If I am eating Western food, I use Western implements, because it is equally inefficient to use a spoon and fork to eat most Western dishes: the texture, consistency, and so forth of the dishes, even when accompanied by rice, makes the use of a knife and fork more sensible.  When eating Chinese, Japanese, or Korean food, I’ve learned to manage to use chopsticks, and three different kinds at that: the Chinese prefer ivory (or nowadays, plastic) chopsticks that are the most difficult to use; the Japanese prefer wooden chopsticks; the Koreans, stainless steel ones and a spoon.  Regardless of the cuisine, if one is with people who prefer a particular set of implements (or none at all) over another, one uses what is given you, and does not make a fuss, particularly in someone else’s home, in which one is a guest.It is perhaps old-fashioned of me to believe that one eats as one’s companions eat, as the food one is eating should be eaten by those who habitually eat that food, and according to the norms of the place in which one is eating.

Apropos of administration claims of the economic advantages of parliamentary government, Rene Azurin disagrees: More graft seen under parliamentary system.the Manila Standard-Today says Palace approves measures to ease oil price crunch (though the Philippine Star, which alas, is useless to link to, says “It’s final: VAT on oil stays”).  The Business Mirror clarifies: OUT OF MENU: SUSPENSION OF E-VAT AND CLEAN AIR ACT, 4-DAY WORKWEEK: Cabinet OKs oil-tariff cuts.So government thunders: Rallies face stricter PNP: Policemen to follow ‘no permit, no rally’ provision of Marcos era BP 880 (Manila Times) and ‘Dangerous’ protests will still be dispersed (Manila Standard-Today)….  Malaya says, Moment of truth on May 1 : Palace, protesters seen headed for confrontation despite SC rulingIn the Business Mirror: 63% of local companies think they will do better this year: Filipino SMEs feel optimisticIn the punditocracy, my column for today isRelevant to my column are the following:Tony Abaya damns the Supreme Court with faint praise.Connie Veneracion wonders if government is really serious about promoting healthy lifestyles: it could much more to target junk food, but isn’t.

People Power in Nepal hailed: A democratic triumph in Nepal says Thailand’s Nation in its editorial, This Is No Rah-Rah Revolt writes Tariq Ali in The Guardian (via the Arab News).The Inquirer editorial examines the President’s hostility towards the Philippine Senate; the Daily Business Mirror editorializes on the reexamination of gasoline VAT policy sending the wrong message.  Go Figure has some challenging thoughts questioning the wisdom of arguments made in favor of official intervention in gas prices.The Supreme Court’s decision (SC rules Palace ban on rallies is illegal: Decision is unanimous: 13-0) on the policy of “Calibrated, Pre-emptive, Response (with yet another decision, this time on the proclamation of a state of national emergency expected very soon) results in official defiance: Police will still disperse illegal street protests–PNP….  After All is exasperated over Red Tide alerts -and non-alerts.caffeine-sparks on bilingualism, the dominance of one language in intellectual discourse, and A series of highly interesting entries on blogging: big mango with an overview, an analysis, and a summation, on the purposes served by blogs in public and political discourse in the Philippines: specifically, their role in constructing solutions for a troubled country (ours).

Would unicameralism save us money?If we take the computation of the probable seats in a unicameral parliament made by Winnie Monsod, that’s 430 seats with a pork barrel of:If we add the current pork barrel of the President, including the following:Intelligence FundSocial Fundand unfettered access to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes and the PAGCOR:Where are the savings?Bel Cunanan quotes the Sigaw ng Bayan people as claiming their website has received nine million hits since it was launched three weeks ago. Truly, as both Sigaw and Cunanan say, a phenomenal number, amounting to “almost 20 percent of the total number of registered voters.”  So for the more technologically-savvy out there, how can the media and the public verify such claims?…  Does their error message -”Due to the huge volume of visitors, this site has exceeded its bandwidth limit and is temporarily shut down.

In the punditocracy, my column for today is Leandro Coronel says the President had better get used to heckling until -and unless- she actively moves to resolve the questions surrounding her legitimacy….  I remember in high school, participation in the debate team gave me a case of culture shock when we had to train for two kinds of debate: the normal kind we in the Philippines are used to, and another kind, totally alien to us, called the British Parliamentary model, in which you gained points not only for what you said, but also for your ability to trip up your opponent by heckling and jeering the other side as they presented their arguments….  An uncle, recalling the Baler of his youth in the 1920s, told me a feature of the political culture of the town was the open and frank manner in which politicians on the stump would be heckled, jeered, and questioned by the electorate: and he mused that any politician able to hold his own in the face of such fearless behavior of the electorate gained a notable advantage in campaigning elsewhere (he also recounted how Jose P.

