Defending Obama Versus The Left

If one were to read the left leaning blogs written by “progressives”, whether they be Democrats or non-affiliated entities, a conclusion might be that President Obama has betrayed his principles and the promises of the 2008 campaign. Clearly there is palpable, and lately very vocal, discontent with the country’s first African American president. Talks of mounting a left wing led primary challenge in the 2012 election cycle has surfaced and could be getting some legs.

One of the complaints is that Mr. Obama does not seem to be fighting for his beliefs and the Democratic agenda. There was great outcry, for example, when he did not pursue the “public option” in the Health reform bill. There seems an even more vocal outcry over his recently announced entente with the leaders of the Republican Party over the extension of the Bush tax cuts.

I too had been seeing red over this perceived abandonment of his principles and promises and Mr. Obama’s seeming unwillingness to “fight”.

Yet today I decided to take a closer, and yes, a more dispassionate, look at the president’s performance and one theme, in my view, is emerging: while candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail promised to “fight” for health care for all Americans and to abolish the “tax cuts” for the rich, as President Obama he has seen a remodeled view of what his role is and that is to keep the American people “safe”, or that if some harm must come that such harm is buffered as best as possible.

Why do I say this?

Let’s take health care as an example. What exactly did he come away with in that bruising battle of 2009? Well, the following:
• People can longer be denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition
• Younger Americans can avail of their parent’s health care policies until age 26
• Patients suffering serious illness can no longer be dropped from coverage by the insurance companies
• Americans not provided health care benefits by their employers can purchase reasonably priced policies

So, looking at the glass from a half full rather than a half empty perspective, what the President accomplished and accepted was a health care bill that met key elements of his 2008 campaign promise, which is to take care of the most vulnerable and under served segments of American society. The bill that he was willing to take in his pocket would, at the very least, eliminate the most egregious cases of suffering endured by a large segment of the American population. Part of his mission was accomplished. As president he worked out the best deal he could for the American people. The public option is a fight for another day.

In the fight for the elimination of tax cuts for the wealthy, a similar scenario has emerged. He knows his campaign promise was to eliminate the cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000.00 a year, but he also realizes that in the present atmosphere, and after the power shift created by the 2010 by elections, he had a slim chance of getting such a bill passed. In the meantime there was this specter of millions of unemployed Americans heading into the Christmas season who would lose their unemployment benefits come January 1st. The effect would have been devastating for many families with millions of children also adversely affected.

So, while he may be seething is his progressive heart of hearts at the prospect of millionaires and billionaires continuing to enjoy what is in effect the largesse and generosity of the American people via the existing tax code, he kept his focus on what is most important: the welfare and well being of a large segment of the American public.

It also was, perhaps tacitly, an acceptance on his part that hey, maybe there is some merit to the Republicans ideas about creating jobs. His mission, foremost, is not to validate his own ideas but to take care of the people he serves.

By his actions as well, i.e. acceptance of the Republicans demands, he is really fulfilling a campaign promise that we also fell in love with: the end of gridlock in Washington and jointly working for the American people. Yes, it is not in clear and dramatic proportions, but it is a start.

My advice, therefore, to the left, and to all the moderates and Republicans like myself who fell in love in 2008 with the candidate that was Barack Obama, is that we look not at that inspirational speaker who fired up our imagination, but rather at President Barack Obama, the man in the oval office who has responsibility for the welfare of all Americans. If we do, it is likely that we might cut him some slack.

And I have a feeling that the superb politician that he is, Mr. Obama knows this and also understands that when the time comes to face the electorate again he can frame his accomplishments as a case of having a glass half full. And sometimes that’s the best we can truly expect, and accept.

Let's Have a Serious Conversation

Forget “JASIG”, Legalize the Communist Party .



Reading thru a headline item in the Philippine Star reporting on the arrival of Luis Jalandoni, I run into an acronym that seemed unusual: JASIG. Upon further scrutiny I found that this stood for Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees. Apparently, this is the umbrella protocol under which Jalandoni, chairman of the outlawed National Democratic Front, and his wife, Ma. Consuelo Ledesma, are able to make a “private” visit to the Philippines to celebrate the Christmas holidays.

(Those of us old enough might probably recall that Jalandoni was once a priest who engaged in a version of "liberation theology" and got into trouble .Ledesma as well was an activist nun who was jailed for a year by Marcos. They both defrocked and entered a relationship that led to marriage - the wedding officiated no less than by Jaime Cardinal Sin.)
The Star article also reported that a “meeting” between the NDF, led by Jalandoni, Ledesma and Communist Party of the Philippines head Jose Ma. Sison on one hand, and presumably Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Director Carla Munsayac Villarta and her team on the other, is scheduled to take place in Oslo come February 2011.

Why engage in "peace talks" thousands of miles away? President Aquino and his administration should take this opportunity to launch the country into a giant leap forward by completely decriminalizing the Communist Party and let Sison, Jalandoni and Ledesma live freely in the Philippines and do their avowed work of uplifting the lot of the Filipino masses, particularly the workers and farmers. Who can argue against their altruistic goals? The one caveat is that this trio of revolutionaries, their supporters, backers and friends must abandon any armed struggle to achieve their goals. No warfare, no terrorism, no extortion, no executions. Not too distant history, and some present examples (Cuba and North Korea), offer clear evidence that this form of government is an outright failure so why even go there? And if Sison and Jalandoni do have genuine followers in the hills and jungles, they must come in, surrender their arms and pledge allegiance to the duly constituted government. ( I say “genuine” because it is also a long understood reality that many so called “NPAs” roaming the countryside are no more than petty criminals extorting “:fees” and “taxes” from a hapless population)

Why am I suggesting the unshackling of the Communist Party? Because, for one, the current “advocates” for the workers and farmers have failed ( miserably) in the task of freeing them from their current and long standing bondage. It is now a quarter of a century since we booted the dictator Marcos from his oppressive and torture ridden reign, more than half a century after WWII, and over a hundred years since we dislodged our Spanish colonizers, and our poor are still where they have always been: at the bottom of the strata and sinking even deeper.

Politicians, including presidents like Joseph Estrada, for example, professed a “maka-pobre” platform yet did zilch for the workers and farm hands and instead devoted his efforts and time, it has been seriously charged, to further enrich himself and his friends. The entire Philippine political structure, it seems, is there to protect the interests of the economic and social elite and to perpetuate and prolong their dominance over all aspects of Philippine society. The laws provide protection for businesses, and the government entities ensure that such protection is vigorously enforced, most often to the detriment of the working class and even the general public.

This dynamic needs to be drastically altered. And it is just not possible to effect any change under our present structure. Entities that are supposed to advocate for the workers and farm hands, such as labor unions, have failed to substantively improve the lot of their constituencies. Legalizing the Communist Party, and giving people like Sison, Jalandoni and Ledesma free reign to spread the doctrine of working class empowerment would, it is hoped, elevate the conversation from the current platitudes verbalized in the political zarzuela to one that fully addresses the true plight of the country’s chronic poor.

Let me assure the reader that I am not a communist and neither are the millions of Filipinos who are sick and tired of the endless political circuses that emerge every couple of years wherein the focus it seems evolves around the glamorous lives of dimpled, meticulously coifed celebrity-candidates. We need a serious conversation to take place and so far we seem to not have been capable of it. Perhaps these resurrected, aging rebels from the 1960’s can inject a sense of seriousness, and yes, urgency, to our country’s plight. And I believe that our citizenry is mature and savvy enough to effectively sieve progressive ideas regardless the source; that we can separate the chaff of destructive Marxism from the true grain of reform.

We can and must unshackle our workers; we can and we must cast off the heavy yoke of oppression that has weighed down and stooped our farm hands; we can and must march on to become a true democracy; we can and must bring to life the Filipino that our great national hero Jose Rizal so fondly and rightly envisioned. And we need all segments to engage in this mission, old communists included. ldq44@aol.com

ABC: Does it spell Pacquiao's Defeat?

He cannot be a boxer forever, yet he can be a lasting champion



Manny Pacquiao has made his country, and Filipinos around the world, proud yet again with his impressive November 13,2010 victory at Cowboy Stadium in Dallas. Some 41,000 boxing fans showed up in person on fight night. Over a million tv sets signed in to HBO and paid the premium for the privilege of viewing the spectacular display on tv around the US and throughout the world.

And the paying public got its money’s worth. Pacquiao put on a show, devastating the bigger, taller, heavier Antonio Margarito in the process and ended the evening with yet another title, his record eighth.

. I left the sports bar where I watched the fight and headed for home, eager to put my recollections of the fight into written form.

After firing up my laptop and composing my memories of the evening, I delved into my files and revisited a March 10 article on my blog wherein I advised Manny Pacquiao to desist from his plan to become a politician. He did not take my advice and I really doubt if what I wrote ever got to him. But what made me revisit the article was a comment sent by one of my readers, a friend whose opinion I always respected because of the candor with which he expressed them, very simply and to the point.

He said that I should not be too impressed with the reportage on Manny Pacquiao in the Philippines because his handlers and p.r. staff have adroitly succeeded in keeping all the “real news” out of the headlines.
Manny, he intimated, had reportedly succumbed to what he calls the “ABC”. This stood for, he explained, “alak, babae and casino”. He added that the rumor mill in Manila had it that the Filipino icon had amassed a large gambling debt and had accepted to fight Clottey mostly for the money so he could pay it off. This was disturbing news to me, yet I could not dismiss it completely because of the source. He did not want me to be sucked into the “Pacquiao is the greatest” p.r. machine.

And I, at the same time, started recalling how, in the early to mid ‘70’s in Hawaii, a string of very promising Filipino boxers had in no time succumbed to the lure of gaiety that characterized life on Waikiki beach. The pattern was that these boxers usually won their first few fights in spectacular fashion and became instant attractions. They became toasts of the Filipino community and spent their nights at fun clubs where “alak” was plentiful and the line of “babaes” seemed never ending.

