Monday, June 23, 2008

…Of Flag and Country and Uncle Jun’s blog…

late post na to… naisip ko last week pa pero ndi naman ako nagka-oras magmultiply… mei pagkakataon sana nun sabado kaso down un connection… nyeta… buti na lang kasama ko bespren ko (salamat sony)… anyway…

 

the june issue of Rogue magazine got a lot of heat because of it’s covergirl… Joey Mead, the said covergirl, had her body painted with the Philippine flag… now, first time i saw it, it’s not much of a big deal, yeah, sexy cover, body paint, but not that much of a deal… then at an edition of Good Times at Magic in the morning, Mojo and Mo were having a discussion about it, and surprisingly (or not), later that night, it was one of the topics in TV Patrol… I don’t know if them talking about it in the morning had something to do about it, or if it was actually a topic discussed which is why they talked about it on the radio, but one thing I got from that was flag education…

 

teka, bandila usapan… Tagalog muna ko… marami palang batas o naisusulat ukol sa bandila natin... isa ito sa mga pinunto ni Mo sa programa nila sa radyo... kesyo bawal ang bandila sa ganito, sa ganyan, bawal patugtugin ang Pambansang Awit nang hindi buo, at kung anu-ano pa... ang punto naman ng mga kasama nya eh parang ambastos naman ng pagpipintura ng bandila sa katawan ng isang hubo’t hubad na babae...

 

but whether or not it is good to look at on a nude body is besides the point I want to get at… what I want to get at is this: for a country who has so much “laws” to “respect” national images, i.e. flag, national anthem, people who run it don’t give those who live in it much to “respect”…

 

bakit ba tila wala nang makabayan? bakit ba tila ang tingin sa mga “makabayan” eh un sumisigaw na lang parati ng “makibaka”? siguro mali ako, pero tila ang linyang “proud to be Pinoy” eh maririnig lang pag mei karangalang naigawad sa bansa… o kaya sa ibang produkto pag mei promo… pinangangalagaan nila na ndi “bastusin” ang bandila natin sa pamamagitan ng pagpintura nito sa katawan o ang ndi “paggamit nito sa ‘tamang paraan’” pero ilan pa bang Pilipino ang ndi napapamura sa tuwing iniisip ang buhay sa bansa? Ang pagsuot ng bandila sa damit o sa katawan ay “kabastusan” para sa bandila natin, pero ang pagsuot ng mga Brit o Kano sa kanilang mga bandila  ay nagpapakitang “makabayan” sila… ewan ko, nakakapanood ako ng soccer, nakakapanood ako ng ilang palabas kung saan nakabody paint ang bandila ng Amerika sa katawan ng isang tao habang nagkakaroon ng party o katuwaan… nakasuhan ba sila? Ndi naman. Bagkos, ipinakita pa nila na mahal nila ang kanilang bansa…

 

it’s not that i’m siding with Rogue magazine on this one… i just think it’s pathetic that we have laws to ensure that we “respect” our country, but frankly, with everything going on, you don’t have much to “respect”… freaky gas prices, anomalous electric bills, skyrocketing food prices, fare increases, corruption continuing on as a norm, heck, everything’s rising except for the ordinary person’s salary and the president’s height… not to mention “professionals” leaving the country for a “better life”… these “thinking minds” could make our country better, but they choose to live because there’s no promise of a “good life” here… and yeah, probably the “best” or “wise” thing to do is leave the country…

 

i think I’m still hoping that this country gets somewhere, so that these “laws” about respecting the flag and other “nationalistic” things could actually have meaning…

 

oh, Rogue magazine is being sold in less and less stores… its either being pulled out or being sold out, but I’m leaning toward believing the former… nakakatuwa malaman na mei mga batas pa rin pala tayong nasusunod… ibig sabihin, kaya naman palang mei magawa ang “batas” laban sa mga lumalabag dito, pero bakit sa iba lang umiiral ang parusa sa paglabag sa mga batas?

