Chow Rounds 3: Anthony Bourdain in the Philippines, At last!

 

It’s official, Bourdain has pronounced the lechon, “the best pig, ever.”

this section has the mouth-watering lechon shots

Maligayang Inauguration!

Favorite Obama Commercial:

Filipino Author Wins 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize

Hong Kong, 13 November 2008 – A panel of three internationally acclaimed authors and experienced literary judges named Filipino author Miguel Syjuco winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel Ilustrado, a fictional account of a young Filipino caught within a notorious scandal spanning over the Philippine history.

The panel of judges for the 2008 prize praised Ilustrado:

“The shortlist for the Man Asian prize testifies to the great vitality of the novel in Asian societies undergoing hectic and unexpected transformations. In the end, we had to choose; and Ilustrado seems to us to possess formal ambition, linguistic inventiveness and sociopolitical insight in the most satisfying measure. Brilliantly conceived, and stylishly executed, it covers a large and tumultuous historical period with seemingly effortless skill. It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humour.”

The prize winner was announced at a celebratory dinner at The Peninsula Hong Kong. Miguel Syjuco was awarded USD 10,000.

Ilustrado was selected from shortlist of five:
Kavery Nambisan, The Story that Must Not be Told
Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay
Miguel Syjuco, Ilustrado
Yu Hua, Brothers
Alfred A. Yuson, The Music Child

Miguel Syjuco was born in Manila, Philippines in 1976. His fiction and poetry have appeared in national publications and anthologies. He co-founded and edited an online publication, Localvibe.com. He has written poetry, fiction and journalism for national and international publications. The manuscript of his debut novel, Ilustrado, has just been awarded the Grand Prize at the Palanca Awards.

Ilustrado begins with Crispin Salvador, lion of Philippine letters, dead in the Hudson River. His acolyte Miguel investigates the author’s demise and the disappearance of a manuscript about the corruption behind rich Filipino families. To understand the death, Miguel scours the life, charting Salvador’s trajectory via his poetry, stories, interviews, novels, polemics and memoirs. The literary fragments become patterns become stories become epic: a family saga of four generations tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, Americans and Filipinos themselves. Finally, the story twists, belonging to young Miguel as much as his lost mentor.

INQUIRER EXCLUSIVE
First look at ‘Ilustrado’

By Antonio A. Hidalgo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:26:00 12/01/2008

Filed Under: Books, Lifestyle & Leisure, Literature

ILUSTRADO” by Miguel Syjuco, the novel that recently won the MAN Asia Prize and the Palanca Grand Prize, is an exceedingly complicated and ambitious work.

It tells many stories simultaneously by using many voices, two narrators who are also the main characters, a dazzling collage of invented material like excerpts from novels and short stories, learned social and political essays, TV shows, printed interviews, poems, letters, and the ubiquitous and anonymous school jokes and ribald stories that all of us get through text messages and e-mail correspondence.

It is a mystery thriller, a historical novel of the Philippines and Filipinos spanning the last 150 years, a novel of manners of the Filipino ilustrado class, a political novel about the Philippines and its various diasporas, a deeply personal autobiographical novel, and a novel about two fictional gifted writers reflecting on Philippine literature.

The main thread of “Ilustrado” is ostensibly the story of two Filipino writers in New York. Crispin Salvador is a larger-than-life fictionist and essayist who was once a literary lion. Born into a haciendero family from Bacolod, he roamed the world in his youth and later wrote an autobiography about his adventures with the internationally rich and famous. When time passes him by and he is largely forgotten, he retreats to New York, becomes a recluse, teaches literature, and tries to write a final masterpiece. Miguel, who has no surname, is his student who becomes his literary acolyte. Miguel also comes from a wealthy family that lives in Forbes Park, but he has chosen to run away from his emotional problems at home to find himself in Manhattan. He intends to write a biography of Crispin, his mentor, and doggedly hounds him to probe all the hidden crevices in Crispin’s mind and heart.

The novel begins with a prologue by Miguel about the discovery of Crispin’s body floating in the Hudson River. The police don’t know if Crispin was murdered or if he committed suicide. Miguel is deeply troubled by the mysterious death of Crispin and sifts through his belongings in search of a clue to what really happened. He finds nothing except the odds and ends of Crispin’s life. His relationship with his girlfriend, Madison, finally dies at this time after much languishing. There is nothing left for him in New York. He decides to return to the Philippines to try to unearth the truth behind Crispin’s death and to gather more material for the biography.

On the plane trip home, Miguel muses with irony, thoughts framed by the return of the first ilustrados long ago: “Around me, in this tin can, my fellow travelers: we, the acquiescent, unaware insurrectionists, we who have left and returned so constantly throughout history our language has given us a name—balikbayan. Slope-shouldered are we, freighted by years of self-exile; handcarries bulging with items that wouldn’t fit in overweight luggage, all the countless gifts for countless relatives—proof our time away has not been wasted … These are my people. (Crispin once called them the ‘splay-toed, open-hearted.’)”

