Cry Press Freedom!

                            

                        May 1, 1990. Headline Manila photographer Renel Dizon truncheoned by PAF troopers 

O TEMPORA! O mores! Cicero, indeed: How times, how customs have changed.

Case in point: Rappler’s Pampanga stringer files complaint over surveillance, cyber harassment:

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler’s Pampanga stringer Joann Manabat on Wednesday, May 10, filed a complaint with the Philippine National Police (PNP) Anti-Cybercrime group in Camp Julian Olivas, Pampanga, after she was surveilled during a Labor Day protest on May 1 and then contacted on Messenger by someone claiming to be with the military.

Manabat told Rappler that at around 10:50 pm on May 1, someone using the name Jero Haiden Tenorio sent three photos of her via Facebook Messenger. The photos were taken while Manabat was covering the protest rally.

The sender claimed to be from the military, and said he wanted to get to know Manabat and assist her in getting scoops in return for friendship.

The journalist said the photos showed her covering the Workers Alliance of Region III Labor Day rally near the roundabout at San Nicolas Public Market in Angeles City…

Fact is: Surveillance of journalists in protest rallies has always been par for the course for mediamen on one hand, and part and parcel of so-called intel ops of the military on the other. This senior’s generation of journos never made any bones about camera-toting plainclothes cops and ISAFP operatives, not to mention the US Air Force’s OSI, infiltrating the ranks of both rallyists and media in every protest demonstration at the gates of Clark Air Force Base during its American occupation.

                          1980s. Journalists wait for protest rallyists in front of the Clark Air Base main gate

Why, we even had fun posing before and making faces at their cameras. No big deal to us, even when a photographer friend in the USAF told us of our blown-up photos at the OSI office. OSI, by the way, is acronym for Office of Special Investigation. To be fair to these Yanks, derogatory dossiers on us notwithstanding, we were allowed access to Clark for coverage. But always with an American staff of the CAB public affairs office as guard, even when we used the lavatory. 

Military intel also utilized pseudo-newsmen and media scalawags – complete with multi-pocketed vests and press cards as large as coupon bonds – to spy on those of us in the working press, not only during rallies but even in our watering holes.

Did we ever cry harassment over these? No.

Harassment, to us, came in different ways.

Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, there were the death threats in envelopes with a single bullet – usually .45 – tied with black ribbon slotted on our gate or left at the counter of Shanghai Restaurant, our de facto press clubhouse. 

In 1983, there was this cocky Pampanga mayor, cocked gun in hand, challenging to a duel Manila Bulletin’s Jerry Lacuarta with nothing but a Bic ballpen that could pass off as deadly weapon.

In 1988, there was this bodyguard of Angeles City Mayor Antonio Abad Santos named Lakay lining up bottles of beer on a table directly opposite ours at Shanghai, giving us satanic looks, and gesturing like he was drawing the .45 tucked in his waistband after every bottle gulped down.       

Then there were the shadowy figures with bulging waistlines that suddenly materialized like one’s very own shadow be it in the dark of night or the light of day.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

And how else would you consider the Abad Santos’ civil security unit – at least six of them brandishing M-16s and machine pistols – swooping down on the DZYA radio station and posting themselves around Tagamasid program hosts Sonny Lopez, Ely Julian, Bert Basa, and Bong Lacson in the middle of broadcast critical of their boss? This happened on Sept. 10, 1988.

Or the ordeal sometime in 1990 of Manila Standard’s Jess Malabanan – stark naked, hands bound by electric cord, made to sit on a stump with a can atop his head as target in a marksmanship practice of Olongapo City police chief Lt. Col. Torres aiming an M-14 from a distance of some 30 paces? 

As bad, if not worse, Manila Chronicle and Reuter’s Elmer Cato, Lopez of Malaya and UPI, and Lacson of People’s Journal/Tonight and AP sanctioned with a “death-in-24-hours” order by the right-wing vigilante headman Col. Rolly de Guzman to his henchmen after we were red-tagged as CPP-NPA propagandists. Our “execution” stayed only through the intervention of one of De Guzman’s closest lieutenants who felt he owed us a favor for his promotions in rank that he attributed to our wide coverage of his exploits in the field of battle, as well as the influence on the colonel of common friends. This was in 1988 too.

Yes, a quid pro quo – even in life-or-death matters – can obtain between newsmen and the police-military sans promises of scoops in exchange of friendship.

A protocol of sorts, aye, an SOP at the Angeles City Metropolitan District Command at the time of Col. Amado T. Espino was to take media along in anti-criminality and anti-insurgency operations, or if such posed grave danger, to give us immediate post-operation briefings.

