Ozone fire – In the end, we all pay

Isyu 27 Mar 96

I have seen many kinds of grief. The worst is a parent’s grief for a dead child. Children are supposed to survive and bury their parents, not the other way around. And when the death of the child is by fire, as in the Ozone disaster, the grief is even more devastating. Wala nang sasakit pa. Patay na nga ang anak mo, ni hindi mo mahanap. Mahanap mo man, ni hindi mo mayakap, ni hindi mo matingnan; hanggang litrato ka na lang o mahihibang ka sa galit at hingapis.

Sino ang dapat magbayad? Legally and morally, the parents of every victim, both the dead and those fighting for their lives, deserve substantial compensation. Hindi lang yung ibinibigay na P15,000 ng Quezon City Hall, at yung iminumungkahi ng isang senador na P50,000 from the national government, at yung sinasabi ng Ozone management na itutulong nila sa “expenses” ng mga  biktima – kundi mahigit pa.

Remember when Judge Harriet Demetriou ruled on the Eileen Sarmenta-Alan Gomez rape-slaying? Besides going to jail, Antonio Sanchez et al. had to pay both families moral, emotional and future damages, which added up to a few millions each. Parents of Ozone victims deserve as much, if not more, dahil mas matindi ang damages na dulot ng pagkakasunog ng mga bata at ng pahirapang paghahanap nila at pagkilala sa mga ito.

Government could have made it easier on the victims’ parents but they didn’t. While it made sense to allow different funeral homes to haul off their share of dead bodies, government should have stayed on top of things and looked out for the interests of the victims and their families. Specifically, government should have taken on all hospital and / or funeral expenses of victims; and early on, steps should have been taken to stay the decay of bodies waiting to be identified.

Samantala, habang hindi pa malinaw kung magkano talaga ang liabilities ng mga magbabayad, some government agency (the Bangko Sentral?) should already be advancing a basic amount of, say, P50,000 to P100,000 to each victim’s family. It would ease all financial stress brought on by the unexpected death/s and buy the poor parents the time and the space they need to mourn in peace and come to terms with their loss.

Sino-sino ang magbabayad?

Tatlong grupo sila. The owners of Ozone, the city government, and the national government.

There’s no question in my mind, the capitalists of Ozone Disco, all five of them who profited from its operations, must pay. Hermilo Ocampo, who speaks in their behalf, wants us to believe that the fire was an act of God, that the sparks were sparks out of the blue and had nothing to do with electrical cables and octopus connections. Well, this is the same man who’s asking us to see a fire exit where there’s none, except on paper and in his imagination.

In fact, Ocampo is known in the night-spot business as a light-and-sound systems contractor. In fact, ozone was his showcase of the latest in disco lights and sounds It was doing so well, it could afford to offer 50 percent discounts on drinks every Monday. He must have known what he was doing – I’m sure he’s not dumb, he went to Ateneo – he must have known what might happen if he didn’t avoid octopus and haphazard connections, and if he didn’t conduct regular inspections of that flammable ceiling of high-tech light contraptions to make sure it was rat-free and the wires well-insulated. He must have known.

I guess he didn’t care. Maybe he got greedy, wouldn’t spare the money dahil makakabawas sa kita nilang magpapa-partner? Maybe they just kept putting it off? O baka naman dahil naglalagay sila sa sons of City Hall, akala nila they were protected as well from electrical overloads and combustible customers as from government inspectors. Whatever it was, it was the height of stupidity and irresponsibility. Ocampo, well-educated son of a former Nueva Ecija congressman, and his capitalist cohorts should have known better.

All businessmen who are under the thumb of protection syndicates should know better. Kung naglalagay kayo sa City Hall dahil takot kayong pumalag o mag-ingay, problema niyo na yan. Wag niyong bawiin ang gastos by scrimping on safety maintenance costs and endangering lives. You have to deserve your customers.

Taxpayers’ blues

The city government, obviously, must also pay because it allowed Ozone to operate even if the disco violated building and fire codes. Balita ng Evening Paper, “. . . concerned operatives of the Central Police District blamed (the Ozone fire on) two sons of a ranking Quezon City official who they claimed were intimately involved in the well-entrenched protection business victimizing fun houses and disco pubs in the city. The executive’s sons reportedly rake in an estimated P2 million a month from unscrupulous pub owners. (March 21, by Romeo Roy and Eunel Abasola)

The national government must also pay because the Quezon City scenario described above is true for many other places. Sabi nga ni Neal Cruz, “. . . it is well-known among builders and businessmen that almost any permit can be obtained from any city engineer’s office in Metro Manila even if legal requirements are not met, if the price is right.” (Inquirer March 22)

Clearly it’s a failure of law enforcement, which is a failure of the Executive Department, from the Office of the Mayor up to the Office of the President. The buck goes all the way up.

