The People Must Remind the President (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) of Her Obligation to Public Trust

We are former senior government officials who from experience know that strong democratic institutions are crucial to our progress as a whole nation. The most important institution our people depend on is the Office of the President. The responsible exercise of Presidential power is an important instrument for serving our nation's interests. A President that leads with righteousness and wisdom is a great blessing. A President that serves evil is a terrible curse. To secure a blessing and avoid a curse in the Presidency, the founding leaders of our democracy established a system of checks and balances.

The failure of checks and balances on the Presidency has allowed many past scandals to descend to a limbo of unresolved crimes against the public trust. Fertilizer scam. Election cheating. Shopping bags of cash in Malacanang. The NBN-ZTE scandal is just the latest monster in a larger pile of garbage from previous scandals. Our people are not going to let this one slip into the limbo again. Our search for truth, accountability and reforms must advance by getting our institutions to confront and resolve the corruption and cover up of this deal.

Our people have asked: Is President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo part of the NBN-ZTE corruption and cover up? She must act to help bring out the full truth about this deal if her hands are truly clean. The Arroyo Presidency must shelter the truth or it will be judged as a fortress for lies.

Our previous statement asked the President to take actions that were intended to demonstrate that indeed, like the people, she is against corruption and is angry at those engaged in it. Ordinary citizens can recognize the actions we asked of the President as reasonable under the present conditions: let the primary witness, Secretary Neri, testify without limitation; surrender all pertinent public documents on the deal to the Senate; follow usual administrative procedures by placing under preventive suspension those people under a cloud of doubt while an investigation is proceeding.

Since the President had already cancelled a deal that she judged tainted by corruption, these actions are logical and prudent. We demanded these actions not as an interest group but as a straightforward way for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to demonstrate that she is a blessing not a curse in the Office of the President. We got involved because we saw it as our civic duty to help start the repair and rehabilitation of our institutions already severely damaged from past scandals. By doing the actions we called for, the President would have shown her respect of the system of checks and balance of our democracy by cooperating fully with the Senate to give our people the full picture of the corruption and cover up of the NBN-ZTE deal.

Even as we issued our statement, however, the President's spokepersons were summarily dismissing these demands. Later her advisers even criticized and threatened us for making these demands. The President is very poorly served by these spokespersons and advisers.

Revoking EO 464 does not serve the truth if Neri still invokes executive privilege and does not testify and, if, despite previous statements to the contrary, all records of the NBN-ZTE project have still not been submitted to the Senate. We believe the Supreme Court or the Senate must do their respective duties to serve the truth, but the President has a greater obligation. She has the greatest stake in the Senate investigation coming out with the truth or the people will conclude she hides behind lies and uses the power of her office to smother the truth.

We conclude that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo refuses to serve the people's demand for truth about a matter of great public interest. We see in this refusal, despite ample chances and many sound reasons, a clear basis for our people to find her complicit with and, in fact, at the center of, the corruption and cover up of the NBN-ZTE deal.

We express our loss of confidence in her. As a consequence we question not only her moral authority to govern, but also her ability to govern given the mounting garbage of lies and obfuscation that she is constrained to build to cover up the increasing stench of corruption in her administration.

We ask those directly appointed by the President if they believe, in their heart of hearts, that they are keeping faith with their signed oath to defend and protect the nation’s Constitution and its laws in the face of blatant, shameless corruption and violation of individual rights.

We ask those in the civil service and foreign service to examine their conscience to
discern if their continued service in this Administration is not in fact helping prop up a regime that, at best abets large-scale corruption, lies and cover up, and at worst is a party to them.

We call on our fellow citizens to press their demand for a just resolution of governance issues and violation of the public trust raised against the President.

For our part, we pledge to use our combined knowledge, capabilities and influence to help as many of our people understand the issues and explain the known facts surrounding the many instances of corruption and encourage them to act in accordance with the dictates of their conscience.

We shall work with other sectors to put forward and apply other measures to make our other democratic institutions work better in preventing, exposing and punishing corruption at any level of our government starting at the very top.

Signed by:

Florencio Abad, former Secretary, Department of Education
Tomas Africa, former Administrator, National Statistics Office
Rafael Alunan III, former Secretary, Department of the Interior and Local Government
Roberto Ansaldo, former Undersecretary, Department of Agriculture
Senen Bacani, former Secretary, Department of Agriculture
Angelito Banayo, former Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs
Emilia Boncodin, former Secretary, Department of Budget and Management
Leonor Briones, former National Treasurer
Gerardo Bulatao, former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform
Clifford Burkley, former Undersecretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development
Sostenes Campillo, Jr., former Undersecretary, Department of Tourism
Isagani Cruz, former Undersecretary, Department of Education
Jose Cuisia, Jr., former Governor, Central Bank of the Philippines
Guillermo Cunanan, former General Manager, Manila International Airport Authority
Karina Constantino-David, former Chair, Civil Service Commission
Edgardo Del Fonso, former Undersecretary, Department of Finance
Teresita Quintos Deles, former Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process
Benjamin Diokno, former Secretary, Department of Budget and Management
Quintin Doromal, former Commissioner, Presidential Commission on Good Government
Narcisa Escaler, former Ambassador to the United Nations
Evangeline Escobillo, former Commissioner, Insurance Commission
Jesus Estanislao, former Secretary, Department of Finance
Fulgencio Factoran, Jr., former Secretary, Department of Environment and Natural Resources
Victoria Garchitorena, former Head, Presidential Management Staff
Ernesto Garilao, former Secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform
Jose Luis Gascon, former Undersecretary, Department of Education
Marietta Goco, former Chair, Presidential Commission to Fight Poverty
Cielito Habito, former Director-General, NEDA
Edilberto de Jesus, Jr., former Secretary, Department of Education
Philip Ella Juico, former Secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform
Lina Laigo, former Secretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development
Ernest Leung, former Secretary, Department of Finance
Josefina Lichauco, former Secretary, Department of Transportation and Communications
Narzalina Lim, former Secretary, Department of Tourism
Juan Miguel Luz, former Undersecretary, Department of Education
Felipe Medalla, former Director-General, NEDA
Jose Molano, Jr., former Executive Director, Commission on Filipinos Overseas
Vitaliano Nañagas, former Chair, Development Bank of the Philippines
Conrado Navarro, former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform
Norberto Nazareno, former President, Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation
Imelda Nicolas, former Lead Convenor, National Anti-Poverty Commission
Victor Ordonez, former Undersecretary, Department of Education
Cayetano Paderanga, Jr., former Director-General, NEDA
Vicente Paterno, former Minister, Ministry of Trade
Felicito Payumo, former Chairman, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority
Cesar Purisima, former Secretary, Department of Finance
Rolando Querubin, former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform
Albert del Rosario, former Ambassador to the United States
Francisco del Rosario, former Chair, Development Bank of the Philippines
Ramon del Rosario, Jr., former Secretary, Department of Finance
Victor Ramos, former Secretary, Department of Environment and Natural Resources
Amina Rasul, former Presidential Adviser and Concurrent Chair on Youth Affairs
Rodolfo Reyes, former Press Secretary
Walfrido Reyes, former Undersecretary, Department of Tourism
Juan Santos, former Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry
Cesar Sarino, former Secretary, Department of the Interior and Local Government
Corazon Juliano-Soliman, former Secretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development
Hector Soliman, former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform
Mario Taguiwalo, former Undersecretary, Department of Health
Jaime Galvez Tan, former Secretary, Department of Health
Ricardo Tan, former President, Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation
Wigberto Tañada, former Commissioner, Bureau of Customs
V. Bruce Tolentino, former Undersecretary, Department of Agriculture
Rene Villa, former Secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform
Veronica Villavicencio, former Lead Convenor, National Anti-Poverty Commission

Government Should Serve the Truth

We are former senior government officials who have served the government in the administrations of Presidents Marcos, Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo. Today we see how the institutions of government are being manipulated, weakened, and corrupted. We are committed to help rebuild and strengthen the government institutions in which we worked to serve the public good rather than personal and partisan interests.

Our people can only trust a government that governs with truth. We grant government so much power over our lives, resources and shared future because it governs with truth. When there are serious doubts about government’s adherence to truth in matters of vital public interest, no real peace or substantive unity is possible until such doubts are resolved. We cannot move on without the truth.

We are now in the midst of great disturbance because we doubt the truth behind the NBN-ZTE deal. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had belatedly cancelled the contract because of reported “anomalies”. Hence, most Filipinos reasonably conclude that corruption tainted this deal. For several months now at the hearings of the Senate investigation, we have all seen disturbing glimpses of the truth about alleged corruption that attended the NBN-ZTE deal. We are outraged by what we have seen thus far.

The President said recently: “Ang taumbayan galit sa katiwalian. Ganoon din ako, galit din ako sa katiwalian.” We affirm the first sentence. We ask that the second sentence be demonstrated in action. Having belatedly cancelled the contract to show her supposed anger with reported corruption in this deal, the President must now follow through with actions to determine the actual “anomalies” and establish responsibility for these. Otherwise, canceling the contract could be interpreted as an effort to cover up corruption rather than to pin it down and root it out.

Government should serve the truth and the President should act immediately and decisively to enable the truth to emerge.

