Making a clean breast of things

This is my column today.

I don’t think anyone out there knew exactly what was—or should have been—the appropriate reaction to last week’s flap over the state of the President’s mammary glands. What seemed clear, however, was that the way the bright boys in Malacañang handled the issue only made the situation worse. Let’s not anymore factor into the equation the efforts at spin control done by Lorelei Fajardo; I don’t think anyone ever listens to what she has to say, mainly because she is seldom coherent anyway.

Press Secretary Cerge Remonde’s discomfort, when asked if it was true that the President was suffering from some medical complications related to an alleged previous breast augmentation procedure, was understandable. One of the sad things about the way things are in our culture is that we’ve all been conditioned to regard certain parts of our anatomy with malice. Thus, any public discussion about a woman’s breasts is supposed to be taboo. And when that woman happens to be the highest official of the country, the situation becomes even more delicate.

For crying out loud, who really wants to talk about the state of the President’s breasts? One has to be a total sicko to make such a big fuss out of them.

The only reason why there is a discussion about the issue is because Malacañang mishandled the issue right from the start. Remonde’s discomfort, sheepishness, and subsequent admission and attempt to put things in proper context made things worse. He could have handled the situation in a much better way; perhaps even in ways that could have been more empowering to women in general.

As if prevaricating on the issue was not enough, Remonde’s display of righteous indignation (or indignant righteousness) managed to cast aspersions on sexy actresses, cosmetic surgery, and women who have undergone breasts implantation. Moreover, he raised further the stigma attached to cosmetic surgery.

Let’s do a quick rewind of what the man said. When asked if the President had a medical procedure to repair a leaking breast implant done in the 1980s, Remonde bristled by saying that the question was “absurd.” “Nonsensical” he exclaimed. “The President was not your regular sexy actress fixated with such cosmetic surgery,” he stressed with undisguised righteous indignation.

“As I said, res ipsa loquitur (the matter speaks for itself). Just look if the President had a breast implant. That’s a private matter. It’s obvious if women have had breast implants. The sexy actresses with (unbelievable) boobs, they’re the ones who underwent breast implants. We can’t say the same thing of the President,” Remonde was quoted in various news reports. One wished he stopped there. “Perhaps, you can look at her if she’s the type who’s likely to have a breast implant,” he felt compelled to add, this time sheepishly.

In the process, Remonde made known certain prejudices. To him, breasts implants are for certain “types” of women and the indignant manner that accompanied his commentary left very little doubt about what he thought of these types of women.

Remonde’s remarks are unfortunate. First, they bordered on the chauvinist. Second, because—inadvertently, perhaps —they reflected prejudices. And third, because a more forthright admission should have settled the matter to rest— quickly and in a more delicate way.

As of Saturday, he was still preaching from his seemingly high social perch and doing so awkwardly. In so many words, he was saying that the discussion about the President’s breast implants—which he said was required medical procedure two decades ago—was disrespectful to women in general, and of the President in general. He conveniently left out the fact that his mishandling of the situation was what fueled the whole controversy to begin with.

When we come to think about it, this kind of tiptoeing around the issue of a woman’s breasts is disempowering and takes us all back to the middle ages. I have said this before in a previous column but I will say it again here. A woman’s breasts are an objective reality—there is nothing inherently sexual, malicious, or dirty about them. Breast surgery is not necessarily a moral issue. In fact, if we truly consider what nature intended them to be, we should have profound respect for a woman’s breasts, as they are the source of life and nurturance.

Remonde was sheepish because it turns out the President did have a breast implant done in the 1980s. So Remonde’s prejudice has boomeranged on him.

I am sure that there are lots of people out there whose worlds have now been turned upside by the admission that a Catholic girl from a de Buena familia, why—the daughter of a former President who is President now herself, someone who supposedly should have known better, underwent such a medical procedure.

Quite frankly, I don’t think the fact that she had a breast implant should be an issue at all—it’s her body, for crying out loud. One had to be a rabid detractor to find fault in that. Remonde is correct, for a change. Whether she did it out of a medical condition or out of vanity was not the issue.

I will not presume to know the motivation behind the President’s breast implants. A close female friend of mine did submit to the same procedure just a couple of months ago and she said it was necessary to correct a disfiguration caused by four childbirths. She told me that in the clinic that she went to (yup, hers was done by a famous cosmetic surgeon who is advertising all kinds of cosmetic surgery procedures) she met quite a number of women who have undergone the procedure. Apparently it’s not really an uncommon procedure today.

But I can understand the fact that the President wanted to keep her breast implants a secret. There’s still a lot of stigma attached to cosmetic surgery in this country.

The real issue here was the cloak-and-dagger operation to conceal and later on obfuscate the issue. The fact is that the President was supposed to have checked into the Asian Medical Hospital for quarantine purposes. The act of submission to quarantine was a matter of public interest—she was supposedly doing it to raise public awareness on the H1N1 pandemic and to be a role model for responsible public behavior. So when it became known that she didn’t check into the hospital for quarantine purposes, the whole thing became suspect. The whole thing boiled down to truthfulness.

It is sad that all these served to fortify public perception that the President and her people are not being forthright about the real state of things in this country.

Mixed feelings

It was my fault.  I should have gotten tickets last week when the thought crossed my mind.  I rushed many things today so I could get to the CCP before 8:00 pm. I wanted to watch whatever was showing at this year's Virgin Labfest.  A friend wrote and directed one play and I promised him I will make time to watch.

I got to the CCP at 7:30.  Sadly, tickets were all sold out.  There was a long line of people all hoping for a miracle.  

Last day na pala.  

Anyway. I didn't get in.  Went home disappointed.  But am happy for the success of the Virgin Labfest.  Great job, guys.

Consumer rants

This is my column today.

There are lots of people in this country who make a career out of complaining about anything and everything. I’m not just referring to media people such as columnists and broadcast journalists who think ranting about what should be is their only job description. There are lots of other people out there who it seems have not only read up on their rights as consumers, they look for opportunities to assert these rights and in fact sometimes do so at the slightest provocation.

I know some people who will not think twice about asking a waiter to return their soup to the kitchen because it isn’t the right temperature or the main course back to the chef not because it is bad but simply because it does not taste the way they think it should taste. The former I can understand; the latter I find objectionable because if one wanted something to taste exactly how one would prepare it, then they should not go to restaurants and submit themselves to the ministrations of a chef but rather stay home and cook their own food.

I also know some people who are so picky about service quality that they complain about being made to wait for even just a couple of seconds or when some products didn’t come in variations and colors of their preference. They expect prompt, immediate, courteous service—even from a sidewalk vendor.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t feel contempt for these people particularly when the exacting and uncompromising adherence to certain product quality and service standards result in overall improvements. I may often find their pernickety amusing but I’ve always had respect for what they represent.

There are times when I fervently wish I could be like them. I may come across as some firebrand because I rant about shenanigans and skewer public officials, every now and then. In reality, however, I am a very tolerant person who tends to make allowances for the shortcomings of service providers—particularly when it is painfully obvious that they are new in their jobs or that their job descriptions require them to accept being treated like doormats.

I am particularly more tolerant of food servers—waiters or waitresses, busboys, chefs. First, because I have been warned many times by well-meaning friends that these people get back at difficult customers by spitting on the food or drinks served them. And second, because my best friend since childhood had a stint as waiter and I am aware of the difficulties they have to put up with such as serving sumptuous meals and watching people play with their food while they are about to keel over from hunger and exhaustion.

When faced with difficult situations as a consumer, I am the type who does not make a fuss. I don’t make a scene. I just walk away—never to return to the place ever again. But that doesn’t really help anyone. So I have decided to follow the urgings of some friends. Here, then, in this column are my top rants as consumers.

I don’t know about you, but on top of my list are stores where cashiers demand identification cards when one is making purchases with a credit card. Yes I am aware that it’s supposed to be a security measure that is supposed to redound to the benefit of consumers themselves. That yarn is actually crap because what it does is make cashiers become complacent when it comes to doing what really should matter in the whole transaction—verifying the consumer’s signature. In fact, some stores forgo signature verification training—which requires investment in time and money —in favor of identification checks as if identification cards are difficult to fake. When one comes to think about it, it is far more difficult to forge a signature than to produce fake identification cards.

Since I made a commitment to exercise my rights as a consumer more assertively, I will name establishments with cashiers who are notorious for such practices: National Bookstore at Harrison Plaza and a number of SM Department Stores. The funny thing is that because the bank that I work for requires all employees to wear IDs, I often shop while still wearing an ID. Being asked for identification when one is already wearing one conspicuously takes the cake for utter senselessness.

A store at the Mall of Asia called Games & Gadgets even pushes the limits of absurdity. I had a most unpleasant experience there last week when I bought a camera that was selling for a rather cheap price. Since I wasn’t carrying cash at that time, I opted to use a credit card. The whole transaction took almost an hour as they painstakingly verified the identification card I gave them, called the credit card company for further verification, and then asked me to enter personal information on a logbook despite the fact that they had already swiped my card on the machine and the transaction was already approved electronically. I felt like a criminal suspected of some felony. When I showed signs of being irritated, the cashier told me that it was company policy to do that for all transactions above 5,000 pesos. Judging by their complete ineptness, the store does not seem to have that many transactions involving more than that amount.

I also have an ax to grind against restaurants that go to town with all-you-can-eat promos but don’t refill the food containers in their buffet table.

Notorious for this is the Red Crab Restaurant in Greenbelt. My friends and I happen to love crabs so this place should be a natural hangout for us. Unfortunately, I have had three very negative experiences dining there so I am not stepping inside that place ever again. In all three incidents, there weren’t enough crabs for the number of guests they accommodated. They tended to replenish all the other food in their buffet spread but were very, very slow when it came to refilling the crab dishes—almost as if they were doing so grudgingly. The first incident should have been a warning already but we gave the restaurant a second chance. The experience was the same. We went a third time because a friend who just arrived from abroad wanted to go there. We paid the full price of a buffet that essentially was composed of rice and a few pieces of leftover crabs.

To be fair, it’s not just that restaurant that’s guilty of this practice of drawing in people through false advertising. The Cabalen chain, for example, should really put a disclaimer at the door of their restaurants telling people that it is “eat all you can while supply lasts.”

