The Bangsamoro and the labor agenda

With the innumerable issues confronting Mindanao, and with everybody holding a placard or a conference invitation to bolster each of these, sometimes it can be quite confusing and exasperating which way to turn that you just would rather go home and read a book or cook. So when a friend drags you to a peace play, a forum, or some other cultural event of the day, and especially when there’s nothing there that amuses you, you just can’t help but feel like bolting: I should be doing something else!

Months back, I was asked to document a dialogue of sorts gathering a group of peace advocates bleeding with classic what-is-to-be-done earnestness. Peace and support for the Bangsamoro struggle, everybody was saying, though certainly you could sense that some were just as sick as you are with all this peace work and tri-people unity talk. Some even started betting on the dollar earnings they should be making had they chosen to work abroad. Peace work entails a lot of sacrifice, it’s about putting one’s life on the line, everyone agreed. So when one of the advocates from the Alliance of Progressive Labor stood up to talk labor issues, I was kind of surprised. Like: hey, isn’t he outta line.

He was saying that they at the APL believe that indeed we should stop the war. He was asking, but what is the way? What should be our strategy in winning peace in Mindanao? Good for us, he said, who are all here and know all the issues, but how about the others? Suppose not all of us understand deeply enough, the issues, suppose the majority don’t understand and hesitate to support MOA-AD or the Bangsamoro struggle, what do we do? And he was not talking about Piñol or Mar Roxas and the military or the business companies with vested economic interests in Liguasan Marsh and adjoining territories, he was talking about the laboring Christian majority: those workers in the plantations in these lands under contest. Please understand that they too just have their own bias, he said, and especially those of us from the national capital region do not understand the issues here and that our primary concern is for the labor sector.

I wished he said more. I wish he said his bias was for the industry sector, not for landed interests, which does not belong with labor, but to the feudal Moro lords, who are not without stakes in the export industry, or to the Christian politicos, who are not without feudal stakes in the local politics of this Land of Promise.

Remember how labor unionizing has become terribly hard around these days, he said, though his issues are more immediate, something to do with the pragmatics and logistics of labor organizing and the difficulty, or ridiculousness, of having to talk labor rights with armed islamist combatants like the MILF. Some of his confederates in the labor movement, he went on, are thinking na kapag Moro na ang nagdala, what will happen to the labor agenda in these lands? How do we ensure that our labor agenda is protected once it is the MILF now or whichever new ethnic-nationalist entity that is in charge of developing lands here in Mindanao?

There were quite a number of women in the conference and I was hoping one would get up, too, follow the argument and say, How about women’s rights, how about us? Suppose we do not put our stakes in these rido-infested feudal turfs? Suppose we just want work or just want to get away even if we have to work as domestic helps abroad? Or suppose we stay, how do we know that our rights will be protected too?

One Lumad woman did speak up for the tribe and asked, suppose we do not want to be part of the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity? Why does the MILF include the Lumads as part of the Bangsamoro people when we are not? To which one of the Moro participants replied “divisive”, which made me laugh in my seat. The specter of division had at one time or another made of feminism a scarecrow in many an ethnic and nationalist struggle. Here we go again!

But that’s one good thing about dialogues, at least some questions got fielded at all. Enough to make one hope that even as our lives’ daily emergencies now mainly consist of getting the bills paid and running to the store for a can of milk and getting held up with Hail Marys and Glory Bes at Felcris or Gaisano, from the rougher edges of the refineries that is our minds, all is not lost really, not yet, anyway, to the truisms and speeches of the day.

BLOGSHOT: One on the yiffies

In one of her books of essays, Steinem wrote about the conservatism of young women. Women is about one group, says she, that becomes more radical as they age.

Ewew. How so?

Her argument is, it’s thanks to the radicalizing experience of marriage a.k.a. direct contact with hell. Exaggerating? No. Marriage is contact with inescapable reality, ask your Mom or, if you don’t believe me, ask Amy B and her friend Liv, and they’d tell you, My my, those years of servitude!

