Are GMA's blue dresses,boyish hairdo also an issue?

Postscript/PhilSTAR/Aug. 4, 2005/Thursday

Are GMA's blue dresses,boyish hairdo also an issue?

By Federico D. Pascual Jr.

SHADOW PLAY: My Tuesday column on the media blitz, also referred to at times as the “charm offensive,” of a repackaged President Gloria Arroyo elicited from some readers comments that normally I would not allow to see print.

There is always the danger that the messenger, ang inyong abang lingkod, would be mistaken for the message.

But on second thought, it might be best that President Arroyo herself gets to know how her new emerging persona as molded by her handlers is impacting on people-watchers.

We are dealing here with mirrors, images and reflection. We are not in direct contact with the real person hidden beneath the PR layers heaped on the subject, so most of us see only the shadow of the moving object. Sorry about that.

* * *

WHAT'S WITH BLUE?: From faraway Paris comes this email from Vi Massart, PhilSTAR chief correspondents in that part of the world:

“Frankly, if I were Gloria's wardrobe ‘mistress,' advisor, charm offensive operator, PR consultant or all of those put together, I would start by advising her against her color preference.

“Apparently, the short-sized, almost thick-set looking President has a preference for all shades of blue, but blue nonetheless, as it is her ‘lucky' color.

“Often, we see her wearing suits or ensemble in a shade of turquoise blue. The color is absolutely unbecoming on her. She is short, quite thick-set looking, dark haired and round-faced. Furthermore, her suits or ensemble often have wide lapels tapered to a V-shape neck.”

* * *

FIT THE FIGURE: Ate Vi explains: “First of all, turquoise blue, especially the lighter shade, is not a color that goes well with her hair color.

“Second, she looks pale (an odd shade between healthy ‘white' and the Filipina tan) and turquoise blue is chic and glamorous on either blonde and/or golden tan-skinned women or simply on milk-white skinned women of which she is neither.

“Thirdly, turquoise blue looks elegant on tall and shapely women and not on pudgy-looking tiny women.

“Lastly, her choice of suits with wide lapel is unbecoming on a diminutive frame (she should opt for more simple narrow lapel to make her look less -- and sorry to say this -- of a 'pugilist').

Couple that with turquoise blue, it cannot serve as a lucky color for her because the combination will only give her an overall appearance or an image which is absolutely the opposite of what the Malacanang PR doctors wish to achieve: non-charm.

“So, my advice to the wardrobe consultant and to her PR people: if charm offensive is the aim, start by changing the color of her favorite clothes in her wardrobe!”

* * *

NOW THE HAIRDO: Another female reader -- the womenfolk seem to be endlessly eyeing one another -- aims a bit higher, zeroing in on Ate Glo's hairdo this time.

Silbee Melissa emailing from a yahoo address says: “If you get to see Gloria, kindly tell her to let her hair grow a little longer. I don't want my President strutting around like a tomboy. Her manly looks upsets many of us women-watchers.

“I remember during the early days of her term she wore her hair longer. That was more becoming on her. She looked more pleasant, more feminine, and even the menfolk, I guess, liked that.

“I don't know who is doing her hair now, but if she is serviced by gay hair stylists infatuated with a masculine look, she better drop them. Sure, she wants to project herself as a strong leader, but there is nothing stronger that feminine charm.”

Yes, ma'am, I agree with that last sentence!

* * *

PARTING SHOTS: As expected, chargé d'affaires Joseph Mussomeli of the US embassy got the usual drubbing from the usual observers from the left for his frank remarks on political goings-on in the country.

To many sensitive observers, his freely commenting on internal affairs was “meddling,” including his saying that President Arroyo could still recover from her setbacks “if she does the difficult decisions, reaches out to the right groups and forms coalitions (to move the country) forward.”

Actually, Mussomeli, who leaves on Saturday for a new post, was jocular in his opening remarks before the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines forum last Monday at the Manila Hotel: “This is my last chance to say things that I shouldn't, I guess.”

Well, he did, used as he is to saying what he feels like saying, never mind what the natives think.
* * *
CUE FOR CHANGE: There is nothing like going to the text or transcript of his opening remarks and his responses in the Q&A part of that valedictory exchange with the press.

This was how he said some of those delicate portions: “The last few months have not been easy for the Philippines. As a friend of the Filipino people, my government is concerned -- and I am personally concerned that the current political scandals risk distracting politicians and the public alike from the real challenges facing this nation.

