ON THE UNPRESIDENTIAL WHISTLING OF A VERY PRESIDENTIAL DUTERTE

When I watched the video of PaDi Mayor Digong Duterte's press con where he whistled apparently at Ms Mariz Umali, I felt not only uncomfortable. I was incensed. I thought Ms Umali was a random media person PaDi did not know but whistled at. But I did notice that she seemed to  enjoy a banter with PaDi and did not at all appear repulsed. I googled about her and that incident.. I discovered she issued a statement  that said in so many words that she did not take offense. She merely found his catcalling "maybe improper." I thought, "This woman is internally oppressed. How could she dismiss catcalling by someone to whom she is a stranger inoffensive? Or is it because her offender is the incoming President?"

Whether Ms. Umali was offended or not, I felt that what PaDi did was very improper. I became Mariz Umali. I felt the victimization  she could not feel. I posted a call-out on Facebook.

Next, I read my newsfeed.

There was hatred, even bloodlust, for Duterte. I could gather this from the irrationality of people's strong statements. There were voices of people stuck on May 9 unable to move on from the defeat of Roxas. You could tell from the fact that they suddenly became advocates for women's rights. I did not hear them say anything about women's rights in the past. In fact, they never reacted to that tasteless virtual sex act onstage during a birthday party of a Liberal Party stalwart. This also angered me. The Yellow Kingdom was, to them, all sunshine and, despite situations needing voices, they kept quiet. I thought, "These people, noisy as they are now, are not really speaking for women; they are using a women's issue only to advance political vendetta or promote hatred of PaDi."

And then there were people drumbeating for vigilance; they never called for vigilance before. I thought, "They were simply apathetic - or apolitical might be the politically correct word. Now, they have become politically involved." This to me is a very positive development - that the foul mouth of a President unprecedented in our history is jolting people and getting them out of political apathy. Even PaDi Mayor must be happy.

Thankfully, I could find sincere rebuke as well.

The amusing thing is that when I said on FB that PaDi should not whistle at a woman in public even if she seems not to take offense, some reacted in a way I understood to mean they thought they discovered women's rights before I did or they cared more for women than I did. I sort of ...uhmmm... got annoyed. I became historical. "Hoy, you think only your hearts bleed for women? For decades, I have been fighting for women's rights and even devote free legal services to them. Blah, blah." Then it dawned on me that they did not expect the call-out from the Dutertard that I am. Well, not every political supporter is like many supporters of the Yellow Army who condemn injustice only when it is not attributable to yellow hands. The Dutertards I know do not pay blind obeisance.

Much later on, I saw this video of Ms Umali and PaDi interacting in a private atmosphere. He was humble, friendly, and patient despite the shallowness of her questions. In fact, I felt that she was assaulting his privacy and he was not really relishing  the intrusion. But who am I to arrogate unto myself the license to squirm in discomfort on behalf of the country's incoming President?

They were on their way to dinner - the supposed future sexual harassment victim and the supposed future sexual harassment offender.

After watching the entire video, I began to see the catcalling in a different light. I got convinced that when Ms Umali said she was not offended, she was not offended. She and PaDi Mayor had a "history" before that controversial press con and that was the reason why she   took  his whistling with a grain of salt.

And so two hours ago, I said on someone's wall that in sexual harassment cases, while the nature of the act is important, so is context. Catcalling may be an act by which sexual harassment is committed, but in what context is it done? Also, sexual harassment is a subjective offense. It is not the offender's intent but the victim's feeling that is relevant. Ms Umali was not offended. Please let us not insist she was. Your feelings do not define the crime, OK? Neither does your political frustration or hatred, OK? Let us not reduce  Ms Umali into an object and take her place as the subject.

I still think Duterte should not whistle as he did. It is unpresidential. It is. Unpresidential. I do not look forward to it.

But I look forward to the presidential things he promised to do, a few of which are:

1. Bring the Lumad home;

2. Create a committee to investigate killings of journalists;

3. End PDAF and DAP;

4. Enforce simplicity among government officials;

5. Review K to 12;

6. Cleanse NLRC;

7. End contractualization;
8. Legalize medical marijuana;
9. End the drug trade;

10. Resume peace talks;

11. Appoint pro-people officials to deliver social services; and

12. Make justice accessible.

I am happy the unpresidential President has less than a month to vacate the palace and the more presidential one will take over.