One of these was a Cebuano boxer by the name of Rene Barrientos, a one time lightweight champion in the Philippines and who had a bright future in Hawaii and the USA. I have no direct knowledge of his night life activities as I left Hawaii not long after he arrived. But I kept in touch with activities in the islands where I had opened a Philippine News branch; one day I found out that Rene ended up joining a contingent of boxers whose dreams of championships, fame and riches had gone all up in smoke. Some went back home defeated and distraught, while others took jobs as bouncers in the night clubs that not too long ago treated them like celebrities.

I had not seen nor heard of any such debauchery associated with Manny in the US, but then again I have no access to him nor do I circulate anywhere near his sphere. I read once that his coach, Freddie Roach, had complained openly once about his boxer’s large entourage and how they negatively affected his conditioning. I’ve also heard that Manny was seen in several nightclubs both in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Then again he’s earned his money and his high standing the hard way. He literally fought for it and laid his life on the line in doing so. His opponents have either been champions or highly rated contenders in the various weight classes. Certainly no Palookas. So, why shouldn’t he indulge in the pleasures available to winners and power dudes like him and the many star athletes that we usually read about?

Well, perhaps it is because he stands out as a beacon of hope for the millions of young people in the Philippines who have been inspired by his story. The utter poverty of his youth did not deter him from aspiring to greatness. Blessed with unique physical attributes that he has used well, he worked very hard to attain his goals. He was not an overnight sensation. He achieved his standing literally absorbing one heavy and painful blow after another. And once he obtained enough wealth he went back to school and tackled the academics that were beyond his reach as a youngster because of his poverty. An excellent example worthy of emulation, indeed.

I hope he remembers, and keeps in mind, that with the accolades bestowed on him, and the high regard with which he is held, comes a responsibility. Whether he likes it or not he has to understand and realize that in a country plunged into the darkness of poverty, corruption, lawlessness and, for many, despair, he is one of the very few vanguards who can carry the torch that lights the way to a nation’s salvation. It is my sincere hope that as he moves forward to even more victories, that he brings with him the images, memories and interests of the impoverished people of his youth. And that he acts with a robust resolve to their upliftment, and not be the unwitting tool to be used and exploited by the current power elements with whom he hobnobs in the chambers of the Philippine congress and the halls and corridors of power where they constantly lurch, salivating at every opportunity for even more illicit riches.

He cannot be a boxer forever. Yet Manny Pacquiao has the rare opportunity to become his country’s most outstanding, and lasting, champion in ways far more important and significant than his accomplishments in the ring. Some people are bestowed with talent, opportunity and a vastly favorable moment in history. What they do with this rare confluence will determine whether they accomplish great things or, like many, simply rue and commiserate their lost and wasted opportunities. It is hoped that Manny Pacquiao sees, recognizes and embraces this moment, for we as a nation simply have no need, use nor tolerance for yet another waylaid and fallen hero.
ldq44@aol.com

Filipino OFWs : Outrageous Exploitation!!

Noted southern California based journalist Dionisio C. Agrava has recently brought to light the unfortunate and sometimes pitiful conditions that many Filipino overseas workers find themselves in. A recent concern highlighted by Mr. Agrava involves some 11 such workers who had fled oppressive and cruel conditions at an employer in Mississippi and had sought the help of officials at the Philippine consulate in Los Angeles. As I understand it only the fierce and ferocious advocacy and reporting done by Mr. Agrava is what prodded the consulate hierarchy into finally taking action to aid the Filipinos.

Mr. Agrava also succeeded in rallying the Filipino-American community into providing housing and food for the 11 workers. How their cases and status were finally resolved is not known. It seems that only one person in the L.A. consulate office really cared what happened to the stranded Filipinos, a certain Alberto Duero the labor attaché.

The problem, as reported by Mr. Agrava, is that Duero is not properly funded and seems unable to get much action from his bosses at the Department of Labor in Manila.
Typical Philippine bureaucracy.

Mr. Agrava also recounts the several incidents in various places where Filipino workers have either been short changed, underpaid or exploited and abused one way or another. He paints a grim picture for many of our countrymen lured to overseas “opportunities” in their search for a better life for themselves and their families.

In Reno I’ve heard of the story of one Filipina, (let’s call her Vicky – not her real name) who has been thru one sad tale of woe. Vicky is in her late thirties. She was a teacher in the Philippines. She had actively sought opportunities to work as an overseas worker and one day was overjoyed at finding a recruiter who promised her employmentin the USA. The job was for a “housekeeping aide” at one of the hotel-casinos in Reno.

She was promised a salary of a little over $10 per hour which is about 25% more than the nationally mandated minimum wage of $7.50 per hour. But it came with a catch. Vicky had to pay the recruiter, up front, $4,400.00. This represented the recruiter’s cut as well as air transportation to and from Reno, Nevada.

Vicky had to sell, borrow and beg to put this amount together. She figured that at $10.00 an hour, provided that she lived a frugal life, she could make up the $4,400.00 in about 12 weeks.

When Vicky finally got to Reno and reported to the casino-hotel, she learned that she was not guaranteed a 40 hour work week. There were weeks when she only worked 16 hours. A major recession gripped the USA and business was slow. And she was being paid only the hours that she worked. So, not only did she not earn enough to start paying back what she owed from friends and relatives, she could not even afford her own place to stay. Mercifully, a Filipino family took her in . Not much, since she had to sleep on the floor, or when available, the couch. He had to do housework to pay for her stay.

Being resourceful she hustled around for any extra employment finally finding another Filipino couple who had a “home care” business taking care of elderly patients who could not live on their own. This “part time” job at least earned her a few hundred dollars a week and gave her free meals. The couple also gave her warm clothing as the cold northern Nevada winter was creeping in. This employment did not last long because some of the elderly patients were pulled from the home, again the effect of the recession: relatives, many now unemployed themselves, decided to take over the care of their elderly parents in their own homes and pocket the fees themselves.

I lost touch with Vicky as she had moved on to seek other employers. Her story, sad to say, is not an unusual nor isolated one. I’ve heard of many equally unfortunate Filipinas, many mothers of small children, like Vicky. (Her contract at the casino-hotel was not renewed, so technically her visa had expired. She either had to go home or stay as an illegal alien.)

As I heard it many in her group, upon landing, did not report to the casino-hotel they were contracted to. They had friends and relatives in the US and decided to join the underground economy that is often the refuge of undocumented or out of visa aliens.This is turn, reportedly caused US Immigration officials to refuse issuance of any further “temporary work visas” for Filipinos. A bad situation all around.

What I find abhorrent is how these recruiters in the Philippines can continue to ply their trade. How they can blatantly hoodwink desperate Filipinos into onerous “deals” and continue to get away with it. Shall we conclude that the officials at our Department of Labor, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration are sleeping on the job or just totally incompetent? Or should we conclude, as we often must when it comes to the Philippines, that they too are in on these scams and are profiting from them? Corruption again raises its ugly head. I share Mr. Agrava’s outrage, as every Filipino should.
ldq44@aol.com

Memo to Pres. Aquino re Tourism:

Fight the Disease, Not the Symptoms!!


The Philippine Star in its November 13 issue headlined “Noy slams APEC allies over travel advisories” saying that President Aquino expressed anger and displeasure with the travel advisories posted by the governments of the APEC member nations warning their citizens to avoid travel to the Philippines.

Well, this is indeed the ultimate in inanity on President Aquino’s part. Why is he complaining about the negative travel advisories when what is needed is a robust and vigorous effort on his government’s part to address the very causes that trigger these advisories?

Are governments like New Zealand’s supposed to completely ignore the August 23rd tourist bus massacre right in the midst of the country’s prime tourism enclave? Certainly the wishy-washy, long drawn out “investigation” and the seemingly flaccid and impotent “findings” that he announced reassured no one that similar incidents would not take place in the future.

“…with the terror advisories recently we were singled out as a place to avoid”, Pnoy bewailed.

Listen, President Aquino, with all due respect I am a Filipino by birth and I would very much like to visit our country more often and even spend half a year there at a time, but man, not only am I afraid and terrified over the peace and order situation, I am also quite discouraged from spending time in Manila because most of that time will be spent in gridlocked traffic and amid a veritable fog of pollutants in the air!!

Not only am I afraid of being robbed, assaulted or killed by criminals in all forms and guises, I am also totally scared that not only are these criminals in cahoots with the police forces, the very perpetrators of the crimes could be the police themselves. Now tell me with a straight face that these fears are not well placed.

I am also afraid of our taxi drivers. I was in Manila not too long ago and tried to get a ride to my hotel in Ermita from the airport. The only transportation offered to me would have cost at least 500 pesos. I know a taxi ride from the airport to my hotel should no exceed 100 pesos. So I decided to walk a quarter of a mile to the police check point into NAIA and asked the police officers if they could hail me a regular taxi.

“Oh, no”, the head of the unit advised. “Do not go into any taxi on your own as you could be kidnapped or robbed” he added.

He kindly took me into his jeep to a busy intersection and there hailed a taxicab. He made it known to the driver that he had taken all the information needed and expected the driver to take me to my hotel with no problems. Great, the police helped me, but why does a traveler need that kind of security intercession for a simple taxi ride? Why does it become necessary for visitors to pay five times the regular rate just to get a reliable, safe ride from an international airport to a five star hotel?

Then there is this predicament that if a local entrepreneur, whether a store or even a transportation provider like a jeepney-for-charter , notices that a potential customer is a foreigner or a balikbayan visitor that the price of the goods or services could rise almost by some 100 percent. I was with a group of Filipino friends in Las Vegas recently and some were married to white Americans. In the course of the conversation the husbands joked that in the Philippines, when they are there, they are automatically charged the “white tax”, i.e. if they and not their wives are involved in whatever transaction, they have to pay extra.

