1081 Memories

“READ YOUR article on martial law in your column. You forgot something brother… the few months after 1081 when Tessie Ladringan called us The Regina staff and how she told us that writing anything about the politics is a big no-no and in case the itch for your being so matapang in writing is unavoidable - then let us attack the church, never the military, never the Marcosian gov’t.”

So posted Millete Caparas in my Facebook account.

Millete is kasama, best friend, sister – everything but lover to me, from our Assumption College days, through our teaching stints at the Angeles University Foundation to her years at the Clark Development Corp. as labor services department head whence she migrated to America, basing in Orange County and then Anaheim, California. We had a grand night with her son Raph-Raph last year in LA.    

Yeah, I remember the caveat to us writers of Assumption’s student publication then but I can’t recall if it was Tessie or her twin Nancy that gave it to us. Nancy was our school paper moderator then.

Anyways, we took the word for gospel truth, and from a “radical paper” that raged and rated on the burning issues of the day, The Regina  was degraded to slum-bookishness.

Just like our Rizal Class where discussions of the national hero’s counter-revolutionary leanings vis-à-vis the “correctness” of the “real national hero” Bonifacio’s proletarian revolution  gave way to debates on who Rizal loved more, Leonor Rivera or Josephine Bracken?

The school-year immediately proceeding from the declaration of Martial Law – sorry, I can’t help but put the phrase in caps, if only for its impact to the nation’s life – saw me taking the editorship of the school paper, to the utter dismay and the greatest sorrow of the college administration.

Our anti-Establishment angst had to be ventilated somewhat. Our morbid fear of the Camp Olivas stockade, precluded even the slightest comment on the established martial order. So we found in the college president, the vice presidents, the registrar, the deans and professors alternative targets.

I cannot recall now which I frequented more, the office of the college president – where I was made to explain every article in the paper deemed critical of the college administration, or the Home Defense Unit of the Philippine Constabulary – where, with our moderator – by that time Ms. June Velez-Belmonte, now California-based Mrs. Whitmer – I had to present the blueprints of the paper before taking it to the printing press for a thorough review by military censors of all the articles, pictures or illustrations, blacking out any that could even be remotely considered “subversive.”

Yeah, we had issues with blacked out sections.      

So Millete’s post opened the floodgates of 1081 memories…

Of KM’s Roy Loredo, ramrod-straight Philippine Military Academy drop-out, hunched and gaunt after months of detention at Camp Olivas.

Of the SDK’s Fer Liwag, already frail and asthmatic, suffering two broken ribs after his stint in that same stockade.

Roy went on to rise in the hierarchy of the underground struggle, operating in the Visayas and in the post-EDSA period managed to win a Palanca Award for an essay titled – if memory still serves right – “Dogged defense of a doggone dogma” which is a  reaction to snotty British horror at our being dog-eaters.

Fer assumed the nom de guerre Ka Dario and led a sandatahang yunit pampropaganda in Pampanga, gaining his martyrdom in an encounter with the military in Sta. Ana town in 1978, if I am not mistaken. He had a P25,000 price on his head. To him I dedicated my book Brigada .45 chronicling the exploits of the Mariano Garcia Brigade, the urban partisan unit of the New People’s Army, in the last years of the ‘80s.

There was too the KM’s Butch Pangilinan of Minalin and Alex Abellanoza of Sto. Nino, San Fernando who were among the first to be arrested the very  night Martial Law was publicly declared.

And of course my seminary elder Bot Portugal, fellow in the SDK, student poet nonpareil and The Regina literary editor, who – for a time – came to class in his white cassock, with breviary or bible in hand, needing no further proof of his conversion from a “godless communist.”

For us who were remanded to the custody of persons of authority or influence, the PC required that we reported to the provincial command weekly for the first three months, fortnightly for another three months and then monthly until they told us we were “cleared.”

The reporting covered our activities – classes in school, church service, movies, visits, etc., and – more important to the military – persons we met. Of course, these comprised mostly of classmates and teachers.

And we were required to memorize – one of the requisites to passing the compulsory ROTC then – the Bagong Lipunan hymn. From memory now:

May bagong silang, may bago nang buhay

Bagong bansa, bagong galaw

Sa Bagong Lipunan…  

Magbabago ang lahat, tungo sa pag-unlad

At ating itanghal, Bagong Lipunan.

Ang gabi'y nagmaliw nang ganap 
At lumipas na ang magdamag 
Madaling araw ay nagdiriwang 
May umagang namasdan
Ngumiti ang pag-asa 
Sa umagang anong ganda! 
May bagong silang…

Which meaning we – silently, but of course – totally bastardized by merely supplanting the letter B with the letter G in the lyrics, thus:

May gagong silang, may gago nang buhay

Gagong bansa, gagong galaw

Sa gagong lipunan…

Mag-gagago ang lahat…

Aye, there was some fun even in those the most terrifying of times. And a time for love too.

