Dick Malay: The Rebel Finds Love, Part 2
Picture of Dick Malay’s column which appeared in the Chronicle on September 19, 1989.
By Wilfredo G. Villanueva
Second of Two Parts
After living for ten years in China (1971-1981), Dick, battle-scarred for tilling soil, his family and comrades limped towards the Netherlands, China not being the land of promise for them anymore.
Utrecht was to be the second global front of the Left’s struggle against the Marcos dictatorship. After two years in Utrecht, Dick found a more challenging role in Rotterdam port city to organize Filipino seafarers, another labor union challenge. He edited a newspaper that served as a platform for the exploited mariners who were abused, underpaid and overworked. He was assisted by a party-sent comrade in organizing the union. This comrade was eventually kidnapped and tortured to death by Jovito Palparan, former army general dubbed berdugo by human rights activists.
In 1989, Dick had to quit the movement altogether, his smoldering schism with Joma Sison finally complete.
He had
incontrovertible
evidence that the highest-ranking communist of the land had a direct hand in the bombing of the Liberal Party campaign rally at Plaza Miranda in Quiapo, Manila on August 21, 1971. Nine died, 95 others injured. He could no longer contain his disgust.
Dick came back to post-Marcos Philippines to be at his mother’s sick bed. Back to Chronicle as news editor and columnist, full circle, Dean Malay’s son—
his father’s resurgence
—diving into the movement in the First Quarter Storm, chastised for pitching his tent in the wrong camp, seeing the true Joma, still a writer, always a writer, but swashbuckling days over.
Activism and Dick are twins, but in the Chronicle, he found himself this time as a moderating influence in labor union, cautioning the proponents to go easy on strike. The strikers didn’t heed his call, and the newspaper his father helped build closed shop, the Lopezes unable to accede to demands, for it was saddled with debts due in Meralco.
Hmm, what’s this, Dick the bureaucrat this time, handling Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) for the Presidential Commission on Good Government, staying there until he had to call it quits from daily grind for he was no longer the same
firestarter
who could plant rice and endure low temps, finding himself writing thought pieces in the Journal and Philippine Daily Inquirer, and now being interviewed by The Society of Honor?
You saw the Maoist revolution fail, did you not?
“Yes,”
he said. And what about the people power revolution, do you see it as a failure as well?
“Sadly, too much was expected of it,” he said.
It succeeded
to a certain degree, being the prototype of other nonviolent revolutions that erupted later around the world. But it had birth defects. It was bound to fail somewhat for diverse reasons. One, Cory was a hesitant president. Two, nine coup attempts were thrown her way. We knew in Chronicle, in media, what kind of challenges she faced. And three, maraming nakinabang na masasamang loob. People Cory placed in high places brought dishonor to the revolution.”
So now we are in present times. Is the Duterte episode a revolution?
His eyes lit up, delighted to share his mind, an aha moment.
“It’s a fascist counterrevolution,”
he said. “It’s the extreme right seizing the initiative from the moderate forces composed of Ninoy Aquino adherents and all others outside the circle of influence of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, not necessarily pro-Aquino, but definitely anti-Duterte and anti-plunderer.”
“We were sorcerized,”
Dick said, looking the revolutionary who has seen it all from all possible angles. “Nakulam tayo! Sadly, the spell lingers on. It is a triumph of ignorance.”
Are you saying that you are in the spiritual realm now?
“Yes. We only see the material world, but it’s a spiritual world as well. Duterte is the incarnate of
Lucifer,
Satanas. Sa mukha na lang, sa kilos, he was sent to us probably as a chastisement.”
What will happen next?
“Ano ang mangyayari? Definitely, for an object that has reached the depths, its only direction is to go up. No, this trial has to end, we have nowhere to go but up. Which means Duterte will end his term by death, sickness or coup by armed elements. Hindi pwedeng tumagal pa yan.
One year,
I give it one year, even less. My instincts are seldom wrong.”
I had to ask: are you now a moderate?
“Yes. I am a moderate. I was Ro-Ro in last year’s campaign. I am against extremism of both left and right. It’s the balancing wheel that propels progress. That’s physics, the natural law. Moderation is always a virtue.
Our strength lies in being moderates.
Filipinos and foreigners alike are sane, compassionate with so much empathy. In the end, reason and compassion will reign.”
“Peaceful lang, as much as possible walang patayan.”
I should end here. I have heard enough. I am astonished by the man who has traveled around the world to find the sweet spot in Philippine society. Totalitarianism? No. Many times, no. Socialism with medical care, free education, pension and unions? Maybe later, in a developed state. But right now, let peace reign, let democracy sprout sturdy roots and bear fruit, but let the outrage and expressive protest fly, finding its target on
the heads of enemies,
like stones thrown 65 years ago against an anomaly. Poetic release. Lumps in the head, bruises all over the body.
“We have to fight, for
this is our land,”
Dick Malay, the ageing warrior who still has the spunk of a 9-year-old stone-throwing rebel boy says,
“This is our land.”
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
😮
!!
:-).
BTW Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague are like cities in Metro Manila – magkadikit. In the time of Marcos, Philippine Embassies still refused passports for seamen who had jumped ship. Labor Attaches existed but the best ones were like Abella, the worst I think like Calida…
Thanks!
It is good that the part two did not take long, dahil bitin nga part one.( compliment, not complaint)
Thanks!
There’s that old saying that if you were not socialist by your twenties, you didn’t have a heart and if you’re not a capitalist in your forties, you didn’t have a head. What’s unique about Dick is that unlike his contemporaries who went from extreme left to extreme right, he found moderation and the middle as acceptable.
I’m referring to the likes of Bobi Tiglao, Alex Magno, Jerry Barican, Adrian Cristobal, et al who went from “serving the people” to serving dictators and plunderers and fascists.
Which begs the question: who is Duterte’s ideologue? I can think of no one.
I think Duterte is doing Benigno, that Pinoy-Australian coconut racist cum blogger, proud.
Thank you Kuya Wil for this.
I’m wondering why Joma has not yet been stripped of his leadership in the movement by his colleagues and comrades given that he has done more tactical damage and, in a way, corrupted the cause of the left.
Jovito Salonga would have a, more or less, even chance of becoming President in 1992 if he had not been nearly paralyzed in Plaza Miranda.
Yes, good question. Does he control money, or what? He appears not to control the armies.
All I know is that there had been a schism of sorts in the movement. How he managed to preserve his leadership despite that, maybe Dick Malay himself would most likely know. For now however, the Philippine revolutionary left is a lost cause.
Though global capitalism itself is on the verge of implosion, it’s not likely we’d return to the revolutionary roots of Lennin or Mao.
Rediscovering the purer virtues of Das Kapital? Maybe.
But the solution to the eventual collapse of capitalism will not come from its old ideological adversary. The synthesis will have to come from the middle.
You’re welcome, Micha!
Sir Wil, thank you. As beautifully written as your backgrounder is, when the direct quotes from Dick Malay came on, I felt thunderbolt chills. In as few words as possible, there was all that needed to be said.
You’re welcome, Abeng! Yes, those are direct quotes. It helps if one can type speedily, like a court stenographer, touch system. (Bragging.)
Kulam is of course folksy explanation for ailments or diseases which can be perfectly diagnosed by modern medicine.
Kung nakulam tayo kay Duterte, ano ang pinangkulam? I would venture that the Duterte virus started to germinate during or right after President Cory’s term. The virus is called neo-liberalism. We had severe flu as a result of it during the Asian financial crisis in Fidel Ramos’ term. And because we have not really expunged the virus, the “kulam” effect continued all through succeeding presidencies up to and including that of Noynoy Aquino.
Who knew that 30 years after EDSA we’ll get a fascist Satan incarnate mangkuikulam in our midst?
Sad but so true.
Sent from my iPad
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1. I understand but I do not understand.
2. I understand why Will presented this post in two parts. It is indeed a cliffhanger. I do not understand many things about Communism in the Philippines and I quite do not understand Dick Malay.
3. I have tried to recreate the timeline of Dick’s life within that world-changing socioeconomic-political system of the 20th century.
4. These are the things I do not understand about Communism in the Philippines and the intellectual rebels in UP.
4.1. Communism was the go to ideology for intellectual rebels in the 70’s. I understand the lineage of the movement from the Huk Rebellion between 1942 and 1954.
4.2. What I do not understand is why the ideology still persisted despite the (a) publications of Darkness at Noon (1940) and The God that Failed (1949), and (b) the death toll of the Great Purge under Stalin. The latter was documented in Robert Conquest’s book, The Great Terror, published in 1968.
4.3. While Google was not available at that time, surely the death toll under Mao’s Great Leap Forward (1958) and the Great Famine (1960-62) would have trickled through?
4.4. The period after WWII was the Cold War, and during that period, America produced a vast amount of literature espousing the virtues of democracy and the evils of communism. I remember visiting the Thomas Jefferson Library (USIS) in the 60’s and seeing many books on the subject. One being a large blue book entitled Why Democracy? And the other a large red book entitled Why Not Communism.
5. These are the things I do not understand about Dick Malay.
5.1. I initially took Dick to be a true believer in the Hoffer sense. That is, “someone so committed to a cause that he or she is willing to unthinkingly die for it.” And the cause can be any ideology. So true believers never lose their passion. Only the object of their passions might change.
5.2. But I can understand Dick’s partial disillusionment with Maoism when, during the China exile, the great leader died in 1976. From coddled revolutionaries, Dick and his band were subject to the hard scrabble of commune life.
5.3. What I cannot understand is the trigger for his apostasy. The trigger seems to be a crisis in morality.
o Why Plaza Miranda where only 9 people died? As compared to the millions under Stalin and Mao?
o Why the moral disgust when as a revolutionary he helped engineer the shipment of arms in the Karagatan and Andrea incidents?
o Why the squeamishness at Joma’s misdirection and subterfuge when the object of revolution was to foment violence to bring about regime change?
5.4. The tergiversation — somehow — does not compute.
6. The apostasy is explained as a change of heart, even a matter of spirituality. Well, stranger things have happened. Saul became Paul.
6.1. But perhaps not so strange after all. At the heart of the ardor for communism are the notions of egalite and fraternite. Still, if one looks at the aging revolutionaries in our midst, age does not seem to have dimmed their fervor. Crispin Beltran. Satur Ocampo. Benito and Wilma Tiamzon.
6.2. Also at the heart of the communist ideology is the logic of historical determinism, the Hegelian dialectic. This logic can be seen in Dick’s speculative – and superstitious? — assessment of Duterte: “Satanas. Sa mukha na lang, sa kilos, he was sent to us probably as a chastisement.”
Duterte as the antithesis, the third antichrist.
6.3. It would seem that with Dick, it is only the method of his passion that has changed. The object remains the same: “this is our land.”
