take the money and run

“Magsasalita ako laban sa katiwalian at pagsasamantala

Hindi ko gagamitin ang aking panunungkulan

Sa sarili kong kapakanan

Hindi ako hihingi o tatanggap ng suhol”

Every Monday morning, without fail all government workers would recite “Panunumpa ng Kawani ng Gobyerno” during their weekly morning rituals.  (In our case, even if it rains, we’ll have our flag ceremonies indoor.)  The inclusion of the recitation of this pledge, I just learned, was first observed in 1995.  It was a reform mechanism aimed at reorienting the work attitude of government officials and employees by constantly reminding them of how they must conduct themselves as public servants to bring about a more responsive, efficient and commitment public service” (DepEd Order No. 15, s. 1995).

If only this oath has been taken seriously to heart, President Rodrigo Duterte—and, of course, all other presidents after Fidel V. Ramos—would have been deprived of one of his two winning campaign promises of ridding the bureaucracy of graft and corruption.  The other, of course, is eliminating criminality and freeing the country from the clutches of illegal drugs whose proliferation now appears intertwined with graft and corruption.

I voted for him solely on the merit of that promise.  I was among the millions that were neck deep in exasperation with crime and corruption and opted to forego my usual stringent selection process of looking and analyzing the candidates’ political platforms, or what could have passed as ones.  I totally agreed with a professor of a local university—in Angeles City—that any candidate can just commission a good undergraduate political science student to come up with his/her political platform.  But, at the rate election promises are customarily treated, these political platforms will end up in trash bins as soon as the candidates are elected into office—if not much earlier as soon as they’re made public.

Without these two issues and how he conveyed them to the people, President Duterte would have not captured the imagination of the masses and catapulted him to the country’s highest political post.  Most likely, he’ll just be a mere footnote in rural politics known for his unconventional, but relatively effective, approach in keeping peace and order in Davao City.

With more or less 10,000 lives, practically all poor, prematurely snuffed out gangland style, there seems to be no end in sight for this social malaise.  Yes, it’s true, there was “relative calm” early on during the “Operation Tokhang", but Duterte himself unashamedly, albeit reluctantly, admitted that he cannot lick this malaise even at the end of his term.

 Which brings me to his pronouncement during the 37^th Principal Training and Development and National Board Conference Program in Davao City last 5 May 2018 where he said, “I was the only one carrying the message that was appropriate at that time: corruption, drugs.  I won’t hold back on that, my God.  If you are into corruption, just leave.  I’ll give you time.  For those into it now, in government, published or otherwise, may you have the sense just to tender your resignation”.  (Philippine Star, May 7, 2018).  But, did the erring public servants heeded and took seriously his declaration “to just leave their posts quietly, as he stressed that he would not let up his anticorruption campaign”.

More than a month after his “plea to leave” was announced, no families of government workers have yet to be shown on national television anguishing over the death of what to them were their morally upright and innocent relatives.  What we saw were a few corruption-tainted under and assistant secretaries terminated—but who had the gall to claim they voluntarily resigned—and a couple or two more being asked to tender their courtesy resignations.  Unlike the poor suspected drug pushers, no public servant has yet to be sent to Kingdom Come on mere suspicion.

Is this fair?

Obviously, not.  This only highlights further the divide between the haves and the have nots.  The poor have nots are summarily executed and waylaid gangland style in dimly lit street corners. The haves government officials, on the other hand, are rewarded with time to savor the loots and fruits of criminal adventurisms.

This leaves the old man to believe that Duterte’s justice is no different from others before him.  The promised change evidently does not hold true with this one.  Had it been different and, more importantly, if he really walks the talk, he would also be grieving the loss of his vice mayor-son—who’s implicated over the attempted mind-boggling six-billion shabu smuggling.

With this ambivalent early unfolding of events as backdrop, will the people in government who are into corruption cringe in fear and heed his plea?  Will this put a stop to bureaucratic graft and corruption, even if only momentarily, like what his “Operation Tokhang” did to the drug trade?

What this this old sad man is sure of is, that like the drug menace, the president will not be able to lick graft and corruption in government.  His kid’s glove treatment of high-profile corrupt public servants will never deter and will hardly dent the brazenness of others to follow their lucratively criminal adventurisms. (30)

bucket list

Had it not been for the movie of the same title, I would not have known, even vaguely, what a bucket list is.  The movie starred two of my most favorite actors, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, who met in a cancer ward, were initially at odds with each other until they found out they shared a lot in common.  That’s when they decided to pursue things, a bucket list, they still have to do before they step into the Great Beyond.

The question is, do I have one?  

I don’t.

Why?  More likely, it’s the anti-bourgeois in me—a carryover of my social activist days—why I haven’t got one.  I can’t imagine myself delving on something that I consider so crass and so bourgeois.

But, if forced to have one now, what would be in it?

I can’t come up with ten no matter how hard I’ll try.

But without making an effort, the first thing that came to mind was an academic degree from the University of the Philippines.  I’d spent seven years, from 1976 to 1983, inclusive of my leaves of absence (LOAs), at the University of Philippines at Los Baňos but did not earn my undergraduate diploma in Agriculture.  I opted to discontinue my studies when it was clear that I can never finish my academic program within the prescribed Maximum Residency Requirement of the UP System.  My sight was pointed elsewhere then, or was nowhere the more appropriate term?

