A Political Exercise

Yesterday, the former Chief Justice died, the first one ever to be impeached. I'm sure you remember the "trial". I certainly do. It was a joke, a farce and a disgrace which proved to me and to any intelligent observer that, in the Philippines, politics trumps law every time.

Failing to release one's statement of accounts is now a betrayal of public trust equal to that of treason, rebellion, sedition and other high crimes against the state. The law twisted to extreme, improbable dimensions all for the purpose of removing a political enemy and all greased with that delicious DAP money.

There's nothing much more to say. History will remember him for the stain on his honor and he will simply be dismissed as corrupt by the ignorant just as quickly. Believe whatever narrative you want but it was all politics. It was politics of the worst kind; one which serves the interests of the few over the whole country.

Not much longer until the joker is out of office.

The Philippine Problem

The biggest irony in Philippine society and politics is this: it is a given that government, in general, is incompetent at best and corrupt at worst. People do not dispute this and yet, despite the premise, people continue to give the government more and more duties, responsibilities and necessarily, more power to fulfill them.

The reason I point this out is because I saw a news segment on TV the other day about the income tax issue. The Filipino is the most heavily taxed person in South East Asia. When pressed about the clamor to reduce income tax rates, the Commissioner of the BIR, Kim Henares, merely shrugged it off and insisted that the present rates be maintained to keep up government spending on the supposedly wonderful programs it has.

Ah yes, government spending. One need not look far to see just how the government thoughtlessly spends other people's money like nothing. Just the other day, two children died in a cave in. Apparently, the family had been operating an illegal limestone quarry and the recent rainfalls may have caused it to collapse when the children were playing (or possibly working as illegal child labor) inside. Of course, the family is dirt poor and supposedly sympathetic. The local government already pledged them cash assistance. This doesn't even include the mandatory "burial assistance" or whatever other cash assistance programs there are.

Whenever there's a fire in a squatters area, you have the cash assistance. When someone dies, you get cash assistance. If you have old people lying around, there's cash assistance to the elderly. Some local governments can get really creative. Binay likes to brag, for example, that Makati hands out free cakes to seniors on their birthdays. Sometimes the government just gives you money, period! Some call it promoting the public welfare, I call it bribery.

You may think me heartless but don't misunderstand. The common good is a worthwhile goal of government. However, I think we have gone well past the point of reasonable. Nothing wrong with a helping hand but the government is acting like some kind of European welfare state when its clearly beyond its means to help absolutely everyone that comes to its doorstep with an empty bowl. It's not so much that the government steps in like a sugar daddy whenever people need something, rather, it's the fact that people are so helpless in the first place and have been trained and conditioned to expect their problems to be solved by the government.

The poor should be helped but why are there so many poor people in the first place? It would be better to focus on providing opportunities for people to succeed instead of the rather undignified solution of just giving them money. You know the old canard about teaching a man to fish. Never mind. Nobody asks why. Just give 'em money and tell them to never forget who gave it to them when they go into the polling booth. So it goes. The people are made dependents of the state. Politicians promise them the moon and bribe them before and after the elections with all sorts of programs - the kind of programs Kim talks about. Then elections become a contest of Santa Clauses on who can best pilfer the common coffers for the benefit of the masses.

But the programs don't actually lift people out of poverty. That's why there are so many poor people in the first place. It's a group that doesn't (mustn't) be reduced. All the programs do is placate the masses just enough to prevent revolution. These programs cost money and that means high taxes. Even if a poor person were to work very hard to move up in life, he would eventually hit the tax wall and finally go from being a parasite to a host. It's unlikely he'll ever reach the upper echelons of say, the Makati Business Club. Majority of us must be kept miserable for this whole thing to work.

Just look at the presidential debates, like the one yesterday. Politicians talking about free healthcare, free services and all sorts of goodies they can provide. Nobody asks about the cost because the answer is deadlier to a politician than anything Duterte can ever say. It will be paid for by the people's taxes. That's why the income tax is only talked about as briefly as possible by all politicians to the point that it's just lip service. The tax rates, all of them, including the VAT and corporate rates, are likely to stay where they are if we're going to keep this miserable enterprise going.

