Lily Pad

Building a Gestalt

2011-09-26T11:48:00.000-05:00

On September 10 of this year, the first batch of students at the AF3IRM Summer School of Women’s Activism graduated, each lighting a candle in memory of a woman of significance in her life. I have witnessed this ritual time and again, seen the tense pause as each participant dove deep into her personal memory to find that person who summed up, with her own life and fate, the meaning of a commitment to women’s liberation. As story after story is told briefly, often in a quivering voice -- of this woman from Puerto Rico, that woman from the Philippines, of the mother from Guatemala, or another woman from yet another country -- their images seem to rise in the circle’s center, witnesses to the eon-long struggle which had involved great-grandmothers, mothers, sisters. This is the instant of connection, when a gestalt of history is created, when each woman stands with a long line of women stretching back to the dawn of history.

The class had started three Saturdays before; I used this poem:

At last I am free

At last I am a woman free!

No more tied to the kitchen,

Stained amid the stained pots,

No more bound to the husband

Who thought me less

Than the shade he wove with his hands,

No more anger, no more hunger,

I sit now in the shade of my own tree

Meditating thus, I am happy, serene.

Sumagalamata, 600 BCE, India

The poem seemed so alien in the 2011 mid-Manhattan summer setting of AF3IRM’s school. On the other hand, it was terribly familiar, underscoring the persistence of women’s vision, of a world where she could have “the shade of my own tree,” for space safe enough for her to be, independent of her mandated social roles. The stories from the participants of their own mothers, grandmothers and aunts underscored the continuity of this struggle for women’s rights, equality and emancipation, and made this ceremony of remembering even more soul touching.

(This essay appears in full at the www.rainandthunder.org journal.)

Limerick

2011-09-01T12:33:00.003-05:00

Turned the caption of the picture below into a parody.

Sometimes I crack myself up.

3 pigeons (alas) checked out the tree

this morning

are you ill, asked one

beak prodding a drying branch,

or are you just being

law-abiding?

Apres-Irene, the Hurricane

2011-09-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

3 pigeons came this morning to inspect the tree and held a long discussion as to whether it was ill or simply being a law-abiding citizen.

Piece at Ms Magazine blog

2011-08-27T15:24:00.001-05:00

access here: http://ow.ly/6e5wM%20#HERvotes

While doing research for this, I was struck by two things:

a) Women workers had to create autonomous space for themselves even in terms of organizing as workers to be able to address the specific characteristics of their class oppression;
and
b) How women organizing transformed the labor union movement, which in the aftermath of the militancy of women workers, opened its doors to both women workers and black workers.

AMNESIA

2011-08-12T22:27:00.001-05:00

(Written for the Atlas of Transformation, edited by Zybnek Baladran & Vit Havranek, published with the assistance of the Czech Republic and the City of Prague, available at www.artbook.com; 720 pp)

The world of healing pays scant attention to a different type of amnesia -- that which comes from a surfeit of memory, in contrast to the common medical definition of the disorder as a loss of what should be remembered. In the amnesia of a surfeit of memory, thought processes are truncated, warped, aborted, so that one plus one never becomes two but rather, diverted from the path of completion by counter-propositions, arguments, labels, myths, artifice and polemics, one plus one remains forever one plus one…

Thus, 23 years after his overthrow and on the 92^nd anniversary of his birth, the dictator’s widow is treated to a tribute, whereby those in charge of codifying and preserving the best of the national experience labor mightily to produce a few minutes of “fabulousness.” Opera singers strain their larynxes, prima ballerinas, their ankles while composers wring the last note of bathos from their storehouse of musical notes -- so that this “fabulousness” can overlay the odor of blood, sweat and decayed flesh; the echo of pain moans and outraged screams, and the redolence of a thousand pairs of shoes assaulted by mold. The dead are thereby not simply forgotten but removed from having existed, despite the list of names chiseled into stone at a shrine of “martyrs,” alongside the statue of a goddess who, if logic were to be followed, should have been faulted with having allowed the travesty to occur in the first place, rather than praised for a victory wrested by 25 years of struggle. It is a denial of the people’s ability to transform their own social environment by attributing their success to some mysterious higher power, preferably imported. The subtext is the preservation of a people’s reliance on authority and of a people’s faith in their powerlessness.

The dictator’s overthrow, it would seem, had wrought finished to all of that, the judgment already hammered into stone but to a people and a nation constructed from a series of historical accidents and the desires of Others, a summing up does not sum up, the past is always malleable and neither truth nor lie are absolutes. To such a people, amnesia is not a state of being; it is a willful act of conciliatory remembering, of preferring an artificial memory of pleasantness because it is unpleasant to recall the unpleasant and easier to pretend that life experience does not provide lessons. Besides which, lessons are only derived from summings- up, or what Einstein defined as the schematic representation of experience. The amnesiac cannot make the leap from perceptual to cognitive knowledge.

This willful substitution of a simulation for reality comes easy to a people who have forgotten even the name of their favorite and most common dish even at the instant of their chewing upon it, this repast of pork chunks and chicken pieces simmered slowly in a broth of soy sauce and vinegar, with a concoction of spices. What is it called, what is its name? No one remembers and all are reduced to referring to it by the Mexican term adobo which in truth is far from the dish as can be. If food itself loses its designation, then there’s nothing out-of-kilter in towns, villages, streets changing names, or languages altering in accordance with every change in rulers. This is not a frailty but a virtue; it is celebrated as an infinite capacity for adaptation. Hence, in Japan, the women acquire local names and wear kimonos; in Saudi Arabia, they don the hijab while in Europe, their children acquire hazel and blue eyes and light skins. The men serve under flags of every sea-faring country in the world, spending their adulthood in unbounded oceans, their moorings reduced to portable memories: photographs of wives, children, parents, a song or two... This malleability is said to be what enables them to survive, even in the most perilous of the 198 “host” countries to which globalization takes them, chattering in Italian at the piazza where once a week, they gather to cease soul-shifting just long enough to enable their strangeness to surface and morph into familiarity by virtue of numbers.

Soul-shifting from a surfeit of memory is peculiar to a constructed people who hold in their psyche several complete and competing operating systems, their worldviews swinging from one to the other to ensure survival. A Japanese is; an American is and the French is French… A constructed people, on the other hand, is always something more over and beyond their naked basic essence, carrying as they do an imposed history. This soul-shifting has become engrained, because colonialism, occupation and neo-colonialism are drawn-out acts of genocide. The authority of the Other remolds the subjugated into an image of the Other, reflective of His view of the world, and that process of recreation entails the destruction of a people’s sense of what they are. Having experienced this dismantling of one’s being, the colonized understands that amnesia is necessary and soul-shifting is vital to survival. It is a complex process done instinctively, without calculation almost, even though it is based on the most profound of calculations.

On the day of the overthrow itself, even as the shouts of jubilation rise through the air, the process of forgetting is already underway. The overthrow is hailed as a great victory for democracy and no one remembers anymore how the very system that is being hailed provided the dictator with his ladder to power and the ever-intensifying consolidation thereof, that the onerous impact of his rule was legitimized through the courts, which declared his “executive orders” legitimate and refused to rule on many challenges to his right to govern by decree. His successor is re-painted as the victor of the just-past elections, this myth of a “democratic” system triumphant substituting for the intensity of the march of a million, two million, and the spontaneous refusal of the majority – clerks, vendors, teachers, farmers, workers – to participate in turning the wheels of social business this one fine day. The successor won; the dictator cheated; ignore that instant of stillness, incandescent as lightning and just as swift, that fell over the land when everyone chose to ignore the last decree.

This affirmation of the correctness of corrupt systems and process of governance, those hailed as sure signs of a democracy, must now entail the frustration of any thing to the contrary. Unfortunately, some 10,000 misguided former residents of various detention camps run by the dictator filed a precedent-setting case against his estate – for he has, by now, peacefully and sans accounting, escaped through death’s door – and won, thus documenting for all of time the intolerable vile acts of perfidy and treason perpetrated by institutions that now serve the successor. That will have to be nullified, gently if possible, harshly if not. And thus begins the long wait for justice and balance for the 100,000 who sojourned in the detention camps, as the new government exercised eminent domain and claimed all available wealth of the dictator and his various friends and relations, denying the right of the victimized. Slowly, that issue is laid to rest because time is on the corrupt system’s side, as not a few of the victimized succumb at last to the wounds and stress of their torture and deprivation.

In this state of amnesia, it is possible once again to commit the same vile acts of perfidy and treason against the people for whom government is supposedly set. The first decade of the new century is marked by political assassinations, disappearances and the inexorable fall of fear and trembling over the land. Each successor after the dictator has driven the nation deeper into poverty, selling off land, sea and sky for quick profit, and when all natural resources are gone, then selling off the people themselves without shame, nakedly, and giving them the sop of a tribute as the new heroes of the economy, the better for them to endure their slavery.

By now, it should be clear that this is about the devolution of social transformation, the reversion of its most noble impulses and objectives to the single principle of power – the acquisition thereof, the monopolization thereof. Because one plus one is never two but remains one plus one, tyranny and corruption are a constant, and the idea of a dictatorship lingers as both a sly temptation and objective. It has never been thoroughly anathematized. In due time, in ways big and small, the idea becomes flesh and throughout the archipelago, warlord clans accumulate power through the expediency of violence and corruption. Each lords it over any one of the 150 ethno-linguistic groups which had been forcibly welded together into an alleged nation by historical accidents and by the desire, needs and greed of the Other.

Amnesia is tragic to a people who live on islands afloat on the ocean of storms and tsunamis. The first thousand buried by mudslides caused by the denudation of forests were speedily forgotten, with the second thousand devastated by a typhoon, who in turn lost their hold on public attention with the third thousand murdered by a deluge, who must thereupon give up their place in the collective memory to the fourth thousand… And so it goes, as the sea rises higher each year and enters villages deeper. Though amnesic, the constructed people’s memory is swollen with fabulousness: the hit tunes of now, telenovelas of today, outrageous romances, impressive displays of wealth, plastic surgery and skin whitening…

This madcap fabulousness that has replaced true memory makes it possible for a warlord clan in the third poorest province of the archipelago to game the system, build a private army and having accumulated power through the naked exercise of nepotism, build more than two dozen mansions for themselves, thus negating poverty as it were from their personal environment and then enabling the casual massacre of 57 people, including 21 women, two of whom were pregnant, and 30 journalists.

It is a remarkable story which, in due time and much like the thousand other assassinations and disappearances post-dictatorship, will be overtaken by amnesia. -- ##

Meditation on a Death

2011-05-03T22:15:00.000-05:00

The first narrative seemed most fitting: he was armed, shooting, when his foes cut him down, a death deserved by a warrior, not perishing from kidney failure, starvation or diarrhea from the pestilential waters of a Third World ghetto, still acting as he preached, courage and kalashnikov in hand despite white hair and beard…

Since I’d gotten tired through the years of young men/women doing the killing and dying at the behest of old, older and one-foot-in-the-grave men, dying like an old lion in combat seemed appropriate to bin Laden -- an exclamation point calling into question a pattern to which we have somehow become habituated, ever since war was invented.

But then the second narrative arrived: he was unarmed, protected by two women, one of whom was shot in the leg, the other killed, as one bullet drilled his forehead and others stitched his chest. He fell on no magic carpet, wasn’t covered by an enchanted tapestry, did not hear the ringing of djinn bells. He died in an unaesthetic house.

After a second of feeling deflated, I realized that that this manner of dying could dovetail into any variation of the Austere Warrior Myth, evoking photos of his austere demeanor, of him barefoot, wearing that threadbare almost priestly robe, in the desserts of Afghanistan.

That led me to wondering just who were there when a Prophet breathed his last on the cross. Fifteen disciples, I found out – and, except for Jude and John Zebedee, all were women.

As in birth, so in death; women’s faces attend alpha and omega. #

May Day Statement

2011-04-30T11:42:00.000-05:00

AFFIRM THE VALUE OF WOMEN’S WORK!

From the Home to the Office to the Factory!

AF3IRM marches on International Labor Day 2011 in affirmation of the right of workers to self-organize, to collective bargaining, to conduct strikes and other means of struggle for just wages and safe working conditions and to resist ever-intensifying exploitation of labor by capitalists.

AF3IRM marches on International Labor Day 2011 to denounce the embedded racism and sexism that enables capital to inflict even more acute exploitation upon women workers. 187 years after the first all-women strike in 1824, women continue to suffer wage disparity. White women workers earn only $0.77 to every dollar a male worker earns; black women, $0.64 and Latinas, $0.52. Over a lifetime, women workers lose $380,000 because of wage discrepancy doing the same job as male workers. Only capitalists and Big Business benefit from social tolerance of racism and sexism.

AF3IRM marches on International Labor Day 2011 in condemnation of the continuing attacks on organized labor and labor rights. 186 years since the first all-women union was established in 1825 – the United Tailoresses of New York, Corporate America and its puppet US politicians are moving to dissolve and dismantle the ability of women workers to struggle for just wages and decent working conditions.

Women workers now comprise nearly 50% of all unionized workers in the US and half of them work in the public sector. From Wisconsin to Nevada to New Jersey, Corporate America and its puppet US politicians are terminating labor rights in the public sector, laying off teachers, child and health care givers, social service workers and more, while leaving male-dominated public sector professions intact or barely touched. By so doing, Corporate America hopes that the working class will be so rift by sexism and racism and thereby weakened as to be unable to resist its push toward enhanced exploitation.

Alongside the increasing numbers of unionized women workers is the increasing number of workers of color, of im/migrant workers – against whom Corporate America and its puppet politicians have launched xenophobic attacks. The latter are meant to keep the “undocumented” sans legal standing in the US, so they can be paid subsistence wages and inflicted with intolerable exploitation. 20% of “undocumented” workers in this country work in private households, as nannies and housekeepers.

AF3IRM declares that a man or woman who’s good enough to work in the United States is good enough to stay!

From the house to the office to the factory, women’s work remains acutely devalued by Corporate America and its puppet politicians.

We say ENOUGH! It is time to march and to denounce this effort to savage women workers, to weaken organized labor, eradicate the gains of the labor movement. It is time to march and denounce this continuing attempt to return women workers to 19th century working conditions – the same conditions which triggered the “uprising of the 20,000” – a strike by women shirtwaist workers in 1909 in New York City.

We say RISE AND MARCH!

PUSH BACK AGAINST CAPITALIST THEFT OF WOMEN’S WORK – from the home to the office to the factory!
GOOD ENOUGH TO WORK, GOOD ENOUGH TO STAY!
AFFIRM THE RIGHT OF LABOR TO UNIONIZE AND TO COLLECTIVE BARGAINING!
AFFIRM THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN WORKERS TO EQUAL PAY AND SAFE WORK CONDITIONS!
AFFIRM THE CORRECTNESS OF THE WOMEN’S STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION!
A WOMAN’S PLACE IS AT THE HEAD OF THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIBERATION OF HUMANITY!

Also on AF3IRM Website: http://www.af3irm.org/2011/4/may-day-statement-2011-affirm-value-women’s-work

Jollene Levid
AF3IRM National Chairperson
Email: chair@af3irm.org
Website: www.af3irm.org
Phone: (323) 356-4748
Association of Filipinas, Feminists Fighting Imperialism, Re-feudalization, and Marginalization (AF3IRM)

###

Desperately Seeking Antigone

2011-04-13T12:25:00.001-05:00

The young heroine of a Greek tragedy elected to bury her younger brother, despite the king’s edict that he should lie dead and exposed to the elements.

Not burying the dead is violating their primal right: to lie buried, undisturbed-- Requiescat In Pace.

This was the core template for one of my short stories: Earthquake Weather. I wrote it in honor of several friends killed by Marcos’s military and left exposed in front of various town halls. Being left unburied was one of the direst punishments inflicted under martial law; the other, ironically, was being buried in unmarked mass graves.

What to make, then, of the phenomenon of the dictator himself refrigerated since his death in 1988. Occasionally, through the years, I’d wonder how much it cost, in equipment and power supply, to turn him into a corpsicle. In a country where 80% of mothers cannot afford to refrigerate milk and baby food, this human jerky was symbolic of the excessive self-adulation of the Marcos regime.

Freeze-dried or mummified, dead is dead. Let the corpse return to the elements.

It has also become expressive of the politics of absurdity in the Philippines as recently, following a court-ordered compensation to victims of human rights violations during the Marcos regime, the dead's clan, cronies and supporters have pushed for his burial in the Heroes' Cemetery.

One would think that the senators, congressmen and governors of the Marcos family infrastructure would have better things to highlight: good works done, nice legislation passed, lives of constituents made better. But no, it has to be about keeping alive the myth of Marcos and hence, ruling class invincibility, maintained by thought control, historical revision and an undercurrent of a message that tells the Filipino people they're too stupid to pass judgment on someone like Marcos.

