Voting’s done. Four days have gone by.  Comelec simply has to complete compilation of all the votes for each candidate. So what’s next?

I am waiting for all these gentlemen and gentlewomen who have persistently tried to woo our votes in the last 3 months to prove their leadership quality.

The first thing they can easily do is to instruct all their followers to start cleaning up our streets of the posters, streamers and other debris they collectively imposed on us.

We are glad that MMDA, Comelec and military personnel have taken the initiative to do the work, even though they estimate that the work will take no less than 2 weeks to complete.

Fact is, the y don’t have to do the job. But those who littered the streets should b responsible.

So, calling on the national and local candidates whose faces we still have to confront in our community of Barangay Bagong Pag-asa in Quezon City: Mike Defensor, Fermin Bitudio Bilaos, Herbert Bautista and Joy Belmonte.

The scene above was taken at the corner of Road 3 and Road 2 near the Our Lady of Hope Parish Church and the exit road of SM North EDSA into Brgy. Bagong Pagasa.

But when one plies the barangay’s main road, Road 8. one is confronted with the giant banderitas with the names and faces of Abe Abesamis criss-crossing the road, and more of the other candidates’ campaign materials.

What we noticed though is that the posters of Vivian Tan who ran for Councilor in District 1 have all been stripped clean off the posters, road barriers and walls that we had taken pictures of during the campaign period. Thank you for being a responsible leader Ms. Tan.

May 10, 2010 is obviously a most memorable day for some 25,000,000 Filipino voters, because for the first time, computerized balloting was conducted all over the country.

Since the night before, I was floating on air with excitement, looking forward to directly participating in the electoral process again.  I had missed out on the last two elections which coincided with my trips abroad. But I had re-registered in October 2010, and became quite active promoting responsible candidacy.

Horror stories:

• re the OFFICIAL BALLOT

In Room #15, where out polling precincts were clustered with one PCOS machine, the lighting was dim, and een when seated near the window, the daylight was diffused by the tall perimeter wall of the school, thus I had difficulty

• reading the maximum number of  candidates to be elected
• the boundaries of the oblongs beside each candidate was too light

• long lines under the heat of the sun. Fortunately,  the line leading to the  door of our precinct cluster had been formed in the shade of the covered courts extension room and extended to the covered walk. Yet, we missed the refreshing wind, and had continued to sweat.

• candidates for local positions, that is, for councilor of District 1 in Quezon City, set up tents right along and in front of the entrance to the polling center. One had a sign “Voter Assistance”, but did not even mind us when we approached. We eventually realized that they were talking only to their sure supporters, or those who were willing to sell their votes. They were also handing out sample ballots where the oblongs for their candidates were blacked out.

• yes, we did hear lots of stories in our voting center of offers to “not to vote” anymore in exchange for P500 or P1000. I guess this was to lessen the votes for their competitors.

In spite of minor horror stories, many voters have found the new election process basically positive replete with stories of good deeds and heartening sites at polling centers.

• Voters were unusually patient and cool in spite of the long lines.  Their justification is the fact that many more voters have turned out with interest for the new computerized form of voting.
• Enterprising citizens set up food and drink stalls in front of their homes along and near the entrance to the polling center/ school. We were able to purchase reasonably priced foodstuffs that helped fill our gnawing tummies over the lunch hour while keepingour place in the long queues.
• Two vendors somehow were able to sell their wares to the delight of the tired and hot voters. Who’d be able to resist cold water and maybe some nice cheesy ice cream.

Residents of the BLP Condominium compound along Road 3, in Pag-asa, Quezon City are alarmed over the latest incident that occurred at the BLPC swimming pool.

This morning, a 7-10 year old child was drowned at the swimming pool inside the BLP Condominium (BLPC) compound at the back of SM North EDSA.

Apparently the child was able to slip into the Clubhouse compound with a friend, and jumped into the pool, before the gate was opened to the public. At that time, the lifeguard was allegedly conducting swimming lessons to a class in the same pool.

