Tribal tribulations

Wi-tribe is the newest player in the internet service providing business here in Manila. It’s aggressive; it has huge billboards along Edsa and major thoroughfares.

It is a subsidiary of San Miguel Corporation, one of the better-regarded conglomerates here. This is one reason I decided to get our home computer – actually, the kids’, since I still prefer to work using my small white laptop – hooked up to the Internet via wi-tribe. It’s supposed to be 4G -- sounds somewhat better than 3G and newer to the hearing than wi-fi, broadband, or dial-up. And if it’s San Miguel, it better be good. Right? Some names do enjoy brand equity and San Miguel is one of them.

The final deciding factor was that wi-tribe is good to go as soon as you can get your hands on it. It’s plug and play, just like a mouse, keyboard or flash drive, no more complicated configuration efforts. So when the demo guy brought a sample unit into our home in early July, and it worked upstairs, we decided to get it, pronto. Just like that, we were online.

The arrangement was for unlimited internet use for P998 a month. Not bad, is it?

But then, there’s the fine print. Once the demo was over and I was all sold to wi-tribe, the sales agent casually mentioned that there was a limit of 6 gigabytes to the stuff we could download. If we exceed this, the speed would be affected until the end of the month. I was not a techie so I could not appreciate what he was saying much; Josh complained, though, that because of this the term “unlimited” now sounds a little like a lie. And if there's anybody in the family who works with a fair amount of data, it's Josh. He downloads music, views tutorials, etc etc...

Just as we were trying to adjust to this little inconvenience, typhoon Basyang struck in mid-July. Since then, and most especially these days, the signal to the modem has been intermittent. “Unreliable” is a kind term. We’ve sought technical assistance a number of times and last Saturday a couple of guys were actually sent here to look at the problem.

The verdict? Signal interference, indeed. Apparently the typhoon damaged the base station (wherever it was ) so that the radius of coverage was decreased even though the strength of the signal for the covered areas was strengthened.

I had been tempted more than once to write about this gripe in my broadsheet column. So far I’ve been able to resist it, believing that I should not use my column for personal, consumer gripes.

But I can use this blog. That is, if I can get a steady signal long enough to actually go to the “New Post” tab of my blog, copy and paste from MS WOrd where I'm writing this, then publish it.

Wi-tribe better not advertise too much if it can’t address the gripes of its existing customers. I understand it's new to telecom and has bright prospects and competition will ensure better quality and just about every excuse I could possibly come up with for sticking with this fledgling brand. Maybe it will get better. But I am not under any obligation to wait. On the contrary, wi-tribe is under obligation to make ME happy.

Oh dear. I can't even post this entry. The lights won't stop blinking.

Sweetened sour

I am two thirds done with paying for a credit card debt that I accumulated more than 10 years ago.

The payment is most certainly is not in my financial plan. The debt is not even in Citibank's books anymore. Citibank has turned it over to a special purpose, bad-asset management company which somehow found a way to find me middle of the year and offer me amnesty.

I decided to avail myself of the amnesty program. It's the right thing to do.

While I accumulated the debt during my previous life (meaning, when I was still with J), and with all the explanations that are supposed to come with this fact, the truth is that my family and I benefited from the purchases made with that card.

I last made a payment ten years ago and then conveniently forgot about it, channeling all my energy instead to challenging my status quo and eventually starting life over, on my own. I succeeded, so much in fact that when my old ghosts came back to haunt me, lo and behold, I was ready to tackle them head on.

I think I got a good deal. I am now only supposed to pay 40 percent of my original outstanding balance, in six equal monthly installments. And yesterday I made the fourth installment. Two to go and then I get issued a certificate of something.

It is not easy, though. One monthly installment is equivalent to a trip to the supermarket for maybe 10 days' worth of goods. My cash inflows are just enough and I barely have room for extra expenses, emergencies or investments. I do need the money. There are a thousand and one things to buy for the house and for the kids. Single parenthood and working for the print media never did make anybody wealthy, even comfortable.

Sometimes I ask myself why I even agreed to the amnesty in the first place. I could have simply made myself scarce, offered this or that explanation. My balance is not so big, anyway, as would warrant a court case.

But every time I go to the bank and pay, I feel immensely better despite my thinning wallet and dwindling reserves. I am in a place entirely foreign to me ten years ago; a place that emboldens me to deal squarely with the past as a way of moving on.

Free will isn't free

The other day at the grocery, Elmo and I ran into J.

I felt conscious right away. Earlier that morning, I had cashed his support check. So when J's sight landed on the contents of my grocery cart – at that time mostly cereals and milk – I wondered: Is he thinking now, “that's my money she's spending?”

J told Elmo that he would not be going to the office that day, and so would he like to go with him instead? Elmo said no. “Mag-aaral pa ako sa bahay ni Mommy (I will review my lesson's in Mommy's house).” It was only the second day of exams, and Elmo still had to study for his Reading and Science tests for the following day.

The boy felt guilty immediately afterwards. He went over to his dad and embraced him. “I'll sleep at your place tomorrow, Dad,” he said in Filipino, as if it was a consolation.

“Why don't you ask Sophie instead,” I offered. “She's somewhere there with her own grocery cart.” (It was my practice to allow the bigger children to separate from me inside the supermarket and give them the freedom to get what they think they need or want. And then I meet them half an hour later by the breads section and look at their carts, approving or rejecting their purchases. The approved items find their way into the main family cart which we eventually bring to the counter.)

“I saw her already. She said no because she still has to review,” J said. I thought he looked uncomfortable asking his own children to spend time with him. Still he asked Elmo again. “Do you want to go with me?”

“C'mon, Elmo,” I chimed in. “Go with your dad. I'll be going to the office anyway, after this.”

The boy just shook his head and looked on the floor.

The father's face fell. “Well, okay, I'm outta here,” he said and turned away.

I pushed my cart away.

**

I ran into Sophie a few minutes later, and asked her whether she indeed told her father she did not want to go with him. As I surveyed her small cart, she suddenly said: “Nakakaawa naman si Daddy (I pity Dad).”

I agreed. So it was not just me who was disturbed by the fact that J looked big and menacing -- and alone. “Did you really tell him you did not want to go?”

“Yes,” Sophie answered. “Elmo should have gone with him.” And then, facing her brother, she said: “You should have said yes to Dad!”

Elmo glared at her. “Why does it always have to be me?” I noticed he was scowling and had hints of tears in his eyes. I tried to hold his hand but he refused. He actually walked away. I followed, asking why.

“Bakit mo ako lagi pinapaalis papunta sa Bambi? Ayaw mo ba ako kasama? (Why do you always drive me away to [Dad's street]? Do you not want to be with me?}”

And then my heart broke. My boy misunderstood my actions. Because all of us were busy minding how J felt, nobody paid attention to what Elmo was feeling.

“Of course I want to be with you! Please don't take it the wrong way. I'm really really sorry!”

“Okay,” Elmo said, and accepted my hug.

**

Later, after we had paid for the groceries, the kids said they wanted to eat hotdogs at the kiosk in front of the counters. Even though we had had lunch at home, they were hungry again. They were enjoying their food when we saw J at another counter.