In the immediate aftermath of 1081, reports were rife of women activists being systematically abused in the detention centers.

One morning at The Regina office, I found Millete with a stuffed suitcase. Before I could even ask, she told me she was eloping with her beau Noel  who was afraid for her safety, moreso her virginity. Dutifully, I carried her suitcase to the waiting Volks Beetle some distance from Assumption’s second gate.    
“Millete is dearer than a sister to me. Take good care of her, or you’ll be sorry.” I remember telling Noel during the “hand-over.”

Ah, the fondness of memories, even of the times of dread. Thanks. Millete for pulling the plugs. 

Day of Faith

A SATURDAY. Up early for a “DG” – discussion group – at the Assumption College in San Fernando.

Something uncanny, there is nothing but pure static on the radio. The usual though – light banter, small-town gossip among passengers – at the jeepney from somnolent Poblacion, Sto. Tomas to the capital.

Something uncanny, there are no newspapers at the news stands. Only komiks are being hawked by ambulant newsboys.

At the Assumption bus, some sense of gloom, a foreboding of doom, guarded whispers among us students of something terrifying…

On campus, a disturbing quietude. Still some two dozen hardcore KM-SDK activists go on with the DG originally to finalize the agenda of the demo at the gates of Camp Olivas planned for Tuesday.

Marcos has declared Martial Law. First heard from a kasama with a brother in the military. The PC – Philippine Constabulary – has been rounding known activists since last night. Not even pipsqueak of Makibaka, Huwag Matakot! heard.

Just then, a platoon of uniformed constables enters the campus. Enough for all of us to find any and all means out of Assumption except the main gate where, we presumed more PCs are posted, maybe even with machineguns.

Downtown San Fernando, in front of the town hall were 6X6 PC trucks, military fatigues are everywhere. Long hair is sheared not by scissors but mostly by bayonets and hunting knives.

Jumped on a passing jeepney, just in time. My long tresses – down to my shoulders and back – saved for the day.

Proclamation 1081 – declaring Martial Law in the Philippines though dated September 21, 1972 came into the open in September 23.       

Martial Law! The news is out – even in barriotic Sto. Tomas. Arriving home, in time to see my mom stoking the last flames flickering on a mound of ash that used to be my beloved Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, Lenin’s thoughts in volumes of pamphlets, Mao’s The Five Golden Rays and the Little Red Book, Amado Guerrero’s Lipunan at Rebolusyong Pilipino, posters of Che Guevarra, Marx, Lenin and Mao.

In between tears, a jumble of Marx-Lenin-Mao thoughts – The history of all hitherto existing society is a history of class struggle… Capital is dead labor, that vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks…The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation…Trust the masses, rely on the masses, learn from the masses…The people, and the people alone, are the motive forces of history…

And Che’s mind too: What do the danger and sacrifices of a man or a nation matter, when the destiny of humanity is at stake?

All gone in a holocaust!
An early morning date with the neighbourhood barber the next day. After a long while, the sun burns my ears and nape again.

Lie low, really low. Take refuge in the rice paddies. In morbid fear of what tomorrow may bring.  

So what hath Martial Law immediately wrought?

Resumption of classes. By the main gate of Assumption College the dreaded Black List is posted – names of activists who will not be re-admitted unless with clearance from the PC commander.

A piece of advice from my political science professor: “Don’t go to the PC alone, they will just arrest and detain you, as they did to a number of your comrades. Bring somebody influential with you.”

So whom am I to seek but to my spiritual director and rector at the Mother of Good Counsel Seminary – the Rev. Fr. Paciano B. Aniceto. (I was not even a year out “on probation” from San Jose Seminary then.)

At the Pampanga PC Command beside the Capitol, Apu Ceto vouched for me as a character witness before a panel of interrogators, and then took my case to the provincial commander himself – the dreaded Col. Isidoro de Guzman who would later earn infamy in the Escalante Massacre in Negros.

Alone at the interrogation room, I was subjected to romanza military at my every answer the berdugos did not take to their liking.

“KM o SDK?”

Wala po – A smack on the head.

“Name? Alias?”

Caesar Lacson y Zapata. Nickname: Bong. No alias – A slap on the face.

“Ikaw si Carlos. Di ba ikaw itong nasa mga letrato (shoving to my face a number of photographs of marches, rallies and demos)”

Kamukha ko po – the table suddenly kisses my face.

Then off to the detention center at the side of the command. At each single cell, the sergeant – Pascua or Pascual? – shoves my face between the iron bars and asks the detainee: “Kasama mo ito?” and then turns to me: “Kilala mo yan?”

Of course we knew one another but no one ratted out. Conscientization most manifest there.

