WHEN WILL HEALING COME TO PASS?

 

Babae: Pinangako mo sa ‘kin ang lahat. Ngunit, ang pag-uwi lang ng maaga ay hindi mo matupad.

Lalaki: Oh, ayan ka na naman sa drama mo.

Babae: Aminin mo na nagbago ka na. Dati nilalambing mo ‘ko, kinakarinyo, sinusuyo.

Lalaki: Eh, dati.

Babae: Ngayon.

Lalaki: Eh, pa’no naman akong gaganahan, eh, puro ka na lang dada d’yan.

Babae: Ngayon. Hu, hu, hu.

Lalaki: Tumigil ka, tumigil ka na d’yan sabi eh. ‘Etong, um.

Babae: Walang hiya ka, taksil!

Lalaki: Tumahimik ka d’yan.

Babae: Pinabayaan mo ako dito.

Lalaki: Tumahimik ka! Ayaw mo talagang tumigil, ha.

Babae: Walang hiya ka!

Lalaki: Baka gusto mong…

Babae: Walang hiya ka talaga.

Lalaki: Aba!

Babae: Bayaran mo na utang mo.

Lalaki: Binaon pa ngayon.

Babae: ‘Wag mong kainin ‘to.

(Intro narration from APO’s song “Huwag Masanay Sa Pagmamahal”)

CONFLICT IS INEVITABLE AND NECESSARY

A conflict is in full view. Not so obvious are these twin realities about conflict: it is inevitable and necessary.

Conflict is inevitable. Christine Carter, in her article “Conflict: It’s a Good Thing” said that between children, conflict “is like the air they breathe.” She added that “research shows that playing kids experience about one conflict every three minutes.” Martin H. Padovani in his book “Healing Wounded Relationships” wrote, “Conflict is a creative aspect of any relationship. In the book of Genesis, God created an orderly universe out of a mass of confusion, the sort of confusion that often accompanies conflict.”

Conflict is necessary. Padovani expounded, “Conflict is absolutely necessary in order that people can establish boundaries, maintain their identities, know one another, clarify perceptions and issues, resolve problems, and be able to move on with their lives.”  Further, he clarified, “Conflict breaks down the walls separating us, dislodges the logjams that keep us stuck, and opens the avenues of communication.”

CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THREE STEPS

At the disintegrating stage of the human relationship, to get back on its feet, it needs a great deal of healing broken down in three steps:

1. Communicate

For the crux of the communication problem today, this old-fashioned poem by Lois Wyse would hit the nail on its head.

You don’t laugh with me

I don’t laugh with you

All the wit comes pouring out of the tube.

And we laugh at it together.

The more we avoid talking

The more passive the relationship becomes.

Television permits us to walk through life

With minor speaking parts.

And the more we fail to speak,

The more difficult speaking becomes.

That was back in the day of television filling the room. Worse, today, it’s the personal mobile phone magnetizing an individual’s attention. Communication 101 step 1: Put that phone away.

2. Listen

Instead of saying “Tumigil ka,” how about “Tigil mo na ako”? Then, I’d ask myself, “Bakit nasabi nyang walang hiya ako?”

One profound line from The Prayer of Saint Francis: “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek…To be understood as to understand.”

It is not: “You open up your mind for me.” It must be: “I’ll open up my mind for you.” It is not: “Did you get me?” It must be: “Did I get you?” It is not: “Here’s what I’m trying to say to you.” It must be: “Here’s what you’re trying to say to me.”

“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” (Alfred Adler, medical doctor, and psychotherapist)

3. Adopt a win-win solution

People sit across the dinner table from one another with their arms tied to spoons so long that they can’t feed themselves: they have to feed each other -- an apt analogy for a bundle of life’s meaningful endeavors.

The fourth habit in Dr. Stephen Covey’s book “Seven Basic Habits of Highly Effective People” is “Think Win-Win.” It “means wanting other people to win as well as yourself. It flows from the Abundance Mentality: the premise that there is enough for everyone – one person’s winning doesn’t mean someone else has to lose. It gives everyone what they want and unites people in helpful and supportive ways.”

TROLL ARMY

So far so good in our train of thought. But, there’s the rub: the presence of these actors on one side – “friends” – which can stand in the way of the healing process.

