Just the second time in 4 elections since 1986
that my index finger was stained with
indelible ink. Let's see how long it will stay.

Change?

As of 10 pm today, May 10, 2010, the "partial, unofficial" results reported by networks show Benigno Aquino III leading the presidential race, followed by former president Joseph Estrada, once ousted for plunder,  judged guilty not by the Senate tasked to look into his alleged wrong doings (e.g. coddling family and favored friends, for instance) but by a popular uprising he refers to as a revolt of the rich and the few.

For vice president, Jejomar Binay leads. Coming into power as the late Pres. Cory Aquino's appointed officer-in-charge of Makati immeditalely after EDSA, Binay had since been running the city alternately with his wife for the past 20 years.

The 12 slots for the Senate are filled by actors and politicians whose names and faces had done the rounds once before, not all of whom did anything significant and meaningful towards the upliftment of the lives of the 50 million or so Filipinos in terms of laws that firmly put in place their rights and privileges, strengthen institutions and benefit society at large.

Change, "pagbabago", is the most used, most abused word throughout the campaign season. All candidates wore a badge that screamed "pagbabago!", short of having this badge enlarged such as to make it look like a speech bubble stuck to their heads wherever they went, in case anybody missed it.

Change! they screamed. Change from our current situation, they say, of widespread poverty and corruption. How that would be, however, was lost on many of them because it did not matter how  change could be achieved. It mattered more that they said it the loudest, the most frequent, the angriest. "Change" became, to me, the promise that weighed the most, yet, little by little, transformed into the most hollow.

Change! For a Filipino public that they say has matured, grown tired of corruption. Change! For the Filipino hungry for new leadership! Change! Towards a path of a better tomorrow.

In the weeks before election day, surveys upon surveys showed that, for the Senatorial slots for instance, the popular names were constantly topping the lists; popular names of actors and scions of politicians who themselves were not [known to be] agents of change. Back then were glimmers of hope, however, albeit hidden in the pockets and linings of robes that, on the outside looked crisp and untainted but were actually reused or recycled rags sewn together haphazardly.

As election results are becoming apparent, the face of what will become the next Philippine government is slowly revealing itself as being too familiar for comfort. The surprise in all of this is not that our collective hopes for real change was to be realized promptly, with a little help from technology, but that the nightmares of the past we thought we had buried are coming together taking a life of its own.

Change? Wait, where are the agents of change? They're there, midway down in the list of candidates as voted by the "mature" Filipino voters hungry for a new leadership that will lead them to the path of a "better tomorrow". Yes, the "mature" Filipino voter slung by mud or thrown into the slime with the candidates throughout the campaign, no thanks to the power of media and its mouthpieces.

Anyway, who did they kid?

The "only" mature thing the Filipino voter did in the last 24 hours was to trust an unknown system, prepare their journey to the polls armed with a lot of patience and brave the unforgiving heat, some goons and a lot of glitches. For that, they, and all election volunteers and workers, are to be commended.

(continue reading here)

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[This topic is related to the Philippine elections. All my election-related posts can be read on my other blog, pedikabpolitics.blogspot.com]

IN ILOCANO, AS IN MANY PHILIPPINE LANGUAGES, "trapo" means rag. And, like many words integrated into the myriad of Philippine languages, its origin is Spanish, meaning cloth, dust cloth, cleaning cloth, rag. In the local context, "trapo" sometimes means a very dirty, almost useless piece of cloth not even fit for cleaning: a throw-away.

Hence, during the Marcos era, politicians subservient to the dictator and his cronies, who consented to suppression and chose to keep their mouths shut for fear of reprisal, or simply coasted along, with similar-minded politicians, to live life comfortably and without risk despite widespread repression and lack of freedom for the general public, were called "trapo" by their critics, the media and citizens who saw things and led life differently. A traditional politician, in other words.

"Trapo" is a shorter form for the earlier name-call "tradpol" like tadpole, i.e. legless, mindless baby amphibians squiggling aimlessly in murky waters. My guess is, those who later coined the word "trapo" saw the term more appropriate for the traditional (and "traditionally corrupt") politico, and in deference to the aquatic larvae, which, in later stages of its development, are actually helpful to our survival as humans.

Trapo, the political name-call, has outlived Marcos and is very much in use today. It not only includes politicians identified with Marcos but politicians of all ages and affiliations who belong or are perceived to condone the status quo.

