This Top Secret Report Just In

Unknown to readers and even Angry Maude, JoeAm three months ago hired a black ops organization to do some undercover work. A "black ops organization"  is a secret agency so secret that its existence must be denied by every alphabet known to the entire spy world, including the FBI, CIA, NBI, NBA, KGB, NRA, IRA, USDA and Greenpeace.

This organization is darker than the cave of the underground river on a moonless light, with that cheap Chinese flashlight the boatmen carry emptied of batteries. You couldn't find this organization with radar or SONAR or GPS or a ten foot pole. It is invisible, a chameleonic shape-shifter able to go places ordinary men and women only dream of. It can hack and crack computers impervious to that world-famous hacking organization Anonymous and its cadre of technically ingenius evil-eyed gameboys.

Are you getting the picture? This organization can go anywhere at anytime and never be seen. It has ears the size of Dumbo and a nose the size of Dumbo and muscles the size of Rambo. It can go up, under, around and through any obstacle, even virus software, sandbagged bunkers, military riot squadrons and Philippine mall police. These guys are professionals, although they may look like Sonny Angara or Piolo Pascual or Charice. Absolutely normal. They go with the flow, bend in the wind, fly in the sky and dig in the dirt. Agile and strong. Smarter than a brass tack.

So Joe hired them at no small expense and gave them their charter:

• Find out who reads JoeAm's Society of Honor blog, and who does not.

Here's what they discovered:

THE READERS OF THIS BLOG

Group One-A:  The Society of Honor. These men and women are a special bunch of intellectually, multi-dimensionally, cross-culturally gifted Filipinos and non-Filipinos  having connections with the Philippines. They are the people who comment. They've been around. They think for themselves. They are mature and civil. They can take a joke and dish one out. They are well-read and know what is going on. They can parse complex problems and articulate solutions. They see the Philippines clearly. They bring a wide set of experiences to bear on topics presented here. They are worth reading, for sure.

They are the makers of ideas.

Group One-B: These are the quiet men and women who read the blog regularly but don't type much. Possibly because they are shy, or perhaps not confident of their English expression or arguments, or perhaps because they don't type much. But they read and think and share ideas with their friends. They are the strong silent types.

They are the bakers of ideas.

Group Two:  Opinion makers and politicians who, by the importance of their station, are required to refrain from commenting. But they read, and think, and incorporate the ideas they like within their own thinking. Journalists are in this bunch, and certain legislative staffers, and even people on President Aquino's cabinet or staff. They may just peek in, or even read regularly. For sure, they are there because some have introduced themselves to JoeAm in the background.

They are the takers and shakers of ideas.

Group Three:  The curious and the spot-checkers. People pass through, maybe from a link plopped on Rappler or other blogs. A few enjoy what they read and stop in once in a while. A great many don't connect with the writing style or the idea the blog is written by an American or the irreverent style or other reasons. They move on down the road.

They are the forsakers of ideas.

THE PEOPLE WHO DON'T READ THIS BLOG

Group One: The anti's and the envious. The complainers don't read this blog. They are offended by JoeAm's relentless positive view of President Aquino and the Philippines. It infuriates and depresses them to even think that their complaints, whines and gripes are so much spit into the wind. Also in this group are other bloggers who somehow think they are competing with JoeAm even though he only competes with himself. These are people who are happy when others fail.

Group Two: The great unread. Face it, the big words, complex concepts, and satirical style zoom right past most Filipinos. There are like 92 million of them in the Philippines. They include the unaware, the unread, the technologically unplugged, and kids.

WHAT READERS THINK ABOUT THE BLOG

In addition to the quantitative look at who reads, our black operators also explored what readers think about the blog. Here are their findings in short bullet-point capsules:

• The pictures are cool. They are funny and lots of times have hidden meanings.

• Joe is nuts, a bit of a friendly blowhard with lots of opinions that sometimes get tiresome, but it is worth it for the refreshing ideas or good jokes that float through now and then.

• People don't understand 34.8% of what Joe is writing about, especially when he gets into literature that people haven't read, or goes back so far with his stories that he appears as a figment of ancient history.

• Readership increases when Angry Maude rages or Joe disses Get Real Post. Readers may be smart, but they like a little good dirt now and then like anybody else.

• They'd like to read more from guest writers, especially Filipino writers. Readers are proud of their own and like the change in pace from Joe's daily grindings.

• They don't like it when Joe imposes a superiority complex on things Filipino. Fortunately, the Society readers are candid enough to take Joe to task when he is going arrogant.

• Readers appreciate the contribution Joe is making to the Philippine dialogue.

JoeAm has released the black ops unit from any further inquiry. He gave them a generous bonus for the depth of their findings. It is rumored they are now training up on underwater sabotage and speaking Chinese. They were last seen waterproofing a bunch of maps of the Spratleys.

