Paalam, Ka Bel

I was on my way back to Manila from Rapu-Rapu island, Albay last Tuesday when I received news of Ka Bel's death. We will be visiting his wake at the IFI later, an event I wish to delay as much possible. For seeing bluntly confirms with the mind what the heart yearns to evade.

While he loved to talk about life, about the problems of the world and the country, his experiences, and everything else in between, Ka Bel would sometimes bring up the subject of the certain eventuality of dying. During his detention at Camp Crame and at the Philippine Heart Center, Ka Bel always remarked that he wanted to go down fighting--whether in the parliament of the streets or in the middle of battle. Anywhere would do, as long as he was in the midst of struggle and not in the shaded comforts of the sidelines.

What happened last May 20 may not have been the sort of storm that he was preparing for, but Ka Bel stands no less dignified and worthy of respect because of the manner of his death. The circumstances of Ka Bel's passing away only underscored the truth that he died as humble and poor as the first day that he stepped into Congress, eight years ago, as a duly-elected representative of the Philippine toiling masses. It was testament to how Ka Bel quietly lived the principle of simpleng pamumuhay at puspusang pakikibaka--of integrity and hard work alongside courage. Beneath the fiery and lengthy speeches, clenched fists, and larger-than-life experiences, Ka Bel was a good soldier, a hard worker, and a humble man.

Aming lubos na pasasalamat, pagmamahal, at pagpupugay sa iyo, Ka Bel! You will always be with us as we go onwards with the struggle.

---- 

I'll try to write a more proper tribute after this. What's posted below is something I wrote a few months back.

The Solon With Two Shoes

The House of Representatives, grandly called the Batasang Pambansa in Tagalog, sits on a sprawling, grassy incline—an imposing structure surrounded by cramped tenements and slum dwellings stretching out for as far as the eye can see. Turning right from Commonwealth Avenue, one enters a narrow road dusted with signs of understated destitution: children walking to nearby school in hole-filled shoes, tricycles loaded with at least five passengers apiece, beat-up jeepneys and buses rattling along the road like sullen coffins. On sultry days, a faint wind brings along with the whiff of decay—a gentle reminder that one of the nation's largest dump sites lies nearby, bustling with activity as trucks unload ton after ton of unsegregated waste and filth onto hungry hands. 

It's not easy to set foot inside the premises of what may be the largest government office in the Philippines. But on most weekdays, hundreds will endure the sweltering heat and long lines at the main entrance to secure that precious Visitors ID from the armed security personnel at the gate. For many, that entry pass signifies the chance to ask solons for solocitations, medical aid, donations, transportation fare back home even.

Occasionally, a sleek luxury vehicle bearing a vanity plate stamped with the number 8 will saunter through this throng. People crane their necks for a good look as the entrance's steel enclosures are flung wide open. The sentinels tuck their stomachs in and issue a perfunctory salute while trees along the manicured driveways curtsy languidly, all for this unseen and important entity. 

This small ceremony of subservience is repeated endlessly as the day proceeds, as more heavily-tinted Mitsubishi Pajeros, Nissan Patrols, Isuzu Troopers, Ford Expeditions, Chateaus, Everests, and Land Cruiser vans file in. They usually alight at the main entrance, just in time for the plenary sessions at 4 in the afternoon. By this time, the lobby of the Batasang Pambansa is a bustle of activity: lobby groups and visitors from all walks of life fill the lobby, security personnel rush to and fro while reporters and TV crew mill around and take in the scenes.

The average solon or congressperson is easy to spot from the minute he sets foot on to the red carpet and into the hall. The women are esaily identifiable by their coiffure and designer suits, the men usually clad in an americana, a business suit, or an elegant barong tagalog, a small Congressional seal pinned on their lapels or collars. They are usually surrounded by a throng of bodyguards and staff as they make their way inside.   

The typical solon is distinguished by his difference from the average Filipino. Unlike your typical Juan dela Cruz, the average congressman usually has a father, mother, grandfather, a spouse or a close relative who has been elected to the same post at some point of their lives. He or she is usually an alumna of a prestigious national university, such as UP, Ateneo or La Salle who later on went to law school or pursued a masteral degree in business and the like.

The typical solon, if born to a traditional landlord family, is usually heir to a vast estate of rice farms, plantations and fruit-bearing orchards, or—if he or she happens to be one of the noveau riche-- to a chain of elegant hotels and restaurants, shipping fleets, or a construction empire. He may be a media mogul, claiming ownership of popular broadsheets and tabloids, or radio and television stations. He may have made his fortune in stocks, or from interests in lucrative logging and mining companies and power plants throughout the archipelago. He may be on the powerful board of trustees of private provincial universities or hospitals. And in this era where image purports to be everything, he may even have starred in a local B-movie or hosted his own talk or radio show. 

But beneath the sheen of old wealth, newfound riches, and political polish often lies stories of pocketed multi-million peso bribes, shady contracts, and power plays. The position of congressman, in the Philippines, has for so long been associated with rapacious greed, corruption, and self-interest– so much that student activists, during a rally for President Ferdinand Marcos' State of the Nation Address (SONA) in 1970, brought along with them a green cardboard crocodile symbolizing solons greedy for allowances and furiously hurled it in the direction of the President as he stepped out of Congress that afternoon.

Nearly 31 years have passed since that rally. Yet this was, more or less, the same House of Representatives that Ka Bel found himself in after the 2001 elections: a formidable legislative body composed of 214 members, half of whom hailed from powerful political clans and whose individual net worth tallied to around P28 million each, on the average. Of this number, more than half continued to actively engage in their business interests even as they were sworn in as certified legislators and public servants. 

It was a crocodile's pit they would be facing, Ka Bel knew. But they weren't in this for the money, but for a far more noble reason. The parliament of the streets was ready to knock at the enemy's gates and barge right in.

The first few days as a Congressman were a flurry of preparations on the part of Ka Bel, his comrades and his family. After months of intense campaigning work for the party list elections under the heat of the sun in far-flung provinces and urban poor communities, Ka Bel ironically found himself with almost nothing to wear for his first day as a solon.  

