Not mentioned by Mr. B as an ‘ally’ in the coalition

During her speech yesterday at the 12th anniversary rites of the Philippine National Police I saw it replayed on television – the President congratulated the police for having brought about a "decrease in kidnappings".

It’s all right for a Chief Executive, plagued by so many woes, to try to put an optimistic public face on things, but I earnestly hope that, away from the parade and review hoopla and the TV cameras, she privately creamed out our cops for the rash of "unreported" kidnappings, with the "take" of the KFR gangs amounting to many millions. These violent abductions have erupted mostly in Metro Manila, and a few provinces, in a dismayingly well-organized fashion.

The failure of our police is that the victimized families don’t dare report those kidnappings to them, even after ransom has been paid and the hostages, traumatized by their ordeal, have been recovered. Of course, this epidemic of crimes isn’t reflected in the police statistics. But they’re happening.

Now that their anniversary party is over, I hope the police get cracking.

Our congressmen and senators must share the blame for police ineffectiveness. Our so-called solons appropriate a great deal of money for themselves, but very little for the police – who don’t have enough commuters, not even old-model typewriters, vehicles, radios, and no bullets for target practice, much less crime prevention.

What a country! The members of the House and the senators in the conference committee trying to reconcile the widely-disparate versions of both chambers of the Absentee Voting bill are now fruitlessly debating and nitpicking over whether an estimated 2.5 million Filipinos who’ve emigrated to other countries (particularly the "green cards" holders living in the United States) should be allowed to cast absentee ballots. One congressman even ventured the silly remark that they should be entitled to vote because "they didn’t abandon our country – our country abandoned them!" If this is the kind of shallow mentality some of our legislators have, no wonder we’re in such a mess. But whoever elected them anyway for their mental processes?

I think we should stop wasting time with this ridiculous debate. Our overseas Filipinos who’re working in foreign lands (OFWs), whatever their station, must be entitled to vote – but whether we can set this up in time with our Commission on Elections so hopelessly divided (and the Overtalkative Lady Commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco still wrestling with an "impeachment" hearing in Congress) remains very iffy. Sus, the Comelec hasn’t even established the set-up for those of us who are voting locally in 2004. "Computerization." By next week this will only be a dream and what we may get is a nightmare.

As for our countrymen and women who’ve applied for foreign citizenship and currently live abroad, we don’t blame them and surely have no intention of bad-mouthing them. Their hearts may be here, but they now live at a different address. They made their choice. Their choice was to become foreign citizens. Let them leave us Filipinos, then, to make our choice.

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In his State-of-the-Union address, US President George W. Bush declared that if Saddam Hussein did not fully disarm for the safety of our people "and the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him".

Then he rattled off the names of America’s allies, including those in Asia. Hello – the Philippines wasn’t among those mentioned. This isn’t an oversight. The White House speechmakers, knowing the world would be hanging on every word, crafted Dubya’s remarks very carefully. (I think they did a virtuoso job, but that’s another matter altogether.) The Land of GMA, namely ours, wasn’t mentioned because La Presidenta has been coyly asserting that the Philippines would wait for the United Nations decision. In a post-speech statement, GMA said she was supporting the US move to present "evidence" against Iraq at the UN Security Council – but made no commitment otherwise to support her phone-pal Dubya and the US if they went for broke.

The US, it must be said, is "counting heads" and I suspect that Washington DC is disappointed that GMA didn’t stand up to be counted. Yet, this may be her bargaining chip. Somos o no somos cuts both ways. In the end, we’ll have to do something: Since we have more than 1.3 million OFWs living and working in the threatened neighborhood.

In any event, American Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, Jr., who’s in the US capital, is flying home this weekend. Next Monday, he will accompany a personal representative from the Office of the US National Security Adviser, an aide of Secretary Condoleezza Rice, to a meeting with our President in Malacañang. At the closed-door session, the White House representative and Ricciardone will, no doubt, map out Mr. Bush’s plans on Iraq, and brief her on anti-terrorism matters, as well as appeal for Philippine support. They will also discuss, I’m informed by my mole, GMA’s scheduled visit to Mr. Bush and its possible time-table. Will it be a "state visit"? Not even that has been clarified – yet.

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Tonight is the eve before Chinese New Year. Having just returned from Ha Noi and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), I can report that the 80 million Vietnamese have been preparing for the Lunar New Year with their customary enthusiasm, particularly since the Communists there – growing more relaxed by the year – don’t ban religious belief and practice (although Vietnam’s admirably tenacious and pious Catholics have known some periods of harassment and persecution).

The Vietnamese celebration of New Year is called the Tet – a name which became famous worldwide not as the label of a celebration, but as a rebel military offensive in 1968 which resulted in the deaths of scores of thousands.

