Achieving Happiness

Dennis Maga, the spokesperson of the Free Ka Bel Movement risks being arrested and possibly charged with rebellion when he returns home from New Zealand on June 2.
Dennis went to New Zealand on the invite of the National Distribution Union (NDU), an ally of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and the Free Ka Bel Movement. Last Monday, he got into a steel cage on the front lawn of the NZ House of Parliament while Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo conducted a press conference with NZ officials. The protest was covered by the international media.
Now, there’s the threat that Dennis might be arrested the moment he sets foot at the NAIA. Pres. Arroyo was no doubt embarrassed and humiliated with what Dennis, the NDU and other FKBM supporters did outside the House of Parliament. She was forced to defend herself and her government’s failure to put an end to the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines; she was also forced to justify the unjustifiable, which includes Ka Bel’s arrest and continuing detention.
Kung hindi ba naman sobrang PIKON ng pamahalang ito, pinaghahandaan pa nitong arestuhin ang isang Pilipino na nagprotesta laban sa kanya. What Dennis did was within his rights. His protest and expressions of dissent and condemnation were all within the law, and in fact sanctioned by it. Problema na lang talaga ay ang bumibilis na pagtalikod ng gobyernong ito sa mga saligang prinsipyo ng demokrasya.
It’s been 15 months since Ka Bel was arrested and up to now there’s no clear sign that he will be released any time soon. The Macapagal-Arroyo government has clearly effed up on this one — they arrested an activist lawmaker on clearly made up charges, and there’s no way they can continue with the charade that Ka Bel is guilty.
Ngayon naman, the spokesperson of the group that’s leading the campaign for his release also stands to be arrested and perhaps charged with rebellion! If it weren’t so infuriating I’d laugh because of the irony of it.
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It’s also infuriating that Kabataan Party’s chances of securing a seat in the 14th Congress grows slimmer daily. Again, the Filipino youth are being robbed of the chance to have genuine sectoral representation. No one doubts that the elections are rigged, that the cheating continues as I type this.
In an alternative universe where engaging in the legal political struggle does not get you killed; where progressive political parties take part in the electoral battle and are not cheated, Kabataan Party-List would easily win one seat and even more. Sobrang sipag at sobrang husay ng makinarya nila. And highly creative to boot. They deserve to win; they should be declared winners. I know I sound like one of those Team Unity losers (Like Miguel Zubiri or Mike Defensor, for instance) who say it’s all because of the fraud, but Kabataan Party’s win is legitimate; the same way all their votes are legitimate but are not being counted.
Kainis.
(There are these t-shirts in SM North that have prints of catch phrases and exclamations on them, like ‘Kainis,’ ‘Kaloka,’ "Magaling Lumusot" and "Kikay" on them. I wish they’d print shirts with ‘Utang na loob!’ and ‘Galit ako.’)
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It’s the rainy season now, and am as happy as a frog in a lily pad!
I love the rain, always have; I like waking up to perpetual morning weather, the crisp, clean air and the cool breeze that’s prelude to the falling of millions of raindrops committing self-sacrificial suicide. I don’t feel sleepy when it rains — I feel hyper and alive and in my head I’m turning cartwheels.

What I hate, though, are the floods. Last night I was forced to wade through at least four inches of floodwater with God-knows-what as flotsam and jetsam. I don’t mind the least getting drenched if it’s my fault (tamad magdala ng payong); but the flood water is horrible. One word: leptospirosis.

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Let’s get it over and done with!
The May 14, 2007 elections, as expected, was massive messy mass fraught with fraud. Gad. I hope to God that the Genuine Opposition candidates who won will immediately buckle down to work and fight for the repeal of the Human Security Act. The moment the HSA takes effect, I’m willing to bet that there’ll be a rash of arrests. Macapagal-Arroyo is no longer in charge of the country — it’s the likes of Hermogenes Esperon who are calling the shot.
Esperon is not the sort who includes ‘human rights’ and ‘civilian authority’ in his vocabulary. It probably takes all his will power to keep him from choking on his tongue whenever he uses these words. Macapagal-Arroyo is just a titular head, pathetically defending herself from her inability (willing or unwilling) to put an end to the political killings and other excesses of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The AFP has her in a half-nelson: do what we tell you, approve of what we do or we abandon you.

So she does what she’s told, and she claps her hand everytime there’s another activist killed.

Ang tigas ng mukha na magsinungaling sa international community! Gad, how do these people sleep at night? They must take Prozac by the canister or something. Split personalities - all that’s good and decent remaining in their characters are bludgeoned to death and all that remains and all that’s conscious and working are the bad and evil bits.

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On hindsight though, I think that the election cheating etc etc etc would have been much, much worse if it hadn’t been for the vigilance of the media, the cause-oriented groups and all concerned sectors. Everyone was WIDE wide awake this time, and suffice it to say, it wasn’t as easy for Arroyo’s operators to implement their cheat plan without anyone within five meters of the major polling precincts ringing the alarm bell.

I’ve read just now that Mike Defensor has conceded defeat. That makes me respect him a little bit. Now he has the right to claim that he’s Walking Tall.

