Ultimate Boracay High

I have been going to Boracay since the late 1980s back when Tirol & Tirol was still considered the best lodging inn and the Beachcomber was the most "happening" place on the island. It used to be that the only activities you can do in Boracay were swimming, snorkeling, biking and renting a banca to go "feed-the-fish." Now, there are a myriad offerings to suit all the needs and tastes of all kinds of people. Today one can go parasailing, shopping, scuba diving, banana boat riding, etc. - and repeat vacationers usually are looking for more new "Boracay adventures" to tell their officemates in Makati or Ortigas. So for all those looking for a new adventure in Boracay, I suggest you get the ultimate high: a 30-minute joyride in a chopper! Yes folks, there are now helicopters available for rent in Boracay!

That's nearby Carabao island, the next Boracay.

Cigarettes Now in "Sachet" Pack

It is well-known that the Philippines has a "tingi-tingi" culture, as epitomized by the ubiquitous neighborhood tindahan where people can buy practically anything by the tingi. We are all familiar with the sachet-sized shampoo and conditioner, soap and toothpaste, heck you can even buy cooking oil in tube-sized ice-candy wrappers. But I thought I'll never see the day when tobacco multinational corporations in the Philippines will sell cigarettes by the sachet (see photo).

Each sachet pack contains five (5) sticks of cigarettes (see photo below) and sells for about P7.50 retail. Aside from the attractive plastic pack, there is also a cardboard "brace" at the back to protect the cigarettes from bending. I don't know if it is available in the city but I bought this in one of the interior towns.

As I am constantly trying to cut back on my smoking, I might just decide to buy Marlboro in a Sachet from now on.

Mga Dunganon nga Tawo

The book "Clash of Spirits" by Filomeno Aguilar, Jr. has some very interesting insights on Ilonggo culture and the concept of the "dunganon nga tawo." Translated literally in English, the Ilonggo term dunganon nga tawo means "a powerful man" or a person of great stature. I believe dunganon (pronounced as dung.ga.nun) is derived from the root word dungog which connotes pride or self-respect. The terms dunganon and dungog are seldom used by people nowadays since many Ilonggos find these quite archaic or "too deep" (madalum). If ever they used, it is usually by old folks, such as for instance a grandfather advising his grandson to: "Magtu-on ka sang maayo para tapuson mo ang kolehiyo kay para man na sa kadunganan mo."

But back when it was more commonly used, the term dunganon was used to describe any person who exhibits any or all of the following qualities 1.) acute intelligence, vast knowledge and a sharp mind; 2.) indomitable willpower and self confidence; 3.) generates wealth and an awesome reputation; 4.) excellent oratorical skills, ample capacity to dominate others and subdue enemies; and 5.) lastly, incredible luck and fortune. In short, a dunganon nga tawo is a person who not only exudes an aura of power and self-mastery but someone blessed with good luck - qualities that inspires awe and respect from his fellowmen. The anthropologist Alicia Magos of UP-Visayas made a pioneering study on this primeval Visayan concept. According to Magos, dunganon is derived from the root word dungan which she defined as "a life force, an energy, as well as an ethereal entity, a spirit with a will of its own that resides in the human body and provides the essence of life. Apart from denoting an alter ego and soul stuff, the dungan as presently understood refers to such personal attributes as willpower, knowledge and intelligence, and even the ability to dominate and persuade others. (Magos 1992, 47-50)." Under the concept, everyone possesses a dungan (or dungog if you prefer) albeit of varying strengths or "force levels" but only a select few are blessed to be born with very strong dungan. If this sounds vaguely familiar, it is because the concept of the dungan finds many parallels in other cultures. The Chinese call it the chí, Christian doctrine calls it the soul and even Hollywood, in the blockbuster sci fi movie Star Wars, dub it simply as "The Force." The only difference is that in the Western ideology, the soul is depicted as either good or evil. Western philosophy sees life as a constant struggle to improve ourselves so that we eventually overcome the "baser" aspects of our being (hence, the one-dimensional characters of the "good" Jedi and the evil Sith in Star Wars). There is no such dichotomy under the primordial Visayan concept of the dungan. Instead, life is seen as a constant battle for ascendancy between and among people of varying levels of dungan or, to borrow Aguilar's words, "a recurrent negotiation over rank among adults of all social strata" (hence the title of the book "Clash of Spirits"). And in this constant clash of spirits, only the few exceptional individuals with very strong dungan reign supreme and become legends - mga dunganon nga tawo.

