Achieving Happiness

Today is, officially, my first day back in Congress.
I didn’t miss this place.
When I first walked into the compound, I felt a contricting sensation around the regions of my chest — like a baby boa constrictor had coiled itself around my heart and began oh so slowly to squeeeeeze.
But am still here, and I suppose iI will be able to do this and not freak out again. Eight months away from all this has done me good.
It’s really not the same without Ka Bel here.
Am typing this is the plenary hall (where thank goodness there’s wi-fi access), and there’s a break in the session. The bill for the national budget for 2007 is currentlu under deliberations, and the hall is stuffed full of government employees and department heads — they’re here to make sure that their respective departments and offices will be given enough funds to operate for the coming year.
Budget, smudget. This government, this country is falling apart at the seams and all this is one gigantic carnival to me. I wish I could just stand up and ask — how much are you allocating for the public schools and the public hospitals? For the various social infrastructure? 
I miss Ka Bel.
I read the news today (oh boy), and the main story in most newspapers is the alleged nuclear test North Korea supposedly conducted yesterday with reportedly successful results.
Nuclear weapons. Talk about scary. But then again, North Korea has all the right to develop its defense capability. North Korea and its people are under siege by the likes of the United States, continually threatened by sanctions and even actual, all out war of aggression.
It’s a laugh, though, that the governments most freaked by Nokor’s self-introduction into the circle of nuclear power capable countries are the governments that pump billions of dollars into nuclear research and developing their own weapons capability — the US, China, Russia and Israel among them. The US government spends billions and billions for developing its military and weaponry, including nuclear weapons, using these to bully and beat the rest of the world into submission. North Korea’s successful nuclear testing is a slap in the face of the global bully — let’s see the US try to atatck North Korea now and risk a war wherein nuclear weapons will be detonated.
Okay, the session has resumed. On the table for discussion is the budget for the department of energy.
Like I care. The main goal in the energy sector is still full privatization. The investors in the energy sector are all of the bad and greedy sort (hey Raymond, if you’re reading this - note that I am not completely against foreign investors, but the fact is, the ones who invest in the Philippines do not have the slighest qualms about sucking the maximum profit from the country and leaving the economy bled dry because there’s no genuine cold cash and genuine technology transfer).

Rep. Clavel Martinez raises a point — where’s the promised natural gas industry? No action taken by the DOE on plans to develop this. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

Rep. Teddy Locsin says the projects are on the way. Rep. Martinez is skeptical - the agencies have been delegated their duties, the concessions granted, the promises made, blah blah. Where are all the projects? How long will these natural gas and oil explorations take? It’s been yeaaaaars.

Go, Rep. Martinez!

Gad I miss Ka Bel. He really should be here. Damn this government, may Macapagal-Arroyo slip and fall (and break every major bone in her despicable body).

—-

The reports of the private fact-finding panel investigating
the brutal killing of Aglipayan Bishop Alberto Ramento affirm the assertion of
progressive groups and human rights organizations that the Bishop was a the
victim of extra-judicial killing.

The police authorities should stop trying to push their
brainless theory that the Bishop was killed by simple criminals. It’s not only
an insult to the intelligence of the public, but a grievous insult to the
memory of the Bishop and yet another vicious wound inflicted on his family and
congregation.

 Gad, even the writers and researchers of the tv series
CSI would laugh at the investigation
techniques, findings and conclusions of the police. It’s either pure
stubbornness or fear of the punishment from the real masterminds that prompt
theSebiro Supt. Nicanor Bartolome to stand by his team’s own flawed
investigations.

 The police and the Melo Commission should coordinate closely
with the private fact-finding investigating teams and support all their efforts
to expose the true circumstances and
culprits behind the murder of Bishop Ramento.

 Since they’re not even doing anything to assist the
investigations much less find the killers, the lease they can do is to
cooperate with the human rights groups and stop issuing their own cockeyed
findings to the public.