There's another reason as well. Majority of Filipinos don't care about the income tax because they're too poor to fall into the tax brackets. It's only the middle class who are hurt by this. The rich? Not so much. The middle class doesn't win elections; the masses win elections and the masses want you to subsidize them and the government is all too happy and willing to see it happen.

Back to the central irony. The bloated monster that everyone looks to to solve their problems is the same monster that's causing them. We solve the people's hunger by feeding them their own flesh. It's brilliant. People are dependent and kept so by the government subsidizing their misery. The government sucks up the people's wealth thus, making sure nobody rises too high above his station. The rich, the same old names who are already established, don't have to worry about competition (local or abroad) and can afford to opt out and live in luxury or even rig the game in their favor. Everyone needs money and the rich can play the game just as well as the local slime-ball politician. 

It's a society begging for release, one way or another.

Jokes For Folks

People went crazy, and are still going crazy, about Duterte's rape joke. Some are saying that he's never gonna win now. I don't think so.

It's too late in the game; the train has left the station. If Duterte's has come this far despite himself, one measly controversy about a rape joke won't stop him. How funny is it that Duterte's popular image, a vulgar guy who summarily kills people without trial, has been tacitly accepted but because he joked about rape, he's now morally questionable all of a sudden? They're making a bigger deal out of this than the other batshit crazy things he's said in the past. Oh, so now we're not gonna go along? "I don't care if he kills people, he made a rape joke and it's that I can't stand!" 

Give me a break.

Short Cuts: American Sniper

American Sniper is a biographical war movie directed by Clint Eastwood based on the memoir American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History written by Chris Kyle. I should mention that I haven't read the book and simply watched the movie on HBO one lazy afternoon so I can't comment on the whether the film was a faithful adaptation or not.

This movie was controversial when it was released. Critics dismissed the film as propaganda; a jingoist film that glossed over the evils of the war in Iraq. Supporters of the film stood by it as a celebration of the heroism of soldiers like Chris Kyle. The whole hubbub surrounding this film is tainted by politics but it can't be helped. Many Americans still feel very strongly about the war and their biases filter the way they see the movie. Since I'm not an American, I don't have that kind of baggage and hopefully, I can provide a more objective or neutral opinion on the film.

The film is about Chris Kyle, who was such a deadly sniper that he became known as "The Legend". Many soldiers were saved by his killing of enemy threats. He was so good that a bounty was placed on his head. The film isn't solely about his exploits in war however, but also about his family life and the struggles he had to face after his tours of duty in Iraq. Overall, I thought it was a good movie. If you take your mind off the Iraq war and its antecedents and just focus on the subject of the movie, Chris Kyle, you would appreciate the movie more.

Black, White and Grey

One problem I can see with the film is that there is little moral conflict or doubt when it came to the war itself. Chris Kyle, played by Bradley Cooper, explained his view, taught to him by his father, that the world is composed of sheep, wolves and sheepdogs and that it was his job to protect people by killing the enemy. Not to make insults but it's a simplistic worldview and the movie seems to warp around that to reflect it. The Iraqis are the bad guys, he shoots them and that's that. I can see why the movie's critics dismiss this as propaganda. The black and white battleground may not seem fair to people who have other views of the conflict. The hero himself doesn't seem to experience any moment of regret about the people he shot or consider any action he took as a mistake. The film seems to strongly imply that Chris Kyle, and America by extension if you're biased that way, were most definitely the good guys and doesn't explore this any further. You can see how this upsets people who opposed the war.

But you know what? I'm fine with that. You know, war movies shouldn't necessarily be obliged to take a moment and explain to the audience about the nuances of the war and the different points of view to the conflict. The hero shouldn't be obliged to suddenly stop, get on his hands and knees and scream to the heavens, "What have I done!?" and mope about questioning the righteousness of the war. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that there are soldiers who have a simple point of view and simply don't have a problem killing people who they sincerely believe had it coming. I read that the actual Chris Kyle had no problems with killing people and may have enjoyed it. It's a tad disturbing if it's true but there are people like that.