For them the Philippines is a “changeless land” and a “land of broken promises,” dominated by fabulously rich rural elites able to direct political life unfettered by competition from other elites with other values and unconcerned with the greater national good…I am not claiming that those perspectives are entirely mistaken, only that today’s Philippine reality is far more complex….  One would be hard-pressed today -even in Negros- to find a young member of a planter family who would admit to aspiring to a life of rural leisure and inherited “success”…Although patrimonial capitalism endures in the Philippines, I argue that the shift from landlord dominance to the dominance of urban businessmen is critically important as a harbinger of future change in politics, economy, and culture.  While it may appear at first that all Philippine elites are alike, that elites from different sectors pursue different strategies of domination and advocate different sorts of policies has consequential implications.Many on the Philippine left see signs that the next “ruling class” will consist of former peasants or proletariat.

What struck me was that news began to circulate at around noon yesterday, and within a few minutes the Palace had a statement -on a decision it technically hadn’t had an opportunity to review, much less properly comment on.Portions of the Executive Order were declared unconstitutional….  For purposes of hearings in aid of legislation, the President can forbid the appearance of heads of department if she asserts and explains that for the heads of department to appear would violate executive privilege or endanger national security….  The Court says all other inferior positions, and members of the armed forces, cannot be covered by the Executive Order and therefore, no limits can be imposed by the executive on these officials and government workers appearing before Congress.The decision is definitely a setback for the administration, but leaves room for further fights over interpretation.The Inquirer editorial sums up the Justice Secretary’s recent statement and behavior concerning American servicemen accused of rape: “Loathsome.”Also, Palace orders implementation of ID system.

In fact, the law, the State and society function only if they do not directly interfere with the family’s supreme interests.Italy has often been defined, with only slight exaggeration, as nothing more than a mosaic of millions of families, sticking together by blind instinct, like colonies of insects, an organic formation rather than a rational construction of written statutes and moral imperatives…This is, of course, nothing new, surprising, or unique….  Similarly, wherever the Jews were allowed to settle in Europe, they outwardly conformed to the local laws and impositions, but in their hearts obeyed only their religious rules and the immemorial code of their family life, which allowed them precariously to survive persecutions.It is therefore not surprising that the Italians, living, as they have always done, in the insecurity and dangers of an unruly and unpredictable society, are among those who found their main refuge behind the walls of their houses, among their blood-relatives….  The Italians are also, in many ways, similar to the Jews: the Jews have the same disenchanted and practical outlook; are among the few people who laugh at their own foibles; they entertain a wary diffidence for other people’s noble intentions and always look for the concrete motives hiding behind them.There is, however, this fundamental difference between the Italians and most other people who use the family as their private lifeboat in the stormy seas of anarchy.

In the same chapter, Barzini, in his book goes on to explain the Italian love for spectacle, for the pleasures of participating in attempts to impress:[These] are not always animated by ther ignoble desire to deceive and bedazzle observers. Often, to put up a show becomes the only pathetic way to revolt against destiny, to face life’s injustices with one of the few weapons available to a brave and desperate people, their imagination…. In normal times, after all, when there are no conflicts, power and the show of power can be considered equivalent.

Among my holiday reading was “The Italians” (Luigi Barzini), which together with “Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French” (Jean-Benoit Nadeau, Julie Barlow), makes me wish someone would undertake a similar book about Filipinos.One of the unintended benefits of the Filipino diaspora, I always try to suggest to others, is that the exposure of so many Filipinos both to democracies and undemocratic countries abroad, serves to banish one of the dangers of living in an island nation: the tendency to be insular and unaware and unappreciative of what is going on elsewhere.Most of all, to examine others is to examine ourselves….  From Barzini’s book, these passages (from Chapter Five, “Illusion and Cagliostro”:Polite lies and flattery can be utilitarian on occasion but, most of the time, must be honestly classified among the devices disinterestedly designed to make life decorous and agreeable….  It is in the use of academic and other titles; people affix it to your name, as if to prove that you so visibly deserve such honors that it is impossible you have not been awarded them…Most polite lies, like flattery, are too transparent really to further the liar’s interest.