Negating the Capampangan race

WE ARE proud of our museum... come and see why!

The next time you visit #Pampanga, step into the Clark Museum, the portal to the province’s rich legacy.
Too enticing to pass, I readily submitted to that teaser of the Greater Clark Visitors Bureau in its Facebook page and excitedly hit the play button on the short video exactly titled as the teaser’s.    

It was despicable!

At 0:43 of the video -- "It tells of Pampanga as home to indigenous people and traditional Tagalogs..."

No, this no instance of mere historical revisionism.

No, this is no case of naked fact-twisting.

No, this cannot even be a simple matter of semantics – “indigenous people” in the Philippine context having assumed the meaning of aboriginal.

This can only be an absolute negation of the Capampangan race.

A Pampanga unpeopled by the Capampangan themselves is definitively no Pampanga.

What brains could pass for those who conceptualized, scripted, and produced that video are certainly addled. The same applies to those who approved that video, those that are now promoting it as well. Yes, the Clark Development Corp. and the GCVB, foremost.

The Capampangans among you ought to hang…hang your heads in shame, at the least.

Come to think of it, this is not the first time that antipathy to, indeed, abomination of the Capampangan crept out of the Clark Museum.

In January 2015, at the inauguration of the museum’s 4-D Theater, I shouted in protest over the denigration of the Capampangan in the video premiered for the event. Here’s my account of that incident:

NO GOOD! A crisp, if loud, ejaculation I spewed at the 18-minuter Rising from the Ashes screened at the Clark Freeport’s spanking new 4-D Theater inaugurated last Monday.     

Truly, NO GOOD. For such high a cost as P13.85 million, the film devalued, aye, denigrated, what it was purposely made for to celebrate – precisely the indomitable spirit of Clark – its people, the Capampangan foremost – to resurrect from the devastation of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions.

What gall has the film producer/writer/director then to impact in the narrative that Clark was “systematically looted by the hungry victims of the eruption”?

It is no mere public knowledge but gospel truth that the looting of Clark was perpetrated by elements of the Philippine Air Force stationed there. Indeed, it was a systematic pillage by an organized army with sole authority over the place, rather than some spontaneous raid by a hunger-driven ash-speckled rabble off-base.

Forever enshrined in the Hall of Shame of our collective memory of Pinatubo is “General Hacot” – the Kapampangan “H” most pronounced where it does not exist – as the pillager of Clark.

The filmmakers did not know this? Or it just did not fit into the movie already fixed in their mind? Yeah, as it goes in some literary circles, why sacrifice the story for the facts?

As indeed, they seemingly did too at the opening scenes with a male Aeta shaman chanting forebodings of the forthcoming doom over their land. The culturally astute intrepid journalist Tonette Orejas was quick to slam the gender-insensitivity, if not outright perversion, committed by the filmmakers – the role of shaman or mag-aanito among the Aetas is exclusive to womenfolk.

So, the film made some perfunctory references to Apo Namalyari, Mount Pinatubo’s deity whose displeasure caused the eruptions. But what displeased the Apo?

No, not the pale-faced imperialists that had already occupied the land and befriended the tribes for nearly a century before the vengeful blast.       

Every Kapampangan journalist at the time knew the Aeta lore that Apo Namalyari was disturbed from his slumber when the unat (straight haired) desecrated his home, that is the Philippine National Oil Company exploring the slopes of the Zambales mountains for potential geothermal energy sources.

The Aeta tribesmen we interviewed claiming the steel pipes “melting like plastic” during the drilling as a sign of Apu Namalyari’s displeasure, aggravated by the subsequent – to them consequent – earthquake of 1990. And finding full, enormous expression in the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruptions.

No, the filmmakers had the least idea of these information. Or it could have been only too much non-essential bother to them. Else they could have easily referenced the Center for Kapampangan Studies and got precise, proper precis from Professor Robby Tantingco…

For what is supposed to be a drama-documentary, Rising from the Ashes runs short in facts and long, too long in romanticism. Alas, the medium consumed the message, with no more than bones left for substance…

AN INSULT to the Capampangan then, the utter denial of the Capampangan now.

What gives, CDC?

CRK sucks

CHILLAX, I’M flying out of Clark.

Yeah, sans the horrendous Manila traffic to NAIA, absent the congestion at its terminals, Clark’s a breeze. No rush, no rush. Still able to put this paper to bed Thursday, with a lot of time to spare for my 5:30 p.m. Philippines AirAsia flight to Incheon. So, with the old dependable Yaris drove leisurely to CRK.    

Well, what do you know! Clark airport ain’t the same anymore.

