Macau: A taste of luxury

OPULENCE. That makes the first impression of Macau. Principally arising from the architectural grandeur of its hotel-resorts and casinos, like the Venetian Macao exuding like atmosphere as the Italian original, from the Piazza di San Marco down to the gondolas with their gondoliers belting O sole mio.
Then impacting out of the hotel-resorts’ lavish appointments, such that at the Four Seasons Hotel Macao with its European and Chinese design fusion of handmade blue tiles and carved wood, hand-painted silk and crystal chandeliers, and equally luxurious services, from five swimming pools to state-of-the-art gym, spa and salon, and the finest-dining restaurants including Zi Yat Heen, one of just two restaurants in the whole of Macau awarded with two stars by the Michelin Guide Hong Kong-Macau 2010.
Mediamen from Pampanga and Baguio on a familiarization tour of Macau were uniformly overwhelmed by the luxurious appointments of the individual rooms they stayed in at Four Seasons Hotel Macao: an intimate dining nook; giant flat TV and a glass writing table; two toilets, separate shower room and bathtub, with its own wall-mounted television and only the best – L’Occitane en Provence – to pamper the body; a glorious bed – and these were only the hotel’s deluxe rooms. See the suites – and weep, for not being born rich.
Four Seasons Hotel Macao is enough to make one cry in ecstasy: “Oyni’ng bie” – the Kapampangan take on the Italian la dolce vita. Ah, how truly sweet is life among the Macanese.
Just as luxurious is Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16, where we spent our third and last night in the former Portuguese outpost. Its lofted one-bedroom avant garde suite is a guy dream come true, a playboy den with seduction lurking in every corner, truly worthy of a Hugh Hefner.
Truly, the hotels are tourist attractions unto themselves. And then there is the free – yet still so luxurious – entertainment they offer. Not only for hotel guests but for everybody, even strays, to enjoy.
At the open-area fronting Wynn is Performance Lake with its plumes of water and tongues of fire dancing to the musical beat of Broadway, pop and classical. Yes, it is something very similar, albeit on a less-grand scale, to Vegas’ Bellagio’s water show.
Inside Wynn is the Tree of Prosperity – with branches and leaves shimmering in gold – that rises from a golden vault to meet up with a crystal chandelier descending from the ceiling carved with Chinese astrological symbols. The Tree takes in all the colors of the four seasons in a light and music performance lasting but seven minutes. Enough for the casino-going crowd to earn all the luck.
In the City of Dreams – the triune of Crown Towers, Hard Rock and Grand Hyatt hotels – is The Bubble, a multi-media theater that has its dome for screen. Here the Dragon’s Treasure show tells of the mythical creatures in power struggles for a prized pearl. Or so I made out myself of the stunning visuals and spectacular sounds that completely overwhelmed me.
Of the MGM Grand Macau-Central Plaza’s “Light and Sound Tribute”, I cannot relate as I was not able to watch it. “Enticing” was one review I read of it.
Nothing spectacular but satisfyingly good for whiling time between appointments are the dance numbers at the lobby of Star World. The leggy Caucasian dancers in Brazilian tangas are just too willing to do the samba and the cha-cha, or to be photographed abresiete with anyone interested.
The King of Rock lives at the Sofitel Macau at Ponte 16, if only through videos and sounds in the hotel’s MJ Gallery. The bejeweled glove and socks along with some of his fedoras are the prized items on display there.
A luxury for the budget traveler: Moving around Macau is absolutely free. Just don’t take taxis. Coaches and buses of the hotel-casino-resorts regularly make rounds all around special points of interest in the territory.
Moving around the city is absolutely free – this too from the perspective of vehicular traffic. A three-minute jam at a minor road in the old quarters of Macau was the worst “gridlock” I experienced there.
Now, ain’t that luxury too?

(Cebu Pacific flies Clark-Macau-Clark every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Additional information can be sourced from the Macau Government Tourist Office, mgtophil@info.com.ph)

Davao: Beyond the usual

FOR STARTERS, there’s father and daughter engaged in a game of musical chairs at the city hall of Davao: long-time Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and his daughter, Vice Mayor “Inday” Sara, trading places.
Nothing of “politics as usual” there. Even in its weirdest praxis hereabouts.
Everything unusual, really extraordinary for a “measly” city vice mayor to beat, no, make that avalanche, in a mayoralty contest the sitting Speaker of the House of Representatives himself. Yeah, until this time, so Davaoenos swear, Prospero Nograles still did not know what hit him.
Father-daughter then, daughter-father now lording over a sprawling metropolis of 2,444 square kilometres with one and a half million people, is everyday politics to their constituents. “Duterte, as usual.” So it is shrugged about. Not in some hopelessly indifferent way, but with certain accomplished pride.
Davao City is everything every city in the country, Angeles and San Fernando included, Quezon and Manila not excluded, should aspire to be.
It is green – its hills and mountains densely (re)forested, and clean – nothing of the usual mounds of uncollected garbage stacks against walls and electric posts that make the very definition of urban centers. As a matter of record, Davao City has indeed been adjudged Cleanest and Greenest City in the country. And it has the cleanest ground water too.
Davao City is a zone of peace and a haven of order. So totally different, nay, alien, to the city I went to in the ‘80s when one of its districts was terrifyingly dubbed “Nicaragdao” after then strife-torn Nicaragua, what with the rightist Alsa Masa waging a virtual uncivil war with the New People’s Army in the city.
No, you don’t get to see combat-ready cops in any street corner or for that matter anywhere else in Davao City. But an Orwellian “Big Brother” is looking at, if not after, you all around the city. His all-seeing eyes in the closed circuit cameras virtually in all principal roads of the city, operating 24/7 from the Public Safety Command Center. It is a P750-million system that has enabled no-contact apprehension of erring motorists, assisted in traffic accidents, and deterred criminal elements. The system is set to be expanded to cover city boundaries to monitor any inroad some terror group may attempt to take.
A lesson in trust that order has brought about: During communion Sunday evening at the Redemptorist church, women’s handbags are left unattended at the pews. Go, try that anywhere else in the country, and suffer.
Sedate – by the standards of Angeles – is the nightlife of Davao City. A prohibition of alcohol exempts no establishment from 2 in the morning onward to dawn.
And Metro Manila is just catching up with Davao City’s nine-year-old smoking ban in all public places. Lest it be forgotten, firecrackers are likewise banned in the city, New Year’s Eve and kung hei fat choi notwithstanding.
Davao City has been hailed as the Most Competitive Metro City in the Philippines based on a competitiveness survey conducted by the Asian Institute of Management. All it takes to validate – and affirm – the result of the AIM survey is a look-and-see around the city: high competition rules where compulsive consumption abounds. Davao has seven really large shopping malls: the old Victoria Plaza and New City Commercial Center, two Gaisanos, a Robinsons, an SM, and the just opened Abreeza, an Ayala Mall. Even as SM is expanding its existing mall, it is building another one, reportedly complete with a convention center and some lodging facilities.
Where one or two is the usual, eight, unarguably, is a most unusual count when it comes to the number of malls obtaining in a single city.
Sans the malls, down to its essentials of clean and green, its peace and order, the quality of its resources, both human and natural, and its infrastructure Davao City had ranked 17th – the highest of all Philippine cities – among the Most Liveable Cities in Asia in a survey conducted by Asiaweek Magazine from 1996 to 2000. Wonder how high it now ranks given its latest amenities.
And then there is Davao City, the perennial tour and travel destination.
Even as Mount Apo, the country’s tallest peak; waling-waling, the queen of orchids; pithecophaga jeffryi ,the Philippine eagle; and durian, the fruit that “smells like hell but tastes like heaven” have remained the top attractions of the city, there are a host of others that are equally enchanting.
And that is where I indulged myself for three days, in things beyond the usual at Davao. But that is better presented in some feature stories with photographs to boot. For more reading pleasure.

