Kuwento Kuwento

Remember the Poet-Warrior, Al Robles

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:55:00 +0000

, Al Robles was the wise old man, the gentle warrior, the philosopher-poet who spoke proudly of his Filipino heritage, who also celebrated the cultures and struggles of other communities, the Asians, the Latinos, the African Americans.

He was the Manong who was brother to those who endured and battled against social and racial injustice.

On Saturday, the Bay Area will come to pay tribute to his life and legacy in an afternoon of poetry, music, and dance at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco.

Al Robles died in May at age 79.

I never really got to know him, even though I’ve lived in the Bay Area for nearly 20 years. I’ve seen him at some community events, and heard him read his poetry. Through his poetry and activism, Al Robles became a Filipino American icon.

As veteran community activist Emil De Guzman recalls, “Al Robles now takes his place immortalized like Carlos Bulosan, N.V. M. Gonzales, Manuel Buakin as the literary champions of our people.”

In fact, Al Robles strived to become a champion of many communities. In his poetry, he explored other worlds, other struggles in a society where the struggles of many communities of color have often been forgotten and ignored.

Al Robles wanted those stories told, and sought to bring other poets from these communities to speak out.

“We have become brothers and sisters,” he wrote in a 1989 article in Amerasia Journal. “We gathered with Chicanos, Blacks, Japanese, Native American Indians, addressing certain political issues that affect the lives not only of our people but all Third World folks.

“While living and working in our little, tiny communities, in the midst of towering highrises, we fought the oppressor, the landlord, the developer, the banks, City Hall. But most of all, we celebrated through our culture; music, dance, song and poetry—not only the best we knew, but the best we had.”

Poetry was a central part of Al’s life, and in his twenties, according to Emil De Guzman, he was a regular in San Francisco’s famous North Beach neighborhood, with the Beat poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg. Al was also a painter and a carpenter who made Japanese tea houses.

But his art and poetry also were inextricably linked to his activism. After all, he grew up in California at a time when it was tough to be a Filipino, to be Asian, a person of color. He was about 11 years old when the US government began rounding up Japanese Americans and taking them to internment camps, in one of the saddest chapters in American history. It is said that Al’s younger brother, Remy, was picked up by the military thinking he was Japanese. Al had to fight to pull his brother from the truck headed for the internment camps.

Al Robles eventually identified with the struggles of the Japanese American and other Asian American communities. In the late 1970s, one of the most important battles took place in downtown San Francisco where a group of elderly Filipino and Chinese old-timers fought for the right to preserve their home, the International Hotel, also known as the I-Hotel.

The residents eventually were evicted, but the confrontation helped focus attention to the problem of homelessness and poverty in San Francisco. It also helped galvanize the Filipino American community, giving rise to a new generation of activists and advocates, many of whom joined the fight against the Marcos dictatorship.

More than 25 years later, a new International Hotel was built with affordable housing for the elderly and a community center with an exhibit commemorating the historic battle.

“No history of the International Hotel struggle can be written without including our revered leader Al Robles,” Emil De Guzman said. “Volumes could be written about his community service and his dedication to the struggle for our Manongs and Manangs. … He cared for the hundreds and hundreds on Kearny Street in his forty and more years. … We celebrate this victory today and we have Al to thank as one of the leaders of this long arduous struggle.”

In his Amerasia piece, Al Robles spoke of coming close “through a sense of respect and openness,” of telling and listening to the stories of different communities, who find themselves becoming “one tribal family.”

“If the children of the rainbow can speak to us of the woods in winter, of the rains and snows, of the sadness of autumn, of the chilly winds in Harlem, of the smell of plum sauce dripping from the old in Chinatown, of the old Pilipino men whose bodies smell like a hundred water buffaloes soaked in the Kearny Street mud, then we should a lend an ear and listen to them.”

The Al Robles Tribute will be held on July 25, 1 to 5 p.m. at Glide Memorial Church, Ellis and Taylor Streets, San Francisco.

A Filipino Reflection on Apollo 11

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:48:00 +0000

This month marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. There has understandably been much media attention to what that historic event, when humankind finally reached the moon, has meant for the world.

I myself was five years old in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their first steps on the moon. I remember watching, with much excitement, the blurry black and white TV footage of the landing.

Many years ago, a writer also skillfully and boldly pondered the significance of the Apollo mission—to the Filipino experience.

Gregorio Brillantes’s “The Apollo Centennial” is undoubtedly one of the best Filipino short stories in English ever written. Academic Timothy Montes called the story “the first successful science fiction story written by a Filipino.” I may be accused of bias, of course, since Greg is an old friend and my former editor.

“The Apollo Centennial” is not the typical science fiction tale. As Montes pointed out in a 2000 lecture, Brillantes does not tell a story about high-tech gadgets or the anticipated Space Age future.

Instead, the story is a critique of Philippine society during the regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos—and a meditation on the economic and technological chasm between the First World and the Third.

The story is set in the year 2069. The world is commemorating the 100th anniversary of Apollo mission, and the celebration extends to a troubled rural community in the Philippines. There, Arcadio Nagbuya, a poor farmer, is taking his children to see an exhibit of the Apollo centennial. It’s not an easy journey, for they have to wait for a makeshift raft to cross a river, and then take a bus that must pass through military checkpoints where soldiers are on the lookout for rebel guerrillas. The security forces even have fighter bomber “helidiscs” patrolling the skies in the hunt for rebels.

At the exhibit, Cadio and his sons marvel at the photos of the historic event and the taped voice of Neil Amstrong repeating his famous quote, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” As Montes writes, “The juxtaposition of the poor farmer and the technological feats of the past creates a Twilight Zone effect because the man is twice removed from reality.”

The Twilight Zone-like society Brillantes paints probes a major fear of many Filipinos in the 1970s and 1980s: That the dictator would be with us for a very long time. For instance, in Brillantes’s Philippines of 2069, people speak Tagilocan. Society is so repressive that the other regional languages are on their way to being made extinct.

On the trip back from the exhibit, Cadio and his sons briefly run into his cousin, Andres, who is part of the rebellion.

Brillantes writes: “His cousin clicks off the flashlight and speaks to him, not in Tagilocan, but in the old language…and the tender fluid accents of their fathers’ tongue, unheard for so long yet never quite lost nor forgotten, bring a swift rush of pride and love that pushes back the enclosing dread.”

It’s a simple, yet moving, scene, one that I have enjoyed rereading through the years.

The grimmest aspects of Greg’s bleak vision of our future did not materialize, of course. The dictatorship is gone, after all. Still, one can’t deny the prescience of Greg’s story.

Forty years after the moon landing, many of the ills Philippine society was struggling with in 1969 are still here—the poverty, the brutality, the mind-boggling underdevelopment. Despite the technology revolution, underscored by the cell phone culture that has radically changed our society, deep chasms remain, and many would argue that they are growing wider, more oppressive.

Sixty years from now, when the world commemorates the centennial of humanity’s first lunar visit, what kind of society will we find? Will there still be the glaring disparities in affluence and power?

Susan Fernandez, Our Nightingale

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:54:00 +0000

SHE was the nightingale of the protest movement, a folk singer with the inspiring voice, powerful, yet soothingly gentle, a committed artist-activist who dedicated her life to helping the many who are weak and powerless in our country.

My friend, Susan Fernandez, died this week at 52. Many of my generation and others will miss her, her beautiful voice, her gentle soul.

During rallies or at political events at the University of the Philippines or other venues in the 1980s, I was always happy to know that she would be one of the cultural performers. And recently, she was the one I also thought to ask to perform to help my book events less boring. She was a gifted and courageous activist who embraced the struggles of her generation, whether it’s for the rights of women, or against tyranny and dictatorship.

On a personal level, she was a generous friend, who felt happiest when her music touched other people’s lives. Three years ago, she readily said yes to an invitation from Joy Jopson Kintanar to perform at the launch of “UG An Undergound Tale,” my book about the late activist Edgar Jopson, known as Edjop.

I was not able to attend the launch, though my sister Nymia emceed the event. And Susan later recalled what happened in an e-mail.

She first sang “Kundiman ni Abdon,” the classic kundiman that inspired “Kay Taas ng Pader,” a popular song among political detainees during the Marcos years.

“I took a bow right after this first song when Nymia signaled to me to do another one,” Susan later told me. On the spot, she said, she thought of “Madaling Araw,” one of her favorite kundiman songs by Francisco Santiago.

It turned out to be a fortuitous choice.

“You know what,” she continued in her e-mail, “during the cocktails, Edjop’s sister approached me. This song pala was their favorite nung bata sila (when they were younger)! She felt so nostalgic and all the more missing her brother. Kaya lalo akong natuwa sa coincidence ng napili kong awitin (So I was glad that I chose to sing it).”

“Haay, it's really wonderful to touch lives this way,” Susan said.

To be sure, Susan touched many lives. She impressed many of the leading activist-intellectuals of her time, including the late Lean Alejandro.

“Did you ever have one of those opportunities where you meet someone who is not only good in the arts, but incredibly smart?” academic and former student leader Jojo Abinales said. “That's Susan.”

“Everyone was, of course, enthralled by her voice. Lean used to be mesmerized by her jazz songs and confessed to me that he would never sing in front of Susan. Of course, noong nalasing na hala kanta na ng kanta ng (when they got drunk they sang and sang) Paul Williams, to Susan's amusement.”

Abinales quickly added, “But I was amazed at her intelligence.”

For while Susan was best known as a performer, she also made her own contributions to the academic world. While working for her master’s degree at UP, she decided to take on what was then an unusual, and tough, thesis subject: Child prostitution in Manila.

“I was surprised about this when she told me because no one expected her to do such a thing—being one of the few ‘pretty bourgeoisies’ (Lean's term) of the activist generation of my time,” Jojo recalled.

“So Susan would spend long nights hanging out with the kids in Ermita and getting their stories. She would visit us at Diliman at the end of the week and I would listen to her stories about her encounters. … Then she sat down and wrote this incredible MA thesis which I think is one of the earliest works on child prostitution during the Marcos period.”

“She would have become a fine academic. UP or Ateneo would have benefited immensely from her ideas,” Jojo added.

Susan eventually did turn to teaching, but music always was at the center of her life.

And there was music when she passed on.

She was surrounded by friends and family right before she died Thursday afternoon. Musician and her friend, Lester Demetillo, was playing her favorite song, “Both Sides Now,” when she passed away.

FilAm Honored as 'Hero' for Veterans Work

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:53:00 +0000

“Kaylangan lang poh ng kohntee pahng tiyago.”(We just need a bit more patience.)

That line, uttered by the character Attorney Anna (played superbly by veteran actress Missy Maramara), always got the audience breaking into hearty laughter and applause in Tanghalang Pilipino’s “Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street.”

The play, adapted for the stage by Rody Vera and directed by Chris Millado, was based on my novel. And I must reveal now, however, that the real Attorney Anna, the Filipino American lawyer who was devoted to helping Filipino World War II veterans in San Francisco, but who was prone to mangling Tagalog, can actually speak the language fluently.

The broken Tagalog and funny accent—I made that all up. (I decided while writing the novel to honor the United States-born Pinoys who have also taken up the cause of the beteranos and of the Filipino community in general by turning Attorney Anna into a FilAm.)

In real life, Attorney Anna is Attorney Lou, as in Lourdes Santos Tancinco, who has spent nearly two decades now helping and advocating for the beteranos, many of whom hang out outside her office near the Cable Car Stop on Powell Street in downtown San Francisco.

For her service and commitment to these men and their families, Attorney Lou was recently named an “Outstanding Local Bay Area Hero” by KQED Public Television. It’s a prestigious award given to individuals who made a difference in communities in Northern California.

And Attorney Lou certainly has made a big difference.

She served as the chair and founding member of the San Francisco Veterans Equity Center which led the advocacy campaign for the beteranos in the city. She offered pro bono legal services and held free legal clinics for the beteranos and other immigrants. She also has her own TV show, “Pusong Pinoy sa Amerika,” which focuses on immigrant issues in the Filipino community in the United States.

It wouldn’t be a surprise to know that Attorney Lou was honored this year as a result of the passing of the federal bill granting benefits to the beteranos. As a result of the law, the beteranos who have long been denied the benefits granted to regular US military veterans can receive up to $15,000 in a lump sum compensation package.

Many US and Philippine lawmakers, and some community leaders, hailed the passing of the law as a major victory for Filipino World War II veterans.

But Attorney Lou doesn’t see it that way.

Yes, the beteranos and their families could surely use the money, especially in these difficult times, she said. But it simply isn’t enough. The beteranos deserve a lifetime pension and other benefits, like those received by those who served with the US military. Fifteen thousand dollars is a substantial amount, it’s true. But that’s not going to last. These old men deserve more, she said.

