Timely Reflections in an Unexpected Context

by Pamela Joy Mariano

I am writing this in the pre-departure waiting area of NAIA Terminal 2, as I wait for my noon flight to Cagayan de Oro. In the seat directly behind me is a Muslim woman and her companion—their religious affiliations betrayed by the veil that she wears—and she is having an animated conversation in Bisaya with the women across from her, whom I assume are not Muslim. My guess, which is confirmed by the snatches of conversation I overhear, is that she is Maranao. After all, Cagayan de Oro's airport is about 30-40 minutes away from Iligan, Lanao del Norte, and the hills and lakes of Lanao are the homeland of the Maranao tribe, different from the Maguindanao who come from the plains of Cotabato.


It struck me at that moment—these women exemplify the plurality and diversity in Mindanao, and of the Philippines in general, the diversity of views, of religious affiliations, of tribal and regional affiliations and of language communities. A monolithic notion of “Filipino” and “Filipino identity” is impossible to formulate, and yet, that is what both the media and the government seem to project—that Filipino is a category easily defined and circumscribed.

Not unexpectedly, the women behind me are talking about politics in Mindanao, especially in ARMM. As I sat down a few minutes ago, I caught the tail-end of an exchange about the massacre, that I roughly translate here:

“It has nothing to do with religion, and all to do with politics.”

I don't listen to the rest of their conversation—it's impolite to eavesdrop—but I can't help catching snatches of their conversation, just words and phrases at random and out of context: private armies; automated elections; voting; names of presidential candidates.

It made me think of what the events in the small town of Ampatuan have to say to us, what it tells people who live their lives hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, but still exist within the same state. The inhumane killing of 57 people in Ampatuan tells us in the most glaring terms the tenuous nature of Philippine democracy. Despite the supposed democratic nature of our government as enshrined in our constitution, and in groundbreaking laws such as the LGU Act and the IPRA, the principles that these laws are rooted in are often not manifest in reality. The politics of impunity are still prevalent, cases of electoral violence still abound. We forget that the exercise of force and violence *are not exercises of power in politics*. Because of this, many of us feel helplesness and powerlessness.

But our felt helpessness in the face of the Ampatuan Massacre does not have to lead to powerlessness. Power is not a function of how much money you have, nor the size of your private army, nor the number of “influential” people you know. The nature of democracy, in an oversimplified sense, is that power originates in and from the people as a whole. This past week can be a way for us to remember what our democracy is realy supposed to be about—acknowledging that we are the ones who govern ourselves, that our voices are the the ones that should be heard. Part of this requires us to recognize that our country, our state, is one composed of a plurality of groups and affiliations, and how it is necessary for us to giving everyone proper representation and recognition. It is in our voices and thoughts and acts that power resides.

If there is anything positive that we can gain from the heinous massacre of 57 people in Maguindanao, it is the reminder of who we are as a political community, as the democratic state called the Philippines. Our collective revulsion at the heinous acts are reminders of our commitment to respecting and honoring the dignity of every human being; our unorchestrated and yet collective outrage at the massacre is a reminder of our unity in the midst of plurality, that unity need not be confused with conformity nor uniformity; our collective efforts to spread the word and make sure that other Filipinos are well-informed about these events in Maguindanao is a reminder of our commitment to personal participation in holding our public servants accountable to us. All of these are principles that our democracy is based on.

When I first heard the news of what is now called the Ampatuan Massacre, I posted as a status update on my Facebook the following question: “How can I continue to read a [philosophy] book about cosmopolitanism in the face of such heinous acts?” Here too the women seated behind me in the airport again have something to teach me. These women were complete strangers prior to their striking up a conversation with each other while waiting for the airplane to leave. Their new acquaintance, conversation, and even friendship began simply on the basis of a common context—the predeparture area of the airport, the same flight, and a common destination—Cagayan de Oro. The commonality of their context does not erase the fact of their difference, but makes it possible for them to share themselves in each other. It makes it all the more important, then, for us to study—and not just intellectually, but in praxis—things like cosmopolitanism. The possibility of friendship and conversation, recognizing difference, initiating dialogue, and promoting peace happens also on all levels, including the level of theory.

Statement on Proclamation 1959 from Individual Members of the Philosophy Department of the Ateneo

We share in the nation's collective disgust and outrage as the massacre in Ampatuan, Maguindanao was brought to light. We grieve together with the victims' families, and stand with the ordinary citizens of Maguindanao who have been treated as vassals and slaves by warlords who forget that they live in a democratic state. We, too, share in the nation's collective dismay at the growing evidence of a continuing politics of impunity in Maguindanao.

However, we question the necessity and legality of the government's declaration of Martial Law and subsequent military rule in Maguindanao. The Constitution's provisions allow for the state of Martial Law to be declared only when there is an actual rebellion or invasion that endangers the safety of the public. While we acknowledge that government functions in the province of Maguindanao have been weakened, we question whether this constitutes one of these limit cases.

In the absence of strong evidence for an actual rebellion in Maguindanao, we fear the declaration may set a dangerous precedent that could open the door to unrestricted power and abuse. That the Ampatuan massacre happened at all reveals the weakness of the state and the disregard that our own leaders and peacekeepers have for the rule of law. The continuation of Martial Law in Maguindanao based on shaky grounds does not strengthen the state; it cripples the state further. Instead of countering the politics of impunity with showing that our democratic systems can and do work for the good of the people, the government has chosen to fight impunity with impunity, violence with violence.

The Constitution provides safeguards to prevent the arbitrary use of emergency powers. Our institutions tasked with the constitutional safeguards against the potential tyranny of Martial Law are being challenged by our circumstances to fulfill their tasks as true servants of our Constitution.

We demand that Congress fulfill its responsibility to review the proclamation and revoke it if necessary. Already late, the Congress should do its constitutional duty and convene itself. We hope that in such a time as this, this Congress can act with good judgment on the matter. But if they cannot act as disinterested representatives of the people who have their constituents' welfare in mind, then they should remember that they are up for re-election and, judging from the surveys, the people are less tolerant of those who have blatantly subverted our systems for their own gain. In May, the people will speak and their almost decade long governance of impunity and continuous machinations of power will come to an end.