The Park-and-Fly area is now right by the very gate, over 400 meters – I reckon – from the terminal. A long, tedious walk even with but a hand-carried roller luggage in tow. And in this hot weather, a capital punishment for park-and-flyers.

Transferring the P-A-F from where it used to be – a two-minute gait to the terminal – is simply genius – evil, sadistic genius.

For ease of park-and-flyers, sheer logic and practicality too, their designated area should be nearest the terminal. They leave their cars and walk. Giving those lots to vehicles of fetchers, greeters and welcomers defeats P-A-F’s very reason for being.

Fetchers generally come with their own drivers. They can be dropped off at the greeters’ area and their vehicles parked farther, say near the gate where the P-A-F is now, and texted or called when the passenger being fetched has come out of the terminal. Basic practical sense.

Good there was this Grab driver who took pity on this senior profusely sweating as he walked to the terminal and gave him a lift.

Good too that those CIAC security people checking tickets and passports prior to entry are most courteous and helpful, especially to this senior who was waved to the front of a short queue and assisted with his luggage to the X-ray machine. Those security officers turned out to be the saving grace in this last Clark airport experience.

At the sound of the full body metal detector, I was asked to remove my belt and watch, and repeat the process. Okay.

Still good at the PAA check-in counter: one luggage tagged in, a back pack for carry-on. Boarding pass though had to be held pending presentation of travel tax receipt.

That evil, sadistic ingenuity came to the fore anew. A long line snaked down to the half of the terminal to the TIEZA counter manned by two personnel: one “evaluator” and one cashier, each seemingly taking his own sweet time at his oh-so-important function of getting P1,600 from each air passenger.

I pitied one passenger who had to beg to get ahead of the line as his flight was announced to be already boarding.

Yeah, whatever time saved in going CRK – compared to taking NAIA – is wasted at that travel tax traffic.  

It won’t tax TIEZA’s brain to expand its little corner and add to its personnel at the CRK to make life a lot easier for the passengers. Of course, assuming TIEZA has brains.

The long queue would have been more tolerable if air-conditioning was working on that side of the terminal. As it obviously was not, we all had that feverish feel – me soaked in sweat to my skin.

And with the mass of passengers checking in that side where post-quake repairs were still being undertaken, the heat really turned oppressive.

Come to think of it, we all hailed the Clark International Airport Corp. for managing to resume airport operations “within the fastest possible time” after the damage to the terminal wrought by the April 22 temblor.

Two months after, CIAC still had to finish its “minor repairs” of part of the terminal wall and ceiling. To the sufferance of the passengers.

True, we await with joy and gladness the completion of the new world-class CRK terminal with its promised ease, convenience, and comfort to the passengers. In the meantime, can’t we at least be spared of these Third World aggravations?

CIAC owes this to the public. After all, it is stated as one of its core values:   

“We strive to always meet and exceed customer expectations by providing exceptional services and state of the art facilities.”

State of the art facilities, my ass. On my return, 2:30 a.m. Sunday, had to walk again all the way to the P-A-F by the gate. But for the fence, it was in total darkness. Looking for the Yaris – amid all those vehicles parked every which way but proper – was like navigating a maze blindfolded.

Yeah, Clark airport sucks.  

Kapitan Gigil

TWENTY-ONE YEARS ago this June 24, I wrote in pain. In grief. In rage.

