You’re right

Reyna elena dot com is absolutely correct to take me to task for presuming to catalog people without their permission, something Victorina attributes to a cultural disconnect. Both are absolutely correct: my criticism of those criticizing Chip Tsao was arrogant: unthinking, unfeeling, and unpardonable on my part, because, while entitled to my own opinion, there was absolutely no justification for me to make a sweeping judgment about my countrymen. A negative judgment based on nothing more than my own writerly biases: in other words, a bigoted, prejudiced comment fully deserving of condemnation.

Every reader makes up his or her own mind about whatever it is they read; your opinion is as good as mine; and when enough are of the same opinion, well, if there’s smoke, there’s fire.

That Hong Kong columnist deeply offended many Filipinos and instead of castigating my countrymen, I should have recognized the outrage as a manifestation of our collective sensibility, grounded in deep grievances about what drives so many of us to work overseas, under degrading circumstances, and in the face of often insurmountable obstacles that get in the way of securing a decent, dignified, place in the world for so many of us.

I had no right to pass a dismissive, disparaging judgment on fellow Filipinos, merely because they hold an opinion contrary to mine. Not all of us write, but all of us read, and each one is capable of rendering judgment on matters of taste or the lack of it, concerning anything they read. The writer has a particular responsibility to trust the reader, and if a reader reacts in a particular way, one must accept criticism just as one would accept praise.

I thank these two bloggers in particular for putting me in my place, and I hope they will accept this apology, which I extend not only to them, but to anyone offended by my comment on FaceBook.

For what it’s worth, and purely in the spirit of fostering discussion, let me put forward some of my views concerning satire in general, and Chip Tsao’s piece in particular.

I personally believe that we are a nation born of satire, because it was one of the most effective weapons used by our Founding Fathers as they waged two campaigns: first, to convince their countrymen that they were precisely that, a people with a country they should call their own; and second, to assert before all peoples in all climes, that we are a people the equal of any in the world.

That satire was, at times, quite funny, at other times, quite cruel; that satire lampooned Filipinos and foreigners alike, and Filipinos who had a prejudice against their own countrymen that matched, or even exceeded, the prejudice held by foreigners. It didn’t matter if the satirical pen wielded by our Founding Fathers produced sophisticated or crude, tasteful or rude, pleasant or revolting prose. The point is, they used it, and in particular, the two novels that are in a sense, the founding documents of our country, were satirical works meant to hold up a mirror to reveal, as Rizal put it, the social cancer afflicting the Philippines of his time: and he knew full well the fate in store for those who dare to hold up mirrors for others to see themselves in, whether they want to or not. It got him shot; and before that, it got his books banned and garnered imprisonment and exile for those who dared, not even to take up arms against the authorities, but to laugh at them.

If we hold up as heroes those who wielded their pens -often cruelly- and as much against their own countrymen as the foreign officials and churchmen they opposed, I don’t see how we can deny others the right to take up their pens and do unto others as our heroes have done unto ourselves (for they continue to hold up that mirror to every generation that bothers to re-read what they’ve written). I also don’t see how we can call for the same intolerance -to the extent of demanding some sort of retribution, or even cruel and unusual punishment- when it comes to opinions that we find deeply offensive.

The Founding Fathers fought words with words, opinions with contrary opinions, and demanded of those whom they viewed as prejudiced and bigoted nothing more or less than a fair hearing, a chance to rebut their arguments, and an opportunity to disprove wrong facts with true ones. All the while being careful to point out what they most definitely could not and would never tolerate: silencing dissent with force of arms, and the kind of fanaticism that led to Inquisitions and book-burnings.

To my mind we have a kind of historical obligation to recognize that, perhaps more so than many other countries but at least as much as some countries familiar to us, we are a people and a country that owe our very existence to the commitment of writers to challenge, irritate, offend, and outrage others.

It is for this reason that I oppose our existing sedition and libel laws; and calls for declaring people persona non grata may be all right in places like Singapore, but I think such blacklists have no place in a country whose national hero was once blacklisted on the basis of his writings.

And it for related reasons that I opposed demands for Justice Cruz or Malou Fernandez to resign: it would have been a kind of censorship.

At the same time, every reader has a right, indeed, a duty to react to anything that a writer puts forward and with which the reader disagrees. And, if the writer and his publisher are dependent on the public for their livelihood, the public has a right to take its business elsewhere if its objections remain unheeded by writer and publisher.

Now, with regards to Chip Tsao’s piece, I approached his piece with these questions in mind.

Was he presenting his own opinions, or was he writing a satirical piece? There is a difference between writing, “I, Chip Tsao, think the Philippines is a nation of servants,” and putting those words in someone’s mouth for effect, which is what satire is. It seemed to me that what he was trying to do, is to put on paper what you or I might do when making fun of someone by assuming the character of an exaggerated blowhard. This assumes, of course, that the reader knows he does this on a regular basis; a flawed assumption as it turned out (would it have been different if every single statement that caused Filipinos offense, was attributed to a fictional character who employed a Filipina? Perhaps; it might also have given Tsao a way out).

Was the point of the piece to slander Filipinos or to take Tsao’s fellow Chinese to task? I thought that his main purpose was to paint a highly unflattering picture of his fellow Chinese as cowardly chauvinists who wouldn’t dare tangle with anyone except the Filipinos, and only because the Filipinos happened to be in a financially dependent situation. Chip Tsao in blowhard mode, doesn’t dare question the Russians but happily picks on Filipinos, as do all his household-help-employing Chinese chums. The picture he paints of these employers is a disgraceful one: they have no problems with underpaying and overworking Filipinos, and then they castigate them for daring to assert their country’s sovereignty; the treatment he describes is fully in keeping with the brainwashing and bullying the Chinese themselves endured during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The whole thing is an indictment of the false sense of superiority of modern-day, wealthy Chinese, who forget, not so long ago, “No dogs and Chinese” signs were posted in Hong Kong (similar signs were posted in Manila), that once upon a time the Chinese provided coolie labor for the world, and that poverty was endemic in Hong Kong and all of China not so long ago, either.

I don’t know if I’d go as far as Indolent Indio, who says Tsao’s on our side; I would definitely go as far as to point out his primary target was his fellow Chinese; that he took them to task for acting like the kind of arrogant Western colonizers the Chinese used to hate; and what’s worse, they’re being prejudiced to fellow Asians while the Chinese remain meek in the face of say, the Russians. What I think happened was that he failed to consider that not everyone would consider his portrayal of a Filipina as either warranted or permissible. Connie Veneracion, pointing to this piece, doesn’t think Tsao holds Filipinos in affection; I think the most he did was simply to make a nod at the wretched working conditions of many Filipinos but that from first to last, the main focus of his attentions -because they are also his readers- are his fellow Chinese.

But this was the root of my folly: to step into his shoes, to the extent that what took over was a feeling of solidarity as a writer, forgetting my first duty to always uphold solidarity with my countrymen. In the end, much as I happen to feel positive about anyone who dares to challenge his fellow Chinese and their monolithic, increasingly aggressive state, that is Tsao’s fight and not mine.

Some blogs and their own take on the whole thing: Ricky Carandang; The Marocharim Experiment; baratillo @ cubao; The Tao of Pao; Manila Bay Watch.

The Long View: Brains without bodies (1)

The Long View
Brains without bodies (1)

By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 07:23:00 03/30/2009

LAST WEEK I suggested that when confronted with people who want to be president, we should ask, Who has endorsed their candidacy? Candidates presenting themselves for the presidency are like brains, asking to be elected to steer the ship of state, but who don’t have bodies: how then, can they be expected to grasp the tiller? By telepathy?

As brains, they may be brimming over with ideas; they may have access to vast sums of cash; but for a country that expects presidents to solve problems, and with the least pain for the electorate, the whole current setup is a recipe for frustration and disillusionment.

In the case of senators, they are well and truly merely brains, bulging with good ideas and who can float around as parties of one, independent, even isolated—and receive public support for it. But a senator who dared to be a maverick isn’t necessarily the person best suited to be a chief executive who has to get both bureaucrats and politicians to work together.

In the case of non-senators, it’s even more problematic, because while a senator can point to a national mandate, others can’t: at best they can claim a provincial or city mandate; at worst, they can claim to have been given the confidence of a president (and the present dispensation has abandoned all pretenses to competence being a qualification for an appointment, since only loyalty seems to count).

The more established politicians will therefore validate their candidacies by having themselves proclaimed official candidates of whatever political party they happen to belong to by the time the official campaign period starts.

Of the two oldest parties, the Nacionalistas and the Liberals, the problem of their putative candidates, Senators Manny Villar and Mar Roxas, is that their claim to being the standard bearers of their respective parties lies more in inheritance than because of actual competition. Much-diminished because of the abolition of rules that fostered parties as electoral vehicles (such as bloc voting, which had given aspiring senatorial candidates an incentive for campaigning along party lines; without it, the Senate became a money and popularity contest fought ought by individual candidates), and martial law, they still have a kind of residual usefulness in some areas.

Remnants of the old party bailiwicks remain: consider Cavite for the NP, parts of Quezon Province and the Visayas for the LP. There still remain vestiges of the old network of these parties, and whoever claims the mantle of party leadership can say he leads an established national network of some sort.

