Over Power

Published in Cebu Gold Star Daily




The nature of power is to bend or break the will of the weak. Through the promise of reward or the threat of harm, power is exercised in our daily lives. Today we see two convicted rapists set free because of the power they wield over the weak. One is backed up by the wealthiest nation on earth, and the other by his own personal, less grand but equally effective, wealth, status and influence.


How did it ever come to this? 


Since when did we become a people who set criminals free just because they have more money than others who are equally or less guilty?


I remember working with an NGO that serves persons who languish in jail. Our clients were people who have not yet been found guilty but are serving time just because they could not afford to fork out bail money. They are treated as second-class citizens who are herded into our congested, filthy and putrid city jails while they wait for a trial date that may never come. This is my most salient experience of the Philippine justice system. It makes me loathe my choice of profession and want to fly away to a country that values its people.


The nature of power is to bend or break the will of the weak. This is why I do not dare blame Nicole. I do not blame the weak for their weariness and their exhausted patience. I do not blame the fearful woman for running away when faced by the might of the most powerful government in the globe. 


Many people spit venomous words at this girl while they watch the news on their plasma TV screens well within their comfort zones. This girl has no comfort zone. As a victim of a violent crime, that’s one of the things taken from you forever. Your reality is altered, and to escape from it by any means possible is a very welcome option.


This is not about her. It’s about us and the system that we allow to sink its roots deep into our consciousness and culture because of our resignation – because of our refusal to speak out and act in unison against the few bad people who have all the power. It is everything wrong about human nature and our unwillingness to rebel against it.


Election after election we grant power to those who don’t deserve it. Year after year we shortchange ourselves by believing that this is our lot in life and this is all that we will ever be. 


See the drama of it all. Two freed rapists, two broken women and thousands of confused people behind bars. Welcome to the third world. 


Is this the Philippines that was fertilized by the blood of our martyrs? Is this the nation envisioned by the free thinkers of our past?


Many of us feel that we do not belong here. Many of us feel that our one life is too short to waste in a place that does not offer us any real chance for growth. If you have these sentiments, then you are one of the many who have no power – then you are one who truly knows Nicole.


The nature of power is to bend or break the will of the weak. Today, the Philippine dream is to leave the Philippines.


How did it ever come to this? 

Death of a Taxman

Published in Cebu Gold Star Daily




Taxation is perhaps the most boring subject matter I can think of to write about (and the most detested subject for those who ever took the bar exams). But taxation remains, or at least it ought to be, the most effective tool for social justice. 


Long before agrarian reform, welfare and socialized housing, there was taxation. Taxes are nothing more than enforced contributions to society, where people give a certain percentage of their earnings to fund State services. It is clearly designed as form of socialism or equalizing device to shrink the gap between the rich and the poor. 


Here are the basic premises for taxation: 

1. People gain wealth by using State services and systems (e.g. land, business grants, government contracts, etc…). 
2. The more wealth you gain from this system, the more you have to contribute to keep that system running.
3. If you are poor, you need help, so you are exempted from giving your contribution to the State until you can rise to a level where you can support yourself and those who depend on you.

From this, we formed a system where the fortunate support the unfortunate to a certain extent so that the latter are given enough breathing space to improve their lot in life. Progressive taxation means that those who have more must give more, while those who have less are given assistance. 


In its proper sense, taxation ought to be taken from income – money that is gained. This ensures that taxes do not cut deep into the resources needed by people to survive. This ideal has been mangled because the rich find ways to avoid paying their rightful contributions to society. Those who ought to be supporting society are the hiding behind tax shelters and offshore dummy corporations. They avoid their social responsibility and make all these fancy legal excuses to justify greed.


So how does the government respond? By creating non-progressive fixed taxes, like the misleadingly named value-added taxes, that burden everyone equally, rich or poor. This painfully upsets the balance. After all, equal treatment of unequal people is inequality. The purpose of taxation is mangled, and people don’t know why they are suddenly paying 12% more for something that they’ve been consuming for a very long time.