The guard at the BLP Condominium’s Gate 4 reported that at around 9:30 am, he noticed a vehicle speeding toward the closed gate, as its passengers shouted that 2 children had drowned, were fighting for their lives, and that they were rushing the children to the hospital. Later in the morning, he was informed that one of the children, a male, had succumbed and died. The guard failed to get the name of the children and what hospital they were brought to.

Managers of the the Swimming Pool, the BLP COOPERATIVE, closed the facility to the public for the rest of the day.

Residents of the 550+ units in BLP Condominium compound have persistently complained of public disorder, noise, illegal drinking, extended hours, and other dubious happenings inside the Clubhouse compound. Reports to the Barangay Pag-asa Captain Fermin B Bilaos, over many years, have fallen on deaf ears.

Many residents insist that the Clubhouse should be managed by the BLP Homeowners Association so that it can be used by the 3000 residents again. For many years, non-residents from as far away as Kalookan and Manila have used the swimming pool and Clubhouse facilities for their activities, including regular church services, depriving the majority of BLP Condominium residents of the amenities that were promised to them whenn they purchased their units from the National Housing Authority.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: The pool is within an enclosed Clubhouse compound which is the subject of contentious claims for ownership by the National Housing Authority and the BLP Homeowners Association, Inc.

The Clubhouse with its swimming pool has been taken over, without legal authority from NHA, but with an anomalous contract with the Homeowners Association, by the BLP Cooperative, Inc.

… anomalous because at the time that the BLPC Homeowners Association entered into a contract with the BLP Cooperative to take over and management the clubhouse and the swimming pool, the Board of Directors of the homeowners association was composed of fellow coop members. Subsequent Boards of the Homeowners Association, while questioning the validity of the contract between the two groups, were never provided a copy of the contract until the last few months prior to expiry in 2009.

Residents are unaware, and were never consulted, of a new contract for the operation of the Clubhouse compound and swimming pool.

Am in nostagia mode (as in mood), and have been posting old pictures of Lola Rosita, Lolo Elias, Lolo Eliseo, Mom and siblings, my Kindergarten pic, and one with my 2 brothers in the early 60s. As my cousins started to comment and reminisce those wonderful memories, I searched for a few more  scanned photos, and an article that Jarius had written about Lolo Eliseo’s book “The Missing Master Link of the People’s Bill of Rights”. Eliseo P. Ymzon was a renowned lawyer during his name, and owned a fleet of taxis in Manila. Quite adamant and vocal about his opinions, he ran, but failed, for a  Senate seat under the nationalist Frente Popular of Sumulong, Aquino, Roxas, Agoncillo, Recto in 1935.

GOTCHA By Jarius Bondoc
Publication Date: [Friday, February 16, 2007]
The Philippine STAR, Opinion
Few Filipinos today have heard of Cavite lawyer Eliseo Ymzon as one of President Manuel Quezon’s bitterest critics. Perhaps not even the Ymzon-Rosales clansmen who will hold a reunion this weekend know that their ancestor scathed Quezon’s “corrosive Presidency” in a pre-War book that was banned from circulation. Mail censorship of The Missing Master Link of the People’s Bill of Rights relegated Ymzon to history’s underside. But reviewing a rare copy would reveal a strain of Filipino nationalism during the Commonwealth years — one that promoted not merely liberty from America but military strength as well.

Winds of war were beginning to blow on the Commonwealth in Oct. 1940 when Ymzon, then 53, published his compilation of articles. Japan had invaded Manchuria; Germany, France; and Italy, East Africa. “Missing master link” referred to lack of essential military buildup to shield a nation that was then slated for independence in 1946. Ymzon used as metaphor a main chain link, as in a bicycle, to emphasize the need to arm. Perhaps it was because he was born in 1887 when a man first bicycled around the world. For Ymzon, freedom would be for naught if unsupported by an army that could deter Japan’s further southward expansion after occupying China’s nearby provinces of Hainan and Formosa. Quezon’s preoccupation with matters other than defense from likely invasion provoked the diatribe. Ymzon felt that the Commonwealth President had wasted three decades of political leadership, as well as the talent of Filipinos whose basic rights were defenseless.

