Thank you, Dick Gordon, for providing me an easier topic to write about.

I’ve been attempting to return to active blogging for quite some time now but most of the issues I consider worthy of doing so are also quite… sensitive. I couldn’t even begin writing for fear – yes, fear – of being called at the outset by Noynoy’s fanboys that I’m either a “pakawala” of the Palace or downright Evil, since de Quiros has basically declared Cory’s Only Son as the embodiment of Good and everyone else not behind him as Satan’s little imps.

No wonder Dicky Boy’s little perfidy on the Flag got to the point that its already approved by the Bicameral Committee. They’re too busy fawning over the Only Son of Cory and Ninoy to have noticed something was squirming its way into our nation’s body of laws. If I remember my legislative procedures right, that means the travesty to be done on the Three Stars and the Sun – now with nine rays! – is essentially a done deal Republic Act in all but name and draft, unless the person De Quiros and the rest of Noynoy’s fanboys regards as Satan in Little Girl Form is convinced to veto the measure amending Republic Act 8491.  (and it has to be a Veto, since “sitting” on a proposed RA doesn’t stop it from being one)

Gordon’s arguments and press statements (I’m assuming his press statements stem from his arguments for the proposed bill) show a shallow knowledge of history, which makes me want to question the competence of the good senator’s research staff and the good Senator himself.

Like I said in a Plurk of mine, using the argument that a ninth ray on the flag’s Sun to symbolize “the contributions of our fellow countrymen, the Filipino Muslims,” must mean Dick Gordon either slept through or did not appreciate his Junior and Senior Year history classes in the Ateneo. Hellfire, our whole upperclassman years in the Ateneo are spent on PHILIPPINE HISTORY, with one of the classes in fact being called, “Rizal and the Emergence of the Filipino Nation.”

The thesis in those classes was simple: the concept of the Philippines as a nation, and us little brown guys being Filipinos only came about when Rizal started expounding on the ideas of nationalism he was already exploring as a young, bestselling writer. There was no Philippines, no Filipinos, until the Katipunan, inspired, guided and united by Rizal’s writings, declared they were. Ateneo history classes, in fact, teach that Rizal was the first Filipino. Before him, before the Katipunan, before the Revolution against Spain in 1896, there was no concept of one country called the Philippines.

What we had were a collection of large tracts of lands – you call them provinces today, or even regions – where there was a preponderance of a particular ethno-linguistic group. Tagalogs fought Kapampangans as much as they did the Conquistadores. Certianly, the Muslims who occupied much of Mindanao raided their “Filipino” neighbors in the Visayas and even Luzon and fought those Christian landgrabbers as much as the white men that led them.

I think, too, that current historical conventions concede that Lapu Lapu, the so-called first Filipino hero, did not fight Ferdinand Magellan out of a sense of nationalistic imperative. If I remember the details correctly (and I will link to it once I find the relevant and authoritative studies/papers), the assault by Magellan on Lapu Lapu was part of an effort to cement his (Magellan’s) recent compact with Rajah Humabon. How? By taking out the good Rajah’s rival. Yes, it was more a turf war between local kingpins than a battle for Philippine sovereignty against a foreign invader.

Because the Philippines, as a socio-political entity, did not exist at the time and wouldn’t so for centuries!

Recall your basic history: what are those eight rays for again? The first eight provinces to declare for the Revolution of 1896. The first eight Filipino provinces. Not Tagalog, not Ilocano, not Pangasinense or Kapangpangan.  Filipinos.  When the Katipuneros tore their cedulas and declared independence from Spain, they weren’t doing that to free, say, the Katagalugan or Ilocanos or Kapangpangans (whose Macabebe scouts were the regular bane of nationalists at the time), but for an independent, sovereign Philippines.

What were the Muslims down South doing at the time? Were they at least even cheering on their supposed compatriots in Manila?

Most likely fighting invaders exported to Mindanao from Luzon by the Spanish, if not raiding the lands of those “Filipinos” for plunder and slaves.

This is not to denigrate nor deny any role Muslim Filipinos have in the building, advancement and protection of this nation.  This is not some Catholic denying Filipino Muslims their place in the Republic. Religion and Race has nothing to do with this. History and reality do.

I mean, c’mon, admit it: most Muslims in this country are of the opinion that we Filipinos – meaning the ones who occupy Luzon and maybe the Visayas, too (since I’ve often heard Bisayas scoffing at the dictates of  ”Imperial Manila” to them, as if they were a separate state and not part of the political entity known as the Republic of the Philippines) – invaded them and took their land. A succession of “imperialists” from the Spanish, the Americans and then Marcos eventually replaced the then-majority Muslims in Mindanao with people from Luzon and Visayas so that the ethnic makeup in its richest areas is more “Filipino” than “Muslim.”

I remember hearing that from a Muslim friend who hailed from Davao. “We don’t consider ourselves as Filipinos,” he said. Was I talking to a Mujahedin trained in Iran and who fought in Afghanistan for the jihad? No; he was a graduate of Ateneo de Davao and as secular a Muslim you can find. I tell you now, supposedly politically-aware person I claimed to be, I was shocked to hear that. All along I thought it was just an issue of “living as they wish” and getting their land back for the Muslims in Mindanao. Never did I once think they didn’t consider themselves Filipinos, that they were essentially a people subjugated by Imperial Manila.

I don’t know how many Muslims in this country feel that way. Certainly, the long-running conflict in Mindanao attests to a significant number of them who think the Three Stars and the Sun is as much an imperialist power trampling their land if not their Faith, too, as the Cross and Sword of Spain, or the Stars and Stripes (and .45 caliber pistols) of the Americans.

So there is a certain degree of… misinformation in Senator Dick Gordon saying adding a ninth ray to our Flag’s sun will help make things better between the majority of Filipinos and their Muslim brothers. In the first place, how many of the latter think of themselves as citizens of the Philippines, anyway, instead of, say, Bangsamoro? How can adding that ninth ray for them help solve the issues that sparked the separatist wars in Mindanao when the issue has never been about recognition but perceived imperialism?

And has no one from the National Historical Institute even voiced a concern with the good Senator how putting that ray beside the First Eight Provinces spits on the rationale behind those rays and its context?

No offense to Muslim Filipinos, but… what contributions, really, did Muslims give for the independence of the entity known as the Philippines, at least at par with what those eight provinces did or gave? If even for the Malolos Congress Mabini and/or Aguinaldo had invited, say, the Sultan of Sulu, to participate in the drafting of a constitution for the First Republic of the Philippines, would they have gone? Or would they have told the Sublime Paralytic and/or the first President to shove their invites up their Christian, landgrabbing, asses and get the hell off their islands?

Lapu Lapu? he was a local warlord engaged in a turf war with another local warlord who happened to have this guest who was all bravado but didn’t know how fierce the natives were or that European plate mail is really not a nice thing to wear when wading ashore.

And who are Sultan Kudarat, Amai Pakpak, and Sorongan? They helped and bled for the Philippines and their fellow Filipinos the same way the people of Manila, Cavite, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bataan, Laguna and Batangas fought and died for the idea of an independent country called the Philippines and, eventually, that very same flag when it first flew on Philippine soil in 1898?

Those eight rays are in honor of the brave men and women from those eight provinces that first – notice the word: first - had the gall to challenge the then-greatest empire in the world (in decline, yes, since the British and Americans were in ascendancy at the time, but that’s details) and bleed for Asia’s first Republic.

Putting another ray there, for all its good intentions – and given the good senator’s political ambitions, you have to wonder if his intentions were good in the first place, although the road to hell is said to be paved as much by the first intent than really despicable ones – is, in my opinion, a grave dishonor to the memory of the first eight provinces. The Americans add stars to their flag when a new State enters the Union, but have you heard them call for adding another stripe to it in honor of Muslim Americans? How about the Hispanics, then? Or the American Jews? Or the Irish? And the Filipinos, too!

It is also a grave distortion of our history by claiming things otherwise for people just for political agendas. Lapu Lapu did not fight for the Philippines because such an entity did not exist at the time. And, last I looked and learned, all our historical documents, all of Rizal’s writings, did not show any significant Muslim involvement in the formation and defense of the Philippines when it became a fact in 1896.

I believe there are many Muslims who have done many things for this country, and who regard themselves as true sons and daughters of this country, even proud of it. For all that they have done, I salute them and embrace them as fellow Filipinos and will be the first to call for their recognition. For all the wrongs visited on them by us, their countrymen, I will be the first to seek forgiveness and ask how we can bring justice to their dead and make redress.

But putting a ninth ray on the Philippine Flag, based on the context Dick Gordon and the other members of the Bicam Committee gave out, is flat out wrong.

Because it not only distorts history and in a way cheapens the sacrifices of the first eight provinces as well as spits on the significance of their actions, but also confuses the whole casus belli of the Mindanao conflict by declaring its all a matter of integration and recognition.

In fact, it can further inflame the anger and hate. I can expect people, many of them Muslim Filipinos, to probably scrag me for many of the above comments, even considering my arguments. But those are the hard facts (at least the historical ones, as of my current knowledge; the one about how many Muslims in this country actually don’t consider themselves Filipinos as asserted by my Muslim friend would require a carefully-done study). Yet there is no way that one party or another won’t be offended by the arguments in the debates that would follow.

And some of those offended parties have guns. And are waging a war down south.

Again, my apologies to any Muslim Filipinos who have been offended by any of my pronouncements above. If you have evidence and/or arguments to the contrary, please speak up, and preferably link to the relevant information and/or sources. Credit to whom credit is due, after all.