However, both parties remain cleaved by schism: the NP has never managed to reunite with the NPC, and the Liberals remain split over the decision of some of its stalwarts to defend or reject the President.

There are other parties of equally recent vintage, but they tend to be overshadowed by the preeminence of one family, or one or two political figures, who call all the shots: PMP and Estrada; PDP-Laban with Binay and Pimentel; LDP and Angara; KBL and the Marcoses; and perhaps the most formidable of the new post-Edsa parties, the NPC.

After he failed to assume control of the Nacionalistas, Danding Cojuangco split off and founded the Nationalist People’s Coalition, today far more effective, politically, than the NP; not least because it contains much of the remnants of the old KBL, which in its own time had been meant to be like the Japanese Occupation’s Kalibapi, a movement to absorb the old parties. The KBL practically dissolved after 1986 but had its leaders re-coalesced they could have recaptured the presidency in 1992, if Cojuangco and Imelda Marcos hadn’t split the Loyalist vote; still, the ghost of the KBL animated the Estrada campaign in 1998.

In fact, Cojuangco’s and Marcos’ defeat in 1992—their victory would have been a colossal repudiation of EDSA only six years after it happened—and Ramos’ victory in that year, followed by Estrada’s victory in 1998, a repudiation of the People Power generation of leaders, all point to the way our post-EDSA political system has been more a case of politics as subtraction, and not politics as addition, which is how the late Amang Rodriguez understood it, and how most people today think of it.

Earlier than most, the military tactician in Ramos understood that the new multiparty version of our democracy actually made the creation of large national movements, and the mobilization of large national constituencies, a waste of time and resources. In a multi-candidate race where no majority is required, and where no run-off race takes place, success for apresidential candidate is not to get an overall majority, it’s merely to get slightly more than the next strongest candidate.

Ramos got a smaller percentage of the votes than almost all of the defeated presidential contenders from 1946 to 1969. Even Estrada’s percentage in 1998 was smaller than that of the only non-majority president prior to martial law: Carlos P. Garcia. And Estrada himself, elected to office in the manner of Macapagal in 1961 (he became a Liberal president with a Nacionalista-dominated House), was saddled with a Ramos-era coalition that ended up impeaching him. Macapagal’s daughter at least learned from her father and secured House support and has nurtured it since.

The most successful party of the post-EDSA years, the Lakas-CMD (itself a splinter party from the old Cory-era LDP monolith), is in the curious position of being a large, nationally entrenched party with a gigantic body but no manhood. It’s only been able to resist Kampi being artificially grafted on as its substitute gonads but that isn’t saying much. The party was methodically emasculated, by the President herself, who first sidelined Ramos, then Jose de Venecia Jr.: clip, clip. And 2010 presents it with the dilemma of a body about to lose its brain. (To be continued)

Philippines Free Press commentary: The problematic “Nicole”

Philippines Free Press

The problematic “Nicole”

By Manuel L. Quezon III

FROM the very start, “Nicole” posed a problem to many people. She, herself, was a problem: she was not, according to the idealized standards many men have of womankind, exactly a model of feminine modesty and conservatism. She seemed to be the opposite, actually: uninterested in Filipino men but obsessed with Americans, and aggressive, reckless, and “wild.”

And then there was the problem presented by those who rallied to her cause, and merged it with a larger cause: the abrogation of the Visiting Forces Agreement, and after that, the end of the RP-US alliance. For many other Filipinos, anger, outrage, over how American servicemen treated “Nicole” was one thing; supporting her in her desire to obtain justice by legal means, another; and another thing altogether, besides that, was waging a campaign against the United States and its relationship with the Philippines and its government.

These two aspects of her personal, human, tragedy, dominated the trial that led to Daniel Smith’s conviction for rape (and the acquittal of the other servicemen implicated in the rape) and the complications that followed. In the first place, “Nicole” always had to contend with as much public hostility, or at least, skepticism, toward her cause, simply because of who she was, or to be precise, what her critics thought she was –which was, simply, a woman of loose morals who probably deserved what happened to her.

Setting aside, for a moment, the question of rape (which we shouldn’t forget, was determined to have taken place, by the court, based on the legal definition of the crime), it seems to me that because of the critical, even contemptuous, attitudes held by so many, locally and nationally, towards her, she really had no option but to charge Smith and his friends with rape, even if she hadn’t been raped.

This was a point I tried to raise in my Inquirer column. The humiliating circumstances under which she was thrown out of that van by the American servicemen left her with no choice but to be publicly branded a whore, and what’s more, one willing to take an incredible amount of public humiliation. The repercussions of simply accepting her fate, would have branded her for life, not just in her community, but with her family. Knowing her taste in men, it might have circulated as gossip among American servicemen, permanently closing off the fate she seems to have desired most –to end up happily married to an American.

We all have our preferences and in her case, her preference, even if you describe it as bordering on an obsession, with Americans is no different from that demonstrated, in all sorts of ways, by other Filipinas (and Filipino men, too). There was a kind of local and national hypocrisy in that “Nicole” was perhaps more uninhibited, certainly a little more public and perhaps a lot more careless, about demonstrating her preferences. She was never a prostitute; should never be considered one; and yet, was essentially branded as one by a big percentage of her countrymen.

On the other hand those who wrapped the country’s flag around her shoulders failed to consider that she may have never had much of an attachment to that flag, or what those clamoring for justice for her attached, in terms of symbolism, to that flag. At most, an instinctive racial sensitivity and sense of resentment against uncouth and callous American servicemen is what she, her family, and a large swathe of the public may have shared with the more politically-inclined of her supporters.

We don’t know how it happened, but we do know that “Nicole” dismissed her lawyer, and that her family says she’s gone to the United States, and has had an American boyfriend since the case began, and that she doesn’t seem inclined to return. An affidavit, in which she expresses regret over pursuing the charge, because she has doubts over whether she was actually raped, has been produced.

Lawyers seem to agree on two things, concerning that affidavit: first, that it carries little value and is actually liable to be dismissed as irrelevant by the courts; and that second, even if she claims she was so drunk as to no longer be sure she was actually raped, the very fact she was drunk and confused, and sex occurred with Smith, suggests rape anyway.

To me, there are three things that cannot be changed, regardless of whether Smith’s conviction ends up affirmed, or overturned, on appeal.

First, that aside from the crime of rape, the manner in which “Nicole” was abandoned deserved not only a vigorous protest, but a demand, for Americans to more properly discipline their troops. Second, that the government exceeded its authority –and a sovereign sense of decency- in handing Smith over to the Americans when it already had custody of the accused. Third, that it failed to capitalize on the rhetoric of the new American administration, in pursuing further legal clarifications, to the extent of demanding renegotiation, if necessary, of the Visiting Forces Agreement.

Only then can we find out whether the Americans are interested in a fairer deal; and based on that, only then can we determine if the public is prepared to consider finally abandoning its existing alliance with the United States. As it is, “Nicole” has made her choice; and that choice has robbed those using her as a symbol of their anti-American fight, of a potent weapon. Her decision, however, focuses attention, once more, on the gutless handling of her case by our government; and the natural tendency of the Americans to extract any advantage, whether formally granted or not, Filipinos will give them.

From the start and to the bitter end, the whole case has revealed to us, much more about ourselves, individually and collectively, than perhaps we’re prepared to accept.

The Long View: A question of candidates

The Long View
A question of candidates

By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:45:00 03/26/2009

A year ago I wrote in this space (“The civic imperative: a reflection,” 3/19/08) that our generation’s calling is to rebuild our lost civic culture, which goes beyond insisting on our liberties but also recognizes our obligations to each other, our local and then our national communities. This means reintroducing the concept of debates on local or national issues, not as shouting matches or oratorical fireworks displays, but to present the pros and cons on which the electorate is called upon to render a verdict.

It was also a year ago, in the same piece, that I tried to distinguish the proper areas in which the courts of public opinion and of law should reign supreme: the dividing line being life, liberty, or property hanging in the balance depending on the verdict.

This time, I’d like to focus on something else we’ve lost, and which a restored civic sense can help recover: our alienation from our leaders. Even as so many groups, insisting on their rights, thunder and shrill, the greater majority, being tugged and pulled in all sorts of directions, end up resenting the idea of rights as something relevant only to minorities but apparently never to majorities.

And so while minorities derive comfort and, who knows, even inspiration from their leaders, these same leaders end up representing fewer and fewer people — which makes matters even more frustrating to the majority who feel that these leaders do not — because they cannot — speak for them, much less lead them.

One needs to ask, who made them leaders in the first place? For elected officials, the obvious answer is, The People. Having stepped forward and volunteered their services, these officials competed against others to get the support (votes) of The People. They even get promoted over time, and, in due course, decide to present themselves to The People for the biggest job of all: President of the Philippines. But of all the people who want to become president every six years, only one will succeed.