Contusions and all, I managed to be remanded to the custody of Apu Ceto. I have written this and I write it again: The good father, in what could only be deemed as a leap of faith – in his God unquestionably, in me too, maybe – signed a document that said in part, “…in the event that subject activist-provocateur renew his connection with the Communist Party of the Philippines and its various fronts in the pursuit of rebellion; or undertake acts inimical to peace and order, or in gross violation of the provisions of Proclamation 1081 and other pertinent decrees, the signatory-custodian shall be held responsible and as liable…” with a proviso that in my stead, he would be placed in the PC stockade.
Did he tell me to change my ways? Did he impale in my conscience the gravity of my case, his implication in any instance of carelessness or recidivism on my part thereon?
No. From the Constabulary command, his mere request was for me to please accompany him to church.
Before the Blessed Sacrament, he knelt and silently prayed. He did not even ask me to pray with him. He just motioned me to sit near him.
By the side of the good father, in that darkened corner of the Metropolitan Cathedral, I wept. Washed by a torrent of tears was my rebirth, the renewal of my faith.
No spectacular drama presaged my epiphany, no blinding light, so to speak, shone on my own Damascus Gate. There were but flickering votives. And Apu Ceto.     

My return to faith. That’s principally what Martial Law wrought.

Defining Dubai

HOT OR very hot. That’s your only choice for bath water at the three-star Howard Johnson Hotel in Bur Dubai.

“You should have come last month,” laughs Lerma, the receptionist from Laguna. “Then you would have had a third option – scalding hot.” Ha, ha.

Scorching 41-degrees-Celsius heat out in the open. Still, locals and tourists alike make do like mad dogs and Englishmen – go out in the midday sun.

To the Deira Spice Souq with its scents of saffron and aniseed, cinnamon and turmeric, chillies of every kind, dried rose and lemon, hibiscus tea, and various herbs mix with that of incense whence waft the aroma of a thousand and one delights.

Tales of Arabian nights segue to the adjacent Gold Souq – the glitter of 18- to 24-k gold in all malleable forms of rings and earrings, bracelets and brooches, necklaces and anklets, tie pins and nose rings, even watches, dazzles. And that is an understatement.

All that glitters at the souq is not gold. Indeed, there are diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and other precious gems too that equally sparkle. Making the place, arguably, the priciest piece of real estate per karat in the whole wide world.

The souqs aside, Old Dubai gets its full expression at the Dubai Museum housed in the Al Fahidi Fort, the oldest existing building in the emirate. The dhow (traditional boat) outside the museum serving as a living testament to an era all but totally obliterated by modernization.

Here, local antiquities and artefacts from African and Asian countries that traded with Dubai along with a life-size diorama trace the evolution of the emirate from its humble beginnings as a nomadic settlement to a fishing and pearl-diving village before the discovery of oil in 1966 that transformed the emirate into a bustling business center, earning the moniker “Hong Kong of the Middle East.”

Surpassed Hong Kong, Dubai has, if only for the Burj Khalifa – the world’s tallest skyscraper – which, at 828 meters, outclassed Hong Kong’s International Commerce Centre, the world’s fifth tallest at 484 meters.

It is this cityscape of skyscrapers and modern architectural wonders that Dubai has come to be defined as, starting with its international airport which in 2011 was acclaimed the “Best Airport in the Middle East” in the Airport Service Quality Awards by the Airports Council International.

With its design representative of a billowing sail, the Burj al Arab, the world’s most luxurious hotel, has come to be the image of Dubai to the world – miniaturized in plastic, glass, brass or resin for souvenirs, stencilled in T-shirts, postered and postcarded, woven in rugs, and crafted into refrigerator magnets.

Easily affordable to tourists finding access to the all-suite luxury Burj prohibitively pricey.

An even cheaper – aye, free – alternative: photo shoot by the gates leading to the Burj, which we did with delight.

A shopaholic’s heaven is Dubai with its 17 malls, the biggest of which is Dubai Mall near Burj Khalifa. The real deal here – from Panerai to Patek Philippe, Cartier to Rolex, onto Burberry, Facconable and Brioni and that worn by the devil herself,  Prada.

The “genuine fakes” like 200-dirham Blancpain or Mont Blanc relegated to some other lesser souqs.

For all its bounds to real-time 21^st century, Dubai remains bound with the old ways, adapted with modern conveniences.

Like the abras – old river boats – now motorized as water taxis plying the Dubai Creek. Clean, crystal clean waterway where corals cover the girders of piers.

Like the traditional wooden dhow, gaily lighted and decorated for dinner cruises, through old and new Dubai coming to light, literally.

And the piece de resistance of any sojourn to Dubai – the desert safari.

Brand new Toyota Land Cruisers tear through sand dunes, in tangled turns and twists, leaning dangerously left now, then suddenly swerving right in 45-angle glides only to rev up then soar over a ridge to land flat and bouncing off to a new dune. Pure adrenaline rush!

Calm down then with a short camel ride. Missed this one, arriving at the farm near dark, the dromedary done for the day.

But in time for the desert barbeque with exotic belly dancing show, not with an Arab but with a Russian though – and a blonde one at that. Aye, It can’t really get more exotic than that!

