scientists talking to scientists online?

in the field or in a conference room, or across a desk, when scientists talk, they talk the jargon of their field: affects, unpredictable, insufficient, resources, significant, strategy, critically, development goals, systems, watershed, applicable, processing, performance, interventions, implementation, output, input, provision, formulation, conventional. well, they understand each other. but when they are talking to other people, they have to watch out. i’m thinking of websites out there that are designed by scientists but are targeted toward non-scientists, and yet the language is still the jargon of the field. that’s what i call scientists talking to scientists. i’m looking at a webpage which is supposed to contain news; now look at the headline, ‘responding to a more holistic community-based initiatives.’ another website: ‘medium-term plans 2007-2009; 2008-2010′ and this is supposed to be for public consumption. within a webpage in another website: ‘land preparation is one of the critical operations in rice farming.’ sounds like a lecture in a BS class in agriculture. another website: ‘effort in enhancing technical cooperation and research collaborations with foreign institutions has gained support from …’ all these websites are supposed to be efforts at extension, that is, spreading the knowledge to non-scientists. entries like that, and they are common, tell me we have a long way to go in popularizing science, in translating technical language into plain english. and that’s all right with me, because then people will realize that they need people like who can understand them in their jargon and can write stories that the layman can understand.

smart buko pie marketing, maybe

is the same as smart marketing online?
i’m going back to my lessons in copywriting.

yesterday, my son jomar introduced me to smart marketing online through what the fellow calls smart marketing coaching club. i looked at the long hard-sell copy and i knew it came from a copywriter. in copywriting, you use the words free, new, improved, 3 magic words. you promise a benefit from beginning to end, and you promise more. i learned again how to use google suggest. what do you do with a list like this: science articles 583 million, write 513 million, blogs 472 million, best buy 415 million, study tools 386 million, guides 372 million, writing 324 million, learning 319 million, thinking, 286 million, discover 202 million, explain 182 million, best friends 171 million, authority 169 million, teacher 148 million, simplified tutorials 93 million, 91 million, plain english 50 million, tutoring 15 million, serendipity 9 million, disorganized 4 million, chaos theory 3 million, toastmasters 2 million? i’m going to use my experience in copywriting at the pacifica publicity bureau back in 1975. i’m going to create my own smart marketing bloffer (blog offer), to invent a new word.

water as change agent.

i’m thinking of raj samadhiyala, an indian village.
the people there battled the drought, and they won.
i’m thinking of an anthropological, socio-cultural, historical, intellectual, journalistic accounting of the story of raj samadhiyala, who i think is an excellent model of a village when it comes to self-help, self-discipline, self-governance. it doesn’t matter that the village is indian, in a tropical country; i believe the lessons learned there are applicable in both the third world and the first world countries, because all villages suffer drought one time or another. raj samadhiyala is a survivor, an achiever, and it took one man, shri hardevsingh jadeja, to initiate changes in the outlook of the villagers through the panchayat (village-level local government, the equivalent of barangay government in the philippines). the story is about how water works to change lives: first, the lack of it; next, the pursuit of it; then the use of it. it would be a good book and i would like to write it myself. since i’m not in india and i’m not an indian either, i’m thinking of getting the direct assistance of college students of a university near the village, or at least within the state of gujarat, not to mention their professors. this will be an international project. i’m also thinking of a database of 2 kinds, one that is truly user-friendly: journalist-friendly and scientist-friendly – the two don’t mix together.

the universe of the fence.

do you know why jatropha grows well?
because where it grows it’s undisturbed

the hedge fence which filipinos ‘grow’ around their homes or homelots are largely undisturbed places, which means the birds drop down their fecal matter there and the leaves and branches and flowers fall there and these decompose and become organic matter which, of course, make excellent soil. if you argue that jatropha is a sturdy plant because it grows as part of fences which are not cultivated at all, it doesn’t follow. the soil underneath that fence is fertile following the laws of nature, that is, following the cycle of life (living plant and animal) and death (dead plant and animal), the dead returning to the earth what it took from it in terms of life. that is the essence of organic farming. to produce organic fertilizer to use on crops is not organic farming – it is fertilizing crops with organic fertilizer. the organic fertilizer is already decomposed plant or animal or mixed organic matter. what the soil needs is organic matter decaying in it so that the water and the nutrients released during organic matter decomposition go to the soil and enrich it. if you build the organic matter on the surface of the soil (not composting), spread the organic matter over the entire surface of your field (not in a selected place for composting), then you are essentially composting on the surface of your field, and you are enriching the soils of your entire field all at the same time. this is what happens in the universe of the fence – organic matter falls on top of the surface of the soil, decomposes and so it enriches the soil. and yes, the universe of the fence is undisturbed by human hands or feet or tool, that’s why it maintains its integrity.