Ka Bel didn't even have a decent barong, to begin with.  As a solon, he had to trade in his well-worn maong for the barong tagalog at the very least. Traditional Philippine congressmen usually lurk around the premises clad in an Americana or a  barong Tagalog. The americana, a Western business suit, was popularized during the time the Philippines was still a direct colony of imperial powers.  The translucent barong evolved from a pre-Hispanic garment into a remnant of the Spanish colonial era, and was ironically designated as the Filipino men's national attire during the term of President Marcos. The barong, even in its more contemporary and mass-produced versions, remains a minor work of art: constructed from translucent jusi fiber and painstakingly hand-embroidered with agricultural or geometric motifs. Both attires were equally expensive though, far beyond the ordinary working man's budget. 

The search for a suitable attire for Ka Bel was a family effort. Boyet gave his own barong, while Junior and another son donated an extra pair of black pants, his uniform as an employee of the Mercury drugstore chain. After a while, the Beltran family was able to collect five secondhand barongs, one for each day of the week. Each had its own imperfection or alteration—a loose thread peeking out, a wobbly button, discolored spot or a less than perfect fit—but were all nonetheless usable and clean.

The only things that Ka Bel did not solicit were footwear. Ka Bel had two pairs of black leather shoes at most, one of which was already severely beat up and barely-usable by then. Pangit na (already ugly), in plain and simple terms. But they were a pair of well-traveled activist's shoes: he had worn them out during years of countless hearings, rallies, meetings, and visits to other provinces and abroad. Ka Bel wasn't going to trade these trusty partners so easily for anything else. 

To get to Congress in those first few months, Ka Bel usually walked or used public transport. Most of the time, Ka Bel and his "bodyguards"--fellow full-time trade union activists who signed up as his security personnel—would save on transportation fares and walk all the way from their home in Brgy. Manggahan to Congress. From the house, they would take a shortcut through winding alleys and eskinitas and find their way out to Batasan Road. Ka Bel knew this winding route well: after all, he once escaped from his captors as a political prisoner in this very same community back in the 1980s.   

When it wasn't possible to walk, they would all line up at the busy tricycle depot at the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Batasan Road, and ride to work. All of them would pile up in one cramped and wobbly tricycle and ride it on the way to Congress. Eventually, an alyado—ally or network of supportive contacts—lent Ka Bel a small van for their rugged team to use. 

A genuinely poor congressman was a novelty, a curiosity even in those years, since all traditional politicians were filthy rich by Filipino standards.  On one occasion, a somewhat skeptical news reporter dared to visit Ka Bel's house in Gao to find out if indeed he was one of the poorest solons in the 12^th Congress.

The reporter was invited to Ka Bel's humble home. To get to the place, one had to venture beyond the crowded public market along Litex in Commonwealth Avenue, way past hordes of fish and vegetable vendors, slippery and muddy sidewalks, noisy sari-sari stores and big plastic umbrellas. Right after passing a bakery which sold hot pan de sal at P1 apiece even in mid-afternoon, one would come across a covered basketball court, usually filled with out-of-school youths engrossed in a game, and a small barangay hall. Ka Bel's home was nestled inside a small eskinita at the back of the court and the hall, in front of an ancient-looking poso (hand pump) and a narrow canal. 

The house wasn't much to look at but very clean. Patched-up walls, plaques of recognition and  makeshift furniture were its only accents. There were no hi-tech appliances nor superfluous decorative pieces. The reporter wandered inside and inspected every nook and cranny, even opening creaking cabinets and shelves to look for signs of "hidden wealth". He found none.

He went out to talk to Ka Bel's amused neighbors, all of whom attested to how Ka Bel would sometimes wake up early in the morning to clean and dislodge debris from the nearby canal before going to work at Congress. 

"Ito nga ba talaga ang bahay mo?!" he finally asked, turning to Ka Bel in exasperation.

"Oo (Yes)," Ka Bel said. 

"Susmaryosep!"

In a Congress dominated by multi-millionaires and scions of traditional political families, stumbling upon a solon as poor as any ordinary man on the street was indeed a surprise. In contrast, the richer solons, such as Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo, brother of First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo, can have a net worth of hundreds of millions--as much as P286,242,318.71, with assets totaling P314,100,970 as of 2004 in Arroyo's case.

Unlike other self-proclaimed "poor" congressmen—such as Compostela Valley Rep. Manuel "Way Kurat" Zamora, who once flaunted to media that he traveled to and from Congress a bicycle for lack of money to buy a car but who was reportedly worth P4,258,200 after his stint as a solon—Ka Bel and his "batchmates" from the progressive party list block have remained true to their vow to end their terms as poor as they had started. In 2006, a news article reported that Ka Bel, next to Bayan Muna Rep. Joel Virador and Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano, was one of the poorest solons in the 13^th Congress, with an annual net worth of around P95,000, tops.

Seven green and pro-people tips for GMA's removal

In light of the current NBN ZTE scandal, environmental activists from Kalikasan PNE offer seven handy tips for the Filipino people to keep in mind.

1.SEGREGATE the truth from lies, especially in the cases of the NBN ZTE, 'Hello Garci' tapes, Jose Pidal, and North Rail scandals, electoral fraud in the 2004 and 2007 polls, the extrajudicial killings of activists, and Presidential Proclamation 1017.

2.THROW THE TRASH WHEN IT STINKS. We can no longer ignore the truth that is coming out of the NBN ZTE and Hello Garci scandals. Now that the stink is finally out, it's high time to throw Pres. Gloria Arroyo along with all her denials, cover-ups, and deception in the trash bin of history.

3.REDUCE corruption in Philippine government, starting with the immediate removal of the largest, filthiest, and dirtiest one in Malacanang.

4.REUSE, RECYCLE and reinvigorate the calls for land reform, just wages and jobs, justice and human rights which the Arroyo administration mindlessly threw into the trash bin. Don't let the people's legitimate demands of the past six years go to waste.

5.PLANT THE SEEDS of social change by doing your civic duty to stop corruption, plunder of our national patrimony and government coffers, political repression, and human rights violations.