Now that Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile himself has been victimized by that cell phone scam that’s been around for years, I hope that something will finally be done about it. Actually, there’s something more shocking than disappearing prepaid loads—unclear mechanics around the use of Internet accessibility and global roaming through cellular phones. I know quite a number of people who have had to fork over thousands of pesos because they didn’t know—and the service providers conveniently didn’t go out of their way to inform customers—that the service required certain procedures that needed to be complied with to enjoy more reasonable charges.

There’s actually a lot more in my list now that I have gotten started, but I will end with this: Mercury Drug suki cards that become defective after just a couple of weeks’ use. I’ve had three suki cards already—all of them conked out after just a month of use. The strange thing was that they don’t even have a system that could retrieve the points that were accumulated in each of the cards that were suddenly unreadable; they just asked me to get another card which I didn’t do anymore after the third one malfunctioned.

The death of innocence

This is my column today.

I was too young to comprehend the outpouring of grief when Elvis Presley, Bruce Lee, and John F. Kennedy died. I never really understood what it meant when people, perhaps in an effort to articulate inexplicable grief, made big bold statements such as how the deaths represented the “passing of an era” or about how the deaths marked “the end of innocence.” How can the death of someone so far removed from their daily existence affect people in such a profound way that it becomes a metaphor for a life-defining moment?

The sudden death of Michael Jackson last week made me come to terms with those big bold statements again.

I was—am—a fan of the guy, but he really was more than just a celebrity I admired. He was someone who simply was part of my life’s journey. I practically grew up with him. Not in the literal sense, of course. But he was a large part of my childhood, my adolescence, and even my maturity process. As I wrote in my Web log last Friday, I could actually track my own development as a person using his music as some kind of soundtrack for each of the major events of my life.

Some of my fondest memories of childhood involved listening to vinyl records of the Jackson Five. “Ben” and “I’ll Be There” were songs that my friends and I sang at every occasion. This is indulging in maudlin sentimentality but “One Day In Your Life” was a song that will always hold a special meaning because it was the song that sort of got me through my first heartbreak.

And really, the Christmases of my childhood were characterized mainly by the endless playing of “Give Love On Christmas Day.” The Jackson Five Christmas Album and that Ray Conniff Christmas album were the only Christmas albums played in my house during the holidays up until I was in high school.

I could go on and on to write about how his songs accompanied my growing-up years. I was in college when he shot to global fame courtesy of “Thriller” (my friends and I actually aped his dance moves down to the last gyration). I graduated from college in 1985, a turbulent but exciting period in the history of the Philippines on account of the holding of the snap elections that would eventually lead to People Power. The hope and optimism of the period was made more palpable by “We Are The World,” which as we all know, inspired “Handog Ng Pilipino Sa Mundo” the song that would become the anthem of that period. All the Christmas parties I went to that year inevitably showcased a group performing “We Are The World.”

What happened next was that we all grew up. Everyone, except Michael Jackson, it seemed and it looked like we made him pay for that. That’s when all the weirdness crept in. There is a lot of psychological babble about how Jackson’s whole life revolved around efforts to recapture his supposed lost—or nonexistent—childhood. But through it all, there was always the music. Jackson was a lot of things but there was always no doubt about one thing—he was a musical genius.

Those of us who grew up in the seventies and the eighties could be forgiven for feeling a profound sense of loss. It’s like a large part of our lives has suddenly lost a large part of its raw essence. In this context, Michael Jackson’s passing can really be viewed as the end of innocence. To a large extent, it’s like we’re finally saying goodbye to childhood.

I think that there’s another reason why Michael Jackson’s death is affecting people in profound ways. All the cable news networks—from CNN to Fox—has been devoting almost 80 percent of their programming to the global reaction to the death of the King of Pop. An interesting tidbit: The thousands of Cebu inmates who gained global fame because of their performance of Jackson’s Thriller is one of the “tributes” that is enjoying repeated telecast on CNN. There’s a long list of celebrities and global figures that are now spewing platitudes on Michael Jackson and his contributions to the world.

I was a bit surprised to see noted guru and author Deepak Chopra being interviewed by Larry King on CNN—it turns out he was some kind of a spiritual advisor to Michael Jackson. Even US President Barack Obama has issued a statement. What all these people have to say is interesting. Michael Jackson broke a lot of barriers. The man was a musical genius. We already knew that.

I get the sense however that we’re all grappling with something that has so far remained unarticulated. We’re grieving, yes. We’re all feeling a sense of loss, yes. But deep down, we’re also struggling with a certain measure of guilt. His sudden death deprived us with a sense of closure. There is no such thing as happy ever after. The man never got to redeem himself in the eyes of the world.

In the last decade, Michael Jackson was reduced to being fodder for weirdness and outlandishness. Media projection of the man was that of a freak—some kind of an aberration, almost like a modern day Frankenstein. He was ridiculed, vilified, made a laughing stock for his supposed excesses. Very few actually bothered to separate the myths from the facts, the real from the fantasy; and many were quite content with making hasty judgments and gross generalizations about the man. In short, he was misunderstood up to the very end.

There were those who couldn’t understand his obsession with plastic surgery mainly because they couldn’t empathize with an artist’s decision to use his own body as his own art medium. The idea of an artist re-sculpting himself, offering his own body as sacrifice for the sake of art, is incomprehensible to many the way people vilified Vincent Van Gogh for mutilating himself or the way lots of people shun those who transform their own bodies into canvasses by covering every inch of skin with tattoos.

Many couldn’t understand his predilection for touching his groin, his standard dance move. To many, that represented the ultimate symbol of perversion as if putting one’s hand on one’s groin is automatically synonymous with depravity. Of course people will dismiss my interpretation of the dance move as an expression of a fan’s blind idolatry, but really, body parts are just body parts. A breast is just a breast, a natural part of everyone’s body; there is nothing dirty or perverse about it unless we associate it with something carnal.

It’s really sad that the world lost a musical genius too soon, particularly since it seems he was on the cusp of making a comeback. There is no doubt that a musical genius like Michael Jackson still had a lot to offer to the world. Sadder perhaps is the fact that to this day, many, many years since Van Gogh died impoverished and alone, the fate of artists who courageously strove to be understood for what and who he is remains the same —tragic. As the song written about Vincent Van Gogh says, “this world was never meant for one as beautiful….”

Heal the world

I didn't realize Michael Jackson was older until today.  I always thought we were the same age because, well, we sort of grew up together (okay, for the record, I am 45).  

I could actually chart my own maturity using his songs as some kind of soundtrack.  Let me see.  "Ben" was a song my playmates and I would sing with such gusto when I was in the primary grades.  "One Day In Your Life" was the sort of theme song (yeah, go ahead snicker) of my puppy love.  

My friends and I discovered musical instruments in high school (I studied piano, but lugged around a guitar to school and to our tambayan) and we would sing "Rock with You" and "She's Out of My Life" over and over again.

I was in College when Thriller shot to global fame.  Our class performed "Beat It" during one of those convocations.  

My first official job after graduation was with the US Peace Corps as Language and Culture Resource Person.  This was the time when MTVs were the rage and at Tagbilaran Bohol where we spent six months doing training for US Peace Corps volunteers, night life meant going to a restaurant that served beer and featured giant video walls showing music videos.  "We Are The World" was the most popular video and we also performed that at the closing ceremony of the training program.

When I joined the corporate world, "Heal The World" and "Have You Seen My Childhood" were staple training songs.  

*** 

Being such a huge fan of the guy, I think I can be forgiven for believing that the guy was a genius.  Even at the height of the controversies, I never really gave up on the guy.  This was why my first reaction this morning when I learned about his death was "I am sure the people who vilified him would be the first to eulogize him now that he is dead and extol his genius."

Anyway.  Good night Michael.  Rest in peace.

Leave her alone

I'm really swamped.  As in.  I'm up to my armpits with work.  This explains the late posts in this blog and the fact that I seemed to have been simply filling space in my column last Monday and Wednesday.  Yup.  There are days when writing a column feels like an obligation rather than a pleasurable experience.

I expect my workload to be a little more bearable next week so hopefully things will be little less hectic.  

But I feel an overwhelming need to blog about the Maricar Reyes reappearance now.

If there's a real victim in that whole sordid sex video episode, it's her.  We haven't really heard from her. No hysterics, no caterwauling, no hair-tearing appearances on TV.

But last Sunday, there she was on ASAP, looking as regal and as composed as a swan.  I am sure that little TV appearance was a nerve-wracking experience for her.  But she didn't show it.  And I admired her for it.

I wish people would simply leave her alone and stop this effort to pin her down for some exclusive interview about those horrible sex videos.  If we truly want to help her, let's just leave things as they are now.  Let's stop hounding her about her version of the story.  Let's help put that whole ugly episode behind her by not making halukay the whole ugly thing.  Enough na.

And that's all I wanted to say.

Father's Day

This was my column yesterday. 

Last Sunday was Father’s Day. It was difficult to ignore the supposed significance of the day because as can be expected, people who were poised to profit by turning the day into a commercial event went to town with all kinds of not-so-subtle reminders for everyone to spend money in order to make his father happy. There’s something seriously wrong with the premise, but what can we do? There is a price tag attached to everything nowadays.

Most of the popular restaurants and fast-food chains had various promotions designed to entice people to celebrate Father’s Day by spending money in their restaurants. Malls, bookstores, specialty shops all had the same idea. Even cable television networks adjusted their programming to show movies about fathers and their relationships with their children. Why do movies about father-son relationships (think Dad or Frequency) tend to be more melodramatic than movies about mother-daughters (think Terms of Endearment or Postcards from the Edge) ?

A friend who was persuaded by his kids to celebrate the day with dinner at a posh restaurant Sunday evening couldn’t help but remind everyone at the table— jokingly, of course—that even if his wife and kids were paying for the dinner with their allowances, it was still money coming out of his own pocket. When my own kids suggested that we have dinner out, I also told them pretty much the same thing. I was sure they would have found a way to charge the expense to me eventually in some form or another.

Which is not to say that I didn’t or do not appreciate the celebration of Father’s Day. I am still a little unsure about the wisdom of setting aside just one special day to honor certain people in our lives especially if it means forgetting about them for the rest of the year. But then again, at least we get one day out of 365. Now that I am older, I have learned to appreciate the little things.

