Sayang, Mang Pandoy

Mang Pandoy is dead.

For those not aware who Mang Pandoy is, he was the "mascot" of Pres. Fidel Ramos when the latter decided to give a prominent face to represent the impoverished Filipinos of that time.

In fairness to Mang Pandoy, he properly played the role until his death.

He lived poor. He still died poor. And probably, this will also be the same fate the rest of us are destined to have.

Mang Pandoy did experience a breather during Ramos' term when he was given a consultant position in the House of Representatives. His children were given scholarships, they were given a small piggery, and it even came to a point when he was given a co-hosting stint in a television show.

But when Ramos' term ended, so did all the giving. And Mang Pandoy, for his part, faded into the background and reverted back to his isang-kahig-isang-tuka ways.

Is there a lesson to be learned in all this?

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I can't blame the former president, or any president for that matter, for not following through with the charity provided. After all, government can only do so much to help the poor.

Mechanisms have been built to provide the impoverished many with means to help them in helping themselves. However, a lot of these people deem it much easier to just wait for alms from government. Thus, they mishandle livelihood projects, loan more money from their respective cooperatives than they can repay, and misuse logistics meant as rolling funds for sustainable and/or capability-building programs.

At the end of the day, they go back to Square One: still as dirt-poor as ever.

And then, we'll be seeing these people on TV whining to the president to help them with their day-to-day problems. "Presidente Gloria, tulungan naman po ninyo kaming mga mahihirap." Geez...

The president, through her different government agencies, did try to help. It was just that either many of them were too busy squandering whatever money they had for drinking sprees, or making babies.

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My assessment of Mang Pandoy's fate was that he simply had no idea what to do with the newly-found opportunities that came his way. Perhaps the lack of education became a factor to his "downfall," but that could have been remedied when his children continued with their studies and eventually graduated.

Notwithstanding, it is evident that a blatant mishandling of opportunities led to Mang Pandoy's return to poverty.

Sayang.

The Church, the State, the Family, and my Faltering Faith

I am a Roman Catholic -- maybe not as devout as my mom is, but my faith in God, the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints is strong.

However, there are times when my faith in the Roman Catholic Church falters, especially when the issues of family and reproductive health come up.

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Father, mother, and child make family. I come from what has been termed by society as a dysfunctional family. My mom and dad never married, and I was obviously born out of wedlock. My dad eventually went on to marrying another woman, but if there is something I will never take away from him, it's the fact that he never wavered in his support of my mom and me until the time he retired from government service. He placed us in a comfortable (well, comfortable is kinda relative) apartment in Manila, he provided us with all our basic necessities, and he saw me through school until I graduated from college. He may have been an absentee father, but he was a true provider.

My mom, meanwhile, made her own mistakes along the way. She was your typical overbearing, overprotective mom (Annabelle Rama, move aside!) who used to scare off kids who'd pick on me. She had the same strictness as a soldier from Hitler's Third Reich, especially when it came to my studies. Later on, this same Nazi-like stance would surface in her regard of any of my potential suitors. Yes, she was strict, her use of guilt trips and emotional backlashes is legendary, she didn't hesitate to use a belt or her hand for disciplining me, and she was unreasonable. However, her love for me was (and still is) unconditional.

It was primarily the desire to get out of my mom's clutches that drove me to marry a man who I thought was "the one." That, as well as the desire not to end up like my mom whose love story didn't end up with wedding bells. Eventually, I found myself ending up exactly like my mom -- a single mother with one daughter. Only that I was in a worse predicament: I have legal documents proving that I was married to this loser of a husband and father.

It's also this legal bullshit that's making my separation from this loser of a husband very difficult. You see, our Local Family Code has been fashioned by legislators who are either womanizing chauvinists or Bible freaks. Thus, divorce is something an unhappy married couple can only dream of. The only alternative we have is annulment, and there has to be unmistakable proof that a marriage can no longer be consummated. More often than not, the spouses have to discredit each other in court if only to be granted annulment. It's long, it's tedious, and there is even a great possibility that annulment may not be granted.

Legal bullshit aside, my family's composition now consists of this: three women from different generations living under one roof. That's my mom, me, and my 12-year old daughter. My dad's no longer around, dunno where he is at present. He stayed in Manila when we left for Leyte in 1999. Tried getting in touch with him in 2005 but I only got to talk with their maid who told me that he and his wife left for the US to be with their children. I have never heard from him again and I dunno if he's still alive or...

My ex-husband, meanwhile, is living in Manila with his nth girlfriend. Enough said.

One day I heard mass with my family. Everything was just fine until we got to the gospel. The priest turned his sermon into a venomous tirade against those who desire for separation from their spouses. Being the good Catholic that I was, I tried "turning the other cheek," so to say, to this priest's misjudgments of people like me. (And I thought that it was only God who could give proper judgment...)

