Diwa ng himagsikan

ISANG MADUGONG pakikibaka tungo sa pagbagsak ng naghaharing uri.

Ito ang klasikong bigay-kahulugan sa katagang rebolusyon o himagsikan. Kahulugan na umusbong mula sa pagkalas sa Inang Inglatera ng 13 nagkaisang kolonya ng Amerika noong 1776, at sa pag-aklas sa Pransiya laban kay Louis XVI noong 1789.
Naging modelo rin ng klasikong kahulugan ang himagsikang Sobyet ni Lenin noong 1917, ang digmaang sibil sa Tsina noong dekada ’40-‘50 na pinagwagian ni Mao, at ang tagumpay ni Castro at Guevara sa Cuba noong 1959.
Hindi natatapos ang himagsikan sa pagbagsak ng naghaharing uri. Sa kaisipang Marxista-Leninista-Maoista, nakaukit ang pangangailangan ng isang patuloy na himagsikan, kaipala’y upang harangin ang likas na pagnanasa ng mga ibinagsak na makabalik muli sa poder at sa rurok ng pamamahala sa estado. Sa wikang Ingles: the need for a continuing revolution to block counter-revolution by the reactionary forces, both foreign and home-grown.
Ang reaksyonaryong puwersa ang pinakamasidhing kalaban ng himagsikan. Ito ang sagabal na bibigo, sisilat o kikitil sa kaganapan ng tagumpay ng himagsikan: ang pagtaas ng antas ng pamumuhay ng masa. Na matutupad lamang kung ang liderato ng pamahalaan ay manggagaling mismo sa kanilang hanay.
Suriin natin ang ilang aspeto ng kasaysayan.
Hindi natapos ang himagsikan sa Amerika nang isuko kay Washington ni Cornwallis ang lahat ng puwersang Ingles sa Yorktown, Virginia noong 1781 gayong ganap nang naglaho ang tangan ni George III sa 13 nagkaisang estado.
Bagama’t itinadhana ng Declaration of Independence ng mga estadong ito na ang lahat ng tao ay nilalang ng Diyos na pantay-pantay, hindi kasali dito ang may 650,000 aliping Itim, 250,000 aliping bayad-utang, at 300,000 katutubong Amerikano o Indian na noo’y naninirahan sa mga kolonya. Pati na ang mga kababaihan ay hindi sakop ng pahayag ng kasarinlan. 
Kinailangan pa ang Emancipation Proclamation ni Lincoln at ang digmaang sibil noong 1861-1864 o kulang-kulang 100 taon mula Himagsikang 1776 upang mapalaya ang mga Itim sa pagka-alipin. 
Kinailangan pa ang martsa ni Martin Luther King at ang kanyang talumpating I Have a Dream sa Washington, D.C. noong 1963 o 100 taon na naman mula kay Lincoln upang maging ganap ang pagsasa-batas ng kalayaan ng mga Itim at maging kapantay ng mga Puti sa mga karapatan. 
Ang kada-100 taon na mga kaganapan na yaon ang maituturing na milestones in the continuing revolution sa Amerika. (Na masasabing nagkaroon ng sukdulang kaganapan sa pagkahalal kay Obama bilang unang Itim na pangulo ng Estados Unidos noong 2008).
Iba naman ang kinahinatnan ng himagsikan sa Pransiya. Pinugutan ng ulo si Louis XVI at kanyang reynang Marie Antoinette. Ang mga naghahari at nagpaparing uri – monarkiya at simbahan – ay binawian ng poder, ari-arian, pati na rin buhay.

Burgis

Sa pagkawala ng aristokratang hanay, uring burgis ang namayani, naghari at nang-api sa masang Pranses. Ginipit ang mga unyong manggagawa, sinupil ang karapatan ng mga maliliit at tuwirang nilapastangan ang adhikain ng himagsikan – liberte, egalite, fraternite.
Naghari ang lagim, namayani ang sindak sa reign of terror – na kumitil sa buhay ng daan-daang mamamayan mula sa iba’t ibang sector ng lipunan. Sumiklab ang pag-aalsa at malawakang kaguluhan na nagbigay daan sa isang golpe militar na nagbunga sa pagbulusok ni Napoleon Bonaparte na siyang nakapagpatahimik sa bansa at nagpanumbalik sa monarkiya sa pamamagitan ng kanyang pagkorona sa kanyang sarili bilang emperador. 
Si Lincoln at Napoleon, pati na rin sina Lenin, Mao at Castro – magkakaiba ng pananaw, paninindigan, pamamaraan at landasin subalit lahat sila’y tinaguriang mga bayani ng kasaysayan dahil sa kanilang kahalagahan sa critical moment sa buhay ng kanilang bansa. Ito ay ayon sa Kanluraning kaisipan na pinasikat ni Arnold Toynbee sa kanyang A Study of History. 
Tunghayan naman natin ang sarili nating kasaysayan.
Sa isang talata ng kanyang epikong Bayang Malaya ay ipinaloob ni Ka Amado Hernandez ang kasaysayan ng Pilipinas: “Nagsuot ng kalmeng bigay ng Espanya, kalmen nang lumaon ay naging kadena. At itong Amerika na bagong katoto ang dala’y de-lata, laya ang kinuha, ininom ang bayang parang Coca-Cola.”
Isang naunsyaming rebolusyon ang Himagsikang 1896 dahil bago pa man inagaw ng mga Amerikano ang tagumpay mula sa ating mga Pilipino, inagaw na ng mga ilustrado na kinatawan ni Aguinaldo ang himagsikan mula sa masa na nagpasimuno nito sa katauhan ni Bonifacio. 
The Unfinished Revolution – ang palasak na pagtawag sa Himagsikang 1896 – ay nagkaroon ng kaganapan noong Setyembre 21, 1972 – ayon mismo kay Marcos, sa pagpapantasya sa kanyang batas-militar bilang isang “rebellion of the poor” o himagsikan ng mga dukha laban sa naghaharing oligarkiya. Wagas na kabulaanan, sa harap ng mapaniil na diktaduryang kanyang isinakatuparan.     