This belief in a spirit, a life force, a dungan that resides within us, is manifested in our present-day belief in the usug, wherein an infant gets sick at the sight of an adult stranger. It is believed that the child cries, vomits and experiences abdominal pains because the stronger dungan of the adult stranger upsets the presumably weaker dungan of the infant, hence the term "na usug" which, roughly translated in English, means "to nudge" or "to trip." To prevent usug, the adult wets a finger with his or her saliva and applies this to the infant to subdue the dungan of any approaching stranger. Many people to this day believe that an adult with an especially strong dungan can overpower and wittingly cause illness in another grown-up with a weaker dungan with just a light touch or a few words.

During pre-Spanish times, the datu (tribal chieftain) and the babaylan (shaman or priest) were the epitome of the dunganon nga tawo. Today, mention the word datu and it conjures a mental image of a person with a robust physique and regal bearing, an individual both wealthy and brave, a man comanding both fear and respect. Mention the word babaylan and it evokes in us feelings of dread and fascination, of sorcery and magical enchantments, anting-antings and hiwit. During the Spanish colonial period, the datu and the babaylan were replaced by the friars as the dunganon or "Big Men" of Philippine society. The descendants of the datu class they reduced to mere factotums (i.e. sacristans and gobernadorcillos) while the babaylans they drove away into the mountains and remote interior areas of Panay. With their "el arte de dominar el espiritu del Indio" (or the art of dominating the Indio spirit), these Spanish priests were able to completely subjugate the people and impose their will on our society for almost three centuries.

But not all Indios submitted to the friars. Quite a number, men of strong character and indomitable spirit - mga dunganon nga tawo - refused to be cowed by Spanish and later, American and Japanese, and resisted their rule. Dramatic individual examples of the dunganon during the colonial period were the mestizo Isidro dela Rama of Iloilo City and the babaylan Estrella Bangotbanwa of San Joaquin, Iloilo. In the book "Clash of Spirits," Isidro dela Rama is enshrined as a "great magnate" - impetuous, aggressive, prescient, original and shrewd:

"A consummate gambler, he supposedly began his career when he was 18 years old as a leaseholder of a small farm in Minuluan (present-day Talisay), Negros Occidental, with only 500 pesos as starting capital. He then proceeded to acquire vast tracts of land as well as a fleet of ships that plied the Iloilo-Bacolod and Iloilo-Manila routes. Driven by a vaulting ambition, dela Rama, after barely 7 years as a planter, was able to penetrate the exclusive circle of sugar merchants and warehouse owners at Iloilo. After 10 years in the lucrative sugar trade, he moved on to the most spectacular phase of his financial career as a large-scale importer of manufactured goods from Europe and North America. He reportedly used his own vessels to transport his imports, which were sold through his flamboyant shops in Iloilo and Manila. He travelled twice around the world and sent his two sons to study in Europe, one in Paris, the other in London. When Isidro dela Rama died in Manila in 1898, he left a fortune worth 2 million pesos.

Anecdotes about Isidro dela Rama suggest that he was possessed of an extremely strong dungan, the soul stuff that fortified him in his struggles and granted him enormous success. He astounded not only Indios and his fellow mestizos but Spaniards as well, including Iloilo City's harbor master, who tried to obstruct the movement of dela Rama's goods at the pier. Possessing the temerity to put himself above the law and exact his own form of justice, dela Rama publicly confronted the official with a gun in his hand, and got his way. His retort to Spanish abuses against the natives is encapsulated in a supposed quote: "Well, these injustices have never been committed against me, and anyone who does so, I either beat up or kill."

