The Capampangan

THERE IS much ado about the Capampangan.

More than a tribe, the old Capampangan prides himself as a separate race. Perhaps in bitter rebellion against the diminution of his once vast kingdom that was said to have stretched from the mouth of the Pasig in Tondo to the upper reaches of the Chico River in Cagayan Valley.

Mayhaps, in a vicious reaction to the consequent waning of the primacy of his lingua franca which is now limited to just the province and the southern half of Tarlac, plus a single town in each of Pampanga’s contiguous provinces of Bataan, Bulacan, and Nueva Ecija.

He may not be the distinct species that he likes to make of himself, but the Capampanga unarguably stands out when ranged against his Filipino fellows. You will know the Capampangan, easily.

Food is his passion. A gourmand is the Capampangan as he turns snails and frogs, dogs and field mice, pythons and cobras, locusts and mole crickets into exotic dishes rivaling ambrosia itself. And no meal for him without the attendant condiments of patis, toyo, and aslam.

And who could love the pungent buro more, other than the Capampangan?

How the Capampangan loves to party! Just about every occasion is a cause for celebration. A Capampangan fiesta is unrivalled in the excesses of bacchanalia. The fattened calf or pig, even good old Bantay, get served on the Capampangan table. Beer goes by the truckful. No money is no excuse to feast. E ca macapagtawó? Ala cang marine tau. Nananu ya itang mag-five-six qng cantu? Feast for the day, all the year to the usurer.

Fashion is an everyday statement. In colleges and universities, the ubiquitous Capampangan student is the one dressed to the nines but with barely a dime. Just about everywhere he is togged as though ever-ready to a party.

Dance is a religion. Even before the fad of disco and ballroom dancing, the Capampangan has had – dating to the turn of the century, the 19th to the 20th pa – Circulo Fernandino in the capital town, Bachelor’s Club, later Thomasian in Sto. Tomas, Old Legs in Bacolor, Batubalani in Guagua, Maharajah in Macabebe, Now and Then in Minalin, and a host of other annual formal dances where the local crème de la crème shine in their best fineries.

Porma is his way of life. When a Kapampangan earns – even barely enough – the first thing he buys is a car, never a house. Why? Ninanu ca, malyari meng apidala-dalang pamorma ing bale?

Now you know the reason behind the labeling of the Capampangan as mayabang. Part of this also is his “sugar mentality” raised, no doubt, in the province’s once fertile sugarlands. More than a sweet tooth and a diabetic constitution, the Capampangan possesses a saccharine tongue.

Just you listen when he woos the object of his affection. Or eavesdrop to his whispers to the subject of his seduction. And wonder no more why the Capampangan is a lahing sibuburian, if not a lahing pipicutan.

The Capampangan’s mastery with words is manifested too in the number of cabalens in literature and in the media. Just about every newspaper in Manila has a Capampangan for an editor, columnist, deskman, or reporter.

Of course, there are the laughables about the Capampangan.

When the deadly H-fever epidemic was wreaking havoc in Metro Manila and elsewhere, it was joked about that Pampanga would be spared. Why? The Capampangan has no H in his language, silly.

Which brings to mind that tongue-twister that landed me a grade of 70 in high-school Pilipino after I read it thus: Hako hay naiipan ng anging hamian hat hako’y napa-alak-ak, a-a-a-a-a.

Having not the letter H in the language is nothing to be ashamed of though. This is part of the Kapampangan’s Spanish heritage. Remember in lengua Español, the letter H is silent. O, nanu pang asabi mu?

Positivizing the negative is a Kapampangan attribute. Finding opportunity in adversity is imbued in the Kapampangan character. Yes, there was more than sloganeering or rhetorics in the late Governor Bren Z. Guiao’s E co magmalun, mibangun ya ing Pampanga immediately after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. It was a call to the resiliency innate in the Capampangan. Proven in time by the leaps and bounds the province has taken rising, then soaring from Pinatubo’s ashes of devastation and despair…

Luid ya ing Capampangan.

(First published in The Voice, Dec. 6-12, 1998 – all of 23 years ago. Uploaded on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the foundation of the Province of Pampanga, Dec. 11, 2021) 

 

'Dugong aso' deconstructed

ALDO NING KAPAMPANGAN. Celebrating the 450th founding anniversary of the Province of Pampanga started with a Holy Mass concelebrated by San Fernando Archbishop Florentino Lavarias and Archbishop Emeritus Paciano B. Aniceto and half a dozen priests at the Capitiol grounds on Monday.

This was immediately followed by the lighting of the Capitol’s Christmas displays. All other events traditionally included in the annual celebrations, foremostly the Mutya ning Kapampangan pageant and the Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awards, have been cancelled for the second straight year owing to the pandemic.

The pause, the quiet accorded the festivities, gives a good time to really reflect on the Kapampangan soul.

Rather than go to the breast-thumping “Kapampangan Ku, Pagmaragul Ku” conceit and think hard of what I can really be proud of as a Kapampangan, I chose to look at that singular disparagement of the Kapampangan in the eyes of all the other “nations” of the archipelago – from the Ilocano to the Bicolano, the Waray and the Ilonggo, the Cebuano, the Maranaw, etcetera.