Pastiche

In Manila for the yuletide, the young writer reflects on his country and people and a pastiche emerges. There is a recollection of Crispin’s imaginary interview: “Manila is the cradle, the memory, the graveyard; the Mecca, the Cathedral, the bordello; the shopping mall, urinal, discotheque. I’m hardly speaking in metaphor.” And a passage from one of his books: “…We should embrace Traffic as part of our cultural identity, the way the French have their smoking and the Italians their womanizing …. Our chaos is as ordered as it is necessary. We cope. We protect ourselves. We learn the patience necessary in everyday life… Happy are those who learn to enjoy it. It’s better than a cockfight, and free!”

Like Manila traffic, the novel’s narrative congeals into ordered chaos. The timeline is frequently disrupted with invented historical texts of the origins of the Filipino elite, beginning with the migration of Crispin Salvador’s Spanish great grandfather to the Philippines in 1860. History is merged with fiction through Crispin’s stories of the Philippine Revolution in the 19th century. One of Crispin’s characters, Cristo, returns home from battle after the Revolution has been defeated. His four young sons no longer recognize him. He shaves his beard and walks with his sons and his wife, Maria Clara, after dinner. On the spur of the moment, he invites his wife to have another child, to try for a girl, this time. Then he says: “We will become American. Our children will learn to speak American. When they are ready, we will send them there to be educated. Just as I was in Europe… They’ll return to make a difference.”

In Crispin’s imagined autobiography, he alludes to the deterioration of the ilustrados from the heights of revolution to crass selfishness and greed when he writes: “Fittingly, my father’s name was Narciso… At one time, somewhere in the lineage before him, the name possessed the tragedy of the myth and the irony that such a name could be possessed by such a man so distinctly un-narcissistic. Upon my father, however… the very act of christening him ‘Narciso’ authored a parody of a sacred sacrament, wherein one is named for his essence, his worst characteristic by which he would be forever remembered. In fact, he is belittled further as ‘Junior’… A self-fulfilling prophecy: Try as he did, he was damned forever to be the tiny narcissus.”

Critical

With an unflinching gaze, the novel inexorably, albeit sporadically, builds a most critical profile of Filipino elite. The character of Miguel remembers that his mother bought a pair of jeans for P5,000 and paid her maid only P3,000 a month. At a dinner in Dasmariñas Village where he is introduced to the parents of his new Pinay girlfriend, Sadie, he records through dialogue the utter contempt with which Sadie’s mother regards her maids. There is a scene of bitter bickering over inheritances in a family after the collapse of sugar prices in the ’70s. And historical accounts of the many bastard children of the elite. Miguel begins to go out regularly with his young barkada to the nightspots and clinically records their superficial preoccupation with drugs and sex, including his own reversion to getting high.

Through TV and the papers, he sees the country descend into chaos, from politically instigated bombings and the ruthless machinations of the charlatan Brother Martin of a charismatic Christian movement; the opportunistic revolutionary Wigberto Lakan; and the corrupt President Fernando V. Estregan and his ally, former general turned senator Filimon Lontok. Within the gathering storm in the country, the novel examines the possibilities of high-minded action through the writings of Crispin, a bit like what Rizal’s novels did. The writings are from different periods in Crispin’s life and are contradictory. They cover the gamut of choices—from revolution to compromise to acquiescence to creating literature like Rizal’s that would kindle social powder kegs.

Personal quest

While the novel paints the large portrait of Philippine society, it simultaneously develops the personal quest of Miguel for the truth about Crispin. He talks to his sister and aunt and discovers a humdinger of a family secret that will send him on a lengthy odyssey for the roots of Crispin and what makes him tick. In the process, he is forced to confront his own bitter personal secret.

All the stories are regularly interspersed with pop-culture jokes about a promdi OFW called Erning Isip; colegialas, Atenistas, La Sallites, and their foil, a poor student from the AMA Computer College; and the hilariously bawdy Boy Bastos. They lighten the essentially cerebral nature of “Ilustrado.”

Like: “When Boy Bastos was still a sperm in Erning’s testicle, he was already precocious. One day… he feels the current moving them forward. Boy Bastos… leads the pack. As he is about to shoot forth from Erning’s shaft, he shouts, ‘Go back, go back, it’s only tonsils!’ The next day, he feels the current moving again and leads the pack once more. At the last instant, he shouts again: ‘Go back, go back! It’s only condom!’ The next day, the current flows, and Boy swims forward with anticipation, convinced this time must be his. Suddenly, he turns back, shouting desperately to the others: ‘Go back, go back! It’s shit!’”

Using a wide variety of materials in a novel is often called bricolage—literally, construction by using whatever comes to hand. Its expert use in “Ilustrado” achieves several objectives. It imbues the novel with a wonderful makeshift and uncertain quality that evokes real life. It also broadens the canvas of the novel by using pop culture and sharpens its content by limning its characters and present realities with light from learned analysis of the past.

Heteroglossia—multiple voices using different language registers—is also employed quite effectively by the talented author. Because the many voices in “Ilustrado” all ring true, what emerges is a large three-dimensional reflection of our country and of ourselves from various angles, including the views from our scattered diasporas.

All the story lines converge toward the end of the novel. Miguel continues to be alienated from his parents and does not yet resolve his personal dilemma. One night, he and Sadie bail out of a nightspot from boredom to go to a party. It rains heavily and the streets flood. The lights go out in most places and they are stuck in frozen traffic near the Pasig River, at the edge of Makati. The Pasig rises and they are trapped in Sadie’s car. A factory across the river explodes like fireworks. Two street children float by their car atop an ice-cream cart.