Friends would tip off Lalaki:

Ibang-iba ang buhay mo kapag nag-iisa

Walang inaasikasong problema ng iba

Kaya kung nag-aalinlangang magmahal

Ang payo ko sa ‘yo ay huwag na lang

Let’s take the Book of Job as an example. Suffering Job needed comfort and support from his friends. Arrogant and insensitive, his friends instead picked apart his suffering and turned it inside out in searching for answers. They only made the “healing” process worse for Job. God ultimately rebuked them.

In our political context today, the monkey wrench in the works that is dreadfully worse than the “friends” illustrated above -- BBM’s troll army – stands in the way of the healing process.

“No pro-Marcos trolls? Fil-Am group says it found around 100 on Facebook.” (ABS-CBN May 04, 2022, news headline)

“A group of Filipino-Americans is urging Facebook to take down a network of “trolls” who they said is at the forefront of widespread disinformation in relation to the 2022 Philippine elections. ‘A lot of our countrymen are being brainwashed. They have become victims of these needless lies,’ lawyer Loida Lewis, national chair of US Filipinos for Good Governance (USFGG), said in a forum…”

BBM on Twitter:

“…Wala tayong makuha sa Channel 7, wala tayong makuha sa Inquirer, wala tayong makuha sa PhilsTar, binabanat-banatan kami ng Rappler.

“Eh sabi ko, the only option that we have is social media. Kaya doon kami nag-concentrate. Kaya nag-hire ako ng libu-libong troll army.”

            “Trolls still targeting Robredo past election” (Inquirer headline, May 16, 2022)

Presumptive VP Sara Duterte urged her supporters to be humble and be the ones to approach supporters of other candidates first. Also, she formally sought an initial meeting with VP Leni Robredo for a smooth transition of power who responded by congratulating the latter and adding that the VP was ready to sit down and talk about a smooth transition.

Has the healing process taken place? I don’t think so. Not until BBM’s fierce troll army is taken out from the face of the Philippine political landscape will the healing occur.

“Comelec to push for law vs. use of socmed trolls during campaign period” (Manila Bulletin news headline, May 30, 2022)

Reminds me of a street bully who announced to the other kids: “Masama ‘yong ginawa ko ha. Pagkatapos ko, wala ng ibang gagawa nun.”

Farcical, it is befitting to wrap this article up with a whimsical truism.

“A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.” (Madeleine L’Engle, writer)

DEMOCRACY = NUMBERS + RULE OF LAW

 

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. As an engineer, having a penchant for equations, I had come across the above heading formula from one internet article that caught my eye and inspired this piece.

AD 27

The Guinness World Records listed the collapse of the amphitheater in Fidenae, near Rome, Italy, as the worst sporting disaster. C. Keith Hansley, in his article “The Catastrophic Amphitheater of Atilius in Fidenae,” narrated the following catastrophe:

“Atilius launched his plan to make a fortune by profiting from the insatiable Roman appetite for entertainment. The infamous result of his scheme was notable enough to be mentioned by historians, Tacitus and Suetonius. Atilius’ plan, according to Tacitus, was to make as much money as he could by entertaining the Roman population, while at the same time minimizing his business expenses as much as possible. With this in mind, he began constructing an amphitheater in the town of Fidenae, located a short distance to the north of Rome. Atilius obtained a full docket of gladiators and pressured for the arena to be completed with utmost speed so that he could start making money.”

“Constructed with enough enticing aesthetics to lure tens of thousands of people inside,” Hansley wrote, “it was not adequately built to handle the weight of so many people. Eventually, the creaking of the wood gave way to loud cracks, and the cheering of the crowds [around 50,000] turned into screams.”

Claiming 20,000 lives, the collapse emanated from the utter disregard of the engineering law. According to Tacitus’ description, “Atilius did not place the foundation under the structure through to the solid ground.” It implies that the amphitheater’s foundation didn’t set foot on the bedrock below the ground level. “Atilius was the kind of man who undertook that work,” Tacitus wrote, “for sordid reward.”

