Mga salot ng bayan

Bagong uring nilalang itong si Duterte: Sariling utang na loob sa mga Marcos, bayan ang pinagbabayad. Eto, lumabas na ang selyo para sa ika-100 birthday ng diktador at world-class kurakot. Request ni Bongbong yan, pati na yung gawan nang official proclamation ng Malacanang na gawing holiday ang 9/11 sa Ilocos Norte. Binaboy na yung Libingan ng mga Bayani (at ni Marcos), sinabuyan pa ng putik ang sagisag ng pangulo ng Pilipinas.

Ang daming nauto ni Duterte nung campaign period, dahil di niya binanggit na alipin siya ng mga Marcos, na kunsintidor siya sa mga Chinese na sumasakop sa teritoryo natin at, bilang tenk yu, ay nagpapadala ng sangkatutak ng shabu. Ba't di nagmumura itong buang sa mga tiga-Customs saka NBI na tumibag sa ebidensiya sa P6.4 billion drugs na nahuli? Ba't di niya ipa-salvage ang mga kasabwat ng mga Chinese dealers? Ang pinapatay na drug dealers ay karibal lang ba sa operations ni Paolo? "Pesteng yawa yang mga blahblahblah na iyan... Buang! (Tapos dirty finger)." Walang ganito? Tumulong ba ang China sa election mo? Ikaw ba ang Donald Trump ng Pilipinas at China ang Russia ng Asia?

Anyway, noong Martial Law ay nagtanim si Marcos ng mga crony sa iba't ibang position sa pamahalaan, lalo na sa Supreme Court. At namumunga na ngayon ang itinanim niya -- nakapuwesto na yung mga anak, apo, at kaibigan ng unang binhi. Natatandaan pa natin si Chief Justice Fernando, na pinapayungan pa ang First Lady noon sa Luneta Park -- symbolic protection ng SC sa Conjugal Dictatorship. Lumabas pa sa selyo yung si Chief Justice Fred Ruiz Castro noong 1981 -- pampasaya sa mama dahil ok namang ibenta niya ang lahat ng SC decisions in favor of Marcos family, friends, and cronies.

Isa sa itinanim ni Marcos noon sa Office of the Solicitor General ay ang magiting na si Estelito Mendoza, na ngayon ay uugud-ugod na pero may asim pa rin ang superpower para "ayusin" ang mga kaso sa SC. Noong 2000 ay nagdesisyon ang SC na guilty beyong reasonable doubt sina Hubert Webb at barkada sa pagpaslang kay Ginang Vizconde (49 years old, 13 stab wounds), anak na si Carmela (19, stabbed 17 times and raped), at ang busong si Jennifer, 6, 13 stab wounds. Nakulong naman ang mga anak-mayayaman (puwera yung dalawang nakapuga abroad), pero 15 years later nabalitaan ng biyudong si Lauro Vizconde na may nag-aareglo sa kaso. Di kalaunan nga bumaligtad ang SC at pinalaya ang mga salarin. Puwede palang mag-loop-the-loop ang "final" decision ng SC. At lumabas sa balita na nagpadala pala ng sulat si Mendoza sa SC at kinausap yung ibang justices. Sabi ni Lauro Vizconde: "Is there still anyone among you who doubts that there is rampant corruption in our government? Remember when I made the disclosure that someone is pressuring the justices to vote for a reversal? I did that hoping to make them have second thoughts about doing so. There is no justice in the Philippines. All of us who have cases in court, don’t we realize that if your opponent has money, brace yourself. Anyone can be paid!"

Alam ng lahat sa itaas (hindi sa langit; sa barandilyas ng mga may poder) na magmamarakulyo ang mga militante, maglalabas ng "We object in the strongest term possible" ang mga gustong sumakay sa issue, at pagkatapos ay... wala. Parang yung pag may namatay na superstar, dagsaan ang pagbigkas ng suporta, puro "I love you forever" sa harap ng CNN camera. Ang forever ay halos dalawang linggo ang haba, or less.

At nandiyan yung kasabihan "Sed lex, puta lex" na ang ibig sabihin ata eh "Tarantado ang batas, kung hindi ay hindi ito puwedeng bilhin" or something like that. Kung anak-pawis ka lang, huwag ka nang umangal.

Isa pa ring oldies ay si Atty. Oliver Lozano, na naunang nagpa-approve ng impeachment complaint laban kay VP Leny Robredo, na siyang balakid sa tambalang Duterte-Marcos. Si Lozano ay medyo tumanda na rin, pero sa hawi ng buhok at hilatsa ng mukha ay parang kambal siya ni lakay Ferdinand. Tulad ni Duterte at yumaong Duterte Sr., ultra Loyalist si Lozano. At baka PBB ni Bongbong?

At ang baligtaring si Rigoberto Tiglao, dating activist nung Martial Law, naging kakampi ni Gloria sa panahon ng biyaya, at ngayon ay masugid na tagapagtanggol ni Duterte. Di raw totoong may palit-ulo sa mga pamilya ng drug suspects. Parang wala ring EJKs, sabi ni VACC chief Dante Jimenez. Ibig sabihin ng VACC ay Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption. Dati ay galit si Jimenez sa mga kumakatay sa mga Vizconde at iba pang sangkot mararahas na krimen. Dati ay galit din siya sa mga kurakot at kotong (at mandaraya sa larong dyolens). Parang iba na ang ihip ng hangin ngayon. Nakakainggit ba ang mga suweldo at posisyon nina Mocha, Arnel Ignacio, Andanar at iba pang alipores? At ang dami pang binabayarang mga Marcos loyalists na nagtratrabaho para tumalsik si Robredo, Comelec chairman Andy Bautista, at SC Justice Sereno. Lahat ng sipag nina Alvarez at Koko Pimentel ay para maibalik sa puwesto ang bunga ni Marcos, si Bongbong na itinutulak sa lalamunan ng masa na bayani ang kurakot na ama.

Kahit anong denial ni Duterte, nakaamba na ang mga impeachment complaints kina Robredo, Bautista, Sereno, at kung puwede isali na rin si Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales. Galing, ano? Indirect Martial Law. Tibag na ang Congress, nakopo na ang Senate, Supreme Court na lang at wala nang kokontra.

Ano ang magagawa ng taumbayan kung ayaw mangyari ito? Kung ok pa rin si Duterte sa kanila, eh di panalo na naman ang kabuktutan ng mga loyalists. Matigok man si Duterte mas mahaba naman ang buhay ni Bongbong. At pag naupo si Bongbong, ang magiging vice president ay ang Senate president. Ayan, Koko, puwede na namang ipakulong ang tatay mo, tulad ng ginawa ni lakay Marcos sa kanya noong 1972. Pero tingnan mo sino ang nasa likod mo, next in line sa iyo pag nawala ka -- walang iba kundi si Pantalon Alvarez. Away kayo, sige!