6.TAP THE BEST SOURCE OF RECHARGEABLE ENERGY in the form of people power and collective action!

7.CONSERVE ENERGY for the longer walks and rallies to come. Start walking hand in hand with family, colleagues, and friends and join the street protests calling for GMA's resignation now!

link: www.kalikasan.org

Going Green

(Or my preachy Hallmarky-card
contribution
for this year's Blog Action Day
for the Environment,
October 15--it's still 11:26 p.m.,
so I still beat the deadline! hah!)


Last year (or was it two years ago?),
green was the new pink in fashion.

now there's
something green
for everything that isn't:

black is the new green
for web surfers,
smokers can rejoice
with organic cigarettes.
male voyeurs even have
an environmentally-friendly FHM issue.

wanton consumers tote
eco-friendly shopping bags,
mining companies
have green technologies
to bore into mountains,
war economies
have environmentally-friendly bombs,
fuel-guzzling Western luxury cars
can bathe in bio-diesel
squeezed from the guts
of Third World toddlers
howling in haciendas.

so many things green
for realities that are not.

sometimes
we forget
that green
is not about
dollars
but really about
land to till
water for all
air and freedom
flames burning
for justice.

Green is
not about "changing the world"
in little ways
for big people.

Green is
changing the world
in big ways

for little people.

Sometimes,
Going green means seeing red.

The Agriculture Ministry is not in charge of Gundam and other random news

Am sharing some amusing news bits I stumbled upon in the course of surfing for mining-related articles. Enjoy!

• Wikipedia's one of the best things about the web. I heart Wikipedia! But so did six employees from Japan's Department of Agriculture, who apparently hearted it so much that they spent more office hours on Wiki entries on billboard typos, movies, and Gundam than on administrative concerns. See this: Japan bureaucrats chided for shirking work, editing Wikipedia

• Russia tests the 'dad of all bombs'. The thermobaric device tested by Russian military is said to be 'non-nuclear' and therefore 'environmentally-friendly'. So politically chic at a time when the "in" thing is to proclaim that one will be "going green" to save the earth. The catch: It's still a bomb--a weapon of mass destruction that can be used indiscriminately in wars of aggression by countries such as the United States in Afghanistan.
  

• Prince Harry killed in Iraq. Or at least, that was what a sculptural piece by Daniel Edwards portrays. At first I thought this was novel. Then I realized that the artist was the same guy who did the Paris Hilton Autopsy and the "Suri Cruise poop" sculpture. Then things began to get a wee bit predictable.

• In its blatantly misogynist query of whether the US is ready for a woman president, American political satire series 'The Daily Show' casts former Philippine President Corazon Aquino as a slut. That was done in rather poor taste. It is true that land-owning elites under the Aquino administration used her agrarian "reform" law to consolidate their dominance over large tracts of land (as the bloodshed in Aquino's very own Hacienda Luisita poignantly demonstrated). It is true that the "peace process" of the post-dictatorship regime was used by the status quo as a veneer for more political persecution and human rights violations. But 'slut' is such an infantile expletive, one that fails to articulate the atrociousness of Aquino's record of political compensation.
  

Free Burma Day

Crayola 101: A Green Philippines

All the while the ZTE NBN deal was being threshed out in the Senate like it should be, Gloria Arroyo been attempting to pass herself off at the United Nations General Assembly as a topnotcher in three fields where her administration failed miserably: the economy, peace process, and the environment. According to Arroyo, her administration is making headway towards making the Philippines a healthy shade of green.

Environmental activists in this part of the planet don't exactly approve of this color scheme. According to Kalikasan PNE, if there's any color that Arroyo is turning the Philippines into, it's red: an ugly, bloody and messy red. Scarlet soiled with bloodshed. Red of revolts. Glowing red of a volcano before the big bang.

The Philippines is turning into anything but green under Gloria. Frankly, I don't see how her Green Philippines agenda, which is vaguely described as combining " economic opportunity with a concern for the environment" (concern, perhaps. But policy and action? Most definitely not!), can work towards protecting the country's environment and national patrimony for the benefit of the Filipino people.

By "economic opportunity", I assume Arroyo also refers to foreign investments in sectors such as mining, oil exploration, and biofuel production. Therein lies the problem. Foreign and large-scale mining is as environmentally-friendly as a Cold War nuclear bomb and as helpful to the local economy as a band-aid is to a gaping M-16 wound. Offshore oil exploration, as it is being proposed of late, poses a very real danger of exacerbating marine resource degradation at the very, very least.

And biofuels production? I think that this administration jumped into the global green bandwagon without seriously assessing its local impacts on food security and resource extraction. Many also suspect that all those yummy biofuels deals pending with foreign firms could be a pretext to ink more spurious exchanges and to conveniently exempt the haciendas of her landowning relatives and allies from agrarian reform.

For liberalizing these fields (as well as others such as the outsourcing industry) to even more foreign participation, American firms are already patting Gloria on the head. When Gloria said she wanted a 'Green Philippines', perhaps she meant green--as in, dollar-green?

On the issue of foreign mining, here's an excerpt of an article written for www.bulatlat.com:

Her serene face is as furrowed as an ancient valley, but Carlita Cumila, 70 years old, can still remember the time she and her husband settled in the lush slopes of Kasibu, Nueva Vizcaya back in 1964.

"We went to Papaya from Kiangan on foot. It took us three days of walking and hiking. My son Gilbert was three months old at that time," she recalls. Dressed simply in a faded floral blouse and black skirt, it seems hard to imagine how Cumila and her son endured the three-day trek through steep mountains and rugged terrain in search of a home.

Cumila and her growing family were among the first settlers in Barangay Papaya, Malabing Valley. It was here where her other seven children after Gilbert were born and raised.

"When we came to Papaya, we were only a few. Only gabi, corn, beans, and rice grew here. There were no fields. But if we stayed in Kiangan, there would have been little, not enough to provide for an education for our children. In my previous home, there was space for only one and a half hectares of rice terraces to till,"she said.

"Here in Papaya you could have four to seven hectares. Here we had enough food," she said.

