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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| One Brave Man By Antonio C. Abaya Written July 19, 2006 For the Standard Today July 20 issue Recent events have proved at least thing. Paraphrasing one American senator in the early 1980s who characterized us Filipinos as 60 million cowards afraid of one son-of-a-bitch, we can say that we may be a nation of 84 million cowards, but there are at least one brave man among us. Perhaps even two. In a video clip that was meant to be telecast on ABC Channel 5 last Feb. 24 � at the height of recent efforts to overthrow President Arroyo - but for obvious reasons was not aired until last week,(on another channel, ANC), Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, commanding officer of the elite Scout Rangers regiment, read a statement that said in part that our country was now in�. �A crisis of extreme proportions. The entire system has broken down, thanks to a president whose legitimacy has been denied by a vast majority of the people. �In her mad desire for power, she has corrupted and destroyed all institutions, she has promoted a policy of loot and plunder, while hypocritically announcing a war against corruption.� She has �corrupted Supreme Court justices, the Commission on Elections, the mass media, some members of the military, the police and the clergy, and teachers who counted the votes in the 2004 elections. �Pursuant therefore to our constitutional duty as protector of the people and the state, we have today withdrawn our support from Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in order to end her unconstitutional and illegal occupation of the presidency.� Lim also stated that the AFP would monitor law and order and leave the business of running the government to �professionally competent, morally upright, patriotic, trustworthy and self-sacrificing Filipinos whom we now invite to form a new government.� (All quotes attributed to Lim are from the Philippine Daily Inquirer, July 05, 2005) I say Gen Lim is, �perhaps,� a brave man because the video footage in which the above statements were made was scrapped from being telecast on Feb. 24, when he and his handlers thought their choreographed mutiny by Rangers, Marines and police Special Forces was not going to succeed, and was actually telecast some five months later when the government is building a legal case against him and his fellow-conspirators for coup d�etat, mutiny or whatever. Will he stand by his original denunciation of President Arroyo. Or will he now sing a different tune in order to save his skin? Is he a man or a mouse? The person whom I would consider a brave man in this episode is Roy Seneres, former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (whom I first met in Abu Dhabi in 1996, when I was a guest of the UAE government.) Seneres has openly admitted his complicity in the effort to convince Gen. Lim and other disaffected military officers �to withdraw their support� from President Arroyo and her government. Said Seneres: �I admit it�There is nothing illegal, nothing immoral in what they did. You can�t do anything wrong if you�re fighting evil. �I was one of those who encouraged Gen. Lim to withdraw support. I personally saw him and other officers of the AFP in the middle of last year.� Seneres named some of those from the private sector whom he claimed were involved in the Feb. 24 plot: former Executive Secretary Oscar Orbos, former Defense Secretary Renato de Villa, ABC-5 chairman Antonio �Tonyboy� Cojuangco, construction magnate F. F. Cruz, Jr., and old-rich scion Inigo Zobel. �The reason I�m naming names is (that) they should come out in the open and admit (that) they encouraged Lim. What they did is patriotic. Why shouldn�t the military break the chain of command when the government is very crooked. �My point is, all the backers of Gen. Lim should now come out in the open. They cannot fight evil under cover of darkness. If the president wants to put us in jail, let her try, but she can�t do it because we�re too many.� Too many? Orbos and De Villa have denied any involvement in the alleged plot. So have businessmen Cruz, Cojuangco and Zobel (from the distant safety of Spain). If Seneres goes to jail for this, he may be all by his brave self. Unless he elects to save his skin by turning state witness against his erstwhile co-conspirators. But, of course, some people will not believe these denials. Just as many did not believe the alibis of Peping Cojuangco and Pastor Saycon that they met with more than a dozen trapos and businessmen in the former�s house on Feb 23, the evening before the projected Feb 24 �withdrawal of support� by Gen. Lim and others, merely to discuss preparations for the 20th anniversary celebrations of EDSA 1. According to Nelly Sindayen, TIME�s Manila correspondent, who was apparently invited to record the event for posterity so that the credits are properly attributed, Saycon talked on the phone to someone code-named Delta who, Sindayen said, was Gen. Lim. See my article A TIMEly Story of Feb. 28, 2006. De Villa, for his part, was openly named last year as chairman of the �Solitary transition council� � and was going around, telling media and others of his top billing in this council being stitched together by Boy Morales, chief political lieutenant of deposed President Joseph Estrada, which was/is meant to take over government once President Arroyo was overthrown. De Villa was also quoted by the Inquirer that he would refuse to join this council if CPP founding chair Joma Sison were made a member of it. Which means there was indeed a move on the part of Morales (co-founder of the NDF) to include Sison, Morales� former Supremo in the communist movement, in Solidarity. No wonder Sison endorsed Solidarity and issued a statement that the CPP/NDF would rather negotiate with this future �transition council� than with the Arroyo government. But now that Solidarity has been effectively squelched, Sison and his Utrecht mafia are frantically trying to resume negotiations with the Arroyo government. Continued Seneres: �I know for a fact (that) Orbos was offered a part in the transition council, I endorsed Orbos to head the transition council. I did not endorse De Villa because of his leadership style. He is �teka-teka� (indecisive) In the December 1989 coup attempt by Gringo Honasan and others against President Aquino, Inigo Zobel and his late father Enrique Zobel were mentioned in media as among the many businessmen who supported the coup. In that coup attempt, then Col. Danny Lim was in command of the Scout Rangers that took control of the Makati business district � specifically the Hotel Intercontinental and the Atrium building on Makati Avenue - for several days. The coup fizzled out when two unmarked US Navy F-4 Phantom jets from Subic overflew Metro Manila and prevented the rebel air force, based in Sangley Point, from supporting the ground units that had taken over Makati. Retired Maj. Abraham Puruganan, who was then Danny Lim�s second-in-command, said recently on TV that Gen. Lim was being used in 2006 by opposition trapos and businessmen the way he and Lim were used in 1989 by opposition trapos and businessmen. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Cojuangco is chair of ABC-5 and could not have but known of the existence of the tape even if he may have had nothing to do with its production. Said Seneres: �I know for a fact that (Cojuangco) tried to suppress the tape. He thought it won�t come out anyway, so we were all surprised it came out. But maybe a technician got (hold of) a copy and sold it to ABS-CBN.� �Also, Felipe Cruz Jr. and Inigo Zobel.. They�re part of the withdrawal of support (plot). I had a meeting with them in the mansion of F. F. Cruz in Forbes Park.� (All quotes attributed to Seneres are from the Inquirer of July 06.) Roy Seneres is to be congratulated for his candor and bravery in admitting his participation in the plot, even if all his alleged co-conspirators have denied theirs. It is Roy�s word against theirs. I believe Roy�s. Seneres claims no crime was committed by the military rebels in plotting to withdraw support from the Commander-in-Chief, or by him and his alleged co-conspirators in encouraging them to do so. I am not a lawyer, but I do think that when a military officer withdraws his support, or plots to withdraw his support, from the c-in-c, that officer is committing an act of mutiny, or is planning to commit an act of mutiny, whether or not the plot succeeds. Seneres is right. Under the present circumstances, encouraging withdrawal of support from an unpopular regime is a patriotic act. But only if it succeeds. If it fails, it becomes a criminal act. History and the Law are always written by the victors. ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles since 2001 at www.tapatt.org. Current articles also at tonyabaya.multiply.com and at tapatt.yahoogroups.com OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| Reactions to �One Brave Man� Tony: "Withdrawal of support" from the c-in-c by a member of the armed forces like Lim is at most an act of disobedience--push ups as penalty would do. Disaffected ordinary citizens like Seneres who openly "withdraw" their support from the President simply means that they have joined the opposition. But it would be unfair, if not shameful, if a member of the armed forces who "withdraws" his support continues to "withdraw" his SALARY and expects to be a millionaire retiree soon from the taxes paid by ordinary citizens who have not withdrawn their support from an unpopular President. Domingo T. Arong, [email protected], July 23, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww "I am not a lawyer, but I do think that when a military officer withdraws his support, or plots to withdraw his support, from the c-in-c, that officer is committing an act of mutiny, or is planning to commit an act of mutiny, whether or not the plot succeeds." Dear Mr. Abaya: Based on the your above-quoted statement that any withdrawal of support from the C-in-C by a military officer is an act of mutiny, did you mean to include the withdrawal of support by Gen. Angelo Reyes and his group of generals in 2001 (from Estrada) and Gen. Fidel Ramos, Rudolfo Biazon, Col. Gringo Honasan, etc. in 1986 (from Marcos)? Tony Figueroa, [email protected], July 24, 2006 MY REPLY. Yes. As I wrote at the end of the article, if the mutiny succeeds, it becomes a patriotic act. If it fails, the mutiny becomes a criminal act. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww . Mr. Abaya, As the saying goes, success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan. Mr. Roy Seneres should have known better. Cesar Torres, San Francisco, [email protected], July 24, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, Many thanks for this detailed and informative email. I congratulate General Danilo Lim and former Ambassador Roy Seneres and any one that has had the courage to speak up at a time that our Constitution has been violated by non-other than President GMA, General Reyes, Justice Davide. I recall EDSA II was in violation of our Constitution when President Joseph Estrada was removed from Malacanang in 2001, as well as the cheating in the 2004 elections against the late Fernando Poe Jr. evidenced in the 'Hello Garci' tapes. God Bless all of you that have the moral courage to speak up. Yours for a better Philippines, Jaime Calero, [email protected], Sydney, Australia, July 25, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, I would be honored to sit with you in a prison cell should GMA decide to silence and lock us all up. But you may be right. This could be a small cell that would fit not too many. Gico Dayanghirang , [email protected], Davao City, July 14, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww In a message dated 7/26/2006 4:21:31 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: ***** History and the Law are always written by the victors. ***** How right you are, Mr. Abaya. Is this another way of saying "The end justifies the means, only if one wins"? Rog Tengco, [email protected], July 26, 2006 MY REPLY. Because if you lose, you go to Jail or pay the Penalty. