will i or will i not

She pleaded with my wife, then her colleague at the DepEd Bacolor District, to caution me on what I write.  My former Grade III teacher, Ms Raquel Sangalang, had just read my letter-to-the editor in a national daily.  (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 4November 2003)  She feared for my safety thinking that then Pampanga Governor Lito Lapid would personally take it against me the things that I wrote.

In that letter, I deplored the governor’s obvious arm-twisting manoeuvres to have his son, Mark, declared as the standard bearer of the then “fair-haired boy” of all political parties, the LAKAS-Christian Muslim Democrats, and ensured the certainty of his succession in the provincial capitol.  She probably thought Lito Lapid would beat me to a pulp, or worse, pepper my body with bullets just like the villains in his movies.  I of course thanked my former teacher (through my wife) and assured her that her fears were uncalled for.  He may be accused of corruption and incompetence, but, the actor-turned-governor (now senator) only kills in his celluloid world, where he’s the hero most of the time.  Moreover, he only slays the bad guys.  That’s my impression of him and, I tend to believe, it was a correct one. 

Nothing bad came my way even after I wrote another letter published in a local daily (Sun·Star Pampanga, 28 May 2004) that his son’s gubernatorial victory was neither totally due to his “old magic” nor to his son’s fanned make-believe romance with Kris Aquino, as contended by a local columnist. Citing occurrences in the local political scene, I opined that his triumph should be ascribed more to His Lordship holding court in Lubao.  Two outstanding instances convinced me on the veracity of my contention.  One, the unexpected shift in the support of His Lordship from the early front runner, his former lawyer whom he’d supported in her three successful congressional runs, to Mark Lapid, the eventual winner.  The campaign period was already on its tail-end when news of His Lordship support switch spread like wildfire.  It was the raging topic of barrio folks gathered in street corner sari-sari stores even in far-flung Tagalog-speaking project site-barangays of the NGO I worked with.

The other is the observed “pilgrimage” of various local government and line agency officials and personnel performing election-related duties to what retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz christened the “Vatican” in Lubao.  The “pilgrims” did not only confirm the reported shift of support but, more importantly, they themselves were commanded to campaign for the victor among their respective turfs and constituents.

My former teacher’s warning was the first thing that came to mind when I contemplated to resume this blog on the last quarter of last year.  There were then too many disturbing and sickening things taking place that this old man can’t just simply allow to pass without blurting out his mouthful of diatribes.  This, however, had to take a back seat as it was overtaken by unfavourable developments concerning my main preoccupation at that time—care giving to my then wheelchair-bound, Alzheimer’s-stricken nonagenarian mom.  But with her sudden unexpected demise last April, I have no reason not to pursue my plan. 

This consideration came after realizing that the people who will be at the receiving end of my tirades are the personification of the villains that Lito Lapid blows to oblivion in his movies.  It was public knowledge, although no one would openly dare to speak or confirm, that some of these people had maimed, if not killed, others who dared to cross their paths in the past.   A project assistant I briefly worked with during my long career as a development worker validated this against one of them.  He narrated how he almost ended six-feet under when he momentarily worked for His Lordship’s business operations in Nueva Ecija.  His mom was instrumental in landing this job, which he had taken immediately after his stint in the underground national democratic movement.  And only his maternal blood ties with His Lordship saved him from sure harm when he was discovered to have repeatedly given the winning number combinations to some movement’s sympathisers in said province.  “Lesser” mortals will not be as lucky as my former project assistant if they find themselves in the similar situation.

Because of this, I instantly confronted the question:  “Will I or will I not continue with the planned resumption?”  After weighing things down, I’ve realized that such fear was also misplaced.  True, I would certainly tread on perilous grounds if I’m writing for mainstream media.  I knew very well that the Philippines was on top of the world’s list of the most dangerous places for journalists a couple of years ago—the aftermath of the insane and gruesome Maguindanao Massacre—and had never been out of the top ten since the Marcos Dictatorship.  But this is just my blog and, based on my last reckoning, less than ten people—my wife and my two daughters among them—were my regular readers.  Moreover, no one missed it when it ceased “publication”.

I am therefore convinced that I’m out of harm’s way for the people who’ll naturally wish me harm are oblivious of my existence.  The odds that a bettor’s number combination will hit the jackpot in His Lordship business are much higher than the odds that these people read blogs, much more, mine.  Granting that danger really exists, I think I don't have no other choice but to cast all cautions in the wind and go ahead with it.  In my Sun·Star Pampanga letter in 2004, I wrote the following:  “The triumph of second-rate, if not completely unqualified, politicians because of the patronage of His Lordship is the most repulsive facet of our elections that was made more evident in the last exercises.  We therefore have to be vigilant and keep our watch when these officials take the reins of government to prevent further intrusion of His Lordship’s influence in local governance.  Doing otherwise would mean delivering our towns and province to the dogs.”