Dear Mr. President, if you want to make the Philippines a heavily visited country by tourists who can aid the economy you must have the people working for you see to it that there is a sound and stable tourism infrastructure in place at all levels.

Take care of the fundamentals such as peace and order. Reform not only the institutions that are directly associated with tourism but everything else that affects the quality of life of our people. In other words, make the Philippines a country that we can all love, embrace and visit often without fear for our lives or safety, without concern that we will be gouged and with the reassurance that should something not go as planned that there is a reliable safety net to fall back on for effective remedies (e.g. medical services?).

And yes, many Filipino-Americans will be flying home soon, perhaps me included. I’ll probably skip Manila and go straight to Cebu and even in that beautiful “Queen City of the South” traffic and smog are becoming a problem. Ditto with Cagayan de Oro and Davao City. I hope that the leadership in these 3 cities in the south take a very close look at the problems that persist in Manila and take steps to avoid them.

Address and cure the illness, not the symptoms. Do not “rage against the dying of the light” as Dylan Thomas put it addressing his ailing mother, do as Peter Benenson of Amnesty International once simply suggested : Light a Candle.
ldq44@aol.com

Pacquiao on 60 Minutes; Filipinos in US Elections

Boxing icon Manny Pacquiao, recently elected to the Philippine congress, has been heavily reported on by US news media recently, most notable of these the prestigious and well viewed 60 Minutes program on CBS. The ever smiling champion clearly charmed interviewer Bob Simon particularly when Pacquiao responded to the question as to who he believed was the best boxer of all time. “Including me?” asked Pacquiao. His answer that he believed he was the “one”, seemed uncharacteristic for the once outwardly humble Filipino, yet he seems to have a new air of self confidence, perhaps the result of his newly acquired political standing.

His self evaluation as the greatest of all time is definitely not an idle boast. Bob Arum, who has promoted many of Muhammad Ali’s championship bouts, made the same statement. “ He is a unique fighter, “ Arum explained. “Most fighters are ‘one-armed’ punchers. Pacquiao is different, he has power from both his left and right fists.”

And both fists are definitely going to be needed when he faces Antonio Margarito for the world’s super welterweight title November 13th in front of an expected 70,000 patrons at Jerry Jones’ Cowboy Stadium in Dallas, Texas. A win will give Pacquiao his eighth title adding to his already unprecedented seven world championship belts. And in the Philippines crime will take a brief holiday, insurrections will wait for another day, millions of tv sets will be on; taxis, jeepneys and calesas will be idled as all will watch with anticipation and glee the expected triumph of the one Filipino who seems to always put his money where his mouth is. Since he is descended from Cebuano ancestors we certainly expect a KULAS moment, kulas being the acronym for Kuyaw Ug Labok Ang
Sugbuanon. Whether in victory or defeat Manny will be in the hearts of all Filipinos.

Manny was also big in the news both in Nevada and California for reasons other than his boxing career. He is now a congressman and seems to understand the value an endorsement has in winning voters over. So when ex-boxer Harry Reid, the beleaguered candidate for re-election in Nevada, called Manny for the help the latter graciously and happily did so. The Nevada race was a very close one and the Tea Party movement had made Reid a special target for defeat. Swinging a few thousand Filipino American voters to Reid’s column certainly helped the current majority leader win re-election. Reid is an important figure in Washington and having him on our side is truly beneficial for Philippine interests. Good work, Manny.
*********************
The recent US midterm elections saw the unseating of the Democrats and the stunning, though expected, triumph of the Tea Party-energized Republicans. It also saw the election or re-election of more than 2 dozen Filipino-Americans to various positions around the country, most notably the confirmation by voters of the appointment of Tani Santil Sakauye as chief justice of the California Supreme Court. She is a descendant of Filipino migrant workers and now occupies the highest ever position attained by a Filipino American in the US mainland.

Hawaii, the state that gave us Ben Cayetano, the first ever American of Filipino descent elected governor of a US state, again led the field in number of Fil-Am candidates elected. A post election controversy, however, seems to have surfaced. It seems that supporters of Lynn Berbano Finnegan, the candidate for lieutenant governor as the running mate for Duke Aiona, are upset that many Filipino Hawaiians voted for the other ticket headed by Neil Abercrombie, the eventual winner. The Aiona-Finnegan partisans seemed to have expected that voters of Filipino descent should support candidates based on their ethnicity and I have a problem with this attitude.

Politicians and candidates of Filipino descent ought to be evaluated and voted on based on their qualifications and programs of government. In a state like Hawaii, candidates need to pull together a broad coalition that has appeal to the general voting public regardless their ethnicity. I remember back in the 1970’s many Filipino-Americans were complaining that it was difficult to get a Filipino-American elected because the Japanese-Americans as well as the Chinese-American community were larger then and usually voted as a block for candidates of their ethnic group regardless the qualifications of other candidates. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, the Finnegan supporters seem to want to do exactly what we opposed in the ‘70’s i.e. vote only based on one’s ethnic identity. There have been many successful Filipino-American candidates in Hawaii, most notably Ben Cayetano. And their road to success was made possible because they appealed to voters across ethnic groups. It is well and good to vote for a fellow Filipino American, yet the obligation to vote for the most qualified cannot be shelved aside for ethnicity’s sake.

ldq@aol.com

Can Peace come to Jolo?

A Conversation with Father Joe

In school geography, from the earliest grades on, we generally referred to Jolo as belonging to an extremity, as in “from Aparri to Jolo”, to describe the length of the Philippines’ territorial reach. It’s coordinates per Google are as follows: 6°0′N 118°2′E.

Once upon a time the islands conjured, in our minds, images of swift, colorful vintas often, rightly or wrongly, feared for its reputation as the carrier of fierce warrior-pirates. At one time in fact, the smuggling of ‘blue seal’ cigarettes and other contraband was a primary source of income for the islanders.

There are many tribes that populate the islands. The most well known of these are the Tausugs and the Badjaos. The former are known for their fierceness and bravery (their tribal name is a combination of the words tau which means people, and ma-isug meaning brave) . The latter, the Badjaos, are known as adventurous seafarers and can reputedly ‘smell’ the weather and can sense an approaching storm at sea several hours before others can discern them. Since they spend most of their lives at sea and their ‘base homes’ are huts on stilts near the shore, it is said that when a new baby is born the badjao mother throws the little one into the sea. If the baby survives then he belongs in the tribe. If the baby drowns and dies then they conclude it would not have survived long anyway as falling into the water is a daily experience for badjao youngsters. ‘Sink or swim’ literally is a matter of life and death for them.

Jolo has been in the news over the past few years and very much less because of its colorful tribes but more because of the seemingly incessant violence visited upon the islands by groups of gunmen, some of whom are allegedly ‘Al Qaeda’ type ‘rebels’ also referred to as the ‘Abu Sayyaf’, while others are no more than gangs and thugs who kidnap, kill and rob natives and visitors alike.

What got me into writing about Jolo is that about a week ago, at a global family reunion in Houston, Texas I got reconnected with one of the eminent members of the generation in the family immediately preceding mine, the Rev. Joe Ante, OMI. During a brief lull in the reunion activities he and I got to talk a bit about Jolo. Father Joe, as we and his many parishioners call him, has been a parish priest in Jolo since 1964. And no, he was not exiled there by his superiors in the Oblate of Mary Immaculate order. In fact he was the top superior in that order at the time and at another time had also been the president of the Notre Dame University system in Mindanao.

“ I volunteered for the Jolo assignment because no one wanted to go there. As the superior I felt it incumbent upon me to take on this mission myself,” he explained.

“So how does a Catholic missionary function and survive in a seemingly hostile Muslim environment?” I asked as I had heard that Father Joe and others in the order have been targets of assassination attempts including three incidents of grenade attacks.

“I got lucky”, he said with a smile as he explained how one of the grenades missed him and rolled into the cathedral ( no one was hurt).

His mission, he explained, was one of education and the providing of skills to both the Christian and Muslim youth in the island.

“If our youth are educated,” he said, “then there is a better chance that we can find peace and togetherness in the future. It is a necessary, preliminary process”.

He explained that the natural hostility that Muslims might have for Christian missionaries is somewhat tamped down because he does not make any overt moves to try and ‘convert’ his Muslim students. In fact he demonstrates great respect for his students and Muslims in general and uses his extensive knowledge of their culture to ensure that nothing he does offends their religious sensitivities. He also maintains a very cordial and mutually informative relationship with Muslim religious leaders in the island and gets to interact with them on a regular basis.

He avers that educating the youth of the islands, including those from the Muslim population, gives him satisfaction that he is fulfilling his Christian mission. He does devote much of his time and effort attending to the religious needs of the 2,000 or so Catholics who are still in the islands.

Still he says, it is a hostile and violent place. It is reported that many officials who supposedly occupy local positions have relocated themselves and their families to places like Manila, Cebu and Zamboanga.

What about kidnappings, is that something that concerns him? What if he gets kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf?

“I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it” he said with a smile, “yet I know I will always be an educator and if they care to listen to me we may even get somewhere,”.

Bravery and heroism take many forms. Even as I write this Fr. Joe is on his way back to Jolo and his mission. His family located around the world all pray that he makes it back for our next family reunion in the summer of 2012.
ldq44@aol.com

SF Giants are Champions; Pinoy Connection

SF Giants are Champions
Thanks to a ‘Freak’ who is part Pinoy

The wait for this championship moment was definitely an excruciating one, to be sure. The Giants moved to San Francisco from New York in 1958. Their counterparts of sorts, the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles the same year, and the intent of Major League bigwigs was to expand interest in baseball nationwide and what a better way than to introduce a west coast “rivalry”.

And natural rivals they were. There has long been a “one upmanship” contests of sorts between L.A. and San Fran ( “please don’t call us Frisco!!). In fact one could even say that residents of the two cities often deride each other publicly (e.g. “Beat L.A.”)

