Moral force

After a week or so of drive-by blogging (commenting on the blogs of other people instead of writing them down here), I've decided to give it a rest for now. I was mostly commenting on Manuel L. Quezon III's blog and making the case against further use of People Power. My reasons are simple: 1) our country's already weak institutions cannot survive further undermining by going outside the system, and 2) People Power encourages military adventurism. The Newsbreak articles Failed Enterprise and Romancing the Military illustrate both. In fact, these articles report that civil society organizations have been actively seeking military inetrvention: coup d'etat. A recent Pulse Asia survey reports that only 6% or respondents favor a coup d'etat, which some people find heartening. It shows Pinoys havent completely lost their senses. But I wonder about the findings. Perhaps 'coup' to most people, mean a violent power-grab by the military; a full-on shootout. But a coup doesnt have to be violent. The military can stage a coup just by showing up. They did that in EDSA 2 when they issued their famous 'withdrawal of support'. That, ladies and germs, was a coup d'etat, an extra-constitutional means of transferring power. It took some legal gymnastics from the Supreme Court to legitimize the new administration, declaring Erap Estrada has resigned based on Senator Angara's diary entry. Erap maintains he hasnt resigned; that he was forced out of the Palace; that he still is the legitimate president. Boo-hoo for him. But even more boo-hoo for our democratic institutions. Dont get me wrong. Im not lamenting Erap's ouster. At that time, I believed we did the right thing. But in hindsight, I realize now that what we did then was a mistake. We turned off our constitution, in effect denying equal protection under the law to someone we didnt like. That isnt democracy. That's the rule of the mob. What we shouldve done then was kept up the pressure and pushed for impeachment or resignation. There was a distinct possibility that we wouldve lost the impeachment trial in the Senate, but those are the breaks. That's the law. We can't love the law only if we win. We have to love the law even if we lose. If it needs changing, there are ways of doing that, too. What we dont do is storm the streets and disrupt eveything just because we're convinced of the moral supremacy of our position.

Speaking of storming the streets, a middle class led 'People Power' (Im beginning to get really annoyed at how that term is abused) protest is a powerful force. It has what I'd like to call 'moral force.' This moral force can sway the military to act. The 'masa' dont have this moral force. A masa-led uprising will not cause the military to try to salvage the situation by taking over the government or withdrawing support to the legitimate government. The middle class can do that. They did that in EDSA 2. And having given the taste of that kind of power, of determining the outcome of a political conflict, the military have taken on a new role for themselves: the role of savior of the republic. Various civil society groups are now openly or covertly courting military support. They dont know what theyre doing. Using the military in this way is like handling nitroglycerin. It can blow up in their faces. In the Newsbreak articles, the coup plotters are already arrogating unto themselves the power to determine who gets to head the new government if they succeed in ousting Ate Glue. That's just what we need: a political party with guns whom every wheeling-dealing politician would court. That's what Ate Glue is doing. She owes her presidency to the military and she's endlessly courting their support, so much so that the military head has now swollen with pride, claiming that they are the ones who're holding the country together. (Which could be true. In which case, the damage has been done. It has been done since EDSA 2.)

It's all harmless fun til a government gets toppled

Here's the reason I havent been blogging much lately: the Pinoy blogosphere has been a-buzz with the recent shenanigans from Ate Glue and those opposed to her and Im just blog-hopping. Everyone of course has an opinion on the legitimacy of the little one's continued stay in the Palace by the Pasig, and the discussions have been interesting, to say the least, with plenty of self-righteousness and sanctimoniousness to go around, especially from the anti-Gloria groups who are advocating her immediate removal. It makes for very entertaining reading. So without further ado, here are the links to the blogs Ive been following:

Columnist Manuel L. Quezon III's blog. Lively discussions in every MLQ3 entry, some take some straining to comprehend but on the whole, lively, entertaining, and informative. The blog has links to other opinion-makers as well. (Side-note: my great-grandfather's brother, Venancio, was appointed by then President MLQ, his Philippine Revolution buddy, as president of the Philippine National Bank when the Philippines was a commonwealth. If I read my history correctly, his tenure in the PNB was, shall we say, less than spectacular.)

Self-professed ordinary Joe Schmoe S.C. Austero's Out of My Mind. Mr. Austero is the author of the now-infamous Open Letter to our Leaders (it's in his blog) circulating via email and has attracted the ire of the rallyistas against Ate Glue. I suspect that the reason it has caught their ire is because Mr. Austero seems to have articulated a sentiment shared by a large number of people, (myself included, to a certain extent.).

