RIZAL'S EXILE

JUST ANOTHER CHRISTMAS STORY...

Christmas Story for people having a bad day:
When four of Santa's elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then Mrs Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drank all the cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.
The angel said very cheerfully, 'Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn't this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?'

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree

Thank you Don.

THE NEW FACE

A married couple was in a terrible accident where the

Man's face was severely burned. The doctor told the

Husband that they couldn't graft any skin from his body

Because he was too skinny. So the wife offered to donate

Some of her own skin. However, the only skin on her body

That the doctor felt was suitable would have to come

from her buttocks. The husband and wife agreed that they

would tell no one about where the skin came from, and they

requested that the doctor also honor their secret. After

All, this was a very delicate matter. After the surgery was

completed, everyone was astounded at the man's new face.

He looked more handsome than he ever had before! All his

Friends and relatives just went on and on about his youthful

Beauty! One day, he was alone with his wife, and he was

overcome with emotion at her sacrifice. He said, 'Dear,

I just want to thank you for everything you did for me.

How can I possibly repay you?'

'My darling,' she replied,

'I get all the thanks I need every time I see your mother

kiss you on the cheek.'

If this doesn't make you smile ~nothing will!

THE QUESTION ON DUAL CITIZENSHIP...

Our laws specifically this Citizenship Retention and Reacquisition Act 2003 must be pragmatic and considerate.

Filipinos who succeeded and established abroad deserve the benefits afforded to them by the country that gave them the privileges of citizenship in recognition for their social, cultural and economic contributions. Why stripe them off of these benefits upon reacquiring the Filipino citizenship? Former Filipinos would very likely lose their retirement, health care, insurance and other social benefits once they will be obliged to renounce their foreign citizenship!

Our Philippine goverment must be happy that these former Filipinos still decide to return and do something significant in the Philippiines - "to serve our country and help our people." Or some, still want to share to our impoverished country from what they earned abroad. Is this not enough?

Belgium has just recognized dual citizenship last year 2007. Before one had to chose either to be Belgian or maintain Filipino nationality. Former Filipinos chose to remain Belgian before 2007. Their answer was that "it does not matter because our government could not give them any social benefits and economic security anyway".

In the event that they should renounce their foreign citizenship and subsequently lose their benefits, would the Philippine government replace those benefits? How would they ever survive in an economic stricken and corrupt nation like the Philippines?

It is our goal to encourage former Filipinos to win over their trust to our government. We even conducted an Open Forum about this law last April 15, 2008 to the Filipino communities. I am not convinced about this particular provision, but remain silent because I do not know how to do about this.

It seems the lawmakers are not properly guided or knowledgeable about foreign laws and are entirely inconsiderate to the Filipinos who have sacrificed almost their entire life for having been away from their motherland for so long.

I wonder really what this dual citizenship laws are really for in the long run. Economic Investments? electoral votes? or to squeeze the neck of former Filipinos?

I hope those responsible authorities could do something soon about this "silly provision" that would not just only end up in debates like all other issues.

Mrs. Consorcia de Leon Scholtz
Verenigde Culturele Stichting Vzw
World Mission for Peace Foundation
Brugge, Belgium

RIZAL'S HIGH MORAL STANDARDS

I recently re-read the last chapter in RIZAL: MAN AND MARTYR and was struck by these words found in the last chapter.


Moral Life

This book has said so much about Rizal's high moral standards that little more need be added. The men who knew him best are most emphatic in saying that he lived "the noblest, cleanest life of his generation." "He made himself certain rules of conduct, and to these he adhered with the stern inflexibility of an ascetic. . . The beauty of righteousness seemed to rule out of him all promptings to the coltish excesses of youth; that and the dignity of his love and his conception of the gravity of his mission."

"They punished me for the least lie," said Rizal of his parents. "His constant desire to know the truth was," as Padro de Tavera says, "his most notable characteristic. "

Dr. Baldomero Roxas says that Rizal's friends could depend upon his word better than upon the oath of other men. "If Rizal says a thing, it is as good as done," was one of their common sayings. His passion for truth was so great that he not only spoke it, but what is harder, he lived exactly what he spoke. He never gave himself any exceptions to what he regarded as right.

"I do not think Rizal would be popular if he lived now," recently said his friend General José Alejandro, who lived with Rizal in Brussels and Ghent . "He was too Puritanical, too much of a rigid disciplinarian for our day. We all admired his severe self-discipline. Nobody else I ever knew lived such a life as his. I lived with him and I know that his inner life was even better than the world realized."

The greatest tribute to his honesty was paid by his enemies. They deceived him with their "trap," and then permitted him, though a prisoner, to wander alone during four years along the coast of Mindanao . Sometimes officials even hinted that he might escape if he wished. But he had promised not to violate his parole, and José Rizal in all his life never broke a promise! No man on earth could persuade him to do what he considered dishonorable. "Not even the least connivance at a rescue would taint his word, not even by allowing other men to entertain the thought that his faith could be tainted, and not even in dealing with a government that had dealt perfidiously with him."

========

I just don't believe that Rizal would lie to save himself or the movement. He was, to a fault, a person who was zealous about his personal integrity. He could have easily escaped and joined the Katipunan and I think even his captors may have been hinting for him to do so. He refused to do so. He refused to escape from his ship on the way back. He had given a pledge and he stuck to it despite what it would cost him in his life.

I just don't think his words in his "Manifesto to Certain Filipinos" and "Additions to My Defense" were lies. It just wasn't his nature.

