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A Critique of the Manifesto and the Marxist Doctrine (1st of 2 Parts)

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:32:00 +0000

I've already been introduced to the foundations of conflict theory early in my career, though up to now it still stands short of influencing the basis of my beliefs, and the only attention it has gotten from me is curiosity about its persistent presence in historical movements and philosophies taking shape and looming during our time. Karl Marx is undeniably instrumental to the blossoming of the Communist ideology, and for centuries the same 'spectre' still haunts the world, finding upon its furtive path a considerable following.

The Manifesto of the Communist Party (commonly known as the Communist Manifesto) did not have a small part in its process. Co-authored by two of the world's most influential (or controversial) political philosophers, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels during the prime of their youth, the Manifesto had become the bible of the then nascent Communist League. From a materialist's standpoint the Manifesto holds that the history of societies is a history of class struggles, citing what Marx viewed was the periodic conflict between “free man and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journey man, in a word, oppressor and oppressed.” Marx, to whom Engels attributed much of the authorship of the Manifesto, winded down all of European history into a series of revolutionary oppositions, social and economic, from the bourgeois uprising which destroyed the aristocracy, to the rise of the bourgeoisie and the Modern Industry (the child of the Industrial Revolution) and finally the overpowering enslavement of the silent proletarian (working class). He mentions that the bourgeoisie had simplified the classes into two, that of themselves and the proletariat. [Read more...]

My students' project in Philosophy

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 05:31:00 +0000

To my students in Philosophy, here is the project you must submit before the end of the final term. Choose only one of the philosophers below and give what are required by the items that follow.

Henri-Louis Bergson

Jean-Paul Sartre

Friedrich Engels

Karl Marx

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Arthur Schopenhauer

George Herbert Meade

Emile Durkheim

Soren Kierkegaard

Ernst Mach

Max Weber

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Bertrand Russell

Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Boltzmann

1. Name his chief work or idea which became his major contribution to philosophy. Discuss.
2.How did your chosen philosopher develop his major work or idea/s?
3. To which branch of philosophy do his philosophical studies belong (remember the branches of philosophy: epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, etc.)? Why is it so?
4.Make your own critique regarding the philosopher's ideas:

a.) Mention your chosen philosopher's strongest point in the major idea which he had developed. Justify.
b.) What idea/s do you think remain valid today? Discuss how.
c.) What idea/s are now disproved as a result of the advent of newer ideas and theories? Discuss.
d.) Are there any notions or theories which evolved to something that is now widely used or accepted in the whole world? What are those ideas and in what aspects are they being used today?
e.) Are there ideas which are reflective of or applicable to the present Filipino society, system of government and way of thinking, i.e. do you think your philosopher had exerted influence in our modern life?

Guidelines of submission: papers should be presented in the standard format (i.e. printed in short bond paper in Arial or Times New Roman font 12 points in size, either 1.5 or double-spaced.) You may submit it in its hard copy or send it as email attachment to aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph .

Deadline of submission is on Oct. 15. Please do not forget to include your references. Submissions will be subjected to rigorous plagiarism-check to ensure that not one paragraph is lifted verbatim from any references without permission.

'We are Masters of our Fate': Winston Churchill's memorable speech in the US Congress

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:16:00 +0000

In 1942, British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill traveled to the US to deliver a compelling wartime message to the American government.

From the August 6 issue of the Manila Bulletin

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Not only the Bullletin, but also ABS-CBN as well as a few broadcasters reportedly made the same mistake a couple of times. An individual Freudian slip? Or a people's subconscious wish?

Cory Aquino's speech before the US Congress

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:51:00 +0000

Courtesy of Ninoy Aquino TV

The Yellow Camellia

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 07:11:00 +0000

"I used to stop for a long time in front of the tiger's cage to see him pacing back and forth. I liked his natural beauty, his black stripes and his golden stripes. And now that I am blind, one single color remains for me, and it is precisely the color of the tiger, the color yellow."
-Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

At the despot's carnage when
Two hundred thousand wronged
By more than a million errors of the same wrong
Spread like a tattered carpet,
A tattered carpet chanting the same song,
"Democracy, democracy!"
Bursting out from hearts who ne'er forget
That man is born to be bred free,
Pouncing back and forth the lion's paws,
Scarred the flag with fraud and enmity;
A score of years of tooth and claw
Inured the hearts of populi,
Blaring prayers wrought for God
To send the seeds in His molested land,
That called to arms our haggard faith
And summoned forth a time of peace;
And lo! He let sprout a yellow camellia.