my king MiDAS.

the i in midas: insight is what you’re after.
multiply, insight, divide, add, subtract.

if you read my essay ‘jatropha math? science serves the people when media create critical mass content, not discontent’ (americanchronicle.com), you will note what i said about my dear aunt sally: multiplication, division, addition, subtraction – as a device for creativity. i’m revising that a little bit and say MiDAS, where i is for insight, so now i can say king MiDAS is the secret of being unbelievably rich in the golden room of creativity. with my MiDAS, everything you touch turns to gold! you just have to look for insights when you multiply, divide, add or subtract. multiply? mix different ingredients and you have a new idea. extract ideas from one proposition. divide? deconstruct. consider the components and, say, tackle only one, or all of them. add? construct. introduce a new angle, idea, component. subtract? subtract from the other fellow’s argument. gather more ideas, information. subtract what you have said that doesn’t make much sense. subtract long words and replace with simpler ones.

MiDAS. multiply the users, the uses. multiply the options. multiply vs add: multiply is quality, add is quantity. divide the work, the technology package, but remember the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. add to something else, to something different. add another approach, perspective, subject matter, variety.

english must become a habit, not only when you’re writing. think in english. read english. write in english. watch english.

midas is a touch of gold, a flash of golden thoughts.

how do you popularize science?

you don’t popularize science;
rather, you popularize the demand.

or you match the need with the supply, you don’t push the supply (top to bottom approach in the dissemination of technology; this is supply-pushed) and look for the need; instead, you should look for the need and then supply the technology (bottom to top approach – this is demand-driven). i learned supply-push demand-driven from nsta director general emil javier in 1981 or 1982. he had that good a grasp of technology diffusion, marketing, whatever you call it.

(did i tell you i now use my own photographs in my blogs as much as possible? this one i call ’stone gate’ – another attempt to be creative, to show you that it is helpful, in fact, it’s necessary, to look at things differently, so that you can get a new or different story from something that you think is ordinary. what i shot is ordinary, an ordinary gate, but i shot it a different angle. a change in perspective. look at the result.)

whether you are the scientist doing the r&d of a technology, or the inventor, or whether you are the science writer, it is paramount that you know the need before anything else. if you are the science writer and you are stuck with the technology, what do you do? the same thing: look for the need. that’s what you determine first, and then when you find it, that’s where all your writing will lead to.

what you usually refer to as popularizing science is, of course, translating or transforming technical language into popular language, what i call the language of the marketplace: farmer? worker?manager? fisherman? forester? logger? entrepreneur? whoever your target reader or audience, you cannot connect to him if you don’t know his need.

when i think of popularizing science, i think of attitude first. your attitude is your article. if your attitude is that of a know-it-all, then you’re like most science journalists – you know what’s good for your reader and you’re telling him to just go ahead and do it! that, my friend, is insulting the intelligence of your reader.

don’t forget that technology diffusion is marketing, marketing of a product or service. the same rules apply. the most famous person in marketing, or communication, is? aida. awareness, interest, desire, action. in other words, you don’t write an article and then you’re done with it. of course, sometimes a product or service can be so successful that one article or one advertisement is enough. but mostly marketing needs to grow from awareness to interest to desire to action. your brochure or flyer is first of all for awareness; a follow-up brochure with more details is for interest; a demo is for desire and, hopefully, what follows is action – adoption. it doesn’t always happen that way. aida is the most neglected person in the world – most people would like other people to buy what they are selling with just one article, one ad, one brochure, one public announcement. that’s possible only one in a million chance.

you have to gather more data and information, even if you think you know enough – you don’t. i never do, even if i’m a wide reader, as i have always been since high school, and that is 50 years ago. and you cannot be interesting – you have to be interesting – if you can’t cite sources other than your own. the lazy journalists don’t bother to gather more information. you can’t be a lazy journalist and succeed in selling ideas. you can only succeed in selling yourself to people who want their press releases published without much ado. you are not writing a mere press release – you are popularizing science.