A LETTER ON DUTERTE FROM A FRIEND IN AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND MY RESPONSE

Now, I can reveal this.

Last 24 March 2016, a month after I wrote my Why Rody Duterte article which would eventually become viral, I received an email from a friend expressing his disconcert over my support for Rody Digong Duterte.

My friend is an Amnesty International leader based in the USA who, along with some others I count as friends, has been working indefatigably on human rights issues in the Philippines for decades dating as far back as the Martial Law Years. These people put up the Ecumenical Advocacy Network on the Philippines (EANP). Among the members are Prof. Tim McGloin and his wife, Linda, Prof. Paul Bloom of Amnesty International and his wife Meg Layese who is also President of the Philippine Study Group of Minnesota, Gary King who is Group 37 Leader of Amnesty International, Brian Campbell, and John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. I know how sincere and dedicated EANP is in watching actions of the US government that have an impact on human rights in the Philippines.

In 2013, I joined them in lobbying the US Congress to reduce if not eliminate its aid to the Armed Forces of the Philippines because of human rights violations the AFP committed -by itself or through paramilitaries- especially against indigenous and environmental activists. They asked me to articulate indigenous issues to offices of Representatives and Senators of the US Congress which I did. The efforts of EANP paid off. This was the same group that asked the Lantos Commission to look into the human rights record of the Arroyo administration with the same call to review the military aid. Hearings were conducted by the Commission. Since 2012, the group has been lobbying that the Commission would convene again to look into the human rights record of the Philippines and to give a critical look into its military aids to the government. They also sent Pres. Aquino a signed petition published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer to stop the X-strata Mining in Tampakan. On my request, they sent a letter to the Korean government to stop the Korean Exim Bank from lending P9B for the Jalaur Megadam Project which would displace the indigenous Jalaudnon-Bukidnon. Because of this and efforts of the mass movement of which Jey Aye Alenciaga, John Warner Carag, and Malaya Pinas are part, a fact-finding mission was launched to look into the concerns of the affected indigenous community. They also worked to stop the possibility of Pres. Aquino being given the Nobel.

I am so proud to have been working with EANP and hope to continue doing so in the future.

Anyway, my friend must have been very disappointed in me when he learned I was supporting the Mayor of Davao City. This was his email:

Chyt, I thank you for the plan about a counter-petition to prevent ‘injustice’ in the case of Palparan. He clearly has been a monster, and has motivated many persons in the military, paramilitary and government to torture, murder, (and) (d)isappear people.

I have sent it to my usual 250 friends who do Amnesty International work on the Philippines. Numerous ones have told me they signed the petition you sent.

I have heard you support Duterte. We know about 800 persons murdered by the Davao Death Squads. And he made horrid statements in the past endorsing and promoting it. Conceivably, this rate of murder is comparable to the sins of Palparan himself. And then they started in Cebu City, another 200 murdered.

Has Duterte said anything of repentance, and a desire to deliver law and order without EJE? If there is no change of his heart, I fear he will allow paramilitary groups to thrive, and death squads will proliferate.

Why can we expect these things to diminish under Duterte?

Warm Regards,

xxx”

As soon as I read the mail, I replied:

Hi, Xxxx,

How are you?

We really do find ourselves in a difficult position. I do support Duterte and I am not the only one from the left... I must be breaking your hearts but do hear me out.

We are aware of Duterte's HR record. We will always condemn him for that and will continue trying to make him account. But we are also aware- and have personal knowledge-- that he has a track record of supporting sectors we represent. I do know that he has been supporting the Lumads and has always been one with them in rejecting corporate plunder of indigenous resources. There are almost a thousand evacuees in the UCCP Haran Compound right now. They were internally displaced by the AFP and paramilitaries acting for extractive corporations, some of which are supporting Roxas. Duterte and his family are very protective of the Lumads. Sr. Stella Matutina, the Redemptorist nun given a German recognition for her HR work last year, told me that Duterte's family are giving logistical support to the evacuees and have been rallying local business to contribute to their daily needs. This was confirmed by Cong. Karlos Ysagani Zarate of Bayan Muna and other Mindanao fellow HR workers. What is more, he has consistently opposed US military presence in Mindanao and rejected drone testing. And only he has a clear stand on the coco levy funds--give them to the farmers.

