Archive for July, 2011

Atrocity

Atrocity

We live with the ambitions – and perhaps even illusions – of the “civilized world.”  The veneer of liberty, politics, and democracy have somehow shielded us from atrocities, from barbarism.  Great strides in knowledge have rendered the concept of “race” obsolete, and now we embrace cultural and social diversity.  For all our differences, there are more things that hold us together than keep us apart.

Yet we live in a world where an atrocity is deemed by a fanatic as “necessary.”

Freedom is somehow tolerant to a fault, that even the most extreme and asinine ideas find equal and firm footing in free speech and assembly.  We accept them not because we agree with them, but because they are part of the marketplace of ideas.  The world is full of homophobic, racist, xenophobic charlatans who spend days and weeks and months preaching their twisted zealotry to the masses with no sign of outrage.

Yet that act of freedom ends where one begins, and it doesn’t have to be murder.  Murder is a very distant line crossed.  It is a line made in the picket lines of anti-gay religious fanatics, in racists smashing windows, in xenophobes proclaiming the most obsolete and discredited ideas of the last century to be the salvation of the few.

The promise of multiculturalism is in harmony, in mutual learning, in sharing.  Yet some prefer the chaos of isolation, the belief in a false sense of superiority, and simply refuse to share.  We continue to live with people who believe against immigration, who think of other cultures and religions as inferior, who think of the wonderful melting pot of cultures as a parasitic infection that threatens the purity of “races.”  Liberty, politics, and democracy may have sought to change these misnomers, but somehow a terrorist like Anders Breivik sought solace in them.

The crusade of Breivik was against multiculturalism, and it behooves us all to be crusaders for it.  Not because we seek to avenge the 85 (and counting) people who died in Norway, but because we seek to establish that freedom means life, that freedom means respect, and freedom means recognition.  Not because it took a bomb and an automatic weapon to trigger our sensitivities towards the existence of terrorist ideologies with terrorist actions and consequences, but because we’re all products and beneficiaries of what a terrorist sought to destroy.  We join in a crusade for greater understanding, recognition, and respect of multiculturalism and the diversity of cultures brought about by immigration and exodus.

While one person with a belief is equal to the force of thousands who only have interests, no idea is worth the senseless death of one.  While one person with a belief is equal to the force of thousands who only have interests, people with the belief of peace and harmony far outnumber those who believe in terrorism as a solution.  No one man, in his right mind and with respect and faith to others around him, will ever believe the twisted beliefs of Breivik and endorse the violence he caused.

Today, we mourn.  We cannot fathom the extent of grief for the victims, for the survivors, and the nation of Norway.  Today, we rage.  We cannot bear to forgive the act, nor can we bear to endorse the beliefs he stood for.  We are beneficiaries of the differences he loathed and despised, of things he sought to destroy because of his fanatical, maniacal beliefs.  Today, we stand as one, with recognition and respect for color, place of origin, differences in culture.  Our greatest revenge is not to see him brought to justice and stand behind bars with a diverse group of criminals and malcontents, but in living the dream of harmony he so disagreed with.

And yet we are shocked, for in this free world – where we always lived in complete freedom from people who shared an ideology like his – we saw a monstrosity take place in our midst.  We are unnerved.

July 24, 2011 0 comments Read More
Driving the Bishops

Driving the Bishops

Sensibilities, particularly those where Church and State are involved, are easy to offend.

On the one hand, you can’t consider a battered Nissan Pathfinder or a Mitsubishi L-300 to be a “luxury car.”  Compared to the vehicles some of our “public servants” are driving, the vehicles attributed to – and returned by – the embattled monsignors of the CBCP are austere, and not exactly in top condition.  Who are we to deny them vehicles like these if their functions in their missions depend on them?

On the other hand, in a religion founded on the humility of charity, bishops don’t ask for sports-utility vehicles as birthday gifts in return for unwavering support.  Bishop Pueblos’ “lapse in judgment” may be well-intentioned, but the road to Hell is paved by precisely those things.  What we have here is a case of a lack of discretion that erodes people’s faith in their religious organizations.

