With an EDSA hero

I first met FVR when I was a young staff assistant to Oscar Villadolid of San Miguel Corporation, and he was the defense secretary. His first words to me were to this effect: I’m going to parachute into [I forget which area, and which unit, he mentioned] to bring beer to the troops. Want to come along? I declined, of course. (The beer part must have been because of the SMC connection.) This picture was taken almost three decades later, at a retirement ceremony for Ambassador Rodolfo Severino.

Bok

When I heard the news of Nonoy’s passing, I was hit in the gut, like many of us. It had been only a month or so since we first learned about his serious health issues; the end, when it came, was so sudden.

Since then, I have been obsessively reading all the news stories and personal accounts about the man we called Bok, our fearless leader and faithful friend.

I tried to recall the last time I saw Nonoy face to face, and it turns out it was during one of those Black Friday protests that he helped organize, in front of ABS-CBN. It was late February 2020, just a few weeks before the pandemic became official, and the Black Friday protests that started as a very small gathering on Roces Avenue had become a large mass action on Sgt. Esguerra Avenue.

After I said my piece, I stayed on the sidelines, and then said to him:

“Bok, tawid lang ako. Hindi pa ako kumakain.”

There was a restaurant right across the street from the protest, and it was open.

Nonoy replied immediately and naturally:

“Samahan kita, bok.”

And so I ended up having dinner with the chair of the NUJP, at a table that looked out into the street and to the street protest. It occurs to me, now, that for half an hour or so, I was able to share his vantage point.

What did he see from that vantage point? Allow me a personal reading. First, that courage is contagious. The small group that rallied on Roces Avenue had generated a real groundswell of support. And second, that conflict requires company, or companionship. Many of the stories and accounts about Noy stress that he was both a fierce advocate of press freedom and human rights AND a beloved, caring mentor; that he was both always on the frontlines but always ready to keep us, even starving columnists, company.

Young people these days have a meme-ready saying: The duality of man. But Nonoy, Bok, did not live a dual or divided life. He focused on the struggle, yes, but he also lived a full, happy, well-rounded life. He showed us the unity, the integrity of the journalist’s life, that we are all capable of.

He was the best of us; that’s why when he led, we followed.

Remarks prepared for a video sharing during the “media night” wake, July 14, 2021.

Pubmats in a pandemic

In my most recent attempt to unclutter my phone, I saw these publicity materials for various public forums again—and it occurred to me to post them here, as a way of keeping a record. Some constant themes, and many topical issues. (I tried to post these 20 “pubmats” as a tiled gallery, something I’ve done before and that is easy to do, but the atrocious block formatting that WordPress.com decided to inflict on its users defeated my best efforts. Extremely frustrating.) This record of 20 forums between May 2020 and May 2021 is by no means complete; I only included those with (a) pubmats and (b) with my name or mug on it.

Where’s the Lie?

Today’s research forum will present findings from six research studies conducted with the assistance of the small grants facility of the Consortium on Democracy and Disinformation. Some highlights:

Cleve Arguelles of ANU and Jose Mari Lanuza of UP Diliman ask: Are some media systems more vulnerable to disinformation than others? “We find four dimensions to the relationship between disinformation and media systems.”

Mary Joyce Borromeo-Bulao, Mary Grace Joyce Besenio, and Frances Michelle Nubla of Ateneo de Naga analyzed Twitter discourse on the SEA Games 2019. They found five major themes emerging.

Miguel Paolo P. Reyes and Joel F. Ariate Jr. of UP Diliman examined pro-Marcos disinfo online. “Over a hundred distinct lies were gathered.” The examination yielded four important findings.

Margarita Felipe Fajardo of Ateneo de Naga conducted a Civic Online Reasoning Assessment (modified from the Stanford model) of 424 students in the Bicol Region. Results indicate important differences in author-, fact-, bias-, and image-checking. 

Edgar Delalamon, Leslie Medina, Irene Manalili, Rodolfo de Guzman, and Maria Cristina Nogoy of Holy Angel University in Angeles set out to “determine the level of vulnerability to ‘fake news.’ They found three demographic factors that may relate to level of vulnerability (and two that likely don’t).

Rabby Lavilles, January Febro, Mia Amor Catindig, and Eddie Bouy Palad of Mindanao State U – Iligan Institute of Technology examined “how users performed the fact-checking process and determine their … ease of use, usefulness, and trust.” The study found three major themes.

