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I admit there are times when the line between needing and wanting something blurs, as my desire to upgrade or update anything that I have overpowers common sense.

But after going through this slide show I promise myself never ever to complain about anything material of which I would rather have more.

Back then the favorite priest was Achilles Dakay, then just Fr. Achilles Dakay and not yet Monsignor Achilles Dakay. Fr. Dakay was our favorite priest because his sermons always made the congregation laugh and think, and he seemed at the time a very likable person. First Sundays were reserved for Fr. Dakay, and I remember the mass goers felt a little disappointed when he could not make it to mass, and sending someone in his stead.

I stopped going to mass in 1985 (for reasons that shall be discussed elsewhere) and I left Cebu in 1999. I had not seen or heard of the Monsignor mainly because I had lost interest both in the Catholic Church and in the goings-on in Cebu City, which to me is now alien territory.

But seeing Monsignor Dakay on the news tonight, hearing him say that the medical scandal at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) is the fault of the victim and that the victim should accept some of the blame for what happened—I could not believe what I was watching and hearing. Monsignor Dakay’s popularity, or at least what I remember of it, stemmed from his open-mindedness and compassion. Or maybe I remember wrongly.

Danton Remoto of Ladlad has been quoted as saying that the Monsignor’s statement is expected because it only reflects the church’s stand on homosexuality.

The pains and travails that can happen in any person’s life seem to be magnified when the victim happens to be homosexual. This statement may be subjective, but in our hearts we know it to be true. But that is still not the issue in question in the case of the victim at the VSMMC. For me, the victim’s sexuality is incidental in this case.

It is the behavior of the attending medical team that has been questioned and deemed highly irregular. The video showed not only the poor victim’s state, but also the attitude and the state of mind of some of the members of the medical team. A few doctors have been quoted as being of the opinion that only the person who uploaded the video should take the full brunt of whatever sanctions are to be imposed.

What the bright doctors and nurses at the Cebu hospital did was a violation of the patient-doctor confidentiality that is part of the Code of Ethics of a medical practitioner.

What rubs salt on the patient’s injury was the fact that the doctors and nurses were shown laughing – with the glee reserved only for the insanely happy – while the patient was sedated, helpless, and tied to the bedposts like a pig.

Why was the victim not made to read the papers he signed? Why was there a horde of kibitzers inside the operating room? Was a medical operation really going on, or were they watching a specimen under the merciless lens of a microscope, or an animal in a zoo?

– Danton Remoto, The Doctors are Sick

So when Monsignor Dacay viewed the tragedy as a some sort of lesson on the evils of homosexuality, one could propose that he ought to have viewed it as a lesson on the combined dangers of literally hitting below the belt and of the dangers of drunkenness. He missed out on all the other issues the tragedy raised, and instead appeared more interested in blaming the victim and shielding those who unquestionably violated a patient’s rights. The most charitable thing to say about him is that he’s a clumsy pastor.

– Manuel L. Quezon III, An intrinsically disordered response

I am of the belief that the video should be used to take note of who among those on the medical team snickered or laughed or made snide remarks. Their having done so does not prove that they are only human, but that they have failed to rise above the level of humor at another person’s expense, to the correct behavior of people in their profession.

That, I believe, is more the scandal.

(Also posted on Press this Button)

* Photo of Msgr. Dakay was taken from here
* Screencaps from GMA-7 News

The humongous tarpaulin banners featuring a half body shot on a pink background of MMDA Chairman and self-proclaimed presidentiable Bayani Fernando are now nowhere to be seen on the main thoroughfares of Pasay and Makati.

I have not ventured farther than Makati City this week, mainly because I’m a home-work-home commuter, so I have not heard from anyone farther up the river of EDSA if the banners have also disappeared from Mandaluyong and Quezon City. Will see if I can verify this later today.

Quite a few concerned citizens have aired their comments on these banners, from being just plain ugly to being totally useless, not to mention the undeniable (try as they may) fact that it is much-too-early campaigning on the part of the MMDA Chairman.

On the other hand, quite a few comments of the combative kind have been made in reaction to my earlier posts regarding Bayani Fernando’s tarpaulin posters, as well as my other posts that decry the inhuman practices of the MMDA when dealing with street vendors.

Lest this start another word war between myself and the BF4P hornblowers, let me state the following:

We need the pedestrian overpasses, so thank you, MMDA, for doing your job in providing them. However. it has to be clear where the metal pedestrian overpasses are being manufactured and if the Pinoy taxpayer should have anything to worry about in that area.

We need the trees that are being planted along the sidewalks on EDSA. I hope enough study has been made to make sure that these are actually the right trees for the job and that they will not be cut down later on as the huge old trees were in Katipunan road.

I do not have a car (I leave all the swerving and cursing to the bus drivers and the occasional taxi drivers who hold my life in their hands Mondays to Fridays) so I have always refrained from commenting on the concrete barriers and U-turns, even as I agree with what’s been said that they are ugly and ill-lighted.

Finally, I personally think that the pink and blue paint on the walkways and on street signs (which do not follow international standards btw) simply jars with the cityscape and instead of people being just thankful for them they cannot be spoken of only in good light.

Which brings us to my main beef with the MMDA and its globe-trotting Chairman. I simply cannot believe that the engineer in him is stronger than the politician. There is no strong evidence that it is civic-mindedness ingrained in him and not the ultimate goal of enriching himself and his family.

To any future Marikina resident (or ex-resident) whose fingers are now itchy to type their rebuttals into the comment box either here or elsewhere, answer me this:

Who owns Riverside Mall?

Who has “won” the contract to build SM Marikina?

Who makes the metal walkways on which the pedestrians of Metro Manila walk on as well as the pink and white metal street signs, and did the the manufacture of these metal items pass through the normal process of proposal and bidding with the MMDA?

