But Jamjam doesn’t sink

“Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”

— Mao Zedong

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

THE main worries of the Treñas political bandwagon in Iloilo City nowadays is that it appears it has failed to convince many political leaders and allies in the barangays to shift their allegiance to Raisa Treñas-Tiu or Raisa Treñas two months after Mayor Geronimo “Jerry” Treñas announced his breakup with former protégé, lone district Rep. Julienne “Jamjam” Baronda.

The Treñas camp was expecting a tsunami to hit Baronda after that shock announcement of parting of ways, but what happened was a drizzle.

Based on most recent developments, there are pro-Treñas political leaders and allies, including their supporters, who are adamant to junk Baronda for Raisa.

In fact, the efforts to isolate and jettison Baronda may have backfired; the lady solon apparently continues to enjoy immense popularity among the women and young voters who have found no major reason to dump her.

This is a bad start and definitely a potential major headache for the Treñas camp.

 

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If city hall can’t halt Baronda’s surge despite the sustained carpet-bombing these past weeks, Treñas might indeed be forced to swallow his pride and face Baronda in the congressional battle, instead of risking everything by forcing his daughter to tangle versus the more popular and charismatic Baronda.

If Papa Jerry, who has an amazing string of political victory, will take the driver’s seat against Baronda, daughter Raisa will understand. She can pave the way and wait in 2028.

But if Papa Jerry really thinks daughter Raisa is ripe for the coveted congressional job despite the handwriting on the wall and they can hack the win against the “silent” Baronda, father and daughter might decide to cross the bridge together with bated breath.  

Politics has always been full of surprises and tense moments.

It’s too early to speculate and many things could happen before the serious campaign kicks off for the 2025 local election.

 

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MORE former Department of Health (DoH) secretaries and high-ranking officials have been implicated in plunder and charged with violation of anti-graft and corrupt practices act.

From now Iloilo first district Rep. Janette Loreto-Garin to Dr. Francisco Duque III, among other health department bigwigs.

In the list of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) for the most corrupt departments and agencies, the top three were the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Bureau of Customs.

DoH could be in the top 10 along with Department of Education (DepEd), Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and Philippine National Police (PNP).

What happened to the big names from the aforementioned departments who were implicated in graft and corruption or those who enriched themselves while in office?

  

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(Ika-004 nga Binalaybay sa serye nga tag-ilinit. Ginbalay ni Ambassador, Leo Tito L. Ausan, Jr., sa Kaagahon sang ika-11 sang Mayo,2024, sa Dhaka, Bangladesh.)

 

BISAN PA NGA MABUDLAY

I

Ang mga ginaatubang nga kahimtangan kag bagay, Agud indî ka dayon magtigulang, mahapos lang kag tuman ka halay,

Atubanga lang ini nga nagayuhom kag may kalipay.

II

Bisan pa gabi tuman ka gin-ot,

Indî ka gid magbinuringot,

 Kay madasig lang sinâ ang hitsura mo maga kulurinot,

Ari ay laygay ko nga lusot,

Kabiga lang ini nga tion sang Kaham-ot,

Kay bulawanon ini nga tion kon san-o,

Tanan kita makapaindis-indis sang aton mga ilok, magpahamot-hamot!..

 

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FIRST CONTRACEPTIVE. The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by the Egyptians in 2,000 B.C. It was replaced with elephant droppings when they realized it wouldn't work.

CALORIES BURNT. The more intense the sex, the more calories are burnt: up to 10,000 calories annually. How? Having sex 3 times a week burns 7,500 calories per year. That's the equivalent of jogging 75 miles (120.675 km).

PREGNANT AFTER ORGASM. If a woman experiences an orgasm during sex, she's more likely to become pregnant, since orgasmic spasms in pelvic muscles can help move sperm up the vaginal canal to the uterus.

INFERTILE. Although it only takes one sperm to fertilize an egg, a man whose ejaculate yields less than 35 million sperm is considered infertile.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo. — Ed)

My ‘Hamilton’ experience and why I (need to) love Broadway

“Performing on Broadway is an honor and a challenge for any artist.”

— Luis Fonsi

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

FROM time to time, I take advantage of a chance to watch Broadway musicals, something I couldn’t—and impossible to—do when I wasn’t yet a New York resident.

There's something about music that really tugs on the heart strings.

