Up in the air

September 08, 2014

Im very curious to see how Jojo Binay will fare in the third-quarter surveys. This is by far his
most serious challenge, the charge of overpricing the Makati City Hall parking building, which has
drawn former lieutenants anxious to testify against him. Up until the case got to the Senate, he was
leading all presidential rivals by a mile. Though his numbers have dipped over the past year, he
remains the prohibitive favorite. Will he continue to be so after this?

Well, the case is a double-edged sword. On one hand, if his detractors are able to build a fairly
solid, never mind ironclad, case against him, his numbers could tumble. Huge leads are never
insurmountable, as P-Noy himself saw when his own seemingly impregnable one almost
disappeared in early 2010, as Manny Villar battled him to near-parity. Fortunately, in P-Noys case,
the setback wasnt beyond reversing. In this case, if it sets in, and the issue is one of pangungupit
big time in the building of a building, reversing it wont be so easy.

On the other hand, as a friend of mine worries no end, if Binay weathers this, he will have an open
road to Malacaang. What doesnt kill you, as Nietzsche said, will make you stronger. Sometimes,
it will make you president.

Which is the reason I worry about the way the senators, chief of them Antonio Trillanes and Alan
Peter Cayetano, have been handling Binays prosecution. Oh yes, prosecution, which cant be lost
on the public. Body language often tends to be more eloquent than the verbal one. I had hoped the
Senate would carry out the hearing more competently to give it the patina of objectivity and make
the damnation more authoritative, but that has not happened.

Trillanes in particular leaves much to be desired in the way he has comported himself. While
denying that he threatened Hilmarcs president, he admitted that he told him that if he was
participating in a cover-up in the expectation that Binay would become the next president, he was
making a big mistake as this would merit all sorts of sanctions.

The justification is worse than the original sin. This isnt just a threat, this is a presumption of guilt.
Its not unlike telling him, If I should find out that you are a murderer and a rapist, I will expose
you to the world. That is a hypothetical statement, which is absolutely uncalled for. First, have
some proof of what youre saying, then say it.

In fact, Trillanes is not harming Binay by these antics, he is harming himself. He is reminding the
world of how impetuous he can be, such as when he led the Oakwood Mutiny, figuring the world
would naturally fly to his side by the righteousness of his cause. People who are armed with
certainty are not admirable, they are scary. It is not Binays quest for the presidency he stands to
derail by these things, it is his own (or is it the vice-presidency?).

The result has been that two weeks or so after the Senate launched its hearings on the Makati City
Hall parking building, we are no nearer to pinning down Binay with any definiteness than when we
first began. Whether the building is overpriced or not remains a matter of conjecture, the
conclusion drawn from the building not being green or world-class. Yes, but was it overpriced, and
by how much?

More to the point, the question is, who profited from all this? The witnesses say Binay ordered the
biddings rigged (Mario Hechanova) and that if they took their share from it, Binay must have taken
a bigger one (Ernesto Mercado). Binays camp retorts that this is just the word of liars and thieves,
who not quite incidentally have incriminated themselves, admitting they were party to the crime.
Binay himself says his lieutenants were pretty much running the show during his last years as
mayor, being personally harassed by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who sent Ronnie Puno at one point
to forcibly pry him loose from office.

That is how the case stands today. Without direct, irrefutable, proof about the overpricing and the
direct beneficiaries of it, everything is up in the air.

Still and all, you never know how all this could impact on Binays fate at the polls. I leave his
camp to protest the apparent unfairness of ittheyve already made noises about the hearing being
a kangaroo court, and true enough theres something bothersome about the exercise of charging
first and proving later. But if it should give the country pause to rethink the merits of the one
person it is giving the green light to Malacaang to, then I wont look a gift horse in the mouth.
More to the point, if it can make him less a prohibitive favorite, or make him look vulnerable, Ill
count my blessings where I can find them.

The fact that I find the conduct of the Senate hearing on the Makati City Hall parking building less
than salutary doesnt mean Id like Binay to be president. Any more than Id like Mar Roxas to be
so, although he is probably now irrelevant to the equation, he is impervious to traction. Binays
loss, if it comes, is not likely to be his gain.

More likely, it will be the gain of those who have been tyrannized for so long by the lack of choice
between Binay and Roxas. Specifically, between a middle class, including the quite outspoken
social media denizens, or netizens, who worry about the air of corruption swirling around Binay
and despair of his seemingly inexorable march to the presidency, and the masa who find Roxas as
alien to them as a being from another planet. Binays conceivable fall could be the thing to push
the emergence of a third party, an alternative, an answer to desperate prayers. Its not just that
stranger things have happened, its that they happen all the time. In this country more than any
other.

Im very curious to see how Binay will fare in the next surveys.

Reality check

September 04, 2014

The good news is that we showed heroic effort. Puso, or heart, has been Gilas battle cry at the Fiba
International World Cup, a battle cry echoed by their countrymen, and that was just what Gilas
showed, a lot of puso, a lot of heart.

Of course, as of this writing, weve lost for the third time in as many games. But its the quality of
the losses that puts the effort on a heroic plane. Two of these were hard-fought games, with Gilas
almost snatching a victory in both. Only our match against Greece proved a little lopsided, but not
until toward the end. The ones against Croatia and Argentina were not, the first going into overtime
and the second a golden opportunity that slipped away. If you watched the game last Monday
night, as I did, you would have shouted yourself hoarse too.

Jimmy Alapag was particularly magnificent, almost singlehandedly keeping Gilas within arms
length of Argentina after it threatened to pull away in the last quarter. He dropped four of his five
three-point bombs in that stretch, some of them well past downtown. Thats shooting more
commonly associated with Stephen Curry and Klay Thomson. He was supposed to take the last
shot, which would have tied the score or given the Philippines the lead. Alas, Argentina built a
Great Wall around him, forcing Jayson Castro to make the attempt instead, and fumble.

But none of this was supposed to happen. Happily, the Gilas players did not get the memo, the one
that said they were just saling pusa, they were supposed to lose by a mile. Croatia is a basketball
powerhouse, having sent a dozen or so players to the NBA over the years. And Argentina ranks
third in the world, after the US and Spain. Yet the Philippines battled them to near-victory. These
were heroic defeats, these were victories in defeat. That took a lot of courage, that took a lot of
heart.

Thats the good news.