These are not-well-taken-shots-but-hey of the Harry Potter refrigerator magnets we brought last Friday night. They’re 10 and all, and the first set features magical objects like a Golden Snitch and the Hogwarts Train at Platform nine and three quarters. The second set is of the Hogwarts Houses - Griffyndor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin.
They all cost of P180 at the Mirriam and Webster Bookstore at that small mall in Tandang Sora where there’s also a Yellow Cab restaurant (yeah, yeah, we ate a pizza a day after I had a major tooth extraction. Big tooth. The words ‘gum separator’ still gives me the willies; but I had a craving and chewed on the left side).
Anyways,to those who are interested in getting the same magnets, I think there are at least 20 more boxes of them in the store.
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Countdown to HP7 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. Kim scored a soft copy (most likely an illegal release) of the book and started reading it. Being as excitable as a child with a new toy, he kept gasping and exclaiming after every two pages and blurting out new discoveries. It was all I could do to keep from bludgeoning him. He also scrolled to the very last chapter (!!!) and told me that
Wait, nevermind. Not fair to tell you guys that the characters who died were
Hahahaha!
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I’m almost done with the new CenPeg book ‘Oligarchic Politics’ and its a most interesting read. Made my blood pressure shoot up besides helping me gain a more history-based understanding of how the party-system in the Philippines works (it doesn’t; the Boy Scouts are better- at least they believe in some worthy principles…)
Will write a longer review next time as am rushing this.

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I am, like, so disgusted with mainstream politics. I feel so  middle-class right now - angry and fed up with all the lies and the fraud and the violence that accompanied the May 2007 elections. Every election year it gets like this, ever since the democratic  mass movement could involved in the party-list system and the polls. Grrrr. Before (pre-Bayan Muna in 2001), elections would be just another glitch in my awareness and I would wait out the results while tsk-tsk-tsking over all the reports of  election related violence and the fraud. Now it’s a totally different set of experiences because we are direct victims of fraud.
Not that I’m surprised or anything. I’m not. I expected it. But hell if I’m not pissed off all the same.
It’s a little funny how angry the foreign observers are over what they witnessed during their fact-finding mission and observance of the electoral process in the various regions. They were all sputtering with indignation and shock at what they saw: AFP troops practically sitting on the ballot boxes; poll volunteers of Team Unity candidates and contenders for local posts giving out money; soldiers campaigning for butcher Jovito Palparan’s Bantay party-list.
Parang hindi nila matanggap ang mga nakita nila.
"And the government calls this a democratic exercise?!"
I haven’t been feeling well this last week. There’s a sharp pain in my left arm near my elbow that isn’t going away. There’s no bruise, no swelling, no visible signs of damage or disease. Kim says it’s most likely psychosomatic. The stress choosing weak parts of my body to express itself.
Election-related sickness. Nakakainis.

Found this  buried among old files. I remember enjoying writing this article. My subject was engaging, but he also struck me as a bit defensive. I suppose one can’t blame him considering how society still sometimes treats memebrs of the gay community. This was published in Bulatlat.com in 2003.

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“Militant gay” may seem like a contradiction of terms to some but the phrase fits Oscar Atadero, secretary-general of Progressive Organization of Gays in the Philippines (Pro-Gay), to a tee.

Every 26th of June, the gay world celebrates International Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Day, and again, gays, lesbians, their partners and their friends take to the streets and proudly proclaim themselves not merely as members of the so-called ‘third sex,” but as human beings who live and love, experience hurt and feel elation the same way their heterosexual counterparts do.

In the Philippines, it was June 26, 1994 when the first gay and lesbian pride march in the Philippines – and in Asia – was launched. The organizers were PRO-Gay leaders.

On that historic day, gays marched from EDSA down to Quezon Avenue and around the Quezon City Memorial Circle as part of the global commemoration of the uprising of global militants in New York on June 26, 1969.  From then on, the date has been recognized as the international day for gays and lesbian liberation movements around the world – gays’ version of Labor Day, or International Women’s Day.

Being Filipino and gay

Atadero thinks that being gay in a Third World country, is much more complex than being one in the West. “In the Philippines, to be bakla (gay) mostly means dressing up, and making a living in the woman’s role, while his partner is usually straight, as amply demonstrated by gay showbiz managers who flaunt their affairs with their macho talents,” he says. 

According to Atadero, masculine gays in the West do not have to behave effeminately in public to be called gay; any two men who have consensual sex are easily called homosexuals. “Tourists can’t understand why Filipinos whom they would call gay back home insist they are only silahis, bisexual or even heterosexually inclined and never self-identify as gay,” he says.

Atadero insists that this difference hinges on the fact that the mass concept of sexuality has never been fully developed as a separate school of thought among Filipinos. Thus, it is not unusual to find many gay college graduates brag about expertise in the most esoteric philosophies but remain clueless or evasive about their own sexualities. 

It also makes it difficult to estimate the number of gays in the country at a given period since Filipinos have yet to set the baseline description of gay, lesbian and bisexual.

But what makes Filipino gays different from their foreign counterparts aside from the lack of in-depth understanding of their sexuality? And yet again, what unites them?

“The older generation of Filipino gays still insists that a bakla should only find straight guys for soulmates; the younger Filipino gays on the other hand are more willing to settle down with other gays or, at the minimum, bisexual men,” Atadero explains.