‘Choose sides’

Miguel remembers Crispin’s words: “You must choose sides. If you choose your own, you choose oppression, fratricide, indifference; you will never be content amongst your own. If you side with the others, you choose treason, patricide, betrayal; you will never be accepted amongst those unlike you… What to do? Nothing to be done, Pozzo. You cannot sit this out. The airplane lands. The people clap. Take a bow. You’re on the stage.”

While this is happening, Edsa 4 is going on at Malacañang. Lakan has taken hostages and threatens to kill them. The mob, egged on by Brother Martin over the objections of Lakan, attacks the palace. The national political storm coincides with the heavy rains and the crisis in Miguel’s life that calls for action.

In post-modern style, “Ilustrado” ends uncertainly, or perhaps, ends in several contradictory ways. There are several scenes where Miguel takes alternative paths with vague results that are written in soaring prose: “He thought, instead, not of how it began, but how it must have ended, of how it always must. That last final moment before going towards the light: the pinprick of dawn, the world turning on its side, the horizon vertical, the sun and the moon in the same sky… Hearing someone sing your name, seeing faces to whom life will soon ascribe meaning, the discovery of your first word, the oblivion of not yet knowing there would ever be your last.”

The epilogue is a fitting ending to the chaos so ably rendered by the novel. It surprises, explains much, but also further nuances the multiple visions that abound throughout the book. The language of the denouement, by itself, is a singular achievement that is certain to satisfy readers.

“Ilustrado” is metafiction in that it is often fiction about fiction. It is a most cerebral novel that dares to reflect the Philippines and Filipinos at so many levels and dimensions. Through virtuoso use of language and a dazzling array of fictional techniques, it achieves all of its lofty objectives.
It is far too sophisticated to engage readers in the direct way of, say, melodrama, like Rizal’s novels did. The right reader, however, will be thoroughly engaged by this novel, for he will be enticed to reflect upon himself and his society in a fresh light through the passion of ideas.

It deserves all the accolades it has won. It is among the finest novels written by a Filipino. Perhaps, even by any writer.

Antonio A. Hidalgo was chair of the board of judges that unanimously awarded the 2008 Palanca Grand Prize for the novel to ‘Ilustrado’ by Miguel Syjuco. Thanks to Syjuco, this review was also based on the slightly rewritten version that won the 2008 MAN Asia Prize.
LINKS:

Read Excerpt of Ilustrado
Q&A with Miguel Syjuco

Happy New Year! Dance-O-Rama!

With the popularity of ’60s style series and films like Mad Men and Reservation Road, I thought it’s time for us to take our own look back at our ’60s experience.
Dance-O-Rama was a movie made in 1963 starring Susan Roces, Jose Mari, German Moreno, Marissa Delgado etc. which was shown constantly in the afternoons after school when we were growing up in the ’70s. A significant number of our class are obsessed with this musical comedy and I finally found some clips on the web (see below).
Dance-O-Rama film clips:
“The Watusi”
“Sleeping Time”

Happy Slip’s Christmas Balikbayan Box

for the lyrics to the song “More Processed Meat, visit her site at www.happyslip.com

PASKO 2008

In anticipation of my Christmas trip, I’ve been searching sites on Philippine Christmas and I came on this very nice page on the TAGALOG website that gives you the traditions, the decorations, especially the food (drool), and even the songs. I’ve pasted some of the pix, but go to the site itself: Philippine Christmas to get your Pinoy Christmas fix.

SWEET! Saveur magazine’s December 2008 issue has an entire feature on Christmas in the town of Arayat, Pampanga by Robyn Eckhardt, be sure to check it out.
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Philippine Christmas Carols:

“Simbang Gabi” by Philippine Madrigal Singers

“Kumukutikutitap”

“Pasko Na” by Bukas Palad

“Gabing Payapa” by Donna Cruz

“Pasko Na Sinta Ko” video by Piolo Pascual (shot in NY)

“Miss Kita Kung Christmas” by Susan Fuentes (special shout out to Candy and Marls)

at ang walang kamatayang “You’re All I Want for Christmas” by
Rico J. Puno

MALIGAYANG PASKO AT MANIGONG BAGONG TAON!

LINKS:
Burnt Lumpia: A December to Savor
MarketMan: Days of Feasting in the December Saveur

Surgeon dies in Pasay City car crash

By Marlon Ramos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 13:12:00 11/21/2008
MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE) A surgeon died after the car he was driving crashed into a lamppost as he tried to avoid a warning sign on Edsa-Roxas Boulevard flyover in Pasay City early Friday morning.

Dr. Jose Javier Suntay, 51, a resident of 59 Dacca Street, BF Homes Northwest, Parañaque City, died while undergoing treatment at San Juan de Dios Hospital around 4:20 a.m.

A report from the Pasay Traffic Enforcement Unit said the doctor worked at Makati Medical Center (MMC).

But Jun delos Rinos, MMC telephone operator, said the victim was no longer connected with the hospital, adding that the doctor only maintained a clinic in MMC for a few months.

Senior Superintendent Raul Petrasanta, Pasay police chief, said Suntay died of severe injuries on his head and upper body.

