Exhibits

IN HIS 1981 state visit to the United States, Ferdinand the Great blazed a trail of sorts in presidential oratory by spicing up his speeches with human exhibits.
Distinctively do I remember that Marcos talk, though I am confused now as to its milieu – whether it was the Capitol or at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. – where the Great Dictator made a reasoned argument on the demise of the communist insurgency by presenting as evidence on-exhibit Ka Luis Taruc and Nilo Tayag, respectively representing the Old Guards and the New Order of the Red movement, marching under his New Society banner. Of course, the insurgents back home quickly branded the two as some sort of “capitalist roaders” and sell-outs, Tayag even appended with the sobriquet Payag.
For the sainted Cory Aquino, it was her martyred husband Ninoy that was made permanent exhibit in her presidential talks.
The General Fidel Valdez Ramos took his cue from the 1992 presidential debates and grabbed Mang Pandoy as one centerpiece of his administration.
For those who have forgotten and those too young to remember, Mang Pandoy it was that lived in a shanty at the Manila Bay reclamation area, and, in desperation, said he would have himself shot by any thrill seeker for P100,000 just to provide some future for his kids. Each of the presidential candidate was asked what program of government he/she would craft for Mang Pandoy who was made the representation of the Filipino Everyman.
Ramos exhibited his find at his very inaugural; government agencies were promptly mobilized to help raise the state of Mang Pandoy’s being through his transfer to an old Bliss housing site, the provision of livelihood programs and even a television talk show of his own over the government station Channel 4.
With Ramos out of the presidency, the last thing heard of Mang Pandoy was his having returned to his old miserable haunts. All the developmental inputs going to naught. Wonder if the man is still alive.
Rather than the human kind, it was his mangling the King’s language that the Actor Joseph Estrada extensively exhibited in his presidency. Not to mention his spirituous delinquency.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo mastered the art of the human exhibit in her state of the nation addresses.
Three or four years back, there were the three boys from Payatas with their bangkang papel set on the Pasig River to reach Malacanang Palace. So what happened to them? The state of poverty they represented having worsened since then.
In 2006, it was Major General Jovito Palparan to impact to the nation her determined hammer-and-thongs approach to the insurgency. Cry Butcher, and let loose the dogs of war! The militants could only cringe in terror, if not in rage.
Last year, the human exhibits ran the gamut of governors and mayors, Cabinet men and entrepreneurs, to members of the perfumed set. A social call, a soiree was how last year’s SONA came to be labeled.
Last Monday, it was the turn of everyday heroes to be exhibited by the President.
Exhibit A was Rodney Berdin, 13, of Barangay Rombang, Belison town in Antique who saved his mother, brother, and sister from drowning in the raging waters of the Sibalom River at the height of Typhoon Frank.
Exhibit B was Victoria Mindoro who used to earn P5,000 a month as farmer and factory worker but now gets as much as P10,000 a week as a beneficiary of an agrarian reform community in Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibugay.
Exhibit C was Alan Almanse, 40, college graduate and father of two, who in his past twin jobs as fisherman and tricycle driver only earned P100 a day but now gets a daily income of P1,000 a day as whaleshark officer under the tourism program of the government.
Good exhibits all. Here’s hoping against hope they won’t go the way of Mang Pandoy.

Reinventing an icon

“SENTRAL.” That was how it was called for as long as I can remember.
And I do remember well having had a really personal attachment to the place.
In my boyhood, from the green rice fields of somnolent Sto. Tomas, lounging at the backs of carabaos we took to pasture we eagerly anticipated the first signs of black smoke from its twin chimneys signaling the start of the milling season, cabio it was called in Kapampangan, usually in mid-October.
It would be time for my father to store in our lalam-bale his farm implements and report to the sentral as seasonal worker, a bagon driver. No, he never referred to himself as a freight train engineer. It was, to him, too lofty and presumptuous a title.
Pre-elementary – we were too poor for me to enter kindergarten – Tatang routinely took me along whenever he was on the primera shift. I enjoyed those downhill rides especially when he allowed me to pull the lever that sounded the horn. On the tersera shift, the family anticipated Tatang coming home early morning with cans of inuyat which we ambula in steaming rice and gatas damulag.
That Tatang served the sentral well was given testimony on his 25th year of service: some cash award, a certificate of recognition for his loyalty signed by the president of the sentral , the respected Gerry Rodriguez, and a black-dialed Seiko 5 watch.
That our family was served well by the sentral was seen through our family having coped with the hard times, all seven of us kids getting through high school and college before Tatang retired.
That the sentral served well not only the capital San Fernando but the whole of Pampanga was manifested in its chimneys made a part of the official seal of the province.
Ah, those smoking chimneys. The very signs of progress in my youth turned to be the symbols of environmental degradation in my early adulthood. The sentral became the scourge of Pampanga that poisoned the air with its smoke, and the river with its acrid and acidic effluents.
At the Department of Public Information, Region 3 office where I sat as bureaurat-mediaman, the sentral became public enemy number one from the late ‘70s through the ‘80s. And a war we did wage in the press, in various fora, up to the National Pollution Control Commission until the sentral was ordered to buy and operate some pollution-abatement devices.
Segue now to the ‘90s: the sentral not spared from the aftereffects of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions of lahar and floods, the take-over of its management and operations by a new company, and the subsequent establishment of the Sweet Crystals sugar mill in the hinterlands of Porac. And the sentral looked more like a rusted relic of a long past industrial age, totally alien in a City of San Fernando bursting with prosperity and aspiring to be the habitat of human excellence in the near future.
Last week, at a solidarity forum in the city, came word on the hoped-for reinvention of the sentral.
On its 90th year of serving the province, Pampanga Sugar Development Co. (Pasudeco) plans to transform its 35-hectare property into a multi-use facility to be of greater relevance to the times and contribute more to the development of Pampanga.
“We would like to remake the old Pasudeco as the new center of San Fernando to make the city a nicer place to live and work in.” So announced Michael Escaler, company chair and president, stressing, “We will not be guided by what is most profitable, but by what will be good for San Fernando.”
Adjacent to the Heroes Hall, the city hall annex, the Pasudeco property is planned to be developed for light industries, commercial enterprises, business offices, housing and parks.”
“We have been part of the history of the province. All our ancestors and the whole community benefitted from Pasudeco, so our generation, the direct beneficiaries want Pasudeco to give back to the community by reusing the area so we can make San Fernando a better place to live in,” Escaler was quoted as saying.
Now, I am back as the pasture boy, in awe of the sentral anew. Here’s hoping the chimneys will be preserved as heritage, as reminders of the sentral's part in Kapampangan history.