And all too suddenly, the three-day stay is over. The memories though will forever linger.

The souks and the dhow. The Burj – Al Arab and Khalifa. Definitely Dubai.

It is – to me – the desert though that is infinitely Dubai.

(Ties that Travel, SM City Clark packages tours with Meteor Philippines Inc., Pasig City and White Sands Tours and Travel, Dubai. Royal Brunei Airlines flies to Dubai from Bandar Seri Begawan)

     

Mulling in Dubai

DUBAI MALL, reputedly the largest shopping center in all of the United Arab Emirates.

At the mall’s Food Court, Leigh serves tom yum goong at the Pad Thai stall. Vivian does spicy buffalo wings at Texas Chicken. Irma dishes out Tandoori chicken in the eponymous resto.

Then, there is Amanda serving shawarma at Kebab Grill and Joanne preparing bento boxes at Soy.

International eats flavoured by the smiling services of all-Filipino crews. All Kapampangans too.

Anna hawks shirts and bags at a kiosk in the middle of the mall’s spacious walkways where Virgie sells perfumes in another stall. Liza answers all your inquiries about galaxies – of the phone kind, that is – at Samsung. Maan does her sales pitch with Canon at Grand Stores Digital.

Aye, they are all cabalens.

Deira City Centre, next best to Dubai Mall, per the mall rat Ashley Manabat’s reckoning, takes the same pattern.

Fe (wo)mans Fujiyama; Dindo, Al Farooj; Cherry, Baskin Robins; Dennis, Fat Burgers; Lino, Potbelly.

At Al Falak Electronics, Leila teaches you the best value for your money in Nikon cameras. Gina and Gloria lend ladies their fashion sense at Debenhams. And Karen helped me find bargains for my grandkids at H&M. 

It is not only in the restaurants and malls that the Kapampangans make their great presence felt but in the hospitals, construction and industrial firms and even at the international airport too, says Angelo G. Timbol of Angeles City who has worked here for over 30 years.

Timbol, managing director of the oilfield, marine and industrial supply firm JETTY, approximates some 50,000 cabalens of the whole UAE’s estimated 300,000 Filipino workers.

Central and Northern Luzon provinces account for a larger number – compared to other regions – of those we casually met and randomly sampled at the malls there.

Of the Filipino cashiers, checkers and baggers at Carrefour, the large French hypermarket chains, mostly, if not Kapampangans, are from Zambales, Bataan, Pangasinan and the Ilocos provinces.  

There are no Filipino taxi drivers in Dubai though. If our Pakistani cabbie were to be believed.

“Filipinos are too educated to be mere taxi drivers,” he said. “This is a job for those with little or no schooling.”

In the social hierarchy of overseas workers in Dubai, Filipinos do indeed occupy the higher tiers. They not only look smarter but moreso, happier.

“The mastery of English, talent, skills, industry and how we can easily adapt to a different culture are our cutting edge in the Dubai job market,” Engineer Timbol said.

And the Kapampangan excels in those values above his kababayans. A bit of  regional chauvinism there.

A commonality now: This inquiry from Kapampangans, Zambalenos, Ilocanos,  Pangasinenses, even those from Quezon City and the Camanava area upon learning we are mediamen from around the Clark area: When shall we start flying home through Clark?

A large number of those we met told us they have long heard of plans for Dubai-Clark flights.

Yes, there have been plans, we concurred. We did not have the heart to tell them, these have stayed as plans. Maybe even forgotten plans now.

Just to make sure, I searched the web and here is what I got from Business World Online dated Monday, June 9, 2008:

…The DMIA is being groomed as the next international gateway of the Philippines, and Mr. Luciano said there would be "more airlines to fly from the Middle East to the Philippines" to serve Filipino workers abroad.

On Friday, a chartered plane from Trans-global Airline arrived in the Philippines from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) via the DMIA. It was the first airline to fly to the Philippines from the Middle East via Clark.

The same airline is scheduled to fly to Fujairah in the UAE on Mondays and Wednesdays starting today. It uses a 160-seater MD83 aircraft.

Fujairah is one of the seven emirates that constitute the UAE; Dubai and Abu Dhabi the better known among them.

Maybe the good president-CEO of Clark International Airport Corp., Chichos Luciano can tell us whatever happened to that planned route.

Oblige us – and our OFWs in Dubai – with a response, Sir.

A farce of a force

IT WAS one of those Balikatan or Cope Thunder Exercises and we were viewing F-16s screaming off the runways to the blue beyond.

Ah, to have such state-of-the art aircraft, sighed us – mediamen – in collective awe.   

But we do have an F-16, said Maj. Allan Ballesteros, then-Clark Air Base Wing information officer.

Where?

Right there on the tarmac. He pointed to two Vietnam War vintage aircraft already long decommissioned.

Those aren’t F-16s, they’re F-8s.

So what do you make of one F-8 plus one F-8?