If you’re a Muslim in this country and you don’t consider yourself a Filipino, I doubt you’d be complaining, anyway.

Before the introduction of fire-retardant chemicals, water was, of course, the most common extinguisher used. But, as anyone who listened to basic physics class knows, water, if used improperly on a raging inferno, can actually help feed it since every water molecule is made up of two oxygen atoms. And oxygen feeds fires.

What’s that again? The third atom is Hydrogen? What does hydrogen do again?

Its the same with this move led by Dicky Boy himself. Rather than (help) solve the problem,because he’s improperly using (I would even hazard to say abusing) something, he could in fact be feeding hydrogen cells to the conflagration that is the Mindanao Conflict.

Terror as a policy tool is meant to destroy its target as much from the inside as from outside. The deaths, the horror at lives lost or much reduced (in the case of those who survived but are horribly maimed, emotionally as well as physically), may have been the “immediate” target but Terror is as much strategic in its goals as it is tactical in its targeting.

A battle done on an open field between contending armies can shatter morale, at best, of a whole armed force, even a nation, but morale is something that can be recovered; Dunkirk and its aftermath showed us that. Terror, on the other hand, seeks to drive a dolorous blow to the very soul of the society its perpetrators target.

9/11 wasn’t just about the ending of lives in an extremely violent manner. If slaughter was the only objective of the sick, demonic individuals who planned, organized, supported and executed the whole thing,  there were targets easier to reach, with more lives to snuff. No: if there will be deaths, they must be done in significant numbers, and on locations with significance to the collective psyche of the target society. Which is why the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were hit. Aside from there being large numbers of people there, they were symbols.

That is what Terror seeks to injure, if not kill outright: the spirit, the soul, of a people. Modern, Al Qaeda-class, Terrorism is about the symbolic more than the actual because at the end of the day these fanatics aren’t fighting against people but against an IDEAL. An IDEA. Americans aren’t the target because they happen to be citizens of a powerful country belligerent to a Jihadist’s nation. They are the targets because they are part of the Great Satan. The imagery is important here, after all.

Which is why, I think, this piece in the New York Times about how life is near Ground Zero nearly a decade after is, in its almost bland presentation of today as compared to all those years before, an eloquent testimony to the resiliency of a people, of democracy itself. People and businesses are not only back but thriving. The concern is there, I am sure, but where is the fear that paralyzes? Where is the anger that blinds?

In much the same way (I think) the leaders – political and military – of the Western World (and its allies) have been incorrect in their assessment of the true nature of the threat facing them from Bin Laden’s twisted mind and soul, that same madman has so underestimated the world he wanted to destroy. The Towers fell like Babylon’s. People died in the thousands. Surely, the Great Satan will be cowed, its mightiest city turned into a shell of its former self.

Yet look at New York now.

It is also a condemnation of extreme Right Wing thinking. The knee-jerk reaction would have been to turn New York into a Fortress City, thinking that all that obvious military power and the suppression of rights and freedoms would save people and the city itself.

What the Right Wingers never see in situations like this is that THAT is part of the objectives of this unjustified jihad. Physical deaths are part and parcel of Terrorism, but its ultimate goal is the utter perversion of the fundamental concepts of its target society. The things a modern, democratic, secular society celebrates are the targets, because in the oppressive, tunnel-vision world of the Radical Fundamentalist these ideas and ideals are the enemy.

The biggest blow a society that is a victim of Terror attacks can make against these abhorrent excuses for human beings is to remain as they were, if not become a better society, stronger and more united than before the attacks. In fact, the perfidy of the Terrorist should be a cause for the society so harmed to assess itself and reaffirm the basic values it treasures and defines it. For, truly, what is wrong about democracy? What is wrong about the freedom – the right - to express one’s thoughts and feelings; to worship the God you wish, in the manner you want, or maybe no God at all; to eat and drink and dress and do what you will?

Terror, by its very name, seeks to cow the human spirit through fear and intimidation. It tries to impose its will on us by pointing out to us that the cost of our living the lives we wish is death and destruction.

If we give in to that fear, allow that intimidation – be it from the Terrorist or our own governments reacting extremely to such a threat – then they have truly won.

But if we live and laugh and play just as we did before the Terror came, or do so but only more responsibly, less excessively, with a deeper appreciation of the truly important things in our lives as a freedom-loving people, then no matter how many die, how much is destroyed… Terror will never win. It will be painful, yes, and we must express our sorrow too at the lives unjustly and untimely ended, but if we go on living the life we all chose as citizens in a free and democratic country… then I think we can give no greater honor to our dead.

Just like what New York has done. For there is no stronger defiance to Bin Laden and his hellbound cabal of Terrorists than people sitting on Times Square enjoying a wonderful day gifted by the Almighty to all his creations.

When news first came out about the battle Former Pres. Cory Aquino was having with colon cancer, I had mixed feelings. And this reaction, which continues even to today as I monitor the activities and commentaries accompanying her death, is certainly… odd.

Context is such a very important thing, to someone with my type of training in analysis. One of the first things you ask inevitably is, “where is this person coming from?” Context places everything in what I think is the proper light, for, in my view, knowing where something comes from, or was taken from, explains a great deal why actions and thoughts by individuals are what they are.

And the context of my reactions to the long battle of Cory with Cancer, and her recent death, is in the role she was said to have played in the LP Civil War, as well as her apology to Joseph Estrada for his ouster in 2001. Both hit home hard for me because those were two very important things to me, the Party I cherished, and the cause I fought for. The… adversarial role she played greatly colored my reactions to the news of her ailment and her death.

It is also the reason I have not gone to any of the wakes for her. Much as I would like to offer her my final respects, there are so many people there, I know, who might… question my presence. What is another “defender of Gloria” doing there, sullying the wake for Cory? The Marcoses can be forgiven, but not Gloria and her people.

And respect for Cory, despite the context of my issues with her, must be given, indeed. Growing up in a household where the Matriarch (my lola) is a Blue Lady can color your early perception of People Power I and the Aquinos. Spending your early adolescence with the power out for half the day (and thus being unable to enjoy your PC XT) can further that. And then, many years later, you hear Jovy Salonga’s and the Party’s side of the story about the US Bases issue.

Yet as my father pointed out, all that Cory ever promised was a restoration of our democracy and the rebuilding of its institutions. Everything else – the failure to dissolve the ancient regime of feudalism in our democracy, the dead on Mendiola, the power outages, the seven coups, the US Bases – is just peripheral details. Today, you can say, on air, that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is a bitch that should be brought out and shot, and all you’d probably get is snarling responses from Cerge Remonde or some Palace official, or (at worst) a libel suit from somebody. As Rep. Teddy Locsin pointed out recently, its nice to know that you wake the next day without your government having done anything bad to you in the night. For that alone, Cory should at least be given the highest honors.

I’ve also seen the plaudits, and this is only over at the Inquirer; God knows what else is being said out there. I find it particularly… amusing that the Radical Left said all of those things, even to Joma calling the Aquinos “famly friends.” Lets leave my comment at that: I find it amusing. And I’ll leave these people to deify Cory.

Perhaps there really is something about this job that shears off that “protective film” that covers the eyes, ears and other senses of the public. You know too much, have seen these leaders in moments when there is no camera, no significant number of “civilians.” The “spin” their meisters and apologists foist on an unsuspecting public works not for you because you have… experienced these paragons in a different context. And it gets worse when its actually your job to make this “spin.” Sometimes, I think we PR professionals for national leaders are the saddest creatures because we cannot have the blissful safety of ignorance.

But then, I remember a different Cory. Very different from the seeming-demigod being rained plaudits and praises over national media, each paean trying to outdo the other. Like I said, you spend time with the “big people” as often as I do, you get… jaded. You’ve seen it all. You probably even shared laughs and drinks with some of them.

I’ve seen her before that day in 2004, of course; I was there, after all, on EDSA that second time around. But this was the first time I got to not only be that close and personal with her, but to see her in a context away from the glare of the cameras.

That day, the person regarded as the Icon of Democracy, the woman who defeated Ferdinand Marcos, who faced down seven coup attempts, whose face appeared on Time Magazine as Person of the Year, smilingly took a seat at the head of a cluster of tables while the eager faces of more than a dozen student leaders from the Catholic schools looked on.

I can’t remember exactly what Cory talked about that day, but I do remember the initial hesitance among these boisterous, articulate and headstrong kids when she opened the floor for questions. I guess the thing that went on in their minds was, “what the hell do I ask Pres. Cory? And most importantly, how do I do so without looking quite the, well, noob?” But after the initial forays of the more courageous getting good responses from her, and a little coaxing from the former President, the questions kept coming and it became an interesting, light-hearted, but (if I recall my impressions of what were asked right) very weighty discussion. The kids knew who was before them, after all, and to ask silly questions was not only considered a waste, but bordering on the faux pas. You had Cory before you: ask important questions only.

As lively as the Q & A was (and I do believe Cory enjoyed her exchange with the UCSC kids), she asked us if we had been to the Museum. We were, after all, holding our Congress at the Ninoy Aquino Center in Tarlac. And given our hectic schedule, we hadn’t really gotten around to checking out the Museum that was right across the conference area. Mildly surprised that we were missing the opportunity, Cory had her aide ring up the Museum admin and ushered us all in.

And I think it was while in the middle of it that I realized that, here was Cory Aquino. THE Cory Aquino. You know, Person of the Year in 1986? Icon of Democracy? Nevermind the other titles.