6.4. Is the rebel with a cause truly and finally home from his exile?
6.5. Hoffer is quoted as saying, “Any man can ride a train. Only a wise man knows when to get off.” Perhaps Dick is that man.
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It would seem that Ricardo Malay, like most others on the left, are incurable romantics.
But both Lennin, Stalinist, and Maoist strain of communism are flawed interpretation of Marx’s vision.
Here’s an excerpt from a Michael Hudson article :
“Socialism a century ago seemed to be the wave of the future. There were various schools of socialism, but the common ideal was to guarantee support for basic needs, and for state ownership to free society from landlords, predatory banking and monopolies. In the West these hopes are now much further away than they seemed in 1917. Land and natural resources, basic infrastructure monopolies, health care and pensions have been increasingly privatized and financialized.”
“Instead of Germany and other advanced industrial nations leading the way as expected, Russia’s October 1917 Revolution made the greatest leap. But the failures of Stalinism became an argument against Marxism – guilt-by-association with Soviet bureaucracy. European parties calling themselves socialist or “labour” since the 1980s have supported neoliberal policies that are the opposite of socialist policy. Russia itself has chosen neoliberalism.”
http://michael-hudson.com/2017/10/socialism-land-and-banking-2017-compared-to-1917/
“To Marx, the historical task of capitalism was to prepare the way for socializing the means of production by clearing away feudalism’s legacy: a hereditary landlord class, predatory banking, and the monopolies that financial interests had pried away from governments. The path of least resistance was to start by socializing land and basic infrastructure. This drive to free society from economic overhead in the form of hereditary privilege and unearned income by the “idle rich” was a step toward socialist management.”
I think the problem you are having is that your rules are firm across all timelines, but people’s knowledge and even character shift like blowing sands. A sand dune has integrity, it’s just in a different place this year. The earth beneath it is still where it was.
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Is it my problem? Or is it the problem of others?
Axioms are atemporal. Mathematical ones in particular. Theoretically, one can transport mathematical axioms into any reality.
Form, which is the dune or the wave, is a movement in time. The constant is the composing element, the grain of sand or the drop of water.
But the composing element, like the form, is also ephemeral.
I understand ephemerality, impermanence.
Water can take different forms, but I would assume there is a thread of constancy in its elemental make-up. (?)
I am — we are– the grain of sand, the drop of water.
So, yes, the non-constants are the earth and the ocean.
But in the moral universe, we also have to assume the constancy of the composing elements. Otherwise, in my understanding, we cannot talk about notions of responsibility and justice.
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Your not understanding would be your problem, although it may be caused by others failing to communicate. Morality is that ephemeral beast we try to define until the next time knowledge surprises us, and we change it to include . . . well, gay marriage, for instance. So I don’t see how your assumption of constancy TODAY can be applied to someone making decisions decades ago.
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Well, I am for gay marriage. The principle is equality.
So it is the basic principle that is important — and that, to my mind, is the constant.
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It is, today, for you and those who agree with you. Knowledge is not perfect.
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Agree.
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In a way, you are right because our views depend on the sum total of knowledge at any point in time. Like the notion of human rights is a relatively new thing. But if we are able to define the basic principles, then our views would err on the “right” side.
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Yes, but if you agree then Dick should be allowed the right to discover new knowledge and redefine his moral stance. For a spot in time, indeed, there ought to be constancy, and knowledge moves slowly, and we hold a lot of it, so we should be able to operate from the presumption of constancy.
OMG, what have you done to my mind?
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Sorry! Also at the same time: Ahaha!
Oh, I agree that we are allowed redemption. Myself, not least of all.
But when making initial decisions that impact multitudes, we should try to explore the total sum of knowledge at that given point in time. There is a term for this total sum that I now recall — episteme.
This is the reason why I placed Dick’s timeline within the historical context.
Having said that, the norms that are common to all major religions — not to kill, steal, or lie — have been with us since the Axial Age.
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Agree.
“Having said that, the norms that are common to all major religions — not to kill, steal, or lie — have been with us since the Axial Age.”
Wil’s 2 parter (thanks by the way, Wil !), is essentially the on the ground example of edgar’s own 2 parter.
So I agree with edgar’s take fully.
Where we diverge is at the Axial Age, where I take (or am attempting to) it farther in the past. Hence the Laws of Nature and not these Rights of Man talk i find more interesting. There is a balance if you look farther down, that surpasses IMHO all this Human Rights and Animal Rights bs. see how hypocritical when applied, chemp’s “Does it matter if it was 40 million or 9 deaths that finally persuaded his mind change?”
I hope you’ll write about pre-Axial Age morality, edgar. *two thumbs up* 😉
“There is a balance if you look farther down, that surpasses IMHO all this Human Rights and Animal Rights bs. …”
This teleological lens on our experiences and others’ for that matter, should render us more forgiving and less harsh of things around us. If the opposite is the case then search for truth must all the more be intense.
The original https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Baiuvariorum has different rights for different groups and people – of course this from around the 7th century, semi-tribal, semi-feudal:
Title I: Protection of the church, spiritual men, its people and property including servants and wards.
Title II: Protection of the duke, his office, and his military operations.
Title III: Stipulates the Agilolfings as the leading noble family from which the rulers of Bavaria are chosen. The other noble families explicitly mentioned are: Anniona, Fagana, Hahilinga, Huosi and Trozza (sometimes also spelled “Drozza”).
Title IV: The protection of the free. Under free, the Lex Baiuvariorum makes a distinction between those who are free and those who have been set free. Fines for breaking the law varies depending on the status of the individuals involved: free, set free, and unfree.
Title VIII: On Women and their Legal Causes that often occur. First and foremost, addresses the fines and instances of justified homicide incidental to acts of female (free or bonded) infidelity and adulterous acts. Addresses, too, fines incurred by male (free or bonded) misconduct and molestation of women[2]
Title 5: freedmen, Title 6: servant, Title 7: incest.. then you have a mix of civil and penal code after title 8, including title 20: dogs and title 23: pigs. Germanic common law for an agricultural society, written down by priests in the transition period after the post-Roman migration period.
A strange, different world from today – even if the first Bavarian law lasted until 1080, from that point onward the Wittelsbach family ruled, until early November 1918 when the Free State (Republic) of Bavaria was declared, its founder murdered just 3 months later. Teleology..
“…should render us more forgiving and less harsh of things around us. If the opposite is the case then search for truth must all the more be intense.”
Believe me, sonny, my search is intense. I know why I’m searching, but what I’m looking for is not really clear, I feel i have to search, hence badgering of edgar and queries to you.
The Hindu stuff I’ll need a guide, its too baroque for me; but Buddhism is accessible so are all three Abrahamic faiths. But there’s a Jainist temple in Orange county, so my Jainist queries are somewhat satiated.
But my search has come to a dead end or plateau, might be a better word for it. And it’s these 3…
Ahimsa is the easiest to understand for me, yet hardest to apply. I dine with Christian friends especially Joel Osteen fans, and we talk about non-violence and Jesus, and I usually point out, ‘you’re eating a burger; and you’re talking about non-violence’. Something’s amiss. What are you now a vegan? usual retort. No I’m eating the same burger as you are, but nonetheless something is amiss.
Non-attachment , I’m familiar with that. Jesus said to leave your family, etc. Same-same with Buddhism, you’re suppose to let things and people go. This to me is the easiest to apply and understand. All things are fleeting. Jesus taught non-materialism. Very familiar.
Non-Absolutism, I think is where I rift with edgar in his Ethics. That’s a little murkier, sonny. To what extent can one be non-absolutist, edgar’s Deontology Ethics. Essentially the realm of amorality, which I’ve been championing here. Yet, edgar and I agree in criticizing Dick’s support for violence, so in a way there is absolutism in one’s use or support (direct or indirect) of violence (it butts up against Non-violence)…
thus it should not be so easily forgiven. If DU30 ended his EJKs after Dec 30 of this year, claiming to have climbed the top of the hill where the view was clearer does this change our view of him? So why the change for Dick? That’s why i’m so cynical with holidays like Veteran’s Day, sonny, hence the cartoons below (i’m a bit torn, there’s just cause for remembrance though i fear we are remembering wrongly),
I get a FREE lunch or dinner because of all the shit i’ve done out there, and a pat on the back. it doesn’t make sense. And there’s a danger in that , when you make villains into heroes.
Like this NFL kneeling dilemma during the National Anthem, sonny… so simple, stop playing the National Anthem! I don’t have to stand up when at some Broadway show, or a concert, what’s so special about sports?
I’m very cynical when it comes to expressions of patriotism (just do you job!), because at the end of patriotism is bloody and dirty , and which I’m sure is the same for rebels, whether youre at the propaganda side or on the field.
So essentially, my point, i’m stuck trying to square these three— Non-Violence; Non-Attachment; Non-Absolutism — maybe this represents pre-Axial Age Ethics.
but edgar’s right, these tend to come in three’s, so let me attempt to use edgar’s sieves here, re Jainist principles:
I. Virtue Ethics ……………………. Non-Attachment (Self)
II. Consequentialist Ethics ……. Non-Violence (Others)
III. Deontology Ethics ………….. Non-Absolutism (God, gods, no-God, truth, the Truth)
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Perhaps you are interpreting the third principle incorrectly.
Yes, there are many paths (non-absolutes). And you can recognize the validity of all paths, just as I try to.
But you can only take one path. This is your absolute.
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Two more thoughts.
1. You will note that the first two principles are deontological.
2. To explain the third principle using your favorite trope:
There are many ladies. They come in all shapes and sizes and colors.
You are partial to the Rubenesque kind.
Here, this fat lady is yours… absolutely.
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I can’t see the first two as Deontological, edgar. Yes, sure all three could be i suppose, but in my attempts to categorize , Non-Attachment leans more to Self; Where as Non-Violence leans more to Others, in ward and out ward.
Non-Absolutism though is more slippery. Yes I prefer my ladies thick; let’s say in the interest of metaphors here Dick like’s ’em young; and DU30 likes ’em mature/older. Remember the metaphor is violence here. How do you then play compare and contrast, if in the end all 3 preferences are valid?
( I prefer that black and white wheel by the way, to your former gold and black )
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Why not? They can be translated into deontological rules.
1. Ahimsa is “Cause no harm” which is common to Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It is a deontological rule. It is broader than Christianity’s “Thou shalt not kill.” It embraces all life.
2. Aparigraha is very broad and can apply to material things (non-greediness), sexual matters (no paraphilia), and relationships (non-possessiveness). It is not deontologically specific that it can be expressed in one rule. It is deontologically general and embraces:
o Thou shalt not steal.
o Thou shalt not commit adultery.
o Thou shalt not have aversions (ill-will, anger)
o Thou shalt not have attachments (opposite of aversions)
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@ Edgar & LC
what is meaning of “axial”? the word is an adjective to what noun? axiom? e.g. “axial age” means??
re: in general & random
(LC) “hinduism … baroque” (sonny)”Catholic is baroque (triumphalistic in expression: architecture, language of theology and many times speech)”
baroque means triumphalistic??