Other blogs of note are:

Stepping on Poop. The blogger here shares the same view that I have regarding the problem of Gloria: use legal and constitutional means. Mr. Austero advocates this as well. I happen to think that that's the only way we can mature as a democracy. Imagine if the coup-plotters succeed in toppling another president? We'll just confirm to the world what theyve long suspected: We're a Banana Republic.

The Black and White Movement's blog tries flash mobs to try to oust Gloria. They were the instigators of the Starbucks Protest and their t-shirts read: "Patalsikin Na. Now Na." which leaves no doubt as to what strata of society theyre targeting. There hardly is any discussion in the site, but I just thought I'd note it here because they have some pretty novel ideas about staging protests rallies.

Read, participate, make your keystrokes heard.

One time only

Gratuitous self-portraits.

The earliest self-portraits go back to the time of the Pharaohs in Egypt. Probably even earlier than that. The Cro-Magnon cave paintings sometimes have stencils of the artists' hands. Since they probably didnt have mirrors then, I would submit that those hands were a form of self-portrait.

There has to be some level of conceit in the making of a self-portrait. Or is it insecurity; a fear of just vanishing into oblivion? Of course any artist's work can be considered a mixture of conceit and insecurity, but the self-portrait is another kettle of sandtrout altogether, there's something else other than the paradox of conceit-insecurity. It's the artist trying to capture some lost and fleeting something in the his or her soul. Or it's the artist just saving money--models arent cheap and they need to practice.

Or maybe it's none of those. Maybe they do it because it's fun.


My impression of a grouper fish. Grouper fish like to hang out
with starfish. Because theyre grouper fish. (Mitch Hedberg)



Smaa-a-a-aaash. My tribute to Jack Kirby.



In a reflective mood.

Shobis

I was channel surfing one morning when I chanced upon the late Mitch Hedberg's Comedy Central special on Jack TV. I remember seeing him for the first time on the Late Show with David Letterman and went, Wow! What a friggin genius!. He just rattles off jokes in a spaced out delivery that had no segues between jokes whatsoever. His jokes were never off-color, almost always free of four-letter words. Theyre mostly wordplay and non-sequiturs and clever twists on everyday observation. Just like Carlin without the hate. "When we were on acid, we would go into the woods, because there was less chance that you would run into an authority figure. But we ran into a bear. My friend Duane was there, raising his right hand, swearing to help prevent forest fires. He told me, 'Mitchell, Smokey is way more intense in person!'"

My favorite comics are the ones who just stand there and deliver with no gimmicks, no making faces, nothing over-the-top. Hedberg's delivery was such that you half-expect him to fall asleep on you in the middle of a sentence. He was a master of the one-liner. In fact, his entire act is almost made entirely of one-liners. "I wrote a script, and I gave it to a guy who reads scripts, and he really likes it, but he thinks I need to rewrite it. I said, 'Screw that, I'll just make a copy!'" Too bad I didnt catch it from the beginning. But Jack TV always replays the good stuff.

*********

I really feel sorry for Brad Pitt. Have you seen his recent photos with Angelina? Heartbreaker says he looks like an alalay. He's just a man. A rich, good-looking man to be sure, but just a man nevertheless. Angelina is a force of nature. She's a typhoon, she's a tornado, the Aurora Borealis. She's the Van Allen radiation belts. No way can Pitt get that close to her without being destroyed. I feel for you, man. Good luck.

*********

Oscar night. Yaaaay. Not. I havent seen any of the nominees. Im just looking forward to what Jon Stewart will do in the show's opening. Then I'll go to bed.

Papa Tatong on the wall

When we were kids, growing up in the old house in Caloocan, we had these wooden walls in our bedroom with whorls and wood grains visible on them. One day, my brother and I were playing on the bed and he pointed out what looked like a human face on the wall. I looked and I did see what looked like a disctinct human face from the whorls in the wood. "Papa Tatong is looking at us," my brother said. It was an odd name, but it stuck. We started to call the face Papa Tatong and use it to scare my sis. "Lagot ka kay Papa Tatong." I dont know how my brother came up with the name since we havent heard of anyone named Tatong before. And "Papa?" We called our step-grandfather Papa, just as we called our grandmother Mama.