Angry Maude Blasts Get Real Post

Guest Article

By Maude Garrison

My cousin is Joe America. We used to call him JoJo when we were young because he used to stutter and we enjoyed ridiculing him in the best Filipino tradition. Only we were Americans.

Well, myself, I am only half American. My father snuck up across the Rio Grande to impregnate my teen age mother somewhere south of Wickenburg, Arizona, on a blanket out amongst the rocks and cacti. "Some picnic" Mom used to say.

So I'm without a father, for that scoundrel scurried back to Mexico faster than a rattle snake on a chipmunk when he heard Mom was pregnant. I am also without a mother for Ma bit the bullet in Iraq01. Fortunately, she had already peddled me off to her sister, JoJo's Mom, when I was 11. So I learned to fend for myself. See, that's how come I relate to Filipinos so well. I was a hand-me-down kid, too.

Angry Maude

I went to therapy for a lot of years when I was in my thirties to try to get rid of the anger that seeped up from my bones and out my mouth now and then. I pretty much have it under control now, but some things just stick in my craw.

I live in the Philippines, too, not far from JoJo. It seems that I have taken to following him around the globe, but that's just because he is rich and I am poor, and so I squeeze off of him. This is in the best Filipino tradition, too, if I judge correctly based on how my neighbors live. Half of them have no jobs but seem happy enough, bumming here and bumming there. I'm happy enough, too, except now and then my girdle gets a little squeezed by the nitwits on these anti blog sites.

I don't know if you caught JoeAm's battle with the anti's on that blog site owned by Benny Kritz the other day. "The Weather On Neptune". What kind of name for a blog is that? It signifies space cadet to me, and I'd guess that what most of the visitors to that site are. I thought the article was written by me in one of my tormented moods, considering how emotional it was. Hysterical, some would say, like my sisters when they run riot during their special time of the month.

Benny was ripping on President Aquino for having gone with "Boom Boom" Trillanes as his back door man to China, trying to get those Chinese boats off that useless pile of rocks called Scarborough Shoals. Did Simon and Garfunkle write a song about that place? Funny name for Asian rocks. "Boom Boom" is the name JoJo says he is going to give Trillanes because he is a loose cannon, crashing about insulting people and undermining the best laid plans of mice and Secretary Del Rosario.

JoJo read Benny's blog as he is inclined to do for its normally fresh insights, but fired off an objection on this one, wholly civil in tone. We know how upstanding and polite JoeAm always is. Suddenly all of the Get Real Post followers jumped out of the Neptune woodwork onto Joe's back, screaming their normal generalized condemnation of the "yellows" in very unkind terms. Joe had to fight them off, about six against one. You ought to read that exchange. Joe laid waste to them all. Rambo with a dictionary, that's my cousin. Here's the link: "Shattered"

One thing you can be sure of is that those Get Real people travel in packs. They have to. For support of their flimsy arguments. They shuffle like gangs through the internet, chains rattling, tattoos flexing. They don't have what it takes to step out into the real world and argue like rational, independent real men and woman. Instead, they tromp the GRP intellectual line like cows heading to the barn in the evening, nose to tail with benigno in the front. Ganging up is their specialty. And sticking to the "Down with Aquino" line is their passion, in the face of fact and reason. They'll ride that line to the Get Real grave.

That's what poor BongV did, I'd guess. I visited his Anto-Pinoy site to have a look-see into the vibrant discussion that used to be there. It ain't there, folks. The longest thread I read had three comments. My toenails are longer than that.

I expect Get Real Post to go that route, too. I mean, how much credibility can you hold onto when you hammer the same line for three years, ever bitter that your man Gordon got beat? They're like some of those creatures I'd run into during my group therapy. Out of touch is a nice way to express it. Holding onto their kiddie blankets like it was Mama's teat. Tinny is the sound of their complaint. Or hollow. It is only loud because the pack of them howl together like a herd of rabid coyotes in heat. There is some strange umbilical cord running from brain to brain in that bunch of depth-deficient robots reinforcing each other with spit and venom. Maybe they are all from Neptune, now that I think about it. Aliens from a gassy planet.

Sigh.

I get sad, actually.

Here is a bunch of grown men and a woman who behave like teens. They need to prove their point so desperately they fail to observe that they behave exactly like the people they criticize. Insecure intimidators. Thuggish. An entire month's worth of their polite wouldn't spill over from a sake cup. They behave like Sotto. Exactly like Sotto. Puffed up with self-importance. No personal ethic. Just win win, manipulate and make excuses. And fer chrissakes, never own up to mistakes.

Have you ever noticed that benigno and Senator Sotto have identical core values?

Face it , any blog site that would ban a crisp thinker like Cousin JoeAm has an onion skin. What's the rationale? Joe doesn't swear much. He only gets personal in response to others who get personal. Can benigno be AFRAID of his reasonableness? His way of looking at things objectively? Afraid of the clout he brings to bear on issues with his sharp wordstyle? 