Cumila has seen their lives prosper since that first day she set foot in Barangay Papaya. Malabing Valley's residents now reap the fruits from a flourishing local citrus industry that started there over a decade ago. A cooperative in the town center stands. Her son Gilbert finished Agricultural Engineering and now gives seminars to people on citrus cultivation.

Cumila, however, now fears for the verdant valley which has nurtured her family for four decades.

Foreign mining companies have recently entered Nueva Vizcaya and are eyeing the wealth beneath its rich soils. And like many other women residents living in Kasibu and its adjacent valleys, Cumila is now preparing to devote her strength to defending her home against the looming threat of large-scale mining.

[Continued at this link]

Ten Things About Me and the ZTE

1. Sec. Romulo Neri is making waves without rocking the boat at all! After all the suspense and drum-beating about being "ready to lose his job" on account of appearing before the Senate to testify on the NBN ZTE contract, it was quite lame of him to remain tight-lipped on Gloria Arroyo's involvement in the deal. Sure, Neri dropped a big, stinky pooper right smack on Abalos' head. But he flew away from the heat he created afterwards, singing to the tune of "executive privilege". Not quite the hero. No wonder he still has his job intact!

2. Fleeting thought: Sen. Miriam has no business diverting the issue with theatrics and rascist remarks on how the "Chinese invented corruption". Especially when some Filipinos are developing it to such an appallingly sophisticated degree.

3. It's nice to see how the NBN ZTE controversy has generated a lot of inspired and lively blog entries. I had so much fun reading Ina's blow-by-blow account of the Senate hearings yesterday and Pangkulitan's not-so-flattering comparisons between past and present Presidential spouses. After a brief hiatus from blogging, the husband writes about how the Philippines needs a national information network, not corrupt deals such as ZTE nor profit-hungry schemes. But the best thing I've read so far is Kapirasong Kritika's 'Mga Placard ng Panahon ng ZTE" (wala ka talagang kupas, Teo!).

4. Let your protests register on cyberspace! Sign the online petition by the Computer Professionals Union (CPU) to scrap the ZTE NBN contract.

5. I'm getting the last song syndrome (LSS) from hearing the ZTE ringtone by Txtpower. Husband and several other people I know have it on their cellphones, and every now I find myself accidentally humming to the ABC-ZTE-FG jingle.

6. In addition to the ZTE NBN contract, the Arroyo administration is planning to enter into other deals with the Chinese government and private firms, this time involving agricultural and bioethanol production. These, too, should be scrutinized, for their impacts on the people's livelihood and the environment . Among the MOAs that the government is planning to sign is between Yong Kai Industry Group and the Negros Southern Integrated Biofuels Company and BM SB Integrated Biofuels Company, whose biggest stockholder is a close friend of Presidential brother-in-law Ignacio Arroyo. Remember that Iggy Arroyo did not want CARP to be extended to prevent it from covering their sugar farms in Central Negros, which he is reportedly eyeing as an entry point for future biofuel projects. Is this another ZTE in the making?

7. Ang galing ng kuha ng Inquirer kay Abalos at Neri (left). A good photograph can indeed tell more than words.

8. "Big fish"Abalos should just tell all he knows and pinpoint the "Mother of All Fishes". Tutal sila-sila naman ang naglalaglagan!

9. Around 75% of all Filipinos are poor, have no access to technology and the government services that will "benefit" from the ICT infrastructure that the NBN will put in place. Yet it is this 75% who will foremost be shouldering the tax burden that the ZTE NBN contract will bring about.

10. Coinciding with the ZTE controversy is the Philippine's all-time low ranking (133 out of 179) in the Corruption Perception Index. Take note that the Philippines is already ranking as among the worst in other areas, such as recent press freedom indexes, and even in environmental degradation surveys (such as the recent one pinpointing the rivers in Bulacan as among the world's 'Dirty 30').

--------
Mong tagged me a month ago, I noticed only now (sorry, Mong!).

According to Mong's post: A person who gets tagged must write in his or her blog ten weird things or habits or little known facts about himself or herself. He or she should also state this rule clearly. At the end, he or she should tag six other people, except the one who tagged him or her.

So here goes--ten "weird" things about lisa:

1. When typing, my left hand automatically presses the save controls (Ctrl+S) on my keyboard every few seconds or so. This habit started way back in the Collegian. An article I was typing for one and a half days straight (without sleep and with very little food) literally vanished without a trace after a power surge because I--stupid writer--failed to hit the save button all throughout. Since then I kept hitting Ctrl+S like my life depended on it. People used to wonder what the crap was wrong with my left pinky finger and I always have to explain why.

2. I still drink Yakult. Because it tastes good.

3. When I entered the university, I was the lone Art History major in a college with a student population of around 300. It was ironic because I refrained from applying as a Painting major mostly since I thought that there were too few students in their program (around 20).

4. I have this nasty nervous habit of pulling out my hair when stressed out or worried, to the point of creating bald patches if left unchecked. Dermatology and psychology textbooks refer to this as trichotillomania, a minor anxiety-related disorder.

5. Maldita daw ako when I was a kid. Afterwards, I got all the 'Best in Conduct' awards in grade school and ended up as my high school's awardee for "National Discipline", heheh. Only shows that I know when to behave and when to raise hell!

6. I dislike hanging bridges. But that doesn't mean I won't cross them.

7. My first (and hopefully last) TV appearance was at 12 or 13 years old, at a kiddie noontime show with other half-Japanese children. All of us were wearing kimonos and singing a children's song. At that time, we were part of an organization of half-Japanese families in Paranaque. This group mostly got together for Nihongo lessons and field trips, but did a one-shot "performance" for that show's RP-Japan Friendship Day chuva. Thanks to this, I realized that I would never make it in showbiz early on.

8. Before becoming an activist, I also became involved in the following other organizations from grade school to college: Girl Scouts, Peer Counselors Club, Archdiocesian Youth Council, Red Cross Youth, Artists Club, Youth for Christ, and Kontra-Gapi. In that order.