“As I have said before, the focus ought not to be on either retaining or attaining power, but rather on the Filipino people and their welfare.

“As I have also often said, the Philippines remains on that threshold of greatness where I last saw it, way back in 1986. It has not moved forward from that threshold and if it is ever to take its rightful place among the dynamic economies of Asia, it will need to see and seize the current political controversy as an opportunity for change.”

* * *

NO QUICK FIXES: “Crises can be a good thing,” the No. 2 man of the US embassy continued. “Controversies can bring out the best in individuals. We know that in our everyday life, and it is true of individuals and it is true of a people.”

“And there is good cause to be optimistic about the current controversy. Cooler heads have prevailed and the rule of law has been followed. No one on any side has rushed to take extra-constitutional measures -- no military coup, no martial law, no people power -- which ultimately, we believe, would weaken institutions and impede democracy in the Philippines.

“Certainly all democracies are messy, but history teaches us over and over again that there are no quick fixes in life. People need not get so breathless about each turn of events, and certainly the media can do as much to assuage concerns as fan the flames of controversy.”

* * *

ZERO COUP RISK: Mussomeli's remarks that the possibility of a coup d'etat taking place being near zero went like this (in response to a question in the Q&A portion):

“The response of the Armed Forces of the Philippines has been remarkable. It is really one of the real silver linings of this whole problem so far. They have come out -- from Secretary Cruz to General Abu, to General Senga, all the way down the line -- that they are going to remain neutral, strictly neutral, supporting the institutions and the Constitution.

“This is remarkably wonderful. This shows that the Philippines has come a long way. Even from 2001, certainly from 1986, and with the military not standing on the sidelines so much, but standing in a way to say they're going to insure that the constitutional process is not interfered with -- whether it's by people power or by imposition of martial law or by military coup.

“They allow the political process to continue, in a healthy, messy, boisterous, but eventually very successful way. Let the politicians scream and yell all they want, let them work out a modus vivendi with each other, and we can move forward. That the military is staying out of this is good.

“This whole nonsense about ghosts -- that at lower levels there is disgruntlement -- there is always disgruntlement in every military. It's part of the whole culture of any military, including the US military. But I do not believe there's any risk right now of a military coup.”

* * *

WHY ZERO?: Somebody made a follow up, to make sure.

Question: Would you put it at zero -- the risk?

Mussomeli: I'd put it close to zero.

Q: What is the basis of your assessment of close to zero?

M: My assessment is based on several things. One is that the entire hierarchy of the military, including the secretary of national defense, is against it. It also comes from our discussions with officers, non-coms, and other Philippine military personnel at all other levels. And it's also my personal instinctive sense that the Filipino people would not tolerate it. They still remember martial law under Marcos, they still remember all the military coup attempts in the late 80's, and I think they're fed up with both.

* * *

http://www.manilamail.com/archive/aug2005/05aug04.htm

THOSE EUROPEAN ENVOYS SHOULD NOT TRY TO BULLY US IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!

THOSE EUROPEAN ENVOYS SHOULD NOT TRY TO BULLY US IN OUR OWN COUNTRY!

MANILA, January 16, 2004

(THE PHILIPPINE STAR)

BY THE WAY By Max V. Soliven - There’s no spectacle more reprehensible than that of several European Ambassadors trooping to Bilibid Prison, then lecturing to our government, and literally calling us barbarians for insisting on implementing the death penalty. There was this guy named Voornis whose language was particularly offensive. Send that boor named Voornis packing, for heaven’s sake.

I’m glad that for once, President GMA and her Spokesperson, Ignacio "Toting" Bunye, stood firm on declaring the government will push through with the executions scheduled.

Nobody begrudges the poor old mother of one of those slated for the lethal chamber her heart-broken tears – in the eyes of those who love them, especially their mothers, even the foulest of heinous criminals can do no wrong. Of course, the law makes mistakes, but not to implement the law would be the worst mistake of all.

We’re such a weak-kneed society, it’s no wonder we’re descending in anarchy. Just consider how candidates jump back and forth from one so-called political party to another, without bothering to even put forward the flimsiest of excuses. To those kapalmuks opportunists and self-seekers, one cynical phrase is the end-all and be-all of their selfish existence: "Winning isn’t everything, winning is the only thing!"

I can only say, Sanamagan! Dante in his Inferno would have consigned them to the lowest rung of hell.