It has been said that the families that we are born to are special because, well, they are family. But the families that we choose to belong to, the people we freely elect to become part of our lives through friendships and other bonds are probably just as special, perhaps even more so.

Thus, of the many greetings that I received last Sunday, the ones that held more profound meaning for me were the ones from people who have taken to calling me “dad” not out of obligation but out of genuine respect and affection. These were a number of former students who have remained close friends to this day; kids who listened more attentively in class than the rest and therefore were more appreciative not only of the lessons imparted inside the classroom but also of the effort that went into the preparation of lessons.

These were kids who saw their professors not just as teachers but as mentors, not just as facilitators of learning but as sources of wisdom as well. These were kids who saw their professors not just as elders inside a classroom but as some sort of a parental figure they could look up to.

I am proud to have known quite a number of these students. Many of them proudly referred to themselves as my groupies, but eventually settled into considering themselves “anak sa labas” (illegitimate children). They were students who made me an important part of their lives by trusting me with their confusions, their doubts, their plans and aspirations. Needless to say, many of these students would eventually invite me to stand as sponsors in their weddings or in the baptism of their children.

Being a teacher is most often a thankless job. Thus, one of the greatest satisfaction a teacher can get is when students become receptive and responsive not just to the learning process, but to professors as individuals as well. It always gives me a thrill as a professor when students’ eyes light up during a lecture signaling comprehension of a difficult concept. But it gives me more happiness when students begin to linger after class for counseling, to see advice on career options, or even just to talk or pursue a discussion started in class.

Maybe it is as much an indication of my own maturity process (I’ve probably become more paternal now both in outlook and in my physical appearance) but I have noticed the growing number of students who seem in search of parental figures in their lives. They perform better when they are given special attention in class. I’ve come across a number of students whose performance in class improved dramatically after being given counseling after class. In short, I have noted that many students respond better when professors assume the role of a “parent” inside a classroom.

Another professor in the school where I teach in the evenings validated my observations. We hypothesized that this was probably on account of the fact that many of our students have absentee parents. I did a quick check in my classes and realized that indeed, almost half of my students had one or two parents who were overseas Filipino workers. It is difficult to make generalizations, but it seems that we are really seeing a generation of kids who hunger for some kind of parenting and they are searching for it somewhere else—perhaps in classrooms, perhaps in the company of friends and peers.

If we come to think about it, that’s probably another explanation for the sudden popularity of family occasions such as Father’s Day. It seems there really is a need to allot a special day to remind everyone of the special role fathers play in the lives of their children even if they are not physically present.

As I prepared to go to sleep Sunday evening, I thought about the real significance of occasions like Father’s Day. I guess in the end it’s really about being grateful.

Hoaxes and fly swatters

This was my column last Monday, June 22.  Sorry, late post.

Two e-mails that furiously made the rounds last week illustrated just how easy it is for people to get “excited” even over far-fetched ideas and non-issues.

I am not talking about the hyperventilating that’s been happening over the supposed indications that the President is preparing to run as representative of her district in her home province of Pampanga, supposedly as part of a larger scheme to eventually become Prime Minister of this country. It’s not a non-issue, of course; it’s a potentially explosive issue but the type that can only blow up on the faces of those pushing it.

Still, in response to those who have been egging me to say something on the matter, my thoughts hew closely to the Supreme Court’s position on the constituent assembly—let’s wait for more concrete indications. Put more picturesquely, I would rather wait for those people pushing the inconceivable to tighten the noose some more around their necks; the better to hang them with when the appropriate time comes. In the meantime, I am of the belief that what the bright boys at the Palace are doing is building and reinforcing scenarios that would translate into better bargaining points. They know she can’t. The people will not willingly bend over backwards; not this time around.

I am talking about that e-mail about how we, earthlings, will be witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle next month— two moons of more or less the same sizes. The other e-mail was about that famous murder at the White House involving United States President Barack Obama and a hapless, pitiful housefly that got some people so riled up.

According to the hoax that’s being forwarded by people who were probably asleep in their astronomy classes, planet Mars will be closest to Earth next month. The three e-mails I received even had a picture of Mars and the moon magnified to the same size and positioned perilously close to each other. A friend whom I wanted to bop on the head gushed at the possibility until I reminded him of the cataclysmic repercussions of such a celestial event. The gravitational pull that would be created by having two moons side-by-side would be disastrous, not to mention the kind of havoc that would result on the tides of this planet!

The sad thing is that this hoax is actually a result of someone’s careless interpretation of an old fact. Mars did come closest to Earth in 2003 and an official and factual news report said that the planet, when viewed “at a modest 75-power magnification will look as large as the moon.” Someone with an overactive imagination and nothing better to do conveniently dropped the reference to “75-power magnification,” threw in magnified pictures of both Mars and the Moon and then forwarded the baloney to the rest of the world.

I can understand how a number of people fell for the hoax. The solar system and the universe beyond are realms that remain mysterious and captivating to most of us. I, for one, have always had this fascination with astronomical events, thanks to my grandmother who had a profound interest in the stars and the planets and would wake us up in the middle of the night to witness whatever celestial phenomenon was on, such as when a comet was visible or when an eclipse was occurring. For the most part, however, many of the information she passed on to us were breathtaking but I discovered much later on, were quite erroneous.

Like everyone else, I spent quite a number of my elementary years gazing at a mock up of the solar system at the ceiling of our science room where the planets stood quite close to each other. It was only about a decade ago while reading Bill Bryson’s book A Short History of Nearly Everything when I actually learned that even if the earth were reduced to the size of an ordinary pea, a realistic rendition of the solar system drawn to scale would have Jupiter situated about 300 meters away from earth and Pluto would be about two-and-a-half kilometers away.

The other e-mail that I received that I found quite amusing was that bit about how people belonging to the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals chided Obama for what they thought was inhumane attitude towards a fly. The President of the most powerful nation on earth was being interviewed on television when a fly intruded. He smacked it dead. PETA sent Obama a bug catcher that he can use to trap a housefly next time around and taught him the proper way to treat flies—which according to them, is to catch it in a humane way and then release it outside.

I understand that the protest was done more for political reasons than anything else. We all have our own causes and advocacies. But really, taking up the cudgels for houseflies and their rights and chiding a President for swatting a fly? I am not sure such a move advanced the cause of political correctness in a proactive way.

 

The social cost of technology

This is my column today.

When people talk about how technology is reshaping the world and the way we live, the discussion most often centers on how technology has dramatically obliterated barriers of time and space. People talk about how technology has enabled us to communicate faster, process volumes of information quicker, even store, retrieve, and forward data in far more convenient ways than ever before.

The impact of technology on people and social structures is often glossed over.

For example, the emergence of e-mails and the widespread use of the Internet have spawned relational concepts such as e-mail etiquette and netizenship. Although most people have overcome the learning curve on appropriate use of emails, there are still those who annoy everyone else by continuing to forward all kinds of scams and chain e-mails, or using upper case letters, or generally displaying the virtual equivalent of boorish behavior.

One of my professional e-mail groups is both virtually and literally dead after it became victimized by flamebaiters who hijacked the forum and succeeded in sowing discord among its members. To this day, many members of the forum still havent been able to comprehend exactly what happened or have been able to accept that there are indeed many people in this world who use the Internet as outlet for their neurosis.

Technology will continue to redefine the way people relate and interact with each other and pave the way for even more complications. Thus, there is now a whole taxonomy of online behaviors complete with the appropriate labels and descriptions, from cyberbullying, to phishing, to flamebaiting, to trolling, etc.

New technology also gives way to hybrid behaviors, which require new rules and new theories. It has been argued that there shouldnt be any differences in the way people relate to each other whether in person or online; that technology is simply a tool that we bend and adjust according to our needs and preferences. But like all other ideals, this is easier said than done. The reality is that technology is pushing the frontiers of ethics, ethical behavior, and even simple good manners and were really inventing the rules as we move along. There are no ready manuals to govern our conduct.

For example, one of the more contentious issues that people are still grappling with is the issue of privacy when using technology such as emails, the Internet, and even in social networking sites. Some companies have put in place what seem like comprehensive policies that seek to provide guidelines on employees use of company-sponsored technology. But even the most ironclad guidelines cannot legislate behavior and are therefore puny to the complexities of the human condition.

Theoretically, employees are not supposed to use company email or Internet facilities for personal purposes. However, the line that separate personal and business has always been inchoate. Everyone knows that everyone else uses company email and Internet facilities for personal purposes although admittedly in varying degrees and levels.

Is it okay for companies to use information and data culled from an employee's email account for disciplinary procedures against the employee? Can companies pick information from an employee's or for that matter, a job applicant's social networking site and use it in the employee discipline or in screening processes? Is it ethical to do so?

As someone whose day job includes screening candidates for certain critical positions in the bank that I work for, I have certain reservations about using information on an employees or candidates Friendster or Facebook accounts for employment purposes. But I am aware that these sites are considered public domain. So theoretically, any information including the state of ones current emotional entanglement can be used for or against him or her.

One celebrated case involved an employee (not in the Philippines, though) who was fired from her job allegedly because she was caught logged on to and updating her Facebook account on days when she was supposed to be home sick. The company insisted that she feigned sickness and used her Facebook account history as proof. The employee sought redress in court and the whole thing is now one of those management cases dissected in various human resource management fora.

The growing popularity of BlackBerries and cellular phones that allow people to access the Internet anywhere has now added further complication. A Reuters report written by Ellen Wulfhorst and released last week narrated how a political coup in New York statehouse was instigated by billionaire businessman Tom Golisano because he was peeved that Democratic majority leader Malcolm Smith paid more attention to his BlackBerry than to him during a meeting. An entry in a blog summed up the moral of the story thus: One should not play with ones BlackBerry when billionaires who have helped elect you have traveled to your office to talk to you. Of course it is possible that the billionaire in question simply had another bad day more than he could handle.

However, the whole fracas illustrated just how hand-held devices are getting in the way of relationships and productive work; or to be more specific, how technology is redefining the norms of proper conduct. The Reuters report cited one study where a third of more than 5,000 respondents said they often check their e-mails during meetings and yet another study that showed nearly a fifth of respondents said they had been reprimanded for showing bad manners with a wireless device. Totally believable when we consider just how many among us couldnt resist sending and receiving text messages, answering a call, or even downloading emails through BlackBerries or cellphones even when in the middle of important meetings or events. Why, many among us cannot even resist not answering cellphones in church.

