The Morales dynasty

THE post-Marino Morales era in Mabalacat politics has dawned with the results of the barangay elections.
The new day shines bright. But not for the putative successors to the record-holding already-four-term-and-still-mayor Boking.
Eat your heart out, Cris Garbo. Gnash your teeth, Pros Lagman. Wail, wail some more, Anthony Dee. To the rest, go on dreaming.
Whatever expected exit of Boking from the local political scene will not provide an easy entry, moreso an easier takeover of the seat of mayoralty for any of the three, and the rest of the other dreamers.
Exit a Morales, maybe. But enter yet another Morales, most surely.
Atlas, son of Boking, has served that screaming notice to all the salivating pretenders to the mayoralty post with his victory in Barangay Dau, the biggest barangay in terms of number of voters in Central Luzon, and, arguably, in the whole Philippines.
No patsies did Atlas rout in the hotly-contested barangay post.
There was the still-whimpering-I-wuz-robbed Marcos Castro, Jr., once all-around factotum to Gov. Mark Lapid, who banked on the vaunted Lapid magic, and was reportedly backed by the Lapid’s massive war chest funded from you-know-what.
There was the now-eerily-quite once-incumbent Louie Cunanan whose bruited about, and proven, invincibility in elections past was purportedly endowed by as much as his broad-based mass support as his bonds with presidential son and congressman Mikey Macapagal Arroyo. No Mykey magic too?
No mean feat did Atlas truly achieve in Dau.
Hurl now the sourgrapes at the victor: “It was Boking who did it for Atlas.”
Of course, it was Boking. It was Boking’s sins too that were heaped upon his son to drag him down.
So, the transition of a Morales to a Morales – in the future yet – follows the dynastic rites of passage: “The king is dead. Long live the king.”
The Morales dynasty just birthed: Atlas is heir to the throne. Half-brother Migs, the just-elected Dau chair of the sangguniang kabataan, takes second in the line of succession. Very neat? But as dynasties go, there may just sprout some usurpers to the throne. In the Mabalacat case, not only the “outsiders” like Garbo, Lagman, Dee or even Tars Halili can well do an Oliver Cromwell to a King Charles I and wrest power.
The line of succession can be altered by a coup, so to speak, from within. Among Boking’s many children, the primus inter pares in the field of politics is a prima – his daughter Marjorie who served as SK Mabalacat chair herself for as long as anyone in the town can remember.
Married to former Sto. Tomas councilor and still-very-much-politically involved John Sambo, Marjorie may well have a much bigger political stock than any of her siblings.
And history is rife with the tales of sibling rivalries as the bane of dynasties.
In the meantime though, easy still rests the crown on the head of King Boking. One more term! Long live!