The most credible forum thus far to establish the truth behind the NBN-ZTE controversy is the Senate investigation that has persevered in seeking facts and witnesses. The Senate is a functioning democratic institution that can help the people recognize the truth about this divisive matter. We thus call on the President to cooperate fully with the Senate and stop denigrating it so that its investigation can be completed as soon as possible. In particular, we ask the President to lead in showing government’s commitment to the truth by taking the following actions which can reasonably be done within one week:

• First, order acting Chair Romulo Neri to resume his testimony before the Senate investigation without any restrictions or limitations;

• Second, order the release and delivery to the Senate of all public records pertaining to the NBN-ZTE deal, starting with the minutes of the NEDA Board meetings on the project;

• Third, suspend DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza and Assistant Secretary Lorenzo Formoso, as the DOTC was the lead agency for this project;

• Fourth, suspend DENR Secretary Lito Atienza, PNP Director General Avelino Razon, Deputy Executive Secretary Manuel Gaite, Deputy NAIA Chief Angel Atutubo, Senior Supt. Paul Mascarinas and all those involved in the attempt to prevent Senate witness Jun Lozada from testifying; and

• Fifth, order a halt on any further attempts by such agencies as the DOJ, DENR, NBI and BIR to harass Senate witness Jun Lozada and those who are testifying in behalf of the truth.

The Filipino people can make democratic institutions work to fight corruption by even the most powerful people in our midst. We can do this based on the power of reason and the power of the people’s communal action. We deserve a government that governs with truth.

The President must demonstrate her commitment to the truth through these actions within one week as more and more of our people make their judgment. She must do these or be condemned as complicit with, and in fact, as being at the center of, the lies surrounding the NBN-ZTE deal.

The President must do these or the people will make their judgment and act on the basis of their conviction.

Signed by:

1. Florencio Abad (Former Secretary, Department of Education)

2. Tomas Africa, (Former Administrator, National Statistics Office)

3. Roberto Ansaldo (Former Undersecretary, Department of Agriculture)

4. Senen Bacani (Former Secretary, Department of Agriculture)

5. Angelito Banayo (Former Secretary, Political Affairs)

6. Romeo Bernardo (Former Undersecretary, Department of Finance)

7. Emilia Boncodin (Former Secretary, Department of Budget and Management)

8. Gerardo Bulatao (Former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform)

9. Clifford Burkley (Former Undersecretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development)

10. Sostenes Campillo, Jr. (Former Undersecretary, Department of Tourism)

11. Isagani Cruz (Former Undersecretary, Department of Education)

12. Jose Cuisia, Jr. (Former Governor, Central Bank of the Philippines)

13. Col. Guillermo Cunanan (Ret.) (Former General Manager, Manila International Airport)

14. Karina Constantino-David (Former Chair, Civil Service Commission)

15. Teresita Quintos Deles (Former Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process)

16. Edgardo Del Fonso (Former Head, Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management)

17. Benjamin Diokno (Former Secretary, Department of Budget and Management)

18. Quintin Doromal, Sr. (Former Commissioner, Presidential Commission on Good Governance)

19. Franklin Drilon (Former Executive Secretary)

20. Narcisa Escaler (Former Ambassador to the United Nations)

21. Evangeline Escobillo (Former Commissioner, Insurance Commission)

22. Jesus Estanislao (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)

23. Victoria Garchitorena (Former Head, Presidential Management Staff)

24. Jose Luis Gascon (Former Undersecretary, Department of Education)

25. Marietta Goco (Former Chair, Presidential Commission to Fight Poverty)

26. Jose Antonio Gonzalez (Former Secretary, Department of Tourism)

27. Milwida Guevara (Former Undersecretary, Department of Finance)

28. Cielito Habito (Former Director-General, National Economic Development Authority)

29. Edilberto de Jesus Jr. (Former Secretary, Department of Education)

30. Lina Laigo (Former Secretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development)

31. Ernest Leung (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)

32. Josefina Lichauco (Former Secretary, Department of Transportation and Communications)

33. Narzalina Lim (Former Secretary, Department of Tourism)

34. Juan Miguel Luz (Former Undersecretary, Department of Education)

35. Jose Molano Jr. (Former Executive Director, Commission on Filipinos Overseas)

36. Vitaliano Nañagas (Former Chair, Development Bank of the Philippines)

37. Conrado Navarro (Former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform)

38. Imelda Nicolas (Former Lead Convenor, National Anti-Poverty Commission)

39. Vicente Paterno (Former Minister, Ministry of Trade and Industry)

40. Pete Prado (Former Secretary, Department of Transportation and Communications)

41. Cesar Purisima (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)

42. Victor Ramos (Former Secretary, Department of Environment and Natural Resources)

43. Amina Rasul (Former Presidential Advisor on Youth Affairs and Concurrent Chair, National Youth Commission)

44. Rodolfo Reyes (Former Press Secretary)

45. Walfrido Reyes (Former Undersecretary, Department of Tourism)

46. Alberto Romualdez Jr. (Former Secretary, Department of Health)

47. Albert del Rosario (Former Ambassador to the United States of America)

48. Francisco del Rosario (Former Chair, Development Bank of the Philippines)

49. Ramon del Rosario (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)

50. Melito Salazar (Former Member of the Monetary Board, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas)

51. Antonio Salvador (Former Undersecretary, Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process)

52. Leticia Ramos-Shahani (Former Undersecretary, Department of Foreign Affairs)

53. Cesar Sarino (Former Secretary, Department of Interior and Local Government)

54. Juan Santos (Former Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry)

55. Corazon Juliano-Soliman (Former Secretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development)

56. Hector Soliman (Former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform)

57. Mario Taguiwalo (Former Undersecretary, Department of Health)

58. Jaime Galvez Tan (Former Secretary, Department of Health)

59. Ricardo Tan (Former Head, Philippine Deposit Insurance Commission)

60. Wigberto Tañada (Former Commissioner, Bureau of Customs)

61. V. Bruce Tolentino (Former Undersecretary, Department of Agriculture)

62. Veronica Villavicencio (Former Lead Convenor, National Anti-Poverty Commission)

63. Deogracias Vistan (Former President, Land Bank of the Philippines)

Former Senior Government Officials, 5 March 2008

Time to Go

TIME TO GO: A CALL TO OUR COLLEAGUES IN GOVERNMENT

We are former government officials who have held high positions in the current and previous administrations. Having participated in the highest level of governance up close and personal, we now feel compelled to speak up for our demoralized public servants and arrest the decline of our institutions of governance. In the past, many of us kept quiet, going on about our daily chores, attending to business as usual.

However, over the last few days, we, together with the rest of the country, have seen one man - Jun Lozada - finally decide that he can no longer be part of the massive graft and corruption that permeates this government. His testimony exposed that the corruption in the project he dealt with - the NBN ZTE project - is standard in what he called "dysfunctional government procurement processes."

Clearly, what Jun Lozada knew so terrified the powers-that-be that they unwittingly exposed what Jun called "the dark side of the state" - state-sponsored terrorism that had been rearing its ugly head in the various disappearances and extra-judicial killings in the past six years - and which almost took him as a victim in a botched kidnapping that the administration has been trying, with little success, to cover up.
In a sense, all Jun Lozada did was to confirm what we already know: Our country is sliding into moral decadence. He also confirmed the systematic destruction of our democratic institutions and the systemic nature of our problems. We have seen this in the wanton disregard of checks-and-balances; abuse of the powers of the president; the cooptation through patronage and outright bribery of the other branches of government; politically sponsored corruption, facilitated, not thwarted, by bureaucratic procedures; the naked use of power and authority through the PNP, PSG, NAIA, among others, to strangle the truth; and the deployment of cabinet, sub-cabinet officials, and the military to obstruct justice and cover up illegal orders and acts.

In the past, for too many times that we were confronted with threats to our democracy and to our moral values, our response was: "What can we do about it? What is our choice? Who will lead us?" These questions persist but, today, we can no longer stay silent. We can no longer ignore the reality of a government gone wild, wreaking havoc on our rights and institutions in a climate of impunity. We can
no longer console ourselves in the strength of the peso, narrowing deficits, and an expanding economy. Even these ephemeral gains have not translated into a better life for the majority of our people, especially the poor.

The future of our country is at stake. Our democratic institutions are under attack. What we stand to lose is the moral fabric of our society.

We call on all government officials - Cabinet Secretaries, Undersecretaries, Heads of Agencies - who know about these anomalous transactions to join the heroic stand of Jun Lozada to come forward and speak out. We call on all those who know about the extrajudicial killings and disappearances to go public and tell the truth. We call
on all those who can no longer endure this wrongful governance, with its structures of evil and unmoderated greed: IT IS TIME TO CUT CLEAN! IT IS TIME TO GO!

Tama na! Sobra na! Panahon na!