Yeah, right. Not just the butt of, but the joke itself is the Philippine Air Force.   

“All air, no force” as some wag put it most aptly.

To put some force in the air, PAF ordered a fleet of Aermachii S-211, primarily a trainer aircraft configured into fighter plane. Nowhere near the F-16 but could do – PAF said then – for guarding the archipelago.

The joke that is PAF turned tragic with the S-211 readily dubbed “the widowmaker” for the plane’s propensity to crash.

Internet fact check now:

January 14, 2002. PAF S-211 #017 crashed into houses inside the National Food Authority compound in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, due to mechanical problems after making several low passes over the city in a “contact proficiency” flight from Basa Air Base. Both pilots and three civilians on the ground were killed.

November 26, 2007. PAF S-211 #804 went missing after it failed to return to its Palawan base after a security patrol and search mission over the disputed Kalayaan Islands in the South China Sea, both pilots still missing and their fate remains unknown.

July 18, 2010. PAF S-211 #024 crashed in Tarlac just seven miles short from the threshold of Clark International Airport Runway 20L due to fuel starvation. Investigators later found out that a defective hydraulic pump caused an unusual vibration that loosened the fuel lines that dumped considerable amount of fuel for the return trip of the pilots who went to Ilocos Norte for a cross country navigation training flight. Both pilots safely ejected and minimal damage was incurred at the crash site and no loss of life was reported.

April 28, 2011. PAF S-211 #020 crashed in Bagac, Bataan after making several aerobatic maneuvers over the shoreline during a “contact proficiency” flight from Clark Air Base. Investigators later found out that the aircraft entered into a high-G recovery maneuver from a loop that caused the engine to go into a high-G stall and crashed less than a hundred meters from the shoreline. Both pilots died instantly.

Of PAF’s 25 S-211, the report noted, “13 remain in inventory, 5 in service but only 2 are airworthy, as of July 2011.”

And more than enough crashes – and scores killed too – of the PAF’s Huey helicopters – again Vietnam War vintage – to merit the moniker “flying coffins.”

A farce of a force, PAF has been for too long. The joke has to stop.

Two or three months back, we got some pleasant surprise with the arrival in Clark of four new combat utility helicopters from Augusta PZL Swidnik of Italy and Poland, half of a batch of eight PAF ordered back in February 2010 yet for P2.8 billion.

Aside from the eight “Sokol” – falcon in Polish – choppers, the price tag covered  the pilots’ training as well as maintenance and technical support.

PAF said the Sokol is night vision goggle-capable, equipped with autopilot equipment, fitted with gun mounts on both sides and can accommodate 10.

Far superior to the Huey, in short.

Then only last week, at the 51st anniversary of PAF Air Defense Wing in Clark, PAF chief Lt. Gen. Lauro Catalino de la Cruz announced the “looming acquisition” of 12 TA-50 light attack jets from South Korea.

Built by Korea Aerospace Industries and Lockheed Martin of the USA, the TA-50 “is largely derived from the F-16 Fighting Falcon,” in terms of “use of a single engine, speed, size, cost, and the range of weapons.”

It has the standard M-197 20mm three-barrel cannon and a fire control radar system and can accommodate the AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile and a variety of additional weapons can be mounted to its underwing hardpoints. Reports claimed.

“Compatible air-to-surface weapons with the TA-50 include the AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missile, Hydra 70 rocket launchers, CBU-58 and Mk-20 cluster bombs, and Mk-82, -83, and -84 general purpose bombs.”

So much firepower promised in the TA-50 there. 

“This is a realization of the dream we have dreamt a long, long time ago,” De la Cruz said.

More than that, may this be the end of PAF as a joke.

Plain thieving

PLAGIARISM IS defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author’s "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous boundaries. 

The modern concept of plagiarism as immoral and originality as an ideal emerged in Europe only in the 18th century, particularly with the Romantic Movement, while in the previous centuries authors and artists were encouraged to "copy the masters as closely as possible" and avoid "unnecessary invention."

The 18th century new morals have been institutionalized and enforced prominently in the sectors of academia and journalism, where plagiarism is now considered academic dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics, subject to sanctions like expulsion and other severe career damage. Not so in the arts, which not only have resisted in their long-established tradition of copying as a fundamental practice of the creative process, but with the boom of the modernist and postmodern movements in the 20th century, this practice has been heightened as the central and representative artistic device. Plagiarism remains tolerated by 21st century artists.

Plagiarism is not a crime per se but is disapproved more on the grounds of moral offence, and cases of plagiarism can involve liability for copyright infringement.

If the above brief is bylined Bong Z. Lacson, then I am a damned plagiarist.

Attributing it properly to Wikipedia makes me a researcher.

Plagiarism is plain and simple stealing. The scale and scope of what is thieved make the difference between pilferage and plunder. A sentence, a paragraph copied verbatim and passed on as one’s own comprises the former, a whole body of work – feature, essay, research paper, speech, critique, etc. – the latter. Still, and all, a violation of the Commandment “Thou shalt not steal.” And “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods” too.

