It would perhaps be educational for everybody else who seems to agree that Martial Law was not the best idea if Marcos loyalists — many of whom were born after the dictator fled the country in disgrace — would share their sources. Either of stories about how life was great back then, or of the drugs they seem to be taking to believe that Marcos deposited tons of gold at the World Bank (which does not quite work like a regular bank where people deposit things, in any case) for the benefit of the Filipino people.
Chismissing The Point
Earlier this week, Cristina Ponce Enrile, wife of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile and former ambassador to the Vatican, corroborated rumors of an affair between Enrile and his former chief-of-staff Gigi Reyes, a revelation that is about as earth-shaking as it is in the public interest (i.e. not at all).
Here is a Rappler transcription of Mrs. Enrile’s supposed tell-all interview aired over GMA News TV:
“I had heard that she was already too long. He has had many girls before Gigi but they don’t last too long. With Gigi, it lasted long. Somebody told me that it’s not only this time but more years that you don’t know. That’s what got me…,” she said.
While marginally significant because Reyes has been accused, along with Enrile, of plunder for supposedly diverting money from the Priority Development Assistance Fund, there is nothing in the interview that moves the case against the former Senate president either forward or back. read more
The people behind EDSA Tayo are EDSA too
Much has been said about the EDSA Tayo prayer vigil/rally/something something set for September 11 at the EDSA Shrine, very little of it from the organizers themselves.
Many, including the apparent leading lights of the supposedly spontaneous “Million People March” at the Quirino Grandstand on August 26, have either distanced themselves or have denounced the so-called “Million People March 2”, saying it has nothing to do with them.
Our favorite activist of convenience even made a plea over Twitter to “STOP calling the EDSA protest on September 11 ‘MillionPeopleMarch2’ because it is NOT. Thanks.” And although this website is not a fan of some of the organizers of the EDSA Tayo rally and also finds the coincidence of it falling on the late Ferdinand Marcos’s birthday questionable, they are at least to be commended for having the balls to come out for something that, if online traction is any indicator, will bring in much fewer people than the August 26 protest. read more
Lapu-Lapu City: Serious Business
Lapu-Lapu City is apparently up in arms over a TV commercial that shills diapers and also “gravely insults” the city named after Datu Lapu-Lapu, former ruler of Mactan.
The ad, for EQ diapers, implies the Battle of Mactan was not fought because Lapu-Lapu refused to pay tribute to the King of Spain but because Ferdinand Magellan gave him inferior diapers as a gift.
Here it is in all its gravely insulting glory:
Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Razada said in a press conference that “distorting history and making the Battle of Mactan look funny on TV is a lame attempt to promote a product.” She has demanded an apology from the diaper company and wants the ad pulled off the air.
“I am disturbed to hear young children talk about the ad and consider it as a true reflection of history,” she also said, which, really, says more about the country’s education system than anything else. If our kids cannot tell the difference between make believe and history, parents and teachers are to blame, not advertising creatives who were only doing their jobs.
This isn’t the first time that EQ has gravely insulted history to sell its diapers, either. It has released an ad featuring Cleopatra, which sparked fierce protests across Egypt, and an ad with an Elvis Genie, which doesn’t even really exist.
In the past, the city also took umbrage at a local fish being referred to as a Lapu-Lapu. Since 1996, the Lapu-Lapu fish has been referred to–by virtue of an ordinance–as the “Pugapo”, its original and unappealing name. The city council passed the ordinance because it “exposes Lapu-Lapu City to ridicule and embarrassment because more often the city is identified with the fish rather than with the hero.”
The council has yet to propose and put to a vote another true travesty against Lapu-Lapu, the 2002 Lito Lapid movie of the same name.
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(Thx for the input, D.B.!)
Ferdinand Topacio: The Hit(ler)s Keep On Coming
The Littlest Nazi, lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, is still going on about how great Adolf Hitler was, apparently.
According to ABS-CBN:
“Walang nailabas na pagpapatibay na may official state policy ang Germany sa ilalim ng National Socialist regime na patayin ang mga Hudyo. Ang gusto lamang nila ay ilayo o i-segregate, o i-exile ang mga Hudyo (There is no proof that killing Jews was an official state policy. They only wanted to segregate or exile the Jews),” he said.
And that, according to Topacio, Â is fine because 1. you can’t prove Hitler had anything to do with it (He was just the Leader) and 2. a little segregation never hurt anybody.
He goes on to say that if Pulse Asia, a survey firm, was around in World War II Germany, it would probably report that more than 90% of Germans would agree the Jews were treated fairly. “But was it right? You tell me.”
It was wrong, you fucking cunt. The deaths of millions of people, including Jews, gypsies, gays, lesbians, and other people generally considered not-Aryan, is wrong. Â Invading other countries to get some “living space” is wrong. Â Herding people into trains to bring them to concentration camps and their statistically-eventual death is wrong.
Quick to rise (but actually too late) to the defense of Holocaust victims was lawyer Argee Guevarra, who called Topacio a “history buffoon” before conveniently using the deaths of millions to make a political point:
“I would like to believe that Atty. Ferdie Topacio’s idolatry of Adolf Hitler and his pro-Nazi sentiments  are motivated only by his zealous desire to defend even the indefensible, such as his client, former President Gloria Macapagal Arrovo, este, Arroyo,” he said in a statement. [emphasis supplied]
Two things: Bad as Arroyo was, she was not Hitler. She was not even Marcos, come to that. Throwing away lines like that is lazy and disrespectful of people who actually suffered under either Hitler or Marcos.