I figure these are courage-deficient girlie men, though I must offer apology to my liberated sisters for borrowing the insult. Arnie Schwarzenegger calls them like he sees them and I merely Sottoized his fine characterization of certain people of certain quality. Or lack thereof.

Benny Kritz of Neptune concludes his article as follows:

• ". . .when a country cannot be regarded as a peer by other nations, it ceases to be a sovereign nation in fact if not in name – a hanger-on in the world community, treated with kind indulgence, perhaps, when it’s to others’ benefit to do so, but taken no more seriously in running the global household than the family dog."

Let me untangle this for you, for it is as knotty as the blanket sewed in a quilting bee by nine elderly ladies under the influence of a couple of gallons of Kickapoo Joy Juice.

1. The Philippines has been embarrassed in the international community because Trillanes was outted as President Aquino's back door man.

2. Therefore, the Philippines is a "lesser nation", not a peer, in the eyes of China, the US, and the rest of Asia.

3. Therefore, the Philippines is no longer a sovereign state, just a hanger-on, not to be taken seriously.

Hysterical. Not in the funny sense of the word.

What did the revealing of Wikileaks secrets do to the sovereignty of the United States, I wonder? Carve America up like the remains of a fiesta pig on the second day, leaving the nation without any gonads, a jolly, ineffectual eunuch hanging on in desperation to the real nations of the world? You know, like that real nation China, for example? Or maybe those real nations North Korea and Cuba and Iran and Venezuela. These are Benny's right-behaving nations, I suppose, which gives you some idea of the legitimacy of his characterization of the Philippines.

These hollow, callow Get Real guys. Boy they prove their dedication to the Philippines every day in every way, don't they? Maybe they are on China's payroll, eh? They seem ideologically aligned, in attack mode.

I'm proud of JoJo. He is able to remain apart from these disingenuous men and woman. He sees the hollow in the  callow.  And he speaks to the heart of things.

Joe's been my hero since Mom dumped me on Auntie's doorstep on a cold Colorado night back when. Joe was always smiling then, and he smiles a lot today. The Get Real people probably can't relate. They only snicker if they have someone at the butt of one of their bitter jokes.

But enough of this. I'm a gonna go out and get real stinkin' drunk. Ease off a little steam. Blow some gas if you catch my drift.

My therapist said that's not really the best way to deal with anger, but she concedes it is better than ripping someone's eyeballs out with a fork.

JoeAm's "Top 5 Most Influential Bloggers in the Philippines"

I have spent several days reviewing every blog site I can get my link-clicker on. It is amazing how many blogs are out there dealing with the Philippine condition. All  you do is take one blog roll and it leads to another and another and soon you have about 100 sites on hand. Half of them are expired, some are lazy and slow, and others are active.  Lawyers, educators, politicians, satirists, priests, journalists, retired Americans, screenwriters . . . a wide range.

I'm sorry I can't do justice to the quality writing that is out there. There are some great commentaries, generally lost in the internet woods, I fear. There are just too many sites to keep up with.

A lot of the sites are what I would call vanity blogs. Infrequent articles, not a lot of audience or commentary. Just the writer taking the opportunity to spout off about something. Often eloquently.

Well, to pick the top bloggers, it is important to have some criteria, some guidelines, some standards. What makes one blog site "better" than another?  It is not the political or social agenda some take up (anti-Aquino or pro-RH, for instance). There's nothing wrong with having an ideology and passion.  It has something to do with being pertinent to the Philippine condition, being well-written and thought provoking, and, indeed, being popular. The more people it reaches, if quality and pertinence are identical, the better it is.

Of course, if it is trash, more chat-room than intellectual, it is not "better" than a less popular but more substantial set of articles and comments.

Get Real Contributor

I think reader comments say a lot, actually, about the quality of a blog. That's why, by definition, I only have considered the "engaging" blogs, those which welcome dialogue and foster discussion. One-way reports may be news or commentary, but it is not the kind of rich blogging I'm trying to recognize.

It is easy to find sites that address the Philippine condition. It is sometimes difficult to say which is more important. Popularity or quality. Take the case of MLQIII who rarely blogs, but offers extraordinarily well-researched and thoughtful pieces. Where do you put him?

I have concocted a scale to sort this out It is called the "JoeAm Influence-o-meter". MLQIII ranks low because he simply is not out there enough.

And what about Rappler? Is that a blog site? Or sites that repost what others have written?  Friend manuelbuencamino's articles appear on perhaps five or more different blogs. Well, I put Rappler in the category of a "news and commentary" site, not a blog site. It is not built on dialogue. And sites that collect and reblog posts from elsewhere do not offer the original thought that makes up what I call a "well-written" article.

Rappler is on my daily reads, but it is not a blog site where dialogue is prominent.