Doing Davao

DAVAO CITY is spelled with an E, a BIG E, as in ecological immersion, ethnic pride, and extreme adventure.
At least that’s how eight Pampanga mediamen experienced the famed City of Blooms, that weekend of June 3-5.
At the foot of Mount Talomo is Eden Nature Park, an 80-hectare green sprawl that is literally and figuratively a Paradise regained from the greed of loggers, taking all of 30 years for the Ayalas – Davao’s not Makati’s – to reforest with no less than 100,000 pine trees as well as hardwoods like mahogany and narra, and the fruit-bearing variety – mangosteen, lanzones, chico, mabolo, cacao, chesa, and of course that which defines Davao itself, the ambrosiac durian.
At 3,000 feet above sea level and with all those pines, the Benguet species included, Eden Nature Park has that crisp, cool fresh mountain air that has long gone out of Baguio City. It makes the perfect weekend family getaway with cottages, mountain villas and log cabins, and for barkada nights at its campsites.
Flower gardens also abound at the park. A favourite spot for pre-nuptial photo ops, and for weddings but naturally, is the Rainbow Pass, a series of arched trellises that gives a magnificent view of the city and the gulf. For the more conservative, there’s the St. Michael chapel.
At Tinubdan – called the “heartland of indigenous wisdom” – one gets a sampling of ethnic Mindanao: the balay kalimudan, a datu’s house along with some others for the ordinary folk; langub sa kaalam, the cave of wisdom where we supposed the village medicine man and spiritual leader do their communing with the spirits; and at the pocket square of the village, a tana-tanaman or welcome garden. On hand with their gongs and other ethnic musical instruments are school kids to entertain visitors.
Thrill seekers find their spot at Eden Nature Park in the SkyRider zipline, and for the hyper kids, the “Indiana Jones” run. There’s also horseback riding, swimming pools, a football field.
It’s not Congress, folks, but at the Davao Crocodile Park, congressmen invariably
become the centrepiece of chit-chats. There idly rules the very embodiment of the tongressmen and representathieves – Pangil, the oldest and largest at over 10 feet long.
As the freshwater crocodylus mindorensis is a protected species, only the saltwater crocodylus porosus is bred here for meat and hide. As the wallet is too thin for the P8,000 croc-skin belt, we settled for the more affordable spicy croc stew at the Riverwalk Grill, earning us some bragging rights now: I eat congressmen for dinner, yeah!
A veritable zoo, Davao Crocodile Park has a decent number and variety of birds, pythons and some snakes, goats and sheep, and a couple of Bengal tigers.
A short walk from the crocs is the Tribu K Mindanawon cultural village where each of the island’s 13 tribal groups take their turn on a stage set among bamboo groves to present their signature dance, with the singkil just about the only one we can easily identify. After the dances, at an adjacent amphitheatre is a fireshow that is…scorching hot!
Which only whets the appetite for an even greater adventure offered from the crocodile park – Davao Wild Water Adventure.
Exactly 8 a.m. is the pre-departure briefing at the park itself which starts with the signing of a waiver dispensing the company from any responsibility for any injury or, God forbid!, death arising from the river rafting. Then a five minute video of the course: the 13-kilometer Tamugan-Lacson – now there’s a familiar name – run of Upper Davao River consisting of 25 rapids, usually finished from three to five hours, depending on the level of the water and the paddling capacity of the “adventurers.” And finally the do’s and don’t’s – Don’t attempt to swim. Do drift with the current feet front. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
With that it’s off on board jeepneys loaded with all the gears – fully inflated rafts on the roof racks, helmets, life vests, paddles and packed lunch.
A 45-minute drive is the “put-in area” at the boulder-strewn bank just below the confluence of the Tamugan and Davao rivers.
Final instructions there, proper wearing of life vests and helmets, then a quick course in the water: paddling – easy, hard, back; high-five; saving one gone overboard; drifting, then again, Don’t panic.
Then off in a raft, river guide shouting “Drift” and everybody jumping into the water the raft and near-panicking when coming dangerously close to the first rapids before being taken back.
Swirls of brown water then cresting in continuous roil: easy paddling, then hard when the waves rise, and high-five – paddles raised – at each pass through the rapids.
Easy there, then a surge – the whole raft as though pushed out of the water and slammed sideways at sheer vine cluttered rock wall, so that’s what was called “kissing the wall.” Still, not one went overboard.
Passing by a cave, the waters again turned turbulent, in one swell, in one fell swoop, the left side of the raft was devoid of its four paddlers. Bobbing helmets, then laughing faces needed to be picked out the water, until the team of eight was whole again.
And that was the easy part. Let the imagination run wild with the succeeding rapids sporting monikers as “washing machine” with three cycles at maximum speed; the “rodeo” -- the water’s like a bucking bronco; “double drop” two successive free-falls into swirling water; and the piece de resistance – “drop and suck” – where the raft is maneuvered between two boulders to drop into an eddy at top spin.
Falling overboard twice – at the rodeo and the double drop – only maxxed the exhilaration. In less than three hours, the course was finished. So intense was the adrenaline rush that there was no tiredness at all. And really we wanted more, more, more.
As the seasoned traveller say: Don’t overdo it the first time. Else there’s nothing to look forward to the next time around.
Yes, the wild water adventure is enough reason to return to Davao City. And I’ve got to smell the waling-waling, and bond with the Philippine eagle yet. Plus, a climb up Mount Apo, for another extreme adventure. (Best and most convenient way to go to Davao is via Cebu Pacific)

