How the Magdalo Ruined My Dinner

July 26, 2003. The text came in at about 8:30 in the evening between bites of lechon kawali. “Unauthorised troop movements reported,” read the screen. While a text message is devoid of emotion and cannot convey urgency as emphatically as a human voice, it has its own peculiar tone which is just as effective.

I retrieved the bag I had just set down a few minutes earlier, and again slung it over my tired shoulders. As a reporter covering the police and military beat, the working day does not end when banks and offices close or even when the paper is put to bed. Troops, police forces, insurgents, criminals and in this case “rogue soldiers” don’t operate on a 9 to 5 schedule.

With the remaining lechon kawali and some rice packed into Tupperware, I headed back to Camp Aguinaldo. A soft wind swirled in Edsa’s emptying lanes as most people had already returned home, unable to hear the rumbles of restive soldiers trooping to the heart of Manila’s business district as they sighed into their pillows.

The military headquarters was beginning to tighten up when I arrived but was still allowing some vehicles in. The mood was tense and guarded as I neared the press office behind the bleachers where a few nights before, we had heard the camp’s base commander emotionally exhorting a group of soldiers to desist from any destabilising efforts. But the sombre feeling was broken when I entered the press room and was greeted by an almost festive atmosphere with regulars of the Defense Press Corps and colleagues covering the Crame beat whooping it up. “Wisegirl! Welcome to your first coup!” the veterans shouted gleefully.

Little by little, drowsy reporters wrenched from their sleep or gimmicks straggled into the press room in varying states of dishevelment and on the other extreme, stylishness. Anthony stumbled in with his hair still unbrushed, wearing wrinkled shorts and Islanders while Joy made her entrance in a dress and heels; the arrival of each new victim eliciting cheers and good-natured teasing from the rest of us who had already been corralled. By now, the press room had turned into a carnival of camera crews and print and broadcast journalists with its own burgeoning restiveness.

I squeezed into an empty space on the sofa next to Manong Cesar; a quiet, bespectacled man who had worked with the same tabloid for some 20 years and who often ghost-wrote articles for his daughter who worked at a rival newspaper. Soft-spoken, serious and the most senior among us, Manong Cesar did not join in the ribaldry. “I was here in ’89,” he said softly. “We had to run for cover when they started shelling the camp. A rocket landed just metres from the press office,” Manong Cesar said.

In 1989, I was a fourth grader waking up on holiday in the province to find my lolo sitting on my bed with a handheld radio pressed to his ear as he told my brothers and I that we would be staying with them indefinitely until things in Manila “settled down”. I remember my excitement at my suddenly extended vacation by the beach but also recall being worried by Lolo’s obviously distressed demeanour and wondered what he meant. When I heard the constant mention of a “coup”, I was perplexed at how such an innocuous one syllable word like a sound from the language of pigeons and babies could trigger such anxiety in the adults.

On old desktops lined against the wall, some reporters focused intensely on Text Twist or played war games, firing on tiny approaching enemies with bored strokes of their fingers while waiting for their editors to tell them that that they could return to their beds or parties. Others began writing their articles – templates of different versions of a coup quelled or a government toppled with blank spaces to be filled in later. Most continued to mingle around gossiping with each other or like me, smoking outside to watch fully armed soldiers march through the road between the press office and the auditorium, the sound of their boots in a perfect march rhythmically filling the cold night.

At about 11p.m., then AFP spokesman Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero entered the press room, informing the reporters that Camp Aguinaldo would soon be closing its gates as a “precautionary measure” and that access in or out of the military base would no longer be allowed. He added that anybody who wanted to leave should do so then. The announcement sliced through the babble and I could sense each reporter in the room withdraw into themselves as the potential gravity of the situation began to sink in. The moment of sobriety and reflection however was short-lived. Realising that the crew from a rival outfit had not yet arrived, a perky lady reporter from a TV station piped up. “So no one else can come in? When are you closing the gates?” she asked with a gleam in her eye, happier to think that her competitors would be pounding away outside Aguinaldo’s gates clamouring to get in than concerned about being trapped in a possible crossfire between government and rebel forces. Ah, reporters.

Shortly after, we were called into the Press Information Office next door to await a word from then Defense Chief Angelo Reyes. Reyes strutted in, dressed in his regular short-sleeved barong and feigning exaggerated bemusement at the pencil and camera wielding horde waiting for him, facetiously asked, “Why are you all still here?”

Appropriating Lucero’s desk, Reyes then cleared his throat and waited for the cameras to start rolling whereupon he launched into a speech about the military’s mandate and how government troops would remain faithful to the chain of command. “That’s what he said during Edsa Dos,” I heard Raffy mutter under his breath.

“There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing significant is happening. Everybody go home and get some rest,” shrugged Reyes as if the whole affair was just a terrible inconvenience.

“Sir, if nothing is happening, why are YOU still here?” Howie asked, his unassuming and almost innocent tone greatly contrasting Reyes’s bombastic attitude.

Reyes’s eyebrows raised, obviously offended at this quiet audacity. “I’m here because you’re still here and you asked me to speak to you,” the defense chief sputtered angrily. “Now go home!” We filed out of the office laughing at Reyes’s loss of composure. Nobody went home.

Suddenly, Joel, the DPC president who had been talking on his cell phone at a distance hurried back to the group. “It’s real. It’s happening. Soldiers with red arm bands are in Makati,” he said, his expression serious and sending us scrambling to our computers like a fighter pilots preparing to take off on an emergency mission.