A primer to Panlilio

“A MAN who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessary come to grief among so many who are not good.”
That aphorism could have been specifically crafted for Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio in the wake of his honest act relative to the P500,000 donation he received in – not from – the Palace, and the seismic aftershocks it caused.
Easily, the quotation by its inspiring moral tone could have come only from a tome on values, if not the Holy Book itself?
Wrong. It is vintage 1500. From the little book that launched – and sank – a thousand political careers: Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince.
If he hasn’t, Panlilio should read – and internalize – the book, it being the definitive handbook of politics, power, and statesmanship.
The Prince – history tells us – nurtured through generations a virtual Who’s Who in the world political stage: Cardinal Richelieu, the de facto dictator of France at the time of Louis XIII; Christina, the queen of Sweden circa 1632-1654; Frederick the Great of Prussia; Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of the German Empire; Georges Clemenceau, French statesman and premier.
Notables of the 20th century who went to school in Machiavelli included Adolf Hitler, der fuehrer of the Third German Reich; Benito Mussolini, il duce of Fascist Italy; Vladimir I. Lenin, father of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and his heir Josef Stalin; and the Philippines’ Ferdinand E. Marcos, known to have made the book – not Imelda – as his bedside companion.
A virtual historical rogues’ gallery, that list by itself seems proof beyond doubt that indeed The Prince is the “blueprint for dictators” and its author the Devil Incarnate himself. Old Nick, the slang for the devil, is a take from Machiavelli’s given name. And Machiavellian entered the lexicon to mean crafty, shrewd, deceitful, immoral. This is an offshoot of the most famous quotation obtaining in the book: “The end justifies the means.”
Comes the question now: How does one steeped in Christian values – like Panlilio the priest-and-governor – come to terms with an opus placed in the Index of Prohibited Books in the Vatican in 1559 and, with the confirmation of the Council of Trent, decreed to be burned by the Inquisition?
Ain’t the priest and any Catholic for that matter sinning mortally by simply reading an “Indexed” book? (A confession: I first read The Prince in my Suprema (third year high school) class at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary. The copy smuggled in by my “free-thinking” professor in, of all subjects, trigonometry.)
Far from being the devil’s handiwork, The Prince – particularly its last chapter, Exhortation to Liberate Italy from the Barbarians – made a number of invocations to the Almighty for national redemption and admonition for the leader to do his share in the effort: “God will not do everything, in order to deprive us of free will and the portion of the glory that falls to our lot.”
That’s just like the old, old very Christian saying “God helps those who help themselves.”
Though written against the backdrop of a long gone era, of an Italy fragmented into five major seats of power, The Prince has found currency through the ages as well as relevance and validity no matter the political setting, be it monarchical or republican, autocratic or democratic. Even in such a milieu as provincial politics and governance. Thus, its importance to Panlilio.
“The first impression that one gets of a ruler and of his brains is from seeing the men (and more especially the women, if I may add) that he has about him. One can always form an unfavorable opinion of him, because the first mistake that he makes is in making this choice.”
Atty. Vivian Dabu as (un)confirmed provincial administrator and Atty. Ma. Elissa Velez as (un)confirmed provincial legal counsel, choices Panlilio stubbornly pushed – no matter the media protest rally, the lamentations of Lolita Hizon and the sangguniang panlalawigan’s rejection – raised all speculations not so much about Panlilio’s brains as about his balls, and who’s holding, ay, grasping them.
Speaking of Hizon and other campaign supporters of the governor who reportedly had a “fall out” with him on some issues, here’s Machiavelli’s advice to Panlilio: “It is the nature of men (of women too, again we add) to be as much bound by the benefits they confer as by those they receive.”
Tit for tat or political payback, plain and simple.
Okay, okay, so the mayors are all ganging up on Panlilio on the issues of quarry and the P500,000 money. The governor, ensconced in his civil society, can find solace in Machiavelli: “A prince need trouble little about conspiracies when the people are well disposed, but when they are hostile and hold him in hatred, then he must fear everything and everybody.”
Again, seemingly written by Machiavelli with Panlilio in mind: “One who becomes prince by favor of the populace must maintain its friendship, which he will find easy, the people asking nothing but not to be oppressed.”
Arguably enjoying the support of the people, Panlilio must be wary though of those previously written about in this column as his myrmidons who do nothing but sing hosannas to him. Machiavelli cautions: “There is no other way of guarding one’s self against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.”
A primer on governance, The Prince is required reading not only for presidents but for every student of politics and power. Moreso for a priest who traded his parish church for the provincial capitol.
(Zona Libre/Punto! October 30, 2007)

Panlilio is not alone

EVERYBODY who is somebody in the political realm in Pampanga was there in Malacañang Thursday, pledging unwavering support to the President, the most exalted of all cabalens.
Everybody. Except Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio, the perceived source of the President’s latest woes – the 500,000-peso Pandora’s box the governor opened.
“We showed to the President that what Governor Panlilio did…he alone made that decision. As you can see…he was the only one left in Pampanga,” the papers quoted Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo, the spokesman of the Pampanga Mayors League, as saying.
The numbers gave the proof to Pelayo’s allusion to Panlilio all alone: Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao with the whole sangguniang panlalawigan in tow; PML President Dennis Pineda and all the mayors; Pampanga Vice Mayors League President Diman Datu leading the vice mayors; the city and municipal councilors and the barangay chairmen led by their respective presidents, Rolly Macalino and Cesar Magat – “close to a thousand,” again, per newspaper reports.
Again, the ever-loquacious and often hyperbolic Pelayo with yet another dig at Panlilio: “As though I die a thousand deaths whenever I see Panlilio hurt the President with his nonsensical political gimmicks.”
One – Panlilio, against a thousand – the elected officials from the barangay to the capitol. The numerical equation certainly tilts in favor of the latter. Now, were politics only factored on addition and multiplication…
Panlilio is far from politically isolated by the mere superiority of numbers. In the first place, he ran – and won – by his lonesome self: no political party, no political machinery, not even a slate of candidates.
Nothing has been taken out of Panlilio, from the politics-as-the-superiority-of-numbers perspective. He never had the numbers in the first place. His winning edge of a little over a thousand votes is a testament to this. Claims of “divinely-inspired people power” by his fanatics notwithstanding, Panlilio is not a “majority governor.”
A political base – of myrmidons, Panlilio certainly has: the self-anointed, self-appointed, self-proclaimed so-called civil society.
Even as the elected political leaders were crying their voices hoarse in singing all those hosannas to the President last Thursday, Panlilio’s loyal legions were digging the trenches, so to speak, for a war against the SP and the mayors.
For the love of their governor and all his work, the Kapampangan Marangal, Inc., Abak na Balen, Pampanga Association of Non-Government Organizations, and the Save Pampanga Movement have started their petition-signing campaign for a local initiative to repeal Ordinance 176.
Yes, that same mayors’ league-sponsored ordinance on the quarry operations vetoed by Panlilio but pushed through just the same by the SP with a 12-nil override of the veto.
First time ever to be experienced in the province, the local initiative as a legal recourse is mandated by the Local Government Code of 1991, pursuant to the spirit of people empowerment, the operative word in the Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos administrations, if I may add for context.
Panlilio’s chorusline is confident of getting at least a thousand signatures of registered voters to file their petition with the SP.
This is yet another front opened in the fast-becoming protracted war in Pampanga politics.
(Zona Libre/Punto! Oct. 29, 2007)

