Smiling in the face of pain

It is that smile that launched a thousand criticisms.

I am referring to our President's as he watched the miserable remains of a bus that used to be full of eager tourists wanting to savor the sights and sounds of Manila, but has turned into a bloodstained arena that sustained the brunt of the vengeful frustration of one dismissed cop. At the end of the orgy of incompetence and, were it not for the tragic end, almost comical performance of Manila's finest, nine lives were lost, including that of the perpetrator, one named Rolando Mendoza.

It was also one the President was wearing, some even called it a smirk, as he earlier officiated a past-midnight press conference which only night owls like me were able to watch, or those who were unable to sleep bothered by the lingering images of incompetence and death all rolled into one a few hours ago on that fateful Monday.

That smile, or smirk, or uncontrollable muscle spasm--take your pick, has, unfortunately, become a turning point, a sad milestone in what until then was a blissful Presidency where many Pinoys have reposed their hopes and dreams as they ventured into the straight path to P-NOY's brand of paradise.

Some may be creative enough to call it a quick karmic turn. One can say that this is what you get when you start your term with vengeance, masquerading as exorcism for good and clean government. You wanted to massacre midnight appointees with impunity, without discriminating those who were really beneficiaries of Gloria's malice and mischief, and those honest and deserving civil servants who were simply promoted/appointed at the wrong time; you end up being humiliated in the world stage by another type of massacre, more non-discriminating than EO2 and EO3 combined, where bullets riddled bodies of many innocent guests, and only one guilty cop. Oh, lest we forget, also that boy who got a share of the limelight and the stray bullet, the one which Kris Aquino, for some reason, visited in his wounded state, even as her brother's officials were busy condemning "usiseros." The irony of this karmic reversal is that in this massacre, any claim towards good and clean governance has now been compromised and negated by an image of an inept, lazy, nowhere to be found, sophomoric Head of State.

He who wanted to massacre midnight appointees of the previous administration, who in turn was humiliated, by a massacre, in a belated midnight appointment with the press.

The one who smiled despite the seriousness of the event, and who admitted that it is his normal reaction when he is confronted with a difficult situation.

You know what? I really buy this. I mean, for once I will have to defend the President, despite my continuing criticism of his management style. That smile, the one that drew the ire of Hongkong, is an authentic representation of a Pinoy trait.

Some may call it insensitivity.

I don't. I call it our natural.

After all, we are a people who can easily turn our tragedies into comedies. From typhoons, to coups, we never run out of our capacity to smile despite the seriousness of the situation. At the height of Ondoy, when a big portion of Manila was submerged, when we saw people struggling to save their lives and possessions in the muddy flood waters, in the midst of tragedy we saw people still managing to celebrate a birthday while stranded in their roofs, of people waving to TV cameras even as they negotiate the flood in their makeshift lifesavers, from bath-tubs, to airbeds and anything that floated.

We are also a people that laughs at those who slip and fall, instead of offering a helping hand. And we do so not to insult, but to express a sense of camaraderie, assuring the one who slipped and fell that it is alright.

This is the people from where those who posed in front of the Hong Thai bus came from. The same people who will watch a running gun-battle, and applaud at the real action like a movie. The same people who will give a nervous smile in the face of pain and tragedy.

This is us.

This is how we cope.

For a society prone to pain and suffering, that is how we survive.

And this time, Benigno Simeon Aquino III, in his smile, embodied us as we face another crisis.

And if you are distressed by this claim, you may just, in fact, instead of frowning, succumb to your gut response and command your facial muscles to display that all too familiar, and very Pinoy smile. Whether it is in bewilderment, or as a dismissive gesture, or a sincere reassurance of your own bearings and to defend your sanity in the face of the B.S.. But still, a smile.

Peers who persecute

I don't know what's wrong with people in academe who, in their moments of bias, call the work of others as trash and without rigor when they themselves do not understand what it is all about.

I, for one, have been getting this flak for a long time.

As a post-modern political scientist, my scholarly endeavors are far from the usual and ordinary. I do not study what most in the political science community are studying. And in doing so, I am definitely an outsider.

