Prop up a wannabe, damn the media

SHARED IN my Facebook page was an open letter urging Angeles City councilor Amos Rivera to run for city mayor in 2022, posted over the weekend in the FB page of Joy L. Cruz, “former Heritage, Culture and Arts Officer of the Angeles City Tourism Office (2010-June 30, 2019), former Executive Director, Kuliat Foundation Inc. (2009-2016), among others.  

“You are the only candidate that truly embodies public service,” wrote Cruz of Rivera, the only one she sees as having the heart and the strength to change the system.

“You check all the boxes of my ideal leader for this city,” she said, citing what she considers as Rivera’s virtues making him the perfect mayoralty candidate. As much as a virtual candidate for sainthood, going by her drift.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Cruz’s enthusiastic endorsement of her candidate. She is well within her right in doing so. She should have just stayed at her encomia of her hero though.

But no, the goodness, aye, that “bestness,” of Rivera over and above all others needed to shine brighter. Hence, the utter damnation of the current city administration: “The people are not receiving their rights (sic) from the government, the truth is being suppressed, many from the media are paid to hide the truth…”

Of the government, I take no issue. It can defend itself.

But there was a scathing general indictment of the local media. And I said so in my comment to her post, asking her to “name names, damn the damnable, spare the innocent, provide proofs of her accusation.”

Her reply: she took down the post.

Having circulated in the web, only God knows – okay Google and FB too – how many had read that post before its takedown. The harm has clearly been done. It cannot be undone by simply expunging it from the page.  

So, I shall continue to hound Cruz with the challenge to identify “the many from the media paid to hide the truth,” whoever paid them, and to reveal whatever that truth they hid.

Else, she would be nothing to me but a sycophant lying to ingratiate herself to a prospective patron.   

Already, city hall habitues have tossed my way morsels of information relating to cancelled food concessions, discovered overpriced purchases, and hostile employment severance, as the proverbial axes to grind against the current city administration.

No. I refuse to dignify these hearsays, absent any indubitable proof, read: documentary, as in subpoena duces tecum of legalese. Otherwise, I would be just going down the level of Cruz making reckless shotgun accusations.

Of course, Cruz can just disregard my challenge to her as easily as she took down her post and think nothing of it.

Be forewarned then, Amos Rivera and all other candidates Cruz would publicly support this coming 2022 elections : I shall tag you all as “ENDORSED BY A LYING SYCOPHANT.”    

 

     

 

 

Mabalacat: Drug City

WHAT’S WITH Mabalacat City lately

Nothing much…except drugs, drugs, and more drugs most apparently.

P6.2-M party drugs seized in Mabalacat City

A parcel from Germany containing 3,100 pieces of Ecstasy pills worth P6.2 million was seized Thursday afternoon by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Region 3 at the Mabalacat City Post Office. Punto!, ABS-CBN -- March 19, 2021.

PDEA, PNP dismantle drug den in Mabalacat

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Mabalacat City Police Station conducted a drug-bust operation that led to the dismantling of a drug den in Barangay Dapdap here.

The joint operation conducted by the two law enforcement agencies also resulted in the apprehension of five suspects…. all residents of Riverside 5th St., PH-1 MRC of the said barangay.

The authorities confiscated nine sachets of suspected shabu that weighed around 15 grams with a street value of P102,000.  Manila Standard, tribune.net.ph -- March 14, 2021

P408-K shabu seized; 2 drug suspects nabbed in drug bust

Two suspected drug peddlers were arrested by authorities, and P408,000 worth of illegal drugs were seized during an anti-illegal drug operation in Mabalacat City. Based on the report to Brig. Gen. Valeriano T. De Leon, PRO3 regional director, drug suspects…were arrested by joint elements of PDEU, Pampanga PPO, PIU, and Mabalacat SDEU at Barangay Mawaque Maragul, Mabalacat City. Ronda Balita Online – March 7, 2021

Drug dealer killed, 2 others nabbed in buy-busts

A suspected drug dealer was killed while two others were arrested in two buy-bust operations in Mabalacat City.

Pampanga police director Police Col. Thomas Ibay said Sputnik Gang member…and his cohort…, both included in the police list of drug personalities, were nabbed in an entrapment operation on Roxas St. in Barangay Dau.