It was never a big disappointment, but for my parents, it was, especially for my father.  With my failure, he lost, what I believed, was his biggest bragging right—an offspring with a UP diploma—over his peers.  Until his death, he always boasted, whenever he had the chance among those who cared to listen, that I studied in UP but never added that my undergraduate diploma was from the Gregorio Araneta University Foundation.     

I suspect I’m in self-denial for this, I believe, occupies a niche in my deeper psyche.  That’s why it popped up first when I tried to come up with my list.  This probably is the same reason why I keep on applying for readmission and enrolling at the UP Open University for my Master of Public Management program only to be either absent without leave (AWOL) or apply for LOA in the middle of the school term.

One thing I’m very sure of, this will end up in my bucket till I gasp my last breath.

Next would probably be a 250-cc Enduro motorcycle.  A Kawasaki or a Yamaha would be great, but a KTM, 450-cc, would be super.   Although not an Enduro, I might settle for a 500-cc Royal Enfield Classic Chrome.   The first two Japanese brands are practical choices. The Europeans are purely to feed my ego.

Ever since I was nine years old my ride has always been an owner-type jeep.  Yes, I started driving at nine!  There were no police in the barrio where I grew up and started driving and had a father who wouldn’t bar me from tinkering with our jeepneys.  But, every now and then, when I was in my late teens and early twenties, I would drive around with my friends and our girlfriends in one of our Sarao passenger jeepneys. 

When I oversaw the implementation of a community-based disaster management project in landslide-ravaged Dingalan in Aurora province in 2005, I was charmed by the practicality and versatility of an Enduro motorcycle, a 125-cc Kawasaki.  I was able to go to the remotest mountainous villages of Dingalan in no time using trails blazed by loggers in earlier times.

Even if I now can drive around in my wife’s sub-compact SUV, this will still be in my list.  An Enduro motorcycle, aside from being a practical ride to monitor the more than 550 public elementary and secondary schools under threat from various hazards and disasters in Pampanga, is indispensable to my other wish; which is to see every nook and cranny of rural Pampanga and Central Luzon.  It’ll be my La Poderosa to live up my own version of “Motorcycle Diaries”, following what Che Guevara did before he embarked on a revolutionary career.  With or without a pillion rider, I’m going to do this, i.e. if I have my Enduro.

One of the last two that I could think of is to travel and see our neighboring Southeast Asian countries; Vietnam and Cambodia.  Add Timor Leste, the other predominantly Catholic country in the region.  And it’s never acknowledged that it’s more Catholic than the Philippines.  Although colonized by the Portuguese and not by the Spaniards, I want to see what we have in common culturally as a people. 

Vietnam has always been an enigma; I want to know what is it about the place and its people that enabled them to spring back to life, so to speak, after the devastation caused by imperialist greed.  First, the country was dragged into the second Imperialist War (World War II) when it was “handed over” to the Japanese by the French government when Nazi Germany had partial control over France.  Adroitly playing up their cards with anti-fascist capitalist bloc, they defeated the Japanese imperial forces.  After the Japanese, they took on the returning French colonialists anew. But before they could completely humiliate the French in defeat, the Americans, in the guise of keeping the Free World safe from the “Communist menace” came into the picture. 

The White Monkeys—in contrast to us Brown Monkeys—did not expect the Vietnamese people to be as hard as nail and were forced to humiliatingly admit defeat in 1975.  It was to me the greatest victory of the underdogs; THE country that had just emerged as the greatest capitalist victor and the undisputed capitalist kingpin had been soundly beaten by the ragtag but deeply committed army of Ho Chi Minh.  There must be something about the Vietnamese people not only to withstand three successive imperialist wars but, more importantly, spring back to life with heads unbowed from the rubbles of wars.

The temples are the reason why I want to be in Cambodia, as well as the devastation brought about, this time, by communist insanity.  I want to see how the people are doing after enduring the excesses of the brutal Pol Pot regime.

The last in my list, which is the most surreal, is having a son!  After the birth of my second daughter, it’s common to hear comments from friends and acquaintances that I should have a third child, a son.  They told me that I’m squandering my lineage (lahi) if I don’t sire a son as my lahi will cease as soon as my two daughters marry and discard their SARMIENTO family name. 

My wife was all for the idea of a third child but it was me that reacted strongly against it.  I told our friends and acquaintances that it’s not that easy to raise children.  Bringing a child into this world is the easiest part—pleasurable, in fact—but ensuring that they can ably join and compete in the rat race is the hardest. 

Raising rat race-ready offspring, in this day and age, will toll heavily on your pockets.

With our current situation, my wife and I are practically left on our own as our grown up daughters are busy building their own lives, it’s inevitable not to think of that third child.  True, we’re more stable financially, especially with my recent employment and my wife’s successive promotions in the education department.

But my wife’s child bearing years had long been over.  Even if we wanted to, we can never have that son.

That son could of course be our first grandchild.  The elder of our two daughters had just gotten married and if their plans won’t miscarry, we’ll have our first grandchild next year.  But our apo can never be our “full-time” third child.  At the most, he’ll stay with us only on weekdays when his parents are in Metro Manila to work. But once he’s of school age, or even earlier, he’ll surely live permanently with his parents.  And we’ll end up where we are right now.

That son will definitely be in the bucket too in the end.