The trapo is not expected to have an open mind or risk their social and ideological positions. They are believed to be exclusive (as opposed to being inclusive), are neither adaptive nor progressive. They are the "same old-same old", "been there done that" bench-warming, grandstanding public servants content with the "old ways" of doing things. They are the political godfathers and patriarchs who bequeath their positions in government to their descendants or whose progeny audaciously await such inheritance.
(continue reading here)

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[This topic is related to the Philippine elections. All my election-related posts can be read on my other blog, pedikabpolitics.blogspot.com]

Blogger/Blogspot [still] has backend image upload problems (5 days after report)

I posted (to my Blogspot blog a few minutes ago), of an entry that took all day to finish only to discover that Blogger/Blogspot had been having troubles with uploaded images in what it calls "image backend problems" since late March 2010.

[NOTE: if you do not see the image below, it's probably because the problem still is still unresolved as of this post]

No, it hasn't been resolved and I did post to Blogger's support forum just before this [Posterous] Blogspot entry, thus:

"Posted an entry a few minutes ago and did a work-around:

uploading the image to a 3rd-party image hosting site from Blogspot's image source, then linking the image from the 3rd-party site into the post in the hope of circumventing Blogspot's "backend" problem but I still got a blank space where the image is supposed to be.

Otherwise, all other images and videos in older posts appear fine.

Hope the problem is resolved very soon."

FYI.

[cross-posted]

Good Friday

It's sunny and quiet this afternoon.

"Quiet" is relative. Occasionally, the sound of a tricycle's motor breaks the lazy, afternoon peace. The second hum of a plane above is fading away, a car passes at intervals. The only consistent noise is from the chirping of the birds above me in the yard, about three types of birds busy chattering the day away. I wonder, I've been missing the mockingbirds swooping down our cats. They've been absent, to my knowledge, for some two weeks now. And yes, the cats--Poochoot and Chingkwit are talking to each other just moments ago, wondering why I am where I am, between the Marcos mango and MJB lanzones trees.

I'm hoping by changing my location this afternoon, I am able to savor the peace, be one with birds chirping and, like them, catch some breeze. I'm using Writeroom for this, too. I haven't used this app for some time and today seems to be the best time for it. There's some getting used to writing on Writeroom, like the cursor placement, for instance. Otherwise, it's fine for days like these.

Unlike most people, like my relatives in the compound, we pretty much spend the Holy Week at home. It's actually something I look forward to. In the past years, though, the anticipation was mixed with anxiety especially because we had very little neighbors nearby and theft was prevalent on these types of breaks (the others being All Saints' Day and Christmas breaks).

This time of year, we would usually have Rudy, the extra hand, come around to help clean the garden. Rudy is now employed by the chapel a block away and can only spare time very rarely. If he wasn't around, the garden activity would be shared by my mother and I. This time, there's very little room for even a decent home clean-up because of deadlines that have piled up which I hope to tackle soon.

Vow/Pledge

When I turned off the computer at 1 a.m. today (Good Friday), the last thought I had was to not turn it on and just try to spend all Friday doing the usual stuff. Well, to "try to stay away from the computer", at least. Guess again.

Anyhow, it was an unbearable heat as 3pm approached. I maxed out what's left of the single-digit battery life and put the computer to sleep about an hour ago.

My grandmother always said that it will always be hottest at 3pm of Good Friday and she is almost always correct. ([Folk] Catholic) traditionalists equate this to a mortal's sacrifice which, by comparison, is miniscule to Christ's crucifixion.

For some reason or other, 3pm on Good Friday really is HOT, apparently more so because everywhere — whether in the city or in the provinces — is still. It's somewhat of a magic hour and the heat that envelopes around 3pm becomes mystical in that way.

In about an hour from now, I anticipate the neighborhood to 'come to life' as it were, and everywhere else within my radius will be back to business. Proof of this is the chatter emanating from our adjacent lot neighbor, newly moved-in and excited with what my 'hood has to offer.

Last night, Maundy Thursday, was like another ordinary evening for them. Anyway, I gave them that as I saw no reason to be grouchy on Holy Week and be the unwelcoming neighbor.

Changes

The changes in my neighborhood are not at all gradual.

We'd normally hear the faint, fleeting pabasa (the chanting of the Passion of Christ by devotees) from somewhere on cooler, still evenings like last night's. Last night, the local cheap bar a few blocks away was in operation and their patrons, torch singing their lungs out to the heavens, seem to have vowed to be the counterpart of Christ's scourges.