On the one hand, you would need more than a jeepney to traverse the terrain of far-flung missions.  Let’s face it: an expensive SUV can get the job done better than an old utility vehicle.  It’s not even a necessary evil: cars of that build and quality are necessary for transporting medicines and goods and supplies to the poor and indigent.

On the other hand, money made from fund-raising, Church properties, and collection plates all over the country should be more than enough to purchase vehicles for that purpose.  One can imagine that the generosity of the faithful, the donations solicited from churchgoers, and the enterprises of the diocese would be enough to meet the ends of a vehicle without having to curry favor from the State, or contradict teachings of taking things from gambling money.

On the one hand, the PCSO is, based on the hearings we see every day on TV, is damaged before the public.  It is, by and large, mismanaged, in need of an overhaul, and based on Senator Miriam Santiago’s statement, it may even need to be repealed.  After all, there were no Pajeros returned anyway, and the benefits to the Bishop and the Diocese are incidental.

On the other hand, it’s not the business of government to donate public money to the Church.  The difference is that while the benefits are incidental, the intentions may be different.  The basic purposes, as they stand, meant that this favor was granted (with apparent admission) only to the Catholic Church, which attacks the basic purpose, the establishment clause, and makes it unconstitutional anyway.

On the one hand, the Church already apologized.  The basic acts of forgiveness and contrition have already been done.  The bishops have, apparently, prostrated themselves before the people and asked for understanding and forgiveness.

On the other hand, returning the vehicles doesn’t strike the act out from the record.  That while we may forgive and insist that the bishops keep the vehicles (which they should), this is a black eye that can’t be healed with a simple “Sorry.”

Again: sensibilities, particularly those where Church and State are involved, are easy to offend.  Not because they stand contrary to each other (they, in fact, don’t), but because this whole fiasco attacks the sensibilities of the faithful in the way they see government and the Church.

July 14, 2011 1 comment Read More
Triumph Over Pain

Triumph Over Pain

 

I think it was Marcel Proust who once wrote that we can only be healed from suffering only when we experience it completely.  It’s hard to understand that, when we live in a world that has all but eliminated pain.  There’s a pill for just about every kind of affliction, and an anaesthetic for every surgical procedure.  It may not be a pain-free world we live in, but there’s always a guarantee of relief.  We are no longer bound by pain, but we are free from it.  Pain merely becomes an option in our lives.

The images of despair, grief, and torment that comes with everything from pricking to paroxysm find relief in small little pills.  In the same way that the light bulb changed day and night, the painkiller changed that intimate connection of mind and body called pain.  At its most extreme, we have successfully alienated it from ourselves.  We no longer “suffer:” we merely manage pain, control it.  Or alleviate symptoms.  The experience of pain violates the morals of reason, joy, and pleasure.  It is taboo to suffer in a world that is somehow, in some way, governed by doses of over-the-counter analgesics.  Or, at its extreme, vials of anaesthesia.

We speak of “revolutions” a lot, but there’s no human invention that has ever changed life in its entirety – from the mind, the body, the heart, and the soul – more than the painkiller.  Our world is dependent on it: work can stop with a migraine, so we pop a pill.  We want the most convenient way to extract teeth, so we developed lidocaine.  The easiest and smoothest road to addiction are not the hard drugs glorified in movies, but the blisters and bottles we keep around the house to keep ourselves from experiencing a regular physiological function.  A normal human reaction.

We speak of “desensitization” a lot, but even our painkiller-fortified bodies cannot stand suffering.  Or worse, we cannot understand suffering.  And while our bodily pains are relieved by painkillers we start searching for things immune to it.  Or worse, create things that are beyond the doses of painkillers.  Things like war, heartbreak, fear, hunger: things that are beyond the sensibilities of humanity.  We’ve become out of touch with pain that we create it, and try to drown it with the painkillers we’ve grown dependent on.  Care packages filled with aspirin, overdosing on drugs in the event of heartbreak, a paracetamol to curb the anxiety of day-to-day living.  Or just plain not caring at all for the welfare of those suffering around us.  It hurts to see people suffer, and we haven’t developed a painkiller for that yet.

