Adobong Kangkong and Theft in Twilight

Last Saturday, I had found myself wondering why I feel a little strange, becoming aware so suddenly of the virtual isolation I have these days. It dawned upon me that I was really living a kind of a hermitic life, although not any of my intention to be so.

I was not always like this. As recent as two years ago, I was always out that I felt then that I had no time at home even when I was already married and having kids toddling around. I was always with my fraternity brods for some meetings on weekends or if not, I was out practicing with my band, then called “The Dirty Sox”. Yeah, I had a band then with my friend Aziz, who have passed away already due to a highly debilitating sickness. This story may need elaboration in future entries and Aziz is an old friend that needs an elegy.

Now I felt like I have not seen the sun for the longest time. Not really though, since I have to fetch the kids every day from school. I just felt like I haven’t had time for myself lately.

This April, I’d be thirty-three years old and you might think what’s a guy married and with four children having nothing to do. Do not get me wrong for in actuality, I have so many things to do.

You see, I am legal person but until now I haven’t pass the bar yet. I had jobs offered to me before but I was always looking for the impermanent ones since I really have my mind set on taking the bar again. A regular office job would intercede gravely with my readings. You’d asked: “How do I support my family?” It is for me to keep on my own, I guess. There are just so many things of my life that I couldn’t really articulate here yet. You can say I have some viable business on hand. Not so viable, but when it grows in the future, with attendant persistence and discipline, it could become huge that my kids may not even have to work no more. Just kidding, but every businessman dreams of such kind of success---the kind of success that makes you appear in front of Fortune Magazine.

I read my law books these days with hurdling that ever formidable bar examinations in mind. I was planning previously to take the bar this year but sadly, I felt so unprepared and I never had the inkling to risk resources by going to Manila like a warrior without a sword. I am setting my sight for next year’s edition of the Supreme Court examination instead.

Besides, I am in the stage of organizing a spiritual movement that I have in mind for a long time. I have already made the initial moves with some of my friends and members of our neighborhood. I just hope that this humble beginning would soon bear fruition. I do it for the Lord, since as a visionary, my mission to impart to the world a message of repentance and renewal is far from over. I have already a name for the movement and it shall be called “Renew The Spirit Movement”. I hope many would join on this voyage of our soul.

Let us go back to where I started in this post.

And so, last Saturday, I decided to give myself a break and thought of going downtown by myself for a great change. It had been months since I had this sort of activity. I hopped on my ever-reliable Jeep and headed for downtown not really having a particular plan in my mind. First, I went to a gaming station and found out that every one seem to be crazy about Ragnarok. I was looking for FIFA Soccer game but it was not available downtown. Usually, I play the game in a computer station somewhere in Sta. Maria, a barangay farther from the town proper by five miles. FIFA 2004 is the game I am most fascinated right now since it stimulates the soccer game so realistically that every time I made a goal, I could shout with joy. Really shout. And besides, I could play as Beckham or Lampard every time.

Next, I went to a video store. Maybe, I’d like to see some interesting movie. It had been weeks since my last rental. I scoured for titles but no movie caught my fancy. I had seen “Lost In Translation” in the racks weeks ago but it just disappeared. I did not bother to ask the sales counter when a very long line was in front of me.

I thought maybe I needed to read a book again so I went to a bookstore that sells both new titles and second-hand pocketbooks. This is my most favorite part of every sojourn I make to downtown---skimming for book titles. I could go on for hours and hours among the racks of books and I felt like I was back at the Ateneo library at which I spent a lot of time when I was there so many years ago. I went immediately to the used book section since I really had no inkling to buy a brand new title, for the good ones could go high as five hundred bucks per pop.

There were a lot of good titles available but most of them I have already read. There was Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” which came so cheap at forty bucks. Would I want to read it again? I decided not since I did not want to cry again. This book was a Pulitzer Prize winning story of a Negro girl with her diaries full of despair and failings. I do not remember what happened to her in the end so maybe I will read it again in the future, if I can afford to shed some tears again. There are only three books that had called for my tears while I was reading them and that was “The Thorn Birds”, “The Prince of Tides” and “The Color Purple”.

There were a lot of Joseph Wambaugh’s titles at that store but despite the number, every other one on the rack I have already read. Yes, that is how I loved his works. They are not very literary in nature or the kind that brings in the awards and prizes but I never had enjoyed police stories like I enjoyed his work. Imagine a former policeman like Mr. Wambaugh entertaining us with the written word. Who would have thought?

There were a lot of copies of “Primary Colors”, the one written by the controversial Anonymous, available and I wonder why they remain unsold. If only many knew how good this political satire is, it would not have stayed untouched for the longest time.

All in all, there were a lot of books that were authored by writers I haven’t had the slightest hint before if they really existed or not. There were names like “Dan Brennan”. Who the hell knows Mr. Brennan. Maybe, if one goes to a party full of pretentious guys, you could just drop the names of writers like that of Mr. Brennan. And since nobody know him really, you would sound cool for knowing something they do not know.

