160. Notes on Celeste Lecaroz's Portraits: #1. The Face

NVM Gonzalez used to talk a lot about how the diachronic and synchronic characteristics of language could be the key to finding an endless resource of inspiration. The diachronic is the historical and mythological dimension of words whereas the synchronic is the declarative words of the here and now. It was NVM's  "trade secret" that allowed him to write as much as he could, the mind and writing hand hopping from the historical and mythical to the here and now and soon he accumulated a treasure throve of authentic Filipino literature that made NVM a National Artist. In visual art, if one were to look for the same spring of inspiration, the human face is probably one of the most fertile grounds to mine. In the human face, one not only finds a story of a generation, a race, or the entire humanity, but also a representation of a specific person with a particular historicity, color, and uniqueness. Thus, the human face has the history and mythology and the here and now, the perfect cross between the diachronic and synchronic. Yet, the peculiar thing about the face is that it means nothing unless it refers to a specific face of a person. An artist may draw a face, and with a mastery of the anatomy, achieve perfect symmetries on the eyes, nose, and lips; but, it could hardly be relevant to any one, except probably to the student of medicine studying the human species. To work and make the subject teem with meaning, the face as a subject of an artwork, must be the face of someone -- perhaps a great man like the Pope; a hero of a war, like Antonio Luna; a comic artist, like Dolphy; a beautiful soul, like St. Theresa of Calcutta; a sports icon, like Kevin Garnett; or someone close to home, like your mother. 

147. Pres. Duterte, Pope Francis, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son

"Pu__ ___ __ Pope," oh my, I can't even write it. In November 2015, then just a mere prospect of a presidential candidate Duterte uttered the equivalent of the "F" word to the head of the Catholic Church. If this were the middle ages that would have spurred a crusade. But the cursing and iconoclast-thinking candidate out to make a point that decent is overrated -- and incompetent -- would not be denied his freedom of speech. He would speak his mind, curse the traffic and  the pope who caused it, condemned to hell if he had to, but no moral code was going to make him blip what his mouth wanted to say about the hellish traffic that Pope Francis caused when he visited the Republic in January 2015. Pope Francis seemed unmindful of the raucous. And  I could imagine the humble Pope even offering an apology for the incident had he been informed about it until -- bowed by the pressure of his handlers who were probably led by what could be imagined as septuagenarian members of the Catholic Women's League -- candidate Duterte wrote an apology to the Vatican and to the Catholic Bishop of Bacolod, and vowing to donate a thousand pesos to Caritas Davao for every curse word he said as an act of contrition.  The Vatican accepted the apology and said, "The Holy Father offers the assurance of prayers for you, as he invokes upon you the divine blessings of wisdom and peace."  That was April 2016, and the matter was settled once and for all by an overwhelming vote of the Catholic and non-Catholic majority in favor of candidate Duterte in the May 2016 elections.



("Bago" by Celeste Lecaroz, acrylic on canvas, 4 feet by 4 feet)

Still, I wonder if the Pope's prayers for candidate Duterte had a  hand in the elections -- after all candidate Duterte was the only one who had the benefit of papal prayers among the presidential candidates in spite of being depicted by the other candidates as a foul-mouthed murderous man. If so, it gave a hint of how that goody-goody brother of the prodigal son felt after the rich father gave the son a feast despite living a reckless life -- a parable regularly read in Catholic churches that sidelights an earthly phenomenon in which nice guys finish last and the bad boys have all the fun.



("Viva Il Papa" by Celeste Lecaroz, acrylic on canvas, 4 feet by 4 feet)

Nonetheless, if and when Pope Francis meets Pres. Duterte, it wouldn't be just them meeting, but the Vatican and this Republic, the nation states that they represent, no cursing or crusades expected. Wouldn't that be nice? But nice, like decency, is overrated. For ultimately, as in the parable, we find out that the key to  most everything is discarding our Manichean world view about being nice, decent, or of good behavior for it simply misses the point.

146. President Rody

I have not known a 71 year old man with that much fire in the belly. Standing up to a regime whose words inspire but whose actions disappoint, he played the role of a rabble-rouser -- "Kill all drug lords" -- and the visionary -- "We'll fix this country in six months" -- thus rallying a great majority to his side on election day. He claimed he is the last card of the Philippines for true change to happen; and yet, he showed them all, he can walk away from this anytime. Upon his election, he bashed every institution in society, calling churchmen hypocrites and media corrupt, prompting an act of contrition from the church apologists and a boycott from the defiant press. But what he was really doing was horse-breaking, taming everyone of their wildness, showing everyone he was the wildest of them all, and knowing eventually what would happen to the beast once it's broken. There is no doubt he is energy, a fuel to ignite every Filipino's dream. No one can escape the polemics and apologetics that he would dictate for the next six years and beyond.  




("Bago" by Celeste Lecaroz, 4 feet x 4 feet, acrylic on canvass.)


One day we shall all be looking back to this moment: the 71 year old man with fire in the belly, rabble-rouser, visionary, horse-breaker, the energy, taking his oath to become the 16th President of the Republic, President Rody. He is the Philippines's last card  -- and we would know by then how the card turned out, maybe everything was a joke and we drew a pathetic six of flowers. But today, we trust and hope that what we have is the ace of spades. Good luck President Rody! Good luck to the Republic! 

145. Gestalt in Law (Part One)

Gestalt is generally associated with psychology and the arts. The mind forms a whole and has tendency to organize what it perceives as parts into a whole. In  the arts, if you draw half a face, the mind recognizes it as a face, even if what is drawn is just an eye, half a nose, or half a  mouth. The mind concludes that this collection of face parts is actually a face. The sum is another of the parts. How does this relate to law? Gestalt is probably the only way at looking at the law  and how it operates in real life without going crazy. The serious anomalies in the practice of law (or should we say, "malpractice of it", to be more accurate?) is better understood if we accept that following the law is just part of the story. The innocent landing in jail, the guilty getting off scot-free, the rich getting a windfall, the poor losing what is left of them -- these law events do not tell the complete story. Law and other abstractions from reality cannot explain everything. Injustice is unacceptable but gestalt, the sum of all parts, can help us appreciate that what is written, uttered, and recorded in the annals of law have an underlying story that has been barely scratched and exposed. 

Let's get an example from a famous trial in history. 

Counsel de Officio

I flew into General Santos City this morning to attend a hearing at the Regional Trial Court. I was pleased to find the court house neatly laid out like  a big "U" with the court rooms surrounding a garden. I told the guard who courteously   accompanied me to my branch that this is probably the best looking Hall of Justice I've seen in the country. I waited for my case to be called, and the local lawyers came in trickles. A fellow lawyer who turned out to be the IBP head of legal aid guessed I was new there, and warmly greeted me and asked me about my case. I told him a rough description of it and I mentioned the name of my opposing counsel, who turned out to be in Cotabato today and would unlikely be present for today's hearing. As the court staff started calling the cases, the room was filled with detention prisoners and about six local lawyers came in, greeted each other, and watched the proceedings. As it turned out, most of the detention prisoners would be arraigned and  without   counsel. The lawyer from the Public Attorney's Office was not around so the Judge decided to appoint each of the lawyers as counsel de officio for purposes of arraignment. I'm no stranger to this, but I got really amused that my fellow lawyers graciously accepted their appointment and did their jobs with enthusiasm. 

