Pompous assness

HONORABLE HAS leaped out of its honorific confines to virtually become the generic forename of any elected official in this country.

From being a sign of respect exclusive to the heading of official letters – as in “The Honorable Brigido Biglangyaman, House of Representatives” – or in introductions in public functions – as in “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Honorable Mayor Simplicio Singatsinghot”” – Honorable  has been used, misused and abused to meaninglessness.

See how every memo pad of a public official bears the distinctive but not distinguished “From the Desk of The Honorable…”

Read how every letter – from pro-forma inter-governmental communications to cordial seasonal greetings – carried, below the complimentary close, “The Honorable…” above which the signature is scribbled.

Look at those namestands at every government executive’s desk: “The Hon. …” never absent even when the sitter is rarely present.

Moreso, those epal tarpaulins announcing local government projects or those of senators and congressmen: Honorable before the names, else the tarps will never see the light of day.

Epal. The expression of self-importance, the aggrandizement of the self, that’s how the once lofty Honorable has descended to dishonour.

Pompous ass-ness though is not exclusive to elected officials but runs the gamut of all fields. Media, included. And I mean – mea maxima culpa – not just those with in-character propensity for big words and even bigger phrases.                

There is pomposity too – I call it peacockry, referencing the showiness of the exotic bird – mostly in the misappropriation of titles.   

As in the position Editor-in-Chief.

This has been one recurring clarification in my invitations for press functions since I took the helm of this paper: I am the editor of Punto!. Plain editor. The paper has no E-I-C. As it should, having no other editors.

For a paper to have an E-I-C, it must have a requisite complement of section editors such as news editor, opinion page editor, business page editor, sports editor, entertainment editor, photo editor, etcetera. Not to mention managing and associate editors. 

The E-I-C serves as the top honcho of the editorial desk, the conductor orchestrating the different section editors in the make-up of the paper up to its publication.

If not utter stupidity, it is supreme pomposity then for practically all newspapers in Pampanga to sport the title E-I-C in their staff boxes, absent section editors,  and managing and associate editors non-existing.

An E-I-C, a reporter or two, a photographer, and a lay-out artist comprising all of the editorial desk make the grandest delusion in the local media.

But come to think of it, ain’t pomposity really a matter of delusion?

I remember a math professor in college who gave an automatic +5 to his students’ grades in every examination so long as his title of “Engineer” preceded his name in their test papers.

I went way overboard by writing “Engineer, Professor, Sir” before his name in my final exams paper. Mistaking my sarcasm for respect and awe, the fellow gave me a grade of over 100. The extra points retrievable in the next semester.

Yeah, backhanded flattery can get one somewhere, where pomposity presents itself.  

And then there is photographer par excellence Borj Meneses, the guru of glamorous portraiture, taken to addressing me “Maestro.”

Having long ago stopped teaching at the university, I asked him to stop honouring me with that noble title.

“Then, how do you want me to call you? Boss? Sir? Or Master?” Borj inquired.

I told him he could just call me god.

Yeah, pomposity has no limits.           

   

Living with libel

I HAVE had no problem with libel, notwithstanding the seven cases I had faced in my almost 40 years of writing. No bragging there, just being matter-of-factly.  

I have always considered a libel case as par for the course in the journalism field.

As a recourse – the only legal one – of anyone who felt maligned in print, broadcast, or personal utterance, to seek redress for her/his grievance. Indeed, the exercise of a civil right in our democratic state.

It is precisely owing to this core belief that I never begrudged all those people who took me to court – okay, to the prosecutor’s office – crying, at times ululating, that I libeled them.

I respected their right to seek my comeuppance for whatever perceived and felt wrong I did them. I respected them for their civility – of going the judicial course instead of taking the extra-judicial route with extreme prejudice.  

It is precisely because no libel complaint bearing my name as respondent ever prospered, all finding closure at the prosecutor’s office, that I have lived well with the reality of libel all these years.

Ah, my mistake: one libel case – that arising from my piece Romero ululating  – went beyond the prosecutor’s, after its dismissal and subsequent denial of a motion for reconsideration there, to the Department of Justice via the complainant’s petition for review. Only to be dismissed anew. Thus screamed this paper’s front page of July 9, 2013:  DOJ junks Romero petition: 3-time MOKA loser loses suit a 3rd time.

No, I did not mean to scratch old scars to draw fresh blood anew there. The case  is material to the issue at hand.

Any dismissal of a libel case is a cause for grand celebrations, as much for the personal triumph of the writer-respondent and his paper or radio-TV station, as for the victory of justice, and the supremacy of press freedom.