Aye, the Kapampangan dog-tagged – it can’t be any more literal – as dugong aso.

Quick trip through my yellowed archives brought back this piece written and rewritten some years back –

…DOGS ARE clichéd as man’ts best friend, yet they tend to get the choicest cuts in the worst insults. “Gone to the dogs,” for instance.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago riled the usually cat-cool Sen. Panfilo Lacson (not my relative) not so much for calling him “Pinky” as for branding him as Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s “attack dog.” Warranting a reply in kind from the former top cop. A case of “dog-eat-dog” there?

“Tuta ng Kano (America’s puppy).” So, the militant Left derided Ferdinand E. Marcos, Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, and all those who followed them to Malacañang down to Cory’s son BS.

Even the venerable Carlos P. Romulo, who served eight Philippine presidents – from Quezon to Marcos – and who himself sat as president – of the Fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1949-1950, was not spared of a similar epithet. No idle urban legend but a revealed truth to student activists of the First Quarter Storm was Chou En-Lai’s dismissal of Romulo as “America’s running dog” at the Bandung Conference of Asian and African nations in 1955 that helped crystallized the Non-Aligned Movement.

At the time of Cory too, I remember the Malacañang Press Corps raising a howl over a presidential factotum’s obvert reference to them as mongrels when he directed his staff to “feed the kennel” whenever his office issued press releases.

For too long a time, a collective insult, indeed, a curse, to the whole Kapampangan race is the branding “dugong aso.”

In 1981, the political leadership of Pampanga – from Gov. Estelito P. Mendoza, Vice Gov. Cicero J. Punzalan, down to the mayors led by the “Big 5” of San Fernando’s Armando Biliwang, Arayat’s Benigno Espino, Magalang’s Daniel Lacson, Sta. Ana’s Magno Maniago, and Sta. Rita’s Frank Ocampo, along with Angeles City’s Francisco G. Nepomuceno, raged and ranted rabidly at then Olongapo City Mayor Richard J. Gordon for citing the Kapampangans as dugong aso in the context of regionalism’s ill-effects to nationalism in his nomination speech for Ferdinand E. Marcos in the KBL party convention at the Manila Hotel.

Actual physical threats were even thrown Gordon’s way in addition to some persona non grata resolutions. (Gordon’s topping Pampanga in the senatorial contest of May 2013, is some vindication of the forgiving-and-forgetting nature of this race.)

Lapid

Even as dugong aso stuck to the Kapampangan, the insult accruing thereat has largely dissipated. This is owed to an extent to then Gov. Lito Lapid, as we wrote here some time ago:

“Ikinagagalit nating mga Kapampangan ang pagtawag sa atin ng ‘dugong aso.’ Subali’t ito ay ipinagmamalaki’t ikinararangal ko. Sa katapatan, wala nang mauuna pa sa aso: sa kanya iniiwan ng amo ang tahanan nito, pati na magkaminsan ang pagtatanggol sa kanyang pamilya. Subukin mong saktan ang amo, at tiyak, dadambain ka ng kanyang aso. Ang katapatang ito ang iniaalay ko sa inyo.” (We Kapampangans get slighted when told the blood of dogs runs in our veins. But I find pride and honor in this. When it comes to loyalty, none beats the dog: to it man leaves the protection of his home, at times even the defense of his family. Try to hit a man and his dog will surely attack you. This is the kind of loyalty I off er you.)

Before a beaming President Ramos at the Mawaque Resettlement Project site in 1997, Lapid pledged his loyalty in gratitude for the new lease on human decency, on human life itself that El Tabaco bestowed upon those the Mount Pinatubo eruptions devastated, displaced, and dispossessed.

Thence, the Bida embraced FVR’s Lakas- NUCD with a fidelity his wife could only wish he committed to his marital vows with as much devotion, if not intensity.

Lapid there made a rarity: loyalty being an uncommon commodity in politics. So, what is it that makes politicians and adulterers one and the same as a dysfunctional radio? Low fidelity on a high frequency, dummy…

There too was Lapid giving a novel and noble meaning to the derogatory dugong aso impacted in the Kapampangan psyche, extolling it as the virtue of katapatan, of dogged loyalty to an elder, to a superior, to a friend. No mean feat for the uncolleged Lapid.

But for the title “Of dogs and men,” there is very little I remember of a column I wrote in The Voice in the late ‘70s. It would have made a most relevant read in the subject I am discussing here. The ending of that column though is something I cannot possibly just easily forget, having consigned it as much to the mind as to the heart and put out at every opportunity that calls for it, like now.

A lesson in loyalty – of dogs, as well as of men – perfectly captured in that blurb of an award-winning Lino Brocka movie: “Sa bawa’t latay, kahit aso’y nag-iiba. Sa unang latay, siya’y magtatanda; Sa ikalawa, siya’y mag-iisip; Sa ikatlo, siya’y magtataka; Sa ika-apat, humanda ka!” (At every lash, even a dog changes. At the first, it would learn. At the second, it would think. At the third, it would wonder. At the fourth, brace yourself!)

Caveat canis. Beware of the dog. Yes, there is more to what the Latins of old put up at their gates than its literal meaning.

Tantingco

GOOD-BYE, Dugong Aso.

