Haunted November 2, 2006

(Concluded)5. GHOST of the past. This is really the exception to the rule because, among the various ghosts haunting the country, that is the hardest to spot. For some reason, the emanations or exhalations of the past can't seem to penetrate our present.

The late historian Renato Constantino used to call it "the living past," the past that has something to say to the present, the past that remains vital to our lives today, the past that flows on to our present and guides our future. That is what other people have, a living past, a past they recall -- no, they relate to -- with the passion of lovers. It helps, of course, that in some countries, such as Thailand and England, the past is embodied in living symbols like the King or Queen. But it's more than that: The past lives not in the throne but in the heart.

All we have of the past is a dead past, deader than those we visited in their resting places yesterday and today. To say that we are unable to remember the past is to say that Pidal is sensitive about the truth or being called a crook, whichever comes first: It is the understatement of the ages. We can't even recall that we made Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo by People Power and that we can undo her by People Power. But which is why, we now have a:

6. Ghost democracy. People who do not read their history, warned George Santayana, are condemned to repeat it. He's right. People who do not remember Ferdinand Marcos are condemned to produce Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Democracy has pretty much given up its ghost. Or it's but a ghost that's left of our democracy. Forget that in a democracy, leaders are elected by the people, forget that in a democracy leaders serve for a period of time and then go, forget that in a democracy people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Remember only that in a democracy, decency and civility and neighborliness thrive magnificently, with occasional outbursts from people, like the folk of San Francisco, standing up for their gay rights. No, more than that, remember only that in a democracy people are not naturally murdered.

The only thing we have plentifully today is the ghosts of the dead. The real dead, the dead dead. This is not a democracy, this is a ghost town.

7. "Ghostong mapapogi." Frankly, I don't know why Jose Rizal isn't turning in his grave. For some reason the ghost President of this country, one who has no substance, form, or vote, likes putting a wreath on his monument everywhere she goes. She just did that in China. She did that, too in several other countries she visited this year. Maybe, she figures Rizal's greatness would rub off on her?

All it does is produce a ghastly study in contrast. The only thing they have in common is height. Beyond that, Rizal represents the best of the "indios bravos" [brave natives], Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo represents the worst of the "indios cobardes" [cowardly natives]. At the very least Rizal was the epitome of honesty and solicitousness. He didn't have a story about confessing to cutting down a cherry or a balete tree, but he had a story about tossing his other slipper into a river after his first one fell into it, his point being to supply the finder with a pair. I've always found that story magical. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's solicitousness she showed when, in the 2002 celebrations of Rizal's death anniversary, she vowed on his grave not to run.

Rizal did say like Santayana that people who did not look back at where they came from would never know where they were going. But then that advice can't possibly prosper in a nation that cannot cling to the ghost of the past, or even remember him, c.f. No. 5 above.

8. Ghost nation, ghost people. I suggested this last Monday: Why bother watching George Romero's zombie movies when we have zombies aplenty right here? That's us, as a nation, as a people. That's what we've become since July last year when "Hello Garci" became a ring tone; or since late last year when the impeachment bid became a cadaver; or since February this year when General Danilo Lim's attempted "withdrawal of support" took on a ghostly turn -- take your pick. A zombie is a creature that doesn't quite know it's dead, that looks at the world with blank eyes and feels nothing, that walks around with arms outstretched -- you don't really know if in threat or supplication -- not knowing where it's going or what it's doing. That is what a Filipino is too, today.

The ghost nation and people go further. We've only had a ghostly sense of nation to begin with, preferring to live elsewhere, notably in America, from the start. Today, that has taken on a ghastly form, a huge portion of the population sailing for distant shores and many more scrambling for the docks. In part drawn by the lure of green pastures abroad, and more and more driven out by the stench of the dead at home. This isn't a nation, this is a ghost town.

We don't perform an exorcism, and soon, this place will be forever haunted with only a cold wind howling across a vast and lonely expanse dotted by the bones of the dead.