Top billing

TARZAN, THE congressman, is on a roll of late. No, not in the house of cards but in the House of laws, filing one bill after another. Bills far from the parochial, bills impacting on the national.
There is House Bill No. 5287 that seeks to establish a Stem Cell Center of the Philippines to “spearhead the research and development of stem cell technology, and also serve as storage area for stem cell technology that it will develop.”
Cong Tarzan took cognizance of the “vast potential of stem cell technology in curing fatal cancers and heart ailments” with his bill.
“The benefits of stem cell are overwhelming to be just simply ignored by the government because many Filipinos are suffering from different diseases that could be cured by this medical breakthrough.” So said the solon in his explanatory note to HB 5287, invoking that it is “in line with the state’s policy to protect and uphold people’s right to life and health” pursuant to Article 13, Section 12 of the Constitution declaring that “the government shall undertake appropriate health, manpower development, and research, responsive to the country’s health needs and problems.”
“In accordance with the provisions of the Charter, research on stem cell technology should be pursued as it can save thousands, if not millions, of Filipinos who are affected by diseases which can be cured by this modern technology,” Cong Tarzan said, noting that “many countries have started tapping stem cell’s potential in health and medical research, especially to find solutions to diseases such as cancer, heart attacks and other cardiovascular anomalies, Parkinson’s and different birth defects.”
Then there is House Bill No. 5285 mandating for senior citizens free annual physical examinations including cardiac stress, endoscopy, ultrasound on kidneys, ureter and bladder, pulmonary function tests – all the necessary laboratory tests.
The bill seeks to amend Republic Act 7432 or the Senior Citizens Act of 2003 “to further advance the welfare of the elderly and maximize their contribution to nation-building.”
RA 7432 was amended in 2009 to include free medical and dental services, diagnostic and laboratory fees such as, but not limited to, x-rays, computerized tomography scans and blood tests in all government facilities.
“As way of caring for our elderly all the more, this bill seeks to amend the aforementioned provision and include free and mandatory annual physical examination for all senior citizens, including vital laboratory examinations,” explained Cong Tarzan.
Speaking like a true Constitutionalist anew, he cited Article 13, Section 11 stating that the State shall adopt an integrated and comprehensive approach to health development which shall endeavor to make essential goods, health and other social services available to all the people at affordable cost. This, with the needs of the under-privileged, sick, elderly, disabled, women, and children as priorities.
And for added measure, Article 15, Section 4, which provides that the family has the duty to care for its elderly members but the State may also do so through just programs of social security.
HB 5285, Cong Tarzan says, gives due recognition and respect to our elders who, during their prime, contributed greatly to the country’s growth and development.
We cannot help but think biblical here, specifically of the Fourth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother. That which promises blessing for those who do so, and damnation to those who don’t.
As much as the elders, the infirm and the dead deserve honor too.
“Almost every day, we hear of complaints in the media against hospitals and other medical institutions that detain patients or even cadavers of deceased patients due to unpaid medical bills,” said Cong Tarzan.
Then there are too funeral parlors and morgues that hold hostage cadavers for the relatives to ransom as it where, only after getting enough alms to pay for the burial services.
House Bill 5286 seeks to write finis to all these hostaging, providing more teeth and wider scope to RA 9439 or the Patient Detention Act, specifically to cover indigent patients who are not capable of giving promissory note which according to law should be accompanied by mortgage or guarantee.
Cong Tarzan proposes that the Government Service Insurance System, Social Security System), PhilHealth and the Department of Social Welfare and Development come up with special programs to help their members who cannot afford to pay medical or funeral bills.
Also, the amendment to expand RA 9439’s scope to funeral parlors and other institutions that “engage in such inhuman practice” of detaining cadavers.
“This measure is to ensure that rights of all individuals, living or otherwise, are protected,” the lawmaker said.
Violators “shall be punished by a fine of not less than P200,000 or imprisonment of two years, or both such fine and imprisonment, at the discretion of the proper court. “
And then, there is House Bill 4405 – too long in coming but nearly here -- mandating the transformation of the Pampanga Agricultural College into the Diosdado Macapagal Agriculture and Science State University (DMASSU – some colonial arrogance inhering there), having been approved on third and final reading.
As provided for in HB 4405, DMASSU “will provide advanced education, higher technological, professional instruction and training in the fields of agriculture, arts and sciences, teacher education, industrial technology and engineering, information technology, business management and accountancy, non-traditional courses and other relevant fields of study.”
As well, DMASSU “will undertake research, extension services and production activities while providing progressive leadership in its areas of specialization.”
Indeed, “a major victory for quality education” Cong Tarzan accomplished there.
And then there is consolidated House Bill 2509/4736 mandating cityhood for Mabalacat already nearing approval, so Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., committee on local governments chair, himself is said to have declared.
Cong Tarzan, but of course, stands as the legitimate father of a Mabalacat City, having sown the very seed, incubated and nurtured the embryo which is soon a-borning.
Yes, Tarzan, the congressman, is on a roll. A steamroll towards sure re-election, not a few political leaders believe.
Much interesting to see how Vice Gov. Yeng Guiao, a master strategist, will deal with this.

An Augustine, but not yet

MORE PILGRIMAGE than coverage.
That – to me – was the media conference at the Sta. Monica Parish Church in Minalin town Wednesday last week. This as a sort of a preparation to the church’s declaration by the National Museum as a national cultural treasure, which was accomplished last Saturday.
Completed in the mid-1700s by the Augustinians the church has remained relatively intact, having withstood devastating earthquakes, typhoons and floods, and the Mount Pinatubo eruptions that swamped it with lahar.
No ostentatious ornateness but architectural splendor defines the façade – an outdoor retablo in concrete, where niched between Corinthian columns the images – as old as the church too – of Saints Peter and Paul, Francis of Assisi, and Catherine of Alexandria, with the top of the triangular pediment holding the image of St. Monica. Twin hexagonal four-story bell towers buttress the façade.
At the churchyard are the only four capillas posas still extant in the whole Philippines. Small chapels in red bricks, these served as holding areas for catechumens prior to their baptism inside the church in the early days of colonization…There ended objective coverage.
Aye, being edifices of faith, churches are not simply viewed. Churches are objects of contemplation, and, but of course, centers of worship, loci of adoration. More than the sense of wonder it evokes, the Sta. Monica Parish Church invokes deep stirrings of the soul…There commenced my personal pilgrimage. With St. Augustine, whose presence is embossed throughout the church named after his mother.
Crowning the window above the pasbul mayor, the main door of the church, is an escudo of an eagle – the symbol of St. John the Evangelist whose gospel was St. Augustine’s favorite.
“Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.” So I remembered St. Augustine saying in Tractatus in Ioannis Evangelium. There entered I the realm of faith.
At the vestibule, above the baptistery, is the heart of Sta. Monica carved on the adobe keystone – the image of a spade pierced by an arrow. Significant of the sufferings and sacrifices of the mother for the conversion of her sinful son.
“But I wretched, most wretched, in the very commencement of my early youth, had begged chastity of Thee, and said, ‘Give me chastity and continency, only not yet.’” Thus, St. Augustine in Confessions.
Taking center spot in the iconography at the main altar is a painting of the Nuestra Senora de La Consolacion y Correa. Beholding the image dredged memories of my dearly departed maternal grandmother.
May 4, the feast day of St. Monica, Apu Rita took five-year-old me to this same church for Mass. As was her wont whenever we went to any church, she told me anecdotes about all the saints present at the altar.
Her take of La Consolacion – from memory now – St. Monica prayed nightly to God, through the intercession of the Virgin Mother, to change the sinful ways of her son Augustine. One night, as St. Monica wept, the Virgin appeared to her and as a token of compassion took off a black cloth cincture from her waist and gave it to St. Monica. It was that cincture that finally effected the transformation of Augustine. From then on, members of his eponymous monastic order have worn a black band across the waist as a pledge of devotion to La Consolacion.
In remembering Apu Rita, I heard St. Augustine saying: “What is faith save to believe what you do not see?”
Unschooled, unemployed, unfettered from the material world, Apu Rita totally devoted her whole life between home and “her one, true, Mother Church.” Again, hearing here anew St. Augustine, and St. Cyprian too, declaring: “Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.”
Lest this be misconstrued as Roman Catholic conceit, the most recent Catholic Catechism interpretation of “Outside the Church there is no salvation” is that "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body." Everything universal, nothing parochial in the expanse of the Church here.
The visit to the St. Monica Parish Church coming a day after the local media’s commemoration of the 21st month of the Ampatuan massacre, I was moved to pray for the repose of the souls of the victims and that justice be done. And then remembered St. Augustine saying in De Civitate Dei : “Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies. For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms.”
His City of God segueing further to current times: “He that is good is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.”
On the way to my parked car at the churchyard, my last look at the church centered on an escudo of a flaming heart – the very seal of the Augustinian Order – appliqued to the keystone of the main door.
Ah, how could I ever forget, the very core of St. Augustine’s Confessions: “Our heart is unquiet until it rests in you”
Maybe, I need to spend more time in churches than in coffeeshops. That will certainly make a lot of people less stressed, less upset, if not happier.
So then I cry: But I wretched, most wretched, in my every commentary, had begged charity of Thee, and said, “Give me charity, give me unquestioning acceptance of the powers-that-be, only not yet.”
So then I pray: God let me do a St. Augustine, but not yet.

EdPam rocks, Angeles City rolls

BEFORE YOU on the same date and venue last year, I have (sic) boldly declared that we shall surpass our record for the previous year and assured you that “the best is yet to come.”

For those of you who may recall, I closed my 2011 State of the City address with the following words:

“Totoo po na may bagwis, may pakpak ang Angeleno.  Kaya nating lumipad.  Handa na tayong lumipad!”

Today, as I begin my 2012 state of the city address, I dare declare that – indeed, my friends – we have taken off.

Naka-angat na po tayo!

Yes, we have taken off.  And I would like to thank all of you – our people, most especially – for your faith; for believing in me.  For helping my administration each step of the way.  For inspiring me and my team to go for the extra mile.  For giving me the strength.

Whenceforth Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan embarked on a journey of achievements and challenges that made up the year just past for his administration, for his city.

Basking was Pamintuan in the glory that is the City College of Angeles that he founded. Most rightfully so, given that Angeles has been a city since 1963 and only this year did it come to have its own public college, sited in its own campus, with an initial roll of 369 students, 82 of whom are academic scholars and 28, indigent scholars. Correspondingly, the city’s tertiary scholarship fund increased from P5 million to P6.5 million.