Petrasanta said the doctor was driving home his Toyota sedan (PNE 838) around 2:10 a.m. when he suddenly steered the car to the right as he tried to avoid the warning device that repairmen from Manila Electric Company (Meralco) allegedly put up on the flyover.

He said personnel of Rayville Electrical Construction Corp., a contractor of Meralco, were then repairing busted lights of lampposts in the area.

The early warning device, he said, was placed at the back of a truck owned by the contractor.

“The driver apparently lost control of the vehicle which turned counter-clockwise and hit the electric post,” Petrasanta said in his report.

He said bystanders and passing motorists pulled the victim out from the crushed metal parts of the vehicle and rushed him to San Juan de Dios Hospital where he later died.

Petrasanta said they will look into the possible complicity of the repairmen in the tragic accident if the victim’s relatives decide to file a case against the Meralco contractor.

Jay was our Ortho resident during our ICC, clerkship, and internship years. He was always so nice, helpful, and pleasant no matter how toxic things got. Please pray for the repose of his soul and please offer his family our deepest sympathies.

BBC apologizes for anti-Pinay comedy sketch

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has issued an apology for airing a comedy sketch that portrayed a Filipino woman in a very demeaning manner.

“Firstly, we’re sorry if you were in any way offended by the program as this wasn’t our intention,” the BBC’s Complaints Division stated.

The complaints division of the network described ‘Harry & Paul’ as a “post-watershed comedy sketch show well-known for its exaggerated humour and absurd characters.”

“It in no way represents real people and was never intended to offend or demean any viewer,” it added.

An official complaint was emailed to the network following the airing of the show on September 26. The show outraged many Filipinos, women’s groups and even lawmakers prompting the Philippine government to direct the foreign affairs department to act on the issue.

“We recognize that you were personally offended by the sketch and would like to assure you that your complaint has been registered on our audience log,” the complaints division stated.

It said that audience feedback also reaches BBC’s executive board, channel controllers, senior managers and staff.

The letter explained that the offending sketch is from a series known as “Northern Monkey” which is “featured strongly in both series of the program over the last two years.”

RP maid not relevant to comedy

In the show, Harry Enfield played Roger while Paul Whitehouse was his “pet” northerner named “Clive” whom he wanted to “breed”. The maid was given instructions to elicit response from Clive.

“The fact that the maid is from the Philippines isn’t relevant to the comedy,” it stated.

The latest to add its voice to the mounting call for an apology from BBC was the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW).

“This appalling portrayal of Filipino women in television is deplorable and an insult to millions of women migrants around the world who are making valuable contributions to the progress of the countries they work for,” the NCRFW said.

Earlier this month, Batangas Rep. Hermilando Mandanas condemned the show.

He also said the Philippine embassy in London had already written to the United Kingdom’s media regulatory agency as well as to the mayor of London, the secretary of state for women, and the television network to complain about the said show.

‘Gutter humor’

Philippine Ambassador to the UK Edgardo Espiritu criticized the skit as “gutter humor.” He said the show counters the advocacy of the British government to observe equality for all and respect for human rights.

Female lawmakers and other organizations followed suit in asking BBC to issue a public apology for presenting a racist, humiliating and disgusting depiction of a Filipina domestic worker.

Filipinos in the UK also condemned the show and mapped out protest actions including an online petition called “Dignity and Respect for the Filipino Worker Campaign”. — Report from Danny Buenafe, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau chief

Barack Obama through Filipino-American Eyes

by Benjamin Pimented
from Starweek Magazine

When Barack Obama was born in 1961, many blacks still could not vote in many parts of the United States. For many of them, being lynched, or hanged by an angry white mob, was still a threat. Filipino Americans, mostly farm workers, were still pretty much viewed as outsiders, and many of them still remember being barred from hotels with signs that said, “Positively No Filipinos Allowed.”

But there were signs of change.

A group of young Americans, called the Freedom Riders, braved violence in the southern states in a bid to register black voters so they could finally take part in the electoral process. Meanwhile, in the fields of California, Filipino farm workers were gaining ground in the decades-old battle against abuse and injustice.

Obama was three when three members of the Freedom Fighters – two white students Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and one black, James Chaney – were kidnapped and then beaten in Mississippi in 1964 in one of the most savage assaults on the Civil Rights Movement.

He was five when Filipino farm workers, led by Phillip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong, launched in 1966 the Delano Grape Strike in Central California which would pave the way for the creation of the United Farm Workers, now a major political force in the United States.

In 1968, when Obama was seven, students at San Francisco State University, including many Filipino Americans, waged what turned into one of the longest campus strikes in American history. The so-called SF State Ethnic Strike pushed for greater representation of minority students in recruitment and admissions.

In April of that year, Martin Luther King, the symbol of the Civil Rights Movement, was assassinated.

Nearly half a century later, Barack Obama, the biracial son of a Kenyan immigrant and a woman from Kansas, who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, began his career as a community organizer in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago, ignited incredible political movement, is on the verge of becoming the first person of color to serve as president of the United States.

His victory is not assured. Given the intensity of the campaign, and the high stakes involved, anything can still happen to derail what has been a hard-fought campaign.

There are still doubts about his ability to lead, mainly because he is a newcomer and considered untested. But many Americans have watched him get tested in perhaps one of the most intense campaigns in recent history. Obama not only endured, but actually thrived, in the campaign, responding to attacks with an even temper and poised intelligence that have helped erase many doubts about whether he is ready to take on the American presidency.