The man I dearly loved as a second father was killed. Executed in gangland fashion. In a most dastardly act.
Ricardo Velasquez Serrano, regional executive director of the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources in Central Luzon was shot through the heart while his car was caught in an early morning traffic jam along Congressional Avenue in Quezon City.
Kapitan Gigil to us close to him, Serrano as director of the then Department of Public Information initiated the professionalization and strengthening of the ranks of media persons, siring – along with me as co-proponent – the Central Luzon Media Association in 1978, being godfather to the Pampanga Press Club and the Angeles City Press and Radio Club, and esteemed adviser to all other provincial press groups in the region.
With the media, KG embarked on an “anti” campaign against the perceived scourges of Central Luzon, notching one accomplishment after another.
Like blasting more than 300 illegal fishpond dikes in 1978-1979, preceding by 20 years the Oplan Bilis Daloy of the Philippine National Police that also cleared the region’s rivers by blasting dikes.
Like the operations against jueteng in Pampanga in partnership with the then Presidential Task Force Against Illegal Gambling that resulted in the total overhaul of the whole police hierarchy in the region sometime in 1979.
Like closing down polluting firms – Pasudeco in Pampanga, United Pulp and Paper in Bulacan, and the Bataan Pulp and Paper Mills.
Like campaigning vigorously against illegal logging in Nueva Ecija and Zambales, naming names that were sacred in those days: Marcos and Romualdez.
For that last one, he was banished to Southern Philippines.
In 1995, he returned to Central Luzon this time as DENR director.
And it was rather uncanny that he was again fighting the same demons he fought before his unceremonious exile from the region.
Serrano was in the thick of a relentless campaign against illegal logging in Nueva Ecija as well as pollution in Pampanga and Bulacan caused by tanneries and alcohol plants when he was killed.
Shortly before his ambush, Serrano had worked for the closure of the Central Luzon Fermentation and Industrial Corp. in Apalit, Pampanga which had been blamed for the pollution of rivers in Pampanga and Bulacan.
At the time of the serving of the closure order, Philippine Star’s Ding Cervantes was hit by pellets when a security guard’s shotgun “accidentally went off.” The alcohol plant was finally shut down a year after Serrano’s killing.
I spoke in pain. In grief. In rage. At a memorial service of Pampanga newsmen for Serrano in 2000. “It is hard to accept that the government to which Serrano dedicated his outstanding career as government executive could just sweep his murder into the dustbin.
The Voice publisher-editor Ody Fabian, now also dead, talked then of how Serrano “impacted in us the highest standards of principled journalism, the values of good governance, and love for Mother Earth which we, in turn, should nurture among the next generation not only of journalists but of Kapampangans.”
“That the death of Serrano, a dedicated and committed government servant has remained unsolved to this day is a mockery of our justice system,” so said Fabian then.
Today, I write in pain. In grief. In rage. Twenty-one years after the crime, Serrano’s murder has remained unsolved.

Pinatubo: Of Triumph and Thievery

"THOSE OF us who remember what happened should never forget the hardships we have hurdled. Let us teach the younger generation of the sacrifices we made and how the Kapampangan spirit triumphed over that calamity. We should learn from these lessons and keep those lessons alive and relevant today.”

So spake 3^rd District Rep. Aurelio ‘Dong” Gonzales Jr. of that day of days – June 15, 1991 – and the succeeding days that veritably obliterated Pampanga from the face of the earth.

Gonzales noted that today’s youth have little knowledge of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions that “devastated Central Luzon and caused untold suffering for many Kapampangans, and forever changed the landscape of many provinces in the area.”

Hence, they held little, if any, appreciation of the “resilience, iron will and triumph of the human spirit” that obtained in the phoenix-like rise of the Capampangan from the ashes of Pinatubo. Which makes the remembrance all the more imperative.

Yes, along with Independence Day, the Pinatubo eruptions take centerstage  every second week of June in Pampanga. With the celebration of the triumph of the Capampangan spirit as recurring, indeed, unvarying, theme.

That triumph literally memorialized in at least two books I had the privilege of crafting – Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit commissioned by the San Fernando Heritage Foundation in 2008, and Agyu Tamu: Turning Tragedy into Triumph commissioned by the Agyu Tamu Movement of the friends of Mayor Ed Pamintuan in 2011.

We are not short in remembering either the agony of the Pinatubo devastations or the ecstasy of the Capampangan rising, aye, soaring, from it.

In our remembrance though, we have glossed over the evil – yes, that evil that was worse, much more hellish than the ashfalls and lahar flows – that struck the Capampangan in the wake of the volcanic havoc. It was as though Satan himself came with Pinatubo’s vomit.

There was the plunder of the American-abandoned Clark Air Base.

Under the patronage of someone most appropriately named “Hakot” – the way we Capampangans pronounce it with our penchant for adding the letter H where it should not be – the once bastion of American imperialism and decadent capitalism in the Asia-Pacific was cleared not so much of volcanic debris as of anything of value that remained in it. Yeah, not even door knobs, toilet bowls and sinks were spared.

An even more profitable enterprise that arose from the devastated base: the total demolition of damaged buildings, the scrap – galvanized iron roofing, wood paneling and ceilings, parquet and tile flooring, steel beams – contracted out to junk dealers. Egress of the contraband from Clark’s guarded gates facilitated by the guards themselves.  
A living monument of that thieving to this day – the CAB Hospital a ruined shell of its former self as the best military medical facility in the whole of the Far East.

So, it was futile to fight nature’s course. Still, to save the “saveable” was proffered the nobler cause. Hence, the engineering interventions that were the sabo dams and the earthen dikes.

Nothing more than Sisyphean – those dams and dikes in an endless cycle of building, being washed out at every heavy rainfall, rebuilding, washed out again… -- the interventions were nonetheless pursued most zealously for reasons that turned out to be least humanitarian but most cornucopian – their being inexhaustible source of cash, mountains of cash – for certain public works officials and their private contractor cohorts, best known for the moniker “Pajero Gang” after their preferred mode of transport.  

