As the film begins, we see Owen (Rico Blanco) and Mariella (Angelica Panganiban) are fighting in a car by a lake. It appears that Owen has left his wife to be with Mariella, and is angry that Mariella is not willing to make the same sacrifice. The fight turns violent, and Owen has hit Mariella through the car window. Mariella tries to escape from the car, and the scene cuts to flashback.

We see Mariella telling her husband, Ivan (Dingdong Dantes), that her best friend, Samantha needs company and she drives off into the night. Later that evening, their daughter Angel (Sofia Villarama) comes to Ivan looking for her mother, and Ivan tells Angel that her mother has gone away.

There is a car that passes by in the area where a bloody Mariella is looking for help, in the middle of a rainstorm. The driver and his passenger are singing Christmas carols in the car, Mariella knows she is dead.

Mabel (Kris Aquino) owns an antique store. She is the only child of her mother, Adela (Helen Gamboa). It is revealed that Mabel’s only sibling, Marie (Sharlene San Pedro), was lost in an accident when they were children. Of late, Marie’s ghost haunts their home on the anniversary of her loss. Adela and Mabel visit a fortune teller, Manang Letty, to try to communicate with Marie, but fail.

One rainy day, Ivan meets Mabel as he splashes her with water from his car, and he offers to take her to her antique store. Over time, they begin to develop a relationship.

One year later, Ivan proposes, even though his annulment from Mariella is not yet over. Ivan takes Mabel to his home where Angel greets her icily.

The house help cannot help but compare Mabel and Mariella, and this makes Ivan angry. As Ivan apologizes in the car and proposes, Angel interrupts as Mabel and Ivan kiss. It begins to rain, drenching Angel. Mabel takes a cab home and passes through the lake where we last see Mariella. Mariella haunts the cab, appearing inside the cab as well.

While discussing their relationship in a restaurant, Samantha (Angel Jacob) spots Ivan, who notes that she has returned from New York. Samantha is dressed up to the nines, and as she expresses her interest in Ivan, Mabel becomes insecure. Meanwhile, Mabel’s attempts at winning Angel’s heart continues to be rebuffed.

On some poor, but well meaning advice from Mabel’s best friend, Anna (Bangs Garcia), Mabel buys Mariella’s red Prada bag at Anna’s store in a fit of retail therapy. Anna’s boyfriend, Dindo (Jhong Hilario), a security guard at the mall of Anna’s store, offers to help Mabel but instead sees an apparition of Mabel.

Later that evening, Mariella makes her presence felt through her bag at Ivan’s home. Angel wonders why Mabel has Mariella’s bag and demands an explanation. Mabel scans through Mariella’s pictures, noticing a black car that Ivan gave to Mariella as a gift. Shortly after, she sees an apparition of Mariella through the window.

At a loss at what to do, Anna suggests more retail therapy. As Mabel tries on a dress, Mariella makes her presence felt to Mabel inside the dressing room. Before Mabel could get out of her dress, Dindo calls Anna and Mabel to review CCTV footage that shows Mariella passing through a solid wooden door and following Mabel. Upon closer inspection, Mabel notices that the dress she tried on earlier, which she is still wearing, is the same dress as that on Mariella in her apparitions. Freaked out, the bag and the dress go into the trash bin at the mall entrance.

Samantha has been trying to seduce Ivan, after hinting at a one night stand on the date Mariella disappeared, but Ivan refuses her advances. Samantha tells Ivan that she knows about Mariella’s indiscretions with Owen, but that gets no response.

Anna, who is now taking Mabel home, freaks out when she sees Mariella, the bag, and her dress, suddenly appear in the back seat of her car. She stops the car and leaves the items by the opposite roadside. At the same time, Samantha “jumps” out her window after seeing Mariella in her apartment.

Ivan refuses to believe Mariella is dead. They fight over Mariella’s death after Mabel lets Ivan know that she has been seeing Mariella’s ghost. Mabel has brought a CD containing the footage. Mabel confronts Ivan, who still insists Mariella abandoned him and Angel. Mabel wonders why Ivan never bothered to look for Mariella in the United States.

Sometime later, Angel and Mabel reconcile, after Mabel rushes to her side at hospital. While this is happening, Marie haunts Adela. Mariella’s bag and dress appear at door just as Mabel goes home. While tending to Angel later that evening, the maid lets slip that she knows Mariella has died.

It is revealed later that Ivan witnessed his father (Ian Veneracion) commit suicide after seeing his lover cheat on his father. It appears that Ivan is not over this trauma.

Mabel and Anna turn to Manang Letty for advice, the bags having reappeared at their side. At a séance with Scooby-Doo like position switching. Mabel is told Mariella’s soul has been released, from its trap, and only way to set her soul free is to leave the bag in church. Mabel prays to God for assistance, leaves bag in church while with Ivan. They are told that only people without a conscience cannot see spirits.

An old lady who has been sleeping inside the church sees the bag and gets it. As she walks out of the church, the bag starts bleeding, and we see a hand grab the old lady by the neck.

Marie’s picture cracks as Mabel and Ivan reconcile at her home. Adela (Helen Gamboa) realizes that Mabel has been left in the cold from her affections, and they reconcile.

Anna suggests Mabel bring Ivan to Manang Letty. In the meantime, police find Samantha’s body just as Mabel and Anna drive by. Ivan is called by police as a person of interest. Dindo, who just also happens to be taking his rounds on a bicycle nearby, threatens Ivan with harm if Mariella were to visit her vengeance on Mabel.

At the antique shop, Dindo tries to convince Mabel to leave Ivan, saying he is there to protect Mabel from Mariella. As Dindo leaves, Mabel notices that a dresser is vibrating. A large mirror on the dresser shatters after a Mariella apparition, and Mabel is drenched.

Dindo, who is now doing his rounds, sees an apparition of Mariella going up the escalator, and is killed as he slides the wrong way down the escalator. At the wake, the appearance of Dindo’s many children by another woman turns Anna’s grief into anger, but has Mabel thinking Mariella is out to kill everyone who helps her as well.

Mabel confronts Ivan, who thinks Mabel is leaving him for Dindo. Ivan turns violent, and Mabel ends the relationship. Mabel still worries about Angel, however.

Trying to shake off the past, Anna buys Mariella’s car. Mabel seizes the keys to drive the car to Ivan and show him proof of her haunting, Mariella takes control of the car and the car disappears from the mall parking lot. Mariella takes Mabel to the lake and reveals that it is Ivan who assaulted her at the beginning of the film, not Owen, kills Mariella and has the car, with Mariella run over the edge and into the bottom of the lake.

As the apparition ends, Ivan calls, and tells Mabel that Adela is with him. She drives over to Ivan’s home to save her mother.

In the meantime, it is revealed that Ivan killed Owen, Mariella, Dindo, and Samantha. Mariella’s apparition appeared to Dindo and Samantha just before Ivan was to kill them.

Ivan catches Mabel and Adela as they try to escape, and assaults Adela just as Mabel escapes to a bathroom. Ivan is about to stab Adela as Mabel catches Ivan in time and they fight. Ivan overpowers Mabel and he throws her limp body onto the pool.

As Adela lies gravely injured, Marie appears to Adela, and morphs into Mariella. On the home CCTV, Ivan notices Mariella bringing Mabel to safety, and Mabel recovers just in time to knock Ivan into the pool. In the pool, Mariella grabs Ivan, taking him to the pool drain to drown.