AD 2022

The following commentaries speak volumes on the monumental dilemma today in the hands of our nation’s Supreme Court:

“Where will the two raging currents – one pushed by voter mega power and the other by the quiet majesty of the law – meet and eventually take us?” (Federico D. Pascual Jr., “Where will DQ cases vs. Marcos take us,” Philstar)

“If a candidate’s COC is canceled, he or she cannot be substituted because cancellation legally means that the COC was void from the very beginning and deemed never to have existed. Thus, the votes cast for the erstwhile candidate would be considered “stray” and would not be counted. The candidate getting the highest number of votes, excluding the stray votes, would be declared the winner.” (Artemio V. Panganiban, “Disqualification and COC cancellation,” PDI)

“It is simply preposterous to even think the patriotic wise men of the Supreme Court would go against the “supreme will” of the 31 million-plus Filipinos who voted for BBM for President.” (Erwin Tulfo, “People of the Philippines versus the Supreme Court?” Manila Standard)

In India, with a Parliamentary form of government, its Jayalalithaa case went through the same dilemma: the “will of the people” vested on the majority party versus the Supreme Court. Without going into the details, its Supreme Court prevailed with this ruling summation:

“The Constitution prevails over the will of the people as expressed through the majority party. The will of the people as expressed through the majority party prevails only if it is in accord with the Constitution.”

I would provide enough space to Pratik Patnaik, a lawyer and constitutionalist, to spell out the essence of such ruling in his country as excerpted from his insight below:

“The [Supreme] Court… struck some sacred cords resulting in one of the best tunes to have come out of its hallowed halls.

“[D]emocracy should be distinguished from ‘majoritarianism’. One of the lesser-known facets (unfortunately) of democracy is that it is not only the rule of the majority but also has within its folds one of the most sacred epithets known to humankind – “The Rule of Law.”

DEMOCRACY = NUMBERS + RULE OF LAW

“If there is no rule of law circumscribing the numbers in that equation, what we are left with is no more than the rule of the mob. History is peppered with examples of the majority going horribly wrong. Hitler was ‘elected.’ The Nuremberg race laws were in fact passed by a legislature. The Salem Witch Trials were fueled by strong public opinion. We would have had Jim Crow laws in America today, has it not been for the judicial pronouncements of the Supreme Court of the United States on its various pronouncements on civil rights.

“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had eloquently addressed the point in one of his most famous writings, he had said, ‘We can never forget that everything that Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal,’ and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did was ‘illegal.’ It was ‘illegal’ to aid and comfort a few in Hitler’s Germany, but I am sure that if I lived in Germany during that time I would have comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal… we who engaged in non-violent direct action are not creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

“As John Adams, had pointed out in ‘A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States of America,’ democracy sans check and balances can lead to the ‘tyranny of the majority.’ Edmund Burke had written a scathing letter in 1790 where he had aptly described ‘The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.’

“We should never forget that the tussle is not between the majority and minority because those constructs may change tomorrow and the individual truly remains the smallest minority on earth. The real tussle is between the rule of law which is fair and just and the lack of it.”

WHAT IS TRUTH?

“‘What is truth?’ [Pilate after asking Jesus] did not wait for an answer and walked out,” Patnaik wrapped up. “My hope is whenever we pose that question or it presents itself to us, we do wait for an answer.”

The day after the election, many raised all kinds of questions and searched for answers to the consistent 68:32 ratio between the votes for Marcos Jr. and VP Leni, showing an almost perfect linear equation absolutely incredible in any election. One mocking comment popped up on the widespread skepticism -- as a mere exercise in futility: “O, ano naman ang magawa nyo?” How true! No one seemed could do anything. The same exercise in futility seems to hold in our present Supreme Court dilemma. Booker T. Washington’s words are grave writing on the wall.

“A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.”

The structure is erected and looks finished. But if it stands on a weak foundation, it may not collapse right away like the Fidenae amphitheater. Perhaps, it may take some time, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, for the whole world to see, and wonder about its blunder.

IRONY OF IRONIES: ONLI IN DA PILIPINS

 

“The three most important ways to lead people are: by example… by example… by example…” (Albert Schweitzer, German theologian)

“Setting an example is not the main means of influencing others, it is the ONLY means.” (Albert Einstein)

“What you are, speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you are saying.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Forbes reported, “When former President George W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama announced, they would receive their Covid-19 vaccinations on camera to help bolster public confidence in getting the shot, the three men provided business executives with a timely reminder about the importance of leading by example.”

DQ CASE

As PDInquirer reported, it is about a complaint filed against Marcos Jr. before a Quezon City court – he breached the 1977 Internal Revenue Code when he failed to file his income tax returns from 1982 to 1985 and failed to pay his income taxes. The Quezon City court in 1995 found Marcos Jr. guilty and imposed nine years imprisonment as a penalty. The court also directed Marcos Jr. to pay the fine for his failure to file his income tax returns and pay his taxes.

The case was elevated to the Court of Appeals which, after two years, affirmed the lower court’s ruling and ordered Marcos Jr. to pay the deficiency income taxes due with interest – a total of P36,000 fine.

