Ambo Jones, aptly

THE name instantly evoked a turning point in the American Revolutionary War.
Battered, afire and sinking, the outfitted merchant vessel Bonhomme Richard engaged His Majesty’s man-of-war Serapis in furious battle, its commander flatly rejecting the British demand for surrender with the cockily confident: “I have not yet begun to fight.”
Three hours later, it was the Serapis that surrendered. Thus, on September 23, 1779, John Paul Jones carved his immortal niche in naval history.
No never-say-die admiral but no less true-blue American is his namesake, Paul W. Jones, chargẻ d’affaires of the Embassy of the United States in the Philippines.
“No relations, but wishing there were,” the diplomat smiled at this icebreaking banter at the start of roundtable talk with the local media staged by the Capampangan in Media Inc. at Montevista last week.
And no formalities too, Mr. Jones pleaded, prompting the ever-funny Perry Pangan to append him the Filipino nickname “Ambo.”
Paul was ebullience personified in his assessment of the Clark Freeport Zone, his bullishness spurred only in part by the $1-billion Texas Instruments investment inaugurated earlier that day with groundbreaking ceremonies graced by President GMA herself.
There is so much in Clark to draw in more investments, American and otherwise, Paul noted, given the strategic location of the area, the expanse of space, and the skill of the people. And the embassy will be watching “very closely” the developments here.
Then of course, is the airport. No, Paul did not need to be reminded that the second runway was built by the Americans as an alternative landing site for the space shuttle, at the time GI Joe was ruler and master of Clark.
This paper’s editor, Ashley Manabat, though predicated a query on Clark being once the largest American military installation outside continental USA, as if embassy people did not know.
I went the same route as Ashley at my turn: impacting the obvious with a statement on the airport and the century-old trees as the greatest, and positive, legacy of the American presence, then did a hundred-eighty degree turn asking about the “negative” legacy that was the Amerasian children.
Most assuring indeed – even to Sonny Lopez, long-time advocate for the rights of Amerasians – was the assurance of Paul that the issue is at bat with both non-governmental organizations and American legislators. There is no shirking of American responsibility, he emphasized.
Are American forces in Sulu obliged to fire back if fired upon?
“We will not put them in such situation,” was Paul’s crisp reply to Rendy Isip.
Paul did one better than the usual diplomat or Clark visitor fielding some how-did-you-find-the-place questions from the media. He had a deeper sense of appreciation of the place, if not a keener sense of its history. This he manifested not just by a visit to the Clark Museum but coming face-to-face with Clark’s living history, the ever-youthful, always-brilliant Miss Cefie Yepes.
Gushing like a child-progeny who had just had his fill of a well-stocked library, Paul made appointments for a next visit – “with my whole family” – to get a full immersion in Clark history from Tita Cefie.
Paul’s impressed attachment to the Philippines is no bovine ordure, to be diplomatic about it.
“My sister was a Peace Corps volunteer who served in Isabela thirty years ago. She loved the people and she was so loved in return that when she made a visit with our family recently, they were feted for three days. An unending stream of acquaintances virtually regarded as relatives.”
Ah, Jones town in Isabela is named after her, Perry concluded.
Being second only to Ambassador Kristie Kenney, it would not be too far in the future for Paul to be ambassador himself, and given the choice, where would he want to be posted?
“Right here,” he affirmed smiling.
Ambassador Paul Jones. Make that Ambo Jones in keeping with the Filipino penchant for shortening names and titles for greater endearment. It is most apt.

