell me that without a vision and a common goal, without commitment and clear idea of where to go, organizations die as quickly as the moon fades after full moon. This has something to do with organizational leaders as well as members. In setting up an organization—whatever type it is—it must be very clear among members of a group what do they really want. The late Sen. Blas F. Ople, my mentor, used to tell me this in eloquent Tagalog: “Sa mundo, ang daming ipinapanganak at namamatay na hindi alam kung ano ang gusto sa buhay.” I have always lived by this tenet in all my life activities.
In organizing Kusog Sibalenhon, the members and I spent endless hours in debating what we really want to come out, to happen, to accomplish, after the basketball games. Having made it clear to everyone that there is much we can do if we stick together and utilize the productive, not destructive, values of the Sibalenhon, we decided to elevate the team to a higher level.
The championship game was the first test. Going to the last game as a heavy underdog, Batlaw sa Lim-aw beat the favorites by a huge margin. Focus, teammanship, resolve, hard work, belief in ourselves, and of course, sheer luck, enabled us to accomplish a seemingly impossible goal.
It is these values—plus a lot more—that we brought into Kusog. Last February 15, the organization conducted a successful fund-raising benefit dance at the social hall of the Lions Club in Lipa City. It was also an occasion for Kusog’s new officers to take their oath before a very successful Romblomanon, Manong Tiquio Famatigan, the first Bantonanon to establish a public accountancy office in the province of Batangas.
Kusog earned from the event a little over P10,000. With the championship prize money of P10,000 still intact, Kusog Sibalenhon is off to a good start. Our funds will be used to train members in practical skills that they could use to increase their employability and income. We have a lot of upcoming plans and we are encouraging other Sibalenhons to join us. The only requirement is a day of training on the values that every Kusog Sibalenhon members must imbibe.
As a community organizer, I have helped set-up many self-help groups in various provinces and towns in the Philippines. But helping organize your own kasimanwa—and Kusog Sibalenhon is my first organizational baby in Sibale which I have agreed to lead—is more satisfying and vastly different. The feeling is captured in the refrain of our theme song, Batlaw sa Lim-aw, which I composed:
Batlaw sa lim-aw, batlaw sa lim-aw
Ka Sibalenhon’y perming yutaw
Batlaw sa lim-aw sa pagyagadaw
Makusog ag a-usa ka ukaw
Gis-ak sa lip-ak, gis-ak sa lip-ak
Ka Sibalenhon ay nasupak
Miskan makusog sa kalalawran
Sa ato kina’y nupa’y kilis yang.
Readers may post comments here or e-mail them to balinsasadaw@yahoo.com or kanugkog@gmail.com.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Why I no longer believe
Dear President Arroyo:
When on April 12, 2007 you granted conditional pardon to one Jaime Ponce de Leon, a private contractor convicted of 27 counts of graft and sentenced to 203 years imprisonment by two divisions of the Sandiganbayan, but who didn’t spend a single second of his jail term precisely because of your act of condoning a criminal, I decided, right there and then, finally and irrevocably, not to believe anymore a word you say.
Pardon me, therefore, (that’s become your habit anyway), for writing you this letter. Like most ordinary Filipinos, I need a release, a safety valve, from the rising anger over your complete and unashamed prostitution of the presidency which you hijacked from Joseph Estrada in 2001, and stolen from Fernando Poe Jr. in 2004.
Forgive me, for like many ordinary citizens, I can no longer wait for the election in 2010, because this chance, this opportunity, to discard you and your company of highwaymen—robbers and killers—has become doubtful every passing day.
And now that I have in three paragraphs initially let out this long-repressed impression, allow me to proceed clear-headed, and to outline why your word has lost its value to a father.
Do you know Jose Rizal and do you remember that on his death anniversary on December 30, 2003, in a cold morning in Baguio City, you announced before a relieved nation that you will no longer stand for election in 2004?
If you do, then surely, you will remember that you said “Hello, Garci?” during those fateful days in the summer of 2004 because you lied and then scratched your itch to run and you actually ran?
But if you don’t, then why did you say “I’m sorry” after your administration shrieked in panic that the controversy over your cheating FPJ might consume yourself and your band?
This is—I believe—the root cause of all the troubles you are now having; troubles that, because you never took the effort to resolve, now hound and affect us, the ordinary Filipino citizens; troubles that won’t allow us—and you—to rest even if we are already very tired, for the truth.
“Magtapat ka sa kakaunting bagay, pamamahalain kita sa maraming bagay.”
This is a Bible verse with a promise. If only you knew this, it would have spurred you to do something quickly to stem the endless anomalies, scams, shenanigans, abuses, and other acts of criminal commissions and omissions in government even before they metastasized from rumor to fact.
Had you only heeded this Christian admonition, the affliction brought to us by your and your men’s naked gluttony for power and pelf would have been healed and God, as He promised, would have multiplied your dominion and enhanced your reputation. Alas, you didn’t, and look what happened. Our nation is suffering dearly from a crisis not of our own making. A crisis midwifed by a lie.
Why did I lose faith in your word?
Because many of the things you said—and continue to say—had and are the reverse of reality.
When, for example, you label those who oppose you by marching on the streets as terrorists, it is your men who actually terrorize us through their excessive use of power: armed force, extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances; sometimes even threats of BIR investigations.
When, for example, whistleblowers like Jun Lozada spill the beans on your officials—some of whom don’t know how to count votes but are accurate in counting dollar commissions—you say to us that accusations like this are politically motivated.