As an epilogue, the remains of the car are found by the river, and Adela expresses relief at learning that Marie had led a good life until she met Ivan, and is comforted by knowing that her soul is at peace.

At dinner sometime later, Ivan’s ghost begins to haunt Mabel, and the screen cuts to black.

So, here’s the short of it.

I’ve given some thought to joining a nascent group of bloggers based in the Philippines, the idea of which was again brought to my attention when the online equivalent of fisticuffs erupted over a certain manifesto that went around via email. The manifesto can be seen at the websites of Janette Toral at digitalfilipino.com and of Tonyo Cruz at tonyocruz.com. (No hyperlinks necessary; they should already be on your RSS feed).

While I have some reservations about some of the specific ideas in the draft, such as creating and enforcing a unified code of ethics (a can of worms too lengthy to discuss for the purposes of this post), or a claim of representation on behalf of all social media users (who died and made Me king?), there can be no doubt that the authors of the manifesto only had the best interest of the anonymous poster in mind when drafting those articles. Good is supposed to come out of it, and only insofar as the intentions of those joining this nascent group are as pure as their manifesto purports to be.

I understand that there were attempts several years ago to create something similar, but the project fell apart at the end when things became a little too personal between key personalities within the group. I figure that if we advocate for stronger institutions that veer away from personality cults in our day to day lives, we would be hypocrites if we let strong personalities put color in social institutions of our own making – one that web writers, social media users, and other similar stakeholders are trying to create.

The manifesto isn’t, by any means, precise. Not by a long shot. However, as the intentions are pure, I figure they’re going to need help along the way. Maybe I can be of some assistance. After all, I do make my living out of making words fit the idea in a precise, tailored manner, out of making the ideas march in single file, ready to attack and destory the contrary meme.

So, at this very moment, I hereby declare I am part of what may be known as the National Bloggers’ Association of the Philippines.I am part of it now so that later I do not complain that it does not represent me. I am part of it because now I have the opportunity to do so. Some things just cannot be done from the outside.

As with all things in social media, it’s a work in progress. The going may be slow for a few months, but that’s okay. One must have patience in building social institutions, especially after the institutional wreckage of the past few years.

God (or whatever deity you believe in) help us.

If you haven’t seen it, it features headshots of Reese, Paul, Owen, and Jack Nicholson, and the words “HOW DO YOU KNOW” in large type, with the word “KNOW” in boldface.

I think the copy is genius. With only four words, you get the point of the whole movie. Everyone just KNOWS the question. The answer, from what I know of it, is just as cryptic. As my me and my wife or any old married couple will tell you, sometimes, you just know.

I have no deep, profound thoughts today, except for this: I’m happy Anna and Zeke have married. With these two, I just know. I just know it’s going to be great.

The other day, as Anna and Zeke set the table for Thanksgiving dinner, I saw them work through tough choices with a passion for making things work. Not only did they get things done, they resolved past, present, and future conflict without any drama or fanfare, in an atmosphere of love and trust. In doing so, they brought to the table a maturity and wisdom that takes other couples decades to learn and a lifetime to master. Color me impressed. I can only wish that all couples here today are just as committed, loving, and dedicated to each other as Anna and Zeke.

As you go on this journey, sis, I wish you nothing but the best. Creating and maintaining your own family with Zeke is an adventure all unto itself. In behalf of your family: David, Andre, Nicole, and myself, we will be on the side cheering you on with our love and support. I do not need to hope, for I already know that you will be happy in days to come. I know you will be an awesome wife and mother.

Zeke, for making my only sister the happiest girl on the planet, thank you. The love you share with Anna brings friends and family from all over America, from all across the Pacific, even, to celebrate and give thanks, for your love for each other is awesome, humbling, and inspiring. It bears witness to the existence of true love. With that, and on behalf of all of us, welcome to the family.

So, if we would all raise our glasses, I would like to propose a toast: to Anna and Zeke, may by this day of happiness you always remember how awesome you are together.

Maybe they’re right. Vows of silence are known across other religions: Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Islam. They all have their own followers of silence.

So it was that I found myself somewhere in Tagaytay, contemplating silence one summer in a three-day retreat, Jesuit style. Read: in absolute silence.

One of the great things about being in a Catholic university’s law program is that they offer spiritual coping mechanisms, and one of these programs is a retreat tailor-made for law students. I had just finished my first semester of law school, and as any lawyer will tell you, that first week after you finishing your first law school finals is quite a doozy. While it isn’t true, it feels as if your grades are points on a dartboard. I was not feeling quite comfortable with what I had written in my booklets, and I figured that after spending so much time wrestling with words, absolute silence was the perfect way to get a grip.

Not that the choice was easy. Half of my law school block were exorcising their own demons in nearby Caylabne, where their palliative of choice involved oysters, steaks, ribs, and lots of alcohol bearing the image of Saint Michael the Archangel.

On the first day, the retreat master asked us to reflect on who God is. The idea, as it was explained to us much later, was to see God reflected in every little bit of creation around us. While that idea did sink in, I couldn’t help but wonder where God was in the whole scheme of things. He was both there and not there, which the retreat master would later say was the point of the whole exercise. It was up to us, he said, to make sure we all felt His presence.

On the second day, the retreat master gave us an assignment to find out who it was that we needed to forgive. To help those who hurt us the most, we have to forgive them over and over and over again. This, the retreat master said, was the true meaning of Jesus explaining forgiveness as one that happens four thousand nine hundred times. I wanted to blame God for everything bad that had happened to me: my parents splitting up; entering law school at an age far beyond those of my peers; not giving me the foresight and wisdom to clean up my act when I had to; for putting me in a position where failure was not an option. I hated Him, and I wanted to let him know about it, but at the back of my head I had a nagging feeling I was only talking to myself.

On the third day, we were allowed to break our silence, for good. I thought it would be good to speak, but somehow I remained quiet until everyone boarded their cars for home. On the other hand, I remained quiet. I think I wanted to talk to God just a little more, just to see if He was really there.

Unlike the other silent retreaters, I didn’t exactly go home just yet.

That evening, I joined the Bohemians in Caylabne, where they were still raising their glasses in worship of Saint Michael the Archangel. The demons went away immediately, but oh boy did they return.

—

I write this in the manner of old Nick, with a bottle in hand, raised to the memory of those three days of quiet and one night of angel-worship. The jury’s still out on whether the good angel is better help in slaying dragons than his old man, but I’ll find out in the morning, when I’m more sober.

Eat Love Pray contest entry, but this work has been edited since its submission.

Rub one whole chicken with a mixture of chopped ginger and sesame oil.

Before, the world revolved around the kitchen. The dirty kitchen, to be precise. Some chicken had been culled earlier in the day, and Mom was collecting the coagulating blood for later. Mom had seen them at the wet market and thought it would be good to demonstrate how an entire animal becomes dinner. I was transfixed by the cooking process; nothing went to waste.

“If you want to eat tonight, you’ll have to cook.”

I nodded my head in reply, not quite understanding what she was trying to say.

Boil the chicken whole for forty minutes, or until fully cooked. Transfer to an ice water bath for five minutes. Set aside.

Chopped ginger is what gives this dish character. Ice water seals the flavor by locking in fat. It’s a bit tedious, all this cooking and dunking, but, as with all things, love takes time and patience.