Health served as another centerpiece achievement of the Pamintuan administration, with the Ospital ning Angeles – what, no mention of it being the Rafael Lazatin Memorial Medical Center in all of Pamintuan’s SOCA? – as focal point.

From its tragi-comedic drubbing in the past as a “Mona Lisa hospital,” – the lines of the song “they just lie there, and they die there” appended to its patients – the ONA has earned the confidence of the people for their healing, for their well-being, well proven in the 185,072 patients it served from July 2010 to April 2012.

No thanks to its transformation into a medical center that gives private hospitals a run – not for their money – but for their usually excellent services.

For this, Pamintuan gave ample credit to the Michigan-based World Medical Relief Inc., headed by cabalen George Samson who has consistently and constantly provided ONA the much needed medical equipment and supplies.  A P50-million new facility is set to be constructed at the ONA to further improve its services.

A source of pride for the Pamintuan administration and relief, if not joy, for the Angeleno is the establishment of the ONA Renal Care Center with its 19 dialysis machines beating those of the National Kidney Institute and the Philippine General Hospital combined. The facility has recorded no less than 6,000 dialysis treatments – and still counting – since its establishment last year.

Just last July 13, ONA expanded its services with the establishment of the MediKalinga center at the Boy Scouts compound in Barangay Sto. Domingo where minor surgeries are undertaken on week-ends, thereby effectively decongesting ONA.

Pamintuan scored high too in environmental protection with his every-first-Saturday clean-up of the Sapang Balen, the 1-Million Trees program – all people-powered, and the dramatic reduction in the city’s garbage – the bane of the previous Nepomuceno administration which along with the over P60-million debt with the Kalangitan landfill, Pamintuan inherited.

Sound fiscal management – another failure in the Nepo maladministration – proved a shining virtue of Pamintuan’s with no less than the Department of the Interior and Local Government awarding the city its 2011 Seal of Good Housekeeping with the corresponding reward higher than any LGU so named.

Having achieved all these – with his Contract with the Angelenos as his road map, with the people by his side – Pamintuan is imbued with the moral ascendancy to face any challenge to his city, moreso to his leadership of the city.

Thus, his call, aye, his dare:              

I also want to thank even my fiercest critics. My very few former friends and comrades who turned away when we were already, ironically, at the threshold of forging a successful and productive relationship in the service of our people.  Your criticisms are always welcome.  You make me grounded.  Your challenge inspires me to do better.

I repeat: Your challenge inspires me to do better!.  Dahil sa inyong hamon, lalo ko pang pagbubutihin ang paglilingkod sa mamamayan at syudad ng Angeles!

Pauli na ning kekayung hamon, mas lalu kung samasan ing kanakung pamagsilbi para minawa la ring balang metung at sumulong ya ing kekatamung Syudad ning Angeles!

Thus his article of faith:

Ang tanong ay: Bakit tayo nakaangat?

Nakaangat tayo, mga kaibigan, dahil ang pinairal natin ay “bagong pulitika.”  Ang pulitika ng pagpapanday, hindi pagwawasak.  Ang pulitika ng pagkakaisa, hindi pagkawatak-watak.  Ang pulitika ng pagkakasundo, hindi pagbabangayan.  Ang pulitika ng kongkretong gawa, hindi ng nga-wa.

Ang masang Angeleno ngayon ay gising na at lumalaban sa sinumang humaharang sa pagsulong at pag-unlad ng ating syudad!

At pagkat tayo ay nakaangat na, hindi na po natin papansinin ang mga bagay na makakasagabal at makakahila sa atin pababa.  Gaya ng maagang pamumulitika at maagang pambabato ng putik.

Malaki po ang tiwala ko sa inyo.  Walang sinuman kundi kayo ang higit na mapagpasya.  At naniniwala po ako na pagdating ng mapagpasyang panahon, ang bibigyan ninyo ng higit na halaga ay mga bagay na kongkretong nagsusulong sa kagalingan ng mga Angeleno – hindi ang interes ng kung sinumang nais maghari sa inyo.  Ang dapat mamayani ay ang kagustuhan ng mga Angeleno, hindi ng mga pulitiko, na ang iniisip lamang ay kung papaano hindi mawala sa kanilang mga kamay ang kapangyarihan.

The ultimate power rests on the people.  It can never be appropriated nor expropriated by any politician, or even by a government, however good the intentions are.  Only you can wield it.  And when you do, I know you will wield it to uphold the common good and interest. Not mine. Not anybody else’s.

I again would like to admonish my colleagues and co-workers at City Hall.  Let us not be distracted by early politicking. Let us focus on our jobs.  We are doing a good job, in fact.  For me, that is good politics.

I have said ealier that my contract with you is 84 percent done.  It means I still have to work on the remaining 16 percent.  I believe I can do it.  I believe, with your support, I can surpass it.

Mabuhay po ang syudad ng Angeles!  Mabuhay ang mga Angeleno!  Mabuhay ang sambayanang Pilipino!  Pagpalain tayo nawa ng Panginoong Diyos!  Abe-abe, saup-saup!  Agyu tamu! Agyu tala! 

Agyu Tala! We can beat them. The people roared, the reverberation felt all across the city.    

Pork perks

“ARROYO BROUGHT little ‘pork’ to her district, says DBM.”

So screamed a headline in the Nation section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer last Friday, July 20.

Again, leave it to the intrepid Tonette Orejas to dig up nuggets of information buried deep in governmental archives or under mounds of ledgers, vouchers, statements of accounts, whatever. Tonette has this knack too for keeping tabs in any paper chase.

So there, from the Department of Budget and Management came the disclosure that the former President, in her first House term, “managed to bring only P35 million in aid to the second district of Pampanga in 2010 and 2011.”

Minuscule, by the standards for “ordinary” congressmen, was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s contribution to her district. Mysterious, it becomes, considering the P70 million due to every congressional district as Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

So did the sitting President’s publicly perceived vengeful streak extended to the hated former President’s PDAF?

 “There was no decision to withhold (Arroyo’s) PDAF.” So Tonette’s story quoted Budget Secretary Florencio Abad as saying.

So where did half of GMA’s PDAF due go?

Maybe, Tonette can dig deeper for the answer. That is if she does not have it yet and only waiting for the opportune time to reveal it.

Anyways, in the full year immediate to GMA’s House run in 2010, P434 million worth of projects flooded the second district. GMA’s current P35 million then but a driblet in the bucket. 

Ten months before GMA even confirmed her congressional plans, so Tonette reported, the Local Water Utilities Administration already poured in P10 million to each of the five water systems GMA inaugurated in the towns of Floridablanca, Porac and Sta. Rita.

Within that period too, a P100-million bridge over the Porac-Gumain River in Floridablanca was inaugurated. Not to mention the frenzied road improvement in Guagua and Lubao, plus some river rehabilitation works.  

With the end of the GMA presidency, the support of the national government to the second district has since declined. DPWH projects reached P218.2 million in 2011, sharply falling to only P20.2 million in 2012, with the 2011 projects in the process of completion, Tonette wrote, citing a report from the DPWH Central Luzon office.

Funds falling as fast and furious as political fortunes. The perks – and fleetingness – of power most manifest there.

Witticized the astute political observer Ashley Jay Manabat, editor of the Pampanga News and Luzon Urban Beltway Banner, both defunct, and defunct, er, resigned editor of extant Headline Gitnang Luzon: “Why complain of the little pork now, when the second district got not only the pig but the whole piggery in GMA’s time?”

Not that anyone among the mayors of the second district is complaining. On the contrary, they all have one rationalization or another for this “little pork” from Congresswoman GMA.   

All disagreeing too that their beloved representative is “under-performing” or neglecting the district in her current state of incarceration and un-wellness.

