Beware the Censorship Creeping Up Behind Us

Last week, the Movies and Television Ratings and Classification Board (MTRCB) rated all the short films about human rights violations submitted to it for classification as rated X. The X rating means that these same short films can not be shown publicly. The reason for the classification was that the short films were supposed to be one-sided and tended to undermine confidence in the present administration.

First, on the issue of one-sidedness: The MTRCB was never tasked to classify films based on whether or not they have balanced coverage of the views. Short films and documentaries, by their very nature, are one sided because they seek to advocate a specific point of view. This is at the very core of free speech—advocacy. Those with opposing views would be equally free to voice their dissent. If the MTRCB were to use the same standard on public service advertisement, then all of those would have to be given X ratings as well. It would be absurd for the MTRCB to impose a condition of being balanced on a public service advertisement about, say, the health risk and the hidden cost of cigarette smoking. The message that cigarette smoking is dangerous to one’s health would be diluted to the point of inefficacy if, in the interest of being balanced, it would also mention the opposing view that cigarettes also provide an obscene amount of tax revenues for the government.

On the issue of undermining confidence in the present administration: The Philippine Constitution guarantees free speech. As with other rights, free speech is not absolute. Prior restraint can only be imposed on free speech if it poses a clear and present danger to national security. Tendency to undermine confidence in an administration that certainly deserves to be scrutinized at the very least is not a valid justification for prior restraint.

The very essence of free speech is to encourage debate and discussion on the issues confronting our society. The issue may be as mundane as who deserves to win the latest configuration of Pinoy Big Brother to the substantial ones such as whether the current administration is doing right by the people. Censorship—which is exactly what the MTRCB is doing—has no place in a democracy. The debate and free exchange of ideas make all of us better citizens.

What is really insulting is that the MTRCB thinks that it knows better than we do on what we should and should not watch or hear. Even if the short films were one-sided and put the current administration in a bad light, we are intelligent enough to accept or reject what messages those films want to convey.

It’s not as if the MTRCB is a paragon of intellect. Remember that Rosanna Roces film “Patikim ng Pinya?” The MTRCB was probably the last one to notice, if at all, the sexual double entendre in the title. For several years, the sitcom “Cool Ka Lang,” which was set supposedly in an automobile repair shop run by a Mang Mags (alluding to magnesium wheels) and Jack (also quite appropriate for someone working in a repair shop) ran for several years with nary a peep from the MTRCB. The funny thing was that the choice of setting was just to give the names Mags and Jack a veneer of decency. The auto repair shop itself became just a peripheral aspect of the sitcom. Okay. There’s Mags. Then there’s Jack. And the sitcom’s title was “Cool Ka Lang.” Put it all together and what do you have? “MagJackCoolKaLang.” In street lingo it loosely translates to “Just Masturbate.” The sitcom ran for several years without the MTRCB being the wiser!

I am always in favor of free speech even if it means that I have to endure countless hours of silly, inane, and just plain inconsequential views of other people. (For some reason, Heart Evangelista, Melanie Marquez, and Karen Davila just came to mind.) However, if I somehow woke up in an authoritarian state, I would hope that the censor would have better sense than the people we have in the MTRCB.

Must We Continuously Humiliate Ourselves Before the Entire World?

Last week, news broke out that there was another campus shooting, this time in Delaware State University. The news brought me back to several months ago when CNN had breaking news about the massacre at Virginia Tech. I could have sworn that I felt a tremor when news updates indicated that the perpetrator was of Asian descent. It must have been from Filipinos simultaneously falling to their knees and praying “Huwag sana Pinoy. Huwag sana Pinoy.” (Please don’t let it be a Filipino.)

Let’s face it. As a people, we are capable of greatness. But this is coupled with an uncanny ability to embarrass ourselves.

In 1986, we ousted a tyrant through non-violent means. Then we squandered all that goodwill away by replacing that tyrant with equally malevolent creatures. We have elected morons and idiots into our legislature. We elected Erap Estrada as our president mostly on the notion that he cares for the masses and that since he was rich enough, he would no longer be interested in enriching himself. Wrong!

