LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULER!: Reflections of a First-Time Visitor to New Orleans

Bourbon Street coming to life at dusk










The Mardi Gras parades starting one week early

The St. Louis Cathedral at Jackson Square

The “Good Times” and “New Orleans” are two concepts that seem to dovetail neatly with each other. This much, I saw first hand, in my first trip to “the Big Easy” early this month, less than 5 years after a double tragedy put the proud and fun-loving city to its knees. Hurricane Katrina, followed a month after by hurricane Rita exposed the soft under belly of America. More than 1,500 people perished, and thousands and thousands more lost all they had.

I really had no reason to be anywhere near the city where French, Spanish, English, Italian, Cuban, German, and American cultures are all rolled into one. The famous “French Quarter” was not always French all the way, for starters. The Calle Real, what is now known as Royal street, still bears the Spanish street sign. But Bourbon Street, though, spelled in French, really had to do with the Spanish Borbon dynasty of yore.

But I think that nowhere else is this happy mélange of cultures seen as in the food that the locals seem to be very proud of … fusion cuisine invented even before the term came to be known the world over! A seafood mecca, the city loves oysters, on the half shell, grilled or fried in a motley manner to become succulent gustatory delights. It was my first time to see and taste “po-boy” sandwiches filled with shrimps or other seafood, battered and deep fried, always with a touch of hot chili and spices that literally give a bite to whatever one bites into and sinks one’s teeth into. The “gumbo” – steaming hot and often spicy hot stew seemed to me the perfect accompaniment to oil-spattered deep fried sandwich fillings that would make the heart skip a beat in these TFA (trans-fatty acids) scare days and times.

But I was there for a few days … an unplanned trip that coincided with a conference on leadership organized by the National Catholic Educational Association. Since this has to do with precisely what I am trying to steer the school I work in to, I had to decide quickly early last month to go.

And I must say I have no regrets about spending a few days there. The first day, though, was a dampener. It was raining cats and dogs – the very same rain brought about by a developing storm that became the headache and the problem upper north, in the mid-Atlantic states, that dumped inches and inches of snow from Washington, DC, Virginia, to Maryland, to Pennsylvania, to New York.

Groggy and disoriented from a more than 24 hour trip from the tropics, I came to New Orlean’s sub-tropical climate that boasted of rains that I am most familiar with. The temperature ranged from a comfortable low to high 50s, but the downpour brought flooding that wet my feet as we wended our way to Mass with the Archbishop Gregory Aymond, a New Orleans native, recently transferred from Austin, Texas (in the same Cathedral where just two years ago, I attended and took part in a wedding Mass of a nephew).

I came at a time when feverish preparations are under way for the Mardi Gras celebrations, another well-known event associated with the “Big Easy.” Actually, I was told that it really started right after the Feast of the Epiphany. Although, I won’t be there next week when Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) actually takes place with all the pomposity and pageantry that only New Orleans can pull off, with the possible exception of Rio de Janeiro’s own Mardi Gras, I saw a preview of what was to come … small parades replete with costumes galore and goblets that overflowed with champagne and wine, carried by medieval attired characters that all had one message in common … Laissez les bon temps rouler! Let the good times roll!

I am happy for New Orleans. As I watched with all the rest of America the Super Bowl games at Miami, Florida, with the New Orleans Saints slugging it out with the Indianapolis Colts, there was no doubt in my heart that I rooted for the underdogs – the Saints. But I knew deep in my heart, too, that I did not root for them because I did not like the Colts. I found out later that for a Filipino deeply rooted in Spanish influenced Catholic culture, there was simply a whole slew of reasons why I felt like rooting for the Saints.

They are a resilient people, to start with … like us Pinoys, who have seen more than our fair share of Katrinas and Ritas back home. We had a double whammy late last year – Ondoy and Pepeng – that literally inundated our best dreams and our mighty hopes to take our rightful place under the Asian sun of national respectability and honor.

New Orleans suffered a big blow from Katrina and Rita. Much of the city remains to be rehabilitated. Much of what they lost remains to be restored. But in the conference, I heard stories of magnanimity and far-ranging vision … like the story of Holy Cross School that was literally wiped out by the floods. They had to relocate, without sure resources forthcoming, without certain funds and unalloyed support from everyone. It was almost, then, a hopeless dream, an impossible undertaking. Today, less than five years after, the 95 million project that is the renewed Holy Cross School, is well on the way towards forging new heights, literally and figuratively. They have risen, not from the ashes like the Phoenix, but risen above the doldrums of hopelessness, indifference, and inertia.

As I listened to the stories of those who made it happen, my thoughts got back to home base, back in tropical Philippines, where dreams and hopes lie battered and bruised by a dysfunctional political system that breeds storms and stresses far worse than Katrina, Rita, Ondoy, and Pepeng – the curse of a corruption-ridden, patronage, and personage-based politics that is the bane and shame of a once-proud people, cultured in the fineries of religion and spirituality, who also know how to celebrate, with Sinulogs, Dinagyangs, Masskara, and all …

Who dat? Who dat say dey will beat dem saints? This was the mantra and chant that the whole city (and perhaps the whole state) would sing, shout, and proclaim in the run-up to the Super Bowl. Their dream since Katrina and Rita brought them to their knees paid off. It became a reality last Sunday in Miami, Florida. Their hopes fondled with care and a lot of hard work since 2006 were fulfilled. They won. And how!