When Mom and I last went abroad, we spent time in Singapore. Just before our flight home, we found a food court where all that was sold was Hainanese Chicken. Mom told me Hainanese Chicken was Singapore’s national dish and that we had to have some before we left. We approached a kiosk and the stall boss took our orders.

As I took our chicken, Mom saw that my chicken leg was red near the bone. Her eyes widened in horror. Without batting an eyelash, she ordered two steaming bowls of chicken stock and dunked her portion into the broth. I looked at Mom funny as I dove into my chicken with gusto.

“Look, if these people are still okay, then this food must also be okay.”
“Something’s wrong with that chicken. You’ll get sick.”
“We’ll see.”

Mom couldn’t stand for a week after we landed. She said it was from abdominal pains. I bet it had something to do with the chicken.

Toast rice with the sesame oil mixture and cook it in chicken stock.

Rice is half the story. To eat Hainanese Chicken with ordinary white rice misses the point entirely; the idea is to recreate the entire chicken in your mouth. Waste nothing.

Returning home, I set out learning how to make proper Hainanese Chicken. At my third attempt, I imagine I had it close to perfect, albeit without a full complement of Singaporean sauces. At least I thought so. I presented what I had made at the dinner table; her doctors had come over that night.

Mom glared at me from across the table.

“The chicken is pink,” she said, her eyes ablaze with fury. “How can you be serving me bad chicken? Idiot.”

“Sorry,” I said, looking away.

“Look at your clothes! They’re so dirty! You stink!” Mom made a big show of pinching her nose. “I’m so ashamed of you. You make me sick.” Mom’s contempt was palpable. By this time the doctors had taken notice.

All dinner long, my chicken sat untouched. I had never been as uncomfortable in a dinner as I had been that day.

Sauté broccoli in a pan. Blanche the broccoli and arrange on the side. Garnish with oyster sauce to take away any bitter aftertaste.

Bitter is a flavor we learn to appreciate when we’re older. In fact, it’s okay to taste bitter from time to time.

As an adult, I’ve come to look for it every now and then. In Mom’s final days, as her disease ate away at her intestines, we passed by a restaurant known for their food as we made our way home from the hospital.

“I miss your chicken,” she said between gasps.
“Those doctors didn’t know what they missed.”
“Okay,” I replied. I was avoiding a pothole I’d been hitting all week in trips to the hospital.
“Make it for me, please?”
“Okay.”

I missed the pothole.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Mom died a week later, without eating any chicken.

—-

Eat Love Pray contest entry.

The apartment itself is monument to a bygone era. The building’s art deco design cues identify it as a survivor of the American carpet bombing of Manila (which Celdran emphasizes on his walking tour). The floors are made of hardwood older than my seventy seven year old father (not confirmed, but as much is obvious). While the identity of its architect and of its former tenants have been lost to time, the building is in pristine condition. One gets the feeling that the intervening decades have been kind and that not much has been lost.

The tour intimates that Manila was like this once – a grand, cosmopolitan city in the bosom of the Pacific, transformed into America’s image from the outhouse it had once been under Spanish (Celdran would say Vatican) rule. So thorough was the transformation that some had taken the American period as a promise that one day, America’s annexation of the Philippines will be total and complete such that all our colonial troubles be a thing of the past. Such dreams were much like, I imagine, that of Jose Rizal, speaking a century ago while toasting Luna and Hidalgo at Madrid’s Hotel Inglés:

Seated and participating in our reception and honoring the illustrious sons of Filipinas, you also honor Spain; because you know this well – the limits of Spain are neither the Atlantic, nor Cantabria, nor the Mediterranean; what meanness it would be were the sea a dike against her greatness, her thought. — Spain is there, there where she makes her beneficent influence felt, and even if her flag were to disappear, her memory would remain, eternal, imperishable.

The facade Hotel Ingles in Madrid as it appears today.
Thanks to Madrid Tourist Guide for the picture.

Celdran, in his tour, acknowledges as much. “We were supposed to be the fiftieth state, not Hawaii,” he says mockingly, while detailing the excesses of the American period. I did not realize how pervasive this dream was until I stumbled upon a rant on Facebook by a first-generation Filipino-American migrant, who had become incensed that old-timers in the United States had come to calling the Philippines as PI, short for the Philippine Islands. He had taken offense at its repeated use, and so furious at this state of affairs he made a Facebook group for it. Rightfully so: the Wikipedia entry on the subject notes that the term was last in use in the Commonwealth Period, where it was adapted as a direct translation of the Spanish. It was as if these old-timers were trying to hide that they were immigrants from some other country.

***

As I wrote previously, I grew up among die-hard Republicans whose idea of a perfect Philippines was its annexation by the United States (complete with snow). They’d do anything to be called Americans. Call them fake Americans and they’d feel elated. Anyone who had the opportunity to go to the United States and become a citizen or stay on as an illegal immigrant, yet chose to come back and be a Filipino was an unmitigated failure of a human being.

When I asked them why they felt that way, I was met with the condescension that one gets from questioning the edict of an elder.

When I watched international sporting events (i.e., the Olympics), I was made to cheer for the United States. I didn’t understand it at the time, but it was the 1984 Olympics, and the United States was eating up medals like Pac Man eats pellets. They were winners; who didn’t want to be associated with winners? At the same time, I was made to understand that the one and only acceptable name for the Philippines is the Philippine Islands (the use of any other name would only spawn confusion, they said). I guess “PI” was what they heard inside the Naval Base, where the streets were immaculate, none of the dry goods were made in the Philippines, and everyone had fistfuls of dollars – unlike the chaos that was the order of the day in the Municipality of Olongapo.

I guess it would be easy to conclude, if you were brought up with such a stark social, cultural, and economic contrast in your own hometown, that life would be better if we were like the United States. It was often said in my home that the problem with Filipinos is being Filipino. We were nothing but lazy, indolent retards whose race and skin color doomed us to a life of misery. However, if you sold a box of skin whitener to my folks, you could bleed my folks dry. Whether the stinky, smelly stuff actually worked was not the point. One was trying to improve the race, and consequently, one’s lot in life, and that’s all that mattered.

Because of this American Idol-worship, most male members of my matriarchal family have gone on to the United States, taking advantage of the citizenship on offer when military service is performed. There they are held as paragons of virtue and achievement, all the more so when their offspring are presented as on their way to successful careers (except when the pace and drive required for success in these careers take them so far away they’re never heard from again).

It was only later that my own family personally learned just how ugly this idol-worship could be. My sister had just come home from college in the United States. To celebrate, we went with Mom around the Katipunan area looking for a place to eat. My sister, who in the throes of puberty had come to think of herself as infallible, began nitpicking on how some UP buildings looked really decrepit and on how the roads were full of potholes, all the while blaming the poor state of affairs on being Filipino. Road construction was subpar because of our attitude and work ethic. Building construction was subpar because no building material could tolerate being built by a Filipino. As the aggrieved student defending his beloved campus, I spoke up in her defense. This sparked a huge row that ruined everyone’s appetite. We returned home hungry, and have never spoken about the incident ever since.

While that is par for the course when it comes to petty fights with my sister, it took some time before she came to accept herself as Filipino. Now, and although she has never dated a Filipino and is about to marry a white guy from Texas, she couldn’t be more proud of her ability to cook Filipino food (all while saying it was a cardiologist’s nightmare). That being said, I find it cool that once she gets married, no one can tell she isn’t Caucasian just from looking at her name. Everyone else thinks it’s cool because she’ll have white babies.