9. Ghostbusters. Fortunately, some exorcists have come by in the last couple of months. During her trip to Europe the other month, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was hounded by angry shouts from the living for her to stop piling up the dead. Jejomar Binay fought off – successfully -- an effort by people who never got voted into office to oust him as the mayor of Makati city. And the Supreme Court saw through the horror movie that was Jose de Venecia's Charter change -- no great thrills, just a lot of (bad) makeup. Who knows? With elections coming in next year, maybe this country can recover some spark of its anger or even idealism, and come to life again. Then maybe we can have a:

10. Ghost of a chance.

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Reminder: Tonight, Stop the Killings Bar Tour, Unplugged, Adriatico Street (beside Café Adriatico), 9:30 p.m., Chikoy Pura, Calla Lily, Imago and Six Cycle Mind. Honor the dead, don't add to them.

http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=30045

Haunted November 1, 2006

I'VE caught some of the usual Halloween stuff on TV over the last couple of days, shows where people tell about their sightings of otherworldly apparitions. I myself am tempted to say the only ethereal apparition I've seen of late is Dawn Zulueta as unraveled or unwrapped in her ad for Marie France, but that's another story. And it's not entirely true: I have seen a huge amount of ghostly and ghastly apparitions of late and am confident I have much to contribute to the literature about the phenomenon.

I can say with reasonable certainty there are ghosts. Indeed, I can say with reasonable certainty this country is crawling, or flitting (flirting?), with them. Indeed, I can say with unreasonable certainty this country is positively haunted. Among our spawns, legions, or permutations of ghosts are:

1. Ghost employees. This phenomenon was sighted recently in Makati City. Many of the ghosts were said to materialize not at the onset of the full moon but at the approach of the 15th and 30th of the month. The rest had no definable appearance; only their presence could be detected. The palpability of their presence manifested in the absence of a substantial amount of payroll money. Some sighters claimed to have tracked down these ghosts' provenance to the Makati jail, others claimed to have done so to the Makati cemetery.

There was only one problem about the sightings. Which was that the sighters seemed largely possessed of ghostly eyes. For some reason, they could see the phenomenon only in Makati and not in the places where the ghost employees flocked more abundantly in nocturnal or even diurnal revelry. Notably in the Palace by the fetid river and the House by what used to be a garbage and/or "salvaging" dump (the construction of the House seemed not to have improved it, the place remains a garbage and/or "salvaging" dump). The ghost of the cadaver known as the impeachment bid still wails there.

2. Ghost signatories, ghost voices. The first was spotted by the mayor of Makati, Jejomar Binay, who reported that many of the signatories of Sigaw ng Bayan, the group that wanted the Charter changed, originated from the same place his detractors claimed many of his employees did, which was the Makati cemetery. Their credentials were insubstantial and fleeting, the telltale characteristics of plasma entities, or however Harold Ramis called them in "Ghostbusters." Some had absolutely no substance at all, living or dead, corporal or ethereal, apparently never having existed at any time, place, or dimension.

The ghost voices were spotted by eight of the justices of the Supreme Court, after hearing the people themselves complain of them. The sigaw or cry wasn't coming from the pit of the land, the justices said, it was coming from the bowels of the garbage-cum-"salvaging" dump. Indeed, it wasn't Sigaw ng Bayan, it was Sigaw ng Bayad. Or it wasn't Sigaw ng Bayan, it was Atungal ni Joe. The ghostly and ghastly hearing of the Sigaw ng Bayan proponents, who mistook their hollow cries for the angry shouts of a nation in pain, was a perfect complement to their ghostly and ghastly eyesight. For some reason, they couldn't tell ghostly from corporeal, gaseous from solid. The Constitution is genuine, the President is fake: They wanted to change the Charter and keep the President.