Seized from them were four plastic sachets with four grams of suspected shabu valued at P27,200, the marked money, a body bag, and a .38 revolver with ammunition.

In another buy-bust in Barangay Dapdap, police killed a certain “Vinvin” when he allegedly shot it out with police operatives…

Police recovered from the slain suspect a .45 pistol with magazine, six grams of suspected shabu with a street value of P40,800, and the marked money used in the operation. – Manila Bulletin – February 21, 2021

Drug peddler yields P2.7-M shabu in buy-bust

At least P2.7-million worth of shabu was seized from a suspected drug peddler who was arrested in Mabalacat City on Tuesday.

Brig. Gen. Valeriano T. de Leon, regional director of Police Regional Office-3 said the arrested drug suspect…is in the database of illegal drug personalities.

De Leon said the suspect was arrested by operatives of Mabalacat City Police Station in a buy-bust operation along MacArthur Highway in Barangay Tabun of the said city.

Confiscated from suspect were nine pieces of heat-sealed transparent plastic sachets containing shabu, weighing some 400 grams with an estimated street value of P2,720,000, the marked money, a digital weighing scale, and a Toyota Corolla vehicle with plate no. TLE 296. – Philippine News Agency -- February 3, 2021

P435-K shabu seized in Mabalacat City

More than P400,000 worth of suspected shabu were seized from two alleged drug peddlers during separate buy-busts last January 20 in Mabalacat City.

…[O]peratives of the Mabalacat City police conducted a buy-bust along Saguin St., Dau Checkpoint, Barangay Dau resulting to the arrest of …

Confiscated from the suspect were four heat-sealed transparent plastic sachets containing suspected shabu weighing approximately four grams with an estimated street value of P27,200. 

During interrogation, suspect revealed [identity] of his cohort prompting authorities to conduct a follow-up operation near the PLDT Tower in Barangay Camachiles, Mabalacat City.

Arrested was …of Barangay Dau. Seized from him were four pieces heat-sealed transparent plastic sachets containing suspected shabu with an approximate weight of 60 grams and estimated street value of P408,000. People’s Journal – January 22, 2021

Mabalacat City yielding a haul of over P10 million in drugs in less than three months – and that’s only what has been reported in mainstream media. Just the major hits that passed the muster of public interest. How much more kaya with the misses – like the proverbial big fishes that always manage to get away?

Don’t look now but we veteran police reporters have this sense that Mabalacat City has reclaimed its title of being the “Drug Capital of Pampanga,” maybe even Central Luzon, that it so infamously held in the 1990s and 2000s.

Yeah, those years when Roxas District in Dau was no man’s land that law enforcers feared to tread.

Yeah, those years when Jopilan Street in Agusu was “scoring avenue” of shabu. The street name taking after the transactional “Jo, pilan?” for the number of sachets a druggie wished to buy there.

Yay, did I just hear someone say Mabalacat is not only a drug destination. Drug is the city’s very destiny? Wow, heavy, man, heavy.

Gov. Dennis "Delta" Pineda: Man of the Year

 

“’PAYBACK TIME’…I don’t know this guy. I don't know what his politics are. But this is the kind of thing that people – Batangueños, Caviteños, helpless-feeling Filipinos everywhere – need to hear at this time. That someone cares, that someone who can marshal resources is doing something. A message that imparts not just what he's doing but also the solidarity that's driving him.”

Thus, Pampanga Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda in a social media influencer’s articulation of the expressions of awe and gratitude posted by hundreds, aye, thousands in the web for his initiative in mobilizing a 50-vehicle convoy of relief and rescue within a day of the Taal Volcano eruptions at the start of 2020.

Pineda’s motivation for prompt action drawn deep from Pampanga’s own volcanic ordeal: “Payback time po ito. Ito po ay ating pasasalamat dahil noon pong pumutok ang Bulkang Pinatubo, marami po ang tumulong sa atin para iligtas tayo at muling makabangon.”

Straight from Pampanga, the governor and his team of doctors, nurses, medics, search and rescue personnel and social workers set up a field command post at the Batangas Sports Complex in Barangay Bolbok and went about the task they came for.