A yellow camellia
Whose only leaf had fallen off;
But leafless though she spread her arms,
Welcoming those stripped of freedom;
Snatched by debt, in sorry state;
A nation of uncertain destiny;
Left by Fortune, cursed by Fate;
She stood for people's sovereignty
Straight before the tyrant's eyes,
Who soon staggered, flinched and fled
From a sea of yellow camellias
At the avenue where the thousands wept;
Oh Mother Camellia, this is not an elegy,
For though you may have stopped breathing,
Your seeds and dreams do live in me.

2 August 2009
Gapan City

I Saw Your Fire Burning Bright

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:00:00 +0000

I composed this poem more than a year ago during the first stage of the US Presidential Campaign, when migrant crisis suddenly gripped the United States. Today I post this as a gift to the Eagle Nation's Day of Independence (also the Filipino-American Friendship Day), celebrated not only by the Americans but by the immigrants that she has orphaned. May she be as kind to her sons and daughters she both conceived and received.

From afar, I saw your fire burn so bright,
The sea was meadow-calm and day was night;
I gazed at you and mused behind the prow,
The peace the west world promised I would owe:
The sun descended right upon your hand
As flowers raised with petals flying, grand,
To greet us tramping who for sweetness thirst,
And upon entering all hurrahs burst,
Hoping aloud our burdens be relieved
With tears of joy for freedom be believe
To be embraced; for most are long deprived
With air to fill our lungs with breath of life;
Let roll our war-torn carpet to your door,
Lady, who promised to receive the poor;
The dreamers, inhumanity-suppressed
And the slaven, forgotten, unaddressed;
Bid them welcome as children not by race,
We ask not for your good alms but your space:
In the cold Atlantic we knocked for rooms
Where there is warmth to make our roses bloom:
Oh candle-bearer on our foreheads shine
The sacred light reflected in the brine!
Behind you rose those humid towers high,
Where she, your never-sleeping city lie;
Oh! May the sun perching on your hand, I pray
Be the same fire they dreamt burning yesterday!
Liberty emblazoned in your freedom’s bell,
If you shall keep us, I pray you keep us well;
For minions under color, faith and tongue’s decree,
Walking in these iron shackles so enter we.

Heal the World

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:46:00 +0000

Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:39:00 +0000

The King of Pop, Michael Jackson dies at 50, immediate cause of demise being cardiac arrest. He led a life marked with a precocious rise to fame and fall from grace. The Pelican Spectator is praying for his soul.

Now let us get back to the Iranian Electoral Crisis.

The arm of A(H1N1) extendeth

ocalacaba@gmail.com (Oscar Lacaba) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:08:00 +0000

Dammit, been hit with the virus!

Take good care y`all.

A blessed Independence Day to my countrymen

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:33:00 +0000

Thine flight is our salvation,
Blood of our fathers, wing of our nation!

(Philippine flag image copyright of Mr. Clay)

The Holocaust according to a young girl

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:00:00 +0000

“I cannot grasp that it is already 1943, four years since this hell began. The days pass by quickly; each day looks just like the previous one. Everyday it’s the same frozen and oppressive boredom. There is great excitement in town. A lot of people are about to leave for ‘the land of our forefathers,’ to Palestine...”

Thus begins the sixty handwritten pages of the 14 year-old Rutka Laskier’s memoirs, written between January 19 and April 24, 1943 and hidden under the floorboards of a friend’s apartment during the rest of World War II, before she, her brother and mother were deported to the Auschwitz gas chambers and murdered upon arrival in August of 1943. It was the eve of the 20th century, the darkest hour of evil returning, a period most infamously known as the Holocaust. Three years before, in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland after the partition of Czechoslovakia. In 1943 the war was at its height, yet it would take two more years before the world realized that there was more than meets the eye, upon the discovery of camps of Jewish manslaughter in Nazi Germany’s occupied territories.

More than sixty years later, in June 2007 Stanislawa Sapinska, Laskier’s childhood friend then 89 years-old, presented the diary to the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority after her nephew’s prodding.

The diary revealed a chilling account of Laskier’s life in the Jewish ghetto in Bedzin, Poland, coupled with observations of growing up and explorations on love, including an expressed infatuation with a boy of her age. However, the reality of extermination led her into a continual reflection on war, inhumanity and death, reaching the point where she even lapsed into a desperate crisis of faith.

“Oh good Lord. Well Rutka, you`ve probably gone completely crazy. You are calling upon God as if he exists. The little faith I used to have has been completely shattered. If God existed, he would have certainly not have permitted that human beings be thrown alive into furnaces, and the heads of little toddlers be smashed with butt of guns or be shoved into sacks and gassed to death...”

