A Spirit of Brothers is Supremacy Over Kings

(The following essay was my entry to the 1st Philippine Graphic-Philippines Jaycees National Essay Writing Contest (2006). On January 17, 2007 a certain "Louie" from the Philippine Graphic called me announcing that my piece won 2nd prize in the College Category. He said he was going to call me for any updates regarding the awarding ceremony, but almost two years later there is still no news about such ceremony. Was the call from the Graphic a prank? Or if not, what happened to the Philippine Graphic's 1st essay writing contest?)

*******

A Spirit of Brothers is Supremacy Over Kings

(written sometime in 2006: original, unedited as-was-submitted version)

Man is not made a king to his fellows; he is created a brother to his kind. We provide ourselves with leaders so that for the sake of law and order we shall grow with governance.

However, the vest of sovereignty has contaminated the blood of man with vanity as well as inhumanity. Rulers, the greatest whom tyranny has ever known, shared similar glories and even similar downfalls. Today they only remain as yesterday’s fallen stones gone to the more fragile pages of history; and history may have reported to us that from bloody wars came successful changes. But wrong. Man’s early triumphs were imputed not in arms, but in their brotherhood, that is more than any nation’s sovereignty.

A monarch, a dictator, or a president may seem to be a man unified in himself. But being exposed to the evils of materialism, his soul can easily be torn by his follies and vices. A strong ruler endures the temptations of high office, deigning as a servant or humble brother to his followers. A weak sovereign on the other hand, is a defenseless prey against the threats over his self-integrity. Within him is a faction between his frustrated passions and confused ambitions. He himself is an anarchy of madness, insolence, hatred, greed, and cruelty, consuming the very bones of his being. He is a precarious little creature whose every stride of existence lies in the mercy of a united people.

Worried by the ominous French uprising the last of the dissolute Bourbons, King Louis XVI, ordered the closure of the Versailles from any assemblies. He was too bold to underestimate his people, who, although without a formal hall, were never hindered to gather and swore their brotherhood even in a tennis court.

Still, unless people learn to curb their egocentric ambitions and start caring for the common good, true unity cannot be attained. Subsequent to her victorious revolution France was swept with a political turmoil known as the Reign of Terror, just because of the ambitions of a few.

There were too, occasions where people failed as a result of dissension and inconsistent will. We could have achieved true independence had not Aguinaldo entered into a feud with Bonifacio. Likewise the Decembrists of Nicholas I’s Russia disintegrated because being intimidated they lacked consistent will. Neither cases displayed true acts of brotherhood.

Rulers are apt to assume that theirs is the absolute supremacy. Their ruin starts in this belief, and pride is but the fuse which blows despotism off to ashes. No domineering sovereign has endured the self-sustaining force of brotherhood, the fervor that is life in the veins of an ever-yearning people. Truly, for in this ever-yearning mass there is an idealism that shatters impediments, say poverty or oppression, through an unwavering perseverance and compassion which are man’s final footholds to freedom and joint progress. Did Marcos himself, possess the power to quell the voices of the free, after his tanks had all been trodden down by the overwhelming solidarity of the Filipinos?

But brotherhood is not entirely about reforms and revolts. It is also responsible for the continuance of life itself. It must always govern us through sharing, equality, truth, and understanding. Let the common aim (progress) drive us all into a single course whosoever authority we are subjected into, may he be a president, a minister, or a king. We can do ourselves what they cannot. If we could only overcome the elements impairing our unity, for instance politics and the like, we could advance independently under the bliss of freedom and grace of peace.

Dream and yearning are the ties that bind us all as brothers. Hence brethren we are not in flesh, nor faith, nor tongue, but in spirit. With this conviction no claw of tyranny nor tragedy is able to snap us loose from a steadfast resolution and vision of an ideal tomorrow.

Perhaps the truest brotherhood of man emerges mostly in the presence of war and crisis. Nonetheless it is a certain verity, that the resilience of such humble legion holds supremacy over all shores and nations. It has authority, by command of reason and justice, to destroy the oppressive and create a better system.