So, anti-corruption daw si Duterte, pero ayan ang Marcos stamp. Nakangiti pa. Isosoli na raw yung ninakaw ng mga Marcos sa bayan? Kasama ba yung gadambuhalang interest na kinita ng $10 billion, o bayaan na yan tutal blah blah blah bleh ..." Galit daw sa illegal drugs, pero kahit isang piyok walang marinig laban sa mga Chinese drug syndicates na ginagawang expressway ang Custom. Pero kung ang majority ng Pilipino ay nauuto mo pa rin, at kahit bastos, walang modo (familiar itong katangiang ito), at mamamatay-tao ang ilan, well, let's go to hell. I'm sure di ito ang lahi ng Pilipinong nasa isip ni Quezon nang sabihin niyang "I would rather have a country run like hell by Filipinos than a country run like heaven by the Americans, because however bad a Filipino government might be, we can always change it." (And I thank you.) Hindi niya kasi alam na iuutot ng kalikasan ang isang Marcos, at lalabas sa biyak ng kawayan ang makamaharlikang Duterte.

Without me

What you see is a comic book published and sold in 1950, and this surprises me and a lot of baby boomers that are still functional this side of the grass. This issue qualifies as part of the Golden Age of comic publishing, sold at 10c, containing 52 pages, and sort of expensive now. But that is not the reason for our griping -- it is that the world had already been functioning even without waiting for us to be born into it. We missed two World Wars and their heroes and villains, like Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler. At least we got involved in the Cold War, though not actively; the 1969 moon landing, the Hubble telescope which expanded out view of the universe.

This universe has been going on for at least 15 billion years, and the Hubble reveals very distant galaxies that range from a close seven million light-years, practically a cosmic neighbor, to the distant cluster of more than 10 billion light-years. Of course the images that reach us are very, very old, so old that those galaxies, nebulae and whatelse do not look like that now. And they keep changing at distances that even light, with its tantalizing speed of 186,000 miles per second, cannot hope to update us. Many images are older than the Earth, which is estimated to be a toddler 4.5 billion years old. So, in a cosmic scale, our planet, like its baby boomers, had been left out of the preliminary game.

All these data hinge on the fact that we Earthlings believe that the half-life of Carbon 14 is accurate enough to determine the age of things that existed before this planet was borne out of cosmic dusts. We also place our faith that photons, light particles, live forever and can travel through the vast spaces and time to reach our eyes. There's a caveat though: we can look into the distant past, but not into our immediate past. So we cannot see how Jesus looked like about 2017 years ago; whether he looked like a blunt faced, shaggy haired, slightly crossed-eyed Arab, like most people in the Middle East looked at that time and locale, or is he the brown-haired, bearded, handsome idol that was painted by an European much later. We will not know who instigated Oswald to shoot Kennedy, if Marilyn Monroe really died of overdose, where the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun were located, if it's true that Russian soldiers found the Fuehrer's corpse and Stalin had it shipped to him. A consolation is that we will not see people having fun even if we were not here yet. What is offered is the events that occurred before the whole planet joined the galaxy. The Milky Way did not wait for the birth of the Earth; in turn, this blue globe is not waiting for anyone. A cosmic tit-for-tat.

I have framed some magazines having Einstein in the covers. He died months before I was born, and I'm sure many people, born weeks or months after he died, had entertained the notion that the genius' soul had reincarnated in them. That notion died in me years later, after I got my report card and saw Math and Physics gasping for breath, just hanging on by a thread to keep from failing the grade and making the teachers smug with their "I though so!" smirk. And I realized I was not alone in thinking myself particularly special, destined for great achievements and honors. A fad appeared, when seers and psychics made a bundle by claiming to see people's past lives. Many Hollywood stars declared that they had been Cleopatra or at least a high personage in her court, or they were Mary Magdalene gasping as Jesus' face materialized in the handkerchief she had wiped his face with, or Queen Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Czar Nicholas, Genghis Khan, Shakespeare. Not one is a stinking peasant of the Middle Ages, gap-toothed, lice-infested, ignorant and superstitious. 

And so I awoke from my delusion: this Earth can do well without me, and I don't want to be a part of its hoary past, when cavemen hunted not only bisons but those of other tribes -- for food. Europe in the past was a mud-hole where citizens spat on the squalid alleys and in their hovels, where water was not sanitary and more likely a source of typhus, pigs and dogs and horses defecated in dirty streets, where night soil of citizens were thrown into the mix. The past offered only a filthy, stinking, disease-ridden existence. Even in the royal courts, lice crawled all over the queen with her hair piled in a high bun sandwiched with honey and attendant insects. Princesses, princes and other members of the nobility believed that taking a bath is detrimental to one's health, and they kept bottles of scented water to ward off their grimy smell. It's not Games of Throne, where every character is fashionably coutured, hair groomed with fragrant shampoo, where women appear ravishing to gallant, full-toothed dukes or earls. Hygiene in medieval time is TV fiction. Truth shows many pigsty palaces and germfilled homes.

I'm only consoling myself, I know, from an imaginary and indulgent slight. Now I think of the million sperm cells I bested decades ago: they lagged behind, then swam in confusion, then died off, never seen nor heard nor thought about. And I, survivor of the race for life, grew up, fooled around, wasted 25% of my lifetime in enforced slumber and, now, at old age, grumbling about how this cosmos did not make me its fair-haired boy, had not led me to the Yellow Brick Road, or bestowed me with the facility of a bard. Anyway, I will settle to be a petkeeper, with an occasional kitten to keep me company. I never heard a kitten whine like me. Kittens are better than humans.

Diffident but lovely Tintin

                

P20k per Filipino soul

The Senate has approved a big increase in the President's discretionary fund, money meant for national contingencies like earthquakes and typhoons, outbreak of diseases hitting fowls, livestock and humans, and, now, to pay for each soul killed by police during legal and extra-judicial operations.

The cops who salvaged 17-year-old Kian are waiting to be exonerated by the Internal Affair Service, which has become notorious for letting rogue cops loose to commit havoc on the criminal justice system again, and again, and again. Not that Justice secretary Aguirre or Duterte care, as long as the cops are not made to pay for attack on a government facility like a prison compound, murder, planting of evidence, and perjury -- like what Supt. Marcos and his cohorts did in their operation to erase Albuera Mayor Espinosa. They had even applied for a search warrant to serve Espinosa, a prisoner already secured and under control in prison! How else could these rogue cops gain access to Espinosa, except by pointing their guns on the prison guards, and to hide their criminal acts by stealing the prison's CCTV? The Senate panel eventually concluded that the Marcos operation was no less than a heinous murder. But Duterte declared that he believed the rogue cops' moronic version of what had transpired. 

