Ampatuan Massacre 2

Andal Ampatuan Jr., the prime suspect in Monday's massacre, is currently detained at the National Bureau of Investigation after "submitting" himself to authorities. In the meantime, more bodies have been unearthed in Barangay Salman, bringing the death toll to 64.

In the past few days, witnesses have begun to come forth with their accounts of what happened, coloring the landscape, which was alien to our imaginations. All the women were raped, one gunman said. They were merely following orders, another said. Their orders were to kill everybody.

Justice chief Agnes Devanedera said the women were discovered with their pants down and with shots fired into their genitals. Based on some tissue reactions observed in autopsies, a forensics expert suggested that some of the victims may have still been alive when they were thrown into the shallow grave and covered with earth.

It's very difficult to process all the information that is coming out.

Ampatuan Massacre 1

Mindanao Massacre

I'm trying to react to the massacre in Mindanao of women, journalists and civilians.

It's been described as the worst incident of political violence in the country and the bloodiest day for journalists in world history. Bodies are still being dug up from a hillside grave where over 50 women, journalists and civilians were killed and buried.

The convoy, led by Buluan Mayor Esmael Mangundadatu's wife and sisters, was waylaid on its way to Sharif Aguak to file Mangundadatu's certificate of candidacy for Maguindanao governor. The mayor had received threats from a rival clan that he would be killed or kidnapped if he filed the COCs himself. Believing that the Amaptuans, adhering to Koranic code, would not harm women or civilians, the group was dispatched.

I try to imagine the convoy of seven or eight vehicles traveling through the lonely road before being ambushed by a small army of 100 or so armed men. How the group might have been forced out of their vans and what the victims might have been thinking as they watched their colleagues and relatives assaulted, killed and dumped in a waiting grave prepared by a government backhoe.

It's difficult to imagine. But it happened, in broad daylight.

Deadliest Country For Journalists

It's no secret that journalists are regularly killed in the Philippines. International groups have tagged the Philippines as one of the deadliest countries in the world for journalists. Monday's bloodbath probably pushes us to the top. It's also no secret that election-related violence and clan wars are common, particularly in the country's south.

But Monday's incident is mindboggling in the sheer brazenness in which it was committed.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has of course issued the obligatory vow to pursue the killers and bring them to justice but like so much else that spews from her mouth, they seems like empty promises. It's probably more difficult to take her seriously when you know that the Ampatuans are her political allies who are largely considered to have delivered her Maguindanao in the previous election.

The incident is disturbing on so many levels, but maybe our outrage also reveals that for too long we have been complacent about the situation in Mindanao. Monday's bloodbath revealed a level of savagery that is simply incomprehensible and I think frightens us all.

Certainly we have been aware that the south operates according to its own laws and certainly we have heard the outcry of journalists clamoring for justice for colleagues killed in the line of duty. Maybe we became desensitized to news of a provincial journalist being ambushed by motorcycle-riding gunmen here and there.

Certainly, the degree to how much the masterminds believed they could get away with was influenced by how far we have we turned our heads in the opposite direction in the past. I think for this, the scale of the carnage is even more disturbing.

* photo belongs to rightful owners

At The 'Global City'

Was headed to Market Market a few days ago. While waiting in line to enter the parking lot, this is what I saw:

A modified tricycle had been pulled over by a security guard. The tricycle was driven by a man wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Inside the carriage were three or four women, a child and another man. The middle-aged women were dressed in jeans, colorful blouses and a touch of makeup. The child with them might have been about 10 or 11 years old. He was a bit chubby and wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The women leaned out listening to the guard speak, their eyes wide as they clutched their purses to their bodies. I couldn't hear what was being said.

This is what I thought:

I imagined that they were out on a family day trip. Perhaps the women work in blue-collar jobs and had spent the morning dressing up and applying makeup, excited for a day out at the mall. Maybe it was an excursion they had been planning for a while. Perhaps the tricycle was the only vehicle they had. Maybe it's used for their husbands' delivery business. It is a very functional vehicle – the type usually used for delivering water or LPG canisters. Unfortunately, I don't think it's the sort of vehicle that is allowed inside the Global City. I thought that perhaps the family felt embarrassed as car after car passed by them to enter the parking lot. Maybe the security guard was telling them that they had to leave the premises and they were trying to convince him to just let them park as they were only meters from the parking lot.

The whole thing just made me sad.

Politics vs Public Service

Have just read an article reporting that Teodoro was advised as early as February of the urgent need to purchase rubber rafts to assist during flash floods. Teodoro opted to submit the purchase to public bidding and hence no rafts.

Teodoro would seem like the most educated of the presidential aspirants, with his Masters of Laws from Harvard. As chair of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, the recent events would have given him a platform to demonstrate his leadership abilities. Instead, he has played his hand meekly, being only good for probably downplayed figures of deaths and damages.

I listened once to one of his press conferences over the radio. He took literally five minutes to say that PGMA had given him authority to seek international assistance. He began, "In my capacity as NDCC chair serving under PGMA... PGMA has given me, as chair of NDCC, which serves under Malacanang and PGMA, the authority as NDCC chair, which serves as the disaster coordinating arm of the Palace..." jeezums...

The elections are next year. Noynoy and Mar, Erap and Binay, Villar, Chiz and Loren... those are the ones who I know are running as of now although Escudero and Legarda have not made a formal announcement. I'm not sure who Villar's running mate is yet.

There was a lot of clamor for Noynoy to run in the wake of Cory's passing. My take was that if he had no plans of running before Cory's death, then he should not have run for president. However, if Erap did decide to run, then I would have hoped that Noynoy declared his candidacy. If Erap's appeal is as strong as it was when he first ran and we have still not matured politically, then I think it might only be countered by unifying behind Noynoy and the Aquino mystique.

One tandem that dropped out of the race to throw their support behind Noynoy was Pampanga Gov. Ed Panlilio and Isabela Gov. Grace Padaca. I was excited about the idea of their running. For me, they represented a new brand of politics. Public service.

I'm not so dissuaded by arguments of lack of experience or lack of visibility. I think Panlilio and Padaca have concrete achievements in their provinces. I think it's also important to remember that a president has to be the president of the country and not of Manila. But they're not running anymore so...

I don't need a president with a postgraduate degree from an Ivy League school. I don't need a president whose achievements are based on how often they're in the newspapers. I just want a president who's honest and who has the Philippines' best interests at heart. For once.

Teacher Rose and Teacher Melorine

There were some aspects of our visit to Pasig that I was not able to include in my story, but stand out to me.

The first is Teacher Rose. Teacher Rose is a day care teacher at Liberato Damian Elementary School. She was stranded during the floods but took charge when hundreds of families flocked to the school for refuge.

She got the families settled into the classrooms and registered each of them herself. While some evacuation centers are marred by fighting over relief goods, Liberato Damian is quite well managed. When relief goods arrive, Teacher Rose calls on family representatives to receive the goods. She is also the go-to person whenever the evacuees need anything.

I mentioned Teacher Melorine. She handles preschool and Grade 2. The teachers were asked to wait for the arrival of UNICEF Executive Director Anne Veneman. Teacher Melorine entertained about 100 displaced children and mothers in her preschool classroom before and after Veneman's visit, reading to them and playing games. Before I left, she was leading them in a dance rendition of "Nobody" (clap clap). Her husband is also a teacher at the school.



At one point during the visit, two boys also began playing with empty donation boxes. I wished I could have included that in my story. I imagine that those boxes were filled with cans or other relief goods at some point. The children have nothing to do as they wait to get back to the lives they knew and no matter the circumstance, a child's natural propensity for play will emerge.

I also met Fortunata Serrano. She has two grandchildren. Carlo has down syndrome and only came to the evacuation center that day. Her other grandchild, Nicole, was involved in a hit and run accident about a year ago and still experiences involuntary seizures. Fortunata's 89-year old mother was still at their home. She had been bed-ridden ever since she had a stroke. Relatives take turns at the evacuation center and their house so they can watch over her.

the girl in mcdo

i was standing in line for breakfast at mcdonald's yesterday. a girl in the other line was speaking on her cell phone through a bluetooth headset. something about a child who was hit by a car and suffered fractures. i don't know if the girl was the driver. then she said "hold on, i'll call you back. i'll just order."

Ondoy and Pepeng

Landslides up north and Pangasinan is under water. Pepeng and Ondoy really did us over. Many breathed a sigh of relief when Pepeng decided to spare Manila, which is still recovering from Ondoy's floods, but the damage up north may be even more severe.

Officials operating the San Roque Dam are in hot water for indiscriminately releasing waters without warning. NDCC chief and presidential aspirant Gilberto Teodoro demanded an explanation, but I think the buck stops with him. Government has not shown at all that they are on top of disaster response and relief efforts.

In Manila, MMDA chair Bayani Fernando declined to discuss technical aspects of their flood control system which reports say were operational but obsolete and left to deteriorate. A few months ago, Fernando had announced that Manila's flood problem was solved.

Brgy Sta Cruz, Pasig

They are in school, but they can't attend classes.

The flood waters that still inundate much of the Philippines' capital have become black with human waste and garbage, which seem to reflect the fear and hopelessness that many felt when Typhoon Ondoy struck the country on Sept. 26, 2009.