Even more lucrative were the desilting operations whereby contractors could just say what they had dredged and dug out of the river channels was washed back by the rains to the same rivers.

Indeed, some guys have all the smarts: finding the greatest opportunity in the worst adversity. Tumubo, tumabo sa hagkis ng Bulkang Pinatubo, as some wag came to calling these contactors then.

Come to think of it now, Angeles City – its Balibago entertainment district specifically – could have owed its rising to this government engineers-private contractors cabal as it was in the remaining night joints there that the transactions of por diez, por diez porciento were dealt, sealed, and delivered. Under the cover of darkness – oh, so appropriate.

As with the dams and dikes, so with the relocation and housing sites.

The fair market value of the chosen sites suddenly becoming fairest, not so much to the landowner’s but to the government purchaser’s delight.  

The initial houses and lots instantly damned as fit for swine not for humans. Pigpens at the cost of homes, right there.

Then, what about the donations of tens if not hundreds of millions directly going to the bank accounts of certain local officials, and/or laundered in some feeding program, stress debriefing, or-relief giving?   

Aye, as much as the triumph was the thievery that obtained with the Mount Pinatubo eruptions and its devastating aftermath.

So, we – the survivors – rightfully celebrate and congratulate ourselves for our resiliency, our excellence in raising Pampanga to an even higher level of development, wanting to impact the lessons of Pinatubo to the current and coming generations of our race.

So, those who made money out of our misery have their own kind of celebration. No one went to court, much less to jail. Their crime paid. The greater lesson of Pinatubo is right there.

Covering Nanay, uncovering media

WHO: GOV. Lilia G. Pineda. What: Linking of CFZ Locators and Pampanga PESO.

When: June 7, 2019. 2:00 p.m. Where: Royce Hotel, Clark Freeport.

Open coverage to media.

As open, if not more open, was how media publicized the event with the variance in the news stories that emanated from it, all datelined Clark Freeport.

SunStar-Pampanga bannered: Pineda endorses Asyong for PCL president

Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda has endorsed outgoing San Luis Mayor and Councilor-Elect Venancio "Asyong" Macapagal to be the next president of the Pampanga Councilors League (PCL).

Pineda, who is the vice governor-elect of the province, made the endorsement in a meeting with officers of the Liga ng mga Barangay and Sanggunian Kabataan headed by Board Members Gabby Mutuc and Moshe Lacson at Royce Hotel Clark last Friday. 
"Mga Kapitan at mga SK kayo na ang bahala kay (Mayor) Asyong, kailangan ko siya sa Provincial Board," Pineda said…
A thoroughly political spin there. For naught, given that barangay chairs and the SKs don’t vote for the PCL president.

The occasion also reduced to a mere “meeting with officers of the Liga ng mga Barangay…” The CFZ locators, the PESO representatives, other local chief executives, much less the meat of the discussions relative to the expressed purpose of their “linking” finding no mention in the story.

iOrbit headlined: Guv cites CDC contribution to Pampanga economy

Gov. Lilia Pineda cited the Clark Development Corporation for its huge contribution to the economy of Pampanga by providing jobs to Kapampangan specifically in the ecozone’s surrounding community. 

“Tayong mga nasa Pampanga… masuwerte tayo dahil meron tayong ecozone. Tingnan nyo naman 134,584 employees… Ganun din ang mga locators na umabot na sa bilang na 1,092. Malaki ang naitutulong sa ekonomiya ng lalawigan. Hindi biru-biro ang P4.7 billion (sic) na export,” said Pineda during a forum with locators, local government officials, and provincial employment office (PESO) held at Royce Hotel and Casino here Friday. 

Dubbed as “Linking CDC Locators and Pampanga PESO”, Pineda said the forum will kickstart the collaboration between CDC and Pampanga. She urged PESO officers to help all investors within the ecozone by providing competent workers… 

Fact check: $4.6 billion exports, not P4.7 billion. Still, the numbers are impressive. All hail CDC, take a bow president-CEO Noel Manankil.

Punto! Online reported:  Gov Pineda gets Mabalacat pledge for service vehicles

…The “nanay” that she always is, Gov. Lilia Pineda has urged her apparent “eldest son” in Mabalacat City Mayor Cris Garbo to provide a vehicle each to the 21 municipalities of Pampanga. They will be primarily used for rescue operations during emergency situations and disaster operations.

“Alam nyo po ba magkano ang nakukuha ng Mabalacat sa Clark ngayon? Aabot po ng P800 million. Kaya ang pakiusap ko po kay Mayor Garbo ay tumulong siya sa ibang bayan,” Pineda said in her speech.

