More on Manny Villar

It must be irritating a lot of people by now. I mean, the Manny Villar ads. They have pulled out all the stops – even asserting that Manny Villar’s campaign is ‘pro-life’. But, in a final spiel before the elections on Monday, I would like to analyze his entire campaign – and why it blatantly says ‘more of the same order’.

Look at his three of his male endorsers.

Why did I pick these three?

It is not a monetary coincidence that these three came to support Manny Villar. For they represent the world of the past nine years – and the past seventy, if you will.

I said in my previous post “Dangerous and Typical” that Manny Villar is the Pinoy Everyman. Of course, gathering with the Pinoy Everyman are the facets of the Pinoy Everyman through the years: Willie Revillame, Manny Pacquiao, and Dolphy.

Willie Revillame. We all know his antics. He is, to be sure, a ‘naughty’ guy. People watch him on Wowowee, they see him make fun of the katulong and the lola and the bading. Of course, making fun of the bading in mass media is an idea that was not developed by him, but by Dolphy. (Later.) We also see him groping unsuspecting women and girls. And we hear his songs which have double entendre – and on that basis alone, I would be surprised if Andrew E had NOT endorsed Manny Villar.

But I was talking about Willie. ‘Tis true, they say, Willie is like Manny V. He has his own business ventures. He has lots of money. And the very economic class that he has ripped off (albeit not economically but socially), the poor, love him, just like Manny V.

Of course, they have similar alibis for their actions. Manny Villar says that the people benefited from the C-5 Extension Project, which went through Villar properties, greatly increasing their value. Willie Revillame says that the people benefited from Wowowee, which served as the stage for his making fun of the poor, greatly diminishing their value and reducing them to the status of beggars, that is, dancing/singing outrageously for money.

In fairness to Manny V, he has not cheated in his personal life. That is why Willie Revillame is not enough to endorse Manny V; else, Manny V would just have been packaged as another Erap when he clearly isn’t. Not cool.

Manny Pacquiao. One of the reasons why Manny P is supporting Manny V is that they share this type of rags-to-riches life story. Manny P did come from a poor family. His only salvation, it turned out, was in boxing, in using his fists. And so he went on to win seven titles, unprecedented in the history of boxing – and for a Filipino boxer. We ought to applaud him, except that we feel we could not. Why? Because his victories are spun by government as yet another demeaning of the technocratic dream we hoped for the Philippines.

In layman’s terms: Is boxing the only way we could prosper in life? Is being a jock the only way to get ahead? There we are, back in high school once again.

Manny V was not a jock, but he was shrewd and opportunist. Which gives the above question more pathos, and turns it into: Do we really need to fight and outsmart people just to get ahead?

In my mind, the Pacman’s endorsement of Manny V poses this question to the Philippines, and gives us a ready-made answer: YES, it is the only way to get ahead. Because we have had enemies that we cannot fight, and we have to compensate by fighting everyone but the real object of our hatred. And so we devise loopholes in the law, we look for loopholes in the law, we steal from the people. All because we cannot face, cannot take, the tasks we have to do for the real good of the country. We shadow-box because we cannot fathom an upheaval because we are too indolent and lazy. 

Manny P excites the Filipino imagination because he fights in matches and we take his victories as victories over people who have enslaved and demeaned our country in the past (the Spaniards, Americans, Japanese, Chinese, et al.). That’s why people tune in to his fights and hope that we would win. We are like a pitiful man who, not being able to get a woman to sleep with him, stacks up on porn and realizes his fantasies with his magazines instead. We can’t take action against the Chinese in the Spratlys, the Japanese in the Second World War, and the Americans in the Philippine-American War, so we look to Flash Elorde, Bong Coo, Paeng Nepomuceno and Manny Pacquiao to somehow ‘recoup’ the losses sustained. Shadow-boxing.

Manny Villar seems to foster this line of thinking. He promises to stop poverty, as many politicians have done. He actually wants to only replace the screen where the shadow falls so we  can box with the shadow again AND convince ourselves that it is a different shadow.

Dolphy. We were stunned to see Dolphy endorse Manny V. Wasn’t Dolphy a remnant of the glorious Magsaysay-Macapagal era? Didn’t he make his name during that time? Why is he supporting this man? Shouldn’t he be supporting Erap or Noynoy?

