To disembowel a blogger
Original painting by Popoy
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By Popoy Del R. Cartanio
What make the innards of a blogger
Could be something tough like leather
Or something crispy like Lapid’s
Chicharon, plain or spicy
or greasy brown Bulaklak
or Bituka the taste of malansa.
Or it could be like tasty bread
Like a cadaver laid on his back
Sold in organ pieces in the plaza
Favorite of Mexicans during fiestas.
It is not really in their tummies
Where bloggers get their juices
Sprinkled to their audience
With their cold intelligence.
Popoy original
Blogging’s more cranial
Than intestinal
Often blogs are equal
In being both emotional
And intellectual.
Blogs can make Descartes a bit confusing
Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am
Nooo, May be that’s a cart pulling the horse
You can think ONLY if you exist in the flesh
I am therefore, I think: Sum ergo cogito, Eh?
Why Descartes then when light as day
You are what you think, what you blog
Your blog is who you are without your name
Free as bird soaring, shitting, philosophizing.
To blog is to raise or lower a flag
Of praise or anger that hints
Something is hurting
That needs bludgeoning offenders
Seldom it is about rejoicing.
A blogger is a fisherman
Armed not by hook line and sinker
But by a mass of nets behind a trawler.
A troll a blogger may or may not be
Solely depending on his her integrity.
I submit in surrender to the views of other bloggers, that I speak and write not in authority but in release of my observations: moronic or wise, partial or impartial, judicial or prejudicial to people, institutions or the natural environment after for maybe a little over ten years as incognito player or mere spectator of a free-for-all in the bleacher of hidden identities.
Me, Me, and more about me
Popoy original
WHY BLOG is like asking why drink Gin Ginebra when Bahalina taste like Champagne? Why stand when you can do it sitting down? Why use rubbing alcohol when using sukang iloco will be just as cool? The questions are of course stupid as stupid sucks. Bloggers just do it not knowing they are starting a habit, of being a law abiding internet addict. After those many years I can’t remember my first nom de guerre, the topic, the day, the place I sent to cyberspace my first blog. Whether it was a comment in thanks or anger, or in an attempt to show that my knowledge is larger than those of the others; whether it was a long peroration of cosmetic nonsense; or an ascent to the loft of reason or waddling down like a peacock to condescend the pretenders; I CAN’T SAY. KSP (kulang sa pansin) is not what I will admit as the cause of my high- fallutin’ postings. No one is KSP, he who sits as solitary bystander listening, watching, understanding; thoughts BLURTING. See? It is a respite like drinking iced Sprite to read the paragraph instead of pretentious lines written in stanzas. Thinking is easier.
I blog because I have something to say and am saying it for the world out there to know. It is about something that’s been a part of me, of what I want and do not want. Part of what I value and what I detest in life. Because it’s part of my few successes and lots of failures too. Because like it or not, it is sharing with others my abilities and deficits; my banter and blunder; the stains between my teeth; my hidden linens. In short blogging disembowels me to expose my character. If as Heraclitus professed my character is my fate, by blogging I am enlarging the circle of those shadows or faceless strangers, becoming my friends or foes who know my character through my handle.
This is not me or about the others because all of us can’t be 100 per cent certain . . . .
Do bloggers get paid, salaried or hourly, or by the piece? In ten years, still I have no evidence or direct knowledge despite reading insinuations and insults about bloggers or commenters for hire or for sale or just making humble living for the children or retirees miles away from Alzheimer. To the extent that bloggers are licensed or moonlighting media professionals or veteran public relations personnel mainlining or sidelining for a living, or kevlar clad daily calumnist este columnist, I also would not know. What I know or suspect I know like other bloggers. I believe blogging is not like painting a scene commanding thousands of meanings but more. It is to millions every mind a beginning for a book or two of non-fiction. To a blogger who’s not a sensationalizing reporter, the fitting title of this piece to a kill joy is: Albeit Addicting Blogging is Still Boring. To the non-cerebrals.
Mistake it is not in cyberspace
To be Buddhistic or esoteric
When blogging reaches maturity
Needing no stringent rules
like No Littering or No Smoking
when like Benedictines or Jesuits
Bloggers spew not spittle of bacteria
But antibiotics like teachings of Buddha.
Popoy original
“To seek happiness by hurting others
Is the way of the fool. Hatred arises
When you see yourself as separate
From others. Hatred never destroys hatred”
“Just as no one is dearer to you than yourself,
Others are dear to themselves. If you care
About yourself, you won’t harm others. ”
Why, it is so broad and deep the brahma viharas:
Metta, karuna, mudita, and upekka;
The chambers of the heart of a blogger
where dwells NO “greed, anger, aversion
and ignorance;” Go Google if you like.
I did not with: “Having Coffee With the Buddha”
The chapbook of Joan Duncan Oliver
I need not for info go ogle like a miser.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Great takes about Cartesian dream and the importance of thoughtful inquiry through blogging.
People tend to notice the words uttered by the blogger at a face value(like people tend to blame bad software if they got rat’s nest CPU setup). Many tend to forget that, experiences and senses from the past(even a time frame of seconds) dictates thoughts of the present.
At some point many have to realize that they are ahead and behind on capabilities of others.
Also, I find no sense about pointing personalities, pointing an attitude because all operate on different clocks and situations, you are never really sure where someone is coming from or intended to do.
This leads me to remember the hilarious Big Bad Blogger controversy by Margaux Salcedo during the height foodie market and blogging in the Philippines. It is where some of the prominent food bloggers are insinuated for getting food for free for food review(What? Hahaha).
An interesting post for people gaining audiences.
Thanks for the wisdom, Chivas. I’m glad the pathology undertaken by Popoy generated those reflections. I read the piece at two levels. One, from the standpoint of blogging and what it means, as I do it, from personal soul-searching to inane ramblings. The other level was the artistry of Popoy in crafting meanings with his words. He’s a poet of extraordinary talent. If there were a market for literary genius, I think he’d be a rich man. I’m not sure “deep” is a strength appreciated by many, unfortunately. I feel honored that this particular piece was published here, for it represents extraordinary Filipino intelligence and talent. Jose Rizal and Miguel Syjuco (who reads here occasionally) would surely nod in appreciation.
For me, blogging has somehow become a way of life. Those thoughts are precious and I love meeting people who have the same interests like I do.
Arlene’s blog, “Dreams and Escapes”, can be found here: https://arlene1956.wordpress.com/
Thank you so much for the link 🙂
Your words are quite serene, arlene. Very soothing, indeed.
I scratched my head the first time, trying to understand, after the nth times, still scratching my head. oh my, I gave up.
Did the pictures fail you, too? My take on the dogs lined up is bloggers waiting to piss on the tree of knowledge . . . but Popoy may have intended a different meaning. Does it matter? Not to me, I laughed just the same.
Maybe he intended that some would leave scratching their heads, all the better for being free of ticks and lice. 🙂
I recently saw a picture on fb with the dogs (just one line of them, not two), with the caption “This is what happens when people cut down too many trees.”
🙂 Yes, maybe that’s why there are so many dogs waiting. Not enough trees left.
🙂
I have seen blogers who blog just for fun. I have seen vindictive bloggers who has hidden aces of past comments of enemies to be used as weapons when the need arises.there are 100 percenters,there are those who exaggerate just to drive and hammer a point.it is a jungle,it is a playground.Come to my palor said the spider to the fly.
🙂
Popoy next time,join us.
“Pati laman ng bituka mo alam ng tao” – people know even what is in your intestines in Tagalog means you reveal everything about yourself. True, bloggers reveal a lot about themselves by what they write. Finally it is about stuff that drives you, that bothers you, that you want to know.
*******
Reveal not only to others but also to oneself.
It’s like a fashion show: one strips but also puts on new clothes.
I think for me, writing is important in that we never know who we are until we write down our thoughts and feelings. It crystallizes our thoughts.
Writing is an act of self-definition.
And, as you say, we learn in the process and, hopefully, others learn too.
But Karl is right. It could be for fun or for ego.
I think for the Society it’s about shaping our shared reality.
*****
I observe, therefore I am…therefore we blog…
If I may throw my light pebble to the ripple of conversation;
I am a blogger too so I really am what I write :
• In joy and in pain
• In anger and compassion
• In acceptance and in denial
• In resistance and surrender
• In defiance and in acquiescence
• In stupidity and wisdom
• In greed and continence
• In bravery and in cowardice
• In numbness and sensitivity
• In deviltry and in divinity.
So I am LIKE Dr. Jekyll most of the time
And hopefully Mr Hide only few of the time.
oh, hey I forgot to say, the above
that’s what to think heeding the link
after a glance at Arlene’s page,
not embellished but a life magnified.
medio hawa-hawa yata
trying hard maging makata
dito sa blog ni joe America.
“Blogging’s more cranial
Than intestinal
Often blogs are equal
In being both emotional
And intellectual.” – POPOY
In Arab world, they blog to change creating Arab Spring
In MY PERSONAL WORLD, it is therapeutic
It is blowing off steam what I cannot change that cannot be changed
Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject. More recently “multi-author blogs” have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors.
“BLOG” like “TROLL” has changed its meaning over a decade. In the early days of internet in 1994 the time Bill created information superhighways after his Vice President Al Gore invented internet. Yes, Virginia, Al Gore is a scientist. He invented internet.
BLOG used to be Biographical Logging and TROLL may characterize a post as pejorative, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial.
COMMENTERS are BLOGGERS are TROLLERS wanting to be heard so am I.
There are plenty of bloggers in the Philippines blowing of steam. The Philippine Government likes that instead of keeping it in and eventually explode. That is why Philippines has had no coup unlike in the days of Cory which garnered the most coup’ed president in the world.
If we are to believe stats from Zuckerberg, Philippines has the most Facebook users in the world! They live to Facebook while New Yorkers live to work and Angeles work to live. I see peanut vendors along EDSA strap their cellphone to the palm of their hands.
Tunisians use Social Network to change their country and the middle east. They were the catalyst of Arab Spring. This is where Arab Spring began. Comparing Tunisians with Philippines, is like comparing 5th world against 3rdWorld Philippines.
It appears Tunisians care more about their well-being and country than Filipinos.
During the time of Cory, Al Gore did not invent the internet yet until 1994. Let us thank Al Gore for his contribution to the scientific world.
Before Gore and Gates and Jobs, there was CERN, HASP, ARPANET, Amdahl, Cray!
Al Gore. Mr. Climate Change these days.
The Philippines has the social network, much of it texting and working Facebook, but not the political cause that would organize it into a force.
Yes, I believe that to be true, that the definition of a blog today is different than the original application. Today a number of blogs are open sourced journalism or muckraking, and others are literary or artistic expressions (cooking).
It is, indeed, a release of pressure from the cooking that goes on around us.
In pre-Al Gore Era, we type in Letters-to-the-Editor. Slide it into the envelope. Slap it with stamps. Drop it in the Post Office. Editors, check for spelling and gramar. If they do not like your comment it goes to the basket. If it is in English and spelling and grammar is awesome, if you are lucky, it gets published.
This time, it is real time. Editors do not review comments. They assign it to MOD SQUAD. Who are very STRICT. As you know Filipinos do not like STRICT the person and the word itself. They are the GOD and GODDESSES which your comments are under their mercy. Problem is MOD SQUAD are dregs of U.P.-Delliman graduates.
Thank God Letters-to-the-Editor is gone repalced by on-line real-time “ON-LINE COMMENTS”. Even Time Magazine gave up on Letters-to-the-Editor. The holdout is National Geographic. They stll accept Letters-to-the-Editor.