On the other hand, people are quite justified in refusing to hand out their hard-earned money without seeing concrete results. Massive corruption and incompetence of government have left us a cynical people. Angry. Restless. Our taxes do not seem to be making more schools. They do not seem to stop the violence in our streets. They do not give us clean air or water. They do not seal the cracks on our roads or provide enough supplies to our hospitals. They do not seem to provide health, safety, justice, education, convenience or even access to state services.


The nasty people from both the business sector and government have turned us into this nation of whining idiots, always complaining about things we think we cannot control. They have transformed us into people who would rather ignore the difficult reality than actively steer it towards a better place. The greed of the few has virtually doomed us all… all because of money… all because our best defense against greed and inequality also involves money.


In spite of all this, I believe that a tight, disciplined and brutal taxation system managed by people with the same qualities is one of the keys to moving forward. Obliterate all the fixed taxes and optimize progressive income tax collection. This is the surest way to swell our middle class and give a fighting chance to our poor. 


The wealthy support the poor. 


That is the design. 


That is the way it should be.

The Great Undeserved

Just got home from my usual urban immersion... and as usual it felt great and terrible at the same time.


Anyway, I finally got to check my phone and there I saw a message from a friend who has been long absent: "Why do I have the feeling that I don't deserve the person I'm with right now?"


Talk about "out of the blue"... but I indulged:


"We deserve nothing. The best you can do is try and be content with what you have."


Indeed, we deserve nothing. Not our jobs, our significant others, our friends, our families, our material graces or our skills.


I went through five years of law school to learn these ideas of justice, equity, fairness and proportionality... but in the end, you realize that all these are just ideas and ideals of such artificial value and character that an extra ounce of critical thinking only leaves us befuddled and trapped in the place where were before: helplessness.


Fairness is not a naturally occuring thing. We never get what we deserve. It's either too good for us or not good enough. Absolute equilibrium is mathematically and realistically impossible. And so, we as free agents try to bridge the gap. We try harder... we work for it so that somehow, we might approximate the propriety of the web of rewards and punishments that orbit our lives.


When we were young children, we were taught to "make things fit". I remember this old toy of mine which had differently-shaped blocks and a plastic tub that had the corresponding hole-shapes on it. The task was to make the triangular block fit into the triangular hole and so on... easy enough right? And so we have been conditioned to understand exactness... to conform to these shapes and sizes and characteristics so that all may be well... problem is, we later learn to apply these assumptions to people as well. 


Whenever we see this less-than-presentable dude rest his arm around this lovely lady, an alarm immediately goes off in our head saying "NO!!!"... and we often rationalize it by thinking "He must have some killer wheels" or "He must be dynamite in bed"... and it never occurs to us that this mismatch is the most natural thing of all. We always think that pretty people should be with pretty people and the ugly should stick with the ugly... and so the shapes-and-holes exercise works wonders...


Is it fair? No it is not. But so is the rest of the world. Fairness is an abstract idea that keeps us in line. The Universe has been playing this joke on us all our lives and we don't even bother to question it. We are sucked into romanticism and other forms of mind-control and we use them to cope with the harshest form of reality: life is unfair.


Sure, we love hearing writers and musicians say that "there's always someone out there for every single one of us"... wrong! That's just bullshit, my friends. And you know it. Some of us have had 4, 7, 9, or even 14 relationships in our lives and we don't even give it a second thought... millions of people have lived up to the age of 40 or even 60 without ever knowing the touch of another's hand. The truth is that some people have all the fun... Some people die alone.


We love to dream... we love to hope... but one thing's for certain... it's all unfair... and our ever-changing perception of what's fair isn't helping at all... and as we grow older, our minds start to compromise and we lower our standards more and more that we end up with nothing worth keeping.


So what's there to do about it?


If you want something, just take it. Don't wait for the world to give it to you because it's not gonna happen. It's going to be unfair in any given case, so just take it. If you take it, it's yours... if you don't do anything about it, then maybe you just don't want it enough. If it slips away, then tough luck. You just have to deal with it. 


That's all there is to it. Justice will not find you. You just have to make things happen.

