We asked them why the President didn’t deliver a message on the first day or within the first half day of the big typhoon that left parts of Northern Mindanao in states of calamity.

One explanation given us (and I hope I’m remembering this right) is that his silence was not an indication of non-involvement nor non-action on his part.  According to USec Valte as early as a bit before noon the President was already monitoring the aftermath, discussing with the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) and the Dept of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), as well as the Armed Forces (AFP) on how to take on the search and rescue (then eventually the rehabilitation) of the struck areas.

So I pressed a bit, “Then why not come out with a one minute press statement that encourages, gathers, comforts, whatever else that is obviously expected by most citizens?”  USec Quezon explains it is his ‘leadership style’ to not grandstand before he has numbers, facts, or a concrete plan of action.

Marcus Adoro (guitarist, Eraserheads) asked then why doesn’t he at least inform us that he is surveying anyway.  And again, most of the discussion went back to his ‘leadership style.’

So I asked again, now that the President knows that this is the general reaction (“Where is he? Why isn’t he talking to us, offering comfort, encouraging participation, assuring us that the institutions in place will exhaust all means to address urgent needs..?”)  …I asked, “Is there a chance he will change to accommodate this persistent request?”

USec Quezon said (and I merely paraphrase here) that perhaps many of us expect him to be like his mother, former President Corazon Aquino, who was naturally more motherly and softer when it came to these responses to tragedy.  Did it ever occur to us that his leadership style is different? (We all nod yes.)   Both Valte and Quezon explained that he understands that the presidency is to be able to allocate resources, to make decisions that will (at the end of the day, quote unquote) provide services to the citizens.  And since this is how he sees it, the President seems to see no need to do the traditional rah-rah, don’t worry, here’s comfort speech.  The President wants to speak, according to the USecs, when he already has the facts, the strategy, the plan to present, and some action already being begun.

Shawn Yap (Host, TV5) then said, perhaps in the end if it’s between a politician who does nothing but grand stand and an official who will do some work first before he speaks, then the present option isn’t too bad. Though she looked like she was stretching.  (hehe, sorry Shawn, do correct me if I’m wrong)

But something still gnawed at me.  I am obviously one of the many who want the administration to do well for the sake of, I don’t know….. everyone?  I’m sure even those who politically hate the Aquinos do not wish this administration doom because damay tayo lahat kung gano’n.

Is this a case of “Aquino would rather walk more than he talks?”  Perhaps.  At least that’s the explanation both Valte and Quezon gave me.  As I respectfully stressed though, I still would’ve preferred that he gave a rah-rah speech anyway.  If the choice was to be misinterpreted as “merely grandstanding” — or to be mistaken as indifferent, as ‘a President without pathos’ – I wondered, wouldn’t he rather be the former?

I asked again, “So this is merely a leadership style, right?”  (Yes, they both nod.)  (” Yes.” My cellphone chimes and it is Press Secretary Edwin Lacierda, apparently tuned in to the radio show, too.)

I’m nitpicking, am I?

Okay before I let it rest, let me say what I’ve learned tonight.

The President won the mandate, even the apolitical know that.  Okay so now I’m wondering.  When I vote, do I say, “I choose you because I believe you will make the best decisions for us, thinking of our welfare foremost, and that you have the smarts to keep the machinery of institutions running.”

Or do I vote saying, “I vote for you because you will do everything I want you to do and choose everything I prefer as well.”

Who’s being the brat here?  Me or him?   Don’t answer that.   I’m not done thinking this through yet. Perhaps that’s not even the right question.  

Shit. I can’t finish the article.  I am exhausted.  It’s 541am.   Lots to do.

Unfinished.

Maybe you can help me out.

What do you think?

-Gang
(almost 6am waiting for Typhoon Sendong relief ops video files to render)

Note: Last night was an emergency broadcast to consolidate information on Typhoon Sendong. Rock Ed Radio will return to Jam 88.3 in January 2012.   Thursdays 9pm.

The massacre in Ampatuan Town, Maguindanao. 23 Nov 2009 Remember.

Sunday night with good friends in someone's garage. c. Nov 2011

We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible.  To have real conversations with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.

-Thomas Moore

“Tagalogs, Ilongos, Cebuanos, and Pampangos use a common word for justice, katarungan, derived from the Visayan root tarong, which means straight, upright, appropriate, correct. For us, therefore, justice is not rectitude, the morally right act; and because it also connotes what is appropriate, it embraces the concept of equity for which we have no native word, and for which on the rare occasions that we use the concept, we employ the Spanish derivative ekidad.

For “right,” we use karapatan, whose root is dapat, signifying fitting, appropriate, correct. The similarity in meaning of the root words for “right” and “justice” indicates that, for us, justice and right are intimately related.

On the other hand, for “law” we use batas, a root word denoting command, order, decree, with a meaning disparate from that of the roots of our words for “justice” and “right.” Our language then distinguishes clearly between law and justice; it recognizes that law is not always just.”

-Sen. Jose W. Diokno
from “A Nation for our Children”
(Selected Writings of Jose W. Diokno, edited by Priscilla S. Manalang)
Copyright 1987 by the Jose W. Diokno Foundation, Inc
Co-edited and printed by Claretian Publications

When I was seven I thought a jukebox was the most important invention of all time and if you told me they could still improve on this concept I wouldn’t have believed you.