Arraignment is a crucial step in criminal procedure, but the importance of the process is betrayed if a counsel de officio merely advises the accused to make a plea of "not guilty". In Franz Kafka's "The Trial", Francis K's predicament was precisely that he was unaware of the charges against him and yet the trial continued to proceed. And I looked at the blank faces of the detention prisoners and I could tell, most of them didn't know what was going on. That's why a counsel de officio doing services for the arraignment should inform the accused of the charges, the potential penalty, and other relevant matters, so that the accused could properly decide what to plea. 

As the proceedings went on, I noticed the lawyers were doing their second round of duties already, and I had not been appointed yet. I looked at the small crowd in the courtroom, and it seemed they were wondering why this Manila lawyer in a blue suit was not doing what the local lawyers were doing. So, when my case was called, I told the Judge, "Your Honor, before we proceed, I noticed I am the only lawyer here who has not been appointed as counsel de officio, and I am getting embarrassed already. (Laughter from the lawyers and the court staff) So, please your Honor let me tell you I can do that work too, and I will stay a bit to help out the court perform its duties." After my case was called,  I got appointed as counsel de officio to help in the arraignment of two brothers accused of theft. I can't write anything further without breaching confidentiality, so I will stop here. I'm new in General Santos, but I certainly like the legal community here. 

Notes on the Comelec Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance or Why do we love to make rules we can't follow?

When Heaven Torres, my partner in the IT firm Aceron and Torres Automated Circuits, Inc., (ATAC), and I first read the Comelec's Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance which was promulgated in October 2015,  we knew it would be controversial. Section 2 Rule 10 of the same rules declared in clear and unequivocal terms that the filing of the Statement of Contributions and Expenses (SOCE) thirty (30) days from election day (May 19, 2016) was non-extendible. This would be a big change from the past elections in which extensions were granted. 

Further, amendments were not allowed, and filings which contained errors would be considered as not filed. Already, I thought the Comelec was even stricter than the BIR, which allowed amendments within three (3) years from filing of a tax return or before a BIR audit takes place whichever came first. But the Comelec in promulgating these rules appeared to be trying to exercise its plenary powers in a grand manner (shades of Malcolm fans in there probably), and cared not for precedents of filings from other agencies like the BIR and the SEC, such that it ignored the possibility of anyone missing the deadline or filing an erroneous SOCE.

This became the premise of our software project,  Fearless Election Finance Software (EFS) that we designed (actually Heaven did the design by longhand and passed  it on to a programmer) -- to help candidates hurdle the rigid requirements of the rules and submit their reports within the deadline. To market the software, we embarked on a seminar roadshow in Luzon and Cebu,  and we realized that the rules had more serious problems than just the deadline and its prohibition on amendments.

First, the spending limits were too low. A candidate was only allowed to spend three pesos per registered voter. Yet, the average town had about 15,000 voters, so a Mayor, for example, could only spend Php 45,000 for the entire campaign. Anyone who would dare follow it would never win. For those without political parties, the limit was five pesos, and political parties had an additional five pesos. Still, the amount could hardly even cover the cost of gasoline or cellphone load for the entire campaign. 

Second, some provisions were impossible to enforce. Section  4 of Rule 6 provided that all campaign materials even those donated by voters should be authorized by the candidiate and would be counted against the expenditure limit. This was the offshoot from Ejercito vs Comelec GR No. 212398 (http://www.chanrobles.com/cralaw/2014novemberdecisions.php?id=977) in which a campaign donor of the Laguna governor   bought   airtime from a TV network amounting to more than five times the  expenditure  limit, thereby causing the ouster of Ejercito from the seat of the Province of Laguna. While clearly media expenditure was severely limited by the rules, other campaign propaganda like billboards, stickers, posters, and give-aways would be impossible to monitor not just for the candidate but also for the Comelec. How could they be counted against the expenditure limit then? Further, with the advent of social media (which carried the Duterte campaign), how could the Comelec quantify the money being spent on status messages, memes, tweets, and comments? And we're not even talking about illegal expenditures, such as money used to buy votes. The Comelec hardly spent time monitoring and catching vote-buying, which was a more serious and prevalent election offense, why would it spend time counting election expenses? Indeed, the Comelec was setting itself up for failure by raising the bar so high on this aspect of campaign finance.

Third, a lot of candidates did not care. They would do their reports the old way, cram, falsify, and challenge the Comelec's resolve to enforce its rules. While the Ejercito case set an unusual precedent of unseating an incumbent governor for violation of a Comelec rule, nothing else came out of the 785 cases on election finance pending with the Comelec from the 2013 elections. We wrote the Campaign Finance Office to clarify some matters on rules and we never got an answer, because none of its lawyers were available. It seemed, therefore, that Comelec's posturing on this grand rules to govern campaign finance would be melted by the realities of governance, the tyranny of the urgent and the overbearing demands of duty and the scarcity of time and resources to fulfill these duties. No wonder old time politicians would be the least bothered by the rules.

Thus, when the news broke out that the Liberal Party (LP), the party of the outgoing President, missed the deadline and asked for an extension, we were aghast at the incompetence of the LP leadership,  which jeopardized all its winning candidates as the same rules provided that the failure of the winning candidate or the party which nominated the winning candidate would result in the candidate not being allowed to assume office. The implications were disastrous: the Vice-President, five senators, hundreds of congressmen and local officials were LP candidates. If the Comelec rule would be followed, they would be barred from assuming office; and following the Maquiling ruling, their runner-ups would assume their offices. 

Yet, Romulo Makalintal and Sixto Brilliantes, two of the leading election lawyers in the country who should take credit (or be blamed) for the quality of elected officials we have, dismissed this view on the ground that the rules of the Comelec were unconstitutional. I told my friends that we got to hand it to these guys for playing with the hand dealt to their clients. To say it in the vernacular, "kung baga sa pusoy, buhaw na akala mo naka full house pa." (If this were poker, they have bad cards, but they're playing it as if they have full houses.) If the rules didn't work for their clients, the Constitution did. Well, these statements should have been uttered in October when the rules came out. The two gentlemen were just using the Constitution as an afterthought. 

