myanmar, people power, democracy

from veronica pedrosa’s The power of imagination, very brave words from myanmar activists who are bracing for the worst while hoping for the best.

“I want to tell everybody living in Burma that the February revolution is going to be successful. Eventually we’re going to make ourselves the last generation that’s going to witness a military dictatorship as well as a genocide on Burmese soil.”

Confident words spoken by activist Htuu Lou Rae Den as mass demonstrations in Myanmar/Burma reach their height. As I write, millions of people have joined a general strike and brought the biggest cities across the country to a standstill, in scenes that echo those seen in Manila 35 years ago to the day, with the demonstrations that eventually ousted Ferdinand Marcos.

“If we oppose the dictatorship, they might shoot us. Everyone knows it. But we have to oppose dictatorship. It’s our duty,” one strike committee member told Nikkei Asia.

and from alex magno’s Alone :

As the protest actions grow larger and noisier, the military response is bound to become more brutal.

Over the past few days, three demonstrators were killed. All of them by gunshot wounds, one to the head.

The violent military response will unlikely dissuade further protests. But further protests increase the likelihood of more deaths. This situation could spiral until all possible resolutions are untenable.

35 years ago today in manila, the marines defied palace orders to ram through a sea of people regardless of casualties. today in myanmar, the military, while fully in control of government, seems (we wish?) disconcerted, confounded, discombobulated even, by the nationwide non-violent protests.

pierre rousset reports on today’s general strike:

The Civil Disobedience Movement called for this one-day general strike, three weeks after the February 1 coup. Media reports confirm the success: across the country, offices, businesses, markets, shops and restaurants were closed. Neighbourhoods were barricaded, roads were cut.

The military junta had tried to prevent this success by increasing the repression. There were more than 400 arrests. Sometimes, live ammunition was used. In Naypyidaw, the administrative capital, a 19-year-old grocer Mya Thwet Thwet Khine was killed. Her burial was followed by a long motorcade. A protest in her memory was held in Rangoon (Yangon), the business capital and largest city. This assassination radicalized the protest.

Another large protest took place in the port of Mandalay, where security forces shot dead two people, while trying to force strikers refusing to load a ship to work.

On Monday 22 February the military took preventative measures deploying tanks, erecting barricades and positioning military convoys to close access to urban centres. This did not deter the demonstrators who dismantled the barricades or gathered in front of the soldiers.

Right from the start, the resistance to this coup has brought together a wide range of people, with healthcare workers and the educated youth of Generation Z at the forefront. The movement also gathers powerful formal or informal associations of public sector workers, private employees, entrepreneurs and traders. The opposition has spread to new groups and new regions over the last three weeks. A union led by women in an industrial area in Rangoon is helping to amplify protests in the city centre. LGBT groups are very active. A peasant mobilization is taking shape. (Some) police officers side with the demonstrators. Buddhist monks are showing their support (but the religious establishment is not). The demonstrators have chosen non-violence, combining “fluid” actions and massive static gatherings. Overall, despite isolated incidents, there appears to have been no brutal repression to date.

The resistance quickly acquired a framework for coordination: the Civil Disobedience Movement. This aims to ensure the continuation of the struggle over time and in solidarity. Striking in Burma is not without consequences. Even civil servants (public sector employees) find themselves without income; there are no unions and strike funds able to support them. If the struggle fails, it is their job that is at stake. Many local initiatives have been taken, often by well-known personalities, to help strikers’ families by providing accommodation, food, etc. The existence of the MDC has facilitated this mutual aid, even if it is only a partial and temporary answer.

… The 1 February coup shows that the military does not want to give up any of its power. But, faced with the power of popular mobilization, the military might try to play for time rather than unleash a bloodbath. Either way, there is no turning back. The determination of the movement reflects the feeling that there is no acceptable outcome other than victory – and that victory is possible this time!

23 February 2021

Way to live. Way to die. Way to write.

In 2019, when Greta Thunberg, 16, was scolding, thundering at, global leaders about the sorry state of the planet and warning of climate change coming, astrologers were warning of a worrisome conjunction of planets Saturn and Pluto—both malefic in ancient lore, transformative in current thought—culminating in January 2020 in Capricorn yet, the earth sign associated with governments, the global economy, the establishment, the patriarch.