And she was our tour guide.

Holy shit. Pres. Aquino herself was giving us a tour of the Ninoy Aquino Museum and telling us the little tidbits and anecdotes that came with the stuff inside.

I’ve often wondered how it was to have lived with people you only read in history books. I’ve written at least once of how I envy my grandmother for having seen Pres. Manuel Quezon and Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the flesh, to have experienced World War II in all its tragedy and glory.

Yet there we were, going around the Aquino Center with one of the legendary persons of our time.

I’ve always said that one of the things I hated about the LP Civil War and those that both perpetrated it and perpetuate it – Mar Roxas, I’m looking at YOU – was the… shattering of bonds with people you hold dear. I mourn, always, my rift with Butch and Dina Abad; I loved those two and considered them my parents in the Liberal Party. Deep inside, my hatred for Mar most likely stems from having your hero turn out to be less than a zero.

And perhaps, this is one of the most painful, too: to have your admiration and awe for Cory Aquino tarnished so much because of the vicious political battle that started that dreary day of 8 July 2005, the role she played in the aggravation of what was a leadership issue of her husband’s political party, that would become a full-blown civil war. If, as I was told, she had not made that call to the Chief Justice and gotten that TRO (considering the CJ was on the other side of the world), would the LP be the broken mess it is today? Or would that knock-down-drag-out, COMELEC-supervised election of new Party officers have settled the issue between Atienza and Drilon once and for all?

So maybe I’ll just choose to focus instead on the Cory that shared with us that amazing day at the Ninoy Center in Tarlac. I will just cherish the thought that, for a while, a legend had taken the time from her uber-busy schedule to sit down with a couple of crazy kids and even show them around her place.

Perhaps that, with the fondness of memory, makes you realize why you were at awe at her then: that given all that she was, Cory Aquino treated you and your colleagues – total strangers to her, really, as of that morning – as if you were her children’s (or, in our case, grandchildren’s) classmates.

Ah, there. That was a more appropriate title to just saying, “last few months,” period. At least that captures the… essence of the discussions, debates and, yes, fears regarding the Little Girl on the Banks of the Pasig.

The first thing that comes to mind right now is… look, she’s still there. The longest-sitting President of the Republic since Marcos, the longest for the so-called “Fifth Republic” formed after the First People Power. Her… longevity flies in the face of what her critics say and trumpet, especially those surveys that, for years running, have condemned Gloria as the most unpopular President of all time. She has been vilified, crucified and maligned and her opponents have thrown at her everything including the kitchen sink and the icky things at the bottom.

And she’s still there.

So, the inevitable question: why?

In their self-righteous anger of her, I think this was one place where civil society has failed, with regard to Gloria: they never asked that question, especially after 2007 when there was still at least a year or two to make the case to remove her. I told people that, if you haven’t removed Gloria by December 2008, you’re not going to remove her through extra-constitutional means.

Unless one of the Hyatt Ten spills the real beans, the ones from up that beanstalk they’ve been keeping all this time, because almost all of them were neck-deep in the operations of denying FPJ the Palace, so if anyone would know, it would be them. Heck, we in the Liberal Party at the time kept bragging how we weren’t the “junior partner” in the coalition but co-equal to LAKAS, and I remember Butch Abad and Kiko Pangilinan defending Gloria in the House and the Senate Electoral Tribunals so don’t fucking tell me we didn’t know any cheating if it happened.

Hell, even if they admit it or not, I bet some of them were responsible for making Gloria renege on her Rizal Day Promise. Yes, I actually think she was honest with that one because she still had a cadre of people around her who could infect her with idealism. But then, there was 2004 and FPJ, so…

See, that’s the thing: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was a creature of her contexts. She wasn’t her father, a lad who was born to poverty and had to fight his way up. Romanticism aside, Dadong was of a different context than his daughter, who practically grew up royalty. Gloria had a childhood where she was at the center of power and grew up breathing power. She was the successor, the heir, to the power and name of Dadong, history beckoning to her as the first person ever to be elected, in a (relatively) free and fair contest, to the same position her father once held.

This was the Gloria pre-2001, before the Second People Power.  This was the Gloria that could abandon the Party her father fought for and died a member of, because it made strategic sense. And this was right after said Party feted her in grand fashion in the Araneta Coliseum, bastion of her fellow heir and royalty. This was the Gloria whose twin specializations was economics and politics. If you can’t appreciate the significance in those two disciplines, without a brake or idealistic point of reference – she didn’t take her undergrad in the Ateneo, after all, so how could she know of Liberation Theology and its struggle for the anawim? Of the horror of True Evil as you explore the Holocaust? Or of the nobility in the life of Plato’s Guardians? – then no explanations will illustrate to you why she only acts in the way her contexts made her to be.

The thing was, that brake, that… alternative point of view (for lack of a better term), was found for her, whether through an act of God, of the collective consciousness of the Filipino people wanting a clean break, or just damned happenstance. For after the chaos and bitterness of the Second People Power, Gloria was surrounded with supposed idealists. Her inner circle, her closest advisors, prior to July 2005 wasn’t Gabby Claudio, or Mike Defensor, or Ed Ermita, or even the FG. Or at least it wasn’t JUST them. Her Confessor, if she can be called that, was Dinky Soliman. Before they started distancing themselves from her for one reason or another, Dinky’s comrades in the “Tres Marias” – Vicky Garchitorena and Ging Deles – were her closest advisors. I was told often that Butch Abad could ask anything of the President, and she would give it to him. Dinky herself told us of an unguarded moment where the President would show her pain and frustrations, where ruthless, heartless, bitchy Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would actually cry on Dinky’s shoulders.

I would imagine that Gloria, as she went through those first few years leading to 2005, was in a quandry. Her instincts and upbringing and training all told her to side with the “Hawks” in her Cabinet in order to both maintain power and stave off Erap. There were too many enemies, too few allies and far lesser friends.

Yet, there were these people that showed her alternatives. There were, around her, voices that dissented from the Machiavellian precepts of the “Hawks”, who would, I think, encourage her to do what’s right and to temper power with ideals.

I don’t know what happened in those days leading to 8 July 2005. We were, I think, all aware of the ambition in Frank Drilon and, behind the scenes, you could feel the power plays between him and the other higher-ups of the Party, particularly those with intentions on the Throne in 2010. You could see the subtle, and then the not-so-subtle, way in which Drilon tried to, and eventually succeded in, sidelining Kiko Pangilinan. You could see the “dance” between him and Mar, until, somehow, the Piggy and the Poseur became a pair. I think I heard someone say that Drilon had somehow compromised the Abads. Chito Gascon probably found in Drilon his key in finally remaking the Liberal Party in his (Gascon’s) image by removing personalities that didn’t adhere to his limited worldview on what was right and wrong (which was simple, really: you didn’t side with him, you were wrong). Certainly, the National Institute of Policy Studies (NIPS) had already been compromised by this time, and FNF, too, when they somehow got rid of Dr. Ronald Meinardus, who, though he didn’t agree with what the Drilon cabal was doing, was a true Liberal by being fair to all sides.

See, it was weird. And Gloria probably found it weird, too. Not a year before, she had won and her allies had won. And, suddenly, several of her “Hawks” screw up in the damage-control following the revelation of two discs that purportedly contained proof she cheated big time in 2004.

(Which, when you think hard about it, was an absurd notion at the time – and the Palace should have just played it cool then – because BOTH the CBCP, through the PPCRV, and NAMFREL accredited the 2004 Elections. Everyone – or at least everyone who, and this is important, didn’t want a Second Erap - certified and even praised that election)

Note that Gloria was under siege. The Radical Left, never her friends to begin with, had now sided with Erap’s boys (no surprise there; everything for the Revolution, right?). The Church, through Gloria-haters like Bishop Lagdameo, were also siding with her enemies; it was only fortunate for her that the all-powerful Archbishop of Manila was more advocate than activist. Her “Hawks” had failed her in their increasingly inutile attempts at damage control. Its a cascade effect, you see: once the kuryente starts, and you keep doing damage control based on that kuryente, your whole system will short out, just like a power grid that goes into overload.

So, who does she turn to? Who did she listen to?

You have to understand the context of that statement Dinky and the other nine in the Hyatt Ten used as illustration of a Gloria that “refuses to listen” and had to be put down like some rabid dog. I remember them saying that, sometime after that “I’m Sorry” speech, the President angrily told her “Doves” that she said sorry and didn’t get anything out of it. Taken one way, it seemed like the Gloria we know now: ruthless, cunning, calculating, and bitchy, too. Like Lelouch Vi Brittania in Code Geass, all of her actions are done with her advancement and advantage in mind.

But when you look at it another way, this was a Gloria that was angry at the way her foray into idealism had failed her. Her “Dove” advisors had told her “Doing a Clinton” was the right thing to do. In fact, I think the idea actually orginated or was developed by us in the LP, or maybe even NIPS, because Chit Asis had been crowing about it being “an” option – the “an” making it sound like it was “the” option – sometime before that evening when the Prez says the actual apology (and did you see how quickly Drilon was ready, and smiling, for the response?).

Yet, not only did it not difuse the situation… it made it worse.

And then, on 8 July 2005, her closest advisors, led by people she trusted and even considered as friends, probably… backstabbed her in the worst possible way, in the worst possible time. That it had to take Persons of Uber Patronage, like my kinsman and JDV, to save her.

Gloria was betrayed by the good guys.

She was saved by the bad guys.