But we came to enlightenment after a careful meditation of the past seventy years of the country that was Unitary Philippines. Turns out that the support Dolphy gives Manny V is continuous with his past.

Dolphy is the arch-basher of the bading in media, as I told you earlier. (I did choose this photo of Dolphy, didn’t I?) He makes fun of homosexuals and portrays them in embarrasing roles. You may ask: Jeremy, are you gay? Why are you railing against Dolphy’s gay-bashing?

I am not gay, and I quote Voltaire: “I may not agree with what you have said but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This goes for the gay community and their being gay. It’s their choice to be so.

But gay-bashing is one indication of a society’s immaturity. A society is immature if it makes fun or satirizes (or bothers to make fun or satirize) the minorities. We are an immature society through and through: In Manila we satirize the Bisaya, the Ilonggo, the Bikol, the Ilokano, the Muslim, the Born-Again, the bading, the tomboy, the baliw, etc. In Sugbo we satirize the Tagalog, the Ilokano, the Waray, the Muslim, the Born-Again, the bayot,  the lakin-on, the binuang, etc. And Dolphy has been the poster boy for such behavior. Of course, he redeemed himself with Markova, but too late. A host of male stars have by that time carried his gay-bashing legacy.

Do not get me wrong – I admire him for his Home along the Riles,  but even there he sticks to what he does best – slapstick comedy. Slapstick is good for entertainment.

But the present endorsement of Manny V by him turns the campaign into a farce of grand proportions. It’s as if, under Manny V, we would get six more years of an immature society. Not only a government who know how to excuse themselves when caught red-handed in deep corruption, but also a society that is inane, content with shadow-boxing, making fun of its minorities, and dancing/singing for money.

Of course, you can just say: Jeremy, shut up already!

But if I do not speak out, the stones will. 😀

Dangerous and Typical

Manny Villar never stops asserting that he is the champion of the mahirap. And many people believe him, as they did Erap some twelve years ago. His running mate is Loren Legarda, a person who has proven, since running for a Senate seat in 2001, very glib and conversant in Political Doublespeak, and praktisado in political turncoatism as well. As frustrated men in politics would label her, a ‘political prostitute’. Of course, what does that make of the men who labeled her that? Ehem, double-standards obscure the fact that men in politics are more politically ‘promiscuous’ than women. So, this cheapskate Loren L manages to get with Manny V (and perhaps Gloria A, who for the past twelve years has been playing a game not unlike that which Loren L is starting), after getting with FPJ six years ago.

Manny V’s campaign should not surprise us. It follows the lines of the Erap campaign in the 1998 elections. It has all these trappings of pagkamahirap, and the glaring incongruity of these trappings with the reality.

Erap was a rich kid. He belonged to the Ejercitos, the rich of San Juan. He dabbled in acting, and then, in the time of Marcos, entered politics. He was successful in San Juan, and then he went to the House, the Senate, and then went for vice-president before 1998. In that year he made his bid for the presidency. He won hands-down over JDV, Miriam and Imelda. His campaign has always been populist, though of course that is because the elite, of which he was familially a part, could not accept his being a drop-out at the Ateneo, his venturing into the entertainment arena, and his entering into politics without being beholden to the powers-that-be. Erap was a rebellious kid, some people might have said. He broke the mold. And so he was loved by the masses, who of course saw him only as the underdog in the movies. He only had to stretch out his arms and accept this support.

Manny V was not a rich kid. He was a poor kid who grew up in Tondo (we all know that courtesy of his ads), and then he had an opportunity to get rich, marrying a rich girl, Cynthia Aguilar, founding his own real-estate company (that was the ideal business for a person who intended to make money of the vast unused land tracts of Las Piñas, Muntinlupa, and further south) and working his way up the rungs of the Las Piñas government (the domain of the Aguilars). He never became mayor of Las Piñas – that position was reserved for an Aguilar – but became congressman, first of Las Piñas-Muntinlupa, then of Las Piñas only when Muntinlupa got its own congressional district, then ran for senator – in 2001, after the Erap impeachment and the Revolt of the Elite. He never became one of the elite, but he already had his own company – he never bothered to endear himself to them. “Self-Made Man” would be an epithet you could apply to him in more ways than one. He did not ride on the glories of his parents, he did not congeal with the elite, he forded with his own business interests and became an economic force to reckon with, at least in Luzon. Manny V is actually similar in this respect to Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, who had his own business empire when he decided to run for the post of Prime Minister. 

