ON THE CANDY PANGILINAN INCIDENT

It looks like finally, the uproar caused by Candy Pangilinan's statement: "Tao po ako, hindi po ako Igorot (I am a human being, not an Igorot.)!" is waning. As soon as she opened her mouth, we Igorots clenched our fists and went to war. For the enlightenment of our non-Filipino readers, Igorots are indigenous peoples found in the Cordillera region of Northern Philippines.

On May 12, I wrote her a fuming-mad if not arrogant letter (reproduced below) which, I was told, was posted by more than one hundred concerned individuals on their Facebook, Multiply and Friendster sites. Some posted it on their blogsites and on on-line forums. Candy was condemned by Igorots and non-Igorots. On my Facebook site, there were hundreds of reactions most of which were of disgust at her behaviour.

On May 13, she sent me a very remorseful letter of apology saying she would make a public apology on national television. After her public apology, I sent her another letter whose tone was this time calm, unlike the first one which was berserk. In my second letter, I asked Candy to rectify her error by using her relative influence to raise public consciousness of the Igorots.

To be fair to her, she already expressed her remorse on national television. And she also appeared before the Baguio City Council to apologize- a brave act considering that the Council passed a resolution condemning her and declaring her a persona non-grata.

I believe that after the public backlash, she learned her lesson and is now aware of who Igorots are.

I am posting my two letters to Candy and, to be fair to her, her message to me:

x--------------------x

The First Letter

Candy, I am a poet and human rights lawyer who happens to be indigenous. In particular, I am a member of the Kankanaey ethnolinguistic group. Kankanaeys are Igorots.


I am currently in Australia attending a training on indigenous peoples rights. Yesterday, I learned that when you had a concert in Baguio, you shouted twice: "Tao po ako, hindi po ako Igorot." This incident was discussed with the participants in the training because I brought it out. Australian aborigines recall the time they were not considered humans and were downgraded by the Australian government to the level of "part of the flora and fauna." How you treated us right in our territory smacks of shamelessness and outright ignorance of who Igorots are. You are as bad as the Australian government which, by the way, had the humility to apologize to the aborigines in 2009.


You can claim that you were joking. Twice, you were joking? Real artists use performance art to inspire noble emotions, not hatred for or discrimination against a particular ethnic group. Since you call yourself an artist, you should know that you have a social responsibility which demands that you should not promote ethnic bias.

It is a good thing that you are not so popular because your very prejudicial statement would have influenced the minds of millions of people. The fact of your stature in the entertainment industry does not however mitigate the vileness of your statement.


I hope that like the Australian government, you will have the humility to apologize on national television to the indigenous peoples whose collective identity you slurred with your careless statement.


Cheryl L. Daytec

Candy's Response

Yes i am scheduled for a public apology.

It was not intended to mean that way.
No explanation naman can calm all of you.
kaya po, i'm sorry... I am actually trying to get in touch with the Igorot community to personally give my apologies. I would like to show my sincere apologies, in any way I can.I do not know how to reach everyone with my apologies. More than I am afraid that you will all get mad, I am so dissapointed with myself that i have hurt people
The guilt is beyond me.
I don't know what to say... I made a mistake. I'm sorry.
If you read the multiply site ang dami pong hurtful words ang nakasulat and I feel I deserve it for causing people pain.
I certainly know that I am not above anyone and would not intentionally hurt anyone.
This is a humbling experience. A lesson learned the hard way. I am praying now that you all just forgive me for once. i assure all of you that his will never happen again.
I am sorry.

My Second Letter

Dear Candy,

I want you to know I feel less bad after reading your message to me to which was appended your statement of public apology.

You did what you did- carelessly as you now admit with remorse. Igorots from all over the globe reacted - naturally with outrage. I hope you understand the ""tumult."

I am sure you wish you could turn back the hands of time and undo what you did. But it is just not possible. So what matters is how you will rectify your misdeed. You are in a position to correct misconceptions. It will be nice if you will emerge from this experience an "artistang bayan," someone who will use her relative influence to effect social change. Forgiveness from the people you wronged may not be immediate but it will come especially if Igorots see that you are making amends beyond your public apology.

I did not watch your public apology as at the moment, I am abroad. Many who did say you "seemed sincere" (The use of the modifier "seemed" means they have doubts, but the inclination is towards believing you.). I believe apologizing publicly was not a baby step for you or anyone in your position for that matter. Although some people may not feel it was enough, it is a portent of good things to come- for you at least.