The forecast that most resonated was of a black swan event that would shake world powers-that-be into seeing, acknowledging, that the status quo is NOT sustainable; that the planet, and the poor and the homeless, can take only so much abuse; that CHANGE is inevitable.

I was imagining a sudden escalation in global warming that scientists hadn’t seen coming, a surprise package from mother nature’s deep state with disastrous geopolitical and economic effects worldwide.

But, as it turns out, COVID-19 is no black swan – scientists and fictionists both, and the likes of Bill Gates, too, had been warning of a health pandemic such as this for years.

As it also turns out, the killer virus is only indirectly related to climate change, and more likely directly a consequence of the way we humans have cut down forests with arrogant disregard for our fellow creatures in the wild and the ecology of the whole, all in the name of ‘development,’ because, you know, it’s the economy (that matters) stupid, or so the capitalists preach/ed and practice/d.

Said to have jumped from bats through pangolins to humans, if not custom-made in some lab for biowarfare purposes (as conspiracy theorists insist), the culprit is a tiny replicating beast of a virus that we can’t even see except through a high-powered transmission electron microscope, but which is so contagious a challenge to the human immune system, it has been impossible to downplay the spread and the dead, the dread and the panic, around the globe.

Life is dramatically different, ang daming bawal. We are not to touch our eyes nose mouth in case our hands (wash hands!) are carrying the virus (from something / someone we touched, among other possibilities). It’s not easy because our eyes nose mouth are exposed, and sensitive, to the elements, and it takes a lot of control not to scratch that itch now and then.

Suddenly we have to wear masks and avoid human contact, the idea being to contain and delay the spread of the virus until a cure is found or a vaccine developed that is both safe and efficacious, and the only way is to stay home and keep every other human at arm’s length or two. Even family. Even in the confines of home, in case anyone turns out to be asymptomatic a carrier. Which is all so counter-intuitive for us humans who by nature like to touch, need to touch, thrive on touch, particularly in anxious times like this when the impulse is to huddle and cuddle and hug for strength and comfort. Pa-konsuwelo sa urban poor in cramped hovels, argh.

As if being locked down in our private spaces were not bad enough, it’s been a trial worrying about, problematizing the logistics of, access to food and meds and other essentials. Ang daming nawalan ng trabaho. Worst hit are the majority poor who pre-COVID-19 barely subsisted kahig-tuka from meal-to-meal, day-to-day, a drop here, a trickle there, consequently reduced to lockdown hunger, no kahig, no tuka. Asa na lang sa, hintay na lang ng, manaka-nakang hulog ng langit na madalas ay kakarampot na nga, nananakaw pa. And let me not get started on our overworked healthcare workers who deserve better care and better pay.

The good news, finally, maybe, as 2020 draws to a close, is of vaccines coming, raising hopes that things can go back to normal sooner than later.

I wouldn’t bet on it.

Getting access to enough vaccines for at least 60 (some say 70, some 80) million Filipinos in order for the herd to achieve immunity is going to take some doing. Ang pangako ni Dutz na Pamaskong bakuna, malamang ay sa Semana Santa pa at the earliest.

As above, so below. The year 2020 closes with another important conjunction. Jupiter, (benefic) planet of expansion and imaginative vision, and Saturn, (malefic) planet of structure and discipline, align in the first degree of Aquarius, the air sign associated with higher aspirations, humanitarian concerns, the collective good, ruled by Uranus, the “awakener” who brings unexpected shocks in aid of raising human consciousness.

There will be changes, maybe new beginnings, over the next two, three, years. We will be reminded again and again about the interconnectedness of all things. Ang sakit ng kalingkingan ay sakit ng buong katawan. We will be reminded again and again, over and over, until we get it right, that it IS the economy, stupid, liberal capitalism, to be precise, that has messed up the planet and humanity.

A new socio-economic order is the new grail.

Way to die

There was that video clip on cable TV of an angry, grieving daughter whose father had just died of COVID in hospital: “My dad was a good man, he didn’t deserve to die like that!”