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (This article was emailed to Tapatt by Sigfrid Zialcita)) This article was written by an American, Barth Suretsky. His observations are interesting and his comments about our culture and his respect and love of the Philippines are nicely written. Due to the worsening situation in our country, let's hope this will make an impact on other Filipinos who read it... *BE PROUD TO BE A FILIPINO* By Barth Suretsky Undated My decision to move to Manila was not a precipitous one. I used to work in New York as an outside agent for PAL, and I have been coming to the Philippines since August, 1982. I was so impressed with the country, and with the interesting people I met, some of which have become very close friends to this day, that I asked for and was granted a year's sabbatical from my teaching job in order to live in the Philippines. I arrived here on August 21, 1983, several hours after Ninoy Aquino was shot, and remained here until June of 1984. During that year I visited many parts of the country, from as far north as Laoag to as far south as Zamboanga, and including Palawan. I became deeply immersed in the history and culture of the archipelago, and an avid collector of tribal antiquities from both northern Luzon, and Mindanao. In subsequent years I visited the Philippines in 1985, 1987, and 1991, before deciding to move here permanently in 1998. I love this country, but not uncritically, and that is the purpose of this article. First, however, I will say that I would not consider living anywhere else in Asia, no matter how attractive certain aspects of other neighboring countries may be. To begin with, and this is most important, with all its faults, the Philippines is still a democracy, more so than any other nation in Southeast Asia. Despite gross corruption, the legal system generally works, and if ever confronted with having to employ it, I would feel much more safe trusting the courts here than in any other place in the surrounding area. The press here is unquestionably the most unfettered and freewheeling in Asia, and I do not believe that is hyperbole in any way! And if any one thing can be used as a yardstick to measure the extent of the democratic process in any given country in the world, it is the extent to which the press is free. But the Philippines is a flawed democracy nevertheless, and the flaws are deeply rooted in the Philippine psyche. I will elaborate... The basic problem seems to me, after many years of observation, to be a national inferiority complex, a disturbing lack of pride in being Filipino. Toward the end of April I spent eight days in Vietnam, visiting Hanoi, Hue, and Ho Chi Minh City. I am certainly no expert on Vietnam, but what I saw could not be denied: I saw a country ravaged as no other country has been in this century by thirty years of continuous and incredibly barbaric warfare. When the Vietnam War ended in April, 1975, the country was totally devastated. Yet in the past twenty-five years the nation has healed and rebuilt itself almost miraculously! The countryside has been replanted and reforested. Hanoi and HCMC have been beautifully restored. The opera house in Hanoi is a splendid restoration of the original, modeled after the Opera in Paris, and the gorgeous Second Empire theater, on the main square of HCMC is as it was when built by the French a century ago. The streets are tree-lined, clean, and conducive for strolling. Cafes in the French style proliferate on the wide boulevards of HCMC. I am not praising the government of Vietnam, which still has a long way to travel on the road to democracy, but I do praise, and praise unstintingly, the pride of the Vietnamese people . It is due to this pride in being Vietnamese that has enabled its citizenry to undertake the miracle of restoration that I have described above. When I returned to Manila I became so depressed that I was actually physically ill for days thereafter. Why? Well, let's go back to a period when the Philippines resembled the Vietnam of 1975. It was 1945, the end of World War II, and Manila, as well as many other cities, lay in ruins. (As a matter of fact, it may not be generally known, but Manila was the second most destroyed city in the entire war; only Warsaw was more demolished!) But to compare Manila in 1970, twenty-five years after the end of the war, with HCMC, twenty-five years after the end of its war, is a sad exercise indeed. Far from restoring the city to its former glory, by 1970 Manila was well on its way to being the most tawdry city in Southeast Asia. And since that time the situation has deteriorated alarmingly. We have a city full of street people, beggars, and squatters. We have a city that floods sections whenever there is a rainstorm, and that loses electricity with every clap of thunder. We have a city full of potholes, and on these unrepaired roads we have a traffic situation second to none in the world for sheer unmanageability. We have rude drivers, taxis that routinely refuse to take passengers because of "many trappic!" The roads are also cursed with pollution-spewing buses in disreputable states of repair, and that ultimate anachronism, the jeepney! We have an educational system that allows children to attend schools without desks or books to accommodate them. Teachers, even college professors, are paid salaries so disgracefully low that it's a wonder that anyone would want to go into the teaching profession in the first place. We have a war in Mindanao that nobody seems to have a clue how to settle. The only policy to deal with the war seems to be to react to what happens daily, with no long range plan whatever. I could go on and on, but it is an endeavor so filled with futility that it hurts me to go on. It hurts me because, in spite of everything, I love the Philippines Maybe it will sound simplistic, but to go back to what I said above, it is my unshakable belief that the fundamental thing wrong with this country is a lack of pride in being Filipino. A friend once remarked to me, laconically: "All Filipinos want to be something else. The poor ones want to be American, and the rich ones all want to be Spaniards. Nobody wants to be Filipino." That statement would appear to be a rather simplistic one, and perhaps it is. However, I know one Filipino who refuses to enter a theater until the national anthem has stopped being played because he doesn't want to honor his own country, and I know another one who thinks that history stopped dead in 1898 when the Spaniards departed! While it is certainly true that these represent extreme examples of national denial, the truth is not a pretty picture. Filipinos