But there is an even more basic difference. In affluent capital cities, gays have less problems dealing with unemployment. “Food is cheaper, there’s adequate housing and subsidized social services available. Gays and lesbians in western societies find it easier to become more independent from family, that is why millions of Europeans and Americans can afford to join gay pride parades or trash religious orthodoxy and not worry about being fired the next day,” he says. 

The Filipino gays find the backward economy a cramp to their style. Many of them are unable to leave home and even among those who can, many usually feel they have to support their extended families. In turn, parents who beat up their bakla kids later on grudgingly tolerate the grown-up breadwinner who can pay the bills. It’s a paradox with two realities, making it hard for observers to really pinpoint if Filipino society really accepts or still rejects having gays in the family.

Organizing gays

The Philippines is known all over the world as a hotbed of activism. Every year, hundreds of activists from America, Europe, and neighboring countries in Asia come over to the Philippines to learn from progressive and militant mass organizations on ways and techniques of effective – in activist-speak – arouse, organize, and mobilize people for specific causes. 

Gender issues have always been espoused by groups such as Gabriela, Kilusan ng  Manggagagawang Kababaihan (KMK) and Amihan. These groups maintain that the exploitation women suffer is twofold: they are exploited as members of the class they belong to (as workers, or as peasants); and as members of their sex, treated as either whores, ornaments, slaves, or untouchable saints. 

Gays and gay issues, meanwhile, are more complex (they’re both man and woman, after-all), and thus organizing them is more difficult. Atadero would be the first to admit how difficult it is to convince gays to come out of the closet and speak out.

“Very few effeminates are hired or succeed in industry and mainstream professions, shunting most to self-account trades such as salons, showbusiness and street commerce, even sex. Income and benefits are irregular. Fags are three times more likely to get fired because of job discrimination and change livelihood and residence than the average Filipino,” he says. 

“Oppression against gays remains very real which makes it necessary for the local bakla community to organize and fight for their political rights in the local context. The great majority of the identifiable gays are semi-employed effeminate workers in the service sector, and they are mockingly called parloristas, the local version of screaming fags.

The shifting lifestyle and low self-esteem make gays more prone to substance abuse and anti-social behavior, provoking the public to become even more homophobic (fearful of gay ideas and people). Many gays even tend to distrust and pull down their own kind.

Advocacy and rage

Despite the lack of funds and a permanent office, Progay has kept on with its public advocacy, oftentime the only group speaking out in the mass media whenever an anti-gay politician or church leader attacks gays and lesbian causes. But unlike their US-based counterparts who are known for hitting back with bitchy personal tirades and "zapping actions," Progay prefers to go after the deeper social problems that make anti-gay attitudes deeply rooted.

Six years after gay issues have been politicized in the country, homophobia remains deeply rooted in Philippine society, which prevents the full integration of gays into society. That is why Progay is conducting the RAGE Campaign, which stands for Raising Awareness for Gay Empowerment.

Launched during the 51st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2001, the program ran all sizes of gatherings among gays and mixed groups.

"We realized that social change for the benefit of gays could not be done by gays alone. We hold RAGE forums in both small and large gatherings, to gather data on how other people think of gays and vice versa. We were surprised to learn that gays, at least in some areas in Manila, tend to think worse of themselves than other people do of them,” Atadero explains.

When Pro-Gay discusses the higher unemployment rate among poor gay men and how this often leads to low self-worth, the audience begin to rethink themselves, and become kinder to other gays. “After settling that (issue), they become more ready to change the negative stereotype images of gays,” he says.

Even so-called straight people appreciate RAGE forums for the chance to get to know the gay world first hand and in a systematic manner. For instance, they learn that the popular theories of gay identity were a recent invention made to help ruling classes control social relations.

"I thought homosexuality was either something that you were born with or got from outside influences. RAGE helped me realize that it’s just something people do and not a permanent label or central part of their existence. Now, I will stop asking my nephew how they came to be that way," said a macho trade union organizer.

"I grew up with gay and lesbian friends all my life, but after attending my first RAGE forum, I realized I was more patronizing than understanding to them. I think more of these forums should be done in the people’s movement," added a feminist.

"With RAGE and other programs of Progay, we hope to make more people have a more well-rounded view of the Pinoy bakla, and less of the haphazard analysis offered by gossip and bad science textbooks," Atadero says with pride.

The Bakla as a political activist

Peace, Unity, and Equality. Although it sounds more like a slogan for the United Colors of Benetton, Pro-Gay’s slogan is actually very political. Atadero explains that it refers to the war in Mindanao, the religious discrimination on gays, and the discord rampant in the country.

Atadero himself has experienced discrimination. But unlike other gays who launch into semi-sob stories that eventually turn into epiphany tales, Atadero explains his own personal history with an analytic mind rather than melodrama.

Atadero, 38 years old, is now into his sixth year of doing part-time work for gay concerns. All in all, Atadero has been with the people’s movement for 14 years now.

"While I was growing up I was confused and had no one to turn to. I looked at the neighborhood bakla and I couldn’t relate to them. At the University of Sto. Tomas (UST), I had crushes on my engineering classmates. I had the feeling the whole college knew and avoided me.”

