From Battlefields to Forever

WITH THE AFP CHIEF HINTING ON A WAR BREWING WITH CHINA WE NEED TO REVISIT OUR FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THEM. 

In 1950 the Philippines, was just a newly minted republic recovering from the devastation brought about by WW11  But despite this,as a member of the UN and an ally of the US we sent troops the PEFTOK  The first batch was the 10th BCT that landed in PUSAN, KOREA in1950.   Coming from the tropics our soldiers not only survived the bitter cold of winter, the worst recorded for that country that time but fought the North Koreans and the red Chinese horde in their Spring Offensive proving themselves formidable foes, defending the UN line and earning the admiration of UN Troops.   

My Food Blog

 Pancit Bihon Guisado

Any kind of rice noodles will do but my preference is “wai-wai”. 

1. When you cook Chinese stirfry you need to process all the ingredients first. 

   1.1. Soak noodles in water until pliant

   1.2. Cut your vegetables ie. Cabbage,green beans,carrots, onions, celery and garlic. 

   1.3  cut meat (whatever you’re using) in bite sizes

   1.4. Prepare your sauce:  2 TBS each soy sauce and oyster sauce mix in 2 cups chicken stock.( this is enough to stirfry half of the noodle package )

2. Stirfry Procedure:

   2.1. Heat wok one minute, then add oil

   2.2. Start  with meat until brown

   2.3  onions, celery garlic 

   2.4  green beans (5 minutes)

   2.5  cabbage and carrots(3 minutes)

   2..6 add 2 cups sauce  

   2.7 add noodles toss until al dente 5 minutes

   2.8. Put in serving tray. 

Impeachment

With the current news of President Donald Trump facing a 2nd impeachment, I can't help but be reminded of the time in the Philippines of the same occurrence.  Actually, there were on record seven presidents in the Philippines who faced impeachment charges.  But granduncle Elpidio R Quirino was the first.  He was charged for overspending to refurbish Malacanang Palace, the President's official residence, and trumped-up charges connecting him to diamond smuggling.  Unlike President Trump's first impeachment that passed Congress, his was dismissed by the Congressional Committee that looked into it for lack of merit.

Impeachment is a way of maintaining checks and balances in a federal system of government so that no one can abuse his power or authority.  But charges of impeachment must be supported by evidence of abuse or criminality.  A hostile Congress can weaponize this process.  Donald Trump's first impeachment was pursued because he colluded with Russia to which they found no evidence.  A 2nd impeachment now claims he incited people to rebellion in a peace rally by his supporters.  And even as he is no longer President, the 2nd impeachment is still being pursued as a glaring act of vengeance by his political enemies.

As in the cases in the Philippines, only President Joseph Estrada's impeachment succeeded and led to his ouster.

Election Irregularities

 With Donald Trump and his defense team battling election irregularities flooding news outlets and social media, I was reminded of similar events that happened albeit in a different time and place.  It was in the Philippines in 1949.  My granduncle Elpidio R. Quirino was a candidate for the Presidency.  Prior to that election, he was the Vice President who was catapulted to the Presidency to serve the remaining term of Manuel Roxas who met an untimely death the year before.  In the 1949 election, he won against the opposition party the Nacionalista, and a runaway Liberal Party his own party that rebelled against his leadership.  Despite a split in the Liberal Party, he won and in Trump's language "by a lot".  But his party was accused of stealing the election by widespread fraud.  The opposing parties claimed that the military and private armies were used to coerce and intimidate the opposing parties, that is according to claims of various sources that have never shown any proof that the election was indeed fraudulent.

This was the 3rd Republic a government that was formed after having undergone American tutelage that began in 1898 after they have wrestled control of the islands from Spain and overwhelmed a hastily organized 1st Republic of Filipino natives.  American colonial education transformed the Filipino literally as brown Americans who first learned the English language and then the arts and the sciences and the American value system.  The Filipinos were trained and learned how to run the government through the American Commissions that governed the islands.  Progressively Filipino bureaucrats held positions in the Commission.  The more educated and more affluent being given higher positions in government.  The public school system produced English-speaking professionals that later on joined the bureaucracy.  The American effort furthered the education obtained by Filipinos from Spain who ruled the islands for more than three centuries.

