Achieving Happiness

Here’s one great reason to go to Hong Kong this December, and it’s not to go to Disneyland (I never liked Mickey Mouse; am more partial to Donald Duck; whirly-twirly rides make me upchuck. Think partially digested blackraspberry doughnut and Sola lemon iced tea).

Militant people’s organizations and progressive partylists allied with the Bagong Alyansang  Makabayan (BAYAN) the International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS) have formed Resist WTO, a broad alliance of groups opposed to the World Trade Organization (WTO). Resist WTO is spearheading a series of activities against the  upcoming WTO  6th Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong from December 11-15, 2005; but there will also be activities in Manila to coincide with the People’s Action Week (PAW) in Hong Kong. Among Resist WTO’s core organizations  are Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), Kilusang Magbubukid (KMP), Gabriela, Migrante International and Anakbayan.

Without doubt, the WTO  trade talks will be a venue for poor countries’ protests against  the WTO and globalization. After all, the general consensus among the poor and developing countries in the world is that the WTO should be immediately dissolved, and millions have taken to denouncing it and their respective governments’ membership to it. What good has the Philippines gotten from being a member of the WTO? Ten years after the country joined it, the economy remains in tatters and Filipinos are poorer than ever. The Philippines should get out of the WTO lickety-split. We’re aiding in our own destruction by continuing to obey its policies and economic dictates.

Correction: this government is destroying the country by obeying the WTO’s  prescriptions. Along with those of the WTO and the IMF.

I always try to simplify things: the WTO is not a government. It does not carry any political authority, yet it has appropriated the power to impose punishments against nations who dare to go against its trade impositions. It’s very existence is treason against the sovereign rights and political independence of nations, especially those whose people are already sunk deep in poverty.

Peoples of the world did not elect the WTO into being. There was never a consensus among the toiling masses about the Philippines joining the WTO.

So why the hell are we obeying the WTO and why the hell is the Department of Trade and Industry and other adjunct agencies of government getting their knickers in a knot at the thought of the country being ‘punished’ by the WTO if we don’t follow its programs and prescriptions to the letter?!

For backward countries such as the Philippines,the supposed negotiations that take place during the WTO’s ministerial conferences are nothing but sham talks. Saliva festivals participated in by men and women in suits representing business interests. Who calls the shots during these ministerial conferences and meetings but the superpower governments? The policies they concoct are structured and formulated in such a way to ensure these continuing monopoly over the global economy, and to make sure that other poorer, weaker nations are nothing but sources of raw materials on the one hand, and open markets for finished goods on the other.

The WTO supposedly operates on a consensus basis, with equal decision-making power for all. Yeah, right. In reality, many important decisions get made in a process where poor countries’ negotiators are not even invited to closed door meetings — and then ‘agreements’ are announced that poor countries didn’t even know were being discussed!

Many countries do not even have enough trade personnel to participate in all the negotiations or to even have a permanent representative at the WTO. This severely disadvantages poor countries from representing their interests. Likewise, many countries are too poor to defend themselves from WTO challenges from the rich countries, and change their laws rather than pay for their own defense

It’s like ants trying to negotiate form crumbs and scraps from the tables of giants.

And having the giants taking an interest in the scraps AND THE ANTHILL.

Are farmers and workers ever consulted? Do they ever attend the deliberations?
Of course not. They’re the ones busy fighting against liberalization policies in their home countries — fighting off land developers, mining corporations, exposing the unfair labor practices and abuses of TNCs in the export processing zones.

Proof of the destructive impact of the WTO’s policies as adopted and implemented by the Philippine government can be seen in local economic indicators. For instance,  because of massive importation of cheap vegetables such as onions and garlic, local farmers are being driven to their knees by crashing market prices down. The  country’s agricultural trade deficits have also ballooned: the deficit grew from $42 million in 1994 to $933 in 2004. As of 2003, more than 40% of the rural population is considered poor and conditions continue to worsen because of government’s neglect for agriculture and refusal to establish support infrastructure for farmers.

Down in Nueva Ecija, farmers are letting their sibuyas crops rot in the fields because they stand to lose more transporting the bulbs to the marketplace than actually selling them, seeing that the buyers are willing to pay for the bulbs at the most barat of prices.

Last time I checked, sibuyas farmers don’t subsist on sibuyas.

In the meantime, the flood of cheap imports such as the footwear, textiles and cement products is also drowning local industries and causing unemployment rates to spike.  A survey conducted by the Federation of Philippine Industries from 1995 to 2002 showed that 56 of its member-firms closed down because of liberalization, rendering some 80,319 workers jobless. Employment in agriculture , in the meantime, fell from 11.4 million in 1995 to 11 million in 2005. Job creation in manufacturing has remained basically flat over the last decade. As of April 2005, there were 4.8 million unemployed and 8.4 million underemployed Filipinos, the most the country has ever seen.

So where the heck did all those promises of the WTO go? (lower prices, higher quality products, improved employement, development for local industries?) They went the way of Virgilio Garcilliano in the previous six months, and now they resemble Garci’s statements: all lies.

This is something to count on- the upcoming  Ministerial will be an important venue for exploited countries of the world to stand up against their rich counterparts’ corporate-led globalization agenda. To expose the destructive impact of deregulation, liberalization and privatization on the day-to-day survival of the working people and the poor.   Countries such as the Philippines should reject the WTO and uphold their right to economic sovereignty and genuine development — we’re demanding the immediate ouster of the incumbent president of dubious legitimacy, so why on earth should we obey the dictates of a foreign international body?

There can never be genuine development under the WTO, and those who say otherwise are either dimwits or they’re from the WTO itself.

But enough complaining. Now’s the time for action! For the last two months, Filipino migrant organizations led by the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body and Resist WTO have been at the forefront of a mass education and  information campaign paving the way for big rallies and leading to the People’s Action Week.

The 10-Week Countdown is the campaign launched by United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL) and the  AMCB in order to ensure the biggest and widest participation of the migrant workers in the People’s Action Week. As an active member of the Hong Kong People’s Alliance on the WTO (HKPA), Unifil, the AMCB along with Resist WTO are setting the tone for the bigger activities aimed at exposing the and defeating the WTO MC6.

For the last 10 Sundays, the  groups have been holding centralized and decentralized activities exposing the  impact of globalization and the WTO on  the working people of the world. As the pipol over in Hongkong justifiably report with pride, the anti-WTO groups education drive have been met with success, as thousands of migrants and local Hong Kong residents have participated in the  widespread public teach-ins, seminars, mobile cultural presentations, seminars, fora and film showings. Only last November 26, the  colorful and creative "Hong Kong People’s Mardi Gras Against the WTO" was held. It was participated in by no less than 3,000 migrant workers!

Besides the Bayan-led contingent of members of peoples organizations, to attend the anti-WTO People’s Action Week in Hong Kong are  the International League of People’s Struggle - the biggest and most militant formation of grassroots and grassroot-based anti-imperialist organization; the Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN), a network of leading research groups and institutions;  and the Pesticide Action Network - Asia Pacific (PANAP), the Asian Peasants Coalition and their networks of peasant groups.

The ILPS will hold an International Conference on Trade and War in December 14 to discuss the current moves of imperialists led by the United States to intensify war and aggression in the world and its relations to the trade and economic policies of the WTO.

The Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN),will hold a People’s Speak Out on December 10, International Human Rights Day where participants will  be able to share their stories on how the WTO and globalization affected  their lives and their countries.

Peasant groups will hold a People’s Camp on December 15 – 17 and explain the  impact of trade liberalization of agriculture. 

In the meantime, the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA), indigenous groups and other affected sectors shall hold a Mining Conference on December 10 that will focus on WTO policies that liberalize the mining industry and open up the world’s resources to plunder of mining MNCs and TNCs.

Women’s groups will  put the WTO  on trial for its crimes against women of world on December 16 and hold  a  Women’s march on the 17^th.

In the end, WTO is about speeding up the race to destroy the environment, dismantle health and safety laws for workers and pry open new markets for  the exploitation of big foreign corporations. Today, more  than 1.3 billion people live on incomes of less than $1 a day. The gap between rich and poor has reached monstrous proportions, and every day millions of people die from starvation, simple diseases, or extreme poverty brought about by the imhumane and immoral trade and economic practices of MNCs and TNCs bolstered and supported by the WTO.

The past ten years has witnessed the WTO ensuring concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few; increasing poverty for the majority of the world’s population; and unsustainable, highly chaotic patterns of production and consumption.

(Who needs 200 brands of shampoo?! Do we really need to import artichokes?!Why do commuters such as myself have to pay higher taxes while the likes of some congressman or governor’s son can import a Volvo or a BMW and NOT PAY IMPORT TAXES?!! Why are we importing tons of rice and corn when WE PLANT RICE AND CORN?!!!)

The effing WTO has functioned principally to prise open markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of national economies; workers, farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people, and the environment. The WTO system’s (governed by Sith Lords and lower demons from Dante’s stinkier bolgas), rules and procedures are undemocratic, untransparent and non-accountable and have operated to marginalize the majority of the world’s people.

All this supposed economic restructuring has taken place in the context and with the effect of increasing global economic instability, the collapse of national economies, increasing inequity both between and within nations and increasing environmental and social degradation, as a result of the acceleration of the process of globalization.

Because of all this and other reasons, the  people in  exploited countries have to forge the strongest unity  to oppose the WTO, globalization, and anti-people governments’ prioritization of corporate over human interests. Institutions like the WTO go against all principles of genuine democracy, respect for economic independence and patrimony. To fight against institutions like the WTO is to fight in defense of life.

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@Kaarawan ngayon ni Gat Andres Bonifacio - dakilang Ama ng Rebolusyong 1896 at lider proletaryado! Sya at ang kanyang buhay ay patuloy na nagsisilbing inspirasyon sa daan-daang libong aktibistang Pilipino.

Bakit hanggang ngayon hindi tinataguriang traydor sa bayan at kriminal si Emilio Aguinaldo? Pinapatay nya si Gat Andres at ipinagkanulo niya ang patrimonya ng bansa sa mga Amerikano (ang kapal ng mukha — pinasakamay ang Pilipinas sa mga Amerikano. Hindi ba’t ang panawagan nina Gat Andres ay kamatayan muna bago pagsuko?).

@Anibersaryo ngayon ng Kabataang Makabayan (KM). Mabuhay ang mga kabataang tunay na naglilingkod sa masa at sa bayan, buhay man ay ialay!

The thing about being a political activist (a national democrat, to be more specific) is this: you always feel somewhat…detached from the chaos of dirty politics, the corruption of the ruling elite and their culture and economics. Not detached as in apathetic or indifferent; it’s more like being above this government and it’s rotten, stinking ways.

This isn’t my government. I oppose everything it stands and works for. I abhor this socio-economic and cultural system. I believe in the worthiness of the calls for its complete destruction, and I am all for creating a new system to replace it.

Whenever I read the newspapers (and I read about 10 everyday) and the reports are all about the latest crimes and transgressions of the people and institutions in power, I always feel such outrage because I am so aware that these crimes are also committed against me by extension.

This government that has the gall to speak for me, to say that it represents the Filipino people and has their best interest at heart, this administration I never voted for. Everyday the newspapers are filled with reports that comprehensively detail my reasons for wanting an end to it.