Imagine her then. How far will you have to go to think about the kind of reaction this would engender in someone like Gloria who, I think, tried to do it the right way for half a decade, but ended up being proven wrong. The supposed idealists betrayed her; I could even hazard to claim that she was set up by them, if the things I hear about the events leading to 8 July 2005 are even half true. And she was saved by the system she knew, that she grew up in, that she was trained in.

So now you have the Gloria of today.

We made her.

Because we had the chance to change her… and we did a Brutus on her.

One of the lessons I carry with me, top-of-the-mind, from that amazing semester with Fr. Luis David, SJ, was my Mentor asking us a semi-rhetorical question about why, if we never noticed it, young people who were active in college doing social work suddenly disappear after graduation.

“Take for example the “Socially-Oriented” organizations of the Ateneo,” Fr. David said. “They are the largest cluster, with orgs chock-full of members who even sacrifice their meager weekends to go to some depressed community and help there. Where do all of these young men and women go after graduation?”

Fr. David then explained to us that the reason for this was that they suddenly lacked the mechanism in which this idealism could be both exercised and nurtured. Corporations, despite the existence of Corporate Social Responsiblity, are not entities that encourage social activism; they exist for the bottom line. Social activism among young people drop drastically after college because they lack the support structures for it.

This was the same with the ruthless, calculating, seemingly-power-hungry Gloria you see today. The support structure to encourage her to be other than what she is doesn’t exist anymore. Even worse, the people who supposedly were to encourage her to do good backstabbed her and declared her enemy of the people. Which was probably horrible to Gloria because, really, didn’t she just take their advice to say sorry? If it had looked so bloody bland and unreal, shouldn’t they have told her and done something else? Eh, hindi eh: nagkantahan pa sila ng “if we hold on together” after, her “Doves” calling it a success eventhough, yes, she looked like she was pulling your leg over nationwide TV.

The structures of good politics had failed and backstabbed Gloria, so she fell back on the structures she knew, the mechanisms and tools she was trained and grew up on. And you know the lesson she learned from the experience of 2005? That the latter situation is right. Because, see o, she’s still there.

She doesn’t have to be popular to stay in power. She just has to do the “right” things.

Why should she worry about doing the RIGHT things? They only left her out to dry the last time she did. And the so-called Paragons of Morals and Virtue of the Public Sphere all played a wonderful game on her, too.

So, yes… be scared. Those surveys do not matter. Your rallies do not matter. Even the Supreme Court doesn’t mean shit because – think about it – would they insist on sending HR 1109 there if the situation wasn’t favorable?

You are fighting a Gloria who was shown that being Good almost led her to the gallows. A Gloria whose brilliance, savvy, and skills are now geared and focused not for the Republic, but to save Mike Arroyo and company.

Because we not only failed her in 2005, not only did we abandon her to her Hawks… but some of us, the supposed best of us, backstabbed her.

We made this Gloria.

Good luck in unmaking her.

Because you’ve been underestimating her since she recovered in 2006, and now she has us all game, set and match.

And the only tools left for us all are… the bad ones underneath the toolkit. You know, the ones labeled, “for extreme emergency use only?”

While having dinner with my grandmother this evening, table talk went to their era, that (in my opinion) wonderful, if tragic, time in the Philippines called by her generation as “Pre-War.”

Of course, as a history nut, this was an extremely interesting conversation for me; ever since getting bought a copy of Marvin Perry’s excellent “History of the World” (that thick, black, book with the red image on the front) in the summer before I entered Manila Science in 1990, I’ve been a lover of history. And, I guess because of one’s gender, military history is one of the things I take a great interest in, to the point that I buy books on it, like John Keegan’s wondrous “First World War.”

One of the things I’m sad about this love of mine is the… dearth of excellent reading material on MY country’s history. My first Philippine History book was this old, hardbound, Zaide (a property of my dad’s so I was told) with a nicely illustrated cover. At the time, I had no idea about the criticisms on Zaide’s treatment of Philippine History; I was just happy to READ something on my country after the rather uninteresting treatment of it in Grade School. How uninteresting? I was a science nut in Primary, to the point that I was correcting my teachers. Didn’t endear me to them – what self-respecting middle-aged teacher wants to get corrected in front of class by a pre-pubescent know-it-all pipsqueak? – but at the time I thought I wasn’t doing anyone any harm, haha.

Then, I got my hands on Agoncillo’s history book, two of them, in fact (since I bought one, forgetting the older brother had one, too). I also wasn’t aware of the… political lens in which Agoncillo told our country’s history, only that someone told me Zaide was wrong, and Agoncillo was preferred.

But then, these are TEXTBOOKS, essentially. I have nothing against textbooks, of course, having read, on my own free time, so many of them when I was a kid and in high school. In college, one of my favorite books is a textbook: Hector De Leon’s “magnum opus” on the Philippine Constitution, where even a pedestrian can learn the intricacies – and even some historical tidbits – on the Organic Law of the Land.

Still, textbooks sometimes leave much to be desired, and being a treatment of Philippine History from mythic founding (what? aren’t we entitled to OUR mythic founding? Hah, we have COOL heroes. Wish I could find a good book on them, too) to our recent past, one must understand if certain details are… lacking.

Which is why I enjoy conversations like this with my grandmother. After all, she lived through the whole thing called World War II in the Philippines. This was FIRSTHAND information, EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY to what went on.To a history nut, this is akin to a major find.

One of the stories she loves to retell is seeing Pres. Manuel Quezon when makes his rounds. Apparently, the country’s second President loved to go around, and this before someone built a bridge spanning the Pasig River at Nagtahan. But then, I guess, Pres. Quezon would have enjoyed a leisurely boat ride from one bank of a then-clean Pasig to another. My grandmother recalled that he went around sometimes on a horse, and carried a walking stick of some sort when on foot. She also recalled how… I guess “dashing” is the proper term for her description of the President. I also found out in these conversations that my first grade school, the J. Zamora Elementary School here in Pandacan, was ordered built by him.

Cool, that: so my learning institution until Grade I has a certain sort of pedigree.

There’s also her recollections of time under Japanese rule. These retellings are a little… embarrassing for me because it makes me realize that here was my grandmother, who “only” graduated from high school and was a labandera, knew how to speak two additional foreign languages conversationally at least. Her Japanese is better than mine, someone who took SIX UNITS of it in COLLEGE. At THE Ateneo de Manila. But then, I’m damned proud of my lola.

It also speaks highly of her generation. Everytime she meets some of them on the streets here in Pandacan and I’m with her, or when they have a little chit-chat in front of the house and I’m off to somewhere, my impressions of them were of nice, kindly old ladies who went through hell I can only read about but still manage to smile so brightly at the world and remain wonderful people.

Based on her stories, life for workers under Japanese rule, at least where she worked, was filled with long hours and hard work, but relatively decent. She never mentioned any beatings, much less about any abuse of the female workers. In fact, the Filipinos working for this particularly Japanese company – she called their product, “katadodai” (or something like that), which is the traditional underwear of Japanese men – were pulling a fast one on the Japanese. Of course, she has little good to say about the Japanese, but I really can’t blame her.

This evening, she told me about how she witnessed the legendary defense by Capt. Jesus Villamor. As history told it, five – yes, FIVE – Filipino pilots in only P-26 Peashooters – yes, P-26s – fought an air flotilla of Japanese in their A6M Zeroes. My grandmother said she wished she had a camera then, as they could clearly see Capt. Villamor dogfighting the Japanese. According to her, it started above Sta. Ana and went all the way to Luneta. She told me how the Japanese would pursue Villamor, who’d give them the run-around with his wingmen (she mentioned three of them fighting the Japanese) before blasting back. Her grandmother was scolding her the whole time she watched, haha. This is all complete with hands showing me how the dogfight went, so you can really visualize at least the excitement they felt then.

Another wonderful tidbit she told me was how, yes, the guerrillas DO mingle with the populace. And were well-supported by them. She talks of a “dughouse” (dugout? small enclosure, around the size of a typical studio-spec room, I think) where the freedom fighters would hide, complete with supplies and food. And it was RIGHT HERE, in the center of Manila. Do you have any idea how near the Palace is to where I sit here at Narciso Street, Pandacan, Manila? My grandmother even talks of how… slabs, I think, of tocino (sweetmeats?) were prepared by them, ready to be cooked in case some guerrilla came calling anytime.

She also told me a story about the Liberation, how you could see the shells – I suppose she was talking about tracer rounds – in the evening as the Americans… well, let’s call it a spade: SHELLED Manila. According to my grandmother, the Japanese mingled with the civilians, so you can see that the concept of human shield isn’t a modern invention, in case you have that kind of an illusion. In fact, according to her, that corner lot in the T-junction of our street, Narciso, with Hilum was where a couple of Japanese were buried. I had the notion they died there, too.

My grandmother stated that the Japanese were holed up mostly at La Concordia and gave back really ineffective return fire to the American artillery. Residents of Pandacan, including my grandmother’s family, reportedly fled to the Church of the Sto. Niño here (since it was the sturdiest structure around) but people, including several of her elders, got hit by shrapnel from all the shelling. One has to remember that all the way straight down from Nagtahan Bridge from Pandacan… is the University of Sto. Tomas. You have to thank God that nobody decided to torch the Pandacan Oil Depot, because I probably wouldn’t be here right now if they did, given that my grandmother at least was at the Church of Pandacan. Which is, to this day, beside the Depot, thank you very much to the Fred Lim-led City Council of Manila. One of my great-(great?)-granduncles on her side supposedly died of most likely lead poisoning from a shrapnel wound, as the Americans didn’t have (enough?) medicine for all the wounded.