This view is that of a supremely malleable nation (i.e., stupid enough) to swallow hook, line and sinker even the most overt lies that would maintain authority, power and privilege for a few. We’re already seeing reverberations of this mental shifting: reversals of rulings which had seemed indelible acts of justice in the Vizconde case, Lacson redux, etc.

The Geneva Conventions actually provide for respectful treatment of even the dead: “honorably interred…their graves respected…properly maintained and marked…”

In 2002, a French court decreed that Raymond and Monique Martinot, whose bodies were refrigerated by their son in their chateau’s basement, should be given proper burial – based on the timeless principle that the dead is entitled to Requiescat In Pace.

So the Philippines need an Antigone and frankly, I don’t care how she does it -- float the corpse on a raft in the ocean and give it to its fellow sharks, shove a blasting cap up its behind and disappear it like so many disaparecidos of martial law years, toss it down an unmarked grave in a ravine and let weeds and worms have it.

Just end this necrophilic obsession so everyone can start thinking about the politics of living. -- #

Just a Little Love Song

2011-03-07T23:22:00.000-05:00

On International Women's Day! All hail to Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai!

Click here to see what women of the Philippines are doing.

Arrivals/Departures Commemorative Poster

2011-03-03T12:44:00.000-05:00

Click on photo to supersize. To see more details, follow the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1204159&k=Z4EXX25QT55G6BFBXK4XTVXYRWJJ5Z3EP3&oid=155290314527623

Signed by all the artists, this will sold at the exhibit.

I hope this post works. Techie things cause me extreme anxiety.

A Helpless Alien-nation

2011-02-28T16:23:00.001-05:00

Under imperialism’s circular migration narrative, overseas Filipino workers are perceived as united in a globe-spanning nation, connected to a virtual homeland with family faces, concerns and issues digitalized into a two-dimensional quasi-reality fabricated from sentimental bonds.

Events in North Africa, the Middle East and other parts of the globe have constantly underscored the peril of this view: that by falling in with globalization’s creation of an internationally homeless worker population, we are complicit in depriving migrants of the right to acquire a country, to belong actively to a nation and to be able to engage politically wherever they are, so that they may protect and enhance the life they have managed to establish.

Less than 2,000 of the 26,000 Filipinos in Libya have managed to make it out of the county. It will cost the Philippine government $2.3 million to evacuate them and acrimonious debate is on-going as to how to do this.

Curious, I checked the number of Filipinos working in flashpoint countries and here are some figures -- only estimates, since some OFWs are undocumented:
• 40,000 in Bahrain
• 1,000 in Yemen
• 4,000 in Egypt
• 29,000 in Lebanon
• 25,000 in Oman, which just joined the Arc of Tumult in North Africa/Middle East
• 89,000 in Qatar
• 1,000,000 in Saudi Arabia
• 100,000 in Kuwait
• 6,000 in Iraq
• 500 in Iran
• 30,000 in Israel
• 15,000 in Jordan
• 300,000 in the United Arab Emirates

But less than a dozen in the Vatican City, whose dicta on divorce, reproductive rights and health are negatively impacting the rights of women in the Philippines! We can’t even use remittances as an excuse for obeying the Vatican as there’s nothing coming from there.

I am now wondering whether, if overseas work contracts contained the right to settle and integrate in the receiving countries for overseas workers, OFWs would not be as hapless, would be engaged actually in the struggle to rid countries of despots, rather than remain on the sidelines, fearful of reprisals from both sides. - #

Factoid

2011-02-23T13:36:00.000-05:00

Despite a $77 billion GDP, 35% of the population of Libya lives below the poverty level.

Poverty, as evinced in non-industrialized -- i.e., developing -- countries means having NO HOPE FOR A FUTURE.

Saudi Arabia oppositionists are calling for a Day of Rage with demands that include freedom for women.

Love it.

Le Deluge Reprised

2011-02-22T18:34:00.000-05:00

Son of his father, Saif al-Islam Al-Gaddafi, who holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, went public, saying that without his father, there would be civil war in Libya.

As I said, it would sound so much better in French. Or he could've tried it in British English. Or paraphrased Duvalier's L'etat c'est moi.

Ooops, I hope I remember that phrase correctly.

So chaos broke out -- precisely because his father refused to leave, creating the very nightmare his son says his father protects them from.

Suck on the teats of power and privilege too long and go mad -- ain't that a truth, in whatever institution, organization, agency one is? -- ##

Why They Remain in Power

2011-02-03T19:56:00.000-05:00

The hated French king Louie XV said: apres moi le deluge. Hosni Mubarak says, "If I resign today, there will be chaos."

Ain't even original; it was more elegant in French though equally untrue.

Tiresome really, were it not for the memory of me flopping down on a Louie XV chair at Minnie Osmena's Park Avenue residence a long time ago. Or was it Louie XIV?

Hah! --#

Dream Slayer in the City of Time

2011-02-01T18:38:00.002-05:00

Hard to believe that Mubarak was already head of state when I reached Cairo more than a decade ago.

Hard to realize as well that despite all computer modeling programs, “scientific” methods of socio/political analysis, the wave of turmoil now arching through the Middle East, from Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan and Egypt was largely unanticipated. Hard to know how and where it will end but two things are palpable: overstaying in\at power destroys structures of governance and makes “orderly transitions” nearly impossible (Haiti is a prime example); and believing that only death can part one from power harms the very cause one espouses. Indeed, the Cause itself becomes subsumed to the issue of maintaining control and power.

I reached Cairo at the end of an inordinately long sojourn in the West. When I was awakened on my first day there by the 5 a.m. call to prayers blaring from loudspeakers in minarets all over the city, I realized how one dimensional my life had been. It was, I think, a factor in my return to Hatha/Ratha yoga practice.

It was here that a Palestinian publisher told me of how all these rich Arab women brought their children and nannies to a children's literature bookfair; while the mothers sipped coffee, the nannies chose books for the children who spoke to them "in your language..." All the nannies were Filipinas. "Very soon," the publisher said, "Tagalog will be a power language." I could only smile and say "it's a beautiful language," not adding fat chance of that happening, when we're experts at denigrating our own.

Two persons I kind of knew were then under repressive attacks: the feminist Nawal El Saadawi, whom I was fortunate enough to have met at a European women’s conference, and the Nobel Literature laureate Naguib Mafouz, one of whose stories appeared in an anthology where one of mine (gasp!) was included. Nawal endured house arrests and death threats; Mafouz would be stabbed in the neck by fundamentalists in an assassination attempt.

Thus I was goggle-eyed in Cairo, trying to process as quickly as possible its many layers of history. Time was ascendant in the city – from the pyramids in the horizon to the Coptic cemetery of crumbing tombstones one stumbled upon to an 11th century breathtaking mosque where the attendant was kind enough to let loose with a chant to show off its acoustics. While buying souvenirs, I was asked where I was from and when I said Philippines, all the men (most shopkeepers were male) said, “yes, yes, we like Philippine women.” At which I asked what they thought of the city’s top imam saying that charity practiced and funded by the country’s top belly dancers was neither acceptable nor appropriate. Silence.

The Museum of Antiquity is impossible to describe; there was just so much wealth, not simply of gold and gems, but of art. I drooled over a pair of alabaster oil lamps, wanting to run my hand over them (not allowed) to see if a genie or two would appear. Through my half a day’s meanderings through the museum, the words from Bhagavad Gita looped through my mind: “I am Time, destroyer of worlds…” – a favorite quote since I was ten years old.

Hard to believe that in a city chockfull of relics of vanished powers, someone would believe that one could hold on forever to power.

The upshot is an accumulation of rage among people deprived of the right to their own vision. Because that is what dictators, power-hogs, self-centered cliques convinced that they alone know what’s good for a country, a nation, a people, do: they kill dreams.

And because dreams are based on hope, they kill hope as well.

It is the ultimate individualism. -- #

Split a Woman into Two

2011-01-10T10:03:00.000-05:00

The sidewalks are clear, the snow has turned to mush and save for the cold that seems determined to dismember your body, joint by painful joint, little remains of the New York holiday snowstorm. I feel like the woman being sawed in half in those ubiquitous illusionist shows – which brings to mind the film The Black Swan which I saw in a Honolulu cinema house, one even slower Hawaii day, if that were at all possible. Talk about splitting a woman into two.

The movie left me ambivalent. I like Natalie Portman, since Star Wars and other films but I hated the story, was absolutely disgusted with its premise and kept thinking that perhaps viewed in another way, it could be an indictment of the masculinist narrative about passion and nice girls, and what it takes to be a great artist when you're female – i.e., from the male point of view, a woman had to be sexually “liberated” to be great. What a cliché, placing talent, dedication and discipline secondary to “losing control.” The end was expected: greatness kills nice girls.

That control came from the mother, rivalry from the female alternative dancer (another woman) and fate’s omen another dancer, aging and replaced by a younger one -- which together created a world of women extremely hostile to women, with women determined to do in one another for the chance to be the preferred “star” of a jerk of choreographer who had silver-haired into his function without judgment, his being a jerk excused because he was “brilliant,” his nature as a Svengali who destroys women masked.

The film left me distraught because of a recent encounter with another huge talent done in by the same social narrative and because I’d learned from reliable sources that a man’s wife had been saying I was trying to “sulot” (steal) her husband whom I hadn’t even seen in five years. The only response I could give was “if this were true, she’d be out in the cold by now.”

Amazing how being a sexual outlaw is par for the course for a woman in the field of art – nay, it’s even encouraged – but a supposed death knell for a woman in politics. In the former, such a premise is a subject for discussion, the thorny issue of socially expected female role versus what is demanded by being an artist; in the latter, it’s only a bore. -- ##

Darkness Visible

2010-12-27T04:09:00.001-05:00

Been spending time with a group of young women in Hawaii trying to unravel the thorny points of class, gender and sexuality; of nationalism, regionalism and transnationalism; of language and literature; of what constitutes the politics of women in this age of globalization. One asked what my writing process was -- and strangely enough, I'd been thinking about it -- for the long work specifically, since I tend to go on automatic with short pieces, sitting down and after hours of barely eating or sleeping, getting up only after the last punctuation.

A long work often begins with an image, an idea, an event -- which becomes like a train ticket that I tend to place in a desk drawer somewhere in the writing room of my mind and try hard to forget -- until the day I can no longer procrastinate and open the drawer, pick up the ticket and embark on the journey toward another world, where I am another person. I don't much like it, because it means going through the tribulations and stresses of a lifetime within a year or two; and also because as I become the character and that world, my world, I resent intrusions from reality and become anti-social.

That is the process -- a journey through an unfamiliar and yet familiar universe; where I am both main character and all characters at the same time and yet remain in total control of the evolution of events toward an end of which I have no inkling.

I've had great trouble with this last manuscript, because the real person keeps intruding between me and herself as character, returning me again and again to herself as a person versus herself as character, not understanding that my relationship is not with her but with herself as character, that I needed to deconstruct her, then reconstruct her, so that the angles of her being come out very sharply, acutely, rather than have circumstances grind them down to ordinary smoothness. Her character may own me but she herself as a person does not. I have absolutely neither desire nor need to have any personal relationship with her, once she has transferred her life to me.

How does one explain that to the subject of one's writings?

I am often tempted to snarl, "leave me alone -- I'm not interested in the present you but you as a sum total of your past." Interested in what has been shaped, not in what is being shaped. Not interested in your current crises but rather how these came about and what could possibly result from them -- mainly because every tale must have completion, even if that completion is also the beginning of another paradigm.

In quantum physics, one sees what one is looking for only after it has gone.

Recently, when faced by the difficulty of explaining such a conundrum to non-writers, I find myself hoisting my Nikon and taking photographs -- probably in an attempt how this freezing of the instant, the stopping of time, is so important to my writing process.

Here's a photo I took on the night of the full moon, 21st December, from the 25th floor of a building in Honolulu. I call it Darkness Visible. Click on photo to supersize.

Two Di-Ba's

2010-12-11T15:33:00.000-05:00

Wearing anting-anting (amulets)....

Damn, I'm beginning to look like my mother. Ha!

Hurry to the Wedding

2010-12-06T16:24:00.000-05:00

Addendum

2010-11-17T12:49:00.000-05:00

"...But first, we have to clarify who really are the victims," said President Benigno Aquino III, regarding compensation for victims of Marcos-era human rights violations.

By admission of Marcos's own then Defense Minister, 100,000 people were arrested and imprisoned without trial; they called it detention.

Less than 10,000 were plaintiffs in the Marcos tort case; the Hawaii court's synchronized database is only 7,500.

It's been 24 years and it's still not known who the victims are? It didn't take that long to document the Holocaust victims who were in the millions.

Don't hold your breath; this is another 2+2=2+2, maintaining impunity alive.

Be outraged; be very outraged. -- ##

Response

2010-11-17T10:03:00.000-05:00

Here's a response to the piece I wrote on the Marcos Tort Case: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/206221/pnoy-vows-compensation-to-martial-law-victims

Let's see if 2+2 will be 4 this time.

I'd like to be proven wrong on this one but I wouldn't hold my breath.

2+2 Equals 2+2 Forever

2010-11-16T21:02:00.000-05:00

The Texas Court approved a $10 million settlement of a case linked to the Marcos tort case -- i.e., about 10,000 victims sued the Marcos Estate for violations of human rights and were awarded $2 billion. It's been 24 years. Did two stories on this while on the crest of an overwhelming sadness; here's one: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20101117-303660/No-President-keen-on-helping-Marcos-victims.

Sadness came from realizing this was one more unending story of the archipelago -- kind of like Gulong ng Palad (Turn of Fate), a radio serial drama that went on forever. At some point, I think, patience becomes a vice.

So in a way, the mid-year US election results had some positive aspect, if taken as a manifestation of people getting fed up. Unfortunately, Pres. Obama seems to have misinterpreted the message and announced more "bipartisanship."

The message to me was simply: "we're tired of seeing government take care of the rich and powerful while the rest of us go into bankruptcy."

I for one would like to get bailed out from usurious credit card companies, overcharging cable-internet-phone companies, surcharges from my residential coop, etc.

I'd like to see Antartica before it melts.

And this issue of human rights violations committed by the Marcos Dictatorship resolved before the sea drowns the 7,100 islands.

Trust me, it will. -- ##

Is There A Civilians Day?

2010-11-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

Marches, parades, bands, gun-salutes, white-glove salutes.

Any recognition given to the civilians who died in wars, invasions, occupations, a hundred thousand armed conflicts? The civilian dead likely number a hundred times the military dead.

As the Bob Dylan song goes, "how many times must cannonballs fly before they're forever banned?"

The best way to honor Veterans, methinks, is to eliminate the causes of wars, invasions, occupations...

I leave it to you to list such causes.

Character Calamities

2010-11-04T00:18:00.001-05:00

The speechwriter of the President of the Philippines, Mai Mislang, tweeted, during a state visit, that the wine sucked in Vietnam – as though she had been raised guzzling Domaine Romanee-Conti.

Having been a French colony, Vietnam was likely amused by such judgment from a person of a country known for beer.

Ah, well, stupidity is a child of ignorance.

As if this wasn’t enough to upset one for weeks, one of the two women seriously injured at a grenade attack at La Salle university blithely forgave the assailant, whoever he was. The two women lost limbs and nearly their lives.

The grenade was thrown allegedly by one fraternity member to damage members of another fraternity – and by accident, collaterally damaged grievously two women whose lives are hereon changed in ways we cannot even conceive.

This readiness to forgive, in my perspective, does not necessarily make one a better person; it simply marks one as a patsy, who cannot even recognize the presence of serious evil. Whoever threw the grenade was evil; he knew and didn't care that he could not limit the damage to members of the other fraternity only.

Forgiving so easily allows evil to thrive; and this is probably why people known to have committed great crimes surface and re-surface, again and again, holding on to power, position and privilege, in the Philippine political world, as acts of injustice and terrorism remain un-redressed.

So, there’s the wine comment and the forgiveness comment and my comment: women of the Philippines can sometimes be arrogant and judgmental in petty matters and pushovers in really serious ones. -- ##

On Gilda Cordero Fernando

2010-10-30T15:26:00.002-05:00

Prof. Gemino H. Abad of the University of the Philippines was kind enough to send me Volumes I & II of Underground Spirit – a compilation of short fiction from 1972 up. They are handsome volumes and offer quite a spread on Philippine short fiction in English, since the imposition of martial law. I believe that more volumes are forthcoming. Prof. Abad inscribed the volumes to me with the words "one's country is what one's memory owes allegiance to..."

Which reminded me that for years I had planned to write or say something about one of the great prose stylists of the Philippines, Gilda Cordero Fernando, who is constantly underrated as a writer, even by herself, methinks. But then Gilda has never been one for the “struts and charms of trade” as Dylan Thomas puts in, so her literary presence tends to be constantly drowned out by those who do strut.