Six US Marines rape a 22-year old Filipina in Subic. What the heck were these American military personnel doing in my country anyways?! They have no right to be here, and they all deserve to be dragged out into the streets and shot for raping a Filipina (well, actually this is what I think should be done to ALL rapists. The fact that the rapists in this case are US Marines makes me rethink the punishment: they should dragged over a mile-length of pavement strewn with  hot coals and broken glass and then shot.)

The Macapagal-Arroyo government which is by no means my government continues to take a jellyfish stance on this rape case, afraid of causing the US government any inconvenience or reason to doubt Arroyo’s loyalties.  The rape victim is being forced to relive her terrible ordeal every single time Malacanang and its subordinates undermine her credibility and throw doubt against her testimony. According to reports, since the approval and implementation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), over 60 rapes have been perpetrated by American servicemen in the country. Has anyone been arrested? Nah. Has the government said or done anything to bring the rapists to justice? Nothing.

This is not my government. 

Infamous ex-Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano has returned to the country after almost five months of mysterious disappearance, but he is is still playing cat-and-mouse with the authorities. He refuses to surface publicly and account for his role in the May 2004 electoral fraud caper and explain the contents of his controversial conversations with various politicians including Macaagal-Arroyo.

Has the Macapagal-Arroyo government said and done anything to compell Garcillano to speak up in the interest of truth? Of course not. Without doubt, if the government could find a way of completely and permanently silencing Garcillano short of committing outright murder, it would do it. A fugitive from justice is running around, but the administration is not lifting a finger to apprehend him– no orders or directives to the PNP or to the courts to issue a warrant of arrest and a subpoena.   

On the other hand, the Arroyo government is leaning heavily on and threatening charges against the organizers of the Citizens Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA) because it’s supposedly guilty of making a mockery of the justice system. To be plain about it, the CCTA was nothing more than a well-organized forum wherein the various issues Macapagal-Arroyo allies in the House have refused to investigate were brought up and discussed in detail. It had no pretensions of being a real court (whatever that means. This government has a bogus justice system anyways).

This is not my government.

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The apologists and reactionary-reformists are so desperate in their efforts to find glue strong enough to piece this crumbling admistration together; or worse, to find band-aids that will heal the system that has long been festering like a gangrenous wound. Uphold the rule of law,they say. Clean up the government by initiating reforms from within.

Sheesh. Give it a rest, will you! Wake up and smell the garbage.There’s no saving this government, no reforming this system.

Their resources and ideas are running out (they consult each other, meet and talk and discuss among themselves, try to impress each other with things they’ve read or tv documentaries they’ve seen and in the end nod to each other knowingly as if they’ve come to some incorruptible truth and the truth still resides in the obsolete and decaying belief system they uphold), and whenever they feel the desperation creeping up on them (no more answers! the walls are closing in!) they lash out against socialism, against communism, against those who dare to dream and risk their lives to realize that dream of a nation, a world where capitalists and their paid stooges in the governments they build are not in charge.

Nakakaawa. Oh well.

It’s so bizarre to me how anyone can defend capitalism. How anyone can even say that it’s the best system there is and that history will end with it. It’s like trying to describe a gigantic pile of refuse and shit using pretty adjectives and positive superlatives. How can anyone justify the wars created by the greed for profit and territorial expansion (also for profit)? Wars that have caused the death of untold billions?

How can anyone explain away the deaths of billions because of starvation, simple diseases, malnutrition, homelessness exposure to cruel cold and killing heat in the Third World when a few thousand families and business groups live in decadent luxury, mindless waste, unproductive sloth?

And they still sing praises to capitalism! Holy crow.

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Ang pinaka-nakakabwiset ay ito: ang kapal ng mukha ng mga naghaharing uri at ng mga aroganteng mayayaman na patuloy ipangalandakan ang kanilang mga aktibidad sa harap ng tumitindi at lumalalang kalagayan ng lipunan at ng mayorya ng mamamayan. Party dito, party dun. Libo-libo ang ginagastos sa make-up, mga sapatos, damit at kung ano-anong luho. Pinapalaganap pa nila ang kanilang kulturang walang kwenta, artipisyal at maka-sarili. 

Wala namang problema na gumastos sa damit, sapatos, etc. O uminom ng mamahaling kape minsan kada dalawang buwan. Pero utang na loob, anong klase kang tao na naaatim mong magwaldas ng P7,000 para sa isang lalagyan ng celphone, o para sa isang wallet?! O gumastos ng P15,000 para sa isang relo?!

Imposible na ang mga taong ito ay walang kaalam-alam na laganap ang kagutuman, gera at sakit sa lipunan nila. Na araw-araw, may 10 bata ang namamatay sa tigdas o pneumonia o tuberculosis. Na napakarami ang nakatira sa gilid ng mga rilis ng tren, sa ilalim ng tulay, sa malalamig na semento ng lungsod. Na may gerang sibil dahil sa militarisasyon, pangangamkam ng lupa ng mga magsasaka, pagkitil sa mga karapatang pantao at demokratiko.

And these same people went to freaking Catholic schools! What the heck did they learn in their religion classes - that God loves the rich and He made the world solely fr their enjoyment?!

Grrrr. Actually, am writing this as a delayed reaction to what I witnessed last week when I watched Harry Potter 4 with my family in Ayala. It was a Rotary Club-sponsored showing (long story how we got tickets. Not worth getting into).

When I went to the concession stand to buy popcorn for my sister, I dutifully lined up (lumaki sa University of Pila. Sanay sa paglinya) and waited my turn.

I stood second in line. I was placing my order when holy crap I noticed that suddenly, there were at least five rich people (yeah, yeah - they looked rich alright. They were yapping away in English and the women had Ferragamos or Manolo Blhaniks) next to me and practically YELLING at the people manning the booth.

Wala bang pila?!!! (Actually I said "Is there a line or isn’t there? Where’s the decency and discipline around here?!" in a loud voice).

They just just gave me a look and then ignored me.

Leche. Di kasi nila kasama yung mga katulong nila e sanay na may inuutusan kaya ayun, sinigawan yung mga taga-concession stand.The popcorn guy was in a panic and the girl at the soda fountain looked like she was ready to cry.

Needless to say, I didn’t get my popcorn.

postcript: my husband says I’m anti-rich.

Maybe a little. I can’t help it. I am offended by their values. Im not saying everyone with a Gold Visa or an American Express Card should drop dead, but to be honest, a lot of rich people MAKE.ME.SICK.

Pasensya na. #

Silang mga nagpapanatili ng kadiliman sa bayang ito, dahil hindi nila kayang pigilan ang pagkalat ng mga ideyang nagdadala ng liwanag at kalayaan, inutas lang nila ang mga tangan ng liwanag.

Hindi ako kailanman masasanay sa mga balitang mga aktibistang pinaslang — nilabog sa bugbog, binaril, sinaksak at isinaksak sa mga sako na parang nabubulok na basura. Kahit pa naisin ko na maging manhid na ganyang mga balita, sa ganyang mga ulat (karahasan, malupit na kamatayan, pambababoy sa diwa at katawan), hindi magawa ng puso ko na magmatigas at sabihing hindi ko na iiyakan ang patuloy na lumalaking bilang ng mga Kasama, kaibigan, at masang pinaglilingkuran na  walang-awang pinatay ng berdugong gobyerno ni Macapagal-Arroyo.

Binaril sa ulo, dalawang beses.

Sinaksak sa dibdib, tyan at tagiliran, anim na beses, pitong ulit, walong malalim na pagbaon ng patalim.

Pinaulanan ng bala ang katawan.Tumagos ang mga bala sa braso, binti, dibdib at ulo. Kumalat ang dugo sa mga butas sa balat, buto at laman.

Sinilid sa sako.Tinapon sa kogonan.Pinalutang sa ilog. Humandusay ang basag na katawan sa alikabok ng katanghalian, o sa pasilip na silahis ng araw sa bagong bungad na kaumagahan.

Ginapos ang mga kamay at paa. Sa sobrang higpit, nag-iwan ng markang waring latigo ng apoy at manipis na alambre.

Binusalan ang bibig, nilagyan ng piring ang mata at tinamnan ng bala sa sintido.

Mga salita at katagang parang mga balaraw na itinatarak sa kamalayan at puso ng bawat isang aktibistang nagmamamahal sa bayan. Mga salitang nagpipinta ng mga larawan ng trahedya, ngunit nang-uudyok ng mga damdaming di lang kulay ng dalamhati kundi ng pagkamuhi at pagnanais ng paghihiganti. 

Bawat isa sa kanila, sa 80 na masang magsasaka, manggagawa, kabataang-estduyante at aktibistang pinatay ng militar at ng demonyong gobyernong ito, bawat isa sa kanila ay may mukha, pangalan, pagkatao at kasaysayan ng paglilingkod sa mamamayan at sa bayan.

Bawat isa sa kanila na ginawang martir ng berdugong gobyerno ay minahal ng kanilang mga Kasama, kaibigan at kapamilya. Bawat isa sa kanila ay araw-araw ipinagluluksa ng Kilusan.

Bawat isa sa kanila,isang araw sa malapit nang hinaharap, ay ipaghihiganti.

Nakakapagtaka pa ba na may armadong pakikibaka sa Pilipinas? Na libo-libong mamamayan ang tumatangan ng baril at sumasama sa Bagong Hukbong Bayan? Na patuloy ang gerang sibil sa kanayunan, at ang paglakas ng ligal, demokratikong kilusang protesta sa kalunsuran?

Siyam na magsasaka na naggigiit ng karapatan sa lupa, minasaker ng militar sa Palo, Leyte.

Mag-asawang aktibista, 27 at 29, dinukot at pinatay.

Saan babaling ang masang pinagsasamantalahan at dinadahas?
Sino ang magbibigay ng katarungan sa kanilang mga inapi, ninakawan at pinagkaitan?

Wag mong masabi-sabing ang gobyerno! Itong gobyernong ito na mamamatay-tao, nakakasulasok ang kabulukan, imoralidad at kawalang-hiyaan?! Itong gobyernong ito na nagtataguyod ng sistemang tinaguyod ng pag-ibig sa luho at pera, pinatigas ng kasakiman, pinalalakas ng hukbo ng mga bayaran, pasista at kawatan?!

Itong gobyernong ito at ang hukbo nito ng mga mersenaryo at berdugo rin ang pumapatay sa mamamayang walang hinangad kundi ang tunay na kalayaan.

Pag-aralan ang tunay na kasaysayan ng bayang ito, at naroon ang mga kasagutan. Paano pinalaya ang bayan mula pananakop ng mga dayuhan, sa gayong paraan rin wawakasan ang pagsasamantala ng iilang nagsasamantala sa mayorya ng mamamayan.

Ang tunay na kasaysayan ay sinulat ng masang inapi at binusabos; at sila rin sa  huling pagtutuos ang magtatakda ng kinabukasan. Walang mangingimi sa pagdadala ng bala at baril, at sa paggamit ng mga ito upang ipagtanggol ang sarili, pamilya at bayan.

I am posting this article I wrote on my boss that came out in the Sunday Inquirer Magazine in 2002 out of sheer gladness. Five minutes ago he finished interpellating Rep. Jaraulla over the charter change resolution, and my boss gave a most rousing interpellation. He spoke of how it was only after the victory of the people’s revolution can a body of law that genuinely protects the welfare and interests of the poor and exploited of the country be established. He said that the laws of the land as they stand right now are biased in favor of the ruling elite, and that they use the law  — even the Constitution — to protect their own political and economic interests.