The other candidates do not have the same positions; neither a heart for IPs and basic sectors whose issues we passionately stand for and feel strongly about. Roxas is too oligarchic and too pro-mining. Binay is too corrupt which Duterte is not known to be. Poe is supported by Danding Cojuangco. She already announced she would make Col Ariel Querubin, a San Miguel officer, a cabinet official. She said she would open the Philippine economy to foreign ownership. She promised to appoint PNoy as anti-corruption czar. Claims that she is PNoy's other anointed is not hard for me to believe.

Duterte did kill hundreds. This is not right. But at least- and this is not to defend him-- he did not kill activists from the left unlike Palparan. His death squads do not touch the progressive groups. He seems to limit his bloodlust to his perceived criminals. We fear Duterte's death squad but what about PNoy's and the mining sector's paramilitaries? I believe Roxas will not deviate from PNoy's policy on paramilitaries. Shall I support Binay just because he has no paramilitaries? Shall I support Poe for the same reasons?

Moreover, since the 1990s, Duterte has been working with labor organizations (though I do note what he said about KMU). He is actually credited for many Davao initiatives on women, LGBT, children, and other vulnerable sectors. And it is a fact that he donated an inherited property to the government for the construction of a children's hospice. I know people who attest to his simplicity. Yes, he is a man of contradictions: a man with an iron fist but he is also a man with a soft heart.

For me, personally, choosing to support Duterte was not an easy one to make. I cannot vote for the three others. I have hopes that Duterte will make life less harsh for the Lumads and ease the country from corporate stranglehold. I could be wrong. But I have hopes that this man, despite his flawed character, is not as bad a choice as the others.

“I hope you understand my decision.

Find here my statement issued last February explaining why I decided to go for Duterte. I entertained the idea beginning 2013 when it looked like only he was speaking for the Lumads, and while my mind was then made up, I was ready to be flexible should a better or less bad candidate run. The alternatives then were Roxas and Binay. None of the above. Poe? No , because I have not heard her say anything about IPs. In my statement below, I spared Poe from diatribes out of respect for others in the progressive left who support her.

Best regards,

Chyt

Well, Duterte won by a landslide. I still have to hear from my friend. I know he will never stop fighting to protect human rights in the Philippines and other parts of the world. I know EANP will never rest.

Here I am, very elated that my candidate won. Those days of speaking in caucuses and rallies and other meetings to promote Duterte’s candidacy have contributed even if little to Duterte’s victory. For that, I, as the millions of others who fought for his candidacy despite all odds, claim the right to be part of his conscience, to speak out when he deviates from respect for human rights, and to stand by him when he eases the burden of the impoverished, toiling masses.

I have high hopes in the incoming presidency. I, however, do not believe that elections will fundamentally change things. The mass movement, the different sectors, and the new President must work together to dismantle the oppressive structures.

I hope my friend will eventually tell me, “Chyt, you made the right choice.”

WHY RODY DUTERTE?

...This man, despite his dirty mouth, draws voters and indigenous activists like me. Along with his new "loveteam partner" Miriam Santiago, he is the first among the presidential candidates to notice and denounce the latest atrocity committed against the Lumad: the burning of their evacuation center. He has always championed the rights of the Lumad and has always matched rhetoric with action.

He is a self-confessed killer of people he self-righteously and arbitrarily judged as rapists, murderers, kidnappers, or drug lords, but he has not killed a single activist in the struggle to dismantle structural/national oppression or a single indigenous person protecting ancestral domains. In fact, he has been providing shelter to internally displaced IPs. The other candidates consider IPs invisible - we haven't heard them say anything about the issue even if it is burning right before their very eyes. Two candidates are said to be using the private planes of people connected to abusive mining in IP territory. Any candidate who supports corporate mining on indigenous land is automatically off my list.