Clitoral arrogance

A TRUTH so trite as long ago to have become a cliché is that behind the rise – and fall – of any man is a woman.
The Bible as well as history is replete with exemplary evidence.
Eve caused Adam to eat the forbidden fruit so they got expelled from Eden and all mankind fell from grace.
Delilah seduced Samson, sheared his locks, and Israel lost one righteous, courageous and the strongest of its judges, paving the way of its devastation by its neighbors.
Jezebel so mesmerized Ahab that he deserted Yahweh for Baal and had him slaughter all the prophets of Israel save for Elijah who escaped to the desert, surviving on food delivered by birds and the nourishment of a poor widow.
Then there was Bathsheba that drove David to adultery, provoking divine retribution not only on the king but on all his kingdom.
Queen Marie Antoinette’s prescription of cake for the starving Parisian masses caused her and husband Louis XVI to lose their heads, most literally.
Alexandra’s dalliance with Rasputin, acquiesced by the weakling Tsar Nicholas II, so infuriated both Russian nobles and mobs that a series of revolutions in shades of white, then red engulfed the country, ending with the supremacy of Bolshevism and the coronation of Lenin.
Do not cry for Evita, weep for Argentina, scarred up to the present time by her conjugal rule with her beloved Don Juan Peron from the mid ‘40s to the mid ‘50s yet.
Conjugal rulers too were Nicolai and Elena Ceausescu of Romania which final liberation came on a Christmas Day in the ‘80s with their execution.
And then, there is our very own Imelda. Of whom the less said, the better.
All these are proof positive that women are not by any measure the weaker sex. Men are, having been too often reduced to pliable putty in the caressing hands of women.
Balls – that which have long stood as metaphor for courage and audacity, that which have long provided the very definition to patriarchal societies – have been castrated of these very meanings. Machismo be damned!
For all its overtones, this piece is by no means a sophomoric sexist chauvinistic treatise. It comes with a brief historical scan to try to find some instant rhyme or ready reason to contemporary events, political ones most specifically.
Consider: If one woman’s domineering influence over one man can be so devastating, how much more two women’s? Along this wise, think not the conjugal dictatorships of the past. Think the ménage a trois – that’s threesome to you, dummy – in some political administration of the here and now.
No, there’s nothing sexually perverse there. It’s purely politics we are still talking about. The sexual tone I find just too good, too apt to pass. Though, perhaps, a little too graphic for the too prudish.
Hymenal purity as the pronounced core value of a dispensation best defined by clitoral arrogance. Thus, dare I see the warped sense of morality, the sheer hypocrisy of our chosen alternative to the evil scourges we were told to cast off.
No scandal, as yet, but a deepening mystery. What’s really with this putative celibate’s uxorious attachment to two viragos? Unmarried but not un-henpecked? That’s more of a contradiction than an oxymoron.
There, surely, are no balls – no matter how shriveled and small – to find in there.

Grounded morals

THE current of events in Angeles City of late flowed through the moral stream. Or so it seemed.

Two pregnant women, along with three others, were rescued by the Angeles City police in a raid on a suspected cyber porn den in Balibago last week.

The news report cited city top cop Sonny Cunanan as saying he “believed that the two women became pregnant after performing live sex acts with male partners.” (Last time I looked, only women still get pregnant through live sex acts with male partners, but of course.) How Cunanan deemed that as a matter of faith, the news story did not say.

He warned though that the raid was “only the start of their campaign against similar establishments perpetrating pornographic activities and exploiting women in the city.”

So, the Area will come next? Ah, that will be the day!

Mayor Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno will most certainly carve himself a niche not only in the annals of history but even in the chronicles of morality if he will successfully padlock – once and for all – the Area which has survived the Japanese Imperial Army, the American re-occupation forces, periodic economic dislocation in the city, a number of arson incidents, and the ravages of the Mt. Pinatubo eruptions.

For the clueless, the Area comprises a colony of shanties near the Pampang Public Market catering to the carnal desires of the sweating class.

Vice is evidently Mr. Blueboy’s pet peeve.

Last week, the decades-old Angeles Cockpit Arena in Barangay Claro M. Recto was served a closure order issued by the mayor.

Non-payment of the palisada or fixing fees and its bularit weekday operations allegedly without validly issued permits “in violation of Presidential Decree 449, as amended, and Ordinance 22 Series of 1992.”

On the surface, the closure order is highly debatable, given the contention of the operator, Val Lagman, that all his papers as well as his operations were in order.

Underneath the veneer of legality, the motive behind the closure order was highly suspect: Lagman known as a staunch ally of CongressmanTarzan Lazatin, Nepomuceno’s political adversary.

Lagman’s “Mister Sabong” moniker is well-deserved. He has not only popularized the sport in the province but lifted its standards to the fairest gentlemanly levels, totally neutralizing the tiyope scams and other forms of cheating.

Thus, the closure order – to cockfighting aficionados – smacks of political vendetta.

“Mayor Blueboy is clearing the infrastructure of vice in the city of people identified with Cong Tarzan. Before Val, there was the raid on the small-town lottery stations whose operators were allegedly Lazatin associates. Talagang gusto lang ipalit ni Blue ang kanyang mga bata sa nagpapalakad ng mga sugal dito.” So claimed a sabungero ascertaining political payback as the real motive behind Mayor Blueboy’s actions.

Still, I will give the mayor not only the benefit of the doubt but even the repository of my faith: That he is in earnest pursuit of his campaign promise”Ibalik ang dangal ng Angeles!”