It's a given that Espinosa had controlled the illegal drug trade in his territory, had destroyed many lives, had presumably ordered some rivals intimidated or killed. To eliminate him, the president allowed, and still allows and encourages, cops to become wayward and commit several other crimes to get the big drug lords -- unless they are Chinese. Early in his term Duterte has declared he will give P20,000 for each drug pusher killed. A reward bigger than an average cop's salary is a powerful incentive for good cops to turn sour, and many are tempted. And the budget for public schools is about to be sacrificed so that Duterte's criminal decree can be maintained. 

When Duterte ordered Supt. Marcos to be reassigned to his former post, despite ongoing investigation, Senators Gordon and Lacson protested, pointing out that their hearing had produced definite proof that murder had been committed. Then silence. What else can be expected of a legislative body, headed by Koko Pimentel, to be coopted by the executive branch? So the country's system of checks and balances is now tottering on a crippled Judiciary's leg. The mining conglomerate in Congress has succeeded in ousting Gina Lopez out of the DENR. The depredation of natural habitats continue, the price Duterte paid for his insane programs. Taguiwalo followed, and somehow we are beginning to suspect that this president is not fighting for the good of the citizens but for the benefit of his cronies. What a group surrounds this Duterte! -- The entire Marcos family with their puppy Erap Estrada, now crunching Manila's coffer (father, like son Jinggoy, has not learned during their first incarceration); Gloria Arroyo and her dubious allies in the fake minority in Congress; Tessie Aquino has been resurrected; of course Tito Sotto and Manong Johnny Enrile are in attendance, Bible quoting Pacquiao apparently replacing the dead Maceda burning in hell, to name a few. 

But are these criminals to blame at all? We ignore the fact that the people of Ilocandia gave us Ferdinand Sr. And Jr., Imelda, Imee, Fariñas, and others who have robbed the entire land. Pampanga nurtured Gloria and her thieving family, and Davao spawned the evil loyalist Duterte. Who protested when Recto filed his law introducing VAT in our economy? As if the crocodiles in Congress have not grown fat with the bounty from our sweat that more are extracted, excise and confiscatory; we financed their stately homes and townhouses, and the apartelles where they keep their mistresses in style. We are feeding Pacquiao's idiot brother in Congress too. We are breaking our back to get food to our table, yet the government is taking 32.5% of what we earn to pay the very large (to us) salaries of poopymouth Mocha Uson and airhead Matin Andanar at the Presidential Communications Office. We are also paying other hoary Abella and weirdo Panelo to lie to us from time to time. Now Duterte is surrendering territories to China in our behalf, even making threats for China gratuitously. Are missiles really pointed at the Philippines? We are surrendering too? Even rats fight for survival when cornered, but this Duterte is a whining dog with his tail between his legs. Like any coward he strikes only at foes that are helpless behind bars, or let rogue cops kill, at his instigation, under-age citizens whose alleged crime is not as heinous as the president's setting the price of a Filipino soul at P20,000. We do not forget the death of a seven-year-old girl: she was eliminated by cops who gunned down her grandfather while they were taking a stroll. Yet other Filipinos who are supposed to be decent, educated, professional, religious and adherent to God's admonition against taking a man's life, are openly declaring support for state-sponsored murder. Where is the bottom to this hypocrisy?

What is clear is that the citizens have surrendered their rights and patrimony long ago -- first to the Spaniards, then to the Americans, now to Filipinos who control every aspect of our lives -- to the Ayala family and Pangilinan, who control the flow of water and overpriced electricity to our homes; and to their Singaporean and Malaysian partners, who decide how much the citizens can endure the slow broadband signals in their desktops and gadgets. Investors may be inveigled to roost in the Philippines, but it does not take long before they eventually flee to Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, where electricity is cheaper and more dependable, where wifi thrives on 4G, where electric wires are buried underground and not shamelessly littering the skylines like thick and dirty cobwebs. ASEAN's 75th anniversary was celebrated here, but the world leaders were gathered at Pasay's PICC, far enough from the sight of the squatter shanties hugging Manila's Pasig River. At least there is subtlety now in hiding our shame. In Marcos' time, in 1981, the sides of the roads, from the airport to Malacañang, were fenced with whitewashed galvanized sheets, to hide the unsightly home of the poor from the eyes of the visiting Pope John Paul II. The Pope found the Coconut Palace, constructed for his stay, too lavish and he decided to stay elsewhere. Pope John Paul II held dear in his heart the impoverished Pinoys. He saw that the people's material impoverishment does not reach the core of their happy acceptance of what life offers them, even if the offering is often meager. 

Maybe by this attitude we can understand a piece of the puzzle here, why Filipinos allow themselves to be abused so much. The Filipinos, even after a fire that razed their community, after a typhoon or raging volcano devastated their homes, can still afford to smile in the face of adversities. We let the crooked politician, businessmen and government officials take our money, with the corresponding headaches, backstabbing, envy and intrigues, and we let events slide, as long as our children, unshod, wearing uncoordinated garments, eating cheap noodles and headless sardines, still manage to laugh at play and once in a while remember to toss a kiss our way, then we are alright. The thieves may be buried under ornate tombs, but the undiscriminating worms devour their earthly presence and burp off their atrocious schemes. In the end, what counts is how much fun we did have in the Philippines.

Omanignatup, Duterte!

Whyfi

As I type this on my desktop computer, part of the wifi signal is not working properly -- no YouTube now; but at least this is better than not having anything online. I call customer service and I'm required to press many options on the phone before I get to talk -- after a long wait -- to a human service personnel. This time I get a sympathetic one, an old hand who knows all the kinks of the system. But the new system, since Bayantel has been absorbed by Ayala's Globe, has slower signals, longer schedules before their technicians can check and correct the trouble: No more "A technician will be there today or  tomorrow, at least within 24 hours." Now Customer Service checks when a technician will be available -- last time one was scheduled for one week after my call; this time it took only three days before they "fixed" the problem. But the signals are still either misaligned or incomplete. Still, I'm grateful that some windows enable me to work on, even though a message has appeared right now on this site. It says, "An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again. Dismiss." I click "Dismiss" but the message reappears, like the wifi problems now, which seem to have no end. 

World without end, with an infinity of high-tech problems that did not exist before 2005. I used to think that the future generation is luckier -- to see travels to Mars; 3D printing as part of everyday leisure, hobby and lifestyle; highly efficient ultrasound to dissolve blood clots or defective genes, with no more expensive and invasive surgery. But I realize that with new technologies, new problems will crop up, like evolved virus meeting the challenges posed by new cures. A never-ending battle so that the human species will survive and grow while other species are decimated to make space for the billions more that are coming.