They called him, and when he finished paying, he approached us. He eyed their hotdogs before saying...”Hmmm...what will I eat now, pizza?” I did not know what to make of that remark. Was he telling the kids that they would eat better food if they went with him (cajoling), or was he striking back in his own way, telling them that since they did not go with him, they will be stuck with hotdogs while he would enjoy pizza (bitter)?

I was sad. Sometimes it was difficult to tell who the child was.

**

Turned out J did not go to the pizza place but to a sandwich deli for his late lunch.

We went to the bookstore, the kids got their supplies and lined up separately. I looked at books. When they were done, they asked if they could say hello (again) to their father. Elmo was especially anxious to be assured his father was not mad at him. When he returned to me, he reported: “Mommy, hindi sya galit. Naka-happy face sya. (He's not angry. he has on a happy face.) I even showed him the coloring book you got me.”

Sophie, when she was alone with me, was also teary eyed. “Nakaka-guilty,” she said, and we both knew what she was talking about. “I will go there tonight to sleep there, but I will study in our house. It's difficult to study in Dad's house. I get distracted.” Distracted by what, I wondered. Then I remembered she must feel more comfortable studying at my place because she had her own study area, with matching drawers and cabinets for her school things.

J walked with us as we took the back exit of the mall. Then, J approached his BMW sitting at a corner of the parking area. The kids kissed him and then promptly said goodbye.

I certainly did not feel victorious as I – with five grocery bags and two children who stood their ground to be with me – flagged a tricycle that would take us home.

Riding in trains with boys

I am thankful for the segregation scheme at the MRT and LRT.

No male passenger is allowed on the first coach. Unless you're an invalid or a senior citizen. As it is, I ride with relative comfort and absence of threat. See, nobody really wants to get stuck in a crowded (okay, sometimes jampacked) train will males from all walks of life. You have to protect your wallet, cell phone and virtue besides.

The males section, however, is not exclusively for males. There is an occasional female in that area. Usually it is the wife or the girlfriend of the male passenger. She has to endure the foreign terrain for the price of being with her loved one. Whether the company is worth it is for the girl to decide.

I have the same dilemma every time my son Josh goes with me to my office. I suffer the presence of male co-passengers in the patriarchal coach – and they don't always come straight out of the shower or from brushing their teeth all the time.

The alternative is to travel in different coaches, albeit in the same train, and meet up at some pre-agreed station. Josh suggested that -- but he was pouting his lip when he said so. I guess he felt offended at my having expressed disgust at riding with males, even though that included him.

So last Thursday I told Josh we would sit in my comfort zone, the females-only area, and I'd explain that he was my son and that he was just a child, really. Josh rolled his eyes but agreed to sit with me. Soon enough a guard approached us and told Josh he was not allowed there. I said he was with me and that he was just a boy. The guard did not buy it. Why would he? Josh was taller than me and looked maybe 18 instead of the 14 he really was.

So that was how I ended up “suffering” again, even though we were comfortably seated, having taken that train from the south terminal. There were men standing in front of me and at my side. I was only able to breathe normally when we reached the north end and everybody got off.

I'm still deciding whether I should take up Josh's suggestion of riding separately the next time around. And demand that he not pout when we do so. Good thing he does not ask to go with me every day.

A bus at the grandstand

photo courtesy of CNN.

I first got wind of the hostage drama as I was preparing lunch. By the time I got through the rest of my day, almost nine hours later, the drama had become a tragedy. I am one with the rest of the nation in a mixed bag of sorrow, guilt, outrage, exasperation.

In the next few days, there will be a wave of commentary on every angle imaginable. How this would hurt our tourism prospects, just at the time we need it most. How the police spectacularly bungled the operation. How the hostage taker was crazy and desperate. How members of the media conducted themselves. How the world would see us. How we would see ourselves.

Less than two hours ago upon getting off the train from work, I boarded a bus to take me closer to home. As I sat on the cushioned seats and stared out the wide glass windows, I remembered those hostages. They were just trying to unwind and learn more about this neighboring country. They were in fact preparing to go back to their home country, back to their families, back to their lives. And this looney climbs up the bus and unleashes his ill logic and random hatred. I can imagine being faced with the very strong likelihood and imminence of death. Did the hostages cry, longing for the comfort and familiar faces of their loved ones? Did they tremble in fear? Did any of them even consider ganging up on the lone hostage taker, maybe just as he had his back to them? Did any of them fish for pen and paper and write a goodbye message? Did they curse this dysfunctional country of ours under their breath? Or did they feel a strange sense of peace and resignation to anything that could happen?

This should never have happened. And yet it did. A tragedy, indeed.

Wanted: A Chaperone

The play is a Buwan ng Wika presentation of the school. It is an adaptation of Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero's Wanted: A Chaperone.



My kids were a father-and-(adopted) daughter team. They've really gone a long way from being arch enemies a few years back.



Josh as Don Francisco, with speech mentor Teacher Sandy.



Actors all. Josh and Sophie blend in well with the cast.

(photos by MAV Valenzuela and Marvelous Alejo)

Sophie and Josh yesterday appeared in a play staged by their school at the Valenzuela City Auditorium.

The performance was based on the play Wanted: A Chaperone by Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero and translated to Filipino by Jose Villa Panganiban. I say "based" because the school took the liberty of adding some characters to the original cast called for by the script.

The comedy opens with the father, Don Francisco (played by Josh) and the mother, Doña Petra, complaining that their son who is already employed is still asking for his allowance. Husband and wife are also debating over their college-age daughter Nena, who spent the previous night at a party alone with a certain Fred. Nena describes herself as "dalagang edukada" which means she is of a decidedly more modern disposition than her parents.

Fred's mother Doña Dolores learns about the unchaperoned excursion as well and rushes to Nena's parents, criticizing the morals of their daughter and insisting that "something happened."

When the adults shut up and the children finally speak up, they reveal that nothing in fact happened because Nena became so disgusted with Fred's dancing that she left the party and went to Quiapo instead with her girl friends.

The play highlights the sometimes ridiculous thoughts that go through parents' minds when they feel protective of their children. (I certainly can relate to that.)

The domestic helpers gave comic relief to the seriousness of their employers' concerns. The "ampons" -- Trudis (adopted by Dolores) and Angelina (adopted by Francisco and Petra, played by Sophie) and two boy-admirers of Angelina also tempered the adult concerns and lightened the mood by the occasional dance showdowns. (Sophie danced to a portion of "Totoy Bibo", heheheh).

Needless to say, I am proud of my kids. Sophie was just so pretty and her curls framed her face perfectly. More importantly, I was happy that her involvement in the theater group was out of her own initiative. She has indeed evolved from the shy girl she was three years ago, the girl who would not even dare raise her hand even if she knew the answer, a teacher told me.

Sophie had originally auditioned for Nena but was deemed too young. I agree.

Josh, for his part, enjoyed his role to the hilt. He now parades around the house in his red robe and utters an occasional "Damontres!" whenever things don't go his way -- for instance when our Internet connection is especially slow. What a well-rounded dude: he plays the guitar, he cooks, he plays tennis and table tennis, and now he's shown he's at home onstage, too.