Her long story People In The War has no equal in Philippine literature. I read it when very young and it has never left me and it taught me, from the moment I finished it, that large themes like invasion, occupation and violence are comprised of small acts of humanity and inhumanity – both inflicted upon ordinary beings and into acts of which they are forced. Hey, to know how tremendous that was, think of how many words and pages it took Tolstoy to say that in War and Peace. This lesson from Gilda was the root of my oft-repeated thesis that one does NOT write for the people but rather one should write as one of the people, thereby undergoing the process of becoming declasse.

Once in a while, I am seized with the urge to read that Gilda story again and re-experience the seismic shock of understanding a Truth about human beings. Gilda reminds me of the equally underrated Katherine Anne Porter, whose Flowering Judas was a consummate treatise on revolution and betrayal.

Gilda’s writing world is a world of women – though not as didactically dry and self-pitying as Kerima Polotan’s; it is a world magical indeed, long before magic realism rose out of Latin America, imbuing with mythic resonance the small, the daily, the minutes, rather than the years, of Time. She has a housewife capture a duende (elf) ; a hairdresser create subtle narratives from hairstyles; and so on. From all these, one draws a sense of women’s quiet strength and Gilda was doing it before feminist values became the “common sense” for women even in the West.

Gilda was also the force in the creation of books on various aspects of Philippine history and culture, which brought together artists and writers, antedating the manga novel fad from Japan. Truly, she’s done crucial work but is under-recognized for it, and I am inclined to think that it’s not simply because she is female but because she is gorgeous and intelligent, to boot. Ah, well, every woman out there will understand that.

So, here’s to you, Gilda; let’s raise a glass of EF THEM! to all the dead and/or dying old men overrated as Philippine national artists – which of course you will never do, gracious person that you are.

My, this started out as a piece of recommendation that you all buy Underground Spirit – please do so – and became a short discourse on Gilda Cordero Fernando. But if you can manage it, please read People In The War. -- ##

It Is Done

2010-10-23T03:46:00.003-05:00

From a character in Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book: “I realized I’d change nothing by proving that the life we live is someone else’s dream.”

The sentence floated through my mind as I watched the fifty-some new members of AF3IRM, all under 30 years of age, take their oath of commitment to principle, cause and organization after two days of intensive deliberation at the end of nearly two years of study. I wished then I could add a footnote to Pamuk’s book: “At least it gives one a chance to choose -- not to do so, or to live a different dream or a dream built on one’s experiences.”

Some principles were debated and established during those three days, among which were a) one has the right to make history wherever one is – in accordance with the material conditions of one’s existence and the right to acknowledgement of that history; b) true social transformation encompasses transformation of gender power relations and an end to the relegation to the private sphere of obligations which should be and are social in character; c) as with other sectors, women have a right to theory-building. There were others but to me these were among the weightiest.

The last will likely be the most difficult but even ideology has to evolve.

We had good landmarks to go by. Prof. Johanna Brenner warned about an international movement to restore/maintain the hetero-patriarchy; Dr. Anna Guevarra exposed the deliberation behind the push for Filipinas to metamorphose into servants for overseas work; Charlene Sayo raised the rather bizarre Oedipal specter of second generation Filipina-Canadians having to deal with white male Canadians raised by Filipino nannies; Roma Amor, a trafficking survivor, traced her vulnerability to domestic violence in her Philippine marriage.

The strange thing for me was being able to play on the guitar, after the launch, without mistake the song “Good Night, Ladies.” This piece of music has strange resonance for me, since my nanny invariably tuned in to Ruben Tagalog’s radio program “Harana” (serenade) as she waited for me to fall asleep. The program ended, I think, with this song and to this day, I associate it with burdens laid down and preparations to voyage into the mythic realms of sleep.

As for the guitar playing, I took it up to learn to read notes. I’d picked up somewhere that learning a new language was the best way to forestall brain decrepitude. I thought music being a different language and having been an opera buff since I was 15 years old, I might as well learn how to read notes.

It’s been so difficult, what with slashes of calluses on the fingertips of my left hand (I once tried using my right hand on the frets but that inverted the guitar, silly me) that I kind of wish I’d chosen to learn Arabic instead. The brain processing is so different I find myself forgetting language and drawn to playing high math games.

The poor ewok Guapo curls up in pain whenever I practice, so terrible are the sounds. When a friend who’s a classical guitarist asked to look at my Martin guitar, I had to demand that he NOT ask me to play for fear he would suffer a stroke from laughter.

So now you understand why playing “Good Night, Ladies” without a single false note was so edifying.

I do not know to which ladies I was saying good night. Perhaps you do. But I do hope that this signifies a preparation to return to the mythic realms, from which I'd been diverted by politics. -- ##

Enshrining Judas: 9/21

2010-09-21T02:14:00.002-05:00

A hundred thousand were imprisoned without charges and without trial.

Hundreds disappeared.

Countless women and men were toyed with, tortured, violated.

The body count rose to 14 per day,

The fetid canal running through downtown Manila became the Estero of Death, as the summarily executed were dumped into it.

The looting of the public treasury was so massive it made the Guinness Book of Records.

The currency slid down steadily, destroying families, driving men and women to jobs overseas.

The doorway to all that opened on September 21, 1972 with a simple act of betrayal – a betrayal of mandate, a betrayal of oath of office, a betrayal of the Constitution, a betrayal of the people and of the nation.

After the overthrow, 10,000 former “detainees” – a euphemism for those imprisoned without charges and without trial – took courage in hand and sued the ex-dictator, who had reigned as “president” for 22 years.

They won and were granted by the courts a billion dollars in damages. Not a cent would reach their hands, though that case became a precedent for so many other victims of human rights abuses who got indemnified.

One by one, the 10,000 grew old; some became sick; some died. Collections were taken for those who had no money for burial.

It would be good for the significance of this date to disappear. But it will not because the process of justice remains amputated, incomplete. No one has actually been made to pay for betraying mandate, oath and the Constitution. No one was held accountable for butchering people, raping women, stealing from government… Only the poor who fought grew poorer and realized the irony of the saying “you can’t eat principles.”

This is why impunity does not even amaze any longer in the archipelago. This is its taproot, the start of national demoralization, the enshrinement of Judas.

As long as the process of rendering justice to the imprisoned, tortured, disappeared and murdered remains amputated, futility will be the only lesson for the poor and the powerless.

The lesson will always be that the traitor always emerges victorious, with his 30 pieces of silver, fame and fortune intact, with a fake banner of “honor” waving over his heads and convinced that Judashood is a virtue.

Make no mistake about it: there are those who believe from the bottom of their hearts that the Filipino people are undisciplined, unruly, without honor and values, childish – and need an iron hand and that hand is theirs by right of birth, connection and power. They are biding their time. #

P-Noy's Entourage

2010-09-18T17:50:00.000-05:00

President Noynoy Aquino of the Philippines will bring 57 men and women with him for his seven-day trip to the United States. This junket will cost 25 million pesos or more than $500,000.

The Queen of England, Elizabeth II, travels with an entourage of 40-70, depending on the visit's duration.

Presidents of the Philippines, I think, should only be allowed to leave the country if they've solved pressing problems -- as in, solve garbage collection problem, you get one trip; solve illegal/legal logging = one trip; solve water crisis = one trip; solve flooding = one trip...

No problem solved, no trip as everybody just looks foolish, begging for help before any effort is made.

9/11

2010-09-10T16:37:00.000-05:00

Code Pink has called for Read a Qu'ran Day and is asking for solidarity messages for the women of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

On stressful days, I usually remember this passage from the Bhagavad Gita:

Fear Not. What is not real, never was and never will be. What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed.

Happy end of Ramadan. Shantih.

One Beauty Queen & Eight Dead Tourists

2010-08-29T15:55:00.002-05:00

If one question were to define the character of your people and if two events were to be pivotal in defining the character of your nation – what question and what events would you choose?

Maria Venus Raj, 22-year-old Miss Philippines contender for the Miss Universe crown, likely did not anticipate she would be at the center of the above-mentioned situations. The question that became a character definition, not only for her but for her entire country mates, was whether she had committed a big mistake and what she did to correct it. Ms. Raj replied candidly that she’d never had a major, major problem and thanked her family for guiding her – not in perfect English, granted, but neither unintelligible nor incomprehensible either. I've heard worse from winners and losers alike.

Ms. Raj placed fourth and thereby became the object of intense criticism, and a cause for a general self-abnegation on her country people's part, as if she herself, not the judges, chose Miss Mexico for the title. Or as though this was and will be the only chance at a beauty title for the Philippines.

Worse, ex-cop Rolando Miranda decided in the same week to hold hostage a busload of Chinese tourists and allegedly killed eight of them before offing himself. I say allegedly because with all those bullets flying, I prefer to wait for the forensics.

One beauty queen and eight dead tourists then merged into an absurd symbol of the character of the entire nation called the Philippines and an entire people called Filipinos – to wit, that they are flubbers, fumblers, incompetent, corrupt, stupid, murderous, etc.

And now there are rallies in Hong Kong with the Chinese demanding apology, compensation, etc., etc. It shouldn't surprise us when, at some point, there's a demand that the Philippine government reinstate the ZTE broadband project, which was scuttled for corruption under the previous regime.

Filipinos themselves are adding fuel to the fire by blaming Ms. Raj (in lieu of the judges who, btw, were never asked why they chose Miss Mexico), not even understanding the source of their own anger, which in my view is our common perspective on OFWs: bring home the bacon or else... Ms. Raj was born overseas of an OFW mother and an Indian father, hence by legacy is cloaked by the same expectations of OFW women. Give those of us at home what we want or die trying.

Filipinos as well add to the fury over the eight dead Chinese tourists by immediately blaming one another, passing the buck, falling to their knees and smashing their foreheads on the floor in self-abnegation.

Get a grip, people. The Philippines has had and will have beauty titles galore. Beauty contests are judged on the basis of (1) how close to Western beauty models a girl is; (2) how appealing she and her country are to those looking for product endorsers; and (3) whether there’s a political and commercial advantage to recognizing her country.

Get a grip as well, people and P-noy, re: the eight dead tourists. While it is proper to apologize for this unfortunate end to this murderous madman's actions, enough already with the kowtowing and feeling bad and blaming yourselves. Hong Kong never apologizes for the cruel and sometimes murderous treatment of Filipina domestic workers; nor did Beijing apologize for the crazed guy who hacked Filipino father and daughter tourists. If the Chinese feel it’s too dangerous to go to the Philippines, then tell them to go elsewhere.

For the sake of the nation's self-respect, stop acting like the country with its 100 million population is a beauty title contestant and/or a Chinese suzerainty. - #

Flora Lansang

2010-08-18T09:26:00.000-05:00

Ms. Flora Lansang, known to many University of the Philippines alumni, passed away last Monday.

She and her family were long-time advocates for national independence and social justice. They were also stalwart participants in the resistance movement against Marcos. And a very good supporter of GabNet.

She inspired one of my short stories, "Our Apostle Paul." The last time I saw her, which was ages ago, apropos of nothing, she gave me what looked like a tektite ring.

We will miss her.

So many deaths these two years. An era is ending.

One Nation Indivisible

2010-08-09T14:50:00.000-05:00

The wind had become a cool river flowing through the neighborhood sun-tortured streets when the house ewok Guapo demanded a walk – meaning he skipped and hopped six, seven times on his hind legs, chased his tail four, five times and then dug forepaw nails into my knee, So I brushed back his forelocks, tied it into a topknot with a green ribbon and we sauntered out to join the Congregation of Small Dogs on the sidewalk for a brief orgy of sniffing, yelping and pouncing.

Judge Vaughn Walker had just ruled against Proposition 8 in California; even as, the Center for Reproductive Rights released its study on abortion in the Philippines and Engender Rights demanded the legalization of abortion.

The latter inspired the lawyer-counsel of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines to compare women seeking abortions to dope addicts even as Judge Walker was being outed and his ruling questioned, never mind that no one questioned the presumably heterosexual orientation of a court that previously upheld Proposition 8.

The CRR report tabulated more than half a million back-alley abortions per year in the Philippines, with 90,000 women suffering complications and a thousand dying.

I am of course in favor and in support of the entire range of women’s rights – from the right to equitably end unsatisfactory marriages, to the right to marry whomever one wanted who’s of the age of consent, to sex education in schools (which the bishops contend will cause “developmental harm”, unlike pedophilia which many priests consider as NOT breaking their vow of chastity), to reproductive safety and health, to full and equal representation in power institutions, organizations and agencies of whatever tendency.

Pwew! That was a long sentence. This range is indivisible.

The argument in California is that majority want marriage to be defined as between male and female only; the argument of the bishops is that the Philippines is a Catholic country by majority. Both argue that the "will of the majority" should be respected, even as such a will rests, not on democratic logic, but on mutable social/religious norms.

But the actual democratic principle is that no majority can impose its will upon a minority in such a manner that the rights, freedoms and privileges of the minority are restricted and eroded.

This is the same principle that protects the rights of ethnic groups (to speak their own language, for instance), of indigenous peoples and others recognized to have a different lifestyle from that of the majority.

In the Philippine case, the bishops/priest minority is actually suppressing the rights of a majority (women).

All these were running through my head as Guapo and I took a walk this early morning. The Congregation of Small Dogs was absent; there was only this white, middle-aged man with one of Guapo’s cousins and he was happy to see my dog. “A girl, ha? A girl?” No, I said, he’s male. “But the ribbon, his hair, why is it like that…” I said I didn’t know what to do with his hair, just to keep it off his eyes, never mind it was a gender-bender… “He’ll fit right in,” the man said. Say what? “Oh, you haven’t hcard, this is the new neighborhood for HOMOSEXUALS.” I thought my eyeballs would drop to the sidewalk, I was that shocked. “Yup, you haven’t seen them – the HOMOSEXUALS! This is their new area.”

I scooped Guapo up and ran. -- ##

Note to Inviters

2010-07-18T14:32:00.000-05:00

My schedule is ruled by an agent with an ironfist. Please email vidaevents@verizon.net. Or check-out Speak Out Now. Because of ancient bones and a still rather hectic schedule, my preference is for professional (writing) and political (speaking) activities. Thank you for your forbearance.

July 29 event

2010-07-13T03:49:00.000-05:00

Click on picture to supersize.

Fela! on Broadway

2010-07-11T04:30:00.000-05:00

When lead performer Sahr Ngaujah asked the audience at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre “who’s been arrested?” “ Imprisoned?”, Milady and Ollie cast expectant and encouraging looks my way as a few in the audience raised hands.

Later, coming upon the star on the sidewalk, they told him I had been a political prisoner and had wanted me to raise my hand. I said I'd been waiting for him to ask, “Who’s been tortured” – then I would’ve raised my hand. Mr. Ngaujan looked thoughtful and said maybe he should add that to the script. So, WHEN – not if -- you see Fela! and the question is asked, hey, know that it comes from a Philippine experience to become part of a Nigerian story.

Being still in the grip of a massive jetlag – crossing half the globe twice in five days was too much – I had feared I would doze off during the show. Not much chance of that, with all the energy and intensity and, yes, anger on stage. Amazing music, amazing choreography and an amazing life. Mr. Ngaujan brought fire and sincerity to his performance – which was not surprising, as he turned out to be well versed in African politics. When I mentioned Zimbabwe’s new diamond mines, he quipped: “Dig deep enough in Africa and you’ll find diamonds.” Ollie mentioned Sierra Leone’s female foreign minister Zainab Bangura and Mr. Ngaujan, who is of Sierra Leone, said she was doing all right. “She’s negotiating with multinationals – who’ll develop electricity, who’ll do the roads…We have nothing, you know; so she’s seeing who can give us what we need. Later will come the backlash.”

It was a good antidote to my weekend in Poland, at a conference where too much went into attitudinizing and about 90% of the discussion was a regurgitation of old ideas masquerading as new. I’d left Poland thinking about small countries, big tyrannies and then there was Nigeria. And Fela!
Go see the show. -- #

Didn't Even Realize It

2010-06-06T21:52:00.002-05:00

Was on Huffington Post and only found out when googling for a photo to send to Polland. Click on title above to access. Sorry for those who get posts automatically. I was trying to embed the link, hence the many versions of this post. Failed at it, too.

Note on the Gaza Flotilla

2010-06-01T23:41:00.000-05:00

In case you did not know it, Israel has universal health care -- courtesy of American taxpayers.

Burp2: Crunching Numbers

2010-05-26T22:17:00.001-05:00

The election aftermath in the Philippines seemed designed to strip the population – voting or otherwise – of its last fig leaf of dignity. Gone were the images of millions lined up for four-five hours under the cruel talons of a summer sun just to vote, a testament to a people’s hunger for a moment, just a split-second, of being able to wield control over their nation. In their place were now images of vociferous mouths shrieking “cheating,” of masked men with plastic noses rumbling “cheating,” of foreigners intoning “cheating,” of suddenly self-righteous men shrieking about offers of “cheating” for amounts from 50 million to one billion pesos.