"We felt it was hopeless," said Jennifer Cortel who lives in a classroom with her six children, along with eight other families. "The water rose so quickly, but I knew I had to be brave for the children." Family members and neighbours helped Jennifer carry her children, who range from 12 months to 11 years old, to safety in waist-high waters and biting rain.

Jennifer's family is among 116 families who were evacuated to classrooms on three floors of the Liberato Damian Elementary School in Barangay Sta. Cruz, Pasig City. The city, in the eastern part of the metropolis, was among the worst hit by the killer floods. Many of the barangay's residents fought their way through rising waters and strong currents to the upper floors of the five storey building, and have been unable to return to their homes, which they left as quickly as the waters rose.

At the school, potted plants and chairs divide the hallways into the operational classrooms and those housing evacuees. In the hallways, children and babies sleep on sacks and cardboard while their mothers boil rice on pots and pans that their husbands were able to salvage from their homes. From the balcony, they watch as trash floats in the black shin-deep water. The rooms, which would normally seat 20 to 30 students, now house up to 14 families each. Almost every room has two or more infants. Many school-age children sit listlessly, waiting for the hours to pass and eyeing the sky nervously whenever the clouds begin to rumble.

The government ordered the resumption of classes a week after Typhoon Ondoy hit, but life is anything but back to normal, especially as many schools have been converted into evacuation centres.

Jennifer's son, 8-year-old RJ Carl Ashley, sat crying softly on the cold concrete floor of Room 19 on the fourth floor because he wanted to attend classes. A Grade 3 student at the school where he has been living for almost two weeks, RJ, like many other children in more than 500 evacuation centres throughout the capital, escaped the floods with only the drenched clothes on their backs.

"All his clothes were destroyed. His uniform is gone and his bag and notebooks are covered with mud," Jennifer said. She has offered to do the laundry of fellow evacuees in order to pay for just a few notebooks and pencils so that RJ and the rest of her children can study again. This means having to brave the brackish water to a barangay hall around the corner to fill a pail with clean water, and then making the trip back.

Jaime de Venecia, a 6th grader at Liberato Damian, fled to the school on Saturday morning with his parents and three siblings. His dream is to graduate from school and get a good job so that he can help his parents. He spends the days anxiously waiting for the waters to recede.

"When the flood waters go down, I really want to go back to school already but I can't also go back because I don't have school things and clothes which we were unable to save in the rush to save ourselves from the onrushing flood waters."

Typhoon Ondoy's aftermath ushered in a great wave of volunteerism and goodwill toward those affected by the deadly storm. However, while most efforts have understandably gone toward filling the immediate and material needs of affected families such as food, shelter and clothing; the specific needs of children must also be met.

"In times of emergencies, concerns of children are not given enough prominence," said UNICEF Education Chief Ma. Lourdes de Vera. "From the point of view of children, what they need is normalcy. We need to ensure that they have creative experiences. That's their world. Without it, their world crumbles."

Although classes have resumed, teachers and school officials fear that it will take some time before any sense of normalcy can return. On the first day back, teacher Melorine Gallardo, who handles preschool and Grade 2, said none of her students were able to attend. On the second day, two students managed to come to school. In addition, many teachers were also affected by the floods and some have become evacuees themselves.

Principal Arsenia Soriano said that overall, only about 7 to 10% of the school's 1600 student population have been able to go back to school. Although they are a safe refuge for many evacuees, many school buildings were also damaged in the storm and several remain flooded. In Pasig alone, 34 out of the city's 40 schools were affected by Typhoon Ondoy, with 21 serving as evacuation centres. At the Liberato Damian Elementary School, nine classrooms were devastated and hundreds of books and basic school supplies such as chalk, were destroyed. School officials estimate that it may take months before things get back to normal.

"We know school performance will go down whether we like it or not," said Ms. Soriano. "Many of the students come from poor families and we're afraid they might stop coming because they can't afford to anymore."

While the streets remain flooded, even children who were not displaced by the storm are struggling to resume their studies. Many now have to pay 20 to 60 pesos for one trip on makeshift boats just to travel the few hundred metres from their homes to the school – precious funds that many of the daily wage-earning families must also set aside for food.

However, damage to buildings and roads can be rebuilt. Typhoon Ondoy's psychosocial effects on children may be more permanent and difficult to repair, if not properly addressed. Aside from losing their homes, belongings and even nearly their lives; the first sounds of raindrops falling on tin roofs now trigger fear and panic in many children. However, regaining a sense of normalcy does not mean going back to business as usual and sweeping the traumatic events under a rug.

"The more it's ignored, the more it stays with them – the scar, the trauma. We need to help children unload their fears or you don't know what might happen to them," de Vera said.

In line with its advocacy for a more comprehensive disaster response, UNICEF has not only replaced damaged school supplies but is also addressing the psychosocial needs of child victims of Typhoon Ondoy. Aside from distributing early child care and development (ECCD) packages consisting of books, toys and other learning materials to affected schools and evacuation centres, UNICEF is also providing stress debriefing and psychosocial counselling through creative modes such as art and play therapy to affected children and encouraging the creation of child-friendly spaces in evacuation centres.

Despite their ordeals, Typhoon Ondoy has not dampened people's wills to survive or the children's resilience. By continuing to nurture the children's creativity and valuing their education even in the most extraordinary circumstances, they will realize that when the waters finally clear, their dreams have not been washed away and that they can weather any storm.

Ondoy In the Words of Jaime de Venecia

Ang Bagyong Ondoy sa Aking Buhay(translated)
Undoy, the storm and my life

It was Saturday morning and I was dressing up to go to the church for the soup kitchen . I was part of their Bible study class . It was starting to rain quite hard and my siblings and I did not proceed anymore. By ten am, my family and I were starting to get scared because the water was rising swiftly .

One by one, my Mama gathered us and we hurried to this school, in Liberato Damian. The first night we were here, we had a hard time adjusting – so many different kinds of people, noisy and troublesome. I could not sleep so what I really want to happen is for everything to normalize. I wish the flood waters would subside so that we can go home, go to school and go back to our life.

This is my Ondoy experience

My name is Jaime de Venecia of 6-3. There are three siblings in the family and we are all studying here at Liberato Damian where we are temporarily housed due to Ondoy.

I really wish the flood waters would subside so that our house will not be totally destroyed. You see, this is made of flimsy material – just stuff that my Papa asked for from his boss at the construction. It was wood and stuff just patched up together , this is how we got to have a house. If the house gets destroyed all the way, then we will no longer have a home.

When the flood waters go down I really want to go back to school already but I can’t also go back because I don’t have school things and clothes which we were unable to save in the rush to save ourselves from the onrushing flood waters.

My big dream is to graduate from school so that I can helpmy parents and siblings . I can see my father having a very hard time, his body is not as strong. My ambition is to have a really great job, even as a janitor so that his work will not need to be so hard. He and my mother are so hardworking and they really take very good care of us, especially our schooling so we will not end up like them, uneducated, without a nice home.

But still I am grateful that we are together as a family even if we are poor and lacking all the necessities in life.

thoughts

Any help is good. I will begin by saying that. But I have some observations. I have been trying to find ways to articulate it fairly because I already anticipate some of the offended reactions. Generally, I am irritated with what I think is a superficial approach to volunteerism in the wake of Saturday's floods. While FB has been useful in mobilizing people and informing them where donations can be made, which areas are dangerous, etc., I think we can do without the self-aggrandizing status updates.

I found some comments, although innocuous, disturbing upon further reflection. Many people have talked about how "good it feels to help" and that those helping should feel "proud" of themselves. First of all, I don't think one should feel good after helping. One should feel upset and concerned that there's never enough that can be done. To say it feels so good to help seems to me a bit self-satisfied, re-directing focus on the person giving rather than the calamity and those in need of help. It's a bit sickening. There's no reason to pat ourselves on the back for giving someone a can of sardines when they've lost everything.

thoughts

i read an editorial suggesting an investigation into the government's failure to adequately prepare and respond to major disasters, particularly the latest -- Typhoon Ondoy.

i agree with this suggestion. of course, it's tempered with an awareness that investigations do little good in this country. i feel like government is showing more and more how irrelevant it is, especially when civilians have to pick up the slack even after they have been greatly cheated and robbed.

i think investigations have to be made by a body of taxpaying citizens. civilians. not allies and cohorts of those being investigated, or those who gain political mileage by looking affronted in front of cameras. investigations into why a thing has failed have to be led by the people who are most affected by its failure and not those who failed.

a red dust storm in australia, unprecedented floods in southeast asia, a tsunami in samoa and an earthquake in indonesia all in a span of a week. it's time to be scared.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, I met D who had been staying with friends in Marikina when the floods came. She asked for help in towing her car which had been submerged in flood waters.

We drove through Marikina. The roads were packed and we passed a line of people waiting for relief goods. The mud from the rivers on the street had begun to dry and filled the air with dust.

In the car, D told me two carabaos and a pig had floated into their neighborhood from the river. The neighbors ate them. Another man was also swept along the river, clinging on to a water tank. They saw the man again later, carrying the tank on his back.