“Have you read Brennan?” You could start the conversation this way.

Of course, your companion would be taken out of sort and say “Brennan,…No…I have… not read him.” And he starts to lose some footing even while the conversation was just starting. With enough ground gained, you could completely dominate him by going on like this:

“Oh pity, Dan Brennan wrote this and that and according to him, the world is like this and like that.”

The guy would not really know who Dan Brennan was but at least you came out cooler than the lake in Alaska.

So much about unknown authors. I would be greatly embarrassed if someone in the blogworld really knows Dan Brennan and I will look stupid and ignorant after all.

I decided against coughing out some bucks for a new read. I reckoned that reading novels at this point in time is just all too time consuming when I still have to read my law books and at the same time do blogging every now and then. Maybe later, when I start to feel that time is becoming easier on me. Right now, time is such a word that evokes a highly-pressurized cooker that can overheat just about any time.

I went to buy the weekend papers and decided maybe I had enough time already enjoying some free moments on my own. I passed by a nearby Internet café and went surfing for more hours than I had initially planned. When I arrived home, it was nearly eight o’ clock, way past suppertime. I ate a stir-fried kangkong that I have cooked the morning of that day. In the fancy Patio Palmeras, on the road leading to the famous Pasonanca Park, they serve this meal and they call it Adobong Kangkong.

When I reached home, I finally realized that the toolbox was missing and of course all the tools of the jeep were lost with it. I was furious that some lowdown urchin might have done me in. You call this kind of thing as robbery because the malefactor has to force the thing out by breaking the lock imbedded in it. It felt a little scary realizing that I had just become a victim of a crime. To reconstitute my tool system would mean about a couple of thousand bucks. That is just too much at this point when every penny means a lot. Now I could not drive with enough confidence knowing that I haven’t got the tools needed when something goes wrong. My mind thought about what kind of soul a guy has that he has to do such thing to me. Maybe he needed the money. Or maybe, he needs it for medicine for someone who was in the hospital. You know the usual alibi. Or maybe, it was just a frank on me by the some owners of establishments in the area where I parked the Jeep. Many of these establishment owners feel always as if they own the sidewalk that they can prohibit any vehicle from parking in it. Even if the sidewalk is approximately in front of their stores, they have no right to ban any parking in it except if the government prohibits it in that area or if the particular area blocks a driveway. Maybe the Lord may one day take care of them for doing such devious thing to me. I just have to leave it to the Lord.

Might as well forget about that darn robbery that happened in twilight of that Saturday of my life. You might ask how I was able to cook the Adobong Kangkong meal. Here’s the way to do it.

Buy the following:

300 grams of fresh Kangkong leaves.
2 red bell pepper.
2 cloves of garlic.
2 fresh tomatoes.
2 onions.
1/2 ounce of powdered pepper.
2 ounces of corn oil. If you use olive oil, it will taste even better.
1 cup of soy sauce
1/2 cup cane vinegar.


Slice the kangkong leaves into four inches length including the stalks. Minced or slice the red pepper, tomatoes, garlic and onions and set them aside in one place. The stalks are more salacious than the leaves as you will find it later on.

Heat the pan until it the surface smokes a little and pour the corn oil. Sauté the minced spices until the onions become transparent in appearance. After that, pour in the sliced kangkong and simmer with a very slow fire.

While it is simmering, pour the soy sauce and cane vinegar and seasoned with pepper and MSG according to your taste preference. The more pepper poured, the more piquant it would taste. After two or three minutes, the heavenly vegetable is ready to serve. Do not overcook and observe carefully the way the kangkong leaves look while it is simmering. The moment it becomes too soft, you must stop simmering it. It really depends on you if you like a crispier meal. In that case, you have to simmer the leaves for lesser time.

I must warn you that although this may look like a simple meal to cook, in reality, it took me about three cooking experimentations before I made it right. You may experience the same thing. So be patient for the meal is really worth all the fuzz.

This meal is really called Adobong Kangkong so if you know how to make adobong manok, then just apply the same principle in cooking this recipe. You know, the right amount of mixture between soy sauce and vinegar and the right amount of garlic.

I used to order this meal at Patio Palmeras. When the wife and me got married in that place five years ago, I wanted to include Adobong Kangkong among the food served. But at the last minute, we decided against it because who have ever heard of fried kangkong on a wedding day? (a re-post from 2005)

The Accidental Tourist

The Accidental Tourist

What do we mean by producing fruits from our repentance? To produce fruits from our repentance is the condition attached to the rewards of forgiveness that the angels have brought with them and this condition must be fulfilled.

To produce fruits from our repentance is an edict of replacing what we had taken, of returning what we had borrowed, and putting back into the condition in the past of a thing or persons ruined and defiled by us to the extent of the condition taking place before our particular misdeeds had caused such ruin and injury. What is broken should be unbroken. A thief should give back the money he stole, and the fornicator should live a life of total devotion to the edicts of God, evading fully even the mere thought of lust and temptation. It is also to ensure our soul by giving back more than we had taken that for instance, if you stole a car, you must give back the amount of the car you stole and more in addition. That is to ensure the acceptance of your repentance.