Amending the charter, he said, would only legalize and legitimize the countless crimes and violations the ruling elite commit against the rights of the voiceless majority.

Anyways. Since I can’t tap dance to express how happy I am, am posting this instead.

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For the last two decades, the name Crispin B. Beltran has been associated with pickets, demonstrations, strikes, and generally everything connected to the militant labor movement. Not surprising with him being the chairman of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU). Since August of 2001, however, he has become known as something else – a member of one of the biggest, most influential bastions of conservatism in the country, the House of Representatives.

From 2001-2003, he was one of three Bayan Muna solons. From 2004 up to present, he now stands as the chairman and representative for labor and urban poor concerns of the Anakpawis partylist. Ka Bel breathes, lives and practices the politics of change and nationalism with the same fervor he does as a leader of the parliament of the streets.

But no less interesting than his politics is his personal life. His love life alone is the stuff of movies, megged by the late Lino Brocka or Ysmael Bernal, crossed with Jose Javier Reyes.

Since 1956, Ka Bel has been married to the former Rosario Soto from Malolos, Bulacan. There’s a joke circulating around activist circles that goes “Ka Bel is a voice who should be heard in the Lower House, but in his own house, it’s Ka Osang whom he listens to.”

This is their love story.

Ka Osang is the product of a broken home. Her parents separated early in her childhood, and as the youngest among the three children, she was left to an elderly relative, her father’s aunt who lived in Gagalangin, Tondo. Ka Osang grew up wanting for nothing – she was given new dresses and jewelry whenever she asked for them. But in exchange, she had to be obedient to the very strict, and sometimes unreasonable rules of her grandmother.  She was entered in La Concepcion, a convent- school, and was told never to look at members of the opposite sex. “Wala talaga akong kaalam-alam sa mga lalaki nun. Si Papa lang at yung mga kapatid ko ang pwede kong kausapin."

But the great aunt and the nuns combined were not able to curb the young girl’s adventurous spirit. One morning, On November 10, 1956 she cut classes and together with a few classmates, sneaked into a moviehouse.

“Pinanood namin si Nida Blanca at si Nestor de Villa. Pero pag-uwi ko, nalaman na ni Lola ang ginawa ko. Matindi ang naging away,” she says. In turned out that the Mother Superior herself came to the house and told her grandmother of what happened. Livid at being lied to, the grandmother slapped Ka Osang and told her to leave. And that’s what she did.

By 12 noonshe was wandering around Quiapo, with nothing but the clothes on her back and the other piece which her enraged grandmother threw at Ka Osang as she left the house.

In a daze, she entered into one of the taxis that was parked in front of Plaza Miranda. The driver was the man who would be her husband, the then 26-year old Crispin.

“Napansin kong bata pa siya, at medyo tulala,” was his first impression.  He asked her where she was going. Still reeling from her experience, she answered ‘Derecho ka lang.”

They had reached Monumento, but she still hadn’t given Ka Bel specific directions. He stopped the taxi and turned to face her. Ka Osang remembers, “Naiinis na sya. ‘Saan ba talaga tayo?” sabi niya. Ako naman, wala sa sarili, naiyak na. Sinabi ko na yung nangyari.”

Ka Bel was very sympathetic. She reminded him of his sisters back home in Bacacay, Albay. He looked at her with compassion, and told her that he would drive her home. He also urged her to apologize to her Lola, “Masama magtanim ng galit sa kapamilya.”

Ka Osang shook her head and made a move to get out. By then, night had fallen. Ka Bel refused to  let her go – “May masama pang mangyari sa iyo – parang wala kang kaalam-alam sa mundo.”

So he took her to his boarding house in San Juan where he lived with a few others, and told her to stay the  night. She stayed there, in Ka Bel’s room, for three days.

“Tulala lang ako, nakatingin sa labas ng bintana. Kain, tulog, tatanga sa bintana, iiyak, matutulog. Sa susunod na araw, ganun na naman.”

She was alone most of the time, as Ka Bel drove the taxi all day, and at night attended school at the Asian Labor Education Center at the University of the Philippines. When he got home at night, she would already be asleep, on a low, wide bench that served as a bed, while Ka Bel had his own bed across the room.

“Ni hindi ko alam ang pangalan nya nun. Ang tawag ko sa kanya kuya,” Ka Osang recollects, laughing. Did she ever get a crush on him? ”Wala akong pakialam talaga sa kanya nun, ang iniisip ko lang sarili ko. Pero napaka-maalalahanin niya.” It was at that time when Ka Bel gave her what she calls his first gift.

“Dilaw na sepilyong naka-kahon. May tatak na Good Morning.”

On the third day,  Ka Osang wanted to go home But not wanting to further inconvenience Ka Bel, she left the house without telling him.

“Nang malaman ng papa ko kung saan ako napunta noong naglayas ako, galit na galit siya! Pinuntuhan nila yung bahay ni Ka Bel, tapos binugbog siya. Wala naman akong magawa.” Ka Bel was taken to the municipal jail in San Juan and was accused of abusing a minor. Though it was already the late 1950s, no woman would be caught alone in the company of a man if they weren’t sweethearts. And it was already a scandal if they stayed in the same room together alone. Ka Osang stayed in Ka Bel’s room for three days.

In short, they had to get married. Ka Bel could have easily refused, but he didn’t. He knew that if he refused, Ka Osang would be disgraced. “Kaya kinasal kami. Walang pag-ibig nun. Ayaw ko talaga, iniirapan ko siya, sinusungitan. Pero siya, bukas ang isip. Sabi niya, napag-aaralan naman ang pag-ibig.”

And soon enough, she did learn to love her husband. Initially it was because he was a good provider (“Sweldo niya sa pagmamaneho ng taxi, buo kung ibigay sa akin, kasama resibo”), but later on it was for himself. She learned to love him for his gentleness with the children, his sense of humor (“Malambing yan, makwento”), patience (“Nang magsama kami, di  ako marunong maglaba o magluto – siya ang gumagawa nun. Tinuruan lang niya ako, hati kami sa gawaing bahay”),and inevitably, for  his politics which he had long before embraced.

“Malaking dahilan yun. Kasabay ng pagkilala ko sa kanya bilang asawa, nakilala ko din siya bilang lider manggagawa. Noong una, hindi ako payag – lagi na lang siya ginagabi, o minsan di talaga umuwi, kesyo may mga seminar daw. Madalas kaming mag-away,” she says. “Nang maintindihan ko na yung trabaho niya, nagkaroon ng mas malalim na dimensyon ang pagmamahal at respeto ko sa kanya.”

But Ka Bel was ever-patient. He continually explained to her his work, and what it meant. Even in his early 20s, he had become a full-fledged labor leader. He became president of the Yellow Taxi Drivers’ Union and the Amalgamated Taxi Drivers Federation from 1955-1963. From 1963-1972, he was Vice-administrator of the Confederation of Labor Unions of the Philippines, and then vice-president of the Philippine Alliance of Nationalist Organizations (PANALO) which became the Alliance of Nationalist Genuine Labor Organizations (ANGLO), affiliated under the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) whose establishment on May 1, 1980, signaled the labor movement’s all-out war against the Marcos dictatorship.

Throughout her husband’s growing activism, Ka Osang strove to be supportive. Her love for Ka Bel and the life he had chosen was severely tested, however, in August 1982 when Ka Bel along with other labor leaders was arrested by the military.

“Sampu na ang anak namin nang ikulong siya. Wala kaming pera, maliban dun sa binibigay ng mga kasamahan sa KMU. Nagtitinda-tinda din ako nun sa palengke – isda, tsinelas. Minsan din binibigyan kami ng bigas at gatas ng mga madre na sumusuporta kay Ka Bel at sa ibang mga political prisoners,” she says.

By then they were living in a squatters’ community in Gao, Commonwealth, Quezon City, where they still live to this day. Ka Osang would walk from Commonwealth to Crame where Ka Bel was detained.

For two years, Ka Osang not only became the mother and father to their children, but also proxy labor leader: she delivered Ka Bel’s speeches for him in the rallies, and became a volunteer for Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP). She studied acupressure and acupuncture, and applied what she learned whenever she went to Crame and Muntinlupa, where other poldets were incarcerated. Along with the wives, daughters, and relatives of other political prisoners, Ka Osang lobbied for their release.

But the Marcos government was adamant. No way would it release one of its prized captives. Ka Bel was then KMU secretary general, and the president, one of the original pillars of the labor movement in the country Felixberto ‘Ka Bert’ Olalia was also under custody.

By 1984, Ka Bert had already succumbed to the constant torture of the military, as well as the dampness of the jail cells. He died of pneumonia.

“Dun na talaga ako natakot. May sakit na rin si Ka Bel nun – sa kidney naman. Ayaw siyang bigyan ng maayos na tulong medikal sa kulungan, kaya lumala yung kundisyon niya habang tumatagal. Si Ka Bert namatay na, ayaw kong masunod si Ka Bel,” Ka Osang narrated. She took action.

In Crame, she consulted with her husband and hatched a plan of escape. Ka Bel would come home for a few hours’ visit for the supposed birthday of a young nephew, then from there make his way to freedom.

  Then she went to Ka Bel’s lawyers – Attys. Joker Arroyo and Rene Saguisag. “Sinabi ko sa kanilang wag pumunta sa hearing ng kaso si Ka Bel. Sa araw na yung tatakas si Ka Bel.”

The two men were incredulous – they thought Ka Osang was joking. “Tinanong nila ako – handa ba akong mabugbog?” Sagot ko, oo. Handa ka bang mamatay? Oo. Ang mahalaga makalaya siya. Pero di pa rin sila naniwala. ”

On the day of the children’s party, neighbors and friends came and pretended to celebrate. Ka Bel arrived with his guards. Beforehand, he and Ka Osang agreed on a sign – after putting down his second bottle of beer, he would make his move. He downed his second beer (“Yung beer para malabanan ang kaba - takot kasi siya para sa akin”) . There wasn’t a chance to say good-bye. He excused himself under the pretext of having to urinate. When he got to the toilet, he pulled out the piece of loose board, and squeezed himself through a rough hole made in the wall. Then his guards noticed the inordinately long time Ka Bel was taking. They broke down the toilet door and saw the gaping hole. They quickly turned on Ka Osang and began beating her.

“Suntok, sampal, sabunot. Di ko na malaman kung ano ang mas masakit, yung mukha ko ba, yung dibdib,” she remembers. They punched her in the stomach and dragged her outside, to the public basketball court which was a few meters walk from the house.

“Tinadyakan ako. Akala nila sasaklolohan ako ni Ka Bel kung marinig niya ang mga sigaw ko. Pero malayo na sya noon.”

For a month or so after, soldiers would be stationed around the house, and the house became a virtual garrison. But Ka Osang was unfazed. One time, a burly soldier asked her for a glass of water. She ignored the request.

“Namura ko yung sundalo. Sabi ko, ang dami-daming kriminal na nagkalat – sa Malacanang lang ang dami na – pero bakit kami ang binabantayan?’

Ka Bel went into hiding in Central Luzon. It’s something of a legend in the labor movement that he was taken in by members of the New People’s Army who heard of his escape. For two years, he took shelter with the rebels and took the nom de guerre “Ka Anto” after one of the fathers of the labor movement, Crisanto Evangelista.But instead of an armalite, Ka Anto carried a portable typewriter.