How about Readers Digest. Do they still accept jokes and personal anecdotes? Are they still around???? On my really really really bored days, I’d read the jokes from my Mom’s Readers Digest.
Heeey, a little respect here. Word Power Made Easy, Humor in Uniform, Life in the U S of A, and condensed books section were worth the time. 🙂
Aha!!! Humor in Uniform was my favorite. I concede that many budding intellectuals may have gained their early insights and knowledge from Readers Digest.
Me! Still remember: A soldier was doing pushups as penalty in Mexico City. A Mexican comes up to the American and says: “Señor, the lady is not there anymore.” That was like 40 years ago.
Now that is funny! Even after 40 years.
The San Beda Lib kept the past issues of the Digest book-bound in the general reference section. I had open-stack privileges and I distinctly remember me (a 12-yr old in short khaki pants) spending Manila typhoon-drenched afternoons in wordsmith and humor heaven with my generous dollop-servings of literary ice-cream from the RD tomes beside me.
Libraries are dangerous breeding grounds of the intellect, said a German censor in the repressive times after Metternich restored the reactionary order to Europe…
San Beda, where my father went to Elementary School “before the prewar”…
Where Fernando Poe Jr. also went to school there, but he was five years younger than my father. Estrada was also born in Tondo like Poe, but went to Ateneo, got kicked out, and dropped out of MIT. He was a Manila rich kid like Antonio Luna. Duterte went to San Beda College too like Sonny. Duterte got kicked out of Ateneo de Davao, then did his pre-law studies at the Lyceum in Manila. These are the threads that bind our fabric.
My father was a UP professor, but taught at La Salle after retiring because UP did not want him anymore. He gave his library, once 10 thousand books but decimated by his students who “borrowed” many of them, to La Salle. It is there for the public to use.
Mind is a terrible thing to waste. Let us knock our heads, not off but to educate them.
I did too – until my father stopped subscribing it when I started being rabidly anti-Russian, and found that they had an article about the (true) failures of the Russian space program. The Russians built junk and got it running, but with casualties. Well, that was the time my father was back from Paris and had met the likes of Sartre as well as Vietnamese and Cambodian socialists studying there. And my uncle was helping the USA in Vietnam. And the Constabulary had confiscate my father’s expensive hard-bound English language edition of the Analects of Confucius, thinking it was Chinese Communist Literature.
I do remember how my mother – a language professor – noticed I didn’t really get some of the stuff I was reading. So she sent me to her American best friend, Sue from Michigan, wife of my father’s only lifetime friend who was ABCed with him – Aguinaldo, Bonifacio, Crame were the camps they rotated the dangerous UP intellectuals MRP still hates – to tell me what certain things really meant. Real American slang – “A Bash for the Boys” was an article about the mob, and ex-Peace Corps Sue told me exactly what each term meant.
I am also addicted to VLog. Yes, Video Log. Filipinos call it Youtube. There is nothing substantial and worth watching about Philippines. NADA.ZILCH.ZERO.NIEN. Although just recently there was a VLog seminar in Makati inviting my favorite, liked and friend food VLogger Mark Wiens from Migrationlogy dot com based in Bangkok the technique in VLogging.
He! He! He! He did not stay for long in the Philippines, left for Osaka and Vlogged extensively. But Very very few in the Philippines just to mpress his host that he “likes” Philippines.
I subscribe to:
“retirecheap” in Thailand
Helen’s Recipe
VillaTeng of Cambodia
BushmanCanuck of Mactan Island. He is an American maried to a local
Funny English guy Geof Carter Vlogging from Thailand
Canadian Thai PailinKitchen
etcetera …. I like Food channel of Youtube.
Nothing local. They ar worthless. Purely bugal-bugal. Not worth watching. Shows who the Filipinos are.
Funny on my way to renew my immigration in the Philippines in Cebu. Outside the Immigration Office there are vendors which I thought were selling jeans. Nope! They were not. It was jeans-for-rent because in Philippine Immigration, you cannot go in IN SHORTS !!!! SHORTS ARE NOT ALLOWED !!!! BWA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!
RENT-A-JEANS! THAT IS ORIGINAL !!! There is reant-a-swimsuit in Jamaica, though.
VLogging inside the immigration is not allowed. Dude!
Cebu immigration is where the Immigration officer leaned over the desk and threatened me with “Your being here is a privilege, not a right.” I had asked an impudent question about why we had to spend 5,000 pesos going to Cebu to pay our P380 annual fee. Didn’t they trust their Tacloban people with money?
Maybe not, who knows maybe rightly so? Could also be simple inflexibility. I remember the time when the Philippine Embassy Consular Section in Bonn was allowed to give travel visa to the Philippines for Germans only. Frenchmen or other nationalities had to be sent to Paris. Part of it had to do with “Consular Lookout Lists” being kept on index cards at that time – the first computerized on on DOS PCs having been one of my most evil deeds.
The second most evil was to hang down Marcos’ picture in the lobby late February 1986, which had one loyalist consul suggest that I be put on the lookout list for “vandalism”…
I wonder if the old Marcos rule still applies that any Philippine consular official from vice-consul upwards could put a foreigner on the Look-Out List for “insulting the country, it’s people or it’s institutions” – it meant a lifetime travel ban even though one could try to have it lifted by apologizing to the Consulate and hoping they accept it. Consular officers had enormous discretionary rights to decide. Lookout lists were centralized later – done on computer in Manila and sent abroad by paper. What a new vice-consul, the late Antonio Modena, an ex-journalist who came in after Cory told me not to input were Filipino seamen who had jumped ship. He said we are not helping slave-owners, and told all of us treat those coming in as people. He was known worldwide and is still remembered by many Filipinos and DFA colleagues: for his temper and his pro-OFW stance. Love and passion. Once got into trouble in Israel for publicly comparing OFW treatment there with Nazis…
But I digress – this privilege not rights thing is old school thinking. I have literally heard consular officers say foreigners don’t have rights. But also we are public officials we are higher than ordinary people. Who are “ordinary people” – maybe the Beatles are hehe…
Which is an example of the “some kind of English” Quezon predicted. In that English, asking “why” can mean “what you are doing is wrong”. What a rude Yankee you are. 🙂
Gadzooks, don’t put ideas in anybody’s head. I’ve worked hard at being judgmental in a sweet way. haha
Not as sweet as during the good old Marcos days. When Imelda’s idea of beautification, as Minister of Human settlements, was to have flowers put on rotondas. Madame Imelda was all about love and beauty. And ignorance was strength then. Or keeping sane.
And she was unreachable, we usually saw her only afar or on TV. But did not wave at her when she was on TV, even if we LOVED her very much. And admired her BEAUTY. How insensitive the Beatles were, to make Filipino children cry. And everybody told us then, that the Beatles had called Filipinos monkeys. We believed and TRUSTED our leaders, and treated the Beatles like ordinary people. War was peace, which we gave them… yeah.
Irineo,I saw a picture of you when you were thin and you had a moustache,was that taken during Marcos times?
I googled you and your namesake is a sex offender,that happened to my dad too when he applied for an nbi clearance and he had a hit.
That was already in Germany, I think around 1986 so I don’t know if it was still Marcos times or already Cory times. It was a Filipino fiesta in Bonn and I was helping roast lechon.
I know that is on my Facebook page – will send you a friend request, have seen you…
“your namesake is a sex offender” Which is why I like to put B. R. after my first name to distinguish myself from the Florida sex offender. Who is even the same age as me.
There used to be an Irineo Salazar on death row in Texas.
But that was years ago, I have not found him recently.
Imelda was Minister of Human Settlements. She embodied the Humanity and Benevolence of the New Society which culminated in the New Republic of 1981. This was is no way related to the New State, the Estado Novo of Salazar, who was a dictator and Portuguese.
State-controlled prices for rice and gas under the Price Control Commission did not have anything to do with the New Economic Policy, the NEP was in Russia under Lenin.
And we did not call Bongbong Dear Leader like they called Kim Jong Il, IL not the Second. See, we were progressive and democratic, unlike these Communist Countries. And at least Imelda sang on the balcony when she left, unlike Elena Ceaucescu, who deserved to be shot because she was not nice to the common people and did not sing to them. Love and humanity is very important. So is beauty. The Ceaucescus and the Marcoses were friends, but Elena should have learned more from Imelda. Muammar Ghaddafi as well.
Passion also was not lacking in our glorious times. Ferdie was passionate, especially when he insisted on saying assaSIN!! and not asSAsin like the Americans do, who are they to tell us how to speak English correctly? Especially if it is clear that is was Galman.
Love and passion – Imelda and Ferdie. Dahil sa inyo, kami ay lumigaya, dahil sa inyo, hanggang mamatay. Kung tunay man kami, ay alipinin ninyo, ang lahat ng Pilipino.
Aha! ha! ha! Ouch! There are mean people in Cebu immigration that is why IT IS TUCKED AWAY IN THE MEANEST STREETS of Cebu.
Jeans-for-Rent anyone?
Hahahaha. “retirecheap” in Thailand. My internet connection is too slow to do video. Bummer . . . I’d follow that one for sure . . .
I like this “retirecheap”. JC is cool. He gives you a walkaround Thailand’s famous places including apartment, rent, facilities. This is where I found Thailand is cheaper than the Philippines. Apartment accomodation is exemplerary relative to Philippines. If you factor in the cuisine, Philippines is blown of the dust.
He also have episodes retirecheap in CAmobdia. It is for the adventurous.
Joeam, your blogs are full of passion, very informative if not entertaining!
They are, Enrico, and I think readership is up because Filipinos are passionate. We relate, they (you) relate . . .
Blogging is for someone who has the balls to reveal one’s innards. It is also for someone who has an extraordinary patience to let everyone express their thoughts and reveal their opinions. He must also have the will to say no to some who will push their agenda and to use the blog for their own personal agenda.
Manong Joe! Your blog is so popoular that it attracts people who persevere to sell pig’s ear as you have observed, A bottle of Red Horse for you! Kampai!!!
I’m looking for the day I found the Society, bauwow. That serendipitous day! 🙂 I know I was looking for something else. The pancitan, I think
The bathroom?
ha ha, it must have been one or the other.
Maybe you were in Ma Mon Luk along Aurora Boulevard, looking for the bathroom.
Or luking for Ma Mon Luk which I think no longer exists…
IBRS, Ma Mon Luk still exists, one in Quiapo and one in Quezon Avenue.
Last I checked, it’s still there, smell, oiliness, siopao and mami, and some waiters in time warp. Always full anytime of the day.
@ sonny, Good thing we found the Society, instead of the pancitan.
If not,matutog tayo sa pancitan…we will just sleep in the noodle house.
Nephew, it is really more fun in da pilipins! Ndi lang Ma Mon Luk ang nasa Quezon Blvd 🙂
Just don’t get caught by the missis,uncle.
The specialty tires were good enough, nephew. whew!
high five that, bauwow!!
Kampai!! Thanks for the beer, big enough to share . . .
Blogging is also for story tellers and satirists and people of good humor. With enough of that, then a blogger does not have to reveal his innards, but can poke at the innards of others. 🙂
“The UN High Commission on Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued the opinion on Oct. 2 on a complaint filed by Arroyo’s lawyer, London-based barrister Amal Alamuddin-Clooney, the Lebanese-born wife of Hollywood actor George Clooney.”
Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/129335/un-slams-arroyo-detention#ixzz3o0hdFqcF
Clooney said the WGAD requested the Philippine government to ensure “fair trials” and proceed with the cases without undue delay.
Clooney is politically close to Arroyo in some way, which to me is the ultimate violation of human rights ideals. To take a case of a rich crook because it is a favor . . .