We ask the Supreme Court to act swiftly and justly in the resolution of any proceeding that will most certainly be filed with regard to this issue. The high court has a chance to prove its critics wrong, and show once again that a GMA appointed court can decide independently on matters of vital national importance.

Most of all, we ask the military to realize its duty as protectors of the people and defenders of the constitution. May they courageously stand by their professionalism and not allow themselves to be used by people who have questionable agenda.

We realize that many people might agree with the President's extraordinary declaration of martial law to resolve the problem in Maguindanao. But we have to remember that we would not have come to this situation if we had institutions that functioned to safeguard the people's welfare. So we should not exacerbate the problem by overriding our constitutional and legal processes.

We ask, then, that the lawlessness of the Ampatuan Massacre be countered by the lawfulness of our institutions, so that our faith in Constitutional processes and democratic systems can be restored. Lawless acts of evil can only be contained by lawful institutions that work.



Signed,

Individual Members of the Department of Philosophy, Ateneo de Manila
University

Antonette Angeles
Michael Aurelio
Remmon Barbaza
Oscar Bulaong, Jr.
Mark Joseph Calano
Sircio Chan
Manuel Dy, Jr.
Geoffrey Guevara
Jacqueline Jacinto
Michael Ner Mariano
Pamela Joy Mariano
Jovino Miroy
Rowena Azada-Palacios
Agustin Martin Rodriguez
Jomel Santos
Andrew Soh
Eileen Tupaz
John Carlo P. Uy

Mangu-danao Massacre

by Agustin Martin Rodriguez

When my son had his first nightmare and woke up crying, he told me that he had dreamt that monsters ate his mother. I tried to comfort him by telling him that there were no monsters in the real world—only on the computer and on TV where he saw these things. What a lie indeed, for just a few days ago on TV, we were shown the works of monsters in the real world.

Then, we were told that 21 bodies had been found—many of whom were women that were believe to have been raped. Today there is a running body count of 57—many of whom are women said to have been raped and horribly mutilated, journalists, activist lawyers, and motorists who just happened to be in the way.

*Bong Reblando

Manila Bulletin reporter

How could anyone who was not murderously insane order or commit such an act? How depraved and inhuman do you have to be to be able to carry out such a massacre? But of course there are naïve questions from a comfortable middle-aged professor from Quezon City. Who am I to say what unchecked power can do to the soul of a man and a family? Who am I to say what being without prospects except the service of a power hungry tyrant can make one do? Who am I to say what is shocking in Maguindanao where people are kept poor and without development while one family controls all the resources and political power and the national government supports and funds that family’s private army? I really can’t say. I don’t know what it’s like and what I would do if I had so much deadly power or what I might be driven to do if I was the hired gun of such powers. I wouldn’t know how my mind or heart could be unhinged living under those circumstances.

But this I know. Even if I were a powerful man with an army of drug crazed, or fanatical, or power tripping men, I would not be able to act with such impunity if I knew that there was a higher power to stop me from my acts of madness. But these monsters from Maguindanao felt they could do what they wanted without fear perhaps because they were banking on the fact that in this country, politics is still mightier a force than justice. This is the state after all where journalists and activists have been killed without consequence to their killers. Uniformed sociopaths who kidnap and torture farmers and students working for change are still enjoying their freedom while many of their victims are rotting, still unidentified in unmarked graves or trying to live past the horror of their real life nightmare.

If we had a government that could only genuinely function to protect and serve its people, we wouldn’t have any monsters in the real world. But we don’t yet have such a government. Seventy four journalists have been killed and hundreds of activists have also been killed, tortured or kidnapped in the last eight years. There have hardly been any convictions for these cases—not even the celebrated ones like that of Jonas Burgos. Governments were founded to keep the monsters among us in check—not to use them against its citizens.

Sadly for those children of the massacred in Magundanao, our government and political system failed to stop the monsters from killing their mothers.

Si Pacman at ang Matamis na Agham

ni Michael G. Aurelio

Bakit mahilig ang Pilipino sa boksing?

Dahil magaling tayo sa boksing. Nariyan sina Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Pancho Villa, Luisito Espinosa, Rolando Navarette at ang kasalukuyang pound-for-pound king na si Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao—mga patunay sa husay at galing ng Pilipino sa isang larong habang napakahirap at napakadugo, tila napakasimple pa rin at napakatamis.

Simple ang boksing. Kailangan mo lamang ng dalawang magkalaban at hayaan mo silang magsuntukan. At suntukan lang naman talaga ang diwa ng boksing: wala nang kailangan pang mga salita, at wala nang ibang layunin kundi patumbahin ang kalaban sa pamamagitan ng ating pangunahing sandata, ang mga kamaong biglang nakakasa. Pinakamadaling paraan ang suntukan upang tapusin ang anumang away. Kaya may mga nagsusuntukan sa klase o sa kalye, sa pihitan o sa Emba, tungkol sa dignidad man o babae. “Mano mano,” “square tayo,” “nang magkaalaman na tayo.” Hindi naman siguro tayo madalas makarinig ng dalawang nagkainitan na maghahanap pa ng espada para malaman kung sino ang mas magiting o chess board kung sino ang mas matalino’t malalim.

Kapag dumating na sa suntukan, walang duda, lalaban at hindi tatakbo ang Pilipino. Ngunit hindi naman ito dahil sa marahas tayo; alam ng lahat na tayo’y sa kalikasan ay marahan at mapagpasensya, mapayapa at palangiti pa—kahit pa iniisahan na, kahit nga inaabuso na. Magaling ang Pilipino sa boksing dahil magaling din tayong makipagbunuan sa isa pang napakahirap sabay napakasimpleng labanan na sa buhay naman tinatanghal.