If there is something good that came out of the incident, it made the Igorots from all over the globe congregate around their besieged identity. In good times, some of us may take for granted our history of struggle for recognition and the importance of continuously raising public consciousness of who and what we are. But in bad times,we revisit our past as a people, claim our roots with pride. We remember with ardor in our hearts that our ancestors resisted Spanish colonization for centuries, that self-determination was a right they were ready to fight for with their very lives. We remember that the present society can learn from our indigenous history and will be transformed if we reclaim the values they held dear. I am not saying however that more ethnic bashing of Igorots - or of any ethnolinguistic group- should happen.

Unfortunately, some of us may have become irrational in expressing our outrage to ethnic slur and I am not an exception. On hindsight, I myself realized that invoking my academic award to stress my point in my letter to you was devoid of rational connection to a principled critical reaction to your statement. When I wrote the letter, I was feeling so horrified that you truly thought we were not humans (and only humans go to school.). Add to this the fact that I was immersed in an activity on indigenous peoples rights where shared experiences of racial discrimination reopened old wounds, exacerbated fresh ones, and created new ones for us who were hearing for the first time the stories of other indigenous peoples from various countries.

Australian aboriginals shared with pain in their hearts that under discriminatory laws, they were classed with plants and animals in the wild, the flora and fauna. Children of mixed blood were abducted from their parents who were thought unfit to care for children. Members of the Stolen Generation still suffer from the psychological damage wrought by their very, very sorrowful experience. In February 2008 however, Prime Minister Steven Rudd apologized. Although the apology did not (and could not) restore the damage done, it eased the aboriginals' baggage. Every time they spoke, they acknowledged the traditional owners of the land where we were holding an activity. I thought that was so uplifting and was hoping the same could be done in our country. Listening to them recount their ordeal as an oppressed people, I was so emotionally affected.You can imagine the state I was in when I expressed my anger to you for what you did in my birthplace which was originally owned by the Ibalois who are Igorots.

I am not going to apologize for people who may have gone overboard, responding to you with similar or equal slur because that is for them to do. But I ask you to understand them and see the shape of the lessons we can all draw from this experience.

I wish you well. As an Igorot, I have forgiven you for the hurt caused me personally.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Daytec

REP. VICTOR S. DOMINGUEZ: The Man Whose Heart Was Bigger Than His Life

-->(This was written the other year a day before Rep. Dominguez was buried. Today is his second death anniversary.)

The stories were checkered. Some said he died of pneumonia. Others said heart attack. But those who were with him during his final moments say Mountain Province Rep. Victor S. Dominguez succumbed to a broken heart.

Only people who love and love too much would yield to a broken heart. And I know that he had an immense capacity for it.

Since my childhood, I had known him. I spent more than one summer vacation joining his campaign sorties. As his staff for two years in the House of Representatives, I bear witness to his dedication to help people. He took and made time for people- constituents or otherwise- appealing for assistance. He often made me scour telephone directories for the numbers of officials who had the power to appoint or disappoint job-seekers, or grant or deny concessions. Exerting pressure when necessary, he surrendered to no obstacles. His relentlessness was remarkable.

Not a stranger to the discrimination suffered by indigenous peoples, he was resolute to pluck out Igorots from the junction of inconsequentiality to the dais of national prominence. To him, this was achieved by the appointment of Igorots to key government posts. Friends brag and foes concede that his weight-throwing placed Igorots in national major positions. Sundry criticisms may be hurled at the mainstream politics he subscribed to. But if Igorot history will be written, it should devote a page to the trails he blazed for a people who, for years, suffered and still suffer the indignity of being flouted while their resources are being plundered, courtesy of imperial Manila.

When I was 22, he pushed for my appointment --by the President of the Philippines-- as Director of the Cordillera Executive Board. My limited experience- the years I worked for him in the House of Representatives while studying law in a state university- was decorated by good academic credentials (which spelled nothing), and bloated by his influence (which meant everything). He would proudly introduce me as the youngest presidential appointee. If that was an achievement, it was his, not mine. It was my fortune.

He knew how to return favors and never considered them fully repaid. To a fault, he could go to extreme lengths to protect his people- even those guilty of wrongs. Privately, he castigated them for their “sins” but sheltered them from the cage or the whip.

His lingering recollection of favors was a stark contrast to his brief memory for affronts. His heart, as well as his office, was never too crowded for his enemies. One day, a man who publicly campaigned against and vilified him in the past approached him for help on an agency’s budget. I asked, “Why oblige this man?” He replied, “To make your enemy the beneficiary of your goodness is the most gratifying revenge.” That was probably his version of Jesus’ “Throw bread at them who throw stones at you.”