Violence Can Solve the World's Problems

 Violence is the exertion of force so as to injure or abuse.

- MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY

Last week, the palace released the order to roll back the conversion of the 144-hectare Sumilao land and return it to the embrace of agriculture. Through the order was in no way conclusive as to the fate the Sumilao farmers' claim, it was, at least, small victory for the them, who took painful discouraging steps for more than ten years in a struggle to achieve a life of dignity and respect. And with this small victory, they were able to return home in time for Christmas for free, carrying with them gifts twice their combined body weights. A Merry Christmas, indeed.


I was fortunate enough to take part in what we considered their "last march to victory" from the DAR office in Quezon City to the Malacañang Palace in Manila. Church leaders from different orders and denominations fortified their ranks as well as students and members of civil society groups. This was the most silent and peaceful march I have ever experienced. Under the heat and smog of Metro Manila, we made it to the seat of power and home of the Filipino people.


I trust that I don't have to retell the story of Sumilao Farmers. This ridiculous tale has been all over the papers since October, betraying the laggard mechanisms of Filipino governance. Back in '97 the farmers staged a 28-day hunger strike, which resulted to an acceptable compromise, only to be taken away by the Supreme Court. This year, they walked for sixty days from Bukidnon to Manila and continued to walk around the Capital Region for another fifteen days, moving from one heartache to another... one rejection after another by a government that had sworn to protect its people. 


Witnessing all these things, I realized that these farmers are some of the most violent people I have ever encountered. Beneath their smiles and cheerful dispositions, they have caused so much pain against themselves... against their own bodies, their own minds and their own emotions. They have willingly subjected themselves to suffering that compounded the burden they were already carrying. Hence, these people of the soil are masochists of the highest grade. 

Tired of injustice, yet?

Some high and mighty members of the business community have a criticized these farmers for acting out of emotion and seducing the public to fall in love with the dramatics and romanticism of the whole exercise. Indeed, Atty. Bag-ao admitted that these were "dramatics". These were emotion-wrenching moves to wake people up. But these were acts done only because people refused to listen to reason from the very beginning. Law is a difficult thing to understand (in spite of the palpable simplicity of this case). People will not take these things seriously until they are able to visualize the actual suffering. And this is what the farmers had provided for us: They painted a 75-day picture for the entire nation to comprehend just how unjust the system has become. Because reason was no longer viable, they had to resort to violence -- self-inflicted violence.


For 75 days, these farmers led the country to a place it's people had long forgotten. There is no such thing as a peaceful protest. Violence will always be present. The only difference is against whom this violence is directed. In this case, it was absorbed by the protesters themselves, never minding that they already had suffered much. For indeed, violence is nothing more than inconvenience multiplied a hundredfold. And for a few people to go through this, to completely abandon their comfort zones just to pursue something worth living for, is nothing short of heroic. 


These people were not beggars... far from it. They were legitimate suitors who were merely calling the government's attention to an oversight that was so clear that it was grave moral abberation that the case lasted for as long as it did. These people never asked for anything. They were claiming what was already theirs: the land and all the dreams they had attached to it.


A couple of days before the farmers packed up for home, we were able to join them at a thanksgiving mass at the Church of the Gesu, where Fr. Danny Huang gave a priceless homily in three languages (English, Tagalog & Bisaya), he spoke of hope as living in the future -- to act as if your goal was "already there" -- na ang Paglaum kay kanang pagtuo nga anaa na kanimo ang imong gipangita. 


Hope in our country is not difficult to find, regardless of the pain you see around you. Consider this: The farmers walked for 75 days, carrying with them only their clothes and beddings, with little or no money or food. They marched under the heat, the rain and they even weathered a storm along the Bicol territories, but never did a day pass by where they were left hungry. No sun ever set leaving the farmers without a roof over their heads. Wherever they went, there were kind souls who understood and empathized. This was a miracle to match the multiplication of bread and fish thousands of years ago. Heroes create heroes. Their power does not come from intelligence or skill, but the will to move others to take action for something greater than themselves... this is sacrifice... this is violence.