EDSA

Sa EDSA noong 1986 ay ipinangalandakan din na nagkaroon na ng kaganapan ang 1896. Maliban sa pagkarambol lamang ng mga numero, ito ay isang paglapastangan sa kasaysayan.
Ang pagkakaroon ng EDSA Dos ang malinaw na patunay na wala ngang himagsikang nangyari noong 1986. At wala ring himagsikang naganap sa EDSA nitong 2001. Hindi dahil sa walang dumanak na dugo. Kundi dahil walang naganap na pagbabago. Lalo’t higit walang pagbuti sa antas ng buhay ng mga mamamayan.
Ang naganap ay isang rigodon lamang kung saan mukha lamang ang nagkaroon ng palitan sa liderato ng bayan. Mula sa isang naghaharing uri, isinalin ang poder sa kanilang kauri. Sabi nga ng aktibista noong 1986: “Kumaripas ng takbo ang lahi ni Barabas, pumalit nama’y lipi ni Hudas.”
Ano ang nagbago?
Sa panguluhan ni Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, nakapaligid ay sabwatang militar-trapo. Wala ni anumang puwang sa pamamahala, dili kaya’y sa kaunti mang biyaya, ang mga karaniwang mamamayan, pesante’t proletaryo, silang umaklas at umalma upang mapatalsik si Estrada. 
Tinungo ng rehimeng Arroyo: globalisasyon – ang bagong bihis ng imperyalismo. At ano baga ang nahita ng mga tao sa muling paghahari ng aristokrata’t oligarko sa panguluhan ni Benigno Simeon Aquino?
Tama si Mao. Ang masa, ang masa lamang ang tunay na bayani. Ito ang Asyanong paninindigan na umiiral din sa mga bansang Third World na gumigiyagis sa tindi ng kahirapan at panunupil sa mga karapatang pantao na hagkis ng mga papet na tigreng papel ng globalisasyon, ng mga berdugo ng kapitalismo, ng mga enkargado ng pyudalismo.
Ang tanong: Kailan pahahalagaan ang kabayanihan ng masa at gawing puhunan sa pambansang pamunuan tungo sa tunay na kalayaan, pagka-pantay-pantay at ganap na kaunlaran ng bayan? Sa isa pang EDSA? Gasgas at pulpol na ang kaisipang ito. Kailan pa tayo matututo?

Bulaang Mesiyas

Sa pangakong pagbabago, kapit-bisig at taas-kamaong binalikat ng masa tungo sa panguluhan si Rodrigo Duterte. Hindi lamang kaganapan ng 1896 ang ipinagdiwang sa tagumpay nito, ang ipinangalandakan ay ang mismong pagdating ng mesiyas na tutubos sa Pilipinas!

Subali’t sa loob lamang ng unang taon ng panunungkulan ni Duterte, hindi manunubos kundi mang-uubos ang bumulaga sa sambayanan – ang ipinagbunying mesiyas, kaipala’y may sayad na Herodes sa walang pakundangang pagpapatay sa mga inosente’t walang malay.

Sa kanyang mga pangakong napako, bunton ng sisi’y sa iba’t ibang tao – mula sa pinaka-abang tsuper hanggang sa mga pinagpala sa lipunan, ang mga may tangan ng kalakal, media, at simbahan.

Sa kanyang walang katapusang kapalpakan, hagkis ng mura’t panlalait ay sa kabi-kabilang dako – mula Amerika hanggang EU at UN.

At upang ganap na mapagtakpan ang iwing kahinaan, imbing kawalang kakayahan sa panunungkulan, pumapailanlang ngayon – mula sa kanyang tsuwariwariwang lumpen na kawan – ang sigaw ng Revolutionary Government.

Muli, ito’y isang panghahablot kundi tuwirang pagnanakaw sa tinig ng kasaysayan – “Sigaw ng Bayan: Himagsikan!”

Revolutionary Government? Sino ang patatalsikin? Sino ang magpapatalsik?

Si Duterte ang kasalukuyang naghahari. Si Duterte ang muling maghahari.

Hindi lamang ito isang kontradiksyon. Ito ay kahangalan. Ang golpe de estado na maniobra ni Marcos sa kanyang martial law, golpe de gulat ni Duterte ngayon sa kanyang revolutionary government kuno.    

Ay, di baga’t diyos-diyosang sinasamba nga ni Digong si Macoy?     

