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​Many, many years back, when I first saw the Boxer Codex at the Newberry Library in Chicago, I was very pleased and relieved. The Boxer Codex is the earliest written and illustrated record of our people. They were elegantly dressed, with footwear, jewelry and bladed weapons — not the illiterate savages that some of our colonizers had pictured us. 
 
Five hundred years ago, as the Spaniards found out, we were already a divided people fighting one another. And today that divide still exists. We are still fighting one another, sometimes as ferociously as our ancestors had.
 
We Filipinos are also fond of self-flagellation that I sometimes think there is a streak of masochism in the Filipino character. This is particularly true of so many intelligent Filipinos. If they are asked about this country, they start with a long list of negatives, condemning their leaders, themselves, their history, their culture.
 
Sometimes such views are confirmed by perceptive observers like James Fallows, who more than thirty years ago wrote an essay about our “damaged culture,” about “a nation not only without nationalism but also without much national pride.” 
 
Within the intellectual and academic community, the debate on this characterization of our culture continues until today. For instance, in the current tensions with China, there is a derisive conclusion that there is not enough nationalism in this country. Where are the radicals who demonstrated in front of the American Embassy, Congress, Malacañang?
 
I SOMETIMES TALK with foreigners who have had experience in this country and can look at us with great objectivity. They agree that our elites have to change. But the great difficulty of Filipinos confronting their own elite is not only because the elites are brown like ourselves but because they are “very nice people.”
 
Indeed so many of these foreigners find it so easy to break into Philippine society, from the bottom to the very top, because Filipinos are so hospitable. This can be a virtue but it can also be the door to exploitation.
 
So many journalists who have covered the Philippines for decades have spoken warmly of us. One of them is Greg Sheridan of Australia. I asked him why.
 
He said he had covered many countries, particularly in Southeast Asia. At the conclusion of the Vietnam War in 1975, many Vietnamese were expelled in old rusting boats. These refugees were denied entry by all countries. It was only the Philippines, poor as it was, who welcomed them. 
 
The late Robert Shaplen of The New Yorker wrote perceptively of the Philippines, and identified with this country. He first came here with the American Liberation Army in 1945. He was also at EDSA I. Like so many Filipinos at that happiest of events, he was in tears. He said we Filipinos are resilient; we will survive disasters like Marcos.
 
WAY BACK IN THE 1960s, I read the bestseller, The Italians, by Luigi Barzini. I was struck by how similar the Italians are to us. I had since then made Italian friends, among them Tiziano Terzani, the Asia correspondent of Der Spiegel. Tiziano believed in our faith healers. The Philippines, he said, is blessed with miracles. 
 
Then there is the Jesuit, Hector Mauri. When the Jesuits were expelled from China in 1949, he came to the Philippines and chose to work with the sugar workers in Negros, who were the most exploited agricultural workers. Once he told me that he preferred working with the communists in Negros. He said they were sincere and got things done. 
 
I remember an old Malaysian friend, Ismail Hussein, who told me he envied us because we are a heroic people. Malaysia got its independence on a silver platter; we fought the Spaniards, the Japanese, and the Americans to be free.
 
Indonesian writer Mochtar Lubis recalled how, during their revolution, they were inspired by Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios. It was translated into Bahasa by Rosihan Anwar. And so today, there are some Indonesians named Rizal.
 
When he was martyred at 35, our national hero was a novelist, a poet, a scholar, a sculptor, and a medical doctor. What country in Asia has produced a man like him?
 
Once, on a flight to Europe, I sat beside a Boeing engineer. He was going to Teheran, and when he found out I was Filipino, he sang the praises of the Filipino technicians at Boeing. He said, if not for them, Iran Air would not take off. 
 
And so I look back at our revolutions that failed, and at our dismal leaders. Marcos, Duterte – they are all minor incidents in our history.
 
The French poet, Amina Said, translated my Rosales Saga and also my novel, Viajero, which she considers my best work. Viajero is about our history, long before the Spaniards came. It is a story of the Filipino as traveler, in search of himself and of freedom.
 
It is the story of our people building cities abroad, as professionals and as menials. It is also a record of past rebellions and of our tenacity in our search for truth, justice. And so the Filipino today is all over the world, finding his identity. 
 
What does history tell us? Asia’s two great religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, did not take root on our soil. We would have been Islamized if Christianity had arrived later. As Christians then we are heirs to the Christian and Western tradition – this is the core of our identity. 
 
We are a very young nation striving to preserve our republic – the first established in Asia. We are also heirs to a revolutionary tradition. 
 
All the problems of growing up bedevil us now. They are sometimes compounded by difficulties beyond our control. But we have shown unity in our aspiration for freedom and justice. Previous generations have shed blood for the survival of this republic. We will perhaps continue to suffer for it, but as our history has shown we are a people that endures and prevails. 

First published in The Philippine Star, July 28, 2019
https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/sunday-life/2019/07/28/1938614/head-we-filipinos-our-past-present-and-future

I devote this week’s column to a listing of notable books. Although some of these titles may not be new, any book you have not yet read is always new.

I can’t quantify it, but there seems to be a lot of books being published these days, books on the humanities, even big coffee-table volumes, but less and less literature. This is understandable — fiction does not sell. I have also come across beautifully produced books that, alas, only serve as a reminder that you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Honor: The Legacy of Jose Abad Santos 
By Desiree Ann Cue Benipayo
Philippine World War II Memorial Foundation

The Japanese Occupation tested my generation and the generation that followed. The national trauma that was the Occupation raised several questions about our national character, some of them unresolved to this very day — the ambivalent nature of collaboration and the real definition of nationalism.

