Marcoses

There are enough good reasons to be anti-Marcos.

The dictator looted the nation, kept the people’s money in Swiss banks while millions of Filipinos were wallowing in unbearable poverty and at the same time the family enjoyed the luxury of living. Marcos and his military and constabulary henchmen committed human rights violations that were acknowledged in a recent US court decision. After all these things, the Marcoses are still in power able to get away from the clutches of the law after more or less twenty years of prosecution and litigation.

There are also enough good reasons to feel disgust against the government. Not a single Marcos had been indicted and jailed in Bilibid along with fellow criminals. Either state attorneys are plain and simple stupid or the defendants are clever in paying off judges to let them scot-free are the reasons for the slow turn of the wheel of justice (or can we speak of “justice” in the Philippines?).

We can forgive Imelda for saying with temerity to the ignorant public that they never committed every single act of crime imputed on them. She said they had never stolen a single centavo from government coffers. She said they never committed any human rights violations. She said they were, instead of perpetrators, the victims in this splendid drama. It is only because the PCGG and our courts had failed to fulfill their mandates.

But for those who witnessed and lived in those years of repression and scarcity amidst abundance, for those who read and knowledgeable on those things, they felt insulted and robbed of the truth. For those who had written unspeakable horrors and distasteful vanities of totalitarianism, this is something that will cause instant revulsion.

It is no wonder that Imelda is suffering from dementia. Her husband exhibited the same kind of mental illness while he was running the affairs of the state. In his diary, which William Rempel had subjected to scrutiny in his Delusions of a Dictator: The Mind of Marcos as Revealed in his Secret Diaries, Marcos was always in state of denial every time he was involved in a dirty controversy. Like the Dovie Beams affair, he was quick to disown that it happened. He saw himself as someone messianic that would save the Philippines from communism; thus he declared Martial Law.

Let Imelda continue believing in her own delusions but let us stop her from brainwashing the innocent. The role of educators is crucial in imparting to the next generation the excesses of the Marcoses and the lessons to be learned from abuse of power and privilege. That is why the state should never condone the sins of the past; these must be exposed through public discourse and instruction. That is why the PCGG must never compromise with the Marcoses because the side of the truth is with the people. That is why the prosecution and conviction of the Marcoses is the redemption of EDSA I and the people who still believe in justice. [For comments, email me at dissentpdn@gmail.com]

[First published in People's Digest Newsweekly (Dagupan City) (August 21-27, 2007)]

Pangasinan and Filipino

Is Pangasinan a dialect? To Governor Espino and others, Pangasinan is a Malayo-Polynesian language under the Austronesian group of languages. The difference between “language” and “dialect” can be known in the dictionary.

August is the designated month for the annual celebration of the national language, Filipino. But, the preceding and this year are different because the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino under Dr. Ricardo Nolasco had decided to follow a different direction. No longer is the emphasis on Filipino exclusively wrapped in monolingual discourse. Last year’s theme was “Ang Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa ay Buwan ng mga Wika sa Pilipinas,” which placed the more than a hundred Philippine languages at par with Filipino. The Commission sponsored literary contests in Iloco, Bisaya including Pangasinan.

This year’s theme is even more radical: “Maraming wika, matatag na bansa.” Contrary to popular assertions, Nolasco debunks the idea that multilingualism is hindrance to unity and progress. In affirmation of our linguistic diversity, he encourages the use and promotion of other vernacular languages beside Filipino in education, teaching and other avenues for their development. The contests (poetry, short story and essay) had been expanded to include Bikol, Meranao, Maguindanao and Tausug.

Now is the auspicious time for Pangasinenses to elevate their language to the status that other languages enjoy or further. These languages have attained national acceptance in creative writing workshops and literary contests. Take the case of the Palanca Awards. Pangasinan is left out in their list unlike Iloco. We Pangasinenses must first destroy the myth that Pangasinan is an Iloco dialect. Pangasinan is a language on its own right with rich literature comparable with other languages.