Today, with the conclusion of the recent elections, His Lordship will not solely rely on second-rate and good-for-nothing politicians to do his beck and call.  His wife had just won her second term as the province’s chief executive while his son, the newly minted vice governor, will be at the helm and hold sway in province’s legislature where he’s expected to effectively shepherd the wimpy board members to toe the line.  In addition, his stranglehold over his original municipal fiefdom is as secure as ever in the hands of his daughter, who succeeded her brother and mother.  Another town has effectively come under the spell of his daughter-in-law where she’s on her second, or is it third term, as mayor.  Other town chief executives will surely be only too happy to do errands for His Lordship and kowtow to his every whim and fancy, those elected under Pnoy’s Liberal Party included.  At the Lower House, he can solidly depend on the three, if not all four, representatives of the province.  I would be naïve if I’ll entertain the belief that he does not have other allies in Congress.

This is the overbearing and compelling reason for my decision.  Somebody has to talk on this and other decadent and perverted developments in the locality, especially when the media and the church, which are the usual vociferous spearheads against these, have been abnormally silent for whatever reasons.  Hopefully, there will be other “voices in the wilderness”, no matter how faint, which will ignite the strong resolve of the Kapampangan race to oppose and put an end to these wrong and sickening things and, in the process, re-establish the pride and esteem that the other races once heaved on them in the not-so-distant past.  At the end of the day, this will be another worthy contribution to the country that the Kapampangans helped liberate 115 years ago from the yoke of colonial tyranny and domination and to the Filipino people’s aspirations for good and upright governance.  (30)

it's only rock and roll

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life

Looking at the barrel of an Armalite…

I don’t want to spend my time in hell

Looking at the walls of a prison cell…

I don’t ever want to play the part

Of a statistic on a government chart”

            -  The Police, Invisible Sun

My return had been derailed.  The mental outline of this one was nearly complete, when, out of the blue, my father can’t raise himself from his bed early in the month of January—a distressing sign that something very wrong was afoot.  No amount of prodding from my younger brother, who’s on vacation from Saudi Arabia, could convince him to go to the hospital.  Just when I thought my situation has settled down, things took a turn for the worse anew.  Aside from his hardship in walking, my father also lost his appetite and was coughing severely.  But this time, I had no younger brother to help me.

My personal circumstance has somehow gone back to “normal” as my older sister nurses our father back to health so that he could reunite with our mother who’s always been under my care.  This situation has given the opportunity to retrieve that outline and try to establish a new momentum to get back to my writing.

To regain that momentum which I initially established a few days after 2012 commenced, I had decided to digress from the usual topics I write about.  I decided to intersperse my writing with something that’s very personal.  This is also my approach to handle my inability to move around to gather information on the topics I wanted to dwell on.  The temptation though to set this aside and write something on burning issues, like the certified best soap blockbuster in Philippine TV—the impeachment of the Supreme Court chief—is too hard to ignore.  Or, on the stubborn decision of the Pampanga provincial government to return most of the operations of Ricardo P. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital from Bulaon Resettlement Center in the City of San Fernando—where its original catchment still stays—to its original site in Bacolor, where a Php26-million hospital building—but with no clear catchment—had been built even before pre-construction government regulatory requirements and permits had been secured.   But I’ll snub these in the meantime especially now that I’m practically back on square one. 

Like quite a number of youth activists—national democratic, to be specific—of my time, I grew up and spent hours listening to rock music.   Unlike most, may be, the pleasure I derived from listening to this music genre hasn’t waned to this day.  In fact, while starting on this one, Big Brother and the Holding Company were playing simultaneously in my desktop. 

I discovered this shared predilection during unguarded casual conversation with some comrades of middle class background.  At that time, we usually would not let out that we still indulged such passion for fear of being ridiculed by our other “hardliner” comrades.  The expectation was we’re supposed to shed our bourgeois trappings and mold ourselves into ideal socialist men and women through our incessant and unwavering struggles and sacrifices to create a world devoid of exploitation, of man over other men, of one class over other classes, of one country over other countries.

The richer post-Flower Generation among us prided their complete collection of premier rock artists’ record albums.  These vinyl LPs are now a prized catch avid collectors and rock enthusiasts would give an arm and leg to possess.  Sadly, I lost the few that I had when our house was completely inundated by about 10 meters of lahars in 1994, an aftermath of the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991.