Some Filipinos collaborated gladly with the Japanese, perceiving them as the nation that freed us from colonialism. At the same time, there were collaborators who sincerely believed that collaborating with the Japanese would lessen their depredation and their brutality.

There were also those, of course, who fought the Japanese, giving up their lives in their opposition.  These are the real heroes of that war,
not those who collected dubious medals and proclaimed their patriotism.

Of this distinguished group, Jose Abad Santos rises above all of them. He had a choice to collaborate and flourish, but he refused for which reason the Japanese killed him. He was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court when Quezon fled to Australia, then to the United States, entrusting the Philippine government to him.

History tells us that paragons like Abad Santos are often forgotten. This well-crafted biography is an effort to stave off our amnesia. 

Occupation 1942-1945
By Benito J. Legarda Jr.
Vibal Group

This patrician memoir of the Japanese Occupation illustrates the Shakespearean observation that the “rich also bleed.” This is also excellent social commentary. A young man when the Japanese invaded the Philippines, Benito Legarda’s sharp memory is refurbished by his father’s diary and recollections of upper-class relatives. Highly recommended.

Debunked
By Rigoberto D. Tiglao
The Manila Times

This collection of essays is an excellent read because this veteran journalist has several axes to grind. While all of us may have axes to grind, few can be as articulate as Rigoberto Tiglao.

He reveals many unknown details of major scandals that stigmatized major politicians. Highly recommended, but read with caution.

The Counterfeit Revolution: How Ferdinand Marcos Became Dictator of the Philippines
By Reuben R. Canoy 

Reuben Canoy, the writer and politician, has first-hand knowledge of the Marcos regime because he was Undersecretary of Information, Presidential Action Officer, and Chairman of the Southern Philippines Development Authority.

As a writer in the early days of the Martial Law regime, Canoy was privy to the machinations and backdoor dealings in the Palace. His book is not only authoritative but also illustrates how power operates and how it also fails. 

He called the Marcos dictatorship a counterfeit revolution because like most intellectuals in the fringes of power he realized soon enough the shortcomings of a presidency surrounded by relatives and cronies who profited from that dictatorship. 

He has a few words for the President today and I hope President Duterte will read this book so he will know what to avoid.

Dark Days of Authoritarianism
By Melba Padilla Maggay
Langham Publishing

This is a collection of essays on the Martial Law regime by five individuals who were involved in the activist movement.

The essays reveal so many aspects of that regime that are not known. The editor, Melba Maggay, is also a polished playwright and fictionist. Highly recommended.

Press Freedom Under Siege: Reportage that Challenged the Marcos Dictatorship
Edited by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo

A compilation of the journalistic record of the Martial Law regime that stands out as an example of courageous reporting. A portion of the book describes the murky and perilous conditions today that the journalist must carefully navigate.

Never Again! (To Martial Law)
By Crispin C. Maslog

Although this volume is quite thin, it includes some of the most interesting and least-known aspects of the Marcos regime. Here is the couple on their travels and their lavish shopping expeditions, and at their parties. Read it and marvel at how the Marcoses plundered the country.

More Islamic Than We Admit: Insights into Philippine Cultural History
Edited by Isaac Donoso
Vibal Group

This anthology of essays about the Muslim heritage of Filipinos is first-class scholarship and commentary. The author, who is Spanish, recounts the origins of Islam in the Philippines as well as its impact on Spain. A must read, especially for those who shape national policy regarding the Moros.

Rock Solid: How the Philippines Won Its Maritime Case Against China
By Marites Danguilan Vitug
Ateneo Press

Herein is a well-researched and lucid study of our case with China and China’s incursion on our territory. It records the heroic effort of Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio in his very perceptive defense of the Philippine claim before the International Court. According to the Chinese, their claim on the Spratly Islands is historical. Justice Carpio debunks this with historical documents. Highly recommended.

The South China Sea Arbitration: Understanding the Awards and Debating with China
By Alfredo C. Robles Jr.
DLSU Press 

This is a very important addition to the growing number of publications on how we can deal with China and how we can further our interest. This book explains further the least understood aspects of that arbitration.

Demigods and Monsters: Stories
by Caroline S. Hau
UP Press

This second collection of fiction by the cultural historian, Caroline S. Hau, is a good mix of obscure writing and lucid and readable prose. An earlier anthology on the Filipino elite as described by Filipino writers is superbly edited, with a very perceptive introduction by Hau. It is good sociology as well as literary criticism.
 
First published in The Philippine Star, July 29, 2019
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/07/29/1938722/book-notes

I am 94. Looking back, I now realize that one of the most important projects I’ve undertaken was a Tagalog translation program for books on Japan. Thanks to Yoshiko Wakayama and Kazue Iwamoto, I received a Toyota Foundation grant for the program, which I managed with much enthusiasm. 

I had always thought that there was so much we could learn from Japan, a country with a land area similar to ours but with much less land for cultivation. Like us, the Japanese were also a divided people until the 16th century, when Tokugawa Ieyasu united the warring clans.

The Meiji Restoration in 1886 is one of Asia’s major historical events in modern times. Promoted by no more than a hundred Japanese intellectuals, businessmen, and samurai, it modernized Japan in one generation to be the great nation that it has become.