Mere translation of another’s work in another language does not make it as the translator’s own. Nothing lost in the translation, the original ideas, thoughts therein remain reposited in the author.

So Sen. Robert F. Kennedy could not have known a single word in Pilipino, still, his were the great ideas Sen. Tito Sotto appropriated as his own.

Yes, the plagiarist is in no way exculpated by his reformatting of the work, so long as the original ideas are kept en toto. It is like Barbie or Ken – pardon the banality of the analogy – no matter how a child dresses them her way, they remain Mattel’s.        

Even more vulgar, as the Filipino witticism holds: Mag-amerikana man ang monkey, unggoy pa rin. Magpabango man si porky,  baboy pa rin. Gone a bit off-tangent there maybe.

Paralleling the Sotto affair is the local media’s own current fixation on ethical questions rising from the publication of press releases.

Asks Headline’s Cha Cayabyab in Facebook: “What is unethical? Publishing a press release or writing for a government agency and for a newspaper at the same time? Know your terms, dear. Make sure you know me well before you make judgments.” 

The direct addressee “dear” known only to her.

Still, I tabbed: No question of ethics in publishing a press release, so long as you don't claim authorship of it if you did not write it.

For then, it becomes plagiarism, plain and simple.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Tonette Orejas totally agreed, but then: “Problem is young writers these days just delete the names of PIA writers and claim it as theirs en toto. Bad!”

And the thread has gone on and on and on…

As it happens, it is not only young writers that claim authorship of press releases, whether coming from the Philippine Information Agency, the Public Relations Department of the Clark Development Corp., or from the information offices of the Capitol, and the cities of San Fernando and Angeles.

Outright plagiarism has become common practice here, reflective of the indolence, if not of the incompetence of many in the local media. Bad, really bad.    

Many a time you see the same story bylined differently in other papers but  taglined  “Press Release” with the corresponding source in Punto!

Yes, it is our policy to attribute the press release whence it cometh. If it is re-written and infused with additional facts and figures by our writers, then we find it meriting of his/her byline or tagline.

Cha’s other beef, writing for a government agency and for a newspaper at the same time, is a totally different matter. Ethics dictates that such writer identifies himself/herself as working with the government so the readers will have foreknowledge of his/her biases.  

Plagiarism though is not always as easily delineated or defined as in the case of press releases. Or as always wilful, on the part of the writer.

I myself am in constant dread if I have inadvertently or unwittingly taken parts of someone else’s work and incorporated it in my own without the proper attribution.

It is easy – and I do this diligently – to cite reference works and authors quoted in my articles when I am directly noting them from the internet or from books on hand.

Due diligence however becomes fairly impossible when dredging one’s memory bank while writing, especially nearing deadline. It’s like: Are these words, phrases coming to mind originally mine? Or are they figments from long memorized passages from hundreds of books and periodicals read, or maybe my personal impressions of them?

Authors may have been long forgotten but their ideas still remembered. Or remembered in name but not in work.

There is absolutely no wilful intention in me to take another’s work as my own. If you notice anything in my writings suspiciously similar to another’s, then – please – let me know ASAP.

I will damn that other for plagiarising my work. If his came after mine.

I will damn myself, don sackcloth and sit in ashes. If his came before mine.

There’s no justification to plagiarism. Once you did it – and are found to have done it – there’s no other recourse but to own up to it and apologize.

No matter your being some senator of this republic.     

        

  

Premature obituary

KAMPI NOW dead. Even Lakas is dying.

So was quoted Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan as saying in a story here yesterday.

Can’t argue with EdPam. He knows whereof he speaks, being – as the story noted – a stalwart of the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, founder of the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino in 1996 and its prime reviver and beneficiary in the 2004 national elections.

Indeed, with GMA a veritable pariah in the current administration of President Aquino, only the trapped rats have not abandoned her sunk Kampi ship.

Still, I guess the good city mayor may have made an advanced, and therefore premature, obituary for Kampi and Lakas there.

The fate of Kampi underscores the failings, aye the aberrations, of the party system as practiced in the Philippines.

Rather than grounded on ideologies or philosophies, policies or programs, the Filipino party system is popularity- and personality-based. Hence parties rise or fall with their human embodiment.

Thus, with the Great Ferdinand, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.

With Marcos’ New Society supplanting the old socio-economic and political order, the KBL devoured the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party, effectively ending the American-patterned two-party system and birthed the invincible, formidable monolith that in 1978 managed to elect the octogenarian Pablo Floro over the charismatic and then prisoner-of-conscience Ninoy Aquino.

EDSA Uno shattered all of Marcos, his beloved KBL reduced, nay, restored to its sacramental reference of kasal, binyag, libing – the life cycle of the nominal Catholic – not totally devoid of political bearing though with weddings, baptisms and wakes serving as fertile grounds for electioneering.

