A pharisee speaks

I am looking for a Catholic church that gives true expression to the essence of the Mass as the Holy Sacrifice.
Frankly, I don’t think I can find any here, but, perhaps, in the quiet solemnity of cloistered monasteries.
No den of thieves – as yet – our houses of prayers have become everything but temples of worship on Sundays.
I find in them noisy playpens for children – complete with popcorn and balloons, spilled milk and soiled diapers. With distraught mothers frantically running after hyperactive juniors weaving in and out of pews, or nonchalantly unbothered even if their kids run up and down the aisle in wild abandon.
Navel-gazing yogis will have a blast with our churches, having turned too into modeling ramps for fashionistas in hanging blouses and hip-hugging low-rise denims, or in bra-showing halters and thigh-baring mini-skirts. Displayed sensuality, nay, vulgar sexuality takes over spirituality here. Isn’t there some kind of a dress code to Mass? Perhaps, we need some versions of the Saudi’s cane-wielding mutawa to knock some sense of propriety into some flirty heads.
Find the nearest country club too expensive, gentlemen? Come to church and be one with the boys in their exchanges on the latest in business, politics and sports – all in their exclusive enclave at the back of the church.
To a number of ladies, the church is a gossip parlor with all the juiciest morsels in entertainment, liposuctions and facelifts, or about their non-Church-going neighbors.
And the churchyards? Showrooms of wealth, honest or ill-gotten. So manifest in the flashy cars and SUVs churchgoers take to Mass. The Church of the poor I truly long to see. And see it I do, in manicured diamond-ringed fingers dropping coins into the collection baskets. Truly an unchristian paradox: So much to show to man, so little to give to God.
On to the Mass. The joy of listening to the Word of God gets suddenly snatched by the shrill cry of a child whose cotton candy a playmate just snapped. Deprivers too of the bliss in one’s immersion of the Gospels are those who make grand entrances to display their tardiness. The church doors ought to be slammed on their faces.
Given these realities, where lie the solemnities? All professions of belief become nothing but utter hypocrisies.
You truly believe that the unleavened wafer becomes the real body of Christ and the wine the real blood of Christ at the consecration? How come you neither kneel in adoration nor cease from conversation during their elevation?
Communion – the closest encounter of the holiest kind, taking Christ into one’s whole being – requires the purest heart, the most immaculate of mind. See the jostling, hear the idle chit-chats at the communion lines? There is no respect, much less veneration here. This is sheer sacrilege. Even with no consideration of the communicants’ state of grace, or disgrace as is often the case.
Come to think of it, how many of those taking communion have really gone through the sacrament of reconciliation? I have never seen lines forming at the confessionals in direct proportion to those at communion. As a matter of observance, I do not seen any line at all at the confessionals except during the Holy Week. We must really have a saintly people packing our churches.
It is my misfortune that I am not one of them. So I write pieces like this. Or – unlike them sainted ones – have I just become pharisaic?
(Access previous columns at acaesar.blogspot.com)
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Public Service Announcement: Calling all 1957 Graduates of Pampanga High School. You shall have your 50th Golden Jubilee Reunion on January 20, 2007 in the City of San Fernando. For particulars, please call NORMA LISING QUIAMBAO – 961-2517 or ADORACION DIZON CANLAS – 961-4681.