Dela Rama was also undaunted by Friar power. On one occasion, he was the only non-Spaniard among dignitaries invited to a banquet hosted by the Minuluan curate, Fr. Fernando Cuenca. One religious, who was new to the place, supposedly demanded in a loud voice why an Indio dared to impose his presence on that august crowd. With icy calmness, and without asserting his mestizo origins, dela Rama delivered his riposte: "I am an Indio and your reverence hold me unworthy of this gathering of Spaniards. Come down with me and, by my honor as a native, I assure you that I will smash your face." (Source: "Clash of Spirits" by Filomeno Aguilar Jr. p. 159-160)

By the end of the 19th century, Spain's dominion over the Philippines was growing weak and this period was marked by a resurgence of the cult of the babaylanes. Various groups led by charismatic individuals waged "mini-rebellions" against Spain. Among the leaders in Panay was a certain "Dios Gregorio" and Clara Tarrosa from Tigbauan, Iloilo who claimed she was the Virgin Mary. Similar movements emerged in neighboring Negros island led by equally colorfully-named beings like the effeminate "Dios Buhawi," the black-bearded "Kachila" and the charismatic "Papa (Pope) Isio."

"A more spectacular demonstration of the resurgence of babaylan strength transpired in San Joaquin. Oral tradition among shamans of Panay recount 3 years of drought and famine that ravaged this town and left people dying of starvation and thirst, as all the rivers and springs had dried up. This was probably the same famine, mentioned in the Augustinian record, that befell San Joanquin in 1877 and 1878, when corpses were literally strewn around the town. According to the lore, people sought help from the parish priest, but he failed to induce rain. Desperate in his inability to alleviate the disaster, the curate advised the town leaders to call upon a babaylan known as Estrella Bangotbanwa, who ordered that 7 black pigs be butchered, shaved and covered with black cloth. She then took a black pig from the convent to the plaza, where she pressed its mouth to the ground until it gave a loud squeak. Suddenly, the sky turned dark and a heavy downpour followed. The butchered pigs and the sea crustaceans at the offering table sprang to life. Bangotbanwa had brought back rain and life to San Joaquin. Estrella Bangotbanwa's success over the Catholic Church has been immortalized through her elevation to the status of an ancestor (papu) with mystical prowess, and at present she is revered as the matriarch and founder of a group of shamans in Antique province." (Source: "Clash of Spirits" by Filomeno Aguilar Jr. pp. 165-166)

A more recent incarnation of a dunganan was the late Rodolfo "Roding" Ganzon who, during his political prime, many Ilonggos considered as someone possessed of an exceptionally strong dungan. Like Isidro dela Rama a century before him, Roding Ganzon rose from simple origins to become Mayor of Iloilo City and later Senator of the Republic by virtue of his sharp mind, excellent oratorical skills, stubborn willpower and lastly, incredible luck. Other present-day examples of the dunganan in Iloilo City are Honorato "Tatoy" Espinosa (of Tatoy's Manukan fame) and Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez. It is rather a well-known "fact" among Ilonggos that Tatoy has a "special" friend, a white duwende who resides in his lot, who has brought him suwerte in the restaurant business. From his humble beginnings as a fisherman in Villa Beach, Tatoy today is said to be a millionaire several times over and his Tatoy's Manukan has become an institutional landmark in Iloilo City. Tatoy's success story is a constant source of inspiration for the poor who no doubt dream that one day meeting their own duwende who will give them suwerte and deliver them from poverty. And who in Iloilo City does not have an opinion about Secretary Gonzalez? Irregardless of whether you agree with his politics or not, Secretary Gonzalez is undeniably a man possessed of a very strong dungan: not only does he possess a keen intellect, strong willpower, luck and the unconditional loyalty of his followers but he also has an uncanny ability to "subdue" his "enemies" - all the hallmarks of a classic dunganon nga tawo. And while Tatoy may have had help from his supernatural, "other-worldy" friends, Secretary Gonzalez I believe could also claim to have very powerful friends, albeit of the natural, "worldly" kind. If the two were born during pre-colonial times, Tatoy would easily have become a babaylan while Secretary Gonzalez in all probability would have risen to the rank of datu.