On the wings of the widow in yellow rode Doy Laurel’s United Nationalist Democratic Organization and the Laban ni Ninoy, morphing into the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino.

In Cory Aquino’s radiance wilted Laurel and his UNIDO, leaving LDP as dominant party, with renascent power broker presidential brother Peping Cojuangco at its helm, and Ninoy buddy Ramon Mitra, voted House Speaker.

With Cory’s acquiescence came the great schism of the LDP – Mitra winning as party presidential bet in the convention, but defeated rival Fidel V. Ramos, forming a ragtag aggrupation called Lakas-Tao, winning the 1992 elections.

Lak-Tao underwent a series of evolution in the Lakas-NUCD (for the National Union of Christian Democrats of Sen. Raul Manglapus) then Lakas-CMD (Christian-Muslim Democrats) till finally coalescing to Lakas-CMD-Kampi, the appendage being GMA’s Kabalikat ng Mamamayang Pilipino.

Lakas-CMD-Kampi assumed, for the 2004 presidential elections, the moniker Koalisyon ng Katapatan at Karanasan para sa Kinabukasan (Coalition of Truth and Experience for Tomorrow), shortened to K-4, that provided the stage for GMA’s elevation to the presidency through the ballot, more (in)appropriately – many folk contend – through “Hello, Garci.”    

The 2010 presidential elections saw the renaissance of the grand old parties – the NP with Manny Villar and the LP with Noynoy Aquino, the comeback of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino of ousted President Erap Estrada, the birthing of new parties Bagumbayan spearheaded by Sen. Dick Gordon, Ang Kapatiran of Olongapo City Councilor Juan Carlos de los Reyes, and Bangon Pilipinas of evangelist Eddie Villanueva. And of course, the trouncing of then-rulingLakas-CMD-Kampi.

LP emerging victorious shoved to the sidelines NP and PMP and altogether doomed to early extinction the other wannabes.

Yes, parties rise and fall with the fortunes of their human faces.

Thus, Aksyon Demokratiko of Raul Roco, People’s Reform Party of Miriam Defensor Santiago, Promdi of Lito Osmena.

Not all political parties however can just be summarily pronounced OPD – officially pronounced dead, just because the figurehead falls.

Look at the Nationalist People’s Coalition – losing with Danding Cojuangco in 1992, and falling short of getting Malacanang with FPJ in 2004.  

Those failings notwithstanding, the NPC remains a much-sought-after coalition partner of every ruling party.

Look at the PDP-Laban – losing with Nene Pimentel in 1992 – flexing its muscles anew in Vice President Jojo Binay, no matter the fall-out in the United Nationalist Opposition wrought by Sen. Koko Pimentel’s obstinacy vis-à-vis Miguel Zubiri in the same coalition.

Look at the KBL – Bongbong Marcos in the Senate, Madame Imelda Marcos in the House, Imee Marcos in Ilocos Norte. 

As in the Origin of the Human Species, it is not the strongest that always survives, but that who can best adapt to the environment, blend with the situation. So it is with political parties, being, after all, originated by humans.

Hence, for the issue at hand, we may as well appropriate Mark Twain: The reports of the death of Kampi and Lakas are greatly exaggerated. If not all too premature.  

       

.

In the name of God

DEFENDING HER appointment as Supreme Court Chief Justice, Maria Lourdes Sereno took one from the very pages of the Book of Revelation, thus: “Ito po , ang buong mundo ay testigo na galing po sa Panginoong Diyos lamang. Hindi po ito gawa ng tao, hindi po ito gawa ng kahit anong political bloc. Hindi po ito paglo-lobby ng business or economic interest ngunit ang Diyos ang may alam kung ano ang plano nya sa taumbayan (The whole world is witness that this appointment is God’s will. No one person did this, much more by any political bloc. It did not come about due to lobbying by any business or economic interest group; it’s only God who knows what his plans are for the people).”

“Siya lamang po ang nagtalaga sa inyong lingkod. Siguro po ay panahon na upang ibigay ang liderato (ng Korte Suprema) sa Kanyang isang abang lingkod (Only God put your servant in this position. Maybe the time has come for Her to hand the   leadership of the Supreme Court to one of Her humble servants).”

The conspicuous presence of God – in word, not necessarily made flesh – in Sereno’s speech at her first flag ceremony as Chief Justice on Monday at the Supreme Court underscored her being a born-again Christian.

The conspicuous absence of seven senior justices of the High Court -- Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Teresita Leonardo De Castro, Presbitero Velasco, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, and Martin Villarama – underscored the disjointed bench Sereno is now hard put to cobble.   

But then, it was God Herself that put Sereno there, so what is there to fear?

Indeed, Romans 8:31: What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Amen to Psalm 118:6: The LORD is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?

Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!