The Reuters report also provided a counter-argument against the much vaunted benefits and advantages of technology offered by hand-held devices. For example it shot down the myth of multi-tasking (can take more time and result in more errors than focusing on a single task at a time). When we come to think about it, its a little ironic that many experts are now saying that certain technological gadgets impede rather help companies attain optimum productivity when these gadgets were designed primarily as productivity tools.

But like I said, we're not even talking about the so-called soft issues yet the social costs associated with technology. Are people guilty of bad manners now in short, more rude and inconsiderate or have the rules of etiquette been redefined to adjust to the demands of new technology? The debate is just starting to heat up.

Instant products and new gizmos

This is my column today.

In this age of consumerism, most of the things we need can now be bought from a store. There’s probably a product for anything and everything, both imaginable and unimaginable.

Who would have thought, for example, that cooking something as basic as sinigang could be reduced to a few very uncomplicated steps, thanks to the wonders of pre-packed ready-to-cook concoctions that come in cubes or sachets? Thus, all one has to do today is boil some water, dump in some cubes or pour the contents of a sachet, put in the rest of the ingredients meat, fish or vegetables—into the boiling mass and then presto! sinigang is served.

I used to agree with the advertising yarn that these pre-packed ingredients were the next best things that happened to culinary arts after fire was discovered. I am sure any working drone that has experienced a sudden hankering for sinigang sa sampalok in the middle of the night will agree with me on this. But when they started mass -producing concoctions for basic ginisa (sauté), I decided that the people behind the idea were already pandering to people’s inherent laziness. After all, how difficult is it to sauté garlic, onions and tomatos?

I am told that there is now a whole range of products that include ready mixes for menudo, caldereta, etc. As can be expected, my yaya scoffs at the whole idea; she thinks these new products take away the art from cooking. There’s a large part of me that agrees with her. Cooking after all is not just about the taste of the final product it’s also about the preparation. It’s sad that we seem to be nurturing a whole new generation of Filipinos who have not experienced the multi-sensory pleasure of witnessing leche flan, or arroz valenciana, being made from scratch. Our kids are missing out on a number of social and cultural experiences that help develop a strong sense of who they are as Filipinos.

But there’s also a part of me that, in the now famous words of Senator Ping Lacson, “bows down to the reality” that we live in a world that puts a premium on products that make the complicated simple. I empathize with the multitudes of harassed people housewives, working moms, single parents, even working drones who simply do not have the time nor the energy to slave in the kitchen in order to produce a bowl of pancit canton from scratch and therefore have to rely on ready-to-cook packets that one simply tosses on a skillet.

We live in an age where there seems to be a race to come up with more of these products. The mantra of those who are cashing in on the phenomenon seems to be: “If we can sell it, there will be some sucker out there who will buy it.” The market positioning is simple make people believe that they need the product. Thus, we now have a long list of products of dubious value but are nevertheless being packaged as necessities.

Why, just last week, I discovered a tiny gadget that was being sold at a bookstore called a thumber a device one wears on one’s thumb while reading. No, it did not claim to work wonders on one’s comprehension abilities. It’s a device that comes with plastic “wings” that firmly keep the pages of the book one is reading spread wide open. It’s supposed to offer some form of convenience although for someone like me who loses things, particularly small gadgets, easily, trying to find the darn thing every single time I opened a book would probably pose more inconvenience.

One wonders of course if such a device is really necessary; after all, many generations of bookworms managed to survive without it simply relying on what nature provided as handy tool for doing what the device is supposed to do one’s fingers.

But as if to spite my inherent cynicism, I also found in the same bookstore a new product that did make me wonder: “How come no one thought about that much earlier?” There are now small plastic gadgets called chalk holders that pretty much look like in fact, probably inspired by lipstick holders. The device holds a piece of chalk and one twists the small canister to coax the piece of chalk out or stuff it in. Is the device really necessary? I’m sure teachers out there can continue to survive without it but it sure takes away the aggravation of having to wash constantly to get rid of chalk residue on one’s body and clothes. With the chalk holders, teachers can now also keep chalk in their pockets or bags.

Next to cellular telephones, the most popular gadget today is the flash drive. I came face-to-face with this realization recently when, after I did a lecture for a group of public school teachers and principals, I was mobbed by flash drive-wielding participants for copies of my powerpoint presentation. Again, they weren’t yuppies or college students but grandmothers and aunts all requesting for the chance of being allowed to insert their flash drives into my MacBook. I am told even schoolchildren are now required to own a flash drive or two.

Flash drives used to be nondescript, no-nonsense gadgets; but as can be expected, they have now evolved into something else. I’ve seen flash drives built as part of a Swiss knife, flash drives encased in ballpens, keychains, even lighters and stopwatches. The latest designs I came across were flash drives that also functioned as fashion accessories. I remember a time when a meeting I was attending ground to a halt because everyone watched one of our friends take off her gem-encrusted brooch and use it as a flash drive.

The range of gadgets that all of us are supposed to have is now mind-boggling. As a result, I now carry a small pouch inside my bag containing an assortment of tiny gadgets. There’s a card reader, which reads data from the memory cards of my cell phones and from my digital camera and uploads them directly to my notebook. There’s a multi-port which enables me to double the number of ports of my notebook the Mac I am using only has two ports and that’s often not enough when I have to use a mouse, a flash drive, a card reader, etc. I also have to carry with me all kinds of chargers one for my cell phones, another one for my ipod, and another one for the batteries of the digital camera. Do we really need all these things? It’s ironic that the marketing pitch of these products hues closely along the lines of “you can’t survive without it” which, if we come to think about it, is pretty hilarious because we’ve been able to survive without it for quite some time, thank you very much.

Even our politicians seemed to have jumped into the bandwagon and have started packaging themselves as products complete with their respective taglines and marketing pitches. Their marketing ploy is to remind all of us of just how wretched our lives are, just how unlucky and how unhappy we all are and then propose themselves as the panacea that will make everything go away.

Like the magic cubes and the other gadgets that we’ve learned to embrace and make part of our lives, the truth is that we can do very well without them, actually.

Hell on air

I am writing this while on official business in Butuan City.  The last time I was here, Martial Law was still in effect and I was still wearing short pants so I really didn't have any memory of the place.  But Butuan City (and Agusan, for that matter) has always intrigued me because of its rich archaelogical sites.  In case you don't know, they were able to excavate balangays (boats) that date back to pre-Spanish times, which further proves that the Philippines had its own civilization and culture even before Magellan came to the country.  

I intend to write about my Butuan experience in another post.  Right now, I will rant about one of the worst traveling experiences I've ever had: my flight coming here aboard PAL. Fortunately, it was a relatively short trip - 1 hour 15 minutes.

As required by company policy, we had to take PAL to Butuan.  I really don't have major issues with PAL - in fact, I've only flown Cebu Pacific a couple of times and only because there wasn't a PAL flight available then.  

I had the misfortune of being seated next to a guy who was reeking of alcohol and vomit - clearly, he went straight to the airport from an overnight drunken revelry.  His body was draped like a crumpled rug on the plane seat and many parts of his appendages were encroaching on my space.  I don't know if there is a rule against allowing drunk people to board planes, but there really should be.  

And behind me was a gang of Japanese macaws.  They must have been in a real hurry and didn't have time to meet prior to boarding because it looked like they were conducting a very contentious meeting 25,000 feet above sea level.  The guys kept on talking the whole time.  In Niponggo!  I didn't know which was worse, the fact that I couldn't understand a word they were saying or the fact that I couldn't understand what they were saying. 

Worse, there was a low pressure area in the Visayas and the flight was a little bumpy. My right ear was stuffed and I was in pain.

Fortunately, I had an audio novel stored in my ipod so I decided to practice diverting the pain by concentrating on something else.  

Twenty minutes into the flight, they started serving food- or what passed for it:  A small packet of nuts the size of those Happy peanuts packs that cost one peso per pack and a packet containing two biscuits.  When the cabin attendant serving drinks reached my seat, I automatically looked up and quipped "juice, please."  I fly PAL almost every other week so I knew they served funny tasting orange juice in plastic packs.  The guy (Michael John something) heaved an impatient sigh and said something which I couldn't hear because I was wearing ear plugs.  When I noticed that he was still standing there, I took my earplugs off and heard him say "Just coffee, tea or water only, sir" in an annoyed way.  

"Uh, okay, coffee then," I told him.  Thereupon he plunked down black liquid in a styropor cup on the panel in front of me.  The cup didn't even contain half a cup of coffee.  I checked those of the other passengers nearby and noted that they also didn't get a full cup of coffee.  I was seated towards the back of the plane so it was obvious that he was rationing what seemed like the last kettle of coffee among the passengers.  In short, tinamad kumuha ng bagong kettle of coffee at pinagkasya na lang kami sa natirang coffee.

That cabin attendant was really surly.  He should have taken the day off instead of inflicting bad mood on everyone else.  When the passenger in front of me asked for a newspaper, he actually had the nerve to tell the passenger that there were "no newspapers available anymore." It was probably true, there were no newspapers available anymore, but he could have said it in a more courteous way. 

To cap it all, 30 minutes prior to landing he came around and told me to turn off my ipod.  I checked my watch and wondered why we were descending earlier than scheduled.  Ten minutes later, the pilot announce the descent and that's when he asked that all electronic gadgets be turned off.  In short, the cabin attendant just seemed intent on annoying passengers.

Rain was beginning to pour when we got off the plane and guess what, there were no umbrellas available for those of us disembarking from the rear side of the plane.  We had to stage an impromptu one hundred meter dash competition.  

As if things couldn't get any worst, there were a swarm of porters that got in our way at the very cramped baggage collection area.  They didn't turn on the baggage conveyor belt - obviously that would have deprived the porters of the opportunity to fleece money from passengers.  So this meant that passengers had to pick up their bags right where they unloaded them.

Fortunately, our welcoming party turned out to be such a gracious host.  Right after lunch, he brought us to the Butuan Museum.  That lifted the dark clouds that seemed to hound us on the way there. 

r

What I think Lacson really wanted to say

This was my column yesterday and today.  It was too long so it had to run for two days.  