Once again we have achieved temporary honor of successfully convicting a former president of plunder. Predictably, we are also about to squander that honor with different government officials falling on top of one another to grant the former president one form of clemency or another.

Have we lost our senses?

The Sandiganbayan judgment of plunder against Joseph Estrada would not become final until next week or until the Supreme Court makes a final determination if Erap decides to appeal the decision. The rush to grant him clemency reeks of politics.

The Sandiganbayan decision is only on the criminal aspect of the plunder case. There may still be a civil aspect that needs to be settled. And then there’s the matter of the non-payment of taxes. Remember, the Sandiganbayan only found over PhP700 million to have been directly derived from illegal sources. Some Php3 billion have been determined to have gone through various accounts for which the appropriate taxes have not been paid.

There is not only talk but there are actual negotiations going on to grant Erap Estrada absolute pardon. Absolute pardon means that everything would be absolved—criminal liability, civil liability, tax liability, as well as disqualification. Is Gloria Arroyo really prepared to grant all that?

Were this to happen, it would not simply be a case of “two steps forward, one step back.” It could not be “two steps forward” because it has long been overdue for us to convict a former leader of crimes against the Filipino people. The Sandiganbayan judgment against Joseph Estrada could, at most, be just one step forward. And that would be way too generous.

A grant of absolute pardon would, at the very least, be ten steps back. Just imagine how we would look to the rest of the world. Sure, we’ve convicted a former president of plunder. But the ink is hardly dry on the judgment when he is granted pardon. And it’s not just any type of pardon. It must be absolute pardon, lest Erap Estrada would not accept it. The way the Arroyo administration is bending over backwards to accommodate Erap Estrada’s whims could put to shame a Cirque du Soleil contortionist.

It’s amazing that we still feel offended when other nations treat us badly or takes us for granted. The humiliation and debasement we impose upon ourselves pale in comparison to most of what other nations put us through. I, for one, am too tired of shitting and pissing in my pants before the world stage—figuratively speaking, of course.

We should start respecting ourselves first before we can ask other nations to respect us. The judiciary has already given us the opportunity to raise our heads up high again. Don’t let the Gloria Arroyo and those of her ilk blow this chance for us once again.

Something is Rotten in Our State of Affairs

I saw “West Side Story” a long time ago when I was a child and the only thing I remember about the “Romeo and Juliet” adaptation is the scene where the protagonist was running through Spanish Harlem calling out the name “Maria” and only one girls (and the right one) looked out her window. Unbelievable. It’s like going to a Ninoy Aquino rally in the 80’s and calling out “Hey you, in the yellow t-shirt” and only one person responded.

It was the same feeling I got when Joey de Venecia did not name a specific date when his meetings with Benjamin Abalos and the latter’s cohorts occurred in Wack Wack Golf Club. Here you are, at a seminal moment in your life, and you don’t remember the exact date? All you could say was that it was sometime in mid-March of this year? Could it be the ides of March? That would have been too much of a coincidence, even if you don’t believe in coincidence, just chance events. But when Mike Arroyo, through his representative, issued a statement to the effect that he did not intimidate Joey de Venecia, but merely warned him of the possible conflict of interest or outright illegality of entering into a contract with the government, things became clear to me. Had Joey de Venecia mentioned a specific date, it would have been so easy for those allegedly involved to deny their presence within the golf club facilities. However, without being too specific, Joey de Venecia forced the parties involved to acknowledge that there was indeed a meeting. Each party then had to spin his version of the event. COMELEC Chairman Benjamin Abalos described the meeting as a chance encounter.

Things are getting more and more curious. Abalos seems to have so many chance encounters, and all of which seems to put him in a bad light. Remember that allegedly chance encounter with the Zubiris at a hotel where he was supposedly looking for some broth to alleviate his spate of dizziness? Either he is one of the most unfortunate persons who happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time or, going by the principle of Occam’s razor which states that the most obvious explanation is probably the right one, he’s just the corrupt bastard he appears to be.