Making Pangasinan alive in the halls of Urduja House is a good step but utilizing it more widely in government offices, business and education either through printed or broadcast media requires a concerted effort from the stakeholders - us. Can the Board Members at the capitol debate on pressing issues in Pangasinan? Is it possible that minutes of conferences and meetings, and resolutions be written in Pangasinan, not translated from English? Will it be used as medium of instruction in the primary school?

Answers to these foregoing questions also hinge on the need to evaluate our existing national language policy. Should we stick to the policy of bilingualism?

This however need not detain the Espino leadership from taking concrete and positive action in the preservation and development of Pangasinan. Kapampangans have their Center for Kapampangan Studies under the auspices of the Holy Angel University. I have visited their magnificent museum showcasing their rich history and culture. They also publish a magazine, Singsing and a peer-reviewed journal. In UP Visayas, in Miag-ao, there is the Center for West Visayan Studies while in UP Baguio, they had the Cordillera Studies Center. Why not establish Sentro ya Panaralay Pangasinan (not Center for Pangasinan Studies)? The Pangasinan State University (PSU) should take the first opportunity of housing the facility where scholars and literati can be accommodated.

Indeed, Pangasinan and Filipino are two beautiful languages as good as any language in the world. Say Pangasinan tan Filipino et paris na arom ya salita ed mundon kaukulan ya aroen tan itanduro.

[First published in People's Digest Newsweekly (Dagupan City)(August 14-20, 2007)]

Two Party System

The exercise of people’s electoral rights is one of the basic parameters of democracy. Vote-buying, cheating and violence are never tolerated; candidates are faithful to their respective parties and people’s trust in the elections is high. In retrospect, our elections, the latest was held in May, exhibit a political culture that perpetuates symptoms of floundering democracy as it permits fraud from the precinct up to the national level of canvassing and counting. Belonging to a party is important only during elections out of expediency.

In the US, where two-party system is the norm, loyalty to the party is important and political switching is a lost relic of the past. A two-party system, however, does not guarantee that politicians would remain loyal to the party they belonged to such that turncoatism is a taboo. It depends essentially on the tradition of the elite where an internal mechanism, not sanctioned by any enacted law, penalizes disloyalty.

Philippine colonial politics saw the dominance of one party, the Nacionalista in which Quezon and other prominent colonial politicians built their reputations, in contrast to the Democratas, Federalistas and Progresistas. Quezon, nostalgic possibly of the Partido Nacionalista’s dominance, relished the idea of a single party within a government under the rubric of a “partyless democracy”, which Renato Constantino, then a student-editor at UP, derided as prelude to totalitarianism. In less than forty years, a bar topnotcher, acquitted of murder, and one of Quezon’s boys, would become a dictator in Marcos. Philippine politics today is dominated by the party in power, usually a coalition party under the leadership of the president while other majority and minority parties constitute the opposition in a multi-party presidential system.

In contrast, US politicians are divided as member either of the Democratic Party or the Republican Party although other minority parties exist. Party allegiance is high not only among them but also among ordinary citizens. Being a member of a party, i.e. Republican or Democrat, speaks a lot about interests and values.

Its strength lies in the polarization between two contending parties as they deal with their respective platform. As long as the other party provides the alternative to the policies of the party in government, it would remain viable because the electorate had to opt for the other that would satisfy the inadequacy of the status quo. The danger is apparent when the other party, which is supposed to give an alternative, only assumes the responsibility of effecting regime change with minor modifications. In short, it does not provide real option. It seems to be a mirage for the confluence of interests and policies of the two parties.

In 2004, this bleak scenario fits the political debacle in the US. A two-party system paved the way for the collapse of democracy. The reason behind this is that more than 25 percent of Americans vote for the other candidate they do not believe represent their true sentiments because they are trapped in a system that disallows free and runoff elections. The other reason was Kerry.

Months before the electoral campaign kicked off, Bush had found an ally in Senator John Kerry. Kerry supported the American occupation of Iraq, justified Iraq’s continued occupation, and continuously professed his support of the occupation in the wake of protest from the American public. Also he was a crucial factor in the passage of the US Patriot Act, a law curtailing civil liberties of Americans suspected of being terrorists. He had championed the cause of the Iraq War and promised to do better than Bush.