Atadero remembers anti-Marcos activists as being ‘grossly homophobic, never mind that many NGO and culturati top brass then were gays. “We were tolerated but told that to really belong, gays had to change. I didn’t change, but I stayed on a bit longer, I got arrested in 1983 a few months after Ninoy was killed and laid low for six years. Then I worked for activist organizations again, by then confronting homophobia on a personal basis.”

Atadero has had his share of trauma.  "One night in 1993, ushers in a Cubao cinema harassed me while I was walking down the aisles. I was traumatized with the thought of my family finding out from a sleazy tabloid. The feeling of helplessness really hit me that time. I signed up for a gay men’s support group but I felt I didn’t belong. I needed to be with people who take risks for change,” he says. 

The following year, Atadero heard about this group Progay announcing plans to march and, on impulse, decided to join. After that, he started a gay column in Mr & Ms magazine, and got invited to talk shows left and right.

"It didn’t sit well with family even if I was seen rubbing elbows on TV with Margie Holmes and Dong Puno. To them, having a gay son was a family scandal, so I had to move out and leave behind a life of relative comfort," said Atadero, who was born to a middle class family in Manila.

"I didn’t like going out with other people. I just wanted to write angst-filled sweet choovachoochoo for our college paper. I hated my editor for assigning me to a story in the Tondo slums and I went there for kicks. It was there that I got my first taste of grasa (coconut grease) and de sabog (sprinkling of rock salt) on cold rice. “

The humbling experience prepared him for the wild and wacky world of street gays.

"Screaming faggots scared me. I admit I was very homophobic to them because I said they bring shame to gays like me. My work with Progay helped me change my bias against them, now I spend almost every night visiting be auty salons and slums where I meet the most down-to-earth faggots in the most atrocious manners of fashion."

"Lately I find I love singing kitschy songs with them, though I know I really cannot be in the same exact league. I have no sense of style, I can’t dance, can’t act, can’t even remember a classic movie line. A new group of parloristas sometimes finds it difficult to welcome a boring gay like me, yet they are patient. Once I have earned their trust, I am treated like family.

I know street gays are the most dependable line of defense against bigotry and homophobia and society will one day wake up to realizing their pageantry, dismissed as nonsense frill, revolutionized society’s way of exposing its own hypocrisy and insecurities.

He says he dreams of a day when society no longer has to invent categories to describe people according to the sex of their loved one. "While the artificial categories of sex and gender exist, Progay will continue to push for the political, economic, social and cultural rights of this minority, the one we call today gay people. We will continue to march and educate those who wish to categorize and oppress us for decades to come.

But generations from now, the words homosexual and gay will no longer be relevant and people with same-sex behavior and feelings don’t need the law and state to define or defend their rights.

"In the meantime, by the way, I’m single and available and I’m looking for a gay boyfriend. I don’t just march and fight, I also cuddle,” he smiles.  #

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postscript: I don’t know is Oscar is still single. Baka hindi na. He writes a column for a mainstream lifestyle magazine, last time I heard.

Sa gitna ng kaguluhan at sa mukha ng matinding pananalanta ng gobyerno, nakakatuwang makita ang mga Kasama na nakangiti at masaya, kahit pa ang tinatalakay ay mabibigat na usapin. Patunay lang na hindi basta-basta magagapi ang diwang mapanlaban na siya ring diwa ng hindi maiibsang pag-asa ng mga nakikibaka para sa tunay na pagbabago.

For the last week, the progressive mass movement has been busy protecting the votes of the progressive party-lists of Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, Gabriela Women’s Party, Kabataan Party and Suara Bangsa Moro. Despite the severe lack of money and other resources, the PPLs (and not to forget the relentless attacks against their members and leaders in the form of harassment, abduction and extrajudicial killings as well as the filing of criminal charges against our lawmakers), the PPLs were able to launch a formidable electoral campaign.

Up to now volunteers and members of the PPLs are tirely monitoring the election results and the seemingly endless incidents fraud wherein often it’s a minimum of 500 votes that are being shaved off from any or each of the PPLs. Pollwatchers from Kabataan Party were abducted and killed; and only yesterday, Sunday, the 10th nominee of Anakpawis and BAYAN-NCR, KMU-NCR chair Roy Velez escaped his would-be assassins when they surrounded his apartment building in Las Pinas. Ka Roy broke a window and crawled out, jumped from the third floor apartment where he and his wife lived and landed on the roof of their nextdoor neighbor. From there, his neighbors who were all organized Anakpawis supporters smuggled him out of the community from under the noses of no less than a dozen armed men. He was rescued also with the help of ABC-5 crew members who responded to the alert of Anakpawis.

Since Macapagal-Arroyo ascended to power, activists have been looking over their shoulder more often than usual, always on the lookout for motorcycle-riding men. This election season has been no different: if anything, the alert level is higher.

One major reason why Macapagal-Arroyo’s candidates should be defeated in the senatorial race is because a senate dominated by the Opposition will be more likely to be an ally in the fight against extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and the over-all worsening of the civil, political and human rights situation in the country. 

The electoral campaign of the progressive party-lists has also been a campaign against the killings; against the brutality the Armed Forces of the Philippines continue to unleash against civilians and members of militant people’sorganizations and the progressive party-lists.