Fleshwork

“That is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you’re rubbing yourself against worm food." -- Excerpt from American Gods by Neil Gaiman. 

1899 photo of unidentified young woman

One morning Paul rolled out of bed with a tune in his head. If he was not still sleepy he would have thought it remarkable that he had dreamed an entire song, and it was still playing in his mind, sort of jazzy, the sort of music his dad used to play. He went to the piano by the bed and found the chords -- "Sort of G, F#m7, some B in it ..." he would recount later. "It could not have been mine because it was a fine little tune and I just dreamed it."

He went the rounds asking his friends if they knew such a song, humming a bar or two, or, if a guitar was available, he played it for them, improvising the lyrics, because he was not familiar with soft jazzy songs at all. He gave the  tune a provisional title, "Scrambled Eggs." It was probably what he had for breakfast that morning.

Scrambled eggs

Oh my baby how I love your legs,

But not as much as I like scrambled eggs.

Oh, we should eat some scrambled eggs.

Paul's dream became the first solo act by a Beatle, because the song cannot be accompanied by Ringo's drum or another guitar by John or George. He sang it in a concert, with just an acoustic guitar as accompaniment, the guitar and its strings upside down because he was left handed. John, George, Ringo stayed behind the curtains. Yesterday became the most covered song in the world, about 3,200 versions at last count. Another of the many record-breaking firsts, literally and figuratively, the Beatles had given the music world. Paul's version of the song's story also metamorphosed as it traveled from one artist to another. Eventually Paul wrote down a neat copy of the Yesterday lyrics. That piece of paper should cost a lot today. John Lennon's A Day in the Life lyrics, penciled in Lennon's handwriting on a piece of paper, some phrases crossed out and corrected, sold for $1.20 million at a Sotheby auction in New York in 2010 June 18.

Lyrics in Paul's handwriting

It's a coincidence that the Sotheby auction happened on June 18, Paul's birthday. In 1965, when Paul wrote and sang Yesterday, he was 23, young, handsome, famous and wealthy. This year he will be 75, with the sort of memories that afflict people who have had a very good life. Age tends to take away the good looks, the smooth and supple skin, leaving painful memories as you see in the mirror the turkey neck of today. Surely Paul had thought of the dozens of sexual fans who are grandmas now; some had gone to the ground and been burped up by worms to be finally melded with the earth. His wife, Linda, had succumbed to cancer complications in 1997 at their farm in Tucson, Arizona (Y'know, Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, and bought some California grass. Get back ...) and her ashes were scattered at another McCartney farm, in Surrey, England. American particles in English soil.

"Two of us" was about Paul and Linda (written during their trip to still another farm, in Scotland). The song had nothing to do with John, who was gunned down in December 1980, ten years after the Beatles went their separate ways. His ashes became part of Central Park in New York, where now stands the 2.5-acre Strawberry Fields Memorial. Dead also was George Harrison, of cancer of the lungs which had spread to his brains. In 2001 he was, like Linda McCartney and John Lennon, cremated. His ashes now flow in two rivers in Varanasi, India. John and George had escaped the worms, and their music lives on, and each earn, every year, millions of dollars from the royalties their old music bring. They had worked when flesh had adhered to their bones, now they are dead but still earn huge amount of money which the average, untalented and living working-stiff cannot hope to see in a lifetime.

A day after Paul's birthday, on June 19, we commemorate Jose Rizal's birth anniversary. Except for a few government officials who will lay wreaths on his monuments nationwide, and Rizal cults who upgraded him to god status, other Filipinos will not remember: classes and work will go on as usual (unless the day falls on a Saturday or Sunday), his day not a holiday at all: What did he achieve as a newborn baby? However, the day he was killed is a convenient holiday, December 30 being between Christmas and New Year. That day in 1896 his corpse was not given to his family, as Rizal had assumed. His corpse was secretly buried at the Paco Park. On 1898 August 17, just a few months after the Spanish were driven out of the Philippines by the Americans, his skeleton was exhumed. The flesh, along with his last message to his family (hidden in his shoes), had long been consumed by the earth. His bones were interred finally on 30 December 1913 at the site of the Rizal Monument at the Luneta Park. Haunting is an eerie photograph of old Doña Teodora holding her son's skull at their home in Binondo. The skull of an ex-filibustero, poet, ophthalmologist, a tragic genius.

Mother and son in Binondo

The unidentified young woman in the portrait far above, taken in 1899, crossed Rizal's timeline: Was she one of those who went to see his execution in 1896? Except for the fact that she was pretty, nothing else is known about her, not even her name, age, or location. That she wore a ring might have indicated that she was engaged or married. The bulge in her tummy meant she was in the family way or just had a big lunch. The big volumes of books in the background could only be found in the residences of the educated classes of her time, a time when men debated whether women had souls, too. All the same, she had been thrown into a different era, under different colonizers who brought along with their technologies their rifles with which to exterminate the rebellious faction of the islanders. After a few years Manila glowed in electric lights, far north a delighful summerplace was constructed up through the excavated zigzag road in Baguio, movie theaters introduced the little brown brothers to Hollywood, while American politicians exchanged the corrupt Spanish ways with the thieving American ways. In 1906 the first Rizal postage stamp appeared, commemorating the memory of a hero who espoused assimilation with the colonizers and discouraged violence and dissension. Our hero, for better or worse, parted by death.

Another genius, more prominent because of his achievement, was Albert Einstein. Did any of the thousands of books written about him mention that his birthday was pi day, March 14? π is approximately 3.14, the ratio between the circumference and diameter of a circle. Anyway, Einstein showed that light can be bent by massive gravitational pull; that matter disintegrates into light, and light condenses to matter, and a small amount of mass contains a huge amount of energy; that space and time are not constant, as Newton and all other humans had thought 300 years ago; and it's okay to marry your double cousin. He was born in 1879, eighteen years after Rizal, and died in 1955, ten years after Hitler, who hated Jews and exterminated millions of them, shot himself. Einstein, who died of abdominal aneurysm in the United States, far from Hitler's reach, was cremated and his ash placed/scattered in an undisclosed place. Hitler and his wife, after committing suicide, were burned, according to his will. Thus in different ways do mortals -- the famous and the infamous, the pretty and ugly, the rich and the poor, the beloved and the scorned -- return to Mother Earth, after their brief work of the flesh is done.

Einstein's birthday is March 14 or 3.14

Bully

True, Donald Trump is still a mean, mealy-mouthed liar, a tax-cheat, and a vengeful bully, but his action to send 59 Tomahawk missiles to disable the Syrian air base which launched a gas attack on Assad's own people received the approval even of politicians and generals who still doubt his ability to lead America. Trump did not win the presidency: Obama and Hillary, by their foolish consistency to rules instead of using brute force against the big bullies of the world, defaulted the seat to the racist tycoon.

