WINNERS AND LOSERS (AND RETIREES)

With the 2010 elections over and most posts proclaimed, here is my list of the other winners and losers:

WINNERS:

1. PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS who manned the precincts and handled the elections with honesty and efficiency to their fullest capabilities. Bravo to you unsung heroes of our democracy!
2. VOLUNTEERS of the numerous political parties, election watchers, etc. Truly, our country will prosper with selfless individuals working for our future.
3. COMELEC & SMARTMATIC for ensuring that the automated elections will push through despite doomsday scenarios.
4. GIBO TEODORO who put up a brave, dignified campaign and bowed out with grace. Gibo set the example for our future statesmen. Maybe he should consider joining Aquino's administration.
5. SWS & PULSEASIA for conducting honest, scientific surveys. The election results vindicate your expertise.

LOSERS:

1. MIKE DEFENSOR (Quezon City) & PETER REY BAUTISTA (Baguio City) -- Mike for being GMA's lackey, sayang lang ang promise mo when you were in congress as part of the spice boys. Zubiri, Pangilinan and Escudero have left you behind. Oh and Dear Peter, you had your chance, you blew it. You tarnished your Lolo Tatay Bautista's good name. Shape up, Peter! Let me remind you of SPED Center's basic values: Character, Leadership & Self-Fulfillment. Peter, your Lolo, the founder of UB was my batch's guest speaker during our commencement exercises in Grade 6 March 1980. I still remember very well how your Lolo told us his story of humble beginnings and how he inspired me and my batchmates to always follow the just and honest path in our quest for our own dreams and ambitions. It would be wise to look back at your Lolo's wise counsel.
2. THE 'PIKON' SUPPORTERS OF GIBO -- while Gibo didn't mudsling, some of his supporters were throwing dirt all over the internet in their hope to sway Aquino supporters to their side. "I think therefore I am for Gibo" reeks of the same arrogance GMA inflicted on all of us. Follow Gibo's example by graciously accepting defeat. And no sour-graping please.
3. THE KAPAMPANGANS WHO VOTED FOR GMA AND THE ILOCANOS WHO VOTED FOR IMELDA -- you guys need a lobotomy. Enough said.
4. ALL THE ARTISTAS WHO RAN FOR OFFICE BUT LOST (Cesar Montano, Aiko Melendez, Joey Marquez, Anjo Yllana, Jobelle Salvador, Imelda Papin, etc.) Ano bah?! Get the hint, LAOS na kayo! Ditto the ARTISTAS WHO ENDORSED CANDIDATES FOR A SIZABLE TALENT FEE.
5. THE AMPATUANS -- despite being elected into office, cuidado kayo with the new administration!

RETIREES: (The following should just retire while the rest of the nation moves on)

1. LOREN LEGARDA -- political butterflies may be pretty on the outside but they're dirty rotten inside.
2. DICK GORDON -- get your US Visa and retire in Florida. Play golf with Jeb Bush.
3. The CURRENT MEMBERS OF THE SUPREME COURT -- If you guys were truly impartial and did not kowtow to GMA, who knows, the Filipinos might just believe in you and your decisions.
4. SATUR OCAMPO AND LIZA MAZA -- what the *!#?+ was that decision to join Villar all about anyway?! tsk, tsk, tsk...
5. KRIS AQUINO -- Krissy dahlin' a promise is a promise. Heed Cory's advice and do the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Ditto DOLPHY:  your endorsement of Villar and the absurd amount paid to you wasn't/isn't funny at all!

WARNING: SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIAL

PALANG THEN... PORN NOW... TOMORROW?

To continue with Over the Edge of the World, Laurence Bergreen does not skimp on the sexually curious details:

"A few days later, Pigafetta confided to his diary that he, along with other men of the fleet, had been intimate with the women of Cebu. That was not surprising in itself; far more extraordinary were the bizarre sexual customs practiced by both sexes, especially palang, or genital stretching.

"'The males, large and small, have their penises pierced from one side to the other near the head, with a gold or tin bolt as large as a goose quill,' Pigafetta observed, scarcely believing his eyes. 'In both ends of the same bolt, some have what resembles a spur, with points upon the ends; others are like the head of a cart nail. I very often asked many, both old and young, to see their penis, because I could not credit it.' Fascinated by the devices, Pigafetta studied them closely.

...Pigafetta received a graphic lesson in the art of love, Cebuan style. 'When the men wish to have communication with their women, the latter themselves take the penis not in the regular way and commence very gently to introduce it [into the vagina], with the spur on top first, and then the other part. When it is inside, it takes its regular position; and thus the penis always stays inside until it gets soft, for otherwise they could not pull it out.'

Palang was not confined to men. Women also used it, starting in infancy. 'All of the women from six years and upward have their vaginas gradually opened because of the men's penises,' he learned. Having sexual intercourse with palang prolonged the act; the bolts and spurs discouraged sudden movements; and it was believed to intensify the pleasurable sensations in the vagina. Intercourse using palang lasted as long as a day; or even more, as the two lovers remained locked in an embrace of passion.

Pigafetta's clinical description contained enough detail to suggest that he observed the islanders having intercourse, and he came away both excited and dismayed by what he saw. 'Those people make use of that device because they are of a weak nature,' he decided, equating weakness with pleasure-loving... 'all the women loved us very much more than their own men,' presumably because the unadorned Europeans lacked the cumbersome accessories.