Serious as harassments were in our time, they were no more than child’s play compared to the actual assaults committed on mediamen.

It was also during a Labor Day protest – May 1, 1990, to be precise – that Pampanga journos were savagely attacked by elements of the Clark Air Base Command-PAF. Of all the scores of journalists covering the rally, only local newsmen found themselves at the smashing end of truncheon-wielding troopers. 

The Philippine Star’s Robert Quito and Headline Manila’s Renel Dizon suffered the most brutalization of the scores hurt in the PAF rampage.   

                                May 1990. Media rally vs. PAF brutality

On June 12, 1997, a security guard’s shotgun went off at the Central Fermentation alcohol plant in Apalit, Pampanga during the implementation by the DENR of its closure order, a buckshot hitting Philippine Star’s Ding Cervantes who wrote a series of stories on the pollution of the Pampanga River attributed to the plant.

Unarguably, the worst assault was the June 2000 daytime ambush in front of station DWGV-FM where former Porac, Pampanga mayor Roy David was co-hosting the hard-hitting Alas-4 Na! program with The Voice’s Ody Fabian and this writer, resulting to David’s severe wounding and the death of scriptwriter Joji Vitug, legman Butz Adizas, and David’s driver Buddy.  

Amid all the mauling and the murder, we did not cry harassment. We screamed press freedom! Ironic, that this was mostly during the presidency of the heralded icon of democracy, the sainted Cory.

Indeed, how times have changed. And how we have changed. By no means though that the severity of the ordeals of our past, trivializes those of the present.   

 

A peek into an ilustrado past

 

ANGELES CITY -- Beside the Archdiocesan Shrine of Christ, Our Lord of the Holy Sepulcher – famously Apung Mamacalulu Shrine – in Barangay Lourdes Sur stands not your typical convento or rectory that serves as the official residence of the cura parroco. 

The traditional bahay na bato in the original Paras-Dayrit estate where the shrine is sited monumentalizes the Angeleño’s rich ilustrado past. Though built in 1917 – during the American Period – as residence of Dr. Clemente Nepomuceno-Dayrit, and his wife Dona Susana Nepomuceno, the house bears much Spanish influence – from its thick adobe walls, ventanillas, ornate latticework on the eaves and interior walls, and the wide hardwood floor planks to the ceramic wash basins and four-poster beds in the bedrooms. 

  

 

Words can never describe everything that one sees, much less that one feels – the majesty of the place best experienced in person. Pictures here serving as mere invitations.

On your next Apo pilgrimage, immerse yourself in the bahay na bato. After your prayers and supplications, of course.  

selfie

 

Of the Press (1999)

Brigada .45 (2004)

About Oca: A Story of Struggle (2005)

Oca: Isang Istorya ng Pakikibaka (2006)

Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit (2007)

Reverend Governor: A Chronicle of Irreverence (2009)

Agyu Tamu: Turning Tragedy into Triumph (2011) 

Our Dennis Anthony H. Uy: Angeles City’s Own Mogul (2020)

Cong Tarzan Lazatin: A Public Life (2021)

 

a writer –

i concede

not without

conceit – i am.

 

11 may 2023

 

 

Shanghai's Meng, media patron

SHOCKED TO learn today May 3 – World Press Freedom Day, at that – that a patron of Pampanga media for the longest time has passed, last Saturday yet and, per his wishes, immediately cremated, with no public viewing of even the urn that contained his ashes.

William Gonzales Kwong, known to all as Meng, was the owner of Shanghai De Luxe Restaurant, unarguably the best in Chinese cuisine in Angeles City if not everywhere north of Binondo.

It was out of Meng’s genuine friendship with the local media that Shanghai became an integral part of the history of Pampanga journalism. In remembrance of Meng, here is but a footnote of that history in Chapter 2 of my book Of the Press (1999) under the sub-head News Factory. 

OF ALL the workplaces the Pampanga Press Club had, none can compare to Shanghai De Luxe Restaurant in Balibago, Angeles City.

The PPC sequestered for the exclusive use of its members the roundtable nearest the counter, the telephone, and the toilets. This, of course, with the concurrence of owner William “Meng” Kwong who also provided free coffee for the group and made the boys the “official food tasters” for new recipes his chefs whipped up.