Personally, I believed, it was rock music that led me to the national liberation movement.  After drowning in all those mainstream rock music that dealt mainly with the angst of the youth since my high school days in Don Bosco Pampanga and capped by my hedonist existence during my stay in UP Los Baños, I was introduced and drawn to the underground—the term now is alternative—rock scene, especially to Pinoy Rock. Before long, though, this music was mainstreamed with the pioneering efforts and steadfast supports of the legendary AM station, DZRJ, the Rock of Manila.  As Pepe Smith and the Juan dela Cruz Band, Resty Fabunan and the Maria Cafra, Edmund Fortuno and the Anakbayan and Sampaguita found acceptance and were played in “more easy listening” radio stations, I was lured to and captivated by folk-rock protest songs of Heber Bartolome and Banyuhay and Asin.  It then dawned on me how potent folk and rock music, and pop music in general, in supporting the development of the creeping nationalism, especially among the young people, which at that time was more anti-Marcos dictatorship than anything else.

I became more convinced of this when I took my Humanities course that was handled by Ms. Jane Po, a non-conventional, UP College of Music-graduate instructor, whom I believed, also taught later in UC Berkeley and is now teaching in an American college.  Instead of dealing solely with the “high arts” as other college professors would do, she expounded the importance of the “low arts”—including the lowly komiks that sell briskly in every street corner newsstand—in the development of Filipino culture.  I never knew where to get and read that reference book on culture by Mao Tse-tung, which she cited at the start of our classes, to really understand what she was expounding and espousing.  Moreover, mere possession of any Mao’s red books at that time was a sure ticket to the dictator’s dreaded stockade.

It was in one of her classes that I had my first taste of the real underground, not figuratively but literally, music—she played what she titled “Neps 1” and “Neps 2”—after we played samples of our musical preferences.   (I played Jeff Beck’s “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers”, which she said had disjunct melody but only appeared to have one that’s conjunct because of Beck’s guitar playing style.)  One of these, I found out later when I was with the national democratic movement, was “Tano”, one of the all-time favorites of youth activists of my time that bewailed the privation and injustice that hounded a typical Filipino peasant, which inevitably forced him to take up arms to correct the age-old political and socio-economic inequities that relegated him and his class to perpetual poverty and depravity.  The songs were allegedly recorded in a NPA camp as evidenced by the chirring of crickets and other nocturnal insects in the background.

The turning point in this belief was when I heard the MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) concert album.  Suddenly, there were these rock musicians who hardly directly sang anything about nuclear energy but were able to help hasten the building of consciousness of people, especially the young, worldwide about the dangers engendered by nuclear power.  This despite the fact that, if my memory is not failing me, it was only John Hall, of the rock band Kansas, now a prominent leader of US Democratic representatives, that came out with a specific song on the “power of the sun” for the concert.  It did not take long before a similar open concert in UP Los Baños as part of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant protest actions was staged.  While trying to understand the issue, my readings led and made me understand the various issues plaguing our country which, in turn, eventually led me to the national democratic liberation movement.  As my involvement in the liberation movement deepened, so was the number of rock stars espousing issues on social and political inequities grew, too.

As a regular fixture of anti-status quo mass actions from the Marcos to the Estrada administrations, I always looked forward to the performances of the “people’s artists” to break the monotony of the fiery speeches in all those rallies and demonstrations.  The songs performed by these alternative musicians never failed to make me forget the fear and weariness these acts of protests have on me, particularly if the threat of violent dispersal stares you in the eye, so to speak.   Where Chikoy Pura and the Jerks hit it big singing “Romantic Kill” during my hedonist existence in Los Baños, they were equally, if not a bigger, hit among wearied young and old activists belting out “Reklamo nang Reklamo”  atop big 16-wheel cargo trucks during these mobilizations.  It was indeed a nostalgic sight to behold old peasant leader Ka Memong Patayan in his 80s dancing in the streets to the infective loud beat of these protest songs after marching without rest the streets leading to Mendiola.

I had a hypothesis why my seemingly natural propensity to rock music, first as restless youth, later as a not-so-young activist and now as a young retiree.  More than the pulsating hard beat, rock music provided me a vehicle to escape from the drudgery of growing up under the stifling grip of a very conservative upbringing and an expression of my teen rebelliousness.   As I outgrown this self-centered rebelliousness, rock music had become the “official” music genre of the protest movement, at least, that’s how I saw and still see it.  No other kind of music is more apt for protest movements more than folk and rock music as they appear natural medium to convey the sentiments of the enraged wronged crowd.  And now, in my more sedate and sedentary existence, I may have listened more and more to classical, especially baroque, music but this is always unyieldingly accompanied by the need to cap this with a dose of that old classic rock-and-roll ditties of my youth to remind me that there are issues and injustices that have yet to be settled despite the passing of time. (30)

hey, the old man is back!

This old man was supposed to have been silenced by the confluence of recent events in his life and had ceased blogging his takes on recent social and political developments, especially those that influenced his immediate community.  These events did not confine their effects on his blog but, more importantly, on his age-old and old age wish of earning a UP diploma, which he failed to do more than 40 years ago as an undergraduate aggie student in the University of the Philippines in Los Banos (UPLB). He’s now AWOL anew from his public management graduate program at the UP Open University.