And so we watch the extremes of suffering unfold before us; and for our own suffering, ibuprofen will do.  Or apathy and indifference: society’s best painkillers.  I don’t want to think that we’re all but desensitized, but somehow I’m wont to believe that those who suffer are closer to being human than those who pop a pill.

July 14, 2011 0 comments Read More
The Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo Train

The Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo Train

This is a story told to me some 20-odd years ago, when I was still enamored with toy trains.  I still like toy trains, but I had to change parts of this story: the story of the Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo Train.

That’s right, a Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo train.  I write bad stories, so here goes.

Once upon a time, there was a little one-car train that pulled a coach along the rail line.

Every day, the train carried its coach along the line.  It went, Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  It passed along the lake, through the dale, over the hill, and under the bridge where the schoolchildren passed by every day.

One spring morning, the controller decided to add a coal truck to the train.  That way, they didn’t have to load up the train’s tiny tender too often.

So the train went, Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  The lake was full of fish, the dale was full of cows, the hill’s sides were covered with flowers, and the schoolchildren marched in single file on the bridge to the schoolhouse on that spring morning.

The next day, the controller decided to add another coach to the train.  He thought that by having two coaches, they could get more people to board the train every day.

So the train went, Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  The lake now had some boats, the dale now had a barn, the hill’s sides had a few houses, and the schoolchildren rode their bikes on the bridge to the schoolhouse on that spring morning.

One summer, the controller added a flat truck to the train.  The flat truck was to carry more goods, like containers and boxes and crates and machines.

So the train went, Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  The lake was teeming with fishermen, the dale now had fences and silos, the hill’s sides were now full of beautiful white houses, and the teenagers hung out on the bridge to the schoolhouse that summer afternoon.

A few summers later, the controller took the old coaches and trucks and the flatbed away so that the train can haul the circus coaches.  Elephants, lions, trapeze artists, they all rode the train.  The Ferris wheels, the carousels, and all the attractions were loaded up on the coaches and hitched onto the train.

So the train went, Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  The lake reflected the fireworks shot off to the sky, the dale filled with the glowing and spinning and whirring rides, the hill’s sides had tents all shapes and sizes, and the parents walked their kids on the bridge to the Big Top near the schoolhouse that summer evening.

Winter came, and the controller brought back the old, heavy clunky trucks to hitch up on the train.  The train was to deliver coal to all the houses and villages.  The loaded trucks themselves weighed more than the elephants, and the wheels rusted out by snow, salt, and age.

So the train went, Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  The lake was frozen, the dale was quiet and snowed in, the hill’s sides covered with snowy rooftops of factories spewing out soot and smoke, and the poor people thrown out of their houses by the factory owners lived under the old bridge keeping themselves warm that cold winter’s night.

Many years later, in the fall, the controller attached Super Duper coaches to the train.  Everyone loved the Super Duper coaches, with full reclining seats, fluorescent lighted floors, and satellite TV and Internet.  They didn’t bother replacing the train, since the coaches were Super Duper.  What mattered was that the train got the Super Duper coaches where they were supposed to go.

So the train went, Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo!  The lake dried up and there stood the Super Duper Mall, the dale was gone and became the Super Duper Used Car Lot, the hill’s sides became the Super Duper Condominum Complex, and the Super Duper Employees of Super Duper Corporation rode their Super Duper scooters over the bridge to the Super Duper Headquarters that autumn dawn.

A few years later, summer arrived and the train was battered.  Beat from the trucks, beat from the coaches, beat from the flatbed, beat from the Super Duper Coaches, and just plain old beat.  The controller tried adding cars and coaches, but the hooks didn’t bite into the chains as well as they used to.  The wheels of the train didn’t coast along the rails as fast as they did before.  And try as the old and aging controller may, the old boiler of the old train had just enough left to get the little train moving to the scrap yard.