​Japan has scant resources and its greatest asset is its people — disciplined, purposeful, and very Japanese.

I went to Japan for the first time in 1955 when that country was still very poor. The scabs of war had not yet been fully lifted and ruins were still everywhere. I felt rich. The exchange rate for one dollar was two pesos or three hundred sixty yen. Some of the houses in the suburbs of Tokyo and Kyoto were still roofed with grass. Streetcars rumbled in Tokyo, and willow trees lined the Ginza.
Those sleek shinkansen were not yet on the drawing boards; the trains were powered by giant black locomotives. My first impressions of the country were the neatness of neighborhoods, a sense of order everywhere, hordes of men, almost all of them in similar dark suits, marching briskly to work. 

Superior Japanese craftsmanship was also everywhere, in shops as well as in homes. On the top floor of department stores, folk products were on exhibit, together with the craftsmen doing their thing on wood, leather, or cloth. I had to visit a folk art museum to see other artifacts of Japanese craftsmanship, how, for instance, eggs are separately wrapped.

Such craftsmanship was transferred to the factory floor, and this explains the high quality of Japanese manufacturing today. If anything, this is one aspect of Japanese culture we can easily emulate.

I TRAVELED AROUND THE COUNTRY and met with young Japanese. As one who had experienced Japanese brutality during the three years of Japanese Occupation, I felt very uneasy on my first visit and I thought I would never have pleasant social contact with the Japanese. But through the years, I’ve made a lot of acquaintances, some of which have turned into very warm friendships and I got to know the Japanese on human terms. I never romanticized the country, however — I also got to know a little of its dark side.

The translation program was, in a sense, also a publishing experiment. I gathered about a dozen of our best writers in Tagalog and told them that their translations should be in the Tagalog of Manila, not the archaic Tagalog of Balagtas. It was also a challenge for them because these writers were Tagalistas; deep in their hearts they wanted a Tagalog that was pure. 

I was thinking, however, of the thousands that could not understand that variety of Tagalog, particularly the non-Tagalogs who at the time were already acquiring the language very fast through mass media and forced Tagalog instruction in the schools. 

I personally selected the books on Japan, some of them written by Japanese authors themselves. What I wanted readers to learn was how Japan, which was once a very poor nation, became so rich and powerful in such a short time.

For instance, in 1955, ten years after its defeat in World War II, Japan was still poor. But I knew it would develop very fast because an intellectual infrastructure was already in place. The Japanese were not only industrious, they were trained craftsmen from childhood onwards. More than anything, their sense of nation was formidable; it united them. 

The editors of the Tagalog translations, Nora Dimagiba and Alain Padilla, were doubly careful. There could be errors, flaws in nuances. The translations were not from the original Japanese but from English. 

ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING BOOKS that I selected for translation is the memoir of a doctor from Ibaraki, Memories of Silk and Straw. The doctor recounted his experiences, his patients that included geishas, samurai, the very rich, and the very poor farmers and fishermen whose footwear were made of straw, whose clothes in summer were the same that they wore in the coldest winter. The other books included studies on Japanese thought, social mores, literature, and the autobiography of the founder of Sony, Akio Morita.

I was able to have more than sixty books translated. Unfortunately, neither the Toyota Foundation nor my Solidaridad Publishing House profited financially from this innovative enterprise. Was the program far ahead of its time? The awful truth is Filipinos do not read. They look and listen, sometimes. Even today, the best books in Tagalog do not sell.

We were left with thousands of books in the bodega. The lifetime of a book is at the very least fifty years. Instead of having them rot, we donated them to the National Library, to the Department of Education, and to some schools.

Filipinos don’t throw books away, we keep old magazines and newspapers to sell. So all these books, if they are not in the libraries, are now tucked somewhere in homes where, I’m sure, they will be read one day.

I’m also sure that the Tagalog writers in the program, like Lualhati Bautista and Roger Mangahas, learned a lot.  I am grateful to the Toyota Foundation for entrusting me with this program, which I hope will benefit the people of my country in their search for a better life. While the project didn’t bring any financial gain, still I was greatly enriched with insights into how a nation is built.

First published in The Philippine Star, July 22, 2019
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/07/22/1936707/learning-japan

The last time I visited Calcutta, India’s cultural and intellectual capital, was in the 1960s. It was then a vast slum with people living and dying on the sidewalks. I recall an old joke about Calcutta told to me by a Bengali writer. That it is crowded with Banerjees, Sukherjees and Mukerjees, but no energies. But in spite of all the dire predictions for its future, Calcutta today is still very much alive, thriving and throbbing as energetically as before.

I was thirteen when I first came to Manila in 1938, and my memories of the city, which had less than a million people then, is still very vivid. All the way from the Bonifacio Monument to Antipolo Street were rice fields. Dimasalang and España were lined with kangkong plots. All the way from the Welcome Monument in Quezon City to Diliman was cogon wilderness. Makati was the world’s end, with few rice fields and vast stretches of grass.

I lived with my uncle and his family in a small accessoria in Requesens near Bambang, and I walked every day to the Far Eastern University High School, which today is now the Isetann Mall, on the corner of Quezon Avenue and Recto.