Otherwise, all the waiting and fighting they did over the past 60 years would have been in vain, she told me.

We had a chat in her office near the Cable Car Stop on Powell Street, near the spot where many of the old beteranos still hang out. In her office hang photographs of some of the veterans she aided, and who eventually became her friends.

Magdaleno Duenas, a hero in the Allied campaign in the Philippines, came to America hoping for a better life, but ended up being one of the veterans who fell victim to a fraud scheme that Attorney Lou helped expose.

Then there’s Ciriaco Punla, in his fake fur coat and cowboy hat, who became one of Attorney Lou’s cheerleaders in the fight for the Equity Bill and who was a beloved figure at the Powell Street hangout of the old guys. (He was my inspiration for the Ciriaco in the novel.)

Both men have passed away. But Attorney Lou continues to honor them by having their images displayed prominently in her office.

When she received her award from KQED, Attorney Lou said she had planned to simply say “Thanks,” and keep her remarks short. But many people at the event were congratulating her for the “victory.” So she decided to set the record straight and elaborate on how she really felt: That it was not a victory and the fight is not over. That these men deserve more for everything that they have done.

Attorney Lou plans to keep repeating that message in the years to come.

The Pinay First Lady of East Timor

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:59:00 +0000

She was called Jackie S. in the Inquirer report, which made me chuckle for the name clearly refers to Jackie O., as in Jacqueline Onassis, who, as Jackie Kennedy was one of the most glamorous First Ladies in United States history.

Of course, in the eyes of most politicians and other members of the Philippine elite, there was nothing glamorous about what Jacqueline Siapno did. What on earth was Siapno, the first lady of neighboring East Timor, thinking taking a public bus and then a tricycle from Manila to Pangasinan?

The Inquirer was right to contrast Siapno with the rich and powerful in the Philippines for whom political power means extensive protocol and traveling with an army of servants and assistants. But the attention Jackie Siapno attracted for her low-key homecoming should also extend to her own standing as one of the most accomplished Filipina intellectuals in the world, and an expert on a part of the world that Filipinos and the Philippines should really be paying more attention to.

I got to know her in the early 1990s when we were students at University of California Berkeley, where she eventually got a PhD in Political Science and we both got involved in a conference on the Philippines. She had moved to the US as a teenager and eventually pursued a career in academe, earning degrees from prestigious Wellesley College and the University of London before going to Berkeley. She speaks, writes, or reads eight languages: Pangasinan, Tagalog, English, Indonesian, Portuguese, and Acehnese.

And she has written a book on Aceh, “Gender, Islam, Nationalism, and the State in Aceh: The Paradox of Power, Co-optation and Resistance.”

These credentials may make Jackie sound like a highly-intelligent but boring egghead. But Jackie Siapno is anything but boring. The attention she attracted with the unusual bus rise to Pangasinan proves that. And one thing I’ll always remember from our days in Berkeley was her passion whenever she tackled a subject she felt strongly about, whether it’s the plight of the Timorese people, Indonesian culture, Philippine politics, or women’s issues.

During the Berkeley conference, she told the Malay folk tale of Putri Babi, the Pig Princess, who married a rajah who fell madly in love with her despite her being different. But the rajah wanted to change Putri Babi so he burned her skin and called a healer to turn her into his ideal wife. “In burning her skin,” Jackie relates, “she is transformed into a princess, identified with the aristocratic ruling class and hence no longer able to represent the Bangsa which she was supposedly to continue. In becoming identified with the aristocratic class, the representation of their own Bangsa is foreclosed.”

She continued, “The rajah saw an imperfection in her body, a sign that marks her difference and he wants to burn it to make her body more normal and to make it conform. The treatment of Putri Babi is symbolic control, symbolic of male control of a female body which he does not understand, so he kills her.”

I remembered her telling this story when I heard about the stir Jackie caused in taking a bus from the airport to Pangasinan. She’s had an unusual journey—from young Pinay from Pangasinan to US immigrant to academic to activist to Indonesia expert to first lady of East Timor. But while we haven’t talked in years, I have a strong feeling that her own transformations did not involve any skin burning. I suspect Jackie took on, absorbed, and incorporated the knowledge and cultures of the places where she has traveled and lived, and eventually built on all these without having to shed her past as a Filipino woman from Pangasinan.

Before telling the story of Pig Princess, she explained that “Bangsa” in Malay could mean race, sex, class, or group, but is now commonly means as nation. Jackie pointed out how the story was originally told in a language similar to Maranao. “Any of you who speak Maranao or Tausug, Indonesian or Malay will probably understand it,” she told the audience.

I can’t help but think of how much someone with her background and passion can contribute at a time when the Philippines is still wrestling with unrest in the southern part of the archipelago involving Muslims who have suffered for generations under Christian rule from Manila.

We last communicated via email a few years ago and by then we were both parents. Jackie spoke fondly for her son Hadomi. Hadomi, Jackie explained to me, means “love” in the East Timorese language of Tetum.

The Old Man With the Helmet

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:37:00 +0000

Friends at Tanghalang Pilipino in Manila remember the old man with the helmet. Wenceslao Rodriguez Sr. wore his military headgear during the gala of a play about men like him, soldiers who fought bravely for his homeland, but whose sacrifices have largely been forgotten.

Mang Wenceslao kept his helmet on for more than two hours during the premiere of “Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street.” I had missed the gala last November. But the Tanghalang Pilipino folks described it as a moving and meaningful event, and a big reason for its success was the old man with the helmet.

He was from a poor community in the University of the Philippines area, and graciously accepted Tanghalan’s invitation to attend the first performance of the play based on my novel about World War II veterans (and beautifully adapted for the stage by Rody Vera and directed by Chris Millado).

The Tanghalan folks, led by creative director Nanding Josef, later became close to Mang Wenceslao. When the equity package was recently passed by the United States government, they thought he would at last get some financial assistance for his sacrifices. Unfortunately, he ran into a problem—there was another person with the same name and that had to be sorted out.

My friend Nanding said it’s not clear if Mang Wenceslao ever received the benefit which recognizes the courage and service of thousands of Filipino veterans. One day, he and other Tanghalan staffers got a text message from Mang Wenceslao’s family. He had passed away late last month. They were inviting his new theater friends to the 40th day commemoration of his death.

Before he died, his family told the Tanghalan folks, Mang Wenceslao often talked about “the tribute given to him at the CCP”—“iyong parangal na binigay sa kanya sa CCP.”

* * *

“Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street,” which starred veteran performers such as Bembol Roco, Tommy Abuel, Joe Gruta, Dido Dela Paz, and Lou Veloso, focuses on the plight for veterans who moved to San Francisco after they were granted citizenship by the US government. But the production itself exposed me and others from Tanghalan to the broader world of the beteranos.

For while thousands of Filipino veterans took the opportunity to move to America hoping to provide a better life for their families, many more remained in the Philippines.

Some of them belonged to the Defenders of Corregidor and Bataan, whose members survived the bloody battles at those historic places. Some of the group’s leaders and members came to watch the play last year. Some of their leaders enjoyed the show so much that they invited me and other members of the Tanghalan staff to their regular luncheon. When we met they also mentioned the plight of other veterans like Mang Wenceslao, who was struggling against poverty and whose contributions have been ignored.

The Corregidor and Bataan veterans later helped bring “Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street” to the Armed Forces of the Philippines Theater last month, as a way to honor the beteranos, both those who now endure loneliness and isolation in cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles—and also the seniors still living in the Philippines, battling illness, poverty, and in many cases neglect.

Unfortunately, I also missed that performance. But I was happy to hear that, like the run at the CCP, the show was also well received. “Crowd loved it,” my friend Maricor Baytion, director of the Ateneo Press, which published the novel, said in a text message shortly after the performance ended.

“This is a funny yet tragic, sentimental, yet soul-stirring story all rolled into a two-hour musical play that portrays the vicissitudes of the aging, sickly, dying— and dead—Filipino veterans of World War II during their final years in their Powell Street hangout in San Francisco,” former President Fidel Ramos wrote in an op-ed piece for the Manila Bulletin.

If only Mang Wenceslao had been there too for another tribute to men like him. It would have been another proud moment for the old soldier, the warrior who fought bravely for his country.

The Filipino Veteran’s Lonely Struggle

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:53:00 +0000

THE benefits package approved by the United States Congress for the thousands of Filipino World War II veterans is an important victory. For many of the old men who’ve endured years of isolation in America in order to support their loved ones in the Philippines, the money would surely be a big boost in difficult times.

But there are those who see the approved bill as a sad, tragic compromise.

One of them is photographer Rick Rocamora who has spent nearly 20 years documenting the lives and struggles of the beteranos.

“As a photographer who has captured moments in the lives of the veterans during their early days in America, the funeral services of their passing and life in between, I also look forward to the day that our heroes will be given the full recognition as equal to US veterans,” he told me in an e-mail.

“While the monetary compensation will find its way to help the surviving beteranos and their relatives, being recognized as equals is more important,” he added. “For those who died waiting, I have been waiting for them. But we must not forget that it took many years for the US Congress to recognized and correct the injustice. We must credit the collective efforts of the Filipino community in America and their supporters to finally gain justice for our heroes.”

To the elderly Pinoys often seen hanging out on Powell Street near the Cable Car stop in downtown San Francisco, Rick “Totoy” Rocamora has been a friend and ally who helped preserve the memory of their gallant, but sad mission in America.

They’ve known him as the soft-spoken heavyset man with a mop top hairdo, who seemed always to have a fancy-looking camera around his neck. Totoy told in moving, vivid pictures the journey of the thousands of Filipino World War II veterans who arrived in the United States in the 1990s.

His work has been published in many magazines and newspaper articles, and put on exhibit throughout the world. Now, Rocamora's impressive body of work has been collected in a newly-published book of photographs, “America's Second-Class Veterans.”

Rocamora's photographs helped spread the word on what has become a sad chapter in the history of US-Philippine relations. The Filipino veterans began arriving in the United States in the early 1990s after they were finally granted citizenship for fighting alongside American troops in the war against the Japanese forces in World War II. But many of the elderly men found themselves in a bind. While they fought bravely under US command during the war, they did not receive the same rights and benefits enjoyed by other American military veterans.

The beteranos came to America hoping to send money back to their families in the Philippines or to enable their loved ones to immigrate to the United States. But most of them were old and ailing. Some became vulnerable to abuse, falling victim to swindlers. Many of them lived in cramped and damp rooms in San Francisco's Tenderloin District.

Rocamora began documenting their struggles almost as soon as the first veterans began to arrive. His work helped mobilize the Filipino American community in advocating for the elderly Pinoys. A few times, when one of his beterano friends became ill, Totoy brought him sinigang and kept him company.

Totoy's photographs also helped inspire me to write my novel Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street (Guerrillas on Powell Street) which was adapted for the stage by the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Tanghalang Pilipino. His pictures also inspired prominent figures to support the fight for equity rights. One of them is Congressman Bob Filner, who has been the leading proponent for equity rights in Washington DC, and who wrote an introduction to the book.

“The photographs in Rocamora's book and the words of the veterans next to the photos will not only bring tears to your eyes but also a firm resolve in your heart," Filner writes. “Congress has officially granted the recognition as Veterans of World War II to these brave men, both living and dead.”

Totoy, Filner added, “has created a book with a powerful message, a book that should be in the homes and offices of every American.”

Totoy’s powerful images should be given even more prominence, as a reminder of the lonely struggle of the beteranos. As Totoy himself said, “Personally, I would like that my archive about the veterans will be housed appropriately in an institution where young Filipinos and Americans can look back on how much our heroes suffered waiting for full recognition.”

The Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Pilipino’s production of “Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street” will be staged at the AFP Theater on March 29 and 30. For more information, contact 832-3661 or 832-1125 loc. 1620 or 1621.

Cool to be Brown

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:14:00 +0000

Another reflection on Barack Obama by Luis Francia of New York who also mentions "Pareng Barack," and correctly points out that I missed an opportunity to discuss the role of African Americans in the Philippine-American War. Luis co-authoried the book Vestiges of War, about the bloody, but little-known, conflict that shaped Philippine-American relations over the past century.

The artist abroad
Cool to be Brown
By Luis H. Francia
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 09:37:00 01/27/2009

Filed Under: Elections, history, Politics

New York—“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning.”

That quote is from the late Louis L’Amour (a writer known for his novels about the American West) and is inscribed on the leather-bound journal that the new first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, gifted her outgoing predecessor, Laura Bush.

It’s an astute observation on the end of an eight-year stint, likely to have grown more and more uncomfortable towards its conclusion at the White House, and the start of a more unfettered life for Mrs. Bush, no longer bound by the protocol demanded by her being married to a head of state.

