Surprised

One can suppose with the benefit of hindsight that there must be more than a bit of irony in the progression of events. When Typhoon Ruby (international name, Hagupit) entered the Philippine area of responsibility in early December of last year, the locals in Lianga and its surrounding communities rushed out in a frenzy of activity all of which was supposed to be in preparation for what was forecasted to be a major storm. The memories of the devastation left by 2013's Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and 2012's Pablo (Bopha), after all, remains painfully fresh in the minds of all Filipinos here.

Then Ruby did not quite live up to its hype (although it did cause extensive damage and did claim at least 18 lives) and so when PAGASA, the national weather service, announced that a tropical depression was following on Ruby's wake and will make landfall in Surigao del Sur on Dec. 28, the response to what would later develop into Tropical Storm Seniang (international name, Jangmi) was understandably tepid to say the least. Everyone thought it was just going to another one of those run-of-the-mill weather hiccups common this time of the year in this part of the world.

It turned out that Seniang struck hard where Ruby veered away and this part of the country as well as many other areas in the Visayas and Mindanao got clobbered hard. Hundreds of thousands of people ended up paying dearly for their complacency. "We all prepared for Ruby," one survivor in Cebu province in the Visayas tearfully lamented, "but no one warned us about Seniang."

Pining For Home

Like many netizens all over the world, I am not particularly trustful of or comfortable with Google, that global internet presence which, whether we like it or not, insidiously intrudes into and then profits from almost everything we do in the online world. Its multinational hugeness and its pervasive dominance in all things related to cyberspace worries a lot of concerned individuals even those who regularly use its many services and who benefit from them in the personal or economic sense or both.

Yet occasionally, this internet colossus comes out with something that manages to surprise us all. Something that in this selfish, money-centered and cynical world (of which Google is, whether deservedly or undeservedly, in the eyes of many, a personification of) somehow pulls and tugs at that emotional core that hides in all of us, something that whispers and resonates to that softer side of our human nature, something that affirms that universally held hope that even in this selfish and cynical world, there is a premium still for love, friendship, generosity, loyalty and all those other pure, virtuous and noble sentiments of the human heart.

Last Dec. 14, Google Philippines published a video on You Tube that has been viewed and shared by more than a million people to date. Titled "Miss Nothing", it is basically a tribute to the more than two million Filipino overseas workers abroad who have left their families and homeland behind in order to work for a living all over the world. In less than two minutes it emotionally paints through images and music their loneliness and sense of isolation and how through the magic of modern wireless digital communication they desperately struggle to keep their tenuous links to their loved ones back home alive and meaningful.

Unfinished Business

Nothing irritates and distresses me more intellectually and emotionally than fellow Filipinos who should be old enough to know better and should be well-informed enough to understand clearly but who are quick to say to my face that the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution was a failed revolution because the ideals, principles and objectives it had fought for remains unfulfilled and unrealized 28 years hence.

I can be considerate of those who are too young to have been discerning witnesses if not actual participants in the crucial events of those historic few days in February of 1986 and have not bothered to really familiarize themselves with unbiased and accurate accounts of what was clearly one of the most important defining events in the recent history of this country. It is often all too easy to dismiss or, even worse, actually belittle and consider insignificant something that one does not truly understand or know enough about.

I can also disregard the fence-sitters who, 28 years ago, never did commit themselves and merely waited to see which side would prevail in the end and only then loudly proclaim themselves to be wholly, in body and spirit, to have been with the winning side from the very beginning. They did not matter three decades ago and sadly, despite their noisy protestations, still remain irrelevant to this very day.

Finally, I can discount the die hard apologists for the Marcos dictatorship who even nowadays still cling to their delusion that the more than two decades of Apo Ferdinand's authoritarian rule was the best thing that ever happened to this country, the very same people who still desperately peddle like inveterate hucksters their own revised and doctored version of the events leading to EDSA uprising. As far as they are concerned the so called Yellow Revolution will always be just an ill-advised coup d'état, a disastrous putsch that really changed and achieved nothing except unjustly removing from power the one man they all worship as the greatest leader in Philippine history.

