Openness

 

 

Three years to its six-year presidency, diehard and uncompromising supporters of the current Aquino government are still asking critics to be soft with President Noynoy, to give him the benefit of the doubt and the credit for innovation in governance and interpretation of the law. The latter is the most appalling because it is like allowing the President to continue on even if his interpretation of the law runs counter to the Constitution.

 

President Noynoy Aquino’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) that gave senators loyal to the administration an extra P50-million on top of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) has opened a large can of worms. First, it was given as an incentive to senators who voted for the impeachment of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. Not as a bribe because it was given after the impeachment, Malacañang rationalized as if the timing of the gift really mattered. Then the President’s loyal defenders switched gears arguing that the DAP was a stimulus program designed to bump up government expenditures in light of an economic slowdown. Finally, they argued that the DAP was constitutional and allowed under the provisions of the Administrative Code despite contrary but more weighted opinions.

Photo courtesy of monalisa_5485_ d4i90kn

Then the news from Bloomberg that the country’s investment grade was moved one notch higher to placate all President Noynoy’s staunch critics. But this has nothing to do with real economic growth. All that the investment rating upgrade implies is the ability of the government to repay its medium-term debt, and as an immediate impact, it reduces the cost of borrowing. Credit worthiness doesn’t add up to growth if there are no actual economic activities being generated by the government and the private sector, such as real comprehensive agrarian reform and building local industries. A vibrant stock market doesn’t necessarily push the economy upward; most economists will tell you that. Well, the President’s loyalists say it is at least a positive beginning. For what?

 

Very recently, in his speech before business leaders during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Indonesia, President Aquino boasted that the Philippine economy is on the track of inclusive growth due to sound economic policies and good governance. But inclusive growth should mean that it trickles down to the ordinary people. Any claim of inclusive growth should involve fast-paced distribution of land to farmers, especially in an agricultural country like the Philippines. Inclusive growth is illusory when unemployment is rising despite reported growth in GDP. Growth is not inclusive if this refers to profit generation for the benefit only of the interests of the elite.

 

There is something suspect and wrong with this type of criticism levelled against the Aquino government, so the President’s apologists would say, whether they are in Malacañang’s payroll or among those in the yellow print media and social media. The President’s loyalists will tell you that these criticisms are not fair and balanced because they are coming from the left and are tainted with Marxist or communist bias, like the Ibon Foundation, a research group accused of being cozy with Joma Sison or the National Democratic Front (NDF). This is the first of three reasons why the Aquino government is not open to criticisms, especially from the left – dissent from the left does not matter.

 

It is a very dangerous mindset that the Aquino government and its army of champions are trying to instill in the public consciousness. It reminds of Cold war-era politics and martial law when every criticism of the incumbent government was deemed leftist, subversive and communist-inspired. When criticisms from radical groups are branded as condescending and destructive, and therefore should not be given any credence simply because of where they are coming from, this type of response diminishes the importance of a democratic exchange of ideas and the need for more openness.

 

Those who are awed by the ability of the Aquino government to lead us to a prosperous and inclusive growth are obviously blinded by their faith that those in the right are always right under any circumstances. That those in the left who continuously and consistently advocate for the rights of workers for just wages and working conditions, for farmers to have the right to own the lands they till, for indigenous communities for their rights to self-determination, for women and children to have protection against all forms of oppression and exploitation, for equal access to jobs, housing and social services for all – are all subversive and communists, therefore they deserve our collective indignation.

 

Those who write for the yellow print media and in social media friendly to the Aquino government deserve all our admiration over leftist publications such as Bulatlat.com despite of its honest reportage of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, which have earned awards and citations from organizations such as the International Red Cross and Amnesty International.

 

There can be no decent dissent from the left as far as the Aquino government is concerned. To the Aquino apologists, it is impossible to sustain a decent, intelligent and morally nuanced political discussion with the left. They are in a state of denial of the concrete contributions of the left in raising public consciousness against tyranny, corruption and oppression even as the left was historically responsible, even partly if not wholly, for rousing the people to rebel against the Marcos martial law regime. They would rather give credit to the Catholic Church under Cardinal Sin and the business sector in leading the revolt against Ferdinand Marcos, not the radical groups because of their affinity with the communist movement.

 

The resentment of the left has not been only episodic during the martial law years but continues to be fueled by successive governments after Marcos. Thus, to the Aquino apologists, any criticism that has the lingering colour of Marxist thinking is irrelevant and irreverent even if it remains the only consistent contradictory view of the reactionary status quo.

 

After the red scare, the next reason why the Aquino administration and its faithful fanatics resent criticism of their own shortcomings is another red herring: that the alternative to President Noynoy Aquino is fraught with danger that brings greater opportunities for plunder and corruption. What if the President dies in office? Would the Aquino people allow a peaceful transition as envisaged in the Constitution or drive them to usurp political power to prevent the dreaded Vice President from assuming the presidency? Should Noynoy die prematurely without completing his term of office, his loyal followers would rather see our country engulfed by a constitutional crisis which they could exploit to preserve their political power.