Doing a Diogenes

POLITICAL diplomatese may have taken the sting out of the November 16 statement of the Pampanga Mayors League but its blow on the perceived failings of the Mark Lapid administration was no less telling.
“There is no turning back,” read the statement’s opening lines. Fuzzy there, maybe, but the temper of the times – the PML presscon coming in the wake of the unceremonious rejection by Lapid of the mayors’ strong proposal to field their president, Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda, as his running mate – gives the definitive stand: the mayors to pursue Pineda’s candidacy, and there shall be no 360-degree turn in this, as well as in their turn to turn their back on Lapid?
That is how it reads to me. In plain, unadorned sentences: You don’t like our man? We don’t like you too.
Or, given the nature of politics as the art of the possible, are the mayors merely trying to up their ante to secure a better deal?
But draw first blood – Mark’s, that is – the mayors already did.
“There is a need for strong leadership and a sense of direction at the provincial level which can guide and complement the united efforts of the municipal chief executives,” read the statement.
Clear as day: the Capitol is clueless in its direction, Lapid is a weakling in matters of leadership. And the mayors are united.
Conspicuous in their absence at the presscon though were Mayors Quiel Gamboa of Porac, the Flores brothers: Peter of Masantol and Bobong of Macabebe, Chito Espino of Arayat, and Teddy Tumang of Mexico.
Candaba’s Jerry Pelayo, the PML spokesperson, was quick to point that all the mayors were in on this endeavor. So there…
If there was any lingering doubt of the mayors’ true intent in their statement, this was totally dispelled by two facts at the presscon.
One, the presence of Vice Governor Yeng Guiao who minced no words in hitting at the current Capitol occupant’s běte noire – the quarry issue – on national television at that! So Yeng was there. Curiously, he was never in any meeting of the PML for as long as I can remember. That was one whole issue altogether.
Two, the symbolic lighting of lamps by the mayors.
It was I that asked: “Nagsindi po kayo ng ilaw sa katanghaliang tapat. Ibig po bang sabihin nito’y pusikit ang kadiliman sa Pampanga? Ano o sino po ang sanhi ng kadilimang ito?”
Kuya Jerry made a lengthy peroration that did not come any near to answering my question. I do not know if he or any of the other mayors was aware of the significance of their collective act.
The lighting of a lamp in broad daylight was first recorded circa 320 BC. The Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope went about the streets of Athens with a lantern in the daytime looking for an honest man – but he never found one.
Mayhaps in the same search as Diogenes, will the mayors find their man?
Better for them to store a lot of kerosene, this may take long in coming.
(Access past columns at acaesar.blogspot.com)
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ANNOUNCEMENT: The Pampanga High School Class of 1957 will have its 50th Golden Jubilee Reunion on January 20, 2007 in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga. For inquiries, call Norma Lising Quiambao at 961-2517, and Adoracion Dizon Canlas at 961-4681.

More lessons for wannabes

THE basic rule in winning elections is: There is no basic rule in winning elections. Winning is a combustion from a fusion of talent, hard work, resources and luck. Lots of luck.
Looks play a great deal too. A comely countenance works wonders. Read Lito Lapid here in the universal sense, and Mabalacat’s Boking Morales in the relative sense, vis-à-vis his archrival Anthony Dee. So it went in all elections the two contested that Boking was likened to Sharon’s ex, Gabby Concepcion, and Dee to Bal…, oh, never mind. I don’t relish being accused of “facial” discrimination here.
But looks – not-so-good to outright ugly – are liabilities that can be turned to assets. This is best exampled by Tirso G. Lacanilao of Apalit.
At the first appearance of the generally-accepted-as-aesthetically-challenged Tirso on the political stage, his election posters were plastered with stickers stenciled PANGIT in big bold letters.
Instead of being disheartened, Tirso found there the inspiration that propelled him to victory. He got himself monickered Pogi, an irony that easily tickled the funny bone of the electorate. Then he made self-deprecation the high note of his campaign pitch.
On the entablado, Tirso in all seriousness: “Sasabyan da pu deng kanakung kalaban ing lupa kung kabayu. Mangalaram la pu ren. Ikayu na ing makapagpatune e ku pu lupang kabayu. Lupa ku pung tsonggo! “ (My rivals say I look like a horse. They are liars. You, yourselves can see that I don’t look like a horse. I look like a monkey!) His audience never failed to explode in laughter.
The electorate literally guffawed Tirso on his way to the Apalit town hall in his two terms as vice mayor and three terms as mayor.
Contrast this to my favorite never-winning nay-surrenderee. He gets mad at the slightest allusion to his imperfection. I remember in 2001, Ody Fabian got his ire and a suit for slander after the now-dearly-lamented Voice editor announced over our Alas Kuwatro Na! radio program: “Bawal ang pangit sa Mabalacat.”
Filipinos are a sucker for the underdog. The perennial loser John Santos – again, of Mabalacat – parlayed his talunan image to solid votes thus: “Malunus na ko pu kanaku. Sinawa na ku pung masasambut. Patakmanan yu na ku man pung panyambut.” (Have pity on me. I am tired of losing. Please give me a taste of victory.) John, the self-proclaimed Richard Gomez dead-ringer, stayed nine years at the Sangguniang Panlalawigan.
After being thwarted twice in his run for the Angeles City Sangguniang Panglungsod, Jay Sangil changed his campaign tack from crusading journalist-at-your-service to wisecracking wit.
Jay satirized himself thus: “Nung baga keng derby, pang-champion na ku pu ngeni uling meka-adwa na ku.” (If it were a three-cock derby, I am going for the championship, having taken two hits already.) He is now seeking re-election.
Time to end the lessons with these two samples. Enough of gratis et amore. I got a lot of needs too. More lessons are given – for a fee. Interested parties may contact me at this paper’s office. (Access past columns at acaesar.blogspot.com)