Rather like corruption, eh?
It’s funny. I fairly well bristled that this nosy uppity well-off famous Americanish attorney would butt into Philippine affairs. I think I have reached a kind of tipping point on national loyalty.
that day would be you cheering for Gilas instead of the USA team. That is if we had the luck to meet them at the Olympics. 😉
I hated it when godfather MVP pronounced to skip olympic qualifier and prepare for the next fiba asia and the world cup.The olympic qualifiers are preparation enough,these are top teams around the world either ranked second or third from their continent.Who is he?,get another godfather of sports.
The embalmer doesn’t lobotomize,zhe elbalmer can onky see the person’s guts,but not brains,that’s the neurosurgeo’s job.
Nothing…just comparing the mind to guts.
Popoy thinks blogging is a pissing contest? marking territory?or just waiting to get to the bathroom?
Looking at the marvelous picture, I think all of the above.
My thoughts exactemant, joseph. Such class, too. With Chagall-like painting. Thank you, Popoy.
I think he thinks it is a sometimes amusing, confusing and enlightening place. That was my extraction, the pissing on the tree of knowledge. It is a painting of many meanings, perhaps. Maybe each is receiving enlightenment at the base of the tree, rather like Edgar seeking the wisdom of Buddha.
If we are what we write then Joevwould not have to defend MRP to new comers and sometimes even to old timers.
Immortality. The secret dream of everyone. 1000 years ago there where 2 types of people, those whose genes are still with us and those whose genes got lost on a dead end branch of the evolution. Some are still partly alive others gone. Same for ideas, some ideas or concepts circulating then are still with us, others are lost for ever. Survival of the fittest or the most lucky?
We all have this urge to get as many of our genes into the next generation, to maximize our offspring, sex. But also the urge to convince others, convert others into our beliefs, get our “memes” into the next generation. Blogging gives us this opportunity in two ways, once by teaching, convincing others directly, the other is the hope that somewhere in the cloud a researcher of the year 3015 will find back our unique thoughts.
And of course there is an additional supernatural split of the people from 1000 years ago, those who live in heaven for ever (or will live – what is the latest on the purgatory?) and those who live in hell.
Fertility experts, blog owners and priests all in the same boat?
Josephivo. Pardon me, the yabang of kunyari may alam.
Physical immortality, what’s that? Who needs that but those who seemed not to know that God’s every creation is given a lifetime of two thousand years (renewable?) within reincarnations of a hundred times of varying unknown time frames as sexy (now obese) bodes or transparent white earthbound spirits. If JTL (Jaime T. Licaoco) is reading, he can confirm or confute that. I am thinking of Ramesses III (born 3,232 years ago, probably got an extension) and the acacia trees (probably now growing in some wilds of Asia) of old Taft Avenue. Deciduous trees (eg. cherry and cottonwood) of North America yawns in Autumn, sleeps during winter, comes alive in Spring and lord it over others during summer.
After four or five years not visiting blogs not evrn if they are linked on facebook,the first blog that came to mind was the Society.First because of Joe then upon reading back old issues,i chance upon zhis philosopher named Edgar,I could not understand him at first,even at second.My first question to him was about Laxalt’s cut and cut clean,because it has nothing to do with philosophy.
Ah, but you learn super fast, grasshopper. Me? sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. And I do remember Laxalt, Solarz and Schultz all bidding FM adieu.
Adieu or Bon Voyage Mon Ami?
‘Twas both, mon frere. (i don’t know french for nephew 🙂 )
Le neveu l’oncle
Ah, yes nephew. How could i forget. Tante is also there.
Am I to assume Popy is a sexist? Only dogs pee at the tree. Bitches pee anywhere.
I rather think that one thing is sure, Popoy can be a sexist or not, depending on the day or minute and what strange visage passes across his mind.
I don’t really read too many blogs. Those that I do read, I do so because i just simply love reading. I just love how words, strung together by an artist or a master craftsman, can jump off a page like a playful nudge on one’s shoulder one moment or akin to being hit on a more visceral level the next. Sometimes too, words can soothe and comfort, inspire and elevate.
Reading Popoy del Cartanio is like doing yoga. The warm-up just gets you going, there is an interesting premise to start with, a word or a phrase in the title or the opening lines that somehow seem to be a prelude to a good mental stretch. Then the real work sets in. Just as one struggles to hold that stretch for each yoga pose in one’s routine, one also finds oneself lingering a bit more through succeeding paragraphs and lines in a Popoy del Cartanio piece, with each line or paragraph hopefully leading to a better understanding of the next. And sometimes they do, other times you can’t be too sure. Either way you come to the end feeling just as you would at the end of a yoga session, somehow at peace and yet aware of having actually caused pressure on one’s muscles (cerebral and otherwise) to achieve that sense of calm.
To read Joeam, on the other hand is to feel alive. Joeam writes with passion. And he happens to be passionate about the Philippines which is something we all share and that’s why we just can’t get enough of him. But what sets him apart is also that gift of great writing. “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining but the feeling of being rained upon.” That’s what Joeam’s writing does. He actually did write about the rain in an earlier piece, if I remember right. If you can dig that up, you will know what I mean.
And then there’s Edgar. To read Edgar Lores is to think. Need I say more?
I can go on and on about every other writer in the Society but that should already be a blog in itself. And I don’t really blog. I just read. 🙂
Wonderful characterization of what it is like to read Popoy, Cha. I go through pretty much the same thing, except that I so enjoy the mystery and the mastery of words that I end up giggling now and then, with a kind of childlike glee that there are other minds, too, that relish the absurd and the sublime.
I also love the characters here on the blog. Each person who pens three or four comments becomes special for the insights and style that only he or she can bring to the discussion. Like snowflakes, I suppose, none is the same as any other, yet they fit perfectly into the drifts or blizzards or serene landscapes that form. And of the lot, no one quite matches sonny for serenity. He is the yoga, perhaps, while Karl is the Yogi . . .
thank you, Joe. It is the Society’s salubrious air totally. 🙂 🙂
Perhaps it was this one. I chuckle, because there were six comments and one third were mine.
https://joeam.com/2013/04/08/whither-weather/
Yes, haha…One third each from you and sir edgar, one a piece from Attila and Anonymous. I wonder how many Anonymous commenter you had in those days.
That was a beautifully written blog on weather, Joe. “The drama of a rainstorm pounding like cattle on the roof, or a wind that dearly tests the axiom that bamboo bends but does not break” I envy all wordsmiths, me, I was born to read and not write.
You should write a book, you and sir edgar.
Ah, but Mary, you are the gentle snowflake that writes from the heart, whereas I go for drama. I’m sure Popoy had you in mind when he titled that painting over there – – ->
Ah Ommmm (like a mantra) few bloggers are like some damsels in the mind who can write in beauty like the night, like Mary Grace.
Blush, blushing here…haha…karl says am like a woman character in the movie General Luna, the wife of somebody who I could not remember….who dare take on even his reverred R. Hiro
The nerve, ahaha…maybe sometimes I have the general in me, as everyone else per Wil, in my case, armed wit passion but not in possession of all the actual facts and expertise, ask caliphman…peace, man…
You are from Batangas, that is very normal. One of my ex-girlfriends was from Mataasnakahoy. Intensely passionate, a major love that was not meant to be.
Highwoods, in English…
A digression but worth it as it shows why our host loves to be in our beautiful boondocks of Biliran, courtesy of Rappler travel. Love those spectacular waterfalls, a slice of island heaven. Just hope tourists dont ruin it for the locals and the recently ‘local’,
Why thank you, caliphman. Thanks for the tourist recommendation. When I arrived here some five years ago, the place was totally rustic. Now there are some small-scale resorts here and there, mostly done by foreigners who are comparatively rich and love it here, as well. Our favorite jaunt is a 600 peso fishing boat ride to a little island right over there where we last time had the place totally to ourselves for the day. Also, there is Maripipi Island, a short boat ride off the north coast, with its interesting rock formations and a resort or two and the source of our smuggled gasoline after the devastation of Yolanda. “Entrepreneur Island”, I suppose . . . I think Biliran will develop as a retirement haven. Seamen like the place and many are pretty well off when they retire. The local university is packed with aspiring seamen and criminologists.
Would be an awesome place to retire if teaching at the university came with a T1/2 internet access side by side with living in a tropical paradise.
The internet speed has been a little better the past few days. I was actually able to load a You Tube video. Spectacular . . . Amy Vachal
http://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/travel/ph-travel/107132-biliran-visayas-beaches-waterfalls-philippines
Sweet as sweet can be, I’m going through Biliran link of caliphman while listening to this: 🙂
Lucky you, Joe. Beautiful and breathtaking vistas! much thanks, caliphman.
We decided not to live by the ocean because I am afraid of the monster seas during storms. So we have those vistas, of mountains in the mist and seas all the way to China or Leyte, depending on the angle taken, and terraced rice fields that are so artistic and beautiful and quiet that incredible peace and joy can be found just walking the farm to market road. Yeah. It ain’t Los Angeles, for sure . . .
Glory! Beautiful world, Joe. I just got to see Sequoia Natl Park last week and the ridges of the Sierras. The pines, the pines … I saw what Longfellow meant by “the murmuring pines … bearded with moss and in garments green “
But without kapre, the chain-smoking bearded giant that allegedly lived in Philippine forests. And without tikbalang, the horny half-horse half-men creatures that prey on unsuspecting women.
And without aswang feared in Bikol, the flesh-eating vampires that can fly for miles, and live among unsuspecting villagers as “normal” human beings.
Tom Jones was my brother’s dog. Unfortunately he was run over by a Coca-Cola truck.
My dog was Pogi, a fox terrier mongrel – vanished after we had him pepped up at UP veterinary medicine. Some squatters from Balara must have eaten him, who knows. Wanted to call him Marcos, rebel that I am, but my mother told me PLEASE DON’T.
my brother’s dog’s name was Sputnik.
Kitam Manong? Our mixed cultural and racial heritage enriches us, makes us stronger.
thanks sonny
Ahhh My! Tom Jones brings back memories of the late sixties: Peter Sellers the Pink Panther, Ray Milland, Stanley Baker, Richard Burton, Catherine Seta-Jones, Engelbert Humperdink, Timothy Dalton, me on a train crossing seven miles under the Severn River, Christmas and New Year in Plymouth, the underground mine in the Cardiff Museum, the Welsh accent the most melodic in the whole UK. Tom Jones’ TILL was my dreamy song for all beautiful lasses until a friend said TILL is the theme song of those MAY KUNTIL in the face.
It is the first time I did not read blog comments in installment. I read the whole commentaries, re-reading even long pieces for more understanding. I have started reading may be 60 minutes ago. I feel very good like it was ’48. I was going home feeling rich to have learned many things from my teachers. So thirsty for knowledge like new food. It was good to taste something different. Like it was so good to have enough for the stomach to have coffee and pan de sal for breakfast, tuyo or daing, sinigang or tinapang bangos, sometimes adobo and kanin for lunch and supper. And then Itay appeared with a balutan of pancit. And it was like fiesta for supper.
You guys telling how it was then and now gave me my location, put me in my place; how, many of you lived humble and happy starters without power and entitlements, that somehow the child in me tells the limits that you stand for. I hope it was sufficient for my soul to have been disemboweled and dismembered of the parts that is not good I learned from what you wrote here. I also learned that reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic is (are) best and fastest time travel. A word or two can take you in seconds a thousand years back or a hundred years fast forward.
Off topic
Thanks to MRP’s rantings, recent survey of UP undergrads has Mar on top of the polls, Poe close second, Santiago 3rd….Binay very very far behind.