 

The final reason why those steadfastly loyal to President Aquino don’t like his political sins to be exposed and criticized is their unwavering faith that it is very unlikely that he could be as errant as other politicians beneath him. That someone with the kind of political legacy from his famous parents would be incapable of being corrupted, a message Aquino’s inner circle has been peddling from the very start, despite contrary indications like his family’s intransigence to keep Hacienda Luisita, his KKK inner sanctum of friends who cannot be accused of corruption or abuse of power, or his personal involvement in bribing or stimulating senators to impeach the Chief Justice and abusing his presidential powers to justify the Disbursement Acceleration Program.

 

The leftists or radical groups have no power in the Philippine political system and most of us don’t expect them to exercise power, ever. Most left intellectuals in the Philippine live like internal aliens, the only power or privilege they have is to voice their opinions on the state of affairs of the country but that doesn’t matter to many. Their alienation is also quite radical.

 

There is pathology in society’s unwillingness to listen to opposite points of view. Like it or not, the Philippine left has an honourable history, too, despite sour memories of Stalin-like cleansing of the underground movement. But they have a reason to be proud to be called leftists. After all, all of us have rights, even leftists, if our country truly is a democracy.

 

We need more openness in our political discussions. When the government insists that things have changed but an opposite view expresses that things remain quite the same, let us simply allow the better angels in us to read and listen with openness, appreciating the substance rather than judging the criticism based on where it is coming from. In a free and democratic exchange of ideas, the truth should never be a casualty, no matter who is advocating it.

“Sana Di SONA”

 

 

The 1987 Philippine Constitution does not say the President must deliver a State of the Nation Address (popularly shortened nowadays as SONA) at the opening of the regular session of Congress. It only states that “The President shall address the Congress at the opening of its regular session.”

 

For whatever the noble purpose behind this constitutional mandate to address Congress when it opens for business, it seems lost in the hype and build-up by the media and naturally by the President’s own men (or women) who want him to shine and sparkle. As it turns out, the SONA becomes an annual event for pomp and ceremony, just like the state of the union address of the US President or the Speech from the Throne in the case of the British Parliament or any of the commonwealth nations which continue to consider the Queen of England as their head of state.

Benigno Aquino III SONA composite courtesy of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Notice the receding hariline. Click link to read full text of President Aquino's 2013 SONA,
 http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/focus/07/22/13/english-version-president-aquinos-sona-2013-full-text

To me, the only sensible paragraph in President Benigno Aquino III’s long and drawn-out SONA is when he said: “Tomorrow, we are submitting to Congress our proposed 2.268 trillion-peso National Budget for 2014. I am confident of your support and advocacy for the allocation of funds which was arrived at after careful consideration. This budget is not only a continuation of our reforms, but it will also accelerate our momentum towards long-lasting inclusive progress.”

 

Of course, this should not be taken literally. The Constitution gives the president thirty days from opening of Congress to submit a budget of expenditures and revenues which shall be the basis of the general appropriations bill to be passed by Congress.

 

Thus, the SONA has become nothing but beautiful music to the President’s ears and his captured audience, thin in substance but long in aspiration and hope. In fact, there is more sense in listening to SONA’s critics for they make you appreciate the honest truth that is missing in the President’s speech. One could only continue hoping to hear the truth instead of the SONA.

 

President Aquino’s latest SONA is purely aspirational, a call to continue the change the President has said he has begun in transforming our society. A familiar refrain we hear every time a new President speaks before Congress: “this nation can be great again,” or “we can dream again,” etcetera.

 

For Noynoy Aquino to declare he is proud to be a Filipino is expected of a nation’s leader. He cannot say otherwise or else reap the ire of the people. But to say “How wonderful it is to be a Filipino in these times” is equivalent to self-denial, to whitewashing the truth with a layer of lies. That’s why it’s better to listen to SONA’s critics, you hear the real story of the nation, not the one advertised, straight from the horse’s mouth.

 

“How wonderful it is to be a Filipino in these times” sounds like the country’s tourism slogan, “It’s more fun in the Philippines.”

 

Let us take apart the President’s SONA by focusing rather on the bigger issues he has tried to sell to Congress and to the people at large.

 

The President spoke of a strategy of maximizing opportunities for all, especially for those most in need, which he calls, “inclusive growth,” that surprisingly sounded upbeat to some although in reality is actually a mere sound bite, more like “daang matuwid.”

 

Financial institutions such as the World Bank and development-focused United Nations organizations, including the Asian Development Bank, have defined “inclusive growth” to be “broad based growth, shared growth, and pro-poor growth”. By this definition, inclusive growth implies an equitable allocation of resources that benefits every sector of society. It also requires the creation of an environment of equality in opportunity in all dimensions of livelihood, a platform for people who are poor to access a good standard of living. Defined simply, inclusive growth means improved living standards for all, including the poor and those vulnerable to poverty. In short, it must be socially inclusive and not only for the benefit of a privileged few such as the oligarchic elite.