I enjoyed making up my list.  It actually served a purpose:  it made me to look back and assess how I lived my life so far.  And, in a way, it helps me to realize what I can still do to optimally enjoy my remaining years before I finally hang my bucket upside down.  (30)

disaster and marriage

 My first born got married last June 11.  She and her husband arranged everything and made sure that we, as parents, won’t be bothered by any preparation.  All they required was our presence.  That was a far cry from the usual weddings my generation observed when parents practically arranged everything—from the wedding rites up to the reception—and shouldered all the expenses.  

 Actually, I hate ceremonies and the attendant formalities. 

That was principally the reason why I and my wife had a very unconventional wedding.   It was very selfish of me to deprive my wife her once in a lifetime walk down the aisle simply because I did not want to inconvenient our parents for a relationship that I was not sure, at that time, will really last. 

So, we came casually clad for our Catholic Church rites; no flowers, no flowing white dress for my bride.   We also did not bother to prepare a post wedding reception.

Where it not for my sister and her boyfriend, now her husband, we could have gone straight home from the Mexico parish church after the ceremony.  Thanks to them, we had a token celebratory lunch in one of the restaurants that were beginning to mushroom along the Olongapo-Gapan Road in San Fernando in 1987.  By we, I mean, just 12 people.  My parents, my sister, her boyfriend and her best friend, my mother’s youngest sister and her daughter, who acted as our ninang (godmother) and our female candle, veil and cord sponsor, respectively.  One of my father’s younger brothers was there too as our ninong (godfather), and his wife and my vice president-friend in the student council as male candle, veil and cord sponsor.  My wife’s family did not make it for reason I now can’t remember.

Although spared from the preparation, the only catch for me and my wife was to prepare for a brief—a minute long we were told—message during the post reception program.  What worried me, my wife too I supposed,  was what to tell our daughter and her husband in front of nearly 150 of their guests.  No matter how hard I tried the days before, no idea came to my mind.  I was therefore becoming more desperate as the minutes rapidly slipped away during the reception and still nada!  I was resigned to just say “Thank You” to all the guests for sharing their time with us on this momentous occasion.

But in the nick of time, the rescue came in the form of my son-in-law’s uncle, a professor at the University of Santo Tomas.  If he can compare marriage to driving a car, why can't I relate it with disaster risk reduction and management?  DRRM, being my current preoccupation!

Come to think of it, marriage can become forever if you do something similar to the four thematic areas of DRRM—prevention and mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery and rehabilitation.  This new perspective requires us to be proactive and anticipatory; that’s why the change from mere disaster management to disaster risk reduction and management.  You can’t manage disaster; it’s the disaster risks that you can by reducing them to avert the disasters from happening.

In old school disaster management, actions were undertaken only as soon as the disaster struck.  That’s when save and rescue and evacuation operations commenced, followed by relief distribution, and lastly, by rehabilitation.

But as our understanding of disasters deepens, we now focus on what can be done to lessen the chances of, if not completely avert, disasters from occurring.  Modern disaster management necessitates increasing the capacities of the people and their communities, on the one hand, and decreasing their vulnerabilities to hazards, on the other.  This two-pronged approach to disaster management is expected to substantially lessen disaster risks.

As in DRRM, we therefore have to put premium on the pre-separation/pre-break up stage of our married lives.

The operative word here is PROACTIVE.  To be one, newlyweds should anticipate the pitfalls that they’ll encounter on their way to FOREVER. 

As in DRRM, newlyweds should start building (emotional) structures and creating memories (knowledge and capacities) that will strengthen their relationships as soon as the wedding bells had quieted down.  They can take off from the structures and memories that were started way back when they were just lovers; the same structures and memories that principally moved them to take the plunge, so to speak.  These will comprise their mitigation and preparedness measures.

In DRRM, physical structures like rip-raps and levees will contain and, in some cases totally wipe out, the ill effects of floods.  Building infrastructures that complied with standards that were adopted in response to earlier disasters will also bring about better prevention and mitigation. 

In marriage, these may include real and other properties that will force couples to think twice before deciding to break up their unions because of the legal and financial complications associated with the dissolution of marriage itself and the division of conjugal properties.  Of course, the most important of these “physical structures and conjugal properties” are the children!  Your offspring will make dissolving your marriage not only financially draining but, most importantly, emotionally depleting as well.

In this time and age, of course, this old man doesn’t encourage couples to have lots of children. 

Preparedness measures in DRRM, on the other hand, include development of knowledge and capacities to effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from, the impacts of likely, imminent or current hazard events or conditions.  In marriage, these include the created and resultant memories that like the emotional structures will contribute to making the couples keep their unions intact.

We should however avoid breaking up our marriage at all cost; save and rescue efforts may not suffice and will surely not be as effective as our efforts to save and rehabilitate lives in DRRM.

Granting that our “save and rescue efforts” proved successful, the “build back better” principle that currently guides efforts in DRRM reconstruction and rehabilitation thematic area is harder to accomplish in a broken marriage.  Just like a priceless glass figurine, you can never restore your marriage to its previous spotless, much less bring to a higher and better, state.

Well, this is just this old man naughty afterthought, if these are indeed true in marriage, does it mean that better emotional structures and shared memories with the third party were created in a union that ended in separation or divorce?  (30)

kapitan

She used to fondly greet me “Congressman”.  Before, it’s the usual “Sir”.  But it’s now “Kapitan”. 