Wala kay Duterte ang himagsikang Pilipino. Pagtibayin ang puso, kasama. Tungo sa panibago at pina-igting na pakikibaka.

(Isinapanahong salin sa pinaglumaang yugto ng kasaysayan, hawi sa lukut-lukot na pahina ng dyaryong dating pinagsulatan, petsang Pebrero 19, 2001.)

Paskuhan wish

"ANG PASKUHAN ay naging simbolo na ng San Fernando at ng Pampanga kaya ang city government, hinihingi na i-retain muna ang Paskuhan Village at gawin itong culture and heritage site,"

So spoke Mayor Edwin Santiago in an exclusive interview with Sun-Star Pampanga last week, reminiscing how, in its heyday, the famous Christmas-themed park served as an “iconic symbol of the city’s thriving lantern industry” and “landmark” of the province.  Fault not Santiago for his redundancies there, warped as he was in nostalgia.

Why, the Paskuhan Village was in fact one of the reasons for dubbing the City of San Fernando as “Christmas Capital of the Philippines.” So enthused Santiago.

It is then but right and fitting that the Paskuhan Village be “redeveloped into a lantern city” to showcase the eponymous industry not only of the city but of the whole province.

Even righter, “that the celebration of the annual and colorful Giant Lantern Festival be brought back to its true home, the Paskuhan Village.”

Declared Santiago: Ito ay naging branding na ng San Fernando at ng Pampanga kaya dapat lang na ibalik ito sa kung saan nararapat."

Beyond the platitudes, what has Santiago, if only on paper, to bring Paskuhan back to where it rightfully belongs?

Nada. Zilch. As Sun-Star Pampanga reported: “Santiago did not disclose yet the position of the government in terms of acquiring the management and operation of the property. He said that the matter is still under deliberation and will be disclosed once everything is settled.”

Ay, there’s the rub.

Santiago’s ruminations rose out of the reported nullification of the Paskuhan deal between the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority and Premier Central Inc., a subsidiary of SM Prime Holdings Corp.

Santiago found solid ground in the report of the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability that recommended to the House of Representatives to void the sale of Paskuhan, which specifically stated that TIEZA disregarded the provision of R.A. 9593 that gives the City of San Fernando and the Province of Pampanga the “right of first refusal” on the sale or lease of Paskuhan.  

The report said that TIEZA officials committed malfeasance in the performance of their duties for misapplication of the law and abuse of authority. Now, there’s some question of accountability there. Now, there’s some cry for prosecution there. As indeed the House committee provided a copy of its report to the Office of the Ombudsman for appropriate action and further investigation on possible administrative, civil and criminal cases against erring TIEZA officials. That, though merits a separate story.

For now, it will be the height of naivete to think that Premier Central will just charge its Paskuhan (mis)deal to unhappy corporate experience and move on. Or for TIEZA to simply return every single cent of the P939,656,848 Premier Central paid for the property: no questions asked, no rationalizations given. (What about the commissions? The usual SOPs?)

Even granting that it will be so, the Paskuhan will not be all Christmas present for Santiago and his city.

The right of first refusal certainly gives the city the first shot to claim ownership of Paskuhan from TIEZA. But not for free. The price though may not be as stiff as the nearly P1 billion Premier Central shelled out, given its being government-to-government transaction.

Now, has the City of San Fernando the funds? If not, has it the credit line to secure some loan from, say, the Land Bank of the Philippines, for the purchase of the once-upon-a-time Lazatin property?

Even if the city has all these, there is the greater concern of making the property pay for itself as a self-liquidating asset.

Santiago thinks of a “lantern city,” presumably the Paskuhan serving as one-stop shop of workshop, atelier or what have you of the parol craftsmen, product display and store.

Will that be enough to recoup whatever sum of investment the city shall infuse in the place?

Not by a long shot, if we go by the Paskuhan experience at the time of its inception and early years which it was precisely what Santiago is proposing now. And even more – a swimming pool, go-karting and rock climbing subsequently included on the site.  

Not even the addition of a Days Inn hotel and the Gardens of the World in the site by Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor to host the international Florikultura show in 1998 could save it from being denigrated as pastulan village – pastureland for carabaos. No, the deterioration of the Paskuhan Village did not come with the stalemate caused by the House investigation of its sale as reported in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Its dilapidation came within a decade from its inauguration in 1990.   

Indeed, not even the PR -savvy Dick Gordon as tourism secretary was able to revive interest – both public and financial – in the Paskuhan which he rebranded as “Hilaga.”                         

No belittling Santiago now. But pray, tell, how in the world can he possibly excel where both Gabor and Gordon apparently failed?

The Paskuhan may look like a Christmas wish come true to the city. But it is in reality a Pandora’s box. No matter the tinsel and ribbons that it is beautifully packed with.

Take it, at the city’s own peril.  

Phony populism

“MAHIRAP KAYO? Putang ina, umalis kayo. Magtiis kayo sa hirap at gutom, wala akong pakialam.”

So, President Duterte ranted – contextualized though in the pursuit of the common good: “It’s the majority of the people, huwag niyong ipasubo ang tao.”

Still, there is no mistaking the raving: “I’m giving you… until the end of the year, sumunod kayo kasi January 1, kapag may nakita ako na hindi na-rehistro, luma, guguyurin ko yan sa harap niyo.”