I could've sat through the priest's sermon, but I blew my top when he stressed that the only set of people the Catholic Church would recognize as family is a father, a mother, and a child/children. Any abberation of this setup can never be honored by the Catholic Church.

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Contraception equals abortion. Hogging the headlines these days is the resurfacing of attempts by several congressmen to thoroughly discuss House Bill 812, more commonly known as the Reproductive Health Bill. This said legislation has so far already passed first reading on the House floor. Once again, the Catholic Church is up in arms and this time, several bishops from the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) are threatening the said bill's supporters from Congress that they will not be granted communion in their respective parishes. They are even considering outright excommunication for proponents of the said bill.

Once again, the Catholic Church is discreetly but vigorously influencing -- no, bullying -- our local legislators into acceding to their commands with the threat of falling from grace. I have listened to their arguments behind their non-acceptance of the Reproductive Health Bill but none of them held water for me.

The Roman Catholic Church has been constantly renaming the Reproductive Health Bill as the Anti-life Bill, the Abortion Bill, the Anti-family Bill...etcetera, etcetera. It is their way of convincing the religious folk among us that solons are cooking up a law that permits abortion -- a very serious sin that goes against every moral fiber of society.

It doesn't stop at that. Apart from misleading poor parishioners who simply take everything the Church says hook, line, and sinker on grounds of faith, the Church also makes its presence felt in the halls of legislation with regard to its desire to take down any bill that touches on reproductive health or population management. How many bills or amendments have been shot down in the past due to the interference of the unseen but tangible hand of the Church and other Christian religious groups like the El Shaddai? There was the proposal to expand the reproductive rights of women through the Magna Carta for Women which was eventually archived due to pressure from the Catholic Church. Even the bill seeking for equal rights and privileges of homosexuals never even made it to second reading, but that's another story.

So far, the number of solons supporting this most recent Reproductive Health Bill has already dwindled, thanks to the ministrations of the Church. With the approach of the next elections in 2010, some of them have become intimidated by the potential loss of what is loosely termed as the "Church vote." This becomes more important to several of them than the idea of excommunication, thus, they let go of their support for the controversial bill.

I do admire the bravery of Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin -- a medical doctor who knows exactly the impact of HB 812 on the health of our fellowmen -- for standing steadfast amid the steady stream of threats by the Catholic Church. Defiant, she openly stated that she is willing to lose in the 2010 elections when she runs for a second term in her province. Her only desire is that she sees this bill through.

Congresswoman Garin and her fellow supporters of the Reproductive Health Bill may have lost some allies from their own fold, but has gained an unlikely supporter from the administration itself in the person of Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Esperanza Cabral. Seeing the situation of many Filipino families at the grassroots level, she knows that that the primary factor to their poverty is the fact that they have so many mouths to feed. She also knows from her work that a vital solution to this problem is the proper information dissemination and education of different methods of family planning. This is the same concept that the Reproductive Bill emulates.

Unfortunately, even with the passing of HB 812 in Congress and the Senate, the biggest stumbling block will be with the president herself who reiterated her "pro-life" stance.

Sigh...all this hoopla for nothing. Once again, the archaic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church to "go forth and multiply" get the upper hand.

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Our place in the town of Tanauan in Leyte is a big old two-storey house that we share with our landlady -- a wonderful woman in her twilight years. Directly beside our house is a lot filled with rickety shanties. About six to seven families occupy that lot. What interests me about these families is that they are virtual baby factories. From our window, one would see several grime-covered groups of kids in varying degrees of shabbiness playing in the dirt, sans slippers. While these kids turn our side of the street into their living room space-slash-playground until nighttime, their parents are either huddled together by a table armed with glasses and a jug or two of tuba, or singing their lungs out on one of the families' videoke machines.

One of these adults interests my mom and me a lot. While she does have a real name, we prefer to call her by this term, "buli." Mom says that "buli" is a Waray term for a chicken's ass that never stops moving. (Dunno if this is true, though.) It is this certain characteristic that Mom relates to this character's mouth. That's because she never stops screaming invectives to just about anyone from the time she wakes up until she goes into an alcohol-induced sleep.

A day in our neighborhood is never complete without hearing Buli and her husband shouting and clawing at each other. Despite this constant bickering, they manage to produce babies almost every year. So far, they already have seven, the youngest of which is barely two years old. And to think that Buli is just my age. That could only mean many more babies to come.

Buli only reached Grade 3 in terms of educational attainment. Because of this, job opportunities for her are very limited. Her substance abuse problem (she drinks like her liver is made of steel, and smokes like a chimney), as well as the number of children she has, further limits her chances of landing in a good job. Thus, she is relegated to doing laundry for neighbors and other odd jobs. Her husband's job as a pedicab driver could barely support their big family. It is the lack of money that becomes the major cause of this couple's squabbles.