Diyos ninyo

THE FINAL question for us panelists to field in last week’s Talking Points over Infomax 8 was whether there was any chance remaining for the governor and the vice governor finding common ground whence an I’m-OK-you’re-OK relationship could spawn.
While hope springs eternal in the hearts of Among Resty Lumanlan, SVD and top business leader Rene Romero, it does not in mine. Thus, I rattled off a past Punto! editorial on Governor Panlilio having a problem with the vice governor, sangguniang panlalawigan, municipal mayors, barangay chairmen, media, Madame Lolita Hizon, etcetera, thereforing off: Governor Panlilio is the problem!
My skepticism has turned out to be well placed. It does look that a constancy at the capitol is a state of as-it-was-in-the-beginning-is-now-and-ever-shall-be.
Consider this following Zona Libre piece of July 19, 2007.
WALANG kasing palad ang mga Kapampangan. Pari ang kanilang inihalal na gubernador. Diyos ang kanilang nailuklok sa kapitolyo.
Milagro por milagro, tatapatan ni Panlilio si Kristo.
Kung ang inuming tubig sa kasalan sa Cana ay ginawang masamyong alak ni Kristo, ang buhangin namang buga ng Pinatubo ay ginawang ginto ni Panlilio.
Kung ang limang piraso ng tinapay at mga isda ay nagpabusog sa libu-libong tao matapos bendisyunin ni Kristo, ang isang araw na kitang apatnapu’t limang libong piso sa quarry ay naging isang milyong piso sa mapagpalang kamay ni Panlilio.
Wika sa wika, hindi mahuhuli si Panlilio kay Kristo.
“Mapalad ang mga dukha, dahil sa kanila ang kaharian ng langit,” wika ni Kristo.
“Ang karaingan ng mga dukha ay dadalhin ko sa kapitolyo,” ani naman ni Panlilio. At ang mga dukha ay nagsilikas at humayo sa pasinaya kay Panlilio noong ika-30 ng Hunyo upang pagsarhan lamang ng tarangkahan ng kapitolyo.
Samantalang nagpipiging nang buong rangya sa ikalawang palapag ng kapitolyo ang humahalimuyak at mapupulang sakong na alta sosyedad, ang mga putikang paa’t pawisang kawan ay bilad naman sa init ng araw.
Bagama’t sa kapitolyo’y nakarating din naman ang kanilang daing: sa kartolinang paskel ng kariton ni Among na isinabit sa dingding. At nagka-katuparan ang binitiwang pangako ng dakilang sugo.
Tunay na sa langit pa ang pagpapala sa mga maralita. Tunay na sa kapitolyo na ang pagpapasasa ng mga mariwasa. Ito ang salin sa ebanghelyo ni Panlilio ng Parabola ni Lazaro at ng Mayaman sa pangaral ni Kristo.
“Wala nang pagmamahal sa puso ng tao ang hihigit pa kaysa pag-aalay ng buhay para sa kanyang mga kaibigan,” pagtestigo kay Kristo ng ebanghelyong ayon kay Juan.
“Buhay ko man ay handa kong ialay sa pagtubos sa mga Kapampangan mula sa corruption, mula sa imoralidad, mula sa kahirapan,” patotoo naman ni Panlilio sa kanyang kahandaang maging sakripisyong kordero. (Kalabisan nang banggitin pa ditong suut-suot ni Panlilio ang makapal na pananggalang sa bala habang binibigkas niya ito.)
“Ang katotohanan ang magpapalaya sa inyo,” ani uli Kristo.
“Pagbutihin ninyo ang pagbatikos, ilalabas namin ang sa ganang amin, at ang katotohanan ay makikita ng mamamayan,” hamon ni Panlilio sa pamumula ng mga mamamahayag.
Si Kristo “ang daan, ang katotohanan at ang buhay.”
Bukambibig na ni Panlilio sa iba’t ibang pahayag ang mga katagang “ang katotohanan niyan…” na wari’y ang katotohanan ay siya mismong kanyang iwing kalikasan. At magkagayo’y nabahagdan na ng pagkadiyos ang kanyang pagkatao.
Tunay na sa mga gawi ngayon ni Panlilio, higit ang antas ng kanyang pagkatao maging sa Santo Papa mismo. Ang infallibility o hindi-pagkakamali ng Santo Papa ay nakatakda lamang sa mga dogma ng pananampalataya. Ang kay Panlilio’y walang anumang limitasyon.
Hindi maaaring magkamali si Panlilio kaya’t walang dahilan na siya’y humingi ng paumanhin, anuman ang sabihin ng lahat.
Hindi nagkamali si Panlilio sa pagsasabing “caretaker administration” ang pansamantalang pamamahala ni Yeng Guiao bilang gubernador dalawang linggo bago umupo si Panlilio at wala itong karapatan na ipatupad ang nakatakdang pagsubasta sa mga proyekto. Batas ng tao ang ikinakatwirang mandato ni Guiao. Batas ng Diyos ang pinanghahawakan ni Panlilio.
Hindi nagkamali si Panlilio sa pagpanig sa kanyang administrador sa sinasabi’t nakikitang pagkaarogante’t kabastusan nito sa local media. Makatwiran pa nga ito sapagkat mga bayaran at imoral lamang ang mga local media kaya’t wala silang anumang puwang sa kabanalan ng kapitolyo ni Panlilio.
Hindi nagkamali si Panlilio sa paghingi ng “blanket authority” sa Sangguniang Panlalawigan. Si Guiao at ang kanyang mga kagawad ang maling-mali sa pang-unawa sa kagustuhan ni Panlilio at nagsisilbing balakid sa kanyang ministeryong tubusin ang lahing Kapampangan mula sa kasalanan.
Hindi maaaring magkamali ang Diyos. Hindi maaaring magkamali si Panlilio. Ah, mga Kapampangan, ang pagpapala ng langit ay sumasainyo.
Tunay na kasumpa-sumpa kaming hindi naniniwala.