To be sure, if he wins, Obama will undoubtedly face one of the most gargantuan challenges ever faced by an American president.

The next US president will have to deal with two wars, and possibly a third in the event that tensions with either Russia or Iran come to a boil. He will inherit a battered economy, marked by a financial system that is falling apart. And he will have to lead a demoralized nation, tired of war and political squabbling, and fearful of a new era of economic uncertainty.

Things are so bad in America that, if he does win in November, Obama will have to make tough choices and painful compromises. And many of these decisions inevitably will disappoint, perhaps even anger, those who now support him.

It is then that his temperament, intellect and integrity as a leader will truly be tested. Who will get the short end of the stick in the choices he makes? How will he explain these decisions to those parties, the American public and the world?

But even if Obama does not make it to the White House, he has already made a huge difference. He has been an astounding example, someone who has shattered the centuries of prejudice against people of color in America.

As a Filipino expatriate, it took me time to understand the painful story of race in this country. It became somewhat more difficult to understand given the baggage many of us Filipino immigrants inevitably bring with us when we come to this country.

My wife Mara, a committed feminist who grew up on the UP campus and who has lived here longer than me, helped me understand. And so did Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize-winning novelist, who said something years ago that I’ve never forgotten: That in their desire to become part of America, many immigrants embrace the views of the dominant white society – including the prejudiced, distorted image of blacks.

“In race talk, the move into mainstream America always means buying into the notion of American blacks as the real aliens,” she wrote in Time magazine in 1993. “Whatever the ethnicity or nationality of the immigrant, his nemesis is understood to be African American… It doesn’t matter anymore what shade the newcomer’s skin is. A hostile posture toward resident blacks must be struck at the Americanizing door before it will open.”

Many Asians, including Filipinos, have embraced this view, consciously or unconsciously. As the respected Asian American civil rights attorney Bill Lee told me many years ago when I wrote about this issue for the San Francisco Chronicle, “Immigrant communities generally tend not to know the history and to buy into the biases and prejudices of the dominant group. Unfortunately, becoming American often means buying into the prejudices. They want to identify upward. They don’t want to identify with those at the bottom.”

But there were many Asian American activists, including Filipino Americans, who rejected the mainstream views of Blacks and Asians, who chose to identify with those at the bottom.

Japanese American civil rights attorney Kathy Imahara said, “It started with this bizarre model minority thing, this image of the white man holding an Asian American up and patting us on the head in this condescending manner and telling other minorities, particularly Blacks and Latinos, ‘If you minorities just work as hard as the Asians, then you too will be able to succeed.’”

Many Filipino Americans, with no delusions about what Obama faces and what he can achieve, have nevertheless been inspired by his campaign. I’ll let them speak for themselves.

There’s the veteran activist Prosy de la Cruz who praised a “candidate who rose from the ranks of the poor, then, the middle class and now, one who is well off and comfortable with folks who wield power and folks who generate grassroots results from all backgrounds.”

There’s Terry Bautista, a veteran of the San Francisco Bay Area movement against the Marcos regime who said, “Barack Obama has, so far, revealed his knowledge and support for Filipinos, their history and culture, in the multicultural fabric of the U.S. He has recognized Filipino American History month, Philippine Independence, the fight of our Filipino World War beteranos.”

“There are those of us who are excited that a person of color is running for the top office of this country, be it as it may that we strongly disagree about his readiness, experience, and his ability to serve as commander-in-chief,” she said. “The next president will inherit some of the most serious problems that affect all of us.”

And then there’s Gayle Gatchalian who wrote me after a piece I wrote about the sad truth on how many Filipinos may not want to vote for a black candidate.

“My entire family hates Barack Obama and I can’t have a decent conversation with them without a mention of Muslim, Hussein, and the myriad other issues that have come out that proves he is a decent human being,” she said in an e-mail. “I understand that it’s because they have something against black people, and my black friends have tried to explain it to me… Hearing or reading it from a fellow countryman truly made it all clear to me.”

There are no guarantees. Obama could very well turn out to be just another politico, as flawed or incompetent as some of the recent occupants of the White House.

But many Filipino Americans believe it’s worth taking the chance.

For Obama, if he emerges as the wise and courageous leader he promises to be in the campaign, could move America’s story forward in a way that honors the memory of Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman and other the young blacks and whites who gave their lives for civil rights in the American south.

And those of Vera Cruz, Itliong and other Pinoy farmworkers whose sacrifices now also are part of the story of America’s journey.

LINKS:
Obama and Filipino Racism

UP Centennial Lecture by Washington Sycip

(Thanks to Chee and my friend Pixie for bringing this to my attention)

Words of wisdom from Mr Washington Sycip in a speech he made during the UP Centennial Lecture Series last September 3rd. Or you may opt to see/hear him in video: via UP Centennial Website: http://centennial.up.edu.ph/?p=113 or direct access: http://dilc.upd.edu.ph/streaming/ sycip.html

It is long but is well worth reading.