What can I say? You and your men have become experts at stretching the imagination to suit your purposes. Such as when your deputy spokesperson blamed Senator Antonio Trillanes IV last November for the rising LPG prices. And a sucker of a congressman for calling him un-Filipino.
When, for example, it is your husband who gets implicated in some wrong-doing and you and your daughter Luli say that your husband does not interfere in any government transaction, the truth according to the grapevine is that his imprint is visible in many government deals, minor and major. Like NBN-ZTE, etc.
And when you say ramdam na ramdam na ang paglago ng ekonomiya, the truth really is that ramdam na ramdam na ng iyong mga kurakot na alipores ang paglago ng kanilang kabuhayan at ari-arian. Just look at the number of Filipinos wanting to get out to work abroad even under despicable conditions and for insulting wages. This is the reverse of what you say.
Mrs. President, what else do you and your men need? You have enough wealth to last you several lifetimes. I don’t. Sixty five percent of the population certainly doesn’t, as most Filipino poor continue to cry for jobs, affordable health care, clean water as well as clean government, even a nighttime of peace and quiet.
You, who claim to be schooled in economics, say that progress will come if we only don’t march on the streets and agree to all the things that you do for us.
Alright, but what do we do when, in the dead of the night, your security forces come knocking on the doors of those who fight for us—the journalists and writers, the priests and nuns, and the patriotic soldiers—and snatch them and still their voices which are our voices, too?
What do we do when we see your men tripping over each other while lying through their teeth, while bribing congressmen and local officials, just to suppress the truth? You still want us to believe that is progress?
I have totally lost faith in your word.
I don’t anymore believe you will stamp out graft and corruption because you have been saying this for the last seven years with the result that graft and corruption have only multiplied manifold, not diminished a bit. Pray, tell, where is the P3 billion you allocated sometime a year ago to fight graft and corruption?
You say, "Bring your evidence to court". But some of the judges are your puppets. Take a look at Jaime Ponce de Leon. Take a longer look at Joseph Estrada. And take a look at your generals selling AFP rifles and diesel fuel to the enemies and short-changing the soldiers by withholding their allowances and uniforms and bullets. Consider the car smugglers also known as customs and police officials. In fact, consider everything evil in government, most of which lead to your doorstep even if these take long-winded routes before becoming public knowledge.
You want us to believe you, but do you believe us? Do you even listen to us?
I don’t anymore believe you have at heart the interest of our OFWs—the only ones really sustaining the economic life of the country.
For if you really care about them, you would have stamped out the corrupt at the Philippine Overseas and Employment Administration and other state organs, such as the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, who are in cahoots with some licensed recruitment agencies, airport immigration officials, unscrupulous foreign agencies and employers, in sucking the blood dry of unsuspecting and helpless migrants.
And I don’t believe anymore at your repetitive invocation of the rule of law. Rule of law?
Excuse me, but you are the number one violator of the laws of this country. The laws you have transgressed ranged from the simple traffic laws to the moral law of honesty to the constitutional tenets of human rights and liberties. You even refuse to yield your petty tyrants—Romulo Neri, come out!—to the legislative branch by invoking your presidential powers to keep them out of reach of legislative inquiries. You even defy the Supreme Court even if it has repeatedly admonished you.
And when you can no longer stem the rising, surging truth from coming out, your officials, I suspect with your full approbation, resort to threats, or bribery and, in the case of Jun Lozada, kidnapping.
You will really stop at nothing to perpetuate yourself in power. You have been intoxicated and refuse to come to your senses for fear of waking up with a painful hangover.
Mrs. President, you are getting isolated from reality as the days pass by. Perhaps, your view of the country from the Palace is still as rosy as your lieutenants paint the country to be. But realize that they are drawing open for you the heavy curtains of a wrong window.
The grim view is that the people are angry—very angry—at your hard-headedness, at your insolence, at your refusal to correct your mistakes. And at your men’s greed and abuse.
We don’t like you to walk the path of Marcos, but it increasingly looks like it’s where you are heading.
Don’t say you were not forewarned.
Sincerely,
Nicon Fameronag
When on April 12, 2007 you granted conditional pardon to one Jaime Ponce de Leon, a private contractor convicted of 27 counts of graft and sentenced to 203 years imprisonment by two divisions of the Sandiganbayan, but who didn’t spend a single second of his jail term precisely because of your act of condoning a criminal, I decided, right there and then, finally and irrevocably, not to believe anymore a word you say.
Pardon me, therefore, (that’s become your habit anyway), for writing you this letter. Like most ordinary Filipinos, I need a release, a safety valve, from the rising anger over your complete and unashamed prostitution of the presidency which you hijacked from Joseph Estrada in 2001, and stolen from Fernando Poe Jr. in 2004.
Forgive me, for like many ordinary citizens, I can no longer wait for the election in 2010, because this chance, this opportunity, to discard you and your company of highwaymen—robbers and killers—has become doubtful every passing day.
And now that I have in three paragraphs initially let out this long-repressed impression, allow me to proceed clear-headed, and to outline why your word has lost its value to a father.
Do you know Jose Rizal and do you remember that on his death anniversary on December 30, 2003, in a cold morning in Baguio City, you announced before a relieved nation that you will no longer stand for election in 2004?
If you do, then surely, you will remember that you said “Hello, Garci?” during those fateful days in the summer of 2004 because you lied and then scratched your itch to run and you actually ran?
But if you don’t, then why did you say “I’m sorry” after your administration shrieked in panic that the controversy over your cheating FPJ might consume yourself and your band?
