Savage

"Savage"

"A couple of radio deejays who were engaged in banter suddenly turned solemn and could not find the words to express their shock and revulsion at what had just happened. What had happened was the massacre at Mumbai wreaked by, well, most of the witnesses referred to them as mere “kids” or “boys,” no one possibly older than 25, who went about their business without thought or compunction. At the time the deejays talked about it, the first wave of news was just streaming in, with all its images of carnage and, it seemed at the time, a city in flames.

"True enough, words fail to describe the horror of the event. And even more the kinds of emotions it brings out in us. It was all the two deejays could do to take in the enormity of it. “How can anyone do this?” one of them asked. “It’s just totally mad,” the other replied. And they went on to talk about the utter perversity that informs acts of terrorism. And as acts of terrorism goes, they said, this one ranks high up there.

"You can understand the sentiments. Anyone who saw the news that day, particularly those who have Indian friends or kin in India, would have been speechless at the savageness of it. Some things are simply alien to human conduct, and despite India’s often bloody history and the savage rituals of its arcane cults, a monstrous thing like this happening to it in this day and age boggles the mind. Particularly when India, like China, is well on its way to becoming an economic power to go with its being an ancient civilization.

"Truly you have to wonder how people can be so lacking in human empathy that they can gun down men and women while they go about their daily lives, laughing, loving, wondering what meal they would prepare for their families when they get home. Many of those who died were in the platform of a station waiting for their trains to arrive.

"Horror amid normality, extraordinary mayhem amid ordinary life, the sudden visitation of death amid the fullness of life—all these have been known to happen. Disasters do that. A train wreck, a violent earthquake, or a vicious hurricane, does that. But for human beings to do that, willfully, deliberately, methodically—that is the truly horrific thing about it, the lack of passion or emotion with which the killers killed, like the Nazis gassing the Jews in the gas chambers wondering how many lamp shades they could make with their hides—you stand in absolute disbelief in the face of it.

"Terrorists do the terrifying things to try to send a message to their presumed oppressors. Which is that, “Anything you can do, we can do worse. Any act of atrocity you can commit, we can make more atrocious.” But at the very least, the problem with that logic is that it doesn’t sell with the victims, who are the innocent. It not only doesn’t sell with the kin of the dead, who can only call on heaven to rain upon you the worst evils to be found in hell, it doesn’t sell with the public who cannot possibly find anything in common with you to bind them to, or make them sympathize with, your cause. Acts of terrorism do not weaken the enemy, they strengthen them.

"At the very most, it hides the oppression and atrocity of the enemy by making your own oppressiveness and atrociousness the only thing the world can see. Some acts are just too savage, too unspeakable, for words. The Abu Sayyaf beheads several soldiers, and the world forgets the atrocities of the government in Muslim Mindanao, or indeed the atrocity that is government’s treatment of Muslim Mindanao. And why not? The sight of the headless and mutilated bodies of human beings is a blinding spotlight that turns everything around it dark.
Which is deeply tragic because the oppression and the atrocity of those that stoke the fires of terrorism are very often real enough. Terrorism strengthens its enemy not just physically but morally, by blotting out that enemy’s oppression and atrocity, rendering its enemy free to commit oppression and atrocity anew, this time in the name of fighting the very thing it spawned. An atrocity that is visible will always command the world’s attention while an atrocity that is invisible will always be overlooked. A carnage wreaked barbarically will always horrify while mass murder wrought civilized-ly will always mollify.

"It’s human nature, but a sad commentary on it. Because as has been asked in poetry and song and the wailing of the bereaved, is there really any moral, philosophical, ethical, religious, conceptual, rational, goddamn difference between murder wreaked from the skies, as Graham Nash puts it in a song, and murder wreaked on the ground?

"Murder wreaked from the skies is in fact more mind-boggling in quantity, if not in quality. You do not see the “perps,” as law enforcement agencies call them in movies, nor do the “perps” see their victims (they are just bleeps on the radar screen), but the results of their actions are just as grim, just as blood-spattered, just as inhuman. Just look at the sight of the mothers and fathers sobbing out their grief from the scattered remains of their children after US warplanes bombed out an Iraqi hospital during the first days of the invasion.