I noticed that Hanoi’s markets and shops, as well as those in sparkling HCM City, better known as Saigon, were filled with the goodies associated with the most important festival of the year, indeed Christmas, New Year and Easter rolled into one. The Tet, the harbinger of spring, dates back through the 4,000-year history of Vietnam, yet shows obvious Chinese influence. The Chinese emperors who ruled Vietnam for 1,000 years probably introduced the Lunar New Year commemoration, but the unique Vietnamese trait of assimilation rather than emulation wrought so many changes in the rites involved that the Chinese find many of the ceremonies there as much alien to their own "celestial" viewpoint as are the more "barbarous" practices of the West. (The Vietnamese are mainly Buddhist, also Confucianist and partly Taoist.)

Having enjoyed two Tets in Vietnam, and a third Tet which was very bloody and not so enjoyable, I can say that it is a ten-day celebration. In Hanoi and Saigon, we noticed that the flower kiosks were up and doing a bustling business. In specially cordoned-off streets in the Vietnamese capital, for instance, one could wander around to buy peach or apricot branches (symbols of the rebirth of Tet) or miniature orange trees, their equivalent of our Christmas tree. Peace or apricot flowers and rice cakes always go with Tet. "Great care", one author, an American teacher named Virginia Gift, who lived two years in Hanoi after the war (1988-90) rightly puts it, "is taken in selecting the perfect branch since if the buds open on Tet day (which, by the way, is tomorrow), the owner will have good luck in the new year."

At other kiosks and market stalls, we observed, the customers were buying balloons, special kinds of sweets, cakes, cheerfully wrapped presents and bottles of wine, etc. Not only the living but the dead are remembered in this feast. Even as they have washed their dwellings clean and decorated them (everyone must put on brand-new clothes as well), the Vietnamese in the past week trooped to the ancestral graveyards to tend and clean the tombs. They’ve readied the inevitable ancestral altar in their homes, blessing it with incense and prayer.

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Since Vietnam is a land in which each household claims a "guardian spirit" called Ong Tao, he, too, must be propitiated. (The old legends say there are actually three kitchen gods dwelling in the hearthstones, but I won’t digress into this ancient "love triangle" for lack of space.)

Anyway, these spirits are supposed to protect the home from the assaults of demons, those evil forces who lurk everywhere and attack if not countered each year, the story goes, the benevolent spirits must depart for that ephemeral destination called the "Palace of Jade" to file a "progress report" on the family’s doings to the Heavenly Emperor.

As a send-off, each Vietnamese family must give a party for their guardian spirit known as the Le Dua Ong Tao. The Ong Tao is "bribed" into giving a favorable report to the Jade Emperor by offering him ceremonial gifts, which include fruits, the burning of a brilliant paper coat (designed for his wear during the journey), and a paper carp – the fish on whose back he rides back to heaven.

In the South, they consider it more practical to provide the spirit with paper storks or horses.

Outstanding debts, before Tet, must be paid. Enmities must be patched up — whether within families or with outsiders.

The pagodas overflow with worshippers, including women who go to the temples to consult the "oracular paper" or xin la so. The Chinese have the same custom. One kneels before the Buddha’s altar, shakes a vessel filled with bamboo sticks until one jumps out. The stick bears a number referring to an "oracular paper" on which words are written, a horoscope (to be interpreted by soothsayers) as to what awaits the supplicant in the coming year.

Tonight there will be fireworks galore. I heard that there was a plan to ban fireworks this year in Vietnam, but this is impossible in that society. Since Hanoi – with all the construction going on and the two-stroke motorbikes put-putting everywhere (where the Honda "Wave" and "Dream II" are king) – is already heavily polluted, I’m glad I’m not there for the firecracker barrage and smoke of tonight. Tomorrow night, the ancestral souls who have returned to the world to share the festivities (including Uncle Ho? He’s sleeping in his marble mausoleum) must return to their own pale.

There is a parting ceremony or farewell dinner to wish them goodspeed. The family is supposed to burn the giay vang giay bac, those fake gold and silver coins by which the ghosts may hire a sampan (boat) to ferry them across the river which separates heaven and earth. Anyhow, that’s the good old traditional way.

Like us Christians, other Vietnamese (perhaps including the commissars) might forego the religious ceremonies and just go off for a holiday at the beaches or in Ha Long Bay or to Dalat (their Baguio City), or Hué, the old imperial capital, for a romantic interlude beside the Perfume River.

In any even, they’ll wish each other a Happy and Prosperous (Lunar) New Year in the traditional words: Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

Happy New Year to you, too.