I used to wonder why the Senate is considered the training ground for the presidency, considering that the latter is an executive position, while being a senator requires an altogether different set of skills. The traditional reason is that, aside from the president and the vice president, only a senator can claim a national mandate; therefore, for any person wanting to present himself to the people, the Senate is the equivalent of the primary system in other countries. A senator has made the cut; can prove possession of a national constituency; and therefore he possesses the proven capacity to seek and acquire a broad national mandate, without which any president lacks legitimacy, and would be doomed to fail.

But I’ve come to another conclusion, and it has to do with what senators are required to do, once they get elected to the Senate. From the start let me make an assumption: the electorate, in pondering who should be president, has a bias for people of action, and not reflection; but men of action are also judged if they are capable of self-control. The hopelessly scholarly and remote and the active but unstable have their roles to play as national sages and gadflies but will never be president.

Consider, then, the example of a senator who, obsessed with his Action Man image, brushes aside questions of parliamentary procedure because he’s too impatient to learn the rules and thinks that the rules are bothersome, anyway (a surprising attitude considering that Action Man is also a lawyer, a person whom you’d assume has a certain reverence for the rules). Such a senator obviously cares for nothing but ambition. He has taken on the job of being a legislator not out of a desire to craft laws, which can only see the light of day if their passage is accompanied by a scrupulous regard for parliamentary procedure, but merely as a stepping-stone to higher things.

That senator might argue that he is, temperamentally, an executive, and that the reality of our politics is such that the Senate is a necessary stopping-off point to the presidency; but contrast that senator with another senator, equally executive-minded, but who sets his mind to mastering procedure and learning how to craft legislation, no matter how tedious it may all seem.

In the end, the one who brushes aside procedure will be a less effective executive, because his ignorance condemns him to being a blustering blowhard while the one who had the self-discipline — and humility — to learn the rules so as to pay his position and the voters their due will prove a match to any wily bureaucrat trying to take advantage of his boss.

However, here’s another thing to consider. You could, conceivably, become a senator without need of a party, or by hopping from one to another depending on your needs. A senator can be a political butterfly because if necessary, he can afford to be a voice in the wilderness. A president has no such luxury. Being president requires not only a national mandate, it requires a national network of political supporters; you must be able to court not just support in order to be elected, but you must hold that support for the duration of your administration.

Michael MacDonald, in “Why Race Matters in South Africa,” quotes Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter: “Democracy’s guiding principle is that of citizenship. This involves both the right to be treated by fellow human beings as equal with respect to the making of collective choices and the obligations of those implementing such choices to be equally accountable and accessible to all members of the polity.”

Therefore, before we even consider those who are eager to present themselves as our next president, we need to ask ourselves: Says who? It is not enough for them to say they want to be president. We need to ask: Who has endorsed their candidacy?

The Palace strikes back and other scenarios

After days of titillating leaks (a Striptease, Lito Banayo called it), the Mancao Affidavit (version 3.0) was finally leaked in full. The story since then has taken the usual twists and turns, most recently with the surreal Mancao to Lacson: ‘Sleep soundly, sir’ .

Last Sunday, the Inquirer editorial, pondering Lacson and Estrada being on the defensive (for now), asked whether the best they could do was mount The ‘Becket defense’.

The other day, I was struck by this passage from Chapter 1 of Eugenics and Other Evils by G.K. Chesterton:

The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt. It is no good to cry out after you are hurt; especially after you are mortally hurt. People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often necessary to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air.

In sports terms: the best Defense is a good Offense. And this is something Bong Austero acknowledges but quickly dismisses in his column, Truisms:

The problem is that the senator seems to be reinforcing negative public perception. This is because, unfortunately, the gentleman has been protesting too much even when his name still has to be officially dragged into the controversy. Consequently, everyone I talked to is asking the same thing: Why is he making such a ruckus when he still has to be accused, formally, of the crime?

And oh, since we’re talking about truisms, there’s also that one about how offense is the best defense. It’s entirely possible that the senator, who lest we forget, used to be a military man and has expertise in intelligence work, knows something we don’t and is therefore taking matters into his own hands. Thus the senator has been quite vociferous in asserting that the whole thing is politically motivated and is a ploy to destroy his chances in 2010.

Unfortunately, we’re talking about double murder in this particular case. At the end of the day, the matter of political foul play should become irrelevant.

It is possible that Lacson’s enemies are milking the controversy to bits to advance some political agenda. It is possible that the senator is correct, this is another hatchet job from the usual suspects in Malacañang.

It is illegitimate political behavior, of course, but like I said, it is irrelevant in this particular case because the only question that needs to be answered is whether he is guilty or not of the crime he is allegedly being implicated in. So the senator’s whining about how the whole scheme is a ploy of the dirty tricks department of the Palace is really irrelevant.

Except if the Senator knows that the “only question that needs to be answered” will not be addressed! The affidavit was prepared, some of its contents leaked, then the entire affidavit leaked, and then affiant launched a protracted effort to keep himself from being deported. All this suggests doing maximum damage without risking a confrontation in open court, or the government having its hands tied by the sub judice rule.

The case for the prosecution, so to speak, was laid out by Antonio Carpo in a 2001 column for the Inquirer, Dacer’s killers: Who and why?, republished on the paper’s front page:

Returning to Lacson’s publicist, Lito Banayo, he points out,

While we focus on who ordered the killing of FVR’s publicist and Joe Almonte’s best friend Bubby Dacer, we forget all about Legacy and Jocjoc, Mercy’s merciful cover-ups, Abalos’ borjer joints, Jun Lozada’s calvary for truth, journalists and activists getting killed, jobs by the thousands getting lost each day, because Circus, Circus re-runs the Dacer-Corbito case…

And meanwhile, the money bags are being filled up in Malacanang for charter change.

As I pointed out in my entry on the recent surveys, the surveys indicate that the President’s constituency would welcome -or at least shrug off- the cancellation or postponement of the 2010 elections, and that even if half or more of the country might oppose it, they remain divided among themselves with no leader capable of coalescing majority support.

Hence my column, Getting even, yesterday, which made reference to Tony Abaya’s recent column, Sinking fast (referring to the sinking popularity of the President even in bailiwick areas) where he writes,

I believe that Plan A is still operative, that the move to amend the Constitution to shift to the parliamentary system is still on. It is the simplest and quickest way for President Arroyo to constitutionally remain in power beyond 2010, whatever the surveys may say about how unpopular she is.

The Lakas-Kampi-NPC coalition has a stranglehold on the Lower House. They can and will no doubt revive moves to convene both Houses into a constituent assembly (ConAss) and attempt to vote as one body for charter change. Only the oppositionist Senate stands in the way and it will no doubt insist that the two bodies vote separately, in which case the issue will be deadlocked.

This matter will undoubtedly be raised to the Supreme Court, probably by mid-2009 or later. As long as Chief Justice Reynato Puno remains in his position, the Court can be relied on to block any such moves from the Lower House. But if Chief Justice Puno is removed, for whatever reason, then the way is clear for ChaCha and we will have GMA Forever, legally and constitutionally, no matter what the surveys say about how unpopular she is.

A variation of Plan A – let’s call it Plan A-1 – would be to postpone, not cancel, the May 2010 elections, by as few as two or three months, on the grounds of social unrest because of the continuing financial meltdown. By coincidence, Chief Justice Puno retires also in May 2010.

Postponing – not canceling – the elections by even as few as two or three months would open a window of opportunity for the Lakas-Kampi-NPC coalition to push for ChaCha through a ConAss since CJ Puno would be retiring by May 2010, making possible the appointment of a new Chief Justice friendlier to President Arroyo’s ambition to remain in power beyond 2010.

Abaya think its no coincidence the President’s been visiting the Second District of Pampanga a lot recently:

By the strangest coincidence, the March 19 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (page 13) asks: “Will President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo run for Congress (in parliamentary elections) in 2010? In the last 22 days, President Arroyo visited Pampanga five times and four of those visits were all in her home province’s second district.”

The Inquirer listed down these visits, in each of which she was accompanied by medical and dental missions. Unmistakable sorties to hustle for votes. Feb. 24 in Floridablanca; March 4 in Guagua; March 9 in San Fernando; March 10, Lubao; March 18 in Lubao again, to celebrate the birthday of her bosom pal, Lilia Pineda, wife of alleged jueteng lord Bong Pineda. No doubt the Lord, the real Lord, guided her to these places…

Ana Marie Pamintuan’s column, Scenarios, puts down another possibility altogether, Plan B:

If the current buzz has any basis, some characters in the administration are again toying with the idea [of emergency rule]. I don’t know what makes them think Barack Obama’s administration would be more receptive to martial law than the Bush administration, unless some scenario — a major eruption of violence in Mindanao, for example — can be used as justification…

It’s a wild scenario, as far as Gen. Alexander Yano is concerned… no is also not worried about the possible appointment of Lt. Gen. Delfin Bangit as his replacement when he retires in June.

…Though his appointment will mean that senior officers will be bypassed, among them Army chief Lt. Gen. Victor Ibrado and chief of the directorial staff Lt. Gen. Rodrigo Maclang…

…Teodoro’s support is key to the imposition of martial law, and he doesn’t look like the type who will go along with it, especially if the reason is contrived as it was in 1972.

