Camera Obscura
I’m in a quandary — I don’t know whether it’s a good or bad thing that Justice secretary Raul Gonzales keeps attacking everyone who issues even the slightest criticism against the Macapagal-Arroyo administration. It’s a bad thing because, gad, the man has gone beyond the twist and it makes positively ill to read or hear his statements : first, he accuses Makati judge Benjamin Pozon of pleasing leftists and communists because the man refuses to release convicted rapist US Marine Daniel Smith to the custody of the US Embassy. Now, he’s lambasting the leadership of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines of destabilizing the government! He even goes on to ask (I’m choking with indignation as I type this) "What is it that the government did that is bad?"
WHAAAAAAAT?!!!
But then on the other hand, because of his statements of this stripe (tripe, tripe, tripe!) , more and more people are becoming incensed against the government and, aghast and agitated, they also grow weary and just want to pull the plug on the administration.
Raul Gonzales is destabilizing his own government. By attacking the CBCP, he’s made sure that whatever remains of the church leadership’s patience and tolerance for Macapagal-Arroyo will go down the drain (I don’t know why, but every time I think of Raul Gonzalez and Norberto Gonzales, my metaphors center around toilets and drains).
I don’t think it’s just his kidney that’s in a terrible state, honestly.
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I told my mom and my sister about this…incident I was involved in over a week ago. I won’t write how they reacted; but I’ll let you employ your imagination and think up scenarios.
It was around 10 pm and I was waiting for a jeep to Philcoa in front of the HOR gates with another Anakpawis staffer. I saw a small flatbed truck drive out of the parking lot near the police station some 40 meters across the road. The truck makes a u-turn, and proceeds to drive towards us and as it reaches the spot where we’re standing, stops.
The driver, a man plain looking but not exactly ugly, leans over his grinning companion, looks at me,raises a finger, points it directly at me and says with slow emphasis - ‘Ikaw.’
Then they drive off.
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Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin and his driver were gunned down earlier this evening on their way to a wedding in Mt. Carmel. Holy crap. That’s a shock. Four days ago, Pasig Rep. Dudut Jaworski’s car exploded when a bomb placed under it blew up. What the heck is this?!
Whoever the perpetrators are (o, baka sisihin na naman ang mga leftists. You shut yer trap, Norberto Gonzales, you lousy excuse for a national security adviser. At least Jose Almonte had a brain.),I’m willing to bet that they’re taking advantage of the almost complete inability of the national government and its police and intelligence authorities to conduct genuine investigations that will yield scientific, authentic results.
For the sake of Rep. Bersamin and his security aide’s families, we hope that the PNP immediately discover who the perpetrators are and bring them to justice (Unless tatratuhin nila ang kaso ng pagpatay sa kongresman na ito kung paano nila tratuhin ang 802 na kaso ng pagpaslang sa mga aktibista at human rights advocates).
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Norberto Gonzales wants the label ‘communist’ slapped on progressive and militant party-lists and their lawmakers as a warning to soldiers and the police so they know whom to watch for in the coming election period.
It’s like saying a target sign should be tatooed on the foreheads of members and leaders of Anakpawis, Bayan Muna and Gabriela Women’s Party whom this %^$#^%*& government keeps insisting are communist organizations (ano ba! Ang tatanga ninyo! Ang kulet! Sinabi nang hindi komunista ang mga party-list namen! Ni hindi nga national democratic organizations ang mga ya-aan!!!!!)
To be called a communist in this country is to be walking dead person.
As a warning to soldiers and police: This here man/woman is a communist because he/she supports AP, BM, GWP. You go on ahead and kill her/him.
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Camera Obscura is one of my favorite bands. It’s indie, the members are from Glasgow (like Belle and Sebastian), and they sound so completely 80s. I have my friend Chi Brotonel to thank - he’s the one who loaded my MP3 with a lot of Camera Obscura’s songs. I like the way they’re hippy and happy and sad melancholy all at the same time. 
I’m not aggressive when it comes to music. I like what I already like, I listen to mostly the same music and the same groups and solo artists over and over. Chi’s the first friend who ever made me sit and up and pay attention to other music — he introduced me to bands and groups whose albums were mostly stowed away in the alternative section of the CD stores. In Hong Kong, we went and hung out in HMV for hours and end. Chi is a regular professor when it comes to alternative music (he’s a drummer for their band ‘The Sinister Left.’ Yeah, it sounds sinister and makes the Left look sinister, but to them, well, they actually consider themselves somewhat leftist in their political and social views, right Chi?).
Some of the albums and artists In have in my MP3 courtesy of Chi: The Doves; Cat Power; Editors, Giant Drag, Hem, The Duke Spirit, The Sunshine Underground, Throwing Muses.
Like, who the heck…?
But I enjoy their songs, and I’m grateful to Chi for introducing them to me. I like learning about new things (not necessarily politics. In fact there’s really nothing new to learn about it, especially Philippine politics. Things just get worse and worse. Permutations of the same themes, only the themes, if they were colors, would be constantly changing from different shades of gray, to muddy brown, to pitch black) and liking new things (I can now tolerate wearing shirts with prints! That is such a development for me).
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Big prayer rally tomorrow. I pray for the same things over and over and over again.
