Category: church

cowards all

it’s not only manny villar, who has been called a coward for refusing to answer questions re the c-5 extensions that allegedly benefitted his real estate empire in the millions, billions.   i don’t even think that snubbing the senate is as much a matter of cowardice as of some kinda guilt, or why won’t he take questions in the proper forum?   “is manny villar blameless? is the pope protestant?”

by cowards all i mean all five leading presidential candidates noynoy villar erap gibo and gordon, for not having the audacity, the daring, to think big and brave and to talk the radical changes that are implied in the promise of good governance.

this is not just a failure of the candidates though but a failure too of the electorate for not demanding more of these guys, which in turn is a failure of the media for inadequately informing and inspiring themselves, and the people, to ask demand clamor shout-out for changes beyond an end to corruption.   particularly changes in a system that was designed, in the first place, to benefit the few elite and NOT the manymanymanymanymany poor, as we should all see by now if only we hadn’t become too lazy to read and think and be critical, and  if only we would stop trusting in these candidates’ motherhood statements na kunyari they have the best interests of the poor at heart, because they don’t; rather they’re quite willing to play along with the same forces, inside and outside, that gloria arroyo (not to speak of past administrations, including erap, all the way back to the commonwealth) has been playing along with, to the detriment and degradation of our land and our economy, our people and our sovereignty.

they are cowards all, these leaders who don’t have the courage to stand up to the catholic church on the RH bill and sex education, never mind that 7 out of 10 filipinos want need deserve it.   cowards all who won’t stand up to the U.S. of A. on the chauvinist imperialist VFA and the IMF-WB-imposed “development plans” that over the decades have rendered the country nowhere near “developed”, rather turned us into the basket case of the ASEAN, basket-case meaning no legs of our own to stand on, no arms to work and feed ourselves with, how humiliating, how depressing.

they are cowards all.   afraid, not of going to hell if they defy the church’s stand on RH and sex education, just afraid of losing votes that the church allegedly commands.   cowards all.   afraid of espousing any kind of deep-seated change not because it’s undoable but out of fear and disinclination to defy and displease uncle sam, paano na ang campaign contributions, aray, paano na ang “special” fil-am relations, lol, how colonial the mentality pa rin.

it bears repeating what the journalist tony abaya of manilastandardtoday wrote back in august 2009 in response to rumors that noynoy might run: that what the country needs is a forward-looking president, a truly revolutionary president, someone with the attributes and visions of lee kwan yew, mahathir mohamad and gen. park chung hee:

… it is someone who has the qualities of these three foreign leaders that the Philippines badly needs in order to overcome decades of consistently poor governance, restore our badly battered self esteem, and draw for us a credible vision of what we want our country to be.

We need someone like Lee Kwan Yew who was/is personally incorruptible and at the same time was/is so conversant with economics and international relations that he could speak ex-tempore and defend his policies before an assembly of multinational CEOs and diplomats and made/make solid sense, whether they agreed/agree with him or not.

In addition we need the strong sense of nationalism of Mahathir Mohamad who in the 1980s drew a vision – Malaysia Vision 2020, that sought and seeks to transform Malaysia into a fully industrialized country by the year 2020 – that he was able to convince the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-religious people of Malaysia to embrace as worthy of their national loyalty, beyond the narrow appeals of their tribes and ethnic groups. No mean feat, considering the catastrophic demise of equally multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious federal Yugoslavia in the 1990s that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Mahathir’s nationalism also expressed itself in his readiness to fearlessly fire back at other countries, other world leaders, as well as international agencies whenever he felt they were trampling on the national self-interests of Malaysia.

We also need the single-minded determination of Gen. Park Chung Hee to transform his impoverished, resource-poor and inconsequential Republic of Korea from 1961 to 1979 (when he was assassinated) into a fully industrialized country that is now one of the ten biggest economies in the world.