“Her services are regular although she’s not able to make the rounds of communities. We make up for what she’s not able to deliver when our resources allow.” So articulated Lubao Mayor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab of the prevailing sentiment of the local executives about their congresswoman. As Tonette wrote.

Make up for what GMA – in her situation – is prevented from delivering to her constituency with what resources they have or could spare. As with the mayors, so with the governor.   .

Governor Lilia Pineda herself, so Tonette reported, assured that the second district is not neglected with its own share of the 20-percent development fund of the Capitol.

As GMA during her presidency paid it forward to the second district, so it’s payback time for the mayors and the governor now.

So in the second district in 2013, bet it could be GMA pa rin.   

  

Best bet

“THE ONLY candidate who could make things greater in Angeles City, Mabalacat, and Magalang.”

Thus, business mogul Manny V. Pangilinan upped his ante on term-ending Vice Gov. Joseller “Yeng” Guiao as best bet for the first congressional district of Pampanga.

“There could be no other leader to lead Pampanga’s first district but Yeng Guiao. He is a statesman and I strongly believe he will push more for the development of the area much that he is young, brilliant, and steadfast.”  

So much faith MVP reposited in Guiao there.

The endorsement, given during the birthday fete of the country’s top CEO in his hometown Apalit last week, was not actually the first time Guiao got injected with an adrenaline rush from MVP.

At the Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awards last year, Guest of Honor MVP addressed Guiao as “Congressman”: first at their presidential table, right in the face of then still-keen-on-reelecting Cong. Tarzan Lazatin; second, right on stage in his salutation to VIPs before delivering his speech.

MVP even went so far as to say he would “support” Guiao’s run.

That “support” while initially founded on the common ground of sports – notably in the Philippine Basketball Association where MVP is owner of champion team Talk & Text and Guiao coach of once-doormat now contender Rain or Shine – has most apparently solidified in MVP’s total faith in Guiao: integrity, capability, dedication and commitment to the people of Pampanga, all in.

Guiao could only gush: “I thank so much MVP for his trust and confidence. Like him, I would not want to fail fellow Kapampangans and work for their common good.”

Even with Lazatin in the running, MVP’s endorsement of Guiao was widely regarded as an “equalizer,” enough to give the master politico a run for his money, his ballyhooed “carpet bombing” strategy well matched with the  enormous war chest MVP, in all probability, would bequeath to Guiao.

With Lazatin setting his sight on the Angeles City mayorship, MVP’s endorsement of Guiao is certified as the tipping point in the first congressional district contest.

The strategist that he is, Guiao would not want to rest on MVP’s endorsement but expressed keenness in going for the kill – reminiscent of the killer instinct of his PBA wards in every game they played: no complacency, hit and hit hard continuously and consistently – until victory is in hand. As they did Wednesday evening, hammering B-Meg for the first slot in the 2012 Governors’ Cup Finals.        

Thus, Guiao’s continuous grassroots networking, hands-on management of programs and projects readily ceded to him by the very supportive Gov. Lilia Pineda, bonding with local leaders, engaging in other activities outside media glare.

While concededly now the Man-to-Beat, Guiao is all of over 10 months before MVP’s salutation to him can come to be. A lot of things can still happen. And Guiao’s rivals are no push-overs. Bilog ang bola, as they say in Guiao’s very arena.

There is the comebacking Cong. Francis “Blueboy” Nepomuceno. His three terms at the House are no mean feat. Despite his burial in a landslide of Ed Pamintuan votes in 2010 after a single term as Angeles City mayor, Mister Blue is no punched-out palooka. The city may just opt for its own in a contest against an outsider. And the city’s voting population is bigger than Guiao’s Magalang and Mabalacat combined.

Then, there is an even greater man Guiao has to contend with, if only for his sheer genius: the man I have always rooted for in any and all elections he entered – presidential, congressional, mayoral – Luisito Bacani!

I tell you, it will take more than MVP for Guiao to deal with Bacani.

Let me warn you, MVP’s best bet may yet be bested by my bet. Wanna bet?

        

   

Juan and everyone

“WE WELCOME competition!”

So exclaimed the beautiful and brilliant Candice Iyog, Cebu Pacific Air’s VP for marketing and distribution, on other airlines setting their own hubs at the Clark International Airport.

CebPac made the CIA its fourth hub in the country – after Cebu, Manila and Davao – in 2006, with initial flights to Cebu and then expanding to regional destinations Hong Kong, Macau, Bangkok and Singapore.

The competition did get keener this year with three airlines setting shop at Clark.

Philippines AirAsia started its domestic lines in March – Davao, Puerto Princesa, and Kalibo, going regional in June – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and set to fly this Thursday, July 19, to Hong Kong and Macau.

In March too, Airphil Express opened its run to Cebu, Davao, Kalibo and Puerto Princesa, and in June to Hong Kong and Singapore.

Dragonair came in May with Hong Kong as destination and connection to 18 cities in China and 130 destinations worldwide with its parent company Cathay pacific.

More airlines, more fun in Clark.        

“This is good, especially for the market.  Passengers will have several choices. It will keep everyone (in the aviation industry) on their toes.” Ms. Candice, most matter-of-factly there.

For all the airlines both hubbing and transiting at Clark, the competition, in all appearances, narrows down to two – CebPac and AirAsia.

This, as much in number of destinations as in the quality of aircraft, as much in the pulchritude of flight attendants as in the superbness of in-flight service, all contributing to raising the bar of excellence in the aviation industry. And, most naturally, to gaining worldwide recognition.    

For the fourth consecutive year, AirAsia has been hailed as the World’s Best Low Cost Airline by Skytrax, reputed to be the world’s leading airline and airport review site on the internet.

In its review of over 681 airlines, Skytrax noted that almost 19 million travelers polled worldwide chose AirAsia as the world’s best LCC.

Finding cause for celebration in the signal distinction given AirAsia, CEO Maan Hontiveros found as much found in it “positively a reason to offer more low fares with the World’s Best Ever Sale to all its guests, who have made it possible for AirAsia to attain this great success once again.”
Hence, AirAsia’s “all-in-fares from as low as P440 for one-way travel to domestic destinations Davao, Kalibo or Puerto Princesa (Palawan) as well as  international destinations Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Macau, while tickets to  Perth, Melbourne, Gold Coast and Sydney in Australia  cost only P5,670  via Kuala Lumpur Low Cost Carrier Terminal.”
CebPac has as much cause for celebration in its CEO-President Lance Gokongwei’s recognition at the annual Airline Strategy Awards 2012 in London last July 8, “for leading Cebu Pacific to become the largest and most profitable domestic carrier in the Philippines… while positioning it for future international leadership.”
Started in 2002, the Airline Strategy Awards, hosted by Flightglobal publication, Airline Business, recognizes the airline industry’s best in leadership, marketing, and innovation.

“We are very happy to be recognized as an industry leader. Cebu Pacific’s growth has been possible through our guests’ support throughout the years, and the dedication of the Cebu Pacific team to a shared of vision of providing every Juan the chance to fly,” said Mr. Lance, joining now the elite company of past awardees that include Ryanair’s CEO Michael O’Leary, Jetstar’s Alan Joyce, and AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes.  

As it is with Mr. Lance – attributing CebPac’s growth through “our guests’ support” – so it is with Ms. Maan – the “guests, who have made it possible for AirAsia to attain this great success once again.”

The flying public as driving force in a keen competition for excellence, there. No wonder CebPac and AirAsia make the CIA’s one-two punch, with all the other airlines reduced to the side lines.  
Yeah, that everyone – as well as every Juan – can fly is all that matters at the CIA now. 
 

Wisdom from the bamboo

PLANT BAMBOOS by the riverbanks to prevent erosion.

So the Pampanga Bamboo and Rattan Center enjoined local government units  along the coastal towns. Even as it boasts of having planted no less than 22,000 bamboo propagules all over the province, the council targets 5,000 more in August in celebration of the Bamboo Day Celebration which has been appropriated some P1 million by the provincial government.