Marcos Jr. took the case to the Supreme Court but eventually withdrew it making the decision of the Court of Appeals final and executory.

Marcos Jr. filed his COC to run for president where he declared his eligibility. He answered “no” to the question if he has been found liable for an offense that carries the penalty of perpetual disqualification to hold public office.

The Comelec division dismissed the petition to cancel Marcos Jr’s COC which the Comelec en banc affirmed.

Taking the case to the Supreme Court, the petitioners said the Comelec committed grave abuse of discretion when it refused to cancel Marcos Jr.’s COC – void, in fact, from the beginning.

 FALLOUT

There is more to this crucial case being deliberated now at the Supreme Court than meets the eye. Presently, for my wife and I, not only is this case about Marcos Jr. becoming our country’s next president or not, but also how the aftermath will affect us as citizens of this country.

The following paragraph I had written in my past Atabay article “Trust Is the Foundation of Any Relationship” showed our being dutiful tax-paying corporate workers.

“Many years ago, I worked in a manufacturing plant; she, in a bank. After we got married, we started filing our joint income tax returns. Sad to say, our combined withholding taxes would always fall short in our joint income tax due. Out of our civic duty, we paid the difference from our hard-earned savings. We did it yearly until the computerization perfected the system: our combined withholding taxes added up to our required joint income tax, hence, preserving our hard-earned savings.”

This year, as retirees, we would be paying again our annual real property taxes.  For many years in the past, as law-abiding citizens, we always have paid our real property taxes even long before the deadline so we could avail ourselves of the discount to reduce the amount slashed from our pensions.

What’s more, my wife inherited from her parents a piece of agricultural land that has accumulated a chunk of unpaid taxes. The inherited land could not yield then enough coconut harvests to cover both the household basic needs and the payment for the annual taxes.

Today, honestly, as far as the payment of our taxes is concerned, we are in “stand-by” mode. Hanging out for the resolution of the case, we are watching like a hawk how the civic duty of the citizens in paying or the failure in paying taxes will be adjudged by our Supreme Court – the highest tribunal, the authoritative guardian, and the final arbiter in the land for all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution ensuring the Filipino people the promise of equal justice under the law.

GOLD STANDARD

“May gatas pa sa labi” our Pinas vis-à-vis our big brother, U.S.A. What is the common denominator among these three people? Walter Anderson, the executive, Al Capone, the gangsta, and Wesley Snipes, the “Blade” star. They are among the Famous Tax Cheats listed by Investopedia.

The largest tax evasion in U.S. history, the Anderson case was about the former telecommunication executive accused of hiding his earnings through the use of aliases, offshore bank accounts, and shell companies. Entered a guilty plea and admitted to hiding approximately $365 million worth of income, Anderson was sentenced to nine years in prison, and restitution of $200 million.

Ganged up in a mixed bag of illegal acts like bootlegging, prostitution, and murder, Capone earned $100 million a year. It took a single illegal act that landed him in prison – income tax evasion. Interestingly, the removal of the word “lawful” from the 16^th Amendment in 1916 put criminals like Capone in a bind: they could either admit breaking the law and file taxes (essentially confessing) or cheat on taxes. Picked the latter, Capone was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Allegedly hiding his income in offshore accounts and failing to file his income tax for several years, Snipes, the “Blade” star, incurred a federal tax debt of around $12 million. Although acquitted of felony tax fraud and conspiracy charges, he was found guilty of misdemeanor charges that put him in prison for three years only, while his accountant, interestingly, was sentenced to 10 years.

While the U.S.A. put their celebrity tax evaders in prison, sad to say, our top tax evader we elected to become our next president.

IRONY OF IRONIES

If Marcos Jr. becomes president, the unpaid P203-billion estate tax his family owes the Philippine government is “gone forever,” according to retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.

“[BIR] will collect that if you are an ordinary person,” Justice Carpio said. “But if you are a government official, you are a senator or governor, they will not collect it. How much more if you are now president?”

That reminds me of the “Queen of Mean” hotel operator, Leona Helmsley, who accumulated a multi-billion dollar real-estate portfolio in the U.S. She was accused of billing millions of dollars in personal expenses to their business in order to evade taxes. She served 18 months of federal prison time. Her infamous words: “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”

Onli in da Pilipins!

Chilling out a bit, what can be more tranquilizing in ending this knotty article than the Beatles’ song, “Taxman.”

