The Big Swindle Called Change

On May 16, 2016 millions of Filipinos fell for presidential runner Rody Duterte believing him to be a man of the masses. After all, he had a photo of him seemingly dozing under a humble mosquito net. Duterte offered himself for fresh change raising the campaign slogan: “Change is coming!”

But the image he cultivated in the public’s mind and the rallying cry of change were just a propaganda ploy to sell his bid for the highest office. He said, “gawa ka lang ng kaunting drama para manalo.” (You just have to make little drama to win.)

Duterte admitted that he had hundreds of poor constituents murdered by the Davao Death Squad. He even corrected the alleged figure of seven hundred individuals killed to 1,700.

The Commission on Audit flagged him for taking liberties with billions of pesos in the public treasury while still mayor of Davao City. The huge chunks of the budget were supposedly for intelligence and salaries of city hall workers which turned out to be ghost employees. He blithely admitted having stolen.

His voters ignored the red flags. They chose to blind themselves with the belief that he was poor even when Senator Antonio Trillanes exposed his deposits with the Bank of Philippine Islands amounting to 200 hundred million pesos.

More than one and a half year later, he practically acknowledged having billions of pesos in banks by suspending and filing charges against Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang for allegedly leaking documents pertaining to his deposits.

Right after the May 2016 elections, while Duterte was still waiting to assume office as the next president of the republic, Davao was a crowded scene of groups and personalities swooping in to cast lots with the victor.

Comers snapped up bookings to all the posh hotels in town, where they shuttled to hobnob with the new president. Getting in by air, billeting in high-end hotels, and lounging in fine dining joints, they were obviously not the poor kind who banked on his popular appeal and the promise of something different.

Party turncoats flocked en masse to seek accommodation in the new power arrangement. Moneyed backers in the just concluded election angled for a slice of the pie. Business operators turned up to smell big-ticket projects. Meanwhile, political sponsors and supporters brokered appointments to positions in the bureaucracy.

The clear sign that the promised change to ordinary folks was not going to happen was the kind of people flocking to the roost and dining with Duterte. The mesmerized rabble during the election sorties were nowhere to be seen in the converging political currents. The opportunistic elite yet again eying spoils and entitlement edged them.

The discredited has-beens of previous rule with criminal dockets and records of corruption slipped back. Out from detention, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regained influence. She once again loomed large on the political stage.

Arroyo and her henchmen immediately busied venting vengeance on members of the previous administration which caused her to wear a neck brace and ride the wheelchair while facing charges of plunder and electoral manipulation during the 2007 elections. 

She nursed six years of grudge in detention at the Veterans Memorial Hospital. Now all of them who caused this must pay.

First to go behind bars was Senator Leila De Lima who fell victim to Duterte’s notorious tokhang (knock and request). She was indicted for a framed-up drug case buttressed by an array of false witnesses from the Bilibid prison.

It wasn’t incidental that besides hounding Duterte for human rights violations during his incumbency as mayor of Davao, former Justice Secretary De Lima also built and filed the corruption cases that clamped Arroyo in detention with no bail.

Held indefinitely at the national police custodial center for confused and problematic charges that prosecutors could not seem to pin down and keep amending, De Lima is suffering worse than Arroyo.

Now, the vengeful pack is gunning for former president Benigno Aquino III. The attack dogs of Arroyo and Duterte have started to dredge gutter slush to do PNoy in: among others, the SAF 44 fiasco in Mamasapano and the controversy-laden dengue vaccine purchase.

The comeback of the Marcos family is another. Imelda Marcos still faced charges of corruption and plunder in the aftermath of a 14-year conjugal kleptocracy that she and her husband dictator Ferdinand Marcos foisted on the country. She had gained notoriety in the international news media for ostentatious spending sprees that left behind royal jewelry and 3,000 pairs of shoes during her family’s hurried exit from Malacanang. Her profligate lifestyle got the label Imeldific.

After 28 years of contenting themselves with displaying to the public the cadaver of the dictator or its wax replica inside a refrigerated glass casket, Imelda and her children were finally able to bury the overthrown infamous strongman at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Cemetery of Heroes), courtesy of Duterte.

The late dictator has a fan in Digong who blurted out admiring his authoritarian stint and owing gratitude to Madame Imelda and the other heirs to the fabled Marcos loot, Bongbong and Imee. He pledged to pay political (and presumably campaign kitty) debts to the brood.

Upon assumption to power Duterte easily whipped up a supermajority of canine collaborators in Congress: the usual herd of traditional politicians merely after self-serving share in power and economic spoils. With them, he easily grabbed huge chunks from the 2017 national appropriations exponentially increasing, for one, allocation to his office from less than P3 billion during the previous administration to P20 billion.

He snipped the contingency fund for calamities and disaster risk reduction: the former in half, the latter almost entirely. He also pared the budget for agriculture and welfare. But his congressional allies got back the outlawed pork barrel in bigger amount of P80 million per solon. Close ones would be favored with gargantuan allotments for unspecified projects, while members of the opposition got zero for their districts.

Senator Panfilo Lacson exposed them, like the P50-billion payment for future road-right-of-ways with no particular takers. Discretionary funds hid in other items most notorious as always the intelligence tab.

With the comeback of the defunct ruling cliques, literally with a vengeance, Duterte showed to be no different from the kind of politico that 16 million Filipinos thought they had driven away by voting him into office. 

The people have been had by the same dyed-in-the-wool trapo who shows more interest in venting vengeance, paying political debts, and dividing spoils among partners in crime, and dispensing patronage than in uniting the country towards a radical break with the past.

Midnight Poetry

INNER COMPASS

BIMBO CABIDOG

Humans associate midnight with the time when the dark forces reign, the situation is very bad, chances are down, and life is on the verge of flickering out. They hold it as a moment of suffering, when hope is lost, and pain is overwhelming.

The continuity of life outlasts it. Even though they fear such midnight, humans have the capacity to defeat the nightmares. The capacity is built-in. It gets into action once the danger of absolute negation looms.

When breath is about to snap, the soul miraculously detaches, pulls up, and awakens. The heaviness that straddles on top choking the body floats away as a dream.

When strength is sagging and energy ebbing to its lowest, a blast of rejuvenating wind blows in. When darkness becomes too pitched and smothering, light bores tiny holes at first that quickly gape as shafts of brightness punch through the inky veil. Negation no matter how extreme is always overpowered by the spreading dawn.