What about sites like Get Real Post that have intelligent commentary but also a lot of chat-room interplay and insults, and which even encourage personal attacks if it advances the agenda? Is there a penalty for that?

You damn betcha.

If you are building, you are building. If you are tearing down, you are not building. Indeed, insult is aimed at driving away commentary, so it would be the opposite of "engaging". Furthermore, a part of JoeAm's influence evaluation has to do with the fundamental goal of building a BETTER Philippine condition. Not replicating the venom and vendetta that makes a WORSE Philippine condition.

Here are JoeAm's "Top 5 Engaging Filipino Bloggers":

Raissa Robles

1. Raissa Robles offers by far the most active blogging site in the Philippines. Inputs range in the thousands for some article. Some of the comments are "toss-offs" but many offer important perspectives that build on the original article. There are so many comments that she has to employ a decimal system of indexing them. The articles are topical, varied and well written. Many have just the right kind of "edge" to provoke healthy discussion. Without a doubt, Raissa is the number one blogger in the Philippines.

2. Noemi Dado is the principal behind three blogging sites: (a) blogwatch.ph, (b) blogwatch.tv and (c ) momblogger.  The .ph site offers high quality articles, well-written and pertinent to the Philippine condition; comment is rare. The .tv site offers timely social/political news, advocacies and commentary; it ran a daily account of the Corona trial, for instance; comments are light. The momblogger site deals with family issues and health, a "wholesome" perspective; it has a little more commentary. I have no idea why Noemi runs three separate efforts rather than one integrated effort. The main drawback to the persistent run of articles is the lack of vibrant discussion. The advantage is the volume of very timely and topical articles, well written, including advocacy pieces that are most enlightening. Dividing the effort over three sites seems . . . oh, unfocused. [N: Sorry for the original misspelling; I call my daughters by the wrong names, too. Joe)

3. Ellen Tordisillas is a journalist with a viewpoint and she offers them on two sites: ellentordesillas, which is commentary on the Philippine condition from several contributors, and The Vera Files, which is more or less an investigative journalism site ("Truth Is Our Business"). The articles are timely, topical and well written. Commentary is sometimes rich, often thin. She gets articles from numerous contributors. Again, having two different blogs seems to dilute the impact, and duplicate some content.

4. Benigno operates Get Real Post with a stable of good writers who follow his anti-Aquino agenda and pull in fairly active discussion. Ilda, especially attracts a good amount of commentary. The site includes active business, entertainment and technology sections, as well as articles about the Philippine condition. GRP gets dinged for tolerating abuse in favor of its agenda, the outcome of which is active commentary from "friends" and little of the constructive oppositional discussion that leads to fresh thinking. It may be my bias speaking, but the site seems to be getting smaller and tinnier, not deeper and richer.

The Real Joe Am?

5. The rest of us. I don't see anyone else close, but maybe I missed something fro the trampling of the blogging herds. BongV at AntiPinoy is off in his strident statistical land.  Cocoy can't quite seem to get ProPinoy untracked, perhaps because it is not a primary effort for him. Joe Am is unique in style and American perspective, and is on the rise, but doesn't yet have broad reach. There are some excellent topical sites out there: for economics, for updates on the Judiciary, for satire, for perspectives from priests. They aren't active enough to sustain much power on their own.

I'm amused by the vision of blogging as being similar to the Philippines itself. Very tribal (fractionalized) and ego-bound. Missing is the unity, the community, that makes it a powerful force. The defunct Filipino Voices came closest to representing an integrated community of bloggers without political agenda, where wide-ranging comments were offered. It died from lack of editorial attention and jealous in-fighting amongst the participating readers and writers.

Perhaps we'll see some enterprising soul take several the existing blogs and put them together in a new influential force that might give Raissa come competition.

Or I'll just have to persuade Boo to write some more fine critiques and leverage JoeAm to a broader audience.

Ben Kritz: The Alien Who Shoots Straight

The blogging community in the Philippines is both diverse and small, rather like Hollywood, where all kinds of movies get made but you keep seeing the same faces showing up on the giant screen. John Travolta, Eddie Murphy and Robin William all showed up in dresses at one time or another. The Filipino blogging community is equally tight and equally quirky. Furthermore, relationships fall faster than mangos in a typhoon, both in Hollywood and the ph blogosphere.

Today I will focus on one Ben Kritz, who blogs as Ben K, and who has been pounding the blog typewriter for at least as many years as I have been in the Philippines, which is becoming a bunch.

I first encountered Ben at the defunct Filipino Voices community blog site. He quickly gained my respect because he could disagree with my newly arrived, half-baked opinions without calling me a moron, and if I happened to write something agreeable the next day, he would say so.  His own writing was blunt and intelligent even if occasionally, in my view, wrong.