The “eldest” in terms of budget now, Garbo was asked by outgoing governor to provide the vehicles from the P800 million windfall Mabalacat City is getting this year in the Gross Income Earned (GIE) shares from Clark locators. Pampanga’s third and newest city now has about P2 billion annual budget.

In an employment forum Friday with Capitol officials, Pampanga mayors, provincial board members, Clark Development Corp (CDC) officials and Clark locators at Royce Hotel here, Garbo readily agreed to the request. The forum was called by Pineda to foster cooperation among CDC, LGUs and Clark locators…

Slant now on Garbo. Though tagged with many monikers, it is the first time that I saw “eldest son” appended to the mayor. Wonder who named him such.

Last, but certainly not least, Punto! Central Luzon bannered Gov bats for labor center, workers’ hospital in Clark

“That $4.6 billion speaks of the imperative for all of us to do our share to ensure and enhance productivity in this freeport.”

So cited Gov. Lilia G. Pineda of the 2018 export volume of the Clark Freeport during the “Linking of CFZ Locators and Pampanga Public Employment Service Office (PESO)” that gathered the human resources managers of locator firms, local government executives, officials of the association of barangay chairs, and municipal PESO heads at the Royce Hotel here.

“This is the start of close collaboration between Clark, its locators, the Capitol, and the local government units,” Pineda said, giving particular mention to the City of Mabalacat within which territorial jurisdiction lies a greater part of this freeport…

…To further empower the workers, Pineda said she has discussed with Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III and Clark Development Corp. president- CEO Noel Manankil the establishment of a labor center at the freeport that shall address the immediate needs of both workers and locators.

Pineda likewise extended to Clark workers her so-called “Nanay health advocacy” with her planned establishment of an extension of the Pampanga provincial hospital at the freeport.

“We are well aware of the health needs of our workers, and the high cost of hospitalization,” Pineda said. “Thus, this hospital dedicated to them with its own diagnostic center, pharmacy with tax-free medicines, and zero balance billing.”

According to the governor, the CDC has allotted a 2,000 square meter lot for the hospital.

“I already talked with (Mabalacat City) Mayor Cris Garbo for this project. He can allot budget for this from the P800 million share of the city from the gross income earned from Clark,” she said….

ONE EVENT. Four different stories with the governor as common thread. I am biased to say that the last one captured best the substance of the event. That does not in any way impugn the validity, indeed the veracity, of the others. All of them factual accounts of what actually transpired. The difference is in the peg, the slant, or the spin, if one wishes, of the news writer.

Media objectivity, uncovered right there. As in some newsmen are more objective than others. Depending on their object?   

Still crying for freedom

1898. GENERAL Emilio Aguinaldo proclaims Philippine independence from 300 years of Spanish colonialism. 

From Hong Kong, rushed Admiral George Dewey to Manila Bay and soon followed the American occupation of the archipelago.

1946. Imperial Japan had been driven out of the Philippines. United States High Commissioner Paul V. MacNutt lowers the Stars and Stripes as Manuel Roxas raises the three-starred tricolor of red, white and blue, having taken his oath as President of the Republic of the Philippines. Contemporaneously, the Parity Rights took effect, and with it, the American exploitation of the country’s natural resources, the human kind not exempted.

1972. To save the Republic, Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial law and instituted his Bagong Lipunan, the New Society that shall take the Philippines to the firmament of development in Asia. There followed the worst human rights violations the nation ever suffered.

1981. Marcos proclaims a New Republic. US Vice President George H.W. Bush toasts the dictator for his “adherence to democracy.” 

1986. The aberration that was the EDSA Revolution shoved housewife Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino into the Philippine presidency. A visit to Mother America, complete with a US Congress grand spectacle, topped the agenda of her government. More and stronger strings, nay chains, were attached to ever American pie a la aid that went the country’s way, most especially after the US fighter jets turned the tide in the worst coup attempt to her government.

1991. The end of the US-RP Military Bases Agreement. Clark and Subic got dismantled. More through the devastation of the Mount Pinatubo eruptions than through government intervention. Came soon after the Visiting Forces Agreement.

2001. Yet another EDSA to oust the plunderer. Only to find the Philippine government more drawn to the axis of USA, the Coalition of the Willing unleashing its might in Saddam’s Iraq but one instance of the Filipino’s ever-ready obsequiousness to the whims of America.

1898. 1946. 1986. 1991. 2001. Years when independence from foreign and homegrown oppression and freedom for the Filipino flashed as in a frying pan; when rhetorics tried – and failed – to gloss over the realities of Philippine political enslavement to the United States and socio-economic subservience to the World Bank-International Monetary Fund.