Thus, the erudite Robby Tantingco, head of the Center for Kapampangan Studies at the Holy Angele University, slugged his Facebook post three years ago.

He wrote: “Have you noticed? There is hardly any Filipino anymore who calls Kapampangans ‘dugong aso’. We have successfully asserted ourselves and changed the conversation to the other narratives of the multi-layered story of our amazing people. So, once and for all, and to put the last nail on the coffin of this subject matter, let us stop blaming the Macabebe Scouts alone…for the capture of Aguinaldo in Palanan in 1901…”

And, with their corresponding mug shots and briefs of their dastardly deed, Robby laid the blame on Spanish Capt. Lazaro Segovia, Ilocano Cecilio Seguismundo, and Tagalog Maj. Hilario Talplacido as having betrayed Aguinaldo.

Lamented Robby: “And yet it was the foot soldiers, the Macabebes, who bore the brunt of the nation’s anger which resulted in the unfair racial profiling of all Kapampangans as ‘traydor’ and ‘dugong aso.’”

Rightly, and reasonably, Robby: “How could the Macabebes, who never served in Aguinaldo’s army and therefore could not have betrayed him, be branded as traitors, and not these three defectors? They were merely doing their job as hired soldiers of the American military, and were actually exacting vengeance on a man they hated with all their heart and soul (for killing Andres Bonifacio whose roots were in Macabebe, and for ordering the burning of the Macabebe church).”

I commented: From another perspective, the Macabebe scouts should even be hailed as heroes. Aguinaldo’s messiahnic delusions deprived the revolution of its father, Bonifacio and its only real military brains, Luna.

While over a score liked what I said, the overwhelming majority of reactions were more of relief and gladness at Robby’s reasoned contextualization of a historical event in expunging from the Kapampangan race the canard of a canine bloodline.

Luid ya ing Kapampangan!

 (Punto, Dec. 8, 2021)

Anak ng Ama: Sino ba talaga?

 
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 ANAK NG Ama. Mula sa Pampanga. Alay sa Masa.

Ito ang bansag sa sarili ng kandidato sa pagka-gobernador na si Danilo “Boy” Baylon, naging punongbayan ng Candaba sa isang termino, nakilala sa mga manok na ipinamamahagi hindi lamang sa kanyang bayan kundi sa buong lalawigan. 

Higit na kumintal sa kaisipan ng balana ang kanyang iwing pagka-makadiyos, sa kanyang mabuting pangangaral katuwang ang kanyang maybahay na si Apo Aniway na kandidato naman sa pagka-punong bayan ng Candaba.

 

Dios. Dignidad, Disiplina. Ana nga ng kaniyang bansag na kawikaan. At ayon na rin sa kanya, “atas ng Paginoon” ang kaniyang pagtakbo sa pagkagubernador.

“Ang wika ng Ama, sa araw daw na mag-file kami ng COC ng aking asawa, panalo na raw ang maraming taong naghihirap sa buong Pampanga, maging sila man ay nasa kabilang panig pa!” aniya sa kanyang Facebook page.

“Kaya anuman ang aming maranasang paghadlang, hirap, paninira at pananakot... ang lahat ng ito ay hinahandog namin sa mga tao at higit sa lahat...Sa Dios!!!,” dagdag pa ni Baylon. 

At ito na nga ang nangyari: Inihagkis sa kanya, “Bulaang propeta,” sigaw na kumalat hanggang mamaos sa social media. Pinag-iingat ang mga manghahalal na Kapampangan na huwag maging hangal at maniwala na lamang sa mga “nagsisilapit sa inyo na may damit tupa, datapuwa’t sa loob ay mga lobong maninila.” Mula Mateo 7:15-16, mismo.

Lalo pa ngang tumimo sa kaisipan ng balana ang babala laban sa mga mababangis na lobong nagdadamit tupa sa mga naging pangyayari sa Amerika kung saan inihabla ang isa pang nagpahayag ng sarili na “hinirang na anak ng Diyos” – si Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, tagapagtatag at pinuno ng Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Name Above Every name at mismong espirituwal na tagapayo ni Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte – sa patong-patong na mga kaso ng “sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, marriage fraud, money laundering, cash smuggling and visa fraud.”

Lubha mang napakalayo ni Baylon kay Quiboloy, sa isip ng marami ay hindi pa rin ito ganap na maihiwalay sa kapahayagang “bulaan,” bunga na rin ng kanilang eksklusibong kapatiran bilang mga bugtong na “Anak ng Ama/Diyos.”

Hindi. Hindi ko sinasabi, lalo’t hindi naniniwalang bulaan si Baylon. Ang pagsama sa kanya ni dating Gubernador Reberendo Ed Panlilio, ang talunan sa pagka-gobernador na dating alkalde ng Bacolor Jomar Hizon, dating alkalde ng Masantol Peter Flores, dati at muling bumabalik sa pagka-mayor ng Floridablanca Eddie Guerrero, at higit sa lahat dating Candaba Mayor Kuyang Jerry Pelayo ay sapat na para sa akin na hindi maitatatwang katibayan na hindi palsipikadong mangangaral si Baylon.    