In our time, not too long ago, libel cases were never considered swords of Damocles hanging over our heads in our daily journalistic grind, but areas of opportunity to test the bounds of the freedom of expression. The possibility of libel cases never deterred us from the pursuit of the story, any story fit to print, to appropriate the hallowed motto of The New York Times.

No fear factor, no “chilling effect” then as now did a libel case serve as prior restraint in our exercise of this profession.

Feeling safeguarded as we were by Justice Malcolm, writing in United States v. Bustos, 37 Phil. 731, 740, 741, to wit:

“The interest of society and the maintenance of good government demand a full discussion of public affairs. Complete liberty to comment on the conduct of public men is a scalpel in the case of free speech. The sharp incision of its probe relieves the abscesses of officialdom. Men in public life may suffer under a hostile and unjust accusation; the wound can be assuaged with the balm of clear conscience. A public officer must not be too onion-skinned with reference to comment upon his official acts. Only thus can intelligence and dignity of the individual be exalted. Of course, criticism does not authorize defamation. Nevertheless, as an individual is less than the state, so must criticism be borne for the public good.”  

Indeed, there was this somewhat perverted sense we held then – a number of us still holds to this day – of libel cases as badges of honor, aye, journalism’s very version of the Medal of Valor, to be worn and displayed with pride. So the more libel complaints, the more effective, if not better, the journalist.

So it was with the late Ody Fabian of The Voice who landed himself at the Angeles City Jail over a libel complaint from the Angeles University Foundation Medical Center, and cleared of a P25-million case from a mayor, among others.

So it was with Sonny Lopez and Elmer Cato of the Angeles Sun, haled to the fiscal’s office by then Angeles City Mayor Antonio Abad Santos over exposes on corruption in the city government, and subsequently cleared of libel.

So it was with Ashley Jay Manabat of Sun-Star Clark tagged in a ridiculous P500-million suit over articles repudiating the doubly ridiculous claims of someone owning the Clark special ecozone along with practically the whole of Luzon.

So it was with me.        

Though, as much a vindication – of the correctness of the story, politically and factually, as a resolute re-commitment to the ethics of journalism is every dismissal of a libel case.

Two basic elements in journalism we have experienced as strong shields against libel: accuracy and fairness.

Precise as precise can be in the facts obtaining in one’s story. While truth is not always a defence in libel, inaccuracies make falsities that open the respondent to utter defencelessness.

Fairness is the antidote to malice – the usually most damning of libel’s four requisites. Evil intent or ill will on the part of the writer will be more difficult to establish in a story that presents all sides fairly.

Be truthful. Be accurate. Be fair. That’s what all the editors I worked with told me on my way up in the pecking order of the Fourth Estate.

I have upheld – did my best to, every which way I wrote – all three. Still, I’ve had my share of libel suits. And I’ve been lucky. Emerging unscathed, and rather stronger, from them.

Even as I’ve joined the voices raised against online libel in the Cybercrime Law, mainly for the harsh punitive provisions, I have this fear over the decriminalization of libel.

I am in awe of the honourable senators – Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Alan Peter Cayetano, Francis Escudero, Edgardo Angara and Teofisto Guingona III – moving toward that direction.     

However, I stand with Sen. Koko Pimentel in his cautionary plea to his peers on decriminalizing libel.

 “It’s a redress for grievance. If you’re libelled, you can file a complaint, and if the fiscal tells you no libel was committed, at least you feel you tried the remedy, and the potential penalty—since it’s a jail term—is sufficient enough to deter indiscriminate libelling of people,’’ rationalized Pimentel.

“If we decriminalize it, more people would feel they’re victims of injustice because they’ve been libelled, and they don’t have a remedy. We don’t want people to take the law into their hands because of inefficient justice system.’’

Inefficient justice system. That’s one operative phrase that has not really factored in amid all the noise rising from the Supreme Court’s declaration of the constitutionality of the Cybercrime Law.

Given the Maguindanao Massacre and other media killings even with libel laws extant, it will most certainly get even worse with libel decriminalized.

And the culture of impunity will get the nation in an even tighter grip.

Yeah, I would rather face summons from the prosecutor’s office than look straight into the barrel of a .45. I have been through that too.

No mere chilling effect but a polar vortex there.     

Cyberauthoritarianism

“THE JUSTICES who voted for retaining the libel provisions obviously have not graduated to the digital age. More worrisome: Their move constitutes one giant step toward state policing of the Internet. It is incumbent on us all to resist such a regressive move that can only end in cyberauthoritarianism.”