There is also another way of producing fruits from our repentance of countless sins throughout our lifetime, those that we could not trace anymore, for as we say to be human in a world despoiled of strong faith, is to have committed countless sins that are so countless that we lose count of them. This mode of repayment is the cultivation of your hearts by helping others to be uplifted from a life of hardship and misery. That is the power of the rewards of repentance. In the interest of everlasting peace and harmony among brethren, producing fruits from your repentance could be fitting in this manner. You shall be forgiven but only if you repent immediately and produce fruits from your repentance, in order to make a complete turnaround and turn away from a life of sin and falsity, to accept God fully and follow His edicts and judgments from then on.

Frogs

It’s both startling and astonishing how the weather behaves strangely nowadays. In the initial days of March, when summer was supposed to be ushered in gradually, the rains came pouring in, like an unexpected visitor whom one does not know exactly how to receive—-had it came for a bountiful afternoon chatter over bristling cups of coffee or had just got to stop by due to a vital intent?

And now while May slowly loses its days to another month, the rains are hard to come by and the temperature rises even when night falls so deep into midnight, when it is supposed to be cool and breezy outside, and of course in the living room.

Strange weather, really.

So the ground are so dry nowadays that some afternoons ago I decided to weed out the backyard with unwanted growths, having no troubles whatsoever with muddy soil that get stuck in the slippers I wear. I had once popped the idea of landscaping the whole area with Bermuda grasses to my wife—-about a week ago—- but even I had scoffed when she mentioned to me that it would cost nearly ten thousand bucks to have it done by gardeners from the plant store across the highway. What do you actually call these establishments that sells plants and flowers in pots. I actually have no idea as of this moment.

So for now, the bermudas or carabao grasses would have to wait and I’ve got to contend myself of laboring towards manually eliminating the weeds for now (which can actually grow towards knee level when left unattended for so long) and my oh my, it was so painstaking an activity that my muscles ache all night long after that, and when I woke up the next morning, I could barely walk.

Bobi & Bebet

THE OTHER DAY—-I am not sure anymore what specific day it was—-I was lying half-sleeping in the sofa while the TV was mighty on with cable news, and the day was early in the afternoon, just about the time when one could feel a pleasant silence enveloping the air all around, allowing the best moment for rest or relaxation. Aside from the sounds from the TV, I could hear the mingling voices of two of my youngest children, Bobi (who is just over four years old) and my baby girl Bebet (the youngest among four of my children and who is now over three years old, making her eligible for pre-school this coming June).

Inyang—-one of the two house help that we have—-is often busy at this time of the day, washing dishes and the kitchen rags outside or sweeping the front yard—-so I have to set sight on the children as much as I can.

Bobi took out a board game and I heard him coaxed Bebet towards playing it on the living room floor. It was a very simple board game, one that was branded after the famous TV cartoon personality named “Dora The Explorer” . So simple it was that the players only have one dice to roll when usually—-like in “Monopoly” or “Snakes and Ladders”—-there are two dice to roll. It was clearly designed for the enjoyment of very young players, such as Bobi and Bebet, for the only aim of the game was to be able to reach fastest the finish line by having rolled the dice with the higher number face on, on a more frequent manner. No more “Park Avenue” to buy or some funny-looking snake to bring down a player so many steps back (when I was young, the snakes on the board weren’t funny at all, but very, very mean-looking).

I was keenly observing Bobi and Bebet while they were up and about with their board game, pretending all the more to sleep so as not to dissuade them from what they were doing, and it was a moment of realization for me, a kind of revelation, about how my two youngest kids (aside from Sef-Sef who is now 8 and Beng-Beng now 7) finally crossing the threshold towards straight-talk, when just weeks or months ago, I could still hear them converse in sort of baby talk, using a lot of body language in the process and often wrangled in misunderstanding, like when one doesn’t know what the other was wanting and ending up with one crying out loud. Before, most of interactions that Bobi and Bebet had was mostly characterized by conflict and quarrel, of putting up one against the other, but that day, I have found out that for once, they were able to interrelate with minimal disagreement.

So they both rolled the dice one after the other and moved the tokens according to the number of the face of the dice that was faced up.

There was one thing that I have noticed however, one that was a little untowardly. I have observed how Bobi had often been the one moving all the tokens, even that of Bebet. Maybe perhaps he was the older one, the one that could count better, while Bebet just stared on, or minding a small rag doll that she was holding while the game was on. And I noticed how Bobi would moved his token more than what his roll of the dice had resulted to, and especially when Bebet wasn’t really watching over his moves, he would cancel a smaller roll and roll again until a higher number appeared. And so due to this, he often wins with each turn of the board game.

I almost laughed out loudly but had to laugh inside or else they’d know I was watching them; and to be sure Bobi would stop the game, smirking and smiling widely, guilty of his small impropriety.
Ha..Ha..I hope he would not be as improper when he becomes a grown up man.