The Pindang Revisited

I was among the more fortunate to have had the opportunity to sample a sinfully diverse selection from the cornucopia of festive culinary delights traditionally offered by most Filipinos to family members, relatives and friends for copious, if not gluttonous, consumption during the recent Christmas and New Year celebrations. That meant mouthfuls of the ever ubiquitous ham (of several kinds), repeated generous servings of pasta thick with sauces of both the red and white varieties including one or two others of an indeterminate shade in between these two extremes, countless portions of chicken thighs and wings both roasted or fried in batter and slices of fish either grilled, steamed or stewed with fresh veggies in the traditional way.

I have not even included in the first list list the obligatory chocolate and cheese cakes, whole wheat bread loaves with raisins, chocolate doughnuts, bibingkang kanin (rice cakes topped with caramelized coconut cream), empanadas (pastry stuffed with meat, vegetables and egg slices) and a multitude of other desserts and side dishes. The often excessive enthusiasm and unusual profligacy even normally frugal Filipino families put into preparing for the orgies of feasting during the Yuletide and year-ender festivities never ceases to amaze me.

Christmas Tree

It has been reported in the American news media the past week or so that an elementary school in Frisco, Texas in the United States has banned the use of Christmas trees within its premises and has also forbidden students to use the colors red and green in its annual winter party.  The principal of the school explained that the the local Board of Education is enforcing the policy that "no religious belief or non-belief shall be promoted by the district and its employees" and that the school "didn't want to offend any families and since each family donates money (to the party), (it) feels that this is the best policy."

The ban surprisingly came just after Texas Governor Rick Perry signed recently into law the so called Merry Christmas Bill which essentially allows students and school staff to freely discuss and celebrate holidays as they please. Many parents and concerned Texas residents have been outraged and have angrily spoken up to condemn what they felt was political correctness carried to the extreme by the administrative staff of the Nichols Elementary School .

In Lianga like everywhere else in the Philippines and in most Christian nations all over the world, nothing else epitomizes and symbolizes the Yuletide season than the ubiquitous Christmas tree. In this town, it is even a more common component of the traditional Christmas dressing-up of homes than the more indigenous Filipino parol (Christmas star) or belen (nativity crèche or tableau), a fact that quickly is obvious to someone who takes the time to go around and visit the houses of relatives, friends and acquaintances here this Yuletide season.

Dying Beautifully

Seventeen years ago my father died peacefully in his sleep and in the manner he always said he wanted  to leave this world - without fuss, without unnecessary pain and without subjecting his family to the rigors and demands of a death coming only after a protracted and prolonged bout with some dreaded and debilitating disease.

He had lived a rich and full life, most of it lived in the service of others. He had been a physician and healer for most of his life, a rare artist with the surgeon's knife, a tool which he wielded with such consummate skill and panache that stories of the many medical miracles he had wrought in the operating room in his time are still being told and even embellished to this day among old-timers here in Lianga.

When he went to sleep on that night many many years ago and did not wake up at dawn as he normally did for the most of his life, he was already a much loved and respected man in this town. In death, lying serenely in bed with the bed covers unrumpled and with nary a trace of discomfort on his face, he was the picture of a man who had left life with no regrets and with no hint of bitterness or ambivalence. It was the way he always wanted to go, quietly and quickly.

It has often been taken as an article of the wisdom of the ancients that a man reaps what he sows.  Thus it is a sure consequence of divine justice for a man to pass on to the next world in a way that is commensurate with the manner in which he had lived his life. Bloodthirsty warmongers and merciless killers of men are believed to be fated to end their lives just as violently and in the same sickeningly bloody fashion with which they gleefully dispatched from life their helpless victims.

Dangerous

A video of a recent news interview of Rodrigo Duterte, Davao City's maverick mayor, emotionally recounting his impressions of the chaotic situation in typhoon ravaged Tacloban City after he had led a group of Davao based rescue and aid workers who were among the first responders in Leyte is going viral on YouTube and Facebook. A single posting of that same video on Facebook (one of many posted and shared on that site) that I viewed yesterday evening had already garnered more than 8,000 likes and almost 2000 comments.

In that interview, a visibly emotionally wrought Duterte struggling to keep control of himself told reporters that in his view the state of national calamity declared by President Benigno Aquino III "was not enough" and that "there has to be a state of emergency because there is no local government functioning" in the stricken areas. "The people," he insisted, "have no electricity, no food, no water... all their dead are on the streets... the survivors are looking at the heavens.. Those that they depend on, the police, the army, and even the social workers of the government, all of them are victims, all of them are dead. Even the police and the army there are dead... God must have been somewhere else ... or that He forgot that there is a planet called Earth."