 

The underlying premise of inclusive growth is that societies based on equality tend to perform better in development. For example, countries with more equal income distribution are likely to achieve higher rates of poverty reduction than very unequal countries.

 

In his SONA, President Aquino said that “widespread opportunity is the key to comprehensive and sustained progress,” not equal opportunity (repeat: not equal) which is the cornerstone of inclusive growth. He explained the exclusive nature of his concept of inclusive growth by saying that “the only ones who will be left behind are those who chose not to venture onwards with us, simply because they did not seize the opportunity.”

 

Clearly, Aquino’s concept of inclusive growth applies only to people who join the government’s bandwagon, those who have access to opportunity and these are the people who will benefit from his government policies and programs. Under such circumstances where opportunities may be deemed widespread but not fully accessible to all, those who are poor and vulnerable in society will never be included to benefit from the President’s policy of inclusive growth.

 

Those who are poor are well known for their militant opposition to government lip-service initiatives, such as poverty alleviation programs like the conditional cash transfer program, more popularly known as Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). Because the poor have lost their trust in President Aquino, they would never link up and be beholden to this program.

SONA protesters clash with police as President Benigno Aquino III delivers his
speech before the Batasang Pambansa.  Elmer Labog, secretary general of Kilusang
Mayo Uno (KMU), says: "Aquino's grandioise claims of economic growth based
on cherry-picked economic indicators fail to hide the economic indicators that matter
to ordinary Filipinos. Landlessness is growing; unemployment is rising; wages are
being depressed; prices are soaring; and social services are decaying as they become
more scarce."

Aquino boasted in his SONA that there are now almost 4 million households that benefited from the program compared to 700,000 household beneficiaries when he came to office in 2010. But he forgot to mention that based on a poverty incidence of 27.9% or 26.8 million poor Filipinos and a projected population of 96.2 million in 2012, there would be an increase in the number of poor Filipinos to 3 to 4 million. This increase would wipe out the gains under Aquino’s 4Ps, implying that poor people are multiplying faster than the number of beneficiaries the government can enlist in the program.

 

Despite the government’s poverty alleviation program, poverty in the Philippines has remained unchanged. Not because the poor did not seize their opportunity under the Aquino administration, but because economic and income inequalities continue to persist and inclusive growth remains elusive. Even as the current administration keeps correcting and revising the official daily poverty threshold, the resulting low official poverty threshold would still show that there are currently between 38 to 68 million poor Filipino households, the worst scale of poverty in the country's history.

 

We can go through the litany of so-called achievements enumerated by President Aquino in his SONA one by one, and each one falls flat. Do not be mesmerized by his elocution, his ability to speak to the level of the masses, and being at home speaking in English and Pilipino. Obviously, the President has become a quick study and has now mastered the art of communication. At the end of the SONA, what remains important is the message, not the medium. The SONA is not an Oscar awards event and we don’t need commentaries on what the President wore or how he combed his thinning hair, the ternos worn by female members of Congress, and whether one needs a make-over.

 

Instead of SONA, our country deserves to be told the truth, not a bunch of lies or made-up statistics used to embellish the speech. Instead of pageantry and celebration, the President and Congress must buckle down to work. A simple laundry list of priority items to pursue is more than enough. Instead of wasting almost two hours of rambling before Congress,  President Aquino should have told members of Congress what important legislation needs to be enacted now or sooner so he can continue the job of serving his real bosses. That, he could accomplish in less than half an hour.

 

Some groups critical of the Aquino administration described the first three years as “ampaw” rule, like “hollow bread with a lot of air in the middle.” According to the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (Cenpeg), a think-tank based in the University of the Philippines, three years of Aquino governance only entrenched the oligarchic elite in the country. In other words, only the elite gained from three years of Aquino leadership yet the President, never worrying if his nose stretches, calls it inclusive growth.

 

Other militant groups listed at least 10 lies President Aquino claimed in his SONA but which will not be printed in newspapers controlled by the President and his friends, ranging from the lie of “rapid economic growth” to the lie that the ongoing armed civil unrest has been quelled.

 

Cenpeg has further rebuked President Aquino’s overhyped mantra of “Kayo ang boss ko” (the masses are my boss) as a hypocritical and meaningless slogan. This time the President talks about inclusive growth, another fancy concept, but does he really mean it? Or is it another “daang matuwid” gone crooked?

 

Sana na lang, instead of SONA.

A political prisoner’s song

 

 

For Toni Morrison, an African-American writer and Nobel prize winner for literature, the crucial distinction is not the difference between fact and fiction, but between fact and truth. “Because facts can exist without human intelligence, but truth cannot,” she writes.