RIZAL AVENUE WAS LINED with banaba trees and a streetcar ran through it all the way from La Loma to Plaza Lawton. The Pasig was green and clean, and I remember swimming there with my classmates after school. Or we would walk through Escolta and Intramuros to swim in the Manila Bay, right in front of the Quirino grandstand. Not a single tree stood in the Luneta — it was grass all the way to Taft Avenue.

I was in the province when Manila was liberated in February 1945 and, almost immediately after, I visited Manila. Ruins everywhere, charred skeletons of buildings, cratered streets, Intramuros obliterated. As I sat in front of the blackened shell of Manila Hotel, recalling my fond memories of the city, I began to weep.

Over the next four decades, I saw Manila reconstructed and spread out. The other day I visited the places where I spent my early youth -- the Bambang Oroquita area, Antipolo Street which is the setting of my novel Mass, the last novel in the Rosales saga. Many old, wooden buildings, decrepit and unpainted, stand side by side with the new constructions of stone and steel.

I also went to Taguig via Makati and Forbes Park, and backtracked through the reclaimed area of Manila Bay to my bookshop in Padre Faura, Ermita. It was one of Manila’s most genteel neighborhoods, but today, like much of Manila, it is dirty and dilapidated.  

I often say the Philippines is poor, but anyone visiting the country for the first time and touring through Taguig will be amazed by the magnificent truculence of its monoliths, brand new and shining in the sun. It is a strange ultra-modern world that could easily be in Southern California or in any of the new and bustling cities of Asia’s four little dragons.

HOW ELSE COULD all this modern magnificence come about but through the wealth and genius of the very rich Filipinos?

That famous English writer, Jan Morris, while traveling through America once wrote — and this I will always remember — America’s cathedrals are its highways. This apt observation unfolds when one travels those intertwining eight-lane freeways. Such beautiful symmetry in concrete.

To paraphrase Morris, let me say that our cathedrals are our shopping malls — so many of them, so huge, bursting with the world’s goods, so many restaurants, ritzy shops and, in each mall, a chapel. Indeed these malls are also our public parks, where people can watch other people, eat, and relax.

But Manila had been left behind.

Then in his first week as Mayor of Manila, Isko Moreno did something spectacular. He began ridding the sidewalks and streets of all vendors. He is faced with a City Hall that is broke, and he still has a lot to do -- garbage collection, for instance, the restoration of public services, or simply the painting of so many shabby buildings for Manila is perhaps Southeast Asia’s ugliest city. He could follow what San Francisco did, which makes that city so picture pretty. The city paints buildings whose owners have failed to do so and the owner is then charged for the job.

The sidewalks of Sampaloc and Sta. Cruz, too, should be cleared for the people. Manila is smaller than Quezon City, Isko Moreno is young. He must move around, make City Hall efficient. He should get to know each nook and cranny of his city, their problems, and improve their lighting and security.

MORENO COULD PUT all those non-performing city hall officials to work keeping the sidewalks clean and open, ensuring the cleanliness of restaurants, the safety of fire-trap buildings and that crime is at a minimum because the police are visible everywhere.

​He could also take over the municipal golf links right in the heart of Manila and turn them into public parks. As for those peddlers who have been expelled from the streets, he should find a public area that could be a night market.

And, finally, having once been a movie actor himself, he should have a cultural program for the city wherein ordinary folk are exposed to the best performances in music, dance, and theatre.

The mansions, the soaring condos, and urban munificence of Makati and Taguig emphasize the wide, pernicious chasm between the Filipino elite and the masa. He must work to narrow this divide, and make Manila an exemplary city.

How I wish that the cathedrals of this country – our shopping malls -- are much, much less conspicuous cornucopias, that our cathedrals be our barangays instead, the smallest political units composed and managed by the masa. They will then become living and formidable representations and fitting symbols of our capacity for building democratic institutions, and of our creativity and genius as a people.

First published in The Philippine Star, July 15, 2019
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/07/15/1934713/can-manila-live-again

Ah, those venerable Chinese sages, their standards are so high and they are so demanding. They say one is not a man until he has achieved three goals – sired a son, written a book, and planted a tree.

But as that poet Joyce Kilmer said, “Only God can make a tree.”

Whatever, I think these perilous times demand that each of us plant a tree. I read in the papers the other day that the denudation of the mountains forming the watershed of the Angat Dam, Manila’s main source of water, has caused the water shortage in Manila. Again, this illustrates the wanton nature of Filipinos, how we have become our worst enemy. A national effort now to plant trees not only in the Angat area but elsewhere is perhaps a little too late. Alternative sources of water must either be found or constructed immediately and will, of course, be very expensive.

Trees, water -- they are so vital in life. Now and all through history, agrarian societies instinctively know why trees are important. The Ilokanos almost always surround their houses with marunggay or fruit trees. Legend has it that one of the first Ilokano immigrants to Hawaii brought with him a marunggay stick, claiming it was a cane. He planted it, and that explains the abundance of marunggay trees in those islands.

Marunggay leaves are now established as one of the best sources of the minerals that the body needs. Way back in the 1950s, when I was traveling all over Mindanao, much of that island was forested. I went up the Agusan River to see huge forest trees had been cut down and floated down the river as logs, for direct export to Japan. Some Filipinos got rich despoiling our natural resources without replanting the barren land. It was the same in Northern Luzon. And so today, our forest cover is a mere 20 percent. 

The Japanese, a very disciplined people, take good care of their forests and trees. For centuries, they have always used wood for their houses and their magnificent temples. In fact, the use of wood defines and gives character to their architecture. Very old trees, some several hundred years old, still stand in that country, the object of much love and veneration.