I still haven’t been able to figure out what exactly the point of Senator Ping Lacson’s withdrawal from the presidential race last week was. I am not talking about why he withdrew, he spewed a sob story about how being virtuous can be a disadvantage in this country. What I am perplexed about is: How can someone withdraw from a race that has not officially started? The withdrawal would have made perfect sense if the period for the filing of candidacies was already upon us and he had already filed his candidacy. But the period is still several months away! And it’s not as if he was already picked by a party.

I know that by writing about his withdrawal from the race, I am raising more awareness about it. Quite frankly, there is a part of me that thinks a Lacson Presidency is not the worst thing that could happen to this country—the man does have strong traits. However, I still didn’t see the point of that withdrawal and in making that statement. Here’s what I think he wanted to say, though. Lacson’s withdrawal statement follows; my take on his statement are in italics.

Thank you for this invitation to the second ANC Leadership Forum. (Since you insist on having me despite the fact that I already stood you up at the first forum, I will use this forum for some personal agenda.) 

Up until I made a decision last Sunday to retire myself from a race that would matter most in the lives of our beloved countrymen, I had every intention to share with our people my vision of what the Philippines ought to be in a Ping Lacson presidency. (Let’s cut the crap, this forum is not about leadership but presidential ambitions and I really wanted to tell you why I am the best person to become president but my enemies have been relentless in throwing all kinds of obstacles in my way.)

Marahil sa huling pagkakataon, sa isang pagpupulong na tulad nito, nais kong ipabatid sa aking mga minamahal na kababayan na ang kahirapan at kawalan ng mga serbisyong pangkalusugan, edukasyon at seguridad ng mamamayan ay hindi mabibigyang lunas ng pamumudmod ng tulong mula sa mga pulitiko tuwing papalapit ang halalan; tulong na magaan at madaling ipamigay dahil madaling kinikita sa pamamagitan ng pagsasamantala sa kaban ng bayan. (My rivals have illusions of being The Messiah who will be able to solve the country’s problems but I will tell you this: What they will be saying will all be crap— they can’t solve the country’s problems and their pre-election antics are all for show.)

My vision is clear as it is simple—the country’s problem is government, bad government. (It’s time to get that devilish woman and her minions out of the Palace.) 

The solution stares us right in the face of the problem itself. I believe that we need to discipline 1.5 million members of the civilian and military bureaucracy and imbue them with the right motivation and a sense of genuine public service. (All our problems could have been solved a long time ago if only the people in government stopped supporting that woman and my brothers in the military staged a coup to topple this government and installed me in power instead.)

In short, if we hope to solve the problems of most of the 90 million Filipinos, we must set government right. This is the only way we can move forward as a country, and as a people. (Need I say it again? That blasted woman simply has to go.)

But correcting government will not come easy if it does not start with the leader himself. One cannot discipline if one is unable to discipline oneself. One cannot preach clean government if one is himself on the take, or his relatives and cronies are themselves the thieves. If a president cannot lead by the power of good example, then governance will always be bad. (As I have been insisting for the longest time now—I am the best person to lead this country. No one else has the iron resolve to do what is necessary, even what is ugly and unpopular. Without me, there cannot be good government.) 

My vision for the Philippines is one where basic services are guaranteed, where health and education and public safety are prioritized, and no-nonsense government is instituted in all levels of the polity. (My program of government will be the same as everyone else's, but that woman has to go. Get her out before she succeeds in nailing me for murder.)

Sadly, what we have today is a feudal set-up foolishly labeled as democracy, where transactional politics is entrenched both in the bureaucracy and local government units; and where the poor are deluded into believing that throwing candies or giving instant noodles or occasional help in distress is the be-all and end-all of public service. In the grind for survival, the poor forget all too often that the occasional goodies they get are mere scraps from the tables of the immoderately greedy powerful who plunder public coffers, or abuse power for self-profit. (The leftists in Congress don’t have the monopoly of pro-poor rhetoric. I can also dish out seemingly profound statements that appeal to the masses but don’t really mean anything.)

I have always maintained that if we doggedly and purposively set government right, the rest will follow. When people respect government, they pay the correct taxes and follow even the simplest of traffic rules. Equal opportunity. Level playing field. To each a fair, fighting chance.  Patas na laban, para sa lahat. (Again, that woman has to go. Now. And did I tell you already about my campaign messages before people started jumping the ship and taking up with the enemy? They were in my television ads, which I had no qualms airing prior to today.)

But reaching out to the voters, particularly those in the D and E income levels, which altogether comprise some four-fifths of the population, does not come easy. It is most expensive in a political system which has neither strong institutions nor correct procedures. (I wish I still have the support of my financial backers; I could have produced more ads and bought more airtime to catch up with Mar Roxas and Manny Villar in this game called “Let’s see who can fool the poorest of the poor.” Darn it, even that Gibo Teodoro seemed to have access to more resources. It’s not fair! But since I now have neither the support nor the resources and I don’t want to spend my own money, I will join the chorus of people who lambast what they do as wrong even if like them I also had my own political ads before money ran out.)

Minsan ay sumagi na rin sa aking isipan na tanggapin na ang 200 milyong pisong pork barrel bawat taon para sa isang senador upang magamit at makasabay man lang sa isang magastos na pangangampanya. Nguni’t, at mabuti na lamang, nanaig pa rin sa aking isipan na ipagpatuloy ang isang adhikain at paniniwala na higit sa ano pa mang bagay, mas mahalaga ang integridad sa isang tulad kong inihalal ng bayan upang maglingkod nang tapat at walang halong pag-iimbot. (I will remind you once again that I’m the only senator who has not deigned to accept crumbs masquerading as pork barrel from Malacañang. Why hasn’t anyone commended my virtuous act? I deserve public commendation, I should be held up as the example of an ideal public servant.)

The great Charles de Gaulle of France, who put order back in a land wracked by anarchy, once remarked that “in order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant”. Like his forebear Nostradamus, he might have foreseen the Philippine political scene of this generation. (Eat your heart out Richard Gordon, I am also capable of dropping names of great men and sounding profound in the process).

 But I refuse to lie. And I refuse to purvey make-believe storyboards and saturate the airwaves with fairy tales. (Those padyakitos ads of Mar Roxas? Crap. Those slick “I was once poor like you” soap operas of Manny Villar? Crap, too. Binay’s tall tales about Makati? Crap as well. My political ads were better, but I can’t afford airtime anymore).

Even if I tried to communicate the truth to our people given the extremely limited resources that I could raise from well-meaning friends who have kept the faith, and believe as I do in my central advocacy of good governance and national discipline, the time has come to face the reality that the intent to lead in this land in order to do good, has become an enterprise only for those who have access to unlimited funds. (I would have wanted to continue my presidential ambitions, but my supporters and backers deserted me when it became apparent that there was no way of stopping Mancao’s return to the country). 

I bow to that reality, which is why I have chosen not to participate any more in this laudable forum of those who seek the presidency of the land. And I beg your favor that you read this message that springs from my heart. (I have no choice at this point. I will have to prepare for my defense. But please spare me a few precious seconds of expensive airtime to exit from the race kicking and screaming).

To my loyal supporters and those who appreciated the kind of work ethic and purposive leadership I have demonstrated as a soldier, as the chief of the Philippine National Police, and share the advocacies I have been fighting for as senator of the Republic—beyond expression of my undying gratitude, I now pledge that I will continue my relentless battle for good governance; lonely and difficult this may be. (I don’t know what lies ahead of me now that Mancao is poised to testify. But I swear you haven’t heard the last of me).

Rest assured that in time, we will all join together to support a leader who could best deliver our people from the bondage they now suffer. That leader must have both the competence and character that are the preconditions to purposive leadership so imperative in these crossroads of the nation’s life. (I will now look around for someone whom I can support and who will support me in turn. Perhaps I should ask my loyal supporter Jamby to run for President? Judy Ann Santos is even more popular today, perhaps Jamby can buy her name and image again.)

And I appeal to the learned and the highly educated in our society to share their thoughts and help guide the vulnerable 80 percent of the Filipino electorate to vote wisely and conscientiously, not for their day-to-day personal needs, but for a country that we all love and care for. (Please help me convince more people that Villar is lying to them. Help me make people see that I am still the best candidate so that I can return to the political arena with a vengeance.)

Magkaisa po tayong tumulong sa isang taong batay sa karanasan at sa ugali, ay alam nating hindi magnanakaw at hindi gagamitin ang kapangyarihang hiram para magpasasa sa sariling interes. (Please kick that woman out of office now before she does more harm to me. And please do not support Manny Villar in 2010. I will look around for a more suitable candidate instead; of course I am still hoping that that candidate will be someone who looks like me, thinks like me, and is preferably me).

Risk and responsibility

This is my column today.

Traffic along Taft Avenue was particularly heavier than usual Wednesday afternoon last week. There was an unusually big volume of pedestrians around the area between Qurino Avenue and Vito Cruz street and a gazillion of private cars seemed to be desperately trying to get into the area all at the same time.

The reason: De La Salle-Manila (more popularly referred to as De La Salle University; actually, the De La Salle schools have long instituted a branding mechanism that required each school to be known simply by its location thus, De La Salle-Manila, De La Salle-Greenhills, etc.) closed down the Manila campus for 10 days and sent everyone home. Even the La Salle brothers had to pack up and evacuate to the De La Salle-Greenhills campus.

Students spilled all over the adjoining streets. Parents and drivers scrambled to pick students up pronto. As most everyone knows by now, one De La Salle-Manila foreign student was confirmed to have had AH1N1. Two other students another foreign student who was the dorm-mate of the first student and another Filipino student were subsequently confirmed to have been infected with the H1N1 virus.

Classes at the nearby College where I teach in the evenings were not suspended, though. This was because the College did not have a confirmed case of H1N1 infection. But as can be expected, this did not stop students from being absent. On the same day that De La Salle-Manila suspended classes, my students were fidgeting in their seats, complaining that their parents were sending them endless text messages urging them to go home. I had to tell my students that if they wanted to go home to assuage their parents’ anxiety, they could be excused from my class. We also had to give way to a quick discussion on facts and fallacies about the H1N1 virus.