For those who believe that other witnesses are correct in saying that he was a secrete disciple of the Katipunan and a separatist by violent means I would like to ask one question, when was the earliest date of such a declaration (I think by Pio Valenzuela but I could be wrong). If these declarations came years and years after the death of Rizal, I wonder why it took a long time for them to say what they said. (I'll probably end up red faced because I really don't know the answer to this question).

My suspicion is that well intended people said what they did because they wanted to keep the Rizal who was, through his writings, the "soul of the revolution" as the Spanish declared in point of fact beyond his writings even if they had to stretch the truth.


Robert Yoder

THE IMPOSSIBLE MAN

By Carmen Guerrero Nakpil
Updated November 24, 2008 12:00 AM
Philippine Star

Nobody else could have done what Bonifacio did to vindicate our race. We needed a man like him to provide what was necessary for the success of our Revolution. Fortunately, his work was done when he died. He was an impossible man."

That was the testimonial of Clemente Zulueta, a surviving Katipunero, who disliked Bonifacio because he had once accused him of being a Jesuit agent. Yet it is the most cogent tribute to the great hero of the 1896 Revolution against Spain, the event that ended the 333-year yoke of the Spanish empire.

The quotation comes from the Bonifacio biography by Epifanio de los Santos, the scholar whose name we have given to the highway, EDSA, which now stands for revolutionary fervor.

But why "impossible man"? What did it mean?

In the original Spanish phrase, "Un hombre imposible" translates into "difficult, ornery," but also "improbable, incredible," a man who taxes both your imagination and your patience, who surges from nowhere, unannounced and unbidden, the most unlikely person to light the essential fire that will spread over the captive countryside.

Bonifacio's personal history explains why he did not fit the requirements for a savior of his country. He had nothing going for him, except perhaps, that he liked to read books. He had only four years of schooling and was a peddler of canes and paper fans in the grimy streets of Tondo, then as now, the armpit of the raucous city of Manila.

He must have been personable and well-spoken in Spanish (he had a Spanish forbear) for he found a job in a British firm as messenger and agent. He went on to work at Fressel, an English brick factory, where he was a warehouseman. The bodega gave him the time and space to collect books, where we learn from the reports on furtive searches by the Spanish government that he had squirreled, away a library and archives of his own. During the trial of Rizal in Fort Santiago, Bonifacio's bookshelves were presented as part of the evidence of sedition. Historians can now gleefully list the volumes on US Presidents and the French Revolution, novels by Victor Hugo and Rizal, "The Wandering Jew" and "The Ruins of Palmyra" among Bonifacio's reading material.

In the streets of Tondo and Binondo, he would have picked up the connections and information that led him to join a Masonic Lodge and Rizal's patriotic society, Liga Filipina, a tribute to his upward mobility, for he was definitely not one of the ilustrados.

Andres Bonifacio seemed to have been, most of his life, the odd man out perpetually on the run, always just a few steps ahead of the Guardia Civil, the spies and intelligence agents, the friars and, in the end his own dissident Katipuneros. That was probably the reason why he deliberately left little documentation of his heroic life: a few paltry verses, a revolutionary primer and only one photo, taken at his wedding. We don't know which wedding for he was married twice, first to a leprous girl and, after he became Supremo, to the muse of the Revolution, the Lakambini Gregoria de Jesus. The picture tells us he was handsome, with soulful eyes, well-defined features, on that occasion wearing a starched collar, a suit with a fabric rose in its lapel. The opinions of his contemporaries vary; he was charming and charismatic, despotic and arrogant, full of himself or hail-fellow- well met. Highly disciplined, he was also four hours late for the Battle of Pinaglabanan, undoing the planned midnight
attack on Manila.

He was indeed quite an impossible man. But we cannot speak of him without mention of his close friend and counselor, Emilio Jacinto, only 19, a brilliant and passionate boy-genius, a law student at the University of Sto. Tomas. They shared the same dream, an independent Filipinas of equality, virtue and prosperity. Jacinto was bilingual but wrote the primer, the poetry, the manifestos, statutes and most of the articles and editorials of the Katipunan's newspaper, Kalayaan (Freedom) in Tagalog. A curious sidebar to that paper is that its printing press was a donation of the two indio overseas workers who bought it with their salaries, one of the many contributions of the OFW's of this nation.

Jacinto also headed the Katipunan delegation to a Japanese admiral to whom they handed a memorial to the Emperor of Japan seeking, in lyrical language, his support. Had they foreseen the Co-Prosperity Sphere of the Japanese invasion of 1941? Disguised as a Chinese peon, Jacinto also once visited Rizal's cabin to try to persuade him to join the Revolution. He was also the sole adviser of the Katipunan's Supreme Council, later the general in charge of the army of the North, a knowledgeable supplier of firearms, ammunition, even bows and arrows, and musical compositions.

During a battle in Mahayhay, Laguna, Emilio Jacinto was wounded in the thigh, captured by Spanish troops. He died in prison, of his wounds, in April 1899. Bonifacio always called him "the soul of the Katipunan." Succeeding generations of Filipino university students have made Emilio Jacinto their inspiration and patron saint.

What Bonifacio gave to our Revolution was what Mao Tse-tung called, decades later, "the spark that lit the prairie fire." Our prairie had been desolate for more that 300 years, and there had been a multitude of little sparks. The yearly revolts by sacristans, forced laborers, farmers, intrepid widows, native priests, galleon-builders, port-sergeants had drenched the prairie with blood. Despite Gabriela Silang, Balagtas, Gomburza, the Propaganda Movement of the ilustrados, the secret societies, the poets, artists, lawyers, polemicists, the novels of Rizal, it had not caught fire. All we needed was Bonifacio's foolhardiness, his derring-do against all odds.

