Bad shape | SunStar Cebu | Feb. 16, 2010

The two survey leaders talked about the fiscal deficit that will come after our favorite president shall have stepped down and will probably even become House speaker. Manny Villar says the deficit will bloat to P300 billion or about “3.5 percent of GDP.” Noynoy Aquino pegged it at P272.5 billion or “4.1 percent of GDP.” Hold your breath because that’s not what I’ll talk about.

It is pork, which, under my or our current state, is the root of all evil. It is not money. It is that sleek, shivery sliver on your plate. A friend has a name for it, “pork shake,” eloquently illustrated by that ominous morsel of humba shaking at every turn of your lazy suzanne. At other times, it comes as that scheming layer of white underneath your crispy lechon. I don’t know why, the craving for that fatty part could come as acquired taste, much like with sashimi—the taste buds eventually liking the erstwhile incomprehensible gustatory anarchy excited by raw fish and the wasabi. But pork fats are simply, dizzyingly divine on top of a hot haul of rice.

Talisay City, in the Joavanese era, still finds its redemption through lechon. As the food critic Anthony Bourdain said, the lechon is simply “the best pork in the world.” Better than Mexico’s, he said, although Mexicans can very well ignite their pork with fiery jalapeño. But our lechon, in the realm of the senses, is incontestably mystical. In the hollow of its belly transpires the miracle at every turn of the bamboo skewer, it is as though the bamboo itself is secretly exuding the ghosts of Malakas and Maganda into the hog’s fibers and unleashed a brand new creation story. It makes you dizzy.

Indeed, because dizzy is what you will feel at the first instance of reality check compressed in a little document your nurse will hand you. Just last week, I had my first dose of meteorite crashing into my oblivious eating habits. My sugar shot up to borderline and my cholesterol level had the wallop of Mike Tyson. You want political perspective? It’s like looking at a bloated fiscal deficit after an excess of pork. The karmic chain does not exempt physiology, and I hope the same goes, too, to a presidency.

And so there are cutbacks since then. Somebody said a diet is the penalty we pay for exceeding the feed limit. “If it tastes good,” advises one cardiologist, “spit it out.” Does this mean it will all be downhill from here? Not exactly, and while I was plotting out a regimen on the way to the office, I saw Joel Garganera, although for one moment I thought I saw Usain Bolt on P. del Rosario St. in full running gear. Joel, godsend, reinforced the idea, plus here’s colleague Max Limpag, persistent seller of the couch-to-5K formula. So maybe, one of these days, I hope I’ll run out of excuses and finally tread the miles. It’s one fighting chance against blood sugar and cholesterol, certainly. “To run against pork” sounds very political, indeed.

It’s all a test for one’s conscience. To milk or not to milk the country dry, that is the question. Are you going to agree to an immense annual budget and leave the next president with a severe ulcer? Sorry, but let’s get back to my current state.

It’s about a week now with no red meat and no sweet things. I used to coax a friend into partaking on a piece of cake and pass a jeer that should his sugar level rise, he could sing “This time I’ll be sweeter…” Now the joke’s on me, and the doctor said white bread, for which I’m such a sucker, is a no-no, too.

Woody Allen says that when we lose twenty pounds, we could be losing the twenty best pounds we have, that which contain “our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty.” Well, that’s poundage, not blood sugar or cholesterol. Besides, I don’t have the genius. I wanted to run last Sunday, but ended up with a half-pounder burger instead. It had nothing to do with the Philippine economy.

(januarinbox@yahoo.com)

Bobos | SunStar Cebu | Feb. 8, 2010

BOBOS is a portmanteau of bourgeois and bohemian. The term was coined by David Brooks in his book “Bobos in Paradise,” in which he tries to talk about the new breed of ‘90s yuppies. These are hybrid corporate upper class people, he said, who have the ‘60s idealism and the self-interest of the ‘80s.

By some stretch of the imagination, you can conjure up an image of a Beatnik in tuxedo—top-earners with the sensibility of a hippie. How is that possible? Brooks describes these people as indulging extravagantly in “inconspicuous consumption” (posh dwellings and profligate waterbeds), but at the same time deeply sympathetic with the working class. These people see money not as an end but a means to achieving something.

This new upper class, says Brooks, does not disdain mainstream society and are tolerant of the views of others. You’ll perhaps find these guys, sporting a Rolex, in an FGD segueing a presentation into an oratory on poverty reduction or saltwater intrusion.