Bamboo propagation has received a big boost with the Pampanga Agricultural College chosen as a pilot area for a 10-year research project supported by the United Nations Development Program.

Rivalling, if not surpassing, the coconut as a “tree of life” for its myriad use, it gives us much pleasure now that the bamboo is getting the attention and importance it deserves.

Why, I would even go for the bamboo as national plant, not simply for its being the main component of the national house.   

But for its thatched roof of nipa fronds, everything else in the bahay kubo is made of bamboo – from rafters to posts, from ceilings to walls – of sawali, down to the slatted floor.

Which manifests the wisdom of the early Filipino home builders, cool bamboo as building material being most appropriate for the hot tropics; the bahay kubo on bamboo stilts best to survive the periodic inundations from the swollen rivers in the rainy season.

Bamboo went beyond building material in Filipino life, at least the life we – the 50s plus-plus generations – knew and lived.

The bamboo took a central role in our community life

The defining spirit of Filipino communal unity and cooperation – the bayanihan – is bamboo-based. Here, the whole community helped a family relocate by carrying their whole house, with bamboo poles placed length-wise and cross-wise under the house floor, borne on the shoulders of men, the women following with pots of cool water and ladles for drinking.

The bamboo is celebrated in Filipino folk dances, from tinikling to singkil. And in song, the most famous being Lawiswis Kawayan – the sound produced by the bamboo leaves when blown by a soft breeze as backdrop to a lovers’ tryst. Originating from the Waray region, the song spread throughout the islands.  

In my youth in the somnolent town of Sto. Tomas, the bamboo played as great a role as the guitar in haranas  or serenades. Once the serenaders were seated at the balkonahe, the father of the girl ceremoniously accosted them with the cryptic: “Nanung mitulak kekayung mipadalan king kakung hardin (What moved you to pass by my garden)?”

To which the guy a-courting replied: “Keni la pu makayungyung deng kwayan (It is here where the bamboos leaned to).”

In the absence of parks, much less motels, the bamboo groves did indeed make the perfect lovers’ lanes, the lawiswis of the leaves enhancing the romantic ambience.

The same bamboo groves though were made the source of children’s fears by our parents who wanted us not to loiter around during the night, the lagitik or crackling sound produced by bamboos hitting each other as they swayed to the wind said to be the voices of the tiyanak (dwarves) and other laman-lupa (enchanted creatures) who feasted on the innards of children.

Come to think of it, maybe our parents just did not want us to see forbidden things at the bamboo groves that could have abruptly ended our age of  innocence.

Our elders made the bamboo as an object lesson in humility too: “Anti ka mong kwayan, kabang susukdul ka banwa king ketasan lalu kang duruku king gabun a kekang tatalakaran (Be like the bamboo, the higher you rise to the heavens, the more should you bow toward the earth upon which you stand).”

Keep yourself always grounded. That was what the maxim was all about.

More adages about the bamboo followed us through college – Bruce Lee revealing the bamboo as one principle of his jeet kune do: “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”

The dragon there sharing a Buddhist teaching: "Be like bamboo. It is strong on the outside and soft and open on the inside. The stem stands freely in the wind and bends, it does not resist. What bends is harder to break." 

The bamboo well taken on a high philosophical plane there. A source of wisdom  deserving indeed of the title national plant or tree.

So what words of wisdom have you heard lately of other trees and plants?

Uh-oh: “Oo, inaamin ko, saging lang kami. Pero maghanap ka ng puno sa buong Pilipinas, saging lang ang may puso! Saging lang ang may puso! (Yes, I admit, we are only bananas. But search all trees in the whole Philippines, only bananas have hearts! Only bananas have hearts!)”

Oh please, have a heart.

Terminal delirium

THE SUM of P100 million has been allotted by the Department of Transportation and Communications for a feasibility study on the Clark International Airport terminal.

Clark International Airport Corp. President and CEO Victor Jose Luciano said so at Tuesday’s launch of the new on-line booking site of AirAsia Group and the Singapore-based Expedia.

This came in the wake of, and consequent to, earlier reports of the CIAC  reconsidering earlier plans to put up a P12-billion facility for budget carriers. 
“Although we have announced the construction of a budget terminal there are other options to look at. With all these massive growth happening in Clark, we are thinking of bigger projects…We will revisit and find out if we will put up a big legacy or combined legacy with budget terminal. To support our plan, we will send a team to the U.S. to look at the trends there.” So was Luciano quoted as saying.

May as well – for Luciano – to go revisit too his terminal journey, which itinerary I recorded here sometime back.

In September 2006, on or around the birthday of her father, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo presided over the laying of the time capsule for the construction of Terminal 2. It was announced then that the sum of P3 billion, to come from the Manila International Airport Authority, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp., and the Bureau of Immigration, among other agencies would be allotted for the project.

The plan did not pass beyond the publicity for the event.

Under the CIAC chairmanship of foremost architect Nestor Mangio, came the $1.2 billion proposal from an ALMAL Investments Co., a subsidiary of the Kuwaiti mega developer M.A. Kharafi Projects, “to cover all civil components of the DMIA Terminals 1, 2 and 3 plus the adjacent 1,500 hectares in the aviation complex strictly following the CIAC original master plan.”
Travels to Kuwait and Egypt by CIAC officials and even GMA herself yielded nothing but loose talks of Rolexes and Patek Philippes finding themselves on non-Arab wrists.
Thereafter followed the CIAC report of a group of major government-linked and private firms in Malaysia called Bristeel Overseas Ventures, Inc. (BOV) offering to infuse at least $150 million in foreign direct investment to immediately undertake the much-needed expansion of the passenger terminal of the Clark International Airport.
And then we came to read that in a regular meeting on May 17, 2010, the CIAC Board “resolved to accept for detailed negotiations” the proposal of the Philco Aero Inc. on the Passenger Terminal 2 Development Project of the DMIA, as it was deemed “superior” to the BOVI proposal.
That was the first and last time we read about and heard of Philco Aero.

The presidential elections and its immediate aftermath of rigodon in government offices, including CIAC, appeared to have doused cold water on the CIA terminal fever. Luciano though had some fever-pitch shoring up of his position, what with the alleged cable theft and other irregularities impacted on him, mainly by Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo.

As one of the last official acts of GMA as president though, she inaugurated the refurbished terminal, complete with two airbridges two or three days before she stepped down. That was the only concrete, albeit incomplete, improvement at the CIA terminal after all those billion-dollar proposals

In January 2012 the CIAC was high with terminal fever again.
Luciano announced that “they” are pushing for the construction of a budget terminal that will handle about 10 million passengers a year at the CIA.
According to the press release, “The new facility, amounting to P12 billion, will take three years to complete and make (the CIA) the second largest airport in the country, next to Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport.”
“This budget terminal is the kind of terminal that meets the requirements of our airport in Clark. Our terminal right now can only accommodate 2.5 million. So we need a budget terminal to effectively say that DMIA is the next budget airline airport of the country.” So hyped Luciano.
In February 2012, CIAC signed a P1-billion loan facility with Land Bank of the Philippines for what it said was the Phase II expansion of the passenger terminal and other support infrastructure of the CIA, including navigational equipment.

Luciano said the bidding of the Phase II expansion of the P360-million passenger terminal was to start on March 5. 
We don’t know if that ever came to pass, but in three travels through the CIA since, all we saw were the boarded-up areas of the terminal which packed the passengers in some constricted spaces giving the semblance of a stockyard..

Only a month or two ago, CIAC announced it was seeking some P8 billion for a low cost carrier terminal, soon after upgraded to P12 million, complete with presidential backing.   

And this week, that P100 million for a feasibility study on what terminal suits CIA best – LCC or legacy or both?

With CIAC in this perpetual state of terminal delirium, Clark’s premier international gateway future could only be in coma.    

Back to GI Joe

"YOU’VE JUST mentioned Subic Bay. Clark Air Base, we -- we do maritime domain awareness flights monthly with the Philippine armed forces. That might be a potential.”