It causes much
anguish and anger to think that this case will become like all the other cases
of extra-judicial killings perpetrated under the Macapagal-Arroyo
administration – unsolved, unresolved, and the perpetrators free to kill other
activists and human rights advocates.

In the meantime, Pres. Arroyo has remained silent all
throughout this issue. The killing of Bishop Ramento, a high-profile
personality not only within the religious circles but also in the progressive
civil movement, has hogged the headlines, but Mrs. Arroyo hasn’t even expressed
the slightest _expression of shock or dismay. So much for her promise to the
leaders of the international community that she will work assiduously to stop
the political killings and bring the killers to justice.

 Inevitably, Macapagal-Arroyo will also be made accountable for this latest political killing. The
massacre of political activists, human rights advocates and progressives has
not escaped the notice of the international community, and there is now outside
pressure to push Arroyo to step down on the grounds of her administration’ s
bloody human rights record.

I’m not much of an eater. My interest in food is mostly bourne of necessity: food to sustain my body. I seldom take pleasure in eating (when I eat out, especially with friends like Walkie, Jang, Tonyo or Nova, it’s the company and the conversation that I enjoy, the food’s only secondary). There’ve been countless times when I’ve skipped meals because (1) am bored; (2) am too busy and preoccupied with work; (3) am completely lacking appetite.

Lately, though I’ve become interested in food, or rather, cooking.

In truth, I’ve always had a fascination for cooking. It’s such a wonderful skill, it’s actually art. Creating an edible painting — a mixture of different ingredients, determining amounts and measures, combining diffirent colors, textures and tastes. I’ve always liked reading cookbooks, especially ones that on desserts and pasta dishes. I also like wathcing cooking shows (particularly the ones where the host travels to the places of where the dishes he whips up originates, and he explains the history of the country or region and how the culture and traditions influence the food and drink prepared by the residents).

I think that the more I cultivate this interest in cooking, I’ll be compelled to eat more; and then later on, maybe learn how to cook.

I don’t know how to cook, and this is something I regret but very much want to remedy. Back in Hong Kong, I lived alone, and I had to learn to go beyond my dependency on the can opener and the fryables from the deli and the supermarket (bacon, sliced ham for instance). Food is cheap in Hong Kong if you cook at home, and everything is fresh. I tried a little experiments, and given that I’m here writing  this, I survived my own attempts at cooking.

I asked advice from the other Pinoys in the office, like how to cook adobo ("Toyo, suka at paminta lang iyan. Ilaga mo yung baboy para lumambot); and how to make simple sauces for shrimp and fish (base ingredients are cornstarch, oyster sauce, salt and pepper).

It’s going to take some time and doing before I can really cook anything (beyond the usual boiling, frying and broiling), but I think I can start by roasting and toasting things.

My favorite breakfast was (is) toasted fruit sandwiches. It’s best to use a jaffle iron (like a waffle iron, only you make toast and not waffles); but if you don’t have one, a regular pop-up toaster’s also okay. You toast bread, spread it with butter. Slice strawberries or apples (or bananas, or kiwis — whatever fruit, really. I don’t advice pineapples though. They’re too chewy for a sandwich filling when not in marmalade or jelly form), glaze them in a little syrup or sugar, and place them between the toasted slices of bread. A jaffle iron is better because you can toast the bread and glaze the fruit in one step.

Fruit sandwiches go best with a very cold glass or milk or grapefruit.

Sheesh, small pleasures in a country, a world full of suffering and pain because of imperialism and it’s viciousness. Call me silly and OA, but every time I bite into a fruit sandwich, I wish that every body else could eat and taste what I’m having. It never loses it harshness, the realization that most Filipinos, most people in the world simply do not have options when in comes to food. Chunky peanut butter or guava jelly?  Neither. Wala nang pambili ng palaman kasi pinambili na ng tinapay. 