But today, the Comelec blinked. Voting 3-4, the Comelec extended the deadline to June 30, 2016 and disregarded Section 2 of Rule 10 of their own Omnibus Rules on Campaign Finance, which stated, 

"Section 2. When and how to file the SOCE and its supporting documents. - Not later than thirty (30) days after the day of election, or by 08 June 2016, Wednesday, all candidates and parties who participated in the 09 May 2016 National and Local Elections, regardless of whether they won or lost, must file their Statements of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCEs) and the relevant Schedules and supporting documents. Filing of these campaign finance disclosure reports and statements must be done in person, whether by the candidates and/or party treasurers personally, or through their duly authorized representatives, before the offices listed in Section 3 of this Rules. Duly authorized representatives of candidates and parties must present a written authorization from their principals, using Form SPA-C in the case of candidates and Form SPA-P in the case of parties, before they can submit the campaign finance disclosure statements and reports of their principals. Submissions via registered mail, courier or messenger services shall not be accepted.

"The 08 June 2016 deadline shall be final and non-extendible. Submissions beyond this period shall not be accepted. COMELEC Resolutions Nos. 9849 and 9873, Minute Resolutions Nos. 13-0775 and 13-0823 are hereby repealed, insofar as they allowed the belated submission, amendmentand/or correction of campaign finance disclosure statements and reports and the imposition of late penalties for the 2013 National and Local Elections. [n]"

The Commissioners who voted to grant the extension might as well have eaten the paper on which their rules were printed. The question is which other provisions of this rule could be changed? The no amendment rule? The spending limit rule? They should change them now before another case lands on their desk that would force them to amend the rules again. 

I think it was President-elect Duterte who declared that the laws in this country are mere suggestions. He might as well be talking about the Comelec rules which governed the elections that he won. This might not be the first time that the Comelec reversed itself, especially in the enforcement of its own rules. And they could not be faulted or be singled out as the only agency which did  (think  of the Supreme Court and its flip-flopping in the cityhood cases) but the other question is why did they have to make their rules so hard in the first place? They only made it difficult for those who complied and submitted on time, and made it easy for those who failed, crammed, and challenged the Comelec's resolve to enforce its own rules. It's like being up early for the plane only to find out that some children of god who partied all night would be late and make everyone wait, the pilot gladly obliging a reprieve. Somehow one imagines those who benefitted from Comelec's reversal of their own rules are mocking everyone concerned about this fiasco of the SOCE,  and are saying to themselves, "What are we in power for?".

The Commissioners who voted for the extension claimed that they did not want their rules to have absurd consequences such that those voted in office would not be able to assume their functions. And I gave a deep bass guffaw as I heard the quote from the radio. Tell that to ER Ejercito,  I said. And I decided that all is well in this corrupt republic.

The Home I Remember: A Trip to Pola, May 1976

May 1976

Our trip commenced with a jeepney ride to Plaza Lawton early in the morning before the sun was out. From Lawton to Batangas pier, the trip would take all of three hours. South Superhighway then was just a long road on a large ricefield. Things would get slow as the bus took the right turn to Tanauan and the two lane road all the way to Batangas pier would be obstructed by trucks, local jeepneys, tricycles, and pedestrians. The bus driver would also be happy to stop for an old man on the bus who needed to take a leak badly. The world was not too in a hurry in those days. People shared the road and tolerated each other’s gears and incontinence. 

Batangas pier welcomed us with that salty whiff of air on our faces. There’s a hint of smoky fish being grilled on the fastfood makeshift restos on the side. All around hawkers had something to peddle -- steamed white corn on a cob, sweet tamarinds, grilled tulingan, panutsa, peanut brittles, boiled chicken eggs and quail eggs, banana chips, banana cues, camote cues, maruya, boiled bananas, espasol, turones de mani, rimas, and  colorful drinks known as "samalamig" which were iced vanilla-flavored and sweetened water.  The varietly of culinary treats from the peddlers could fill up an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s. 

Not to be outdone were the porters who would race to their customers carrying heavy stuff from Manila. There were no big ships, which would be known as roll on - roll off or "ro-ro".  Passengers  had to take their belongings from the bus parking to the waiting ship, a good two hundred meter walk. If one arrived late, he had to make the trek under the hot sun, so the porters came in handy all the time. As soon as they got a deal from the travelling customers to carry off a heavy luggage or a box of personal stuff tied up with a piece of yarn and marked with the owner’s name and destination, “Pola, Oriental Mindoro”, the porters sped off to the waiting ferry boat, and I had to catch up with my eyes. I used to worry that  a porter might run away with our stuff or do something foolish with them, but in all those years, I never heard of any one losing their baggages to their porters. The porters of Batangas and Calapan and the passengers who made the regular ferry ride between the two ports had a good symbiotic relationship grounded on the strength of muscles and trust. We travelled with no worries.

The straight from Batangas pier to Calapan  port is the womb of many dreams, myths, and stories. The National Artist for Literature and a native of Mindoro, NVM Gonzalez, who was my teacher at the Ateneo, asked me to read his short story, “On the Ferry” about a father and his son who were coming home to the island aboard the ferry, because the father could no longer afford to send his kid to school in Manila. It is probably the finest story ever written about the trip from Batangas to Calapan or about any ferry ride for that matter. Inspired by his story, I submitted to him my own version of the trip, “Ayos!”, but this time it was the trip from Calapan to Batangas about a young ambitious  kid’s first encounter with corruption among the ship ticket masters. NVM was happy to read it and published it in  Katipunan, a newsmagazine for the Filipinos in Berkely, California. 

The best part of this trip was always the big island, Verde. Surrounding the island was this vast depth of the sea known to be the center of biodiversity in the world. From the ferry, I always imagined what life was on that island — the pristine beaches, that cliff that looked barren from afar said to have been the spot where a star-crossed lover leaped to his death, and that tip of the island known as the washing machine of the straight, because of the strong whirling currents that were equally beautiful and dangerous. 

A good three hours aboard the ferry boat of Viva Lines, which was usually named after a princess or a saint, would give travellers an occasion to catch some sleep. Back then air-conditiong was not provided and neither was it necessary.  We stayed on our chairs made of foldable woodwork and canvass, reading newspapers, comics, magazines, books, and a few pages pass, and we’re dozing off, snoring, dreaming, and the "tulo-laways" among us receiving the jeers from those who managed to stay awake. We had no GPS devices then but we knew we were near by checking the time and looking out to find the hill above the port of Calapan, which said “Welcome to Oriental Mindoro.”

As soon as the ferry docked, the porters of Calapan would inject a burst of energy to the boat whose passengers would be just waking from their sleep. The porters would be on the “andamyo”, the bridge from the ferry to the pier and would be calling out for deals, some whistling, some shouting, their eyes hunting for those big baggages and their owners. The “Taga-Polas” had a favorite porter, Arturo, a stout but muscular man. He was always the “Taga-Pola’s” "suki" for he was quick, strong, and never charged too much no matter how heavy his load was. 