In my personal experience, broadway musicals let tourists (mostly from Europe, Canada, Australia) and people like me escape the day-to-day norms and be transported to new worlds and enchanting settings.

They let us see things from other perspectives and shine a light on stories we may not have heard before.

While we love everything about movies, a film isn’t a live show. A Broadway show offers us real in-person entertainment. We could be feet or inches away from actors as they take us on a journey full of heart, high-energy, and even suspense.

These shows let us turn off our brain for two hours and let us get swept away by the power of performance. On Broadway World’s message board, one user says a Broadway show is unlike anything else.

“It’s the fact that the actors are right in front of you, performing LIVE,” the user writes. “It tells a story with the actors right in front of you pouring their emotions out.”

 

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One of the reasons people love watching films in movie theaters is that we can experience art with other people. We will get the same experience in a Broadway theater! The minute we step into one of the many theaters like Broadhurst, Booth, Gershwin, or August Wilson, we will find so many others just like us, taking in a Broadway show.

What better way to stimulate our imagination than going to the theatre for a musical? We will engage with an imaginative story, accompanied by songs and dancing while we will be immersed in the performance.

Watching a play or musical entails paying attention to what is happening on stage and identifying with characters. Our sense of empathy for characters will be enhanced and can carry through to daily life.

I had a chance to watch Hamilton May 2. It’s a stage musical by American composer and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda that premiered Off-Broadway on February 17, 2015, at the Public Theater in New York City before moving to Broadway for a second opening on August 6.

Based on the life of Alexander Hamilton, the explosively popular, critically acclaimed musical married hip-hop and Broadway in previously unimaginable ways and lifted Hamilton higher in the pantheon of the Founding Fathers, while humanizing him in touching and inspiring ways.

 

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Hailed as the most significant new American musical in a generation, Hamilton swept the major 2016 Tony Awards.

After reading Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography about Hamilton, Miranda, who had fused hip-hop and salsa in the Tony Award-winning In the Heights (2007), began creating a musical about the Founding Father. In the life of Hamilton—who rose from obscure origins on the small Caribbean island of Nevis to become a leading U.S. statesman and the first U.S. secretary of the treasury—Miranda saw a quintessential American story, one that he perceived as akin to the humble beginnings of rappers.

The resulting musical was energetic and infectious, and it featured a racially diverse cast, with Miranda starring in the title role.

In addition to Miranda, members of the original Broadway cast who would win acclaim for their performances included Daveed Diggs, Leslie Odom, Jr., Renée Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo, and Jonathan Groff. Miranda’s behind-the-scenes collaborators included director Thomas Kail, musical director Alex Lacamoire, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, set designer David Korins, and costume designer Paul Tazewell.

 

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Among the figures from early American history who strut across the stage in Hamilton are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, the marquis de Lafayette, and King George III, not to mention the Schuyler sisters, daughters of Revolutionary War general and political leader Philip John Schuyler, including Eliza, Hamilton’s wife.

At the centre of the musical is the feud between Hamilton and Aaron Burr, and Hamilton climaxes with the famous duel between them that took Hamilton’s life.

In 2016 Hamilton was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and it received an unprecedented 16 Tony nominations—Miranda earning several nods, including best actor in a leading role in a musical. The production eventually won 11 Tonys, falling one short of the record. Hamilton was named best musical, and Miranda won for best book and best original score. In July that year he made his final appearance in the show.

The following year, the musical opened in London’s West End, where it was a critical and commercial success. It won seven Olivier Awards, including best new play. In addition, Miranda garnered the award for outstanding achievement in music.

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Hamilton has since been performed in a number of other cities outside the United States and across the country. A filmed performance of the musical aired on television in 2020.

An unforgettable cinematic stage performance, the filmed version of the original Broadway production of “Hamilton” combines the best elements of live theater, film and streaming to bring the cultural phenomenon to homes around the world for a thrilling, once-in-a-lifetime experience. “Hamilton” is the story of America then, told by America now. Featuring a score that blends hip-hop, jazz, R&B and Broadway, “Hamilton” has taken the story of American founding father Alexander Hamilton and created a revolutionary moment in theatre—a musical that has had a profound impact on culture, politics, and education.

