Daddy ko

My father died in his sleep on December 12 (2013). I worked from home that day, and was planning to visit him across the street after my 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift, perhaps read to him from the books I brought him a couple days earlier, and maybe hug him. Him not being a touchy-feely person, the last time I hugged him was a few days before his 80th birthday last October. He had a surprised look on his face, as if to say, "What's that for?" He left quietly as he had lived -- without much fanfare, without drama.

My second sister (we are five girls and one boy), who visited him the Monday before he died, said our father didn't want to feel like an invalid. Toward the last few weeks of his life, my father would become weaker, unable to eat for days at a time. My mom would offer to bring him his meals in his room, but he had always refused, not wanting to be a burden to anyone. He instead walked to eat at the dining table. We offered to bring him to the hospital so that he could be intravenously fed, he refused. He was like that, low-maintenance, low-key. He always said that people need to be useful.

The day before he died, when he seemed stronger and had eaten, he even fixed a leaking faucet, although he asked help with tightening the wrench. One time, a couple of years ago, my third sister, who lives with my parents, calls me on my cell phone. I was already on the bus. She was frantic. There was trouble with the electric post outside their house (I forgot if it exploded or had sparks or both), and my sister said my father, an aeronautical engineer by training who managed the electricals of a steel plant for a long time, had taken out the ladder and was preparing to go up the post to find out what was wrong and fix it. I asked my sister to give the phone to him. I told him, "Get down the ladder. I will call Meralco and its people will have you arrested. That's their post. It's not yours to fix." He understood authority, which for a long time he was to me.

I've had a difficult relationship with my father, especially after he retired and became crankier. In college, when I started dabbling with activism, this man who called me, his first-born, a "cutie-pie" and a "sweetie-pie," returned the favor and called him a fascist. He had tried to rationalize martial law and all that. Because this man, who always advised harried me "to plan your work and then work your plan" appreciates systems and order.

In high school, he and my mother would help me (actually, make) my practical arts projects. The papier mache dachshund and the flowers from the stems of the coconut fruit were so beautiful the teacher asked if she could take them home. He was a hands-on dad at a time when macho dads were the norm. I remember the nights he'd take me and sister no. 2 to the garden rotunda two streets away and have us learn balance, guiding us as we walked on the back of the concrete seats that fenced the roundabout. If it weren't for him, I would not be married, believing as I did that marriage is a male social construct that needs to be replaced with something less restrictive to women. He told my mother, when I was five months pregnant and not married, that he would not give my daughter his surname. What? Di ba apelyido ko rin yun? I know he wasn't being selfish. He was looking out for me, who took some of his stubborn nature.

And today is Christmas Day, the holiday he loved most. When we were younger, he would bring out the missallette from the previous Christmas, the one with a thick sheaf of lyrics for carols in the middle, and we'd sing. His favorite was the "Little Drummer Boy," the poor boy who had nothing to give the King but his music. Or, he'd play the carols as sung by the Vienna Boys Choir. He loved their angelic voices. He would prepare a bottle of coins for the carolers. No matter if these children came back over and over, singing their unintelligible songs, he'd have something for them. One Christmas Eve, returning home from mass, a group of young kids from the shabbier part of the neighborhood greeted us outside our doorstep. We shared our noche buena with them. "Inubos nila pagkain natin," a younger sister complained. But my dad, whose mother died of childbirth when he was seven, knew how it was to go without and knew how to give.

Before he died, my mom tells me he checked the Christmas lights, planning to replace the busted bulbs. Last night, unlike the many Christmas eves I've spent, the Christmas lights were off, my mother choosing to go to bed early so that we'll be able to go today to the memorial park and spend it with him.

I miss you daddy. 

(This first came out in InterAksyon.com, 25 December 2013, with the title "This is my first Christmas without my daddy".)

5 Reasons Why Jesse Robredo is a Great Loss

(or 5 amazing things about him as a politician)

Together with a couple of friends, we paid our respects to the man who was both good and great.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MALACANANG

The first title is a reminder to the powers-that-be that these five reasons are exactly the very same qualities that Jesse Robredo’s successor should possess. The second is an invocation, if not a cynic’s self-defense against disappointment, since it puts “amazing” and “politician” in one phrase.

1. He served the people.

And he served especially the least of them, the informal settlers. Despite his middle-class upbringing, Jesse Robredo did not blame the “squatters” for most of society’s ills: the crimes against property (or what Anti-Poverty Commission Undersecretary Jude Esguerra calls the Jean Valjean crimes), the trash, and the floods. He saw them as people trapped in a system that forced them to live as rats, in sewers and sewer-like conditions.

While one Cabinet member talked about “blasting” them away from the danger zones by creeks and waterways at the height of the habagat floodings, Robredo was meeting with them almost every day, hammering out the details of their immediate relocation within the city, following the P50-billion multi-year shelter program that he cobbled together with urban-poor groups and shelter-as-human-right advocates.

2. He shared power.

The nature of power is to amass more power. It is jealous and greedy. Robredo fought the nature of power -- and won. How was he not devoured by the system? He invented a better one.