 I can’t remember when the shift from “Sir” to “Congressman” really started.  Actually, it took time getting used to being called “Sir” and calling everyone either “Sir” or “Madam” in my now more than a year-old job.  You see, in the NGO where I served longest, these were reserved for the ordinary staff, i.e., messengers, clerks and the likes.  We treated our bosses as peers and called them by their nicknames.

Moreover, I didn’t have a hunch behind the shift.

We actually hardly knew each other.  All I gathered is that she was a teacher in one of the schools of Bacolor District before her appointment as an Education Program Specialist.  I told her I was a former a development (NGO) worker; before that, a student leader-activist.  She was the first in our work place I shared this information. 

She might have come across on other things on me.  She could have gleaned that from my Facebook account after we became friends; or, from my blogs whose links I shared in my FB posts.  I can’t recall writing or sharing anything though that could have prompted her to call me “Congressman”. 

That was not the case with “Kapitan”.  In one of our conversations, she jokingly inquired how my campaign was at the onset of the current election period. That’s when I told her that if ever I’ll join politics, the highest post that I’ll aspire is that of Barangay Chair.  Since then, she’s calling me “Kapitan”.

May be, she thought I was joking for my lowly choice.  But it was a well-thought out idea.  I actually toyed with the idea after the sudden death of my parents in 2013.  The prospect of making my self-imposed temporary retirement—from development work to take care of my then octogenarian parents—into a permanent one appeared the sanest and most natural option.  

Because of my rapidly advancing age, my wife and two daughters deemed it’s wise to permanently retire.  They believed that landing a job commensurate to my experience is slim.  More importantly, they doubted my ability to endure work-related stress in a new work milieu just to earn some dough for my upkeeps.  I earlier hinted that I don’t want to go back to my development work career and, if ever, I would rather land a more laid back job in the public sector.  But they, especially my wife, thought I was too rigid, straight and inflexible to tolerate incompetence and the stereotypical unsavory attributes associated to people in the bureaucracy.

Getting into politics, was, in a way, a fall back.  And it was not the first time that I entertained the idea.  I actually briefly gave it a serious thought during the second nationwide local elections following the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship and the passage of our present constitution.  A mayoral aspirant from Bacolor, who was earlier elected councilor, contacted me one early evening while I was at home for the weekend sometime in 1992.  He was with his chosen aspirants for the municipal council from other villages and was hoping to include me in the slate he’s forming.

He told me that some old folks he consulted in our barrio singled me out when he broached out the idea that someone from our village should be in his official slate.    My knee-jerk reaction was to out rightly reject the idea but diplomacy prevailed over me and politely assured them that I’ll give it a serious thought.  I told him and his group that running in an election never crossed my mind. 

In our ensuing discussion, though, I was able to share my insights on the challenges and difficulties local chief executives and local legislators have to hurdle in the light of the then newly enacted Local Government Code (R.A. 7160).  I emphasized that old-school, traditional politics will become passé in local governance if the new statute will be seriously implemented.  I must have impressed the other councilor-aspirants that a couple suggested that I might as well be the vice mayoral bet since they had none at that particular juncture. 

The mayoral aspirant then asked what it would take to convince me to run.

The only thing that came to mind then was:  Php32, 000.

Yes! Just thirty-two thousand pesos.  That’s because there were a little over 32,000 registered voters in Bacolor.  And the law says that you can only spend one peso per voter; three if you’re gunning for a national elective post.

I naively believed that that’s all that I needed to wage a decent campaign and get elected.  With that amount, I could “hire” three of my best community organizer-friends that will help in explaining my political platform and general program of action in the course of building my constituency during the 45-day campaign period.

Despite his declaration that he’s the official chosen candidate of then presidential hopeful Fidel V. Ramos and a friend of one of Ramos’ children, allegedly a son, I surmised he only had a lean campaign kitty to bankroll his and his party mates' campaign.  But, I think, that’s not the sole reason why he never bothered to return and include me in his slate.

I might have slighted him when I unintentionally exposed his bluff; that he’s a friend of Ramos’ son.   I told the group that I was a close acquaintance of one of the five daughters of FVR when we were both students in UP Los Banos.  She frequented our dormitory and was my Calma Bulls mate’s girlfriend.  She never mentioned she had a male sibling.  Back then, Ramos’ alleged lovechild with a famous socialite had not caught fire in the gossip mills and media circles.  Even if the rumors were indeed true, his son would be too young to be his friend. 

That incident, fleeting as it may seem, made me to take a closer and deeper look at local politics and governance, viewed it in a different light and realized its potential to expand further the democratic reforms made possible by recent political upheaval.  

As a not-so-young student activist, I subscribed to the dictum—was it Mao’s?—that political power is at gun’s barrel end.  But the debacle leading to EDSA 1, the resultant bourgeois democracy, the broadened democratic space and, more importantly, my rural development and democratization experience led to a different perspective.  The more recent similar developments abroad, like the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, etc., further strengthened this shift in belief and perspective.  I’d realized from all of these that local social infrastructures and institutions can become effective vehicles for meaningful reforms.  These reforms though are not as thorough-going that would immediately lead to the socialist future I earlier envisioned. 

I was genuinely convinced that if these social infrastructures and institutions are truly empowered they will be effective deterrents to socio-political and economic blocs out to impose their selfish vested interests and monopolize control over governmental machineries. 