… this is what the Philippines needs, a leader who can start and lead a revolution, a peaceful one, as much as possible; a violent one, if necessary.

anything less is just not good enough.  hindi na lang ako boboto.

oh and what’s this BS about villar NOT belonging to the elite just because he started out poor, unlike noynoy and gibo?   c’mon, rene azurin, you can do better than that.   by any reckoning, villar and the tsinoy taipans who all started out poor are very much a part of today’s elite, the irresponsible filipino elite, that wittingly or unwittingly collaborates with foreign powers, keeping the masses poor and marginalized.

environment 9: sustainable devt

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AS
SPIRITUAL AND REVOLUTIONARY PRAXIS

Junie Kalaw

Toward the end of this century as of the last one, dramatic changes have taken place under the impact of, among others, the industrial revolution, two world wars, struggles for political independence, the internationalization of economics, and the globalization of mass media.  These forces have had shearing effects on the fabric of political and economic society, some appearing first as part of the solution, even a boon (like pesticides), and only later as a problem.   Through all these changes and upheavals, the structures of oppressive domination have persisted on different levels occasionally changing external form but otherwise entrenched firmly enough in society to continue denying Filipinos and other Third World populations their freedom and autonomy.

Today’s Revolutionary Conditions

Poverty remains the Philippines’ major problem, aggravated by the depletion of our natural resources, the impending breakdown of our life-support systems, and the high rate of our population growth.  With our remaining forests down to less than 800,000 hectares, only 20% of our coral reefs in good condition, 18 major river systems biologically dead, 13 provinces severely eroded, fresh-water reservoirs drying up, and the population requiring 40% more food by the year 2000, we face a critical situation and time is not on our side.

The deterioration of the Philippine environment is traceable to economic activities designed to support the consumption needs of other countries.  Ecological footprints of the development of industrialized countries are to be seen not only in our degraded ecology but also in the waste that is exported back to us.   This historical trail of international trade based on the exploitation of our natural resources by former colonial masters has piled up ecological debts that remain uncompensated.   Sadly, this system of “ecological colonialism” has been institutionalized in the present international economic order.

Highlighting the crisis are new perspectives from ecological economists like Herman Daly and Robert Goodland.  They see our economic system as an open system functioning with the closed system that is our planet’s biosphere.  With the current global economy amounting to about US$32 trillion, we are consuming 40% of the primary production of terrestrial photosynthetic energy from the sun.  This means that in one doubling time, we will be using 80%, a condition that with its attendant waste may exceed the “carrying capacity” of the planet.  Thus it is posited that there is no room for aggregate economic growth and that sustainable economic growth for everyone is not possible.  This raises such issues as the rights of poor countries to their equitable share of remaining clean space, access to their own natural resources, access to information and technology, and bargaining power in markets.  Further, inasmuch as the relationship between rich and poor is a function of power, there is nothing to stop the rich from using this self-same power to maintain their wasteful consumption patterns and perpetuate an inequitable system.

Revolution Based on Reconciliation

Pope John Paul II in Rome calls it a “moral crisis,” the lack of a “morally coherent world view.”  A lumad datu in Mount Apo ascribes it to a foreign belief system that has exiled God to the heavens so that we no longer see God in the trees, streams, mountains, and animals, nor in our fellow humans.  The reference is to the same fundamental gap between our personal ethics and the system’s ethics, and the need for a systems ethics which translates personal decisions in to decisions for the common good.  More concretely, it is the gap between what is an honest living for loggers and what is good for the environment and the common welfare.   The gap is widened not just by plain greed but also by a moral and ethical blindness to, and lack ofcomprehension of, the norms for a just and sustainable functioning of bigger systems.

At its worst, the gap renders futile church teachings on honesty and love for the poor on account of its inability to translate doctrine in terms of land reform or equitable wages or conservation of forest and marine resources.  In the end we realize that we have not yet found our wholeness.  We have yet to manage successfully the integration of personal and social transformation.  The exception was the EDSA Revolution, when a critical mass of Filipinos got their inner and outer values together and created the spiritual and political space that made the sharing of pan de sal across military defenses an operative Communion of the People, and that produced transformative political change, but which, unfortunately, we were unable to sustain.

Nowhere is the fundamental gap between personal ethics and systems ethics more dramatic and disastrous than in the policy of equal access to the benefits of creation.  Whereas in an ecological system life flows, sustaining and fulfilling the lives of all in a process we can call “ecological justice,” in the current system control over and access to life-giving natural resources are awarded to a privileged few — a situation which has produced the poverty and resource depletion that imperils our life-support systems.  Moreover, we have cast the responsibility and accountability for these effects to the impersonal free enterprise and market systems.