 

History tells us that repressive governments never waver in denying the truth, until they come crushing down in defeat to the forces of change. Wherever there is repression, there is always a cover-up by those who are culpable. The amazing truth is they almost believe their infallibility, that their crimes against the people would never be exposed.

 

Take the case of the state of political prisoners in the Philippines, for example.

 

President Benigno Aquino III has steadfastly maintained that the present government has no official policy on human rights violations. The spokesperson for President Aquino, Edwin Lacierda, speaking on behalf of his boss, said this is so because there are no political prisoners in the Philippines. Remember that this was also the official line of the Marcos dictatorship from 1972 until 1984 when more than 70,000 political prisoners were arbitrarily detained during the martial law period. The same position was duplicated by President Aquino’s predecessors, from his mother Cory Aquino to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KpNCGgv6Uo to view
"Tanikala at Talinhaga (Chained Metaphors), a doucmentary on artist-
political prisoners in the Philippines, featuring the segment on poet
Ericson Acosta.

Denial has always been the customary practice of repressive governments or states that have no respect for human dignity. Argentina, Chile, Cambodia, Burma and other states that went through a period of repressive rule had denied the existence of political prisoners in their countries. To these despotic regimes, there was only one category of prisoners: prisoners held under criminal law.

 

Without charging anyone for complicity with rebellion or treason or for participation in any political activity that opposed the government, these prisoners were held for common crimes such as murder, assault, robbery, kidnapping, illegal possession of firearms, disturbing the peace, and other garden-variety infractions.

 

Karapatan, a human rights non-governmental organization in the Philippines, has found almost 447 documented victims of illegal arrests under the present Aquino government from July 2010 to September 2012. These were farmers and indigenous peoples rounded up by the Philippine military in the fields and forests on the pretext that they were New People’s Army (NPA) soldiers or supporters. During that same period, Karapatan also documented some 401 political prisoners, with 123 persons arrested and detained by the Aquino government.

 

But the Aquino government deemed these individuals as mere common criminals, who committed crimes against the law, and therefore, must be put in prison. So far, from the time martial law was imposed in 1972 until now, those who have opposed or criticized the government of the Philippines, or who might have participated in political activity opposed to the government whether by peaceful means or resistance, could spend time in jail as common criminals. Yet as common criminals, the irony is they are deprived of their right to a speedy trial to which they are entitled under the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. In fact, they could be detained for as long as the government wants. After languishing in jail, they are released with the charges against them dropped without going to trial.

 

This was the lasting legacy of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos. A legacy that engendered a culture of impunity by the state – from illegal arrests and detention to torture to forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings. Cases upon cases have been documented by Karapatan and other human rights organizations, yet the government continues to deny that there are political prisoners. Only common criminals, the government insists.

 

Very recently last week, President Noynoy Aquino must have suffered from a change of heart. He ordered the creation of an Inter-Agency Committee (IAC) to handle cases of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other forms of human rights abuses committed under the previous administration. Note that documented cases of abuses and violations of human rights under the Aquino administration are not covered by this new human rights body.

 

But why create this human rights “superbody” in the first place?

 

A month ago in Phnom Penh, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that included President Aquino adopted a human rights declaration that purportedly would enshrine human right protections for the region’s 600 million people. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario called it as “a legacy for our children.” Immediately, the ASEAN agreement came under fire from various critics including the United Nations rights chief, Navi Pillay, who asked that the pact be postponed because of concerns that it might undermine universal rights standards by allowing loopholes for governments.

 

This didn’t stop President Aquino from jumping the gun and ordering the creation of his government’s new human rights “superbody.” But here’s the catch. Aquino appointed the heads of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) as members of the Inter-Agency Committee (IAC). How could we then expect the IAC to be an independent body when the chiefs of the AFP and PNP are involved in investigating and resolving cases of human rights violations carried out by their own members? How is this body different from the Melo Commission during the Arroyo administration? Recall that despite evidence pointing to members of the military and the police as perpetrators of human rights violations, the Melo Commission exonerated them of any complicity or responsibility for crimes against human rights.

 

Critics of the ASEAN human rights pact are right in stating that the declaration only lowers human rights standards by creating new loopholes and justifications ASEAN members can use to justify abusing the rights of their citizens. Aquino’s Inter-Agency Committee, other than a mere publicity stunt for the administration’s avowed seriousness in defending human rights, is just another new loophole for the government to absolve the military and the police of abuses and violations of human rights.

 

If President Aquino is truly sincere with his promise three years ago to uphold human rights, he can begin with a declaration of amnesty to all political prisoners who are languishing in various prisons in the country. But first, he must admit that there are political prisoners in the Philippines. The recognition of political prisoners is essential to a democratic and national reconciliation process. Denial of their political status is a denial of their human dignity.