The real interesting bit is that even if Chris Kyle believed he was killing the bad guys, he still develops emotional trauma from his experiences. In the movie, Chris develops a legendary reputation among the troops and many hail him as a hero. This bothers him since he doesn't consider himself as such in the film. In an unusual twist, the soldier is traumatized not by what he did but by what he didn't do. He laments that he couldn't save everyone. Even in the scenes where he returns to his home in America, his mind is still in Iraq. He spends the day watching snuff videos of American soldiers being killed in Iraq and it tears him up inside. He seethes and broods and it's obvious that he wants to get back in the fight, so much so that he goes on four tours to Iraq.

I think that's the key to the movie. It's about Chris Kyle, right? If we're to understand the guy, we have to see things from his point of view and this would necessarily mean the reduction of the Iraq War into a simple good vs. evil type of conflict. That's how he saw it.  His good vs evil, sheep, wolf and sheepdog point of view led him to do heroic (saving soldiers) things but was also the cause of his turmoil. His whole self-inflicted ordeal could also seem foolish to outsiders who don't see the world this way. At times he seemed like a guy who seemed too obsessed with having to do his duty to save everybody. Possible hero complex? The film doesn't explore it much.

There were bad guys and all we know about them is that they're bad. The hero's nemesis, an enemy sniper, was just that. There was a brief scene which showed that the enemy sniper too had a family and seemed eerily similar to our hero but it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it type of deal and it's never explored.

It was a little disappointing that, near the end, it seems that Chris was getting over his hangups it a little too easily but then the ending happened. The movie just abruptly ended. I don't know if I should spoil the real-life reason why but it was poignant and ironic.

Is it good?

Yes, but only if you can set your politics about the war aside for a while and just watch it for what it is. It's red meat. It's a good guy vs. bad guys movie like the days of old except that it stars a character (or real person?) who actually believed the world was good guy vs. bad guys. Strangely, the best scenes were the ones when Chris returned home to his wife and children and finds himself unable to adjust back to normal civilian life. Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller gave great performances. It seemed like you could feel tension in the air between them and feel the emotional distance between them even as they lay in bed together.

One Last Complaint

In one scene where his character attempts to be a father to his family, Bradley Cooper has to take, what is supposed to be a child, in his arms and its clearly not a child. It's fake. It's a fake plastic baby.

I hate this scene. I really fucking hate this. It took me completely out of the movie and distracted me so much that I couldn't pay attention to what the characters were saying. It's like taking a nice, comfortable bus ride and somebody just makes the worst, smelliest, beefiest fart next to you and it lingers for several minutes. It's almost as bad as the CGI baby in Twilight and damn this film for making me remember Twilight. The actor did his best and tried to make it move its arm with his thumb but that made it even worse.

Anyway, it was a good movie.

Gorillaz - Stylo

Veep

When you think about it, the Vice-President isn't really that great of a position in the government. I remember a book refer to Vice-Presidents as "the spare tires". They can be appointed to a position in cabinet so they won't be totally useless but that's about it. 

The real fun is when the President dies. Conspiracymongers think that if Bongbong Marcos wins as Vice-President, he'll arrange for the President to be killed and thus return the Marcos name into power. I don't know if he has the guts to do that. If Bongbong is next in line and the President does die, especially in a "hunting accident" or some really mysterious circumstance, all eyes are going to be on him. Whipping up resentment shouldn't be a problem then. The smart play would be to roll along as VP, get a lot of nice things done, improve your brand and once you convince enough people that you're harmless, make a shot at the big one. Right now, people seem to trust Marcos enough that he's number one in the VP polls. He probably knows that jumping into the Presidentials is biting off more than he can chew.

Isn't it funny, though? In the Philippines, your name is everything but if that were true, Marcos should be losing hard right now. Theoretically, if name is so important, then a bad name would drag you down as much as a good one can lift you up? Ah, but it is also said that Filipinos are a forgiving lot. Personally, I don't believe that. Filipinos don't end grudges but just hide them to be quickly brought out again later when things go sour. Maybe they feel sorry for Bongbong? He does seem pathetic in that he's saddled with the legacy of his father and the mean old bullies were ganging up on him during the debate. Possible, but as for me, I don't shed tears for the powerful.

People put too much thought in Game of Thrones.

Die Volter - Killing Floor 2 OST