The bad is not that we lost three in a row. The bad comes from the fact that much of our
respectable showing owes to Andray Blatche, an NBA player who last played with the Nets. His
sudden conversion into a Filipinothe Senate was all for it and gave it its blessingswas near-
miraculous. It was more miraculous than Ronnie Nathanielszs becoming Filipino by presidential,
or dictatorial, fiat during martial law. Nathanielsz at least invested a great deal of time, and heart, in
the Philippines and would prove true to his national preference by remaining a Pinoy body and
soul to this day. I dont know if Blatches desire to be Filipino will last a minute longer than the
games in Spain.

The tradeoffcitizenship in exchange for a crack at the Games, or at least not being unduly
embarrassed thereraises all sorts of questions about how we value citizenship. If we ourselves do
not take it seriously, how can we expect others to? Hell, how can we expect our own citizens to?

Quite apart from that, Blatche of course proved to be the critical, if not decisive, difference in the
Philippine cause. He was a huge presence in the paint, literally, his height and heft preventing the
taller opposition, like Luis Scola, from running the local crew ragged. Of course in the heat of
battle, you forgot that he was an ersatz Pinoy. But you wondered what the sentiments would be,
here and abroad, once the smoke cleared.
The far more sobering thought is the future of Philippine sports. Our teams sterling showing in
Barcelona is not going to expose our limits in basketball, it is going to highlight our possibilities in
it. It is going to spark some sort of resurgence, reinforcing our belief that our national pride, sports-
wise, lies in it and is extended by it.

The problem with that you see in Blatche carrying our team. There is one irrefutable truth in
basketball, and that is that height is might. Of course speedier small players can always beat
lumbering tall ones. Which not quite incidentally makes for great drama, and we are nothing if not
fans of great drama, particularly of the kind that has us battling near-impossible odds. But speedy
small players can never beat speedy tall players. All other things being equal, height rules.

And things have been equalizing over the years. As basketball goes global, so the skills of
basketball players in other countries go global. You need no further proof of it than that other
countries, including China, have produced NBA players. The equation is simple: Other countries
can improve their basketball skills, we cannot improve our heightshort of genetic engineering.

Thats what has given me two minds, or hearts, about watching our exploits in Spain these last few
days. On one hand, like every other Pinoy here or abroad, Ive been cheering Gilas lustfully and
feeling the pangs of their painful losses. On the other, Ive been wondering what the future holds in
store for us in sports.

Unfortunately, which brings the question past sports to national character, basketball is the national
passion. It is to Filipinos roughly what football is to Brazilians. You see that in impromptu
basketball courts standing in the middle of streets in Sampaloc and other densely populated, and
impoverished, areas. You see that in the ferocity with which colleges contest the NCAA and the
UAAP, if not the PBA which has waned in popularity over the years. You see that in the millions
upon millions poured into the sport by companies and taipans, not least in La Salle and Ateneo.

The gritty showing by the Philippine squad, such as you can say Philippine without reservation,
will reignite the conviction that heart, and not height, wins basketball games. Arguably, it makes
for high drama, battling impossible odds. But it would really be nice to win now and then.

It would really be nice to have a future to look forward to.

The other three-fourths

September 03, 2014

Last week, Grace Poe took the MRT from North Avenue to Taft. This wasnt the first time she had
taken a city train, she used to take the LRT to UP Manila in her college years.

She took the MRT at 8:20 a.m., the pit of rush hour, so that she could have an idea of the actual
conditions there preparatory to a Senate committee hearing on the MRT last Monday. She heads
that committee and the MRT had just suffered a major mishap a couple of weeks ago, one of its
trains tearing out of the rails and injuring 38 people.

Her train experience wasnt unpleasant, Poe reported. Apart from having to queue up for 40
minutes and the elevators not working, the latter presenting a trial to the elderly and the disabled,
she had little complaint. Of course, she said, it might also have been because the MRT people
prevented the usual rush-hour crowd from storming into her coachshe took a women-only one
when they learned she was there. When she herself learned about this, she said, she remonstrated
mildly with the officials, saying, I called their attention to it nicely and explained that I needed to
experience the plight of our passengers.

Well, I myself, who take the MRT to Makati on the occasions that I cannot avoid itI lose a good
part of the day to drive and look for parking space therecan swear that for the other coaches at
least, the experience is far less pleasant. Ive taken the MRT at rush hour and have had images
from Dantes Inferno flash through my mind, having to wade through a tangle of arms and legs and
bodies in the throes of anguishon really bad days your chest would press into the back of the
next person each time you take a deep breath, giving you whole new insights into the expression
packed in like sardines. Still I prefer enduring this ordeal for 20 minutes to traffic one-way for
two hours.

I leave the results of the Senate hearing on the MRT for some other day. My own interest here at
this point lies in this: Im glad a senator has taken the MRT, however it was to do an assignment.
Ive been proposing this for a long time, and commended a group some months ago for
recommending the same thing. Specifically compelling government officials to take public
transport at least once a week. Its not as facetious as it sounds however initiating it, and certainly
enforcing it, will be the hardest thing in the world. It should improve governance by leaps and
bounds.

Quite apart from giving public officials a better appreciation, or at least understanding, of public
transport, which is as vital to the lives of most Filipinos as rice itself, making them take the MRT,
or indeed the jeepney or the bus, once a week should give them an appreciation, or at least a
glimpse, of the way the other half lives. That is the idiom, referring to the lower classes as seen
by the well-off, except that in our case, that is not just the other half, that is the other three-fourths.

That is most Filipinos, who are the laborers, the factory workers, the sales ladies, the mechanics
and electricians, the clerks, the jobless looking for jobs, who teem in the city, who take the train
and the jeepney and the bus. Who are prey to the pickpockets, the snatchers, the hold-uppers, the
last getting bolder and more plentiful by the day, not least near the Inquirer. The only thing they
havent held up yet is the MRT. But that may be speaking too soon. That is not to speak of the
rapists, the swindlers, the kidnappers and sundry halang ang kaluluwa waiting in the shadows.

Compelling public officials to take public transport regularly, or even now and then, should give
them an idea not just of the state of the public transport system, it should give them an idea of the
plight of the poor. Who knows? Maybe it might lessen corruption, giving public officials some
awareness of the value of what they regard as loose change, which is the fare in buses and
jeepneys and trains. And what a heinous thing it is to steal that fortune from them. Stranger things
have happened, as Malcolm Gladwell notes in The Tipping Point.