As for Mr. Bush himself, I’m not sure what he would make of that inscription (surely he would have read it by now) and what sort of beginning he envisions for the future. Upon being welcomed by well-wishers on his return to Texas, Bush said he and his family were glad to be back, and that he promised to stay.

Please do, Mr. Ex-president. Enjoy your ranch, and no longer cast your shadow on the rest of us. And I extend the same sentiment to the ex-vice-president, a man so passionate about public service he believed he had to do it in secret. Now he can team up with Sarah Palin and do some huntin’ and shootin’—as long as they clear out all humans within a fifty-mile radius.

On a larger scale, we can exhale, and even for a short while (god knows we deserve it) bask in contemplation of the rich array of possible beginnings, of renewal after wandering in the wilderness of fear, of hope after surviving the many assaults on democratic ideals. And bask a weary nation and a receptive world did on January 20, when close to two million people thronged Washington to celebrate the first black president in U.S. history and just as importantly its first multicultural chief executive.

Barack Hussein Obama is a man who grew up in Hawai’i and Indonesia, had a Kenyan father, a white, politically progressive mother whose roots can be traced to abolitionists and even the Revolution of 1776, and a half sister, Maya Soetero Ng, (half Indonesian and half American) married to a Chinese-Canadian. His wife, Michelle is descended from slaves, and has a cousin who’s a rabbi.

An improbable family in an improbable place: a scenario most of us couldn’t picture even as recently as a year ago, but one that reflects the growing diversity of this country, where twenty-five percent of white families and about fifty percent of black families have multiracial roots. They are all on the way to being Filipino!

Even more fitting is the fact that the swearing in took place, as it traditionally does, on the steps of the Capitol Building, built largely through the sweat of African slaves, a building that faces a mall where a slave market once stood. No one failed to note the irony and heady symbolism more than the new president, who noted of himself in his inaugural address, that he was “a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant” and who “can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

The 44th president also unequivocally repudiated the Orwellian mentality of the 43rd by declaring, “As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” (Two of his first acts as chief executive have been to order a stop to torture and to shut down Guantánamo in a year’s time.) He also extended conciliatory, and welcome, words to the bête noire of rabid Christians: “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

The Obama presidency can be seen as the culmination of several factors, from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights movement, from the Supreme Court decision to desegregate public schools to Lyndon B. Johnson’s civil-rights legislation. But perhaps it owes much more to the countless individuals all across the spectrum of ethnicity who stood up to racism and injustice in their own lives (at times dying for their beliefs), some of whom we know, like Rosa Parks and Carlos Bulosan and Muhammad Ali, but most of whose names we will never learn but are surely inscribed in the hearts of their descendants.

What does the presidency of a black man mean to Filipino-Americans, themselves the beneficiaries of the black struggle? An incisive reflection on precisely this topic was published late last year: Pareng Barack: Filipinos in Obama’s America. Its author is Benjamin Pimentel, a Filipino journalist (and friend) living in San Francisco and on the staff of The San Francisco Chronicle for many years.

In 2007, he wrote his first novel, Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street (The Guerrillas of Powell Street), dramatizing the plight of Filipino World War II veterans fighting for long-overdue benefits from the US government, adapted last year for the stage. Pimentel also authored UG: An Underground Tale, about the life of the slain anti-Marcos activist Edgar Jopson.

His latest book is an attempt to examine not so much the role the new president might play in relation to the expatriate Filipino community in the States, but the larger issue of how Filipinos deal with race — and the racism that often poisons their approaches to it— as evident in the presidential campaign. He cites examples we are all sadly familiar with, best summarized by the immigrant Filipino father who fervently tells his activist daughter, “You’re not going to marry a black person. Don’t ask me why. Just don’t. They’re up to no good.” But he also cites many instances of Filipinos and Filipino Americans who, in their activism, keep the dream alive of a just and racially integrated society.

Why are so many immigrants anti-black, who, as Pimentel notes, “embrace the views of the dominant white society—including the prejudiced, distorted image of blacks”? He quotes Toni Morrison: “In race talk the move into mainstream America always means buying into the notion of American blacks as the real aliens. Whatever ethnicity or nationality of the immigrant, his nemesis is understood to be African American… A hostile posture toward resident blacks must be struck at the Americanizing door before it will open.”

He moves on to the fractured and ambivalent colonial relationship between Filipinos and the United States, encapsulated in that famous passage from Bulosan’s America is in the Heart (still unequalled in its powerful depiction of racism against immigrant Pinoys): “I came to know that in many ways, it was a crime to be a Filipino in California—I feel like a criminal running away from a crime I did not commit. And this crime is that I am a Filipino in America.”

He casts an appraising look at how the brutal 1899 Philippine-American War has been glossed over and even held up as a successful paradigm for the immoral war on Iraq. Such willful disinformation isn’t new and reflects the disregard the U.S. has towards its imperialist past, thus blinding itself to its imperialist present. Surprisingly, Pimentel doesn’t discuss the presence of black soldiers in the war and how their presence sparked debates within black communities in the States.

Interwoven with his take on Filipinos and race are recollections of his own journey. These are the most personal and endearing passages in the book. He recounts being a student activist at UP and editor of the UP Collegian; his friendship with the charismatic Lean Alejandro, another progressive young left-wing activist and rising political star assassinated by right-wing thugs in 1986; his experiences as a journalist in Manila and the Bay Area; and being a husband and the father of two young sons.

Wisely, he and his wife Mara decided at the outset that, “Tagalog would be our children’s first language.” Pimentel was being, as he puts it, “practical: I didn’t want my kids to get mad at me.” He has met, as I and other Filipinos here have, so many Filipino-Americans “disappointed, even angry” at their parents for not making them learn a Philippine language, thus shutting them off from their heritage.

Pimentel’s book demonstrates not just the hard work that came before and that lies ahead if we wish to build a color-blind society, but that we can also expect immensely gratifying rewards. The ascension of a man of color to the highest office in the land shows that coming from a culturally and racially mixed background is not only welcome, it’s downright cool.

TV news interviews on "Pareng Barack"

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:12:00 +0000

Reporter Steve Angeles interviewed me on "Pareng Barack" for Balitang America. Check it out here.

Janelle So of LA18TV also did a phone interview for her program. Check it out here.

BOOK REVIEW: Pareng Barack by Ceres Doyo

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:06:00 +0000

"Pareng Barack": Filipinos in Obama's America

Inquirer.net, News Report, Ma. Ceres P. Doyo/Philippine Daily Inquirer, Posted: Dec 25, 2008

REPUBLISHED by New America Media

MANILA, Philippines --- On the night of Nov. 4, when Barack Hussein Obama was elected president of the United States, journalist and book author Benjamin “Boying” Pimentel took his eldest son to downtown Oakland where thousands of people were waiting for the officials results. They found people celebrating with cheers and tears. After more than 200 years, Americans had chosen a person of color to lead them forward.

“Pareng Barack: Filipinos in Obama’s America,” Pimentel’s latest book, is about Obama’s amazing rise to the presidency and, more importantly, about how Filipinos responded to his campaign and victory. “Often with excitement, sometimes with fear and dread,” Pimentel writes.

“Pareng Barack” is also about the Filipino journey in America, “how it has intersected, sometimes collided, with those of other communities, and how it has taken a dramatic turn as America enters a new era of anxiety and hope.”

This book came out a few weeks after Obama was elected but it didn’t take just a few weeks for Pimentel to write it. He had been pounding the streets and watching the groundswell. With or without Obama’s win or defeat, this book could still stand alone to show those intersections and collisions that Pimentel describes. But Obama’s win provides Pimentel a starting point, and for Filipinos who chose America to be their home, it also offers landmarks on a cultural and historical landscape, that is, from there to here. Also a timeline from then to now.

This gem of a book is easy to read. It is an engaging journalistic read because there are real human faces, voices, names and places in it as only a seasoned journalist knows the importance of if one is to show proof of one’s point or analysis. This book is not the result of a survey but of a journalist’s walking the streets where stories unfold, where lives are lived.

“For Filipinos in America, it is a time of celebration and pride. For others, of concern, even fear.” This is how Pimentel describes the aftermath of the Nov. 4 elections that saw Democrat Obama win and Republican John McCain lose.

“Nevada had become a battleground state and Fran joined other Filipinos in the ground war to rally support for Obama. This meant going from house to house… It was while knocking on doors on one part of Reno that he came across one Pinoy… A Philippine flag was displayed in his garage… The young man was a registered Republican, and had never voted Democrat. But he said he was voting for Obama. ‘He speaks to everyone, and seems that he can reach across the aisle,’ he told Fran. ‘Obama is different from the rest.’

“But then there was a woman in her 30s whom Fran met on a Philippine Airlines flight during a short visit to the Philippines before the election. She had lived in the United States for about eight years, had been married, and had just become an American citizen… The woman had just mailed in her ballot—she voted for John McCain… Now that her daughters were about to join her in the United States, she wanted a ‘strong leader.’ But eventually she also admitted to Fran, she simply could not vote for a black man. ‘I just don’t trust them. ‘Di ba sila ‘yung laging nanggugulo? Aren’t they troublemakers? They’re so violent.’”

In the chapter “American in Living Color,” Pimentel writes about how Nobel Prize winner for literature, Toni Morrison, a black woman, noted that many newcomers readily embraced American society’s long-held prejudices against blacks. He also shares what Asian-American civil rights lawyer Bill Lee told him: “Immigrant communities generally tend not to know the history and to buy into the biases and prejudices of the dominant group. Unfortunately, becoming American often means buying into the prejudices. They want to identify upward. They don’t want to identify with those at the bottom.”

Something like that fable about the fly that alights on a carabao and suddenly thinks he’s a carabao. (It’s better told in Filipino.)

But it’s not that way all the time. Pimentel digs into the “racial wedge” that Asian-Americans occupy, that uncomfortable in-between mezzanine position where they are expected to be loyal to their superiors and demanding of those below.

Pimentel’s book also deals with other racial and ethnic groups. He writes, “Obama’s victory is significant for another important reason. With the steady growth of Latino and Asian communities, there will no longer be a racial or ethnic majority in the United States in less than 50 years. A biracial leader with a deep personal experience of life in the Third World, Obama, many hope, could prepare the nation for that coming change.”

“Lessons in Patriotism and Forgiveness” is a poignant chapter. Here Pimentel explores his experience as a Filipino whose father endured suffering during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, and then reflects on his own encounter with Japanese-Americans who suffered ostracism and internment in the US.

In “From the I-Hotel to Powell Street” Pimentel revisits the bygone milieu of Carlos Bulosan (“America is in the Heart”) and enters into the world of the aging World War II Filipino veterans. Powell Street in San Francisco is where these veterans spend their winter years. I have been there myself and it’s really a tearjerker.

Toward the end, Pimentel writes about his family and waxes sentimental. He muses: “In the end there were more people who were ready to move on, to break ground, to reimagine the United States, to redefine America. It will be Obama’s face and voice that my sons will see and hear on television and on the Internet over the next four years, maybe longer. It will be Pareng Barack who will play a critical role in defining my sons’ future in America.”

Book Review: Pareng Barack

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:49:00 +0000

by LEI CHAVEZ, abs-cbnNEWS.com | 12/17/2008 5:20 PM

Pareng Barack: Filipinos in Obama's America
By Benjamin Pimentel
Non-fiction, Anvil Publishing Inc., 2008
Paperback, 158 pages

Pareng Barack exceeds my expectations. For a small book of seven chapters, it neatly describes the Asian situation in America, the clashing of different communities, the discrimination, the weight of Barack Obama's victory, Philippine politics, and even a glimpse of Benjamin Pimentel's life as a Filipino in a foreign land.

Released a few weeks after Obama's monumental Nov. 4 victory in the American elections, Pareng Barack chronicles the way the Filipino community responded to the campaign ("often with excitement, sometimes with fear and dread") and the root of the racial debate.

Pare, which means either a close friend or a stranger one asks for directions on the street, is the same premise Pimentel uses to present the contents of the book. The issue is treated with closeness, friendliness, sometimes a sense of detachment, especially when it comes to the historical narrations. Good thing there are enough (sometimes too much) third-person accounts that give the story a personal appeal. Don't worry though. It's not a long, boring history lecture. Pimentel writes succinctly and conversationally, much like a friendly chat over coffee.

Pimentel was a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicler for 14 years and has been living in America since 1990. He covered and wrote migration stories for the newspaper. Some of the most profound instances in the book must have come about during his heydays in the Chronicler. Pareng Barack is his third and latest book.

I specifically like the way Pimentel introduces the idea through his own accounts then shifts to the perspective of people he mingles with, then ends it with his thoughts and realizations. His keen sense of details makes the heart ache. A good example can be found in "Chapter 3: Lessons on Patriotism," where he discusses the interment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. Pimentel wrote: "On the train to Tule Lake, Muramoto and other internees were forbidden from raising the curtains or peeking out the window. Fifty years later, on the air-conditioned tour bus with wide, tinted windows, she saw for the first time the scenery she had missed."