To this day, I have to field questions from relatives in the United States asking how life is back here in the PI. I think they ask the same question to all family they left behind. When I tell them over the phone that things are looking up, I’m met with polite smiles and long pauses. I have no doubt that if they were to ask me the same question in person, I will be met with blank stares and awkward pauses.

Give them a few more minutes, and conversation along this line dies. Eventually they’ll mutter something about how they’re sorry for what happened to Mom and say they’ll call again at a more appropriate time.

***

On the lighter side of things, my childhood wasn’t that bad. Since ivory-white skin was the be-all and end-all of the family’s Caucasian American dream, my sister and I were considered quite fortunate as kids. As the products of parents of Chinese and Malay ancestry, we had lighter skin than most (although it’s more yellow than white), and were generally thought of as pretty children who had much potential.

Two years old and running. A walking, talking siopao.
My daughter just loves siopao, but I digress.

I HATED being called Chinese. To be Chinese was to be a drooling, lazy, good-for-nothing oaf who did nothing but sit by the entrance of the local hardware store, chewing betel nuts. On the other hand, to be Filipino was to be one with everyone else, to be united in their suffering, and to be part of the country where I live. In protest, I refused to learn Mandarin and took a passion for writing in baybayin. While I never did become that fluent in Filipino, I did become adept at using baybayin for passing notes around when class got boring. I also won some small essay-writing contest in high school, but I think that contest was rigged.

As exposure to the sun from basketball and tennis took their toll, my body looked less of a siopao and more like a dark brown lizard (to hear my wife and her family describe how I used to look in those days). Those in my family were saddened by all that wasted potential.

Now that I’ve returned to looking like a siopao, albeit a dark, fried one, I am now working hard to return to looking like a brown lizard. Here’s to success in that venture.

***

I became acquainted with two of the main movers of the writing workshop-cum-tour, Niña Terol-Zialcita and Nikka Sarthou, through friends of different circles. Nines opened for fellow Cue alumni Mike Unson at one of his monthly shows at Cynthia Alexander’s Conspiracy Garden Cafe in Quezon City. I found her posts on Twitter interesting and got to know her more at Mike’s gig. While I met Nikka for the first time that day, she remains good friends with my friend Ching Quintos-Kubel, who, together with Nikka, went to the same high school and are in the same batch as the wife. We were able to talk about common friends during breaks, including Ching.

Ching grew up in Manila and in Baguio in middle class surroundings. She claims her dad calls her jeprox, but her accent betrays her. She went to high school in a prominent school for girls, and took her tertiary education in a respected institution of higher learning. After college, she found employment with a German company with a branch office in Diliman. While in Stuttgart for training for that company, she met a man with whom she fell madly in love. Several years later, Ching bade goodbye to the Philippines and moved to Germany for love.

She moved in 2007.

While through the years one will hear Ching rave about tiny bits of culture learned from vacations in Italy (she doesn’t need a visa) or the latest episode of Doctor Who, I have never heard her rant about how being Filipino is the root of all evil. Instead, she rants about how tanga PostSecret senders or Lufthansa‘s marketing department can be, or how the expat Filipino community in Stuttgart seems to be just a little bit too quiet.

For now, it is all she can do to keep the three stars and a sun aloft in a small town, in what she calls “the land of wurst and beer.” I wish her all the luck in the world.

***

If only all Filipinos were as dedicated to remaining as Filipino as possible. Two weeks ago, I had my attention drawn to the growing antipinoy movement, in which Filipinos are becoming increasingly embarrassed by their culture in the same manner that one is embarrassed by parents at school functions.

In an article for the Philippine Online Chronicles, Iya Justimbaste condemned Filipino herd mentality, as if groupthink were a trait exclusive to Filipinos. In it, she writes:

Many Filipinos—I’m not saying all, have this inclination to follow the norms of the society regardless of how flawed and shallow these norms are. If one would dare say anything that is conflicting to the views of the majority, he or she would be condemned or worse, regarded as someone who is a deviant. This Nazi-like attitude of the Filipinos has often pulled the whole nation down because honestly, what the majority in the Philippines believes in is most likely irrelevant, trivial, and downright stupid…

The absence or lack of individualism in Filipinos have caused so many problems that include voting for a candidate just because they think the majority supports him even if the candidate is incompetent in many aspects giving birth to a culture of “going with the flow”. Respect does not come in the form of confirming to the beliefs of many people. It is recognizing the differing views of other people.

In times like this, the last thing the country needs is people who are afraid to beg to differ to the “majority“.

While I agree that groupthink is best countered with independent thought, it seems to me that her own political science is based on self-perpetuating paradigm: her links, preserved above, all come from AntiPinoy. In particular, they come from a poster writing under the nom-de-guerre ChinoF, who describes himself as:

Chino believes that Filipino culture is backward, repressive, corrupt and defective, so if you want to do something right in this country, you have to go against culture. He also knows that in doing so, you risk being called “anti-Pinoy” by the defective and deceived people, and hence he feels at home in this blog site.

What got my goat was Iya’s last paragraph describing herself:

She is a 21 year-old girl who believes that the Filipino Culture is what keeps on impeding the country’s progress and that Filipino cultural values are resistant to development.

I read somewhere that when all you read is that with which you agree, you reinforce your own beliefs to the point where fair evaluation of one’s work becomes impossible. If I remember right, that article was written in relation to Glenn Beck and the radical wing of the Republican Party in the United States, but that can also apply to all manner of self-referencing political theory/propaganda/big lie. Naturally, I can’t find the article now, but I assure you it’s out there in the ether.

For a more thorough skewering of Iya Justimbaste, here’s Ria Jose’s take. Perhaps when heads are cooler and deep breaths are taken, we can find the points through all the rhetoric and come to something much more substantial.

***

I think I’m not alone in thinking that the antipinoy people would’ve been Dick Gordon’s core constituency: people who, shocked at the efficiency of other societies/systems, advocate for a wholesale overhaul of the Filipino psyche. It sounds good on paper, but past attempts at overhauling other societies have led to disaster.

In Corporate Finance class under Jose Cochingyan III in Ateneo Law, we learned about how foreign technology, if not specifically adapted to factor in local conditions, including but not limited to the prevailing socio-political environment, can lead to disastrous consequences. In simpler words, just because it works for them doesn’t mean it will work for us. There are more complicated issues to be worked out first. Failure to do so results in white elephants, which in the Philippines, is apparently not an endangered species.

My good friend, soon-to-be expat and blogger extraordinaire caffeinesparks tells me the antipinoy movement, led by benign0 is fuelled mostly by diaspora. I’m inclined to believe her, if only from experience. There would have been no hope for change, however, if it were not for people like her and Ching, who though miles away from home, remain as fiercely Pinoy as ever, and for Carlos, who left the other side of the fence so that we may learn what being Pinoy really means.

Experience tells me that the antipinoy line of thinking is a mere side effect of culture shock, and tends to right itself over time. In my family, it took decades, or the time it took to realize what was lost, whichever came first. I’m sure my family’s story isn’t the first, and as our diaspora increases, I’m sure ours won’t be the last.