Another interesting side show was the reunion of Bea and her former classmates. They are all college freshmen now, scattered in various schools and pursuing various disciplines. They haven't really seen each other since the new phase of their lives began. I was happy to see them so happy to see each other again.

It was a good day. I was glad to be a chaperone.

Good apples in bad barrels

While society may have a hand in shaping torturers, it is up to the individual to resist such forces.

At the basement of the psychology department building of Stanford University in 1971, professor Phillip Zimbardo, a social psychologist, set the stage for some serious role-playing. He had handpicked several of his most well-adjusted students to participate in an experiment that would simulate a prison facility situation. The participants took on the roles of either “prisoners” or “guards”. The experiment was designed to run for two full weeks.

At the onset, Zimbardo gave his “guards” the following instructions: "You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me - and they'll have no privacy.... In general, what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness".

The study was stopped after only six days. Most of the “guards” exhibited sadistic and abusive tendencies. “Prisoners” became passive and depressed. They suffered emotional trauma. Everybody, including Zimbardo himself, was overwhelmed by how the participants adapted to their assigned roles.

Another experiment, this time conducted by Yale University professor Stanley Milgram, tried to measure the willingness of participants to obey a figure of authority who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their conscience.

Participants to the study were made to believe they were pushing buttons to administer electric shocks to a person in the next room, depending on whether that person answered a question correctly or incorrectly. The subjects were told that the voltage went up by 15-volt increments for each wrong answer – and that, by the way, the fellow in the next room suffered from a “heart condition.” In truth, of course, there were no shocks generated from pushing the button.

As the voltage increased, the person in the next room started banging against the wall or shouting for the shocks to stop. However, the subjects were verbally prodded by the experimenter, in four stages (with each language stronger than the previous one) that they must go on despite the pleas of the person with the “heart condition.”

The results were astounding. Twenty-six out of 40, or 65 percent, of participants administered the final 450-volt shock, even though many of them were quite uncomfortable in doing so. This study became the basis of a 1974 paper written by Milgram on the “perils of obedience.”

Many years later, when the news of alleged systematic torture in some American military facilities came to light, professors Alex Haslam of the University of Exeter and Stephen Reicher of the University of St. Andrews conducted for the BBC an experiment similar to Zimbardi's. They noted, however, that their “prison guards” did not behave as sadistically as the ones from Stanford, because they were specifically not instructed to behave in any manner whatsoever.

**

I cite these experiments in relation to that video which caught our attention – and tugged at our sensibilities – last week. An anonymous person gave ABS-CBN cell phone footage of a naked man being tortured on the floor of what would later be determined as a police precinct in Tondo, Manila. The man was allegedly a thief. The police officer, who was later on identified as Senior Inspector Joselito Binayug, was exacting a confession from him by lashing at his face, hurling invectives at him, and pulling a string -- the other end of which was tied to the man's genitals. The man was killed shortly afterwards, says the person who gave the footage to the network, but no body has turned up until now.

That video elicited a strong reaction from the public. It was clearly no way for one human being to treat another. Human rights champions denounced the torture and demanded Binayug's dismissal AND criminal prosecution. There is a law, after all, passed less than a year ago, criminalizing torture. Prior to this, in 1986, the Philippines became a signatory to the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Torture.

But I personally have seen some reactions over the Internet saying some people were “okay” or “cool” with what Binayug did to the still-unknown man. They point out that it was likely the man did not act humanly against his many victims before he was captured. In short, he got what he deserved.

It's not the time to pass moral judgment on people's opinions just because they don't jibe with ours. Still, the contrarian view does set off an interesting journey into the minds of the torturers.

This brings us back to the psychological experiments I mentioned earlier. Social psychologists seem to hold the belief that decent everyday folks, when put under the “right” context, and especially when encouraged either directly or not, have the capacity to do the most atrocious things to their fellow men.

Shankar Vedantam, writing for The Washington Post, says torturers believe they are carrying out the will of their societies. They even feel betrayed when the public professes outrage after their deeds come to light. There is, after all, a motivation to torture suspected criminals (also, suspected rebels, terrorists, and the like) because they pose a danger to the well-ordered and established institution within which most of us exist. We see law enforcers who catch the “bad guys” as heroes.

And Tondo, Manila has a greater-than-average concentration of bad guys, if we are to believe reports saying it has higher crime rates than any other area in Metro Manila. Maybe Binayug felt he had had just a little too much of these criminals, that he felt for the supposed victims so that he believed the torture was justicifed. Or he may simply be having a bad day.

International law says absolutely nothing justifies the intentional harming of another human being. Unfortunately, Binayug – and all other torturers of whom we don't know about – is not mindful of this. The system for which he works has not drilled that into his head enough.

Supporting his theory, Zimbardo testified in favor of an American soldier who stood trial for torturing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. He argued that the context in which the American soldiers operated should be a mitigating circumstance for the crime. He cited his study in saying that when good apples (individuals) are put into bad barrels (institutions), they come out bad apples, as well (capable of torture). “Blaming individual soldiers only took the system out of the hook,” he said. He failed, though, and the soldier received a harsh judgment anyway.

Zimbardo has since been channeling his work into advising people how they could resist institutional evil especially when they feel powerless against it.
**

In the end, what can we do? We must first, of course, bring the torturers to justice. External influences do not in any way absolve them of their heinous deeds.

But we must not stop there. We must work on the barrel, so to speak. Institutions must make it very clear to their members that nothing justifies the intentional harming of another human being. The end does not justify the means. Those who are able to exact confessions from torture should not get a pat on the back, much less a medal, from their superiors.Everybody in the hierarchy must imbibe the culture of accountability.

While working on the barrel, the apples must be strengthened as well. Zimbardo believes that individuals should “build up personal resilience to the social forces that dehumanize us.” This he summarizes in the Ten-Step Program to Build Resistance and Resilience, as published in Chapter 16 of his book, The Lucifer Effect.

“I made a mistake!,” he asks us to tell ourselves. “I am mindful...I am responsible...I am me, the best that I can be...I respect just authority, but rebel against unjust authority...I want group acceptance but value my independence...I will be more vigilant...I will balance my time perspective...I will not sacrifice personal or civic freedoms for the illusion of security...I can oppose unjust systems.”

These steps are helpful whether you are talking about torture, corruption, malgovernance, or any other systemic social ill. More on these steps can be found on www.lucifereffect.com/guide_tenstep. Zimbardo is telling us that it is the individual, buffeted as he is by conflicting forces in his social environment, who will determine his course of action.

It is said that evil prospers when good men and women do nothing – and allow themselves to be overwhelmed and overpowered. Now that's truly de-humanizing.

adellechua@gmail.com

Unfinished business

I arrive home at 11 in the evening and see, as I enter this room I share with my kids, that everything is not as it should be.