Paradoxically as it may seem, given the teeming numbers of the poor and their obdurate presence,
they are often not seen in this country. Their sheer abundance and ubiquity make them invisible.
Their very plight makes them unseen, our natural tendency being to turn away from the
bloodstained face of humanity until it disappears. Weve gotten so used to the sight of beggars,
children sleeping in streets, the tangle of arms and bodies in hovels beside creeks and under
bridges we no longer see them. Public officials most of all.

I still remember how Francis Tolentino took violent exception to one of Dan Browns characters
describing Metro Manila as the gates of hell. One of the things that apparently made it so being
its hellish traffic, quite apart from its hellish poverty. An exaggeration? Maybe. But try taking a
train or bus or jeepney at rush hour, and see if the experience alone of being thrown into the throng
in the streets, quite apart from the sidewalks or the bus stops, even before you board those things,
doesnt make you ask if its not literal. Wade through a tangle of arms and legs and bodies and hear
mouths cursing, if not the damned weeping and gnashing their teeth as they burn even on rainy
nights, and see if you do not catch glimpses of the gates of hell.

Im glad Grace Poe took the MRT last week, however it was only to prepare her for the hearing on
the MRT last Monday. It should have given her insights into more than what lies behind the citys
premiere transport system. It should have given her insights into what lies behind the billboards
that proclaim unabated growth.

The better to prepare her for bigger things.

Hilaw

September 02, 2014

It was potentially explosive.

It trotted out an explosive witness, one who knew whereof he spoke, having been party to the
crime and willing to own up to it. It had an explosive target, who was nothing less than the Vice
President, who was threatening to become the next president in two years time. And it had to do
with an explosive scandal, a theft of billions that made the one Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy
Estrada and Bong Revilla were accused of look like pickpocketing.

That was of course Ernesto Mercado appearing before the Senate to damn Jojo Binay to hell, or its
earthly equivalent in a fall in pre-electoral numbers. Mercado was Binays former vice mayor, the
one person he once promised to make mayor before he threw his blessings instead to his son,
Junjun. Mercado testified that he made money off Phases I and II of the Makati parking building.
The entire project was supposed only to cost P1.2 billion but ended up costing P2.3 billion instead.
He did not mention how much his share of the loot was. Or Binays.

Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes IV hammered on the accusation, Cayetano
comparing the Makati parking building to other structures in the area which cost so much less, and
Trillanes offering to shelter Mercado under the Witness Protection Program after he complained of
cars tailing him.

I waited for the susunod na kabanata, but next day there was none. The next few days yielded
nothing as well. What there was by way of a follow-up was the Binays giving their side,
remonstrating with Trillanes for bullying the witnesses. As to Mercado being in fear for his life,
they said he was a well-known gambler and could expect to have enemies. They, they said, were
the least of his worries.

Does this prove Binay truly has a Teflon personality and accusations just bounce off him like
bullets off Superman?

Not really. All it proves is that if youre going to accuse somebody, make sure you have the facts to
back it up. The one Mercadoand his backersmade at the Senate did not. It was more hilaw
than a manggang hilaw.

Take it from the US Prosecutors Office: If you dont have a case that can stand up in court, dont
even think to prosecute. It wont help you, it will only help the prosecuted. That is because you
make it harder to do it the next time. You keep doing it and prosecution will become persecution.
Or seen as so.

In lieu of facts, all Mercadoand his backersunleashed was speculation.

You want to show that Binay ripped off a fortune from the Makati parking building, show how
much and how he did it. It wont do to just say that if you, as vice mayor, stole from itand wont
say how much eitherthen surely the mayor must have done so as well, and more. All that does is
to indict you personally, as it has Mercado, or stands to do so. Binays retort is to be expected:
Nandamay pa. Or just because he is a crook, he expects others to be so too.

In fact, Mercado does not know for certain, he can only speculate on the strength of the logic,
ganyan ang kalakaran dun, (that is the normal way of doing things there). Maybe. But one can
always answer that with, ganyan ang tinatanggap na argumento sa inuman, hindi sa korte, or sa
Senado (that argument is admissible in a drinking session, not in court or in the Senate). That is
the kalakaran, or normal way of doing things, in Customs too. It doesnt follow that Sunny Sevilla
is corrupt big time. At least not until proven so.

You want to show the Makati parking building is overpriced, get a group of qualified builders and
engineers to say so, preferably indicating by how much. Cayetano and Trillanes spent a great deal
of time saying so by comparing it to other buildings. Koko Pimentel himself says an ocular
inspection might help. Theres only one problem there: They are not builders, they are not
engineers. They are not qualified to make the determination. They merely open themselves to the
charge, as some builders and engineers have charged, that they are comparing apples and oranges.

And you want to show that the Makati parking building is full of bukol, get the Commission on
Audit (COA) to say so. The COA of course has said the construction has raised red flags, which
is why it is conducting its own investigation of it. But it is one thing to say that and quite another to
say it is overpriced, it has corruption written all over it, and the handwriting is Binays.

Do I myself think the charge is believable? Oh, yes, I do. But that is neither here nor there. The
point is to prove it, or give a reasonable show of solidity to it. That is the only way to bring Binays
numbers down. That is the only way to stop him from being the next president of the Philippines.

What happened at the Senate last week doesnt weaken him, it strengthens him. By giving free rein
to speculation, it removes the accusation from the plane of the factual, objective, ironclad, and
places it in the realm of innuendo, insinuation, speculation. Indeed, by giving free rein to
speculation, it lays out a welcome mat to other speculations, chiefly the political ambitions of those
anxious to pin him down. Who are Cayetano and Trillanes, both of whom have expressed a desire
to seek higher office, and who give the impression they cant wait to sully him theyd go about it
half-cocked. In fact, they do not put obstacles in his path to Malacaang, they clear it, giving
credence to his oft-cited argument that the accusations against him are merely politically
motivated.

Im all for raising all sorts of corruption issues against Binay, but it cant be a case of, If at first
you fail, try and try again. If at first you fail, it will be harder the second time.

You want to show rotten, dont bring in a fruit thats hilaw.

Just say no

September 01, 2014

Should P-Noy run again?

No.

Im glad President Aquino made that clear before the weekend last week, saying: I am not a
masochist. One year and 10 months from now, the day after I step down from office, (I and some
of my staff) will eat something really delicious. There will be a banner behind us that reads,
Freedom.