* * *

Inilahad sa Time Magazine (“The Meaning of Manny” noong ika-16 ng Nobyembre 2009) ang ilang bahagi ng makulay na talambuhay ni Manny. Ayon sa sanaysay ni Howard Chua-Eoan at Ishaan Thardoor, isinasakatawan ni Pacquiao ang pinanggagalingan at—mas mahalaga—mga pangarap ng karamihan nating mga Pilipino.

Lumaki si Pacquiao sa hirap. Tindera ng gulay at manggagawa sa pabrika noon ang kanyang ina na si Dionisia. Nahirapan buhayin ng ina ang kanyang anim na anak. Upang tumulong pakainin ang kanyang mga kapatid, tumigil sa pag-aaral si Manny noong siya’y katorse. Tapos gumawa siya ng isang plano: lilisan siya ng General Santos at makikipagsapalaran sa Maynila, gaya ng di mabilang na mga Pilipino sa probinsya na naghahanap din ng mas magandang kapalaran.

Dahil alam niyang wala siyang ibang alam at hilig kundi boksing—lumalaban na siya noon sa Gen San at kung manalo’y kumikita ng isang daan—naghanap si Pacquiao ng iba’t ibang pagkakataon upang lumaban pagkatapos niyang subukan maging manggagawa. Nagsimula siyang lumahok sa mga palaro sa baranggay (ilegal pa nga raw, parang sabong na walang permiso). Ngunit dahil malinaw sa kanya kung bakit siya pumunta ng Maynila, pagkatapos ng higit-kumulang tatlong taon naging propesyunal na boksingero si Manny.

Sa kanyang unang laban na ipinalabas sa programang Blow by Blow sa telebisyon noong 1995, ipinakita na ng labimpitong gulang na kaliwete ang lakas ng kanyang suntok at bilis ng mga kamay—ang kanyang magiging mga pangunahing sandata na gagamitin laban sa mga mas malalaking boksingero na kanyang haharapin. Nasungkit ng baguhan ang una niyang panalo sa pamamagitan ng isang desisyon. Mula noon tutumba na ang karamihan sa mga makakalaban ni Pacquiao (50 panalo–3 talo–2 tabla–38 pinatumba).

Habang kapansin-pansin noong simula pa lamang ang mga likas na talento ni Manny, nahalata rin ng marami na wala siyang gaanong teknik o depensa kaya naman madalas rin siya kung tamaan. Magiging mahalaga sa pagpapatalas ng galing at pag-usbong ng kanyang karera ang gabay at tiwala na ibibigay ni Freddie Roach sa 2001. Pagkatapos lamang ng isang oras ng ensayo kasama si Manny sa una nilang pagkikita, pumayag si Roach na maging tagapagsanay ng boksingero na nais pang matuto.

Sa tulong ni Roach, mabubuksan ang mga pinto para kay Pacquiao sa darating na mga taon. Kanyang makakaharap ang ilan sa pinakatanyag na mga pangalan sa daigdig ng boksing. Makakalaban niya mula 2003 sila Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik Morales, Juan Manuel Marquez, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton at Miguel Cotto—at lahat ay papanalunin niya maliban sa isang hindi malilimutang pagtatagpo nila ni Morales noong 2005. Sa huling laban niya kay Cotto, tumimbang ng 147 libra si Pacquiao—mga 40 na libra lagpas sa timbang niyo noong una siyang naging propesyunal. Si Pacquiao ngayon ang tanging boksingero sa kasaysayan na nagkamit ng pitong kampeonato sa kasingdaming weight class.

Ang palangiting boksingero na dati’y natutulog sa kahong de karton sa mga lansangan ng Maynila ay nag-uwi ng humigit-kumulang P2.5 bilyon mula sa tatlo niyang huling laban. Nagpahayag na rin ang pambansang kamao na siya’y tatakbo bilang kinatawan ng Sarangani sa darating na pambansang eleksyon upang subukan sa labas ng ring ang kanyang tapang at galing. Artista na rin pala si Mommy Dionisia.

* * *

Isang maliit na puwang lamang ang kailangan upang makalusot ang isang suntok. Isang pagkakataon lamang ang kailangan ng karamihan nating kababayan upang makaahon sa kahirapan. Isang dumadagundong na sapok lamang ang kailangan upang patumbahin ang kalaban. Isang tahimik na pagpapakita lamang ng kabutihan ang kailangan upang maparamdam sa mga nangangailangan na hindi pa rin naman natin sila iiwan. Isang laban ni Pacman lamang ang kailangan upang ipakita na kayang maghari ng Pilipino sa daigdig. Isang laban lamang ni Pacman ang kailangan upang maghari ang kapayapaan sa kapuluan kahit sandali.

Kung si Pacman nga ang tumatayo para sa ordinaryong Pilipino, hindi ordinaryo ang Pilipino kung sa gayon. Bagaman maaari nga tayong mabulol sa Ingles, sa sipag, abilidad at tiyaga naman natin malinaw na naipapahayag kung sino tayo sa mga banyaga. Bagaman maaari nga tayong masilaw sa salapi o katanyagan o kapangyarihan, alalahaning nanggagaling naman kasi tayo sa wala, at ang kayamanan lamang naman natin ay mga pangarap sa simula. Bagaman maaaring marami sa atin ang hindi nakapagtatapos, tandaan na hindi sumusuko ang Pilipino hanggang hindi naririnig ang batingaw sa katapusan.

Ang kakayahang maging malakas ang kalooban at manatiling matibay ang pananampalataya sa gitna ng mga bagyo ng suntok at sapok na itinatapon sa atin ng buhay ay lagpas sa anumang makamundong kaalaman o agham. “Hindi ako bobo,” ilang ulit na sinabi ni Pacman sa kanyang panayam sa Time. Dahil kapag dumating na sa matamis na agham ng boksing o sa mapait na laban ng buhay Pacman knows.