Moreover, this old man believes that these are essential and fundamental building blocks of a truly egalitarian society.  And elections are pivotal in the evolution of these building blocks.  They are, in fact, most decisive in putting up truly responsive barangay governments. 

So, instead of treating elections as juvenile disorders as left-wing communists did, they should not be left to traditional politicians and the vested interests of big business.  True, elections will not bring about revolutionary change.  But the accumulated small victories gained along the way will surely weaken the status quo and will usher in meaningful changes in the socio-economic and political set-up. 

The elections that this old man refers to, of course, are not the coming presidential and local elections.  No individual, however principled and true to the genuine democratic aspirations of the people, could survive the onslaught and influence of the big business, with their monstrous vested interests, and the bourgeois-compradors.  These individuals need a well-entrenched grassroots reform constituency to prop them up.

The elections that this old man refers to are the barangay elections.  The weakest link of traditional politicians in the current bourgeois politics that they dominated is at the grassroots.  Establishing a significant foothold in the country’s electoral and political life is most feasible at this level.  But gaining this foothold is easier said than done.

Creating this can be likened to hitting a bigger, taller and stronger boxer in the middle by a smaller opponent.  These blows in the middle body will, in the long run, soften the former and make him stoop.  The smaller boxer can then deliver fatal blows to the head to knock him down, eventually, out.

More than an admission of the futility of engaging the electoral exercises now in progress, this old man thinks it is in grassroots elections where we should expend our greater energies and the little resources we have.  For it is in village-level polls where we can build and strengthen the constituencies of genuine democratic change and deprive bourgeois democracy its mass base.  It is at this level where we can outflank bourgeois democracy of its props, on the one hand, and on the other hand, organize, consolidate and reinforce democratic change elements that will spearhead and pursue wide-ranging egalitarian socio-economic and political changes.

This old man, though, does not claim that the elections that practically hogged everybody’s attention today are without use.  A true democrat as president can actually hasten the realization of whatever expectations we pegged on village-level political structures and institutions by putting in place favorable policies and a nurturing political landscape.  But a president cannot remain a true democrat if he’s without well-entrenched grassroots supports. 

Just like our native delicacy bibingka, rice cake, that’s cooked by the application of heat above and below the cooking vessel, genuine grassroots democracy can be effected by applying pressures all around.  And these village-level building blocks can be used to shoot holes in bourgeois democracy to transform it into a formidable juggernaut that will uphold and advance the true interests and aspirations of the common tao. (30)

Innate practical wisdom

I was looking in my parents’ house for an old pair of boots that I planned to wear anew when I stumbled upon a very small plastic box.  I immediately knew what it was; the holder of some of the business cards that I collected through the years; mostly from fellow development workers.  I also instantly recognized the one on top.  It was from an Australian NGO worker working in the Solomon Islands that I’d met when we both attended an international short course on food security in Bangkok, Thailand sometime in 1999.

He was the Agriculture Program Manager of Appropriate Technology for Community & Environment (APACE).   I don’t know why he was in this supposedly gathering of Southeast and East Asian government organization (GO) and non-government organization (NGO) workers jointly organized by the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) and a Thai NGO founded by IIRR alumni and their friends.  As the only white, he appeared like a sore thumb in a group of nearly 20 brown-skinned participants.  But what really made him to stand out, well to me, at least, was his insinuation that slash-and-burn farming—kaingin in our vernacular—was sustainable and could not be the cause of deforestation as generally accepted belief wanted us to believe.

According to him, this much badmouthed farming system was sustainable until the greedy white man’s logging corporations started their operations in the then mostly virgin forests of the Solomon Islands.  The local inhabitants, portrayed as uncouth and uncivilized by the white intruders, moved freely in their forests, cut a few trees from a sizable swath of land that when planted to their desired crops would produce enough for the sustenance of their tribe or group.  They’ll move on to an adjacent lot once telltale signs manifest that the soil could no longer nurture their crops. 

This process would be repeated over and over until they landed back on their original plot.  By that time, the soil has rejuvenated; has regained its fertility and is again ready to nurture the food crops the inhabitants needed for their nourishment.  This explained why they're nomadic.  While their unhampered movement was vital in keeping their slash-and-burn farming practices sustainable. 

While sharing his argument, I cannot help but be reminded of our own Aytas.  I’d realized that I’d been gullible too  long to accept hook, line and sinker the contention that these acknowledged first settlers of the country had been responsible for the deforestation of our mountains, particularly in the Zambales ranges.  Growing up in a rural barrio of Bacolor, my friends and I would marvel at the sight of summer nights forest fires from the mountains where Mount Pinatubo, we would learn later, is situated.  Old folks who caught us gazing in awe at these nearly nightly events would joke that Aytas were partying around their bonfires.

With the soundness of his argument, I’d realized that the nearly nightly “bonfires” can never be part of slash-and-burn farming.  Moreover, it was impossible that the Aytas were the ones responsible for these forest fires.  It’s definitely more likely the lowlanders—the unats (straight-haired) in contrast to the kulots (curly-haired)—scavenging for left-over woods on logged over timber concessions of logging companies that did.   These lowlanders turned the collected wasted logs as well the secondary growth timbers that they cut into charcoal.

Furthermore, the kulots, by that time, had already been driven mostly into the deeper reserves of the mountains by the big commercial loggers.  We can recall that in earlier historic times, these gentle people were uprooted from their lowland settlements by waves and waves of more politically, economically and socio-culturally advanced latter day settlers, like the Malays.