Yet, there are issues and concerns that this old man could not allow to just pass without saying his piece.  Three main reasons prodded him to re-start his blog, even if it is read only by three, but, very intelligent people: his beautiful wife and his two equally beautiful daughters!  One, he was able to adjust to the exactitudes of taking care of his wheel chair-bound, Alzheimer’s-stricken mother and an arthritic and hearing-impaired father, who thinks he has sole monopoly of knowing all what is good and right.  Both are 89 years old.  Two, he has to do, at least one, completely different activity from his care-giving chores as his way to stress debrief himself.  Writing would be doubly beneficial in ensuring the functioning of his mental faculty and, in the process, helps him keep it in tiptop shape to avoid getting embroiled in the same circumstance as his mother.  Three, in relation to the above, he has to relieve his pent up emotions and anger over social and political issues that he assiduously follows from way back his days as a national democratic youth activist for the sake of his aging heart.

Whereas before he was able to move around to gather and validate his information and personally make his observation on the topics he wrote, this old man will temporarily be forced to rely on various electronic and print media for this.  That’s a tall order given the quality of local media in Pampanga.  Despite this, he’s hoping he could his sustain his blog for good. (30)

Rat on one's own

     These past couple of weeks, this old man can’t help it but be incensed anew with quite a number of issues.  There was the repeated punching of a court sheriff by the Davao City mayor caught live on TV cameras.  It gotten generally positive reaction from the ordinary people but this, at least to this old man, is another clear proof of how sick local governance in the Philippines has become.  I was indeed disturbed to see the people, but not of course her vice mayor-father, approvingly lauding her actuations.  Had Mayor Sara Duterte been a man, the scene could be apt for the next Wild Wild West movie.  I hope I could write a piece on our ailing local governance in a separate article to explain why such an act elicited generally positive response from the masa and why I completely agreed with our kabalen, UP Prof. Randy David (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 3 July 2011), in his analysis that from hereon “it will be difficult to defeat her in any election for any public position in Davao” for her braggadocio in pacifying a near mayhem “in a chaotic demolition of squatter shanties” and, in the process, affirming her support for her downtrodden constituency.

www.filmforager.com

     But the issue that really got my ire was the Senate probe on Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) intelligence fund.  Watching the hearing live in a TV news channel unmade my day; who would not with the answers given by the PCSO general manager.  I don’t want to imagine what I would do if I was Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan and I was physically present in that Senate hall.   I could not only empty the full load of my .44 Magnum on all the hoodlums in that august hall but could have spent another reload as well.  Oh my, what a heinous crime I could have committed!  On deeper contemplation, that would be the one crime I would not have second thought committing for that would merit applause, more deafening I would assume, from the ordinary masses—except from a few bishops, of course.  That would be a fitting cap to a life well-lived.

     One that I would love to speculate though is what an upset Mayor Sara would do to former General Manager Rosario Uriarte on hearing her incredulous responses regarding the PCSO’s intelligence funds.

     Kidding aside, that was clearly another proof of how pervasive graft and corruption has practically entwined itself in the lives of Filipinos.  But, what really earned my ire is the emerging fact that the most prominent among us all Kapampangans, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, appears to have upped the practice to a level never seen before in any previous administrations, including the highly discredited Marcos dictatorship.  Would we be blind, just because she’s one of us, and the Kapampangans would accept hook, line and sinker her protestations of innocence in the light of the tons of evidence being unearthed to the contrary?   

www.illustrationsof.com

     No, I certainly don’t buy the flawed reasoning of her apologists and political allies that it was a politically motivated demolition job of the current dispensation and, at the same time, the latter’s way to divert public attention away from its lackluster accomplishments one year after it got elected.  Although there’s truth to their claim about PNoy’s first year in office, GMA’s spin doctors had to try harder to weave more credible tales to extricate her from this mess and the imminent loads of graft and plunder cases that she’ll have to face.  Even if the charges that she amassed ill-gotten wealth are not true, her personal net worth, on the other hand, has swelled during her 9-year stay in Malacanang, thus, she could afford to, and should, hire better and more intelligent peddlers of tall tales to counter the alleged lies of the present administration. 

     Most likely, Kapampangans won’t differ much from the Ilocanos who still venerate Marcos despite the glaring proofs of his fake war exploits and medals and his plunder of the national coffers.  It won’t matter even if GMA’s looting of the country’s treasury would make Marcos look like a kid still learning the ropes of the trade.  At the rate testimonies of the plunder committed during her watch are exposed, she would most likely dislodge the dictator from the top of the list of the greatest thieves. 

     It would speak a lot on our character as Kapampangans if we do otherwise, though.  The question is, do we have the fortitude to do the unimaginable and rat on one of our own?  This old man would, especially if she or he is not the quintessence of the best among us Kapampangans.  That’s the character and trademark we should always try to uphold.  (30)

Start at the barangays

Figure 1.  Bacolor after lahars cascaded from Mt. Pinatubo (laharchild.co.uk)

  Kudos to the organizers!  We were bombarded this past couple of weeks by local—meaning, Pampanga-based—and national TV stations with their features on the 20th year commemoration of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.  This evidently was the result of their admirable and praiseworthy untiring endeavor.