Boy, was I glad to be part of the excitement! And was I glad to be part of the exhilaration after the victory! To savor it all, I tried the famous gumbo and the red beans and rice (spicy like most everything). I tasted the much-vaunted beignets at Café du Monde, over at Decatur St. – at the French market. The café au lait might not have been that good as claimed (for a self-styled coffee connoisseur that I claim myself to be!); the chicory flavor might actually have ruined the coffee for me who simply wants the taste of coffee plain and simple – and – unadulterated; the beignets might not have been nothing more than just donuts minus the hole, but they sure came with a generous dose of confectioner’s sugar, and served with a lot of panache and hometown pride. And that made all the difference!

Again, as I slowly savored the beignets and sipped my chicory flavored coffee, and as I watched the steady flow of crowds who all wanted to get generous helpings of beignets smothered with snowy and sugary delight, my thoughts raced back to home base faster than the white powder could raise my blood sugar levels, and I thought that what we needed, apart from believing in ourselves as a people for us to get out of the doldrums of underdevelopment, is to have simple, honest, and well-deserved sense of pride in what we have, what we can do, and what we are best at doing, as a people.

One of them happens to be similar to what people at the Big Easy seem to be experts at … partying for a good cause! They sure know how to party…. Yes! But they sure know too, how to work so as to deserve a party.

Laissez les bon temps rouler! Let the good times roll!

GOLD, NOT JUST GLITTER, IN THE CITY OF GOLDEN FRIENDSHIP

First timers in any city are always in for big surprises.

I have always wanted to be in Cagayan de Oro city ever since I learned – of all places, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, ten years ago that the Philippines, through GenSan and CDO was actually, then, the world’s top exporter of tuna.

My friends were then taking me for a stroll through the port area of Vancouver and we happened to pass by the fish market. As we were approaching one of the stalls, a tall, white and lanky Canadian man, suddenly called out to us in perfect and very polite Tagalog, “Ano ho ang hanap nila?” I was stunned. After the initial shock, I engaged the man in conversation and asked him how come he spoke so good Tagalog. “Matagal ako tumira sa Batangas at saka sa Mindoro,” was his answer. But that was not the best surprise. As we made known our desire to buy some “sock-eye salmon” for me to bring home to California, he quipped: “I bet you didn’t know that the Philippines is the number one exporter of tuna in the world!”

Indeed, I didn’t know … just as I didn’t know – up till now – that Boracay’s beaches are actually better, if not, on the same footing, as the best that Bali in Indonesia, and Pattaya in Thailand, could offer, at least if we are talking about their natural, pristine state. Once, when my siblings treated me to a cruise from Los Angeles to Encinada, Mexico, I bumped into a group of Caucasians who have been to Boracay. The conversation veered towards the topic on beaches. One of the men asked me point blank: “Have you been to Boracay?” “No, I haven’t unfortunately,” I answered. And then he asked me, “Then what are you doing here in Encinada?”

There was hardly anything worth anyone’s while in Encinada. It was pathetic, just as it was pathetic to see Caucasian tourists back in Monterey in California, to wax so enthusiastic and appear so surprised to ogle at nothing but the gently rolling surf where enterprising marketing experts have put up a sign that said: “The Restless Sea.” Dozens of them were having their picture taken alongside the sign. Coming as I do, from a country surrounded by sea everywhere, I could not understand how so many people could be so enamored by the sight of something so ordinary as the rolling surf glinting in the morning sun by the seashore.

I write as I await my flight back to Manila at Lumbia National Airport. The airport itself is nondescript, a little too small for a city that prides itself now as the gateway to Mindanao. But the location of the airport itself is welcome sight to travelers. Nestled on a plateau surrounded by undulating hillocks, covered with bright green and lush foliage all around, it clearly reminded me of how blessed the place and the people who live there are with relatively rich vegetation all around. I was told that the only setback to the airport sitting on hills was the fact that on foggy days, flights have to be diverted to Cebu a little further north. I thought the airport itself was just a little better and bigger than the one in Ozamis City, Misamis Occidental.

My five day stay in CDO was a welcome respite from the monotony of first semester classes, teaching, preaching, and celebrating Masses daily for others. A national seminar-workshop of counselors under the auspices of the Philippine Guidance Counseling Association, Inc. was what brought me there. When I came, it was surprising to note that the whole city was abuzz with visitors as several national events were being held there. All the hotels were booked solid and all the humble “motorelas” (what is known in the north as tricycles) appeared poised and ready for the influx of riders.

The first day saw almost 800 of us cramped in the biggest ballroom of Grand Caprice Hotel, attached to LKK (Lim Ket Kai Mall). The 2nd and 3rd days saw us, still cramped and uncomfortable, in various rooms of Capitol University, a privately owned university that appeared to be the closest competitor to the other Jesuit owned school, Xavier University.

