Cautionary tale January 18, 2007

THE only redeeming feature of gout is that it gives you all the time to read and watch DVDs, such as the throbbing ache in the swollen part of your anatomy and the fuzziness in your brain from the painkillers will allow. I paid the price for my Christmas indulgence for the better part of last week, which allowed me those pleasures along with the pain.

I finished Peter Mayle’s “A Good Year,” a light read but which tortured me agonizingly with the thought of having to forego, probably forever, the infinite delights of the elixir he speaks of. That, of course, as the title suggests, is wine.

I haven’t yet seen the movie to be able to know if the movie does justice to the book. The book itself isn’t a masterpiece, but I can at least say with much conviction that it is thoroughly delectable, if not imbibe-able. Mayle has a marvelously felicitous way of putting things, particularly about the French. But I’ll save all that for later. Suffice it to say it was a breather after having to plod through Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” last December.

I caught as well some of the movies that are vying for awards this year, and can say with as much conviction that “Babel,” “Little Children” and “Children of Men” will grab a good number of them. “Babel” will probably win big, unless the judges are stricken by inspired madness, or genius, and decide to bestow the honors on “Borat.”

But the one movie I found especially interesting in my non-peripatetic days is “All the King’s Men.” What drew me to it were the reviews of the 2006 version, which were largely scathing. Most of them wondered how a movie that brought together an overwhelming cast could succeed only in underwhelming audiences. The cast includes Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Patricia Clarkson, James Gandolfini, Mark Ruffalo and the redoubtable Anthony Hopkins. How can you possibly mess up with a crew like that? Well, you can mess up big.

I knew the 1949 version had gone on to win three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Well, it’s another lesson to people who like to make remakes. If you’re going to do one, remake a bad movie, not a classic. In the first, you have nowhere to go but up, and in the second, you have nowhere to go but down.

What I did was watch the two movies one after the other, the 1949 first and the 2006, second. The latter does pale in comparison, which is not a little ironic in that the first is black and white and the second full color. Looking at it now, the 1949 version seems a little simplistic, a good man wanting to do right by his fellows driven to seek power to accomplish it and succumbing to its corruptive influence. Indeed reaching heights of megalomaniacal ambition and corrupting everyone around him in turn. But its very “simplistic-ness,” its depiction of the problem in relentless black and white, is its own strength. Broderick Crawford in particular has the raw power and physical size to carry it off.

The 2006 version goes for subtler shades but succeeds not in being subtle but in being diffused. It’s on Penn’s shoulders the movie’s ability to command suspension of disbelief falls, and alas, Penn’s normally sturdy shoulders cannot support the weight. As one critic pointed out, Penn is better given to playing introspective characters with all their nuances than extroverted -- indeed as in this case charismatically bombastic -- ones in all their primary colors.

“All The King’s Men” tells the story of Willie Stark, a self-made, small-town crusader, who, unable to buck City Hall’s shenanigans merely by exposing them, decides to fight it at its own game by joining politics. He succeeds marvelously, drawing fellow hicks to his camp by empathy and solidarity. His success becomes his undoing, driving him to do good by the ways of bad, to give to the people by the ways of "trapo politics" [traditional politics]. In the 1949 version at least, that proposition is spelled out in, well, black and white: Good can come from bad. Or indeed more than that, good can’t come from anything else but bad. But as the movie spells out also in black and white, you start thinking that way, you’ll reach a point where you won’t be able to tell black from white, good from bad, anymore.

It’s a theme that has more resonance to us today than to Americans, which I suspect is also one of the reasons the new version didn’t go over well with the audiences, apart from the critics. Of particular interest to me is the character of the narrator, Jack Burden, a journalist played in the original by John Ireland and in the remake by Jude Law. Coming from an elite family, though one whose fortunes had tremendously declined, and full of lofty sentiment, he’s the one who catapults Stark to fame by writing about him in a newspaper. He subsequently joins him after Stark becomes governor, only to have his idealism peeled off from him layer after layer, principle after principle, compelling him to betray friend and family. Compelling him, that is, in one sense: He finds he no longer has the will to resist.

It’s a cautionary tale, and one I would particularly recommend to those as yet untouched by today’s pervasive corruption. Jack Burden’s fate I’ve seen happen abundantly to ex-activists and ex-friends, and I don’t know that I’m being entirely cynical when I say I won’t bother to recommend it to them. It won’t help greatly to wrench them from where they are. But for the rest of you, well, you can do worse by spending four hours singing karaoke.