She showed me the Marikina river where the waters had risen about 20 feet, completely submerging a statue of "Marikit", the muse of the city who usually floats upon the waters. A janitor fish flopped on the bridge.

We were waiting for later hours to tow the car. I asked D how close Provident Village was. She said it was just a couple of blocks down. We decided to walk there. It truly was like a disaster movie. Most cars were leaving the area and a few army trucks were entering. Muddied and barefoot people walked the streets clutching plastic bags of food and clothes. The police stopped two boys who were carrying a refrigerator and tried to determine if they were really the owners.

On the road leading to Provident, we decided not to proceed any farther and turned back to her house.

When we returned, we learned that neighbors had just found the bodies of two market helpers who had locked themselves in the building by pulling the gates down, thinking they would be safe from the rising waters.

the guy at 711

While waiting for the van with relief goods to arrive, I sat outsite a closed 7-11. A young man, maybe in his early 20s, came around the corner. He was barefoot, muddy and had a lost look in his eyes.

"Sir, do you need anything? Food? Water?" I asked.

He just shook his head and walked back around the corner. After a few minutes, he returned.

"Sir, are you sure? Is there anything you need?" I asked again.

The man shook his head again. But then looked up and smiled.

"A Slurpee," he said.

day after the flood 3

Volunteered at Red Cross Shaw Boulevard Sunday. An old dormmate, Kaye invited me. Arrived late evening and was immediately put to work packing canned goods and rice in plastic bags. There were a lot of young people there. My guess is they were students from a nearby university. They were very well dressed and fresh-faced.

After about an hour, they told us that a Red Cross canter would be delivering and distributing goods to a village in Marikina "where the action" was. Kaye and I decided to go. Volunteers filed into five cars and waited for about an hour before we actually left. We were part of Team D. Apparently Sir D directed a quite highly acclaimed independent film about a gay boy growing up in the Philippines. He speaks slowly in a bit of a confused manner.

In our car, someone asked to begin a prayer. The girl assigned to lead the prayer whined a bit and then began to ask for everybody's safety. She then prayed that "sana the people we help will be touched by what we give them." I did a bit of a double take.

We arrived at the village at about 12 midnight. The roads were wet and dark and filled with abandoned cars. There were other volunteers there who I had seen preparing to leave when I arrived at Shaw. I think all in all there were about 50 of us.

We waited again and some of the volunteers passed the time gossiping. I got angry at one group who were singing and dancing outside the darkened village. It was irritating to see that some people still did not seem to grasp the magnitude of the floods. For some, it seemed like it was a field trip. They did not seem to appreciate that there were people trapped in their homes where outside they were singing, "Tonight's going to be a good night..."

After about another hour, Sir D gave us our instructions. When rescuers brought people out of the village, we would meet them and guide them to the van where the relief goods were held. We would then escort them to a documentation team to record their names and contact numbers. Then, we were to bring them to a waiting military truck that was supposed to take them to an evacuation center. The military truck never materialized.

A few people began to straggle out on their own. Sir D's instructions did not seem feasible in the situation. Instead, while they were being documented, another volunteer would run to get them food and water. Some people who left the village were picked up by relatives while others returned inside the village after getting enough food for their families. One elderly lady was carried out by a Coast Guard man and put into a waiting ambulance. It took some time for the ambulance to leave though because they were blocked by news vans interviewing senator and Red Cross chairman Dick Gordon. I wondered if that's what they meant when they said that's "where the action was."

Another Coast Guard team entered the village with a boat and we waited again. After a while, some volunteers said they were going in. I picked up a box of bread and carried it in knee high floods to a commercial building about one block from the guardhouse. There were about 10 of us who went in. On the second floor of the building, there were about 20 people camped out in offices. Most were sleeping.
A village official who was with us demanded that they wake up because "the volunteers took the trouble to get here." I found that a bit upsetting.

One lady told me that they were not really residents of the village but had sought refuge in the building from nearby. She had two young boys with her, one who was mentally disabled but seemed to be enjoying himself. Another woman asked me if we had medicines for coughs and betadine for cuts. All we had was food but I told her there was an ambulance outside and we would come back.

I went back out of the village and approached a lady in a Red Cross shirt to tell her that people inside were requesting medicines. She told me to coordinate with the ambulance. Another team was going in and I asked a volunteer with a first aid kit to drop off the medicines at the second floor.

At about 3 a.m. most of the volunteers had already left. There were about 16 of us left. More people were coming to the van, not necessarily from inside the village but from nearby areas. It was difficult to come up with an effective system to distribute the goods and make sure there was enough to go around.

Sir D told us that when the goods ran out, we should never tell people that there was no more food. Instead we were to tell them that another van was on its way. Some people waited, including a pregnant lady with a sick girl. Others left. We waited about four hours for the next van to come back. It was about 8 a.m. Monday.

The goods in the van had not been packed yet so six of us sat inside unpacking and repacking the cans and noodles before immediately handing them out again. A man with a baby tapped on the window asking if there was a place where someone could give his child a checkup. The ambulance though had not come back. All we could do was give him some extra bottles of water.

There was a limited supply of water so we tried to make sure that families with babies were prioritized. It's next to impossible though to ensure that this was the case.

When the food ran out again, we were told to tell people that another batch of supplies would be arriving at the village's clubhouse and to proceed there.
After about another hour, a team prepared to go back in to rescue someone. We joined the van entering the village and they dropped us off at the clubhouse where we packed some more goods and distributed them. Inside was a little bit more orderly although the supplies were even more limited. We finished distributing the goods in less than an hour.

the day after the worst flood in Philippine history 2

It's sad when a little rainfall can cause so much fear now. The sun is finally out but yesterday, it seemed as if the rain would fall forever. Reports say that we received a month's worth of rain in six hours. It wasn't even a strong rain which is even more concerning. What if the rain had continue to fall? What if the rains had been stronger?
Videos showed the Ayala underpass completely filled with water, a woman climbing out of her car as cars banged into each other in a school parking lot, children and elderly women trying to get down from slippery roofs and a van flipping tail over front before sinking in a foundation pit.
A friend in Marikina called in a panic, saying the waters had already entered the house. Last night, the radio was filled with calls for help from family members whose loved ones still had not returned home or were stuck on rooftops. Tita Livya was kind enough to let me stay with her even as she was trying to get in touch with a friend from Provident Village, one of the worst-hit areas. She told me two friends had also went to work that day, leaving their five-year old son at home with their yaya.
The rains are nobody's fault but one can't but feel angry at the incompetence of certain government officials. MMDA chairman Bayani Fernando and Defense chief Gilberto Teodoro were too busy campaigning for their presidential bids to do their jobs. I really hope people remember this when the elections roll around.
We also have to take responsibility for the garbage we have thrown in the streets and which clogged the drainage system. We have to think that every piece of garbage we throw in the streets could kill a person, or add more inches o a flood.
The rains were just signal number 1. What if they had been two or higher? We've had much stronger rains with higher winds but I think yesterday showed that our drainage systems can't take anymore. Media reports say that 71 people have died with more than 20 missing. I think the figures are underreported.

The Day After The Flood

The day after the worst flood in Philippine history. This post will be a narration of my experience of the flood. If I'm writing this, then it means I've been fortunate because our house was not affected and we still have electricity. Many people were not so lucky and still need help.
I reported for my 5 a.m. shift Saturday. The rains had already been falling but did not seem to be any cause for concern then. My shift ended at 12:30 p.m. and mom called to say that the car had not been able to leave the village due to floods. Since I had a 10:30 p.m. shift later that evening, I prepared to just wait it out and crash on one of the sofas in reception for the meantime.
At about 1p.m., Ate Mai, our office's pregnant cleaner, told us that people across the Marikina river were already moving up to their roofs, trying to save their possessions. From our office on the 9th floor, we could see people standing in the rain on their roofs, the Marikina river, filling with debris and moving fast between us.
We went out to grab some lunch and load our phones. Many of the restaurants and stores were closed or closing. When we got back to the office, the elevator had been shut down to ease the burden on the building's generator. It was eerie climbing the dark stairways with the sound of rain beating outside. People moved slowly, with only their cell phones as flashlights.
There were only eight of us left in the office. From the fire escape I watched as the river got stronger and angrier. I watched a dog on the debris of a destroyed house get swept away. I heard there were reports of dozens of people on floating debris who rammed into a bridge. I hope they're ok.
After a while, security told us that they were shutting down the generator as water was beginning to creep inside. The office stands on the banks of the Marikina river. We left the building and settled in at one of the 24-hour restaurants overlooking the driveway of the mall next to the office. After a couple of hours, the driveway began to fill with light brown mud and water from the banks of the overflowing river.
A Korean lady was also looking for a way out. She was clearly panicked but still had the decency to cover me with her umbrella. Thank you Korean lady. Her little son seemed to be enjoying himself though which exasperated the lady. We then decided to go to our boss's condo in Eastwood. We decided to take the long route to avoid the flood, which had reached thigh high in our area, even though the condo was just across the street. We stayed there a few hours and then I moved to a family friend's condo next door where I spent the evening.

3am Wednesday

It's about 3am Wednesday.