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For the record, the official name of the PI is the Republic of the Philippines. It hasn’t been officially known as the PI since 1945. I don’t care who you are but if you call it otherwise, PI mo. I know you understand what that means.

2. One day, a middle-aged woman came through the firm doors asking for help. Anita* had heard about our take-no prisoners approach to litigation from her friends, and was interested in engaging us to make her husband’s lover miserable. Over the course of several days Anita was able to have her husband admit to the affair; she was told by her friends that his lover had been overheard bragging about her husband’s sexual proclivities. Anita made it clear that she didn’t want to punish her husband, she only wanted to make sure that the lover get hurt for her lack of discretion. We weren’t that kind of firm, so we declined the engagement. I wonder about Anita sometimes, and I pray that she has found enough direction to hold her husband to task for his indiscretions.

3. A girl friend of mine, Beth*, asked me for marriage advice one morning, her cousin Carlo* having caught his wife cheating on another woman. Years earlier, Carlo had married in haste after poor judgment in coitus ended up with his wife getting pregnant. Several years on, their relationship became plagued with insecurity, emotional and physical battery, and now, infidelity. In the end Carlo became so bitter about his situation that he wanted to take it out on his wife’s lover. While I told Beth I couldn’t give legal advice, I told her that Carlo taking it out on jis wife’s lover was a bad idea. They’d only make their lawyers happy, I said, and that was that.

4. I was surprised to see a friend, Daniel* change his relationship status from single to married back in the days of Friendster. The accompanying pictures showed he had married Eve*, a good friend from college who became Daniel’s girl of the moment. The surprise was borne out of Daniel’s character. The man was an inveterate rake; he always on the lookout. I was about to set him up with a few law school friends when the status change happened. Not surprisingly, around six months later I found myself standing as godfather to a boy who, had he been thirty years older, could have been Daniel’s doppelganger. Also not surprisingly, three years after the wedding I got a call from Daniel asking if he could crash over. He proclaimed his marriage over, for he was now smitten with someone he met recently. I asked him why he had married in the first place, and if there was a shot at his marriage being saved. He said he had married for fear of the shotgun. “It was goodbye sex,” he said over beer at my house that night, probably forgetting that the concept of a breakup was alien to me. “We both didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore and we sure didn’t want to have a baby, but Eve got pregnant and that was that.” The next day, Daniel left, and that was the last I heard of Eve.

5. After almost a year in a Makati boutique firm, and probably because Mom wasn’t used to not being my primary boss, she began to drill in my head that all my lawyering was nothing but wasted time. I was her son and her employee, and everything else was my hobby. In tine, stories of little goals, milestones, and victories were met with sarcasm, insult, or bland indifference. Mom’s incessant nagging, put-downs, and loaded retorts took their toll. I quit my job in the first week of February, and home became a better place to be (if only for a while, before the fireworks started again).

===

* Names changed to protect the innocent.

Kiko*

Communism in the Philippines has had a long history, existing before the establishment of the present-day Communist Party of the Philippines. As a meme, the dream of absolute equality among individuals can be traced as far back as 1930 with the founding of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930) in November seven of that year. It survived several attempts of being outlawed during the American period, the Japanese occupation, and during the massive repression by the privileged classes at the beginning of the Second Philippine Republic, mainly through armed struggle that officially ended in 1954. The meme evolved with the global rise of Maoist ideology in the 70‘s, and as the old Soviet-inspired model stuttered in the late 60‘s, the Maoist faction began to take center stage as the primary meme through which the Communist ideal is expressed. The PKP-1930 is alive today, but is merely a bad caricature of its former self. Kind of like David Hasselhof in all his new acting roles. As it should be — the Russian model for attaining Communism fell with the dismantling of the Soviet Union almost two decades ago

Today, with the fall of the former Soviet bloc and the abandonment of the disdain for capital in the Chinese politburo, the Communist Party of the Philippines is fighting a lonely fight for the heart and mind of the ordinary Filipino with nothing more than an ideal based on a long-dead idea whose weakest link ruined it from within
and what economically seems to be a baseless promise of a better future.

The failure of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory can be seen through the lens of the Maoist regime in North Korea (where mass famine is the norm — the government released an information pamphlet on the different ways to enjoy grass while unbeknownst to ordinary North Koreans, top government officials were dining on food aid) and Cuba — Cubans now suffer under the most severe double standard system around, skewed toward foreigners in a country that supposedly is the hallmark for Marxist-Leninist socialism.

This paper looks at how the current standard bearer for communism in the Philippines — the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army – National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) is nothing but pseudoscience shouted from a mountaintop that has systematically betrayed the proletariat, becoming a moneymaking machine for Sison and his cohorts, whose workings support their extravagant lifestyles in the Netherlands and elsewhere. In fact, their living anywhere already constitutes a more extravagant lifestyle than living on the foothills of Mt. Hibok-Hibok, battered by natural elements and elements from the 6th Infantry Battallion, Philippine Army. The paper will also show that the Communist Party of the Philippines today has nothing to do with Communism and Maoism, but is nothing more than a cult religion that seeks to siphon the pockets of its willing victims in furtherance of funding and fiscal gains.

I. Maoism, Philippine Style: Pseudoscience at Work

A characteristic of Philippine communism is that its proponents claim to know everything, and that all other points of view are tragically flawed. This is based on the proposition that on pure sociological considerations alone it is possible to predict human behavior, even if material data to the prediction is missing or is fabricated to suit a favorable outcome.

One of the criticisms of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory is that like other self-contained worldviews, it purports to contain an explanation for everything and negate contrary evidence and/or explanations with pejorative dismissals.
Other similar self-contained worldviews include Roman Catholicism, which pragmatically blames everything that is wrong on sin, which in itself is left amorphously undefined. Masturbation, for example, widely condemned by the Catholic Church, was said to be the cause of hairy palms, stunted growth and the extinction of half of the indigenous animal species in Newfoundland, Canada.

In fact, criticism has emerged to the effect that Marxist theory and all its derivatives have become grounded on nothing more than pseudoscience, as nothing that happens that is contrary to models predicted by the core arguments supporting Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory cannot be explained by ad hoc theories tailor-made to support the facts. This supplementation of ad hoc theories allows for an infinite number of contradictions to exist within the theory and still make the original, but flawed, theory still viable. Simply stated, even when plainly wrong, proponents of Marxist theories and their derivatives always seem to have an excuse that does not involve the core dogma.

According to the theory, pseudoscience can be seen when the following characteristics, known as the five-fold test, are present in a particular theory claiming to originate from scientific means:

1. Use of vague, exaggerated or untestable claims;
2. Over-reliance on confirmation rather than refutation;
3. Lack of openness to testing by other experts;
4. Lack of progress;
5. Personalization of issues.

In the case at bar, the main line of Communist dogma seems to fit squarely into what may be considered as pseudoscience, using this five-fold test.

A. Vague and Exaggerated Claims

CPP-NPA-NDF propagandists are prone to making vague, exaggerated, or untestable claims when discussing the economy. The 1968 core document says that the end of capitalism is near. That is equivalent to saying Jesus is coming very, very soon in the 2nd Century BCE. In other words, do not hold your breath. Of course, only those parts of the economic picture that fit their worldview are discussed when confirming their many hypotheses. When they are finally cornered with the fact that their economic model has never succeeded, they will tell you that their economic model, by its very nature can never be tested.