Buli's eldest boy is older than my daughter at 14 years old, and yet he could be mistaken for a nine-year old child. He, along with his school-age brothers and sisters, languishes in the elementary years at the local public school. These kids couldn't go to school properly. Buli insists that if one of them goes to school, the others have to absent themselves just so they could help her with the laundry and with their younger siblings. Thus, all of them come to school on alternate days, never completing a school week.

Whenever Buli's husband is not around for her to vent her ire on, she vents it instead on the children. The poor kids are subjected to tongue-lashings of the most embarrassing sort, as well as lashings of the more violent kind. It's difficult not to find out about what Buli is doing to her children when you can hear the children's cries, her whipping, and her graty fishwife voice reverberating through our walls.

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Buli and her family is just but one of many Filipino families today who are bogged down by many problems like poverty and the inability to attain proper education. These concerns primarily boil down to the lack of education in family planning. As they add one more mouth to feed, their chances at a better life become slimmer. And I'm sure that this cycle of pathos will go on for generations to come.

Is this the kind of family the Roman Catholic Church wants us to have more of?

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Congresswoman Garin has reiterated several times in many press interviews that she will never condone abortion unless a pregnancy becomes detrimental to the mother's survival. This statement of hers ultimately debunks the Church's main allegation that the bill she is supporting seeks to allow abortion in our country. Nonetheless, the Church continues to maintain their position, this time placing the coat of morality over their feeble arguments.

What could be so morally deviant about giving a couple the chance to plan their family well through both natural and artificial methods? What could be so wrong about maintaining a family that doesn't have a father in the picture?

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Bishop Deogracias Yniguez, head of CBCP public affairs, said in a recent television interview that anyone supporting the Reproductive Health Bill is commiting a grave sin, and priests have the option not to grant communion to these people.

I strongly support HB 812 as a citizen of the Philippines and prime beneficiary of this bill. Does that make me a sinner, too?

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Once again, I reiterate that my faith in God remains as strong as ever. It is only my faith in His supposed "chosen men" that has faltered greatly.

However, at the end of the day I cannot blame them for their actions. After all, they are not gods but mere bickering mortals -- much like the Pharisees of Jesus' time.

I try my best to distinguish God's divine actions with the actions of men purporting to be under God's influence. That way, I would never lose sight of my spiritual integrity.

If my Creator's minions have condemned me to eternal damnation for my critical thoughts, then let them do so. After all, it is not for them to pass judgment: that is God's role.

And I know my soul is safe with Him.

Streams of Thought Again

Here's another bunch of ideas running in my head due to excessive exposure to the late-night news.
Same Old, Same Old. Exactly 21 years have passed since the infamous Mendiola Massacre that left at least 13 farmers dead from anti-riot police gunfire. And yet, nothing has changed -- except for the people in power. Or so I think.

Farmers are still pushing for genuine agrarian reform. Police are still trigger-happy. Put these two groups together in one place -- chaos ensues.

I pity these poor farmers who almost break their backs to till land that is not theirs. Up to now, it still has to sink in their minds that there is no such thing as genuine agrarian reform. Not in the Philippines, not anywhere.

For as long as our legislators and leaders are dominated by the landed elite, these people from the grassroots will simply wither away and still not achieve what they have long dreamt of: a land they can call their own.

A Question of Ethics. The recent Manila Pen siege has really brought out the worst in the Philippine Armed Forces. Not only were they exposed for their ineptitude and over-agressiveness in securing a small band of disillusioned military officers: their major faux pas was also seen on national and global TV and splashed over the pages of all major dailies.

It's no small wonder that they decided to turn the heat on journalists covering the event by detaining mediamen for several hours.

Now, the military top brass are threatening journalists that if ever the latter decides to "intervene" in future military operations, then they will not hesitate to round up these media people -- again.

Of course, the media is screaming bloody murder over the whole thing.

Isn't it enough that the military has already been tagged several times for extra-judicial killings of mediamen in the recent past?

Perhaps these officers in the military, including Department of Justice Head Raul Gonzales (a favorite of mine from the Arroyo administration -- not), may have forgotten the Bill of Rights in the 1987 Philippine Constitution. Article III, Section 4 of the Constitution specifically states: "No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances." (Geez, I will always have Atty. Victor Avecilla -- my former teacher of Law in Mass Media -- to thank for literally tattooing this particular law in my mind.)

Or maybe the AFP just doesn't understand the meaning of the word, "abridge."