RIP, RBG

#HistoRevCon links

SEPT 21, 11 AM Disinformation in History Gideon Lasco	http://bit.ly/DisinfoInHistory
SEPT 21, 530 PM Understanding Historical Revisionism Francisco Jayme Guiang Manny Mogato Andrea Pasion Flores	http://bit.ly/UnderstandingHistoRev
SEPT 22, 10 AM The Marcos Regime and Martial Law Roderick Javar Len Olea Rosselle Tugade	http://bit.ly/MarcosAndMartialLaw
SEPT 22, 7 PM Marcos in the Digital Space Cheryll Ruth Soriano Fatima Gaw	http://bit.ly/MarcosDigitalSpace
SEPT 23, 11 AM Keynote Lualhati Bautista	http://bit.ly/HistoRevKeynote
SEPT 23, 530 PM Regional Narratives of Historical Revisionism Nela Florendo Arnold Alamon Gutierrez Mangansakan II	http://bit.ly/RegionalNarratives
SEPT 24, 10 AM Disinformation in the Digital Age Jason Cabañes Gemma Mendoza Kristoffer Pasion	http://bit.ly/DigitalAgeDisinfo
SEPT 24, 7 PM Notes for a Digital History of Disinformation Manuel Quezon III	http://bit.ly/NotesDigitalDisinfo
SEPT 25, 10 AM How to Fight Historical Revisionism Today Speakers Roy Mendoza Maris Diokno  Reactors Karina Bolasco Oscar Serquina	http://bit.ly/FightingHistoRev
SEPT 25, 530 PM Takeaways from a Conference on Historical Revisionism Gang Badoy Lourd de Veyra	http://bit.ly/HistoRevTakeaways

Balance and map

Took Canva out for a spin, and ended up with this. Just a simple attempt to “translate” the first few pages of Nancy Fraser’s Scales of Justice into infographic language. Interesting ride!

 

Four questions from two years ago

On rereading my April 2018 columns, I find that I had ended up asking very specific questions.

In “Is the Left needed to resist Dutertismo?,” the column ended with a peeved, pained question: “Do they think they can do it all on their own?”

In “Aguirre’s secret resignation statement,” the real question was implied in this conclusion about the misconduct of Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre: “This does not excuse his abuse of power or mitigate his personal liability; it only contextualizes the self-abasement Dutertismo requires.” How much are Duterte supporters willing to abase themselves, as the price of their support?

In “Is Duterte a dictator?,” the column title is rephrased at the end, after being filtered through Philippine history, the relativism of protest, and actual perception-based conduct: “Is the Philippines back under one-man rule?”

And in “Duterte: Make China great again,” the real question can be phrased simply enough: “Who elected him Chinese provincial governor?”

 

 

 

Ti(t)le card

Under the Gun: Democracy in the Crosshairs

Keynote at the 10th anniversary of the Eisenhower Fellows Association of the Philippines, on October 5, 2018. [The passages I bracketed in parentheses I did not read aloud anymore, to cut down on the speaking time.] I ran excerpts from the speech in my column of October 9. The opinion piece “The Marcos family’s last gasp,” written for the Asia News Network’s Writers Circle, first appeared in Vietnam News on Saturday, October 6, 2018.

Is the democratic project in the Philippines in the crosshairs?

To ask the question is itself already a sign—of something. I think we can all agree that, generally speaking, we raise medical concerns when we are ailing, not when we are in the full flush of good health. We ask whether our democracy is under the gun, when we sense that it is under threat, or a target.

Sometimes the threat is not obvious. Sometimes it is massive and persistent, but too familiar to be visible. We can take our initial bearings from the man after whom your fellowship is named. President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, famously warned against the “unwarranted influence” on “our liberties and democratic processes” of what he called the “military-industrial complex.”

Playing catch-up (again)

Will start adding my 2018 columns to this little corner of the web. Coming up: Column No. 475.

Pages from ON THE MARCH: The Jesuits in the Philippines since the Restoration

Editing this book (the second coffee table book on the Jesuits published by Monching Cruz and Manny Engwa, to raise funds for the Philippine Jesuit Aid Association) was a gift, a joy, an answered prayer—and a way to give back and to give thanks to the many Jesuits who served as mentors or colleagues.