Post-dialogue blahs

EVEN AS it failed to provide a common ground for the Governor and the Vice Governor upon which a new order at the Pampanga capitol could be established, the dialogue-that-was-not provided the Kapampangans a spectator sport of sorts that spawned more games of talk, talk, talk.
Wednesday evening, I was in Talking Points over Infomax 8 in the City of San Fernando along with the chairman of the Kapampangan Coalition, Inc. Rev. Fr. Resty Lumanlan, SVD and the chairman of the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon, Rene Romero. Subject of course was the dialogue, but some vignettes – especially those told off-cam – about the man from the two once-but-now-for-nonce high-profile supporters of Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio made even more interesting side issues.
These are not told verbatim. But they are closest to the actual conversations we had.
Businessman Romero shared this exchange between him and Panlilio. Take this allegorically not literally, else you’d think the Governor is, himself, into gambling:
“Makataya na ku keni. Ikayu, e ko taya? (I have put my wager in this (the governorship). How about you, aren’t you betting?)”
“Bah, Among, siyempre makataya kami naman keka. (Of course, we are placing our bets on you.)”
“Kaybat nang sinambut, kinwa no ngan ding taya, pati na ding pinyambut. Tsaka na kami likwan. (After he won, he got all the bets plus the winnings and left us.)”
No personal agenda there on our part, Mister Rene qualified: “Any position in government, any business with government did not even enter our minds. We simply responded to his call of good governance, believing in his sincerity and holding on to his expressed policy of a government of consultation.”
So what happened to his consultative “policy”?
“It is well in placed at the capitol, practiced by the governor,” Mister Rene was quick to reply. And quicker yet: “So long as it is Ateneo that is being consulted. All other groups, whether from the civic society or the academe, amounting to nothing in the mind of the governor.”
Then, a text message: “Atty. Vivian Dabu is the source of all the trouble at the capitol.”
“It’s not Dabu, bobo.” So quoted I of a recent Zona Libre column. “It’s Panlilio, who wields the authority. Dabu being only an instrument of that authority. Nothing happens at the capitol without the governor’s imprimatur. The issue of ignorance of basic procedures is traceable to Panlilio allowing Dabu much leeway. A case in point was that memorandum from Panlilio written on a stationery of the provincial administrator with the second page written on the governor’s. Nakapatong ang administrador sa gobernador. (The administrator is on top of the governor.)”
“Intelligence and integrity, though she may well be in possession of these attributes, are not enough. The heart, the grace to serve, especially the lowly and the needy is factored in government. The recent strike of the Balas boys – the real heroes in the Panlilio administration – affirmed Dabu’s abject lack of what it takes to be in government service. Not only were the feelings of the Balas boys injured. They were insulted.” Now, that was Among Resty talking.
“So what can you say of Atty. Dabu reportedly holding multiple positions at the capitol?” It was the beautiful, intelligent and well-named co-host Atty. IQ Tuazon that asked.
“Dabu is superwoman.” So I thought aloud. It looked as though only Dabu had the capability to hold on to these positions – administrator, acting legal officer, procurement in-charge, head of transition team overseeing infra projects, whatever. This is an insult to everyone of us here, to all Kapampangans.
“She may be doing a good in all her assigned tasks. Like an ordinary housewife who has the know-how in handling the different needs of the house.” That was IQ.
I did not comment, fearful that I might get off track with that allegory of Dabu running the capitol like a housewife running a household. So where’s the husband, I would have asked. Damn, I did now.
I could not remember what Mister Rene said. It was something akin to the management principle of multi-tasks hastening the tasker to reach his/her level of incompetence.
“But she enjoys the full trust and confidence of the governor,” continued IQ.
“Public office is a public trust,” Among Resty now.”The governor has an accountability to the people.”
Over a sumptuous merienda-cena , Among Resty noted the subtlety of the insult Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao inflicted on the Governor with his gift of a Time magazine copy bearing the image of Nelson Mandela and featuring the secret of his leadership.
Given the display of temper of Panlilio towards Guiao during their exchanges, a more appropriate gift for my compadre would have been The Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun by Wess Roberts.