( A re-post from 2007)

The Rising of the Dawn

Dawn

I was born at around two o' clock in the morning of the seventy-second year of the twentieth century, as I have been told by my mother. If hospital records would concur, then this must be the fact. My mother once told me that she had a reasonable difficulty in her labor that it took her towards the beginning of dawn before I first breathe the air of this mortal world. That day, all Moslems went to the community mosque because it was also the day in the Hijrah Calendar to be the commemoration of the birth of Prophet Mohammad, the feast of the Maullud-din-nabi.

I had a very special affiliation with this coincidence because when there is nothing more to say, I always mentioned to my friends that indeed I was born on the day Prophet Muhammad was born. To be born in the day a known prophet was born may be a sign of some bigger things for me ahead I thought, something grand that I had a sentiment of grandeur because of the coincidences of my birth. There was some sort of pride in this; perhaps I was just like any Christian born on the twenty-fifth of December.

So I celebrated two birthdays each year. My aunt Minda would prepare me a feast and my cousins would savor upon Chinese ramen and chiffon when April came. My grandfather, Imam Unih, a Muslim preacher, on the other hand, would always hand me some money to celebrate my birthday when Maullud-Din-Nabi comes which I always used to buy lots of toys instead of a grand feast.

Mine was a very unusual childhood. As far as my memory takes me back, it had seemed that the first consciousness I have gotten was to be a child living with my grandfather, those memories where my grandfather was always there when I was still an infant. My grandmother, Hadja Daihanna, passed away when I was about three year old or so that I really had no substantial memories of her except to see her sitting stoically in her rocking chair for hours and hours, all day long due to general paralysis. I remember quite well that in my pre-school ages, I always dream about her (those dreams where I always fall from my bed; having that feeling of falling endlessly from a cliff).

I dreamt that I was flying furiously through the woods terrified from being chased by this being who looked like an old woman with graying hair l like wire fences on her hair and she had wings blacker than the night. And it was really uncanny that she looked like my grandmother, at least the stringed hair was similar as I observed her when sometimes she let her long hair spread out in order to dry it up after a bath. I had this kind of dreams and the winged old woman sometime had companions and they kept on chasing me. In one of those dreams, I also had these companions who looked cherubic and whose hair where curly like American babies. It was because of these dreams that in my waking hours, I felt some discomfort every time I stared at my grandma, though at that early age, I have learned to dismiss those dreams to be merely dreams and nothing more.

I had this particular dream that left me really screaming in the deadest hours of the dawn. Again as usual, I was speeding through the night forests being chased furiously by those dark winged creatures that looked like my grandmother Hadja Dayhana. I would bend my arms in front of my face in order to protect my body from the branches of the trees that I went into in my flight from the flying specters, speeding into nooks and caverns. As I escaped from the woods, I blurted into the wide-open night sky and lost those who were chasing me. I was huffing and puffing from the furious chase and flew to a nearby gathering of trees and there I found my companions, those cherubim with faces of infants. Without speaking in words, they instructed me to be quiet while we had a view of a assembly of people encircling a huge campfire. They were all kneeling and I saw some familiar faces, the ones who were chasing me, being part of the group, chanting and singing and howling as they faced the burning woods in the middle of the circle. It was a ritual. I was awe-stricken by the unusual event before us when suddenly, something from behind us moved and the winged serpents found us again and we scurried hurriedly, to flee again. When I woke up, I screamed my hearts out and my grandfather had to make me drink cool tap water.

These were the familiar nocturnal dreams that I had when I was so young and little. Each time I woke up, I always felt so surprised to find myself in bed instead of the caves and forests that were inside those dreams, as if I really was in those dreams that in fact whenever I fell in a dream, from trees and cliffs, I also fell from my bed.

Of cherubim I always had memories the most vivid of which was me afloat the clouds with many of them trotting throughout and food fell from the sky without end and we held baskets to collect the manna from heaven. I remember these dreams for they were happy dreams.

From my autobiography "A Prophet's Life"

What's New with the Higgs Boson Thing? Do We Really Want to Know?

Marvelous, marvelous science this thing going on with the so-called Higgs Boson particles. The Guardian and The Telegraph have reported that scientists experimenting on such matter over there at CERN, somewhere in Geneva, Switzerland, have made huge milestone most recently and said to have zeroed-in on discovering the Higgs Boson particle 99.999999% sure. The .9’s is a bit longer than what I have stated, that’s according to The Telegraph.

This very interesting particle have hugged science news pages for years now and have been featured in many television documentaries, especially that one ultra-glossy presentation from Discovery Channel. One thing that adds so much attention to it is its own very strange and mysterious nature; somewhat salacious information, something so much of the unknown.

And that’s what Higgs Boson particle is all about – so much of the unknown.