Filmed at The Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway in June of 2016, the film transports its audience into the world of the Broadway show in a uniquely intimate way.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo—Ed)

‘Tagging’

“The spirit of arrogance most definitely makes you shine. It paints a bright red target on your own forehead.”

― Criss Jami, Killosophy

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

IN Iloilo, Philippines in 1992, a colleague in the publication once “red-tagged” this writer and a colleague, now Atty. Teopisto “Pet” Melliza.

The publication would be better off without the two (yours truly and Pet) “reds”, the colleague told the management.

Honestly, I had no inkling then that being tagged as “red” in the Philippines was tantamount to being accused as “communist” or “left-leaning”.

Until now I can’t accept the “tagging” because I was not “left-leaning” and never a “communist”. It’s mind-boggling how I was dragged into that unwanted docket.

Back in 1987 in Baguio City, the late former Sun Star Iloilo editor-in-chief Ivan Suansing, West Visayas State University mass communication professor Ricky Aballena, and yours truly attended the last national congress of the “reformed” College Editors Guild of the Philippines as campus editors.

CEGP, an alliance of collegiate student publications in the Philippines and the oldest and only-existing publications alliance in the Asia-Pacific founded in 1931, had been tagged by the military as “left-leaning” even before the Marcos dictatorship in the 70s.  

 

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We weren’t supposed to be “left-leaning” because the national congress was officially known as the CEGP-RM or College Editors Guild of the Philippines-Reform Movement.

The attachment of the words “Reform Movement” by the organizers had sparked a tremendous controversy then nationally as some true-blooded CEGP veterans in the 60s and 70s resented it, but it was none of our business. We went to the national media congress as representatives of Iloilo City, not for any realpolitik or as political pawns or sympathizers and spies from the left or right hemispheres.

Red-tagging isn’t new to the country: Implemented in 1969, the government-backed campaign was designed to “tag” and counter communist and Maoist groups, particularly the New People’s Army (NPA), according to Human Rights Foundation Legal & Policy Intern Tanyalak Thongyoojaroen.

Red-tagging has since become a destructive tool to quash dissent. Under the former Duterte government and his National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), the regime has used the guise of red-tagging to crack down on activists and dissidents.

In the United States, “Red” is a short form of Redskin; usually an adjective in “the Red Man” or “Red Indians” and is referred to Native Americans, especially in North America; more often considered offensive since the mid-20th century; capitalization varies, leaning upper-case.

In North America, the term is now considered a racial slur.

The use of the term Indian or the natives of the Americas originated with Christopher Columbus, who mistakenly believed that the Antilles were the islands of the Indian Ocean, known to Europeans as the Indies. Though Columbus’ mistake was soon recognized, the name stuck, and for centuries the native people of the Americas were called Indians.

We are glad that the Philippine Supreme Court (SC) has declared that red-tagging in the Philippines and guilt by association threatens a person’s constitutional right to life, liberty and security.

 

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The SC noted in a 39-page decision that red-tagging has been acknowledged by international organizations as a form of harassment and intimidation.

According to SC, being labeled as “red” often comes with frequent surveillance, direct harassment and, in some instances, eventual death.

The high tribunal noted that being associated with communists or terrorists makes the red-tagged person “a target of vigilantes, paramilitary groups or even state agents.”

Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda, who penned the ruling, stated: “Thus, it is easy to comprehend how a person may, in certain circumstances, develop or harbor fear that being red-tagged places his or her life or security in peril.”

The SC further noted that red-tagging is the use of threats and intimidation to discourage “subversive activities.”

The ruling stemmed from a petition filed by our fellow Ilonggo, Siegfred Deduro, an activist and former representative of party-list Bayan Muna and a founding member and vice president for the Visayas of Bayan Muna and the Makabayan coalition.

Deduro sought in his petition the issuance of a writ of amparo, a remedy for those whose right to life, liberty or security has been violated or threatened.

He said military officers under the command of Maj. Gen. Eric Vinoya, the commanding officer of the Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, red-tagged and accused him of being a ranking member of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo. — Ed)

Pinay who falsified name smitten by a Mexican lady

“As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot."

—John Lennon

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WHEN Josefa Alcoriza landed in the United States via Los Angeles, California sometime in May 1990, she knew flying back again into the "land of milk and honey"--if ever she decided to return to the Philippines--would be next to impossible.

"So, I decided to go TNT (tago ng tago)," she admitted while flashing a funny face, her mannerism.