Notes from the End of Life as We Know It 2: Bench Marking

by Agustin Martin Rodriguez

When our history comes to the end of life as we know it, we have to begin to imagine life as it could be. But here we are and still we dream the dreams that brought us to the end of life as we know it.

We are at the end of the world defined by our colonizers. The dream of building a better world through conquest and consumption, mass production and massive waste creation, is coming to a point where it is getting almost impossible to deny that this path we are on is a dead end, and yet we insist on charting our course of national development by the markers of prosperity and development laid by Western rationalities.


Ever since our hearts and minds were conquered by the West, we have always marked our progress as a people by how we fare in comparison with them, more specifically the US. Ironically, in the last couple of decades, the more progressive among our leaders have began to figure out ways to benchmark ourselves among the more successful of our neighbors who were able to emulate the West and realize Western style development. We send out teachers to Singapore, for instance, to be able to learn how to teach our children to do math and science better. We send our scholars to Western nations to learn their ways of scholarship, scientific inquiry, and their skills. We mark our wisdom by how much we are accepted by their journals and their conferences.

This desire to learn from and become like the past colonial masters is very understandable. For the last 400 years, we were taught that those who insisted on living according to their indigenous wisdom and lifeways, those who wished to live the good life as defined by their native rationalities, were deprived of the ability to flourish as human beings. This is always the story of indigenous communities: a community flourishes in simplicity according to their traditional lifeways, an alien population comes to own their land and their resources in order to commodify these and bring them into the world economic order of continuous and growing consumption, and before they realize that they are poor, they have been alienated from the material ground of their human flourishing. The natives always try to avoid usurpation by the alien invaders by moving to the hinterlands but the ever expanding consumption machine follows them wherever they go until they are enlisted themselves into the alien system because the land and waters from which they drew life freely is no longer theirs to draw from. They can no longer draw life from the land because their ways are made useless in the new systems, and, even if they do not want to live according to what is imposed, they have to in order to simply live.

Having been recruited into the dominant economic and political system but not fully educated as effective or equal players in it, they are exploited by traders and entrepreneurs, industrialists and men of power who own the system as their tool for self propagation. These natives became the marginalized of our country. Our nation and all colonized nations with “low” levels of scientific and technological development, in short all nations colonized by the West that were not oriented toward western means of development and growth, suffer the same fate as indigenous people. As marginalized nations, we began with low levels of development and technology because our ethos was simply oriented towards different conceptions of a good human life. If we were inclined to build empires of consumption and conquest, I am sure our civilizations would have found their own way into building war machines and industries of mass production. But we didn’t, but neither did we have the chance to discover the flourishing of our inclinations because the Western ways were imposed upon us. So here we are, the pauper nations condemned to dream the western dreaming just to survive. The hopeful ones among us still believe that if we can learn this game well we will be able to win at it and become as progressive as the rich nations. However, I am not so optimistic about this because the game has already been at play for so long according to a paradigm of play that favors the exploiters and crushes the exploited that the game has to change in order for it to be fruitful for us. And so we have to learn to stop benchmarking by their standards and to begin to rethink the meaning of development for the good of our selves.

By benchmarking our civilizations with theirs, we dig ourselves deeper into perdition. Ever since the West involved us in their economic systems and their systems of trade, we have always had to pay for their excesses. We are poor in the not-genuinely-developing-world, or what they used to call the Third World and what they now ironically call the developing world, because they involved us in an economic system that was set up to serve their interests according to their needs. In this way, they sucked us into a vortex of exploitation which in many imaginative ways rendered us inutile to realize our preferred life ways. They barred us from living life what we knew to be a good life and forced us to buy into their dream of development so that they could draw on our resources to our detriment, and then sell us back their products to our perdition. But that’s really not the worst thing the West has done to the victims of their exploitation. The terrible truth about this whole story of exploitation is that the whole time it was flourishing, we were always at the losing side, and now that it is collapsing, we are going to have to pay for its excesses.

Our time is facing the end of life and the world as they have made it. Climate change and the end of the age of petroleum signal that. Our environment is changing and becoming less hospitable if not harsher. Many of our homes will be swallowed by the sea, our populations will be displaced and much diminished, and food and water will be harder to come by. Those who will pay most for these changes are those who were exploited by the system that brought these changes about, i.e. the global poor. Much of what is known as the global south will starve, drown, thirst, or freeze because their already hand to mouth resources will not allow them to prepare for and creatively meet the coming challenges. And so, having been unwittingly complicit in building this system that made our world more dangerous for us, we will suffer the consequences of this complicity without really having enjoyed whatever good it brought.

And yet, we still benchmark our progress and development on the systems of the West that brought us to where we are. We still insist on measuring our accomplishments against their accomplishments knowing that these accomplishments were founded on systems of valuation that allowed for the blind exploitation of this world that was so good to us. Why, I wonder, after all that this model of development and growth has done for us, do we not look for other benchmarks of genuine civilization? Or why have we not looked at our selves as a possible benchmark for their civilizations?

Notes from the End of Life as We Know It: When Calamity Hit Home

Last September 30, a calamitous amount of rain fell on our city. It flooded for the first time in most people’s memories the city that seems so insulated from natural disasters. Of course we are used to man made disasters such as crime, poverty and injustice. But never has nature dealt in this magnitude such death and reversal of fortune on the people of the metropolis.

Of course, we are aware of the fact that worst things have hit more people more often in the countryside. And perhaps we are being a bit over dramatic and soft-bellied when we keep talking about how badly we were hit and how terrible the suffering in the city is, but the simple fact is that our once unaffected city has become affected. Disasters always used to happen everywhere else but not here. That’s because we’re a city and, being that, we are constructed to be less vulnerable to nature’s movements. In this age of shifting climates, we are not so invulnerable.

There was a time that human ingenuity and creativity could assure us that nature could not throw anything our way that modern technology and engineering could not protect us from. I think that what we are realizing now is that this certainty is going to be less and less true in the coming times. Whether global warming is a human phenomenon or not (some say it’s still debatable) the simple fact is that weather conditions are changing and getting harsher. Everyone it seems is more vulnerable now and we should prepare to cope with our future climate.