As for our gullible electorate? Sad to say, many of those No Goods will probably get elected.
We have a Commission on Elections in shambles. We have on the Administration and Opposition senatorial lists the names of aspirants who belong to the reformatory, the penitentiary, or, at least, the Old Folks Home, a.k.a. the Geriatrics Club.

The most sensible decision seen lately was that of Imee Marcos, who opted to withdraw from the senatorial race, and will make a bid instead for her third and final term in the House of Representatives in Ilocos Norte. Ilocoslovakia remains "Marcos country", while the rest of the nation may not be that eager to forgive the iron-clad years of dictatorship of Imee’s dad, Ferdinand E. Marcos. It’s unfortunate that the sins of the fathers (and mothers) have to be visited on their children, however innocent. But in this nation of dynasties, the dynastic children must be ready to inherit the bad with the good.

The interesting thought, once more thanks to our national amnesia, is that Imee might have won a place in the Magic 12, but her candidacy would also have pulled down the prospects of her presidential bet, FPJ, who’s already weighed down with so many barnacles clinging to his breeches. (Imee couldn’t resist, though, frontpaging a photo of herself, with FPJ raising her hand in "proclamation".) Panday is, alas, beginning to look less like the earnest fighting "blacksmith", and more like the eager-to-please politician. It’s true, that Ronnie Poe continues to top the surveys – and is cheered everywhere he ventures – but he must have a care. I’m not comparing Ronnie, mind you, to Jesus Christ (and certainly not predicting his final crucifixion) but when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on an ass, he was hailed by adoring crowds, and flowers thrown under His feet that jubilant Palm Sunday. Less than a week later, the same demonstrators were calling for His blood. Beware the fickleness of the mob.

Poe must remember he’s looked upon by the masa and many in the middle class (even a surprising number of businessmen and the elite) as a savior. But when he offers the nation a slate of the same TRAPOS and looters who infested earlier regimes, what kind of salvation is that? Better the devil we know (not calling GMA a devil, excuse me), the people might finally conclude.

Coming back to those meddling European Union envoys, let them remember they’re diplomats, not preachers, or noisy agents of foreign NGOs. Let them go home and fix what’s wrong with their own nations, indeed, what’s going very wrong with the European Union. Haven’t you noticed, the member-states over there now angrily squaring off against each other on everything from farm subsidies, voting clout, taxation, their proposed new Constitution, and who gets to run Brussels. Terrible scandals are plaguing the finances, spending, and actuations of the EU’s gray bureaucracy. Perhaps they ought, just a polite thought, re-introduce the death penalty in their own countries.

In the meantime, we must say to them:

Let us alone, as a sovereign state, to manage our own affairs. We are not a colony of those former colonial powers.

The real tragedy of our condition is that "capital punishment", as the law dictates, has never been consistently implemented. Our government has been so urong-sulong over punishing convicts, assailed by TROs, lawyers, and torrents of tears, that the so-called "death penalty" has become a joke. Let us implement it now, without fear or favor. The pity of it is that nobody’s crying for the victims, who are dead, buried, or cremated, and forgotten.

True, it’s one of God’s Ten Commandments: "Thou shall not kill." The death penalty is the only way to remind the killers of that eternal law.

Dura lex sed lex! We have to prove, once and for all, that crime does not pay. Alas, the general conclusion (witness the most recent headline-grabbing scandals) is that it pays very handsomely.

* * *

In the haze of politics (not so different from the storied "haze of battle"), one of the memorable interviews of the year was lost in the headline shuffle. Yesterday, on the front page, The STAR ran the candid interview of our Chief European Correspondent and Paris Bureau Chief, Vi Gomez Massart, under a lame headline. You had to read the fine print in the question-and-answer segment, which at least was faithfully published to occupy all of Page 6 to get the gist of what the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines really said.

Now, I’m not happy with giving the propaganda rantings of that faded old Bolshevik-Maoist, Joma, such big publicity bonanza. But a newspaper’s duty is to publish what’s news and newsworthy.

With the New People’s Army (NPA), which Joma founded as well, ratcheting up its violent operations, and blackmailing candidates as well as escalating its attacks on military and civilian targets, even Sison’s bleatings out of Utrecht, Holland, cannot be ignored. Moreover, here was direct word from Sison about the never-ending "peace talks". Joma is, after all, the Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the umbrella organization for 17 Leftwing associations which include Bayan, a party-list member of Congress.