That was his original attitude and sentiment, the presidency was a burden quite apart from an
imperative, and there was a life after it. Why he himself had to put it in doubt a month or so ago by
hinting at an openness to run if his bosses wanted it, youll never know. It could only suggest
either that his friends and/or party had gotten so desperate, having no viable successor in sight,
they had been at him to succeed himself, or he had gotten to like power over time and was tempted
to extend it. Neither of which made for a very good message. Neither of which spoke well for the
legacy he wanted to bequeath. Both of which pointed to a fumble at the last two minutes.

The notion that a second P-Noy term is needed to conserve the gains of the administration
explicitly peddled by Mar Roxas, who appears to have come to terms with the fact that his
presidential bid is a lost causeis an even lost-er cause. P-Noy running again is not a guarantee
that he will be able to conserve the gains he has indisputably madeironically not in morality but
in the economy. It is a guarantee he wont.

At the very least, that is so because he will be seen to go against the legacy of his mother and fall
into the legacy of Gloria who vowed not to run in 2004 but did. At the very most, for the same
reason, he might not even win if he did run again. Some of his mothers former secretaries have
been heard to say that if he did so, they would campaign against him.

P-Noy has set the question of a second coming, or running, aright. Which leaves only the other
question: Should he amend/change the Charter?

No.

The time to amend/change the Charter will be after May 2016, not before. The Charter has held
well enough for the last four years and it will hold well enough for the next one year and 10
months. No one will see the move to change the Charter right now as an economic measure,
everyone will see it as a political one. It will be divisive in the extreme.

P-Noys own stated reason for wanting to change it is political, and divisive. He wants to change
the Charter, he says, to correct judicial overreach. The flaw in that reasoning is that outside of the
circle of ardent administration loyalists, few among the public see the judicial overreach. What
they see is executive overreach, aided in no small way by P-Noy himself hinting at the possibility
of running again before he quashed it entirely.

While at that, there is no small irony here, which will impact hugely on the public perception of P-
Noys looming confrontation with the Supreme Court. That is the fact that Maria Lourdes Sereno is
P-Noys own choice to head that Court.

Lest we forget, Sereno became chief justice because P-Noy chose to bypass Antonio Carpio, the
most senior among the justices and by tradition next in line to the position, last held by the
disgraced Renato Corona. Sereno was one of the youngest justices in the Court and became the
second youngest and first woman to become chief justice in 2012. Her appointment was criticized
by the legal community on the grounds that lacking seniority, she would not be able to command
the loyalty or respect of the other justices. And on the grounds that she would be the longest-
serving chief justice of the country, retiring only after 18 years in 2030.

P-Noy snubbed Justice Antonio Carpio, the perception went, because Carpio was at odds with him
and could only be expected to pose legal obstacles in his path if he became chief justice. Had
Carpio become so, intrusive, interventionist and obstructionist might indeed have been
words to describe his watch. He did not. Sereno did, courtesy of P-Noy himself.

Which brings up the sublime irony that it is Sereno now who is taking up the cudgels for the
Supreme Court and insisting that it remain independent. Judicial overreach is not exactly what
the public will read in her, especially when she appeals: I hope people will appreciate that when a
decision is made, it is for the long term. It will survive presidency after presidency after
presidency. What the public will read instead is a chief justice who is following in the footsteps of
Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno, who were made so by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo but went
on to strike down emergency rule, executive privilege and Charter change itself.

Changing the Charter expressly to check judicial overreach will make it even more unpopular
than it already is by the fact of its timing. As it is, the timing sucks, raising as it does all sorts of
speculations about its real motives. You move to change the Charter the day after Election Day
2016, even with a view to turning the country parliamentary, and the world will at least keep an
open mind about it, debating its merits and demerits. You change the Charter now, particularly if it
entails turning the country parliamentary, and the world will suspect that Mar Roxas is plotting to
become prime minister.

If the point is to conserve the gains of the last four years, then the solution is to back up a
presidential bet that is reasonably honest and acceptable to the public, quite apart from the global
community. One who can unite the country while enjoying the trust of foreign investors at the
same time. Why should that bet naturally be a presidential chum or party-mate? That can only
assure frittering away the gains, not conserving them.

A second term for P-Noy and/or Charter change?

Still crazy after all these years

August 28, 2014

Juana Changes detractors, who are as legion as her admirers, will not like this, but its well past
due that I spoke up for her.

Ive known Juana Change, alias Mae Paner, since the 1990s, though not as closely as I would have
wanted to, and have been an admirer of her from when she was doing all those plays for Philippine
Educational Theater Association, along with the equally hugely talented Rody Vera. Paner of
course has been in the eye of the storm the last few years for her criticism of, or indeed satirical
barbs against, P-Noy. Particularly given that she was one of the vigorous campaigners for him in
2010. Whence the detraction comes.

Of course shes right to say that if you can dish it out, you should be able to take it as wella
principle I hold on too, being engaged in public discourse and having my own share of detractors.
Its part of the territory. Paner herself is more than capable of taking care of herself, past master as
she is of thrust-and-parry, but I figure some of the detraction thrown her way needs correcting.

One, is she kulang sa pansin?

Thats the first thing her detractors say about her: She likes to grandstand, draw attention to herself,
make a spectacle of herself. Why in Gods name not? She is a theater person, her job is to
grandstand, draw attention to things, make a spectacle of herself. More than that, she is a comic,
her job is to do all those things in an outsized, outrageous, outlandish way. In that respect, she is no
more kulang sa pansin than are Nanette Inventor, Mitch Valdez and Jon Santos.

Maybe she should just stick to the stage and not join marches? Well, it is not her fault that reporters
pick her out for comments when she does. And while at that, Paner has been joining or leading
rallies far longer than many of her detractors have been in office. And she will be joining and
leading rallies far longer than many of her detractors will have been out of office. She was there as
far back as Marcos time, arrested while rallying in 1984 along with Lino Brocka and Behn
Cervantes. Certainly, she was there as far back as Eraps and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyos time
when many of her detractors were enjoying the comfort, patronage and protection provided by
them.

Paner has every right to revel in the title performance activist; her stage has always been a larger
one than Petas. Her theater is the theater of the streets; her theater is the theater of life.

Two, are her criticisms venomous? Do they derive from motives other than principle, or deep-
seated beliefs and convictions?

No. She has every right to bristle at the suggestion that she is in the oppositions payroll. Of course
we all have egos, and Paners barbs, presented in the form of Juana Change, can be very biting. But
why take offense at that? The most tyrannical courts of medieval Europe and Japanthe latter you
see in the films of Akira Kurosawahired professional jesters to keep their kings grounded in
reality. Or more to the point, to mock them or cut them down by jokes, often at risk of the jesters
necks, to not let power get into their heads.