Signed by:
1. Florencio Abad (Former Secretary, Department of Education)
2. Tomas Africa, (Former Administrator, National Statistics Office)
3. Rafael Alunan (Former Secretary, Department of Tourism)
4. Tomas Apacible (Former Commissioner, Bureau of Customs)
5. Senen Bacani (Former Secretary, Department of Agriculture)
6. Angelito Banayo (Former Secretary, Political Affairs)
7. Romeo Bernardo (Former Undersecretary, Department of Finance)
8. Gerardo Bulatao (Former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform)
9. Clifford Burkley (Former Undersecretary, Department of Social Welfare and
Development)
10. Ramon Cardenas (Former Head, Presidential Management Staff)
11. Jose Cuisia (Former Governor, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas)
12. Sostenes Campillo (Former Undersecretary, Department of Tourism)
13. Karina Constantino-David (Former Chair, Civil Service Commission)
14. Elfren Cruz (Former Head, Presidential Management Staff)
15. Isagani Cruz (Former Undersecretary, Department of Education)
16. Teresita Quintos Deles (Former Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process)
17. Benjamin Diokno (Former Secretary, Department of Budget and Management)
18. Quintin Doromal Sr. (Former Commissioner, Philippine Commission on Good Governance)
19. Franklin Drilon (Former Executive Secretary)
20. Narcisa Escaler (Former Ambassador to the United Nations)
21. Jesus Estanislao (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)
22. Fulgencio Factoran Jr. (Former Secretary, Department of Environment and Natural
Resources)
23. Victoria Garchitorena (Former Head, Presidential Management Staff)
24. Ernesto Garilao (Former Secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform)
25. Peter Garrucho (Former Executive Secretary)
26. Jose Luis Gascon (Former Undersecretary, Department of Education)
27. Marietta Goco (Former Chair, Presidential Commission to Fight Poverty)
28. Jose Antonio Gonzalez (Former Minister, Ministry of Tourism)
29. Milwilda Guevarra (Former Undersecretary, Department of Finance)
30. Cielito Habito (Former Secretary-General, National Economic Development Authority)
31. Edilberto de Jesus Jr. (Former Secretary, Department of Education)
32. Philip Ella Juico (Former Secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform)
33. Antonio La Viña (Former Undersecretary, Department of Environment and Natural
Resources)
34. Bienvenido Laguesma (Former Secretary, Department of Labor and Employment)
35. Lina Laigo (Former Secretary, Department of Social Welfare and Development)
36. Ernest Leung (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)
37. Josefina Lichauco (Former Secretary, Department of Transportation and Communications)
38. Narzalina Lim (Former Secretary, Department of Tourism)
39. Juan Miguel Luz (Former Undersecretary, Department of Education)
40. Felipe Medalla (Former Secretary-General, National Economic Development Authority)
41. Jose Molano Jr. (Former Executive Director, Commission on Filipinos Overseas)
42. Vitaliano Nañagas (Former Chair, Development Bank of the Philippines)
43. Imelda Nicolas (Former Lead Convenor, National Anti-Poverty Commission)
44. Roberto de Ocampo (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)
45. Oscar Orbos (Former Executive Secretary)
46. Ernesto Ordoñez (Former Secretary, Presidential Flagship Programs and Projects)
47. Victor Ordoñez (Former Undersecretary, Department of Education)
48. Cayetano Paderanga (Former Secretary-General, National Economic Development
Authority)
49. Jose Pardo (Former Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry)
50. Vicente Paterno (Former Minister, Ministry of Trade and Industry)
51. Felicito Payumo (Former Chairman, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority)
52. Pete Prado (Former Secretary, Department of Transportation and Communication)
53. Cesar Purisima (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)
54. Victor Ramos (Former Secretary, Department of Environment and Natural Resources)
55. Amina Rasul (Former Chair, National Youth Commission)
56. Alberto Romualdez Jr. (Former Secretary, Department of Health)
57. Albert del Rosario (Former Ambassador to the United States of America)
58. Francisco del Rosario (Former Chair, Development Bank of the Philippines)
59. Ramon del Rosario (Former Secretary, Department of Finance)
60. Melito Salazar (Former Member of the Monetary Board, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas)
61. Leticia Ramos-Shahani (Former Undersecretary, Department of Foreign Affairs)
62. Cesar Sarino (Former Secretary, Department of Interior and Local Government)
63. Juan Santos (Former Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry)
64. Corazon Juliano-Soliman (Former Secretary, Department of Social Welfare and
Development)
65. Hector Soliman (Former Undersecretary, Department of Agrarian Reform)
66. Mario Taguiwalo (Former Undersecretary, Department of Health)
67. Jaime Galvez Tan (Former Secretary, Department of Health)
68. Wigberto Tañada (Former Commissioner, Bureau of Customs)
69. Rene Villa (Former Secretary, Department of Agrarian Reform)
70. Veronica Villavicencio (Former Lead Convenor, National Anti-Poverty Commission)
71. Deogracias Vistan (Former President, Land Bank of the Philippines)

Former Senior Government Officials, 17 February 2008

EDSA 4

Just for the record, I published this in my column in The Philippine Star on Dec. 20, 2007:

EDSA FOUR

Will there be an EDSA 4? You can bet your life there will be. History repeats itself, whether we like it or not.


The first student demonstration I remember was in the very early sixties, when a handful of students walked around the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines with placards protesting the increase in campus jeepney fare from 5 centavos to 10 centavos.


Today, we have more than a handful of jeepney drivers protesting the rise in fuel prices.


The first demonstration that I myself joined was shortly after, when dozens of U.P. students boarded rented buses (disrupting traffic by walking on the streets was not yet in the vocabulary of rallyists) to go to Congress (now the National Museum) to protest the Spanish Law. That law required all college students to take up 24 units of Spanish.


Today, we have Gloria Arroyo announcing that Spanish will once again be required for all students.


During that anti-Spanish Law demonstration, I found myself on the wrong side of a rifle, pointed straight at me by a cop. As far as I know, there was only one cop then who had a rifle, and I was unlucky enough to be right in front of him. At that time, nobody arrested anyone. We just all returned to our buses to the safety of the Diliman campus.


Today, everybody gets confronted by cops or soldiers with barbed wire, tear gas, guns, and tanks. Everyone gets arrested, even media persons and bystanders.


Not long after, Constitutional Convention delegate Eduardo Quintero exposed the giving of cash by Marcos to delegates to vote against a provision disallowing a term extension for the dictator.


Recently, Governor Ed Panlilio exposed Malacanang's cash gifts to governors and congresspersons; the cash was given to ensure that Arroyo's term would not be shortened by a genuine impeachment process.


I was away for most of the really exciting years (now nostalgically called the First Quarter Storm), but students then risked their lives telling the world that Ferdinand Marcos was the most corrupt president the country had ever known.


Today, Arroyo is regarded by a majority of Filipinos as the most corrupt president the country has ever known, even outcorrupting Marcos.


I was in the country for EDSA 1. At that time, nobody thought people would fight back against the corruption and moral bankruptcy of Marcos and company. Everybody thought Marcos was invincible, since he had Fabian Ver, Juan Ponce Enrile, and Fidel Ramos.


If you think Arroyo will stay until 2010 and can stay out of jail after 2010 because she has Hermogenes Esperon, Raul Gonzalez, and Ronaldo Puno, think again. Marcos's staunch allies Enrile and Ramos led EDSA 1 and Joseph Estrada's staunch ally Angelo Reyes escorted Erap out of Malacanang during EDSA 2. There is no such thing as a staunch ally when the people are in a foul mood.


Just before EDSA 1, we had Ninoy Aquino sacrificing his life and an incorruptible Cory Aquino standing up to the tyrant. We had an alternative to Marcos.


Today, according to the UN, hundreds of media persons and activists have been killed by the government. There are now a number of people standing up for our rights, for example, Loren Legarda, Reynato Puno, Mar Roxas, Antonio Trillanes, and Manny Villar (in alphabetical order), who have never been rumored to be corrupt. We now have alternatives to Arroyo.


When I wrote my play Tao in 1970, practically everybody said that my prediction in that PETA production that martial law would be declared would never come true.


In 1972, martial law was indeed declared, and the rest, unfortunately, is not just history but our present and most likely our future as well.


Therefore, my fearless forecast for 2008 is that martial law will be declared and there will be an EDSA 4, not necessarily in that order.


Of course, now that there is no more open space on EDSA, since colorum buses occupy all the lanes, the next uprising might have to be done elsewhere, maybe even in virtual space. History always repeats itself one way or another.

The week after (Dec. 27, 2007), I published this in the same column:

REACTION TO LAST WEEK'S COLUMN: A reader pointed out that I missed one parallelism between 1972 and 2008. Ferdinand Marcos denied that he was sick, but after he left Malacañang Palace, we discovered that he had to have a hospital bed installed in the palace so he could keep his various diseases secret. Today, Gloria Arroyo denies that she is seriously sick, but she was rushed to St. Luke's Medical Center several times last year for what are euphemistically called "check-ups." Yes, indeed, history is repeating itself.

British Theory

Here is an old lecture (1989), dated but perhaps still useful to students of literary theory:

An Unreconstructed Filipino Deconstructionist in Thatcherite Country, or Travels in British Theory 1988


Like Britain, British literary theory today is divided into three parts, limply labelled feminism, structuralism, and cultural materialism. Typically British, British feminism has little to do with American feminism, despite Gayatri Spivak of Pittsburgh’s non-stop transoceanic voyages. Instead, British feminism wears French clothes, designed by the French Feminist Trinity of Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray, and marketed by Toril Moi, formerly of Oxford’s Lady Margaret Hall. Similarly British, British structuralism, being marxist, is the exact opposite of rightist, formalist, synchronic Yale deconstructionism. More identifiably British because indigenous is Raymond Williams of Cambridge’s cultural materialism, given new life through his sudden death on January 26, 1988, and through the continuing productivity of his disciples Terry Eagleton of Oxford’s Linacre College, formerly of Wadham College, and Sussex’s dynamic duo of Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield.

We can say that Scotland with Strathclyde is cultural materialism, Wales with Cardiff is feminism, and England with Southampton is structuralism, though we can just as adroitly draw the theory map with Strathclyde’s literary linguists keeping structuralism alive, Cardiff’s Terence Hawkes canonizing cultural materialism by commissioning a volume on it in his widely- influential New Accents series, and Southampton’s feminists attacking both patriarchy and the academic aristocracy. But then again we can start with Cardiff’s Christopher Norris championing structuralism with a straight deconstructive face. Theoretically, we would never stop redrawing the map, drawing maps being Hawkes’ favorite metaphor for theorizing. No matter how we juggle the pieces to fit England, Scotland, and Wales, however, one odd piece remains: the Northern Ireland of theory, Reading’s Patrick Parrinder, whose movement against theory is a theoretical movement in itself.

