The birthing of the new

By Elmer A. Ordoñez

…  Our report on Philippine PEN’s resolutions calling for the release of imprisoned academic and writer Li Xiaobo and deploring President Aquino’s decision to follow China’s lead in boycotting the Nobel peace award rites for Li Xiaobo, elicited some comment from readers.

One irate reader from abroad, a good friend of long standing, asked in effect that while supporting a Chinese writer of conscience, what has Philippine PEN done for our own journalists who are killed? He was misinformed.

I had to point out that Philippine PEN has been consistent in following the PEN International charter upholding freedom of expression and of the press. Ever since the stories about extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances came out, the Philippine PEN has been passing resolutions at its annual conferences condemning the killings of journalists and the harassment of writers like Alex Pinpin (one of the Tagaytay Five) and more recently of PEN board Chairman and National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera and PEN board member Jun Cruz Reyes. The Maguindanao massacre of at least 58 civilians including 32 journalists was also condemned in PEN meetings.

During martial law, Philippine PEN led by F. Sionil Jose and Salvador P. Lopez solicited signatures of members and other writers for the release of fellow writers in prison. Among those imprisoned were Lumbera, Jose Lacaba, Boni Ilagan, Pete Daroy, Joma Sison, Dolores Feria, Ninotchka Rosca, Luis Teodoro and Mila Aguilar who were detained in various periods. Nick Joaquin, one of the signatories in the PEN statement, made it a condition that he would not accept the National Artist award unless poet Lacaba was released. Sison and Mila Aguilar were released along with other political prisoners by Corazon Aquino who took over as president after EDSA in February 1986.

Filipino writer Isabel Escoda, based in Hong Kong, shared Philippine PEN’s position in deploring President Aquino’s decision not to send a representative to Oslo’s Nobel peace award rites invoking national interest. The “inane excuse” (saving Filipinos caught in China for drug trafficking) of the President is “another case of obfuscation.” She added, “the president apparently forgot that his illustrious mother had once been nominated for the Peace Prize herself.”

UP professor Roland Simbulan wrote that Li Xiaobo is in prison “for his uncompromising stand on free speech, free expression and freedom to assemble, and yet we side with the position of those who put him in jail as a common criminal? He may be conservative in his political views but at this point in time, he had become a defiant symbol of non-violent resistance to autocratic rule in an emerging global superpower.”

Related to this issue of what I call “kowtowing” to China on the Nobel peace prize award is what Hong Kong (a special administrative region of China) wants regarding the hostage crisis that has already put the Philippines to worldwide shame. The Hong Kong coroner asks that 116 witnesses testify at its own inquest.

An expatriate professor teaching in Hong Kong thinks that sending witnesses would be another occasion for the Philippines to be humiliated—given the instances of how migrants or expatriates have been treated by police and justice officers. The hostage crisis has also provided an opportunity for the Donald Tsang administration to rehabilitate itself by channeling “the righteous anger” of the Hong Kong people (against Tsang over constitutional reform legislation) to the “corrupt and inept” government of the Philippines—stoked by the anti-Filipino media.

As we earlier said, these two incidents with China—the hostage crisis and the Li Xiaobo case—and how the P-Noy administration has handled them, do not augur well for an independent foreign policy. It seems that the P-Noy administration, save for Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, is inclined to ingratiate itself to China—for the “national interest” not so much to save the Filipino drug traffickers as to draw Chinese aid and investments. Time for us to recall what Senator Claro Recto said about “our mendicant foreign policy” in 1951 when he criticized the “panhandling attitude” of the Philippine government toward the superpower across the Pacific. Recto emphasized national self-reliance for a “dependent nation cannot expect respect from other nations.”

Without self-respect as a nation, the new order cannot be born.

eaordonez2000@yahoo.com

Philippines: ‘Live it, love it’

I AM an Australian who has been living in the Philippines for two years, and I found Ceres Doyo’s Nov. 25 column, titled “10 things that make PH ugly,” very interesting.

I am here running a 700-seat call center, but I have done my fair share of travelling and writing in the past about some 45-plus countries. I have the following commentary on the Philippines:

• Doyo’s points are very valid and the 10 points are things that need to be addressed but are not enough to deter the right people from visiting this largely untapped country.

• From an outsider’s perspective, the beaches of Palawan, Bohol and Boracay are world-class, without the hordes of people and the littering and saturation of competing hotels.

• Your nation isn’t defined by what you have or what’s wrong, but by the spirit of the people who live here. I know it sounds odd, but “Ondoy” was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed. The spirit, the courage and the willingness of Filipinos to unite and rebuild were truly one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

• People do walk away from the Philippines thinking of Manila as unclean and crowded with bad traffic, etc., but they still love its charm. One thing that’s hard to realize unless you’ve seen the Philippines from afar is that we in the western world are brought up thinking of the Philippines as a “sponsor child nation,” as a “Community Aid Abroad nation,” and we don’t realize what the country has to offer. It’s easy to change people’s perceptions if you market this wonderful country the right way.