How do we cope with the world as it changes? How can we face Mother Nature when she is clearly showing us that she is bigger than us and bigger than anything we can do? I think one way was exhibited by our university in the last two weeks.

When the typhoon struck and we became aware of its adverse effects, we immediately responded. Thousands trooped to the covered courts, social networking instruments facilitated the flow of good will and social capital, donations poured in from everyone, and as best as we could, the university responded to the needs of communities all over the metropolis.

The university also showed how it is indeed a community—or perhaps, although this would make our friends from Europe cringe—a family. Beyond being an institution of anonymous people, we are a family where each person matters and each one should be accounted for and cared for and called to responsibility—not because it is their right or duty but because they are valued. We are a community in true solidarity that is gathered in realizing our best collective self when the call of responsibility comes. Most of all we are a family capable of sacrificing for one another.

We will need to strengthen this solidarity in the coming times because the world as we know it is coming to an end. Weather patterns are clearly changing and weather disturbances are intensifying. We had barely begun the work of rebuilding in the NCR when the city of Baguio and the towns of Pangasinan, Laguna, Cagayan, and Isabella went under in torrents of rain. Who knows if this will be followed by dry spells? If these conditions prevail we will have to redesign our farming methods and technologies. We will also have to rethink how our city is laid out and how our homes should be designed.

The weather aside, we will have to rethink our food production methods because the age of abundant petroleum is coming to an end. Almost everything in our food production system, from our fertilizers to our delivery systems, is petroleum dependent. We will also have to rethink our water supply system because although water will fall in destructive proportions, our drinking supply will begin to be depleted.


The calamities that befell us in the last three weeks could really signal the beginning of the end of the world as we know it, the end of our lives as we know it. The simple fact is that are just too many of us who live too long and consume in destructive proportions. Mother Earth cannot sustain our greedy, parasitic ways. We have come to a tipping point and at this point nature has to make adjustments to regain her balance. As she shifts, we could lose the very simple alignment of habitats that has sustained us. Like we saw in the last week, when nature has to readjust, the surest things on which we bet our lives—like how the water will stay in its place, how the air will always be breathable, how the earth is firm and well founded, and how the weather has a somewhat predictable cycle—become frighteningly unstable. And when nature moves, no one is safe no matter how well built the city.

Nature has shown us how it will move. Will we listen? We have no choice but to because our ways cannot be sustained. The basic fuel of mass consumption is almost completely sucked out of the earth. Soon we will reach the maximum carrying capacity of the earth. Whether we want to or not, we will have to make our own adjustments.

This might be a frightening time for many. Life as we know it must come to an end in order for us to build life as it ought to be. But this time is the perfect opportunity to rebuild human society in a way that is just to out better selves, our fellow human beings and the earth. It is a time for readjustments where humanity is given the opportunity to reimagine its broken self and find its fullest possibilities given how it has hurt itself and the earth.

The signs calling us to readjustment are frightening and quite wild. But in truth, it is an opportunity to come to our senses about who we are and what we can be. It is an opportunity to understand what a just economy is such that we are fair to our world and our fellow persons. Around the corner of this century could be a world order that decades of uprisings and revolutions have not been able to achieve—i.e. a truly human world build by men and women who know better because they have been through the worst that they put themselves through.

When the worst hit our city, without hesitation, our community rose to its better self and in solidarity served those who were hardest hit by the floods. We even took extreme measures to be available to those who would need us. If there is a sign of hope at that the end of the world as we know it will bring forth a better world to know, it is the fact that the seeds of a better society are in us already. Perhaps the end of the world will only spell the end of social structures that encrust our hearts and prevent us from being good people to one another. Perhaps the end of this world will serve to shatter the walls around the cities of our hearts that have gotten used to mindless consumption of the self and the other and allow to emerge a city founded on solidarity.

Special Message from the Chair

*photo by Jason Mariposa

To Our Dearest Students,

With the release of your class standing this week (either in this board or in your classes), we are freeing most of you from your academic obligations so that you will be free to do your moral ones.

Last week was a time of great pride for all Ateneans. As soon as the flood waters rose to calamitous proportions, we as a community responded with great generosity. By the thousands we came, you most of all, to respond to the need for relief of those whose lives were brought to a painful halt by the floods. So many of you and so much of your energies were gathered in doing good when and where it was most needed. If there is anything that will most genuinely mark our being Ateneans in this Sequi year we celebrate, it is you passing bags and sorting clothes despite your own worries and pains. If only for that, I can say my work has a meaning.

Now that we are freeing you from your academics, we are calling you to continue that quiet heroism that you exhibited last week. When the floods rose, homes were ruined, the foundations of many lives lost, and psyches were hurt. Beyond being a time for relief, this is a time for rebuilding. Our task now is harder and costlier than relief, and that is why such a drastic step was taken by the VP and the deans. They have faith that if you are free to respond you will rise to the call of the moment.

This past week, I have heard many comments about how it might have been a mistake to let go of you this way. Some people said that not too many of our population were affected and that we should just have moved on and not lingered in this drama. I don't agree at all: 150 faculty, staff and maintenance personnel and 1000 students were directly hurt by this. Multiply that to the many more who are disturbed by their worry and concern for those among the hurt that
they love. I would say that this is a substantial number of our population.

I heard from some that if we let you go, most of you will just go back to your malls and your computers. But this is what I say to that: "I have been teaching in this university for 20 years and I know that it's probable that many of you will do just that. However, we need to free the energies of the responsible ones among you to come to the aid of our Ateneo family." Certainly we will lose many to cyberspace and the malls, but I believe that more will come with shovels, notebooks, ideas, and energies to help the wounded realize that there is life after the flood.

One remark I got was that we are babying you by absolving you of any more academic obligations. We should teach you to be tough by pushing you to persevere with your duties despite the hurting. The truth is that we are not babying you but challenging you to be strong enough to be able to rise to your higher duty the infinite responsibility for the other.

