Remembering our Bren

“E KO magmalun, mibangun ya ing Pampanga.”
The exhortation of Governor Bren Z. Guiao for his people to end their collective grief, rise from despair, and believe in a renascent Pampanga brought the first ray of hope in the wake of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions.
It was the faintest flicker of hope though, the Kapampangan trapped in the most desperate straits: damned in a wasteland of buried homes and broken dreams, doomed in a landscape of death and desolation.
Beyond PR savvy – of which Guiao was a guru – the slogan was founded on the governor’s unwavering faith in the Kapampangan character: of grit and resiliency, that have served him well in rising from every adversity, be it socio-politico-economic, as in the agrarian unrest, the Marcos dictatorship and the communist rebellion; or natural, as in the floods that perennially devastated the croplands and aqua farms of the province and damaged its infrastructure…
A faith well placed. A prophesy coming to pass. Pampanga indeed rising from the ashes Pinatubo to use that overwrought cliché. As Bren Zablan Guiao promised. As my foreword in the book Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit put it.
Leave those credit grabbers to their delusions, but it was Bren Z. Guiao – then already out of the governorship but chair of Kabisig, an NGO under the Office of the President – and his nemesis, Gov. Lito Lapid, that worked hardest for the FVR megadike systems that ultimately saved Pampanga. How and why did I know? I was Lapid’s senior consultant then, privy to practically even the lowest whispers in the corridors of power.
I covered Bren Z. Guiao long before he became governor, starting off in the post-Ninoy Aquino assassination rallies, going to the 1984 Batasan polls, onto EDSA 1.
It was during his watch at the Capitol that Pampanga saw frenzied infrastructure development concretized in the Paskuhan Village, the Pampanga Sports and Convention Center that hosted the 1990 Palarong Pambansa, the Ninoy Aquino By-Way and the Quezon Road.
The “Growth Center,” he dubbed Pampanga, most appropriately so as the province ranked Number One in investments immediately prior to the Pinatubo eruptions, and “easily” – to use his favourite expression – rebounding to Number Five three years after.
Of all the things I wrote about Bren Z. Guiao, I find this Zona Libre column published in the May 21-27, 1995 issue of The Voice the best.
Sense of history
BREN Z. GUIAO lost the governorship of Pampanga. But he won the adulation of the whole nation.
His early concession of defeat is a total departure from the standard praxis of Philippine politics: File protest. Do not concede. Nobody loses. One only gets cheated.
From a politico, Bren Z. Guiao transfigured into a hombre de estado, the ultimo caballero.
We are reminded of a column we wrote here on Guiao’s Legacy a month before the elections which a Guiao lieutenant termed as an “advance obituary” for the governor.
Our piece proved – modesty be damned – prophetic, thus: “The three-term administration of the Honorable Bren Z. Guiao, governor of Pampanga, will be long remembered, nay, forever enshrined in the heart of the Kapampangan, not so much for its grand edifice complex but for its strong political will to uphold the sanctity of the ballot in May 1995.”
No, egocentric as we may seem, we have not yet the conceit to claim that the good governor heeded our word.
Bren Z. Guiao has a keen sense of history. Key player as he was in major epochs of contemporary Philippine politics: victor in the Constitutional Convention of 1971, victim of Martial Law and the 1984 Batasan polls, victor anew in the national epiphany of EDSA and its immediate aftermath. This was the factor most at work on the night of May 8.
Our column concluded: “A few years from now, people shall be misty eyed when they remember Bren Z. Guiao of having the courage, the supreme will to uphold the Kapampangan’s sacred democratic right, whatever the price. Even at the cost of losing that which he cherished most.”
No, we were not fully right. More than the governorship, Bren Z. Guiao cherishes his place in history.
Shame on us for forgetting his by-phrase oft-quoted early in his term but lost somewhere in the exhilaration the governor’s chair invariably brings: “Power is ephemeral. All this will pass. We just have to give our best to our people. And be the wiser for it.” Or something to that effect.
Godspeed, Sir. And thank you, if only for the memories.
(July 9 was Governor Guiao’s 77th birth anniversary. He died on April 17, 1997.)