2019. Pray, tell, what independence do we celebrate?

Certainly not from the dictates of foreign powers. The country virtually turned a Chinese vassal state by Duterte.

Not from fear. Human life at its cheapest with the extra-judicial killings wrought by the drug war; the wanton targeting of progressives, be they lawyers, journalists, peasant and IP leaders.  

Not from oppression. Human rights trampled upon by state wrongs.  

Not from want. What with a national economy tethered on foreign debt!

Not from hunger. Rice tariffication and TRAIN laws, just two of the most telling pieces of legislation consigning the greater Filipino population to mass poverty and startvation.   

Cry Freedom, then.    

And in crying, we take to heart Ka Amado V. Hernandez’s Kung Tuyo Na Ang Luha Mo, Aking Bayan:
Lumuha ka, aking Bayan, buong lungkot mong iluha
Ang kawawang kapalaran ng lupain mong kawawa:
Ang bandilang sagisag mo’y lukob ng dayong bandila,
Pati wikang minana mo’y busabos ng ibang wika,
Ganito ring araw noon nang agawan ka ng laya,
Labin-tatlo ng Agosto nang saklutin ang Maynila,

Lumuha ka, habang sila ay palalong nagdiriwang, 

Sa libingan ng maliit, ang malaki’y may libangan;
Katulad mo ay si Huli’ng, naaliping bayad-utang,
Katulad mo ay si Sisa’ng, binaliw ng kahirapan;
Walang lakas na magtanggol, walang tapang na lumaban,
Tumataghoy, kung paslangin; tumatangis, kung nakawan!

Iluha mo ang sambuntong kasawiang naglalakop 

Na sa iyo’y pampahirap, sa banyaga’y pampabusog:
Ang lahat mong kayamana’y kamal-kamal na naubos,
Ang lahat mong kalayaa’y sabay-sabay na natapos;
Masdan mo ang iyong lupa, dayong hukbo’y nakatanod,
Masdan mo ang iyong dagat, dayong bapor, nasa laot!

Lumuha ka kung sa puso ay nagmaliw na ang layon, 

Kung ang araw sa langit mo ay lagi nang dapithapon,
Kung ang alon sa dagat mo ay ayaw nang magdaluyong,
Kung ang bulkan sa dibdib mo ay hindi man umuungol,
Kung wala nang maglalamay sa gabi ng pagbabangon,
Lumuha ka nang lumuha, ang laya mo’y nakaburol.

May araw ding ang luha mo’y masasaid, matutuyo, 

May araw ding di na luha sa mata mong namumugto
Ang dadaloy, kundi apoy, at apoy na kulay dugo,
Samantalang ang dugo mo ay aserong kumukulo;
Sisigaw kang buong giting sa liyab ng libong sulo
At ang lumang tanikala’y lalagutin mo ng punglo!

And cry again, stronger: Isulong, paigtingin ang pakikibaka…

(First published in June 2011, updated)

Visa blues

THE TRUMP administration is really tightening the screws on immigration to the US.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services is set to close its Manila field office on July 5.  The US embassy in Manila has announced that it "will assume responsibility for certain limited services previously provided by USCIS to individuals residing in the Philippines." This, even as it directed those seeking petitions for alien relatives (Form I-130), to file them "by mail with the USCIS lockbox facility in Chicago."

Reuters reports said the move "is the latest from an administration that has worked to limit both legal and illegal immigration since Trump took office in January 2017, including cuts to the US refugee program and heightened vetting of US visa applications.”

Earlier, invoking national security, the US State Department was reported to have started implementing “a new rule” that would require US visa applicants to provide details of their Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other social media accounts.

"National security is our top priority when adjudicating visa applications, and every prospective traveler and immigrant to the United States undergoes extensive security screening."

So was the US State Department quoted by AP last week, and furthered that the additional information collected from applicants "will strengthen our process for vetting these applicants and confirming their identity."

The proverbial donkey through the eye of the needle to enter the kingdom of the USA henceforth, we can only reminisce of the good old days when seeking the holy grail – that US visa, dummy – was difficult but not impossible to attain.

Getting a US visa  

JUNE 15, 2006. 9:20 A.M. Shaded by a small parasol from the fast heating morning sun, the guard handed back my all-important confirmation notice and courteously said: “Your schedule, Sir, is at 9:30 yet. Come back after 10 minutes.”

Behind the concrete barricades I sought shelter under the canopy of those old balite – or are they banyan? – trees to while the time away. A heavily-jeweled lady, in the shade too, started a conversation: her schedule was 11:30 pa, she felt certain she’d have her visa renewed as she’d come back and did not go TNT on her trip to the States, “unlike some miserable folks abusing the hospitality of America.”