Littered letter

THOROUGHLY AND thoughtfully should the Reverend Governor read his communications before affixing his name to them and sending them out for publication. That is if he cannot get a writer with a better grasp of syntax, grammar and composition than his current one, at least he/she that encoded his “open letter” of July 9, 2008.
Among Ed T. Panlilio’s epistle on his first-year performance as governor is – like any other performance report – intended to impact in the reader the weight of the accomplishments listed thereat. Thus, the need for a strong, attention-grabbing lead sentence.
“Our administration convened the 14 Provincial Councils and Boards for collaborative consultation and action.” By the longest stretch of the imagination, there is nothing even faintly impressive there. Since when did meetings by themselves become accomplishments?
“We constructed more than 20 kilometers of roads throughout the province which are worth P50M.
We provided more than P15M worth of medical supplies and equipment and upgraded our public hospitals to the tune of P20M.
We provided more than P10M worth of construction materials, furniture and fixtures for our public schools.”
Now, Panlilio is talking.Those activities sum up to a total of P95 million. In themselves, arguably outstanding. But not when ranged against the singularly excellent job Panlilio has done so far, the quarry collections.
“We collected more than P230M from quarry operation and gave P72M shares to 10 municipalities and 39 barangays. The rest was allocated for the delivery of basic services and the provision for the first time of the budgetary requirements of different marginalized sectors.” That paragraph was at the bottom of the litany of accomplishments, perhaps saved for last for lasting effect.
Or, placed so far from the initial accomplishments so that the studious reader could overlook that the P95 million spent for hospitals, medicines, construction materials and 20 kilometers of road were but a small percentage of the quarry take: only worth 95 days in Panlilio’s boasted average of P1 million daily quarry take. Which could lead to certain conclusions that there was but little that Panlilio did in his first year as governor.
“We availed P8.75M for assistance for rice and corn seeds and trainings on high value crops and organic farming.” The report continued.
A strict grammarian would find there a case not only of a lapse in grammar but of the crime of graft and corruption, a la Joc-joc Bolante’s fertilizer scam. Instead of the intended beneficiaries – farmers, presumably – it is “We,” meaning Panlilio and whoever his collegial body is, that “availed” (themselves, grammatically now) of P8.75 million.
In the absence of malice, what Panlilio meant there could have been “We made available to the agriculture sector…” Careful with words, Sir.
“We released P1.67M for 334 beneficiaries in micro-enterprise projects (ABE Program) and P1.5M for 490 students in summer jobs. And we conducted several job fairs to help our cabalens have jobs.” No arguments there except for ABE Program. What does the acronym stand for?
“Our Pamisaupan caravan went to 15 municipalities so far, bringing to far flung barangays the different services of the Capitol.” Good.
“We co-sponsored with non-governmental organizations like Kapampangan Development Foundation and Rotary Clubs services like provision of prosthesis, medical missions and harelip and cleft palette operations.”
Now that sentence made an accomplished idiot of the Governor and the organizations cited.
For want of something to accomplish, Panlilio, Rotary and the Kapampangan Development Foundation joined together in patching up broken boards for mixing paint colors! That is what a cleft palette is. Absolutely different and distinct in definition, in form, in spelling from a cleft palate. Such idiocy!
“Amidst all these accomplishments, we have navigated the course carefully and surely resulting in the slow implementation of infrastructure projects.”
Slow implementation goes against the grain of efficiency and effectiveness in governance. “Slow but certain in the integrity of the infra projects” would have made a whale of a difference, Sir.
“There are those of us who have been stuck in internal conflicts and squabbles. Others have channeled much of their energies questioning the prudence of why I keep certain staff in their present post. Please know that we your co-advocates at the capitol have decided to move on.”
More than the sangguniang panlalawigan, it was his inner circle that the Governor’s lamentation addressed. Hence, his take on the post-Lewinsky Clintonesque dismissal: “Now it is time, in fact it is past time, to move on.”
Perhaps it would have done the Governor better had he read a Yale psychologist’s use of the phrase: “You can’t move on. You can only move through.”
Or went direct, like one disgraced DC mayor to those who objected to his election comeback: “Get over it!”
“May I reiterate my commitment to do better in all humility and generosity in the coming months. Let us continue supporting this crusade that is bigger than me. May the Good Lord who has begun this crusade bring it to fruition and completion.”
So ended the letter of the Governor.
Unlike him who went through the full course, I was four years short of reaching even First Year Theology. But I see some serious theological concerns in that invocation of his to the Lord.
If it was indeed the Good Lord that “begun this crusade,” why then the “may” clause which, in the subjunctive mood, expresses a contingent or hypothetical action? A doubt, to be blunt about it.
Every work of the Lord finds consummation. If Panlilio’s crusade is the Lord’s, then it will come to fruition and completion. But if it is not, then that is another question. Of faith, this time.