Because midnight passes, the one in it literally and figuratively is as sure as the sun to rise to another day. In the freshness of the morning, the old gloom loosens and clears. Fear and despair dissipate. Life is reenergized and renewed, and hails with a glorious sheen radiating from an inner core.

While midnight comes and goes, everyone with no exception must pass through the corridor. Yes, one dreads what he/she might encounter there in the dark unknown pregnant with killer phantoms of imagination. But for all the obliterating experience, no real day comes unless through it.

You may cringe and loathe about passing the channel, but going through it is not a mere choice. It is the flipside of all reality, the other half of your living essence – yes, the mysterious half.

You may be led to believe midnight as the daunting realities of the world you live in. Nay, it is the reality that dispels other realities including those. It is the only reality, the formless void that seems to take even your breath away.

Despite the negating blankness though, the midnight has a mystic attraction. It pulls like the suck of gravity, but incites resistance. It draws like a fervent desire to swim, yet repeals with a loathing to go into the water. It evokes daring to face fear, yet compels to get away from the uncertain.

Countless times of passage in one’s lifetime should have made the phenomenon all too familiar. But every encounter of it is still a mystery. As midnight expels other realities, there is in the yawning nothingness more than meets the eye. There is in the realm beings that to see is to close the eyes. There is in the void poetry that weaves rhythms.

With society’s advance, nature is always the greatest casualty. Generational upgrades in technology and contemporary lifestyles are expunging midnight as it used to be from human experience. They have ushered the untiring night life, and cities that don’t sleep.

Folks bring the cares and ceaseless drudgery of everyday deep into the midnight. The narrowing channel has come to less and less renew life with the vibrant auras that emanate from the core of being.

Today, the artificial world has recreated midnight and made it into an electrical day. From the invented time, zombies of folks who have long gone dead in the frenzied chasing of the elusive good life arise. Here, you no longer lay down to rest in the quiet of a parallel universe. You lay tinkering with your brains to fix sticky problems wakeful under the mechanical hum of the 24/7 buzzer.

As the bustle of day intrudes into the night, there is no more space for poetry to break the monotony of its grind. In the sacrosanct chamber of deeper consciousness, the contrasts that make life a wondrous opus recede. The dreamy interludes that keep it perfectly in tune leave. The original rhymes and rhythms from the dawn of creation discombobulate. The ceaseless discord, dissonance and sordidness of a hurried and harried existence completely take over.

Finally, it is no longer the dark spirits that seemingly lurk in the midnight that create men’s worst nightmares. What creates them is the break-neck race and maddening pursuit driven by lust for material possessions, power and money, in the broad light of day. 

Short Memory, History According To Yoyoy

HISTORY

BIMBO CABIDOG

Filipinos have short memory, a newspaper columnist if I remember right (see?) once wrote. Teachers note that majority of their students are poor in history.

Even old ones who already lived in that period forget that there was such a thing as the Marcos dictatorship. Some could remember instead Dovie Beams and Ferdinand Marcos (the dictator later) singing the Ilocano Pamulenawen on his way to her arms?

But Ferdie curtailing freedom, jailing or killing those who exercise their right, and plundering the country, what are you talking about?

Anyway, if not for Boholano songwriter and historian Yoyoy Villame, the generation of the 70s may no longer have been able to hark back to a bit of history taught in the elementary grades, that is: “on March 16, 1521when Philippines was discovered by Magellan.”

Of course the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan did not discover the archipelago. Others before him did, the Chinese Limahong, the group of Datu Puti, and the dwarfish men who wandered here through the ice bridges during the glacial age.

But Magellan must be credited for miscalculating his bearings in the high seas and hitting the wrong place. The long stormy Pacific crossing was a real dead boner.

Villame, who broke the chart in the early 70s for his account of the saga, related: “They were sailing day and night across the big ocean until they saw small Limasawa Island.” The island in Leyte was not the intended destination. Mollucas.

The Spanish fleet, or what remained of it, first hit Homonhon of Samar before Limasawa. But it was when “Magellan landed in Cebu City,” according to the Boholano historian, that things lit up, because Rajah Humabon and his court who met them “were very happy.”

As further narrated, “all people were baptized under the church of Christ and that’s the beginning of our Catholic life.”

This was not the case when “Magellan visited in Mactan to Christianize them everyone.” This time the people did not “meet him very welcome on the shores.”

The white man was spurned by the Muslim chief. “Magellan got so mad, ordered his men to come at land.” Anger did the arrogant European in, and the rest as always was history.

“Then the battle began at dawn, bolos and spears versus guns and canons,” Yoyoy graphically recounted. But the Spanish fleet commander was hit on his knee. “He stumbled down and cried and cried.”

At this point, strict parental guidance is advised on what Villame further told about the fate of the proud Caucasian. Let’s avoid that already.

Was Magellan really killed in battle, or was he just bitten when he alighted from his boat by a grouper called Lapu-Lapu, common in the waters off Cebu and a favorite by the natives? Was he fatally injured by the fish bite then died of infection later?  

What a cruel mistake for the fleet captain to accidentally be diverted to the Las Islas de Ladrones of the buko-eating people. For the blunder, Filipinos had to pay a steep price: four hundred years of colonial subjugation, 350 in monastery and 50 in Hollywood.

Yet, thanks nevertheless, for if the navigator did not goof, the Visayans and even the Tagalogs would not have had a top hit in the early seventies. The true discovery was not PI by Magellan, but Yoyoy Villame by the music industry. His single, Magellan, sold record high.

By the way, the story did not end with the unfortunate expedition that returned to its home country with only one ship out of five, and less the leader. The first appearance of the Western on our oriental shores would be followed by another wave about 50 years later.

This time, they saw to it that no incident, like the one that killed Magellan and almost decimated the Spanish fleet will happen again. They were better prepared in arms, superior fighting tactics and negotiating skills. They intended to dig in, get a foothold in the east, and rule forever.

Because of their victory, it would be their story that got to be told, by Villame nonetheless. One is of their discovering the Philippine islands, even if people were already inhabiting here who had their own social and economic life, and practiced a system of self-rule before conquest.