Meanwhile, I’m glad to report that I am rejoicing (reveling might suggest a recidivist return to dissipation) in being able to move about again. To those who keep offering to teach me to dance, please know that my ambitions lie entirely in being able to walk.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=44045

‘Puno’t dulo’ 01/17/2007

AT nearly the same time early this week, two things happened in two parts of the world that are as different from each other as the earth is from the moon. One was the hanging of Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, Barzan, and the former head of Iraq’s Revolutionary Court, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, by Iraq’s new government. The other was the sacking of Pasay Mayor Wenceslao “Peewee” Trinidad and several others by the Ombudsman. The two have nothing to do with each other. But they have one thing in common: They both turn a common act of justice into an uncommon act of iniquity.

Do Barzan Hussein and Awad Hamad al-Bandar deserve to die? Possibly, as did Saddam Hussein. Barzan and Awad were, in fact, supposed to have been hanged on the same day as Hussein, but their jailers decided to give Saddam a “special day,” the better to spark jubilation from a people he had oppressed. Barzan and Awad were convicted of helping Saddam commit humongous crimes against humanity, which included the gassing to death of thousands of Kurds.

There is little doubt the condemned were bastards, but if the reports from CNN and BBC are anything to go by, jubilation is the last thing the hangings have sparked among Iraqis. Sporadic riots and widespread resentment are first. As one reporter said, if the Iraqi authorities had hoped the hangings would bring closure to Saddam, they were wrong. They merely opened up fresh wounds.

There has in fact been little jubilation in the world as well. The reason for it is easy to see. There is no doubt that the condemned were bastards, but there is no doubt as well their condemners are bigger bastards. There is no doubt that the Iraqi government is a puppet government put up by an occupation force. There is no doubt that the occupation is completely illegitimate, backed up neither by the approval of the United Nations nor by the conscience of the world. There is no justice in hanging Saddam Hussein, Barzan Hussein and Awad Hamad al-Bandar in their prison unless you also hang George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld from the nearest telephone pole, with or without their royal jewels intact.

The same is true with the ouster of Trinidad, Gov. Neil Tupas of Iloilo province, Mayor Antonio Esquivel of Jaen, Nueva Ecija, and several others. I saw Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno on TV on the day it happened, saying the move had nothing to do with politics, notwithstanding that the timing seemed to suck (elections are just months away) as any time was a good time to do what was right. The wonder of it was that a lightning bolt did not strike him where he stood and leave only scorched ground and a wisp of smoke in its wake. The day Puno does anything -- oh, yes, or did you really think that idea originated from the Olympian head of the ombudsman? -- that has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with principle is the day Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo shuns power forever and enters a cloister to reflect on a miserable life. Well, maybe God really works in mysterious ways. Maybe God is punishing Puno by keeping him alive. Can you think of a worse punishment?

Do Trinidad et al. deserve to be sacked? Well, unlike Saddam et al., that is the part we can’t be sure of. The current ombudsman’s capacity to see wrong is not only selective, it is misguided -- ombudsmen who get in time to be deathly afraid of being hit by a lightning bolt, like Simeon Marcelo, are suddenly afflicted by disease and resign. Maybe the condemned are guilty, though that is something that cannot be resolved by the courts, the recourse Puno proposes to the sacked officials instead of barricading themselves. At least not by Arroyo’s and Puno’s courts.
But even granting that the officials are guilty as hell, Arroyo sacking them is about as much a cause for rejoicing as Bush hanging Saddam. The deepest tragedy of this is that it turns what may very well be a common act of justice into an uncommon act of iniquity.

At the very least, it gives this already power-laden and power-mad regime another layer of power, indeed a mind-boggling one, to bludgeon this country to submission. It makes elections idiotic. Henceforth, no elected official, unless he is a senator or congressman, may ever feel safe in his office again. He can always have a crime dredged up against him (and name one official in this country, elected or otherwise, that hasn’t a skeleton in his closet). Open Puno’s and you’ll be buried in an avalanche of bones. In this country, it’s not “behind every great wealth is a great crime,” it’s “behind the pettiest ambition is the grandest malefaction.” Henceforth no elected official may be safe -- unless his name is Virgilio Garcillano or any variation thereof.

That fact alone, not quite incidentally -- that one Virgilio Garcillano lives and breathes, never mind that he will probably find any vote for “Hello” and “Garci” counted in his favor in the coming elections -- shows up the absolute malice of singling out Trinidad et al. for wrongdoing.

But far more than that, can there be any wrongdoing that is deeper, higher, heavier, blacker, deadlier, more enveloping, more crippling, more crushing, more wrong, wronger, wrongest, than what Arroyo and Puno did in the last elections? What is wrong with this government’s sacking of Trinidad et al., independently of whether they deserve it or not, is exactly the same thing that was wrong with this government’s attempted sacking of Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay last year. It is that people who have no right to be there have the gall to sit in judgment over people who have every right to be there. Trinidad et al. may have betrayed the public trust, but the people who are ousting them never had the public trust at all.