Who but a feckless, rash adventurer, would dare lure desperate farmers, clerks and ropemakers to make a public outcry at the Pugad Lawin (Eagle's Nest) promontory to tear up their papers, (the loss of which would mean torture or death) and go and scrawl the very devil's graffiti on the walls of Montalban, "Viva la Independencia! "

Who else would put the lives of thousands (at least 30,000, although the Spaniards said 100,000) into mortal danger by enrolling them in cabalistic pledges, signed with their own blood, and then lead them into hopeless battles armed only with long knives and a few ancient revolvers against the artillery of an empire that had ruled the whole world?

Who but an impossible fool would inspire careful men like Aguinaldo, or Edilberto Evangelista, Belgian-trained engineer; or Antonio Luna and his brothers, the learned Pio Valenzuela, Apolinario Mabini and a score of snooty, horrified ilustrados to take up arms? Only Andres Bonifacio.

It's quite true that he lost most every battle he led. He was an ideologue, a passionate recruiter and a tireless organizer. But he had no idea of the tactics and strategies of military combat. He made a poor commanding general.

At Pinaglabanan, late August, 1896, he started out with almost 1000 men from Krus na Ligas (the present site of UP). More fighters joined him from Marikina, Mandaluyong, Santolan and San Juan. They carried knives, axes, lances, a few shotguns and old revolvers. They had barely eaten or slept for days and then they attacked, with incredible bravery, a fortress on a hill defended by artillery. Even before they got there, their flanks were attacked by Spanish troops and they were further surprised by reinforcements from Intramuros who came on the new electric tramway. They were mercilessly mowed down and, in the end, Bonifacio was left with 50 men.

The fields and streets were strewn with dead bodies. After the battle was over, Spanish troops searched every hut in neighboring towns, dragged the wounded to their yards and shot them before their own children. San Mateo and Langka River were almost as bad.

But, because of the debacle, the countryside around Manila rose as one enraged people's army. The prairie had caught fire and it was spreading like a conflagration across the land. The Spanish governor-general, at the end of August, recognized the rebellion and declared a state of war in Manila, Bulacan, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, Laguna, Cavite and Batangas. They are now represented by the eight rays of the sun in the Filipino flag. "The Katipunan would become the first concrete embodiment of the Filipino nation," writes O.D. Corpus.

After the lost battles, Bonifacio withdrew to Balara to recoup, reorganize, plan new battles. In October, Filipino soldiers in Spanish forts mutineed. Upon repeated invitations of Mariano Alvarez, a relative of his wife Gregoria de Jesus, Bonifacio traveled to Bacoor and Imus with her, his two brothers, Gen. Luciano dela Cruz and 20 men. His army was fighting in small bands, retiring into the woods after every skirmish, looking for "targets of opportunity" . The Spaniards arrested and executed at random. Every skirmish and execution fueled the Revolution.

In Cavite, Aguinaldo country, Bonifacio was drawn into the provincial rivalry between Aguinaldo's Magdalo faction and the Magdiwang of the Alvarezes. A convention was called at Tejeros in March to organize a post-Katipunan revolutionary government. It degenerated into an on-the-spot election for the top offices of the Revolutionary Government, during which Bonifacio lost every office from the President down and was reduced to Interior Minister. A Magdalo, Daniel Tirona, questioned his qualifications, saying he lacked a diploma and a college degree. Insulted and infuriated, Bonifacio drew his gun, dissolved the convention, which had elected Aguinaldo president and declared the results of the election null and void.

Worse was to come. In December, a new Spanish governor launched a counter-attack against the liberated province of Cavite. On Dec. 30, Rizal was executed, followed by more executions on the Luneta which had become a killing field. In Cavite, Aguinaldo's presidency and cabinet were formally organized.

Bonifacio decided to leave Cavite and return to Morong. But first an incident was reported to Aguinaldo: Bonifacio had shouted orders to his troops to burn a town where some partisans of Aguinaldo had refused food to Bonifacio's followers.

On April 27, Aguinaldo ordered Bonifacio's arrest, and a pre-trial hearing at Naic. He was court-martialed for sedition. The verdict was death for Andres and Procopio Bonifacio. Aguinaldo approved the verdict but commuted it to "indefinite exile." For still unknown reasons, Aguinaldo's commutation was not obeyed. In the woods of Mt. Buntis the Bonifacio brothers, wounded and helpless, were executed by a detail headed by Major Lazaro Macapagal on 10 May 1897.

Fate heaped another indignity on the "impossible man" who had made the Philippine Revolution possible. The ossuary containing his bones was irretrievably lost during another war, another Filipino tragedy when the US bombed Manila during the war with the Japanese in 1945. But nothing and no one can take away his glory.

Every year, on Nov. 30, the feast of St. Andrew or San Andres, the nation celebrates the birth anniversary of Bonifacio with such dedication that many Filipinos call it National Heroes Day. It is not. It is the day sacred to only one hero, the one called Andres who had guts and gumption like no other.

RIZAL AS A SEPARATIST

Perhaps, prior to his death, Dr. Rizal should had been asked with the question, "Dr Rizal are you a pacifist or a revolutionary? ".

The fact remains. There is confusion among the readers of Rizal. One group believes Rizal was for peaceful means and the other group believes he was for radical means.

A good point in the readings of his correspondences would be that of taking into consideration the element of time-- the date they were written and the circumstances surrounding them.