But insofar as major league baseball is concerned the L.A. Dodgers have had the upper hand. They began winning World Series championships since 1965 with a pitcher by the name of Sandy Koufax leading an outstanding staff. Later they also had Fernando Valenzuela, Kirk Gibson and other greats. The Giants on the other hand meandered along over the decades.

San Francisco is where I spent my first few years of life in the US and for this reason it is where I developed my “team loyalties”. I was a fan of the Giants in baseball, of the 49ers in football and the Golden State Warriors in basketball. And speaking of the Warriors, in the 1974-75 season, I managed to get me a couple of annual passes as one of the editors of Philippine News. This gave me free access to games at the Alameda Coliseum where they played. And that was the one year that they won the NBA championship thanks to Rick Barry and a few guys named Joe.

But back to baseball. The moment I think that I truly fell in love with the Giants was that one late afternoon in August of 1974 when, driving from L.A. to SFO in my old 1965 Ford Fairlane I was listening to a baseball game between the Giants and the Dodgers narrated by the venerable Vin Scully. It was the first game ever for a new rookie Giants pitcher by the name of John Montefusco. That game stuck in my mind because Montefusco ( he was nicknamed “The Count” in reference to the count of Montecristo) came to bat in the 9th inning I think and the bases were loaded. Few people gave him a chance to ever hit the ball and drive anyone in. The whole stadium erupted when not only did he hit the ball, he delivered a grand slam home run and won the game. From then on “The Count” became a Giants favorite and is regarded as one of the legends of the game in that city.

The Giants also had several big name players including Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Bobby Bonds. Later Bobby’s son, and Willie Mays’ godson, Barry Bonds became the team’s stalwart thru the 1990’s.

Though I moved to the Los Angeles area in 1978 and lived there for 33 or so years, I kept my team loyalties anchored in my San Francisco roots. Needless to say I got ribbed by officemates during the bad years when the Giants did not fare well and the Dodgers won world championships. I thought the tide finally turned in 1989 when two Bay Area teams, the Giants and the Oakland A’s faced each other in the World Series. Well, would you believe it? Before they could hurl the first pitch the big San Francisco earthquake of 1989 happened. The stadium was vacated and the series postponed by a week or so and they had to play the game at the Oakland Coliseum. The Giants were swept 4-0. More humiliation.

Then again in 2002 the Giants were in the World Series versus the Anaheim Angels. I thought they would get the deal done by game 6 since they were leading 3 games to 2. But the resilient Angels managed to win the next two games. Bummer!

Over the past 2 years my interest in the Giants were revived with the arrival of Tim Lincecum. This very thin, long haired pitcher proved to be a phenom. He won two back-to-back Cy Young awards in 2008 and 2009, as the National League’s best pitcher. If I’m not mistaken this is the first time ever that a rookie accomplished this feat. He got the nickname “The Freak” because it is almost unbelievable that a guy so thin could hurl a baseball so fast and so wickedly that he has become the league’s strikeout leader.

And then I find out that his mother is Filipina, a 2nd generation Pinay, Rebecca de Asis, whose father was born in Hawaii and moved to Washington state. One of his ancestors, a grandmother, named Alberta Alcoy, came from Cebu City. So for the past year, like many Filipino Americans in the area I checked the schedule out to see when he’s pitching and make it a point to catch his game on TV. I saw both of the two World Series games he pitched, the 1st and the 5th games, the latter to clinch the title for the once hapless Giants.
After 52 years they finally won a championship as a west coast team to add to the 5 that they had won while still in New York.

And yes, I join all the Pinoys in the US who proudly claim Tim Lincecum as one of our own. By the way he does have a great sense of humor as well. Asked if he had met Manny Pacquiao and compares his accomplishments to that of the world boxing champion, he said, “ I can’t possibly beat Manny Pacquiao even with a bat in my hand.”
ldq44@aol.com

I Hung Up on President Obama

Sure, it was only a “robocall” made to millions of voters this morning (just as I was having my first cup of coffee) but it was President Obama’s voice. No such call was made in 2008 and that it was deemed necessary this time around perhaps underscores the desperation that the Democratic Party has sunk to. A last ditch attempt to reach and hopefully convince the millions of us who crossed party lines in 2008 to vote for Obama to once again cast our lot with his party.

Sorry bud, you should have known that you had one chance to make it work and you blew it. And, oh, by the way, I also have received almost daily emails from you, Michelle, Joe Biden and various other sources in the party hierarchy. This morning I received one from you that included this line:
“Leandro, we've got to keep moving America forward -- but I need allies in the Senate and governing states to make it happen.”

Come now, Mr. President, you know that’s b.s. We gave you a 60 member majority in the senate in 2008 and what did you do with it? You ended up giving us a healthcare reform bill that will raise health insurance costs, not reduce it. If you believed in your heart of hearts that lowering of such costs can only come with a public option why did you so easily and casually abandon it? Now my neighbor, who did not vote for you and opposed your ideas from the very start, is laughing at me, for good cause, and on the health care issue I can no longer defend your program with much the same vigor as I did eighteen months ago.

Then of course you got the $700 billion stimulus bill passed and I told my neighbor then that we should start seeing unemployment numbers come down as the stimulus money begins to make its way into the economy. Boy was I wrong. Unemployment did not diminish, it increased. And all the gobbledygook you and your economists put out made no sense and had no impact. Sure it was Bush who got us to where we were but we elected you to reverse the Bush tide and fix the problem.

You said in 2008 that we need to stop Washington’s “business as usual” mode and that you would usher in “change”. Well, you didn’t. You entrusted the stimulus spending to the very entities that you said we needed to remake.It seems you were expecting a different result by doing exactly the same thing.

And of course there are many other things that puzzle ex-supporters like me.
You said that you would close Guantanamo, yet it is still open and functioning as it did when Bush was president. My question is did you really mean what you said or were you so naïve and so inexperienced that you really did not know what you were talking about in 2008?

Anyway, sorry for rudely hanging up on you this morning. I just had no stomach to hear your pleas to go to the election booth to vote for your friends. And I imagine, based on the polls, that much of the country feels as I do.

In fact we feel so helpless and so frustrated that it is possible that we might send a pro wrestling promoter in Connecticut to the senate and in Nevada we would probably elect a nut case who once advocated giving prisoners massages and who threatened to eliminate Social Security as well as Medicare. What harm could they do? We want to send a message. Any message. The message for you is: keep your word. You promised a new brand of leadership yet in the end you turned out to be no more than the politicians and lobbyist driven hordes you sought to demonize not less than two years ago.

And of course we know that the Republicans are no better and that they threw everything at you from the outset, and your own seeming ineptness made them the more effective. And all we are left with is this very bad taste in our mouths as we quietly utter, ah, “ a plague on both your houses”. Who can we turn to next? Exactly.

Why Obama is “Failing” and the rise of the Nutcases

Like millions in America I too looked at the 2008 presidential elections as an opportunity to usher in “real change”. The prospects were encouraging for people like me. The protagonists were John McCain, whose 2000 campaign I supported and joined, and Barack Obama. With either as president we would certainly see some serious change in Washington.

McCain’s unexpected selection of Sarah Palin for vice-president unveiled for me a flaw in his character that I was not comfortable with: he seemed prepared to take a risk, a gamble, for risk sake, perhaps to cement his “maverick” credentials, but certainly not a quality we want in our president.

So I was one of the 8 or 9 million Republicans, Independents and conservative Democrats who cast a vote for Obama. Here was a man who envisioned himself a “transformational” president who would help remake our future as FDR once did or Abe Lincoln over a century ago.

But now here I am with probably the same 8 or 9 million who are now quite disenchanted with Obama.

Speaking for myself, here are my reasons for the turnaround:

• He promised that we would not have “Washington as usual” and would bring an end to partisanship. Yet his attempts at having Republican senators and congressmen board his wagon seemed feeble and ineffectual. For sure the GOP was determined to see him fail and adopted the “NO” mantra to anything he proposed, but I thought he could have tried harder. And if they did not want to be active participants in bringing about change he should have proceeded with the promises he made in the campaign and not water down the Health Care legislation to appease the GOP. If having a “public option” was the trigger to lowering health care costs he shouldn’t have backed away from it. Now health care costs are rising, thanks to insurance companies’ greed and they’re blaming Obamacare for it.

• He promised he would end the influence of the lobbyists for good. Well, he hasn’t. While it may be true that lobbyist do not seem to have much of a presence in the White House, they are all over Congress in even bigger numbers and with even more visible clout. I had expected Obama to go to Congress with a whip and lash at the lobbyists the same way that Jesus cast off the money changers from the temple. Obama could have, at the outset of his term, demanded from congress a strong reform law that publicly financed national , congressional, state and city elections thus reducing to a vast extent the influence of political contributors. The country would have supported this. It seems he really did not mean what he said in 2008.

• He obtained passage of a $700 billion stimulus package but thereafter seems to have lost sight as to what the objective of the stimulus was: to stir up the economy and get Americans employed again. It is clear that he has underestimated the negative and depressing impact that unemployment creates in the minds of people who cannot find jobs. Unemployment insurance is fine for a couple of months but people who are used to earning a paycheck are definitely more buoyant in their demeanor and outlook; they prefer to be “doers” and not “do nothings” relying on a “dole” regardless of whether they have paid unemployment insurance dues all their lives. If it were not so painful I might have died laughing when I heard President Obama a few weeks ago said he is asking another $ 50 billion in funds to devote to “infrastructure” programs. Wait, weren’t you supposed to do that with the $700 billion stimulus program in 2009?

I am not a “tea party” sympathizer by any stretch of the imagination but I can truly understand how irate some segments of the voting public are. They seem to be prepared to elect an ex-witch in Delaware and a glowing nut case in Nevada to the US senate just to express their anger. Or perhaps a large segment of the electorate has come to realize that regardless how smart or how altruistic the motivations are for the leaders we’ve sent to Washington, in the long run they can’t do us much good. Perhaps the witch and the nut cases might stir a different brew. How much worse could they make Washington?