(sonny, believer in Christ) Is Christ an “anthropomorphic god” in Edgar’s reckoning?
(sonny) Hinduism is pantheistic and also Jainism it seems. Pantheism is source of baroqueness in Hinduism;
(sonny) I don’t understand metampsychosis (?spell); is it identical to reincarnation?
(sonny) I can explain original sin to another catholic; I use the Catholic corporate theology on original sin (Augustine & others); One cannot be a Catholic who does not believe in original sin; Belief in original sin is central to redemptive action of Jesus Christ, God-Man;
(sonny) The 3 principles of Jainism as LC mentioned are analogs to Catholic idea of detachment from creatures (other human beings and all other creation); the 3 principles can be mapped onto Catholic theological counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience if one believes in Christ, the God-Man.
(enough for now …)
Heraclitus : No man ever steps in the same river twice.
The impermanence of things so simply described.
I think the greatest struggle to any person is the inner struggle against one’s principles or ideologie,s cultivated over the years from personal world views, when faced with new knowledge. Those with open minds, that is, non-prejudiced and without egos, can make that transition. Alas, the majority cannot, for whilst the flesh is willing, the mind will not accept a betrayal of something that one has stood for a long time. And so one finds excuses and distorted reasoning for sticking to somethings that’s against new knowledge. I like to think that Edgar’s “The Harry Roque phenomenon” is an apt metaphor to use here, but it is’nt because the guy’s prior image of HR champion were simply posturing and bullshit publicity stunts to get his name in the media.
And so, to Dick who made the transition, that was great. Does it matter if it was 40 million or 9 deaths that finally persuaded his mind change? The inner struggle was probably a long journey, a zig-zag path that finally let to the top of the hill where the view was clearer.
Yes, the Filipino ego is huge. The typical Asian value of modesty not truly applicable.
What I think is that Dick Malay’s supreme goal remained for a lifetime – for the country.
What clearly changed was the conviction that Communism was the best way to get there.
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FOURTH ATTEMPT (Edited)
1. I agree the appropriate tropes are the long journey and the zig-zag path.
2. I think there are two types of transitions: sudden and gradual.
2.1. Saul’s was sudden. On the road to Damascus, he heard God’s call, was rendered blind, and had the scales fall from his eyes after 3 days.
2.2. Dick’s was gradual and occurred over a span of 17 years from 1972 (the Karagatan failure) to 1989 (schism with Joma). The kerfuffle with Joma over the Plaza Miranda bombing was not the trigger for the “mind change.” It may have been the last straw.
2.2.1. The 9 deaths invoke Stalin’s dictum that “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
2.3. I speculate that there were many transition points over the years, some are on the timeline and many that are not.
o I imagine the loss of favored treatment after Mao’s death occasioned many skeptical thoughts in the commune.
o I imagine the loss of ideological innocence in the purity of the Communist ideology — encapsulated in Deng Xiaoping’s insight that “It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.” — was significant.
o I imagine small incompatible personal brushes with Joma — a look, a word — in Utrecht had their effect.
o I imagine the personal antagonism with Joma had more to do with the conversion than anything else.
2.4. It would seem to me this was a conversion by a thousand cuts.
3. So the question of “Does it matter if it was 40 million or 9 deaths?” is, to me, slightly off point… although it was the first question I posed.
3.1. I think my point was more that immoral acts — the acts of duplicity and violence — were/are intrinsic elements of the Communist methodology and should not have been at the root of the change in heart.
3.2. Basically, my question is: Why the sudden acquisition of non-consequentialist morality? And I have partly answered this in my concession that at the heart of communism are moral norms that concern the individual. But I am not convinced this is the true answer.
4. I would also question the assumption that Harry’s transition prior image was a mere masquerade. How do we know it was not sincere?
4.1. How do we know that Harry’s loss of morality was not genuine? Whereas, conversely, Dick’s gain of morality is?
4.2. We have to take the genuineness of their prior images and transitions from their words and acts. The knife of skepticism cuts both ways.
http://opinion.inquirer.net/108484/my-friend-harry
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2.4. It would seem to me this was a conversion by a thousand cuts.
Would Dick’s journey (and tergiversations) be conceded as his own metanoia in the sense of Thomas Merton’s usage?
* * *
(Off-off-topic: I recommend 1956 movie THE BURMESE HARP for Japanese culture aficionados; just saw rerun last night)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burmese_Harp_(1956_film)
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I’m sure it was an awakening of some sort. Metanoia? I’m not sure.
I intend to watch the movie. It’s on my list. Kon Ichikawa, director. IMDB rating: 8.1.
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I appreciate very much your taking the effort to make that timeline, edgar. Regarding the early days and the Tomes listed, perhaps our young idealists should just have read one book: George Orwell’s Animal Farm. But since it came out only in 1945, it may have been treated only as a Comic Book, instead of those heavies. Imagine if one were to say, “I don’t like communism because of Orwell’s Animal Farm.” Oh, no — it has to be those heavies, or be laughed at.
I second all of NH’s points. What a scholar, Edgar is. Only he would have conceived a timeline such as the one he so assiduously made. Hats off, hand salute, lodi, petmalu, more werpa. As to Animal Farm, NH is spot on. I would have been laughed out of town from a brainy KM teach-in.
Wil, I had to do my own version of Edgar’s timeline at an “earlier” age and be reconciled to what I found out about my own life. I found some peace after doing the exercise.
“5.3. What I cannot understand is the trigger for his apostasy. The trigger seems to be a crisis in morality.
o Why Plaza Miranda where only 9 people died? As compared to the millions under Stalin and Mao?
o Why the moral disgust when as a revolutionary he helped engineer the shipment of arms in the Karagatan and Andrea incidents?
o Why the squeamishness at Joma’s misdirection and subterfuge when the object of revolution was to foment violence to bring about regime change?”
I totally agree with edgar here!
I’m sure this fella Dick has blood in his hands, direct or indirect, so why the feigned immorality at the above examples? I know there were some American soldiers that were felled by the likes of Dick & company, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_N._Rowe ,
I don’t get how the above examples “changed” his mind, when he himself was more than game. Was it simply the way violence was being employed , ie. back to our proportionality debates?
He wanted to employ violence to rid the Philippines of folks he thought were keeping the Philippines down, same justification used by DU30 EJKs. Essentially a vote for culling, only diff is who they both think should be culled.
I don’t get it. Though I understand the appeal of socialism and communism, I like Steinbeck’s take on it , best antidote LOL! 😉
Steinbeck was ahead of his times. Little did he know that in the future Millionaires are former Billionaires.
And billionaires future trillionaires, karl.
Volatility, Corporal.
Loosening usury laws and digital creativity have also something to do with this state of affairs. 🙂
Wil, what a satisfying wrap-up to
– Dick Malay who went, who saw, who experienced, and who came to realize the ideas-things that matter — perhaps after some tergiversation (?), if I may borrow the word edgar used; and
– your story about Dick Malay.
I hope Dick Malay’s journey (I refer to edgar’s timeline table and notes) has ended and unlike Saul of Tarsus, his mind has been lighted, but his eyes not blinded by that light — on his journey of conversion to his present Paul’s self. It is not often one is able to span such range of experience and end up with some sure footing.
——–
tergiversation = the repeated change of one’s attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.
🙂 tergiversation = empirical regressive iteration = variation on a theme … maybe not.
Sonny, thanks. An alternative definition; but I used the definition compatible with edgars posting above. 🙂
Couldn’t resist, NH. I just hitched on yours, ’twas already complete. 🙂
Good morning sonny. 🙂
The wife says I show signs of incipient echolalia. 🙂 Insomnia too, NH. Top of the day to you too.
AN ASIDE
Assume three intelligent persons with their respective individual initial situations A, B, and C end up at a common desirable situation, OMEGA. Their paths to that journey may be very different. If that end is judged to be good, it may not matter much the paths. Provided the journey is not marked by a lot of criminal bloodshed and immorality?
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If I may quote myself:
“But in the moral universe, we also have to assume the constancy of the composing elements. Otherwise, in my understanding, we cannot talk about notions of responsibility and justice.
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The only problem is that knowledge is not constant to the humans discovering it. You may quote yourself if I am allowed to repeat myself. 🙂
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🙂
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“To the disemboweled voices who called me this Dick chap, this Malay guy, this Malay fella —
legally its questionably, morally disgusting. PERSONALLY, I LIKE IT. ” – DICK MALAY
Dick Malay did found love. He was angry. He embraced communism. Went to China. There, he found love … of Philippines.
Duterte should learn from Dick Malay.
Those 13,000 drug addicts he exterminated could have found rehab is the way. Well, Duterte cannot resurrect them but only in memories his way was not the right way.
Wait until Trump is in Malacanang. Trump will give Philippine President Duterte a tongue lashing on human rights !
Do you Filipinos allow a president come to Philippines with his coterie of well-armed intelligent secret service to berate your president? THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
China and Trump are ganging up on Duterte and the Filipinos just sat by doing nothing.
Deng Xiao Ping is the GREATEST TEACHER OF LOVE. Look what he did to Dick Malay: Go out comrade Dick, spread love not hatred.
Thank you Deng Xiao Ping for saving the Philippines from pogrom.
On the other hand, shouldn’t Dick be found guilty of gun running and smuggling? Exciting rebellion?
Why is he still free?
We will have the odd circumstance where leftists protesting on Roxas will be protesting two presidents at once. Awesome!
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ADDITIONAL MUSINGS FROM THE REACTIONS OF MICHA, NHERRERA, SONNY, AND SABTANG BASCO
1. I understand the attraction of Communism. It is a complete socioeconomic-political philosophy. When one reads leftist writings on the socioeconomic order – the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, landowners, etc. – the philosophy does seem to be comprehensive and inviting.
It is said that the basic flaw of communism is that it goes against human nature.
2. There is something lemming-like in the collectivist Filipino psyche. In the ideological hotbed that is UP, one is supposed to find the crème de la crème of the Filipino mind. And yet, what one sees is a collective hive mind and the lack of individual critical thinking. From the teaching staff and the students. I am aware of the leftist leanings of some of the professors and they have infected the students.
3. What strikes me is the radical tergiversation of faith in a deity to a godless faith. This, we know, is the hallmark of the true believer. But in Dick’s case, there is also the counter tergiversation from godless Communism to, I assume, idolatrous Catholicism.
4. And we also witness countless times the tergiversation from incurable romantics (Micha’s characterization) to despicable prostitutes (of talent). The Harry Roque phenomenon.
There is a lack of principle, a lack of integrity. Consequentialist thinking.