Unlike any other particle in the known universe – such as atom, proton, and quarks – this one had been known long before it was discovered. It was a creation of postulation and hypothesis merely, that some kind of imaginary region in the universe is traversing without so much being caught by mortal eyes, and this was called “the higgs field”, which the Guardian describes as a huge swimming pool in the universe and the Higgs-Boson particle is swimming, or rather, swaying within it, dragging along heavily with his clothes on.

The Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs, who in 1964 wrote one of three ground-breaking papers alongside the work of Robert Broutand François Englert and Tom Kibble, C. R. Hagen and Gerald Guralnik covering what is now known as the Higgs mechanism and described the related Higgs field and boson.

The particle is also termed as “God’s particle”, apparently because of its very eponymous nature, that is said to be the origin of all things, the very matter to where all things and matters have gained mass from. More atomic than atom, more core than neutron.

If discovered ultimately, what does Higgs Boson particle would benefit mankind? Such is the billion dollar question. Especially that the equipment built in order to experiment upon its existence is worth in the billions, the Large Electron–Positron Collider (LEP), a huge tunnel 27 miles long, in order to stimulate particles colliding with each other at a very high speed, a velocity unthinkable on the Earth’s surface that they’ve built it underground.

Perhaps, just like the discovery of the nucleic matters such as atom and neutron, Higgs Boson particle, or the discovery and use of it, would lead to advancement in energy and more or less, in mass weaponry. Do we really need to have much more powerful explosive than the uranium-based nuclear bomb?

Scientists have theorized that discovery and understanding the elemental nature of the particle will allow humankind comprehend much more the 'Standard Model', about how every matter in the known world behaves.

But hey, this is too much science for us. In the end we ask, do we really need to know what’s “God’s particle” is all about?

The Chaotic Structure of World Relations

Definitely, chaos is an instance gravely unbeneficial at any given fact or situation. This is most true in the principles and normative values regulating, or self-regulating world relations.

If we do not want conflicts and disintegrations to perpetuate within our own personal lives --- or in our community in general - then as much more that we would not opt for chaos in the relations among states and nations.

Basically, the interaction between and among states --- especially at the beginning of the era where nation had begun to evolve into instituted states (from the prior institutions of kingdoms and empires that had mostly vague territorial and political frameworks) sometime in the 16^th century --- is mostly confined in an environment of chaos.

When we say chaos in international relations, it refers technically to the lack of formal organizational and hierarchical structure among nations, that sheer might and strength becomes the limited characteristics for estimation as to what nation should exert its influence over and against other lesser states. Of course, this form of strength should primordially be in the nature of military force, and then political influence.

This lack of structure had been deemed by political theorists to be the sole basis why in the early stages of human civilization, nations and territories are often in violent and head-on collisions with each other, showing and exerting each other’s strength and resolve almost at every turn, that sad to say, only war and confrontation could resolve a certain status quo. And since power is often fluctuating, nations had been embroiled in repetitive war in those early ages of human civilization.

This despite that international organization such as the United Nations nowadays provides a certain form of arrangement among states; still, this does not strictly refers to a hierarchal form of organization as nations remain co-equal with each other, and no nation or nations holds formalized power over all other nations. It remains to this day therefore that world relations are chaotic in nature, this despite the existence of the United Nations.

For instance, in the time immediately prior to World War I, a form of uncertainty had arose as to what nation state has the most strength in the European region, a fragile balance of power had permeated, and alliances were formed as a result of this insecurity, that eventually, when these states started to question each other’s resolve much more intensely, war broke out among them, eventually and steadily developing into a global war.

The only solution – which is at times dangerous proposition – is the presence of a singular state that could exert enormous power and influence above most, if not all states in the world. This situation becomes the so-called hegemony in international relations.

This hegemonic structure is provided today by the powerfulness and heraldic power of the United States of America that as a singular entity, it wields so much power and political influence over all other nations that its grasp is nearly empiric in nature.

While radical minded individuals resent this situation, where America often involves itself in every conflict and confrontation in almost every nook and cranny of the world, this had become somehow a positive value for today’s world peace and stability.

For instance, in the developing events that had brought China and the Philippines to a head on collision over a piece of island in the South China Sea (or West Philippine Sea), over the disputed Scarborough Shoal, some tactical moves by the United States, specifically the docking of attack submarine USS North Carolina in a port near Scarborough; such move was seen to be in the context of attempting to pacify the tense situation brimming between the two Asian nations. 

Without the veiled intervention of America, any escalation in the Scarborough issue would sway so much in China’s favor. That it would not be too surprising to realize how China becomes too eager to put up a fight against the Philippines over the disputed piece of land protruding over the seas just west of the latter’s territory.

However, with the existence of a mutual defense treaty between the United States and the Philippines, China could not be so forceful or profligate in engaging the Philippines to a full-blown military confrontation. Otherwise, it would be inviting America into the whole conflict --- Which would not be in its own interest for certain.

Somehow, we as a nation, becomes ultimately benefitted from this hegemonic structure being perpetuated by America as the lone superpower in existence today. Despite that it is often vilified as an international bully by many political critics.