There are three wooden study desks here -- Bea's, Josh's, and Sophie's. Each of the three desks is cluttered. Books and notebooks, pens and papers. Coffee mugs and glasses half-filled with water. Loose change, discarded rubber bands for the hair, eyeglasses, and, heaven help me, a stray pair of socks. On the floor are bags, half open and just waiting for somebody to trip on them.

On the adjacent beds are the owners of these cluttered desks (Elmo is spending the night with his father, and has not really earned a desk yet), sprawled and soundly sleeping. Thoughtfully they have left the iPod, hooked into a respectable speaker, on. My kids know I like John Mayer and there are 63 Mayer songs on shuffle mode.

But not tonight; I turn the music off.

Unbelievably, after a long, arduous and crazy day, I don't feel like sleeping yet. So I pull a chair, open a pack of Boy Bawang - Chili Garlic flavor, and keep a tumbler of water close by. I take the book I have been trying to finish in the last couple of months and finish the chapter at which I am stuck. Madeleine Albright's memoirs are best read when seated on a Lazy Boy, with a cup of hot chocolate and the patter of rain in the background. But I settle for what I have, lean back on my chair, and chew the "kornik" anyway. I am surprised they are not awakened by the sound of my munching.

Occasionally, one kid or another opens an eye and expresses surprise that I am still up. Occasionally, too, an alarm goes off -- and is promptly ignored.

I look around at the mess and oddly feel relieved at the evidence of activity. None of the desks are neat, I realize, because each of their inhabitants intend, in one way or another and in varying degrees of necessity, to get back to where he or she left off. Study session, at least for tonight, is not yet over. It's midterms season for Bea and the first quarter test is just around the corner for the younger ones.

My first impulse is to clear those desks. It takes a lot to restrain myself from doing so. Maybe they will wake up in a few hours and get back to their books. Maybe they will only fix their stuff when they've finished what they have to do. My intervention, however well-meaning, might not suit their purposes.

And so I switch on the computer and start typing this piece instead. The clutter around me feels like it has a life of it own but I ignore it. Maybe the solution is to get a bigger house where I can enjoy the relative order of my own room.

About this clutter that's now around me, over and below me, my kids will know what to do. I am not about to rob them of the satisfaction of putting their own things in order, knowing exactly where each item is, and feeling like they've got everything under control.

On the contrary, everything IS as it should be.

Are we ready for divorce?

published 16 August, Manila Standard Today

Yes, because there is something else that makes a sham of the institution of marriage.

The separation of husband and wife is never a happy matter. At worst, it is the failure of the most basic social institution, a source of trauma for the spouses and for the children, and the trigger to unleash the ugly sides to human nature – bitterness and vindictiveness, among others. At best, it is the liberation from a miserable relationship and the opportunity to start life over -- as though it were ever truly possible.

In the Philippines, there are three legal means by which marriages can be ended.

A declaration of nullity voids a marriage. It is as if there was no marriage between the parties to begin with. There are conditions that can make a marriage null and void, such as defects in the process, but the most popular ground for nullity is psychological incapacity of one or both parties. Article 36 of the Family Code of the Philippines, enacted in 1988, makes this possible. The effect is that it is as though the parties have been single all along, that the marriage was one bad dream.

An annulment recognizes the existence of a marriage until the time it is invalidated. The consent of one or both parties to the marriage must be proven somehow vitiated at the time of the exchange of vows, so that “they did not fully know what they were getting into.” After an annulment, parties are restored to their single status.

Legal separation, on the other hand, does not dissolve the marriage. It is still there, but the parties are allowed by law to live separately from one another. Because the marriage ties remain, neither of the parties are free to re-marry.

Now comes House Bill 1799, filed by Reps. Luzviminda Ilagan and Emerenciana de Jesus of the Gabriela Party List. The lawmakers believe that divorce should be made an additional option for couples with failed and irreparable relationships.

The bill says divorce can be an option in the event of:
 separation in fact: parties have been separated for 5 years wherein reconciliation is highly improbable;
 legal separation for at least two years wherein reconciliation is highly improbable;
 when the grounds for legal separation cause the irreparable breakdown of the marriage;
 psychological incapacity; and
 when parties suffer from irreconcilable differences that cause the irreparable breakdown of the marriage.

According to the bill’s supporters, there is no constitutional prohibition on divorce and that in fact, under Presidential Decree 1083, Filipino Muslims are allowed to get a divorce under certain conditions.

Opposition to the bill is vociferous -- and predictably so. The objection comes mainly from the Catholic Church and from politicians either with puritan Catholic views or with great fear of the political backlash of supporting such a bill. After all, some priests and bishops use the privilege of the pulpit to denounce politicians who advocate controversial causes, badmouthing them to the people whose votes they need to stay in office.

That divorce is a threat to the sanctity of marriage and the integrity of the family has often been cited. Critics of the bill say that this will cause young people not to take marriage seriously, knowing they can easily get out of it. Couples having problems would not try harder to save the relationship, there already being an easy way out.

Unfortunately, those who mouth these tired, old arguments don’t really know what they are talking about.

What causes the breakdown of a relationship is not the availability of divorce as an option but a behavior that emboldens a spouse to not treat his or her partner with respect and love. It is committing violence in any form, or infidelity. Indeed marriages fail because one or both of the parties do not get their act together.

Likewise, taking marriage seriously is an attitude molded in an individual – by his family, by his education, by his religion and society. We must change our views on why couples should get married in the first place. For example, and this applies especially to provinces, an unplanned pregnancy, BY ITSELF, is not enough reason to get hitched. At the onset, there should be a genuine commitment to stay on despite difficulties, work out differences – and that severance of the ties should be the very last resort.

The Philippines is one of only two countries in the world without absolute divorce (Malta is the other one). As for those who say that the predominance of Catholicism here should prevent us from even considering the urgency of the bill, take the example of Italy and Spain, two Catholic nations. The JLP blog (www.jlp-law.com) reports that “Italy registers a 7 percent [divorce] rate while Spain registers 15 percent. The figures reflect the strong influence of religious beliefs and culture on individuals in deciding to terminate marital relations.”

**

The most reasonable challenge posed to the divorce bill is that there are enough laws in place should a marital bond turn sour, so that there is no need for one more. Is this true? Do the grounds for declaration of nullity, annulment or legal separation cover the grounds wished to be addressed by divorce? Won’t they have the same effect, anyway?

I believe the most compelling argument for divorce, against a mere declaration of nullity, is the mockery caused by the very large margin of interpretation accorded to “psychological incapacity.” It has become a catch-all phrase to cover anything and everything from plain incompatibility to severe personality disorder. Indeed it is “subject to creativity,” says the Women’s Legal Bureau in an earlier paper.

It is the clinical psychologist who determines, through a battery of tests and interviews, whether a person is psychologically incapacitated. And there is a world of a difference between a couple whose marital woes are caused by legitimate and basic personality disorders from those who simply fell out of love or woke up to realize they don’t like the sound of their spouse’s voice anymore.

This freedom to determine what constitutes incapacity gives rise to ingenious ways a couple employs if the parties are desperate to get out of the marriage. They may exaggerate the facts of the marriage to make the conditions grave and reconciliation impossible. Thus, the creative clinical psychologists – expert witnesses, so they are called in court – are much sought after and generously paid.