In the final analysis, we all pay. Saan ba kasi manggagaling ang ipambabayad ng city and national government sa Ozone victims, e di from taxpayers’ money. As usual, it’s the citizens, the electorate, who end up paying.

This is democracy? This is democracy. We pay for the mistake of electing the wrong people to public office. We pay for trusting the wrong people with our lives.

Next time, in 1998, let’s choose well. Let’s look for brave men and women who would dare dismantle protection syndicates, among other immoral arrangements, and usher in a new moral order in Filipino society. Then maybe those poor children did not die, do no suffer, in vain.

Duet vs. EDSA

Isyu 5 Mar 96

Balita ng Inquirer, Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Gregorio Honasan are coming up with the “real story” of EDSA. Hindi nga lamang malinaw kung magco-collaborate sila on one book o kung magkakanya-kanya sila. Say ko, the more the merrier. Say naman ni Duet for EDSA publisher Eggie Apostol, sana separate books, then they can call it Duets against EDSA. O di ba, ang saya?

Yeah, let’s hear it all, the sooner the better, and let’s hear it from the Marcoses and Vers, too, nang malaman na nga natin ang buong katotohanan. Only when the facts are known, and the people are in a better position to make up their own minds and become of one mind about EDSA, can we expect the bickering to stop. Only then can we move on and begin to draw constructively from the EDSA experience.

Not that Enrile’s andGringo’s accounts would change the story much as we already know it. EDSA’s major storyline of the four days (as recounted in the Duet’s Chronology of a Revolution) being pretty set, the most the two can do is to flesh out or elaborate on the side plots that they were directly witness to or part of. Such as Gringo’s gang’s aborted coup that would have installed Enrile in Malacañang and, of course, Enrile’s private conversations with Marcos and classified communications with the Americans.

Of course I can’t wait to see if the daring duo will corroborate the Marcos line that EDSA was orchestrated by the Americans and that the Marcoses were kidnapped and flown to exile against their will. It’s a version of EDSA that saves face for the once-powerful Marcos regime – it’s not their fault daw that they fell from power; it’s the fault of the Americans.

Saling pusa

Facts bear me out that EDSA was a strictly Pinoy affair. The Americans were never in control of the four days’ events. While U.S. state officials knew about RAM’s coup plot, the Saturday defection and the gathering of people power caught them (and the Marcoses) napping. Hindi kasi nila akalaing mabubuking ang coup plot at mapa-praning sina Enrile’t Gringo. Hindi rin nila akalaing magagawa nina Enrile at Ramos na mag-join hands at mag-break away from the Marcos regime. At lalong hindi nila akalaing Pinoys had it in them to gather around a rebel military and turn back loyalist tanks with flowers and prayers.

Ayon kay Stanley Karnow (In Our Image 1989), on Day Two, Sunday, 4 a.m. Manila time, hindi pa nagkakasundo ang mga taga-U.S. State Department kung papaano iha-handle ang krisis sa Pilipinas: “Even at this late stage they were struggling to shape a firm Philippine policy—proof again that policies are often forged in the heat of crisis rather than in cool contemplation.”

The problem wasn’t convincing U.S. President Ronald Reagan that his friend Ferdinand’s time was up. The real problem was kung sinong ipapalit kay Marcos. Ayaw nila kay Cory because she was sympathetic to the leftists, the anti-bases groups in particular. The Americans needed time to groom someone like Marcos, someone younger and healthier, and reasonably popular, who would be willing to play puppet in return for power and pelf. Kaya lang, yun nga, na-overtake sila ng events – binulaga sila nina Ramos at Enrile, at ginulantang sila ng people power (and Fil-Am relations have never been the same again).

Oo nga, nakatulong din ang mga Kano but only in the end – nung tapos na ang boksing, panalo na ang people, president-in-waiting na si Cory –and only because Marcos asked for help.