Makes one wonder whether any of these screamers even briefly considered the impact of this on the said millions: peeling off the last veneer of possibilities from their awareness to re-affirm the mantra that they were stupid, ignorant and therefore must depend on the ruling oligarchy, and to revive their sense of the futility of life itself… No wonder practically everybody’s looking for a plane ticket out.

I’m reading all these news reports and wondering WTF they want: re-do the entire elections? Oboy.

Which is why I wasn’t too fired up over collecting my second winning bet, though the dinner revolved around fruits of the sea, paid for by this cadre-turned-actuarial who ruined my planned scenario by blurting out, immediately: “I read your blog. I want you to crunch the numbers now.” Oich! I pretended momentary deafness and concentrated on finding out how many sturgeon’s eggs one could balance on the tip of one’s tongue.

Okay, here goes: yes, Virginia, there is a women’s vote. Few post-election analysis will state that outright, as women are considered a minor species, but it explained the discrepancy between GWP and BM votes, and the discrepancy between LM and SO votes, as well as the wave that carried Ms. Hontiveros to number 13, following her decimation of Kit Tatad on the issue of reproductive health and safety, said wave having carried GWP consistently through past elections. Expect a scramble now among patriarchs for the women’s allegiance, without calling attention to the pivotal nature of women’s political participation, building what may be referred to as the sisterhood under the old-boys-network.

Yes, Virginia, the state of alienation of overseas workers from Philippine politics increases with time and distance and neglect, explaining the low voter turn-out – excuses and justifications notwithstanding. Material conditions of daily existence exert their primacy inevitably.

Yes, Virginia, if the spectrum of Lefts got together, they can bring a full senatorial slate to victory and probably elect a president; but it’s far easier to ally with class enemies than with ideologues quarreling over interpretations of passages from writings done 50 to a hundred years ago. It’s kind of like the priesthood where there can only be one pope. See Roman Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox Church, etc. In other words, check out histories of self-referent systems of beliefs and schisms.

And finally, yes Virginia, Philippine political power is becoming more and more balkanized among family dynasties, which are and will be major obstacles to the development of progressive democracy and justice in the Philippines. Family dynasties are totally without compunction, as we saw during the Marcos dictatorship, with regards to human, civil and women’s rights.

And finally, too, my losing bettor friend came out with the numbers he was interested in: “What was the price of the alliance? Any money trade-offs?”
Oich. “That I do not know,” I told him straight up. “If at all, that would only be known to a handful.”

“But if you were the one negotiating, how much would you ask for?”

“A senatorial candidate’s campaign costs about 125 million pesos. For two candidates, I would ask for 300 million pesos minimum, 500 million pesos max to cover this-that expense and brokerage fees. But that is only my thinking and again, I say I do not know.”

Footnote1: A great disservice was done in the tacit sanitizing of the Marcos clan. Unforgiveable. Don’t look now, but some people are bent on auctioning off Imelda’s jewels before the Arroyo admin ends. Cash and carry: they turn it to cash and carry it away.

Footnote2: If I knew how to cry, I would cry with Ms. Grace Padaca, who wept for the people of Isabela province when she lost to the Dy dynasty and its logger-allies once again – ironically, during the hottest summer of the decade in the archipelago. I’ve never been to Isabela but recall a gift of two foot-long sweet-fleshed lobsters from its then-pristine waters, a long, long time ago.

Cut the trees, boil your brain. -- #

A Last Fire Sale

2010-05-22T08:38:00.002-05:00

To the last drop, it seems, the Arroyo government is bent on wringing the last cent out of the archipelago. Two items are pending: the sale of the power component of the Angat Dam, whose completion had been a source of pride for the country many years ago, and the country's 10% stake at the Malampaya oil fields. The haste leads one to wonder whose commissions are at risk here, should the government change hands before the sales are completed, and how this constant churning out of election protests feeds into a delay of the electeds' proclamation, so that the Arroyo administration and its flock of vultures will have as much time as possible to sop up whatever's left of the country's patrimony.

Don't look now -- but the last of the country's assets are on the auction block. Oil, power and water privatized weakens government exceedinlgy and dispossesses the people of control over the most basic of their needs. Next thing you know the tourist brochures will just simply say "Everything on sale." Don't look now. #

Post Election Burp

2010-05-12T00:19:00.002-05:00

Like Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist,” I find daily food a bore, so when three friends offered a bet of dinner each at restaurants of my choice on whether Manny Villar, Philippine presidential candidate, would win, I immediately accepted, having in mind three places with top chefs I could never afford. They thought he was going to win; I thought NOT. This was the month Villar was neck-to-neck with the eventual winner, Noynoy Aquino, and for a while there, I wondered if I would have to sell Guapo, the house ewok, to cover my bets – or maybe hand him over to the chefs.

Well. Burp. What an absolutely fab first dinner, paid by friend with the black visa card, while he ranted against his stupidity and I nodded in sympathy, so he wouldn’t notice I was eating his dinner, too. And to make up for the damage to his bank account – ice wine, fab!, with this unimaginable dessert of honey, filo dough, chocolate, strawberries and green tea ice cream, (if you ate as erratically as I do, you’d understand the bliss) – I gave him a comforting spiel about how I knew he and his candidate were going to lose. I plan to use the same spiel for the two forthcoming fab dinners as well:

“First, Villar’s slogan sipag at tiyaga, which presented him as having made billions from hard work and patience, which to 99.9% of Filipinos is hogwash, as they’re all on sipag and tiyaga on a dollar a day. The subtext of the message is if you’re poor, you’re lazy and impatient or if not, must be stupid, which the 99.9% will reject and cause them to think eh, balderdash, you did something nasty; nobody becomes a billionaire overnight in the Philippines without effing up the next guy… The other subtext is that you, the voter, is such a moron I can say anything and you’d believe it – quite an insult.

“A jeepney driver could’ve told him that and for half the money he likely paid an advertising agency, I could’ve given him a better slogan like negosyo’t trabaho which would’ve made sense, with his image as a successful businessman and be clear as well to the unemployed, underemployed and low-income masses… Filipinos are very good at teasing out subtexts so one’s message has to be clean of possible (mis)interpretations.

“Second, when he added Bongbong Marcos to his senatorial slate, which already included Left-wingers, he showed he was willing to discomfit even his allies for his own interests – i.e., selfish, no core values and no loyalty. Then he had those half-naked girls gyrating on stage, though he knew he had women candidates. Villar might have been from the poor but his actions showed he was so insensitive as not to see he was losing women’s votes in the process of titillating men.

“Third, the constant harping on his being rich, like he’s entitled to anything he wants or can buy… We hate that, don’t we? A rich person should be circumspect, tumabi-tabi diyan, as in line up for four hours to vote just like us... otherwise the impulse would be to take him down a notch or two.

"Class is not the sole criterion by which we judge an individual; to Filipinos, that’s leavened by character and record. Note that the people not only gave Noynoy millions of votes in advantage; they also backed Estrada over Villar. That’s not only being a fan but a backlash of anger against Villar's campaign callousness.”

Friend chewed that over instead of the white asparagus on duck – ummm good – and then rather crudely said: “Well your friends went down with him,” which warned me he’d noticed I was eating everything. "How do you think they'll spin that? What do you think they should do?"

Mull that over for a minute. I had wished and still wish Liza M had run as an independent; it had been painful watching her try to deal with the gross impositions of the Villar campaign, from Marcos to the Kembot Girls and the self-back-slapping of that lurid guy Willie whats-his-name. As painful as watching guerrillas try to give substance to the “failure-of-elections” hysteria – a Plan B, I suppose, in case the Villar alliance crashed and burned, a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy…

Myriads of phone calls had reached me hyperventilating about “failure-of-elections,” the main ingredient being fear of Gloria staying in power – which left me quite non-plussed as it was clear she already had an exit strategy in place. I’m not sure whether her record of outmaneuvering the Left, or at least one of the Lefts, was due to her smarts or other’s denseness… in any case, there were days when I sort of walked around wondering if I was the only one in the whole universe unable to see this “failure of the elections” scenario, barking out to whomever on the cellphone, “the US won’t allow it, haven’t you heard of imperialism?”

But what do I say to my dinner partner, who’s found something to twit me with? Looked him straight in the eye and declared: “Focus on partylist gains instead of denouncing and kicking out whoever crafted the Villar alliance. Cover-up in lieu of criticism-self-criticism. It's nothing new."

I speared the last strawberry and ate it. -- #

PS

2010-04-27T15:16:00.001-05:00

I'm inundated with anti-Aquino propaganda from NP allies, cluttering my email, etc.

Thank you to all the other candidates and their allies who aren't sending me any.

Frozen Foreheads & Depression

2010-04-27T13:24:00.002-05:00

As the Philippines head on the homestretch to the 10th of May elections, one can already see the rough outlines of the attack tactics and content of the leading parties. Against the presidential candidate of the Nacionalista Party, the issues have been landgrabbing, stock manipulation, and use of government position to advance one’s private corporate interests. Against the presidential candidate of the Liberal Party, the issues have been land reform, involving the family hacienda (sugar plantation) and mental health.

The last was fueled by two fake medical reports alleging that the LP candidate suffered from depression during the Marcos Dictatorship, when his father was in jail. Hello! The whole country was depressed during the Marcos Dictatorship, for chrissakes! If you weren’t depressed, you were a crony. Period. This prejudiced, biased and discriminatory attitude toward mental health issues is just barbaric beyond belief – Abraham Lincoln was depressive but that didn’t stop him from being a transformational president.

Considering this low level of political discourse, I am surprised no one has said anything about certain candidates' botox-ed frozen foreheads as indicative of their massive vanity and swollen egos. Pfft!

There’s been little discussion even of survival issues: typhoons and flooding, over-population, food self-sufficiency, health care, education, women’s rights, unemployment and labor export, sub-contract work by multinational corporations, the balkanization of the archipelago with the sale of land, islands even, to foreign corporations, etcetera.

Instead what’s on full display is the Filipino’s genius for propaganda and myth-making, reducing the whole sheebang into a spectator-sport, much like boxing -- which probably explains the orgiastic hysteria. This is what democracy’s all about?

What could have been an opportunity for mass education on what it means to truly have control over one’s country has been lost. -- #

Last One Standing

2010-04-23T12:52:00.002-05:00

One has to give it to Atty. Robert Swift who has pursued, for 25 years, the class action suit of the 10,000 incarcerated, tortured, killed, during the Marcos Dictatorship. He and his law office just got the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse a Texas federal judge who dismissed a lawsuit for possession of 4,000 acres of land, said to be worth between $100-$150 million and said to be part of the Marcos Estate.

At roughly the same time, he won a $28 million claim in Singapore for the class action suit, which caused the Philippine government to ask for the list of names of the claimants. The court refused, saying the only purpose of this would be “retaliation by military and paramilitary groups who first abused these victims during the Marcos regime."

The case was filed way back in 1986 or nearly a quarter of a century ago. The legal principles established during this case, for which Atty. Swift won a judgment of $4 billion (with interest) has enabled other human rights abuse victims of other countries and other fascist governments to obtain cash judgments.

Unfortunately, not a cent has gone to the original Filipino claimants.

Everyone else seems to have made peace with the Marcos legacy. Me, I’d be happy to live on one acre… or maybe two.

Favorite Poem About the Earth

2010-04-23T00:47:00.002-05:00

O sweet spontaneous

by e.e.cummings

O sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting

fingers of
purient philosophers pinched
and
poked

thee
,has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy

beauty .how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and

buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true

to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover

thou answerest

them only with

spring)

---------------------------
For Earth Day 2010

Gabâ From a Comedian

2010-04-12T00:13:00.002-05:00

Visayan for come-uppance, whereby the thing we’re proudest of is destroyed, held up to the unbearable light of public ridicule. Manny Pacquiao, this time, since our noses went up a notch because of him, even though even a non-aficionada like me thought he was under-matched in the last two fights. This comedian not only dumped on him but, in true macho tradition, dumped on his people, especially “his” women – meaning the women of the Philippines, thus revealing the reality of how a large part of the world still looks upon us, despite Pacquiao.

Had Mr. Pacquiao responded with “I’ll give you three minutes in the ring with my legs shackled and my left hand tied behind my back,” I would have been edified. As it is, he merely forgave – FORGAVE!— the comedian who’s certainly NOT of the caliber of Stephen Colbert who nearly made me die of ecstasy with his comment that we have to fix Kyrgyzstan since it’s our top supplier of consonants. (FANNED!)

Mr. Pacquaio, listen up, I believe you have been under-matched in the ring and now over-matched with a low-brow comedian.

Meanwhile we all gear up to joust with said comedian. As we have done before, with a long list of quasi-, semi-, wannabe, celebs. I’ve done it myself, even threatening to picket the Oscars red carpet once, because I’m of the Philippines – meaning, nothing is worse than an insult, since we subscribe to the Schrodinger theory that nothing is what it is until it’s said to be what it is. Sex tours – maybe happens, maybe not, until someone points it out and then we shriek in fury.

I’m p---ed, people, because in the same week, some 300 Filipino teachers in Louisiana, aided by the American Federation of Teachers, sued a recruiting agency based in Los Angeles which, per the complaint, extorted thousands of dollars from this mostly female labor force. Horror of horrors, the agency owner is a kababayan, kalahi, katropa, ‘day, a compatriot, hija de… ONE OF US!

And there’s the rub, people. I wonder how many such material insult – outright exploitation – we’ve let pass, refusing to buckle on the armor of our righteousness, strap on the sword of our outrage because we accept that we can do unto one another what we expect the Other not to do to us.

We treat one another cavalierly, according to an internalized colonial value system; assume that work from a kababayan should be cheap, wages can be delayed, ideas stolen, help un-thanked, waste another’s time, and expect our own people to grovel before us…

A friend who’s a classical guitarist tells me he got a call from a woman wanting him to perform at her daughter’s 16th birthday party and who cruelly asks whether he could play Bahay Kubo, Leron-leron Sinta... I’m asked to edit something for free -- which was fine until I’m told that the favor-asker had hired a layout artist to set the text. To my face, WTF! It’s a class thing, you say, except the culprits aren’t even in my class. Nah, it’s colonial, feudal and imperialist. We’re cheap labor, simply because we're of the race.

Those who are not kalahi learn how to treat us by watching how we treat one another.

So raise the sword of outrage, get on the horse of righteousness and do battle on behalf of the 300… Fix the reality and the image will fix itself.

If not, we’ll get gabâ-ed over and over again, until we learn that respect should begin within our circle. -- #

Joke For the Church

2010-04-10T09:55:00.002-05:00

Just read this note admonishing priests to read Jose Rizal's Noli Me Tangere (Latin for Touch Me Not) which must have been taken from the (alleged) words of Jesus when he was newly risen. The note-writer translated it into Tagalog as 'Wag Mo Akong Hipuan or Grope Me Not...

Early Morning Big Laugh.

Love Those Bishops

2010-04-09T13:37:00.002-05:00

Ang Ladlad, a party-list political party for Gays, Lesbians, Bi-sexuals & Transgenders, was finally given the go-signal by the Philippine Supreme Court to participate in the elections.

I believe it was co-founded by the erudite Danton Remoto.

In any case, Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez, chairman of the committe on public affairs of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said that the bishops would discourage people from voting for Ang Ladlad. He said, “We recognize them, respect them, but their situation is an abnormality. The person is approving and encouraging an abnormality, which is unnatural.”

Dear Bishop Iniguez, pedophilia, not homosexuality, is what's abnormal.

(HEAD SHAKE)

Addendum

2010-04-05T02:02:00.003-05:00

News reports say a Benedictine monk from the Philippines has been accused of abusing a boy or boys in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He's now with the Abbey of Our Lady of Monserrat of San Beda.

Having grown up with stories of priestly shenanigans, I've often wondered how large a scandal would erupt once Filipinos/Filipinas get over their (ridiculous but absolute) fear of authority and decide to go for it...

In Queens, NYC, one Filipino priest was sued by a woman allegedly for taking advantage of her state of bereavement. A photo of him naked or half-naked was released and duly published by community newspapers.

I just adore our nastiness when we're aggrieved. #

All Hail To the Goddess Ostara

2010-04-03T21:08:00.005-05:00

Or Eastre – from which the words Easter and estrogen spring, and from whose rites –started sometime in 500 BC -- comes the egg, the ultimate fertility symbol.

Nanny used to wake me early Easter Sunday as the church bells rang and make me jump up and down on the bed so I’d grow really tall. I think she had dreams of raising a basketball star. Huge disappointment. I didn’t even get to tall.

Lent seems to grow bloodier and bloodier in the Philippines which spewed out gory images of flagellants shredding their backs to ribbons with thorny whips, of 25 people, including one woman, who had themselves crucified. Government issued an edict banning foreigners from crucifying themselves – and why not? – thus tacitly saying that only the local lower classes may do so.