December 3 marks the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners as
detainees around the world raise awareness of their plight and longing for freedom
through poetry reading. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SVLRtgjqrE
to listen  to Anakbayan-Toronto as they read on Radyo Migrante "Awit ng Bilanggong
Politikal/Political Prisoner's Song,"  a poem written by peasant advocate, Axel Pinpin.

Last Monday, December 3, political prisoners from all over the Philippines commemorated the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners with a reading of a poem about the longing for freedom. The poem, “Awit ng Bilanggong Politikal” (Political Prisoner’s Song) was written by Axel Pinpin, a peasant advocate imprisoned during the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Pinpin was arrested in Tagaytay City along with four others and spent more than two years in prison before being released without trial for alleged crimes.

 

Originally written in Filipino, the poem has been translated in seven languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. Pinpin’s poem was read by political prisoners in Quezon Provincial Jail, Laguna Provincial Jail, Camp Vicente Lim, Batangas Provincial Jail, Bicutan Detention Center, Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center at Camp Crame and other detention facilities in Bicol and Samar. High-profile political prisoners in other countries, including journalist Mumia Ali-Jamal, the Cuban 5, punk band Pussy Riot and Kurdistan revolutionary leader Abdullah Öcalan also joined the poetry reading.

 

Here’s Axel Pinpin’s poem:

 

Ang pader ko’y di lamang malamig at malagkit,

Nakakwadro rin dito ang latay ng pasakit.

Ang sahig ko’y di lamang marumi at maganit,

Nakaratay din dito ang tisikong inip.

Ang rehas ko’y di lamang kalawang ang galis,

Naglangib na rin dito ang paglayang nais.

 

(My wall is not only cold and unkempt,

Framed on it is the welt mark of torment.

My floor is not only dirty and roughly done,

Laid on it is my sick boredom

My prison bars do not only have rust for scabs,

Crusting on it are wounds of longed for freedom.)

 

Wisikan ng tula ang langib ng paglaya!

Wasakin, wasakin ang rehas na sutla!

Wakasan, wakasan ang salot ng pagdusta!

Bumangon sa dilim na ngitngit ang tanglaw!

Banggain, banggain ang pader na ampaw!

Banggain ang karsel na pagtakas ang hiyaw!

 

(Wash with the salve of poems the wounds of freedom!

Bash, bash down the smooth bars of prison!

Smash, and smash down the pestilence of oppression!

Rise, rise up in the night with the raging light!

Break, break down the weak walls of repression!

Fight, fight back incarceration with cries of emancipation!)

Lies and bogus credentials

Lies, according to Plato, are not only evil in themselves, but infect the soul of those who utter them. A very uncompromising view that insists adherence only to the truth, not allowing any room for white or convenient lies. This kind of moral life that Plato seems to suggest is very difficult to sustain, for lying becomes unacceptable in whatever circumstances.

To Plato and others who subscribe to this rigid moral standard, lying is actually a double crime. To tell a lie, one must know the truth. And knowing the truth but concealing it results in committing a double crime.

But in reality, sometimes the truth need not always be the whole truth. There are those who are vey skillful in masking the truth, in putting up pretences that sometimes are taken as the honest truth. This is very common nowadays when people try to embellish their educational credentials, such as deliberately misrepresenting an Ivy League education or possessing an advanced degree in economics, computer science, or winning scholarship grants or honours in college.

The fact of dropping out of school as a caché seems reserved only for a very few who have achieved enormous success in later life such as the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Their achievements dwarf anything before, like training or any course or seminar mentionable that could have prepared them to succeed. To some of us who are less intellectually endowed, education—or to be more specific, a college or university degree from a reputable school—becomes the golden ticket in assuring acceptance or ease of accessing the corridors of wealth and power in today’s society. No wonder students in their thousands have taken to the streets of Montreal to protest the skyrocketing increase in college-tuition rates in Quebec. Nowadays it is hard to get a job without a college or university degree.

Diploma Mill. Photo courtesy of Sfaiez. Click link to view "How a Dog Earned a Life
Experience OnLine MBA Degree," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9HBV0ch2Xs

There are others, however, who have cleverly managed to outfox the classroom and its rigid rules of learning by having their diplomas or credentials manufactured with the sole intent of moving up the social ladder. The CEO of Yahoo! quit earlier this year when it was discovered his degree in computer science was bogus. In 2006, the CEO of RadioShack stepped down after he had exaggerated his accomplishments at a California Bible College. In 2002, the share price of Bausch+Lomb plummeted when its CEO admitted that his MBA was nonexistent.

Even the academia is not even spared when one would think they are the best equipped in filtering out counterfeit degrees. The vice dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education was forced out when it was revealed that he never earned the PhD listed in his resumé. In 2010, a senior vice president of Texas A&M lost his job for faking both his master’s and doctorate degrees. He also garnished his CV with a fiction about having served as a Navy Seal.