Personally I find Obama's fall to be a tragic one. The hopes of so many were riding on him. Had he just lived by the cause he espoused, and lured millions of us to,
the outcome might have been different. Had he just made a decision that he would do the right thing for America at all times regardless the political consequences he would have, at the very least, kept the respect of many who want this country to be great and successful in every aspect of human endeavor. Alas, sadly, he chose the path of the politician, and indeed the country is worse for it and I wonder if we shall recover at all. "Hannibal ante portas" the beleaguered Italian villagers used to scream as the invading Carthagenians approached. The demagogic Tea Party tainted Republicans are about to take over after November 2nd. The billionaires, millionaires,corporate entities and their minions are bursting at the chance of a Bacchanalian celebration but I doubt that many of us would join them, nor even get invited.

ldq44@aol.com

Aquino’s Missed Opportunity: An Exercise in ‘Wishy-Washy’

This is a rewrite of an earlier column. This one focuses mainly on
the Aquino findings and its implications

We are close to two months since the infamous “Mendoza-cum-police-incompetence-cum-egg-in-our-faces” massacre of Hong Kong tourists. Finally, President Aquino let known his “findings” and “actions”. Does anyone get the impression that here a “mountain labored forth and sired a molehill”?

Seven or so weeks of inquiries, investigations, back-and-forths in media speculation, coupled with promises of “repercussions” and what did we come up with?
Eight officials have been “tagged” as the culprits. Yet the way it has been explained is a demonstration of confusion and indecisiveness. There seems to be a scheme to “spread out” the blame so that no one person is really burned too badly. That, hopefully, misery will love company. It revealed an indecisiveness not worthy of a country’s president.

“Maybe this, probably that, perhaps here, could be there,” is what I seem to hear as the verdict for the heinous and tragic loss of life. For example, why is Merciditas Gutierrez, the ombudsman, held liable in this case “because she enraged” Mendoza by not being “clear” about his case? Why was it even necessary to go to her for a remedy?

No judge in the civilized world would promise a terrorist-hostage taker that a decision would be reversed, otherwise there’ll be hostage taking every week.
The position of the government, represented by the chief of police, should have been, and must always be that “We do not negotiate with terrorists”! “ We will gladly hear your side but only after you let the hostages go and put down your weapons,” is a statement that should have been made very clearly and resolutely.

The media people who had access to and also gave a venue for the terrorist; why were they even allowed close to the scene? Perhaps because Manila’s corrupt police find they must cater to the media lest some of their daily shenanigans get exposed, or that perhaps by extending the media unusual or unprecedented access the latter will treat the police leadership with kid gloves, maybe even portray them as heroes? The police could have kept the media ten blocks away from the scene. Life or death emergencies, acts of terrorism and general mayhem that threatens lives and the public order justify certain levels of restriction over media access and activity. “The need to know” concerns can be addressed and satisfied after the crisis is resolved and danger to lives dissipated. A case can be made that there is a symbiotic, and filthy, interaction between police and media on a daily basis hence in critical situations like the hostage taking, the “tayo-tayo” culture gets into play.

It is unfortunate that President Aquino failed to seize this moment, this opportunity to usher in true and far reaching reforms in an area of life that touches most Filipinos – their police forces. He should have taken Rahm Emmanuels’ oft quoted advice that, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before”.

I had hoped that in dealing with the August 23 carnage that President Aquino would use the occasion to once and for all institute strong, serious, effective and a much needed revamp of our police services. Not just a change in personnel but in the very character of our law enforcement institutions. That he would finally work to rid our police forces of the gross incompetence that has come about because of the corruption, nepotism and lack of professionalism in that institution. It is sad and tragic that he has instead taken the “wishy-washy” approach. And so the zarzuela continues, the “moro-moro” lingers on. Entertaining perhaps, yet hardly funny.

Aside from firing the police brass he also could have then come up with a clear “code of conduct” for our police officers that emphasizes service to all citizens regardless of stature in life, and an uncompromising stance against any and all criminality regardless of who is involved. He could have listed down the “top ten” principles that policemen must adhere to and have it posted at all precincts. And before the start of the each shift the police officers would verbally affirm their commitment by reciting these principles.

He could then have also told the citizenry to document any corruption they hear of
or see and send it to Malacanang. Those cell phone cameras/videos could really come in handy.

If he had used all his power, both as the official head of state, and as a person respected by all for his undisputed integrity, he could have ushered in a much needed renaissance for our country. The country is behind him. He has a mandate to clean government up. The Manila police department would have been a very good place to start. Needless to say he and the country missed an opportunity to take that serious and credible first step to reversing the decades old problem of police corruption, and what we are left is this dreadful feeling that more crises will come and the mistakes that characterized the massacre of the Hong Kong tourists may well repeat itself.

P-Noy and ‘Pinoys’: An Exercise in ‘Wishy-Washy’?

We are close to two months since the infamous “Mendoza-cum-police-incompetence-cum-egg-in-our-faces” massacre of Hong Kong tourists. Finally, President Aquino let known his “findings” and “actions”. Does anyone get the impression that here a “mountain labored forth and sired a molehill”?

Seven or so weeks of inquiries, investigations, back-and-forths in media speculation, coupled with promises of “repercussions” and what did we come up with?
Eight officials have been “tagged” as the culprits. Yet the way it has been explained is a demonstration of confusion and indecisiveness. There seems to be a scheme to “spread out” the blame so that no one person is really burned too badly. That, hopefully, misery will love company.

“Maybe this, probably that, perhaps here, could be there,” is what I seem to hear as the verdict for the heinous and tragic loss of life. For example, why is Merciditas Gutierrez, the ombudsman, held liable in this case “because she enraged” Mendoza by not being “clear” about his case? Why was it even necessary to go to her for a remedy?

The position of the government, represented by the chief of police, should have been, and must always be that “We do not negotiate with terrorists”! “ We will gladly hear your side but only after you let the hostages go and put down your weapons,” is a statement that should have been made very clearly and resolutely.

The media people who had access to and also gave a venue for the terrorist; why were they even allowed close to the scene? Perhaps because our corrupt police find they must cater to the media lest some of their daily shenanigans get exposed, or that perhaps by extending the media unusual or unprecedented access the latter will treat the police leadership with kid gloves? The police could have kept the media ten blocks away from the scene. Life or death emergencies, acts of terrorism and general mayhem that threatens lives and the public order justify certain levels of restriction over media access and activity. “The need to know” concerns can be addressed and satisfied after the crisis is resolved and danger to lives dissipated.

And the “wishy-washy” syndrome seems to manifest itself all over government. Take the case of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima telling the media that she “contemplated” resigning over Aquino’s selective use of her findings and recommendations. Say what? So, O.K., the flaw here is perhaps not so much the wishy-washiness of the situation but the utter lack of loyalty and delicadeza on her part.
She is a cabinet appointee and “serves at the pleasure of the President”. If she has, had or will have a disagreement with him she should arrange to see him in his office, in private and express her views to him. If at the end of the process he still decides to go it his way then she is bound to march in lock-step with him. If she has to leave she ought to do so in a manner that does not in any way undermine his authority and standing. Openly discussing it with the media is just plain wrong, and a display of classlessness on her part.

A parallel can perhaps be drawn from the recent departures from the Obama administration. Larry Summers left so that he could go back to Harvard; Jim Jones to pursue “other interests” and so forth and so on. As appointees they are members of the President’s team and if their usefulness had been diminished and their departure necessary so that changes in policy and direction can be effected by the president, they made sure that it would be with the least amount of disruption and damage to his administration.

Then too there is this joke of a situation at the Dept of Interior and Local Governments, where there is apparently an open airing of disparate and opposing views between the Secretary, Jesse Robredo, and the undersecretary Rico Puno. Why are these clowns playing this out in public? Robredo is the department head, Puno reports to him.

If the latter has any concerns and disagreements those should be aired privately to Robredo and if Puno believes he cannot continue to support his boss he should find a “graceful exit” and move on. The job and the mission of the department cannot be more important than Puno’s ego or “hurt feelings”. And why is Aquino handling this matter in public? He should have summoned the two to his office and told them in no uncertain terms that if either of them again airs “dirty linen” in public that would be their last act as members of his official family. In fact he should issue the same warning to all appointees in his administration. Get down to business and get the job done. Period.

I had hoped that in dealing with the August 23 carnage that President Aquino would use the occasion to once and for all institute strong, serious, effective and a much needed revamp of our police services. Not just a change in personnel but in the very character of our law enforcement institutions. That he would finally work to rid our police forces of the gross incompetence that has come about because of the corruption, nepotism and lack of professionalism in that institution. It is sad and tragic that he has instead taken the “wishy-washy” approach. And so the zarzuela continues, the “moro-moro” lingers on. Entertaining perhaps, yet hardly funny.

Grappling With ‘Colonial Mentality’

For the first time in perhaps 40 years I was an active participant in a conversation about ‘colonial mentality’. The occasion was an early dinner meeting with former high school classmates of the graduating class of 1960. It was a pleasant enough rendezvous, savoring Filipino cuisine in a Santa Clara, California restaurant. I cannot exactly recall how the conversation drifted into the issue of ‘colonial mentality’, but it did.

Are we the possessors of a ‘colonial mentality’? Do we harbor deep seated, albeit unconscious, admiration for our colonizers, first the Spaniards and then the Americans, and therefore speak and act with a pronounced bias for their values and ways?

I remember that in the course of my abbreviated college tenure, the early 1960’s, there was a stigma, among the young, that was associated with the perceived harboring of a ‘colonial mentality’. It was a phrase we liberally used to describe what we considered the ‘antiquated’ thinking of our elders, who, as survivors of WWII had a great affinity for Americans.