Power to you, MRP.
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/mar-miriam-top-diliman-mock-000000351.html
Poetry coming from the intestines alone is what we were laughing about when our Filipino teacher Mr. Orillos in Grade 4, UP Elementary School told us that Shakespeare was a great POET – eto siguro ang nasa isip ninyo ano: he wrote PUWIT on the blackboard.
Poetry comes from the heart, thinking from the brain. Gut feelings that gush out are the different kind of poetry that we schoolkids thought of and can become verbal diarrhea if watered down.
Thinking, feelings, guts. Logic, love, passion. We need all three to get things truly done.
https://joeam.com/2015/10/06/president-quezons-1939-code-of-citizenship-and-ethics-and-the-philippines-today/#comment-140438 – otherwise, we speak of theory like medieval scholars discussing on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
https://joeam.com/2015/10/04/heneral-luna-the-other-side-of-aldub/#comment-140146 – or we write poetry that is true poetry with love and guts, love and balls, but without any lasting effect.
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Karl, you wrote to me that I might be applying Einsteins theorem. Yes, I am a bit driven, crazy.
But at least I am not as crazy as Rizal and Luna, who went back to the Philippines and finally became heros, enshrined because they were victimized, but their guiding principles forgotten.
Who in the Philippines knows what Rizal wanted to tell the country by translating Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell into Tagalog? Has understood the messages of Noli and Fili and placed them into practice, even in very small actions? Has tried to think laterally and strategically and apply it like Luna?
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Well, I tried to apply Schiller, the passionate Sturm und Drang poet. This is Rizal’s legacy. In fact I combined Rizal’s and Luna’s legacy. The latter liked to go to some places in Madrid similar to some places in Quezon avenue. I used to like going into the strip clubs in Munich Schillerstraße. At least I did not go down south, meaning to some places in Timog. That is my dirty kitchen, it does not exist. And if it does or did, I can go to confession, and then to church, being Catholic.
Mr. Orillos was a Marcos loyalist, in fact a fascist idealist who believed in discipline.
He once made a poem about Marcelo Carpio – the code for Martial Law and Curfew:
Marcelo, Carpio, ikaw ba ang tunay na landas
o magiging para ka lang hangin na lumilipas
He understood how Quixotic it could be to try to change the Philippine and the Filipino, just like sonny termed Quezon a Don Quixote:
https://joeam.com/2015/10/06/president-quezons-1939-code-of-citizenship-and-ethics-and-the-philippines-today/#comment-140192
and mentioned the true name of Dulcinea the sweet. Alonzada, a rough peasant girl who did not care for the idealistic affections of the misled Don.
Now I do not think the Philippines is a Spanish peasant girl. Spanish girls usually have hairy legs, the Philippines does not. I don’t know about Marian Rivera, ask Dingdong.
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Rizal is but a statue near where he was shot, his ideas forgotten or ritualized. Luna is a man in a movie, let us see if his lessons and his strategic, lateral thinking are forgotten. Quezon is a province and a city and a grand memorial monument, which one of his followers bitterly called “a memorial to a nun, not the memorial to the great man that Quezon was”. So finally Quezon was a great man who ended up as a dead hero.
Heros are great men who died and failed. The Philippines does not have great men who finally succeeded in their endeavours. All failed in making the peasant girl love them, even if the tried to be “palengkeros” when they came back to their country, and fell from bikes.
Ninoy was a hero, Noynoy may be seen as a great man if his works continue. Gerry Roxas was a hero too, his principled works forgotten because he died during Marcos’ rule – if his son Mar continues his works and is not an opportunist like his grandfather, and Noynoy’s, both Noynoy and Mar will be great men with a lasting legacy. Leni Robredo may be a great woman if she manages to keep Mar from following his more elitist side – and being affected too much by Korina – and remembers what her late husband hero represented. Ro-Ro!
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And may the Philippines remember what Mr. Orillos told us boys – he was a good man even if his idealism was misled into fascism, just like the idealism of Artemio Ricarte, El Vibora was misled into helping form the Makapili which betrayed so many Filipino guerillas:
Dapat lagi kayong handang lumaban
At kapag lumaban kayo huwag uurong-urong
Pero huwag kayong magsimula ng away
be always prepared for a fight, and if you fight do not back down, but don’t start fights. Grade 4 was the time we boys felt testosterone driving us for the first time, and I remember that the daughter of the UP police chief was the first among the girls to develop breasts. Mr. Orillos was referring to the fights he knew were happening in the backyard among us boys, he was not one of those who denied the dirty kitchen. But it could apply to China.
A patriotic Filipino scientist and enterpreneur I once worked with told me:
Filipinos tend to forget, tend to adapt perfectly, but it seems anything goes for them.
Sometimes I wonder if the Filipino is just a tabula rasa.
Will the Filipinos adapt perfectly to Chinese rule as they did to the US after Spain?
Is the Philippines just like a stripper, telling each new client what it wants to hear?
Or can the Philippines be like Maria, the Cuban Marielito prostitute once played by Marisa Tomei who says something like this:
I am like Cuba, fucked many times but never truly conquered
In the movie, she cries when the Indian-American movie house manager in the refugee camp tells her John Wayne is dead – because she said when she left for the Marielito boat to the USA that she wanted to go to the USA to fuck with John Wayne. She tries it with a GI, but cries and runs away when she says something is missing – meaning amor – and he says hey I get it and gives her money. Finally she falls in love with a former plantation owner the Communists also imprisoned and sent with the Marielito ship, a man who would not give her the time of day before as an elitist. Even a prostitute may know love.
I forgot on further thing Mr. Orillos said about fighting.
at huwag kayong umasang may aawat o tutulong sa inyo
This could also apply to the Philippine-Chinese situation.
This is not to say – don’t ally with the United States.
Maybe the Philippines should be like Joe’s wife most certainly is.
Loyal but not submissive, with a clear idea of who she is and what she wants.
And the Philippine should accept that it has Spanish forefathers like Roxas and Quezon.
And that it is very much the child of America as well, like Joe’s culturally ambidextrous son.
The Philippine Republic is finally the child of Quezon. The Philippine Army is very much the child of McArthur. But both knew they were men and made their own kids.
Unlike Jeffrey Laude and that American soldier. One is dead, the other is in jail.
Which is why Joe and me are allies. He peers my articles, something PLDT does not do. My articles are syndicated by him – press term – but we are not a syndicate like Customs.
And I give him summaries, not briefs: https://joeam.com/2015/10/06/president-quezons-1939-code-of-citizenship-and-ethics-and-the-philippines-today/#comment-140226
And finally we are all Honorable here, but it is not the Honor of the Prizzis. Or the Binays. Do you know who were are? Not what so many people think.
We are not only like La Solidaridad – Solidarity. We are not only like the Propaganda Movement of M.H. del Pilar – Propaganda in Spanish means advocacy, which published it. We are a bit like the Liga Filipina, with Filipinos in the Philippines spreading our ideas.
We are in name and intention like the Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan – the most High and Respectable Society of Children of the Country that Bonifacio founded. Children of the country at home and abroad, and one Blumentritt. Each of us does it his own way, and like Edgar wrote we are finding a big picture, a shared reality. And yes, we have Honor in our name, maybe the Katipunan should also have had it, if only to remind people like Aguinaldo what NOT to be. Kulang sa KARANGALAN.
Poetry is at the end of the large intestine or the colon.
Could it be that Colonial Mentality is related to Colon, which was also the true name of Columbus? Colonial Mentality is Scheiße anyway and has two sides:
1) Looking down upon the less educated, poorer, darker people
2) Hating those who are more educated, richer, whiter just because.
Azkal tayong lahat, OK the Azkals are mostly mestizo, especially Stephan Schröck, the tattoed bad boy from Nürnberg, Fil-Ger like me but I will not judge his Filipino spirit, even if he might know less about the mother country which is my father’s country for me.
And you are absolutely asongkalye and such a poet, such a puwit and an asshole but a funny one and one who thinks, Captain Rusca. How much suman do you eat per day? How much of it comes out of your colon because you eat too much of it, Capt. Corny?
https://scontent-frt3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/12088008_1655157898032273_8170361622700451781_n.jpg?oh=3db329f28acc3ed60011b6b1dd8230a1&oe=56997B5E
Always remember it is joke only, like my friends from UP Balara used to sing when I got to be pikon – teaching the “whiteboy” I was for them to not take himself too seriously…
Just got myself a shower, needed to cool down a little. But I think my point is clear.
Wadapak are we all doing here? Watpor? Por di Pilipins. Por di Pilipino. But what Philippines, what Filipino? For MRP mestizos don’t belong. For some elitists the poor and uneducated are “just there”. Every group is for itself. LCPL_X said Lebanese is like Filipino, it can be anything. Hope he is not TOO right, because we all now what finally happened to Lebanon. Read the book Antifragile to know. The author was there before.
“LCPL_X said Lebanese is like Filipino, it can be anything. Hope he is not TOO right,”
Around the time they discovered the Bojinka plot, in the same area as the EDSA Entertainment Complex, they also found assessments of Filipino Muslims as warriors in the fight (I think from the computers or notebooks uncovered at the site fire).
And the assessment basically concluded that they, even the ones already operating as terrorists, are just not committed enough. I’m sure by “committed” the Base was talking about martyrdom ops. Probably comparing Filipino Muslims to Chechens or Afghans.
The Philippines is different from Lebanon in this regard. LOL! You guys are just not committed enough. Maybe because you guys enjoy life too much and all the pleasures it brings. Abu Sayyaf were known to have great parties in the woods with roasted pigs and hard drinks.
It’s easier to convince those who’ve not experience the pleasures of life that as a martyr you’ll have fun after death, when in this life you are already having fun. So it is MORE FUN in the Philippines!
Ahahahahahaha, spilt the coffee, did that one.
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Ahaha! Gross bilingual joke that is so shocking it becomes… splendid.
*****
Karl, your one liners are awesome…..poetry and powetry…hahaha..! thanks for the the morning dose, I needed that, after MRPM’s….. more please.
Poetry in motion is LBM
Wahahaha…!
Finally we bloggers are here to inspire:
1) The guts – by enraging, provoking. And the balls, by inspiring passion. Tony Luna testosterone.
2) The heart – by writing about AlDub love. By writing about beauty, not Imelda’s, the Philippines’.
3) The mind – by provoking thought. By ordering our thoughts in order be less like Confusius.
And to be effective, we need all three colors of the flag:
1) yellow = ears, rationality, listening, thinking, analyzing – Noynoy Aquino
2) blue = touch, compassion, feeling, empathy, intuition – Kris Aquino
3) red = eyes, ambition, strategy, big picture, lateral thinking – Heneral Luna
Finally we are here also because something drives us – in our guts and balls, in our mind, and/or in our heart. Some of us – GRP – were driven by passion, but without love we become like the colonialists who looked down upon us, demeaned us. Some of us – Joe – are driven by mind and by heart – by what they see in the Philippines, and by love of family and the home that is theirs, but with not enough gut feeling for the Filipino experience can become like well-meaning Spanish friars – there were many – who do not truly understand the people and their history that lead to them becoming this way. Joe you are very much improving in this regard. Some of us go by guts and mind like I have done, but this can lead to luna-cy. The heart is still my learning curve. Finally there those Filipinos who have love and passion, but not enough guts. Guts are good, but red and blue without the yellow of rationality can make you end up like Antonio Luna, clutching his guts while running from assasins and traitors. Which is why inspite of guts, I prefer to be abroad. Which is why Will is write – step back after you have done your part, if you are in the Philippines.
