See, the last time I pooh-poohed such an occurrence as I went to sleep on the couch at around 2 or 3 in the morning, in that unforgettable September in 2009, I woke up at around 10 a.m. with water lapping my feet when I sat up.

And now, my fears have been realized: Metro Manila is nowhere near ready for a major storm.

Currently, Tropical Storm Meari, with the local name of Falcon, is battering the Philippines. The local weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) did not put the National Capital Region (NCR), which composes Metro Manila and its suburbs, under a Storm Signal because, as the model will show, it won’t make landfall. In fact, the highest Storm Signal up for the Philippines’ western side is at 1.

But as the satellite picture of Meari will imply, even to one without any scientific knowhow about weather systems whatsoever, that thing is huge. And for those like me who have some background in these things, those colors, and where they’ll pass over, is a very distressing development.

“Falcon” would make it the fifth or sixth storm to hit the Philippines this year, of an expected average of twenty. So far, none of them have made a “direct hit” on the National Capital Region. But then, this is just the actual start of the Storm Season for us in these 7,100 islands. It gets worse once we enter the “Ber” months, with September usually the month for some of the worst weather systems. Ondoy, after all, struck us in the middle of September. Milenyo, an earlier typhoon that caused very little flooding but did horrible wind damage, said hi to the Philippines around later October and early November.

I live in the City of Manila itself, in Pandacan, around ten or so minutes away from the Pasig River. When Ondoy hit, the water was up to my waist at its deepest inside our house (I’m 5 feet and an inch). Since then, I’ve noticed that any heavy downpour for an appreciable amount of time makes the waters rise. There were two instances around September and November last year that it rained so hard the water entered our other house. That’s not good, because that house is higher than the one where I was submerged to my waist during Ondoy.

Since then, I’ve been wondering: is Manila ready for the storm season? The causes of climate change can be debated, sure (since I’m still a bit skeptical that even most of it can be blamed on anthropogenic sources; I’ve worked with the World Bank’s Carbon Fund, you see. I’ve seen how Climate Change can be used politically and economically. But that’s a story for another time), but it can’t be denied that the storms we’re getting are bigger, wetter and more powerful than anything in living memory.

And TS Meari has shown that just a couple of hours of moderately heavy rainfall, with some really heavy moments, for something like half a day is enough to submerge parts of Metro Manila in chest-deep water. There were at least two rescue operations happening all over the Metro and the Tumana River in Marikina has been sounding its sirens since the late afternoon. For those who don’t know, Marikina was the hardest hit location of Metro Manila during Ondoy.

So, I’m wondering: what has the various levels of government done? It doesn’t take a weather scientist to tell you storms hit the Philippines once June – and this time, the first one appeared in the middle of May – comes, and doesn’t stop until as late as February, or even March. If you live here, nevermind growing up here, you know the storms are going to hit.

So what are our wonderful civil servants doing to prepare for the apparently vastly-enhanced storm systems that are now hitting the Philippines since Ondoy? If today’s chest-deep floods and stranded commuters are any indication, not much, if any.

I know running a country, or even a city or municipality is hard work, but I bet the Japanese also have the same problems Filipino local and national officials have in running their respective levels of government, but you see that they’re prepared, right? No, that earthquake and tsunami that hit them was an “Act of God,” so that doesn’t really count but at least their preparations limited the casualty figures.

It’s so frustrating. This is a country that is in the path of storms. But it seems our local and national officials prefer to engage in other activities except those that actually they’re supposed to be doing. Like, oh, making sure at least that drainage systems aren’t clogged, perhaps?

Are we going to wait until another Ondoy, or much worse, hits us? Hell, Ondoy happened and look what’s been done. Has anything been done? Noynoy Aquino can castigate Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo all he wants but he’s been at the helm for almost a year now. Surely, since they’ve done nothing but castigate the former President since backstabbing her in 2005, they can do a better job, right? I mean, how much effort or planning does it take to ask the relevant government agencies to look into making Metro Manila, the financial and political capital of the Philippines, a little bit more capable of dealing with floods? Will Noynoy fire another PAGASA employee over this botched weather prediction, the way he did the other guy before, early in his term? What will that accomplish?