As we count and tally each vote the PPLs receive, we also remember the sacrifice made by our supporters — those who have not only their time and effort, but their very lives to ensure that the PPLs ‘ votes are protected, but also to make sure that the PPLs maintain their high ranking in the party-list elections.

This afternoon, Ka Satur, Ka Paeng, Teddy and Ka Liza visited Ka Bel in his hospital detention room at the Philippine Heart Center. Nat Santiago, Bayan Muna sec gen gave a brief but substantial update on what’s happening at the national canvassing over at the PICC.  The leaders also shared info on the various means of fraud being perpetrated against the PPLs, and what volunteers and supporters all over the country were doing to expose and correct them (mahirap).

No one is waiting, everyone is working and watching and taking action. Kapag hindi agad kumilos, mas matindi ang magiging epekto ng pandurugas ng gobyerno. As the votes against the Genuine Opposition are being thrown down the dustbin, so are the votes of the progressive party-lists. Kailangang manatiling mapagbantay, kailangang maging maagap.

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Am rereading all of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic books. I often feel slightly woozy and daydreamy because of this. If I could talk to Dream and Death, jeez, I’d have so many things to ask and ask of them…

Ka Bel was able to cast his vote for Anakpawis party-list yesterday morning past 10. It was the first time that he’d seen and hug his first great grandchild Jan Ray in months, and despite the stress of having to walk surrounded by armed  guards like some dangerous criminal, it was nonetheless a happy reunion of sorts.
Sir Mon Ramirez of arkibongbayan.org took Ka Bel’s pictures while Ka Bel was actually voting. I stayed outside the polling precinct and kidded around with Anakpawis Sec. Gen. Sammy Malunes who wasn’t able to vote because he’s ‘wanted’ in Bulacan by the military (he was forced to relocate his entire family to Quezon City because their lives where in danger. There was the serious threat of Ka Sam being added to the list of victims of extrajudicial killings).
More later.

I am surprised by how desperately I want this elections to be different from the 2004 polls. Intellectually I understand all too well that the 2007 polls being free from fraud and violence is an impossibility akin to trying to stand staring at the sun for longer than 5 seconds. On all other levels, though? I am grimly hoping that at the least the fraud won’t be so massive; that no more people will die; that the Armed Forces of the Philippines will be caught red-handed as they implement the Arroyo administration’s fraud campaign; and Team Unity candidates will be eating dirt (lalo na sina Zubiri at Defensor na kay babata pa ay mga trapo na).
I do not believe in elections. I do not believe in any of the declarations that it is the most democratic exercise of political will of the Filipino people. I do not believe that elections are the main venues wherein the people’s  voice is clearly (and for once) heard. I do not believe in the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), I don’t believe in most politicians, and I don’t believe any genuine and positive social change can ever come as a direct result of elections.
What I do believe in, however, is the good will of many Filipinos volunteering to make the 2007 elections less dirty, less violent, less a venue for the Macapagal-Arroyo administration to cheat its way to victory. I believe in the spirit of  honest and selfless volunteerism, and I am now ignoring my usual bitterness when it comes to the motives of people when it comes to elections (may perang makukuha, may sinusuportahang kandidato na pinagkakautangan ng loob, etc).
This morning Kim and I got our IDs, t-shirts, and pollwatcher manual  from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting or the PPCRV which is said to be the ‘citizen arm’ of the Comelec. At 9am we were already in the community church, attending the last briefing for volunteers in preparation for tomorrow’s chaos.
It was a hopeful kind of gathering. No one harbored any illusions about the elections themselves being a sacred political exercise (aminado nga ang lahat na sobrang kadiri ang eleksyon at ang katatapos lang na kampanya), but there was a strong current of collective determination to not just stand by and let the cheats and thieves get away with manipulating the polls.
Socio-civic concern. Kahit sukang-suka ka na sa sistema, you still opt to do something about it even through simple volunteerism instead of just being dismissive and disgusted and staying at home on election day. It’s like saying - "May ginagawa ako bukod sa pagrereklamo. Hindi ako masisisi na nagsawalang-kibo habang nagkakagulo sa bayan ko."

It’s still a little depressing to see that there aren’t enough PPCRV volunteers, o sige na nga kahit NAMFREL volunteers.Everyone should go out on May 14 and guard the elections. The Police and the military are not allowed within 50 meters of the polling centers, but civilians are, and everyone who cares about what happens to the Philippines in the next three years should go out and guard the elections KAHIT HINDI NANINIWALA SA ELEKSYON MISMO.

Later this afternoon I will get our IDs laminated and tonight maybe I’ll even iron our PPCRV t-shirts (inexpensive oversized white cotton shirts that beg for respect for the wearer and what he or she is trying to stand for: clean and peaceful elections; paggalang sa karapatan ng bawat isang Pilipino na bumoto at huwag dayain, lokohin, o gawing mandaraya at luluko ng kurapsyon ng mga tradisyunal na pulitiko at ng mismong bulok na gobyerno).

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Tandaan! Isulat nang buo ang pangalang ALAN PETER CAYETANO sa listahan ng kandidatong susuportahan para senador.