ANNOUNCEMENT: The Pampanga High School Class of 1957 will have its 50th Golden Jubilee Reunion on January 20, 2007 in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga. For inquiries, call Norma Lising Quiambao at 961-2517, and Adoracion Dizon Canlas at 961-4681.
My “adoptive mommy” June Velez-Whitmer of San Jose, California, USA proudly belongs to this class.

Defining fear

THE mayor of Capas, Tarlac lives up to his name: Catacutan, fearsome in the Kapampangan language.
At a meeting of the Metro Clark Advisory Council Thursday last week, Rey Catacutan scared the living daylights out of a poor madame whose only “fault” was being with the University of the Philippines system.
Dr. Juliet Mallari, director of UP Clark Extension, was following up the request for a permanent site for the UP Clark campus with CDC President Levy P. Laus. In a soft. lilting voice and reasoned presentation, she premised the request on the “best education” her school can offer, especially to poor but deserving students of Central Luzon: given that UP students are iskolar ng bayan.
UP as purveyor of the “best education” apparently did not sit well with Catacutan: “Angeles University Foundation from where I graduated gives the best education, not UP,” he shouted.
Then Catacutan threw the gauntlet at the hapless madame with a harangue of what he perceived as UP miseducation: student militancy gone berserk, most recently highlighted when activists protesting political killings in the country pelted Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. with eggs and mud as he stepped out of a forum in UP Diliman.
Esperon made light of the incident, saying: “Maybe they were disappointed because I did not launch a coup d’etat” in reference to the Thailand military putsch that unseated Thaksin.
Catacutan appeared inappeasable. More hurt than Esperon himself, he let loose extreme anger over the injurious insult on the general whom he claimed to be his kababayan.
“Kung kautak ko lang si General Esperon, nirat-rat ko na ang mga iyan.” Murder, if not in Catacutan’s heart, was most certainly carried in his staccatoed words.
An eerie – if not embarrassed – silence permeated the conference hall: never have I seen President Laus looked so stunned, Mayor Boking Morales looked up the ceiling, Mayor Tarzan Lazatin leaned on his chair and covered his eyes with his hand, Mayor Pastor Guiao searched for his cellphone, the rest looked every which way but Catacutan’s direction.
The short eternity was cracked finally by the nervously silly jokes of former (?) UP professors Romy Dyoco, vice president of the Clark International Airport Corp., and Frankie Villanueva, president of the Clark Investors and Locators Association.
It is to Esperon’s credit – and to the activists’ luck – that the general is not utak-pulbura as Catacutan. Else, Kent State University in the ‘60s or Columbine High of recent times would have had a bloodier redux at UP.
Catacutan has now gone one over the Judaic eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth ratio of retaliation: His is a-burst-of- bullets-for-every-egg.
Himself a negation of his own argument: Catacutan as the best product of the best education that only AUF – no, not UP – can offer. Weep, Chancellor Emmanuel Y. Angeles. Apung Barbara must be turning in her grave.