so what do you do with all those notes and materials you have and you have only one article to write? you have to learn to organize the chaos. i recommend that you learn the outline-organize feature of microsoft word 2003 (same feature as you find in word 1997 or word xp). the outline-organize feature of word is so powerful you can simply assign heads and subheads and sub-subheads and when you collapse them together with the text, you can move pages up or down with just one click of the mouse. yes, if you are not computer literate, i pity you – i can’t teach you how to be the best writer you can be.

when you’re learning to popularize science, when you’re learning to write well, it’s okay to imitate the good writers. that’s how i started, imitating ernest hemingway (short sentences), imitating nick joaquin (interesting title, suggestive and coherent subtitles, superb ending), following the advices of rudolf flesch in his book how to write, think & speak more effectively which i read sometime in 1965, my copy of the book was manny alkuino own copy which he gave to me when he saw how interested (rapt) i was with reading and learning from it. and i learned from edward de bono’s lateral thinking, which i first encountered in his book the mechanism of mind whose copy was my good friend orli ochosa’s own copy which he gave me in 1975 while we were both copywriters of pacifica publicity bureau. those two books changed my creative life.

you also need a dictionary, a thesaurus, an encyclopedia. if you don’t have those, you must be connected to the internet all the time. that’s how i work in any case. and i’m telling you it helps me greatly, tremendously.

it is important that you have a complete draft, even a very rough draft. then you let that draft sleep, say overnight. leave it alone. you can’t write the first time and be good at it. it happened only once in my life, and i can’t do it again.

why do you set aside your draft and do some other things? you need to rest from it so that you go back to it, you have fresh ideas and you can look at it with ‘new eyes’ so that you will know how to improve it. so you see why the draft is important, even if it is incomplete or bad: it will tell you where to proceed, because it will tell what’s missing, what’s too much maybe, what to revise, what to add if at all. if you keep postponing coming up with a draft, you’ll never finish writing. in the same manner, if you insist on writing a ‘beginning’ right from the start of your writing, you’re beginning in the wrong way.

and you know what? these blog entries are in fact drafts of my own essays written as the thoughts come; i call frank’s each one a stream-of-unconsciousness because they just come unbidden and i don’t organize them. because that’s how to be creative – generate the thoughts first and then you organize them. those of you who want to begin the very first paragraph with ‘a good one’ is trying to revise what is not there – that explains the common writer’s block.

how do you write funny?

actually, you don’t start funny.
it’s important that you start, no matter how badly

i just posted a very funny essay, ‘manila rain-walk. the day senator antonio trillanes called a 5-star revolt, peter parcel drank coffee & the bride danced’ (i,writer, frankahilario.com), that i began and finished in 24 hours more or less. in this case, i didn’t really start funny, but i can’t find my earliest notes anymore just to show you how drab it was at the beginning; i am reproducing my notes below (‘the rainwalkers. trillanes’ trip half made, half mad’), but as you can see already i have begun to smile. if you go through the text below, you will note that as i take notes, as i surf the internet, thoughts keep intruding and i keep jotting them down among my notes. i do that because i know that such thoughts, no matter how crude, will help me write my essay. they always do, by the way. you always need good research to make a good story or write a good essay. i type the text myself; i don’t copy & paste. why because when i type, the ideas go to my head and my brain processes them into frank hilario’s.

The RainWalkers. Trillanes’ Trip Half Made, Half Mad

Former Philippine Vice President Teofista Guingona was half the loyal people supporters of Antonio Trillanes IV in the Battle of Manila Peninsula yesterday. The other half you don’t really want to know.

Half of Trillanes’ military people supporters was Brigadier General Danilo Lim, who like Trillanes ‘walked out of (his) court hearing yesterday morning at the Makati regional trial court escorted by military police, who apparently did not prevent them from leaving the court, and marched to the posh Makati hotel in the middle of the country’s financial district’ (TAU, November 30, mb.com.ph). Was Danilo Lim the better half?

‘This is like EDSA,’ Guingona said (TAU, cited). With that, I know that Guingona remembers nothing of the EDSA Revolution of 1896, otherwise known as People Power, or he wasn’t there at all. Half of the people during the EDSA Revolution would be about half a million cool heads; in the Manila Peninsula Revolution, half the heads were hot.

National Capital Region Police Chief Geary Barias met with dissidents and told them to vacate the hotel by mid-afternoon (3 pm) yesterday. The RainWalkers didn’t even meet him halfway. They stood their grounds. Did they think Barias was half-joking?

‘The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) immediately rushed around 1,500 troops to the city to beef up police and military forces.’

