Inquirer Commentary 25 July 1998

Filipinos are a superstitious people. We see meaningful relationships between apparently unconnected events that happen to occur at the same time or in close sequence: the number 13 and the Estrada presidency, the chandelier and the inaugural, the chandelier and the number 13. It comes from an intuitive grasp of Carl Jung’s concept of synchronicity which, going beyond science (cause-and-effect), “takes the coincidence of eventsin space and time as meaning something more than mere chance” and which is the very principle underlying the use of the I Ching and astrology (among other occult arts) in making sense of “the essential situation prevailing” for any one person or group at any moment in time.

This is why we continue to be disturbed by the story of a Palace chandelier crashing to the floor just a few seconds after President Estrada passed beneath it. The President had just taken his oath that noon in Barasoain. He had just arrived in Malacañang that afternoon and was on his way to swearing in the new Cabinet officials when the chandelier crashed. Happening as it did in the first few hours of the new administration, it changed the quality and temper not just of the rest of the day – hitherto happy and hopeful – but of the rest of the presidential term.

Clearly, a warning. If it were not an attempt on the President’s life, then a warning of danger, of sinister human forces at play. If an accident, then of forces less menacing but quite as startling and disturbing. The message is, expect the unexpected, a pattern has been set.

The National Bureau of Investigation has since declared the crash an accident caused by faulty electrical wiring, but of course we refuse to drop it. Perhaps because we’re not convinced that that 70-kilo chandelier was not more securely attached to the ceiling than by electrical cables.

Unfortunately, no photographs or videotapes of the fallen chandelier and the hole in the ceiling have been released, which makes you wonder what’s really going on. Surely there were media around, surely pictures were taken. And yet media have been (and continue to be) kind enough to desist from printing or showing them until now. Perhaps it was not an accident after all, the investigation is still ongoing, better for media to cooperate with government and not alarm the public?

Would that media had been as prudent about declaring Estrada the 13th President of the Republic – which has proved just as scary, the number 13 being associated in the minds of Catholics with the Last Supper and the subsequent betrayal of Christ by Judas.

Estrada is the 13th only if we count all the presidents starting with Aguinaldo, including Quezon and Osmeña of the Commonwealth period, and Laurel of the Japanese occupation, and continuing with Roxas, Quirino, Magsaysay, Garcia, Macapagal, Marcos, Aquino, and Ramos.

But why count Quezon and Osmeña when we were openly still a colony during their terms of office, and why Laurel when he was merely an appointee of the Japanese invaders? And if we’re going to count Aguinaldo, why not the Supremo Bonifacio? By my count, including Bonifacio and discounting Quezon et al, Estrada is the 11th president. And if we count them all, Estrada is the 14th.

Again, you wonder what the media are up to. One moment they’re playing fast and loose with numbers, sorry na lang si Erap, the next moment they’re playing down a crashed chandelier, kawawa naman si Erap? It would help if we could get our facts straight so that we know what we’re really up against; only then can we focus our energies on countering the negative vibes, whether through prayer or political advocacy.

It would also help to keep in mind that the chandelier missed Erap, which was damned lucky – sinusuwerte talaga. And that in the horoscope of June 30, high noon, the Sun, symbolizing the government, occupies the Midheaven, the highest point in the chart, which augurs well for the republic, indicating a government that has the power, against all odds, to withstand opposition and fulfill its promise of Erap para sa mahirap.

Of course, what’s lucky for the masses won’t be lucky for the privileged few who have long enjoyed the care and protection of government. As some astrologers and feng shui experts already have said, the chandelier is symbolic of the rich, and shattered lights signify shattered illusions.

It’s the rich, the people who can afford (and who like) chandeliers, who will be most affected by the radical changes that President Estrada would need to institute to lift up the impoverished masses.

It won’t be easy, as current events reflect – change never is. But if the rich could rise to the challenge of reinventing themselves for the sake of the nation, and if Erap stands fast, guided above all by considerations of the common good, he could well be right: This could truly be the greatest performance of his life.

Isyu 23 Oct 1995

A new Philippines is rising out there, sey ni FVR to his friends in Hawaii. I swear, I marvel at his optimism, or should I say, illusions. Obviously it’s our good old Philippines he’s talking about, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and plentier, precisely because our leaders keep selling us out to foreign investors who tend to take the profits and run.

Kung sabagay, rising nga naman ang prices ng mga bilihin. And rising din soon, a centennial tower cum museum cum mall sa Rizal Park, if FVR gets his way, and I hope he doesn’t. I’m with Amando Doronila and Bambi Harper on his one. Not only does such a tower promise to be both aesthetically displeasing and environmentally unsound, it would also be a monument to the Ramos administration’s deplorable values and sense of priorities. A tower, when people are hungry and barely surviving? We don’t deserve a tower.

Say ng isang astrologer on TV, suwerte kay FVR ang solar eclipse. Ibig ba nitong sabhin, suwerte rin itong biyahe niya? Ewan ko. Parang matimbang din yung puna ng maraming kolumnista na tuwing bibiyahe si FVR (at least in the last two trips), may krisis na nagaganap sa bayan nating kanyang iniiwan. First it was Flor Contemplacion, then it was rice. Kung maniniwala tayo sa astrology, puwede ring maniwala sa kasabihang these things come in threes. So what or who might the third crisis involve? Well, how about the situation of lahar victims in Pampanga’s evacuation centers and resettlement sites which have become festeringly desperate since typhoon Mameng? I dread what the next typhoon will bring.