FYI, Dr. Sycip is a member of the Board of Directors of the Philequity Management Inc. and the founder of the accounting firm of Sycip, Gorres and Velayo (SGV), a leading accounting and consulting company in East Asia. As a student, he graduated summa cum laude. His professional life covers more than half a century, (since he put up after World War II the precursor of what is now SGV & Co.), ten Philippine presidents and countless global and domestic economic cycles. At present, Dr. Sycip has advocated for poverty alleviation in order for the country to ease a brewing social volcano. Education, he said, can be the most effective “economic equalizer.”

===================================

QUESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF U.P.
By Washington SyCip

September 3, 2008

PRESIDENT Emerlinda Roman, members of the faculty and friends of U.P.

Not being a graduate of the leading educational institution of the country, I am deeply honored that you have invited me to be one of the speakers in your celebration of a hundred years of service to the nation.

In today’s talk I intend to raise a number of very frank questions. Since you receive more government funds than any other educational institution in the country, I, as a taxpayer, may claim the right to do so.

I hope you will not consider this as an abuse of the gracious invitation extended me by President Roman.

1. Going over the book “The University of the Philippines – A University for Filipinos” which was published as U.P. celebrated its Diamond Jubilee twenty five years ago, one cannot miss the introduction that says “a U.P. degree holder is generally believed to be more capable than most college graduates, as well as imbued with a sense of purpose, with minds capable of new ideas and perceptions and passionate commitment to the social good.”

If U.P. has accurately claimed that during the past 62 years, after we left the U.S. umbrella, U.P. graduates have occupied the presidential chair for 46 years, then I may ask you “Why are we in such a mess?”

Over fifty years ago, we were told that with our advantages of being a Christian nation and a democracy, we will be, next to Japan, the leading nation in East Asia. Today we find ourselves in a steadily declining position regardless of what measure we go by: poverty index, per capita spending on education, crime rate, corruption ranking, peace and order, rural health, the list goes on.

Unfortunately, we have even found ourselves, in spite of our large population, with the lamentable distinction of being the only major Southeast Asian nation that did not win any medal at the recently concluded Olympic games.

Can we blame the religion Spain brought to our shores five centuries ago for our limitations or the U.S. for the failure of our democracy? Shouldn’t our decades of freedom be long enough for us to correct any inherited disadvantages?

With all the talented people we have, why have we not been able to produce a Lee Kwan Yew, who in one generation brought his people in Singapore to income levels of the U.S. or Germany?

Or a K. T. Li of Taiwan, a physics graduate of Cambridge, who introduced the computer to every age group in Taiwan so that this small country has become the largest exporter of computers and components?

Or a Mahathir of Malaysia who greatly improved infrastructure and increased income levels of all citizens in a mixed society of Malays, Chinese and Indians?

Or a General Park of South Korea whose tough and disciplined administration industrialized a country where the large firms successfully competed with the companies of its former colonial master?

Or a Deng Hsiao Ping who released the energy of his people to achieve in 25 years the greatest reduction of poverty in world history?

We did have the promise of a Ramon Magsaysay who as secretary of defense greatly improved peace and order but whose unfortunate early death 50 years ago prevented him from carrying out a program to improve the lives of the bottom group of our people.

Then we had Rafael Salas, a brilliant graduate of U.P. in 1969, fresh from managing the transformation of chronic shortage into an astounding Philippine rice sufficiency breakthrough, Salas accepted a United Nations offer to head a fledgling fund. He believed at the U.N. there would be a possibility of making a contribution to solving what he thought was becoming one of the world’s major problems – population. He thought that the same strategies employed in the rice sufficiency program, would work in a sophisticated international environment as they did in tradition-bound Philippine rural communities. In fact he was proven right. Alex Marshall of the United Nations Population Fund writes:

“The consensus which Salas built is more than an act of diplomacy. It is the solid evidence of the recognition worldwide of the importance of population in development programmes. It has helped to change the policies of governments; it has helped to change the lives of millions of people. It has set men and women free to make choices for themselves, and helped secure the future of children yet unborn. They and all of us stand in his debt.”

But Filipinos have surmised that Rafael left the Philippines because his integrity and competence could not survive in a climate of government corruption.

Will U.P. be able to produce other leaders like Salas and can they succeed in the Philippine political soil?

In 1983, thirty years after he had graduated from this University, and at that time an under secretary general at the United Nations, he returned here to receive an honorary doctor of laws degree from his alma mater. As Salas thanked the University for the honor conferred on
him, he also took leave by asking the question:

“What can the scholars of this University do to solve the problems of the Philippines when it will be a country of 70 million people”?

His widow, Carmelita R. Salas, the highly respected Philippine ambassador to the Czech Republic, speaking at the World Population Day forum in Manila this last July, pointed to this very same concern. Today, she said, the Philippines is a country of 89 million, and in 2030 will be close to 140 million. Again, Rafael would have asked the scholars of this University the same question today.

I ask: what would be their answer?

Post Edsa I, in February of 1987, when freedom in the Philippines had been won with what the world would know as “people power,” Salas was keynote speaker at the district meeting of Rotary Clubs in Manila. In a speech that one Rotarian referred to as the best SONA he had ever heard, Rafael spoke on “managing the aftermath.” Let me read to you part of what he said:

“But this freedom cannot be fully exercised unless there is order. Governments are instituted to insure peace, stability and continuity; to enable the citizens to plan their future and insure the survival and growth of their children. The resumption of hostilities with the NPA and the constant threat of rebellion in Mindanao and a very high incidence of crime are pointers of the lack of order I speak of. Insecurity stifles productivity. No long-term investment and high productivity can be encouraged when businessmen feel uncertain and insecure. The administration has exerted a sincere effort to resolve these problems. But time presses. Order must prevail. A free society cannot be mobilized for development unless there is a feeling of safety and confidence in the future.”