     If there is one thing that we, Kapampangans, should develop from these shows, as well as their repeated reruns, is our absolute trust in our collective ability to triumph over practically anything perilous under the sun. This was what our successful rising from the ashes of the eruption and its more vicious aftermath, the lahars, had unmistakably demonstrated to  us.  This, however, should not only apply to natural but to man-made disasters, as well. 

Figure 2.  Typical flood scene in Candaba, Pampanga (Sgt. Rey Brua/Reuters)

     These past few days, we witnessed how incessant rains induced by successive tropical weather disturbances had flooded more than 200 of 537 barangays throughout the province.  Some would remain under water, may be, even long after the last rains of the rainy season had fallen.  While the destruction this had wrought may not compare to that of the eruption and lahar onslaughts—although, the carryover clogging effects these had on natural waterways had obviously heightened the disaster risks we continuously confront today—the lessons we’d learned and still to cull from our triumphant feat over these natural hazards are indeed valuable and handy in these present times.  

Figure 3.  An emergency worker throws protective powder in a building
damaged by tsunami. (Aly Song/Reuters)

     Ideally, we should be nearing the Japanese in terms of our disaster risk management preparedness not only because of our experience with Mount Pinatubo eruption and the resultant lahar avalanches but, more importantly, since floods have always been with us since time immemorial—it is like the proverbial kambal tuko of our existence.  We should remember that our forebears dwelt on houses  on stilts along riverbanks—that’s why we’re called Kapampangans, “taga-pampang”.  

     What we cannot approximate, of course, are the resources and technology available to the Japanese and their government.  This is where the big difference lies between us as peoples.  The availability of these resources and technology accords the Japanese greater  capacity and makes them less vulnerable and more competent to face disasters and recover faster from their effects.

Figure 4.  Bacolor's typical rebuilt houses on stilts.  (www.alexmaskara.com)

      It’s good that our ingenuity as a people is comparable to, if not better than, that of the Japanese.  May be, this is our way to compensate for our deficiencies when ranged against  them.  There is no better reason to explain why we continue to survive as a people, especially the poor and the marginalized, despite the bare presence of our government especially in trying times.  This bare presence, though, should not be equated to the advocacy of the adherents of new public management, which believe in “minimalist state” and in “less government is better”.  

     In spite of what is magnified from time to time in mass media to the contrary, I’d like to believe Filipinos are capable of equally great unselfish acts that could rival those shown by the Japanese in the aftermath of the recent 9.1-magnitude quake and the resultant tsunami that hit their country.  Nameless and faceless Kapampangans, and other Filipinos too in similar situations in other provinces, repeatedly exhibited similar acts, albeit outside the klieg lights of big national and international news networks.  What is unfortunate, though, is that it was the abominable acts that get projected, which make post-disaster scenarios bleaker.  Worse, this makes a sizable number among us to believe that this is normally what happens in disaster areas throughout country.

     Is it then too much to ask the government to avert these disaster situations from happening to prevent fuelling further the development of this mistaken notion among other Filipinos?  I’m not, of course, asking the government to inhibit the occurrence of hazards, e.g. typhoons, earthquakes, floods, etc., which is definitely an impossibility.  But disaster situations could be prevented, or at least abated, by managing the risks;  that is why the disaster coordinating councils (DCCs) had evolved into disaster risk reduction and management councils (DRRMCs).  The DRRMCs are therefore pivotal to prevent these situations from taking place.  But are the DRRMCs ready?

     From experience, I would bravely venture to answer, no.   I based my retort from what I saw as project officer of CARE Philippines of its community-based disaster risk management project in Dingalan, Aurora from 2005-2006.  The Dingalan Municipal DCC claimed that their Barangay DCCs were organized and functional.  Yet, majority of the municipal government personnel comprising the MDCC professed ignorance on their supposed membership in the council during a table top assessment of their organization!  Only a few key department heads knew about their appointment in the council but not their complete roles and functions.   We didn’t have to physically see the BDCCs to know their true state.  Instead of being the exemption, non-functional DCCs was the rule during that period in accordance with our findings in our other project areas.   It’s no wonder then that even the relatively harmless hazards could turn into disasters because of this!

     Of course, that was a little over half a decade ago and a lot of things could have changed.  But given the state of our local—even national—governance, who and how our barangays, even municipalities and provinces, are run, I won’t speculate otherwise. How many lives were already lost despite the repeated pronouncements of “zero-casualty targets” of the National DRRMC at the start of this rainy season?

