THE GROUSE’S PEN

(FUNNY, NOT-SO-FUNNY ARTICLES FROM FILIPINO NEWSPAPERS)

COULDN’T AFFORD AK-47S?

In Antipolo City, Manila, a house painter named Glen Melgar (25) and his wife had a “domestic squabble” during the day on Monday, May 26. Melgar and his pal Celosia Juman (23) took Melgar’s wife and child hostage that night. Although the article says Melgar got angry because “his wife refused to come home with him,” it also says he held his family hostage “inside their house.” Something’s amiss there. It also says he held them hostage for two hours “with a blowgun.” In Manila? What on earth is Melgar doing with a blowgun in Manila? Anyway, while some policemen kept Melgar busy urging him to release his wife and child, others jumped him from behind. The police also cornered Juman, who “yielded (sic) a small bow and arrow.” So Melgar was armed with a blowgun and his pal Juman with a small bow and arrow—not a bow and arrow, mind you, but a “small” bow and arrow. Most expatriates in the PI worry about goons with guns and knives. Now enter Neanderthals armed with blowguns and small bows and arrows. (MS, 5/28/03, p. 4)

SLAIN IN MARIKINA

It’s hard not to admire a reporter able to turn a nondescript case of manslaughter into—well, you name it. This short article describes how two sidewalk vendors—Rolando Natabio and a certain Asilo (the police had no first name)—were drinking in Barangay Calumpang in Marikina City, a part of Metro Manila—late Friday night, May 9, 2003, when they suddenly began arguing. In a fit, Asilo picked up a piece of lead pipe and struck Natabio “repeatedly.” After Natabio fell to the ground, what did Asilo do? The last sentence, word for word: “The suspect then stuffed the victim into a sack, fetched his family, and left in a taxi.” No extra words there. Robust surrealism in Marikina. (PDI, 5/10/03, p. A19)

UNWANTED NOISE

The blaring air horns Filipino drivers fit to cars, vans, and PUVs are called “power horns.” This article says that because of the noise power horns cause in Manila the Metro Manila Development Authority will soon propose an ordinance to the Manila Council to ban them. The penalty will be “on-the-spot destruction of the horn.” According to MMDA Chair Bayani Fernando: “A traffic enforcer may smash the horn to ensure that the motorist will not use it again.” With all the loose cannons driving around Manila one wonders what brave soul will be the first to enforce the ordinance and destroy one of the horns. The first one better be brawny, that’s for sure, with a grip strong enough to grab and squeeze the horns flat the way most of us can still squeeze an empty aluminum beer can. If not, the poor underpaid/overworked laddie/lassie will end up a clipping stat. (PDI, 5/21/03, p. A23)

OZAMIZ KILLINGS

This short article by Reporter Ryan Rosauro of the PDI Mindanao Bureau is incredible. In 11 lines of a 3-inch-wide column, Rosauro provides odd statistics and details on murder cases in Ozamiz City in Mindanao, maybe a 2 ½-hour drive south from Dapitan. He says that during the first three months of 2003 a person was murdered every eight days, 16 in total (six in January and five each in February and March). “The most sensational among the killings is [sic] the case of a female sales representative of a food supplement brand who was raped before she was killed in March. The most controversial is [sic] the gunning down of two civilian peace volunteers.” (PDI, 5/22/03. p. A13)

Since Rosauro went that far he could have at least added 3-4 more lines and provided a bit more detail, like how many male vs. female murders, how many solved vs. unsolved murders, average age of the victims, type of weapon used most frequently—including make and length of knives—and, where known, maybe income and education levels of the victims and perps. It might also have been nice to tell us the total number of children left motherless/fatherless.

KILLER OF 1-YEAR OLD BOY MAULS FELLOW INMATE TO DEATH

Readers of last month’s clippings might recall the story of the man—Robert Quano his name was—who on May 17 killed his one-year-old nephew with a knife and injured about a dozen others who tried to grab him, including the boy’s mother and father. Well, if nothing else, Quano is consistent. After arresting Quano the police put him in a “common cell,” a sort of holding area, in Caloocan City Jail. Within a couple of days Quano attacked and injured an inmate in the common cell, and the police had to transfer him to an “adjustment detention cell ... situated at the back of the jail premises and intended for the temporary isolation of prisoners from other inmates, particularly those who were showing signs of emotional disturbance.” Efren Garcia, “a member of the Commando Gang,” in jail for robbery and assault, was already resident in the cell. Fate, it seems, in the form of Robert Quano, caught up with Efren Garcia. The two did not get along, and soon got into a fight. Quano won. According to the Northern Police District Crime Lab Office, “Garcia died due to intracranial bleeding secondary to multiple hematoma and contusions on different parts of the head, neck, and chest.” The reporter’s description was more poetic. Quano, the reporter says, beat Garcia “to a pulp.” One wonders how long it’ll be before fate catches up with Uncle Bob. (PS, 5/22/03, p. 21)

