I had held off getting one because I did not need it. But, at last, the pandemic will render me immobile until I get one. I will find it difficult to transact online with my bank unless I install its Online Banking Application. To my horror, it cannot be installed to my computer. Why? Because the app is a Mobile App.
Because I haven’t owned a smartphone at all, it took me a while to understand that platforms and applications may work for either computers/laptops or smartphones. However, this “or” is non-inclusive for many of these apps, meaning, for only one or the other, and only occasionally for both.
This bothered me considerably because I was used to logging into my bank’s portal using my computer for almost a decade. So, this is my first gripe about having to go online here in the Philippines: that banks here are giving more of their attention to mobile-phone banking versus making it accessible with a regular desktop computer or laptop. Would this be going backwards, a regress, or is this a leap in the dynamics?—in that, since most of the Filipinos who go online do so using their smartphones, this paradigm is more profitable.
Compare the screen sizes!
Which leads me to my second gripe about going online (that is, being forced to go online because of the pandemic): that, since most who go online use only smartphones, then the implication to online-learning is tremendous. It is so inefficient that it has become detrimental to leading healthy lives.
Now, those who have never used a smartphone, like me, find it horrendous to be forced to do homework and exams using a smartphone only. Navigating webpages using a netbook is quite challenging and stressful when one is after narratives and the big picture. How on earth could this be justifiably done using a narrow screen the size of my tiny palm?
For the sake of survival, I reluctantly give in to the idea of owning a smartphone. Yep, after all these years of holding out. I mourn the loss of my stand. I wonder how my students think of me now, of my advocacy against the indispensability of smartphones for their wellbeing. Yep, I showed to them graphic clips of parading smartphone zombies. And a TEDx talk by a smart young lady who discourages attachment to the smartphone lifestyle.
Because it does stay that way: smartphones are not indispensable in order to stay human, to become human, to thrive. Smartphone abuse, which is today’s norm, is in fact highly detrimental to humanity.
I have to get a smartphone so that I can do online banking and similar essential processes. But I will do my best to keep resisting its deceptive charm. My hope is that someday the smartphone lifestyle becomes downgraded as a result of alternatives developed toward having steady online presence without being caught in the trap of a smartphone’s sugary distractions.
(September 20, 2021. Hello there. How are you today? I have to insert a note here, saying, that I am not “politically motivated” regarding this post. My personal sentiments here is from a person-to-person, or human-to-human, standpoint. That is, I am seeing President Duterte as a person raher than as a politician. Yepper, these are two diferent things where the Philippines (and many other countries) is concerned right now. This post may be polarizing, but I’d rather not remove it because this is true not only for me but for many Filipinos as well, especially those who have experienced the president’s heart ever since he came into the political arena decades ago. Alles gute und viel Spass! Danke!)
(Update. 14th July 2021. Good morning, Everyone. As you can see, this post is already more than half a decade old. And this is on politics. We know how things in politics change very fast. I ask myself how much Pres. Duterte has changed over the years while he’s the president. Honestly, I have no answer. I am a bit disappointed at how much he missed doing what he had planned to do at the start. I’m sure he is, too. My heart goes out to him. His dear friend, the Honorable Perfecto Yasay, Jr., whom he appointed as Secretary for Foreign Affairs (please see blow) is not with us anymore. He succumbed to cancer-complicated pneumonia last year. May he rest in peace. Of what I can sense from the president’s speeches lately, he has become increasingly tired, more tired than when he first said so years ago. I’ll see which Filipino-authored biographies of his speak out from the heart of the common Filipino. Oh, no foreigner-authored biography for me, please. It will be bound to be propagandistic (just being cautious here!), for the revenue and fame. Thanks all the same.)
I’ve just decided that the world is free to condemn Duterte an a_s.
However, for us who understand what’s happening, he’s our chance at making it good in this life ever since European Christianity destroyed our society until today (one can read about it in, for example, “Colonial Mentality: A Review and Recommendation for Filipino American Psychology” by E. J. R. David and Sumie Okazaki, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign). That’s about 500 long years. But whereas Europe has “devalued Christianity,” we to this day remain a “God-fearing people,” maybe all not meticulously “religious” but certainly with a very strong sense of the spiritual <<< this I have no doubt.
The world can call us a nation of idiots, that’s fine. We’ll just do what we think is right. Anyway, when Duterte talks publicly he actually means it for our consumption, ergo his complete array of colorful expressions — such contextual emphatic expressions that non-Filipinos will find difficult to understand — so that we finally begin to think for ourselves, be free from “colonial mentality” that is our bane.
The industrialized world does not know all this, how we have suffered all these centuries, so they have no right to meddle with how we solve our problems. Instead they should be asking us in what ways we need help, because we urgently need help. But Duterte will not sell our national soul just to get help. If we can educate ourselves to the truth within Duterte’s term, either before he retires or before he is assassinated, then we’d have a hope at stopping the oligarchs’ excesses and give more chances to our poorest folks to better their lives.
The world condemns Duterte just on the basis of his stupid stupid mouth but for us his mouth is the least of our problems. And if indeed he was a cold-bloodied killer then that’s his business before God. (How can his neighbors of/for decades love him if he violates human rights?) But right now he’s not being a cold-bloodied killer as a president. I understand what’s happening. As of now he has restored the power of the law in the land. He constantly lectures us in all of his speeches that we must abide by the law. We have hope now in witnessing the culture of impunity disappear among the elite moneyed class. These are little gods, out of the reach of law. These elite are the remnants of the colonizers. Duterte has made enemies among them simply because he won the election. (There are mga elitista, many of them, who work for the plight of the people, and they are not part of who I’m referring to. There are non-elitista who are biased against Duterte simply because they are embarrassed of his rough ways and they want to distance themselves from him — these are the ones who are slaves to colonial mentality and many of them are fans of Leila de Lima<– that’s link to a video where she hysterically defends herself in front of media, a very un-lawyer-ly and cowardly procedure, instead of facing her accusers at the parliamentary investigations.) 🙂
The police and the wo/men-at-arms have once more become honorable to the people’s eyes. They’re back with their dignity in their correct places because they are sure now that the law will not abandon them to the moneyed-powerful. My people have not felt more safe and more hopeful for a very long time. The 700,000 who voluntarily identified themselves to the police got scared of the power of the law by way of the police. This was what Duterte wanted to happen. The majority were identified, had their names put on record, and were released back to their homes. The rest of us who have not violated the law are not scared of anything at all.
When the world calls Duterte an ass it’s us the people who feel the pain and we are at a loss because the world is more quick to condemn that to find out what’s true. The only way to stop Duterte’s foul mouth is to simply not provoke him in the first place. If the world thinks we’re a stupid primitive bunch, then so be it. We are only trying to survive as humans with dignity.
Here is the Philippines’ foreign policy (DFA Secretary Perfecto Yasay privilege speech, UN General Assembly, Sept. 20-26, 2016). The Secretary of Foreign Affairs Pefecto Yasay, Jr. is a pastor’s kid, a lawyer and teacher in the U.S., and Duterte’s dormitory roommate while both were in law school. Watch and listen: https://youtu.be/ySLG0NVdUZc
Statement Summary: PERFECTO R. YASAY, JR., Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, said that after his country’s hard-fought and hard-won independence, it zealously valued and guarded its rights and liberties through democracy and a system of checks and balances. Five months ago, the people had elected new President Rodrigo Roa Duterte with an unprecedented and resounding electoral mandate. For far too long, the Philippines had been unable to fully advance due to corruption, worsening crime, and the prevalence of illegal drugs, and corruption had become the breeding ground for the illegal drug trade. The Government was determined to eradicate illicit drugs and their manufacture, distribution and use. The rule of law and strict adherence to due process fully governed the campaign against corruption and criminality. Noting that the Government’s actions had grabbed national and international attention for all the wrong reasons, he urged everyone “to allow us to deal with our domestic challenges in order to achieve our national goals, without undue interference”. Extrajudicial killings had no place in Philippine society, and the Government did not and would never empower its law enforcement agents to shoot-to-kill any individual suspected of drug crimes, though police had the right to defend themselves when their lives were threatened.