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Ka Bel will be voting at 10 am tomorrow. Hindi pa rin siya nakakalaya, and it’s clear that he will only regain his freedom the moment Macapagal-Arroyo is no longer in power hopefully through another popular people’s uprising. Binola lang ng gobyerno ang Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) at pinaasa ang pamilya at mga kasamahan ni Bel na papalayain na siya through bail. Lesson: never trust the government’s word on freaking anything. For five minutes, nakalimot ako, tsk-tsk-tsk!

The campaign season came and went and he remained in his detention room at the Philippine Heart Center. It was very painful for him to have not been able to help in the campaign for Anakpawis Party-List. Even though he’s in his 70s, ordinarily wala pa ring kapagod-pagod si Ka Bel.

I’ve changed my mind. I will not vote for anyone from Team Unity - not even for Joker Arroyo. He still refuses to acknowledge the role of the AFP in the massive human rights violations in the country, and he’s still an apologist for Malacanang. I am grateful for his support for Ka Bel, pero hindi yun sapat para iboto ko siya.

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Tagumpay para sa mga progresibong Party-List ng Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, Gabriela Women’s Party, Suara Bangsa Moro at Kabataan!

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Kim and I attended the fund-raising concert for the Free Jonas Burgos Movement last night at Newsdesk in Timog. 
‘Jamming for Jonas’  was organized by the friends and supporters of the Burgos family.
As we walked up the path to Newsdesk, JL (Jay-Jay’s younger brother) waved hello, calling out my name. I went up to him and gave him a hug, remembering how JL has always been to me a cheerful, good-natured person, and now he must be bearing a weight quite unlike anything he has ever been forced to carry.
‘Walang iiyak ngayong gabi,ha?" he said. I simply nodded. I didn’t think asking him how he was was necessary.
Later on during the concert when he was called on stage to share developments in the search for Jay-Jay, JL looked slightly drunk, and I suppose he was because he’d already been drinking even before the concert started. He stood there in the middle of the small, make-shift platform with a bottle of San Mig and the remnants of a cigarette, his voice was strong and confident in the beginning, but breaking in some parts, and at one point he simply had to stop talking.
Alcohol dulls the senses, I know; and since April 28, JL and his family have been feeling too much and last night I guess JL had to take a few drinks just so he could fight off the urge to just break down.
He broke down all the same, a little; a young man hoping against hope that his mentor, his friend, his elder brother would still be alive and would come home not soon enough and maybe they would laugh about everything that transpired and his utol would give him a wallop on the head for revealing to all and sundry that he, Jay-Jay, once ate a dragonfly when their mother Edith told him in jest not to.
JL sounded so bewildered ("all this is so surreal’) even as he denounced the government and the military for their lies, for the run-around they’ve been giving the Burgos family.
‘Aktibista ang kapatid ko, at ako din ay aktibista. Proud akong sabihin yan. Aktibista kami, at walang karapatan ang gobyerno na gawin ang ginawa, ginagawa nila. Walang masama sa pagiging aktibista, sa pagkakaroon ng pampulitikang paniniwala.’
Guy Portajada of Desaparacidos said that often the families of the disappeared would wish that it would always be daylight, and never night. "Kapag may araw, nagagawa naming hanapin ang aming mga nawawalang mahal sa buhay. Sa gabi, pag madilim na, wala kaming magagawa kundi maghintay para sa pagdating ng liwanag."

In this sense, she said, the families of the victims of extrajudicial killings are ‘lucky.’

‘At least the bodies of their loved ones are not missing. They can head to the cemetery and light candles on their graves, and there will be some closure even as they continue to seek justice. The families of the disappeared have nothing. There is never closure, only a painful hope that refuses to die completely that one day even years and years later, we might still find our loved ones," she said.

—-

This is a picture I took of LFS chair Vencer Crisostomo yesterday in Plaza Miranda.

Ano man ang mangyari, sana manalo ang Kabataan Party-list kahit isang seat man lang. At least this time their will be less risk that %^$%#^*Akbayan will be able to steal their votes because their names sound different.

It’s frustrating how our party-lists led by Bayan Muna keep being compared to Akbayan.

We have nothing in common with Akbayan. It makes me sick everytime Akbayan is mistaken as one of ours. Utang na loob. There’s a measure of gladness in the thought that Etta Rosales is no longer the first nominee; kaso how awful is it that Walden Bello could become congressman? Mga palasukong repormista na nagpapagamit at nakikipagkutsabahan sa gobyerno when it suits their agenda to bash the national democratic movement and the progressive party-lists. I believe in the struggle for reforms, but Akbayan’s reformism makes one sick to to one’s stomach. And they have the gall to project themselves as progressives. Sa isang bansa tulad ng Pilipinas, pag nagpatali ka lang sa simpleng pakikibaka para sa reporma at pagtitiwala at pag-iilusyon na nakikinig ang gobyerno, niluloko mo lang ang sarili mo at dinadamay mo pa ang mamamayan.

What’s even more frustrating is how they supposedly campaign for people’s issues with the direct  intent to make money. Disgusting. 

–I want this shirt!

