Poverty, gimmickry and the politician

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Poverty, gimmickry and the politician
Sunday, 06 28, 2009

The jaded cynic that I am, I tend to recoil from politicians who project an image that panders to the poor voter’s vicarious tendency to favor the underdog. I sense an underlying condescension and a disguised trace of manipulation there.

The late Camilo Osias used to reminisce that he was once a bootblack, but it was not because of his lowly origins but on the strength of his achievements — first Filipino superintendent of schools; author of The Philippine Reader; resident commissioner in the US Congress; member of the 1934 Constitutional Convention; secretary of Education — that he was elected by the people to the Senate.

When Osias sought the nomination as presidential candidate of the Nacionalista Party in the 1953 elections, he was trounced by somebody who was simply touted as “the mechanic from Zambales,” never mind Ramon Magsaysay’s other qualifications as congressman and former Defense secretary.

Thus began the fascination of the masa — the poor voters in the rural areas and the city slums — for the politician who rose from poverty. It was as if the overriding qualification to be elected to a higher office was that one had to be “born in a disreputable, lowly, old palm-frond (nipa-shingled) shack that stood on bamboo stilts and installed on a kind neighbor’s lot.” (The heart-wrenching prose is taken from Sol Gwekoh’s biography of the Poor Boy from Lubao, entitled Diosdado Macapagal: Triumph over Poverty, with the subtitle, The Colorful Biography of the Common Man from Pampanga Who Became the President of the Philippine Republic.)

A lot of voters out there are always pushovers to this poor-boy-who-made-good story, despite being bludgeoned into senselessness by the daily sensory overload in the tri-media extolling a politician’s impoverished origins.

If the surveys are to be believed, then the emphasis on Sen. Manuel Villar Jr.’s having been a poor boy who made good is reaping dividends for him. He is up there in the surveys, while his opponents who belong to the old rich, the nouveau riche and dubiously rich are very far behind.

The poor voter who believes in that vanished image of long-ago of the politician yearns for a similar success story to happen to him. He is dazzled, spellbound and blinded by what he sees in a once poor boy like him. It makes that poor voter dependent on the recipe for success of the politician. Therein lies the exploitation, intended or not.

What had made the politician succeed may not necessarily be the same recipe that would assure the poor voter his share of the pie in the sky. Villar, for instance, was lucky to have studied in the premier State university of the country. Is the poor voter similarly lucky to have the kind of education that Villar got? Villar was lucky to have wooed and wed the daughter of a successful local politician, which is not necessarily true to the poor voter. Villar was lucky to have morphed his marriage to a political family into a successful venture into politics himself, but that opportunity is never going to happen to the poor voter. Villar was lucky to have successfully used his business acumen together with the political positions he has held, but the poor voter would never have that kind of opportunity or chance.

The drift of the present-day infomercials pandering to the poor is exploitation: Give me your vote, and I will uplift you from poverty. But it seems that these infomercials speak too “loud” that the poor voter fails to hear what they say. If only these infomercials were similar to Villar’s itik campaign, there should be no problem. The itik infomercial projects a drift other than a promise: Its message is one of aiding the poor to help them become self-sufficient.

Then again, that assurance of being uplifted from poverty begs the issue. Will the poor voter eventually get what he is being assured of? Will the politician deliver as he promised? After all, politicians are the worst when it comes to the delivery on promises made in the heat of the campaign.

The surveys show that the majority of those who prefer the frontrunners come from the D-E sectors. These are the voters who would not care a whit about what is happening to our politics, who close their eyes and just prefer one who can appeal to them the best, regardless of how rotten (or poor) their choice is.

Those who carefully weigh the qualifications of the candidates, and who are intelligently aware of what is happening around them, are less sympathetic to politicians who project themselves differently from what they really are. For instance, who can believe that a politician ”into the manor born” is sincere and concerned about the welfare of the common man, if he straddles a trisikad in his $300 loafers? Gimmicks like this only make politicians bear false witness against themselves.

A point that is lost on the poor is the astronomical expense for these gimmicks. If politicians are really that sincere in helping the poor, even when it is not the campaign period yet, would it not be better to spread the wealth around by spending for the poor those millions thrown for premature campaigning?

The campaign period still has a long way to go. The electorate, especially the poor, deserve a modicum of respect from politicians. Politicians must bare their true selves; they must make a transparent exposition of their past and present image, not their varnished past and present. That way, when the electorate make their choice on election day they shall consider the sermon and the preacher — the creed and the deed — distinctly and apart, fully aware of what to expect from the kind of politician they voted for.



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Honor thy father

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

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Honor thy father
Sunday, 06 21, 2009

He should be a vigorous 93-year-old by now, but God had other plans for him as soon as he turned 67. And what he left was a progeny of eight children, all of whom went way ahead of him in terms of educational and social achievement. But that is going abruptly too far in the story of Emerson.