Indeed, the conquering heroes of Rome had a companion in their chariots continuously whispering
in their ears while they traversed the length of the Appian Way, Remember, all glory is fleeting.
An unenviable job with its guarantee of pissing off conquering heroes and inviting their everlasting
enmity.

You need these people. The most benign heads of state need these people, if only to remind them
that they are not infallible, they could be wrong. Particularly the most benign heads of a country
like ours, and particularly when they have a retinue of sycophants clinging to their robes.

Quite apart from the usefulness of comedy and comics, quite apart from the wisdom of jesters and
jests, there is the not very small matter of the democratic process. Its the nature of the beast. The
heart of democracy is dissent, disagreement, differences, and the art of democracy is resolving
them not by the force of arms but by the force of reason. I do not agree with you, but I will defend
your right to say it is the classic way democracy puts it.

Paner is not advocating violence, she is not advocating a coup, she is not advocating
destabilization. She is of course part of the group calling for P-Noys impeachment. But that is part
of her democratic right too. Why treat her as the enemy?

And, finally, is Paner wildly inconsistent or flighty, swinging from one extreme to the other?

Not at all. In fact, she is one of the most consistent persons I know. Her position now, as then, she
put very clearly in December 2009 when she complained about how the P-Noy campaign had been
hijacked from the volunteers, who had begun it, by the politicians, late of the Mar-for-president
campaign, who were now lording over it.

Butch Abad was the convenor and Dinky Soliman the emcee, and they said this being a regular
political campaign, the politicians should call the shots. They had a lengthy debate on the point,
which showed not just a difference in viewpoint but a difference in worldview. Paner saw the
campaign as an untraditional one, which would produce untraditional results, specifically one that
would make people power in the form of the volunteers a continuing reality. Indeed a new voice
in the new government.

Alas, it never happened. The politicians did take over, specifically in the form of Butch Abad, Mar
Roxas and Dinky Soliman, and their friends and (in the case of Abad) daughter. And Paner
remained out there in the cold, still protesting traditional politics pushing aside alternative
politics, still bidding government hear the shouts in the streets, stillas Paul Simon puts it
crazy after all these years.

How is she inconsistent?

Day of the pig

August 27, 2014

On the face of it, the antipork marchers had a couple of advantages.

One was that they explained their beef, so to speak, better. Or far more intelligibly. Pork barrel is
a lump-sum public fund with sole discretion given to the President, legislator or group of
legislators, or any public officer on how it will be spent. The exercise of discretion by public
officers relates to the allocation, release or use of these public funds, the identification or selection
of projects, implementers or beneficiaries, or any or a combination of or all of these.

Compare that to Butch Abads statement: The Supreme Court defines pork barrel as lump sums in
the budget that require post-enactment intervention of legislators during budget execution, except
in the exercise of their oversight function. Do they accept that definition? If not, how do they
define pork barrel?

Governments disconnect is patent, which gives you an idea of why it has been losing the
communication war on DAP/pork these past months. Unless youre an accountant or a lawyer, you
wont understand what the hell the Budget Secretary is talking about. The antipork marchers have
figures as well to support their claim that pork, as they define it, continues to this day. Under the
Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process, another concoction of Abads, they say, the
Department of Interior and Local Government has gotten a lump sum of P1.37 billion, the
Department of Agriculture P1.7 billion, and the Local Government Support Fund P2.78 billion.

You start resorting to legalese or technicalese, and you will be perceived as trying to hide
something. That was what Renato Corona resorted to when he was being tried for corruption
among other things, and he was a juridical entity. And that was what doomed him. Serafin Cuevas
Objection, your heuneur, made for an interesting meme, but not much else.

Two is that the antipork marchers seem to have made a proprietary claim on National Heroes Day
as their day for seeking redress for grievances. Not a bad symbolism, particularly with its usual
message of Everyone can be a hero, or Every Filipino is a hero. Its an invitation for people to
go out of themselves, to be larger than themselves.

Last Mondays rally, however, also suffered from a couple of disadvantages.

One was that it wasnt quite the march it was last year. The power of last years march was that it
was spontaneous, amorphous, anonymous. It arose from the bowels of the earth, or quite literally
from several (young) people in the social media expressing their disgust over pork while poverty
raged across the land and calling on the populace to do something about it. Someone suggested a
Million People March at the Luneta and the populace responded.

The authorities would later estimate the crowd to be only 75,000 to 100,000, a far cry from the
million optimistically projected for it. But I dont know that you can pin it to that number; the
crowd, perfectly in keeping with the spontaneous, amorphous, anonymous nature of the exercise,
kept flowing in and out of the square throughout the day. It wasnt confined to it for any long
period at a given time. But whether 100,000 or a million, it was representative of a cross-section of
the population, from poor to middle-class to even rich.

Last Mondays rally had nothing of that. It wasnt spontaneous, amorphous, anonymous; it was
organized, definite and strident. Where last years rally drew in a united front, this one had a
largely leftist composition. Driven home by the bulk of the marchers marching down Mendiola
afterward, a ritual that has lost a great deal of its power over the years. With not unexpected results:
Where last years rally was rich in quantity and quality, drawing in a multitude of people or
varying persuasions, this one drew in a sparse and pretty much like-minded crowd.

Two was that last years rally focused on an issue, this one focused on a personality. And the
sublimely ironic thing is that for the first time in our political life, issue trumped personality.
Last years rally was all about pork, its informal organizers kept saying it wasnt about
destabilizing government, certainly it wasnt about ousting P-Noy. You needed no further proof of
it than that Corona made an appearance there and got booed for his pains. The marchers message
was simple: Dont use this for your political agenda.

This years was completely different. Its chief point was ousting P-Noy, specifically by way of
impeaching him. Thats what made it largely forgettable. The news on TV last Monday uniformly
had it as fourth or fifth story of the day. It was nowhere close to headline stuff, despite the
advertisement that had been leading up to it.

Frankly, I dont know why governments enemies persist with that tack. P-Noys vulnerability is
not himself, however his numbers have been falling over the past year. His vulnerability is the
people around him, notably Abad, Mar Roxas, and the top officials of the Liberal Party, or the
growing perception that he is boxed in by them, that he is resting the fate of the nation on them.
Thats whats bringing his numbers down. Thats whats causing members of his official and
personal families to abandon his unofficial anointed and go for Jojo Binay. Their mantra is: I
trust P-Noy absolutely, I distrust the people around him absolutely.

