An Interview with Cool Dela Peña Part II

by Antonio Vitug August 12,2001

 

 

 

Cool Dela Peña: It’s a beautiful life. The “Ai-ly adopted” that fights.” I may be stupid but I don’t think I’m stupid enough not to realize what they are trying to accomplish.”

 

Interviewer: To begin with, can you tell us what is happening with your life now, Cool?

Cool:   I am so busy with my writing . I think I have so much to do these days I have no time for anything else. As they say, in writing, nothing is constant but rewriting. Though I haven’t put my books on the shelf yet. All those “leaks” they are getting about my work are all due to their “drinking” from my “bottle”.

Interviewer: You said they are drinking from your “bottle”, just how is that?

Cool: (Smile) Yes. The technology of “bottling” people has already reached us. When I was new with AI and all of these stuff, I was wondering of course how is it possible. Until “sequence 65”, that is the time I realized, well, I am not a hundred percent human at all.

Interviewer: You have mentioned “sequence 65”, what is this all about?

Cool: Sequence 65 refers to the realization by people that they are both human and device. It refers to the initial access of AI with sometimes a matching modem sound in your head. But then, the technology of silence has already dawned. With things such as Supra Express available now, probably you won’t hear it anymore when they access your device. So with it comes the realization that you are equiped with computers, transmitters, receivers and the like. That is why, when they refer to me as well-equiped, I blush(grin) since sometimes it connotes being well-endowed(smile). You see, when I was at Colegio de San Juan De Letran in Calamba, their high school principal, Mrs. Quiachon, is shunning away from computers saying they are dehumanizing. I was too ordinary to realize the impact of her comments then.

Interviewer:You said computers are dehumanizing, so how do you cope?

Cool: At first, I fight with it up to the point of appearing psychotic. But eventually, I learned better defense mechanisms, ending up as a ‘homo subtle’. In fact,I have started a contemporary language called Ukpur just to keep track on who are my contemporaries.One of my major writing right now which is The King and I (Harii i Uk), is being written on that language. What with ‘quant’ nowadays, you might as well have “mixed-up worlds” with multiple copies of the same people to interact with. It helps me in identifying who is who, who are really “on-line” and who are pretending to be “on-line”. When chaos begins to sip-in, that’s the time I do “computer mode” and learned just to let go.

Interviewer: What can you say about the Clintons?

Cool: Honestly, I have nothing to do with any of them. My “ Incidental pull-over” involving them was in the late October of 1996 when I was at the West Coast. It is about a proposal for adoption made by some guys from their camp of which they said they will handle all the paperworks during the time of chaos in 1996. It was some kind of coming of age for me since I was new with applied AI. I have accepted their proposal with only one purpose in mind, to work legally in the US using the paper works they said they will prepare.

 

 

 

 

Four years after a brief encounter with a real life “Hannibal Lecter”, he is still very frightened. “ Although Alvin Caidic is not his real name, he can still evoke deep anguish everytime I recall what they have done to him there. I can’t help but shed tears?”

 

Interviewer: Why do you think their group would propose to adopt you, considering your twenty eight?

Cool: I am not certain but maybe it has something to do with the million left by the government for me during the chaos. They said the government is looking for me to give me the million. You see, my AI started as primary expert system saying “annihilation”. I did not realize that it was designed to be followed. That was the period when a TWA flight, TWA 800, blasted in mid-air off the coast of Long Island in New York thirty minutes after take-off from John F. Kennedy Airport. After I heard them program the adoption with a corresponding adoption on the part of Jeane Chretien and Tommy Lee(?), they instructed me to go to the border near Bellingham which is just thirty minutes by BC Transit from downtown Vancouver. When I said I will go home first to get my passport and some belongings, they said I won’t be needing them. That’s the moment I got alarmed. I may be stupid but I don’t think I’m stupid enough not to realize what they are trying to accomplish. This is not the paper works I have in mind, I said to myself. I have only a one-year visitor’s visa in Canada and I have no intentions whatever to go illegal. So, I did never go there. I went to Calgary in Alberta instead.(laughs)

Interviewer: If the government is looking for you and your AI is designed to be followed, how come they can’t see you?

Cool: If they could see me in 1996, then it was not a chaos after all. (smile) Until I have learned lately, those who initiated that adoption are in Olongapo City in the Philippines attending APEC. The best thing is, my primary expert systems last known transmission is the word “dance’.

Interviewer: The one the government intends to give you, is it a million dollars?

Cool: I don’t know but I hope it is not a million used-up condoms.(laughs)

Interviewer: What can you say about Alvin Caidic?

Cool: What happened at the Tarlac Provincial Hospital in April of 1997 is giving me nightmares even now. Although Alvin Caidic is not his real name, he can still evoke deep anguish everytime I recall what they have done to him there. I can’t help but shed tears. It still gives me goosebumps and melancholy that can be best paraphrased by the sentence “ The silence of the lambs is too deafening, it echoes to the highest heavens.”

Interviewer: Why? Could you tell us what really happened there?

Cool: Alvin Caidic is the child, about ten years old, raggedy and frail, who was restrained side by side with me by several guys in the hospital. We were both restrained on the receiving area when an old man appeared with a scalpel on his hands devilishly grinning. After he had assesed us both like choosing between us, he went for Alvin cutting his hands and feet like he was dephalangizing him.When the other guys let me go, I run away from the area. I was so scared I don’t know what to do.

Interviewer: What have you felt after the incident?

Cool: I was terrified of course. I was asking myself, why? Whatever exactly happened to him, only those who were there can say it now.

Interviewer: Before we end this interview, any final message?

Cool: I still believe that eventually, justice will prevail, that the word poetic justice has still relevance in our lives. Well, you can not blame Virginia for crying out loud, for God’s sake. Hey! I am no jackrabbit.

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