The short, grim monologue punctuated on a several instances by pungent swear words and curses in both Tagalog and Bisaya (which he was clearly trying in vain to suppress) ended with a fervent plea for help in any form or manner for all the victims of Typhoon Yolanda. "We have to help," he said. "No matter what, no matter how little."

Mayor Duterte is, of course, well known for his brash, unorthodox and iron-fisted management style as chief executive of the local government in Davao City particularly in his pet areas of crime prevention and control and the maintenance of local peace and order. He is widely credited and cited for making Davao, which used to be haven for criminals and lawlessness in the 1980's, one of the safest cities in Southeast Asia yet himself remains a favorite target for condemnations and criticisms from human rights groups like Amnesty International who have accused him of tacitly encouraging if not out-rightly supporting the extrajudicial killings of criminals and crime suspects within his jurisdiction.

In the past, Duterte has been portrayed as being not adverse or hesitant to using a tart tongue, or worse, a quick fistic blow or even a series of punches to chastise and discipline in public erring officials and constituents. He is so respected (or feared, depending on who you talk to) for his public image as a overzealous, trigger happy yet thoroughly effective crime fighter by many Filipinos in and outside of Davao that he has been given the sobriquet "The Punisher" in 2002 by Time magazine in reference to the fictional vigilante anti-hero character popularized in Marvel comic books.

It also seems that this rather pugnacious and pugilistic nature has been inherited by the members of the family political dynasty with which he has ruled Davao for decades. His daughter, Sarah Duterte-Carpio, who was mayor of the city from 2010 until 2013 was thrust into the national spotlight after punching in the head a regional trial court sheriff during an altercation in connection with the demolition of a shantytown in the city during her term.

In the case of the recent news interview, however, one cannot refrain from feeling sympathy (even empathy) and grudging admiration for the man. Here is a local government official from a city far away from Tacloban, obviously with his own local concerns and problems, who responded immediately, on his own initiative, to the unfolding tragedy happening in another distant city and who quickly managed to mobilize and get a rescue and assistance team into the disaster area even before other agencies and groups from the national government (who should have been there first) could get their act together.

Obviously he was among the first public officials to actually wade into the battered and ravaged ruins of what used to be eastern Leyte and among the first to personally see and evaluate, from a first person perspective, the true horror, the depth and extent of the tragedy of the massive destruction left by Yolanda. One can forgive him for becoming emotional while recalling what must have been an searingly agonizing experience. One can also forgive and ignore the curses and the swear words. He was clearly entitled to them being the man he is and in view of the raw honesty of the emotions one can clearly see in his face and demeanor as he was speaking out.

In truth, his voice in that interview was and remains among the only few from so many other official voices, mostly blurting out lame and inane excuses or trying finger-point blame, that made clear sense and which, with brutal honesty, has publicly highlighted the same unanswered questions which the Filipino nation and the rest of world have been asking since Typhoon Yolanda had come and gone. How could the national government of this country and its local officials in the Visayas region not been able to adequately and properly prepare for the onslaught of one of the strongest storms in history in spite of clear warnings and up to date forecasts from meteorologists many days before it made landfall? 

Why was the initial response of the Philippine government to the devastation in the critically hit areas been so spotty and slow? Didn't high officials of the Aquino administration, including the President himself, made public assurances and even boasted on the national news media in the days before Yolanda hit that its agencies and personnel were already prepared and its logistical assets properly positioned to deal with the impending calamity?

Focus back on "the Punisher" from Davao who dropped everything and immediately organized and sent a relief team to go quickly into the disaster zone, the same man who, in order to make sure that his group can arrive quickly and safely in the Tacloban area, had supposedly given instructions for his rescue team members to shoot down any looters and lawless elements who may seek to harass or rob the Davao contingent.  Duterte later however clarified that the order was to merely "shoot in the legs" and not to kill but only incapacitate would-be assailants or ambushers in self-defense.

The mayor also pointed out in the same interview to what may be a valid point and something even President Aquino in an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour has acknowledged. This is the fact that the local governments in the typhoon hit communities have been virtually decimated and therefore no longer exist and has ceased to function. This means that unless the national government steps in and immediately assume de facto emergency control on the ground (for the meantime at least), there can be no quick, efficient and organized rescue, relief and rehabilitation program that can properly take off no matter how much local and foreign aid and assistance is available.