His writings reflected his thoughts. But his thoughts reflected his environment, his relationships with a wide gamut of people and his feelings or emotions towards them. Therefore, his writings reflected his feelings or emotions towards a wide range of people and his environment- both here and abroad.

As such, I came up with the idea of Rizal as a coin, with both the sides of it -head and tail understood depending on the reference one is reading.

Rizal had both sides. Reformist on one side and Revolutionary on the other side.

Reformism is assimilism-- -reforms in all aspects under the present colonial system while revolution is figthing for freedom---outright annihilation of the colonial system-a complete change.

The end justifies the means. So he said. The goal defines the methods.

If denouncing the radical means would avoid bloodshed and instead gradually achieve the desired goal, (which is of course, freedom---- from slavery, to study, to believe whatever one wanted to believe in,,,etc etc) through peaceful means, then why not denounce them?

But if absconding the propaganda (the peaceful means? and declaring the venue for the fight right here in the islands---planning for shipment of armaments to support the revolution, writing subversive ideas, writing poems and songs that ignite the fires and the love of country and of one's own culture, exposing the sad plight of the people and the abuses of the friars and the colonial government, declaring the intent to establish nationhood or a Filipino colony as against the wishes or direct orders of the colonial government, establishing the Liga for protection against these abuses, and gain economic cooperation, then why not abscond them?

Rizal was caught in both conditions: as a pacifier and at the same time as a provocateur. And the fact is clear: we could not separate one side from the other side of Rizal.

But he was shot BECAUSE of this: for in choosing both ways--- be it through peaceful means or radical means only one thing is ever dreamed of:

To achieve the betterment of the conditions of life in the Philippines and to achieve moral and intellectual upliftment of her inhabitants.

We all know that nobody wanted this then for the islands and its people. NOBODY CARES.

Betterment? which is until today, unrealized. WHO CARES?

Who would then do it for this country if each desired only what is good for himself? His neighbors?

BDL

RIZAL IS STILL ALIVE*

Dear Lucien,

I hereby acknowledge receipt of and thank you for the DVD entitled "Rizal is still alive". I wonder if IHQ should be the one responsible to send out copies to all the members so that they could put into correct practice what the hero had lived and died for, for the sake not only of his country but also of humanity, and not for what the KOR officials and members should only think in order to suit their own self-serving schemes for their personal ambition and glory!

I doubt if anybody in the KOR has ever put JPR's philosophy and code of ethics into practice conscientiously? In their pursuit for self-aggrandizement, they must have completely overlooked the true essence for which Rizal's works stood for, i.e. honesty and justice. How this could be too good to be true for there would be an atmosphere of harmony and solidarity among the officers and the members!

Personally, I believe that JPR must have envisioned in his "Noli Mi Tangere" that the "social cancer" could still take place more than a century hence under anybody's corrupt administration which would spread beyond the Philippine soil so that he could fulfill his personal ambition during his "Reign of Greed".

You can already see for yourself at what's happening at present in Europe and Canada! It's only the pathetic "scratch my back and I scratch yours" arrangement that's always taken into consideration for admitting and elevating members instead of what and how much one knows about JPR!

What a great shame and disgrace that this is being perpetrated by his own countrymen who willfully desecrate and usurp his name and image that in so doing have jeopardized and undermined his moral code and teaching. Que barbaridad!

Yours very faithfully in JPR,

Bayani

*An interactive DVD which contains a 27' Workshop and a 20' Teacher's Training prepared by the Rizal Youth Leadership Institute.

Epifanio San Juan, Jr. of the Dancing Mind

By Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 03:41pm (Mla time) 07/02/2008

The writings of this internationally renowned Filipino literary scholar, cultural critic and public intellectual have been translated into German, Russian, French, Italian and Chinese. They reveal the magnificent workings of a "dancing mind," to borrow a phrase from the black American writer Toni Morrison.

Excavating radical possibilities for transformation in the collective consciousness of the Filipino Diaspora in both English and Filipino, this mind simultaneously listens for new sounds and rhythms of a possible alternative world that can emerge only through the struggle of oppressed and exploited peoples everywhere.

The name is Epifanio San Juan, Jr., a Filipino who's a major influence on the academic world. He's currently director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center in Storrs, Connecticut.

To begin at the relative beginning, San Juan was a magna cum laude humanities graduate of the University of the Philippines in 1958, who went on to a Ph.D. in Harvard University in 1965. From there he's traveled the university world teaching English, Comparative Literature, Ethnic Studies, American Studies and Cultural Studies in the U.S., Europe, the Philippines and Taiwan.

The list of his way stations in academe is long – the University of California at Davis, University of Connecticut at Storrs, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila, Bowling Green State University, esleyan University, the Universities of Leuven and Antwerp and the National Tsing Hua University, Republic of China (Taiwan).

Committed and prolific

San Juan's prolific body of work over the past four decades has been generated by "remarkable commitment to literature and culture as vital areas of contemporary social life," writes the literary and cultural theorist Fredric Jameson. Partnering this has been his "unwavering commitment to combating multiple forms of oppression and exploitation wherever they occur."

Global in scope, his radical imagination has also been practical – "firmly anchored in specific, unfolding and dynamic relationships between Filipino movements for self-determination" in the U.S., the Philippines and all over the planet, where there are now 10 million Filipino Overseas Contract Workers.

The activism has been consistent. When San Juan chaired the Department of Comparative American Cultures in Washington State University, Pullman from 1998 to 2001, he published cutting-edge essays in Cultural Studies and Ethnic Studies as executive editor of the Working Papers Series. In his international advisory board were personages like the high-profile black feminist Angela Davis.