"What makes the Mumbai massacre doubly terrifying is the method in the madness, the willful, deliberate and methodical way it was carried out. But as willfulness, deliberateness, and method go, can there anything be more so than the destruction of homes and the annihilation of civilians wrought from decisions made in war rooms, the “perps” armed only with consoles like those to be found in gaming arcades? Yet seeing the one, we are at a loss to find words to condemn it, while not seeing the other, we are at a loss only to find the words to grasp it.

"It is human nature, but truly a sad, sad commentary on it."

-Conrado de Quiros-

Radical change for the Philippines

"if the good bishops sincerely want radical change, if they really want to uproot corruption, why are they barking up a single leader?"

-Pompeyo S. Pedroche

"The day we feel about the theft of P728 million, which comes from our blood, sweat, and tears, the way we feel about the theft of our wallets and cell phones is the day we start rewarding the just and punishing the wicked. The day we wake up to the fact that the theft of 105,000 euros is related to a child not being able to go to school as cause is to effect is the day we stop having Senate hearings on corruption and malfeasance.
Stop and smell the roses? Stop and smell the gutter!"

- Conrado de Quiros

These are painful truth. Radical change is impossible for one person. Although a person could attribute to change the world. But we have to see the grand design of this tapestry. Each of us is just a single thread. If one is to change, the change would be unnoticeable.

This country has changed presidents a few times already and it seems that they never could never sing in the right key. Now why is that? Maybe it's because we're not playing the right notes. We complain and protest about these "traditional politicians" but have we ever stopped to protest our selfish and dumb outlook?

The truth is, If GMA would step down, (though I doubt that power hungry impostor would) we will still end up with our same selves Looking out for number one. And after GMA is out of the picture, what next? Another politician is going to take her place and we're gonna end up finding another reason not to like him/her.

Most people nowadays are like this, "as long as it doesn't hit me directly, I could live with that." Really? This is our government. The point is this is OURS. We are directly affected because it governs our country, nation and all that. And it is yours.

To change the way we are governed, we should first be changed ourselves. If we are sick and tired of the oppression, lies and corruption, why do we think it's only by the government? Do you not lie to get yourself out of trouble? Do you not sneak an extra minute in your cigarette brake? Do you not keep the extra pesos that the jeepney driver gave you by mistake? Do you try and look for the person who drops their 20-peso bill? Do you not leave your food wrapper lying around after eating in a fast food joint? Do you not download mp3 through the Internet for free? Do you not refuse to give up your seat on the LRT/MRT for another? Do you say you are a student to avail the jeepney fare discount even though yo are not? Have you never cheated in an exam or game in your whole life?

If you answered no to all of these,(be honest) maybe you should be the president then.

I'm not saying that the president is a good person. Fuck it, she's a monster. But if we want change and get rid of corruption, then let it begin with us. Let's not be selfish. Let's not be ignorant of the laws and actually abide by them. Let's not be corrupt. Let's be honest as we want the government to be. That means to stand and be accountable for all the wrongs you have done and not be sore if we are not recognized y the good we have done. But be content with the fact that you are doing the right things, for the right cause in the right ways. So unless we get rid of the traditional Filipino attitude, our hopes to get rid of the "trapo" will remain a fleeing illusion to be pursued but never attain. And the hopes of the Philippines that is free from oppression, corruption and war will be a dream that cannot come true.

-Orville "chubby" Basas

"Karma" by conrado de quiros

[this was the most exciting thing I've seen today. it is really awesome when someone notices the pretentious and tells the truth freely]

MIRIAM DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO has an explanation for why she lost her bid to become one of the 15 members of the International Court of Justice despite the frenzied efforts of no less than her commander in chief to shove her there. "It was a hard campaign, but ultimately it was a power game," she said. "[The UN] keeps advocating gender balance but now in the ICJ there are 15 judges without a single woman judge. This shows the UN does not advance international interests as much as the national interests of powerful countries."

Well, if it so, what of it? Power game is all Santiago knows, power game is all she plays. I remember again her sly comment about why Ronaldo Puno is so malakas with all the presidents. We might ask her the same thing. Why is she so malakas with all the presidents, except Fidel Ramos?