Four hundred years later, Filipinos would still wear the western colonial shades and look at the past as if the time before the white men came did not exist. The short memory would continue to cost them their national identity and independence.

Be A Victor Not A Victim

Inner Compass

BIMBO CABIDOG

Have you had the feeling of being born loser? Do you always have that buffeting thought of never winning in any of life’s battles? Reverse the spell. Be a winner. How? Here are a dozen tips.

1.       Accept bad fortune. Don’t spend a life denying or futilely refusing it. When hard times set in, bravely come to terms with reality. Screaming that it can’t be happening won’t help.

2.       Navigate the turbulent straits, as you sail the calm seas: with calm in mind and willingness in heart. Don’t keep yourself to the easy route avoiding the hard one. Life goes from one crisis to another. Nobody said it’s going to be a joyride all the way. There’s no such thing as success with no hitches.

3.       Solve the problem. Because you grin and bear it, don’t say you aren’t going to do anything about it anymore. Nay, accepting misfortune and accepting it as an irreversible fact of life are two different attitudes towards the problem, though they seem alike.

4.       Never give the win. Sometimes evil and adversity are too overwhelming that we no longer see redemption. We think that the only recourse is to resign ourselves to them. Wrong option, it is the supreme design that they always don’t triumph. Don’t make an exemption by letting them.

5.       Hang on. Be still there when fortune reverses. So, there appears to be no way to beat it, no matter how you believe in Michael Jackson. Hang your hands up? Nope, let the bad situation hang itself. Nothing is permanent. No condition is forever. Don’t be missing when good luck arrives.

There were times when I and my family spent a whole day eating boiled bananas bummed on salt. Misery would be made worse by desperation and the painful thought of my folks going through it. But once accepted, we took a relaxing breath. Two days after, we were eating fried chicken.

6.       Plod on. Indeed, you accepted. But that is one thing. The other is forebear, don’t surrender. Yes, a crushing blow can’t be anything but a crushing blow. So you fell. Down on the floor, you can no longer fall. You can only rise. Get up!

7.       Dispel the fatalistic tendency to stay down, for you believe that’s your fate. Nope, to be down forever is neither your lot nor that of anyone. To be on one’s feet again after stumbling is.

Real life is not a boxing match. No referee is going to count you out for a knockout punch, because you didn’t beat the time. Collect yourself a while. Then stand up and slug.

8.       Don’t put it upon you. Don’t wallow in remorse for being a guilty bastard. Next to fatalism is blaming yourself for the fall: it’s the stupid sinful me. Oh yeah? Why add torment? All of us have it one time or another. It happens all the time. You can’t be the perfect exemption.

9.       Bank on faith, not on reason. Don’t be misled by a false sense of security, because you are pretty sure to be on the right track. It’s not true that wise judgment could shield you from bad luck. Certainty from taking all things into consideration is always vulnerable to being shamed by the least expected. Draw confidence from someone who knows more than you could ever know with all the doctorate degrees the world offers.

10.   Yield to no apprehension. Too much caution stifles action, and no action means no desired result. Danger is normal. The waters are still, because the wind is quiet. But when the harsh southwest monsoon blows, you get tossed again by the familiar turbulence that you’ve always known.

11.   Let not defeatist thought defeat you. Convincing yourself that you’re not going to win is no way to win. Even if setbacks keep coming, the mind doesn’t say you’ll lose. It only says you can lose. The fight is yours. Overcome!

12.   Finally, bear the brunt, but beat the odds. Carry the heavy load, but bring it to the finish line. Get hold of fate no matter how daunting and shape it to your desired prize.

Your failings are not other people’s fault. Don’t be helpless, or worse, be unable to do anything but cry over it. Be the victor, not the victim. The new day is not a promise, but the law of nature. Meet the rising of the sun with your own rise.

ITAGUYOD ANG KABUHAYANG PAGNENEGOSYO

Pahayag ng Adhikaing Panglipunan

ng Institute for Local Innovation and Approach in Development (ILIAD)

Ang kahirapan ay napakatagal nang kalagayan ng nakararaming mamamayan. Ito ay salin-salin-lahi nang dinaranas ng mga Pilipino. 

Nilinaw ng isang ulat ng World Bank na ang kahirapan ay ang pagkakait sa isang indibidwal o pamilya ng ginhawa sa buhay. Ito ay nangyayari dahil ang kita nito ay di nakakatugon kahit sa pinakaminos nang mga pangangailangan. Ito ang kinasasadlakan ng malawak na masang Pilipino ngayon.

Ang kagyat na sanhi ng kahirapan ay napakababang kita o kawalan ng kita. Ito’y isinasaad ng pangkalahatang sakit ng di-kamaunlad o nababansot na pag-unlad ng bansa. 

Ang isang palantandaan ng di-kamaunlad ay ang kakulangan sa mga batayang industriya, kagaya ng bakal, enerhiya, komunikasyon at transportsyon. Bunsod nito, dinaranas ng bansa ang permanenteng krisis ng disempleyo sa patuloy na paglobo ng mga reserbang lakas paggawa na di makapasok sa industriya dahil sa kawalan nito. Sila ay nakalutang sa dagat ng karalitaan.

Matingkad na ebidensya ng malaganap na disempleyo ang milyon-milyong mamamayang naghahanap ng trabaho pero walang mapasukan. Ang mahigit sampung milyong mga manggagawang nagtratrabaho sa labas ay marka din ng malaganap na disempleyo sa bansa.  

Isinasabatas ng gobyerno ang mababang antas ng sahod sa paggawa sa pangkalahatan. Pero bukod sa batas na bakal ukol sa menos-sahod, pinapanatiling mababa ang sahod ng mga walang trabaho, dahil sa mahigpit na kompetisyon sa paggawa. 

Sa kabilang dako naman, dahil sa kaliitan ng industriya, nakatuon lang halos sa kalakalan o bentahan ang pang-ekonomyang pagkilos ng bansa. Kaya mababa ang kantidad ng kabuohang produktong nagagawa nito. Sa ganitong kalagayan, malayong makamit ang kasaganaang magdudulot sana ng ginhawa sa bawat pamilya.