With Shanghai mayordoma Pards’ Cris Villanueva, the boys never got hungry even when penniless which was more often than not. The usual “employees’ meal” of spare ribs sinigang and fired chicken necks and wings made truly filling free lunch and dinner. Then, for little cash, there was a “newsman’s meal” of Shanghai fried chicken, kangkong and squid in Chinese bagoong and steamed rice.  

An added bonus from Shanghai for the red-blooded macho newsmen were its beautiful food servers and singers. Lest I incriminate my peers, not to mention myself, I shall keep my quiet here. Pero sino nga ba ang nagka-girlfriend ng dalawang singers? Sino yung nakakuha doon sa Miss Angeles City runner-up? Sino ang nagkaribal doon kay Tess, a Sunshine Cruz look-alike? Sino ang nagwala nung nakitang naka-baht chain nanggaling sa Tsinoy yung kanyang nililigawan? Sino ang nahuli ng asawa doon sa Lovers’ Lane?

Open 24 hours, Shanghai made the ideal newsman’s watering hole. Developing stories especially at the time of the American killings in October 1987 found their way in the wee hours at Shanghai. Overnight vigils during those anti-US demonstrations at Clark were made pleasant with congee and hot-and-sour soups at the PPC roundtable. And no corkage was ever charged for the wine and liquor friends of the PPC regularly brought for the boys.

Manila-based newsmen, notably Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Ramon Tulfo and PTV-4’s Cesar Carpio, television news crews and even foreign correspondents wanting to do stories or documentaries on the city and the region also called on the boys at Shanghai for briefings and assistance. Susan Kreifels of the Pacific Stars & Stripes set her homebase at Shanghai.

The eeriest story out of the PPC’s Shanghai years came from the restaurant’s jukebox. There was this plaintive dirge-sounding song which title we could not anymore remember. Every time the song was played, a killing in Angeles took place. It was Jack “The Horse” Tongol, Meng Kwong’s general utility man, that made the frightening discovery. He had the jukebox play the song before us once for three consecutive days. Three killings were recorded in those three days. The record was promptly taken out of the jukebox to never play again after more than 40 died in the May-June 1988 “festival of killings” in the city. Needless to say, that song was played out daily throughout that stretch.

The earliest discussions on the alternative uses for the Clark Air Base – from airport to industrial zone to food basket for the region – germinated from the media roundtable at Shanghai with Rep. Tarzan Lazatin (1^st District-Pampanga) intently listening and exchanging ideas with the boys, the most vocal of whom was Sonny Lopez. It was this standpoint of Sonny on an American-abandoned-Clark scenario at the height of Uncle Sam’s affair with the city that really buried him in the local elections of 1988.

Soon after, the bases conversion discussions on the national legislative-executive levels gained ground with Gov. Bren Z. Guiao, Mang Tarzan, the local government units and private sectors of Angeles, Porac and Mabalacat, Ody Fabian and, of course, Sonny taking active part. From here came the birthing of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority and the Clark Development Corp.    

Spending more time with their peers than with their respective families daily – routinely from 10 AM to past 12 midnight – engendered greater solidarity among the members of the PPC.

It was from Shanghai that emanated the PPC condemnations against threats to press freedom in any part of the country, the PPC persona non grata resolutions against a number of individuals deemed unfit to be in Pampanga, the PPC denunciations of the “White Trash from Down Under” for abusing Filipinas.

So closely identified was the PPC with Shanghai that it suffered its own death throes when the restaurant burned down during the Mount Pinatubo eruptions of June 15, 1991.

Alternative “Shanghais” were sought out in Mar’s, City Lunch, and Peking House. But after a meeting or two, none was found anywhere near Shanghai…

…The PPC found itself adrift for some four years and never fully recovered to its Shanghai-era closeness even after the restaurant reopened in 1995. The Shanghai phase of the PPC story was simply too good to last. But it was best while it lasted.    

May Day, Mayday

                                                                                            webfoto.ctto                   
 

DAS KAPITAL rings as true today – the death of communism be damned – as it did in 1867: “Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking blood from living labor.”

Closer to the Filipino proletariat’s heart is the poignancy of the lines of poet-patriot Ka Amado Hernandez in his Bayang Malaya:

“Bisig na nagsaka’y siyang walang palay;
Nagtayo ng templo’y siyang walang bahay;
Dumungkal ng mina ng bakal at ginto ay baon sa utang;
Lingkod sa pabrika ng damit ay hubad ang mahal sa buhay.”
(The arm that farmed is one without the crops;
The temple builder, without a house;
The one who mined for iron and gold, deep in debt;
The sewer, whose loved ones are naked.)  

