“Can’t we all just get along?”

Words of a man whose beating sparked riots; and, really, we have to ask: why can’t we just get along?

It seems strange to me that we would need a peace agreement to obligate ourselves to be nice to one another. I would have thought it should have been natural for us to treat each other decently, humanely, with all the laws we already have in place. So, what are we doing in Mindanao?

Well, one side says they’re fighting oppression — and choosing to revolt as its solution — while the other side is supposed to be preserving peace and order naturally resulting in conflict and violence. The thing is however, that’s not the case in all of Mindanao. There are areas in Mindanao where Muslims and Christians live harmoniously despite, I suppose, the “oppression” by the Government. There are also Muslims living in and around Manila who have lived peacefully for years, generations even. The question, therefore, is what makes this group special? Is it because they have taken up the gun against the State? Is that enough?

It’s not that the Philippines hasn’t been here before. Once upon a time, the Government was fighting a war with the MNLF, who wanted to create an independent Muslim State in Mindanao. Years later, when the MNLF started talking peace with the Government, the MILF broke off from the MNLF and started their own war for independence. The Government gave the MNLF ARMM but with the MILF already out there, peace remained elusive. Now, the Government is talking peace with the MILF, guess what? Yes, there’s a new group out there fighting for independence: the BIFF! Where will all this end?

Even if the Government and the rest of the Philippines gave the MILF their Bangsamoro, which by the way will also do away with the old ARMM of the MNLF and kinda sidelines the MNLF, there’s still the problem of the BIFF out there; and judging by what happened in Mamasapano, the problem is a big one.

So, the real question in all this is are we even talking to the right people? Make no mistake: WE NEED PEACE IN MINDANAO, but are we on the right path to that peace. What do we gain by making peace with the MILF when the BIFF is still out there? If Mamasapano is any indication of how the MILF will run the Bangsamoro, then one wonders what might go on in the Bangsamoro.

Are we on the right path to peace, or are we just buying time? What are we doing? Indeed, can’t we all just get along?

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Waze: The Illusion of Movement

For the past two days, Waze, the navigation app, has been true to its word. If it says it will get me home at 7:17 pm, I’m there at 7:17 pm. On other occasions, it was off by a few minutes (from a couple to more than twenty in my experience).

The beauty of Waze is that it looks for open roads to your destination based on real-time traffic reports sent by Waze users. It calculates the fastest route to your destination and gets you going. If it discovers a route that will get you to your destination faster, then it will reroute you to take advantage of the opening. It also takes into consideration constructions, obstructions and, oddly enough, police presence along the routes. I’m not exactly sure how the last item helps you go through traffic but it’s there. Parenthetically, I think it’s a warning for traffic violators to wise up and obey traffic rules, at least in the areas where there are police reported. Note, it even tells you if the police are visible or hidden. Recently, I read an article that said US police forces were asking Google to disable the police tracking feature of Waze for fear it might be used to target police officers. No word yet if the campaign has gotten any traction.

Tonight though I had one of those lightbulb moments and asked myself how much help is Waze? I mean, sure, it’s pretty helpful as it informs you of the possible causes of any buildup in traffic, including rain by the way, but does it really save you time? That’s the question I sought to answer.

So, before going home, I opened the app, activated the navigation feature and clicked “Home” as my destination. Waze computed and said it will get me home in an hour and thirty-four minutes or on 7:44 pm, choosing C5 as my route home (in QC) from my point of origin (Makati). Instead of following its instructions though, I turned the navigation off and took the EDSA route. I chose a single lane, stuck to it unless I had to overtake an extremely slow-moving car, and headed straight for home. Guess what? I arrived around 7:30 pm. Assuming Waze could have re routed me somewhere along C5 and saved me some minutes (historically, between 5 to 15 minutes), I still would have arrived at around the same time, 7:30 pm.

The thing about Waze is that, yes, it finds you an open road that will get you to your destination, but the distance covered by the open road more or less negates the time saved. The illusion of movement. You thought you were getting to your destination faster but, in truth, you were just taking a longer route that makes it appear you saved time.

Mythbusters and Top Gear Philippines did a study between lane changers and guys who stick to a lane to their destinations. In both studies, one held in California and the other in Metro Manila, it showed that, yes, lane changers do get to their destinations faster but not by much. Plus, lane changers were more stressed and harried than the stick to one lane drivers. The lesson, of course, is that it is better to stick to a lane and minimize lane changing to when it only becomes necessary. You’ll live longer that way.