Ang maikling sanaysay na ito ay hindi pakikisali sa madaliang paghusga sa kapwa. Ayon na nga sa Mateo 7:1-2 – “Huwag kayong hahatol upang hindi kayo hatulan.

 Ito ay sapagkat sa hatol na inyong ihahatol ay hahatulan kayo. Sa sukat na inyong ipinanukat ay isusukat sa inyo.”

Ang alalahanin ko lamang ay ang pagbansag ni Baylon sa sarili bilang “Anak ng Ama” at ang pinagkakahulugan nitong siya ay “sugo” ng Panginoon sa pagtakbo niya sa pagkagubernador – upang akuin mula sa kadiliman (?) ang lalawigan Kapampangan.  

Tiyak naman na aral si Baylon sa Banal na Aklat gaya ng mga ipinahihiwatig sa nakita kong bidyo ng kanyang pangangaral. Ang hindi ko matanto ay ito: Nabasa kaya niya sa kanyang sipi ng Bibliya kung sino ang tuwirang tinukoy – sa mismong pangalan nito – na “Anak ng Ama”?  

Basa:

At noo'y sila'y may isang bilanggong pusakal na tinatawag na Barabbas. Mateo 27:16

At mayroong isa na kung tawagin ay Barabbas, na nakapiit kasama ng nangaghimagsik, mga taong nagsipatay ng mga tao sa panghihimagsik. Markos 15:7

Datapuwa't silang lahat ay nagsisigawang paminsan, na nangagsabi, ‘Alisin mo ang taong ito, at pawalan mo sa amin si Barabbas.’ Lukas 23:18

Sila nga'y nagsigawang muli, na nangagsasabi: ‘Huwag ang taong ito, kundi si Barabbas.’ Si Barabbas nga'y isang tulisan. Juan 18:40

Datapuwa't inyong pinakatanggihan ang Banal at ang Matuwid na Ito, at inyong hiningi na ipagkaloob sa inyo ang isang mamamatay-tao. Gawa ng mga Apostoles 3:14

Ang ipinagpalit ng mga Hudyo kay Kristo -- si Barabbas, mula salitang Aramaic na Bar Abba na ang tuwirang salin sa Ingles ay “Son of the Father” at sa Tagalog nama’y “Anak ng Ama.” 

Ang akin lamang katanungan: Magmimistulang mga Hudyo ba ang mga Kapampangan sa araw ng halalan at pipillin ang nagtanyag sa kaniyang sarili bilang si Barabbas?

Maghunus-dili naman tayo.

(Mga larawan mula sa Facebook)

Campaign notes

IT IS still a looongg way to the official campaign period but already incumbents, wannabes, has-beens, and never-bes are just about everywhere and anywhere inflicting themselves upon the hapless electorate.

Time anew to take out of the old baul this piece of 2006 vintage with some updated refurbishing.

You have no money? Dream on running, even winning. It won’t cost you a thing. But never wake from that dream and live the nightmare of political realities here.

Even as a candidate, you have already been claimed by the voters to be their personal one-way ATM: no deposit required but ready to dispense cash anytime of the day or night for their power and water bills, cost of hospitalization, expenses for weddings, baptisms and funerals, birthday parties and fiestas, tuition for their kids, even milk for their infants. And yes, loads for their mobiles.

I remember the dearly lamented undefeated mayor of Apalit Tirso Lacanilao who, in one campaign sortie, was asked by a constituent for money to pay for the hospital bills of his wife.

Tirso was already fishing out P500 bills from his wallet when he happened to ask what caused the wife’s hospitalization.

“Menganac ya pu,” came the reply.

“Putanaydamo,” raged Tirso. “Anyang magpacanyaman cang gagawan me ing anac mu e mu na cu man cayabe. Oba’t ngeni cacu mu papabayad ing cayang pamanganac?” Classic Tirso.

You have money? Use it wisely.

Find some free lessons in this costly experience of a board member who ambitioned for a House seat in the 2004 polls.

Well beyond a year to the elections, BM was already crowing that P30,000 was doled out daily to his needy constituents even before the cock crowed in the morning. Into the campaign period, BM upped the ante to P50,000 per day. Still, he ended up in the kangkungan against one whose win earned him the title “Con-doctor.”

His 2004 experience unlearned, BM did the same route in 2007, upping his daily doles to P70,000, only to be picked out of the pansitan against one Cong Dong.

A dilemma: Identified as a generous giver in elections past, BM stands to lose a lot of the ground he covered in 2004 and 2007 if he tightens even just a bit his publicly-perceived-as-enormous campaign chest. Dati kang nagbibigay ng tig-500,  bigla kang magbibigay ng tig-100, magiging masama ka pa sa iyong binigyan. 

The flash of wealth is more a liability than an asset. Still remember Don Pepito Mercado? Throwing money like there’s no tomorrow, the Don soared in the people’s imagination as a mighty, invincible eagle in 1994 only to be reduced to a pitiful pipit in the 1995 gubernatorial polls. Principally because he just stopped being outlandishly generous at the time it counted most – in the middle of the campaign period.

Being official candidate of a party, even of the party in power is no sure-fire guarantee to victory.