Brooks says the trend is all about changing tastes and preferences of a preexisting upper class, and not a descendent of any social mobility. Brooks, of course, is describing an American phenomenon, although it’s curious if some similar pattern can be seen in our country—emergent and affluent yuppies who are as invariably animated about the future of the country as they are about a new car.

This was what came to my mind when I read about Michael Macapagal, who was introduced by journalist Lito Gutierrez of PDI very interestingly in his story’s lead: “Snug in the supple seat of his gleaming milk-white E Class Mercedes and tapping on the walnut and leather trim of its steering wheel to the beat of ‘80s soft-rock ditties, Michael Macapagal is a picture of the fulfillment of the American dream.”

This “stateside” Macapagal leaves the care of his escrow business to his wife in the US, and heads home to the Philippines to campaign, no, not for Arroyo, a relative, but for Noynoy Aquino. He plans to raise $2 million from Filipino friends in the US for his candidate’s campaign.

I can’t tell though if we have the likes of Michael manning the corporate skyscrapers in our own neighborhood while looking out the window and be moved by the stark contrast outdoors. I can’t tell, too, if we have our own version of Brooks’ bobos in our backyard—‘70s liberal and ‘80s rich.

There was a thread on Facebook that was launched by a comment against a presidential candidate. It was instigated by a left-leaning user and the thread, in fact, fell heavily towards that orientation. After reading all the comments, however, I noticed something.

There was palpable generation gap—the younger activists and those who have had their time in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The younger ones defended to the death Satur Ocampo’s decision to be under Manny Villar’s camp. The older ones criticized just that.

I will leave a fellow columnist who is lettered on the topic to give you context if he wants to. I find the differences curious though.

What could have changed the mindsets, transformed the preferences of the precursors? Could they be the local evolution of the bobos—the ‘70s, ‘80s front-liners who have gotten comfy mainstream, mellowed by family and time and now stand on balanced ground? “I’m voting again after 12 years,” a friend says, and he isn’t alone in saying that. “But I’m not voting for Satur Ocampo,” he says. To think that he was hard-line picket vanguard in his youth, it comes as a surprise. Has he read a better version of history?

I noticed not a few old-guards, former warriors coming out of their cocoons this season, mobilizing an old spirit. “All we need is an honest man for a president,” I heard one say, “We can take care of the country.”

The Fly | SunStar Cebu | Feb. 5, 2010

So there we were in some cramped nook trying to understand how this PCOS machine works. I could not concentrate. I was looking at the sample ballot, a card roughly longer than your legal-sized bond paper. Anyone who had taken a licensure exam would fall into a déjà vu. It looked like the answer sheet that compressed your entire college life in exchange for a small ID from PRC. But it was not what diverted my imagination. It was something else.

Looking at the machine, I imagine the 1986 Goldblum movie “The Fly.” In case Dolphy had bungled your memory lately, the plot had a scientist experimenting on a machine capable of what he called “teleportation.” It was supposed to transport a person electronically from point A to B. No sweat.

Just as my imagination was going through “The Fly’s” plot, the Smartmatic rep explained that the machine is so programmed to err on the side of safety. It was taught taste, meaning it knows fine dining it won’t overeat when the voter over-votes. It spits out your ballot if you treat it like a coloring book. You only fill a hole for each position, and the intensity of fill has a certain threshold for the machine to count it.

Does the machine have a USB port or something, I’d have wanted to ask. The machine will use the three major mobile networks to transmit results and I thought that if they’ll do that, it might need those USB dongles like how you use your Globe Tattoo or Smart Bro. If it’s built-in, you’d have a modem that transmits to three network options? I simply missed that part about transmission. If the machine has any portal at all, will it be possible anyone can feed a virus or a program to rig the results? I understand “encryptions,” but I also know how feeble they can be in the face of a clever virus. I remember Onel de Guzman, the diminutive college boy who fed a network worm that ate up about $5.5B in damages in major countries in 2000.

My mind flew again to “The Fly”: The scientist Brundle tells the journalist before he fed himself into the pod, “Don’t be afraid.” But something goes wrong with the experiment. A fly finds its way into the portal and is sucked into the circuits along with the human. A mutation takes place, although it is to be felt gradually later by Brundle. He notices changes and keeps himself in isolation. He develops fly-like traits, throwing up digestive enzymes into his food and leaps around and clings to walls and ceilings. Finally, the pregnant wife dreams she bore a maggot.