4. Dick’s comment in Part 1, the one that Sabtang Basco cites, does not strike me as coming from a rebel who has found love. I am sorry.
o “Disemboweled?” Excuse me, is that love?
o “Personally, I like it.” Full of egoic satisfaction?
5. So here we are faced with a man who, like all of us, embodies the contradictions and the ambiguities of the human heart and mind.
o A wise traveler who knew when to get off?
o Or one who has indeed found love but not enlightenment?
o On which train does he now ride? On which train do we?
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“2. There is something lemming-like in the collectivist Filipino psyche. In the ideological hotbed that is UP, one is supposed to find the crème de la crème of the Filipino mind. And yet, what one sees is a collective hive mind and the lack of individual critical thinking. From the teaching staff and the students. I am aware of the leftist leanings of some of the professors and they have infected the students.” Edgar goes MRP!
There are of course certain ideological currents among Philippine intellectuals – the leftist ideas that came in the 1960s – ideas of liberation for many, as the American model was suspect, seen as protecting the Filipino oligarchy, the trapos, add sympathy for Vietnam’s struggle..
then the Filipinization wave – Sikolohiyang Pilipino and its successors. Even if one has critical thinking, Filipino students tend to cluster around “lodi” (new word for idol, I have found it) and ideas become some sort of peer pressure, especially around the more mediocre professors..
For both of these directions, your sources (USIS, Jefferson Library) are about as valid as Rappler is for a DDS and Mocha Uson – BIAS SI EDGAR! If you had quoted Ateneo you would have been possibly called a Jesuit stooge – recently former Atenean benign0 has taken to using that formula as well against Aquino, Roxas. Kabataang Makabayan were told not to talk to SCA people (Gascon and Leni are from that grouping) so it is all barangay, barkada, clan.
Of course in a collectivist society the worst punishment is ostracism, which is exactly the aim of Mocha style propaganda – or its intellectual predecessors. In fact UP and its activists were pioneers in Cultural Revolution style name calling and isolation of people. A typically Asian style of punishment invented in China. Of course if one is outside of that cultural dynamic, where people tend to shun you if you are shunned by everybody else, it is easier to survive. Living in the Philippines, in UP (c) MRP, or in an OFW community – better avoid isolation.
And many of the slogans of Duterte and his followers are bastardized, half-digested (tae!!) mixtures of leftist and nationalist slogans. In that sense, Duterte is a demon, but grown in the garbage of both left and right Filipino ideologies. The ideology is a bastard of UP Balara and Ugong Norte, conceived on a trash heap. Interestingly, many who come from the left and the nationalistic right have fled towards the liberal center recently. A Leloy Claudio who used to be anti-yellow has written much in defense of Filipino liberalism recently – something that the usual crowd would have seen as un-Filipino, possibly even Atenean, clerical, Padre Damaso..
o “Disemboweled?” Excuse me, is that love?
o “Personally, I like it.” Full of egoic satisfaction?
I am not millenial, so I do not know if that qualifies as petmalu (malupet)
Vanity is definitely there, a bit. But all Filipino elites (intellectual and political) are vain. Duterte as a demon is an embodiment of that vanity to its pathology, malignant narcissism. The savior complex that many Filipino heroes (and wannabe heroes) had (the willingness to sacrifice even their own people) is embodied is Duterte’s sociopathy. Possibly the lesson of Duterte is HUMILITY. My opinion is that it has not yet been learned. Loki the trickster has entered Valhalla to provoke Ragnarok, the end of things where the gods in their pride set fire to all.
Pinoy Milennial vanitty or narcissism- Ggss
gwapong gwapo or gandang ganda sa sarili.
Duterte-GGSS?
Basta sabi niya si Obama MNMP.
Maitim na, mayabang pa raw.
Yun ba sinabi nya dito?
Tanong natin ke Bong Go.
http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/11/10/1757615/resuming-rebuke-obama-duterte-calls-him-black-arrogant
Pero kung maputi o maputim at mayabang oks na oks lang.
Sabi ko sa Twitter, mas matangos naman ang ilong ni Obama.
https://www.rappler.com/nation/185492-pinoy-ako-blog-lorraine-badoy-insult-social-media-reax
Si Nieto naman nag power trip, pati si Roque sinabigang mag resign.
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Irineo,
Bias si Edgar!
o The sources of my info may be relevant or not.
o The assumption that I have a single source is flawed.
I have many sources of info and conditioning:
o I not only went to Thomas Jefferson but also visited the British Reading Room (in Arlegui?).
o I read the books I mentioned except the one by Robert Conquest.
o I read (and scanned) Playboy.
o I come from a Christian upbringing.
Again, the point I make is: Are my observations and conclusions valid, never mind the source?
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I take on board your points on peer pressure and the academic milieu. You are closer and more knowledgeable about the milieu than I ever was.
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Of course you are not bias(ed) – but a lot of UP activist types and even some professors were quick to label people a certain way if they did not agree with their ideas. The irony of fate is that they, as intellectuals, are often now among those labeled yellow by the Dutertians.
Fortunately my awareness is not purely UP – my mother taught at Ateneo which is nearby. Different world, at a time when the difference in Weltanschauung was much larger than now.
To know why UP is such a world in itself, one must remember that UP Diliman is a compound of several hundred hectares, including colleges, houses of professors (we lived in Area I) and dormitories of which more and more were built. One can stay there for weeks on end without getting into the hustle and bustle of the rest of Metro Manila. UP even has its own police force. For me to be able to steal away to Cubao (!) after going to school in Philippine Science which is between EDSA and Quezon Memorial was a release into seeing a bit more of the real world.
Of course it is like any other Philippine institution, with the usual dynasties or families that stay in the institution or children following the same courses, including networks that span generations. You have Trillanes father and son at PMA. You have Ambassador Narciso Ramos and Leticia Ramos-Shahani at DFA. You have names like Kintanar and Magno at DOST. But a de facto city within a city makes things even more extreme than elsewhere.
Of course the problem of UP is an issue in many parts of the Philippines – an insular form of Weltanschauung or worldview (good you know the term) which makes it hard to understand and even harder to accept other viewpoints. Tolerate yes, but Goethe said mere tolerance is disrespect. Archipelagic worldviews, not just the one from ones own “island” (UP, Ateneo, PMA, DFA, DOST etc.) and “hill” (rank) are yet rare in the Philippines, I think. That is why those who have been places like Dick Malay, have compared perspectives, are valuable.
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Insular, that would partly explain it. But I would think UP has an extensive library and other resources that would create cracks in the insularity.
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A lot of every man for himself at UP, inspite of library. My father’s private library with some very valuable books ended up donated to him by La Salle, where he taught after UP didn’t want him anymore. Probably safer there than with any state library or institution.
That the UP Faculty center burned one day after historians declared their view of the dictatorship was significant because some sources in the offices of professors that pertain to Martial Law were lost forever. The timing Mafia-like. And most state institutions are “burara” with historical stuff – that includes diaries of Juan Luna, donated to the national library by his only son who lived in the US, and somehow lost by the National Library in Ermita.
Many wished it was just an April Fool’s joke, but it wasn’t.
https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/127898-up-diliman-community-faculty-center-fire
Benign0 was also from UP, but he did go to Ateneo from elementary to high school.
I too wanted to say that Edgar went MRP.
Lodi, to be honest,I have to thank Wil, I was tooo slow, I thought it was somekind of an insult or an expletive before.
I meant the lodi part, I just figured it out when I read Wil “say” it. Then Irineo repeated it.
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Karl, always say what you want to say to me.
There should be no lodis.
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Edgar sorry it is just a coincidence that I look up to you, but I was sharing my ignorance to the colloquiallism. ngayon ko lang nagets na idol pala ang lodi.
Me too, Neph. Lodi (also a US place) is a song by Bobby Goldsboro and CCR, to me. 🙂
Thanks for the FYI, Unc.
You’re welcome, Karl. Sorry for being trivial, bringing in pop icons. Defense mechanism ko kasi. Either CCR or else, Simon & Garfunkel’s I AM A ROCK. 🙂 yikes
And the MRP mention was just that he always has something to say about UP, some valid of course and some hyperbolas.
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Irineo, Ahaha!
The question is not that I have gone MRP. The question is: Is my criticism valid?
Essentially, my criticism is that UP, in certain respects, does not foster critical individual thinking.
That the criticism aligns with MRP’s thinking is coincidental. It does not diminish the point. And one would have to grant that MRP has his lucid moments.
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Few places in the Philippines foster critical individual thinking. What Karl says now, that benign0 went to UP for college, fits.
The “face and power” style he has, putting down people, is typical for many from/in UP. Words and intellect are there to prove superiority and shut up the other side, not to learn or educate.
That Ateneo University Press by now has a more impressive sortiment of books about Philippine history and culture is not surprising – could be that UP became too stifling.
Irineo, I was pleasantly surprised at the crossovers going on between Diliman and Katipunan Rd. A classmate in college ended up as one time Chancellor at UP. Hybrids are different breed, i say. 🙂
True, the crossovers have been a game-changer, from what I heard especially since the 90s. The often hardheaded nationalism of UP tempered by more cosmopolitan Ateneans, while the sometimes elitist attitude of Ateneo was tempered by nationalists coming from UP. Which is why the big universities of Manila tend to stand as one force nowadays when it comes to EJKs. Contact and mixture between tribes is what forms a nation, eventually. Plus this:
http://filipinogerman.blogsport.eu/morals-and-action/comment-page-1/#comment-18300
Maybe Popoy can interject, he was a long time faculty member of the UP NCPAG (ansipag).
Gadzooks, I had my son pointed toward UP, but maybe he’d do better in UC Berkeley in the US where liberals and radicals are hatched to form the social conscience of America. Then he can come back here and . . . oops, be jailed for his ideas.
I’ve really gotta work on this education thing for Junior.
It depends very much what courses he takes and what specific people he gets in contact with. Somehow UP Los Banos with its scientists came across a lot more laid back than UP Diliman – without compromising competence. I don’t know how developed US Visayas is nowadays.
Thanks.
I am biased, Joe. I recommend Ateneo for Liberal Arts and Science. The school is sectarian but look at alumni such as Gordon or Mike Arroyo or Sonny Dominguez 🙂 Ooops. I shouldn’t forget Manny Pangilinan or Mar Roxas.
Got it. Thanks, Sonny.
You’re welcome, Joe.
Yet, I realize the added uniqueness of Joe, jr’s situation. He’s bicultural, like my two sons born here stateside. A little different ‘coz their mom and I are both Filipino-born and raised. There’s more nuance to this kind of decision.
“but maybe he’d do better in UC Berkeley “
https://www.deepsprings.edu/
I say, start your son off here, Joe (2 year college, FREE, near Mammoth in the eastern Sierras), if Berkeley then make sure he minors in business or finance, Berkeley’s actually teeming with Republicans (in their business school), to balance off all that liberal crap.