Tyranny can leave us bleeding, but with the blood that gushes down our skin is a boiling spirit waiting for the united powers of man to awake. It starts not in one man alone, but in a multitude whose hearts are beating for one common purpose; a universal yearning which forms out of these scattered souls one strong spirit of mankind, although forever struggling, but never defeated.#

*******

The contest was advertised in the Philippine Graphic Magazine as well as in these sites:

Graphic Jaycees Essay Contest

July 2006 archive of Panitikan.com

Filipinowriter.com

Best cheat onward, great leap backward

I find it hard to believe that the democracy and accountability we greatly revere are put under strains of bloated executive privileges, exemptions and powers meant not for public security but for concealing the corruption of the executive gang. And now that there looms a fleet of attempts to preserve Mrs. Arroyo in position the Honorables (who should avoid circumstances where they throw themselves into the pit of historical dishonor) must not be docile enough not to sense the impending trouble. The truth becomes evident as events and scandals unfold, yet only a gagged few are making actions that are, against the narrow pass between protectionism and political patronage where they must come through, futile.

There she is, on her way to one of the most fabulous cheats on earth. She is a great conductor of the political orchestra, and has succeeded from the manipulation of records to the silencing of human rights defenders. The throngs did it all, and onward the darkness calls. The law has the remedy, but what is the use when technical sophistry in the interpretation of the law enshrouds justice? Where is the spirit of the people’s voices when they are rendered null by the ones who should be the very first to hear them? Are we retrogressing into the political disintegration of the yesteryears? Should we, at this point of time when the campaign nears, repose our hopes to a few people who are so busy dragging each other down to obtain a good starting point in the race to 2010?

Mikey Arroyo is now soliciting signatures in Congress, and the busted are doing fine by passing the buck to as many people as they can just to avoid implicating the president. The executive department is a very doting mother to agencies, that is why Eliseo dela Paz had to do that bamboozling admission of blame on one hand while insisting his right against self-incrimination on the other (when he had already incriminated himself). Anyway he had a point as he ought to get the whole act distant from the president, and he has to do it even though things get so topsy-turvy as long as his statements are rationalized by the irrational combination of the intricacies of the law. That is the way of the country whether we like it or not. Meanwhile, as Yuletide approaches we will have the evasive Jocjoc Bolante roasting on an open fire and the impeachment case about to be mauled to pieces by the hammers of those aspiring to be Her Excellency’s accomplices in future crimes.

Another nonsensical resolution in the Lower House made me shake my head in pity:

An anti-Charter change (cha-cha) advocate on Tuesday revealed that there is an existing resolution in the House of Representatives that attempts to extend the term of all incumbent officials, including President Arroyo, up to 2011.

Lawyer Neri Colmenares of the National Union of People’s Lawyers cited House Resolution 550 authored by Batangas Rep. Hermilando Mandanas during the House Committee on Constitutional Amendments' consultation hearing.

Colmenares said House Resolution 550 proposes to extend the terms of all incumbent public officials, including President Arroyo, "to better synchronize the local and national elections to afford time for the necessary transitory preparations" for the 2010 elections.

Mandanas's resolution wants the preparations to be extended from the "second Monday of May 2010" to the same period of 2011, which, essentially extends all incumbent positions in the government one more year.

ABS-CBN's Ricky Carandang said Colmenares cited Mandanas's resolution as an example of why there are several quarters that suspect the proposals to amend the 1987 Constitution are being pushed to extend Mrs. Arroyo's term.

Committee chairman, La Union Rep. Victor Francisco Ortega, confirmed that Mandanas's resolution has been submitted to his committee.

Lawmakers are no seldom in making unnecessary motions which tend to reflect their political leanings or the gratitude for those things they were bestowed with. The politics of hypocrisy is also a politics of reciprocity, and though I have no definite idea what is the real purpose of the elite few behind the president (are the allies going to divide the spoils?) all I could say is that it definitely points out into one common goal shared both by the administration loyalists and the aspirants among the ranks of the opposition – 2010 and beyond.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light!!!