In 1992, Marino “Boking” Morales did the unprecedented: He was the official candidate of the two dominant parties at war for the presidency. President Cory Aquino and candidate Fidel V. Ramos of Lakas-NUCD graced Boking’s proclamation rally. At Boking’s miting de avance, it was candidate Ramon V. Mitra that anointed him as the main man in Mabalacat of the LDP.

Dr. Catalino Domingo of the NPC drubbed Boking mightily. Thereafter, Boking though has done more unprecedented things. Like sitting as mayor beyond double the term limit, ultimately unseated only in 2017 – ruling all of 22 years. His attempt for a comeback in 2019, albeit for the vice-mayoralty, ended in a drubbing by his own kin.

In some twist of irony, Boking’s favorite whipping boy Anthony Dee’s no-retreat-no-surrender mantra may have rubbed off on him as Boking tries a comeback anew – for them mayorship in 2022. This time facing a more formidable opponent other than his nemesis, incumbent Mayor Cris Garbo, in his own former factotum Deng Pangilinan.

Barangay chairmen are prized – and highly-priced – acquisitions in elections. But like the party, they are no foolproof certainty to winning.

In 2004, Andrea Dizon-Domingo thrice paraded before the members of media 28 of the 33 barangay chairmen of the City of San Fernando as her committed campaigners.

She ended third placer to eventual winner Oscar S. Rodriguez who had no barangay chairman other than Do Santos of San Agustin in his corner.

Channeling Madame Didi, Dolores village chief Vilma Caluag was accompanied by a number of the 24 barangay chairmen purportedly already in her deep pockets when she filed her COC for San Fernando mayor in 2019. Lightning struck twice with women contesting the mayorship of the capital city.

At her filing for the city mayorship anew last October, Madame Vi was accompanied only by her family.

From organization, let’s shift to tactics.

The early bird does not always get the worm. Sometimes, because of his over-eagerness – read: gagad – he gets to be shot first.

Think Pampanga First District in 1998 here. The first pretender to the throne being vacated by Cong Tarzan Lazatin was businessman Beko Panlilio. Ah, how the barangay captains swarmed around him from late 1996, only to lose them to “Cong Rey” Guiao, whose own campaign sputtered when Atty. Ed Pamintuan left the Angeles City hall for the district. Of course, it was EdPam’s vice, Blueboy Nepomuceno who went on to win.

The early bird gets to be fed first to the hungry mob. Heed the Kapampangan adage here: Tauling kabit, manu. Last comes first.

Opinion polls are another matter to take real care of. Believe in published surveys at your own peril. There I go again.

In 2007, an alleged survey allegedly commissioned by the provincial government alleged that then-3rd District Rep. Rey Aquino in his comeback bid for the San Fernando mayorship led the incumbent Mayor Oscar Rodriguez 60-40.

So, what’s new here? Oca never won in any published survey since he entered politics at that point. Conversely, he had won all but one – 1992 – electoral contests he joined: 1987, 1995, 1998, 2001congressional races, and the 2004 mayorship.

And in 2007, Oca drubbed Rey to the tune of over 16,000-vote margin. Same margin of error placed in that alleged survey most certainly.

It was only in 2016 that the surveys proved correct – the incumbent Cong Oca losing to the man he beat in the same contest in 2013, his inaanak Dong Gonzales.

Like Oca, another one who never won in any survey but won all elections he entered is Cris Garbo of Mabalacat – as councilor twice, board member three times and vice mayor once. And board member again in 2007, 2010 and 2013.

So, Garbo lost – to Boking Morales as projected by the surveys in 2016. So, who’s been the mayor of Mabalacat since 2017 to date?

Surveys are meant to serve as campaign guideposts. Their efficacy for propaganda purposes – to gain some bandwagon effect – have long been lost because of surfeit and the incredibility of results.

Have you read of any published local survey citing its margin of error? If you have, did they tell you how they arrived at it?

End of lesson for now. Keep on running, dream on winning.

 

Punto @14

 

FOURTEEN YEARS. That we have come to this point – where a number of contemporaries in the local print media failed to reach even but a third of the way – is more than enough cause for celebration. Especially more so given, most grievously, the still ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

Indeed, at the onset of the Q protocols in the first quarter of 2020, Punto! nearly came to what its haters – yes, we have them too --  so ardently wished it would be: Puntod! 

Forced by the circumstances as we were to stop altogether our twice weekly  print issue, reduce our office staff to the barest essential, limit our online coverage.

It is to the credit of our correspondents – the human infrastructure without which Punto! could not stand, much less excel; to their total commitment to the journalism profession fostering that unwavering sense of sacrifice that we have survived: All the salaries/allowances/fees from the GM, the office staff, the editor, columnists, correspondents, down to the last contributor were slashed by a whopping 50 percent.

It was hard, it was painful, but it was the only way we could keep Punto! afloat, as it did, indeed.  

We owe it too to our advertisers, corporate and in government, for keeping their accounts as much as their trust in us, the economic crunch they too suffer, notwithstanding.

It is that trust – shared by our thousands of readers and followers – painstakingly built in the past 14 years with fairness in our news, fearlessness in our opinions, strict adherence to facts, in the service of the malayang Pilipino that we shall ever endeavor to keep unshaken in the coming years.