9. I always bring along a small plastic container filled with things for imagined emergencies. Contents for now include USBs, a Bayan Muna pin, a stapler and a box of staple wire, rainbow face paint (for rallies), paper book tabs, band aids, a liquid eraser pen, an invisible ink pen, a spotlight, triple A batteries, wet wipes, and a Swiss knife.

10. My husband says that I sneeze and cough like a cat (imagine that!).

Tama na sa blogging! Back to work!

Damage Control, Diversionary Tactics and Dares

Just when things were beginning to get really exciting, Gloria Arroyo (I refuse to address her as President in this blog. Pwede ba!) backtracks and suspends the national broadband network deal with ZTE.

Even the most extreme of morons can see through this diversionary tactic and last-ditch attempt at damage control. By suspending the deal at the last minute, Arroyo and her co-conspirators probably hope to let rising public furor subside, divert attention away from testimonies indicating her and her husband's direct involvement in the deal, or even perhaps buy time to elbow those involved into a face-saving compromise.

Scrapping the ZTE contract is the best proof of sincerity in exercising "executive privilege". Unless Arroyo cancels the NBN ZTE deal outright, spelled out in plain black-and-white, there should be not let-up in the public investigations and protests. The people, Senate, Supreme Court and media should not let their guard down, not at this point. Not when watching live Senate hearings has become this gripping!

And speaking of Mike Arroyo--why is it that he slipped out of the country to Hong Kong last week, with the same undue haste with which he flew to Germany after Alan Peter Cayetano claimed that the First Family was keeping a multi-million dollar account in Munich last year? If he's so sick and unstained by guilt and in transit to recovery, then he should have no business flying here and about like a flustered bat.

Speaking of Arroyo's propensity to invoke "executive privilege", here's an unsolicited dare for GMA:

Exercise "executive privilege" to REVERSE the MTRCB's X-rating on the Jonas Burgos film project, RIGHTS. Let the film be shown to the widest number of viewers, so that the public may decide.

While we're on the MTRCB's X-rating, Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino is calling for Congress to allot an annual budget of P1.00 to the MTRCB for being "an irrelevant agency in a so-called democracy" (nice way of putting it).

The last time the MTRCB was threatened with a P1.00 budget was back in October 2006, when it gave an X-rating to a film bio of Erap, also for "threatening the stability of the state" in the last three minutes of the film. I'm not a fan of Erap but nor do I like seeing works of public interest being given blanket censorship treatment.

This time around, Congress should take up the challenge and consider affirmative action on Rep. Casino's proposal. But regardless of whatever MTRCB gets this year, there's always YouTube to fall back on.

Cut the Censorship, Shatter the Silence

The local Philippine censor's board, the MTRCB, has just given an X rating to a film project calling for the release of abducted (and still-missing) activist Jonas Burgos. Like a third-rate thespian, MTRCB Chairperson Consoliza Laguardia unconvincingly tries to justify this outrightly fascist gesture to the public by saying that the film was "unfair" and "undermining the faith" in the government.

You know what really reeks of unfairness and one-sidedness, Consoliza? It's the Philippine military abducting Jonas and "facilitating" his disappearance up to now. It's the Army refusing to give Jonas' own mother a copy of their "classified" report on his abduction, even at the orders of the highest court of the land. It's the AFP Commander-in-Chief remaining silent on all the killings, tortures, and disappearances attributed to her men for the past seven years.

You know who's really behind all these moves to "undermine the faith" of the people in the Philippine government, Madam Laguardia? None less than the Arroyo administration itself, by the sheer atrociousness of its actions, pronouncements and policies. While you're at it, the MTRCB should seriously consider giving the X rating to all television footage of President Arroyo's annual SONAs and rosy speeches. The last time I checked, seeing the President deliver her daily litany of lies was enough reason to spawn a new breed of destabilizers and dissenters.

I've seen the excerpts of this "X-rated" film at Cinekatipunan. The scenes are no less "unfair" and "one-sided" than the average TV commercial or news report that airs on TV. And the MTRCB need not worry about the Burgos family's filmmaker-supporters further undermining the people's faith in government through the work: that happened way before, starting from the very second Jonas was abducted by the MTRCB's fellow fascists from the military.

"Scenes in the film are presented unfairly, one-sided
and undermines the faith and confidence of the
government and duly constituted authorities, thus, not
for public exhibition."

Read that sentence again and savor the perfection of its follies! Not only is it glaringly "grammatically wrong": it' hinges on the dangerous notion that the only works fit for public consumption are the ones that affirm the status quo --this effing government!--and fit into the its appalling standards of "objectivity" and "fairness" (defined mostly by the current Justice Secretary).

While we're on the topic of censorship, I'm reposting below an article written for FOCAS: Forum on Contemporary Art and Society, as part of its country reports on art and censorship. Many more cases of suppression have piled up ever since I submitted this draft earlier this year; the MTRCB's X-rating on the Jonas Burgos film being the latest.

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The Philippines: Culturing censorship, waging political repression

The Philippines makes for an interesting study in censorial practice: from the auspices of American colonial rule to the impositions of the Marcos dictatorship, and finally to the current regime of crisis and dissent. This survey briefly cites selected aspects of censorial practices directed against Philippine cultural workers in 2006 and early 2007, including in its scope cases of state-condoned political repression against progressive artists, 'legalised' censorship involving duly-constituted government agencies and legislation, and self-censorship arising from the artist and community's adjustments to material and economic exigencies.

Sins of suppression: State-condoned political repression as a form of censorship

Censorship refers to 'the institution or practice of censoring' which, in turn, may be defined as suppression or excision of any matter 'thought to be immoral, seditious, or otherwise undesirable.'¹ While often this has been exercised against cultural works and practices, there are also cases when the artists and authors themselves—physically and materially—become the very subjects and targets of suppression.

Assaults against the body politic are, in themselves, forms of censorship. The erasure of images, words and acts pale in comparison to the erasures and even eliminations of actual living and breathing bodies: the very physical planes through which ideological interventions are enacted. Viewed from such a perspective, threats of violence, death or disappearance among the ranks of cultural workers become the most virulent and potent form of censorship there is. In the Philippine setting, such assaults take on the form of state-condoned repression against a targeted segment of the population identified with progressive politics, including cultural workers.