His Quezon City home was perpetually open to everyone in need of help, shelter and food. There was a constant stream of guests, some from the neighboring provinces of Mt. Province. On weekends, his Baguio home was teeming with people shackled by motley problems requiring his service or power trident. Not once did I hear him and his family complain although their privacy was a casualty. Openhandedness was truly his trademark. Probably on this score, no politician will ever match him. 

I agonized when we had a publicized rift. I denounced him for standing up for his relative against my relative. He broke my heart. I must have broken his heart too, because he wrote to say that as my second father, he was hurt by my action but understood me. Alas, things were said and done.

The crevasse ran so deep –it had to for people who were close- I thought it would remain gaping. Fortunately, time, indeed, does heal wounds. My eternal regret is that things were never the same. When soreness vanished, I already had a very large world plus a million and one concerns that I rarely socialized. Also, there was the ideological divide. While working in the executive branch, my ideological metamorphosis was completed irreversibly. I abhorred and still abhor the anti-people national status quo. Rep. Dominguez–wittingly or unwittingly- was a status quo pillar. (Consider how he helped save Gloria Arroyo from impeachment!) Differences in our political views notwithstanding, it was always in my “in-the-future” agenda to pay him a personal visit and savor the old days. With his untimely departure, I forfeited that chance. Missed opportunities will haunt me. But forever, I will be grateful for the privilege of knowing this man who was exceptional amidst his flaws and weaknesses.

Rep. Dominguez had a mischievous side, too. With an impish grin, he voiced out one time that he wished I would romantically “fancy” his very nice, good-looking relative, certainly every girl’s ideal pick. But the relative was not interested in me. Besides, I was eighteen or nineteen and my world was too narrow to accommodate boys. My surprise and embarrassment must have been evident. He simply chuckled and did not wait for a reply that would never come.

There were persistent talks that he died hankering for the affection of kith and kin who politically forsook him. His vital signs were good. But he seemed to have slackened his grasp on his willpower to live.

Jesus’ death on the cross shakes us to the core because of a friend’s betrayal. If Judas were one of the Pharisees, or the Roman soldiers, or the unbelieving crowd, betrayal would have been negated, altering the twist in the story of salvation. Foes cannot betray you as they cannot perforate your heart, although they may arouse your temper. Rep Dominguez must have loved his relatives so much to be ineffably upset by their rejection.

In life, he did not draw comfort from moving around with anger weighing him down. While a shattered heart enervated him during his last days, I believe he began his journey to the afterlife sans a decelerating baggage of hate. During his final hours, he must have been like the father weakened by unquenched thirst for the homecoming of his prodigal son, absolved before absolution was sought, loved beyond he deserved. Thankfully for the prodigal son, he ironed out emotional kinks and embraced the old man again before it was too late; otherwise guilt would have plagued him for the rest of his life.

I looked at Rep. Dominguez’ shrunken body in a brass coffin. So shrived of animation. A light has gone out. I surveyed the thousands who came to pay their last respects to a man whose kindness and generosity humbled also those who rebuff his brand of politics. Many wept unabashedly. He was so very alive. The torch of his good deeds will endure.

His hurts are behind him now. We who still breathe are left to confront our regrets for things undone and unfinished conversations, our guilt for knowingly or unknowingly hurting him beyond his endurance and neglecting to ask for forgiveness, our sorrow for a loss we did not quite prepare ourselves for. In a way, we are dead ourselves. We must struggle to rise from our own graves, dug by our regrets, our guilt, our sorrow.

Au revoir, Uncle Vic. Long you will live.

POWERPLAY

by: Mike Joseph Barcena, Don Aldrin Chantioco, Maychelle Ablog, Charlotte Cariño, Novy Marie Cruz, Irish Mae Fang, Mary Grace Ngo and Aira Pacheco and Rhomellie Tang

Since time immemorial, China has been considered as the foremost leader in trade and commerce. The role of the Chinese in the Philippines transcended hundreds of years before the Americans alighted their presence in our country. From then to now, almost everything we wear from clothes, shoes, belts, to the supplies we use around us such as toys and kitchen utensils are from or made in China. This could substantiate the foundation of the close relations between China and the Philippines.

The Philippines maintains its ties with China through investments, trade through import and export, contracts such as road constructions and its most popular example of the most controversial NBN-ZTE deal wherein the Philippine government is forced to choose between the Filipino’s plight to disregard the contract or to allow it to remain to foster still our relationship with China.