In 2008, Toronto Star’s Dale Brazao reported about an investigation that uncovered close to 220 Canadians with bogus credentials, from one holding a fake MD degree from St. Regis University, a phony school, to a law student who submitted a faked bachelor’s degree to gain admission to Osgoode Hall Law School. The third-year law student was even offered an articling position with a Bay Street law firm when law school students were having difficulty getting articling positions. The Star investigation also exposed Peng Sun, a York University graduate who forged university degrees from real Canadian universities for $4,000.

Faking college degrees are a multi-million dollar industry, according to the Star investigation, and even threaten government security. The gang the Toronto Star busted raked in more than $7 million in sales to 131 countries, selling everything from high school diplomas to PhDs and medical degrees. Dozens of U.S. government employees were on the list, including a White House staff member, National Security Agency employees, a senior State Department official, and a Department of Justice employee.

Surprisingly, a fake diploma can easily be obtained on-line. A company that specializes in fake diplomas advertises itself as the “#1 source for 100% premium diploma fakes from both popular schools and schools that no longer operate!” According to its website, the company has in its stock the largest database of diploma documents anywhere, which allow them to guarantee the most authentic replica diplomas. Their products include fake high school diplomas, fake college degrees, online degrees, fake university degrees, fake GEDs, college certificates, fake TESOLS, etc.

Fake Diploma. Photo courtesy of fakediplomas. The company that sells
this diploma advertises that it is the best in authentic-looking novelty
 replacement degrees,

Of course, these fake diplomas are for entertainment purposes only, not to be used to garnish a resumé or a job application. These phony diplomas are sold as novelty documents that look and feel real, but are designed to trick family and friends. It’s absolutely not illegal to purchase this type of documents. But these are not the fake diplomas we are referring to.

Credentials, whether one’s diploma or alma mater, are all that matter over everything else. There are high expectations when one earns a degree from the country’s best schools. American presidents elected to lead the most powerful nation in the world are most often schooled in Ivy League universities, either from Harvard or Yale. British prime ministers usually come from Oxford or Cambridge, and so with the leaders of the rest of the world—being trained if not in foreign schools, in the best schools in their countries. The same can be said of business and industry captains, they’re traditionally from the best schools, too.

In the Philippines, politicians and business leaders are by and large products of the University of the Philippines (U.P.), Ateneo de Manila University or La Salle University. Among these schools, U.P. seems to carry the most aura of excellence and association with historical events, talking about the Diliman Commune or the Barricades of 1969, or the fact it was the hotbed of student activism during the ’60 s and ’70s, for instance.

It wasn’t a huge surprise that the U.P. Alumni Association in Toronto would be confronted not so long ago with an accusation that one of its members faked his credentials or pretended he was a U.P. grad in order to gain membership. Such was the big deal its members would give weight to a U.P. education, as if it meant the world for them to set foot in the university’s hallowed grounds.

I remember the time when I was a second year student at U.P., when my cousin and I were trying to win the hearts of two young lovely sisters. My cousin, whose mother died after giving birth to him, and I were born in the same month and were both breast-fed by my mother. So he was more like a brother than a cousin to me. It was after our second date with the sisters that he confided about pretending he was also studying at U.P. The truth was, he was still finishing high school because I left him two years behind in grade school. I played along with my cousin’s little scheme and, if we were to follow Plato’s strict moral compass, then I could also be faulted for keeping mum. It was a good thing we were never put to test by the sisters; otherwise, either one of us could have failed. But that was a harmless youthful prank, no damage was done.

The table changes when one obtains a fake degree and utilizes it in gaining entry to the social class or a higher paying job; this becomes morally wrong. To many of us, credentials signify as if they represent everything. Especially when the diploma comes from a well-regarded institution of learning. It becomes a million-dollar coin that can attract counterfeiters.

When society continues to treat education or higher education not for its original purpose of higher learning but as a golden ticket to a high-paying job or to membership in the elite social class, we will always have those who would take the risk to leap class ranks and counterfeiters who would jump on the opportunity to make a million bucks. Of course, regulations are needed to run after diploma mills and counterfeiters. But unless we change our fundamental view that the aim of education is more than success in landing a lucrative job or a means to jack up reputation for desperate people whose careers are going nowhere, we will always have to co-exist with phony degrees and dreamers of white collar achievement.

Joie de vivre

Last weekend, Patty and I decided to join the Saint Jean Baptiste Day celebration, also known as Fete Nationale in Quebec, so we travelled to Montreal to visit our daughter who has moved there to work with the national office of the Canadian Red Cross. A huge throng of student demonstrators welcomed our arrival in Montreal last Friday, part of the large daytime demonstrations opposing Quebec tuition hikes and Bill 78, Quebec’s controversial anti-protest law.