In contrast, we have very few old trees. Three of them -- all acacias -- were in Padre Faura, in Ermita, Manila. During the liberation of Manila, they were blasted by canon fire. A couple of them simply rotted with age and neglect, and fell last year.

Sometime back, the agriculture champion and guru, Zacarias Sarian, gifted me with a macopa sapling from Malaysia. The tamarind and jackfruit trees I had planted in my yard had to be cut down when my wife enlarged the house to fit our seven children. I planted the sapling in a hole about more than a foot deep. 

It grew quickly, and when it reached five years old and still had not borne any fruit, I told it: If this year you still have no fruit, I’ll cut you down. Sure enough, it did bear fruit, and with such abundance that there was more than enough to give to neighbors and friends. The fruit, greenish-maroon and as big as an apple, is sweeter than the native variety.

In the village where I grew up, the tallest tree was the Dalipawen. It had a trunk three times thicker than that of a coconut, and it was much taller, too, than the coconut, with short branches at the very top. Its flowers have a strong scent. Martins made their nests at the top and, at night, fireflies ignited it. 

Spirits were supposed to live in the tree and, every so often, when someone got sick in the vicinity, prayers and offerings were made to it. The atang or offering was usually a plate of gelatinous rice cooked in coconut oil, and topped with a hard-boiled egg, betel nut, and a hand-rolled cigar. After the devotee had left we kids feasted on the atang, daring the spirit of the tree to make us ill. It never did.

Way back in the 1950s, as the Baguio visitor climbed up Kennon Road, they were greeted with the scent of pine perfuming the air. Baguio then had so many pine trees, which have since been felled but not replaced. The Baguio government is now engaged in replanting. But it’s not Baguio only that needs replanting but also the entire Cordillera range.

The preservation of our forests  is the responsibility of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. It is hampered by corruption and incompetence, its forest guards often threatened and killed. The present DENR Secretary, retired General Roy Cimatu, needs assistance and more champions like Gina Lopez. Espousing tree planting brings neither votes nor money.

The Balete is an unusual tropical tree native to Southeast Asia. Its scientific name is Ficus Benjamina Linn. I used it as a motif and symbol in my novel, Tree. A story of growing up in a small Filipino town, Tree is the second novel in terms of chronology of the five-novel Rosales saga.

The Balete Tree grows as a slender sapling. I don’t know where they come from but soon vines surround the sapling. They grow big, close in on the sapling, eventually suffocating it. The vines then become the trunk of the tree itself, for which reason the Balete is often called the strangler tree. It is an apt and fitting symbol for people and for institutions, even for nations, that are strangled to death by impoverishment and decay.

The Balete is indeed an object metaphor for so many of us, and particularly for our leaders who, when elected, start green with promise and noble intentions. But within a few years, they are surrounded by panderers, by hypocrisies, and by grasping, greedy friends and relatives. They are then strangled, never realizing they had betrayed not just themselves but also their country.

First published in The Philippine Star, July 8, 2019
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/07/08/1932887/why-plant-tree

I have been doing an informal survey, particularly with the young, asking them what they want most in life. Almost always, after giving the question some thought, their most common reply is happiness. Seldom are lofty ideals like peace, justice, or wisdom mentioned. For the young who still have to build a career or shape the future, happiness is the end-all.

I am not surprised, of course, because this is what most people, including myself, want. It is after all enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence which, “holds these truths” to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

We all know that happiness is state of mind, but it can also be very physical. Two of the great thinkers of the 18th century had their theories. Karl Marx postulated that happiness is a full stomach, while Sigmund Freud declared that happiness is satiated gonads.

These are, of course, gross over-simplifications of very complex theories. For politicians, happiness might be the possession of absolute power. For the greedy, immeasurable wealth, and for the common folk just an empty bladder.

SOME THOUGHT MUST BE GIVEN to the process by which happiness is achieved, and how it can be maintained. When we bring these factors to mind, then we recall the nature of man, the society that he creates for himself, and the liberty that makes real happiness possible.

That liberty is what sprouts when opposition is banished from society. The process is often violent and calls for committed agents. As the revolutionary Thomas Paine declared, show me the country where oppression is – that is my country.

For so many people, certain beliefs will bring happiness. As Marx said, religion is the opium of the poor. And for intellectuals, that opium is communism. To achieve happiness that is based on ideology requires unrelenting faith and conviction in that ideology. But then we must remember always what Nietzsche said, that convictions are prisons.

In our search for happiness (and utopia), we need to go back to the distant past to recall what the ancients did, how they created laws and institutions that gave them happiness. Some primitive societies have no word for liberty, but its essence is understood in the taboos and codes of conduct that are rigidly observed. 

History is a very good teacher, but can also be a very bad master when it shackles us to the past and inhibits us from being innovative, creative, and critical. Indeed, history often repeats itself because we don’t learn from it.

ALL THROUGH HISTORY man has strived for liberty as the basis of happiness. Liberty, truth, justice are bound together and striving for these is a continuing struggle to this very day. Some years back, an American scholar postulated that with the end of the cold war, the major conflict of the future will be between civilizations.

If we look at this theory very closely and straddle it with fanatic jihadism and the rise of Muslim fundamentalism, we may see some truth in this forecast. The deeper reality, however, is not so obvious. This continuing struggle is not between civilizations but humankind’s deep longing for liberty. And, therefore, the conflict will be as it had always been – between the oppressors and the oppressed, between those who crave liberty and those who refuse to give it.