I found it quite exasperating to note that many parents were panicking over unverified reports of an outbreak in certain schools (including at the College where I teach, which was totally false) while conveniently forgetting to practice responsible behavior themselves. A quick check among my students revealed that quite a number of them spent summer vacation abroad with their parents. Parents were worrying about exposing their children to the H1N1 virus here in the country where there has only been a few confirmed cases of H1N1 infection while they just brought their children to countries where the infections were in far greater numbers? Go figure.

Just as exasperating was the realization that many among my students also had one or both parents who just got back from traveling abroad, all of whom did not subject themselves to self-quarantine. In short, people were worrying about having their children exposed to the H1N1 virus at school while conveniently forgetting that they themselves just got exposed to the virus abroad and therefore posed a greater risk of spreading the infection themselves.

Such is the nature of panic. It often robs people of the capacity for rational thinking.

I recognize though that the risks of H1N1 infections in academic communities are greater. This is because close social contacts are unavoidable in schools, the learning process being predominantly characterized by active social interactions. The H1N1 virus also happens to be particularly contagious as it can be spread through social contact. In this context, closing down schools where there is a confirmed case of H1N1 makes sense.

However, simply and unilaterally closing down schools cannot be the sole extent of our collective response. We can’t possibly keep on doing the same thing for every single time there is a confirmed case of H1N1. Postponing classes by a few weeks this time around seems like a good precautionary measure. But what happens in a worse case scenario where subsequent cases of H1N1 infection are confirmed? Do we close down schools every single time this happens?

And what about offices, churches, malls, restaurants, gyms, etc? There are many other venues where social interactions do happen. We can’t possibly shut all of these down.
The obvious solution is to promote responsible behavior among the citizenry so that further infections are reduced significantly. Just as self-control is the best form of control, being personally responsible for one’s well being is the best way to reduce vulnerability to H1N1 infection. This translates into two main courses of actions.

First, everyone should make it a personal responsibility to protect themselves from being infected. This means taking all the necessary precautions such as constant washing of hands, avoiding social contacts that comprise high risk to infection such as holding hands or social kissing, etc. The second one is to promote the concept of social responsibility. Citizens who have been potentially exposed to the H1N1 virus, such as those who have just traveled abroad or had social contact with someone infected with the virus, should be duty-bound to undergo self- quarantine.

But to make this happen, we need to put in place mechanisms that empower citizens to be able to practice responsible behaviors. Government must put in place guidelines that enable and ennoble citizens to do this. It is not enough to tell people that they should stay home we must make sure that doing so does not penalize them.

For example, education officials must issue guidelines that compel school authorities to lift penalties against absenteeism committed by faculty members, students, and even administrative staff of educational institutions who take it upon themselves to undergo self-quarantine.

The appropriate government agencies and the private sector must come together to craft guidelines that allow employees and workers who are undergoing self-quarantine to continue being paid during the period. I know this translates into additional expenses, but in the larger scheme of things, that’s a small price we have to pay for ensuring that we are able to contain infections. Surely, paying the wages of someone who is on self-quarantine is wiser course of action compared to the threat of having widespread infections in the workplace. I am aware that such a mechanism is open to abuse, but we can always put in place the appropriate guidelines.

It is also time to pursue a more aggressive, comprehensive, and empowering information and education campaign on H1N1. The problem is that most of the media coverage on the H1N1 pandemic has been focused on the statistics covering confirmed cases of infections, which either lull people into a false sense of security (the numbers are still low) or sow panic and fear (it’s here!).

And quite unfortunately, some companies have capitalized on H1N1 pandemic by promoting products that supposedly protect people from getting infected. For example, one drug company has been promoting a vaccine, which supposedly protects people from flu strains that are similar to H1N1.

Quaint

There are "small" places in the Metro that one knows is there - because they have been there forever - but which one ignores because, well, there are bigger, more publicized, and in some cases, more controversial and therefore interesting places.  

I've been ensconced inside Aloha Hotel for two Fridays now for marathon CBA negotiations.   I know the hotel existed - it happens to be situated strategically along Roxas Boulevard (right on the corner of Quirino Avenue), but up until now, I've not been inside the hotel.  Actually, to be honest about it, I didn't really think the hotel had anything interesting to offer.

Well, what do you know, it's actually a functional quaint hotel - a bit frayed at the edges, yes - but quite interesting.  The hotel's main attraction is its chinese restaurant fronting Roxas Boulevard at ground level.  What I liked about the hotel is the collection of antiques displayed in its lobby.  The antiques - from porcelain figurines, to Chinese brass warrior figures, to wooden sculptures - are displayed inside antique Chinese cabinets.  Obviously these comprise someone's collection.  And it is quite a collection!

The service is not bad, either.  The staff are courteous and solicitous.  Their lunch buffet (Php416 I think) is quite a steal considering the spread.

I didn't get to check the rooms though.  But hopefully soon.

Villar's intransigence

This is my column today.

There are always many sides to an issue and it is a given that the proponents or advocates of one side of an issue would insist vociferously that their side is the correct one. In fact, very often in this country, proponents are not happy with just claiming to be correct, they insist on being the only correct one.

We are in a democracy and everyone is entitled to espouse and defend a point of view regardless of how illogical, improbable, or even incomprehensible that point of view may be to others.

Thus, we often find ourselves arguing and debating the finer points of a sticky issue until everyone gets tired of it, or until something providential happens such as when another issue of greater importance or urgency comes along. At which point, the issues are conveniently dropped in favor of the new issues.

In fact, I have this sneaking suspicion that in certain instances, that’s exactly the game plan at play—people simply stick to their guns and quibble endlessly in the hope that something bigger, something more explosive will eventually come along anyway and they don’t need to concede their respective points of views. And this is why many issues in this country do not really get resolved at all. Unfortunately, unresolved issues do tend to resurface later on and sometimes in uglier forms.

The allegations of unethical conduct leveled against Senator Manny Villar has been festering under the surface for quite some time now. The issue was sidetracked by a number of other seemingly more urgent issues—such as the sex video scandals—but perhaps as an indicator of the gravity of the accusations or the tenacity of the senators pushing the issue, the issue is back in the headlines.

As I said, there are many sides to an issue. If we are to believe the accusers— Senators Jajajajamby Madrigal and Ping Lacson—Villar is culpable of a number of violations of ethical conduct as senator. The gist of the accusations is simply that Villar used his influence and stature as senator for personal or business gains.

Villar and his defenders, on the other hand, insist that the charges are politically motivated. They insist that the fact that Villar’s accusers are his rivals for the Presidency in 2010 should be enough ground to dismiss the issues.

As can be expected, a number of people have already weighed in with their own takes on the issues, either for or against. I won’t go into what I think are the merits or demerits of the various arguments already presented. Quite frankly, I want to keep an open mind on the matter and would therefore be interested in a more detailed, perhaps less emotional, and therefore more logical presentation and rebuttal of the accusations, preferably presented in a duly constituted forum or authority. Given the fact that Villar is bent on becoming the next President of the Republic of the Philippines, settling the issues in a court of law is no longer a viable option. The case would drag on for years and he can’t be tried in court anyway in the event that he wins as president. But I think the issues are relevant today precisely because the man is gunning for the highest seat in the land. The issues are a clear test of the man’s integrity and credibility.

The Senate has finally convened itself as committee of the whole after a series of acrimonious debates on technicalities, legalities, and propriety—the last one of which become very personal and unpleasant. Senator Madrigal presented her case against Villar and showed various documents and evidence supporting her accusations last Monday.

It would have been a good opportunity for Villar to debunk Madrigal’s accusations. Based on what I’ve read from whatever transcripts that were readily available, and based on what I heard on radio and seen on television, the accusations are not as airtight as originally presumed or claimed to be. The evidence seemed credible but only because Madrigal acted with more conviction than warranted. But if we really come down to it, all those supposed pieces of evidence could easily be refuted; it would have boiled down to a case of one document simply debunking another document.

In interviews conducted after the hearing, Villar pretty much said the same thing. All those documents presented could be easily debunked by documents that he had in his possession. He even went as far as to ridicule Madrigal’s penchant for being victimized by kuryente (bum steer). Simple, huh? Then why the heck doesn’t he present them?

Unfortunately, Villar and the minority senators supporting him have been boycotting the hearings. It is their contention that the Senate hearings are a farce and that the senators comprising the majority faction have already made up their minds to convict Villar anyway. They have expressed their belief that Villar cannot expect a fair trial in the Senate – the very same institution that Villar is a part of and whose role in Philippine society he extolled to high heaves just a few months ago when he was still Senate President. In short, they cast doubts on the capability of the other senators to become impartial and objective.

In plain English: They are insulting the other senators and the whole Senate as an institution.
The Senate, particularly during Villar’s term as Senate President, is renowned for its hard-line stance against people who do not cooperate in the various hearings that it has convened. The Senate has detained a number of people for refusing to testify. And now, you have a senator himself openly defying the senate as an institution. If Villar is allowed to do this, what does it say of the Senate as an institution? That it affords an entirely different set of privileges to senators compared to ordinary citizens?

Villar’s allegation that the other senators are not capable of impartiality in this particular case is not an excuse because he is being selective in the application of his bias. He cannot praise his fellow senators in the exercise of other functions that he stands to benefit from and then turn around and condemn them when the odds are stacked against him. Besides, openly accusing other senators of impartiality smacks of unparliamentary behavior and he, more than anyone else should be in a position to know this having been Speaker of the House and Senate President in the past.

Besides, it is not as if Villar does not have the resources to defend himself. He is the richest man in both houses of Congress, for crying out loud. He can hire the best lawyers. If he can afford those slick television ads that run several times a day including at primetime, he can very well afford a public relations campaign to exculpate himself.

By deliberately ignoring the Senate proceedings and choosing instead to go straight to the press; by not answering the charges, or refuting the accusations directly at the Senate where he is being tried and where he is a member in good standing, Villar is sending mixed messages. People cannot be faulted for entertaining thoughts that Villar is a coward who can’t face his peers and look them straight in the eye while he defends himself; or that he is a man who thinks he deserves to be measured against a different set of rules and standards not readily available to ordinary people.

We need big solutions

This is my column today.

The school year officially opens today, and with it, a number of annual traditions.
Harassed school officials and teachers will be running around like headless chicken trying to manage the usual school opening day problems. We all know them by heart; all of them have to do with not having enough of the necessary resources. Not enough teachers. Not enough classrooms or study desks. Not enough books. Not enough pay. Etc.