This is—I believe—the root cause of all the troubles you are now having; troubles that, because you never took the effort to resolve, now hound and affect us, the ordinary Filipino citizens; troubles that won’t allow us—and you—to rest even if we are already very tired, for the truth.
“Magtapat ka sa kakaunting bagay, pamamahalain kita sa maraming bagay.”
This is a Bible verse with a promise. If only you knew this, it would have spurred you to do something quickly to stem the endless anomalies, scams, shenanigans, abuses, and other acts of criminal commissions and omissions in government even before they metastasized from rumor to fact.
Had you only heeded this Christian admonition, the affliction brought to us by your and your men’s naked gluttony for power and pelf would have been healed and God, as He promised, would have multiplied your dominion and enhanced your reputation. Alas, you didn’t, and look what happened. Our nation is suffering dearly from a crisis not of our own making. A crisis midwifed by a lie.
Why did I lose faith in your word?
Because many of the things you said—and continue to say—had and are the reverse of reality.
When, for example, you label those who oppose you by marching on the streets as terrorists, it is your men who actually terrorize us through their excessive use of power: armed force, extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances; sometimes even threats of BIR investigations.
When, for example, whistleblowers like Jun Lozada spill the beans on your officials—some of whom don’t know how to count votes but are accurate in counting dollar commissions—you say to us that accusations like this are politically motivated.
What can I say? You and your men have become experts at stretching the imagination to suit your purposes. Such as when your deputy spokesperson blamed Senator Antonio Trillanes IV last November for the rising LPG prices. And a sucker of a congressman for calling him un-Filipino.
When, for example, it is your husband who gets implicated in some wrong-doing and you and your daughter Luli say that your husband does not interfere in any government transaction, the truth according to the grapevine is that his imprint is visible in many government deals, minor and major. Like NBN-ZTE, etc.
And when you say ramdam na ramdam na ang paglago ng ekonomiya, the truth really is that ramdam na ramdam na ng iyong mga kurakot na alipores ang paglago ng kanilang kabuhayan at ari-arian. Just look at the number of Filipinos wanting to get out to work abroad even under despicable conditions and for insulting wages. This is the reverse of what you say.
Mrs. President, what else do you and your men need? You have enough wealth to last you several lifetimes. I don’t. Sixty five percent of the population certainly doesn’t, as most Filipino poor continue to cry for jobs, affordable health care, clean water as well as clean government, even a nighttime of peace and quiet.
You, who claim to be schooled in economics, say that progress will come if we only don’t march on the streets and agree to all the things that you do for us.
Alright, but what do we do when, in the dead of the night, your security forces come knocking on the doors of those who fight for us—the journalists and writers, the priests and nuns, and the patriotic soldiers—and snatch them and still their voices which are our voices, too?
What do we do when we see your men tripping over each other while lying through their teeth, while bribing congressmen and local officials, just to suppress the truth? You still want us to believe that is progress?
I have totally lost faith in your word.
I don’t anymore believe you will stamp out graft and corruption because you have been saying this for the last seven years with the result that graft and corruption have only multiplied manifold, not diminished a bit. Pray, tell, where is the P3 billion you allocated sometime a year ago to fight graft and corruption?
You say, "Bring your evidence to court". But some of the judges are your puppets. Take a look at Jaime Ponce de Leon. Take a longer look at Joseph Estrada. And take a look at your generals selling AFP rifles and diesel fuel to the enemies and short-changing the soldiers by withholding their allowances and uniforms and bullets. Consider the car smugglers also known as customs and police officials. In fact, consider everything evil in government, most of which lead to your doorstep even if these take long-winded routes before becoming public knowledge.
You want us to believe you, but do you believe us? Do you even listen to us?
I don’t anymore believe you have at heart the interest of our OFWs—the only ones really sustaining the economic life of the country.
For if you really care about them, you would have stamped out the corrupt at the Philippine Overseas and Employment Administration and other state organs, such as the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, who are in cahoots with some licensed recruitment agencies, airport immigration officials, unscrupulous foreign agencies and employers, in sucking the blood dry of unsuspecting and helpless migrants.
And I don’t believe anymore at your repetitive invocation of the rule of law. Rule of law?
Excuse me, but you are the number one violator of the laws of this country. The laws you have transgressed ranged from the simple traffic laws to the moral law of honesty to the constitutional tenets of human rights and liberties. You even refuse to yield your petty tyrants—Romulo Neri, come out!—to the legislative branch by invoking your presidential powers to keep them out of reach of legislative inquiries. You even defy the Supreme Court even if it has repeatedly admonished you.
And when you can no longer stem the rising, surging truth from coming out, your officials, I suspect with your full approbation, resort to threats, or bribery and, in the case of Jun Lozada, kidnapping.
You will really stop at nothing to perpetuate yourself in power. You have been intoxicated and refuse to come to your senses for fear of waking up with a painful hangover.
Mrs. President, you are getting isolated from reality as the days pass by. Perhaps, your view of the country from the Palace is still as rosy as your lieutenants paint the country to be. But realize that they are drawing open for you the heavy curtains of a wrong window.
The grim view is that the people are angry—very angry—at your hard-headedness, at your insolence, at your refusal to correct your mistakes. And at your men’s greed and abuse.
We don’t like you to walk the path of Marcos, but it increasingly looks like it’s where you are heading.
Don’t say you were not forewarned.
Sincerely,
Nicon Fameronag
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Kotong is dead. Long live kotong!
I was contemplating for a month to write about it, but I could not. It’s only now that I got the nerve because I was already suffering from stomach cramps just thinking that the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo administration was again able to make a fast one on us, the people, by lulling us into believing it was serious on this one. I mean, if it’s all “drowing”, then something must be said about this abominable crime that has become official business.