tend to worship, almost slavishly, everything foreign. If it comes from Italy or France it has to be better than anything made here. If the idea is American or German it has to be superior to anything that Filipinos can think up for themselves. Foreigners are looked up to and idolized. Foreigners can go anywhere without question. In my own personal experience I remember attending recently an affair at a major museum here. I had forgotten to bring my invitation. But while Filipinos entering the museum were checked for invitations, I was simply waived through. This sort of thing happens so often here that it just accepted routine. All of these things, the illogical respect given to foreigners simply because they are not Filipinos, the distrust and even disrespect shown to any homegrown merchandise, the neglect of anything Philippine, the rudeness of taxi drivers, the ill-manners shown by many Filipinos are all symptomatic of a lack of self-love, of respect for and love of the country in which they were born, and worst of all, a static mind-set in regard to finding ways to improve the situation. Most Filipinos, when confronted with evidence of governmental corruption, political chicanery, or gross exploitation on the part of the business community, simply shrug their shoulders, mutter "bahala na," and let it go at that. It is an oversimplification to say this, but it is not without a grain of truth to say that Filipinos feel downtrodden because they allow themselves to feel downtrodden. No pride. One of the most egregious examples of this lack of pride, this uncaring attitude to their own past or past culture, is the wretched state of surviving architectural landmarks in Manila and elsewhere. During the American period many beautiful and imposing buildings were built, in what we now call the "art deco" style (although, incidentally, that was not a contemporary term; it was coined only in the 1960s). These were beautiful edifices, mostly erected during, or just before, the Commonwealth period. Three, which are still standing, are the Jai Alai Building, the Metropolitan Theater, and the Rizal Stadium. Fortunately, due to the truly noble efforts of my friend John Silva, the Jai Alai Building will now be saved. But unless something is done to the most beautiful and original of these three masterpieces of pre-war Philippine architecture, the Metropolitan Theater, it will disintegrate. The Rizal Stadium is in equally wretched shape. When the wreckers' ball destroyed Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, and New York City's most magnificent building, Pennsylvania Station, both in 1963, Ada Louise Huxtable, then the architectural critic of The New York Times, wrote: "A disposable culture loses the right to call itself a civilization at all!" How right she was! (Fortunately, the destruction of Pennsylvania Station proved to be the sacrificial catalyst that resulted in the creation of New York's Landmark Commission. Would that such a commission be created for Manila...) Are there historical reasons for this lack of national pride? We can say that until the arrival of the Spaniards there was no sense of a unified archipelago constituted as one country. True. We can also say that the high cultures of other nations in the region seemed, unfortunately, to have bypassed the Philippines; there are no Angkors, no Ayuttayas, no Borobudurs. True. Centuries of contact with the high cultures" of the Khmers and the Chinese had, except for the proliferation of Song dynasty pottery found throughout the archipelago, no noticeable effect. True. But all that aside, what was here? To begin with, the ancient rice terraces, now threatened with disintegration, incidentally, was an incredible feat of engineering for so-called "primitive" people. As a matter of fact, when I first saw them in 1984, I was almost as awe-stricken as I was when I first laid eyes on the astonishing Inca city of Machu Picchu, high in the Peruvian Andes. The degree of artistry exhibited by the various tribes of the Cordillera of Luzon is testimony to a remarkable culture, second to none in the Southeast Asian region. As for Mindanao, at the other end of the archipelago, an equally high degree of artistry has been manifest for centuries in woodcarving, weaving and metalwork. However, the most shocking aspect of this lack of national pride, even identity, endemic in the average Filipino, is the appalling ignorance of the history of the archipelago since unified by Spain and named Filipinas. The remarkable stories concerning the Galleon de Manila, the courageous repulsion of Dutch and British invaders from the 16th through the 18th centuries, even the origins of the Independence movement of the late 19th century, are hardly known by the average Filipino in any meaningful way. And thanks to fifty years of American brainwashing, it is few and far between the number of Filipinos who really know - or even care - about the duplicity employed by the Americans and Spaniards to sell out and make meaningless the very independent state that Aguinaldo declared on June 12, 1898. A people without a sense of history is a people doomed to be unaware of their own identity. It is sad to say, but true, that the vast majority of Filipinos fall in this category. Without a sense of who you are, how can you possibly take any pride in who you are? These are not oversimplifications. On the contrary, these are the root problems of the Philippine inferiority complex referred to above. Until the Filipino takes pride in being Filipino these ills of the soul will never be cured. If what I have written here can help, even in the smallest way, to make the Filipino aware of just who he is, who he was, and who he can be, I will be one happy expat indeed!