Seriously, the Philippine government, local and national, should get its act together. How can we take on China over the Spratlys if we can’t even keep our capital from getting flooded by a non-storm?

A few days ago, PAGASA said, that, yes, TS Meari won’t make landfall. As the models from Weather Underground showed, that was true. But they never told the public, at least from the announcements and presscon coverage I’ve read, the fact that Meari is so big and so energetic – its core is an angry pink – that it’s bound to affect the Philippines, regardless. Or if they did, it was just the usual, “this thing will bring rain.”

Even more irritating for the residents of a now-flooding Metro Manila, PAGASA Tweeted that what was hitting us with some of the heaviest rainfall since Ondoy is not the storm, but the Southwest Monsoon (“Hanging Habagat”, in Filipino), enhanced by Meari.

So this wasn’t a storm doing chest-deep flooding in some parts. You just have to love officials of the gooberment of the Republic of the Philippines. And the Tweet even contained so much indignation at the public’s accusation that, yet again, PAGASA failed us.

- Arab unrest: 5 eyewitnesses to history, CNN

This leapt out to me as I read this latest article from CNN on the wave of unrest sweeping the Middle East and North Africa since Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself in protest against his cruel and uncaring rulers last 17 Dec. 2010.

I guess it hit me in a way only someone who came of age in that period between a dictatorship and a democracy can feel. I was born in 1977, five years after Ferdinand Marcos put the Philippines under Martial Law. I was in high school during the time of the first two governments following that strongman’s fall.

And, today, in my early thirties, I enjoy the fruits of that return to democracy, nominal as it seems to the seemingly-insatiable (unless it is their hands on the till?) members of the Left, Right and, yes, even the Center.

I could stay out until there was only an hour left until dawn comes. I’ve never done that while totally inebriated, but I have friends who have and all they have to tell us the next day is about the massive headache their hangover is giving them.

I could say the President of my country is a bastard who has less sense than an addled monkey, who is surrounded by people who can make an alligator blush with the level of their greed, and not only can I get away with it, but I’ll even get descriptions more graphic and base than the one I just said from friends and colleagues.

I spent six months jobless, yet I never really wanted for anything except perhaps my own money to spend. I had Internet. I had cable TV. I could eat as much as I wanted. And my family is not one of the wealthiest in this country by far.

It drives home a lot of things, when someone in a situation similar to, or better, than mine, gets confronted with someone who has had far less. Not only are these people who cry for change on the streets and sands of some of the most ancient lands of mankind deprived of a good future, they can’t even scream their sorrow without the fear of being hauled off to jail.

Imagine that: a society where expressing your dismay at your lot in life puts you behind bars. At the very least.

How can we know, we who were born to freedom and democracy, how it feels for a man, woman or child who has never known that word except as something on a movie poster or book (if they even have access to those!) to find themselves one day saying… I’m free?

I’m free.

Can you even imagine that? You who can buy and say anything you want, who can freely go to any point of your country for vacation, who can party all night and come home the next morning drunker than the alcohol you drank… can you even begin to fathom how it feels for a person to just have that right to say what he or she has been keeping in their hearts, without fear of reprisal from the State?

Just to be able to say that phrase – two words and a letter, really – in full, for real… to say even to themselves that the fear is gone and that their lives are finally theirs, that their country is theirs… do you have any idea how that can possibly feel? You whose only concern every Friday is where the next party will be held in?

But maybe this post isn’t for you. Maybe it really is for those who have the power to give the people of North Africa and the Middle East more than just the taste of freedom.

Maybe this is for those men and women who lead countries that enjoy democracy and freedom but deny it to millions of other people just so their people can enjoy the right to stuff themselves silly until they need a small car to move around, or to get so drunk they can’t remember a thing that happened the evening before.

I know how complex international politics can be. But for once in the history of mankind, can we who declared our guardianship of the ideals and aspirations of a free society set aside realpolitik and operate based on the real principles of our creed?

All they want is to be free. Do you think people like that will want what Bin Laden is selling, after all they’ve been through?

Only if we let them believe freedom and democracy is a sham, lies perpetrated by the Great Satan that is Western, Christian Civilization so it can take away the patrimony of the sons and daughters of Allah.