‘We are preparing our forces to reinforce the National Capital Region command,’ said Major Randolph Cabangbang, sp okesman for the military’s Southern Luzon command which controls units based south of Manila, at the height of the incident.’

The AFP also activated checkpoints in the city to prevent ‘third forces from taking advantage of the situation by conducting sabotage and terror activities,’ he added.

Philippine National Police (PNBP) Chief, Director General Avelino Razon Jr and AFP Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon issued calls for people to avoid Makati.

President Arroyo cut short a sortie in Quezon Province and returned to Malacanang where she called an emergency Cabinet meeting. The Presidential Security Group, which provides security at the presidential palace, went on red alert.

Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro declared they would bring in Trillanes and his group at all costs. ‘My orders now are to rearrest them and take them back to custody, to apply the law. We want to assure our people that we will apply the full force of the law to maintain peace and order in the area and the rest of the country,’ Teodoro said.

Lim – suspected of involvement in another failed coup plot last year – issued a statement urging President Arroyo to resign and asking the AFP to withdraw support for her.

In the statement, read on nationwide TV, Lim called for the formation of a new government.

‘Mrs Arroyo stole the presidency from Estrada, and later manipulated the results of 2004 elections,’ Lim said.

President Arroyo took over the presidency when predecessor Joseph Estrada was ousted in the second ‘people power’ revolt in January 2001, and opponents have criticized the legitimacy of her rule ever since.

‘We tried to restore legitimacy, but she used naked power – to frustrate us,’ Lim said. ‘We should use all we can to prevent the sliding back into corruption. We are withdrawing support from this government and other units will also do so.

The officers on trial were among 300 soldiers who took over the ritzy Oakwood Hotel and a nearby shopping center in Makati in July 2003, rigging the area with bombs and demanding Mrs Arroyo’s resignation.

They denounced the government and military corruption, but were accused of staging a failed coup. They surrendered after the day-long uprising.

David Cagahastian, mb.com.ph (same issue as above)

‘GMA vows justice will be served in Peninsula incident’

President Arroyo yesterday assured to put to justice Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and his group for the takeover of a hotel in Makati City to demand her resignation, and vowed to erase all doubts over the government’s capability to enforce the law.

‘Mga kababayan, nagpupugay tayo sa mga alagad ng batas, katulong ang mga kawal ng Sandatahang Lakas, sa mabisa at mabilis na presolba sa ligalilg sa Makati,’ Mrs Arroyo said after the resolution of the standoff in Makati. It’s not a standoff – it was a standalone.

‘Dapat walang duda sa pag-iral ng batas sa bansang it, at sa kakayahan ng pamahalaan na ipatupad ang tama laban sa mali,’ mrs arroyo said.

Trillanes and his group of soldiers accused of leading the Oakwood rebellion in 2003 walked out of their coup d’etat hearing in Makati and took over the Manila Peninsula Hotel to demand Mrs Arroyo’s resignation and call on the military to withdraw support from her.

Administration allies said that Trillanes and his group could face charges of terrorism since the takeover of the Makati hotel entailed illegally detaining hotel guests.

Mrs Arroyo said she is confident that the police and the military continued to uphold the rule of law, as she appealed to everyone to put the standoff in Makati behind and focus on t he fight against poverty and for justice.

Press release from the US Embassy:

‘Approximately 50 individuals are demonstrating along Makati Avenue in the vicinity of the Manila Peninsula Hotel. Emergency vehicles and personnel are in the area causing considerable traffice delays. All are encouraged to avoid this area.’

‘The parties involved in the 2003 ‘Oakwood Mutiny’ have walked out of the Makati Regional Trial Court house in protest of the court proceedings,’ the embassy said.

Meanwhile, the British embassy took a hands-off stance on the incident, saying ‘this is an internal matter for the Philippine authorities to decide.’

Julie M Aurelio et al, November 19, Inquirer.net,

Trillanes and his group decided to end the standoff after government troops threw teargas at the hotel lobby and an armored personnel carrier rammed the entrance.

‘We’re going out for the sake of the safety of everybody, for your sake because we cannot lilve with our conscience if some of you get hurt or get killed in the crossfire,’ said trillanes, addressing the media. (Their group was half-armed – one had an M-16).

‘If there’s a loser here it’s the Filipino nation because she’s still there,’ he added.

Brigadier General danilo lim, who was with trillanes, said this was not the end, calling the incident an ‘unfinished business.’ Yes, half-finished.