Guided as we are by what Joseph Pulitzer long ago articulated which at Punto! has come to be the very article of faith of a truly free and unfettered press:

…[F]ight for progress and reform,

never tolerate injustice or corruption,

always fight demagogues of all parties,

never belong to any party,

always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers,

never lack sympathy with the poor,

always remain devoted to the public welfare,

never be satisfied with merely printing news,

always be drastically independent,

never be afraid to attack wrong,

whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.

Pointed, yes. As only Punto! can.

 (Editorial, Oct. 27, 2021)

 

 

Point of integrity

 

BEING AT odds with publishers/owners is an all-too-common predicament among editors, including presumptive ones like me, who strongly adhere to the dictum: “Publish first, truth always, be damned later.”

Owners have their corporate interests to preserve, protect, and promote, which, in many cases, are at variance with the editor’s fundamental duty to publish Truth, no matter the cost.

No way is this more articulated than in Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover of America’s Newspapers by James D. Squires, a former editor of the Chicago Tribune, thus: “The marriage of corporations and journalism is an unnatural, unhappy union. The best journalists are naturally skeptical individuals with a healthy disrespect for authority, pomposity, and ruling classes. They understand and appreciate the ideal of democracy that one man’s vote and voice are as important as another’s. And they have a well-honed apparatus for detecting two staples of the corporate culture – bullshit and insincerity.”

You will know who wears the pants in that unnatural, unhappy union with but a cursory browse of the pages of a newspaper – the owner, when his photographs and news about the most banal of his activities pepper the pages, Page One not excluded. Yes, there are publishers who simply love to publish themselves, when even the least of their business endeavors crowd legitimate news out of the pages, in effect reducing their papers to nothing more than company journals.

In such set-up, even the best editors can only do their worst. As the great Arthur Krock, winner of three Pulitzer Prizes and once “Dean of Washington newsmen,” wrote: “A hired journalism, however zealous, however loyal, however entrusted, however brilliant, cannot be great because it speaks through the mist of subordination.”

The editor having the upper hand? When the publisher subordinates his interest to the “sanctity of the desk.”

As in the early days of journalism, newspapers are published to: 1) indulge the whims and caprices of the publisher; 2) promote his businesses; and 3) serve the political causes he espouses. Civic duty is a thoroughly alien entity to the greater number of publishers.

To paraphrase from memory what I read somewhere, the title of the material I cannot immediately recall: If you told that kind of publisher that he had a duty to the public to print the news objectively and accurately, he would have asked what kind of duty some other kinds of businessmen had. His newspaper being a business enterprise, news to him would be the same as cars to a Levy Laus, or house and lot to a Nestor Mangio, or tocino and longanisa to a Lolita Hizon, even halo-halo and pancit luglog to a Razon.

News being no more than a commodity to sell, a product to be packaged and presented in whatever way that will be most appealing to his customers and thus will bring him most profit. Even at the expense of integrity.

But commercial viability and editorial integrity are not mutually exclusive.

This is best exemplified in The New York Times, unarguably the number one newspaper in the world.

A well-known lore: At the time of World War II, faced with newsprint rationing, the Ochs and Sulzberger families that owned the Times chose to print news over advertising, thereby sacrificing much-needed revenues that the latter offered. The act singularly established their paper’s moral ascendancy over all other newspapers in America.

With the Times emerging – and remaining to this day – the most influential newspaper in the USA, if not in the whole world. That good decision of the owners proved to be good business sense too. High-mindedness returned better profits in the long run, so the moral lesson of the Times ­story instructs us.

Perhaps, Punto’s publishers have read that same story. Hence, their express policy of editorial integrity first, profitability second.

SO IT was written here in October 2008 on the very first anniversary of this paper. So it still stands strong today – Punto’s editorial integrity.

(Zona Libre, Oct. 27, 2021) 

 

 

 

Past Pogs' profanities

 

Atin sobri! Ne?

Masuelu ya y Mayor Pogi meracal ta na. Casi deng aliwa ala na co mang puntalan. Hah? O’t munta co quetang cabila? Andian dirit e maniambut…

O deni, tacnaydayo cang Bugal cayu e, ne? Ne? Ne?

Tacnadayung animal e co man mepagal, atiu co queni.

O putanaydana nu ya ing CLAC president, CDC, lawen yu sinawa queng maglolo qng animal e ya man tinupad quetang usapan. Aniang magsalita ya balamu talagang malutu ya. Ne?

Ing importante pu ini, y Mayor Pogi tinggap na catamu andian pang nanu ya itang nakaraan yu iniang eleksyun tinggap na co pu.

Macarine na co man nung e ye pa ibotu. Putanaydayo, capal yu lupa canita.

Dati tatanggap co mung tsa-limandalan, tsa-libu. Ngeni addua ya libu. Ha, ha, ha.

Ing masaquit pa, putanaydanang Cong panagalan que, padagdag cu la. Tinacas ya ing animal uling balu na ala yang casambut. Tacnaydanang Cong, ne? Caibat na tang meca-adduang terminu, tecasan na cayu.

Dacal que pu queni…macananu mong panualan deng animal a deni?

Anang T-Mac, “Gawin ang tama.” Lawen mu ne man ing anacputang Doc, “Iwasto ang mali.”  Huuh, anacputa naman, nanu la reni?