Finally, Duterte also harped in the same interview on the need for a strong local government with the political will to enforce forced evacuations of its constituents living in critically vulnerable locations in the face of a looming natural disaster such as a super typhoon. He stressed that with a proper warning from the national government and if it would be necessary, he would personally manhandle and drag residents of his city who are unwilling to evacuate from their homes to safer locations. That requires, he emphasized, that a viable contingency plan for such scenarios must already exist for local disaster preparedness officials and that a major part of it must include designated avenues and easy routes for access to already prepared and clearly identified evacuation centers and refuge areas.

There is no doubt in my mind that Davao mayor, because of the interview which has been seen by countless Filipinos all over the country, is now being seen as an admirable if not heroic figure, an exemplary leader in the face of what is perceived as a government that on all levels is coming across as inept, indecisive and incompetent. After all, he is not only making sense, he has actually done something for the victims of Yolanda and did it fearlessly well to the limits of his capability and capacity.

Why not elect this man and make him President? This is what majority of the almost two thousand comments I read to the Facebook post showing the interview video said or implied. Even those who were not so slavish in their praise had only favorable words for the man.

Why not indeed. In one sense, we do need men like Rodrigo Duterte who are strong, decisive and fearless leaders of men, leaders who are not afraid to do what must be done even if the weak-hearted and timid among us may shout caution and restraint or quibble with legalities and procedural technicalities.

In that same view, we do need charismatic and paternalistic leaders who will really lead this country and, if need be, pull us painfully by our very ears in the path and direction of the peace, progress and prosperity he envisions for us even if there are those, rightly or wrongly, who may want to go somewhere else or through a different route altogether. We need another Lee Kuan Yew (or heaven forbid, for those who are rabid Marcos apologists, another less corrupt yet no less resolute Ferdinand Marcos), a strong man with a heart of gold, a will of iron, nerves of steel and brass balls. Filipinos do still dream and fervently pray for a political savior, a Messiah, to take this country out of the clutches of the corrupt, the mediocre and the incompetent who have been misleading the nation for so long while enriching themselves and their cronies at its expense.

Rodrigo Duterte could be that man. For many he does certainly fit the bill. That is why I believe today, in my heart and mind, that the Punisher from Davao City is a very dangerous man.

Guilt

I spent most of Nov. 9 watching television. I started with CNN and later moved on to the local Filipino channels. All were, as expected, trying to outdo each other in airing the most gruesome and shocking pictures and videos of the devastation wrought by Typhoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) in the central Philippines and the Visayas region particularly in the now beat-up and battered city of Tacloban on the island of Leyte.

I immediately realized how news worthy the emerging disaster in the Visayas was when I began seeing and hearing on-site reportage by noted CNN journalists Paula Hancocks and Andrew Stevens. Hancocks, in particular, was repeatedly cited by the news network in its initial breaking news bulletins as the first foreign correspondent to fly in to Tacloban and report live from there.

By early afternoon, more and more news updates have slowly began painting an emerging picture of the unprecedented extent of the horrendous destruction visited in many of the affected areas.  In my mind, as well as in the minds of the millions of other Filipinos all over the country who were monitoring the news media, it gradually became clear that in almost all of the lovely, tropical islands comprising the central Philippines, a calamity of unimaginable proportions caused by what has been described by meteorologists as one of the strongest typhoons in recorded history, was become more and more apparent.

40 Days

Yesterday, the 25th day of September marked the end of the traditional forty day mourning period following the death of Lianga Vice-Mayor Robert "Jun" Lala Jr who passed away last August 17. His family, relatives, supporters and friends commemorated the event with a morning mass at the Sto. Niño Parish Church after which everyone proceeded to the Lianga public cemetery to visit and pray at his grave. The Lala family later hosted lunch for all of the mourners and guests at the Lala residence.

Casual research on my part reveals that the significance of the forty day mourning period for deceased individuals especially for Catholics in the Philippines is rooted more in custom and tradition rather than in actual religious or church doctrine. The number 40 is important in biblical numerology and is mentioned often in the Bible. The great flood of Noah, for example, lasted for 40 days and nights. The people of Israel led by Moses wandered for 40 years in the wilderness after leaving Egypt after the Exodus. Jesus was said to have fasted for 40 days after he was baptized by John the Baptist and tradition holds that he ascended to heaven only after 40 days had passed after his resurrection.