————

The brutal murder of Iglesia Filipina Independente Supreme Bishop Fr. Alberto Ramante should once and for all dispel all doubts about the brutal nature, character and facist orientation of this government. It will stop at nothing to silence its critics — it’s not even bothering to come up with more convincing excuses and scenarios to explain the murder of activists and progressive members of the clergy, the legal and medical professions — everyone who has the strength and conviction to denounce Macapagal-Arroyo and her infamous administration.

Seven stab wounds to the heart just to steal a ring? Candle sticks? A Sto. Nino? That kind of violence has to be motivated by something more than plain desperation for immediate cash. There’s a determination to kill, an imposed mission to make death a certainty, an objective to sow fear and demoralization, to shatter confidence and to break hearts and spirits.

When will these killings stop? What will it take to put an end to this murderous  rampage of an admninstration that has neither legal nor moral right to remain in power? Not even the thought of God steps these killers, these monsters.

The first book I read upon coming back is Douglas Coupland ‘Hey, Nostradamus!’

I wrote a blog a few weeks back about Coupland’s ‘Eleonor Rigby’ and there I stated my belief that it’s probably the best book he’s ever written.

I still think that it is, but ‘Hey, Nostradamus!’ is the one which  reflects most on the human condition and the helplessness we feel when circumstances beyond the power of our wishing, will and wanting take over.

‘Hey, Nostradamus!’ is about the impact of a massacre in a Vancouver school cafeteria on the lives of a particular survivor, his family and loved ones. There are reflections and insight on the  fine-line differences between religiousity and genuine belief and faith; and I am inclined to think that Coupland, while not wanting to ruffle any feathers, does not really believe in God but does believe in what he represents for many believers: a safety haven, comfort, and personal peace.

In the relentless tide of chaos, death and destruction in the world due mostly to human causes (as opposed to the the damage that’s purely a result of natural disasters), it should be expected that each person who reflects on his/her life and its place in the world should try to find answers– explanations and a semblance of logic or at least a specific label — to the agonies inflicted on humanity day in, day-out.

Those who do not care for answers simply shrug and credit everything to luck or the lack of it. Others say it’s all plain human nature; what with humans being the way they are, conflicted creatures always fighting against the elements of altruism and the propensity for cruelty and laziness within all of us, our actions are often a result of the unconscious search for balance and middle-ground, safe and self-benefitting resolutions that hopefully will not cause harm to others either and perhaps even do some good for them.

In ‘Hey, Nostradamus!,’ one of the characters tries to find answers in the prophecies of Nostradamus. She sifts through the truthsayer’s words and predictions, desperately attempting to find any clue, some sign that the massacre in the cafeteria meant something deep and urgent and hence reduce the pain of the senselessness of the bloodshed. 

It all comes to down to the question ‘What does this all mean?’

This is what I myself reflect on sometimes when am reading the newspapers or reports about what’s going on in other parts of the world: the continuing genocide in Africa; the continuing occupation in Iraq; the endless conflict between Palestine and Israel; the increasing number of suicides and hate crimes because of the impact of globalization in labor in countries like Japan, Germany and Canada. What does it all mean?

Coupland’s characters reflect on the violence of the world and the futility, emptiness of the most earnest of prayers and offerings of self-reform to a God who does not seem to exist, much less listen. They wring their hands and weep in the dark, they write  down their thoughts in secret or keep them tightly bottled up like imprisoned genies, only unleashing them some days after drowning themselves in alcohol, the flood of memory and bitter reflection causing listeners to become dumbstruck, shaken and appalled.

When I think about the world or even just my country where the loss of life to state violence, neglect and antipathy (the latter two are also quite violent acts of aggression, starvation and physical deterioration because of lack of healthcare and needed medication and food being almost equal to a bullet in the head, only the bullet is slow in coming, but target and arrival are dead certain) are normal occurences, I am sometimes at a loss. How does one explain the continuing leadership of a president who was not elected; who cheated her way to power, and who continues to undermine and attack the rights and welfare and very existence of her constituents with her words and deeds? Why is she still president? What does it all mean?