Those who opted not to go deeper into the forests, suffered worse fate from the operations, whether legal or illegal, of these logging companies and other lowlanders.  They were left with no other option but to live in the periphery of lowland settlements, beg for their survival and become mendicants.  This, in turn, led to a worst predicament.  This once self-sustaining people, now deprived of their means of productions, fall prey to criminal syndicates who took advantage of their vulnerabilities and their gentle ways. 

                                            

Who have not heard of how these criminals would collect them early in the morning from their lowland settlements, bring them to busy urban commercial centers to beg and return them to their villages at the end of the day sans the alms they were able to solicit.  They would suffer from this and other indignities until some crusading media practitioners exposed their sad plight and forced concerned government agencies to act.

But why is this old man writing on this?

Well, for one, he’s annoyed why it took time before he realized he’s been had for accepting as gospel truth the contention that such gentle people, as the Aytas, are the culprits of the massive deforestation in our mountains and forests.  But he’s more bothered that respected academics, especially from the premier national university in the country, which he attended for seven long years, did nothing to correct this.  If ever they did, he’s not heard of it. 

And it took a non-academic Aussie to open his mind.

This however made him to realize that one can learn as well and as much, if not more, from ordinary people.  He’s met a lot of educated people, some were with three-letter titles after their names.  But none has made him think just as deeply as this Aussie development worker.  Or, the old farmer-leader he’d met when he was a young social activist.  This farmer-leader taught himself to read and write while fighting the Japanese imperial army as a young Hukbalahap guerilla but, by being observant, he could easily diagnose what plaguing his crops, just as effortlessly, the Philippine society.

Or, a young executive director of a rural development NGO whom he observed holding his torch against the mostly academics-members in a board of trustees meeting where he was taking the minutes.  This was long before the former earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the well-respected London School of Economics.  The dean of UPLB College of Agriculture, was so impressed that he inquired why his analysis and information on recent social and political developments about the country and Eastern Europe had not been heard of in the academe or found their way in academic journals.

How I wish I could be like them, in how they think.   On second thought, how I wish we all could be like them.  Especially, like that old man.

Why that old man?

That old man, most importantly, did not allow his lack of formal education to keep him ignorant; he humorously jested that he’s an alumnus of the Stalin University at (the bosom of) Mount Arayat.  That despite his ominous evaluation of his farm and country, he had kept his sense of humor and had not allowed this to dampen his positive outlook for his farm, country and life.  And like the young executive director, he’d hold his torch to whoever would debate him on subjects he loved and knew.  Moreover, similar to the Aussie NGO worker, he’d challenged long established and generally accepted ideas.

Better still, that old man had not allowed himself to be submissive and apathetic to the wrongs prevalent in Philippine society.  Like that old man, this old man wants to remain lucid and critical of what’s happening around him.  That he’ll continue to stand up against small evils he’ll see in the small world he now moves around.

This old man positively thinks he can still live up to some of the maxims he took up as a young social activist and do these.  If he's not too old to rock and roll no one can bar him from doing these.  (30)

in my dreams

In my dreams, I had a Bullet C5 Chrome Royal Enfield for my ride in my new job.  A fashionable leather jacket and a half Kevlar helmet complemented my ride.  Aviator dark sunglasses completed my everyday get up. 

This reminded me of the protagonist in an old TV series I was watching in the early 90s, Dark Justice.  It was about a judge, who was a former policeman, which could not convict criminals because of their astute exploitation of the technicalities and loop holes of the law.  By night fall, he’ll turn vigilante and bring these felons to “dark justice” with the help of his cohorts, who themselves he had convicted of minor offenses, if my memory still works perfectly.

This is rare. I hardly remember any of my dreams in the past.  But this one remained fresh when I woke up the following morning.  Usually, I just know I dreamt but could not recall what it was no matter how hard I try.

Then it hit me.  There must be something in my inner psyche that caused this.

In my first three months since I resumed working after nearly eight years, I’ve been commuting from the Playpen—our house—to my place of work.  I typically wait for a passenger jitney to pass in front of our subdivision gate, pay ten pesos and alight in front of my office building near downtown San Fernando.  On rare occasions, when I’m running late, I would ride one of those tricycles parked beside the gate, pay the driver eighty pesos,  and ask him to drop me off near a Korean car showroom at the Olongapo-Gapan Road.  From there, I'll take a short jitney ride to my office.

The thing is, I’m always in a rush every morning.  

I always hurry since I don’t want to be late for work. This even if sometimes I would just sit all day in front of my hand-me-down laptop on my hand-me-down table pretending I’m busy writing or reading something.  This early morning routine is taxing me physically.  How I wished I don’t have to rush and just take my sweet time going to my work.

That’s where the motorcycle comes in.  Every morning, I envy the mostly young men, and a few women, that pass me by on their bikes going to their work places like myself.  Not a trace of worry can be gleaned from their faces sans the mandatory helmets.  Some, obviously friends, even had the time to exchange banters.

A motorcycle will indeed come in handy not only to free me from the daily grind of early morning rush but will also spare me from waking up much earlier when I have to monitor and attend some of the activities of public schools in far flung villages of Pampanga.