On the other hand, there is also an ethical dilemma present in this situation regarding military operations. More specifically, it borders on the age-old clash between effective insurgency operations and the right of the people to know. For example, the military intends to launch an attack on an Abu Sayyaf stronghold, and details of this are kept in confidential documents. If a journalist either gets a hand on these said documents, or tails the military -- complete with camera crew -- all the way to the venue in question and catches live on camera the said offensive, then the military's cover is blown. Those Abu Sayyaf members who manage to lock in on the news can easily escape before any harm is done to them. At the end of the day, the planned military offensive becomes a failure, all because of over-eager media people trying to get ahead on the latest scoop.

Another former teacher of mine, Atty. Romeo Candazo, taught us in our Media Ethics class that journalists conform to a strict code of ethics. However, when an ethical dilemma like this comes about, one question must be answered: "Will your action prove beneficial to the majority, or only to a chosen few?" Actions based on their potential beneficial effects on the majority should be the ones undertaken. It is the benefit of the majority that has to be upheld, no matter what kind of ethical dilemmas are posed.

This only goes to show that the military's decision to deter journalists from military operations are not at all that spaced-out. Or maybe just a little.

Destabilization Plots. Still on military boo-boos, these guys are getting all paranoid again, saying that there are recent reports of destabilization plots against the Arroyo govovernment.

They can't even provide solid evidence to prove their paranoia.

Honestly, who wouldn't want to go against this present administration? A lot of Filipinos are still going hungry while these well-heeled people in Malacañang are celebrating over the strong performance of the Philippine peso over the dollar.

Geez, these people are talking about statistics, while there's still no food on the Filipino family's table.

If statistics can only be eaten...

Cat Murder. Okay, so I'm a little delayed in making a ruckus out of this news article (see GMA's Saksi video here) that happened during the early part of January. More than 20 cats -- all former strays -- living in a shelter inside the posh Dasmariñas Village in Makati were found killed inside their cages early one morning. Autopsy reports on the dead cats showed that they were gunned down using a pellet gun. Thank God, eight of them managed to survive the massacre.

The last I heard about this incident, the suspected gunman is the shelter caretaker. Probably sick and tired of cleaning cat poo and pee, this guy decided to end his suffering by using the poor cats as target practice.

Of course, animal welfare groups are up in arms over this gruesome incident. Even the residents of the village were concerned -- but not much for the cats but for themselves. According to them, if this cat-killer has the guts to do such a thing to caged animals, then what will keep him from killing people next?

Talk about false concern. In this case, I'd rather have them placed in the cat cages instead of the cats.

Whenever I encounter stories like the Makati cat massacre, I would sometimes think of the concepts of karma and reincarnation. If ever these are really true, I wish that perpetrators of cruelty to these gentle animals would eventually die and turn into the very same animals they were cruel to in their next lives. And I hope the very same pain and torture that they inflicted in their past life would also be inflicted on them.

This cruelty to animals is no longer new to us human beings. In the provinces, cats and dogs are being skinned alive and eaten. Roosters are pitted in cockpits to fight to the death. Pigs are brought to the slaughterhouse in the most inhumane way -- tied down in groups and hung at the back of a motorcycle, placed in a sack and thrown inside the baggage compartment of a bus, etc. Unfortunate dolphins that get caught in fishermens' nets end up sliced up and sold in the wet market. And we just turn a blind eye to these occurrences as if nothing happened.

No amount of information dissemination can take away the innate cruelty of some humans.

Pit Señor Sto. Niño! Cebu City was dressed up to the nines and turned into one big party place last Sunday, thanks to the celebration of the Sinulog Festival, held in honor of the said city's patron, the Sr. Sto. Niño.

This was my second time to watch the Sinulog, and this time I watched it from a very strategic vantage point: my TV in the comfort of my room.

Last year, I was still very new in Cebu and eager to see how Cebuanos party. Thus, I braved the crowds with an officemate and we trekked the long stretch of road where the grand parade was held.

While the dance steps are not that new to me (I half-hail [Is there such a word? LOL!] from Tanauan, Leyte where we have our own Pasaka Festival in honor of Our Lady of the Assumption.), I was astounded by the sheer number of contingents and their elaborate costumes.

And yes, I was also astounded by the sheer heat of the sun and the difficulty to get a ride home. But it was an experience not to be missed, so no regrets -- only lessons to be learned.

That's why this year, I just watched the Sinulog on TV.

Of course, the experience is not as exhilarating as watching the real thing -- but at least I got to see most, if not all of the contingents strutting their stuff in the Cebu City Sports Center.

However, for some strange reason, every time I see the TV footage of the Sinulog, I couldn't help but shed a tear or two. I dunno: I guess I'm just moved to tears by seeing the true beauty and richness of Philippine culture through these magnificent dancers. Or maybe I just remember my daughter when she took part in our Pasaka Festival three years ago. Whatever it is, my tears are tears of pride -- pride in the Filipino.