Calapan in 1976 had a different and quaint air with its small pier, and rows of big jeeps and trucks. I knew I was in a different place just by the sound of the tagalog conversations. I heard it first from the kids in the pier who asked for coins for people to throw at the sea as they raced against one another to find the coin at the bottom of the sea.  "Dine, dine ka magtapon ikaw ng pera dine!" There were inflections, a sing-song, crescendo, and diminuendo in the speech, a lot of onomatopoeia. You hear similar tagalog words, but they sound like they are handled by masters of the tongue. Some Manila tagalog words are not even there.  The word “kasi”, for example, was hardly heard in a conversation, and instead, you hear, “gawa ng”.

In this trip, we took the old trusty passenger truck, a remnant of World War II overruns and surpluses with large wheels probably towering up to the shoulders of an average man, and the big chassis underneath which could be seen from afar. There were no doors and everybody had to enter the truck from the right side of each row. It had no paint and was barely covered by rusty GI sheets. 

While negotiating the curve overlooking the Naujan Lake, the old truck had a flat tire. It stopped and we were told to alight as the driver and his assistants took the reserve tire from one of the back rows to replace the flat one. I was lucky to have a front row view of the happenstance as the driver  worked on the jack, unscrewed the flat tire with a cross wrench, screwed in the reserve, checked if the screws were tight, and restored the tools back in place. In about fifteen minutes, we were back on the road. 

The long trip from Calapan marked a left turn in the corner of Socorro and Pola. It would be a short but dusty ride. The travellers' ritual when we hit this spot was to put on a head gear -- which could be a cap -- sunglasses for the eyes, and handkerchief or bandana to cover the face for protection against the dust as the road was not asphalted and the dust would animate the final stretch of the trip. Just a few minutes after we passed the bridge over the river in Barangay Pula, we would be greeted by mango trees and their large fruits dangling on the road and then Barangay Casiligan with its elementary school and the cemented basketball court. A few more minutes and we would see the splendor of Pola Catholic Cemetery. The town's founders were buried there and so were the educators, public officials, traders, fisherfolk, farmers, and common men. They each had a spot in the sprawling mountain of white and marble, proof that rich and poor alike were equal in death;  they bring nothing as they lay on the parched earth that they share. 

As we enter the town, our main stop was the house in Everlasting, Francisco Street corner Alikpala Street. But for lunch, we went up the house of Lolo Parminio and Lola Nita. I negotiated the wooden steps to the second floor and found a rocking chair. There was a room to the left where I used to see Baby Joan, Tito Rene's daughter in her crib, I remember they had left for Canada a few years back. To the right was the sala with the window where the May santacruzan processions were the regular spectacle in the evenings. Lolo Parminio and Lola Nita would be happy to see us as I kissed their hands. They would tell me how much bigger I have grown. We would have a lunch of fish and rice, and I would be teased over and over for something I said when I was three years old. They claimed I had once complained to them why they didn't cook chicken for a visitor like me, "Sa amin pag may bisita, nagpapatay ng manok." I had absolutely no recollection of the incident but I was happy to go a long and be the object of the teasing. 

From the window of the sala, I would often watch how a minibus would be parked in a crammed parking lot in front of Lolo Parminio's house. They called it the "Grace" bus, its name was inscribed in large letters on the body. The bus would  move forward and backward at least three times before it was safely parked. 

A few minutes after lunch, Lola Tindeng would be at the door. She found out that the boy, son of Edmundo, son of Mariano was in the house. She would offer her hand for me to kiss, and she spoke with the tabacco stuck in her lips and the ember ligthing up from inside. And I often wondered what kind of skill was it that this old lady had talking while puffing a stick of tobaco as it burned inside her mouth? How was it possible that she didn't burn her tongue? But she would pull  my hand and say, "Come you must see your Lolo Amboy."

And I would follow her as we got down the steps of Lolo Parminio's house. We crossed the street, and on the ground floor of the house, we would see a bench where a small group of people had gathered. We went up the second floor, a grand staircase in magnificent woodwork beckoned to be climbed. I would carefully take little steps and emerge from it to find a big bed on which Lolo Amboy was reclining. He held a fan with one hand and offered his other hand for me to kiss. Lola Tindeng would say "Ito yung apo mo, anak ni Edmund na anak ni Mariano." Lola Amboy would look at me and mutter something to Lola Tindeng as she handed to me a few coins that I carefully tucked inside my pocket. Lolo Amboy's voice was high pitched and a bit husky. He was probably in his 90s then and he would die a few months after I met him.

This was the home I remember. The cradle of the Orosa-Aceron family of Pola, Or. Mindoro. Lolo Amboy on his bed, Lola Tindeng beside him, the big house in Everlasting, Francisco corner Alikpala street, the house we now call Malacanang.  The memory of those days has stayed with me for forty years and every trip back to Pola is a trip back home. 

144. Unsolicited Advice to an Incoming President #8: Stop acting like John Lennon

You are so close to proclaiming yourself more famous than Jesus. John Lennon said that about the Beatles in the 60's. And now, John Lennon is dead and the Beatles is still famous but not as famous as Taylor Swift. And when the millenials take over the world, the Beatles would be something their silly parents and grandparents swooned over or some fancy, old, and tired Guitar Hero game. And you #Du30, you're not even John Lennon. You haven't sold a gold record, you just won an election. You haven't done a thing as President and you're telling Catholics to leave the Church and join your Iglesia ni Duterte. And what would people worship- the barrel of your gun? What would people believe in --  the discipline of an "eye for an eye"? How would you baptize people -- by making them shoot a hogtied criminal in the head? Nope, you're no longer the humble man from Davao that people cheered for as you whip the elitist Manila boys. You haven't even taken your oath, and you've acted like the brat who is stepping down. Fine, you're playing jester again, but all these nonsense about the church you're founding is a reflection that your head has swollen. There is never a good time to make more enemies -- most certainly not when you're about to change a lot of things as you had promised during your campaign.  Wisen up, yeah yeah yeah. All things must pass.

143. Unsolicited Advice to an Incoming President #7: You're a hypocrite too.

You said the Catholic Church is the most  hypocritical  institution. I'm fine with that, the Pope's infallibility is not to be confused with his impeccability. Pope Francis made this distinction by humbly seeking for prayers after being elected as Pope and asking for confession thereafter. But if you think the bishops are saints just because they're bishops, then you better ask your Benedictine mentors why bishops are not saints, albeit there were some bishops who became saints, like Augustine of Hippo for example, while a host of others are probably in the deepest circle of hell. But let me turn the tables on you, you're a hypocrite too. You like killing criminals, that's your addiction. The dopamine and other chemicals that get released in the brain when a human being kills another, that's a high no drug can beat, a well-documented fact by  novelists and psychiatrists alike. So, when you say you like to kill criminals, it's not like you're thrilled  because you are upholding the law or you're protecting good people from bad people. That's bullshit. Nobody gets a high by doing his job while thinking about some constitutional provision about upholding the law. You're thrilled because killing gives you that high. You say you'd rather go to hell, as long as the people you serve live in heaven, that's hot air. Killing is your heaven, like gambling is to gamblers, or meth is to drug addicts. You are a fake. You get to scratch your itch and tell everyone it's public service. The bishops and you, you'll find each other in hell, even if you're the  only who wants to go there. Mauna ka na Mayor. 