What does it say about Filipinos that we allow Arroyo to remain in power?
And if you’re a Filipino who reflects on this sort of thing but does not do anything to contribute to efforts to alter the course of this nation’s daily history, what does it say about you?

Coupland’s characters, being failed by God and their prayers, turn to themselves and ask whether they have done anything to deserve the pain and ‘punishment’ they suffer.

I reflect, and I look around: I do not deserve this kind of country, this kind of society wherein children lose their parents to bullets from the guns of assassins sent by the government; where servants of God who are also servants of the poor and the exploited are stabbed to death and the authorities have the gall to insist that what happened was a plain and simple crime of theft; where to speak out against injustice and corruption will either land you in jail; get you shot; or ensure that you will vanish without a trace, never again to be seen or heard from.

While Coupland’s characters wait for resolution and answers to reveal themselves, those who truly reflect on the human condition take action and strive to give realization and physical form to the answers. We do not deserve this suffering, neither do most poor Filipinos. It’s not enough that we know the answers and understand the world, the point is, wheter we know how  to change it, and wheter  we have the will to do it.

——-

Thanks to my good friend Jo Abaya for sending this to me

Choose your leaders

         with wisdom and forethought.

To be led by a coward

         is to be controlled

         by all that the coward fears.

To be led by a fool

         is to be led

         by the opportunists

         who control the fool.

To be led by a thief

         is to offer up

         your most precious treasures

         to be stolen.

To be led by a liar

         is to ask

         to be told lies.

To be led by a tyrant

         is to sell yourself

         and those you love

         into slavery.

- Octavia Butler

"Parable of the Talents"

1998

I’m listening to the soundtrack of the 2003 Tony award-winning musical Avenue Q, and the songs are so witty and funny. I wish I could just zip off to Broadway and watch it (or to London’s West End where it’s also playing) and sing ‘What to do with a BA in English’ at the top of my lungs.

Check the Wikipedia entry on Avenue Q. I don’t have the energy to write a detailed description of the musical, but the soundtrack is really worth listening to and memorizing (if only for laughs - especially the song ‘The Internet is for porn.’) Friends who want a copy of the soundtrack, email me and I can give burned CD copies. The songs are really funny (and to be honest, there are little bits there that speak to me and my current frame of mind and feeling). There are 21 songs: The Avenue Q Theme, What Do You Do with a B.A. in English?, If You Were Gay, Purpose, Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist, The Internet Is For Porn, Mix Tape, I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today, Special, You Can Be as Loud as the Hell You Want, (When You’re Makin’ Love) , Fantasies Come True, My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Canada, There’s a Fine, Fine Line, There Is Life Outside Your Apartment, The More You Ruv Someone, Schadenfreude, I Wish I Could Go Back to College, The Money Song, School for Monsters/The Money Song (Reprise), There’s A Fine, Fine Line (Reprise), For Now .

So my mom’s home from the hospital, and I finally managed to watch tv and read the news. Iglesia Filipina Independiente Bishop Alberto Ramento was stabbed to death (and the PNP investigators want the public to believe that the bishop was a victim of garden-variety violence –thieves daw, yeah right!). Children of fisherfolk die from eating shellfish (their fathers blaming themselves and their poverty). The victims of Typhoon Milenyo still cannot see beyond the helpless they suffer now. As usual, the news  made me feel like checking into the hospital myself; only drugs and operations wouldn’t help because , well, how do you cure anger against social realities? You have to change society to change social realities, and to cut the awful feelings you get at the awareness of how horrible things are in the world at large (yeah, yeah, am a pessimist tonight, but I’ve made a personal resolution to lighten up so I will).