And Bayan already has two congressmen in our House of Representatives, thanks to the Party-List backdoor – i.e., Rep. Saturnino Ocampo (an "ex" rebel) and Crispin Beltran.

Joma, 65, cordially agreed to be interviewed by our Paris-Brussels based Bureau Chief, and she flew to Utrecht, the small university city in which Sison has been hunkered down in "exile," while claiming to direct Communist operations in the Philippines from this safe haven.

Massart found him "courteous to a fault", and described him as a "bespectacled, grey-haired man, clad in a nicely-cut pair of sports trousers and a dark-colored pullover". Her impression was that he "had the obvious trappings of a classic, respectable petty bourgeois having an afternoon chat with a couple of friends over coffee."

Sison is besieged by many troubles lately. When the United States Department of State declared him an "international terrorist", the Dutch government – which had heeded our own Philippine government’s complaints – finally froze his bank accounts and cut off all social benefits he had enjoyed since he arrived in the Netherlands on a "self-imposed exile" in 1988. Imagine that: The Dutch government had even given this "revolutionary" a pension.

The Bank of England, in response to his inclusion in the US official list of Foreign Terrorists, put his name, too, on its own Foreign Terrorist list of prohibitions. The European Union disseminated his name under the official terrorist tag to all its members while hundreds of other countries friendly to the US around the world added Joma’s name to its own foreign terrorist rosters.

The Dutch courts revised his status as a former "political refugee" to terrorist and denied his request for asylum. Technically, Massart informed me after examining the record, "Sison has become eligible for expulsion anytime from the Netherlands".

Most members of the European Union are unlikely to grant him entry either. So where’s Joma to go? This is why those "peace talks" may be his only hope. Thus, you’ve got to put the pending "talks" in proper perspective, armed with this information.

Can Sison come "home"? Let’s see what’s in store for him here. The armed forces has Sison on its Wanted List, with a P10 million price tag on his head. Faced with few other options, Sison has now appealed the Dutch Court ruling to the European Court of Human Rights based "on humanitarian grounds". If he wins a reprieve from this "court", it will make it less easy for the Dutch to expel him.

By the way, like many troublemakers, Joma Sison is a fellow Saluyot. (Like his erstwhile "comrade" Victor Corpus, who hails from Vigan, and Yours Truly from nearby Sto. Domingo.)
Sison was born on February 8, 1939, in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, into an old and very rich family which traces his Spanish-Chinese roots to the 16th century. In her covering note to me, Vi Massart (who’s lived and worked in Western Europe for many years and speaks fluent French) remarked that by "social and economic status", Joma should actually belong to "the upper bourgeoisie class" – an allusion which, surely, he abhors.

Joma in fact (like Erap) attended high school at the Ateneo de Manila. When asked by Massart why he turned against his own class, Sison’s reply was that he is a "patriot".

Sison says, Vi added, that "although it was his Grade 4 teacher, an Aglipayan, who first kindled in him the anti-colonial spirit, it was the Ateneo that challenged him intellectually to pursue his Socialist ideology. He recalls that his first brush with socialism was when an American priest in Ateneo told his class that "Andres Bonifacio, his hero, was a simple thug from Tondo and Senator Claro Recto, his idol, was nothing but a vulgar communist".

Oh, well. Who knows which anecdote is true, and which is cant? It actually could have happened. Joma, of course, went to college in the University of the Philippines, graduating in 1959 with a BA in Literature. Wouldn't you say, then, he was more "prepared" for leadership than Fernando Poe, Jr.?

Everyone knows what murder and terror Joma’s armed revolution unleashed on the land. As for the Plaza Miranda bombing of 1970, he denied to Vi Massart that he had ordered the attack.

He blamed Marcos! Why, he even claimed that Victor Corpus, who had exposed him as the man who mandated that cruel assault on the Liberal Party rally, which killed and maimed so many, had been misquoted.

There’s more to the Massart interview that still hasn’t been published. It will be in the week to come.

Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2003 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE

All rights reserved
PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE [PHNO] WEBSITE

Joma sings own poems on CD album to be released August

Joma sings own poems on CD album to be released August

By Vi Massart, STAR chief European correspondent

The Philippine Star

06/20/2006

PARIS — Communist leader Jose Ma. Sison has gone solo — in releasing a music album, that is.

Two years after Sison and his friends released a CD compilation of revolutionary songs, the poetry of the self-exiled chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that he has himself rendered into song will come out in CD format this August.