When he was first elected mayor of Naga City, he immediately institutionalized participative democracy, a difficult concept to actualize -- even for activists who had used it in slogans and tried to give life to it in “collectives.” He established a system whereby the organized sectors (urban poor, women, labor, elderly, disabled, etc.) were given space in all aspects of governance -- from brainstorming to implementation to monitoring to fine-tuning/correcting the plan. Unheard of in politics, especially in feudal Philippines.

While Bayani “BF” Fernando achieved practically the same things for Marikina City—a clean and healthy environment, efficiently delivered public and social services, and international awards, Robredo did not use an iron fist.

3. He was an activist -- without claiming to be one.

He acted. He initiated. He made things happen. Solve traffic mess, check. Eliminate jueteng, check. Streamline bureaucracy, check. Plus a host of other things. He was a kindred spirit to many activists who chose to engage the government, find solutions to pressing problems, and make an impact on people’s lives -- instead of simply finding fault. In his wholistic approach to governance, he minded that the means is also the end.

4. He is world-class.

His innovations are recognized by his people (those who benefited from his efforts) and by international bodies (those who want to replicate them). These are some of the awards -- in a variety of categories -- that Naga City received because of what Robredo started:

* Housing Rights Protector Award: Center for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Geneva, Switzerland, City Government of Naga honoured with Housing Rights Protector Award for its exceptional commitment to the human right to adequate housing | December 5, 2007

* Cost Effective (City Category) in the search for Asian Cities and Regions of the Future (for year 2005-2006): Conferred by London-based Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Magazine London, United Kingdom

* Global 107 Best Practices, 2004 Dubai International Awards, i-Governance Program of Naga City (Best Practices in Improving the Living Environment): Conferred by the United Nations - Habitat and the Municipality of Dubai

* Recipient, United Nations Public Service Awards, Application of Information and Technology (ICT) in Local Government: Local eGovernment: Conferred by the United Nations - Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), United Nations Public Service Day | June 23, 2004

* Recipient, Award for Women-Friendly City, Contest of Gender Responsive Local Government for Asia Pacific: Conferred by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), Fukouka, Japan | March 8, 2004

* Recipient, CyberCity Award for Asia-Pacific, For Developing Effective & Efficient Model of Utilizing ICT for promoting good governance: Conferred by Urban Governance Initiative (TUGI), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

* Finalist, World Habitat 2002, Naga Kaantabay sa Kauswagan Program:  Conferred by the Building and Social Foundation and UN-HABITAT, World Habitat Day | Brussels, Belgium

* Finalist, World Habitat 2001, Naga Kaantabay sa Kauswagan Program: Conferred by the United Nations Center for Housing Settlement (UNCHS)

* Acclaimed as one of the Most Improved Cities in Asia: Asiaweek Magazine, November 1999

* Awards Winner, Naga City Participatory Planning Initiatives, 1998 Dubai International Award for Best Practices in Improving the Living Environment, Municipality of Dubai and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN HABITAT), Municipality of Dubai, United Arab Emirates

* HABITAT II TOP 40 Best Practices, Naga Kaantabay sa Kauswagan Program:  United Nations Center for Human Settlements (UNCHS), Istanbul, Turkey

5. He is a good and great man.

A unique combination of these traits, he himself required it from those who would join government, only he called them matino at magaling. By all accounts, he was a happy worker. No job is too small for him to do, no dream too big for him to realize.

EPILOGUE

My first encounter with him was in late 2004 when I was doing research for an article on great cities for the local Good Housekeeping magazine. (I’d like to think his Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to performing local government units was an idea he got from that piece.) Naturally, Naga City was on the list. I wasn’t able to interview him for the news feature, but was satisfied with the interviews of the empowered people of his government and his community.

So when I saw him later at the Senate several years back (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was still president then), I approached him, introduced myself, and told him how that writing assignment turned me into a Robredo fan. He remembered the article and told me it was posted on the Naga City website. I told him what he did in Naga City must be replicated throughout the country, and that he needed a job with a national scope. That was my second encounter with him.

His death is a personal loss because he could’ve done much more.

I would have liked to see the results of his experiment at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). I wonder how he would have navigated the intricate, long-standing issues that have kept ARMM at the bottom of every governance test. My third encounter would be when I join the multitude of other Jesse’s girls and boys who have been inspired by his example, to pay our last respects to an amazing human being.

**

Writer's note: This article first appeared in the news website interaksyon.com, 8:18 p.m., 22 August 2012. But old articles have since disappeared. Thankfully, I found a copy at: http://hagitsapanahon.blogspot.com/2012/08/5-reasons-why-jesse-robredo-is-great.html

Facing Racism as Chinoy

Blogger's note: This was published with the title, "This Azkal barks, 'I am 100 percent Pinoy'", on 18-Mar-12, 2:25 PM under my byline in InterAksyon.com when the Philippines' conflict with China over the latter's nine-dash-line claim was just starting. I intend to write another on the topic as the conflict rages on.