The efforts to demonize P-Noyone placard in the rally last Monday put him side by side with
Marcoswont demonize P-Noy, it will demonize the people doing it. Certainly, it will alienate
them from the same people who attended last years rally. It wont get them heard, which is a pity
as their point about hidden pork in next years budget is an interesting one, is a hear-able one.

That was the day that was, the day of the pig.

Nota

August 26, 2014

The remarkable thing is not that Jojo Binay is getting no end of mud thrown his way. The
remarkable thing is that none of it seems to be catching.

Or at least that none of it seems to be bringing him down. He has been accused of various cases of
corruption, the latest of which is the overpricing of the Makati Parking Buildingby P2 billion,
his detractors estimate. He has been accused of fomenting dynastic politics, having a son as mayor,
a daughter as representative, and another daughter as senator, quite apart from being the vice
president. His son has been accused of abusing his office, demanding to be let out in Dasmarias
Village in a no-exit gate. Yet he hasnt just remained standing, he has been thriving.

Last I looked, he was leading Mar Roxasor indeed the other presidentiables since Roxas isnt
even number 2by a mile. Last I looked, a beeline was forming toward his camp, including
officials from P-Noys own official family. Last I looked, members of P-Noys own personal
family were openly expressing their support for him. In fact, last I looked, P-Noy himself in
extemporaneous remarks at the end of his 2014 State of the Nation Address singled him out as
going back a long way with him, being there with the family in their fight against Marcos and the
subsequent coup plotters.

The last ones pose all sorts of conundrums. Either they themselves do not see, or buy, the
corruption charges, or they figure some things supersede the issue of corruption. Whatever it is, it
has allowed Binay to shrug off the charges. Nothing is sticking, nothing has stuck. The charges of
corruption havent, the matter of dynastic politics hasnt, the issue of Junjun Binays apparent
misconduct in Dasmarias hasnt. The last pushed to oblivion by Roxas more patent and high-
profile misconduct at Wack-Wack not long afterward.

Will this last one finally do the trick? Will the next onesthis wont be the last, more should be
forthcoming as 2016 draws neardo so?

Well, stranger things have happened. But I myself seriously doubt it for one basic reason. Which is
that the only alternative to him the public sees right now is Roxas. When people ask, as they do
ask, If not Binay, then who? the answer is Roxas. Their fates are intertwined. Theirs is a zero-
sum game: The gain of one is the loss of the other. And vice versa.

Ive always thought that Binays spectacular numberscomparable to P-Noys when P-Noy left
his rivals biting his dust at the gatesowe to that. They dont owe to his intrinsic popularity, or
indeed charisma, they owe to his main, or sole, competitors intrinsic unpopularity, or indeed lack
of charm. Lest we forget, when

Binay first ran for a national position, which was as vice president in 2010, he was so far behind
Roxas, the latter crowed that his opponents were just snarling for second place. Roxas himself was
enjoying the numbers Binay is enjoying now, courtesy of having hitched his fortunes to President
Aquino. Their fortunes did not owe to their internal virtues, they owed to external factors.

Today, when people ask me how Binay has zoomed past the competition, I have only one answer:
Roxas.

The same is true for the various accusations that have been hurled against Binay. The reason they
are not catching is not that he has a Teflon personality, everything just slips away. Though it helps
that more than Erap, he enjoys a Robin Hood reputation. Eraps stealing from the rich to give to the
poor was largely PR, Binay has his propoor projectsthe University of Makati, low-cost housing,
all sorts of public welfare servicesto hide any such allegation against him. But in the end, what
effectively hides it is the publics willingness not to see it, which again owes to the question, If not
Binay, then who?

Today, when people ask me why nothing seems to stick to Binay, I have only one answer: Roxas.

Take out Roxas there, and the equation changes completely.

So long as 2016 is locked in the framework of Binay vs. Roxas, so long will the vicious cycle
remain. So long will Binay continue to gain traction and Roxas to suffer from inertia. So long will
the gap between them continue to widen. So long will all accusations of corruption against Binay
sound like voices in the wilderness. So long will they be not seen, or heard.

Now in fact is the perfect time for alternatives to arise. Now is the perfect time for us to look for
one. Or else the vicious cycle will remain vicious not just for the Liberal Party but for the nation as
a whole. Now is the perfect time to raise the banners of Nota, or none of the above, and lift
ourselves from the pit, or trap, we have allowed ourselves to fall into.

The situation, as I keep reminding people, was a lot worse before August 2009. It was just a choice
between nondescript, if not mediocre, potential candidates, and we werent even sure Gloria
wouldnt find a way to stick around. We cant wait around for Providence to lend a hand once
again and solve our problem for us in the form of another P-Noy. We have to do it ourselves. We
have to take our fate into our own hands.

If you want something badly enough, if you want something longingly, ardently, desperately
enough, says The Alchemist, you can conjure it into being. If you build it, says Field of
Dreams, they will come. These are not just platitudes, they contain a huge grain of truth in them. I
know you need money too to win an election. I know you need power too to win an election. I
know you need logistics and parties and forces too to win an election. But as P-Noy who emerged
from out of the shadows in 2010 shows, you need need too to win an election. A people need to
need you, a people need to conjure you into being.

It all begins with a recognition of that need. It all begins with the need to get out of the rut.

It all begins with the need to say, None of the above.

Wag the tail, not the dog

August 25, 2014

Franklin Drilon says the Liberal Party (LP) will meet to discuss the issue of Charter change. While
at it, theyre going to discuss as well the issue of P-Noy running or not running again. The meeting
was proposed by Butch Abad, he said, and he has endorsed it.

It should be good to take up the second issue, Drilon says, so we can settle it once and for all. So
we can hear it straight from the horses mouth. He himself, Drilon says, believes P-Noy is averse
to a second term. Lets put that thing to rest.

I did think when I heard Abigail Valte announce that P-Noy had no plans to amend the Charter
during his time to allow for a second term, the day after he suggested he might, that that wasnt
going to be the end of it.

At the very least, that is because Valte, like her boss, Edwin Lacierda, has a habit of going beyond
reporting the Presidents utteranceswhich is what a spokesperson is supposed to do, no more and
no lessto interpreting them. Thats not how its done in other countries, which is why their press
conferences tend to be short and authoritative. Their spokespersons do not say we in lieu of the
President, and certainly they do not preface their statements with I think. They are not supposed
to think, they are supposed to report, preferably with exact quotes. The only job requirement is the
ability to be accurate, or faithful to the original.