When I read this article all I could muster were thoughts of the Gulag Archipelago and Nazi concentration camps. We do not know whether this secret "country within a country" is still existing or not, but we must do something to cure the system, and at least hold someone or some persons accountable for this incestuous massacre of the Filipino by the Filipino. This is worse than everything the living world could imagine.

from REBEL WITHOUT A CLUE
Rage
By Patricia Evangelista
Philippine Daily Inquirer, November 23rd, 2008

This is the story of one Raymond Manalo, farmer, who disappeared on Feb. 14, 2006 with his older brother from their farm in San Ildefonso, Bulacan. Manalo was neither activist nor rebel when he disappeared. He escaped more than two years later. He says there are many, many more like him.

* * *

They put you in a cage four feet by one foot small, the height of an average man. There are hollow blocks to the side and iron grills in front. You sit with three other men, crouched in a line. There is no other way to fit.

Your brother is in the same cell. The door opens, more of them come in. More of them like you—beaten, bruised, helpless. They are put inside the next cell. This time there are two men and a married couple. The woman has burns all over her body. She was raped, they tell you. She was raped and beaten until she soiled herself. They say she has gone mad. They take her away.

This is where you shit, where you piss, where you wash if you still care. You do not feel the wind; you do not see the sun. Your food comes rarely, and what comes is rotten, leftover pig feed. Three men arrive, from Nueva Ecija. They are tortured. One of them has both arms broken. Bleeding.

Sometimes, when the soldiers are drinking, they take you out of your cage and play with you. The game varies, but it is usually the same. Two by fours, chains, an open gardening hose shoved down your nose. You crawl back to your cage, on your hands and knees. You wake up to screaming, to the sound of grown men begging, and you wonder which one it is this time. Sometimes, one of your cellmates will disappear. Sometimes, they don’t come back.

Then they take you away, and there is a doctor, pills, antibiotics, a bed. They tell you they are taking you home to see your parents. You meet the man they call The Butcher, and he tells you to tell your parents not to join the rallies, to stay away from human rights groups, that they would ruin your life and your brother’s. He tells you, this small man in shorts, that if you can only prove you’re on his side now, he would let you and your brother live. He gives you a box of vitamins, and tells you that they are expensive: P35 per pill.

They put a chain around your waist. The military surround your farm. Your mother opens the front door crying, and hugs you. You tell them what you were told to say. You hand them the money Palparan told you to give. Then you are told you must go.

Always, you keep thinking of escape. You make yourself useful, to make them trust you. You cook. You wash cars. You clean. You shop. No task is too menial. And one day, while you sweep the floor, you see a young woman, chained to the foot of a bed. Her name is Sherlyn Cadapan, she tells you, Sports Science, University of the Philippines Diliman, the same Sherlyn who disappeared from Hagonoy, Bulacan on June 26, 2006. She says she has been raped.

Later, you meet Karen Empeño, also from UP, and Manuel Merino, the farmer who rushed to save the two girls when they were abducted. Karen and Sherlyn are in charge of washing the soldiers’ clothes, you and Manuel and your brother Reynaldo wash the car and carry water and cook.

The five of you are taken from camp to camp. You see the soldiers stealing from villagers. You see them bringing in blindfolded captives. You see them digging graves. You see them burning bodies, pouring gasoline as the fire rose. You see them shoot old men sitting on carabaos and see them push bodies into ravines. And in April 2007, you hear a woman begging, and when you are ordered to fix dinner, you see Sherlyn, lying naked on a chair that had fallen on the floor, both wrists and one tied leg propped up.

You see them hit her with wooden planks, see her electrocuted, beaten, half-drowned. You see them amuse themselves with her body, poke sticks into her vagina, shove a water hose into her nose and mouth. And you see the soldiers wives’ watch. You hear the soldiers forcing Sherlyn to admit who it was with plans to “write a letter.” You hear her admit, after intense torture, that it was Karen’s idea. And you see Karen, dragged out of her cell, tied at the wrists and ankles, stripped of her clothing, then beaten, water-tortured, and burned with cigarettes and raped with pieces of wood. And it is you who are ordered to wash their clothes the next day, and who finds blood in their panties.