On the other hand, the Philippines and the United States have also maintained close ties with each other. Considering the Philippines’ history under the Americans, this is not at all surprising. Trade relations, the scrapped balikatan exercises and the new born visiting forces agreement, to investments and diplomatic envoys between the two countries, it is not difficult to conclude that Philippines and US truly have close relations.

Although this existing relationship is friendly, independence is an indispensable hidden and at the same time very evident factor that is present and revolves with every transaction.

In a peripheral perspective, we must consider a deeper analysis of the RP-US relations and put into context that the US would like to maintain world hierarchy in which it is the world superpower and has dominant control over a number of resources from 3^rd world countries.

However, with the passage of time, economies outside that of the US have started to emerge as its worthy competitors. We have Europe,, Japan, North Korea, and even India as the worlds biggest democracy raising its economy and establishing a respectable political standing in global politics. But among these, China is the most outstanding. Bill Clinton was correct all along when once he announced that, “The 21^st century belongs to Asia.”

Now, given the US and China as “competing” states for world’s superpower, the Philippines, who happens to maintain close diplomatic ties with both countries, is caught in the crossfire. We now, ask ourselves, will the close ties between China and the Philippines, affect the Philippines’ relations with the US.

With the premises stated earlier, we can safely conclude that there will be changes in the relationship between RP and the US. To put it bluntly, this change is quite inevitable given the situation.

RP-China relations could not have been given great importance or notice by the US if not for the fact that China is starting to challenge America’s power. And since the Philippines is caught in between China and US, triangulation of power takes place. The US may use Philippines to “pull down” China and China may do vice versa.

The US however, can definitely not let go of the Philippines as an ally, no matter how many threats of doing so are thrashed to the government. Basically, the Philippines is its gateway to Asia, considering its strategical location and considering that it is the only Asian nation with a president as a “puppet” for US rules and commands. This undoubtedly would be the situation considering the image of America up to its previous president George Bush. However, with the emergence of a new leadership under Barack Obama, we begin to be uncertain of what kind of relationship we would be expecting between US and the Philippines.

There are many factors that affect RP-US relations and the Philippines’ relationship with China is only one of them. With Obama as a new president, and with his evidently opposite way of handling America’s economy and international relations, we may see a more positive change in this new leadership and we may assume that it will not give any negative sight on the improving relations between China and the Philippines.

(The authors are Political Science students of St. Louis University. This essay was prepared for the subject Foreign Relations.)

"ONE TIN SOLDIER" and THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

on the bulk of the earth’s last frontiers- the remaining genetic diversity, minerals, forests, among others.

One Tin Solder

Listen, children, to a story
That was written long ago
'Bout a kingdom on a mountain
And the valley folk below
On the mountain was a treasure
Buried deep beneath a stone
And the valley people swore
They'd have it for their very own

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after who...
One tin soldier rides away

So, the people of the valley
Sent a message up the hill
Asking for the buried treasure,
Tons of gold for which they'd kill
Came an answer from the kingdom,
"With our brothers, we will share
All the secrets of our mountain,
All the riches buried there"

Now, the valley cried with anger,
"Mount your horses, draw your sword!"
And they killed the mountain people
So, they won their just reward
Now, they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain dark and red
Turn the stone and looks beneath it...
"Peace on Earth" was all it said

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after who...
One tin soldier rides away

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of Heaven
You can justify it in the end
There won't be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgment day
On the bloody morning after
One tin soldier rides away.
.

JESUS CHRIST AND CHRISTMAS COMMERCIALISM

by: CHERYL L. DAYTEC-YANGOT

“Jesus is the reason for the Christmas season,” says a message circulating in cyberspace.

December 25 is the presumed birthday of Jesus Christ. This is debatable because when he was born, shepherds were out watching their flocks at night. In those days, flock-watching in the fields was possible from spring to autumn. During winter, the sheep were sheltered in the shepherds’ homes. Israel’s temperature can drop to really low levels in winter. It must have been lower in the old days when global warming was unimaginable. The biting cold posed an insurmountable obstacle to shepherds attending to their flocks at night.

Moreover, when Jesus’ birth was drawing nigh, Augustus Caesar ordered a census in the Roman Empire and everyone was mandated to be counted. In Jesus’ place and time, you did not wait for census officers to knock on your door. You had to register in the town of your lineage. Which was why the young couple, Joseph and the very pregnant Mary, hit the road to Bethlehem, the town of King David who was Joseph’s ancestor. An important undertaking like a census could not have been scheduled in winter when the weather was harsh for travel.