3. Ghost votes, ghost voters. They're to be found plentifully in the southernmost province of Tawi-Tawi and neighboring vicinities, those places now having stolen (not entirely figuratively) Siquijor's claim to being this country's witch or voodoo capital. Those voters and votes have a particularly interesting aspect to contribute to the phenomenon of ghosts, which is that they tend to have the same handwriting. The ballot boxes that were opened at the provincial level in Muslim Mindanao in 2004 were written, if not by one ghost at most, by only a few of them. Indeed, the thumbprints on some of them were positively ghostly and ghastly, resembling neither human hand nor animal paw. They were counted as votes anyway for what soon became the ghost President.

Quite interestingly as well, in the astoundingly supernatural event called the 2004 elections, some people who preferred to remain solid were forcibly turned gaseous. Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani, who wanted to keep elections clean in those ghostly areas, was promptly ordered to disappear and play golf instead. Later, when he tried to tell the Senate what he had seen, or not seen, he was ordered to dematerialize and take on an insubstantial aspect. He remains in that state to this day, seen but not seen, heard but not heard.

4. "Ghostong makabawi." There's a ghost who walks in Malacañang, and he is not Lee Falk's The Phantom. Now you see him, now you don't. Now you know him as Jose Pidal, now you see him as Mike Arroyo. Now you see him by his wife's side, now you see him being exiled by his wife to Las Vegas, which is not unlike punishing a turtle (in the story of "matsing" and "pagong") by throwing him into the sea.

This insubstantial entity has taken substantial interest in his ego and is currently suing everybody who has had cause to disparage it. His charges remain largely insubstantial and unsubstantiated, but who knows? One of the accused is my good friend Billy Esposo who can never be accused of having an insubstantial presence. He laughs off the charge and says the ghastly thing hasn't a ghost of a chance to prosper. (Tomorrow: More ghosts)

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Tomorrow, the Stop the Killings Bar Tour moves on to Manila at Unplugged, Adriatico Street (beside Café Adriatico), 9:30 p.m. Chikoy Pura, Calla Lily, Imago and Six Cycle Mind are playing. Tomorrow is still an extension of the Day of the Dead, so feel free to wear Halloween masks. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's, Norberto Gonzales's and Jovito Palparan's faces will do very nicely. You can also wear a mask of Raul Gonzalez for no other reason than that his face is a Halloween mask all by itself.

http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=29851

Horror movie October 31, 2006

I DON'T know about you, but I haven't seen a good horror movie in a long time. My generation was one that was exposed to Western, sci-fi, war and horror movies (I'm not entirely sure if it's in that order of chronology or importance). The war and sci-fi stuff was largely before my time, or I was still a small child then when they were the rage, but the Western and horror movies were not.

I recall spending many a sleepless night with the horror movies that came our way, but for some reason, not the least being the greater dread of being the only one in the neighborhood or class that hadn't see the movie, a sure sign of being a sissy, I trooped to them with morbid fascination. To this day, I recall the fear and trembling I felt while I lay under the mosquito net with only the flickering flame of a votive lamp at the altar of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and the distant baying of a dog to keep me company, everybody else snoring the night away in deep and peaceful sleep. What can I say? Young minds are truly impressionable -- some young minds more than others.

When I got to high school and college, I watched the Hammer movies in particular with far less fear and trembling and with far more fun and relish. And no small amount of titillation, Hammer being among, if not the first, to inject strong sexuality, or sensuality, into horror. I would read later on that they were original in turning Christopher Lee's Dracula's vampire kiss into a true love bite -- or for the politically correct, into sexual harassment, Dracula's invasion of his female victimtaking on the aspect of a defilement or violation. And the women were gorgeous, as seen through concupiscent eyes. What can I say again? Young bodies are assailed by raging hormones -- some young bodies more than others.

But as I was saying, it's been a long time since I've seen a good horror movie. Quite probably, the last one I saw that brought a chill to my heart was "The Exorcist," though that was not a little spoiled by the hype that went into it, which for me gave the head-turning and levitation scenes in the exorcism part some comic overtones. But it was still enough to scare the bejesus out of anyone, no small thanks to William Friedkin's restrained tone in much of the movie.

