Frank Chavez launches "Blighted"

CEBU, Philippines - Former Solicitor General Atty. Frank Chavez, who was conferred the title  “Tribune of the People” by the National Union of People’s Lawyers and by the Philippine Senate Minority Block breezed into Cebu during the weekend to launch his book “Blighted.”

“Blighted,” Atty. Chavez’ first novel, is a 330-page work of fiction woven around verified and verifiable facts. Here is a short summary:

“Amidst the confounding social malaise that grips a country beset by inequity and an inordinate tolerance for corruption, the lives of three young Filipinos intersect in a twist of fate.

Their divergent backgrounds and class associations provoke nagging questions on morality, with the core narrative embroiling a spectrum of Philippine society.

From unimaginable conditions of squalor to swank villas that define the matrix of greed, political patronage, and quid pro quo accommodation, the conflict rages between noble conviction and metastasized greed, ultimately between good and evil.

Stripped to the bone, this account of a high-profile crime and consequent legal action is interspersed with the novel’s didactic form, with the moral instruction serving as the ulterior authorial motive. It is also a scathing report on the sordid downfall of the current administration, making this book as topical as today’s troubling headlines.

Despite the present-day morass, the courage of a few good men spells a nation’s true birthright: to transform a blighted culture to one of brimming hope for the future.”

Already, “Blighted” has received praises from journalists and from the academe.

“This is a riveting account of the Filipino nation’s dysfunctional institutions. Frank Chavez draws from his long experience as a trial lawyer and former Solicitor General to produce a compelling portrait of decadence in our time. In measured prose, he weaves strands of real events into the filter of satirical fiction. The composite corrupt characters he depicts are all recognizable. We can smell their rot on every page. But heroes come forward when we least expect them. And so, rather than endorse an attitude of knowing cynicism, the author ends his story on a note of sheer faith in new beginnings: This blighted nation can be made whole again.”

Randy David

Professor of Sociology, University of the Philippines

 “Like one of his characters, described as “Iron Man, Superman and Batman packaged into one,” Frank Chavez is legal eagle, social gadfly, and now newbie litterateur rolled into one. His first novel is a literary cocktail of documentary realism, investigative journalism, political satire, activist teach-in, law-school lecture, travelogue trivia, historical tidbits, and courtroom drama, mixing memory and desire, desperation and dreams. It is at the same time (if one may be allowed to mix metaphors) an indictment penned by a justice leaguer contemplating a landscape perpetually blighted by corruption and injustice.”

Pete Lacaba

Writer, editor, poet, screenwriter, journalist and translator

 “It is at a blighted hotel that we are introduced to the book’s first blighted characters, a*judge and a lawyer*who transact their corrupt deal in the toilet.*The author Frank Chavez sure gets right to where the dirt is.* And he*digs up dirt again and again to chronicle the pervasive culture of corruption in all departments of the national and local governments, the corporate world down to the grassroots and the family.

Chavez minces no words to denounce scandal after scandal under the Arroyo* administration. This is a monumental reference book for a detailed summary of alleged massive corruption under the present dispensation.

Only in the Philippines !

Using story-telling tools and Socratic, didactic devices, the narrative is as timely as today’s headlines and as timeless as the values of clean, disciplined honest government for, by and of the people.”

Letty Jimenez Magsanoc

Editor-in-Chief, Philippine Daily Inquirer

 “The stench of squalor rises to high heavens as deceit, abuses, pathos and helplessness grip and strangulate the protagonists as they struggle with the demons of grinding poverty and ostentatious wealth, drug abuse and abusive jail wardens, injustice that rankles and corruption that demoralizes.

Former Solicitor General Frank Chavez has written a searing social commentary that recalls the Ibarra and Elias of Jose Rizal, except that the setting is no longer 1887, but the still cancer-ridden Philippines of 2009.

Here is the Philippines, flawed and blighted, as we perceive it now, but still the Philippines that we must learn to love and make a better place, because it is the only country that we have. Legal Eagle Chavez has carved a name for himself in our literary world.”

Antonio C. Abaya

Columnist, Manila Standard Today

 “Frank Chavez has assumed another role — from that of fiery trial lawyer defending journalists beleaguered with libel suits during the martial law years, to that of controversial Solicitor General, and then, to sensitive novelist. In Blighted, he makes his searing commentary on the present state of affairs in his hapless country that he loves so well, damning corruption and abuse of the poor by the rich and powerful, law enforcers, and members of the judicial courts. It is a travelogue, courtroom drama, a series of lectures on the political-social condition and on convoluted minds and temperaments rolled into one. The novel does not bank on sexual undertones but on harsh realities to draw readers’ attention. That Frank Chavez would turn to the novel as his genre for truth-telling makes us the better for it.”

Domini M. Torrevillas

Columnist, The Philippine STAR

Aside from launching “Blighted” in Cebu last March 20, Atty. Chavez was also the keynote speaker of the 25th Silver Induction and Turn-Over Ceremony of the Junior Chamber International (JCI) – Metro Cebu Uptown at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino.

“Blighted” is available at National Bookstore, Powerbooks and Fully Booked.