Because Climate Change is Personal

Philippine flood

I take the recent flooding in the Philippines personally, not only because it caused so much inconvenience, not only because it involved evacuated relatives who lost properties, and not simply because it made me part with a small amount of money which represents a big chunk of my lifetime savings, but more importantly because of bigger reasons which though externally distant feels more like one with proximity to me .

I do not simply take it personal that power failure, food shortage, worsened traffic, epidemic and all other things that I despise in this already miserable world would further complicate my burdens but that further and beyond all these lies the original sin of this damned lives of ours.

The deluge brought about by the back-to-back typhoon cum flood brought out the best in Pinoy spirit and the worst in Philippine state of affairs and demands  that the issue of calamities and natural disaster  be finally raised to a higher discourse and not simply get buried in the mud and debris of the aftermath.

When the  extent of devastation and its frequency of occurrence undeniably increases it is  not correct to view the disaster as simply a charity issue where every conscience responds with a token donation and volunteer work.

The masses of poor people are always the worst hit by any calamity owing to their sub-human living conditions — living in their makeshift houses in flood-prone areas — and lack of resources to restart their lives.  It is necessary that direct government responsibility be stressed as it is the chief overseer of the country’s affairs.  It  demands of accountability as the state and its apologists try to obscure the issue.

But this should not stop at government action, reaction or inaction.

Beyond its response or lack of it  to the calamity, it should be made to answer for the laws it passes and the policies it upholds not only about disaster preparedness but also relative to the overall economic and political system it protects that exploits the people and condemn them to poverty — making them suffer the most during natural disasters.

Further beyond this is the mother issue of climate change, a wanton destruction of our fragile atmosphere by the corporations of rich industrialized countries, chief of them the  US, whose greed for profits not only destroyed our environment but exploited the peoples of the world as well.

The global capitalist order has caused so much poverty and  destruction through wars and climate change that its criminal record against humanity warrants a deluge by the people more ferocious than the ones the exploiting countries  have caused nature to produce.

This has been causing me serious anxiety and sleepless nights, so I take climate change personally.

Filthy Farewell to a Mad Killer

It was an unusual projectile and though not exactly fatal, means filth or lowly insult in  Muslim culture.

The US Occupation of the Philippines (series #3)

Makati 1899 (click on the picture to enlarge)

The Quest for Gold

The Philippine Olympics Committee and its retinue of publicists should have been made to run from Beijing to the nearest coastline and then made to swim in medley the vast China sea till they find the shores of Babuyan Islands and there be forever banished for the shame they brought the Filipino people during the last Olympiad.

It is humiliating for a nation of 87 million people that regularly proclaims itself to be world-class to come home empty-handed from the most prestigious games where even tiny and obscure nations manage to obtain a medal. Mauritius, Togo, Moldova? How about famine-stricken Ethiopia, reduced-to-rubble Afghanistan or strife-torn Sudan?

Jamaica has a population of 2.8 million people and produced 6 golds plus silver and bronzes or a medal for every 247,000 people. But Bangladesh and Pakistan who have much bigger population than ours didn’t get a medal either, one is tempted to say. But that is not a reason to be perennial losers. That is reason for us to exert all efforts to join the league of winners and not be counted among the company of losers.

The consistency of our Olympics failure becomes doubly shameful when viewed in our constant world-class posturing in the most petty of achievement — divine diva, Asia’s songbird, megastar, among the laughable ones in a long list of titles given to our pop idols, or the frontman of an aging rockband, a guest stint in a popular US TV show, a chef in the White House, a plethora of caregivers, a minor role in a Hollywood movie, and feel free to add to the list.

I am not saying we should not take pride in the achievement of our countrymen, we should but not in the magnitude like they’re the most magnificent thing to happen on earth or the hardest feat humankind can achieve. Let us save those breast-beating at the opportune time, when it is truly worthy of it, when the world really watches. More often than not, we are near the last if not the last of competitors to finish even in qualifying heat. I don’t blame the athletes, I only blame the officials — whose corruption stinks all the way to sports and knows no bounds — and our attitude towards them.

Our culture is a factor as well. If we are really to progress in sports, we have to engage in a nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented culture that includes sports development that is anchored in our potentials to win. Not an elite-dominated colonial system built on popular appeal.

Forget basketball ( I don’t know why we cling to this obsession especially in college games, we even have professional league) or swimming — it doesn’t matter if you bested your personal record ( this is not your personal battle), the fact is you are a tidal wave away from beating the world record holder.

Concentrate in boxing where we have real chances as have been proven several times. Try scouting among the Badjaos or the Muro-amis for diving potentials. Search the countryside for long distance runners who regularly traverse on foot the road less expanse of our rural landscape. Channel those dancing energy and grace of our youth we find in every club, street corners, or talent shows into gymnastics and similar discipline. Our indigenous game sipa reveals our talent that can make us good football (soccer if you wish) players.

There is a vast field of sports we can be competitive at. We only need to find the right one and put the right people to develop it. There is a big population base to search in. We only need to find the right potential and the right program to train them. Of course there is hope for an Olympic medal that will truly make us world class. And I am sure about it.