And so our dear students, with the posting of these grades we free you. Know that your philosophy teachers have faith in you--that without reluctance or doubt, we let you go to respond to the call.

Be safe and come back next semester with the wisdom you will gain in the lessons ahead of you.


Love,


Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez
Chair
Department of Philosophy

Willie Gets It Right

by Agustin Martin Rodriguez

The latest controversy hounding the beloved king of offensive machismo, Willie Revillame, has to do with this meltdown he had in “Wowowee!” The following words were uttered when ABS inserted a window on the TV screen showing the procession of the body of former President Aquino from La Salle Greenhills to the Manila Cathedral while his merriments were going on. This is what he said according to the article “Willie Revillame violated code of ethics – MTRCB”

Hindi siguro magandang tingnan na pinapakita niyo yan (Mrs. Aquino’s footage). Nagsasaya kami tapos pinapakita niyo yung, I don't think dapat ipakita yan.

Eh mahihirapan akong magsalita rito. Nagpapasaya ako nakikita ko ‘yung ano (cortege) ni Tita Cory. Sana pakitanggal naman muna ‘yan sa ating traffic. Kasi kung ganyan pakita nalang natin ‘yan kasi nagsasaya kami dito tapos masakit sa akin yan. Nagsasalita ako dito yan Pls, sana maintindhan niyo, nagsasaya kami dito papakita niyo sa amin yun. Diba? Hindi tama eh okay?

Hay nako. Pangit. Hindi maganda ho sa atin nagsasalita pinapakita yung kabaong ni Tita Cory. Diba? Paano kami magkakapagsaya nahihirapan kami? I'm sorry ho ah pero ako totoo ako eh. ‘Wag niyo akong papagalitan...Pagkatapos ng show pakita niyo ‘yung gusto niyong ipalabas. Kasi itong Wowowee gusto ko at alam din ni Tita Cory ‘yan kasi napasaya din siya ng show na ito na laging masaya dito. Okay? ¹

What poor Willie is trying to say in his halting, perhaps annoyed, clearly caught off-guard manner is that placing the live footage of the procession for the transfer of Tita Cory's body in the same screen as his wildly undulating show is done in bad taste. Firstly, because it does not respect the grandeur of the event. There, in a small screen, dwarfed by crying gay boys being outed in TV and an audience maddened by the onslaught of distractions, was the solemn send-off procession for the best loved president of this threatened Republic. It’s just so ABS to do something like that: maximum circus with minimum consideration for potentially offended sensibilities. Secondly, Willie was unable to proceed with his usual irreverence and sacrificial-audience-member badgering while such a mournful event was taking place. Thirdly, and most importantly, the contrast in events was just too extreme that their mutual presencing would have canceled each other out.

Willie’s extravaganza is an avalanche of sights and sounds meant to dissipate the self. There is the constant dancing, the getting-to-know-you of contestants that borders on a grotesque charade of the Dr. Phil-esque exposure of psyces, the karanabal-like display of talents of contestants which prelude the games, and the prize-givings which are the creamy centers of this elaborate, over sugared pastry of an event. Willie’s show is exactly a doughnut dipped in sugar, topped with a sprinkled bed of layered frosting, and stuffed with the thickest, sweetest cream. It’s a pastry that one has to consume completely because once in your hands it keeps drawing you in until it is consumed. When you have completely consumed it, you are filled with this dizzy feeling of having taken in something that fills you but not in a good way. It leaves you uneasy and queasy, but it felt so good in the mouth that it keeps you coming back for more. It's something like the mall.

The mall is a wonderful place that is designed to allow you to disperse yourself. It is meant to draw your attention to all kinds of sensory delights designed to titillate you appetites and push your desires to their limits. In a mall, your mind and will are dispersed such that everything is supposed to draw you hither and yon, and you are meant to be so dispersed that you act and want on sheet impulse. Because you keep moving and wanting, it seems that your life, for that brief moment is full, but at the end of it, you're tired and dispersed and empty. That's why you can't wait for the next time. It's like computer games, casual sex, ecstasy, and so many of the things that we do.

Tita Cory’s funeral rites were something completely different. And, when something does come along that manages to attract our attention and gather us, something like the solemnity of a sincere, albeit slightly showbizzed, a-Dieu to a beloved person, we are silenced to self-gathering. That is I think what happened to us in the days around August 5. When Tita Cory died, the nation seemed to fall silent as if everyone lost someone who meant something to them. We all did. We lost someone who stood for our best possibilities given our finite, broken selves. Tita Cory could be seen as a model person. A model person, according to Max Scheler, is a person who bears, in her finite way, the best possibilities of being a person given a particular value system. She was our model person for she showed us how to be humble, simple, and steadfast; to be courageous and and open to the call to service; to be selfless and love one's people; and to be a good mother to one's children while being responsible for the children you have embraced as your own, i.e. all of us.

The funeral rites for Tita Cory captivated us. People everywhere were glued to their television sets watching the huge crowds of Filipinos line up to pay their respects and listening to those who knew her talk about her simplicity, great care for people, steadfastness, and great love. Listening and watching, being attentive to the expressions of love and admiration, participating in rituals of remembrance and sending-off to God—these things quieted us. The rituals of saying goodbye to one who showed us who we are and how simplicity, constancy, and courage could win the day reminded us what we as a people could be. As we remembered her in saying goodbye, we remembered our best selves, and we were gathered interiorly.

What happened in those days was the polar opposite of what happens every day at Wowowee! There, people are given the best offering of forgetfulness through layers upon layers of noise and haste. As we are immersed in Willie’s world, we are allowed to forget ourselves, or make a spectacle of ourselves, or see ourselves as bathed in the borrowed light of the showbiz world. There we don’t find our best selves, our selves that can triumph over crushing poverty, our selves that can love our children in the most degraded conditions, or our selves that can create lives with dignity and hope in the most decrepit environments. There we find our carricature selves: the stereotype gay boy televising the drama of his angst, the genuinely sorrowful widow of a dead soldier singing out of key through her tears, and the old lady with insurmountable debts dancing to Willie’s delight. These are our sorry selves that are translated to television marionets for everyone’s delight. The projections are not meant for us to know and embrace who we are but to forget how truly, potentially tragic human existence is. And for that treat, and perhaps more money that we can ever imagine, we are willing to let Papi have his way with us.