Personally, i’d keep junior away from big schools , look into Middlebury and Bennington colleges type institutions, small is better. But seriously look into Deep Springs college for his freshman and junior years in college.
Ah, thanks, LCX. Interesting that we were in that region earlier this year, in Yosemite. Just a short hike over the mountains . . .
Though it closes for winter and re-opens in the spring, the 120 hwy cuts right thru, Joe…
Here’s further reading of that area if interested, http://www.indiana.edu/~sierra/papers/2015/waling.html
of particular interest:
1. Mono Craters tunnel (engineering feat)
2. Long Valley Caldera (big volcano there)
3. Mammoth Geothermal Complex (electricity)
As a bay area native, I really have no qualms with UC Berkeley, Joe. But if your son does end up there, make sure he gets out of the bay area and spends time in …
some good oysters up there.
… and don’t miss this, http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/Missions/Recreation/Bay-Model-Visitor-Center/
Come to think of it , Joe… Maybe you can write a blog on education over there, ie. choice of schools. From high school to college to universities, and options to study abroad. Are there Middlebury , Bennington college equivalents there?
How about military-type prep schools, most Chinese are now sending their kids to these , this one in Carlsbad, in Socal is one example, though most are in the East coast, https://armyandnavyacademy.org/
I’m totally curious about Deep Springs when searching schools with sonny, jr2. He ended up at Cooper Union – NYC. 🙂
Edgar goes MRP! That is news. And edgar explained why.
But MRP going edgar — that will be the day; and will be like cymbals and drums hereabouts; and will definitely requires celebration.
Two lodis of a kind? Won’t happen. 🙂
In going from A to a desirable B:
1. Even when the constancy of values considered desirable are selected trough time, surely there is not only one path that is possible — if we are in the area, say, of country governance. Two great knowledgeable and reasonable minds who attempt such process will most probably not agree on the same path.
2. Also, this time wise optimization process will be undertaken while in the midst of most often severe country constraints.
3. Thus, I make the proposition that to achieve the ideal of optimization of values at each point of time is not possible if we have also to arrive at a desirable and reasonably ambitious goal. (Please understand that I am not talking here of consequentialism in its rather distasteful form.)
4. Thus, if we impose value optimization through time, then we have to admit of a very modest goal, and accept a simple lifestyle for all through time.
You are outlining exactly West Germany’s postwar approach. It did lead to prosperity over time, small gains adding up cumulatively. The Philippines has DM-PHP exchange rate of 1:1 and the peso better buying power in the 1960s. Manila was more modern than Singapore.
Germany, just like the successful Asian countries, built its success on a long-term base. Filipinos spent every gain quickly – after the 1960s AND now, sliding back a bit each time.
Two great knowledgeable and reasonable minds who attempt such process will most probably not agree on the same path. …
NH, this reminds me of the dendritic nature of creation and propagation of yes-no decisions. Plus reality and nature does this in 3 dimensions. I’m using the image of snowflakes displays on a windshield. The digital pathways go ad infinitum like crazy in no time (Discard this thought if hexagon crystals don’t make sense; it’s my echolalia acting up again) 🙂
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1. I will agree with the first proposition that there may be two (or more) different feasible paths to a goal within the context of time.
2. But there are many types of goals — short-term, medium-term, long-term. And a single major goal can contain many sub-goals. Your Pert/CPM. Destination B may consist of many stages — B1, B2, B3… Bn.
3. All types of time-bound goals are desirable. But I will agree that incremental implementation and progress are definitely more stable.
4. I will also agree, up to a certain point, that a simple lifestyle is healthy and to be wished for. I believe we follow such a style. But our abstractions are not so simple.
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Please release me. Thank you.
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🙂
Reminds me of
* Engelbert Humperdinck’s Lyrics — “Please Release Me (Let Me Go)”
* And the current blog article Parts 1 and 2 on Dick Malay:
Please release me, let me go
For I don’t love you anymore
To waste our lives would be a sin
Release me and let me love again
A speculation: considering the numbers of lost lives in the pivot to Communism, the absence of humaneness seemed not to matter much in the deliberations of its eventual practitioners. The pathology in the wake of its continued existence must be brought home to civil memory.
I don’t always agree with edgar , but when I do it’s 110%. Your criticism is valid , sir.
Off topic (please delete if inappropriate)
Goodness. Now we have a host of supposedly intelligent men mastur … in front of women.
Now is that the way your Mama told you to greet women? I bet Old Moses didn’t.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/09/health/masturbation-sexual-harassment/index.html
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My comments are going into the spam bucket.
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@edgar8lores
Mr. Malay had one comment, that means there is a chance he can answer your queries.
I gogled Mr. Malay and there is nothing that Wil has not covered, so the next best thing is to go to a more googable personality and that is Joma.
Here is his take on theory and practice.(of communism)
https://josemariasison.org/re-with-jms-on-theory-and-practice/
https://josemariasison.org/on-art-culture-science-and-ecology-an-interview-with-jose-maria-sison/
in this interview, mention of the movement is just secondary,but it might help.
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Karl, thanks.
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Welcome, Edgar.
what Pinas really needs
delete DELETE the first two links mere dreamy serendipity; watch and cogitate
the third link SYNCHRONICITY AS REVOLUTIONARY eche bucheche.
Inside the White House or Malacanang Palace?
From what planet did the Blue Man Group came from?
from Planet Pasig or Planet Potomac; watch the cabinet members perform
their sworn duties.
two countries today whose souls comes alive in celebration:
Delete the link above, if and lots of IFs . . . . Soldiers won’t mind about anything
that’s nothing to do with defense of a country and its people.
I’ve lost track of the links. I seldom load them because of slow band width, and prefer that people argue with real words.
copy. fair enough; blogs are really for words but like twitter, facebook, Instagram etc, suffer from specificity and inadequacies, but the medium remains the message whether rubbish wisdom or adroit intellection.
🙂 Yessir!
All soldiers of all countries, democratic or communists DIE for their country and people,
All rebels who fight their country no matter what the rationale, all rebels die for their
cause and ideology and their cult heroes at the expense of those their own people against their cause.
Tall Takes (yes takes not tales) from the Tigulang:
When I was teaching the masteral course on Management of Rural Development, I took advantage of the academic freedom to tread the road less traveled. And tried to show the sights to my students the carnivals of choices from the dictatorship of the proletariat, the cultural revolution, the pedagogy of the oppressed, the Ode of Ho Chi Minh, the kibbutz, the rural harmony models of the West.
I remember telling my students that Karl (not you Karlos of TSoH) of London Museum fame WAS ALL WET because the essence of his theses, his proletariat was in factories when even in post industrialization Olde England at the time and the rest of the world, it was in the rural areas.
Mao saw it partly in his Long March the vastness of the rural areas as a possible stalags of the parasite elite for his cultural revolution; Pol Pot irrigated with blood the rural areas of Cambodia as his Killing Fields. My point then, I was not able to make clear was that if the theses is all wet, the people and country will get drenched to contract chronic pneumonia by a faulty anti-theses.
Soooo? So what? Hello? What’s the synthesis then of this bally ho eche bucheche of rebel patriots. It’s right under our noses NOW if I am not mistaken. Who can call it synthesis ? What child in 1968 will remain a child for almost 50 years? What people’s army will remain new, staying new that long? An old landless illiterate farmer, a tenant of many generations will say: Walang utak. Walang Hiya. Perwisyo.
So what is the point of rural development then as it became in the West, in Australia, UK, USA, Canada, Scandinavia ? If it is the people’s cause, why did the people not embrace it, sweat and die for it for more than 39 years ? Normal ethos must have been invaded by an incurable ideological pathology.
The West had shown it even in meager significance. Rural (really human) development is when almost everybody no matter how lowly or incapacitated has developed himself to his FULL POTENTIAL like a lowly minimum wage earner or small land owning farmer living free like birds, DECENT lives.
So what is really the point in all this eche bucheche of the blogs. It is this. What has happened, is still happening in the Philippines is a theoretical affliction I call an incurable ideological pathology. Economics is the science of wealth getting. Greed for riches and power and its returns and results in luxuries and extravagance can never become an ism or ideology. To contest, fight it with an ideology of democracy or communism is to wet one’s feet with pees of clueless patriots. And for more than 30 years? Diyos ko po!
To lie or tell the truth with statistics: the greedy powerful as statistic (no s) is may be less than 10 per cent of the population; if it is 90 per cent instead, then bloggers should read what Professor Stephen Hawking of Cambridge is saying now.
I was almost baptized as Karl Marx, but it was changed to Karl Marc because of the military chaplain’s nudging. That was what my late grandma told me.
Stephen Hawking told us to leave the earth within a century.
Elon Musk is working double time.
By Armistice Day, WW1, 10+ million lives were lost. And leaders of the time were agreed this war was just prelude to WW2.
LOL! Happy Veteran’s Day!
on a more serious note…
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Thanks for all the inputs — the food for thought — Chemrock, Irineo, Karl, NHerrera.
Let me see if I can respond to all.
I might begin with Chemrock’s first.
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May I ask what Chemrock asked about the difference of the number of deaths before change of heart/ enlightenment or what ever changed his mind?
In the link I shared to you, Joma mentioned of propaganda to counter propaganda.
Brainwashing happened and it will take several steps to unbrainwash your self.
That is my simplistic explanation.
It is like unlearning to ride a bike and unlearning to swim. Nope, not those.
My point is, it takes a lot of courage, too unlearn stuff stuck in your brain.
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Totally agree.
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My response to Chemrock is still in suspense.
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I have no reason why the AI algorithms are dumping you into spam. Either you are out marauding on internet comment threads as a spamming troll, someone else of the same name is, or it has just learned from your enumerations that you are a suspect. You might need a new name or e-mail or computer ID, I dunno. I’ve nothing else to suggest.
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The spamming is not consistent. Some posts go through, some not.
Just a while ago, my response to LCpl_X about Remembrance Day was taken in.
Perhaps, I’ll create another ID as you suggest.
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Make it Lodi….joke only.
I have this experience: once on a Sunday relaxing at a Mall, I used my iPad — a “hand-me-up” from a niece. I couldn’t have my TSH posts admitted in spite of the wifi strength being good. (I usually do all my TSH postings at home with my old Asus laptop.) When I got home shortly after and used the Asus no problem about my postings getting through.
Of course I am not an enumerator like edgar. 🙂
My point about women. NO MATTER, notwithstanding, REGARDLESS of WHO, WHAT, WHERE, HOW or WHY they are, women are adorable created from a rib of man in the image of Mother Mary, women stands fast as adorable deserving of respect. To be civil to be judgmental of those who don’t see that: they are Wakarangs.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/celeb-style/melania-trump-style-file/ss-AAku2oM?ocid=spartandhp#image=14
When first ladies just being what they were (wear?) contributed to the greatness of America by standing beside their husbands in times of trials and turmoil, do not prejudged them as their husbands are prejudged for their follies and braggadocios.