During the German Aktion, or the segregation of Jews to be taken to concentration camps on February 6, 1943, Laskier described the horrors which became a day-to-day occurrence. It was an ocean of horrible inhumanity which beleaguered her nation’s threshold and then entered to ransack it to the last Jew in sight:

“When I looked beyond the fence I saw soldiers with machine guns aimed at the square in case someone tried to escape - how could you possibly escape from here? People fainted, children cried. In short, Judgment Day...

“Oh, I forgot the most important thing. I saw how a soldier tore a baby, who was only a few months [old], out of his mother’s hands and bashed his head against an electric pylon. The baby’s brain splashed on the wood. The mother went crazy. I am writing this as if nothing has happened. As if I were in an army experienced in cruelty. But I’m young, I’m 14, and I haven’t seen much in life.”

On February 15 she wrote: “I’m only afraid that we Jews will be finished beforehand.” And in another entry: “If only I could say, it’s over, you die only once... But I can’t, because despite all these atrocities I want to live, and wait for the following day.”

On February 20 she expressed her apprehensions and a longing to escape the war’s dark and tormenting atmosphere:

“I have a feeling that I am writing for the last time. There is an Aktion in town. I’m not allowed to go out and I’m going crazy, imprisoned in my own house... For a few days, something’s in the air... The town is breathlessly waiting in anticipation, and this anticipation is the worst of all.

“I wish it end already! This torment; this is hell. I try to escape... like nagging flies.”

Her last entry was written on April 24, 1943, before she and her family were taken to the ghettos, about which she had written on February 5th:

“The rope around us is getting tighter and tighter. Next month there should already be a ghetto, a real one surrounded by walls. In the summer it will be unbearable. To sit in a gray locked cage, without being able to see fields or flowers, and it reminded me that one day I would be able to go to Malachowska Street without taking the risk of being deported. Being able to go to the cinema in the evening. I’m already so ‘flooded’ with the atrocities of the war that even the worst reports have no effect on me.”

When the ghetto was still not closed off to non-Jews, the Laskiers lived in the Sapinskas, where she first met Stanislawa Sapinska. When Laskie told her that she was writing a diary, it was kept confidential from the family. Worried that she would not survive the war, Rutka requested to her friend to hide it beneath the staircase’s double-flooring, to be retrieved by Stanislawa after the end of the war. After they departed, Stanislawa never heard of her friend anymore.

Laskier wrote in 1943 while she was the same age as the Dutch Anne Frank, who perished from typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Frank’s diary formed the book published in 1947 by her father Otto Frank, the only member of the family who survived the Holocaust. Both girls perished in the pangs of the war.

Unlike Anne Frank, Laskier did not have the time to rewrite her memoirs. Yet the genuine freshness of Laskier’s draft provided an honest and revealing experience bitterly plucked from the turbulence of Nazi-occupied Poland, right from the manner they were handled by the German troops to the psychological trauma which accompanied the fear of premature death. The hand which slew Laskier, Frank and the others was the hand which interrupted the blossoming of the age by depriving history of what could have become some of the world’s most prized possessions for the years to come.

References:
“Polish ’Anne Frank' Diary Revealed,” by Etgar Lefkovits, Jerusalem Post, 5 June 2007
"Holocaust Diary of 14-Year-Old Dubbed the 'Polish Anne Frank' Unveiled," Fox News, 4 June 2007
Laskier, Rutka. Rutka's Notebook: January-April 1943. Jerusalem, Israel: Yad Vashem Publications. 2007

The reality behind Reality TV: killing for ratings

ocalacaba@gmail.com (Oscar Lacaba) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:04:00 +0000

After the announcement of Britain's Got Talent grand champions (the Essex dance group called Diversity) last week Susan Boyle the runner-up had to be admitted to the hospital because she went into a sudden nervous breakdown, burned out and unable to deal with stress obtained from the program.

From my point of view it doesn't look as if Susan rose to stardom as a result of her singing talent (though it cannot be disputed that she really possesses that awesome vocal prowess) in the show, but rather because Britain's Got Talent made out of her a human curiosity to gather huge audience. The reality show got a considerable worldwide harvest, but not without exploiting Susan Boyle and her unsuspecting asset waiting to be utilized in some ways other than intense exposure to the excitement of the program (for instance by just recommending her to a recording producer), considering Susan's different condition.

On Larry King Live, The Wrap Editor-in-Chief Sharon Waxman said there have been reported eleven suicides connected to reality shows, and Dr. Drew Pinsky said emotional and mental breakdowns, suicide attempts and Truman Show Syndromes do arise not only from being rejected or defeated in such, but even from winning in reality shows.

Now that's how reality show producers take much advantage over people who desire their fifteen seconds to fame. In showbusiness there are predators who care less on who they are using than on the potentials of higher ratings. And worse, they kill. Remember that Bulgarian contestant who died while taping Survivor here in the Philippines just days ago?