STGdess, the idea that those who already suffer on a daily basis should corporeally punish themselves more and terribly one day of each year just does not compute to my mind. I don’t see the rich self-flagellating or nailing themselves to the cross, despite the admonition about the eye and the camel.

Unfortunately, this is the week as well when gory details of the sexual abuse of minors by priests and the resulting alleged Catholic Church cover-up or cavalier treatment of such are also spewing forth in global media, rendering the blood-sweat-tears religious passion of Filipinos almost a ridiculous contrapunta.

I can’t even be impressed by the 25 crucifixions nor by one woman letting herself be crucified – though that might make for apt symbolism as to how the Church treats women, what with the Bishops loudly demanding “off with its head” with regards to the condom, and “off with the vote” with regards to any candidate supporting the proposed Reproductive Health and Human Development bill before Philippine Congress. Six bishops have endorsed a "pro-life" candidate for president of the Philippines, that country of such ecological disaster and burgeoning population it's beginning to look like an early Delubio (The Deluge) over there.

And since I am nasty, I mutter that of course, they're all against repro health since their preferred partners can’t get pregnant. {cynical sneer}

With lawsuits, verbal attacks and defense over pedophile priests more strident each day, my one question is why those who knew about this evil did not report it to the police or some outside agency nor saw it as a criminal activity, and opted instead to leave the correction of the anomaly to the very organization to which the pedophiliac belonged. It took 14 years to defrock one such priest and he had access, it seems, to young people all that time.

Moral of the story: you leave one hierarchy to be prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner and all you get is injustice.

Which is why I’m going around saying “Praise be to Ostara!” -- #

For May First

2010-03-29T09:30:00.002-05:00

Gearing up for the May 1st immigrant rights mobilization, here are data to clarify the debate, from the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

• Immigrant workers come from Mexico (32%), the Philippines (4.9%),
India (4.9%), China (4.2%) and El Salvador (3.5%) -- top five
country-suppliers

• Immigrant workers comprise 15% of the workforce and 13% of unionized workers

• Immigrant workers who are unionized earn about $5 more per hour than
non-unionized workers.

It's curious that the Philippines -- which is quite a distance from the US and with a smaller population -- should rank equal to India. I am surmising that the Western-style educational system, a product of colonialism, comprises part of the impetus for emigration. I have to check whether the gender ratio for the Philippines (65% female) holds true for the other countries.

Being a predominantly female population has its advantages and disadvantages. The push to build a women's network is there; but the vulnerability to a predator (and that has many meanings to me, including political; many entities profess to be pro-woman but actually work to bring women under patriarchal control) is also pronounced.

Building sisterhood is always a step forward but replicating feudal or nativist power hierarchies among women works against equality. Such hierarchies are usually patriarchal based. Hierarchies, to my mind, should only be based on skill, ability, knowledge and capacity for work, so they represent more of a structure of competence and wisdom than anything else.

The drive for women's emancipation has or should have the undercurrent of enabling women to engage with one another and with society on the basis of democratic equality. The drive for women's liberation builds on this internal emancipation and pushes forward to crush class and other structures that exploit and oppress women. Minus one or the other and everything backslides.

My two cents for this month. -- ##

Factoids For International Women's Day

2010-03-08T00:38:00.002-05:00

Alexandra Kollontai, the only woman in Lenin’s Central Committee, wrote about her life and gave the book the title “Autobiography of a Sexually Liberated Woman.”

After the death of Ossip Zetkin, her lover and comrade, Clara Zetkin married George Friedlich Zundel who was 18 years her junior.

Better Educated But Still Crummy Jobs, Pay

2010-03-06T09:54:00.002-05:00

Saw this at www.globalsister.org.

Although more than half of the enrolled students around the world are women and girls, increased education has not lead to corresponding gender equality and achievement levels in employment and politics, and with regard to social norms. At all levels of education, school curiricula reinforce negative/traditional stereotypes of women as home makers, mothers, and devalued members of society. At the university level, many women are still confined to studying “soft” subjects within the social sciences, whereas men continue to dominate “hard” fields, like engineering, math, and technology.
....

In the Philippines, women have higher literacy scores than men, and more than twice as many women graduate from college (17.83% of women compared to 8.24% of men). However, women only represent 20% of engineering and law students, predominantly receiving degrees in female-dominated fields, like education and health. And alarmingly, in several regions of the world, for example Africa and parts of Latin America, while the majority of enrolled students are still female, the number of women and girls enrolled in school is declining.

It validates one distressing observation: Philippine women have just about done all the prescribed solutions to inequality but continuously find themselves in worse situations of gender oppression and exploitation. Note that majority of exported domestic workers from the Philippines are educated, some at post-grad level. And yet they find themselves back at household work. I half-suspect that calling such domestic workers serve to hide what should have been glaring: their re-feudalization in terms of the character of the work and in terms of what obligates them to accept becoming exported.

Oh, please, enough with the poverty narrative! That's just not the totality of it. - #

Factoid

2010-03-02T21:36:00.002-05:00

From Global Issues.org:

"For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment."

"The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money."

Is there a presidential candidate who will promise NOT to borrow or beg for aid?

A Traditional Election Spread

2010-02-28T07:44:00.003-05:00

Been getting emails asking what I thought of the coming (May) presidential elections. I sort of dithered, asking do I have to? (think about it, that is), one of the main reasons being that though there were so many candidates (99 who wanted to be president), 99% were uninteresting. If you’ve been born bored as I was, there’s no greater bane than uninteresting.

So finally, this week, when the inquiring emails reached a ridiculous 350, I took a look.

And decided I like the platform of Sen. Jamby Madrigal. Access it and read at her website – www.jambymadrigal.com. She seems to be engaged in a wide spectrum of concerns – from LRT long-lines to fisherfolks, to the Visiting Forces Agreement (she’s against it) and the Magna Carta of Women. Many women politician get to power by (re)molding themselves to symbolize the male traditional view of how a woman should be (as in non-controversial and malleable) and thus de-genderize themselves in the process, becoming a conduit for conservatism. Sen. Madrigal seems to have escaped this; seems, indeed, to have made it a point to buck this feudal-patriarchal system.

I say “seems” because I’ve never met her, don’t know her but must say I like her oomph and am sorry that she does not have as widespread support as she deserves.

Of the three principal candidates – Noynoy Aquino, Manny Villar and Gilbert Teodoro –I can’t seem to find anything new or exciting. Joseph Estrada one must discount, as there are no second acts in the Philippines, unlike the US.

Gilbert Teodoro suffers from the legacy of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo but despite that seems articulate and rational. Well-mannered, one must say.

Of Noynoy Aquino, just about all I say is that he's NOT likely to precipitate a Constitutional crisis to extend or maintain his power. Matter of family legacy. His father died for the 1935 constitution and his mother promulgated the 1987 constitution.

Not sure I can say the same for Manny Villar, who’s spending the peso equivalent of fistfuls of dollars to make it to the presidency, welding an unlikely alliance of right to left, making one wonder as to what his core values are…kind of indicating a monomania … It seems to me – seems again, as I’ve not met any of these protagonists and merely follow their pronouncements and actions through media – that Villar would not be one to hesitate were he to deem a constitutional crisis necessary to maintain, extend, enhance his powers.

That’s not an easy thought for someone who lived under martial law or has had to respond to many maneuvers of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her followers to maintain, extend, enhance her/their power this past decade.

A country whose constitution is constantly threatened does NOT have even an iota of security.

As for the rest, let me say right off the bat that I won’t even consider anyone backed by organized religion, religious sects, etc. The principle of separation of church and state was a hard-won one, through revolts, uprisings, revolutions, through centuries. Throwing it away simply because it is easier to live by dogma than to think and be responsible for one’s actions is just not my cup of tea – or coffee, preferably Jamaica Blue Mountain.

So we come to the final question: will I – should I -- endorse Jamby Madrigal? Hmmm, never endorsed any candidate before; nor am I sure it will do her much good but sure, why not, yes – on principle, based on her platform. -- #

Punk Rocker

2010-02-19T00:23:00.009-05:00

Thought the only unconventional one in my entire clan was moi -- until niece Kat Rosca Taylor showed up and showed me. Only daughter of my younger sister, she does heavy metal cum punk rock, writes lyrics and is the lead vocalist and sole female in a band called Saydie -- which she pronounces Sehdi but which I keep (mis)pronouncing as "say die" -- as in say what? Click on www.myspace.com\saydiemusic, if you dare.

A Birthday, An Anniversary & The End of Days

2010-02-05T16:36:00.002-05:00

Fortunately, at 6 pm, some establishments fire up the quasi-torches at their walkways. If perchance, you left your lighter, you can stand on tiptoe and light your cigarette by torch fire. Which is what I did one early evening, to the scandalized glances of passers-by. It is useless waiting for the next cig addict so you can beg for a light. There are none, this being Hawaii which seems to have hit upon a most efficacious way to get rid of smokers. On my first day here, I was happily puffing along a walkway when a security guard yelled: “There’s no smoking from here to the curb!” Meaning, step on to the street so a car can flatten you.

This is one reason I’m usually morose over the prospect of being here. An erstwhile friend snapped last year when I was preparing to leave, “yeah, we’re sorry you’re spending a month in Hawaii!”

Couldn’t tell her that the sea’s so vast, the horizon too far, the sun too sharp – all on a daily basis -- I end up feeling suicidal. Everything seems to say “yehey, that’s the way it is; nothing to do about it.” I become so stressed out I walk three hours every day.

There are, some residents assure me, trade-offs versus life in NY; people may be in one another's pockets over here but the relationship is closer, warmer. Too close maybe as to take for granted an abusive co-dependency. When a building guard started talking to me about myself, I began to really miss NY, where equal opportunity gossips are shunned, like a sinning Amish. One resident said, “sorry, there are no boundaries here.” I became paranoid, fearful that this stranger on a bicycle would stop and ask me questions about my life. Or that guy in flipflops. Or the cook at the corner diner.

In any case, ahead of the POTUS, I arrived here to a birthday cake (Photo A), which I was assured cost more than my actual birthday gift. So, minus three or four thin slices which were given away, I ate the whole thing, reserving for last the placard with the chocolate Happy Birthday. I suppose that meant that I would “disappear” last my being an activist. Or that I will fight to the bitter end for chocolate. I also got a bunch of flowers (Photo B). But no lei. Apropos of which, on my return trip, when I told a La Guardia Airport porter where I had come from, he shouted: “And did you get leid?” Cracked himself up. Minus $5 from your tip, you scandalous New Yorker.

Shortly after the birthday cake came a different birthday, commemorated with a statement, the 41st of its kind. One paragraph gingerly endorsed Sen. Manny Villar as “the most nationalist” of the presidential candidates. Hmmm. That gives Villar the most consolidated and most disciplined electoral machinery.

Ditto Bongbong Marcos.

Acid Reflux.

To make matters worse, this laconic doctor framed his laconic diagnosis in this laconic manner: best-case scenario -- “if the infection reaches the prosthesis, the leg could be lost;” worst-case scenario -- “this germ is lethal.” My hair, all 24 inches of it, stood on end and stayed that way for the five days of treatment. Not mine; I was merely pretend-home-health-caregiver. In the end, though, I became the proud parent of a surgery scar. Laconic doctor was good.

I watched New Year’s fireworks from a 25th floor lanai alone and thought of 40 years ago. If the progressive vote base is 3,000,000 -- that would average out to 75,000 “turned” per year. The population is 92 million and assuming10 per cent or 9 million adherents would suffice for radical change, that would mean 6 million more or 80 years additional. At zero population growth.

Math can be so depressing. Can someone point to a hidden exponential trend somewhere in the equation?

When I finally made it back to NYC, the Great Bear Hunter, Guapo, welcomed me with a catch (Photo C), trading it for five macadamia nuts.

And how was your End of Days? -- #

Dy Political Dynasty Back in Power

2009-12-08T15:35:00.003-05:00

COMELEC just removed Grace Padaca from the governorship of Isabela Province, Philippines, and claimed that Benjamin Dy won by 1,051 votes in an election that saw hundreds of thousands of votes cast.

The Dy clan has ruled Isabela for three decades -- 30, as in THIRTY, years.

Talk about the Manila government encouraging clan and warlord dynasties. COMELEC had absolutely no compunction about turning over an entire province to another warlord clan dynasty. Shameless. Truly shameless.

Btw, the Ampatuans in Maguindanao reportedly own 28 mansions in an area characterized as one of the most impoverished in the whole country. Arms caches unearthed consist of the most modern and most expensive in the world.

Where is the money coming from? Where did it come from?

An unremarked news report about the US suspendings its development programs in Maguindanao provides a clue.

Check out www.philippines.usaid.gov/programs_usaid_mindanao.htm. which lists all of said agency's programs in the area, including Maguindanao.

Here's a quote from its listing of "successes:"

4,500 disputes settled by community-based volunteers
81 clan conflicts settled in rido-prone provinces

Who are these "community-based volunteers" and how did they settle those disputes? Through heavier firepower? -- #

A Propensity for Tyranny

2009-12-07T20:35:00.002-05:00

De-Facto POTP Macapagal-Arroyo tends to overreact to events. Her Presidential Proclamation 1959 imposing martial law on Maguindanao echoes the hysteria of her PP 1017 which imposed a state of national emergency on the country in 2006.

PP 1959 nullifies the lesson of the Maguindanao massacre, which killed not only 57 people locally but also seriously crippled civil liberties nationally.

A wise government would move heaven and earth to revitalize the processes and observation of civil liberties – not impose a higher dimension of armed might and capability for violence on the people of Maguindanao.

The Philippine military is no respecter of the Philippine Constitution. It owes its allegiance to whoever funds its various departments and divisions and personnel – from warlords to the US government.

The Philippine military does not see the Filipino people as its ultimate commander-in-chief. As a matter of fact, it does not see one commander-in-chief but rather a whole ladder of commanders-in-chief, from political clan dynasties down to the corner sari-sari store owner who gives the soldier free drinks.

Military rule over Maguindanao will bring no relief against warlordism – just as military presence in the rest of the country brings no respite from warord clans.

That said, the lessons of the Maguindanao massacre appear to have been thoroughly lost on the political system itself. The senatorial slates of mainstream political parties are so heavily peppered with “names” – daughters of, sons of, cousins of…

Mac-Arroyo herself, not content with heading the government since 2001, is running for Congress and doing so virtually unopposed. Hoy, ale, tama na; mayaman ka na; mayaman na kayo. Ano ba? Will someone please run against this woman?

Shameless. Kapal-muks and, in the aftermath of the Maguindanao Massacre, intolerable.

We must see this burgeoning of political dynasties as part of the re-feudalization of the political system that imperialist globalization has wrought in the country. The latter destroys not only national economic borders but also the national sense of one-ness and identity.

One can only hope that the Filipino voter will respond in a tremendous backlash of disgust and vote for the unknown, unfamiliar and for programs rather than names. One can only hope, likely in vain, that such votes will be counted accurately -- or just counted. -- ##

Homicidal Maniacs -- OK; Gays- NOT

2009-11-25T19:34:00.002-05:00

It is preternaturally absurd of the Philippine Commission on Elections to refuse accreditation to ANG LADLAD, representing gays, lesbians, transgenders, etc., ostensibly because homosexuality is "immoral" even as the Maguindanao massacre reveals how homicidal maniacs are actually embedded in, part of, and, likely, standard bearers in various territories, of various mainstream election political parties.

Maguindanao Update

2009-11-24T19:44:00.003-05:00

47 people dead, bullet-riddled, some beheaded and/or mutilated; the women sexually molested... the kidnappers are said to be police and CAFGU (paramilitary); according to one report, Ampatuan, Jr.,allegedly led the ambushing 100 men...

Here's a statement:
***********************************
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Please forward...
November 24, 2009
Jollene Levid, GABNet Secretary-General
secgen@gabnet.org
Tel: 323-356-4748
AF3IRM/GABNET STATEMENT ON THE MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE:

ERADICATE WARLORD DYNASTIES TO GIVE JUSTICE
TO VICTIMS OF THE MAGUINDANAO MASSACRE

AF3IRM/GabNet condemns the murder of some 50 persons in Maguindanao, Philippines, including some 14 women, who appear to have been raped as well, and scores of media people. It is ironic that at the start of 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women, the Philippines should once again make news around the world for an act so vile it boggles the mind.

AF3IRM/GabNet condemns the continuing tolerance of and for petty feudal clan dynasties which are antithetical to the country’s claims of democracy. Feudal clan dynasties make a mockery of the Philippines’ self-characterization as a republic and reveal its barbaric political structure as nothing more than fiefdoms controlled through violence and suppression.