The plebeian’s nothingness of being finds similar manifestation in another poet of another time and clime, closer to the very spring of its origin – the Industrial Revolution. Thus, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Song to the Men of England:
“Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.
Sow seed – but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth – let no impostor heap;
Weave robes – let not the idle wear;
Forge guns – in your defense to bear;

Further back into history, St. Ambrose, the fourth century bishop of Milan, took the Parable of the Dives with this censorious swing at the rich: “The earth was established to be in common for all, rich and poor; why do ye rich alone arrogate it to yourselves as your rightful property?    
“You crave possession not so much for their utility to yourself, as because you want to exclude others from them. You are more concerned with despoiling the poor than with your own advantage. You think yourself injured if a poor man possesses anything which you consider a suitable belonging for a rich man; wherever belongs to others you look upon something of which you are deprived.”

Deprivation is the eternal state of the worker. That is fated in capitalist societies, engrossed as they are in “…production not merely the production of commodities … (but) essentially the production of surplus value.”
Marx furthered: “All surplus value, whatever particular (profits, interests, rent) it may crystallize into, is in substance the materialization of unpaid labor.”

Today, May 1, the cry for economic emancipation will ring anew. All media shall be filled with paeans to the workingman from just about every political lip freed for this day, and only this day, from the lock of the capitalist kiss.
Tomorrow, May 2, it’s back to the salt mines for labor again. Until the next May Day. 

Sometime, the vicious cycle had to be broken. Then it is the tale of the askal (mongrel) retold:
“Sa bawat latay, kahit aso’y nag-iiba.
Sa una, siya’y magtataka.
Sa ikalawa, siya’y magtatanda.
Sa ikatlo, siya’y mag-iisip.
Sa ika-apat, humanda ka!
(For every lash, even the dog will change.
At the first, it would wonder.
At the second, it would remember.
At the third, it would think.
At the fourth, prepare yourself.)

Then, as now, the cry reverberates: The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Workingmen of all countries, unite! 

Mabuhay ang uring anak-pawis!

(First published in Punto May 2-3, 2014)

 

SFELAPCO: Consuelo de bobo!

Para sa inyo, mga kabalen!

May installment payment options na hanggang apat na buwan para sa inyong April, May, at June 2023 electric bills.

Magtungo lamang sa aming opisina para sa karagdagdang impormasyon.

ITO ANG inanunsiyo ng SFELAPCO sa kanilang Facebook page nitong Abril 28. Isang hakbangin na gawing magaan ang pagbayad natin ng ating electric bills. O, apat na buwang palugit na ang bigay sa atin, saan ka pa?

Nauna dito ang panawagan naman ng SFELAPCO – sa kanilang Facebook page din at sa mga ipinadalang press releases sa media – para sa mga marginalized users (yaong kulang sa kapasidad na magbayad ng kanilang electric consumption) na mag-avail ng lifeline rates para sa discount o subsidy sa kanilang bayarin, alinsunod sa itinatadhana ng Republic Act 11552 (An Act Extending and Enhancing the Implementation of the Lifeline Rate…).

Pagmamagandang-loob at pagmamalasakit sa kapakanan ng kanilang mga consumers, ito baga ang mabuting adhika ng SFELAPCO sa mga nasabing pahayag.

Cuidao ka, Fernandino, ang mga ito ay pa-consuelo de bobo lamang ng SFELAPCO. Malas lang ng SFELAPCO, hindi tayo bobo.

Ang tunay at tanging layon nila ay ilihis ang kaisipan natin sa mga kabulastugan at kalabisan ng kumpanya na nagpahirap – at nagpapahirap pa rin – sa atin sa mahabang panahon at naungkat lamang matapos idulog ni Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag ang ating mga karaingan sa Energy Regulatory Commission.

Sa paglihis ng ating mga kaisipan sa tunay na isyu, maaaring maibsan ang nagpupuyos na damdamin ng madlang Fernandino laban sa SFELAPCO. At tanggapin na lang natin na kanila pa rin ang huling baraha.

Ang sukatan ng katapatan ng SFELAPCO sa pagmamalasakit at pagtulong sa kanilang mga consumers ay wala sa utay-utay na paraan ng pagbayad sa ating mga electric bills. Maihahantulad ito sa reprieve na ibinibigay sa nasa death row, ng pagpapalawig pa ng ilang panahon sa mundo pero bitay pa rin ang katapusan.

Unang-una, hindi makatuwiran o makatarungan ang sinisingil sa atin ng SFELAPCO. At kailan pa man ay hindi ito maitutuwid ng pagbabayad ng hulugan. Sa gawing ito, walang pinag-iba ang SFELAPCO sa Bumbay na naniningil ng hulugan sa 5-6 na pinautang.