Like tracks on the London tube, the paths of the three trains of theoretical thought constantly intersect, appearing to run parallel at times only to merge at unexpected moments. Today’s senior British feminists used to be the young radicals of The Marxist Feminist Literature Collective. Those who used to call themselves structuralists now prefer to be known as post- structuralists, though in a pinch, they would rather drop the root word altogether in favor of the more deceivingly neutral term “theorists,” meaning, in British theory English, marxists. Marxism, of course, is the genre to which cultural materialism belongs, though Dollimore and Sinfield, in insisting that homosexuality must be problematized within the marxist agenda, have effectively collapsed sociology and psychoanalysis, bringing the British theoretical world back full circle to feminism, through which Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan entered, first surreptitiously, then rowdily, British academic life.

My lecture, as envisioned and demanded by the Alfredo E. Litiatco professorial chair fund, is not in three (or four) parts, but merely in two. This first part consists mainly of a name-dropping account of my grand tour of Britain, a kind of intellectual home movie for which I am thankful I have an audience of masochistic friends. I intend merely to give information in today’s sense of that term; that means I shall be playing the game of Literary Theory Trivial Pursuit. Pursuing literary theory aptly describes what I actually did for the five months I stayed in England as a Senior Fellow of the British Council, a signal honor that allowed me to be collected from the airport, to collect generous amounts to spend on fish and chips and on British publishers, and to be wined and dined by the Council’s Harriet Harvey-Wood and John Green. To the British Council head office in London, to its various regional offices particularly the one in Oxford, and to Manila representative Hugh Salmon, I offer sincerest thanks. To them I owe the most recent of the radical changes in my theorizing.

In the second part of my Litiatco lecture, which I shall deliver next month in my own language, I shall illustrate what each of the three theoretical strains can add to our repertoire of reading skills, particularly in our reading of Balagtas’ Florante at Laura. I choose English now because the discourse of the authors I shall mention is in English; I shall use Filipino then because my text will be in Tagalog.

To carry on, then. What is happening in British theory today?

First, Britain is losing some of its best theorists. Moi, who was strangered by Oxford’s patriarchy, forcing her to accept the directorship of the Centre for Feminist Research in the Humanities at the University of Bergen in Norway, now spends half the year at Duke University, the great and successful American pirate of theorists. Duke has also dangled the dollar carrot successfully in Dollimore’s face. Also half the year out is Norris, who bilocates at Berkeley. Strathclyde’s Derek Attridge and Sussex’s Cora Kaplan have joined Rutgers. Still rooted in merry olde England are Eagleton, Manchester’s Antony Easthope, and Cambridge’s Elizabeth Wright, but all three do the British Council lecture circuit, being globetrotting academics straight out of David Lodge’s novel Small World. It’s only a matter of time before the feelers sent to these three, as well as other critics, will turn into luscious offers, and then, who knows? The British government’s drastic cutting of university budgets, the dropping of tenure, and the continuous attrition of feminists and marxists from Oxford and Cambridge have all made Thatcherite country a place to drain brains from. America, though former colony rather than colonizer as in our case, seems to be just as attractive to British intellectuals as it is to our own writers.

While driven theorists are being driven out of the country in droves, theory itself may be said to be driving itself out of existence. It was not unusual for me to hear the remark, in the words of Ann Jefferson of Oxford’s New College, that “the moment of theory has passed.” Symptomatic of the sense of an ending (as Frank Kermode -- who I did not meet -- might put it) is the publication in 1988 of Easthope’s British Post- Structuralism since 1968, a summing-up if we ever saw one. The book’s first chapter is entitled “Beginnings: On the Left,” and though the last chapter is not entitled “Endings: On the Right” -- Easthope, in fact, in an appendix, protests that “post- structuralism is nowhere near an orthodoxy, still less a hegemony in English intellectual life” -- literary competents can easily provide the closure code. Kent’s Bernard Sharratt protested even more violently when I called him a literary theorist; he had left literature, he said, ten years back. At Essex, of course, which used to be the breeding ground of Machereyian marxists like Soledad Reyes, the 1986 Literature, Politics & Theory marked an institutional closure, though current plans include a revival of the famous Essex conferences, with New Historicism trumpeting in a new series in 1989. Interestingly enough, the convenors of the conference, Francis Barker and Peter Hulme, are thinking of inviting not only non-theorists, but anti-theorists as well. The commonsensical realists have scaled the wall, or the wall has turned out to be illusory.

If the moment of theory, after much scrutiny, has indeed passed, what has taken its place? Cultural value theory, of course, though old-fashioned aesthetics in Eagleton’s hands -- he is said to be preparing his magnum opus and in fact delivered two Kant-like lectures in quick succession last summer (if British summers can be called summers) -- and image studies in other people’s hands are emerging as well to challenge the dominant radical forces. There is always fiction writing, of course, a course that Eagleton has tried, following Williams.

Theory being a phoenix, however, having shown its resiliency since 1,000 B.C. by rising and falling and rising again in China, Greece, and Italy, cannot so easily be marginalized in footnotes. In Williams’ Wales, a Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory has been established at the newly- merged University of Wales College of Cardiff, boasting a First Five that can outplay any team outside of Duke: Catherine Belsey, Hawkes, Norris, Chris Weedon, and Peter Foulkes. It was Belsey, of course, who wrote the 1980 Critical Practice, which came as close to orthodoxy as any anti-orthodoxy book could. Hawkes not only edits New Accents, but keeps coming up with new ways of reading Shakespeare. Norris writes books in his sleep, and his latest on Paul de Man, defending rather than attacking, seems guaranteed to keep other people awake nights. Weedon and Foulkes I did not meet personally, in contrast to the rest of the critics (save Kermode) I have mentioned, who met me at lunch or tea or both to argue or to agree about the lapsed or relapsed moment of theory. From their books, however, the two seem to be comfortably enshrined among the biggies. Cardiff has, for some time, been publishing the leading journal in literary theory today, Textual Practice, and is set to hold in September, 1989, the biggest theory bash since Strathclyde’s 1986 Linguistics of Writing.

Back in England, the Critical Theory Group at Nottingham are still going strong, though much of their time is taken up by teaching. Similarly teaching-oriented are the staff of Warwick’s Graduate School of Comparative Literary Theory and Literary Translation. Because they are not based in only one university, only the Modern Critical Theory Group can afford to ford continuously their non-English, therefore non-hegemonic, way into theory, and their journal entitled Paragraph seems unlikely to fold.

Who are the big names in British theory today? Eagleton is still considered the most equal of the equals, though feminists at his own Oxford are starting to feel unhappy over his afeminist books. About his life, they cannot be as unhappy, since he recommended young feminist Jeri Johnson to take his place at Wadham, and he acknowledges his friendship with Moi in his prefaces. He also happens to edit the Rereading Literature series (second only to New Accents in influence), where Belsey’s latest feminist reading of Milton appears. Lesser stars, but just as crucial leaders in their own firmaments, are Nottingham’s Douglas Tallack, Southampton’s Robert Young, Lancaster’s Raman Selden, Middlesex Polytechnic’s Peter Widdowson, and Warwick’s Susan Basnett.

Foreign theorists remain, as always, on top of the most-admired list. Still the most quoted is Jacques Derrida, though less blindly adulatory now than earlier. At his heels are Jean-Francois Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard. If Eagleton is to be believed, however, Habermas and the Germans may stage a comeback anyday now. For feminists, still on top are the French Trinity, though there’s Spivak, who remains primarily a feminist rather than, despite her latest book, an anti-orientalist discourse theorist. At the July Warwick conference on translation, Spivak argued against her own earlier denunciation of Derrida and urged all sisters to give up the name of Woman; her paper was received in stunned but obviously impressed silence.

One last piece of trivia should finally make everything unclear. Manchester University Press’ well-intentioned and excellently-conceived Cultural Politics series, featuring offbeat readings of various texts, was being edited by Dollimore and Sinfield. Manchester, however, censored the volume on homosexuality, causing the Sussex Two to resign last September. Considering Britain’s long tradition of intellectual freedom, the scandal should have been as serious as America’s discovering that Martin Heidegger and Paul de Man supported Hitler, but only amused giggles met the incident. The three parts of Britain and its multicolored train lines may merge and emerge, but Thatcherite rightism draws the line at the third sex. Gender remains a binary opposition in strict structuralist or post- structuralist fashion; gay marxism is still a bit too offbeat in the land of Oscar Wilde.

Instead of drawing the line, we should probably be redrawing our map, to return to Hawkes’ metaphor. What I have tried to do in this first part of my Litiatco lecture is to draw a map of literary theory in Britain. It is a high-tech map, a laser-drawn hologram, constantly changing colors, yet remaining forever British.



(First delivered as an Alfredo E. Litiatco Professorial Chair Lecture on 4 February 1989 at De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines)

Academic Freedom

Academic freedom is widely misunderstood. Many teachers think that, with academic freedom, they can pretty much say anything they want to say. That is not true at all. Academic freedom is a specifically limited right of certain persons. To get to the real meaning of academic freedom, we have to return to the original reason for it.

The discussion by John Henry Newman in The Idea of a University, published in 1854, serves as a good starting point. “A University, taken in its bare idea,” he said, “has this object and this mission: it contemplates neither moral impression nor mechanical production; it professes to exercise the mind neither in art nor in duty; its function is intellectual culture.” He continued, “It educates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it.”

The key word in this passage is truth. Academic freedom exists in order for humanity to discover the truth. Moreover, academic freedom makes sense only within the larger context of a university’s search for truth.

Flash forward to the present. In a modern discussion of it, the University of Oxford declared in March, 2007, that “staff (faculty) have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges.” There are two key concepts in this modern formulation: first, faculty members have to stay within the law, and second, they cannot be fired for expressing new ideas.

The world cannot progress unless there is a group of human beings allowed to question conventional knowledge without persecution. This freedom to think and to express what they think is, however, not an absolute right of these human beings, but is limited by what the law says.