Column: Duterte’s secret

“… [is] the accumulation of political capital through the systematic abuse of the rule of law. Mr. Duterte said it himself, about using his prosecutorial power to plant both intrigue and evidence. This is how he understands things get done.” Published on December 5, 2017.

The attempt to start a groundswell of public support for a “revolutionary government” failed dismally last week; some supporters of the Duterte administration have not yet come to terms with the brutal political reality, a year and a half since Rodrigo Duterte took office, that campaigning as outsiders is entirely different from governing as the establishment. Does this mean that the existential threat to the constitutional order that was the “RevGov” attempt has ceased to, well, exist?

The answer is No, because here is the truth of the matter: A deep antidemocratic spirit, hostile to the rule of law, characterizes Dutertismo. And this spirit will continue to seek ways to express itself—if not through the self-coup that is a revolutionary government, then through the extension and even expansion of martial law, the weaponization of Congress’ power to impeach, the continuing abuse of the justice department’s prosecutorial powers.

Restoration is both going forward and going back in time

It’s been a week and a day since, but Toti Cerda’s “Restorer III” is still fresh on my mind. This homage to twinned icons—the muralist Carlos “Botong” Francisco, who died in 1969, and the ubiquitous smartphone, whose Internet origins go back to around the same time—was the work that moved me the most at the 2018 Art Fair Philippines. Cerda updates Botong’s “The Nose Flute” by integrating a smartphone into the ritual scene, but at the same time transforms the 1955 painting into what looks like a much older mural (a second tribute to Botong) that would not look out of place in Rome. The colors and the perceived texture of this 48″ x 60″ painting (acrylic on canvas) remind me of ancient Roman murals and mosaics, with the bolder red of the wrap-around woven possibly hinting at the Renaissance. But of course the artist in shorts and sleeveless shirt is a very Filipino type (and adds yet another layer to a beautiful and complicated work). Endlessly fascinating.

“The O of ecstasy”

I wrote this originally as a Facebook Note. 

A personal hero of mine died yesterday. The great poet Richard Wilbur was 96.

He wrote beautifully, embracing form and tradition to plumb the truth of “the things of this world.” (The title of one of his books of poetry, taken from one of his most famous poems.) He described our world with all the innocence of a faithful eye:

“Gold crosses, cornices, astonishment
Of panes, the turbine-vent which natural law
Spins on the grill-end of the diner’s roof …”

Even something as ordinary as peeled onion became transformed, or rather was seen in a higher light:

“How the shucked tunic of an onion, brushed
To one side on a backlit chopping-board
And rocked by trifling currents, prints and prints
Its bright, ribbed shadow like a flapping sail.”

On the level of craft alone, this movie is must-viewing

I saw “Respeto” a second time last night, and it was even better than I remembered. Just on the level of craft alone, the movie is must-viewing: The actors do not seem to be performing at all, but only living out their portion of life. (Dido De La Paz is unforgettable as Doc; the rap stars Abra and Loonie are a revelation—but it seems unfair to point to individual actors when the ensemble acting is so fluid and generous and on point.) The story is gritty AF but punctuated repeatedly by genuinely funny moments. (In this sense, it is very much like the Noli.) The cinematography finds the hidden poetry of Manila’s ugly quarter (the tracking shots,  the chase scenes in what is our own flyover country, above all the calming, clarifying episodes in the cemetery). The writing is first-rate (and the English subtitles match it). Not least: the music! I am not a hiphop or rap fan, but I came away from the first viewing with a new respect for this nasty, brutal but legitimate art. (That the rap battles were improvised on set, as director Treb Monteras said in one interview, is another reason to respect this angry, difficult form.)

The theme is bleak, and the reality the movie gives vivid life to is as complicated as our own tortuous history. But that this independent movie even got made, and that it is so good, equal parts heart and craft, is both proof and source of hope.

 

A series of unfortunate appointments

Without meaning to, I started an occasional series of columns on unfortunate appointments to key government positions. It was prompted by Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay’s kowtowing (a word with Chinese roots!)  to an aggressive China; I patterned the use of the word “unfortunate” after Patricia Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley.” (Irony, though, sometimes refuses to travel.)