I refer to mulcting which in Manila’s street lingo means delihensya, lagay, or kotong.
It’s everywhere, and happening from Malacanang up the Pasig River down to the jeepney stop along Buendia Avenue near Taft.
In the middle November last year, in response to public clamor for lower bus and jeepney fares, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, instead of conducting a dialogue with the concerned sectors, made a stroke of genius. She created a task force called Kontra Kotong at Kolorum (KKK), with her factotums saying that this was the answer to higher transport fares resulting from surging oil prices.
Ang gagaling ng mga tinamaan ng lintik! Can you imagine that? It’s like burning down an entire house because it is infested with termites. Ang layo sa bituka ng naisip na solusyon.
Naghasik ng lagim ang pagkakatatag ng KKK. The mainstream media wrote about it and it made headlines. The head of the task force, retired general Roy Kiamco, even got himself interviewed on television. He boasted he will end extortion on the streets after a month. Naturally, drivers of kolorum vehicles shuddered at the thought. Police officers who were on the take wrung their hands in despair, for if they can no longer extort bribes from truck, bus, taxi, jeepney, tricyle, and tri-sikad drivers because Kiamco’s KKK will apprehend them, magugutom ang kanilang MGA pamilya. Talaga. Ang dami yatang binubuhay ng ilang pulis.
In the meantime, the unknowing public applauded. “Yehey, matitigil na ang kotong!” they said. “Mabuhay ang Pangulo ng Pilipinas!” said the Palace’s palakpak boys. “Mabuhay!” the paid supporters responded in unison.
Over a week of media fanfare made many believe that the government was serious. Kiamco and his task force members were seen around the metropolis, making arrests, as well as press conferences hyping up their new-found zeal in ending delihensya, lagay, and kotong.
But while Kiamco and his KKK army were in serious work, the big-time collectors, most of whom are high and powerful officials of the administration, went about their normal ways, making deals, collecting huge sums, and cooking up some more fabulous transactions. They collect not delihensya, lagay, or kotong, but commissions in fat amounts, away from the media’s prying eyes and the attention of the salivating public, of course. Kiamco cannot touch them. They were not covered by his mandate. They are not kolorum. They are “official”, with fine demeanors complementing their expensive business suits. They were not on the streets, but can be seen dining in fine restaurants and sipping lattes and margaritas in hotel lobbies.
A month after, or on December 15, the KKK’s self-imposed deadline, nothing was heard from Kiamco about his task force’s accomplishment or performance. But here’s a terse news about it in the Philippine Star:
“When it was launched last November 14, the Task Force Kontra Kotong at Kolorum promised to eradicate the problem on kotong (extortion) and kolorum (unregistered vehicles) by December 15.
“Last December 7, a total of 160 unregistered vehicles have been impounded as part of the inter-government agency campaign to finally stop kotong by some police officers and traffic enforcers and kolorum vehicles, which cost an ordinary taxi or jeepney driver P7,000 a month.
“But drivers said they hardly felt the campaign as unscrupulous traffic enforcers from different government agencies continue their illegal activities to the detriment of the jeepney drivers and operators.”
Ano ba yan? We thought KKK is for real. 'Yon pala, press release lang.
Kotong is dead? Manigas kayo.
I refer to mulcting which in Manila’s street lingo means delihensya, lagay, or kotong.
It’s everywhere, and happening from Malacanang up the Pasig River down to the jeepney stop along Buendia Avenue near Taft.
In the middle November last year, in response to public clamor for lower bus and jeepney fares, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, instead of conducting a dialogue with the concerned sectors, made a stroke of genius. She created a task force called Kontra Kotong at Kolorum (KKK), with her factotums saying that this was the answer to higher transport fares resulting from surging oil prices.
Ang gagaling ng mga tinamaan ng lintik! Can you imagine that? It’s like burning down an entire house because it is infested with termites. Ang layo sa bituka ng naisip na solusyon.
Naghasik ng lagim ang pagkakatatag ng KKK. The mainstream media wrote about it and it made headlines. The head of the task force, retired general Roy Kiamco, even got himself interviewed on television. He boasted he will end extortion on the streets after a month. Naturally, drivers of kolorum vehicles shuddered at the thought. Police officers who were on the take wrung their hands in despair, for if they can no longer extort bribes from truck, bus, taxi, jeepney, tricyle, and tri-sikad drivers because Kiamco’s KKK will apprehend them, magugutom ang kanilang MGA pamilya. Talaga. Ang dami yatang binubuhay ng ilang pulis.
In the meantime, the unknowing public applauded. “Yehey, matitigil na ang kotong!” they said. “Mabuhay ang Pangulo ng Pilipinas!” said the Palace’s palakpak boys. “Mabuhay!” the paid supporters responded in unison.
Over a week of media fanfare made many believe that the government was serious. Kiamco and his task force members were seen around the metropolis, making arrests, as well as press conferences hyping up their new-found zeal in ending delihensya, lagay, and kotong.
But while Kiamco and his KKK army were in serious work, the big-time collectors, most of whom are high and powerful officials of the administration, went about their normal ways, making deals, collecting huge sums, and cooking up some more fabulous transactions. They collect not delihensya, lagay, or kotong, but commissions in fat amounts, away from the media’s prying eyes and the attention of the salivating public, of course. Kiamco cannot touch them. They were not covered by his mandate. They are not kolorum. They are “official”, with fine demeanors complementing their expensive business suits. They were not on the streets, but can be seen dining in fine restaurants and sipping lattes and margaritas in hotel lobbies.