 

 

Ay oo nga pala… sila rin pala gumagawa o nagpapairal ng mga batas…

 

 

2010 pa rin nasa isip mo? Agahan mo na. Si Marcos nagdeclare ng martial law bago siya bumaba. Oo, si Gloria ndi na magdedeclare ng martial law. Magkaiba silang tao. Si Marcos nangurakot nun martial law na. Si Gloria nangungurakot wala pang martial law. Si Marcos yumaman dahil sa martial law. Si Gloria, pagdating ng panahon na bumaba na siya, eh kaya nang mamuhay ng mayaman ang pamilya kahit ndi na magtrabaho hanggang apo nya sa tuhod (ay maliit lang pala, pdeng apo sa talampakan?)...

 

 

before i forget, Uncle jun has a blog, jlozada.com… googleable (my term, hope to be understood as “can be searched through google”. Obvious naman, pero for the sake of those who wouldn’t understand, i.e. low iq, nilagay ko na rin) naman na ung blog nya, just key in “jun lozada blog”… it has a lot of hits already, with spammers named Rod and numero uno something bashing my uncle, while some named ken kashi, Bernadette, jonas, and ka elmo are somehow either “defending” Uncle Jun or the integrity of having a logical discussion…

I wanted to join the fray, but it seems there are cooler heads who already said their pieces, which I need not add to… I mean the people bashing uncle jun offer no logical nor valid argument… that line may have sound too biased for some being that it came from his nephew, but man, I majored in Philosophy in college, and one of the stuff we learned in my first year was fallacies in arguments… example:

 

A: 1 +1 is equal to 2.

B: no, 1 + 1 is equal to 11.

A: no, 1 + 1 is equal to 2 because if you have one apple and you get another apple and put them together, you get two apples. Hence, if you have one and one, you get 2.

B: no, 1 + 1 is equal to 11 because you have a mistress and you can’t be telling me truth because you cheated on your wife. Hence, you are wrong in whatever you say.

 

B committed a fallacy termed as Argumentum ad Hominem. It is an attack on one’s person, which leads to no valid conclusion. I think I mentioned this already in one of my earlier blogs, but I just had to throw it out there again because of the rampant acts of Rod & co. in Uncle Jun’s blog. Everyone, including me, is on the outside looking in. We don’t know how they get their money, how they spend it, where they spend it, and we’re all just assuming and theorizing about it. But, sure, on my claims that this government is corrupt, show me 3 people, just 3 people (not including GMA kin), who will say that I am wrong in saying that the President is earning waaaaaay more than what she is supposed to earn, and I will shut up and even let you hit me with a baseball bat. Again, I say, Uncle Jun is not a saint, I know that, my whole family knows that. But to say that he is being paid by the opposition to do what he is doing, or that he’s doing what he’s doing because he benefits most from it are assumptions I’d have to say are freakin dumb. If he was being paid by the opposition, my grandmother wouldn’t be ranting about medicine money everyday, half of our family should be in another country right now, the other half of us should be chilling on some beach and would have changed our last names, and all of us shouldn’t be working anymore… If he benefits most from what he’s doing, then he shouldn’t miss playing tong its in my aunt’s garage, hosting a party at their own home, or being made fun of because of his receding hairline by his nephews… I know we’re all entitled to our own opinion, but who could best say what is true than we who actually did it. I mean, who could say that you are wrong when you say that your first kiss happened with person A?

 

I will seem like Luli Arroyo when she said “her family didn’t steal anything” by saying Uncle Jun is not having the best time of his life right now, and that he was and is not being paid by the opposition.

 

But I don’t live in a palace. I don’t have my own driver. I don’t have cameras all over me. I don’t have security guards with me (or do i? thank you paranoia for that thought.). I’m not protecting any asset that might be lost should Uncle Jun be proven guilty of those being hurled at him. Unlike Luli, I neither gain nor lose anything in supporting my uncle.

 

Please visit jlozada.com and share your logical thoughts. I am not urging you to believe in everything my uncle says, I am not urging you to treat him as a hero, I am not urging you to consider him saintly, and I am not urging you to flock the streets. I am urging you to take a look, consider his side of the story, hurl questions that you are confused about, and invite a serious, non-partisan discussion within the thread.

 

At huwag nang pumatol sa walang kwentang mga argumento (i.e. weh, weh, eh lolo mo naman panot; nye eh ikaw mei tae sa pwet) dahil humahaba lang ang diskusyon at wala namang pinatutunguhan…