On my second month, I had to observe the joint school-community multi-hazard drills in a coastal barrio of Masantol.  I had to be up at 3:30 in the morning so that I could be in time for first jitney trip from San Fernando to that town’s center.  If I’ll miss it, I won’t be able to be at the municipal port at six o’clock to catch up with the school principal and majority of the teachers of Nigui Elementary School and hitch a (free) ride in their rented banca.  I would have to shell out more than a couple of hundreds of  pesos to rent my own banca to be at the school site for the drills. 

If I have a bike, I can go directly to that coastal barangay although I’ll have to take a circuitous route and pass through some Bulacan villages.  A motorcycle, especially an enduro, would also be practical to get me to Pampanga’s villages on the elevated strip of land along the western boundary of Zambales or to Candaba Swamp and Tagalog Region villages in no time.  More importantly, my two-wheel ride would allow me to bask in the comfort and beauty of rural Pampanga.   

I actually developed this fascination for a motorcycle while overseeing a community-based disaster risk management project in Dingalan, Aurora.  CARE Philippines gave me and my project assistant an enduro to facilitate our mobility to landslide affected and threatened barrios passing through steep former logger roads and navigating rivers.  I can only drive the motorbike, though, when my assistant, who was the designated driver, is not around. I really enjoyed trudging through these challenging paths and realized the versatility of motorcycles.

I therefore enthusiastically anticipated my stint as an international development volunteer in Mombasa, Kenya in 2007 knowing I would be assigned an enduro for my mobility.  I also can’t wait to try the official helmet issued to me in the Philippines, which all along I thought was made of Kevlar but, just recently, I learned it was just fiberglass when I search its specs on the net.  The British voluntary organization advised the issuance of Kevlar helmets, if available, to all volunteers from its member-organizations worldwide.

I really made an effort to bring it back to the country in 2008 thinking it was Kevlar when all the international volunteers were prematurely repatriated to their respective countries to escape possible harm from the election fraud-induced civil strife that engulfed the Kenyan society toward the tail-end of 2007.  The full-faced helmet was still practically brand new back then.

It actually remained unused five months after I arrived in Mombasa as my placement was not what it was supposed to be based on the description and information I received when it was offered to me.  There was no organization to speak of in the first place that I was supposed to advise and help in project development and fund mobilization to ease the poverty of sectors it avowed to serve.  I therefore did not see the need to request the Yamaha DT that was supposed to be my ride and I never used my helmet except when I applied for my Kenyan driver's license.  

That helmet has been lying idly in the Playpen ever since.  I was hoping I could buy a mid-sized motorcycle that I could ride to see the smallest and remotest nooks and crannies of Pampanga and other surrounding provinces.  I was dreaming I could do a Che Guevara-like motorcycle chronicles of rural Central Luzon.  To this day, I still cling to that dream.

But then, this is not the only dream that I still cling to.  Although I’ve long accepted the fact that I won’t see the reign of social democracy in my lifetime, I still dream of a better Philippines.  Like any right thinking Filipino, I cannot be content with a country whose political leadership is described as “reactionary, greedy and corrupt on a scale seldom equaled” in one of my readings. 

Moreover, while our economy was able to sustain positive growth for the longest time in recent history and registered the second best growth rate in Asia, behind China, under the current administration, it still excludes the poor and marginalized as there is hardly any nourishing food on their tables.  By pursuing the Conditional Cash Transfer program—Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program—and increasing its allocation in the national budget every year, the government itself attests to the anti-poor nature of our economic growth.

Furthermore, as I was able to enter the public bureaucracy this late in my life, I did not only learn how corrupt our government is from the personal tales of the people I met but I also see how pervasive corruption has become in recent years. This, I’m sure, has not escaped my inner psyche.

Will you deprive this old man, then, to dream of seeing dark justice being served during his twilight years? (30)

losing my religion

“Believe in God, not the religious people’s God,

but the God who created the universe

and everything in it.”

     -  Allrock  (a.k.a. Carlo Torres)

This is not about the song of the same title by one of my favorite rock bands, REM.  I can’t just think of a title more appropriate than this.  And it’s not about God either.  It’s more about the practice of organized worship of the Almighty One.

As a young boy growing up in rural idyllic Potrero (Bacolor, Pampanga), my Sundays were not complete without attending the early morning Catholic mass with my late mom and my two siblings.  In later years, my late dad would join us.  Until I entered college, we would be at these Sunday rites without fail.

I still remember the times when the first pews from the altar were hardly filled by the handful families who never doubted the faith, so to speak, at that time.  This was not the case in earlier years, though.  This sad state resulted, according to my parents, from the unilateral (whimsical, too, if I may add) decision of the parish priest to transfer the seat of the parish from Potrero to another barrio.  The reason he cited was the conversion of some residents to Iglesia ni Cristo.

The people of course did not buy this explanation.  The bold and irreverent among the parishioners insinuated that the said priest was swayed into this by his secretary, who was from the other barrio, after she allegedly became his paramour.  I also heard my dad tell his reminiscing of old Potrero to fellow residents near his age that tended to support this assertion a couple years before he died—unlike my mom; he retained his lucid mind despite his very advanced age. 

My dad was one of the first residents to own a passenger jeepney and would drive this priest—and his predecessor—around every now and then.  That was the time when secular priests did not own flashy cars like the ones that we now have.  He was therefore privy to some of that priest’s “extracurricular” liaisons.  This, may be, was one of the reasons why he wasn’t with us during those masses that we’d attended early on.  Will you follow someone as sinful as, if not more than, you?  The other reason, he was, may be, also deep into his own dalliances at that time.  