If Bush had spoiled the war, Kerry had assured his supporters of effectively carrying out the war in Iraq. If Bush stood as the stupid devil, he postured as the wise Messiah to save US honor in Iraq and still pursue the same imperial policy. Such was the bane of a two-party system.

In the end, Dubya got reelected while Ralph Nader turned up a poor third, a victim of a dirty Democrat-Republican conspiracy. Come November 2008, can Americans get out from this dilemma? Or will corporate America still dictate its outcome?

[First published in People's Digest Newsweekly (Dagupan City)(August 7-13, 2007)]

Elections

Election fever in the United States becomes more intense than now as November not of this year but the next is approaching. According to the February survey by the ABC News, 65 % of people asked are closely following the elections. Will NY Sen. Hillary Clinton be the first woman president of the world’s lone superpower? Americans are not only the ones taking part in this exercise. People around the world are watching. Will policy changes particularly on Iraq occur after the transition to a new government or will it be the same?

Here, thanks to broadcast and print media, it caught the attention of some sectors of our society eager to get the picture of US political landscape. They engage in speculation or might be drawn into betting who would next occupy the White House. We Filipinos cared to know with interest because the election results could determine GMA’s policies vis-à-vis the US and also change in leadership would inevitably affect world affairs.

One of the lasting legacies of so-called American tutelage under McKinley’s “benevolent assimilation” is democracy. Election is democracy in action they say. If America is hailed as the “bastion of democracy,” the Philippines is touted as the “show window of democracy in Asia.” But elections Philippine-style is depressing to say the least.

Imagine a presidential candidate calling over the phone an election commissioner at the height of vote canvassing and counting; soldiers policing schools to ensure the win; ballot tampering; ballot box snatching; what comes to mind? Last May, Garci was back in Lintang Bedol, the perpetrator of the Maguindanao fiasco. Both have two things in common: both committed crimes of the same nature called “electoral sabotage” as defined by a new law and both are scot-free. In 2004, an Austrian described Philippine elections as “the slowest in the world.” Going back to the May elections with canvassing and counting lasting until July, so what’s new?

Are Philippine elections that bad? Yes but we are not alone and that’s our consolation.

Four years before the Garci tape scandal (it sounds like porn and indeed it is; hence, electoral pornography), that November, 60 000 voters were disenfranchised and more than a million of ballots mostly by Black voters were declared spoiled in that tight presidential contest. The number was critical in determining who would win that race and so, they petitioned the Supreme Court for a recount because they had sensed something amiss. Surprisingly and to their dismay, the Supreme Court stopped the recount as it accepted the verdict. In the end, the victor became the loser and the loser, the victor (again, what a coincidence!).

That took place in Florida, USA where thousands of Americans were not permitted to cast their votes. One thing then is sure that our bungling COMELEC does not monopolize the venalities of “democratic” institutions. George W. Bush Jr., that dim-witted guy, got elected with 537 vote margin over Al Gore and plunged America into a sordid misadventure in Iraq similar to their Vietnam.

They claim, and we foolishly accept it as true, that they taught us democracy in practice. Could we say they also learned from us? Maybe. Maybe not. Let us not hurry. Wait for November and see if any shades of Bedol comes out.

***

Dissent means to disagree, to differ in opinion. In this column, this being the inaugural issue, I will try to give you, dear readers, my point of view, judgment or whatever you call it on current events, local or international, against the backdrop of a limiting orthodoxy. Following the crowd can occasionally be positive but to be constantly carried away by conformity is dangerous. What is said by many does not direct you to the bottom of things but, almost at all times, to deception. I will not promise that much for to offer contrary belief can sometimes but not always lead to a real answer to a question. For comments, email me at dissentpdn@gmail.com.

[First published in People's Digest Newsweekly (Dagupan City) (July 31-August 6, 2007)]