The Construct

Irritating as it is, this whole hostage-taking situation has gone from bad to worse.

Call me crazy, but Rolando Mendoza’s story is just one of those where you can say, “I don’t say I agree with what he did, but I understand.” Getting sacked and taking the fall while many of his higher ups were undoubtedly more corrupt, come on.

Pretty much like OJ Simpson. Quoting Chris Rock, “He’s [OJ] paying $25000 a month in alimony, got a another man driving around in his car and fucking his wife in a house he’s still paying the mortgage on. Now I’m not saying he should have killed her… but I understand.”

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See? It wasn’t simply the incident that set people off, it’s the way we handle the situation. And yes, we’ll cry racism when we see these kinds of things on the Internet:

PS: As a casual Flash game designer, I have to say this was done in absolutely bad taste. At ibinandera mo pa talagang Pilipino ka.

That probably happened to you. You fancied trying out a restaurant for the first time. You plunk down on your seat. You flip through the menu from end to end. Then you flip through it again. There’s not one thing that you’d like to eat. Then you think whether you’d get up and leave or just settle for what you think is their most palatable dish even if it’s named “Binarurot na Tambakol” or something.

That’s exactly the feeling I have looking at the choices among the candidates for president in the 2010 elections. Here are my current takes on the presidential candidates.

• Noynoy Aquino – The guy thinks that the presidency is a birthright. Not to mention that he doesn’t have any accomplishments to boot. If this guy wins, Kris will be the most powerful woman in the country.
• JC de los Reyes – Uh. Yeah. This guy.
• Jamby Madridal – Not really aware of her agenda so pretty hard to tell. Has a bit of a leftist leaning.
• Erap Estrada – ~@_@~ (Not a big fan of emoticons, but come on…)
• Dick Gordon – Good administrator from what you can see from SBMA track record so he just might be a good chief executive. He seemed to have slacked off for the past years though. And he’s running with Bayani.
• Gibo Teodoro – On paper, one of the better candidates. But he’s running as the administration’s The Chosen One so he’s like steak with shit as gravy.
• Eddie Villanueva – I don’t seem to be comfortable with voting a guy who straddles that line between Church and State as Head of State?
• Manny Villar - The “I wuz poor” thing has gotten old. He’s been rich for so long.

The thing is, with a dish, you really won’t know if it’s any good unless you’ve tried it.

Rizal Day. To me, it’s just a holiday extender. Something to lengthen the no-work build-up towards the new year.

Of all the historical figures we now dub “heroes,” only Jose Rizal’s life and works are mandated by law to be studied as a college course in the form of PI 100 (known to some students as Putang Ina 100). And what did I learn about Rizal in all my years studying him?

Thanks to Prof. Ocampo and a few other readings, all I know is he’s just a rich kid who had some pretty radical ideas and experimented with penis weights. Oh sure, maybe he’s a genius. But did I ever consider growing up wanting to be shot by firing squad just before the new year? Hell no. Even in the grade school toss-up between Rizal and Andres Bonifacio, I’d take Andres. I particularly liked violence as a method of conflict resolution as a kid.

But all this national hero debate is just a mental exercise. As far as culture and tradition are concerned, we Filipinos have a pretty messed up notion of what a hero is.

So many people think that as long as you’re doing your job, you should be commended. Here, you build an ill-placed waiting shed with substandard materials using taxpayers money allocated specifically for development purposes, and you can already claim it as your key accomplishment. We just love to bestow upon ourselves these false senses of entitlement even if all you’re doing is just what you’re supposed to do.

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Help! Help! I'm being repressed!

People would consider doing “the same thing” every year during that long stretch of 100 Days before Christmas up until Epiphany (Three Kings to all other Catholics not institutionalized by Catholic private schools).

Sure, there’s the Filipino part to it. The parol. The dawn masses. The noche buena. A couple of things that I really don’t get is the fake plastic pine trees and mall Santas. Yeah, a pine tree in the tropics. (Are you suggesting pine trees migrate?) History and social conditioning tells me that there’s just something plain wrong with some old Caucasian guy with Southeast Asian kids sitting on his lap. (Racist!)

And there’s always the commercial aspect to it making more jaded people (like me) believe fervently. December’s peppered with all sorts of Christmas parties that it becomes obligatory for one to blow a substantial part of one’s income on gifts when there’s always a very low chance that the gift would really put a smile on that person’s mug.

We’ve even institutionalized it with the whole exchange gift/monito monita thing complete with a price cap. Never mind if we all have better uses for that money. Remember Sheldon Cooper’s remark on gift-giving. Might as well exchange X number of pesos every year. Set up a trust. Have it earn interest.

It’s quite nice to know that despite all of this blatant bullshit, some people still adhere to the whole spiritual aspect of Christmas. The spirit of unconditional giving and the value of the family.

Happy Christmas, everyone!