Random Thoughts

By Emil Justimbaste

A collection of short features and essays in my blog covering a period of over a year, talking about local events related to economics, politics and trivia in my corner of the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Emil Justimbaste
• Release date: Feb 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465982926

Emil Justimbaste

Emil B. Justimbaste was born in an interior and mountainous part of Leyte where his father was an elementary teacher about 69 years ago. In his early childhood, he grew up in an ancient convent where he served as an altar boy of his priest uncle. In high school he entered the seminary, but later found that priesthood was not for him. It was during this period that he started writing poetry. In college, he graduated to writing essays and short stories as he got involved in student activism. He later dropped out of school to concentrate on youth activism, going underground in the early years of martial law, and then was detained in Fort Bonifacio.Interest in history writing came much later when he wrote the history of his alma mater about 20 years ago. The first major project was on the 500 years of Leyte’s evangelization following the alma mater job. It was a collaborative effort involving other former seminarians, depicting the work of Jesuit missionaries in 16th century Leyte.“ Leon Kilat and the Untold Story of Cebu’s Revolution” was first serialized in a Cebu daily in 1998, then published as a book only in 2016. A brief history of Ormoc, entitled “Ogmuc,” is circulating freely in digital format. The book “Heroes, Brigands, Spies,” published in print also last year, was started in 2004 yet and finished in 2010. This was followed by “Lukban, the Philippine American War in Samar, 1899 – 1902,” which was started soon after “Heroes.” It is still in digital form, like “The Roots of Our Faith,” an introductory tome about the history of the Palo (Leyte) archdiocese. The author is currently working on The Pulahan Revolts in Leyte and Samar, a continuing story about the rebellion in the two islands in the early years of the American occupation.

Book preview

Introduction

This idea of having some sort of a commentary corner came up the other day - that was really months ago before I started blogging during a discussion with my wife. As usual, I was blurting out my criticisms on what is happening in this city and, as usual, my sole audience was slowly getting irritated by my sustained barrage against what I believe was wrong about a lot of things here. So here I am, hoping to find a bigger audience and a more diverse market.

I don’t expect to be always approved by my readers. As any commentator worth his mettle, I must be prepared to face rude, biting and unsavory feedbacks. I understand that risk and am willing to take it. So long as the feedbacks are stated objectively and with no personal rancor, it’s just going to be fine. When these came out in my blog, there was no ordered sequence.

Blogs are usually written as spontaneous reactions to news events as they happened. In this configuration, the author simply categorized the short essays but left the content raw and unedited. So here goes.

Resurrectus sum

After many, many months of hibernation, I am finally back. This time, with lessons from involvement in the last elections. Our group got clobbered for believing that we could do it without shelling a cent to facilitate votes. The last time I got this much involved, we made the same mistakes and got exactly the same results. We should have anticipated this, but we thought people were now ready for this new brand of politics, given the quality of public servants we have. Magbag-o na ta! was the statement often heard during frequent tricycle rides and encounters at the market. Voices that seemed to reflect a general sentiment, a mood for change. How easily could one get deluded!

Now I know it’s difficult to be objective when one is passionately involved. First, one tends to be selective in sorting out information. Comments unfavorable are eliminated, and only those that are favorable are considered. Kusog lagi ta. We heard that too often from people in the field. And they were not bragging.

There were many indicators. Reception of our candidates was warm, enthusiastic. They certainly cheered us on. Attendance on evening rallies was often good.. Sometimes these went beyond expectations. People came to listen to the candidates’ speeches. Moreover, we were tops in the mock polls done in early April, about a month before elections. Here we tried to be as scientific as we could, having been unable to hire the professional services of some academic groups that do it.

That was easy to do and very inexpensive. I was convinced that reflected the real sentiments of the people in the barrios. There was no way we could have lost....But we did!

There was one factor that could not be indicated in the mock polls - money. That changed the whole picture at crunch time. On the eve of election day, our barangay leaders started to look for the budget. While our rivals were busy dispatching their budget to their leaders, we were content in our conviction that this time, money would not be a factor. So we had none of that. In fact, the organizational structure was not designed to distribute sums of money.

Earlier, we told them we were not going to buy votes. This time, we reminded them again buying votes was not our kind of thing So I think many of our leaders simply folded up or told their own network budget was not in the group’s political vocabulary. Hours later, we had the shocking results. Only our strongest bet survived the money onslaught, while the rest of the group stayed outside the magic ten. But they were not exactly crushed since the votes they got did not spell a large difference from those of the winners. At least now we know our brand of politics can count on several thousands of adherents, and that if we can double this number in three years, we’ll probably taste victory in 2013.

The clock of change can only be turned a few degrees at a time. My mistake was to assume that we could turn it by 360 degrees.

The marvels of FB and the war that is politics

Ormoc is truly coming of age, embracing a state-of-the-art networking application in establishing ties with long-lost friends and relatives, and finding ones one never thought existed. I have just recently opened a Facebook account and, wonder of wonders, I now have more than 90 friends and relatives in my account. And I still have lots of them waiting to be tagged as friends. It has made several of my old friends addicts in more ways than one. The more mature ones keep tabs of their events and travels, others their moods and feelings, and a lot more are putting random thoughts in that small text box so temptingly reserved for precisely that.