Will is write – a Filipino English creative invention meaning he is right to write.
Just like he originally wrote of the Significence of AlDub – maybe in the back of his mind and in his heart, he meant a mixture of Significance and Magnificence.
Both Freudian errors, driven by something in the unconscious mind, subliminally. Because our education and our learning in language is incomplete, much of us Filipinos is subliminal. We are like tropical icebergs, where most is underneath, but can sink Titanics.
Hahaha! Thanks, Irineo! It will remain an urban legend: the mixture of Significance and Magnificence. Whodunit?
Your dirty kitchen? Your Freudian, Filipino subliminal mind?
Somehow I can see the mainstays of the Society in this particular blog post. Pleased to meet you all. Cerebral, yes, articulate, that’s a given. Reminds me of the movie Everest that tells of a group of mountain climbers. It’s not easy sometimes. The line of the movie is: “Why are we doing this to ourselves?” Blogging may not serve any other purpose but to be close to people of the same mind and heart, just to write is enough reward, just to climb is enough reward. It’s the association, I think, that makes blogging an exotic lifestyle. It’s not anymore the climbing to the peak that’s important, it’s just being together, fated to be with one another because of a particular streak or bend of character. Happy to be in your company. Don’t know if I’m making sense, that’s why I said happy to be in your company.
Iisa tayong barangay is a better term for it. We are all in the same village and boat, barangay means both. We don’t want to give anyone the plank, except if it is too much, so we must row together under our Datu PUTI.
LCPL_X and myself where thrown overboard but with a rope, and dragged along until we were allowed to come aboard again. i7sharp is in the Visayan seas know, hope he lost his Bible in the waters and will come aboard again.
I was allowed to come back earlier because while I was overboard, I built my own banca and retrofitted it with MTU engines from Germany. Now I take my banca to go onshore, beg, steal and borrow food and cook food for thought – to speed back to the barangay.
He is is in the Visayan seas KNOW? Now is correct. Or maybe: NOW you KNOW!
LOL! Visayan Seas. He’ll be back I’m sure.
Thanks Irineo BRS for the detonations,
your breaking the atoms of prose and poetry in your own passion; the tons of nuggets you have shared; we bloggers and readers had been no doubt enriched; probably close to enlightenment depending on the depths of our awareness. May be, just may be Joe Am will be so kind to grant a day here for just nothing but a poem or two on which the society can apply the electric drill of insight or shallow perforations by scalpel of the author’s unanesthesized cranium.
I know what you’re saying neo – that you think I’m a smart-ass… maybe I am. But in certain situations, I cannot help but write what I consider to be correct until corrected. It is up to people to counter this with their own opinions, or add to the views. What I write is not the enlightenment or the gospel. I am in fact hoping that people do not consider anything to be the Gospel but use their own discernment to judge and challenge assumptions.
There will be an article by me about “The Chinese challenge” coming soon. Still researching/editing – feel free to comment and take it apart as necessary.
I will take a break here because that article is a whole lot of work – on an overlooked topic.
The question was: motivations for blogging, and I just felt like answering it in many ways.
and MRP brought additional impulses into the discussion, like historical interpretations.
In fact I would welcome more vigorous and well-reasoned objections to what I write.
Pleased to meet you, too, Wil. I hope you can write about your EDSA 1 experiences, the before and after which you have briefly mentioned before. It would help a lot to counter MRPM’s negativity and satire style. It would be helpful also now that Marcos and Honasan are national candidates again, this time for VP. We need to do more to counter their black propaganda. I say this knowing how Irineo has been led to believe Korina’s maid beating issue. If someone like IBRS could be influenced, how many more out there will? I comprehend your style more easily than Popoy’s, with my time and internet limitation, I am limited to just one reading. I am hereby apologizing but I can’t disabuse my mind that Popoy and MRPM is one and the same much like Primer and nilsky are. In fairness, Popoy is good, maybe they are Dr, Jekyl and Hyde…..ah..I need to stop this, my imagination is running wild again. Joe, promise, will stop na.
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Popoy does not mention affidavits, UP, mestizos, matuwid na hustisya, sereno, and his englisztches and spelling are excellent. Also no use of the upper case and exclamation points.
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Don’t worry about my changing colors. I am still Irineo, but I was born in the year of the Wooden Snake 1965. Had to shed my old skin, and put my new skin on.
Finally a ragtag team like we are can accomplish the impossible – like these rebels, helped by smuggler Han Solo destroyed the Imperial Death Star.
Now my idol always was Han Solo. I will take MRP as my Wookie anytime. 🙂
Whatever we read, we must take with a grain of salt like Gary Granada.
Especially Popoy and MRP, who take us into the realm of yoga.
’cause especially with MRP, it ain’t necessarily so…
And I am finally here because one thing never let me go, even if ever since I left in 1982 out of prudence for having too much guts in 1981 and have spent 2/3 of my life abroad:
How can the Philippines get its act together? How can it finally be a proper nation?
And Will, there were no chairs outside my prison cell in Pasay City jail, I was together with criminals from the slum areas. Raissa Robles’ father, my lawyer, told my German mother not to go, they will see your blonde hair and white skin, and ask for horrendous money.
Pacquiao joins Liberal Party Slate. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/729438/pacquiao-to-join-lp-senate-slate-its-possible-says-roxas
Mar is happy. Korina will have a boxing trainer in Malacanang.
No, Manny might help Mar discipline Korina for all we know. I don’t think Pacquiao would go for her beating any maids. He did not like it when his father ate his dog and left to become what he became. He has a dog that he loves very much now.
Hehe…Irineo, the maid beating was not true, the court dismissed the case after it was proven that the patticular maid has the habit of accusing her previous employers of beating her. MRP, by repeating it a thousand times here, has started to believe it as a fact.
Thanks for making it clear… Joseph Goebbels once said if you repeat a lie a thousand times people will believe it. He was only partly able to walk, but was far from being truly dakila (noble in spirit) like Mabini.
Helpless, defenseless, powerless, moneyless, no connection houiselave VERSUS mataray powerful, UP-connection and the court venue is 3rdworld Philippines where everybody can be boughted.
Powerful Obama VERSUS Marwan Award dead or alive … who wins? Obama. Obama is still not giving the award money. Obama needs proof Marwan is dead. To this day they are still squabbling over the fiasco of Marwan and the LOST AWARD.
CNN Anderson Cooper VERSUS Korina. Who won? Who got suspended?
Justice in the Philippines is wishy-washy weder-weder. THERE IS ALREADY A PATTERN.
If Korina really endears to the public, why is she being hidden? Heart and Chiz showed off their wedding pictures …. Grace and Family did so, too !!!
Arnold, Bill, Donald and all presidents showed off their wives. All I am asking is a family photo of Mar&Family with Korina smiling.
That is all.
How they criticize, judge or even vilify their women I believe more or less defined (needs to be refined) Pinoy national machismo. Among TV anchors and newscasters, I watched before they went their own way the team of Manang Winnie, Max Enriquez and Korina Sanchez cut current issues to pieces. Korina struck me as the young upstart, anti-establishment , the young and the reckless after being suspended for digging her high heels on some untouchables, feeling entitled corns.
Korina struck me if she’s not struck down early will be a maverick in skirt, because of her tenacity and kevlar attitude she will be the subject of derision of some balls-less men. It will take a higher form of machismo to try get Korina’s confidence and affection just as it took Sean Pean to get close to Madonna, Billy Bob Thornton to wed Angelina Jolie. It is like Brad Pitt to Angelina Jolie as it is Mar Roxas to Korina. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Very LAUGHABLE ain’t it? It is not of course, not even respectful to say that only morons and imbeciles–who are not judgmental– who will not recognize what’s made of sterner stuff. Mark Antony did and won Caesar’s Cleopatra.
Is sadistic/masochistic machismo all the same among Filipino males? Consider how they treat or behave for or against these two groups of Filipino females: Group one — Leonor Rivera, Teodora Alonzo, Gabriella Silang, Aurora Quezon, Luz Banzon- Magsaysay, Inday Garcia, Cory Aquino; Group two — Imelda Marcos, Gloria Arroyo, Elenita Binay, Janette Napoles, Ruby Tuazon, Gigi Reyes; how media places one group in pedestals of honor while the other group receives the klieg lights as they are sat in splendor in the brothels of dishonor?
The point is tama lang ba ang pagsamba o sobrang pag-aglahi, pag alipusta ng Pinoy sa kanilang Pinay. Mas maswerte ba ang kababaihan ng ibang lahi?
I agree, Irineo. Pacquiao might help the LP. We are FB friends just lately and I shared Joe’s article on Manny urging him to get out of UNA in his FB wall. I admire him, actually, he is very passionate in his evangelical mission. Of course, I am for the strict separation of the church and the state, my point is, if you earnestly believe God and ask for wisdom, it will be granted to you and that would surely help in the area of analysis, discernment and good intuition in the face of national issues. Solomon asked and it was given him…who knows he might put to shame all those intellectuals in the senate hall who proclaim proudly of being atheist. (Santiago). With God, nothing is impossible.
My opinion only, peace to all who will disagree.
my point is, if you earnestly believe God and ask for wisdom, it will be granted to you and that would surely help in the area of analysis, discernment and good intuition in the face of national issues. Solomon asked and it was given him…
There are many ways to the Truth and to Confidence and Knowledge:
May the Force be with you Always, Mary Grace P. (not Pacquiao?) Gonzales
Like my late Kankanai mentor and friend, Manong Pete Bay-Ed, told me once:
Irin-eo, my grandfather believed in Kabun-ian. Now I always wonder, how can what our ancestors say be true, and what the Anglic-an missionaries told us be true as well? When I read the Bible, I read how Abraham sacrified a goat to Jeho-vah. In my analysis, I remembered how my grandfather sacrificed animals to Apo Kabun-ian. Therefore, Irin-eo, it became clear to me that they are one and the same, Kabun-ian and Jeho-vah
Thank you, Irineo…may God be with you as well, and with all of us, including Pacquiao…
OSLO, Norway — A Tunisian coalition of workers, employers, human rights activists and lawyers won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for pulling the country that sparked the Arab Spring back onto a path toward democracy and preventing it from descending into civil war.
http://abc7.com/society/tunisian-democracy-group-wins-nobel-peace-prize/1024698/
Arab Springers got NOBEL PRIZE while EDSA REVOLUTIONARIES did not. NOBEL KNOWS BETTER. And my contention that EDSA REVOLUTION was a fake is spot on.
University of the Philippines journalism graduates and columnists GOT A BIG SLAP IN THEIR FACE FOR PROMOTING A FAKE EDSA REVOLUTION.
Mar should de-fang and de-fund school of crooks UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES.
Why is it a fake in your opinion, MRP?
It started as a defection by Ramos and Enrile.
Then the people came to help them and it morphed.
And, Honasan, forever an opportunist, pitched in, his RAM people made a lot of trouble for Cory later. I remember interviewing Rex Robles, the article was in our Filipino Youth Magazine BALIKAT, unfortunately I threw all copies away when my group threw me out.
Capt. Rex Robles basically said that Cory went against the 1973 Constitution, relied on the military, and that the people around her were Communists. A nephew of Enrile made the contact for us. My uncle Gen. Carbonell helped squash the 1989 coup try.
Robles even said: since she relied on the military to get into power, she will have to do what we say. I should have given the cassete tape to the Inquirer, then a proponent of the new times, now deteriorated into a tabloid. But things happened the way they did.