***** Submitted by: Sigrid G. Zialcita Cushman & Wakefield 1600 Tysons Blvd, Suite 400 McLean, VA 22102 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (The following article was emailed to Tapatt) Two Book Reviews from Mind Feed MIND FEED is a new section of Global Nation that will be devoted to book reviews and scholarly articles relevant to both current and long-range national concerns, especially to Filipinos abroad. In this section, Inq7 hopes to help close knowledge gaps, provoke new thinking on old problems and dilemmas, and encourage synergies in a nation dispersed throughout the globe. We welcome your contributions. Email us at [email protected], [email protected] (All contributions are subject to editorial discretion. Published submissions reflect the opinion of the contributor and not necessarily the opinion of INQ7.net and its parent companies.) Brown Americans of Asia By Renato Perdon Reviewed by Bert M. Drona "In order to read the destiny of a people, it is necessary to open the book of its past" - Dr. Jose P. Rizal I have just finished reading two books a friend recently sent me from Australia: "Brown Americans of Asia" and "As I see It - Filipinos and the Philippines." Both books are published in Australia. I found both books (paperback) pleasantly easy to read, extremely worthwhile and thus highly recommendable. I am not in anyway a book reviewer (and I note the books have good reviews from acclaimed or known Filipinos), however I want to share here some of my impressions regarding these two books since I have found both very informative in terms of our country's history and of ourselves as a people, and because they introduced me to two Filipino writers (I confess ignorance about them.) who offer fresh insights about us Filipinos; and in addition a knowledge about Australia and Australians as they interact with us. These two paperbacks among a few other books (most especially those by the late nationalist, Prof. Renato Constantino) also directly and indirectly address the roots of our colonial mentality, our so-called "damaged culture" which results in our lack of national consciousness, national unity, dignity - and the consequent underdevelopment and more aptly, the socioeconomic regression in our homeland. The first book "Brown Americans of Asia" is by Renato Perdon, a Filipino historian based in Australia. Its catchy title, not new to the young and older Filipinos who read history, is appropriate, given the contents of the book. It book provides an excellent historical overview of our homeland, the Filipino character and culture. Though the book was originally written for Filipinos and Australians, it is also relevant and educational for any foreigner anywhere in the world who's interested in learning about Philippine history and the Filipino people. The book includes chapters on the historical linkage between Australia and our homeland and how we are perceived by Australians, then and now, coupled with profound thoughts and great information new to me and many Filipinos, I venture to guess. I feel appreciative and grateful to find them here. "Brown Americans of Asia" is divided into two parts. Part 1 deals with what Perdon tagged "Current Images;" Part 2 talks about "Historical Issues." Part 1 begins with Australian historical and present perceptions, and includes stereotyping of Filipinos in our homeland and in Australia. He discusses mixed marriages between Filipino women and Australian men and provides us with interesting commentary on the "why, what, how" of these cross-cultural marriages. Another dwells on the past and present symbols of Filipino ethnicity - our flags, food, clothing, even names. Perdon ends Part 1 by touching on our well-known image as the only Christian country in Asia and our quite unique practice of faith and religion (mainly Catholic), Church and State interaction, and the widely divisive relationship with our Muslim brothers. Part 2 gives us a good refresher course on Philippine history. It starts with the British invasion and its brief occupation of Manila in the 18th century when Manila residents were made to take an oath of allegiance to King George III. Perdon then continues to talk about the rise of national consciousness, i.e. seeing and thinking that "bayan" represents all the island territories as opposed to just that little corner of province or region where one was born and/or lives; and our forefathers' struggle mainly for political independence from the Spaniards. He also informs us about the early trade links between Australia and Spanish Philippines that began in the mid-19th century, deliberating on Australian observance and indirect participation (actually cooperation) with the invading (later occupying) Americans. Perdon also talks about Australian and British perspectives on the Philippine-American War and the British desire to purchase from and/or exchange our rich islands for the American protectorates in the Caribbean, as proposed by Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the world at the time. He then informs us about Filipino pioneers in Australia, speculating on their arrival in the 1850s; mainly on Thursday Island, the northernmost part of Queensland (I say that we Filipinos are seemingly like the Chinese in being "all over the place," most especially now that a significant number of us are forced to leave mainly by economic reasons, thanks to our traitorous leaders in the last three decades to the present). Perdon devotes the last chapter to a certain Heriberto Zarval, claimed to be the first Filipino diplomatic agent to Australia (said to be a Portuguese-Spanish-Chinese-Malay hybrid) sent by the Philippine Revolutionary Government in 1898 and who settled in Thursday Island. In sum, I find "Brown Americans of Asia" one of the better outlines on Philippine history and people because of the author's insights, his novelty of topics, the inclusion of numerous historical pictorials (first time to see such a collection) and its good bibliographical sources from Filipinos, Australians and as usual, Americans. Given its insightful scope, this book is uniquely different from the common Americanized, standardized or popularized books on Philippine history, making it worth reading and having, if only to learn about Australian-Philippine historical relationship then and now. "The HISTORY of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors." - Meridel Le Sueur, American writer, 1900-1996" *** As I See It: Filipinos and the Philippines By Pura Santillan-Castrence Reviewed by Bert M. Drona "As I See It: Filipinos and the Philippines" touched me emotionally as a person and a Filipino because its author, Pura Santillan-Castrence, wrote very personal commentaries (also with nostalgic and historic photographs) - on herself as a career woman and a parent, on our past and