…Balu co ring geua yung casalanan canacu. Lalu na ing putanaydana inyang tinagal cung vice mayor. Putanaydana, picture na mu, pagcait ye pa canacu.

…Y vice mayor atiu quen, saupan ye. Aguiang e yu ne pu saupan yan maniambut ya, bakit? O’ita pung metung a doctor a vice mayor apate ne, ala yang casambut y Doc Ric, apate ne…

COUNCILOR ARVIN “Pogs” Suller reduced his audience of honorable barangay leaders and fellow candidates to an assembly, aye, a menagerie, of beasts and bastards birthed by whores. Pampanga 1^st District Rep. Carmelo “Jon” Lazatin II, included.

In a clear departure from the respect befitting the departed, Suller’s sully did not even spare the dearly lamented Doc Ric Zalamea, the city’s vice mayoralty icon.

No grawlix – the graphical version of bleeping profanities – in our transcription of Suller’s five-minute-plus video now in web circulation, no translation too, if only to preserve their baseness, to infix their repugnancy.

Anyone adhering to even but the most basic decency, is slammed hard by the  offensiveness of Suller’s slew of expletives. Harder is its impact upon whom they were heaped.

Call for respect

Voltaire Zalamea, the late vice mayor’s son, posted in his FB page: Respect begets respect Atty. Arvin Pogs Suller .

My dad has been resting in peace, just like your dad. You want me to make fun of your late dad too? I can do that but I won't!!! I won't stoop to your level. That was not how we were raised by our parents. We were given good education from good Catholic schools and universities.

I will just share this so people would know where I'm coming from.

I am not a politician. I am not endorsing any local candidate. The Zalamea Family retired from politics after my dad's passing. Spare us. Never mention us.

Next time, think like an educated man before opening your mouth.

ANGELES CITY DESERVES SOMEONE BETTER.

Mamac talks back

Riposted Balibago barangay chair Tony Mamac in his FB page: Kung murahin mu ang mga kapitan at kagawad para silang mga walang kwentang tao, p’t…..na mu, mga respetado kaming mga tao at pare pareho lang tayong inihalal ng mga tao. Pero ikaw g..go ka, akala mu kung sino ka kung murahin mu mga kapitan at kagawad ani…ml ka. Nung nakaraang eleksyon tinulungan ka namin sa aming mga barangay kaya konsehal ka ngayon.

Hindi ka na nahiya sa mga kagawad namin dito sa Balibago na minura mu at sinabi mu pa na dati na kay Bugal (Alex C) kami at bakit ngayon na kay Mayor Pogi kami sabay mura ka. Pt…ina mu, kabata-bata mu at kaming mga kapitan halos senior citizen na kung murahin mu ganun-ganun na lang.

Kung ganyan pala ugali mu nagkamali kami ng pagtulong sa iyo. Maski maliit lang ang pagtingin mu sa amin, ta..rn…tdo ka at ani….ml ka tingnan natin sa susunod na elksyon ptng….ina mu, hindi boto makukuha mu sa mga kabarangay namin, katakot takot na mura ang ibibigay namin sa iyo. Bilangin mu ang mura na yan baka bilangin din yan sa Comelec.”

The T-Mac still had the decency to couch his cusswords, even as he apologizes to the reader: Pasensya na po kayo, hindi po ako palamura, pero nagdamdam lang po kami dito sa Balibago dahil sa asal nitong g…go na konsehal na ito.

Beyond the curses

There is more, a whole lot more, to Suller’s curses though than their tartness. An unraveling within Team Lazatin obtains in them.

Atin sobri! The call of enterprise politics, answered in Dati tatanggap co mung tsa-limandalan, tsa-libu. Ngeni addua ya libu. To the highest bidder, the votes go.

On the truism that it takes two to tango, Suller acted the prosecutor there serving an indictment on both the barangay leaders and Mayor Lazatin for committing a  patently illegal election practice.

Tacnaydanang Cong, ne? Caibat na tang meca-adduang terminu, tecasan na cayu. More than an obscene reference to the femininity of Congressman Jon Lazatin’s mother, Suller accused him of opportunism, of abandoning his supporters once he has used them.

So un-Lazatin, given how the family – from the patriarch Don Rafael, to the son Cong Tarzan, and now his namesakes, mayor and congressman – has always cared for their supporters, elections or no elections through three generations. 

Tacnaydana. Indeed, no Lazatin rivals could ever rival Suller, their supposed ally, in scheming their political annihilation. Unwittingly. Or maybe not.      

 

 

 

 

Damned in unlearning

 

 

 …THE REVOLUTION failed because it was badly directed, because its director gained  his place, not through meritorious, but through opprobrious acts; because, instead of supporting the men of most usefulness to the people, he, jealous of those men, rendered them useless.

Believing that the aggrandizement of the people was nothing more than his own personal aggrandizement, he did not rate the merits of men according to their capacity, character, and patriotism, but according to the degree of friendship or kinship that united them with him; and, wishing to have his favorites disposed to sacrifice themselves for him, he showed himself lenient even towards their faults. For his having thus contemned the people, the people abandoned him; and because the people abandoned him, he had to fall, like an idol of  wax, melted in the heat of adversity.