So do not judge me, a human rights lawyer and activist before anything else, for gravitating towards this foul-mouthed, dirty old man named Rody Duterte even if my husband, Leandro B. Yañgot, is committed to campaigning for Mar Roxas. With the exception of Grace Poe and Santiago, your candidates have meaner, harsher, and dirtier human rights records. Human rights violations are not just about killing without due process. They are also about neglecting to do your job well or looking at your job as a way to upgrade your burning presidential ambition, resulting in the death of thousands of people in a storm. They are about keeping quiet as a Cabinet official, even if you could have spoken out while DSWD was hoarding and later burying food worth millions of pesos meant for disaster victims. They are about stealing from government coffers millions or billions of pesos that could have gone to alleviating the economic tribulation of the poor. Poverty, hunger, and lack of security in times of disaster are human rights violations, too, as serious as death. At least, death ends suffering but how about those who remain alive? 

Friends, if your main criterion in choosing a candidate is his/her position on who should or should not get buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, that to me is not enough. Besides, the other candidates may be anti-Marcos and spewing anti-Marcos rhetroic but where were they and their families during the anti-Marcos days? When they got to the helm of power, what did they do to reverse the after-effects of the Marcos presidency? One pandered quite solicitously to foreign interests, and indefatigably worked for the same Marcosian solutions to economic ills - the solutions friendly to hacienderos, abusive domestic and foreign corporations, the elite. One claims to be indigenous but what has he done for indigenous peoples? He ruled a city that benefits immensely from the oppression by corporations of indigenous communities. The big corporations wantonly plunder ancestral domains and pay taxes as residents of his city. His city gets a large share from the Internal Revenue Allotment. His city is rich because of indigenous sacrifices and unabated suffering, among others. The resource-rich LGUs where the IPs are remain to be this country's poorest and they deal with the environmental degradation wrought by corporate pillage. Very Marcosian situation. You are anti-Marcos? How can you support these candidates who continue the same anti-people policies of Marcos?

I am indigenous and I look at the world with indigenous eyes. I am engaged in development work and work with communities. I hold office in my shoes and where they take me, and not in some posh four-cornered room. I look at the world from that vantage. For that matter, I look at the elections with the same eyes. I will vote for a candidate who has been kind to the most oppressed people in this country, who are fighting to protect the country's last living lung (even if he is condescending at times. I have not forgotten that he said, "Let an Ifugao or Badjao run, but please... not an American." I wish I could force him to gargle with the strongest laundry soap.).

And he is not "epal". In fact, he seems to be destroying his own campaign. He exaggerates his flaws and does not talk about the Samaritan acts he did for people in distress. But actions speak louder than words.

So, please stop asking why I, a human rights lawyer, am supporting Duterte who supports a Marcos burial in Libingan  ng mga Bayani and I will stop asking why you are supporting one I perceive to be anti-people. :-) With the exception of Grace Poe and Miriam Santiago, the candidates are all killers, all human rights violators, all evil.

I chose the least evil.

ALMOST HALF A CENTURY SINCE CHE'S MURDER...