The conflict between our economic system and nature’s ecological processes has been a fundamental cause of the destruction of our ecosystems.  While natural systems consist of organic unities such as families, communities, cultures, and ecosystems, we manage to evaluate and reward our economic activities according to functional sectors and enterprise organizations.  We gauge national development by adding the production of these sectors and industries into a gross national product (GNP); not measured are local community welfare and ecosystem enhancement.  This has resulted in a big normative gap between the welfare of corporations, both transnational and national, and the welfare of local ecologies and communities.  The bridging of this gap requires more than just environmental protection measures or community projects by business enterprises.   It requires a whole re-orientation of the way we do business and a re-discovering of the true essence of hanapbuhay, a truly Filipino concept that searches for the life-flow, like the Kalinga concept of wealth that is based on the enrichment of life rather on a life of personal enrichment.  We cannot relegate this revisioning to our economists and government planners alone.  We need to take responsibility for our country’s economic development models, policies, and practices, and to participate in the political processes that will enable us to create a just and sustainable future not only for ourselves but for the generations of Filipinos to come.

Politics, whose primordial function is to serve the welfare of the whole, is the human activity that should be most spiritually informed.  Most efforts at political reconciliation have as their objective the consolidation of power under the ruling regime.  Thus, one presently sees accommodations being made with the forces of he past dictatorship under the pretext of hastening the healing of the nation.  What needs reconciliation and healing is not the gap between contending politicians with vested interests but the gap between their interests and the welfare of the people, between the welfare of the state bureaucracy and the welfare of the environment and local communities.   This requires the relocation of authority from the ideologies of political parties to the reality of the interdependence of life in an ecology; the re-vesting of power from the centralized bureaucracy of state, party committee, and church to persons in communities; the affirmation of the subsidiarity of parts and the ecological and spiritual solidarity of wholes; and the establishment of a local citizenship and a global polity.

It is a reconciliation that needs to find a new concept of security and management of changes in the shift from national security based on militarization and armaments to a “natural” security based on securing clean water, fertile soil, fresh air, and food.  It requires a fundamental re-orientation of power from one based on the accumulation of goods and information to one based on the capacity to make goods and information flow, where power becomes something one does not hold on to but something ope opens up to for the life process to flow in service to others.

Such a reconciliation gives witness to the great lesson of ecology that all life is interconnected and echoes the teachings of all great spiritual traditions that the governance of communities is a sacred task, whether we call it the Christian Mystical Body, the Moslem Uhma, or the Kalinga ili.

Conversion and Renewal

Christian churches are now seeking an alternative to the ruling anthropocentric model of man subduing the earth.  The new theological understanding of creation spans a spectrum of interpretations: the sacramentalist model, where everything is a manifestation of God; the stewardship model, which argues for the sustainable use of power, knowledge, and natural resources; the creative model expounded by Matthew Fox, where God is ever “birthing and nurturing creation”; the Franciscan model of kinship of “brother sun and sister moon”; and the evolutionary model of Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Berry.  They all have broadened the praxis of faith to include “justice, peace, and Integrity of Creation” and redefined “a spirituality that integrates our faith and our daily lives and all of Creation.”

Here at home, in defense of what we Filipinos call lupang hinirang (beloved country), the Philippine Independent Church recently announced its advocacy of a total ban on commercial logging for 25 years.  Following the Catholic bishops’ pastoral letter “What Is Happening to Our Beautiful Land?” and the involvement of bishops and parish priests in blockading logging trucks on Bukidnon, picketing DENR offices in Nueva Ecija, and apprehending illegal loggers in Cagayan, there is clearly an escalation of activism among Christian churches and a growing concern for the integrity of life on earth.

A more concise expression of the revolutionary message of the Gospel has yet to be made by any church group in the Philippines, but it is important to remember that the times call for a new conversion.   In the past, conversion was brought about by mediation between people and the Divine, or between people and other people.  Today’s need is a mediation between people and nature, a mediation we call “sustainable development.”  It is a conversion that comes from revelations through nature, revelations that link polarities into higher levels of integration and renewal, revelations that affirm the integrity of God’s creation whose truth lies beyond contending ideological positions and is encompassed in an ecology.  It will come from re-remembering what our indigenous Filipinos knew about the sacredness of the land, our lupang hinirang.  It will come from re-experiencing the tradition of nurturing the Earth, our tipan sa Mahal na Ina.  It will come from responding to the biblical revelations to be stewards of the earth.  A conversion where “carrying capacity” becomes the operative term for compassion, and the patterns of community life a metaphor for wholeness.  It will require the devolution of power away from its institutional sites in the bureaucracies of state, party, and even church, and into people in the communities as the locus of the Mystical Body.   It will empower people to participate in the creative act of sustainable development by witnessing the Spirit that runs through all life.