One, two, three, four

One, two, (one, two, three, four}

Let me tell you how it will be

There’s one for you, nineteen for me

‘Cause I’m the taxman

Yeah, I’m the taxman

Should five percent appear too small

Be thankful I don’t take it all

‘Cause I’m the taxman

Yeah, I’m the taxman.

ANGAT BUHAY: A DIFFERENT DRUM

 

“What’s wrong with the Philippines?”

It’s a banner of the post-election column by Gwynne Dyer, an independent journalist based in London, England, published in various foreign newspapers like London Free Press, Bangkok Post, and The Standard. Factoring in an out-of-the-box thinking and an objective viewpoint, let’s look into the pertinent excerpts of his column:

“[Marcos Jr.] won it by a two-to-one landslide, despite being the extremely entitled son of a former president who stole at least $10 billion and a mother who spent the loot partly on the world’s most extensive collection of designer shoes (3,000 pairs).

“The Philippines is a leading contender for the “world’s most populist country” title, which is hard to explain because its lost twin behaves quite differently. Just west of the Philippines is Indonesia, another multi-island country whose people are ethnically and linguistically very close to the Filipinos.

“However, since Indonesia became a democracy, it has elected only presidents who were neither killers nor thieves, while the Filipinos hurl themselves enthusiastically at any plausible fraud with a bit of notoriety. Why?

“Two hypotheses, both weak, come to mind. First, the Philippines has an unusually powerful elite of big, rich families with strong regional bases. This week’s vote, for example, was shaped by a recent alliance between the Marcos (northern and central Philippines) and Duterte (southern Philippines) families.

“The other hypothesis? Ninety-nine percent of adult Filipinos are online, and Filipinos aged 16 to 64 spend on average nearly four hours a day connected to social networks.”

ENCHANTING ARCHIPELAGO

Mr. Dyer deemed his two hypotheses as weak, and rightly so. Both fell flat in pinning down the crux of the problem. Interestingly, the crux is embedded in a rare old article with the same title “What’s wrong with the Philippines” written in 1968 by the slain Senator Benigno S. Aquino Sr. way back when Marcos Sr. had become president for three years and four years before he declared the Martial Law. Here are pertinent excerpts of such article:

“A diplomat… once christened the [Philippine] islands an “enchanting archipelago”… The trouble is that there is one vital natural resource that has not been properly developed: the people.

“Beneath the outpourings of self–serving government data, hidden underneath trappings of the good life in the big cities, there remains a depressed and dispirited people. Against the yardstick not of statistics but on the quality of life, the Filipino people as a whole are a melancholy – if patient – mass. Their daily diet is monotonous (rice, fish, vegetable), their clothes are threadbare and their homes primitive and crowded. What could they hope to build on a daily per capita income of just over 25 cents? In sum, the blessings of liberty have not included liberation from poverty.

“Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. Gleaming suburbia clashes with the squalor of slums. Here is a land where freedom and its blessings are a reality for minority and an illusion for the many. Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here, too, are a people whose ambition runs high, but whose fulfillment is low and mainly restricted to the self-perpetuating elite.

“Here is a land of privilege and rank – a republic dedicated to equality but mired in an archaic system of caste.”

CRUX OF THE MATTER: POOR ELECTORATE

Fifty-four years ago, that was the plight of the poor Filipinos. Today, their plight has not changed, if not worsened, due to the pandemic. The number of Filipinos in poverty has now risen to over 26 million, just a bit under 25% of the population, or a ratio of 1 in every 4 Filipinos. Cropping up from this bulk of the poor is the kind of electorate predominating every election cycle: 5 in 10 unemployed, 4 in 10 high school graduates, and 6 in 10 class C & D (pre-pandemic statistics). Subsequently, it has inflicted our country with an Electoral Integrity Index of 58.8 on a 0 to 100 scale, ranking the Philippines 76^th out of 107 countries as covered by the Sydney and Harvard universities’ study. Interestingly, interpolating the IQ table of values, the PH electorate could be classified as borderline – a notch over a “moron.” This bulk of the electorate – economically “vulnerable” and therefore easily “corruptible” – has predominated our election cycle for many years. No wonder the International Observer Mission (IOM), has presented its interim report on the May 9 elections as “not free and fair,” citing rampant vote buying, among other irregularities, it observed.

Only when our country gets to the bottom of our poverty problem will we, as a people, extricate ourselves from this perpetual election bind. Is there hope for our country?