Kritz Politics

The thing I like about Ben is that he has principles and sticks with them. When Bong V at Anti-Pinoy broke with AP editorial policy and into the realm of hypocrisy by deleting my comments, Ben, one of the three main guys at Anti-Pinoy at that time, put them back in.

Here's a bit of history. BongV, benigno and Ben K all marched out of Filipino Voices in a big snit a number of years ago because FV chose to moderate their comments. Many of the FV blog threads had deteriorated into personal pissing wars, and a couple of these characters could piss with the best of them. They marched off to Anti-Pinoy and started blasting Filipino Voices (they still ridicule the site today, rather like stomping on dead bodies) for its "censorship" and failure to support "free speech".

Well, the timeline shows all kinds of worms have turned since then. benigno and Ben K split from Anti-Pinoy after a blow-up with Bong V. I'm not sure what it was about, but it may have involved Bong V's ardent pro Muslim perspectives.

BenK went to benigno's Get Real blog site and they set out to promote that site as a popular voice of progressive thought in the Philippines. Ben K does many of the business articles on one of Get Real information platforms:  http://grbusinessonline.com/wp/

The final worms turned when Anti-Pinoy started deleting comments and Get Real started "spamming" contributors who irritated the authors, even if they did not engage in profanity or deal in personal insults. They just had the effrontery to disagree and be persistent at it.  Spamming is like blacklisting a contributor. It mars his ability to comment on other sites, too, not just Get Real. So benigno took it one step further than Filipino Voices, not only banning commenters but tattooing a number on their forehead as well.

I had been criticizing Get Real here at The Society of Honor for some time and that probably contributed to benigno's decision to eject me. I'm sure that President Aquino would like to spam the whole Anti-Pinoy and Get Real crowd, but he does not have the same autocratic right as a blog editor does.

Why Get Real Members Understand Filipinos So Well	Characteristic	Dysfunctional Filipino	Get Real Member
	Hyper-sensitive	X	X
	Thuggish	X	X
	Vindictive	X	X
	Hypocritical	X	X
	Rationalizer	X	X
	Blame-caster	X	X

I check in at Get Real every now and then to read and get some ideas. My "ideas" generally are to write something the opposite of what they are busy framing as intelligence.

I didn't really follow Ben K's writings.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, a slow day with no typhoons or dances to attend, I started doing a little catch-up reading and came across the most fascinating dust-up between Ben K and what appears to be a little cabal of Get Real  strategists back in late 2011. The cabal had evidently gotten together in 2010 to hatch the stance Get Real would take in its blogs and at Facebook. I have long thought that Get Real is an agenda-pushing blog site and this is testimony to that fact.

The cabal decided it would dedicate itself to pushing for re-writing the Constitution to get the economy rolling.  Translated, that means re-writing the Constitution to open the nation up to foreign investment.

Ben Kritz sans Helmet

The dust-up came when Ben K wrote an article at Get Real Business criticizing advocates  of such a Constitutional re-write for not being aggressive enough. Ben K is a free lance business consultant and I suspect he would become a very popular and rich guy if the Philippines opened up, so there is a reason he would like to see more aggressive action.

In other words, he writes to an agenda, as well.

Maybe we all do.

There is nothing wrong with being an advocate. There is something wrong with pretending to be one thing whilst doing another. Like relentlessly criticizing the President of the Philippines in the guise of being constructive agitators for an improved Philippines, when your real goal is to portray the nation as incompetent so that more people seek expertise and capital from overseas. Because then you get rich personally.

Alas, the little cabal of strategic thinkers took issue with Ben K's criticism, even though he did not mention them by name. If thinness of skin were to be measured by the thickness of one's blog comments, then these guys come with extraordinarily thin skin, because the words came flying, and the tone was downright snide and  nasty toward "Blunt Ben". The nerve of the guy expressing his ideas out loud.

Kritz Humor

Here was one of the comments made by a certain Orion Pérez Dumdum, who I would note writes an occasional blog article at Get Real:

You never indicated any interest in the movement, and it was quite clear from the assholic nature of some of your previous posts dissing the Movement (why the heck do you also need to be so assholic about it, Ben?)

Here is Ben K at his "assholic" best, as he wrapped up his criticism:

Beyond that, however, the current mild push for constitutional reform unfortunately seems more likely to fail than succeed, in one of three ways: either outright by failing to remove constitutional protectionism due to a lack of effort and clear goals; by failing to produce any significant economic gains (i.e. a significant increase or growth of FDI) from the removal of constitutional protectionism, due to a lack of focus on other critical reforms to the investment environment; or by unintentionally creating a condition by which strong vested business interests can increase their favored and protected status to an even greater degree, using the lack of constitutional guidelines for ownership and investment as an excuse to do so. To be fair, this is probably an unlikely nightmare scenario; on the other hand, there is nothing in the current trajectory of the reform advocacy that would clearly prevent it from happening.

