Allow me to dwell on the word “moron” for a bit: when you cede sovereign territory to violent insurgents that you don’t trust, realize an error in judgment and take back the agreement, and then expect that these insurgents will go back to the negotiating table ready to break bread and make peace… well, you get the picture.

That, at least to me, is a perfectly good definition of the word “moron.”

Let me dwell again: when you’re invited by a moron to break bread and make peace, you instead choose to go on a bloodthirsty rampage at a rural hamlet, literally hacking away at the lives of innocent civilians, and then say you’re innocent of the atrocities and say you have nothing to do with it… again, you get the picture.

That, at least to me, is another perfectly good definition of the word “moron.”

So let’s clarify: only morons would give up inalienable possessions and territories, and only morons will take the lives of people who have nothing to do with moronic events.  In effect, the atrocities and offensives – the war – down south, is caused by morons.

Moronic; definition: an unconstitutional memorandum of agreement passed and taken back by the Government to the MILF.

The sad state of affairs is that a moron would not take responsibilities for an act he or she caused, because you really can’t pin the blame on morons.  Morons, being devoid of conscience, act on impulse.  If the Memorandum of Agreement was not an impulsive action, if the dozens of victims in Lanao were not hacked to death out of impulse, then the negotiating panel from both sides must be geniuses.

After all, it’s nothing short of genius to compromise something as basic as the lives of people, isn’t it?

*    *    *

I have to disagree with Cocoy’s comment on an opinion piece I made for Filipino Voices, that war is the crucible by which our relationship with the Bangsamoro peoples and/or the MILF insurgents will be tested.  The crucible was supposed to be the peace talks: when you have peace talks, war becomes the last remote possible option to resolve the conflict once and for all.  You have peace talks to avoid every possibility and suggestion of war.

Protracted as it may seem, the MILF peace talks were supposed to be that avenue for the peace process; if, after years of conflict and struggle, we can come to a win-win solution:

• One, the peace talks were supposed to serve the imperative of preserving Philippine sovereignty.
• Two, the peace talks were supposed to serve the imperative of granting Muslim Mindanao the right to self-determination.
• Three, the peace talks were supposed to serve the imperative for peace in conflict-torn Mindanao.

This sounds weird, but I have to agree with Maguindanao Rep. Didagen Dilangalen (yes, that very Digs who shrieked, “Shut up, freedom of expression, Your Honor!” back in the Estrada impeachment trials) when he said that suspending the peace talks spells danger for Mindanao.  It’s not that anyone is begging for a bloodless solution – the rationale behind peace talks is to stem bloodshed, not prevent it – but people were begging for a long-term, permanent compromise - a win-win solution - to this matter.

Yes, it’s definitely a pipe dream.  It could have been done if nobody drafted that MOA and took it back.

Yet you can’t do much about the consequences of morons: I cannot blame the Senate if they vote to suspend the Mindanao peace talks indefinitely, because there’s really nothing much you could do about the seething frustrations of a moronic band of terrorists who were baited with an unconstitutional MoA by morons in the GRP negotiating panel.

War is definitely not a crucible here, but an unintended consequence, an oversight that could have easily been avoided if only each side of the negotiating table possessed an iota of intelligence, a modicum of sincerity, and a smidgen of competence.

Yet an iota, a modicum, and a smidgen are too much to ask for, especially when you’re dealing with, well, morons.

I usually don’t take the MRT whenever I go home from work.  I’m usually not in a hurry to do anything, and I suppose the extra expense of taking a city bus is well worth it.  For one, there’s a better chance for me to have a seat on the long commute from Ortigas Center to Commonwealth.  For two, a window seat in the chaos of rush-hour traffic gives me a good, long look into a world without high-rise office buildings and the pretentiousness of office workers from “Ehrr-tee-gess.”

There’s also laziness; eight hours of sitting down, interrupted by a few cigarette breaks every now and then, tends to take away your ability to negotiate that flight of stairs that leads up to Shaw Boulevard station.  Climbing it reminds me of when I was a kid at Lourdes Grotto, where I managed to knock myself out to a semi-conscious state because I sprinted halfway up the steep stairs leading to the statue of Mary.