Easy guys, I’m not about to repeat myself here for the umpteenth time and start yakking about evil men bred like maggots by patriarchy, I leave that task to women who have the heart for it, maybe to these younger feminists here who like discussing feminism in classrooms, seminar houses and coffee tables. I would flee such huddles of muddle and would rather play rugby or maybe have a beer with Liv and Amy.

What I recollect as I reread Steinem is a conversation I recently had with two women one evening of post-morteming movements and liberation projects we believe we helped spawn but could not get enough credit for. Anna Leah was describing the young lesbians she met in Sydney and Manila and she was dismayed because oh my God, said she, they’re into this butch-femme pairings, one playing boy the other playing girl?! She went kind of, What is this!!! when they’re supposed to be the young here!!!

That got us laughing because we were the three of us over 40 and further up, but thanks to feminism we are way over such stupid role-playings. Anna Leah’s explanation was it’s because these young people are raised in a very conservative environment, never gone to a rally denouncing US imperialism and the Vatican, instead they go to Church every Sunday and are with the Charismatic and go home to very Catholic homes. Which we again found rather sad: by comparison, we are unmarried and uncompromised to one man or another and are rather enjoying the slighter pleasures of our slaveries.

Steinem’s contention is around what she perceived then (in 1978, by God, does that date me?!) as young women’s relatively clean years and supple flesh giving them a kind of “home advantage” in a game where youth and obedience or at least congeniality is commercially valued and rewarded. Steinem drew her observations from her own young years which to her, was laughably conservative. Young women, she says, have this hope of excelling at the existing game, playing good girls, observing rules they can break without getting punished.

In other words, we old cows say, young women like to set themselves apart in the belief that they can do better than their aunts, can make better public approval ratings without having to look like ugly frogs in a bog. And public approval, if you ask them, is thanks to themselves and their own resources, not to patriarchal policy, maybe thanks to the breadth of their minds and embracing hearts which others don’t have.

My, does that sound like a declaration of war on the yiffies (young interesting freedom-loving fucks)? Not at all. If these girls feel equal to the boys they grew up with, and feel equal to the boys and girls you grew up with, surely they must be. What else do they need feminism for? Why make them sweat, why problematize the world they inherited from you, why impose an unnecessary gender war on them when they themselves are not touched by it? Leave Gioconda Belli alone. If Gioconda Belli feels the holier one beside all of New York she met on their way to the bank just because Nicaraguans, unlike tuxedoed and pointy-shoed Americans do not pass through life in this world without scratchmarks on their brains, let her. Who needs brains, anyway, if you’ve got a credit card. And if they’ve got dreadlocks and you haven’t, don’t get envious get one.

And that’s exactly the point: Most women way over 40s, if they’re lucky enough not to get mastectomy, hysterectomy or cervical ca on top of getting a marriage annulment after having been declared insane by the judge their husbands hired (what intelligent woman wouldn’t, under conditions of servitude) usually end up with neither a credit card nor a dreadlock, just pounds and pounds of stress-induced slabs and a tow of children to be properly dispose of. That is also the reason why they're the ones who have a good ear and a good eye for liberative texts, whether they’re shouted across the street and brawly market stalls, or written in slutty formal English.

Will gray-haired women one day take over the world like 80ish Gloria Steinem once imagined? I don’t think so. Most likely they will stay underground, rumbling in their kitchens, toppling dishes, making history by breaking a glass.

With an eye, or a foot, to the door.

Fitness foist at ang mga gansang ligaw ni Babeth

about this painting:

title: "fitness foist"
medium: acrylic on paper canvas
size: 16" x 20".
first exhibited at babeth lolarga's solo exhibition "bling blings & lucky me" at taumbayan bar in April-May 2010.
now in the collection of desiree carlos



MGA GANSANG LIGAW

(salin ni Babeth Lolarga
mula sa orihinal na Wild Geese ni Mary Oliver)