The practice is also a source of corruption in the Judiciary. We have known about parties filing their petitions for nullity in far-flung areas, or in places they don’t really live or work or have property in, just because the judges there are more accommodating to “prior arrangements.”

If there is something that makes a sham out of the institution of marriage, these do. Why exaggerate the story of your life just to claim incapacity? Why pretend there was no marriage in the first place when there was, and it was probably good in the beginning, too? Why deny the plain truth that sometimes things just don’t work out and that people make mistakes? Finally, why lie or and invoke the power of money just to regain freedom when other similarly situated (or worse), but without the money, would simply be trapped into a loveless bond? Is this not the biggest mockery of all?


**

In the halls of Congress, where the battle must first be won, does the proposal even stand a chance? Or is it just one of those things that make a lot of noise in media but are really non-issues as far as lawmakers are concerned?

The bulk of the work now lies in convincing our lawmakers to give the matter some serious thought, shunning trite arguments for or against the proposal. After all, proponents of the divorce bill emphasize that the safeguards will be stringent and that people (and the courts) will resort to this option responsibly.

Appreciated properly, divorce will strengthen the family even more. Married couples, even when they have problems – and what couple doesn’t have problems? – will work on their differences and stay together despite the availability of the option to leave. The specter of divorce should motivate spouses to show good behavior toward their partner and not take anything for granted.

As for those unlucky enough to have made bad choices, divorce does provide a second chance, and the opportunity not necessarily to re-marry but to have peace of mind and regain their old selves back. Such healing is possible only through acknowledging and embracing past failures and experiences – and not denying that they happened in the first place.


adellechua@gmail.com

Laid-back me

It is one o'clock on a Saturday afternoon. I am alone -- and gloriously.

I hope I am in no danger of being misunderstood here. I love my kids and savor each minute we spend together. But the loner that I am, I sometimes feel cramped -- we are, after all, bunched up in a single bedroom (of beds and desks, nothing more) and relatively enjoy hanging out with one another. On any given evening, one may be on the computer, drawing (likely Elmo), paper-folding (likely Elmo, too), talking on the phone (likely the Big Kids), one or two may be studying, one may be reading (likely me), texting (likely Bea), strumming the guitar (likely Josh), one or two engrossed in a game. Indeed our bedroom doubles as music lounge, family den and library, and I don't even know how that is possible.

So today is a real treat.

It is our helper's day-off. The efficient Cathy seemed happy at getting her pay one day in advance. Josh and Sophie are in school rehearsing for a stage play they will appear in this Saturday, at the city auditorium. Elmo is with his father. Bea is with her dude-friend Edward, studying their separate lessons together. I have locked the front door and the windows, so nobody please ring the bell by mistake and burst my bubble.

I'm having lunch -- if lunch is what you would call a bowl of re-heated chicken sopas which was actually a leftover from breakfast. I don't like fussing around the kitchen on a Saturday, too. I've ordered siomai and heated last night's rice for Josh's and Sophie's lunch bags and I am quite fine with my soup -- look, I'm cooling it in front of the electric fan as I type. I also forgot to say I am starting to write my newspaper column -- and no, I don't do so against my will. The feeling of being productive is also something to relish, like a bowl of warm-to-the-stomach soup, a soft sugary doughnut, an glass of ice-cold, fresh coconut juice. The music of Jimmy Scott keeps me company.

It's peaceful and lovely and, I know, fleeting. I allow myself to savor it, be awed and inspired and recharged by it, before I step up to the role of superwoman again.

Women and messiahs

published 9 Aug 2010, MST

I thought I would depart from my usual one-column-one-theme practice and write about several different topics that have interested me lately.

Or maybe “interested” is not quite the word I am looking for. The plight of Iranian woman Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two who is on death row in Tabriz Prison in north-west Iran, should certainly be more than “interesting” to women all over the world. “Compelling” would be more apt.

Sakineh was found guilty in May 2006 of having an “illicit relationship” with two men. According to her defense, however, these two men were the murderers of her husband who had raped her after killing him. She was sentenced to 99 lashes, which had been carried out, but she remains in prison, awaiting the rest of her fate. Apparently her execution is a given—authorities are just deciding on how she would be killed.

The world first came to know of Sakineh’s plight about a month ago after her children made a plea to the international community to intervene in her case. The initial verdict was that Sakineh should be executed by stoning—a barbaric method whereby a woman is wrapped in cloth and buried from the neck down while numerous men hurl stones at her exposed head. (Iranian law is horribly lopsided; convicted men are buried from the waist down, and are free to go if they somehow manage to escape from the hole. A Web site reports that a woman, on the other hand, was able to get out of her hole and tried to run, but was captured, shoved back into the hole, and stoned to death, anyway.)

The international outcry was sparked by the stoning sentence, so that the Iranian government, as if to mock the global attention, now says Sakineh will most likely be executed by some other means (a final decision will reportedly be out this week). Still, the outcry must be sustained—any form of state-sponsored execution has no place in this civilized world. On the Web site freesakineh.org. more than 154 thousand have signed a petition to free the unfairly tried woman. But why should Iranian authorities care? Just recently it refused the offer of Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to grant asylum to Sakineh. Now her lawyer and his family are being persecuted —there goes a warning to other brave souls who might want to take up cudgels for the woman.

We take this for granted but in some societies, women do suffer inferior treatment. They don’t have a voice, and men can take the liberty to mangle their faces—literally —if they wished. Time magazine has on its cover Aisha, an Afghan woman without a nose. It was her husband who performed the dark deed as her brother-in-law held her down, all for the crime of fleeing her abusive in-laws’ home. Oh, and they sliced off her ears, too—it just didn’t show in the picture.

***

Over in Rwanda, President Paul Kagame appears assured of a fresh seven-year term, and it is said that even before the elections, preparations are already under way for his inauguration. Mr. Kagame is quite popular with the West, especially the United States and Britain. His economic reforms have markedly turned this central African country that became synonymous to “genocide” in 1994 around.

But the West’s approval, good economic fundamentals and the near-100 percent food security aside, insiders say Kagame’s human rights track record is shady—and that the man himself is sinister. Robert Kreuger, a former US congressman, senator, ambassador at large for Mexican affairs, ambassador to Burundi and ambassador to Botswana, writes in Foreign Policy that Rwandan journalists who have criticized Kagame are in prison; some of his earlier would-be opponents are dead, in prison, or in exile. Some newspapers have been shut down.

Kagame’s favorite line is that there are no more Hutus and Tutsis (ethnic groups whose rift caused the genocide) in his country, just Rwandans. But not a few Hutus are complaining that Tutsis—like Kagame—still ruled in Rwanda, and they are at a great disadvantage and threat.

In this part of the world, political repression is apparently a price to pay for economic gains.

But why is Mr. Kagame seen to be voted upon by as much as 94 percent of the people? We can’t really say. Maybe Rwandans don’t feel there is much of a choice, or they are prepared to embrace the trade-offs for the sake of a more stable economy. Maybe Mr. Kagame is too much of a figurehead for his countrymen—he packaged himself really well.