Maybe we’ll get somewhere if we minimize person-centered discussion and go instead for the ideas they hold/represent/fight for.
Okay, grouchy, you first. hahahaha! Joke, joke! I like you and appreciate your engagement here, really.
I know it’s a profile article and it can’t be helped dissecting the person but wouldn’t it be more bloggy productive if we talk about the isms he embrace or abhor? Persons come and go; ideas with universal values remain – at least until such time it is perceived to have universal values.
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It’s pretty hard dissecting a private personality. With public personalities, I would have no qualms.
So there is tension between being tactful and being honest and frank.
Integrity demands honesty.
*****
It’s an open forum, and as far as I can tell, no one is being disrespectful. Indeed, the conversation is one of the richest we’ve had. I see no reason to restrain or redirect anyone, and readers are certainly free not to read.
Micha, sir or girl or woman or lady, please read my post above on TALL TAKES OF THE TIGULANG may be by accident it is about ideas that could be hurting to the clueless.
In a lighter vein Micha, read about it in the TVA, it is not about people like say the hillbillies of Tennessee, its about a humble idea on transforming a valley into humane greatness, TVA was partly copied but probably failed in BRBDA (Bicol River Basin Development Authority). River Basin (Watershed) development is an actionable idea. Sorry medio na layo ang retort ko.
Micha, It could be boring. anyway here’s the link for the TVA America
https://www.tva.gov/About-TVA/Our-History
Yes popoy, it’s the same Tennessee Valley Authority that the neo-liberal scum in congress and Wall Street wanted to privatize.
popoy,
I’m not sure what you meant by “ideas that could be hurting to the clueless”.
Karl Marx has industrial powerhouse Germany and Britain in mind when he wrote Das Kapital – not the tsarist agricultural vastness of Russia.
I remember telling my students that Karl (not you Karlos of TSoH) of London Museum fame WAS ALL WET because the essence of his theses, his proletariat was in factories when even in post industrialization Olde England at the time and the rest of the world, it was in the rural areas.
that’s my point Micha (a wick that needs lighting ba?) Karl Marx’s theses did not include rural volks, which sort of weaken the ism of communists. The formulation of anti-theses was weaken significantly. In the cities during the sixties we have lots of factories mostly garments, foodstuff, etc. We also have Kilusang Mayo Uno and what have we got now, Piston and Pasadang Masda, soon the jeepneys will be gone while our farmers and fishermen scavenge for their next meal. If that premise is wrong I believe my students could learn also from my being wrong. You can not dissect ideas without touching persons or people. Ideas came from them not from chemistry of inert physical bodies or the gaseous atmosphere.
Marxism is a critique of capitalism and Marx offers an alternative to what he considers a flawed economic system characterized by exploitation and alienation of industrial workers. Marx believed that enslavement and exploitation were also the hallmarks of capitalism that’s not much different from the system of slavery and feudalism which came before it.
If you think this weakens his idea because it doesn’t include the dynamics of an economy in a feudal agricultural setting, you are of course right.
That explains why the communist experiment in both Russia and China failed or is an aberration of the original Marxist idea because there was no spontaneous effort from the exploited workers themselves to organize and agree amongst themselves to share equally the fruits of their labor or, for that matter, the surplus value that they’ve managed to create.
The peasants in Russia and China were ordered around by very few communist apparatchiks. The workers were not really freed. The system of enslavement and exploitation continued as in the slave economy and European feudalism before the French Revolution.
There were masters and serfs. Politburo big boss and peasants.
There was top-down hierarchy of power from both Lenin and Mao; not the bottom seizing the means of production and democratize the wealth created from their labor.
If someone can translate that into Tagalog, or Visayan, as karl said “Knowing is half the battle…”
As for democracy…
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Micha,
If the bottom seizing of the means of production occurred today and the laws were changed so that each worker became a stockholder, and the capitalist owners were banished or made to work for an equal wage, what would happen?
o Would the enterprises survive?
o Would the management of the enterprises be efficient?
o Would there be attention to innovation?
o Would there be investment in R&D?
o Would the workers be motivated to work harder?
I think I read a case where something like this was put in place and it was a shambles. A co-operative structure, which is the opposite of a hierarchical structure, is inefficient.
o Why would any worker take orders from another co-equal worker?
o Why would a skilled worker accept an equal wage or the same benefits as that of an unskilled worker?
The psychology of communism seems to be awry. We go back to Deng Xiaoping’s cat.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
“A co-operative structure, which is the opposite of a hierarchical structure, is inefficient.”
How about small towns in the Philippines, edgar? I’ve always wondered if the Mondragon idea can be applied in the 3rd world,
where co-operation is more ingrained than say the developed 1st world, where there’s more me, me, me… operating in deed.
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I believe it might work for certain types of rural efforts like home craft industries.
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I notice also there’s a lot more co-ops in cities like Detroit, post-industrial type cities in the Rust belt. In absence of industries, the default is co-op.
… where people are more suspicious of corporations and board of directors with other priorities.
@edgar
The Mondragon Corporation as cited by the corporal is prime example of a successful cooperative system. Across the US and in many countries around the globe, several similar cooperative set up have proven viable.
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Yes, granted. But can Google, Apple, Amazon, or Alibaba be cooperatives?
*****
The next best thing I can find is a tech company partnering with a cooperative.
https://agfundernews.com/agricultural-cooperative-partnered-google-build-data-storage-platform.html
@edgar
Can google, facebook etc. be cooperatives? There is nothing to prevent its founders and/or owners to turn it into cooperatives.
Maybe the more nuanced question you wanted to ask is, could there have been a google, facebook, apple, etc. if it started out as cooperatives?
And the answer is simple : there would have been no google, facebook, apple etc. if not for the cooperative effort of the public sector, aka, publicly funded research and development by the US defense department through DARPA, mostly in MIT.
Almost all of the technology utilized by google, fb, microsoft, apple, etc came out from the public sector, aka, the government – a cooperative endeavor if you think about it.
Tim Berners Lee invented the internet out of another cooperative effort by governments around the world taking part in CERN atomic accelerator in Geneva – itself a huge success for mankind in understanding the quantum world but without the profit motive.
NASA’s Apollo project is another example of a successful cooperative effort.
Wikipedia, a successful internet company, structures its operation in a cooperative manner.
There are loads of other examples out there which utilize the cooperative spirit in organizing not only businesses and enterprise but the domain of public well being and interest.
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Granted. But DARPA’s contracts are with private enterprises none of which is a cooperative (?).
*****
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And what would be the advantage of a large corporation (Google, Amazon) turning into a cooperative?
*****
“Can google, facebook etc. be cooperatives? There is nothing to prevent its founders and/or owners to turn it into cooperatives.”
That’s a good point, Micha.
I’d add that most of these tech, Silicon Valley type companies, encourage coop environments to elicit innovation from its workers. So it could totally be less hierarchical IMHO.
But more proprietary stuff (secrets) lends it towards hierarchical , to be able to control information, thus products/services.
Also is bigger necessarily better here? Economy of scales. I remember 15 years ago, when I first Googled, I was hitting gold every time I searched, now I have to sift thru ads and first on the list links to get to what I’m looking for (most times my searches come up empty these days),
I would love for some company to channel that early Google back to existence, i’d drop Google now and search on that engine (maybe that can be a co-op effort, just pure info, no bs).
“could there have been a google, facebook, apple, etc. if it started out as cooperatives?”
Didn’t they all start as coops, in garages, dorm rooms and on chatrooms?
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I’m not sure one can call a couple of guy geniuses a cooperative.
*****
I think so, not with just the 1 genius or two, but when they start expanding, edgar… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative , like TSOH is a coop, if Joe wanted to, he could totally get everyone to agree to a 2018 Calendar to be sold for Christmas season (or maybe for 2019? 😉 ) , you of course will take December or January, since it’s summer there! If Joe says go, I’ll start doubling my abs routine. 😉 Let’s sell some calendars.
Wil has presented a man’s life , I’m sure not for flattery or for us to play coochy-coo , he intended Dick’s life to be examined here. Thus elicit lessons learned for public consumption, for some wider good.
The same way we can dissect Col. Jessup, I’m sure we can do the same with Dick’s morals and life patterns. So my point here is it is a person-centered discussion, how can it be not?
We’d be remiss if we just stopped at some form of hero-worship. If we can be person-centered when talking about DU30, etc. why not Dick?
corporal,
Ricardo Malay is not a public figure as far as I know. He’s a former revolutionary pushing back against Marcos cruelty and thievery. He might have erred in his judgement supporting Sison at some point but really, in the wider scope of things, what good will it do dissecting his persona?
In the present time?
In the present circumstances?
Is Ricardo Malay the enemy?
I read Wil’s 2 part series on this Dick fella as a continuation of edgar’s 2 part series on Ethics, that’s the context of my posts here, Micha, hence my agreement w/ edgar.
Wil has a penchant for love yes, but IMHO at heart he’s writing on these persons related to Philippine politics (press, ie. Korina Sanchez or politician, ie. Trillanes & D5, now rebel turned good guy, Dick) not so we would “love” them,
but so we would think about who they are and what they’ve done, as Chief Troll here I’ve always been consistently critical of all Wil’s articles based on individuals (that’s my track record)— it’s just recently edgar went critical (i think usually he just avoids Wil’s articles i’ve noticed).
So i didn’t have to be critical cuz edgar essentially did it for me (in his dissecting way, i tend to do it with memes 😉 ), but usually when these types of articles are presented TSOH becomes overly polite, which I think is the wrong approach to these articles,
we should be teazing out lessons learned, and whether fortune or by design Wil articles followed edgar’s articles on Ethics, i think we should be dissecting Dick’s life more using edgar’s scalpels and microscopes, he’s given us.
In conclusion, Micha, no he’s not the enemy but he’s on the operating table and there’s much to learn.
Revolutionaries don’t wage a revolution with the solemn pledge not to harm anyone.
I understand that, Micha… nor is DU30 vowing not to harm anyone. Same-same…
Duterte is wielding state power.
Dick Malay is now a political moderate private citizen.
Not same-same.
Maybe it’s flipped, where DU30 as a youngster as prosecutor didn’t vie for violence; where this Dick fella did; now DU30 is for violence, whilst Dick is anti-violent?
But my point is both at one point or another in their lives, supported violence as a means for change, hence same-same. Violence is the constant (what edgar’s point out above), it’s not something you can rationalize away (poof like magic disappears), Micha, whether done when young or old.
Fine, so would you rather now crucify the person and ignore the context in which his actions, justified or not, were taken?
sorry, carry-on we’re stuck on false equivalency. My bad.
And a lot of trolls present very valid views once one sorts the grains from the chaff, or the gains from the shaft. Excellent points.