The same speech would have been relevant post Edsa II.

How prophetic and unfortunate that things have not changed the past 20 years!

But “why” we must ask ourselves.

Let us begin by focusing on education.

We tend to unfairly blame every current administration for our problems. But can’t we see that the steady decline of educational standards is the cumulative effect of the neglect of many administrations and the unwillingness to adopt long term solutions to problems that cannot be solved by a ribbon cutting event!

The success or failure of any organization depends upon its policies and efforts on developing its human resources. For a nation to adopt short term policies on education is national suicide! doesn’t the solution of peace and order problems depend upon relatively equal educational opportunities for the rich and poor, for the Christians and Moslems?

2. We as a nation are proud to have a University older than Harvard. Proud that U.P. celebrates the success of a hundred years. We are proud of Ateneo, La Salle and many other Catholic universities where men and women of upper income groups are educated.

We praise these institutions of learning but as a nation we seem to accept the scandalously high national dropout rates of students in basic education. The figures are worse in Moslem areas and in poor communities.

In many towns and villages, Synergeia, led by Nene Guevara, and working with mayors and community leaders who want change, has improved literacy rates. But much, much greater national efforts are needed.

As the recipient of the largest of government education funds, shouldn’t U.P. endeavor to enlist its many successful and wealthy alumni in a campaign to return to their alma mater the benefits they have received from the school and thus enable more funds to be diverted from U.P. and allocated to basic education?

Should the students from upper income groups not be asked to pay for the full cost of education? When upper income families send their children abroad, they do pay “full tuition.” Should they not be asked to do the same in their own country?

Has U.P. studied how neighboring countries have dropped poverty levels?

The Asian Development Bank just released a report pointing out that the Philippines and India, who claim to be democracies, lag behind East Asian countries in reducing poverty. China and Vietnam, both authoritarian states, are the two countries that have rapidly reduced
poverty. Are there lessons to be learned here?

Why have Singapore and Thailand developed hospitals for “medical tourism” while we send our excellent doctors and nurses to developed countries? Should we not advocate some system where destination countries compensate us for training these professionals?

Are inward remittances of poor overseas workers with divided families offsetting outward remittances of upper income Filipinos, educated in subsidized schools like U.P., and setting up households abroad?

You can, of course, tell me that the world is flat and young people should be free to move anywhere. yes – our young men and women should go abroad – it widens their horizon and gives them the skills to better serve their country. But we should strive to keep their hearts
Filipino and with a resolve that they will return to serve in their country’s development. and government policy should work with them to use its limited resources to reduce poverty and improve the lives of all citizens.

Is U.P. doing its part to help government adopt long term educational measures to ensure this?

3. We all agree on the need of national unity. Can we point to the politics of fraternities as the root of the excessive time spent on national politics? Or is the lack of unity a basic disadvantage of an island nation?

Is the sluggish pace of economic development the result of blind acceptance of western thinking that political freedom or democracy comes ahead of economic freedom? Doesn’t democracy assume that there must be the “rule of law” which implies an independent judiciary with well trained and well paid honest lawyers? Where judges may be poorly paid and subject to political pressures is it possible to have an independent judiciary let alone a working democracy?

U.P. has produced excellent lawyers and many of the bar topnotchers that are managing the large law firms – but are they leaders in reforming the judicial system?

4. U.P. and Asia

How close is U.P. to recognizing that the Philippines is part of Asia and that China, India and Japan will be exerting more influence on our future than the U.S. and Europe?

Is the faculty of U.P.’s School of Asian Studies deeply knowledgeable about the culture and the political thinking of our neighbors and are they proficient in other Asian languages?

Even Japan, very closely allied to the U.S., does not have the government or economic structure of the Western world. The party in power has not changed for over 50 years and its corporate structure and behavior are very different from Western firms.

With the Toyota donation, you will at least have the physical structure for the School of Asian Studies. But the faculty is even more important than the building.

Does our being the only Catholic country in Asia, with an extremely conservative church leadership, seen only in Poland and Malta, hamper our capacity to understand our Asian neighbors? What is the role of U.P. as the only well known Philippine university that is not Catholic?

With a 6-percent Moslem minority and our dependence on imported energy, does U.P. have a faculty that is knowledgeable in the history and culture of the Middle East and fluent in Arabic languages?

To follow U.S. policy, which will have to favor Israel, can only spell disaster for the Philippines.

Has U.P. studied what measures should be taken to narrow the education gap between Christians and Moslems?

5. U.P. Campus

About 10 days ago I was present at the ceremonies when Toyota, responding to the efforts of George Ty, agreed to donate the very attractive P100 million building to U.P. Its architect, Jose Danilo Silvestre, dean of the College of Architecture, assured me that he and other alumni like Mr. Palafox, noted urban designer, would be willing to donate their time and expertise to landscape the present campus.

Maintenance of a “new” campus can be assigned to building occupants or fraternities, or student organizations. Maybe you can collect parking fees from cars parked in the campus. Talented Filipino artists and sculptors can then be encouraged to display their work in the campus!