Summer and the Big Fish

( This is a re-post from Summer of 2008)

Giantfishphobia

It had been raining this summer. It’s near the end of April and there’s still rain that drizzles down from the blue heaven. It’s an unusual season that way. A friend and me was once examining how the weather was ironic, t’is summer yet there’s rain.

But today, the rain fell at dawn and the sun is starting to shine it’s light. It’s a beautiful light. Not so bright and yet not so dim like a rainy weather does have.

It’s the favoritest season don’t you think. I adore summer just like everyone does, just like you and me. It’s the time for letting flight the colorful kites so mighty in the oceanic blue sky. It’s the time for the kids to run in the arid grounds, dust and smoke in their faces, filling the air with innocent laughter and mirth.

I had dreams of summer before. I dream of summer as the windiest and most adorable golden field of wheat and corn, just like an American summer, along the interstate highways and along old barns and stucco rural houses that serenade the bright summer like colorful marbles from afar.

I dreamt of summer just like the one I had mostly when I was a child. Cool air and incandescent shine all over me, as I flew my kite by myself or fish for small fishes in a nearby pond, like I own the weather for all myself, and myself alone.

Summer brings freedom. Unlike cold winter and heavy rainy days when one could merely sit by the window and see the wet grounds outside, puddles of mud all round, and wondered if a big fish would suddenly burst out in floods that sometimes come when the rain does not stop for days and days to come. I sometimes wished that the mythical fish, gigantic and full of mean scales on its bodice, would somehow appear and bring excitement to those sad rainy days when I was so young and so innocent. Of course, there’s no such fish as we all realized about the myths in our young unknowing minds as we grow up.

But it was so alive in my young mind, and it looks just like a coelacanth, that scaly big fish that was thought to be extinct but had been found out to still exist in some parts of Africa. And it’s huge like a submarine and I could imagine rivets all over its body, forming it and holding the whole body tight, like a gigantic machine fish, with a mean looking face that doesn’t smile at all.

I had the deepest fear of being gobbled whole and live by that giant scaly fish and finding myself just around its tonsil, calling for it to Please let me out now, you stupid fish! You have no right to put me inside your f*cking stomach and would you please belch me out right at this moment? (Pardon for the expletives.)

Oh, I really wouldn’t want to be trapped inside that dark crevice of a giant scaly fish and that’s one of my greatest fears. Maybe I could call that giantfishphobia, if there’s such a thing.

Fortunately, there’s really no such big and scaly fish in reality, that would just suddenly burst out of a developing flood just outside the yard. Now, that I am grown up, such myths of my youth is for certain, just that - myth.

For the meantime, I am just going to savor the cool summer sunlight that’s enveloping the whole surrounding at this time and wish the heavy rainy days of May wouldn’t come just as yet.

Reinvigoration of the Public Sector

Re-invigoration of the Public Sector

I do not mean re-engineering or even re-structuring. Maybe all we need is merely to invigorate the government system in order for it to achieve the maximum efficiency that is expected of it.

We have tried such modes of re-invention as re-engineering and re-structuring, at great cost in time and money, and yet improvements have not been substantial or palpable. The public continues to languish in long queues every time a license or a passport is needed. Bribes are ever pernicious, and even more open today, like it is not anymore a secret that should be tucked inside the pocket or a key thrown into the deepest ocean.

Sadly today, the public continues to encounter lazy faces of public servants seemingly tired of their day job and daydreaming of life in beaches almost all day long. At the slightest error, the public who is merely seeking public service get squirmed at by those who are especially employed by the government in order to serve the public, and in order that the common person have the convenience that the government owes them.

What is the aim of the public sector now? This is one vital question that should be addressed before everything can be settled. Is the public servant merely holding position just in order to make a living? He or she should rather be selling vegetables or meat in the market, at least thereat, there would be wider potentiality for the improvement of wealth. Nobody could really get rich in the government service, even serving for a long time.

Is the public servant merely holding position for social status and pride? He or she would rather be joining pageants and spectacles on television, for he or she would be known better there.

The public office is a public trust. This dogma had even been institutionalized in our most fundamental set of laws – our Constitution – and this is most encompassing of all, where no one should be allowed to forget the essence of public service, which is in order to serve thepeople, and not merely for self aggrandizement.

In view of the foregoing issues, therefore it is but time to realigned our views about the public sector, starting from the people within it. That for every employee of the government, whether national or local, every time he or she sees an individual, riding a Mercedes Benz or wearing no shoes and in tattered clothes, it should not matter, because that person, whether rich or poor, famous or unknown, is the very public sector he or she is aimed to serve.

In this manner, improvement of government service and the government system could be initiated, entering its nascent stages.

Despite the improvements in work environment, like air-conditioned areas, new buildings, expensive vehicles and increase in pay and bonuses, government service remains the same old horse, who is lackluster in movement, lacks dynamism and most of all, deficient towards its main aim of serving the public dutifully and with vigor. The government remains a system that is prone to stagnation and inefficiency, misappropriation, abuse of authority and lack of direction.