Waze is the same, except that instead of lane changing, you’re road changing, but the total effect is the same. Your time saved isn’t substantial. Sorry Waze but that’s the truth. Does that mean we should dump Waze? Hell no! Waze is still a worthy app as it gives you alternate routes you never knew existed, the causes for traffic buildup, and, for traffic violators, fair warning on the presence of police officers in the area. It lets you interact with others; makes you feel good that you are able to help others; and, generally, reminds you of when and where you should turn. It’s a helpful social network of drivers and I would always recommend it for anyone. Just don’t think it’s a real time-saver. It’s not. It’s just you thinking it is.

Peace!

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An American Movie

Before anything else, we might as well get two things evidencing some sloppiness in the making of American Sniper out of the way. The first is the now infamous baby doll, and the second is the moving RPG. The second was supposed to have been dropped by a would-be terrorist when the Sniper shot him to death. The scene then involves a boy who sees the RPG and decides whether or not to pick it up and shoot it at some American soldiers while the Sniper decides whether or not to shoot the child. The thing is, the RPG kept moving with every shot and you know it took a lot of takes to make the scene. These two scenes were two of the most dramatic moments of the movie — conflict situations — but the sloppiness of the making of it just made it fizzle.

The American Sniper is obviously an American film that tries to tell the story of a man whose exploits during the Iraq War became legendary. I heard it has been nominated for Oscars. What for, I don’t know but from a purely American perspective, it would be hard not to see it nominated for something. It has a lot of substance even if the form suffered a bit as I noted above. It is that substance, however, that creates problems for this film.

Any American watching this film will easily understand where the man’s motivations come from, but to the rest of the world, honestly, the movie represents everything that was wrong with the American-led Iraq War, or, worse, America itself. The Sniper comes across as a chest beating Silverback who feels justified, indeed unmoved, by all the death he is part of. The movie attempts to explain his motivations. The bombing of US embassies in Africa turned him from a cowboy to a soldier, and the 9/11 attacks turned him into the lethal machine that made him legendary…to Americans. America will see a hero. The rest of the world, not so much. There are gaps in the story such that one wonders why the Sniper is perplexed that his brother who also fought in Iraq would curse the country. There was nothing the film that showed he cared about Iraq. As far as we can tell, his only motivation was to protect US Marines like his brother as they operated in Iraq. When his brother cursed Iraq, you would expect him to say “f#%@ yeah” but, no, he is astonished…and we don’t get why.

The movie assumes, of course, that the audience will accept that the attacks on the U.S. were evil pure and simple. Enough to justify the hero to become the legend. I wish that it could be that simple. An American would agree but you cannot make the same conclusion for any body else. The truth is that which America accepts as true are not necessarily perceived as such elsewhere. This is not to say that terrorism is justified. But the treatment of the film is so simplistic that there is a danger that others will view the film as propagandist and/or a justification to fight America.

Parenthetically, is it a prerequisite that a movie about a sniper always involve a sniper-versus-sniper theme? You see it in Sniper, Enemy at the Gates and The Shooter. I didn’t read the book so I hope this isn’t an insertion just to spice up the movie.

This is supposed to be a personal story of one man’s development from a cowboy to soldier to, finally, a human being but we don’t see his humanity. We saw him get back to his family but not how he helped others. The scene where they did show him helping wounded veterans did not really help because it still involved shooting and the dialogue was hard to listen to not because they were mumbling or anything but because of what they were talking about. Death dealing could not, should not, be treated so lightly. I suppose I was expecting more from the man who made Unforgiven such a powerful film and was disappointed. While the story should’ve been about an American, I fear that it might not reflect well for America.

The total effect of the movie is something like the ending of another movie, The Kingdom, where the lead character discloses that he promised his military colleagues that they will get all the terrorists, while the grandson of a terrorist disclosed that his grandfather promised him that they will prevail. It’s all a matter of perspective, and yet, for all the blood and guts spilled and lost, nothing gets resolved. In the end, American Sniper failed to fully explain the man and, unfortunately, might just have made things worse for America.

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Going beyond the euphoria of meeting the Pope

Pope Francis has come and gone and the millions of Filipino Catholics can’t get over it. Everyone had a story to tell or a picture or video posted in their social media of choice. I wasn’t fortunate to see him during his stay, but if the feeling is anything like when I saw Pope John Paul II when he was here for the World Youth Day, then it must have truly been something because I have never felt anyone beam so much holiness that it felt like something tangible. If you cannot understand what I am saying, then there is no describing it any better. You just had to be there.

The problem with Filipinos, of course, is that: first, we love celebrities and being majority Catholic, there’s no one better than the Pope himself; and, second, many of us are just Catholics in name. We give our religion as “Roman Catholic” but how many of us actually accept, truly imbibe, the teachings of the Church? I am considered a very conservative Catholic and yet even I question some of its teachings. Before I digress, the point here is that after all the hoopla, how much of what the Pope said have taken root?