Quebec students marching through  the streets of Montreal last May 20, 2012,
in what has become an almost nightly occurrence. Photo by Graham Hughes-
Canadian Press. Click link  to view "RAW 10,000 Montreal Students Defy Quebec
Anti-Protest Law Bill 78," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgqTxemj6YU,

Little did we know that the student protesters have been staging their demonstrations on the 22nd day of every month since March. In the past 15 weeks, these demonstrations have turned violent, especially those held at night. Many observers in Quebec haven’t figured out the larger significance of the protests dubbed as Quebec’s Maple Spring. Some are quick to predict that the protest might create a new generation of leaders that would shape the province, and perhaps the whole of Canada for decades to come, as Quebec’s Quiet Revolution did in the 1960s.

The end of these demonstrations appears not in sight as the students have promised to soldier on with their protests even this summer break. That Friday in the busy streets of Montreal, traffic was snarled as the protest ended at Parc Jeanne-Mance. A group of student protesters was able to make its way to Carré St-Louis by walking up Mont Royal Avenue. The police considered the protest illegal since no route had been provided to them but the protest as a whole was very calm and peaceful.

We finally reached Metro Atwater where we took the subway train to Charlevoix where our daughter was waiting to pick us up. After freshening up at our daughter’s place, we then walked along the Canal de Lachine going to the Marché Atwater, an open market my wife had always insisted that we go to whenever we visited our daughter during her student days at McGill University. This time, however, we took a walk along the banks of the historic canal for the first time.

The Lachine Canal which runs 14.5 kilometres from the Old Port to Lake Saint-Louis used to be the first link in a chain of canals that facilitated shipping between Montréal and the Great Lakes. Closed to shipping in 1970, it was replaced by the St. Lawrence Seaway. Now, the Canal has become a multi-purpose path for walkers and bicyclists, but more than an urban park it bears witness to the importance of shipping, canalization and industrialization in the history of Canada.

Across the Canal to the north is Marché Atwater, an Art Deco building and quaint little farmers’ market where they sell a wide variety of fruits, herbs and vegetables as well as flowering plants, maple syrup, fresh fish and meat, Quebec cheese, and freshly-baked bread and pastries. A pedestrian bridge connects the market to rue Saint Patrick and to a bicycle path in Pont Saint Charles on the other side of the Canal.

We sat on the grass overlooking the Canal as the sun set down on us. The late afternoon breeze provided comfort from the heat as we ate our repast of fresh bread, foie gras and prosciutto ham, and for dessert, fresh blueberries and sweet pineapple chunks. 

Both the Canal and Marché Atwater seem symbolic of the bridge between the past and the future, not merely in Montreal but perhaps of our lives in the larger sense. After all, the purpose of our visit that weekend was more than joining the St. Jean Baptiste Day festivities but also to connect with my wife’s very dear friend in the past and our own daughter Isobel who’s decided to live independently from us. Although for one and one-half years, Isobel was away in Paris to pursue her MBA, her new job posting meant returning to Montreal where she had lived for four years while taking her BA.

The other purpose of our trip was to visit Marina, Patty’s classmate from university, a bosom friend she had lost contact with sometime in 1976 during the early years of repression under Ferdinand Marcos. They were part of a closely-knit group of friends, conjoined by common youthful dreams and ideals, only to be separated by their personal pursuit of the proverbial place in the sun. A member of that group, Rebecca, passed away more than ten years ago in Toronto, with whom we also shared fond memories of friendship.

Through the wonders of the Internet, members of their group started finding each other. Patty had earlier reconnected with Leni, another member of that group, while we were in San Francisco in 2007, and later in 2011 when she visited Toronto. Only a few months ago, Patty finally found Marina on Facebook, and wonder of wonders, to be living in St-Hyacinthe, Quebec, as a member of Notre Dame de Vie, a secular institute that sprang from the Order of Carmel near the ancient shrine of Notre Dame de Vie in Venasque, France in 1932. Except for one, all of them, had crossed the Pacific to settle in North America.

Notre Dame de Vie Institute, St Paul d'Abbotsford, Quebec. Click link to view "Thomas
Merton - What is Contemplation?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8h3Hbf9wik.

On a sunny but windy Saturday, we drove to Saint Hyacinthe to meet Marina at Hotel de Dieu where she is engaged in her apostolate of caring and ministry to the sick. As a lay religious, Marina says that members of their Institute are allowed to continue with their professions in their various social milieus. Every member, however, is required to devote fidelity to the exercise of their spiritual life: daily silent prayer and periodic return to solitude.

I had also met Marina before as well as the other members of their small group when Patty brought me along with our children during a visit to the Institute in Novaliches where Marina was then contemplating on entering the religious life. That was more than thirty five years ago, the last time we would see her in person.

Marina showed us around the town’s centre, visiting its little market and shops and walking along the banks of the Yamaska River where the more prosperous residents of St-Hyacinthe live in huge houses built along the riverside.