Indeed. No one, except perhaps a jack-the-ripper, deserves to die a painful and lonely COVID death. I would rather die painlessly and happily, in my own good time a la Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green, but not to be processed into food for the masses please, rather, straight to a crematorium, ashes to ashes.

In that 1973 film of a dystopian future—forests gone, oceans drying up, humidity all year round, the greenhouse effect in full swing—assisted dying is the norm, and Edward G.’s character, after saying goodbye to loved ones, is hygienically dispatched with his choice of music (light classical) playing in the background and film footages of rich green fields flashing on a panoramic screen. The payback: government gets to convert his remains into green wafers to help feed a hungry populace—”Cannibalism!” the critics screamed. So yeah, cremation is good. Dust to dust.

But seriously, when I first read of some conservatives in America saying NO to quarantine and social distancing and YES to just letting the elderly die of COVID-19, even encouraging them to welcome death for the greater good, for the sake of the economy, this senior-cit went WTF! Talaga? E, kung ganoon ang scenario, let the elderly have a choice naman: either to run the risk of dying painfully of COVID, or to die ahead painlessly and in the company of loved ones. To be fair, and humane. Konting puso naman.

It’s life-changing enough, growing old and counting down. The added threat of COVID-19 and the forced early retirement is a monumental hassle, freak-out, bad trip. And given so much time and reason to dwell on things existential, it’s disconcerting, because otherwise taboo, to be talking and thinking about death.

Why nga ba are we discouraged, warned against death-talk, or the mere mention of the word? Sabi ng matatanda noong bata ako, baka kasi akalain ni Kamatayan na tinatawag siya, kaya rin may kasunod dapat na knock-on-wood three times to drive away any evil spirits summoned.

The notion of death as a bad thing. As misfortune. As punishment even. Needs rethinking.

Way to write

When the lockdown happened, I stopped work on a half-done Ninoy Aquino book project because suddenly there was no time. Suddenly the husband and the daughter who were usually out all day if not all night were home 24/7. A whole new world, LOL. Goodbye, solitude.

There was, besides, a scary virus to read up on and avoid catching, pandemic news to keep track of, a non-performing prez to rant at and about, COVID-19 (and other) deaths to mourn, healthcare workers to champion, relief work to help with, there was just no extra time.

I did try to sneak in a blog post, essay a reading of the new normal unfolding, pero hindi ako makabuo-buo, hirap na hirap mag-wrap-up, a measure I suppose of how uncertain I was about everything. Malay ko, baka naman the Inter-Agency Task Force on Covid-19 knew what it was doing, baka naman kayang gawin ang ginagawa sa Vietnam at sa South Korea, baka naman by Christmas ay maayos-ayos na (so to speak) ang buhay-buhay, as the prez promised.

Natauhan ako bandang katapusan ng June. On the 25th nabalita na gustong palitan nina Cong. Paolo Duterte, Lord Allan Velasco, at Eric Yap ang pangalan ng Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), gawing “Pambansang Paliparan ng Pilipinas.” Dapat daw kasi ay pambansang wika ang gamit at dapat daw ay malinaw agad na ito ay nasa Pilipinas.

“We want it to reflect the legacy of the Filipino people, our everyday heroes. The name bears no color, no political agenda. It only signifies our warmth as Filipinos in welcoming our own kababayans and foreign visitors,” sabi ni Pulong.

“House Bill No. 7031 is part of the efforts to reposition the Philippines as a choice tourist destination once the COVID-19 pandemic is over and travel restrictions are lifted,” sabi ni Velasco.

No political agenda. Bola. Clearly the agenda is to deny Ninoy his place in the nation’s and the airport’s history. If we allow this to happen, what’s to prevent them from eventually renaming it FMIA [Ferdinand Marcos International Airport] —in Imelda’s lifetime, they imagine; in a Bongbong presidency, they hope.

Biglang nabalikan ko tuloy si Ninoy. These last months have been all about reviewing and updating the 1980 to 1983 timeline in particular, and reading up on the Agrava fact-finding reports (majority and minority 1984), the Sandiganbayan and Supreme Court rulings (Marcos and Cory times), a convict’s belated full-of-holes “confession” that pointed to Danding as promotor (1995), the early presidential pardons by GMA (2007 to 2009), and Fe Zamora’s seven-part special report for the Inquirer (2010). Close readings for the nth time, and now I’m seeing the signs of long-term planning for both the assassination and the cover-up, how Machiavellian, how Marcosian.