Thus spake Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello of Tuesday’s Supreme Court en banc decision upholding the constitutionality of the controversial online libel provision in Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

And more: “This is most unfortunate. The Supreme Court has just legislated a massive restriction on the freedom of speech. The justices are light years behind the practitioners of the social media. They simply do not understand how Internet exchange quickly separates truth from falsehood, how the Internet has a wonderful capacity for self-policing.”

Fast and furious were the denunciations heaped upon online libel under RA 10175.

Chilling effect. Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon said of the impact the ruling will have on netizens: “From Facebook to Twitter to Instagram and other social media, the decision will silence the netizens whose last recourse to evade culpability is probably to declare that their accounts had been hacked.”

Promptly raising the red flag: “The fight against e-martial law is far from over. We call on everyone to up the ante and once again show our collective dissent against this repressive law.”

Most erudite is journalist Inday Espina-Varona’s facebook post headlined No consolation: The SC and the Cybercime law, portions of which are quoted thus:

In an age where citizen participation in the fight against corruption is being solicited by governments around the world, the Philippines’ highest court has just opened the gate to those out to harass watchdogs.

…Governments asks citizens for help in curbing the monster that is corruption. THIS IS THEIR REWARD. Unjust doesn’t even begin to cover it.

The Supreme Court decision on the Cybercrime Law only makes citizen watchdogs vulnerable to people in power with the resources to harass voices of dissent.

This is especially tragic since truth is not a defense in libel under PH law. The criminal nature of libel in this country makes it the perfect tool of harassment (short of murder, which has also taken out so many Filipino journalists). For those who say only the unethical and the corrupt have to fear libel, think again. Many award-winning, highly-praised articles and series have been the bases for libel charges. Again, truth, ethics, won’t spare you. Not from the appalling cost of having to defend yourself in a criminal case.

Complainants may file their cases anywhere an offending article can be seen. They’ve done this to journalists. In the digital age, your blog and social media post can be read everywhere and woe to the poor citizen caught in the maws of a vindictive official.

…Whether or not you’re satisfied with the Supreme Court decision on the Cybercrime law, you can be assured of one thing: under the current climate of governance, those with the most reasons to silence opposing views and those with most to hide, will be crowing and giving each other high-fives.

Then again, nobody told us fighting for democracy would be a picnic. Given – the powers-that-be will exhaust all means to narrow democratic space. The question is, will we allow them? Will we roll over in defeat? Or do we fight tooth and nail for the right to free expression?

The fight must go on.

Aye, the cry of ages comes to fore anew: “Do not go gentle into that good night…Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Holding Jesus hostage

HIS IMAGE, that is.

Now that’s getting ahead of the story. But I am sure you already got the drift from the title alone. Least theology, mostly criminology here though.

So it came to pass that on December 30, 2013, just before the Betis fiesta procession, the Virgen de la Correa was found devoid of the Sto. Nino in the crook of her arm.

No cries of miracle, as is the wont when things like this happen, were, thankfully, raised. No addition to those tales of talking, dancing, and weeping Sto. Ninos of one walking away from the Blessed Mother and seen playing with the neighbourhood urchins.

Simply robbed was the Betis Church of its priceless heirloom of over 300 years, the images recorded in the 1790 inventory of the property of the church founded by the Augustinians in 1572.

A frantic search ensued.  

“We appeal to you to be on the lookout for this significant piece of Betis heritage and let us know of possible leads that can help us recover it,” the Archdiocesan Commission on Church Heritage (ACCH) posted on Facebook.

The police investigated, perfunctorily.

And then, the recovery of the image. By itself, nothing short of a miracle.

No, the image was not placed in a basket – like those abandoned babies – and placed at the doorway of a monastery. It was – head, hands, feet minus the body – in a plastic bag delivered on January 6, 2014, traditionally the Feast of the Three Kings, to the house of one Tom Joven, identified in news reports as an “art restorer” and president of the Parish Pastoral Council of San Guillermo Parish in Bacolor town. This, after Joven was reported to have paid P167,000. 

According to Joven, the wooden body was removed “to erase the identity of the image.”

“I went out of my way to help because I know this is a priceless legacy of the Augustinians,” he said, narrating how he reached out to his network of santo collectors and heritage advocates and followed the leads which took him to Metro Manila until he established contact with the person holding the image.

It would seem that this Joven has a knack for recovering stolen images. The intrepid Tonette Orejas’  Inquirer story on the recovery of the image related how “With the help of antique collectors and heritage workers in 2009, Joven also recovered an antique image of St. John the Apostle stolen from the cathedral of Tayabas City, Quezon province.” Same modus as in the case of the Betis image there. It was not said though if Joven paid any ransom for St. John.