At this dinner in Santa Clara I was asked directly whether we should, as immigrants to the US, consider ourselves as possessors of a ‘colonial mentality’.
Well, on the one level, I made a conscious effort to immigrate, and, upon completion of my naturalization process I swore allegiance to the American flag and renounced allegiance to any other country. I took, and continue to take, my naturalization vows quite seriously, as I’m sure millions of immigrants likewise do.

I also was impressed by the words of the judge administering the oath who, in his post-ceremony remarks urged us to be “good Americans”. Be good neighbors, he said. “Value liberty and be prepared to protect it in every way you can. Pay your taxes diligently. Obey our laws. Honor our traditions. Love and support your new country. Bring the best from your past and your cultures to your new land and enhance this mosaic that is America”. And those words resonated with me and helped drive my transformation.

So back to the question that my colleague at dinner asked, do I then harbor a ‘colonial mentality’? Well, not only did I adopt the ways of our erstwhile colonizers, I actually moved over to join them and be one of them. Did I possess a ‘colonial mentality’ when I was still in the Philippines and is this what propelled me to come over and join the ‘enemy’, so to speak?
I, like many from my generation, and that of my parents, had an affinity for things American. We wore jeans, we smoked Marlboros, most of my English major friends all wanted to be the 2nd coming of Ernest Hemingway and we of course expressed ourselves in American English. We danced to American music and most of our singers were copycats of whichever singer was in vogue. Frank Sinatra had a huge Filipino male following among the elder generation( my late father included) hence a Filipino party usually featured someone belting out “My Way”). The younger generations swayed to Elvis Presley’s hips. And, needless to say, we were, many of us, brainwashed by our parents who had great affinity for America because many of them were educated by Americans during that period between the two world wars. And Americans were considered more down to earth, friendlier, in comparison to our previous colonizers, the Spaniards.

( The famed Philippine author Nick Joaquin wrote a novel titled “ A Woman with Two Navels” a metaphorical allusion to the indelible scars – in the form of navels- the result of the Philippines’ seeming umbilical attachment to two colonizing cultures, Spain and America.)

I remember in the 1969 presidential election, Serging Osmena Jr., responding to remarks that he was “America’s boy”, dared his opponents to publicly make that statement, understanding that a majority of Filipinos at that time, if they were asked to vote, would support outright statehood. It also brought to mind that famous quote attributed to Manuel L. Quezon in the 1930’s ,who, discussing options for the Philippines including statehood, supposedly averred that, “I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos, than one run like heaven by Americans.”

Well, judging from the tenures of the Marcoses, the Estradas and the Macapagal-Arroyos, and the “hell” they have left in their tracks, I doubt if Quezon would feel the same way.

Speaking for myself economics was a factor for emigrating, for sure. But probably more than that it was opportunity that was the main consideration. As in, if I stayed back home my opportunities were very limited, whereas if I emigrated my vista of opportunities widened. And I am sure the millions of Filipinos who are now US citizens share this sentiment.

Yet it is really more than that. Our exposure to America was not limited to Marlboros, movies and Hemingway. We were also exposed to the ideas of freedom, equality and fair play.( Ideals that may have been direly tested many a time as I’m sure many of us have, from time to time at least, perhaps felt the painful sting of racial discrimination and unfair treatment).

America is replete with examples of immigrants making good in many fields of endeavor or commercial enterprise. In America we have a chance at achieving our many dreams, opportunities which, in our country of origin, may have been limited to a few. The fact that 8 million Filipinos (and counting) have taken contractual overseas employment even as maids, underscores the drought of opportunities in the Philippines.

So to the charge of ‘colonial mentality’? Perhaps viewed from the prism of the 1960’s when a revived sense of nationalism was sweeping the Philippine youth movement, sure, at that time I too despised ‘colonial mentality’. But by the time I left in 1972 I had a different mindset. And today my honest response is that it is an irrelevant question. While I love my adopted country I have not in any way diminished my love for the Philippines. There is a book authored by Carlos Bulosan, an immigrant in the 1930’s titled “America is in the Heart”. That statement, in a sense, perhaps helps explain the lure of America. Not only Filipinos, but millions of people around the world continue to look at America as an ideal, and what it stands for is engraved in many hearts. Sure, America has problems but it is a country and a situation very few would trade for anything else regardless their 'mentality'

A 2nd Look at Arbularios

Rediscovering the Powers of Mangosteen

Growing up in the semi-slums of Cebu City in the 1950’s, amid the nipa huts and the tartanilla plodded dusty roadways that bordered the Echavez-Sikatuna area, it was seldom that impoverished families could afford the cost of modern medical care. The only remedies available were those dispensed by the local arbulario, usually a beetle-nut chewing old lady who had seen many a limping “patient” in her career.

Have a long festering sore? Use some oregano leaves, slightly crushed and smother it on one’s wounds. Or perhaps use some tender guava leaves. Break a bone, or sprain an ankle? Go over to Manoy Undo’s shack by the dry creek; he’ll rub the ankle area, pull the leg and voila we can go back to the many games and youthful joys that occupied the humid and dusty days of snotty nosed barrio kids.

Living in a lush green tropical island provided our arbularios, herbalists, with all manner of plant life from which to grind out and concoct one type of cure or another. The one remedy that I remember very vividly was the purple colored Mangosteen fruit, specifically its thick skin or rind. After thorough boiling I drank the liquid leftover like a tea and sure enough it alleviated whatever stomach pains I had. Boiling tender guava leaves also had a somewhat similar though not as potent an effect.

Having had to deal with several bouts of cardiovascular diseases over the past several years and therefore needing to take in many pills a day, I have been actively exploring the use of herbal remedies to salve the minor aches and pains that the aging, deteriorating body is often heir to. For gout, for example, I have been drinking several glasses of black cherry juice a day as it is said that this fruit serves as a “binder” for uric (or euric) acid, which, if not adequately expelled from the system crystallizes in the extremities’ causing painful bouts of gout. My primary care physician voiced no objections to this practice (perhaps because he believes that adding more pills to my regimen ultimately harms me).

The Philippines has become a leading supplier of many herbal remedies in the past couple of decades. Not too long ago it was widely understood that the oft hated, bitter ampalaya (bitter melon gourd) was an effective remedy for certain types of diabetes. Although not a diabetic I drink several cups of ampalaya tea a day as I noticed it has a general cleansing effect; it seems really effective in removing whatever fatty residue that we ingest from our diet. There are powdered version of this plant on sale but diabetics, as with any remedy, ought to consider its use only in consultation with their doctors.

Many Filipino stores carry all kinds of herbal teas the most popular of which are the ones made from guava leaves and the highly regarded banaba , which, it is said back home, was in widespread use long before the invention of midol for women.

Anyway, the point of this story and why I started writing it out in the first place. A few weeks ago I had a severe case of acidity in my stomach. It was so severe that it kept me up awake at nights. I went to see my gastroenterologist who prescribed antacids. Over several days I had to pump myself with the stuff just to get some relief but the aftermath was not pleasant either. And it seemed that I could not eat anything at all without triggering a veritable lava flow of acid. In fact for a 3 day period I actually did not eat anything as having food in my stomach seemed like carrying around bricks in my system. And teas did not seem to help either.

On my next “Filipino grocery” shopping stop I saw bundles of Mangosteen displayed in the produce bins. I grabbed what looked like a sack of it, paid an arm and a leg for the stuff which supposedly came out of Thailand and took it home. These fruits were very much smaller than the ones I had seen in my youth. The meat was nice, white and delicious but my main interest was the skin which I immediately boiled and drank the brownish liquid as I would tea. I had several cups of the stuff. Now, I cannot say exactly if it was my Mangosteen concoction at work or whether the dozens of chalky antacid tablets I chewed was the reason but that night I slept a little better and did not have the severe symptoms previously experienced.

Then one day earlier this month I drove down to San Francisco to attend a relative’s 80th birthday party and to look up an old friend from some 35 years ago with whom I had recently reconnected via email. This friend, Carole and her daughter Shannon, as it happens, are deeply involved with Mangosteen as distributors of a product called XanGo. This is a product that had hit the market like over a decade ago but was now packaged more sensibly in a user friendly kind of way. Having recently experienced the pangs of stomach acidity I was anxious to try the product and see if, like in the days of my boyhood, it would have the same magical powers and cure me. Well I have now taken the product every day for the past 7 days and I have had no acidity and have not had to take in any antacids at all. How great is this?

This led me to read up on the product and where this led me to was information (provided by my XanGo distributor friend Shannon) that the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota is currently investigating this fruit, specifically the skin or rind, for its anti-inflammatory agents called Xantones . The Mayo Clinic study now involves 220 patients who currently have atrial fibrillation. Half will drink the juice, half will be given a placebo. Also under investigation is the plant’s antioxidant qualities. This effort was covered in a news program of ABC News recently.

Information on this subject can be obtained by going to the National Library of Medicine website : www.nlm.nih.gov

Needless to say I’m impressed at the medical-scientific attention the
Mangosteen is receiving. My stomach is just happy that the acidity has been severely reduced and hopefully will not have to host any more antacid parties for a while. I’m impressed too that the old beetle-nut chewing arbularia in the Echavez-Sikatuna neighborhood was on to something with her herbal cures 50 years before the Mayo Clinic thought it worthy of a serious look. Who wudda thunk it?
Email ldq44@aol.com

Soul Searching, Not Chest Thumping Needed

Disagreement re Lacson’s ‘The Filipino Today’ Piece

Alex L. Lacson is genuinely one of the really “good people” in the Philippines today. He authored the best seller, “12 Little Things Every Filipino Can Do to Help Our Country.” I first knew of him from a column written by my friend and famous Filipino journalist/commentator, the late Max Soliven.

In the aftermath of the recent bloodbath that resulted in the death of 8 Chinese tourists at the hands of slain hostage taker police inspector Rolando Mendoza, and the accompanying “negative publicity” our country and people were, and still are, subjected to, Mr. Lacson wrote a piece urging Filipinos to not get down on themselves and keep in mind the many good and outstanding accomplishments of our nation and of individual Filipinos in many fields of endeavor..