“The unfortunate Mr. Yasay” was published on July 12, 2016, the same day the arbitral tribunal awarded the Philippines a near-complete victory in its case against China. “No one wants to go to war,” I wrote. “[T]hat’s what diplomacy and international law are for, to assert our rights and our claims without recourse to violence. It is unfortunate that, even before he starts, Yasay has surrender on his mind.”

On August 23, 2016, I followed up (that is, it became a series in my mind) with a column on “The unfortunate Salvador Panelo,” then, as now, the chief presidential legal counsel. Many things are unfortunate about Sal Panelo, but I focused on the quality of his lawyering. “He argues like an ambulance chaser …. The great principles that animate the higher practice of the law, not merely to resolve disputes but to discover truth and dispense justice, are inconveniences that must be rationalized away.” Also: “Panelo has … argued, in more than one instance, that basic principles of law do not mean what generations of lawyers have been taught they meant.”

Both Panelo and Yasay (since rejected by the Commission on Appointments because of his American citizenship) were appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte. The third column was on an appointee of President Gloria Arroyo’s—Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Diosdado Peralta. His decision rationalizing the burial of the remains of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani provoked great outrage. On November 15, 2016, in “The unfortunate Justice Peralta,” I wrote: “There is none so blind as he who refuses to see. Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta’s ponencia in the Marcos burial cases will go down in history as the cowardly rationalizations of a willfully blind man; he deserves the opprobrium coming his way. He still has six years to serve in the Supreme Court, but his legacy will be forever defined by this badly written, ill-thought-through, deliberately obtuse majority decision.”

The fourth column in the series went back to a Duterte appointee: the solicitor general who told the public, and by extension the Court of Appeals, that he was effectively a member of the Supreme Court. In “The unfortunate Calida, ’16th Justice’,” published on February 21, 2017, I wrote: “it is both unethical and illogical for a solicitor general to assert that he is ‘considered’ as another Supreme Court justice, because in fact he isn’t and because the separation of powers requires that he shouldn’t be.” I concluded: “Calida’s invocation of his supposed stature as the 16th Justice was plainly meant to put pressure on the Court of Appeals.”

The subject of the next column in the series is probably Duterte’s most famous, and possibly most consequential, appointment: In “The unfortunate Bato dela Rosa,” published on May 2, 2017, I gave three reasons (reasons shared, of all people, by Speaker Bebot Alvarez) why “No chief of the Philippine National Police has brought as much disgrace and discredit to the institution he heads as Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa, a likeable enough police officer promoted beyond his capacity and competence.”

Who should I write on next?

Marcos was the worst (a series)

In the last four years, I’ve written four columns making the case that “Marcos was the worst,” period.

In September 2013, in “Marcos was the worst,” I argued that the dictator Ferdinand Marcos was the most corrupt man in Philippine history. “Compared to Ferdinand Marcos, however, [Gloria] Arroyo and [Joseph] Estrada were rank amateurs. Marcos institutionalized corruption on such a scale we continue to feel its effects today. In his 20 years in power, the country’s foreign debt metastasized from about $1 billion to over $25 billion; in a statement released last year, FDC repeats the estimate that as much as a third of all that debt, about $8 billion, went into his pockets or those of his cronies.” (I also argued that, measured against his own anti-communist standard, he was a colossal failure in containing the communist insurgency he said was the reason for declaring martial rule in the first place.)

In September 2014, in “Marcos was the worst (2): The SC,” I argued that Marcos, who prided himself on his legal acumen and painstakingly constructed a legal facade for his dictatorship, systematically subverted the Supreme Court and the rule of law itself. “Marcos, entering the second half of his second and last term, was anxious about how the Supreme Court would rule on the constitutionality of the suspension of the writ, which had been immediately challenged. So he did what came naturally to him: He subverted yet another democratic institution.”

In September 2015, in “Marcos was the worst (3),” I argued that the Marcos era represented the fourth occupation of the Philippines. “In 1981 Marcos inaugurated what he grandly called the Fourth Republic. But it is closer to the truth to say that his regime was, in fact, the Fourth Occupation. After the Spanish, the Americans, and the Japanese, Marcos used martial law to colonize the Philippines.”