Everything personal

PASSIONATELY PERSONAL. That is a natural course in barangay elections as everybody there, at the least, knows everybody. That is if everybody is not related, by affinity or consanguinity, to everybody.
Thus the heat of the campaign: the stake, prized as though it were the presidency of the country itself.
It does come as no surprise but as a matter of course for blood to lose its thickness in barangay politics: brother fights brother, mother fights daughter, father fights uncle, in-laws fight one another, all affinities rendered asunder.
With family wealth dispersed and doled out to the voters, barangay elections not only help the local economy in terms of liquidity but serve as great social equalizers.
Personalan, truly makes the essence of these elections. This is most evident in the names put up by the candidates.
In my barangay in Sto. Tomas town, there is a Payok running against a Pusa. Elsewhere, there is a Manok, a Bulik and a Tatso too.
I saw a Tuyo running for kagawad somewhere. And a Menudo too. Too bad my friend Paksi, a former town councilor, opted to retire from politics altogether after he lost in this year’s polls. They would have provided some culinary delight to the polls.
It is in barangay polls too that handicaps are celebrated to highlight candidacies, not deficiencies. There is a Putot, a Duling – not Mayor Boking Morales’ ever-loyal lieutenant, a Salapi (one with extra digits, not money), and a Tikol and Pile in the running.
Candidates truly come in all shapes and sizes: Taba, Payat, and Sexy; Tangkad and Pandak. In all shades of color too: Baluga, Puti, Brown and Tagpi, as one afflicted with vitiligo had for a political moniker. No Blue there, he being already elected Angeles City mayor.
No Tarzan too, he being elected congressman. No Cheetah here. But once there was in Quezon City in the late comic Rene Requiestas who was a kagawad.
Strongman Atlas runs in Dau, Mabalacat. I wonder if there’s a Hercules somewhere? I am most certain though there are a lot of Samsons out there.
Personalan, so the name-calling gets real nasty.
Junior Sablay? Still too kind, make that Marcoracot, a penny-ante plunderer, a petty Marcos.
The “man you love”? Make that the manyilab (arsonist).
A candidate left by his wife becomes a pindeho. One with only a mother is a putok sa buho. Reasons don’t matter here. It’s all perception. It’s all deception.
Still, there’s much in one’s moniker that makes the big difference in the polls. There was once in a barrio in San Fernando where the contending candidates were named Apostol, Jesus and Satanas. Guess who won?
Satanas and Apostol lost. And the voters rued their choice.
Barangay elections, as in any other political contest, is no simple name game. Keep the passion but don’t leave out the reason.
(Zona Libre/Punto! Oct. 24, 2007)