The documented instances of censorship and repression among cultural workers seem to be part of a more systematic state campaign against its perceived enemies and would be better viewed in the context of the current political situation, which is briefly outlined here. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who assumed the position after former President Joseph Estrada was ousted by a popular mass uprising in January 2000, has herself been called upon to resign from office by various societal sectors since 2001. These calls for Arroyo's resignation are based on continuous political scandals and allegations of graft and corruption against the President, as well as human rights violations and still-unresolved counts of massive electoral fraud in her 2004 Presidential bid (documented in voice recordings of several wiretapped conversations allegedly between Arroyo and an election commissioner; these were publicly disseminated through CDs in 2005). By the end of 2005, political rallies calling for President Arroyo's resignation had escalated, both in frequency and in scale.

The Arroyo administration, however, has responded to the calls for her resignation through intensified political repression by military, legal and administrative means. On 24 February 2006, President Arroyo issued Presidential Proclamation 1017, declaring the entire Philippines to be under a 'state of emergency' and quickly acting to quash any opposition to her administration under the pretext of cracking down on 'destabilisers' and 'terrorists'. At the same time, the number of what Philippine human rights activists have termed as 'extrajudicial killings'—assassinations of legal activists by suspected state-sponsored assassins or elements of the military—has risen to more than 832 since 2001.² Many of the human rights violations against cultural workers have occurred in what Philippine human rights activists refer to as 'militarised' areas: regions or provinces where a large concentration of military forces are deployed for counter-insurgency operations against the New Peoples Army (NPA) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The degree of political repression in the Philippines has solicited the attention of the international community, including the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU),³ the largest international organisation of parliaments of sovereign states, and Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions.

Cultural workers associated with progressive organisations have also been victimised by this wave of overt political repression. On 28 April 2006, in Tagaytay City, Cavite in the southern Tagalog region, the Philippine police and elements from the Philippine Navy arrested without warrant and detained poet and peasant rights advocate Axel Pinpin, a 1999 Fellow for Poetry in Filipino at the University of the Philippines (UP) Institute of Creative Writing and the author of a self-published poetry folio entitled Tugmaang Walang Tugma (Rhyming Without Rhymes). He was reportedly compiling materials for a second poetry book at the time of his arrest. Also arrested and detained were four other members of the Kalipunan ng Magsasaka ng Cavite (KAMAGSASAKA-KA, or Farmers Federation in Cavite). Pinpin and his companions, collectively tagged as the 'Tagaytay Five', were physically and mentally tortured while under police custody and were charged with rebellion for 'plotting to destabilise the national government'. They are detained at Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna and have recently concluded a hunger strike as of the time of this writing.

Two days after Pinpin's arrest, on 30 April 2006, another cultural worker and peasant rights activist, Alexis Uy, was seized by military troops along with 14 farmers from the Kongreso ng Magbubukid para sa Repormang Agraryo (Peasant Congress for Agrarian Reform) in Quezon province while they were preparing for a Labour Day rally. A member of a local cultural organisation Artistang Pangkultura ng Mamalakaya sa Timog Katagalugan (APLAYA or Cultural Artists of Fisherfolks in Southern Tagalog), Uy was kept in isolated detention at the Philippine Army's Southern Luzon Command headquarters in Camp Nakar, Lucena City and later presented with the other detainees to the media as alleged NPA guerillas involved in a 'destabilisation plot'.

Uy was eventually released, but Pinpin and other cultural workers—such as sculptor, painter and community teacher Angie Bisuna Ipong—remain detained on charges of rebellion and murder. Ipong, a 62-year old peace advocate, was arrested on International Women's Day, 8 March 2005, in Misamis Occidental. She has been held incommunicado and subjected to torture, interrogation and sexual assault.⁴

The arrest of Pinpin and others shows that 'artists can not escape from the political contradictions of their time.'⁵ In a petition, the Amado Hernandez Resource Center (AVHRC), a cultural institution named after the late Filipino National Artist and trade unionist, called on the government to release Pinpin and Ipong: 'Our two cultural workers have fallen prey to political repression that victimises all those fighting for good governance, social reforms and the people's welfare'.⁶

On 22 August 2006, musician, film-maker and animator Theta Tulay, along with film-maker Bong de Leon and six other individuals of the award-winning progressive multimedia group Southern Tagalog Exposure were abducted while on a human rights fact-finding mission in Mulanay, Quezon province. The group was accosted by members of the Philippine Army's 74th Infantry Brigade while taking documentary photographs of the area. They were transferred to Camp Nakar and later released, although not without being threatened with similar charges of rebellion. Tulay's case exemplifies the experiences of activist film-makers who have experienced being directly harassed, assaulted and prevented from documenting human rights work by state or private security forces, thus being 'censored' even before finishing the production stage of their films.

On 13 September 2006, members of a community-based theatre group were arrested without a warrant and were detained by the military in Negros Occidental, an island in the western Visayas region. Members of Teatro Obrero (Workers' Theater), the cultural arm of the National Federation of Sugar Workers, were rehearsing for a performance commemorating the 20 September 1985 Escalante massacre of sugar workers⁷ when they were arrested. That same month, another organiser of Teatro Obrero was abducted along with six other individuals by the Philippine Army in Kabangkalan City, Negros Occidental, after their vehicle was accosted while passing through a military checkpoint along the road.

In Teatro Obrero's case, performances (usually an integration of dance, music, and drama) are utilised not only for 'aesthetic purposes, but also as a form of dialogue and statement [addressed] to fellow sugar workers and the hacienderos (sugar barons)'.⁸ Such harassment constitutes a deliberate attack against the intentions of the performance itself.