But do you really want liberty?

Unfortunately, not all civilizations or individuals look at liberty as the basis of their happiness. There are people who want despots or dictators to govern them, and they become comfortable with their shackles.

Tradition, too, inhibits liberty. China is one such country that has always been ruled by despots, a continuum for four millennia to this very day. China also adeptly illustrates, contrary to common western logic, that development does not necessarily bring liberty. In fact, when a country progresses and becomes an empire, to hold on to power, the emperor or the imperialists suppress liberty with the Mandate of Heaven.

In so many instances, too, crimes are committed in the name of liberty for human nature does not take to liberty naturally. The great virtues of humanity are not embedded in human genes, they are acquired often at exorbitant cost.

FOR SEEKING AND TEACHING the truth, Socrates was condemned to death by poisoning by the Greek agora. For propagandizing for freedom from Spanish tyranny Rizal was executed by the Spanish. As the poet Bertolt Brecht said, we who want the world to be kind cannot ourselves be kind. I recall Madame Roland who during the French Revolution lamented before she was guillotined, “Oh, liberty what crimes are committed in thy name!”

We ourselves did not realize the true value of freedom until Marcos took it away, we even welcomed him. And today, we are even nostalgic for his despotism.

The hunger for despots or dictators such as Hitler was aggravated by the Germans themselves who were looking for a savior in the midst of their impoverishment, much in the same way we are today hoping for a savior. That condition was summed up by the German poet and pastor, Martin Niemoller. I now paraphrase what he said: First they came for the leftists – and I did not speak out because I was not a leftist. Then they came for the social activists – and I did not speak out because I was not a social activist. Then they came for the Catholics – and I did not speak out because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

I came across this Latin passage way back in the 1940s when I was in college. Keep this posted in your office, your desk, wherever it will greet you every day: “Ubi boni tacent, malum prosperat” – Evil prospers where good people are silent.

First published in The Philippine Star, June 24, 2019 https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/06/24/1928992/why-liberty#034yRTeF7jyRSxvI.99

I was born and I grew up in an Ilokano village in eastern Pangasinan. In that part of the province and from there all the way to the Northern tip of Luzon, Ilokano is the lingua franca. In 1938, I moved to Manila for high school and it was here where I learned Tagalog, but the everyday Tagalog of Manila.

Tagalog and Spanish were taught while I was in college back in 1946. I almost flunked Tagalog with its “Balarila.” I came to realize the difference between my Tagalog and the Tagalog being taught in schools, and why it was not widely accepted as the national language, not only for ethnic reasons but also because it was purist.

Language is organic; it either grows or dies. The Oxford English Dictionary does a quarterly update with new words, colloquialisms. If you read the original Beowulf, the English epic written a thousand years ago, you will not understand a single word. I think President Quezon, because he was Tagalog, made a very big mistake in electing Tagalog as national language. Earlier, Spanish and English were accepted by us because both languages made all of us equal.

In the 1950s, I travelled all over the country, from Sabtang in the Batanes group in the north to Sitangkai in the Tawi-Tawi group in the south. In those days, Tagalog was not spoken in non-Tagalog regions. I communicated in English. Thank God, English was already understood by many Filipinos, especially those in official positions. But in the past 50 years, media – particularly movies, radio, and television – and the public schools, have turned Tagalog into a real national language. And during the recent senatorial election campaign, I watched non-Tagalogs give speeches and debate in a Tagalog far better than mine.

THE FINAL RULING of the Supreme Courtmaking Filipino (Tagalog) no longer a required college subject is absolutely correct. I think now is the time to make Tagalog the sole language of instruction from grade school to graduate school, and also the official language in government and in the courts. This Tagalog will be understandable, and will not be the Tagalog espoused today by the Commission on Language.

I know that such a monumental change will cause many difficulties and expense, and it is for these reasons why the transition will have to be carefully calibrated for at least 25 years. This will mean the gradual rewriting of textbooks and of procedures in government. Business will follow inevitably.

English should be phased out slowly to become like any of the foreign languages – Spanish, German, Japanese – taught in special schools. This change will be a daunting job for our Tagalog teachers. Many of them must change their mindset in order to turn Tagalog into Filipino. Many non-Tagalog words like balay (house), taytay (bridge), and bulan (moon) should be incorporated into the national language as mandated by law.

When I was with the old Manila Times, I received a copy of the Tagalog newspaper, Taliba, every day. I could not read it. I told the publisher of the Manila Times then, Joaquin P. Roces, to make Taliba more understandable with the use of Manila Tagalog, not the archaic Tagalog of Balagtas. When that change was made, the Taliba circulation surged from a few thousand to more than twenty thousand.

Twenty years ago, I managed a translation program wherein books in Japanese were translated into Tagalog. The books did not sell as indeed even today Tagalog translations of books – including mine – are not selling. This does not mean we should stop trying. Look at how successful the Indonesians and Malaysians have been with Bahasa.

LET ME RECOUNT how Bahasa became the national language of Indonesia and Malaysia. It was modernized and also made literary, and broad and rich enough for intellectual and scientific discourse. Takdir Alisjahbana, the Indonesian writer and scholar, and a significant influence on the modernization of Bahasa, told me how it came to be Indonesia’s national language.