Apparently some dude just broke into the house. I was sleeping in my mom's room as mom and Miguel are both in Palawan. The bed is under a large window with a rather flimsy curtain. I heard a noise at the back and a voice. I let out a perfunctory "Oh?" and then checked the clock. It was 10:33. I heard two voices. I assumed it was the driver with a friend since he said he was coming in at 10pm. Then I heard some shuffling. Didn't worry about it.

Unable to sleep, I decided to play some Typing Maniac. After a while, Manang Letty and Jun appeared at the glass door at the patio. Jun said that a man had been peeking into the window. He only described him as rather tall. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" Jun demanded.

"I'm just looking at ate," the man replied.

Jun kicked him and the man ran off, picking up his bag which he left by the kitchen door.

I called the guardhouse about an hour ago to report it. I didn't like their attitude. They seemed to be doubtful and just took our names so they could blotter the incident. They also seemed to be suspicious of Jun since he's new and they're friendlier with the old driver. I didn't appreciate that.

We're thinking it might have been someone we know since they seem familiar with the house. I can't think of who it might be.

It was a little disturbing. I keep turning my head at every noise behind me. We put Chelsea out at the front of the house. I hope she can forget her sweet self if a stranger tries to come in again.

"Ana"

If you saw her, you’d have thought that she was just another carefree girl enjoying her youth. That’s what I first thought when I met Ana. But first impressions can be deceiving and barely scratch the surface of a young life that has already experienced unimaginable horror and hardship.

For it wasn’t long ago that Ana was walking home from work at a sardine factory. Still aching after 11 gruelling hours filling cans with ingredients to help support her family, Ana was accosted, dragged to a secluded area and raped at knifepoint. She was just 14 years old.

Although physically and emotionally traumatized by the experience, Ana had no choice but to continue working. Since the death of her father two years prior, Ana was the sole breadwinner of the family and she shouldered the responsibility of sending her twin brothers to school. Despite the incident and her emotional burden, she continued to rise every morning to walk the four kilometres to the factory, buoyed only by the hope of building a better future for her family. Then she found out that she was pregnant.

In order to keep the pregnancy from the community, Ana was forced to drop out of school. Sitting alone in her house, cradling her growing belly and fighting feelings of anger, shame and guilt over that helpless horrific afternoon, Ana’s hopes for a better life for herself and her family began to fade.

Then, thanks to you, a second chance came.

In 2004, Ana was among 500 children and youth screened for the Alternative Learning System (ALS) program being offered by the Laura Vicuña Foundation (LFV) through the Community Mobilization for Education (COME) program. While grateful for the opportunity, doubts still plagued Ana. “I’ve been out of school for two years. Can I still make a better future?” she asked herself.

But with extraordinary perseverance, Ana overcame the obstacles to become one of the most promising students in her class. Despite having returned to the factory, Ana would still visit the LFV Centre to borrow modules and other reading materials in her free time. When the centre closed, she would pore over the books at home teaching herself high school level math, science, English and other subjects while her young daughter slept soundly nearby. In 2007, Ana took the ALS Accreditation and Equivalency Test for Secondary Level and passed.

Ana’s hard work had paid off but more doors were still waiting. Doors that have been opened by donors like yourself.

By completing her ALS, Ana had qualified for the Youth Career Development Program (YCDP) implemented by LVF and UNICEF Manila. With the YCDP, Ana would now have a chance to receive hotel and restaurant training at some of Manila’s premier hotels. But first she had to hurdle the interview, and she was nervous. “I’m just an ALS graduate and everybody else is college level. What chance do I have?” she thought.
Nevertheless, while the new batch of YCDP trainees were still being selected, Ana knew she could not rest. As tenacious as ever, Ana continued to work, this time at a pharmacy to continue supporting her family. And when the call came in that she had been accepted for the YCDP, Ana bid goodbye to her family and made the trip to the capital for the five month training program.

Training at one of Manila’s most prestigious hotels, Ana learned about cultivating a professional image and began to boost her self-confidence. She also learned the ins and outs of the hotel business, gaining hands on experience in housekeeping, the kitchen and even engineering.

“At first it was hard. I felt out of place. I had to get used to different kinds of people. I felt uncomfortable and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” Ana says. Overwhelmed by the loud, bustling concrete jungle of Manila, she also missed her family and the peace and quiet of the province. But after a few weeks, Ana began to adjust and while other batch mates lost courage and dropped out or surrendered to circumstances, she remained as tenacious as ever, refusing to let her second chance slip away. “I can do this,” Ana began to realize.

Again, Ana’s hard work paid off. Even before her February 2008 graduation from the program, she was already hired as a contractual worker for the hotel – the first among her batch. Recognized by the hotel management for her perseverance and good work, she was also entrusted to care for the hotel president’s office. Yet even with a stable job, Ana chose not to rest on her laurels. With newfound confidence and an eye on the future, she recently accepted a transfer to another rising hotel, knowing that her chances to succeed would be even greater if she broke through her comfort zones. “I wanted a new environment and I knew that I would have more opportunities if I was part of the opening team,” she says quietly but confidently.

Now, as Ana looks over the city’s skyline, I wonder what she’s thinking. Just 19 years old, she has come a long way from packing chilli and tomatoes into sardine cans. A long way from a terrible, abusive experience that unfortunately, waylays many young girls’ futures.

Today, Ana boards with a YCDP batch mate in Pasay City and commutes everyday on the mass railway system to her work in Ortigas. With glowing recommendations, she has now been entrusted to care for the office of the nationwide president of hoteliers and also receives personal guest requests for housekeeping. “I like housekeeping because we’re the first people that the guests encounter,” Ana, the girl who was once so concerned about being a simple lass in the big city, says.

As independent as ever, she still supports her family back home and her two brothers are in their final year of high school. In her spare time, she enjoys going to the mall with her friends or reading the newspaper to catch up on current events. She’s even thinking of going back to school to earn her degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. Just like any girl enjoying her youth, but one who has faced incredible obstacles and triumphed.

“Don’t think you can’t do it,” Ana said when I asked her if she had any words of encouragement to other young people like herself. “You have to believe you can do it. Think of what you want to achieve and go for it. Don’t give in to negative thoughts,” she said. More than just saying it however, Ana has lived her words.
Ana has become a role model and an inspiration to many young people, not only in her home province of Negros Occidental but in Manila as well. She has given hope to many young girls and women like herself who have been sexually abused and who believe that their futures have been taken from them. It was you who gave Ana that hope and it’s you who can continue to help others like her with your donations.

The YCDP is just one of UNICEF’s many projects in connection with partner NGOs which are designed to help sexually exploited girls and young women regain their self-worth and dignity. By sending your help as soon as possible, you can ensure that the program keeps running and that more girls and young women from the province can have a second chance to reclaim their lives and futures.

Barangay Pananawan, Masbate

To reach Barangay Pananawan, one must travel down a long, lonely dirt road to the south western coast of Masbate and then take a short banca ride through a thick mangrove. Here, some 345 families live on the edge of the Visayan Sea. In their coastal isolation, they make their livings mostly by fishing in nearby waters or farming in the interior mountains.

Among the barangay residents is Rose Marie Cabigas. A 40-year-old housewife, Rose Marie devotes her time to her eight children including 7-year-old Eugene and 4-year old Seny Rose. A typically curious second grader, Eugene enjoys his lessons in the nearby elementary school and also makes time for his favourite past-time, drawing. Like any other boy, he enjoys climbing trees with his friends and recently had to be taken to the health centre for a nasty fall from one of his latest adventures. With shy eyes covered by brown hair lightened by the sun and sea, Eugene was also born without legs and must pull himself across the hot, stony ground of the village on his thin arms.

Rose Marie’s husband, Senin, tills the land of a non-resident of Panan-awan, earning a percentage of the rice palay harvest. When the season begins to slow down, he also fishes and looks for odd jobs to help put food on the table. Recently however, he has had to leave Rose Marie and the younger ones to attend to the burial of his mother in another island.

While previously, Rose Marie might not know where her and her family’s next meal might come from, she now breathes a little easier with the assistance extended to her from the government’s Filipino Family Social Welfare program (4P) and conditional cash transfer (CCT) initiative. Since December 2008, Rose Marie has been receiving P1400 ($28) a month as part of the government’s conditional cash transfer program.

“It’s a big burden off my shoulders. I no longer have to borrow money to just buy even the necessities,” Rose Marie says in Cebuano. While empty fishing nets would have meant that Eugene, Seny Rose and their siblings would have had to go to bed hungry, Rose Marie can now always make sure that the family has at least three meals a day.

In addition to food, Rose Marie has also been able to pay her children’s tuition fees for the coming term, buy the necessary school supplies and medicines for her family. While Eugene is excited to return to class with his clean new notebooks, his little sister Seny Rose will begin attending the newly built day care centre in the village.

With additional guidance coming from parental effectiveness and financial literacy seminars, Rose Marie has also been able to set aside a small amount each week. “I save about 20 pesos a week, every Saturday. I’d like to be able to save more as time goes by. Maybe 50 pesos a week, and then maybe even P100 a week. But no Saturday goes by that I don’t set aside at least P20,” Rose Marie says.