     In my final analysis, it is not enough that the government—and the civil society, too—can effectively conduct relief and rescue operations every after disaster.  What matters most is abating the disaster situations from happening by empowering the communities to effectively confront the risks and strengthening their capacities.  In the end, disaster preparedness, just like our aspiration for genuine democracy, has to start at the barangay level.  But how can this happened given the dire lack of competent leaders to lead and administer the barangays, the dire lack of skills to generate and manage resources and, more importantly, the dire failure to mobilize the people towards what appears to be an impossible dream? (30)

Remembrance and deliverance

This old man has every reason to celebrate this past week, together with all Kapampangans, Bacolor residents especially, and set aside his rage, at least temporarily.  No, it’s not all about our 113^th Independence Day, although this historic event, on its own, merited lots of jubilation from all of us.  This annual celebration though had made the past week doubly ecstatic as we also commemorated a milestone in our collective triumph over the twin disasters that seriously threatened to wipe out Pampanga from the country’s map and nearly deprived the Kapampangan race the cradle that nurtured its distinct social and cultural development that started long before the Spanish conquest took place.

I remember writing the following in one of my short papers in my Urban and Metropolitan Development and Administration course to describe my town: 

“Bacolor was founded in 1576 by local landlord Guillermo Manabat based on an ancient settlement called Bakulud.  It was among the first towns in Luzon that the Spanish colonialists recognized when they started the occupation of Manila.  They were on the lookout for areas that would support their sustenance and the other material bases of their occupation of Manila and the various prosperous communities along the riverbanks of the great Rio Grande (Pampanga River) proved ideal for this purpose. The Pampanga Socio-Economic Profile (2001: 2) claimed that the conquest of the province by the Spaniards began in 1571 right after the defeat of Rajah Soliman in Tondo.  That early, these communities were already food self-sufficient, had a functioning and well-adjusted system of self-governance (Ibid: 1) and were trading in various merchant capitals overseas (Mallari, 200_: 26).   These obviously fit into the scheme of things of the Spanish conquistadores.”

“Bacolor, because of its strategic location, its high and level well-irrigated land by a river that led to the sea, and its “material prosperity that allowed its people to devote time and wealth to things spiritual and artistic “ (Tantingco, 200_: 7) was chosen over the other pre-Hispanic settlements of Lubao, Betis, Macabebe, Candaba, San Luis (Pinpin), Arayat (Cabagsac), Apalit, Sasmuan, Mexico, Guagua and Porac (Ibid) as the provincial seat of the colonial government not only for the above cited purpose but also in the subjugation of the rest of North Luzon.  In 1762, this importance further became more pronounced with its declaration as the capital of the Philippines when Governor General Simon de Anda had to escape Manila to avoid capture from the invading British forces and declared it the seat of the colonial government.   From Bacolor, Anda directed efforts by the Spanish forces, beefed up by the highly skilled Kapampangan soldiers, to retake the city.  It remained the country’s capital until Manila was returned in 1764 to the Spanish throne (Zaide, ____ cited in Buenviaje, 1968: 43) with the signing of an agreement with the British crown.   The town, though, was the province’s capital as early as 1755 and “remained so until 1903 when the capital was transferred to San Fernando”.  (Ibid)  Pampango historian, Mariano Henson however claimed that the town was the provincial capital as early as 1746.  (Gaillard, 200_: 24)”

Obviously, Bacolor and, of course, Pampanga, existed long before the Spaniards came and the Kapampangans were far from being barbaric and ignorant.  (Western historians would want us—conquered people—to believe that our country had to be freed from ignorance to rationalize their aggression and occupation of our land.)  What was not present, and which the Castilian conquerors unwittingly hastened to develop, was our collective identity as Kapampangans.  This they accomplished when they supplanted with their own the native baranganic form of government for easier administration and supervision of these pre-colonial communities and for smooth exaction of tributes and forced labor—polo—to further advance Spanish conquest of the islands.  The commonly experienced abuses from the Spaniards proved fertile ground for these independent communities, which Filipino historians likened to nation-states rather than to local governments we now have, to forge unity and develop social cohesion towards the evolution of the Kapampangan race.

This rich history and tradition was the one almost consigned to oblivion when Mount Pinatubo awakened on 15 June 1991 from its almost 600-year quiescence and vented the fury that had been slowly sweltering in its bosom.  In this day and age, many would laugh at the explanation our Aeta brothers and sisters offered on what caused the eruption.  The drillings for geothermal energy by the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) in their deity’s, Apo Namalyari, idyllic lair caught his ire, thus, the eruption.  Whatever the reason is, the undeniable truth is that the flare-up was among the most destructive volcanic explosion recorded in recent history.  It was so huge that it was said to have altered the global climate.