When the leaders of the Indonesian independence movement were discussing their national language in the 1920s, they could have easily opted for Javanese. Most of the leaders themselves were Javanese but were educated in Dutch. But they realized that if Javanese became the national language there would be objections from the other language groups. So they elected Bahasa, which was used mainly in trading centers. They accommodated international words – ethnography became etnograpi, anthropology became antropologi, science became sains, and so on. This is a very good model for us to emulate, to use widely accepted terms instead of words like lungsod, pamantasan, mataas na paaralan, aklat, and so on.

I can think of no people more nationalistic than the Japanese, but they have Japanized many foreign terms.

In the 1950s, the writer, Rodrigo Perez, knowing the Indonesian example, suggested Tausug as our national language. Like English and Spanish, it would have been accepted because Tausug is such a tiny minority language spoken only by the Tausug of Sulu. It would have brought us closer to Indonesia but most important, it would have dampened or banished altogether the Moro separatist movement.

The first Tagalog novel I’ve read in its entirety is Lualhati Bautista’s Dekada 70. I am very happy with her translation of my novel, Mass. She uses “alarm clock” instead of “relos ng panggising.” This is how it should be.

I’m only too aware that language carries with it a lot of cultural baggage, but this cultural baggage should enrich our language, not diminish it. As a writer in English, I hope that much of what I have written can be translated into Tagalog, so too the works of those writing in Filipino languages such as Bicolano, Cebuano, and Ilokano. This is a formidable task particularly for our Tagalogs who despair over the Supreme Court decision. Then Tagalog shall have become truly “Filipino” and no longer a euphemism.

​First published in The Philippine Star, June 17, 2019 https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/06/17/1927069/tagalog-all-way#SxXwqWDsydmFy7Mz.99

Let us pause and recall on this, the 121st anniversary of the Philippine Declaration of Independence in Kawit, Cavite, in 1898.

I have recently been re-reading ancient history – about Alexander the Great, the building of Rome, the Renaissance. I can see how human the ancient politicians were, how they built institutions that survive to this very day. Motivated by power and glory, they built empires that lasted centuries, then decayed. The decay of these empires is just as interesting as their rise; it illustrates how the character of leaders decide as well the fate of their power, their imperial reach.

Looking back at Asia’s First Republic and the ilustrados who shaped it, I wonder if it would have been able to escape the American hegemony, or Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Even the Germans were in Manila Bay, waiting, when Admiral Dewey arrived.
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But there are no ifs in history. We are what we have become because we have not really learned from our past, that we were easily subjugated first by foreign colonizers, then by our own elites because we are a weak and divided people, because we didn’t have the institutions that support a sovereign state.

The sneering, lying response of some readers to my recent column, “Why it is difficult to love this country,” informs me, alas, why we rot in this swamp. We refuse to learn from our history. There is even a conscious effort now to deny this past and revise it, and to denigrate those who remember. These revisionist efforts are the termite mounds we have to identify and demolish before they destroy our country.

WE CAN NEVER EVER alter history or rescue Marcos from the ignominy which he created. Did he do anything good? Sure, his first decree freeing the peasant from his ancient yoke. I commend him for abolishing tenancy in the rice and corn areas, and replacing it with leasehold. No Filipino leader, not even Magsaysay who championed agrarian reform, could have done that with a Congress dominated by landlords. Marcos as dictator did it and reaped political largesse.

I also applaud him for abrogating the 99-year US Bases lease. This could have led to perpetuity. And, finally, for opening our country to new diplomatic relationships as, for instance, with China and Russia.

But all that good is nullified by the massive corruption and the brutality of his martial law regime. This is known not only in our country but internationally, and no matter how much his champions strive to remove this stigma, they cannot because the whole world knows it.

We need not speculate if the United States was involved with his staying power or his ouster. The big powers, China included, always interfere with the destiny of other countries, particularly the weak. This to preserve their hegemony and to enlarge their markets and sources of raw materials. Always keep this in mind as the rationale for the origins of war. But the big powers can do little when countries are strong, their people unified.

How, for instance, did Cuba survive American overt incursions? The Cubans did because their leader, Fidel Castro, was credible. How did tiny Vietnam humble the United States, the world’s most powerful country, in the Vietnam War? Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese leader, too, was credible. More than anything he personified Vietnamese nationalism.

It was not communism that the United States fought against in Vietnam. It was nationalism – the strongest element that binds a people, the sturdiest bastion for survival that, alas, is woefully absent in this country.

How can we possess it? Imbibe it in our very blood, the air we breathe?

We must know our history, nurture our memory, and love this ravaged homeland.

OUR HISTORY DEFINES US, confirms us as a heroic people, but we have to look at ourselves and our past honestly, realize that we want a strong leader who is willing to make sacrifices, and this we should ask of ourselves as well. We must always beware, however, of leaders who claim kinship with the poor but whose actions deny that claim.

Looking back, Marcos had every good reason to declare martial law. But he failed to use that power to modernize this country. He was going to create a New Society and was surrounded by our finest technocrats. He grabbed power when we were next to Japan in prosperity; we were then in the take-off stage. His rhetoric was democratic even noble, but alas, he was crippled by his ego, by insatiable greed, and lust for power.

So now, we seem to be on the verge of the same old scenario. The emerging portents are ominous. I recall us welcoming Marcos who was then vastly popular with a landslide election victory. Will history repeat itself?