142. Unsolicited Advice to an Incoming President #6: Remember Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora were framed.

If you remember Lapu-Lapu of March 16, 1521,  surely you'll remember February 17, 1872. Three Filipino priests, Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora, were lobbying that the parishes be assigned to the seculars. Then, a revolt erupted among the workers in Fort San Felipe in Cavite, which ended in the massacre of most of the putschists by the Spanish army. To save himself from the government which was running after the perpetrators, Capt. Saldua volunteered to be a star witness against the three priests. The Spanish authorities believed everything Saldua  said and refused to allow the three to cross-examine Saldua, saying Saldua suffered from an ailment of some sort. It was a trial that thrived on rumors and happenstance. If you were a prosecutor then, you would have moved to dismiss. Yet, national security was an utmost concern; somebody had to be hanged, and the three vocal priests of the secularization movement matched the frame. On their day of execution, Zamora was driven to insanity, Burgos cried like a baby, and Gomez was resigned to his fate, saying, "Dear Father, I know very well that a leaf of a tree does not move without the Will of the Creator; inasmuch as He asks that I die in this place, may His will be done.”  Saldua, poor fellow, got hanged first. And Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora followed the same end. When they died, the heavens darkened as the people knelt and uttered the prayer for the dead. The death of the priests broke Rizal's heart and inspired him to dedicate the El Fili to the three. When Aguinaldo's army captured the towns of Cavite, they stormed the parishes seeking an affidavit from the Spanish friars to absolve the martyred priests, as if the event did not take place more than twenty years before. But such is the hunger of the people for the truth that no matter how long it had been, the memory of injustice would haunt them and embolden them to undo what was wrongly done, even with an inconsequential affidavit which had no legal bearing. Death could never quell the people's desire for the truth. Lately, you said you would bring back the death penalty by hanging. Many people would not be fine with that, but because you are the President, you can make it happen. Just remember Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora were framed. The Spanish did not get it right, they never did. And this nation, born of the blood of the three martyred priests, seeking the blood of those who disturb our peace, in spite of our learned judges, lawyers, and the men and women who work for justice, we know, we would never get it right one hundred percent of the time. No system would ever get it right all the time.  For no matter how hard we ponder and study the question -- "Should a criminal be hanged?" -- we would always miss a spot and be blind.  We would probably get it right most of the time, but in each time, an unsettling question would lurk in our hearts, are we hanging a Gomez, Burgos, or Zamora again, victims of the mob and the burning passions of their time, witnesses to the limits of our human faculties and ways, and icons of regret that would wound us for the rest of our days?

141. Unsolicited Advice to an Incoming President #5: Give the really rich some spanking

Your crusade against the criminals is welcome, but to be a true socialist as you say, you have to give the rich some spanking. They have made a lot of money through the years. They trumpet it every year, and they're taxed the same way as the rest. So, give the poor a buena mano hit. I pick two darlings of the business world to take it -- Smart and Globe, the telco duopoly. Hit them with the windfall tax. Windfall -- that's what they get every year. They have been raking in at least a billion a month each for so many years, and they give us shit. Dropped signals, no signals, garbled signals, and very efficient billing and collections. They never gave us a rebate for all the bad service they give, and they are proud of it. The Supreme Court even ruled once that a 100 million tax on Globe prescribed and never to be collected till kingdom come. Pres. Ramos broke the PLDT monopoly in the 90s, but through predatory practices, what was once a thriving marketplace of the telecom industry is now a Mutt and Jeff of telco comedy. Come on Mr. President. Be a true red-blooded socialist. Hit Smart and Globe with a windfall tax -- 80 percent of their filthy profits. Use the money to build more schools for children to teach them nobody makes that kind of money without deserving it. 

140. Unsolicited Advice to an Incoming President #4: Keep yourself humble.

I've been analyzing your discourse that set the tone of the campaign, and I think the key element that got you votes was humility. It manifested in many ways like self-deprecating humor ("I've been copying since grade one"), manner of dressing (maong jeans amidst the call for "disente"), public adulation for a rival in Miriam Defensor Santiago ("You will live forever"), and a cool and collected demeanor while waiting for the debate to begin -- highlighted by a joke on Mar Roxas's third visit to the toilet -- when it seemed that every candidate would die if he or she didn't win, you played the jester who's left your fate to the gods. I'm sure you've been humble for a long time, aware of your role in the world and the little space each one of us occupies in the universe, proclaiming no monopoly of the truth, moral righteousness, nor good intentions. This shouldn't be hard, humility. But the presidency has a way of going to people's heads. Just remember it is not a prize, but a duty. Humility. Humility. 

139. Unsolicited Advice to an Incoming President #3: Cut your credit

No, blast it into smithereens. You don't owe anyone your position, not even the 15M voters that swept you to power. You owe it to the 100 million of us that keep this country together, including those that did not vote for you, the millions more to be born in your term, and the millions who died to build this republic.  Your donor, Emilio Aguinaldo, should declare bankruptcy for the billions he gave are now written off -- lista sa tubig. The polarities in your team that are now creating little fiefdoms like the Samar and Balay of the old should be busted. It's one team, the President's. No little presidents should emerge. You don't owe them. The guy who used to give you the answers to your math quizzes, the man who taught you how to shoot, the lawyer who got your marriage annulled, the doctor who treats your migraine, and the bishop who lends you his plane -- screw them all.  I asked an adviser of yours a week before you got elected if you are a philosopher  king, and he replied that you are a benevolent despot -- a reply not enough to swing my vote away from my loyalties for a despot doesn't look like anyone in Plato's ship of state. But the theater of the elections is over. The ship of state is now for you to steer. You can still be the philosopher king. Begin by declaring you are debt free. Let your creditors call you a scumbag, walang utang na loob. It doesn't matter what they say. There should be no paybacks, only thank yous. 