(photo: a diner in Pampanga, 2007)

Earnest Mangulabnan Zabala, my hero

MY HERO: Earnest Zabala.
(first published in SPOT.PH)

Entrusted to relatives as an infant, bundled up and taken by bus from Tarlac to Bontoc, Earnest Zabala was eight months old when Martial Law was declared in the Philippines.  A time of documented oppression and rampant injustice, the year 1972 found Earnest’s parents joining the underground movement. Her father was a student of architecture at that time, while her mother was the Editor in Chief of her college paper.  Both idealists, the couple decided to physically (literally) join the fight against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. I surmise that they went underground because they decided it was the best way to claim back a future that was free for their baby daughter.  So in October 1972 they left.  The couple never came back.  They disappeared.  Earnest never met her parents.  She was raised by her grandparents and then subsequently lived with an aunt in Manila.  She made it to the University of the Philippines, Diliman for college where she met her husband Buddy.  (Buddy Zabala, bass guitarist of the Eraserheads and now of The Dawn.)

Earnest built her career in development work.  She throws her resources and smarts forcefully behind the heaving campaign for the RH Bill. She tirelessly organizes projects with and for Rock Ed, especially the ones focused on alternative education for young girls. She spearheads Rock Ed’s The Dalagita Project and her chief consultant for this project is her pre-teen daughter Veda. I personally know Veda.  Veda does very well in school, she plays the violin. She is polite while being outspoken and opinionated, an apparent testament to good parenting.   Buddy, Earnest’s husband is the unusual rock star.  He is focused on Veda and Earnest, keeps relatively normal hours, eats healthy for the most part, does not smoke, barely drinks, stays sane and steady – and I can see that a part of it is because of Earnest’s hand and presence. While juggling all these roles, Earnest earned her Masters Degree in Development Communication from UP.  Imagine that.

Earnest is my hero because I watch her lead her life from up close and I can see that she optimizes her time, balances her work for others, never wavers on her love of family and knows just when to be stern.  For someone who started with a lot less ‘psychological capital’ than most of us, for someone who doesn’t have a single conscious memory of her parents, she certainly gripped her life with more control than most of us who grew up with a lot more ‘givens.’

A single spectacular act can certainly make a hero but for my purposes I need to define that a hero is someone who left excuses unused, someone who took on her tasks dutifully, someone who never focused on what was lacking but optimized what was at hand to see what could still be done despite.
In Greek mythology a hero or a heroine came to refer to characters who, in the face of adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self-sacrifice.  Plato said we should “tell each other stories because these stories shall be the education of future heroes.”  Earnest is certainly my hero and I am grateful I was given this chance to share her story.

—
PS: This post is in honor of all  Filipinos whose parents disappeared during and because of Martial Law.  

Each artist chose a facet of Jose Rizal to focus on.  Radioactive Sago Project, Jett Pangan, Ely Buendia, Sandwich, Hijo, Peryodiko, Ebe Dancel, Aiza Seguerra, Gloc-9, and Gab Cabangon and his friends all chose a side of Rizal and went from there.

Many other artists contributed to the album, Hijo, Kakoy Legaspi, Pepe Smith, Kat Agarrado, Sarah Gaugler, Nitoy Adriano, Paolo Peralta, Nino Messina, Pepe Diokno, Mike Campillanes, Francis de Veyra, Laya Diokno, Leslie Umaly, the list goes on. Produced mainly by Mark Laccay and recorded at Shinji Tanaka’s Sound Creation studio, the Rock Rizal team labored for months, meticulously producing, discussing, arguing about the tracks. The album’s only goal was for Rizal to be discussed again. We know him through city streets, town plazas, our legal tender but Team Rock Rizal wanted to transcend that edifice of the historical Rizal. To show the man in a different light, with a more human face to the granite bas relief we know so well.

Admittedly, I cannot really write this piece for fear of the accusation of bias and horn tooting, but I am so rightfully proud of this collection. Work was required of us and we gave it. We approached this album with serious thought, we studied Rizal with even more academic attention than we ever gave when it was required back in school. We’d like to imagine that the learning we all took from this journey with Rizal is that work is what makes heroes. Not luck nor inheritance—but genuine industry, in the form of long nights, hoarse throats, and fatigued hands.

Rizal once wrote to his friend Marcelo del Pilar, (Plaridel) praising him for his literary work, “Onward and write! Rizal can now die; nobody will miss him; there is a Plaridel who can take his place with indisputable advantage. I say it with sincerity and without regret. I do not work for my renown but for the good of my country, and my greatest pleasure would be to see 20 or 30 young men who are two or three times more worthy than I.”

This project is hopefully worthy enough of that line.  If anything, we had everything to gain by trying.

Rock Rizal the album is free. It is not for profit.

Rock Rizal is our response, our offering. This is the elaborate remembering of Rock Ed Philippines, a grateful collective, to a man who we celebrate as our own. This is how we repay the giant whose shoulders we stand on today. We say this with neither a hint of irony nor a sneer at this cliché. There is no space for that today.

Today is for remembering.

Should you outlive me, dear person reading this, kindly remind them to play this during my funeral.

Neither morbid nor melancholic.  Just leaving instructions.  Never too early.

Thank you, Peter Gabriel.    
—————————-

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night

He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
I had to listen had no choice

I did not believe the information
Just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom, boom
“Son,” he said, “Grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.”

To keeping silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut

So I went from day to day
Tho’ my life was in a rut
‘Till I thought of what I’d say
Which connection I should cut

I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
“Hey,” he said, “grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.”
Yeah back home

When illusion spin her net
I’m never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free

Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes, but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me

Today I don’t need a replacement
I’ll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
“Hey,” I said, “You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home.”

“Sex bomb kami.”

I could’ve sworn I heard my heart crack.

Oh look, it’s Moonpools and Caterpillars.

Can you recall even just one Friday (of yours) in the 90s?   I just did.  It involved a cassette tape stuck in my car player and I thanked God for the technology called “auto-reverse.”