Progressive audio-visual groups have also been subjected to state-condoned harassment. Kodao Productions, a Manila-based film and community radio production group, was accused by a state witness of being a 'Communist propaganda unit' and had an award-winning mainstream radio program axed on the on the day that the President declared a state of national emergency in March 2006.⁹

Such forms of political harassment are tantamount to censorship as they intend to produce a 'chilling effect' or an atmosphere of intimidation on other cultural workers and citizens, who would otherwise be outraged at the impunity with which human rights violations are being committed by suspected state forces. Among media practitioners, the deaths of at least 46 Philippine journalists under the Arroyo administration have been deemed as the 'most brutal form of censorship'.¹⁰

Sins of omission: Systematic and legislated censorship

Many of the cases involving direct censorship involve the Movie, Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), whose history as a censorial agency can be traced to the country's colonial and dictatorial past. Created by President Marcos by Presidential Decree in 1985, MTRCB is the Philippines' modern-day adaptation of the Board of Censors instituted by the post-war American colonial government. Its charter, as UP law professor Atty Victor Avecilla writes, is a 'verbatim reproduction' of the now-defunct Board of Review for Motion Pictures and Television (BRMPT) instituted under the Marcos regime.

MTRCB is essentially a censors' board whose majority is composed of Presidential appointees, who may rate and classify films and TV programmes into categories according to the age—and presumed maturity—of audiences. However, it retains the power to impose an 'X' rating on a work, thereby preventing it from public exhibition in the country.

MTRCB has been under fire from citizens for arbitrarily imposing 'X' ratings on works for mainstream audiences and even alternative films—such as Toxic Mango, a five-minute work by independent film-maker Khavn dela Cruz—for containing supposed salacious and immoral scenes.¹¹ The work was part of a project, Guimaras: Short films from the Oil Spill, by the Philippine Independent Filmmakers Cooperative, aiming to generate more public awareness of the massive October 2006 oil spill off the coast of Guimaras island in Western Visayas.

In October 2006, MTRCB came under fire from both the Philippine Senate and the House of Representatives for imposing an alleged arbitrary 'X' rating on a DVD film biography of deposed President Joseph Estrada. The rating was imposed after MTRCB reviewers declared that the work tended to 'threaten the political stability of the state' and 'undermine the faith and confidence of the people in the government', prompting Estrada to bring the case to court¹² and distribute the film via the Internet. Senators denounced MTRCB for acting as President Arroyo's 'censorship body' while Congress threatened to allot only an annual budget of 1 peso to the agency.

In August 2006, the MTRCB pressured producers of a local public affairs show on TV network ABC 5 to delete selected portions of the film Shadow, a documentary feature on the NPA and its "shadow" government existing in guerilla zones throughout the country.¹³

In light of the two aforementioned cases, it seems that MTRCB has wielded its censorial privilege against the perceived political opponents of the current administration. 'There is indeed a trend right now for the MTRCB to be used in preventing the spread of what the powers-that-be deem as counter-propaganda [to the Arroyo administration],' writes journalist and UP journalism professor Danilo Arao.¹⁴

While independent film-makers and cultural workers have initiated and supported the formation of spaces and events where their works may be accessed, such instances of censorship against works deemed to be 'immoral' or 'seditious' have usually occurred in the context of the work's dissemination to a much wider audience through the mass media—through television and radio, in particular. Such pressure on national and local media is more evident and pervasive, to the point that international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders gave the Arroyo administration a failing mark in upholding press freedom in its annual report, citing the high incidence of murders, assaults, arrests lawsuits and censorship against the Philippine press in 2006.¹⁵

In February 2007, the Philippine government approved legislation that may have even more adverse implications on censorial practices: the Anti-Terror Law or the Human Security Act (HSA), which will take effect on 14 July 2007. This bill has drawn flak and opposition from various sectors and human rights organisations, who view it as a tool to effect more political repression and surveillance against perceived opponents of the current administration. Its critics contend that the bill's ambiguous definitions of what constitutes terrorism may be used against artists, film-makers and musicians.

The Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP), an organisation of professional and semi-professional artists from different disciplines which is currently based in Metro Manila, has denounced the bill as 'anti-artist' and 'anti-arts and culture'.¹⁶ CAP said in a statement, 'The HSA defines "terrorists" and "terrorism" so vaguely that even an art or literary piece critical of the politically and economically powerful elite could be classified as "terrorism," and its creators, "terrorists"'.

The cultural implications of the HSA are even more adverse, CAP contends. 'For the above and its other equally ambiguous provisions, it is accurate to brand [it] as the ultimate censorship instrument. Already indirectly censored by patrons' or commercial interests and the clout of the conservative church hierarchy, this bill will all the more discourage artists to explore alternative ideas and liberating themes. For the people, this bill simply means subjugation, the most dreadful state of humanity,' it continued.

CAP views the HSA as an extension of the repression brought about by the global war against terror. 'People across the world have long disdained the [HSA's] mother template, the USA PATRIOT Act. It is this legislation—and the severe human rights violations it has spawned, like the abuses in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib—that has unmasked the true face of the Bush regime's so-called "War on Terrorism" following 9/11. The USA PATRIOT Act of which the HSA is a mere copycat is in fact a key reason why there is a ever-widening call worldwide to repudiate the Bush's bogus "War on Terrorism",' CAP Secretary General Soc Jose writes. ¹⁷

Culturing Self-censorship

Another aspect which has yet to be explored in depth is the degree of self-censorship arising from the material and socio-economic conditions faced by Philippine cultural workers.

Despite the rosy economic indicators that state technocrats point to as a proof of national growth, there remain compelling signs that the majority of the Filipino people remain in dire economic straits. A national survey institute, the Social Weather Stations, has reported that one out of five Filipinos goes hungry, while the government has drastically revised the definition of 'unemployment' to keep the unemployment statistics from soaring. Faced with such prospects, many cultural workers and communities have to contend primarily with commercialising their works or sticking to tried-and-tested formulas in order to survive. For young artists in the music industry, for instance, works must not be too politically or socially critical as they risk losing producers and sponsors, says Julie Po of CAP.

In an interview, Po asserts that state policies are also steering cultural workers toward a situation where artistic freedom, license and experimentation is intentionally or unintentionally suppressed due to economic considerations. This is evident in dwindling state budgets for service sectors (e.g. health, education and culture) and institutions such as the National Museum and Cultural Center of the Philippines, Po highlights, where a situation of economic exigency and dwindling state support for the cultural sector eventually transfers to private interest the control of public expression.