Pimentel also describes, with expertise and deftness, the situation of war veterans in America, one of the most striking topics he includes in the book. This was the same setting of his humorous but sad novel, Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street. I was close to tears when I read "Chapter 4: From the I-Hotel to Powell Street," where Pimentel narrates gloomily: "Occasionally, I stop by the Cable Car station where I still see them, still telling one another about their latest misadventures in America. Still waiting. Sometimes a few of them just stand there on that busy corner of San Francisco, letting for time to pass, waiting for night to fall."

I can't decide what the best chapter is but I specifically read chapters five and six with gusto. As for the strongest chapter, I'd have to go with chapter six. The narration, from the violence brought by racism to Philippine politics, builds up to one conclusion: a man of color leading a country that once discriminated against minorities. If the voice of wariness reflects strongly in the first part of the book, it completely shifts to hope and pride as the book nears the end.

"In the end there were more people who were ready to move on, to break ground, to redefine America. It will be Obama's face and voice, not McCain's, that my sons will see and hear on television and on the Internet in the next four years, maybe longer. It will be Pareng Barack who will guide this country forward…It will be Pareng Barack who will play a critical role in defining my sons' future in America," Pimentel writes.

In this thin compact book, Pimentel speaks simply, his voice clear and flowing, continuously streaming page after page. He indulges on an idea long enough to let the thought linger without being branded as overbearing. Pareng Barack brings you to the heart of the conflict and makes you sympathize, mourn, laugh, cry, and breathe with the characters as you read along.

Pareng Barack is a recommended read for every Filipino who has relatives in America, Pinoys who have plans to migrate, readers with a satiation for politics, and interest in Obama's monumental rise to power, or for anyone who simply wants to read a nicely-written book on an equally interesting topic.

as of 01/19/2009 4:00 PM

Children in the Age of Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:48:00 +0000

Published January 20, 2009
INQUIRER.net

I was eight years old when Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law in the Philippines in 1972. I didn’t totally understand the meaning of what had happened then. But the Marcos dictatorship eventually became a major influence in my life. It shaped my views on politics and political power, led to my disdain for tyrants and bullies, and to my critical view of American foreign policy having grown up watching one US administration after another endorse and embrace a corrupt and brutal tyrant.

I remember this now as Barack Obama begins his presidency and America enters a new era. My sons, Paolo and Anton, may not fully understand the significance of the change. But I suspect that, like me during the Marcos years, the age of Obama will be a major influence in their lives, helping define their view of America and the world.

The coming four years – perhaps longer – will likely help shape their understanding of race and race relations in America as the first person of color takes over the most important job in the land.

Perhaps under the new administration, they and other young Americans will embrace a more inclusive view of Muslims and the Third World under a president with strong personal ties to those worlds, and who has promised a more engaged, even progressive, foreign policy.

And maybe the Obama presidency will give my sons a more enlightened idea of the role of government, as his administration faces the gargantuan task of rebuilding an economy battered by years of unhampered and reckless free enterprise.

A lot of exciting ‘maybes.’

If Obama goes on to serve two terms, my eldest son Paolo, who is now 9, will be a young man getting ready for college, gearing up to take on bigger life challenges, by the time Pareng Barack leaves office.

How will eight years of Obama influence my son’s take on the world?

Let me say this now: I do not envision a utopian future under Obama. He is not Superman. And the problems he must now take on are mind-boggling. There are no easy solutions to the problems most Americans now face.

I expect Obama to play politics. He has to, to survive. And he has to survive – that is, win reelection and make sure he has more allies in Washington – in order to carry out his program of change. But the question is: Will he end up playing the game mainly so he can survive and stay in power, even at the expense of the great things he has said he wants to accomplish?

I expect him to make mistakes. Hopefully, he also will learn from these mistakes. But most important of all, I hope he owns up quickly to these missteps and explain what he plans to do to fix the errors.

In other words, in what increasingly has become a grim period of uncertainty, even fear – in America and the world, it’s important to set a tone of openness and honesty.

Obama himself has made this promise. Now we’ll actually see if he can, and will, do so.

In my book, I mention the more than 20-year old San Francisco mural featuring activist icons of the 80s, including my friend, the late youth leader Lean Alejandro. The original mural also featured South African leader Winnie Mandela. But her image was later painted over and replaced with the portrait of Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in empowering women, battling corrupt officials and planting millions of trees in ravaged lands in Africa.

Once a symbol of the South African movement, Winnie Mandela had become a reviled figure to many after she was accused of abusing her position and power during the struggle against apartheid. The muralists said they made the made the change principally because they wanted to honor Maathai – but also because Winnie Mandela, as an icon, has become “outdated and complicated.”

The refurbished mural serves as a sobering reminder as America and the world turn to Obama for leadership in a difficult era, of how leaders and how they are perceived can change -- dramatically. Yesterday’s revolutionaries can become today’s tyrants. Yesterday’s mavericks can be today’s staunch defenders of the old, discredited view of the world.

Obama may be the central figure in the new American mural created during his campaign. But he will have to show, in a time of intense anxiety, that he deserves to stay on the painting and not have his image and his legacy be painted over and forgotten.

For in the long run, the mural is being composed and created by the people who made Obama’s historic victory possible.

The only thing certain right now is this: Obama has inspired Americans, young and old, to become involved again, to care about their communities, to hope.

I saw this a couple of weeks ago in an alley behind a French bakery run by a Filipino American family in Los Angeles. I was in LA for the launch of my book Pareng Barack, Filipinos in Obama’s America.

Before the event, lawyer and veteran community activist Prosy Delacruz, whom I mentioned in the book, invited me to have breakfast at the French bakery where she also was scheduled to meet her community group of Obama supporters. Their leader was Abbie Howell; it was she who came up with the idea of a street cleaning campaign once or twice a month as part of their commitment to the Obama campaign themes of change and hope. So for about an hour that morning, I watched her, her dad and Prosy pick up trash around the bakery.

I realized then, as I watched the trio cheerfully pick up cigarette butts, candy wrappers and other trash, that the significance of Obama’s victory goes beyond what he does and how he performs in Washington DC. It is also about how the energy and enthusiasm of people like Abbie Howell can be sustained, and will sustain, the new idealism that emerged from the historic election.

With Abbie Howell, that will be exciting to watch for another reason. The morning she led her group to clean up a small stretch of her community in the name of change, Abbie Howell had just turned nine.

Obama's Challenge and the FilAm Response

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:13:00 +0000

Published Setp. 29, 2008
INQUIRER.net

One of the interesting moments in last Friday’s presidential debate was when Barack Obama blasted past American foreign policy of supporting allies who are undemocratic, even tyrannical leaders -- a policy in which Washington says, “He may be a dictator, but he is our dictator.”

It was clearly a play on how former US Secretary of State Cordell Hull described Rafael Trujillo when he was dictator of the Dominican Republic in the 1930s: “He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch."

On Friday, Obama was referring to the ousted Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in a coup that deposed a democratically elected president, and whom Washington eventually supported and coddled.

He was essentially sending a strong message to leaders who would follow in the footsteps of Trujillo, Musharraf and even Marcos. And that convinced me even more that for the Philippines, a President Obama would usher in an exciting era in US-Philippine relations.

On the other hand, John McCain came across as John McCain: the former fighter pilot who is bold, daring to the point of being reckless and impetuous. That sometimes works in war. But it often doesn’t. And it surely can lead to disastrous results when dealing with more complex issues, such as a financial meltdown.

In the days leading up to the debate, McCain seemed to be blasting away without any clear target or objective. He said the fundamentals of the US economy were strong, then later tried to backtrack and even called for the firing of the highly respected head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Then he suddenly suspended his campaign, purportedly to help solve the crisis, and called for the debate to be postponed. But he ended up playing a bit role in the negotiations. And some lawmakers even said that his political stunt derailed the sensitive talks.

These were bold, daring, attention-grabbing moves. But what was the point?

As many people expected, McCain displayed a slight edge in foreign policy expertise during the debate. But as many pundits also stated, he needed to make up for three days of seeming incoherence and pointless impetuousness by clearly out-debating the newcomer on the U.S. political scene.

But that didn’t happen.

Obama showed himself to be intellectually engaged and politically pragmatic. He also was incredibly cool, a trait which will be critical for the next US president who will have to deal with two wars, a slowing economy and a financial system that’s rapidly falling apart.

The bad news is that the race is still tight, and presidential debates, historically, have not had much of an impact on the outcomes of elections. John Kerry outperformed George W. Bush four years ago, but that didn’t matter.Many reasons have been cited for why the race is so close, despite the clear unpopularity of the Republicans. Let’s go straight to a critical reason: Obama is only slightly ahead of McCain because of his race.

Sadly, race is an issue even for Filipino Americans. I already discussed my views on this issue in a previous column in February. And since then, I’ve only heard more examples of our own brand of racism and ignorance, of judging a leader’s potential based on skin color.

But there have also been signs of hope.

“It will now depend on ground operations in which Obama has an advantage,” Francis Calpotura, a veteran community organizer in Oakland who founded the League of Filipino Students-USA back in the 1980s, told me. “Para sa akin (to me), it will still boil down to this question: Would older (40-60 yrs) white voters in those swing states be ready to elect a black president?”

He added, “What would be good to see is what Filipinos in Nevada would do. That's why I'm going to Reno and hopefully reach out to the Filipinos there.”

Calpotura was among the leaders of a group of Filipino American activists who traveled to the battleground state of Nevada to pound the pavement for Obama

Then there’s Gayle Gatchalian who wrote to me about my earlier column, which asked, “Will Pinoys reject Obama because he’s black?”

“I just wanted to thank you for writing that,” she said. “My entire family hates Barack Obama and I can't have a decent conversation with them without a mention of Muslim, Hussein, evil etc. and the myriad other issues that have come out that proves he is a decent human being. I understand that it's because they have something against black people, and my black friends have tried to explain it to me.

“It’s hard to be post-racial and clearly, if America is going to move on from the 20th century, it needs someone who can take them there and the B-man is the best (and only) option on the table right now.”

Memo to Arroyo: Let McCain know you're from Asia

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 15:18:00 +0000

Published September 22, 2008
INQUIRER.net

President Gloria Arroyo may have had a top-level meeting with Republican presidential candidate John McCain during her last visit to the United States. But if he wins in November, she better hope he’ll remember that encounter -- and that he won’t confuse her, given her Hispanic surname, for one of those anti-American leaders in Latin America who are always irritating Washington.

Just ask Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the prime minister of Spain.

When asked in an interview with a Miami Spanish-language radio program if he would receive Zapatero in the White House, McCain said that he would “establish closer relationships with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to harm the United States.”

The clearly confused interviewer politely asked the question three more times. After all, Spain is a member of NATO and a US ally, and McCain or any other US politician surely wouldn't suggest that Spain could be among those “who would harm the United States.” The interviewer even clarified that she was referring to the country in Europe. But McCain simply repeated his response.

That prompted speculation that either McCain didn't know who Zapatero was, thought Spain is in Latin America, or simply got confused. Did he perhaps think that Zapatero was another troublemaker south of the US border? Maybe he thought he was being asked about the Zapatista rebels in Mexico, or about Emiliano Zapata, the legendary, but long dead, Mexican rebel leader.

It may be understandable how McCain would get confused since the question about Zapatero followed others about not-so-friendly leaders in America's backyard: Raul Castro of Cuba, Evo Morales of Bolivia and the highly-controversial Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

But as the Washington Post noted, “Lumping Zapatero in with the Latin American bad guys like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is ironic because Zapatero and Juan Carlos, the King of Spain, were protagonists in one of the most public anti-Chavez moments.”

The newspaper was referring to the Ibero-American summit meeting earlier this year in Chile, when Chavez criticized Zapatero's predecessor, Jose Maria Aznar, a close Bush ally, for sending Spanish troops to Iraq. Zapatero politely rejected Chavez's argument, but when the Venezuelan pressed on, the Spanish king snapped at him, “Why don't you just shut up?”

To be sure, McCain's gaffe was not as bad as former Vice President Dan Quayle's jaw-dropping observation that people in Latin America don't speak Latin. Or President George W. Bush's surprising question to the president of Brazil: “Do you have blacks too?”

Still, McCain's response raises doubts about his claim to be a foreign policy expert, especially since he has made other baffling remarks on foreign affairs during the campaign. Once he appeared to get mixed up about the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Then he explained the crisis in Afghanistan to journalist Diane Sawyer by saying, “We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border.”