Assad had stepped over Obama's red line three or four times, launching separate gas attacks which killed tens of thousands of Syrians, and what did Obama do? He asked the Republican-controlled Senate to give him the permission to act. He relied on the United Nations to support his intention to attack Syria; Russia vetoed the resolution, and Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon bowed to weak, unenforcible rules, held more meetings, issued useless condemnations and expressed futile outrages, while the death toll in Syria climbed from 8,000 (others died from bullets and bombs supplied to Syria by Russia) in 2011 to 400,000 in 2016, when Obama finally left the presidency.

In a world where murderous men like Assad, Putin and Kim Jong Un tend to take over the vacuum of power abandoned by weak intellectuals, the United States does not stand a chance under the likes of Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kerry and Ban Ki Moon. Out there in the global village, the street fighters can only be beaten by men who discards the rules if and when necessary. Obama talked glibly of principles but cannot uphold them, he wrote books about himself and uprightness, but Russia and Syria, North Korea and China were dancing on the world stage. The West looked on while Putin annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014, and later on Russian separatist shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, killing all passengers and crew on board -- 193 Dutch, 10 British, 4 Germans, and 4 Belgians. Putin is a war criminal, so is Assad, yet there they are, not placed in prison by the international Court of Justice, and playing the charade of condemning the US attack. And the dead, who talks for them?

Our president, Duterte, did not have to go as far back as the Filipino-American war to chide the US for not protecting its treaty allies, he has only to look at Obama's feeble talk against China's occupation of Philippine territory. Even now, months after Trump took office, Duterte has voiced out his doubt about the US sincerity to defend a vital ally in the Pacific. "Why does the US not do anything out there?" he said. Obama looked with disdain at Duterte's killing of thousands of Filipinos, but Duterte could have spat back the number of Assad's victim at Obama, who let the death toll in Syria swell from 8,000 to a horrifying 400,000. Trump's latest act -- without consulting the US Congress, without waiting for Russia to veto another UN resolution to bomb Syria -- he just went on ahead and sent the Tomahawks on their way. Now the UN has announced it is holding an emergency meeting about the attack, and maybe ask Trump to undo what has been done? There's no problem from the US senators like Rubio and McCain, who, along with nations not aligned with Russia -- Syria, North Korea, China and Iran -- have expressed their approval over Trump's much-awaited resolution against Putin and Assad's wiping their asses with the American flag.

Now it's Russia's turn to accuse the United States of breaking international law, law which favored the strong and murderous, law which did not protect the weak and unarmed. It's the bully Trump that Russia has to contend with -- the teacup-eared Obama has fluffed away.

The United States is back in the game -- if Trump does not flub it.

Kikay

Kikay (March 25, 2017)

Paalam, Kikay
By Leena Calso


Ang bilis ng iyong pagpanaw.
Akala ko magsasama pa tayo ng ilang linggo, ilan pang araw.
Handa naman akong pakainin ka, painumin ng gamot, linisan, damayan.
Kanina,'yun na pala ang huli kong pagsuklay at paghimas sa 'yo.
Ang tanging kunswelo ko, di ka na naghirap. Nagwakas na ang iyong paglalayag.
Tahimik na ang gabi. Wala na ang kahol na gumugulantang sa akin para takbuhin ka, alamin ang dahilan ng iyong pag-iingay. Tahimik na rin si Chico na dati ay sumasabay sa iyong pagtahol.
Tahimik din sina Kit at Princess, ang mga naulila mong anak. Bukas kaya ay hahanapin ka?
Marahil alam din nila. Wala na ang kanilang ina.
Nagwawakas ang buhay.
Ako ay umaasa, sa kabilang ibayo, balang araw tayo ay magkikita.
Paalam, Kikay.

Earthly denial

There is no frigging frigate like a book

I used to grouse about how messy human affairs are in this planet, and Leena would tell me to go to another, and I'd say, "If there's really that alternative." When I reached junior age -- you know, the age when oldies with extreme denial refuse to join fellow earthlings who own cards exempting them from paying (1) taxes on maintenance medications, (2) fees on movies, on certain days, (3) for deadly foods in mall eateries -- I learned to relax, the way only Type A (I think I'm triple A) goonies can: no more shouting so the cats in the room don't scurry to the clothes hamper, accepting mistakes without trying to melt the offender with imaginary Cyclops eye, calmly clicking to another channel when Duterte or a representathieve appear. I have mellowed, or I'm melting; either way, it's a way out of stress.

Lately, with movie channels swamped with Harry Potty, Divergent and Percy Whoosis series, there's no alternative truth to be found except in books. (Ok, there's video games, Duterte yakyaks, Trump behest truths, Kardashian reality, but I limit myself to books.) I'm almost done rereading Sagan's book, have seen the Hubble telescope pictures of galaxies billions of years outside our solar systems, pictures which would have astounded Aristotle (who calculated the Sun is 5,000 miles above the Earth, just a little bit off, by about 91,995,000 miles), Copernicus, Galileo, Hershel, Kepler, Newton, Halley, Einstein, Hubell, Hubble, Feynstein. Even Sagan, who died in 1996, would have been impressed by the Eagle Nebula, estimated about 13 billion light-years away -- meaning, it will take 13 billion years at the speed of light to reach that Nebula, which is about 7 light-years high. Which also means that photons (particles of light), to travel that mind-deranging distance, are indestructible. Also, what we have seen happened was 13 billion years ago; by this time, that nebula may have already given birth to unimaginable numbers of stars and planets and has dispersed to a totally different shape.

The frigging Eagle Nebula

One chapter of Sagan's book near the end deals with the inevitable question dealing with creation: What about God? For most scientists and some philosopher, God is not the outsized, Caucasian male with long, white beard micromanaging in his throne somewhere up there the fall of every sparrow's feather. Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein, Sagan points out, "considered God to be essentially the sum total of physical laws which describe the universe." John Lennon was more cynical, "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." They were the tactful ones, compared with Mark Twain's attack on religion in a book he asked to be published years after his death, or the blistering commentaries of Ingersoll, Schoppenhauer, Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Mencken, Ayn Rand, and of course Marx, Engels, and Mao, to name a very few. Anyway, religion should serve as a succor, a brief surcease, from the insanity brought about by humans dealing with other humans. There were knights in ancient crusades who slaughtered people who did not believe in Christ, mainly Muslims. Now it is the Islamic fundamentalists grouping up to destroy Western civilization in the name of Allah. The monstrosity of 9/11 scorched my mind, but now, when I see how the Americans elected an insane gremlin as president, I imagine a sequel to White House Down, wherein the terrorists win for a change. (I'm aware that before Trump, we in this Banana Republic showed the way by electing our own madman. This time a green card offers no asylum.) Headache beckons, so back to space...