Nilalarawan ng kahirapan ang di-pagkakapantay-pantay ng mga estado ng buhay pangtao sa lipunan, dala ng mapaniil na sistema sa produksyon at kalakaran ng pamilihan. Tampok sa ganitong pangyayari ang pagsasamantala sa nakararami ng iilang nag-aari at kumukontrola sa malalaking negosyo, institusyong pangpinansya, at lupain. 

Mga halimbawa ng nasabing pagsasamantala ang mataas na presyo ng bilihin, malaking buwis na pinapasan ng mga maliliit na konsumedor, usura o mapanakal na pautang, at di-makabuhay na sahod.

Sa ilalim ng nangingibabaw na reyalidad, may pag-asa ba ang mga naghihirap na makatunghay ng magandang buhay? 

Kung pagbabasehan ang mga inihahaing solusyon ng gobyerno na pawang pakitang-tao, malabo. Maliwanag sa mga ito ang kamay ng mga mayayamang humahawak ng kapangyarihang pang-ekonomya at pampulitika na tinaguriang mga naghaharing uri. 

Kaya sa pamamahala sa yaman ng bansa, nangingibaw ang kanilang mga taliwas na interes, tulad ng pagpapanatiling mababa sa sahod at pagtutuon ng malaking gastosin sa gobyerno sa mga proyektong pang-imprastruktura, kay sa pagtatatag ng mga kabuhayan ng mamamayan na kung totuosin ay maliit ang kinakailangan.

Ang kadalasang hakbang para aksyonan ang kahirapan ng palit-palitang administrasyon ay ang pagsusulong ng inisyatibang job generation o paglikha ng trabaho. Pero problemado pa rin ang naturingang solusyon sa dalawang punto.

Una, hindi basta’t nagtatayo ng pabrika o negosyo ang mga mayayamang may kapital para lang magkaroon ng trabaho ang mahihirap. Isinasaad ito ng mga puwersa at batas pangpamilihan kung saan ang bottom line (buod na konsiderasyon) ay kita o ganansya ng mamumuhunan. 

Magbalik tanaw tayo sa isang alituntunin ng kapitalismo: kung ikaw ay anakpawis mabubuhay ka lang kapag ika’y magtratrabaho, pero makakapagtrabaho ka lang kapag ito’y makapagbibigay ng tubo sa kukuha ng iyong lakas paggawa. 

Ang pinag-uusapan ng mga kapitalista sa pagtatayo ng isang kumpaniya na makapagbibigay ng mga trabaho ay hindi tubong-bangketa lang, kungdi limpak-limpak na ganansya. Kaya kung ang iniisip ay ang pagsulpot ng trabaho sa karamihan ng mga lugar sa bansa, ito ay pangangarap ng gising. 

Pangalawang punto, oo nga’t masuwerte ang iba dahil nagkaroon din ng trabaho. Pero hindi ba’t ito’y nakapailalim pa rin sa rehimeng pagsasamantala kung saan ang maliit na kinikita ayon sa batas na bakal ng pasahod ay di magkasya sa pagtugon kahit sa pinakamenos nang mga pangangailangan para mabuhay ang isang pamilya? 

Kung sumasahod ka rin lang sa guhit o mababa pa sa guhit ng kahirapan, hindi mo naiahon ang yong sarili at ang yong pamilya mula sa hikahos na pamumuhay sa pagkakaroon ng trabaho. 

Dahil gipit maging sa pagkain, dagdag na dusa sa mga mahihirap ang nakamamatay araw-araw na pagbabanat ng buto na walang pantay na enerhiyang kapalit sa enerhiyang nagagasta sa paggawa.

Kaya kahit paulit-ulit na sinasabi ang pamantayang inclusive growth o pagsasama sa mga maliliit sa biyaya ng kaunlaran, ang kahirapan ay patagal lang ng patagal.

Tulong-Sariling Pagkukusa Bilang Solusyon

Sa kabila ng lahat, di nabubura ang katotohanang ang masa pa rin ang tagapaglikha ng kasaysayan. Kailangan tuparin nila ang katangiang ito sa paglikha ng isang kasaysayang nagsasaad ng kanilang paglaya sa dusa. Kailangang sila na ang magpasya at gumawa ng solusyon. 

Sa kamay din naman ng mamamayan nakasalalay ang kalutasan ng problema. Ito’y ang paggamit ng kanilang makapangyarihang lakas-paggawa sa tulong-sariling pagkukusa.

Ano ang solusyong ito? Mula sa basic labor (batayang paggagawa) tumutungo sila sa karugtong na paggawa ng pagtatag sa sariling ikabubuhay. Mula sa laging paghahanap at pag-aantay ng trabahong kitang-sahod, pumupunta sila sa pagtatatag ng kabuhayan kung saan sila na mismo ang nag-iempleyo sa sarili at kumikita ng sarili. 

Ang tawag sa itaas ay entrepreneurship o pagnenegosyo, at bilang paag-aangkop sa estado panglipunan at pang-ekonomya ng kalakhang masang Pilipino: KABUHAYANG PAGNENEGOSYO.

Sa Kabuhayang Pagnenegosyo, ang inisyatiba sa paglutas ng problema ng kahirapan ay nasa mga mahihirap na. Kaysa maghintay sa trabaho na nakadepende sa pagpapasya ng mga mayayamang negosyante kung mayroon o wala, sila ang nagpapasya at kumikilos para mamuhunan sa sariling ikabubuhay. Sila ang nagnenegosyo. 

Ang pagbabago mula sa paghahanap ng trabaho tungo sa pagnenegosyo ay ayon na rin sa konsepto ng tulong-sariling pagkukusa kung saan ang manggagawa, imbes na mag-antay na makapagtrabaho sa iba, ay nagsasarili sa paggawa ng produkto at pagdadala nito sa pamilihan. Siya ay nagtatayo, nangangasiwa at nag-aari ng kaniyang empresa. 

Malaki ang binabago ng tunguhing ito sa kondisyon at kalagayang pang-ekonomiya ng lipunan. Una, ang mga lumilikha ng yaman sa pamamagitan ng paggawa ang siya na ring nakakahawak ng nilikhang yaman. Dahil wala na sila sa sistemang sahod-paggawa sa ilalim ng mga may-aring nagbabayad sa kanilang sahod, nagpapatakbo, at kumukontrol sa negosyong pinagtratrabahuan, ang produktong nililikha ng mga manggagawa at ang yamang bumubukal rito ay hindi na nalilipat sa kamay ng mga kapitalista. 