Extreme Makeover

MAY pulis, may pulis sa ilalim ng tulay…
The ditty is a satirical flick of the finger at the uniformed sneak preying on unwary motorists for two Osmeñas or a Roxas in exchange of their being let go off some trumped-up traffic infraction.
Pulis, pulis, pulis matulis.
Ah, double entendre here: the sharpness of the cop at filching the last Quezon off a hapless victim, and the put-on machismo obtaining in a force whose members purportedly have not just one, but two or more paramours.
Flash Report: The Philippine National Police holds the record for the quickest response in crime situations, beating such elite police forces as the New York Police Department which registered eight minutes, and Great Britain’s Scotland Yard at five minutes. The PNP registered zero minutes. Impossible? No, they are in the scene, themselves committing the crime.
Truly, that is a most painful joke – to the national police – that has circled the globe via internet. And just how are the police caricatured? Uniformly: pot-bellied, palm outstretched.
Tawagin mo na akong demonyo, huwag lang pulis.
Ah, the unkindest cut of all inflicted on the PNP in the Inquirer comic strip Pugad Baboy where the comparison to the police provided the final straw that broke the patience of the henpecked Air Force Sgt. Sabaybunot giving him the rage to snarl at his domineering wife. Better be called a devil than a policeman, can anything get lower than this?
Object of ridicule and derision, the police may be the rich lode of all that humor, but the joke is on all of us: victims of the very things we draw laughter from. Doesn’t it hurt to laugh?
Came last Friday this press release from the Pampanga Provincial Police Office slugged “SIÑGIAN REINVENTS MAMANG PULIS.”
SSupt. Keith Ernald Siñgian, Pampanga police director, “has set a makeover among police personnel following the instruction of the Chief PNP’s reinvention of Mamang Pulis.” Now, now, who did the reinvention, Siñgian or Chief PNP?
Anyways, the release said Siñgian “has ordered his men to undergo a refinement in their physical appearances that will “soften” the brusque image of the police.”
It added that “all policemen are subjected to a daily guard mounting (or is it monitoring?) to make sure that each personnel is neat in appearance, wears the prescribed uniform, appropriate shoes and other paraphernalia including their headgear and firearms.”
Okay, if there is anyone who can best serve the poster boy for the police – in physical appearance as well as in intelligence and fitness – it is Siñgian himself. The province’s top cop makes the antithesis to the rundown image of the police: out of uniform, he could be taken for a successful yuppie or a high-profile business executive.
Now, if only he can whip the force in his own image and likeness…
The national police directorate has never been wanting in make-over efforts for the whole force.
At the time of Ping Lacson, there was this imperial command for a standard 34-inch waistline for all policemen. We saw how overweight cops huffed and puffed before the national media to show one and all the seriousness of Ping’s campaign for svelteness.
The defining moment of the Egay Aglipay reign at the PNP was the Subic “rehab” program for “erring and recidivist police personnel.”
So what happened to all these?
BSDU rules in the end. That’s not for the police-created paramilitary Barrio Self Defense Units of the ‘60s. That’s for Balik Sa Dating Ugali.
Perhaps, more than an extreme make-over, it is a quintuple by-pass that the police need.
Still, we wish Siñgian – and Chief PNP Sonny Razon – all the best.
Pulis, pulis, sa galing walang kaparis?
(Zona Libre/Punto! Oct. 22, 2007)

Political vendetta

NOTHING IS yet definitive nor conclusive but some telltale signs point to a venganza political starting to be unleashed in the province. By no less than Honest Ed himself!
Far fetched? Read on.
The stoppage ordered by the governor on the desilting operations downstream Gugu Creek by the Bacolor municipio has been widely construed in the town as the capitol’s way of getting even with Mayor Buddy Dungca for his perceived intransigence in dealing with the governor.
Badong, as the mayor is fondly called by his constituents, has yet to set foot at the capitol since Panlilio took over its reins. He – the mayor – has yet to attend any meeting called by the governor, wherever, whenever.
These have been (mis)interpreted by some Panlilio rah-rah boys as not simple snub but outright refusal of Badong to recognize their boss as governor.
Of course, we know for whom the mayor’s heart beat in the gubernatorial contest.
Yes, we know also that one swallow does not a summer make. And so one instance of resbak does not avenganza unleash too.
But there is another incident, albeit too remote from the quarrying-desilting feud, that lends credence to this idea of vendetta.
For some years in a row now, the Municipality of Lubao has so monopolized the provincial nutrition council award – the Green Banner, or something – that it practically had it titled to itself. That earned for Lubao the annual representation of Pampanga to the award’s regional level, where it copped 2nd place last year and 3rd in the previous ones.
For some reason that sounded unreasonable – as in, “so sorry, we were so busy with a lot of work we forgot all about it” – the provincial government failed to endorse Lubao to the regional contest, thereby losing by default what could have been its turn at Number One.
The failure of the capitol becomes more galling to the Lubao officials given the governor’s pronouncements of the nutrition program as a top priority of his administration.
Most galling yet is the idea of politics getting into the picture.
As unknown to no one, Lubao is the town of Panlilio’s rival for the governorship, Lilia Pineda, whose son Dennis is the incumbent mayor.
Dennis and Badong are like brothers unseparated since birth. They provided the spunk and punch in the Nanay gubernatorial campaign which finality has not yet come given the election protest lodged at the Comelec.
No political vendetta, at the least motivation, in the governor’s action in Gugu and inaction in Lubao?
Boy, you were born only yesterday. Understandably, you missed the governor prolonging his suspension from priestly duties to keep his options open for 2010.
Strike at the enemy early, and continuously. With no way for them toward recovery, ensured is your total victory. Sun Tzu? Nooo. It’s plain tsu-tsu.
(Zona Libre/Punto! Oct. 17, 2007)