The only thing wherein reality tv gets useful is -- advocacy and muckraking!

Rizal's Lower Deck

ocalacaba@gmail.com (Oscar Lacaba) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:22:00 +0000

To those who do read, let us ponder at the thoughts of our national hero, visions transcending spatial and temporal boundaries:

"Thank you, but we do not drink beer," refused the two.

"Oh, that's not good," said Simoun who did not know what to do. "Beer is something good, and I heard from Fr. Camorra this morning that this land's dullness owes to the fact that people are drinking too much water."

Isagani, who was just as tall as the jeweler, straightened himself up before him.

"Then tell Fr. Camorra," Basilio immediately intervened, secretly nudging Isagani to calm down "-tell him that if only he drinks water instead of wine or beer, then we can win anytime without much fuss."

"Tell him too," added Isagani, ignoring his friend's warning, "that water may be tasteless and drinkable, yet it sweeps away the taste of wine and beer and quenches fire; that when heated it becomes steam, and when angered it turns into an ocean that once destroyed mankind and the whole world."

Simoun raised his head, and though his eyes could not be seen behind his blue pair of spectacles it was obvious that he was somehow astonished.

"A good answer," he uttered, "albeit he may ask when the water becomes steam and when it turns into an ocean. I'm afraid Fr. Camorra is playful and a skeptic."

"When it is heated over the fire, once small and separate rivers fall, triggered by tragedy down to the pit men have been digging," Isagani answered.

"No, Mr. Simoun," Basilio added, bringing the conversation's mood down to a jest. "It will be better if you keep in mind these verses by my friend Isagani:

Water we are and you are the fire,
Come if that's what you want to believe!
Beware that you shall never incite
Water to raise arms and bear fight,
And if so, we go on endowed
With Wisdom to think and never be cowed,
And without hatred nor horrid disgust
Small droplets we merge, united we must
Altogether boil into steam
To fuel our great Progressive machine,
Lighting the torch of civilization,
Breathing life over every nation."

"A dream! Nothing but a dream!" was Simoun's dry reply. "Go find your machine -- I will drink my beer."

Without a word Simoun left the two.

In the wake of many betrayals and looming dangers the archipelago are 7, 107 droplets of water waiting to merge and, over the heat of injustice and impending tyranny, boil into a steam that will propel the machine of national solidarity paving into greatness and a return of respect for human rights as well as good governance. Let it boil! Let it boil! But save the unsuspecting people idly trapped inside!

(The selection above is my rough translation of a portion of the 2nd chapter of Rizal's El Filibusterimo, First Revised Edition of the de Guzman Tagalog translation, pp. 17-18)

The water is boiling

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:18:00 +0000

Yesterday midnight, House Resolution 1109 (which calls for a Constituent Assembly for the amendment of the Constitution, a direct slap in the face of Senate Resolution 811) suddenly rose from its forgotten grave. In great fright did Sen. Mar Roxas pass around garlic necklaces to his colleagues in the Upper House, an object used to ward off Philippine trolls and vampires. Speculations are rising, as echoed by Sen. Ping Lacson, that Mrs. Arroyo is eying Prime Ministry should Federalization push through. A possible tactic is running for Pampanga representative that, if successful, would yield her every possibility of being elected by colleagues as head of the parliamentary government accompanying the proposed Charter Change.

While the Senate is looking for a "justiciable controversy" so that the matter should be taken up to the Supreme Court, there is an appalling silence in the streets.

Is this the frog analogy that Al Gore was talking about?

Filipino seaman among Atlantic plane crash victims

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:19:00 +0000

By Oca Lacaba (Wireless)

One Filipino seaman is among the 228 passengers feared dead as an Airbus A330 bound for Paris disappeared over the Atlantic 3 hours after leaving Rio de Janeiro Sunday.

Arden Jugueta was intending to make a connecting flight to Manila when he boarded Air France flight 447 that took off from Galeao International Airport at 7:03 p. m..

By 11:00 p. m. Air France reported that the plane experienced storms and high turbulence, and by 11: 14 said they were receiving automatic messages which indicated occurrence of an electrical circuit malfunction.

Six minutes later flight 447 failed to make its scheduled radio contact with Brazil air traffic control, and hours later as no signals from the plane emerged Air France decided to set up a crisis center.

Brazil, France and Spain sent search and rescue teams off Fernando de Noronha, an island situated 1500 miles east of Rio de Janeiro where the last distress signal of the A330 was detected.

There were 228 passengers on board flight 447, which was supposed to arrive at the Charles de Gaulle Airport Monday morning.

As of press time Jugueta is the only Filipino in the flight manifest. Passengers consist largely of French, German, Brazilian, Chinese and Italian nationalities.