Alcoriza, 65, of Purok 1 Sisi, Magsungay, Bacolod City, Negros Occidental, Philippines, used a fake name in a valid passport when she obtained a tourist visa.

Her first application was denied in the US Embassy in Lahug, Cebu City.

"I was so desperate to go to the United States because of a very humiliating incident in our place where my name was implicated," Alcoriza volunteered.

She did not give details.

"It was a love triangle turned awry and I don't want to recall the past now. It gives me more pain each time I remember it," Alcoriza explained in vernacular.

 

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When she first applied for tourist visa three months earlier sometime in 1990, her application was denied "because I didn't know how to describe Mickey Mouse," Alcoriza chortled.

"The consul said, 'what is the purpose of your travel?' I answered, 'to see the Disneyland, sir.' He asked me, 'what is there in Disneyland that you want to see?' I answered, 'Mickey Mouse, sir.' He asked more: 'Who is Mickey Mouse?' I answered, 'He is a rabbit, sir. A big rabbit with tall ears, two big teeth, and small begotes (beard)'," disclosed Alcoriza.

"It's Bugs Bunny you are describing," Alcoriza recalled the consul as telling her.

Nursing a heartache, Alcoriza returned to Bacolod, her passport stamped with a word "denied."

Upon the advice of a travel agency fixer, she changed her name and applied for renewal of her passport.

 

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Alcoriza tried her luck in the US Embassy this time in Manila under a false name.

She succeeded in her nefarious act and was granted a tourist visa with multiple entry good for 10 years.

Alcoriza, a lesbian, stayed alternately in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Sacrameto in California for three years working as nanny and dabbled in housekeeping before flying to El Paso, Texas to work "under the table" in a garment factory.

"That's where I met Rosanita (Ortaleza), the love of my life," revealed Alcoriza, who was then 43 years old.

Rosanita, 30, was a Mexican illegal immigrant, who entered El Paso through the barricades or popularly known as "over the bakod" (over the fence).

"I loved Rosanita and she loved me, too. At least that's what she told me," Alcoriza alleged.

Single, with money to burn, and with no big family to support in the Philippines, Alcoriza showered Rosanita with amenities in life, including expensive jewelry and signature handbags.

 

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Through Alcoriza’s "kindness", Rosanita was able to send $500 a week to her family in Ciudad Juarez, a neighboring Mexican border city located a stone throw away from El Paso.

"Rosanita was my world; she was my everything until one day in 1994 she just disappeared without a trace," she said. "No any sign of departure. No letter. No notice whatsoever."

Rosanita's mobile phone "could not be reached", she said.

Balajadia said she surmised either Rosanita was caught by border patrol guards and deported back to Ciudad Juarez or had eloped with a Hispanic man.

To compound the matter, Alcoriza discovered their joint savings account at Wells Fargo had been emptied.

"Only $15 was left out of about $8,000 in our joint account," sobbed Alcoriza.

She approached a certain Romulo Contreras, a Hispanic-speaking bank executive and learned from him the money had been withdrawn through a normal process via ATM.

Alcoriza refused to believe she had been conned after being castigated by friends for trusting Rosanita.

 

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After a futile attempt to search or "rescue" her girlfriend in 1996, Alcoriza decided to "forget Rosanita for a while" and made a rendezvous to Jersey City in New Jersey.

When her tourist visa expired in 2000, Alcoriza was already a long-time "resident" of New York.

"I have made adjustment (with my life here) and I didn't intend to go back to the Philippines anymore," she intoned.

Balajadia found a new flame, Alma (not her real name), a Pinay caregiver in Long Island.

They lived together in one apartment in Queens.

Alcoriza disclosed she also maintained "off and on" relationships with two other Pinoy women -- Jamjam and Rhodora (not their real names), both caregivers.

Alma, a public school teacher in Carmona, Cavite, Philippines, was building a P1.8-million house in Brgy. Barrios, Carmona through Alcoriza’s "generosity."

Alcoriza admitted that “at this point of my life, I can't afford to be alone. All I wanted was a woman, a life-time partner."

Warned by "concerned" friends on the possible repeat of her ill-fated romance with the "desaparecido" Rosanita, Alcoriza bemoaned, "Give me a woman or give me death."

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo. — Ed)