Pangalawa, nang hindi nagpapaputok ng isang baril sa rebolusyon, nakakalaya sila sa rehimeng pangproduksyon na batbat ng pagsasamantala. Naililigtas nila ang sarili sa mapaniil na sistemang sahod-kita, o paggawa kapalit ng sahod, dahil sa di na pagpasok rito. Ang nasabing sistema mismo ang pinag-uugatan ng kahirapan ng masa. 

Pangatlo, ang yamang kanilang nalilikha sa paggawa ay hindi na rin nagagamit laban sa kanila sa karagdagan at mas matindi pang pagsasamantala ng ng mga umaangin at nagkakamal nito. Dahil ito’y nasa kanila nang mga kamay, ito ay nagagamit sa pagpapalago at pagpapalakas ng kabuhayan, pagpapalaki ng lokal na ekonomya, at pagsusulong ng ibayong kaunlaran.

Bilang tagapaglikha ng  kasaysayan, ang masa na rin ang makapagpapalaya sa kanila  sa kahirapan. Sa matagumpay na pagsusulong ng Kabuhayang Pagnenegosyo madadala nila ang kasaysayan ng kalutasang ito sa tatlong baitang na layunin:

• Matatag na kabuhayan at ginhawa para sa pamilya
• Pagtubo at pagsagana ng ekonomyang lokal, o ekonomyang nakabase sa komunidad
• Lubos-lubusan at naipagpapatuloy na kaunlaran para sa lahat

Kabuhayang Negosyo ang sagot sa kahirapan, at susi sa maunlad na pamumuhay. Itaguyod ito!

Institute for Local Innovation and Approach in Development, People’s Partner 

Kaagapay sa Hanapbuhay Kasangga sa Kaunlaran

Conquer The Heights

BIMBO CABIDOG

About a decade ago, the highest summit in the world beckoned three intrepid Pinoy adventure buffs to taunt danger and the limits of ordinary man by scaling it. They were Leo Oracion, Erwin Pastour Emata and Romy Garduce.

The crown was the zenith of Mount Everest, a destination that already belongs to the sky. They conquered it proving ain’t no mountain high to Filipinos.

When their mountaineering team embarked on the historic expedition of sending three fellow countrymen to the Earth’s highest peak, its members surely knew what they were up to. They figured every feature and element of the terrain and tucked them in memory, like the backs of their hands: from base camp to Camp 1, 2, 3 and 4.

The climbers must have mentally negotiated the Kumbo Icefall, imagined rappelling over the 14 feet vertical wall, and figured the effects of night and day on the snowy routes.

What would make the conquest was the advanced view from the summit. They assumed a different perspective than probably that of the ordinary mortal: conquering the heights. By taking that view, the picture changed from eye-level to the level of the summit-mind. It cast out frailty and powered the human body with confidence.

Without an Everest, or even lesser peaks, man may not have the chance to scale summits beyond his known limits. Not every one of the three Everest climber’s 105 million fellow Filipino at present may have the same chance. Not even one percent.

But along life’s journey, a figurative mountain blocks the path. To keep on going on, there’s no other recourse but to climb. This is not just for Oracion, Emata and Garduce . This is for everyone.

It may not be possible to live at the top, but some time you need to go up there. Life may not be worth living anymore being down below all the time. You need to conquer the heights.

When you summon the courage to scale the heights, and actually scale them, you change just by arriving at a level never gone before. And you are awarded with the rare experience of seeing the world you live in from a different standpoint: the summit.

Don’t spend a life stuck on the ground, crawling along the sordid routes of drab daily existence. Encounter the once-in-a-lifetime excitement of climbing to the top and seeing the breathtaking panorama of vast terra firma and new horizons of reality.

The view from the summit crowns courage and pushing beyond the known limits. The intent may only have been to get over an obstacle, go up and go down the other side to the destination. But an unexpected award awaits reaching the top, as always is the case.

The summit rewards with amazing enlightenment. Such is what they are for. The commanding peak pores down upon the eternal plain of the here and now with a new look. And upon this, humanity rises to greater achievement, the highest excellence: a painter‘s obra maestra, a musician’s ultimate composition, a writer’s prodigious work, a scientist’s phenomenal discovery, or the simple goal of a perennially indigent family to get over the hump.

Everyone can choose his/her zenith and devote a life to reaching it. But oftentimes it’s really not a matter of choice. It is destiny, like being in this world.

Life is not one choice out of many, there is no other choice, just it. Breathing is not for anyone to say no. It is in computer language a default command, hardest to delete by self-choice.

In the factory setting of the product called man, there is a feature named “Climb,” for everyone in life to get over there, above, one time or another, and fulfill oneself.

Perhaps where choice comes is what you do with your figurative mountain. You can choose to make of it a forbidding wall, and reason out not to go on anymore. Or you can make it a stairway to rise and get to where you must be.

If life does not offer any other option than to live, not so with how you may live. Once here, you can decide or at the very least assume the illusion of making a decision which way to go. Be reminded that choice doesn’t stem from realities, for things are plainly there whether you want them or not. It stems from perspective.

The opportunity to climb a mountain – that is, a vision, the apex of excellence, the height of achievement, a literary imprint, a masterpiece of art, an ultimate mission in life, an epic stunt, the greatest challenge, comes to each one’s time on earth. When that presents itself right before you, think no longer of the hard and perilous venture. Think of the once-in-a-lifetime confrontation with fate, the amazing finds and spectacular experience of an essentially different plane of existence at being on top of the world. Be empowered, unlimited, and freed by the advance view there. Go up!

To ascend one’s mountain is to discover at every step the marvelous horizons afar. To climb it is to surpass the trees that obstruct the view, and the structures that confine earthly experience to just seeing the paling complexion of day-to-day.

Summits are not only another level, but a worldview. Once up there, you acquire greater self-awareness and a deeper faith. And you have a power look into the possibility of the impossible, the reachability of the unreachable.

Don’t make being stuck forever below an unbendable fate. Climbing is also a fact of life. Don’t have a mind perpetually cast in limitations, and persist on seeing possibilities to be impossible. Conquer the heights!