If the significant and comprehensive economic reform the Philippines needs cannot be accomplished, for the potential investor it will be a regrettable missed opportunity; but for the country itself, the stakes are much, much higher. For everyone’s sake, most of all their own, those pushing for constitutional reform ought to think about rolling up their sleeves and approaching the initiative as real work.

Kritz Serious

If these guys get bent out of shape by that commentary, I'd hate to see what they would do if someone were direct and told them they were incompetent, the key measure of competency being that something is in Committee or is actively before the Legislature for votes. Clearly these cabal guys went Ampatuan on Ben K, reading him riot in a public forum (I'm sure they have his e-mail address, which they could have quietly used if they were not so needy as to engage in face-saving public showboating in the Philippine tradition).

Ben K responded that he thinks for himself, but of course there is nothing that can be said to calm a clan of ranting Filipinos out for blood. So Ben K properly went silent and let the rest of the diatribe go irrelevant.

What I find fascination is the existence of a cabal which identified the Get Real editorial slant in 2010, to advocate for a rewrite of the Constitution. Named by Orion as members of the cabal are himself, Arnel, Chino, Lester, and Anthony. Ben K was a member, too. A guy by the name of Eduardo R. Alicias, Jr., may also be a member. Here is Eduardo's take:

• Mr. Ben Kritz, an ALIEN! your ideas are welcome, but what gives you the right, the nerve to impose your ideas, let alone insult us or at least some of us Filipinos on our internal efforts/discussions to improve our own country?

That of course is the peculiar definition of free speech that says "you can say whatever you want as long as I agree with it." I guess Eduardo packs his own Humpty Dumpty dictionary.

Here is the full article and blog comments if you wish to read the glorious dirt yourselves:

• The Economic Liberalization Initiative and the Philippines: Path to Prosperity, or Road to Hell?

Do I trust Ben K? I trust him to be principled rather than personal. And one of his principles is to advocate for those people and activities that benefit him and his consultation business. He is anti-Aquino. He was pro-Corona.  He is consistently aligned with the Get Real agenda. Yet he is not a shrill, insecure hit man. He just pushes on, relentlessly and somewhat irreverently.

Do I respect that he toes the Get Real line so precisely? I don't agree with that line, but I respect that he can have a different take on things than me. He does not have to like that I see the Philippines optimistically, for he may believe it is misleading and overly rosy when poverty and ineptitude really suck. The interplay between the two views is where constructive output can be found. It is benigno's refusal to allow that interplay that makes him a dog among bloggers.

The main purpose of this blog is to recognize Ben Kritz as his own man, an independent voice who lives in the Philippines, works in the Philippines, and advocates passionately for issues he believes in. He is able to discern issue from personality. He is not needy. He speaks directly. He does not insist that you be his friend or even like him. What is important is the message, the idea, the action.

Kudos, Ben K. I hope you are writing blogs and stirring up thinking here for a long, long time. It's good for the Philippines.

Ben K's web site is found here: http://weatheronneptune.wordpress.com/

Arroyo, Santiago, Marcos, and Get Real Post

When I lived in the U.S., I would tune into C-Span, the television network that airs broadcasts of the Senate and House in action. It is a patriotic place of contention and argument, bias and posturing, facts and reason. Some days civil, most days down and dirty.

The Supreme Court impeachment trial showed me something similar. Patriotic people, contentious and argumentative, biased and posturing, wrestling with facts and reason. Most days were down and dirty.

But you know, the Philippines has moved FORWARD and HIGHER, both with the outcome of the trial, and the democratic maturity demonstrated in the proceeding. It has moved FOR transparency and accuracy of public reporting by government employees. It has moved FOR integrity in the Supreme Court, a fundamental requirement for independence and respect.

No revision to the bank secrecy law is required, I think, as the Senate has declared clearly that SALN's must include dollar-denominated deposits. Case law is as good as written law and anyone who purposely withholds dollar deposits does so at considerable peril.

I'm guessing that one outcome of the trial will be much more attention and documentation put behind the SALN's. That's good.

The one law I would suggest OUGHT to be added is an act that creates a regulatory agency that oversees broadcast and print media. Today these media are self-regulated and pretty much out of control. If there is an ethical foundation for news reporting, it is not very strict. Rumor and borderline slander make up much of the sensationalist reporting. Media form a loose and irresponsible mob, in the main, more interested in titillating and attracting audience than integrity of reporting. This is not in the public interest.

I'm not that familiar with the political parties or persuasions of the senators. I found most of the arguments thoughtful and, frankly, uplifting. The exceptions were the dark political accusations of Senator Arroyo, the lunatic ranting of Senator Santiago, and the odd argument of Senator Marcos that puts the Bill of (personal) Rights above the Constitution. All three gave great arguments for continuing the ways of the non-transparent and corrupt.