“Sa mga bahay na sinisilungan ng hukbo, may mga batang nasa high school. Ginawa nila akong taga-makinilya. Ako yung nagta-type ng mga assignment at term paper nila,” he says smiling.

Every three to five months, Ka Osang would visit her husband. It was a complicated process, and very tiring. She went on her pilgrimage to Central Luzon until the Marcos was ousted via People Power on February 25. When Corazon Aquino became president, she ordered the release of all political prisoners, and in particular mentioned Ka Bel.

Ka Osang herself went to take her husband home.

On hindsight, Ka Osang wonders where she got her strength. “Siguro dahil lagi akong sabik makita sya kaya di ko na pinansin yung pagod,” she says. But more importantly, she adds, she was bouyed by the knowledge that her husband was an inspiration to many. “Naging aktibista na rin ang ibang anak namin. Walang galit sa mga anak namin kahit  may panahong lumaki silang walang tatay – alam nila kung ano ang pinaglalaban ng ama nila.”

And what does Ka Bel have to say about his wife?

He recites a few lines from the song Kasama by Gary Granada: “Hindi lang siya kaibigan, di lang siya kapatid. Di lang kasintahan, o kaisang-dibdib. Di lang siya asawa, o inang uliran. Siya’y aking kasama, sa mapagpalayang kilusan.”

In private, they call each other ‘Ma’ and ‘Daddy.’ He says Ka Osang has a sharp tongue. “Istrikto sya sa mga bata. Pero pag may nagka-problema ang kahit sino sa kanila, bibitawan ang lahat. Kahit sakit ng sarili niyang katawan, nakakalimutan niya,” he says. A  grandson, 17-year old Cris, agrees. “Si Lola lang ang laging nanenermon, si Lolo, tahimik lang. Pero spoiled kaming lahat sa kanilang dalawa.”

Ka Bel says he is well-taken care of. Ka Osang insists on preparing his clothes every morning, whether it’s the round-collar shirts he wears to rallies, or the barong tagalogs for Congress. “Alam ko kung hindi siya ang naglalaba ng damit ko. Iba ang pakiramdam.”

She is also his chief confidante. He shares with her the details of his day – the rallies he marched in, the general mass assemblies of the local unions he has attended, and lately, about the Congress committee meetings and other legislative functions he goes to. “Siya naman kinukwento sa akin ang kakulitan ng mga apo namin,” he shares.

For a couple whose meeting and marriage are unusual at the least, Ka Bel and Ka Osang’s marriage is solid and loving. Proof of this is their 10 children, who, in turn, have given them 27 grandchildren. Oh, Osang says cheekily, there were times when Ka Bel was younger, he did a bit of fooling around, but he always returned to her.  That was when the first three children were very young, and Ka Bel and Ka Osang  had frequent quarrels (“Pero nagsisi naman siya – nag-kursillo sa simbahan, naging sakristan pa nga!”).

They don’t like going to movies – more often, they would just the two of them go to Bulacan and visit relatives. Every two years or so, they would travel to Albay.

Still very much like the 15-year old he rescued 48 years ago, Ka Osang becomes petulant when Ka Bel breaks his promises. “Minsan sobrang busy yan, di kami makapuntang Bulacan,” she scolds.

“Pero naiintindihan ko din. Nami-miss ko lang naman siya. Marami kasi akong kahati  sa kanya, ang mga manggagawa at ang sambayanan.” #

A review of “Jose Ma. Sison: At Home in the World” by Ninotchka Rosca

Open Hand Publishing, 2004

To read  Ninotchka Rosca’s “Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World” is not just to discover the controversial man, but to learn  the political and economic history of the Philippines, understand the nature of global conflict, and to find that there is hope for genuine justice and freedom for the poor and working people.

Jose Maria Sison’s politics is well known, but not well-understood. Through the malicious efforts of the media and other information agents of the Philippine government and the United States, Sison’s reputation is as much based on purported infamy as it is on widespread respect. Rosca has written a  book that succeeds in explaining the Sison way and introducing the turbulent history of the Philippines with sensitivity, intelligence, and genuine warmth.

Through Rosca’s eyes, the way she has documented her conversations with Sison, Sison as never before is revealed in all his aspects – a revolutionary, ideologue, and as an ordinary human being  who chose to attempt the extraordinary and noble: build a people’s liberation movement that has survived three decades of fascist and puppet governments as well as potentially mortal errors.

——————

Literature and Politics

Acclaimed novelist Ninotchka Rosca has written and put together a book that is certain to go down in Philippine literary and journalistic history as one of the most definitive documents of the nation’s political and historical development. Though it is titled to be a biography, reading though it  one will immediately grasp that it is much more than a description and narration of the personal saga of one extraordinary Filipino and leader, but an incisive and critical telling of the Filipino nation’s past and present, and offers a glimpse into what challenges lie ahead for the country and its people.

Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World  is an amazing read. Even those who are practically clueless and tragically uninformed regarding the true state of the nation and world developments will find it compelling.

For one, the subject of the biography, Jose Ma. Sison is one of the most known individuals that ever made a dent in the public’s consciousness. This is, no doubt, an understatement as Sison, as it is well-documented and brilliantly depicted in Rosca’ book, has not only influenced politics in the country but actually shaped and even directed the course of the nation’s history and impacted on the lives of millions of Filipinos and even peoples of other nationalities.

For another, it is written by Ninotchka Rosca, one of the few Filipino journalists and literary writers who are respected not merely for their craft, but for their advocacy and politics.

At first it was a cause for a little disappointment that the book it mostly comprised of transcriptions of conversations between the author and the celebrated subject. After all, Rosca is an established literary voice, and it would have been more than a treat to read her own words describing Sison, giving shape and image to the man known to be both an ideological behemoth and a notorious joker and wit.

But reading through the book, one realizes that Rosca did make her distinctive literary mark in her treatment of the subject. It came out not just in the autobiographical sketch wherein she introduced her subject and gave a hint of the kind and extraordinary humanity the subject possesses NOT separate from the larger than life cause he has chosen to embrace and further, but in the questions she asked her subject, and how she has phrased them.

The Man is his politics and ideology

The biography being divided in to five chapters could be mistaken to be a straight, chronological account of Sison’s life and times. For the most part the biography is bound and outlined by time; but the topics jump back and forth and interconnect seamlessly, like a mobius strip.

The chapter titles give an idea of what each segment contains Chapter 1, for instance, titled “A Dangerous Existence” details how Sison was forced into exile by the Corazon Aquino Administration and what he did to continue his revolutionary work abroad. But it also gives insight into Sison’s thoughts and feelings and more importantly his experiences not just as the intellectual and ideologue, but as an actual living, breathing Red Fighter.

It’s not well-known to all that Sison had and has it in him to be physically acting out his convictions. The descriptions of how he led rallies were not new; and the experiences of joining demonstrations and getting arrested by police, especially for the members of the Philippine legal, democratic mass movement are ordinary. But in his conversations with Rosca, Sison gives a plain but all the same harrowing account of his ten-year imprisonment and torture during the Marcos dictatorship.

His description of the torture – the dehumanizing, soul-killing treatment he suffered inside the prison cells is given in his own words – plain and simple, straightforward language. But the very plainness, the sobriety of the description are what precisely gives the shock-effect; jolts the reader into realizing that even a fraction of what the Sison went through would have broken a lesser man or woman.

Sison, however, survived and lived to tell the tale with no self-aggrandizement or drama. (It would be good to note that in previous video interviews, Sison has narrated the experience of torture with humor, and this makes one all the more amazed at the strength of the man’s spirit and the force of his interior will.)

In the meantime, Sison,  for years has been accused of being nothing more than a pencil pusher, issuing commands via press statements and other documents. Through Rosca’s incisive and - yes, even gossipy questioning- however, bits and pieces of Sison’s lively personality and distinctly strong and surprisingly down-to-earth character have been revealed like never before.

More importantly, Rosca succeeded in making Sison explain, in his own words, using his own prodigious grasp of Marxist analysis,  Philippine history and world developments. Questions regarding Sison’s work and study habits, his personal quirks and relatively trivial travails (such as his former problems quitting smoking, and how he feels and reacts to slurs and attacks against himself in the media)are given answers that inevitably end up as analysis and narration of  economic and political developments.

Queries on specific developments in the aformentioned areas, on the other hand, are answered with personal anecdotes. For instance, when Sison is asked about the murder by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM)of labor leader Rolando Olalia and what it implied in the context of peace negotiations with the then Aquino government, Sison’s answer is deeply heartfelt: he felt a measure of guilt and responsibility for Ka Lando and his aid Ka Leonor Alay-ay’s murders because he, Sison, was most likely the original target.

The plainness and calmness of Sison’s words all throughout reveal not just a keen intellect or an expansive memory for detail, but a deep sincerity and feeling as well. The weight and depth of the subjects Sison discusses with Rosca in the book is equal to that of mountains and oceans, and Rosca has chosen to allow Sison to give his explanations in his own words, his own particular nuances, and his personal emphasis.

This all made for a book that is both political and personal; historical and biographical. Unlike most biographies that center on the life of the individual and his or her thoughts and feelings about his or her own self, JMS: At Home in the World is a biography not just of a man, but of nation and a people.

Philippine and World History 101

As mentioned in previous paragraphs, readers with no background or interest in world developments or even local politics would find themselves compelled to read At Home in the World.

The story behind the infamous terrorist branding of Sison and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) is explained in the book, and the issue is made simpler to comprehend: Sison is a fairly large and painful thorn on the side of the agents of US imperialism and Philippine bureaucrat capitalism, and all means must be exhausted to get him out of circulation. No accusation is too baseless and absurd, hence the terrorist label.

Clarifications and explanations regarding the 2^nd Rectification Movement of the Philippine revolutionary movement are also presented; and readers who are either unfamiliar with the phenomenon (which once hogged the headlines back in the early nineties and even up to the present is referred to by political analysts and pundits as a turning point in Philippine political history) or familiar and outraged by it will find Sison’s account of what happened (the errors committed by the mainstream Left, the damage wrought, and the struggle to recover and reclaim lost strength) yet again clean, honest and humble.

As for the candid answers on the workings of the CPP, the NPA and the National Democratic Front, they all serve demystify the said organizations which are the constant and steady targets of the govenrment’s propaganda machinery. Often demonized by the state-run media and agents of the US’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) masquerading as journalists and political analysts, the CPP, NPA and NDF are revealed to be revolutionary organizations of the Filipino people; groups whose main mandates are to defend the Filipino people and carry forward and bring to reality their dreams and aspirations for a nation free from exploitation and oppression.

All throughout the book, various names and events are mentioned and discussed. It’s a crash course on the Who’s Who in Philippine mainstream politics and the Left Movement. For martial law babies who are now in their late 20s and early 30s, it is appalling to read the names of certain officials and leaders of the Marcos administration and realize that they are still officials in the current administration under Pres.Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It is also no less than a reason for outrage that the events that shaped the turbulent 70s – the violent dispersals, the police abuses and the military operations that resulted in vicious human rights violations and serious attacks against civil and democratic rights continue to present day.

What counter-balances the anger generated by the paragraphs detailing these, however, is the sheer hope and certainty that justice will triumph also generated by Sison’s description and analysis of the continuing tasks of the progressive people’s movement in the Philippines.