Her dream is to finish building their little wooden home and hopefully begin a business, such as selling food. She also hopes that a high school will soon rise in or closer to their barangay before Eugene graduates so that he won’t have a difficult time travelling to attend school in the neighbouring village. In the meantime, she hopes to find a pair of crutches for Eugene so he can move around more easily and build his self-confidence. Although Eugene enjoys school and his teachers single him out for his enthusiasm, he is also a sensitive boy not immune to the teasing of his classmates. Sometimes, he would rather stay at home to avoid their hurtful remarks, Rose Marie says.

While the future is still uncertain, Rose Marie is more confident about facing the challenges ahead with the skills and attitudes being fostered and developed by seminars implemented by UNICEF together with the CCT program. Even though two older children had to stop school to help their father, Rose Marie is now confident that Eugene and Seny Rose will be able to complete their studies.

“We’ll become more used to handling money and when the 4Ps is finished, I think we’ll know what to do,” she said.

However, while the CCT program is helping some families such as Rose Marie focus on the future; some families are still overwhelmed by their current situations.
Delia Moralde and her husband Domingo live in a small hut along with their nine children near the village’s coastline. Their hut is divided into two sections; a sleeping area and a cooking area. Firewood is stacked on one end of the home, near a crude oven. Thin native chickens pick at fallen grains of rice on the dirt floor and used foil sachets plucked from the sea have been placed strategically between beams to support the makeshift roof. Inside the sleeping area, an elevated portion of the hut blocked off by horizontal wooden planks, seven-year old Arnel lies stretched out observing the sights around him. The size of a one-year old, Arnel was born with Down Syndrome and is unable to walk or talk. While survival continues to be a challenge for the Moraldes, the family at least now has a fighting chance. Before the introduction of the cash grants, six of their children died due to preventable causes such as measles and hepatitis. Now, all their children have been fully immunized.

Domingo earns about P150 a week, mostly by ferrying people up and down the estuary and to nearby islands. Lately, however Domingo has been sick and unable to earn the needed funds to keep his family afloat. While Delia receives P1400 a month in assistance, the money is already stretched to pay for her children’s food and schooling and to take care of Arnel.

Delia however tries to ensure that they always have rice, which she mixes with corn to feed the family. A large portion of the assistance meantime goes to buying sterilized milk for Arnel who is unable to digest solid foods. Out of the P7000 she received in the last five months, P4000 has gone towards the children’s tuition fees, supplies, and clothes while the rest went for food. With all the financial pressures bearing down on her to simply get through another day, Delia has no opportunity to save even a fraction of her funds.

Sensing her parents’ helplessness meantime, Baby, their 16-year-old daughter who is in the fifth grade says that she would like to stop her schooling so she can work as a helper in the city to earn some money for her family and herself. Baby and other adolescents like her, are the target of UNICEF life skills seminars that aim to prepare potential migrants to live and work in the country’s larger, congested cities where trafficking and child exploitation still run rampant. Aside from instilling “street smarts” in the children, the seminars would also provide vocational skills training to expand their job options beyond the realm of domestic help.

When asked what their dreams are, Delia and Domingo just laugh sheepishly, searching the air for answers before settling into silence with resigned smiles on their faces. When the assistance stops coming, they’ll just do whatever it takes to survive, Delia finally says quietly. In the meantime, dreams for the future have no place in this seaside hut, where every ounce of energy and resources must go towards getting through the day.

Delia and Rose Marie are just two of more than 100 CCT beneficiaries in Barangay Panan-awan. But more than just the beneficiaries themselves, the community as a whole is benefitting from the social welfare program and the values they promote. For example, Barangay Panan-awan officials have become more receptive to new ways of improving their community and are no longer deterred by obstacles to pursue the important projects that will benefit the families of Panan-awan. Even the youth are getting involved with the SK willing to put up a P50,000 counterpart for the renovation and construction of school rooms in the community. Barangay officials meantime are also gaining valuable experience in resource mobilization, planning and collaborating with different levels of government.

With the CCT helping to provide for many of the families’ basic needs and stirring a spirit of entrepreneurialism and a new realization that the cycle of poverty can be broken, Barangay Panan-awan is a village hungry to develop themselves and use the help they’ve been given to become more self-reliant.

People. Power.

Former President Corazon C. Aquino passed away over the weekend. I was in the province, enjoying a slight reprieve and had purposefully and happily denied myself any communication devices. I only heard about it over drinks with Cyril late Saturday evening at Natalna.

Since returning to Manila, I have gone over the tributes, watched some videos and listened to the news. This afternoon, I watched her September 1986 speech before the U.S. Congress as well as some videos of the 1986 Edsa Revolution. On the radio in the taxi, I listened as throngs of supporters did a sort of pilgrimage, accompanying Cory's casket and retracing the major landmarks of People Power before heading to the Manila Cathedral.

When Edsa 1 was playing out, I was a seven year old in China. I remember people on the street waving to us, giving the thumbs up sign and yelling "Go Philippines!" I remember giving a speech on our home countries in school, wearing a yellow t-shirt saying "I stopped a tank with my heart." To this day, nothing brings a tear to my eye like watching videos of that great time in our history when the Filipino was at her best.

To me, that is what Cory represents. The best of the Filipino. Not because she was the best Filipino herself, but because she became a symbol of great aspirations of a very humble people. In those three days in 1986, the aspirations were realized.

With her passing, I pray for an awakening – that the spirit of Edsa 1986 be rekindled. A spirit of hope. I pray that Filipinos realise that People Power was not just about Cory. After all, it was the people that rallied around her and who put their lives on the line for her. People Power was about the people. The women who tied themselves to ballot boxes to protect votes, nuns who faced down tanks armed only with rosaries , children who offered soldiers flowers – every Filipino who wanted change and fought for it and inspired the world. While Cory gave us hope, the Filipino gave her courage. The Filipino gave Ninoy and Cory a reason.

Some would argue that we squandered Edsa 1. Perhaps it is true. But at the same time, the history of this country is not yet finished. A recent Time magazine article concluded by asking whom will the Filipino people march with now that "their saint has gone to meet her God?"

I think the time has come to march with our best selves without the impetus of a symbol. If we squandered Edsa 1, let us not squander Cory's death. I hope that the what Edsa 1 symbolized can finally be realized. That as we grieve the loss, we also realise what we are capable of. Maybe her passing can help us reclaim People Power by reminding us of our best selves.

Inspiring, heroic, brave. Filipino.

why i sometimes think there's no hope...

Good grief. Doesn't the senate have anything better to do than to devote taxpayers money to investigating a sex video? How is this a national concern? It seems that our lawmakers have no idea what to do with their time and our money. Never mind that corruption, unemployment, poverty, and so much more goes unchecked... what a joke. And we expect to be taken seriously by the rest of the world?

Sure, crimes against women. Okay. Or maybe just an opportunity for Bong Revilla of all people to look personally offended and practice his well-practiced look of justice for the downtrodden for the cameras. How about the OFWs whose rapes have been videotaped and then shown on the news and then quickly forgotten? My God.

Insecurity Guards, Creepy Cabs and Presidentiables

They all piss the living bejabbers offa me.

junkapalooza

The CA has acquitted Daniel Smith of rape. I have not been monitoring the reaction to this news for sanity's sake, but will do so soon when I'm feeling a little less distracted and maybe a bit stronger. Honestly, I'm a bit hesitant to get sucked in to that vortex again. I don't think anybody though was surprised with the decision in the wake of Nicole's controversial affidavit.

I completed the first semester of my MFA a couple of weeks ago, which was followed by a nice surf trip to LU during the Holy Week. (In fairness, I refrained from going in the water on Friday.) I arrived in San Juan at about 4am. Mosquitos congregated around the lonely lights of Sebay. I think it was a happy moment. Quiet, early, pre-dawn hours with nothing but the sound of waves breaking in darkness. I walked through Surf Camp and onto the beach where I hijacked a little spot under a commercial tent. Using my bag as a pillow and my jacket as a mattress, I was happy.

Was directed to a pic of me surfing with the caption: "Frina, the Fil-Am girl from Lingsat enjoying the whitewater to the shore." I wonder where they get their information... I ain't no Fil-Am dammit.

We were hit by a terrific hot spell about a week ago. Now, the rains have come somewhat unexpectedly. The weather is so confusing.

I bought myself a classic bicycle a few days ago. I forgot how much fun riding is. I've fitted it with a basket and some side mirrors. I really enjoyed tinkering aroudn with it and may have gotten a little carried away with some screw tightening action. Am considering painting the bike which I haven't named yet.

I've been trying to work out a bit more regularly the past few days to capitalise on my gains after my last surf trip. By gains, I mean weight reduction. I haven't had softdrinks since I returned and have been pretty disciplined with my exercises. I don't know if I'm feeling my age, bu I know I need to work harder now. Now if I could just quit smoking. Damn, I'm thirsty.

A Taxi I'm Glad I didn't Get

Interesting day today but one thing at a time.