So the image was recovered. And the whole of the Pampanga Church rejoiced. Though no Te Deum was held in thanksgiving for the image’s recovery.

A denunciation from the ACCH, in this instance, could not be helped: "In recent years, this illegal trade has been carried out with alarming boldness and shamelessness. In cases like this, some unscrupulous entities are bound to make easy money. It is most unfortunate that they choose to ignore the fact that what make religious icons priceless and precious are the historical, cultural and spiritual meanings that Catholic devotees attach to such symbols of their faith."

Resolving: "We vow to cooperate with authorities to minimize the threat of losing more church goods to thieves."

So all’s well that ends well?

Not quite, it appears.

Just last Friday, San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio S. David was reported to have wished an investigation on the image’s recovery were undertaken, seeing a possible violation of the anti-fencing law there.

Even as the prelate ascertained the “good intention” of Joven to retrieve the image, still he expressed dismay over the “lack of investigation on the theft and eventual recovery of the image.”

“Unfortunately, walang masyadong investigation na nagawa kasi nga ni-‘ransom’ nga. I would have wanted the police to really get involved but as of the moment, naibalik na, na-restore na. ‘Yon ang mahalaga.” So was David quoted as saying. Still: “I have a heavy heart because there was an exchange of money.”

Joven’s ransom did not come free for the Betis faithful, it turned out. The St. James the Apostle Parish has initiated second collections in Masses to raise funds for repayment of the ransom paid.

He did not have to say it, but I read Bishop Ambo’s concerns. 

Instead of “minimizing the threat of losing more church goods to thieves," as the ACCH hoped when it vowed to cooperate with authorities, ransoming the image may just bring in the contrary effect.

The government position of not giving in to ransom demands of kidnappers and terrorists equally applies here. The more ransom paid, the more kidnappings.

Unwittingly, the Betis incident may have opened a new opportunity for KFR – kidnap-for-ransom – groups. Aside from rich scions and elderly dons, they now have every antique santo as target. Easier targets at that, being not so much unwilling as unresisting, and easily bundled in their wooden or ivory forms.

And, by Jove, the KFRs know just the right, ready person to contact for ransom negotiations.      

Growth unlabored

SECOND ONLY to China – arguably the world’s biggest economy now – which posted 7.7 percent growth in 2013, is the Philippine economy’s 7.2 percent.

“This is a remarkable turnout as the economy grew better than our expected target of six to seven percent in 2013 despite the challenges we faced during the year, particularly the disasters that struck Central and Southern Philippines in the fourth quarter,” Socio-economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan declared on January 30, 2014.

Despite the typhoon that hit the Visayas in November last year, the economy grew by 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013, he added.

In no time at all, Malacañang’s loudspeaker amplified the “impressive” economic surge, thus: “A year of challenges did not deter us from impressive growth.” Hailed Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda: “(The) resilience of an economy that defied expectations, and the resilience of thousands of Filipinos, including the survivors themselves, who came together in the wake of calamities, as well as our people’s characteristic dynamism.”

Rapturously, now: “It is precisely because of these that we are confident that our countrymen will not only sustain, but accelerate the reform agenda that has led to these successes. We will not only revive and bolster the communities affected by calamities, but together, we will hasten our task of achieving lasting, inclusive growth that leaves no one behind.”

All that ecstasy at the end of January 2014. Eleven days later, on February 11, the agony of unemployment hit the national psyche. 

Malacanang’s “inclusive growth” left behind unemployed Filipinos who surged to 12.1 million during the last quarter of 2013, up by six points from the 9.6 million jobless recorded in September of that same year, a Social Weather Station survey conducted December 11-16 found.

An unemployment rate of 27.5 percent at the same time that the Philippine  economy grew by 7.2 percent. Some stark contradictions there.

What’s wrong? So a newspaper bannered President BS Aquino as asking his Cabinet. 

A ready answer from Lacierda: The increase in unemployment 4Q 2013 was “understandable” given the two natural calamities of  the 7.2-magnitude Bohol earthquake and super-typhoon “Yolanda” in Eastern Visayas – and one man-made calamity, the Zamboanga City siege.

(Numerologists may find something interesting there – 7.2 percent economic growth vis-à-vis the 7.2 magnitude Bohol earthquake.)

On one hand, despite the calamities, the economic growth of 7.2 percent was  achieved.

On the other, because of the calamities, the unemployment rate rose by 27.5 percent.

Dafuq? As netizens are wont to raise.

Yolanda and the earthquake are an alibi the working class heroes would not buy.