The goal of the Government was to “leave no one behind” in its development strides, he said. The Philippines continued to enhance the delivery and quality of social services, including in health, education, food, water and housing. As one of the most disaster-prone and vulnerable countries to the adverse effects of climate change, the Philippines reiterated its call for climate justice and the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities in the implementation of obligations under the Paris Agreement. The country remained committed to the rule of law and to peace, including the recent decision on the Arbitral Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague with regard to the disputes in the South China Sea. Noting the final and binding nature of the Arbitral Award, the Philippines reaffirmed its commitment to pursuing peaceful resolution to regional disputes.
Here’s another speech that Secretary Yasay gave on September 15 at the CSIS Southeast Asia Program (Center for Strategic and International Studies): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1F1kgh7cbg
. ❤ . I pray that no evil intents interfere with the plans of the president and his cabinet for the nation. I pray that the cabinet officials and their staff stay motivated and creative in all their activities. I wish them all the best of health. I pray that the malicious elements in the senate and the house of representatives listen to their conscience, and change their hearts for the better. I pray that the elite who insist on being blind, up there in their white fanciful tower, come down and have their fancy shoes dirtied with farm manure so that they begin to see reality. I pray that the youth, the young ones who are in schools, study their lessons well and study some more beyond what their teachers could deliver to them because there’s much more truth out there that is not taught in our schools. I pray that all teachers and all of the religious and sacerdotal add to their duties the aim of eradicating “colonial mentality” from the nation’s collective consciousness. I pray for the complete healing of everyone who has decided to turn their backs on drug addiction, and start to be really happy. I pray that persons in government who used their positions for the purpose of enriching themselves stop at their tracks and start giving back to the people the money and goods that they have stolen from everyone. I pray that the person on the street, the ordinary everyday person, hold on to his/her God-given strength, continue to hope, continue to work hard and honestly, until our nation is collectively delivered from the constant threat of poverty. I pray that Filipinos all over the globe take care of their health, stay sane and reasonable, not be blinded by the power of money, and stay spiritually intact in the face of any form of discrimination and cold treatment. I pray that the foreigners in my country stay safe, healthy, happy, and appreciative of the people’s friendliness. And I pray that the little ones, the children, imitate the president’s sweet little daughter and not follow our Tatay or Lolo Digong in speaking bad words. 🙂
My dear president, my virtual teacher, our leader, our elder brother, our friend, please continue to be in good health, stay humble, stay grounded, don’t forget to pray everyday, don’t forget your children’s and grandchildren’s birthdays, stay strong-willed, stay sane and lucid, stay reasonable, stay “transparent”, and manage your stress so that it doesn’t affect your rational judgments. Stay compassionate and sensitive to the poorest among us. May God bless you, our nation, and all peoples of the world.
… and here is a 2011 scholarly/academic study of that 1906 event …
Hawkins, Michael C. “Managing a Massacre: Savagery, Civility, and Gender in Moro Province in the Wake of Bud Dajo.” Philippine studies 59, no. 1 (2011): 83-105.
❤
We are not a country of haters. Japan was not less cruel to us (that’s why my grandfather had bitter memories of such cruelty) but we have no problems with Japan anymore. My cousin even teaches English to school kids there and is now starting her own family there, too.
(September 20, 2021. Hello there. How are you today? I have to insert a note here, saying, that I am not “politically motivated” regarding this post. My personal sentiments here is from a person-to-person, or human-to-human, standpoint. That is, I am seeing President Duterte as a person raher than as a politician. Yepper, these are two diferent things where the Philippines (and many other countries) is concerned right now. This post may be polarizing, but I’d rather not remove it because this is true not only for me but for many Filipinos as well, especially those who have experienced the president’s heart ever since he came into the political arena decades ago. Alles gute und viel Spass! Danke!)
Once I shouted “bullshit” to a bunch of kids. That was when I was only a little more than a kid myself, my control on my emotions not as good as expected of adults, and besides my country does not cater to a culture that prevents and frowns on the public display of emotions.
It was actually at a classroom of seventeen or eighteen year-olds, I think, and they have known since they were seven what was expected of them inside the classroom: order, hushed voices if any, and avoidance of chaos MOST ESPECIALLY when a class activity is being conducted. And especially when a person of academic authority is present. They violated the standards of decorum at all counts and I wasn’t able to hold my strong dismay over their lack of respectfulness. So there was silence all at once, they knew that they deserved the strong reproach, they were strongly reminded where the class stands with respect to misbehavior, and they didn’t do it again.
As little kids until adolescents we were taught and expected to stand up and greet a visitor in unison. When a teacher was at our classroom door everything stops in the classroom because we’d all stand up as one and say together, “Good morning, Mrs. Santos.”, or something like that. If we did not know the person’s name we’d say, “Good morning, visitor.” All public primary and secondary schools in the Philippines, and even the private ones, practice this. So when I went to college I felt awkward when we weren’t allowed to do that kind of greeting anymore. I felt that it was disrespectful. But it seems that “adult” education does not expect such standard of respectfulness anymore. I slowly learned to live with the awkwardness and adapted to the non-practice. However, all teachers that I met in campus always got a “good mornig, ma’am” or a “good afternoon, sir” from me and from most of the other students, too.
That was the only time, as far as I can remember, when I spoke a swear word in public. I would remember it because I do not speak swear words at all in the hearing of another person. Not even with my family. Not even with my closest friends. I hardly think with swear words except when I am aggravated and then I can let myself deal with the issue with swear words that are commensurate to the gravity of the disturbance created in me — but all this would be silently and mentally, where only I can hear them being spoken out in my brain. I only “swear to myself”, so to speak.
The complementary set-up to my no-spoken-swearing stand is that I also do not receive swear words from anyone, and that I would take it as a grave insult if anyone swears at me. At home this is easy because nobody speaks swear words in our house. The worst that we would concede to is “gaga” or “gago”, for female or male as the case may be, and this not straight out but instead we modify it to “gagagaga” or to “ogag” to soften the impact to our own ears AND ALL THIS NEVER TO ONE ANOTHER IN THE HOUSE BUT TO SOMEBODY ELSE OF WHOM WE MAY BE ABLE TO CRITICIZE AS SIMPLY A MATTER OF OPINION DUE TO THEIR MANIFESTED ACTIONS AND NEVER DUE TO GOSSIP, AND ABSOLUTELY NEVER TOWARDS A RELATIVE. “Gaga” and “gago” may be best translated as “stupid”. There are families who speak swear words freely to each other, I have friends who use swear words freely, and I have nothing against them. I understand the context of their usage and they don’t swear at me besides. I leave them be and we stay friends. I know many persons who hold similar opinions to mine regarding this matter. There are also many families who are like mine.