Such a border does not exist, of course. Nor does the republic of Czechoslovakia, which broke up into two nations in the early 90s, but that didn't stop McCain from referring to the defunct entity.

McCain's campaign spokesman Randy Sheunemann later clarified that his candidate meant what he said that he would not commit to a meeting with Spain’s Zapatero. That prompted columnist Robert Schlesinger to write: “Memo to Randy Sheunemann: Your candidate can do worse things than get confused. Like he could imply that a NATO ally might mean us harm.”

Bottom line for the Philippine leadership: Gear up for an education campaign to reintroduce yourself to a President McCain. Perhaps the Department of Foreign Affairs should send a briefing paper to the McCain campaign explaining that the US military has pulled out of Subic and Clark, just in case he gets confused about why there is now a Visiting Forces Agreement between the US and the Philippines. Or, maybe it should issue a high-level memo reminding McCain that the Philippines is no longer an American colony, and that Arroyo should be called "president," not "governor-general."

But then again, perhaps there's nothing to worry about . After all, if McCain wins, he'll have a highly capable vice president in Sarah Palin. How can you beat a would-be-president who became an expert on Russia because she can see that country from her home state of Alaska?

But just to be sure, it may be wise for Arroyo, or whoever takes her place in 2010, to consider a special gift to the McCain-Palin administration if they do take over come January: A very powerful telescope so she can see the Babuyan Islands from downtown Anchorage.

Farewell to Two FilAm Activists

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:31:00 +0000

Published Sept. 10, 2008
INQUIRER.net

San Francisco, CA- In the Bay Area, with its huge and vibrant Pinoy community, FilAm activism is pretty much a family affair.

Whether it’s fighting against dictatorship, or for civil liberties, or for equal benefits for World War II veterans, or even for funds for a new library, mothers and fathers get involved with their sons and daughters, with their grandchildren and even with their great-grandchildren.

Over the past months, a lolo (grandpa) and a lola (grandma) of the FilAm activist family -- one from the Pinoy enclave of Daly City, and the other from the famous activist city of Berkeley -- passed away.

Fittingly, they have been honored for their roles in the community’s history of fighting for those who are weak and oppressed, in the Philippines, in America and beyond.

Pete Marasigan was perhaps best known as the better half of Violeta Marasigan, the late veteran activist and feminist who was fondly called Bullet by friends and colleagues here and in the Philippines.

Tito Pete, as he was known, died June 18 in Manila of heart failure, at 73.

He was born in Dapitan, Sampaloc in Manila where he helped manage his family’s general merchandise business. He moved to the United States in 1957 to study business management at the University of San Francisco. He got involved in the youth movement and became active in the struggle against the demolition of the International Hotel, the historic residential building in downtown San Francisco that was home to dozens of Filipino and Chinese seniors.

The hotel was eventually demolished, but the struggle turned into one of the most dramatic events in California history, highlighting the growing influence of the Filipino American activist movement and the problem of housing and homelessness in America. Today, FilAms still talk about the great struggle to save the I-Hotel, and there is now a FilAm community center where it once stood near Chinatown in the heart of San Francisco.

It was during the I-Hotel campaign that Pete Marasigan met Bullet. They were later married and had four daughters, Marielle, Marlette, Marnelle and Violeta II, who also became activists.

In 1971, the couple moved back to the Philippines and joined the fight against the Marcos dictatorship. Bullet helped found Gabriela, the feminist organization, and a center that assisted sex workers at the former U.S. naval base in Subic. In 1982, she was arrested and charged with subversion and spent a year at Camp Crame. After her release, she and Pete continued to be active in the fight against the regime.

After the fall of Marcos, the Marasigans resettled in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Bullet became a respected community activist. When she was killed in a freak car accident in 2000, respected San Francisco political and community leaders publicly mourned her death. San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, a friend and ally, called her “bigger than life.'' “Her energy was just amazing,'' Ammiano said. “She had that quality of heart, along with being a fighter.'' State legislator Leland Yee, one of the most prominent Asian American politicians in California, spoke of feeling a deep sadness over the loss of an important ally in the fight for community rights.

After Bullet’s death, Tito Pete continued to be involved with many Filipino American organizations, including the West Bay Center and the Filipino American Arts Exposition, or Pistahan, in which he once served as grand marshal. He was also a staunch supporter of Leland Yee.

I remember him as a man who was committed to his family, community and homeland. That is also how I remember Mary Bonzo Suzuki.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Mary and her husband Lewis, longtime residents of Berkeley in the East Bay, were beloved as active members of the movement against the Marcos regime. Mary died on May 11 after a long illness at 76. One recent Sunday, former activists came to pay respect to a Filipino American woman who was known for her courage, devotion to social justice and generosity.

At the height of the fight against Marcos, the Suzukis were known as staunch supporters of the Bay Area movement. Activists frequently met at their home where Mary was known for almost always asking first, “Have you eaten.” For Mary, good food was an important part of the struggle against tyranny.

Theirs was a fascinating love story, beautifully told in a January 2005 article in the Berkeley Planet, a community newspaper.

She was the daughter of a Dutch-Irish-Welsh American woman, and of a Filipino immigrant. Laws barring Filipinos from marrying white women forced them to leave Nebraska. In a sad twist, Mary’s grandfather cut his ties with his daughter, while her grandmother remained supportive.

The hostile environment eventually forced the young couple to return to the Philippines with their two children. “My father had been beaten up repeatedly. He said if he had to deal with violence, he could handle it better in his home country,” Mary said in an interview with the Berkeley Planet.

Lewis Suzuki was born in the US to Japanese immigrants. After his father died, he and his mother returned to Japan, but he returned to America amid the rising tide of militarism.

Eventually, World War II took its toll on both Mary and Lewis. Mary and her family were in the Philippines during the Japanese occupation. Her father was tortured by the Japanese military and both her parents joined the resistance.

Meanwhile, Lewis found himself treated like an enemy in the country of his birth when, after World War II, the US government detained tens of thousands of Japanese Americans. Lewis joined the US Army and worked as a translator.

The war was a painful time for their families, but it also affirmed their sense of humanity. One day, Mary recalled in the Berkeley Planet article, Lewis’ brother who was visiting them apologized to her for what the Japanese military had done in the Philippines. Lewis’ brother himself witnessed kindness and humanity amid cruelty and suffering while serving with the Japanese army in its brutal occupation of China. Mary recalled how, as the war was ending in China, and Chinese civilians were hunting down Japanese soldiers to kill them, a Chinese family gave shelter to Lewis’ brother.

Mary’s family returned to America after the war. She became fascinated with events in China, and it was during a visit to the Asian nation that she and Lewis met. They married in 1953, had two children and built their individual careers. She became an educator, and he, a respected painter. But they also devoted much time and energy to activism, and the fight against the Marcos regime and other causes.

Her commitment to justice and peace remained strong through her last years. Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Mary wrote a poem titled “Peace and War.”

A line read:

“War voices are loud as the sun blazes and flickers
A new moon rises, smiling, as a portent of peace
Come, walk down to the sea with me….”

McCain Para sa Mahirap?

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 02:51:00 +0000

Published August 25, 2008
INQUIRER.net

Joseph Estrada's famous political battle cry will probably not work for John McCain, not with this Republican presidential nominee's definition of rich as someone who earns at least $5 million a year. But in a way, McCain faces a dilemma similar to the one that got Erap in political hot water – home ownership.

When the online news site, Politico, asked McCain how many houses he owned, his answer was puzzling: "I think – I'll have my staff get to you. It's condominiums where… I'll have them get to you."

It was not exactly a response to inspire confidence among Americans, many of whom are on the verge of losing their homes or have already lost them. Then there's McCain's idea of a rich person. In Philippine terms, being middle class or poor to McCain means someone who makes less than 18 million pesos a month (which could exclude many residents of Ayala Alabang.)

I'm sure many of us would want to have McCain's problem -- to have so much money, and so much property, that you've lost track of how many houses you have. Remember Dely Ataytayan's famous role as Dolphy's super-rich mother-in-law in 'John en Marsha' and how, whenever she needed money, she would ask her maid Matutina to sweep around the house for cash scattered throughout her mansion?

Suddenly, in a presidential race in which race had played a prominent role, class has become an important issue. This is not surprising as many Americans reel from rising gas and food prices, eroding home values and a cloudy economic future.

To be sure, the two men vying to be the next American president are both millionaires. But while Barack Obama is pushing to impose higher taxes on the rich, defined by his campaign as those earning roughly $150,000 a year – or 565,000 pesos a month – McCain has been for maintaining the current administration's tax cuts which many consider unfair to middle class and poor families.

Filipinos are, of course, familiar with the way issues affluence and poverty are used in politics. You’ve heard of the senator from a prominent and very rich political family portraying himself as Mr. Palengke. The current president even once embraced the supposedly insulting monicker, Gloria Labandera.

And an election season is simply not complete without politicos, most of whom live in Manila's exclusive communities, trying to portray themselves as men or women of the masses by belting out the latest pop tunes or dancing like fools on a makeshift stage.

Joseph Estrada topped them all, of course, with his “Erap para sa mahirap” slogan despite the fact that he is actually a man of means. He eventually found himself in trouble when the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism reported that he owned more than a dozen real estate properties, including some palatial homes.

It’s unclear if McCain's own housing dilemma will have an impact on what has been a glaring irony in American politics.

The Republicans have been known historically as the party of America's elite, who are more likely to push policies meant to protect big business and the affluent. But over the past two decades they have actually won sizeable support from the poor and working class, especially whites. And they did this by portraying the Democrats, who have traditionally enjoyed the support of unions, minorities and the poor, as being out-of-touch, intellectually arrogant and elitist with all their talk about equality, diversity and justice.

Obama's own slip-ups during the campaign served to reinforce this perception. There was his infamous remark describing some working class Americans as being so bitter that they cling to guns and religion. Then, in a hilarious campaign misstep, Obama once asked a group of Iowa farmers, "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they're charging a lot of money for this stuff." Now, that would be like a Pinoy politician asking voters in Payatas what they think of the price of baguettes at Greenbelt.

But the Obama campaign pounced swiftly and strong on McCain's so-called "personal housing crisis." And expect the Democrats to highlight other major differences between the two. After all, while they are both rich, McCain's links to Richistan are deeper and longer. So deep that he apparently thinks someone who makes just $1 million a year – or five times less than the threshold he set – must be facing serious economic difficulties.

On the other hand, Obama became rich only recently, mainly from writing two bestselling books. He grew up in a lower middle class household, raised by a single mother who struggled to support her family. Then, as I mentioned in a previous column, Obama also has had intense encounters with the faces of extreme poverty in Indonesia and Kenya, and even in the inner city communities of Chicago -- places where not knowing how many houses one owns would be considered a form of extreme cluelessness.

Fearing bears and feeling small in Yosemite Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:04:00 +0000

Published August 11, 2008
INQUIRER.net

As we started our hike up to the camp, I couldn’t help but worry about whether we had removed every little bit of food from the car. Did I miss a stick of French fry stuck beneath one of the seats? Or was there a piece of candy one of my sons had hidden in a backseat pocket?

It was odd to worry about such things in one of the most beautiful places in the world. A Berkeley friend of mine had called Yosemite Valley “God’s home.” My kumpadre Persi is so impressed with the wilderness park, located about three hours away from the San Francisco Bay Area, that he goes back country camping there several times a year.

I’ve never been the roughing it up type, but when he asked me to join him recently for a weekend backpacking trip to the valley, I immediately said yes. It didn’t take much effort to invite two other friends – my brother-in-law Alex and our good friend Richard – to join us.

It wasn’t exactly the ideal time for a Yosemite trip. There was a fire raging west of the valley. But it was far enough not to be a real concern. It was also the middle of the tourist season, which meant hundreds of camera-toting visitors in cars. But we weren’t going to the tourist spots. We were headed for the wild, not that deep, mind you, but deep enough to be away from the tourists and their cars -- and also deep enough to run the risk of encountering Yosemite’s longtime residents: bears.

A Yosemite park ranger emphasized this point to us, as he stressed a basic rule: Don’t ever, ever, leave any food or any drink, or a cooler even if it’s empty, or any scented items such as hand lotion in the car. Or else, a curious and probably hungry bear will smash your car window.

Stricter precautions must be taken in camp. We had to rent a black container the size of a watermelon, called a bear can. That’s where you are supposed to put your food, such items as toothpaste and lotions, and even food waste. You then lock the can and hide it in a spot away from the camp -- where a bear may later find it, try to open it and, having failed, simply walk away.

Bears generally stay away from, and are even afraid of, people, we were told. But they’re drawn to food, so it’s best to make sure to not be close to anything edible out in Yosemite, especially at night.

I was thinking of that as we settled in for the night in our tents at the camp at May Lake.