The Pope asked us to care for our environment and yet he hasn’t even left the country yet, we’ve left a mountain of garbage in and around Luneta. If we failed to discipline ourselves by keeping our trash and/or dispose of them properly, then how are we going to respond to his call for us to care for our fellow men, the children, the poor, the needy, the victims? Will we cry as the Pope asks us to cry with them? How can we?

The message of the Pope is the message of Christ: one of love, and being loved. My years at the Ateneo de Manila taught me one thing more: love is not a feeling. It is not something fleeting: here one moment, gone in the next. It is an act. It is something you do.

My hope, therefore, is that even as the Pope may have departed, his teachings should have taken root in our hearts and compel us to act, to love and, in return, be loved. We cannot bask in all that euphoria and then just recall it with fondness. If we do that, then we have wasted the Pope’s time and energy. We have to act.

One of the most highlighted incidents during his stay is when a girl asked why God allows bad things to happen to children. With the young girl in tears, the Pope can only admit that there may be no answer to her question but, in truth, there is and it has always been the central message he brought to us: love. It is said that for evil to triumph, it is enough that good men do nothing. There you find the answer: God does not allow it, we do whenever we fail to act to help the needy. We have to act. If we do not allow it, then that is God not allowing it.

We may be “high” right now, but we soon have to confront the realities around us. There are people who need us, need our help, support, love. Let us go beyond the euphoria and act on it. Let us go out and love our neighbors, the needy, that we, in turn, will be loved. Let us be more than just nominal Catholics. As the Pope said, our central identity is rooted in God: we are children of God. Let us care for one another as one family in God not because we feel good doing it, but because that is what it takes to love.

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The Dark Side of the Coin

The Charlie Hebdo episode to me highlights the disconnect between East and West. The West loves its freedoms, the concept of democracy and its traditions developed by its civilizations, empires and history. Its glory, however, is lost on the East who, unfortunately, has mostly been the victim of those civilizations, empires and history (since, it is said, that history is written by the victor). To the East, the glories of the West is the cause of its poverty, humiliation and underdevelopment.

America has always considered itself endowed with a messianic destiny to lead all nations to a better world, but its efforts have also been the source of hardship, tragedy and sorrows for the East and, sometimes, even to the West itself. America and its allies believed that Iraq needed a regime-change and ousted Saddam Hussein from power. It viewed the Taliban, once supported by the West, as extremists and bombed them to the boondocks. The West saw these as inspired. The East saw nothing more than neo-colonialism. When Al-Qaida struck in 9/11, there were people in the East who rejoiced caught in images and broadcasted worldwide. The West could not understand why these people would celebrate an attack against a civilian target that killed so horrifically.

Today, the growth of the Islamic State boggles the West. Worse, they couldn’t understand why people who grew up in the West would actually fight for IS. What is it that has so distanced or disenfranchised its own people that they would take up arms for what can only be an enemy of the West?

Charlie Hebdo was keeping alive a French tradition: satire at its harshest. It is founded in their belief that they had absolute freedom of expression to ridicule any and all sacred cows. In France, if not all of the West, they are admired for it; but not all the world does. There will always be those who will be offended by their magazine. To them, Charlie Hebdo would say “too bad.” Unfortunately, there will be those who will spill blood in response.

This is not to say that what happened at Charlie Hebdo was justified, or was something they brought upon themselves. Rather, we have to realize that a coin has two sides and even if we call “heads!” There will be those who are calling for tails. The world is never absolutely how we see it. What we see as good may be bad for others. Two sides of the same coin.

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Shaking the Tree

I think the attack on the French magazine known for dishing satirical, and, admittedly, sometimes offensive pieces, was a personal decision of those who perpetrated the attack. Rightly or wrongly, they felt it was their duty to “avenge the Prophet.” Unfortunately for them, there is no law that allows them to do what they did no matter how they felt about the magazine. This is no different from Christians or Catholics who firebomb abortion clinics. Yes, they believe it is their duty to destroy these facilities that kill humans before they are born but, again, there is no law that allows them to do that.

The sad part about this is that we, as a race, appear not to have improved over the years. The slightest provocation and we immediately generalize about who is to blame with grave consequences. If a nut falls from a tree and hits us on the head, we blame the tree and, in the worst case, cut it down for dropping the nut on our head. It will do well to remember that the tree did not consciously drop the nut on you. It happened. Of course the assault on the magazine was so much more terrible than a falling nut and it is not my intent to belittle it as a nut; but the long and short of it is that you don’t blame the tree, or the forest, for what happened. In the same way, we cannot blame all Muslims for the actions of a few.