Many Filipinos whether they are Catholics or not believe that a person's soul after death wanders the world and may visit the various places that have significance in its previous life.  Only after forty days will it be called to judgement and thereafter be allowed to ascend to heaven, descend to hell or be incarcerated in purgatory. This belief in so called "lingering souls" has been hotly debated in many religious circles and there are many priests and theologians to this day who still cannot agree whether it has any real basis in Christian doctrine.

Dengue

It used to be that in Lianga a bout with fever unless it was determined to be really a high grade one where one's body temperature rises to at least 39 degrees centigrade or higher, it was considered more of a nuisance rather than anything really serious. Nothing that regular doses of paracetamol or any of the other antipyretic drugs that help reduce fever cannot remedy in conjunction with rest and increased fluid or water intake.

The exception, of course, was made for children (especially the very young), the elderly and those already in poor health who even  in the more remote and far flung barangays or villages are immediately rushed to the local health center or hospital.  That is, if their families have the financial resources and the capability to do so. Otherwise, it may be up to the local mananambal (the local folk healer or practitioner of traditional medicine) to come up with some cure hopefully by using the appropriate herbal remedies and not some form of arcane yet useless sorcery.

Nowadays, any instance of elevated body temperature in both adults and children can now be a cause for panic. This is because there has been, for the past few months, an outbreak of dengue fever in this town and this health scourge has claimed several lives including that of the municipal vice-mayor of Lianga, Robert "Jun" Lala Jr., who passed away last August 17.

Remembering Dick and Jane

Surprisingly, I still can clearly picture them to this very day in my mind's eye.  Worn, a bit dog-eared, musty smelling yet well cared for.  Thin, paper-bound readers based on the Dick and Jane series of reading books some versions of which were then popularly used by Catholic private schools in the late 1960's and the early 1970's.

I was at that time just barely five years old and they were my first introduction to the world of reading.  The books belonged to my older brother and sister who were already in the first and second grades of elementary school but when the sudden mood would strike me, I would clumsily leaf through them, look at the brightly colored illustrations and slowly trace one finger over the large printed text below them while trying to silently mouth out the words.

Look at Dick and Jane.  See them play.  See Spot run.  Dick and Jane were, of course, brother and sister.  Spot was their dog.  Puff was their cat.  Sally was their baby sister.  Together with their parents and friends they lived happy and fun lives in a neighborhood that was reminiscent of my childish understanding of what was the best of post-World War II, white and middle-class, suburban Middle America.

Lukay

It is customary for the majority of Filipinos who are Catholics to bring with them coconut palm leaves and fronds to church today in celebration of Palm Sunday which itself commemorates Jesus Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem and marks the beginning of the celebration of the Holy Week.  This custom is so ingrained in Filipino religious tradition that no self-respecting Catholic would dare to appear in church today empty handed especially in the more rural and provincial areas like here in Lianga where religious conservatism is the always the norm.

The fronds are blessed with holy water during the Mass and them brought back home for safekeeping.  Many Filipinos believe that lukay that have been consecrated are sacred objects which if pinned to doors, windows and walls have the ability to protect homes from evil spirits, fire and lightning.

Early this morning I saw a clump of young coconut leaf fronds on the wooden table in the lanai at the back of the house which someone had thoughtfully provided for my mother and the rest of our household to make use of.  I immediately asked if any of the household help knew anything about making the often elaborately woven palm branches that churchgoers bring to Mass and was surprised to receive negative replies to my inquiry.

Blogging 101

I was both surprised and more than a bit nonplussed to receive in the past few weeks more than a few e-mails from readers of this blog asking for some advice and pointers on how to start their own blogs or improve the blogs they have already started.  These requests while flattering to say the least have also forced me to reexamine and reflect once more on the reason or reasons why I continue to blog after more than six years and almost 360 published posts.

If someone wants to start a blog and has dreams of finding the right mix of design, subject matter and content that would boost readership and page views, a magic combination that would make that blog immensely popular online for the ultimate purpose, say, of eventually monetizing it then I am probably the last person to seek advice from.  There are plenty of examples of such well known and commercially successful blogs to be found in the blogosphere that a neophyte blogger can seek and get guidance and inspiration from.