But what if Teodoro is replaced by someone more pliable, like a particular retired military officer who has reportedly been eyeing the post for some time?…

…Conspiracy buffs are warning that if Teodoro quits around May or June and the right men are installed in the top defense and military posts, then the groundwork is being laid for martial law.

Only time will tell how wild this scenario is.

Well, what we do know is that the government is preparing to roll out a Moral Renewal Extravaganza come May 14. Can you hear it now?

Bagong Pagsilang (Hymn of the New Society) – Bagong Lipunan Choral Ensemble, Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, Felipe Padilla de Leon

But besides that -because, if there’s one thing we know for sure by now, it’s that the President never puts all her eggs in one basket- providing for the future continues apace.

And so there’s this story: GMA’s son to get new House district. Simply put,

The House is proposing to split Arroyo’s constituency into two districts.

This is obviously in anticipation of the widely expected congressional candidacy of Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. in next year’s elections.

Andaya was representative of Camarines Sur’s first district for nearly three terms or nine years before joining the President’s Cabinet. His late father, Rolando Andaya, represented the district for three terms.

If the budget chief decides to reclaim his House seat, Rep. Arroyo could run in the proposed new district.

Second-district Rep. Luis Villafuerte, who is president of Mrs. Arroyo’s Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino (Kampi) party, authored the bill dividing the Andayas’ bailiwick into two districts.

The additional district would include two of Villafuerte’s towns.

Anyway, there will be more on this and other proposals for new House districts on tonight’s Explainer.

Meanwhile, some articles that I’ve been meaning to link to, concerning the current economic crisis. The attempt to understand what caused the current global economic downturn continues apace. Alice Poon, writing in the Asia Sentinel, points to Alex Salmon’s Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street, and says that while the article is rather difficult to understand, it makes the best attempt so far, to explain things in layman’s terms.

Peter Gowan, writing in The New Left Review, argues that what actually happened was that “A New Wall Street System” emerged over the past quarter century; and that this is what collapsed, in a manner no one could quite comprehend because the new system was, well, so very new (hat tip: Caffeinesparks).

As things continue to unravel, looking back to the Great Depression continues to be fashionable; see the Bloomberg special, 1930s Revisited: Depression dynamic takes hold on markets, banks. You hear people referring, more and more, to the late John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1955 work, The Great Crash: 1929 (see excerpts from the book). His son, James Galbraith, has taken a critical attitude towards the new American administration. See James Galbraith: Obama Isn’t Doing Enough to Solve the Financial Crisis .

The Left, after an initial bout of Schadenfreude, has taken to asking whether it can step in the political and moral vacuum created by the implosion of Capitalism. The venerable The Nation conducted a symposium, “Reimagining Socialism”. Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher Jr. in Rising to the Occasion think that Capitalism might possibly not survive this latest crisis, but that Socialism isn’t equipped, at present, with a plan for taking up the slack. Robert Pollin in Be Utopian: Demand the Realistic, says Socialism will take time to come up with relevant solutions;

Perhaps most controversially, Alice Solnit argues in The Revolution Has Already Occurred , that the Left must embrace the small-is-beautiful mode, for it is in co-ops and even bicycle lanes that the Revolution has taken place; and instead of obsessing over the State, the Left be more Anarchist in its approach.

Tariq Ali in Capitalism’s Deadly Logic , and Immanuel Wallerstein in Follow Brazil’s Example , both think the answers are present in Latin America and the revival of the Left there.

Non-Left blogger big mango argues, instead, for Re-imagining Capitalism.

Domestically, the largest faction of the Left seems more interested in doctrinal purity. An interesting reading is Jose Ma. Sison’s lecture, Anti-revisionist struggle and cultural revolution: Consequence to the CPP , where he rejects criticisms of Stalinism and reaffirms the enduring relevance of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Which brings me to a U.P. Professor, Rene Ofreneo, and his observations regarding RP’s deepening Job crisis:

Clearly, the job situation is bad before the present global recession. This can only grow worse under the lengthening shadows of a global economy moving south.

This is not difficult to comprehend given the relative openness of the Philippine economy and its high dependence on the global economy. In particular, the following job “winners” are highly vulnerable:

* Deployment of OFWs and OFW remittances

* Remittance-based industries, e.g., distribution, real estate, education, etc.

* Electronics exports

* Nontraditional agricultural exports

* CC-BPO services

* Tourism

* ODA-funded infrastructure projects, and

* Mining, biofuels

All the above are likely to decline. The decline of some winners will be dramatic, such as what is happening in the electronics. There are numerous “downsizing” programs being carried out by investors-locators in the 40 or so private industrial parks, four export processing zones (Baguio, Bataan, Cavite and Cebu) and the two special economic zones (Clark and Subic). The decline in others will be less dramatic, mainly in the form of slowdown of growth in demand as what is happening in the CC-BPO industries.

In the case of the OFW sector, the picture appears contradictory—decline in the demand for OFWs doing home care (e.g., Hong Kong and Singapore) and low-end factory work (e.g., Taiwan and South Korea) but continuing high demand for specialized OFW services, e.g., welding and designing services (due partly to the infrastructure-based stimulus packages in countries in recession) and health care (due to the requirements of aging populations in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries).

On the whole, however, the Philippine employment crisis as outlined earlier is now being aggravated by the global crisis, with the above winners experiencing either a sharp decline or a slowdown in demand. On the other hand, the weak sectors of the economy—domestic industry and domestic agriculture—are likely to continue to languish under trade liberalization, smuggling, neglect, high cost of doing business/farming, CARP conflicts and so on.

Will unemployment then go up? Not necessarily. In the 1983-85 Philippine economic depression, most of the displaced formals simply swelled the informals in the urban and rural areas. Somehow, low-wage earners must find ways to survive and cope with the requirements of daily living. In this context, one challenge for labor officials is how to monitor the deteriorating quality of jobs for many Filipinos. Another challenge is how to measure real displacement rates—at home and overseas—given the tendency of employers to rely mainly on short-term hiring arrangements. Both the DOLE and the National Statistics Office are unable to record the number of employees who are not formally “terminated” but whose services are simply not renewed.

This ties in, in a way, with my thoughts on our society’s coping mechanisms when a crisis takes place. And this suggests that whether it’s the Left, expecting its ranks to swell, or government officials expecting -even fomenting- civil unrest to justify emergency rule, or mainstream politicians expecting the economic crisis to sway the voting population one way or another, that all may be disappointed.

Update: Rep. Mikey Arroyo: Charter change through con-ass still alive.

The Long View: Getting even

The Long View
Getting even

By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:44:00 03/23/2009

According to a congressman I asked about the prospects of Charter change, the campaign for amendments is dead. The Speaker, according to the representative, told his colleagues that any changes proposed—and approved—wouldn’t apply to themselves, to make the whole thing acceptable to the public. When they heard this, the Speaker’s fellow congressmen expressed not only disgust, but that they’d immediately drop all interest in amendments.

Whether that story’s true or a tongue-in-cheek tall tale, only House insiders know. What I think is emerging, though, is that after years of being on the defensive, the Palace is now on the offensive. It has taken the measure of its enemies and found them wanting. And while conventional wisdom has it that time is running out for the administration, it may just be that its window of opportunity is wider than conventional wisdom dictates.

That conventional wisdom says that if Charter change isn’t accomplished by June, when the current second session of the 14th Congress draws to a close, the President (and her people) will have to resign themselves to making an accommodation with a successor, as she becomes a lame duck. Her lame-duck status would be inaugurated by her July State of the Nation Address (under her present term, her last). She’d never been able to escape the Supreme Court and the AFP serving as the ultimate check-and-balance on her, or her subordinates’ ambitions.

However, Tony Abaya thinks the window of opportunity’s wide open and will remain so, not just until June or July, but until May next year. With regards to the Supreme Court, if the administration wants to ram Charter change through sooner rather than later, the possibility of impeaching the Chief Justice remains a viable one. There’s also what Abaya calls “Plan A-1,” which is to postpone—not cancel—the May, 2010 elections, on the pretext that social unrest has broken out because of the economic crisis; the Chief Justice having to retire in May, a new Chief Justice could be appointed in time to validate a House-led amendments proposal.

Indeed, Ana Marie Pamintuan says that there are people within the present dispensation toying with the idea of emergency rule. If true, this would be the revival of a plan previously thwarted by former Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz Jr. and former Ambassador Albert del Rosario and John Negroponte, who flew to Manila to express Washington’s opposition to the plan. Cruz and some other Cabinet members then thwarted an attempt to wield emergency powers on the sly, by publicly countering the assertion made by other Cabinet members that the President’s declaration of a state of emergency gave her martial-law-like powers.

Behind the scenes, it’s said that Gen. Alexander Yano, the widely respected AFP chief of staff, has fostered a kind of consensus within the Armed Forces: the AFP will not look kindly on coup attempts, so long as the administration refrains from any attempt to extend its stay in office or engage in unconstitutional behavior. But that consensus is only maintained by Yano’s own personal prestige within the military. Pamintuan says the things to look out for are whether the defense secretary ends up replaced in May or June, as well as the appointment of Lt. Gen. Delfin Bangit as the next chief of staff.