I asked her how long was the visa given her? “Ten years, multiple entry.” And how many times had she used it? “Just once.” Okay. I wished her luck.
Exactly 9:30 I was told to go through Gate 3, where I had to pass a metal detector and place my bag through an X-ray machine, before taking my place at the end of long queue to a window marked “A-L surnames.”
Snatches of animated conversation eavesdropped along the line run the gamut from the spiritual to the illegal.
“I did not miss a single Wednesday in Baclaran praying the novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help for two months,” said a youngish matron pining for her first visa.
“My novena was to St. Jude,” replied an older one, adding that her supplication to the patron of impossible cases was prompted by her two previous rejections, err, denial of her request for a visa.
“The minimum three months is all I need,” said a thirty-something. She had no qualms in revealing her intent to stay in America, no matter the cost, “even marrying a bed-ridden octogenarian.”
“We have visas na. We frequent the US, you know. We’re here to apply for our baby,” a young couple bragged, an infant asleep in his father’s arm. On their turn at the window, the wife was horrified to find that her baby needed a photograph in his application.
“It was not stated in the requirements,” she tried to rationalize with the stern-looking American lady at the window.
“The slot for the photo is just too big for you to miss,” came the retort.
To her rescue, someone in the line said there were photographers just outside the guardhouse offering five-minute services. So, with her husband and baby, off she ran.
After 25 minutes, it was my turn at the window. Passport and visa application were checked, found in proper order and passed on to an assigned consular officer, I presumed. A numbered stub was given me with the instruction “Go to the pavilion and wait for your number to be called. Good day.”
A hundred others were waiting there seated on benches under a signboard “Waiting to be finger-scanned.” Instructions on the proper placement of the left and right index fingers on the scanner were posted all around to facilitate the process. Numbers were being called – in batches of five, and flashed on a lighted digital bar at the top of the door.
It was 11 A.M. when my number, 3184, was called. So, with 3180 onto 3185, I entered an SRO consular office. Windows 1 and 2 were for finger-scanning, Windows 3 – 11 for the interview.
A scar on the left index finger of number 3183 warranted 20 minutes of questioning. It took another five minutes for the scanner in-charge to finish scribbling notes on a yellow post-it she affixed to 3183’s passport. “Denied ito,” I mused.
My own turn to be finger-scanned was a breeze. It did not take more than two minutes. And I got myself a seat after five minutes.

Guessing game

To pass the time, I engaged in a guessing game. At every flash of a number, I took a quick look at the visa applicant and deemed if a visa would be forthcoming or not.
Nine of ten, I was right in my judgment. Based not on psychological profiling but on mere observation. Two extreme types of character were denied visas: those who came in too weak – angst-ridden, nervous, fidgety, obsequious; and those who came in too strong – swaggering in confidence, obnoxious.
There was this business-type guy in coat and tie who, soon as he came to Window 4, pulled out the contents of his bulging attaché case – land titles, bank books, SEC papers, and laid them on the counter. The consular officer was not apparently impressed by this display of wealth as he promptly denied the application, without even asking him any question. Lesson: Don’t pre-empt the officer. Take out your supporting documents only when asked.
A matron made the sign of the cross when her number was called. She went to Window 6 as if she was ready to faint – ashen, trembling legs and all. She too was denied.
On Window 8, a group of three women and one lawyer-looking guy engaged the consular officer in a heated argument when one of the ladies was denied her application. Even after a new number was flashed for that window, the four refused to leave. A guard had to escort the four out of the office.
Pity those who would be assigned to Window 8, I told my seatmates. It would be rejection there henceforth.
Much to our chagrin, 3180-3185 were assigned there. And so it was as I said. It was hello and goodbye to 3180 in less than one minute. One question and it was all over for the rest. A denial, seemingly at face value, for 3183. Then, it was me.
“Good luck po,” 3185 called out after me.
“Good morning, Mister Caesar,” greeted the consular officer. It was 11:55. Of course I answered “Good morning too” and added “How’r you doing?”
Good, was the reply. As he scanned on his desktop what I presumed to be my application and some other data of my previous stay in the USA.
“So you were in the States last year?”
“Yes, and in the two previous years.”
“What was your longest stay?”
“Five months in 2000.”
“Why did you stay that long?”
“Had to seek refuge in the States and let things cool back home after an ambush that killed three of my friends.”
“Oh. Are you a travel writer? Did you write for newspapers when you were in the States?”
“I am a political and economic journalist. I did some writing when I was there for the newspapers here in the Philippines.”
“Would you like to avail yourself of a journalist visa so you can pursue your profession in the States?”
“I prefer a tourist visa. I go to the States for leisure not for work.”
“Okay. How about your wife, does she have a visa.”
“Yes. She was in the States in 1981, err, 2001.”
“Are you traveling with her?”
“Yes. It will be our first together.”
“Okay. Enjoy your trip. Here’s your yellow card. Make arrangements for your visa delivery at the pavilion.
“Thanks. Have a nice day.”
“Have a nice day too.”
At the Del Bros counter at the pavilion, I was making my delivery arrangements when 3185 came. She too got a visa. For three months to Guam. No, she won’t go TNT there. She told me she had an examination to take pursuant to her masteral degree.
June 19. 4:42 P.M. A Del Bros messenger in motorcycle delivered my passport. Affixed is a five-year multiple entry B1-B2 visa. Deng Pangilinan would have ejaculated: “God bless America!”