The whole short stint that made me see nothing more than hotel, school, audio-visual rooms and listen to speakers, was, honestly, an enlightening experience. It was good to see a city with a lot of gold, albeit devoid of glitter usually associated with it. I saw it in the mostly courteous and honest taxi drivers I happened to associate with. Although not all were such, my experience with two of them, who were both locals, was enough to write off what appeared to me as less than honest dealing shown by one who happened to be from the Tagalog region up north.

I saw gold, too, in the relatively better preserved greenery in the city. I saw gold in the smart, courteous, and unassuming service provided by hotel staff and orderlies who dutifully made the rounds of the rooms. Whilst the room I had was not the best in terms of comfort as compared to what one finds in the US, for example, or even in other wealthier Asian neighbors, I could not have asked for more in what simple things they could offer. I saw gold too, as I strolled leisurely at the Divisoria area in what they call the “night café.” There was music. There was mirth. And there was gentle soothing massage over at the park from blind women and men, who were there, each night, providing a cheap way to instant relaxation and stress-relief with their agile hands and fingers.

They say travel makes for a good teacher. One learns a whole lot more in shorter a time, than one can learn poring through books and sitting through lectures. This trip to CDO was no exception, as was my trip a few months ago to Pagadian City, also in Northern Mindanao.

The world we live in is caught, for the most part, in a culture of having rather than being. If the mad rush for skin whitening lotions and concoctions is a sign of anything, I believe it has to do with that passionate search, for form, and not necessarily for substance., for appearances, and not for the essential invisible realities that matter the most in the long run.

We see manifestations of such everyday … from the bombastic grandstanding antics of the “trapos” (traditional politicians) whose tribes seem to increase by the day, to the mostly and primarily cosmetic changes that seem to characterize all the projects associated with that much hated pork barrel funds of the so-called honorable congressmen and senators.
The list is legion. Time and again, the police engage in token busts and token arrests to show they do their work. Occasionally, one hears of arrests being made, of shabu factories being raided, and small-time criminals facing the long arm of the law. But one wonders why no big fish are ever apprehended, and why only small fry land in jail at all. And if high profile and big fish criminals land in jail, why, they get pardons and reviews faster than you can utter “I am sorry for what I did.” One high profile criminal even went through the charade of presidential pardon, but who never ever even accepted he was guilty of anything! How on earth does one pardon anyone who professes innocence?

Whilst it is true that not all that glitters is gold. All that glitters nevertheless can pass off as gold for many people, at least for a while. In a world where appearances seem to count the most, ingesting drugs that produce temporary and erstwhile self-esteem via the right and desired color and skin tone, takes primacy over the big possibility of harmful, and permanently debilitating health issues associated with such drugs. In one media report after another, we have been apprised of individuals who succumb even to death on account of their overweening desire to acquire that much coveted body form, and skin color and complexion. Gold is mistaken for the superficial glitter.

I have seen a lot of glitter in my numerous trips all across the United States and Europe, especially in cities like Las Vegas, Reno, Atlantic City, and New York. But one does not have to go too far to see gold, sans the glitter, sans the glamor. I saw it in many varied, simple, and humble ways at Cagayan de Oro, the city of golden friendship. And how I wish the same were true all over this country, whose image has been so torn and tarnished by so much shallow politicking, a whole lot of divisive political posturings of “trapos” who, while claiming to do public service, only have the glitter and the glamour that come from it primarily in mind.

KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD! (PILGRIM PATHWAYS, PART V)

KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD!

I write from the city that takes its common pride from a rather “weird” popular motto: “Keep Austin weird.” Come to think of it, there is nothing weird about the drive for individuation that the motto seems to stand for. There is nothing weird about not following the bandwagon and trying to keep its identity distinct and separate from other “run-of-the-mill” cities that America seems to become more and more of. There is nothing weird about a city that, among others, bases its main identity on the presence of a university that is the 2nd biggest university in the US in terms of student population (University of Texas, with about 60,000 students). There is nothing weird about a city defining its character by a passionate dedication to music, the arts, and culture.


A Trip Down the Fabled 6th Street


Austin is weird for many reasons. It seems to be a very educated city, given the presence of 60,000 university students. But it is weird also owing to the very same students making it possible for several blocks off 6th street coming to life at night, what with all its live musicians giving free rein to creativity and popular culture in all its bars and night clubs that sit right next to each other on 6th Street. It is weird on account of the fact that its capitol building towers 15 feet higher than the capitol building of Washington, DC. It is weird in the sense that it is very much an American city but where it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear individuals code shifting in the same breath between English to Spanish, with absolute ease. It is weird on account of the fact, that, whilst remaining to be a relatively livable city, it is home to a number of big commercial successes that America is replete with. Michael Dell started his own business enterprise that now is a household name all over the world. Austin, too, is home to Matthew McConnaughey, Sandra Bullock, and Kevin Costner, among others.


Wells and Domestics?