“it’s just recently edgar went critical (i think usually he just avoids Wil’s articles i’ve noticed).” Hmm. I don’t think so.
And as to being polite? I wouldn’t have stayed here if I felt The Society of Honor was just toying with me. No sir.
But thanks for the input, Lance. Got to work some more. The business of a ship’s prow is to head to its destination, not to complain about turbulence or flotsam in the ocean.
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That’s just naughty LCpl_X trying to foment a schism. 🙂
*****
It’s true though isn’t it? I don’t recall your inputs in Wils Korina Sanchez, or D5, or Trillanes, or Robredo’s articles as critical.
Though I guess, could be just the violence angle here… which totally deserves criticism IMHO.
But I think also it’s the emotional component in Wil’s articles (which I tend to gravitate too, ie. how his AlDub articles garner so much reaction, still baffles me, this whole love theme vis-a-vis Filipinos, it is very interesting, thus i’ve always been a fan of Wil’s work and he knows it… it’s a mystery, its a peak into a people’s psyche),
so my observation is that you’ve not been overly critical , nor overly nice (also) re Wil’s individual profile type articles, am I right or am I right… his other articles is more because it’s too lovy-dovy (appeals to emotions), hence less dissection from you, giving lee-way, but here you’re the most dissecting , edgar.
or maybe you’re just anti-communist. But that is my take, the emotional articles you’ve tend to shy away from or hold your punches. So no schism attempts here, just an honest observation. But i do support your dissecting here is my point.
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Will’s profile articles are hagiographic in nature.
I appreciate reading the life stories. But after saying these are good people, there’s not much for me to contribute. Not much to chew on. I prefer sinners to saints.
I think the reverse is truer: Will does not say much in my articles.
I think this is because they are not in conformity with his worldview. He is comfortable with his faith and his cosmology, while I tend to question everything.
We have divergent affinities and interests, but we are united in fighting the enemy. His insights on FB are straight and true.
Will also is not argumentative or fond of argumentation. He is a peaceful guy. He even apologized to Sabtang Basco for I do not know what! I will have to review why he did so.
I can understand all of that. And I would not want to disturb Will’s equanimity.
Peace, Will.
*****
Edgar is Mr. Spock and Will is the author of Filipino dramas – different specialties.
Or if I am the philosopher and scientist René Deskarte, Will is the writer Víctor Hugot.
Since PCOO, Trump etc. misspell the country’s name, better call it Feelipines, ya feel me?
Excellent! Victor Hugot and Reneé happens to be the name of Wil’s other half.
“Will also is not argumentative or fond of argumentation. He is a peaceful guy. He even apologized to Sabtang Basco for I do not know what! I will have to review why he did so.”
it’s this, edgar… which is ironic, because…
MRP and Wil are my favorites here since they both are essentially doing the same thing, pulling the strings of Filipinos’ hearts albeit on different strings.
Ireneo’s more the anthro stuff and history of the Philippines.
Yours, NH and sonny’s input are more familiar, so when MRP and Wil write I pay closer attention since its specific to Philippine psyche/culture. karl’s links and memes are familiar too.
popoy’s adding a lot too (I feel it) but I’m finding that I have to almost decipher what he’s writing, MRP and Wil’s writings are easier to read. Once I crack popoy’s code, I think it’ll be trifecta. and I’ll unlock the secrets of the Philippines.
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Ahaha! So it was a threat and not an apology!
So now you understand why I do not want to be in Will’s way.
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It was a threat first, then he apologized in a follow-on comment days later for said threat, but I thought that was a very siga type threat. 🙂
Applause for your figures of speech Mr V, but not so drawn to some of your themes. ☺
Thanks for visiting the blog. The troll blocker flagged you for some reason. Your comment does not explain much so I don’t exactly know what you mean. This is a straight-forward discussion forum, so kindly put your issues on the table in that spirit. Thank you.
@Popoy,
Having been a long time UP prof, can you interject on the UP discussion above.
Thanks Karl but being me very fond of deductions I already, always had said a mouthful of details here in TSoH I label as eche bucheche of the clueless. Anyway, for example.
1. The NPA has remained the New People’s Army for almost 49 years. Still New, Why?
2. The CPP probably is the longest Don Quixote de la Mancha in Asia
3. Corruption is not Cancer or the ism and\or ideology as anti-thesis of Communism;
4. If the struggle for the sake of the people which had run for almost half a century had FAILED to get support of the people it purports to save from the clutches of evil, the struggle becomes reactionary, a futile revolution of imagined causes.
5. The insatiable greed for wealth and power is not about capitalism and brooks no ideology that can put it to death. The annals of corruption are still in the unburned records of government departments and agencies empowered to deforest and mine the natural resources. Go not Google but search the names of Beneficiaries of the judiciary decisions, of the granting of exploitation of the country’s natural resources.
6. The smouldering fire in the loins of youth whose young mouths were shouting: SIGAW NG BAYAN: HIMAGSIKAN, IMPERIALISMO, IBAGSAK, MAKIBAKA, HUWAG MATAKOT, DIKTADOR TUTA, IBAGSAK. And that was 30 years ago? Aww c’mon when protesters don’t get paid or free lunch and free bus rides to and from the provinces. And it is now happening in the most organized manner; Not and no longer by failed ideologues but their very target alleged monsters of governance?
7. In a South Pacific country when in the dash board petrol gauge needle points to E it means ENOUGH. When it points to F, it means FINISHED. That’s what it is in the Philippine polity now: BALIGTAD. The cultures of impunity, of corruption, of lawlessness, etc becomes an ideology of the haves and the powers that be which approaches the ideology of its nemesis which for almost 50 years had been trying hard to dislodge it from its pedestal of shame. .
Hey, prof ! Thanks for the outline.
On the jurisprudence against the environment, I am sure I would find lots of mining,forestry,land conversion cases.
Caveat to my perspective as it is based from Palma Hall, which sometimes does have the conceit of being the center of things in UP, but that is the world I have seen a little bit.
College of Law is another world altogether, guess the future lawyers are too loaded with work to be very political. MRP might ask about the College of Crookery, where it is.
My favorite place still is Abelardo Hall, College of Music. Fondest memories.
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Eh, Crookery. 🙂
*****
Thanks for sharing the fondest memories of your first kiss. joke only again.
Who knows, I might just have been hiding and watching.. what?
Sori I kennat tell you, it is a UP Secret.
Si Irineo nambubuso ng nagroromansa? Okey eh, normal lang. Huwag lang
palaging nag aabang.
Puedeng Haiku yan.
Si Irineo nambubuso
ng mga nagroromansa
kasi normal naman yan
Eh, Okay yan huwag lang
palaging nag aabang.
Pero Hiling ng Bayan
Sa mga tigulang
wala sanang pikonan.
Tugtog at palabas lang ang masisilip sa Abelardo Hall at UP Theater. Bata pa talaga ako noon.
Rehearsals naming mga bata tuwing Sabado, palabas yearly. Mga simpleng ligaya sa buhay.
Silip-silip sa mga rehearsals ng mga estudyante – West Side Story, Fledermaus atbp.
saan nangyari, sa likod mg acacia, o sa tagong lugar ng mga book shelves. sa UP Los Banos para bang araro ng labi sa labi o sa leeg, heh, heh. Eh. Sa likod ng Baker Hall
short cut puntang Social Garden meron Kissing Bridge.
Ireneo,
I remember asking my guide, where Toki was and why so many jeepneys were going that way. Hahaha… he said, that’s just Ikot spelled backwards, and told me what it meant, and right then I was like, ‘man, that is genius!’ , clockwise, counter-clockwise as destinations.
Toki is newer. In my time it was just Ikot, the other direction was ‘Kanto Katipunan’, exiting campus at the back. So you have seen UP!
The Colleges of Law and Education are mirror images, Palma Hall and Engineering as well.
In the center, the Admin building (at the entrance) and the library (back). The older buildings have a very American-inspired architecture, “monumental classicism”.
Part of UP was a US base or housing after the war, maybe sonny can pitch in there. First professors lived in American Quonset huts is what I remember.
Prewar UP, founded 1908, is UP Manila now. Near UP swimming pool there was a big tree with US carved into the bark, must have been when it was much smaller as the letters were deep and large. Maybe 1945 as opposed to 1975 when I saw it? Who knows.
Irineo, my earliest memory of Cubao (15th Ave & Aurora Blvd) is 1949. Our family was promdi Ilocos & Baguio. The marketplace was in Marikina and one had to cross the river by banca (of course, there is now a bridge) to buy fresh meat for Sunday’s pinapaitan. 🙂
UP Diliman and Loyola heights were only gleams in the eyes of its builders, the year was 1947. Among the scattered properties of the Jesuits was the Ateneo at P. Faura. And yes the classrooms were housed in quonset huts among the ruins of WW2. The ideas of UP Diliman and the Loyola Heights were hatched almost at the same time of that year.
The estimated rebuilding cost at Loyola was 1.5 million pesos. The school received 400,000 pesos from the US War Damage Commission. The rest came from US Jesuit benefactors led by NYC Mayor William O’Dwyer, US Postmaster Gen James Farley, Cardinal Spellman (archbishop of NY), and US President Harry Truman.
Hahaha, “Old People’s Army”! Love it. I’m going to twitter with it now . . .
My tweet:
So why is it called “New People’s Army” when its leaders are older than dirt and the ideas and slogans went dead decades ago. It should be “Old People’s Army” or “Slow Learner’s Army” or “Cranky People’s Army”.
Like.
When in doubt re-brand, LOL! how ’bout this,
AOL makes a come back!
Moribund pre-Dut, dead man walking, Dut-time.
puedeng haiku sagot
sa twit twit ni TSoH
older than dirt
are cobwebs in
haunted houses
where ageing ghosts
long avoid
so they live and
haunt abroad.
Haha, yes, they do. The more they haunt, the younger they stay.
Those Old People Army guy’s are still ”eating” the pension money from decent hard working Dutch people…Before the pension age was 65 for all..Now you have to go online and type your birth date to find out when you can get your pension/AOW….
https://www.svb.nl/int/en/aow/hoogte_aow/hoeveel_aow_later/
https://www.svb.nl/int/en/aow/wat_is_de_aow/wanneer_aow/index.jsp
🙂
Three points, Kuya Popoy.
Peace, everyone. A brotherly embrace to all of you. Nothing more to say. I’d better.
Offtopic: We’re in for a nice comedy show in town.
“We stand with the Philippines,” Bush said, toasting Marcos. “We love your adherence to democratic principles and democratic processes. We will not leave you in isolation.”
If I may, just if I may, Madlanglupa (people of the soil?) G. Herbert Walker Bush’s comment about President Marcos is condescending political diplomatese of dubious value except to those who can use it to justify their rightful causes. Even again and again it will always bounce hard if thrown to the wall of truth.