And you are there, on the night they take away Manuel Merino, when you hear an old man moaning, a gunshot and the red light of a sudden fire.

* * *

The day Raymond Manalo and his brother Reynaldo escaped was the day he promised himself they would pay, all of them who tortured Karen and Sherlyn, who killed so many, who tortured him and his brother until they begged and pleaded. They were pigs, he says, those men were pigs. If he escaped, they told him, and if they couldn’t find him, they would massacre his family. And if they do not answer to the courts here, they will answer to God.

They can still kill him, he says. But even if they do, it is too late. He’s told his story.

* * *

The Spider’s Thread and the politics of hypocrisy

We have witnessed how in pursuit of political ambition men could suddenly depart from reason and interrupt the normalcy of the House. The reality in Senator Manny Villar’s resignation is a grim portrayal of Akutagawa Ryûnosuke's “The Spider’s Thread” as politicians scramble to every opportunity of pulling the one on top in order to undermine his seemingly insurmountable support and position. It is a coalition of future contenders aiming to make level the ground where they all stood (so that the starting point be fair), and pulling the now former senate president is their method of equating their pedestals of opportunity.

I daresay that putting Juan Ponce Enrile in the leadership of the Senate makes sense in a way that the aged senator would never beckon to make his new position a launching pad to Philippine presidency, which is, of course, favorable to every aspirant who reasonably voted for him. Yet I confess I am surprised that Villar’s declaration of his intentions on the highest position in the land troubled those vying for the 2010 presidency so much that for the past months they had actually been looking for chances wherein they can bring him down from the rostrum. If we will dismiss Kandata as a criminal and instead turn him into a politician for the moment we will see that his journey along the spider’s web is an analogy of what occurred in the Upper House; there the senators contend for their interests to get into the paradise of power regardless of whatever implication it may bring to the spider’s thread. That is politics of hypocrisy at its best.

And politics of hypocrisy it is, that can derail the impeachment proceedings and put it in the shredder, that can provide better orchestration to the case of the Fertilizer Fund Scam, and most of all materialize the so much dreaded charter change. Many things would make a full swing at GMA and her allies’ decisive at-bat near the ninth inning. Gloria would inevitably sense this as another chance to fool both parties who are themselves competing for the much-coveted position, and eventually she would cut the thread (something different from the story's Buddha who is not aware of the commotion in Hell) and let those scuttling fall back into the Pool of Blood, the pool of shame, the pool of the cheated. This is the folly of the victors that will cost the country much, and I am very anxious to see what is next.

Whereas the governed has the power to consent, it also has the power to annull

Fresh from a whole week of campus presswork and conferences that momentarily isolated me from the blogosphere I returned to see a really unprecedented move initiated by the citizenry. Perhaps I am among the last ones to learn that some responsible members of the blogging community led by The Daily Dose's Manolo Quezon III filed a complaint-in-intervention on the Bangsamoro fiasco in addition to an earlier impeachment complaint lodged by Rep. Jose De Venecia III. The group realized it is now time for the common Filipinos from all levels of the society to assert their right to decide on their government, especially when such government is tainted by corruption and ineptness.

The President's apparent attempt to use the Bangsamoro crisis to convert the government to federalism and therefore serve her own interest (that of maintaining herself in office) is not the only reason why we must insist for change. The records of the past years made it clear, and we should not just sit back and watch, nor should we just merely stand and shout (we should realize that all of these are not enough), but rather, before times go crucial we need to act, and we must act now. The flowers of the Republic are blooming but under the gray shades of the clouded sky; unfortunately we do not need the flowers without the sunlight. We have achieved various glories, been recognized and praised (though sometimes mistakenly) by nations, but these glories only serve as a heavy panoply that encumbers us.Beneath the pompous armor is a hungry Filipino emaciated to the bones amid a rich land cultivated by him but consumed by others. How far can he go?