Humanity’s Misery for Sale

by: Cheryl L. Daytec

The compradors imprecated your fiery rhetoric

Scorning avarice that empties famine’s belly

Indicting  thirst  that lusts after  plebeian  sweat

Yes, even enslaved blood from  chocked veins

You drew lines of parity - no rich, no poor

Just humanity  eating  from the same plate

To each based on penury; from each, on gift

You preached that one’s  labor must liberate

The precariat  from  helotry to  Wall Street

On that cruel day, one hundred souls vanished

By the ruthless hands of the butler of greed

Korda’s camera arrested your pain and rage

Framed between a silhouette and a palm tree

Now frozen for the world to see… everywhere

To those who heard the clarion call, it is the face

Of  deep love for the masses who are also oneself

The face that speaks indignation  against  injustice

Against oligarchs bestriding  borders as fictions of law  

To reach last frontiers beneath the feet of first peoples

The  gold fever afflicting them does not come down

They eat  what they steal, and get even  hungrier

As their bursting patrician pockets get deeper

To the naïve and nescient, a movie icon’s face

Or, perhaps, a heavy metal band’s sex symbol

In thoughtful contemplation of the next show

To capital, nothing is sacred; even God is cash

Comrade Che, you would not believe me if  I say

Today, I saw your face on T-shirts and bikinis

Offered at  altars of the golden calf on high streets

Of Bangkok, of Manila, of London, of San Salvador

Of New York, of Sidney, of Beijing, of  Pretoria

Your enemy keeps the contours of your face  alive

Flouting the fire and  faith that resided in your soul

A cursed  thief  to sell humanity’s desolate visage

THE REAL PEOPLE'S REPRESENTATIVE

by CHERYL L. DAYTEC

Bae Bibiyaon Ligkayan Bigkay, the only female tribal chieftain in Mindanao, proved her mettle by dressing down North Cotabato Congresswoman Nancy Catamco for the latter's act of further exposing the indigenous  Manobos to militarization and human rights violations. The Manobos fled their village and sought refuge in Davao City because of military and paramilitary Alamara's presence. They were subjected to daily harassment and had to parry accusations of being members of the revolutionary group New People's Army.

For media mileage and political points, this cerebrally-unendowed pathetic excuse for a Congresswoman named Nancy Catamco brought the police to Davao City to aid her in forcing the Manobos to return to their village. The trespass into the sanctuary provided by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) was definitely brutal. Scores were hurt.

Using Orwellian parlance, Catamco  announced that she was rescuing the more or less 700 Manobos  from their place of refuge (Figure out that one yourself.)  She acted with condescension while professing to be indigenous herself. When the people- whose culture looks up to sincerity more than power- expressed incredulity when she gave a litany of promises, she   raised her voice at them  and called them stinky. And this is the shocker: She chairs the House of Representatives committee on indigenous peoples.

Undaunted by the indigenous people's rejection of her "assistance," Rep. Catamco  returned to them and tried to give the same old, poisonous wine in the same old poisonous, bottle. She engaged in a virtual  monologue which was essentially double talk.

Then  an old woman spoke. She had no script. She had sheer courage and the issues of her people. Her rhetoric was shorn of euphemisms and subservient tone. She was defiant. For five minutes, she gave a loud  voice to sufferings  that demand to be heard. Each time Rep. Catamco tried to interrupt, she would say, "Shut up! Listen!" That is what representatives should do more than talk: Listen to their principals, the people they claim to represent in the august body called Congress.

All of us who articulate indigenous concerns cannot measure up to the courage and eloquence of  Bae Bibiyaon Likgayan Bigkay. Step aside and forget your ambitions to go to Congress to represent IPs. She's The One!

Let us demystify that body called House of Representatives. To it, let us elect people who walk the streets, not people who walk on clouds. Let us send issues, not ambition. Let us send solutions, not problems. Let us send true-to-life stories, not fairy tales. Let us send hearts, not money. Let us send selflessness, not greed. Let us send human beings, not gods and goddesses.

Let us send this woman.