A year ago I wrote (with Jorge Arago) the script for a documentary film Gerry Gerena’s From Victims to Victors, all about what government is doing, through the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Mt. Pinatubo Commission, to help our kababayans displaced by lahar onslaughts. In the romantic (and rare) version of the story, victims eventually make it to resettlement sites where they live happily ever after (sort of) kasi they’re also given land to till. In real life, however, there is little land and few jobs to be had, most resettlers relying on dole-outs and food-for-work schemes to survive. Meanwhile the waiting list for new housing units in new resettlement sites gets longer and evacuation centers become dirtier and more crowded. No wonder many victims keep going back to their old roofs and haunts.

Sabi sa Public Forum, it’s a cultural thing, itong pilit na pagbalik agadng maraming biktima sa kanilang mga bayang natabunan ng lahar, kahit bubong lang ang binabalikan nila. Matindi raw kasi talaga ang attachment ng Pinoy sa bayang kinagisnan. Ganoon? Hindi kaya dahil wala silang better options, as in, walang lupang malipatan at pondong panimula?

Manila Standard 1 Nov 1991

Whatever the scenario in 1992 – elections or no elections – Uncle Sam is sure to intervene in our political affairs. The objective: to get pro-bases people into Malacañang Palace and Congress in one fell swoop, the quicker to reverse the senate ruling on the bases treaty and the better to ensure the stay of US military forces in Subic all the way to forever.

Anti-bases people have their work cut out for them: a bases-information campaign to reinforce the anti-bases sentiment that has begun to take hold in the hearts and minds of thinking Filipinos, and also to counter US propaganda claiming that majority of Filipinos remain pro-bases (meaning, intervention is justified).

Ideally it is government, in particular, the Executive department, that should be conducting a bases-information campaign. But having taken a pro-bases line, the Executive can hardly be expected to countenance anything but pro-bases propaganda; not even if, back in July 1990, Press Secretary Tomas “Buddy” Gomez promised on live television (9, Tell the People) that an “objective” info campaign was in the works.

But those were the days when Mrs. Aquino’s options were still open, and Secretary Gomez must really have been trying to come up with something to satisfy both the pros and antis.

Not incidentally, those were also the last days of Noel Garth Tolentino as press undersecretary and director-general of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA). Supremely confident that Malacañang would go anti-bases (a la Health Secretary Alfredo Bengzon), Tolentino made the mistake of preparing an unabashedly anti-bases campaign in February 1990, in time for the exploratory talks. Of course it was rejected by Malacañang, and I suspect that it’s what cost him his job. By November he was out.

For my part, as the writer commissioned by Tolentino to plan and write the materials for the proposed multi-media campaign, I was prepared to be objective. But Tolentino was adamant, he had the primary messages all thought out: one, niloko tayo ng Kanô; two, kaya natin mag-isa; three, kailangan nating maghanda.

Mostly I organized the information into modules, each focusing on a particular bases issue: extent, duration, jurisdiction, compensation, nuclear weapons, AIDS, etc., tracing how each arose and how the Americans responded through the years, from the 1890s to the 1990s. Also I turned out several slogans for stickers and buttons, billboards and streamers; several scripts for radio andTV spots / teasers; a script for a mini-docu; a primer on the bases, for print / leaflets; and translated into Filipino a history of the US bases in the Philippines, for serializing in comics spreads. To collaborate with Fred Llongoren on the comics materials, I called in Iskho Lopez (my on-and-off editor), and he turned out, besides, a couple of poems and script for a film commercial. All of the above duly approved by Tolentino. In charge of production was Leo Martinez, Tolentino’s creative consultant, who had recommended me for the job.

Alas, Leo didn’t get farther than demo tapes of some radio spots, which I suppose was all the Palace needed to say no. And, alas, I am still trying to collect my fee, so I can pay Iskho (so he can pay Domingo Landicho, the poet, who sent in a few verses).

First I was told that Tolentino and Bengzon were still trying to raise funds from private sources. Then I was told that my check was ready but the Commission on Audit was auditing the Tolentino administration’s finances so no checks were being released. Later, I was told that my appointment papers had been sent to the Department of Budget and Management for approval and were stuck there.

Incensed, I wrote to the Officer-in-Charge of PIA, a Paul Alvarez, to complain. I pointed out that my appointment was for two months only, meaning, it didn’t need the approval of the CSC, and that I had done work for PIA before and never encountered any such problem. I intimated that perhaps I was being punished for being anti-bases?

In November I received a response: a phone call from no less than Press Undersecretary Horacio “Ducky” Paredes, whom I had met once, some ten years ago. He came on like an old friend, eager to help out, explaining that there was nothing political about the stopping of my check, only that Tolentino had so juggled funds, they were still straightening things out. He asked for a little time, till the end of the year. Come Christmas I called to remind him. He wouldn’t even come to the phone.

That was a whole year ago. Since then – against all odds, despite Cory’s and the US government’s pro-bases propaganda, despite Pinatubo and the economy’s dire need for aid, despite amboys Dick Gordon, Sonny Osmeñá, Joey Lina, Tito Sotto, and Joey de Leon – the Senate has ruled on the bases, the Terrific Twelve saying NO to the proposed treaty. I was so high, I forgave and forgot Tolentino and Paredes.

One year or three years to withdraw, it almost doesn’t seem to matter (given how long we’ve waited), so long as the withdrawal process is irreversible. And if the Terrific Twelve, along with Luis Taruc, Solita Monsod, Renato Constantino Jr., JoeCon, and others like them, were to run and / or go all out to campaign for anti-bases candidates come 1992, tiyak, may tulog ang Kanô.