Met with Tita Girlie at the Fort this evening and was waiting for a taxi to take me home. I walked to a nearby ATM to get some funds for tomorrow (Chelsea's ear surgery) but the ATM was closed. A couple of taxis passed by which I was lazy to flag down. One taxi cut in front of another taxi just a couple of metres away. Nothing too malicious. Just trying to squeeze in to make a turn as it was a red light. However, the passenger of the other taxi - a man sporting a sando, shorts and a beer belly alighted and confronted the other taxi driver. They argued for a few minutes and as I feared the situation might escalate, I flagged down a taxi to escape the scene. We were directly behind the two taxis and I saw the man plop his messenger bag on the hood of the taxi he was riding and remove a handgun. I don't know what he planned to do but I was really hoping my taxi would drive off already. The taxi driver the man was threatening meantime managed to make his turn and leave the scene and the beer-bellied man got back into his cab where his driver had sat silent the whole time.

It was a little frightening. You know that there are truly violent people walking the streets who have no qualms about confronting any perceived slight. People walking the streets with weapons who may be itching for any situation to use them. Stupid man.

Tired...

Good grief, I'm tired. My sleeping patterns have been erratic lately. Usually get to sleep around 6am and then wake up around 11:30am. The other day, I tried to take a power nap before doing some work but had a dream that I ran a marathon. So I woke up even more tired. Geez. I just want to lie in bed with a Calvin and Hobbes and eat a bag of Poore's Brothers salt and vinegar chips. Or Kettle-cooked chips. Or marshmallow popcorn.

still more

One of the posters in the forum I'm engaged in asked the few of us who are still standing up for Nicole, "who and what are we fighting for?" My reply.

I’ll just speak for myself. But I’m “fighting” against our dangerous tendency to uncritically assume whatever is presented to us which makes us so predictable and easy to manipulate. Especially knowing that we have a government that is famed for its duplicity in maintaining and pursuing its self-interests and self-preservation even if it means trampling on individual rights.
The “recantation” which has triggered this backlash has already been shown to be dubious and not even a recantation. Yet, from a lazy reading of it or by depending on media’s interpretation of it, people justify their condemnation of Nicole. I still don’t understand why people are condemning her.
This brings us to the issue of women and rape. And it’s frightening to see what kind of notions and attitudes are emerging, mostly following a trend that women must have done something to deserve being raped or it’s not rape if the woman wasn’t acting properly. I think that’s worth fighting against. Like I said, I don’t understand how we can condemn her in this culture that we’ve created, at least not without condemning ourselves in the process too.
And on people thinking she sold out. We call her a hypocrite but how many people have already left and how many want to leave this country? Why do they want to leave this country? We call her a “prostitute” and a “whore” but what are the conditions in this country that have reduced our women to that? And if ever, who are we to judge these women for trying to survive in these conditions that are stacked against them?
it seems to me that the irony is that another country (even the one of one's abuser) would be more preferable and more of a safe haven than one's own country. ok, people have been very vocal about what they think that says about Nicole. but what about what it says about us? or are we happy to just let Nicole be the villain and exonerate ourselves for letting this kind of culture persist that makes not just Nicole but so many others want to leave the country?
and since it was an exchange, what about the issue of who offered the US visa? why aren't they being crucified or even being considered? i think the US is the only one that can give a US visa. Now why would they want to give a US visa to some girl who's accused one of their boys of rape and got him jailed? why aren't their motives being considered? isn't that the more worrying aspect? or is our venom only reserved for one of our own, the easiest target?

my intention is not to stop people from crucifyng her, but to at least get people to ask why this is their reaction. so when your last nail is pounded, then can we ask these questions?

And to the lady who labels Nicole a prostitute for being too weak to stand up against the US, I think that sends a dangerous message. First of all, she did stand up. And she was villified for it from many camps. it seems to say to our women and future rape victims, if you can't handle being a symbol of the country and stand up against the world's most powerful country, then you're just a little whore.

yes, people did support her. but people also used her for their own agenda and people also maligned her from day one. i don't blame her for wanting to take her destiny into her own hands.

time out

I'm detoxifying from the last few days. Just took a day for myself to wander around Cubao, checked out the books and other knick knacks. Scouted around for a bicycle.

Chelsea's ear got better, then it got worse. The doc says it's nothing to really worry about though.

Trying to think of a thesis proposal for the Lithis requirement. Got pissed off trying to log in to register online for next term.

Haven't really checked the forums and other blogs where I'm engaged in a lonely battle, but feel a little more vindicated after reading Conrado De Quiros's article on the topic. Some snippets.

"I don’t know that I can bring myself to judge Nicole too harshly. Of course I hear the cries of anger and dismay from a public that feels raw and shortchanged. Of course I hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth of the people who took up the cudgels for her, defending her as much in the court of public opinion as in the court of law, when the other side took care to depict her as a woman who did not need coercing to part with her virtue, or whatever else she had left to part with. Of course I hear the lamentations and vituperations of the women’s groups that refused to stop until they roused this country, its mind too numb to reel from yet another iniquity and wanting only to fall into the embrace of sleep, into wakefulness—like the prince in Ibong Adarna by rubbing calamansi on wound.

By why should Nicole choose the heroic path, or just the honorable one, when there is nothing in this country to support that choice? Everywhere there is corruption, rottenness, cheating, lying, stealing, murder, rape, looking out for oneself, dog versus dog, every man, or woman, for himself/herself, the devil take the hindmost. Of course there is the example set by people like Jun Lozada who have taken the honorable and heroic path amid the greatest adversity. But that example also says that there is a steep price to pay for it. That example shows that in this country the wicked are rewarded plentifully and the good are punished harshly. Why should Nicole, who has endured the burdens of the world, want to endure more?

Of course she had responsibilities, having become the symbol of purloined honor, or national debasement, but she has an example there too. No one has more responsibilities than the person currently occupying Malacañang, and shirking them—no, scuttling them—has not harmed her, it has benefited her. A society has a right to expect decent choices from its citizens only when it can enforce decency. A society has the right to expect moral choices from its citizens only when it can enforce morality. A society has the right to expect its citizens to routinely do the right thing only when it can routinely reward the right thing and punish the wrong one. That is not true here. The opposite is true here."

why i'm afraid

i'm supposed to be studying for my comprehensive exam this saturday but i've just been so bothered by the Nicole issue. there are two things that frighten me most. First is our tendency towards uncritical assumption and the vicious impulsiveness it triggers. Second is what the reactions to the situation are revealing about our culture's attitudes towards rape and women.

through media's limited vocabulary and sensationalizing tendencies, Nicole's affidavit was headlined as a "recantation" or a "reversal". Mr. Conde has shown that upon close reading (or perhaps just even a simple reading of the text), the affidavit actually never says the rape didn't happen. i've already talked about how worrying it is that people have simply taken the affidavit at face value without considering whether it was done under duress or as part of a political deal between Malacanang and the U.S. to effect Smith's release and consequently scurry the contentious VFA under the rug. this is a government famed for its duplicity in maintaining its self-interests and self-preservation. i know i may be accused of conspiracy theories here but i think better a conspiracy theorist who asks questions than a pavlovian dog who is so easily manipulated. Nicole has been cast as the villain. And only Nicole. The woman upon whom was thrust this burden of being the symbol of Phiippine sovereignty and of rape victims. Now, because of a lazy reading of the affidavit, we say, "Yeah, she deserved whatever she got."

It's mind-boggling to think how people are so quick to crucify Nicole for "giving up" or wanting to/accepting a chance to leave a country that believes that it's okay to rape women for whatever reason.

The reactions have been really frightening, driven by backwards notions of rape, fueled by a macho society for whom there is only one image of a "proper Filipina". A drunk woman deserves to be raped. A woman of loose morals deserves to be raped. I was reading in another forum a thread on "Nicole has damaged the image of the Filipina." What? How? With or without Nicole, it seems that many Filipinos already have such low regard for women.

“That whore deserved it.” By that logic can we assume that if a woman drinks a little and wears a mini-skirt, it is alright to rape her? Let’s go to a bar right now and wait for the women to get drunk. Then you can point out the women that deserve to be raped. Can we assume then that it is only through the graciousness of men that we escape the punishment of rape which otherwise would be justifiably meted out? It’s alright then for a man to rape any woman if she is not conducting herself “properly”? this may be simplistic but i tend to think that someone who thinks any woman deserves to be rape, probably has the potential to be a rapist. Or at least stand by nodding in approval. but it's not any more simplistic or barbaric as equating a mini-skirt and a drunk woman to a green light for rape. And because this seems to be the attitude of so many of us, it’s fucking scary.

Back to Nicole

Back to the Nicole issue. Two articles.

Deconstructing Nicole's Affidavit
By Carlos H. Conde

Nicole’s statement was not a “recantation” or a reversal of what she said during the trial. The media, of course, quickly concluded that, because this does not seem to fit with the earlier narrative, it must be a reversal.

But nowhere in the document did Nicole say that she was not raped. In fact, she even said, “I did not immediately tell my boyfriend that I was raped by Daniel Smith. All I said was that something bad happened to me.” She said she was too drunk and, as such, she “can’t help but entertain doubts on whether the sequence of events in Subic last November of 2005 really occurred the way the court found them to have happened.” She had doubts about the “sequence of events,” not on whether Smith had sex with or raped her.

She also said: “My conscience continues to bother me realizing that I may have in fact been so friendly and intimate with Daniel Smith at the Neptune Club that he was led to believe that I was amenable to having sex or that we simply just got carried away.”