MAITA GOMEZ, 64

by: Cheryl L. Daytec 

So you were on your way to the huge hippodrome

You moved with the grace of a swan

Twenty  million  people  waited for the wave

 of your dainty hands on black-and -white TVs

That was what you were supposed to do

Alas, you rolled down the car window

The stench of  existence deterged of freedom

pervaded the air

You  looked straight into the eyes of a child

hawking her tender flesh to wrinkled  strangers

not quite comprehending her  tragedy

You saw her haggard mother

holding with one thin hand a boil-infected baby

letting go of  hope with  the other

You saw her jobless father  burn his self-deprecation

with a bottle of cheap alcohol

Hungry peasants carried full harvests to lay down

At the feet of an indolent  landlord chewing  cigar

There were millions of them

There were just a few of you

The soft bed, the flashy cars, the banquets,

The promises  of fame:   their  glitter was illusion

 Subdued by  the sudden flash of enlightenment

It was a time when opulence was a badge of shame

-an era  when hope was  heresy to  the wretched

Freedom was a  word inside  the lexicon

 devoid of form outside of it

a rhetoric of tyranny to mask injustice

a  birthright without duty-bearer

calling for  vanguards to unchain it

You heard the call the moment you knew

One cannot fully enjoy a world

that despoils the  laughter of others

So you turned the car around

Slipping out of your gown

You dropped

 the circlet of fame around  your head

the rogue lipstick into the garbage bin

It was war; you picked up a gun and rushed

 to the  battlefields - a soldier of the people

Power started to lose balance

when you and comrades cast arrows into apathy

creating a  hole through which sunshine could pass

to  grace  that young girl’s pallid life

to give her mother strength to collect hope

to put color on her father’s waxen face

You never  put down the freedom torch

You made more torches

passing  them on to the toiling masses

They found their way out of the darkness

of apathy and victimhood

To the light of consciousness

To the parliament of the streets

To the corners of the countryside

 To the slums, to the prisons

Confronting the throne

Crumbling the cornerstone of injustice

Winning victories for the oppressed class

There are  virtues more solid  than beauty

-Love for the unloved, love for the masses

Sacrifice for society’s dregs

Choosing them all,  

You turned your back on a crown of beauty,

the fancy dresses, the limelight

and became more  beautiful

Now, from where the struggle goes on

We watch you ride  into the sunset

Beautifully

as only you could/chytdaytec 14jul2012

MAITA GOMEZ: THE REBEL WITH A LOT OF CAUSES

Maita and I delivered lectures in the University of the Philippines-Baguio in 2011.

The following article by Filomeno Sta. Ana III is a beautiful piece on Maita Gomez, the woman who should have been known more for being a revolutionary/activist than for being a beauty queen. She should have read this. Sadly, she passed on to the next life yesterday. 

After winning a beauty title, Maita could have chosen a comfortable life. She could have become a product endorser, a movie star, a rich man's mistress, or anything that would have assured her a life of comfort and plenty. But she chose a different path, a radically different one, the one less traveled. She resolved to live among the masses and to fight for freedom and justice especially during the dark years of the Marcos dictatorship. Surely, it was not an easy life. It was sacrifice. Yet she chose that.

Up to her last days, she was living her life for others. She was very active in exposing the lies of the mining industry and big business.

Ride on to the sunset, Maita. You will always be remembered.

Maita Gomez, lovely soul: Rebel-intellectual will always be a beauty queen

13-Jul-12, 2:39 PM | Filomeno Sta. Ana III, Special to InterAksyon.com

Maita Gomez in Paris, 2011.

RELATED ARTICLES

• Maita Gomez, beauty queen and freedom fighter, dies

OTHER OPINION STORIES

• COCKTALES: Elder Biazon may run for Senate, younger Biazon for House

• Maita Gomez, lovely soul: Rebel-intellectual will always be a beauty queen

• TEODORO L. LOCSIN, JR. | The Libingan Party didn't like Dolphy enough

• Cartoonist honors Dolphy: 'Heaven is a happier place'

• MARIE YUVIENCO: Do the right thing

OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES STORIES

• Over .2M children at risk as Taliban adds polio vaccine to hate list

• Maita Gomez, lovely soul: Rebel-intellectual will always be a beauty queen

• ARMM gun ban won't stop rido

• Cartoonist honors Dolphy: 'Heaven is a happier place'

• US billionaire Black is 'Scream' buyer - report

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

(Editor’s note: Filomeno Sta. Ana III wrote this piece on Maita sometime in March 2011, but it went unpublished. Sta. Ana shares it now with InterAksyon.com readers so they can, he says, get to know more about Maita Gomez, "always described as the beauty queen turned revolutionary." He adds: "She was more than that, and there was no contradiction in her being a fashion model/beauty queen and being an activist.") 

Friends or acquaintances, those born in the 1950s and 1960s, remember Maita as the fashion model and beauty queen turned revolutionary.  And Maita has been described and stereotyped in that manner through the years, elevating her to the status of a living legend or heroine.  Maita feels uncomfortable being described as such.  It is not that she is embarrassed about her colorful past. Neither does she want friends to forget her transition from high society to living a dangerous life. It is just that the stereotype is restrictive and can even be a liability.  