Thaksin, however, proved very successful in developing the Thai countryside – he was ousted because of corruption linked to his business empire. What worries us about Manny V is that while he may do something for the Philippines, we can only count on him obtaining more for his business empire every single opportunity he gets. Thaksin did not use the development projects of the Thai countryside for his own business gain. It was not part of his business field – he worked on telecommunications. But Manny V is working on real estate. Anything related to development of the countryside, he is expected to – and may as well – possibly use for his benefit. The benefits that accrue to the people would be, for him, just a pleasant side effect of this use. And then we cannot say that he used it for his own benefit – kayo rin naman ang nakinabang eh (you also benefited from that), he would tell us. Such tactics are in fact deceitful, and on the basis of morality alone, the ascendancy of Manny V to this post is, at the very least, questionable.

Another thing is that Manny V actually represents “no change”. The election of Manny V to the presidency will mean that things will go on the same way they have been going on for the past 70 years. No, not just the latest crunch on Andal Ampatuan Jr. backing him, which in itself is troubling and disturbing enough. If Manny V is elected president, the corrupt will grow more corrupt, the pilferer will continue to pilfer, the cheater will continue to cheat, the liar will continue to lie, and all of the aformentioned in greater quantity than ever before, even more than these nine years of spiritual drought. For Manny V represents the dark side of the Filipino, he who finds it okay to propagate half-truths and disseminate them to the public, he who resorts to belittling his opponents with all sorts of black propaganda, he who even manages to bend the law to gain profit for himself, even if (as in the case of the C5 extension project) the end product would benefit people as well.

Manny Villar is not, however, a dark cardboard figure like Erap after 2001. Erap was painted then as a dark, nefarious figure, having so many mistresses, drinking in Malacañang, even dabbling in jueteng payolas. People really hated him, except of course for the people among the poor who actually believed these claims were false and that Erap was the underdog again. Erap was the devil, people said. Of course, they did not know yet about Gloria stealthily making her way to the top, where she could cheat, lie, and steal.

No, Manny Villar is the Pinoy Everyman. I do not mean that in a good way. Because the Pinoy Everyman always strives only for survival, not for development of his life and realization of his dreams. He does everything to ensure he can still be himself tomorrow, without caring about tomorrow. So he earns and earns, he makes profits and endeavors to make even more. He also cultivates political ties and at the same time make sure he can control the persons in a way that he is tying them and not the other way around. Many people have worked hard to fulfill their dreams without selling their souls; to say, however, that Manny Villar is one of these – as Gilbert Remulla and the ads do – borders on deception.

Not only that: to say that Manny Villar is one of these hardworking-poor types reinforces the erroneous concept of “virtuous poverty”, that is, if you are poor, you are righteous, and no one can tell you you are wrong because they didn’t suffer as you did, especially if they came from rich families. Poor people are either good or bad, we know. Poor people can be right or wrong; just because they constitute three-fourths of the population means that their perception of the world is the moral one. And usually, they only angle for survival – and depending on the moral fiber of the person, he either chooses 1) the path toward spiritual health and confidence despite material poverty or enrichment or 2) the path toward accumulating material wealth but fraught with spiritual impoverishment and self-centeredness. Both make for survival, but one destroys the personality of the person, while the other makes it bloom.

To say that Manny Villar is bonafide from the poor is to say: Take the path toward accumulating material wealth, and never mind spiritual life. You do not need to know right from wrong, but you do need to eat and survive. That philosophy has been ingrained in people all over the archipelago, because we are poor and we all angle for survival – but too few have considered choosing the path of spiritual health and confidence, the moral path. If we removed all other presidential candidates save Noynoy and Manny V, I will bet that Manny V will win by a close margin. Of course, people want Noynoy, but only to do the work (i.e. remove corruption) for them. They would – and I feel sad putting this down – more sympathize with a president who won’t disturb them, who’d say: everything is ok as it is, and y’all don’t need to get your butts off your beds or your seats because we’re going to enjoy life like before the elections. If Noynoy turns on the people and says they have to help him eradicate corruption, as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west will they hold rallies against him and overthrow him. They want Manny V more – this according to the Law of Inertia, which states that if you ain’t pulling or pushing them in the way they want, you ain’t gonna make them move.