“We have to protect and defend the Filipino in each one of us”, he avers in his piece. He then goes on to enumerate various accomplishments such as the 2007 award won by Filipino scientist Baldomero Olivera for his work with neurotoxins; or, the sacrifice made by educator Dr. Josette Biyo who opted to teach in the barrios versus a good paying post at De La Salle University; or, the many beauty contests Filipinas have won internationally.

I must regretfully and respectfully disagree with Mr. Lacson. Rather than engage in breast thumping over past “outstanding” deeds to assuage our feelings of shame and embarrassment over the hostage deaths, we ought engage in serious soul searching and identify what truly is at the core of this fiasco.

If we do, then we might yet finally admit that we have major and very deep problems; and unless these are addressed and remedied we shall remain mired in that place that rightfully opens us, as a country and a people, to ridicule and scorn.

We do not need a long drawn out “investigation” to establish culpability and guilt in the Rizal Park massacre. We know our police forces are riddled with incompetence. Massive graft, corruption, political patronage and blatant cronyism are what breed this culture that results in bumbling and bungling sagas such as the one the world saw in full display last August 23rd. The question is: what are we going to do about it?

Will our country’s leadership act in a way that will make us proud, or shall we expect to have to cringe in shame yet again? Why does the world think so badly of us? Well, let’s look at some possible reasons:

• I mentioned corruption earlier and the thing we need to keep in mind is that it is deeply rooted and endemic and it has been perpetrated by whoever is in charge regardless of the political affiliation of the powers that be at the moment. We rejoiced and the world danced with us when “people power” finally got rid of the Marcoses ( or so we thought then – ha, ha, the laugh’s on us isn’t it?). Mrs. Aquino was incorruptible but her family reportedly feasted at the trough. We have not heard much about General Ramos’ vis-à-vis corruption per se yet the whispers are that ex and current military bigwigs are deeply in business in all areas of endeavor. Yes, the world knows of our culture of corruption and so far we have not convinced anyone that they should now stop holding up their noses in ridicule.

• Once upon a time it was a rarity, an exception to be sure, that a movie star gets elected to high public office. In the 1960’s Joseph Estrada was elected mayor of the suburban town of San Juan and most thought that’s as far as he was going. Before you know it he had become a senator, a vice-president and soon enough the presidency itself was in his curriculum vitae. Not reputed to be the brightest candle in the chandelier, if Erap can make it so can we, thought others in show business, and before you know it the easiest route to elective office was movie or tv stardom. Yes, it seems comical yet why does it hurt when we laugh?

• The addiction to things “imported”. It seems that something is only good if it is from abroad. Even our poor domestic helpers who slave it out overseas are expected to bring in Nike’s and other prized items when they come home lest they disappoint their relatives.

• Speaking of overseas workers, the very existence of this very large group of wage earners by and of itself is an eloquent indictment of our system which fails to provide local employment opportunities for even the highly educated among our people. That many of these workers accept domestic helper employment has helped to create the impression in many countries that we are a nation of “maids” and it is thus not surprising that the world looks down on us.

• The seeming inability to effectively address the massive gridlock that our traffic jams create. We are held hostage, it seems, to the “jeepney” system of transportation and no political leader has the guts, the vision nor the innovative thinking required to re revamp this system. Not only are we “choked” by the traffic but by the resulting smog as well. Nothing to be proud of, for sure

We could go on and on and my point is that we are the laughing stock of the civilized world not because we do not appreciate the accomplishments of many Filipinos; it is because we have all kinds of messes which we either brought about deliberately or allowed to grow into various festering menaces.

So, rather than mask the negative image the Rizal Park massacre created we ought to use it as the impetus to once and for all truly face our problems and take serious steps to correct them. How the massacre investigation is conducted and reported can either be a first step in the long and arduous task of redeeming our image, or it can add yet another nail to the crucifixion that our country has been subjected to for over 50 years. Soul searching and principled actions, not hollow gestures, will be our road to redemption, and away from laughability

The Filipino today

By Alex Lacson

After the August 23 hostage drama, there is just too much negativity about and against the Filipino.

“It is difficult to be a Filipino these days”, says a friend who works in Hongkong. “Nakakahiya tayo”, “Only in the Philippines” were some of the comments lawyer Trixie Cruz-Angeles received in her Facebook. There is this email supposedly written by a Dutch married to a Filipina, with 2 kids, making a litany of the supposed stupidity or idiocy of Filipinos in general. There was also this statement by Fermi Wong, founder of Unison HongKong, where she said – “Filipino maids have a very low status in our city”. Then there is this article from a certain Daniel Wagner of Huffington Post, wherein he said he sees nothing good in our country’s future.

Clearly, the hostage crisis has spawned another crisis – a crisis of faith in the Filipino, one that exists in the minds of a significant number of Filipinos and some quarters in the world.

It is important for us Filipinos to take stock of ourselves as a people – of who we truly are as a people. It is important that we remind ourselves who the Filipino really is, before our young children believe all this negativity that they hear and read about the Filipino.

We have to protect and defend the Filipino in each one of us.

The August 23 hostage fiasco is now part of us as Filipinos, it being part now of our country’s and world’s history. But that is not all that there is to the Filipino. Yes, we accept it as a failure on our part, a disappointment to HongKong, China and to the whole world.

But there is so much more about the Filipino.

In 1945, at the end of World War II, Hitler and his Nazi had killed more than 6 million Jews in Europe. But in 1939, when the Jews and their families were fleeing Europe at a time when several countries refused to open their doors to them, our Philippines did the highly risky and the unlikely –thru President Manuel L Quezon, we opened our country’s doors and our nation’s heart to the fleeing and persecuted Jews. Eventually, some 1,200 Jews and their families made it to Manila. Last 21 June 2010, or 70 years later, the first ever monument honoring Quezon and the Filipino nation for this “open door policy” was inaugurated on Israeli soil, at the 65-hectare Holocaust Memorial Park in Rishon LeZion, Israel.

The Filipino heart is one of history’s biggest, one of the world’s rare jewels, and one of humanity’s greatest treasures.

In 2007, Baldomero M. Olivera, a Filipino, was chosen and awarded as the Scientist for the Year 2007 by Harvard University Foundation, for his work in neurotoxins which is produced by venomous cone snails commonly found in the tropical waters of Philippines. Olivera is a distinguished professor of biology at University of Utah, USA. The Scientist for the Year 2007 award was given to him in recognition to his outstanding contribution to science, particularly to molecular biology and groundbreaking work with conotoxins. The research conducted by Olivera’s group became the basis for the production of commercial drug called Prialt (generic name – Ziconotide), which is considered more effective than morphine and does not result in addiction.
The Filipino mind is one of the world’s best, one of humanity’s great assets.

The Filipino is capable of greatness, of making great sacrifices for the greater good of the least of our people. Josette Biyo is an example of this. Biyo has masteral and doctoral degress from one of the top universities in the Philippines – the De La Salle University (Taft, Manila) – where she used to teach rich college students and was paid well for it. But Dr Biyo left all that and all the glamour of Manila, and chose to teach in a far-away public school in a rural area in the province, receiving the salary of less than US$ 300 a month. When asked why she did that, she replied “but who will teach our children?” In recognition of the rarity of her kind, the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States honoured Dr Biyo a very rare honor – by naming a small and new-discovered planet in our galaxy as “Biyo”.

The Filipino is one of humanity’s best examples on the greatness of human spirit!

Efren Penaflorida was born to a father who worked as a tricycle driver and a mother who worked as laundrywoman. Through sheer determination and the help of other people, Penaflorida finished college. In 1997, Penaflorida and his friends formed a group that made pushcarts (kariton) and loaded them with books, pens, crayons, blackboard, clothes, jugs of water, and a Philippine flag. Then he and his group would go to the public cemetery, market and garbage dump sites in Cavite City – to teach street children with reading, math, basic literacy skills and values, to save them from illegal drugs and prevent them from joining gangs. Penaflorida and his group have been doing this for more than a decade. Last year, Penaflorida was chosen and awarded as CNN Hero for 2009.

Efren Penaflorida is one of the great human beings alive today. And he is a Filipino!

Nestor Suplico is yet another example of the Filipino’s nobility of spirit. Suplico was a taxi driver In New York. On 17 July 2004, Suplico drove 43 miles from New York City to Connecticut, USA to return the US$80,000 worth of jewelry (rare black pearls) to his passenger who forgot it at the back seat of his taxi. When his passenger offered to give him a reward, Suplico even refused the reward. He just asked to be reimbursed for his taxi fuel for his travel to Connecticut. At the time, Suplico was just earning $80 a day as a taxi driver. What do you call that? That’s honesty in its purest sense. That is decency most sublime. And it occurred in New York, the Big Apple City, where all kinds of snakes and sinners abound, and a place where – according to American novelist Sydney Sheldon – angels no longer descend. No wonder all New York newspapers called him “New York’s Most Honest Taxi Driver”. The New York City Government also held a ceremony to officially acknowledge his noble deed. The Philippine Senate passed a Resolution for giving honors to the Filipino people and our country.

In Singapore, Filipina Marites Perez-Galam, 33, a mother of four, found a wallet in a public toilet near the restaurant where she works as the head waitress found a wallet containing 16,000 Singaporean dollars (US $11,000). Maritess immediately handed the wallet to the restaurant manager of Imperial Herbal restaurant where she worked located in Vivo City Mall. The manager in turn reported the lost money to the mall’s management. It took the Indonesian woman less than two hours to claim her lost wallet intended for her son’s ear surgery that she and her husband saved for the medical treatment. Maritess refused the reward offered by the grateful owner and said it was the right thing to do.