Guingona said, ‘In every crisis there is a solution and in this short crisis the solution is to save lives to prevent bloodshed.’ There is half-truth to that statement.

‘You have been witnesses to the kind of ruthlessness this administration has been giving to the people,’ said trillanes. ‘Ruthlessness’ is not even halfway to the truth. Teargas and an APC ramming the entrance of The Pen so that the military can get in and finish the job they did not start in the first place, is not ruthlessness – it’s

what trillanes did was near ruthlessness, that is, recklessness.

As the teargas filled the lobby, members of the rebel group herded journalists to the meeting room where civil society groups and Arroyo critics had gathered.

Mariano Garchitorena, head of the Public Relations Office of the hotel, said they had around 400 guests.

The soldiers, numbering around 30, were accompanied by armed guards as they broke down a door of the hotel, overwhelmed security guards and read out a statement against Arroyo with a full list of htier demands.

Heavily armed governm,ent troops quickly surrounded the hotel in Manila’s Makati financial district – the same location of a failed 2003 coup against Arroyo allegedly led by many of the same soldiers.

A detailed website immediately appeared on the Internet, announcing Lim and Trillanes as the leaders of the uprising. The site called on the Filipino people to mass in the financial district.

AFP, november 30. Philippine authorities launched a manhunt friday for more suspects accused of helping stage a dramatic but short-lived rebellion against the government which was put down by the military.

‘This armed undertaking had failure written all over it,’ said the Philippine Daily Inquirer, one of many newspapers that lambasted the renegades for their actions.

National Police Chief Avelino Razon said documents found in the debris of the Peninsula Hotel which SWAT teams stormed in a hail of gunfire and tear gas to end the stand-off, indicated ‘four groups’ took part in the mutiny. No, only one group in the mutiny. The rest were rebellious, not mutinous. A fine distinction.

It appeared to have been well-organised.

Police did not stop the rebels on their way toward the hotel, witnesses said, and a detailed website sppeared as the uprising was launched that included harsh criticisms of the state of the nation under Arroyo.

On their website www.sundalo.bravehost.com, the rebels said the president was ‘destroying’ this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country of around 90 million people.

‘The economy, the rule of law and the moral order lie in ruins,’ they said. ‘The entire system has broken down, thanks to a president whose legitimacy is denied by the vast majority of our people.’

Doris Bongcac & Company, Cebu Daily News (in globalnation.inquirer.net)

businessmen, local execs condemn Trillanes’ Pen caper.

‘If you have grievances against the government, you don’t go to a five-star hotel, bang hotel doors and shout. If you are against the government, you don’t destroy the credibility of the entire nation,’ said Eric Ng Mendoza, president of the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

He said the mutiny could trigger cancellation of some investments and would create a non-conducive business climate for Makati as the premium business district.

Mayor Tomas Osmena said the mutiny will barely affect Cebu since ‘we have been able to keep our independence from Manila.’

Carmen Crimmins, november 30, ‘Botched manila coup a warning to would-be plotters,’ uk.reuters.com)

the phillippine government prepared fresh charges on friday against the leaders of yet another botched coup and hunted for others as public apathy and a show of force sent a strong message to serial seditionists.

Senator antonio trillanes, one of the nation’s best-known coup plotters, believed opposition politicians and the public would flock to manila’s peninsula hotel after he and a small group of renegade soldiers declared mutiny from one of its plush conference rooms on thursday.

But no one came.

‘What if you declare a revolution and no one came?’ frank hilario

‘I think the public is as much disgusted with the opposition as with the government,’ said Scott Harrison, managing director of risk consultants Pacific Strategies and Assessments Ltd. ‘There is total regime change fatigue in the country. People don’t have the stomach for it.’

in thursday’s drama, bizarre even by the soap opera world of philippine politics, trillanes simply walked out of the courthouse where he was on trial for a previous coup in 2003. then he, his co-accused and the guards supposed to prevent them from escaping marched to the peninsula in the heart of manila’s financial district.

But after such an embarrassingly easy start, president gloria macapagal arroyo, breaking a long tradition for administrations’ to go soft on renegade soldiers, ordered elite troops to storm the five-star hostelry.

An armoured personnel carried battered down a grand glass door, and troops sprayed tear gas and bullets into the lobby.

There were no casulaties but the heavy-handed tactics shocked the plotters who, as in previous mutinies, chose a plush hotel because they thought the location gave them protection.

