Googling Gusi

It’s never been in my nature to rant — I’ve always believed that more good things could be done by quiet work than by loud complaining — but now and then something in the news catches my attention the wrong way, making me want to write something to somebody.

I used to do that for a living, as an editorial writer for a lively but now-defunct newspaper. This was back when the Internet was an esoteric luxury that very few people knew about and much less had, and when my fanciest gadget was a 14.4-kbps fax-modem that made an awful screech every time it tried to mate with its counterpart on the other end.

This was, in other words, the world before blogs, before Facebook, and before Twitter, which also meant that one’s complaints about the universe had to be well considered. A day would pass between the moment you were seized by a wicked thought and when it was actually received by someone else, accompanied by the sound of rustling paper.

Today, “tweeting” has turned everyone into not just a correspondent but also an editorialist, ensuring that precious little on this earth shall go unremarked and unexamined. If there was any doubt why Twitter had to be invented, the KC-Piolo breakup and the Midas Marquez, uhm, malfunction put that uncertainty to rest. People want to be heard, and the Internet gave them the biggest pulpit box ever. But then again, what’s 160 characters compared to the 1,000 words that the ladies and gentlemen of the press can throw around?

This week, indulge me while I practice some of the old moves, albeit in summary fashion, to take on some of the sillier issues of the past couple of weeks, not counting reports of nefarious schemes to put certain little girls to sleep.

Below the belt. Let’s start with an easy one, something most Pinoys already know something about. It was reported that pound-for-pound boxing champion Manny Pacquiao took a swipe at political pundit-turned-sports commentator Ronnie Nathanielsz for allegedly undermining his reputation and spreading lies about him. Indeed, Ronnie was all over the place telling people what went wrong in the wake of Pacuiao’s less than stellar performance — to Nathanielsz, an outright loss — against Juan Manuel Marquez.

But Manny’s counterpunch had me crying “Below the belt!” Obviously peeved by Ronnie’s unsolicited critique, Manny reportedly remarked, “How can you believe that guy? He’s not even Filipino!” Now, to be honest, I don’t know if the Sri Lanka-born Nathanielsz managed to get himself naturalized — a technicality that would have been a breeze in the time of Da Apo, about whom you never heard a nasty word from Ronnie — but the citizenship test just doesn’t work, Manny, and it just makes you look more flustered than ever.

Millions of full-blooded Filipinos — about 400 of them in the place I was watching the fight at — came to the same conclusion as Mr. Nathanielsz, although we can be more generous. We’re glad you won — on points or whatever it took to squeak past a clearly more spirited adversary — but unless you want to spawn thousands more Ronnies leading up to Mayweather, drop the partying, drop the politicking, and leave the late-night poker to unabashed losers like me.

Shooting the shooters. What is it about security guards and big cameras? It’s been subsequently and emphatically denied by tourism officials, but allegations by Rizal Park photographers that security guards were preventing them from taking pictures unless they paid fees for commercial photography had me asking: what the heck do we maintain these parks and monuments for?

I’ve taken cameras both big and small around the world, in both the most public and private of places, and never once have I been asked to pay up or stop shooting. I can’t tell if the pics were any good, but I went home loaded with photographic memories, paid for by my airline ticket, lodging fees, and restaurant bills. And why pick on the park photographers, whose only real clients are the camera-less masses? It’s the poor shooting the poor, for Pete’s or Pepe’s sake.

It now appears that it was all a misunderstanding — that anyone’s free to shoot at Rizal Park (an irony Pepe himself would have appreciated), except for obviously commercial projects for which large intrusive setups may be required, justifying a fee. But someone has to tell these guards (yes, they do the same thing at the malls, citing security concerns) that terrorists seriously wanting to blow up a place won’t likely be shooting it first with a DSLR on a tripod. 

Gusi’s goodwill. I was so intrigued by a row of billboards at the People Power monument on EDSA proclaiming this year’s “Gusi Peace Prize Laureates” — an impressive lot that included the former presidents of Liberia and Kosovo, a past president of Interpol, a bestselling Russian novelist, a Buddhist educator (you get the idea) — that I resolved to find out who “The Hon. Ambassador Barry Gusi” was, to applaud him for his ability to bring over such renowned personages from all over the world, in the name of peace.

Alas, Google spoiled the peace, by revealing that the Honourable (he prefers to spell it with the “u”) Gusi’s diplomatic credentials and his description as “the first Pinoy model of Armani” had already sparked a flame war between his ardent supporters and equally implacable detractors. (I tried Googling the terms “Gusi Armani” to see if I could muster some evidentiary support for the beleaguered Barry, but annoyingly all I kept getting was “Gucci Armani”).

The DFA says it has no record of giving Mr. Gusi an ambassadorship, for which Gusi has a simple explanation: it was bestowed on him, honoris causa, by the governor of Northern Marianas — and, like they say in the coffeeshops, once an ambassador, always an ambassador. Apparently, this was good enough for his annual laureates (the likes of whom you won’t believe), who receive no cash for what his publicists call “the Filipino Nobel Prize” but a medal “made in Germany,” as its benefactor proudly proclaims (for more, see wwwgusipeaceprizeinternational.org).

It was also good enough for a little girl who was probably half-asleep when she signed Presidential Proclamation 1476 in 2008, declaring every fourth Wednesday of November “Gusi Peace Prize International Friendship Day.”

Is it a scam? Heck, how can it be, when all these good, smart people attend the party in the spirit of goodwill that may be Barry Gusi’s strongest claim to an ambassadorship? But take note: you have to be physically present to claim your Peace Prize. In 2009, Manny Pacquiao (him again?) made the mistake of sending his assistant along to the awards ceremony, provoking a thunderous onstage tirade from the Ambassador, who took the prize back on the spot for the boxer’s “disrespect.”

You can find it all on YouTube. Isn’t the Internet a wonderful thing?

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E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com and check out my blog at www.penmanila.ph.