May we not forget a lesson so terrible, learned at the cost of indescribable sufferings. 

AS RELEVANT today are the words of the Sublime Paralytic, Apolinario Mabini, on Señor Emilio Aguinaldo. And as appropriate to that Caviteño of those days as to this Davaoeño of today.

Indeed, the tragedy of Miyong, repeated in the farce that is Digong. To paraphrase Marx.

Of the Filipino then, failing to heed Santayana’s admonition: History unlearned, we are a people dumbed, we are a nation damned. 

 

 

 

 

The party's over

 

SUNDAY, PRESIDENT Duterte was ousted as chair of the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan by the faction led by Sen. Manny Paquiao, installing Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III as the president’s replacement.

It was Pacquiao’s tit for the tat that the opposing clique inflicted upon him last July when he was ousted as party president and replaced by Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi.

Pacquiao remains president of PDP-Laban, his slice of it, at least.

“There is a group that wants to take over our party because they have plans in politics that are either secret or they can’t explain. They are new to our party.” So was Pimentel quoted as saying as the party’s casus belli.    

Dismissing the fission in the PDP-Laban, thus: “It is not our party that is make-or-break in the elections next year. It’s our country that’s make-or-break. The future of our nation is at stake. That is how important the next election is.”

As easily dismissed by one Melvin Matibag, secretary-general of the Cusi faction, as “a comedy.”

Matibag demolishing the son and very namesake of the PDP-Laban founder: “Sen. Koko Pimentel has no position in the PDP-Laban. He is irrelevant and he does not represent the party. His group [members] are pretenders and attention seekers.”

No, this is no mere party intramural. This is internecine strife. The PDP-Laban has just gone the way of all flesh in Philippine party politics. Not so much for lack of platform as for a surfeit of conflicted personalities with divergent interests.

Yay, party politics – that which warrants not only continuity but sustainability in the parliamentary system: think Israel’s Likud and Labor, Great Britain’s Tories and Labour too, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, and Germany’s Christian Democrat Union, to name the most prominent – is a stillborn in the Philippine political praxis. 

Something in the Filipino psyche had to be lobotomized for party politics to even have the chance of conception, more so erection, hereabouts.

The master of Philippine politics himself, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, knew this by heart. Thus his immortal take on Philippine politics as “personalist, populist and individualist” upon which he founded his fuehrership, and, with his beloved Imeldific, propagated their Malakas at Maganda apotheosis.

All Filipino politicians come from the Marcosian mold of “personal, popular, individual.” All pretensions to party advocacy are, well, pretensions.

So Manuel Luis Quezon patriotically ranted: “My loyalty to my party ends where my loyalty to my country begins.” God bless MLQ.

Party loyalty is a contradiction in terms; loyalty to the country is as true as Judas’ devotion to Christ. Where politicos are concerned.

The pre-eminence of the individual politician over his party is inherent in Philippine political history. Thus, Nacionalista Party-Roy Wing, Liberal Party-Kalaw Wing, Liberal Party-Salonga Wing in the not too distant past.

Thus, a Liberal Party sundered by anti-GMA and pro-GMA flanks winging to Atienza-Defensor on the right, Drilon-Pangilinan, et al on the left. Poor Jovy Salonga, tottering at the fulcrum in an even more recent past.

On another plane, witness how political parties hereabouts are hitched on the ebb and flow of the tides of fortune of their founders.

The Kilusang Bagong Lipunan was an invincible monolith during the Marcos dictatorship, only to crumble to dust after EDSA Uno.

The sainted Cory Aquino took Ramon Mitra’s Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino to the promised land, then pulled the rug from under and emerged with Fidel V. Ramos’ LakTao, that’s Lakas-Tao for you, that evolved into Lakas-NUCD-UMDP.

Joseph Estrada’s Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino took the nation by storm in 1998, lost its sheen in the wake of his impeachment and subsequent resignation, only to return, not so much with a vengeance but with a squeak, in the Manila mayoralty in 2013, only to be totally drubbed by the upstart Isko Moreno in 2019.

The People’s Reform Party of Miriam Defensor Santiago proving its mettle in the battle for the presidency in 1992 giving the scare to El Tabako, virtually reduced to irrelevance in succeeding elections. It’s last whimper in 2016, with the demise of Maid Miriam.

Anyone still remember Renato de Villa’s Partido para sa Demokratikong Reporma and Lito Osmena’s Probinsya Muna Development Initiative that aspired for the presidency in 1998?

Two presidential runs of Raul Roco under Aksyon Demokratiko both ended way too short. His party in dormancy until Vico Sotto raised its standard and all that it stands for in Pasig in 2019. Wonder if new inductee to the party, the popular Isko, could soar where Roco faltered and fell. Some promise obtaining there. 

Still, and all – populist, personalist, individualist, as it is and has always been, the Philippine political experience makes a mockery of party politics. So, I postulated in a column in a long defunct local paper nearly a score of summers ago.

So, comes its validation anew with the case of PDP-Laban. Wow, I thought I just heard Nat King Cole crooning – 

The party's over
It's time to call it a day
They've burst your pretty balloon
And taken the moon away
It's time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up the piper must be paid…