The Disposable Pinoy and the necessity of studying corruption

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Mon, 25 May 2009 08:00:00 +0000

There are two truths about corruption: first is that the more corrupt the leaders of a country are, the poorer the country tends to get; and second the poorer the country is, the more obvious the people's (largely the government) vulnerability to it. The Philippines is happily sandwiched between these truths, making no exceptions as corruption is a universal inclination of both the government and the governed.

These are not new to us. The poverty of the Filipinos is blamed upon corruption, wastage and gluttony in all levels of government. On the other hand, kotong cops (for instance) extort money from truck drivers with the reason that they have not enough wages to suffice for their families. I'm not sure if the same case applies to agencies such as the Customs though, but in any way the heavy boulder of such theft falls on the laboring backs of the middle class and the dreaming heads of the poor (today the Philippine middle class are the new proletarians).

The Disposable Pinoy
I've noticed that political aspirants now rarely, if not no longer, underline the elimination of corruption as a part of their speeches. This I attribute to a couple of reasons: one is that they want to be careful not to mention something they think is stupidly incredible or incredibly stupid, another is that they want to be honest of something they cannot dissociate from themselves with consistency, as they are without doubt prone to backsliding. Either way again the boulder falls to the nape of the voter whose body is stretched on the ground, an idealistic creature punch-drunk from the chimera of promises. This lame beggar, who candidates remember for six months but forgotten for thirty, is called by them the “Disposable Pinoy.” Everytime I hear the words “Aking kababayan” from campaigning wannabes it's like they're saying, “My Disposable Pinoys!” Everytime they say “Mahal ko ang bayan ko,” it's like I'm hearing “Mahal ko all of you Disposable Pinoys!” During Congress inquiries one will hear something cool like “Pero ang tanong ko, este ng naguguluhang taumbayan...” which is translated to “But our Disposable Pinoys are asking you.” I heard this one not long ago as 2010 approaches; otherwise we will just hear the more direct “I demand an answer Mr. -!” during ordinary session days.

Yet why are Filipinos subject to frequently making the wrong choices? Is this because they can easily be fooled, as the long-worn saying goes, not only once, but many times?

I think the Filipino's weakness is not foolishness or idiocy, but cowardice. He fears of falling short of living. He fears hunger and uneasiness, that is why he would rather let others buy his vote than perish from them. He succumbs head-over-heels to many concrete but fantastic promises because he fears the longevity of his poverty. Most of all he is silent of corruption because for him of course life is weightier than integrity. Perhaps it is natural for man to fear the obstructions to his Happiness. But the Filipino, desiring fervently to avoid these obstructions, is well-intent on doing everything just to bypass the wretched hours of his fate, trading his Honor and Integrity to ransom himself from Fear. From this cowardice he himself descends to moral corruption just like his political saints.

Changemaking
I should say there are a commendable few who do engage in moral movements, and indeed most of us may have heard of diverse organizations bearing these words “Moral,” “Reform,” and “Change.” And though these have grown to be generic clichés, I find some movements worthy of support for their non-partisanship or simply their being apolitical.

However, there is one thing about their method of “educating the masses.” It is correct that we should start from the root, inspiring the people from whose ranks the leaders emerge, though in our democratic oligarchy they ultimately come from a wealthy few. Yet I think it is not enough to just sift for leaders who can act as our living heroes. Besides, concerned individuals often regard to morality and good governance only as straight responsibilities and nothing more. I think there should not only be an education of responsibility, but also an education of importance. Teach the child his household responsibilities and he wouldn't keep them at the back of his head because he is innocent of their significance. The Filipino then, must learn how honor and integrity are greater-than-life virtues that ought to be safeguarded. He must understand that the reward of their preservation accomplishes his meaning and purpose as part of his family and society.

But even so, corruption is not as easy as it looks. It has evolved into a something which needs a more than superficial study. Just as washing clothes effectively requires the products of science, effective cleansing of morality too, involves different approaches from as many scientific disciplines as possible. Talking on stage seeking to lift people's hearts cannot single-handedly purge the nature of corruption out of our culture. We also have to become thoroughly familiar with its origin and development, and here movements must deal with its psychology with all patience. Even areas such as sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences do have relevant roles in the analysis of corruption and how it occurs in the Filipino psyche, necessitating a lot of studies in different levels and perspectives in order to arrive into a more effective solution.

Corruption is not even absolute but relative, and we should not just pertain to the entire mass as a single type with a single cause and nature of corruption - instead we should be dealing with different types of people.

In other words, the moral force should not only be a movement, but an institute. To alter this system, we have to attack the problem concrete against concrete.