And, the unmasking – of Duterte’s populist, aye, pro-masa, image reveled in by the 16 million who made him president. Yes, the drivers and operators of jeepneys who took the streets Monday and Tuesday, included. They who are now the object of his bluster.

Here yet is another self-contradiction afflicting Duterte – the self-avowed socialist at the time of the election campaign, the tyrant of a president.

His disdain, if not utter abomination, of the masa – the very core of his political base – most manifest, not only in these fulminations against striking drivers, but in the fulsome slaughter of the poor, be they drug addicts or pushers, or innocent collaterals to his war on drugs.

There is not an iota of the socialist in Duterte. There is in him everything of the elitist, at the least of the peti-burgis.       

Else, he would have taken to heart the DG (the student activists’ discussion group) lessons of his generation at the time of the “days of disquiet and nights of rage.” Yes, those lessons unrepentant socialists like myself, pull out like mantras at every call of their continuing relevance. As I have first written in the now defunct Pampanga News issue of March 23-29, 2006 under the heading The masa antithesis:  

HINDI MANGMANG ang masa. Sila’y pinagkaitan lamang ng tamang pagkakataon upang ganap na umusbong ang kanilang katalinuhan, ng akmang kaganapan upang malinang ang kanilang karunungan – pagkakataong pinigil ng hagkis ng kahirapan; kaganapang sinupil ng hataw ng pang-aapi’t pagsasamantala ng mga naghahari-hariang uri.

That “the incompetence of the masses is almost universal throughout the domains of political life…” is a fundamental fallacy in the bourgeois postulates on the people.
The masa response: There is no inherent mass incompetence among the people: there is mass oppression, exploitation, and deprivation that caused incompetence.

Premium to the existence of class exploitative societies is the oppression of the people. Of the highest priority is the reduction of the people to their basic animal instincts, the deprivation of their natural rights as human beings, in order to best serve – in the bourgeois interest – their principal purpose as nothing more than tools of production.

Sa kaisipang elitista, ang masa ay kawan ng baka’t kalabaw na isinisingkaw sa mga bukirin, sa mga planta’t pabrika upang mabigyan tugon ang lahat ng mga pangangailangan, upang masustentuhan ang lahat ng luho at kapritso ng uring peti-burgis.
Tunay ka, kasama: Tamad na burgis na ayaw gumawa, sa pawis ng masa ay nagpapasasa.

Deprivation damns the people to incompetence, dispossessing them of the necessary knowledge and skills to rise above the lot pre-ordained for them by the ruling class.
Born poor. Live poor. Die poor. Paldac-sicaran ning cacaluluan, ibat qng quebaitan angga na qng camatayan, as we put it in Capampangan. An animal existence. To the elite, that is the masa destiny. A vicious cycle with neither definitive end nor fixed beginning.


Of that, it is not.


Incompetence, as we have stated, is reared upon deprivation which in turn is rooted in exploitation which spawns from oppression. To make possible the elimination of incompetence among the people then, exploitation needs to be uprooted.


Ang pagkapantay-pantay ng mga mamamayan ang sandigan ng isang demokratikong estado. Ang mga kalakarang piyudal, pagbubusabos sa mga anak-pawis, paniniil sa mga anak-dalita ay walang puwang dito.

So government exists for the purpose of preserving the status quo. This does not cover though the preservation of the system of class exploitation.

Ang pagtaas sa antas ng pamumuhay ng mga mamamayan ay hindi lamang pangunahin kundi sagradong gampanin ng pamahalaan. Lakip nito ang pagbibigay puwang sa pinakamaliit at pinaka-aba mang mamamayan ng bahagi sa mga gawain at pagkilos na tuwirang tumitimo sa kanilang buhay. Anumang kaganapang taliwas dito ay isang kabalintunaan sa demokratikong estado.

The bourgeois thesis of governance as a monopoly of the propertied class has been – rightfully – long consigned to the dustbin of history.

There is, though, an emerging new elitism. This, the masa should fight with a determined populism.

NO, NOT that kind of populism arrogated unto Duterte. Who, in fact, is an elitist to the core

Prime ministerial

“HINDI NAMAN (Not really), because people change and circumstances change, especially in politics. We should not close doors or burn bridges unless absolutely called for or warranted.”

So was Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III’s response to Rappler.com on former president and outgoing Pampanga 2^nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo joining PDP-Laban which he heads.

It is not too distant to completely recede from public memory that Pimentel once accused GMA of electoral fraud in the 2007 polls – rising out of his electoral protest against GMA ally Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri, whom Pimentel successfully unseated in 2011.

In the wake of that victory, Pimentel filed an electoral sabotage case against GMA and then First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo.

And burn bridges too, Pimentel did with long-time friend Vice President Jejomar Binay in 2013, when he found his name alongside Zubiri’s in the senatorial slate of Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance.

Somewhat discordant is Pimentel’s new tune now – with GMA -- given his “principled” stand at the time of his electoral protest, no?

But then, has it not been so trite for so long that it has become a truism that politics does make strange bedfellows?

In this instance, politics transposing to federalism. Thus, Pimentel: “If someone wants to help the cause of federalism, then why not accept him/her with open arms?”