Scientists have discovered that the universe is expanding, at a very fast rate, and away from the viewer, all receding from Earth, it seems. I'm very much tempted to offer my Pogiistic wisdom -- If I were a chicken, a pig, a cow, a fish, seeing the proliferation of all those McDonald's, Jollibees, Burger Kings, KFCs and other centers for carnivores, I certainly would escape to the next planet, even if its red color from a distance reminds me of the incessant slaughters here. But Mars up close is coffee-colored rocks, hills, ravines, valleys, mountains and volcanoes -- a Starbucks planet. However, this will be invaded by the technologically adept carnivores soon. Already, plans are being hatched to bring to reality what was in the realm of the science fiction of the 1950s. The technology to take Flash Gordon (or Digong Duterte, if you wish) to the Red Planet is available now; however, the information for the human pioneer to survive the atmosphere of Mars is not. Simplifying a lot, a space buggy from here, at a velocity of 36,000 mph, should take about six months to reach Mars. (If you take the EDSA detour, add at least 10 years to your ETA.)

So there you are, the pebbles of Mars at your feet, the mountains like mounds of Cappuccino awaiting a barista, except there's no other species around, not a mulcting traffic cop, no ugly congressman or similar thieves, no bird singing, not even a worm for fishbait or fertilizer to nonexistent flowers. What to do? Return, of course, and appreciate the human noise and sweat, the pretensions high or low, motives malign or benign; mix right in, carry in your belly shredded meat (legs by which chickens used to strut with, goose liver, scorched skin of pig whose agonized face you ignore, belly of mother tuna whose kids died of starvation), wear skins of cute and fattened and slaughtered minks or ermines to keep you warm, entrust your hard-earned money to politicians you loathe. Or just shut up and read -- There is no frigging frigate like a book.

Like kita c",)

Na-unfriend ka dahil di mo gusto si DU30? DE5? Leni?

Nakikita ba nila yung mga "Likes" mo para sa kanila? May bigat ba yung pagsang-ayon mo o hindi sa ejk, death penalty, sovereignty? FYI: Hindi sila nagbibilang ng Thumbs-up o 😡 kung may oras man silang mag-FB.

Mas matimbang yung likes ko sa post mong puro prayers, dahil kahit hindi ako nagsisimba ay ayos ka pa rin sa akin (at ako naman ay parang krus na pasan ng Friends file mo). Hindi kita ipagpapalit sa sampong Duterte o Pacquiao o Lacson. Pero baka kay Leni (napansin din ni Digong ang legs niya ha)... *Jokes!*

Einiwei, kung happy ka kay Trump, kahit na kay Kim Jong Un, okay na rin ako. Ang natatandaan ko lang, nung nasa ilalim ako ng gulong ng buhay ay nandoon ka at umalalay sa akin. Isang "Like" lang ang bilang ko, pero higit pa sa libo-libong likes na ibinibigay mo sa kanila.

Our kite

Photo credit to online owner

The Philippines is like a kite snagged on a tree, unable to soar beyond its third-world sky, because of a few ambitious and virulent politicians. The anti Leni fake news on Facebook (and I'm guessing there's more on Twitter and Viber) have started proliferating; one of the culprits is "Thinking Minds" -- obviously a Marcos spawn which is pushing the lie that the vice president's late husband had a mistress and a child or more outside their marriage. A more malicious (but moronic) group has gone to the extent of claiming that Jesse Robredo had no less than 12 mistresses. If that's true I'm beginning to admire the man's prowess and ability to juggle his time to accommodate the lovely tootsies. But more likely the extra dozen is a dumb overkill of an overzealous Marcos-Duterte loyalist.

The appearance of the trolls' claims, however, should disturb the citizens: the program is groundwork for Leni's ouster. That means some of the SC justices -- enough of them to put a Marcos back in the executive branch -- have already safely hidden their huge bribes in bank accounts abroad and are ready to make public their decision, after a zarzuela hearing to make it credible for the misguided citizens.
I thought that last year, when Duterte was spiking rumors about his bad health, the SC would take Leni down, but some big events -- like the murder of Mayor Espinosa in prison and the Matobato Senate hearing-- made it dangerous for short-tempered Pinoys to accept one more national anomaly. (The politicians still remember that Dancing Queen Tessie Aquino Oreta's taunting the crowd over the unopened envelope quickly led to EDSA 2 and the ouster of President Estrada in 2001. Oreta, Tito Sotto, Miriam Defensor and other Estrada supporters were not reelected in the next election.)

In the last election campaign my admiration for Duterte was at its peak, because he showed that Poe is comparatively weak (Roxas and Binay are corrupt in different ways, although Roxas does not realize that simple fact), Defensor was a front and vote-getter for Bongbong, who, with his family, had really hoped and financed Duterte to win. Down to earth, blabbing honesty out to reporters (about throwing drug lords or notorious criminals out of a helicopter, about his aim to decimate the drug dealers, etc.), Duterte made me think, "This is the man who will and can do the reforms." I applauded when he warned the telcos to speed up our wifis and bring down the cost to the levels of our Asian neighbors or he would bring in foreign players. I also cheered when he noted that electricity in this country is the most expensive in the region, and expected him to throw MVPangilinan behind bars. He would solve the traffic problem, although the solution needs time, the smuggling at Customs should stop blah bleh blah.

But Duterte, it turned out, could also keep his mouth shut on crucial matters -- at least until he won the presidency convincingly. Then he revealed that the Marcoses had been rooting for him all along, that Imee Marcos even contributed to his campaign fund. Also, he loved the Marcoses so much that the country came second: he did not give Leni a Cabinet post because, Duterte said on live TV, he did not want to hurt the feelings of Bongbong. After some pressure (and, certainly, permission from Bongbong and family) he appointed Leni to take charge of housing the indigents; she did well, but she spoke out against the Dictator Marcos' sudden burial and was rudely kicked out. The Supreme Court, or the enriched members, had decided to grant the Marcoses' and Dutertes' wish. Duterte has been hinting he will not finish his term. I think he's just waiting for the ascension of Bongbong so he can step down, due to ill health -- mentally, I guess.

Media people realized that the SC decision to allow Marcos' burial was anomalous because the SC decision was already known two days before the justices sat down en banc and "voted." We were not surprised that on the morning of the decision Imee, down from Ilocos Norte, was at Padre Faura with paid supporters carrying placards and banners of support. The supporters said they had gathered spontaneously when they heard the news. I assume that many of them were capable, almost instantly, of making well-designed banners and placards with neat slogans neatly lettered as if by professionals.