Check the website, for crying out loud! Reading it is like watching Eli Soriano on television. If you don’t know any better, you would think they are correct, much like saying I am right because I shout the loudest. I shout the loudest because I have a lot of people shouting the same thing I am. How enlightening.

B. Overreliance on Confirmation

One only needs to go to its showpiece for recruitment — the back alleys of the University of the Philippines in Diliman — to find just how dependent the movement is on confirmation and anecdotal evidence. All over these back alleys are signs screaming decades-old slogans proclaiming the end of the current oligarchy with the name of the current President overwritten on graffiti. You can actually tell how old the graffiti is by how many times the name has been written over.

In other instances, the old graffiti is never set aside, and the new name is simply written below the first line, so as to make the graffiti look like this:

MARCOS HITLER DIKTADOR TUTA
CORY HITLER DIKTADOR TUTA
RAMOS HITLER DIKTADOR TUTA
ERAP HITLER DIKTADOR TUTA
GLORIA HITLER DIKTADOR TUTA

The unfortunate result is that the reader begins to think that the author of the graffiti is an escapee from Mandaluyong. There isn’t even a coherent sentence structure. Some people have hypothesized that this is a code that is supposed to guide the reader to a place where he can find the secret keycard to open the next level in the game. In other instances, the graffiti looks like this:

IBAGSAK ANG DIKTADURANG
US-MARCOS
AQUINO
RAMOS
ERAP GLORIA

As you can plainly see, there are no further clues to be gained from this section of the walkthrough.

C. Lack of Openness to Testing

Another telling sign on the part of the party is that criticism from within and without is met by disdain and calls for enlightenment. I was once called an ignoramus for saying that the CPP-NPA-NDF was obsolete. There has also been no significant change or progress in the refinement of the core doctrine of the CPP-NPA-NDF since they first called for change in 1968. Holy cow! That’s almost forty years now without a change in the core theory. Not even the Roman Catholic Church is as obstinate as that.

D. Personalization of Issues

Finally, most propagandists personalize the issues whenever they can. Name-calling is a common modus operandi, as is the liquidation of all former party members who have come to develop the doctrine further and who are not named Jose Maria Sison — evidenced by the nomenclature used by Sison and his cohorts in describing those who dissent.

This is supported by anecdotal evidence: “They will call you names if you tell them they’re wrong,” says T., a former radical leftist. “Names like Trotskyite, Slut, Whore, and Puta. Good thing I got out before I got too deep and they’d have to kill me, like what they did to Popoy.” She was referring to the grisly death of urban poor organizer Popoy Lagman in UP, for crimes committed as determined by a kangaroo court. While they denounce kangaroo courts when they issue unfavorable rulings, all CPP-NPA-NDF “courts” seem to be even worse in that regard.

After all, and according to a document recovered from during the Great Purge, due process and basic civil liberties are bourgeois concepts that have no place in a Red State. This is a matter of course. What fun would it be to torture someone who is actually guilty?

II. The Apotheosis of Joma

There are two kinds of personality cults. One is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin; because they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a false personality cult, i.e. not analyzed and blind worship.

- Mao Zedong, 1958 Party Congress, Communist Party of China

The seeming infallibility of the Party policy-makers in the Utrecht on all issues surrounding the party only serves to bolster the hypothesis that there is a sustained focus on the personalization of the Party and all controversial issues that it faces, and nowhere is this more blatant than the apotheosis of its founder, Jose Maria Sison.

To sustain power, Sison has used what counts for mass media in the left underground to fashion for himself a larger-than-life public image that, within the Party, showers Sison with nothing but unquestioning flattery and praise. This sounds strangely like the definition of a Cult of Personality as found in Wikipedia. Coincidence? I think not!

By creating such a personality cult, Sison is able to avoid more complicated questions like whether or not he still has a sex life, considering that the Party retains one of the strictest moral codes among supposedly heathen persons. It also allows Sison to maintain an aura of aloofness not unlike the Pope in the Vatican, who is allowed an aura of infallibility not because he is himself infallible but because he is the last word in the Party itself. Oddly enough, this philosophy of granting the head of an organization almost god-like powers, has its roots in capitalism’s two basic rules:

1. The Boss is always right.
2. If the Boss is wrong, see Rule Number 1.

Substitute the word “Boss” with “Joma Sison,” and you have the basic party doctrine for the Reaffirmist Movement within the Communist Party of the Philippines:

1. Joma can never be wrong, especially about the Revolution and everything that goes with it, including but not limited to the eventual demise of the capitalist model.
2. When someone says Joma is wrong, kill him.

This Utrecht-centric administration of the Communist Party belies any and all propaganda released by the Party that promises greater autonomy and less control from Imperial Manila in the running of the daily lives of citizens. This also allows Sison to escape otherwise damning contradictions on the part of others with regard to himself and the Party; with the Party either ignoring the same or labeling the criticism as bourgeois and unworthy of a proper response. As a result, Sison’s writings, no matter how groundless, are considered as doctrine that may never, ever be questioned on pain of death.

If by reading this article, you see a man on the street giving you the evil eye, and the man approaches another on a mosquito motorbike with their facial features well-hidden, this author suggests you run and hide and once the hit squad leaves, report the incident to the nearest police station.

III. Communism, Inc.

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them … To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary … For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

- George Orwell, 1984

At its very root, Communism is defined as an “ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization, based on common ownership of the means of production.” That is a textbook definition of Communism. This is of course, differentiated from Communion in the Catholic sense in that where Communism is an ideal goal for mankind, Communion is what St. Thomas More took before divining the ideal world he found in Utopia (no relation to the fraternity).

This statement is nothing more than a political goal that is as broad and ambiguous as the terms “heaven”, “hell”, and “world peace.” Everyone knows that Communism is just an ideal that people eventually will want to reach. It’s just the getting there that’s difficult. The devil is of course, in the details. Because of this ambiguity, many so-called communist leaders have offered divergent paths to the attainment of this goal, with some paths being more violently assertive than others. Usually it’s the more assertive individuals that get to rule. Mao did say that power comes from the business end of a gun. Leon Trotsky, who disagreed with Stalin because of his more orthodox views, has his name live on as a pejorative for someone in the left who just “doesn’t get it.”

If anything is common among them, it is the exhortation that the oppressed, no matter how few they may be in number, must always be the center of advocacy. When, as those who wish to bring about a change in the system, such that the former bourgeoisie are beneath or on at least some similar level as the proletariat, there is nevertheless a feeling of resentment at the loss of what is perceived to be material wealth fairly gained among the said bourgeoisie. This resentment and favoritism towards those formerly of the proletariat reveal that in such an altered society, the former bourgeoisie are now a class below and victims of mass resentment, if not reprisal against actions they may or may have done against the said proletariat. If the oppressed are the center of the advocacy, then a role reversal where the bourgeoisie become the oppressed creates a dilemma: if one were to side with the oppressed, in this case, the bourgeoisie, then that would be siding with the former oppressors, which is in itself unforgivable.

To erase the possibility of the creation of another oppressed class by the formerly oppressed, the convenient solution, as with all of fiction, is to kill the character that causes the discord – in this case, the bourgeoisie. Even the progenitors of communist theory, Marx and Engels, have pointed out the impossibility of finding the path toward the utopian future of which they speak without resorting to this convenient deus ex machina (quite literally, God through a machine – a plot device that lets the resolution of the conflict come from a machine). In this case, the machine is a gun killing all those who may be oppressed in the future. After all, isn’t it more humane to put one person out of his suffering than to expose him to the fact of his entire family wasting away in some gulag just because he can think.