ANGAT BUHAY

One answer: ANGAT BUHAY, to be launched on July 1, will directly address the plight of the poor Filipinos "nasa laylayan" – the last, the least, and the lost.

It is a non-governmental organization (NGO), just like other NGOs, a nonprofit entity, generally formed independently from the government, characterized by a high degree of public trust, and to eventually be a proxy in untangling and ending the poverty problem.

Existed for centuries, the NGO had its first international organization believed to be the Anti-Slavery Society formed in 1839. Likewise, according to the Britannica website, the term nongovernmental organization was coined at about the time of the founding of the United Nations (UN) in 1945 to distinguish private organizations from inter-government organizations (IGOs), such as the UN itself.

A concrete example is BRAC -- formerly Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee -- the world’s largest NGO with a $4.6 billion portfolio in microloans and an army of healthcare volunteers. In its heyday, it provided care to 80 million Bangladeshis and carried a network of 52,000 schools serving 1.5 million students.

A cutting edge NGO is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation whose attributes, taken from the PeopleBrowsr website, are shown below:

Headquarters: Seattle, Washington

Founder: Melinda Gates & Bill Gates

CEO: Susan Desmond-Hellman

Purposes: Education, Healthcare, and Ending Poverty

Area Served: Worldwide

Source of Funds: Donations and Grants

Mission Statement: Our mission is to create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life.

Core Values: Optimism, Rigor, Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, Diversity, Responsibility & Accountability, and Community Involvement.

Marching to the beat of a different drummer, the July 1 launch of the ANGAT BUHAY has spooked the winning camp – not as an existential threat, but as a knee-jerk reaction to possible competition. What competition could be nobler than competing on who could end much quicker and more earnestly our country’s poverty problem?

 As Steve Jobs said:

“You can’t look at the competition and say you’re going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you’re going to do it differently.”

OPTICS: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

 

Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behavior of light. Political optics is the way a situation, an event, is perceived by the general public.

GOOD OPTICS

Political optics as a term started with John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon’s first presidential debate in the 1960s. Time in its “How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World” narrated:

“On the morning of September 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy was a relatively unknown senator from Massachusetts. He was young and Catholic – neither of which helped his image – and facing off against an incumbent. But by the end of the evening, he was a star.”

            “What the public saw,“ Shaun Holmberg, a social historian wrote, “was a younger Kennedy cool and composed while Nixon was seen as older and sweating profusely while answering questions. It has been fifty-eight years since that night and almost no one remembers what questions were asked. Yet everyone remembers what they saw that night. They remember the visual difference between the two candidates which shaped their perception of who would be a better leader. That debate won Kennedy the presidency.”

BAD OPTICS

            Marcos Jr. might have gotten away from the presidential debates – bad optics -- which would have shaped the public perception of whether he would be a good leader or not of our nation. But being a presumptive winner of the presidency, hence, he will be a “fair game” in a world of optics. These are bad optics as far as his glowing promise of lowering the price of rice to P20 per kilo. Elizabeth Angsioco in her Manila Standard column wrote:

“[H]ow true is it that Marcos and company were seen partying in Solaire where the Uniteam booked 90 rooms, two villas, one tent  and a huge conference room Friday to Sunday following the elections on May 9[?]

“Allegedly, Kim Wong, the businessman implicated in the bank of Bangladesh scandal, booked and paid for the hotel. The tweet came complete with pictures and someone mischievous zoomed in on the wine bottle on the table. It was Opus One, California Red Wine costing around P50,900.00 a pop. Needless to say, only the super-rich can afford this luxury.”

Also, the information is circulating viral on social media that Marcos Jr. has booked the whole island of Amanpulo. Both the Solaire and Amanpulo viral posts were denied by BBM camp. The snag is in the former because of the viral photo of the affair and the seeming reliable journalist-source.

A typical ostentatious display of like-mother-like-son affluence, the alleged parties have all the hallmarks of Imeldific as what Valerie Caulin in her article “11 Bizarre Things You Didn’t Know About Imelda Marcos” wrote:

“Lady Gaga buying a $60,000-fish? Or Elton John spending $2 million on his son’s nursery? They won’t compare to how Madame Imelda spends. Like other affluent clients, she closed down shops for her retail therapy, even spending $40,000 in Honolulu back in 1974. She once shopped for a $3.5-million Michaelangelo painting in Rome. But who can forget her infamous Chinese scandal? She once asked the pilot to turn back to Rome because she forgot to buy cheese.