IT WAS even breezier with my US visa renewal in 2011. I was just greeted a “Good day” at the consular window, all my documents received and told to just wait in a week’s time for 2GO to deliver my fresh 10-year multiple entry visa at my doorstep.    

Yeah, how times have been trumped.

Schooling parents

“OF THE 464,771 4Ps children-beneficiaries being monitored by DSWD in the region, 62,798 are not attending school.”

Shocking, to say the least, is the revelation of Department of Social Welfare and Development 4Ps regional program coordinator Tomasa Lirio, as reported here last week by Ding Cervantes.

For one, attendance in school is a pre-requisite for indigent families to continue receiving cash in varying amounts monthly under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

The greater shock is in the number of these out-of-school kids, presumably in the elementary and junior high age brackets, out there in the open. Maybe eking out what passes for some income-generating activity to help out their parents, open to all sorts of predations.

So, the DSWD is studying whether to disqualify them, unless the parents vow to let their children pursue schooling in the new school year, Lirio said. “We also conduct regular assessment to identify availability of supply side which are contributory to the compliance of these children. Gaps are then lobbied to the local, provincial and regional committees.”

The DSWD launched the Bata Balik-Eskwela Campaign in time for the opening of classes “to initiate collective efforts in encouraging school-aged children to attend school.”

No mere encouragement, make it an imperative for parents – under pain of penalties, suspending 4Ps dole-out just the least – to keep their children in school. Indeed, there have been some proposed legislation on the matter. Like this one discussed in a Zona pieces dated May 16, 2008 titled Irresponsible parenthood:

“ALL SCHOOL-AGED children in basic education must be in school.”
Thus declared Education Secretary Jesli Lapus in support of a bill filed in the House by Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez that sanctions jail terms and/or fines to parents who fail to send their children to school or to provide them with an education.
Poverty, Rodriguez pointed out in his explanatory notes, should never be a hindrance to education since parents can enroll their children in public schools which provide free education.
Lapus even went further to say that poverty should even be a motivating factor for parents to send their children to school.
“Education is life’s great equalizer. It is also the number one anti-poverty measure we can have,” the education secretary was quoted as saying.
As “knowledge is power,” so “education is the greatest gift parents can give their children.” It is a life-long treasure that cannot be stolen, that will not perish.
In the rural communities, cursed is the home that did not have a wall – even if only of the lowly sawali – serving as shrine to education where displayed the diplomas, medals and citations of the children.
Premium is indeed put on education as sure-way to get out of poverty. The sagas of Diosdado Macapagal and Oscar Rodriguez are testaments to that.
Parenthood is measured not simply in the number of children sired, but in those reared and educated to be useful citizens.
Failing there thus is the pits of parental irresponsibility. So well discoursed by the philosopher John Stuart Mill in his essay On Liberty: “To bring a child into existence without a fair prospect of being able, not only to provide food for its body, but instruction or training for its mind, is a moral crime, both against the unfortunate offspring and against society.”
A moral crime indeed! Your children did not ask you to be brought out into this world. You did it – with pleasure, to boot! Now you rear them until such time they can go on their own. That is your obligation not only to your God but to society as well.
But where stands the traditional bastion of morality here?
No to all forms of artificial contraception. Yes to tuition hikes in its exclusive institutions. And the population-education-poverty problem gets on a full cycle, nay, on a spiral: the poor getting more babies, the population mired in ignorance with quality education beyond, poverty a-breeding.
There has to be a stop somewhere. And penalizing parents for abandoning their moral responsibility makes one good start.
Most proper and just then for the state to act.
Thus, per Rodriguez’s bill, failure to send children to school will mean imprisonment of six years or a penalty of not more than P100,000.
Abandonment of children translates to six months to two years and a penalty of P100,000.
All sectors of society are bound to support Rodriguez’s bill. To save the children. To save society itself.

WONDER WHATEVER happened to that bill.