However, as it stands now I could hear myself freely speak to my close friends (BUT NOT AT HOME!) this opinion: “Dipuga! Din ka pa kakita prisidente nga parihas sini?!!” This will elicit amused chukles all around because this signals a concession on my part on behalf of a strong conviction as evidenced in the emphatic use of a ‘dirty’ swear word.
Translated into English that will amount to: F**k! Where else can you get a president like this one?!!
Or, that swear word can also be Bu*s*it!
Dipuga is a mellower variant of yudep*ta or of the shorter dep*ta. “Yudep*ta” is the short form of “iho de p*ta”. Those who speak Spanish can see it clearly that it is the adaptation of “hijo de p*ta”, which into English is the common expletive SOB. However, not everyone prefers the length of that expletive even when the end part is modified into “gun!”. Many would ordinarily use the faster-said f**k or b**ch. English speakers know that this expletive, SOB, does not say anything about one’s mother. The expletive is not directed to mothers. The expletive is just an expression that is commensurate to the degree that an emotion is felt. It, or any similar to it (like “damn”), may even be breathed out in times of pleasant surprises.
I do not buy the disdain of the elitists in my country towards the foul mouth of our president. That’s all BS and they can all go to he*l. They can go f**k themselves. If they do not like swear words then so do I. If they have a high standard of abhorrence against swear words then so does my family. They do not even know from what standpoint they are on in their attack against the president’s manner of speaking. If the son of a pastor, and a former pastor, and a friend of a pastor can work closely with our president then I have no problem with their willingness to do so. Their participation speaks volumes about the character of the real Duterte. (If you think that these principled persons surrounding him will condone what is being accused of him (read: “illegal executions”) then there is something wrong with your basis. The head of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), Atty. Acosta, can help you be clarified with this issue. )
Those who just keep on harping (without saying anything else analytical, informative, and substantial) that the president “behave himself” are a bunch of gaga and gago. The executive branch of government has a mountain-load of urgent matters to attend to and all they recommend is that the president soaps out his mouth. These misguided elitists have opinions and preferences that are more blind than a bat. More than being blind they are navigating at a wrong course, and in this instance a bat’s non-sight is not a matter for criticism because bats zero in perfectly towards their aims even without sight.
These elitists in my country (I’m describing those who fit in the description; it does not mean ALL ELITISTS; I concede that there are possibly many exceptions), those who are shoot-high-up-to-the-moon-proud about their prowess in manipulating the English language, they generally know nothing about real life and real poverty and real suffering. (They’re the kind who who have the skills to write in opinion columns of newspapers.) All they know is how to keep their faces smooth and white like porcelain and how to keep their car tires mud free. And how to keep smelling like flowers and cologne the entire day. And how to keep dirt from under their fingernails. They know nothing about having to skip a meal because there simply are no means to get one. If ever they’d skip a meal it would be because they wish to subtract from the fat that’s jiggling in their overfed bodies. Being fat is not the issue here: the picture in this context that I speak of points to the indiferrence to human suffering that’s surrounding these elitists.
Today I heard the president reiterating his purpose of keeping friendly relations with all nations, and this without any exception. We are a small nation and we cannot afford to pick fights with anybody, as the president also says so. If his speeches are, again and again, painted out of context and with colors that feature only one or two hues then the richness of his thoughts are wasted. When he gives speeches (this one that I heard today is for the Philippine Air Force at Villamor Air Base) he is like a professor who is giving a lecture on contemporary governance in the Philippine context against the perspective of recent history. His speeches are extemporaneous and are sourced from his own decades-long observations and conviction as a public servant, aside from being an academician himself. His speeches are for the purpose of putting forth the real picture, the more comprehensive picture, the bigger picture, that part of our national reality that does not get talked about in the mainstream media’s just-bits-and-pieces-commercialized-segments. Of course we can hardly demand more from mainstream media. They are running a business, after all. They have to figure out how to have lots of income.
Our president, for the most part of his speeches, is actually expressing his disagreement in his own authentic way of the so-called ‘educated’ Filipino’s lack of capacity to analyze deeper and wider the implications that their dearly held colonialistic views are continuing to disregard the real issues that are right there before their eyes. There is a severe lack of venues for discussing opinions beyond the simple and safe pat labelling. It is a kind of ‘education’ that has not kept up with the global movements and is continuing on its course of mis-educating the young ones. It is in fact preventing our youth from being empowered, keeping them relatively ignorant against the present global situation. If being modernized means having citizens who are capable of thinking out things for themselves and not to simply depend on cooked-up peddled views, then my country is far from modern. However, there are ‘modern’ nations that are suffering because big range media that started out as an institution for the people have digressed from their noble profession. If you are keeping up with the news then you know what this nation is.
Peace. Stay healthy. Thanks for thinking out with me. I wish you the best in life, in whatever area you wish blessings for. May He-Who-Blesses-All bless us all in His and our own good time.
(September 20, 2021. Hello there. How are you today? I have to insert a note here, saying, that I am not “politically motivated” regarding this post. My personal sentiments here is from a person-to-person, or human-to-human, standpoint. That is, I am seeing President Duterte as a person raher than as a politician. Yepper, these are two diferent things where the Philippines (and many other countries) is concerned right now. This post may be polarizing, but I’d rather not remove it because this is true not only for me but for many Filipinos as well, especially those who have experienced the president’s heart ever since he came into the political arena decades ago. Alles gute und viel Spass! Danke!)
. ❤ .
Hello, everyone.
Before being convinced that our president, Duterte, is a monster who condones illegal procedures and careless nonsensical killings by so-called vigilante groups, please give yourself the chance of being further informed from other sources aside from the gossip-like sensationalizing media.
Rodrigo Duterte is an “old” man, an elder in the community, and as such he has the privilege of speaking out his mind. We give this privilege to all our elders. These elders speak according to their personal character, and the younger ones react to them variously. Generally, however, the old people are given respect just because they are old and for no other reason. So if Duterte likes to lace his sentences with harsh expletives then we let him be. That’s who he is and some of us don’t like it, some don’t like it very much, and some don’t care about how he expresses himself. For some of us who understand where he’s coming from, we just chuckle away his nasty expletives. But as we all can see that he knows what he’s talking about and that he has determined what needs to be done, then we give him additional respect.
In this webpage: http://www.gov.ph/tag/sona-2016/ are links to the recent State of the Nation Address that he gave. It was composed around 25 days into his term. It is available in English and Filipino, both official languages of the nation, and in Bisaya, which is his mother tongue and is the most widely understood vernacular compared to the hundred others.
I have here, by the link above, a copy of the English version. I have put marks and remarks on spots that especially mean something for me or where a tiny annotation is appropriate. Aside from relating how the country fares, the president is projecting a six-year plan. This means that some plans may be done in a year, others until six years, and a few for after he is gone from the political scene. It’s not riddled with numbers and figures so even a high-school student can understand it. I saw him deliver this speech, via internet. While I was reading the transcript I could picture out how he said the particular part. There were parts that I did not hear very clearly and the transcript helped me get them clarified. Still, the president tends to talk in a conversational manner and so there are thoughts that are best conveyed by pauses or tonal emphases or even unfinished sentences, also using body language. So the transcript is not a perfect basis for issues that are too sensitive, so that the only way to get an idea of the issue’s enormity is to both see him speak and read the transcript, and, of course, be cognizant of the context that he is speaking from. There are parts in his talk that elicited chuckles from the audience who have a very good idea of what he is talking about, and of the implication of his being able to “speak” publicly of the issue at all. That is, the president pushed himself onto the boundaries of being respectful but at the same time being open and no-nonsense. Nope, he did not utter a single expletive.