Politics In More Ways Than One

BIMBO CABIDOG

Politics is part of every citizen’s daily life. We may not be conscious of it, but it is a regular activity of all of us. No matter how an individual isolates himself/herself from the rest, engaging in some form of social relationship is inescapable as all that he/she needs and wants today is a product of many laboring hands and gotten through markets.

Of course, decadent tradition has narrowly pegged politics to elections, how politicians behave, what they do, and which party one or the other is affiliated. These juicy topics are most often the meat of conversation whenever two or more people gather to talk of news and issues of the day. They dominate and define political thought.

The misconception comes from what politics has meant to the citizenry over the years. One is that it is only about elections. The idea has fixated the common people to the practice of politics as a repetitive exercise with practically nothing of value to their aspiration of a better life and the shaping of the future by themselves.

Another is that the foremost subject of politics is merely what political personalities talk and act on the electoral stage. They mesmerize with bombastic orations, titillate with gaudy humor, regale with garish entertainment numbers, and make themselves out to be the showbiz celebrities audiences idolize. This, to the ordinary citizenry is politics at its core.

A third is that the ultimate political act is the one-on-one transaction between patron and beneficiary, office-seeker and employer, the wily candidate and the hoodwinked voter. The affair ends up favoring the selfish ambitions and vested personal interests that the political contenders advance. The gullible majority realizes and accepts the fact that the so-called democratic exercise is no more than a way to foster the rule a tiny minority and serve self-gain by a few over and above the rest of the vast polity.

But what really is the proper meaning of politics? First, it is about how segments of the population or communities find and advance unity to achieve collective goals or purposes. It builds power for action and, with empowerment never experienced before politics takes place, enables them to move processes in the direction of commonly aspired change. Politics essentially means the tilting of the balance of socio-political forces towards that end.

Why is the above understanding important? In answer, let’s get to the second meaning. Politics clarifies and establishes the trajectory amidst the confusion of elements in society pulling in different directions; all the more so, when contrary objectives pull opposite each other. As populations grow at a rapid pace, deepening social divides surface, and loss of cohesion among members becomes highly precarious.

Thirdly, politics is the sphere of human-social activity where contradictions are resolved whether by annihilation or reconciliation. To limit it to the mere act of going to the polling precinct and writing of a preferred candidate’s name on the ballot negates the larger context in which its role should be played. It also eliminates the much more important function for which it is purposed: the knocking down of the divisions that stall or obstruct social progress.

Relationships in the various dimensions of society – political, administrative, cultural, economic as well as environmental, grow more complex, along with the exponential increase in the number of people in it. They also tend to be strained by the tighter competition for resources. Thus, society becomes prone to profound instabilities. Identifying and defining bases for unity to manage conflicts are imperative. It is one of the great missions of politics.

In the country, however, politics is a different ball game. It is played with the collateral intent to disunite rather than close gaps. It fragments society rather than cement collectivity. It inflicts painful wounds that folks carry up to the grave. It is engaged to defeat rather than simply win and kiss and make up later.

This is because of narrow mindedness enclosed in individual self-serving agendas. Most people have habituated to viewing politics as merely a matter of besting the other side in the electoral contest. And winning the race is not only everything, but the only thing. Sportsmanship at the very least and magnanimity are taboo. Supporters, rooters and mere followers take the obvious personal fight of their candidates as theirs, become even more personal than the principal contenders, and wax into ugly emotional states.

A very valid but mostly ignored critique is that political enterprise in the country is not and has never been a party affair. It has always been a personal or dynastic saga. The people have learned enough to disown the enterprise and fought the deception that it is for them.

Voters become very demanding and egocentric during the election season. They throw into the ring just any conceivable demand for favors. Many of these are already capricious, like asking for a relative’s fare to go home from Manila to the province, or money for fiesta preparation. But the politicians, because they neither espouse any socio-political ideology nor advance any agenda for the common good, indulges them in every tricky way. With transaction consummated in real-time, promises of good public service lapse into oblivion later.

Elections are only a part of politics as a whole. Their exercise is opted to attain certain ends. They are held to decide which leadership of opposing forces will assume office to use power in a certain way. But there are other options. A revolutionary leader once said: “Political power grows out of the barrel of the gun.” In this political option, the people do not just risk losing sweat going to the voting venue, but their very own lives going to the battlefields.

Four days of massive civilian upheaval, where millions of people took to a twelve-lane highway in February 1986 to effect the overthrow of a dictator, brought up peaceful uprising as a more decisive way to achieve a political end. The “Edsa Revolution” or people power revolution proved that elections are not the only means and in fact not the best means to meet political objectives.

The non-violent Edsa demonstrations turned out to be a milestone in democratic political change throughout the globe. The four-day epic stimulated a train of other similar actions that changed regimes and redrew the political landscape all over the world. Totalitarian states would fall in Eastern Europe. The world order hinging on the power of the Soviet-block would never be the same again.

There are indeed other ways and means to engage politics for socio-political change. But Filipinos to date seem to know only one and the wrong one: electoral politics deflected towards realizing individual ambition to capture power and amass wealth by a run for office. Thus, an exercise to enshrine the rule of the majority ends up championing the rule of a tiny few. The vaunted rule of the people, by the people and for the people by stroke of black magic called election, ends up having nothing to do with the people, or more accurately, the people having nothing to do with it.

The exclusionary practice makes democracy a mere design to get off the people, fool the people, and buy the people in a zarzuela that is visited once every cycle.

End War With No Conditions, Why Not?

BIMBO CABIDOG

War is a monster as anybody knows. The better option is always to turn the sword into ploughshare or, in our contemporary times, the military-industrial complex into haven of production for the basic needs of man.

But the makers of war say it is the only way to triumph over evil, build a better world, or end war itself. Since every would-be protagonist has his own good cause and better world to fight for, the cycle of war goes on turning to perpetuity.

Finally, the use of arms to resolve social contradictions defeats the very cause why it is purportedly resorted, that is: the improvement of human life. At the conclusion of every violent conflict, societies find themselves worse off than before. Decades of peace are then needed to heal the wounds, get over the trauma, and rebuild from the ashes.

World War II is up to this day still the most devastating military conflict in human history. The scale of it was unprecedented in any previous war.