The truth is I blog for the plain and selfish reason that I find personal fulfillment in doing it.  My blog posts all trace their origins from events and situations in my daily life that provoke in me a great emotional response or some degree of intellectual interest and fascination. The motivation for this particular blog remains the same as when I started it in 2006 - to chronicle to the best of my abilities the unique qualities, peculiarities and eccentricities of life here in Lianga and what life, at least in my own personal view, is really like in this little corner of the world.

No Homecoming

I had not visited Cebu City for more than half a decade so it was with no small degree of trepidation and lots of excited anticipation that I flew into that city last January 18 from Butuan in order to join in the celebration of the 2013 Sinulog festivities.  It was meant to be a short visit only - just two whole days not including what little remained of the extra two days that would be spent travelling to Cebu and back to Lianga.

I first laid eyes on the Queen City of the South in 1970 when I was first sent there by my parents as a raw, provincial, seven year old boy in order to start my elementary school education with the rest of my siblings.  Except for a two year absence during my high school years, I would spend more than two decades of my life that would constitute the totality of the years of my formal education in that city.

In many ways, Cebu City became my second home and because most of my formative years was spent there, I was for most of the early part of my life more Cebuano than Kamayo and it was only the periodic vacations to Lianga during the summer and Christmas breaks that essentially kept alive the familial and emotional bonds that tied me to Surigao and Mindanao as surely as fish are bound to water and birds to the air.

Revisiting Pugad

Of the more well known beaches in Lianga, Pugad is the one that always evokes in me the most nostalgic of memories.  In this sense, its very name which literally means nest in English is oddly appropriate.  Every time I go there, this stretch of coastline has always been able to conjure for me a veritable nest, a cornucopia if you will, of deeply buried yet unforgotten images and sounds, my recollections of Lianga's not so distant past.

I remember the beach as it was in the days of my childhood in the 1970's.  There was no clear access road then but just a dirt track that led from the highway that ran straight and true for a hundred meters or so and which quickly snaked right and then wandered its way through and in between coconut trees sheltering underneath their leafy fronds a straggly line of native huts, most of them facing, just a stone's throw away, the wide expanse of fine sand and the gently rolling sea..

There was no Pugad Beach then, the whole area was just known as Pugad.  The owners of the many beachfront lots then had still no idea of the tourism and commercial potential of their properties.  Many of them were simple farmers and fishermen eking an honest but hard living out of the bounty of the sea and the land adjacent to it.

My brothers and I would spend hours frolicking in the sea or just lying like beached whales on the pristine, grayish-white sand while the gentle surf would wash over us in wave after wave of white foam and greenish-blue water.  On the entire expanse of the gently curving beach, only sounds that can be heard except for the hiss of the sea were the occasional screeching of faraway birds and the gentle swish of the sea breeze on the foliage of the trees and coconut trees on the far shore.

Haunted

One of our family's worst kept secrets is the fact that our family home in Lianga is haunted.  When I use the term "haunted" I refer, of course, to the "infestation" of human dwellings by non-human and obviously otherworldly beings or those aptly termed tongue-in-cheek in local parlance as the "not like ours". Whatever is specifically haunting the house we in the immediate family circle, however, have never been able to determine with some degree of certainty.  Yet we are convinced that the hauntings themselves are real.

Those among our close relatives who do know about this (ehem!) skeleton in the family closet have ventured varying opinions as to what is causing what can be best described as inexplicable phenomena that have occurred at various times during the recent history of our fifty-year old home in this town.  Some have pinned their blame on dwarves or the little people who are so much part of the myths and legends of many peoples all over the world.

Others say that it can be any of the variety of spirits or invisible supernatural beings that inhabit this earth and this plane of existence and who, because of unknown or unfathomable reasons, have decided to co-inhabit this house with us. The beings, they say, can be benign or harmless although occasionally mischievous while others can be malignant and malevolent.

Bridging the Divide

The signing recently in Malacañang Palace of the framework peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has brought many here in Mindanao new hope that true and lasting peace may not only be possible but realistically achievable in the near future.  But it is a hope and optimism that is tempered by decades of false promises, dashed expectations and missed opportunities.  After all, the savagery of war and its destructive effects on the many affected communities in the war-torn areas in Mindanao remains a disturbing reality of our times.