Courage @Tian An Men Square, June 1989

MANILA, Philippines - I'm 100 percent Azkal. My mother is a chocolate-colored Pinay, her father's Spanish blood thinned by her indio mother and sunny Philippine weather. My father's last name can be traced back to the first emperor of the Middle Kingdom. This imperial connection may be the reason why everyone says, lakas ng dugo ng tatay mo. Sans his 5'11" height, I am really my father's mini-me. 

Despite my genealogy, I'm 100 percent Filipino, never mind that my looks seem a betrayal (or more precisely in the face of the Spratlys dispute, a treason). My yellow face standing out in a jeepney full of brown faces has repeatedly brought me back to the question: Filipino ba ako? O Tsino? (The language in which that question is always framed should have been a major clue.)

Variations of "what is a Filipino" have nagged me all my life, as people around me -- friends and family included -- point to how different I look. (Only my only brother and I take after our father's looks; the four others are a safe mix -- in this milieu.)

When I was a toddler (and Vietnam War was raging), I remember neighbors coo-coo'ing "Vietcong" to me. When I was in grade school, I remember strangers my age spitting out Tsekwa or Intsik or Bejo at me when I encounter them on the street. (I don't know the etymology of Tsekwa. I would later learn that Intsik may have come from the Fookien words for "his uncle" and Bejo from the Spanish word for "old man.")

In my presence, some colleagues (including Leftists who should know better about class wars) would ascribe to the Chinese a ruthlessness in business dealings (to which I'd like to say, is a function of class, not race, and greed, not DNA imprint). They'd give this commentary in my presence and then apologize to me as if I was responsible for the behavior of capitalists.

I also get it from the other bloodline. Mindlessly assuming that I'm one of them, my "pure" (what a Nazi word) Chinese classmates would carelessly use the Chinese words for Filipino women to refer to their maids -- and this was years before the Oxford Dictionary brouhaha. Even if I knew that there was nothing wrong with being a maid, the assumption that all Filipino women are maids is, number one, false, and number two, insulting; and therefore, number three, hurtful. 

But this derision I get from the Yellow side (intentional or otherwise) does not sting as much as when it comes from the Brown side. Maybe because it makes me feel not completely welcome here. Maybe because despite my face, I identify myself more as Filipino. My Mandarin is Greek to the waitresses in Beijing. I got lost in a recent reunion of Chinese friends from high school. They were talking too fast and I couldn't get past the subjects in their sentences. And a tutee once told me my Chinese made me sound like a probinsyana.

The books that sustained me growing up were Chaim Potok, Richard Wright, and John Steinbeck, speaking to me about racism or sexism and other isms that deal with being put down for things beyond your control: your race, your sex, your family (and the class and religion that it naturally passes on to you).

Compared to the racism of the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Supremacy groups in the US and the West, the Filipino brand of racism is pretty blunt. The Chinese in the Philippines have been assimilated here. And many have come to celebrate this duality and have called themselves "Chinoys" to try and describe the band they occupy in the race/color spectrum. Like the Fil-Ams in the States.

Again, what makes a Filipino a Filipino? For many, the question may confront them only when they're abroad and people try to guess where they're from: Are you Chinese, Viet, Thai, or Indonesian? Even abroad, people don't mistake me for Filipino. At a bus station from Amsterdam to Utrecht, a young woman approached a young man with a guitar and asked him, "Filipino ka rin?" and started a conversation. A couple of inches away from them, I tried to fight the lonely need to connect and simply listened to their happy banter. Many will meet this question officially when they have to switch nationality/citizenship.

When TV broadcaster Arnold Clavio made the insensitive "Di naman sila lahing kayumanggi" comment, I wasn't too hurt for these East-West hybrids, who are worshipped and adored here. I'm pretty sure these kicking, head-balling athletes are discriminated against in their other home country. That's why they like it here. But I like that the question is being asked again. It sharpens their sense of Filipino, which for better or for worse, includes its distinct type of racism. 

Racism is not only about ignorance, it is also about dominance. In the materialistic world, he who has the gold sets the standards of morality and beauty. Identity is more than shared language or experience, it is also shared aspirations. You can claim the land as yours when it has claimed one of your relatives, according to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, not unlike watering the land with blood. For me, the sweat and tears of these mutts will do, playing their hearts out for the Philippine flag.

From 100 percent confounded, I'm 100 percent grateful that my ancestors (from poverty-escaping Chinese and conquistadores Spanish) chose this land, which is kinder to me than if I'd been born in boy-centric China. I'm also 100 percent proud because Azkals (or mongrels or half-breeds) are the future. Products of love despite the differences, we create an inclusive, tolerant world. More than getting the best of two worlds, we navigate at least two realities, living in but not quite belonging to either, more understanding and more forgiving. Think Bono of U2, of Protestant mother and Catholic father. Think Barack Obama, of a white mother and a Kenyan* father. Think every OFW in a foreign land. 

*corrected from Nigerian

www.interaksyon.com/article/27168/this-azkal-barks-i-am-100-percent-pinoy