Branding

OR MAKE that mislabeling. That is the moniker “Pajero 7” appended to bishops who reportedly received luxury vehicles from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
So indeed, the PCSO bared the letter of Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos personally requesting a Mitsubishi Montero Sport 4 x 4 from then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as a “bithday gift” in 2009.
So does one swallow a summer make?
In a letter to the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on Wednesday, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines President Bishop Nereo Odchimar “categorically” denied that the PCSO donations some bishops had received during the Arroyo administration were used to purchase Pajeros and for their personal use.
Odchimar attached to his letter a list of vehicles purchased by certain dioceses or vicariates from the PCSO donation.
A Mitsubishi Strada pick-up worth P1.107 million bought on Jan. 23, 2009 by the Diocese of Abra used to “transport personnel and carry needed materials for service missions to the poor and needy constituents of Abra province.”
A Toyota Grandia Hi-Ace van worth P1.4 million purchased by the Archdiocese of Cotabato on April 30, 2009 for its social action center, and used “to distribute medicines and other relief goods to disaster-hit areas in the diocese, community health programs.”
A Mitsubishi Strada pick-up worth P1.225 million bought on Dec. 29, 2009 by the Prelature of Isabela (Basilan) for “medical and health missions [and] community visitations to the indigent communities of Basilan province.”
A Toyota Grandia Hi-Ace van worth P1.518 million bought on Sept. 14, 2009, by the Archdiocese of Zamboanga partly for “medical-related services.”
An Isuzu Crosswind utility van worth P720,000 acquired by Caritas Nueva Segovia for “health, dental and medical outreach programs.”
At the Senate hearing, PCSO Director Francisco Joaquin disclosed that the Apostolic Vicariate of Bontoc-Lagawe was the recipient of a donation used to purchase a 17-seat Isuzu passenger van.
The CBCP said the Bontoc-Lagawe vicariate which allegedly received P600,000 in cash for the purchase of a Pajero, instead bought a “second-hand, 10-year-old Nissan Pathfinder pick-up” for P280,000.”
That prompted Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to ask: “Is that a luxury car, vehicle? The terrain there is very rugged, right? So it’s not a luxury vehicle.”
When asked why she initially alleged that bishops got Pajeros, which led to the “Pajero 7” tag, PCSO Chair Margarita Juico was quoted as saying: “Maybe because people call a big jeep they see a Pajero.”
Foot in mouth disease for Madame Margie there.
“Our conscience is clear.” So wrote Bishop Odchimar in his letter. “The bishop does not own the donation but holds it in trust for public use of his diocese. Hence, the donation is not given to the bishop as such. Whatever benefit the Catholic Church may draw from the gift is purely incidental.”
Why, even Pueblos’ personal request for a Montero included an explanation that it would be used for his “spiritual and social services to the people.”
Odchimar said he and his fellow bishops were willing to “face the consequences of having accepted financial aid from the government so as to channel it to those who need them most.”
“If the collective wisdom of the Senate will indicate to us that such financial assistance to the poor, as coursed through religious groups, is in fact improper if not illegal, then by all means let us put an end to this long-standing practice.” So declared the CBCP president.
Amid allegations that the bishops who received PCSO donations violated the law prohibiting the use of state funds for religious purposes, Enrile said he would “presume good faith until otherwise proven.”
Said the seasoned statesman: “The State and the Church deal with the same person. If the donation is received by the bishop, whether in cash or in kind, for the sole benefit of the Church, then indeed that is obviously prohibited.”
And then: “But if it is used primarily for a social function, that is actually a responsibility of the State more than the responsibility of the Church because the Church deals only with the spiritual needs of the people, then we come to a very difficult situation here.”
A difficult situation indeed. In the meanwhile, those poor bishops have to suffer that “Pajero 7” brand for life. No matter their being most clearly, and maliciously, mislabeled.