To conclude: The grievous problems that plague our people were already evident more than a hundred years ago and were described by the ilustrados, most of all by Rizal. How do we learn from history?

How do we create a just society and abolish poverty? We have arable land three times that of Japan. How can we use this to produce enough food for our people?

The vast wealth in this country – how do we use it to develop the economy? Our very rich must undergo tremendous change, transform themselves from landlords to producers and industrialists. We are now more than a hundred million – a mass market and at the same time a vast labor pool.

​How do we bring back the thousands of talented Filipinos abroad?

At the bottom of all these and perhaps the most important question for us all -- how do we truly love this motherland sincerely enough to sacrifice for her?
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First published in The Philippine Star, June 8, 2019
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/06/08/1924608/we-dont-learn-history

All of us know how finite life is, that nothing in this world really lasts. But though this knowledge is with us every moment of our lives, we often fight it because it is very difficult to let go.

Many politicians, used to privilege and power, can’t let go; if they lose an election, it is almost always because they were “cheated.” Political power is an aphrodisiac, an addiction, so they cling to it to their dying day. Women – many of them cling to a past when they were beautiful, their faces unlined with wrinkles. And the rich dream of bringing their wealth to the grave but that narrow pit cannot contain all their loot or their corpulent corpses which turn to dust.

There are those rare individuals who lead quiet, useful lives, moral lives even, who should linger a little longer, not for themselves but for others. But they let go quietly, silently. I knew three of them.

My father-in-law, Antonio Jovellanos, was a government doctor who, for much of his life, worked with lepers. He was on call day and night, not only for hospital patients but also for the people of the surrounding barrios. He reached his patients on foot or horseback. He encountered ignorance, superstition, and crushing poverty. He was often paid with chickens and eggs, which he would always decline.

He belonged to a middle-class Ermita family. His father, Cesareo, was an Ateneo classmate of Rizal, who used to visit the Jovellanos home in Padre Faura, the same place where my bookshop now stands. As recounted by my father-in-law, Rizal was very judicious. He was already being watched by the Spaniards as a filibuster and he didn’t want to jeopardize his friend so they would go somewhere else to talk. 

MY FATHER-IN-LAW was quiet and appeared distant, but was actually very warm. He read a lot, particularly history. He resented me at first because I eloped with his daughter, but we eventually made peace, well enough for him to agree with my politics. It was pleasurable talking with him because he was insightful. With his background, he would often trace how perverse family relationships and character leads to social decay.

Like his oldest brother, Jose, parish priest of Tondo, and his sister, Bernarda, who was a Benedictine nun, he was almost saintly. He was the epitome of hard work and honesty. He was a great influence in my life. Once, he came upon my wealthy acquaintances in the bookshop. After they left, he asked about them and my revolution which would sweep them away; he was aware of moral dilemmas. My reply was ambiguous. I said, I’ll cross the river when I reach it. He died without a fortune other than the fondness and respect that I and the others who knew him kept in our hearts.

When President Elpidio Quirino retired in Novaliches, I visited him a few times. His retirement home was on the way to Tala, where the girl who became my wife was staying with her parents. President Quirino was magnanimity personified. He was a great President, honest, with a stern eye to the future. It was he who planned our economic recovery and development with the assistance of superb technocrats like the late Cornelio Balmaceda.

He was, however, portrayed as weak. It was a very wrong perception – he was very strong but was the traditional Filipino patrician, well-mannered, without bombast. He did not have the common touch of Ramon Magsaysay, the man he selected to be his Defense Minister to fight the Huks.

He had a land reform program, his answer to the Huk demand for agrarian reform, which Magsaysay followed. He was so charitable, he forgave the Japanese who massacred his family. He said to bear anger is to bear a heavy and useless burden. I always addressed him as “Apo,” the Ilokano term for someone venerable or in authority. And as Apo, he let go of that primal anger and declined the arrogance of those who hold power.

I was out of the country when Luis Taruc, the heroic guerrilla and Huk leader, died. I watched the old rebel grow old, and saw how much he loved his people and how hard he worked for them. He even accepted the Marcos dictatorship so he could get assistance for them in return. To the very end, he was vocal in stating and reiterating his socialist faith, that he was never a communist. His communist critics and colleagues reproached him for that: he fought with the communists, therefore he was one of them.

HE LIVED SIMPLY, FRUGALLY, and let go the many opportunities that would have improved his income. He was vocal and emphatic about what he believed in – democracy, social justice, land reform. He might have sounded like a broken record, but he meant every word. At one time, we visited a poor village where he had followers. They crowded around him, some of them weeping. He said, I have no more tears to shed.

I cite these three men who I admire very much because to my mind, they illustrate the fortitude and truthfulness that make ordinary existence more meaningful. Many of us strive to live morally, but human as we are, we commit mistakes, we sin, and are mortified.

We try to be honest with ourselves so we can be true to others and find that we are sometimes “persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” How true what Rizal said, that it’s the honest man who has enemies. Jesus’ sermon on the mount should comfort us, but even if it doesn’t, we must remember that tattered cliché, virtue is its own reward.

It is really difficult to let go when we have a job left undone, an unfinished novel, a debt unpaid, or we are engaged in an effort that fulfills us and lifts our spirit. But time is running out. So then, let go gladly, peacefully even, but never, ever let go of the dream.

First published in The Philippine Star, June 1, 2019
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2019/06/01/1922638/letting-go