Parents, once again, will be wailing about how so much more expensive this matter of sending kids to school have become. Some will complain about the spike in tuition and other fees and hyperventilate about what happened to the supposed assurances of government and certain educational associations to freeze tuition increases this year. There will be those who will screech at being made to pay certain fees such as Parent-Teacher Association dues at certain public schools.

A great number of course, will simply ensure that their kids are safe inside classrooms in their brand new uniforms, shiny new bags and unused pencils and notebooks; heave a sigh, and go on with their lives. These parents, however, will not find their way into newscasts. The ones with a complaint, the ones with a tearful story of not having prepared for the school opening as if it were a sudden emergency rather than something that is already programmed into our national life, will be all over the place.

Media of course will be right there, left, right and center of the whole melee. Many pundits and armchair analysts will rant about the inadequacies of our system. There will be lots of finger pointing and justifying.

Even this column has become an annual tradition of sorts. I’ve been ranting about the whole thing for quite some time now although I must stress that I do it many times around the whole school year.

And then, two weeks after, everything will become settled and the problems will disappear magically, relegated into our collective bin of memory. It will be as if we simply imagined all our school day opening woes and tribulations. We will all make do with what we have. We will dig deep into our reservoir of patience and forbearance. Until next year, of course, when we will have to do the whole thing all over again.

It’s been pointed out many times by many experts that our problems are cyclical because they are systemic and therefore require more comprehensive solutions that need to be pursued aggressively and deliberately all throughout the year rather than just at the opening of the school year.

The problem of not having enough classrooms, for example, is something that requires a collective response from everyone. Government alone cannot do it. We all know we lack classrooms but the problem is that this problem only becomes visible at the start of the school year. In fact, I don’t think we know exactly the extent of the problem since no one seemed to have come up with a comprehensive analysis of exactly how many more classrooms we need and where.

What we obviously need is one big comprehensive program that aims to lick the problem once and for all; a program that aims to involve everyone government, private institutions, politicians, community organizations, citizens and which prescribes specific timelines and accountabilities. I know what some are thinking the lack of classrooms is not the only problem. But my point exactly is that we need to start somewhere and prioritize.

I am also aware that there are many other problems in this country and that they too require our attention. As I said, the problem is that we seem to be addressing all of them at the same time in the process spreading resources so thinly that the impact of any achievement is not felt at all. If only we are able to prioritize our problems and focus our energies into solving the most critical few, then we definitely will have more chances of succeeding.

To my mind, education must be on top of the list of problems that we urgently need to address. I don’t think I need to make a litany of just exactly how critical the problems related to our educational system is making a huge impact on our life as a nation. I’ve said this before, but I am going to say it again: Human resource is our only source of sustainable competitive advantage.

For example, we can focus the spotlight on the problems of the educational sector in the next two years and make building classrooms the priority program for all. We can compel congressmen and senators to allocate even just half of their countryside development funds into the program. We can require all private institutions from business organizations to civic and professional clubs, the church, even private individual donors - to devote a sizable part of their corporate social responsibility programs into the building of classrooms. We can marshal the citizenry —the ROTC cadets, the scouts, everyone into volunteering for the program. In short, we can do a bayanihan. But we need a program to make this happen, one with clear goals and activities.

When we really come to think about it, this problem and the need for a program to address it are not that incomprehensible to Filipinos. Each family in this country is acutely aware of these on a daily basis. Every family has a variation of such a bayanihan scheme in place to make sure that the kids in the family get to go to school. Families devote a sizable portion of the budget into the education of members of the family. Everyone pitches in on the effort elder siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. What we need to do is get organized, put in place the mechanisms and the structures, and make a compelling and inspiring campaign to get everyone on board.

I know. Such an ambitious undertaking would require political will and credible leadership, two things that we seem to have a dearth of in this country at the moment. But I maintain that that is so not because we lack leaders with these qualifications per se; just that we have a system that does not enable leaders with these qualifications to succeed.

The truth is that the problems that surface at the opening of the school year are really just the metaphorical tip of the iceberg. We need to dream big and act big on the educational problem rather than simply make it annual fodder for short-term drama and political grandstanding during school year opening season.

Missing the point. Again.

And now I am  completely bewildered.   Can anyone tell me what exactly is the point of the senate hearings on the sex video scandals?  I know the operational objective was "in aid of legislation." But given the line of questioning done by our senators and the level of drama present at today's senate hearing, I am not so sure anymore.

Actually, my heart sank at the mere sight of the three senators conducting the hearing.  They just happened to be the three most annoying senators in my list:  Jajajajajamby Madrigal, Jinggoy Estrada, and Bong Revilla.  Talk about portents of worst things to come! (And yes, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago is not included in my list of most annoying senator.  Aside from the fact that she is in a class all her own, it's really difficult to be annoyed all the time by the lady senator.  She says the most shocking things, yes, but will anyone question the fact that she is soooooo entertaining?)

It seemed to me that the whole point was simply to publicly shame Hayden Kho.  Of course the guy deserves the humiliation.  The problem is that just like anything else, one's tolerance for shame is also flexible.  And it looks like Kho has broke his own shame threshold judging by his public demeanor.  Whereas before he couldn't even look straight into the camera and manage a few coherent sentences, he is actually articulate and very much in control of his emotions now.

At the rate things are going, I wouldn't be surprised if Hayden Kho will suddenly emerge as the victim in this whole thing.  I fear that the kind of persecution he is getting from everyone else - and for the wrong reasons, it seems - will eventually boomerang and result in a groundswell of sympathy for him.  It's not a farfetched idea.  He was doused by mineral water by former Police officer turned activist Abner Afuang during the senate hearing.  Who do you think got sympathy in that incident?

For example, I can understand the indignation of the local executives of the provinces of Palawan and Bohol.  But declaring Kho persona non grata and denying him entry into these provinces is an overkill; it's a blatant violation of one's constitutional right to travel.  The pontifications of the governor of Bohol was particularly appalling.  In a nosebleed-inducing rhetorical discourse, he talked about how Bohol is a province of virtuous, religious, etc, people. I guess I was wrong in my assumption that the ultimate measure of Christian values were compassion and forgiveness, then.  

Again, I am not saying Kho should go scot free or that his grievous mistakes should be tolerated.  

All I am saying is that we should limit the discussion to the crime committed.  All these static and sidebar issues about morality, parental responsibility, drug use, etc, serve only one purpose: Obfuscate issues.

 

Rage and sanctimoniousness

This is my column today.

When you are angry, count to ten before doing or saying anything. This was an admonition my elders taught me when I was very little. I was already in college when I learned that the admonition was attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius and that it was actually incomplete. The other half of it said “when really angry, count to 100.”

I wish this admonition was on the minds of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel last Monday.

The two senators engaged in what I think was the most acrimonious verbal exchange ever made on the floor of the Philippine Senate. The two senators exchanged insults, called each other names, and even dredged up old grudges in the process. What was equally disappointing was that both senators were aware that members of the media were present and therefore seemed intent on making sure that the whole sordid exchange would find its way into newspapers and TV newscasts.

When two senators, both supposed to be elder statesmen, indulge in the metaphorical equivalent of fishwives engaging in a dirty tussle in full view of everyone else, then we know that civility is truly gone in this country, at least in politics, particularly in the Senate. Bastusan na talaga!

If it is any consolation, at least our senators have not yet engaged in a physical confrontation the way legislators in some Asian countries have. But at the rate we are going, and given the kind of people who are gunning for seats in the Senate, I think it is just a matter of time. Senator Miriam Santiago did prescribe it to Senators Ping Lacson and Manny Villar a couple of weeks back.

It is disappointing, perhaps even unnerving, to watch someone make an utter fool of himself while in the throes of rage.

However, there are probably fewer things more appalling than witnessing someone spewing sanctimoniousness just because he or she thinks he is espousing popular opinion. This phenomenon has become quite common in this country. We’ve witnessed quite a number of people who, at the height of major controversies, suddenly become suffused with righteous indignation and begin to think, act, and speak with the conviction of someone who preaches from a position of higher moral superiority.

The problem in a situation like that is not that people speak their minds in defense—or in support of—what they think is right. Everyone is certainly entitled to do that. What is problematic is when people become so blinded with what they think is the absolute purity of their cause that they tend to be deaf and blind to anything else, particularly to divergent opinions.

In the sex video scandals, a number of politicians, show business people, media people, and even ordinary people have suddenly turned sanctimonious condemning not only Hayden Kho but even passing judgments on sexual acts, fetishes, etc. When people start talking about “kalaswaan” (prurient) instead of sex crimes, then I sense trouble.

I already wrote about the scandal in this space last week (I think I was one of the very first columnists in this country to react to the scandal) and I already made an unequivocal stand condemning Hayden Kho’s victimization of the women in those videos. Let me restate for the record that I firmly believe Kho deserves to be hung in the bar of public opinion.

But I must also state that I find something objectionable in the holier-than-thou posturing of a number of people.

I think that Senator Bong Revilla should not be faulted for having come to the defense of victim Katrina Halili. He is, after all, first and foremost a movie actor. I also share the view that the issue is not any less important than other matters of national significance. The fact that the sex scandal is the most talked about topic in any gathering is proof of the relative importance people have placed on the issue. The senator’s checkered past should also be irrelevant in the discussion.

What Revilla should be put to task for is the way he has been indiscriminately making pronouncements that reflect a rather shallow appreciation of the essential issues in the case. The issue is not about sex per se, or perversions per se, this is simply about the fact that one man, or okay, several if we include those responsible for leaking the videos, committed a crime. So it is gratuitous, and clearly indicative of grandstanding, when a senator begins spewing condemnations of sexual acts in general in a sudden fit of moral indignation. Even the slant on Kho’s being a medical doctor is quite a stretch as if doctors need to comply with a higher moral standard than people of other professions.

Sex is a topic that brings out the inherent hypocrisy in some people. Thus, some people have been “nagmamalinis” (pretending to be chaste and moral) such as those that have been calling for the banning of the videos, or passing judgment on people who have watched, bought, or been searching for these videos—after they have watched the videos themselves.