May the star of Christmas shine brightest on Sumilao this year.

Survival of the Filipino Dream

Originally published in ThePalladium December 2007 (Vol. 4, Issue 3), released on December 17, 2007. This article was written for my column Legal Personality.

A prophet has no honor in his own country.

- JESUS CHRIST from John 4:44

It was in grade school where I was first taught of this phenomenon called ‘Brain Drain’ in my Civics and Culture class. At first, I was just amused that social terminology could rhyme like that, but as my teacher started to explain what it was and how it was a national evil, I felt the seeds of dissent start to grow inside me, staying my tongue as my mind yelled, “So what?” If people can find their creative destinies away from their country of birth, why stop them? I didn’t know it then, but I was already advocating human self-determination to myself.


Coined by the Royal Society of London in the 1950’s, ‘Brain Drain,’ also known as ‘Human Capital Flight’ is the widespread emigration of highly-skilled, highly-educated or highly talented people to other countries or territories because their own is unwilling or unable to sustain their wants and needs. This is caused by war, famine, poverty, disease, lack of opportunity or any other reason that would impel an intelligent person to seek refuge elsewhere.

Brain drain has been happening everywhere in the world from the very beginning of human existence. When we hear of migration, we remember the Ice Age, the Exodus from Egypt, the European Slave Trade, the India-Pakistan Exchange, and here, close to our hearts, the flight of the Filipino people to every possible habitable place in the globe. These people were compelled to leave by a force that was much greater than themselves. In the Ice Age, it was probably because of the lack of mammoth meat or the search for less ice-age-like climates. During the Exodus, it was the promise of a prophet to lead them to a land of milk and honey that pushed them forward. The Africans came to Europe to fuel its economy because they pretty much had no choice at the end of a musket’s barrel. In India and Pakistan, people have moved around because of religious intolerance and violence between the Hindus and the Muslims of that region. And for the Philippines, well, there are as many reasons for leaving as there are people.


People will always want a better life for themselves and their families. This is human nature and it stems from our instinct to survive. Some people however go through the motions of everyday life with one meal a day and voice out no complaint. These people seem to have resigned themselves to accepting their lot and life and justify it with superstitious ideas of bad luck and misfortune. Their human spirit is broken by a long, long series or combination of social evils that often begin with poor governance. Not only do we have bad living conditions, we don’t have them at all. All we really have are conditions for survival. There is very little room for growth in this country.


On the other hand, we have these highly educated, highly-trained and highly-skilled people who realize all these terrible social ills and the sooner they realize it, the sooner they make that visit to the immigration office. Filipinos who dream big often long to leave the insular and barrio-tic way of thinking and focus on greater things like “making the world a better place” or “becoming the very best in his/her field of work”. They find that their work goes unnoticed, unappreciated and unsupported by their own communities. When this goes on consistently for too long (which is the general rule), the Filipino dreamer will have no choice but to seek for greener pastures. No matter how good, intelligent and hard-working you are, you can only be as good as the opportunities that life gives you. Is it wrong for one to live his/her only life to the very best of his/her capabilities? Is it selfish to leave the country imposed upon you by birth, to seek a country you actually choose because the people there appreciate you and allow you to grow? I think not.


In any case, it will always be our hopeful vision that the millions of Filipinos living and working abroad will look back to the islands and draw out their inherent compassion to support and encourage those who have stopped dreaming. Perhaps when conditions improve, many more people will come back and set up shop here, allowing a strong middle-class to grow. For now, our middle class is overseas. We have to accept the fact that we just cannot give what we don’t have. Wealth is not generated by kindness alone but by the sweat of men and women who are justly compensated. In a sense, our collective destiny as a Filipino people will depend upon our success as individuals, whether here or abroad. 


I just don’t want to see any more Filipinos coming back for the wrong reasons, the worst being the elitist view that “Mas masarap ang buhay sa Pilipinas dahil meron kang mga katulong dun.” 


What about THEIR dreams?


We have a long way to go and many attitudes to change.