Here as everywhere, desperate people look for somebody larger than life to pin their hopes on, sometimes at whatever cost.

For Haitians, that larger-than-life hero may as well be musician Wyclef Jean, who remains active in causes for his native country even as he has migrated to the United States at age nine. Jean claims he has helped his country more than ever after January’s devastating earthquake (despite the protestations of actor Sean Penn). Now Jean says he is running for president, and he will represent the youth, and a new way of doing things.

Sadly, Haiti itself has suffered from generations of malgovernance resulting in poverty, lack of education and general frustration among its people. The earthquake shook the nation’s foundations in more ways than one, and it is still in tatters today. All of a sudden, this Grammy winner rises to become the face of his ravaged country. Will he be its agent of change?

Indeed some national leaders are intent on portraying themselves as all-powerful, despite evidence to the contrary and despite the absence of need for such. For instance, it is said that North Korea’s provocative acts of late—the sinking of a South Korean ship (which it has denied), and the flexing of nuclear muscle—is thought to be the handiwork of the Hermit Kingdom for the consumption of its own people rather than of the external world.

The present leader, Kim Jong Il, is reportedly ailing and is grooming his son as his successor. Now the son has to display some bravado to endear himself to the people—and by endear I mean an almost hilarious fanatical reverence. A National Geographic documentary showed how North Koreans attributed all things good to their Dear Leader, despite the glaring inadequacy of social services, which they are always willing to overlook.

* * *

Filipino women have it better, of course, but there are some cultural practices that continue to figuratively imprison them especially if they are unfortunate enough to be born poor. Millions of women are not aware that they have choices and that they can actually have a say on how to live their lives. They can determine when to have children and how many. They can refuse their husbands’ sexual advances. They can discover that pregnancy and motherhood can be a safe, joyful and fulfilling experience.

They just need to be informed and helped so they could help themselves.

We Filipinos also have the tendency to portray our leaders, national and local alike, as more than the public servants they really are. Instead we see them as benefactors, agents of change, and role models. Because of these high expectations, we almost always get frustrated, and almost always end up criticizing, if not vilifying them. When will we ever learn that nothing rests solely on one man or woman, and that an entire nation’s salvation lies on its citizens?

Our leaders do not owe us a bright future. We owe it to ourselves, and to the next generation, to participate and be vigilant.

adellechua@gmail.com

Any given Sunday

I have gotten used to going to work on Sundays. It's the only day my colleagues and I can work on the Monday paper. Despite the fact that I have to make the trip to the office and back, I've loosened up and somehow managed to see it as part of my weekend. I am able to spend time with the kids, or a permutation of them, and on occasion I even bring along one of them, so long as they promise to behave and not disturb anybody.

Today was different.

My unusual Sunday started with an unusual Saturday night. I usually write my column then, but it was raining intermittently so that the internet connection was bad. I could not do a decent research for my chosen topic, a piece on international issues that I somehow found moving. I decided to sleep it out, feeling a bit bad that my original column idea for that week, an interview with a PAL pilot, had fizzled out. He called off our meeting at the last minute. There goes a timely exclusive, I thought, but then again my friend must have his reasons, and I understood.

In the morning, I was supposed to finish what I had started the previous night. I was not able to. I was not in the best of moods; I felt space-cramped and pressured. I went out for lunch with Bea and Josh, who "prevailed upon" me to hold a Big Kids' Day at the mall (Sophie and Elmo were both with their father).

But Bea was not well -- again. She said she was having a gastritis attack, on top of the infection we had been curing for only the second day. We three had a most unremarkable fastfood lunch which we did not even finish. We went to the doctor again. This time, Bea was given a barrage of medicines. Watsons was so pleased with my purchases that it gave me a pouch.

I brought Bea home to organize her intakes and rushed to leave again for work. I saw it was nearing 3pm -- and the sky was getting darker by the minute. I hailed a tricycle to take me to the highway, and I had barely sat down when the downpour began. Then I realized I had forgotten my jacket.

An hour and a half passed. I got out of the trike, climbed a bus amid the downpour, took the train, and walked the usual thirty minutes' hike. When I got to the office, I saw that my Monday columnists had already turned in their pieces -- except for one. That one was me. And then I remembered that the business editor who writes the Monday editorial had sent me a text message earlier that day informing me he was down with the flu. This meant one thing -- I had to write the editorial myself, even though my schedule was for the Tuesday and Thursday issues.

The plate of cold (but delicious) pancit bihon waiting for me at my table was a small consolation.

I summoned all my might to squeeze an editorial out of my harried brain, and all before I had gotten back to my half-baked column. All these I did after I had gotten the editing out of the way. Thankfully, my Monday columnists are not as demanding as the others.

Sometimes you get so overwhelmed with things you have to do that you stop thinking about how you are going to do them. And you just do them. And then it was eight o'clock and I was done. I wonder if tomorrow's readers would notice that two out of three articles on page 4 were written by the same frenetic, mildly crazed woman.

It was time to go home. I had called Bea and was pleased to note that she had taken her pills on schedule and that she picked up the phone with her usual "Welcome to China Bank, may I help you?" chirp. This meant she was not too much in pain. From the background, Josh yelled that finally, he had gone to see Angelina Jolie's SALT, alone, and that he had gotten his haircut (about which I had been nagging him for three days). I packed my things and boarded the elevator.

The malls I usually passed were, I guessed, closed already at the time and I was in no mood to hike happily. A cab drove by. I flagged it down. I boarded and asked the driver to take me to the MRT Station in Ayala. And then I changed my mind: Would he kindly take me to Valenzuela? Oddly enough, he agreed. (Note: Most cabbies usually don't like going that far north, where I live.) For a brief moment I struggled with feelings of guilt at...spending that much on a ride. My office, after all, was a good 20 kilometers from my house. The bill would come up to P220.

I decided to quash the ugly heads of misplaced guilt. It was a long, stressful, tiring day. I owed myself a little comfort. I leaned back and enjoyed the ride. EDSA on a Sunday was a breeze, and I liked the way the city lights blinked from beyond the wet, cold windows of the cab.

I was home in thirty minutes. Bea and Josh were studying upstairs but I didn't greet them immediately. I needed to be by myself for a while. I fixed myself a bowl of mami and a glass of fresh buko juice.

Tomorrow will bring its own challenges, I thought. I was simply thankful that I had made it through this Sunday. And then I wondered if I would soon have the opportunity to write about this crazy day. After that, I knew, I would feel so much better.

As I feel now.

Hail to the Queen

I got a chess set this weekend. Elmo was overjoyed – he was the one who asked me to get it, anyway – but it was really for us five. Inexpensive, intellectually stimulating family bonding tools are hard to come by, so I grabbed the opportunity.

I knew the basic moves of the game so I was able to pass on my very elementary knowledge to Elmo as well as to Sophie. By dinner time, all three of us were taking turns around the green-and-white board. Soon enough, Elmo was uttering phrases like “I have a plan!” with his eyes twinkling. He was trying to look mysterious when he simply looked adorable to me. I remember thinking, I don’t exactly wish Elmo would be the next Wesley So, but I would sure like it if he could perfect his “planning” proficiency and apply the process to all his other mental functions. Then I’d be sure he’d do well, in whatever field.