Our countrymen, converted into skeptics by the vain becomings of EDSA II, might have refused any actions they thought would again compromise our economy just as the past two revolutions dragged the financial system back then. This became traumatic to them. And being confronted by a similar dilemma today we cannot expect their immediate participation, for even if we lay down dozens of reasons, what they will consider is the unhoped for outcome. The Filipino will deem it better to suffer in the next two years fearing any revolution will make them suffer ten years more.

But what constitutes a new revolution? Is it an armed or unarmed one? A reformation by judicial process or by people power? The former is considered snail-paced while the latter is now shunned for reasons I have already mentioned. Nevertheless what appears is that it is the natural tendency of a person who values his welfare to assert his right to decide again and again even though this runs in cycles, for this is the process to perfect the government by deterring tyranny and corruption until they are diminished. To suffer the same after a revolution means we should do the same over again until we arrive into a nearly-ideal government duly instituted under a moral leader. He who is tired of this does not deserve being a Filipino, because this is not just his right but his utmost responsibility!

It is true that we are the most conscious people in the world when it comes to our democratic rights. But it is a mislabel to call us Filipinos a people of discontent and anarchy. Nay, we are a people who truly uphold the Law. Others are run by the dictatorship of the head-of-state, making them disciplined citizens; we are run by the dictatorship of the Laws of God and Man, making us free people but with reasonable strictures. In this we are different because we know whenever a president trespasses the moral and political foundations of the society, and corruption, just like tyranny, is a crime of the first magnitude that demands correction and if necessary, penalty for the sake of justice. We must practice rationality and hinged on morality and equality, that is, an equal law for all regardless of the status, may he be a common man or a president.

Thus before the political aspect of our country obscures human integrity it must be our protocol to stop it before it grows to enslave our people. For, where does tyranny start but from the embryo of corruption and the desire to conceal it? For four years since her anomalous ascent to office I had been one of the patient many who gave the president time to prove she could absolve herself through governance. Like others I put myself in a spectator's position, only to find it even worse. The whole nation is treated as a large specimen (the Bangsamoro issue is an experimental specimen for attempting charter change), and I am left with nothing to do but to support all motions for her ouster. The time is ripe. Let us use our power as a free people bound by the Laws that consist of Liberty and Reason (though loopholed), and destroy anything which impedes Progress. Given the right to choose our leader we also have the power to retract the corrupt or the tyrant; let us not forget that our leaders rule by the consent of the governed, one of the cornerstone principles of democracy.

Complaisance, on this time, does not mean peacefulness, temperance, patience nor discipline, but evasion and ignorance. It is an ignorance to the suffering of the voiceless, of the underrepresented, and of the uneducated who say, "We are mute and lame, please hold our hands and take us there!"

Of surveys on hunger and poverty: perceptions and reality

It is a sad truth that, given an economy which is thought to have inched its way further and has managed to cushion the impact of the global crisis (at least in this difficult season), our country is still caught in the sticky quagmires of hunger and poverty. Being the fifth hungriest out of the 55 countries surveyed by Gallup International's Voice of the People, it makes me think what is really wrong with the system; whether the problem lies with the Filipinos' contentment standards or with the counterweight of the inflated economy defeating any statistical improvements.

Gallup International indicated that between June and September 2008, 40% of Filipino citizens said they have experienced frequent hunger in the last 12 months. The Social Weather Station (SWS) has also reported that approximately 3.3 million household have suffered involuntary hunger during the same period. In addition, the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB) projected that there were 27.6 million poor Filipinos (32.9% of the total population) in 2006.

Considering also the over-all economic stability and growth which the President has been boasting of in her previous State of the Nation Addresses, here we will see both sides of the same coin presenting us with a picture of the Philippine economy from two vantage points, the macroscopic observation and microscopic observation.