It's not Dabu, bobo

“SHE IS intelligent, incorruptible and hardworking, but it was not enough to foster love and cooperation at the capitol.”
So what has love got to do with running the capitol?
The striking boys of Balas (Biyaya a Luluguran at Sisikapan), the task force on quarry operation, were way off the mark with their (un)reason for demanding the resignation of putative provincial administrator Atty. Vivian Dabu.
By admitting to her intelligence, incorruptibility and industry, the protestors themselves firmed up Dabu’s stake to her post, causing the very reverse of their intention. The attributes they heaped on Dabu did not make her an undesirable government executive to be run out of office but the ideal one to hold on to, at whatever cost. “Intelligent, incorruptible and hardworking” fellows being rara avis, if not dead dodos, in government.
Fostering love is never included in the defined functions and duties of government officials. So, why demand it from Dabu? As a matter of course too, notwithstanding the governor being a priest, the capitol is no locus of love. Much less a charity ward. Go, ask those alms-seekers driven away from the Office of the Governor.
“Dabu treated us like we were uneducated people. She didn’t respect us at all.” So the Balas plaint went on.
So how should “uneducated” people be treated? There’s a slip there showing. No, not Dabu’s but the Balas boys’.
If, to their mind, Dabu treated them with disdain and disrespect, then that is the treatment they think befits the “uneducated.” Then, that is their way, not necessarily Dabu’s but only impacted on her by them. As we Kapampangans say, pikakasaman ta mu ing sarili ta’ng ugali potang akakit ta iti karing kaparang tau. (We deplore our own habits when we see them in other people.)
The lowly unschooled are to be treated with greater compassion if only to compensate for their lack of education. I don’t know where that sense of altruism came from, leaping out of my memory bank just now.
So Dabu was stern in her treatment of the Balas boys? So? It ain’t Dabu had she cozied up to them and sweet talked them to just laugh off their demotions and dismissals from the task force.
So because of what they perceived and felt as “rudeness” on the part of Dabu, she has become “the bane to the administration of Gov. Eddie Panlilio.”
By that belief – that Dabu is the bane to the Panlilio administration – the Balas boys have made themselves even less than the disdained “uneducated” people they compared themselves to. Our apologies to the uneducated there.
The problem is not Dabu, bobo!
Dabu’s hold on public life and death, as it were, at the capitol is totally dependent on Panlilio. Panlilio, the governor, has the authority. Dabu, the factotum to Panlilio, is a mere instrument of that authority. All official acts of Dabu – some claim even unofficial ones – carry the express imprimatur of Panlilio. The sooner the Balas boys recognize this, the higher their learning curve goes. And with that, the level of their education follows.
In the case at hand, Panlilio himself was reported in his favorite newspaper – Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 14 issue, page 21 – as having “approved the termination and demotion to ensure that the regulatory system was protected from any malfunction and irregularity.”
Clear as day: though it was Dabu that signed and implemented their execution order, it was Panlilio that approved their damnation.
But that the Balas boys cannot see, blinded as they are by their adoration of their Among. No way that the personification of all good and true can ever, ever betray them. No, not their Among. But Dabu very well can, and did.
That severe case of cognitive dissonance afflicts Panlilio’s civil society too. “This is not what the crusade (for good governance and transparency) stood for. This is not about one man but for all the Kapampangans,” the venerable Among Resty Lumanlan was quoted as saying during a Mass he offered with the Balas boys at the capitol.
Some other members of Panlilio’s core group during the campaign were there too – a Bituin of Betis, a Tess of Ateneo, a Laquindanum of Holy Angel U, campaign field marshall Marni, and the crying ex-Balas supervisor named Filologo – taking turns expressing their solidarity with the Balas boys, lamenting their fate, and laying the full blame at Dabu’s door. But not a word was ever spoken of Panlilio’s share of responsibility. Much less his apparent inability to rein in Dabu, when called for.
The civil society there had their sympathy well placed. Their antipathy though was misdirected.
Plainly, dear sirs and madams, the buck stops at Panlilio. It does not end in Dabu. Think otherwise and you’re not only a dodo!