As a student of Philippine politics, I am interested in this idealized concept of the dunganon nga tawo because I am convinced that this belief in a primordial dungan, even in a subconscious level, somehow has an impact on how Filipinos, and most particularly Ilonggos, formulate their choices during elections. As we all know, politicians (especially the opposition politicians) love to depict elections as a contest between "good and evil." In fact, all the campaign speeches I have listened to always boils down to this same old message: "I am good, my opponent is bad. So vote for me." But applying the Clash of Spirits concept of the dunganon nga tawo, depicting elections as a fight between good and evil is like asking people in a bulangan (cockpit) to choose pula (the red fighting cock) instead of puti (the white cock) because the puti is evil . It is totally immaterial. This is because, under the concept of the dungan, elections are nothing more that jousting tournaments for mga dunganon nga tawo. During elections, voters are not looking for who is good or who is bad, who is right and who is wrong, who is better and who is not. People generally are not interested in a candidate's platform of government. What they are more interested in finding out is whether a candidate possesses the attributes of a dunganon nga tawo. People want images, not ideas.

This then will explain why the vast majority of Filipino voters do not go for the "most-qualified" candidate. This partly explains why Antonio Trillanes achieved a surprise victory as senator during the last elections despite having no money, negligible political network and limited experience. Trillanes fits the description of a dunganon nga tawo to a tee - fearless, outspoken, willing to fight for his beliefs - and I surmise people bought his underdog image. This also explains why Erap remains popular (as various surveys show) despite his being convicted for plunder because, like Trillanes, he fits the mold of a dunganon nga tawo - his rebelliousness against the hoity toity Establishment, voracious appetite for life, and legendary sense of humor - and it endears him to the masses. I suspect that some politicians have long ago discovered this facet of the Filipino psyche and have sought to manipulate their image and mannerisms to acquire the aura of a dunganon nga tawo - the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos easily comes to mind.

By way of closing, I leave you with this anecdote from the book "Clash of Spirits" of how hacenderos in the past used their hacienda workers' belief in the spirit dungan to exercise better control over them:

"Aware of the efficacy of the mirage that had been constructed around their class, many planters behaved in the mold of the strong dungan spiced with paternalism and acquired tremendous spiritual reputation in the tradition of ancient magical individuals. The rich planter Juan Araneta, for example, was rumored to have a spirit-guide called the Sota - a spirit being of small stature with a body that was half black and half white, a feature described in Ilonggo as kambang. It was said that Araneta possessed a commanding voice and was full of knowledge and wisdom. His reputed powers included the ability to heal, to take giant steps and to see from afar, to vanish before one's eyes and reappear in another place instantaneously, to produce objects from nowhere, and to fly on his magical white horse.

Hacenderos in Negros cultivated this image and a few actually fabricated situations to demonstrate their supposed magical abilities. To this end, some planters even resorted to asinine tactics like prying under the huts of workers to eavesdrop on private conversations, later using the information thus obtained to tantalize the workers. Other planters relied on technologies unknown to the workers, such as binoculars and dynamite, to perform feats for which the natives had no explanation except anting anting. The planter elite's spurious claim to spiritual wonders was given credibility by their generally aggressive dungan, their ruthlessness and the fear they evoked, their bravado and gambling, and the accumulated riches that were assumed to be a sign of commendation by the spirits."