This kind of conversion will gain its meaning from the operationalization of sustainable development strategies, programs, and projects.   It will need to find expression on the level of communities, affirming their cultural identity while cherishing diversity by upholding (1) indigenous rights to ancestral land, (2) equal rights for women, (3) social equity through agrarian, aquatic, and urban land reform, and social forestry, and (4) an ecologically sound economic system that is community-based and exports only ecological surplus or excess carrying capacities.  It will practice the sustainable utilization of natural resources, clean production technologies, and the proper recycling and disposal of waste.  It will come from governance that is based on moral values translated into public good, a democratic participatory process, a system called Pamathalaan — Pamamahalang nakatindig sa sariling taal at nakahandog kay Bathala.

In the final analysis, sustainable development depends on the personal conversion, commitments, and communion of everyone.   It needs a conversion that translates into personal choices regarding what to consume and what lifestyle to live.   In a post-modern age, it will mean making a conscious choice from among the diversity of options brought about by modernization.  Many of these options will be offered by expert systems where people have little control over processes, whether these be biogenetic systems that program the sex of our offspring or communications systems that tell us we are what we consume.  They will involve matters disembedded from space-time locality so that we no longer directly experience the consequences of our actions.  Such will be the landscape of a “post-modern revolution.”  The future will therefore need the wisdom of our historical traditions, the moral anchors of our faith, and our living communion with all people and God’s creation.

Enviroscope, Haribon Foundation Bulletin, December 1993

political chitchat

for the latest political tsismis i always make silip the tribune column of former senator ernie maceda a.k.a. mr. expose(y) who is also the spokesman of former president erap.   no thanks to ping lacson’s disclosures, erap’s reelection bid might be in trouble, and manong ernie must be wishing for the good old days before cory died when the erap camp was supremely confident of a win in 2010.   just the same i t don’t see him advising his boss to give it up.   manong ernie loves the political intramurals much too much.   he loves being in the thick of things.   besides it’s early days.

anyway here’s what manong ernie says about alfonso yuchengco’s statement in the inquirer re ping lacson’s allegation that yuchengco was forced to sell his shares in pldt to manny pangilinan when erap was president.

Yuchengco sick. Ambassador Alfonso Yuchengco, 86, is in New York for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. He could not himself have issued the statement confirming Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s exposé that President Estrada coerced him to sell his 3 percent stake in PLDT to First Pacific headed by Manny Pangilinan.

It is alleged that Ambassador Albert del Rosario accompanied by 10 soldiers forced him to sign the Deed of Sale in August 1998. But the record shows that deal was actually consummated in November 1998 after several months of negotiations over the price. So, it is clear that when the sale was consummated in November 1998, there was no coercion consideringthat there were continuing negotiations and the original contract that Yuchengco alleged he was forced to sign was even amended to reflect a much higher price. If there was coercion, then Helen Yuchengco Dee would have had nothing to do with Manny Pangilinan or PLDT. But she accepted to be member of PLDT’s Board of Directors and PLDT continued to keep RCBC, the Yuchengco owned bank, as its major banker.

The question remains: Did Ambassador Del Rosario who allegedly forced the Yuchengco’s to sell, act upon President Erap’s order or was he acting for someone else? Del Rosario is a Manny Pangilinan man, not close at all to President Erap.

Stock market brokers call attention to the fact that one of Yuchengco’s daughters is very, very close to First Gentleman Mike Arroyo.

Here comes former Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez saying that Erap could be charged with coercion. Secretary Gonzalez is again showing his partisan ignorance. The alleged coercion happened more than 10 years ago. Therefore, the crime has prescribed.

hmmm.    just because there were price negotiations and just because a yuchengco daughter is on the board of directors of pldt, hindi ibig sabihin na hindi napilitan ang mga yuchengco na magbenta.  it only tells methat the yuchengcos managed to negotiate some terms, sort of.

but what about the alzheimer thing?   perhaps it was the yuchengo kids who issued the statement in the name of their father?   and yet and yet and yet i just heard in the evening news that erap is charging al yuchengco and the inquirer with libel and asking 10-20 million php in damages.   no mention of the alzheimer thing, which, if true, would put into question the validity of the allegedly libelous statement di ba?

tungkol naman kina mar at korina and their future plans:

Mar and Korina say yes. At the birthday party of RC Constantino at the Architect’s Center, Sen. Serge Osmeña told us that Sen. Mar Roxas finally decided to accept Noynoy’s offer of the VP slot after fiancée Korina Sanchez withdrew her objections to Mar’s accepting the offer.