Yes. Much easier to write about the past, no matter how maddening. A kind of escape from what’s turning out to be an endlessly harrowing and painful present.

Except that there is really no escaping the present for long. No ignoring the COVID threat, no shrugging off climate change, no excusing state terrorism and historical revisionism.

Without losing sight of the past, writing in, on, the present is the urgent challenge of these trying times.

*

This essay was written for the e-book IN CERTAIN SEASONS: MOTHERS WRITE IN THE TIME OF COVID, handog ng CCP at Philippine PEN.

Free e-book download link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/07tdoup69koebsw/In_Certain_Seasons_012321b.pdf/file?fbclid=IwAR0Y42SPJsUzNaTOIZDBPYowntgaXJ06h6jT3N12t_koOHyd4537riY8qzs

The Great Conjunction

JEANNIE JAVELOSA  

Tonight and tomorrow dawn will be a perfect time to intensify prayer, meditation, positive intentions to kickstart positive shifts and look up to the sky to see a fantastic rare celestial event called the Great Conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter (in 0.29 degrees of the Aquarius constellation). This degree position can be likened to a seed which holds the potential of the great tree that the seed can grow into.Just google the internet to learn more but this event as everyone is talking about it.

In a nutshell from my astro-evolutionary understanding: this event pushes humanity into intensified changes plus a new trajectory and paradigm of consciousness: the “new norm” that we are all struggling to define now. It is about creating new sustainable structures that benefit the many and not just one; of drawing in spiritual energies into the practicality of our daily lives; of choices that support life aligned to the planet and not just profit; of collaborations for the good and that the way is collective and not alone.

More remarkable in its timing, the great conjunction happens at the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year and the annual cycle of “deepest slumber of the soul”. How potent a timing this is as the planetarial alignments trigger a new awakening of humanity’s soul at its galactic connection to God’s multiverse.

Ancient and present day astronomers and astrologers have followed and studied similar events in the past identifying these points as the beginning of a new leap on consciousness on the macro level where new socio-spiritual-cultural movements begin: as it was seen as the Bethlehem star highlighting the Christos Light descending into human form,

Galileo’s study of this that began the intense studies of space and the beginning of the Renaissance period in the west. Some say last this was seen was back 400, 600, 800 years back. With so much info online what we can say is that on a personal level, it will mark intense changes towards a new and different trajectory whether you are ready or not.

As someone who reads the stars, I can only marvel in awe at the perfection of timing of the Divine Intelligence. So let us take the shift with no fear, let the old structures that do not work…go, let healing embrace you and be open to the radically different. (For those who know their birth charts, check the degree and house where Aquarius is in your chart, that’s where you will see the push where the shift of your life will come from.)

iskho lopez (1948-2020)

met him in the late sixties sa A.S. basement, UP diliman.  writer na siya noon, contributing sa Collegian.  i was impressed and inggit.  ran into him again more than a decade later in the very early 80s, in another basement, the Metropolitan Museum’s, where Metromagazine, the weekly multi-channel tv docu, was being produced for the Metro Manila Commission by marita manuel and jorge arago’s gang of visual artists.  he was in the entertainment industry na.  from writing movie reviews and PR stuff, he had branched out to screenplays for award-winners such as Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa, co-written with raffy guerrero (1974) and Pagputi ng Uwak, Pag-itim ng Tagak (1978) with lando jacob and direk celso ad. castillo.

at the time i was writing feature articles, later a tv junkie column, for Parade magazine, and on the side reading birthcharts of everyone who asked, including iskho (sun in aquarius, moon in virgo).  and then i got into the Philippine Sesame Street Project as headwriter, along with noel añonuevo as light action film director, and iskho gave it a try, writing for kids, na kailangan funny and appealing, like a tv commercial, pero no special fx at ang daming bawal.  naloka siya — declared himself for-adults-only.

in ’84 when jorge and most of the gang had moved out of 1818 kansas st. in malate to bliss pasig and landlady evelynne horrilleno was still in the states, iskho and lorrie purisima turned the main house into a coffee house of sorts and called it Kape Talismo.  at the time i had moved on from Sesame and joined jorge in putting  out a journal on alternative futures (junie kalaw’s call for sustainable development), meeting twice thrice a week sa marietta apts., also in malate; invariably we would end the day in kansas, having cold beer and kamote fries with whoever else happened to drop in on iskho.