The thought of a maggot brought me back to the Smartmatic rep who at that point already sounded too certain about the machine and some parts of the room too sold out with the idea.

I thought that if the machine is spic-and-span a work of art, then there’s nothing to worry about. The training part for teachers may not even take an entire day; teaching a bunch of eggheads a lesson in math is definitely more complicated than learning to operate the PCOS machine. I can now hear the Smartmatic guy telling this bunch of journalists, “Don’t be afraid.”

What I am afraid, however, is when the president we have chosen mutates into a maggot with a severe propensity for flightiness. A candidate shows just such trait, and it’s scary. When you spend a billion to campaign, it’s like the fly spewing digestive enzymes to dissolve its food. In the movie “The Fly,” after the scientist makes the assurance that things will be okay, the journalist replies, “No. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Ship of fools | Sun.Star Cebu | Feb. 2, 2010

1. WE stopped at Park Mall and walked all the way from the parking lot to the gate facing the CICC. When we were about to get out, we spotted Bert Emphasis. I told my friend we should say “Mano po,” but we were in a hurry and could be forgiven if we forego with manners. Already, there was a throng building up right at the gate, some wearing yellow, some green, some blue, and red.

2. We scaled the elevation leading up to the CICC entrance, thinking someone with arthritis will have an uphill battle. Do you mean the elections? No, but I must have, subliminally. We didn’t have a ticket, so we looked around for anyone who could possibly let us in. Some Chinese-looking man stood near the entrance, so we approached him and told him we didn’t have a ticket. He looked at us for a few seconds, groped into his jacket’s secret pocket and drew out a blue ticket. We said thank you while his face still sported an amused look. He was probably thinking he was just conned by two gutsy terrorists.

3. The left door led to a cordoned path to a room that had a widescreen in front. On the glass door a sign read: “Supporters, please proceed this way.” I was thinking if it was the proper door for us, but it didn’t ask for any ticket. We figured maybe we could just proceed the other way and present our ticket at the appropriate entrance. We could feign innocence and lie about being neutral. We took the escalator and saw the entrance for us, VIPs I supposed already by virtue of the blue ticket. “Please keep your tickets, sir, for the mock elections,” some lady wearing the Ateneo Business School told us. Okay, and I said to myself maybe they should just raffle off a plane ticket to Nigeria or something.

4. So we found ourselves in a big room, and host Bunny Pages was already explaining what was going to happen that afternoon. “Cebu’s elite are all here,” some reporter behind said. True, indeed, it felt like you were in a cocktail party minus the, well, cocktail. Nobody, of course, came in a cocktail dress. A quick survey would make you think you were in a salad bowl with a good dose of leafy veggies, with a sprinkling of cheese and carrot cubes. “Choices and Voices” was the show’s name. “It sounds so gay,” I told my friend.

5. In came the candidates. Noynoy Aquino came first, and there was good applause. I think Erap Estrada came next, and then Manny Villar, who was ambushed by some supposed fans for a photo opportunity. “That fan’s planted,” someone protested from behind, and he was wearing a green shirt. Dick Gordon and Eddie Villanueva walked in and the applause came in trickle. In came Gilbert Teodoro and there was wild cheering from the girls in many parts of the hall.

6. In the forum, Erap—deliberately or not—provided the comic relief. I don’t know if someone was directing the cameras, but they caught the former president in various awkward moments. For one moment, I thought it was rather cruel, but Erap seemed to love it. Good for him. “Now, to answer your question,” he said, but this was on the last second of his three-minute chance.

7. When the boy Trevor asked them how they intend to help those kids sticking their famished faces on his car’s window, the candidates gave their answers. I thought that someone with the savvy will level with Trevor and answer his question in his own terms. Forget the audience, talk to the boy!

8. Anyway, the forum ended and we did cast our ballot. Gibo won and you’d hear all those administration supporters gloating about the results.

9. Around this time, many of the businessmen, in another part of the city, was wolfing on P5,000-worth bowl of porridge. The money goes to a candidate’s campaign kitty.

10. So we went out of CICC and saw the poor crowd waving their placards and banners. It was an entirely different ballgame outside the ship of fools.