Everytime my grandmother and I get to sit down and chat, these conversations on her past are some of the things I actually hope for. This is REAL, not information concocted or distorted by some academic with an agenda or a bias. Its colored by the person that my grandmother is, and her biases, of course, but she’s an EYEWITNESS. To a period of time quickly being forgotten or increasingly devalued by today’s generation.

And that’s sad. Because, as one writer (was it De Quiros? I can’t remember) put it recently, we lack a national soul. In my readings of history its the collective experience of a people as they build their nation – the dreams of a people and the striving to realize these that are a country’s bedrock, the struggles and pain of a nation being born and built – that creates this soul, this identity. And because ours is so confused, our national soul is a mess. And when your national soul is a mess, do you have to wonder why your own country is a mess today?

My grandmother is 81. Her Torres genes have given her an astounding longevity – she remains physically and mentally active at that age; she can beat ME in debate, and loves watching the news – and I foresee as well as hope she stays long with us, at least enough to see her first great-grandchildren born (from others of her five grandchildren, certainly not from me).

But how many of her generation are still alive today? How many have died? And with each one that passes away, or suffers from mental incapacity that sadly comes with old age… so many stories are lost. So much of what made the Philippines a great nation – and, TANGINA, we ARE a great nation! THREE of the most powerful empires in the world couldn’t break us, and we bloodied their noses good! – is being lost with each and every single one of them that goes.

And these are the stories we need, now that the collective consciousness of the Filipino people is slowly realizing its been shafted for so long and wants to change the situation.

You know one crazy idea I had? Its to go to every single Filipino alive today who was alive between 1910 (geez, that would be hard… he or she would be… nearly 100 years old) and 1948, just around two years after the war officially ended and better recording could be done… and just let them talk. We’d have mp3 recorders and digital cameras recording the whole thing. We just let them talk. We let them lead us down that wild, wonderful ride that shows us a time we only read, distortedly, in history books but THEY lived through.

And this would be true, those stories would be real. Because its them telling it, the greatest generation of this country, who look at the Flag with teary eyes and sing the anthem lustily and not in parody like some schmuck who spent decades here in the country and still couldn’t speak Filipino and decided to do a lame-ass rendition of a song thousands of people DIED for, just so we can sing it today.

Damn, I envy them, my lola and their generation.

The mere fact she personally saw Douglas MacArthur is reason to be envious enough. I only read about the guy; my grandmother regularly saw him when he visited the Palace.

Of course I saw the ad; what Filipino who wasn’t watching the Manny Pacquiao fight last Sunday (3 May 2009) didn’t? There were various reactions, of course, chief of which was speculation on whether it was a soft-sell or trial balloon for the rumored candidacy of Manny V. Pangilinan.

Did I pay it any heed? Just a bit, mostly since the grandmother was asking her politically-active grandson what it was all about and the father was doing with the same son, who was first and foremost trained in college for a career in advertising since he came from an ad family, their usual shared favorite pastime when in front of the boob tube of doing advertisement critiques.

I didn’t realize it was generating that much hoopla until the discussions on it being MVP’s supposed soft-sell for the Presidency got past all the media jumble I monitor everyday. Me groundswell pala.

I guess it was partly because of the jadedness. I believe I’m on the last months, if not weeks, of more than a decade of political action, which technically started after I helped in the founding of the Union of Catholic Student Councils (UCSC) in October 1998.

Recalling that momentous year, it was actually wonderful being presented with the mechanism in which your desire for Action – as Hannah Arendt describes it, and in the context of Liberation Theology – can be realized. Wonder would pile on wonder as, almost to the day two years later, I would join the Liberal Party of the Philippines.

But… its all over now, is it? I once wrote that the “Reform Age” was over, at least for my generation until we turn forty in around ten years or so. By then, we’re supposedly holding the reins of power in all areas of society. How we would run the Ship of State and the Nation, well…

Martin Perez, in his most recent entry in his eponymous blog (also after a long hiatus. Hm. A trend?), gave this wonderful and, in my opinion, thought-provoking essay on why something like Ako Mismo (the org) captured the national imagination, or at least why people passionately discuss it (a success in itself, for an advertising campaign). People who say they care for the Republic should read that post by Perez and reflect on it deeply.

I suppose, though, that the thesis by Perez holds for the general citizenry; perhaps with not a little bit of arrogance of the self-righteous, I would like to think that we who chose the Path of the Guardian (as elucidated in so many ways by Plato through his mentor Socrates in The Republic) should not have our nationalism in question. Regardless of your color on the political rainbow or position on the political spectrum, if you say you’re fighting for the upliftment of the Philippines then you probably do love this country.

But then, maybe Martin’s right and even we who say we would bleed and die for the Philippines like our forebears from the Katipunan have no idea what we’re really fighting for and that’s why we waste so much time fighting against each other. Really, if it wasn’t for the stupidity of the Craven Eleven, People Power II would never have happened and you’d have had Erap as your Prez until 2004. That would have been an entirely different issue, I suppose.

Still, that’s also where I come from when I first saw the Ako Mismo website. The one that’s been stuck on one tab on “Window 3″ of my Firefox has Ely Buendia thrusting out the now-much-sought-after Ako Mismo dog tag. Its been stuck there – and therefore keeping me from knowing more about the organization and its aims firsthand – because I honestly don’t know what to put inside that space with the label “isulat ang gagawin mo dito.”

Write what you are going to do here. Do what? Like what?

When you’ve tried your damndest to help this country improve, only to see your efforts wiped out by the hubris, self-righteousness and unbridled ambition of your very own supposedly-respectable elders… what else do you do?

Better yourself? How? “I will not litter?” But you already were part of green campaigns even before signing that stupid, oppressive, Object 29 contract with the DENR. “I will be responsible?” But you have been responsible for national-level projects and in the protection and training of young men and women, and for other activities aimed at reforming the political sphere.

Look, I’m not saying its wrong. Okay, it is wrong, for me. Where can I find out more about this org/movement outside of “reviews” or statements from people who may or may not be connected to it when the website itself has THAT space staring at you and you have no idea what to put there?

What about people like me?

I believe a lot of people – young and old alike – have been disillusioned with politics and government for quite some time now. For them, Ako Mismo is a way in which to address that disillusionment. Its simple, attractive and doesn’t impose overmuch on you. And, truly, when several million people do a paradigm shift, that’s something that can, literally overnight, change the whole socio-political landscape, hopefully for the better. The Americans showed this with the way they took back their country last year and elected a half-black man with a non-Christian middle name.

But what about those few who tried, even when it was both not practical and… cool enough, to make a difference? What about us whose disillusionment in a sense runs deeper because we’ve been there and… failed. Because there so much shit in the system and no one – no one - is left to make things right from those currently holding the levers of power?

What do you put in that space that demands you to do something in order to be “in” when you’ve done quite a lot already and saw your efforts not only go for naught but your idealism gets shot to hell?

And its a demand, isn’t it? Because you need to fill it up to be a “member.”

So, because of the inaction of one, the unbridled ambition of another, and the total lack of balls and sense of a man named Mar Roxas, I’m already shut out from the mechanisms for reform I used to be part of. Tangina kasi eh.

And now, because you can’t think of anything else to put in that blank space, you can’t be a “member” of this newfangled movement.

Is that a sign, then?

It was probably the most-watched Presidential Inauguration of ANY country in history. Yes, the explosion of the Internet as a medium of news transmission as well as the proliferation of cable television is a factor but do remember that you have the option of NOT watching it. The Playstation 3 cries for attention, and isn’t that powerful desktop computer better served testing out Dawn of War 2?

No: you not only kept your television tuned to CNN or BBC or (like a protege of mine) to CSPAN, but you also kept the Firefox on. You alternated between going through the news-sites and blogs while watching – and crying, in my case – the Obama Inauguration.

Much has been said about the hullabaloo over this event. Even my older brother has been trying to bring me down to earth by reminding me, the political communications specialist and analyst of the family, of the reality of the situation. My kuya is kinder; there are those who would love to pour cold water on the festive, almost reverent, atmosphere of the Obama Inauguration, and they’re barely even Republican.

Their point? Its that words, ultimately, mean nothing. Actions speak louder, so the adage goes, and Obama faces what some people call a “perfect storm” of problems and issues as he is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

First, some leveling-off before I tackle those “grounding” statements: I am, again,  a communications specialist. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from the Ateneo de Manila University, was trained by some of the best Ad, PR, film and journ practitioners of the time. I was trained under the J. Walter Thompson Reach Out Program.

I am also a member of the Liberal Party of the Philippines and worked for them straight out of college, first as media operative and eventually as head of media operations.

So, you see, when it comes to being cynical and suspicious of words, I should be very much so. Doing the “spin” is my day job, after all. I make press releases and… tailor information in a way where it will favor my principals and screw his/her enemies. I write speeches. So when it comes to the bullshit that comes with words, believe me when I tell you that I not only know what it sounds and looks like but I make some pretty good bullshit on a regular basis. If political operations is already a pretty dark and dreary world, then its bastard get, political media operations is dirtier and drearier because its, uh, more burlesque.

But amidst the moral and spiritual devastation of that curious form of warfare called the modern, media-frenzy, political campaign, there is that desire for a moment like the Obama Phenomenon. The idealist in you, nurtured by years of service to the Church and six wonderful years of Jesuit education dosed heavily in Liberation Theology, yearns for it.