In the early hours of July 27, some 300 soldiers now known as the Magdalo group descended onto the Oakwood hotel and Ayala malls, planting snipers on the roof deck and rigging mines around the premises, which their leaders would later claim were merely for pyrotechnic value. Accusing the government and military top brass of rampant corruption and complicity in a string of Davao bombings, the group led by five charismatic junior officers, called for the resignations of administration and military leaders. After negotiations, the coup/uprising/mutiny/rebellion was ended without bloodshed and the soldiers were driven back to barracks 18 hours after their “peaceful exercise” began.

“Ang bading naman ng coup na ito,” Joel said, shaking his head in disgust.

After filing my last story and clearing with the desk, I again relaxed on the sofa but resisted the temptation to fall into a deep slumber as Karl and Francis were laughingly taking pictures of other reporters who had succumbed to fatigue, their mouths hanging open as if gasping for breath after the marathon. I reached into my bag to pull out my neglected Tupperware and sighed. I had forgotten to pack utensils.

Feminism's Relevance in the Philippines

The regard for women and those with womanly qualities as sources of creation and creativity in pre-colonial Philippines and the absence of misogynist concepts in Philippine languages before the intrusion of foreign tongues indicates a culture that originally valued and honoured the feminine. The colonial experience however squashed woman’s role with a patriarchal agenda that not only relegated women to the bottom rung of its hierarchy but also began to redefine and modify her character, her usefulness, her worth. Even as the colonial masters have long sailed away, women remain oppressed and marginalised – an indication of a culture that is still moored in polluted waters. Feminism, as an eye and tool to catch and contest the machinations of patriarchy that intentionally or unintentionally subjugates the feminine is not merely relevant but imperative to ensure that women’s voices and stories will be heard and that women can re-define themselves on their own terms.

Dr. Marjorie M. Evasco shows how women are raising their voices through poetry to more authentically convey their experiences while Dr. Edna Zapanta-Manlapaz describes how the Philippines’ women’s movement through the “politization of women’s writings” has moved beyond upper-class concerns to sing for a greater population of previously silenced women – a chorus against oppressive patriarchal structures and more truly “songs” of themselves. Meantime, Dr. Lilia Q. Santiago examines the ways in which the so-called proper and ideal Filipina was constructed; how the mystical and intuitive babaylan was supplanted by the docile Maria Clara, particularly through male dominated readings and approaches in Philippine literature.

With Philippine literature an expression of Philippine culture and also a tool of social transformation, feminist writings and feminist readings must thus be vigilant defenders against male-biased appropriations of their meanings and messages, while simultaneously leading efforts to introduce alternative modes of perceiving the world beyond patriarchal preoccupations with power and supremacy and western binary models.

However, while feminism speaks from the margins, its objective is not so concerned with usurping the male at the centre. To replace one form of imperialism with yet another, even if helmed by women is not truly a liberating project. Instead, it is just the re-enactment of a tired story with new players. While patriarchy is founded on dominance, feminism is centred in balance and will be indispensable in correcting the unnatural one-sidedness in the country’s social, political, economic and cultural milieu.

Taxi Drivers I Have Met 2

Met another cool taxi driver named Willy this evening. When I got into his cab, he commented on my beanie and I told him that my mom gave it to me for Christmas and that I sometimes don't like to brush my hair. He laughed and told me that another girl he drove left her bonnet in his vehicle and he said I could have it. It's dark grey with a short lid. He also gave me some tips on how to quit smoking. Thanks Willy and sorry, unknown beanie-less girl.

Ateneo accident

A grade 4 pupil was killed when he was pinned between two cars at the Ateneo campus Wednesday afternoon. His name was Amiel.

From what I have gathered, the accident occured after dismissal and students were being picked up by parents, drivers and yayas. Amiel was on his way to his car with his yaya and siblings when suddenly, a van lurched foward, knocking the boy down. The 65-year old yaya, Tata Suarez, managed to push the other children out of the way but was unable to reach Amiel in time. She also sustained serious injuries. The driver of the van was a mother, Ma. Theresa Torres who was moving the vehicle after she had instructed her driver to look for her own child. Amiel's driver and 13 year old brother pulled the boy from under the vehicle. In an interview, the boy's driver said he shouted for help but nobody came to their aid, not even the Ateneo security guards. Another parent (some reports identify her as Mrs. Torres herself) helped bring Amiel to the nearest hospital where he was declared dead on arrival with head wounds. His last words were "kuya".

My heart goes out to the family of Amiel and Mrs. Torres. I know it will be easy to demonize Mrs. Torres but this is an accident nobody wanted to happen.

Sign of the Times

Read a report today about an ex-convict in Taiwan who is pleading with police authorties to send him back to jail while there looks to be no end to the financial crisis. Why not? If he can be assured of regular meals and a place to lay his head, something that is uncertain with a free life these days. The police denied his request but bought him a box lunch.

The scenario may seem amusing but is also quite disturbing. It is however not the most extreme measure being taken by people as they lose their jobs, savings and pensions. One too many stories of fathers killing themselves and their families because they could no longer provide for them have plagued headlines recently. If people can consider that option, what would keep them from ensuring that they do go to jail if it is their last hope to eat? It's a bit frightening.

There are obviously wide canyons between developed and developing countries, but I think the prison system is a curious aspect. I'm sure convicts in "first world" prisons are probably better fed and accommodated than a working class free person somewhere else. What's freedom if you can't eat?

No Title

I am trying to work on my memoir assignment for class. It is quite difficult.

shut up already

Have just read an editorial in the Inquirer regarding the right of reply bill. I'm so tired of media arguing a "chilling factor" and obstruction of freedom of the press whenever any attempts are made to rein them in.