The more recent ones I saw were "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," "Skeleton Key" and "Saw." The first sucked for the most part: it was a rip-off of the original "Exorcist" without any self-mocking tone to redeem it. "Skeleton Key" was OK, if only for the presence of one of my favorite actors, who can't seem to land roles that do justice to his massive talent, John Hurt. He doesn't say or do anything here -- he's completely paralyzed -- he speaks only with his eyes. I don't know that "Saw" qualifies as a horror movie. I liked its premise, but not enough to go on to watch the second and third. I started "Hostel" and "Silent Hill," but never got past the first half. It had little to do with being sick in the stomach with all that blood and gore, though I know some people who got assailed by that. I got bored. I find that most slasher movies just add new dimensions to the "mindless" in "mindless violence."

I don't know why I haven't really seen a good horror movie in a long time. Maybe it's because they truly don't make great horror movies anymore. Maybe the movies grew up and went to other things, though I don't know that other has always meant better or more mature. Certainly, there's not much to be said for gross comedies and teenage movies.

Or maybe the world got a bit more secular, and the producers decided there wasn't a lot of money to be made off movies that demanded a reasonable belief in God and the devil to be able to buy their proxy wars in the human soul. Or still maybe the world got a little more politically correct or religiously plural the producers decided that some audiences might be offended or sent to fits of hilarity by the sight of creatures of the night crumbling to dust at the sight of the crucifix. Why not the Jewish cross or the Koran? George Hamilton actually cracked a joke about that in "Love at First Bite" while playing the role of Dracula who had immigrated to America after his castle in Transylvania had been expropriated by the socialist government to be turned into a training gym for Nadia Comaneci. Shown the Cross of David by a potential victim, he laughed and said, "Wrong religion."

Or maybe I have grown a lot older and look at the world with wearier eyes. Maybe I've found that it's not always easy to tingle with horror at the spectacle of monstrous creatures from other or nether worlds invading the peace of the just when there are far more monstrous creatures in this world producing horrors that boggle the mind and promise only the peace of the dead. I do know it hasn't been easy enjoying a horror movie over the last six years in this country in light of a far more terrifying spectacle that has been reeling off right before our eyes. How can the fleeting vampires and other creatures of the night complete with the solid and ubiquitous creatures of the day that suck the blood off our necks far more ferociously and murder us without pity? At least Dracula has class, Pidal has only crass.

Indeed, I don't know how anyone can be so terrified at watching movies about zombies. Zombies after all are creatures that do not quite yet know they are dead, who look at the world with unseeing eyes, who stumble about feeling neither joy nor pain, not knowing where they came from or where they are going. You don't have to go to the movies to see that, you just have to look around you. That is what we've become, a nation of zombies.

That is the most horrifying horror movie of all.

http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=29628

Footnote to a farce October 30, 2006

THE DISINFORMATION WAS FLYING THICK and fast Tuesday night. I got a number of text messages saying the idiotically named “Sigaw ng Bayan”—“Sigaw ni Joe” was more like it—had prospered, the Supreme Court voting to give it life near the Day of the Dead 10-5. Weeks ago, a friend had told me he had it on good authority that the justices were near-unanimous in their detestation of it. I wondered what had happened. I was tempted to call him until I got conflicting messages about the figures. The messages clearly carried the imprint of government’s (and its allies’) favorite pastime, which is lying. I figured I’d wait.

Up until the morning of Wednesday, friends of mine were texting me angrily that the justices had lived up, or down, to public distrust, as revealed by the SWS a couple of days earlier—the public apparently did not think the Supreme Court would vote right on this wrong—and felt oppressed by it. But if Sigaw’s proponents thought they could railroad the Court by this ruse, well, maybe they didn’t completely think wrong. I was under the impression the voting would not be close at all, and 8-7 is as close (a shave) as it comes. But in a democracy, whatever remains of it in this country, the embers now feebly glowering in a cold wind, all it takes is 50 percent plus one to carry a vote.