Di mo kailangan maging mabait.
Di mo kailangan lumakad nang paluhod
Ng isang daang milya sa disyerto, humihingi ng tawad
Kailangan mo lang na payagan ang malambot na hayop ng iyong katawan na mahalin ang gusto niyang mahalin
Sabihin mo sa akin ang iyong kawalan ng pag-asa, at sasabihin ko sa iyo ang akin
Samantala patuloy ang mundo.
Samantala ang araw at ang mga malinaw na bato ng ulan
ay gumagalaw sa kalawakan
sa mga kapatagan at kalaliman ng mga puno
Sa mga bundok at ilog.
Samantala, ang mga gansang ligaw, sa kaitaasan ng malinis na bughaw na hangin
ay pauwi na muli.
Kung sino ka man, gaano ka man kalungkot,
inaalay ng mundo ang kanyang sarili sa iyong imahinasyon
Tinatawag ka tulad ng mga gansang ligaw, marahas at nakakagulat—
paulit-ulit na inaanunsyo ang iyong lugar
sa pamilya ng mga bagay-bagay.

Nudes? Bad time!

photo: xiaomin zu


Nudes? Bad time. Been voracious the past weeks. Nakakaloka ang mga love handles ko pati bilbil. I might put Venus of Willendorf to shame.

Sex in the hospital? Wahaha! So far people in the hospital know I am not sexually accessible. Mga amoy kapatid sila, so it’s kind of incestuous if I get into one. They wouldn't dare ask about my sex life, except for the surgeons. Even the surgeons know better than ask me to bed. One surgeon who greeted me on my birthday even said he wouldn't dare kiss me for fear of getting accused of sexual harassment. They are rather aware of my preference for good-looking infertile men. Vasectomized at the very least. Or, he should be a very skillful condom user. Those bad acronyms are not worth the risk. HIV/AIDS, HPV, GC, NGCU, Hepa B, Hepa C, Cervical CA, and other STIs. Anyway, if they insist on being fertile they have to wait till my menopausal phase is over. I can't have their babies.

I have dated a foreign anesthesiologist for two summers. Everything was good but I don't think it will work out with a rabid Republican on a long-term basis. Otherwise, I would have to wear an armor to survive.

He told me that during our intellectual fights, he got gastric stimulation most of the time. Meaning, he felt nauseated and wanted to vomit. And that occasionally he got mental stimulation. So I told him, at least on most occasions I still hit his brain, specifically his chemoreceptor trigger zone (that’s the part of the brain that is also called the vomiting center). But it was not my fault if his cerebrum got stimulated only occasionally. I wonder what happened to most of his neurons.

So like Obama and his friends in the White House, we just agreed to disagree. He felt I was making him my love toy. Actually he would prefer to be a love toy. He probably deserves it. O.D.

BLOGSHOT: Down with POs

One cannot assume that gender practice or that the feminist agenda can be best advanced or conveyed by political organizations or development practitioners. There are overt “structured expressions” as there are the generally unseen or unrecognized undercurrents of opposition –revealed not so much in terms of what is publicly admitted and socially and politically accepted as in terms of the concretely and objectively lived by everyday women. A feminist critique should not confine itself to the readily observable, the formal political expression and meaning; it should also clarify and crystallize the often disjointed, because ignored and rejected, social practice as conveyed by women outside the helm and influence of the often elitist and unconsciously conservative political and formal organizations.

Believing in a good cause but acting out of ignorance, these organizations often don’t see that they have been allying themselves with the Church, the State, the repressive forces of conservatism, the hell with them.

Naniniwala Ka Ba sa Rehab?

Lualhati Abreu


"Ang mga petsay, iimbestigahan na naman ang mga molave," ang madalas sambitin ng mga batang detenido pag ang mga me edad nang kadre-detenido ay sinusundo para imbestigahan.

TATLO, apat na araw nang madilim ang paligid. Hindi lang dahil ang nakayungyong sa amin ay nagtataasang puno't kawayan sa masukal na bahaging yon ng kabundukan ng Mauban, Quezon, sa ST. Madilim din pati ang langit. Hindi sumisilay ang araw kahit sandali man lang. Taghabagat noon. Ang hanging habagat ay me dalang ulan at madalas humihigop ng bagyo. Tuloy-tuloy ang pag-ulan – lalakas, hihina, panaka-naka'y titigil, pero sumandali lang.