I wonder if I can incorporate a regular ‘gossip column’ in this blog? Lesseee…

Bayan Muna is going to celebrate its 7th anniversary next week. Seven years! Bayan Muna has weathered so many storms and so many activists and supporters have given their lives to further Bayan Muna’s cause in Philippine society — the same cause being promoted by Anakpawis and Gabriela Women’s Party, and the other progressive political parties. By celebrating Bayan Muna’s history, we also celebrate the lives of the activists and leaders and mass members who were killed by the Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Whenever national democratic organizations like KMU or KMP, and progressive groups like Bayan Muna commemorate anniversaries or any national or even international date or event, it is always in tribute to the commitment, dreams and goals of every single individual who seek to change the way things are in the the Philippines. Let Bayan Muna’s sun shine brightly and fiercely through these dark days. (4:30-7:30 pm Tuesday, Oct. 10, Bahay ng Alumni, Up Diliman)

Renato ‘Nato’ Reyes, secretary-general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) and one of my best friends is getting married soon. I’ve known Nato since we were 17. He was the chair of LFS UP Dliman when I joined the organization (which is also celebrating it’s 30th anniversary this year) in 1993. I could write so many things about Nato that wouldn’t immediately have to do with politics (like his talent for drawing anime; his musical influences and his gift for playing guitar; his affinity for characters in certain Korean blockbuster movies; and how, um,how’s he’s like when he’s crazy in love) but I really don’t care to get into trouble and get disinvited to his wedding. In any case, congratulations to Nato and Beng!

Fundraiser concert for the League of Filipino Students on Oct. 13 at the 70s Bistro in Anonas. Attention proud alumni… It’s my husband Kim’s birthday tomorrow! I haven’t gotten him cake, ice cream or balloons yet, but maybe I will. He doesn’t like surprises, and he’s not into fuss and feathers. He gets excited over algebra, and unless I can get my hands on an Einstein fright wig by tomorrow morning, I will be forced to just get him a pair of socks (he’s a practical person and he appreciates practical gifts). I don’t have any other happy news, so I suppose that’s the ‘gossip’ for this blog entry.

——

So am getting my old job back. Walking the same wretched halls of congress and wearing that big ID card that always made me feel like a kindergartener.

I went to visit Ka Bel a few days ago at the Philippine Heart Centre. Contrary to certain friends’ assertion, it was not a teary visit. I’ve missed Ka Bel, and it was great to see and talk to him again. I hugged him tightly, but his hug left my back and arms hurting. He’s 73 years old, and he looks 40. Despite being unjustly and illegally incarcerated for the last seven months, he still has a sunshiny disposition and is in high spirits.

I will never really be able to write for anyone else but Ka Bel. The way his brain works is something I’ve grown so familiar with; his sense of humor, his sense of justice, the way he defends firmly and steadfastly the things he believes in.

Wretched evening. Came home from PGH, and it was raining really hard; but while it did rain hard, the downpour only lasted some 15 minutes. That’s why it was such a horrible shock to find the streets flooded. Genuinely flooded — one had to wade into the knee-deep water to get from one end of the street to the other.

My complete and unmitigated anger tonight is directed not against Mother Nature but againt the local government of Manila led by Mayor Lito Atienza. What the heck has he been doing to stop Manila from turning into a lake everytime the rains come?! Manila’s drainage system must be unbelieavably effed up because it seems to me,  every year come the rainy season, the flash floods get worse and worse. Commuters are left stranded, loathe to wade into the mucky and murky waters so filthy that thinking about how it looks and smells is enough to turn one’s stomach.

This is your ‘world class city"?! Piss and poo and spittle and sludge and garbage and all the germs and bacteria floating around in the flood waters, and residents are forced to wade through the water (the elderly ones looking resigned and sad; the students and young adults grimacing and disgusted; myself angry and frustrated and desperately wishing I could call Atienza and dare him to walk through the streets of Manila on an afternoon or evening right after a heavy downpour. Walk Manila’s streets and alleys wearing slippers, not waders or gumboots).

Where the hell are all the effing taxes of Manila’s residents going?! Atienza and his allies in the local city council keep blowing funds on ‘beautifying’ Manila by putting up vari-colored lamps atop imposing black lamposts; and establishing parks. He-llo! Would somebody please knock some sense into these people’s heads and tell them to focus first on THE SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM of the city so Manilenos don’t have to swim through disgusting black waters everytime there’s a drizzle!