We had spent the day admiring the beauty of the lake at the foot of one of Yosemite’s many massive rock formations. We had hiked around the lake, stepping carefully on giant boulders and logs, and even took a quick swim in the cold water. After dinner by camp fire, we turned in.

It was then that I started to worry about unwanted visitors. I suspected the others did too. After all we were Manila-bred Pinoys spending the night in a beautiful, but strange, place where hungry animals were hiding deep in the woods and the massive rock mountain.

But we heard only each other’s snores that night. Alex later said he had heard a rustling sound at one point. But we couldn’t be sure if the bears had paid us a visit.

When I woke up that morning, I felt relieved but also somewhat disappointed. An encounter with a bear would have made the trip more exciting. But as the sun rose and its rays turned the massive rock into a mountain of gold, its reflection glowing magnificently in the still water of May Lake, my disappointment quickly dissipated.

“Gumagaan ang loob ko pag andito ako (I feel at ease when I’m out here.),” Alex said. I agreed. Persi kind of explained where that calm comes from. “Parang pakiramdam mo maliit ka lang dito, ano (You feel small out there, don’t you)?” he said.

Among gargantuan mountains of rock in Yosemite Valley, one does feel insignificant, but in a good way. You are reminded that you are but a small part of a bigger whole, and that whole is magnificent.

A Silicon Valley CEO I wrote about five years ago had told me about a similar experience. To find renewed strength and perspective in running a software company in a highly competitive industry, Radha Basu sometimes turned to a place where she felt small and humble: The Himalayas.
"It's you and the mountains," she told me before her trip in 2003. "Oh, man, you feel so humble. … Nature is big and you are small. You can plan all you want, and nature decides there's going to be a blizzard -- man, there is not a whole lot you can do. You really do learn about the smallness of what you are -- that you are part of a much larger picture."

Sometimes, that feeling doesn’t just come from being in the wilderness.

This month, we remember the 25th anniversary of Ninoy Aquino’s assassination which was followed by a historic funeral march when a million Filipinos paid him tribute and spoke out against dictatorship. I remember that day, when I was but a speck in a mass of humanity, sending a powerful message to a tyrant and the world.

The hike down the mountain in Yosemite Valley was easier and, having consumed our food our packs, a bit a lighter.

When we reached my car, I had another reason to feel relieved. The windows were intact.

Distorted lessons from the Philippine-American War

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:10:00 +0000

Published July 25, 2008
INQUIRER.net

Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama was touring the Middle East when a well-known columnist for a major US newspaper tried to point the way out of the mess in Iraq by citing lessons from another American military misadventure more than a century ago – in the Philippines.

Unfortunately, conservative commentator Michael Medved's piece for USA Today, "Filipino war's lesson for Iraq," draws distorted, even dangerous, lessons from the tragedy in our homeland.

He begins by drawing parallels between the current presidential race and the 1900 contest between William Jennings Bryan and William McKinley. Medved describes Bryan as the "handsome young Democratic nominee" known as "the most spellbinding orator of his generation" who promised "dramatic change to correct economic injustice" and an end to the American occupation of the Philippines. He was up against the older McKinley, a Civil War veteran and avid supporter of the occupation whom Medved portrayed as the "tough, fight-it-out Republican" and "a hero in his youth (three decades earlier) in the Civil War."

Echoes of Obama versus McCain indeed.

But McCain probably would not appreciate being too closely compared to McKinley, given that US president's bizarre, even creepy, account of how he came to realize that America must occupy the Philippines. In one of the oddest anecdotes in the history of the US presidency, McKinley recalled how he "went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance," which made him see that "there was nothing left for us to do but … to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them."

(Apparently, McKinley did not get a memo telling him that the Philippines was then a staunchly Catholic nation -- another reason for McCain to balk at any close identification with the former president, given his own foreign affairs faux pas like mixing up Sunnis and Shiites and referring to a non-existent Iraq-Pakistan border.)

Still, it's not surprising that Medved and other conservatives are hoping for a repeat of that chapter in US history: After all, the older, more hawkish Republican McKinley won that election against the "inexperienced but charismatic anti-imperialist Democrat."

But Filipinos and Filipino Americans should find Medved's version of the Philippine-American War troubling. "This nearly forgotten conflict deserves renewed attention today since the parallels with our present predicament count as both eerie and illuminating," he writes.

True enough.

But then Medved recasts the bloody conflict as a war that the United States "stumbled into" but from which emerged a free and happy nation ever so grateful for American generosity and compassion. He cites former President Manuel L. Quezon's famous quote, "Damn the Americans! Why don't they tyrannize us more?"

Medved essentially is asking: Now why in the world can't we do that again in Iraq?

"Our failure to 'tyrannize' our Iraqi allies could similarly destroy the chances of the Islamist terrorists who oppose us," he writes. "The outcome in today's Middle East remains uncertain, but our painful Philippine experience a century ago suggests that a positive result is still possible through a combination of public patience, battlefield brilliance and compassionate determination to provide better lives and freedom to the far-away people who became the war's chief victims."

I nearly choked when I read this for while Medved made a passing reference to water cure, the notorious torture technique the US military used against Filipino independence forces (and used in Iraq under the name "water boarding"), and while he noted that at least 200,000 Filipinos died in the conflict (other historians cite a higher figure), he downplayed the more sordid chapters of the Philippine-American War: the massacres, the brutal military campaigns, the suppression of basic Filipino civil and human rights.

Medved writes that "for the most part, America's volunteer troops maintained high morale, resenting anti-war activists back home because they understood this agitation encouraged the enemy." I suspect "high morale" had nothing to do with what happened in the town of Balangiga, Samar when General Jake Smith told his men to turn the island into a "howling wilderness" so that "even birds could not live there."

"Kill and burn! The more you kill and burn, the better you will please me,"' he ordered. Asked to clarify who the troops' targets were among the population, the general replied: "Everything over 10."

Medved also ignores the blatant racism of US political leaders led by President William Howard Taft, who served as governor-general of the islands, and who called Filipinos "our little brown brothers.''

Then there was the former U.S. superintendent who helped set up an American-style public school system in the Philippines who argued that the Filipinos "are children, and childlike, do not know what is best for them. . . By the very fact of our superiority of civilization and our greater capacity for industrial activity, we are bound to exercise over them a profound social influence.''

Medved's piece reminded me of the now despicable concept of the “white man's burden,” that famous exhortation to Western domination. The phrase was actually coined by British poet Rudyard Kipling during this period in support of the American colonization of the Philippines and other former Spanish colonies. Reading just a part of the poem today would make one cringe.

"Take up the White Man's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go, bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait, in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child..."

The great American writer Mark Twain was so horrified by US atrocities in our homeland that he called the $20 million the United States paid for the Philippines an "entrance fee into society -- the Society of Sceptered Thieves."

"The White Man's Burden has been sung,"' Twain wrote. "Who will sing the Brown Man's?"

Twain also once said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." In his bid to justify an unpopular war in Iraq, Medved came up with a mangled account of a dark chapter in our history that has neither rhyme nor reason.

Bay Area journalist Benjamin Pimentel can be reached at www.bpimentel.blogspot.com

Two Pinoy presidents, both extras in the Obama-McCain Duel

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:42:00 +0000

Published June 10, 2008
INQUIRER.net

While the duel between Barack Obama and John McCain features such supporting players as Hillary and Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the contest also has led to surprising bit roles for two Philippine political figures.

The most recent one involved President Gloria Arroyo whose bid for a photo op with America's newest political superstar ended in disappointment, another sorry example of a Pinoy politico desperately seeking attention from Washington that the Inquirer editorial board aptly summed up with the word "embarrassing."

She did get an apology from the Obama camp for their aborted meeting and who knows, Arroyo may still get another chance later on if the presumptive Democratic nominee prevails in November. There was no wail of protest from the FilAm community over the cancellation of the meeting, however, a sign perhaps of how Arroyo is regarded out here. But to the credit of her handlers, they simply let go and did not raise a stink, just glad for the ‘I'm sorry’ letter.
After all, the last thing Arroyo needs now is to behave the way another former prominent Pinoy politico did four decades ago over a perceived snub from yet another Western superstar, this time a legendary rock and roll band.

Although granted, it's hard to imagine Arroyo's cohort sending goons to harass Obama in Washington DC the way Imelda Marcos's supporters did when the Beatles were a no-show for the Malacanang party she hosted in their honor in 1966. For John, Paul, George and Ringo, Beatlemania Pinoy-style meant an angry mob literally chasing them out of Manila.

Not surprisingly, the fiasco over the aborted Arroyo-Obama meeting did not even register a blip on the radar screen of the highly-active US political scene -- unlike the case of another Pinoy politico who also became an extra in the US presidential drama.
Even more striking, this politician is dead.

It's unclear if McCain ever met Ferdinand Marcos. He stopped at Clark Air Base after his release from a North Vietnamese prison sometime in 1973 as Marcos was setting up one of the most brutal dictatorships in Southeast Asia with the blessing and aid of the United States. McCain was already a Republican member of the US Congress when Marcos's longtime friend and ally, President Ronald Reagan, welcomed the dictator to Washington during a state visit in 1982, calling him a "respected voice for reason and moderation in international forums."

I found no record of McCain speaking out against the now repulsive idea of America endorsing a tyrant like Marcos, but in a speech in 2006 -- 20 years after his downfall – Senator McCain spoke of the importance of promoting human rights abroad, recalling how in 1986, "the United States condemned Ferdinand Marcos' sham reelection, we earned the abiding gratitude of the Philippine people, who promptly threw out the dictator."

That's not exactly the complete story as he conveniently left out the part about Reagan and the Washington establishment praising and bankrolling the Marcos regime even as it rigged elections, threw opponents in jail, tortured them and looted the Philippine treasury. (And how could he forget Imelda's shoes and shopping sprees?)

Nearly 20 years after Marcos died in Hawaii, however, McCain has unexpectedly had to deal with the despised dictator's ghost.

In an embarrassing twist, it turned out that Charlie Black, one of McCain's closest advisers, once ran a lobbying firm that represented brutal dictators, including Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and – you guessed it – Ferdinand Marcos. Black resigned from the firm, BKSH & Associates, and is still with McCain (although he got him in trouble again recently by saying that another terrorist attack against the US would surely help boost his candidate’s chances in November.)

McCain's Macoy connection created a stir earlier in the race, but it probably won't be decisive in a campaign more focused on such issues as the Iraq War, rising gas prices and the US mortgage meltdown.

Still, isn't it amazing that nearly two decades after his death, one of the most infamous figures in Philippine and world history continues to rattle the nerves of the living, especially those of his former allies, sponsors and friends in Washington?Perhaps the late dictator was right after all when he declared, "I do not intend to die."

Lost in Translation

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Published June 30, 2008
INQUIRER.net

President Gloria Arroyo’s US visit may be controversial back home, but I give her credit for something that I believe no Filipino chief executive has ever done: She spoke Tagalog during a joint press conference with an American president at the White House.

It probably doesn’t mean much in the sad, painful history of US-Philippine relations. And its impact probably has been offset by what comes across as Arroyo’s embarrassingly overeager bid for attention from the US presidential candidates.

But her speaking in the native tongue was worth it, if only for the dumbfounded look on George W. Bush’s face when Arroyo suddenly shifted to Tagalog, especially since it came after his pseudo tribute to Filipino Americans whom he apparently thinks about only at dinner time.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” was all Bush could say after Arroyo’s greeting in Tagalog.

Even in a small way, what Arroyo did was a rare affirmation of Filipino nationhood in international relations in which language can be a subtle but powerful weapon. And it actually was a surprising move from a president who has not exactly been known for sensitivity to issues of national pride, once even endorsing the training of “supermaids” as a way to ease the country’s economic problems.

The issue of using Pilipino in international diplomacy actually came up ten years ago, when Arroyo’s predecessor, the disgraced former President Joseph Estrada, vowed to use Tagalog and an interpreter in dealing with foreign governments. Estrada had said he wanted to follow the lead of other nations who negotiate treaties and conduct diplomacy in their native languages.

“The Japanese, the Chinese and other Asian countries speak their dialect (when dealing with other countries) -- I don't see why we Filipinos cannot speak our own dialect,” he told me in an interview in his home, when I covered the 1998 elections for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Estrada eventually got too embroiled in scandals that led to his downfall to pursue what would have been a dramatic shift in Philippine presidential politics. But when he made the vow, many were impressed, though a few were horrified.

An operations manager at Speechpower, which trains Filipinos to speak and write better English, said it would be a setback to the country’s reputation as an English-speaking nation.

“We’re moving toward globalization and then all of a sudden we have a president who needs an interpreter,'' Doris Salvacion told me. “We expect much from our president. They would be good role models if they would be able to deal with other people in English. Then we could say, ‘Ah, our president speaks well.’”