Fear, precisely was what Senator Joker Arroyo felt: “After the Chief Justice expressed her belief that she was anointed by the Good Lord as chief magistrate, I hope she would not think she has now the infallibility in her judicial opinions.”

The Joker is not being wild there, his fears are far from being far-fetched.

By her claim that it was God’s will and not President Aquino’s that seated her as chief magistrate of the land, Sereno may have assumed some “angelic status,” as Arroyo said, and therefore has become more infallible than the Pope.

Ex cathedra, “when the Pope talks of matters about faith and morals, you cannot challenge that,” Arroyo said.

From her lofty seat at the Supreme Court, when Sereno – as God’s anointed – talks of jurisprudence, you cannot challenge that too.

“I hope Chief Justice Sereno doesn’t think that way because that’s not good.  That doesn’t allow for dissent,” Arroyo said.

And dissent makes the very essence of democracy.

Which brings to mind the Middle Ages where misrule was the divine right of kings. Aye, the royals who invoked the name of the Lord as having ordained their kingships, including the rulers who, in the name of God, unleashed the genocide of the Middle Easterners in the Crusades; ordained the annihilation of the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru; conquered and “civilized” the Philippines.

Which brings fear in my heart whenever I hear now anybody invoking the Lord’s own mandate for his/her appointment to some position of leadership or power.

I can only find solace in Exodus 20:7: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain.

  

  

 

Liberalizing LGUs

NO DAANG matuwid, all politics as usual, read: What are we in power for?

That is the installation of Liberal Party president Mar Roxas as secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government succeeding the publicly beatified Jesse Robredo.

"I have big shoes, big tsinelas, to fill." For once, Roxas was right. He certainly cannot even hope to measure up to Robredo. At best, he can only be good at holding Robredo's sandals. 

Robredo was as much known for being a loyal Liberal partyman as for being non-partisan in the dispensation of his duties as DILG headman. Look how the partisan divide closed in mourning over his passing.

Why, Robredo was even more than willing to dance and sleep with the enemy anytime, so to speak, as evidenced by his many working visits, not the least of which were the bestowing of the Seal of Good Housekeeping rewards, to  Pampanga, bastion of the perceived archfiend to PNoy.

What Robredo had a surfeit of, Roxas is seen as bereft of.

Why, Roxas' high partisanship transcends political partylines and cuts at the very pit of Malacanang, as exampled by his Balay gang engaging the Samar group in pitched battle for every senior position at stake.

So what can the nation expect of the DILG under the thumb of Roxas?

The "Liberalization" of the local government units, is no far-fetched idea. Which augurs well, as if you didn't know, for the LP agenda for 2013: a sweep of the Senate, a solid majority in the House, therewith laying the solidest stage for Roxas' presidential take-off in 2016.

Swell.   

“The President gave me a free mandate to choose my team." So Roxas told media. "I would expect that lahat ng mga co-terminus (positions) would be vacated by the time na pumasok tayo."

A carte blanche there.    

"Lahat ng mga co-terminus." No one spared. Not even presidential shooting buddy Rico Puno, who as DILG undersecretary was given by the President control of the Philippine National Police, instead of Robredo.

A fact that showed Aquino's lack of confidence in Robredo as DILG chief. A fact that gave the lie to the President's public display of faith in and affection to the dead Robredo.

With the PNP, Roxas wields the big stick, not only in crime prevention or solution but also in enforcing that the LGUs toe the partyline. The assignment of police chiefs make a most compelling reason for the local chief executives to be on the good side of the DILG secretary. Life and death of LGU intelligence -- in police parlance, that is -- hangs right there.

Still remember Usec Puno in the early days of the Aquino administration drawing flak from all sectors when he confirmed in public that he had received feelers from emissaries of illegal gambling operators?

That's the intelligence the police have been known for. Intelligence (im)properly applied could sustain patronage, fund political campaigns, even buy elections.    

Aye, both carrot and stick, so to speak, political and police powers reside in Roxas at the DILG. Which makes him a most powerful man in government, second only to the President. Mayhaps, even at par with the President given the "free mandate" he handed to Roxas .

So what can the nation expect of Roxas at the DILG?

Expectations are the root of all frustrations.

Better not to expect anything. Pray for a miracle instead.

Roxas did not fare well being Mr. Palengke at the Department of Trade. Miserably failing to arrest the soaring prices of basic commodities.

Roxas, as Transportation and Communications Secretary was totally clueless in finding solution to the air traffic congestion at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, stupidly proposing that airlines had to be forced to cut their flights by 30 percent in total negation of the efforts of the Department of Tourism to increase tourist arrivals to 10 million in two years.

Poised to take over his latest assignment, Roxas vowed: “On jueteng, on drugs, on kidnapping, illegal logging, malinaw na malinaw naman ang posisyon ng Pangulo dito sa krimen na ito. At gagampanan ko ang aking tugkulin para matigil at mahuli lahat itong mga gumagawa ng masama na ito.”    

So, are the proverbial marines still listening?