A quick look-see the first evening I was in Austin over at 6th Street gave me a feel for the local thrills of Austin by night. A brief stop at a local watering hole revealed a group of African Americans providing entertainment to patrons, seated, standing, or lolling about while nursing a bottle or a mug of either a beer that comes from a “well” – that is, tap beer, or what they call “domestics” or locally manufactured beer brands. They were singing the signature southern “blues” with that special rhythm that is at one and the same time, jazzy and emotionally fuzzy – at least to me.


Individuation and Self-Differentiation


“Keep Austin weird,” for me, is a lesson on individuation. It appears to me a telling lesson on the need for individuals – and communities and cities, for that matter – to define themselves, not in terms of comparing themselves with others, not in terms of what others are, or are not, but in terms of what they want to become.


The city, for me, offers a good illustration of what it means to have a solid self-identity in a world that seems to be dead bent on making everyone follow the bandwagon dictated by the forces of globalization, postmodernity, and the uniformity and mediocrity that both seem to engender, ultimately.


It stands at least for me, as a model of a city and people who would rather assert themselves in terms of their own vision, rather than defining themselves on the basis of how they are similar to, or different from, other cities.


Self-Differentiation at the Bottom of Many Issues


Back home, I see a different picture. The political circus that provides a never-ending telenovela-like story to a people already telenovela crazed, is almost something that would make anyone want to laugh or cry – or both at once – at the mere sight of the pathetic system that makes for the best reason why there is so much dysfunctionality – and massive poverty – in Philippine society. With politicians whose best vision rises no higher than the pathetic level of a politics of pillage and plunder, personage and patronage, with everyone trying to outdo one another, not exactly for altruistic motives, where individualism is understood as trying mutually to destroy each other, healthy self-differentiation goes out the window of political opportunism.


With a more than just lively opposition, waiting to pounce on the next opportunity to lunge for the throat of their political enemies, precious little energy is left to do what they love to mouth all the time – public service – never mind if most of that same public service is really self-serving on the long and short haul.


The same principle is pretty much at work everywhere – yes, including religious communities and church congregations. What we all love to call as “pastoral ministry” or “mission work” is oftentimes tainted with a whole lot of personal issues unacknowledged, unaccepted (that is, denied), and therefore, unprocessed. How else does one explain the all too common tendency to undo what the previous one did, or to simply ignore the achievements of the administration that one replaces? How else does one explain the build and destroy syndrome, that seems to be the hallmark of parishes and catholic schools everywhere in the country, where things that an earlier administration has put up are summarily destroyed by succeeding administrations?


Self-differentiation – or the patent lack of it – seems to be at the bottom of so many of our problems as a people and nation. Far too many of us are caught up in the burning desire to define who we are in terms of what others are, or are not, or in terms of what others have, or have not, achieved. It is self-definition at the cost of healthy individuation or healthy self-differentiation.


Classical Christian spirituality calls this pride – a certain inability to define, let alone accept, one’s own God given uniqueness and personal dignity. Where pride reigns, where lack of proper self-definition is the rule of the day, a lot of mutual self-destruction won’t be far behind.


Austin teaches me a lesson or two to bring home to the place I call home, by choice, by decision – for better or for worse. Keep Austin weird. Keep oneself healthily self-differentiated, without falling into the trap of either joining the bandwagon, or trying mightily and futilely, to use a phrase popularized by Kahlil Gibran, “to build a wall by trying to destroy a fence on the other side.”

Y’all take care now … and keep Austin weird!

PILGRIM PATHWAYS: PART IV

PIEN’ D’UMANITA IN FONDO ALL’ANIMA

I write as I listen to the soothing music and the soul-stirring lyrics of an Il Divo hit entitled “Nella Fantasia.” They sing of a dream, very much like the dream of Martin Luther King of yore. They dream of souls who live together in peace and in honesty, and who are always free (sono sempre libere) like the clouds in the sky (come le nuvole che volano).

Even as I write, I share the growing anger and frustration of so many people, hapless and helpless victims – as much of nature’s wrath shown in typhoon Fenshen (Frank in our local nomenclature) – as of a culture of greed, selfishness, corruption, and a sore lack of professionalism in many, many aspects of our communal lives, in and out of government. People grow angry and desperate even as the owners and management of Sulpicio lines keep on doing what they are best at (having become experts in it as three other ships they owned figured in almost identical accidents over the two past decades) – deflecting responsibility and dumping it on others every step along the way, to the total disregard of the suffering and the grief of thousands of relatives of the more than 700 people that perished in the capsized so called unsinkable ferry (which by the way is all of 24 years old!), the M/V Princess of the Stars.

How very true the gently lilting tune and lyrics of this Il Divo masterpiece do ring for us now! Io sogno d’anime chi vivono in pace e onesta come le nuvole che volano, pien d’umanita, in fondo all’anima … I dream of souls who live in peace and sincerity like the clouds in the sky, full of humanity deep within!

I take it the writer of the song expresses what we all need to be reminded of in our times – the pressing need for hope – at a time when we are enveloped by what Robinson (2004) refers to as “contours of hopelessness.”