But Danny Javier of the Apo Hiking Society, who made the song “American Junk” famous, said it would “instill more pride in being Filipino.” Poet and screenwriter Pete Lacaba, who wrote poems in English before shifting to Tagalog, called it “a positive move.”

John Gershman, a political scientist based in the East Coast who is fluent in Tagalog, said using Pilipino would even be smart diplomacy. That’s because Americans have always had the advantage in negotiations conducted in English because “they are able to define terms and concepts in their language.”

But by using Tagalog, he added, Estrada “can force the Americans to translate their objectives. Since he understands English, he'll be able to understand better what they're trying to say -- but the Americans won't have a clue as to what he and his panel are discussing among themselves.”

Good old Erap was even more cunning.

“In our negotiations with the United States our panel (members) always speak in English -- so if they commit a mistake they cannot correct it,” he told me.
Bursting into laughter, he shifted to guttural street Tagalog. “If you speak in Tagalog and you make a mistake,” he said, “then you can later take back what you said. You can blame the interpreter (by saying): ‘Hey, that's wrong. That's not what I said!’”

Fortunately, of course, he never got the chance to try a stunt like that.

Copyright 2008 by Benjamin Pimentel

Bush's baffling salute to Filipino Americans

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:31:00 +0000

Published June 26, 2008
INQUIRER.net

Filipino food has not gained as much attention and praise in the United States as cuisine from Korea, China or Thailand, but Pinoy cooks and chefs have long occupied proud and important niches in US society, whether in the restaurant industry, the military or even the White House.

Still, there was something oddly disconcerting about President George W. Bush paying tribute to the contributions of Filipino Americans – particularly those who serve his meals at the White House.

"I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans," Bush told President Gloria Arroyo during her recent visit to the White House, where the head chef, Cristeta Comerford, is Filipino.

"They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House."

In the video of the exchange, you can then hear Arroyo, who is off camera, laughing.

"Yes," she said.

Bush continued, "And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President."

“Thank you," she said.

Bush's remarks were immediately picked up by the liberal Web site, Huffington Post, where readers were naturally amused, embarrassed, outraged.

"What an utter embarrassment," one reader wrote. "The buffoonery ends 01/20/09."

"It takes great skill to so utterly mangle what should have been a great compliment," another said. "And yes, beneath it all, it is quite notable that the current White House chef is both the first woman in the position and a naturalized citizen originally from the Philippines."

"Kitchen help and servants in the White House! THAT'S what he thinks of these hard-working people!" another said.

One reader wondered what the fuss was about: "Hmmm, my wife is Filipino and she wasn't offended. But then, she doesn't think there's anything wrong with telling a Filipino that he makes a good dish."

The comment underscored how touchy this issue could be. After all, millions of Filipinos have moved overseas to work as cooks, kitchen help, domestic helpers, construction workers and nurses – and they've done so proudly and with honor and are actually keeping the Philippine economy afloat. As has been stated repeatedly, overseas Filipino workers are heroes.

But another reader who responded to the last remark also hit the nail in the head on why many Americans would feel embarrassed by what their president said – and why Filipinos everywhere should be dismayed.

"Dude, President Bush basically told the president of the Philipines that he loved the Filipino people because his only context was the one that worked for him. She should not only be offended, she should be disqusted," the reader said.

Bush has, of course, uttered many more jaw-dropping and sometimes offensive statements in his foreign dealings that many Americans have simply learned to ignore or endure. He once demoted Pope Benedict XVI by addressing him as "your eminence" instead of "your holiness," mixed up Austria and Australia, referred to Greeks as Grecians and asked the president of Brazil, "Do you have blacks too?"

But one must give Bush credit when he wore a barong during a visit to the Philippines five years ago. He was also following a family tradition. More than 20 years before, in June 1981, his father, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush arrived in Manila, put on a barong and met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.

Then again, that wasn't exactly a visit many Filipinos remember fondly.

"We stand with the Philippines," the elder Bush told the dictator. "We love your adherence to democratic principles and democratic processes. We will not leave you in isolation."

Two decades after Bush the elder's controversial remarks, it was the younger Bush’s turn to make a statement that left many scratching their heads.

"America is proud of its part in the great story of the Filipino people,” he said.

But it quickly became pretty clear that he didn't really completely get that story.

For Bush also declared before his Filipino hosts that the United States "liberated the Philippines from colonial rule" -- conveniently forgetting that our homeland was once an American colony.

The odd way my sons say 'Tatay' in Obama's America

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:14:00 +0000

Published June 9, 2008
INQUIRER.net

SAN FRANCISCO - Visiting friends and relatives are usually amused or puzzled that my sons call me ‘Tatay,” and their mother, ‘Nanay.’ Not “Daddy” and “Mommy” or “Papa” and “Mama.” That’s also how some of our friends’ children call their parents. It’s our way of reminding them -- and us – of who we are and where we come from.

My wife Mara and I even went a step further. We decided, even before our first son, Paolo, was born that Tagalog would be our children’s first language. A few friends and family members thought we were nuts. “Why teach them a language they most likely will not use in America?” they asked.

But for me, that decision was based on a practical reason: I didn’t want my kids to get mad at me. That’s because when I moved to America nearly 20 years ago, I encountered young FilAms who were disappointed, even angry, that their immigrant parents never taught them Tagalog or other Philippine languages. They felt cheated. I didn’t want my boys to feel that way, and wanted to make sure that they would never be able to say to me or their mother, ‘You denied us our heritage.’

Still, I understand why immigrant Pinoys in the past insisted that their children speak English and that they shed as much of the “old” ways as possible. They wanted their children to fit in and not stand out with a thick accent or bad grammar or “strange” customs. They wanted them to be “genuine” Americans -- whatever that meant. To become otherwise would make life harder for them, even dangerous. After all, only about a half century ago, one could still find signs in a few California cities saying, “Absolutely No Dogs or Filipinos Allowed.”

But times are changing in America. Being from a different country is no longer as big a liability as in the past. And having a strange-sounding name -- like Barack Obama -- is no longer an insurmountable hurdle to moving forward in life. Just last week, a black man who is also a son of an immigrant from Africa, and who grew up in Southeast Asia and in a state dominated by Asian Americans just became the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. And he could very well win.

Beyond all that, our decision to teach our children Tagalog was also encouraged by experts who said it was okay and even smart to have children learn as many languages as possible – because it actually makes them smarter. Pediatric experts said so. Paolo’s doctor said so too. Then there’s our own experience. Mara and I grew up bilingual (she’s actually trilingual, being competent in Waray) and we turned out okay.

But I won’t lie. Having our first son, Paolo, speak Tagalog as a first language was tough for him and for us. I thank the children’s book publishers and authors back in the Philippines for writing and publishing more works in Tagalog. But there were times when I had to read to Paolo at bedtime when I had to do some on the spot translation as he insisted, “Basa sa Tagalog, Tatay.” (“Read to me in Tagalog, Tatay.”) So I had to quickly come up with such lines as, “Pumunta si Barney sa zoo kasama ni Baby Bob.” (Barney went to the zoo with Baby Bob.)
When Paolo started going to day care, being exposed to a world of English-speaking kids turned out to be an overwhelming experience for him. After picking him up in the first few weeks, Mara was surprised at how talkative he was in the car. We later found why: He was apparently so intimidated by his English-speaking schoolmates that he simply kept quiet the whole day, and then made up for the hours of silence by blabbing endlessly when her Nanay came to take him home.

During his first few visits to Manila, however, Paolo felt like he was in heaven. Once, when we took a walk around my old neighborhood in Cubao and came across a group of children playing in the street, Paolo, his eyes wide open, exclaimed, “Tatay, nagtatagalog sila!” (“They’re speaking Tagalog!”)

Of course, his Manila-based cousins found it strange to have a Stateside cousin who spoke English with a thick Pinoy accent. My nephew, who was then a student at Ateneo High School, and who naturally spoke English with an Arrneow accent, asked me, “Tito Boying, bakit ang barok mag Inggles ng anak mo?” (“Why does your son speak English like Barok?”)

Eventually, we found out that the experts and our instincts were correct. Just a few months into his kindergarten year, Paolo was speaking fluent English. I still remember the moment when, as I was getting into my car after dropping him off, I realized: ‘He hasn’t spoken to me in Tagalog for a week.’

In fact, Paolo, who is turning 9, now only speaks to us in English, though he still understands when we speak to him in Tagalog. On the other hand, his younger brother, Anton, who is turning 3, is, like him when he was younger, fluent in Tagalog, and “barok” in his English. Which has led to some amusing exchanges at home.

“Don’t mess with my Legos, Tonton,” Paolo would say.

“ “E kuya, I just ano – uh - maglaro naman tayo,” the smaller one would respond. (“Let’s play.”)

Paolo still calls me “Tatay.” But he now pronounces it differently, with the accent on the last syllable. As in “atay” (liver) or “ “patay” (dead). He does the same thing with “Nanay.” Visiting friends and family are even more amused by that of course. (I joke that he is saying it with a French accent.)

Anton still gets the accent right, but we expect that eventually he’ll follow his kuya’s lead.

Which is all fine with me and Mara, for at least we know the seeds of Pilipino are planted firmly in their consciousness. And if they choose later on to do more with it and other aspects of their Filipino-ness, many of the ingredients are there for them to dig up and use.

It will be their choice.

And if Obama becomes president, it could become a much easier choice to make. Perhaps a choice that is even celebrated in a society with a painful history of rejecting those who are different -- but which is now evolving into a community where people with strange names, who come from strange lands and who speak strange languages are not just welcomed, accepted and embraced, they at times can even have the seat at the head of the table.

Last week, as Obama was giving his incredibly inspiring speech after clinching the Democratic Party nomination, I told Paolo to sit down with me and watch the broadcast, telling him, “This is important. Something big has just happened.” I later found out that a colleague at work, who is white, had done the same thing with his son and for the same reason.

Whatever happens in November, our world has already been turned upside down. And for that, I won’t mind the odd way my sons call me “Tatay.”
It’s Father’s Day on Sunday. To my fellow Tatays around the world, a toast to all of us!

Dogmeat, Dictators and Barack Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Fri, 30 May 2008 02:34:00 +0000

Published May 27, 2008
INQUIRER.net

If he wins in November, Barack Obama will become the first president of the United States … to have tried dog meat, or at least the first to have admitted it publicly.

That’s not likely to win him votes, but it sure makes him a hell of a lot more interesting to Filipinos. Here are a couple more biographical tidbits.

As a boy, Obama played kite duels like the game enjoyed by Pinoy children in which one tries to force an opponent’s saranggola (kite) down from the sky.

Then this: Obama knows on a personal level the dehumanizing power of poverty and dictatorship in the Third World.

You can learn more from his memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” first published more than a decade ago, and a paperback bestseller in the US.

It’s a fascinating read, especially for Filipinos.

Obama found dog meat tough, snake meat tougher and roasted grasshopper crunchy. Bicolanos, in particular, would enjoy his company: Obama said he “learned how to eat small green chili peppers raw with dinner” with “plenty of rice.”

I wonder if, as some of my childhood friends in Cubao did, Obama and his buddies also used razor blades attached to their saranggola string to gain an advantage in aerial duels.

It is the third point that I think is most relevant to Filipinos.

After Obama’s parents separated in Hawaii where he grew up, his mother married a visiting student named Lolo Soetoro who took his new family back to his native Indonesia.

Lolo had witnessed the rise of Indonesian nationalism that eventually led to the defeat of Dutch colonialism. His father and brother were killed in the resistance and the Dutch burned their house down. But as a student in Hawaii, with Indonesia emerging as a newly-independent nation, Lolo was “so full of life, so eager with plans,” Obama writes.

“Things would be changing now that the Dutch had been driven out, Lolo had told [my mother]; he would return and teach at the university, be a part of that change,” Obama continues.

But the change was not what he expected.

Sukarno, the admired but controversial independence leader and president became a target of right wing forces. In 1967, a coup still widely believed to have been aided by the CIA, overthrew his government. That led to a bloody crackdown and the rise of the Suharto dictatorship.

“The death toll was anybody’s guess: a few hundred thousand, maybe half a million,” Obama writes. “We had arrived in Djakarta less than a year after one of the more brutal and swift campaigns of suppression in modern times.”

The change was devastating for Obama’s stepfather. Lolo was a strong, hard working and decent man who took care of Obama and his mother. But he also faced painful choices in Indonesia under Suharto – similar to those many Filipinos endured under Marcos. Some Indonesians fought back against dictatorship, while others simply accepted, even embraced, the new regime.

Lolo Soetoro chose the latter.

“Power had taken Lolo and yanked him back into line … making him feel its weight, letting him know that his life wasn’t his own,” Obama writes. “So Lolo had made peace with power, learned the wisdom of forgetting.”

