Tuesday, February 28, 2006

One sweet day (with Mark) among many

1
sweet day
(with Mark)
((among many))

Quotes
Lem (on the bar ops provision of the proposed charter of the Ateneo Law School's student council): No man is an island.
Abi Sze (line from their video presentation): I grew 6 inches taller!
Regie Tongol (upon seeing Mark and me): Kinikilig ako!
Code of Commerce: Supercargoes.
Me: Our Titit, all grown up! (Jeland, who was walking beside me, stops dead in his tracks and laughs hysterically at an otherwise silent caf, 5.20 p.m.)
Ino (on Titit's thesis outline, after she admits to Ino's premise): So what is the point of your thesis?!
Abi Sze (on Titit's thesis outline): I see the point. I think you're saying something.
Titit (to me, after I exaggeratedly took note of her turtleneck, a rare item in her wardrobe): Palibhasa yung hickie mo wala sa neck!
JQ (on Titit's remark): Prior restraint!
Mark (on Xavier University): My little republic.
Ocfe (on Supercargoes): Wanted: Supercargo. Must be willing to travel.

on P.D. 1017

The legal realist Karl Llewelyn wrote, "the working Constitution is amended whenever the basic ways of government are changed." What I think he was trying to say is that we should not rely too much on the text of the Constitution or the language of any authoritative text as a source of security, and that the kind of democracy we signed up for may be altered through interpretation by those who hold public power. Thus, we should scrutinize not only what the Constitution says, but what the President says it means; that we should rely not simply on what the President says, but on what she actually does. If we fail to heed this advice, we might find ourselves holding the same Constitution, but with an entirely different meaning.-Atty. Hilbay of Bantay Katarungan

Monday, February 27, 2006

Laughter is the best policy.

Laughter is the best policy.
-Keanna Reeves, Pinoy Big Brother

the much coveted Jessup cup

J1: Let's publish in the newsbar: "Victorious. A's Jessup team over B's."
J2: Or: "Cursed. Moot club president responsible for loss."

for our so-called elected madam president

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies. - Aristotle

On GMA

How can she caim she won the last elections when she is this fearful?

why me?

I was in a place much like where the Little Prince finds himself with a mathematician (or was it an accountant?). My feet were touching sand, my eyes were stung by strong winds, a fabric of a skirt swishing between my legs. Whenever I tried hard enough I could see the curve of the planet I was standing on. Further on was the bottom of another planet looming ahead.

A voice asks me, "How old are you?" It seemed sadly serious.

I don't remember replying.

"How old are you, Sara? How old?" Somewhere were fingers clasping a pen poised on paper, about to write the figures I was asked to give.

"I," I began, "I.. I don't know!" I went hysterical.

"But I've got a boyfriend who's 25 so my age should be around his."

I heard a frown. Damn these eyes! How come I can't see? The sand under my feet felt threatened to pull me down if I can't answer.

I woke up. Sad. Serious.

How old am I?

I look up at the ceiling. Blank. I turn to my right. I get to my small table and pull out pen and paper. It's 2006, I wrote, and I was born in 1982, so that makes me..

"24!"

But then I remember that my birthday is not until on September so I'm still 23.

My first answer was wrong.

Oh my, how can I forget my age?

Infringing on Closer, much closer

What's so great about the truth? Try lying for a change, it's the currency of the world. - Dan

It was post-finals April last year when I went to see this film on my own. I was to go out later that night with some guy I considered my partner in fabricating shit, truth and lies. We're still very good friends. Only, we've stopped with the shit and lies.

from Los Sombras

It was always you all of my lifetime
In my silences
When I drift away in someone's embrace.

It was always you all of my life.. oh!
If only they knew
I said not to say the truth

Political Showmanship

This piece was published in the Palladium on January of last year. I still find it relevant in light of Edsa 2006. "Edsa 1 is a failure," said Imee Marcos. So it seems.


While the overwhelming number of common folk mourned Fernando Poe Jr. outside Sto. Domingo church, the Arroyo administration was displaying paranoia within the Palace walls. It called upon the Armed Forces, which the President exhorted to side with her in the face of an enemy that is more imagined than real. It relied on intelligence reports, which could basically be just mere talk and was unfairly, although conveniently, imputed upon the Reds. It prophesied a looming sedition, when there is only collective grief for the death of a philanthropist and a movie icon. Indeed, the Arroyo administration should be ashamed for acting the way it did despite an alleged million-vote lead last May which clinched her the presidency. As Randy David wrote, because of its own duplicity, this government has become fearful of its citizens.

If this government fears that a mob will cause its collapse, it is sadly mistaken. For one, it will predictably behave the way it did during Edsa III, that is, turn a deaf ear and call on the police to hose down the fans. Also, its fall will not be due to the tired masses but due to its own corruption and incompetence. If there is anything the majority of our kababayans have learned by now, it is that the government has ears for those which it wants to hear and willing hands for things which it can use to boost its popularity ratings. Perhaps, muddling up morality with popularity is one of the misused things that politics have grafted from showbiz. Street parliamentary is losing its touch where our politics with selective senses is concerned. No wonder people turn to movies and to make-believe, where we see heroes and projections of the good, things we all so dearly crave to experience in real life. We turn to our nations’ leaders and we see the opposite of heroes. We now rarely have leaders who make lives better with the powers we have vested in them. We are a nation bereft of heroes. We are shown empty drug laboratories without even a security guard much less any operators or owners caught. We hear of huge amounts of foreign aid for the rehabilitation of typhoon victims and that’s the end of it. We are made to listen to every strategic raid or buy-bust operations, to every fiscal adequacy plan, to the hundreds of suspects added to the growing list, but never to kindness, generosity, and humility. Surely the citizenry is not dumb enough not to realize that power imaging is not the only thing that makes us go “wow” and cooperate. Showbiz is made of glittering personalities but our politics need not be peppered with politicians acting like that, too. Government shouldn’t be for show. That will be depreciating politics again beyond imaginable depth. It should be about getting things done, reforming it and increasing its value.
The administration can sure learn to apply a lot of things from the death of an icon who, although he lacked the elitist polish that the privileged few were looking for, not only had the heart to serve but was able to make better lives of his people in reel and real life. Had the government just kept quiet instead of placing tanks and soldiers from Quezon Blvd. to the North Cemetery, it would also have saved us some million pesos, which was allotted out of the blue in case of a rebelLion. Since there was none, it went to the pockets of these soldiers as a health bonus. Many thanks for guarding us against nothing.