These and reports of the ever-increasing ranks of Filipinos and people of other nationalities who come from the workers, peasants, urban and rural poor and other working and progressive sectors who stand united against US imperialism and its interference in the internal economic, political and military affairs of what should be sovereign nations.

Guidebook for young activists

Finally, the book also serves as Sison’s guidepost for young activists and progressives.

Sison is an inspiration for young activists, particularly those with a peti-bourgeois background. Awareness of his life and the way he has lived and continues to live it serves to strengthen young activists’ faith and conviction in the correctness of the Revolution, continuous study, the forging of discipline, and cultivation of humility.

Anecdotes involving  Sison’s colleagues in the NDF, including wife and comrade Juliet de Lima Sison; and how they do their work for the Philippine revolution abroad also give further insight into what it is like to be a revolutionary. Sison and the others in the NDF office in Utrecht, the Netherlands by and large started off as ordinary beings- Filipinos with strong family values, distinctly Pinoy humor, everyday hobbies – but they have become extraordinary because they chose to devote their lives – heart, body, mind and strength – to the Philippine revolution and the international proletarian struggle.

What is most particularly inspiring about Sison’s life, at least for this reviewer, is the way he has through the years maintained his essential lightheartedness. Through all the personal and political attacks from the various enemies of the Filipino people and the vicious accusations leveled against him and the movement he has helped build, Sison has succeeded in keeping his humanity more than intact.  There are countless anecdotes revealing his essential self – his quick humor, his intellectual brilliance, his warmth and consideration for comrades and colleagues.

In the end, At Home in the World only re-affirms the basic truth that his enemies assiduously try to obfuscate and destroy. That the kind of person Sison is only reflects the kind of movement he belongs to, the kind of revolution he is helping to lead and give direction to. Sison is not only at home in the world, he represents one of the strongest forces that help shape and change it.#

All this noise and fury about amending the 1987 Constitution! How dare these allies of Malacanang  say that this is the issue Filipinos are most preoccupied with. These men and women have the gall  say that to amend the Constitution is to secure a good future, a stable tomorrow for Filipinos and the coming generations. People are starving, and it’s doubful that while they hear and feel their stomachs rumble, as they twist and crumple from agonizing pangs of hunger they will be whispering "charter change now."

On August 2, 2005, the Social
Weather Station released the result of their survey on charter change: “seven in ten of adult Filipinos believe that there are
no constitutional provisions which need to be changed at the moment.” 

 The
progressive lawmakers of Anakpawis, Bayan Muna and Gabriela Women’s Party
strongly echo  the view of majority of Filipinos there are no
constitutional provisions which urgently need to be changed at the present
time; and that in fact amending the Charter at this juncture will only benefit Macapagal-Arroyo who’s clinging to power by the skin of her formerly beave-like teeth.  They oppose Committee Report (CR) No. 1065 on House Concurrent Resolution
(HCR) No. 26, “Concurrent Resolution calling Congress to convene jointly to
propose amendments to, or revision of, the 1987 Constitution,”  saying that Charter Change is not at all the solution
to the crises currently faced by the Filipino people, nor it will be a solution
to the “continuing political instability and serious economic difficulties
through the last eighteen (18) years.”

 We
should oppose Charter change as pushed by the allies of Malacanang and their CR1065 on the following
grounds:

 1. CR 1065 is an amended CR 413. In the 9^th committee meeting of
the Committee on Constitutional Amendments (August 16, 2005), Committee Report
No. 413 was reviewed, and upon motion of Rep. Mauricio Domogan, approved
amendment to the committee report by changing the phrase “constitute themselves
as a Constituent Assembly” to “ convene jointly.”

 Amending a Committee Report
is a clear
violation of Section 38 (Committee Reports and Orders) paragraph 3 of the Rules
of the House of Representatives (13^th Congress), which states:

 “Once a committee report is approved, the report and
the corresponding measure it covers shall no longer be subject to any change,
amendment or alteration, except correction (s) of typographical errors."

 2.The revision of an already
approved Committee report for the purpose of pushing constitutional amendments
despite Senate’s disapproval is a clear violation of the Constitution, which
provides for Congress as a bicameral legislature, voting separately, for the purposes
of checks and balances.

 Senate and the House of
Representatives are co-equal bodies in a bicameral system, each house of
Congress should vote separately, for one Congressman vote is not equal to one
Senator vote.

 CR 413 was clearly revised in
response to the Senate’s negative stance to Constitutional Amendment. In the revised resolution, Congress will
convene jointly with the assumption of “voting jointly,” that is, 195
signatures may be enough to push for constitutional change.

 3.There is no genuine public
clamor to revise or change the Constitution. At least not now, and certainly not withing the framework of the incumbent illegal executive and her sychopants in Congress . Seven in ten of adult Filipinos believe
that there are no constitutional provisions which need to be changed at the
moment. The percentage notably
increased from 59% in September 1992 to 70% in August of this year.

Besides, the real public clamor for is for an across-the-board wage hike, a stop to the oil price hikes, the junking of the EVAT, and - of course - the removal of the illegal occupant of Malacanang.

 4. Changing the highest law
of the land needs genuine public consultations and information
dissemination. Consultations are
supposed to be democratic. The
Committee, however, did not invite anti-charter change resource persons in the
committee deliberations. Moreover, the
committee also approved to conduct massive information campaign on the pros and
cons of the two modes of proposing amendments to the Constitution: Constituent
Assembly and Constitutional Convention. Unfortunately, not one was realized—a clear violation of Section 26
paragraph 2 of the Rules of the House of Representatives:

 “…committees shall
establish appropriate systems and procedures to ensure that constituencies,
sectors and groups whose interests are affected by any pending measure are
given sufficient opportunities to be heard, pursue dialogues and consultation
with affected sectors and constituencies, conduct researches and engage the
services and assistance of experts and professionals from the public and
private sectors as may be needed in the performance of their functions.”

 5. The
shift from a presidential-unitary to a unicameral-federal system will mean
nothing as long as the same elite families, parties and power brokers rule.

 6.The
“review of basic economic provisions to maximize the benefits and welfare of
the people” means opening grounds for tighter monopoly control over the economy
by foreign multinational corporations and even worse poverty for our people.

 7.Charter change could mean the total removal
of what remains of the nationalist provisions in the Constitution that protect
local industries and jobs, and advance the cause of building a self-reliant,
independent and strong national economy. It will be a free-for-all for the TNCs and the MNCs - they’ll be free to put up their factories and businesses in the Philippines with the same rights as local small businesses (but with infinitely bigger perks and support systems from the government).

 For
instance, HCR 26 proposes a 60% Filipino, 40% foreign ownership of mass media
from a 100% Filipino ownership in the present Constitution. This would have serious implications on the already backward and colonial culture we have — the impact on values and education too gruesome to contemplate. Of course there are
even worse amendments that could be made, given how pro-foreign business this government is.

And how power hungry. We haven’t even gone to the issue of curtailment of democratic and political rights.

 The Arroyo administration supported the US war on Iraq
and continues to allow joint military “trainings” in the country, which the
Filipino people have long opposed since the Estrada administration. Tracing the
history of U.S.intervention in the military affairs of the country reveals that opening the
Constitution to amendments will likely dismantle the provisions on national
sovereignty and Bill of Rights that protect civil liberties and democratic
rights of the people.

 Congressmen are breaking their own rules, and spitting on  the highest law of the land
just to push for Constitutional amendments subservient to the interests of
traditional politicians, big business groups and foreign capitalists. The people need amendments to the
Constitution of the stripe Jose de Venecia and his ilk want the same way the people would volunteer to have  their own heads cut off.

 Macapagal-
Arroyo declared that the country is under fiscal crisis and that there is a
need to generate additional revenues through the imposition of Sin Taxes, Tax
Amnesty, Tax Incentives, Value Added Tax (VAT) rate increase, VAT exemption
lifting and other revenue generating measures, all of which are additional
burden to the majority of the Filipino people who are already in deep crisis
due the relentless increases in prices of basic commodities and utilities (16x
increase in oil prices for this year alone, increase in water and electricity rates). The
government however, does not implement or impose any price control on basic
utilities such as water, electricity and oil industries despite their
skyrocketing prices the people can longer afford.

 In direct contradiction to
what it should be doing, the government pushes for privatization of all other
basic industries to the detriment of the people. The government even passed laws contrary to
the Constitution, to wit: Electric Power Industry
Reform Act, Oil Deregulation Law of 1998, Mining Act of 1995, Foreign
Investments Act of 1991, and Investors Lease Act of 1995
among others, which violate of Article 12 (National Economy and Patrimony) of
the Constitution.

 Aside
from economic crisis, the country is also facing political crisis. The rift between
the Senate and the House of Representatives undeniably affects the quality of
laws passed, and exposes the rotten system of elite-governance in the
country. This year the president faced
an impeachment complaint, but despite junking of the complaint in Congress, a
continuing public clamor for her removal from Malacañang continues in the
streets, in academic institutions, in the business sector, among others.

 What
the country needs now are economic and political reforms that will give them jobs, health services, freedom from debt, homelessness, malnutrition and political repression. The six-year old call of the workers for a legislated wage
increase is not yet approved in Congress. The government’s budget allocations for basic social services such as
health, education, housing and agriculture remain low despite the increasing
rate of illiteracy, homelessness, landlessness and people who cannot afford the
high cost of medication and health services.

 The
country is in the middle of a serious economic crisis, and under no
circumstances do we want another parity amendment in the Constitution like what
happened in the 1935 Constitution or the Bell Trade Act of 1946, the Laurel
Langley Agreement, among others, which granted American corporations the same
rights as Filipinos in the utilization and appropriation of natural resources.

 Every
right has a corresponding responsibility/obligation. At the time the Americans
were enjoying equal rights in the utilization of our resources, however, they
did not take on any responsibility for developing the country’s economy, or
even just ensuring that the Philippine environment is not damaged by their
relentless operations.

 Given
the circumstances surrounding the country’s economic and political stability,
aggravated by the declining trust of the people to the government and its
legislators after throwing out the impeachment complaint against the Mrs.
Arroyo, amending the Constitution at this point  will only exacerbate the country’s problems than
provide solutions for the country’s recovery.#

For Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo - who sez the media should write about winners and uplifting events

Do we really have an idea what exhaustion is?

Sure, there have been days when I’ve felt that if  I sat down, I would not be able to get up again any time soon afterwards. Like my legs have been turned to jelly, and my head feeling slightly enlarged like a mutant onion, my brain longing to shut itself down temporarily.

But when I think of how the poor and working people of this country toil day in, day out and never really head anywhere but towards even greater poverty and want (contact the Department of Labor and the Office of the President for more details as to why this is), I stop complaining and somehow I feel as if I’ve been recharged: anger and outrage are exhausting, but they’re better pick-me-uppers than Lipovitan or Berocca. 

Raymund Aguba, 29, a worker of Masuda Phil. Inc. in the Laguna Technopark knew what it was like to straddle the border between wakefulness and sleep; to feel the pull of death which, for slaves like the Filipinos forced to build railways and galleons under polo y servicio, mean rest from neverending physical exertion.

Raymund went to work on July 1st on his usual 6am-2pm shift, but his supervisor told him that he had to continue working that same night, and work the 10pm-6am shift. Raymund complied.

The following morning at 6 am of July 2nd, he was still not allowed to go home because, as the manager reportedly insisted, Raymund had not reached his quota.