Minute Thoughts: Philippine television

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:14:00 +0000

Philippine prime time soaps are doing a wonderful job miseducating the youth. For best results, watch GMA7, and tell what essential values are projected by pointlessly violent action and Quixotically romantic cliches of a show scrapped from an international title, hoping to ride on the latter's success. It is all too cheesy and intellectually unbearable, making the brains of the people all too cheesier.

Philippine TV is way too far from being Filipino.

Democratic oligarchy

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:19:00 +0000

Chief Justice Reynato Puno is right, our country is still run by oligarchs. This observation is not exactly a product of Marxist-Leninist analysis as what Press Secretary Cerge Remonde thinks, but rather of a well-pondered approach to reality and history and their meaningless repetition twice in every six years.

It takes no rocket science to find out how material resources influence the fate of the elections. A political candidate might refute that his campaign expenditures are paid for by his own pocket. I agree with him, for his campaign funds are generated by friends and cronies who can yield and be yielded upon with influence. But isn't the presence of influential friends make the elections a bout between personalities of huge followings, followings acquired not in expense of platforms but from social circles? And since one would not be accepted in such circles if not for the reputation of one's wealth, cannot it be assumed that only a few are given this privilege of having powerful cronies, that is, that they must have wealth or influence which is seen by the materialist as in itself a potential to power? And since in the statistical frame of the Filipino population the wealthy class makes up no more than 20%, then what we have in our politics is a contest between parties whose wealth and influence make them afford expensive campaigning.

And since we always pretend to be a democratic country, our electoral system recognizes no requirement save that one be a citizen of the Philippines. The ideal of democracy, too, is demonstrated through the voting empowerment of sectors such as the youth, OFWs, gays and lesbians, etc. (though this is often a strategic advantage to the candidate who seeks to obtain their mass support.) Anyway, this is democratization supported also by oligarchs, and by this the Filipino has invented a brand new ideology, the first and only one that is not theoretical, but rather, empirical.

The FV Tavern

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Sun, 17 May 2009 07:44:00 +0000

Not since the misanthropes of the Enlightenment have I seen that language could be as barbaric, a sharp rapier that tears egos, ideas, persons an reputations. Swift was excellent in using it on Walpole, just as Voltaire in sticking it to Leibniz. But the barbarity of words in the Filipino Voices comment threads must not be expected to be of similar brand to them. I am convinced that, forgive me, FV comment threads are overshadowed by the cloud of soaring egos and of a culture pretending to aim forward but in reality thinks backward; in a plenity of hungry and agitated geniuses couched in the Dark Age of intellect, where worthless pedantry has deprived man of his common sense.

Welcome to the tavern, you all!

I used to admire that collective blog which roster included illustrious figures of political punditry. Though a few times marred by confused philosophies and skewed logic, they are still outweighed by the significance of its impact to the Filipino webspace and beyond. Yet the more it grew, the heavier it seems to have become. It gathered into a snowball not only valid thinkers and debaters, but also idiots, madmen and charlatans who by virtue of overconfidence felt free to plague its threads with indecency and irrationality to the repugnance of the civilized.

If its state of unmoderation continues, it will soon be no different to opinion exchange sites frequented by drunkards with pustular tongues and worse than tumorous brains. Should the ruckus of a pretentious mob ruin the noble causes of FV`s origin?

Let us bring them back again.

Wild Verses for the Wild Times

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:27:00 +0000

Mortars, guns and bombers,
Whom are all these desp'rate things?
That lords are wreaking lands in battles
For what?
That is strange indeed.
Dum! Dum! Dum!
Drummers pounding, warriors singing;
Doom! Doom! Doom!
Men are falling, smoke is rising;
Strike with bores whose songs do damn.
Alas, whose god destines untimely end
For the sole enterprise of one
Who is much worse than others,
And who has not come even to himself?
At last, perhaps my friends,
Brethren in good days, foes in bad;
You are not lone in nightmares, save your sleep
For we have kings to bear and sons to bleed.
Scores we fought for scores of change,
And we have shattered all our foes and chains;
And bells did toil of freedom for some ease;
But tell me, when will trumpets sing of truer peace?

-19 July 2006

Isang Leksyon sa Pagpapahalaga sa Sarili

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:00:00 +0000

Ang sumusunod na tula ay repleksyon ng isang lipunang babad sa krisis ng pag-asa; isang pagtunton sa kinalalagyan ng mga Pilipino sa panahong sa isipan ng mamamaya'y lipos na ang paniniwalang ang gobyerno ang makaaalis sa kanilang putikang kinalulugmukan.

Maraming salamat sa ating kamakathang si Oliver S. Carlos sa pamamahagi ng mga taludtod na ito.