I know this as the risk I had to take. Facing the specter of being marginalized, I had no choice but to endeavor to publish as my way of laying the ground from where the firm bases of my scholarships can stand. It is not an easy task, mind you, but modesty aside I was somewhat successful.

There were many stumbling blocks along the way, though.

Recently, my book manuscript was called a piece of trash by what I found out to be a Filipino scholar who now lives in the United States. The review was so mean and insulting that I recoiled at how deeply angry the reviewer could be. I know that the book I wrote is controversial, but I never thought it could elicit such a violent response from someone who was presumed to provide an objective review. After recovering from the initial shock at such personal assault, I gathered up myself to confront it and soon realized that the problem lies not in my book, but in the academic politics against which it is ranged.

The mean reviewer, who I may not know by name, and have no interest in knowing, is not actually alone. There are so many of them found in the august halls of the academe. People who masquerade as dignified experts who are committed to a particular profession, but are in fact insecure, childlike, envious brats who would persecute anyone they see as threats to them--from people who raise new ideas that would threaten their own comfort zones, to colleagues who threaten to overtake their academic ranks.

They abound like gremlins after being drenched with water.

Some people may hold up to high esteem the academe as an exalted place.

But unfortunately, it is a place where peers end up as persecutors. Some may have the courage to do it upfront and reveal themselves. These are the easier ones to deal with. Its either you just ignore them, or you fight them head on.

But the more dangerous kind are those who hide in the anonymity of double blind reviews--just like this S.O.B. Americanized Filipino scholar who called my work a piece of trash, who I know would not have the courage to say the things he said about my book to my face. Unlike this coward, I can face him anytime to express an "up yours" response.

The process of peer reviewing is one of the most abused endeavor, both in the process of publishing a work, or in seeking a promotion, and becomes a breeding ground for scholarly persecution, and a nurturer of malicious intent.

There are those who would accept the task of becoming critics of scholarly works when in fact they have fundamental disagreements with these in terms of methodological and theoretical frames. I would like to think that if you have fundamental differences with the approach of a particular scholarly work, then you are not in fact a peer, and therefore have no right to be involved as a peer reviewer. It is a travesty for a conservative political scholar to serve as a critic of a manuscript written by a radical Marxist, or an empirical-positivist to pass judgment on a work done by a post-structuralist post-feminist. What would you expect from this picture: an unbiased review? Only the seriously naive would think so.

The more serious, and I would even claim criminal, offense is when people from other disciplines, or who do not have any iota of familiarity with one's work, take on the job of passing judgment on the work and qualifications of others. You see this in promotions board where people from other disciplines can claim a work of somebody from another discipline to be unacceptable. I can even tolerate biases. But this one is not borne out of bias, but out of sheer arrogant ignorance.

Unfortunately, the control mechanisms to ensure that peers who persecute are not given their day to terrorize are not yet fully in place. There are still editors who do not have an understanding of the nuances of a particular discipline, and the different grounds from where ideological rifts would eventually descend to personal conflicts. And there are University administrators who try to inflict their own disciplines' supposedly neutral ethos into others. You see this happening when you have University Administrators who are engineers, natural scientists, or economists of the mathematical kind who make decisions over the careers of humanists and interpretive social scientists.

I had once a conversation with a well-meaning administrator who argued that no one can put a good scholarly work down.

I pointed out that, ideally, that should be the case. Unfortunately, it's not.

And it is this naivete, or perhaps, this too much trust on the kindness of people, that enable the proliferation in the University of peers who persecute.

It should be said. There are just too many nasty, insecure, envious and immature people in academe. That is the ugly truth.

My unchanging politics despite the long hiatus; or no, they don't own EDSA

I could not believe it.

The last time I wrote something in this blog, we were still under a much hated President, and it was not Ferdinand Marcos, Sr.

There were many times I wanted to write, but held back. I wanted to give my mind a honeymoon period, so to speak. There were so many things I wanted to write about, from the very petty family quarrels among siblings, to the annoying neighbor I have, to the frustrations of being rejected, to the triumphs of being redeemed, and yes, the May elections.