Which brings me to the latest Pulse Asia survey, which revealed 65 percent of the public considers holding elections in May 2010 a “big possibility” and which has 51 percent saying they agree there will be “big trouble” if the elections are not held. However, the same survey has big chunks of the public thinking otherwise. There’s 13 percent who think there’s a “small possibility/none” that the elections will take place; while 22 percent are undecided. That totals 35 percent. Even more interesting are the figures for combining those who are undecided (21 percent) or who disagree (27 percent) that “big trouble” would arise if the elections weren’t held. That’s 48 percent of the country that more or less shrugs off the possible cancellation of the elections.

Why do these numbers cause me unease? I’ve argued for some years now that the country’s basically divided; that while half the country opposes the President, that half is hopelessly divided on which options to pursue or leaders to follow. On the other hand, the divisions in the President’s half of the country are simpler: there’s a quarter of the population that calls itself “undecided” on most serious questions, with another quarter supporting her come hell or high water. In the end, the passive and active support combines to form a blocking force.

The President’s committed 25 percent is enough to closely match the support of any individual leader angling to replace her; another 25 percent can be relied upon to bury its head in the sand at the first sign of trouble, which adds to the equity of the incumbent. The Palace is now methodically targeting leaders with enough residual popularity (Estrada) or will (Lacson) to galvanize the opposition should a make-or-break effort be launched to extend the President’s term—or to give her a new lease on political life as Member of Parliament for Pampanga.

The potential presidential candidates, of course, have no choice but to embark on building alliances, in the hope that the process snowballs into an unstoppable public demand for elections come May 2010. But as it stands, practically half the country could live without those elections, and the other half would quarrel among themselves as to whose lead to follow in opposing a possible postponement—or conversion of the polls to a parliamentary one.

It’s a situation begging to be exploited. And when did the present dispensation ever decline to exploit any situation with political potential?

All’s well that ends well

It’s been two years since Dinky Soliman and Enteng Romano were arrested by the fashion police in Manila (see my March 20, 2006 column and my blog entry).

Just the other day (March 18), Enteng Romano got a surprise in the mail. Allow me to share a recent e-mail he sent out:

The charges filed against us and the basis of the arrest was the Violation of BP 880 (Public Assembly Act of 1985).

In dismissing the charges, Asst City Prosecutor Sheila Marie Alaan-Ignacio declared in her resolution that we “were not in violation of BP 880 but our arrests were effected under the Calibrated Preemptive Response Policy of the Arroyo administration whose purpose was to preempt and abridge the freedom to peacefully assemble and expression.” And we “could not be validly arrested for violation of BP 880 because they did not pose a clear and present danger to the pedestrians and motoring public.”

She further asserts that our arrest “is indubitably in violation of their constitutionally protected right of Freedom of Speech and Expression.”

Case dismissed!

The resolution is dated October 31, 2007. But it only arrived in the mail today, with the envelope postmarked March 17, 2009.

Boy… do we have a slow postal service.

Their lawyer, Edwin Lacierda, pointed out “This was a case that no fiscal wanted to handle. It was too highly charged for any prosecutor. And the truth was clearly on our side. Even the policeman who arrested Dinky and Enteng felt so abandoned by the city government during the preliminary investigation that he asked me not to file a case against him in retaliation”.

Coping mechanisms

Tony Abaya’s column Stability from Failures, got me thinking the other night. A country that has undergone repeated national traumas: the defeat of the 1896 revolution; the defeat of the First Republic and the Filipino-American War; the Japanese Occupation; the depredations of the Hukbalahap; the First Quarter Storm and Martial Law, including the economic collapse of the early 1980s; and so on.

In Dusk and dawn in the Philippines: memoirs of a living witness of World War II, the late Antonio Molina recounted two jokes that made the rounds during the Japanese Occupation.

The first:

“A Filipino asked another, ‘Suppose you see Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Emperor of Japan both approaching you. Whom will you greet first?’

“‘The Emperor.’

“‘Why?’

“‘Because Our Lord Jesus Christ would understand.’”

The second:

“Thus, during the buy-and-sell boom, an activity engaged in by almost all the unemployed and idle professionals, it is said a man went to confession.

“‘Father,” he said, ‘ I accuse myself of having stolen a dynamo.”

“The confesor asked him, ‘Big or small?’

“‘Well, not too small. It was a four-horse power.’

“Quickly the priest told him, ‘Sold! I have a buyer!’

Here’s an extract from one of the drafts of the late Enrique Zobel’s memoirs, in which he recounts the immediate effects of the War (as background, his father, Jacobo, was at the time in Bataan, as an officer under Gen. Vicente Lim’s command):

Exactly as father predicted, a few days later, Manila became an open city and much to the surprise of everybody, the banks were all closed. And I wondered: where would we get our next meal? We had some money left over, but not enough to last us for a week. Even Ayala y Cia – occupying Filipinas Building, at the foot of the Jones Bridge, had no money to pay its employees. All the banks were closed.

The Japanese, as expected, came in, and took over most of Manila. At first, they were peaceable. They did not treat the Filipinos badly because Manila was an Open City.

My mind was constantly on how we were to survive. With what we would eat. Mother was in hysterics. She had never bothered about where the money came from and only knew how to spend it. A thought occurred to me that I would get my father’s horses from the Manila Polo Club and put them in the harness, hitching them to carretelas which Floren and I would drive. At least we would get a daily cash income.

First, I negotiated the sale of father’s stamp collection to a friend of Mascuñana, head of Archives. This friend was a Jewish trader of stamps in Ermita. With that money, I went to Pasay, Calle Zamora, to a carretoña, which was owned by Mang Sendong. (Today, the children of Mang Sendong make jeep bodies; but then, they only made carretelas.)

I negotiated for two carretelas using as down payment the stamp collection and later on, some silver and ornaments that mother had in the house which were sold to pawnshops and different small stores in Ermita.

I went to the Manila Polo club, Floren and I. It had been taken over by the Japanese cavalry and I asked to see the commanding officer who was a lieutenant. I explained to him that I was a Filipino and wanted to get my six horses back and bring them to my house. He stared at me, laughed in my face, and then he asked me why. First he asked me to prove that I was a Filipino. Of course, I had no proof. I said the fellow with me knows me; we were raised together – Florentino de Lara, who today lives in Calatagan, retired.

We had a heated discussion. I mean heated, as I started to shout my lungs off. Although I was 14, I was taller than he was. I don’t know how but between his anger and some persuasive talk, I was brought to Fort Santiago. I did not know what the hell Fort Santiago was. But when I realized this was where they kept all the prisoners, I started getting worried.

I was introduced to a major who interviewed me. I explained that the only way we could make a living, my mother and I, were those horses. (I was lucky it did not occur to them to ask: What about your father? I would really have been in hot water then.)

He asked me to tell him the horses’ names and describe them. That was easy. I described my father’s grey pony, Sultana, whom when you tickled her nose, would raise her lip. She had a scar on her left front leg. I went down the roster of horses: Sultana, Panthera, Rumba, Mani, Pal-o-Mine and Bobby Shot.

While we were talking, I noticed a little chap staring at us. After a while, he got involved in the conversation. Of all people, he was the head of the Kempeitai. He was Gen. Ota. Kempeitai was the Japanese Gestapo. And he asked me why, who was I; was I American? I said no, I was Filipino. He said: You can’t be. So I explained that my mother was Spanish. So he said: Oh Spanish! I know some Spanish. And he started dilly-dallying – “buenos dias,” etc. And then he said: What are you doing for lunch? Nothing. So he invited me for lunch, at his house.

He was occupying the house of Juaquinito Elizalde (he was in exile, saerving as the U.S. Resident Commissioner when the War broke out) on the Boulevard, beside President Quezon’s Roberts Street residence in Pasay, which was also occupied by a Japanese general. (Juaquinito Elizalde’s house became the U. S. Ambassador’s residence after the war; then it was demolished and now Sunset View towers stands on that lot).

Of course, in those days, a meal was rice and fish or rice and chicken, if you could get chicken. Otherwise, it was rice. Well, he had fried eggs, he had Japanese steaks, etc. And then he asked me if I could make it every Thursday, and I could have lunch in exchange, I could talk to him in Spanish. He just wanted Spanish conversation for one or two hours. Obviously, I amused him. So we made a pact. In fact, after about three or four times, I brought my mother along who also ate there. Hence, we spoke Spanish. He was a very nice, quiet person, considering the title and position he occupied; at least with me.

What is funny was, towards the end of say, three months, one day, during the lunch, he said: Enrique, you are alone, do you want to pick up your father at Capas? I turned white. And he said: Why haven’t you brought up the subject of your father? I answered back: You never asked me. So after lunch, he offered the use of his car to pick up my father in Capas. So you can imagine when I went to Capas, a young boy of 14, getting off in his car, that every goddamn sentry saluted Gen. Ota’s car. I went to pick up my father, carried him bodily into the car, and brought him back to Manila.

A fellow prisoner, Ernesto Rufino, asked me: Enrique, how the hell can you come in that Japanese car? He was there in line when I picked up my father. He was simply amazed. Where did I get this thing? I did not answer back. I just smiled, you know, and said: Someday, I’ll tell you.