‘It’s a pretty significant development, said Harrison. ‘I think the government have probably learned the lesson that if they don’t tighten things up they are going to encourage more of these (brush) fires.’

the peninsula, which had to billet its 400 or so guests in other hotels and will not reopen until monday at the earliest, was aghast at the damage to its newly renovated lobby.

‘We are quite unhappy about that. Heart-broken to be exact,’ said spokesman Mariano Andres Garchitorena.

Despite its deep dislike of arroyo, the philppine middle class, instrumental in two previous ‘people power’ revolts, is weary of any upheaval that would trip up a reviving economy. Although continually plagued by corruption allegations, arroyo is seen as secure because of the jaded electorate and her strong majority in the lower house.

The phillippines has endured more than a dozen coup bids since the overthrow of dictator ferdinand marcos in 1986, and the disgruntled officers behind these plots have traditionaly been lauded as folk heroes.

Trillanes won a senate seat this eyar despite being behind bars. But while the public rewarded his previous adventurism they did not want a repeat performance.

‘The majority do not want any more trouble. It affects the economy. We want to change the government in a peaceful way,’ said Andrew Cruz, a call centre worker in manila.

Authorities were expected to file sedition and rebellion charges against trillanes and the soldiers on monday when the courts reopen. The sentence for sedition is life imprisonment but erring soliers have never been subject to such harsh punishment. Rebel troops have typically been dismissed, sometimes promoted and in one case in 1986, given 40 push-ups.

Carlos H Conde, nov 29, iht.com

philippine SWAT teams stormed a five-star hotel commandeered by dissident army officers thursday, arresting a senator, a former vice president, a catholic bishop and several journalists after a 7-hour standoff.

The confrontation began when about 30 officers and soldiers on trial for staging coup attempts in 2003 and 2006 walked out of the courtroom and took over the nearby peninsula manila hotel, demanding the ouster of president gloria macapagal arroyo and calling for an uprising against the government.

About an hour after a deadline for the men to surrender elapsed, the police fired tear gas into the hotel lobby, then rammed an armored personnel carrier through the front entrance, transorming one of the country’s most opulent hotels into a war zone. Shots were fired, although it remained unclear by whom. (I saw and heard the gunshots on TV.)

at least two people were injured, the police said. Most of the hotel guests and staff had been evacuated.

The scene at the hotel thursday was reminiscent of the same officers’ takeover the nearby oakwood hotel in july 2003. in that incident, hundreds of soldiers took up arms against the arroyo government, complaining of corruption in the government and in the military.

This time, however, few supporters apepared the peninsula manila, despite the officers’ attempts to foment a popular uprising through text messages and news releases.

Some members of the political opposition and the left, including guingona, and a couple of catholic bishops, went to the hotel to give their support to trillanes and his companions, saying that this could be another ‘people power’ uprising similar to those in 1986 and 2001.

brigadier general daniel lim, who is accused of leading a failed coup attempt in 2006, defended the takeover of the hotel, citing arroyo’s ‘theft’ of the presidency in the 2004 elections and the failure of impeachment proceedings in the legislature.

‘Dissent without aciton is consent,’ Lim said in a statement read during an impromptu press conference in the hotel.

‘We have individualy and collectively tried all means to resolve this legitimacy issue through the normal electoral, judicial and congressional processes, but arroyo used naked power’ to stop attempts to impeach her, the statement said.

Trillanes – a former naval officer who led a mutiny in 2003, and who successfully ran for the senate this year while behind bars – said he was forced to act because he had not been permitted to take his seat in the senate. ‘The people voted for me so that I can stand up for their rights, but they didn’t allow me to serve,’ he told reporters in the lobby of the hotel. (They voted for you to stand up for their rights? The elections were about rights?)

trillanes, Lim and the soldiers walked out of hteir hearing this morning while the court was on a break. Then then marched toward the Peninsula Manila, overwhelmed the hotel security guards, held a news briefing and locked the premises down.

Hotel guests were eventually allowed to leave. Among them were Maria-Stella Magtayo and Rian Montano, whose wedding had been set to start at the Peninsula that day. Asked if he was angry at the rebel soldiers, the bridegroom told reuters, ‘I have to fix so many things. I have no time to be mad.’