The most dramatic instance of it is her being malakas with both Erap and GMA, who are mortal enemies. With the guy she (and Juan Ponce Enrile) defended from being found guilty during the impeachment trial and the gal she (and Enrile) defends from being impeached today. With the guy she (and Juan Ponce Enrile) drove a mob to storm Malacañang for, shouting "Sugod! Sugod!" and the gal she (and Enrile) is driving an angry people away from Malacañang for, shouting "Urong! Urong!" With the guy she (and Enrile) vowed undying loyalty to then and the gal she (and Enrile) vows undying loyalty to now.

Power play did her in at the UN? Nakarma siya.

But even power play isn't so easy to buy. That presupposes the UN took Santiago's bid seriously, or paid any notice to her sponsor, the most dysfunctional ruler of the most dysfunctional country in Asia, recommending her to their attention. We have only her and GMA's word on it, and they both have yet to show they have a firm grasp of reality, never mind a capacity to tell the truth.

Quite simply, why in the world, physical or metaphysical, known or unknown, would any international body having remotely to do with law and justice want to include Santiago in its ranks? Being a man or woman has nothing to do with it, being a champion of justice or not has everything to do with it. The title of the organization is the "International Court of Justice," it is not the "International Court of Jesters."

What are Santiago's qualifications that should endear her to jurists? In sense and sensibility, in IQ and EQ, in mind and in body, she is no more and no less only than that other Filipino who has the word "justice" tacked to his name: Raul Gonzalez. Would you imagine Gonzalez qualified to judge the world? In fact, would you imagine him qualified to clean your toilet? By the same token, would you hire Santiago to do either one of those tasks?

In fact, like Gonzalez and their common boss, the only thing Santiago knows is to try to look, and sound, important. She is not. She has neither the academic nor the juridical accomplishment, the legal nor moral stature, to commend her to any body that takes law and justice seriously, let alone an international one. On the contrary, she has all the baggage to commend her to the nation as a negative example: Huwag tularan! Look upon her and despair.

I will not go again into her record of power-playing, of defending perfidy and wrongdoing in the Senate. That is plain for all the world to see, which the world probably has. Suffice it to marvel here at the breathtaking heights of delusion Santiago and GMA have reached, imagining they can take their sister act to the world stage and somehow get rave reviews.

It's not so hard to see why GMA should campaign long and hard to get someone who once tried to oust her, and who even dared authorities to arrest her for it, to a position of authority in the world's courts. It should come in handy when GMA is out of power and is being hounded for the "culture of impunity" she unleashed upon this land. Like Ferdinand Marcos, she can be haled to the international courts for it. Like Marcos she can be found guilty for it. Like Marcos, she can be made to pay for it.

Although if that is the case, you have to wonder why GMA should trust the one person who vowed undying loyalty to the president she replaced until he was out of power to do that for her when she too is out of power. But, well, that's another one whose karma will come. And soon.

Meanwhile, you have to marvel at the cheekiness of it. This country has distinguished itself in the first decade of this millennium only for the most unflattering things. For having one of the most corrupt governments in Asia, for having one of the most illegitimate rulers in Asia, and for having one of the most vicious rules in Asia, reviving and rivaling the murder and mayhem of Marcos' times. And yet Gloria and Miriam flatter themselves that they can stride into the world and bedazzle it with their wit and charm, or what they deem to be so. That is not audacity, that is brain damage.

It's almost as if, having gotten used to getting their way with this country, who cares whether the public likes it or not, they have the power the people do not, they figure they can get their way with the world, too. It's almost as if, having gotten used to fooling all their countrymen all the time (or at least most of them), they figure they can fool all the world all the time, too. It's almost as if, having gotten used to bamboozling a people who have grown too tired to protest inanity and iniquity and stupidity, if at all they can still distinguish them from reason and decency and justice, they figure they can power-play the world into submission, too.

As a Filipino, I am deeply shamed that I have these people to speak in my name at this time of my life, at any time in my life. Not all the karma that befalls them will be able to dispel that.

-Conrado de Quiros
the philippine daily inquirer
november 12, 2008