The same rule applies even to the worst of these few like Boko Haram that is reported to have killed 2,000 people in a single attack in Nigeria, or the now countless atrocities of the so-called Islamic State. There is no law that allows them to do what they do regardless of their justifications. It is simply illegal. What nations should do, therefore, is not to kill the tree from whence it came, but to prune the tree by prosecuting those responsible for those crimes because that is simply what they are. Not martyrs. Not heroes. Just your everyday variety of criminals.

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Has it been a year already?

2014 is such a strange year. I ended 2013 running off with my wife to Nairobi, Kenya, after spending Christmas in the Philippines. The plan was to spend the New Year there as well but people in South Sudan had other ideas and we just had to get up and go. New Year’s Day quietly came and went and, now, a new one’s just around the corner.

The rest of the year seemed to have gone past in a blur. I know I’ve been back to Nairobi at least twice before Christmas. The first was rather short because we were off to Ankara, Turkey, soon after I arrived, and flew back to the Philippines soon after we returned. The trip to Turkey was amazing because of the sights and sounds and the beauty of it all: the Citadel, the Tomb of Ataturk and Cappadocia. I wish there was time to see Istanbul but I guess that is for another time – a good excuse to go back.

The second trip was to Amboseli where we saw Mt. Kilimanjaro. Having gone to numerous safaris, one would think that one might have had enough, but the truth is each trip is different. Sure, you’ve seen giraffes and elephants before, but seeing them in their natural habitat, doing what normal giraffes and elephants (and other animals as well) do, never ever gets old. It is always awe-inspiring. In one trip, you see a gazelle giving birth. In another, a crocodile just a few feet from your tent. Cheetahs on the prowl in one and lions feasting in another. Then there are the Rhinos, those rare amazing creatures. Yes, you can never get enough of the wonders of nature.

Work-wise, it has been a challenge. I don’t mind mentoring, that is part of my job description, but I wish the employee was more receptive to it. He thinks he knows everything, but there are even basic things that he doesn’t know, understand or do; and that’s frustrating. It’s a struggle and I suppose I just have to keep at it until he gets it. Other than that, lawyering for a bank is good work and my office mates and I enjoy each other’s company. Sometimes we have a bit too much fun but with all the work-related stress we go thorough on a daily basis, having a bit of a guffaw every now and then is beneficial to one’s health, then you go back to normal and trudge away…

Then there’s the weather. The rains. Ugh. Even in Kenya! It’s worrisome that just a bit could now cause such floods but that’s climate change for us I guess. I just hope people will just stop denying its existence and its impact on our lives. It’s here and just pretending it isn’t is not helping.

In 2014, the world just got a bit more dangerous. China seems to be getting more aggressive in the West Philippine Sea (also known as the South China Sea), and IS on the rise in the Middle East. Economically, the world seems to be getting better although Japan just went into recession. Greece is still struggling and Russia might be in trouble if oil prices keep going down. To the rest of the world, lower oil prices is a good thing, but for Russia whose economy largely depends on oil exports and not much else, it could spell disaster. As of the moment, Putin is playing for time, but now much time can he really buy? The sanctions imposed by the West for his little misadventure into Ukraine is hurting Russia more now that oil prices have dropped to half what it was not too long ago.

The Philippines has been getting good marks economically. The hope is, of course, that this will benefit all Filipinos and not just the rich. The President had his one unfortunate statement that traffic is a sign of progress. On the contrary, to me, it is a sign that we are losing control. Chaos is not progress, although I am reminded of a joke from an old sitcom where one character who was trying to solve a crossword puzzle asked another: “What do you call it when things get worse and worse?” And the other answered, “Progress!” So, I guess the question is what do we mean by “progress”? Still, the Philippines appear to be getting better reviews than say China whose economy appears to be slowing down, uncertainty in its finances and polluted air. Hopefully, the Philippines do a better job in sustaining growth without sacrificing the rest.

One could also not forget the dangers of Ebola and the MERS-COV. While the latter appears to have been controlled, the former will take time to address. One is awed at how people voluntarily went out of their way to go help the people who were stricken by Ebola at the risk of their own lives. Perhaps it is only right that Time Magazine would name these extraordinary people the People of the Year.

And its December once again. Yup, what a year it has been. This time last year we were rushing to Nairobi. This year, we are at home doing domestic stuff like cleaning, cooking and laundry. Ah, life. It is a great life, and no matter where we find our selves, the best place to be spending the New Year would always be anywhere where we are together. No matter the location or the circumstances, starting the year is best done with your loved ones.

Have a blessed New Year everyone!

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