Isang Leksyon sa Pagpapahalaga sa Sarili
Ni Oliver S. Carlos

Walang magpapahalaga sa iyo.
Malibang igapos mo at gawing hostage
ang lahat ng empleyado ng recruitment agency
na nanloko sa iyo, sa paniniwalang
ito ang kahulugan ng salitang TABLA

Walang magpapahalaga sa iyo.
Maliban kung agawin mo ang isang school bus
at magbantang pasasabugin ang mga musmos
na nasa loob, sa paniniwalang
ito ang katumbas ng salitang EDUKASYON

Walang magpapahalaga sa iyo
Maliban, kung dahil sa lipas ng gutom, akyatin mo
ang tuktok ng isang billboard sa EDSA, at doo’y
pakaway-kaway na magtangkang tumalon
sa harap ng nagigimbal at nakatingalang mga tao
sa paniniwalang
kapatid ng kawalang-pag- asa ang KATAPUSAN

Walang magpapahalaga sa iyo
Malibang magtanim ka ng granada’t bomba
sa lobby at parking lot ng kongreso
sa paniniwalang ito ang selyo
at lagdang magbibigay kahulugan
sa mga salitang KURAKUTAN at PANLILINLANG

Walang magpapahalaga sa iyo
Malibang buhusan mo ang sarili ng gasolina
at ikaskas ang palito sa gilid ng kahon ng posporo
sa ibabaw ng tulay ng Mendiola. Sa paniniwalang
ito ang dapat itawag sa salitang PROTESTA

Walang maniniwala at magpapahalaga.
Kailanman ay wala.

Malibang pahalagahan mo muna at paniwalaan ang sarili.

At tulad ng lahat, makita ang pinag-uugatan ng lahat ng ito,
maniwala,
na sa sama-samang pagkilos

may mararating ang salitang PAG-AAKLAS.

-Labor Day

*******

ERRATUM: In a recent post entitled The Banishment of Common Sense, I originally wrote that the Customs has violated the Nairobi Protocol to the Florence Agreement (the two are different). It is the Florence Agreement and not the Nairobi Protocol which is being violated, and the Philippines is not a signatory of the latter but of the former. It seems that in the protocol the Florence Agreement's 0% duty-free provision of imported books is amended in favor of 5% imposition of duties for books that are not "educational, scientific and cultural." However, since RP did not sign the protocol it means that we still legally go by the Florence Agreement which states that duty-free importation of all books should be implemented.

The banishment of common sense

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:31:00 +0000

[Updated] MLQ3's recent post, and similar entries from other bloggers, especially that of Robert Hemley's Dispatch from Manila (where it began) answered why in the previous months I've seen an intermittent influx of imported books such as Stephenie Meyer's Twilight in local bookstores. My girlfriend herself had to ask a National Bookstore Branch for reservations because her initial attempts to find one proved fruitless. The book, along with (as I've noticed) Umberto Eco's and others, is often running out of stock not primarily because of the huge huge wave of booklovers hurdling for copies, but because of the discouraging financial requisites compounded by delayful red tape that bookshippers have to face in the Bureau of Customs before the titles could find their way to the bookstores.

Suddenly the BoC thought they should be levying 5% taxes on books that according to them aren't "educational, scientific and cultural." Suddenly it occurred to them to review certain rules such as the Customs Code and R. A. 8047 and interpret them in a different way. Suddenly they decided on this when they discovered that the Philippines makes a big market on books, especially when Twilight sales made a big boost among young Filipinos.

Something pretty weird spread in the atmosphere when Usec. Espele Sales explained the case to trouble-ridden booksellers and importers, whose products are stranded on bay and stacked with tariffs they have to pay as days go by. Usec. Sales said R. A. 8047 (otherwise known as the Book Publishing Industry Development Act), which provides of "tax and duty-free importation of books or raw materials to be used on book publishing," means that tax exemptions are put only on books which pertain to book publishing, since according to her there is no comma after the word "book." R. A. 8047 is, in fact, several miles away from the issue. The act concerns availability of materials and references useful for publishers, while the issue at hand is about the finished product and the dilemma of marketing them, which is an isolated stage of the process. Usec. Sales was talking of two different aspects of the industry, and was confusing the importers through twisted language in a manner that was indeed, to agree with Hemley but from a different vantage point, clearly memorable of George Orwell's description of how language is manipulated by governments (read his novel Animal Farm, one of the titles taxed five-fold by the BoC).

The Customs also denied that some literature are "educational, scientific [or] cultural," hence, the duties imposed. Literature, in whatever genré, is reflective of real or artificial, modern or classical culture. Even sci-fi novels are not devoid of culture, and are often educational in nature too. Every book is borne out of the writer's intellectual and external culture, and about their being educational, it takes but a little common sense to see that there is obviously a dredging of imagination, creativity and discovery there.