 

Modern Day Hero. Gov. Dennis Pineda of Pampanga. Isang araw matapos pumutok ang bulkan, si Gov ay nagpunta sa Batangas dala ang kanyang rescue team, fleet of trucks and heavy equipment plus tons of relief goods

Ang grupo nila ay nagtayo ng mga tent sa sports complex kung saan siya ay tumitigil. Tuwing umaga umaalis sila dala ang mga relief goods na truck-truck, ini-isa isa nila ang mga evacuation center habang ang mga heavy equipment naman na dala nila ay naglilinis sa mga bayang apektado ng ashfall. Hapon na sila bumabalik, magpapahinga, tutulog sa mga tent, at kinabukasan ganoon na naman.

Salute to Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda. -- Genaro Cabral, former provincial attorney of Batangas/former municipal administrator of Lemery, Jan. 18, 2020

 In the five days that Pineda personally directed rescue and relief operations, 27,792 families were served with a total of P8,697,636 in assistance extended to the victims, including five kilos of rice, cans of corned beef and sardines, a tray of eggs as well as rubber slippers and sets of underwear for each family. The Pampanga medical team treated a total of 2,099 patients in different evacuation centers, dispensing 56,750 medicines for various kinds of ailment.

It was not the end of the governor’s relief mission, as in four days after leaving, he returned to Batangas with more than 200 volunteers bringing 9,509 food packs, 17,843 packs of dry goods, 9,086 water containers, and 23,000 face masks to areas ravaged by the continuing volcanic activity.

"Gaya ng aking ipinangako, narito ulit kami upang maghatid pa ng karagdagang tulong sa ating mga kababayan na lubhang naapektuhan ng pagputok ng bulkan," Pineda said.

The inrush of relief and aid initiated by the governor stirred local government units and the private sector in Pampanga to give their share of assistance, many of the executives personally delivering them, notably Mabalacat City Mayor Cris Garbo with P1.7 million in relief goods and P1 million in cash; Mexico Mayor Teddy Tumang with P1 million in cash; the League of Municipalities of Pampanga with P1.7 million for rehabilitation of schools; the Bridges of Benevolent Initiatives Foundation and the World Medical Relief Inc. Phil., at the initiative of Dr. Irineo “Bong” Alvaro with an initial P500,000; the Federation of Small Scale Quarry Operators with over P300,000; and Pampanga ICT mogul Dennis Anthony Uy with a P5-million check he personally handed to Batangas Gov. Hermilando "Dodo" Mandanas.

From a grateful Mandanas: "Kami ay taus-pusong nagpapasalamat dahil hindi lang nakikita, kundi amin ding nadarama ang kanilang pagtulong sa amin."

Typhoon Ulysses

A reprisal of role played in Taal for Pineda at the onslaught of Typhoon Ulysses in November 2020, taking this time a 15-vehicle convoy of relief goods contributed by Kapampangans to worst devastated Cagayan.

Saup Cagayan brought 21,500 relief packs each comprising five kilos of rice, four cans of sardines, four cans of corned beef, hygiene kits, slippers, and sleeping mats to the capital of Tuguegarao.  

This, notwithstanding that Pampanga itself was inundated with floods wrought by the supertyphoon that led to an anonymous group to launch a fund-raising drive in the net dubbed #PAMPANGANEEDSHELP.

Pineda’s response to the drive earned even greater admiration for him, not only among the Kapampangan but to the flood victims of Cagayan --

 “Act of kindness and sympathy to those in very badly needed situations…leader for all and not for personal gain. Sana ganyan lahat ang mga pulitikong nasa pamunuan…

A man with a golden heart and a province of generous charitable people. Thanks to you. God bless Pampanga more…

Tama ang governor niyo. Alam nila ang kapasidad at kakayanan ng provincial government niyo. Isipin na lang muna natin yung ibang mas higit na nangangailangan…

I'm from Alcala, Cagayan, nag-goose bumps ako after reading this. I feel the act of your sympathy.”

Just four of the hundreds of comments of gratitude and good wishes to the governor and the Kapampangan people for their altruism.

Pineda had the utmost all-is-well confidence to leave a flooded Pampanga to bring much needed aid to deluged Cagayan.