Entitled "Joma Sison Sings His Poems," the communist leader describes the 15-song CD as having a "lyrical and art form."

Sison told The STAR in a phone interview last Friday that he has just finished the tracks for the album.

A poet since his college years at the University of the Philippines, Sison, 67, said the first cut was recorded live in a 2004 concert with friends - "Pag-Ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa" (Love for the Motherland), the same title of a poem by national hero Andres Bonifacio.

"But this one is a solo," Sison proudly pointed out, adding that professional musicians worked on the album.

An avid videoke singer, Sison said he has always loved singing apart from being a afficionado of the cha-cha and ballroom dancing in Filipino-Dutch circles in Utrecht, the Netherlands where he has been exiled since 1987.

The communist movement, through its armed wing the New People’s Army (NPA), has been fighting the government for 37 years — Asia’s longest-running insurgency.

President Arroyo earlier ordered that P1 billion be set aside in funds to finance combat operations aimed at wiping out the NPA, which has been tagged by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization along with the CPP for the bloody campaign it has waged against the government.

Sison scoffed anew at Mrs. Arroyo’s threat to file charges against him for murder before the courts in Utrecht, insisting there is no extradition treaty between the Netherlands and the Philippines.

"Besides, the Dutch government has no jurisdiction over affairs that involve or which happened between Filipinos in the Philippines," he added.

"What is the legal basis of the Philippine government filing a case against me in Utrecht?" he asked.

Sison declared his team of lawyers headed by Romeo Capulong of the Public Interest Law Center would have the case thrown out for lack of legal merit in the Philippines.

He said that Capulong will be assisted by five women lawyers headed by Rachel Pastores. Calling them "my five angels," Sison noted: "Not only are they brilliant but they are also pretty."

Asked how he survives in the Netherlands without a regular income since the Dutch government withdrew subsidies for the exiled leader after he was tagged by the US State Department as a terrorist, Sison quipped that he is now largely dependent on his wife, Juliet de Lima.

Sison’s two adult children possess Dutch citizenship and by virtue of their legal status as European nationals, the Philippines will find it extremely difficult to have their parents expelled from the Netherlands where they are considered refugees on European soil.

When reminded that, at least on paper, he is a millionaire based on a US judge’s decision to award him compensation in a civil suit he filed against former President Ferdinand Marcos whose dictatorial rule the CPP-NPA fought, Sison said the Philippines is unlikely to pay him any compensation during his lifetime, or while he is still included on the US official terrorist list.

He reckoned his heirs would eventually benefit from the money.

Sison stands to receive $1 million from funds originally earmarked for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, a part of which has been set aside for compensation to human rights victims under the Marcos regime.

"That’s because the lower and the upper chambers (the Senate and House of Representatives) cannot argue on the exact amount to give to CARP… I don’t think even my wife, Julie, who is one of the official beneficiaries of the 9,500 Marcos human rights victims would receive anything at all from this government," Sison said.

Sison also "categorically denies" ordering the executions of communist leaders Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara as claimed by their widows.

He branded their testimonies as false and without factual basis.

"They have no direct knowledge of my connection with the respective deaths of their husbands," he stressed. "I met these women some 30 or more years ago and the last time I met their husbands was almost two decades ago."

Kintanar, former NPA chief, and Tabara, former member of the CPP military commission and political bureau, were assassinated on Jan. 23, 2003 and Sept. 26, 2004, respectively.

Sison said that while he is the "political consultant" of the CPP’s political wing, the National Democratic Front, he is "in no position to single out any person nor have the power to give orders to the NPA to liquidate anybody."

When asked if Armando Liwanag, the CPP chairman and the nom de guerre attributed to Sison, could have issued the order for the killings of Kintanar and Tabara, Sison asserted that "the CPP has a central committee, which decides collectively."

"And besides, it is a matter of public knowledge that the central command has admitted to the killings as these two were facing charges for being involved directly in the anti-informer campaign," he pointed out.

‘No treaty in the works’

Sison doesn’t believe that an extradition treaty between the Philippines and the Netherlands is in the works.

He also reiterated he has been "challenging the Dutch to file charges against me in connection with the US terrorist listing."

Sison recalled the first hearing in Luxembourg was held last May 30. "The European courts upheld my petition — that I am considered a refugee even if the Netherlands does not officially recognize me as one and I cannot be expelled to the Philippines because I run the enormous risk of being tortured or killed by Philippine authorities."