And because I have not held a chess piece in years , much less contemplated a move or hatched a “plan,” I realized with a start – and great delight -- how matriarchal the game of chess is.

The Queen is just so powerful. She can move forwards, backwards and sideways. In contrast, the king’s movements are restricted. He can take any step in any direction, but it’s a single step, nothing more. He relies on everybody, including his queen, to trip over themselves protecting him. When they are gone, he becomes highly vulnerable ; an easy target.

When the Queen falls, it is likely that the king will do, too, shortly, and the game would be over. She, as well as the pawns, rooks, horses and bishops all exist to protect this feeble, do-nothing baby of a figurehead.

Quite interesting. And -- because I know many women who have no qualms wearing many hats, even men’s, and who succeed – also quite true.

Anticipation

A Norwegian fjord, strikingly similar to the one in my dream (photo courtesy of pbase.com/ Norway revisited 4116, Dave Wit)

These days I feel like I am a different person altogether.

My senses are all perked up. I see, smell, hear, feel and taste everything as if doing so for the first time. I revel in the utter predictability of my days yet cannot shake off the feeling that I am waiting for something, something big, something life-changing.

Some suspense, indeed. My problem is that I do not quite know what that something is.

My heart beats just a little faster. There is an element of skip as I put one foot in front of the other. I hum to myself even as I cook lunch. I have this compulsion to check my mail every so often. I welcome my daily, hour-long city hike, wondering if I should get the answers from anybody from the stream of faces I come into contact with. My head bursts with ideas -- things to write about, people to see, projects to plan, even mundane chores to do for the house. In the late nights, I joke with the children even as they are weary from their day, struggle with homework and are about to fall asleep.

I sleep a lot better these days, too. I wake up refreshed, no backaches, thank you very much, with a vivid recollection of dreams I just had -- images, people, emotions, colors. Recently I woke up in tears -- I had just dreamed about burying my grandmother -- yet awash with an immense sense of peace. And then I remembered that the backdrop of the funeral was a Norwegian fjord.

Are these feelings founded? I hope so, but really, I do not know. Is there something that awaits me? I am sure there is, I am only 34 and working hard, yet I have no clue whether this something is the one to which all these happy nerves are pointing to.

Shall it be a piece of good news? An opportunity? An acquaintance? Pray tell, I wish I knew.

Or maybe not. I kind of enjoy this heightened existence.

Friends rule

I am happy that I see/ talk to at least one friend a week these days -- and make new ones along the way.

My being in Makati makes me accessible to more of them, or makes more of them accessible to me. When I was still in Port Area, I felt like I had been exiled. I had to make a big effort to reach out, or they had to go out of their way to be near where I was. Now, no more. Plus, of course, there is technology which makes many things possible.

Last week I had dinner and coffee with Jenny in Greenbelt, just a few steps away from the office. I met Jenny in 2005 at a Quezon City company where we both worked. Our engagement with that company soon ended, but not our friendship. We shared too many things in common. We continued to keep up with each other and now have lunch or dinner every couple of months or so. She's a writer, too, and publishes her pop-culture column for my section of the newspaper once a week.

When I got home, I got a phone call from another Jennie - my friend from grade school and the godmother of my daughter Bea. Jennie has been in Canada since 2007. I was overjoyed to hear her voice again -- it's been a while since I last spoke to her. I think it was two years ago since I did, when she called me to say her boyfriend Thomas had proposed marriage. Well, I may just be doing more than hearing Jennie's voice soon; she's planning a vacation -- with Thomas, who is now her husband, and I can't wait to see my friend as a married woman. Too many things have happened since I saw her last, and I bet she'll be floored when she sees, in person, how much her goddaughter, and her three adopted godkids as well, have grown.

Last night I had dinner and took the train with Bates, another friend from way back and another godmother to Bea. My last meeting with Bates was about six months ago, after my birthday, when we saw a sappy local romantic movie which was silly but made us cry, anyway (Okay, Miss You Like Crazy). Bates had only recently moved to another company, and had much to share about her new job as well as about her dad, nieces and husband. She taught me how take round-trips in the MRT for guaranteed seating. It added maybe 20 minutes to the trip, but who minded? It was a great way to catch up on what had been happening. With Bates, you're sure to get a few hearty laughs. That's just the way she is, and how soothing for the soul!

Soon, too, I will be seeing another kumare, Rose, Elmo's godmother. I met Rose in 2001 when we were both working for a small public relations firm. That engagement, too, did not last long, but we have kept up. Rose's kids are about the same age as mine. I last saw her only two weeks ago, a few hours before that typhoon Basyang made landfall in Luzon -- and caused two days of power failure as a result. There was a late-afternoon to early-evening downpour which flooded Manila's streets and brought a thicker-than-usual rush hour crowd. Rose, who worked in an office just around the corner from mine, suggested we have a nice dinner of Goto at the SM Foodcourt. Too many people had the same idea -- it was a cold, cozy, stormy night, after all -- so the store had run out of Goto but the La Paz Batchoy was just as warm to the stomach.

And there will be more meetings. There is Neema, one of my few college friends whom I only reconnected with recently after she saw my column on the newspaper at her table in Starbucks. Neema lives in Alabang so Makati is a good compromise meeting place. She has two boys and has expressed a desire to write part-time. I think she has much to say -- she has studied in Hong Kong, Japan and the US, and has dealt with two miscarriages.

I also look forward to catching up with another friend from way back, Berna, who I remember best as my seatmate senior year and who now works for a big pharmaceutical company in the other side of Makati. This one's extremely challenging because Berna, who used to live in good old Kalookan, now lives in Laguna. I am always touched that she reads this blog and drops me a line from time to time, but of course it is always better to catch up in person.

In the meantime, the Internet has enabled me to meet and interact with new people. Belma Villa, a Filipino living in Tacoma, Washington, initially sent me an article for the Standard's Diaspora section. (It's a space we give to Filipinos working or living abroad). A few exchanges later, Belma told me she was reading my blog and shared a few things about her own family as well. Needless to say, we are slowly becoming friends, and I hope she will forgive me for saying this, but I almost fell off my seat when I read in one of her pieces that she had just turned 62. I felt, all the while, that I was conversing with somebody who was only a few years older than me. Belma says, though, that she still feels 30ish and is sometimes surprised when she looks at the mirror. Certainly I look forward to meeting her in February when she and her friends come to Manila for a reunion.

Finally, there are bleubug and iowapinoy, two bloggers to whom Jenny introduced me. They are actually American Thomas and Iowa-based Filipino Amer (I also got acquainted with Amer's wife Eva in Facebook) who occasionally leave nice, thoughtful notes in this blog or in my FB postings. Sometimes you can't believe people can't be that nice, especially if they have no reason to be: i.e., you are total strangers, you share no history nor special interests, and you are both busy. I appreciate their reaching out.