If I remember it correctly, Honasan, Robles, Kapunan and Napoles (husband of Janeth Lim Napoles) are friends, allegedly the connection used by JLN in cornering that kevlar helmet contract that allegedly turned out to be fake. Sandigan judge Ong (she was boasting of high connection in the courts) was instrumental in keeping JLN out of jail. I wonder if Kapunan, the military and Atty. Lorna Kapunan (former lawyer of JLN) are related. Johnny Lin, where are you, man? We miss your local insights here.
Your uncle General Carbonel deserved to be given recognition for his role in squashing that 1989 coup try. The DEPED should have taken care of that, the proper recording of the history as it unfolds, that is….look at Honasan and B Marcos, ironically elected senator and now even a VP candidates… Haaaiiiissst!
Is this your uncle, THE General Carbonel? please send flowers and thanks from me when you get the chance to visit his resting place. I’ll send it now addressed to the air above, thank you, General, this citizen is saluting you (inappropriate for a civilian though it is, the saluting part, I mean….I remember that part which you shared with us karl, the letter or article from your dad)
You are a hero in my eyes, General.
Cory knows whereof she was speaking. Her husband was a communist. She can know who were the communist her husband having toast and tea with. We cannot even know how many people were burried at Hacienda Luisita.
People during Marcos time wwere confused. They were against commjnist but supported Benigno Sr. They were agaisnt Marcos and his staff but supported Enrile-Honsan-Ramos. This huge drama and the Philippine media made it into a “revolution”.
If there was a revolution, Filipinos supported the crooks Enrile-Honasan-Ramos that supported Marcos and made Martial Law possible for 20-years.
After the aftermath of Enrile-Honasan-Ramos defection, they applied for Aguinaldo Principle. So did Trillanes.
This I can tell, THE FILIPINOS and THE WORLD cannot know what really happened during EDSA. Who were the Filipinos against. Who were they for.
Obviously, if it was a REvolution, the credit was grabbed by The Church and made it into MIRACLE AT EDSA.
The mestizo class who were never touched by the Marcoses because they supported his regime to protect their economic empire came to the rescue, grabbed a chunk of credit wave the flag that the mestizo class were for the Filipino people.
Aha! ha! ha! ha! The Philippine media came into fray, with due respect to June Keithly, they call it PEOPLE POWER.
The communist took credit, too. They call it EDSA REVOLUTION and it stuck. They called it Revolution because their hero communist Benigno and wife qwere the victim.
In the end, THE CREDIT WENT CORY AQUINO. She got a grotto in EDSA absent are the cigarette vendors, the balut vendors, iced water vendors, unmemployed, unemployables and the USISI PEOPLE that made EDSA happen.
Oh, before I hit POST COMMENT, the instigator of the “revolution” HONSAN-RAMOS-ENRILE was not alongside the grotto of Cory Aquino at EDSA.
This revolution is about CORY AQUINO.
“She can know who were the communist her husband having toast and tea with.”
My father for example, who many people alleged to be a Communist. My father’s strategic and lateral thinking may have been the reason he was invited for toast and tea. Just like Satur Ocampo, who was and is a communist, but always had good ideas.
Marcos made two people “offers that they could not refuse”, and destroyed their reputations as a result: COMMUNIST Luis Taruc who was head of the Hukbalahap before, and my father who wrote Tadhana, the History of the Filipino people for him.
“The communist took credit, too. They call it EDSA REVOLUTION and it stuck.” The Communists were hardly there during that time. That asshole Joma Sison was I think already in the Netherlands. He called up my father in Bonn, asking is Zeus there?
Patriots tried to work together across ideological lines. My father said, Joma is an asshole living on NGO money in Holland, while his people die in the mountains. In the end even military patriots, Communist patriots, yellow patriots and loyalist patriots have respected each other and worked together throughout Philippine history, each one respectful of the paninindigan (principles) of the other. My uncle General Carbonnel was a Ramos man back in Vietnam, worked for Marcos and even possibly helped in crushin the Balweg insurgency of the Igorots, the Jungle Fighters were there, but he helped Cory in 1989. My father said, yes we have been on different sides, my cousin and me, but your uncle is a true soldier and patriot and deserves respect. Common causes!
“The mestizo class who were never touched by the Marcoses” how about Lopez?
The Marcos regime brought the rise of the lower middle classes – the same clientele that BTW supported Adolf Hitler in Germany. Many got richer in his period.
And Aquino? She appointed Binay (definitely not mestizo) and Duterte (dark mestizong bangus) as OIC mayors of Makati and Davao respectively. Philippine history has seen the slow but sure rise of those who are native and went native, and also mestizos going down in influence. How many Spanish mestizos are still among the Top 10 rich people in the Philippines? How many Chinoys who made their fortune recently like Lucio Tan?
“In the end, THE CREDIT WENT CORY AQUINO.” She was sworn in as President by Supreme Court Justice Claudio Teehankee, almost the same time as Marcos had himself sworn in, was told to cut and cut cleanly and finally left in a US helicopter.
The assasination of Ninoy Aquino was the first social media type affair, partly filmed by a report with a hidden video camera and spread through the airwaves. EDSA uno was the first social media regime change with TV broadcasts helping spread the news, similar to the Arab spring which also was not fully successful. Radio Veritas called the politically interested people to join the big gathering. Nuns stopped tanks by praying. EDSA Dos was gathered via text messages, but put the wrong person to replace Erap.
True, but even if it was a revolution, we tried to stick with the constitution and it stated that the VP should takeover in the event of any incapacity of the sitting president. We did not know then what we know now. As they say, a 20/20 hindsight is ideal, but that is not to be.
And you, (like the current Marcos loyalists who could not be happy about what is now happening in the country) are about rewriting history, forever making fun of us in the process. I am proud of that particular period of our history, and it often makes me sensitive when it is ridiculed as you often do. Whether you are serious or not. We, the Filipino people protected Enrile, Ramos, Honasan and the Filipino soldiers, in that brief period of time, we had a common cause – driving away the dictator. Those same Filipinos voted for them later, only to be victims of their alleged plunder and more coups that prevented the country and the economy from catching up with the rest of Asian countries. This coup initiator and plotter in now trying to be VP in a team up with another alleged plunderer.
Masaysay tried to talk with those communists, did that make him a communist, too?..PNOY tried to talk with the muslim rebels, did that make him a rebel, too? Suppose you try to talk and make friends to some less fortunate people like the street people over there in the heavenly place you call home, does that make you a beggar, or a homeless?
I think you read a lot of the Marcos propaganda spreading nowadays and you swallowed it hook, line and sinker, Mariano Renato Pacifico Marcos, there, I hereby baptize you MRPM.
Sorry Joe. I know you are forever cautioning and trying to guide us on how to read him, but I can’t help it whenever I feel he is also trying to rewrite that part of our Philippine history. Raissa and allan have their hands full of like minded people, the sad reality is that people are being fooled again as before, lacking in discernment of satires or propaganda, proof is Bong Bong Marcos having been elected in a nationally contested senatorial position, solid north and Leyte votes should not be enough, and now he is trying to be VP, just a breath away from the presidency.,. I say NEVER AGAIN!
If MRPM is passionate about UP and BENIGNO, I am equally, if not more passionate about this.
Joe, I hope you understand where I am coming from, I just could not stay away, if you suspend me, then I will be forced to…hahaha, joke, joke!
Ah, you said what needed to be said, Mary Grace. I understand where you are coming from, and I think Mariano ought to be more sensitive about the matter, because for some HERE in this forum, it was not a trivial or intellectual engagement.
Thank you, Joe, you’ll never know how much I appreciate that understanding, that level of compassion.
The Filipino people did not help them out. They were Usisi crowd. They wanted to watch who wins and who losses.
A house fire creates EDSAic proprtion. So does fender benders. Filipinos love to watch. Sit. Enjoy. Because morbidly they derive their happiness thru the miseries of others.
Many where usisa, some were idealists, others were opportunists. The result is what finally matters. Stop putting OUR race in such a bad light – because the American revolution too was a mix of motivations, many of them were vicious bushwhackers.
Here is the rub, Filipinos have been fooled many times over for 500 years and currently who is fooling them are the Filipino themselves. They better cut it clean and cut it good.
As Jesus Christ said in one of his famous speeches, “TRUTH SETS THEM FREE”.
Since there is no truth in the Philippines, they are not free.
There, I fully agree with you. But the truth must be told from all sides and seen from all sides.
We have betrayed each other often, but have helped one another often across fronts.
My mother being German, she was always subject to deportation, like Joe wrote Immigration told him to stay is a privilege not a right, Immigration once picked up her best friend Sue, an American and the wife of my father’s best friend Prof. Oca Evangelista, also a UP historian crook like you call my father, while both were ABCed, detained, and were threatening to deport her. Her kids who very small children called my mother, she picked them up. I think Alex the half-American boy was just 5 years old!
So I think my father decided, make the best of the situation, write history properly even if it is under the name of Ferdie. Tadhana even if unfinished is one of the best histories the Philippines has, written by “UP crooks” working for Marcos, led by Prof. Dr. Zeus MARIANO Roberto Salazar de Saenz y Atayza, yes a mestizo, Spanish was his mother tongue, my grandma was 1/4 Spanish and spoke Spanish with him, his Bikol he learned from his yaya, and at home my grandfather Atty. Irineo Salazar spoke English!
Now Tadhana is ignored because it was written by Marcos, allegedly, and until now my father’s name is not redeemed, Nobody asks him, he does not talk because I think Filipinos would not listen anyway, godammit like he would say and punyeta like my grandfather would say, fuck, putangina and Scheiße like I would say! But can’t you stop dividing the Filipino into races? You are just as colonial as the idiots who still believe in mestizo superiority, I think there are hardly any left today, or did I ever call you Indio? We are all one mixed race now, like the dogs on our streets, strong and fearless!
MRP, sorry I got a little bit mad at you, it somehow provoked me that you are always blaming UP and mestizos for everything. I think in the Philippines everybody has their share of the blame for what has happened so far. Even Marcos and Cory sides.
You are cordially invited to give your view of the EDSA revolution or whatever you call it in this article about the Marcos period. Join me in the search for the entire truth:
http://filipinogerman.blogsport.eu/philippine-history-part-iii-nation-section-2-marcos-period/
Perhaps THAT is the key, the secret, the way the Philippines can find unity. If everyone stands up as one and says, YES, I DID NOT ALWAYS THINK OF MY NATION when I did what I did. Rather a mass confessional and re-set button . . .
Good point. The American revolutionists were terrorists in their days, shooting from behind trees like lily livered cowards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushwhacker – guerilla warfare…
and there was a sizable minority of loyalists to the English crown…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyalist_%28American_Revolution%29
They were alienated when the Patriots resorted to violence, such as burning houses and tarring and feathering.
Historians’ best estimates put the proportion of adult white male loyalists somewhere between 15 and 20 percent. Approximately half the colonists of European ancestry tried to avoid involvement in the struggle—some of them deliberate pacifists, others recent immigrants, and many more simple apolitical folk. The patriots received active support from perhaps 40 to 45 percent of the white populace, and at most no more than a bare majority
The largest number of loyalists were found in the middle colonies: many tenant farmers of New York supported the king, for example, as did many of the Dutch in the colony and in New Jersey. The Germans in Pennsylvania tried to stay out of the Revolution, just as many Quakers did, and when that failed, clung to the familiar connection rather than embrace the new. Highland Scots in the Carolinas, a fair number of Anglican clergy and their parishioners in Connecticut and New York, a few Presbyterians in the southern colonies, and a large number of the Iroquois Indians stayed loyal to the king.