As a communications specialist, I can appreciate fully the power of words. Wars are begun and ended by words. Great achievements and failures are the offspring of words. That’s because words have the power to either inspire or demoralize.

We humans are such affective creatures. Proudly as we proclaim how human logic and reasoning has allowed us to master our world, we are still creatures of emotion. Our greatest achievements were not solely built on cold, calculating reason but on inspiration.

Take the amazing achievement of going to the Moon. Although it is a centerpiece of human ingenuity and science, without the “push”, the desire to go to Moon, would we have bothered in the first place? Would the great (if rapacious) explorers of the Age of Sail have left sight of their precious Europe to tread the treacherous waters of the Atlantic and Pacific without the dream of new lands and wealth beyond measure?

Many would like to dismiss, often casually, the feelings the Obama Inauguration engendered. They scoff at the sight of grown men – not necessarily Black – crying, of the “ooh-aahs”, the loud cheering as Obama finally came to the podium to take his Oath on Lincoln’s Bible. These people would rather focus on the cloud (that, may I remind them, Obama himself kept reminding everyone was there), on the enormity of the task ahead, the immense weight of the challenges we all collectively face.

To all of you I say: have you forgotten how it is to be inspired?

Obama’s Inauguration wasn’t some Magic Bullet; I don’t think anyone, least of all the man himself, claimed that. I don’t think anyone, again least of all Obama himself, claimed that words, his words no less, would magically cure the world of its ills and problems and make humans everywhere suddenly realize our common bonds, hug, kiss and beat assault rifles into plowshares and “tanks into tractors.” In fact, the Dow was down and you can be sure that somewhere in Africa, some kid was either getting shot, maimed or raped as Obama spoke and we gushed at every word.

But I think you people miss the point: this day, the moment of his Oathtaking and address to America as its 44th President, wasn’t supposed to solve all this. It was a clarion call to where he – and hopefully all of us – wants to go to. This was the gunshot that signaled the start of a new race, the whistle that calls the teams back to work.

Let me put things into context for me, then, since I can’t speak for the thousands, if not millions, who freely and unabashedly shed tears that day:

To say that the past eight years has been hell is to be kind. Never in my living memory has so long a stretch of time been so filled with hurt, fear, anger and despair, to be so devoid of hope. I was in my upperclassman years in college when the Asian Financial Crisis hit and it wasn’t this dark. I lived through the decimation of our family’s own finances in 1994 and it wasn’t as bad as the last eight years (it was close, though).

Imagine, then, how hard it was to even move in those eight years. In creative processes class, one of the stringiest rules drilled into our heads was to never “self-censor.” In writing or conceptualization, self-censoring is not good because you can get stuck. You’re stuck because nothing seems to be working, or whatever you think should be is unattainable for one reason or another.

During the eight years of the Dubya regime, it was hard to move, to even hope, because progressive action and even the act of hoping things would be better required quite a bit of mental fortitude. It was like there was this psychic barrier that immediately labeled everything with a “fail” sign.

It had to do with the environment, the context in which movement was to be done. Bush, Cheney and Rove had so poisoned the waters that we were all operating in a climate of fear and anger. If a man who spoke with a Middle East accent, or looked like an Arab, was beside us, most of the time we would send dagger looks at them. Even allies would growl and hiss at each other simply over minor disagreements in policy and their implementation.

Obama’s election and inauguration changed all that. It and he are like the proverbial fresh air, like when you’re in this dusty, dingy room and then you decide to open the window to let the sun and crisp, cool wind in. Everything changes. The whole equation is different now.

People have been toiling on the hard earth for generations. But isn’t it so much easier to work when there is that lightness of the heart, and fire in one’s belly?

Again, I at least, and Obama himself, never said that there is a lot to be done and there will be disappointments and pitfalls. Everyday, especially for people like me who have seen hope crushed under the bootheels of greed, callousness, hubris and a holier-than-thou attitude, there is that fear that he might be the same, that, like with Mar Roxas, we will be so horribly disappointed as to be so thoroughly disgusted at the person.

There is a long road to be traveled before the world stabilizes, and it will be bumpy. We know that. I know that, of all people.

But… this day wasn’t meant to be about the work. This day was meant for The Speech. We stand in huddled ranks in the landing ships, wet, cold and packed cheek to jowl facing a very hostile beach in this new campaign to retake the world. We face death and disappointment. Our morale is low after eight years of being led by an idiot and his crazy cabal.

Obama’s words were what dispelled that lingering pall, the cold that clutched the heart. Perhaps the familiarity with despondency has become a form of security; better the bitter truth that shit is all we have, than the prospect of things suddenly going right for a change. We do not want to be inspired because we do not want to be disappointed. Because all we’ve known in the last eight years were to fear and to be angry.

They’re just words, fine. They will not solve the problems that plague America and the world.  They do not assure us of a better world.

But don’t you feel good hearing them? And in hearing them, doesn’t it feel… lighter, easier to move?

I said in my Multiply blog how I liked the last part of Obama’s speech the best because of the imagery it evokes. Washington and the Continental Army in Valley Forge, forced there by the British after getting drubbing after drubbing should have been a panorama of fear and despondency. No winter quarters, just tents, and perhaps little if any decent food. And I could imagine the far more biting cold that held each American soldier’s heart there.

Can you imagine how they must have felt? Cold, hungry, perhaps injured, and DEFEATED. Few situations would have been bleaker and more despondent.

Instead, as Obama himself would speak at the end of his Inauguration Speech, “At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it).”

The Continental Army – bedraggled, low on supplies, cold and hungry and just coming from defeat after defeat – went on to cross the Delaware and deal the British and their Hessian auxiliaries a mighty blow that winter.

Guys, there will be work. There will even be disappointments in this hopefully first of two terms. The problems left behind by Bush are just too many, too much, too soon to even begin seeing much good happening in the short term.

But the Inauguration isn’t about the work that needs to be done, the concrete results that everyone demands from Barack to finally believe in him like Thomas insisting he sees the wounds on Jesus and places his hands in them.

The point here is that we needed to hear the words that would begin the work. We needed this man, the embodiment of the ideals and the renewed hope of not only a nation but a whole world, to tell us: its going to be hard, but its going to be okay.

“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time,” Obama said in the first few paragraphs of his speech. “But know this, America — they will be met.”

That’s what the day was all about. The work is after. Meeting those challenges is for the day next.

Today… today we bask in the sunshine of a new morning where fear gave way to courage, despair to joy and hopelessness loses the extra letters after the first “e.”

After eight dark, dreary and fearful years, it just felt so good to stand in the sun and breathe in the fresh air, to finally smile and say… yes, we can.

So forgive the tears. Its been a long, hard road.

Alright. This is going to further decrease my already low standing with my civil society friends and, for many reasons, might end up really getting me thrown out of the Gesu (not by the Jesuits, mind you) in case I dare show my face in one of the Sunday Masses there.

But, p********, why did Cory have to apologize to Erap over People Power II?

“I am one of those who plead guilty for the 2001 (uprising). Lahat naman tayo nagkakamali. Patawarin mo na lang ako (All of us make mistakes. Forgive me),” Aquino said in her brief but well-received remarks at the Podium mall in Ortigas Center, Pasig City.

– PDI, “Aquino says sorry…”, 23 Dec. 2008

I don’t know about the rest of my comrades who fought on the streets of the Second People Power but I find this extremely offensive. This is like throwing water on the face, after slapping that face, of all those who gave time and effort and risked their lives and freedom in those months we wanted to see justice done and the rule of law prevail.

A mistake, Mrs. Aquino? So are you saying there was nothing wrong in Erap’s foibles that led to the juetengate, the RIO and eventually People Power II? Are you saying that the act of the Craven Eleven to keep the (surprisingly benign) Second Envelope sealed was not brazen and offensive to deceny? Are you trying to tell the young of this nation, my comrades, my generation, that when we went out on the streets to protest that craven-ness, our indignation and outrage was an over-reaction?!

So you’re saying, Mrs. Aquino , that you approve of your sister-in-law’s dancing on the broken and bleeding body of our Constitution that evening they killed the Second Envelope?

I will admit to this much: perhaps there would have been a better, more Constitutional means of removing Erap. We all knew, even before Gloria and LAKAS-KAMPI made it a hallmark of our political processes, that Impeachment was a numbers game and, given the way the Craven Eleven were acting even before the Second Envelope, that we just didn’t have the numbers to take Erap down. My only regret, after that eye-opening ordeal called the Garci Tapes, was that we did the extra-constitutional route too soon.

But what do you do in the throes of outrage? When the people – in this case, my fellow youth – feel truly offended, when the limits of outrage have been reached, what do you do?

Mrs. Aquino, your apology is offensive because there were many things so blatantly WRONG about those last few months of the Estrada administration that led to his being ousted, and to tell Erap “I’m… sorry” is to vindicate his belief that he was the aggreieved party, that he did nothing wrong!

But he was wrong! We didn’t need the say-so of you and your fellow civil society figures to tell us that: we knew. The People saw for themselves and acted on what they saw and felt. The People listened and waited through all those days and weeks of the Impeachment and judged Erap guilty. There were ONE MILLION PEOPLE on EDSA alone who said he was guilty.

I remember how I felt watching the Sandiganbayan hand out its verdict on Erap’s case. I remember thinking, dammit, he has to be guilty or everything we fought for on the streets of the Second People Power would be rendered moot and academic. Erap being innocent would mean we were truly wrong.

But here comes Cory, telling Erap, “I’m… sorry.”