That’s the "puno’t dulo," the source and wellspring, of all that’s wrong in this country.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=43827

Fighting terror 01/16/2007

NONO ALFONSO, S.J., of the Institute on Church and Social Issues, made an interesting observation in his piece that appeared in our Opinion section last Saturday. No irony could be more sublime, he said, than that the Asean is making all sorts of noises about battling terrorism and yet can’t see it being actively promoted, or indeed systematically carried out, right in its own backyard.

“It will be playing host to a country whose terrorism against its own citizens is widely known: Burma (Myanmar). While many countries in Asia are opening up toward greater freedom and democracy, Burma, ruled by a military junta, has remained a rogue state. It has arrogantly snubbed diplomatic initiatives from Asean and even from the United Nations that would have paved the way for the restoration of democracy and civil liberties.”

It’s a very good point and one that shows up the hypocrisy of the anti-terrorism campaign being waged by the usual suspects today. It’s not unlike George W. Bush calling on all the world to help him fight terror wherever it rears its ugly head, ugly head being defined only by what he says it is and not by what he has. Quite incidentally, that madman is still insisting on committing more troops to Iraq notwithstanding that America’s continued occupation of that country represents a crime against humanity, if not a downright terrorist act. While at this, where are those local idiots now who, riding on the crest of the Bush-made hysteria then about invading Iraq being the patriotic thing to do, predicted smugly that Iraq would never become another Vietnam?

But to go back: Alfonso makes a good point particularly in light of the anti-terror pact the Asean meet in Cebu has just produced. That agreement, which is being hailed as groundbreaking, expressly says that Asean commits itself to “counter terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” and will offer no safe harbor to individuals who have committed or propose to commit terrorist acts.

Well, if so, why does “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations” include only communist groups in certain parts of the world -- the Philippines, following the US lead considers the Communist Party of the Philippines a terrorist organization and is determined to root it out by the presumably non-terroristic way of murdering every suspected sympathizer -- and not thuggish governments like Burma and those that mean to root out terrorist organizations by the presumably non-terroristic way of murdering all their sympathizers? Indeed, why does “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations” include only the bombing of public utilities by misguided citizens and not the repression of the citizens by power-mad autocrats?

The terror that governments feel at the threat of being attacked cannot be more than the terror that citizens feel at the actual reality of having their homes invaded at any time for no other reason than harboring a computer without government permission, which is the case in Burma. Fighting terror can only be justified by the passionate desire to defend life and freedom. But what if the self-appointed defenders of life and freedom are the very threats to the life and freedom of their citizens?

That question is particularly urgent given that, as a friend of mine studying abroad pointed out to me, none of the members of the Asean today is a functioning democracy. At least not in the liberal democratic sense of the word. At least not in the free elections, observance of human rights and civil liberties, libertarian, egalitarian, and non-sectarian sense of the word. The current Asean meet in fact fills me only with déjà vu. I’ve seen this before, during Marcos’ time, when the Asean, which largely harbored authoritarian regimes, also then loudly called for jihad against a common enemy: communism. That was all very well, except that in what name was it fighting communism for? For most of the citizens of the Asean countries, it was in the name of dictatorship.

It was so then, it is so now. The same thing Alfonso raised about Burma may in fact be said for the host country itself. There’s nothing more ironic than that Asean is making noises about fighting terrorism when it can’t see that pure and absolute terror is being systematically wreaked in the country that is currently basking in its “moment of glory” by hosting it.

Paraphrasing Alfonso, it is a country whose terrorism against its own citizens is widely known. While many Asian countries are opening up toward greater freedom and democracy, the Philippines, ruled by an unelected president with the support of a few key generals, has turned into a rogue state. It has largely ignored calls from the international human rights and media communities to stop the wholesale murder of political activists and journalists, apart from token responses such as the Melo Commission, which is about as potent as an expired lover, and to restore sanity, if not decency, to this once beautiful country.

Can anything be more terroristic than summarily shooting democracy in the head, which is what the theft of the vote means? Can anything be more terroristic than vowing fatwa against God’s, or Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s, enemies, such as by bashing the heads of angry crowds that gather to damn the usurpation? Can anything be more terroristic than unleashing murder and mayhem against the citizens in an effort to uphold wrongdoing? Anti-terrorism isn’t fighting the things that terrify governments, it is fighting the things that terrify the citizens.