This doublespeak, as it were, is a convenient forgetting of harsh reality that is contrary to what is expected or hoped is an essential ingredient to the uniquely Philippine brand of Communism that is derived from Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideologies. A document purporting to be from the Communist Party of the Philippines proclaims Maoist theory to be the most ideal form of Marxist theory and thus the way to go with the then-proudly proclaimed impending fall of Western capitalism, which obviously hasn’t happened. Duh. As a result, the often contradictory stances that Communist dogma takes as a result of this postulate sometimes makes for sweeping policy reversals that are often summary, harsh, and ultimately superficial. In fact, the history of communism is one littered with attempts to create a unified society, with nothing but scorn, contempt, and death for any and all dissenters, even if the dissent is studied and noteworthy.

Communist propagandists will tell you that the human sacrifice thus made was a necessary tool for maintaining social order, because in maintaining social order, the dignity of human life plays only second fiddle. Did I mention that only the evil and hateful capitalists are capable of taking the dignity of human life away from the common man? Of course, only the Communists actually care about you and me. As history is written by the victors, and the victors in each and every case laid down here have, in their own fashion in order to preserve the ideology of the “revolution” itself, whitewashed instances of these purges – these fanatical, reactionary, and paranoid actions – by calling them “creative works of the capitalist propaganda movement” or “closed chapters in the history of the Party with those responsible already put to account.”

Criticisms falling under the former category are subject to outright dismissal, because anything produced by the evil businessman, no matter how true, grounded in fact, or scientific, is false; while those in the latter are simply ignored. How exactly, those responsible are put to account is not clear and is included in the whitewash. What is clear is that if the purported abuses were to have happened with the government as the perpetrator, the Communist Party of the Philippines would waste no time in calling for the resignation of those duly elected as a display of command responsibility. On the other hand, the Politburo in the Netherlands has remained practically unchanged since the beginning of their exile.

Nowhere is this doublespeak more apparent than as regards human rights, the Communist Party of the Philippines maintains that it places human rights violations at the top of its advocacy. Considering classical Maoist tactical strategy, it makes perfect sense for the CPP-NPA-NDF to align itself with human rights advocacies. Chairman Mao himself was never above using his friends and comrades to make himself look better even though he was the person primarily responsible for the failure of the Communist Party in China to make any significant headway vis-à-vis other socio-economic models.

You know the Pointy-Haired Boss in Dilbert? The one who takes all the credit if something goes right and none of the blame if anything went wrong? Chairman Mao, according to many sources including those who knew him best, was like that. Of course, the followers of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory will never agree to that assessment, partially because of Mao’s enduring cult of personality. Someone even tried to build on that cult by creating a Chinese restaurant in Robinson’s Galleria based on the late dictator. Like the Great Leap Forward, the venture in Hunan cooking failed after only a few months.

It is then obvious that the biggest contradiction facing the Communist Party of the Philippines is that while it denies everything related to being capitalist, its advocacies and workings all have the hallmarks of State Capitalism. State Capitalism is defined as an economic system where the State is the prime owner of the modes of production.

For as early as the Party has been in existence, the Party has engaged in capitalist activity, where the primary source of revenue for the Party has been through the sale of illegal drugs, primarily marijuana. This is because marijuana and other soft drugs raise money rather quickly, considering its widespread use in the counterculture underground in which their urban operatives move and enjoy a rather large influence. The secondary source of income for the Party is the collection of revolutionary taxes, which is in the form of rent-seeking and extortion —at reminiscent of American organized criminal organizations, disguised in the form of protection services offered to those affected. This is evidenced by two facts:

1. Instead of being smuggled into China, as were the rest of his comrades, Sison was smuggled into the Netherlands, where, up to this day, marijuana possession does not warrant a bullet to the head.
2. The known major growth areas of marijuana in the Philippines are located in alleged CPP-NDF strongholds; specifically, the hinterlands of Benguet and Bukidnon.

Later, Russian apparatchiks operating in Afghanistan would use the same strategy in the Russian occupation of Afghanistan by using whatever arable land there is in the Afghan desert to cultivate opium poppies, with much success. The Taliban further utilized this success when they started creating their own business model, and now Afghanistan is the world’s leading supplier of opium.

To this day, government has been slow to catch up. According to recently released declassified documents, the National Bureau of Investigation launched its investigation only in 1997 after successfully decoding a message transmitted through Manila radio station DWNU 107.5 on public air. The message, allegedly from an American band called Cake, contained the message “How do you afford your rock and roll. Life. Style?” The investigation eventually fizzled when it was discovered that the lead investigator was connected to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and was using funds derived from his association with the same to fund a shabu habit. Nevertheless, the connection remains, and marijuana use has always been central to Party dogma.

Indeed, a source from High Times has an unconfirmed report that the National Democratic Front, facing a severe cash shortage as a result of increased resistance to the payment of revolutionary taxes, which, in turn came about from territorial gains on the ground from newly equipped government forces and Islamic jihadists, was forced to turn to several persons in the West for funding; in particular, rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, who in 1996 negotiated for the purchase of a minority stake in the National Democratic Front, who insisted on the official name of the united front of the Party being changed from National Democratic Front to Nasty Dope Fiends, with seats in the Politburo in the Netherlands automatically assigned to Snoop Dogg’s posse of Long Beach Crips (LBC), with control over local operations to be overseen by above-ground members of the Crips playing as imports in the Philippine Basketball Association.

However, when the CPP sought to enforce revolutionary taxes on the Crips members in the Philippines collecting on their share in the marijuana sales, an intense gunfight ensued in the mountains of Mt. Guting-Guting in Mindoro that placed heavy casualties on both sides. Eyewitnesses to the incident have reported shouts of “Westside!” and “Mamatay na ang mga egoy!” ringing throughout. The incident caused a great deal of embarrassment on the part of the United States embassy that news of the incident was suppressed for fear of international recrimination.

The CPP-NDF has also been used as a tax shield for Joma and his fellow exiles in the Netherlands. Under the Welfare State provisions in Dutch law, the giving of money and other possessions for the disposal of a non-profit entity, no matter where and how organized can be deducted as a loss from personal income, and any money received from such organizations cannot be counted as income. This has allowed Sison and his ilk to launder, according to some estimates, an inordinate amount of money sourced from revolutionary taxes and drug sales. In turn, this has allowed Sison to live a lavish life of luxury while his cadres facing the government in the trenches have to live in the forest, often starving for lack of available food.

IV. Conclusion

In the final analysis, the Communist Party of the Philippines has betrayed the interest of the common person by exploiting the ignorant and poor to support Sison’s lifestyle in the liberal Netherlands. Sison achieves this by creating a corporation whose main objective is to obtain money and other property from private individuals in the guise of “taxes” and should they refuse to comply, extort money from them through any violent means necessary. No one is allowed to question this doctrine and other pronouncements from Utrecht under pain of death, even if the doctrine in question has been proven to be false by unanimous acclaim throughout the world; even if no one really cares whether they win or lose outside of the Philippines. In fact, inside the Philippines, no one cares, especially in Ateneo. Besides, everyone leaves the “movement” once they begin to have children.