• Your country (outside of Manila) has such rare unspoilt beauty and is a land rich in natural wonders. Your slogan should be “Philippines: ‘Live it, love it.’”

• I will leave your country very soon as my work here ends, but your country will never leave me. You need to concentrate on the draw cards, not the deterrents because they are far outweighed.

• When comparing somewhere like France to the Philippines, you could say that France charges $9 for a coffee, its accommodation cost is prohibitive, its public transport system is unaffordable for the people it is designed to transport, and the population is largely against tourism. But instead they say Paris is “the city of love.” Millions visit France each year because of word-of-mouth and great advertising. It’s an expensive and rich country, but this doesn’t stop people from going there. Why? Because people want to feel and live the countries they visit. You couldn’t feel or live a country more than this one.

BEN FAIRBANK
offshore operations manager
Virgin Mobile Australia, Ext 50068

rizal, tagalog, nation

it’s really too bad that we haven’t tried hard enough as a people to develop tagalog into a national language.   then maybe we would have a better sense of national interests as opposed to foreign interests, and we could be making decisions among ourselves first before outsiders with vested interests start weighing in.

read Rizal’s open secrets by john nery.   rizal and del pilar in their correspondence 1889 to 1890 turned from spanish to tagalog for a “layer of privacy”, “to wrap something in (or bind themselves to) secrecy”, and “to forge a unity of purpose” at a time when “the question of language was becoming more and more central to their attempt to found a nation.”

read too dr. pablo s. trillana III‘s Rizal and leadership.

currency: how cheap is rizal

it was the inquirer‘s ramon n. villegas in Coming up-the redesigned Philippine currency who said:

From the ’70s to the ’90s, the lower denominations of paper bills which featured the revolutionary founders of the nation—Rizal, Bonifacio, Jacinto, Mabini—were eliminated. Their demotion to coins is symbolic of the diminution of their radical ideas by the country’s elite.

yes, jose rizal is on one-peso coins, emilio aguinaldo on five-peso coins, and andres bonifacio and apolinario mabini on ten-peso coins.   si emilio jacinto nawala na lang.   it’s like american colonial times pa rin, sa totoo lang, when nationalist aspirations were discouraged, repressed, disparaged.

this disturbs me more than the the new currency designs’ inaccuracies re the parrot the map the whale the scientific-name fonts and other trivia.   lalo na after reading this letter to the editor:

Currency designs reflect values of ruling class

… Let us not forget Lapulapu who resisted the Spanish invasion in 1521. His image is on our one-centavo coins, now virtually demonetized in value and sense. If it’s any consolation, Lapulapu is remembered today as a pricey fish. But then, maliputo is more expensive and has replaced Lapulapu as the fish recognized on the new currency bills.

We agree: the “peso bills … also qualify our aspirations as a nation, our values as a people.” However, the “aspirations” and “values” printed on our money may not be reflective of our people’s.

Sergio Osmeña’s claim to fame in the P50 notes is that he was with US Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the US forces’ Leyte landing in 1944. This occasion is deceitfully dubbed as the start of the “liberation of the Philippines” from Japanese forces. In 1942, US forces, trapped in Bataan and Corregidor, surrendered to the Japanese. Actual resistance thereafter was led by Filipino forces, some of whom were fighting American occupation in the Philippines before the war erupted.

Manuel Quezon (of the P20 notes) was originally barred by the Commonwealth constitution from running for reelection, but he lobbied US Congress to amend this provision. Had this happened today, Quezon would have been the subject of people power.

During the presidency of Manuel Roxas (P100 notes), the controversial Bell Trade Act, which granted free trade between the Philippines and the United States, was signed. Also ratified was the Treaty of General Relations. While recognizing Philippine independence, it ensured American control by granting them use of 23 military bases in the country, and gave special property rights and investment privileges to US citizens.

Roxas’ administration was tainted with corruption scandals.

The P200 currency is of course a “vanity” bill. Issued during the regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, it features her father and her inauguration as president. Even Ferdinand Marcos did not dare to place his face on peso bills.

Generally, the personalities featured in the currency notes come from the same class—the bourgeoisie.

Workers and peasants played a big role in Philippine history. They formed the bulk of the fighting Filipinos in the anti-Spanish and anti-American wars, as well as in the anti-Japanese war. They play a major role in our development as a nation as well. Peasants produce our food, and indigenous farmers are stewards of our forests. Workers, through their labor, raise the value of capital goods produced in our country.

Even though short of cash, they should at least be honored by the value of their worth. Thus, it is more accurate to say that present currency note designs reflect the ruling class’ values and what it aims to promote to further its reign.

—JULIE L. PO, Linangan ng Kulturang Pilipino,jlp704@yahoo.com

i don’t agree lang that “the personalities featured in the currency notes come from the same class–the bourgeoisie.”   manuel quezon, sergio osmena, manuel roxas, diosdado macapagal may have started out poor or middle class but all ended up rich and powerful in their time and their descendants are fully of the elite, the ruling class, whose values and influence are part of, or every reason, why we remain a poor undeveloped basket-case of a country.