I take the buses bound for SM Fairview.  With my weak eyes and lack of coordination, it gets a bit tricky to board the right bus at exactly the right time.  Drivers always seem to be in a hurry to load and unload passengers, especially at non-designated “informal” bus stops.  A few times I end up boarding the wrong bus, bound either for Novaliches or for Monumento.  At least, there’s always Trinoma to look forward to.

The bus itself is a world of paradoxes.  You would think that in a time of fuel crisis and low wages, people would board the ordinary bus.  Yet there’s a certain indignity in riding them, where you rub shoulders with sweaty men in undershirts who work harder than you do, yet get paid much less.  The few extra pesos spent in an air-conditioned bus with on-board DVD is a small price to pay for a small comfort, even if you do have to stand up and cram out front at the aisle.

Any bus that plies the EDSA route will inevitably stop at Cubao.  If Dante were alive, he would be aghast at the almost hellish world that lies beyond the paradise that is Gateway.  The iron fences erected by the MMDA do little to discipline the crowd moving to board the buses from the entrance of Farmers’ Plaza, who push and shove to make the most of standing room.  As if by some unknown sin, a worker at Cubao bound for Fairview is forced to pay dire penance, unless some unknown soul gives up his or her seat because he or she lives either at Timog or East Avenue.

It’s also in Cubao where the business of “ticket inspection” takes place.  Some man or lady boards the bus for the sole purpose of tearing up bus tickets.  I’ve been told that this is a “5-6” operation, although I think that it’s more of a way to prevent “1-2-3.”  Whatever the numbers are, they’re written on a sheet of paper.  God knows, in the form of this stern messenger with glasses, “Judas” not pay.

The conductors, inspectors, MMDA traffic people, and bus drivers are not the only people entitled to make a living off a bus at EDSA.  From time to time, especially at the stop in front of Robinsons’ Galleria, there will be some vendors who distribute a small slip that tell you they’re handicapped working students who support their education selling macapuno or dried mangoes.  Not having a sweet tooth, but irritatingly polite, I return the slip with the promise that I’ll buy a few treats if I can afford them, or if I’m looking for sugar.  In both cases, I don’t anyway.  My redeeming qualities as a human being are extremely limited.

The other important enterprises in EDSA rush hour traffic are bottled water and peanuts.

Paranoia sometimes gets the best of me when it comes to water; while the bottle looks mouth-wateringly chilled, I sometimes suspect that the bottles are filled and refilled with tap water.  I have no problems drinking from a faucet; that is, provided that I know where I’m drinking water from.  You kind of suspect something wrong when the bottle is sold to you at the ridiculously cheap price of ten pesos.  You start to imagine (and in my case, hallucinate) about dysentery, cholera, or bad diarrhea at three in the morning.

The peanuts, I cannot resist; resistance is futile when you’re offered “mani,” in more ways than one.  Fried garlicky salted peanuts remind me so much of “Manang Mani” back in UP Baguio, who would absolutely have no problem with my rather outlandish (yet appetizing) requests of bagoong alamang added to my purchases of turnips, green mangoes, and yes, peanuts.  It takes skill, strength, and balls to board buses while you’re carrying a plastic bucket full of peanuts or cashew nuts.  Lately, the loose associations of iterant bus-hopping vendors have taken to wearing numbered orange shirts, which remind you a lot of prison.  You think that one of them have finished a sentence, but is a former inmate and charter member of Sige-Sige Sputnik.

The billboards are different.  I’ve always had this preference for the driver-side window seats, where I could see a lot of those billboards featuring Anne Curtis.  It’s completely remote (and it’s a head-slap moment), but I sometimes wish that I was a showbiz fanboy blogger just to get that one entry done featuring a dinner conversation with Anne… but I end up talking to politicians about politics.  I’m not complaining, but come on!  Although I do have to admit that there are some angles of Ruffa Gutierrez that are alluring, I still find Claudine Baretto more beautiful than Gretchen, and I still nitpick with my showbiz-aware friends about how Judy Ann Santos looks when she “dared to get wet.”  Perhaps it’s very… “Ploning…” but that’s just me.

I sometimes wish I could learn a better lesson from all of this; that those profound and meaningful things happen to me on a daily basis every time I board a bus at rush hour.  Well, not really, except that hour-long commutes, with all its quirks, teach you a lot about perspective.  You view these stills of chaos, searching for those inspirational – perhaps even emo – things that you could blog about and preach as a lesson in life.  But really, there’s nothing you learn there anyway that you don’t already know.  Things like “fleeting moments,” “time is gold,” “transience,” “look both ways.”