Erap’s reaction says it all:

He later told reporters that Aquino’s remarks were unexpected, but he said he was “very happy.”

“That alone vindicates, coming from a respectable President, the icon and symbol of democracy,” Estrada said.

– PDI, “Aquino says sorry…,” 23 Dec. 2008

Look at that. Why wouldn’t he be happy? The so-called foremost champion of Democracy (at least in this country), the Heroine of the First People Power, widow of Ninoy, telling the biggest plunderer of the land that she was sorry for helping remove him from power almost eight years ago.

Because of her oh-so-political apology, now Erap can say we were wrong. KOMPIL II was wrong. The ERYM was wrong. The Church and the other churches were wrong. The months of the RIO was wrong. The young who went out in indignation after the Second Envelope were wrong. The one million on EDSA and the hundreds of thousands nationwide back in January 2001 were wrong.

Cory also spat on the decision of the Sandiganbayan that Erap was guilty.

Why? Kasi mali daw yung pagpapatalsik ke Erap.

By her apology, Cory vindicated all the gambling, boozing and womanizing of the Erap Presidency. Cory vindicated the Midnight Cabinet, the increased politicization of the police and military. She vindicated Kuratong Baleleng, too, and maybe even Dacer’s slaying, because this was all done under Erap’s regime and don’t we all blame even local-context murders of journalists to Gloria? Cory vindicated, too, the brazen attempt to protect Erap in the Senate Impeachment Trial (and weren’t you and your allies condemning Congress for protecting Gloria?) and the dancing of her sister-in-law.

By saying sorry to Erap, Cory essentially said that all of us were wrong.

And that he, pronounced guilty on the streets of the Second People Power and in the halls of the Sandiganbayan… is the good guy.

I thought nothing would be more offensive than my elders in the Liberal Party, people I respected and looked up to, shelving all the ideals and principles they taught us to hold dear just for the sake of political convenience, hubris and pride.

This thing that Cory did takes the cake.

Mrs. Aquino, how could you call for the removal of a liar, cheat and oppressor but dare vindicate someone like Erap?

So ganun pala talaga yun, ano? Pag si Gloria or kunektado ke Gloria, mali. Basta kaaway na ni Gloria, regardless of what they did or say… its ok.

Sorry, but… putangina.

Hey, if Mar could do it and he’s right, that its ok to say the most offensive word in the Filipino lexicon, in public, by a national leader who was brought up in a de buena familia and graduated from schools like The Ateneo and Wharton, why can’t we say the same thing to something so blatantly offensive and outrageous as this apology?

*Warning: this is going to be a looooooong post*

Yesterday, after all the months of worry and anxiety, and not a bit of superstition – don’t mention the word, “victory”, or “remember Florida!” – it can now be said with utter conviction: Barack Obama has won.

An African-American will be sworn in as the 44th President of the most powerful country on Earth.

I held off writing in here, my “Mentat” blog, for fear that my overly pro-Obama sentiments would detract from the supposed “objective” (more or less) analyzing that I’m supposed to bring to any issue discussed here. I already gushed, albeit with some measure of control, in my personal blog over at my Multiply. I was worried I’d still be gushing here!

Well, dammit, so sue me!

I wouldn’t be alone, anyway. Even a cursory tour of the world’s blogs and online news websites (even Fox? Haha, I haven’t gone there yet. Should I?) will show I will be but a small drop in a sea of gushing and sighing of relief and, yes, tears. People cried for joy as the United States’ media proclaimed the new American President. To me, the moment came when CNN itself reported the concession call from John McCain (Huffington Post had reported it earlier, but I wanted to see it on an MSM site). William Kole of AP shared in this article over at Yahoo News how a total stranger gave him an affectionate peck on the cheek in a bus in faraway Vienna on the way to work, after almost a decade of getting rude remarks and even a thrown beer can for being American. I think that, of all others, captures the mood post-Nov. 4, more than anything.

Its like the whole world – except for Russia and Georgia, it seems – let up a collective cry of joy and suddenly the Earth became a better place that very moment Barack Obama was proclaimed the winner of a bitterly-fought two-year election campaign for the most powerful post in the planet.

The mind is awash in a sea of… oh, hell, let’s call a spade a spade: happiness. Yes, dammit, happiness. Eight years of seeing the world go dark, in trying so damned hard to rouse one’s self to believe that anything good can still come about in this Bush-and-Bin Laden World, can you blame me and the thousands – millions? Yes, I think so: millions - who, at least for that one moment, could afford to be happy?

In a democratic country, the person elected to office necessarily reflects the electors. Yes, even in rigged contests, because the Ballot is anonymous, and the Canvassers and process known and is subject to scrutiny. If you give in to the bribe or the intimidation, then you will get the President you deserve. If you refuse or fail to protect your vote, not because you were forcibly prevented from doing so, but out of sheer apathy, indifference or even arrogance, then you will get the President you deserve. Ping Lacson might be the worst person to quote to drive the point, but his retort to a complaining FPJ after the 2004 Elections here in the Philippines was apt: don’t complain about getting cheated if you didn’t do your best to protect your votes.

And Barack Obama getting the privilege to be sworn in as the first African-American President of the United States of America this coming January 20 speaks volumes about the American people, at their core, and the true aspirations of a Darkened World.

I am actually envious of Americans right now, especially their young and their very old: for a culture criticized for its excess and even outright hedonism, of disinterest bordering on the criminal, America went the extra light year to ensure that their voices were heard and their hopes and dreams would be given a chance flourish.

Set aside the altruism, if you cynically will, but don’t deny the fact that Americans, young and old alike, of every conceivable background, mobilized in unprecedented numbers to take back their lives and their country. I have read stories of people who quit jobs and put to hold their very lives just to see this day happen, this new dawn break. I have read about young men and women who, rather than spend a weekend partying, would go door-to-door to ensure that hope continued to spring eternal. And perhaps what brought the most tears to my cynical and jaded soul were the stories of old people literally clinging on to life just so they could vote. There was this tale of an 80 or 90 year-old woman who came into a polling precinct, cane and all, asking for assistance because she wanted to vote. Pictures and uploaded videos tell the tale of Americans lining up in the minutes after midnight on Nov. 4, just so they can take back their country, of the long, unbroken, “I’m staying here until I vote!”, lines of an hour or more of waiting, just so they can exercise their Constitutional right to choose their leader.

In a time when the word “hope” is easily scoffed at so you won’t have to feel really, really bad at it being crushed… the American people stood up, and said, yes, you can. You can hope. You can dream. You can believe in the goodness of people, and the greatness that can be achieved by a community acting as one.

In a time when its easier to be afraid and to regard the Other as varelse - to take from the Heirarchy of Alienness of Orson Scott-Card – because that’s what we’ve been made to believe in and accept by Karl Rove and new High Priestess Sarah Palin… the American people choose instead to remind the world that what made – makes! – America great is that it refused to be dominated by fear or to regard the neighbor as too different as to be destroyed at first sight. That somewhere in the world, there is this place where a “half-breed” from an “ordinary” background who has a middle name that (unfortunately) usually evokes suspicion… is now its highest-ranking official and Commander-in-Chief of the world’s most powerful military force.

And it goes beyond the “feel good” stuff. Amidst the scoffing from cynics and the sobering-up after the euphoria – and President-Elect Obama himself never said anything about the road to be trod not being difficult; in fact, he has never failed to remind people that it will be a hard journey ahead – there are a lot of “real world” implications to an Obama victory.

First, I think, is that the American people have delivered the worst defeat to Osama Bin Laden. Yes, you heard me: the worst defeat to Osama Bin Laden. And all the Americans had to do was go to the polling booth and cast their vote.

There are many problems when dealing with warfare that has gone asymmetric, like the War on Terror. Unlike such “stand up” conflicts like the two World Wars and even the Vietnam War (which had asymmetrical elements), the Bin Laden-provoked and Bush-promoted War on Terror has no clear-cut fronts, and where one side is… nebulous in its identification, at best. Even worse, its not about one country trying to invade another (although, there appears to be elements of such. Like with… Iraq). Instead, the War on Terror is as much a battle between ideas as it is between armies.

Bombing the production capacity or even the populace of a known enemy to knock it out of a fight is one thing, but how do you bomb to oblivion an idea?

I think this is the thing Bush and Cheney never understood about Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: bombing camps and killing Jihadists won’t end the Jihad. No matter how many Fedayeen you fell, there will always be more because of the idea of the Jihad and the “Great Satan” its supposed to defeat. Bin Laden is a salesman for a product that counters the American “brand,” and the key to his sales pitch to the Muslim World in general as much as to the insane and/or fanatical fringe of Islam is that America is… Bush. Or Palin. If you don’t understand that definition and all the concepts contained in it, then have you been under a very large rock in a very deep crater these last eight years?

That’s why, IMHO, America has been bogged down in Iraq and is reeling in Afghanistan. Why the State Department has to advise Americans going abroad to keep a low profile even in Continental Europe. Because the idea of America, in the last eight years at least, has come to mean something negative, something evil even. And when compared to someone really evil like Osama Bin Laden, that’s… really sad.

But with a single vote, a simple exercise of their Constitutional Right to Suffrage, the American Public has done what no multi-million dollar war machine has done since 9/11: hand the extremists and terrorists and would-be imperialists – yes, Putin, I’m looking at YOU – their biggest defeat.