present Filipino society, our culture and tradition, our past and present value system, our history as a people, our future in the "old" country; its present politics and predicament. I find the author very intelligent, smart, caring, actively nationalistic and full of wisdom. An added amazement is that she has keen memory and observation, still truly cares for our homeland, lives to learn, be continually productive and contribute to our education as Filipinos despite losing her sight due to advanced age, now approaching 101 years old on March, 2006 as per the Preface! Who can beat that? It's very rare indeed that someone who knows and has lived through a full century had also observed and studied our Filipino character and society. It is also surprising to know that the author was educated and trained in Pharmacy with a Masters in Chemistry (UP) but instead became a pioneering and prolific writer and social commentator; she capped her university years with a Doctorate in Philosophy. She's also a linguist, being fluent in Spanish, French, German, and Italian in addition to English and her native Tagalog. With all these, it is not surprising that she won so many accolades in the Philippines and abroad. I am so impressed and proud of her being a Filipino. I could go on and on but you can find out all about her this book. Going back to "As I See It: Filipinos and the Philippines," Santillan-Castrence introduces us to her book of collected commentaries first on the subjects of "Family, Friends and Old Age." Here she reminisces on her past, of another milieu, another time for most of us. She talks about her family, her friendships and old age. She reminds me that my (our) learned "old" Filipino values worth keeping and, if I may add, now probably being lost in the "pop/western" influences strongly facilitated by our unquestioned copycat television programs. An observation I heartily agree with is that we Filipinos are not a 'book people.' We do not want to read. Truly, to many of us who have time and/or money to afford reading, i.e. beyond our specialized professions, preference seems to be spending leisure on purely mundane activities: making more money, partying, gossiping, shopping and other escapist pursuits. Thus, even very intelligent fellow Filipinos have stunted intellectual growth, one indication being our failure to develop critical thinking on social issues, the inability to comprehend the roots of our national predicament and by default, contributing to its perpetuity. Santillan-Castrence notes that we Filipinos used to have a high literacy rate but did not read extensively, compared to the Japanese who read widely and learned the values of social discipline and responsibility. She suggests that we learn from them. In the chapter on "Filipino Culture and Tradition," she talks about our "damaged culture," the notions of equality and identity, knowledge and wisdom, sexuality and integrity, the joy of teaching, gift-giving, language, right conduct and moral imperatives, and being old. It is so rewarding to read all about these topics because they are up front and very personal, very relevant and, most importantly, replete with wisdom, rarely attained, I think, and gained only by a good synthesis of formal/informal education, knowledge, real life experiences and, of course, longevity. Under "Philippine History," she writes about a group of women from Malolos -a group said to be commended by Jose Rizal- who wanted to learn Spanish. Interestingly, the women were taught by her uncle Teodoro Sandiko, who later left for Europe for political reasons. Thus the topic and development is also very personal to the author and very new and interesting to any reader. Another chapter is covered under "World Stage," in which Santillan-Castrence demonstrates her broad knowledge of current world affairs and world conflicts. She also reflects on materialism and spirituality, with linkages to the Dalai Lama and Buddhism, about leadership models like Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Kofi Annan, in contrast to self-righteous and bullying Americans like George W. Bush. She alludes to the Filipinos' own lack and incomplete intellectual education (beyond business/scientific/ technical specializations), humanitarian and moral. In the latter we Filipinos identify and limit morality to sexual morality, and exclude public or social morality, thus greatly contributing to the bad governance, corruption and chaos afflicting our homeland. The book ends with a remembrance of her Filipino peers or contemporaries, great literary and patriotic ones too like Salvador P. Lopez, Bienvenido Santos, Lydia Villanueva-Arguilla, Nick Joaquin, F. Sionil Jose and several others. (I am a chemical engineer, and was not really into Literature in my years in school, thus unfamiliar with most of them or their writings; but now I have leads on who to read). One of her granddaughters gives a nice description of her, followed by a list of enlightening and/or moving quotable phrases from the book. I copy and shorten some as samplers below. I think Mrs. Pura Santillan-Castrence is a Filipino treasure - her life encompasses much of our recent century and even the time of her parents, the Spanish period. I feel fortunate to have obtained a copy of her book. It made me more aware of the greatness of our Filipino heritage despite the continuing pervasiveness and destructiveness, witting or unwitting, of our colonial mentality, naivete, mendicancy and subservience, particularly to our former master, America. We really have not filtered this heritage completely out of our Filipino mind. "As I See It: Filipinos and the Philippines" is a book to read, own and pass on to our children and grandchildren. I googled to check where its available and found that it's available in Australia, England and the Philippines, but apparently not yet in the USA. Anyway, the books say the publisher is: THE MANILA PRINTS, P.O. Box 1267, Darlinghurst NSW 2010. AUSTRALIA; Tel.