Vindication

AS the Airbus-380 – the world’s largest passenger aircraft – touched down at the runway of the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport a little past noon Friday, I saw a tear or two ran down the cheeks of Alexander Cauguiran, executive vice president of the Clark International Airport Corp.
The emotion of the moment I understood, and shared in too. It was a vindication of the long, strenuous struggle the once militant activist at the vanguard of Move Clark Now! pursued to attain that very moment.
It was a vindication too of the purity of the cause embraced and fought for by another man, characteristically absent in the euphoria of its fulfillment – Ruperto Cruz, chair of the Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement.
The PGKM and MCN were the twin battering rams that shook the ramparts of Imperial Manila’s obstinacy to let the Clark airport be – as landing site for migratory birds, and in the off-migration season, a training area for single-engines and ultra-lights.
The PGKM and MCN not only spearheaded massive rallies at the very gates of Clark for the “full operationalization of the airport” but also conducted various fora to mobilize support for the cause of the Clark airport.
Yes, they too marched to Mendiola and brought to Malacanang the people’s petition for the airport.
And woe unto those that blocked their way: court cases were filed against them, and in the case of the then Secretary Pantaleon Alvarez of the Department of Transportation and Communication, an opposition to his confirmation at the Senate’s Committee on Appointments. Until, he relented and admitted that the Philippine International Airport Corp. deal on Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport would negate all the potentials and opportunities in Clark as premier international airport of the country.
The Piatco was by no means spared by PGKM and MCN from the legal loop. Long before the outcry that ultimately went all the way to the Supreme Court, the two advocates of the Clark airport already filed cases in court against Piatco.
There was absolutely nothing that involved the Clark airport that PGKM and MCN did not touch on, close watchdogs as they were of what they deemed as prized jewel of the region .
Thus, credit is rightly due the PGKM and MCN – Perto and Alex, prominently – for all these developments at the DMIA. As it is also due the very professional and able Jose Victor “Chichos” Luciano, CIAC’s president and CEO.
As I enjoyed the hoopla of that Friday moment, I could not help but get sickened too at the sight of the usual quislings and “credit-rustlers” who strode like peacocks at the centerstage of the event, as though they were the very cause of it all. They who, at the height of the struggle for the Clark airport, were either at the sidelines jeering PGKM and MCN, or slavishly paying obeisance to the Manila dragons, in exchange for some pittance for their private businesses.
Indeed, where were these self-proclaimed advocates and business champions when PGKM and MCN were shouting their collective voices hoarse in some wilderness of indifference?
Napun, ngeni’t kapilan man, karing mapanako damulag ala nang muna pa king ka-animalan.
Theirs is a shamelessness that knows no bounds.
(Zona Libre/Punto! Oct. 15,2007)