I recall for example that I recommended Maita to be a resource person on the economics of mining for a public affairs broadcast.  Maita knows this field well; she’s the current coordinator of Bantay Kita, a non-governmental organization whose mission is to have transparency of contracts and revenues in the extractive industries.  The show’s producer thought I wasn’t serious about my recommendation.  She said:  “But she’s a beauty queen,” suggesting that Maita’s image as a beauty queen is what the audience will pick up, not why mining is harming development.

The stereotyping is likewise unfair to Maita, for it conceals her other qualities.  Singling out her past—her being a beauty queen and an amazon sidetracks us from appreciating that she’s a hardworking professional; that she’s good at performing simultaneous tasks; that she has the uncanny ability to produce the resources to make both ends meet; that she is generous to a fault even to strangers (she’d buy all the remaining sampaguita garlands peddled by syndicated street children so they could retire early from the night’s work); that she has a pusong mamon; and above all, that she’s a protective daughter, mother and lola.

Maita has received awards for her beauty and for her activism, yet she’s nonchalant about this. But one honor that Maita will greatly value is being recognized as a good and outstanding mom.  She’s a caring, loving mom.  She encourages her children to be independent and treats them as herbarkada.  When her children are in trouble, she prays for them and even asks friends like my wife Mae to offer novenas for them.

But when any of her children are wronged or mistreated, the motherly Maita is transformed into a fighter. Her being a fighter is thus essentially about fighting injustice and subjugation.  She has fought for her daughter and her sons in the same manner that she has fought for the Filipino masses. 

Maita’s life as a celebrated fashion model and her life as an armed underground activist were not contradictory at all.  Her experience as a fashion model prepared her for the sacrifices and rigor of revolutionary life.  After all, being a fashion model entailed long hours of work, perseverance, and tenacity.  For Maita, it was not at all glamorous.

Some of Maita’s old friends observe that the pre-activist Maita they knew was no different from the radicalized Maita. Yael, whom Maita fondly treats as her niece, thinks that Maita is at heart an Assumptionista.  That is, a convent-bred woman disposed to virtue, innocence, compassion, and charity. It just happens that these traits can make dedicated revolutionaries.

And so, we can see a continuum in Maita’s life as a colegiala and a society-page celebrity on the one hand and her life as a rebel and now as a civil society advocate.

In our recent trip to Paris (this piece was written in March last year), that continuum played out.  Maita was serious about our participation in a conference on the extractive industries.  She woke up early to register and to attend pre-conference briefings. She reprimanded me for not joining her in the meetings as I opted to visit Auvers-Sur-Oise.  She phoned me, and asked me to immediately return to Paris.

But on another occasion, she got bored with a plenary session and proposed to me that we go to Montmarte.  And at Montmarte, she bought an attractive painting, though I discouraged her because of the cost, which she intended to give to her son. Not armed with enough cash, she had to withdraw money from the ATM, making her poorer by several hundred euros.

Maita is galante, even when she doesn’t have money.  In Paris, she did not hesitate to spend.  On my birthday, she and another friend, Rina, treated me to a splendid dinner at a high-end Parisian bistro.   

But the best moment of the trip was about her encounter with a young and hip African musician donning loose, multi-colored trousers. They met while smoking outside the hotel premises. The man initiated the conversation, obviously interested in Maita. He even managed to get Maita’s room number, leading to his next question: “Would you like to have sex with me?” 

Maita’s quick retort:  “Hey, I could be your grandma.”  Not disheartened, the musician said, “I like older women, and I honestly thought you are in your 30s.” That of course flattered the senior citizen Maita.  Pressing on, the musician said, “you’ll like me because a young man doesn’t get tired having sex.”

To end the conversation, Maita curtly told the dude to back off because at her age, she no longer enjoys sex.  

Be that as it may, the story only shows that in the eyes of the young generation, and even among strangers, Maita remains a beauty queen.