These days, I don’t dwell in the emo, the profound, or the philosophy of bus riding pace Heidegger.  There’s that all-important valuable lesson you get from riding buses: “Don’t jump off the bus while it’s moving, you crazy-ass motherfucker.”

I’ve never live-blogged before… pardon the rockstar-ing, but live from UCC Cafe Terrace in TriNoma, this is TMX.  (Shhh… I’m pirating free wi-fi.)

I’m here at the invitation of Abbey Tomas of Protege, where, together with some bloggers, I’ll sample UCC Cafe Terrace’s coffees and stuff.  Not my first time in UCC: my favorite stuff here include:

• Hawaiian blue soda
• Air-conditioned smoking area.

Small cups.  Servings bigger.

10:20 AM: I just had UCC Blended for this coffee sampling routine.  I doubt the caramel cubes, but that coffee was a great way to kill a bad hangover.  UCC apparently first opened in Quezon City, says Abbey: it’s not just about good coffee, but also about a good meal.  The Blended tastes a bit like, well, coffee.  Nothing the coffee aficionado would like.  I hate to be harsh, but I like my coffee kick-ass.

Cost: P129.  It’s the David Cook of UCC’s coffees.  I don’t necessarily like, but other people may like it.

UCC gets their own coffee from their own plantations in places like Indonesia and Hawaii.  Arabica, by the way; the Japanese can be very obsessive with their coffee quality.

Arpee says that Starbucks doesn’t serve food, which makes it lose compared to other coffee shops (like Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and Seattle’s Best Coffee).  This is UCC’s distinct advantage.

Candy says that if coffee shops offer free wi-fi, then they’ll have free customers.  This UCC doesn’t offer free wi-fi yet, but hey; I’m pirating.  I think the wi-fi thingy is just from the other store.

10:31 AM: I just had UCC’s Sumiyaki.  I want more; I like it!  The coffee is very, very strong; it makes me want to do the King Leonidas outside.  That coffee is extreme, baby!  Not for those who like frappucinos from Starbucks; Sumiyaki is coffee that will kick your ass, and will make you kick people’s asses.  I love it.

UCC Vienna has a European feel.  UCC Terrace mimics a country club.  It’s kind of intimidating; so… upper-class.  Your P500 probably won’t get you far here (although I would date a certain person at UCC).

Cost: P159.  It’s the Zach de la Rocha of UCC’s coffees.  I heart Sumiyaki, definitely a must.

Roch says that the lunch menus are great here.  I don’t know: I’m a MiniStop fellow.  She also says that UCC is a comparatively affordable place.  It’s a great place to eat, because you would pay for really great food.

We’ll see… just ordered breakfast.

I’ve been browsing UCC’s menus, and boy, when they said expensive, they meant it.  Consider these prices:

• Cafe au lait (i.e. coffee with cream and sugar): P139
• Iced cafe cappuccino (i.e. what you get at Starbucks): P179
• Oreo smoothie (i.e. stuff you get at Starbucks): P129
• Filipino breakfast of beef tapa served with garlic rice, Japanese salad, and egg (i.e., tapsilog): P289

Expensive?  Yes.  Worth it?  Definitely.  We all need luxury goods one way or another, y’know.

10:41 AM: I’m sampling UCC’s Blue Mountain coffee.  It’s kind of… sour for hot coffee.  I hear it’s their most expensive coffee, but I’m very partial towards that kick-ass Sumiyaki.  Blue Mountain kind of feels like emo coffee; it’s a medley of sourness.  Bitterness.  The mood swing, the PMS, the emo episode.

It’s the kind of coffee that reminds you of the tenuousness of life… or if you take your coffee that seriously.  I’d like to think that those who appreciate depth and contrast with their coffee would really like Blue Mountain.

Cost: P399.  Musical comparison: Chris Carrabba.  Note, this is the most expensive siphon-brewed coffee available at UCC.

Chrissie just gave me her calling card.  Note to self: must get one.

I’m eavesdropping at the conversation at the other table, and as it seems, they’re talking about the different kinds of bloggers.

