A Nation of Whistleblowers

I realize only today, April 04, that, yes, what the newest mass-media darling Rodolfo ‘Jun’ Lozada, former President of the Philippine Forest Corporation (PFC) has been doing is whistleblowing. I wasn’t minding the act as much as the actor and what he was acting out (see my ‘The Audacity of Hype’ and ‘A Fractured Hero’ and ‘100. The Original Jun Lozada Jokes,’ frankahilario.wordpress.com), until I reread the 21 March 2008 issue of the in-house newsletter ICRISAT Happenings, where among other things reported, the Board of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) had approved a whistleblower policy for the Institute.

Come to think of it, the Philippines is a nation of whistleblowers, and we have made whistleblowing a spectacular circus act, with Senate President Manuel Villar as Producer, Chair of the Blue Ribbon Committee Alan Peter Cayetano as Chief of Extravaganza and former PFC President Jun Lozada as Clown. As the whole world knows by now, we Filipinos are masters of extravaganzas. I must admit it is very highly entertaining though. So, keep your TV sets open and entertain yourself if you had nothing better to do. If your PC is high-tech enough, go to YouTube and play Jun Lozada. Me? The Windows Media Player 11 that comes with Windows Home Basic that comes with my new HP Compaq Presario C700 Notebook PC is good enough for me. And while I listen to music, say the Beatles and Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and the Corrs and Jennifer Paige and MYMP and Lea Salonga, I write.

PS tail

‘PS tail’ – What is that? Today, March 31, 2008, that my friend is a new and different way of reading my ‘PS,’ (earlier, I read it as ‘PS comma’) which I offered on March 24 as a new mantra for creative thinking, all about which you can read here: ‘PS,’ (frankahilario.wordpress.com).

After all, ‘PS comma’ sounds too stiff, too formal; it doesn’t invite you to think, to relax. ‘PS tail’ – I like it because it sounds nicer; it’s more inviting. As a noun, you can imagine all kinds of tails. And indeed, the verb ‘tail’ means, according to my favorite dictionary American Heritage, ‘to connect (often dissimilar or incongruous objects) by or as if by the tail or end: tail two ideas together’ – and that, my friend, is an excellent (if inadvertent) way to define creativity itself!

Bishop Oscar Cruz, I presume?

I have just uploaded an essay, ‘The Crucifixion of Cruz, ‘Public Sinners’ as Union of Church & State’ (frankahilario.wordpress.com), where I try to understand Lingayen-Dagupan (Pangasinan) Archbishop Oscar Cruz, former President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and now long-playing priest-critic of my President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA), where he’s coming from. I can’t.

Has the media report been unkind to him, reporting what did not happen, what he did not say? I don’t think so. Jose Rodel Clapano reports (March 27, philstar.com):

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz vowed yesterday not to give Holy Communion to President Arroyo, members of her family, and other known ‘sinners’ in the country. Cruz told the Newsmakers Forum held every Wednesday at the Crowne Plaza in Mandaluyong City that he will encourage the Catholic Church leadership, specifically the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), not to allow any publicly known sinners like Mrs Arroyo and members of the First Family to receive communion.

I don’t understand why a high priest would condemn the sins along with the sinners. St Paul wrote the Ephesians: ‘Be angry, but do not sin; do not let the sun set on your anger’ (Ephesians 4: 26, New American Bible). I also understand that it is easy to hate the sin and difficult to love the sinner. But if it were easy to love the sinner, what would be the benefit of that?

I can forgive Archbishop Cruz, but the Media?

Norman Bordadora reports that Lingayen-Dagupan (Pangasinan) Archbishop Oscar Cruz, former head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), has made a clerical error (pun intended) in saying that he would not give Holy Communion to ‘public sinners’ when asked if he would give the sacrament to GMA or members of her family (‘Lawmakers want prelate punished,’ March 30, inquirer.net). Having said that, the Archbishop angered the Southern Tagalog alliance in the House composed of 28 congressmen. Quezon Representative Danilo Suarez, the leader of the group, said they were thinking of ‘elevating the matter to the Vatican if the CBCP will refuse to sanction Cruz.’ The Archbishop said he was misquoted. Suarez said, ‘Archbishop Cruz cannot claim that what he said was taken out of context or misunderstood by members of the media as that press conference, I believe, was videotaped.’