What does the law say?

The most universal of all laws about academic freedom is that of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. What does the United Nations say?

Article 13 of the 1976 United Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights focuses on the right to education. In its 1999 interpretation of that article, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights distinguishes between individual academic freedom and institutional academic freedom.

The UN Committee’s first provision goes this way: “Members of the academic community, individually or collectively, are free to pursue, develop and transmit knowledge and ideas, through research, teaching, study, discussion, documentation, production, creation or writing. Academic freedom includes the liberty of individuals to express freely opinions about the institution or system in which they work, to fulfil their functions without discrimination or fear of repression by the State or any other actor, to participate in professional or representative academic bodies, and to enjoy all the internationally recognized human rights applicable to other individuals in the same jurisdiction. The enjoyment of academic freedom carries with it obligations, such as the duty to respect the academic freedom of others, to ensure the fair discussion of contrary views, and to treat all without discrimination on any of the prohibited grounds.”

Since individual academic freedom is a very complex issue, let me devote future entries to this first provision. Today let me discuss only the second provision, which reads: “The enjoyment of academic freedom requires the autonomy of institutions of higher education. Autonomy is that degree of self-governance necessary for effective decision-making by institutions of higher education in relation to their academic work, standards, management and related activities. Self-governance, however, must be consistent with systems of public accountability, especially in respect of funding provided by the State. Given the substantial public investments made in higher education, an appropriate balance has to be struck between institutional autonomy and accountability. While there is no single model, institutional arrangements should be fair, just and equitable, and as transparent and participatory as possible.”

The second provision is about institutional academic freedom.

It is institutional academic freedom that is enshrined in our own 1987 Constitution. Section 5 of Article 14 on Education, Science and Technology, Culture and Sports, states clearly and simply, that “academic freedom shall be enjoyed in all institutions of higher learning.”

It is important to note that our Constitution, following the UN covenant, grants academic freedom only to institutions of higher learning (that is, colleges and universities), rather than to all schools, such as elementary or high schools. Since individual academic freedom is a consequence of institutional academic freedom, we can immediately see that elementary and high school teachers and students do not enjoy academic freedom.

What is institutional academic freedom? Our own Supreme Court has defined it: “We have held time and again that the University has the academic freedom to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.” (G.R. No. 132860, April 3, 2001, University of the Philippines, et al., vs. Civil Service Commission)

That is what institutional academic freedom is and that is all it is. A university can hire and fire teachers, can formulate and restrict curricula and syllabi, can specify teaching methods, and can accept or expel students – all without any interference from any outside entity, not even government.

Immediately, we see why our Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is regarded by many, if not most university administrators as misled. Although it was conceived to be developmental (that means providing universities with opportunities to be world-class), CHED has often actually been regulatory, something against the Constitution itself.

It is not just a question of leadership, although the current leadership in CHED is undeniably unlawful. The problems of higher education will not be solved by a mere change of government managers. It is a question of CHED doing what it is not supposed to do. CHED is not supposed to infringe on the academic freedom of higher education institutions.

While institutional academic freedom is enshrined in the Constitution, individual academic freedom is not. Individual teachers have academic freedom only to the extent that it is given to them by their institutions.

This is clear even from the guidelines of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Says AAUP: “Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.” Teachers have academic freedom only within their own disciplines.

Adds AAUP: “College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations.” In other words, since they are looked up to, teachers should not make statements that they cannot back up with evidence, as the word “evidence” is defined in their particular disciplines.

Still from AAUP: “As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.”

Nearer home, our own Court of Appeals has restricted individual academic freedom even more. Teachers can claim academic freedom only if they follow the regulations of a school. In Far Eastern University vs. National Labor Relations Commission and Feliza Samaniego (CA-G.R. SP No. 83614), the Court of Appeals said, “Teachers are given leeway, under the principle of academic freedom, to conduct their classes according to the manner and form they see fit, provided they conform to school regulation.”

Illustrative of the many descriptions of academic freedom is the one attributed to former UP president Vicente G. Sinco, also a delegate to the 1973 Constitutional Convention. Sinco said that the Constitution “definitely grants the right of academic freedom to the University as an institution as distinguished from the academic freedom of a university professor.” In short, universities can claim absolute academic freedom; individual teachers within a university can claim academic freedom only if they obey the institution.

Certain institutions, such as UP itself, grant practically absolute academic freedom to its teachers. Other institutions, however, particularly private ones, limit the academic freedom of their teachers. Teachers in these institutions cannot choose their textbooks, design their own syllabi different from departmental syllabi, not wear uniforms, not observe teaching or consultation hours, and whatever else the administrators tell them not to do.

From a management point of view, this view of academic freedom makes perfect sense. After all, if a particular teacher does not like to follow the regulations of a school, he or she can always go to another school. This is the same reasoning that is behind the opinion of the Supreme Court about institutional academic freedom. If a student does not like the way a school is run, he or she can always enroll in another school.

The right to education is not denied any student, nor is freedom of speech denied any teacher by this limited view of academic freedom. After all, nobody, student or teacher, has the right to be in any particular institution. There is always some school somewhere (such as UP) which will allow students or teachers more academic freedom than is allowed in other schools. If someone will argue that he or she is not intelligent enough to be either a student or a teacher in UP, then the answer is, tough. In fact, academic freedom is granted only to very few, highly intelligent individuals.

Faculty members that cry “Academic Freedom” when threatened with dismissal by school authorities for violating school rules should look at the Supreme Court decision in the case of the University of the Philippines and Alfredo de Torres vs. Civil Service Commission (G.R. No. 132860, April 3, 2001).

In that decision, the Court said unequivocally: “We have held time and again that ‘the University has the academic freedom to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.’ Clearly, this freedom encompasses the autonomy to choose who should teach and, concomitant therewith, who should be retained in its rolls of professors and other academic personnel. This Court declared in Ateneo de Manila University v. Capulong: ‘As corporate entities, educational institutions of higher learning are inherently endowed with the right to establish their policies, academic and otherwise, unhampered by external controls or pressure.’”

The school’s administration, then, has the right to hire or fire teachers. Teachers cannot claim academic freedom as a defense against being fired.

In the United States, someone can be fired just by saying, “You’re fired.” Says Ronald B. Standler in “Academic Freedom in the USA”: “Untenured professors are at-will employees. Under the doctrine of at-will employment, an employer can dismiss an employee for any reason, no reason at all, or even a morally repugnant reason.”
Fortunately, because we are a bit more protective of the rights of workers, we need due process to fire a teacher in the Philippines. Nevertheless, after such due process, a teacher can still be fired for not following school regulations, even if these regulations are not academic (such as wearing a uniform, not smoking on campus, or observing office hours).

Our Court of Appeals made this crystal clear: “Academic freedom does not mean that a faculty member cannot be dismissed.” (25 August 2005, CA-G.R. SP No. 83614, Far Eastern University vs. National Labor Relations Commission and Feliza Samaniego.)

If this sounds like a brief for school administrators faced with disciplining unruly faculty members, that is because it is. I am tired of hearing teachers use the term “academic freedom” every time they feel harassed by administrators.

There are, however, certain teachers that can legitimately claim academic freedom when they defy school administrators ordering them to teach in a certain way. Such teachers are not many, but they still constitute a distinct class of intellectuals that have to be exempted from school rules, not just operational procedures, but even academic policies (such as adhering to a prescribed syllabus or textbook, or in the case of a sectarian school, teaching according to the tenets of a particular religion).

These are the intellectuals referred to in Cardinal Newman’s “The Idea of a University.” They are the think tank of the world. They are the reason the idea of academic freedom was born.

Who are, without any doubt, entitled to academic freedom?

Only tenured professors in a university, who have doctorates, who have published in peer-reviewed academic journals, and who follow non-academic school policies.

These are the privileged individual scholars entitled to teach whatever they want in whatever way they want. No school can dictate to them what to teach or how to teach. In a sense, the academic freedom of a school ends where the academic freedom of these scholars begin.

Unfortunately for the human race, there are very few of these scholars. Not everyone teaching even in a prestigious university has the qualifications needed to join this elite group.

Why is tenure required? Because non-tenured professors still have not earned the total respect of their peers in the university. That is why they are non-tenured. The other faculty members or the administrators of a school do not trust them enough yet to give them the assurance that they can stay in the school permanently. They are still under probation. They are still being judged by their peers.

Why are doctorates required? Because only the doctorate is the final, objective proof that a scholar has mastered everything that has to be mastered in a field. A doctoral dissertation includes what is known as a “review of the literature.” This is proof that the scholar has read everything previously written about his area of specialization. The dissertation advances knowledge in the field. By writing a doctoral dissertation, the scholar proves that she or he has done something no one else has done before. She or he has pushed the frontiers of knowledge.

Why is publishing in a peer-reviewed journal required? Because such publication is objective proof that other scholars in the field, especially those in other universities and in other countries, respect the professor. Acceptance by peers is crucial in determining whether one should be allowed to challenge received wisdom. After the dissertation, only publication in a peer-reviewed journal serves as a gauge of originality and validity of thought.

Why is adherence to non-academic school policies required? I personally do not believe that academically free professors should follow school policies, because such policies are made by people that, by definition, are the intellectual inferiors of such professors. But the law is unfortunately on the side of administrators.