“….it was quiet on the hippie front off taft,” sabi ni krip yuson, “until Iskho Lopez came up with his Kape Talismo  …  celebrity chefs were featured, but the exclusive clientele couldn’t pay in cash or have plastic cards swiped. They had to exchange their lucre for Kape Talismo dollars, if I recall right.”  i do recall one night with celebrity chef baboo mondoñedo, but kape-talismo-dollars is new to me, maybe because i never asked.  i do remember dropping cash into an urn passed around by santi bose.

martial law pa noon, post-ninoy, and the ferment was real, especially on the “hippie front”.  there was a palpable sense of a center that wouldn’t hold, of things coming to a head, and kape talismo (loved the word play) was a great place to hang around with kindred spirits from left right and center, almost presaging the EDSA to come.  or maybe good vibes lang talaga ang 1818 kansas, at si iskho na rin, who was also writing movies sunudsunod for elwood perez.

after EDSA parang kinareer na ni iskho ang publishing.  in cory times he asked me to write for Bongga, a showbiz tabloid that he was editor of.  binuhay niya ang tv junkie column ko and let me go taglish, which was fun.  bandang 1990 nuong full blast ang anti-US bases campaign, i was asked to put together a proposal for a multi-media multi-genre campaign for the Philippine Information Agency.(PIA).  pinagtulungan namin ni iskho at naibigan naman ni noel garth tolentino ang trabaho namin,  inspired! sabi pa niya.  except that cory suddenly went pro-bases and we were dropped like hot potatoes, as in, ni hindi kami binayaran kahit man lang for expenses incurred.  hayz.  laking tuwa namin sa salonga senate nang mapatalsik anyway ang bases.

early in FVR times he was with Manila Standard as lifestyle/entertainment editor; bitbit uli ang tv junkie.  and then in 1996 there was ISYU, the all-opinion tabloid with nonoy marcelo as art director that was even more fun than Bongga because i got to write not just showbiz stuff but politics and environment too.

panahon din ni FVR when an advertising bigwig who learned that i was putting together a chronology of the four EDSA days made bulong, in case i hadn’t heard, that rosemarie “baby” arenas, rumored ex-mistress of the prez, was one of the first people to come out in support of the two bandidos.  i started asking around, sinong may konek, magpa-interview kaya?  iskho to the rescue.  kilala niya si mila alora, publicist ni ms. arenas,  next thing i knew, we were on our way, katrina, iskho, and i, with gerry gerena who videotaped the interview.  i leave it to katrina to make kuwento what she and iskho were cackling about while wolfing down bowls of pistachio nuts behind the scenes.

in GMA times post-garci, when she banned celebrations of the 20th EDSA anniv at the shrine, and nagtawag si jojo binay sa ayala, makati, who should we run into but iskho, with the chiz contingent, if memory serves.  from showbiz to politics, why not.  the year before had not been great.  we were in bistro remedios with him and jorge, noel and ed pacheco — galing sa private viewing ng A la verde, A la pobre (2005) ni briccio santos — and ed and noel, taking turns, kept breaking into song… “don’t cry for me, argentina”… sabay nguso kay iskho a.k.a. “evicta peron” — di na naman nakakabayad ng rent!  tawang tawa kami ni katrina, i guess dahil rin cool na cool naman si iskho, tipong what else was new nga naman.  which is why the fulltime job sa Manila Times as news desk editor was really good news. and, as it turned out, parang itinadhana.

next stop: malacanang palace, no less. “Uy congrats to kafatid Iskho Lopez,” sey ni salve asis nuong sept 2010:  “Bongga. Na-appoint siyang Editor in Chief of the Presidential News Desk. Yup, sa Malacañang na siya nago-office. … Si Sec. Sonny Coloma ang immediate superior niya.”