So the train went, Chugga Choo-Choo!  Chugga Choo-Choo!  But it was chugging along on a very different line.  There was no lake, no dale, no hill, and no bridge where it was going.  It was just a short, moss-covered, rusty old line from the station, passing by the quarry, up and over the dump and into the old scrap yard.

That same night, as it moved along the conveyor belt that led to the furnace, the train went, Choo-Choo!  Choo-Choo! for the very last time.  Chugga, Chugga… CRASH! And the silence in the yard said it all, that the little train was no more.

The original story had the controller fix the train. The controller repaired the boiler, gave the train a new set of wheels, and the old-brand-new-train was speeding along the lake, through the dale, over the hill and under the bridge.

Then again, 20-odd years or so after I first heard that story, I don’t see a lot of Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Choo-Choo trains anymore.

July 8, 2011 0 comments Read More
Manos de Sara

Manos de Sara

I’d like to begin this “commentary” on Sara Duterte’s flurry of punches with this question: is it okay to punch somebody?

Let’s get some things out of the way first: Sara Duterte demonstrated a great grasp of authority beyond her years in her ability to make the rioting protesters drop their weapons and making the police officers stand down.  The demolition, from the looks of things, was bungled; in our long history with informal settlers, we seem to not have learned much from the many violent encounters in shantytowns.  Yet the focus of much argument – with many people surprisingly (or rather, not surprisingly) for it – is Mayor Inday punching the sheriff in the head.

Is it okay to punch somebody?  No.

To say that Sara Duterte was “exercising political will” and “flexing political muscle” by throwing a punch is to lower and debase our expectations of how public officials should behave, and to some extent to lower and debase our expectations of what is reasonable behavior.  The Mayor could have completely dressed down the informal settlers and police officers with the most acerbic words necessary to delay the demolition, or get the end result she deemed appropriate.  After all, that is all that is necessary to settle the problem.

Sara Duterte could have pulled aside the sheriff, negotiated terms (knowing that the sheriff was by no means answerable to, or subordinate to, the Mayor’s Office), and worked out a solution.  Yet the moment she beckoned to the officer of the court and threw a flurry of punches, the dialogue stopped.  The results were not fruitful.  In the end, the much-revered Mayor took a leave of absence without the problem – the informal settlers – resolved in a reasonable manner.

We cannot, and should not, use her compassion for her poorer constituents as a justification for her act of violence (no matter how momentary).  We cannot, and should not, interpret her willingness to face the consequences of her actions as one that carries more weight than evidence of assault.  We cannot, and should not, unfairly drag her surname into play and use it as an expectation of how she rules and governs.  We cannot, and should not, unfairly use her gender to invoke “Girl Power.”  We cannot, and should not, reduce things into context and reading too much in between the lines to create aporia, which when done too often, can be used as a justification that the punch did not exist.

The ability to dialogue, and for those talks to have fruitful results, is a very good demonstration of leadership.  (If it’s any indication, some of our best leaders are not pugilists.)  In a political setting where leaders are asked to do what is necessary, we require prudent judgments and actions from our leaders.  Punches from mayors to officers of the law may be applicable to the despotic and the tyrranical, but they have no room in a democratic society.  (Still, the praise from many of those in some strata of our society who support Sara Duterte’s actions is symptomatic of how confidence in leadership has decayed, but that’s another story.)

Beyond the intricacies of modernity, elites, and class there are simpler but no less important tenets that create civilization, and the leadership that sustains and fosters it: good manners, right conduct, respect, and temperance.  What we can all agree on was that there were many ways to fix the problem beyond the fit of rage that Sara Duterte committed.  It was a questionable demonstration of leadership on that particular moment.  It does not indict Sara Duterte as a lousy leader, but it lays into question how she leads under pressure, and the prudence she has as a leader.

Leadership is more about weighing options and making judgments with one’s hands, than to clench them into fists and punch people in a state of anger.

July 3, 2011 15 comments Read More