Deep compassion is also visible between San Juan's lines. Reviewing his collection of poems, Balikbayang Mahal: Passages of Exile (2007), the literary critic and artist John Streamas highlighted its "sorrows of migration and exile," but also its "hope of connections. "

Sorrow and compassion have consistently shaded into activism for San Juan. Of late, his recent media pieces articulate new, imaginative connections in our current political landscape, while exposing the human rights abuses (close to 900 extrajudicial killings) under the Arroyo administration.

"Moved ever more by the unmitigated misery, suffering, and injustice in the global South, E. San Juan, Jr. exhorts fellow intellectuals and activists to pay attention to the havoc wreaked by corporate-led globalization of the global North, now compounded by the post-9/11 self-proclaimed U.S. `national security state' in its declared war on terror," adds the historian and Ethnic Studies scholar Evelyn Hu-Dehart.

"Among his many concerns is the global mechanism of racialization and its severe impact on immigrant workers of the global South. He challenges glib post colonial theorists by exposing the clear contours of an American empire resurrected. "

For my generation, E. San Juan, Jr. is regarded not only as a formidable scholar, but also as a generous mentor and courageous Filipino-American insurgent intellectual. His ability to engage a new generation of activists and cultural workers is evident in a 2003 interview by Michael Pozo for the graduate student publication SJU Humanities Review in New York.

Titled "A Conversation by E. San Juan Jr.," that interview touched on the limitations of post colonial theory, suggesting more critical Cultural Studies. It has been widely circulated on the Post colonial Web of the National University of Singapore.

Speaking to the Young

In an interview at Oberlin College in 1996, later published in the Asian American student journal AS I AM, San Juan and the Filipina feminist scholar Delia D. Aguilar advised undergraduate students to challenge the limits of identity politics in an academic system run like corporations. He also reminded young scholars of the necessity of intellectual work in the struggle for social justice:

"Your position, because you've been a student, is one who has devoted most of your time trying to criticize… and to understand all the ideas that you have gathered… What Gramsci is saying is that the task of the intellectual – and you are an intellectual whether you are engaging books or not, so long as you are [engaged with] ideas – is to provide some kind of inventory or critical awareness… especially among Filipinos with all the colonial experiences we have…The racial dimension of the colonial experience is something that Filipinos [must] understand. You have… to somehow find a way of explaining that."

Young Filipino Americans with a tremendous task of critiquing and challenging the U.S. racial polity from within are fortunate that San Juan continues to provide them with many analytical tools. As we commemorate the 40th anniversary of rebellions and organized resistance for social justice around the globe – from the Third World Liberation Front at San Francisco State College to the student and worker revolts in France in the `60s; from the Asian American Movement to the international anti-war movement –this is an opportune moment to acknowledge his groundbreaking contributions to interdisciplinary fields born and/or radicalized in the social movements of the 1960s and `70s –Filipino and Asian American Studies, Philippine Studies, Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies and American Studies.

San Juan has been addressing two generations, in effect –the national student movement in the `60s and `70s and those involved in Asian American and Ethnic Studies in the `90s.

Ka Amado and Carlos Bulosan

It was back in 1966 that he translated the poems of Filipino labor organizer and writer Amado Hernandez, Rice Grains: Selected Poems of Amado V. Hernandez (International Publishers). Nine years later in 1975, he introduced the radical literary imagination of Carlos Bulosan, a labor organizer and writer like Hernandez, but a member of the older manong generation in the U.S.

San Juan's Carlos Bulosan and the Imagination of the Class Struggle (University of the Philippines Press) was the first full-length critical assessment of Bulosan's writings, but that would not be the end of it. Two decades later, he edited and introduced two Bulosan texts – On Becoming Filipino: Selected Writings by Carlos Bulosan and The Cry and the Dedication published in 1995 by Temple University Press.

For these and many other contributions to Philippine/ Filipino American Studies, E. San Juan, Jr. received the 1999 Centennial Award for Achievement in Literature from the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Intellectual Departures and More Awards

Back in the U.S., his Racial Formations/Critical Transformations: Articulations of Power in Ethnic and Racial Studies in the United States in 1992 is now considered a classic in Ethnic and Asian American Studies. It received the Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States that year, followed by a National Book Award in Cultural Studies from the Association for Asian American Studies in 1993.

Literary scholar Joseph Urgo considers Racial Formations/Critical Transformations a major "contribution to the groundwork for the next civil rights movement." San Juan's succeeding After Post-colonialism: Remapping Philippines- United States Confrontations also won the Outstanding Book Award on Human Rights from the Gustavus Myers Center in 2001.

In 2007, both the U.S. and the Philippines saw a bumper crop of San Juan books: In the Wake of Terror: Class, Race, Nation, Ethnicity in the Postmodern World; Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines; Balikbayang Sinta: An E. San Juan Reader; and From Globalization to National Liberation: Essays.

When San Juan takes on a fellowship in Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research in the spring of 2009, it will be the latest way station with a line running back to one of his earliest contributions to global intellectual history – the editing and introductory essay for Marxism and Human Liberation in 1973.

It was the first collection in English translation of essays by Georg Lukacs, the Hungarian philosopher and literary critic most scholars consider the founder of the Western Marxist tradition.

Meanwhile E. San Juan, Jr.'s mind continues to dance for the world. His latest critical essays on race, class, subalternity, the U.S. Empire and Filipino Diaspora, his new poems, spoken word performances in Filipino, his recent experimental videos all demonstrate how history can be renewed and advanced in multiple ways by an activist intellectual/ writer/scholar while he remains connected to movements for justice at the grassroots.

Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao is an Assistant Professor of English and Cultural Studies at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island

ATING TIPUNIN ANG NAGKALAT NA MGA BATO/SILYAR NG ATING KASAYSAYAN

My Dear Brothers, Whithersoever Dispersed:

More especially to the youth who are the "fair hope of our Motherland," according to our hero, Dr. Jose Rizal.

Let us search for, collect, conserve, and bring altogether the scattered stones, ashlars, and whatever, of our demolished country's history, left behind in shambles by our former colonizers, in order that we may reconstruct or rebuild our "damaged culture", and devastated national edifice.

Hindi magiging kalabisan marahil, at kung tutuusin ay siyang dapat na mangyari at isagawa; ng maraming mga Kapatid nating may sapat na kakayahang mag-akbay-balikat at manaliksik sa mga aklatang publiko -- sa USA, sa Japan, sa Hong Kong, sa Madrid, sa Barcelona, sa Mexico, sa Cuba, at maraming iba pa -- upang saliksikin ang nangagkalat na mga bato, o silyar ng ating kasaysayan.

Sa USA, unang-una, ang tinatawag ng mga nanakop na US Army na "Insurgent Records;" sa Guam, kung saan ipinatapon ang mga Pilipinong naghimagsik laban sa pananakop ng USA, sa pangunguna nina Apolinario Mabini at Artemio Ricarte; sa Hong Kong, ang putaputaking ulat (fragments of news reports) kaugnay ng ipinatapong (exiled) mga lider ng Katipunan, kaugnay ng Pakto sa Biak-na-Bato, at mga rekords nina Galicano Apacible at Mariano Ponce; ang mga ulat ni Felipe Agoncillo mula sa Paris; sa Japan, ang mga makabayang artikulong sinulat ni Heneral Artemio Ricarte -- ang tanging Pilipinong hindi napailalim, o sumuko/sumumpa sa watawat ng USA; at ibang mga bansa pa rin sa Europa.

Nagkalat na ang ating mga Pinoy US Navy retirees (kahi't pa man sila'y hindi na Filipino citizens), at iba pang mga kalahi nating naghahanap-buhay sa iba-ibang mga lupalop, na makatutulong sa pangangalap ng hiwa-hiwalay na mga hibla ng ating kasaysayan.

Ideya lamang po iyan, mga Kapatid. Upang tipuning matiyaga ang mga bato o silyar na magagamit sa pagbuo/pagtatayo ng matipunong gusaling bansa (national historical edifice).

Ang mga iyan ay siyang gamiting aralin ng ating kabataaan, sa halip na kung anu-anong mga literatura at mga pelikulang banyaga ang patuloy na mga palabas sa ating mga TV, na nakasisira sa pambansang pag-uugali.

Ang heograpiya ng bansa ay isang lubhang kailangang ituro pa rin sa mga mag-aaral; bagay na mag-uugnay sa damdamin ng mga mamamayan sa hiwahiwalay nating mga pulo, upang malinang ang damdamin ng pambansang pagkakaisa. Nakatatawang- nakaka-inis nung minsang mayrong isang tanyag nang reporter na nagsabing ang Lungsod ng Zamboanga ay nasa eastern Mindanao! Nakakahiya!

Marami pa sanang nais sabihin ang inyong Kapatid na hindi na tumatanda; nguni't baka hindi na kayo matunawan ng kinain. Tama na muna; at sa susunod na kabanata.

Bahala na kayong magpaumanhin sa mapupusok na mga kinatkat nitong pilosopong-gubat.

Hanggang sa muli,

Irineo Perez Goce -- a.k.a. Ka Pule2
kapule_2@yahoo.com

LIPA CITY, PHILIPPINES

REMEMBER ARMISTICE DAY!

Armistice Day is the anniversary of the symbolic end of World War I on 11 November 1918. It commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Rethondes, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning — the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month". While this official date to mark the end of the war reflects the cease fire on the Western Front, hostilities continued in other regions, especially across the former Russian Empire and in parts of the old Ottoman Empire.

The date was declared a national holiday in many allied nations to commemorate those members of the armed forces who were killed during war. Called Armistice Day in many countries, it was known as National Day in Poland (also a public holiday) called Polish Independence Day. After World War II, the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day in the United States and to Remembrance Day in countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Armistice Day remains an official holiday in France. It is also an official holiday in Belgium, known also as the Day of Peace in the Flanders Fields.

In many parts of the world people take a two minute moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. as a sign of respect for the roughly 20 million who died in the war, as suggested by Edward George Honey in a letter to a British newspaper although Wellesley Tudor Pole established two ceremonial periods of remembrance based on events in 1917. Beginning in 1939 the two-minute silence was moved to the Sunday nearest 11 November in order not to interfere with wartime production should 11 November fall on a weekday. Since the 1990s a growing number of people have observed a two-minute silence on 11 November, resulting in both Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday being commemorated formally in the UK (although in 2007 they fell on the same day).

11 November 2008 is the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day. 2018 will be the 100th anniversary.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_Day

KOR NEEDS CHANGE ...

For our Health, we buy groceries with NO rotten apples/tomatoes...! But for the KOR, we keep SILENT, never mind the rotten ones...! KOR needs C H A N G E ... For the Better ! (UNCLASSIFIED)

Sirs (?),

As we Knights of Rizal were sworn in, we swore to "fight INUSTICE!" Lazir remembers that! His KOR ID shows it!