Perhaps we can say that GMA's description of the economy is not an overstatement, but those reported by surveys are not understatements either. Both of them relied on numbers which are hard facts, the only difference is that GMA's indicators such as general growth in infrastructure, investment, agriculture etc. are too stiff and does not explain well the distributions of the elements and its effects on the growth of the classes, while on the other hand, popular surveys are more detailed, taking in consideration each individual status relevant to the scope of the needed information. The former suggest the situation according to the eyes of the observer, while the latter speaks of the condition according to the eyes of the observed. Currency and production are not enough indicators, for they fail to detect the great gap and disparity between the social classes amidst the projected over-all growth. They can tell you many things but they cannot tell you everything. They may tell you that the PSE is doing great at the moment, that the currency is gaining, or that the GDP is improving; they will tell you that the country is richer than ever. But what they cannot tell you is that only a small percentage, the upper class and a little of the middle class, reflects and enjoys this growth, while a significantly huge part of the population remains nigh or in the borderline of poverty and beneath.

Whenever I relate to hunger, I always cannot dissociate poverty as the basic cause. And with regard to surveys, sometimes polls on poverty have an underside which gives us a benefit of the doubt. For it makes a lot of difference when a people relates to poverty as "a situation where you cannot obtain your basic needs," in contrast to another set of people who says that they are poor because they "cannot obtain things above their basic needs." This dissimilarity poses a question whether the people are really "poor" or they do just simply "feel poor." Perhaps these varying definitions depend upon the dominant socio-cultural notions, attitudes and aspirations towards what it means to be poor, just like what New Philippine Revolution had to say a year ago, but is still applicable to any period.

"But, why do Filipinos still consider themselves as poor?

The answer lies in Filipino aspirational values. For Filipinos, being poor means just having three square meals a day and not having the extra money to buy the aspirational things like jewelry, new clothes, etc. For us, this is the definition of being poor. In other countries, being poor means not having the means to even eat 3 square meals a day. That is poor. Here, being poor means not having the means to buy the things others have, like cars, new clothes, etc."

Now, as we return to hunger, it is hard to say that Gallup results are taken merely out of the respondents' perception. We eat three times a day and are subject to experience the same hunger whenever we pass a meal or two, hence the Gallup survey reflects an equal reality on the state of global hunger from the common experiences of people around the world, unlike the sense of poverty which is only perceived and may not be empirically experienced.

It doesn't escape me that some Filipino respondents might have answered the survey with biased inexactitude as far as they are concerned. For example, one who is repulsive of the present administration will of course exaggerate his situation in order to emphasize government ineptness. Such case undeniably exists, but although this makes a little deviation from truthfulness, that doesn't mean that the survey is altogether unreliable. It still reflects discontentment that may be prevailing among the citizens brought by hardships under the status quo, and does not reverse the fact that surveys are nonetheless veritable in greatest proximity.

What we should learn from this is that albeit we have leaped a longer distance than in the previous years, we must put our attention to the growing gap between the rich, the middle class, and the poor. The businesses of the wealthy help accelerate the economy and the middles class catches up closer and closer in their tail, while the poor recedes away, multiplying along their trail. Furthermore, the government must make sure that resources and commodities are geographically distributed as much as each area needs, meaning that underproductive (or calamity or drought-stricken) areas must be given more share than the productive ones. Production should be accompanied with good strategy so that someday the surveys will finally project something positive both in perception and reality.

Obama: mending the wounds of history

Finally, the collapse of the last cornerstone of racial hierarchy in American culture has culminated, and thus commences the weaving of a new American fabric equally interlaced with diverse colors, faiths and identities.

Barack Hussein Obama may become the embodiment of the Lockean equality, and the eyes of the world are now on him. An interracial leader is gifted with an empathy which extends to multiple, or even possibly, all nationalities. The Democratic pragmatist and 44th President of the United States of America is now at the helm to be left by a warlord which severed not only ties but also the peacefulness of many nations.