The figures which put Manny V in second place are not only dangerous. They are also typical of the Pinoy, and speak volumes about where we actually want to go from 2010.  Even if, by some stroke of Providence, Manny V doesn’t win.

Noynoy Aquino

Sorry, I just felt I couldn’t comment on certain eventualities that happened after my last post. Like the declaration that Mark Lapid is the winner of the Pampanga gubernatorial derby. Or the desire of the PPCRV and the COMELEC to compel artists who are also endorsers to resign from their work. By the time I got to thinking it should be published (I’d written something about this thing, of course) it was already a non-issue. As for the Pampanga thingy, that is not new, it happens. We have to note, however, that the count raises more questions than it answers. Like, how come the votes for all the candidates decreased? Or, why did Lilia Pineda’s vote count decrease when she claimed it should have been more than was counted in 2007? Those questions the COMELEC will try to gloss over, as always.

By the way, I want to lay down my thoughts regarding Noynoy Aquino’s campaign, his ads, and what he actually stands for. There was my resolution to publish thoughts on the candidates’ campaigns, and it should necessarily start with him.

The force behind Noynoy Aquino is one of the main reasons why this election has become very hot. It is not simply “EDSA”, or the Moral Alliance we so often dream about but are afraid to join. It is actually the alliance of forces good and bad and simply user-friendly jerks, to just overthrow everything that was Marcos-related or that smacked of him.

To be sure, Marcos by 1983 had become disagreeable, because the general perception is that he acted like Big Brother and killed Ninoy. Such arrogance the people would never accept, but then they would never move alone – they dared not. They needed a leader just like them, not politician nor lawyer, who would not spout long Latin maxims nor long unintellegible and unbelievable speeches in Tagalog or other Philippine languages. They needed a focus, and Cory was It, and they rallied around her like ants do to leftover food. Hence the movement of EDSA. It was victorious, it was staggering to the rational mind how this happened.

That was EDSA. But the pre-EDSA situation was actually more prosaic. Liberal versus Nacionalista. Then Liberal/UNIDO versus KBL. They were just politicians. Liberal just represented a faction of politicians who wanted to pursue an agenda for the Philippines, which was that it must be open to free trade. People older and more well-read than I am may say more about the Liberal Party, but they were just politicians and members of the ruling class.

I say this because the class element is always a Philippine problem. The rich ruling class holds power, and the poor just oblige the government. The middle class is left to fend for itself – and had this situation fermented further from 1972 onward undisturbed, the middle class would have emerged stronger and bigger, the offspring of the Old Rich having roundly rejected the ‘old ways’ of their forebears and enriching themselves in the new ways they’ve thought up, thus becoming part of the middle class. We would have been more equipped to deal with the crises that came from outside sources.

Noynoy’s bid is marred by this same class element. He claims to end corruption, but the public actually see a possible scorpion-tail in the fact that Noynoy is part of the Aquino-Cojuangco clan, who owns Hacienda Luisita and several industries, and is therefore a member of the Old Rich. They fear that Noynoy is just trying to fool them into believing that he can be their savior. That’s what Manny Villar is trying to exploit, and that’s why he may succeed.

In fact, if we look at the supporters of the Liberal Party in civil society: the Catholic Church, the Prietos of the INQUIRER, the Lopezes of ABS-CBN, the Makati Business Club, and others, we find that most of Noynoy’s supporters come from the Old Rich and those who benefited from the pre-Marcos status quo. (Note: the Lopezes, pre-Marcos, did not support Macapagal then, but vide infra.) Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, until 2004, posed as a member of this clique, but she has formed her own clique since then, which I will try to analyze later. In short, the supporters of the Diosdado Macapagal presidency are asserting their primacy – through Noynoy – because they failed to push their agenda during the Marcos era. Of course, this strain of political fans attracted the support of the Catholic Church much later, by 1974, and by various civil-society groups dedicated to social justice, because they were the victims of the oppression. The Lopezes, also, owe their life to the social-justice stream opposing Marcos, and eventually joined this strain of followers. But the heart of the Noynoy for President movement is Macapagalic, and maybe is rooted even farther back.