Sen. Serge Osmeña, who admitted he was running Chiz Escudero’s campaign for the last 12 months said he has decided to run for the Senate and implied he has left the Chiz Escudero campaign. He revealed he did commission the latest SWS survey conducted on Sept. 5 and 6. He conceded that after the euphoria has gone down, Noynoy’s ratings should go down. While he did not say so, it is clear that he will be running on the Liberal Party ticket. Serge ran for VP to Mayor Lim as LP official candidate in 1992. At the moment, he is a member of PDP-Laban. Serge admitted that with a 30-percent discount from ABS-CBN head Gabby Lopez, he will budget P100 million for his TV-radio ads

tungkol kay noli de castro and his future plans:

Noli de Castro’s ranking dropped to 7 percent in the latest SWS rating. Reports say ABS-CBN chairman Gabby Lopez has informed Noli he is supporting Noynoy and advised him to give up his plans to run for president or vice president and just return full-time to his TV hosting job.

at tungkol sa kung ano-ano at kung sino-sino:

Tidbits. At the Umagang Kay Ganda, ABS-CBN’s early morning talk show, the audience roundly applauded President Erap after his interview by Pinky Webb and ABS-CBN employees requested picture with Erap. The picture taking lasted for 30 minutes… Kim Atienza told us that he had not witnessed this happening to other guests… For the month of August, the top spenders on TV commercials are DILG Secretary Ronnie Puno — P87 million; Sen. Manny Villar — P84 million and Sen. Mar Roxas P64 million… Former Batanes Rep. Butch Abad is the de facto campaign manager of Noynoy. Active behind the scenes is uncle Peping Cojuangco. Will Sen. Tessie Aquino Oreta and Paul Aquino leave the GMA camp for Noynoy?… Lawyer Pancho Villaraza of the FIRM and his Sigma Ma Ro associates are supporting Manny Villar. Partner Nonong Cruz is with the Noynoy-Roxas camp.

masaya.  samantala umiinit na naman ang usaping reproductive health.   the bill is up for final debate and vote sa house of representatives, that is, as soon as the church stops objecting, so the speaker can muster a quorum, haha, what a house of wimps.

unsettling times

believe in astrology or not, it should be impossible to ignore the co-incidence of pluto’s transit from sagittarius (where it was for the last 12 years) into (the next sign) capricorn at 9:03 a.m. thursday morning and the bloody mumbai terrorist attack that started wednesday night and blasted on for some 60 hours, killing almost two hundred and wounding more.

. . . the city was taken just as Pluto was in the last arc minute of Sagittarius; literally hours before it entered Capricorn. . . . Whoever orchestrated this attack, reasonably described in today’s Daily News as an invasion of the city, fancies himself a master of the universe. If the psychological warfare implication of staging the attack the day before Thanksgiving is not apparent, take a look; because we are all connected by the nervous system known as the media, this is a worldwide event, and it will weigh on the mind of everyone taking a day with their family today.”

the planet pluto has always been associated with upheaval and transformation, and the sign capricorn with hierarchies and structures including governments and business corporations as well as religious institutions.

When it was discovered as a pinpoint of light on a photographic plate on February 18th 1930 , the world was in upheaval – financially because of the Wall Street crash, and politically because of the rise of fascism in Europe . Scientifically, early work on splitting the atom led to the development of the atomic bomb, ultimately threatening the survival of humanity. Psychologically, demons that had been conveniently projected onto the devil and all his non-Christian works were unearthed within our own psychology as a part of our nature.”

Pluto orbits the sun about every 250 years, so a quarter of a millennium elapses between its passes through Capricorn. The last time it was there was from 1762 to 1778, during the American Revolution. The time before that, 1516-1533, Martin Luther’s Protestant revolt created a religious and political crisis for Emperor Charles V and the Catholic Church. No matter how far back we go in recorded history, Pluto in Capricorn periods correspond with revolutionary changes to the existing world order.