“From a Cartier tiara to a rare 25-carat pink diamond, the collection was large. It contained a Bulgari bracelet with a price tag of $1 million. It was appraised by Christie’s and is now being auctioned. Total value? A whopping $21 million.”

As the Marcoses celebrated their return to power in the wake of the election, a “missing” painting by Pablo Picasso – Reclining Woman IV -- might have been spotted hanging in the living room of Imelda. Believed to have been spirited away into the Marcoses vaults by the likes of Michaelangelo, Goya, Monet, Braques, Pissarro, and Manet – the Picasso painting is worth about P8 billion.

UGLY OPTICS

Headline: “The Most Greedy Dynasty in the World is Back” (German newspaper)

Sample comments abroad:

“His father was a flawless kleptocrat.”

“World renown for all the wrong reasons.”

“Eternally backward country!”

“It’s a blessing not to be born in the Philippines.”

“The mental state of the people is very pathetic.”

“A nation that forgets its history has no future.”

In the light of the latest political development, the plight of the Filipino OFWs all over the world is disquieting. While racial discrimination has pestered our OFWs in not so few countries around the world, the Kafala system, dubbed as a type of modern slavery, has blighted them in the Middle East, and the growing anti-Asian hate crimes have besieged them in the U.S. Being the country with the biggest source of OFW remittances (40%) from out of the total $34.884 billion (our economy’s crutch) in 2021, the U.S. will take center stage in the finale of this article. I am concerned because my daughter, a nurse, is living there with her family.

The compilation of hate crime data, published by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, revealed that the U.S. anti-Asian hate crimes increased by 339% in 2021. The latest crime was the Buffalo shooting at a supermarket that left 10 people killed and 3 others wounded. As reported, the suspect allegedly details in his manifesto how he had been radicalized by reading online message boards, and described the attack as terrorism and himself as a White supremacist. He subscribed to a “great replacement” theory – the false belief that White Americans were being “replaced” by people of other races. For example, in the nursing field, the nurses in demand are of the Filipino race – our Pinays.

It is noteworthy that US previous administration attacked protections for immigrants from “shithole countries.” Although the scorn reportedly referred to Haiti and countries in Africa while calling for more immigrants from places like Norway, the recent ugly political optics PH projected to the world may downgrade our status in the eyes of the white supremacists to the level of “shithole countries.” This may be an outlying but with far-reaching fallout.

The commonplace backlash may impact a day-to-day climb on the career ladder in the workplace. The keyword is ceteris paribus – “with other things being equal.” Say, our Pinay nurse is being evaluated for a job promotion against a nurse of another race. “With other things being equal” in both evaluation sheets, the unspoken question in the mind of the superior could make a difference: “Why do you people elect the son of a dictator and plunderer as your president?”

It may not be fair to judge one’s character by his or her nation’s wholesale conduct, but one couldn’t blame the superior if he or she would decide who to promote based on this deeply-anchored personal belief:

Real richness is when you are so expensive that no one can buy your character.

DEMOCRACY CAN EXIST ONLY ON TRUST

 

“Probe alleged electoral fraud, disabuse peoples’ minds.” (PRRD)

The following insight entitled “An Engineer’s Inkling on the Election Issue” I posted on FB the day after the election.

Disclaimer: This post intends to seek the truth in order to strengthen our democracy. I love St. Augustine’s definition of Truth: The Truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself.

My first reaction to the conduct of the May 9 election in my ATABAY article: “I am unsure of the term ‘cheated’. But I am sure of the term ‘corrupted’ which, sad to say, is a systemic problem.” The subtle difference you may read in my article.

I am an engineer so what you will read is an insight from an engineer’s mind.

Here we go.

The numbers and percentages invited my interest in Rigoberto Tiglao’s column banner “60% Marcos win likely, 70% very doable” last April 22, 2022, in The Manila Times.

Seventeen days before the election, the following statement was made that caught my eye:

“There is no doubt at this point that Marcos will be winning the presidency, getting at the very least 50% of votes, which means 16 MILLION more votes than Leni Robredo’s if she gets 20 percent.”

Last night, I checked one newspaper PhilStar and got the following unofficial tally:

As of May 10 1:32 pm Tuesday, 97.59% votes transmitted.

Marcos Jr.      - 30,922,344

VP Robredo  - 14,743,588

Difference      - 16,178, 756

Today, I checked CNN Philippines tally, 98.21% votes transmitted.