These passages do not change the fact that 1) Smith had sex with her inside the van, 2) that she was too drunk to know, let alone control, what was happening and 3) that having sex with a very drunk person, as Katrina Legarda put it on ANC this afternoon, is never consensual. “Having sex with a drunk woman is rape. It’s like necrophilia,” Legarda said.

Indeed, Nicole’s narration of events based on her affidavit may even bolster her claim that she was too inebriated that night and Smith and his friends took advantage of her condition. Whether she found Smith attractive, whether they became touchy-feely with each other — this is all beside the point, which is that she was too drunk to know what was happening, too weak to control her faculties or rein in her impulses.

So what was the point of the affidavit?

Reading and rereading Nicole’s it, I am convinced that, more than anything else, it was meant to depict Smith in a benign light, that he was not the monster that this case has made him out to be. It also depicted US servicemen as a friendly bunch — “We treated them as family,” Nicole said, whose own family lived inside a military camp in Zamboanga where they interacted with US troops on a regular basis.

Without a doubt, the point of the affidavit was to influence the justices of the Court of Appeals. They could use the “recantation” angle to paint Nicole as a liar. But they will conclude from reading Nicole’s statement that Smith and company were not monsters, that they did not set out to the Neptune Club looking for prey, that they were just a rowdy group of middle-class American boys out to have some fun, that this was all a misunderstanding.

A misunderstanding that, because of Smith’s conviction, has dire implications for the United States. The United States will never yield control of its forces to the authority of other governments, judicial or otherwise. That would be anathema to their geo-political ambitions and interests. Thus, Washington will never allow a “mere understanding” between drunk and horny people to mess things up by setting a precedent that can threaten the way America deals with other countries.

The Court of Appeals will look at Nicole’s affidavit, as well as the fact that she is now in the US for good, as an affirmation of the notion that she is getting on with her life and that this had been a mistake, a bad night for Nicole and the servicemen, who are not monsters after all, according to Nicole herself. They will think that the cost of upholding a conviction — the cost to Smith and to the interests of the Philippines and the United States — is too high a price for both nations to pay for a night of wild partying that went awry.

Which is why the Court of Appeals will overturn Smith’s conviction, and the Supreme Court ruling ordering the Americans to remand Smith to Philippine custody will be rendered moot, and everything will be honky-dory.

Which is why the United States will keep doing what it is doing.
http://www.pinoypress.net/2009/03/18/deconstructing-nicoles-affidavit/

Nicole is Not the Enemy
By Inday Espina-Varona

It was, in the parlance of negotiators, a lose-lose situation. Nicole, the woman raped by American serviceman Daniel Smith, the woman whose face the Inquirer bared cruelly on its front pages today, knew what awaited her.

And she was right. The insults, the slurs, the indignation rained as heavy as they did when PR hacks hired for the defense of Smith (and the government he serves) tried to justify a crime by painting Nicole as a woman of loose morals.

That Nicole practically damns herself the same way now does not excuse the stone throwing.

A woman of loose morals can be raped. Indeed, a woman seen by society as one with loose morals is most vulnerable to rape. A society that fumes at a woman’s attempt to live by her own rules will turn its eyes away and close its ears when men decide to impose the most humiliating punishment they can on this singular, defiant woman.

There’s a line in the Green Mile. To paraphrase: people who think themselves enlightened can perpetrate the most horrific deeds. By commission they do this; likewise, by omission.

Like many friends, I, too, would like to see a lopsided, onerous treaty provided rescinded. A country may open its doors to troops of a military ally if it helps build up its own defense capabilities; what makes the VFA unjust are the provisions clearly skewed towards the bigger power. Until the VFA treats erring American troops like erring Filipino troops, it remains unacceptable. (One might point out that too many erring Filipino soldiers have walked away scot-free but we can’t have everything and just a slight evening out of the field is enough for me.)

But yearning for a noble goal – abolition of an onerous treaty – does not mean it is right for us to drag Nicole through the mud once more. There is no more self-serving, selfish comment than to wail we’ve been had because Nicole issued an affidavit virtually clearing Smith.

So she crumbled. So she groveled before might and the power of the American dream. So what? A close reading of the affidavit shows she doesn’t say the rape NEVER happened. She just spouts what the defense wants her to say.

Many raped women have crumbled in the face of much, much less – say, the tears of an apologetic husband or boyfriend, or the pleas of a family tired of braving the sneers and leers, or just the mounting bills of a legal battle; or maybe just the pleas of one man’s mother, and/or the promise of marriage to make an “honest” woman of her — with all the subtext of she-was-asking-for-it.

We in the media and people’s organizations know of tortured folk recanting on earlier testimony. It doesn’t make them allies of evil men; it simply means there were factors heavy enough to crush determination and courage.

Was it naïve of Nicole to expect aid from the Philippine government? Maybe. But many Filipinos do expect government or government officials to help them. Why are there long lines of supplicants at the gates of mayors and congressmen and governors?

Besides, it’s not just the government. People’s orgs and NGOs – even the media – are there to succor the afflicted. But our attention spans are also as short as the public’s. We are not evil; we just have other, “more important” things to attend to.

How many times have we in media done a round of mea culpa when discussing human rights? We admit we cannot always keep the lights shining on one particular case – and that often starts the slide to defeat. That does not make us in the media bad; we know the many reasons for this situation. If we can accept this, why cannot we accept the loneliness and bewilderment of the violated, their impatience and their hopelessness?

Likewise, I have been around these circles of aid-givers enough to know that there is some residual middle-class desire to expect people we help to be docile and grateful, when in truth the task of working for justice does not guarantee good manners and right conduct among those we seek to aid.

Oh yes, there are many do-gooders who can barely mask their pinched noses as they go about giving aid, and there are those whose faces turn red and mouths turn down when they are met with less than obsequious thanks in their tours of duty or because the people they help just can’t be bothered by the higher isms of the day. That’s not to denigrate aid givers as evil; just to make them out as truly human, the same way the people they serve, Nicole included, are just as human.

The truth is, Nicole has walked a long, long way in this ordeal; longer than most women who have suffered rape.

Just a little over a week ago, I had to double check some documents from the Bacolod police because they initially seemed exaggeratedly negative. Of 36 cases of acts of lasciviousness report last year, only six were filed with the fiscal. Of 943 cases of violence against women, only 13 were filed in court. Of 26 rape cases, only six were filed. In the case minors, the ratio was nine of 34 rape cases ending up in court.

Nicole, at least, braved cross-examination and the harsh glare of the media spotlight, including the baring of her real identity name.

She mustered the strength for this because many of us supported her – whether because rape alone was enough to stir us to outrage or because she was a vehicle to reach a higher goal.

And now she has crumbled. Why are we so irate? How many friends do we know who voluntarily joined this or that cause but dropped out after sometime? Do we sneer and call them traitors? Don’t we even share meals with those who now serve the government, no matter if the thought of this government makes us puke?

How many on Facebook were once firm believers in this or that cause? Nobody pressured us to join those causes, right? Did we face a mob when we decided to leave?

Well, Nicole never volunteered for the cause. She had to be raped to join it. She never asked to be poster girl for nationalists; she was made one by virtue of rape.

There are a million and one reasons for despair and hopelessness. A noble cause cannot always hold one above the waters. Nor will a lynching make our cause more right.

Nicole is not the enemy. Let’s not treat her like one.
http://www.pinoypress.net/2009/03/19/nicole-is-not-the-enemy/

Chelsea

Sarah warned me it would be dangerous to try and engage in some intelligent debate at the forums but I didn't listen. Now I have a hell of a headache. Which is funny, because really what I wanted to write about before this whole Nicole thing came out of the woodwork was my dog.

I took Chelsea to the vet yesterday and just as I came out of the gate, two kids passed by walking a little chihuahua (i guess there's really no such thing as a big chihuahua though). "Hey, it's Chelsea!" the little boy yelled out and they came over to the front of the house.

I love it that people in the neighborhood know Chels. When we used to live on a different street in the same village, a lady actually rang the doorbell to ask for Chelsea once. No kidding. One time Chelsoid wandered the village after someone left the gate open and was picked up by the patrolling guards. they brought her to the pound at the association and when we called to ask if they had seen a golden retriever, they asked, "Sobrang mabait ba sya?" Yah, that's our dog.

Anyway, the kids came over and the girl started telling me about how Chelsea apparently has a crush on her dog. And they introduced me to their three-month old chihuahua, Bolt. I really enjoyed that. Thanks guys.

Holy Fuck Reaction part 2

The immediate aftermath of Nicole's supposed recantation has been quite passionate and as expected, quick to villify her. I've seen forums where her real name has been revealed and pictures of her plastered with captions of "hypocrite, slut, prostitute", etc.

As I've mentioned before, what worries me most is this uncritical assumption of the recantation which I don't think can be taken at face value. One knee-jerk reaction I've heard is "sabi ko nga ba, Daniel Smith is so gwapo, he doesn't need to rape anyone." That also worries me. It's disturbing to see the emergence of latent prejudices against rape and women. A good looking guy can't be guilty of rape. A condom equates to consent. A drunk woman is asking for it. While the recantation (whether done voluntarily or under duress) has implications for rape victims and woman in general, so do our responses. and so far our responses are disturbing in what they are revealing about our culture's attitudes towards women.