Quezon in 1940 was the most practiced government official. He had won as governor of Tayabas in 1905, sat as majority leader of the Philippine Assembly in 1907, served as resident commissioner to the United States in 1909, returned in 1916 to become senator, and been elected President of the Commonwealth in 1935. Ymzon, an avid follower of state affairs, conceded Quezon’s brilliance in the early years. The latter successfully had lobbied for the Jones Act of 1916 that formed Congress, and the Tydings-McDuffie Law of 1934 that created the Commonwealth with a promise of self-rule by 1946. Still the Presidency in Ymzon’s eyes did not befit Quezon. He observed him as alternately kowtowing to or antagonizing America. An example was giving away mining rights to Americans, but taking it back if a concessionaire happens to advocate Philippine freedom too fast too soon. There was Quezon’s phenomenal temper too. These tended to confuse Filipinos and reduce the roles of other leaders: Agoncillo, Kalaw, Recto, Unson, Roxas, Aquino, and Sumulong (under whose Popular Front he had run in vain for a Senate seat in 1935).

Ymzon’s sharpest criticisms were of Quezon’s timidity to arm in the face of worldwide Fascist assault. He wondered why the leader clung to a faction of the US leadership that deemed insular armed defense futile, when others loudly were batting for buildup. For Ymzon, such buildup was not merely to conscript youths to the infantry or to master in sea craft, but to assemble a formidable air force. His models were the German blitzkriegs in which airplanes first smashed defenses before sending in foot soldiers. The lesson in reverse was that control of the air would cripple an invader’s assault troops, if not make it think twice about attacking. Ymzon bewailed the training of only 50 Filipino pilots at the time, compared to Germany’s 30,000 aces plus 30,000 alternates. Quezon egotistically dreamed of a new city in his name in Diliman, Ymzon wrote, when the area should be used for airplane and bomb factories, airfields and training schools.

Air buildup would cost billions of pesos. Ymzon pointed to some fund sources for starters: P25 million a year from charity sweepstakes earnings, P50 million from oil excise taxes, another P50 million from fuel sales taxes, and P100 million from luxury taxes. He proposed a special tax on incomes in excess of P2,500 a year, plus daily four-hour civil service by all professionals for five years, as was done by Axis powers in preparing for war. In effect, Ymzon was using lessons from the Fascists to prepare to fight them.

Ymzon, though a native speaker of Caviteño Tagalog, was schooled in Spanish like most of his Ilustrado peers. One of his daughters thinks “The Missing Master Link” suffers from Ymzon’s wooden, self-taught English. But that is not the book’s biggest fault. Ymzon had thought wrongly that Japan would avoid direct confrontation with America in attacking Manila. He also miscalculated that Japan, because then lusting for Indochina, would invade the Philippines only after our independence in 1946. He fiercely pushed military buildup thinking there was still time for it. By Dec. 1941 Japan would attack Pearl Harbor and the puny airfields of Luzon. Three years later a diabetic Ymzon would bleed to death on a hospital bed, unable to procure antibiotics because of wartime shortage, after surgery for carbuncle. The leader he excoriated would pass away the same year from tuberculosis while in exile in America. The Philippines, then subjugated by Japan, could only defenselessly await Liberation.

* * *

E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com

A counterpoint to this story is Manolo Quezon’s own analysis of Philippine politics in the early half of the 20th century. The story is not necessarilly tasty for the descendants of Eliseo Ymzon, but it does help to put his theories and propositions into better perspective.
http://www.quezon.ph/2006/01/19/taking-the-measure-of-congress/

When one in great company, in a restaurant with flavorful food and exquisite ambiance, the mood can be nothing but perfect.

I tasted perfection for a few hours tonight, at the despedida for Peter Lourence, Joji’s lovey-dovey, at Cafe Juanita (West Capitol Drive corner United Avenue in Pasig City).

The small company was composed of Lia Seelin, Marcy Rivera and Cierlene Benipayo, Peter and Joji, and myself. We missed Atty. Deng Cordero and Maita Gomez, who both had a litle time complication then. But that gave us the best excuse to get together again, this time on Deng’s tab.

The ambiance and decor of Cafe Juanita is quite difficult to describe in words, and is best experienced.  Got to convince Mari and the girls to explore and have dinner for sometime soon.