Our Court of Appeals thinks so. In Far Eastern University vs. National Labor Relations Commission and Feliza Samaniego, the Court said, “Academic freedom affords a faculty member the right to pursue his studies in his particular specialty. Academic freedom does not mean that a faculty member cannot be dismissed.” (25 August 2005, CA-G.R. SP No. 83614)

American law is even clearer. Here is a typical decision: “Academic freedom is not a license for activity at variance with job related procedures and requirements, nor does it encompass activities which are internally destructive to the proper function of the university or disruptive to the education process.” [Stastny v. Central Washington University, 647 P.2d 496, 504 (Wash.Ct.App. 1982), cert. denied, 460 U.S. 1071 (1983)]

In fact, American law is even more stringent. Here is another decision: “But we do not conceive academic freedom to be a license for uncontrolled expression at variance with established curricular contents and internally destructive of the proper functioning of the institution.” [Clark v. Holmes, 474 F.2d 928, 931 (7thCir. 1972), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 972 (1973)]

My own opinion is that academic freedom for those individuals satisfying the criteria cannot be restricted by the institution, except for non-academic matters (such as punctuality, attendance, submission of grades on time, wearing of uniforms). Inside the classroom, academically free professors should be able to do whatever they want, as long as it is in the area of their expertise.

Why? Because that is the whole point of academic freedom. There should be individuals allowed to think unthinkable thoughts, teach unteachable things, publish unpublishable ideas. These are the individuals that really are at the cutting edge of knowledge. Without them, the human race is doomed. Without them, we will stagnate, unable to produce ideas that change the world.


(Published in The Philippine Star, 7, 14, 28 February, 6, 13 March 2008)

Global Literacy

A visitor asked me if I had written any article on global literacy. Yes, I have. It appeared in Fusion: Papers Read at FUSE Assemblies, volume 2 (December, 2000). I delivered it on 26 October 1999 to members of the Foundation to Upgrade the Standard of Education (FUSE) in Manila. Here is the unedited file I retrieved from my computer:

To prepare Filipino students for the 21st century, educators must make them globally literate. Global literacy is the amount of information that a person needs in order to live in the world. Global literacy is made up of three elements: cultural literacy, scientific literacy, and multiple literacies. Global literacy for a Filipino is the amount of information that a Filipino needs in order to live in a Philippines that is situated in a global village. Philippine Global Literacy is nothing else but literacy for a global Philippines.

Fellow educators, ladies and gentlemen:

What I want to talk about this morning should be – and will be, when I go on sabbatical – a book. Necessarily, then, this talk will be sketchy, but I hope anyway to give a little bit of flesh to the idea I am going to try to sell to you today.

Today I want to sell you an idea – the idea of literacy, not the literacy that comes with being able to read and write, but the kind of literacy that makes a person literate. I want to sell you the idea of global literacy, not global only in the sense of transcending the physical and geographical boundaries of our archipelago, but global in the sense of encompassing not just culture or what has been called cultural literacy, not just science and technology or what has been called scientific literacy, but all types of literacy, including multiple literacies or the different literacies based on multiple intelligences.

Since most of you are familiar with these types of literacy anyway, let me very quickly review them with you.

First, cultural literacy. In 1981, a literary critic from the University of Virginia, E. D. Hirsch Jr., electrified the academic community by claiming that he had found a way to solve the problem of poverty in the United States. At the annual convention of the world’s largest professional association of literary critics – the Modern Language Association of America, to which I belong, which has about 35,000 members around the world – Hirsch outlined a theory of reading that eventually became known as Cultural Literacy and, today, as Core Knowledge. That talk was published in the periodical The American Scholar in 1983 and attracted the attention of Exxon Education Foundation, which funded Hirsch’s subsequent work. Soon, the US Federal Government also got wind of the project and the Cultural Literacy or Core Knowledge movement was born.

Said Hirsch in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, the book that became a bestseller in the United States in 1987: “That children from poor and illiterate homes tend to remain poor and illiterate is an unacceptable failure of our schools, one which has occurred not because our teachers are inept but chiefly because they are compelled to teach a fragmented curriculum based on faulty educational theories. Some say that our schools by themselves are powerless to change the cycle of poverty and illiteracy. I do not agree. They can break the cycle, but only if they themselves break fundamentally with some of the theories and practices that education professors and school administrators have followed over the past fifty years.”

What were these outdated and harmful theories and practices? Basically, they were the educational theories and practices popularized by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and John Dewey (1859-1952). Rousseau, at least as Hirsch interpreted him, “thought that a child’s intellectual and social skills would develop naturally without regard to the specific content of education.” In his famous book Schools of To-morrow (1915), Dewey, following Rousseau, then attacked what he called “the piling up of information.” Said Hirsch: Dewey falsely “assumed that early education need not be tied to specific content.“ Needless to say, neither Rousseau nor Dewey lived in our Information Age, when information is crucial to any decision, whether personal or non-personal, whether cultural or scientific, whether educational or commercial.

The book Cultural Literacy, and its sequels – dictionaries and textbooks belonging to what is now known as The Core Knowledge Series: Resource Books for Grades One through Six – cited numerous studies and experiments to prove what is actually quite a simple insight, namely, that children do not learn by learning skills; they learn by learning facts. Information, in our information age, is what American children need, and Hirsch and his associates eventually identified the information – or core knowledge – that every American, in order to be a good American, should know. These pieces of information they distributed among the different levels of elementary schooling in the United States, and many American schools today use these facts in lieu of what, in the old days, used to be called Minimum Learning Competencies. Today, American education is working because American schoolchildren are memorizing a list of facts named collectively as Cultural Literacy, or what an American should know to be literate about American culture.

Hirsch defines Cultural Literacy succinctly in this way: “Cultural literacy,” he says, “is the network of information that all competent readers possess. It is the background information, stored in their minds, that enable them to take up a newspaper and read it with an adequate level of comprehension, getting the point, grasping the implications, relating what they read to the unstated context which alone gives meaning to what they read.” Core Knowledge, on the other hand, is defined similarly as, in Hirsch’s words, “a body of widely used knowledge taken for granted by competent writers and speakers in the United States. Because this knowledge is taken for granted rather than being explained when it is used, it forms a necessary foundation for the higher-order reading, writing, and thinking skills that children need for academic and vocational success. The universal attainment of such knowledge should be the central aim of curricula in our elementary schools, just as it is currently the aim in all world-class educational systems.” If you are wondering which world-class educational systems Hirsch is referring to here, they are those of Sweden, France, and Japan, systems that he calls “the highest-achieving and most egalitarian elementary school systems in the world.”

As defined by Hirsch, the literacy of American 17-year-olds in a 1985 study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress was less than 25%. You need not be a blind admirer of all things American to suspect that, if the cultural literacy rate in the United States is below 25%, the literacy rate in the Philippines cannot be anywhere near the much higher percentage we love to boast about.

Let us now shift to scientific literacy. Sometime in the eighties, the Public Opinion Laboratory at Northern Illinois University asked American adults questions about elementary scientific concepts. The result of the surveys showed that the scientific literacy rate in the United States was, at that time, not more than 7% Even American college graduates had a scientific literacy rate of only 17%. That is even less, we can see, than the cultural literacy rate.

In 1991, the founder and director of the Public Opinion Laboratory, Jon D. Miller, was named the first director of the International Center for the Advancement of Scientific Literacy (ICASL) by the Chicago Academy of Sciences. The ICASL coordinates efforts at raising scientific literacy levels in various industrialized nations.

In 1992, Richard Brennan, a technical consultant to numerous American government agencies, published a book entitled Dictionary of Scientific Literacy. Brennan’s insight was similar to that of Hirsch. Following the Illinois investigations, Brennan realized that American adults, even after school, could not understand the latest developments in science and technology. As James Rutherford of the American Association for the Advancement of Science put it in his Introduction to the book: “Life is complicated, and getting more-so, it seems, by the hour. One aspect of this – perhaps the central one of our times – is that science and technology have left the lab and the factory and are no longer the sole concern of scientists and engineers and their clients. Those fields of thought and action are now part of every one of our lives, no matter what our occupation, no matter where we live. Science, both basic and applied, has much to do with the nature of the work we do, how we travel and communicate, diseases we are prone to and those that no longer threaten us, what we eat, how we wage war, what we do to our surroundings and to other living creatures, and much else. Scientific literacy is the ticket for admission to such a world.”

Brennan defines Scientific Literacy succinctly in this way: “A scientifically literate person,” he says, “understands the vocabulary well enough to follow public debates about issues involving science and technology.” One does not need to be a scientist to be scientifically literate, just as one does not have to be an artist or a historian or a social scientist to be culturally literate.

A more detailed definition of scientific literacy may be found on the website of the Illinois Scientific Literacy Network (http://www.imsa.edu/project/isln). ISLN describes “scientific literacy habits of mind” in this way: “(1) The capacity to formulate questions; to seek, comprehend and use available information; to gather and interpret data; and to draw logical inferences in relation to an area of investigation; (2) The ability to comprehend and communicate the language, concepts, theories, and practices of science, mathematics, and technology in ways that promote mutual understanding, cooperative problem solving, and shared vision; (3) The awareness that science, mathematics, and technology are ongoing processes and growing disciplines that are constantly evolving and being refined through inquiry and open-ended investigation; (4) The awareness that science, mathematics, and technology are interdependent – that the tools and methods of each are interrelated and mutually supportive; (5) The understanding that science, mathematics, and technology have strengths and limitations in both theory and application, particularly as they relate to societal and ethical issues.”

What Brennan did in his dictionary was to select what, to him, were “those technical terms that are necessary for a broad understanding of a major science or those terms that nonspecialist readers will most likely want to know a little more about.” In terms of validity, Brennan’s list is open to a lot of questions, the way the Core Knowledge curriculum – which was the result of numerous surveys and studies – is not. But it is a list that has to be ingrained in the working memory of every American adult, and that is what is important.