In short, they don’t seem to find anything wrong with the fact that they themselves have seen the videos; they just find something objectionable when others do it. For example, a man interviewed on television had the gall to admit that he did watch the videos and allowed his friends to borrow them because he felt that more people should know the extent of Kho’s depravity and what he did to those women.

For instance, there’s this whole side bar discussion about Vicky Belo’s continued support for the beleaguered doctor or the state of her morals owing to the fact that there is supposed to be a sex video of her and Kho, but taken with her consent. I have no love lost for the Belos of this world, but really, these things are none of our business.

I already said this before but I will say it again here: Why can’t we just stick to the issues? These things are already complicated enough, why do we complicate them any further?

Pesky fixers at the transport agency

This is my column today.

It is my belief that there is a direct relationship between the level and extent of corruption and the number of fixers present in a particular office. Put another way, the more fixers present, the higher the level and the greater the extent of corruption in that office.

It doesn’t really take a lot of logical acrobatics to make this deduction. Fixers leverage on their personal influence and connection with the employees inside government offices in order to provide undue advantage to citizens who are duped into availing of their facilitation services. This can mean simplifying complexities in a transaction, doing away with certain requirements that citizens are unable—or find difficult—to comply with, or even reducing fees that may be subject to negotiation such as penalties and the like. In return, fixers charge “facilitation fees.”

In certain offices such as in most branches of the Land Transportation Office, some fixers even wear identification cards and are assigned the job of “reviewing” documents prior to submission to a processor. In this set-up, fixers assume the role of an assistant —an unofficial yet anointed layer in the whole government bureaucracy. Fixers with less influence with the employees of the LTO branch fend for themselves by herding people through the various steps of a transaction, acting as some sort of a process consultant. Whatever role the fixers assume in a government office, it is a foregone conclusion that their presence is not only known to the employees of that office. Their activities are conducted with the express blessings of the employees. It is quite simple - fixers won’t have anything to do if employees don’t deal with them.

The thing is, fixers are supposed to be banned from LTO offices. The agency chief, Arturo Lomibao, has on many occasions publicly denounced the activities of fixers and has repeatedly vowed to eliminate them from the agency’s offices. It is easy to prove that he has not had much success on the matter. Anyone with eyes and ears can easily verify the continued existence of fixers at LTO branches. Their continued presence is a slap on Lomibao’s face.

The employees of the agency justify the continued existence of fixers by asserting that the fixers provide invaluable assistance to harassed employees by functioning as extra hands during peak hours. This is the reason fixers are deputized as reviewers and processors of routine documents. The arrangement is not as altruistic as it is made to appear. Fixers find creative ways to fleece money from citizens. The fixers appear to be there to improve efficiency or help the agency serve citizens better, but in reality merely serve as representatives or agents of the employees in their corruption schemes.

The sad thing is that the transactions at offices like the LTO do not really require the services of a fixer such as when one is renewing a driver’s license or the registration papers of one’s vehicle. These transactions are pretty simple and can in fact be completed with a minimum of fuss. The problem is that government transactions are often perceived as hopelessly tangled up in red tape that people automatically presume that hiring a fixer would make the process easier. At the same time, most government employees are perceived to be unhelpful and uncaring and are there to make citizens’ lives difficult instead of convenient.

Anyway. What got me writing about fixers and their activities was the exasperating experience of a friend who wasn’t able to renew his driver’s license recently when he went to the Malabon Extension Office of the LTO because he refused to be a party to a corruption scheme in place in that office.

As many among us are aware, a Taxpayer’s Identification Number is now a standard requirement for a driver’s license. This requirement makes sense as people who want to be vested with the right to drive a vehicle on the road should also show proof of, at the very least, intent to comply with the most basic of all duties of citizens, which is paying taxes. However, the requirement is that applicants for renewal of a license should submit a TIN; nowhere does it say that an applicant must present a TIN ID.

Not even the Bureau of Internal Revenue requires taxpayers to present a TIN ID when paying taxes. And for working people, a TIN is a basic requirement. No employee can ever hope to get away from not having a TIN and from paying taxes because income taxes are automatically withheld from salaries. Regular employees are required to file income tax returns annually. Thus, being specifically required to submit a TIN ID to verify the veracity of one’s TIN does not make sense, particularly since there are various documents that can easily do the job. If we come to think about it, a company ID can very well take the place of a TIN ID since being employed automatically guarantees that the person already has a TIN. The requirement only makes sense if the LTO as an institution adheres to the belief that most Filipinos are dishonest and prone to declaring a false TIN on something important as a driver’s license.

But as can be expected from people with inadequate understanding of the spirit of the law, the fixers at the Malabon Extension LTO Office who have been deputized as checkers and processors of application documents can be quite intransigent, obviously because obstinacy is a good ploy to extract more money from hapless citizens. It’s a classic modus operandi— squeeze hard to produce more loot.

Unfortunately for my friend, he didn’t happen to have a TIN ID at that moment. He did have other documents such as valid residence certificates for the year 2008 and 2009 which contained his TIN. He also had a company ID that clearly identified him as an employee of a universal bank. And anyone with a functioning brain could easily surmise that my friend had been working for quite some time already (more than 25 years in fact) and could not have been employed for that long if he didn’t have a TIN. But no amount of explanation could sway a fixer out to fleece money and since my friend didn’t want to fork over bribe money, he chose not to have his license renewed instead.

But my friend, who stood his ground against corruption, is an exception. Most of us choose the easy way out by simply paying a bribe. There are those among us who justify availing of the services of fixers by saying that it is a form of job creation – at least these people are not indulging in kidnapping or stealing. I am not sure though that the corruption deals that fixers engage in can be considered any different from or less nefarious than stealing.

If we really come to think about it, another major reason why fixers continue to exist in government offices is that there is a market for their services. That means us—you and I and everyone else who choose to avail of the services of fixers instead of bearing with a little inconvenience.

Notes on a sex scandal

This is my column today.

‘‘O my god! Have you seen it?! I have seen it and it’s beyond shocking!!!”

This was the text message, minus a few more exclamation points, that I received Sunday evening from a friend. I honestly had no clue about what my friend was hyperventilating about so I had to call to ask for more details. You know, stuff like who he was talking about (!), what exactly he saw (!), and where he saw it (!).

It turns out he was talking about what is probably the most googled item in the Net today: The alleged Part 3 of the video scandal involving this young sexy actress and this handsome doctor who was—and apparently, still is—involved with another high-profile female doctor. I don’t want to mention names because the identities are not really important to the point I will try to make in this piece. The sordid chain of events could have involved someone else; in fact, these things have happened to other people.

Some people were still texting me Monday night for the Internet address of the site where the video could be viewed or downloaded (some people are under the illusion that I have access to many confidential information, which really is farthest from the truth). I knew the site, but I refused to share it. I saw no point in adding to the humiliation the girl must be going through right now. Yes, I empathize with the girl and see her as a victim in this whole mess; just as I empathized with the other girls who were victimized by sex scandals in the past.

Let me state for the record though that while I have seen the video with my own two eyes; I don’t think I am qualified to verify the identities of the couple I saw writhing in bed. There is such a thing as selective perception; many times, people become convinced that they saw exactly what they wanted to see because that’s precisely what they wanted to see. However, more sex videos of the male doctor in question have flooded the Net. I am told one such video involves a young model that had a brief stint in a popular telenovela. The hypothesis that many bloggers have been making, which is that this doctor has an unusual addiction, seems to make sense although I grant that it cannot be considered a definitive clinical diagnosis.

But anyone with a functioning brain can easily surmise that the male person in the video set the whole thing up without the knowledge of the girl. The video I saw started with the guy setting the video camera presumably inside a closet and all throughout the video, it is apparent that he was performing and “choreographing” the act for the camera.

Thus, I still have to meet someone who had already seen the video who does not feel hatred for that guy in that video—he is such a scumbag.

Dirty pigs like him is more than enough justification to approve the bill filed early this year by Congressman Irwin Tieng of the party-list “Buhay” classifying as a criminal act the taking of sex photographs or videos. The comments I have seen in the Web logs of certain people who have discussed the video range from exhortations to have the guy subjected to sorcery (ipabarang natin!), stripped of his professional license, or openly mocking him as being in the wrong profession (he should be a porn star rather than a doctor). From what I gathered in the discussion threads in some blogs, the person is now supposed to be undergoing psychological and spiritual counseling. Good for him, but what about his female victims?

Sex videos, more popularly packaged as sex scandals, are a major issue in this country and sometimes for the wrong reasons. This is because it seems we always tend to get lost on the static and yield to the temptation to lump issues together and make generalizations.

For example, one blogger blamed our culture’s supposed fascination with sex scandals involving the rich, the famous, and the powerful. Another one maintained that the one that should be blamed is the person who leaked the videos—the implication being that taking videos even without the consent of both or one of the parties concerned is par for the course. Naturally, there are those who also blame the girls involved for not having the prescience to know that the guy in question was up to no good. Not to be outdone, some religious zealot blamed the whole thing on everyone else who is advocating sex education and the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill.

I agree that we seem to be a country that’s fixated with scandals. What’s more, the range of our fixation seems to have been stretched to extreme limits. My problem is that when we make gross generalizations, we automatically lose sight of the individual and specific issues that are often more important. Labeling this particular sex video as a “scandal” gets everyone focused and engrossed only on the lurid details and consequently, shaming the parties concerned. What usually happens is that we lose sight of the more important issues such as victimization, exploitation, discrimination, etc. In this particular case, a clear case of abuse is present. Who should be blamed for the fact that there is a sex video cannot be refuted.

I also agree that people who leak and spread sex videos, particularly those who stand to make money out of someone else’s shame and humiliation, should be made accountable. This is however indulging in wishful thinking as we all know that’s a task that’s even more difficult than ensuring clean elections in this country.

Punishing people who watch or download sex scandals smacks of hypocrisy. Whether we like to admit it or not, sex scandals spread like wildfire because there is a market out there—there are lots of people with a secret (or not-so-secret) craving for sex scandals, perhaps because it brings out the inner voyeur within them. Before we know it, someone will propose legislation requiring psychological testing and sexual profiling from everyone. And it doesn’t make sense to blame the ready availability of technology such as cellphones or the Internet, either. These are just tools.

So in this particular case, I am just going to limit accountability to one person. The sex videos are out there because one person took those videos without the consent of the other person, saved the files, and became careless with them.