Magnonobyembre na, abuhing Nobyembre, ika nga. Hindi ko mapiho kung a-29 o a-30 ng Oktubre. Ang tantya ko, mas o menos, dalawang linggo na akong nakadetine sa kampong bimbinan para sa mga hinusgahang government deep penetration agents o DPA, mas kilala sa tawag na Deps ng mga rebolusyonaryo. Tanda ko, 14 ng Oktubre nang dakpin at dalhin ako, gapos ang mga kamay, sa kampong bimbinang yon.

Wala ako maski anuman para markahan ang paglipas ng oras at araw. Sinamsam ang aming mga personal na gamit, relo't alahas, notbuk at bolpen. Ang itinira lang sa bawat detenido ay dalawang palitan ng damit – tisert, pantalon o shorts, panloob at malong sa merong malong. Pati mga sapatos at pak ay pinagkukuha. Tangi atang ang magandang mestisahing si Renee, isang kadreng panrehiyon mula sa Bikol at kumikilos sa South Quezon, ang pinayagang mag-ingat ng de-salaming powder compact na upod na ang pulbos.

Dalawa o tatlong oras na ata ang lumipas nang lumipat si Romy sa kabilang hall sa bandang kanan, nakaharap sa kwadranggel na pinaliligiran ng apat na hall ng mga tarima ng mga detenido. Pumayag sina Boots na siya'y makipag-usap ke Allan makapananghali.

Si Allan ang matalik na kaibigan, barkada't kasabaying aktibista ni Romy sa UST. Sabay rin silang umakyat sa kabundukan ng Laguna-Quezon para lumahok sa armadong pakikibaka. Hindi ko pa nakikilala si Allan. Hindi ko matandaan kung nagkita na kami. Lagi siyang ikinukwento sa akin ni Romy.

Boots ang tawag ng mga detenido sa mga myembro ng Task Force OPML o Oplan Missing Link, ang kampanya para lipulin ang diumano'y mga Deps sa loob ng Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas sa Southern Tagalog. Minsan, tinatawag din silang Petsay dahil sa kanilang pagiging bata o pagkauhugin sa rebolusyon. Marami kina Boots ay nagsimula bilang estudyanteng aktibista sa isang kilalang unibersidad sa ST.

"Ang mga petsay, iimbestigahan na naman ang mga molave," ang madalas sambitin ng mga batang detenido pag ang mga me edad nang kadre-detenido ay sinusundo para imbestigahan. Ang tud tud tud ng kanilang boots sa lupang pinagputik ng tuloy-tuloy na ulan ang badya ng kanilang pagdating.

Tigil ang usapang maaaring makairita kina Boots. Tigil ang impit na tawanan ng mga detenido na maipapakahulugang pang-iinis kina Boots. Bakit nga ba naman sila'y nakakahanap pa rin ng pagtatawanan sa kabila ng buhay-at-kamatayan nilang kalagayan? Laging me nakaambang karit na tangan ng aninong nakatalukbong ng kapang itim. Ang mga detenidong takot na mapag-initan, talukbong ng malong para magtulug-tulugan.

Sina Boots ay babae at lalaki. Iba-iba ang kanilang anyo. Me matangkad, me pandak. Me maputi, me kayumanggi. Me me katabaan, me me kapayatan. Me parang maton ang mukha at katawan. Me maamong tulad ng isang butihing madre. Me pasinghal kung magsalita, walang iniwan sa isang maton. Me malumanay din, marahil, dahil dati ngang madre. Pero iisa ang kanilang galit at pagkamuhi sa mga detenidong sa tingin nila'y mga halimaw, at pinaniniwalaan nilang sasakmal sa mga tagumpay ng rebolusyon.