I took a personality quiz once and I was profiled as an INFJ (like Jesus Christ, no kidding) -- introverted, intuitive, and one who uses feelings and judgment. Listed among the qualities of an INFJ, called "The Confidant", is that he or she normally has a few friends of long standing instead of a wide circle of acquaintances. I find this most accurate in my case. I am quite happy with my cozy circle.

Indeed, friends prop you up, cheer you on, indulge your occasional need to babble or think aloud, and sometimes whack you on the head to enable you to see things for what they really are. Through the exchange of views and the differences in personalities and backgrounds, they help you become a more well-rounded person while affirming your individuality. Whether they do it consciously or not, they give you balance and good perspective.

Finally, friends don't break your heart.

Immigration drama

Is anybody entitled – or doomed – to a particular territory just by accident of birth?

published 02 Aug 2010, MST

It’s easy to play up the human-interest angle in reporting the latest developments on immigration laws in the United States. CNN, for example, featured a family of Mexicans in Arizona who, in the days leading to the effectivity of Arizona's Senate Bill 1070, lived in fear and insecurity about what was going to happen.

The matriarch had fled to the US 20 years ago to escape dire poverty in her home country. She raised a family there, and now even her grandchildren, attending US middle schools, face the threat of being kicked out of the territory and shipped back to Mexico – where nothing awaits them.

The Arizoina bill, however, widely perceived as a statute that comes down heavily on illegal immigrants, was defanged by a judge just a day before it was due to take effect. Judge Susan Bolton said sure, the law could take effect Thursday (July 29th) as planned, but not with its controversial provision allowing police officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws, if there appears a “reasonable suspicion” that the person might be in the US illegally. (“Reasonable suspicon,” the law adds, can be gleaned from dress, demeanor, and the act of “traveling in tandem.")

Bolton also blocked the part that required immigrants to prove they were authorized to be in the US – or risk being charged.

The original law is popular with the conservative white population in Arizona. Now Bolton, by toning it down, has been called an “activist judge” who issued her ruling “on bad faith” that the state would implement the law in the wrong manner, says the New York Times' Opinionator column. She is reportedly receiving threats to her life.

Still, around 70 people have been arrested using parts of the law that were not blocked, The Huffington Post reported Sunday. How they will be detained, of course, is another story.  Will they be exposed to others in jail for more serious offenses like rape or murder?

**

According to an August 2007 study by Michael Hoefer, Nancy Rytina and Christopher Campbell, there are an estimated 280,000 Filipinos who are illegally in the United States. They make up two percent of the total number of illegals. (Mexicans make up 57 percent while those
from El Salvador and Guatemala account for four percent each.) Other estimates place the number to as high as a million.

We know, of course, about the travails of these illegals, known to us as TNT (Tago Nang Tago, or “in constant hiding”).  We have seen countless movies showing their hardships and their obstinacy in staying on, nonetheless.  Some of us may actually know people who began as illegals and eventually acquired legitimate status.  Some of those we know may still be in constant hiding.

Filipinos in the United States are said to be divided on the immigration issue.  A Filipino Express online poll revealed that more Fil-Ams are not in favor of a federal bill that seeks to legalize illegal immigrants. In a survey among 770 respondents conducted between January 11 and March 4 this year, more than 58 percent said no to legalization. Thirty-eight percent were for it while a little over three percent were indifferent.

Initially it does not make sense. One would expect that a group’s sympathies would lie in favor of those with whom it shares a similar background. Why should not Fil-Ams want their fellow Filipinos to attain the same legitimate status and enjoy the things that come with it, such as having basic fredoms and the opportunity for financial betterment? What kind of crab mentality is this? Then again, others agrue that these Fil-Ams (and likely the generation before them) worked hard to achieve their legitimate status. Thus, it does not seem fair to them to see others achieving the same results after putting in just a little effort, albeit with a lot of guts.

On the other hand, a more widespread belief is that legalizing illegal immigrants will be good for the US economy. The Web site www.visajourney.com published the statement of The National Federation of Filipino American Associations with regard to the anti-immigration stance of the state of Arizona.

The Federation's statement quotes noted writer Carlos Bulosan who said that "in many ways, it was a crime to be a Filipino in California.” Bulosan wrote this ages ago, of course, and many things have changed. The Federation says Fil-Ams “have enriched America with our skills and talents. We have built strong communities and contributed immensely to our nation's progress.”

**

Illegal immigration is a sensitive issue.  It has great political implication, because immigrants, once they (and their extended family and friends) are legalized, are voters, too. Immigration reform was one of the issues that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama promised to look into. He won 66 percent of Latino votes.

The socio-economic implications are trickier. Illegal immigrants are consumers of goods and services. They contribute to the economy through labor and taxes. But they are also an expense: they need education, healthcare and other social services, even law enforcement. They throw their garbage. Because of their anonymity, some are less inhibited to commit petty crimes.

Furthermore, they are willing to accept lower wages that legitimate citizens don’t normally take; this skews wage levels. They become attractive to businessmen who are willing to skirt some laws to lessen their costs. Now whether illegal immigrants tend to be more of a burden or a cost to the American economy is a matter of research and debate. A study by Nobel laureate economist Paul Samuelson from Massachussetts Institute of Technology indicates that illegal immigration had a substantial effect on reducing the economic status of US poor while benefiting middle class individuals and wealthier Americans.

This, as well as all other arguments, is looking at the matter from the point of view of somebody whose territory is being encroached on. I will certainly feel that way if I were a white American living in a border town, or a Manilan who sees the urban population of my city increasing with the arrival of “immigrants” from the provinces who claim they want a better life here – notwithstanding the risks of being lumped together with the millions of urban poor in squatter colonies. We will always feel protective of our turf; that’s how we are wired.

But there’s another point of view here, and that’s the one of the immigrants themselves. Nobody in his right mind would risk leaving everything behind and face an uncertain future without good reason. But desperation is good reason. The immigrants who brave the border guards or stay in the US long after they are allowed to – or even those who go to Manila without knowing a single Tagalog word – are most likely desperate to get out of the environment they were born to.

Is anybody ever entitled – or doomed – to a particular territory just by accident of birth?  How lucky those born in First World countries are, with their state-subsidized basic education, healthcare and generous leave allowances, their equal opportunities for education and career advancement, so they could live a fuller life!

In the meantime, shall those unfortunate enough to be natives of places reeking of exploited natural resources, mismanaged public funds, rampant corruption and dire poverty just suffer their fate and stay?

Most do, but some decide to try their luck in other countries, legitimately or not. The practice of stopping them from doing so, while legally defensible, does not sound as just or humane. The only humane thing to do is to get the countries of origin of these immigrants to shape up so that nobody would ever want to leave, at least for good.

That is, of course, a tall order and a problem that has never been solved . Still, everybody, wherever he is born, has the right to a full and dignified life. To dream of being able to do that and to take action despite the odds is not a crime. The real crime is going on with practices that bleed countries dry, frustrate citizens and drive them out to seek their fortune in other lands.

The news network is in good company. The human-interest angle to the immigration issue is indeed the most compelling of all.