Relief packs had already been pre-positioned as early as two typhoons before Ulysses and relief distribution had been ongoing in the inundated towns of Candaba, Masantol, Macabebe, San Simon, and Apalit days prior to his convoy’s departure. Not to mention that the relief to Cagayan came from the contributions of his cabalens.

Covid-19

Tried in the Taal eruption, tested in Typhoon Ulysses – and rising above both tragedies, Pineda’s characteristic leadership in times of crisis has been forged further and continues to be honed in the crucible of the coronavirus pandemic.

No disparagement of anyone now, but at the time Malacanang’s response to the then still emerging Covid-19 was the haughty “Sampalin ko pa ang veerus na yan,” Pineda was already starting the mobilization of health resources, staff and facilities, and barangay health workers, and has not stopped since: moving on to administrative measures as the suspension of classes, work schedules, declaration of a state of calamity, to the provision of goods by the time of the lockdowns.

When LGUs recoiled at the prospect of welcoming home the first Filipino repatriates from China which was then the only country afflicted with the coronavirus disease, with a number even coming up with sanggunian resolutions shutting their boundaries to their countrymen, Pineda opened Pampanga as quarantine area to the repats.

To thunderous applause of thousands of barangay health workers in an assembly in early February 2020, the governor declared: “Kadugo po natin sila kaya bukas po ang Pampanga para sa kanila…They are hailed as heroes so they should be helped when they’re in need of help. I see this as a call of duty.”

It was no bombastic rhetoric, Pineda having much earlier coordinated with DOH on health facilities in Pampanga meeting up to the needs of quarantine; and Clark freeport and airport authorities on preparation for landing the repatriates.

And subsequently dispatching a 40-foot container van converted into and fitted by the provincial government as an isolation chamber, along with two mini-buses fitted as containment transport to the Clark International Airport, ready for the repatriates.

A wing of the Athlete’s Village and the New Government Administrative Center in New Clark City and the ASEAN Convention Center at Fontana in Clark Freeport were commissioned by the provincial government for use as its quarantine facilities.

Balik Pinas, Balik Pampanga

The sense of kapwa, the virtue of malasakit in Governor Pineda has been institutionalized in the Balik Pinas, Balik Pampanga program he brain-trusted with Vice Gov. Lilia “Nanay” G. Pineda and the provincial board.

“A milestone…that is really commendable para mapabilis ang sistema natin particularly in Luzon” enthused Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año of the program.  

Using an app to track and assist all returning overseas Kapampangans, whether workers or already citizens of other countries, the program aims to bring them home safely to their homes and help the national government decongest arrivals in Metro Manila.

Teams from the provincial government attend to the repatriate upon arrival, ensure they undertake Covid-19 protocols and tests, take them to quarantine facilities until the end of the prescribed period, and give them a warm send-off home.

As of Jan. 30, 2021, a total of 3,233 returning overseas Kapampangans have availed themselves of the program, of whom 3,229 have reunited with their families and four remaining in quarantine.

 Of Balik Pinas, Balik Pampanga, no less than National Action Plan against Covid-19 chief implementer Sec. Carlito Galvez, Jr. enthused: “That is a gesture na nakikita naming puedeng gayahin ng mga LGUs.”

Benchmark

More than the template for local government executives in this time of the pandemic as Galvez may have offered him to be, Gov. Dennis “Delta” Pineda has become the very benchmark of leadership in all types of crisis. Being right there – leading, inspiring, rallying – at the frontline, indeed at the ground zero of the disasters that defined 2020.

As our socmed influencer that opened this story precisely perceived of him "…Especially in a time of crisis, it's not enough to lead – you have to show that you're leading. That's what leaders do in a time of crisis, they provide the anchor to which people cling to steady themselves against buffeting winds and roiling waters. They become the beacon that tell the people that, yes, there is a light and yes, it's showing us the way.”

Luid ya ing Capampangan!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glory to the House

DOMUS GLORIAE. Thinking that my Latin-spouting frater had reached some sort of epiphany out of admiring the masterpieces of ecclesiastical art at the Betis Galleria, I responded, in the solemnity of the moment: “Amen, amen. ‘Tis indeed a house of glory this little sanctuary. May he who built it, Willy Layug, ever blessed be.”