By 10 am, he requested a break, but he was not allowed, and was given permission to rest two hours later. After an hour, he was again told to return to work, and not leave till 6pm.

By the time the clock struck 6, Raymund was on the verge of fainting, and soon enough he collapsed. His co-workers rushed to his aid, and sought the assistance of the management on his behalf. The management did nothing , did not even give him first aid and merely told the workers to wait.

After five minutes, Raymund regained consciousness, and the manager, Rod Arevalo, told him to go home. Accompanied by a co-worker, Raymund weakly stood up and began to leave. After a few steps, he fainted again, and was rushed to Balibago Polyclinic.

Five hours later, Raymund died. The attending doctors said that his death was a result of over-fatigue, after working 20 straight hours without sleep.

This is a true story. The factory where Raymund worked is Masuda Phil. Inc. It’s owned owned by Masayoshi Masuda, a Japanese businessman. In operation for the last 10 years, the company manufactures and supplies spare parts for Honda Motors and Honda Cars Philippines. Masuda has a total workforce of almost 800 employees. Of these, only 35 are regular, while the rest are hired on a contractual basis from three different contracting agencies – the TOSH, ENS, and San Roque Agency.

Raymund was a contractual worker hired by San Roque Agency. According to Masuda workers, their supervisors frequently forced them to work beyond the law-mandated 8-hour maximum. The supervisors also reportedly go to the workers’ homes and order them to return to the plant, at the risk of losing their already precarious contractual employment.

Does the media report things such as work-related deaths? Raymund was not the first and it’s dead-certain that he won’t be the last to literally drop dead because of labor exploitation. These things make it to to the tabloids as sensation stories ("Obrero, natigbak sa pagod!", or "Manggagawa, dedbol sa paggawaan ng spareparts!"), and more often than not, the company righfully to blame for the death is not named or, if it’s mentioned, mostly cleared of responsibility.

As if the worker just dropped dead and it was his own fault that he did so.

The DOLE does little or nothing to punish businesses found violating occupational health and safety standard laws. In the course of my work for Anakpawis and KMU ( and for five years, I was also a radio commentator for Buhay Manggagawa, a program over at DZRJ sponsored by the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights or CTHUR and Ugnayang Bayan), I have heard of reports of various violations of OHS: poor ventilation in sweat shops; the lack of fire-escapes and backstairs for immediate evacuation in case of fire; lack of first aid supplies; hazardous work environments where workers deal with poisonous gasses and liquids without the law-required safety equipment like industry-standard gas masks and gloves; rattly elevators which often fail; etc.etc.

And then, of course, the violation of the eight-hour work limit. 

The sorry plight of workers is nothing new. It’s not news. But the fact that these things seldom get reported doesn’t mean that they’re not newsworthy, or that they shouldn’t be paid attention to. Imagine being paid P75-P100 a day after working a minimum of eight hours daily! Imagine having to push 500 kgs worth of cut cloth up three flights of stairs because you’re too afraid to use the rickety elevator!

Because of the kind of government in power, and because of the kind of political and cultural system entrenched, there are no Labor Sections or Peasant Page in newspapers. There’s the Lifestyle section and the Business section, and they detail the life and times of the rich and famous, the thieving and the infamous. The public is treated to reports of the bag, shoe and jeans collection of some high-society princess; or the jet-setting adventures of some business tycoon taking a break from the Company (exhausted by all those hours counting the zeroes in his bank account!).

But what about the news about the poor?

They’re often portrayed as drug addicts, sex maniacs and rapists, the dregs of society living in the most god-forsaken corners of the metropolis ; or the recipients and beneficiaries of the ‘generosity’ and ‘charity’ of such institutions as Henry Sy’s foundation or some other bleeding heart institution which is actually backed by the likes of the Lopezes who rob the people blind by jacking electrity rates on regular basis.

The nameless and faceless Filipino poor. Being fed the scraps and leavings of the decadent rich; used as elements in Macapagal-Arroyo’s photo-opportunity shots in front of the foreign press.

Macapagal-Arroyo is such horrible copy! I don’t envy the reporters who have to listen, take down and write about the tripe she and her various spokespersons issue daily. Talk about writing about losers! What right has she to accuse and exhort the media of destabilizing the country when it she, herself who is the main reason why the country remains in economic free fall.

Sure, the Philippine media still has a ways to before it can be truly called a fighting media (strong, independent, credible and genuinely progressive), but at this point, it’s still doing its duty to report the new-worthy events that take place. Isn’t it supposed to be the Fourth Estate — the watchdog of the government.

I find it actually pathetic that she’s taken to accusing the media for the mess she’s in. It’s the media who write about and report the events– not make them. Macapagal-Arroyo image of notoriety is no one else’s fault but her own.She wants to muzzle and gag the media into silence, turn it a mute witness to the swift and critical twists and turns in the country’s political developments.

What Macapagal-Aroyo wants is a brainless media who will only report fluff pieces and the lies masquerading as progress reports as concocted by her spin doctors. This is an outrageous insult against journalists and their respective institutions who seek to perform their duties and responsiblities to the public as best as they can.

The truth is, everyone who speaks out against the corruption, intensifying political repression and burgeoning dictatorship of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration is automatically an enemy. Automatically, for Malacanang and its defenders, these people should be silenced.   

The president of dubious legitimacy has no moral or legal ascendancy to chastise or criticize the media much less the leaders of the opposition. She has lied, cheated and stolen her way to office, and the country continues to sink deep intp penury because of her corruption. Media should ignore her rants and not be dissuaded, pressured or threatened into stopping their reportage about, say, the Citizens’ Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA) or other events and activities of various groups that seek to expose the truth about this corrupt admnistration.

____

Often I wish I had happier things to write about.

Or rather, I wish the happy  or amusing things I can actually write about (playing with my dogs Poofy and Funny, for instance. Or laughing like a loony over the antics of the Madagascar Penguins; or admitting, however grundgingly, that Kris Aquino can actually act well. At least she did in Feng Shui.) were more compelling than the unhappy things I see, hear and experience everyday.   

I can probably write like a sap if I wanted to. A documentor of  cheerful events and phenomena. Be like Tim Yap of the activist world, why not? Maybe in the next few days I’ll try to write about the good things that happen in the Movement, in this wretched society instead of dwelling on the sadness and anguish.

Like who fell in love with whom. Or how so-and-so looked with her new haircut when she attended the CCTA activity last November 9.

Or how funny so-and-so when he imitated Malacanang spokesperson Ignacio Bunye presenting the ‘fake’ and ‘original’ Hello, Garci CDs. Articles on the latest in Tibak fashions (or where tibaks get their clothes. Shopping for an entire ensemble for under P200!)? or maybe 10 Things an Activist usually has in his/her backpack( Ex. filofax or planner; a second-hand celphone; malong; ballpens; stenopad or notebook; bimpo or tubao; list of emergency numbers just in case he/she get arrested by police; toothbrush and toothpaste; cigarrettes and lighter (if smoker; if not, candy); latest memo from the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) and schedule of activities and rallies.)

Or maybe a list of up and coming young, upwardly mobile (hahaha!) national democrats like LFS chair Vencer Crisostomo, UP DARE spokesperson Mong Palatino, writer/painter Lisa Ito. How activists spend their vacation? Or lifestyle Q&As featuring, um, Dr. Carol Araullo (whom I heard takes care of three cats!); or Bayan Muna Rep. Joel Virador (who’s a lean, mean videoke machine operator: nang-aagaw ng mike). A visit to Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran’s bedroom (there’s a huge carved/etched portrait of suffering Jesus on his wall: something Ka Bel made while in prison), or how BAYAN secretary-general Nato Reyes learned to play the guitar and his dreams of being in a showdown concert against Paolo Santos.

That’s an idea - an Eventologist for activist activities. Cool.

You are what you believe in. You are what you stand for. You are how you live your life and for whom. A person is the sum of all his/her parts — and this includes all the words uttered or written; songs sung and listened to, the daily deeds and outpouring of euphoria, anguish or anger.

Our passions often are what govern us — sometimes subtly, sometimes with the nakedness of a man shedding his clothes before bathing. We are defined by the things dearest and nearest us, how we interpret cloud formations, the constellation of stars, the rythmic rocking of waves hitting the shore. We are our ideas. But much more than that, we are how we take part in society: parasite, benefactor, productive and involved member. Slug or running tiger.

I have been writing (journals, diaries, letters to family and friends) since I was eight years old and was given my first Anything Book. Often, I wrote down my thoughts and feelings to help me make sense of them. By rereading my descriptions and explanations of how my day went (as if I were an unconcerned bystander, mute and impartial but curious all the same), it helped me to understand what kind of person I was growing up to become. After all, I had my role models before me: my father, my mother, my sister - and all of them had very distinct personalities. I wanted to see whom I was most like, and, if I suddenly died, I would go to heaven or hell.

I used to make up lists like the following one- lists of things I believed in,things I hated or disagreed with, things I liked,my reactions to the world at large and to people I come across. In the process of putting labels on the hammersmash of thoughts and feelings, I became more familiar to the stranger who was myself. (Does this sound strange? The most elegant articulation of this…separate awareness of Self from actual self was espressed by Sarah Woodruff , the heroine of John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman. When pressed to explain her actions and accosted for being such an enigma, she answers: "I am infinitely strange even to myself." )

1. Violence is necessary to fight violence. It’s a sad and tragic fact; but it simply won’t do to deny this. To deny this is to allow ones’self to condone the brutality being done day in and day out to the poor, helpless and exploited. Life is precious, but those who exploit for profit and kill in defense of a system of exploitation have made life a plain commodity; and each individual a mere statistic. To sow dragon’s teeth is a noble act if it’s done in defense of life.

2. Justice means punishing those who exploit and steal from the poor; those who maintain a status quo wherein a few hundred families live in the lap of luxury while millions of others starve and die of malnutrition and disease. Justice is lightning and gentle rain: it blights and it heals.

3. The best kind of bananas are latundan. Chiesa is the weirdest looking and tasting fruit. Grapes that don’t have seeds are somewhat strange. I don’t know what the English word for atis is. Pineapples are so sour sometimes they burn your tongue like acid.

4. Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being is beautifully written (well, I don’t really know about the Czech original, but the English translation is pretty darn good), but the message it sends about socialism is strictly from the point of view of narrow-minded, self-obsessed intellectuals whose main fears and worries are for themselves.

5. In the war of belief and opinions, nobody really wins. People state their stand and argue with those who have opposing views for years and decades and even centuries on end. Gigabytes are used up, along with reams and reams of paper equivalent to hundres of acres of rainforests cut down and grain-silos of ink in the campaign to express ideas, emotion, anguish, anger, euphoria. No one, however, is really convinced with mere words. How these words affect the reader and goad him or her to change his/her worldview and push him/her to take action is what, in the end, truly counts. A greater war is necessary to settle the issue.

————————–

There are days when I becoe strongly aware of my own past, reminded of things I’ve done, felt or experienced: a slightest smell or sound brings me back. Yesterday I woke up at around 6am, and it was still dark outside. It was raining gently, and it felt simply peaceful — as if, if I stepped out the door, I would be entering a wild and uncultivated garden, with every inch covered with dandelions, daisies and sunflowers. 

It was the cold weather that reminded me, and the faint sound of a nursery rhyme or lullaby  our next door neighbor was softly singing to her baby as she nursed him).