I trust that Get Real Post will emote and rationalize away the proceeding as the opposite of what it was. They will claim it confirms the vacuity of the Filipino, and their vindictiveness.

No, no. You won't find much respect for democratic process at Get Real Post. The real vacuity rests with the values of GRP editors and its loyal thugs.

I hope President Aquino has a happy visit with President Obama in the U.S. next week. President Obama will be thoroughly briefed on the outcome of the trial, you may be assured.

Then President Aquino ought to return to the Philippines and go to work on constructive acts. Get out of  political name-calling, and do some work. He's got less than four years left.

He was grossly out-of-line during the trial as he or his spokesmen meddled in Senate affairs.

It is good that he is enthusiastic about fighting corruption. It is bad that he lacks a certain discipline. He displays the same kind of loose discipline that got Chief Justice Corona in trouble.

He also tends to shade his appointments toward friends rather than competence. He needs to go with competence. His selection of the Supreme Court Chief Justice will be under a huge microscope.

The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Do you know why I love the Philippines and Filipinos? Because they have character.

They're good, they're bad, they're ugly.

Take the impeachment trial. Senator Enrile is a good guy. He holds the wisdom of the ages in his still brilliant legal mind. Sure it takes him some time to piece his sentences together, to rummage through the crowded or clouded memory banks to find precisely the right words to line up, to make every sentence mean something. But if you wait patiently, you find impeccable logic and profound thinking. Like the last two questions he asked that demonstrated clearly that the bank secrecy laws and SALN are NOT in conflict, leading even a half-wit to figure out that SALN requires voluntary disclosure of dollar amounts . . . or resignation because you can't live up to the oath.

Well, also not grasping the notion is the defense who clasped desperately to any log they could find as they shot down the river toward destiny. Interestingly, they lost control when the defense took over the trial and they got upended by calling the Ombudsman to the stand.

But lead counsel Cuevas was another good guy. Sure, he was stuck with defending a slimeball, but somebody's got to do it. He had to stand at the mike and face the condemnation of Enrile as the other attorneys slunk down in their chairs as the Chief Slinker Corona exited during his infamous walkout. Other attorneys were evidently in on the ploy, but poor Mr. Cuevas was not. Still, he hung boldly in there, apologizing and doing all he could do to protect his ill-mannered client.  Throughout the trial, he had to work in a public spotlight with and against colleagues who were friends and former students of his. But he stuck to the high road, vigorously arguing the law and the facts, slanted to reinforce his interpretation of the law.

One of the "bads" was the Chief Justice who redefines slime-in-a-robe . . . offering up any excuse, any whine, any political attack in the name of vengance. His walk-out will define him for life, and his pathetic look, sitting eyes down in his wheel chair, getting reprimanded like a child.

And I put President Aquino among the bad, too, for this particular exercise, the trial. He just could not shut up, never understanding that his political condemnations of the Chief Justice during the trial were exactly the thing we hate about the Chief Justice: it's called meddling. Reaching for the court of public opinion rather than the principle of justice, the principle that Mr. Corona deserves a trial untainted by Executive opinion.

One ugly was that goody-two-shoes Keh fellow, who took it upon himself to go directly to Senator Enrile, as if he, Keh, were an esteemed part of the judicial process because he is idealistically pure. Well, he got what he deserved. A belt whipping on national TV.

The other ugly was whipping the belt . . . Senator Santiago. She used to be refreshing, her candid rants putting people in their place. But now every time she steps to the microphone, there is anger in every word. Maybe she should consider retiring, eh? The Senate is a demanding job, and no one will ever be able to live up to the perfections that she demands. She has become a bore, not refreshing.

And for me, personally, it has been a delight watching the various senators perform. I say "perform" because I think they do a lot of acting. My favorite was young Estrada, and I'm sorry to understand that he is close to the Arroyos. He has a disarming way of laughing at things. We never quite know what he is laughing at, but he laughs a lot, and sometimes I suspect he is laughing at us. That's very different than the stiff formality we see in other senators, and I like it.

Perhaps the ugliest of the uglies are the media, the sensationalists posing as journalists.

No dirt, no rumor, no slander is too cheap for them to blaze in the headlines. I suppose they don't have enough staff or professionalism to actually dig for facts, to write in-depth stories that interview several perspectives. To do thoughtful pieces. No, they take the quick hit, the vivid display of shock and surprise, and wrap it in tissue paper. Then put it in the headlines. Then look for the anger that flows forth to add "substance" to the story.

I look around my neighborhood and I see more goods and bads and uglies. They are all over the place. More goods than bads. More bads than uglies.

And I find myself, like Senator Estrada, inclined to laugh a lot.

And so I am happy here.

Looking Through Bear Dung and Get Real Articles

A number of years ago, I was hiking up a wild mountain in Alaska with a naturalist who would not go anywhere without his bear gun. He was a realist naturalist, I suppose, and understood that the large creatures in that part of the woods would eat first and growl later. We came across a big pile of bear dung, fairly fresh. He took a stick and flipped through the shit to examine what the bear had been eating.