I brought father back, and he had improved from dysentery; he was 86 lbs. He could survive only on soup because anything else would just come out.

Anyway, that first day at the Manila Polo Club, they gave me the horses at the end of the long argument. They said: At such a date, go pick up your horses. They did not give us the saddles. They gave Floren and I the horses and the bridles. So bareback, we took the six horses back; one boy on each horse, and one horse on either side, to Malate, where the stables were, empty by then.

The problem arose of how to feed the horses. Every afternoon when the sun came down, we would bring them to the Boulevard and spend three to four hours there and have them eat the grass before training them with the caretela.

Part I of the training session was getting two bamboo poles and having the horse trotting around with a long rope on his rein and us driving him from behind, getting him used to the bamboo poles on each side.

Well, everyone did very well except for Pal-o-Mine. He started kicking, and got loose. Floren and I were training them in bathing suits and shorts. I ran after the horse in a bathing suit and finally caught him near the bomberos in Azcarraga where the children play “sipa.” So I found myself holding a tired horse, crowd around me, in a bathing suit, and how can you explain the situation? Anyway, I rode the horse back to Malate.

We got those horses taught. My first customer was my grandfather, Don Enrique. We delivered him to his office every morning and then brought him back in the afternoon… Then in the evening, in the last “pasada,” we would end up every night in Pasay, near the Polo Club, Pasay Market to buy “zacate,” which had been cut in Makati.

So we would fill up both caretelas, paid in cash naturally. After delivering the load to Ayala, it was back to Pasay, then to Escolta, back to Pasay, I made about four rounds a day. With Floren that’s eight rounds, total. That was a lot of money then. But with that, I fed my mother and we all survived. (Lunch was rice with whatever Belen, our cook, could put in. Floren and I both ate the same food.)

We traded Mani for a mestizo horse. Floren had a funny experience with that horse. One evening he got a family of Sikhs up the Jones Bridge and the weight was so much that it pulled the mestizo pony up in the air and the caretela fell on its rear, until the Sikhs shifted weight to the front, and horse and caretela came back to earth again.

Consider the effects of the tremendous inflation that took place during the War (see Charle’s Mock’s September 2, 1943 diary entry). Now this requires further study, but what we do have by way of accounts such as the many diaries recently published of people who lived through World War II, is that they were immediately faced with the problems of inflation, a breakdown in law and order, and a situation where old skills weren’t necessarily relevant to the current situation.

The whole point of these stories from the Wartime generation (and middle and upper class voices at that) is that it might be useful to explore the coping mechanism of society viewed as an organic whole and less by means of its component parts. To do that requires exploring common behavior.

Some notes, based on a discussion about a week ago with friends online.

• For some time now, you often hear observers bewailing the behavior they notice among OFW’s, that their purchases go towards consumer items like appliances and jewelry, then vehicles and land. Previously, they were criticized as follows: that they did not save, were obsessed with appliances and other items, with jewelry, and so on. But all the consumer items are actually, in a sense, portable wealth: appliances can be pawned, houses may not have been completed but land bought or occupied… so the coping will take place.

• This actually points to how entrenched across classes crisis coping mechanisms are. Coping mechanisms constantly revalidated over time, and most recently by the collapse of banks, the predatory political class’ scraping the public barrels, etc.

• You could even argue these lessons go back to the formative years of our nation-state: the Philippine Revolution and the War (both within living memory during the War itself) taught people not to trust banks, and governments, with the old middle and upper classes survived the way many intend and are doing it now: pawning portable wealth, and retreating to the land when possible, trusting, not in currency or institutions but the family.

• This crisis is like the 1980s economic crises, serving the same purpose in transmitting from one generation to the next, the coping mechanisms that saw the older generations survive their eras’ crises. In the 1980s, those who lived through the war and the years of terror and uncertaintly during the depredations of the military and the Huks, instinctively knew what would carry them through. Same lessons as during the War. Do not trust banks, government institutions.

• The amassing of appliances is no different from the purchase of pianos and phonographs prior to the war and the pawning for emergency cash… it will tide the new middle class through just as it tided the old middle class through the war.

• We don’t realize how extended the formal economy is, and how it meshes with the informal one: for example, many fancy shops in Makati do most of their real business in Tupperware Party style gatherings, in part because the wealthy do not want to be seen purchasing in public, but also because it takes place in a style reminiscent of the underground economy. Another example is how the “Multiply.com economy” is already fairly large, tapping into behavior similar to the buy-and-sell economy that began in WW2 but which has never ever really gone away.

• The salaried class is not like salaried classes in other countries again because of the buy-and-sell sub-economy. Note the prevalence of rackets, even among salaried individuals or their spouses, or their extended families, in good times and bad.

• The so-called hoi polloi, the urban and rural poor, are an integral part of all these economies (formal and informal), whether as the staff, or in many respects, the consumers and providers, too; so the informal economy goes all the way to the top and all the way to the bottom, buy and sell, barter and exchange is as much a habit of the wealthiest classes as they are of the poorest, as is the hoarding and land-obsessed (for security) mentality.

• A good example of enduring wartime habits is that from the wealthiest to solidly old middle class villages, converting empty lots to food growing has been a feature since the 1950s, with a portion for the family and the rest for the employees.

• In the first place the system of extended families always includes a cross-section of society as even the wealthiest will have poor relations, they are bound together in terms of behavior that overlooks wealth in some aspects and accentuates dependence in others.

• This brings up feudalism both as safety net and as a code of behavior that won’t go away, because crises reinforces it; if feudalism is as much about obligations as it is about privileges, something again overlooked by academics in the case of the family system although it’s broken down in all other non-family respects (e.g. among tenants and landlords; but as Kerkvliet pointed out, the tension vs. landlords since the 1930s has been as much due to peasants’ desire for landlords to return to their old feudalism and less to a truly widespread demand to overturn feudalism, as it about the wealthy maintaining only a sense of impunity while abandoning traditional expectations of them by the poor).

I think the insight to pursue is in the same manner that anthropolgists are finding more and more of the prehispanic culture having survived, you will find that we have been conditioned by the great traumas of our national existence to deliberately pursue what you find people pointing out to be our national consuelo de bobo: we missed out on the boom, but we muddle through the regional busts. We have been conditioned by our great national traumas to keep our goals limited, and our options unrestricted to those that the formal economy expects.

This also suggests that instead of unrest, what we might see happening, as the economic crisis wears on, is, instead, an increase in underground economic activity, combined with both increased pressures on the government for patronage, and with that, increased clout on the part of the government, since people will be grateful or at least, calmed down, by favors granted.

This ties in with an observation by a former Metrocom officer, who I once asked about conditions during the rice shortages of the early 70s. Were there riots? No, he said, people as a whole do not go berserk; small groups might, and individuals do; but what was remarkable then, he said, was how people accepted harsh conditions.

The Long View: Victim of circumstance

The Long View
Victim of circumstance

By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:33:00 03/19/2009

HER affidavit caused a sensation. Even without paying heed to Evalyn Ursua’s allegation that the notary public before whom the affidavit was formalized belonged to the opposing party’s law firm, anyone reading the affidavit signed by “Nicole” can see how it serves Daniel Smith’s legal purposes. And so the best that can be said concerning the affidavit’s first nine points is that they bring up the very reasons lawyers say the courts tend to discount secondary affidavits like this one—it brings up too many questions, raises too many possibilities concerning motives, all of which serve to actually strengthen the value of actual testimony given under oath in open court.

But there are two portions of the affidavit that struck me as possibly highly revealing about Nicole’s true feelings both before and after her rape case made her a household name.

The first is the last sentence of item 10 in her affidavit: “When people gathered around me at the seawall, everyone seemed to have drawn the conclusion that I was raped except for one who called me a bitch.”

The second is point 11: “Based on the account of SBMA police, I was very hesitant to board the mobile police car that brought me to the headquarters for investigation. I was so confused and the first thing that entered my mind was how would my mother and boyfriend react if they learn that I was last seen with Daniel Smith and that a condom was seen on my pants after Daniel Smith left the van? I was scared of losing not only my American boyfriend but the chance of living in the United States. In fact, I did not immediately tell my boyfriend that I was raped by Daniel Smith. All I said was that something bad happened to me.”

The first points to a process that began the moment those American servicemen kicked her out of the van. Her countrymen immediately began passing judgment upon her, and the verdict would only be that she had been victimized, or that she was a floozy. Neither verdict left her with the option of salvaging her self-respect, because both verdicts opened her up to essentially the kind of malicious scrutiny that had always been there, and of which she was surely aware, but had previously preferred to shrug off. While many women surely shared her enthusiasms, and many young people displayed similarly reckless abandon in seeking companionship and fun, any misadventures get turned into a morality tale.

Filipinos of an older generation used to warn their daughters of the dangers of being too enthralled by GI’s, saying “Hanggang pier ka na lang.” Behind that statement surely lies many other Nicoles, abandoned under circumstances ranging from the truly heart-breaking to the utterly degrading. But always, the essential assumption is there: not only of the uncouth, predatory foreign male, but the gullible, weak, or worse, mercenary Filipina; and always, the elders of both sexes prepared to respond to any eventuality with “I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen…”

Which is exactly what her story became: a morality tale, but one deprived of a victim who, by the standards of her community, both local and national, could be considered truly innocent. From the very start, the question of whether she was raped got bogged down in public opinion being divided on whether her behavior prior to, and during, her encounter with Smith was relevant, or not. Never mind if legally and even morally, her behavior was irrelevant to determining if there had been the crime of rape or not.