“The cause of the present jobs disaster in the country is not Yolanda but Noynoy. Aquino’s dependence on foreign investments and refusal to implement genuine land reform and national industrialization are disastrous for the employment situation in the country,” said Kilusang Mayo Uno Chairperson Elmer Labog in a statement.

To Bayan Secretary-General Renato Reyes Jr.: “Unemployment has been a chronic problem, existing even before the storm ravaged the country, and persisting because of the policies of the Aquino regime.”

This, even as he noted that the “areas of growth account for only eight percent of total employment, according to the government’s own statistics. Sectors such as agriculture and fisheries have consistently lagged behind.” And therefrom blamed government not having a “real program” for land reform and industrialization.

To Partido ng Manggagawa Chair Renato Magtubo: “We are more troubled with the fact that after more than three years in office, the Aquino administration has yet to understand the root cause of this chronic problem.  And it’s not about the weather…trade liberalization both in industry and agriculture, lack of industrial program, and the privatization-led growth model were to blame.”

Understanding that chronic problem and its root cause may begin with some reading of E.F. Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered:

“There is universal agreement that a fundamental source of wealth is human labour. Now, the modern economist has been brought up to consider "labour" or work as little more than a necessary evil. From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it cannot be eliminated altogether, say, by automation…”

Solving that chronic problem may begin with a totally different read. Yeah, Das Kapital lives.   

At 60

AKIN TO a near-death experience.

That’s what turning 60 turns out to be. At least, to me.

Two things those who’ve come back from the threshold of the hereafter invariably, if untiringly, talk about: 1) seeing a blinding white light at the end of some tunnel whence emerge some long dead close kin; and 2) milestones of their lives flashing before their very eyes.

It is the second that my passage to dual citizenship assumed. Through the mist of memory now…

Age 3, mangroves at our backyard were cut to widen the river. Gone with the trees was the kingfisher that perched on their branches, day after day patiently waiting to pounce on the small gurami swimming below.  Come to think of it now, that could have served as my first lesson in ecology, in the symbiosis of living things.

Altar boy at 7, memorizing the Tridentine Mass – Introibo ad altare Dei, celebrant intones; Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam, acolyte me answers…Confiteor Deo omnipotenti beatae Mariae…with only mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa still extant in the mind now. 

Wanted to be a priest at 10 – to be “the greatest gift of God to men, and the greatest gift of men to God,” in the words of my cura parroco Quirino Canilao – off to the Mater Boni Consilii Seminary at 12, after my first and only year at the Jose Abad Santos High School (now reverted to Pampanga High School) where I first saw my name in print: in the Pampangan for the story “Discipline via the squad system” and Sinukwan for a sanaysay on the school, its facilities and people which headline I cannot anymore recall. Alas, that fling started this lifelong affair with journalism

Out of the seminary at 18, and out of the Faith too. The contradictions, historical as well as dialectical, between God and Marx sowed in so pliant a mind as a mediano, that is second year high school at Mater Boni, and nurtured onward coming to a head at the San Jose Seminary. Nietzsche’s right: God is dead. It did not matter that Nietzsche was even deader than dead.

In college now, an essay in Creative Writing class with my obsession to die at an early age as topic sentence. Why so? My teacher asked. Then I would achieve the ultimate in greatness.

And what was that? He inquired.

“That of being young, gifted, and dead.”

Faced not so much with death as with incarceration and torture, being an activist in the military’s order of battle upon the declaration of martial law, I ran – to my spiritual director and Mater Boni rector, the Rev. Paciano B. Aniceto. Time and again I have written, were it not for the unconditional love of the good Apu Ceto I would have most surely ended along the road to perdition.  

A contradiction: from shouts of “Ibagsak ang diktadurang US-Marcos”  to the strains of “May bagong silang, may bago nang buhay, bagong bansa, bagoong galaw, sa Bagong Lipunan…”  Work after graduation, the National Intelligence and Security Agency did not leave me with much choice.    

At 21, the firm resolution: “Only fools get married.”

At 24, I made myself one. Before my firstborn, managed to co-father the Central Luzon Media Association, the first and still only regional association of working media persons in the whole Philippines.

Regional director, albeit an OIC, of the Department of Public Information at 27. All thoughts of continuing a career in government – buttressed by studies at the Development Academy of the Philippines and a scholarship grant at the Perhubungan Raya Malaysia – banished by the EDSA Revolution of 1986.

Mainstream journalism followed: correspondent of the Journal Group – People’s Tonight, People’s Journal, and Times Journal contemporaneously stringer for the Associated Press; columnist and editorial consultant of The Voice and Angeles Sun; opinion editor of Headline Manila and news editor of Headline Extra.