GMA publicly champions the cause of federalism.

Furthered Pimentel: “But she must be the one to change by embracing the PDP-Laban’s core principles of belief in God, human dignity, love of country, equal opportunities for all, consultative and participatory democracy, and federalism.”

Yeah, GMA publicly champions the cause of federalism. So, she has sworn her loyalty to its principal advocate, the PDP-Laban. It naturally follows.

It cannot help though that some hidden agenda are seen, not without malicious glee, by a number of netizens and coffeeshop analysts in GMA’s party switch.

On the short term, her return to the Senate where she sat from 1992 to 1998. (Her first election as sampay bakod, her second as valedictorian, thanks to the Nora Aunor imagery.)

And from there, the enactment of legislation changing the form of government to federalism.

In the not-so-long-haul, under a federal system, GMA easily winning a seat in parliament and on to becoming prime minister.

Yes, that is how far into the future GMA’s fluttering butterfly act has gone, in the minds of not so few. Taking a life of its own in the public discussion. Like:

It is exigent – not to say expedient too – that all this change to federalism has to happen not only within the term of President Duterte but at the time that: 1) he is enjoying the “high” trust of the public; 2) he controls both Houses of Congress; 3) the “yellow stain” has been excised from the guardian of the electoral system; 4) the Supreme Court is being battered to submission to the presidential will, or will-not, as the case may be; and 5) the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police are at his beck and call.

Yes, there obtains even a short cut – verily a short circuit – to the process: RevGov.

No, not Reverend Governor that was the title of my book on Among Ed Panlilio, but Revolutionary Government as currently mouthed by Duterte and dutifully amplified by his minions.

Indeed, what tangled web we weave when we know that we are being deceived.

 

  

        

     

  

Hasta siempre, Comandante

IT HAS BEEN 50 years – half a century – after his death, but Ernesto Guevara de la Serna still lives. No incorruptible saint, in fact the so called “Butcher of La Cabana” – for signing the death warrants of hundreds of “war criminals,” read: military officers of the ousted Batista regime as well as informants, and counter revolutionaries – Guevara has gained cult status around the world. Notwithstanding too, the late – and still continuing – discoveries of his failures and alleged atrocities.

It was on the occasion of his 44^th death anniversary, six years ago, that I essayed to touch the Che mystique, thus:      

COMANDANTE STAR on a black beret capping a frowning, pensive handsome face; left eyebrow slightly raised; black, long hair waving in the breeze.
Beyond the image of Che Guevara pop cultured in millions of T-shirts, posters and decals around the globe, what do the young and not-so-young know about the man already long dead – executed on October 9, 1967 – even before they were born?
Essentially, nothing.
So what fascinates them to wear that icon, in virtual veneration of the man they don’t even know?
Irreligious blind faith?
The aura of enchantment around that image of Che known in the whole of Latin America as El guerrillero heroico is – to Paco Ignacio Tabio Jr., author of the definitive Guevara: tambien conocido como el Che (Guevara: also known as Che) – wrought by “the manifestation of a transparency and supernatural honesty.”
There, arguably, lies the Guevara mystique.
The photograph was taken by Albert Korda for the Cuban newspaper Revolucion at the public funeral of the 81 fatalities in the explosion of La Coubre, a French ship laden with Belgian arms at the Havana harbour on March 4, 1960. Unpublished, the photo remained in the newspaper morgue. In 1968, the Italian publisher Giacomo Feltinelli, researching on the life of Che, found the photo in Korda’s house, took it back to Italy and made a poster from it. The rest, as clichéd, is history. The irony not lost in the capitalist success rising out of a communist “artifact.”
The Che brief may well read: Argentine by birth, doctor of medicine by education; adventurer and motorcycle enthusiast, poet, photographer, writer; by revolution defined and deified.
The essence of Che may well be in his word: “The only passion that guides me is for the truth…I look at everything from this point of view.”
By his truth he lived. By his truth he was executed. Life and death make a universality that finds relevance to and resonance in the world to this day.
An unshakeable belief in the people that makes the core value of the true revolutionary: “There is no effort made towards the people that is not repaid with the people’s trust.”

Vanity

A damnation of the vacuous vanity of self-ordained champions of the masses: “The people’s heroes cannot be separated from the people, cannot be elevated onto a pedestal, into something alien to the lives of that people.”
The masses eke an existence out of hovels, even as they look up to their heroes luxuriating in their high-walled mansions. So un-Che, so unheroic, so undemocratic, so prevalent. And so very Filipino.
Che holds the purity of the democratic ideal before its corruption by the politics of patronage: “How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well-being of the people.”
Compare with the Filipino norm of governance: Off with the people, buy the people, fool the people.
Thus, the first call of the revolution: “People – forward with the Revolution! Workers – to the struggle! Peasants – organize!”
Romanticism – damned by Mao as a bourgeois diversion to be expunged from the Chinese Revolution, and for that matter, from all revolutions – finds a refining, humanist aspect in Che’s own: “If it were said of us that we’re almost romantics, that we are incorrigible idealists, that we think the impossible: then, a thousand and one times, we have to answer that yes, we are.”
The Latino attributes of intense passion, sentimentalism, and romanticism do not diminish any, but in fact even enhance, nay, inflame revolutionary zeal. Che makes the perfect argument: “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.”
(In college, barely versed in Che’s life and works, I wrote an essay on Che titled The Romantic Revolutionary. Modesty be damned, I got a flat 1 on that. More importantly, bragging rights for having already grasped Che’s essence even then. Though my enchantment with Che started in high school, in – of all places – the seminary.)