Hopelessness and cynicism takes many and varied forms and disguises in this country and beyond. It shows in the desperation of so many who peg all their hopes on the lotto, whether the illegal (jueteng) or the legal variety (STL or small town lottery). It shows in the way so many are now willing to make a fool of themselves by submitting to the antics of TV hosts during noontime shows, doing as they are told, gamely trying to keep up with the pace just to get a lucky break somehow. It shows, too, in the many ways just about everybody tries to cut corners just to make a few more bucks on the sly, capitalizing on the ignorance and desperation of so many who don’t and won’t know any better. It shows in how traffic aides and policemen everywhere try to show a semblance of being hard at work, safeguarding the common good, by inventing traffic violations at every turn, every corner, and every intersection.

The latest tragedy of M/V Princess of the Stars highlights the growing menace of this lack of dedication to the call of professionalism in our basic services like mass transport. Whilst it was immediately attributable on the short haul to the fury of typhoon Fenshen (Frank), a whole lot of other potential and real factors surely came into play that made it a tragedy that, on the long haul, could have been preventable – if all the needed safeguards, safety procedures, and a great dose of good, old prudence were applied.

For one, prudence would ordinarily dictate that in a country of more than 7,000 islands, surrounded by open seas and turbulent straits in between islands, setting sail while knowing that they were on the path of a raging typhoon would be inadvisable. Secondly, cutting corners on maintenance seems to be the run of the day all over the country. Two big trucks stalled two days in a row at EDSA in Makati, thus slowing down the already chaotic and stalled traffic even more. The culprit? … poor maintenance of vehicles … overloading … and similar tales that happen once too often everywhere in the whole archipelago.

Pagadian City, A Clear Case in Point

Last June 17-19, I was in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur to solemnize a wedding of a former student. It was my first time in that part of northern Mindanao. Whilst the lush vegetation of Mindanao struck me, along with its rich and verdant mountains and hills surrounding a picturesque bay that separated Occidental and Oriental Misamis provinces, I felt sad that the same story of lack of city planning, lack of foresight and forward looking vision that is wholistic and integral, that takes into consideration the need for development that is sustainable, and at the same time aesthetically and environmentally sound, seem to be the same unfolding reality in the last frontier of the Philippines.

The reception was held in the main road of Pagadian, at a third floor restaurant that could be reached via a very narrow staircase, and an equally narrow main – and only – door. Apart from being narrow, the door opened in, not out. Given the number of guests that easily could have been 150 to 200, that staircase, and that narrow doorway simply jutted out like a sore thumb, when one looks back at the repeated tragedies that befell similar establishments in Quezon City – fires that gutted every burnable material and killed scores of people who were trapped in narrow doors that also opened in.

One would think that given the experience, and given the fact that the city is not yet that crowded, city planners and city authorities would be a little more armed with lessons well learned from experience. But no! … One contour of hopelessness in this country is just to raise up one’s hands in surrender, and follow the bandwagon called “kahit ano, puede na” mentality (anything goes).

Cynicism: Tell-tale Sign of Desperation

We’ve heard it before … all the hand wringing and the finger-pointing … all the blaming and the brazen denials of people from both sides of the fence. No one seems to admit responsibility to anything. For the next two or three months, I expect a lot more of the same in the frenzied media. There will be a lot of post-mortem analyses of the tragedy. There will be a lot more of accusations and counter accusations. But unless I got it wrong in the past 52 years of my life, literally nothing will come out of all this “sound and fury.” When the tears of the sorrowing have dried, and enough telenovela shows have been shown to wet viewers’ eyes again, and more showbiz personalities hug the center stage of people’s attention, the tragedy will most likely lie buried together with the hundreds of those who died uselessly, needlessly, and quite preventably.

Given the reality of an election-crazed nation gearing up for national elections, already with so many wannabes campaigning without really trying too hard (nor admitting that they do, what with all the billboards and commercial advertisements that hog the airlanes and the humongous commercial towers all over the country), the Filipino people with such short memories will most likely forget sooner than we can reasonably expect.

The miners and loggers, in the meantime, have all the reasons and the data to deflect responsibility for the flooding and all the topsoil that came cascading down valleys that used to be high and dry in decades past. Owners and operators of all the floating coffins in the archipelago are having a heyday trying to parry every imaginable blow from all fronts. National leaders and politicians who fiddled while Rome burned, figuratively – while watching the bout of the only pride the Philippines can reasonably boast of – Pacquiao, will be very busy talking of “national interest” when they get back to their constituents. It will all be a similar story of something “full of sound and fury, yet signifying nothing.”

In the end, it is poor Juan de la Cruz, who is left holding an empty bag. It is he who still has to nurture the last vestiges of an eroding hope for a country that seems to have successfully earned the moniker (for the nth time), of being the most corrupt nation in southeast Asia. In the end, it is he – not those who give privilege speeches – who will move this country forward, albeit so slowly, but definitely surely. It is Juan de la Cruz - the likes of Manny Pacquiao, and so many nameless individuals who, by their dedication to work and family, have consistently saved the whole country from total bankruptcy. The gambling lords, jueteng lords, and all those who lord it over others in this status-conscious country, who surrounded Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas have only themselves to blame if the adulation of people all go to Manny Pacquiao. He comes home with hard-earned and honestly earned money. And what he has promised to dole out in charity for the typhoon victims, is money that did not come from pork barrels and other perks that come with lofty offices that in the Philippines we all love to refer to as “public service.”