On Criticism

PUNTO! Central Luzon edition, in less than two weeks is already impacting itself in the local consciousness. Proof positive of this are the stinging remarks hurled at the paper – such as “’tang nang Punto!” – by some onions who felt they’ve been skinned too closely.
To them and to others who may be “Puntoed” some day, here is a reprint of On Criticism, an essay I wrote in 2001 for another local paper.
TO AFFLICT the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
That is the social calling of the committed critic. He of the journalistic species, as extracted from the larger literary genus.
Criticism by itself though is never an end. It is a multi-faceted means to primarily expose, expound, and examine acts within the ambit of human wrongs as delineated by society’s mores, traditions and laws. With the express purpose of righting those wrongs.
Nowhere is the praxis of journalistic criticism more pervasive, prevalent and pronounced than in the field of governance. This, arising from the tradition of adversarial relationship between a free press and the government.
Public office being a public trust requires public scrutiny. Not an iota less than open, constant, vigilant inquiry. Else, public office will easily degenerate into private enterprise. For the corruptive essence of power – attendant to any public office – mixed with inhered human frailty is one sure-fire formula for debauchery.
Here lies a grave danger to society. Here stand guard media, committed and free. All these prominently exemplified in contemporary history that is too recent to fade from the people’s collective memory. Or have we forgotten Martial Law? (Closer to home now, how the public coffers bulging with the quarry funds were turned into personal piggybanks, nay, ATM accounts by you-know-who.)
Criticism is painful, for truth hurts.
Going by the medicinal analogy: 1) it is a very bitter pill, hard to swallow; 2) the greater the dose, the harder it gets down one’s throat; 3) consequently though, the faster the healing, the more efficacious the cure.
Like medicine to physiological well-being, criticism strengthens character-building. The committed critic assumes here the role of a doctor doing a physical check-up on a diseased body, identifying symptoms, dispensing with prescriptions. To better the person.
There is thus an essential altruism in criticism. As the great French philosopher and essayist Michel Eyquem de Montaigne writes: “We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend a man for his own good is to have a healthy love for him.”
Comes to mind here the friendships I have kept as well as those I lost and discarded – not principally due to my critical mindset but rather predicated on a personal dictum: “If I cannot anymore say – in your face – the things you do not want to hear, then I have ceased being your friend.
STILL, criticism stings.
And there can be no way to ignore, to be immune from the personal hurt it inflicts upon its object.
To his critics, unseated President Joseph Estrada offered this mantra: “Tawagin n’yo na akong bobo, huwag lang magnanakaw.”
Thus, he even reveled on the so-called “Eraptions” that insulted his (un)intelligence. But promptly filed a libel suit against the then Gokongwei-owned The Manila Times over its “unwitting godfather” banner story on the Impsa deal.
Libel is a course of action for the afflicted official. That is a fundamental right respected by even the harshest critic. But libel is by no means the only recourse to redress the infliction.
Enshrined in jurisprudence is this decision on U.S. vs. Bustos: “Men in public life may suffer under a hostile and unjust accusation: the wound can be assuaged with the balm of a clear conscience.”
A clear conscience is the Teflon or the Kevlar that protects him who is not at fault, who has done no wrong, from every brickbat thrown at his person. Even as a guilty one is the festering wound that stinks and hurts like hell when exposed to open air.
So how to deal with criticism?
One, grin and bear it.
As U.S. vs. Bustos again holds: “A public officer must not be too onion-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts. Only thus can the intelligence and dignity of the individual be exalted.”
There, criticism serves as the crucible of character refinement. A necessary, albeit painful, cleansing process. Clear too to the critic, comment on official acts, not private deeds or personal habits.
Two, follow Zeno. Be a Stoic.
Calmly, accept all pain – as well as all joy – as inevitable, as the very dictates of the divine will to which one must completely surrender. To us Filipinos, this is “Ipasa-Diyos na lang natin ang lahat.”
Three, if you cannot stand the heat, don’t just get out of the kitchen. Go to someplace cooler, like the Arctic and swim with the seals, waddle with the penguins, or wrestle with the polar bears. There you’d be totally out of criticism’s reach.
Finally, to the critic, a quote from the very quotable American President Harry “Give ‘em hell” S. Truman: “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth, and they think it is hell.”
Ooops there is a pahabol -- Why not just ignore the criticism and the critic?
Indeed, why not? So long as you can live happily ever after notwithstanding the snide remark, the knowing smirk, the insulting laugh thrown at your back by everyone that has read or heard him?
Go, figure.
(Zona Libre/PUNTO! October 11-12, 2007)

Defining 'Q'

QUARRY (1). n., pl – ries. 1. A bird or animal hunted; prey; game. 2. Any object of pursuit (Middle English querre, entrails of a beast given to the hounds, from Old French cuiree, variant of co(u)ree, from Late Latin corata, viscera, from Latin cor, heart.
Quarry (2). n., pl – ries. An open excavation or pit from which stone is obtained by digging, cutting or blasting. – tr.v. quarried, -rying, -ries. 1. To cut , dig, blast or otherwise obtain (stone) from a quarry. 2 To use land as a quarry. (Middle English quarey , quarere from Old French quarriere from quarre (unattested) , “square stone” from Latin quadras , square.
The lexicographic definitions of the word quarry – the Grolier International Dictionary used here – are too clear for any misunderstanding. ( What? No mention of sand in the definition? Well, sand, along with marble, mayhaps only came later to join stone as materials being quarried.)
Well-defined as it is, still – in Pampanga – the word quarry has assumed myriad connotations and varied denotations well outside the parameters of its dictionary meaning.
It was not so long ago that the word quarry meant all of these things: some tracts of lands and fishponds, some choice lots in premier subdivisions, condo units along Manila Bay and the heart of a Mutya ning Kapampangan finalist.
In that same period, quarry assumed the synonyms of top-of-the-line sports-utility vehicles like Lincoln Navigators and Humvee 2s, luxurious S-type Mercedes Benzes and 7-series BMWs. Forget the Pajeros, they were for paisanos. The Patrols, to the bodyguards as back-up vehicles
Still then too, quarry connoted grand palaces and stately mansions sprouting in rustic Porac.
Ah, those attributions were well within our first dictionary entry of the word: “object of pursuit.” The pursuers making prey of the collection pot for their own ends.
In our common understanding, quarry meant digging. For sand, that is. Still, misunderstanding persists.
Again, an instance in the recent past.
Threatened with suspension over the reported indiscriminate quarrying in his town, my once favorite mayor, rolled his Rs in his spirited defense that: “There is no quarrying in Mexico. There is only the scraping of lahar from private agricultural lands in pursuit of our noble objective to make them arable again for greater productivity and prosperity of our people.”
Only scraping and not quarrying? Even when the lahar scraped was used as pantambak (filling materials) to the pinak (marshland) atop which SM City Pampanga rose?
One month after Eddie T. Panlilio took his seat at the capitol, quarry assumed the definition of P1-million per day. And at the same time confirmed the earlier definition of quarry as unexplained wealth and plunder.
So we are now all agreed on all that the Q word stands for? Not yet.
Our good friend Mayor Buddy Dungca raised hell when capitol quarry operatives known for the eponymous BALAS moniker stopped desilting operations along the Gugu Creek to relieve the waterway of the volumes of lahar that settled there after the heavy rains of August and September.
The spectre of October 1, 1995 in Cabalantian was poised like Damocles’ Sword upon some barangays, thus the mayor immediately ordered and implemented sustained desilting operations.
Apparently incensed at some insinuations from the Bacolor folk that his stoppage of the operations manifested a most-unpriestly, if not inhuman side, of Panlilio, the governor hit back by declaring that what was being done was not desilting but quarrying, with the qualification that “what was dug was sold, and not used to buttress the earthen dikes or given to the residents as pantambak.”
So there, yet another qualification to the Q definition: “that which is sold.”
Truly, quarry is a very dynamic word.
(Zona Libre, PUNTO! October 10, 2007)