Adrian Addison, time.com where I got the image of the rebel soldier with flag, nov 29

the philippines, in recent weeks, has been batted by typhoons and tropical storms that threatened to cause widespread devastation but never quite wraked havoc on the scale experts feared. The same, it seems, could be said for the political storms battering gloria macapagal arroyo’s presidency. The latest attempt to overthrow her, a bizarre echo of a 2003 mutiny involving many of the same actors, ended thursday evening

trillanes … was in the makati regional trial court thursday listening to evidence against him in the Oakwood plot. What’s the matter – he didn’t like the sound of that, or he was afraid to face the music?

‘Today, we address all loving and decent filipinos to announce that now is the time to end the sufferings and miseries inflicted upon us by this illigetimate, gloria macapagal government and start a new life in a new philippines,’ guingonia told reporters. ‘the dice is cast. Thus we make this fateful step of removing mrs macapagal arroyo from the presidency and undertake the formation of a new government.’

the abrupt departure took witnesses at the courtroom by surprise. ‘We take exception to the utter laxity of the security sent by the Armed Forces of the Philippines,’ State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Nadera, who was present at the hearing during the walkout, told reporters at the Department of Justice. ‘This would not have happened without the laxity and familiarty with the accused, and we will be investigating more in detail this angle.’ while it is still not clear if they soldiers were trillanes’ guards or whether they had arranged to rendezvous with him at the courtroom (what difference does that make?), Navera said there apepared to be ’some influence on the military and police security detail,’ noting that the security men just surrounded the accused and ‘did nothing.’

a 3 pm deadline for the rebels to give themselves up came and went. Then, around two hours later, after a few bursts of gunfire, the authorities smashed an armored vehicle into the hotel lobby and hurled teargas. Soon, civilians began to stumble out of the building, coughing and crying. The rebels followed shortly afterward and were taken away in a bus.

Despite the repeated entreaties of trillanes and other plotters, few filipinos, if any, went out into the streets to protest. ‘This was a publicity stunt,’ says Benito Lim, a political analyst and professor at the Ateneo de Manila University. ‘It doesn’t seem to have been particularly well-planned and there also does not seem to have been a great deal of support from the masses or from the military.’ (half-hearted)

the problem, lim believes, is that while arroyo’s approval ratings are dismal, there are few legitimate opposition figures to replace her. (there are none, zero, zilch, nada.) ‘I don’t even thinkt he opposition want arroyo to fall, not really,’ he says, noting that most would prefer to wait for a legitimate transfer of power in coming elections scheduled for 2010. Of course not. They want her to resign, not fall.

The lightning walk out ended with a lightning strike – by the SWAT team.

Kathy Marks, november 30, ‘Army foils coup attempt in philippines’ (news.independent.co.uk)

Holed up inside the Peninsula, the rebels posted grand speeches on a website, urging the masses to rise up in another ‘people power’ revolution, like the one that toppled the former dictator ferdinand marcos in 1986. They worked their mobile phones furiously, making calls and sending out text messages in an effort to muster the crowds to support them. But their call went unheeded, except by the hundreds of curious onlookers who gathered outside the hotel, and by nightfall the uprising had been crushed.

No one was injured.

The country’s police chief announced that 101 people had been arrested at the hotel.

Leo Lewis, november 30, timesonline.co.uk

‘A spectacular show of strength by the elite forces of the philippine military ended a seven-hour attempted coup d’etat staged in the lobby of one of manila’s top hotels yesterday.

About 30 heavily armed rebels, led by a senior philippine politician, stormed and occupied the Peninsula Hotel around lunchtime

Waves of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) politice officers poured into the marbled lobby, and, with the whole drama unfolding before dozens of television cameras, fired teargas into the building

before the authoriteis could reach the renegades, their leaders, senator antonio trillanes and brigadier-general danilo lim, surrounded themselves with journalists and managed to hold an impromptu press conference. (it shows that the media are protectors of some people). ‘Dissent without action is consent,’ said mr trillanes. So the people consent. So the adults who have dissented witout action are consenting adults.

The siege was particularly inconvenient for Maria-Stella Magtayo, who was already in a bridal gown in readiness for her afternoon wedding when the plotters burst into the lobby. Unimpressed by the sight of renegade soldiers toting rifles, ms magtayo said, ‘i’m going through with this. Rock n’ roll!’ her groom, rian montano, was furious with the rebels for disrupting their big day. ‘I have prepared for this weeding for a year. Of all the days, they had to choose this one,’ he said. You don’t have a sense of humor like your bride does. Thank heaven for brides with a good sense of humor.