So as the Filipinos acquired their colonial education and the manner by which western government bureaucracies ran they began asking for more representation and Americans gladly accommodated them, first in the Jones Law that created a Philippine Legislature and providing more autonomy to the islands and then the Tydings McDuffie Act that defined steps to a partially independent Philippines where a constitution was framed for a Commonwealth that became reality in 1935.  With World War 2 breaking out, the democratization process was interrupted by a 2nd Republic subservient to the Japanese regime during the war period.  The Japanese surrendered in 1945 with Americans coming back to the islands and in 1946 governance resumed with the recognition of a fully independent Philippine Republic with the same constitution framed for the 1935 Commonwealth in accordance with definitive guidelines provided in the Tydings McDuffie Act.  Whether the claims of election irregularities were true or not remains to be proven.  I can only opine that Laurel who was President of the 2nd Republic was perceived as a Japanese collaborator and Filipinos were still hurting from the Japanese occupation that's why he lost.   There are no historical records that showed the opposing Nationalista party candidate, Laurel, and the Citizen Party Candidate, Avelino pursued their claims unlike Donald Trump now who kept pursuing his claim using legal means provided by the US Constitution.  Watching this process unfold is truly enlightening to the workings of a democracy.  The Philippines seem to be a democracy in name only whereas the US  is a working democracy.  Citizens are actively involved in the electoral processes and when things go wrong they do feel disenfranchised and will fight to have it corrected.  Filipinos?  They don't care.  

 

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The City of Pines

We were migrants to the city of Baguio as are many others lured by the talk of a place with clean rejuvenating air. It is famously known as the City of Pines as the mountain city that lies 5,000 feet above sea level abound with a forest of pine stands.  The air was cool.  It was because of clean, cool and rejuvenating climate found in this elevation that Americans decided to build a hill station as a sanitarium, a rest and recreation area for those   who were assigned in various places in the Philippines during the US commission era . The city grew in parallel to the Hill Station that the Americans planned.   Soon it was declared as the Summer Capital of the Philippines. http://www.cityofpines.com   My mother suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis.  Her doctors said there was no cure for her ailment and that she should not bear any more children.  They also suggested for her to move to a place where she can get fresh, healthy air as apparently it was the dusty air from the lowlands that was making her sick.   When she was given this prognosis there were already five of us.   And so my parents decided to relocate from Manila to Baguio City.  That was in 1955 when my father who was in the military sought  assignment  to PMA. He never left this assignment despite the many opportunities he had primarily because he found the most ideal place for him to care for his wife and his children.  Baguio then was green and yellow.  The mountain cover were pine trees and sunflowers. True enough just as Americans who planned the hill station foresaw, Baguio’s air and climate did a great job at sustaining my mother’s health that the next five siblings followed.    The weather and the trees were the natural cure to her ailment.  We lived at Navy Base then called Polo Field for a while and then a greater number of years at PMA, Fort del Pilar.  These areas were thick with pine trees.    She lived a long and fruitful life contrary to what her doctors had said.

My siblings and I grew up exploring the forests of Loakan with PMA brats like us.  We walked everywhere from the fort down to Kennon Road, or up Mt. Sto. Tomas or Asin Hot Springs.  Everywhere you go were thick pine stands, ferns and cogon grass.  We enjoyed  listening to the chirping of birds,  the varying sounds of fauna and feast on guavas and  wild berries freshly picked from the vine.   We enjoyed  nature more than anything else.  

All of a sudden the trees began disappearing.  Forests and watersheds were  encroached on.  Like us, people started migrating to Baguio apparently lured by the same reason.  G.I sheets started sprouting like mushrooms on hillsides.  Slopes were leveled and high rise structures erected by those who had money to spend.  When Americans left the bases, Camp John Hay was not spared.  It became fair game to people who had the money and the connection.  We can't blame these people.  By its very nature, Baguio was and is a magnet.  What is obvious now is that all those times Baguio's leaders at City Hall did not have the foresight of dealing with the rush of migrants to the city.  Daniel Burnham's plan is still in use today since it was the only one followed to build Baguio.  It has become irrelevant overtaken by uncontrolled growth in the city's population.  Efforts to take off from where Burnham began didn't have enough thrust to fly.  So while seemingly people talk about comprehensive land use plans in the city the truth is there never is any plan except from what was done by Daniel Burnham.     Hence concrete structures took the place of pine stands, unregulated growth allowed only through the whims and caprices of those sitting in power.  Baseless decisions that played havoc to the environment    Disasters have struck the city.  The worst was an almost 9.00 in the Richter scale earthquake that struck the city in 1990 that toppled a lot of high rise structures and killed thousands of residents.  Year after year soil erosion happen and claim lives when monsoon rains start pouring as people build on erosion prone slopes.  A trash slide occurred in the city's open garbage dump site, a tragedy that should never have happened.    Now the remaining forest stand at the heart of the City is about to be cut by its new owner SM.   All because the city grew on its own without vision, without discipline and without guidance.   The city is seemingly on a down spin about to reach bottom.   Are we ever going to recover from this downturn?   Without the trees the City of Pines is no more.