ANCHORMAN CALLS FORMER GOVERNOR BAD NAMES

Former governor of Ilocos Sur Luis Singson filed a libel suit on May 29 against Efren Rafanan, anchorman of a daily radio program in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, for accusing him of masterminding a plot to assassinate Rafanan in a van ambush on March 31, 2003. Rafanan, his daughter Renalyn, and an aide escaped but gunmen killed Rafanan’s wife, son, brother, and another aide. As if that accusation wasn’t enough, Rafanan also earned the ire of Singson for calling him “corrupt, a hypocrite, arrogant, fond of vices, immoral, and treacherous.” Good grief. One person with all those qualities? Are those modifiers resonant in Ilocano? (MS, 5/30/03, p. 5)

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Reporter Juliet Labog-Javellana, in Washington, D.C., for the late May state visit of President Gloria Arroyo, wrote for the Philippine Daily Inquirer about the most important aspects of the president’s visit. She said, for example, that the Washington Post’s editors contacted her for some critical background statistics: They wanted to know how tall Gloria is. She also let her readers eavesdrop on a pregnant conversation between two female American reporters chatting about Gloria: “I’ve never seen a woman president so small,” said one reporter. The other replied, “But she’s also cute, and she seems nice.” As the reporters chatted, Ms. Cute & Nice confirmed with an aide her orders for the Filipino military to escalate selective attacks on embedded terrorist cells in Mindanao. (PDI, 5/21/03, p. A22)

MMDA ASSURANCE ON FLOODING IN MANILA

The weather bureau says the Philippines has entered the rainy season. Coinciding with that, Typhoon Chedeng landed in the Lingayen Gulf area and cut almost straight across northern Luzon from west to east, causing a week of steady, sometimes heavy, rain. Although streets in Angeles City get badly flooded when it rains hard, Angeles is nothing like Lake Metro Manila. But the Metro Manila Development Authority looks at the bright side of things. “The situation isn’t as bad as last year,” says General Manager Robert Nacianceno. The improvement is due mainly to MMDA last October taking over the flood management function from the Department of Public Works and Highways. According to Nacianceno, “We’re expecting a 50-percent reduction in the depth of floodwater [this year].” He then clarifies his statement with this example. “If floodwater was waist-deep last year, it would most likely be only knee-deep this time.” Nothing like progress. Maybe Metro Manila ought to turn to hovercraft, or to the 21-passenger Assault Amphibian Vehicle Personnel Model 7A1. (PDI, 5/26/03, p. A-23)

RAIN FROM TYPHOON CHEDENG FLOODS METRO MANILA

As if to prove, or disprove, the information from MMDA authorities in the above article, water in the Diliman section of Quezon City rose to 6 feet on Tuesday, May 27, as Typhoon Chedeng tromped across northern Luzon. Floods were “knee-to-waist deep” in other parts of QC, and “massive flooding” was also reported in Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela, and Pasig, all in Metro Manila’s north and northwest sectors. The flooding prompted President Arroyo to send all government employees home at noon. A photo accompanying this article shows a woman standing in a flooded side street with water halfway to her knees. She has her hands up in front of her to halt an approaching container truck. The caption reads: “A lady implores a truck driver to slow down or else the waves will flood her house in Talayan, Quezon City.” (MS, 5/28/03, p. 2)

ABDUCTIONS TO RISE WITH COMING POLLS?

This article is mind-boggling, and the subject is freakish. In the context of the approaching election season, the article discusses whether the PI can be expected to experience “a rise in kidnappings instigated by unscrupulous politicians.” No less a personage than Police Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. hinted at the possibility. In an interview, PDG Ebdane said the police found out that some kidnappings during elections in 1997 and 1998 “had been carried out to fund the campaigns of cash-strapped candidates.” As of May 24, 2003, a total of 25 kidnappings have been reported in the PI, “down from the 30 incidents in the same period last year.” Another police official said, “Our greatest fear is that some politicians might turn to kidnappings to raise campaign funds.” (PDI, 5/25/03, p. A5)

BANK ROBBERIES TO RISE WITH COMING POLLS?