Humanism

Che takes the humanist facet of the revolution further: “Revolutions, accelerated radical social changes, are made of circumstances; not always, almost never, or perhaps never can science predict their mature form in all its detail. They are made of passions, of man’s fight for social vindication, and never perfect.”
Yet another taboo in the revolutionary movement – adventurism – was taken to the positive plane by Che: “Many will call me an adventurer, and I am, but of a different type: of those who put their lives on the line to demonstrate their truths. “
So, Che demonstrated his truth with his death, something the romantic adventurer in him put thus: “Wherever death may surprise us, it is most welcome. Our funeral dirge will be the staccato sound of machineguns and the cries of battle and victory.”
Some object lessons there for the RAM. The Magdalo, the YOU and what-have-you in the Philippine military wanting a coup.
Che’s thesis on revolutionary praxis makes one of the most succinct on the subject: “And it must be said quite sincerely that in a true revolution, to which everything is given, from which no material returns are expected, the task of revolutionary vanguard is both magnificent and anxious…In these conditions, a great dose of humanity is needed, a sense of justice and truth, if we are not to fall in the trap of extreme dogmatism, of cold scholasticism, of isolation from the masses. Everyday we have to fight so that love for humanity can be transformed into concrete deeds, into acts that set an example, that mobilize.”
There lie lessons in revolutions Che had fought, had seen and in those he did not see: the Stalinist dogmatism that pervaded the Soviet Union and its satellites, the excesses of China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Mao’s cult of personality, the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields.

Failure

Before his fatal failure in Bolivia, Che bombed out in the Congo in the 1965 attempt to start the conflagration of the African continent that to him represented “one of, if not the most, important battlefields against every form of exploitation that exists in the world.”
“We cannot liberate by ourselves a country that does not wish to fight,” Che conceded defeat six months after. A pointed lesson that it is as hard to start as to stop revolution from without. Lessons for Che himself in Bolivia, for the USA in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Lessons still unheeded today in Iraq, in Chechnya, and again, in Afghanistan.
Hasta la victoria siempre – ever onward to victory – usually captions the Che icon. It was the exhortation that closed Che’s letter to Fidel Castro before he left for the Congo. It has become the rallying cry for revolutionaries around the world.
But Che had a more stirring call for revolutionary solidarity: “If you can tremble with indignation every time an injustice is committed in the world, we are comrades.”
Hasta siempre, Comandante Che Guevara!

Unbroken will

“TO ENFORCE well our traffic laws and re-engineer the flow, we created Task Force Balacat, an interim group to provide immediate traffic solutions including public safety and order. The TFB operates under the paradigm of “Broken Windows Theory,” a tried and tested formula used in the cities of New York, California (sic) and other cities.”

Of Mayor Crisostomo Garbo’s MCG@100 report or the state of the City of Mabalacat in his first 100 days as mayor address, consisting of accomplishments grounded on statistical, measurable, tangible authenticities, the paragraph above is what struck me most.

“Broken Windows.” Garbo’s mention of it is but the second time I heard the phrase mouthed in local governance.

The first instance was in 2009, in the City of San Fernando during the administration of Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez. Its sayer though was not the now much-missed Oca but the then city attorney-general – lawyer Ramsey Ocampo, by then a retired police director – at the launch of the city government’s Task Force Habitat which he headed.

Coincidentally, if not serendipitously, Ocampo was in Garbo’s audience for MCG@100, as VP for security of the Clark Development Corp.

Anyways, San Fernando’s TF Habitat hewed closely with the city government’s vision of becoming a “Habitat for Human Excellence” in the near future. Modesty be damned now – I coined that phrase during a workshop early in the first term of Mayor Oca.

Per Ocampo’s briefing at the time, TF Habitat would employ the “Broken Windows” concept to address the “growing need for the integration of services aimed at promoting the safety, cleanliness, orderliness and beautification of the city, lifting the standards of this capital city from the alarming stage of decay and deterioration.”
Rued he then: "At present, the city proper does not showcase the city as we envisioned it to be, for just like any other city, it depicts a picture where there is struggle for survival."
TF Habitat aimed at the specific target areas of traffic innovation, jurisdiction over streets and sidewalks, waste management, urban greening and beautification, and some such others.
Much like what Garbo said.

The concept

But much like the majority of his audience, maybe, the entirety of his constituency, media covering MCG@100 did not have an iota of an idea of what the Broken Windows concept is all about.       