A month after, or on December 15, the KKK’s self-imposed deadline, nothing was heard from Kiamco about his task force’s accomplishment or performance. But here’s a terse news about it in the Philippine Star:
“When it was launched last November 14, the Task Force Kontra Kotong at Kolorum promised to eradicate the problem on kotong (extortion) and kolorum (unregistered vehicles) by December 15.
“Last December 7, a total of 160 unregistered vehicles have been impounded as part of the inter-government agency campaign to finally stop kotong by some police officers and traffic enforcers and kolorum vehicles, which cost an ordinary taxi or jeepney driver P7,000 a month.
“But drivers said they hardly felt the campaign as unscrupulous traffic enforcers from different government agencies continue their illegal activities to the detriment of the jeepney drivers and operators.”
Ano ba yan? We thought KKK is for real. 'Yon pala, press release lang.
Kotong is dead? Manigas kayo.
I was in Nigeria, says this thief of my e-mail password
Today, January 25, I lost my e-mail account without really trying.
Early in the morning, Ellen Tordesillas, a friend who writes opinion pieces in Malaya and Abante newspapers, called to ask if I am in Nigeria.
Surprised, I told her no, I am in Manila, and that I was preparing breakfast. Then I asked her why.
She said I sent her an e-mail frantically requesting for help; in that e-mail, I allegedly said I was in dire need of US$680 plus plus for my expenses as I was said to have lost my passport and money in a cab and that I had been stranded in some decrepit hotel in Lagos. I was allegedly in Nigeria on the way to some civil society conference in Ghana.
I laughed out loud, and said that if ever I would travel at this time of the year, it would not be to Nigeria, but to South Carolina to observe the presidential primaries.
Be serious, Ellen said, for I might not be the only one who received your e-mail call for help. That my friends to whom I might have sent the email might really send me money through Western Union (Ellen said "my email" has instructions to send the money through Western Union!).
True enough, my next caller was another friend who asked where he can send the money. He also received the email Ellen T. received. Then another call from Jun de Vera, then another call from Jing L. All were worried and were asking how I am.
I said I am alright. That I don't need dollars (I need pesos), but I am not one to molest my friends through email. May delicadeza naman ako, no! What I'd do, I told these friends, if ever I need money, I will send a collector from the BIR. Or travel with them to China ala Abalos and then and there demand that I be paid commission for an overpriced project. Ha ha ha.
It was when another friend called up telling me that he is at Western Union to send me US$133 that I sensed something has gone awfully terribly wrong; that some recipients of that fictitious e-mail are believing the email that I am in dire straits.
Oh, no, I told myself. What if the nasty, wayward email (a scam actually) was received by the wife and she actually sends me US$680? I haven't seen her for a day and she might suspect I have a girlfriend. Lagot ako.
So what I did, after realizing how serious this scam was, was to run to the nearest Internet cafe to read my e-mail for the day. When I got there, I could no longer open my mail.
What happened? I don't know. Somebody must have stolen my password and used my Yahoo account to solicit money, just what Ellen T. and the rest who received the email have said.
Then, I remember that a friend of mine, OWWA Director Vivian Tornea, was victimized in the same manner last year. It was actually I who called her attention about it, asking if she was in Spain where "her SOS email" said she was stranded and hospitalized and that because she had no money, she summoned the courage to ask help from friends.
Now, I have lost my old masursor@yahoo.com account. Goodbye, masursor@yahoo.com. Whoever stole you, I am sure of it now, will have pink urine and have rubber bands in his/her waste every morning. Akala nyo, hindi kayo tatalban ng kulam ng Taga Masursor? Wait until you see it.
My new email is balinsasadaw@yahoo.com. From hereon, email me in this address. balinsasadaw@yahoo.com will not be stolen, I hope. I have entrusted my password for this account to the Bangko Sentral.
With this, may I request for your help by disseminating my new e-mail address to friends. Why this request? Bacause my yahoo directory also got pirated. So be warned. Any email from hereon emanating from masursor@yahoo.com is not mine. It comes from a phantom robber who must be suffering from stomach cramps as I write this.
Postscript: Three days after I was able to e-mail again using my new e-mail address, I still received calls asking if indeed I am in Nigeria. I had to repeat my story.
This sorry episode in my "online life" keeps me wondering how in the world the thief of my e-mail account did it. If you have some explanation, I would welcome it. Again, please send it to balinsasadaw@yahoo.com, not to masursor@yahoo.com.
Early in the morning, Ellen Tordesillas, a friend who writes opinion pieces in Malaya and Abante newspapers, called to ask if I am in Nigeria.
Surprised, I told her no, I am in Manila, and that I was preparing breakfast. Then I asked her why.
She said I sent her an e-mail frantically requesting for help; in that e-mail, I allegedly said I was in dire need of US$680 plus plus for my expenses as I was said to have lost my passport and money in a cab and that I had been stranded in some decrepit hotel in Lagos. I was allegedly in Nigeria on the way to some civil society conference in Ghana.
I laughed out loud, and said that if ever I would travel at this time of the year, it would not be to Nigeria, but to South Carolina to observe the presidential primaries.
Be serious, Ellen said, for I might not be the only one who received your e-mail call for help. That my friends to whom I might have sent the email might really send me money through Western Union (Ellen said "my email" has instructions to send the money through Western Union!).
True enough, my next caller was another friend who asked where he can send the money. He also received the email Ellen T. received. Then another call from Jun de Vera, then another call from Jing L. All were worried and were asking how I am.