When he was a young man, poverty stopped him one year short of finishing high school. But he realized that whatever goals he could not accomplish through refining his hungry mind, he could accomplish by getting his hands dirty through a vocational course in auto-mechanics. When he put up the first vehicle repair shop in San Nicolas, there was not one single vehicle south of Laoag that did not pass through his hands. Every vehicle owner swore by his ability to coax a dead car back to life. He was also a locksmith. There was not one stubborn lockset whose tumblers he could not unlock. Some even joked that had he wanted to, he would have made a fortune being a successful break-in man.

The same pair of grease-stained, calloused hands that clawed at the innards of vehicles was equally adept at turning rough blocks of wood into intricate pieces of art, now treasured by many who were the objects of his generosity. He never sold any of his woodcarvings, which he fashioned with tools he made from scraps of metal and bits of spokes of discarded umbrellas that lay around his shop.

It seemed there was nothing he could not do with his hands, whether it be eking out a living or celebrating the joys of being alive. He could play the harmonica, hammer out a rhythm on the marimba, tickle the ivory keys of the piano, play a soulful riff on the saxophone. He sang a lot, danced like a dream, and was never known to refuse the obligatory drink passed around on certain manly occasions.

He was some sort of a hometown hero. He once braved the raging floodwaters in San Nicolas in 1953, and saved a family who had been marooned in the middle of what could have proved a watery, agonizing death.

And because he loved to get his hands dirty in honest labor, he found time to till the land his father had bequeathed to him. He operated a cono, which everyone patronized. One of his customers was a pretty 21-year-old lady who was to become his wife.

His lack of higher education notwithstanding, he read a lot and acquired a lot of books. His library, augmented by the collection of his father who was a superintendent of schools in Northern Luzon, was always a rich source of information and knowledge for his kailians.

During the war, he survived the horrors of the Death March, and endured the tortures of incarceration at Capas. He had been given up for dead, having been sick of malaria and dysentery, ready to be thrown into the pit of the dead and the dying, when he was recognized through his dog tag by a relative, who then nursed him back to good health. He recuperated, and thereby hung a tale of indefatigable machismo: Who would ever think that with the Death March and Capas having already sucked out of the vitality of his being, he could, within 11 years after the liberation, still manage to beget three more daughters, and three sons.

The war left some permanent scars on his psyche. Three of his brothers in the Army were killed by the Japanese; his sister and his mother were liquidated by the collaborators. On many a time, he would pause to tell his children of the inhumanity of war. But personal tragedies could not deaden the exuberance of the man.
In the kitchen, he was a good cook, specially when it came to adobo of the canine kind. And everyone loved his isaw, that anyone who ate it would forget that it came from an “uncivilized” pig. Even the wild banyas went into a panic mode whenever he was around, lest he turn his culinary expertise on them.

Although he was a hail-fellow-well-met, he abhorred politics. But everyone in San Nicolas remembers him festooning the façade of his house with a big streamer for his hero, Marcos, every election time. He told everyone Marcos was an authentic war hero; he should know — they fought together. Which is why it pained him to no end when the fakery of Marcos’ medals became a scandal.

He was a nurturing and loving father. He was a buddy to his sons, but a stern disciplinarian to his daughters. While he taught his sons the many skills only he could impart — like bringing them to the wilds of Pagong at the foot of the Cordilleras — he was quick to frown on his daughters who failed to be back at home well before the oracion at six o’clock in the evening.

He was obsessed with the desire to provide only the best for his family, which meant a comfortable house with modest standards and the best schools that he could afford for his children. He was keenly aware of the value of education and instilled it on all his children. He taught them the codes that he lived by, as well as those that he missed — how to make good decisions in life, how to have fun and to laugh and love, and how to appreciate the meaning of honest work.

When he passed away, his remains were laid in state at the municipio, where he was extolled for his virtues and his all-too-human frailties. But nobody expressed it better than his brother-in-law who said in his eulogy: “Nalaing ni Eming nga ama. Nasayaat ti pamilya na. Napintas ti nagbanagan daguiti amin nga annakna.” (Eming was a good family man. All his children have turned out successful and accomplished).

Thus lived and died a great man, and I wonder what my life would have been had he and his youngest son — me — not been good buddies.

Happy Father’s Day, Emerson Castro Raval!


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‘Desperate Housewipes’

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J. B. RAVAL

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‘Desperate Housewipes’
Sunday, 06 14, 2009

"Desperate Housewipes” is the latest Filipino reality show — a comedy-drama series of high treason and intrigue — initially created by Luis Villafuerte, who backed out at the closing episode of the first season, much to the displeasure of its producers, but nevertheless to the relief of the national audience. The show, however, has been revived by Prospero Nograles, who also serves as show-runner, with the cameo appearance of a wiseass bit player from Ilocos Norte. The executive producers of the show, although they refuse to publicly acknowledge it, belong to Riverside Palace Officials Inc. (RiPOff), a dynasty of politicians with kith and kin from Bicol, Pampanga, Negros, and everywhere else.