To be a priest

MANY ARE called, few are chosen. So the Good Book says.
I was called in, and five years later, chosen out of the seminary. Less for my own good as for the sake of Mother Church, my prefect told me – not jokingly – that sad April day in 1972 when he walked me out of the portals of the Sacred Heart Novitiate in then bucolic Novaliches.
It’s all water, murky at that, under the bridge now, but I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I acquiesced to the counsel of my then minor seminary rector and spiritual adviser, the Rev. Paciano B. Aniceto, for me to try San Carlos Seminary down EDSA in Guadalupe.
As quickly, the wonderment turns to certainty: I would have most surely been driven out there too, the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist streak virtually running through my system then.
Still, I would have had the pleasure and privilege of being classmate to one of the called and chosen whom I hold in the highest esteem – the Rev. Fr. Ermelito Garcia Simbulan.
Today, October 9, Among Elmer celebrates his silver sacerdotal jubilee in his parish of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Porac.
It was in January 1991, as the first cura paroco of the newly-created Parish of St. Jude Thaddeus, that I came to know him, largely through my wife who was an active “ROTC” – that, to the uninitiated, is the English translation of the euphemistic “dagis pisamban” and has nothing to do with the discontinued military training in college.
Among Elmer instantly struck me as the priest for the times: his spiritual duties finding complement with his social advocacies.
Before Among Elmer – at least in St. Jude and in the nearby parish churches we attended – never had the meaning of the Gospel given as much relevance to day-to-day life.
And as expected, the conservatives among the parishioners were “scandalized” at his “politicization of the pulpit.” A now-common phrase that always brings to mind that great soul of India: “I can say without hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.”
So Among Elmer did tell his congregation not to get as godfather for their children’s baptism, confirmation and wedding a political lord he believed to have raided the public coffers.
So he punctuated the final blessing after a Mass with an a la Flavier “Let’s DO it!” just a day before the barangay polls where one candidate was named “Do.”
So he presided too the building of a caring Christian community along with the rising of the church in St. Jude. And when the village faced the threat of Mt. Pinatubo’s lahar, he was there leading the parishioners in sandbagging operations, himself alternately shoveling, and carrying sandbags. I don’t know if there was any other priest who did that.
Then he was transferred to St. Ignatius of Loyola parish in Manibaug. Here, the challenge of redemption took on a critically physical dimension – the obliteration of the village from the map posed by the village’s inclusion within the proposed megadike structure, serving as a lahar catch basin.
He led his flock in protests and demonstrations and the government engineers subsequently re-aligned the megadike to spare Manibaug.
It was here too that his critical stand against the then emerging irregularities in sand quarrying germinated, taking full flowering and fruition with his transfer to his present parish in Porac, at the very pith of the quarry scam.
Yes, long before Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao took the quarry mess to the floor of the sangguniang panlalawigan, Among Elmer had used both pulpit and parish hall in denouncing not simple theft but complex plunder in the quarry collections, so manifest in the unexplained wealth abounding in chosen palaces, err, places well within sight of his church.
It did not need for Among Elmer to run and win the governorship to see that there is money – oodles of money – being plundered in the quarry industry. He knew it. He raised hell against it. To the point of refusing to bless some projects attributed to the perceived plunderers.
Among Elmer makes my image of the priest. One I wished I could have been but could never be. He makes me proud being his friend, and even prouder being a Catholic. Here’s to your golden jubilee, Among.
(Zona Libre, PUNTO! October 9, 2007)