What is a Knight of (Dr Jose) Rizal? What is an abusive, evil person? Is he also a Knight?

What meaning has "KGOR" if IHQ gives such title/rank likewise to a proven racist and an identified liar/plagiarist?

What leadership, if not incompetent (or organization, if not dysfunctional) protects the abusive, the evil, wants to keep the word "KNIGHT" on its logo, even adding the name of an honorable, highly esteemed international individual, the PRIDE OF THE MALAY RACE, but prosecutes (runs down!) the good, expells him/them even?

If we are in the business of selling fruits/vegetables, you know that one rotten tomato/apple in a box of good tomatoes/apples is enough to dissuade a buyer from buying the whole box, unless the rotten one is taken out! (In tropical Philippines, rotten tomatoes will attract flies and worms!)

[For the KOR, how can we attract honorable NEW members when we keep the rotten ones, investigate/kick out the good ones, focus on quantity instead of quality, sweep the dirt under the rug (thru silence!) instead of being transparent answering questions/complaints?]

The October 2008 letter from IHQ to Sir Rainer Weber illustrates the attempt to apply the whole weight of the IHQ to bear upon the latter, to discipline/kick out Lazir from the Chapter! How many years was Mr Alcoba a non-BONAFIDE member for not paying his dues? IHQ even promoted him July 2007 to KGOR! INCOMPETENCE cannot even formulate one sentence to STOP a proven racist while heaping pressure upon illustrious Wilhelmsfeld-Heidelberg Chapter to rid itself of Lazir!)

The discerning public knows that the KOR has more than one rotten tomato/apple! Lazir has been correct all along to call anyone (top or low honcho) Mr Incompetence, for failing to do the job of cleaning up, as embodied in the KOR By-Laws and the "Law on Common Sense?" (The KOR is not in the business of buying/selling tomatoes, but the "Law on Common Sense" clearly dictates what must be inside the box, what stays outside! Failing so is plain and simple INCOMPETENCE!)

[Klaus Zumwinkel, the powerful CEO of POSTBANK and board member of many other German giants: Deutsche Post, Telekom, Quelle, etc. definitely CANNOT be CREDIBLE implementing Anti-Money Laundering policies/regulations as well as German laws in the giant POSTBANK if he himself laundered/hid his own EURO Millions in Liechtenstein!!! Bonn officials will make him answer for his mistakes shortly! In the same logic, how can top KOR leadership be CREDIBLE on RIZALISM when it keeps bad eggs and rotten tomatoes in the illustrious KOR???, while throwing out good Knights? And here we are, with the usual Fun! Fun! Fun! Last July 2007 in Paris, last August-September 2008 in Toronto and this forthcoming Manila assembly in February 2009??? ARE WE PUPPETS? OR ARE WE INTELLIGENT AND RESPONSIBLE MEMBERS OF SOCIETY, INTELLECTUALS???]

Who is in CONTROL of the KOR, the good or evil (the able or the incompetent)? If the good/able is in control, why is it that the good tomatoes/apples are getting thrown out/wasted, one-by-one, while the rotten ones are kept in the box?

If the good is taken out of the box, and the rotten ones left inside, can one justly/correctly/accurately say that the box contains apples/tomatoes of good or poor quality?

[Women are experts buying groceries when it comes to GOOD QUALITY food on the table! Hence IFKOR was correct to bring women into the organization! Reform the KOR!]

Lazir sees "good" too, not just the bad! What is "good"? Is it "good" because we think it is "good" or is it "good" because someone said so? We know the answer...!

Talk on Rizalism is cheap. Right now, KOR reality is far distant!

DO WE WANT THE PUBLIC TO TAKE US SERIOUSLY??? DO WE WANT ROTTEN TOMATOES/APPLES TO RUN THE KOR AGROUND???

We know who is/are corrupt! We know what to do!


YES WE CAN...!

K O R needs CHANGE!

YES WE CAN...!


For country and people!


:)
Lazir

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

PHILIPPINES WINS 2 AWARDS AT THE BRUSSELS INTERNATIONAL FILMFEST

Brussels, 9 November 2008. Yul Servo won the best actor award at the 35th Festival International du Film Independant for his role as Gaby in Maryo de los Reyes' film "Torotot" and Tara Illenberger's "Brutus" for the best film.

This is Yul Servo's third time as best actor at the Brussels filmfest, the first for "Batang East Side" and the second "Naglalayag".

As a special feature on the opening and closing of the festival, Orlando Sol sang the theme song of the film.

FOR A REASON

If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart to.


If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and opening your heart and eyes to things you would have never seen or felt without them.


Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.

Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen, let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high.


Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you either.


You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it

Just one Request please: Can we get answers to valid Questions?

All concerned Brother Knights,

Dr Jose Protacio Rizal Mercado y Realonda was one man who chose to be uncomfortable to the abusive, always seeking answers on great as well as on small things in this universe, asking questions "How" and "Why"! It is he we preofess to follow and ought to emulate!

Let's be honest with ourselves. Are we really? Are we not talking cheap, lying through our teeth?

With due respect, Sir Peter, Lazir begs to disagree (the word "quarrel" was mentioned as one cause of Europe's lagging behind!), because Lazir quarreled with no one and never intended to! (Someone might have disliked his straight-forward questions, but that's another topic!)

Lazir also pinpointed and numbered his accusations! Facts are on hand! IHQ alleged Lazir spread lies...! Which one is Lazir's lie?