Lessons to wannabes

SO you are raring to run in the 2007 elections – granting that there indeed will be elections? Pause a moment and consider these random ramblings of a jaded political observer.
You have no money? Dream on running, even winning. It won’t cost you a thing. But never wake from that dream and live the nightmare of political realities here.
Even as a candidate, you have already been claimed by the voters to be their personal one-way ATM: no deposit required but ready to dispense cash anytime of the day or night, for their power and water bills; cost of hospitalization, expenses for weddings, baptisms and funerals, even birthday parties and fiestas; milk for their infants, tuition for their kids.
You have money? Use it wisely.
More than a year before the 2004 elections, Board Member Dinan Labung was already crowing that thirty grand – that’s 30 thousand pesos, dummy – was doled out daily to his needy constituents even before the cock crowed in the morning. Into the campaign period, Dinan upped the ante to 50 grand. Still, he ended up in the kangkungan.
A dilemma: Identified as a generous giver in elections past, Dinan stands to lose a lot of the ground he covered in 2004 if he tightens even just a bit his publicly-perceived-as-enormous campaign chest. Dati kang nagbibigay ng tig-500 daan, bigla kang magbibigay ng tig-100, magiging masama ka pa sa iyong binigyan.
The flash of wealth is more a liability than an asset. Still remember Don Pepito Mercado? Soaring in the people’s imagination as a mighty, invincible eagle in 1994, reduced to a pitiful pipit in the 1995 polls.
While it pays to be the official candidate of a party, especially the party in power, this is no sure-fire guarantee for victory.
In 1992, Boking Morales did the unprecedented: he was the official candidate of the two dominant parties at war for the presidency. President Cory Aquino and candidate Fidel V. Ramos of Lakas-NUCD graced Boking’s proclamation rally. At Boking’s miting de avance, it was candidate Ramon V. Mitra that anointed him as the main man in Mabalacat of the LDP.
Dr. Catalino Domingo of the NPC drubbed Boking mightily. Thereafter, Boking though has done more unprecedented things. Like four consecutive terms and still running.
Barangay chairmen are prized – and highly-priced – acquisitions in elections. But like the party, they are no foolproof certainty to winning.
In 2004, Andrea Dizon-Domingo thrice paraded before the members of media 28 of the 33 barangay chairmen of the City of San Fernando as her committed campaigners.
She ended third placer to eventual winner Oscar S. Rodriguez who had no one but Do Santos of San Agustin in his corner.
From organization, let’s shift to tactics.
The early bird does not always get the worm. Sometimes, because of his over-eagerness – read: gagad – he gets to be shot first.
“We support Dinan Labung – PAMCHAM” read a streamer somewhere near Café Fernandino.
In an issue of Sun Star Pampanga a photo of the streamer was accompanied by the strongest of denials from Pamcham. No, not in their wildest imagination do members of the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry collectively support Dinan. Neither as candidate nor as businessman, someone who looked like Jun Sula attested.
It would be good for Dinan to reassess this streamer mania. Friday last week in Porac, over a binulo-cooked lunch at the municipio, Bong San Pedro was telling Congressman Mickey Macapagal Arroyo that other groups carried in Dinan’s streamers were reported to be angrily disclaiming their purloined support of his candidacy. Bong identified these as the groups of women and the padyak-sikel drivers.
I could not help but note the presidential son who is Dinan’s purported patron shaking his head. He did express some concerns over his purported ward’s self-defeating projections vis-à-vis his perceived rival.
Contrary to expectations – mine – raised by news reports alleging Dong Gonzales’ as an anti-GMA conspirator, Mickey did not have any unkind words against Dinan’s rival. He even noted Dong’s strong support to GMA in 2004, tandemed with Loren Legarda not Noli de Castro though.
Rejoice Dong, you are not the devil incarnate you have been alleged to be in the Macapagals’ eyes.
Still on streamers. Plainly stupid are those blue and yellow “Gov. Mark Lapid and RENE MAGLANQUE one-on-one” linens posted at the entrance of cemeteries in Sto. Tomas, and I assume, in the other towns of the fourth district.
One, unlike other streamers, they did not carry any message for the occasion. Two, they did not carry any meaning at all. If they did, it’s all lost to me. Masyadong malalim. What one-on-one? Is Maglanque challenging Lapid for the governorship?
Opinion polls are another matter to take real care of. Believe in published surveys at your own peril.
So an alleged survey allegedly commissioned by the provincial government alleged that Congressman Rey Aquino leads Mayor Oscar Rodriguez 60-40 for the mayorship of the City of San Fernando.
So what’s new here? Oca never won in any published survey since he entered politics. Conversely, he has won all but one – 1992 – electoral contests he joined: 1987, 1995, 1998, 2001congressional races, and the 2004 mayorship.
Like Oca, another one who never won in any survey but won all elections he entered is Cris Garbo of Mabalacat – as Mabalacat councilor twice, board member three times and vice mayor once.
Surveys are meant to serve as campaign guideposts. Their efficacy for propaganda purposes – to gain some bandwagon effect – have long been lost because of surfeit and the incredibility of results.
Have you read of any published local survey citing its margin of error? If you have, did they tell you how they arrived at it?
End of lesson for now. Still want to run? More lessons next time. And it’s free.