I said I am alright. That I don't need dollars (I need pesos), but I am not one to molest my friends through email. May delicadeza naman ako, no! What I'd do, I told these friends, if ever I need money, I will send a collector from the BIR. Or travel with them to China ala Abalos and then and there demand that I be paid commission for an overpriced project. Ha ha ha.
It was when another friend called up telling me that he is at Western Union to send me US$133 that I sensed something has gone awfully terribly wrong; that some recipients of that fictitious e-mail are believing the email that I am in dire straits.
Oh, no, I told myself. What if the nasty, wayward email (a scam actually) was received by the wife and she actually sends me US$680? I haven't seen her for a day and she might suspect I have a girlfriend. Lagot ako.
So what I did, after realizing how serious this scam was, was to run to the nearest Internet cafe to read my e-mail for the day. When I got there, I could no longer open my mail.
What happened? I don't know. Somebody must have stolen my password and used my Yahoo account to solicit money, just what Ellen T. and the rest who received the email have said.
Then, I remember that a friend of mine, OWWA Director Vivian Tornea, was victimized in the same manner last year. It was actually I who called her attention about it, asking if she was in Spain where "her SOS email" said she was stranded and hospitalized and that because she had no money, she summoned the courage to ask help from friends.
Now, I have lost my old masursor@yahoo.com account. Goodbye, masursor@yahoo.com. Whoever stole you, I am sure of it now, will have pink urine and have rubber bands in his/her waste every morning. Akala nyo, hindi kayo tatalban ng kulam ng Taga Masursor? Wait until you see it.
My new email is balinsasadaw@yahoo.com. From hereon, email me in this address. balinsasadaw@yahoo.com will not be stolen, I hope. I have entrusted my password for this account to the Bangko Sentral.
With this, may I request for your help by disseminating my new e-mail address to friends. Why this request? Bacause my yahoo directory also got pirated. So be warned. Any email from hereon emanating from masursor@yahoo.com is not mine. It comes from a phantom robber who must be suffering from stomach cramps as I write this.
Postscript: Three days after I was able to e-mail again using my new e-mail address, I still received calls asking if indeed I am in Nigeria. I had to repeat my story.
This sorry episode in my "online life" keeps me wondering how in the world the thief of my e-mail account did it. If you have some explanation, I would welcome it. Again, please send it to balinsasadaw@yahoo.com, not to masursor@yahoo.com.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Why did Trillanes do it?
(Published by The Manila Times on 26 December 2007)
Less than a month after Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim walked out of a court hearing at the Makati City Hall and trudged off to the Manila Peninsula Hotel to demand, in full view of the media, that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo resign from the presidency, only to be arrested later in the day as common criminals, many Filipinos have become familiar with how such incident happened, but could not still get a sane sense of why it happened.
Well, an excess of epithets, tons of it, had been thrown during the last four weeks, against Trillanes, wrapped in gilded gift boxes by GMA partisans, traditional politicians, and kibitzers and delivered through the mainstream media, but these were expected. In carrying forward his revolution to oust Arroyo to be able to effect genuine systemic change in the country, Trillanes recognizes the important and legitimate role of the media in society but had never engaged—will not engage—in traditional means to ingratiate himself or his cause to the “fourth estate”. In Trillanes, WYSIWYG.
Thus, nary a whimper or whine has been heard from the Trillanes camp, even if it knew that the painful truth has been buried deep under an avalanche of lies. Thus, when the barrage of criticism, most bordering on calumny, started streaming in immediately after the Peninsula incident, Trillanes could only chuckle, his faint smile hinting that he was satisfied that one of the many steps toward change has been accomplished. “We were defeated in this one, but we have not failed,” he told me. “Deretso lang tayo. Let us do our duty,” he added.
Such is Trillanes’s conviction, his undiluted courage, that one was wont to entertain the hope that had he had a plan to forcibly takeover the government on November 29, as the Arroyo administration now wants the public to believe, that plan would succeed. Then victory would have sired a thousand fathers, with the onrush of arm-chair revolutionists and “I-told-you-so” siguristas planting stakes to own part of the revolution they themselves should have initiated, but did not because of their cowardice.
As a young change advocate, Trillanes knew that charlatans inhabit the country’s political spectrum. They are all over, occupying positions of power and possessing filthy wealth that could be used against him and his horde of believers. He knew that paid hacks in the media could continue to paint him in a bad light, ridicule him even. But have these facts deterred him from pursuing his cause? The Peninsula incident showed that not even handcuffs, police boots grinding on his hands because of hate, and the prospect of long incarceration, can douse the burning fire of his desire to reform Philippine society.
The debate on the Trillanes “caper” had focused on his alleged method. “I agree with what he wanted to accomplish but am against his means to achieve it,” was the familiar chorus heard. This debate can go on and on, yet it will not settle matters. For Trillanes’s method is to act, not to fence-sit and be co-opted, as most who criticized him do—and did on that fateful day.
I even now suspect that most of the calumny heaped upon Trillanes was a result of the nagging feeling of guilt that the critics felt for themselves: that unlike Trillanes, they don’t have the capacity to stand-up against Gloria, like what police Gen. Geary Barias did, who employed the sociological method of transference by venting his barbaric anger to Trillanes’s wrist and by hauling him off to the bus in his trousers. In short, it’s the feeling of supreme inadequacy—ok, the lack of balls—that ignited the extreme criticisms.