138. Unsolicited Advice to an Incoming President #2: Do Something Crazy

Do something crazy. Curfew, alcohol ban,  karaoke limit -- not crazy enough. You offered four cabinet seats to the left? It means nothing because the laws they are going to implement are capitalist creations and compromises. The three hectare retention limit of the Agrarian Reform Law, for example, used to make Jimmy Tadeo's blood boil; he wanted zero. You trash-talked Congress and their penchant for legislative inquiries? Oliver Lazano can do a better job. What I want is the most outrageous idea you can do with your mandate -- something to stress a point to its illogical limits. You hate rapists? Introduce the penalty of castration and whatever's removed are fed to the dogs in plain view of the convict. What a spectacle. That would make Michel Foucault turn in his grave. Plunderers and white collar criminals? Twenty years in exile with the Dalai Lama on the mountains of Tibet, costs of board and lodging charged to their loot. Murderers? One year inside a tomb beside their victims. That's just for the criminals. For transportation, we need a cable car across Luzon. What about a tunnel to connect Cebu, Bohol, and Negros Island? For Mindanao, tunnels, railways, cable cars, put them all there. Make it a showcase of development. You can even move the capital of the country to Davao and build a Malacanang of the South.  For the OFW's, slash the remittance fee rates into half. Bring the price down by making the postal money order system electronic. I'm sure these too are not crazy enough, but you get the drift. Do something crazy, outrageous, and wild. Be the imaginative President we never had. Create a Department of Imagination. Don't squander your mandate like the others did. Nobody get's to be president twice. 

137. Unsolicited Advice to an Incoming President #1

I never want to hear you say it's the outgoing President's fault. It doesn't matter whose fault it is, you're the President now. It's your problem now and you asked for this. You filed a Certificate of Candidacy for the Presidency, campaigned for five months (actually, evidence shows at least two years), burned a lot of energy and dough speaking to throngs of crowds that sent them to cathartic heights, and now you have it: the title, the chair, the seat, the power, the voice, the big fist. You have the treasury, the army, (even the enemy's army which might no longer be the enemy unless the RA's would have there way again), the international community, and you can command people power and electrify this nation. So man up, unsolicited advice that was shunned by your outgoing predecessor, don't blame him or any one before him. 

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135. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: Struggling with the Zeros

Duterte has backtracked on his initial denial of the allegations made by Sen. Trillanes about his Php 211M  deposit in his BPI bank account and has said that the account exists and it has about a little less than Php 200 M. When asked to explain about his initial statement that the account had barely Php 50,000, he said he was confused with the zeros. This curious incident highlights a potential problem in the event that Duterte is elected President. He probably needs to attend a math seminar to re-orient him about the  zeros, considering that the annual budget is PHP 3 trillion which has  twelve zeros, the national debt is 77 Billion USD which has nine zeros in US dollars and more in pesos, and the population is 100 million which has eight zeros. Thus, the problem would be how to help him cope with zeros. Should we call his former math teacher from the Ateneo de Davao for him to teach the president about something the president should have learned in grade three? Should the better option be making custom made  calculators with keys shaped like women's lips for him to get the hang of it easily? Shall we order instead an abacus with bullets as beads or will it be better to appoint to the cabinet his seatmates from grade school math so they can make the calculations for him and he can just copy from them like the old days. Another proposal on the table is to ask him to imagine the zeros as corpses of the people he has killed, which might actually be a good idea. Whatever the solution is, come June 30, 2016, the math educators of the Republic are going to be in a crisis as the people have elected a president who gets confused with zeros.

134. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: Finding the best excuse for the Php 211M

The timing couldn't be more right. Less than two weeks before the election and Trillianes pops the Php 211M expose. Somebody deposited Php 500  in the bank account, and Banco de Oro accepted it with the names of D30 and his 'drama queen' daughter on the deposit slip. Trillanes has proven half of his allegation, that the bank account exists; the other half, which  is the Php 211 M deposit, may be proven in just a matter of time. The Duterte crisis team faces the toughest hurdle yet. The spin doctors have successfully navigated through the Pope curse incident and the rape joke, but now, it's about the money deposited in an account which is not declared in the SALN. What are the options for Duterte? Let us count them all from the inventory of past spins and excuses:

1. The Corona excuse - "Inipon ko yan since grade school."

2. The 5-6 excuse - "Hiniram ko sa bumbay."

3.  The Chavit Gambit - "Payag ako makulong basta kasama si Erap."

4. The Erap excuse - "Kay Jose Velarde yan!"

5. The Arroyo excuse -  "Kay Jose Pidal yan!"

6. The Cito Lorenzo excuse - "Kasalanan ni Joc-Joc!"

7. The Joc-Joc Bolante excuse - "May sakit ako."

8. The Joey Marquez excuse after being caught by his wife in bed with another woman - "Hindi ako 'to!"

9. The Kim Wong style - "Isoli ko na lang yung natira."

10. The Flaminiano style - "Objection your honor!"

11. The Classic Duterte style - "Putang ina mo Trillanes, barilan na lang tayo!"

133. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: Looking for the Hollywood Script for the Presidency

The Duterte election story is a narrative straight out of Hollywood. I told a friend of mine every episode of this Duterte phenomenon follows Joseph Campbell's Hero of Thousand Faces in which Campbell described the template of the monomyth or the hero's journey. From the time Duterte's name was floated around as a possible presidential timber (this is called, "the call to adventure"), to his initial decision to refuse the nomination (there I recognized it immediately as the part called "refusal of the call"), to the seemingly overwhelming clamor for him to heed the call (where the call is heeded and the formal adventure story begins), to the early days of the campaign where he took pot shots at Mar Roxas and his Wharton degree (a sort of the hero slaying the dragon there), and to his climactic ascent to the top of the polls (the recovery of the treasure in the cave). This is Hollywood.  It's the essence of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter,  and yes, Batman. It is why in spite of his crass language, off beat self-deprecating if not idiotic sense of humor, and the limited focus on crime prevention as a campaign platform,  Duterte is a hit. Duterte's handlers sold us an old script and most of us fell for it. Yet,  come June 30, 2016, when the adventure story ends, and Duterte is sworn into office, there is no Hollywood script. As the late comedy king, Dolphy, used to say when he refused to run for public office (in spite of the popular clamor),  "Eh paano kung manalo?" But Duterte brushed it all off during the last debate by saying he'll just copy from the others as he's been copying from others since grade one anyway. Somebody please give him a DVD on the life of Churchill, before somebody sneaks him a video on the Nazi's. 

132. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: 8. Marcos is buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani

I once met a guy who claimed he was Marcos's illegitimate child and that the real Marcos didn't leave for Hawaii and stayed in obscurity in the Philippines for years until he died and got buried in a cemetery in Posadas Village. He showed me a picture of the tomb where the words Ferdinand E. Marcos were written. I felt amused in a weird kind of way as I showed the man the door. Indeed, in death as in life, Marcos Sr. is the stuff of myths and legends and controversy as well.  I recalled that PNoy once toyed with  the idea of Marcos being buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, until Commissioner Etta Rosales, then Chair of the Commission of Human Rights, lobbied hard against it by claiming she herself was raped while in detention during Martial Law. Erap and Arroyo also thought about it, but due to popular opposition against the burial, Marcos remained frozen in a crypt in Ilocos. Duterte seems to be the man who would put the end to this debate as he vowed to bury Marcos in the Libingan once elected. This long standing national debate reminds me of the  story  of Antigone who sought to give his brother Polynices a decent burial in spite of King Creon's orders that Polynices should not be buried or mourned for on the pain of stoning. Antigone defied the order, got caught, and was locked in a tomb where she hanged herself to death. But Haemon, King Creon's dear son, turned out to be Antigone's lover, and upon seeing Antigone's grim end, Haemon killed himself as well.  As Jorge Luis Borges said, "Destiny takes pleasure in repetitions, variations, symmetries."  On first impression, it seems what we are seeing in the Marcos burial debate is  a simple variation of the Antigone story, which did not end well for King Creon and the powers that be of Ancient Greece.  Duterte is poised to bury Marcos once and for all at the Libingan ng mga Bayani,  but I suspect this is still not going to end easily even if he succeeds. Marcos's enemies and the people Marcos once caused to suffer would come in the dead of the night with their spades, picks, and shovels for one solitary barbaric/heroic purpose: to unearth his rotting corpse from the resting place of heroes. It's the Antigone story in reverse. 

131. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: 7. Joma Returns

Duterte has not been apologetic with his friendship with the New People's Army (NPA) and its founding father, Joma Sison. Joma himself has floated the thought balloon of his return if Duterte wins. I'm pretty sure Gen. Palparan, the erstwhile red hunter and congressman, would not be amused. What a curious turn of events it would be when Joma visits Palparan in jail. Even more curious is when Joma visits Malacanang, the palace of the "naghaharing uri" the destruction and fall of which Joma has committed his life to pursue. How would Joma's jailers, Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel V. Ramos, feel? I'm half-guessing hundreds of rebellion and murder charges have been filed  and archived in various courts against Joma, but would the Department of Justice under Duterte's term even lift a finger to reactivate them? I have once tried to read  Joma's treatise on national democracy, but I was too much of a 'dem-soc' to go pass the first page. And today, the Maoist ideology is bankrupt.  If Joma returns, all I have for him is an old copy of his poetry and a question I once inscribed on the margin, "Are you a guerrilla first and a poet second or the other way around?"

130. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: Playing Cat and Mouse with the Smokers

The story goes that Duterte once pressed his gun against the crotch of a defiant smoker who challenged a restaurant owner to ask the Mayor to stop the smoker from getting his post dinner nicotine fix. Duterte gave the smoker two choices, to eat the stick of cigarette or have the smoker's balls blown off. To the anti-smokers among us, myself included, this sounds like a great prospect for 2016 -- finally a dead serious campaign against the smoking tyranny in the entire country. But I doubt it if this hardballing style against the smokers can be replicated in the entire country. I don't think there would even be enough bullets for all those balls. Besides, playing Russian Roulette with smokers' balls is sadistic and illegal. Instead, I see the future of smoking as the new form of protest under a Duterte Presidency, similar to Noynoying -- activists converging in Mendiola each with a stick of cigarette, their balls showing, and the protesters chanting in unison, "Kalayaan para sa yosi at betlog!"

129. Problems and Prospects of D30 Presidency: 5. Life at 30 kph

One of the things Davao City is proud of is the speed limit of 30 kph on its roads. Months ago, even the Mayor's daughter, 'drama queen' Sarah Duterte, was caught  overspeeding and it made the headlines. The idea behind slowing down vehicles is the prevention of accidents, albeit I haven't seen any serious study which proves that slow vehicles cause far fewer road accidents. But Newton's Law of Motion gives us the equation F/M=A from which we can derive M(A)= F. Such that a lower acceleration will produce a weaker force and probably cause less damage in the event of a mishap. Yet, it still depends on how the accidents go. A car moving  at 10 kph and running over a stray dog would still kill the dog as a car running at 100 kph, but Duterte would not mind any one running over a stray dog -- they shoot stray dogs after catching them in Davao. Yet, how will this speed limit apply to the millions of cars in other cities of the country, such as Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, and Cagayan de Oro? Imagine the stretch of Katipunan with its parade of trucks everyday running at 30 kph. My son, Juancho, would probably take ten years to finish from UP as he would always be late for his classes and those trucks are going to stall traffic in that area. How long would it take to go to Tagaytay or Baguio City? Lawyers would probably camp out of the courts on the eve of their hearings to make sure they arrive on time. I would also surmise that it would be the final blow to the newspaper business as they would arrive one day late. On the positive side, it would rid our roads of big American trucks and cars in favor of Asian made 1.1 cc vehicles as people would have no use for gas gusslers if they can drive them up only to 30 kph. And the jeepney drivers, some of whom gear up to second gear from a stop, would be dismayed to find out the second gear is the highest gear they could go. Ayos ba bay?

128. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: 4. The Death of the Dress Code

In the 1990's, our moot court professor Judge Oscar Pimentel used to berate us for folding the sleeves of our Barong. Young and impressionable law students that we were, we couldn't understand why Judge Pimentel disapproved of such fashion sense among the male would-be lawyers when then Pres. Ramos himself was going around his official functions in long sleeves Barong with the sleeves folded up to the elbow. Apparently, Pres. Ramos's handlers thought it was a symbolic way of showing that the President was hands on with his job and his official wardrobe's formality was getting in the way of his work. With Duterte, however, it seems the entire Barong, not just the sleeves, is on its way out. I haven't seen Duterte in any official wear, and his wardrobe appears to be composed mostly of jeans and sports shirts. This reinforces Duterte's image of being a man of the ordinary people as indeed, it is easy to alienate others if one comes in a Barong or even a coat and tie. Thus, much to the dismay of  Judge Oscar Pimentel, the entire Barong, not just the long sleeves, would be retired during the Duterte Presidency, assuming it happens. As in the Ramos era,  the Barong's formality would also get in the way of work as it can be easily soiled by stains of blood. Pesteng yawa.

127. Problems and Prospects of D30 2016: 3. Middle Kingdom Woes

We all heard it last night: Duterte is going on a jet ski to the Spartlys to plant the Philippine flag and dare the Chinese navy to shoot him. It sounds like a joke, but I think it's cryptic. What he is actually saying is there is nothing he can do about it. On other occasions he floated the idea of a joint venture with China, yet I think he missed the fact that there are other countries fighting over the islands, including Vietnam, which planted a cell site on one of them and offered a better signal than Smart. So, a joint venture with China might actually cause us to fall from  grace with other southeast asian countries interested in the islands. We become friendly with China and become enemies with other neighbors.  It only shows Duterte has no plan yet for the Spratlys issue, and all he is trying to do is use the issue to promote his tough guy image. But come June 30, 2016, all we can do is follow up on his pledge to go on a jet ski to the Spartlys with the Philippine flag, and dare the Chinese navy to shoot him. And if they do? Well, I hope Leni Robredo is the vice-president then. 