AF3IRM/GabNet holds the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo responsible for this climate of impunity toward the murder of journalists, political rivals and political critics. This administration has become the quintessential expression of lawlessness, power-addiction and violence that characterize puppet governments who rule through violence and against the consent and allegiance of the people. Warlordism has become rife in the country as Macapagal-Arroyo continues to allow her allies to build private armies, steal and loot from the public treasury, kill all those who dissent and consider themselves so coddled by the Macapagal-Arroyo administration they deem themselves to have the divine right to power by virtue of violence. OUST GLORIA NOW!

AF3IRM/GabNet demands absolute justice for the victims and punishment for all those responsible, including members of the Ampatuan clan who have been named as having committed and/or ordered this massacre. Let us not tolerate once again the historic pattern of political killings in the Philippines where masterminds get away scot-free while the hirelings are thrown under the bus by their overlords.

AF3IRM/GabNet notes that this unprecedented act of murderous barbarism occurs at a time when the United States has entered the Mindanao region in support of the Macapagal-Arroyo government, and that violence has escalated in the region since this incursion. US HANDS OFF MINDANAO AND THE PHILIPPINES!

And lastly, AF3IRM/GabNet reminds our Filipino brothers and sisters of the Islamic faith of this verse from the Holy Qu’ran: “And the servants of Allah… are those who walk on earth in humility, and when the ignorant address them, they say ‘Peace.’”
--
Jollene Levid
Email: secgen@gabnet.org
Website: www.gabnet.org
Association of Filipinas, Feminists Fighting Imperialism, Re-feudalization and Marginalization/GabNet

14 Women Killed in Maguindanao

2009-11-24T03:23:00.003-05:00

It’s around 3 a.m. and I am looking at a photo of Maguindanao 9-year governor Andal Ampatuan, who reportedly wants his son and namesake to succeed him in office, and wondering whether the flesh eventually comes to mirror the essence of the soul.

A hundred men – and the word "men" is used with deliberation – stopped a convoy of around 40 relatives and associates of Esmael Mangudadatu and media people covering the filing of his candidacy for governor. Survivors say that the men were Ampatuan's.

Twenty-four bodies thus far have been found, fourteen of them women with their pants unzipped, according to investigators on the scene.

How much will you bet that these hundred men will be thrown under the bus by their rich and powerful boss – for a short while, anyway – while he evades accountability? It's happened before, through the years, all the way back to the Aquino assassination.

Jeez, and this is the start of the 16 Days of Activism against Violence against Women. So now add "lady-killers" to the woman-batterer in the Arroyo government. Way to go, Gloria!

Zen and the Art of Disaster-Preparedness

2009-11-24T01:17:00.002-05:00

When the sea, propelled by back-to-back typhoons, flowed into Manila, I confess I was less than enthusiastic in responding to alarums about the destruction. Islands and people lying in the path of 22 typhoons annually should know after a thousand years how to deal with such disasters. Unfortunately, uncountable has been the number of times overseas Filipinos, friends, allies and even total strangers have been asked to respond to disasters in the Philippines: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons, earthquakes, typhoons and more typhoons… Each disaster is followed by a surge in sentimental patriotism, inspiring a near-orgasmic mobilization to “help our compatriots, we are one nation, one people, etc., etc…” --which of course leads to the inevitable after-glow of self-satisfaction that makes tolerable the sight of people gyrating once again in wa-wa-wee or whatever those abominable shows are called.

I had hoped sitting on my hands would convey the message that “you’re on your own, with the leaders you have chosen, on islands afloat the vast Pacific Ocean; you do have to grow up” and thereby inspire a quiet but firm determination among the typhoon-battered, who would thereby organize themselves into delegations and visit each government agency responsible for the mess and demand that whoever heads it commit seppuku. And if he/she does not, then a good medieval stoning would be most efficacious.

The ability to respond to disaster should be of Zen-alertness, 365 days a year – not a quick blowjob that temporarily takes away stress but resolves nothing. Focus, as the yogi would say; do not be distracted, said the Dalai Lama. Disaster-preparedness is Zen-like in its awareness of Time – of the past and the lessons thereof, of the present and what can be done today and of tomorrow and the probability waves that can come crashing down on one’s head.

Time, I must say, is one element we barely think about; our national ADD kicked in eventually, with the Pacquiao-Cotto fight as the lethean digestif – for which the Special Public Reconstruction Commission established by the Arroyo government should thank the heavens with great fervor as public attention was diverted from its apre-typhoon plans. The effing Commission would get down, it claimed, to removing water lilies from waterways, treating the leptospirosis victims and repairing school buildings. The Commission members do not appear to be struck by the absurdity of removing water lilies when the sea is surging in. Oi! I suppose that each removed water lily would cost $10000 in donated reconstruction and rehabilitation funds. I had just finished a short story about a retiring guerrilla, giving it the title of “In the Season of Water Lilies” and wondered briefly whether I should send it to the Commission. But then do the members thereof even bother to read? I say, a good medieval stoning. A really good medieval stoning, I say. -- #

Warehoused Relief Goods

2009-10-28T17:43:00.003-05:00

Relief goods donated from Asia, Europe and other parts of the world are said to be stockpiled in the Philippine government's Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) warehouses. Meanwhile, I am getting email about people starving, falling ill, sleeping in the streets, and girls signing up with traffickers.

The photos above were sent to me via email. Other photos show the pathetic bucket of soap, two thin mats, etc., which comprise what are actually distributed to the flood victims. Next year being election year, one can only assume that the undistributed goods are being held back for the campaign. There was one report of campaigners pasting the name of their candidate on relief goods. Eh, what else is new?

4th Typhoon

2009-10-16T09:01:00.002-05:00

Typhoon Lupit to possibly hit the Philippines on Oct. 21st, likely as a Category 4 storm. Lupit means cruel in Pilipino -- as in napalupit, kuya eddie... I'm trying to make light of a really bad karma for the country. Jeez, four typhoons in 30 days!!! Must be some kind of record.

The Foolish Old Man & One Smart Girl

2009-10-12T07:03:00.004-05:00

For GabNet’s 20th Anniversary Celebration in San Diego, California

The parable of the Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains was made famous by the late Mao Zedong. It goes like this:

An old man living in Northern China with his two sons found his way to the south blocked by two mountains. Irritated, he decided to dig up the two massive peaks and set to work with his two sons and some hoes. A neighbor asked what they were doing and upon receiving the reply, said that that was silly; the old man would die even before a dent was made on either mountain. Whereupon the foolish old man said that when he died, his sons would carry on; and then his sons’ sons, and his sons’ sons’ sons… and so on to infinity until the mountains were leveled. Mao used this to as a metaphor for the effort to remove imperialism and feudalism from China.

But that was only Part I of the parable. Here’s Part II:

As the foolish old man and his sons spent 10 hours each day digging up the mountains, their wives and daughters had to look for food to cook; to wash clothes soiled by the digging, to make beds so the men could recover energy for the next day’s dig and to generally keep homes in order and operating. Then there was the matter of the sons’ sons and sons’ sons’ sons, so the women also bore children, found other women to bear children, raised them, cared for them, taught them how to hoe and dig up the mountains. This went on for centuries.

One day a little Chinese girl looked at the path being made through the digging up of the mountains, looked at the women and said to herself: “This road will be of no use to me. I will have bound feet, a baby strapped to my back and pots and pans hanging from my left and right arms.” She went into the untouched forests and found a river that flowed southward. She returned to her home and told her mother. “If we built a boat,” she said, “we would get there sooner.” And thus the women, along with some men, built a raft and sailed southward.

The first 20 years of GabNet’s existence correspond to Part I of this parable, when we enabled other movements to endure, survive and achieve victories big and small. No one can beggar that record.

The next 20 years of our existence, whether under this name or another, will now correspond to Part II of the parable, when we enable our own movement to come to fruition, survive and endure, and achieve victories big and small.

Filipinos may leave the Philippines for economic reasons but their objective is not simply to get a job but also to build a life, to find a home, a community and a nation.

Twenty years are but the wink of an eye in the vast historical terrain of womankind’s struggle for emancipation and liberation. The next 20 years will be another wink of an eye. But if we find the southward-flowing river, we can likely make the way easier and achieve the dreamt-of society sooner, with no backward sliding.

Let us begin. -- #

For what?

2009-10-04T08:51:00.002-05:00

Eight US troops killed in Afghanistan; two in the Philippines. The latter was characterized as an "isolated incident" by a Philippine military general.

Events are usually "isolated" until an increase in frequency renders them commonplace.

As we all know, the occupation of Iraq started with hardly anyone among US/Coalition forces injured. Ditto with the invasion of Afghanistan. - #

In San Diego

2009-10-03T21:32:00.001-05:00

October 8th -- 11th. I'll be attending the 20th anniversary celebration of GabNet. See y'all there.

Victim Registration Blues

2009-10-02T11:52:00.002-05:00

Philippine Government dole-out to victims of typhoon Ketsana:

Three (3) cans of sardines
Two kilos (4 pounds) of uncooked rice
Four packages of noodles
One bottle of mineral water...

To be received after hours lining up.

Government now wants to separate child victims of the typhoon from their parents.

????

Contact secgen@gabnet.org to send direct help to the victims.

Supertyphoon -- Bad Karma

2009-10-01T13:21:00.003-05:00

Supertyphoon Pharma, with winds up to 147 mph (seven short of a category 5 typhoon) will hit the Philippines this weekend, scything through Bicol, which still hasn't recovered from the last typhoon that leveled its villages. Photo of Pharma from NASA.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has decided “to register typhoon victims,” for fear that some receiving aid were “bogus victims.” Hai, how this government distrusts its own people, even the afflicted!

Meanwhile as well, typhoon orphans are missing. Fears are that they will have no recourse but to join hundreds of thousands of street children into petty crimes, drugs and prostitution. Meanwhile, the contraceptive ban remains.

GabNet is raising donations for Operation Sagip-Bata (Children Rescue). Please contact secgen@gabnet.org if you wish to help. And hey, you must help; otherwise, this bad karma will go around. -- ##

Mother of All Floods

2009-09-29T14:25:00.003-05:00

The first appeal letter to reach my desk from the Philippines was from CONCERN, which describes itself as a service-oriented disaster response institution and as the Secretariat of Oplan Sagip Bayan (OSB), a loose network advocating for preparedness against the impact of disaster…. The OSB convenors are: Fr. Albert Suatengco, Bishop Deogracias Iniguez and Atty. Jose Suarez.

Part of their letter follows:

The tropical storm Ondoy which entered the country on September 26, 2009 severely affected NCR, Central Luzon, CALABARZON and Region IV leaving 183 dead, 29 missing, 86,313 families affected and 23,126 families in evacuation centers. The scope and severity of the disaster were so massive that up to this writing, the rescue operations and interventions are on going in these areas.

In Metro Manila, Ondoy dumped 13.4 inches of rain in just six hours compared to 15.4 inches of average rainfall for the entire month of September, which caused the worst massive flooding in more than 300 barangays. The floodwater rose to 10-15 feet which practically made major thoroughfares non-passable and affected more than 86,313 families or 435,646 individuals.

In Central Luzon, the heavy rains were aggravated by the breaching of two dams to its maximum spilling capacity submerging 13 towns in Bulacan and affecting 24,301 families. In Pampanga, 19,687 families were affected in 11 towns. Pampanga River and Gugu-Dolores creek overflowed breaching bridges, while 30 meters river dike eroded in Apalit. The heavy rains had also caused landslide in San Juan Bano, Arayat burying 100 houses with reported 12 deaths.

Zambales, which still has to recover from the wrath of two successive typhoons Maring and Kiko, was further devastated by Ondoy. There are more than 4,100 families affected in 3 towns while 200 families had to be re-evacuated from an evacuation center in Botolan which was destroyed by the flood. The national road was submerged to 4-6 feet making it non-passable to all vehicles.

Meanwhile, in Northern Quezon, 180 families from 4 barangays in Infanta and 231 families from 5 barangays in Nakar were affected by the flood water. The bridge connecting the South and North Barangay Minahan of Nakar town were washed out.

In Pampanga alone, the damage to agriculture and infrastructure are estimated to cost 213.7 million pesos. The cost of damages in agriculture and infrastructure in Central Luzon and the other three regions are expected to increase.

Since then I have received appeals from about a dozen organizations and passed them on to various organizations and people in the US and elsewhere in the world.

GabNet has issued a call to all members, alumni and allies to respond with donations of goods, especially for children, and cash to help alleviate the misery of this typhoon, which was not even a strong storm. The disaster was caused mainly by the continuing lack of water-consciousness in an archipelago that floats on the sea: no drainage, canals paved over, trees cut down, an incredible population density in cities and towns, a government more concerned with power politics; and politics more concerned with power than the language of survival. As they say, hay buhay nga naman, parang life.

Another storm is brewing over the Pacific. If you want to help, please contact secgen@gabnet.org. -- #

Celia Pomeroy, RIP August 22

2009-09-01T01:13:00.004-05:00

Am not exactly sure what to say about Celia Mariano Pomeroy -- one of the few women’s names prominent in the Philippine struggle, first, against Japanese occupation and later, against US imperialism. She had been with the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (People’s Army Against the Japanese)during WWII and after, with the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (People’s Liberation Army) -- the Huks, as I've heard Americans call them. She was a member of the politburo of the PKP, the old Communist Party established by Crisanto Evangelista. Not too many remember her but as a child, I had seen a rather poignant photo of her and husband, William Pomeroy, in some newspaper. They were both in shackles and exchanging an awkward kiss. This must have been at the time of their capture. They would spend the next ten years in separate jails.

Peace, sister; some remember you did your share.

Rumor

2009-08-27T23:32:00.002-05:00

I can't verify but picked up some chatter about the 600 US Special Forces stationed permanently in the Philippines -- one of the reasons for their presence is a reported plan to move Guantanamo prisoners or maybe Guantanamo itself to the archipelago.

Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised since the prison facility was constructed by Filpino carpenters under contract to KBR and it's still being reportedly maintained by Filipino custodial workers.

Does anyone have the capacity to verify?

Tech stuff

2009-08-22T00:10:00.001-05:00

I'm supposed to paste this on this site. I have no idea who did this.

Comments

2009-08-17T07:02:00.002-05:00

Big brouhaha over health care and a public option for medical insurance. I’m wondering why no one has pointed out that the fear over “socialized” medicine is actually corporate fear of losing one of the shackles that keep people at wage slavery. One memorable moment I had in Holland was talking to this 40-year-old fan of John Cheever (he was fascinated that I had met Mr. Cheever) who was preparing to quit his job to contemplate “serious questions about life.” Having a public option might just tempt so many people to forgo work designed to enrich CEOs and retire to contemplate the meaning of existence.

My doctor is so overworked I try to make appointments only once every two or three years. It’s because he accepts the cheaper kind of medical insurance, so his office is always full of “ethnics,” as it were. His doctor-partner just left, he tells me with sorrow; and did I know any doctor who would be willing to partner with him? His home, he tells me, is on the other side of the city but he opened his clinic close to my neighborhood because he wanted to serve his people. He is Argentinean. I tell him I had a friend who was a “disappeared.” He says me, too. Eight of the medical personnel rounded up with him during the bloody coup were killed.

So I tell him about being in Camp Crame during the Marcos dictatorship. Then, as I was leaving, having completed my check-up, he says, I’m pleased to meet you. He’s been my doctor for a while but I knew what he meant.

---------

Big brouhaha over the $20,000 dinner hosted by de-facto President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at Le Cirque on 58th Street, Manhattan. The dollar amount translates to some one million pesos – quite a price for a country where four of ten Filipinos go to bed hungry. My response is a little off; I keep wondering what the hell they ate – human flesh? Was Hannibal Lecter the chef?

In any case, the gustatory connoisseur among us go to Shanghai Joe’s in Chinatown, where the soup dumpling tastes like it’s worth its weight in gold but considerably cheaper.

The $20T dinner made me feel so embarrassed over my preferred comfort food, arroz caldo – eaten when I’m distressed – which cost like $5.95 in any Pinoy joint here that I uncorked a bottle of ice wine, a gift from the last time I lectured in Canada and which I’d learned since then cost $50 for the equivalent of two glasses of wine. Ice wine comes in teeny-weeny bottles. As it went down my gullet, I thought: well, jeez, I worked so very hard for this ice wine, I might as well drink the thing, considering that those who don’t work as hard spend $20T for a meal.

Conspicuous consumption being contagious, it was a good thing there was only one bottle of ice wine. Do you now understand why the Philippines is always in massive debt?

A Cory Moment

2009-08-10T15:01:00.002-05:00

The 1987 Philippine Constitution is Corazon C. Aquino’s legacy. Any dismantling and/or revision of that Constitution would be a direct nullification of her post-Marcos leadership and thereby erase for all of history what she had wrought.

Beyond that, there’s nothing else to say.

I did have a “Cory Moment,” though it had nothing to do with the former president. It was some sort of epiphany, albeit the wrong kind.

After the January 22, 1987 Mendiola Massacre – Cory’s troops fired on a rally calling for agrarian reform and killed 13 peasants and wounded more – an “indignation rally” was called.