——— 🙂
Excursus: The expletives that contained much of “killing you” and all such threats is a CONTEXTUAL way of expressing how grave the situation is, how serious the intention is of solving the problem fast, and how unwavering the drive will be so that all who are accountable will be brought before the law … if these “threats” and expletives are taken out of the context, in the way Duterte says them, then the sensationalizing of these statements is acceptable and valid … but as such and within the recognized context, the Filipinos understand why he is saying such things and because they know that on the other side of the “cleansing” is the intention to rehabilitate the drug victims/addicts/dependents … therefore, contrary to it being summarily called “all-out war against drugs” it’s actually an all-out effort to rehabilitate those who are affected, personal- and family- and community-wise … so, nope, it’s not a “genocide” at all (good grief!!!)
——— 🙂
To the question of why are there so many “killings”… were there “mistakes” on the part of the police?— I say, yes, there possibly were, and these cases are being investigated. Were the police “careless”?— no, they have not been. There’s an Operation called Tok-Hang, or Tokhang. It’s name is from the two words “toktok” and “hangyo”. Toktok is an onomatopaeia for the act of knocking on doors of homes and requesting for a conversation. Hangyo pertains to the act of asking for a favor. The police took the time to go to persons’ houses, those who are suspected of participating in the drug related problems, and asked them to surrender to the authorities for the purpose of consequent investigation. Moreover, prior to the president’s term and while he was still campaigning for the office, he had repeatedly warned the nation that he will give priority to solving the drug problem. So, why are there so many “killings”?—one: when a police officer is doing an apprehension and the suspect fights back then the police officer has to defend his life. Everybody knows this.—two: the chain-of-drug-supply renders the more dispensable ones as fodder to the effort of not-be-traced-back-to-the-source <<<any durglord does this and blames it on the police or the government. Why do I answer this way? <<< I get my information from the televised hearings of the Commission on Human Rights; I watch/listen to the press releases via the PTV4 station (non-commercial government media, here: https://www.youtube.com/user/RTVMalacanang/videos ); I watch/listen to the interviews that journalists continuously engage in with the president.
Does the president intend to alienate all foreign nations? Nope. Look especially at page 29 of the attached pdf-file, the SONA. He is asking for their help, in fact. Is the president a deranged narcissistic macho-man? Nope. He acts the way a self-confident non-academic non-elitist self-effacing person-of-the-street Filipino male does with added deadpan effects and who is not shy about flirting with women — but he is humble and respectful and non-pretentious. How do I know?<< I hear him and I see him and I can tell, me as a Filipino who lives in that culture.
Will he keep all his promises and execute all his plans? Time can tell. Will he make mistakes? He’s not cowarded by the possibility. Is he and his cabinet doing their best? Yes, they are. Do the Filipinos understand what he is doing? Yes, they do. (The Commission on Human Rights hearings, with the senators, allowed the senators to express their support for the efforts of the police. The videos can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8f9L8CPuxtvALODAlXvG5w/videos ) Are the Filipinos hopeful about this president? Yes, we are. ….But what about the killings????—this is a very tough question, yes, very disturbing, yes, but what about the millions of lives destroyed and is being destroyed by the illegal-drug industry that is choking the families in the neighborhoods? But do I mean to say that we have to kill in order to save? Nope, I don’t mean that and I don’t like that, and the president and the nation agree with me … so??? … (((we have to ask the collective opinions of ethics, anthropology, sociology, history, economics, philosophy, … ))) >>> Come and live in the Philippines so that you can help me talk about this issue with more clarity.
I wish you all robust health and a hopeful disposition.
(September 20, 2021. Hello there. How are you today? I have to insert a note here, saying, that I am not “politically motivated” regarding this post. My personal sentiments here is from a person-to-person, or human-to-human, standpoint. That is, I am seeing President Duterte as a person raher than as a politician. Yepper, these are two diferent things where the Philippines (and many other countries) is concerned right now. This post may be polarizing, but I’d rather not remove it because this is true not only for me but for many Filipinos as well, especially those who have experienced the president’s heart ever since he came into the political arena decades ago. Alles gute und viel Spass! Danke!)
(Update. 14th July 2021. Good morning, Everyone. This post is five years old. I have decided to retain it. There was an update to this two months after I put it up [please see below]. I see how strongly I have put across my feelings into the title, like a battlecry, defiant and distinct. I don’t think I should put it down for now [maybe in a few more years], even after all these years of having mellowed down from such sentiments, now having more existential things to entertain in my head and in everyday practical living—all brought about by the covid-19 pandemic. I still do feel defiant whenever I see evidences of psyche-destruction that was brought to my people because of colonization. On the other hand, that there has been an evolution going on on top of these colonialism-pain-vestiges is very likely, and not always detrimental to us as a people. I pray blessings to us all. Viel Spass!)
I get negative feelings when I hear foreign journalists criticize Duterte’s speeches — which inevitabley zero in on how he wants thugs and druglords eradicated.
Not long ago I heard a discussion in The Young Turks show and that discussion did nothing for the public’s knowledge. They just chewed on how they perceived Duterte’s platform to be ‘horrendous’ and they offered nothing by way of starting on how to get a grasp of his ‘horrendous’ ideas. With the discussion is the implication that the Philippines, which overwhelmingly voted for Duterte, is composed of people majority of whom have twisted sets of values, i. e., values that are against those held by the TYT talk show hosts who were discussing the matter on air. (Okay, actually here’s what I think: These two ignorant clowns — yes, I laughed at their opinions — who are discussing the matter are arrogantly giving out their prescription on a symptom of which they know nothing of the underlying causes. They’re definitely just plain ignoramuses shooting out stupid recommendations and all based on what they read on some newspaper or such. This is altogether pathetic jounalism.)
Here’s the funny part: The stance by Duterte — forcefully going after the thugs that are wreaking havoc to so many families in my country — is precisely the reason why people, including me, voted for him. But it was clear to me that he was going to do it according to what the law allows, according to the legal police procedures plus extra caution to boot and without blind emotional-laden engagements. That was clear to me and so I voted for him. So did 16 million other Filipinos. We do know how to discern behind tall-talk, as we do know how to look behind sweet-talk.
How do I know that it could be done? Davao City is the proof. That’s number 1 reason.
Number 2 reason: no powerful clans financed his campaign. He is not beholden to the oligarchs. Number 3: he won the election without having had any agent compose a public image of him. He was not ‘packaged’ to attract voters. What one sees of Durte in public is what one gets — he talks and works for the oppressed and the marginalized in society, he has no interest whatsoever in making money out of his activities, he does not show off or market his intellect, and he does not put himself above anybody else. He is far from the proverbial white-washed tomb. Anybody is welcome to inspect the skeletons in his closet.
So, since Duterte has such ‘horrendous’ ideas and Filipinos voted for him, then Filipinos agree with his ‘horrendous’ ideas. Ergo, the Philippines is a nation of (mostly) dumb and stupid people.
One has to break down the above logic or it becomes in itself a ‘horrendous’ conclusion. Why horrendous? Because the arguments espoused by the talk show hosts mentioned above, and all other ‘foreign’ venues similar to these, are all based on assumptions the foundations of which are foreign to the Filipino way of thinking or looking at things. Hence, their arguments are invalid — null and void.
Sure, such words as killing, bloodbath, etc. are in themselves universally associated with horrendous acts. However, the “killing” that is of the talk show hosts’ perspective, and most likely the viewers’/listeners’ perspectives, is not exactly what Duterte has been talking about.
