Blogging

Simply put, blogging is addictive. I have five blogs, two of which are fast asleep, two barely breathing, and one awake and much too active.

The terribly active blog, which keeps me busy for a couple of hours a day, appeals only to writers and critics. Named “LOL Literatures in Other Languages” (http://literatures otherlanguages.blogspot.com), the blog focuses on multilingual or mixed-language literary texts. I am trying to invent a literary theory that, until I think of a more catchy name, is called Multilingual Literary Criticism (MLC).

I have, so far, gotten the interest of polyglots that write texts not in their mother tongue (such as Cuban-Americans, expatriate Europeans, and Filipinos) or critics that are appalled at the lack of interest among literary scholars in the tradition of macaronic verse.

Although the most pressing need for MLC is for those reading mixed-language texts, which have become fashionable lately, I am arguing that even apparently monolingual texts are actually mixed-language. I took my cue from two writers who gave the same insight into their own works, but without knowing that the other had said it, too.

N.V.M. Gonzalez, in a lecture that I attended in California, declared to his American audience, “I write in Tagalog, using English words.” Bienvenido N. Santos, talking to me in Manila, said, “I write in Capampangan, using English words.” The two writers made an impression on me that has refused to go away. I now think that Philippine writers in English write in Tagalog, Ilocano, Cebuano, or whatever vernacular is their mother tongue, using English words.

By suggesting that Cuban-American writers write in Spanish, using English words, I have, so far, gained the interest of many Cuban-American writers, who agree that they “think in Spanish but write in English.” My European readers (bloggers call them “followers”) are less convinced; many of them do not know in which language they think, because they grew up with more than one mother tongue.

Sometimes wide awake but often on its siesta is my second blog, “Critic-at-Large” (http://criticplaywright.blogspot.com), in which I put all sorts of stuff – sometimes my old columns, sometimes my speeches, sometimes position papers by the various groups I belong to.

In a blog, followers often engage in heated discussions related to a blog entry. One comment I made on Nikki Coseteng’s Diliman Preparatory School continues to generate widely-divergent opinions on the school’s experiments in basic education. The comments sometimes border on the libelous, so I often exercise my right as moderator not to upload extreme views. Despite my censorship, there are still more than 140 comments on that particular blog entry (http://criticplaywright.blogspot.com/2007/04/nikki-coseteng-on-education.html).

My other blogs are the barely breathing “Filipino” (http://www.isaganircruz.blogspot.com), the sleeping “Philippine Fulbrighters” (http://philippinefulbrighters.blogspot.com), and the fast asleep “Manila Critics Circle” (http://manilacriticscircle.blog spot.com). The Fulbright blog will soon wake up, because I will upload the transcribed First Fulbright Seminar, which was on corruption. The MCC blog will also get up soon, because I will upload, as soon as they are available, the titles of the shortlisted books for the 2008 awards.

Anarchy In The Government: The executive branch of the government has, time and again, shown its total disregard for law and order with its capricious (I will not say malicious nor rapacious) acts. Despite repeated slaps on the wrist from the Supreme Court and continuous tongue-lashing by Congress (which two, by the way, in case Finance Secretary Margarito B. Teves has forgotten it, are co-equal branches of government), the Arroyo cabinet (her alter-ego!) continues to issue not just blatantly illegal but undeniably stupid orders that contradict existing laws, the Constitution, and international agreements.

Take, for instance, Department of Finance Order No. 17-09, which purports to issue “clarificatory guidelines on duty-free importation of books.” You do not have to be a lawyer but you only need to know how to read to see that the order violates RA 8047 (the “Book Publishing Development Act”) and the 1997 Tax Code, Section 4(3) of Article XIV of the Constitution (exempting from taxation non-stock, non-profit educational institutions, which are the primary buyers of books), and the UNESCO Florence Agreement, all of which, curiously enough, are cited in the text of the order itself.

In essence, the Order says that, although international law, the Constitution, and the laws of the land all declare that books should be imported without taxes into our country, these books should be taxed anyway.

These are the times when I wish I were the other Isagani Cruz and still not yet retired from the Supreme Court. I would take it upon myself (since the Court has the power to act on its own when the laws of the land and of the world are being mocked) to be ponente, to castigate the illiteracy of the executive branch, and to sentence Teves to life imprisonment without access to the prison library. Alas, I am a mere lover of books, shocked by the grave danger of no longer being able to afford to buy the greatest products of the greatest minds in the history of humanity.

On the other hand, there might be method in this madness. If you want to enslave a people, the best thing to do is to ensure their ignorance by making books expensive and, therefore, inaccessible.