I remembered St. Catherine Station in Utrecht, the Netherlands being peaceful at 9am. There are people hurrying about — civilians rushing to board their trains heading for Germany or Belgium, or rushing to meet loved ones getting off the trains from Germany or Belgium; employees sweeping the pale gray and bone-white tile floors; shop-keepers dusting their shelves or rearranging jars of candy, sheafs of newspapers, magazines, bouquets of full-bloom flowers in their gleaming aluminum tubs.

I pick up my blue and green backpack and lug it over my shoulder, my ears tickled by the wafts of cool air wafting from the airconditioning units and the breeze coming through through the open doors that lead to the street outside. I am wide awake yet sleepy at the same time. The world is a completely new place, and everywhere around me, the people are pale-skinned and mostly blond. I am bundled up in a sweater and a jacket, a black knitted scarf around my neck, while everyone else seem to be clad only in the usual shirt and jeans.

I pick up my blue and green backpack and lug it over my shoulder, my ears tickled by the wafts of cool air wafting from the airconditioning units and the breeze coming through through the open doors that lead to the street outside. I am wide awake yet sleepy at the same time. The world is a completely new place, and everywhere around me, the people are pale-skinned and mostly blond. I am bundled up in a sweater and a jacket, a black knitted scarf around my neck, while everyone else seem to be clad only in the usual shirt and jeans.

I smell brewed coffee and cinammon buns toasting. I hear the wheels of small suitcases whirring and rotating, making gentle,frictioned contact with the cold floor. I am happy where I am, just standing here, feeling alive. This may well have been how it felt when I was born - my senses being awakened for the first time.

I know the businessmen and the traitors in this despicable government are well aware of how destructive the impact of the expanded value added tax is on the lives and welfare of the poor and working people. They may be a corrupt and immoral lot- but am certain they’re not stupid. They damn well know that the EVAT is a regressive measure and that it’s akin to poison being forced down the throats of the poor.

They know this.

But they don’t care.

And this is what makes these business groups and this government (and the loathsome lawmakers who voted the new EVAT into being, and the Supreme Court justices who upheld the EVAT’s supposed constitutionality) deserving of the fate worse than the fate worse than death.

Like being fed to the sharks.

One limb at a time.

One bite every 15 minutes (am thinking of trained sharks).

Consider: the EVAT’s implementation further widens the abyss that stretch between the incomes of ordinary Filipino households and the prices of basic goods and services. As it stands, the prevailing minimum wage in Metro Manila (where it is highest) is just 48% of the estimated P681 daily cost of living for a family of six according to the National Wages and Productivity Commission or NWPC.

Because of the EVAT, households earning less than P15T/month will have to shoulder and added P600-900 in expenses. Simply put, families will be forced to spend less because food and other basic necessities will costs more, and rates for services such as electricity and transportation will be even higher.

Imagine parents telling their children to eat less. Or to get used to never eating breakfast but instead settle for a cup of weak coffee in the mornings to warm their little tummies.

The EVAT is so anti-poor — the rich and poor pay the same tax for a particular product, but the rich actually pay less relative to his or her income.

A rich family will have no problem buying a sack of rice even if the price increases by P200. But the family of, say, an ordinary taho/tofu factory laborer, or a garbage man from Leonel or REN transport? P200 is a massive amount.

Actually, this is a highly inaccurate anology because poor families buy rice a kilo at a time. A kilo, for those who are not aware, costs P25 if it’s of passing quality. Cheap NFA rice costs P15-19 a kilo, last time I checked. NFA rice tastes and looks dead and rotten. I know this because I’ve eaten it.

Government says its going to use the EVAT collections to improve social services. That the funds will go back to the people in the form of improved services like health, housing and education.

Yeah, right! Who the hell does this government think it’s kidding?! It’s implementing a privatization program of all public hospitals (among them the PGH, the Lung Center, Kidney Center and the Heart Center), and the budgets of state colleges and universities are being severly cut down to size!

As for housing, utang na loob. That’s also being privatized through the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development of DHUD. Read the committee report on DHUD and you’ll notice how many business terms are contained in it — bank arrangements, financial contracts and all that technical stuff that mean only one thing: the private sector calls the shots and to hell with the urban poor if they can’t pay a minimum of P5,000-P7,000 a month for a watered-down cement and plaster house slightly bigger than a chicken coop.

Ang sarap magmura!!!!

The truth is this: billions of VAT payments are lost annually due to corruption. "Lost" is actually euphemism for ninakaw, kinumlimbat, binulsa. According to the National Tax Research Center , the government loses an average 30% of the expected annual collections from the present VAT Law due to leakage.

"Leakage" is probably another euphemism. Maybe for "unreported, unliquidated, mysteriously disappeared and unaccounted for."

How much does this ‘leakage’ and ‘loss’ amount  to? Annual losses amounting to PhP41 Billion or PhP208 Billion from 1998-2002!  In the meantime, the various fiscal incentives laws enacted by the crocodile farm also known as Congress have allowed firms engaged in exports and those under investment priority areas to avail of various VAT exemptions and zero-rated privileges that amounted to P195.5 billion in 2003 alone.

This is more than the P194-billion budget deficit in 2004!

If you want to know where your taxes go - close your eyes and what you see is  where all of it went.

For all the yammering of GMA’s economic advisers like Joey Salceda, the EVAT will not end the present economic crisis. Like, duh! On the contrary, it will exacerbate it. Because when we speak of the economy, shouldn’t we be speaking of the labor force? The working sectors? The vast army of Filipino workers and peasants and middle class?

Their welfare is already so compromised and it’s reflected in the way the economy is doing.

The EVAT just means more money for the crocodiles in barong tagalogs and americanas.

And now, while the EVAT sends prices soaring (like a strong and violent wind blowing, causing cans and bottles and LPG tanks to fly off shelves and their steel-enclosed box-corners. A cyclone sending a barong-barong with Juan, Maria and Pepe and Pilar — not to mention Tagpi– in it to the Land of Oz, only when they get there, the house lands on them. Gloria, the Wicked Witch of the East, cackles madly.) 

What makes all this even more bitter, even more difficult to bear is this: government refuses to implement an across-the-board wage increase.

Dahil sa EVAT, lalong tumitibay at lalong nagiging kagyat ang pangangailangan na itaas ang sahod ng mga manggagawa. Dahil sa traydor na EVAT, lalong lumiliit ang halaga ng kakarampot na sahod ng manggagawa.

Dahil sa EVAT, wala na halos mabibili ang sobrang babang sahod na sa NCR ay pumapatak ang tunay na halaga sa mas mababa pa sa P170 kada araw.

Dahil sa EVAT, lalong lalampas sa kakayanan ng ordinaryong manggagawa ang presyo ng mga batayang produkto at serbisyong panlipunan. Taong 1999 pa nang isampa sa Kongreso ang panukala para sa pagtataas ng sahod ng P125 na legislated at across-the-board. Taong 2005 na ngayon, pero wala pa ring nangyayari sa napakamakatarungan at mahalagang panawagang ito.

Kamakailan, lumabas sa midya na nais daw ni Macapagal-Arroyo na magkaroon ng pagtataas ng sahod. Magandang balita na sana ito, ngunit kaagad ding nalantad na peke. Binawi din agad ni Arroyo dahil napraning ang mga negosyante. Heto namang si Arroyo, ever desperate to keep business on her side, backpedalled faster than a lunatic clown on a unicycle.

Sa halip na itulak ng Malacanang ang Konggreso na gawing priority bill na ang HB 345 o ang panukalang nagtataas ng sahod ng P125 para sa lahat ng manggagawa, pinagtatabuyan na naman ng gobyerno ang mga manggagawa na pumunta na lang daw ulit sa regional wage boards at magmakaawa  para sa pagtataas ng sahod.

Gaya ng inaasahan, ganito na rin ang mga argumento ng DOLE ng kampon ni Satanas na si Patricia Sto. Tomas at mga samahan ng mga ganid at swapang na kapitalista at employer sa pamumuno ng Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ECOP) and that false nationalist Raul Concepcion.

Namaos na ang mga manggagawa sa kakapaliwanag tungkol sa pagiging walang-hiya at inutil ng mga regional wage boards. Mula nang itayo ang mga taksil na wage boards na yan noong 1989, wala na silang ginawa kundi ipako ang sahod sa sahig, at tiyaking hindi ito itaas, ayun na rin sa kagustuhan ng malalaking negosyante at kapitalista.

Kung gaano katagal nang iginigiit ng mga manggagawa ang pagtataas ng sahod, gayundin katagal nila ipinapanawagang ibasura na ang mga regional wage boards.

Sadyang kontra-manggagawa at maka-kapitalista ang mga wage boards at ang misyon sa buhay ng mga naka-upo sa mga ahensyang iyan ay tiyaking palaging mumo at latak ang ililimos sa mga manggagawa kapalit ng kanilang pagpapagal sa mga pagawaan.

Talagang mali na tumanggi ang Konggreso sa tungkulin nitong pakialaman at pangunahan ang usaping pagtataas ng sahod at itaboy ang mga manggagawa sa wage boards!

Una, kapag sa wage boards pumunta ang mga manggagawa, minimum wage lang ang gagalawin nila, hindi across the board at nationwide ang pakinabang. Madalas iilang wage boards lang sa mga rehiyon ang nagkokonsidera ng pagtaas ng sahod. Ang iba ay hindi aaksyon kung walang petisyon.

Ikalawa, ang wage boards ay pabor sa mga kapitalista. Batay sa karanasan, ang nakukuha lang sa wage boards ay kung magkano ang papayagan ng mga kapitalista. Isinabatas ang RA 6727 o batas na lumikha sa wage boards noong 1989.

Kung titignan ang sahod ng mga manggagagawa mula 1989, lumaki lang ito kumpara sa cost of living hanggang 1991 pero tuloy-tuloy na ang bagsak nya mula noon. Sa madaling salita, papalaki ng papalaki ang agwat ng sahod ng mga manggagawa at cost of living sa loob ng nakaraang 10 taon sa ilalim ng RA 6727

Hindi nakakagulat dahil ang nakakaupo lang sa wage boards ay kinatawan ng mga kapitalista, gobyerno at dilawang lider manggagawa. Isa isahin natin sila: ang gusto ng kapitalista ay mas mataas na tubo. Anumang paglaki ng sahod ay kabawasan sa tubo nila. Ang tiwaling gobyerno naman ay may patakaran na panatilihing mababa ang sahod sa bansa upang maakit ang mga dayuhang kapitalista.

Ang mga huwad na lider manggagawa naman na nasa wage boards ay naniniwalang maaaring pag-isahin ang interes ng manggagawa at kapitalista na alam nating imposible. Sa ganyang balanse, di kataka-taka na pabor ang wage boards sa mga kapitalista at kontra manggagawa at kontra sahod.

Naghihimagsik ang puso at diwa ng mga manggagawa sa mga argumentong patuloy na hinahambalang sa harap ng panawagang itaas ang sahod. Lagi na lang kontra sa kapakanan at kagalingan ng mga manggagawa ang posisyon ng mga opisyales ng gobyerno pagdating sa isyung ito. Kesyo magsasara daw ang mga kumpanya, kesyo marami daw ang matatanggal sa trabaho, etcetera etcetera etcetera.