Although 95% of this article is about a specific bank robbery in Manila, one of several in a “resurgence” in robberies in March and April 2003, the article has special value because of an aside it contains that ties nicely with the above completely unrelated article about kidnappings, both of them providing insights into understanding the dynamics of Filipino politics. A Philippine Star reporter interviewed Deputy Director Reynaldo Velasco of the Metro Manila Police Department. In the interview, the reporter says, “Velasco admitted that one of the motives for the resurgence in bank robberies was to raise campaign funds for elections but clarified that he never said his mistah, Senator Panfilo Lacson, was possibly involved.” (PS, 4/16/03, p. 5)

ANGELES COUNCILORS FILE GRAFT CASE VS CLARK, CUSTOMS EXECS

Eight Angeles City councilors filed graft charges against Puregold, the largest of the duty free shops on former Clark AFB in Angeles City. Some say Puregold is owned by Lucio Co, reportedly a friend of [former President Joseph] Estrada.” Anyway, the councilors “filed a graft complaint against officials of the Clark Development Corp. and the Bureau of Customs” alleging that actions by the officials “gave unwarranted benefit and advantage to Puregold” and “allowed Puregold to over-import duty-free items through the Clark Special Economic Zone.” Under an executive order issued by then-President Fidel Ramos (served 1992-98), “no taxes are levied on imported consumable goods sold in duty-free stores within Clark and Subic.” But monthly import limits are imposed, and Puregold’s importation of selected items was “several times over” those limits. The monthly limit on imports of a popular canned meat product, Maling, for example, is three container vans per store, and the limit for wine and liquor is one container per store. According to the results of an investigation by the councilors, however, Puregold brought into Clark 107 container vans of Maling between October 2001 and June 2002, almost 12 vans/month. Puregold also brought in 61 vans of wine and liquor, 6.78 vans/month. Those containers translate into 4.3 million cans of Maling and 1 million bottles of wine and liquor. The council also estimated that 265,971 shoppers visited all the Clark duty free shops—not just Puregold—in that 9-month period. If, say, 125,000 of those shoppers visited Puregold, that computes to every Puregold shopper—man, woman, or child—purchasing 34.4 cans of Maling and 8 bottles of wine or liquor. (PDI, 4/4/03, p. 8)

WHY NO ASIAN MIRACLE IN THE PI?

The columnist Alex Magno quickly makes the main point in a long article titled “Holiday Chaos”: “We have too many holidays,” he says. Anyone living in the PI and affected by holidays—with key businesses such as banks, travel agencies, and post offices closing—knows what Magno means. The 11 official holidays in 2003 are New Year’s Day (1/1), Bataan Day (4/9), Holy Thursday and Good Friday (4/17 & 18), Labor Day (5/1), Independence Day (7/12), National Heroes Day (8/31), All Saints’ Day (11/1), Bonifacio Day (11/30), Christmas Day (12/25), New Year’s Eve (12/31; bank holiday). After mentioning those 11, Magno discusses the proclivity in the Philippines to arbitrarily create “whimsical holidays announced as late as two days before work is called off.” Last year, for instance, the anniversary of the EDSA Revolution (2/25) was declared a national holiday, as was the end of Ramadan (12/6). Other holidays include election days and local town and city fiesta and foundation days. Days between a weekend and a regular holiday are called “special non-working holidays.” May 1 (Labor Day) is a holiday, President Arroyo also declared May 2 a government holiday this year, to help create what she calls “holiday economics.” Magno is especially unhappy with the socio-economic consequences of too many holidays. “Holidays,” he says, “encourage an unproductive ethic among our people: an inexplicable joy at being paid for days when no work is done. … We should be embarrassed … that we prefer not to work and still cling to the hope of progress.” Magno thinks Filipinos ought to demand “the right to work, the opportunity to create wealth in all our waking hours.” He closes his column by pointing out that “the rudiments of the Asian Miracle” are a large number of workdays and long hours of labor. “Perhaps,” Magno says, “that explains why the Asian Miracle bypassed us.” (PS, 5/3/03, p. 10)

GLORIA‘S STATE VISIT TO U.S.

A full page of seven large color photos shows President Arroyo in all her glory on her state visit to the U.S. One of the photos shows Gloria standing “on a platform upon a platform,” a caption says, to deliver her arrival statement. In the middle of the page of photos, in at least 48-point font, is the caption: “Standing tall (on an apple crate).” (PDI, 5/21/03, p. A22)

PHOTO CAPTION: CULTURAL TRANSFER

A color photo shows a Filipino woman sitting on a bamboo slat floor with a child lying sideways on the floor, its head comfortably in her lap. The caption says, “the Badjao community has thrived in the area of Isla Verde in Davao City, bringing with it a unique way of life.” But there is no story, nothing except the photo of the woman and child to describe the unique way of Badjao life. And what is that unique way of life? The caption says—cross my heart—“[here] a Badjao woman searches for lice in her child’s head.”  (PDI, 5/22/03, p. A13)