It will take a shelf of dissertations to systematize Duterte’s ideas and actions, including the legitimizing of his plans by the voters. Foremost of the discussions will focus on worldviews, on historical factors, and the contemporaneous situations. So I cannot start to give them to you here, in just a handful of paragraphs.
Moreover, the moral ascendancy that America has been marketing since I don’t know when (emphasize on the ‘marketing’, ergo, the public expressions of such that do not reflect the views of those who have no avenues for expressing what’s otherwise === remember: “History is written by the victors” — tangentially related, but you know what I mean 🙂 ❤ .) is now being put to clear light as illegitimate with all the mess that is being revealed, one after another, because of the present election season and through social media. Anyway, this isn’t a gripe about America or Americans (my best friend is American! ❤ ). This is a critique on any entity that establishes itself as superior to another.
How the Ignorant Liken Duterte to Trump
They don’t care about research and truth-telling. They just care about the fanfare and the sales. Pathetic.
– – – – – – – – – –
Again, on the Secular Talk segment that I was referring to above: Of course I understand why the host talks that way. He’s put himself into the situation by way of the words in the news that he’s read and also inevitably bringing along with him his own (present) context. Had he immersed himself first into the situation in the Philippines, say a minimum of 20 years, then he’d be talking differently and he would not have been this horrified about the words he’s read. Similarly, had Duterte been an American, or had the Philippines been like America, then Duterte and we would never had thought that/this way (as reflected in the news). But, well, a little learning on the part of the speaker will eventually make him see how he has been idiotic in going about this topic.
But the damage is done. Duterte has been painted with foreign colors and this imposed image doesn’t look right both objectively and subjectively (…but who is the judge of both, really??) — as many other similar ‘foreign’ opinion-givers have done. But let’s say that the Secular Talk host wasn’t giving an opinion at all, merely posing a question or opening up lines for discussion, then he/they should have said more so as not to leave the air with a picture of a horrendous Duterte and the Philippines. It’s simply unfair, it’s made from an arrogant stance of moral supremacy, and it hurts us common everyday ordinary Filipinos. You are trampling on our human rights to freely choose our leader and the way we want to solve our problems.
Leave Duterte alone. He was a prosecutor; he knows the law; he will abide by the law. If you can’t say anything qualifying about him then shut the f**k up. We know he’s not a saint. He does not live like a god. We trust the people who are working with him; they know that their responsibility is primarily to the everyday person and not to Duterte. We have risked this oncoming term with him as the head of the executive branch of the government and we are willing to cooperate with his vision of a more live-able society, albeit a ‘poor’ one compared to the highly industrialized nations. But being “highly developed” is not the priority for now (and I hope it will never be (notice the quotation marks); but this is another lengthy topic). We do not need much to be happy; we just need to be assured that our families and loved ones are safe in their locales as they go along their simple everyday lives. We do not need much of the crazy and senseless commercial products flooding our dingy streets and poisoning our traditional values. We just want a safe and and dependable society for now and then we’d be able to figure out what to do next to better our children’s and grandchildren’s, and our neighbors’ children and grandchildren’s lives.
Filipinos are not idiots. We are confused, I can say, because of the combined factors of gentleness, meekness, insane colonialism, and energy-sucking globalization. (A paper on “colonial mentality”-> “Colonial Mentality: A Review and Recommendation for Filipino American Psychology” by E. J. R. David and Sumie Okazaki, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign). Greed and misinformation have muddled our value systems relative to what should have been sustaining and uplifting for us collectively. It had been a very long journey for us, of attempts at changing for the better. We have a new chapter now. We are willing to work it out. If you have nothing qualifying to say about us, then please just save your precious breath and keep your nice mouth shut.
Peace.
🙂
I wish everyone an envigorating day. Thanks for dropping by.
❤
Update September 17, 2016.
I will have to comment on the accusations tagged “extra-judicial killings”. This topic was not urgent in my mind because the deaths attributed to the police were not extra-judicial. Our police are not thugs — well, around the world some police are thugs but not all police are thugs and not all thugs are police — and they just do their duties. If a police officer perceives a threat to his life then by law he has to defend himself. Duterte’s war on drugs involves apprehension of drug addicts –> particularly those whose brains have been damaged by the LONG use of shabu, irredeemable brain material by all medical standards, and hence cannot perceive the boundary between life and death, between right and wrong, many are capable of raping children and killing their own family members, thus easily capable of the reckless use of a gun which CAN KILL and which, by the laws of ethics, society must very well see that it’s either the police officer’s life or the other’s; this argument has to apply otherwise society must conclude that the police officer should rather die than the other.
As of today around 700,000 (that’s addicts and pushers) have given themselves up to the authorities. That’s 700,000 that were not killed by the police but were taken into custody. So if 700,000 surrendered then we can safely assume that there were more than a hundred who would not surrender and would fight off the authorities. The pushers who surrendered will be dealt with by law. The addicts will be rehabilitated. Those with slight addiction will be rehabilitated in the community : religious communities and organizations have volunteered to help in this. The government is putting up several rehanilitation centers all over the country – BUT since the administration started at a point when there is no more money (extra budget) to spend for this NEWLY DISCOVERD CALAMITY OF THE TRUE DRUG SCENE OF THE COUNTRY then the rehabilitation centers will take some time to be put up, although THANKFULLY several rich people have started to donate specifically for this purpose PLUS many Filipinos working abroad have also gathered funds for this purpose, like those who are working in Indonesia.
Now, the question again: Are there “extra-judicial killings”?. Answer: Yes. Next question: Does the government have to do with this? Answer: No. And how do I know? I watch the videos of interviews with the police chief and videos on the speeches and interviews of the president and the cabinet members and senators. I watch closely, I listen to what they say, I scrutinize how they answer, their facial expressions, their body language, how they interact with the journalists, how long does it take for them to answer a question, how spontaneous do they answer a particular important question, and especially if they distance themselves from the questioning. What I see is only openness. This was how I did it so that I knew that CNN was screwing Bernie Sanders (and here’s a protest at CNN‘s in Los Angeles, and you’ll get many results if you search “mainstream media bias against sanders”) even before I discovered Democracy Now! and Sane Progressive and Lee Camp of Redacted Tonight and Tim Black and Jimmy Dore and H. A. Goodman and Jordan Chariton and and …
Again, then who are responsible for these REAL extra-judicial killings? The simple and obvious answer is this: in a war on drugs the “lords” will have to dispense with their liabilities. It’s a no-brainer!
And now there’s a soap opera of a senate hearing involving a so-called witness Mr. Matobato who could not stand even a moment’s cross-examination. He’s telling lies about the president. He may have been a gun-for-hire but certainly he’s making up stories here about the president’s involvement.
For the so-called extra-judicial killings I recommend the videos on the interviews with the Chief of the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), Atty. (Dr.) Acosta (<– click for a sample; she starts speaking at video-time 03:29 and this was made around July 2016; she may have had other similar interviews). She explains very well why all accusations by international media against the government regarding this matter are groundless. For the fakeness of the so-called witness, Mr. Matobato, I recommend the videos of the entire senate hearing on this(<– click for a sample; other similar videos are also available; here Senator Cayetano reads the Ombudsman’s findings in January 2016 that the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS) does not exist, at video-time 14:30).
I would have gladly provided transcripts for the interviews done in Filipino with accompanying Elglish translations but I have no time as of now. I am urgently trying to finish a major paper regarding one of the statements in the Ten Commandments, of the Hebrew Scriptures ( = Old Testament).
Please, if you are rich and if you have a big heart, in behalf of my country I ask for your help so that the drug addicts can get their rehabilitation centers fast and those who can be saved will be given the attention that they need. President Duterte needs medicines, doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, and nurses, not to mention the food for all these surrenderees. If you can connect to a legitimate Non-Government Organization there, or a religious organization, then they will be happy of your help. Sorry, I do not know any of these and I have no recommendations. But if you can’t trust the organization then DON’T GIVE YOUR MONEY LIGHTLY. I do not actually know if it’s possible for foreign nationals to donate to my government.
The government is now also giving attention to the living conditions of the police officers and soldiers, giving them incentives and raising their salaries above the poverty level so that they will be motivated in going about their duties — this because their lives are at stake every hour, their wives may be widowed and children orphaned any time, what with the drug traffickers and dealers now out of their wits on how to survive this purge against them. As of now the illegal drugs supply to the country has been greatly reduced, about the level of at least 80% reduction, but still there are powerful people who are running desperate on how to cover up their involvement in the over-all drug business. The drug dependents are having a harder life becuase the price of shabu has gone up. If you say that all that I’m saying is fantastic then just look for yourself these information that I myself get from the first-hand sources, the videos that I referred to above being just 2 instances.
If indeed a certain police officer has killed an innocent person then he will be investigated, this is no big matter as it is an SOP, and it does not need the intervention of the UN. If the UN wants to investigate then it should be on where the illegal drug trade originates especially on shabu, from which countries, and who are involved in this. The use of shabu in the US is becoming higher than that of cocaine, so heads-up, UN. If you want to solve the world’s problems then go ahead, do it. Duterte is solving the country’s problems and he has results now. Don’t mess up with his job because he has 700,000 surrenderees to take care of and it’s urgent, plus eradicating the thugs who are using the southern islands as base (and thankfully Indonesia and Malaysia are helping solve this matter).
The government is exploring a railway project that would more efficiently connect the Mindanao areas to each other and to the rest of the country, and I myself am very happy with this because I can soon conveniently visit my friends there anytime I want. The areas of agriculture, public health, and social work are very busy with changes in their paradigms. People are more hopeful because many potentials may now be tapped due to the increasing empowerment of the common person. Hopefully the system of education will finally be geared towards our particular way of looking at things, contextual-existential and at the same time retaining the legacies of our historical learnings from the medieval Spanish-European influence and newly-industrialized-late-1800’s-US-supremacy. We are a democratic nation, after all.
What’s important here is to note that we are not a society of guns. We do not have a culture of wanting to have guns or finding the need of owning guns. Some have licences to own guns but they are only a very small fraction of the population, they do not flaunt this, even children of the family mostly do not know of this, they keep such things secret and well-kept. I do not know about requirements for being allowed to own guns. Such a topic never interested me or any of my many circles of friends. A friend of mine had an air-gun when he was a teen-ager but that was only an episode in his life when he was interested enough in it to buy pellets for it, to practice shooting at plastic canisters at an empty lot beside their house. He hasn’t since used it again; no sense in spending for silly pellets. Some know how to make real guns and they do not have to get a licence to own one, yet still they keep this out of the public’s eye and their neighbors’ knowledge.
We do not have a culture of “taking the law into our own hands” and we do not suspect each other of keeping guns beneath our pillows. A household that owns a gun is a highly unusual and “different” household. If any so-called vigilante does take part in these so-called extra-judicial killings, then a moneyed person who has invested into the illegal drug business must have hired him. Any ordinary Filipino who has no business with this issue will never take it into his or her head to go around taking down criminals — unless he or she is already brain-damaged by drugs! We ordinary and common everyday Filipinos understand what the tall-talk or hyperbole that we hear from the president means: it is for the purpose of scaring criminals and are not supposed to be taken literally. He means to tell them that if they don’t straighten up then the full force of the law will swiftly take care of them. This is the best way that the president can for now efficiently address the culture of impunity among the supposedly trustworthy public officials. If ordinary thugs understand that the president is capable of running after the powerful thugs, then they themselves don’t stand a chance against the law now. (Here’s an amateur video made by young students way back in October 2015 explaining this situation in very simple terms.)
We voted for a government that is of the people and by the people and for the people, and that’s how it is trying to perform its job now. So, please, UN and all other hecklers, investigate factually before you fire your guns because you do not know what you are doing by being rash, judgmental, reckless, irresponsible, and shamefully unprofessionally careless.
May God bless us all. Peace. Thanks for dropping by. Stay healthy 🙂
Please help me check if this quote is really the Buddha’s. Thanx!!
The Rubik’s cube is fascinating. It reminds me of what life is like.
Life is a series of acts in order to put things into order. Order order order. For me I see life, mine at least, as being put into order at some other parts while [I] am occupied with putting into order some other different part.
I have forgotten about this feature in my life until I recently spent time getting to know a 3 x 3 Rubik’s cube. To my delight I saw that when I try to get a side into a single color the other sides may form distinguishable patterns all by themselves.
There are those who, like me, do not congregate towards the “very” end of the “orderly” spectrum. I may be called lazy by some, but I know I’m not lazy. It’s just that the way my clock runs isn’t the kind that will stand out in the corporate world. Instead, my clock runs in such a way that I take the time to appreciate patterns that aren’t interesting to others. No, I don’t have the aptitude for the mathematical way of describing patterns, so that’s not what I’m talking about, either. There’s just too much stuff needed to be able to math-talk that I run out of time for them. Nevertheless it would be wonderful if I, too, like the mathematicians am able to cook up a statement describing how the color patterns come up when this and that turning is done on a Rubik’s cube.
The way I, or you, put our lives into order may be objectionable to others. There are those who express disapproval at the way we do things. It could also be that we try to put our lives into order in such a way that we won’t be at the receiving end of a disapproval. Whichever way it is we do feel the tension between these two ways tugging at us. For me it is couched as “what should I do?”
We all have our own pattern-appreciation-languages ::: musical notes, weaving patterns, words on a page, lines+shapes+lighting, or sound+movement+lighting, angles+weights, trajectory+speed, food tastes, taxonomy, almost-no-words-but-full-of-thoughts (e.g., the haiku) … et cetera
There are also those who, like me, aren’t experts at a particular pattern-language but all the same we are uplifted whenever we spot an evidence of one.
If you believe in God then this shouldn’t be a surprise for you. Thousands of years ago humans have already become aware that God causes patterns to form. He puts order out of chaos.
At center stage, my Rubik’s cube on my table where my study things are pushed to the side for the moment.
I am typical of my folks. We get to laugh at almost anything, not the least at our own selves. It helps us cope. It helps us from going down that road which is lethal to those who have “nothing”. I needed to put that within quotes because, one, it is subjective, and two, “nothing” doesn’t seem to exist. That’s what I understood the last time I looked up science. But, I fervently request you, don’t discuss creatio ex nihilo with me yet because I haven’t read up much on that. If you want, in relation to it, you can look at discussions about an ancient Mesopotamian composition that starts with “When on high” … 😀 that’s all I can remember for now 😀
I don’t know which part of the world you live in, but just in case you are also like us who are nakakapit sa patalim (living on the edge of a knife) then let the lesson I discovered from the Rubik’s cube encourage you. Just keep on no matter how hard things are going because somehow there’s a pattern forming at the other side, waiting for its perfect time to come up in your life’s story.♦
… nah … just wanted to celebrate having China on my map 😀 I missed the date when I had that 1 view count. Most likely it was only recently, when my brain cells were going crazy groping for holds that I couldn’t even be bothered to wash dishes for half of the week. This is a belated celebration but still I don’t want to miss it. I’m just happy that China has a color now.
Map indicating the frequency of views on at least one page/post of this blog by at least one person in a country. The darker the shade the higher the frequency. White areas say none from there has visited this blog. A single visitor from a country is enough to color the entire area, even one as humongous as Russia. There are only 97 countries that have color in this map.If 196 is taken as the total number of countries in the world (this is an unexplored topic to me, and so I can’t elaborate more on the figure) then only about half of the total number of countries is indicated above.
Yeah, I was waiting for China to get a view count, because I was wondering how come no-one from such a gigantic place so near to mine got to visit even once for two years now … so now I’m also waiting for Greenland and the rest of Africa and … and …
Yeah, of course there are many reasons for the white patches, foremost of which is the blog’s content, etc … but I don’t want to entertain that wonderment for now … all I can arrive at is this: wow, there are persons from these places all over the earth who are also interested in 1 or 2 things that get mentioned somewhere among my prattlings …
I don’t know what the whole illustration could mean. I would conjecture that my country, the Philippines, has such a strong connection with the US, and then Canada. It could be that it’s because there are many Filipinos living there. It could be that. However, what makes me especially happy is that countries around mine have strong shades, too — first to the south, then west and north (that’s the deepest trench and the largest ocean to the east 🙂 ). Some day I’ll have money and time enough to visit these next door neighbors of mine. That’s a sure dream.
Actually, I know that much of my recent trafficis due to baby Gooki. Ahhhh. Crazy. I’m just wondering if I have been irresponsible, contributing to exposing baby Gooki to the unknown whatever. I mean, it’s just one of those things. The umbrella issue is whether by these prattlings I’m in a way contributing to cyber junk. Like strewing dead satellites all over the graveyard orbit. Saying things that could be damaging some part of life.
In a way I’ve become conscious of the level of responsibility that I should mind while continuing with my pleasure at self expression.
🙂
For many the world has become really small. It’s either just a jet ride or a single click away. This is the impression I get while looking at the colored parts of the map above, just little areas next to each other and accessible any time. But in my countries’ counter, in my blog’s stats, I can tell of one big reason why certain places have, say, just 1 count. And that is, that in those places being connected to the net is generally not as ordinary as it is, say, in Germany, where each and every single household is assumed to be able to readily tap into either the radio waves or the cyberspace.
That part of the globe that thrives with the internet, which includes the few of us who can afford to do so in my country as well as in countries similar to mine, may never know how our pleasurable activities may affect the lives of those who are aliens to cyberspace down to the ones with situations worse than having no easy access to clean water. Even if they/we indeed know/come to know of it, what can we do about it?
flip flops. tsinelas. quite normal, a mismatch, center.
If only languages can be learned in a day then I would happily learn the lot. It would be wonderful to be able to surf through the millions of websites, across landmasses and oceans, into the richness of other worldviews that are expressed in mother tongues and timeless scripts, gain insight and wisdom from them, and so be freed from my nearsightedness and prejudices. Mere words. Senseless dream. I can’t even master my mother tongue, how much more China’s and others’ myriad of dialects. 😛
worn out thoroughly, through. either these or bare foot
Yet, still, however, what will my gaining of insight be able to do for those who have no access to the minimum carbohydrates requirement of the human body per day? Ah, sacada, your rejoicing over your readership is so pathetic. 😉 😥
❤
Peace.
❤
🙂 Here’s how the map looks like as of 1.September 2014.
30 tins of pineapple. Why pineapples? I don’t know. I did not try to understand. I just watched. The lighting is too dim for my liking. Too much movement. Blurs. Too crowded for my liking. Smell of people. Smell of street garbage. Filthy walls. At least it doesn’t snow in Hong Kong. Tattered washrag hung on window grills is a familiar sight to me. When clear water has been wrung from it then I can trust on its cleanliness, its readiness for the next use.
The blonde really really looked out of place even from the start. Her hair looked all wrong, an oversized prop. She reminded me of my favorite Saint’s gesticulating disguise.
What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be doing your homework.
Sorry, I can’t stop watching just yet. Kaneshiro Takeshi looks really really neat. And he’s ready to fall in love again. I can’t imagine him and the blonde together. Ah. Maybe that’s why she asks for his age. Arrrgh, Cop # 223 is just 24? 25? I heard from somewhere that Hong Kong cops are very capable. They have to be, with trouble always threatening to happen all over the place. (Sorry, but this is the impression I got from James Clavell.) I’m not sure if it still is the case (i.e., excellent police force commensurating for constant threats) because I don’t hear of them nowadays as much as I do of the other countries’. What do I know about Hong Kong, anyway? I haven’t looked it up since the time that I paid attention to Dirk Struan and his rival Brock, and then to Ian Dunross immediately right after that, he who was given the face of Remington Steele. But at least by then I came to know that Hong Kong’s waterways are not fit for swimming in. Or is it just that one where they had to jump to save themselves from burning on board? That was a romantic moment for, uh, I forgot who… But boy was it dirty. One gulp of the water would, uh, dirty their, uh, stomach? intestines? What about the eyes and the ears?
… I’m supposed to be doing my homework so I have to do this fast…
I thought of comparing ChungkingExpress with Brillante Mendoza’s Serbis but somehow I don’t think I can, or should. They’re both unforgettable films, yes, of dreamlike quality. But the first is of upbeat daylight while the latter is of fading twilight. Both do not cover up the filth of the city, yes, telling things as they are. Both employ shadows much, yes. I wouldn’t really choose to watch a film with lots of shadows and which reminds me of the real smell of a really crowded city but I like both films. Although Serbis left me wistful, ashamed that I live in comfort and still fret while many have to work hard at keeping their world from falling apart, it told me to be careful that I don’t talk about things just for the sake of saying something. There are reasons behind reasons behind reasons behind reasons of things. ChungkingExpress, on the other hand, left me giddy. Like the way The Longest Night in Shanghai did. I need to first become a student of filmmaking before I could get over my dislike of the use of so much shadow and dark lighting. If it has lots of shadows then I don’t want to be dragged into the kind of deep thoughts that will never get to see the light of the sun. But whereas The Longest Night in Shanghai was obviously a romantic comedy right from the start, with ChungkingExpress I didn’t know what to make of it until Cop # 223 insisted that the storekeeper consider the pineapple cans’ feelings.
ChungkingExpress is just another face of (a) love story. As the story unfolds, as you continue to stare at the screen despite the (for me) depressive backdrop, as you continue to stick with Cop # 223 first and then Cop # 663 next, you will feel your heart finally taking a rest, then you will remember how happy you were when you were just falling in love but couldn’t talk about it with anyone just yet.
30 tins of pineapple. How could he eat all that in one go? Did I misunderstand the scene? What a kid he still is, 25 and already a cop. Calling up elementary school girl friends, his uncle, aunt, cousin. A cry baby, complaining to his dog that he doesn’t eat the pineapples with him, not the usual cool hero image. But so handsome, and so neat, so a non-cop, so un-bismirched, so not belonging to the filth of his city and of his job. And Tony Leung, so boy-next-door. So kawaii, even. And Faye Wong, an elfin who has to deafen her mind against her own thoughts.
Cop 223, Kaneshiro Takeshi, is dumped by his girlfriend May on April 1. He waits out for her until his birthday on May 1, buying a tin of pineapple marked May 1 as the expiration date every day. The blonde hires people to smuggle drugs but is duped, jeopardizing her safety. She had to act first before running for her life. They meet and become each other’s savior. He eats lots of Cesar’s Salad and other foodstuff as he waits for dawn. They part. He was already out by 6 AM running away his sadness, the exact time he turns 25. Cop 663, Tony Leung, is dumped by his flight attendant girlfriend. He hopes she comes back. The elfin, Faye Wong, works for her cousin’s street side food store. They first talk to each other when he buys Cesar’s Salad. She grows a crush on him. He’s a regular customer, a friend of her cousin, and the latter suggests to him that he tries fish and chips also. His girlfriend comes back and looks for him at his usual street corner but it was his day off. She leaves a letter. Everyone reads it: flight cancelled, it says. There’re house keys in the envelope. When he stops going to the food store the elfin finds funny ways to stay in contact with him. Then Tony Leung smiles and you’ll conclude that he’s a very handsome guy. That’s the story. I had to say it to dampen the hype. Why the film earns a full post from me requires researching before I can say something on it. So I have to forget the why part for now. There are scenes that support Hong Kong’s reputation, that anything is possible there. There are scenes that say something on immigrants, or aliens, or contract workers. There are scenes that brought me back to my home city’s open air meal spots and produce markets. Pork with rice is also a favorite among us, and vegetables in a big basket carried over the shoulders is also a normal sight.
I don’t know exactly what “Chungking Express” is. Is it a train? Is Chungking a place? Does it have a cultural significance? Does the film’s name even mean anything at all? Is it saying anything about the constant rush in an Asian metropolis? The store is called “Midnight Express”. It opens until late at night. There was a train at the first half of the story, but the blonde who escaped by it has no scene by the Midnight Express. Is the film somehow a statement of how people stay disconnected though packed together within just 0.01 cm of reaching-out distance from one another? Is it a statement similar to the message of the lotus flower, that it blooms triumphant and pristine over the muck beneath it?
Hong Kong, 香港, Xiānggǎng, Hsiangkang, means “fragrant harbor”, after all.
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Turn Left, Turn Right
added 28March2014. Other Kaneshiro Takeshi films that have inspired me similarly: Lost and Found, Sweet Rain, Turn Left Turn Right, K-20 Legend of the Mask, and the ‘drama’ series Golden Bowl. Each one deserves its own post. I have yet to discover the others similar to these. His historical/war movies are fine but preferably for me the less blood spilt the better; though I do appreciate them all the same as venues for his range of artistry 😉 ciao for now . . .
I am homesick for the reek of carabao* dung drying under the sun.
I have come to the point where I now know how it is for paralytics when
they get to feel flashes of heat and cold at the sight
of icicles or kettle merrily singing in singeing heat
because
I now get flashes of the taste and smell
of damnably sour crunchy unripened mangoes that only my home islands can grow.
I am homesick for the reek of carabao dung drying under the sun,
the one that we non-farmers harvest from the ground to take home to our
little plots of tomatoes and eggplants, to make the soil fat,
to make the fruits fat, to make us kids fat…
I feel homesick for the reek of caked mud cracking under the sun,
gray mud turned powdery white plastered on the burnt brown that is
my grandfather’s merrily laughing toothless friend’s skin, who
couldn’t hear very well the guffaws my Lolo would bring
whenever we take time from our little garden of okras and cotton and
come visit him in his tiny tiny
nipa hut stuck in the middle of the flatness of the land he tills
that is not his. On weekends and on school vacations.
When it was a clear day with a slight cooling wind.
When the rice fields were swaying green, anticipating grains,
or, already stalk-brown, a silent witness to muted gain…
His name was Lolo Cente, if I remember it right, and mine is Lolo Jose,
the Jose of Jose Rizal, but who is simply “Lolo” to me,
and who, unlike that Jose who is Rizal, this Lolo-to-me quit school when he was 7
because he’d rather ride the back of his carabaos and
play with them, out of the mud, through the streams, far far away from the school yard,
away from where his teacher and mom could catch and drag him back.
A bit of a truant. A bit like Juan Tamad, who wanted to take it easy all day,
,though, my Lolo-to-me was no slacker, no stranger to the singe of the burning sun,
and he, like Lolo Cente, was toothless, too, by only 2 teeth, but unlike
Lolo Cente, Lolo could hear even a whisper until
Death peacefully whispered to him at 102. What a life he had.
That was about 3 times of the Jose’s who is Rizal…
I am so so homesick of the smell of parched soil reeking under a
sudden sprinkling of serious rain, of the kind that will soak your hanging laundry in a
matter of seconds, the kind that will create little oceans and lakes on
imperceptible indentations here and there along the earth road,
the kind of rain that will wedge minute waterfalls and waterways against the edge
of miniature hills and mountains at the sides of the banked ground that is the
foundation of our wooden house, the one where I spent my infancy in,
the one where I first realized that adults aren’t so wise after all
when I was only less than 2 and they had me holding my baby brother so that
they could get a picture of us together,
back when Kodak means kodak, means photograph, means to photograph.
That photograph of me intensely holding on to my reclining position,
at one end of the, then-popular, plain hardwood sofa, so as
not to drop my body and my baby brother, tight in my arms, still exists, back home.
…ah…good old days…
…these words here are just memory lane gone cruising…
…the less-of-a-second-long flash of the taste of one’s home’s dishes and fruits at
the back of one’s nostrils that is somewhere inside one’s skull
does funny things, indeed, to the rest of the brain…
I have used-coffee grounds strewn over my indoor pots’ soil, the ones where I had
grass-like houseplants stuck onto, my oxygen providers, here, inside,
where no slight wind sways them from side to side.
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[4March2014, 8pm, in about 30 minutes]
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*Glossary:
carabao = water buffalo, nicknamed the farmer’s best friend because it’s the muscle in traditional farming
nipa hut = traditional house generally of bamboo and where the roof is of thatched leaves of the nipa palm (Nypa fruticans)
Lolo = grandfather; the general address for the elderly male
Cente = short and informal for the name Vicente
Jose Rizal = the Philippines’ National Hero; author and medical doctor in late 19th century; studied in Manila, Paris, Madrid, and Heidelberg; martyred at 35
Juan Tamad = in folklore, he was a lazy lad who couldn’t be trusted to get things done; Juan is Spanish for John; tamad is Tagalog/Filipino for lazy
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!muchas gracias to the owners of the photos I have here ♥
There are those who, like me, do not congregate towards the “very” end of the “orderly” spectrum. I may be called lazy by some, but I know I’m not lazy. It’s just that the way my clock runs isn’t the kind that will stand out in the corporate world. Instead, my clock runs in such a way that I take the time to appreciate patterns that aren’t interesting to others. No, I don’t have the aptitude for the mathematical way of describing patterns, so that’s not what I’m talking about, either. There’s just too much stuff needed to be able to math-talk that I run out of time for them. Nevertheless it would be wonderful if I, too, like the mathematicians am able to cook up a statement describing how the color patterns come up when this and that turning is done on a Rubik’s cube.
The way I, or you, put our lives into order may be objectionable to others. There are those who express disapproval at the way we do things. It could also be that we try to put our lives into order in such a way that we won’t be at the receiving end of a disapproval. Whichever way it is we do feel the tension between these two ways tugging at us. For me it is couched as “what should I do?”
There are also those who, like me, aren’t experts at a particular pattern-language but all the same we are uplifted whenever we spot an evidence of one.
Three years I paced the shore,
sacada lang 