Does U.P. have a development plan for its large campus?

6. U.P. and Tourism

Our 3,000,000 arrivals a year are way behind our neighbors’ 10 to 12 million visitors. Tourism benefits all the people in the countryside. Our people are known to be the most hospitable and friendly. We are ahead of our neighbors in English, the first language of tourism.

When I visited Bohol last year I was told the influx of German tourists to the attractive island is due to the 200 Germans who have happily settled there with their Filipina wives.

The hospitality industry will be the growth area of the country. Will your different schools play a major role in assisting Secretary Durano achieve his targets?

7. U.P. and Agriculture

I have met many Thais who are graduates of the prestigious Los Baños agricultural school. But I wonder why the Thais, who usually bring back a Filipina wife, have made Thai agriculture much more productive and efficient than what we have been able to do here.

Let us take notice of the dole success story. As dean of the Business School, Cesar Virata had strongly advocated cooperation with Los Baños. Through his efforts, Dole established their very successful and productive agri-business operations in Mindanao.

With the Catholic Church’s campaign against a sound government population policy, which in turn hampers the country’s capacity for addressing its population growth rate, perhaps U.P.’s contribution to increasing rice production, can prevent a recurrence of the problem that we had this year!

I was on the board of a Malaysian palm oil company that was diversifying into bamboo, they told me the bamboo experts were in Los Baños. Yet we import bamboo shoots from China!

Since agriculture is still the most important part of our economy, shouldn’t U.P. then, in cooperation with successful farmers, put particular focus on the study and implementation of efficient food production to bring food costs down?

8. Alumni Relations

A new university has the disadvantage of not having a successful alumni group that you can tap for funds.

U.P. has the advantage of celebrating a centennial with very distinguished and wealthy graduates in practically every field of activity. But has your dependence on government funds resulted in a neglect of your alumni? How many buildings, laboratories, auditoriums, professorial chairs have been donated by your many prosperous alumni?

Many of the facilities at the Philippine General Hospital needs improvement. Yet this was the training ground of many doctors from U.P. One very socially responsible U.P. medical school graduate in the U.S., who is planning to retire here, told me he was shocked when some of his classmates here were bragging about how little taxes they were paying in spite of their luxurious houses, cars and trips abroad!

Are your alumni aware that they can legally reduce taxes by donating to U.P.? Maybe yearly seminars to update your graduates on the latest developments in their profession can encourage them to give an annual amount to U.P.

I have no doubt that a well organized and aggressive alumni relations office will yield large dividends for U.P. and the nation.

9. Faculty

The greatness of a university is always measured by its faculty. Faculty that will inspire not merely instruct. mentors that will encourage learning and the use of this knowledge towards nation building.

A nation’s progress is also determined by what it does to develop its human resources.

I read the report of your National College of Public Administration and Governance and was very impressed with the qualifications of the faculty and lecturers. Aside from seminars, publications and workshops, won’t it be wonderful if they can implement the many changes they are advocating, in basic education, in the civil service, in local government and in the fight against corruption?

My contacts with your faculty are mainly from your excellent School of Economics and the Business School and, of course, with Cynthia Bautista who has given invaluable help to the Magsaysay Foundation in focusing on its plans for the next 50 years.

Is this standard of excellence I see also found in the other departments?

Can U.P. encourage its bright faculty to publish objective position papers on national issues that will stop the endless and confusing debates that are in full page ads in the daily newspapers?

Considering the contribution U.P. can make in our nation’s future, should this university not have a “think tank” with experts from its different schools, possibly also working with non U.P. graduates, to study where the nation is today, its negatives and positives, and how it could move forward in the next 25 and 50 years?

Hopefully, our many bright people will unite behind this program to reduce poverty and put the Philippines again in a respectable position in Asia.

Maybe some of the questions I have raised may be expecting too much from an educational institution, with limited funds, to solve all of our national problems.

But it is the price of leadership. The brightest young men and women come to your campus and for these young minds, you must endeavor to attract and retain the best faculty in every school.

It is my profound hope that against all challenges, this great University, with an inspired administration, a strong faculty and an alumni conscious of its responsibility to the nation, can, together with the Secretary of Education, take the lead in the implementation of major reforms in our public schools, without which poverty reduction will be difficult. And without which, equal opportunity for all its citizens to benefit from economic growth will not be attainable.

With the present financial difficulties facing the developed world, optimists are in short supply. But can we hope that we could follow the path of Ireland, also a very strong Catholic country, that was able to convince the political parties to adopt a common economic program which resulted in the return of the young talented people that had migrated to the United States and United Kingdom? Can the very competent and disciplined economists of U.P. lead in such an effort?

Only then can a united, peaceful and prosperous nation become a reality!

U.P. alumni closely identify the Oblation with their alma mater. But how many of them really know that when the sculptor Tolentino created this figure of a young man whose arms are outstretched in a gesture of sacrifice to his country and humanity, the artist also placed at its
feet a cluster of “katakalanta” leaves, a plant that rapidly multiplies to symbolize, as Tolentino tells us the “undying stream of heroism in the Filipino race.”

As this University celebrates its hundredth anniversary I ask a final question: can we expect from U.P.’s leadership this heroism the country begs for?