The setting of the show is Batasan Hills in Quezon City. It follows the lives of a group of desperate Wipes in the House of Representatives — wipe: n. a disposable absorbent and abhorrent government official, esp. one treated with a cleansing agent, for wiping something (like asses) clean; i.e., trapo — seen through the ever-present eyes of the television cameras and reported/commented on widely by the media, as they work through legislation ostensibly designed to wipe out the ills of the country, while desperately trying to commit the abhorrent crime of wiping clean certain portions of the basic law of the land to ensure that the owner of RiPOff stays in control for many seasons and episodes to come.

The show features an ensemble cast, headed by show-runner Nograles and a group of Wipes known as the Shameless Bunch: Raul del Mar, Juan Miguel Arroyo, Elpidio Barzaga, Ignacio Arroyo, Niel Tupaz, Diosdado Arroyo, et al. They are reportedly paid a fee of P20 million per episode.

Other Wipes, not directly or no longer involved in the show but wishing they still had a hand in the script, spice up the episodes by their unoriginal albeit grandstanding sound bites as the show progresses. Listen to this one from deposed show-runner Jose de Venecia, a onetime implementor of scripts from RiPOff: “I ask you, Madam President, cut now and cut clean, (wow!) right now. And revoke your orders to the members of the House. Respond to public opinion.” Also, it is significant to note that some original members of the cast — Monica Prieto Teodoro, among them — have abandoned (or plan to abandon) their roles, presumably because of the bad ratings the show has received and the fear of being known to the viewers as Disgraced Housewipes.

Since its simultaneous premiere on all TV stations in February last year, the show has received various — and opposing — reactions from the critics as well as the national audience. As of last week, it was reported to be the most popularly reviled show nationwide, with an audience of approximately 60 million viewers who witnessed on TV a mammoth rally in Makati, which was sparked by the latest ugly turn of events in “Desperate Housewipes.” One who opposes the show for its revolting use of stolen wealth to keep the Shameless Bunch in tow was former housewife-turned President Corazon Aquino. Reprising a call she made six months ago on that same spot, Aquino said: “Narito muli tayo, sa gitna ng walang-hiyang pang-aabuso ng mga makapangyarihang nagnanais na sirain ang… ating mga batas.”

Other voices, though less trumpeted by the media, were no less critical of “Desperate Housewipes.” The Most Rev. Deogracias Iñiguez and Bishop Solito Toquero, co-chairmen of the Ecumenical Bishops Forum, have denounced Nograles, et al. and compared them to the biblical Esau, who sold his birthright for a pot of porridge. In a statement the bishops said: “The Ecumenical Bishops Forum strongly opposes the proposed Charter change and denounces the con-ass for its deliberate attempt to deprive the future generations of Filipinos of what is rightfully theirs. We say No to the selling of our birthright for a pot of porridge! We say No to the obvious attempt to ensure that Arroyo and her allies remain in power even after their terms expire.” Of course, the bishops did not extrapolate that a pot of porridge is actually a pot of gold that the Shameless Bunch stand to receive!

Synopsis. The following takes place between now and July 27: Nograles and the Housewipes know the impossibility of a con-ass to be validly convened until after the Supreme Court rules. They must force the issue, and create a justiceable controversy that necessitates the court’s intervention. As things stand now, the petition filed by lawyer Oliver Lozano is premature, HR 1109 being merely a call to a con-ass. Which is why they are hard-pressed to exploit every opportunity to force the issue to reach the court at the earliest time possible. There must be a semblance of participation by the Senate: There must be a situation where the congressmen and senators are convened in joint session for a con-ass; there must be at least one Judas-senator to join the congressmen in a con-ass. That situation is what Nograles and the Housewipes are trying hard to act out of a script concocted by RiPOff. (Thankfully, not one senator has agreed to join the cast).

Leina de Legazpi, my occasional tipster, has alerted me that the next episodes of “Desperate Housewipes,” as the season resumes on July 27, will have the following titles: The Rich Bitch Pays; The Rich Bitch Prevails; The Juiciest Bites from the Rich Bitch; Secrets and Lies of the Rich Bitch.

The national audience waits with bated breath — or with baited breath, as my other friend Reggie would say. When the congressmen and senators convene in joint session on July 27, expect that episode of “Desperate Housewipes” to set the tone for a justiceable controversy. Most likely, Nograles, et al. will continue with the show even after its interruption by the State of the Nation Address.

Abangan yan.