Another thing which makes this issue anomalous to me is that according to the BoC they are going to be the agency concerned with the classification of books whether to fall taxable or non-taxable. Wake up, what are the credentials of the Customs to determine the nature of books? What is their reasoning for claiming this academic and intellectual responsibility? Does this mean they would also tax Nabokov's Lolita 5% because it is not educational but erotic?

Aside from, in my gentle opinion, being outside the boundaries of common sense, it is also a violation of the Florence Agreement of 1952 (a later Nairobi Protocol, available below, says that custom duties may be imposed by governments, but the Philippines is not a signatory) protecting the free-flow of books to signatory states (the Philippines joined the pact in 1979). It smells of what else but seawater in the most lucrative portion of Philippine government and society - the Customs. Treating books this way just because they bring shiploads of revenue is completely idiotic, literally completely idiotic if we are in a nation aiming to spread literacy. I cannot see why money should get weightier than Grass, Achebe or Garcia-Marquez, whose values are most important to a country such as the Philippines representative of mankind's moral fracture. Even fantasies such as those of Rowling or Meyer or Gaiman do great benefit especially to children, who are reeling towards a dangerous sea watered by the proliferation of pornographic media; books save them from such widespread pollution.

There are times when we have no idea what is running in people's minds, unless we take a look at the object of their affections; that carnal lust for lucre able to bend the mighty steel of the law, and worse gets shielded from the outstretched arm of Justice nowadays groping in the lightlessness of impunity. Just tell lawmakers of its profit, and they will be convinced so as to cooperate for the regulation of our literacy and the exile of common sense.
Nairobi Protocol - Full Text Nairobi Protocol - Full Text >>The Pelican Spectator

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Taxes & Accounting Business & Law protocol Agreement

Literacy taxed

aclopez714@yahoo.com.ph (Vin) — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:32:00 +0000

A perpetual broadside is pounding on the roof and in the streets, thanks to the storm which name escaped me. I have to suspend all appointments for today to prevent suffering more than the cold which has just given me slight hints of its onset.

Time for me to rest at home and work on some of my private ends. By the way, tomorrow I'm posting my take on the unusual reasoning the Bureau of Customs has put about incoming book shipments, imposing as much as 5 per cent taxes on books that are not educational, scientific or cultural according to their definition. Fellow blogger Robert Hemley calls it The Great Book Blockade of 2009 in his Dispatch from Manila over at McSweeney's, and he is very critical to it. Laying heavy taxes on books is really very contradictory to the promotion of knowledge, which as an agency of the government the BoC must support. MLQ3 on his updated entry at The Daily Dose has illustrated its extreme polar contrast to Malaysia which is very supportive of books and electronic literature that they are imported in their country duty-free.

That's for tomorrow. For now I'm going to engross myself on some few chapters of a novel which I intend to publish pseudonymously. Cheers for the rainy season!#

Just do the same old song, please

ocalacaba@gmail.com (Oscar Lacaba) — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:00:00 +0000

Oops they did it again.

The National Historical Institute once again expressed its ire over Martin Nievera's show-off rendition of the Philippine national anthem, which is ought to be sung in a tempo of 2/2 (formerly 4/4, but still is in an identical speed), at the beginning of Manny Pacquiao's east-west match against Ricky Hatton at the MGM Grand Sunday.

As usual.

Sarah, Lani, Bituin, and now, Martin. The Schtroumpfs each had their day while I almost ceased to recognize with all my idiotic piece of brain my revered anthem. I was sitting under the comfort of home yet that comfort just crept away on my horror-stricken skin, as even in the moment of solemnity and sanctity one of my fellow Filipinos would not sacrifice his Divo status for a few minutes of glorifying his own flag and paying due reverence to the brief symbolization commemorating the founding fathers of our struggling land. And when we say commemoration we imitate in our minds the same exact setting in which history conducted the ocassion, that is, without lyrical, musical or tonal modifications and translation of any kind, and absolutely without exploiting the moment for the purpose of just SHOWING OFF.

We are a people renowned for our quasi-nightingale voices, and none is more beautiful than the voice of a Filipina singing in Caesar's hall, nor more dangerous than the shrill cries of the suppressed in EDSA's walks. And with all our nation's bravery and legacy embodied in four stanzas of marching undertones the entire nation gets alienated once a representative of our nationhood veers away from something Philippine culture has embraced as a major legacy. Yes, by altering the tempo of Lupang Hinirang one is detaching his nation away from him, as if he is saying that the song is his and it's his time to grace the ring and forget that what's he's doing is representative of our collective identity.

The longer the egg stays in boiling water the harder it gets. The more the light floods their faces the more stubborn they become.#