Vice dishonors the city. Something’s got to be done about it. Thus the raid on the cyber porn den and the closure of gambling lairs. Good act, Mister Blueboy!

But, a big BUT, what is this we read that those nabbed in the porn raid have all been set loose – with only the confiscated sex toys remaining in police custody; as indeed those taken from the STL betting stations did not even stay long enough to cry “hulidap” at the police precincts. The city prosecutors not finding in both occasions any legal basis to hold them, much less file a case against any of them.

Come to think of it: the STL is legal, and there is no such thing as cyber porn in the crime books, assured my lawyer friend – not the one of “Don’t call me madam, call me attorney” fame.

Ain’t crimeless victimless,and vice-versa? So asked another friend, a four-time bar-flunker we fondly call CPA. (That’s for cannot pass anymore, dummy.)

Still the best wit over these events of late came from Jocjoc, the friendly bugaw at the Area: “Ang dangal na ibinabalik ni Blueboy ay nadidal dahil ang layon nito’y hindi dalisay.”

Touché.

Fighting media

THE protest rally at the capitol Friday last week was not the first ever staged by Pampanga mediamen. And, most assuredly, it would not be the last.

For the record, it was the fourth such action in response to repression, intimidation, discrimination, human rights violations and even physical assault inflicted on the local press.

“Save media, oust Camua” cried the locals in May 1990 as they took to the Balibago strip and marched to Clark Air Base demanding the sacking of Cabcom deputy commander Brig. Gen. Demetrio Camua. This was in the aftermath of the May Day rally that found among the casualties a number of mediamen.

My account headlined “Clark soldiers brutalize newsmen” appearing in Afternoon HEADLINE dated May 2, 1990 goes:

“FREEDOM of the press died before the main gate of Clark Air Base yesterday, slain by soldiers of the Republic – those very people sworn to uphold and protect it.

xxxxx

“What brought a spine-tingling sensation among mediamen was the presence of a special force noted to have specifically picked on those wearing press tags and vests, methodically going about their job of bashing heads and breaking shins. Why this “special treatment” of mediamen?

xxxxx

“The local media have been vocal about perceived irregularities at Clark, allegedly involving Cabcom troopers. Alleged carnap syndicates, the mess in the garbage disposal contracts, widespread theft and robbery, and the “illegal detention” of 32 heads of cattle by Cabcom soldiers have been staple news in many local publications as well as in correspondents’ stories in the Manila papers.

xxxxx

“Camua and his running dogs have become the scourge not only of peaceful demonstrators but of mediamen. The earlier they leave Clark, the better for us all, said Fyodor Fabian, spokesman of NUJP-Pampanga.”

From the gates of Clark, the media protest reached the halls of Congress where a special committee hearing was conducted and the Cabcom severely reprimanded.

Camua made the appropriate recompense for those hurt in the mayhem and staged a grand formation and parade in-review of the Cabcom for the local mediamen where he extended his sincerest apologies to them. It did not take long before he was yanked out of his command though.

In 1998, the local media held a rally before the corporate offices of the Clark Development Corp. denouncing the high-handedness of CDC director Mina Paras. “Arrant Mina” I wrote of her in the then-Sun-Star Clark.

The rally culminated with the return by the media of the bottles of white wine given them by the CDC in a previous fellowship lunch.

Paras failed to get the then proposed post of vice president for media affairs.

Last year, it was the turn of Angeles City Police chief Sr. Supt. Policarpio Segubre to be at the receiving end of media ire. Apart from his devoted incompetence, Segubre had this complexed boorishness in dealing with media.

Mayor Tarzan Lazatin saved Segubre’s skin in a series of set dialogues and informal meetings with the mediamen, even as the cop chief practically did a double somersault to mend his ways. In six months, his post was taken over by Sr. Supt. Sonny Cunanan.

It was not only through protest rallies that media waged its wars. This, a cursory scan of the pages of my first book Of the Press (1999) would show.

There was in 1988 the “Abad Santos Aggression” when lumpen minions of the Angeles City mayor swooped down on radio station DZYA and leveled their automatic weapons at the heads of Sonny Lopez then of Malaya and this writer then of People’s Journal/Tonight while on air exposing the irregularities that had become the hallmark of the Abad Santos administration.

Abad Santos lost miserably in the 1992 elections.

Subjected to armed harassment after hitting jueteng in Angeles City and Mabalacat in 1984, Ody Fabian had to comfort himself with a .45 given him by his friend, Constabulary Maj. Rey Cabauatan.

The jueteng lord Fabian exposed had long since gone to parts unknown.