The same members of the SC who always voted according to the sway of their bank accounts are expected to decide to oust Leni. Or they have already decided, and are waiting for the right time to meet en banc (should be "in bank", really), dragging along to opposing members to make the sideshow credible. If I'm wrong, I'll be the first to jump with joy that there's hope for this ill-starred nation of servants with diplomas. This Supreme Court, with a bit of variation, is the court that changed its decision, after ten years of having been carried out, that Hubert Webb and his cohorts, all serving time for homicide then, did not really rape and kill Lauro Vizconde's wife Estrellita (13 stab wounds), 18-year-old daughter Carmela (13 stab wounds), and six-year-old Jennifer (19 stab wounds). News leaked out that the reversal occurred after Estelito Mendoza wrote a letter to some SC justices. Estelito, still alive, served as Ferdinand Marcos' Solicitor General during Martial Law. It is said that Estelito remains potent due to his enduring contacts with judges in the Appeals Courts and the SC. Did he fix the Marcos burial? Is he fixing Leni's ouster?

I have been thinking, Why are the Duterte supporters such rabid fanatics, even after the malignant revelations about him? I can understand the paid online trolls, even the bribe-loving judges, but I'm confused by regular citizens that are deliberately averting their sights on the killings of young boys and girls in Duterte's war on drugs. Religious Filipinos disavowing the sixth commandment for an insane president, who calmly declared that the innocents were collateral damages? Life is so bad for some that they are hoping for a reshuffle of the bad cards fate had allotted them, and the rest can go to hell. That's the miseducated Filipino, heavy with the crab mentality that drags the country down when it moves up towards progress. It's fitting that the antonym of progress in this country is congress.

I have planned to be quiet about politics this year, but events prod me. In this Year of the Hen, I will keep in mind what I have learned about the victims of violent crimes when I was astill a newsman: the young chicks placed on top of the casket of a murder victim are expected to peck at the grains of rice there, each peck supposed to pinch the perpetrators' conscience, if any at all.

Noli 2017

Found this book while searching for another; dropped the search and started to read this Filipino version by Virgilio Almario. Now I know why I found it so easy in high school: we had skipped many tedious chapters, mostly about religious and philosophical digressions, and pedantic quotes going back to Roman orators and classical writers. Now, although my interest remains strong, I just wish I don't find it too hard going through narrations of tepid protagonists and wilting young ladies manipulated by murderous priests and ugly harridans. After a chapter or two I have to put the book down for a while, to stop my head whirling through 130 years of events. Rizal finished writing this novel at 11:30 p.m. of 1886 February 21. I put down a modern, translated copy for a while, and Silver uses it as a pillow. My rest is extended.

Tentatively titled "Sampagas," 2000 copies came off the press on March 29, giving this country the most famous Latin phrase ever: Noli Me Tangere. He gave the first bound copy to his friend, Maximo Viola, who defrayed the P300 needed to publish Rizal's first novel. A sequel would follow a few years later, after his family, along with other tenant-farmers, was evicted from Calamba. He did not get the chance to finish a third book he had started because he was executed 10 years, six months, seven hours and 34 minutes after the Noli was born.

Noli Me Tangere was derived from John 20:17, wherein Christ, just resurrected, told Mary Magdalene, who was searching for him and found his tomb empty, "Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my Father..." Almario's version, like most modern translations, resurrected the "missing chapter" in Rizal's original, Spanish edition. Lacking fund in 1886, Rizal decided to omit what would have been Chapter 25, which introduced Salome, the woman the fugitive Elias loved. Salome lived alone in a hut in a remote corner of the forest, always pining and hoping that her man would return to her safely. It was not be, just as Juan Crisostomo would lose Maria Clara, just as Rizal lost Leonor, just as the Filipinos would lose their revolutions and, up to now, would be searching for leaders in high office who would not betray them. Until then we search for the touchstone of salvation.

What Rizal saw

Ding 2012-2017

Ding (August 2012-22 February 2017)

In 2012 there still stood across the end of our short street a jackfruit tree, under which garbage were heaped for collectors to pick up. That's also where newborn kittens were thrown, their cries for hunger and warmth unheeded by commuters waiting for rides to work. One August morning, just after habagat Gener, the non-typhoon which was almost as destructive as Ondoy, Leena heard such piercing cries emanating from one wet skin-and-bones creature in the trash pile, awaiting the garbage crew or sometime crawling out, to be crushed by the wheels of sporting jeepney drivers. Calling home, Leena asked Neneng to get the kitten and see what can be done. That was how Ding joined our family of many pets -- four dogs, a big aquarium full of fishes, one bird in a cage, and several Ragdolls, friendly Maine Coon Cordell, three Belgians, Persian MauMau, British Shorthair Ruby and kitten Silver, and uncountable rescue cats, strays and occasional visitors to our dirty kitchen, where food is always available for all.

Neneng wrapped the thin, wet and hungry kitten in a cloth to stop her shivering. The strong rain must have prevented the garbage crew from coming and throwing the cat into oblivion. We did not want to think how many days and nights the kitten was soaked, wailing in the night, and if he had siblings whose strength and cries were slowly muffled and finally silenced, their arrival unrecorded. Neneng took one of the small feeding bottles in the kitchen, filled it with lukewarm water and milk, and cradled the kitten while it eagerly sucked the lifegiving nourishment. We wondered, briefly, if the mother cat survived the strong monsoon rains; we let the thought pass: we can only do so much.

The naming ritual followed. Neneng usually took the convenient way of naming the rescued kittens by the months they joined the family, so we have April (female), May or Mimi, JunJun, July, Steve (for September). But that August the big event was the big monsoon rain that hit Luzon, so the new kid became Gener; but Melay remarked that Gener was sort of baduy, so the name was adjusted to Ding. By the manner the ginger-and-white kitten emptied the bottle, Ding apparently was at the point of starvation, shown by the the ribs sticking out of his frail body. Becoming a surrogate mother to a kitten is arduous: it entails bringing the baby bottle to the kitten every two hours, including getting up several times at night, until the day the little one can eat solid food. After a few weeks Ding's flesh rounded out; at night he nestled on Neneng's neck for warmth and blissful sleep. 

Kittens, or any other creatures for that matter, are good-natured and trusting at birth; their environment later would determine if they remain so. A cat, or a boy child, growing up in the street, fighting others for scraps of food, would become tough, sneaky, fleet, defensive and mistrustful. Theft becomes a mode of survival; so does the ability to dodge rocks aimed at them, to escape from boys, armed with pipes or slingshots, hunting them for fun. Cats have earned the undeserved reputation of being scratchers, but streetkids have the same disposition -- always ready for flight and, if necessary, for a fight with whatever weapon is at hand: an improvised knife (instead of claws), teeth, and agility to hit and run. Cats who grew up with people who invariably treated tham gently, gave them treats, delighted them with strokes and tickled their chins have learned to trust people, expecting the same treatments from visitors. And, as children do, they play a lot, unconcerned with breed, color of skin, gender or family background. Grownup humans have a lot to learn from children and other creatures we share this Earth with. Play consists of running, skipping, jumping, hiding, wrestling, light bites, playful exchange of punches -- all over the house. Since we started having cats, all vases, bottles and anything they can topple and break have become just memories. Our unfulfilled wish is that none in our menagerie becomes a memory.