This country is trapped in a freaking time loop. I’ve been reading old documents and books documenting the economic and political situation in the Philippines in the late 70s and early 90s and I’m developing trichotillimania over how the awful, terrible things that happened then continue to happen now only now things are happening much faster, being reported faster, being debated upon more quickly, but the chances of issues being resolved (justice laid down against big time criminals and crooks in the government and the military;  pro-people economic reforms imposed; and political  remedies  implemented) have grown much, much slimmer. Think hair strand-thin.
It’s nuts. There can be no genuine progress in this country because we can’t even move past the most basic requirements: peace and justice. The first cannot exist without the second, and the second has been missing since God knows when. Because of this, the Philippines will continue to wallow in the depths of turmoil for    decades and maybe another century. The news reports that came out when I was in kindergarten are shockingly alike the news reports now. Just change the names and the dates but the circumstances are the same.Okay, so maybe don’t change all the names…
It’s like no one has learned anything. Doesn’t all of this make you sick?!
The Macapagal-Arroyo will never admit to anything connected to corruption, to electoral fraud, to the direct involvement of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the over 840 extrajudicial killings and the abduction of hundreds of political activists and members of grassroots organizations. There will never be justice under Macapagal-Arroyo, and though in real time it’s only been six years that she’s been in power, damn if hasn’t seemed a century.
On Monday, May 14 I will be voting with anger and frustration in my heart. I am appalled at how nothing ever changes in this country, how so many chances for the Philippines to be a peaceful country where people can live (and not just exist from one day to the next)  and develop and improve and evolve and be happy.
Magkakaroon ng dayaan, tataas ang bilang ng mga pinaslang (there’s over a hundred deaths now in election-related incidences of violence), tapos mahahalal ang mga kampon ng gobyerno na wala namang gagawin kundi tiyaking presidente pa rin si Arroyo hanggang 2010. Tapos, pagsisikapan nilang amyendahan ang Konstitusyon para tumagal ang kanyang panunungkulan at maging prime minister. And on and on and the tragedies of the Filipino people will continue and the measure of misery will equal the number of stars in the mapped but as yet untraveled gallaxy.
Bakit ba hindi na lang ipamigay ang lahat ng lupain sa lahat ng magsasaka? Bakit hindi itaas ang sahod ng lahat ng manggagawa at ipantay sa halagang kailangan upang sila at ang kanilang pamilya ay mabuhay? Bakit nga ba sobrang taas ng presyo ng tubig, kuryente at langis? Sino ba ang nagsabing talagang hindi pantay-pantay ang mga tao at ordinaryong  kaganapan may mga nagpapabundat sa paglamon habang milyon-milyon ang namamatay ng dilat sa gutom? Paano’ng nagyari’t napapaos na ang sambayanan kakasigaw para sa saklolo, para sa katarungan, para sa paghinto ng pang-aabuso at karahasan, pero walang pagbabagong nangyayari?
Paano nangyari na naging katanggap-tanggap ang lahat ng ito at ang mga nagsasabi ng taliwas dito ay pinatatahimik at pinapaslang?
Silly me for asking these questions when I already know the answers; but this is precisely what makes me angrier: alam na nga ang kasagutan, bakit hindi pa rin nagagawan ng solusyon?
It starts with the letter ‘R.’
—-
Or maybe I just need to exercise. My system is so flooded with negative feelings. Everyday I visit Ka Bel at the Philippine Heart Center and we talk about issues and then we work on our project and there is no end to how…appalled and angered I am that someone like him has been denied his freedom while the likes of Jovito Palparan continues to strut around free at thumb his nose at his accusers.
I’d like to do a research paper on what happiness really means –what happiness is to different people, and what they would consider to be the hindrances to their getting it.
Right now am thinking that happiness is knowing that everybody else is unthreatened by poverty, disease and hunger. Tingin ko para sa mga aktibista, tutoo ito. Kahit madalas mapabayaan ang pamilya at ang sarili, tuloy lang sa paggampan sa tungkulin. Because the thought of being useful, of contributing, of embracing a larger dream even at the expense  of own’s own is enough to cause a warm feeling of, well, happiness. Pero yun nga, surrounded by so much injustice…
—

Enough whining for the day. Bukas naman ulit.

—

Yehey!

Quezon CityJudge Elmo Alameda of the
Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150 has allowed Anakpawis Representative and
political detainee Crispin Beltran temporary release on Monday, May 14 election
day . Rep. Beltran will be able to cast his vote for Anakpawis party-list and
the senatorial as well as local candidates supported and endorsed by the said
group he represents as chairman, incumbent congressional representative and
first nominee. He will cast his vote in one of the polling precincts in Gao,
Commonwealth, where he has been a resident since the late 70s.

—-

Siguro dapat talaga magreklamo ako nang magreklamo para may magandang mangyari!