In 1983, Candaba Mayor Gonzalo Martin hurled threats and invectives at Jerry Lacuarta and challenged him to a mano-a-mano even as a 9-mm Llama was tucked in his back pocket.

In less than a year Martin was killed by his own gun in a freak accident. The mayor got into his car, slammed the door which hit the cocked gun in his pocket.

Ding Cervantes of Philippine Star had a bolitas embedded in his body – courtesy of a security guard at the fermentation plant in Apalit denounced for polluting the Pampanga River.

Central Fermentation Industrial Corp. has long been cut literally to its very foundation. Only the concrete floor remained a mute witness to its once high production and higher polluting rate.

There are more battles that the Pampanga media have fought and still fight. Pity those they have tangled with in the past. There is a lesson to be learned here for Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio and Atty. Vivian Dabu.

The capping paragraph for the third chapter of Of the Press titled “Waging War” is succinct enough:

“Fighting with the local media is pointless. For one, they always have the final say. Two, it is their job to maintain an adversarial stance. Going over all the wars and pocket rebellions waged – even with the libel cases filed against them and ultimately dismissed – there shows up one definitive indication: YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE PAMPANGA PRESS AND GET TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.”

Pinatubo pitch

IT was then Governor Lito Lapid’s foremost wish: that the cause of Pampanga’s damnation would ultimately effect the Capampangan’s redemption. Of course, the Bida ng Masa did not use those exact same words, given his limited usage of the King’s language. To quote from memory, he said then – this was sometime in 1997 – “Sa Pinatubo naghirap ang Pampanga, sa Pinatubo rin ito maisasalba.” How did I know? I was senior consultant to Lapid then.

Lapid had this grandest of visions to transform the Pinatubo area into a major tourist destination. Imagine.

A road zigzagging through the seven mountains of Porac capped by a viewing deck atop the Porac peak. Around the deck are kubol huts serving exotic native delights as binulo, adobong kamamalu, tapang usa, pindang babing-dikut, etcetera and selling native handicrafts and souvenirs. There are huts too for overnight accommodation. Bungee-jumping from the deck itself and lots of rappelling the surrounding ravines.

And that was only first phase of the development.

The second phase was marvelously mind-boggling: cable cars far up the ground on suspension lines crisscrossing the plains from Mount Pinatubo to Mount Arayat!

Lapid’s proverty in education is more than compensated for in the wealth of his imagination. Imagination that pointed him to another direction – yet still within his vision of Pinatubo’s redemptive value – discovering for himself a most prized jewel in the sand.

What the governor easily forgot, Porac Mayor Quiel Gamboa took to heart. He carved a dirt road up to the Porac peak, with a detour to the beautiful Miyamit Falls.

The road made an extreme driving adventure specially the part called galudgud asu, literally taking after the backbone of a mangy mongrel with sheer drops of hundreds of meters on both sides.

We were part of the trekkers who braved the route in the summer of 2005 along with Tatang Quiel, Governor Mark Lapid, Clark Development Corp. President Tony Ng and the different four-wheeler clubs that provided the transport.

With Tatang Quiel and the husband of Yuri Park out of power, I wondered what fate awaited the trail they blazed.

Thus, the news that Cong Tarzan Lazatin filed House Bill 1613 declaring Mount Pinatubo as an official tourist destination in the Philippines made a cause for celebration.

The bill was intended to “boost tourism in all adjacent communities of Mount Pinatubo and create livelihood means for residents” and tasked the Department of Tourism to set a budget for the establishment and maintenance of high-impact tourism areas around the volcano.

The bill at the same time mandated local government units contiguous to Pinatubo to create tourist points.

And my seminary elder Ronnie Tiotuico, tourism director for Central Luzon, could not have been happier: “It’s high time Pinatubo earned that distinction.”

Ronnie has been in the thick of the struggle to transform devastation into profit, proving his point with the successful Sta. Juliana, Capas, Tarlac route to Pinatubo that has taken tens of thousands of local and foreign tourists to the very crater lake of the volcano. We were among those who’ve “been there, done that.” Indeed, a most exhilarating, even spiritual experience.

Apart from the Porac and Sta. Juliana trails, there are other Pinatubo-related attractions being developed. A sure-fire hits especially for the droves of Korean and Japanese tourists would be the hot springs in Sapang Bato, Angeles and in Inararo, Porac.

The enactment of Cong Tarzan’s bill into law will most definitely make Pinatubo a top tourist draw in the country. Needless to say, every citizen of Central Luzon with just a drop of patriotic blood in his vein must support it.

Bet on this sure-win!