They just want to be free. To say what they wish. To take their lives and the future of their country into their own hands.

Why can’t we take their hands in ours and tell them, for real and not just as empty phrases in a press release or briefing, that we in the Free World will be there to help them up and out from the darkness of tyranny and enjoy the things we do as a free people?

Of course, if it makes you appreciate your freedom more, well… that’s good, too.

Might make you think twice about whose name you put in that ballot the next time elections come about.

“Where” was here, at the house in Manila. It was one of those days – not a bad one, but not really a good one, either – and I just finished doing some major flood control at the other house after a major downpour turned the dining area into a small pool. Tiring work, and it was rather humid despite the heavy rain, and doing an hour or so of that after a late night at work is quite distressing.

So after finishing up with flood control I plop down in front of the laptop and fire up all the sites I frequent. Then, a few seconds into it, I remembered how I felt just this morning (Manila Time) about the developments in Egypt. I remember my worry; I even dropped by Greenbelt’s amazing chapel on the way to work to ask God to keep the people of Egypt safe, and one other thing.

So I wanted to know what was happening there, and admittedly there was that thought that you’d be shown scenes of chaos and sorrow, given how the situation was that morning when Mubarak, contrary to everything, still clung to power.

I have to admit: I wasn’t prepared to hear cries of jubilation instead.

But let me tell you that, after a decade or so of soul-crushing news both here and abroad (mostly here), hearing the voices of thousands, if not millions, of people crying out not in fear, not in anger or hate, not in sorrow, but in joy felt amazing.

It’s been such a darkening world, you’ve forgotten how what CNN’s Anderson Cooper called “the sound of pure joy” was like.

———

It came so fast, so sudden, so… unlooked for (as Tolkien would say it) that I was, like, “whoa” for a good amount of time after I turned on the television. CNN was showing the street party of a million or more strong on the streets of Cairo and all my brain could think of was, “whoa.”

And, oh, yes, another thought: “they did it. They actually did it!”

Because I remember the anger and frustration of the days past. Those eighteen days of the Uprising wasn’t exactly all about epic tales of heroism and courage. There were at least two times there when the thinking was dangerously leaning to “this is a lost cause,” and that palpable sense of impending violence just a night or two ago after Mubarak didn’t step down.

It was a good thing, then, that the people of Egypt are far more steadfast.

If I’m right, the discussion now has shifted to the “so, what (do we do) now?” questions. There are the hopes that, because of the way this Revolution began, spread, was nurtured, reinvigorated and ultimately triumphed, what we’re seeing right now is the birth of a new age. Tunisia was the catalyst, but it is here, it is hoped, on the streets of a land whose civilization is one of the oldest of humanity, and the largest Arab nation in the world, that the hope for a better world was reborn.

But, the old world refuses to die easily, it seems. Even the exuberant anchors of CNN, some of them, like Anderson Cooper and Hala Gorani, themselves getting involved in the Uprising as victims of its violence, couldn’t help but voice out the concerns about where this could possibly lead. But who can blame them? Who can blame those of us who are familiar with the way politics and power works?

One of the strengths of the Revolution could be its own undoing: its lack of clear organization and leadership. Cynical as it may sound, but ideals and idealism, that fiery, world-changing fervor of the young, is good at tearing down oppressive systems but withers in the face of the demands and realities of politics, of the running of a country, of the relationships between those who do wield power.

I think one of the major worries right now is that, because of the lack of leadership among those who made it succeed – the young of Egypt – this Revolution will be hijacked.

And isn’t history replete with stories of such? How many successful uprisings with wonderful ideals were co-opted by those with lesser morals and have clear agendas? “Good men die easy,” to paraphrase a favorite quote of one king in Brandon Sanderson’s Well of Ascension. Good men like Google executive Wael Ghorim might not be in a position of leadership after because of what he is: a good man. He’s not a hero, he insists. When asked if he can be one of the leaders of a new Egypt, he said he’s done his part and will let other people handle it (or something like that).

Good men, after all, don’t crave power. Unfortunately, men with lesser virtues do.