Historians say that December 25 was deliberately chosen as it was also the day Pagans honored the sun god Mithras. The celebrations were synchronized to accelerate the acquiescence by pagans to Christianity when it was declared as the Roman Empire’s official religion. In other words, choosing December 25 was a calculated political move.

That aside, it remains that Christmas has always been traditionally about Jesus Christ. And yet, it is not about him at all. The crass commercialism characterizing the season goes against everything he advocated.

Jesus is one of the leading figures in human history. Christians believe that he came as God. There are not a few skeptics who doubt this. But no one can deny that he came as a man. In a world of misery and greed such as the one we have today, it is worth looking into his life, at least as a man. He had more than a mouthful to say against greed and oppression.

He lived a life of purpose. “I came,” he said, “that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly.” By they, he was referring to the poor and the oppressed. To propagate his ideology, he chose members of the working class as assistants. He and his disciples walked the streets and went to all corners their sandaled feet could take them to preach about loving one’s neighbors as loving oneself and doing unto others what one wanted done unto oneself. He exhorted everyone to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, help the sick, share resources. He put the welfare of others above his personal comfort. The issues of the poor and the powerless found a champion in him.

A recurring theme in his speeches was socialism or something akin to it. He said that one cannot serve both God and wealth. Once, he delivered a sermon and, at midday, commanded that the loaves and fishes in a boy’s lunch basket be shared by everyone. At another time, a rich man asked him what he needed to do to have eternal life. Jesus recited the Ten Commandments. The young man said, “I have done all of that. What do I need to do further?” Jesus told him, “Sell your possessions, give to the poor.” The man of immense wealth left with a heavy heart for he could not do as Jesus asked. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven,” Jesus remarked sadly.

The booty capitalists of our days are worse than the rich man Jesus encountered. Not only do they refuse to share their wealth (unless sharing means tax deductions for them), they also exploit the working class’ labor to expand their capital. They have resorted to all schemes imaginable to steal the actual pecuniary cost of the proletariat’s sweat. Mining companies are raking in billions of pesos from the muckers’ labor. Everyday, the workers risk their lives as they descend into the bowels of the earth to look for gold. And the mining companies boast, “We pay the miners more than the minimum wage.” Hah! The minimum wage is not necessarily decent wage. What is legal is not necessarily moral. I bet my life that the Philippine minimum wage law would not impress Jesus especially as it was crafted by an institution protective of booty capitalism’s interest.

Jesus disdained profiteers. When he went to a temple, there were so many merchants - money changers and people selling doves. In those days, doves were sacrificed in the temple by the poor who could not afford sheep and goats. Enraged, Jesus turned the tables upside down, cracked a whip he made and drove out the merchants while denouncing them for converting the temple into a den of thieves. The merchants must have been reaping more profit than what reason permitted. Why else did the reasonable Jesus call them thieves?

The profiteering in those days is nothing compared to today’s. For instance, the oil companies keep raising prices to intolerable levels using the fluctuation in the world market as excuse. Then they reduce the price but do not go back to the previous level. And consumers feel grateful for the reduction, not realizing they had been had.

The Philippine landlords just sit around waiting for profit from the peasants’ harvests. The latter have become prisoners of the earth owned by the former. In spite of its deficiencies, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) could have helped break, by a little stretch, the chains of the peasants’ bondage were it not for lackadaisical if not insincere implementation. Worse, it was to end this month. Farmers, with bishops and priests, went on hunger strike to pressure Congress to extend the CARP and reform the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law. But the “Honorables” were bent on ignoring the call, giving a token extension of only six months. Many of them are landowners themselves who are too greedy to even consider parting with a square meter of their hundreds of hectares of land. They are more interested in concocting ways to extend the Arroyo Regime which fiercely protects their interests. This regime does not serve the masses made up of workers and peasants. It serves the profiteering oligarchy and their wealth.

Christmas is no longer an occasion to celebrate the life of a man who turned the tables of profiteers upside down. It is the Feast of Capitalism as we are pressured to do a lot of spending, even beyond our means. The real winners of the season are the booty capitalists who, through multimillion advertisements make us feel guilty when we do not hit their malls to shop until we drop. Christmas insults Jesus’ teachings.

Che Guevara, a man born to privilege, chose to spend his life promoting socialism and dismantling structures of capitalism. The profiteers hated him. After his death, they raked in enormous revenues selling his image.

Like Che Guevara, Jesus Christ, the man who disdained flagrant commercialism, is its biggest victim on his birthday.