Name-dropping side-trip: Papa, my step-grandfather, was a USAFFE officer from Manila who guerilla-ed in Pili during the war when my grandmother met him. She was a young widow and my mother said Papa would serenade her with his guitar. Once my grandmother's yaya thought he was serenading one of my grandmother's unmarried cousins. "Hindi ho siya. Yung viuda," Papa said. He had a great baritone and sang Spanish love songs. Later, war over, they married. He then managed a local radio station in Naga and also DJ-ed. In the 50's one of his guerilla buddies, Ramon D'Salva, was acting in movies and introduced him to the big studio producers at the time: the Santiago's, Vera-Perezes, etc. He eventually acted in movies and earned a FAMAS nomination for best supporting actor. He was probably one of the most type-cast actors in movie history. Because of his looks and bearing, he was always cast as a pipe-smoking, robe-wearing, Don Something, or as Mayor Something. At the same time, one of the soldiers in the guerilla unit he commanded was also making a name for himself in the movies; a young man from Sorsogon from the Escudero clan, whom we all know today as Eddie Garcia, Manoy himself.

Mama and Papa moved to Manila with the kids, eight of them, because of Papa's movie career. They rented a place in Caloocan near the Premiere Productions lot in Grace Park. This was in the late 50's or early 60's. At around lunch time when they were shooting, two young actors would poke around the house and ask Mama what was for lunch. They loved Mama's laing. Their names were Fernando Poe Jr. and Joseph Estrada. My mother had such a huge crush on FPJ. End of name-dropping side-trip.

Anyway, there was Papa Tatong on the wall looking at us. It was only years later that we would find out that my grandfather's name was Fortunato, and he was called Tatoy for short. Eerie that my brother would choose the name Papa Tatong for the face on the wall. Methinks it's some sort of memory my brother had when he was still a baby, or a fetus, or something, when our folks were talking about my grandfather, lodged in his subconscious. The name resurfaced years later, slightly altered but unmistakable.

Here's a picture of my grandmother and grandfather, the oldest picture of them my mother found in a relative's vault somewhere.



The note on the back reads: To Tio Ramon and Tia Sulu, A simple souvenir of our first wedding anniversary. [signed] Tatoy-Mila and Baby. The siopao-faced baby is my mother.

Ladies and gentlemen

You all remember Stinky, right? Well this is his internet debut.

He's about 8 months old now and the girls just love him to bits.

And the hits just keep on coming

Gloria has just declared a state of emergency to protect herself from people who want to take over the reins. Big friggin deal. Can't we just ignore the government? Can't we, for the love of God, just ignore everybody who wants to take over from the government? This government. No, Im no anarchist, although I admit to being a bit of a Christian Libertarian, as in John Lennon's "Everything the government touches turns to shit." If you think about it, the government needs us more than we need it. It's a huge tapeworm in our collective intestines, sucking the nourishment out of our blood. And like a huge tapeworm, it controls us, influencing how we behave and how we eat.

We dont need the government. We dont need to surrender our freedom and dignity to these clowns. The sooner the people realize this, the better. Our utilities are run by private corporations. Social services are more efficiently run by NGOs; the Red Cross and various other agencies are always first to arrive in disaster areas. We look to the police and the military for security, but do really you think they provide this? Do you feel secure with them around? Bottom line is, all we have looking out for us is us. We, the people. We the people working together for common goals and interests.

I dont mean disobeying the law. By all means let's obey the laws: dont steal, dont kill, dont run a red light--the law is what's supposed to rule us. I just want us to ignore the people in government. Shun them. Dont acknowledge their existence. Theyre not more important than you or I. Theyre parasites who dont deserve our attention. Let's secede from them.

===============================================
Addendum. 27 February 2006. Solita Monsod's Feb 25 column Keeping the flame of Edsa alive.
All I can say, ma'am, is Exactly, exactly. I wasnt interested in joining any of the so-called EDSA celebrations-cum-protest rallies. I wasnt interested in going to Fort Bonifacio yesterday to support the breakaway Marines. (I did intend to go there to take pictures. Great photo-op. But the sight of Imee Marcos holding vigil at the gates, giving interviews, smiling for the cameras, together with other politicos... well... )

People power isnt the rallies, the mass action on the streets. It's time we moved on from that media-friendly display. The vile politicos have already hijacked the streets of EDSA, riding the waves of the people who're still naive enough to believe that mass actions and People Power are synonymous. It's time for People Power to get off the streets and into the communities. Into our homes. Into our hearts and minds.

The government is an obstacle to true service to the people. People Power has to find its way around it, if not ignore it altogether. The less government we have in this country, the better.