Philippine News In The Internet and Philippine Media

When I sat down to open my PC and read from Google News, this breaking news riveted my attention:

Philippines says Abu Sayyaf leader killed in clash


This was at 5:00 PM PST of January 17th, Wednesday.

Of course, I welcomed the news and its reportage, except that to my dismay it cited a foreign news source, Reuters.

Decided to try another one, this time googling the words, Abu Sayyaf, under Google News. The following came out as having been posted 18 minutes earlier:

Atrocities allegedly committed by Abu Sayyaf leader slain in Philippines

Again, giving a foreign news source, Associated Press. And both items were also published on foreign on-line sites, the latter from the International Herald Tribune.

From the Google News results using the words, Abu Sayyaf, I scanned down the pages which were sorted by date and time. I went to as far as 24 hours ago, only to realize it was only SunStar that reported the same item, its latest being 6 hours ago from the time of googling, which was 5:00 pm PST. And yet the same item had been on-line in the news since about 24 hours ago.

My speedy on-line scans showed that the reportage was done essentially by foreign sites around the world. Some from MidEastern sources, others from SouthEastAsian sources, and even one I can recall that came from Lompoc, a small California town.

I also tried the Philippine blogosphere, searching through Google’s Blog Search section a few minutes after 5:00pm.Again, I couldn’t find any entry for the last 24 hours that dealt with the same item – the death of a very significant Abu Sayyaf leader.

In fine, the overall pattern so far has been that this significant event that happened in the very remote southernmost part of the island of Mindanao, in Southern Philippines, was initially and essentially reported by foreign sources.

I am supposing that part of the problem may be because foreign news organizations and groups may be extending their operations globally simply by hiring local Filipino journalists as their local correspondents, feeding them news but putting their names as sources. Another case of outsourcing?

The question then is: Where is the vaunted Philippine media? Hopefully, not playing second fiddle to or co-opted by these foreign news organizations?

Many of us originally from Mindanao may begin to believe, if we have not already done so, that Philippine media and all the accoutrements of what many now term as Imperial Manila may be too focused with its own regional politics and other metropolitan issues, as to be unconcerned with issues which though may be geographically happening in Mindanao, but definitely have grave national repercussions and consequences. Maybe, internationally, too.

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What’s In A Dream?

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A very trite question? Why not. It’s only been since time immemorial that man has been asking those grating questions about his inexplicable dreams – what they mean and where they come from.

Over time by sheer dint and patience, we have collectively learned a lot about them through the sciences. Thus, many of us now hardly register any surprise or interest when people say that dreams emanate from one’s subconciousness, (or should it be unconsciousness?) as distinguished of course, from his wakeful consciousness which is in use in dealing with the realities of his existence. And we now accept as common knowledge that scientists have postulated that dreams typically are initiated during REM sleep (rapid eye movement), a kind of deep sleep that comes after the initial phases of sleep. And we know loads more, more than any one person can learn in his lifetime.

But still, the world of dreams, or the dream world, continues to be as mysterious and confusing as ever, if there ever was one phenomenon in human experiences.

Thus, many of us continue to be perplexed when we experience dreams that appear not only out of this world, but appear to have no basis or reflection of the multitudinous experiences of our consciousness. In other words, dreams that are completely unknown and unattached to any of our previous experiences that are stored in memory.

And so we continue to be mystified and continue to untiringly search for relevance and meaning. Not many will dispute though that our typical dreams are somehow reflections of our realities or even our known fantasies, thus many dreams are experienced and subsequently discarded without much reflection or anxious concern. The power to fly appears quite common in most dreams.

But there are those unusual ones that stagger one’s imagination for their otherworldly eeriness and complete detachment from our individual realities. We wonder how they can be concocted by an unconsciousness or subconscious mind completely from thin air, strictly outside the purview or parameters of the person’s experiences or thoughts.

One such dream the other night hit me so hard as to nail me down on my tracks. Immobile and unable to wiggle out of it for a good time.

Thus decided that maybe by thinking about it and lending words to it, the mystery or mystique may be slowly unveiled and may lead to some kind of acceptable understanding and resolution.

So here goes.

A dream that occurred in the early cold morning, while lying crouched in fetal position and thickly bundled up with a multi-ply layer of blankets.

The surreal scene unravels in the inside of a rather typical multi-storey house with wooden floors in a large hallway between two rooms. There are at least 7 characters involved, including me as observer installed unobtrusively in front of everybody else. Two sweaty men in sleeveless shirts are conspicuously on their knees on the floor, both looking tired and weakened. More like in some kind of drunken stupor. From the looks of it, the rest of the characters are trying to get to the other room up front, using the backs of the two men as their transport. One man had just gotten off the back of the man on my left and a rather large lady is trying to mount his back with some obvious degree of difficulty. The guy on the floor is being both verbally and physically prodded to prepare himself to carry the lady. The guy on the right is in the same predicament, where one guy is also trying to mount his back with no success. This bent man is again in obvious difficulty, unable to carry the other man trying to mount his back. This prospective rider finally is frustrated and pushes the bent man rudely, signaling for him to proceed to the other room on his knees and by himself. He continues to have great difficulty get started, leaving a wet trail as he plods along on his knees until suddenly one leg becomes unbelievably distorted at a horrible angle. That anybody looking will conclude that that leg has been broken.

Then just as suddenly wakefulness interrupts the unfolding drama and brings me to the cold reality of an unheated room with temperature having plummeted in the 20’s.

This whole dream experience is utterly senseless and meaningless to me. And still is.

Is Shame Getting To Be A Sham?

O Shame, where goes thou now?

We typically define the sense of shame as pain felt emotionally because of one’s inadequacy or guilt.

But from the high Middle Ages, we are taught by one of the intellectual luminaries of those times, Thomas Aquinas, an added dimension to the above by defining a quality of man provided to guide him toward the virtue of temperance, which essentially is the control of his flawed human nature that tends toward unrestrained and wanton excesses when unregulated. He called it shamefacedness, as the twin partner to honesty.

And culling from one’s own personal experiences and readings, we might come to a conclusion that in contemporary times as a species we appear to be markedly remiss in its practice, or as many of us may exhibit. One may observe this unhealthy trend as exposed by an entire community collectively, or individually, even among the numbers of those possessing high degrees of intelligence and/or education.

Some pundits point sadly to the collective case of the Palestinians in their perpetual mortal struggles with the nation state of Israel. Needless of much elaboration, one may readily see the stark contrasts between the two peoples. The Israelis, occupying one of the tiniest piece of God-forsaken real estate in the entire greater Middle East and tightly hemmed in by all those hostile countries around it, continue to thrive in relative prosperity and continued economic successes, in very diametric opposite to those around them, but more particularly to the pervasive poverty and squalor in Palestinian settlements, which share precious space with them, and many of whose residents derive gainful employment from Israeli employees. Palestinian settlements that can survive only with continued and uninterrupted infusion of foreign aid and assistance; and lacking basic economic institutions that could give its people some yeoman chances of producing something of economic value for their survival.

But yet undeterred and unhampered by their dire conditions and spurred by some indescribable dark force, the Palestinians continue to do fierce combat with the harangued Israelis, asking for more land amidst protestations by many of them that Israel ought to be completely removed from that place. This, incontrovertible facts that point to the unreasonableness of their demands, notwithstanding. Like, that for example a good majority of the residents of neighboring Jordan are reportedly ethnic Palestinians and which country does have much larger geographic territories where these “displaced” Palestinians in present tight co-existence with Israel could reasonably be relocated, if only to diffuse the unbearable existing tensions and allow the area to attain some degree of resolution and peace. And albeit added concessions such as that Israel has ceded some territories and will continue to cede more, hoping against realities to bring about some tolerable resolution. But no, it has to be Israel that has to go and to make all the sacrifices, for Palestinians see themselves as the perpetual victims deserving of any and all demands that they may bring to the table.

To shed some possible light on all this, some have advanced that in psychology, one psychological mechanism that may address what may be adjudged as a pathological condition has been that of projection. That a people in grave penury and squalor because of felt numbing shame as a result of its glaring inadequacies and guilt, would find it more palatable to project this reality toward another object, and in the process converting it into some kind of morbid hatred and/or envy against that object. I suppose the stronger sense appetite of hate could trump and deaden the gnawing feelings of shame and guilt. Many may point to this as yet another classic manifestation of the victimhood syndrome. And this may be one big underlying root cause of all these ugly convulsions in that part of the Middle East and thus deserve more serious study.

And transmuted and applied to everyday interaction with individuals who form part of our circle of relatives, friends and acquaintances, and fellow workers, many may also find this “pathology”, though expressed in somewhat different modes, but still showing the same basic lack of shame or shamefacedness.

When close family members through their actions or inactions tacitly or blatantly infer that they are entitled to all the assistance from siblings, regardless of duration and frequency, simply because they cannot support themselves and/or their families; but with the obviously lame justification or rationalization that they are different and thus by inference cannot be expected to be like the others who can and are able to take care of themselves exposed to the same set of circumstances. This appears to be another classic case of playing the victimhood card and laying the blame on same perceived extraneous forces, instead of taking personal responsibilities and addressing the issues head on. Another clear instance when the sense of shame has been trumped by something else, or projected elsewhere as to numb the felt pain of shame, if indeed such a sense is felt..

And then we encounter close associates, friends, or kins committing their word and full faith in no mean terms to comply with certain agreed arrangements in exchange for some good offered to them. Yet when your back is turned, that stiff commitment readily melts away and becomes no more worthy than the air into which they were thrown into. Yet even with continuing strong lamentation about how shamed they are, they continue to neglect their words, not because of any inevitability occasioned by circumstance but by at times awkward limp excuses, because you know them better than they think you know them. Again, another case where the sense of shame is allowed to be deadened, so life can continue for them. With you stewing on the side, wondering how and why anybody would be so crass and blatant to allow that neglect to happen to a relationship that you had built and regarded as trustworthy and somewhat sacrosanct.

Let me end with this question: Is man perfectible in this world?

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Elvis Truly Lives!

And you can take him home. Contact information here.

The Moros of Mindanao

Wretchard over at The Belmont Club weaves a very enlightening account of what he calls the Islamic Insurgency in early Philippines, at the turn of the 20th century when the US acquired the Philippine Islands as victory booty grudgingly relinquished by the war losers, the Spaniards. He essentially retraces the historic confrontations between the new colonizer, the US, and the recalcitrant elements of a splintered country, particularly in the south. In the end, Wretchard hypothesizes that that particular era is eerily reminiscent of the US’s current struggles in Iraq, with a similar religious component, Islam; and additionally, as another turn of the century milestone, this time the 21st century. The comparison is not entirely new since another blog, Philippine Commentary, ably tenured by Dean Jorge Bocobo has touted the same hypothesis. Notice that on the banner portion of his blog, Dean has included the phrase, The First Iraq.



But the account at the Belmont Club is specially significant to yours truly, having been born and raised in the island of Mindanao, the second biggest island in an archipelago noted for its 7100 islands. And adding to the personal interest is the little issue of genealogy from my father’s ancestry. He owed his lineage to a rajah of Lanao (Samporna) whose time dated back to 1520s when Magellan first discovered the islands. In 1779, a Spanish friar named Pedro de Santa Barbara took the entire Samporna family, baptized it, and gave it a Christian name which we carry to this date.

Given these two significant details, our family has always been very eager and proactive to learn as much as we can about our origins, both in ethnicity and geography. Thus, most of the facts as detailed by the account at the Belmont Club have been common knowledge to most of us diligent enough to listen and/or do some of our own researches.

The following commentaries then are advanced either to supplement or clarify some of the issues brought out.

It is good to note right off the bat that one of Wretchard’s sources is a Jesuit, in the person of Fr. Javellana, who I gather is also from Mindanao. I say this because the Society of Jesus has been in the forefront of quality education in Mindanao, establishing 3 Ateneo schools many years ago. Two in the south, Zamboanga and Davao, and one in northern Mindanao, Cagayan de Oro, with the latter having been established way back in the 30’s.

When Wretchard calls it the Islamic insurgency, I surmise the intent is to tie it up with the current problems with radical Islamists under the umbrella of the GWOT. But for those growing up in Mindanao, the problem was simply the stubborn problems with the moros, a catch-all pejorative to denote those bandits who were not Christians, nor members of any of the many indigenous tribes scattered throughout the island but concentrated on the upland areas. As far as I know no religious tone was ever injected to the problem, not like the current upheavals. The violence and savagery may have been similar, but religion rarely got into the picture. To this day, the word Moro continues to be viewed with derision on both sides of the current conflict.

It was revealing to learn that the issue of slavery was a stiff determinant in the US resolve to deal with the Moslem problems in the south. This time slavery primitively practiced not by Rebs of the south, but by Moslems in their Morolands in the south.

Wretchard’s piece talks about basic infrastructures, such as roads and bridges, as enticements and offerings of noble intentions brought by the Americans to the island. And to this day we continue to see visible vestiges of those long-forgotten efforts. The No. 1 road distance marker, called kilometraje uno, is located in a place deep in Lanao called Camp Keithley, and from there it stretches throughout the entire island. As far as I know the main highway in Bukidnon continues to be called Sayre highway, obviously named for some past American.

On the issue of the cedula, which as related was quite a thorn on the side of the then-Moslem situation, beyond just noting that it was a carryover from the old Spanish regime, as I far as I know, it continues to be in effect in the current republic – still a thorn on the side, as expressed by many Filipinos. As a matter of fact, it comes in two versions. The cedula, which is called the residence certificate, is either A or B. Res. Cert. A is an annual fixed levy for, what else, being a resident of the country; and Res. Cert. B is based on a certain percentage of one’s income, both required before paying income taxes, and for most transactions with any government entity.

The case of the juramentados, or suicide attackers, as an apt juxtaposition of the current Islamist suicide bombers is an interesting analogy and I must admit the idea did not cross my mind until now. Again, growing up in Mindanao, one cannot be a stranger to the craziness and fatalism of the juramentados. Sordid tales abound on what we then considered a very unusual practice. That the subject, suffering from some irresolvable conflicts would induce himself into some kind of ghoulish trance, wrap a red bandana around his head, paint his face and body, arm himself with a long bolo (typically, a kris), go to any crowded place like a market place or your typical small town tabo, and start hacking strangers. And it stops only when the subject himself is killed.

But this we learned was derived from an earlier practice widely used during the Moro wars against the US occupiers. Moro warriors armed with bolos, resolutely convinced that they were invincibly protected by their amulets, or anting-anting, would daringly charge head on to US entrenched positions, and would be met with a fusillade of rifle or pistol fire. And surreptiously validating the claim of invincibility, confused people related how these warriors amidst those formidable volleys would still be able to reach the US soldiers’ positions and use their bolos to inflict their damage.

As it turned out the problem was not invincibility but was as mundane as “stopping power”. The typical US Constabulary officer was carrying a smallish .38 caliber revolver, with no sufficient power to stop an assailant dead on his tracks. Thus, Colt was commissioned to manufacture a higher caliber revolver to replace the standard issue. Thus was given birth the Colt .45 revolver, designed specifically to effectively stop a marauding moro warrior, or juramentado.

Some mementoes from that past taken from American Rifleman Magazine of January 1980: (The one on the right is the Colt .45, which replaced the earlier versions on the left.)

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UPDATE
A quote from Belmont Club:

In 1911, Pershing won that approval and announced a new law requiring Moros to surrender their firearms and forbidding them to carry edged weapons. Many Moros, for whom weapons were precious possessions, refused to give them up, and fighting broke out between them and the troops sent to enforce the order.

There is a lot more than meets the eye to the statement that Moros considered their weapons their precious possessions. Weapons continue to be regarded as both precious and prized possessions, and for many Moslem “warriors” more precious than their own families. They would rather be bereft of any material possessions or such abstractions as respect and honor, so long as they have their weapons to carry with them.

A family member used to recount his family company’s experiences logging in forest areas deep in Moroland. How these Moslems, most with no gainful employment, would approach their logging camps to ask for jobs. Except that there was only one type of job that they would accept – as security guards. And as further enticement, they commit to bring and carry their own weapons so the logging company does not have to issue them any.

As part of the appeasement process and since one is exploiting forest products in their own lands, companies had to hire them to survive and to operate in relative peace. But in turn, these companies had to hire their own security guards to watch over the Moslem guards. This rather odd arrangement had to work for them.

Extrapolate as much as you will what this almost innate love for and attached interest in weapons those Moros in Mindanao have and juxtapose that with what is similarly found in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and yes, Iraq. The trading of arms, amidst all the squalor and poverty, in those areas appears to always enjoy brisk business.

Quite unlike the Judeo-Christian axiom, from guns to plowshares.