It was the fourteenth coup attempt in manila since ferdinand marcos was deposed in 1986.

during his chaotic press conference, mr trillanes described his acitons as ‘a moral obligation.’

ian MacKinnon, guardian.co.uk

the rebel soldiers and their supporters – including several roman catholic priests – were led away in handcuffs to be charged after aobut 1,500 troops smashed their way into the peninsula hotel in manil using an aroured personnel carrier backed by sustained bursts of automatic fire and tear gas grenades.

There were no reports of any injuries.

The group of about 30 soldiers and their supporters barricaded themselves in a second-floor conference room from where they broadcast live their demands on national television.

The abortive coup was the third in the six-year term of arroyo.

Paul alexander, ap.google.com

A group of disaffected military officers took over a swank hotel thursday (they have expensive tastes), demanded the president quit, then quickly gave up when it became clear the public won’t transform their protest into another round of philippine ‘people power.’

forgive anyone for tuning into television and thinking they were watching a rerun. Four years ago, the same officers tried to do the same thing at another upscale hotel a few blocks away.

Police swat teams

National Police Chief Avelino Razon said 101 people were arersted at the hotel in Makati … He said documents found there ’support the theory that this is a well-planned activity.’ (the website says so)

‘It’s stupid. There is clearly a ‘people power fatigue,’ said political analyst rex robles, a retired navy commodore.

Thomas bell, telegraph.co.uk

the gang of several dozen soldiers led by a senator had escaped earlier in the morning from a court where they were standing trial for seizing a shopping centre … in 2003

they were joined at the peninsular (sic) hotel by a retired general, a bishop and other sympathizers. (I didn’t know that guingona also work the nokia, probably a nokia.)

a witness, peter parcel, had dropped in for coffee and ‘then all this coup stuff started.’

‘it was terrible,’ mr parcel said. ‘gunfire was pouring in through the windows.’

inside the hotel, the conspirators launched a campaign of text messages and phone calls in an attempt to stir another popular uprising. (ah, but they did not reckon with the pldt lines not working! Ah, they wanted to reinvent the mobile phone that the filipinos had already reinvented.)

senator trillanes’ website declared: ‘If you believe you are a man of will and courage with unselfish motives and brave enough to fight against such tyranny, RISE UP AND BE COUNTED!’

 

but no popular support appeared and as teargas was fired into the building the final fiasco became inevitable.

as he waited for the gas to clear sufficiently for him to surrender and leave through the hotel lobby, an emotional looking senator trillanes told journalists: ‘now, like soldiers, we are going to face th is. They will do whatever they do to us.’

his ally general danilo lim… warned: ‘there is unfinished business here.’A priest led the group in prayer as they prepared to leave.

Raju gopalakrishnan, africa.reuters.com

november 29,

the bride, 30-year old maria stella magtayo, had dressed in her room at the manila peninsula hotel and entered the lobby in an off-the-shoulder white gown, bouquet in hand and a friend holding the train. ‘i’m going through with this. Rock n roll!‘ she said, as rebel soldiers with automatic rifles and scores of journalists paced around the lobby.

Her groom, rian montano, 31, was still in his shorts and t-shirt because he had not started to get ready. He was wearing hotel slippers.

Montano, an executive at the san miguel corp, said his guests had 50 rooms booked in the peninsula.

culture & language go together

book #2 will have examples of culture
and its relationship with language

if you impose a language, you impose a culture. book #2 will be book about creative writing that writes itself, and the content will be about what i believe about language and culture – they are inseparable. the photograph i have chosen to illustrate this i have titled ‘the language of culture.’ – where the photograph i took near our little apartment shows rotting palm trunks but with some sawn-off parts apparently being cleaned for some use or other. where we live, the culture is tagalog; after all, we are in laguna province. if i were to tackle the subject of culture and language in one essay? it cannot be done. it’s too big, too vague a topic. language is not simply speaking a tongue or dialect; language is communication above all things. and you cannot invent meaning – the meaning is first invented before the word is. there is no reason for inventing a word when one cannot assign a meaning to it.

filipino is still based on tagalog and not on the many and diverse languages of the philippines. i heard the tv host saying, ‘infrastraktura’ in an effort to ‘filipinize’ an english word. so if you say ‘infrastraktura’ you mean the ordinary folks will understand you? if they can understand you, that means they understand the english word ‘infrastructure’ – so why is there a need to reinvent the wheel? this is ridiculous thinking, tagalizing everything to make a common national language of the philippines.