I agree with you there, MRP…somehow, when a situation is that serious, effective crowd control should be in place or they may end up being hurt, dead or taken hostage. The same thing happened in the Luneta bus hostage, so many usiseros, kibitzers I think, including relatives who made a drama of the arrest of the brother of the hostage taker by screaming and hysterically crying covered by the mindless TV that is being shown live inside the particular bus sending a wrong signal to the desperate policeman turned hostage taker. And to think that he just wanted to dramatize the “the unfair” sacking made by Lim and the loss of his pension that he is relying upon his old age and retirement…that guy was honored for returning millions of pesos found in the palace after the hasty departure of the Marcoses in 1986. The irresponsible media, the lack of effective crowd control, and the break down of negotiation due to those two factors, including the ineptness of the officers in the site…all these brought shame to the country and to the fledgling government of PNOY.
In 1986, crowds blocked EDSA.
Now no crowds needed anymore.
Crowds were needed then to shield Ramos, Enrile, Honasan and those soldiers supporting them. In Edsa 2, to show Estrada the disgust of the people in the attempt by the Senate to cover up the president’s crimes of plunder and mismanagement. It’s a different thing in the suceeding violent coups headed by Honasan, allegedly funded by Enrile, that time, soldiers are being fired upon, fellow soldiers are killing each other, one side protecting Cory’s government, the other bent on repeatedly attempting to overthrow it and install themselves as military junta, just like Thailand now. The people should have stayed away then and let the AFP do their job of fighting the puschists. Same with the Luneta bus hostage crisis.
Just lately, the INC tried it and failed to gain support from its own members, knowing groups like the president’s own uncle and aunt as well others with vested interest took the opportunity to join and muddled the issues.
Nowadays, it is the scene of horrendous traffic, you’re correct.
Mary Grace, you are cordially invited to share your views on the Post-Marcos period. Like MRP wrote we must uncover the truth – and I wrote that it must be from all sides. My blog is the library, this is the newspaper with letters, Plaza Miranda is Raissa’s…
It is only about the Cory and Ramos presidencies, the article about Daang Baluktot which is the Erap and Gloria period is not yet ready. But I was abroad and only observing then, so I may have missed some stuff that those on the ground know about. As for Erap/Gloria periods, I still got some news on the Erap period, in the Gloria period I was not following news anymore so my research is taking longer. But first this: http://filipinogerman.blogsport.eu/philippine-history-part-iii-nation-section-3-post-marcos-period/
I am also very interested in personal accounts. Where were you when EDSA happened. What was your perception of the whole thing? Because history is shaped by the accounts of people who were there. This is something sorely lacking in the Philippines.
Mary Grace you wrote me about how you watched the Erap impeachment trial on TV. This account will be interesting once “Daang Baluktot” is out. My history series is intended as a living library where the readers may write on the pages of the books.
Manong Sonny wrote about how the US gave several million dollars of help to the Philippines after the prewar – I would welcome such comments in the respective articles of my blog, because I consider what I am writing there a living document of history, not a bible to read or something because like Edgar wrote, we shape our respective truths. Edgar you could write a comment or two on the Republic period you experienced and where I have no background except what I read and heard from older people and teachers plus books. My blog is not a competition to the Society of Honor – it is to add to the body of knowledge, which is why I call it LEARNING center. I may know much,
but I actually know little, there is a wealth of information that is not mined for learning.
*******
I was out of the country in the 3-year tumultuous period that began with Ninoy’s assassination and ended in the EDSA Revolution. I was sojourned half a world away in Jeddah.
I was never engaged in the political scene at that time, more concerned with cosmic issues than national ones. I have only become “politically active” in retirement, now that I have attained some measure of detente with the universe.
My journey has been the reverse of the normal, from the macro to the micro rather than the other way around. In terms of the hierarchy of loyalties, I have leapt from the Self to the God construct, then have fallen backwards through the World, then to Nation. This will explain, in part, the perspectives I bring. (Now that I think about it, this personal insight, apropos of blogging, may be a revelation to you. Equally, it is to me as well. )
*****
Thank you, I will, work and internet connection permitting..
@Mary Grace, thanks as well.
@Edgar: I spent 3 years from 1982-1985 finishing my Abitur (baccalaureate) in the K-13 German school system. From 18 onwards, worked at McDonalds in the kitchen, together with migrants and one Afghan refugee. As a typical “señorito” barely used to doing any stuff at home, it was a true eye-opener, also for me who was an entitled U.P. brat. Didn’t think much about the Philippines then, was glad to be away from all the troubles. Took part in a Filipino folkdance group though, I was often the emcee because I spoke German best.
Folkdance group expanded into Filipino youth group in 1985. October 1985 I started working at the Philippine Embassy. The science attache who was Ministry of Science – DOST so to speak – needed a programmer. So there I was in the middle of things in the late Marcos era. Nobody suspected that I had been an activist. Those were pre-Internet days and being Pisay I was family for the science attache. Witnessed many intrigues.
These came to a boil late February 1986, with different groups within the Embassy frantically positioning themselves for what was going to happen. Finally I got the push from the Philippine community and the youth group and we went into the Embassy to state demands from the Philippine community and to declare our support for Cory Aquino. There was a consul who did not like that I hung down Marcos’ portrait, the administrative officer had me fired end of March 1986. So the loyalists had their revenge – for then.
Visited the Philippines for a longer stretch a few months later. It was a very confident time, people were euphoric. There was a lot of hope for real change. My interview with Rex Robles of RAM made me skeptical though. Unfortunately I was proven right by history.
March 1988 I returned to the Embassy. An attache from Albay whose brother knew one of my uncles called me up because they had an enormous backlog in processing legal capacity to contract marriage – lots of Filipinas marrying Germans then. We kidnapped the computer from the Embassy secretary – also from Albay – and I computerized processing. Helped out when Cory visited Germany in 1989. Stayed until mid-1990, then continued assisting in a freelance/contractual capacity. Faded out of that to finish my Master’s.
Visited the Philippines again in 1995, in the middle of an economic boom, Ramos time. People were proud of having cellphones, of the new malls and new cars all over the place.
Brashness and the vibe of we-don’t-need-you-here made me turn my back on the country.
Went to Munich in 1996. Kept an eye on the Philippines for a while, until about 2001, meaning Edsa Dos. Tuned out of things for a long time until the big flood in Manila 2009, then started getting curious again. Mamasapano brought me back like a shock, full force.
After having been a silent occasional reader of GRP for a long time, I chanced on this blog here, found it useful to gain a quick understanding of the situation. I think it was a Facebook share of one of my former high school classmates. That was serendipity…
“The irresponsible media, the lack of effective crowd control, and the break down of negotiation due to those two factors, including the ineptness of the officers in the site…”
and the SWAT team which was basically incompetent, sorry to say. I know people with special forces backgrounds here in Europe, they told me the first thing would have been to force the media to turn off their cameras, because they knew Mendoza had a television. Second would have been to break the back window of the bus, because then they are protected by the bus engine and can throw tear gas and then figure out the rest, but they broke the side windows instead which left them unprotected in attack.
And President Aquino: he was Level 2 leader at that time with Level 3 potentials IMHO. He developed Level 3 fully and even some Level 4 recently after Mamasapano. With regards to China his leadership is already Level 5, his policies perfect and discreet.
Mar Roxas is Level 3, definitely. Developed some Level 4 in Tacloban, learning curve. Level 4+ definitely in how he reorganized the PNP with General Espina working hard.
Looks like he is becoming Level 4 fully now. Level 5 could develop during Presidency. Leni Robredo has shown much Level 5 locally. Duterte is Level 4 locally with a lot of Level 5 capabilities. So it is quite clear that I am for Ro-Ro now, looking at everything.
Well excuse me Mariano but I was there. And so were other members of my family. As were many of my friends and work colleagues. and we all were aware we could have gotten caught in a crossfire if violence ensued at all. I don’t personally know anyone who went just to make usisa. Do you? Or were you speaking for yourself there?
A friend was the among the first to respond to Cardinal Sin’s call to come to Crame on that first night. (His car was the third car outside the gate when he arrived.) He actually said goodbye to his family before he left and asked his oldest son, still a teenager at that time, to take care of his mother and siblings should anything happen to him. My friend was not military. He was a businessman.
My eldest brother stopped my younger sister and myself from going with him on the first day because he wanted us safe at home. But he couldn’t stop us on the second day. We were crying to be allowed to go. A neighbor was yelling from the street, waking people up at dawn to go to Camp Aguinaldo because Marcos’ loyalist soldiers were supposedly on their way. My brother agreed to bring us but only if we brought protection. Which really were just wet towels in case we were tear gassed. But nothing for bullets, duh. We didn’t care. I was just fresh out of college. UP, if you must ask. My younger sister still in college herself. I honestly think my sister was more ready to die than I was. But that’s another story. I had to write a long letter of apology to my parents afterward (they were not in Manila at the time) for putting ourselves at risk. My father wrote back that he was proud of us all, we were his heroes.
We stayed at EDSA till the end. We were just a few feet away from Ramos when he made that infamous jump in the middle of EDSA.
What about you? Where were you?
Good for you, cha, my friend. I was also there but could not stay for long, work and helping my mother care for my dying father at nights prevented me from staying until the end. I had to be content in monitoring Radio Veritas and later, Radio Bandido while holding my father’s hands. We (a Batasan Pambansa staff and I) were at my employer’s library moonlighting on weekends so I could have additional funds for my father’s meds, we found a picture of Marcos in a drawer, joined her in stumpimg at the pic.
I was also there in Edsa 2, we were encouraged by my boss ( a different one that time), the architects prepared all the placards and on we went. We stayed until General Reyes and Orly M joined the people. We rejoiced, and were jubilant as again, we proved to the world that plunderers have no place in our government. I did not join the crowd that booed Jaworski and company, though, even if he was among those 11 who voted NO…ang mga nang onse sa bayan…the group who turned their back on the people…my thinking was he joined there, was enlightened and tried to support the peaceful revolution.
High school lang ako basta para sakn walang pasok.joke
Sorry to hear about your father’s illness at the time. It couldn’t have been easy for you worrying about him on one hand and how it was all going to turn out for our country at that point in time on the other.
But it was a great time to be a Filipino, wasn’t it? Having grown up being constantly told to be careful whay you say about the government and the Marcoses, and hearing stories of those who were incarcerated, tortured or just simply disappeared, going to EDSA on those few precious days was in itself liberating. Marcos then leaving was just fait accompli.
I am glad to now know we have shared this experience, Grace. I think it explains why we feel the way we do about some things happening in our country now.
To Karl, My brothers were also still in high school at the time. We wouldn’t have let them come as well. (Thankfully they were elsewhere also at the time.)
I am glad you were out there fighting the good fight,my dad was 50-5O RAM per my observation even when he was head of the court martial he reduced illegal possession of fire arms to a few years,this was used by senatort Revilla sr eventually to have Robin Padilla freed.Right now all RAM living in paranaque meet everyweek and they invite my dad as if nothing haooened a few decades back.
Hah! Then I might have to thank your dad too, somehow. My mom is first cousin with Robin Padilla’s mom (although I have only really met Robin once or twice myself) . It’s funny how we Pinoys are so interconnected to each other. Often not even nearing the customary six degrees of separation. 🙂
🙂
It truly was liberating, cha. About the twin worries, I have learned early in life that one has to learn to accept what cannot be changed. Stage 5 inoperable cancer is a death sentence, nothing can be done but acceptance, no matter how painful. Helping in the fight against corruption and greed for power is another thing, We can do something about it, to bring about change.
