LuisTeodoro.com

(Note: This piece was first published a few years ago in the e-zine Archipelago.)

It’s not one of the earth-shaking puzzlers of Philippine life in this century, but a question outsiders looking in still ask whenever someone dies in either a UP fraternity hazing or inter-fraternity war: why should a young man with his entire life before him, especially a scholar, risk serious injury or even death for the supposed privilege of fraternity membership?

UP, for those who don’t know much about the Philippines, is the University of the Philippines. It’s a state university acknowledged to be the best in the country, to which vast numbers of ambitious young men and women apply every year-among whom, however, only a few are eventually admitted. »

(unpublished column)

Forty percent of Filipinos, says an SWS survey commissioned by the opposition, believe that Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will cheat in behalf of her candidates this May. Twenty percent don’t think so, but another 35 percent aren’t sure–which means that they’re entertaining the possibility that she would. Together with the conviction among some 60 to 70 percent of Filipinos that Mrs. Arroyo should either resign or be ousted from office, these figures look like a record among all the people who have occupied Malacanang since 1946.

The belief that the regime will cheat is rampant among Filipinos. The SWS survey merely confirms the validity of anecdotal evidence culled from conversations with taxi drivers, students, and fishwives. It is based on Mrs. Arroyo’s basement level credibility, which is itself based on what the public knows about the 2004 elections. »

At the height of Thai claims, led by no less than Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, that the Philippines was cheating in the Southeast Asian Games, a Thai official declared that the friendship between the Philippines and Thailand remains and that Thaksin and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo are themselves fast friends.

They should be, considering how much in common they have. »

Filipinos have lived with US troops for over a hundred years. These troops replaced Spanish officers and soldiers in the aftermath of the failed 1986 Revolution, the last stages of which the United States pretended to support.

The US war for the annexation of the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century meant the arrival and basing of more and more US troops in the country to “pacify” it. These soldiers were so successful in their task that by the time the US had control over the entire country, somewhere between 750,000 to a million Filipinos, mostly civilians, were dead. »

Former President Fidel Ramos’ claim that all the talk about the imposition of martial rule is nonsense has been echoed by a number of politicians and media commentators. Primarily they cite the conditions and limits the 1987 Constitution imposes on any declaration of martial law, or attempt to do so.

Section 18 of Article VII (The Executive Department) empowers the President to put the Philippines or any part of it under martial law “in case of invasion or rebellion,” but only for 60 days. »

The United States is “America” to most people. But that word refers to the continent, and when applied to the US is better spelled with a “k,” as in “swastika”.

It’s the country most Filipinos want to visit. But if you’ve ever been involved in any group or activity faintly progressive; if you have relatives or friends who have been; or you’re from a country the US says harbors “terrorist groups”, it’s tempting fate to go. No matter how vague or past your involvement, it can earn you a strip search, an interrogation session with the FBI or immigration, summary deportation, or even indefinite detention. »

What happened to the impeachment complaint in the House of Representatives–aptly labeled a “killing” by the pro-impeachment alliance and the media–was inevitable, among other reasons because of the presence and dominance of political dynasties in that chamber.

The House reeks with the names of the wives, children, sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, cousins, nephews and nieces of congressmen and senators long dead, but who live on in their kin and progeny. The Senate is no different, and neither is Malacanang, whose current resident is herself the daughter of a past president. »