Shunted aside was the event that, up to now, with or without her recantation, and whatever the reasoning of Smith or his lawyers, has stood up as genuinely true, and therefore, unquestionably a fact: she was thrown out of a van, disheveled and undressed, and with a condom providing undeniable proof of coitus having taken place, under consensual circumstances or not. This fact alone should have led to a general hue and cry condemning the servicemen and to a dressing-down of the American commander by Filipino officials.

The tragedy is that she had to bow to a public that only offered her the option of being a victimized whore, the publicity of the case meaning that her family could no longer shrug off as innuendo the dark mutterings of those who’d been passing judgment on her all along. More to the point, her American boyfriend (and all future servicemen she’d encounter) might consider her permanently damaged goods.

We know the choice she made: to fight. We know her cause was taken up by many, even as many others viewed her cause with hostility. What we now know is that the ultimate cause of her lawyer and many who rallied around her—severing ties with the United States, consigning the RP-US alliance to the dustbin of history—was not her cause, and that furthermore that cause does not seem to have impressed either her or her family, much as they went along with the rhetoric in the beginning.

I’ve heard it argued that we, as a people, are less concerned with actual morality and are obsessed, instead, with saving face. What if Nicole’s real concern was to somehow save face, if only partially? Or what if justice for her was not in what transpired in her coital encounter with Smith, but with how it ended? There is no crime called dumping a naked person out of a van, no means of seeking compensation for the public seeing you treated as a LBFM (Little Brown Fucking Machine), as one American website refers to Filipinas. The only assurance of a semblance of recovering her dignity, never mind justice, may have been to claim rape.

The other possibility, indeed, what the justice system has concluded, is that rape took place, but to her, the crime was always about the perpetrator and not the country he served, and where she’s finally gone to live.

In this corner…

(Free Press editorial cartoon circa 1965)

While we had the two party system from 1935 to 1972, from our first national, presidential election, the tendency has been to have a three-way contest for the presidency. In particular, 1935, 1957, 1961 were real three-cornered fights; in our era, 1998 and 2004 were three-cornered fights, though it can also be argued that 2004 also saw the country inching back to the more familiar territory of the presidential contest being viewed as a two-way fight. But 2010, if it happens, shows signs of being a repeat of the 1992 contest.

I’ve written elsewhere that with the election of Garcia to the presidency in 1957, something else emerged: the problem of a plurality, and not majority, presidency, although people didn’t get worried over this because each of his successors managed to garner majorities. But I contend that, as Leon Ma. Guerrero argued (in his case, arguing in defense of martial law), “Today began yesterday,” and that the 1950’s brought forward the trends of celebrity candidates and minority presidents we continue to discuss today.

Last February, colleague John Nery wrote a remarkable column titled The 2010 race is set. In it, he set out to discuss what the surveys on presidential contenders reveals about voter behavior -and preferences:

[T]he reality is: We already know who our next president will be. Or more precisely, who among a select five or six Filipinos will win the 2010 elections.

His basis for saying this is based on

…two fundamental assumptions about our voting patterns for national elective office. First, it takes us a considerable amount of time to warm to prospective presidents (in other words, we are not ready for “overnight” candidacies for the presidency). And second, the way we choose our senators is distinctly different from the way we choose our presidents.

Read the whole thing, which also refers to past surveys and elections (1992, 1998, and 2004), and his concluding that,

I obviously believe in electoral miracles. But experience tells me this sort of thing happens only in Senate elections, when a voter has 12 votes to deploy, and some decidedly surprising candidates to choose from. For the presidency, however, we limit our choices early. We don’t like surprises.

Nery believes the surveys indicate the public’s views that there are only six real contenders for 2010: de Castro, Legarda, Villar, Escudero, Lacson and Roxas. He pointed out that regardless of their actual merits or demerits, prospective presidential candidates like Richard Gordon, Jejomar Binay, or Bayani Fernando might as well accept it was too late in the game for them to be taken seriously.

Lito Banayo, also in February, pretty much reached the same conclusion. Banayo added that the same might hold true for Gilbert Teodoro for the presidency or even reform candidates like Grace Padaca or Jesse Robredo or Ed Panlilio for the Senate. Banayo also pointed out that Feliciano Belmonte had publicly disavowed any interest in running for the presidency, knowing he’d have better chances seeking another position.

In recent weeks, trial balloons aplenty have been launched, to gauge the viability of various candidates. The rumor mill has been particularly active, too. So everyone from the Chief Justice, to businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan has been publicly floated or privately whispered about as being interested in the presidency. Most recently, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro expressed interest in the presidency, prompting a skeptical column by Amando Doronila: though I wonder why Doronila didn’t point out what is, perhaps, the biggest obstacle to a Teodoro candidacy: talk that he has broken, politically, with his uncle, Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. because of Teodoro’s wife wanting his vacated congressional seat, something Cojuangco didn’t agree with.

The comes the reality check, the most recent one being Pulse Asia’s February 2009 Nationwide Survey on the May 2010 Elections.

Now of course ahead of any talk of elections in 2010 is the question of whether it would be an actual presidential or a parliamentary, election.

I asked a congressman whether Charter Change was well and truly dead, and the congressman replied that yes, it was, because the Speaker had informed his colleagues that whatever constitutional amendments might be approved would, to soothe the public, not be applicable to them -at which point the enthusiasm of the congressmen for amending the Charter waned perceptibly.

Whether this is true or not, the Pulse Asia survey suggests that the public is convinced that we will have presidential elections in 2010, and that the percentage of those who believe elections will take place has risen slightly since last year. Though what Pulse Asia itself points out as the notable improvement in figures, is that the percentage of people undecided on the matter has dropped. The optimists far outnumber the pessimists and the fence-sitting portion of the public has shrunk.

Personally, looking at the above, this is what I find interesting. I consider the roughly 25% or a quarter of the public who disagree there would be trouble if the 2010 elections aren’t held the hard-core constituency of the President, and the roughly equal percentage the ambivalent sectors who essentially go along, when push comes to shove, with the hard-core supporters of the President.

Now why do I find this interesting? The survey shows far from an overwhelming majority being worried about the consequences of not having elections. It may be a stretch to consider that this means they would welcome not having elections. But if I were looking at these numbers from the Palace’s point of view, an argument could be made for pushing Charter Change a little bit further; because compared to the figures for the possible presidential candidates, there remain more who shrug off the implications of not having elections, and those who are unsure, than those who actually have a stake in pushing forward any individual candidate. There would be no one to galvanize opposition to the cancellation of elections.

Which brings us to what the media considers the juiciest part of this most recent survey: personal preferences, in elections had been held last February:

While from the very start, Nery considered a renewed Estrada bid for the presidency as legally preposterous, what may be more relevant is that Estrada is far from a runaway winner in the surveys, as his drumbeaters were predicting; Nery also points out that compared to his past survey ratings, Estrada’s sheen has dulled, politically.

In fact, if you look at the comparative preferences of people, only four of the main contenders have improved their standings over the past year: Escudero and Roxas by the most, followed by de Castro. Villar went down, as did Estrada, Legarda, and Lacson:

Doronila points out that the latest survey actually presents a dead heat between the four leading contenders, de Castro, Escudero, Estrada and Villar (Nery of course immediately discounts Estrada as constitutionally-banned from seeking the presidency). Of these four, only two have access to the cash necessary to run a strong campaign: Escudero and Villar. Which is why there is talk that the Vice-President might be amenable to running for the vice-presidency, again, repeating the strategy pursued by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2004 when she convinced de Castro to be her running mate.

Regarding the vice-presidency, what may surprise readers the most is that the survey gives an indication of those who are mulling over throwing their hat in the vice-presidential derby, or who are considered likely to do so, or who the various political forces are considering drafting:

More people, it seems, would be happy with de Castro running for Vice-President for the second time, and Escudero, if he decided, as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did in 1998, to play it safe, would do twice as well running for the vice-presidency, too. Legarda would do much better, too. So all three have the luxury or choice, they can slide down if necessary.

I think this point is strengthened by the finding that only four potential vice-presidential candidates have shown improvement in their rankings over the past year:

With Escudero doing best, followed by de Castro and Legarda, who only made negligible gains. Binay went from infinitesimal to negligible.

What the survey doesn’t take into account is the talk, quite recent, at that, that Joseph, not Jinggoy, Estrada might cut through the constitutional Gordian knot and run for the vice-presidency!

Concerning the Senate, the survey looked at the number of slots people fill up in their ballots (just as an aside, it’s well to remember that prior to martial law, voters only voted for 8 senators at a time; if voters’ behavior hasn’t changed all that much, this suggests that fill-up rates back then must have been 100% most of the time). It’s interesting to note that the National Capital Region has the lowest fill-out rate (9) and that demographically, it’s class ABC that fills out the least number of names (also 9):

Now personally I think the 12 at a time system at present is crazy; the old 8 at a time was more reasonable, and also meant a periodic changing of 1/3 of the Senate, more accurately fulfilling its function, as compared to the House, of being a continuing body.