Reading Get Real Post is a little like that.

As you probably know, the editors of that blog site have banned me from commenting there. They view me a little like Corona views the Ombudsman, always poking around in uncomfortable places. Getting too near to the truths that threaten their intellectual or emotional fabric. So am relegated to having to comment in a side hallway rather than the courtroom of direct and honorable argument.

Well, they have delivered the normal tripe about Chief Justice Corona, the rationalizations that extremists are inclined to cling to as their icon of virtue turns into an out-of-touch, blathering, sniveling malcontent on nationwide television. The Chief Justice behaves rather like a large two-year old on a three hour tantrum and the Get Real proud patrons try to tell us how cute he is.

Pathetic is different than cute.

As it was my commentary regarding an article by Get Real scribe Arche that got me banned, I take special interest in his articles. I find that he is an intelligent guy, not unkind, writes well, but is evidently pinned to the same agenda as the editors, and doesn't mind being the berries in the Get Real turds.

Here's what he writes about those who would find fault with the undignified Corona meltdown.

• Despite what Filipinos everywhere said about demanding the truth from Corona’s mouth, they are not really after the truth; they are only after someone whom they can verbally beat up like a lingual punching bag. We are not a truth-based society; instead, we are a ridicule-based society, especially when people are convinced that, in repeatedly demeaning the respondent’s image

Let's see, Mr. Corona spent three hours beating up on dead men, presidents, government officials, legislators, and prosecuting attorneys, blaming and whining and crying his way in self indulgent self pity. Filipinos are supposed to, what, sit back in admiration of his judicial bearing and intellectual might?

When he signed his waver, people actually cheered. It is what they want. Transparency. Then he pulled his dirty trick. On the people. They are supposed to roll over and praise the guy?

• One would seriously think that if Corona intends to get away from everything through acting, he would be more creative than to act “sick” and instantly earn the ire of the Filipinos who simply can’t move on from the Arroyo incident. And yet he went sick.

Indeed, his driver and car were ready for his quick exit . One would seriously think that is masterfully unplanned, impromptu accidental arrangement.

He exited full strength. He got sick after he was stopped from fleeing by the Sergeant at Arms. It is called "loser's limp", like when the star player whose team is getting pulverized suddenly ends up with an injury that serves as his excuse for not being responsible for anything that transpired on the field. And the blind hyper-allegiant fans gets suckered in. Rather like some blog article writers.

When Chief Justice Corona was wheeled back to the courtroom, he did not even have the grace or courage to look ONCE, from his wheel chair, at Senator Enrile as he spoke.

• And now, we have another prospect of mistrial based on “grave abuse of discretion.”

Right. Abuse of discretion. I tell you, the bear is crapping big now. Presiding Senator Enrile abused Chief Justice Corona by using his discretion to allow him to speak. The man kept running on after Senator Enrile interrupted three times to respectfully suggest he was out of order. Corona didn't care. He was on a mission.

• Corona not only signed his waiver authorizing government bodies to examine his accounts, he is also giving Filipinos the opportunity to check out the accounts of the other politicians by challenging them to sign their waivers too!

His second surprise, making his waiver contingent on 189 other signatures, was a vindictive dirty trick. On the people. It made a mockery of transparency. I fear Arche is trying to reconstruct by dumping a whole bottle of perfume into this growing pile.

• In many aspects, Corona’s dare was pretty nifty, hitting two birds with one stone. The first bird was the reputation of his persecutors. The second one was the hypocrisy of the Filipinos, attempting to uphold the rule of law only when it suits their egotistic purposes.

Yes, and that's pretty nifty, too, slandering the entire Filipino nation as indulging in hypocrisy, as you write this tripe.

The only attitude I see from the normal Filipinos around me is to want a honest and forthright Chief Justice. You know, Chief Justice Corona could have won the day by reporting the balances in his four dollar accounts, after having effectively rebutted the Ombudsman's Power Point presentation.  He could have won the day by signing the waiver on secrecy, unconditionally. What a statement of credibility and openness that would have been! What a dramatic statement FOR transparency! But he signed it, waved it, read it. Then pulled it back.

Insulting the people who were so generous of heart as to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Then he walked out.

Insulting the people's earnest representatives in the Senate.

The man is emotionally challenged with a debilitating persecution complex. He is unable to stand the heat in a kitchen he entered surreptitiously, in the dead of night, as a favor to a woman now in jail.

I suggest Arche needs to wipe the . . . umm, film . . . from his eyes and look simply at the disreputable and disrespectful display that was put on by the Chief Justice, with his "vast legal knowledge", in the guise of testimony, last Tuesday. And stop slandering good people who, when they see the king is naked, simply say the king is naked.