126. Problems and Prospects of D30D in 2016: 2. Following through theFederalism Promise

2. Duterte promised federalism and I'm sure to the average Juan the big "F" sounds like a good idea. But are we going to break up the Republic into federal states like the US of A, and are we thinking that automatically we'll have prosperity like the US of A? The most immediate impact of federalism to this country is that it will increase the number of elective and appointive positions in government. It is going to create redundancies in order to give the federal states autonomy. The model is the ARMM where they have secretaries of departments over the ARMM region and the local secretaries appear to have more power than the secretary in Manila. So, if we have federal states, then we will have as many sets of cabinet secretaries as there are federal states. Are we going to have as many sets of congressmen and senators too? What happens to the judiciary? Are we going to have little supreme courts too and one big super supreme court in Padre Faura? How long will it take for my little ejectment case to finish from the Municipal Trial Court to the final Supreme Court when as it is it already takes six years to finish. We might end up having more public officials than ordinary citizens. Somebody please do the staff work on this federalism shit.

to be continued

125. Problems and Prospects of a Duterte Presidency 1. Adjusting to Life with the DDS

The signs are all over. Duterte rallies have been well-attended. Carlos Celdran has been praising the Liberal Party (in spite of Proceso Alcala) to argue the case for program continuity. Meanwhile, Poe's team has been brandishing the ho-hum news of the solitary defection of Joey Salceda to GP's  team while Binay is saying Duterte should have a psyche test from Makati. Yet, all I can imagine is Edwin Lacierda raging live on ABS CBN on Guido Delgado's similar suggestion for PNoy in the 2010 campaign.  What can you say people of Daang Matuwid? A friend of mine said the Mar campaign committee has released an email to adherrents persuading them about the nine or so reasons why Mar will win. In other words, every non-Duterte fan is desperate. While I am not about to concede that Duterte is going to win, I would like to be prepared when it happens. So, here are my key problems and prospects in the event that the Duterte  dream (or disaster, however you want to look at it) comes upon the Republic on June 30, 2016. 

1. Adjusting to life with the DDS (aka Davao/Duterte Death Squad)

Everybody seems to be focused on the resulting peace and comfort that is expected to come with the promised elimination of criminal elements in three to six months. But how are we going to live with the DDS? Am I postponing dieting for a good six years because the criminogenic profile of a drug pusher/addict resembles the stick thin Joey Pepe Smith? If we all start to get thin, the DDS might mistake us for drug pushers/addicts and put us on the hot list for elimination. And are drug dealers the only criminals on the hotlist? What about the smugglers, tax evaders, adulterers, concubines, stock market manipulators, money launderers, SALN falsifiers, check bouncers, estafadores, facebook hackers, pornographers, trespassers, forgers, mambobosos, and the like? Can the DDS even tell which criminal should go? Is the punishment for all crimes death? What if you just snorted a molecule of cocaine? I'm preparing my resume so I can apply for slot as a consiglieri of the DDS. Maybe they need some guidelines, a lesson on mala in se and mala prohibita, culpa, culpa aquilana,   a lecture on the classic Lecaroz v Sandiganbayan, and dare I say --  DP as in "d.u.e. p.r.o.c.e.s.s."?   I'd do it for free as long as they keep me out of that list. 

(to be continued) 

123. The Assault of the Lolas

I once defended an octogenarian accused of the crime of Robbery. It was the weirdest case I have ever handled, and I got by with a defense of physical impossibility, as I presented a medical certificate that my client was so old she could not even walk or carry anything heavier than a pound. I thought nothing could be as weird until I read the news today that Lola Valentina, 78, and Lola Jovita, 65, have been accused of Direct Assault in connection with the Kidapawan massacre. This government, which has been peddling the public with news that the economy grew under its watch, detained the old ladies who are now held up in Kidapawan and  their pictures are being passed around as they beg for bail money. I have no argument that Direct Assault can be committed by old people.  They can spit, slap, and pull the nose hair of the police, who in this case were armed with batons and guns, and be deemed liable for Direct Assault of a person in authority. But isn't that a silly thing? Out of the thousands of people involved in the bloody  incident, this government picked two old ladies, still young enough to shout and demand for rice to feed their hungry grandchildren, but too old to run away from the police who were also spraying them with water from the firetrucks. Oh, yeah, they were sprayed with water - water that could have been used instead to nourish their dried up farms. And this government has the gall to brag about the economy? Let's wait for the investigation, as it has not been proven that this heartless idiotic government  has caused the rise of the economy. Hell, it has not been proven that the economy rose at all, ask Lola Valentina and Lola Jovita who wouldn't be rallying in Kidapawan and now languishing in jail if it did. 

122. Let's wait for the investigation

Artwork by Celeste Lecaoz Copyright 2016

Whether people died in Kidapawan, whether they're hungry, whether the NPA was feeding them while the protesters were demanding for rice, whether the police shot them or they shot themselves, whether they obstructed the road, whether road obstruction deserves death, whether the drones which captured the gruesome event were functioning, whether the massacre was staged by Duterte supporters, whether the protesters were unthinking minions of the NPA, whether our leaders were inept, whether we should see, hear, and speak while  the investigation is on going. Yes, we should all wait for the investigation, so we can find out the truth:  We should be happy to be alive. It's bad luck. It's not fatal.  It's GMA's fault. It's the dictatorship. Ninoy, someone's father, died too.

121. Every Massacre is a Repetition of Another

Line art by Celeste Lecaroz. Coloring by Teresa Regina Aceron Copyright 2016

I was inside the San Beda College compound when they shot the farmers in January 1987. We were told not to leave the campus until around 8pm, and what I saw afterwards in Mendiola was the big mountain of slippers and other belongings that were gathered after the crowd was dispersed. Thirteen people died and a lot more were injured in that incident. Jose Diokno was supposed to speak in the San Beda auditorium the following day,  but because of the heartbreaking event, he cancelled his engagement. The goverment was saying it was the fault of the leftists for having agitated the farmers to proceed to Mendiola after their week stay in the compound of the Department of Agrarian Reform where their demand for an immediate land reform program became futile. And I can't help to see the parallelism between Mendiola and Kidapawan, which happened on April 1, 2016: an Aquino in power; farmers demanding something immediate to them, land and food; the red scare, the blame being put in Leftist/NPA, and most importantly, the injured and the dead. Jose Diokno, one of the greatest figures in Philippine legal history, resigned from the Aquino government then in 1987 in disgust. According to her daughter, Dr. Maris Serena Diokno, "It was the only time we saw him in tears." So far, this is the only thing not repeating itself in this massacre, a man of honor in an Aquino government condemning the massacre and resigning from it. Every one else is saying, "Let's wait for an investigation." Some are even saying, this is a set up for Duterte. Well, at least, we know Nietzsche's Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence has a crack. When events repeat themselves, there are variations. Yet, the crack on the Kidapawan Massacre is on the heads of those Aquino sycophants.