Bakit pagdating sa EVAT at iba pang mga panukala at programa na dikta o utos ng malalaking kapitalista at negosyante, nagkakandarapa ang gobyerno na ang mga ito’y ipatupad? Mga panukala ito tulad ng EVAT na nagdadala ng sobrang pasakit at pabigat sa kabuhayan ng mahihirap at manggagawa. Mga patakaran ito tulad ng tax holidays, tax exemptions, at kung ano-ano pang pabuya sa mga negosyante at kanilang mga dayuhang partner na sa kabilang banda naman ay may epektong pagpapahina sa lokal na ekonomya?

Lumapag tayo sa lupa at alamin ang tunay na kalagayan ng mga manggagawa. Sagad sa buto ang kanilang dusa sa mga pagawaan! May mga kinukulong ng kanilang employer sa mga warehouse ng arina (tulad ng nangyari sa French Baker); sinuswelduhan ng P150 a day (gaya ng mga contractor-companies ng Levi’s at Calvin Klein underwear); at may namamatay sa pagod kakatrabao ng straight na 30 hours (gaya ng nangyari sa isang manggagawa sa Honda Philippines).

Patuloy na pinagsasamantalahan at binabarat ang halaga ng kanilang lakas paggawa, habang lumalamon at nagpapasasa sa luho ang malalaking kapitalistang nang-aalipin. Employers and capitalists jet to Singapore or Hongkong for lunch or dinner, feed their Great Danes or Boxers or Bicjon Frisses Eukanuba brand kibble (which costs P150 a kilo) and buy watches (Rolexes? Patek Philippes? Omegas?) which cost as much as a jeepney while workers sit down to breakfasts of itlog na maalat and pan de sal.

Napakaraming anak ng manggagawa ang malnourished at hindi na nag-aaral dahil di na sila kayang pag-aralin ng kanilang mga inaliping magulang. Pinatay ang mga lider manggagawa tulad nina Ric Ramos ng Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU), Fedie de Leon ng PISTON-KMU, at Diosdado Fortuna ng union ng Nestle Philippines habang kailang ibinabandila ang pagtaas ng sahod para sa kanilang mga kauri kasabay ng kanilang pakikibaka para sa pampulitika at demokratikong karapatan ng mamamayan.

Walang matanaw na pag-asa o kaalwanan ang mga manggagawa sa harap na patuloy na pagtaas ng presyo ng langis, pagtaas ng singil sa kuryente na kapwa naming humahatak pataas sa presyo ng mga batayang produkto at singil sa mga serbisyong medikal, transportasyon, pabahay at edukasyon.

Bukod sa pagkondena ng mga manggagawa sa pangulong nagsinungaling, nanloko at nagnakaw, malakas ang panawagan ng mga obrero na bumaba sa poder si Macapagal-Arroyo dahil sa matinding kahirapang kanilang dinaranas sa ilalim ng kanyang panunungkulan.

Kahirapang hindi na lang dapat itangis kundi dapat ikondena at labanan dahil dala ito ng kurapsyon sa pamahalaan at pagmamatigas ng gobyerno sa mga hinaing ng mamamayan.

Kahit ano pang mga argumento ng mga malalaking negosyante, ang katotohanan ay simple lang: ang kanilang pagnanakaw at pagsasamantala, ang kanilang sakim na pagmamahal sa pera at sa tubo ang nagpapahirap sa mga manggagawa. Pag tumututol sila sa pagtataas ng sahod, it’s not really because they care about the economy and what happens to it: all they’re out to protect is their own bank accounts.

Can they take their profits to hell? Because if it exists, that’s where the lot of them is going.

postcript

When I think of businessmen (especially the execs of the TNCs and the MNCS), those residents of the palatial mansions in Corinthian Gardens, Forbes Park; the town houses in Baguio, Tagaytay and Palawan, I want to get a gargantuan jute sack and stuff ECOP and PCCI member into the bag, tie it tightly, and airlift everything to Payatas where a  cavernous hole would’ve been dug and then drop the bag.

From a height of, say, 200,000 feet.

Of course a bulldozer will be waiting to cover the entire mess with a layer of topsoil.

And on top of that layer, a cement mixer will pour a compound of liquid steel and concrete.

Gad am so angry. And to think I haven’t written anything yet about what I learned today at the Citizens’ Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA).

What makes the lives of these businessmen and the likes of Macapagal-Arroyo more precious or important than the lives of an ordinary laborer?!

Often when I make a new friend (or at least meet someone new and strike up a conversation with the person), I tell one of my best friends from college , Elias, about him or her. I have been lucky enough to have come across quite a few brilliant and talented people in my line of work — intelligent and sharp people whose world views embrace all that’s worth fighting for in this life; people whose self-ambitions have melted into their own dreams for society (and thus their dreams are, in fact, living realities in the process of being created. Hopes shared by millions in this country, and billions more abroad).

Usually though, when I’m not describing someone’s striking sense of humor or kindness, I focus on particular skills or talents of people I meet. If he or she’s a writer, I speak of his or her writing; if he or she’s a painter, I describe his or her artwork, and so on.

When I tell Elias about these people, usually, quite predictably, he asks  - "Is he (or she) gay?"

Elias, who’s straight and a fratman (Upsilon, UP Diliman), is firm in his belief that anyone who’s talented or particularly gifted has to be gay.

Or at least not completely straight.

When he first got his Apple computer, he kept rhapsodizing about the interface, and he kept repeating like some broken phonograph record "The people from Apple have got to be gay. No straight person can create this. This is art, this is technological beauty."

Sometimes we would make lists of talented people we knew and figure out where in the gender orientation spectrum they’re classified. The more talented, the greater the chance the person was gay.

"Darn it!" , we both said. "If we were gay, we’d probably be smarter and more creative than we already are."

One of my favorite writers, Alan Gurganus, is gay. I do think his being gay has something to do with  his being such a brilliant writer (Gay people tend to be more  artistic and sensitive.  Maybe it’s because  they’ve gotten the best of mental and emotional strengths male and female. This is just a theory). Boy do I covet his language and artistic sensibility! For instance, his "Plays Well With Others" is a wondrous, painful yet beautiful tribute to friendship. It revolves around the lives of three friends in Manhattan, struggling artists all, before the outbreak  of AIDS. 

Hartley is a writer; Angie is a painter; and Robert is a composer. All in their early 30s, they work and  play and live and love as hard as they could as if, as the cliche goes, there is no tomorrow. Their economic backgrounds range from upper to lower middle class, and they’re all extremely talented. The core of the story, however, is how their friendship survives despite unrequited love, unwanted envy of each other’s small but definitely growing success, and the Plague. Gurganus writes the way Sarah Brightman sings: with awe-inspiring beauty and grounded humanity (the raw emotion  translated into a purer form -  the heart’s language written or expressed through song ).

What I like about Gurganus  is that his fiction does not at all read like usual gay fiction. Is there such a thing as ’straight fiction?’ I have read some pieces openly declaring themselves to be gay lit and I found them too, I don’t know, strident and defensive. There’s a certain grace that’s lacking. The politics  too blatant and hard-sell, hitting the reader over the head until one becomes weary and says ‘okay,  okay, you’re  gay, I get it, sheesh. ‘ The characters often become stereotypes. It’s like all the person  is  is his/her  gender orientation.

(A person, I think, is much more than that. How’s that for an understatement. There’s something Albert Camus said in his essay on Absurdity - a person defines himself by his make-believe as well as by his sincere impulses.  To me this means that, well, we are also what we like and love; what we enjoy, create and imagine; by what we hope and wish for. Am always reminded to try to see people in their entirety, or at least in more than three or four aspects. The light always changes, and so do we under the deepening shadow or growing brightness.)

Anyways.

Mr. Gurganus writes about gay people like they were, well, like most other people with  their thoughts and feelings and defining,  life-affecting experiences. Gay  people as regular people -  because they are regular people only, well, more interesting (I have my own biases, sorry.) There’s nothing  particularly, shriekingly gay about his characters. I mean, they don’t bear the usual stereotypical characteristics attributed to gay people. They’re just men who are in relationships  with men; women in relationships with other women. In any case, well, Hartley, Angie and Robert eat and drink and wait on tables and handwash their laundry — as well as enjoy theatre and art and music like  the rest of working class albeit artistic humanity.

I don’t  think I’m explaining this properly, and I would hate to be thought of as naive when it comes to the politics of gender (I do know  how gay people are discriminated against in this feudal, patriarchal society with  its culture of exploitation and abuse), but to  put it quite simply and without artifice,  reading Gurganus all the more convinces me that it’s so stupid the way some people (straight people, ok) lay down all these arguments attacking homosexuality and denouncing it as a social or biological aberration.

What a bunch of idiots. Using gender to further divide people. As if humanity wasn’t divided enough because of so many other factors economic and political! To discriminate and attack based on our differences in whom we love and how; to condemn because of how we each express our own uniqueness and qualities as individuals. The stupidity of it all is appalling. I can’t even begin to argue with people who are anti-gay. They have brains the size  of lima beans.

The biases and narrow-mindedness (religious bigotry, gender discrimination, moralist self-righteousness) of mainstream culture maintained by the ruling economic, political system should be continously exposed and condemned as anti-people. All these are just means to divide people and keep them from seeing  the true enemies, the true exploiters. When we discriminate on the basis of color, race, religion or gender, it strengthens the forces that divide us and blind us against what humanity can be: fully creative, relentlessly  productive, a society united by common goals.

Namely equal economic and political rights for all. The only real war is class war. Part of  that class war is to expose and oppose all forms of discrimination - racial, religious and gender-based. Because even among the exploiters are gay people  — and they exploit gay people belonging to  the  poor and working classes as well.  There are capitalist gay people, presidents of transnational corporations that extract profits from neo-colonies in Africa and the Philippines; and they live such decadent lifestyles the same as straight capitalists.

Sa kabaliktaran naman, marami  ding mga bakla  at lesbyana sa Kilusang Mapagpalaya. They don’t separate or compartamentalize their fight for equal treatment and against discrimination from the general struggle for civil liberties, human rights and against class exploitation. The debate on gender rights they consider part and parcel of  the over-all struggle for genuine freedom and democracy. Pag pinalaya ang uri, mapapalaya din ang kasarian. The fight for recognition and respect for gay rights — and women’s rights — should be waged on the same plane as the fight against social  injustice.

As an aside  — I’m a woman, and the person I hate most these days is another woman. That #$&%&%$!! illegitimate and corrupt president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. What a disgrace to womanity. 

Deeds, not gender or race or religion. Our measure and our worth are how and what we contribute to the betterment of society. Straight or gay, Muslim or Christian  or atheist — how does one live, for whom, and what do we leave behind as marks of our humanity and individual uniqueness  are what inevitabitably count, I think.

I have to make an admission here though — whenever I get into an argument with anyone about gender rights, I am almost always tempted to say I’m gay.

"What is it to you  if I choose to have a relationship with another woman? Does it affect your way of life?  Are your democratic rights in any way violated by my being gay? Does my homosexuality cause you any physical or mental harm in any way?!"

Sheesh. It will take another entry to describe all the times I’ve  beeen envious of gay men who are so freaking beautiful dolled up in summer dresses. Or worse - I’ve gotten so many  crushes on men  who turned out to be gay. Writers and poets and painters. Aaaagh.Syempre, wala akong ka-pag-a-pag-asa. The frustration of  it all! #