Otherwise, we can always send Dyesebel for swimming, Lastikman for gymnastics, Kapten Barbel for weightlifting, Totoy Bato for boxing, or if everything else fails send the Comelec as official score tabulators — they can make us win.

If not just go send Gloria as final card. Trust me, she can lose but still win and no one could make her return the medal, especially gold.

Poverty and Realization

A reader had an interesting comment in my obscure blog. After professing a bleeding heart for people who can barely keep body and soul together — the comment writer then proceeded to ask if i have experienced poverty or have seen the present conditions in the Philippines.

Well, of course I have experienced poverty and yes, I have seen the present conditions of the Philippines enough for me to realize that the way out of this predicament is not through individualist pursuit of personal dreams — singing and dancing and adoring, pretending that everything is fine and dandy, with the assumption that success will definitely come your way if you are a driven person– but through a collective effort to resolve the root causes of our national predicament- poverty mainly.

It is not escapist fanfare that will deliver our people from its accursed state or its state of want. It is the people’s determined and concerted action to extirpate the social ills that doom us to underdevelopment that breeds poverty –and then build a just and progressive society — that will – nothing less.

But we are so helpless or apathetic or both that we would rather engage in endless euphoric festivals of singing idols, punching pinoys, or pageant beauties thinking that the more we have of these, the happier and more successful the people will be, or the greater we will be respected by the universe, whichever comes first –if they ever do.

We are a nation obsessed with personal fame and then confuse it with national glory — yes, we draw inspiration from pop idols -not from our heroes- and proclaim them with pride. See how low we have sunk as a people?. We are a people whose solution to their problem is to stay away from it – or like an ostrich, bury its head in the dirt. We blame everything – from external mundane factors to the wrath of heaven for our sorry state – except our own inaction and lethargy.

We want to earn the respect of the world, we should start by respecting ourselves. And we don’t have to travel to the farthest corners of the world to do it, we should just start here by getting rid of an unelected president who kills our people and steals and squanders people’s money while the nation wallows in squalor. This is one very patent monumental anomaly that we have not decisively acted on, considering the precious time, energy and resources our people have been endlessly and generously spending on petty undertakings.

What kind of people allow themselves to be ruled with impunity by a usurper while their other feet slowly but surely sink in the grave? If we are truly a self-respecting people, a fake president cannot stay another minute in the highest office of the land.

No amount of petty personal success story will erase or draw a veil over our long list of monumental national shame except by resolving to rectify them as a united and determined people.

The problems is that our obsession with pomp and pageantry is matched only by our lack of sense of nationhood and national self-respect. We mistake desperation for determination, a drowning man for a deep-sea diver, seeking attention for catching attention.

We refuse to star on our own stage — desperately moving heaven and earth just to be part of other people’s stage, trying to earn just even a bit part in it in the hope that the spotlight might at least be trained on us even for a moment — and be eternally grateful for it (it has opened the doors blah-blah) –so we can claim thereafter how good and successful we are, or wish that the world might at least take notice. Oh how we refuse to see that the other peoples’ stages are superior that they are because they took pains to develop them as their own and not just dreamed of joining the others’.

We cannot forever prescribe Cinderella stories or pot-of-gold-at-the-end-of-the-rainbow dreams as solutions. Seriously. But in these fantasy islands of ours the absurd is normal and people accept futility.

What can I say? The culture is decadent if not simply synthetic.

One Year, One Wish

Full Circle is now a year old!

It hasn’t grown fully over the year, though, having been dormant for the most part (6 to 8 months). But hey, it managed to revive itself, just as when it was in its last gasp of cyberlife. What can I say? You choose to hibernate longer than you would be active, you’ll be consigned to zombie-like existence if not total oblivion and eventual death.

So here I am again, pounding my worn-out yet recently cleaned laptop keys (thanks to my friend for providing me a cotton ball taken from his mom’s dresser and an effective cleaning solution from his work – it pays to have a resourceful person in your phone book you see) as I watch the newscaster announce the unstoppable Filipino invasion not only of the US but the world as well.

Two new faces join the famed hall of Pinoys making it big in Hollywood – a certain de Tagle in Hannah Montana and a certain Copon in a Scorpion King prequel. Filipino pride – proudly declared Copon. Ahh, there it is again – the favorite battle cry rousing the diaspora.

Pinoy pride – right slogan for the wrong reasons. But I will save that for a different piece – because today is my blog’s birthday. And like all other birthdays, I will make a wish.

Hate it or love it — I wish that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gets ousted and, along with her mindless and murderer minions, made to pay dearly for their crimes against the people.

And if she doesn’t get ousted before the term of her usurped office expires? It’s okay. I can live with that, taking comfort in the firm belief that the long arm of justice as seen to it by the people, will eventually get her. I won’t leave it to God – it is a sorry excuse for us in not exercising our sovereignty as a people and charting our fututre. I would leave it to the Filipino people to serve justice and finally reclaim itself before the world.

This is the type of dignity and pride we all sorely need as a people. And this is my wish. Not the escapist fanfare of glamour and glitter ignorantly peddled by a lot of our confused countrymen.