In passing

SIC TRANSIT gloria mundi. Thus passes the glory of the world.
It was my Ars Latina professor in the seminary that most impacted to me the full meaning of that phrase – “fleeting are the things of this world” – weaving it around the legendary triumphs of Rome.
Both a religious rite and a civil ceremony, the triumphus Romanus is a celebration of the military achievement of a general or the emperor himself, whereby, dressed as a demi-god and riding a decorated chariot, he brought the rear end of a procession of war spoils and booty, the leaders of the army he defeated included.
As the procession marches on, a slave walks alongside the triumphator’s chariot, shouting to him – amidst the din of the praises from the assembled crowd of admirers – ”sic transit gloria mundi.“ To remind him that everything in the world is transitory.
The practice was apparently appropriated by the Church for the ritual of papal coronation. When the newly elected pope, imperial in his sedia gestatoria (the portable throne borne on the shoulders of Swiss Guards), is taken from St. Peter’s Basilica, the procession is stopped three times. Each time, a papal master of ceremonies would kneel in front of the pope, knock a brass staff and mournfully shout: “Sancte Pater, sic transit gloria mundi.”
So what current of events dredged the mind pool of these vignettes from my classical studies?
One. A triumph of my own, Punto’s too, over the ululations attendant to a libel case dismissed by the city prosecutor’s office.
Sic transit… is a reminder there that there is still the losing complainant’s right to seek a motion for reconsideration. Which he did with an appended motion for inhibition of the city procecutor.
Ah, selective in prosecution by tagging Punto for libel and sparing Sun-Star Pampanga where my questioned article first appeared, losing complainant is selective once more of the prosecutor that shall do the reconsideration of his losing complaint. Sheer consistency there.
Two. It is that time of year when elected officials do their respective SOGAs – state of governance addresses, SOPA for provinces, SOCA for cities, and SOTA for towns. SOTAng bastos not included there.
SOGAs have become the modern versions of the Roman triumphs, the elected official making a verbal procession of what s/he has accomplished in the fiscal year just past: from the kilometers of roads and the number of bridges and school buildings constructed to the volume of funds deposited in the public coffers, from the number of the sick, elderly and persons with disabilities served to the number of jobs generated, etcetera ad nauseam.
Sic transit…makes some sort of a reality check to officials taken in by the “greatness” of their own doing, most specially those who tend to believe the propaganda they themselves weave around themselves. The double pronouns there, for effect.
Without the sic transit…reminders may come what I first came to know this time from my Greek tutor in the seminary: hubris.
Generally translated to “arrogance, pride, haughtiness, insolence,” hubris often is indicative of a superior sense of self, an overestimation of one’s competence, most prevalent among those in positions of power.
Thus, there are the officials so suffused with awards and recognition that just can’t accept any failure in their programs and projects, seeking and finding convenient scapegoats for it.
Worse are those who totally go on denial in the face of the real: What floods? What dumpsite? What stench? What tree? What not!
And those that just can’t accept losing: not once, not twice, not thrice, persistent in their ululations… er, in their simple- and single-minded pride in maximum overdrive.
Be reminded though: Hubris always ends in self-destruction.
Sic transit gloria mundi. Hubris. .
Ah, what things to think about, to pass the time this drizzling July morning. What nut!