Here’s part of what I wrote here on January 21, 2009:

For the clueless, “Broken Windows” came from an article of the same title in the March 1982 issue of The Atlantic Monthly written by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, which the latter later expanded into full book form.
“Broken Windows” was culled from a passage in the said article, thus:
"Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.
Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars."
Fix the problems as they start, small – and therefore fairly manageable – as they still are, says Kelling. Repair a broken window, so as not to attract vandals to break more.
Kelling’s article indeed finds resonance in any Philippine city.
Allow a small bag of trash to be dumped on an open lot. Soon that lot becomes the garbage dump of the whole neighborhood.
Let a hovel stand on a dry riverbed. Soon a whole shanty town takes over the river bed and the banks as well. Take a good look at the Abacan River in Angeles City and weep.
Permit a shoe shine boy to ply his trade on the sidewalk. Soon all sorts of trade and commerce converge on that sidewalk.
So how fared “Broken Windows” in its full implementation?

New York

The best example here is New York City at the onset of the term of office of Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1993 onwards to its climax in 2001.
The former district attorney who battled New York’s crime syndicates inter-phased “Broken Windows” with “zero tolerance” – a no-nonsense enforcement of laws, and “quality of life” – clean-up drives and community action. Which resulted to the plunge in the crime index for both petty and serious crimes for 10 years straight.

Giuliani first carved his niche in the American psyche for having cleaned up New York City of its dregs before becoming the poster boy of strength and determination in presiding over the city’s phoenix-like rise from the devastations of 9-11.
Two immediate impacts of “Broken Windows” were Central Park taken from the grip of criminals and muggers and given back to the New Yorkers and the millions of tourists that flock to it every year, and the transformation of seedy, smutty, 42nd Street from being the mecca of pornography into a chic, family-oriented strip of restaurants and boutiques. I should know. I was there. Solo in 2000, then with the wife in 2006. And immensely enjoyed The Big Apple both times.
“Broken Windows.” As it was with New York City so it would be with the City of San Fernando?
Better believe it. For as it was with Mayor Rudy Giuliani so it shall be with Mayor Oscar S. Rodriguez. As they were fired in and formed from the same forge, cut from the same cloth.

Can do

THAT TODAY the Fernandino pines for the years of Mayor Oca at city hall, and hopes are high for his return, speak well of what an actualized Broken Windows concept wrought. Alas, all too dismissively shunted by the administration that followed.

So, can Garbo do an Oca? The better proposition is how can he not.  

As he concluded his MCG@100 thus: “And this is what we should ask ourselves – a CHANCE TO CHANGE. That is all. For employees, a chance to become true public servants by words, by deed, and by heart.

“For elected officials, this is our chance to lead the city to the direction of progress with clean hands and clear conscience.

“And for every Mabalaqueno, this our chance to finally make a change that assures our children of a better life. Effect this change with me. I am confident that we can.”         

Aye, doubters will always doubt. But doers will just do.

So, Mabalacat will. So, Garbo can. 

Personalan

MONDAY, PRESIDENT Duterte signed into law RA 10952, moving barangay and SK elections to May 2018, suspending for the second time our rights to vote for the officials of the basic political unit of our democracy.

To the ecstasy of all incumbent barangay officials who shall hold on to their prized positions. To the agony of the wannabes and pretenders to those positions, especially those who have started the groundwork – with the corresponding spending – for the now-scrapped October polls.

To the voters, collective dismay over their disenfranchisement anew, albeit temporarily, to change officials they have suffered for long, or affirm those who have proven themselves in office.

To the general public, general unhappiness over their deprivation of the fun – and the funds – inherent in all barangay elections. That which I miss most.

Hence, finding relevance anew this piece first published here 10 years ago:         

PASSIONATELY PERSONAL. That is a natural course in barangay elections as everybody there, at the least, knows everybody. That is if everybody is not related, by affinity or consanguinity, to everybody.
Thus the heat of the campaign: the stake, prized as though it were the presidency of the country itself.
It does come as no surprise but as a matter of course for blood to lose its thickness in barangay politics: brother fights brother, mother fights daughter, father fights uncle, in-laws fight one another, all affinities rendered asunder.
With family wealth dispersed and doled out to the voters, barangay elections not only help the local economy in terms of liquidity but serve as great social equalizers.
Personalan truly makes the essence of these elections. This is most evident in the names put up by the candidates.
In my barangay in Sto. Tomas town, there is a Payok running against a Pusa. Elsewhere, there is a Manok, a Bulik and a Tatso too.
I saw a Tuyo running for kagawad somewhere. And a Menudo too. Too bad my friend Paksi, a former town councilor, opted to retire from politics altogether after he lost in this year’s polls. They would have provided some culinary delight to the polls.
It is in barangay polls too that handicaps are celebrated to highlight candidacies, not as deficiencies. There is a Putot, a Duling – not Mayor Boking Morales’ ever-loyal lieutenant, a Salapi (one with extra digits, not money), and a Tikol and Pile in the running. (And who can forget the unbeatable Capitan Ngongo in the City of San Fernando, a few years after this piece was written?)
Candidates truly come in all shapes and sizes: Taba, Payat, and Sexy; Tangkad and Pandak. In all shades of color too: Baluga, Puti, Brown and Tagpi, as one afflicted with vitiligo had for a political moniker. No Blue there, he being already elected Angeles City mayor.
No Tarzan too, he being elected congressman. No Cheetah here. But once there was in Quezon City in the late comic Rene Requiestas who was a kagawad.
Strongman Atlas runs in Dau, Mabalacat. I wonder if there’s a Hercules somewhere. I am most certain though there are a lot of Samsons out there.
Personalan, so the name-calling gets real nasty.
Junior Sablay? Still too kind, make that Marcoracot, a penny-ante plunderer, a petty Marcos.
The “man you love”? Make that the manyilab (arsonist).
A candidate left by his wife becomes a pindeho. One with only a mother is a putok sa buho. Reasons don’t matter here. It’s all perception. It’s all deception.
Still, there’s much in one’s moniker that makes the big difference in the polls. There was once in a barrio in San Fernando where the contending candidates were named Apostol, Jesus and Satanas. Guess who won?
Satanas and Apostol lost. And the voters rued their choice.
Barangay elections, as in any other political contest, is no simple name game. Keep the passion but don’t leave out the reason.