Sinner

CANON LAW 915 specifies that “those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
“In the case of an (automatic) penalty of excommunication attached on an offense, accomplices, even though not mentioned in the law or precept, incur the same penalty if, without their assistance, the crime would not have been committed.” So states yet another provision – No. 1329.2 – in the Canon Law.
A most esteemed friend in the clergy – no, not the Reverend Governor – who has a degree in Canon Law cited me these precepts as the premises upon which the Most Rev. Jesus Dosado, archbishop of Ozamiz, grounded his pastoral letter seeking to refuse Holy Communion to politicians pushing for abortion.
On the issue of abortion, Canon Law 1398 specifies that “a person who actually performs an abortion may be summarily excommunicated from Mother Church.” My friend emphasized.
“I know you are not into abortion and have been consistently pro-life given the number of children you sired with my comare. So, no need for you to fear being refused Holy Communion,” he told me over the phone before he ended our short conversation with a blessing.
I did not have the heart to tell him that the last time I received the Eucharist was from him, as co-celebrant at the renewal of my marital vows on my silver wedding anniversary five years ago. And before that, was eons back.
It is not that I have lost my faith in the Eucharist. It is that I find myself too deep “in a situation of sin” that I would just have to make do with a paraphrase of that centurion in Capernaum: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you. Speak but the word and my soul shall be healed.”
Worthiness. That is the elemental issue in the reception of the Holy Eucharist. And it does not take a study of the Canon Law to see that. That is pounded in catechism class.
Item 1324 in Article 3 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (definitive edition) states that : “The Eucharist is ‘the source and summit of Christian life.”…For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.”
Item 1325 furthered: “The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the Church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God’s action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit.”
The very Body and Blood of Christ is that which the faithful receive at Holy Communion. That, everyone is reminded at the communion line. And to that everyone amens. To be worthy of the Lord, one has to be in a state of grace. How many of those taking Holy Communion are really in that state? So how many of them have gone through the sacrament of reconciliation, beat their breasts in true remorse in their Act of Contrition and vowed to do their darndest best to sin no more before rambling those five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys and five Glory Bes for their penance?
One thing my dearly departed grandmother whose whole life was spent between home and church made me ever remember: Woe unto him, in mortal sin, who dares take the Eucharist!
Item 2120 in the Catechism had this provision: “Sacrilege consists in profaning or treating unworthily the sacraments and other liturgical actions, as well as persons, things or places consecrated to God. Sacrilege is a grave sin especially when committed against the Eucharist, for in this sacrament the true Body of Christ is made substantially present to us.”
Alas, a large segment of the Catholic faithful left their catechism lessons back in their kindergarten classes.
No, I mean not only the honorable congressmen now raving and ranting against Most Reverend Dosado’s pastoral letter. Go to Mass, and see:
The politician co-habiting with a woman other than his wedded wife, the fruits of their unblessed union all in their Sunday best.
Another politician who made the public coffers his own private piggy bank.
The town usurer that feeds off the misery of the daily wage-earner.
The entertainment impresario whose club is famous for shows that go all-the-way.
The entrepreneur whose laborers get starvation pay.
All – and more of their kind of public sinners – happily trooping the aisle at communion, singing “I receive the living God, and my heart is full of joy…”
With the celebrant, known to have fathered three children, beatifically beaming at the holiness of the congregation.
Oh, my good God. Have mercy on me, a sinner.

Public knowledge

SO, SINCE when did your tocayo Bong Pineda join government and plunder the public coffers?
It was Matuang Seto, an elder at a highland resettlement site in Floridablanca whom I paid a long overdue visit over the week-end, that shocked me with that query.
Bong Pineda, so far as I can remember, never worked in government. I told him. (Our conversation in Kapampangan is translated here in English for the benefit of our foreign readers.)
If he did not work in government, then Bong Pineda could not have robbed money from the government. So why did Governor Among file a plunder case against him?
Well, Gov Among was quoted in the papers as saying: “It is general and public knowledge that Bong Pineda figured prominently in the trial of former President Joseph Estrada for plunder as among those who conspired and helped the latter amass ill-gotten wealth which constituted plunder.”
Well, general and public knowledge do not in any way constitute evidence of an offense. It is general and public knowledge in town that a priest who is now famous had carnal knowledge with the wife of an airman here some years back, but that did not subject him to any Church sanction. Same difference there.
Again, the Gov said in his complaint that “based on the decision of the Sandiganbayan, the evidence in the possession of the honorable office and presented before the Sandiganbayan, which led to the conviction of former President Joseph Estrada, also support an indictment against Bong Pineda.”
So Erap was convicted. So it follows that Bong Pineda should be convicted too? Of what?
Plunder, according to Gov.
How? Granting that Bong Pineda did help Erap amass wealth. Where did that come from?
From jueteng daw, per Chavit Singson’s testimony.
Absuelto. No case there. Jueteng money is not government money. So what plunder is Gov Among talking about?
Frankly, I don’t know.
Gov Among has a cause to sue for plunder though. But not against Bong Pineda.
Against whom?
The Lapids, who else. With his accomplishment in increasing the quarry collection a thousand fold, over P200 million in one year alone, Gov Among has already proven that there was plunder committed in Pampanga during the terms of Lito and Mark Lapid. The difference between the quarry incomes of Gov Among and the Lapids is way above the P50 million set for plunder. So, there’s a clear crime there.
So why didn’t Gov sue the Lapids?
I don’t know. Maybe he is afraid, the Bida is still a senator.
So Gov is not afraid of Bong Pineda?
He is more afraid that is why he sued him.
Contradiction there. How is that?
Bong Pineda, more than the Lapids, has the capacity to make life miserable to Gov Among. Remember, there’s still the electoral protest of Nanay Baby. And talks of a recall against Gov Among are getting louder and wilder by the day. So, Gov Among has to keep Bong Pineda on the defensive to prevent him from going on an offensive.
Makes sense. And Gov Among is going about it right. With 69 bishops now backing him up in his plunder case, Bong Pineda would really be pinned in a defensive corner.
Not really. Remember your Sun Tzu: Leave some room for your enemy to disengage. Do not push him too far back against a wall when the only alternative left to him is to fight back.
What are you driving at?
Bong Pineda has always the capacity for a “shock and awe” attack that could drive those bishops reeling from its impact.
What do you mean?
It is general and public knowledge here that many churches were built through the benevolence of Bong Pineda. It is general and public knowledge too that many clergymen live not only by the Mass offerings and the second and third collections, but off the palms, err, by the graces from Bong Pineda.
Dumb and damned am I.