Not to say that it is pragmatic and unconcerned with the fate of the people. It is concerned with the nation, although of course it has to first safeguard itself and its supporters’ interests. And its not as if the Macapagalians are coming to power again. The Macapagalians have become so enmeshed with the ‘nationalist’ movement and the ‘moral high-ground’ movement and the ‘leftist’ movement that it’s pretty hard differentiating the different supporters of this new movement.

It benefited from EDSA I: democracy was restored, a caricature of the pre-Marcos status quo achieved, and the business concerns and the Old Rich were allowed to own again. Erap shattered their dreams in 1998, and they planned an EDSA II. Of course, EDSA II was done because of public indignation at blatant injustice, but the Macapagalist forces saw a way to return. Of course, some within the Macapagalist group had sinister motives – we will not say who, but there were some inside that group which, until 2004, seemed the hope of the nation.

Is it not the failure of the entire EDSA movement to reform the system, indeed to avoid being sucked in by the system, which the public sees every time Noynoy himself or his Party appears on debates and talks to them?

Do they see in Noynoy certain traditional-political remnants because of his movement’s association to the political groups of old?

Is the movement backing Noynoy led subliminally by their sworn hatred of the sinister principles of the Marcos era, because there are candidates who stand for these principles, albeit inadvertently?

Just asking. 😀

Open Season

Happy Election Season ’10!

From the heart, I wish a hearty “Happy Campaigning” to the eight presidential candidates of consequence.

Also, please partake of my humble pie: Each week I’ll try to publish some of my thoughts regarding the eight candidates, starting now. Eat up, laddies (and gal)!

We kick off the election season with presidential colors. Cory was yellow. Erap in 1998 was orange. What are these eight candidates made of? Here’s what I think. I also give here some ‘fashion’ tips, knowing that TV ads could only do so much (right, Manny V?).

Benigno Aquino III. This guy (also called Noynoy) is nominally yellow, like his mom, but let’s see… he wants corruption to end, and he wants that to be the main issue of the election battles this season. But do we see that being the main issue? At present, the Noynoy movement is scattered, in a good way. People all over the Archipelago regardless of ethnicity, religion and educational background are rooting for him. The downside is that they are not organized and there is still no solid ideology for this movement. The Liberal Party, which does have the ideology, seems to be on jelly toes trying to get the movement into that ideology. Some people only want Noynoy to be president ‘because it’s cool’. By golly. Therefore: yellow with speckles of blue, blue being the color of animate confusion. And Noynoy needs to make some more population-love. His wardrobe is a-OK (despite everything Kris Aquino says). No chides from me on that area.

Manuel Villar, Jr. Manny to the press, perhaps because he has lots of money. Nominally, orange, as he always uses. But he hasn’t even responded adequately to calls for investigation of his part in the CX-5 scandal. His allies fob off every charge in front of mass media. And his offensive strategy is just to continue bombarding the folk with his “Mahirap” ads. Conrad de Quiros has pointed out that Villar is indeed mahirap (a Tagalog word having two translations in Binisaya), but not pobre as we Bisayas would say, but lisod, as we Bisayas would say – hard to talk to, hard to bring to justice, etc. I would say oppressively dark orange, as he and his allies insult the people with their ‘insertions’ and their numerous TV ads. No, the fact that he wears the clothes he’s wearing is an insult to these clothes. Whatever the fashion.