When an impromptu blogging thing takes place, expect a lot of gadgetry.  I see digital cameras, a new iPhone, a Canon EOS digital SLR, and my laptop.  It’s one of two things: pretentiousness (admit it) or necessity.

UCC will expand to 18 stores, says Abbey: including Cebu, Pampanga and Greenbelt 5.  No plans yet to expand to Baguio City.  Slow but sure.  Too bad… oh well.

Arpee asks how UCC measures up.  Abbey insists that they focus more on “Sit down, forget what’s happening outside.”  Target market of UCC: professionals.  At UCC Tomas Morato, their main customers are the Chinese-Filipinos.  At EDSA Connecticut: golfers.  At UCC Podium: bankers of ADB.  At UCC Paseo de Roxas: executives.

Swank?  You tell me.

11:15 AM: Had a Classic Breakfast with English Bangers, scrambled eggs, Japanese salad, and wheat bread.  The salad was made of tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce.  I liked the wheat bread - no butter, I like my bread without palaman - and the scrambled eggs and salad were so-so.  I ordered the bangers for the pornographic connotations in it.  Really.

The bangers were terrific.  I know they’re a swanky version of longganisa, but hey, they taste really good.  You can imagine making a sandwich out of the wheat bread, the lettuce, the eggs, and the bangers… but I have bad table manners.  (I have RSI, so I can’t handle cutlery properly).

Cost: P289.  What strikes me as rather queer about it is that the Blue Mountain coffee costs P100 more than the meal.  I ordered orange juice with the breakfast meal, because I drank a bucket of San Miguel Pale Pilsen last night.  I need detoxification.  The orange juice is not Tang or Eight O’Clock or bad orange-flavored garbage; it’s freshly-squeezed.  Excellent.

Time for dessert; the problem is, I’m not a dessert eater, so I just decided to take a photograph of the P165 Coffee Jelly Cooler:

I’m not a dessert-eater… I hate dessert.  I despise dessert with the wrath and the fury of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  I loathe dessert.  Under duress, I took a few bites of ice cream and coffee jelly.  It didn’t make a convert out of me, but I suppose that if you revel in the decadence of sweet vanilla ice cream and jelly made from brewed coffee, you’ll like it.

You’ll really like it.

After that we got some gift certificates (I think), UCC instant coffee (I’m giving them away to the first five people to tell me I’m sexy… whatever), pens, and a coffee cup.

Anyway, for the lowdown on UCC…

I could rant and rave about how much I don’t like coffee shops for the annoying swankiness and poseur wealth that comes with people drinking just one coffee for three hours, but UCC is different.  UCC prides itself on its coffee, but it’s more of an experience than anything else.  Granted that it’s not exactly the cheapest place to eat, much less have a coffee, but excellence has a price.  It is pricey, but with big servings and great coffee, it’s really a good place to have an experience like no other.  It will dent your budget if you don’t make enough, but everyone needs their own bits of luxury every now and then.  That - including terrific sausage and the chemistry of 133t siphoned coffee - is enough reason to make UCC a monthly treat.

Many thanks to UCC Trinoma.  You ain’t seen the last of me.

From a Green perspective, there’s something wrong with all the yellow ribbons tied all over Metro Manila.  You can only imagine how many strips of plastic and yards of rope will circulate through the metropolis (who says garbage is thrown away here?) come tomorrow, when August 21 will be - yet again - forgotten.

Today happens to be the 25th death anniversary death of a rather controversial figure in Philippine history: Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino III.  Today, I suppose, begs a time to reflect.

When I was younger, my perspective on the man who graces a coveted P500 bill was an exercise in humanizing a hero.  You would respect Jose Rizal for being the national hero, and you would not question why Sergio Osmeña is on the P50 bill if you don’t know a lot about his contributions to Filipino independence.  My parents - my dad, most especially - had this critical view of Ninoy, who apparently became “heroic” not for what he did, but for what happened to him.  I think it’s a sorry feeling to be immortalized in bronze where you don’t look like you died from a gunshot, but because you slipped.