In the final analysis, it is each one of us nameless and faceless individuals in the stage called life that has to keep the music playing, and the flag of hope flying. It is each one of us who, in the long run, can keep more than just the music playing, in and through our performative hope, that runs deep … in fondo all’anima!

PILGRIM PATHWAYS: PART THREE

More and More of Less and Less


In writing, as they say, less is more. In life things may be just a wee bit different, depending on the situation. Sometimes, getting more is definitely a plus in every way; sometimes getting less translates to being more. The key word, of course, has to do with either having or being. And the focus on one or the other spells the difference between merely being satiated or being truly satisfied. Not all the filled are really full, as our experience teaches us. Being filled is really having more and more, but being full is being plain and simple, being satisfied, being happy, not primarily with what one gets, but being happy with what one does have. It is about being what one ought to be; a condition, not of want, but of never being in want despite the lack, despite many things always falling short of expectation.


I write this piece whilst I am traversing the Pacific – whilst the plane goes north, and then veers toward the west, in order to go the east! I have not been good at any time with directions, but there is something curious about how northwest airlines charts their flights from the US mainland towards what they call the orient. As I write, the plane skirts above the Pacific northwest, traverses the Russian Kamchatka peninsula, and then eventually will find its way towards Korea and onwards to Japan. Whilst it is true that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, obviously, in a world that is round, the best and shortest path from California to Tokyo, Japan is not to draw a straight line right across the Pacific, but to more up north where the globe tapers off, and traverse the distance therein.


But this makes me veer off course the chosen topic …


I write because there is not much else to do. I cannot sleep on planes, generally. I have just finished watching two movies, the second of which bored me stiff. The seat, with all the squirming and the turning around a very limited area, after some hours, does become – excuse me – a pain in the butt. Add to that a growling stomach that, after what is passed off as dinner fare a few hours ago, has been burnt and digested, with the next meal still hours away.


All airlines all over the world and especially in America, are losing a lot of money on account of the skyrocketing prices of oil. Given the fact that about 40% of their operational expenses go to jet fuel, all airlines simply have to be very creative in finding ways and means to make more money. Today, I have been had, in a sense. I had to shell out an extra 50 dollars for me to be assured of an aisle seat. The worst thing that can happen to me is to be wedged for 12 to 14 hours in between a few rows of seats, or worse, to be at a window seat, and having to squeeze oneself out of those rows every time one has to relieve oneself.


There is more and more of less and less in what airlines offer the economy passengers. Having been travelling to and from both sides of the Pacific since 1984, and having boarded several airline companies in all those years, I surely have enough data to work with informally in terms of assessing what once was, and what now is reality.


For one, the choice of preferred seats is no longer free. Exit seats and even aisle seats are not there anymore for the asking. No … they are there for what they call a modest fee. Snacks on board domestic flights all over the continental US are there, too, for a modest price. And don’t even think of changing your flight date unless you are prepared to pay more than a tenth of the whole round trip ticket price.


I predict that if the rise in oil prices goes unabated, blankets and pillows will be the next to go. Already, the food carts have been made less heavy. Winglets in many airplanes have been added to boost lift. American airlines has begun imposing a one-luggage limit per passenger, and even charging 25 d0llars on that one bag allowance. All other airlines will follow suit in the next few coming months, and the old weight allowance of 70 pounds will be pared down to about 50-60.


There is more and more of less and less … In Israel, they were forced to develop a state of the art desalination process because the old supply of fresh water, the “Sea” of Galilee’s level is falling faster than the price of oil rises all over the world.


Happily, things are changing ever so slowly in terms of consciousness. In many airports, one begins to see signs that remind people to get only what they need. Two things that by and large, the American society wastes so much of, are paper and water. Paper, incidentally, takes so much water to produce, and water is something that is fast becoming a “casus belli” ( a case for war) in many places all over the world. The much coveted Golan heights in Israel that links Israel with Syria has not been a disputed territory only in terms of military strategy. It sits right on top of what was once their only precious water reservoir – the Lake of Galilee!


But despite the reminders, the whole world is still pretty much wasteful all over. Old habits die hard, and the most difficult habits to eradicate are those that cater to our tendency toward more and more creature comfort. SUVs in the US are in for a rough ride ahead. People are going to be forced to say good-bye to them, not because of what Al Gore said, but because the trip to the fuel pump is getting to be more and more painful to consumers.


Flying and traveling is indeed, educational and formative. But so is the reality of human experience. With more and more of less and less becoming the order of the day, perhaps the whole world will eventually learn the hard way, how to be satisfied with less and less, do without more and more stuff, and become more in the long run. In this case, then the high school and college composition teachers were right all along … Less is more!

NW 027 – SFO to NRT
June 6, 2008

PILGRIM PATHWAYS: Part Two

Set Apart, or Treated Differently?