Ding and Jango playing tag 2012

As the days and years passed, Ding learned to roam with the other foundlings and strays throughout the neighborhood, coming home to eat for a while then jumping on the fence and did whatever cats do all afternoon. When the sun went down Neneng would go to the dirty kitchen and call the cats home -- Ding! JunJun! Pogi! Bai! Steve! Lord! Bas! (named after Leena's editor colleague). And the tin roofs all around would rumble with running feet headed for home. By the time the moon glowed big and silver, the cats settled in their appointed niche and slumbered while we humans read or watched TV. Early next morning Ding would softly stroll on the edge of the wall separating our house and the neighbor's and off he would go, scouring our neighborhood which cats know more than human residents do. 

Three weeks ago, Ding did not respond to Neneng's call, a deviation from routine, which puzzled her. Neneng searched for him next day, calling his name. Ding appeared, slipping under our neighbor's gate. He seemed all right -- no sign of injury, no limp, body sleek and clean. Neneng offered him food; she became slightly worried when Ding scarcely touched the kibbles and barely lapped the water in the bowl. The following day, when Ding stopped partaking food nor water, Neneng reported the problem to Leena. After having gone through many cases involving cats, Leena easily recognized trouble and immediately brought Ding to Animal House in Cubao. After examining Ding, the doctor confined him to bed, where an IV tube was inserted in Ding's vein so liquid food would sustain him. A catheter enabled Ding to expel the urine which his damaged kidney could no longer do. After four days the doctor gently told Leena that it would be better if she took Ding home; meaning, the doctor cannot operate on Ding because the cat, in his weakened state, would not survive the procedure. Ease Ding through his remaining days. And Ding returned home. Neneng and Manilyn together, thrice a day for three weeks more or less, forced him to take his hydrite and antibiotic with his food. It is relected on each of our pet's gentle and trusting nature the affection, patience, and care with which Neneng, Marilyn, Leena, and me (in my limited capacity) were able to extend to all. We all adjusted.

Leena and Ding

We were supposed to celebrate Manilyn's birthday on February 22; however, it's Neneng recollection of that day that remains vivid. "Parang hinintay lang ako ni Ding nung umaga," Neneng said. "Paglapit ko tumayo siya at nag-meow nang mahina at naupo siya. Tapos tumayo uli, pero maya-maya ay natumba na, at habol-hinga siya hanggang wala na." Neneng cried when she recalled the loss of her pet, her ward, her child. Ding was buried under the mango tree, where he keeps company with Rex, the Chow Chow patriarch, and so many kittens mourned and loved. 

Here then is the record of Ding's short life, cushioned by food and play and some comfort, filled with Neneng's love and devotion. The earth abides. So do we.

Ding at food bowl: all grown up

Small things

It's an x-shaped kibble, one of hundreds in a small bag of cat food, except that this particular one was seen being carried away by a cockroach from the food bowl. Hefting the comparatively heavy loot, the insect was quite agile, its six legs deftly scurrying on its escape route on the floor, while the mouth maintained its captivity of the prize.

I'm guessing that the thieving cockroach, in spite of its designation, is a female, violating its nocturnal nature to search for food for the little cockies that have recently emerged from their eggshells. And she has stumbled upon a small mountain of delectable treats heaped on a stainless bowl. Then she snatched one x, skittered down, and ran its erratic course.

Big Boy, a Ragdoll-Shorthair mixed breed, stopped licking his feet when his ears picked up pitter-pattter of small feet, his eyes followed the imaginary dotted line which was quickly lengthening away from his food bowl. He pounced, but the fur kept his paw from reaching the maverick mom, whose path had suddenly become wobbly and tottering. Still, at the risk of life and limb, she struggled to keep her loot. Only after several near-misses did she ditch the kibble and wedged herself into a crack in the closet.

One may ask, how do you determine the gender of a cockroach? And, does it not seem incongruous to give a female such a name as cockroach? After all, have not the Post Office mended its sexist attitude and, beginning in 2005 and as seen this year of our Lord 2017, revised the Year of the Cock to focus on the delicate Rooster instead. In this enlightened time, it does not matter if the rooster is tough meat or gay as a hen: a fowl with any other name, well, he has a nom de plume. And, for that matter, how do you think a male ladybug would feel if it understood human words? A male species of Dalagang Bukid should be afforded an extenuating excuse if once in a while it ran amuck under the sea bed.

As to the question of gender determination, Sherlock Holmes had observed that any species unencumbered by offspring to feed, will gallivant for days, eating where it finds itself hungry, and leaving leftovers behind. And that cockcroach mom, the one who got away from the cat, was not eating the food she had hijacked: she had intended to bring it to the her little ones. But Big Boy intervened, and a family went hungry for the day, like hundreds of thousands of human family.

That despairing cockroach mom is, as a US dollar will remark, "E pluribus unum" -- Out of many, one. I used to take umbrage at the fact that George Washington should be assigned to the lowest denomination of the currency of a nation that was once great but is now occupied by babbling idiots led by one Donald Trump. Same thing with Rizal, who used to reside in the one peso banknote, until that paper money was done away with, in favor of a coin which kept getting tinny and tiny with every passing generation. Then I learned that common sense is counter-intuitive: What seems bad is really good, if people can only hurdle over their -- what's that alternative term for human nature? -- moronic notions. One dollar or one peso is the lowest denomination, therefore it is the denomination most people can afford, therefore it is the most familiar currency at hand. Go lower or higher and the people behind those currencies get harder to know. One centavo, when it existed in the 1970s (or was it 1980s?), was Tandang Sora, made of material that made it float on water. Then was it Lapu-Lapu on the tiny square coin? Name the three people in the P1,000 bill, and even if you get the names right you most probably doesn't know why they are there. And even if you do, so what? This is about kibbles and roaches (and Big Boy); Quijano de Manila's "Small Beers"; Hawking's Big Bang, which requires you to understand microscopic units so that you may understand the existence of huge nebulae billions of light-years high, and as far; and e.e. cummings' poem about someone with small hands, which nobody, not even the rain, can have. I just hope Cummings meant that that someone was a woman. I dropped all of Shakespeare's sonnets after I read somewhere that they were all written with another man in his mind. Somehow my small mind cannot accommodate the huge talent behind those universal verses anymore. Henceforth I confine myself to x-rated kibbles.

Big Boy, the cockroach-chaser