The talented Mr. Villar
The president is firm.
“Let me say, in no uncertain terms: There will be elections in 2010. There’s your headline for tomorrow.”
In a country where we doubt even the sincerity of the half-naked 6-year-olds who beg for coins at car windows, there is no word for the sort of morons we must be to unconditionally believe the nation’s chief executive, who is guilty of some of the most dramatic lies in national memory. And yet, just as she announced last Friday that she promised elections, President Macapagal-Arroyo also issued a threat.
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Column
Never take up with a writer, I tell you they notice everything, including the hole at the bottom of your argyle sock, the inconsistency in your choice of cheeseburger, and that confession you made one drunken dawn in 2006. They will stay awake at three in the morning, and insist on walking down stretches of street in the July rain. They are useless at parties, and either stare blankly into space or ramble about prepositional use. They will correct your every sentence, forget vital pieces of underwear, and will not hesitate to record your conversation on a scrap of damp McDonald’s tissue paper. They are afraid the sky is falling, and more afraid when it doesn’t. They conveniently forget birthdays and unpaid phone bills, will hiss at good friends who make the mistake of breathing while they pound away at what they mistakenly believe is the Great Filipino Novel, and have fits of moaning in dark corners when the voices in their heads refuse to go away. And there are voices, I tell you.
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The woes of Ms Marcos
Over a month ago, Imelda Marcos – longest running first lady of the Republic of the Philippines, the butterfly-sleeved half of the conjugal dictatorship, the woman whose signature had once led Sotheby’s to cancel a two-day auction after she bought the whole collection with a $6 million check (and then attempted to buy the apartment where it was kept) – announced to the national press that she was penniless.
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Franco’s war
Franco liked to dance. He loved cars, and called his Daddy’s Innova “Franco’s car.” He smelled of soap and giggles and baby skin. “Give me a kiss,” his daddy would say. “No,” Franco would answer. “Come give dada a kiss.” And Franco would pretend he couldn’t hear. “All right, don’t kiss dada.” And then the small body would launch itself at the laughing father, whose face would be smothered with Franco’s wet kisses.
His Daddy says Franco was expressive. “I’m happy,” Franco would say, when the sun was bright. And sometimes, on days that the world did not behave according to the plans of a three-year-old man, “I’m sad.”
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The warrant for Cheche Lazaro
Branch 47 of the Pasay City Metropolitan Trial Court is on the second floor of the Hall of Justice, a short walk from the Municipal Office. Outside its door is a torn paper sign, gone brittle with age, the branch number printed with graying ink. Inside, at half-past noon on a Friday, there is an air of expectation. The floors are white and spotless; untidy piles of paper are being marshaled into order, and a little girl in purple is having her hair brushed by a doting mama. Is she here, they ask, is she coming?
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The Failon incident
I do not know Ted Failon. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a producer for the ABS-CBN News Channel, although I have never personally met the “TV Patrol” anchor.
I write this as someone who was riding home in a taxicab listening to reporters talk about evidence and paraffin tests and an investigation of “the incident” at Ted Failon’s house, not knowing what the incident was.
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Servants
On March 27, 2009, former BBC broadcaster and Chinese columnist Chip Tsao wrote a column titled “The war at home” for a Hong Kong magazine. Tsao called it a satire, and said that the Filipinos had no chance of claiming a stake on the Spratly Islands for as long as the Chinese people – himself included – could hold hostage the thousands of Filipina domestic workers working overseas. “There are more than 130,000 Filipina maids working at $3,580-a-month cheap labor in Hong Kong. As a nation of servants, you don’t flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.”
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