I saw it in Athens, over at Piraeus port, a sign that was as striking as it was incongruous … a sign in both English – and – hold on to your seat – in Tagalog! The sign says: “Please do not take away chairs from here.” But that was not all. Below was a Tagalog translation of the same thing in big, bold letters: “Sa Tagalog: Bawal alisin at ilipat ang mga silyang ito!” Hmmm …

This morning as I was boarding a flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul en route to San Francisco, over the Northwest counter, another sign reminded me of what I saw in Athens: For Manila flights only! Apparently, there are check-in counters and there are check –in counters … some for the regular guys and one for Filipinos! Hmmm …

A friend from Dubai once told me something similar. A sign in some of the shops at Dubai airport said once in English and in Tagalog: “Shoplifters will be prosecuted.” Translation in Tagalog right below it said: “Bawal magnakaw dito.” Hmmm …
My friend jokingly told me. Well, that sign is placed there for other nationalities, not me.

Four years ago, I was invited to do the invocation at the Philippine Independence Day celebrations at Marriott Hotel in downtown Washington, DC. I was privileged to have been seated together with former consuls who worked for some time in Manila, and other personages who had business to do with Filipino Americans. One of them asked me at some point: Father, could you please tell me which among the many groups who claim to speak for Filipino Americans we need to deal with directly? I could not give a ready answer. For around me were a multiplicity of groups all with fancy names each one of them representing a group, a cause, a party, and a convocation!

Fast forward to Jerusalem … over at Renaissance Hotel, the first day we were there, there were not too many signs other than what told people where to go, in what section of the restaurant to go to, depending on which group one belonged. The next day, a sign was placed conspicuously at the buffet table: “Please do not take food out of the restaurant.“ Hmmm … Of course, there were Filipinos checked in at the hotel, and that, of course, included me. Whoever took food out of the restaurant should be easy guess work for you. And your guess will most likely be not too far off the mark.

Back track to Madrid’s Barajas international airport. We were just walking off the tube towards the arrival area. The plane was full of mostly Caucasian travellers. Who do you think would the guardia civil stop on his tracks and to check on his passport? Well, it was me. I did not take offense, but surely, you would agree with me that there is something about being Filipino that would sometimes make you at least suspect we are being profiled. No one else was stopped on his tracks but me.

When we had to navigate our way to the new, huge, and sprawling airport terminal to get to where our flight back to Washington-Dulles international airport was, at the security check, what do you think would the airline staff at the gate would do, but to thumb through my passport and pass his fingers through the US visa page as if to check whether my visa was genuine or not?

Are we set apart, distinguished, renowned, or are we being treated differently? Your guess is as good as mine.

The Rising Fuel Costs and the Falling Standard of Living in America

The trip that took me from the third world, to the new world and to the old world and back to the third world in less than a month’s time has taught me some precious insights. In the US, big wholesale shops like Costco, Sam’s club and others have begun controlling the number of bags of rice they can allow people to buy, something that never happened before. Apart from the obvious fact that prices have risen drastically, supply is carefully monitored. There are unverified media reports that a number of business people are hoarding the rice, too!. So what else is new? Many Chinese businessmen in the Philippines, including Chinese tourists in the country have been at it before original sin was discovered!

But despite the rising costs of fuel, America’s love affair with the automobile has not gotten any less intense. The world famous freeways and expressways and turnpikes (and a whole lot of other fancy names for the same thing) that made America the trendsetter all over the world are all getting clogged, like they do in all parts of the world. Slow moving traffic is no longer the monopoly of third world countries. At the capital beltway, I-495, rush hour traffic could be a bore. The same is true in the beltway around Baltimore, the I-695, with some very young and very impatient drivers learning to do the swerving technique that Filipino drivers have long been famous for. And let us not speak about LA!

I write this blog piece aboard a Northwest flight from the Midwest, en route to SFO. The more than four hours trip from O’Hare to Minneapolis/St. Paul and on to San Francisco is devoid of any meal that once upon a time was the hallmark of all US airlines. No … each one buys snacks or meals for oneself. All they give now is a drink. People allergic to peanuts can at least rejoice. No more signs of peanuts in the air. No tiny pretzels, no nothing! The trans-Pacific flight from Tokyo to SFO and back can boast of the barest minimum to keep body and soul together. You won’t die of starvation, but you won’t alight from the plane satisfied either. Almost all airlines seem to have become very creative in making more money to offset for the rising prices of oil which accounts for more than 40% of the airlines' operating costs.

The experience of Europe and Israel was another eye opener. Americans and the rest of the world whose currency is pegged to the dollar now feel poorer as compared to the Europeans. The buying power of the dollar has fallen. Whilst officially the exchange rate is something like 1.6 something for every Euro, the reality in Europe is far different. In effect, every Euro now almost costs two dollars! That means that a simple essential lunch that in America would cost people no more than 10 dollars, could amount to something like 16 dollars or more, especially in Israel. There, our guide was boasting that the NIS (the New Israeli shekel) is among the top 15 strongest currencies in the world. Well, I believe them. But after our stay there, where we were literally forced to eat and buy where they wanted us to, I did not have to wonder why their economy is damn good. It almost seemed like we were being fleeced every step along the way, including the use of toilets for minor necessities that would set you back by 50 cents or a dollar in some places.