What struck Marina about life in St-Hyacinthe was the townfolks’ seeming lack of joie de vivre, as if they had never found satisfaction in life, which to her meant a deep chasm in spirituality that has afflicted many Quebecois, especially among youth, in the recent years. Their churches, which are really cathedrals in size and architectural grandeur compared to those in the Philippines or even in Toronto, are in fast decline and now mostly likely empty. But this waning participation wouldn’t deter Marina in her apostolic mission; it is just one of the many challenges she must face, she stressed.

Then she turned her contemplation to the problems back home, posing questions like why the Philippines and our people seemed to have never progressed despite all the outside trappings of material growth. Of course, she said, she was referring to the internal soul, the impoverishment of our hearts. Nonetheless, she said, she was truly delighted she could speak in her native Tagalog, complete with the distinct Malolos accent. Sometimes, she found it hard to speak in three languages (Filipino, French, and English) while at the same time processing and deconstructing the meanings of the words in her mind.

Our Saturday afternoon sojourn was capped with a visit to the Notre Dame de Vie Institute’s retreat house in Montérégie, Saint-Paul d'Abbotsford, in the diocese of St-Hyacinthe, about 20 minutes’ drive along green and vast stretches of farms dotted with apple trees, grapes and a variety of berries. The Institute’s house is nestled on the foot of the mountains and has all the modern amenities needed for contemplative retreat—spacious meeting rooms, individual rooms for prayer and contemplation, several bedrooms, and a running brook where you can hear fresh water cascading down from a lake on the mountain top. Marina also introduced us to some members of the Institute who were there at the time—Marion, a former social worker from Montreal, Marie Josie from France, and Josephine who was rushing to go outside to pick some berries for fun from the Institute’s farms close by.

Instinctively, we had sensed Marina has found the ideal life of spirituality in the midst of her new world and community, although she said her search for the truth has not ended. We all concurred that truth could really be anything one stands for, be it justice, fairness, equality or fidelity to God. Truth can be achieved through various ways, from contemplative prayer to vigorous activism like joining protests against tuition hikes or discrimination, or political and civic engagement, with the end result forming part of the larger and immutable truth. With her peaceful demeanour and happy disposition, we believe Marina has already found the truth she was searching for. We parted ways making a promise to see each other again or more often in the future.

Sunday, June 24, Jean Baptiste Day, we drove to Cote-des-Neiges, a working-class neighbourhood in Montreal, where we feasted on our favourite Filipino dishes for lunch at a Filipino restaurant along Avenue Van Horne. On our way to Avenue Van Horne from Route 15 North, however, our car was accidentally rear-ended by a young Jewish man who seemed lost on the road on his Vespa scooter. It could happen to anyone but the good thing was nobody was hurt.

Van Horne is where most Pinoy expats in Montreal gather every Sunday to buy their Filipino groceries and household stuff. Across the street is the Centre Communautaire Philippine, so aptly named FAMAS Centre, where a group was holding a baby shower that afternoon. A middle-aged couple we met who were waiting for their other son who was having a haircut told us of the difficult life in the Philippines which drove them to come to Canada. Now they’re settled in Dorval, a Montreal suburb where they found work in a firm that makes fashion jewellery.

After having our taste of Filipino food and communing with our fellow kababayans, we then proceeded to the more upscale and bigger market, Marché Jean Talon, past Mont Royal and Outremont. Here is the biggest market in Montreal where you could find practically all the vegetables, fruits, herbs and condiments you’re looking for in the world, from bay leaf to parsley, rosemary and thyme which can be bundled together or wrapped in leek to form an aromatic bouquet garni, to different types of eschalote or little scallions to peppers of all hues, big and small, from wild mushrooms like chanterelle to shitake, or from plain tomatoes to many varieties of lettuce. If you love to cook, this is the perfect place to buy produce.

We ended bonding with our daughter atop the Oratory of St. Joseph of Mont Royal, overlooking Montreal’s vast landscape. We also started to wonder about the few changes in Isobel’s life, now that she’s living independently from us: the trip she made to Toronto two weekends ago from Montreal to participate in the GK Global Summit, her engagement in efforts to protect and preserve our fragile environment, the collective community garden she joined to plant and raise organic vegetables, and the decision to forego driving a car by going to work on a bixi bike, the reason she chose her apartment to be closer to work in order to leave less carbon footprint and thus, in her own small way, help save the environment.

Marina and Isobel are many light years apart and actually are separated by two different world views, one, spiritual and contemplative; the other, socially-innovative and less profit-driven. They have certain similarities such as the love for the French language. Yet, they’re two worlds that are connected. The bridge to their separate worlds is the nature of the work and the kind of life they have committed themselves to.

What Thomas Friedman was referring to in his book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, as the balance in life we need and keep in constant struggle, the past or present against the future, the ways of old against the new technology—a perpetual antithesis but a harmonious one in result. We can’t only have one and not the other. This is probably the secret to having joie de vivre or the joy of life, or the joy of everything, or a philosophy of life that matters.