At the micro-level, the immediate surroundings of Mount Pinatubo bore most of the brunt of its eruption and its more vicious aftermath, the lahars.  But the locality that really hogged and lingered in the national, even international, attention was Bacolor as it helplessly lay prostrate along the path of the smoldering mix of volcanic debris and rain water until 1995 when 20 of its 21 barangays had been inundated by varying depths of lahars—some were buried by as much as 10 meters.

Mainly because of our perseverance and resilience, the Kapampangans have successfully overcome all odds and risen up from the ashes of Mount Pinatubo, like the mythical bird, Phoenix.  We not only contented with the physical challenges posed by the twin disasters but by the initial bureaucratic disregard of the national government, which, at the onset, considered to just allow the province succumb to the harshness of the eruption and resultant lahar flows.   Our organized collective actions made the national government to reconsider its initial stance and undertake massive infrastructure intervention to contain the destructive lahars in Bacolor and spare the rest of Pampanga.

Specifically for Bacolorenos, we can cull a lot of learnings from this which will go a long way in confronting the tougher challenges that our town faces as it treks to reclaim its lost glory and esteemed stature among the municipalities of Pampanga.  One, the disasters had created so much goodwill that was there during the critical stages of our ordeal and contributed a lot to our triumph over these catastrophes.  It is therefore prudent that we wisely utilize the remaining goodwill to complete our rehabilitation.

Two, then as now, “vultures” are hovering over us to pounce on our weaknesses and apparent helplessness to advance their selfish interests.  These had become common fixtures in any actual- and post-disaster phases of disasters.  I’ve also seen them worked while supervising a post-landslide community-based disaster risk management project in Dingalan, Aurora in 2005 up to 2006.  Evidently, these have not left us but unlike real vultures with their unmistakable appearance these have mastered sartorial dressing and mouth pro-people utterances to disguise their real intent.  We should therefore be always on the lookout that these will not deplete the residual goodwill that we needed so much to complete our rehabilitation.

It is also indispensable to bear in mind that it is not enough that we carry out remembrances but undertake this, more importantly, in the context of our deliverance from the obstacles that caused our downfall.  Moreover, may we be able to fashion the same, if not surpass, the unity that made us triumphant over the twin disasters as we trudge the path towards the comprehensive rehabilitation of our town.  The same unity forged by our forebears to make Bacolor the greatest Kapampangan town in the olden times.  (30)  

White elephants

I was seething in anger in my last blog over events surrounding the rehabilitation of my volcanic eruption- and lahar avalanche-ravaged town.  This hasn’t ebbed and felt the same rage mounted as soon as I started writing this one.  The construction of a building of the Ricardo P. Rodriguez Memorial Hospital (RPRMH) on its original site, I’ve realized, was just a symptom of an evolving social malaise that first gained national notoriety during the Marcos conjugal dictatorship.  This was particularly what they labeled the high profile projects of Imelda Marcos.

Bacolor is now beginning to teem with its own “white elephants”; these though are definitely not as grand and imeldific.  And they might overpopulate the whole municipality if the town’s P4.6-billion Comprehensive Rehabilitation Master Plan is realized.  But unlike Imelda’s “elephants”, these were not designed to project and showcase the good and the beautiful and mask urban blight from visiting foreign dignitaries. Instead, they were adroitly planned to camouflage the opportunists’ and schemers’ real intent of milking the country’s coffer dry for fast bucks to line their pockets some more and, at the same time and  more importantly, in presenting their selves as champions of my town’s rehabilitation. 

Studies on corruption, including ones conducted by the World Bank and other international financial and development institutions, revealed that as much as 40 percent of the government’s annual appropriations ended up in the pockets of corrupt government officials and their private sector cohorts.  It’s no wonder therefore that they're tripping over building all these “white elephants” in Bacolor for the right over what is now euphemistically referred to as standard operating procedures (SOPs).  Even if the SOPs are pegged at just 10 percent (of P4.6 billion), local political leaders and their principal/s could further solidify their ranks in the list of the nation’s richest politicians—they might even end up unseating the gentleman from Saranggani, who earned his billions fair and square atop the international boxing ring, from the top of the heap. 

If it’s any consolation, at least Imelda’s “elephants” are still utilized as venues of cultural shows and social gatherings even if mostly by the “good and beautiful” crowd.  This will most likely not be the case with the projects in Bacolor.  Take the case of the Bacolor Public Market.  With funds mobilized from the pork barrel of Sen. Juan Flavier, it was rebuilt in 2001(?) on its original site where Governor General Simon de Anda also held court when he took refuge in the town to avoid capture from the invading British forces from 1762 to 1764.

With hardly any people around, which reminded me of the newly rebuilt RPRMH, it never operated.  It never generated a single centavo for the municipal government.  But early this year, portions of it were ordered demolished by the new town administration to widen the stalls, which were allegedly too narrow, to attract stall owners to start doing business.  With the enlargement, will the public market operate soon? 

My conjecture, it will not.