I think Allan Peter C is an intelligent wannabe, he should know the positive correlation between flying higher and falling harder. Not sure, but wasn’t he a former VP to one already?
He was. The only thing he has right now is that he managed to keep BGC to themselves from the Binays, more oil to polish his dome.
Tall Tales from the Decameron este Diliman of the Tigulang:
In the Days of Martial Law during
the System’s reign of O.D. and Noel the Titans
este Gods of Diliman Olympus without exception
were asked to sit as trainees for
the sake of system upliftment and development.
As the usual trainor alalay (coordinator kuno)
I sat at the back watching the clever backs of
of seasoned mentors fidget and shake their heads
as they listened at times to young upstarts
tell them about intricacies of feasibility studies.
Up there somewhere in Quezon Hall
may be is where I first heard Noel tell his co-Gods
the Deans and Directors of UP Diliman
his philosophy of planning (1) to be useful
(2) to be of service (3) to make a contribution
and (4) to apply distinctive competence.
I needed to be there all the time more as
gawker than alalay to what I understood
fondly as learning by doing the book:
“Resource Seeking Budgets for Dummies”.
I felt honored and humbled to be in
the presence of kreme de la kreme of the
country’s unsung and at times vilified creatures
citadels of education of the brave and able.
I was witness to mind over matter banter,
common sense matter over mind issues when
beauteous Atty, Law Center Director, later
Supreme Court Associate Justice Flerida Ruth : “We are
teaching Law. Do we need to be trained in Cost Benefit Analysis?”
So she was joined in remark by attractive Merkana mestiza:
Dean Ruby Kelley. “Are these compounding and discounting
cost and benefits, this time value of money important
in teaching music?” There you go. Little math science colliding
with the bocadora Arts of debating, singing and playing gadgets.
One coffee break I was cornered by two medicine titans of the Fauraversity.
Dr. Chuchi the Chancellor introduced me to UP-PGH hospital
Director Dr. Gabriel C. saying he is their top doctor, adding he was
their class valedictorian. No, no. no. answered Dr. C. He is the Chancellor,
he is my Boss. He is the Top One. It struck me both
doctors wanted to convince me one is lesser than the other.
To change the subject I told them more about the next lecturer
the CV of whom I must study before I made the introduction.
It took another also beauty, lady Titan, Business Ad Prof Dr. Magdalena C.
then COA Auditor to CB; headed by former Dean, CB Governor Jimmy C. L
to patiently, clarify in lucidity the content of the book for dummies.
I was paid to teach but my employer became my community service
as I have to repeat the alalay role for the System’s Regional Units
in beautiful Tolosa in Kokoy’s Beach Mansion by the Sea in Leyte
where my heart taught me what are arrythmias and papitations. Ages ago
that was but there’s more yarn of yabang, tall tales from Decameron, este
Tigulang as he walked like the bobo of the night on the grass, the dark halls
and corridors of great edifices of memories of the lyceum of the people
whose brain neurons empower a continuing wannabe nation.
Many names are mentioned for fact checking Popoy’s
dimming windmills of his eche bucheches.
Thanks Popoy,
I asked for it, I got it.
Since you talked about Olympus Gods and Titans, have you met Zeus Salazar?
A bit of a glossary for LCPL_X and others without knowledge of Palermo aka UP crookland:
Quezon Hall: the admin building at the entrance of UP, with the Oblation
O.D. = Onofre D. Corpuz – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onofre_Corpuz
Noel, don’t know. Fauraversity = U.P. Manila, medicine on Padre Faura
UP-PGH – Philippine General Hospital where Fauraversitarians train
Chancellors were introduced when UP became “federalized” UP System.
Community service: dictated by Marcos, two weeks per year I think for public servants.
My father did his community service in UP Balara, just a few meters from our Area I house.
Community service must have been 1975 or 1976, i doubt it lasted more than two years.
One very Filipino characteristic of the Fillippinno (?) dictatorship was its ningas-kugon.
Stuff was started to say “we are doing things” and then quietly stopped after a while.
The only Dean’s name that stuck from that time was that of Nemenzo, who later split CAS.
Ermita I’m more familiar with, Ireneo, closer to the U.S. Embassy and action. 😉 Thanks for the backgrounder.
May be, but uncertain. He must be
by a sub kingdom by the clouds
where rain, sleet and snow
nourish lesser mortals
like me down below.
Reply to Irineo:
Noel (Emanuel V. Soriano) occupied the newly created Executive Vice President Position and was from Business Ad.
Because they are not like me, may be even If I am like them I would not judged them for having work in what the judges had called crookland.
It is not me to have constancy and permanence of anger for oppressors.
I am constantly surprised by unfairness and the generosity and the venom
of reason for wrong doers.
I am a walking eche bucheche, but not an ice cold wakarang.
Crookland is a joke of mine pertaining to MRP constantly calling UP a haven of crooks.. hard to judge people so quickly, especially not knowing the circumstances that well.. though I do remember my father once saying that SP Lopez was a humanist trying hard to be a technocrat, and OD Corpuz was a technocrat trying hard to be a humanist. And I remember, as I was old enough to catch the buzz, that OD Corpuz was seen as the Marcosian UP President.
A panoramic view of UP history, of course with a personal perspective, is this book by Prof. Oscar Evangelista, my father’s longtime friend and colleague. His wife Sue Evangelista from MIchigan (cha knows her) and my mother from Berlin were both in Ateneo and BFFs as well.
https://books.google.de/books?id=v_DqOmhqtjIC&pg=PP4&lpg=PP4&dq=oscar+evangelista+up+book&source=bl&ots=NCuL0svZjM&sig=OfFRVGreKVMpoQDDxb5fEs71hs8&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8xdm9mbnXAhUR5KQKHdh_AMoQ6AEIWzAN#v=onepage&q=oscar%20evangelista%20up%20book&f=false
There is the time of SP Lopez, the predecessor of OD Corpuz as UP President – the tumultous period where Will was Diliman Commune participant.. so LCPL now knows where the siga comes from 😀
There is an entire chapter on Armando Malay, the activist dean (of CAS, Palma Hall always was the center of ideologies as the place for social sciences) and father of Dick Malay
Then of course the Class of 1956 which he belonged to.. sinceUP Diliman was still being hatched as an idea in 1947 as per Manong Sonny’s account, we are talking of a truly young campus!
There is also Father Delaney of UPSCA (the organization that would shape Gascon and Leni) – so you have a wildly woven fabric of different strands that make for a multicolored story.
THOUGHTS ON A SUNDAY NIGHT REGARDING DICK MALAY’S “CONVERSION”
I find these comments from among the undoubted stars of The Society of Honor very interesting:
Chemrock: I think the greatest struggle to any person is the inner struggle against one’s principles or ideologies cultivated over the years from personal world views, when faced with new knowledge … The inner struggle was probably a long journey, a zig-zag path that finally let to the top of the hill where the view was clearer.
Irineo: What I think is that Dick Malay’s supreme goal remained for a lifetime – for the country. What clearly changed was the conviction that Communism was the best way to get there.
edgar: It would seem to me this was a conversion by a thousand cuts.
Chemrock’s comment — the first part of the quoted excerpt, something I subscribe to — I believe is true among those who have time enough to think about principles, and, to be fair, even to the poor ones as they go trough the grind of living. Chempo uses this propostion as applying to Dick Malay armed with “new knowledge” without essaying into the details that brought up the conversion, except at the end where chempo suggests metaphorically that DM got “to the top of the hill where the view was clearer.” Hence the conversion.
edgar, goes into details summarized by him as a “conversion by a thousand cuts” after giving examples of those cuts. I do not want here to go into the details what is best savored by reading edgar.
Irineo, in a charitable vein similar to chempo’s, and perhaps clothing DM with the patriotism mantle suggests “Dick Malay’s supreme goal remained for a lifetime – for the country.” Irineo also suggests that in the early days DM had “the conviction that Communism was the best way to get there” and that has changed impliedly in the more mature DM.
In the end these are interpretations, charitable to DM or not but give us food for thought — they certainly do that for me.
Thank you Wil, thank you Joe, and all in TSH for the remarkable blog topic and the comments. Old as I am there are lessons here aplenty for me. You can still teach this old dog new tricks.
Thank you everyone, Joe, everyone, NH, Irineo, Edgar, Lance, Chempo, Popoy, Karl, everyone especially my fraternity brother Dick Malay from Upsilon Sigma Phi whose life I did not know has had so many twists and turns from boyhood’s stoning to Beijing to rooting for Ro-Ro. So many knockouts and getting up that would shame Rocky Balboa. I most especially like Brod Dick’s unbeatable love for God, country, family, fraternity. Don’t believe that frat boys are good-for-nothing drunks with intent to kill. Well, not all of them. Sorry for the plug, but Upsilon will be celebrating its centenary next year, 1918-2018, as the country’s oldest fraternity. Like Dick, our fraternity has had its glorious moments and its not so glorious, heart-stopping chapters (cue: Ferdinand Marcos and Ninoy Aquino are Upsilonians of finest vintage). And like Dick and Upsilon, the Philippines has had so many pushes and pulls, ups and downs, joyful-sorrowful-glorious-luminous eras that makes Irineo drool for sheer history. Fraternity, country, boys to men, friendships, societies survive astonishingly. Heads up, everyone, right hand to heart, teary eyes heavenward. Some individuals and entities just won’t die, determined to claim its place in the sun. Such is the hagiography I bring to table.
Thank you , Wil!
I know some of your brads that are my age bracket from my 6 years living in Navy Village.
Herbert Gabales, Martin Velasco,Royette Subida, maybe more.
I keep on seeing Herbert like your FB posts.
When you went “do you get my drift” earlier, I got nervous knowing you have many brads and would send them to Basco Batanes…joke of course.
I had a fist fight with Martin Velasco once away barkadang lasing, nakakahiya nga sa mga Subida nakasira kami ng gamit. Bakit ko ba naalala yun bigla.
No Karl. I have never hit a man in anger. Words are my weapon of choice. And yes, Herb. Unfortunately, Herb’s and my friendship is a casualty in the war in socmed. We’re very close, have fond memories of each other, but he went Duterte and the rest is history. He couldn’t stomach my editorials. He has dropped my page from his horizon, although we remain FB friends, and brothers. Sad.
Had a problem with relatives and friends in fb too, that is why I am only talkative here, but judt a greeter and liker in FB, most
‘Saw your post about unfriending.That may be the best option.
Thanks for this, Popoy. Baby wifey and I enjoyed it.
You are welcome pinsan. I grew up in Manila, rummaging the bacteria laden second hand books in Ascarraga. I choose my own cultural revolution by going to Los Banos, then Odiongan, Romblon, then Iloilo towns, Antique coastal and highlands, the Sierra Madre of
Rizal etc. to have unique kind of education, which inspires fiction like the little seamstress aided by Honore’ de Balzac. I have my own tall tales to tell.