Its so much more harder to use America as the scapegoat demon when, look at that, they elected a half-black, working-class, man whose middle name is, of all things, Hussein. He was painted a Muslim, and Americans said, “so?” He was painted a socialist, a Commie, even, and Americans said, “so?” He was said to have palled around with terrorists, and Americans said, “Get thee away from me, you lying, conniving, hate monger,” and voted for Obama. Several extremist fundamentalist preachers had the gall to pray to a Merciful and Loving God to bring McCain victory so His ascendancy would be unquestioned.

And the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who sent His only Son to save the world, the God who sent Archangel Gabriel to speak the Koran to Muhammad, the God who, through that Son and through that Prophet preached tolerance and respect for other beliefs (while not necessarily surrendering ours), told the God-fearing Americans…

Vote for the new guy.

This is profound. What Americans did, choose hope and positive change over despair, fear and more of the same Rovian/Bushian reality, in my opinion, took quite a bit of wind out of Bin Laden’s sails. How do you tell respectable Muslims everywhere that America is the Great Satan when its people just voted into its highest position a guy with dark skin and a middle name familiar more to Muslims than to Christians? Extremists, whether they insult God by doing their despicable acts under the Cross, Crescent or Star, are a “non-scenario”; do you reason with a rabid dog? Its to their supposed “base” that you do battle in. It was hard to tell the rest of the world that America was the good guy when you have people like Bush, Cheney, Palin (*shudder* the world avoided a very big artillery shell there) and, sadly, McCain, bombing kids and weddings to smithereens.

Now, what are these extremists going to do? The leader of the Free World is someone that most anyone from the Old World to the deepest heart of the Cradle of Humanity can relate to. From the American Heartland to the war-torn, drought-wracked fields of Africa, people lookat Barack Hussein Obama, President-elect of the United States of America, and see themselves.

How do you call a Jihad on that idea?

And how did he win? This is also important: Barack Obama won through a hard-fought but clean campaign. Oh, sure, there were moments, but there were no Rovian-level stoking of fears and prejudices like openly declaring that, say, one State in the Union itself was less American than its southern sister.

We Liberals (and I use the classical, European definition here) are a crazy bunch sometimes, believing as we are in concepts and ideas that run counter to the more basic instincts of humans. But, unlike Karl Rove, Liberals believe that humans are wonderful, intelligent creatures; in fact, we believe more in the fact that humans are made in the likeness of God than those stupid – yes, I’m actually calling you idiots that – religious extremists because we supposed Godless Liberals believe in the inherent goodness of man. Perhaps the Extremist God is a pre-Christian God, the one so ready to smite transgressors and unbelievers alike at the slightest misstep. I’m sorry, but the God my Church introduced to me was one who is ready to forgive and take me back despite everything.

To us and, it would appear, the grand majority of the American people, processes matter. Goals mean less than how you attained that goal. The Protestant Ethic, to which America is supposed to have been built on, places an emphasis on hard work. Notice that it doesn’t say anything about prosperity being bad: the Protestant Ethic placed emphasis on the getting of this prosperity, that if you worked hard to give your family a good life, then God probably blessed your efforts and there’s nothing bad about a big house or a nice car, or the kids having college degrees.

McCain winning would have meant that America subscribed to an ethic that emphasizes the achieving of objectives regardless of the manner in which it was achieved. The Ends justify the Means, in Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin’s world. This was how Florida happened. This is the world of Abu Ghraib, of the Invasion of Iraq, of Muslims being arrested without a warrant, of the suspension of freedoms and liberties even of one’s own people. In this world, Bin Laden was free to spread stories that America, through conniving with the “Zionists”, could kill thousands of its own people just to justify the further persecution of Islam. It was believable in Palin Country because the disgusting lie of the extremists resonated truly with the image presented by Rove, Cheney and Palin.

But Americans know that their country isn’t Palin Country, or that the world America strives to build isn’t Cheney’s World. It is a country and a world where losing doesn’t necessarily mean defeat if only the battle was waged with honor and adherence to truth and fair play. Debate – free, informed and respectful, if oftentimes passionate -  is encouraged in a democracy because winning isn’t the ultimate goal; getting the best for everyone is.

With the victory of Obama, America has given notice that it does not subscribe nor accept Abu Ghraib or the way the War on Terror has been conducted. At least not anymore. Americans have given notice that they are sick and tired of fear, loathing and despair.

America, as Americans proved last Nov. 4, is about hope, and the belief in the goodness of humanity.

Their President-elect, that wonderful man who now stands as the reflection of the real America, said it well in his victory speech in Chicago: “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”

My congratulations to Barack Obama, and my most profound thanks for coming as he is in what is perhaps the most important turning point of history in the early part of the 21st century. You have told us that we can, and that simple creed is perhaps the one we should be thanking you most of all. Because we have forgotten, through eight years of Bush, Cheney, Rove and Palin.

But my congratulations and thanks also go out to the American people, for showing us that freedom, democracy, and the dream, the hope, that America represents, is alive and well. You have showed us that not only can we, but it is. You did. You have reminded us that the world of Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Luther-King is not simply a dream but a reality.

The world today is little different, yes, when you look at it. As everyone has pointed out, there are two wars, an economic meltdown and genocides happening. Hell, Russia just sent short-range missiles near the Polish border, as if it was the 1960s and not 2008. There is a lot that needs to be done.

But now… Now we have the chance to fix some of this. Now, one can roll up the sleeves and get down and dirty with new vigor. Its a long hard road, and we all, Americans and everyone else in the Free World alike, have to pitch in.

Yet now… the work is lighter. And even through the stress and the sweat, the noonday sun shining mercilessly on our backs, we can stand up and see not strangers but neighbors and brothers and sisters working together to build a better world.

All thanks to Barack Hussein Obama, and the wonderful, wonderful people of the United States of America.

God Bless you guys and gals, indeed.

Yes, you guys did!

And the world is so much brighter and nicer for it.

First, this is probably a lame attempt on my part to get to writing again about political/issues stuff. I realized sometime this week(end? See, it gets confusing) that I had tuned out political news, especially when its local. This is not good.

Still, if the absurdities of the Philippine political sphere – impeachment again while the world withers on the vine due to the Subprime backlash? I mean, I agree with Manolo that there is something important in the exercise of that particular move, but… naman… – have taken its toll on me that I automatically zone out on it (again, not good for a Mentat), I’ve been keeping an eye on the US Presidential Elections, especially as it enters the home stretch to the Nov. 4 elections. In fact, early voting has finished in some areas, with reports saying that, for the first time, Democrats appeared to have out-voted the Republicans.

Still, its rather… funny, in that dark humor kind of way, when the Democrats, despite all that’s going for them this late in the race, appear to having the opposite reaction: they’re getting more and more depressed. And antsy. And stressed.

In fact, two Huffington Post writers (Larry David and Sherman Yellen) share a common experience regarding this “reverse depression”, both with the frighteningly similar reasons to be fidgety about Nov. 4: that the Democrats have this amazing ability to lose a contest it has effectively won, and that the Republicans have become adept at using tactics and operations we Filipinos all seem familiar with to win.

But I suppose you really can’t blame them. At least twice in the last eight years, they’ve been on the cusp of victory only to see it snatched away. There is something… horrible – and I’m talking in the Lovecraftian way, the kind that makes you go for a Sanity Saving Roll – about going to sleep knowing you’ve won and waking up the next day to defeat. Or winning the popular vote, but somehow losing in that crazy thing the Americans call the “Electoral College” because one state managed to get, uh… defective ballots.

Wow, doesn’t that sound familiar? Karl Rove must have studied here.

Still, its a little frightening to hear that Americans sound as if they’re, well… us. Or any citizen from a non-Industrialized nation when it comes to election woes. I mean, that is America, after all. If Americans can wonder – no, stressed out - over being disenfranchised or having their vote stolen… Dude, that’s, like, the foremost democracy in the world. And ordinary Americans are afraid that their elections will not reflect the people’s will?

Its also quite depressing to see how Doublespeak is alive and well in America. I don’t understand the kind of… logic where one group decries unfairness, denial of freedoms, of an attitude that is “Un-American” yet could actually encourage supporters to go out, not to vote, but to heckle ordinary citizens exercising their Constitutional right to do so, albeit earlier than everybody else.

I mean, this is… retarded: how can John McCain – let’s not mention Sarah Palin; that’s asking too much of her and her $150,000 regalia. She must be Hockey Mom to a League superstar, then – not come out in national television and stop such… Un-American acts by his supporters? Or to come out strongly against the astounding – and frightening – levels of hate-mongering among the GOP base?

Its… insane! Has McCain lost any sense of decency and honor?

And perhaps this is what’s got Democracts all fidgety and chewing their fingers: it could all go wrong. America stands on the brink of history, of salvation from eight years where all its power, prestige and the goodwill of the world’s nations went the way of its Bison. Yet it could all go wrong. Horribly wrong. The person who is willing to do anything and everything, no matter how dirty, to win the White House, and his crazy running mate, might just win.

Elections are necessarily exciting in certain parts of the world; we Filipinos have often been described as “celebrating” our Elections, flawed as they are, as if it was a local fiesta. Its certainly stressful for us who have to run campaigns, get people out to exercise their rights, but its all fun, really.

But its different when you hear of people who can’t sleep, can barely eat, whose very lives are suspended because Nov. 4 is crawling so slowly to the block.

No, this isn’t a laughing matter. Because it just goes to show how important elections can be, the transformative value it can bring to a people mired in fear, distrust and despair.

I only hope that the guy leading the Republicans right now can do that one, last act of patriotism by helping ensure that, regardless of the outcome, the Vote this Nov. 4 truly reflects the will of Americans.