The hoped-for focus of the national discussion on why Trillanes did what he did should be on the action, for at the end of the day, it will boil down to the oft-repeated admonition of President John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what the country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Trillanes is a fool, said Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, but who believes a public official who faked his own ambush to entrench a dictator? In saying he himself contemplated killing himself had he failed in the EDSA Revolution, Enrile knew that this was a comfortable option than the AFP’s dark and cold torture chambers where Marcos critics were conveniently herded and isolated.
But of all the silly comments thrown in after the November 29 incident, the one that provoked incredulity was the statement of a Malacanang factotum that Trillanes was the cause of rising LPG prices. Hep-hep, hooray! Macapagal Arroyo, who claims to be an economist, should have squirmed at this comment, bud did she? She must even have delighted in such inanity.
Then, there was the criticism of a non-entity that became fleetingly one after the November 29 incident, obviously upon the prodding of Malacanang. The non-existent group said Trillanes was un-Filipino.
Arroyo’s hirelings have used this line before, in the election of 2004 (remember “Hello, Garci?”) against the late Fernando Poe, Jr. They even filed a disqualification case against FPJ, alleging he was not a Filipino. Well, the court said he was a Philippine citizen, but he was dead. Trillanes, like FPJ, is a Filipino and he is alive, thanks to the tender mercies of his guards who refused to follow the alleged order of Gen. Esperon to waste him during the Peninsula incident.
The African writer, Chinhua Achebe, was it who said that a tiger need not proclaim his tigritude. Trillanes need not proclaim his “Filipinoness” to be considered a Filipino. He won by 11 million votes during the May 14, 2007 elections despite of the efforts of this administration to repeat “Hello, Garci?”
But why did Trillanes attempt a failed revolution? Because it was there, in the first place, to be waged, like a mountain waiting to be climbed.
The objective conditions to dislodge a corrupt despot are ripe. It’s not only the surveys which say so. Even the traditional politicians from both sides of the fence and who will be the first to become unhappy ones once genuine systemic change takes effect, say so. Even the soldiers, who are gagged by Esperon, say so. The teachers, the OFWs, the farmers and fishermen say so. The Church . . . well, forget the Church in the meantime. My daughter, Lara, says so. Only the paid hacks and the bribe-able politicians, the local government officials, the crony-authors of ZTE and Transco, and cyber-ed ad nauseam, say GMA must be president for life.
In short, ramdam na ramdam na na kailangang patalsikin sa puwesto si GMA dahil puro kasiphayuan ang dala sa sambayanang Pilipino.
And how should this be accomplished? Armed insurrection? People Power? Election? Cha-cha? Impeachment? Refer back to the statement of Gen. Lim at the Peninsula on November 29.
The revolution that we ought to wage is a work-in-progress. It is not correct to say that our national cancer is curable only by an election in 2010, although that is a prescription that, as 2008 enters, is becoming a remote possibility, given Gloria’s gluttony for political power. Paging Mar Roxas, Manny Villar, Loren Legarda, Richard Gordon, Noli de Castro, and Panfilo Lacson. Tell us if there will be a 2010.
Trillanes did what he did because a revolution never waits for timing. A revolutionist who waits for favorable winds before he sails faces the unintended consequence of getting suffocated by the short bursts of wind that come between a real storm and a perfect calm.
A writer, said Nadine Gordimer, writes because he or she doesn’t want to be suffocated by the demons inhabiting his or her soul. A revolutionist wages a revolution because he doesn’t want to get waylaid by stifling concerns and worries of who’s on his side and what do they bring upfront. He only keeps worrying if his revolution is on the side of the people. Once he is sure of it, he tries to know and to understand that whatever the outcome of his revolution, a correct step is taken.
The Philippine Revolution of 1896 was not a single act of settling societal contradictions. It was a series of steps, of bloody wars, of defeats and victories, of retreat and consolidation that dates back to Lapu-Lapu in Mactan.
The revolution Trillanes is waging is only one of those steps, yet because of the dire predicament the Filipinos are in, they dare look at it as if it is the final chapter of the effort to free them from the malice of misgovernance and from the claws of a corrupt government. We cannot blame them. They have been waiting for redemption since 2001.
Less than a month after Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim walked out of a court hearing at the Makati City Hall and trudged off to the Manila Peninsula Hotel to demand, in full view of the media, that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo resign from the presidency, only to be arrested later in the day as common criminals, many Filipinos have become familiar with how such incident happened, but could not still get a sane sense of why it happened.
Well, an excess of epithets, tons of it, had been thrown during the last four weeks, against Trillanes, wrapped in gilded gift boxes by GMA partisans, traditional politicians, and kibitzers and delivered through the mainstream media, but these were expected. In carrying forward his revolution to oust Arroyo to be able to effect genuine systemic change in the country, Trillanes recognizes the important and legitimate role of the media in society but had never engaged—will not engage—in traditional means to ingratiate himself or his cause to the “fourth estate”. In Trillanes, WYSIWYG.
Thus, nary a whimper or whine has been heard from the Trillanes camp, even if it knew that the painful truth has been buried deep under an avalanche of lies. Thus, when the barrage of criticism, most bordering on calumny, started streaming in immediately after the Peninsula incident, Trillanes could only chuckle, his faint smile hinting that he was satisfied that one of the many steps toward change has been accomplished. “We were defeated in this one, but we have not failed,” he told me. “Deretso lang tayo. Let us do our duty,” he added.
Such is Trillanes’s conviction, his undiluted courage, that one was wont to entertain the hope that had he had a plan to forcibly takeover the government on November 29, as the Arroyo administration now wants the public to believe, that plan would succeed. Then victory would have sired a thousand fathers, with the onrush of arm-chair revolutionists and “I-told-you-so” siguristas planting stakes to own part of the revolution they themselves should have initiated, but did not because of their cowardice.