It’s not 15-0, as was the case with 1017, EO 464 and CPR, but I’ll take it. Which brings me to the same two points I raised when the Supreme Court voted to put an end to those wretched impositions—or at least put a legal barrier against them as it hasn’t really stopped them—some months ago.

The first is a deep appreciation of what it has done. I did wonder at one point if the cynical predictions by some friends that Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban would crumble at crunch time—his position on 1017, etc. apparently being merely an attempt to score points with the public so that he could uphold Charter change later on—would come true. Panganiban has debunked that completely. Call it principle, call it keeping an eye to posterity, call it even political ambition, I don’t mind. In these days where counting blessings instead of sheep can keep you awake all night as you will scarcely be able to use all your fingers, I’ll take that blessing with much gratefulness and gratitude.

Doubly so in light of the pressures Joe de V and GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) put to bear on the justices. Not least through (expensive) full-page newspaper ads cajoling them to heed their cry. I wonder where they got the money. Though while at this, I’m not so sure that GMA’s heart was really into it. Her endorsement of their cause looked more like a quid pro quo for the things they had done for her, but she didn’t particularly care whether the “quo” was forthcoming or not. Why should she? She has three more years, barring the citizens’ sudden recovery of their wits or moral values, whichever they’ve lost more, to look for options to extend power. Oh, yes, she will. So why should she be anxious to pave the way for Joe de V to barge into Malacañang with a welcome mat waiting at the end of it?

But the pressure was still tremendous, and for that the justices who stood their ground deserve utmost commendation. Panganiban has already scored 4-0 against Malacañang, a thing nobody seriously thought possible. He has, not a little surprisingly, turned the Supreme Court into a bulwark of sanity amid the swirling madness. That Court now stands as a formidable obstacle against the tyrannical manipulations of the thuggish minds in GMA’s Palace and Joe de V’s House.

That brings me to the second point, which is how we’ve allowed ourselves to reach such a desperate pass—just doing the right thing, the sane thing, the commonsensical thing now takes on the aspect of epic heroism. The Supreme Court ruling, apparently penned by Antonio Carpio, trenchantly called the Cha-cha bid a “fraud” and resolved that the justices would not allow themselves to be used in a “grand deception” of the people. I grant that calls for applause, but does that really say anything the public does not already know? Or know beyond any shadow of doubt? But of course, it is a grand deception, the sigaw emanating only from the pit of the congressmen’s fevered brains. Or, as Jejomar Binay pointed out, from the hollow spaces deep beneath Makati’s cemeteries, with many of its Sigaw petition’s signatories currently and permanently residing there.

There was never any argument about Cha-cha’s merits or lack of them. It was just a crass attempt by a selfish few to bend the country to their will, no more and no less than Malacañang’s attempt to unseat Binay presumably for hiring ghost employees. It wasn’t a question of law, it was a question of force. It wasn’t a question of wit, it was a question of will. It wasn’t a question of discernment, it was a question of fortitude. There was nothing there to resolve with the head, there was everything there to resolve with the heart. Thankfully, the Court did the right thing, the sane thing, the commonsensical thing.

But that still leaves us with the question: Are we simply going to be content fending off the mind-boggling exactions of this government? Are we simply going to be content preventing GMA from unleashing 1017, EO 464, CPR, Cha-cha and whatever new Halloween horror enters her head? Are we simply going to plunge into drunken revelry and toast to our victories after stopping this government from ousting a duly elected mayor, scrapping a duly constituted Constitution and massacring duly instituted journalists and political activists? Has that become the summum bonum of our existence? Has that become the supreme expression of our national ambition?

Or will we go further and do something about the source of the bane?

http://opinion.inq7.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=29468