(02) 9313 8179. Quotations from book "As I See It: Filipinos and the Philippines:" "Many Filipinos are what I what I call Sunday-religious, that is they go to church every Sunday, take in confession and communion, but the rest of the week they bribe and do corrupt deeds..." "Certain marks of colonization are still manifested by the people. I have arbitrarily identified these marks as dependence, subservience and compromise." (I add compromise of our homeland and at our peoples' expense) "Only the strong, unrelenting efforts of Filipino people can erase the blemishes to our culture and remove the negative label attached to it. Fortunately, there are concerned Filipinos who, with all their might, attack 'these cultural damages' with the pen and the tongue. They are unrelenting." (These reviews come from Bert Drona's blog http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com.) wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (The following article was emailed to Tapatt by Perry Diaz) RIZAL, the SCIENTIST By Ben O. de Lumen Professor, Dept of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology University of California at Berkeley, CA e-mail: [email protected] Jose P. Rizal was a man of many talents and interests. For a man who lived only 35 years, his achievements are remarkable and numerous. The Rizal Centennial Commission listed 278 written works of Rizal including his two major novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. Although Rizal is well known for his literary prowess, perhaps his accomplishments as a scientist are not well publicized. At this age where science and technology play a major role in economic development, his scientific achievements are relevant and inspiring. To talk about Rizal as a scientist, it is difficult to separate Rizal the natural scientist (one who practiced the natural sciences) from Rizal the social scientist and political reformer because he believed that knowledge should be used for enlightenment and liberation and not for oppression. In his choice of medicine as a career and during his education in Europe, he never lost sight of his goal: to serve his people and liberate them from years of oppression and injustice by the Spaniards. Here are some highlights of Rizal's scientific accomplishments. After 5 years in Europe, he went home to the Philippines in 1887. He operated on his mother's eyes to remove her cataracts- the surgery was successful and was the first of its kind ever done in the Philippines. His fame as an eye doctor spread quickly and people began coming to him for treatment from all over the Philippines and even from as far away as China. He opened a clinic, sent away for equipment, charged moderate fees and treated the poor free. After only six months, Rizal had to leave the country because his novel Noli Me Tangere had circulated and the friars were out to get him. He went back to Europe via Japan and the US. Here again, Rizal made some perceptive observations of the US then. After 15 days crossing the Pacific, their ship was quarantined in San Francisco for a week although none of the passengers were sick and health clearance had been given. The authorities cited smallpox as a risk. He noted that there were a number of Chinese immigrants, the cargo silk had been unloaded without fumigation and the custom officers were not afraid to eat aboard. Rizal discovered the real reason for the quarantine. He wrote that: America was opposed to Chinese immigration and since it was election time, the administration appeared strict to the Chinese to obtain the people's votes. He took the train across the US and made a number of stops along the way. He wrote his impressions of the US: "Undoubtedly America is a great country but it still has many defects. There is no real civil liberty. In some states the Negro cannot intermarry. Because of the hatred towards the Chinese, other Asians like the Japanese, being confused with them are likewise disliked by the ignorant Americans". In London, he undertook a project that he had wanted to do. As a boy, one of his uncles told him about a book written in the 16th century by a Spaniard that gave a truthful picture about early Philippine history. All accounts he had read thus far were written by prejudiced Spaniards seeking to justify Spain's colonial rule on the ground that the natives were "child-like savages". The book Sucesos de las Islas Pilipinas written by Antonio de Morga and published in Mexico in 1609 was available only in a few libraries, and a copy was in the British Museum in London! His plan was simple. He would study Morga and other writers who dealt with pre-Spanish Philippine history, compare them all and publish a new edition of Morga, with notes and comments by himself. Thus the truth about the Philippines would become available to his people and the Europeans who had learned about the early Filipinos through the prejudiced eyes of the Spanish colonizers. Going through Morga's volumes, Rizal found that the Filipino people had been historically wronged. In the coastal regions where most of the islanders lived, their arts, industries and energy had been at a high level when the Spaniards arrived. Morga described their skills in weaving, in metal work, in agriculture, in commerce, in navigation, in government, their fine ships (better than Spain's), their busy market places, It was a civilization that Rizal and the Filipino people could be proud of. More, it cut away the basis for Spain's claim to colonial rule. Rizal wanted to give the Filipino people back their past for he believed that a people without a proper understanding of their past was a people without a future. The last major episode of his life was spent in exile in Dapitan, in northern Mindanao, where he was sent by Spanish authorities after he returned to the Philippines in 1892. As one author wrote, it was one of the most extraordinary exiles in human history. In Dapitan, there was no water system, no school, no street lighting, no hospital, the land was fertile but farming techniques were primitive. But, Rizal with his characteristic creativity and self-discipline, tackled these problems. In his four years in Dapitan: He established a large and well known medical practice where his patients come from all over the Philippines and from Hong Kong and other Asian cities. He built a hospital. He built a small house for himself and a large one for his family and visiting friends He bought lands and practiced scientific farming He set up a water supply system based on gravity He set up and taught a school for local children He paid for the