Potential. The operative word for US forces re-basing in the Philippines, highlighted in a Pentagon media briefing two weeks ago by Admiral Jonathan Greenert, US Chief of Naval Operations.

Actual. Greenert’s conceding that the US has present "access to an extraordinary number of places" in the Asia-Pacific and is considering the procurement of supplies, repair and maintenance services for US ships, aircraft, and troops visiting countries in the region, not the least of which is the Philippines.

Supplies and services. The R&R kind, most definitely included, if not topmost priority.

"I think in the best interest of each nation, we'll continue to -- to work on and see where that might go," furthered Greenert.

Where it will – not might – go. Why, the re-establishment of the American military bases, not in any place in the Asia-Pacific other than the Philippines, dummy. The strategic importance of the Philippines in geopolitics, an unvarying given.      

Thus, in the current scheme of things – as in the past – the Philippines best serves American interests in the Asia-Pacific.

The row with China over the Panatag/Scarborough Shoal and the uneasy waters of the West Philippine Sea while still far from a casus belli is already enough cause for US intrusion.

The US not the least assuming an aggressive stance or a posture of belligerence. What with the President of the Philippines practically begging for US intervention in his appeals for America to launch surveillance and monitoring flights over the West Philippine Sea, as well as for military hardware. The latter, the US readily answered with an aged naval vessel.

There is a twist though in America’s re-establishment of itself in the Asia-Pacific. This time around it comes not as the lonesome Imperial Eagle of old, but – just like in Iraq and Afghanistan – in some sort of collegial fraternity, read: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or in George W. Bush’s time, the Coalition of the Willing.

NATO’s Asian counterpart, SEATO – the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization – long dead though, its last gasps heard at the height of the Vietnam War yet, the US needed to craft a similar alliance that need not be formalized and therefore required to pass congressional approval in the US as well as in the other countries joining such alliance.

All the US had to do is work on existing treaties and re-purpose them to the issue at hand, to current needs, with the Philippines, of course, as focal point. And US interests as express goals.  

Thus, the “Statement Of Intent On Defense Cooperation And Exchanges” between the Philippines and Japan signed last July 2 in Tokyo.

Thus, Australia’s avid pursuit of a Status of Forces Agreement with the Philippines, nothing more than a copy-paste of the Visiting Forces Agreement with the US.

Thus, South Korea likewise expressing interest in some bilateral defense cooperation with the Philippines. Recent recollections in the media of the Philippine participation in the Korean War serve as mind-softeners to generate acceptance and ultimate approval of some SoKor-PHL defense pact. While at it, throw in the exploits of the teen-aged Ninoy Aquino as the youngest correspondent in that war, to tug at the heartstrings of his son. 

South Korea. Australia. Japan. All staunch allies of the US. All serving US intent to put in place what the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan termed a “seamless interface” among all its treaty partners.

Furthered BAYAN Secretary General Renato Reyes, Jr.:  “With Japan now wanting to do port calls and military exercises in the Philippines, and with Australia seeking a Status of Forces Agreement to be able to conduct military exercises, our country becomes one giant military hub for the US and its treaty partners.”

Re-balancing of US forces in the Asia-Pacific. Re-basing of US forces in the Philippines. Back to us being a vassal state of America.

Back to Clark and Subic then.

Thus, Santayana: “Those who do not remember the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.”

 Thus, and better yet, an old Irish maxim: “There is no present. There is no future. Only the past happening over and over, again and again.”

What the heck, GI Joe’s back. Happy days are here again.

We are ever f**ked up.

       

    

Gatecrasher

FROM THE July 7, 2011 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, incorporated in the news story Erin Tanada left out of LP Senate list but he’s still hoping on page 9:

THE YOUNGEST son of Sen. Manuel “Lito” Lapid met Friday with the Pampanga chair of the LP to discuss how he could sign up as a party member.

Accompanied by his older brother, former Pampanga governor Mark Lapid, Maynard Lapid held a closed-door meeting with San Fernando City Mayor Oscar Rodriguez who is also the provincial chair of the LP.

But while Maynard, 28, declined to give a statement, Mark Lapid said his brother was looking at probably joining the LP though he has not yet finalized his plan to run for vice governor.

Tarpaulins

However, tarpaulins featuring Maynard have already been put up in the fourth district of Pampanga, a bailiwick of the Lapids.

Rodriguez confirmed the talks and said: “[Maynard] wants to apply as a member of LP … He also said he wants to run for vice governor.”

A source in the Lapid camp said Maynard would announce his political plans on Aug. 21, his father’s birthday.

“Maynard will run as vice governor, with or without a tandem,” said the source, who asked not to be named for lack of authority to speak on behalf of the Lapids.

Mark said Rodriguez appeared to be aiming for Pampanga’s third district, which he served as representative for four terms before running for mayor of the Pampanga capital in 2004.

Maynard finished a management course and is working for a master’s degree in public administration. He is said to be a green-card holder and the favorite son of Senator Lapid’s wife Marissa, who is facing charges of dollar smuggling in the United States.

Frustrated murder suit

Maynard had his own brush with the law in 2011 after a man he encountered in a bar in Angeles City sued him for frustrated murder. The young Lapid is also an actor. His last movie was “Tatlong Baraha” where he starred with his father and brother in 2006. With a report by Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon

LEAVE IT to the intrepid Tonette.

In seven short paragraphs, she laid down one moral dilemma that could well unravel the leadership of the Liberal Party in Pampanga, if not altogether sunder the party itself.

Party provincial chief Rodriguez is the very face – from local ground up to global level – of the performance governance system propounded by the International Solidarity for Asia and generally accepted as the standards by which all public administration must be measured.

Thus Rodriguez makes the very embodiment of the core value of the Aquino administration that – by transference – comes about too as that of the Liberal Party that the President heads: the matuwid na daan.

Likeness in visions and ideologies, oneness in principles and praxis makes the essential element bonding men – and women – into an organization, political party, NGO, PO, GO or even just some social club.

It is on that ground where lies the moral dilemma threatening to impact – if it hasn’t yet – the LP in Pampanga.

What will a Lapid membership make of the LP?

What Rodriguez was, is and presumably will still be, Lapid was not, is not and will never be. Totally antithetical there.

There is absolutely nothing matuwid with the issues barnacled to the Lapid name: alleged dollar smuggling with the mother, the alleged plunder of quarry collections with the father and son governorships, a case – albeit, dismissed, I supposed – of frustrated murder with the aspiring LP member.

While we concede to the truism that politics make strange bedfellows, we still have enough respect and esteem for Rodriguez to remain steadfast on what he had always stood, sacrificed, suffered, and struggled for.

Past Rodriguez, there is Among Ed Panlilio – ill-starred provincial standard bearer of the LP in 2010 – whose own sacrifice – taking leave of the priesthood to enter politics – in 2007 was to fill a moral vacuum in the provincial government, the governorship contested then by what moralists termed as the representations of the twin evils of illegal gambling and plunder of the quarry industry.

A moral crusade, Panlilio called his runs for the Capitol. His term from 2007 to 2010 of conscience-driven governance managing to prove his contention of shenanigans in the quarry collections – his grand total of P588,155,000 in three years serving as solid evidence against the Lapid father and son’s combined total of P121,183,000 in six years, 2002 through 2007. Therefrom sprang a case of plunder against the Lapids before the Ombudsman.

How do you now suppose the morally upright Panlilio take wearing the same colors as, sharing the same stage with the upstart Lapid?              

Bluntly, to Panlilio’s holy water, Lapid – by himself and by his very name – is oil sludge.  

So, will party purity be upheld in the LP? Or will it be overruled by expediency and exigency, as in the junking of the loyalist Jimmy Lazatin in favour of Ato Agustin for vice mayor in Rodriguez’s own city?

A different case here maybe. As seasoned political observers as well as street-smart kibbitzers see nothing expedient nor exigent in having this Lapid in LP, moreso in fielding him as party candidate for vice governor.    