GMANews.TV quotes Suarez as saying that Cruz set a ‘very bad example to Catholics by telling a barefaced lie to backtrack on what a multitude of people heard him say during a press conference.’ Suarez also said: ‘It’s the height of ecclesiastical arrogance for an Archbishop to be very quick in condemning others while turning a blind eye on his own mistakes’ (gmanews.tv).

Well, I a Roman Catholic, who comes from Pangasinan, do forgive public sinners, including Archbishop Cruz, including the multitude who listen to a barefaced lie, including the media who record it. Now, can Archbishop Cruz forgive the multitude who heard him and repeated to others what they heard him say, and the mediaman who videotaped him and shared to the world what he recorded? I really don’t know. I can’t speak for Archbishop Cruz; he speaks for himself.

I love Cory Aquino, I hate Cardinal Sin

First, Cardinal Sin loved Cory Aquino.
That was People Power 1, in 1986.
Then Ferdinand E Marcos went thataway.

Then, Cory Aquino loved GMA.
And Cardinal Sin loved GMA.
That was People Power 2, in 2001.
Then Joseph Estrada thought he could get away, but he didn’t.

Yesterday, Cory Aquino was fighting for People Power 3.
Then I saw Cardinal Sin.
Her Cardinal Sin to me was fighting GMA, my president.

Today, Cory Aquino is fighting colon cancer.
I’m praying for GMA and Cory Aquino.
I hate the Cardinal Sin and I love the Cardinal Sinner.

MyDiscovery: Encyclopedia cures insomnia

Can’t sleep? I want to tell you of my discovery today: An encyclopedia is a bad read. Go read any of the bestselling ones. Take your pick: Americana, Britannica, Columbia, Encarta, Wikipedia? They’re all the same: uninteresting, unexciting, dreary, dull. Open to any page, try to read, and pretty soon you’re fast asleep!

I find it mind-numbing. Why do most encyclopedias make the most boring reading? Let me quote myself from my latest essay on creative thinking (for more details, see my ‘PS,’ March 24, frankahilario.com) pertinent to the encyclopedias:

‘PS’ – noon today, when I was trying to collect notes on the acronym, I thought of Sony’s PlayStation and, surfing, clicked on Wikipedia. And now, here is a lesson in creative thinking from my Serendipity X and their Wikipedia on the subject of Sony’s PlayStation (PS). The head note on the PlayStation section says (en.wikipedia.org):

‘The current version of this article or section is written in an informal style and with a personally invested tone. It reads more like a story than an encyclopedia entry.’

Very funny. What Wikipedia does not encourage is exactly what I do encourage because that’s how I write: personal, fervent.

So, according to the watchdogs of Wikipedia, an encyclopedia entry should be written in a staid, no-feelings-seen-no-bias-shown manner. Boring. That’s why nobody reads the encyclopedia. And yes, I now understand Wikipedia doesn’t want to be read either! That is to say, like all the other encyclopedia makers, they don’t want their sentences to be relaxed; they are not trying to impart knowledge on the reader – they are merely trying to impress him with their erudition.

And all the time I thought Wikipedia was innovative?!

Since encylopedias were the reliable references in the beginning of our time and remain to be so, and since we all know that most children up to now are reluctant to open the pages of those authoritative sources, now I know why most of our Johnnys don’t read, don’t write, don’t study much: The encyclopedias tell them knowledge is a boring subject, not much fun. Knowledge is only good for bringing around town, for display only: If you have it, flaunt it!

Didn’t Pogo say? ‘I have seen the enemy, and it is US.’ The encyclopedias have, after all these years, turned out to be the hidden enemy of knowledge, not to mention understanding, contrary to everyone’s expectation, including the encyclopedia makers themselves. Those who are the bringers of knowledge have much to know themselves.

‘Help Wikimedia free the Knowledge of the world’ (wikimedia.org). I don’t mind free, but not colorless, lifeless free knowledge, if you don’t mind.