But then, this nigh-endless scenario building is what drives analysts crazy. Especially for us who’ve been active in what Hannah Arendt calls the “Public Sphere” for so long, there is always a touch of cynicism in our analysis. We don’t dare hope, because you’ve been disappointed so many times. You’ve seen this before, and Hollywood couldn’t have made a less palatable sequel than the aftermaths of glorious revolutions like the one just finished in Egypt.

But it was so easy to think Mubarak would win in the end, yes? That the aspirations of the people of Egypt would be frustrated, in one way or another. Like I said, you’ve seen how this movie played out before, so many times.

Yet… what if we’re wrong?

Maybe it’s time for us to stop being so cynical about this, so… realistic, so… Machiavellian. We who say we stand for the ideals of liberalism, truth, justice and freedom have been working under their rules, thinking that the only we can save freedom and democracy is to be just as harsh, just as… pragmatic as the forces we do battle against. To maintain a world we think is stable and relatively peaceful, we sacrifice our ideals and millions of people. We make Faustian bargains with the dictators of this world so, we think, we can keep the barbarians at the frontiers.

The Revolution in Egypt might be telling us that it’s time for us who have long lived under skies that are free, to the point that we take our liberties and freedom for granted, to practice what we preach. Maybe it’s time to tell the dictators of the world that we’d rather have their people free than purchase our stability with the crushed hopes and dreams and the blood of their country’s citizens.

For isn’t that what we, the West and its longtime democratic allies like the Philippines, have been doing since the end of World War II? Our relatively stable world, paid for in the blood and dreams of repressed people everywhere.

I know politics and power are complex worlds; for more than ten years I operated in that world, leaving it in disgust after my heroes and champions proved to be as demonic as the creatures we fought against.

But maybe that’s why we are more familiar with sorrow and frustration in the public sphere: we’ve compromised for so long that what’s right and proper is their rules, their values, not ours.

Maybe it’s time to draw a line on the concrete with our own blood. Maybe it’s time to throw away Machiavelli, to ditch pragmatism, and embrace our ideals in full. Maybe it’s time to tell people all over the world who want to be free that, yes, we who are free will stand with you.

Do what you must, know no fear and break your chains, for the Free World, for the first time in truth since the victory against the Axis in 1946, stand with you.

Maybe it’s time to not look at the problems such an unplanned and unorganized revolution might bring to the world order, but at the possibilities that can and will arise when men, women and children who only wish for a return to decency and justice in their lives, who aspire to freedom, take back their country and their destiny.

After all, remember that, in the middle of the Uprising, Christian Egyptians protected their Muslim brothers and sisters as they prayed, and the Muslims protected the Christians as they held a Mass on Tahrir Square. Think hard about the significance of this event, especially after all the religious violence and intolerance since 9/11.

Or, how the anti-Mubarak protesters have not only kept their actions as non-violent as possible, but organized responses to the crisis they faced, like neighborhood watches to keep thugs and looters at bay, or those field clinics to care for the wounded, or even those people cleaning after the demonstrations. As one amazing young Egyptian woman said when asked why she was cleaning and for no compensation at all, “it’s my country; I want to help.”

So what are we afraid of?

We’ve worked under pragmatic and realistic rules for more than six decades, anyway, and look where it’s got us. Maybe it’s time to do it differently, yes?

Modern warfare is about movement, at least the “stand up” ones between national armies. I won’t put into the equation asymmetrical warfare elements because that kind of fighting is about throwing a couple of books outside the window. No: what I want to know is, given a contest between two armies, or forces, is it possible to turn a Cannae into the means of destroying the one doing it?

Of course I’m thinking about it with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in mind, or at least any armed force where you (the defender) are as outmatched in terms of technology and training by an invading force as the Russians were against the Germans during Operation Barbarossa.  If I recall my readings of the last few major “stand up” battles were, they were still about movement and schwerpunkts, of massed armor and mechanized infantry punching holes through defensive lines and going straight for strategic objectives. Blitzkrieg is still very much alive and breathing well when armies clash.