The Filipinos emphasized female sexual pleasure, and women even had access to artificial penises to assuage their lust. The Spanish, especially the clergy who came after Magellan, were intent on eliminating the practice, which they felt was nearly as repugnant as palang itself.

It can be said that Magellan's do-or-die emphasis on conversion interfered with precious cultural traditions, but he saw matters quite differently. He was engaged in a mission to rescue a benighted people from barbarism in this world and perdition in the next. In contrast to his pragmatic crew members, who considered themselves travelers through an alien landscape, Magellan conducted himself as if he were an instrument of the Lord. He believed that Providence had sent him to the Philippines to bring Christianity to the heathen and considered the local customs as grave social ills. In Magellan's mind, Christianity offered the best, and the only cure."

MY THOUGHTS:

Phew! Again Bergreen puts everything in its cultural context. The dichotomy between the Europeans' morality and the natives' sexual practices are analyzed taking into consideration the period in which these events occurred and how it had fueled the Spanish and Magellan himself to be steadfast in their founding of Christianity on these shores. Indigenous peoples throughout history had their unique sexual nuances much to the amazement of the white explorer.

What I find utterly disconcerting is that there still are people in this modern day with a magellan-mindset. The kind of people who only view the world according to their beliefs, standards, moral values, etc. Worse, these same people sincerely believe in their hearts that it is their duty to impose these same beliefs, standards, moral values, etc. on the rest of humanity.

Case in point is pornography. I view porn, on my own time, alone. There has been so much flak and ado about the subject matter even on beloved twitter, but I say -- if you don't like porn, don't view it! In the same breadth, if you're not for gay marriage, don't marry the same sex!

What will these people do next?! Ban salt, sugar, alcohol, soda -- because it's bad for our health? Will they also start to impose that we wear the same Sunday-school-uniform? Welcome to organized-faith-couture. Margaret Atwood wrote about that future possibility in "The Handmaid's Tale".

I say we should ever be vigilant for our basic right, as humans, to chart our own courses, speak our preferred words, and make the daily ADULT decisions for ourselves.

One question, is there any relation that both 'cucumber' and 'cumbersome' have the word 'cum'?

MAGELLAN THEN... G8 NOW... TOMORROW?

Just re-read Over the Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen, a retelling of Antonio Pigafetta's chronicles on the first circumnavigation of the globe. Pigafetta was the official chronicler and supernumerary on Magellan's expedition and was one of 18 remaining survivors out of more than 200 from that expedition. The book is culled primarily from Pigafetta's diaries and official accounts, but the author, Bergreen pieces these together like a top-rate thriller. The book has the pace and suspense of a Crichton masterpiece. Here's an excerpt, Pigafetta's first encounter with the local king:

"He made a regal spectacle, 'very grandly decked out.' and 'the finest looking man that we saw among those people.' His hair 'exceedingly black,' hung to his shoulders, and he wore two large golden earrings. 'He wore a cotton cloth all embroidered with silk, which covered him from the waist to the knees. At his right side hung a dagger, the haft of which was somewhat long and all of gold, and its scabbard of carved wood. He had three spots of gold on every tooth, and his teeth appeared as if bound with gold.' Tattoos covered every inch of his glistening, perfumed body. The women, Pigafetta noticed, 'are clad in tree cloth from their waist down, and their hair is black and reaches to the ground. They have holes pierced in their ears which are filled with gold.' Gold was everywhere, in jewelry, goblets, and dishes; it was evident throughout the king's dwelling. The precious metal, Pigafetta learned, was readily mined on the islands in 'pieces as large as walnuts and eggs.'

(after some days after their first encounter with the locals) ...'The Captain General, seeing that the native cared for nothing but a knife, called him to look at other things. He put his hand in his purse and wished to give him one real.' The native refused the valuable coin. 'The Captain General showed him a ducado, but he would not accept that either.' Magellan kept offering coins of increasing value, but met with same reactions; the native 'would take nothing but a knife.' Finally, Magellan relented and gave it to him. Later, when a crew member went ashore to fetch water, he was offered a large crown made of gold in exchange for 'six strings of glass beads,' but Magellan blocked the trade, 'so that the natives should learn that at the very beginning that we prized our merchandise more than their gold.' The gold was far more valuable than the glass beads, but Magellan did not want the islanders to know how precious the Europeans considered gold. He instructed his men to treat it as just another metal. The ruse worked, and the armada, trading iron for gold, pound for pound, acquired vast riches. The gold they had acquired so easily would be worth a fortune in Spain, but the spices Magellan expected to find were even more valuable than the gold."

MY THOUGHTS:

Pigafetta was wrong in thinking that those locals mined their own gold. I believe they were traded with the Chinese, (the Chinese engaged in mining in their homeland) as was expounded in the previous chapters. For if indeed the locals had mined for gold, they would've learned to process other less valuable metals as well, including iron and therefore would've been able to make their own metal weapons and not greedily trade some with Magellan and his crew.

Now Laurence Bergreen does not pass judgement on Magellan and his motives for the expedition. Neither does he chide Spain and the Catholic Empire then for their greed. He instead dwells on the sheer remarkableness of the feat. The very act of it changing the course of history and mankind in the centuries to come.

I can't help but reflect now: In the 1500s it was all about gold and spices. In the last century up to today it is all about oil.

Tomorrow -- water?