And in September 2016, in “Marcos was the worst (4),” I argued that Marcos succeeded in imposing martial rule because he had manipulated, intimidated, or incentivized the business community into supporting what he called the New Society. “But the Marcos regime lasted as long as it did, not only because Marcos’ Ilocanization of the military had turned it into a pliant tool, but also because many businessmen believed political stability was in their best interest; the Americans, too, found his anticommunism appealing.”

This is the same man a majority of justices on the Supreme Court allowed to be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani, the very same man honored by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines with a monument and by President Duterte with a province-wide holiday.

For shame.

Scenes from the Forum

Haven’t yet had a chance to write about World Justice Forum V—held at The Hague last July. Aside from allowing me to meet rule of law advocates and role models, it moved me to take the next step in a rule of law project I’ve been worrying for some time. It was good to meet kindred spirits, including exemplary Filipino delegates.

The session on investigative journalism.

Hector Soliman making his group’s proposal pitch.

Aurora De Dios of Miriam College, making special mention of Sen. Leila de Lima’s unjust detention.

The opening keynote panel.

Assistant Ombudsman Asryman Rafanan.

One difference between Congress and the Senate, Philippine edition

A memorable phrase from prominent political analyst Mon Casiple, our guest in tonight’s INQ&A radio/Facebook program: “In the House [of Representatives], a congressman has one eye on the President. In the Senate, a senator has one eye on the presidency.”

“Law in the land died …”

“Law in the land died. I grieve for it but I do not despair over it. I know, with a certainty no argument can turn, no wind can shake, that from its dust will rise a new and better law: more just, more human, and more humane. When that will happen, I know not. That it will happen, I know.” — The great Jose W. Diokno, who died 30 years ago today

From the Diokno.org memorial website.

Turns out the rumor is NOT true

So: The word that has circulated among legal circles in recent days, about the law school official reportedly caught in a compromising situation, is fake news. The school has dismissed all speculation that the official was on his way out, through an unambiguous memo. And a good friend who knows the spouse says the spouse denies any such incident.

The lawyers have been gulled. Now the question is: What was the rumor for?

Highs and lows

I was part of a three-person team from Inquirer.net who covered the climate change negotiations in Paris, in December 2015. Belatedly uploading the two columns I wrote there, plus one I wrote before, brought back strong, Seine-filled memories.

“In literature as in life, Paris is a symbol …”
“But five factors suggest that … Paris will succeed.”
“I asked him to say a little more about the central spiritual question.”

Now might be a good time for a quick summing-up.

Our team — Kristine Sabillo, Sara Pacia, and me — wrote over 50 dispatches, posted dozens of tweets, produced several video stories and infographics. Back home, we were backstopped by NewsLab lead Matikas Santos and reporter Marc Cayabyab, and by web designer Sephy Garibay and artist Mok Pusong.

The special site Sephy created featured our Media 21 Asia project on stronger storms and the coping mechanisms of two coastal regions — as well as a Dateline Paris section that allowed us to update our special site several times a day during the Paris negotiations. (All the dispatches are here.)

“The sound we heard, then … must have been a controlled explosion …”
“In a move certain to raise the Philippines’ profile …”
“The Ice Watch does nothing but melt.”

The two-week coverage had many highs and lows; seeing actual Arctic ice melting in the heart of Paris (in front of the Pantheon, in the art installation called Ice Watch), hit me like a great shock. It was many highs and lows, all at once.

Picking up where I left off

Like hope, the idea of using this blog more actively springs eternal. After 15 months of inactivity, I’m thinking of starting again — first, by uploading a whole basket of (deplorable?) columns. The last two posts were the first of five Newsstand pieces on or occasioned by the groundbreaking “Heneral Luna.” Let me pick up where I left off.

Women at the Gemaldegalerie

I went to the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin in June last year, before the start of a study tour of German media institutions, to see its pair of Vermeers. (Part of my bucket list.) Along the way, other works of art caught my eye — including these two profiles of “jungen Frau,” done in the 15th century. They seem to me to be very much a part of their time, and at the same time thoroughly modern, of our time. The first looks familiar because it is by Botticelli; that is to say, it reminds us of Botticelli’s women, but because it is in profile we are not certain at first. The second is by one of Botticelli’s masters, Antonio del Pollaiuolo; we stare at it because we think it looks like someone we know (the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, perhaps, stepping back in time); only later do we realize that we were staring because it — she — was beautiful.