Filipinos and Indonesians remember how, at the height of the Cold War, the United States endorsed, even bankrolled, brutal dictators who were considered “friendly” to American interests. That sinister policy reemerged in the post 9-11 world, underscored by the Bush administration’s cozy ties with authoritarian rulers in Central Asia and the Middle East.

Would Obama embrace the same attitude? Or would he remember his stepfather and other Indonesians who endured repression and humiliation under dictatorial rule?

This is a critical question if, as some fear, the Philippines may be in danger of repeating a dark chapter in our own past. If the current occupants of Malacanang are indeed looking for a way to extend their stay beyond 2010, as some suspect, Obama in the White House could pose a serious problem.

Obama’s memoir also offers some hints on how he might take on issues of poverty and inequality. These became real for him in the cities and countryside of Indonesia.

Recalling the beggars in Djakarta, Obama writes, “They seemed to be everywhere, a gallery of ills – men, women, children, in tattered clothing matted with dirt, some without arms, others without feet, victims of scurvy or polio or leprosy …”

He relates how his mother once visited a wealthy area in Djakarta that sounds much like the posh neighborhoods in Ayala Alabang or Makati, where “diplomats and generals lived in sprawling houses with tall wrought-iron gates.” To drive off a poor woman who had wandered near one of the fancy homes, a group of men who were washing a fleet of Mercedes-Benzes threw a handful of coins onto the road. “The woman ran after the coins with terrible speed, checking the road suspiciously as she gathered them into her bosom,” Obama relates.

And in the Indonesian countryside, he remembers “the empty look on the faces of farmers the year the rains never came, the stoop in their shoulders as they wandered barefoot through their barren, cracked fields.”

Obama also probably understands that people eat dogmeat in parts of Indonesia and the Philippines – a practice viewed as reprehensible in the West – for a simple reason: hunger and lack of food.

Many U.S. and European politicians have often appeared clueless, if not insensitive, when it comes to issues of poverty and repression in the developing world. Take the reaction of former US Secretary of State Colin Powell a few years ago when he was confronted in Manila with the Philippine government’s bid to get duty-free access for tuna exports, similar to the one given to South America.

In presenting its case, the Philippine government had tried to convince Powell that the issue was a matter of survival for tens of thousands of impoverished fisherfolk in Mindanao. But Powell, who was then trying to sell the world on the Bush Administration’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq, was unimpressed, even saying, "I did not know someday I would be dealing with tuna.”

Would Obama react in the same way? As another American politician worried about how he is perceived at home and about his chances in the next election, maybe.

But there’s also a chance, even a small one, that he would react differently. He would listen intently, consult his advisers and weigh the broader economic issues involved. But as he makes his decision, he may also see the faces, hear the voices and remember the stories of the struggling people he knew on the streets of Djakarta.

In Memory of My Last Yosi

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:29:00 +0000

Published May 13, 2008
INQUIRER.net

I still remember my last cigarette. I was at Narita Airport, waiting for my flight home to Manila. Declaring it to be my last, I smoked it up to the edge of the filter then stubbed it out in the ash tray. I watched the last wisp of smoke expire, before I finally walked away.

That was 18 years ago, on May 9, 1990.

Now, the fact that I still remember the date, and even some of the details of that moment, is bad news: It means I’m still vulnerable. After nearly two decades of being nicotine-free, of being a proud and committed non-smoker, the craving is most likely still there. Dormant maybe, but still breathing and waiting to be reawakened (like Voldemort perhaps).

The fact that I even decided to write about this, on the anniversary of my last yosi, is a disturbing sign. But that’s what smoking does to you. Even after giving up, the memory of how good it felt, the craving, lingers on for years. There are even some nights, and I know some ex-smokers go through this, when I actually dream that I went back to the habit. Actually, it’s more of a nightmare with the sensible part in me yelling, “Oh no, not after all these years!”

Growing up in Quezon City, I was exposed early to a world of heavy smokers. My father smoked and so did my brothers-in-law. As a boy I would secretly retrieve my father discarded cigarette butts, relight them and smoke them. I know – that was stupid, not to mention unsanitary and very unhealthy.

It was not until I went to UP and joined the Philippine Collegian that I became a fully-committed smoker. Surrounded by smokers during all-night press work, especially during the height of the protest movement against the Marcos dictatorship, the temptation was simply overwhelming. From a few sticks a day, I quickly moved up to half a pack.

By the time I began working as a journalist, I was consuming a pack day. It was inevitable really. In Manila, at least back in the ‘80s (and I suspect this is still true today) smoking, drinking and journalism pretty much came as one package. After a day covering the often tumultuous days of the post-Marcos era, heading to the nearest beer house for a night of San Miguels (or Gold Eagles) and packs of Marlboros or Camels became a way to unwind.

The thought of quitting was always present of course, especially after it became more difficult for me to walk up a flight of stairs without ending up gasping for air. Then there was the fear of cancer. Some non-smoker friends would have event taunt me, “Boying, make a political statement by quitting smoking. How can you call yourself progressive?”

But as Mark Twain said, quitting smoking is easy – he did it many times.

So did I.

The first time I survived roughly two months without lighting up, I was so proud of my accomplishment that I decided to give myself a reward – I allowed myself a smoke. And just like that, I was back in the clutches of nicotine.

I realized eventually that I could never be like many friends of mine who can become social smokers, smoking only when with fellow smokers at a party or some other gathering, but who can just easily turn the craving off once the party is over. Sadly, I couldn't do that. I could only either be a non-smoker or a heavy smoker. No middle ground.

Eventually, money and Manila smog turned out to be the keys to my escape.

When I smoked my last cigarette at Narita airport, I was on my way home after a long visit to the United States. I knew from experience that the heat and the polluted air would make it tough to smoke in Manila. So it was an opening I could exploit.

Then, I was also set to return to the US in a few months to begin graduate studies at UC Berkeley. In other words, I was a bout to begin a new chapter in my life as a starving graduate student and expat. Smoking had suddenly become a luxury I could no longer afford.

And so it was that at Narita Airport, I said good bye to nicotine.

I have actually embraced a radical attitude: I have literally not touched a cigarette or a cigarette pack in the past 18 years. (Well, maybe I did a couple of times when I had to hand a pack over to someone.)

But that hard-line approach, I believe, is key. Because I only know too well that once you become a regular smoker, even for only a few years or months, you will forever be vulnerable. Vigilance is important.

Perhaps someday I can confidently say once and for all that I no longer have to worry. And as I honor the memory of my last yosi and the day I said goodbye to smoking nearly two decades ago, I also look forward to the day when I actually will no longer remember.

Bill Clinton & Gloria Arroyo: Scandal Duo of the Class of '68

noreply@blogger.com (Benjamin Pimentel) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:46:00 +0000

Published April 25, 2008
INQUIRER.net

If it were not for other pressing matters, Bill Clinton and Gloria Arroyo would probably be looking forward to what could be a fun and important event: Their college reunion.

This year is the 40th anniversary of Georgetown University’s Class of 1968. The class homecoming at the oldest and most prestigious Catholic, and Jesuit, university in the United States kicks off late May. But the list of expected attendees does not mention either Clinton or Arroyo.

That’s too bad. They were stars of the class.

Clinton and Arroyo, who were classmates from 1964-66, share the distinction as two of only three Georgetown alums from the Class of ’68 to become a head of state. (The third is Alfredo Christiani, the former president of El Salvador.)

Then again, the two also have reasons for skipping the party. Not just because he’s campaigning for his wife’s presidential bid, and she’s busy trying to survive the latest scandal in her turbulent administration.

But they may decide not to show up because Bill and Gloria also have been at the center of some of the most jaw dropping political scandals in recent history. They were the Scandal Duo of the Class of ’68.

Clinton was the star of arguably the most bizarre sexual fiasco in the history of American politics. I’ll skip the sordid details. Just Google the following words: “White House intern,” “Monica Lewinsky,” “blue dress.”

Even more damaging in the eyes of many were his presidential pardons including the one he granted to Marc Rich, a fugitive who was accused of tax evasion, racketeering and trading with the enemy – whose wife reportedly made generous donations to Clinton’s presidential library and Hillary Clinton’s senate campaign.

And Gloria Arroyo? Why waste space here. Just Google “Hello Garci,” “Jocjoc Bolante,” “NBN,” “Mike Arroyo.”

You can just imagine the idle chit-chat at the Georgetown reunion parties about the two powerful, controversial, Class of ’68 alums.

“He did what with the cigar with the intern in the Oval Office?”

“Her voice got turned into a ring tone? And she was asking an election official about winning by how many votes?”

There might even be a class poll on who should have been voted “most likely to get mired in an embarrassing political scandal.” Or on who did a better job surviving a political scandal. Arroyo should have the edge on that one. He was acquitted during his impeachment trial; she’s actually outfoxed those who’d like to impeach her.

Arroyo spent only two years of college at Georgetown. She finished her undergraduate studies at Assumption College. But she’s clearly proud of having studied at Georgetown and has fond memories of her years at the Jesuit institution.

“In our time, [Georgetown] was one of the good schools, and it produced three presidents," she said at the university a few months after taking over as president. "Now it is one of the best schools, and you can imagine what is expected."

And she clearly has shared a special friendship with Bill Clinton. During his 1994 visit to the Philippines as US President, Arroyo, who was then senator, survived an accident after the helicopter she was in crash-landed in Manila. The incident didn’t prevent Arroyo from meeting her classmate.

"I'm glad you are all right," Clinton was quoted in news reports as telling Arroyo as they warmly shook hands during arrival honors for Clinton at the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila. "We read about you in the papers."

Arroyo responded, "Of course I had to be well enough to get up and meet my former classmate."

It would be fascinating to drill down on the kind of political education they shared at Georgetown. For both Arroyo and Clinton built impressive political careers that, in the eyes of many, steadily fell apart once they attained power and eventually led to political disasters.

Bill Clinton was the kid from Hope, Arkansas who overcame a hard life and used what is undoubtedly a brilliant mind to become the first baby boomer president of the United States. There is even a famous photo of him as a young boy shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy during a tour of the White House. And he is known for putting an end to 12 years of conservative Republican rule, ushering in what was supposed to be a new era of progressive American politics.

Instead, Monica Lewinsky and the other scandals have ended up also defining his legacy. Even Hillary Clinton is paying the price for this. When Democratic US Senator Claire McCaskill, a one time Hillary supporter, announced that she was endorsing her rival, Barack Obama, she told a TV journalist that Bill Clinton may have been a great leader, “but I don’t want my daughter near him.”

Gloria Arroyo, daughter of a former president, was a respected academic and opposition fighter during the Marcos dictatorship. She was seen as the answer to the chaotic administration of actor-turned-politician Joseph Estrada. With her wooden image, few expected her to be a beacon of inspiration. But most Filipinos expected and hoped that with her academic training, political experience and pedigree, she would at least get the job done – and get it done with unquestionable integrity.

Instead, Arroyo will be remembered as the as the leader who presided over one of the most scandal-ridden administrations in the country’s history – and the only Philippine president to be caught on tape in what strongly appeared to be a blatant attempt at vote-rigging .

In any case, Clinton and Arroyo will likely not get a chance to swap political war stories at the Georgetown homecoming (unless they have quietly and secretly been making plans to attend). And their schedules over the coming months will probably be too hectic to permit any other kinds of reunion.

But that could also change.

If Hillary Clinton wins the American presidency and Arroyo survives this latest crisis in Manila, then maybe she and Mike Arroyo will get to attend the inauguration gala in January. Hell, with the Clintons back at the White House, she may have many more opportunities to hang out with her Georgetown buddy.

And as the two couples are enjoying their private moments together, Hillary might even ask Gloria Arroyo, “So what’s the most important thing to remember about being a woman president, Glo?”

“Oh, gee, Hillary, just keep on top of the issues, your cabinet and your allies,” Gloria would respond. “Oh, and make sure your husband behaves himself and not cause any trouble.”

Hillary would nod, but then quickly add, “Yeah, well, I learned that a long time ago, sister.”

If Hillary triumphs, Bill Clinton would also take on a new and unusual role as the United States of America’s very first “First Gentleman.” And so a get-together with Gloria and the Philippine FG would also be an opportunity for him to ask her husband for advice.

“So Mike, what’s it like to be First Gentleman?” Bill would ask. “Got any tips, buddy?”

“Oh, it’s lotsa fun, Bill,” Mike Arroyo would say. “Plenty of perks, not too many back-breaking responsibilities. Just remember to get out of the missus’s way, keep a low profile, stay out of trouble, be good and behave.”

Bill Clinton would give him a questioning look. Mike would shrug his shoulders. They would stare at each other for a second or two.

Then they would both burst out laughing.