Writer’s Block Unblocked!

I have just published an essay on a little new mantra for creative thinking (‘PS,’ frankahilario.com), where I give an example using ‘PS,’ (read: ‘PS comma’) as a device for generating 13 different ideas for 13 different happy/not-so-sad articles from 1 bit of (bad) news of today (March 24) in the Philippines. What can be so bad as Philippine news (in the newspapers) these days? That’s how powerful this one is as an idea generator.

Right now, I’m looking at ‘PS comma’ also as a device to unblock Writer’s Block. When you have Writer’s Block, your mind tells you, ‘There isn’t any more.’ But that comma in ‘PS,’ is actually an encouraging question: ‘What else?’ And when you’ve come up with something new and you look at it again, ‘PS,’ it asks you the same question: ‘What else?’ It eggs you towards Writer’s Unblock and away from Writer’s Block. ‘I love you’ is the most creative 3 words in the world. With that comma in ‘PS,’ the question ‘What else?’ becomes the most creative 2 words in the world.

PS, Frank’s new mantra for creative thinking

Good news! If I say so myself, if you want a significant other way of creative thinking on your way to creative writing. I have just uploaded to my name website an essay on how to think creatively using a magic spell I have just created (‘A Writer’s Faith,’ frankahilario.com), Chapter 4 of my book Rebel Thinker Writer’s Guide For Non-Dummies. Clink (click the link) to read absolutely free! (Well, you spend time.)

The magic word is ‘PS’ – it comes from ‘PS, I love you,’ which everybody knows whoever wrote a love letter or such. After all, writing is a love. And PS? I have given it an entirely new meaning and a new pitch that I think you will love. Think about it. Or go figure!

How do you fight AIDS? You don’t.

David Brown is very unhappy to report on the United States failing to develop an AIDS vaccine after 20 years of research and with the US government spending $500,000,000 annually for such a purpose (March 21, washingtonpost.com). As a matter of fact, instead of helping the recipients fight the disease, the vaccines (STEP and Phambili) seemed to prime the immune system to be more susceptible to the AIDS virus. The medicine is deadlier than the disease.

Ronald Desrosiers, a molecular geneticist at Harvard University, said last month in an AIDS conference in Boston: ‘We simply do not know at the present time how to design a vaccine that will be effective against HIV.’ Science? Theory is not as good as practice.

I’m a husband with 12 children (8 beautiful girls), 1 wife, zero extra-marital affairs. You know what, Ronald, I know of one simple methodological design that is most effective, 100% safe against HIV and 100% sure against AIDS. It is also the least expensive of all means to fight the deadly disease. In fact, it will cost you nothing, nada, zilch. Yes, it’s the most delightful way to fight AIDS, I guarantee it. It’s about practice man, not theory. It’s sense, not science. The methodology? Don’t do it!

Seeing A Revolution, Viewing History

I attended the First National Sweet Sorghum RD&E Review and Planning Conference held March 12-14 in Batac, Ilocos Norte at the campus of the Mariano Marcos State University, after which I wrote my essay ‘Grey-To-Green Revolution’ (frankahilario.wordpress.com). I didn’t realize I was witness to a revolution until I got back home and thought about what to say about what happened in Batac. At home, I have just reread the Reader’s Digest article on Steve Wozniak who together with Steve Jobs started the personal computer revolution. Did they know they were making history and launching a revolution? No. They just believed in what they were doing, very passionately in fact. And I suppose that when you believe in what you are doing and are zealous about it, if you don’t create a revolution, you’re not a revolutionary – but I’m sure you will be fulfilled.

And me? I’m more than fulfilled. Today, I am fired with a vision for sweet sorghum as a miracle crop, one for both rich (you need millions of dollars to put up a distillery to make ethanol out of the cane) and poor (you don’t need fertilizers to grow sweet sorghum; you don’t even need irrigation – and you can produce your own sweet products from the raw sugar or jaggery). That’s why I call sweet sorghum ‘the rich man’s choice of a poor man’s crop‘ (frankahilario.com).