Back in college, the discussion was even more critical; for a person who was perceived by many to be a saint of democracy, Ninoy pretty much personified the antithesis.  He was the archetypal trapo. Ninoy was the scion of an affluent clan, born into privilege, with very little bonds and commonalities with the common Filipino.  Ninoy was pretty much the grand-scale version of what Ferdinand Marcos wanted to be: powerful, rich, landed, and carried a name that literally reeked of prestige and wealth.  Four years ago, at an immersion trip to Hacienda Luisita in San Miguel, Tarlac, the older tenant farmers I talked to did not hold Ninoy in a very high regard.  He was, like the clan his wife and future President Cory Aquino belonged to, the Oppressor.

Yet Ninoy was the enemy Marcos cannot defeat.  His eloquent passion was drumming up patriotic feelings, if not feelings of unbridled resentment, against the Marcos dictatorship.  Ninoy told the Philippines and the world of the excesses of the Marcos regime, from corruption to political manipulation to extrajudicial policy-making, and even the P50-million Cultural Center of the Philippines commissioned by Imelda, which he called a “Pantheon” of the regime and a “monument of shame.”  From the hallowed halls of the Senate, Ninoy’s words resonated with the anger of a people who were sick, tired, and disgusted with the rule of Marcos.

Twenty-five years ago, Ninoy announced that after three years of self-exile, he was coming back home.  Eighty-two seconds after he alighted from the plane, he got shot.  Three years later, the indignation of the Filipino people reached the critical point.  People started that long march to EDSA, and that long march to freedom.  The man who made the “willing sacrifice of the innocent” became the icon of the freedom of a people who stood against tanks and armed soldiers.  Ninoy, the inspiration and the reminder of the People Power Revolution, did not get to live to see that moment.

Yet at that very moment when he got shot, the Filipino was - and still is - worth dying for.

*     *     *

I was planning to write today about some personal stuff, some self-promoting personal epiphany, a mundane realization that I don’t have a girlfriend yet, or some odd memory brought about by quarter-life crisis.  At least for today, I arrived at one of them; something bigger than myself.

I realized that many people today tend to forget the lessons of history; that yellow ribbons might as well be breaks in the pink-and-blue color scheme of Manila’s major roads.  Or a bad reference to bad karaoke hits that feature Perry Como singles.

Come to think of it, we who grew up after Ninoy’s era tend to forget the lessons of a man who, no matter how imperfect a hero or a money décor he made, made a selfless sacrifice in the name of something bigger and far more important than himself.  We have but vague memories of Ninoy, save for those social studies lessons where we learned that this man was more than what you can buy with a P500 bill.  Or the semiotics of Ninoy’s dour, perhaps even depressed, demeanor.

Mainly because it’s one thing to reap the fruits of one man’s sacrifice; it’s another thing to help till the soil and sow the seeds of democracy.

Maybe this generation needs a Ninoy; a person to look up to.  We who will inherit the shaky (if not broken) foundations of this country’s democracy need a role model, someone who will lead us to what is right and show us what is wrong.  Yet we need not look to other people more than ourselves, from the lessons we learned from one man’s sacrifice.  We need not rely on what other people think of a hero, or on the minute details of something so extraordinary, something bigger than the inane things we exchange amongst ourselves in moments of angst and self-loathing.

There are a lot of things to loathe about today: the escalating conflict down south, the sorry state of the economy, the legitimacy of the President, the quality of education, a lost sense of nationalism… so much so that it sometimes - just sometimes - a Filipino is worth killing more than worth dying for.  Those are the same things that years before we were born, Ninoy Aquino fought against, and made the ultimate sacrifice for.

There is - and should be - a Ninoy in all of us, no matter how imperfect we are as people.  We are part of things bigger than ourselves.  Our ideals, our principles, our sovereignty, our right to a quality life, our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, our identity, our country… those are all things that are worth more than us, and as such we should be prepared make sacrifices for.

Twenty-five years after one of Philippine history’s most controversial heroes was killed, it still holds true:

The Filipino is worth dying for.

It’s been a while since the last Video of the Week, so I think now would be a good time to post one.  This week’s video has given me one of the worst Last Song Syndromes in months.  Enjoy:

To invoke Ricky Carandang, I blog to piss people off.  To be exact, I post Videos of the Week to piss people off.  Yes, this week’s video is the shibuya-kei classic by Pizzicato Five, “Sweet Soul Revue.”  Yes, brings back memories of bad animé, Pauly Shore movies, and Gift Gate.

Anyway, moving on…