Now that Willie himself is hinting at political ambitions, he is telling everyone that he has been serving the public now for so many years. He has been serving us not as a theif but as a giver of gifts. He said in the news “Hindi ako magnanakaw, mambibigay ako.” Or something like that. But I’m not sure how true that is. For how much entertainment and money he has given, how much of our selves has he taken away?

__________

[1] GMANews.TV. Sunday, August 9, ( http://ph.news.yahoo.com/gma/20090808/tel-willie-revillame-violated-code-of-et-284c369.html), accessed 20 August 2009.

Why the World is a Little More Empty Without Her

by Agustin Martin Rodriguez

Before anything else can be said, this must be said. Yes I know that President Aquino could have and should have initiated a meaningful and comprehensive land reform initiative. If she did, if she was willing to sacrifice Hacienda Luisita and to distribute unjustly acquired land with her revolutionary powers, she could have truly and substantially improved the lives of millions of Filipinos and perhaps set us on a road to just development. It seems that she could have, while she was popular and well loved and enjoyed the support of her nation, neutralized the influence of the traditional elite and the military and gone about instituting real political reforms that would have allowed the opening up of our systems to the effective participation of the marginalized in shaping the new republic. But for some reason, Tita Cory quickly fell under the influence and the control of the traditional elite and her military backers. For all her love of her people, she took our restored democracy and seemed to have handed it back to traditional powers. This failure makes possible the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the continued subversion of the state by self-serving politicians who distort our democratic institutions for personal gains. However, despite this, despite her being a conservative progressive who failed to respond to the revolutionary call of her time, Cory Aquino is an exemplar and a good president who deserves all the love we give her. And now that she is gone, the country seems to be a little darker and sadder especially since it is struggling to free itself from the grips of a petty tyrant.

Tita Cory is Tita Cory because she was a genuine model person in the sense Max Scheler uses that phrase. A model person is one who bears the best possibility of our selves given the call of our times. A model person bears and realizes the best values of our humanity that the times call to surface in order to inspire a people to be their best possible selves. Isn't that what we loved about her? Despite her failures as a politician, she was the best person anyone could want to be. Her whole life was oriented toward serving her people in the best way that she knew how. She had a real concern for the systems that we restored. She inspired us to give ourselves to the higher call of our nation. Even when she was old and sick, she stood with us without any self serving motives in our struggle against those who threatened our democracy.

I personally will miss having someone in the public sphere who can speak with such purity of intentions. Not even our religious leaders can speak so purely without being suspected of some agenda, whether it is to preserve the power of their institutions or to gain some influence with the administration. When Tita Cory spoke, we listened because we knew that she spoke from the heart despite her not-completely-progressive politics and her seeming political naiveté. Perhaps it was precisely her naiveté that made us open our hearts to her, because this naiveté was rooted in her desire to find the path to the good in all things. Beyond our political strategizing to achieve the sought for liberation of our people, Tita Cory always kept her sight on the good and the ought, and thus she reminded us what ultimately we were fighting for.

There are lessons to learn from her life. The foremost of which is that the simplest people, even those who seem to be least likely to be called to greatness, can become truly great if they are able to discern the challenge of the times and respond to it as best as they can. Heroes are not the greatest persons in skills and abilities but they are those who can respond with courage and wisdom to the call of their fatedness. That is the great lesson of all our best fairy stories. Trust the cosmos when it invites you and it will bring you to a fullness you can never achieve yourself. But of course, to hear this challenge, you must be genuinely open and generous of heart. To find yourself, to find your place in history, you cannot be self-involved. You have to be listening to where life is calling you and respond with generosity.

The other lesson, a more painful one, that we can learn from Tita Cory is that no matter how pure your intentions are, no matter how you act with a passion for the ought, evil structures can always subvert the good that we do. Look at how President Aquino was unable to craft a better constitution or how her push for land reform was watered down. These were all effects of structures that limited her ability to do good. At every step of the way to reform with her revolutionary government, there were traditional politicians and powerful military men always pushing for their self-interested projects. And they won because the political structures that she operated with were always slanted against the interests of the majority and always allowed a selfish and short-sighted elite to determine the national agenda. So despite the fact that President Aquino was potentially poised to realize far reaching reforms, the structures of our state and our political systems were too infected with the rot of the traditional and new elite that the democracy she rebuilt was still rotten from within. Thus GMA and her brand of politics which shamelessly undermines the state to serve her obvious interests is still possible.

Certainly, this is a good lesson to learn, We don't only need good people, we need good governance structures in order to realize our common good as a people. We need to build solidly democratic structures so that our potentials for sustainable and just development are not always stolen away by the predatory elite that continue to dominate our political and economic systems.

There's one last and best thing I think that we can learn from Tita Cory. What she taught us with her life is simply this—if you love as best as you can, as best as your human frailty allows you—people will recognize that love and love you back. Of course it's not important that they love you back—that's not the point of loving or genuine service. But love does beget love and sometimes, with the best of us, our love is infectious and can set a nation aflame. And her love did, and we burned with good will for a while. It was such a wonderful thing to live through those times when we were a people of good will who thought we could infect the world with it.

We will miss you Tita Cory, especially now that we battle with such a dangerous evil in our government. We will miss your steadfast faith and hope for that was the light with which you led us.

Poems for Cory

For Cory
by Marc Oliver Pasco

Nothing happens here.

Nothing but the cries that linger amongst the few who have seen what it means to do.

Nothing happens here.

Nothing but the cheers that resound amongst the few who witnessed what it means to listen.