We have tried re-engineering the government system in the past and yet even the best re-engineers couldn’t tame the wild river that is the Philippine government system. Maybe we need a rocket scientist for this. We have tried re-structuring but even if our re-structurers could build a pyramid or an Eiffel Tower out of a molehill, the government system remains an ancient nipa hut.

Maybe it’s time that we should try re-invigoration.

It’s not as complicated to do as re-structuring does or as expensive as a re-engineering would demand. It only takes will, political will and cooperation from the people in the system. There are a number of factors that would be put in focus in this aim of putting the government service in the right track, one is leadership, two is awareness, three is competition, four incentive, and five public choice.

In LEADERSHIP, I mean to say political leadership. When we all almost agree that politics and the bureaucracy could not really be separated and is intertwined almost all the time, leadership becomes a most important factor in putting vigor and integrity back into the government service. In choosing our political leaders, especially in the next election activities in the coming years, the people should now aim for leaders who have proven capacity to lead and carry an entire workforce towards the improvement of service. It starts with the people then. If the electorate fails in the first place to change our leadership from the highest level, towards the root level, then re-invigorization ofthe government system would remain an illusion.

AWARENESS is two-pronged, first there should be awareness or a high level of consciousness among our public servants that their holding of their respective positions is not meant for self-aggrandizement alone, as a form of livelihood above all, but in order to serve the public well, and this should become a passionate and patriotic mission in every individual that would be integrated into the government service. Secondly, there should be similar level of awareness as to the PUBLIC being the CLIENT that the government is aimed to served, (the private sector prefer to call them CUSTOMERS) and the government system is aimed at primarily serving the needs of the CLIENT, that when the client is dissatisfied, public service becomes irrelevant and inefficient in every sensible sense possible. The CLIENT becomes the reason for existence, without it, there is no public service in the first place. This way, every client that enters the halls of a government office should be served well, for the moment that no one would anymore enter the halls of government offices, is just about the time that public service should eradicated.

COMPETITION could be injected into the public sector so that improvement of service could pertain. If the public could be given a choice as to the locus of a better service that they are necessitating, then every public servant would aim to proffer the better form or kind of service. This would entail privatization or semi-privatization of some government agencies or giving the public more stake in the government system, where there is increased community involvement in public service. Competition would entail the heightened accountability and responsibility factor, where the government service would become directly accountable towards the community, that there is really not one that is indispensable, that the public would always have a better place to go when someone in the public sector doesn’t want to serve the people anymore, but only wants to receive salaries and bonuses. This is where PUBLIC CHOICE comes. This element of re-invigorization is the most complicated of all, but it could be done through medium term action plan, like say five years in the process, incrementally achieved by phases. And of course, this would entail a more detailed document and methodology.

Competition also would bring forth to the adjustment of tenures in public service where at present, there is that seemingly extreme bias in favor of security of tenure, so extreme that even if a public servant would go to his or her work in drag and sleep all day, the government system could not take him or her away, resulting to mass demoralization and low-level performances. Public service should straightened out its merit system that only a good performance could lead to promotions and increase in compensation, that not one indispensable that for whenever a publicservant does not want to serve the public anymore, as expected of him or her, then other more competent or more able individuals from theworkforce should be recruited in his or her stead.

INCENTIVES of course remains a very important element, just like in re-structuring or re-engineering, that for every PUBLIC CHOICE of a government service, the better service would gain performance incentives, such as quota bonuses for a certain level unit of work, like for example if this government cashier had served 100 clients in a day, then performance credits and bonuses would inure or if this inspector had visited more areas or locations in a month than all the rest, he or she receives a hefty amount. It could be done in a larger scale that for example if this government agency branch had performed well in a particular year, more than the others in the same field, the whole workforce of that branch would get bonuses and be lauded with publicacclaim. They do that in private sector, that’s why the private sectorhad been able to build the grand Makati skyline over the years, and is establishing another in Fort Bonifacio and in Ortigas, aside from the busting urban scene in Cebu and Davao, and they do not receive any subsidy from taxpayers, unlike the government service system.

The private sector had not been fraught with issues of grand corruption because employees in the private sector do not attain such level of indispensability like that in the public service, where those who performed well are credited well and remain in the service for long, while those who are lackluster and lack integrity in work is taken out of the system. And besides, if one reaches a managerial or administrative level in the private sector, one is assured of hefty compensation that is why, in recent years, managers and executives of private companies have been able to increased sales in dramatic proportions. There are a lot of things that the government service could learn from the private sector in terms of methodologies, form of work structure, incentive system, recruitment and promotion system, tenures of employees, work ethics and level of competency and most of all in their treatment of the CLIENT, which they often call as the CUSTOMER.

In public service, the CLIENT may not always be right, but for certain they are the reason for being. A population that is served better by thegovernment, in terms of public service—- like education, licenses, security of food, public order and safety, health and welfare, livelihood opportunities, housing, job placements, communication and technology, etc.—- is a population that can make a better government and thereon, a more vibrant State.