Still and all, politics is the art of the possible.

Unfazed, as yet

A WEAPON of mass distraction is politics.

Look how elections readily take the people away from their day-to-day woes to a wonderland of dreams and a neverland of promises.

Look how the politicos themselves get not only distracted but derailed from their routine of day-to-day administration or week-to-week legislation once the year-long countdown to the next election commenced, and some other pretenders to their posts started making distractions of their own.

So it has come to pass that 1^st District Rep. Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin had some change of heart and announced he would make a run for the Angeles City Hall instead of re-seating at the House.

That was one cannon blast of an announcement that shocked and awed the whole first district of Pampanga, its epicentre, aye, point of impact, in Angeles City naturally.

Not so much shocked as surprised though was Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, who has been bruited about – until Tarzan’s turn-around – as the most sure-shot, sure-win re-electionist, after Gov. Lilia “Nanay Baby” Pineda.

"I am surprised, just like everybody else in Angeles City and Pampanga," EdPam said of Tarzan ’s swing from the House to city hall.

And promptly rushed home from the US to be by the side of his beloved Miniang who figured in some serious vehicular mess at the NLEx. Taking along millions worth of medical equipment and supplies he got from the World Medical Relief Inc. for the city hospital named after Tarzan’s father, the Rafael Lazatin Memorial Medical Center.

Without so much as a kiss and bye-bye to Miniang, EdPam joined the city’s village chiefs at their Lakbay-Aral in Palawan and stood as Mayor Edward Hagedorn’s honoured guest at the Pista Y Ang Cagueban (Feast of the Forest) highlighted by the mass planting of trees participated in by thousands including the Miss Earth beauties. Okay, some distractions for EdPam there, the aesthetic kind, not the political ones.

“Let us not be distracted by the recent political noise. Rather, let us continue working for the good of our people.” So EdPam exhorted the city government employees at the flag-raising rites last Monday, his first day at city hall upon his return.

“There are still a lot of things to do and accomplish. Instead of focusing our attention on the 2013 elections, let us just buckle down to work,” Pamintuan told the city workers.

Tuesday, EdPam joined Governor Pineda, Health Undersecretary Ted Herbosa, and Leyte Gov. Carlos Jericho Petilla at the inauguration and turn-over of Mother Bless Birthing Clinic (MBBC) at Barangay Cutud.

The MBCC is a long-established “public-private chain project” in  Leyte under the auspices of the Kapansanan ng Kawarayan at Kaurian Foundation Incorporated (KAKAK) and the provincial government, thus Governor Petilla’s presence.

Its coming to Cutud will redound to improved and expanded maternal and child care in the area which is home to Northville 15, where the “homes along d’ riles” were resettled.

Just another day at work. Just another day to serve. Take one day at a time, undistracted from the course he set for the City of Angeles as embodied in his Contract with the Angelenos, the establishment of the renal care center at the RLMMC – the first of its kind in any city hereabouts, and the City College of Angeles, but two of its greatest manifestations of fulfilment.

The invincible Tarzan’s threat notwithstanding, 2013 is still far away to merit any distraction from the way EdPam is running things. Smoothly, if the contented Angeleno may add.

One day at a time, undistracted. There are some million trees to plant yet. Some comprehensive tourism plan for the city to craft. More healthcare programs to institutionalize. More investments to attract.

One day at a time, unperturbed. And the 2012 World Mayor Prize may just come.

Way to go, EdPam.

Hand job

PONTIUS PILATE reborn in Oscar S. Rodriguez, three-term mayor of the City of San Fernando and top honcho of the ruling Liberal Party in his domain, if not in the whole of Pampanga.

“Oca washes hands of Edsa-Ato tandem” screamed our front page story of June 27, on the mayor’s denial of any hand in the reported choice of Councilor Renato “Ato” Agustin as running mate of Vice Mayor Edwin Santiago in 2013.

Okay, positively put, and straight from Rodriguez: “Kung totoo man iyon, prerogative ni Edsa iyon as mayoralty candidate (If that is true, (the choice) is Santiago’s prerogative)…Di ako nakialam sa pagpili. Kung nakapili na nga ng vice mayor. (I didn’t have any hand in the choice, if indeed a choice has been made).”  

Instead of tying Santiago’s hands by virtue of his being party chief, Rodriguez gave him free rein. No Pilate-like ablution there but absolute absolution from any wrongdoing, aye, from even a minor shortcoming, on the part of Rodriguez.

The mayor’s statements even highlighted – in the lexicon of the techno times, put into HD – his long-cultured persona as liberal respecter, indeed, as the very paladin of free choice, which germinated in his student activist days, matured in his human-rights lawyering years, and has not stopped blooming since.

So Punto! got the Edsa-Ato story out of context and mangled its metaphors?

Not so fast now for mea culpa and splash in the next front page some apologetic errata.

From the perspective of political party principles and praxis, Rodriguez is not quite right, if not altogether wrong, in giving – even in only  allowing – Santiago the prerogative to choose Agustin, or anyone else for that matter, as his running-mate.

Choice is not a prerogative, not even a privilege, of the standard bearer.

Choice is the right, the responsibility, even the duty, of the party in assembly. That is how party politics works. For one so vocal about his adherence to party principles, it is shocking how Rodriguez easily missed, or how he most cavalierly dismissed this.

And then, Agustin is not even deemed as through-thick-and-thin party man, having won his council seat either in opposition to the Rodriguez-Santiago line-up or as independent candidate.

Again, that comprises violation of party principles of rewarding loyalty to, and upholding the equity of the party member. So, is there no true-blue Oca-Edsa loyalist that can fill the bill of vice mayor for 2013?       

Alas, why do I keep harping on principles here? It was not so long ago – for me to forget – that I wrote of principled politics as an oxymoron, aye, a contradiction in terms mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed.

For in politics, “no one acts on principles or reasons from them.”
To further appropriate the words of the French writer Leroy Beaullieu in the 1890s yet, politicians are “…the vilest and the narrowest of sycophants and courtiers that humanity has ever known; their sole end basely to flatter and develop all popular prejudices, which, for the rest, they but vaguely share, never having consecrated one minute of their lives to reflection and observation.”

That, premised on the generalization arising from the fixity of our intellectual habits that deems the recurring characteristic trait of a segment of one species as representative of that species, if not of the whole genus. In the case at issue, the  political animal.

So what’s the difference between a Filipino politician and dalag? One is a voracious filth-feeding bottom dweller. The other is a fish. Some joke!
Exigency and expediency, utility and interests – self-serving, vested interests – are the fundamental matters – I could not dare write principles here and desecrate the word – whence politics breeds. No joke!

So it is most manifest anew with the emergence of the Edsa-Ato tandem.

As shocked, but not necessarily awed, “as the next person in the City of San Fernando” was vice-mayor in-waiting Councilor Jimmy Lazatin 

“All my three terms in office, I have been a team player supporting the Oca-Edsa team. To this day, that's about eight years now. We have fought together in election after election side by side, with our principles intact, winning over and over as a team,” lamented Lazatin, long publicly hailed by Rodriguez himself as “next vice mayor.”

How could they junk him now like they do residual garbage to their Lara dumpsite?

“While I can speculate all I want about the politics that came to play to arrive at this tandem, I feel that the best way for anyone to get real answers is from the original Oca-Edsa tandem. They are in the best position to answer the questions.” Lazatin makes one romanticist lost in contemporary times. His Old World value of loyalty and sense of integrity misappreciating, misapprehending, plainly missing the realities of politics, at its most exigent, at its most expedient.

Subscribing to higher – not necessarily nobler, indeed, may even be ignoble – interests, the Edsa-Ato tandem subsumed, nay, subjugated all the express – not necessarily applied – party principles of loyalty, integrity, honesty, and fair play.

To win, at any cost. Whatever it takes. To the point of shaking hands with the devil himself.