—
On my continuing adventures in PGH. I almost blew my top at 7am today when I went to the 5th floor pharmacy. I went there to get dextrose for my mom because the one that hung on her IV tree was almost empty. I walked to the pharmacy confident that since it was so early, there’d be few customers (remember, this is the pay ward) and I would’nt have to wait too long.

When I got there, hurrah!, I was the only customer. I showed my prescription to the guard (she in turn surrenders it to the staff inside) and sat down on one of the dirty-white plastic benches to wait.
Five minutes. Okay, I thought. That’s still bearable.
Ten minutes. Crap, what the hell are the staff doing?!
I stared through the transparent glass and saw at least six staff– junior pharmacists, I suppose — milling around checking boxes, stapling sheets of paper together, arranging bottles and boxes.

They looked busy, alright; but hell, their operation looked pretty inefficient to me.

It looked like that had only ONE stapler in the entire pharmacy. The staff printing the reciepts and the records kept standing up from the computer table and walking to the counter some five, seven meters away whenever they needed to staple something.

Record keeping was still done mostly by hand. With ballpens.

I don’t know how the heck they arrange the medicine, because it looked like the staff stll had to check each and every box to find the drugs they’re looking for.

By the time they were able to face my medicine-request, 20 freaking minutes had passed. I was the only customer. I had to bite my lip to stop myself from spouting curses when I went to the counter when my number was called.

Then, in the afternoon, around 2 pm, I went to the nurses’ station to ask about my mom’s lab results. There were four staff at the station — nurses and their supervisor, I think –and they were all chattering like magpies on a wire, happily gossipping about some colleague. Did they pay attention to me? No. I took a deep breath and prepared to speak in the most stuck-up and pissed-off tone I have ( I keep that tone for certain types of people) but a young woman came up from behind and said in a plaintive tone:

"Nagdudugo ho yung ilong ng kapatid ko. Hindi ko maampat ang dugo…"

Did the feathered beasts stop their mindless exhange? No. They kept talking and talking and not even when the phone ring did they ease up on their relentless chirping. The phone rang and rang and I counted at least six rings before the caller gave up.

That did it. The woman with the sibling whose nose was bleeding looked at me. I slapped the formica counter twice.

"EXCUSE ME HO, PWEDE HO BANG MAKAHINGI NG TULONG KUNG HINDI KAYO BUSY?!"

That shut them up; but they didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed and embarrased. Instead they spoke to me and the young woman as if they’d been paying attention all along only the woman and I were being unfairly impatient.

GRRRRRRRRR. Kung ganito sila sa mga pasyente na nakakapag-bayad, paano pa kayo ang trato sa mga nasa charity ward?!

I wish that the people who work in PGH — especially the nurses and the doctors — would realize that their work is so important, so life-giving that they should be happy to be there. They have the daily opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives (to cheer up the sick, to help ease their pain and their worries), and though it is true that they don’t make money, heck, THEY CAN HELP PEOPLE.

Practicing medicine and health care provision are very noble professions, and it sucks that there are nurses and doctors who take out their frustrations (professional and maybe even financial) on their patients by not giving them the compassionate and attentive treatment that they need.
Sure some patients are a pain in the ass, but hell, why be in the profession of saving people if your store of compassion is easily depleted?

The staff I refer to in PGH are pretty young. I’m not making a general statement that all the staff in PGH are insensitive bitches and bastards (one of the nurses attending to my mom is actually pretty cool. She’s funny and kind and her bedside manner should win her awards); but this last few days it seems that I’ve been exposed to the ones who will never be mistaken for Florence Nightingale.

—————-

I’m tired, pissed off and I need to get some sleep. I wanted to write something about my visit to Ka Bel yesterday afternoon (rushing from PGH to the  Heart Center and then back is no mean feat); but I’ll have to forego that for tomorrow.

Ang sarap-sarap magmura.