Sison alleged that Mrs. Arroyo’s motive for the murder charges was merely to ride on the "anti-terrorism bandwagon" of US President George W. Bush.

"Gloria will do anything that will allow her and her henchmen composed of (Executive Secretary Eduardo) Ermita, (Presidential Chief of Staff Michael) Defensor, (National Security Adviser) Norberto Gonzales, (Justice Secretary) Raul Gonzalez, (Armed Forces chief Generoso) Senga and (Philippine National Police) chief Arturo Lomibao to capitalize on the US anti-terrorism bandwagon," Sison said.

"Look, she even had one of her closest friends arrested on some old rebellion charge," he noted.

When asked which friend he meant, Sison spoke of the long-standing friendship between Mrs. Arroyo and Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, one of the "Batasan Five" congressmen who were accused of rebellion.

Sison said Mrs. Arroyo and Ocampo, a left-leaning lawmaker, have known each other since the ’70s and are quite close.

"They have a history of close association that stemmed from their membership days in APCU (Association of Philippine-Chinese Understanding)," Sison said.

Just fight, fight, fight – no more talk! BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

Just fight, fight, fight – no more talk!

BY THE WAY

By Max V. Soliven

The Philippine Star 06/19/2006

The President assured me there will be no more peace talks or attempts to compromise with the Communist New People’s Army or any parleys with the radical Leftists in our midst. We had a private dinner Friday night with only three present in the home of a mutual friend in Makati shortly after she returned from Isabela. The only other person present as a participant was our STAR colleague, Mr. Babe Romualdez. Our host asked not to be identified.

Although a number of matters were discussed at our meeting, almost everything said was "off the record" – particularly those concerning appointments to the diplomatic corps, the Cabinet, etc.

While we were meeting, I received an overseas call from our STAR European Bureau Chief V. Gomez Massart in Brussels. She had just spoken with Communist Party and NPA "Supremo" Jose Ma Sison who’s been the Communist insurgency from his safe bolthole in Utrecht, Holland – thousands of miles away from the Philippine battlefront.

Correspondent Massart, who operates out of Paris and Brussels, got Joma Sison’s "instant" reaction to what President GMA had stated earlier in Manila, and even her remarks in Kauayan, Isabela (talk about Sison having spies and informers in the field here). The Communist-NDF Chieftain had snarled on the phone that GMA was only utilizing him as a hate-object and attacking the NPA to distract public attention from her own sins and "corruption."

Vi was surprised to learn that I happened to be with the President at that moment. With GMA’s consent I handed the cellphone to her and I guess Massart briefed her personally on the "reaction" in Europe.

In any event, La Presidenta is right. No more temporizing with the likes of Joma and his murderous NPA terrorists who’ve cost the lives of thousands, including a majority of innocent civilians, and been bloodsucking hundreds of millions of pesos from people and corporations under the guise of "progressive" or "revolutionary" taxes. It’s blackmail, coercion, extortion – and assassination. That’s all they did while pretending to talk "peace" here and haughtily snubbing our over-eager panelists in Oslo. Enough time, and enough lives wasted. Our government ought to just go – get them!

* * *

That P1 billion GMA boasted she had given the military to boost their capability is just a drop in the bucket.

What the Commander-in-Chief added, however, made some sense. She told me that Friday night that she’d like to give more, and in increasing allocations, but she had to observe the military’s ability "to absorb" each sum, without their wasting it or squandering the new funds away on the wrong "priorities" or procurements.

I’m still for that one-time, immediately allotted P100 billion budget so our armed forces can re-equip, recruit and retrain. Then, with the armed forces in tiptop condition, let’s unleash them on the insurgents and crush rebellion once and for all. Not in two years, or three as so often "promised."

The President responded that she’s trying to mobilize such a sum, but her first priority still must be Education. I couldn’t disagree. Education is a must – and we’ve fallen far behind.

"Back to English" she pointed out is still her goal, she noted. Then, wistfully enough, she added she wished we could also "go back to Spanish."

I informed her that Spanish Ambassador Ignacio Sagaz had said to me just the other week that he had "the funds" to underwrite Spanish teaching in the Philippines. He only wanted to make sure that they are properly applied. To which GMA replied: "Let him get Spain to send us the teachers," immediately proposing that she would get the appropriate support from our government to bring such a program into operation.