But anyway, here are the front-runners, for the Senate, and again, voters will be interested in getting a sneak peek at those who are angling to run, or who will run:

Now it’s up to you at which point you’ll consider a candidate to be facing such an uphill climb that a candidacy isn’t worth it, but I’d draw it at 12-16, which means Dick Gordon is the last candidate with a ghost of a chance. Note the appearance in the list of media personalities Korina Sanchez, Mike Enriquez, Arnold Clavio and Anthony Taberna; of Speakers de Venecia and Nograles, businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan, former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, and Wowowee host Revillame. Also, just as Lito Banayo pointed out in February, only those with a very high Awareness Rating can be considered viable senatorial contenders (consider the contrast between the probable awareness among newspaper readers or those who regularly read political blogs, and the public awareness of figures often mentioned in the papers and blogs, such as Ed Panlilio (only 34% Awareness) or Jessie Robredo (only 14%).

I am surprised at the rankings of former senators like Butz Aquino or up-and-coming candidates like Adel Tamano.

An interesting table is the next one, showing how individual candidates have moved up or down, percentage-wise, since late last year. Now how much of the changes, do you think, can be directly connected with whatever the headlines have been in the interval between October ‘08 and February ‘09?

Look at the biggest gainer -Edu Manzano! And how, generally, the President’s cabinet members are doing badly. Only Ralph Recto and Sotto are doing well: Durano, Yap, Duque, Syjuco, Teves, Romulo, Teodoro are all in the cellar (with Dinky Soliman). This suggests not even the administration machine can help them.

Nonetheless, the administration and everyone else has to attend to fine-tuning their political machinery in preparation for 2010. Here the old dictum that all politics is local comes to the fore. Even as national candidates mull over their chances, each has to consider who their local allies will be, while local allies jockey to ensure the succession or block rivals from presenting a strong alternative to their rule.

My column today, Vendettas, recounts the scuttlebutt I heard in Davao City when I was there over the weekend. Both Mayor Duterte and Speaker Nograles are third termers; both are trying to ensure their posts pass on to their successors, in Duterte’s case, his daughter for the mayoralty, and in the case of Nograles, to his son for the House of Representative. The possibility that old scores have been merged with the concerns of other groups -say, Duterte’s tolerance for the NPA and the obsession within certain circles of the AFP to liquidate the unarmed Left- points to the role warlordism in all its forms, will play in the coming months to enable permanent solutions to often intractable political problems.

***

An entirely different study (“Impression: The Importance of Media Presence on the bid for the 2010 National Elections”) was presented at the College of Mass Communications of the University of the Philippines at Diliman. It was a student project, with 10 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), with each group comprising six to eight participants in Metro Manila, Laguna, Rizal, Cavite, Batangas, Quezon, Camarines Sur, Bulacan, Tarlac and Pampanga.  All I can do at this point is stitch together the Inquirer.net and ABS-CBNNews.com stories. Note that the Inquirer article was fairly misleading, headlining former Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. as the “most popular.” That isn’t what the respondents were asked.

Instead, what respondents were asked was to rate the probability certain candidates would seek the presidency, based on their media exposure. In other words, based on media appearances, who was expected to seek the presidency? According to the respondents:

Manuel Villar Jr. : 79%

Loren Legarda: 49%

Manuel de Castro Jr. 45%

Manuel Roxas II: 34%

Bayani Fernando: 26%

Panfilo Lacson: 25%

Francis Escudero: 22%

Joseph Estrada: 16%

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo: 6%

So this tells us who was the most obvious, or most assiduous, about increasing their media visibility. But not about their actual popularity. Asked who they actually intend to vote for, 15% said they’d vote for Villar, followed by 10% saying they intended to vote for Escudero.

More interesting was the finding that TV was the most influential medium in terms of ensuring visibility; that in terms of TV, news program exposure was preferable, in the public’s opinion, than exposure in entertainment programs; that, however, over-exposure might lead to public skepticism or resistance to candidates:

“High media visibility was risky for those with political ambitions since media may emphasize the negative rather than the positive facets of potential candidates,” the study said.

The Internet was hardly mentioned as the media in which they saw candidates the most.

(addendum, March 17) Newsbreak, in Voters don’t like pre-campaigning: study , reports as follows:

…television remains to be the most influential medium, with almost all (98%) of the respondents using it. Radio was used by 62 percent while Internet and broadsheet were used by 42 percent and 35 percent, respectively.

“The results of the survey and the FGD echo conclusions made by previous studies that television is the most widely used, and most influential, the study said. “All top five candidates were seen most often by the respondents on TV.”

The study, however, noted that only few respondents saw the potential candidates in the Internet, a medium that has become popular in the Philippines and has been used extensively in other countries for organizing political campaigns and soliciting campaign donations.

“The Internet, which seems to draw the greatest excitement these days due to [US] president Barack Obama’s history-making and breaking rise to power, was hardly ever mentioned by the respondents when asked in which media they see potential candidates most,” the study said, adding that most respondents prefer using this medium for other purposes like downloading music, visiting social networking sites and chatting.

The rest of the An Inquirer.net article, Study shows good, bad among hopefuls, makes for interesting reading, in terms of the semiotics of campaigning.I suppose the findings were listed from least effective to most effective to dispel the impression the article favored any particular candidate, so let me reproduce the reported findings more logically, from most effective to least effective:

• Sen. Manuel Villar. His old campaign slogan “Sipag at Tiyaga” (hard work) still served him well in the UP study. Desirable, too, were his choice of orange as campaign color (symbol) and his relatively new advocacy for the welfare of Filipino migrant workers.

• Sen. Loren Legarda. She wages a “Green Revolution” (slogan) and is always seen wearing “white” (symbol) in public; both were seen as desirable. Respondents also associated her favorably with causes promoting women empowerment.

• Vice President Noli De Castro. Respondents responded positively to his slogan and symbol “Kabayan,” (compatriot or town mate). They also found desirable his advocacy for mass housing (pabahay).

• Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II. “Mr. Palengke” (his slogan), the wet market (his symbol), and his campaign for poverty alleviation (advocacy) all registered as desirable.

• Sen. Panfilo Lacson. While his anticorruption advocacy got the thumbs-up from the respondents, they still associated the former police official with the undesirable notion of being iron-fisted (kamay na bakal), which emerged as both his slogan and symbol.
• Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chair Bayani Fernando. His urban beautification slogan “Metro Gwapo” and his advocacy for traffic management got the respondents’ nod. But his symbol—the pink (with blue) motif for overpasses, fences, road signs and urinals—proved to be a turnoff.

• Sen. Francis Escudero. His slogan “Say Chiz” and his advocacy for “youth empowerment” were deemed desirable. So was his supposed close resemblance to Bamboo, front man of a popular rock band of the same name.

• Former President Joseph Estrada. The convicted-then-pardoned political kingpin still exuded desirability with his old “Erap Para Sa Mahirap” slogan, his “white wristband” symbol and his pro-poor advocacy.

• Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay. His “Makati, Atin Ito” slogan, his city being his own symbol and his economic development agenda consistently came across as desirable among respondents.

• Ms Arroyo. Her slogan Gloria Labandera (Laundrywoman) and her recognized symbol, the mole or nunal on her left cheek, were both considered undesirable; her advocacy for economic development, desirable.

For the political tacticians and communications teams of the various candidates, this surely makes for interesting reading. They have a glimpse, free of charge, at how their “messaging,” thus far, has worked -or failed. And how it ties into what voters look for in candidates.

Back in July, 2007, I pointed out some of the findings in “The Vote of the Poor” by the Institute of Popular Culture of the Ateneo de Manila University:

Corruption is widely seen as making a bad leader. To be good, a leader must have the following attributes: (a) God-fearing, (b) helpful, (c) loyal, (d) responsible, (e) intelligent, (f) hardworking, (g) faithful to one’s word, (h) principled, and (i) trustworthy. Rural and female participants look for intelligence, while urban participants value religiosity. Older participants give priority to helpfulness, while youth and male groups emphasize a leader’s sense of responsibility. Participants tend to cast their sight on local officials for examples of good leaders and on national officials for examples of bad leaders.

Now for more, see the PCIJ articles The poor vote is a thinking vote, and In Payatas, the poor are hopeful. Also, the more recent Pity the poor, for they vote unwisely? From the first two articles, these findings by the Institute of Popular Culture, are helpful.

The first concerns positive qualities the poor look for, in leaders:

The next concerns what are considered negative traits:

Then, the things that make a difference in actually choosing a leader:

And, perhaps most interestingly, the factors that might nullify or alter any of the above:

How are these findings helpful? First of all, figuring out differences between the rural and urban poor; and the young versus their elders.

They can help you figure out where you stand, in terms of values and voting behavior, in terms of the majority; and whether the surveys, and the U.P. FGD’s, and past studies, all mesh, or are there new developments to factor in, in terms of popular expectations?

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