An end to ululations

“THERE WAS nothing defamatory in the questioned article of Lacson.”
With that, 1st Asst. City Prosecutor Nereo T. Dela Cruz recommended the dismissal of the libel case filed against me and the rest of Punto by businessman Rene Romero as president of the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and chairman of the Advocacy for the Development of Central Luzon.
The case arose from my piece Romero Ululating published in our issue of Dec. 15-18, 2010.
The recommendation was approved by Deputy Regional Prosecutor Giselle Marie S. Geronimo on June 16, 2011.
Simple, succinct, even terse was the decision, belying the wealth of arguments and counter-arguments in rejoinders and replies attendant to the case that are interesting, and to those learned in journalism praxis, even amusing.
Selective prosecution
Romero found my column defamatory but did not find its earlier publication en toto in Sun-Star Pampanga as a letter to the editor as libellous. Indeed, Romero was even quoted in a subsequent story in that paper as saying he was “amused” by my letter. Filing a case against Punto and not against Sun Star Pampanga for the same article constituted selective prosecution.
Romero deposed “I did not find Sun-Star Pampanga liable for merely publishing the Letter to the Editor in the Sun Star issue of December 15, 2010 because a) the Lacson letter was plainly a Letter to the Editor and not a regular column…”
My response: Romero thereby shifted the actionability of libel from the content and context of an article to its placement in a newspaper. A totally absurd proposition Romero advanced: Neither defamation nor malice that may obtain in an article matters so long as it is published as a Letter to the Editor. Culpability arises though once the same article is published as a column.
Furthered Romero: : “Lacson is obviously testing the waters when he sent a copy of his libellous article as Letter to the Editor of Sun-Star Pampanga…”
My reply: What water is there to test? Lacson’s article is an exercise of his basic right to reply as it is a reaction to the Sun-Star Pampanga banner story of the previous day, “Sector: Why no biz awardee in MOKA” in which Romero made unfounded allegations against certain but unnamed members of the MOKA panel of judges which included Lacson.
It was not Lacson who determined that his rejoinder be printed as a Letter to the Editor but the Sun-Star Pampanga editor who inserted the clarificatory note before the start of the article thus: “Editor’s note: The following is a reaction of a member of the Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awards 2010 Board of Judges on our December 14, Tuesday banner “Sector: Why no biz awardee in MOKA?”
Romero: “He was also trying to sow enmity between me and Sun-Star Pampanga – one of Pampanga’s most decent newspaper (sic)…”
My response: Absurd of Romero to infuse ill motives in a plain exercise of free speech. Here, however, Romero implied a close relationship with Sun-Star Pampanga which is publicly known as partly owned by Levy Laus, Romero’s friend and chairman in the Pampanga Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It is that relationship which may have prevented Romero from filing libel against Sun-Star Pampanga where the article in question first appeared. With his statement Romero virtually made an affirmation of Lacson’s contention that he is engaged in selective prosecution.
Defining “ululating”
Romero took the title of the article Romero ululating as by itself defamatory. He said “His (Lacson’s) choice of words in his column are maliciously designed to sow intrigue and ridicule me in public. The starting four-letter word “ulul” either in Kapampangan or Tagalog is an invective, a cussy word as it means crazy. Connecting this with the last syllables”lating” is the verb “ululating.”
My response: This can only be supreme absurdity.
The choice of words in a story is the sole responsibility of the writer, manifest as it is of his or her own creativity. The level of comprehension or miscomprehension of the reader does not fall within the writer’s responsibility as he would not know who reads his articles. Lacson – the writer – therefore cannot be responsible on the understanding or misunderstanding of his words by Romero – the reader.
The article Romero ululating is written in the English language. (But for the Tagalog quotations of Romero cited in the Sun-Star Pampanga banner it responded to.) Necessarily so, all the words used in that article should be taken in their English context. To append the meaning of a similar word in another language or dialect is to perverse the context, indeed the very meaning of the word. The writer could not be held liable for such perversion, the act being that of the reader.
“Ululating” in its English dictionary meaning of “lamenting loudly” (The American Heritage Dictionary) is a precise word to describe Romero’s action given his statements in the article “Sector: Why no biz awardee in MOKA”, to wit:
“xxxOne or two of these, pardon my terms, ‘termites’, would destroy what we and Capitol have started in terms of development. Wala bang qualified sa sector namin? Galit ba sila sa amin? Is this the kind of government we have which allows such people to influence something? Where has professionalism gone? Changed with personal conflicts?...”
“xxxThere are at least two in these committees whom we really don’t see eye to eye with. With what happened , we might reassess and evaluate our position towards the provincial government and slow down a bit…”
Just read the statements and hear the lament – “ululation” – of Romero there. And what noisier howl of lament can there be than when it is made the screaming banner headline of a newspaper as “Sector: Why no biz awardee in MOKA.”
SO INDEED, as Asst. City Prosecutor Dela Cruz penned: “The article “Romero Ululating” can be considered as part of the freedom of expression of its author Caesar Z. Lacson.