My idea of a figurehead

It’s probably because I had just watched the movie “The King’s Speech” but I thought I ought to say something about the opinion that P-Noy would be better as a figurehead.

The well-intentioned suggestion was that “maybe we should just make P-Noy a king, a constitutional monarch who can tool around in his Porsche and leave the running of a country to a competent prime minister.” I am afraid this is not what a figurehead means or should mean. After all, if a figurehead is supposed to symbolize his people and his country then tooling with a Porsche in an impoverished country like the Philippines would hardly qualify him either.

But I understand the appeal of the suggestion because of the disappointment of those who elected him. They now realize he is not competent to be the President of the Philippines. It has all been a mistake so we might as well change our system of government and make him a figurehead?

It might have been casual after dinner talk but constitutional reform is not about personalities, certainly not about who should be prime minister and who should be a “mere” figurehead. Reforming the Constitution to demote or upgrade (depends how you look at it) the current president is just as bad as reforming the Constitution to make a competent former president the prime minister. Making President Noynoy a figurehead is a cop out.

A figurehead might not have a direct hand in the management of a country but he or she ought to be other things (in my view with virtues rarer than competence.) He must have the will and the character to inspire and galvanize his people into action. Such a role would be as demanding. It may not be knowing how to govern but about how to lead. The President in France, the King in Thailand and the Queen of England hold their respective countries together. They sometimes have the reserve power as commanders in chief of the military even if only in name. Again that has its dangers.

Simon Heffer of the Telegraph says that the British view of the royal family comes from what a journalist, Walter Bagehot thought of them in 1867. He defined the three rights of the sovereign – to be consulted, to warn and to advise – but as he also warned, sovereigns can take liberties with such rights. That could bring us back to square 1. What do we do with an undeserving monarch?

The multi-awarded “The King’s Speech” inspired me to write this article about what a figurehead must be. You should see the movie for yourselves (this is not an advertisement) to know what it takes to be the figurehead of a country. The King in this case is King George VI, the father of Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. He became known as a “the stammering prince”. But he overcame his problem eventually through the help of an Australian speech teacher who comes into his life when he was about to give up and shirk from the duty to live up to his role as the king. The story builds up to a brilliant speech he had to give when Britain declared war on Nazi Germany. 

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Zac Sarian’s column in Manila Bulletin has ratted out on my new profession — I have become a lady farmer and I love it. Writing about politics and the problems of the country can be so frustrating.

Zac and I were junior reporters in the defunct Manila Chronicle years ago. I hardly expected that we would be guests of Dr. Bart and Clara Lapus (of Mama Sita fame) who gave a dinner together with other food experts to celebrate the goodness of kamote for healthy eating. Indeed, an extensive planting of kamote could solve the perennial problem of rice shortage. A prominent guest was Dr. Benito S. Vergara, national scientist and also of the National Academy of Science and Technology. He has been giving away lots of planting materials to friends and neighbors. Anyone who wants planting materials is invited to go to Los Banos. There is a bed of zacamote plants right in front of his house where he invites whoever is interested to help himself with the shoots.

Zac called his piece “Lowly kamote goes sosyal.” It was an indirect rebuke to many of us who look askance kamote as the food for the poor and oppressed.  But why should a solution to feed our hungry kababayans not be delicious and healthy as well? Sosyal, people rich or poor, should know about its nutritional value. I once read a recipe for spiced kamote (they call it sweet potato) in the New York Times.

Well, with Clara and Zac behind the advocacy you can be sure all this will change. Kamote is one of those miracle plants (healthier than rice) that you can eat from shoots to roots.

The dishes that Zac wrote I was ecstatic about were sinigang of zacamote, crispy deep-fried ala tempura and ‘ukoy’ made from the soft tops.

Clara laid out the different types of kamote, some of them from other countries such as Japan and Korea. Here try all of them and tell me which tastes better. The Filipino kamote of course and I was a food taster not a nationalist advocate. Also it was cheaper, P70 for the Japanese and 40 for the Filipino.

But the centerpiece of the dinner was zacamote (probably named after Zac) a variety that came from Taiwan and developed for shoot production. Our local kamote tops tend to be tough and rough. Not so with zacamote which tastes like soft Chinese spinach. Zac says he steams the vegetable and eats the root instead of rice with fish for breakfast.

Zacamote can be propagated easily. “And one can already start harvesting the shoots as early as two weeks from planting,” Zac said.

Dr. Vergara, the food expert from Los Banos was able to harvest one root that weighed 1.8 kilos. By the way the root is white which makes it complementary to other ingredients. (Free planting materials of zacamote are available from the Teresa Orchard & Nursery in Teresa, Rizal.)

I thought I would escape politics but no dice. Dr. Victor Abola, an economist from the UA&P was also there. He said that no matter how hard we worked and how inventive we become about food, it will all be in vain with the rise of the peso against the dollar. This he says would be a catastrophe for our exporters and manufacturers.