Nothing happens here.

Nothing but the silent resolve of one who persevered and struggled so that something may have happened.

Para kay Cory
ni Marc Oliver Pasco

Nakalimutan ko na yata
ang pangalan ko
Matagal-tagal na nang huli kong narinig
mula sa bibig ng iba
Ang ngalang dati’y
Nililingunan ko.

Sadya ko na lamang kayang
lilimutin
ang pangalang
ibininyag lang naman
sa akin?

O hihikayatin ko kaya
ang langit
na magbuhos ng ulan
nang muli nilang alalahanin
ang ngalang inihandog
nila sa akin.

Mourning Michael

by Agustin Martin Rodriguez

And so the prince has passed on. The sad little prince who after he failed to grow up to be something even remotely resembling normal, who came to characterize the brokenness that we can fall into when our formative years are deprived of love, who made so many of us scream with joy and amazement when he created a new world of music on stage and then cringe with revulsion when he created a strange wonderland for him to play with little boys, finally departed the world in which he could never find a place. Finally, he made the passage to the only wonderland that could embrace him with the love he sought.

The world mourns his passing. Every media agency is focused on talking about his death and projecting their sorrow. Fans are camping out in spontaneous communities of shared sorrow. Celebrities are tripping over themselves to release the most profoundly sorrowful sound bite.

Of course everyone feels a genuine sorrow because MJ is dead. Michael was part of the soundtrack of their youth at some point of his career. I'm sure “Ben” or “Billie Jean” or “Man in the Mirror” triggers some memory of some important event in most everyone's life. But as we mourn and remember him so fondly, I cannot help but remember how he was so mocked and reviled by the western media as if he were a circus monkey fit only for the admiration of shrieking Asian girls.

If there is a lesson to his death, it is this: death makes everyone love you and makes them guilty for their terrible thoughts about you. And if you are famous and the mass media obsesses over your death, everyone will try to remember how much exactly they loved you all along. Can you therefore blame poor outcast teenagers who fantasize about being famous and about being dead?

But the other lesson to learn as everyone mourns the great child prince's death is this: celebrity culture is incapable of celebrating genuine greatness. Without a doubt, Michael Jackson did contribute greatly to popular music. He was at the forefront of the invention of pop styles from the 60s to the 90s. But in the grand scheme of things, what did his style contribute to human civilization in its quest to realize the potential of its spirit? How has his music helped us discover our potential for creativity as we face the end of world civilization and life as we know it? How does he help us discover who we are as we come to realize that the world we have built for ourselves is neither sustainable nor enriching? Because in the end, shouldn't our greatness be measured by these standards? And yet, half of the shows of most of our serious news programs spent their time extolling the life and death of one whose best lyrics were “I'm looking at the man in the mirror and I'm asking him to change his ways” and “Heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race.”

On the other hand, just a few weeks ago, a great peasant leader was shot dead. Rene Peñas was a simple man from a simple background who against all the odds rose to greatness. Ka Rene was a truly great man. He led a handful of powerless peasants to fight a whole system designed to deprive the margins of their resources and won to teach his nation that hope and perseverance can sometimes triumph over systematic evil. He showed us all that we could still believe in happy endings in a history built on the deeds of petty evil and shameless, magnificent greed. Ka Rene's greatest hit was a simple march of 444 kilometers. It was not sold to a lot of people but to those who were his fans, their spirits were made to awaken to the greatness of the simplest of men. Their hearts were blown open to embrace the love in the universe that ever so subtly invites us to move with its heartbeat and bring outrageous good to the world.

But when he died, only a few nuns and priests, activists and NGO workers, peasants and students wept and scrambled to say something meaningful so that his death would not be so absurd. And so the peasant leader, the exemplar of who we could be if we were attuned to the call of the good, passed on to his true ancestral lands where he will never be hungry or threatened or killed, where he will truly be enlivened by the creative power that he felt in the land and heard calling in the suffering of his people. But the remembrance of his passing did not come anywhere close to the world's mourning for a boy who could walk backwards as if there were no gravity and had a sweet, sweet voice that could make us forget that there was a goodness to humanity beyond petty loves and glamor.

HR 1109 Denounced

On the night of June 2, the administration and its allies railroaded the passage of HR 1109 with their usual impunity. As is characteristic of this administration, democratic processes and respect for the common good were sacrificed when they insisted on the realization of their
self-serving agenda.

Clearly, from the point of view of the nation's interest, there is no urgency in pushing for Charter Change in this dubious mode. Nothing can justify the trampling of deliberative processes. It is clear that the administration solely wants to ensure that it stays in power.

Such arrogant disregard for the will and the interests of the people is ingrained in the governance style of this government. From the countless appointments of unqualified allies to key positions in government to the various corruption scandals, the President and her allies continuously violate the principles of good governance because they can.

Everyone who is supposed to be able to check these violations of our national interest, but does nothing, is complicit to this evil. But, this has got to stop. This government has to be shown that it can no longer insist on its agenda for power. We are calling the key institutions in this country to say no. The Senate has to move and protect its right to decide on constitutional issues as a co-equal branch. The Supreme Court has to continue to show the nation that it
can stand against the attacks of tyrannical forces on our democracy. Civil society must continue its efforts at blocking the rise of this dark tide. And we hope the citizens of this country will be moved by the swell of the passions of opposition that say never again to GMA and the politics based on greed and abuse of power.

May the spirit of the murdered Sumilao leader, Rene Peñas, inspire us to persevere in our non-violent struggle for a humane, just, and peaceful society.

Signed,

Individual Faculty Members of the Philosophy Department,
Ateneo de Manila University

Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez
Michael G. Aurelio
Remmon E. Barbaza
Oscar Bulaong, Jr.
Mark Joseph Calano
Manuel B. Dy, Jr.
Geoffrey Guevara
Jacqueline Marie D. Jacinto
Michael Ner Mariano
Pamela Joy Mariano
Marc Oliver Pasco
John Carlo Uy