Sad to say, we don’t have any Spanish-speaking teachers available here. Okay, we have a few which can be counted on the fingers of four or five hands. Spanish teachers? We’re woefully short of English-speaking teachers. Just give our supervisors, principals and teachers in the public school system a test. Betcha you’d be surprised how many would flunk English 1.

* * *

It’s interesting to note that United States President George W. Bush’s approval ratings have bounced upwards, from their all-time low of 31 percent last May to – sanamagan – 36 percent this weekend. Not only that, a Fox News poll showed a "rebound" in Republican Party support. In short, Bush is up in support within his own party from 71 percent last month to 82 percent this month. And, by golly, even on Iraq: A Wall Street Journal survey reported a big jump in confidence that US involvement in battered Iraq would be successful – up a surprising 11 percent in just a week to 54 percent.

A week of good news had made a difference of 6 to 8 points, declared Stephen Ross, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution exclaimed. "I have been surprised at how much wiggle room there is in public opinion on Iraq!"

In sum, Bush simply hunkered down and rode out the bad spell in his ratings. His improved poll numbers, of course, owes a great deal to the killing of Iraq’s most dreaded murderer, bomb-disperser and scalawag, the Jordanian-born scumbug Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, whose location US planes pinpointed enabling them to attack and bomb the gutter rat into Terrorist Paradise. Bush has apparently reacquired a spring in his step, and his almost shattered poise. It may be a small victory, but small victories are a quantum jump when you’re in the dumps.

La Gloria might take a leaf from her friend, Mr. Bush – who seems to like her a lot despite her abandoning him in Iraq over the threatened beheading of OFW Angelo de la Cruz. Don’t try to please everybody. Just do your best, and God will do the rest.

GMA continues to believe that Divine Providence helps and protects her. She reiterated that thought last Friday during a relaxed moment in our discussions. Yes, God helps – but here on earth we must do our part. Often, the painful part.

* * *

There is an urgent need as I’ve said too often, for one thing: for Filipinos to learn to love one another. We continue to be a nation in the process of fragmentation.

Fortunately, Filipinos gripe more than they really "fragment." Look around you – we’re still a happy people.

But gee whiz! Another "impeachment case?" Have our lawyers got nothing more productive to do? Being a person of limited vision, I tend to confine my judgments to what I personally observe. I observe that we have lost a great many of our Middle Class (that so-called ‘backbone of the nation’) who are now waving their much sought-after Green Cards in the United States of America or are rampantly T.N.T. (tago ng tago) in Canada, or being harassed (unless they’re nurses) by the British Home Office in the United Kingdom.

It’s a "Green Card" no longer. The new "alien" registration cards are white, with a blue stripe in front and a lot of computer numbers at the back. This is because of the many fake Green Cards which have been manufactured by clever forgers in Mexico.

We have lost – at least temporarily – a significant proportion of our Working Class who are toiling away in that magic land collectively known as "Saudi" (which is mostly desert but oozing with Petrodollars). No less than 4 million Filipinos are sweating it out in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Iraq and Iran and sundry unpronounceable barrens of the Middle East – plus Nigeria and other countries of Black Africa – so as to be able to send home approximately $16 billion (by bank or blackmarket) to their struggling families in the urban or rural barrios.

We have not, of course, completely lost our Upper Class. But these "fortunates" belong to that wealthy breed rich enough to hedge their bets: they maintain residences or apartments in both the Philippines and some foreign destination within convenient reach of their Swiss bank accounts, their safety deposit boxes in Liechtenstein and Hong Kong, or their tax havens in the Bahamas, not to mention a number of very visible investments in Taipei. They are the First Class commuters on every outbound jetliner, if they do not own executive jet aircraft of their own, ready for fast refueling and a fast get-away. We have even lost an appreciable segment of our Peasant Class.

Many of our farmers attracted by the proverbial bright lights of the Big City, have abandoned the plow and streamed into Metro Manila, hoping to find the streets paved with gold only to discover festering slums, squatter shanty-towns, and a descending spiral of poverty and despair. They end up too proud or too broke to return to the provinces of their origin.

Yet, we are "better off" than most nations on the spinning surface of this perplexed globe, caught in the vise of terrorism, or fear of terrorism and an energy crunch. But this is because God gave us good green earth, abundant rainfall and sunlight, seven-thousand islands teeming with untapped resources, and an archipelago without Winter or the threat of warlike neighbors right smack against our borders. The tragedy is that we have squandered the gifts of this paradise and the native born talents of our people. What is lacking, I submit, is not opportunity, but love.