The only time I’ll applaud the Asean for having an anti-terror pact that proposes to send terrorists to their home countries in chains is when they apply that to anyone named Garci. Or any variation thereof.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=43608

Lapses 01/15/2007

JOVITO Salonga is kind. He allows for Court of Appeals Justice Apolinario Bruselas having made an unwitting mistake in misquoting eminent American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes. “We would like to think that Justice Bruselas, highly regarded by his peers, did not deliberately misquote Holmes…. A researcher or another associate for this particular case might be the source of the doctored or falsified quotation…. But Justice Bruselas, an expert in criminal law, (could still) be held responsible for the offense of falsification.”

The quote in question is this. Holmes had said: “Great constitutional provisions must be administered with caution…. (I)t must be remembered that legislatures are the ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people in quite as great a degree as the courts.” Bruselas quoted the second sentence as: “It must be remembered that the other branches of the government are ultimate guardians of the liberties and welfare of the people….”

A trifling matter? Well, it was on the head of that pin that Bruselas stood his justification for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo having the authority to spring Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith from jail and deliver him to the Americans. If the executive, which is one of the branches of government, is also as much a guardian and arbiter of the liberties and welfare of the people as the courts, then Arroyo is well within her right to exercise judgment -- however she is prone to lapses there -- in the disposition of Smith.

But Holmes in fact said nothing of the kind. He said the exact opposite: The executive has no business meddling in the administration of great constitutional provisions. As Salonga points out, in the particular instance where Holmes uttered those comments, he expressly forbade the state governor and his aides from having anything to do with the case.

Could Bruselas have made an honest mistake? Well, he is dealing with a government that is universally known to have none of the honesty and all of the mistakes. He was under pressure to find a justification, however flimsy, to take the sting out of public protest, not least Nicole’s, over the favorable treatment of a convicted rapist. The kind that Arroyo used to put to death, along with kidnappers, to score points with the local anti-crime groups, until she changed her tack, scrapping the death penalty, to score points with the international community in turn.

How is it possible to change “legislatures” into “the other branches of government” unwittingly? An underpaid, overworked and sleepy clerk of court might change legislatures into “armatures,” or “nomenclatures” or some not-fit-to-print word to register his feelings for his plight, but he is not likely to confuse “legislatures” with “other branches of the government.” And in any case, it’s the easiest thing in the world in this digital age to cut and paste, which is what you do to quotes to assure you do not quote wrongly.

Could it have been a researcher or associate who fed him the wrong quote? Well, to begin with, there is such a thing as command responsibility, a doctrine that says you are responsible for the actions of your people. Though that is a concept that seems to elude us: Journalists and political activists are being slaughtered all over the place, a scale of mayhem comparable only to Marcos’ time, and the "tongressmen" say they can find nothing to connect the Chief Executive to the not very cheap executions. But that is another story. More than that, you are going to base your justification for a matter of epic national importance on that quote and you won’t bother to check its veracity? You wonder how Bruselas got to be highly regarded by his peers, as Salonga says. If true, it doesn’t reflect well on the quality of mind of his peers.

Salonga says that for the crime, Bruselas stands to reap “'aresto mayor,' or up to six years’ imprisonment.” The Latin sounds formidable and almost inexorable. But I myself think that Bruselas will be punished most severely only in the same way that Virgilio Garcillano was punished most severely. For engaging in a long-drawn conversation with the President (she was still so at the time) in a voice as distinctive as hers, for denying it afterward with the resoluteness of a husband caught by his wife in bed with another woman (“This is not what you think…”), and for calling the whole world a liar for insisting he had fled the country to avoid arrest when he was here all the time, Garci has been severely punished by having Malacañang’s blessings to run for congressman in his hometown. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bruselas is severely punished by being shoved near the head of the line for Supreme Court justice, and his assistants given promotions.

Frankly, I don’t know what we’re doing congregating with other countries, or even hosting events like the Asean conference with its subtle presumptions of leadership and guidance. It’s not just the blind leading the blind, it’s the blind leading the seeing -- or, at least, the one-eyed. The deterioration -- no, the disappearance -- of moral scruple in this country is astounding. Other countries aspire to become the best, we aspire to become the worst. Other countries aspire to reach greater heights, we don’t mind hitting even the lowest depths. It used to be we were content only with mediocrity: It was enough that we got by with the least effort. While others made love and war, we just made do. Today, we’re not just content with mediocrity, we’ve made our peace with perfidy.

Other countries call deliberate efforts to mislead the public treason, we call it governance. Other countries call stealing the vote a crime, we call it a lapse in judgment. Other countries call people who do those things names, we call them president of a republic and justice of the court of appeals.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view_article.php?article_id=43402