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Stupidity all over (HR 1109 on ConAss)

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Stupidity all over

Sunday, 06 07, 2009

Last Tuesday took all of seven hours in asinine deliberations for the House of Representatives to expose itself for what the public has known all along: A chamber of stupid politicians mindless of the consequences of their decisions. This time, it was the Constitution that they were trying to mutilate, maim, disfigure and damage, 24 hours before they were to go on sine die adjournment.

It was a blitzkrieg that overwhelmed the House minority members with the overwhelming, tyrannical numbers of the deliberately obtuse majority. Anak ng buwaya! — these guys really took all the points for being desperate, stupid, dumb, dense and unintelligent. The constituent assembly (con-ass) issue was supposed to have been dead in the water, what with the dramatic withdrawal of Rep. Luis Villafuerte.

The stupidity of Nograles and his bunch of mercenary satraps lies in their insensitivity to the public pulse, their reckless misreading of the Constitution, and their shameless violation of their own House rules. But then that’s what mercenaries are — they do things for pay and not for love of country. By steamrollering the adoption of proposed House Resolution 1109 — convening Congress into a con-ass, to propose amendments to the Constitution, without the Senate’s concurrence in a separate vote — the members of the House belonging to the monolithic coalition of politicians sympathetic to the Arroyo administration will reap material benefits that are beyond the dreams of avarice. (Hey, congressman! How does P20 million grab you?)

They have also done a great disservice to the nation, and will reap the whirlwind in the coming days.

There is something in the hubris that infects politicians like Nograles and his ilk to be blind to the people’s outrage against decisions that strike at their sense of justice. The mindless agenda to inflict President Arroyo on the people for many more years albeit under a different position title is the biggest injustice. How stupid of them not to catch even a glimmer of the outrage of the people. The spontaneous protest actions that followed could very well swell to unmanageable magnitudes in the coming days. Already, a religious group has threatened to mobilize its seven million members. The students are back in school; they will add to the numbers that will beat HR 1109 to a pulp.

Under the guise of introducing amendments to lift the restrictive clauses of the Constitution, to make the Philippines competitive in attracting foreign investments, HR 1109 insults a nation of 90 million Filipinos who are made to appear as stupid and unable to discern what Nograles and his mercenary bunch actually want to achieve. Pray, tell, how does one connect term extension to acquisition by aliens of real property? Nograles, et al. may not be stupid after all. Crafty and sinister may be more like it.

And the nation is not that stupid to believe the congressmen will foreswear term extensions for anyone, including Arroyo, and that there will be elections in 2010. That may be true in the verbiage of HR 1109, but the people know better: Arroyo, Nograles, et al. will not be extended in the same office they are now holding, but they will be the same dogs — or bitches, as the case may be — with a different collar. Thus, we see a President Arroyo becoming a Member of Parliament Arroyo then segueing to a Prime Minister Arroyo.

How stupid of Nograles and his mercenary bunch to disregard the Senate in the constitutional scheme of things. Already, the senators have retaliated through proposed Senate Resolution 154 declaring that “any attempt of the House of Representatives to unilaterally propose amendments or revisions of the Constitution without the approval of the Senate, voting three-fourths separately, is unconstitutional.” With that, how dense can Nograles and his mercenary bunch be, in believing that they could go ahead, on their own? Here’s the simple logic: One cannot dance the Cha-cha by himself; he has to have a willing partner. On the other hand, it is not simple math, like adding 250 to 24 to arrive at the three-fourths threshold vote called for by the Constitution. That picture of Enrile, Pimentel, and the other senators in a kapit-bisig stance is a strong assurance that the stupidity of Nograles, et al. shall not be inflicted on the nation.

And on a minor yet terribly stupid detail, this mercenary bunch presumed that its proposed amendments to the Constitution can be submitted to the people for ratification, without funds therefor allocated with the concurrence of the Senate! Does the Commission on Elections have the wherewithal to undertake such a plebiscite?

So how can anyone be more stupid than these administration allies who expect a favorable decision from a Supreme Court upholding the validity of the proposed mode of amending the Constitution as outlined in HR 1109. With the likes of Puno and Carpio manning the ramparts of the Constitution to protect it against stupid politicians out to mangle it, how can Nograles and his stupid bunch ever expect the court to side with them when they decide on that ampaw of a petition of a Lozano?

The people have learned their lesson: They will never allow again a Supreme Court to rule that there is no further judicial obstacle to a Constitution being in force and effect. Javellana is still much too ingrained in their minds, that they will not allow an Arroyo to repeat that feat of Marcos in 1973.

But wait — perhaps there is a method to this stupid madness. It could be that the Serene Puppeteer in the Palace has pulled the strings on Nograles and his greedy bunch to ram through HR 1109 in order to create a nationwide state of mayhem confusion. When that happens, what could be more expedient than the declaration of martial law?

See? Somebody may not be that stupid after all.


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