He gave me that quizzical look: “What have you been sniffing lately?” and hastened to the shaded yard downstairs the galleria where brunch was being served.

So, what did I do? I merely responded in kind to your ejaculatory delight over Maestro Willy’s works, I told him.

It turned out there was nothing spiritual but everything secular in the House of Glory he referenced – Congress stands to house anew former President, former Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

It was my turn to ask, in all sarcasm, if he inhaled something stronger than mosquito coil earlier that day.

“Believe you me! GMA will run for congressman of the second district again!” So much he spoke with more certainty than the prophets of old.

So, what have you been hearing lately, I asked Guagua Mayor Dante Torres, who led the ribbon-cutting rites opening the galleria along with Bacolor Mayor Diman Datu.

Both hizzoners had not heard so much a whiff of a rumor of a GMA congressional run, but admitted that the possibility would always be there, knowing full well that, yes, indeed, politics is the art of the possible.

I can’t remember distinctly now if it was the Maestro himself or some other guest, who, out of inspired revelation perhaps, said Nanay too is making a go for Congress.

But, our Nanay, former governor now Vice. Gov. Lilia “Baby” Pineda is, like GMA, domiciled in Lubao, of the second district. No way the beloved Nanay go up against her esteemed Ateng.

It’s the partylist, stupid. Sneered someone at our disbelief.

Nanay Partylist, imaged in the likeness of Pampanga’s favorite mother, by itself already makes a formidable political force to reckon with. On that basis alone, one congressional seat is readily assured.

As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, yes, we agreed.  

Factor in the hundreds, aye, thousands, who received Nanay’s unparalleled TLC from the time she was Lubao mayor, through her three terms as governor, and ongoing till today, deeply felt not only in Pampanga but in the whole of Central Luzon and sensed practically in all regions. Toss in the multiplier effect. A second House seat there, easily, as the late Gov. Bren Z. Guiao was wont to say. Not to count pa, the bloc-voting you-know-what.

Again, affirmative.

But it has been whispered loud and clear that Nanay is retiring at the end of her vice gubernatorial term next year.

Our someone would not hear of it, thus:  

Retirement? “A mother’s work is never done.” A cliché that has become a truism, most specially for Nanay.

Motherhood is not only a call of duty to Nanay. It is the very essence of Nanay’s whole being, aye, the be-all and end-all of her life that is best expressed, indeed, lived and fulfilled, in the service of her children – us, her constituents. Never shall she turn her back to us.

So, I supposed someone’s next line would be “A mother’s place is in the House.”

Great, that’s one befittingly felicitous slogan for the Nanay Partylist.

Got to find what someone has been sniffing. Heady thoughts there he’s got.

I am inhaling the wrong stuff. It only makes me giddy. Wow, man, wow. I’m on a freak out, yeah, yeah, yeah.   

 

 

   

 

 

A farce played out

 

SOME 30 New People’s Army rebels who surrendered to the government recited the country’s “Oath of Allegiance” during the presentation of surrenderees under President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order 70, which created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, held at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig on Tuesday. (PhilStar)…

 

CORRECTED: Some 30 personalities who recently withdrew their allegiance and support from underground movement engineered by leftist labor groups recited the country's “oath of allegiance” during the presentation of surrenderers under President Duterte's Executive Order 70, which created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, held at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig on Tuesday. (PhilStar)

WHAT A transformation! In a matter of hours, the 30 NPA rebels transmogrified into 30 personalities who recently withdrew their allegiance and support from the underground movement.

No doubt their morphing induced by the tsunami of snickering mockery in the web uniformly tagging the “surrenderees” as more like the archetypal huffing, puffing pot-bellied pulis patola ­– think Sinas, than the emaciated mountain-dwelling romanticized rebelde – think Che, or the young Kumander Dante.  

Aye, a slapstick farce played all too vividly there, the police and military truly worthy of their Keystone Kops tradition. Clueless? Google it.   

There is nothing new to the military presentation before the media of alleged rebel surrenderees. As a matter of course, that has long devolved into nothing more than fakery. That the state forces still persist in doing it only shows the strategic stagnation they are mired in in the war against the insurgency, notwithstanding the military modernization programs bruited about of late, not to mention the billions in intel funds.