Interlude in early 1990s, government consultancy, in public affairs, primarily: the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources with Sec. Jun Factoran, interspersed with the FVR presidential campaign; the Department of the Interior and Local Government with Sec. Raffy Alunan.

At 41, backstopped the gubernatorial campaign of Lito Lapid and served as his senior consultant officially, and spinmeister, covertly, upon his assumption of the Capitol. Contemporaneously, helped Joe Pavia established Pampanga’s and Central Luzon’s first daily, Sun-Star Clark, now Sun-Star Pampanga and served as associate editor.

At 44, back to mainstream media – Pulitika, Atbpa over dwGV-AM, and The Voice again, cut short by the ambush right in front of the radio station, sending me fleeing to the USA, and a desk editorial job at Ang Peryodiko in L.A.

Back home in barely six months, back to dwGV-AM with Alas-4 Na and with a column in Pampanga News. More importantly, back to hard-hitting commentaries.

The political phenomenon that was the Among Ed gubernatorial campaign in 2007, timed perfectly with the birthing of Punto! Central Luzon. And the chronicles of irreverence that was Reverend Governor came to publication.

New day dawning or old order restoring in the mag-inda now at the Capitol…

What have I been seeing, it’s all the me in turning 60. This is not so. This must not be.

Or, is it really? As in death – so ‘tis said – one accounts for one’s life. Still, that’s simply chronicling, life’s got to have some real meaning.

Maybe, there’s some good philosophy in that witticism of 60 as the new 40, taking after that adage on life beginning at 40.

At 60, born a new me. Emancipated from the shackles of the libido – at this age, sex should only be a matter of gender, as that line from a movie or a book – memory fails now – decreed, I can only be the intellectual Aldous Huxley defined: “someone who has discovered something more interesting than sex.”

More interesting things as travelling, while physical mobility and financial viability still allow it, thus St. Augustine: “Travel is like a book, those who have been to only one place have just read one page.”  

More interesting things as reading and writing, to quote Francis Bacon: “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.” More specifically, on philosophy to feed the mind – so important with the advancement of age, and on spirituality to nurture the soul – with intimations of one’s mortality becoming more and more apparent. In order for the former is a renewal of acquaintanceship with Kant and Kierkegaard, Hegel and Hobbes, Schopenhauer  and Spinoza, Nietzsche too. And for the latter, Augustine and Aquinas, Buddha.   

More interesting things as being… just be.      

   

Blissful ignorance

“ANG PAGTATAG  ng maraming negosyo na lilikha naman ng maraming trabaho ay prayoridad ng Pangulong Aquino upang lalong mapaunlad ang Clark (The establishment of more businesses which will generate more jobs is a priority of President Aquino to further develop Clark).”

So Headline Gitnang Luzon reported Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. as saying.

“President Benigno S. Aquino lll will invite more investors to create more jobs at the Clark Freeport Zone in Pampanga.” Read the lead of the paper’s February 3 banner “Malacañang priority, PNoy bares action plan for Clark.”

Not to be outbannered, Sun-Star Pampanga had its own quote of Coloma, thus: 

"Bibigyan po ng prayoridad ng pamahalaan ang Clark development sa ilalim ng administrasyon ni Pangulong Aquino (The government will give priority to Clark development under the administration of President Aquino).”

So screamed its February 3 headline: “Guiao lauds PNoy for Clark dev’t plan.”

And gushed: “The swift response of Malacañang came just a day after Guiao delivered his privilege speech at the House of Representatives, where he urged the President to issue a concrete policy statement on Clark and its airport.

The appeal was a result of the consolidated inputs of the Clark Challenge: Stakeholders’ Summit some two weeks ago.

“We are very much elated about President Aquino prioritizing the development of Clark. His giving attention to it is a manifestation that he wants to leave a legacy to the region where he comes from,” said Guiao.

Pardon, but whatever plan both Headline Gitnang Luzon and Sun-Star Pampanga bannered is nowhere in the body of their respective stories. Not even an adumbration of it can be traced thereat.

An action plan – the way we were made to understand in our Organization Development studies at the Development Academy of the Philippines, as well as in our Certificate Course in Public Relations at the Institiut Perhubungan Raya in Kuala Lumpur, albeit in the 1980s yet – comprised, among others, definitively measurable activities backed by resources and bounded by time.

So where’s the what, the how, and the when in the reported PNoy’s action plan for Clark?

So what “swift response from Malacanang” are we to rave about?

