Bearing the One Ring
Every morning before I start writing, I check two websites to help clear my brain. No, these two sites aren’t Inq.net and Abs-cbn interactive - they’re gofugyourself.typepad.com and thesuperficial.com. Both of them websites on American actors and actresses and their daily travails when it comes to hair, make-up, fashion, and how they conduct their love lives. Almost daily there are updates on who just made a fashion faux pas (wore the wrong shoes with the equally horrible dress/suite/pants); who went where to do what (and lost her bikini top while surfing; or got out of a limo and gave the paparazzi an eyeful of shots of white granny underwear).
The writers are mean, but they’re witty and hilarious, and while I’m sorry for the stars and starlets they diss, I can’t help but laaaaaaugh and my morning is set. I can face reading the newspapers and swimming through the muck and slime that comprise most of the reports on how the country is doing from the viewpoint of Malacanang, its spokespersons and its agencies.
I wish that there was a website wherein pictures and reports of how the likes of Gloria Arroyo, Mike Arroyo and their firstborn (loud and obnoxious man! I saw him loitering in the second floor corridor earlier this afternoon, talking loudly and laughing like he owned the world) Mikey spend their leisure time; and we can bet they’d all look decadent and lazy and disgustingly well-fed (ugh, a horrible thought came to mind - GMA’s sex life. Ugh ugh ugh! Mike Arroyo and GMA naked in bed, ugh).
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Having finished seasons 1 and 2 of Grey’s Anatomy, have begun on the first six seasons of CSI Las Vegas. How I wish I could have Gil Grissom’s detachment at the face of conflict and tragedy! He keeps his sanity and his humor intact by clinging firmly to objective reality, by analyzing the circumstances, the details that shape the events that have such devastating consequences for people.
"The truth is in the evidence. People lie, but the evidence doesn’t.’
Science is so cool.
That’s why it’s so infuriating how the AFP with the help of the US were able to determine that it was really Khadaffy Janjalani’s body that was dug up last December. It took one, simple DNA test. It was that easy. Tapos hindi malaman kung sino ba talaga ang mga demonyo at halimaw na pumapatay sa mga aktibista. Sino-sino sa partikular sa hanay ng mga militar at paramilitar ang naghahasik ng lagim at bumabaril, pumapatay sa mga miyembro ng mga progresibong party-list at mga simpatisador.
Aaagh.
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However much you want to think of the big stuff, it’s the little stuff that gets to you, leaving you too drained to move on and think of the larger issues. I’ve realized this and not too soon. This is why I try to pay attention to the small stuff, and fix them when they’re broken, so I can go on to enjoy the bigger, happier or important stuff.
I wish I could be more specific, but I can’t. It’s a general principle, though.
Think of Frodo carrying such a heavy burden as the One Ring, and having to leave the comfort and familiarity of the Shire to shuck the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom. Such a little Ring, but its continuing existence meant the destruction of Middle Earth and the enslavement of millions of people (Men, Elfs, Dwarves and Little Folk). It’s the freaking little stuff!They’re enough to turn Smeagol into Gollum.
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Malacanang’s order to the Philippine National Police to map out a detailed plan to deal with the
electoral ‘hotspots’ and disarm all private armies would be useless so long as
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) remains partisan and involved in the
polls. There have been numerous incidents in previous
elections wherein members of the PNP clashed with soldiers who were blatantly
abusing their authority.
The PNP becomes useless and powerless in the face of the
abuses of the AFP. In the regions and provinces during the elections, AFP
troops act as virtual private armies of incumbent and re-electionist
candidates. The more corrupt elements of the AFP also blatantly campaign for
some candidates or against some others for money.
Many of the private armies of politicians are composed of
former members of the AFP and the PNP, and their arms and other weapons also
come from illegal or shady sources. Does the PNP have the power to go against
these private armies? Can Malacanang compel its allied politicians to dismantle
their private armies and surrender their arms or at least have them registered?
The Commission on
Elections and Malacanang should lay down
an order pulling out all AFP troops from all pinpointed election hotspots, it’s
not enough for the Comelec to say that the AFP is exempted from duty this
coming elections.
We can see that the AFP will take an even more active and
more partisan role this coming elections given how National Security Adviser
Norberto Gonzales has taken to proselytizing among their ranks against the
progressive party-lists Anakpawis, Gabriela Women’s Party and Bayan Muna and
their sister party-lists. The AFP is being directed to pinpoint, target and
attack campaign officers, members and sympathizers of our party-lists. We have
reason to fear that there’ll be a steep increase in the number of extra-judicial killings as the elections near.
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Tribute for Sir Monico Atienza tomorrow night, January 25, 2007, 630 pm at the UP Film Institute. Sir Nick hasn’t regained consciousness since he went into a coma last December 23. Friends say that there’s very little chance of him waking up.
His is a life well lived, devoted as it has been to the cause of the poor and exploited and their struggle for genuine freedom and democracy.
Pumunta tayo sa parangal para kay Sir Nick at magbigay pugay sa isa sa mga bayani ng First Quarter Storm.