Our situation makes constant clarification necessary. We do need to hear it straight from the horses
mouth.

At the very most, what happened before, which was the Presidents change of mindWhen I
took this office, I recall that it was only for one term of six years I have to listen to my bosses
could happen again. The seeds of that thought had at least been planted in the publics mind.

Despite the clarification, the speculation hasnt ended, and has in fact taken a life of its own. I dont
know that Drilons announcement that the LP will meet to discuss Charter change and settle P-
Noys political fate once and for all will settle things once and for all. The fact that its Abad who
proposed the meeting with that agenda in mind can only reinforce widespread suspicion that P-
Noys rethinking of his original position (which was that running again was unthinkable) was the
thinking of his closest friends, or so they call themselves. P-Noy has nothing to gain from a second
term; his friends, or so they call themselves, do.

So long as theyre there, so long will the public suspect that the pressure for P-Noy to reconsider is
there. Especially if he is constantly sold the idea that once hes out of power theyre all vulnerable
to legal action owing to the Disbursement Acceleration Program.

Clearly of course, both changing the Charter and P-Noy running again are unpopular moves. P-
Noy has been indifferent, if not opposed, to Charter change all this time, despite the fact that the
call for it has come from a close friend and ally, Sonny Belmonte. Whose reasons for it have been
definite from the start: He wants to change the Charter for purely economic reasons, specifically to
loosen the current constitutional limits on foreign investments and ownership of property. P-Noy
throws his support behind Charter change now and no one will believe he or the LP or both will
limit the extent of those changes only to the ones the Speaker has in mind. It will be political in the
extreme. It will be divisive in the extreme.

Apart from the possibility of allowing P-Noy to run again, it could open up the possibility of
changing the form of government from presidential to parliamentary. P-Noy need not run again; a
parliamentary government stands to be controlled by the party in power, which can vote to power
its prime minister. Guess who that will be. Although given the way Mar Roxas keeps alienating
people, it might not even be him.

As to P-Noy running again, we know how the public reacted to it the first time he hinted at it. The
backlash was so swift and severe Malacaang had to distance itself from it just as swiftly and
severely. Allies themselves protested the idea, pointing out the harm it could do to P-Noys own
credibility, quite apart from the harm it could do to the gains of the last four years.
There is really no need to meet about these things at all, it would just be doing what Robin
Williams did last week. The fact that the LP wants to do so at all can only testify to the extent of
their desperation, or indeed despair. Less than two years to go, and they have no candidate with the
slightest crack at winning. Meanwhile, the opposition keeps making giant strides by the day. The
latest to join the Binay camp, coming on the heels of P-Noys sistersat least as reported, only
Kris Aquino has made her sentiments unequivocally known in that respectare P-Noys uncles,
Butch Aquino, Paul Aquino and Peping Cojuangco.

I know ruling parties in this country since Edsa have had a talent for losing and going by the
wayside afterward. But I do not recall any of those being in such dire straits as this one currently is
all the more so in light of its

(unofficial) head being one of the most popular presidents this country has seen. One where allies
themselves are abandoning that party in power, one where partymates themselves are abandoning
that party in power, one where the Presidents relatives themselves are abandoning that party in
power. I havent seen any party in power thats so powerless about its future while still in power.

The LP wants to meet, it should really have only one reason to do so. That is not how to change the
Charter, that is not how to make P-Noy run. Those things are just making the tail wag the dog.
Theres a simple way to go about things: That is to make the dog wag the tail.

That is, to find an alternative bet.

Walk far, wear tsinelas

August 21, 2014

Has it been two years already? My, but time really flies.

I saw the tributes to Jesse Robredo in Naga City, which are keeping his memory, and spirit, alive.
Robredo died two years ago last Monday, but the place of which he was mayor for more than a
decade before he embarked on a career as secretary of the Department of Interior and Local
Government (DILG) continues to feel his presence, as though he were just around the corner and
you could see him sweeping the streets in his rolled-up jeans and famous slippers.

Tsinelas politics was what he birthed, and tsinelas politics is what Nagueos strive to practice
to this day.

The concept is really more intuited than grasped in all its solidity. Its inspired by the image of
Robredo scouring the streets of Naga City without bodyguards, talking to people and listening to
their concerns. Or in one dramatic instance, being up and about one gray dawn after a violent
storm, shoveling mud from the doorstep of a church all by his lonesome. Of course, his trousers
were rolled up and he was wearing slippers.
But what exactly is tsinelas politics if we have to define it in a way that operationalizes it? I
figure it consists of these things:

One, it has a leader that is one with his followers.

There are some gestures that become defining moments or events in a leaders life. P-Noys going
to his inaugural without benefit of wang-wang is one of them. When he spoke later on about
sharing the plight of every Filipino who had been victimized, oppressed, swept aside, by the wang-
wang, you got the impression of a leader who was one of you, who felt your pain, who hoped your
hopes. Wang-wang-less politics had a tremendous impact on public discourse after that.

The same is true of tsinelas politics, which will probably have a longer shelf life, or, to pursue
the metaphor, will take longer to wear out. The tsinelas is the perfect image to carry the suggestion
of a leader who is as just one of us, an elder statesman, a primus inter pares. It speaks of epic
levels of submersion or identification in the life of the constituentslike fish in water, as the
activists used to say of their immersion with the masa.

Of course, not all who wear tsinelas will be able to beam that message to the public, in the same
way that not all who padyak to death will be able to beam the message of knowing what it means
to live by the sweat of ones brow. The trick is to mean it, the trick is to live it. The public knows
fake when it sees it. Robredos use of tsinelas was not a gimmick, it was his normal office wear. It
was how he governed.

Two, tsinelas politics has a leader who listens.

Thats not the easiest thing to do, least of all in this country. But thats what Robredo did when he
was mayor of Naga City. He actively encouraged public participation in government, a thing the
Ramon Magsaysay Awards singled out by saying he proved that effective city management is
compatible with yielding power to the people.

People empowerment wasnt just an abstract concept to him, he believed in it, he pursued it, he
practiced it. It was Naga City that first drafted the Citizens Charter in 2000, which was a list of
government services and the time required to process them. The public had a right to demand that
it be met. The charter was on every table of City Hall. The national government subsequently
adopted that system in 2007, and called it the Anti-Red-Tape Act.