This “indignation rally” was front-lined by a virtual who’s who in the anti-Marcos movement. In front of the presidential palace, Cory’s top aides also lined up, blocking the road; they too had been heavyweights in the movement to overthrow the Marcos dictatorship but they wielded state power at this time.

A tense moment ensued as the two groups eyeballed one another. Then they broke ranks, threw arms around one another, shook hands, etc.

I realized then that at a certain level, politics were a matter of “entre nous,” just among the likes of us, etc.

A more cynical moment I had not had. Nor have had since.

By the way, no one was held liable for the 13 peasants killed at Mendiola.

Perhaps, unbeknownst to us, this moment helped define or move the boundaries of what were acceptable in terms of compromise, alliance, paths to state power, etc.

Perhaps.

SONA, etc.

2009-07-31T08:38:00.002-05:00

State of the Union Address 2009 by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo -- YAWN, as in 2008 SONA.

Meeting between POTUS Barack Obama and de facto Phil. Prez GMA -- The latter traveled 10-15 hours by air over the Pacific and half-way across the US continent for a 30-minute conversation. What? Not even a beer? Press conference afterwards: statements were a total YAWN from both sides. Let's face it; Philippines just too insignificant in world affairs, mainly because its foreign policy is predictable, as in whatever POTUS wants, POTUS gets.

Beer summit lasted longer.

Prostitution Issue -- 2

2009-07-25T09:49:00.001-05:00

Or to put it more bluntly:

decriminalization is about the right to engage in prostitution;
legalization is about the right to open brothel houses...

Should Prostitution Be Legalized?

2009-07-24T10:42:00.002-05:00

More than a decade ago, this question was raised by a global organization funded by the same instrumentalities acting as the advertising arm of economic globalization. We opposed it then as now, opting instead for decriminalization. Though they are close in goals and objectives, fine distinctions still exist between legalization and decriminalization.

The most important of these is that legalization would institutionalize and codify one of the pillars of women’s oppression: the ideological perspective that they and their bodies can be bought and sold.

Those in prostitution represent a small segment of the female population, even though women – and poor women of color – comprise roughly 95% of the global sex trade’s commodity. Yet legalization would establish a social and economic principle for ALL women… namely, that they and their bodies can be. should be, a commodity.

Corollary to this social principle underlying legalization is the perspective that even the most intimate of human relations can be reduced to the cash nexus – and hence ALL human relationships are reducible to cash and commodity trading.

It is the ultimate expression of women’s oppression and exploitation under capitalism.

It is also the ultimate affirmation of the patriarchal principle, embedded in all of class society, that women are not human beings.

Make no mistake about it; this struggle is an ideologically defining one for what should comprise women’s liberation. -- #

Mother Burning

2009-07-06T00:14:00.002-05:00

Aum, shantih, Isabel. Safe return.

A hundred years contained in a foot-high urn of white marble.

Pale Journey

2009-07-06T00:10:00.001-05:00

Her body finally decided to follow her migrating soul. She stopped eating. Organ by organ, her internal system shut down, until the last ember of life winked out. It was a week of deaths, big and small – Julius Fortuna, whom I’d known in college, passed away, Farah Fawcett succumbed to cancer, Michael Jackson’s heart stopped and the rosemary plant on my kitchen window sill turned gray.

So it was that I found myself tossing clothes into a suitcase, harrying friends and the Internet for a plane ticket, handing the ewok Guapo II to Chevy, the apartment keys to Mona and making futile attempts to impose order upon my residence before I took the bus to La Guardia Airport, on the start of a 22-hour flight back to the archipelago where, last time, I had found myself on a black-cum-hold-order list, fighting for constitutional rights, even as all of GabNet was being betrayed.

The airport’s international gateway was festooned with signs about swine flu (A-H1N1) and over the public address system, a voice repeatedly admonished the listener to wash hands and cover one’s mouth when sneezing. Staff and some passengers wore gauze masks.

Most of the 22 hours I spent sitting next to a very pink, very large Caucasian male. He came in drunk, fell asleep, woke up to eat the served meal and to order wine. Asleep, his head lolled toward mine, his pink and hairy arm dangled from the seat rest to occupy half of my space. Hey, I paid as much for my seat as he did for his, probably more because Mirk had to book me two days before the flight. I slid a pillow between his elbow and my ribs and pushed back. Didn’t work. In desperation, I sneezed three times in his direction; that made him sit straight up. Cover your mouth, he said; stay in your space, I responded. Good thing cold air tickles my nose.

A wake is akin to a Book of Numbers session, all about who begat who upon whom. When a young man approached, took my hand and touched it to his forehead, in the feudal sign of respect, I blurted out, “who’s this?” Oh, the eldest son of so-and-so. Ah. Later, he sat beside me and asked how old I was. In the clarity of death’s presence, I saw his script unfolding. He would say oh, you look so much younger than my father! And what could, will, I say to that? That’s because your father is an alcoholic and a fool to boot. So I looked him straight in the eye, grabbed a number out of thin air and replied: 45 – which, of course, was impossible. That rendered him non-plus. Kiddo, you don’t eff around with the family black sheep.

No one spoke about the dead, only the line of antecedents stretching from her to time’s beginning. My maternal grandfather’s name, I finally found out, was Enrique Villarica; my grandmother, Josefa Pilapil – a curious thing, since only a certain stratum of “natives” had been allowed by Spanish colonizers to keep their indigenous names, all others having to Hispanize theirs. Pilapil in Tagalog means the small soil embankments that define a rice field, dikes to hold water in and allow farmers to walk from one rice paddy to the next. We knew nothing about this grandmother; we knew a lot about Enrique, begat by a Spanish priest upon a 15-year-old bought with two bags of gold from her husband, the church cook. This happened in Majayjay, province of Bulacan, where years later, the Philippine Republic would be founded, the first Constitution approved by anti-colonial revolutionaries.

Enrique was a drunk (a family male tradition which made all the women shy away from alcohol) and drove his daughter, my mother, into extreme angst each time he passed out over the tram rails. Mother, seven years old, hiccupping with sobs, trying to drag her father off the rails while screaming for the trolley to stop, madre de dios, anak ng pating... Maman was third to the last of seven siblings – five females, two males; in a pattern that would repeat itself, the youngest, a male named Celin, would be the first to go; he killed himself. Then, the other male. Maman was the last, having survived her sisters, all of whom lived to their ninth decade. She was 100.5 years old.

Then, my scalp jumps with surprise when I am told that our great-grandmother’s name was Ana – a name that had not, until now, appeared in our book of numbers. This was my lelang… I had used the name Anna for the final character of the novel State of War. What kind of coincidence was that?

I wondered what Ana and the priest would think of their descendants, this motley assortment of tribes gathered, still warring, in this funeral parlor. Few now carry the priest’s name; that has been left to the descendants of a small town who, because the priest excused them from one yearly tribute to the King of Spain when the crops failed, took his name in gratitude. Likely, of Ana’s and the priest’s progeny’s progeny, I am the strangest – the earliest to run away and to run farthest from the family but who remains, paradoxically, the most driven by family history.

The casket lay on its stand, in its own ambience of entropy and time. Her caregiver of five years wanted my mother barefoot inside the casket – that was tradition, she said, so should the dead come visiting, the living won’t hear the footsteps. I looked a wordless reply at her: Oh my dear, we were born with the footsteps of the dead already echoing in our ears. -- ##

Staying Too Long

2009-06-17T10:56:00.002-05:00

She should be watching the events in Iran -- de-facto Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should, really. She who is now trying to change her country's constitution -- which would be what? the fifth, the sixth, change in less than a hundred years? -- so she can continue to occupy the post of boss of bosses.

There's no exception to the rule that those who overstay will be thrown out. I'm sure that there will be "high moral grounds" used to justify her continuing in office beyond what is Constitutionally mandated -- as in, "the country needs me," etc.

Big difference between service for life and leadership for life. The first is selfless; the second is mere self-indulgence.

From Code Pink

2009-06-14T14:25:00.001-05:00

The (Ahava) company’s main factory and its visitors’ center are located in the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem in the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank. Ahava products are labeled as of 'Israeli origin,’ but according to international public law, including the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, the West Bank cannot be considered to be part of the State of Israel. Not only does Ahava profit from the occupation by locating its main plant and store in an illegal Israeli settlement, it also uses in its products mud from the Dead Sea, excavated in an occupied area, and thus it exploits occupied natural resources for profit. The fourth Geneva Convention explicitly forbids an occupying power from removing the captured natural resources for its own use, and we see this as another charge for which this company should be held accountable.

Going through my medicine cabinet; throwing out all Ahava products, OMG!

Nice Book Cover

2009-06-04T17:48:00.002-05:00

Click on photo to supersize.

Life or a Lifetime of Pain

2009-06-04T13:04:00.001-05:00

There’s one in practically every village of the Philippines: a child handicapped, genetically malformed, misshapen or “soft in the head,” as they say; the butt of jokes, of exploitation, of abuse – physical and sexual – and no one seems to know what to do about it. The child is often the eighth or ninth or twenty-fourth pregnancy, born of an exhausted uterus, in a country where pre-natal care is largely absent and where services for those not fully equipped to deal with life’s vagaries are non-existent, for all practical purposes. And every Sunday, millions of women go to a church where women’s reproductive rights are abhorred, where the primary mission, for which millions of pesos in donations are spent, is the maintenance of massive churches, of converting the heathens, of ensuring the well-being of less than 20,000 priests.

Such children come to mind when I read about the murder of Dr. George Tiller, whose vilification by anti-women fascists is proceeding apace. The rhetoric is amazing; he is called a “mass murderer” – a label the same people would not apply to those who launched the Iraq war that killed over a million Iraqis and over 4,000 Americans. He is called a “late-term abortionist” – without the necessary explanation that such abortions were done because the fetus was severely malformed, genetically handicapped and/or threatened the mother’s health. He is said to have “reaped what he sowed” -- a justification of his murder, with nary a second of compassion for the women whose health and lives he saved, for the families he spared from a lifetime of onerous burden, for the children who otherwise would have lived decades of a mindless and painful existence.

Only once in my long life have I seen an abortion done; a friend in her 50s had gotten pregnant and decided she had neither the will, resources nor the courage to continue with it. She asked me to accompany her. The experience was so traumatic that I gained new respect for the women who have to face such a decision. Considering that this was at a Park Avenue clinic, I can barely imagine what back-alley abortions must be like.

That women will be the last to achieve liberation is a statement often made by political pundits. We never quite understand why.

It will take a lot of work and study and willingness to think before we see how women’s oppression comprises the bottom rung of this hierarchy of oppressions within which we live. The threat of women becoming equal, in ways big and small, is so general, so profound, so alien to even the way class society thinks that the response to it is vicious, vehement and volatile. Be aware. -- #

May Day Rallies

2009-05-02T03:15:00.003-05:00

Only photos: New York, Los Angeles, San Diego. Waiting for more photos. Enjoy. Click on photo to supersize.

On Torture

2009-04-29T10:23:00.002-05:00

It is impossible to mock torture because torture itself is derision. It repudiates our commonly held value of physical sovereignty. Such antics as Limbaugh slapping his face and calling it torture, or Hannity offering to be waterboarded for charity are simply of the ignorance of those who have never felt powerless, hapless and without recourse to any manner of relief from being brutalized.

Torture never takes place in the sanitized atmosphere of the torture memos’ “calibrated waterboarding.” Torture sessions are never clinical. Torture takes place in a climate of lewdness, accompanied by jeers, sniggering, sweat, yelling and small and large acts of verbal and physical humiliation. Torture is of the cesspool of human pleasures; it shares the same fountainhead as slavery, serial killing, pedophilia, rape and battering, as well as the financial indifference that does not spare a second of concern over a widow on a pension whose savings will be dissipated in a ponzi scheme. Torture destroys what is supposed to be the inviolate link of human to human, that which makes us one species.

The perfect illustration for torture is the photo of the female soldier delighted by a wall of naked buttocks at Abu Ghraib. No pain here; just the destruction of the human sense of self-respect – both of the tortured and the torturer.

Torture survivors can tell you how a perfectly calibrated double open-hand slap over the ears can burst eardrums. Torture survivors can tell you how many mild open-hand slaps on the cheeks will ultimately bruise the jawbone, dislocate the jaw or shatter it into 14 small fractures. Torture survivors can tell you of the intense pain caused by irrational act of torturers plucking one’s eyebrows and eyelashes, a hair at a time. Torture survivors can tell you of the incandescent pain of hot candle wax dripped on the fingernails. Torture survivors can tell you of how the whole body convulses, the brain clamps down in panic over 15 seconds of water in the nose and mouth and lungs. No air, no air – your entire body screams. And if the dead can speak, they will tell you how difficult it is to calibrate human pleasure at such sessions of sadism, and of how an un-calibrated half-a-sec can lead to death.

Torture is derision. One cannot scoff at it. -- ##

Data of Interest

2009-04-26T09:48:00.001-05:00

From a GABNet Youth statement on sexual violence among US young people: Over 1 in 5 female students between the 9th and 12th grade reported physical or sexual violence, or both, from a dating partner. Between 30-50% of Latina, South Asian, and Korean immigrant women have been sexually or physically abused by an intimate male partner - a percentage well over that for the general national population of women. Women and girls living in poverty are twice as likely to be raped than those who are not. Despite this, only 2% of rapists are convicted and imprisoned.

Smith Acquitted by Appeals Court

2009-04-24T00:37:00.004-05:00

Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith was acquitted by the Philippines Court of Appeals. Are you surprised? The decision was penned by three women judges. Are you surprised? Stand-in women are used throughout the political spectrum. I believe the other term Lerner uses for them is "deputy husbands."

The majority of humanity -- women -- have been trained by various political systems NOT to bond with one another and have thus failed to develop a sense of their collective self. Women have learned that to advance through any system sodden through with patriarchal values, they have to step on women who try to break through the construct (see The Matrix to understand this).

Events like this underscore the national demoralization that feeds the Philippine government's labor export program. Women are leaving by the hundreds of thousands, in the belief that whatever Elsewhere is, it's better than the situation at home.

Having spoken to hundreds of such migrant women, I have come to see how women see themselves faring in the Philippines (the subjective factor)impacts as strongly as the poverty blamed for migration (the material factor). Their constant mantra is simple: there are no possibilities and therefore no hope over there.

There will be virulent reactions to this post, I am sure. Actually, the foul-mouthed vitriol emanating from some males have been quite amazing (see comments on the Nicole post below). In a way, it explains why murder is the #1 occupational hazard for women in the US and why 51% of women killed here by their husbands are foreign-born. The compound of sexism and xenophobia is infinitely murderous. -- #

Petition for Journalist

2009-04-23T13:13:00.003-05:00

Please sign the Women's International Media Foundation petition to free US journalist Roxana Saberi who is imprisoned in Iran. The petition is at www.wimf.org. Or click on the title of this post to access the website. Thank you.

An Enduring Act of Political Violence

2009-03-27T20:58:00.002-05:00

As we close Women's Month, let us revisit these words by Gerda Lerner: Women have always made history as much as men have, not 'contributed' to it, only they did not know what they had made and had no tools to interpret their own experience. What's new at this time is that women are fully claiming their past and shaping the tools by means of which they can interpret it.

Denial of the right to historical signification is an enduring act of political violence against women, who ironically actually comprise majority of the world's population. It occurs again and again, throughout historic time, with impunity. No one calls authority to account for the crime, because it is more comfortable to be a stand-in woman than a liberated one.

To appreciate the irony, consider that of the 50 persons designated by the Financial Times as framers of the debate on the future of capitalism, 5 (as in FIVE) are women. Meaning women have little or no say at all as to the shape of the future; they should only suffer in silence.

This denial of the right to history loops women's development into repeated beginnings -- because liberation for women is not possible while preserving, at the same time, patriarchal dominance. Hence, women's social and political evolution must be truncated again and again, the knowledge they accumulated through experience declared untenable, "out of line," wrong, etc., so that they can never reach that eureka moment of understanding that oh, liberation is comprehensive -- i.e., not only in terms of production but also reproduction; not only in terms of production relations but also in terms of social, political and gender relations.; that historically, women's experience of class itself has been arbitrated by gender; that there are specific characteristics of women's class oppression.

This act of political violence against women erases their history often at the instant of its making -- all words, all acts washed away upon the dictates of those who have arrogated unto themselves the right to decide what is history and what is not, what is significant and what is not. And their prime weapon in this act of political violence is the stand-in woman.

Remember this, if nothing else, about the 31 days of this month, March, in the year 2009. -- ##

An Open Letter to President Obama on the Nicole/VFA Case

2009-03-19T18:20:00.002-05:00

I understand this was sent today. -- N

March 18, 2009

His Excellency, Barack H. Obama
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20500

Cc: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi

Dear President Obama:

We write to you because we are disturbed and anguished by reports that the U.S. government was complicit in the attempt to frustrate the course of justice with regard to the rape conviction of Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith in the Philippines.