Quarry mathematics

THAT the quarry income under the Panlilio administration has been phenomenal need no convoluted explanation. The numbers don’t just tell the whole story. They scream it!
P1 million a day is P1 million a day, in any language. Or is it?
Going over a capitol press release on the “steady” rate of the government take from the sand industry, some figures rocked the very foundation of my knowledge in elementary arithmetic. Yeah, that which taught me one plus one equals two, four minus one equals three, two times two equals four, and ten divided by two equals five.
The Office of the Provincial Treasurer released the figures that for the period August 16-31, quarry income totaled P11,660,000 for an average of P1,060,00 per day.
And for September 3-19, it amounted to P13,245,000 that yielded an average of P1,018.845.15 daily.
Spectacular, indeed! No questions about it. So where’s my beef?
As I learned it from primary school – and last time I checked, it still holds true – the computation of averages goes through the basic process of division. In this quarry instance, the monthly income serves as the dividend, the number of days it took to get that income acts as the divisor and the resultant quotient indicates the average daily take.
August 16-31 comprised 16 days. Divide the total amount of P11,660,000 by 16 and you get not over P1 million a day as reported but an exact P728,750. That is short of P331,250 from the daily average reported.
September 3-19 covers 17 days. Dividing the income of P13,245,000 by 17 will yield the daily average of P779,117.64 which is P239,728.51 short of the treasurer-reported P1,018,846.15.
That is as basic as any one can get with arithmetic. I just don’t know what parameters or new standards of measurements the Office of the Provincial Treasurer used to arrive at its figures.
So did it subtract from the period covered the Sundays therein? I still would not find this rational as quarry operators respect no Sundays or holy days of obligation in the pursuit of their trade. The caravan of loaded dump trucks plying the quarry routes rivals in length any religious procession on any given day.
So what gives, really? Do we have a new form of mathematics at the treasurer’s office of Pampanga now?
I am kind of disturbed with this thought. Or have you forgotten that new mathematical procedure invention by the Commission on Elections? Yeah, that thing called dagdag-bawas.
(Zona Libre, PUNTO! October 4, 2007)

Views to a failed kill

“HE did not act alone. He was a mere instrument of a conspiracy to rid Pampanga of its best-ever leader.”
So said a seemingly respectable man who have had, perhaps, much too much serving of Oliver Stone movies. Yeah, those invariably plotted on conspiracy theories, like the assassination of JFK.
“He was a jueteng kubrador deprived of his income by Among Ed’s incessant campaign against illegal gambling. He lost his mind trying – and failing – to get another job to feed his family. To him, killing the governor will not only be a vindication but a salvation.”
So quipped another man whose Benz I mistook for a bridal car as it was bedecked with white ribbons.
“Wala iyan. Pautot lang ng mga image-makers ni Panlilio yan. Laos na yung bullet-proof jacket para i-drama ang mga tangka kuno sa buhay niya. Kaya, hayan, balisong naman ang ginamit.”
No, that was not me. That was an unrepentant and unrelenting Panlilio critic holding court in some coffeeshop at SM Clark.
Speculations and suspicions abound in the wake of the reported “failed assassination” of Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio at the provincial capitol last Monday after he launched his White Movement for good governance.
Blame that on the initial sloppy media reporting of the incident and the even sloppier police investigation.
From what I read and watched, the reportage was very detailed in drama but sorely devoid of the most essential fact – the identity of the would-be assassin kuno.
How the reporters knew that he was “insane” – guys, make that mentally-challenged is the political correctness – when they did not even know his name was one journalistic lapse making them all unworthy of their cameras, laptops and tape recorders.
Then, there was the City of San Fernando police reportedly freeing the would-be assassin after a cursory investigation.
Cow dung! Bull ordure! That was the governor nearly meeting with his God! And the suspect just walked away like nothing happened? Col. Audie Atienza, top gun of the city police, is a very good friend but I think there was some element of the bumbling Keystone Cops of the silent movies in his handling of the incident.
And now we read that the city police are again looking for the man. For further – and hopefully more thorough – interrogation, it is said.
The propagandist in me had a different track and tack on this.
Think of the mileage the Panlilio camp will get if they’ll do here a John Paul II. What do I mean?
Dummy, how soon can you forget one of the most touching moments, indeed a most redemptive act, in JP II’s papacy? The supreme pontiff entering a Rome prison cell meeting, forgiving, consoling and blessing his would-be assassin, the Turk Mehmet Ali Agca. That was indeed one moment frozen not only in time but in sainthood.
Now, picture the priest-and-governor in a forgiving embrace with his own Kapampangan, if slightly mentally-challenged, Mehmet. That will be one moment to last till 2013.
Squeeze the juice out of the “failed assassination” kuwento for all its political worth. Andiyan na rin lang yan. (Zona Libre, PUNTO! October 3, 2007)