I based my inference from what I learned surrounding the San Simon Public Market while overseeing a social development project of an NGO in that municipality from 1999 to 2004.  The original structure was formerly built at the town’s poblacion, close to the old municipal building.  With the transfer of the town hall along the Mac Arthur Highway, near the North Luzon Expressway San Domingo Exit, the local government found it wise to transfer the aging market there, too.  Using the town’s Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) as collateral, which some claimed went against the pertinent provisions of the 1991 Local Government Code (RA 7160) and other relevant laws; the local government unit was able to secure a P33-million loan from the Philippine Veterans Bank to build the new market.  The market however merely had a “soft” opening as only a few stalls opened, albeit only briefly.  Business failed to pick up as local residents still persisted in procuring their daily consumer goods from the bigger and more stacked public markets of Apalit and San Fernando. 

In the case of the Bacolor Public Market, it will not only contend with the nearby more established public markets of Guagua and San Fernando but also with the latter’s giant malls.  Market stall and supermarkets owners in San Fernando’s old commercial district have been decrying their dwindling incomes since the opening and continuous expansion of the operations of these malls.  Our solace, when compared with the people of San Simon, is we’re not directly paying, at least at the moment, huge debts for a “white elephant”, a lemon. 

Other examples are the two-classroom buildings that were put up before the construction ban of the 2010 national and local elections was enforced.  I’ve seen one of these at the San Antonio Elementary School and another in my barangay, Potrero. Although classes are already held in Barangay San Antonio, the new classrooms have yet to be used until the end of the past school year.  But their doors had already been replaced! 

The situation is different in Barangay Potrero where population of school aged-children could not rationalize the holding of classes locally.  Our elementary school children, therefore, have to attend classes at the San Antonio Elementary School to continue their education after their families had resettled in the barangay.  If these children are lucky, they could hitch rides from trucks hauling sand from quarries in our barangay, otherwise, they have to wake up early and walk at least four (4) kilometers to be at their school in time.  This reminded me of my father and other children who braved walking at least seven kilometers to attend the only public school in Bacolor—at the poblacion—during the pre-World War II years.

When I ranged this development—idle school buildings—against the alleged lack of classrooms especially in far flung villages, nay, even in the rich cities of Metro Manila, I cannot help but rage some more.  Who says there are no monies for additional classrooms?

The last examples are the barangay roads I have to pass through in going to Potrero from the Olongapo-Gapan Road.  Despite just more than a couple of years since their construction, portions of the few concreted roads are clearly already cracked; the worst are crumbling like the famous puto seko of Barangay Cabalantian when you put them in your mouth.  I don’t want to imagine how these roads would look once their projected use by trucks hauling sands from Porac town—now banned from passing through Angeles City—becomes reality.  But more worthwhile to anticipate are the additional roads to be constructed from the Bacolor Comprehensive Rehabilitation Master Plan.  Would they be able to withstand the wear and tear from these huge cargo trucks after the SOPs had been deducted from the allocated project costs?

Against this backdrop, isn’t it more practical if these “animals” from the comprehensive master plan be the freely roaming kinds that dotted the safari lands of Africa or the sand dunes of the Middle East?  These could have been more valuable and contributed much more to Bacolor’s revival and in bringing back its glorious past—maningning nang bukas ning balen Bakulud—as they could be additional attraction to the half-submerged historic San Guillermo Church and the “Santino” mansion to lure in more foreign and local tourists.  These sightseers could have the times of their lives appreciating these animals as they gracefully trot the expanse of lahar-covered farm lands.  And with the influx of additional visitors, local people could put up enterprises and other livelihoods that will meet and cater their needs. 

Or, would it not be better if the bulk of the P4.6-billion rehabilitation fund could go directly into the development of the people’s sources of sustenance?  Like pursuing an honest-to-goodness animal dispersal project which, of course, will not include elephants!  The proposed P9.5-million Agricultural Lands Development Project—that included P3 million for pasture development and where funds for animal dispersal would be sourced—is too miniscule to impact on the revival and improvement of the primary source of income of most residents before the eruption.   Moreover, what’s the use of the proposed farm-to-market roads in another component if local farms remain underproductive?    

Although a brief scan of the voluminous master plan would show projects sorted into social development, economic development, infrastructure development, environment and natural resources development, land use, and institutional development sectors, a scrutiny into the details will reveal that many of these are basically construction projects.  That is, construction of roads and bridges, of drainage systems, of school buildings, of day care centers, of barangay halls, etc.  We don’t need to be Harvard graduates to know why they prefer such projects and not ones that would directly put money in the pockets of ordinary Bacolorenos.  And it would be as clear as the cloudless noonday’s sun that only the scum bugs’ pockets would be bursting at the seams with their SOPs at the conclusion of the implementation of the master plan.  That is, if we continue to act as if we’re still dazed from the tons of lahar that cascaded from the slopes of Mount Pinatubo and inundated our town 15 years ago.  (30)