O, mabuti pa nga ang Bumbay dahil sa may pinapalabas na pera sa pagpapautang. Ang SFELAPCO puro kabig lamang: tayo ay kaniyang iginigisa sa sarili nating mantika.

Sa kanila na rin lang nanggaling, ibalik natin sa SFELAPCO ang pamamamaraang hulugan sa pagbayad ng utang. Higit na akma ito sa “P654,397,381.00 unauthorized charges” na siningil sa atin mula January 2013 hanggang December 2022 at pinapa-refund o pinababalik sa mga consumers sa utos na rin ng ERC.

Maiaakma rin ang hulugang bayaran sa P21.6 million penalty na ipinataw ng ERC sa SFELAPCO sa mga paglabag nito sa sa mga alituntunin kaugnay ng “invalid charges including [Aboitiz Power Renewables Inc.] line rental charges, site-specific loss adjustment, wholesale electricity spot market (WESM) net settlement surplus, and WESM charges.”

Ibalik sa consumer ang P654 million. Bayaran ang P21 million penalty sa ERC. Ito ang marapat na utay-utayin ng SFELAPCO, sakali mang wala itong kapasidad sa ngayon na bayaran ito ng buo.    

Muli, hindi bobo ang Fernandino, SFELAPCO. Hindi ito magpapaloloko sa anumang pakulo, lalo't palsipikadong pakunsuwelo lang ito.

 

 

 

 

SFELAPCO cheats

IN THE heat of the consumers’ revolt over the projected spike in generation charges, I have kept the coolness of journalistic objectivity and fairness vis-a-vis SFELAPCO.

Unmoved even a bit by the passion of the moment, of the uproar of the masses – most manifest in the honorable Mayor Vilma Balle-Caluag – even as both fused into a maelstrom of disgust, detestation, and denunciation of SFELAPCO.

Notwithstanding the adverse decisions and sanctions the Energy Regulatory Commission imposed upon the company – to a considerable extent effected by the efforts of Mayor Vilma – I stayed convinced that SFELAPCO was a victim too, just as the consumers it serves. Especially given those 10 long years that the ERC slept soundly on its petition for renewal of its power supply agreement.

And remained undoubting too in the truth of SFELAPCO’s rates far below those of the power cooperatives here even as its service is far high up in efficiency, in superiority. For I am most willing to pay the price for efficiency leading to personal comfort and convenience.  

Why, only last week, I happily heralded in Punto! SFELAPCO general manager Babes Lazatin’s announcement of four power firms joining the pre-qualification conference in the distributor’s bid to find affordable and stable electricity supply for its consumers. Swell.

Today, April 19, I can only look at SFELAPCO as a cheat. This, as I join the collective cry here in St. Jude Village over the spike in our power bills.

Still, I won’t fall for the canard passed around my community that SFELAPCO wanted its consumers to defray the expenses incurred in the miserably failed bid of a Lazatin scion for the city mayoralty. That is as much folly as falsity. 

I’d rather go by reason and hard facts to prove a point.

From the previous months’ P5,000 to P6,000-plus, the bill served us today stands at P8,364.01.

It is not the increase of P2,364 per se that made the blood boil. It is its irrationality.

 

Since September last year, we have in place a 5-kw solar energy system in the house. Yes, I have long forgiven SFELAPCO for taking all of five months before installing a REK meter – only last February, and for as long forgotten how much we could have saved, were it installed sooner.

 

For March 2023, our solar generation yield totaled 266kwh. Reflected in the current bill is a measly 14kwh. The scope and scale of cheating here is unconscionably humongous. Talk of power theft, this time not by your usual suspected jumper but by the distributor itself. 

And SFELAPCO even had the gall of stapling in our latest bill a “48-HOUR DISCONNECTION NOTICE” over "outstanding arrears" of P33.54! Yes, thirty-three pesos and fifty-four centavos! Seriously?

 

The wife pays SFELAPCO online – on time – based on the amount in the billing she receives by SMS. Now, we are being penalized for possible glitches in their system!

Hard-earned pesos by the thousands, we contribute to SFELAPCO’s coffers monthly, religiously, unquestioningly. Only to be slapped with a stern warning of power cutoff for allegedly defaulting over a highly questionable, ridiculous P33.54!

Devoid of an iota of corporate conscience, SFELAPCO is reduced to a scheming shyster.

Today, I join the battle.