The Filipina, in features and physical beauty, is one of the world’s most beautiful creatures! Look at this list – Gemma Cruz became the first Filipina to win Miss International in 1964; Gloria Diaz won as Miss Universe in 1969; Aurora Pijuan won Miss International in 1970; Margie Moran won Miss Universe in 1973; Evangeline Pascual was 1st runner up in Miss World 1974; Melanie Marquez was Miss International in 1979; Ruffa Gutierrez was 2nd runner up in Miss World 1993; Charlene Gonzalez was Miss Universe finalist in 1994; Mirriam Quiambao was Miss Universe 1st runner up in 1999; and last week, Venus Raj was 4th runner up in Miss Universe pageant.

I can cite more great Filipinos like Ramon Magsaysay, Ninoy Aquino, Leah Salonga, Manny Pacquaio, Paeng Nepomuceno, Tony Meloto, Joey Velasco, Juan Luna and Jose Rizal. For truly, there are many more great Filipinos who define who we are as a people and as a nation – each one of them is part of each one of us, for they are Filipinos like us, for they are part of our history as a people.

What we see and hear of the Filipino today is not all that there is about the Filipino. I believe that the Filipino is higher and greater than all these that we see and hear about the Filipino. God has a beautiful story for us as a people. And the story that we see today is but a fleeting portion of that beautiful story that is yet to fully unfold before the eyes of our world.

So let’s rise as one people. Let’s pick up the pieces. Let’s ask for understanding and forgiveness for our failure. Let us also ask for space and time to correct our mistakes, so we can improve our system.

To all of you my fellow Filipinos, let’s keep on building the Filipino great and respectable in the eyes of our world – one story, two stories, three stories at a time – by your story, by my story, by your child’s story, by your story of excellence at work, by another Filipino’s honesty in dealing with others, by another Pinoy’s example of extreme sacrifice, by the faith in God we Filipinos are known for.

Every Filipino, wherever he or she maybe in the world today, is part of the solution. Each one of us is part of the answer. Every one of us is part of the hope we seek for our country. The Filipino will not become a world-class citizen unless we are able to build a world-class homeland in our Philippines.

We are a beautiful people. Let no one in the world take that beauty away from you. Let no one in the world take away that beauty away from any of your children! We just have to learn – very soon – to build a beautiful country for ourselves, with an honest and competent government in our midst.

Mga kababayan, after reading this, I ask you to do two things.

First, defend and protect the Filipino whenever you can, especially among your children. Fight all this negativity about the Filipino that is circulating in many parts of the world. Let us not allow this single incident define who the Filipino is, and who we are as a people. And second, demand for good leadership and good government from our leaders. Question both their actions and inaction; expose the follies of their policies and decisions. The only way we can perfect our system is by engaging it. The only way we can solve our problem, is by facing it, head on.

We are all builders of the beauty and greatness of the Filipino. We are the architects of our nation’s success.

To all the people of HK and China, especially the relatives of the victims, my family and I deeply mourn with the loss of your loved ones. Every life is precious. My family and I humbly ask for your understanding and forgiveness.

Comedy of Errors Continue:

Hurts “Only when I Laugh”


There is total consensus that the tragic death of 9 tourists at the hands of dismissed, and eventually slain, policeman/hostage taker Rolando Mendoza involved many major errors on the part of the police forces handling the incident.

For example, there is the full, uncontrolled TV coverage that enabled Mendoza to see exactly what was happening at the site and wherever the cameras went thus undermining the police’ ability to manage and control the negotiating process. This inanity is compounded by a member of Congress who reportedly stated that he was filing a bill to prevent media from future coverage of similar incidents. “Earth to Congress: The police already have this authority and power!!”. The problem is we have incompetent police, the result, in large part, of the massive and endemic corruption in the police organization from top to bottom!!!

The jokes keep piling on!! Here is Mayor Alfredo Lim saying that Mendoza’s brother, also a policeman, was not ordered arrested by him but that he only ordered to have him handcuffed. Mr. Mayor, when a person is dragged out of his house by policemen and then handcuffed and brought to the scene of the ongoing hostage crisis he is by all definition “arrested”. The distinction you are trying to make is asinine, to say the least!!

But wait you, Mayor and our Congress, are not the only jokers. There is Mayor Sonia Torres Aquino of the town of Tanauan where the deceased Mendoza resides, sent a Philippine flag to be draped on the coffin of the murderer!! And what’s more the whole world saw this because the media showed images of the flag draped coffin on TV. Needless to say the Chinese government went bonkers that a mass murderer is treated like a fallen hero!! But wait maybe Sonia Aquino has a point here: our people are so used to corrupt policemen that when one is killed it means there is one less extortionist in uniform and is indeed a cause for hero treatment. Excuse me but this is so pathetic and comical. I’m being sarcastic of course and it hurts only when I laugh. ( Can someone please explain why the murderers body is in a coffin at home and not at the police morgue where it belongs?)

Message to Congress and President Benigno Aquino III: Stop the Zarzuelas that you call “investigation”. Close this circus down. Find someone you can trust who has impeccable credentials and credibility and have him or her conduct this investigation out of the public eye and once completed release the results first to the Chinese government, and then to the nation. I know it is a challenge to find someone who enjoys this kind of trust and credibility. Perhaps you can ask former finance secretary Jesus (Jess) Estanislao to head such an investigation.

Concurrently, try and look for a few ex-US Marine drill sergeants and have them whip up the police force into fitness. Contract an international team of hostage experts and have them train police and military on the handling of these types of crises so that future ones are better handled. Training must be an ongoing, perpetual process, in all aspects of law enforcement and crisis management such as fires, floods and typhoon catastrophes’.

Then focus attention on cleaning up the country’s peace and order infrastructure and rid it of corrupt elements. This probably means most of the police and military hierarchy as it is strongly rumored that up to 80 percent of all policemen are beneficiaries of graft money from such elements as jueteng operators, smugglers, drug lords and corrupt politicians. Those who are not in on this level of corruption are involved, like the late Mendoza, in such rackets as extortion or other forms of tong.

The corruption circle is not limited to police or military. Many judges and prosecutors (fiscals in Philippine parlance) are also in on the take. So the approach that needs to be used Mr. President and Congress, is a total systems overhaul of the establishment. You promised the Filipino people an end to corruption, start with the police and military. If you can clean those two organizations up all other corrupt outfits that populate all levels of government will fall like the proverbial house of cards, because you can then trust the police and the military to go after grafters vigorously. You might then be able to even sic a corruption free police and military establishment to go after the biggest thieves of all: those governors, mayors, members of Congress who are embroiled in all kinds of “businesses” and get them all to jail. Wouldn’t that be something!!

In the meantime, please keep all the jokers out of the public eye.
“Nakakahiya!”

Mendoza Was a Rogue Cop- feared by students

Shuddering pangs of fear and apprehension has been gripping a segment of the student population in Manila, all thanks to the deceased police officer Rolando Mendoza and some of his colleagues.

So palpable is the fear in fact that the information in this report is shared only on condition of anonymity not only of the actual source but also the friends of the source who passed the information on to me. I am filing this report nevertheless because the information contained herein can be verified with Manila police and city officials as well as the office of the Ombudsman.

Here’s the story:

One balmy night in 2008 a student drove to his school location to return a small office instrument by dropping it off at the school’s lobby. He found a parking space in an open, unoccupied lot right beside the school campus. Upon his return he found several policemen hovering over his car.

The “leader” of the police contingent, later identified as Rolando Mendoza, accused the student of “illegal” parking. When he queried how the policemen could say he was parked illegally since there was a car parked in front of his, as well as another car parked in the back of it.

“Uy pilosopo ka pala” (Oh, so you are an argumentative type) Mendoza said, and forthwith ordered him to open his car’s trunk. Mendoza immediately threw in a small packet into the trunk, which he then established as marijuana and pills in the possession of the student.

There was a crowd that had gathered at this point and the student, hopeful that the presence of witnesses would deter the policemen from any further action, shouted to the crowd, “kita ninyo na nilagay”( you saw that he planted it).

Mendoza then shouted at the crowd in a louder voice, “ Sino and nakakita?”
(Who witnessed this?) at which point the crowd, fearing the angered policemen could turn on them, meekly dispersed.

He then instructed the student to get on the driver’s seat. As he sat, Mendoza then used the seat belt to choke the student’s neck, pulled his head back by grabbing his hair making the student gasp for breath and at which point one of the other policemen shoved shabu down his throat.

“O, yan may shabu sa sistema mo, “ Mendoza said. At this point the police group got in the car and instructed to student to produce his ATM card. They drove to the nearest bank ATM outlet and withdrew an undisclosed amount from the account. This transaction was caught on the bank’s security cameras.

They then drove to the precinct at which point Mendoza reportedly instructed the student to call whoever he could to get them the amount of money they wanted. The student called his father, then travelling and out in the provinces, and handed the phone to Mendoza. The latter demanded that the father give him 200,000 pesos that night as his son was in jail for possession and use of illegal drugs. The father said he did not have access to that amount of money. Ultimately one of the friends that the student had contacted brought over 20,000 pesos in cash and with this the policemen let the student go.

As the story goes, Mayor Lim, travelling in San Francisco, California learned of this incident as one of the people in the audience he was addressing at the time read aloud a report written by one of the student’s classmates describing the incident. Needless to say the Manila mayor was flushed with embarrassment at this report and upon his return to Manila reportedly sacked the entire group and Mendoza was reportedly transferred to Mindanao.

The Ombudsman then investigated the incident, obtained details and used the bank security film to convict Mendoza resulting in the latter’s removal from his post.

The student has expressed a desire to leave the incident behind. He learned from others that at least 5 other students of the same school were similarly victimized by this group of police officers. When asked by a tv reporter to comment on the aborted hijacking that led to the death of Mendoza, the student reportedly said that as he had nothing good to say about the deceased officer and preferred to remain silent.

Reporter’s Comment:
So fearful are large segments of the Philippine population of the police and military establishments that only people outside the country can feel safe reporting stories like this one.
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