Another seeming unbeliever was the night guard on duty just by our gate, he with his radio and copious singing confidence who thought the quiet neighborhood he was tasked to watch over was his stage. Perhaps he was encouraged by the racket of my new neighbors. Perhaps he thought everyone else had escaped the city. Whatever it was, it sure was not entertainment. In the spirit of Holy Week, though, I thought of giving him a 'deadline', beyond which I sure would have stormed out of my gate in my jammies like I once  did. Fortunately (for him), he turned the radio down and did shut up at 11pm.

Holy Week channel surfing treat: OnSet

Maundy Thursday and Good Friday early evening provided me with a bit more "self" time to channel surf local television stations.

I remember during the pre-cable days when all local stations were off (as in "offline", in computerese) and almost all stations were static that the only choices were black-and-white re-runs of Moses, El Cid, Cecil B. DeMille's The 10 Commandments or live telecast of church service of the Seven Last Words.

With cable services in the early '90s came 24/7 broadcasts of all sorts of programs.

Thursday and Friday this year, however, gave me a different treat. Since unplugging years of subscription to a local cable provider after a tragic event identified with its mother network (and availing of internet service anyway), we have had to content ourselves with shows on free channels.

The Holy Week (re)treat was by way of an information-rich program on Net25 called OnSet: The World Class Filipino Artist. The one-hour interview program features Filipino world-class artists hosted by Eunice Mariños and is recorded at the CCP's Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino.

I'm not sure whether what I saw were re-runs but I pretty much didn't mind. I caught mezzo-soprano Clarissa Ocampo on Maundy Thursday's segment and Coke Bolipata earlier this evening, Good Friday. In between interviews were live performances ("impromptu," as the host said of one of Ocampo's performance), with piano accompaniment.

The show ends with the guests being asked about the artists' contribution or role to society.

I find OnSet very refreshing in the midst of the predictable telenovelas, repetitive game show formats, shallow gossip programs and party-themed screaming competitions that purport to be variety entertainment shows on both major networks.

In fact, I thought these major networks would be the ones supporting the arts in a big way by coming up with something like Net25's OnSet, even if it meant hard selling the idea to sponsors to make it viable, but no.

Eunice Mariños at least gives its guests time to answer good questions no matter how formatted. In comparison, many hosts of interview shows, especially celebrity hosts, are always self conscious and  draw attention back to themselves instead of giving their their guests the limelight or allowing them to finish their statements.

Mariños could, however, do with a little more mature way of handling her interviews by sounding less like a high school student — sometimes flustered, sometimes excitable — and more like a poised, generous host (a fine example is Boots Anson-Roa). If Mariños does find the chance to enroll at Clarissa Ocampo's voice seminars as she said she would, I believe it would do her a lot of good.

Too bad OnSet ends without the usual closing billboard as I wanted to catch the pianist's name, the show's director, set and lights designers, writer, and other credits.

Otherwise, the early evenings of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday spent watching the two artists on OnSet was kind of spiritual in a self-respecting kind of way. I came back to the computer writing this with renewed Filipino pride.

this is the end of publishing

This video link was posted as a re-Tweet by designmeme (/designmeme), aka Stuart Robertson an hour ago while I was offline.

The Future of Publishing from PenguinGroup UK.

From the Penguin blog, credit goes to Zoe Uffindell of Khaki Films, for coming up with Penguin's own advocacy video as inspired by other effective short films with a similar message and treatment.

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Penguin Group: How difficult was it to achieve this effect? 

Zoe Uffindell: It takes a creative professional writer, patience, and several days to achieve something like this - a bit like a huge jigsaw that you have to paint as well as put together!  The voice-recording and editing of the text was a case of finding just the right voice, and pacing it right. (from here)

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As always, the best way to get a message across, really, is by telling it simply — something I continue to learn and would wish to master.

The message of the video resounds with so much clarity and, coming from a print and publishing design background plus a love for imparting the value of and respect for the printed matter, it is something that touches a deep chord within me.

Great video!

Impact

This is an amazing image lifted from my other blog. Pretty amazing.

Image from The West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

plot

The plot to this 2-week saga somehow reminds of de Maupassant's Piece of String, the "string", in this case, being shards of broken glass.

I believe, though, that there will be no protestations of innocence until the encounter with the death bed. It's just one of those episodes. Onerous.