Thy elders

A NICHE second only to God’s in the hierarchy of human respect and devotion – that is what the Fourth of the fire-inscribed divine decrees on the tablets Moses brought down from Sinai ordained for the old folks.

Last time I looked, the first three still invoked of God-man relationship; the rest, man-to-man, with honoring the elders as primus inter pares.
That primacy God decreed on the elders, their offspring trample with impunity.
Hear how your friendly jeepney driver addresses just about every sexagenarian passenger a most disrespectful and thoroughly politically-incorrect “Baby” or “Junior.”
Witness how drugstore despachadoras dismiss with dispatch senior citizens’ prescriptions with the overly practised stock reply of “Out of stock.”

Or, how waitresses sour up when senior citizens cards are placed alongside Ninoys to pay for the food tab.

Or, the absence of prescribed “senior citizens’ lane” in restaurants, drugstores, and other service establishments. 

In these, Republic Act 9994 or The Expanded Senior Citizens Act of 2010 be damned! As were RAs 7432 and 7876 in the past.
Honoring thy elders has become sheer lip service, celebrated less in true devotion than in crass commercialization – read: three-day sale events for Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day and Grandparents’ Day at the malls.
It was then a cause for celebration that some semblance of sense, if not sanity, was put in the cause of honoring the elderly lately.

SM greeters

Like SM malls for their Senior Citizens Community Service Program aimed at “empowering” the elderly by “promoting the dynamic use of their skills and talents.” This, through the provision of job opportunities for them.

In SM City malls senior citizens – aged 60-70 – have been hired for the past few years for “light duties” like greeters/guides at the mall entrances, female room assistants and cinema ticket booth guides. Their work hours usually on weekends, holidays or peak days between 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. -- “light schedule and period of assignment” so as to safeguard them from exhaustion.

Come to think of it, only in the Philippines that age is made a requisite to employment, notwithstanding that law that forbids such. Do that in the US and you’d be charged with discrimination.

In Japan too, a good number of seniors are employed as saleswomen in malls, and hotel boutiques, even as street sweepers.

Nanay cares

Under Gov. Lilia G. Pineda, the provincial government preceded even the national government in providing P100,000 to centenarians through its Senior Citizens Code or Ordinance No. 647, further amended to lower the beneficiary age to 95. Just last week, the Nanay herself personally handed P800,000 to senior elderly. This, on top of the over millions earlier given. 

Some years back, Balibago village chief Tony Mamac started tapping senior citizens in his clean-up campaign.  

“Seniors are generally early risers, so I engaged their services to clean our streets early mornings. This will allow them some sort of physical activity and at the same time contribute to the well-being of the community,” the T-Mac Mamac said then. “Not to mention getting paid (P3,000 monthly) for it.”

Senior citizens in Angeles City’s premier barangay also get from their chief P500 on their birthday.    

Some people – steeped in Filipino culture – may not look too kindly on the elderly still working, deserving as they are to reap the fruits of the labor they put in during their younger years.

It has been too long noted though that inactivity among elders is the main cause not only of creeping physical ailments but also of debilitating if not fatal psychological ones, depression being foremost.

Isolation, aloneness – their children struggling with lives of their own, leaves not much choice at socialization for the elderly. Especially in a nation that needed each family member to contribute to the family table.

Can-do

The 60’s, way up to the early 70’s, still make years of active productivity.  

Puede pa kami. As the cry of elders resounds. As proven in celebrations past and present of the Week of the Elderly where senior citizens display their remaining potentials – despite, mayhaps, because of age – to still make a difference in their community. Not a wisp of dotage but every bit of wisdom in their poesia and polosa. Not one arthritic joint creaking but a sweep of grace in their ballroom twists, turns, and gyrations. Not the slightest trace of senility but all gung-ho in their drive to be heard, to be active key-rolers in community affairs.

Aye, deprive them not of the ennobling essence of labor for their dignity. Consign them not to mere cases for charity. They still serve those who are 60 – and above – years of age.

“Honor thy father and thy mother,” the first commandment that has a promise added: “so that all may go well with you, and you may live a long time in the land.” So, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians. So, it was written in Exodus 20:12.
Else, be damned.
The fourth commandment carries too an injunction: “God’s curse on anyone who dishonors his father or mother.” So, it was proscribed in Deuteronomy 27:16.
I am writing this as much as a celebration of October 1-7 as Elderly Filipino Week as championing my right as a senior citizen myself, for the past three years now.  

Luid la ring matua!      

(Updated from a Zona column dated Oct. 23, 2013 in celebration of the Elderly Filipino Week)