Indeed, intelligence – outside the military sort – is beyond purchase.

Of the event at hand, I wrote more than 32 years ago – in the 8-13 Dec. 1988 issue of the long-defunct Angeles Sun:

The fallacy of overkill

THE ARMED Forces of the Philippines may be winning the insurgency war but the bite, that walloping impact, of victory is dissipated with the amateurish handling of information dished out for public consumption.

This is indicative of an inept, if not inane and inutile, propaganda machinery. Or of the employment of propagandists steeped in the old Hitlerian institution of the Big Lie. Nowhere is this more evident than in Pampanga where the overkill syndrome has become the norm in martial propaganda.

Rebel surrenderees are a stock-in-trade in the hearts-and-minds battle in any insurgency campaign, be it in Vietnam, in Malaya, in Somoza’s Nicaragua, or here.

The packaging of information relative to the surrenderees could spell the chasm of a difference between earned propaganda value and loss of credibility. To the latter has fallen many a report of surrenders. Not for anything else but for the substance of incredulity or illogic.

For instance, there were this year successive reports of NPA “regulars” surrendering in droves in Pampanga – 50 in Lubao, 40 in Sta. Ana, 30 in San Simon, if memory serves right – aside from the “200 regulars” captured and “subjected to tactical interrogation for one week” by a ranking PC (Philippine Constabulary) officer.

Against the backdrop of military pronouncement that there are less than 200 NPA regulars in Pampanga, the reports would show that the NPA in the province is operating on a deficit manpower or negative level!

Incredible too is the superhuman feat of tactical interrogation for one week of 200 NPA rebels by only one PC officer. With him alone, we wonder why there is still an insurgency war in Pampanga or in the whole country for that matter.

The slip in the surrender drama shows too in some field officers’ attempt at excellence directed toward an ultimate rise in the ranks.

During the Marcos misrule, an officer-friend was lionized in the local press for the number of “surrenderees” who took the oath of alliance to the Republic before him. The surrender rites being always on Sundays and in marketplaces sowed the seeds of disbelief that subsequently uncovered the sham of surrender and ultimately effected this officer’s relegation to the doghouse.

He was found to have been gathering all marketgoers on Sundays, telling them of a new Philippine Republic to which every Filipino should pledge his allegiance, and then passed off the pictures to newspapers as those of NPA surrenderees.

Overkill transcends the figurative and goes to the literal in certain casualty reports in internecine encounters between the NPA and the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB).

The conclusion of 20 dead in a recent encounter between the two, without any body retrieved or accounted for is plainly fictitious. Especially when the speculated number of combatants did not go beyond two scores and the firefight lasting for a mere ten minutes (that would be two killed per minute).

The above data culled from a single military report evidenced the contradictory and illogical presentation of facts and fantasies that have become indistinguishable in many a military mind.

That the NPA has greatly lost its strength in the province, owing to military victory in Maj. Sonny Gutierrez’s and Maj. Roman Lacap’s fields of battle; in Col. Efren Q. Fernandez’s barangay dialogs; and in Lt. Col. Amado Espino Jr’s “capitalist cheerers,” is not simply believable but even highly probable.

It has been a long time since the last sparrow killing and field encounter. A number of NPA sympathizers do indeed return to the fold of the law. A relative peace reigns in the province. No need therefore to tilt the balance more by coming up with these ridiculous and insulting propaganda schemes. Which makes an utter fallacy of the military’s actual victory.              

 

Thus, shall Leni be?

 

LEADERSHIP – the word as well as its application – has been so much abused and misused that we now have a warped sense of it. So shallow is our notion of leadership that we automatically affix “leader” to any elected official, to presidents and chairs of just about any organization with at least two members.

So long as there is one to command and another to follow, there exists leadership. There too bogs down our concept of the word. For leaders and followers do not make the whole dynamics of leadership. There is the third element of goal.

From the book Certain Trumpets, the thesis on the nature of leadership by Pulitzer Prize winner Garry Wills, I quote: “The goal is not something added to leader and followers. The goal is the reason for the other two’s existence. It is the equalizer between leader and followers. The followers do not submit to the person of the leader. They join him in the pursuit of the goal.”