Some of my younger relatives and friends have taken on Farmville and Mafia, waging virtual wars with each other, eventually tiring themselves out and settling for espousing all sorts of social causes and advocacies.

But the latest that hit Ormoc like a thunderbolt is an account that calls itself a better Ormoc movement which an obviously politically oriented Ormocanon has opened up. I saw it first just last Thursday already having 192 friends, but as I write this piece this Saturday afternoon, the account had 814 friends and growing almost by the minute.

Obviously, what is making this account interesting is its political orientation, highlighted by online polls opened in another blog, so that the voter is untraceable. Sly and clever. The owner of the account appears to be non-partisan but wants Ormocanons to get out of their shells, expose the truths and involve themselves in some political action. Fence setting is taboo, so are the trapos. Both Winnie C.and Richard G are fair game for comments, that is, if you happen to be fearless and aware. There are no sacred cows here, not the C or the L, if you’re familiar with these letters. If you’re a resident here, you should be.

Politics is always an interesting game both for the players and the non-players. This is especially so in Ormoc today. Last Thursday the mayor, his council and other city officials gathered for a presscon to officially answer charges being aired in one radio station, in the hope of dousing issues that have cropped up. Some of these issues were also heard by administration supporters in the sorties of Richard and Macoy, that had turned into mini political rallies. The latter reportedly spared no words to spring his charges against the administration.

To me that signaled the start of the political season here, which is always an exciting and provocative period. After all, politics is war. Its battlefield are the hearts and minds of the electorate which, in Ormoc, numbered some 88,000 back in 2007. It is a bigger battlefield today as new voters have flocked to the Comelec office to register. Whoever manages to convince the most wins the war. But who says war is fair? Most politicos use money, guns, goons and a bagful of tricks, the likes of which we heard reportedly happened in far Maguindanao.

Only few have the decency to try explaining things in the good old fashioned ways, a method that is getting to be scarce. Panlilio and Padaca are exceptions to the general rule, and Noynoy appears to be in that same track. I think our case here will follow the winning formula. Money is expected to flow.

Rumors are rife that goons have already been deployed . One saw segments of them riding the pick-up of one would-be candidate, moving around the city, apparently in a show of force. On the other hand, the other camp seems to rely on the magic of stardom, hoping to convert the ahhs and the ommphs of adulation into votes come May next year. Strange weapons of war that will definitely titillate us to no end.

At the moment, I am still trying to make sense of these developments in my head.

Forms of Corruption

Being a probinsyano and one who likes to stay on a hill close to the clouds, I am probably not updated these days on the diverse ways our politicos use the system to enrich themselves and their buddies. Still I am coming up with a tentative list, hoping some of my readers here can add more of their own observations. This stock of knowledge should make us more watchful of the ways that bureaucrats practice their devious craft.

Kickbacks, commissions and bribery are probably the most common. The infamous case of lamp posts bought during the Asean Summit in Cebu stands out as one of the worst so far, involving the DPWH, the Cebu provincial government and its engineers and private contractors. That it was recently dismissed by the Sandigan leads us to another fresh angle where high-stakes bribery could be involved.

The PDEA drug case involving the so-called Alabang Boys has faded from the limelight and appears to be lost from the public eye. So have the fertilizers cases involving top officials of the Department of Agriculture. Well, Jocjoc Bolante is being hounded at the Senate, but I suppose he is just a fall guy, a stand-in for somebody bigger or higher in the pecking order. With new scams coming out almost on a daily basis and grabbing the headlines,

I would not be surprised if this, too, goes the way of the dinosaurs. Even in our small city, one smells of smaller scams that do not make headlines, but these are scams nonetheless. It shows in the way contracts for public works are being handed out. Dummies are often selected but they make sure the necessary sand and gravel, steel bars, cement and similar hardware are bought from designated suppliers.

Of course, it is difficult to establish evidence of these as transactions are often legal, but you know from the names of the contractors who these people are and who they are beholden to.

The choice of programs that our bureaucrats follow indicates the kind of mindset inhabiting our local bureaucrats. If this is where money can be made abundantly and reputation built instantly as political capital, then this is how budget is allocated. On the other hand, programs that involve education for the underprivileged, housing, livelihood and women and children issues take the backseat. After all, these things neither make them rich nor enhance their political capital.

Stealing from government coffers is not always too obvious. It can happen when 15-30 employees get paid for jobs they have not done or sign hours they have not worked for. It shows when too many workers fill up vacancies for non-existent jobs, depriving the constituency of much needed resources for more urgent social projects. It is amply shown when some favored individuals can take their pick for more permanent positions, even if their skills and talents simply don’t match with the job requirements.

Or it can happen when the employees make use of government time playing‘tong-its,’ sleeping and getting drunk – as in the case of some lowly ‘job order’ workers once