Third, multiple literacies. In 1972, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Project Zero, which had been established in 1967 by Nelson Goodman primarily to help disadvantaged schools, Howard Gardner started trying to solve the same problem Hirsch was trying to solve, namely, the problem of poverty in the United States. Gardner’s solution was similar to that of Hirsch. Gardner realized that there was something very wrong with the way American schoolchildren were being taught. In 1983, he published a book entitled Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, in which he set forth the theory upon which he would base his later, more practical work. As described by his colleagues at Harvard, “this book challenged the traditional psychological view of intelligence as a single capacity that drives logical and mathematical thought. Instead, it proposed that all individuals possess seven independent intelligences. These, in combination, enable people to solve problems or fashion products with varying levels of skill.”

Initially, Gardner thought that there were only seven intelligences, namely, “linguistic and logical-mathematical (the styles of thinking measured most often on psychological tests), musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal (self-knowledge).” Since 1983, some other intelligences have been added to the list, such as naturalist intelligence and existential intelligence. (Since there is now something called “emotional literacy,” we should probably add “emotional intelligence.”) As explained on its website, “Multiple Intelligences (MI) theory, in a nutshell, is a pluralized way of understanding the intellect. Recent advances in cognitive science, developmental psychology and neuroscience suggest that each person's level of intelligence, as it has been traditionally considered, is actually made up of autonomous faculties that can work individually or in concert with other faculties.”

Gardner solved one of the limitations of both Hirsch and Brennan, that is, their exclusive focus on linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences, or what has traditionally been known as IQ. If literacy theory is to take into account all the latest advances in psychology and neuroscience, it must then start to compile information lists that are neither linguistic nor logical-mathematical, but based on the other types of intelligences. These lists, unfortunately, have not yet been compiled, even for American students or adults. Harvard’s Project Zero is known for its almost obsessive, therefore, very slow-paced acquisition of empirical evidence, and it will take a lot of surveys and studies to compile the list of Multiple Literacies.

We can, however, from Gardner’s later work, have an idea of what these multiple literacies should look like. In his Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity Seen through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi (1993), for instance, Gardner maps out the broad outlines of these multiple literacies. Look at the way he discusses Picasso’s spatial intelligence: [Picasso] “evinced skill in noticing visual details and arrangements, thinking in spatial configurations, remembering virtually every live and painted scene that he had ever witnessed.” Persons with spatial literacy would have, inside their memory, visual images of paintings. Particular paintings, thus, would have to be added to the lists done by Hirsch and Brennan, not to be memorized as words that are read, but as images that are seen.

Similarly, in his discussion of Stravinsky, whose intelligence was almost exclusively musical, Gardner focuses on “the importance of conventions and traditions” (which, of course, Stravinsky pushed to their limits). To the lists of Hirsch and Brennan, then, we must add musical pieces that have to be heard by the schoolchild, in addition to words that have to be read and paintings that have to be seen.

Even Freud’s personal intelligences – both interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences – are based, says Gardner, on a rich and solid literary background. Gardner realizes that Freud drew from “a panorama of sources, testifying to Freud’s command of the scientific literature, the classical literature, and the political and cultural events of his own and other eras.” Without knowing the words, images, and sounds in our hypothetically expanded cultural literacy list, persons cannot develop their interpersonal or intrapersonal intelligences.

In fact, even bodily intelligence, which would seem to be the least related to cultural literacy, needs the memory. Dancer Martha Graham, says Gardner, “turned out to be a remarkably quick learner of difficult styles and techniques – a prodigy in the bodily-kinesthetic sphere.” In other words, it is not only words that are read, images that are seen, or sounds that are heard that are necessary for multiple literacies, but even body movements that are actually done by the schoolchild.

If we put together all these types of literacies – Cultural Literacy, Scientific Literacy, and Multiple Literacies -- we have what I call Global Literacy.

I define Global Literacy very simply: it is the amount of information that a person needs in order to live in the world. This information is not all verbal (that is merely cultural literacy). It is also visual, aural, and kinaesthetic, in short, it is also multiple.

This sounds like all I’ve done is to put together the insights of three key thinkers of our time and given the sum a name. I daresay that would be no mean achievement in itself, but it is not exactly very significant. What I want to push, on the contrary, is that the sum of these literacies is greater than the sum of its parts. But that is only my theory, and it is a theory that I will have to support through my future book.

But instead of talking on the level of theory, let me give you an idea of how all this works in practice. How is global literacy working in practice in the United States?

Hirsch made a list of facts that should be known by every American schoolchild by the end of sixth grade. Brennan made a list of scientific terms that should be known by every adult American. Harvard will, sooner or later, come out with its own list of facts that should be known by every American, child or adult. The list of Hirsch, as I have already mentioned, has become the basis of curricular reform in the United States.

In contrast, in the Philippines, we have not yet made even an initial list of facts for our own schoolchildren to learn. We are still using what we call Elementary Learning Competencies and Philippine Secondary School Learning Competencies, which are, by and large, still dependent on the long discredited educational theories of Rousseau and Dewey.

Let me give just one little example. Let’s take Grade 1. Since I know you are all very interested in the teaching of English, let’s take the Elementary Learning Competencies for English for Grade 1 as promulgated by DECS in 1997. We can see from the Introduction to the English Competencies that our curriculum developers still swear by the ideas of Rousseau and Dewey. This belief is explicit: “Language learning,” says DECS, “is not only product oriented but process oriented.” That would be all right if, in fact, the competencies focused both on process and on product, but in reality, practically all the competencies listed for all grade levels, and not just for Grade 1, are process oriented. One example is typical. DECS asks our students to “talk about topics of interest from 2 to 3 sentences, e.g., My Pet, My Family.”

In contrast, and I hate to use Hirsch again, but we have no choice because there are no local examples handy, the Grade 1 curriculum of Hirsch makes the student memorize the verse “Thirty Days Hath September.” There is only one way to know which months have 30 and which months have 31 days, and that is to memorize the pattern. This is not process; this is result. This is a topic that should be of interest, of much more significance in terms of the child’s future than a pet or even a family. And this is just one example out of dozens of key curricular decisions.

In fact, one problem is that we were all brought up in a system of education founded on Rousseau and Dewey. That is why, instinctively, we do not like it when people like Hirsch, Brennan, and Gardner challenge the way we were brought up. We unconsciously think that we should teach the way we were taught. Well, the world today is drastically, qualitatively different from the world in which we grew up. It is now virtually a virtual world, with everyone wired and connected to everyone else. We cannot raise our children to be exactly as we are – globally illiterate, unable to put together what we think and how we feel, unable to cite facts about our history, unable to describe the latest scientific breakthroughs, unable to use our multiple intelligences. Put simply, we are, most of us adults anyway, globally illiterate. But we have a chance to change the world through our children. We must make our children globally literate. We must give them a chance. We must give ourselves a chance.

Theory has given us a clue as to where we should be going. Cultural Literacy, if you will recall, correctly theorized that each nation needs a different set of information in order to become and to remain a nation. We can thus define Filipino Global Literacy as the amount of information that a Filipino needs in order to live in a Philippines that is situated in a global village, or, in other words, we can say that Philippine Global Literacy is nothing else but literacy for a global Philippines.

I know that there are persons here today that can institute policies and programs to inculcate global literacy in our students. I challenge all of us to drop our ELCs and PSSLCs and our instinctive defense of skills-building and our kneejerk reaction against memorization. I challenge us to examine ourselves to see if we are educating students who will move into the Information Age that is the 21st century or who will remain in the process-oriented age that is the 20th century. I challenge us to turn our backs on Rousseau and Dewey.

The 21st century will be a century of global literacy. Actually, I am not talking about the future here, nor perhaps even about the present. Paradoxically, I am actually asking us to return to the past, the distant past.

Global literacy is not anything new. In fact, it is very old. It was first articulated, as far as I know, by the legendary Emperor Chang of China in 2500 B.C. Emperor Chang formulated the tautology or self-referring definition shih yen chih. This is a tautology, because the character for shih is the combination of the characters for yen and chih.

In English, shih yen chih roughly translates into poetry expresses intent. I say roughly, because Emperor Chang was not talking of what we now know as poetry, which is basically musical language, but of all linguistic utterances. He was also not talking of what we now call intent, or something more or less limited to certain faculties we have, but of our total personality. At that time, there was no artificial distinction made between mind and heart, thought and emotion, intellect and will. Later, Confucius would take shih yen chih and make it even more concise with his concept of jen, which as you know encompasses not only a person’s total being but even a whole community’s total being.

Chih does not separate mind and heart or idea and feeling. Just as in the Confucian jen, a person’s intent is whole or global; what one thinks is how one feels, and vice versa. It is not what Western poets eventually called the “dissociation of sensibility,” the division of labor, so to speak, or, in technical terms, a binarization of left brain & right brain, male & female, body & soul, human & nature. Chih or jen or global literacy is a totality, a Oneness, what Plato called The One, what philosophers call Being, what Christians call God. To be globally literate is to be true to oneself, for as poets so well put it, only one true to oneself can be true to others.

I started by saying that I came to sell you an idea, but it is not just an idea I have talked about, but an approach to education, perhaps an approach to life. Let us be one with each other. Let us be one with the rest of the world. Let us be global and literate. Let us be globally literate.

Tips for Young Writers at a Workshop

1. So far, you have focused mainly on craft, on yourself as a writer. Let me now pull you back, zoom out, take you back to the context in which you find yourself. Let us talk a little bit about yourself as a writer in society, in the country, in the global community, in an environment that is rapidly degenerating.

2. But I don’t mean that you should write about your society, your country, the global community, or the environment. That would be the end of your being a writer.

3. You should write only about yourself. But you must make yourself worth writing about.

4. You owe it to the world to write. That is your contribution to humanity and development and progress and the environment. You must write. And you must write with all the energy and talent that you have.