I wanted to write about the May elections, its conduct and results but hesitated for the simple reason that I wanted to sit out and wait for the finality of its results, even if it was already there staring at us even prior to the casting of the first ballot, as announced by SWS and Pulse Asia.

And he was proclaimed...

He gave a speech...

Wang-wang...

I am just awed by his humanity, so engaged, so simple, so likable. I may not have voted for him, but he is now my President.

There are just too many reasons why I should like him. Regionalism aside, he appointed three Bikolanos to his Cabinet. He appointed my favorite mayor of Naga City where I studied in high school, Jesse Robredo. He chose Leila de Lima, a lawyer from our neighboring Iriga City. And of course, he selected my batchmate in College who is from Guinobatan, Albay, Mon Paje, even if all of us know that he is just bench-warming for Neric Acosta, who, coincidentally, is the godfather of my eldest son. And to top it all, he took in my former boss in La Salle, Bro. Armin.

And of course, I still hate the one to whom he stood against, the one I shall not even dare name if only to symbolize my repulsion, but now stands to represent her district somewhere in Pampanga.

But there is something in me that prevents a willing idolization to grow in the political vaccuum left after nine years of yearning for a counter-narrative, one that would be pitted against what has become a long episode of corruption and personal aggrandizement that surpassed the Marcosian years.

It took me a while to reflect on my negative feelings towards him, and it is only now that I could articulate it with clarity.

It is not because I voted for someone else. I am not that petty. It is easy for me to accept defeat, and move on.

It is not because of his neglect of the environment in his inaugural and SONA speeches, for I could easily overlook these.

It is not because of the annoying cacique mentality of his wards, and the overly vindictive attitude of his eager beavers which has made exposing the already well-known shenanigans of the past administration as a predictable ritual, thereby courting the danger of people getting desensitized to the level of corruption of the short inglorious one.

There is a deeper reason for this.

Perhaps, the problem lies not in him, but in me.

I am just too clairvoyant when it comes to gut feelings about where the country is headed for. I have this feeling that we are heading in the wrong direction, even if the road getting there is the good one.

Perhaps, it is my discomfort with false messiahs, my suspicion of idolatry.

First, they declared his father a hero, even without reflecting on the kind of politics he had prior to his martyrdom.

Then, they almost canonized his mother. There were even attempts to do so, literally and not just politically.

Central to this idolatry is the discourse where the darkness of Marcosian dictatorship has been banished by the light of democracy as supposedly a handiwork, if not an exclusive property of his pedigreed family.

The discourse that has created him is casted in historical myth making that vulgarly took over, or in the language of his mother's politics, "sequestered" the movement that returned power to the people as an event that could have only unfolded because of the heroism of his father Ninoy and the sacrifices of his mother Cory.

And now, he was again casted as the grand architect of the good road to which our country will be redeemed after nine years of inglorious abuses.

It is this hijacking of a historical conjuncture that makes me squirm.

No. The freedom and democracy we have now in this country could not be solely attributable as a legacy of one family, no matter how sweet is the sugar and fertile are the lands which fed them at the expense of those workers who they have now duped out of their entitlemens, in the same manner that the abuses and corruption could not be solely be the work of Apo and the inglorious one.

EDSA is not the property of Cory in memory of Ninoy, now embodied in their son.

EDSA happened because of us, those who toiled to appropriate the memories of a fallen homecoming in yellow ribbons as a symbol to rally around; who supported the yellow widow despite her lack of credentials, and later lionized her despite the fact that her record of governance is, objectively speaking, lackluster; and whose plurality has again bestowed on a lackluster performing Senator-son the mantle of redeeming us from ourselves.

They are heroes because we made them. And for many to diminish the role of the ordinary Pinoys as simply the hapless Jews to be saved from the Pharaohs of corruption is but a lie, a false idolatry of the new gods and saints.

This is the core of my discomfort.

Until such discourse is changed, I could never truly love this President as my own, even if a big part of me thinks he is adorable.

And key to this will be an admission by the son that we are not just his bosses. We are also his creators.