Folly

THE PEOPLE of Pampanga are now seeing the folly of electing a priest for governor.
Strong words there, I cautioned my philosophy classmate Eustaquio – in one of our regular espresso encounters at Fiorgelato in SM City Pampanga. Still, I could not deny him my ear. So, present your case Filosofo Takyo.
Vowed to celibacy, without necessarily being celibate, Among Ed did not have the opportunity of a wedded domestic life.
That’s having everything to do with being a priest. So, what’s that got to do with being governor?
Everything, silly. Had he a wife and children, living in a house of their own, he would have had ample financial management skills that would have come in handy now that he’s governor.
I find your logic rather convoluted, please enlighten me.
Right on, moron. As padre de familia, a married Among Ed would have known how to earn his family’s daily keep...
Come on, now. Among Ed has shown great, no, make that super, skills in income-generation. Remember how he multiplied fifty times the quarry income from Mark Lapid’s ridiculously low of P20,000-plus per day to his spectacularly whopping P1 million daily.
Stop enthusing so much about your compadre. You’re getting obnoxiously obsequious. Let me finish. Among Ed as family breadwinner would give his salary to the wife, as is the wont of Filipino husbands. The wife, being both finance and budget minister of the house…
Aha, then it should be the wife who should be governor, she having the better know-how in financial matters. Oh-oh, I see parallelism here with the present capitol – the putative provincial administrator really presiding over financial and budgetary matters. Like what some people at the capitol had been long saying...
Disabuse your malicious mind, that is nowhere near where I am leading to. The father in Among Ed would have been badgered by the wife over the ever-shortage of funds to meet life’s necessities: like food on the table, schooling for the kids, house repairs, power and utilities bills, etcetera. Not to mention, some of life’s finer things, like indulging oneself in arts and culture, entertainment, leisure and travel.
So, an Among Ed constantly nagged by the wife would learn the rudiments of financial management and budgeting?
So didn’t you, or any husband worth his wedding ring for that matter?
So what’s that got to do with being governor?
You still can’t get it? Among Ed is clueless on how to use the money coming his way from the quarry industry. Why? Because he did not have a wife and a family that would have taught him how.
That simple?
Yes, but to the detriment of the Kapampangans who until now have to get their taste of the quarry income, be it in improved social and medical services, new roads and schoolbuildings, livelihood opportunities, etcetera.
So, you attribute these “shortcomings” to Among Ed’s being a priest?
To what else? And there’s still more. Like a true priest, Among Ed, preaches what he does not practice.
Now, that’s really, really unkind and personal. Qualify.
Are not Among Ed’s by-words “transparency” and “accountability”? So, did you find those virtues in the list of campaign donors and contributions Among Ed submitted – under oath – to the Comelec? Where is accountability in Among Ed’s placement of “consultants” or “interim committees” over the capitol’s offices?
Still, I would like to think that there was some good brought to the province by the governor’s being a priest.
Yes, the improved quarry income. It really takes a priest to do that.
Because a priest is a man of integrity, of honesty…
No, because a priest knows only how to collect money. Not content with the offertory, there have been some second and third collections lately.
Burn in hell, Takyo.

No fair dinkum

TENSION GRIPPED the Australian community in Angeles City this past week with the third in a series of crime incidents with Aussies at the receiving end.
The decomposing body of one Tylar Hammond, 64, was found hogtied and stabbed inside his residence in Balibago, July 2. A week back, tourist Keith Joseph Cook, 68 was killed in the city’s entertainment district. And before that, one Raymund Arthur Kelly, 56, was seriously injured after being shot at point blank range by motorcycle-riding robbers.
The incidents have so uneased the Australians that they fear they have become specific targets of criminal gangs here. So well articulated in a front page headline of Punto! last Friday, "Aussies are crime targets."
I don’t know why that headline took me down memory lane – must be the age showing again – to a not-so-distant past in Angeles when the city was still Basetown, USA.
The last days of October 1987. It was soon after the simultaneous killings of three US servicemen and a Filipino of American descent by the urban partisan unit of the New People’s Army in the city.
To distinguish themselves from the Americans who were dubbed as “targets of opportunity” by the partisans, Australians took to wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “I AM AN AUSTRALIAN. I AM NOT A TARGET” whenever they went out of their residences.
The Australians though were the target of another kind, before, during and after the American killings. They were the favorite whipping boys in the local press. Culled from the deep recesses of an ageing memory now:
A whopping 70 percent of the entertainment industry in Angeles City was controlled by Australians. This was a mantra at each meeting of the Angeles Entertainment Inc. by its president, Frank Abrillo, owner of Stag club. Filipina girlfriends and mistresses serving more as dummies than partners allowed actual ownership of businesses by the Aussies, Abrillo was all-too-quick to add.
Aussies have found a most desirable place in Angeles, a fair dinkum to use their phrase. With their stranglehold of the entertainment industry the Aussies naturally lorded it over all the denizens of Fields Avenue and its satellite streets of flesh.
A query to an Australian tourist on what was there in Angeles that made his compatriots to troop to the city gave this wisecrack: “You don’t have the beaches, mate. But you sure do have the bitches.”
“The devils from down under “ damned an editorial of The Voice of the “reglamentary” abuse by Australians of bargirls and other workers in the entertainment industry; of the low, low regard of Filipina women by Australian tour operators who had the gall to publish in one Outback shit of a sheet the lurid enticement: “Come to Angeles City, the girls are cheap, P100 only.”
Pampanga’s media organizations coming out with a joint resolution denouncing an Australian writer whose special report on the Angeles-Olongapo entertainment circuit in an Australian newspaper that read in part: “Filipino men are willing to sell their daughters, their wives, even their mothers for a few pesos.”
A very personal matter with these Aussies. I was on a date with a lady friend at the nipa hut restaurant of Swagman Hotel – the flagship of Australian dominance of entertainment in Angeles then.
The lady was on her way to the powder room when a group of drunken Aussies groped at her. She came back to our table crying. Gallantry obliged me to seek redress. I got more. It so happened that city cop chief Col. Ahmed Nakpil was near our table with his men.
The cops lined up those rowdy Aussies against the wall at gunpoint and I had a kick out of striking each one on the head. Penyagap ku la.
Aside from the flesh market, the Aussies also indulged in illegal gambling. No, not jueteng, dummy. That was the monopoly of RR in the city then. The Aussies established off-track betting stations in their enclaves. No, not for the races at the Manila Jockey Club nor the Sta. Ana Race Track but for those in far-off Sydney, Australia. The results were dispatched to Angeles through short-wave radio. Remember, there was no fax yet that time, no IDD, and the internet was still eons away.
For all these abuses, even malfeasances and petty crimes of Australians, I cannot recall covering any Australian killing. And to think that the insurgency was at its peak in the city then.
Fast forward to these times when Koreans have far overtaken the Australians and just about every national here – Filipinos included, it is often jested – in ownership of businesses from the field of entertainment to real estate. Aussies being target of crime syndicates now just don’t fit the bill. No fair dinkum there, mate.