(from one of the paper I submitted for my MPA degree)

Caveman 2007

(A story from 2007)

By tomorrow or a day after that, as I am estimating in my mind, I might be packing my bags and bundle some important things as I would be heading for some place else, somewhere that I have been to before but somewhere not many have seen yet or have known previously.

I have decided to leave the city for good. This plan had been in my mind for sometime now and I must assure you that this very drastic move on my part is far from being hasty—-in fact it is to be done with very deep contemplation and scheming that I have etched in my mind for so long now.

I have learned before how to drive nails effectively into wood and I reckon now that I have learned such task fairly well. My grandfather used to do some carpentry work and I used to have observed him so closely doing woodwork when I was so little, putting in mind every phase of the activity, from handling so tightly the wood to be nailed and towards the part when finally the nail is about to be hammered with reasonable precision, or else the hands would be greatly harmed.

Some of my uncles are pretty good too at this kind of work that I would have no doubt that I could do it by myself, hammering nails into wood. By that, I can safely assume that I’d be able to put up a small wooden shelter all by my lonesome when I get to the place that I am planning to go as of this moment. I’ll have thatches as roofs because many have opined how it would help ensure a cooler indoor environement, especially in rural environment. Having thatches as roofs is also one situation that I have been in before, right about the time while I was so young and our family could not then afford a better place to live in, as my father then was just earning his take as a humble mailman. My mother used to tell us stories how my father—-who is a native of the far away Province of Tawi-Tawi—-couldn’t articulate so effectively the local chavacano (a broken Spanish) dialect being spoken here that in some days, while he was still learning the tricks of delivering somebody else’s letter to somebody else’s house, my mother would come along with him for she was far more proficient in the tongue spoken here and therefore could communicate more easily with the mail recipients and also was more familiar with streets names and baranggay locations here.

Now let us go back to this plan I am presently having in my mind—-no reminiscing for now. I really do have a particular place in my mind, one that is far from the honky-tonky noise of the city streets. It is a place near or at the heel of a very prominent mountain known here as the Pulongbato, a stony mountain whose façade is so majestic that it could be seen from any point in the city, from east coast and west coast, from south side and perhaps in some part of north side. It is so strong and mighty like an honorable beast that have decided to sleep for a thousand years and still sleeping as I write now.

Below this mountain is a gushing river and a forest so lush that when years ago I was trekking this area with a number of friends from college, I have almost stepped over a striped multi-colored snake, climbed two small waterfalls, fell from a low cave wall and fell into cool river water, trotted into knee deep gushing water to reach a giant stone in the middle of the river and smoked to my heart’s delight as twilight had enveloped the forest, while the trees slept humming like old warriors, and had even eaten eels we caught from a calmer area of the river. Nature is so varied there, and so abundant too.

I reckoned that while I am there, I would ensconce myself in the warm embrace of Nature as Nature would show me a beauty that I have seen before but still looking for since then. I won’t go thirst there for the river that runs through it is so crystalline like diamonds in our hands. And I won’t go hungry either for even sweet bananas—-as I remember all too well now—-grow so wildly and I bet the rich river-ways contains fishes that becomes so scrumptious as roasted on a brimming campfire, and the smell coming from it would just be gorgeously sublime. Out there, there’d be no time to keep up and catch up with. Industrial fumes are of no issue and the crazy sound of rushing vehicles won’t bother me no more. Could this plan of mind work? What do you think?

I had wondered deeply if ever my family would follow me there even if things wouldn't be as easy in a sense that there’d be no school there, no fast food to drive-by and order hamburgers and fried chickens. There’d be no education to attain there, and then no occupation to profess. And there’d be no roads to where we could drive our humble car. So perhaps, that small car would have to stay undriven for so long, or for eternity most possibly.

Could I say to them that we could have our own education there? That we can be teachers and students by ourselves? Nature is by itself an education and I can sense that it’d be an education that is similarly worthwhile, if not more propound. But I don’t think I could explain this to them efficiently and sell them the wisdom hidden beneath this idea.

And the air, yes the air there is so fresh that once I had thought of putting them in a bottle and sell it as pure purified mountain air, just like what they do to water nowadays. I have read once or had seen in a television show how in some part of Japan, air or the purified version of it had been contained by some enterprising souls there and had raked in some money for it.

The noise there could be so minimal that often, the chirping of birds and the momentary shrieks of monkeys coming from tall shrubberies far beyond becomes calming to the senses and it is certainly the best anti-dote for stress and worry that most urban dwellers suffer and that for sure, it is a situation so ideal for those who long for peace of mind so desperately and to those who seek ultimate freedom from anxiety. Long walks in the mountain side would be a luxuriant activity and sipping hot coffee beside a cool rushing water, while the sun is just about to set into the horizon, is not a far-off idea anymore.

Ooops, I just heard City Hall’s siren wailing and it’s about time for me to go and bring my third son Yuri to school. And by the way, I was just daydreaming a while ago and none of the plans narrated here is to be carried out any time soon.