The Reproductive Health (RH) bill

While the Senate is mired in a "double insertion scandal" (which to me sounds more like a title for a really bad porno movie), the House of Representatives is preoccupied with the passage of the controversial Reproductive Health bill. For more than a decade, population management proponents have been trying to enact an RH law but they could not even reach "first base." All the previous Congesses refused to hear it even on the Committee level. But this 14th Congress is different - not only has it approved the RH bill on the committee level, it is now debating it on the plenary hall. What is even more fascinating is that the RH bill has a very good chance of passing the House of Representatives (although I doubt very much if the Senate will enact their own version considering that we're nearing the election year). Still, even if the RH bill loses in the subsequent voting, the fact alone that it reached the plenary debate level is already a significant victory for the family planning advocates. The bill has broken the so-called "glass ceiling" and this development will hopefully pave the way for its easy passage in the next Congress.

I am very interested to know how the House will vote on this issue. Even now, it seems apparent that the fight will not be along party lines (or the traditional "majority/minority" lines) but along "generational" lines. Congressman Edcel Lagman and Janette Garin, the main proponents, are confident of the bill's passage and are claiming that they already have the 94 signatures required for its approval on the floor. I note that most of those who signed in favour of the RH bill are the younger members (that is, those born in the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, the so-called Generation Me) while those opposed are the "senior citizens" in the House of Representatives, legislative stalwarts like Congresswoman Annie Susano, Deputy Speakers Raul del Mar and Pablo Garcia, and Congresswoman Ebbie Apostol (the one who withdrew her signature at the last minute) who I think were all born before the Second World War.

To put things in perspective, the generation of Congressman Pablo Garcia (who is 80-plus years old) grew up in a world much different from that of Garin, a thirty-something congresswoman. The Philippines was a much different place when they were coming of age before or during the war. Old folks have always thought of our generation as “spoiled” or “very lucky” – we have not experienced the degradations of war, we enjoy better health care and have many modern conveniences unavailable during their youth - and in many ways, I tend to agree that there is no better time to be alive than right now. “You never had it better, I had to walk to school 30 kilometers barefoot” is a common plaint of the older generation towards our generation.

But where I stand, it seems that things are really harder now than before. We are in a world wherein college admissions are increasingly difficult and very competitive, good-paying jobs are hard to find and even harder to keep (what with all the company downsizing and restructuring), and the prices of basic necessities like food, housing, health care and fuel have skyrocketed. Our generation has been “trained” to expect more out of life at a time when good jobs and nice houses are increasingly difficult to obtain. During Congressman Garcia’s time, it was possible to support a family on just one white-collar income. “Many young people comment that their parents were able to buy a house when they were much younger, and on much less income. The rule of thumb used to be that your house should not cost more than two times your annual income, and that you should spend about 25% of your income on housing. What a joke. Mortgage lenders now regularly increase this percentage to 40% and in a lot of markets people do everything they can to exceed this figure: borrowing down-payments, taking out interest-only loans, using adjustable-rate mortgages. That’s usually not so they can afford mansions, but just to buy into the market while they still can” (Source: “Generation Me” by Jean Twenge, Ph.D. page 122-124).

Today, you need a college degree just to earn what a blue-collar worker in this country used to earn 30 or 40 years ago. Both my grandmothers on my father and mother’s side stopped working when they got married – it was not only accepted but it was expected. My grandmothers did not pursue a career, they stayed at home to raise their brood, and they were comfortable living on just their husband’s incomes. Today, single-income families are very rare because both parents have to earn an income in order to maintain a semblance of the middle-class lifestyle. The main reason why women work today is not “personal fulfilment” but economic considerations.