Grand Reunion

Grand Reunion

In July of this year a reunion of the Quirino clan is being organized.  The setting –Vigan, Ilocos Sur. Amazingly gathering of the clan is made easier in this day and time what with email, face book, computers and cell phones.  Already a mini-gathering in a wisely organized face book group begins to attract relatives all over the world.  I attempted to gather these same relatives a few years back when yahoo group was new.  I did get some to join me but not as big a number and as fast as the face book group.  It went around so fast as soon as it got viral now the group has reached over a hundred relatives and increasing fast!  Amazing!  It got me to thinking…maybe the group site could serve as a venue to share information about our elders, keep the genealogy tree updated, and get responses to unanswered questions about the family.  This of course is secondary to the goal of the reunion of getting all living relatives to know each other and establish family relationships.

All my growing up years I wondered, how it was like to have lived during the times of Elpidio, Ernesto, Eliseo and Antonio?  My grandfather, Ernesto died when I was just a baby.  From my mother, I learned he was a lawyer and a good one to boot. The only fact I learned from researching about him was his participation in a government scholarship program to train future leaders of the country when Americans took over from Spain.  He was sent to America as a “pensionado” the term they used for scholar.  He reached junior year in law but had to discontinue in view of his mother’s failing health.  He never was able to get back into the program despite being allowed to do so to play the role of head of the family when his mother died.  Eventually he finished law at UP in 1916 a year behind Elpidio who graduated in 1915.  During the war, I learned he was staying in Manila and survived the bombing of the city. His brother’s family was not too lucky.    Elpidio died when I was four years old.  I’ve learned a lot more of Elpidio from history books.  I was bewildered by the way his administration was associated with graft and corruption.  Political discourse about his administration in my college days revolved around the “Tambobong Case” and his “golden arenola”.  Perhaps these were the main reasons why I was driven by my desire to learn more about him so I can defend his good name.  But I never knew him personally as a granduncle. So when my cousin Cecilia shared with me the story that grandfather Ernesto was the one who influenced him to drop his hobby as a painter to get into politics and the story that Magsaysay after being elected as President went to him and beg for his forgiveness, that  thrilled me and gave me some personal knowledge of Elpidio.   Memories of when I was a child have snippets of Eliseo and Antonio whom I have met during my mother’s occasional visits with them. I learned from my mother who stayed with Lolo Antonio’s family for a while that he pioneered the use of television in the Philippines and that he also attempted to ran for President.    The summer home of Lolo Antonio in Baguio forms part of my childhood memories. I could up to this time describe vividly the layout of the house as we must have stayed there for a while.  I also remember an Easter Sunday gathering in this house.  And of course I also remember Lolo Antonio and Lola Alex visiting us at PMA one time.  These curiosities in the past have turned into an obsession to learn more about the Quirinos and how they helped shape a nation.   The upcoming grand reunion should be quite interesting indeed!

A Reaction To Perry Diaz's Article

Road to Perdition or Redemption

I once read a book on the science of group dynamics by Eric Byrne. I remembered the way he structured society in terms of two forces namely: external forces in an environment were internal forces interact and the internal components being the general membership (the masses), and the leadership in the case of government, (i.e. the President and her bureaucracy,Congress,Senate, Judiciary, ) External forces would include the various publics i.e. the business sector, the media, outside governments etc., that take action to influence the internal forces to follow the course they want them to go.

The structure and dynamics of Philippine politics is such that even the component of leadership is not in sync. It has been this way historically even at start of government in 1946. Pres.Manuel Roxas and then President Elpidio Quirino with good intentions must have thought that the way to go was to continue in the politics of patronage that has been the legacy of Spanish colonization. The Presidents elected after them had the same orientation. And the membership (the masses) they committed to serve has resigned themselves to the idea that such is the way of life in the Philippines.

The illegal numbers game of Jueteng thrives precisely because it is a tool of patronage. Control the game and you become a patron to a lot of deprived “massa” who would honor and respect you for the dole outs. I bet Bong Pineda whose wife is in politics still has survived the game simply because he is GMA’s conduit to the many that benefit from the illegal numbers game. Just as Agustin Roxas in Paniqui Tarlac once served as a conduit to the same Massa, and Mayor Sanchez in the Southern Tagalog provinces played a similar role. The media can shout to high heavens and write exposes’ but it won’t kill the game. Erap’s demise as a President because of the game and his subsequent release by pardon thereafter is the classic case of patronage politics that we play. The power grab was deflected using the massa as a tool, everyone lives happily ever after except for the people who is left holding the empty bag. Now here is a guy, Gov. Panlilio who is trying to change the way politics is played. Do you think he will survive?

What I am saying is Perry Diaz’s article the Road to Perdition or Redemption has cited issues that in fairness to GMA could not rest entirely on her shoulders. What is happening now in the country that Diaz’s fault GMA as empty promises is a repeat of past Presidents’ failures and future President’s dilemma. What we need is a cultural revolution and a strong, courageous, honest and innovative President to lead it. Let’s look at Dick Gordon. He may be the man!