Katabi ko, sa kanang gilid, si Romy. Pareho kaming nasa itaas na deck ng mga tarima. Nasa pangalawa siya mula sa pinakahuling tarima. Pangatlo ako. Bawat hall na me double deck na mga tarima ay apat-na-posteng istrukturang kahoy o kawayan na binububungan ng binanat na rain curtain. Pinakamaliit ang aming hall na nasa bandang silangan, at pinakahuli raw na itinayo. Mahigit lang ata sa 20 ang mga detenido sa hall na yon. Hamak na mas marami ang nasa tatlong hall na me mahigit sa 50 detenido sa bawat isa.

Isa si Romy sa dalawang dinatnan ko na paulit-ulit na bumubulong sa akin mula't mula pagdating ko. Maghabi lang daw ako ng kwento sa pagiging DPA. "Makisakay ka lang sa imbestigasyon ng Task Force," giit niya.

Matangkad si Romy, kayumanggi ang malinis na balat. Makinis ang mukhang maamo, walang prominenteng kurbada sa pisngi. Matangos ang ilong niyang ilong ng isang mestisong artistahin sa pelikula. Malumanay siyang magsalita, puno ng katiyakan sa kanyang mga sinasabi't inihahanay nang mabuti sa kausap. Payat siya, na mas pinapayat pa ng matagal-tagal na ring pagkakabimbin. Kitang-kita ito sa pagtatali niya ng baging sa bewang ng pantalong kupasing itim na gabardin, kundi'y malalaglag ang pantalon. Bata pa siya, wala pang 30 anyos sa tantya ko, nang una kong makita sa bimbinang yon.

"Hindi mo makakayanan ang tortyur," dugtong pa niya. "Tutal naman, mahahabol natin ang husga sa atin sa panahon ng rehabilitasyon."

Sa lahat ng mga kasama ko sa binbinang na yon, siya lang ang walang pag-aalinlangan sa pagsasabing "sama-sama uli tayo sa pagkilos pagkatapos nito." Isa ito sa mga punto ng aming pagkakaisa, isa sa dalawang pangako namin sa sarili.

Hindi ko man lang naringgan ng anumang reklamo si Romy. Tinatawanan lang niya ang baging na ginawang sinturon. Kinuha nina Boots ang sinturong katad na bigay ng isang nakababatang kapatid nang nagdaang Pasko. Pasalamat pa nga siya't ibinalik sa kanya ang nilalastikuhang salamin sa mata.

"Kung hindi nila ito ibinalik, parang bulag ako."

Pero minsan, minsan lang, naringgan ko siya ng pag-aalinlangan sa pinaniniwalaan ng halos lahat na mga detenido at bukodtanging kinukuyapitan ng kanilang pag-asa – ang rehabilitasyon.

"Totoo kaya ang rehabilitasyon?" usal niya sa akin.

Paano ko yon sasagutin? Rehabilitasyon lang, sa abot ng isip at karanasan, ang pinaniniwalaan ng mga detenido na makapagpapalaya sa kanila sa sitwasyong kinalalagyan. Mahirap tumakas, tulad ng tinangka raw ng isang detenido. Bugbog-sarado siya, bali-bali ang tadyang, at kinalbo pa nang muling madakip.

Nagdadalawang-isip din ako sa nasisilip kong pag-asa na mahabol ng Komiteng Tagapagpaganap-Komite Sentral ang sitwasyon. Paano kung huli na ang lahat para sa amin bago sila makaaksyon?

"Para namang tinanong mo kung me langit ba talaga," ang sagot ko ke Romy, sabay taklob ng malong.

Song of the Kabuki Player

There is a pain aimless in the air tonight
and it finds me
as I am thinking of you
I tighten my robe a bit
thinking this way I shall be closer
to what I suffer
closer still to all that shame
that once gathered arms against me
then I hum to myself the odd song
of the beggar maid to the storm
knowing that something terribly old and ancient
has been passed on to us by way of this air
we breathe
and it is not saying anything


Lia Lopez-Chua




A haiku from César Ruiz-Aquino

She can make day black,
Night blacker. But her color
Of colors is pink