  

So Headline Gitnang Luzon reported:  “Coloma disclosed that three options were submitted by the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) Secretary Emilio Joseph Abaya to President Aquino, including a single airport system that would involve the closure of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and the development of Clark International Airport in Pampanga; a dual airport system which would involve the development of the Clark airport as well as the maximization of NAIA operations until 2025 while looking for a new airport site 25 kilometers or 30 minutes away from the existing gateway; and the dual NAIA-Clark airport system.

Disclose is the operative word there. Which dictionary meaning is “to make (secret or new information) known.”

What Coloma was reported as saying is no new information revealed in the wake of Guiao’s summit and privilege speech. What Coloma said was recycled hogwash, stock-in-trade government response whenever the development of Clark is raised.

From the Philippine Star “updated October 25, 2013” and bylined Lawrence Agcaoili: DOTC taps JICA for new airport study: 

In an interview on the sidelines of the 39th Philippine Business Conference and Expo, Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said the Aquino administration has asked JICA to do a study on the possible replacement for NAIA...

He pointed out that the agency has already presented two options to President Aquino as Malacañang is inclined to adopt the dual or twin airport system than a single airport system.

The first option, he said, is to develop Clark International Airport in Pampanga, maximize the runway and terminal capacity of the 32-year old NAIA, and put up a new airport that would replace the congested international gateway.

The option also involves the closure and the sale of the existing NAIA.

On the other hand, Abaya said the second option entails the operation of the Clark International airport, NAIA, and the new airport.

“We are going up to the President to get a final decision. We are now master planning Clark. We will invest in Clark but we won’t put all our eggs in Clark but we will make sure that we will stunt the growth in Clark. In NAIA, we will maximize runway capacity and terminal capacity and eventually we will hit a ceiling in NAIA either in 2018 or 2020,” he added.

And much earlier, from inquirer.net written by Paolo G. Montecillo and dated February 28, 2013:  

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) said different plans for Clark and its Manila counterpart, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia), would be brought up to the Cabinet economic cluster and later to the President for approval within the month.

The choice would be between maintaining two major airports—Clark and Naia—supporting each other, or vacating Manila in favor of the former US military base.

Malacañang also has the option of establishing a brand-new airport inside Metro Manila or in a nearby province that will replace the existing Naia complex in Pasay City.

“We are finalizing plans and bring this to the President [for a final] decision,” Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said Thursday.

Abaya admitted that while there were several options on the table, no clear favorite has emerged and it would be up to the President to take his pick.

“Will we have one or two gateways? Do we close down Naia in the future for some other airport? A lot of stakeholders are waiting for these decisions,” Abaya said in a radio interview.

“What’s important is that a decision is made soon so projects can move forward,” he added.

Nearly a year hence, what PNoy plan, much less any decision obtained in Clark, pray tell? Almost a year since, Coloma chirrups a recurrent refrain of Abaya’s discordant notes.

Still, Guiao enthused: “Clark stakeholders and people of Central and North Luzon are encouraged by the President’s move to prioritize the development of the Freeport and its airport. It gives us a very strong assurance on the development of the Freeport and Clark International Airport in our efforts to keep on pushing for its growth which will benefit not only the region but the whole country as well.”

Kababo tamu kilabot. So naïve, easily pleased we are, to put it most kindly. Aye, we are that which P.T. Barnum said is born every minute.   

Bench me for this Coach, but can’t you see this administration is taking the Clark stakeholders for a ride on a Ferris wheel here? In the more colourful language of the alley, sinasakay tayo sa tsubibo. 

And we should be grateful for it?

Alas, that street filosofo is right: E mu tatasan ing camulalan da reng Capampangan. In straight, if kinder, English: Never underestimate the gullibility of the Capampangan.  Indeed, ignorance is bliss.

Shucks.

The making of a city

ABORTED BY the threat of lahar after its very conception in 1995, miscarried – induced by the financial crisis – in 1997, and stillborn because of the 1998 elections. That was the wringer the dream of cityhood for Pampanga’s capital town went through.

“But for the persistence and dogged determination of Congressman Oscar S. Rodriguez, there would have been no birthing to the City of San Fernando,” says Redgie Salas-Szal, a member of the legislative staff that prepared the paperwork for cityhood.

Soon as the din of the 1995 elections died down, Oca, fresh from electoral victory,  took with characteristic boldness the preparatory steps to the realization of his dream by immediately buckling down to work in preparing the bill at the House of Representatives to start the municipality’s campaign for cityhood.

Disaster came in October that year, with lahar rampages that buried Barrio Cabalantian, Bacolor and hit San Pedro Cutud, Sto. Nino, San Juan and threatened the very center of San Fernando.

The exigency of San Fernando’s very survival took paramouncy, and the preparations for the cityhood bill had to be shelved, albeit temporarily.