Of course, this was non-issue to us few families even if some of our fellow barrio residents made fun of us.  The nasty joke then was there were more goats occupying the pews than us believers.   This was of course untrue but there were indeed goats inside the chapel especially when it’s raining.  It did not take long though when attendance started to pick up and soon the church pews were filled by human churchgoers.  This was when the concerned priest was transferred to another parish and a new one took his place.

My church-going days peaked when I was attending Don Bosco Academy (Bacolor) for my secondary education, where attendance in the daily mass at the school chapel is compulsory.  Then, it was downhill from there.  I just realized that I hardly visited the church and went to mass when I started attending UPLB in 1976.  No, it’s not because of activism or communism.  In fact, my activism only became full-blast when I transferred to GAUF in the summer of 1984.  It’s just that my religious fervor was not as intense as it used to.  

This was engendered by the liberal ideas that slowly permeated into my consciousness, which, in turn, brought about my realization that more than your regular presence in organized worships it's how you deal with and treat your fellow human and other beings that mattered more.  I won’t deny it though that my flirtation with Marxism at that time had led me farther away from my religious practices.  

The most frequently quoted, and most likely misunderstood, statement of the German economist and revolutionary socialist Karl Marx, “Religion is the opium of the people (Die Religion…ist das Opium des Volkes)”, impacted greatly on me.  This was despite the fact that I have not read the complete text of what was supposed to be Marx’s introduction to his proposed work "A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right", which was never completely written.  This introduction was published though in 1844.

As I started to understand a few basic Marxist concepts, I was puzzled no end why various churches, including the Catholic Church, never howled protests over the evils spawned by unjust economic, political and social orders worldwide.  They never condemned the wrong doings and excesses of the states and their officials against their peoples.  The few prelates, priests and pastors who did were considered pariahs by their own churches in general.  Most of them, I’d heard, adhered to and practiced Liberation Theology.

Particularly in the country, they had the gall to openly endorse and support the Marcos dictatorship.  They were very sparing though in their condemnation, if not totally tight-lipped, over the barefaced human rights violations perpetrated by the various state apparatuses that were, in the first place, created and tasked to safeguard and uphold these very same rights of the people, including their followers. 

My great disenchantments continue to this day.  Church leaders of practically all religious denominations continue to be part of the coteries that surround the leaders and officials of the national and local governments.  And these are the very same leaders and officials who are linked to all the evils and wrongdoings in our politics and governance.  Without doubt, this is the greatest proof of the failure of religions to make man turn his back from evil deeds.

The most likely greatest Kapampangan thief, if convicted, who’s now on hospital arrest had been personally ministered no less by the Kapampangan prince of the Catholic priests.  And by other “great lights” of other religions, too.  But look where she is now.

Look also at the other members of the greedy thieving class.  Under the blinding glare of klieg lights, they acted out their profession of innocence either within or after religious rites especially administered by men of the cloth.  These men of the cloth appeared blinded by these klieg lights as they looked clueless on their sickening roles in the vaudeville that’s unfolding in practically all the idiot boxes in every home.  I pity these men for they still don’t—or are they just pretending they don’t?—realize that they’re to blame, more than other people, for how this thieving class has turned out despite the special attention they’ve accorded to them.

The true Almighty One is indeed the well of bottomless mercy for He did not strike them with lightning while deeply enthralled in their vaudeville.  How I wish that the blinding glare of klieg lights could follow them in their detention cells 24/7, so that they’ll be forced to make good their promise to read the Bibles while waiting for their exoneration.  Who knows, they might finally “see the light”, admit their sins and, more importantly, spare us from their unfolding badly scripted vaudeville.

Will you blame me losing my religion against this backdrop?  For quite some time, I wasn’t as candid and true to myself in admitting this.  I would reply Nominal Catholic whenever I'm asked what my religion was.  But if you’re a Catholic, you’re just a Catholic without any qualifier.   The moment you attach the word nominal, you’re in reality no longer a Catholic for you’re not subscribing to all what was expected from the faithful.

But I have my reasons for this, though.  One is I don’t want to get into arguments and explain why I don’t have one.  I found it more conventional and easier to explain the attached qualifier.  This is especially with people who believe that only through their religions that one can be saved and attain eternal life in the bosom of the Almighty One.  In the first place, I’m not motivated to live my life on earth to have eternal life in the Great Beyond.  I simply try to live my maxim:  live to do good (as much as I could) and not to harm (as much I could) any fellow human and other beings.   

This may sound simplistic but it’s equally as hard to follow as any dictates of other religions.

Two is I don't know how to classify and call myself.  I'm certainly not an agnostic; for I still believe in the existence of a Supreme Being that designed the universe we're in.  But unlike most, I don't find the need to worship this Supreme Being in organized manner they do.  The way I live my life is my way of worshiping that Supreme Being.  I therefore don't find the need to belong to a religious denomination and have no intention to join another one in the future. 

If atheists, as claimed by the current pope, Pope Francis, can be saved from eternal damnation, the more chances that I could be being not one.  There is therefore no urgency to belong to a new religion or to return to the old one.  In the final analysis, all religions are man’s creations based on his perceptions on how best to venerate Him and, in return, be assured of a place in Paradise.  

In the end, too, there are no such things as perfect and absolute.  Not even Almighty One’s creations.  Just look at man!  (30)