I’m thinking that if our little army has to fight, we’d be in a load of trouble. We have tanks that a Bradley can open with a single salvo (and, oh: we have these?). Our air force will be obliterated by a salvo from a single modern fighter regiment’s missile payload and cannon ammo, if first-strike bombers and sub-fired cruise missiles don’t do the PAF on the ground. Our navy can be sunk by Marines on hovercraft using manpack rocket launchers. Hell, but have you seen the kind of artillery modern armies use today?

And I don’t know what kind of plans the AFP brass have, but I have a sinking feeling either they or – *shudder* – Congress will force them to do a stand-up fight with a vastly superior enemy. There is that large plain between the northern part of Luzon and the NCR.

Although, if I was, say, the United States, Russia or the Chinese, I’d just send in two Airborne regiments into Manila, support them with shipborne artillery and maybe a couple of Marines. Light tanks and manpack anti-tank weapons can deal with what we have for armor, anyway. Meanwhile, you land forces somewhere north and at Cavite, drive them in a pincer to Manila. With a troops already storming the capital, even if Airborne, and two massive columns driving from the north and south of Manila, what could the 100,000-man AFP do?

Me? I’d have the PSG drag the President upriver to Laguna Lake and lose her or him in the Sierra Madre where I would have made a Plan Orange kind of base or operational area. Meanwhile, I’d extricate as much of the AFP as I can to fallback areas and make sure these are well-stocked. Don’t stand and deliver versus a foe with a hundred times the capabilities of the Wehrmacht at its height. You go asymmetrical.

But what if, due to the rapid pace of modern warfare, a large chunk of the AFP gets stuck in a pocket? What if a substantial number of Filipino troops are brought into a Cannae?

But what if you have a plan to turn a pocket into a… porcupine?

Hm. This will require some thinking.

And why does Stalingrad come to mind?

Working for the country’s second-oldest political party since I graduated from college in 2000, one could say I’ve been around power, or more like the powerful. I’ve seen how they are, both when they’re in the public view or behind closed doors with only staff members under an unofficial variant of the rule of omerta to bear witness to what they do or say or think when the cameras are gone.

Sec. Boncodin was… How does one put it, exactly? “Unassuming” is the closest word I can think of right now. There she was, this small woman in relatively unimpressive (I mean, compared to the ones in those caucuses, right?), if smart and businesslike, dress, almost shy, not asking or demanding anything from the hurried and harried staff that went by her. She was like that schoolteacher who was waiting for her turn to speak to the Powers-that-be.

But, when she entered, and after the clapping and some banter exchanged with her fellow Cabinet members and people she personally knew, this small, unassuming woman began talking. She spoke about the budget of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, its intricacies and complexities. And she spoke of them as if they were so easy to understand, and not numerals and terms that looked like so much esoterica. Somehow, when she explained this item, or that entry, it all made sense.

And those powerful men and women, many of which could make even Presidents quake in their boots or heed their call… they listened.  She had their undivided attention. Some of them even went to her after the talk to personally clarify something.

Back before the Garci Tapes shattered my illusions of the Philippines’ public sphere, I counted her as one of the elite few whose honor as a public servant was inviolate. This was someone who deserved your respect in more ways than one. Not only was she at the top of her field, she did her work tirelessly, effectively (as effective as one can be given what country that budget is for) and without any hint of corruption or disgrace.

After the 8 July 2005  incident, so many of those paragons, heroes to me, were taken down from their pedestals. But not Sec. Boncodin. I never met her anymore after, but those who had the honor to work with her, or be taught by her, gave a consistent picture of a person and public servant who remained decent and honest.

Most refreshing, I think, was her view on how the issue of Gloria and the ills of the government could be viewed, if not redressed. “”You don’t know what it is to be in the bureaucracy. Unless you actually been in the bureaucracy, you don’t have the right to say those things.” (from Bong’s blog)

I think, in the end, all I wanted to say was that it feels so sad to have lost such a dedicated and wonderful person such as Sec. Boncodin. This country, if not this world, already feels so dark. And now another pyre is snuffed out, and we are made all the lesser because of it.

I raise my sword in salute to you, Sec. Boncodin. I won’t wish you eternal rest, because I know you don’t need that well-wishing. You of all people have earned that right.

The news item at PDI. She was only 55.

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.