I don't think we can just take the recantation at face value and paint Nicole as the villain without examining the conditions that have made this situation possible. these include (to my mind) a government which values political considerations over individual rights, a culture with such backward notions about rape and women, and a country where a U.S. visa can be used as a bargaining tool. and i think the immediate villification of Nicole based on a document that i think is dangerous to take at face value is misguided and probably displays our own ignorance of our complicity in letting these conditions persist.

taking things at face value meantime is also precisely what makes us so easily manipulated.

Holy Fuck reaction

While it will be easy to villify Nicole now, I still want to give her the benefit of the doubt. As having been a possible rape victim. I think it would be naive to take the recantation at face value and its uncritical assumption is dangerous, especially knowing how political manuevering in this country can so easily turn black into white, night into day. But as Barbs pointed out, the recantation now raises a question mark over future testimonies of rape victims which is disturbing. However, I think it has to be considered whether the recantation was done under duress, threats, out of resignation or voluntarily. I don't believe Nicole ever intended on being a poster child for rape victims or the rallying point for Philippine sovereignty and I think any judgment on her character would be hasty without closer scrutiny of the workings behind the recantation. I tend to think that Malcanang's hands are all over this. Secretary of Injustice Gonzales questions why Nicole just didn't go to Italy if she sincerely resented the U.S. I don't think the U.S. can issue a visa to Italy in return for Smith's release. If she was paid off, is she the only one whose motives we should doubt?

I think there are three possibilities. One, the rape happened and disillusioned with the possibility of real justice being meted out, Nicole took a deal (perhaps an expedited U.S. immigrant's visa) and recanted. Two, the rape didn't happen and Nicole is just one messed up girl. Or three, the rape happened but Nicole has been banished by Malacanang and the recantation is just the product of legal experts and spin doctors.

We're devolving into conspiracy theories here. I think I need to let this all sink in first. But it's sickening when the manipulation of justice and the trampling of a country's interests or a victim's rights are so blatantly played out. It becomes like a bad familiar play where the audience knows the lines and what will happen next... Everything can just be covered up with some carefully worded statements, ignored questions or by taking flight. But what does that say about us? Hopefully some of us are not too cynical or resigned to let it just blow over until the next performance and the next performance and the next...

Or perhaps I'm the naive one.

Holy Fuck.

This shit is getting too predictable. I guess you're free to go Mr. Smith.

‘Nicole’ recants
By Norman BordadoraPhilippine Daily InquirerFirst
MANILA, Philippines—The Filipino woman who accused an American Marine of raping her late in 2005 and testified about her ordeal in court has recanted.

The sworn statement issued by "Nicole" on March 12 comes more than two years after the Makati Regional Trial Court convicted Lance Corporal Daniel Smith of raping her.

Nicole said she expected her motives to be questioned but maintained she was bothered by her conscience

“I expect many sectors to question my motives in executing this statement more than three years after the incident. However…I can’t help but entertain doubts on whether the sequence of events in Subic last November of 2005 really occurred the way the court found them to have happened,” Nicole said in her affidavit.

“My conscience continues to bother me realizing that I may have in fact been so friendly and intimate with Daniel Smith at the Neptune Club that he was led to believe that I was amenable to having sex or that we simply just got carried away,” she said.

“I would rather risk public outrage than do nothing to help the court in ensuring that justice is served,” she added.

Nicole said she practically grew up interacting with American servicemen in Zamboanga City “who treated me and my family very well.”

She also questioned her decorum when she met Smith at the Neptune Club at the Subic Freeport, saying she was so drunk she may have lost her inhibitions and did more than just dance with the Marine.

Nicole also raised doubts that Smith raped her inside a van at the Subic Bay Freeport Zone and suggested that she may have welcomed the Marine’s sexual advances.

“I told the court that Daniel Smith kissed my lips and neck and held my breast inside the van. Recalling my testimony, I ask myself how I could have remembered this if witnesses told the court that I passed out and looked unconscious,” Nicole said.

“How could I have resisted his advances given this condition? Daniel Smith and I were alone on the third row of the van which had limited space and I do not recall anyone inside the van who held my hand or any part of my body,” she added.

Nicole said all she could remember was the “very loud music and shouting inside the van.”

“With the events at the Neptune Club in mind, I keep on asking myself, if Daniel Smith wanted to rape me why would he carry me out of the Neptune Club using the main entrance in full view of the security guard and the other customers?”

“Why would Daniel Smith and his companions bring me to the seawall of Alaba pier and casually leave this area that was well-lighted and with many people roaming around? If they believed that I was raped, would they have not dumped me instead in a dimly lit area…to avoid detection?”

Nicole said with the amount of alcohol she had consumed that night and only a slice of pizza to eat, she may have lost her inhibitions and enjoyed Smith’s company.

“I had no opportunity to deny in court that I kissed Daniel Smith but, with the amount of alcoholic mixed drinks I took, my low tolerance level for alcohol and with a slice of pizza all night, it dawned upon me that I may have possibly lost my inhibitions, became so intimate with Daniel Smith and did more that just [dance and talk] with him like everyone else on the dance floor,” Nicole said.

“Looking back, I would not have agreed to talk with Daniel Smith and dance with him no less that three times if I did not enjoy his company or was at least attracted to him since I met him for the very first time on the dance floor of Neptune Club,” she added.

SIGH

Some unprocessed reactions on a development in the Subic rape case. Apparently, "Nicole" has been granted a visa to the U.S. or has already been in the U.S. for a week. The news comes on the heels of Obama's personal phone call to GMA regarding the VFA. It's disturbing news on many levels. Because Barbs can't relate the news to food, I'm going to have a crack at this.

From a distance, I see the development as a reflection of so many ills plaguing Philippine society, stemming from a colonial history and tangled in current neo-colonial trappings. It also reflects the grim situation of the judicial process in the country as well as the unabated diasporic phenomenon in response to a hopeless homeland.

Here we have a U.S. soldier who forced himself on a young Filipina. Daniel Smith was convicted but continues to defy a Supreme Court order that would have him detained at a Philippine facility instead of the U.S. Embassy. Now "Nicole" has fired her lawyers and many suspect that the young woman was pressured into leaving for the U.S. Perhaps though it was her own decision. After all, how many Filipinos wait years for that prized visa? Perhaps it is part of a deal between the U.S. and Malacanang to broker Smith's eventual release. Maybe it's GMA's way of currying favor with Obama. Who knows. But it all smells fishy. And it's sad. And infuriating.

"Nicole and her family are tired of the case and they do not want anymore to be bothered by it because there is no justice in the Philippines," a statement from one of the dismissed counsel said.

Many people came to the aid of "Nicole" when news broke out that a Filipina had been raped by visiting U.S. servicemen and once again the controversial VFA came to the fore. For four years, people fought for justice and clamoured for Philippine sovereignty over the matter, is it too much to expect that one's government protect its own in one's own country and uphold its rights and interests? It seems however that political manueverings, disillusionment of the possibility of any substantial justice and perhaps the lure of greener pastures (even those of one's abusers) prevail...

There's still not too much information regarding the details of Nicole's disappearance - whether it was a voluntary or opportunistic flight or one of exile and banishment so that things can quiet down either for her family or for Malacanang. We'll have to wait and see. Smith may have been convicted and Nicole may understandably want to move on from that night but the rape of the country continues.

no title

I remember now where I found my Jean Genet. Was in a street in Baguio. God bless Baguio. Also recently found a biography of Georgia O'Keefe in Bangkal. Yay Bangkal.

lousy tear ducts...

I've gotten teary-eyed twice in the last few hours. First from watching Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel's performance of Defying Gravity during the 2004 Tony Awards and second, after reading an article about Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's revolutionary plan to protect its low wage earners from layoffs.

I knew I was going to have difficulty from the beginning when Glinda tells Elphaba, "Don't be afraid." And Elphaba replies with a voice trembling from newfound courage, "I'm not. It's the wizard who should be afraid... of me." It almost looks like Idina is about to cry herself. Damn. Then I really lost it when Elphaba flies above the stage, looking down at the throng who've misunderstood all her good intentions (hey wait a minute...) and maligned her... Damn. Damn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejGLmx7ZH0c

Meanwhile, on a more realistic plane... so the president and ceo of Beth Israel has come up with a new plan to save low wage earners from the fate of so many other workers today. Making rounds of the hospital, he noticed that it was the people bringing food to the patients and pushing their wheelchairs that were really in effect practicing a type of medicine that all the prescribed drugs couldn't achieve. They were talking to the patients and offering them some comfort and humanity. In a meeting with hospital staff, he broached the idea that in order to protect these people (mostly immigrants), those earning more would have to make some sacrifices. He had hardly finished his sentence when his audience, the hospital staff who would have to forego bonuses and take pay cuts, began applauding his idea. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/12/a_head_with_a_heart/

I don't know. I think I can keep my emotions fairly under control but I do get teary-eyed over random things. A friend likes telling the story about how I yawned pretty much through a sentimental weepy love movie but started crying during a computer-geek thriller when the main character confronts the evil IT mogul, declaring that "knowledge belongs to the world." I don't want to name the movies specifically. That would just further implicate me in my dorkhood.