The global conflict involved the commitment of entire human and economic resources of participating nations. It fudged the line that separated combatant from non-combatant, and included all of the enemy’s territory in the zones of battle. The military atrocities on civilians and, on the part of Nazi Germany, genocide against Jews, gypsies and homos as a specific war aim made it the most unique in modern times for unparalleled savagery.

It was also the first time where a highly important determinant of the outcome was industrial capacity. Towards its conclusion, two new devastatingly effective weapons surfaced: the long-range rocket and the atomic bomb.

The United States tested the latter on the two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the wink of an eye, each drop of the atom bomb decimated hundreds of thousands of civilians who were incinerated by the blast. Communities were instantly wiped out. No infrastructure remained standing in the horizon.

Worse cataclysms than World War II may yet happen. But in that horrendous conflict, the statistics of human and material expense are already mind-boggling. Three quarters of the world’s population or 1.7 billion people from 61 countries took part. The war mobilized a total of 110 million individuals for military service.

The Union of Soviets and Socialist Republics (USSR) accounted for more than half of them. Germany fielded 17 million, the United States of America 16 million. The conflict also involved the largest number of active duty personnel at any time: USSR–12,500,000, US – 12,245,000, Germany – 10,938,000, the British Empire – 5,720,000; Japan – 7,193,000, and China – 5,000,000.

By money spent, it would be the most expensive with a combined cost of $1 trillion compared to other wars. The US spent an estimated $341 billion. The Russian government calculated that the USSR lost 30 percent of national wealth. The amount of loss to Nazi exactions and looting in the Soviet Union and other German-occupied countries is incalculable.

Technological advancement inflicted unparalleled ferocity. The war saw bestiality and horror never hitherto witnessed in the history of humankind. Civilians were mixed into the war zones and targeted as parts of fighting fronts. They were hit by diseases, malnutrition, and starvation. They suffered destruction of towns and cities, innumerable injuries and deaths.

The loss of lives appalls. The USSR chalked the highest toll at 20 million civilian and military personnel killed including great numbers of Russians deliberately starved to death in German prison camps. The Allied civilian losses went up to 40 million. Civilian losses of the Axis powers numbered 11 million. Military deaths on both sides numbered 19 million in Europe, and 6 million in the Asian theater under Japanese aggression.

The unimaginable scale of destruction and genocidal slaughter that war brings upon its zones of engagement would continue until now despite sophisticated diplomacy and the United Nation’s mechanisms at conflict management.

In countries, like the US, the hawks always get the upper hand in decisions whether to launch or not unilateral aggression on other countries. This was true in the decision to wage war on Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mindless of consequences, the bearing of arms prevails against the baring of cold reason not to. Mindsets home in on the imperative to defeat the other side, to beat it in the race if one needs to cut throat. Sober logic is defeated by the war mongers’ pretexts for going into it.

The Second World War did not end all wars, but spun off other localized conflicts. The Philippines for one remains a host to Asia’s longest running insurgency being waged by the New People’s Army under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Like the other wars of the past, the communist armed struggle does not exempt the uninvolved from its ravages, whether as total effect on the country’s social and economic life, or inevitable harm inflicted by operations along the fighting fronts.

The government’s total war response attended by atrocities in military campaigns and militarization has turned rural interiors into a swamp of terror and grinding hardships. Amid the clashing forces, the local folks are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand they are compelled by exigency to make friends or at least show non-hostility with the armed elements lurking in the shadows. On the other hand, they must also accommodate the civil-military intrusions into their communities by security forces.

The “revolutionary war,” as the communist leadership calls the insurgency, promises liberation from the exploitative and oppressive social order under which the great masses of the people are reeling. But it could not even mobilize them in their millions and deliver the condition of complete victory for the promised radical change to happen.

The powers-that-be composed of the dominant elite cliques in the country looks at a time horizon in ending the armed challenge. But if the self-claimed revolutionaries couldn’t graduate from even the first stage of winning the war – the so-called strategic defensive, to convert the dream of political power into real McCoy, the generals are getting boils from frustrating setbacks in their boasted timetables at totally quelling the armed rebel challenge before they fade into retirement.

Thus, the war and its deleterious effects fester with no end in sight. While the nation yet fails to rise up from the condition of stunted growth and reproduction of socio-economic crises generation after generation, and the people continue to lose opportunities at development, energies for years are being drained on a conflict with no perceivable resolution.

It is high time now to call on both sides to take a fresh look at it, and train their sights on a different non-militaristic approach. Almost half a century of warfare, counting the NPA insurgency alone, has not brought it near any victory or rapprochement. The vow on the part of government to bring the full might of the Armed Forces and crush it for good has had several lapsed deadlines with no decisive conclusion.

Isn’t winning by any side, with the people’s popular rejection of armed warfare and the current realities of it being aided by highly advanced science and technology, already wishful thinking? Meanwhile, the opportunity loss for the country in proceeding with peaceful options at growth, the havoc and devastation an open-ended war brings, and the Filipino lives claimed on both sides pile up.

The people demand peace, not from any political settlement but from consideration of their just clamor and real-time wellbeing. It is fair enough for the National Democratic Front, the umbrella organization of the CPP-NPA and their affiliates, to listen. It is also fair enough for the Government of the Republic of the Philippines to be guided by the sentiment of the vast majority.

Both parties, claiming to advance the interest of the people, can prove true to it by taking the option least paid attention or merely ignored before: the cessation of hostilities sans the condition of political settlement yet.

The quieting of guns can now pave the way to the peaceful resolution of the causes of conflict through the democratic space and means available under the prevailing political order. Let an enlightened, politically conscious and organized citizenry then take over the pursuit of even radical reforms. The people can use for good measure the strength of their numbers at effecting pivotal changes in the socio-political structure.

The people have suffered enough over the past half a century of internal warfare. What they have been going through now merit respite. The causes Filipino brothers and sisters have been fighting on in the ranks of the insurgency as well as soldiery can be far better addressed by the dynamics of development and nation building in a climate of peace and mutual trust.

The great majority of the people deserve to be heard and have a part in the decisions that shape their destiny. Such should not just be a matter of whose self-proclaimed agenda or programme among the parties to the conflict shall win. It is not for a messianic few to determine what’s good for a country of 100 plus million citizens.

The masses should be relied to provide the guarantee in ironing out age-old injustices through non-violent political contention. After going through so much pain, loss and destruction from a protracted period of armed belligerence, they should now be given the chance to try methods and processes at overhauling the conditions and situations of their existence with no resort to arms.