Today, as someone much older, I know that his eloquence came from the discipline of free thought made valuable by its prohibition. If anything, Ninoy, even if he was the golden boy of the landed oligarchy, only became the Ninoy of legend after his prison catharsis.

In transcending himself to become legend, Benigno S. Aquino Jr. – not the Senator from the Province of Tarlac – was my first idol. It is because of him that I believe in the potential of the Filipino.

On March 5, the people held criminally responsible for his death were given executive clemency. I surmise that among the reasons for the pardon is the opinion of forensic anthropologist Jerome Bailen that these servicemen who escorted the late Senator could not have pulled the trigger. From what I know of Bailen’s opinion, he thinks that the more plausible theory is that Galman, rogue assassin, pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Ninoy. Unfortunately for these convicts, Bailen’s opinion was excluded from evidence on a technicality. Although I think the exclusion of Bailen’s testimony is sad because it ends in a triumph of legalism over proven science, I have no doubt on the guilt of Ninoy’s guards. They deserve every punishment they’ve received and then some.

Because the power to pardon is a choice entirely personal to the President, it is moot to inquire into the reasons why Ninoy’s killers have been freed. The heirs of the late Senator may shout and claim that the decision is political, but such exercises almost always are. This isn’t to say that the pardon is correct, but it is definitely not right.

Let’s not forget that what keeps the assassination shrouded in mystery is the blatant manner airport security blocked the cameras of the assembled world press, only to relent after the fatal moment passed. To make matters worse, they made sure that Galman, even if he really did kill Ninoy, can never say who gave him the order to kill the Senator. If today we they cannot show someone else pulled the trigger, Ninoy’s killers have nowhere else to look and no one else to blame. By willfully participating in the sham trials and in the grand conspiracy to hide the real mastermind, it was as if they themselves pulled the trigger. Even if they change minds and disclose the true author of this tragedy, they failed to do the right thing when it mattered, and that’s what counts.

Military loyalty ends when loyalty to your country begins. I have no place or stomach for those who confuse the two.

I had an interesting conversation with the “older” people who live next door – my mother and her current best friend, an aunt of hers who spends a few nights now and then coming over for a nice visit. This aunt is a widow who met her late husband (a German national) while working for the United Nations. Like most of my relatives who are now or at one point in their lives based in the United States, she is a fanatical supporter of the Republican Party. She does not fail to send to my mother, my sister, and anyone else in her Yahoo! contact list the latest dirt she finds on Democrats and their candidates, Obama not excluded. She is not alone in this endeavor. Most of my relatives there are similarly engaged in the McCain campaign.

Fortunately, my mother, being sensitive to my libertarian tendencies, has decided to bear the brunt of these information campaigns, which does not mean to say that she does not believe in them – the opposite cannot be closer to the truth – but she hesitates forwarding these messages to me knowing I do not hesitate to classify them as spam.

This is not odd behavior to me. My family, including the aunt currently taking residence in my mom’s apartment, is from Subic, Zambales. Like most people who grew up around the naval base, I have a sizeable number of relatives who became United States citizens by joining the US Navy.

To these relatives of mine, citizenship in the United States is the greatest blessing God can bestow upon you. Not that I blame them for thinking this way. For many years, their income literally depended on the existence of foreigners. I assume that as this relationship between host and visitor continued, feelings of belonging and unity with Americans grew stronger. You add to that psyche field reports of a better life from those who moved to the other side. Some of the people in my family still harbor this kooky desire to have the Philippines annexed as a US state. Others are willing to do anything to be anywhere close to North America. Most wept bitterly when the Americans left Subic. If you believed their lamentations, it was the end of the world.

Whatever. And ever. Amen. (Thanks, Ben Folds.)

In a Shakespearean way, their gravest predictions turned into self-fulfilling prophecies. Despite (now Senator) Gordon’s best efforts, Olongapo (and by extension, Subic) never regained the vitality it had when the economy subsisted on the dole-outs and smuggled goodies (not to mention unbridled lust) of a few drunken sailors far from home.

At any rate, I grew up as a product of that economy that took full advantage of the Filipino colonial mentality and wanton greed: I was raised on a diet of rhetorical postulates: American products were the best, Reagan was a good president, the United States was the real Disneyland, and that Democrats are evil men not to be trusted with your life savings. My parents, who had both come into some measure of good fortune during this period, began to spout as gospel truth the ideal of conservative thought that appealed to them most: that hard work, prayer, and individual responsibility were the ingredients of success. This was all well and good back then – everyone (or so I had been raised to think) accepted these principles as conventional wisdom.

These ideals are not bad things per se, but I have seen firsthand how these ideals can warp minds. For instance, I was with my father one day when he wondered out loud why we should care about the guy suffering next door. Any suffering in this life, he reasoned, was the result of poor choices that the poor man made, and as such only that poor man should bear his own burden. Never mind that the man might have encountered an unfortunate event that he could not overcome by himself – he should have prepared accordingly.

Ever since he fell on hard times, my father has since put on an appearance of being dirt poor. With his image (or façade, I’d like to think) of stark poverty, I no longer hear these lines. I don’t know how he’ll react if I throw these words back at him. Perhaps it is better to stay quiet at such times. I don’t know.

The word I think I’m looking for, is “matapobre“.

To those who may not understand Filipino, the word “matapobre” is an adjective, derogatory in nature, used to describe someone who thinks another is lesser than him just because he has less in life. Sometimes it sums up how some relatives of mine look at those left behind in the Philippines – including me – until they come to me because of some legal problem. It thus seems to me, based on my experience, that the Filipinos that the Republican Party tends to attract are generally matapobre for the sole reason that they are Americans and we are not.

How sad.

So it came to pass that I came to have most of my extended family in the San Diego area and other parts of Southern California in general. These persons enjoyed the best of the Reagan years, and as far as I know have built substantial retirement funds throughout that time. Southern California Republicans, I have heard them called. One sister of my grandmother lives in an affluent part of LA close to Hollywood, where she makes a living renting out property.

Once, at a dinner where I was asked to explain why the American image was in the doldrums, I went on a tirade on how inept the Bush administration was at handling itself and how it consistently violated international law, and how the anti-intellectual wing of the Republican Party was to blame for this mess. “Ouch,” said a cousin of my mother. “I’m a Republican.”

I stared at her long and hard.

These folks of mine are Catholic, financially stable, and pseudo-white. They are also the most racist people I know (next to the Chinese back here who won’t let their children marry someone of another race unless they were white or loaded with cash). Because they live in Southern California, my folks have come to see the worst of ghetto/gangsta culture in the face. They survived the worst of the LA riots and other instances of black violence. Because of that experience and their general experience handling sassy black characters (no other way to describe their encounters), my folks have come to the conclusion that black Americans are the worst characters on the planet.

Now, one of those black people that they fear so much is the President of the United States.

“Barack HUSSEIN Obama,” said my aunt as she complained to my mom bitterly about the President-elect of the United States. “Did you know he was raised in a madrassah in Indonesia? That guy is a terrorist.”

I winced at the words. “Tita, CBS news went to the site and found that it was a government-run pre-school. Mom, that’s like saying I’m a terrorist because I went to school here.” My aunt was undeterred. “A black man! Ha!”

To quote Fox News (said aunt’s favorite news channel), you decide.