Marcos Jr.      - 31,068,061

VP Robredo  - 14, 805,815

Difference      - 16,262,246

Wow! Mr. Tiglao accurately predicted the 16 MILLION difference in votes between Marcos Jr. and VP Robredo 17 days before the election! It’s a mathematical feat that involves 3 variables: a) a total number of voters who would vote on May 9, b) a total number of voters who would vote for Marcos Jr., and c) a total number of voters who would vote for VP Robredo.

On top of the complex 3-unknowns problem, here’s Tiglao’s amazing calculation of the 16 million votes difference due to Marcos Jr. taking away from Robredo’s votes:

Robredo soft votes     - 5 million

Command votes         - 1

Bandwagon effect      - 6

Election day collapse - 4

Total May 9                 - 16 million

Wow! Seventeen days before the election, Tiglao was able to quantify what will exactly take place on May 9. He was able to predict and quantify the following:

5 million minds of Robredo’s soft voters would shift to Marcos Jr.

1 million minds of Robredo’s command voters would shift to Marcos Jr.

6 million minds would join the Marcos Jr.’s bandwagon

4 million minds would just “collapse.” (No concrete idea what this means)

Frankly, that was a spectacular feat.

Takeaways:

If the election is fair, honest, and clean, then I will take my hat off to Mr. Tiglao for such an exceptional mind. I have been an admirer of Mr. Tiglao and Mr. Conrado de Quiros when both were Inquirer columnists many years ago.

Just as OCTA Research was congratulated “for being the new reliable player in the industry, its detailed pre-election polling…frighteningly accurate,” so too Mr. Tiglao for being the modern-day Nostradamus.

If it is not fair, honest, and clean, to reiterate PRRD’s call, the conduct of the May 9 election must be investigated to seek the Truth, to disabuse people’s minds, and hence, strengthen our democracy.

The post got 82 likes and 152 comments with some of my replies. Let me share some of these interesting internet exchanges:

Dolly: As for the CONSISTENT EQUATION every minute and every release of the “tabulated” result. What is the Engineer’s take? PLS help me accept so I can sleep “soundly” with no nightmare.

Me: I have an engineer’s mind but don’t have the IT expert skill. Sorry to disappoint you. VP Leni camp has turned over the issues, surely including such viral digital print, to IT experts. I hope that can help you sleep soundly. Democracy has plenty of defenders.

Dolly: My mind refuses to…

I inquired from an IT expert friend on the issue and here are our internet exchanges edited for brevity and clarity.

Me: Have you seen that viral print of a seeming pre-programmed digital process? What’s your opinion about it?

Friend: It means, the SOURCE CODE had been revised to follow a fixed pattern of a gap.

Me: Is this possible?

Then, I showed the viral 8-minute video clip of a simulated mini-election in a workplace which demonstrated the hacking of the transparency server that might have happened allegedly in our May 9 election.

Me: The video clip has demonstrated it can be done. Right?

Friend: I think it could be done as he demonstrated in the video, but better try using existing VCM using local best programmers to alter the codes.

Me: Good idea. “Replication” is the word?

Friend: Yes, you have, say, 7 days to do it. How will you proceed? You need to spend P500T to P2M I guess plus time.

You may say, hey, that cost is just a drop in a bucket to disabuse the minds of the people so that everyone can move on. Not so fast. There is also a viral letter circulating on the internet the following excerpt of which is pertinent to our issue.

“A Chinese IT Expert was hired to do this which can penetrate the Transparency Server. Thus, the 3x faster results. It cannot be traced where the results are coming from.”

Fake news? No one knows. The fact is, it’s viral.

Let me wrap up this article with this particular excerpted comment from Adele:

“I have a long comment/analysis of those numbers but I’m still writing it on my notes… sadly this country is going down the tubes once again.”

Excerpts of my reply to her:

“The life that no longer trusts another human being and no longer forms ties to the political community is not a human life any longer.” (Martha Nussbaum, philosopher)

“In our deeply-polarized nation today in the wake of the frenzied election, ‘another human being’ could mean a BBM supporter – an FB netizen, your neighbor, your friend, your relative, or even your family member. ‘Political community’ could mean one under the presumptive BBM presidency. Trust is the foundation of any relationship – to another human being and the political community.”

“Democracy will break under the strain of apron strings. It can exist only on trust.” (Mahatma Gandhi).

We hope and pray the probe into the alleged electoral fraud will disabuse peoples’ minds and restore such Trust. For Trust is like a paper, once it’s crumpled, it can’t be smooth again.