Grace, Gift, and Gratitude

Pilgrimages are a Christian long standing tradition. Back in the day, they used to walk and go through rough uncharted – even dangerous – territory. That, indeed, is the root word of pilgrim – the name of this blog – per agrum. It means exactly that – to go through the fields – for a deeper reason and purpose. This pilgrimage on my 25th has been a grace-filled event. It is so primarily because it is gift … given to me and made possible by friends who believe in the gift of priesthood, and the ministry it can offer them. Whilst I shelled out something, what they spent for me towers higher than what I eventually could contribute.

This blog entry, like my first issue of Pilgrim Pathways, is for them. I acknowledge this singular grace from God, as part and parcel of the graciousness that God has always shown me, and has been showing me since I got ordained 25 years ago. I acknowledge this as gift, along with so many other gifts I have received and continue to receive, albeit unworthily. I am filled with gratitude. I end with something I heard so often in Greece – a word that all of my readers should very easily understand: Eucharisto. Eucharisto. Eucharisto.

NW 675, June 3, 2008
37,000 feet above sea level
USA

PILGRIM PATHWAYS

Being Some Place Again for the First Time

My pilgrimage began with some work to do … a recollection to preach to Fil-Ams in Hayward, Northern CA, a 50s era once progressive city that sits nestled below, or on the foothills of the now brown and barren heights of the Bay area. That was May 3, Saturday, just two days after I arrive from a rather long and tiring trip that took me from the cramped NAIA to Tokyo’s spacious and quiet airport of Narita. (Actually it is not anywhere near Tokyo, but it belongs to another Prefecture which is some two hours away by train from Tokyo city proper).

The topic and the reason for the recollection is not new to me. I have seen the issue everywhere I was asked to work with and for Filipinos whether home grown or raised some place else in this whole wide world. I saw it two years ago as I preached in New Jersey. I saw it in Italy, in Rome in particular. I saw it in Baltimore, Maryland. I see it back home where I am based. I see it in every institution, every organization made up of Filipinos (which includes me, by the way).

The issue whereof I speak is unity, the capacity to feel a sense of oneness and belongingness to a bigger group, to a greater body, to a greater whole. How many times have we heard of big groups including convenanted communities breaking up after some time? How many times have we seen otherwise very successful groups being fractured, fragmented and divided after so many years of untold success?

This is I think part of what James Fallows unflaterringly calls a “damaged culture.” This for my part is what I refer to as the unevangelized aspects of our culture that still needs to see the light of Gospel good news.

The day after, May 4, I preached to almost all Masses and presided over three of the Sunday Masses. The best was reserved for the 12:30 Mass which was the Filipino Heritage Mass. The best of our culture was on parade and on display. It was kind of incongruous to hear Filipino songs being sung by a Filipino American musician, all to the beat of Brazilian drums and Brazilian rhythm. I could not join the singing of “Salamat sa Iyo, Panginoong Jesus” as I could not accept the hybrid of melody and rhythm that were worlds apart from each other. (It was accompanied by blaring jazzy trumpets).

The second part of the working tour brought me to Northern Virginia. I was asked to do a refresher talk on pastoral planning to the core group of leaders of the Fil Ministry of NOVA.

I was back again to a situation and place that I was treading on for the first time!

My pilgrimage began with things familiar and things unknown – pretty much uncharted terrain that frightens, as much as it bewilders and challenges me. I am back to what I have learned to accept over the past 25 years as a priest. Things are both the same and never the same. The French have a beautiful way of putting it: “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Life being what it is, a perpetual journey, it is both new and old. Forrest Gump was right. “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna git.” Take it from me … I have been there, done that … One could be very much up there in people’s estimation many years, and something happens, or someone spreads false rumors about you and you’re down there in the gutters (at least in some people’s estimation). You could be looked at highly for some time, and some people who do not know Joseph take the leadership and you suddenly become a pariah of sorts.

The talks I gave both in Northern Virginia and in California were pretty much reminiscent of what I gave two years ago in Jersey area. And the questions are all very familiar … how to mould our people into one, how to make them see the bigger picture and the greater whole … It all sounds old and yet so new.

Following (Some) of the Footsteps of St. Paul

I am privileged to antedate the international year of St. Paul in some respects. We did the pilgrimage trying to follow where St. Paul trod. But the intrepid missionary is impossible to duplicate. We did it in relative ease and comfort. What made my hair stand on end is to see that little harbor where Paul landed in Pergamum, a harbor so tiny from my vantage point one could not even see the tiny opening that was enough only for small boats that Paul must have used in 58 AD.

Another place that really got me all excited was Ephesus. The big theater where Paul spoke to 37,000 people is still very much extant and in a high state of preservation. The arena could ordinarily contain only 25,000 but the crowds swelled because it was Paul who spoke. Tiny man though he was, according to reputable tradition, he was a mighty man with a stentorian voice, and a powerful message.

The highlight of Ephesus, of course, was Meryemana, the house of Mary Virgin and Mother, that is, the house of St. John where he took Mary after the crucifixion. We were privileged to say two Masses in a row in that holy place.