Just as well, he passed the Empowerment Ordinance which allowed sectoral representatives to
participate in City Halls planning process, making the Naga City Peoples Council an active
partner of government. Its one thing to report to the bosses, its quite another to listen to them.
Robredo didnt just report to them, he listened to them.

Three, tsinelas politics sees the universe in a grain of sand. Or to be less Biblical and quite literal
about it, it says that local is just as good as the national, if not better.

I havent praised the Ramon Magsaysay Awards enough for giving its 2000 Award for Good
Governance, not to a national leader, but to a local one. It was, of course, richly deserved, Robredo
having laid out the template for governance that was adopted in part not just by other local
governments but the national one as well. But it suggested, moreover, particularly to a people
locked in the belief that the only way they could affect the politics of their country was at the
national level, that another paradigm was possible. You could always affect national politics at the
local level, through the local level.

You wonder what Robredo could have done as DILG head to turn that potential into a full-blown
reality, for he died too early. But it is one of the sublime ironies in life that he did in death what he
was at pains to do in life. Naga City might not have gained the attention it does now if the loss of
him had not drawn attention to it. The tsinelas might not have revealed how precious an article it is
if his departure had not shone a light on it.

Four, tsinelas politics is a way of doing politics with spontaneity, informality, and naturalness.
Which is just another way of saying it is a way of doing politics with joy. You know what they
say, the best work is the one that you like doing, which doesnt make it feel like work at all.
Serving the Nagueons was the one thing Robredo liked best of all, the one thing he did with jeans
rolled up and wearing tsinelas.

Or maybe its just as Bruce Lee said in Enter the Dragon when asked what his fighting style was.
I call it the art of fighting without fighting. Maybe thats what tsinelas politics is, too:

It is the art of governing without governing.

Forget the inn

August 20, 2014

Our report put it this way: There may not be room at the inn when Pope Francis visits Tacloban in
January.

That at least wont apply to the Pope himself. Its not just that he will not lack for Church and
government officials opening their homes to him, lavishing him with the kind of hospitality only
Filipinos can give, the kind where people are willing to go into debt, di baleng mangutang, to be
able to do it. Its that the Pope himself is not looking for one. In fact, he is shying away from one,
repeatedly telling Church officials he wants to stay with the poor, walk with the poor, break bread
with the poor.

Completely literally: He has made it very clear that he wants to visit Tacloban for one purpose
only. That is to be with the victims of Yolanda. It is not to hobnob with Church officials, it is
certainly not to hobnob with politicians. It is not even to hobnob with the most faithful of the
faithful, which is why he is skirting Cebu, which has been at pains to get him to detour there,
despite its insistence on being the cradle of Christianity in this part of the world. Despite its
insistence on being the home of the Santo Nio, the icon of Christianity for pretty much the
country as a whole.
The lack of room at the inn applies only to everybody else, or those who want to go to Tacloban to
see the Pope. According to the City Tourism Office, the 47 hotels operating in Tacloban may not be
enough to take in the storm surge of people who will be coming to the city during the papal visit.
Even the boarding houses and private homes may not do the trick. Tacloban has been receiving
inquiries for places to stay all the way from the United States.

Im not knocking all this. To begin with, a papal visit in this resolutely Catholic country has more
impact than a visit by the American president, this Pope more than anybody else. Pope Francis is a
rock star in his own right, to put it in more secular terms, people do want to see him. Quite apart
from that, its part of our culture to turn things into a fiesta, into colorful displays of pageantry and
ritual. If we can turn even revolutions into fiestas, which was what Edsa was among other things,
we can certainly turn papal visits into fiestas. The pleas of the Vatican and local Church officials to
keep things spare, if not spartan, notwithstanding, it wont be very easy to put down spontaneous
expressions of euphoria and devotion.

What we can put down, however, are the less than spontaneous attempts by politicians and Church
officials to hijack the event for their purposes. Im glad in this respect that Archbishop John Du of
Palo has warned the rich and powerful of this country, devout or not, faithful or not, that they are
not invited to lunch with the Pope when he visits Leyte. Du has that, he says, on the word of the
Pope himself.

The honor and privilege are reserved for the victims of Yolanda. Pope Francis has particularly
expressed a desire to be seated with one man who lost his entire family in the storm. He wants to
give him whatever comfort he can, to make him see that he is not alone. Its a moving gesture, and
sets out the theme of the entire visit, which has been the theme of Pope Francis office thus far: The
exalted shall be humbled and the humble exalted.

Its a powerful gesture and message, and will have a tremendous impact on the way weve always
thought about and practiced faith. Certainly, it will be one sublimely magnificent, and droll, sight
the rich and powerful of this country consigned to the inns, unable to wangle an invitation to the
Popes repast with the wretched of the earth. That is a revolution in thought. Although if the Pope
is to be believed, thats what Christianity has always been about, we just forgot about it.

Its certainly revolutionary from where weve just come, which is our more fundamentalist bishops
and laymen threatening with hellfire and damnation, quite apart from excommunication, the
faithful who believed in RH. Or from where bishops demanded to know what was so wrong with
cheating, everybody did it anyway, lets just abide iniquity and move on. Or from days when the
pulpits preached that those who were generous in their donations to the Church were more precious
in the eyes of God than, well, the victims of superstorms.

Its certainly even more revolutionary from the days when the Church reveled in its temporal
power, drawing attention to it, defining its success in terms of influence and wealth. That not very
incidentally afflicts not just the Catholic Church but other Christian churches as well. The Iglesia ni
Cristo, for one, has just celebrated its 100th anniversary defining the triumph of Christ in terms of
its bigness, wealth and influence. Although you cannot see that suggestion in everyday life in the
grandness of its churches, which look at night as you pass Commonwealth like a veritable
Disneyland.

Its enough to make you believe in Providence, or miracles, that a Pope Francis has arisen out of
nowhere to remind Christians that real power lies with the meek, real wealth lies in the spirit, real
exaltation lies in being humble.

I myself am looking forward to the Popes visittime flies, as you know from the ber months
being almost here againeven if Im not looking for an inn in Tacloban to shelter in. That visit
holds immense potential for renewal. In body as well as spirit: The Popes profound concern for
the poor is also a good time for government and not just the Church to reflect on a variation of
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Which is: What does it
profit a country if it gains growth but grovels in poverty?

Forget the inn, look for the manger. Thats the best shelter of all.