A majority of our members are women of Philippine ancestry who already have to contend with the persistent reputation of Filipinas as among the most trafficked women in the world, both in the international labor and sex markets, and as among those so victimized by sexual and domestic violence.

Nine of the eleven women recently killed by intimate partners in Hawaii were Filipinas, who also comprise 40% of women killed by intimate partners in San Francisco. Filipino-American communities, from New Jersey to Honolulu, suffer a high rate of violence against women. This perception of Filipinas as "fair game" for sexual and other forms of violence was created, among other causes, by more than a hundred years of being prostituted to the U.S. military.

Enabling a member of the U.S. military now to avoid legal repercussions for having sex, to the rowdy cheers of his fellow soldiers, with an indisputably intoxicated 22-year-old woman, who was then tossed out of the van in a state of semi-undress and semi-consciousness, is certainly not the change we have been waiting nor looking for. These facts were not disputed at the trial in the Philippines that convicted Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith in 2006.

Many states in the United States itself accept by law the fact that an inebriated woman cannot consent to have sex. This inability to give consent supersedes any other circumstance that may appear to encourage sexual attention, like wearing a short skirt, being flirtatious, or even kissing the violator. In those states, what transpired between “Nicole” and Cpl. Smith would be considered rape, especially as nothing was brought forth at the trial that would imply consent on Nicole’s part.

We worry now that because of this bargain between the U.S. and Philippine governments, U.S. military personnel may return to the U.S. believing that soldiers have the right to force sex upon women in whatever circumstance. No doubt you are already familiar with the unconscionable rate of sexual harassment, rape and violence against women suffered by female soldiers and military wives. This will but add to the U.S. military’s mistaken impression that war, occupation or just being more powerful and with more weapons than anyone gives them the right to defy U.S. laws, host countries’ laws and international law.

The Nicole incident happened in November, 2005 and the following year, in September, 2006, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza was gang-raped and murdered, along with her parents and younger sister, by U.S. troops in Iraq.

If, way back in November 2005, the U.S. government and the U.S. military had taken a strong stand against our troops inflicting sexual violence/violence upon women in general and upon women of host countries in particular, then we would not have this spectacle of avowed “liberators” gang-raping and killing those they purportedly “liberate.”

Instead, the U.S. military threatened the Philippine government with cancellation of humanitarian aid, with cancellation of joint military exercises, and the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines did everything possible to frustrate the carrying out of justice for the rape of Nicole.

This is not the change we waited for.

In this era of change you vowed to bring with your inauguration as president, at the very least, we are asking for specific provisions protective of women, and against violence against women, trafficking and prostitution in each and every military agreement, every Status of Forces and Visiting Forces Agreement, that U.S. enacts with another country.

This would help institutionalize, on a global scale, the pro-women stance that your administration made visible through your signing of the Ledbetter Act and the creation of the White House Women’s Council.

Thank you. We await your reply – preferably with action.

Respectfully yours,

Annalisa Enrile (interim Chair) Candace Custodio (Chair-elect)
Jollene G. Levid (Secretary-General)

GABRIELA NETWORK OF THE MARIPOSA ALLIANCE

On Nicole

2009-03-18T18:11:00.003-05:00

Suzette’s (aka Nicole) sworn affidavit was carefully crafted to provide “mitigating circumstances.” It is possible for this to become the basis of a reduction in sentence (like "time-served" in the U.S. embassy; or the 30 days in a Makati jail) or a presidential pardon for the convicted Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith.

It’s a shadow-play which solves nothing regarding the one-sided Visiting Forces Agreement and the underlying U.S. military’s perception and treatment of Filipinas in general as five-letter women good only for prostitution.

Remember the U.S. troops' statement that they thought Suzette was "a professional." -- ##

The Washing Machine Liberated Women

2009-03-09T03:11:00.002-05:00

So said the Vatican, in its first International Women's Day message.

What do you make of that?

Women's Day in the Sun

2009-03-09T01:38:00.003-05:00

March 8th – and looks like the 20,000 words per day women use (as opposed to men’s 7,000) were all deployed to celebrate IWD. A few men did use their 7T to say something about women but by today, 09 of March, they have likely forgotten all about us, except in terms of – ah well, you know what.

In any case, silence was my choice for IWD. Went here and there, was impressed by many talks, speeches, statements; savored every dish in the usual wall-to-wall buffet of the migrant workers who will open their first training on gender rights for domestic workers next month (email gabnetnynj@gmail.com or call 212 592 3507, if you want to participate). Checked the Internet, radio, TV, for news of marches, demonstrations, tried to respond to questions verbal, email and otherwise, and was assailed by an unbearable mood, suddenly recalling driving through the redwood forest of California with Mirk and telling her, if we don’t make it this time, let’s just come back and do it again and again and again, to the end of time – it being women’s liberation.

Looks like we might just have to be reincarnated, because though IWD is 100 years old in the US and 98 for the rest of the world, the questions, doubts and hesitancies remain the same, as though women’s history and women’s struggles lie outside the pale of dialectics and must loop back to square one, hit the re-set button periodically, so we do Herstory every 20 years or so, re-inventing the wheel, as it were. It’s enough to cause us to tear our hair and call ourselves WMD (women of mass destruction) as we lay down the narratives created out of women’s blood, sweat and tears to the god of amnesia as demanded by patriarchal authority.

This is the only history I know of that is perceived as without a continuum. In other words, the questions and discourse remain the same, hay naku!

Isn’t asking for women’s equality under this exploitative system simply asking for the right to be equally exploited? Yes, if one believes that equality can be achieved under an exploitative system (which is of course ridiculous); no, if one knows that no exploitative system can provide complete equality because it is organized on the basis of disenfranchisement, deprivation and marginalization. Hence complete equality demands the dismantling of the system of exploitation. However, it is important to ask for equality under any system because doing so is part and parcel of the historical process of women developing a sense of their collective Self as women.

If this were the argument, that equality is simply the right to be equally exploited, what was the point in asking for the right to vote? Only the ruling class and its minions prevail in the electoral process, anyway. Or for the right to go to school? Or even the right to drive a vehicle? Why bother fielding such campaigns as “take back the night” in the face of the nihilistic argument that there’s no point to being safe from rape and assault in a society maintained by the violence of exploitation?

On the other hand, the last two decades showed us that trying to develop a non-exploiting system without working toward women’s equality is NOT possible -- as so many ambitious experiments in re-organizing society discovered to their own chagrin when their societies collapsed. And there’s a historical reason for that.

More next time. -- ##

SIGI Website Launched

2009-02-27T11:07:00.003-05:00

The Sisterhood Is Global Institute just opened its website: www.sigi.org. I have a piece there, under Global Voices. Robin Morgan and Simone de Beauvoir founded this institute 25 years ago. I read Simone's (yup, in my mind, we're on first name basis, though she died before we could shake hands, as it were) book The Second Sex in my teens and it marked me for life. -- ##

Addendum

2009-02-27T10:47:00.002-05:00

Well, what d'you know? The Obama government took a 36% stake in Citibank. They should've taken more and do the same for Bank of America, etc. As promised, I'm on my feet applauding.

The First Speech

2009-02-26T00:53:00.003-05:00

Frankly, I was waiting for President Barack Obama to announce “we’re taking over the banks.” I would’ve been perkier than Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in applauding.

What intrigued me the most actually was the Republican's response, delivered by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

One cannot help but dislike the almost cynical use of the marginalized as the Republican Party’s new public face. There was Sarah Palin, who functioned as the party’s attack dog during the elections; then the African-American head of the RNC and now Jindal.

I don’t know if people of color find this edifying, As a woman who’s been mistaken for either Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Chicana (when I have curly hair), Romanian (because of my last name) or someone from Kyrgyzstan, and who had been told to her face by an INS agent “I can’t tell you (Asians) apart,” this use of minority bodies to channel neo-conservative anti-people, anti-minority thoughts, reducible to the phrase “let them eat cake,” is extremely repulsive.

It assumes we are stupid enough to fall for the old-message-new-messenger deception.

Btw, Republicans are really trying to make it to the digital age! This blogsite got an invitation to cross-link with one that praises Fox News and attacks the Dems. It was tempting; unfortunately, I wouldn’t have been able to watch their readers’ faces when they start perusing this blog. -- ##

Stats on Trafficking

2009-02-14T15:09:00.003-05:00

Sometime in the 1990s, we wrote a statement that was distributed at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria -- the first time that trafficking was characterized as a "modern form of slavery." Since then, the phrase has entered the lexicon of the cause-oriented.

The UN Office on Drug and Crime has issued these new statistics on trafficking:

... the most common form of human trafficking(79%) is sexual exploitation. The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls. Surprisingly, in 30% of the countries which provided information on the gender of traffickers, women make up the largest proportion of traffickers. In some parts of the world,
women trafficking women is the norm.

The second most common form of human trafficking is forced labour
(18%), although this may be a misrepresentation because forced labour
is less frequently detected and reported than trafficking for sexual
exploitation.

Worldwide, almost 20% of all trafficking victims are children.
However, in some parts of Africa and the Mekong region, children are
the majority (up to 100% in parts of West Africa).

These figures are important in the current tendency to consider women's issues as secondary, and gender as less important than class or race or sexuality.

Here in the US, we're beginning to see trafficking via the "seasonal worker visa" whereby batches of 30-50 men and women are brought in to work for approximately 10 months at labor-intensive, manual jobs. Living conditions are execrable, with one instance of 27 people living in one house. The workers are not paid directly by the companies they work for; instead, they receive their wages from the agency that brought them here -- with all kinds of deductions. On the average, they receive between $400-$600 a month.

The usual offshoot is that these workers run away and join the millions of undocumented -- largely because they are unable to earn enough to pay back what they borrowed to make the trip to the US.

What happens to the women -- well, every step is fraught is peril. -- ##

Solidarity Statement for Filipino Hanjin Workers

2009-02-10T18:49:00.002-05:00

Filipino Americans Call on the Philippine Government to Protect and Render Justice to the Hanjin Shipyard Workers in Subic

We, the Filipino American community in the United States and our allies express our militant solidarity with Hanjin Shipyard workers in their struggle to unionize and thus end their deplorable working conditions which has led to at least 24 deaths. In January of this year, two more were killed while just as February began, 24 were hurt when a bus carrying workers to the shipyard overturned.

We are appalled by the slow response of the Philippine Senate and the Executive branch and their failure to act on the continuing fatal accidents and deaths of workers at Hanjin Shipbuilding.

While we hold Hanjin, a South Korean transnational corporation employing 15,000 workers in the Philippines, directly accountable for the extremely unacceptable living and working conditions of Filipino workers, we equally hold the Philippine government complicit for acting against the country's national interests and against Filipino workers interests. We demand that the Philippine Government compel the Hanjin Shipyard company to clean up the docks and work areas, ensure worker safety, enforce environmental laws and provide just wages and benefits to Filipino workers.

The Philippine Government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo should hang its head in shame for allowing foreign-owed companies to treat Filipino workers like slaves and peons, their very lives sacrificed for corporate profits which redound to South Korea, not the Filipino nation. Any government that does this is worthless.

We, overseas Filipinos and progressive allies in the United States, strongly condemn the Philippine government for its inaction in holding Hanjin responsible for the poor working conditions, continuing accidents and deaths of its workers. Indeed, the Department of Labor and Employment has absolved Hanjin and shifted the blame to Hanjin's subcontractors of other nationalities, instead of holding both accountable. Such a Department of Labor and Employment is inutile.

While the Korean-owned Hanjin may be the fourth largest ship-building company in the world, it is also true that Filipino labor is among the finest and most skilled in the world. It is not as though the Philippines brings nothing to the table for Hanjin. No ship can be built without workers, no matter how brilliant the blueprints and management. It is therefore crucial to any enterprise that workers are treated well and recognized for their contribution to production. We therefore support the workers' struggle to unionize. The right to self-organization and collective bargaining is a human right, not simply a labor right.

In this we join our Canadian brothers and sisters who had met with some Hanjin Shipyard workers in 2008. At these meetings, they learned that many workers, labeled "trainees," make less than the Philippine-legislated minimum wage. They are often brought in from outlying provinces and end up living in nearby make-shift barracks that are in very poor condition (plywood shacks that are the size of a common bedroom with bunk beds and a burner), housing fourteen young men at a rental cost of Php600/month each. They also suffer from many forms of harassment, including physical harassment, from Korean supervisors.

Unfortunately, union organizers expect strong negative reactions to the unionization effort from both the Philippine and Korean governments, as well as Hanjin's own management. It is therefore imperative that Filipino workers overseas, as well as compatriots of Philippine ancestry and comrades in the labor movement, provide a counter-pressure to the efforts of the murderous Hanjin Shipyard, in collaboration with the Philippine government, to frustrate the Subic Bay workers' dream of a union.

Stand up and demand that the Philippine Government support its own workers!

Stand up and demand that the Philippine Government stop foreign corporate bullies from emasculating Philippine labor, environment and occupational safety laws.

Stand up and support the Hanjin Shipyard workers!

Stand up and support the labor movement which is integral to the global struggle for justice!

Alliance Philippines(AJLPP)
Kabataang Maka-Bayan (KmB)
Ecumenical Fellowship for Justice and Peace (EFJP)
Philippine Studies Collective-Bay Area
DAMAYAN Migrant Workers Association -New York
Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California (PWC-SC)
Echo Park Community Coalition (EPCC)
Justice for Filipino American Veterans (JFAV)
Faith, Workers For Justice and Peace-San Francisco
ANSWER-LA
Free Palestine Alliance

Contact: Rev. Richard R. Bowley
email: richardrubio59@yahoo.com

Fair Pay and Equal Value of Work

2009-02-07T22:23:00.002-05:00

Before anything, attention must be paid to what’s happening to the workers at the Hanjin Shipyard in Subic, Philippines.

Since this shipbuilding site opened, 24 workers have died from various causes – accidents, disease, etc. – and scores more injured. Last week, a bus ferrying workers to the workplace overturned and 24 were hurt. The Philippine Department of Labor has exempted Hanjin, the world’s 4th largest shipbuilding company now employing 15,000 workers in the Philippines, from culpability, blaming instead “subcontractors.” Hanjin is South Korean-owned and as we pointed out in a previous post, there are roughly 100,000 South Koreans studying in the Philippines, part of a slow process of turning the archipelago into suzerainty. This seems inevitable, considering the inability of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s government to protect its own constituency from economic subjugation by foreigners. Indeed, threats have been made about “political repercussions,” if the Philippine Senate perseveres in its decision to hold investigative hearings on this continuing worker deaths. The workers are trying to unionize. Hanjin is set to build another shipyard, this time in Mindanao – so it seems shipbuilding in the Philippines is that profitable.

Now to the US scene where even within the women’s movement, the response to President Obama’s signing of the Ledbetter Act -- his first law, nine days after his inauguration – was muted.

The law reverses an artificial statute of limitation established by a US Supreme Court decision denying Lilly Ledbetter her discrimination suit against her employers who hired her, 18 years previous, at a salary lower than those of her male counterparts. The Supreme Court decision considered the original act as the only act of discrimination; the Fair Pay Act signed by Obama considers every salary thereafter that’s below par with male counterparts as part of a continuing act of discrimination.

A small hurrah – because in these times of CEOs getting 400 times the pay of the average worker, we realize there’s another question we should be asking – as in, what kind of work is really vital to production?

When the carmaker CEOs appeared before Congress, flying in on separate corporate jets, the longer lasting outcry was against the $70 per hour wage unionized auto workers were supposedly making versus the $59 per hour that non-union workers made. The argument was that a melt-down economy cannot afford the current cost of labor. It would take more spendthrift scandals and $16 billion in Wall Street bonuses before we wised up and began asking whether we could afford the entire managerial sub-class, members of which are paid around $23,000 to $28,000 per hour ($59-$70 X 400).

I can’t imagine doing anything so significant as to be paid that much – except perhaps working to lop off the entire managerial class.

Which, of course, leads us to ask if workers can put together a car in the absence of management? Conversely, can management put together a car in the absence of workers? Because the product is the end-all of production, isn’t it?

Let us ruminate on this and allied issues as we contemplate the $500,000 cap on executives’ salaries that this administration is proposing and the shrieks from execs that they wouldn’t be able to attract talent at that pay rate. Talent? It takes talent to run down a multi-trillion dollar economy? It takes talent to make the wrong decisions and waste money?

It takes major effort to wrap one’s mind around that.

And by the way, the male-female wage gap has been narrowing – it’s now $1.00 - $.78 -- not because women’s wages have risen but because men’s wages have fallen.

Our view of what's important work is so skewed that, in the stimulus package, it seems like anything that redounds to the benefit of women has been cut, deleted, thrown into the ash-heap. Hey, remember the definition for the work done mostly by women, household work -- the work that makes all other work possible. ##