5. There is no such thing as a part-time writer. Look at Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Gary Kasparov, Lisa Macuja, Cecile Licad. You have to be obsessed with writing. You have to be so obsessed that you do not do anything else but write. There can be no compromises with your art. All pianists and painters and dancers practise their art five, ten hours a day. You must also. You must also write ten hours a day. Otherwise, give it up right now, right here. If you cannot see yourself sitting down in front of a computer or typewriter or a blank sheet of paper for hours, forget about being a writer.

6. Why do you think the Philippines has not produced a Nobel prize winner? We certainly have the talent. Everyone that has been with you in this writers' workshop has the talent to win a Nobel prize. Believe me, we are better writers than many of those that have won recently. But no one in this country is going to win the Nobel today because no one among Filipinos works full time at writing. You cannot be the best in something if you are doing something else.

7. But you have a chance to be a full-time writer. You will be a writer in the next millenium, and times will change, have changed.

8. You have to make yourself a better writer. Because writing does not come from nothing, and because all good writing comes from personal, not just vicarious, experience, you must experience everything, I mean everything. It is time for you to be friends with all kinds of people, not just your kind of people. It is time for you to go up the mountains and breathe for yourself the air that is there. It is time for you to go to Makati and dress up and try to get through the corporate jungle. It is time for you to have sex. It is time for you to fall in love, deeply and without restraint, and then to be rejected completely unexpectedly, to lose the greatest love of your life. You have to experience everything, if you want to be a writer.

9. You may point to Emily Dickinson and say that she never experienced anything. But read her letters, and you will see that she did. She fell in love with a married man, and that love colored everything she wrote. She knew how birds felt as they came down the walk, because she had herself been lonely. Or you may say that Shakespeare wrote about political things when he was a mere actor. But he wasn’t. Recent scholarship has shown that Shakespeare was a fugitive from Elizabethan justice, because he was deeply involved in a coup plotted by Prince John against Queen Elizabeth. He was as political as anyone, and you can see it in his plays. Or you may wonder why Amado Hernandez wrote such powerful novels, or of course Jose Rizal, and all you have to do is look at how they lived, how they experienced everything, particularly Rizal. Only one who had gone around the world and lived in poverty and in riches could have created the characters Elias and Ibarra. You cannot write from nothing.

10. You must give up everything for writing. You owe that to your society, to your country, to the world, to nature. Above all, you owe it to yourself.

(These are my notes for a lecture I delivered at the National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City, Philippines, in 1997.)

Sex and the Bible

While rummaging through some old files, I found this article I wrote ages ago.

Is the Bible pornographic?

In these days [1972] when the sword of legislation is hanging once again over the heads of those who think it proper to print or to film stories about man’s sexual nature, another glance at the book least likely to be banned by the Board of Censors or by the Bureau of Posts might be of some help.

Few literary critics will maintain that there is no such thing as pornography, but most literary critics would contest the definition of pornography as anything that deals with the sexual activities of man or uses words that are normally associated with the sexual act. Even moralists would not say that the simple use of words such as “semen,” “vagina,” “intercourse,” “clitoris,” “fuck,” and “coitus” constitutes pornography. But some senators and generals apparently think themselves much more knowledgeable than literary critics or moralists and are preparing legal swords that will, unwittingly, render the Bible suspect and pornographic.

For anyone who has read the Bible knows that sexual imagery and sexual subject matter are important features of this book said to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is full of words that, in a modern book, would make the censors think twice. “Fuck” is an English word, but it is a safe bet that its Hebrew equivalent was used in the passages now harmlessly translated into “go in to her.”

“Fuck” (or “go in to her,” as the modern English translation puts it) is used in several places, among them, Genesis 38:2: “There Judah saw the daugher of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; he married her and went in to her.” In Judges 16:1, “Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a harlot, and he went in to her.” The book of rules, Deurenonomy, is explicit about what it forbids: “If any man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and then spurns her, and charges her with shameful conduct … then the father of the young woman and her mother shall take and bring out the tokens of her virginity” (22:13-15).

The old Jews were very particular about menstruation and wet dreams. In Leviticus, the law provided that “if a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water, and be unclean until the everning” (15:16). The emission of semen became more complicated if the man were married or had a mistress: “If a man lies with a woman and has an emission of semen, both of them shall bathe themselves in water, and be unclean until the evening” (15:18). One wonders if a Filipino author can get away so easily using the word “semen” in a short story.

One of the more interesting habits of the Old Testament people was that, after a big battle, they would collect the foreskins (the fold of skin that covers the end of the penis) of their enemies and pile them neatly in one mound as a sign of victory. (The Indians in cowboy movies content themselves with their victims’ scalps.) Use of the word “foreskin” was so much taken for granted that one of the beautiful theological metaphors in Deuteronomy uses the image: “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn” (10:26).

But even if modern purists will excuse the use of so-called “bad words” in the contexts above, the Bible still offers sexual subject matter as fair game to the censors. Seduction is the theme of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:7-19). Adultery is the theme of the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:2-5). Incest is the shocking meaning of Lot’s being “raped” by his two daughters (Genesis 19:30-36). Tape is added to incest in the story of Ammon, David’s son, and his sister Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1-14). Premarital sex is not even a matter for debate in the story of Samson and Delilah (Judges 16:4-20).

Ribald tales, such as those which appear in certain magazines, seem to be below the dignity of a holy book, but the Bible has a genuine ribald tale in the sotry of Susanna (Daniel 13).

But the most offensive (in the sense that the word is used by modern Victorians) is the Song of Solomon, a full eight chapters of erotic poetry. The song, which is considered one of the most beautiful poetic expositions of the relationship between Christ and his Church, is full phrases not normally associated with deeply religious feelings. The lover is “to me a bag of myrrh, that lies between my breasts” (1:13). The woman longs for the horizontal position (otherwise known as the missionary position): “O that his left hand were under my head, and that his right hand embraced me” (2:6). The woman’s “two breasts are like two fawns” (4:5). The lover makes his desire obvious in “You are stately as a palm tree and your breasts are like its clusters / I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches / Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine” (7:7-8).

Breasts, incidentally, figure prominently in the Lord’s metaphor of Samaria and Jerusalem in Ezekiel 23:2-3: “There were two women, daughters of one mother; they played the harlot in Egypt; they played the harlot in their youth; there their breasts were pressed and their virgin bosoms handled.”

It might be an uncharitable thought, but those who claim that they are guardians of morality might do best to read that sourcebook on morality, unless, of course, the Bible is going to be banned for all children unless read aloud to them by their parents.


(Published in PIC: The Ultimate Magazine, August 1972)

Today, essays such as this abound on the Web. For example:
http://home1.gte.net/deleyd/religion/biblesex.html
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/sex/long.htm

Fr. Miguel A. Bernad SJ

Of the many things in my life I regret doing or not doing, one thing I regret very much is not having met the deadline to contribute to the festschrift in honor of Miguel A. Bernad SJ, now published by Xavier University as a special issue of Kinaadman (Wisdom): A Journal of the Southern Philippines (volume 29, 2007).

I regret this act of omission for two main reasons.

First, I would have loved to bask in the reflected glory of such writers as Gemino H. Abad, Patricio N. Abinales, Gregorio C. Brillantes, Linda Ty Casper, Leonard R. Casper, Edna Zapanta Manlapaz, Christine Godinez Ortega, Azucena G. Uranza, and the other contributors to the volume, all of whom took the time to write essays in honor of the country’s pioneer in the field of literary criticism.

Second, I owe a lot to Fr. Bernad.

While I was with the Society of Jesus, he was my regular bridge partner. He played (maybe still plays) bridge the way he writes – looking not at the most efficient or coldblooded way of winning tricks or points at the table, but at the most elegant.

I learned a lot from him about how to survive the brickbats that inevitably come across a writer’s way. He simply labels people of lesser intelligence and breeding as “obnoxious.” Being obnoxious, such critics or crabs are not allowed to enter his select universe and, therefore, do not matter and cannot affect his writing.

He has always been one of my models for good teaching. He does not come into the classroom with a book or textbook that he then merely paraphrases or elaborates on. He teaches from books implanted in his mind. He infuses literary texts with wisdom gained from years of study and experience. He quotes from Shakespeare and Dante (and, of course, the Bible) from memory. I have a terrible memory, but during the few times that I recite lines of poetry from memory in my classes, I always see the eyes of my students light up. Nothing can inspire students to read more than a teacher quoting a book from memory.

As a colleague in the Manila Critics Circle, he has always been very supportive of our efforts to establish a reading culture in the country. Several times in the recent past, he has tried to resign from the group, citing his difficulty reading with his failing eyesight, but at all those times, I have simply ignored his letters of resignation. I think he understands what I am trying to do with the Circle. I want not just to capitalize on his name, but to have him around to exploit his wisdom. He contributes to the group what none of us have – personal experience of having lived and worked during those earlier times when our literature was still inchoate, because writers were just starting to learn how to write in English after having learned how to write in Spanish. In the Circle, he is our sense of history.

On the rare occasions when he disagreed with the views of the majority of the members of the Circle, he would lay down his arguments in pure classical fashion, with a logic that even those of us already in the postmodern mode could appreciate.

I am sorry I could not attend the joint academic convocation last Dec. 18 of Xavier University, Ateneo de Davao University, and Ateneo de Zamboanga University conferring on Fr. Bernad an honorary doctorate. (It was the first time the three universities conferred a common degree on anyone.) I hope my absence will not qualify me for inclusion in his list of obnoxious people.

Thank you, Fr. Bernad, not only for the kind words you said about me in the Festschrift, but for the kind deeds you have been doing all these forty years I have known you. (The Philippine Star, 27 December 2007)