The senate hearings also gave us a glimpse of Abalos’ proclivity for showing his sexual prowess. He was said to have been provided with female companions during his stay in China. He was said to have been provided with two girls, one for the day and another for the night. I guess we can not surmise that his favorite “sabaw” is cream of someyoungchick. It could be worse—but not by much—he could prefer cream of someyoungguy.

The Presidency is Ajar. And Something's Afoot

First there was the senate inquiry into the ZTE National Broadband Network (NBN) deal. Then, on the eve of the hearings, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo flies off to Europe—I suppose to pick up where he left off in his self-imposed self-exile of a few years back.

Leah Navarro said that it seemed too much of a coincidence that Mike Arroyo would leave on the eve before the senate hearings. I should be “the eve of the senate hearings.” Anyone who does crosswords would know that an “eve” is the “night before” so when one says “the eve before,” either it’s in reference to the two nights prior to the event, or one is grammatically incorrect.

But I digress.

In the senate hearing, House Speaker Jose de Venecia’s son Joey de Venecia revealed that Mike Arroyo was complicit in the allegedly anomalous NBN deal. He, according to Joey, even acted very much like a gangster and growled at Joey to back off. One would hardly consider that, if true, to be how a gentleman should behave, much more a “First Gentleman.” But then, we have been overusing honorifics to the point that they have lost their meaning. For instance, when someone introduces “the honorable Senate President Manny Villar and his lovely wife,” we don’t even stop to think about it.

Again, I digress.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago claimed that there was a plot to oust Gloria Arroyo from the presidency and that Joey de Venecia’s remarkable revelation was but a part of it. I didn’t put any particular credence to that claim. The opposition is very much against Vice President Noli de Castro assuming the presidency in case Gloria Arroyo stepped down or was ousted from the presidency.

And then the other shoe drops. It seems that bigamy charges are once again being resurrected against Noli de Castro and his wife Arlene.

If Gloria Arroyo was forced from the presidency and Noli de Castro’s ascendancy to the post is put into question, maybe, just maybe, the presidency would be open ahead of the scheduled presidential election in 2010. If the posts of president and vice president are simultaneously vacated, the Senate President takes over as President but only temporarily, I think.

If Gloria Arroyo were really serious about leaving a positive legacy, she should probably just clean house. Let the chips fall where they may. The entire nation and the coming generations would be forever grateful.

Musings on a Lazy Afternoon

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez recently underwent kidney transplant operations. He would then have to take immunosuppressants so that his immune system would not reject his new kidney. There is, however, no drug available to prevent his new kidney from rejecting him.

Mark Jimenez once again surfaced after the promulgation of the Estrada plunder trial verdict. For some reason, he refers to himself as “hulog ng langit” (heaven sent). It was most likely head first when he landed back to earth.

Have you noticed that in cartoons and animated films, someone is credited as director? How does one go about directing cartoon and animated characters?

For years we have been paying exorbitant electricity rates because, as power executives loved to point out, we also have to pay for the excess capacity that resulted from the liberalization of the power industry. Now these same people are telling us that we face an imminent power crisis again if we do not add more electricity generation capacity. What the hell happened to all that excess capacity that we have been paying through the nose for? My guess is, we have been duped into paying for non-existent excess capacity all these years.

In movies, why is it that when we are shown the view from a binocular, we see two overlapping circles when it should be just one circle. And when someone injects poison, he invariably taps the syringe to get rid of bubbles? Death by embolism probably isn’t as compelling a death by embolism—movie-wise.

Killing Time, for a change

Given enough time, what could have sounded really stupid at one time would eventually sound prescient later on.

