Changes

I've moved back in with my folks. This economy's not conducive to living on your own, except, of course, if you earn something like PhP60,000.00 a month. I'm not that lucky. Hence, the change in title and sub.

I've been down with the worst flu I've ever had in my whole pathetic life. It was the real thing, too. Back aches, not just aches and pains. And loss of appetite. Now, when that happens, I'm really sick. So now I'm a bit lighter but just as mean-spirited as ever. This morning on my way to work, I managed to piss off another motorist who was in an obvious hurry. Apparently, he was already late for work.

Well, it wasn't my fault he was late. If you're late, there's no one else to blame but yourself. So don't take it out on the other working stiffs on the road on their way to work. But my friends tell me one of these days, they'd just read about my being shot on the road in a traffic altercation and they wouldn't be surprised. I really shouldn't be so mean but people insist on bringing it out in me.

My Carl called yesterday. The thought of this guy just gives me a warm fuzzy feeling all over, I just want to melt. He has such a warm fuzzy laugh, and I miss his warm fuzzy beard, which he says he's shaved off. I don't care. I just miss him and I want to be with him soon. Make a new beginning. Re-invent myself. Pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again.

Necessary evil

From my favorite irrascible columnist of the PDI, Conrado De Quiros:

There's The Rub : 'Necessary evil'
Updated 10:26pm (Mla time) Sept 12, 2004
Conrado de Quiros dequiros@info.com.ph

I REMEMBER that Bobi Tiglao dismissed the Ibon version of that finding by saying the group never published its methodology. As though the other survey organizations-Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia in particular-did. But comes now the SWS corroborating Ibon's finding:

Most Filipinos believe Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo won the elections by cheating.

Specifically, 23 percent of SWS' respondents said they believed Fernando Poe Jr. and Loren Legarda were "definitely cheated" and 32 percent said they believed the two were "probably cheated." That makes 55 percent of the population believing GMA (and Noli de Castro) cheated in the elections, to the extent that the SWS' sample represents the population reasonably accurately.

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Ignacio Bunye bristles at this revelation and says: "The polls on cheating are a throwback to the past. The Presidential Electoral Tribunal has already taken jurisdiction over the issues. We have to shed off these perceptions and get on with the difficult task at hand."

xxx xxx xxx

No, I am not amazed that the SWS has confirmed Ibon's revelation. You can fool all Filipinos some of the time and some Filipinos all the time, but you can't fool all Filipinos all the time.

I am amazed, however, by one thing. That is the equanimity with which we are taking all this. Elsewhere, news like this would be greeted with angry editorials and calls for the President to resign. Or at least for a full-blown investigation to be made. Here, we've met the news with a shrug of the shoulders and mutterings of "what else is new?" Truly, every day raises the bar in our capacity to tolerate iniquity.

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In fact, the only way we can deal with the difficult task at hand is for us to stop shedding our scruples about wrongdoing. The concept of a "necessary evil" is the most dangerous thing in the world. The only thing worse than financial bankruptcy is moral bankruptcy. We already have the second, the first is waiting round the corner.

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Once again, De Quiros hits the nail squarely on the head. However, I take exception to his statement that moral bankruptcy is just around the corner; it's already in place.

Peter Wallace, in his June 2004 Report, "Where To, Philippines?" states:

What is urgently needed now is to not only find out what has gone so drastically wrong, but then take decisive action to effect the necessary change. EDSA DOS should not be wasted. And there should not be an EDSA TRES. We must answer this problem—and then solve it, or the Philippines, and Filipinos, except for a small elite, will remain desperately poor, and growingly so, throughout this century. And I cannot emphasize too strongly that action to effect that change must occur. Talking about it is not action. Writing innumerable plans is not action. Doing it is.

I have identified the areas that need attention, that need change. But, in many ways, all these can be reduced to one underlying cause: self-centeredness—caring too little about anything or anyone else. Coupled with unbridled population growth, and all the attendant difficulties that places on any economy.

In the main change will have to come with the next generation through a school curriculum that emphasises social responsibility, morals and ethics. A sense of being part of a whole, of a team. Team Philippines – not “family dela Cruz”. But a start can be made now through informational campaigns by government. And by addressing some of the issues contributing to the decline of the Philippines. Selfishness, unfortunately, is not something that can be changed overnight — but it can be changed.

It had to take a foreigner to point it out. Philippine society is a clannish one, parochial, mired in feudalism. You don't have to be a sociologist to figure this one out. You don't have to immerse yourself in the daily lives of the urban poor. All you need to be is a Filipino in this day and age.

Fighting Terrorism: The price we have to pay

Wretchard of the Belmont Club has an entry in his blog that I found really good. It's a really terrific piece of writing, strong and to the point, wasting no words to deliver a heart-rending reality.

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

The Day

The seizure of 200 schoolchildren with their parents in Russia, for a total of perhaps 400, presumably by Chechen terrorists, caps a stemwinder of a newsday. The amazing thing is that the headlines were all of a piece: 12 Nepalis executed in Iraq; 2 French journalists held hostage in Iraq; 16 killed in twin bus bombing attacks in Israel; 10 dead in a bombing attack on a Moscow subway. xxx

This is the price we have to pay for a stupid war. America should have let things as they are in Iraq. But it couldn't. Bush had to have a war for his re-election campaign. And so the terrorist kidnappings happened. And the suicide bombings. Not to mention the sharp rise in oil prices worldwide. Life has become so difficult for the Filipino because of this Ugly American, Dubya. Ugly in every way.

I was just on the phone with my Dale and he was telling me he was proposing to increase the salary of his number one guy, the one who oversees all the factory operations. It's a garments company. The No. 1 guy takes home P70,000.00 -- a month. A MONTH.

I remarked that it was obscene. The minimum daily wage for a laborer is P280.00, for eight hours' work. That's P11,200.00 a month. And this guy's take-home pay's P90,000.00 A MONTH. I don't care if he's effective, efficient and dedicated. It's obscene. No one should earn so much in this time of hunger and destitution, not to mention war.

My Dale then said that he'd better not tell me how much he earns in a month. I said he was a capitalist pig. He laughed and corrected me: he was, he said, a mere capitalist tool, with a social conscience. According to his logic, how can he give away money if he doesn't earn any? Specious argument and I let him know it.

He just laughed at my bourgeois pretensions at being left-of-center.

If I had a take-home pay of P90,000 a month, I could easily support not only myself but my aging parents and my brother's family of a wife and two kids, plus two dogs, as well.

In the news last night, it was reported that gas prices had increased ten time since the start of the year. Talk about instability.