Battling, if not belittling the scepticism of national government officials – they that cried to “let nature take its course”” and called for the abandonment of the province – Oca maximized his efforts in saving Pampanga and San Fernando from the onslaught of lahar, mobilizing citizen participation in lobbying government for engineering interventions. The FVR Megadike stands today as a solid testament to these efforts.

Towards the end of 1996, when the province was assured of relative safety from lahar, Oca picked up anew the pursuit of cityhood. Alas, lack of support from the municipal government took the wind out of the cityhood sails.

Priority was still anti-lahar infrastructure and flood-mitigating measures. The all-important requirements for cityhood took the back seat in the municipal government. Eventually, the cityhood bill gathered dust at the House Committee on Local Government where it was referred after its filing.

Then in January 1997, intense pressure from a cross-section of the San Fernando community prodded the Sangguniang Bayan to pass Resolution No. 97-001 – sponsored by Councilors Eduardo Quiambao and Ceferino Laus – requesting the Congress of the Philippine through Rep. Oscar S. Rodriguez to convert the municipality of San Fernando into a component city.

A separate resolution for the Senate was unanimously approved by the SB a month later.

On April 23, 1997, Oca filed HB9267, “An Act Converting the Municipality of San Fernando into a Component City to be known as the City of San Fernando.”

But as the cityhood movement gained renewed momentum, the election season came. And as is the way of things in the Philippines, everything stops to give way to politics. Cityhood was lost in the cacophony of the election campaign.

Still, Oca would not just be denied: of his re-election, and his cityhood dream. He lost no time refiling the cityhood bill as HB1397, this time ensuring that the municipal government met all the prerequisites for cityhood, starting with the town’s barangay councils passing resolutions “strongly” endorsing the transformation of San Fernando into a city.

In a letter on July 6, 1998, Mayor Rey Aquino urged the SB to pass a resolution endorsing the conversion of the municipality into a city. Two short days after, Resolution No. 98-001, sponsored by Councilor Dennis Dizon, was unanimously approved. The cityhood resolution was endorsed to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan which subsequently made its own endorsement.       

San Fernando had no problem in meeting the other prerequisites to cityhood. It had a minimum population of 193,000 inhabitants at that time as certified by the National Statistics Office and the latest annual registered income of at least P53 million, based on 1998 prices as certified by the Department of Finance.

Oca very well knew that with cityhood, San Fernando’s annual income would further improve and basic services to the Fernandinos would be greatly enhanced.

Aside from the additional income and expanded services, Oca saw in the city greater local autonomy and lesser supervision from the national government. And the subsequent, if not consequent, independence from the province as a highly urbanized city and its entitlement to a separate legislative district in Congress.

For his part, Mayor Aquino formed an ad-hoc committee with Engr. Mike Quizon as head, and then started a town-wide cityhood information drive.

And then a new setback: the penny-pinching policy of the new Estrada administration dictated by international financial institutions for the country to cope with the Asian financial crisis.

Budgetary constraints forced the House of Representatives to suspend all impending conversion of municipalities into cities. Oca’s bill was not spared from the freezer; the city of his dream, on-hold in suspended animation.

But Oca’s tough-as-nails persistence just would not give up. Drawing from the wellspring of goodwill he cultivated through his years in Congress, and with the evangelical zeal of a Dominican on his first foreign mission, Oca moved his peers to see and share his dream. On third and final reading, March 9, 1999, the House approved HB6766 converting the municipality of San Fernando into a component city.

Transmitted to the Senate and presented to public hearing by the Senate Majority Floor Leader at the Senate Committee on Local Government, it took all of 13 days for Senate Bill No. 2192 converting the Municipality of San Fernando into a city to be approved.

On Januray 5, 2001, a historic event took place in Malacanang Palace upon the signing of Republic Act No. 8990 by His Excellency, President Joseph E. Estrada, creating the independent component city of San Fernando.

But the birthing pains persisted.

The usually warring local politicians, vested interest groups and cause-oriented militants succeeded in forming a tenuous alliance to mount opposition to San Fernando’s cityhood. Their main arguments of increased taxes, prohibitive social costs and dreary urban blights did not dull the sheen of cosmopolitan appeal of a San Fernando City. Never mind the “No more flooding, Yes to cityhood” inanity of the Mayor Aquino campaign.

Thus, in what amounted to a perfect preview of the May 2001 elections, the cityhood was ratified in the plebiscite of February 4, 2001 – and its father, Oca is given his just and due recognition.

(Lifted from my book Oca: A Story of Struggle (2005) as a contribution to the  celebration of the 13^th anniversary of the City of San Fernando.)