first street lighting system He beautified the town plaza and a made a giant relief map of the Philippines which is still preserved today He obtained from Kalamba an improved type of fishing net that helped the Dapitan fishermen improve their catch. He imported farm machinery from the US for himself and local farmers He subscribed to the magazine Scientific American and ordered medicines and pharmaceuticals from the US He collaborated with foremost scientists from Europe at that time. With his students, he collected specimens of plants, animals and ethnographic materials from Mindanao and sent them to his colleagues in Europe Some of the animal specimens were rare and named after him: A new species of frog named Rhacophorus rizali A new species of beetle named Apogonia rizali And a new species of lizard named Draconi rizali In Dapitan, as everywhere he stayed, Rizal followed a disciplined schedule. He had a brilliant mind, but the key to his productivity was planning and self-disciplined execution. He wrote to his Austrian friend Blumentritt how he spent a typical day in Dapitan: "I get up early at 5:00, visit my fields, feed the chickens, I wake up my people and start them moving. At 7:30 we take breakfast. Afterward I treat my poor patients who come to my land. Then I dress up and go to town to treat the people there and return at 12 noon for lunch. Afterwards I teach the boys until 4:00 and I spend the afternoon farming. Evenings are used for studying and reading." Finally, Rizal shared with us his philosophy and thinking about education and science. Within the limits of the circumstances in Dapitan, Rizal gave his students the key elements of his educational goals: academic knowledge, industrial training, ethical instruction and physical development. He believed that moral values were as important as knowledge itself; indeed they were the only assurance that knowledge will be used to help and enlighten, rather than oppress men. Einstein echoed similar ideas when he addressed the students at California Institute of Technology: "Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interests of all technical endeavors - in order that the creation of our mind will be a blessing and not a curse to mankind". PS. I have used a number of books and other publications at the UC Berkeley library for this write-up. I would be happy to share these titles with anyone who wants to do further research on Rizal, the scientist. One of the few remaining original copies of Sucesos de las Islas de las Filipinas by A. Morga annotated by Rizal is at the rare book collection of UC Berkeley Bancroft library. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (The following article was emailed to Tapatt) The Harry Stonehill and Dado Macapagal Story Harry Stonehill was just about the most successful American businessman in the Philippines when Diosdado Macapagal ran for the presidency of the country. Coming out of World War II as an American soldier, Harry built a business empire and owned, among other things, the US Tobacco Corporation. He also owned most of the politicians as evidenced by his "blue book" that had names, dates and amounts listed neatly. With Macapagal as president, Harry got into trouble because, before a congressional committee, he kept mum, refused to say anything, whether to explain or defend himself. Thus, he was held in custody. In 1962, when Harry Stonehill refused to answer questions in the House Committee on Good Government headed by Uncle Jovy Salonga, he was promptly declared in contempt and detained in the chamber. But, President Diosdado Macapagal connived with Speaker Kune Villareal and Speaker Pro Tempore Salipada Pendatun to release him without Uncle's knowledge. DM then quickly deported Harry. Uncle was aghast and said: "Harry Stonehill was deported but who can deport the truth?" Supposedly, among the items in his "blue book" was the name of presidential candidate Macapagal and the amount of P3,000,000 when, as the old folk say, "money was money." As the story goes, Harry was told by CIA operative Edward Lansdale to help out since America was keeping a low profile in the election between President Carlos Garcia and Vice President Macapagal. Macapagal's problem was his former brother-in-law Rogelio de la Rosa who was a third candidate in the election. The Americans' problem was Garcia because of his "Filipino First" policy. (A similar policy with a bias towards the bumiputra obviously worked for Malaysia, since they are now so far ahead of us.) Harry supposedly gave Macapagal the money, of which a million bought off Senator Rogelio de la Rosa, who, because of the buy-out, lost the next time he ran for the Senate. (Rogelio later was a standout Philippine ambassador in Cambodia and The Hague.) Among the sidelights of the Harry Stonehill case was Meinhart Spielman, an American executive of US Tobacco Corp. Meinhart was a government witness against Harry Stonehill in a tax evasion case, who suddenly disappeared. The report was that Spielman was killed in Siasi, Sulu. As the story went, a Badjao boatman was hired to spirit Meinhart away in his kumpit. As proof of the story, Spielman's Rolex watch, his shoes and clothes were still in the kumpit many days after Spielman had disappeared. Then Secretary of Justice Jose Diokno, who was eventually axed by Macapagal probably for his part in the Stonehill affair, saw the kumpit story as a set-up. Diokno dismissed the evidence and the story. Eventually a charge of murder was filed against a real estate businessman who was, of course, acquitted because there was no corpus delictus and no witnesses to any murder. I bring this up simply because, to me, the present times have the same feel to it as those times in 1961 when the Stonehill story hogged the headlines. By the way, the Harry Stonehill affair also led to the filing of an impeachment charge against Cong Dadong. What happened to Harry? Cong Dadong's pals in Congress snuck through a resolution pushed by Speaker Kune Villareal releasing Stonehill from the House committee's custody. Upon his release, Stonehill was then immediately deported, citing national security as the reason. He died some years ago at the age of 84 in Bangkok. Harry's wife was a Filipina.***** OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |