Harmonize With A Harmonica

Ever been asked: Do you play any musical instrument?

Bet you, many of us have been and sadly, many of us will reply in the negative.

Of course, many of us can belt tunes, using our excitingly unique vocal chords as our musical instrument.

Okay, aside from that, which else?

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A Face Of The Filipino Diaspora

In the least likely, though unavoidably accessible, medium, one can actually get a good glimpse of the ever growing Filipino Diaspora. While on vacation home and enjoying and taking things lightly. For engaging in such things is inextricably Filipino. Too eager to leave the old homeland, but cannot stay out long enough without taking a vacation back to “home”. An outbound trip short enough and a return visit frequently enough to be able to safeguard all of one’s Filipino-ness – in speech, closeness to extended families , acquired taste for local cuisine, and all the other good stuff central to being Filipino.

The Filipinos have been streaming out, both steaming and flying out, of their country in large numbers for many years now, sufficiently enough to now count the outsiders as maybe over 10% of the total population of the country. And with obvious though tacit government blessings and prodding, large expectant numbers wait in the wings to continue to feed the exodus to any and all places where work opportunities are available, and/or where they are allowed to go, either as contract workers or migrants. And many even feeling deaf to the second option. Thus war-torn countries like Iraq and Lebanon, destinations where the government frowns on their citizens going, count a considerable number of Filipinos working among their populations.

And yet while the numbers of ex-pats continue to burgeon, other Filipinos and the rest of the globe are quite in the dark at composing a good picture of who these people are, beyond just trickling numbers being added to a total. The local government itself, maybe reticent or embarrassed enough to extol or admit this mass exodus of its own citizens, is quite content to limit its exposure in the effort by limiting its participation to lip service, calling them the new “heroes” of the republic. Coupled with the not too subtle reminder to them to keep the flow of their precious earned dollars back to their left-behind loved ones, since inward remittances now amount to about 10% of total GNP. A nice enough boon to help keep a fledgling or floundering economy afloat and capitally infused.

So where can one catch a glimpse of those transplanted Filipinos, or as they are called, OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers)?


On one of two cable channels owned and operated by Filipinos, but beamed to many corners of the globe, especially where outbound Filipinos may find themselves lumped in considerable numbers. The two channels are The Filipino Channel (or TFC) and the newcomer, GMA, which in the US, for a little over $20 per month, can be added to a subscribers’ viewing pleasure. Yes, $20 or 1000 pesos which is about a third of what many unskilled workers in the Philippines gross each month.

And the one particular TV program that yours truly is familiar with – is the daily game show, cum soap opera, and charity bazaar, and fulsome comedy skit show, named WoWoWee on TFC, which is most likely a play on the name of its irrepressible main host, Mr. Willie Revillame.

It is indescribably simple as to make futile my many attempt to try and categorize it, especially amidst the almost screechy hysterical and ear-splitting cacophony of dialogue delivered by its hosts and participants, giving it characteristically the quality of being almost one big shout and scream session from beginning to end. But it does effectively deliver its message or messages to its intended audiences – global Filipinos scattered throughout the four winds.

But as an integral anchor to what I perceive is the program’s overall purpose and presentation is the use of visiting Filipinos working or living abroad, enjoying a vacation or trip to the old homeland. Using them both as audience participants and benefactors. Thus, visibly arrayed and prominently ensconced on the front tiers of a huge studio set that resembles somewhat the physical format of the ubiquitous cockpits in the country, are maybe a hundred or two of these beaming and excited visitor Filipinos, interspersed with ethnically different companions, and aptly described as TFC subscribers, thus non-local Filipinos subscribing to the channel’s outlets abroad. Complete with the flashing and waving of dollar bills in their hands, though not to bet on a cockfight but as a visible signal of their generosity and good-heartedness.

For these dollar bills will be collected by the different hosts and used as additional prizes to the different contests common in most game shows; but for this show, the main participants are picked from among the lowliest and most destitute among the metropolitan citizenry - Unemployeds, tricycle drivers, itinerant vendors, and from numerous dispossessed groups which abound in a country known for its decidedly pervasive poverty-stricken population.

But looking past the initial patent display by the fortunate Filipinos from abroad of their new-found prosperity but now somehow translated as their show of generosity, the overall mood of both live audience and TV viewers appears to be that some good is being done for these poor selected people. Some kind of unsanctioned redistribution of resources from those who have and those who do not have. And the many prizes shouldered by the programs’ sponsors are by no means puny or cheap, especially taken into account the general penury of the participants. Thus, at the end of each show, all parties appear justified and satisfied, all the better relieved of any insipient guilt feelings and without diminishing any personal worldly pleasures.

A fresh batch of these ex-pats are hauled in daily, coming from an almost unflagging number of new arrivals, cavalcaded and highlighted at times to the point of ennui by the different hosts planted in the different places where these prospered Filipinos may be seated or standing, shouting, waving their dollar bills, and intoning on mike a ceaseless litany of names of loved ones left behind in the old country or in their now adopted countries.

In this continually unfolding vista then a regular follower of the program, both local and foreign, can’t help but be witness to these “new” Filipinos, as they call out their new origins, names and places from all corners of the globe – Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, UAE, London, Belgium, Japan, etc., and of course, cities in the US, where invariably many are coming from. After all, at last count where over four million Filipinos are now either permanent residents, citizens, contract employees, or even undocumented aliens.

Over time, one cannot help but be able to form a rather decent picture of the typical Filipino in Diaspora, many of them now entwined with other cultures through intermarriages, and long residences in their new surroundings.

In closing, who can then say how in the coming future this group will look, feel, and maybe, regard the old country that gave them birth or from where their ancestors originated from?

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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