It took humanity 10,000 generations (or 200,000 years) to reach a world population of 2 billion people. Now, in the course of one human lifetime (70 years), the world population will increase from 2 billion to more than 9 billion. This steep and speedy rise in the number of people, not the population growth rate per se, is the root cause of the over-all lowering in our quality of life. We have to step on the brakes, or else the world will overheat. And the Catholic Church is not blind to this fact. Listening to the arguments of our Catholic bishops, I get the impression that they oppose the RH bill not because it seeks to curb population growth but mainly out of fear that condoms, pills and IUDs will promote promiscuity among our people, especially our youth. I don't know about that but the fact is, our people's sexual behaviour have shifted in time. For example, a study showed that during the 1960s, the average woman lost her virginity at age 18; by the late 1990s, the average age was 15. In other words, our parents started having sex in college while kids today do it in high school. Oral sex is now sometimes called the "the new third base" and casual "one-night-stand" encounters, which used to be viewed as very "un-Filipina," is also quite common nowadays. It used to be that sex was something you did with your wife/husband, then it became something you did with the person you love; now people have sex primarily for "recreation" purposes, much like jogging or golf.

I believe the RH bill will not exacerbate sexual promiscuity among our population simply because we are already promiscuous in the first place. And this behavioral trend, this “loosening of public morals” as Churchmen put it, is influenced more by TV and the movies than anything else. The fact is, no amount of effort will stop our people from having sex and what the RH bill hopes to do is to give Filipinos information to enable them to prevent having unwanted children. I now forget who said it but there is a saying “There are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.” The RH bill will teach our citizens to be more responsible and plan their family sizes according only to what they can afford. As the book Freakonomics shows, "much of the crime drop in the U.S. in the 1990s can be traced to a surprising source: the nationwide legalization of abortion in 1973. After this time, millions of unwanted children were simply not born. Those children – all of them unwelcome, and many of them poor – might have been the most likely to drop out of school, get into fights, commit crimes and drink alcohol. The teen girls among them might have been the most likely to get pregnant. But they didn’t, because they didn’t exist." While I am against abortion and draw the line against legalizing it, I also firmly believe that government and the Church have a moral responsibility to educate our people towards the hazards of unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancies.

It is unfortunate that the local Catholic Church has chosen to focus the population policy debate solely on pills, IUDs, condoms and other “abortificient gadgets” when there are other ways that they can work together to help government curb our population growth rate. In the grand scheme of things, artificial contraceptives is only a small part of population management and flooding our country with condoms and pills will not really lead to decreased population rates. Education is still the best contraceptive – in many countries, increased literacy rates have led to a reduction in pregnancies. In Kerala province in India, the population growth rate there stabilized to ZERO when provincial leaders embarked on a massive health and education campaign. It is a fact that better-educated women generally bear fewer children. In Singapore for example, a college-educated woman had an average of 1.6 children, a high school graduate also 1.6, an elementary-educated 2.3 and the unschooled woman 4.4 children. Lee Kuan Yew tried to offer tax incentives and income rebates to women on their 3^rd and 4^th child, but his “lucrative offer” got mixed results. The Catholic Church in the Philippines is one of the leading advocates of education, and private schools ran by religious orders are among the best in the country. Therefore, the Church could be an invaluable ally of the government in raising the literacy rate of our people. This is something that the two opposing sides can agree and work on.

Another effective population management tool is the improvement of our infant mortality rates. As the African leader Julius Nyerere said, “The most powerful contraceptive is the confidence by parents that their children will survive.” If Filipinos believe that there is a good possibility that their offspring will die young, this is a strong incentive for them to have many children to ensure that at least some survive into adulthood to carry the family name. Lowering the infant mortality rate can be achieved through better child care, healthier nutrition and improved health systems, and this is something that the Church I believe is not opposed to. The lowering of infant mortality rate is another component where the Church and government can work together on.

The House of Representatives will again tackle the bill next week and we can expect another round of explosive and exciting debates on population policy. Bringing the issue out to the public is a victory in itself for both the pro and anti RH proponents and in this ''marketplace of ideas, I believe that it is the people who will decide whom to believe in the end.