What if

The Marcoses had another way out of the Palace: they could have escaped on their own, via the presidential helicopters. Ayon kay Nick Joaquin (Quartetof the Tiger Moon 1986), Lunes ng umaga pa lang (Day Three,10 a.m.) ay naka-standby na ang Palace Air Force, ready to fly the President and his family out of Malacañang. Pero inisnab sila ng pamilyang Marcos.

Can’t blame the Marcoses, though. Mahirap na nga naman. Baka rebels-in-disguise ang mga piloto. Papaano kung sa Crame o EDSA sila inilapag? Freak out!

Ah, but what a scene that would have been.

In defense of tsismis

Isyu 23 January 96

Natabunan nga ba ng Jenny-Gabby scandal ang EVAT, jueteng, at iba pang isyu? Dapat nga bang lubay-lubayan ng media ang katsitsismis about the private hells of the rich and famous dahil wala naman itong katututuran except as escapist fare for the poor and obscure?

These are questions raised by media mismo, rendered schizoid as we are by showbiz scandals. On the one hand we happily hype up the Jenny-Gabby story, milk it of all it’s worth, the better to sell our papers; on the other, we are defensive about it, express distaste for the whole exercise, and righteously regret the wasted space and energy; sometimes, all on the same page.

The two-mindedness is to be expected, and it begins with the individual, that is, with you and me. Every one of us is just as divided about gossip. We enjoy it but we feel sort of guilty when we indulge. The guilt comes from social conditioning. Our elders’ position has been that, if you have nothing nice to say about a person, it’s better (classier) to say nothing. They are greatly influenced by the Church, of course, which institution discourages gossip or idle talk as the work of the devil for it evokes uncharitable (even, impure) thoughts, and sows disharmony rather than love among neighbors.

Yet gossip persists, and I had always wondered why. Is it a matter of pleasure, like sex? Or is it purely a matter of mind, like curiosity? Basta my gut feeling was, there’s more to gossip than cheap thrills. Like maybe it serves some irrepressible human need, one more intense than the need for social approval. I thought maybe it had to do with a need to connect with community, to be assured that one’s joys and pains are not all that unique, na kumbaga hindi ka nag-iisa.

Besides, as a student of human behavior, I could never help delighting in the rich sociological and psychological data that showbiz gossip provides. Trailblazer kasi ang tingin ko sa showbiz artists; they dare break rules and attempt new ways of being and relating. It’s like they’re testing the waters for us, the better maybe to show us which way to go or not go, particularly when it comes to sex, marriage, and family.

Well, the good news is, I’ve just been lent a book that confirms my gut feel that gossip is as ineradicable as sex. In The Moral Animal (1994) Robin Wright explains why we gossip (among other things) in terms of the new science of evolutionary psychology, which school of thought traces the roots of human nature to the workings of natural selection in the environment in which the minds of our ancestors evolved. According to Wright, “people’s minds were designed to maximize fitness in the ancestral environment” and trading gossip, for one, was in aid of survival.

“To judge by many hunter-gatherer societies where most behavior is public, and gossip travels fast,” Wright writes, “. . . the most common commodity of exchange, almost surely, was information. Knowing where a great stock of food has been found, or where someone encountered a poisonous snake, can be a matter of life or death. And knowing who is sleeping with whom, who is angry at whom, who cheated whom, and so on, can inform social maneuvering for sex and other vital resources.”

Darwinian anthropologists studying the world’s peoples have been finding not only surface differences among cultures but also “deep unities.” Not only Pinoys, but “. . . people in all cultures not only gossip, but gossip about the same kinds of things.” Apparently, people have an inherent thirst for tales of triumph, tragedy, bonanza, misfortune, extraordinary fidelity, wretched betrayal, and so on, which are said to “match up well with the sorts of information conducive to fitness.”

In other words, gossip has always had a place in the human scheme of things. Then as now gossip about failed marriages (especially Sharon’s, Dina’s, Princess Diana’s) and unconventional relationships (like that of Nora, Vilma, Kris) informs the way we maneuver in our own marriages and relationships.

The problem is not that we’re gossiping too much about Jenny and Gabby. I agree with Patrick D. Flores (Isyu 18 Jan), the problem is that media have failed to give the people “an intelligent perspective on what is going on, it has forfeited the chance to imbue the controversy with really useful knowledge about society and people,” in particular, about the politics of marriage and gender.

I disagree, however, with his statement (wishful thought?) that from hereon, “heterosexual couples would have to reckon with the idea that matrimony is from the outset dysfunctional.” That’s a sweeping generalization if I ever heard one. If it were so, then monogamy would not still be with us. Besides, Jenny’s and Gabby’s marriage is / was far from typical and therefore not an appropriate gauge of either the efficacy or inefficacy of marriage.