The tragedy of having been at war for almost all of the past century is enough reason not to wage it anymore. End it with no conditions, why not?

Yes Oppose, But Propose

The test of freedom of expression is dissent. This means, the act of opposing the powers-that-be or criticizing the prevailing socio-political order.

If to express is to sing hosannas to rule, or extoll its decrees, guarantee by law of the right to do it is superfluous. Statutes are not needed anymore. The powers-that-be not only assure but solicits and rewards it. Do you still need the Bill of Rights to praise a ruling dictator?

President Rodrigo Duterte’s lackeys can shower him with exaltations. They can make him smell of expensive perfume every inch. Of course, they may also badmouth their own. They can self-flagellate themselves to their hearts content. No one will suppress that.  

Self-praise of a king or worship of him by his minions is not what the exercise of freedom in the real sense is meant. They can do so as they please, without any law to back it. Political power backed by military might is on their side.

But make no mistake. True freedom is not meant to be the expression of dissent alone. It must express change, tell what is to be done, and introduce the new shape of things opposite the status quo.

The ultimate point of  freedom of expression is not only to oppose but to propose.

Do you merely want to oppose? Well and good, a tyrant can tolerate it, or even encourage it, to showcase liberty under his reign. It may be allowed, because it won’t change things anyway. The tyrant does not have to worry of being overthrown.

But dissent is not just about the exercise of freedom to dissent. Dissent for dissent’s sake is pointless. Opposing just for the sake of opposing, in the end is counterproductive, for being disruptive without a cause.

Well-meaning dissent advances change. You debunk what’s going on, so what should happen, instead? When you criticize society, you must have in mind what is correct, and express it. When you score tyranny, you introduce the aspiration to replace it.

Hence, dissent leads to resolution: the overhaul of the old order and putting of a new one. Because in another breadth it proposes change, dissent carries the seed of the socio-institutional arrangements that portends the death of the system in place. It goes subversive.

Freedom of expression in the form of dissent upends the ruling system. Being subversive of the prevailing order that includes the legal sphere, dissent therefore can no longer depend on any law to express itself.

Note that avowedly free societies clamp down on dissenters deemed to undermine their way of life. The self-assigned champion of the so-called Free World, the United States of America, has unloosed the worst persecution on citizens fighting for civil rights, docketed to promote communism, opposing the Vietnam war, and condemning the Establishment.

In many instances among purported democracies, the suppression of dissent in the name of national security overrides the Bill of Rights. They reason out the abuse of human rights as necessary to quell subversion. They condone and abet violent excesses to silence people calling for radical change.

When such is the case, dissent is no longer the exercise of freedom as guaranteed and protected by law, it becomes the expression of freedom with or without the protection of the law. To dissent is to be free to mount dissent in the face of repression and threat. It does not rest anymore on the law. No code either could prohibit it.

It is powered by conviction. Even a live cannon can’t smoother it. Confronted by formidable obstacles, it seeks its way like a river that flows underground to stay on course. Hence, it denotes real freedom above any legal construct.

Genuine freedom exercised in dissent turns the dynamo of social change, for it does not only dare to oppose but most of all dare to propose a different rule.

They Who Suffer

BIMBO CABIDOG

Is suffering a blessing? Most people don’t think so. They think it is bad luck or a curse. It is karma or punishment for doing something wrong.

But what do you make of the words of the Preacher who said, “Blessed are those who suffer?”

Jesus Christ suffered and died from the worst punishment men could inflict on a fellowman. He was condemned on a false charge. Yet, he did not harm anybody, or cause something bad to happen to a person. In fact, he willingly went through the ordeal of his passion and death for all of mankind to be saved.

Christ’s supreme sacrifice was the highest act of goodness no man could ever do. So, to suffer is not to pay for a wrong or evil the one who suffers may have done.

Did a malnourished child heap ill on someone to not have food to eat? Did a poor family oppress other people to be deprived of the barest needs to live? On the contrary, they would not even lift a finger against those who mindlessly profit at their expense.

But those who are suffering may have some reason to thank for. They are blessed, for they shall have peace, the Savior has taught. Suffering is a cathartic moment. It cleanses the soul and strengthens character. In the case of Jesus, it “washed away the sins of the world.”

Years ago, I was at probably the lowest point of my life. Immobility, extreme physical pain and despair pulled me to the depths. It seemed I was hurtling down on a free fall with no bottom just yet.

The situation got worse when I started blaming myself for what I was in. And my regrets were unforgiving. Faulting me for committing a stupid blunder was a logical thing. But once it got to the top of my mind, the psychological state won’t get away anymore. It ate me up like a slow burning fever.

I was lucky my attending physician saved my injured leg from being cut off. But when the gravity of what I’ve done and what may happen next dawned on me, my world crumbled.

When this ends – as it surely will, and I’m lucky to be still alive, I will be so crushed and broken there’ll be no rising up anymore, I thought. I will be down there for the remaining years of my life, perhaps to endure a slow death.

But a counter-thought inserted: living is neither being up nor down. It is reality straight in the eye, and the truth inside every man. Hierarchies are only in the mind. Positions are relative to their opposite. You are not only one thing – an accident or a misfortune. You are everything.

My mishap was really no reason to be helpless or hapless. If the future seems grim and gloomy, there’s concretely no such thing as tomorrow. There’s only here and now. It may feel like I am down, but no one can prevent me from being on top of the situation.

A great Asian revolutionary leader once said: “A fall in the hole, a gain in your wit.” I guess that was it. My suffering wasn’t about God punishing me for having done something bad. He was subjecting me to a cathartic moment, a washday in the river Jordan to sweep away the clogs and dregs in my soul. And what emerged out of it was a renewal of the mind.

I now think there’s no such thing as karma. God will correct you, and subject you to rough ordeals to be renewed and live better. But He did not send His only begotten son to die for our sins, only to hurl upon us the thunderbolts of His wrathful retribution. After all, Jesus Himself has said: “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.”

Suffering is a condition of existence that has nothing to do with having done something wrong or having made a mistake. Like cough, it is not a sickness, but a cure. Now, ponder that. Don’t let feelings of guilt and remorse make your suffering harder.