Click to access unpan021788.pdf
Blogging is also about personal growth. I just looked at where I am on the Level 5 hierarchy which LCPL_X mentioned and Joe as well – Powerpoint presentation above.
The Level 5 Hierarchy
Level 1 Highly Capable Individual
Makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills, and good work habits
Level 2 Contributing Team Member
Contributes to the achievement of group objectives; works effectively with others in a group setting
Level 3 Competent Manager
Organizes people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives
Level 4 Effective Leader
Catalyzes commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision; stimulates the group to high performance standards
Level 5 Executive
Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical combination of personal humility plus professional will
In this blog until my “vacation”, I was a highly capable individual (Level 1) and now am in the middle of Level 2 development – Contributing Team member.
At work I am in the middle of Level 3 development through my projects… wonder how the rest of you see yourselves in this leadership scale. Joe was Level 3 and is learning Level 4 I think. Will is Level 4 and is building his Level 5 skills, Edgar is Level 2, josephivo is Level 3 I think.
This is important for change processes: (could apply to the Philippines)
Buildup-Breakthrough Flywheel
Good-to-great transformations do not happen overnight or in one big leap
Rather, it starts one movement at a time, gradually building up momentum, till there is a breakthrough
Mediocre organizations never sustained the breakthrough momentum but instead lurch back and forth with radical change programmes, reactionary moves and restructuring
This is also very applicable – the description reminds me of Switzerland..
A Culture of Discipline
Good-to-great organizations have three forms of discipline
1. Disciplined people –you don’t need hierarchy
2. Disciplined thought – you don’t need bureaucracy, and
3. Disciplined action – you don’t need excessive controls
Combining a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship results in great performance
The two Tanods I think are Level 2 learning Level 3, Mary Grace being further than Karl.
LCPL_X is also Level 2, with substantial Level 3 skills learned from hard knocks school.
Popoy is very much in Level 5 – further than Will is I think, both coming from Level 4. Andrew Lim is Level 3 with Level 4 potential, let us see what his next article brings.
Juana is Level 2 with plenty of unused Level 3 potential. MRP is Level 1 developing Level 2 in the past few articles. Sonny is Level 2. Chempo is Level 3. Neo canjeca is Level 2 with Level 3 potential if he listens more. bauwow is Level 2. Just my two centavos/cents.
Now this is just me, a consultant who knows how to pretend he knows all kinds of stuff.
A consultant meets a shepherd. He tells him, I will help you optimize your business. Tells the shepherd some bullshit, then say OK I will take one sheep as payment. The shepherd says, you told me what I already know, and what you are holding is my dog.
Level 5 Leadership
a. Personal Humility
b. Professional Will
1.a. Demonstrates a compelling modesty, shunning public adulation; never boastful
1.b. Creates superb results, a clear catalyst in the transition from good to great
2.a. Acts with quiet, calm determination; relies principally on inspired standards, not
inspiring charisma, to motivate
2.b. Demonstrates an unwavering resolve to do whatever must be done to produce the best long-term results, no matter how difficult
3.a. Channels ambition into the organization, not the self; sets up successors for even
more greatness in the next generation
3.b. Sets the standard of building an enduring great organization; will settle for nothing else
4.a. Looks in the mirror,not out the window, to apportion responsibility for poor results,
never blaming other people, external factors, or bad luck
4.b. Looks out the window, not in the mirror, to apportion credit for the success of the
organization – to other people, external factors, and good luck
Also very interesting, especially in our context here:
First Who
Good-to-great leaders start with people first and then deal with vision and strategy second
They get the right people on the bus,
Move the wrong people off,
Usher the right people to the right seats, and
Determine where to drive it
“LCPL_X is also Level 2, with substantial Level 3 skills learned from hard knocks school.”
I agree with this assessment. I can operate comfortably at Level 3, with some actual experience, but mostly from watching (and studying) very competent Level 3 & 4s. But prefer to be at Level 2– hence the rank.
I think American culture, stifles potential Level 5s. I’ve only read of these. Would love to see more Level 5s. But the Philippines, I think can produce Level 5s. The culture over there seems amenable to introverts.
Where Level 5s can be found is in the Tech industry, ie. Silicon valley, wherein Level 5 concepts and ideas can be easier promoted or dispensed digitally online. No need for public speaking and motivational crap which was needed of Leaders in the past.
As a whole though (and you can see this in our current Presidential race) Americans like big talkers. The Philippines, as well as Asia, like introspection or are more comfortable with quietude when being led– bluster is not a requirement.
So Level 5 should be promoted over there, it’ll fall on fertile ground.
🙂 🙂 🙂
I think your characterizations are very very good.
Spot on! Although I thought I was more of level 1/2.😆
Bill Gates and Phil Jackson, Level 5?
Pope Francis definitely 5!
I am commenting to pay homage to Popoy’s creativity. His satirical writings (prose and poetry) and art evoke primal emotions. They are laced with subtle and not-so- subtle subversion, social criticism and political activism. It is like mixing Stephen Colbert and Pawel Kuczynski together to get a heady concoction you’ll likely develop a craving for.
Thanks, Juana. I’ve not heard of Kuczynski. This guy’s paintings are great!
I’m also a fan of Popoy’s paintings!
I’m in. 🙂
Me too,do you know where he posts them?
Irineo,I hope MRP accepts your invite one day.If not,blog about him like joe did.
https://joeam.com/2014/12/30/the-book-of-allegory/
Start with his hoaxes the tasadays,edsa and another hoax
Tell us how he rewrites history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasaday_people#Controversy
Tasaday was a hoax in that they were not a Stone Age tribe. My father was the one to go against established opinion with his “Footnote on the Tasaday”, his “Second” and “Third and Final” Footnote on the Tasaday. My brother was in the Philippines with a young journalist’s group from Germany in 1990 when he was 18. Two young women from his group allowed themselves to be most probably bought by Manda Elizalde who was a Marcos crony mestizo (Spanish-American) and PANAMIN which close the area was most probably connected with Marcos crony mining interests. Only selected UP scholars were allowed to enter the area, my father not even if he was with the neighboring T’Boli in 1979.
Oswald Iten called us up in Bonn directly after the area was opened in 1986 – I remember his strong Swiss accent to this day. Tasaday was typical for the Imeldific era, closeness to fawning US media. John Nance to this day will not admit that he was wrong or fooled. My father found inconsistencies in the data even if he was not allowed to go to the site, for example that the “Stone Age tools” were fake, that the language was between Manobo and T’Boli, and it came out that the “Tasaday” was just the name of a cave, and that they had relations in neighboring areas, being a mixture of Manobo and T’Boli people – Lumads.
We had Tasadays in our UP home sometime late 1988. Then suddenly the same Tasaday sued my father for libelling them, probably under pressure from local warlords. UP lawyers defended my father in a case for academic freedom. He won the case, but did not push the controversy any further, because the counter-weapon of the other group – used in reports in Germany of the two young women – was that he worked for Marcos in writing Tadhana. But as I explained, Marcos was the Godfather then, the Godfa-THER imagine the Ilocano accent, and made my father an offer he could not refuse. Nobody today still thinks they were Stone Age, that was definitely disproven.
Thomas N. Headland claims that while it is not true that the Tasaday people were “stone age”, it is true that they were a separate group that lived as gatherers, however, not isolated but living in contact and trading with the neighbouring people.
As for MRP, I think he is many “autodidactic”, meaning self-taught. What he knows is quite amazing, but autodidacts usually have a problem sorting out facts from urban legends.
Autodidacts often hate formally educated, because the latter are often arrogant to them.
Bonifacio BTW was an autodidact because he had to take care of his family very early. Daniel Tirona of the Magdalo (Cavite, Aguinaldo) faction publicly challenged him as being “walang pinag-aralan”, upon which Bonifacio whipped out a pistol – his favorite weapon…
“”In retrospect, the fraud seemed obvious. Why, some wondered, were the caves so clean? Even a Stone Age tribe would have had garbage, such as crab shells or scraps of food. And how did such a small tribe avoid inbreeding? Also, the Tasaday were a mere three hours walk from a modern village. It seemed odd that they would not have encountered this village while searching for food.”
“Two years after “The Tribe That Never Was”, during the making of a BBC documentary, the same two Tasaday (Lobo and Adug) watched the 20/20 programme with a group of other Tasaday and confessed to the gathering that they had lied to the interviewers because, “Galang said if we would say what he told us we could have cigarettes, clothing, anything we wanted.” [10] On subsequent video and radio programmes, Galang confirmed the Tasadays’ statement. Nonetheless, the controversy had already incited studies among scholars, politicians and businessmen alike.”
German Wikipedia is even clearer on the matter – I started fixing it years ago and the work and footnoting of original sources was completed by a lady Dr. of Malay studies. The English Wikipedia is another case – the Americans who were involved then do not want to admit they were wrong even if the evidence is overwhelming, and in Wikipedia you have to go by NPOV (neutral point of view) meaning reconcile opposing editors. Won’t write an article yet, the matter is personally too close, still. And the topic very complex for me.
One thing that EDSA and Cory coming to power partly was in my opinion was a restoration of the “burgis” classes, but also partly a revolution, fresh air. The Marcos regime gave opportunities to many lower middle class people in its government and military apparatus.
You cannot build a regime without a critical mass of people to support it. Marcos cronies were similar to the new aristocracy that Napoleon built up around him. The old aristocracy came back with the Bourbons. The old burgis partly came back with Cory, but society had already changed. It is good that the old burgis AND the wannabes around Imeldific do not determine the Philippines anymore. But still, the entitled run too much of the show there.
Cory times also brought back too much Church influence, which Marcos had curbed.
True. In Cory’s case, the Church, particularly Cardinal Sin helped tremendously in mobilizing people to shield those holed up in Aguinaldo and Camp Crame, and even before the snap election. No bribes or favors were granted to them, unlike on Arroyo’s time with the mitsubishops. Pnoy had antagonized them due to RH bill and the revelations of his appointed heads of PCSO and Pagcor re those mitsubishops. GMA courted the church, various courts, the military and anyone or any groups that would help her cling to the presidency she stole via hello Garci scandal. If Estrada had Jose Velarde then, Mike Arroyo had someone, too, I forgot the name and he had his brother Iggy Arroyo to own up to those bank accounts. I wonder what happened to the tug of war for those funds between Iggy Arroyo’s paramour, widow and the ones claiming those bank accounts.
Mary, I saw that exchange of yours with Parekoy where he highlighted the palpaks of Cory,and you were there fir Cory’s defense.Let us just say both of you had points there,napansin ko pag me dinedefend ka,parang todo bigay ka,medyo hinayhinay ng kaunti the other side may have a point.
Even MRP.
Yep, point taken, Chief Tanod…
A ok deputy, ayoko May tumatawag sayo sanctimonious
Thanks, karl…but if being genuinely concerned about the country, if seeing the forest for the trees, if trying to defend a defensible issue is being sanctimonious, so be it. I don’t care what he thinks of me, but I care what the people think of Cory and Pnoy who I think has the welfare of the country in their hearts, I care and worry that people might believe him or MRPM. Being called sanctimonious is ok, he is just parekoy.
I do accept that everyone may have a point in their comments, I agree when they have, but I rebut when I can if they don’t.
“I care what the people think of Cory and Pnoy who I think has the welfare of the country in their hearts” They definitely do, of that I am now convinced. BUT – they both have an elitist blind spot for all good intentions, PNoy less than his mother. And that the Church re-established itself too much in the Philippines is the one major mistake of Cory who was a captive of her upbringing in that respect. Bam Aquino is one generation further and is even less a captive of elitism than Noynoy still partly is. So the direction is the right one.