Plus that whole “este (err)” thing? That only works in Enteng Kabisote movies, and only when delivered by Enteng Kabisote. It was funny in the 1990s, when it was used as a device to tell the audience what a character really thought of someone else. Â (Ex. monster-in-law, este, mother-in-law.) It does not work in a press statement that was presumably edited before being printed and sent out to the press.
And Guevarra is no less a “history buffoon” than Topacio, apparently:
Guevarra said he wishes Topacio well in his “campaign against the Aquino administration’s Final Solution to the Arroyo Question.” He also offered his legal services in case Topacio becomes the subject of a lawsuit of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
He added that many lawyers will support Topacio if he decides to ask a local court to allow Mrs. Arroyo to be detained in a gas chamber in the former concentration camp in Auschwitz. “I will even donate my entire savings from my law practice in 2011 to pay for GMA’s travel to Poland,” he said.
“Final Solution,” of course, refers to the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” which in the Nazi context was (very simplistically): “What do we do with all these Jews?*” The apparent answer to that question was the systematic attempt to rid Europe of them. In contrast, the only Arroyo question, really, is “what is she not guilty of, and how do we prove that?”
Guevarra further belittles the Holocaust by offering to “donate my entire savings from my law practice in 2011 to pay for GMA’s travel to Poland” where he proposes the former President should then be shipped to Auschwitz. So, yeah, basically, the Jews sent there deserved it as much as Arroyo, he says.  And he is only correct in this sense: Nobody deserved to be sent there.
Next up, probably: Bataan Death March: Was It Really That Bad? It’s Like A Walking Tour of Luzon.
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*Properly, the Jewish Question predates the Nazis and referred to the question of Jewish identity in the context of the rise of nations in Europe.
Ferdinand Topacio, Bachelor of Laws: Godwin’s and Martial
Henceforth, Atty. Ferdinand Topacio, lawyer to the Arroyos, can no longer be relied on to make valid arguments. Godwin’s Law is in full effect:
News website Rappler.com, the Philippine journalism equivalent of the Avengers, reports Topacio admires Hitler for his “single-minded vision for what he felt was better for all members of society.”
Hitler, the infamous Fuhrer, had long been scorned by historians because of his anti-Semitic views which led to the inhumane killing of Jews. As many as six million are believed to have perished, many of them in gas chambers.
But to Topacio, an “amateur historian†by his own admission, Hitler is “one of the most misunderstood historical figures. “His main fault, his main crime, was that he lost the war. And as you know, history is written by the victors,†he says in an interview with Rappler.
Atty. Topacio may, of course, just be being an original hipster by a. liking something that other people hate or b. doing it ironically to see whether his clients are smart enough to “get it.”
At any rate, Topacio is right when he calls himself an “amateur historian”, but only in the sense that he does not seem to have a working grasp of history.
A report from The Daily Tribune:
“President Aquino must be reminded that even during Martial Law, during the height of the Marcos rule which the Aquinos and their allies have consistently denounced and even at present continue to demonize, the Aquino family was allowed to leave to join Senator Ninoy Aquino for medical attention in the United States,†said Topacio.
“It is thus most execrable for the present government to accord such treatment to the Arroyos that is worse than what they had experienced during the Marcos administration,†the lawyer stressed.
Internet Research and How Not To Do It
The Internet is such a wonderful thing for the curious.
Anyone can go online and have almost any question answered by downloading free books from Project Gutenberg, or using Wikipedia as a jump-off point for further research. With the right kind of eyes, you can even gain access to entire peer-reviewed journals and scientific papers.
Or, you can do your Internet research the lazy way:
I would not be the least bit surprised if “IVAN” actually thought he was sending a message to former chief justice Jose Abad Santos and that Abad Santos would rise from the grave, walk to the library, and look it up “faster cause this is IVAN’s report.”
Fuck you, guy. That is the Philippine flag.
Fuck you, guy. That is the Philippine flag that my grandfather spent most of his life fighting for. He did not survive the Death March and a Huk ambush and then ironically die from an incorrectly diagnosed stomach problem at Veterans Memorial Medical Center so you can use it as as a goddamned sun shade.
Also, fuck you, Doroteo Jose station of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 for putting up a Philippine flag near wet paint and letting paint stain that flag so it looks like some guy used it to wipe his ass. If you’re going to put up a flag to mark our Independence Day, know that is not just some funky Pinoy Pride curtain.
Happy birthday, Dr. Jose Rizal
“We have already spoken of the more or less latent predisposition
which exists in the Philippines toward indolence, and which must
exist everywhere, in the whole world, in all men, because we all
hate work more or less, as it may be more or less hard, more or less
unproductive.”–Dr. Jose Rizal
4 “Drugs” Of The 1990s
Judging from the drug cartels that have allegedly infiltrated show business circles and the recent nationwide drug testing in schools, the Philippines must be awash in narcotics of all kinds.
Things were not always this way, though. Back when all the addicts had to go on were meth and marijuana, people went to great lengths to get high. High enough to believe that totally non-narcotic products could give them some sort of buzz, at least.
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