Back in 1984, when somebody calls you over the telephone, you don’t have to specify that it was through a PLDT landline. That was all we had back then, at least in Metro Manila. Anyway, back then a friend called me up at home and somewhere along the conversation he asked, “Where are you?” “Where am I?” I repeated, “You were the one who called me at home so you should know. Are you drunk or stupid?” To be fair, he was hung over, and he was never exactly the sharpest pencil in the box, so to speak.

Given the same situation today, especially with those new wireless landline telephones, I would not think anything odd whenever someone calls me and asks me where I am.

While I was in the United States, I found it particularly funny that the easiest way to get an American to try any exotic dish would be to tell them that “It tastes just like chicken.” What’s the point in trying something new if it tastes just like chicken? It was not as if chicken was on the endangered or extinct species list and that the only way one could get the taste of chicken was by eating say, snake testicles. But now, with the avian flu going around decimating the chicken population, it might not be too far off in the future when we would only have snake testicles to eat. And as we do so, we reminisce about the taste of chicken.

And speaking of Americans, I have yet to meet an American who as a child, did not try to dig a hole in their backyard in the hopes of coming out in China. You would think that Chinese children would also be digging holes in the ground to get to the United States. If anything, Chinese children would have a more compelling reason to get to the United States than American children do to get to China. Surprisingly, I have yet to meet a Chinese person who dug holes in the ground to get to America as a child. Now that China is the largest toy manufacturer in the world, American children would have a reasonable incentive to go to China—to get their regular lead fix.

As for the title of this entry, I’ve just always wanted to have it as a title and could not wait for the right inspiration.

Sandbagging It

Once upon a time I worked as a programmer for a business systems development company and I was assigned to work on the Owen Cornings account.

Owens Corning, as most people would know, is basically into making products made of glass, specifically fiberglass. In fact, the company owns the trademark “fiberglas,” without the “s.”

The main element in fiberglass is silica. Silica, in turn is usually present in sand. Glass is made by subjecting sand to intense heat. Silica melts a specific temperature so when the silica melts, it is separated from the other compounds consisting the sand.

Owens Corning uses arc furnaces to heat the sand. Arc furnaces operate on the theory that electricity takes the path of resistance between two points. So when you pass sufficient electricity through one electrode, it would jump to a nearby electrode. When electricity jumps from one electrode to another, heat is created. That heat is what is used to melt the silica in sand.

From glass to fiberglass, molten glass must be spun into wool through a spinning process. This is the same process or principle in making cotton candy. However, glass is more brittle than sugar crystals so chemicals have to be added to make glass wool pliable.

Fiberglass has excellent insulation properties so it is used in a wide range of applications from insulating houses and appliances to making roofing shingles.

The making of roofing shingles can be an interesting process to watch. First, fiberglass wool is made into fabric-like material called mats. They’re like cloth spooled onto large spools. Fiberglass mats are then infused with asphalt (or tar). In the olden days, paper was infused with tar and then used as roofing material. Thus they were called tar paper.

After the fiberglass mats are coated with tar, small granules of pebbles are sprinkled on the surface. Zinc granules may also be sprinkled to give the shingles the ability to resist moss and fungal growth.

I just find it ironic that with the amount of technology Owens Cornings had in turning sand into fiberglass, during the great floods of 1993 (when the levees along the Mississippi river were breached) they had to put sandbags around the Kansas City plant to prevent the floodwaters from entering.

And how did they make the sandbags? By manually shoveling sand into bags, one shovel at a time. You’d think that if anyone would have invented a sandbag filling machine by then, it would have been Owens Corning.

Is it really so hard to invent a sandbag filling machine? Since no one has invented one yet, it would seem so.

I have been to several rice mills and if I were to take what I learned from Owens Corning, I was expecting that at the end of the milling process, I would find someone with a shovel shoveling rice into sacks. But no. In all the cement plants, you’d probably expect to find people shoveling cement into bags before someone sews the end. Apparently, it’s all automated.

Thirteen years since the Mississippi River floods, people are still filling sandbags one shovel at a time. The more things change, the more they remain the same.