The influence of private corporate interests in media and in other service- and culture-related industries also has implications on censorship in the arts. In October 2006, independent film-maker Jan Philippe Carpio charged television network ABC 5 with censorship when it edited out portions of Carpio's short film Bunker O: Sumirib, which tackled the effects of a 2006 oil spill off the coast of Guimaras island by a MT Solar I tanker chartered by global oil giant Petron Corporation. The accident, which discharged around two million litres of bunker fuel into the Visayan sea, is reckoned to be one of the largest oil spills in Philippine history.

A six-minute version of the film was to be aired on ABC 5, along with other works on the Guimaras oil spill by 12 other film-makers. However, the station aired a four-minute version, where sequences containing the words 'Petron' and 'MT Solar' were edited out. The film-maker notes that these excluded sequences consisted mostly of interviews and quotes from local fishermen affected by the environmental tragedy, whose voices were literally cut short by the censor's cutter.

'Specific and key portions of the film involving the residents of Guimaras expressing their honest feelings about the oil company and the shipping company, who as we all know are involved in this tragedy, were clearly edited out, omitted [and] censored,' the film-maker asserted.¹⁸ The network later apologised to Carpio for the incident.¹⁹

Hence, the current economic and political situation—marked by the imposition and enforcement of policies which contradict many basic constitutional rights, the climate of impunity surrounding rights violations, the facade of democratic governance which the current administration has to maintain, and the economic exigencies involved in the production, distribution, and reception of cultural goods—produces a situation which can be internally immobilising in many aspects for artists. Cultural workers are faced with a situation where 'freedom' is bestowed for as long as one does not rock the boat too hard. The views of the status quo determine the exhibition of works, imposing a form of censorship that 'forcefully thwarts dissenting views'.²⁰ As Philippine National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbrera said in an interview, 'Under the present quasi-martial law condition, the parameters are not clear. In such a situation, the artist has theoretically the freedom to express himself but the parameters are not certain and therefore, it makes an artist apprehensive on how far he can go.'²¹

Interrogating the censors

The local struggle against such systematic erasures, however, continues through the formation of tactical alliances among cultural workers. More artists are uniting among their ranks to deliver their protests against censorship and political repression. Veteran artists who survived martial law (imposed in 1972) are relearning tactics of combat, while a new generation of cultural workers—many of whom were barely conceived when martial law was first imposed—are discovering how it is to interrogate the censors of a new regime.

A case in point is the initiation of project-based interventions, such as TutoK Karapatan art project (tutok, roughly translated, means 'to focus' or 'to aim', while karapatan means 'rights'), which has been generally supported by the artistic community. TutoK convenor and Filipina visual artist Karen Flores describes the project as a 'comprehensive artists' response to the growing unrest of the times', noting that the project has made possible several exhibitions at various sites in 2006, including a community museum and park, public spaces such as churches and markets, a gallery, an academic art space and a national cultural institution.

Formed in late 2005, as a response to what the participants described as the 'deteriorating' human rights situation in the country, TutoK eventually mustered the support of around 300 Filipino artists, Its opening salvo was a multimedia public arts festival organised by the Neo-Angono Artists Collective entitled Publikhaan: Making Human Rights Issues Public, held in Angono, Rizal in November 2006. This was followed by a travelling exhibition entitled Perspektiba (Perspective) through three universities: the University of Santo Tomas, University of the Philippines and St Scholastica's College. The works in Perspektiba reflect on the overtures of state violence: literal and metaphorical dislocations, disappearances and demises associated with the rising wave of political repression in the Philippines and more importantly, which attest to the growing discontent and clamour among the visual arts community against the assaults on human rights under the Arroyo administration.²² The intentional staging of the exhibitions in university art spaces is 'timely, considering the growing number of student activists who are either abducted or killed' and it 'further underscores the initiative's aim to bring these issues to a wider audience.'²³ Such exhibitions aim to infuse the urgency of rejecting the 'passive acceptance of repression'²⁴ and demonstrate the 'resistance [to repression] must be no less ubiquitous.'²⁵

A second TutoK-initiated exhibition at the Boston Gallery in Cubao, Quezon City, entitled Dos por Dos ('Two by Two'), featured over 200 mixed media works representing each artist's reflection on human rights issues and unified by a common format: a standard size of two feet by two feet. The images, which one critic described as 'mind-boggling in variety and impact', ranged from the 'winking (a mugshot portrait of President Joseph Estrada) to the jaw-dropping (President Macapagal-Arroyo fully gowned, surrounded by piles of skulls in what is apparently a killing field of political victims, and smiling to two skulls she holds up, like Hamlet soliloquising to poor Yorick)'.²⁶

Visual artist and writer Karen Ocampo Flores, also TutoK Karapatan's project director, writes of how 'numbers [in Dos Por Dos] play a vital function in both [the exhibit's] text and subtext', recalling how it literally denotes a 'piece of wood of such thickness and breadth, wieldy enough as a weapon or a deterrent in pinch'. 'The numerous artists who make up [the exhibit] wrest the violence implicit in that numeric phrase and turn numbers into a declaration of solidarity,' she declares.²⁷ TutoK's last major site-specific exhibition Re-View: Pasang Masid was held in February 2007, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

More artists, musicians, film-makers and writers are also forming issue-based alliances among themselves, as seen in the examples of Artists for the Removal of Gloria Arroyo (ARREST Gloria), a broad alliance of artists calling for the ouster of Arroyo and the institutionalisation of reforms beyond a constitutional succession. The campaigns for the release of political prisoners such as the 'Tagaytay Five' continue, while Axel Pinpin manages to produce and publish poetry even under detention. Progressive artists organisations are also strengthening their ties with people at the grassroots level. CAP, for instance, organises fora, skills training workshops, and outreach programmes among disenfranchised and dispossessed urban and rural poor communities as a way of 'empowering the people to speak and create for themselves'.

In the Philippines, the struggle against censorship is a struggle against forgetting and collective amnesia. The coming years will prove to be the litmus test for a new generation of cultural workers besieged by such systematic erasures. LCI.