The framework agreement should be seen for what it is - a starting point for the hard negotiations that will have to hammer out the final peace agreement that will ultimately lead to the establishment of the new Bangsamoro political entity that it envisions.  Already it has been challenged and rejected not only by other rival Muslim revolutionary movements like the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) who see it as a betrayal of the Moro or Muslim cause but also by non-Muslim and mainstream groups, legal experts and prominent politicians who see the accord as violative of the spirit and intent of the 1987 Constitution and thus problematic to justify both legally and morally.

There are also more than a few, even in Mindanao, who fear that the agreement may become a catalyst for the formation of more extremist and radical, Islamic breakaway groups like Ameril Umbra Kato's Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) who have branded the moderate MILF as the vilest of traitors to the struggle of the Moro peoples and who continue to advocate armed struggle with total secession as the final goal rather than just settling for enhanced local autonomy under the Philippine state.

Twisting History

I was just barely nine years old in 1972 when Ferdinand Marcos placed the entire country under military rule and ushered in more than a decade of authoritarian rule.  I remember playing with other kids on the street outside our rented apartment in Cebu City late in the afternoon of September 23 of that year and being admonished by a frantic grownup neighbor to all go back home because "martial law" had been declared.  As the sirens wailed that night to announce the nightly curfew that was to become a daily fixture of the lives of all Filipinos of those times, I laid awake in bed wondering what in the hell was "martial law" and why was such a fuss being made about it.

On vacation in Lianga some months after, I not only noticed but felt the heavy military and police presence everywhere. Piles and mounds of old, rusted firearms, shotguns and rifles, all surrendered or confiscated (many of them of World War II vintage), dotted the front yards of police stations and military camps.  Every night, as curfew hour approached, policemen or constables of the Philippine Constabulary then would man checkpoints at strategic areas all over Lianga.  The sight of an elderly police officer in uniform sitting on a wooden chair with only the light of a kerosene lamp to drive away the darkness and dozing off, one hand on the butt of his holstered revolver, while manning a lonely street corner post near our house in Lianga would always be one of my enduring images of the early martial law years in this town.

Main Street

In Lianga even today, we have little use for street names even if they do exist.  Directions for finding a particular house or any other location are always given in terms of the nearest prominent landmark or simply by diagramming through words, gestures and hand signs the general direction that had to be taken and the twists and turns that have to be made in order that one can get to where one is supposed to go.  It's a small town anyway where everyone virtually knows everybody.  Even strangers and outsiders are not expected to get really and hopelessly lost unless, by sheer stupidity or the lack of even any modicum of common sense, they deserve to.

That is why it was only when I was in my late teens when I learned by an accidental glance at a street map (yes, Lianga did have a street map even then) mounted on the wall of one of the offices at the municipal hall that the main street of the town, on which southern leg our family house was located, was named Rizal after the national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.

It actually stretches straight and true the entire length of Lianga from south to north and runs parallel to the national highway just a short town block to its left.  On the opposite side lies a narrow strip of land mostly reclaimed over the decades from the sea and now cluttered tightly with residential houses except for the middle part right across the town's parish church which has always been set aside for the major structures and buildings that constitute Lianga's business and commercial center.

Shaken Again

It started with the faintest hint of shudder.  I remember I was sitting in front of my computer, eyes on the monitor, and trolling through Google News, since I was not able to watch television the whole day.  I looked up instinctively and as I turned around to check what was wrong, the shaking suddenly grew stronger.

Earthquake! The tremors became more violent, certainly the strongest I had ever felt in my entire life and as the walls vibrated and the windows panels of my room in the first floor of our house in Lianga started to jiggle in earnest, my eyes involuntarily turned to the time display on the task bar of the computer monitor.  It was about 10 minutes to nine in the evening of the last day of August just a week ago and, in those harrowing seconds that seemed to drag on endlessly, I had a mental image of myself still frozen in a sitting position, fingers still on the computer keyboard and seemingly waiting for the house to fall down on me.

The shaking went on for more than a minute, ebbing and gaining strength in a cycle as if a series of underground sea waves were pounding and crashing through the bedrock underneath Lianga and still I sat there still immobile and still.  Then it finally subsided and as everything grew still. It was only then when I managed to shake myself loose and despite a sudden queasy feeling in my stomach as if I just came off a roller coaster ride, I jumped up to check on everyone else in the house.