Wills further expounds “…the leader is one who mobilizes others toward a goal shared by leader and followers…all three elements (leader, followers and goal) are indispensable.”

Critical indeed is the requisite of a goal shared by both the leader and the followers in the holistic perspective, in the true nature of leadership.

Sadly, it is there – in the element of goal – that political leadership in the Philippine context is much, much wanting and thereby we the people almost always suffer.

More often than not, in fact as a matter of practice, the goal – as translated to interests – of the leader does not match, if not altogether contradicts, the goal or the interest of the followers.

No self-respecting presumptuous leader would ever accede to that. Thus, we all hear our so-called political leaders on the campaign trail vow their very “sacred honor” to the interests of the people. See those screaming streamers posted around: Bayan ang Bida, Serbisyong Tapat, Serbisyong Totoo, Serbisyong Todo-todo, Paglingkuran ang Bayan, ad nauseam.

Behold what political leaders do after getting elected! Conveniently forgetting their campaign promises, dishonoring their very vows to work for the interests of their constituency.

While honor may still obtain among thieves, it is a rarity among Philippine politicians.

So how and why do they get away with it? I mean thieves getting positions of leadership and robbing us, the followers, blind.

It is in the manner we choose our leaders. As a rule, Filipinos vote with their emotions, rarely with their intellect. Comes here the magic word charisma.

We are mesmerized by anyone with a flashy lifestyle: movie stars, entertainers, athletes, the pa-sosyal crowd, the perfumed set. Instantaneously, we stamp the word charisma on celebrity.

From the essential “divine grace,” the meaning of charisma has been so twisted that it is now a synonym to just about anything that is “attention-compelling,” even to its essential antonym of “infamy.” Yeah, the infamous we now call charismatic.

And so, we appended charisma on Joseph Estrada. To invest “divine grace” in one who makes the grandest mockery of the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Commandments of God is the most detestable sacrilege, the most damnable blasphemy. But did we know any better?

Star-struck, blinded by the flash of celebrity, bewitched by their larger-than-life personae, we readily elect fame over capability, choose passion over vision, favor make-believe over hard reality.

Erap has been deposed, tried, imprisoned, convicted and pardoned. Erap is again a front-runner in the 2010 presidential race.

Again, Santayana’s damnation is upon us: We are a nation that cannot, that refuses, to remember the past. We are a nation damned.

In the 1970s, a great political mind distilled the nature of Philippine politics thus: “Personalist, populist, individualist.” Then he went on to arrogate unto himself all the powers that can be had, and more – elevating himself to the pantheon of the gods, assuming the mythic Malakas of Philippine folklore with, naturally, the beautiful Imeldific, as his Maganda.

A keen student of history, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos appended to his public persona semblances of the charismatic leaders of the past: his World War II exploits – later proven false – invoked Napoleon, if not Caesar; his political philosophies gave him an aura of the Borgia and Medici clients of Machiavelli; his vision of a New Society paralleled Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal; his patronage of the arts that of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

Marcos even exceeded himself in self-cultivating an image of being his country’s hero-in-history in the molds of Napoleon of France, Bolivar of Latin America, Lincoln of the USA, Garibaldi of Italy, Lenin of the Soviet Union, Ataturk of Turkey, and Mao of China.

A wee short of divine rights, Marcos took upon himself a Messianic and Mosaic mission for the Philippines: Save the country and its democratic institutions from anarchy, lead the people to prosperity.

Indeed, what other Philippine leader did possess “charisma” greater than Marcos?

EDSA 1, the Cory Magic swept the land.

Ridiculed as “walang alam” (know nothing), plain housewife Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino brought down the towering intellectual, the almighty Marcos in one bloodless revolution – a contradiction in terms there, invoking what could only be some divine guidance.

There was charisma, in its purest essence. There was our Cory.

FIRST published in the Aug. 7, 2009 print edition of Punto! republished anew in remembering Cory’s 88^th birthday this Jan. 25, this old piece finds an eerie relevance to current times.

In Marcos and Estrada, Duterte unfolded.

In Cory, only Leni. Thus, shall it again be?