I think it’s young unmarried women who have the most to learn from Jenny’s exposé. The facts of life are not all about sex; the facts of life are also about men like Gabby and how marriage changes them. Take it from Jenny, girls, look before you leap, especially if the guy’s promising “to court you forever” (what a line!).

(Editor Iskho Lopez: We asked Gabby what his plans for the more immediate future was. His candid reply: “I guess . . . to remain single.” We took it as a joke. Gabby? Single? Instead we presented an alternative. What about an affair with a gay lover? He took it as a joke. But it seems so logical in this day and age that only a gay lover would take all that alleged abuse that Jenny turned into a public issue—and in the end, shoulder the expense and the humiliation as well—all for the love of Gabby Concepcion, that is.)

Coming to terms with Christmas

Isyu 26 Dec 1995

Until last year I always wondered, come December, what it would be like to simply snub Christmas like some people I know who heartily hate the season’s trappings – from the décor na kukutikutitap to the shopping and cooking till you drop (they’d rather drop acid or ecstasy anytime) – but I would always cop out just because the very idea freaked out the kids and their tatay. Besides, I had to admit it, Christmas isn’t all that bad, specially for the family. At least once a year, it gives us the chance to touch base with our larger families, and if only for the children’s sakes, why ever not. Of course I was always sustained by the thought that there’d come a time when the kids would be off on their own (I can hardly wait) and I’d be old enough to retire.

Pero last year, Katrina turned 18 and in lieu of a big party on her birthday (December 22), she settled for a small one. Not out of any great love for her poor parents, however. I mean, it wasn’t to save us the extra expense. It was so she could ask for an extra 3,000 bucks to spend on goodies for giving away to streetchildren on her big day.

She had it all thought out. Sixty bucks per child was not much, but (I had to agree) if she spent it wisely, it could buy enough basic food and maybe a toy and enough candies to sweeten the three days coming. Her tatay, however, was less than enthusiastic. Anak, sey niya, sindikato lang ang makikinabang. Except the sindikato story didn’t faze my unica hija, who was sure there were free-lance streetchildren out there and that she could find them with her good tatay’s help.

She was in charge all the way, from canvassing prices to budgeting to shopping (which included a trip to Divisoria) to bagging to distributing. Each bag contained food for eating at once – two sandwiches (one chicken, one ham; a hundred sandwiches all in all, prepared at the break of dawn para fresh from the bakery ang tinapay) and a tetrapak of fruit juice; also, food that would last – an assortment of cookies and candies to save and / or share; and, for play, either a rubber ball or a plastic badminton set. She cared little for appearances – nothing shiny or showy or glittery, rather the simplest and most sensible, meaning the cheapest paper and plastic bags. She cared more about filling each and every one with her own two hands, para sigurado raw siya na every child gets as much in volume and variety, walang kulang, walang sobra, as every one else.

It was a success, of course, and it felt very good all around. Kahit papaano kasi, bugbog din kaming mga kabahay niya, lalo na ang unica yaya naming si Dorie with whom I shared a deep sigh of relief (thank God she turns 18 only once) the next morning.

Well, a year later, believe it or not, we’re back at it. This time she’s preparing a hundred bags for 75 streetkids and 25 street-lolas and street-lolos; instead of a toy, each lola and lolo gets a pastel-colored face towel and a bath soap. To raise the money, she saved half her daily school allowance for a couple of months (no fancy lunches, no kitkats); the rest her tatay and kuya and I and her lola next-door volunteered in installments as money came in. Right now, a balikbayan uncle is offering to get crayons and pads for the kids, so now I’m wondering what to get the lolos and lolas, maybe candles and matches?

Mahaderang anak that she is, Ina has disabused me of my agenda for a Christmas-less existence. My generation was into making love-not-war and communal living, which meant sharing resources not only on Christmas but all year round. It was hard to sustain, of course, and most of us ended up scrooges or in cynical compromise with the establishment. Now it’s the next generation’s turn and I’m learning a different kind of giving, the selfless and anonymous kind. It’s a whole different trip, and I couldn’t have come up with it myself.

Gotta run. There’s chicken to boil and cheese to grate for the 200 sandwiches we’re making first thing tomorrow. Sana kasing ligaya’t hectic ang inyong Pasko.