I must confess to being old-fashioned. Positively ante-deluvian in many of my beliefs – but I hope not obsolete. In our computer age which worships the "new", I feel there is a pressing need to reaffirm our faith in old values – such as those outmoded and unfashionable concepts of honor, truth and loyalty which appear to have been shoved aside by man’s shining, modern technology. (This technology which so awes us because it advances at an ever-accelerating and dizzying pace.)

Faster and faster we go. Today’s generation of computers, we know, will be superseded by tomorrow’s as surely as night follows day. Our children learn the difference between "hardware" and "software" with their mother’s milk. The British used to assert that "the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." (A reference to how the Duke of Wellington and his corps of officers were trained as young men in the skills and discipline that defeated Napoleon.) Tomorrow’s battles are being fought by the kids of this day on the fields of iPOD, Apple etc.

Let us bring our children back to earth. To home and the heartland. To the love of this country which Jose Rizal prophetically called "our Eden lost."

What shall we try to teach them?

There used to be an honorable word, "patriotism," which was demeaned during the early Macapagal era by the triumphant Liberals anxious to recruit Nacionalistas to their ranks by decking "turncoatism" out in the bright and gleaming armor of this term. The Nacionalistas, in their turn, destroyed the meaning of "gentleman’s agreement" (which is, after all, only the clumsy English outgrowth of palabra de honor or "word of honor"). A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and gentlemen’s agreements fall flat on their face when one of those involved in the pact is not a gentleman.

Then there is another Spanish term, so familiar to our fathers, which is no longer in use. This is "delicadeza" which defies precise translation but means a "sense of propriety" or a respect for what is right and proper. (Something like that bit about the need for Caesar’s wife not only to be virtuous, but to appear virtuous.

Caesars’ wives nowadays are mainly concerned, it seems, in appearing powerful and rich).

Another idea which has seen better days is "nationalism." The extremists and radicals have stolen it and claimed monopoly of ownership on it so as to proclaim, falsely and unfairly, that everything "native" is good and every thing "foreign" or "alien" is bad. Truth, for instance, belongs to all mankind. Justice is indivisible. Freedom is not negotiable. While "color" is simply an accident of genes and skin pigmentation. And what is the color of the human soul?

Having said this, it only remains to declare that our salvation as a people lies in bringing our children up to cherish those virtues that we seem to have discarded along with our old hand cranked gramophones and our women’s panuelos of pina and sinamay cloth honor, loyalty, patriotism, nationalism – and love of neighbor.

I’ve quoted that philosopher of the paradox G.K. Chesterton ad nauseam, so I might as well be consistent. He put it well:

"They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named;

Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed."

I pray that we Filipinos will stand up to be counted among the "we" who are not ashamed of honor, and not "they" who twist things beyond decent shape.

I don’t mean to insult those fleeing to America, Europe, or Australia to seek a "better" life. I do not mean to decry those who have left, and those who have plans of leaving. But how shall we progress if, year after year, we lose so many of our best and brightest to the "developed" world where our engineers become auto mechanics, our teachers become chamber-maids, our graduates of commerce or literature become waiters and dishwashers, and our lawyers become insurance salesmen? Who can blame them? The pay is good. If they remain in the Philippines, they are not even paid in the coin of gratitude.

And yet, perhaps that is what patriotism, and love of country, and a sense of nationhood are all about. Among other things we are called on to sacrifice today’s profit as an investment in tomorrow’s aspirations.

In mid-November many years ago while in London, we heard Mass one Sunday in a charming little church just old Oxford street and Edgeware road, the Church of the Anunciation. By coincidence it was England’s Memorial Day in which the British commemorate their dead, those fallen in all their wars. The altar was awash in Bishops and vicars and deacons – there were almost as many people beyond the communion rail as in the congregation. At half-time, the Bishop mounted the pulpit and began his brief but eloquent sermon with a quotation from the Roman poet Horace. "It is noble and fitting that a man should die for his country."

As America’s tragic President, John F. Kennedy (a far cry from Teddy) pointed out in his bestselling book, "Profiles in Courage", it is equally noble and fitting – and even more difficult – for a man to live for his country. Dying in battle, JFK wisely asserted, takes the courage of a moment. Living for one’s country, coping with the challenge and temptations that spring forth to beset and bedevil you from day to day, requires a continuing and persistent courage.