To the oft-asked question on this blog, why am I zeroing in on Bayani Fernando when there are other “more corrupt” politicians out there?

To me there is no such thing as “more” corrupt. A government official who enriches himself while in power, whether it be in small doses or large-scale, does not deserve his seat.

A government official who uses government money to promote himself as patron of all discipline and order, does not deserve respect.

A government official who sees a visions of progress in his head but fails to acknowledge the reality of the city he serves is a dangerous, even destructive force.

* * * * * * *

Related reading:

• The wheels on the bus
• Huli Ka!

I had never written to a congressman, because I had always thought that they would be too busy to answer anyway. My husband works at the House of Representatives, and even he was not too encouraging. However, after having read about Rep. Roilo Golez’s proposal to investigate MMDA Chairman and self-proclaimed presidentiable Bayani Fernando’s enormous tarpaulin banners that have proliferated along EDSA, and having seen the short televsion interview that Rep. Golez gave to GMA news, I felt obliged to thank him for his move.

I found Rep. Golez’s website on Google, as it was not linked from the website of the House of Representatives. At the bottom of his homepage is a link to his email address, and I thought what the heck, I just want to write a note of thanks. I started an email, introducing myself and where I lived, noting that I was not even his constituent (our area fell under Rep. Ed Zialcita), but that I would like to express my sincerest thanks that he has stood up and spoken out about these banners that I considered not only eyesores along the length of EDSA, but are a gross violation of at least two laws that I know of. I included a couple of links to posts I have made on this blog regarding those banners. I also assured him that whatever his plans are for the country in the future, he could count on my support.

I hit the send button and thought nothing of it afterwards. After all I had written several emails to the online newspapers about the same topic and never got any replies. But when I opened my email early this afternoon, this message greeted my eyes:

Of course, we can say that it wasn’t really Congressman Golez who replied to my email, but one of his PR staff, but that doesn’t matter to me. I wrote to Congressman Golez and Congressman Golez wrote back. With a copy of the house resolution that he was going to file! Of course since the document as stated was still in draft, I cannot post it here, but I will look out for it on the website of the House of Representatives, and I’ve calmly nagged Sam into taking me with him to work one of these days so that perhaps I can meet the man who wrote back, and maybe sit in the gallery when sessions open again next week.

The summary of House Resolution HR00511 can be found here. This is a result from the online query facility at the HOR website.

With the slow process of how resolutions and bills are pushed through the house it may be months before anything of note happens, if at all. One thing I know for sure is that, to paraphrase a GMA 7 newscaster, hindi ko ito tatantanan.

This is the paradox of our Overseas Filipino Workers. They brave the heat, cold, alienation, discrimination, separation from their families, to earn money in a foreign currency worth much more than the peso to send to their relatives back in the Philippines. But the remittances they have been making has become the backbone of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s so-called strong economy, which in turn has lowered the value of the dollar against the peso. Here lies the paradox. The more money the OFW’s remit, the lesser its value becomes.

I have said before that people are our country’s biggest commodity. Our country has become a one-stop shop for anything that will benefit other countries except our own. We are selling our people, our minerals, our land itself to countries who gain from the sale, the proceeds of which line the pockets of the government people involved in the sale.

We are exporting the very people and products that we should be keeping to nurture and build for our country’s future. To make matters worse, our entrance into the WTO has allowed the Philippines to become a dumping ground for products from other countries which we ourselves produce (well now, USED to produce). This is the very act that killed our economy. Gone are the factories that made cars and airconditioning units, gone are the sugar cane fields that produced our sugar export, gone are the fields that provided for our rice and corn and bakery goods. We import these products now.

We have become a nation of consumers when we used to be a nation of producers. To consume you need to buy, to buy you need money, and because there is no money to be had in this country (all the factories have closed, remember?) our workers have gone abroad. The money they are sending back is being spent buying things that have not been produced in the Philippines, therefore the money goes right back out again.

It is because of the traffic of funds created by the remittances that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas are revelling in their so-called strong economy, what they are telling everyone is a strong economy. They do not dwell on the fact that all this money goes out again in the form of debt payment and importation, and of course the kickbacks they get. It is an economy they have built on a house of cards.

Now our OFW’s are poised to flick a finger on that house of cards. Now GMA and the BSP are nervous. As well they should be.

It may be slow in coming, but now that is has the message is undeniable. Our people are starting to find their power again, and in more ways than just marching in the streets.

Conrad de Quiros has said it so well:

In fact, that’s not easier said than done, that’s easier done than said. It’s the hardest thing to make Filipinos do, it’s the easiest thing to make us not do. Which is what civil disobedience or passive resistance consists of: not doing. It is, as friends of mine suggest, not filing taxes (which still entails the withholding of residual amounts from a corrupt government, notwithstanding that much of your hard-earned pay is already taken from you by withdrawn tax and indirect taxes), not sending (by overseas Filipino workers in particular) of remittances through official sources (the dues and fees from which, as shown by PhilHealth, will be used only to fund the election campaign of administration candidates), being absent en masse from government offices, including the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces (conscientious or conscience-stricken cops and soldiers suddenly being stricken ill on the day they are supposed to bash the heads of demonstrators), and so on. Feel free to pitch in and add to the list.

To the charge that this will derail the economy and subvert democracy, you can always retort: Stealing money derails the economy, stealing the vote is, well, forget subverting democracy, it’s just plain evil. The principle is simple: The citizens are not powerless before an unwanted leader. An illegitimate president refuses to go, a legitimate citizenry can always refuse to obey. An unwanted leader refuses to disappear, a wanted citizenry can always refuse to appear.

You can’t operate where there’s no one left to cooperate.

Mabuhay ang OFW!