–

I am shocked: Ruffa Gutierrez-Bektas is getting an annulment.
I am not shocked: retired generals reveal government-AFP  Oplan Mercury Rising, a plot to manipulate the May 14 polls in favor of Malacanang bets.
Such dinks, the members and leaders of Malacanang’s dirty tricks department. Mercury Rising, hah! Ang bobo. The phrase is often used as a metaphor for a burgeoning emergency, a serious state of calamity - and that can never be good. Or maybe they’re being honest — it is an emergency situation for the Macapagal-Arroyo administration because it’s set to get a vicious whipping at the polls, at least when it comes to the senatorial elections.
I would’ve chosen a different name: Oplan Trickling Sweat or Oplan Ubos Pera because gad, despite the millions the TU candidates like Pichay and Singson are shelling out, they’re still at the tail-end of the surveys. Their desperation must be nearing its peak right now
—
More political activists are being killed. Usman Ali, husband of a leader of Suara Bangsamoro was shot dead yesterday by his morning by three unidentified men in Pikit, North Cotabato.
In related developments ,Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino is now in Ormoc making sure that National Federation of Labor Unions-Kilusang Mayo Uno regional official and Anakpawis Eastern Visayas coordinator Vincent ‘Bebot’ Borja  will not become yet another statistic and add to the list of the victims of extrajudicial killings.
When will this insanity stop?!
There is no doubt that the only way that all this will come to a temporary halt (am not naive enough to think that the repression will completely end) with the removal of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from Malacanang. Something has got to give, and it will not be those who fight against her corrupt, illegal, immoral and inhumane presidency.
I’m crossing my fingers and toes that the next time the public’s anger and outrage reaches another zenith, the leaders of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) will not bring out their hoses and douse the fire by calling on everyone to be calm, pack their rosaries and join a prayer rally in Luneta. Aaaaargh!

—
How outrageous is it that Commission on Elections’ chair Benjamin Abalos can say that the 219 foreign observers scheduled to arrive in the country to monitor Monday’s polls will ‘witness how democracy works in the Philippines’ without being struck by lightning?
Holy check, 95 people have been killed in election-related violence since January and you call this a working democracy?! Progressive party-lists are being persecuted, our members and officials being labeled terrorists, NPA members or worse, executed in cold blood yet Mr. Abalos says that this is a working democracy? I shiver to think what he would consider to be a state of mere lawlessness: babies being thrown from the third floor and then impaled on bayonets.
—-
I gave my dog Poofy a bath this morning and now she looks gorgeous (most of the time she’s just pretty. She gets a bath every two days). She’s seven years old and it was only last night that I was able to teach her the command ‘lie down.’ When she was a puppy she learned the commands ‘up,’ ‘down,’ ‘kiss,’  love’  and ’sleep.’ 
If you give her the commands for kiss and love, she would pad up to you for a cuddle. ‘Kiss’ meant nuzzle, while ‘love’ meant being scratched behind the hears.
It was always a tricky thing to mention the words ‘bath’ or ‘ligo’ anywhere near her because it would send her hiding under the table or the stairs (we had to spell it out - ‘Kailangan na ni Poofy ng b-a-t-h,’ or Kelan ba mali-L-I-G-O si Poofy?’)
Anyways, she now knows what ‘lie down’ means, and she learned it after only seven cookies!

–

Watched Spiderman 3. Tangled plotlines. Peter Parker loses his best friend Harry because he chose to stay and chat with the Sandman instead of rushing to Harry’s aid as the latter dies of massive internal injuries caused by vicious stab wounds.  Mary Jane cried all the time, and got on my nerves.

When I was a kid there was a Spiderman cartoon series on tv (channel 2, I think), and there Spidey had wit and a dry sense of humor. The movie Spidey is, well, Tobey Maguire.

–

Post script - National Security Adviser wants Teddy investigated because of the latter’s presence during the raid in Ka Bebot’s house. Ano ba yan!

Kung hindi daw ilalabas si JayJay Burgos within one week, the chances of him still being alive would slip below 50%.
How do you react to this? Ang naiisip ko ay ang nanay niya, mas higit pa sa kanyang asawa. Nilalagyan ng taning ang buhay ng isa sa iyong mahal na buhay — hindi dahil sa may sakit, o dahil naaksidente, kundi dahil nahulog sa kamay ng mga walang-kaluluwang tao.
Tuwing tinatanong ako ng ‘kamusta ka?’ ng sinumang kaibigan o kasama, hindi ko na alam kung ano ang isasagot. Ambigat-bigat ng buhay sa bayang ito. Walang nililihim o tinatago na krimen, pero sobrang ilap pa rin ng katarungan at namamasyal pa rin sa mga lansangan ang mga berdugo’t kriminal.
It is this which suffocates — the knowledge that even in the absence of mysteries, justice remains elusive.
Tapos tatanungin ka, bakit nga ba umuwi ka pa e okay ka na sa ibang bansa?
Minsan tinatanong ko din ang sarili ko. Lalo na pag nagbabasa ako ng mga dyaryo at nakikita ang galong-galon ng tintang ginamit upang ilarawan ang pighati at dusa sa isang lipunang waring tinalikuran na ng pag-asa.
When they start killing children and young men and women, it is the future they are killing.

The criminals walk free, committing more crimes with impunity. Those who fight against injustice live in fear, or are forced into hiding because their liberty is endangered.

Sasampahan ka ng kaso, o pauulanan ng bala. Dadakpin at pahihirapan hanggang wala nang liwanag na makita ang iyong mga mata dahil napinid na sa suntok at bugbog. Kamatayang sakay ng motorsiklo, tinatago ang halimaw na mukha ng mga salaring nasa baril lang ang tapang. Hindi labanan ng prinsipyo, kundi kung gaano karami ang mga bayarang mamamatay-tao.