His questions were VERY DIRECT, true. But aren't Europeans laughing at Asians for "beating around the bush" instead of "talking straight?" Lazir has spent 50% of his life in Germany and the other 50% in the Philippines! Can't he ask straight questions?

It is one of the tenets in a democracy to allow questions! The same democracy requires ANSWERS to valid questions! Where are the answers? Where is transparency?

Anyone quarelling with Lazir either misunderstood his intentions, convictions, discipline and upbringing! Lazir is a simple man with honest intentions and a straight mind!

What's wrong with the following questions (that IHQ chose to ignore for about 2 years)? Why are answers being SUPPRESSED? Is it true IHQ is not competent to answer them? Is it true IHQ leadership up there is CORRUPT?:

1. What reasons promoted Mr Guansing, Mr Nollas, Mr Alcoba (aside from close contact with Mr Paras) to KGOR?

2. Why is this promotion document such a big secret, hidden from the public, if the three really are GOOD?

3. Why do we talk of Rizalism, being followers of Dr Jose Rizal, when we tolerate Mr Alcoba (he asked Sir Peter Eisele about a "hole in his head") for racist language?

4. Must a Rizalist be racist to get KGOR?

5. Where's the circa Euro 5,000 that Mr Mushake donated sometime 1999-2000 when Mr Quiambao was supreme commander?

6. Why is this amount not in the IHQ books/records?

7. Why is Lazir being investigated for asking these and other KOR-related questions?

Lazir has been accused by IHQ of spreading lies, investigated for writing things he observed/has seen!

Yet, when he asked IHQ what wrong he did, whether IHQ could please enumerate his mistakes, all that came back was silence!

Asking valid questions is not illegal! Not answering valid questions is, because even top CEOs in private corporations (Telekom, Siemens, Vodafone, BMW, Daimler Benz, Postbank, BASF, etc.) are ANSWERABLE to the general membership, the stockholders! (Yes, these German CEOs do reply to ordinary stockholders.)

Fear not the inquisitive mind! Fear more the corrupt and evil mind!

For country and people!

:)
Lazir

Classification: UNCLASSIFIED

Caveats: NONE

ANG PAG-ASA NG BAYAN...

Kuyang Freudian,

Sinabi nga ni Bro. Jose Rizal: "the youth is the hope of our motherland." Ang KABATAAN ANG PAG-ASA NG ATING INANG-BAYAN!

Paniwala ako sa'yo. Hinahangaan kita! Ang nais ko lamang ipaliwanag ay dapat sanang ang aMing kabataan sa AFP, lalung-lalo sa Phil Navy, ay silang dapat bigyang pagkakataon ng aMing pamahalaan -- ITAAS ANG SWELDO NILA, at iba pang mga benepisyo, at sa halip na ibang bansa ang makinabang ay dito sa (atin), sa Pilipinas pala! magpakabuti.

Ang isa pang isinaisip ko, Kuyang; nung nasa-staff ako ni dating Executive Secretary Alejandro Mmelchor, Jr. (alam mo naman siguro na sa US Naval Academy sa Annapolis siya nagtapos); ang mungkahi ko ay baligtarin ang set-up ng AFP. Ang Navy ay siyang dapat bigyan ng preponderance of logistics support ng gobyerno, pangalawa ang Air Force, at sa huli ang Phil. Army. Ang PC Nuon, na ngayon ay PNP ay siyang dapat bigyan ng tungkuling mangalaga sa internal problems ng bansa.

Isa pa, kung ang Eastern Borders ng Pinas ay pinagbuti ang pagtatag ng Naval Installations, bibilis ang socio-economic developments sa baybaying iyan. At magiging mas mabisa ang ating pangangalaga sa smuggling. KUNG ANG MALALAKING PORK BARREL NG Mga mambabatas ay sa AFP modernization inilaan, tulad ng mga researches sa SHIP-BUILDING, armaments -- sa halip na kilanlin at tratuning mga illegal ang paltik makers -- hindi tayo mahuhuli sa ibang mga bansa; na maghihintay na lamang ng mga pinaglumaan ni Uncle Sam. Hindi sana nagkaroon ng sakuna yung isa nating PAF-130!

Nag-iisip lamang, Kuyang Freudian. Sana nauunawaan mo ang pobre mong kalahi, na hindi nagkapalad maging isa ring US Navy retiree! Ha ha ha! Kung hindi sana overaged na ako -- nag-24 years old ako nung Dec. 15, 1949; eh nag-graduate ako from high school, March 1950! Disin naging ex-US Navi rin ako. Hindi naman ito sour-graping. Nakita ko ang other side of the coin, wika nga. At napag-analisam ko ang economic effects and repercussions sa sinapit na buhay ng ating (sori, hindi na pala ikaw kasali) bansa. Pero tuloy-tuloy pa rin ang pangangarap ni Ka Pule2.

Masaganang komusta, Kapatid; at mabuhay ka!

Ka Pule2

--- On Thu, 16/10/08, Freudian Fernandez wrote:

From: Freudian Fernandez
Subject: RE: Navy Recruiting -- AFP MODERNIZATION PROGRAM?
To: barangaybarako@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, 16 October, 2008, 9:53 AM

Kuyang,

I am among those who were recruited in the US Navy in Subic bay, and I am glad I was accepted because there was no opportunities at all back then, and what more - that is truer today. I would say, the Philippine Recruiting Program should have been continued because it gives a lot of opportunities to Filipinos where their motherland cannot give them. I would go where there is the opportunity. A good question here is, why do thousand of Filipinos want to join the US Navy?

Freudian Fernandez
W V Fentress Lodge 296
Virginia Beach, VA