Gilberto Teodoro, Jr. Also called Gibo (gi-BO) by papers saving their space for other news, this guy is nominally green. Let me extol his good points: he’s untrammeled by even his screechy aunt Gretchen, the rumor that GMA is considering a rendezvous with Villar, and the low survey numbers. He’s also young and idealistic. Green is indeed the Gibo color. But one may ask…is he just another Cerge Remonde, a jewel on the snout of a pig? Cerge and Gibo might have been brilliant, but they have been in the administration of the ‘most hated’ president (according to Noralyn Mustafa; I concur). He has to convince the people to not only vote for him, but to support his advocacies even if he doesn’t get elected. He may have a much better chance in 2016 if he starts forming a new ideological base. And – his clothes are OK. But then again.. the Ampatuans…

Richard Gordon. Also called Dick, this one is a very flashy character from Olongapo City. We admire him in every aspect except one – he’s so ahead of his time. For that, however, we stop short only of worshipping him. Of course Dick G is likable as a president. He seems overbearing, but as one of my aunts points out, that may just be what the Philippines needs. We do not know if he is the transformational character that we need, because he has been in politics for n years already. We’re not sure. But it may be likely. Dick G is known to be one of the few people who are not swayed by the opinions of the people. If he thinks it needs to be done, he does it. No corruption in his side. A righteous man, apparently. We think crimson red is his color because he promises vitriolic, albeit contained, movements when he becomes president. And Dick G, in any outfit, is elegant.

Eduardo Villanueva. Whether you are a member of his Christian movement or not, you’d call him Brother Eddie. He is from Bulacan, and was once a member of the Communist party. But he turned against that ideology, and found God. He’s now leading a Christian church that claims members in the Archipelago and overseas. His ideology is not easy to box into a certain ‘Christian’ motif, as Patricia Evangelista has yet to find out. Of course he speaks of Moral Ascendancy and Righteous Leadership, not helping the poor. But isn’t this what we are (supposedly) clamoring for? But we don’t think he’s really up to that job, although he is excellent as one of the shapers of a new ideology based on Christian ideals and democratic government, like that espoused by Germany’s Christian Democrats, along with Noynoy, Dick G and the Ang Kapatiran Party. He is nominally yellow-green, but we think he’s yellow and red. Yellow for Christian Democracy. Red for Transformational Politics.

Nicanor Perlas III. I call him Nic, but others call him Nicky.  Aside from being nicknamed by some like Paris Hilton’s sister, Nic P also suffers from being the least exposed of all the substantial candidates. His platform is more ‘environmental’, or so the newspapers claim. We turn to his website to get more important details. He presents himself as a ‘non-traditionalist’. (Oh, the papers were so wrong.) His ideology is more technocratic than ‘green’: the concept of ‘threefolding’ (the junction of civil society, government, and business), the mainstreaming of innovations, the primacy of creativity. Actually, comparing his ideology with the German Bündnis 90/Green Party, we find no similarity. So, not green but white. Unfortunately, there are only a few technocratic people in the Philippines. And the main issue this season seems to be moral ascendancy. But Nic P’s advocacies and ideology are not sidelined even if he places last. At least we know whom to go to if we’re dreaming of a technocratic Philippines.

John Carlo de los Reyes. JC to people in the media, and Johncie to Dick G, this one is the standard-bearer of the Ang Kapatiran Party, like Nic P a non-traditionalist, and according to reports, an eloquent and intelligent person. But what is the party ideology behind his run? We already know the Kapatiran party as a nontraditional Christian-Democratic party with pro-life, anti-violence, and anti-guns advocacies. The problem is, they will not ever be voted into majority office UNLESS the people really want to change their ways. We think that JC’s color should be yellow-green, because he represents a moral movement that’s idealistic. Unlike Brother Eddie, however, this largely-Catholic movement he’s representing won’t be taken seriously by the people, who are mostly Catholics and content to wallow in a ‘dagat ng basura‘, as the Manny Villar jingle goes. The Philippines is an ironic country.

Maria Ana Consuelo Madrigal. Jamby Madrigal once fashioned herself as a youthful candidate. But she has practically aged from then on. And her run in this election is highly quixotic, to put it kindly. She has no practical ideology behind her. She’s from one of the Old Rich families, and she entered politics only 12 years ago. She is the new Miriam Defensor-Santiago, and boy is she rocking the role! She is also the Tessa Prieto-Valdes of the Senate today (although not for her clothing, but for her pronouncements – the Senate is, after all, the premier debate chamber)! And she is gunning Villar every freaking debate! We give her the distinction of being a multisided, albeit nonce, candidate! Rainbow colors for you, dear girl. 😀

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So, I hope you enjoy campaigning for your candidates, people! And you, candidates, enjoy the mudslinging season, ha? 😀