The powers that be, however, never go down without a fight. Pluto and Capricorn do have some things in common – they both love being in control, for example – and so we can expect more of the “Big Brother” style surveillance and invasion of privacy that are already spreading through the United States and other countries such as Great Britain. . . . Government will seem to believe that, in order for freedom to be kept safe, it must be locked away.”

Capricorn energy is about creating a solid foundation for all endeavors. Anything lasting and worthwhile requires dedication and effort. Pluto in this sign will destroy anything failing to meet these standards, in order to birth something better. Gone is the instant gratification era of Pluto in Sagittarius (1995-2008). Capricorn rules all hierarchies and structures. Pluto in Capricorn will lift the veil of secrecy, exposing what’s really going on in government and corporations. The bigger and more bureaucratic the entity, the greater the need to transform – or die.”

Pluto in Capricorn will test the durability and regenerative resources of leaders and governments across the globe, as well as business and the corporate world. Old or staid structures will collapse or come apart at the seams if they cannot redefine their nature and cope with changing conditions and needs. The renewal or discarding of traditional practices or beliefs will play a part in this for Capricorn draws from inherited wisdom and practice. Those traditions that find new life will serve to guide modern leadership while those that are uprooted or outmoded will pass into oblivion. . . . No doubt, Pluto in Capricorn will bring us a new breed of leaders and administrators, noted for determination, practicality and organizational ability. Some of these will offer useful service where others will be ruthlessly ambitious and materialistic.”

Pluto transiting Capricorn thus promises radical changes in social and political organization, financial management and social perspective on finances, ideas about fame, celebrity and social strata, and a stern look at our management of collectively owned resources.

We might learn how to manifest more gracefully, to end world hunger, to share resources wisely. On the other hand, we may see an even sharper split between the haves and have-nots. There will be substantial changes in the ways we organize money – financial institutions we thought were solid will falter, prices and exchange values will be all over the place, and both personal, corporate and national wealth will change, both up and down. The ways we relate to resources of all kinds will be questioned, changed, and reorganized.

. . . During this phase we may discover something that will make life on earth more abundant. We may also have something we thought was deeply necessary taken away.”

dito sa atin, walang patayan tulad ng sa mumbai, at wala ring matinding protesta laban sa gobyerno tulad ng sa bangkok, subalit di dapat isipin na porke’t walang malawakang manifest outrage ay hindi iniinda ng bayan ang nagaganap na mga drama ng gobyerno — lalo na sa executive and legislative branches — na malinaw namang selfish and vested interests of the few ang namamayani instead of the interests and wellbeing of the many.

di dapat isipin na balewala sa taongbayan ang nagaganap na pagbasura sa impeachment complaint sa mababang kapulungan (how baba the pigs).  dahil ikaapat na ito in as many years, paulit-ulit lang naman daw, say ng isang representante ni gma, so therefore ay walang katuturan.  say ko naman, nadadagdagan ang impeachable offenses ni gma every year, so therefore it’s never been just same-old same-old.  everytime it’s something old, something new, something buried, something true.

di rin dapat isipin na balewala sa taongbayan ang testimonya ni joe de venecia, kahit too-late-the-hero, tungkol sa personal involvement ng arroyo couple sa nbn-zte deal, gayon din ang lagayan blues to kill last year’s impeachment complaint.  di rin balewala ang bolante hearings sa senado dahil palinaw na nang palinaw ang pasikot-sikot ng fertilizer scam.  lalo nang di balewala ang pagtulak ng charter change by hook or by crook, at ang pagpigil ng simbahan sa reproductive health bill kahit ano pang pananakot ng mga obispong nakapalda, gayon din ang walang katapusang jet-setting ni gma, at kung anuano pa niyang kapabayaan at kasalanan sa taongbayan.

sa palagay ko the collective mind of the pinoy is neither asleep nor overcome by apathy.  who knows, it may be quietly absorbing and assimilating lessons learned over the years since edsa ’86 and gearing up, slowly but surely, for an issues-oriented electoral show of people power in 2010.

for those of us who were part of edsa ’86, indeed nakaka-nostalgia the current bangkok version flying yellow colors and featuring massive throngs of people (rather than politicans a la edsa dos).  and then, again, tapos na tayo diyan — we’re done with picnic-type revolutions and short-term cosmetic changes.  time to move on to a higher level of mind and action for deep-seated change, if not at the polls, then in another improved edsa.  trapos, beware!