Kapampangan shame

“KAPAMPANGAN KU, pagmaragul ku.”
Pride in being Kapampangan has been a recurring refrain in the administration of Gov. Eddie T. Panlilio. So recurring that it has been reduced to plain lip service, something akin to St. Paul’s clanging cymbal amounting to nothing but noise. Or, most appropriate yet, an ejaculation finding meaning in its opposite.
Pride in the Kapampangan is ever at the tip of the Reverend Governor’s tongue but not in the innermost chamber of his heart.
Consider his treatment of the gallery of former Pampanga governors at the second floor lobby of the capitol.
Sometime in August last year – just two months into his term – Panlilio had the portraits of the governors unceremoniously, and inexplicably, removed. Soon after, the capitol was plastered with portraits of Panlilio in all guises, in all poses, in all colors, in all sizes dating from his gubernatorial campaign to his inauguration. At the second floor lobby was placed a wide-screen TV continuously playing videos of Panlilio.
No pride in the Kapampangan, there. Only Panlilio’s pride of himself. One super massage of his ego, if not his apotheosis in-the-making.
Reeling from media flak, Panlilio after sometime announced that the portraits of the former governors were taken down for restoration, having been hung too long and exposed to dust and grime.
So where were they taken for restoration? In the ceiling of the Benigno Aquino Hall, for the indulgence of rats, mites and cockroaches.
Utter disrespect of the memory of past leaders is no manifestation of pride in the Kapampangan. Then there was Panlilio’s instant dismissal – insultingly made through a mere factotum – of the proposal for an archeological dig that would once and for all establish the existence of a Kapampangan civilization eons before the coming of the Spaniards. A Kapampangan Indiana Jones prepared the undertaking in cooperation with the National Museum and would cost the province some P3 million.
Panlilio’s reason for thumbing down the proposal: the province had no money for it. No money? P3 million is but a three-day’s take from the quarry taxes.
Pride in the Kapampangan, but not of his heritage? That’s no pride but shame of race.
Then there is Panlilio’s open hostility to the Pampanga police director.
Senior Supt. Keith Ernald Singian, a Kapampangan, may not fit Panlilio’s mould of the ideal provincial director. So he has to go, Panlilio being well within his right to choose the officer he most fancies.
But por dios, por santo, must Panlilio have to be so strait-laced as to think that only one Senior Supt. Cesar Hawthorne Binag is fit to be Pampanga police director.
Panlilio’s only-option in Binag – a non-Kapampangan – is a manifestation of the governor’s low regard, if not open disdain, of Kapampangan police officers more senior and more experienced than Binag and as qualified, if not more, for the post. Ala ni metung mang matinung Kapampangan a opisyal king buung kapulisan?
Pride in the Kapampangan? That is an insult to the Kapampangan.
Where police choices are concerned, it is not only Panlilio though who exhibits some sort of anti-Kapampangan tendencies.
Camp Olivas is rife with talks of this “very influential and powerful legislator” who allegedly makes the final decision on every police assignment, not only in his district but in the whole region.
“It is this honorable man – this, not dis – that tells the regional director whom to assign, the perfunctory list of choices sent to the local government executives a mere formality,” a well-placed source in Camp Olivas confided to me over coffee at Fiorgelato’s at SM City Pampanga the other day.
What is bad is the legislator – allegedly – has never recommended any Kapampangan officer for placement. “Para bang may galit siya sa mga Kapampangan, samantalang kadugo din niya naman ang mga ito,” the source said.
So there, Kapampangan ku, pagmaragul ku. One more meaningless blabber in the mouth of the province’s leaders.
Makarine kayu. Shame.