Standing for UP

 

“THE COUNTRY’S premier state university has become a safe haven for enemies of the state."

Thus spake Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana of the University of the Philippines, thereby – in some senselessness – making imperative the unilateral termination of the 1989 DND-UP agreement requiring state forces to inform the state university before its personnel can enter campus grounds.

Signed between then UP president Jose Abueva and then Defense chief Fidel Ramos, the agreement also holds that military and police cannot enter any UP campus "except in cases of hot pursuit and similar occasions of emergency" or when assistance is requested by university officials.

An earlier agreement, the 1982 Soto-Enrile accord between then student leader Sonia Soto and then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, was signed to protect the autonomy of the university from military intervention, especially in protest rallies.

The “agreement” – Lorenzana presumably making the two as one and the same – he deemed merely a “gesture of courtesy” that is now “obsolete.”

What Lorenzana takes as some outdated privilege bestowed by the state is the very core of academic freedom, among all other freedoms upheld as human rights in a democratic state.   

"However, during the life of the agreement the University of the Philippines has become the breeding ground of intransigent individuals and groups whose extremist beliefs have inveigled students to join their ranks to fight against the government," he said in a statement, bereft of even but a shred of evidence to support his claim.

Lorenzana in effect there reducing UP students to herds of cattle easily led by the nose, even to slaughter.

Expectedly, outrage poured out of social media deluging Lorenzana.  

"Kung meron tayong due process, sana sinabi muna kung ano ang resulta ng compliance sa halip na pumasok sa red-tagging na wala namang batayan si Lorenzana dun sa kaniyang desisyon to abrogate nga ito," said UP journalism professor Danilo Arao.

Furthering: "Ang mensahe natin sa publiko, ngayon UP 'yan baka sa susunod PUP (Polytechnic University of the Philippines) na at iba pang unibersidad na walang kasunduan. Mas lalakas ang loob ng military at pulis sa paghahasik ng kaharasan."

Seconded Froilan Cariaga, chairperson of the UP Diliman Student Council: “Ngayon sinusubukan itong lusawin ng administrasyon ay malinaw siya na atake laban sa karapatang sibil ng mga estudyante at ng buong komunidad ng unibersidad at malinaw siyang atake sa academic freedom ng UP at ng iba pang pamantasan.”

UP alum and former student regent Sen. Francis Pangilinan, on Twitter: "Tinutulan natin ang panghihimasok ng diktador noon. UP has always been and will always be a citadel of freedom and democracy. Pakiusap lang, please don't mess with UP” referencing the so-called “Diliman Commune” of some 50 years ago when students barricaded the UP campus for days in protest of the Marcos administration still in its pre-martial law stage.

A "blatant disregard for students' historic win against campus militarization,” shared Youth Rep. Sarah Elago. "For education institutions to fulfill their significant role in upholding human rights and democracy, they must be protected from ruling regimes' undue pressures and dictates.”

 

Sonia’s dare

For her part, Sonia Soto, principal party to the eponymous accord with Enrile had this to say: "Nalungkot ako at nababahala. Para sa akin, ang UP-DND Agreement noong 1989 na nakabatay sa Soto-Enrile Accord noong 1982 ay kapwa resulta ng democratic reforms movement ng kabataan-estudyante na hindi dapat ganoon kadaling makaisang-panig na ibasura ng pamahalaan. Ipinaglaban namin ito noon.”

And dared: “Forty years ago, we made a stand. Today it is the turn of the young Isko/Iska to defend their institution."

Defend the institution. Uphold academic freedom.

Comes to mind here one of the greatest philosophical treatises in defense of the basic right of freedom of expression, John Milton’s Areopagitica, thus:  

“Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?”

So Lorenzana urged the UP Community to "work together to protect our students from extremism and destructive armed struggle” even as he warned that the DND will "not tolerate those who will violate the laws of the land in the guise of lawful public dissent, free assembly and free speech."

An abject admission, unwittingly, there of the utter defeat of the regime Lorenzana represents in that free and open encounter that is the UP system.

Milton, once more: “For who knows not that truth is strong next to the almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps…”

Abrogating – unilaterally at that – the UP-DND agreement is that very shift, that deceitful scheme, that error, indeed, evil, uses against the power of Truth.