nakarating tuloy ako sa casa roces, that very sosyal resto across the palace, where iskho hosted a dinner for me in october 2011 dahil di siya nakarating sa august launch ng Revo Routes.  noon ko nabitbit si jorge for the last time at umapir din sina leah makabenta at nini yarte, at si noel, of course, bitbit si mayee fabregas.  better late than never si direk elwood perez plus 1.

in 2013 when my book designer for EDSA Uno requested a copy of gen. fabian ver’s blackboard map of the EDSA camps that had been preserved and was reported to be on display in the  Presidential Museum and Library, walang kahiya-hiyang binulabog ni katrina si tito iskho sa palasyo.  as always, iskho was the gracious host: made sure she and partner vito were on the guest list for the day and even met them at the gate (tight ang security, they had to leave laptops and camera behind).  he had also earlier scoped the museum (na ang gulo pa raw) and so knew where exactly the blackboard was.  siyempre katrina stole some shots on her cellphone.  pagkatapos ay nagpameryenda pa si manash sa casa roces, hindi nagmadaling bumalik sa trabaho, must have welcomed the break from palace politics.

huli ko siyang nakadaupang-palad in feb 22 2014.  nasa casa roces kami ni katrina to join honey de peralta’s book club Flips Flipping Pages in a discussion of EDSA Uno (2013) on the 18th anniv.  jumoin din si iskho, at pagkatapos ay we hied off to BGC to meet up with noel for a long dinner and chat, mostly about ishma, whose anti bio was next on my list.  nakabaston na si iskho noon but he denied really needing it, napulot lang daw niya sa taxi, lolz.

tuloytuloy pa for a while ang tawagan namin sa telepono at messaging sa facebook.  tuwing may iskandalong nababalita, siya pa rin ang aking touchstone.  totoo ba?  kung minsan he’d shrug it off, nagpapapansin lang; pag totoo naman, tiyak na may dadag siyang tsismis na delicious.  he had quite a network, and he seemed to know everyone worth knowing.  once he phoned just to tell me: hoy, si ano, nagsusumbong, tinag-team daw niyo siyang mag-ina!  tatawatawa.  ahahaha.

nuong ginagawa ko na ang Pro Bernal Anti Bio (2017), may pangalang nabanggit si ishma sa isang interbyu by aruna vasudev na hindi ko ma-place.

ISHMA  “We were influenced by three big festivals in the mid-60s that were initiated by the glitterati, principally headed by Rejii Moreno.  His film society, for example, showed Kurosawa films like Rashomon, plus the great Satyajit Ray flms – The Apu Trilogy, … Charulata. We even got to see classics like The Cranes are Flying from the Soviet Republic.”

i first asked ed cabagnot who had just shared some vignettes on a couple of bernal films for the book.  sino si rejii moreno?  sagot niya: “Naku, try Iskho Lopez… He might know.”

ISKHO:  Hahaha! Talaga? “Rejii Moreno”??? Sino siya? “HE” pa ang gender, ha! …  Virgie Moreno had the Salaguinto Film Society in the mid to late 60s –siguro 1965 or 66 to coincide with Los Indios Bravos.

again, iskho to the rescue!  he knew his stuff.  and i could go on and on with these memories, ang dami ko pang kuwentong iskho.  ngayon ko lang naarok that he was such a part of my writing life, from showbiz to politics.  and i’m so kilig for him that jullie yap daza’s nov. 28 column “Passing through” says goodbye to him in the same breath (so to speak) that she says goodbye to altasociedads ado escudero and louie cruz (also gone in late november), noting their “glory days”.

I assume Iskho Lopez knew Ado and Louie, even if it’s not likely that the two moved in Iskho’s circle. Iskho’s last job ended in 2016 with the Benigno Aquino III regime, for which he was chief editor of Malacañang’s news desk. Eternally a free-lance entertainment writer-editor, he surprised his colleagues when he bagged that position, miles away from the stars but close enough to rub elbows with the high and mighty.

Ado, Louie, Iskho: Passion was their calling card.

bongga ka talaga, iskho!  talbog kaming lahat!  #NotBadAtAll