One of the earliest items which will occupy the desk of the first African-American in the Oval Office this January will be the mess bequathed onto his term by George W. Bush. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and North Korea are valuable ones which demand a first-thing-in-the-morning approach. He had assured during his campaign that within 16 years Iraq will see none of US soldiers. Russia, on the other hand, is now at the verge of deciding for its own missile shield in response to Bush's recent warnings of cooping Eastern Europe under US missile protection. While the Medvedev-Putin government is asserting its military strength in order to maintain a balance of power with the US, President Dmitry Medvedev said he was looking forward to a "constructive dialogue" with Obama. Even the Russian Envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, predicted that "Obama's win will also help soften tiesbetween NATO and Russia, strained by the conflict with Georgia and US plans to build a missile-defense system in Eastern Europe." Meanwhile, in North Korea there is uncertainty in the faithfulness and commitment surrounding the tottering dialogues against nuclear enrichment, though half a year ago North Korea had already destroyed its cooling tower instrumental to the creation of plutonium. Pakistan is still in a phase of air raid puppetry and the War on Terror in Afghanistan is swinging hopelessly with elusiveness due to problems such as international insecurities and insufficiency of military troops, where Obama though US soldiers should be, not in Iraq. These, not to mention the global financial conundrum and debt incurred from the recent administration, may be the new president-elect's immediate priorities.

It is worthy of looking into whether Obama would underscore the American sturdiness before (let us say Russia), or will he be a Kissinger-type of politician seeking cordial relationships with rivals. Outside the bounds of the campaign showdown we haven't seen yet of his over-all personality, an aspect which determines the quality of leadership better than the platforms and strategies he promised to deliver. When talking about terrorism he already made his point right from the start of the presidential debates, to "use the military wisely," having had reasons to drain US military presence in Iraq in favor of undermanned NATO in Afghanistan an Pakistan.

Fortunately the Democrats continue in both Houses with larger numbers, putting an advantage to the president's upcoming policies as there will be much ease felt from legislation to legislation.

Now after these external concerns let us look inward to examine one great and ever-present issue a new leader, especially a colored one, will surely never take up with least regard: racial diversity. How will Obama respond to the standing issue of migration? Does his promise of providing sufficient employment to American citizens spell danger to non-Americans? I think not. Obama and the Dems have shown their generosity to non-Americans, one good example of which is the passage of the Veterans Equity Bill. Obama also has that tendency of being a cosmopolitan, and there is no wonder if the world finds him a comfortable leader to be with. On the other hand, among the Americans, the Black community will no doubt be equated with the Whites, something that really makes the Rev. Jesse Jackson cry, and cool the burning hearts of long-gone abolitionists from Frederick Douglass to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. Indeed we should watch a great social upheaval unfold. This is the time when that great mass of earth marked with a long reluctance to equal rights, despite the ever-glowing principles first invoked in the American soil by Jefferson (principles which he himself never practiced) that still bear importance to this day, will become at last a materialization of the combined hopes of its heroes of a promised land for true Democracy.

Come january 2009 we will see a line of demarcation drawn separating Old America (a promised country) and the New America (a fulfilled country).

In a World Aplenty

In a World Aplenty
Alvin d. C. Lopez

A land of towers near a stack of hay
Contrasting lives; the primitive, the new:
The wealth of sunshine promising the day

With glowing fervor to a fortuned few

In a world of plenty.

While on the outskirts of our city's bay

Quiet and unfestive the wretched dwell

For hours and days on crumbs of labor, they-

Who are made happy by every sweat they sell-

Are our poor and hungry.

Alas, they own the mountains, and the plots,

The country with flag forever flying!

They lifted Progress' cranes, those towers, but

Why are they starving, my God they're dying,

In their land of plenty?

-2 November, 2008

Gapan City

A mingling of worlds

It is November 1st, and a feeling of solemnity is prevalent among our tranquil neighborhood out to visit their beloved dead. Those who stayed lit candles outside their doors, a custom which remains to this day. Their dancing lights create an image of chimerical mystery especially against the passing twilight. The wind blows, soft but cold, and as the sunlit sky gives way to the falling dusk all I can sense is a momentary feeling of belongingness to the surrounding spirit tending to get connected to or even merged with the world of the departed.

Today two worlds - one known and the other unknown - meet.