As a young change advocate, Trillanes knew that charlatans inhabit the country’s political spectrum. They are all over, occupying positions of power and possessing filthy wealth that could be used against him and his horde of believers. He knew that paid hacks in the media could continue to paint him in a bad light, ridicule him even. But have these facts deterred him from pursuing his cause? The Peninsula incident showed that not even handcuffs, police boots grinding on his hands because of hate, and the prospect of long incarceration, can douse the burning fire of his desire to reform Philippine society.
The debate on the Trillanes “caper” had focused on his alleged method. “I agree with what he wanted to accomplish but am against his means to achieve it,” was the familiar chorus heard. This debate can go on and on, yet it will not settle matters. For Trillanes’s method is to act, not to fence-sit and be co-opted, as most who criticized him do—and did on that fateful day.
I even now suspect that most of the calumny heaped upon Trillanes was a result of the nagging feeling of guilt that the critics felt for themselves: that unlike Trillanes, they don’t have the capacity to stand-up against Gloria, like what police Gen. Geary Barias did, who employed the sociological method of transference by venting his barbaric anger to Trillanes’s wrist and by hauling him off to the bus in his trousers. In short, it’s the feeling of supreme inadequacy—ok, the lack of balls—that ignited the extreme criticisms.
The hoped-for focus of the national discussion on why Trillanes did what he did should be on the action, for at the end of the day, it will boil down to the oft-repeated admonition of President John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what the country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
Trillanes is a fool, said Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, but who believes a public official who faked his own ambush to entrench a dictator? In saying he himself contemplated killing himself had he failed in the EDSA Revolution, Enrile knew that this was a comfortable option than the AFP’s dark and cold torture chambers where Marcos critics were conveniently herded and isolated.
But of all the silly comments thrown in after the November 29 incident, the one that provoked incredulity was the statement of a Malacanang factotum that Trillanes was the cause of rising LPG prices. Hep-hep, hooray! Macapagal Arroyo, who claims to be an economist, should have squirmed at this comment, bud did she? She must even have delighted in such inanity.
Then, there was the criticism of a non-entity that became fleetingly one after the November 29 incident, obviously upon the prodding of Malacanang. The non-existent group said Trillanes was un-Filipino.
Arroyo’s hirelings have used this line before, in the election of 2004 (remember “Hello, Garci?”) against the late Fernando Poe, Jr. They even filed a disqualification case against FPJ, alleging he was not a Filipino. Well, the court said he was a Philippine citizen, but he was dead. Trillanes, like FPJ, is a Filipino and he is alive, thanks to the tender mercies of his guards who refused to follow the alleged order of Gen. Esperon to waste him during the Peninsula incident.
The African writer, Chinhua Achebe, was it who said that a tiger need not proclaim his tigritude. Trillanes need not proclaim his “Filipinoness” to be considered a Filipino. He won by 11 million votes during the May 14, 2007 elections despite of the efforts of this administration to repeat “Hello, Garci?”
But why did Trillanes attempt a failed revolution? Because it was there, in the first place, to be waged, like a mountain waiting to be climbed.
The objective conditions to dislodge a corrupt despot are ripe. It’s not only the surveys which say so. Even the traditional politicians from both sides of the fence and who will be the first to become unhappy ones once genuine systemic change takes effect, say so. Even the soldiers, who are gagged by Esperon, say so. The teachers, the OFWs, the farmers and fishermen say so. The Church . . . well, forget the Church in the meantime. My daughter, Lara, says so. Only the paid hacks and the bribe-able politicians, the local government officials, the crony-authors of ZTE and Transco, and cyber-ed ad nauseam, say GMA must be president for life.
In short, ramdam na ramdam na na kailangang patalsikin sa puwesto si GMA dahil puro kasiphayuan ang dala sa sambayanang Pilipino.
And how should this be accomplished? Armed insurrection? People Power? Election? Cha-cha? Impeachment? Refer back to the statement of Gen. Lim at the Peninsula on November 29.
The revolution that we ought to wage is a work-in-progress. It is not correct to say that our national cancer is curable only by an election in 2010, although that is a prescription that, as 2008 enters, is becoming a remote possibility, given Gloria’s gluttony for political power. Paging Mar Roxas, Manny Villar, Loren Legarda, Richard Gordon, Noli de Castro, and Panfilo Lacson. Tell us if there will be a 2010.
Trillanes did what he did because a revolution never waits for timing. A revolutionist who waits for favorable winds before he sails faces the unintended consequence of getting suffocated by the short bursts of wind that come between a real storm and a perfect calm.
A writer, said Nadine Gordimer, writes because he or she doesn’t want to be suffocated by the demons inhabiting his or her soul. A revolutionist wages a revolution because he doesn’t want to get waylaid by stifling concerns and worries of who’s on his side and what do they bring upfront. He only keeps worrying if his revolution is on the side of the people. Once he is sure of it, he tries to know and to understand that whatever the outcome of his revolution, a correct step is taken.
The Philippine Revolution of 1896 was not a single act of settling societal contradictions. It was a series of steps, of bloody wars, of defeats and victories, of retreat and consolidation that dates back to Lapu-Lapu in Mactan.
The revolution Trillanes is waging is only one of those steps, yet because of the dire predicament the Filipinos are in, they dare look at it as if it is the final chapter of the effort to free them from the malice of misgovernance and from the claws of a corrupt government. We cannot blame them. They have been waiting for redemption since 2001.
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