As Tears Go By

A favorite Rolling Stones song from 1965:

I wasn’t yet born when this song became a hit.  In fact, I was already in high school when I first heard it.  This was back in the pre-CD days.  I had bought an LP (long playing record) which was a compilation of the Rolling Stones’ greatest hits.  I bought it from a classmate whose father owned and ran a record store in Cubao, Quezon City.  There was only one reason why I bought that LP and that was because I enjoyed listening to “Satisfaction”,  one of the Stones’ earliest rock hits and the only Stones song I was familiar with.

The LP proved to be my introduction to other Rolling Stones tunes such as Paint It Black, Get Off My Cloud, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, and Gimme Shelter, to name a few.  Listening to the other tracks on the album, As Tears Go By was kind of a surprise because the musical style was a departure from the rock and blues format the Stones used in all of their other songs.

The song was a ballad and was written by band members Mick Jagger and Keith Richards along with their then manager, Andrew Loog Oldham.  It was written in 1964 but did not become a hit for the Rolling Stones until its release late the following year as part of their album “December’s Children (And Everybody’s)”.

Though simple, the words are thoughtful and reflective and speak of lost innocence.  I enjoyed its music when I was in my teens.  I appreciate its meaning now that I’m in my forties.

Let me just share a video of a live performance of this song from back in 1966.  It’s hard to give it a good listen because of the screaming fans but it’s nice to see a young Mick Jagger and Keith Richards back in the day when both were still in their early 20s.

It is the evening of the day,
I sit and watch the children play;
Smiling faces I can see
But not for me;
I sit and watch
As tears go by.

My riches can’t buy everything,
I want to hear the children sing;
All I hear is the sound
Of rain falling on the ground;
I sit and watch
As tears go by.

It is the evening of the day,
I sit and watch the children play;
Doin’ things I used to do
They think are new;
I sit and watch
As tears go by.

A Torch Has Been Passed

…to a new generation of Filipinos.

His stints in both chambers of Congress have been pretty unremarkable.  I do not know of any law of national significance that he has authored.  However, when Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III announced a month or so ago that he was going to run for the highest office in the land, I must say that I found my usually skeptical self quite willing to give him a chance.

Yes, he does come from the country’s landowner class and his late dear mother belonged to one of the nation’s wealthiest families.  Yes, it is true that as a politician, his leadership skills and capabilities have not been fully tested.  Yes, both his parents had the ability and gift to rally people around their cause but the same can’t be said of him YET.   But there is something in this man that somehow tells me that he may end up being a good President, if not a great one.

Unlike his late mother though, Mr. Aquino didn’t toss his hat into the ring bearing the disadvantage of political inexperience.  He has been a member of the Philippine Congress for more than a decade now, having served as a member in both its upper and lower chambers. He has run his own political campaigns for office and has witnessed first hand how Philippine party politics work.

I don’t think we can also question the man’s personal courage and moral strength.  Unlike a great many of us, he has had to deal with the prolonged absence of a jailed father during the martial law years and the unbearable pain of his father’s subsequent assassination.  He himself had been the target of an assassination attempt back in 1989 when mutinous soldiers led by former Col. Gringo Honasan launched an unsuccessful coup attempt against his mother.  He and his bodyguards were ambushed by mutinous soldiers.  He was seriously wounded and three of his four bodyguards were killed.  Fragments of those bullets are said to be still lodged within his body to this day.

Unlike a lot of his peers who harbor Presidential ambitions, Mr. Aquino’s style has been decidedly low-key.  Don’t expect to see from him any of the chest-thumping and grandstanding antics that ambitious politicians often resort to just to gain public and media attention.  I may be wrong but in the 10 plus years that he’s been a politician, I haven’t seen Mr. Aquino make outlandish statements in public or in House/Senate subcommittee hearings for the sole purpose of landing himself on the evening news.

Unlike Malacanang’s current occupant who seems to have discarded the doctrine of separation of Church and State, I view it as an encouraging sign that Mr. Aquino has chosen to stand by his support of House Bill 5043 otherwise known as the “Reproductive Health and Population Development Act” even if he risked losing the support of the Catholic Church and the so-called “pro-life” groups.  He is showing quite a bit of spine here by going against the stand of an institution that was instrumental in bringing his late mother to power.  Not all Filipinos are Roman Catholics and thus, the cause of national unity will better be served if our leaders show that not one religion is afforded preferential treatment over the others.  In my humble opinion, it’s a very smart move on his part.  Through such a move, the ball is now on the Church’s court.  It forces them to reassess their position and see whether to go for an honest politician who happens to support the reproductive health bill or to throw their support behind another politician of unproven character.

But I also have my reservations about Mr. Aquino.  Mr. Aquino is part of the country’s landed elite, part of the Filipino Establishment.  So far, I haven’t seen any legislative and/or economic proposal from him that shows a strong willingness to shake the status quo.   I don’t know if he has the character and political will to go so far as to sacrifice his family’s economic and political interests for the sake of the country’s.  I’m afraid that he might take the conservative route where radical changes are required.  He has spent many years working under his mother’ shadow and that could work either for or against him.  He has good name recognition but to be honest with you, I think he hasn’t been impressive in tv interviews.  He has been a “big picture” guy so far but in the coming months, he must provide the people with more details on how he plans to solve the country’s problems.

I don’t know if this will come to pass but in my humble opinion, it could be good for the country if the 2010 Presidential elections feature a matchup between Senators Aquino and Francis “Chiz” Escudero.   Both are decent men who deep in their hearts, truly care for the country.  I have seen Senator Escudero appear on some morning tv shows.   Unlike a lot of his peers, Sen. Escudero tries his very best to explain legal issues in words that can be easily understood by the average person.  He often speaks in the vernacular and in a very calm demeanor.  One can see that he is doing his part to educate people and to lift the national discussion of issues to a higher level.

Mr. Escudero exudes dynamism, something that Mr. Aquino does not.  Mr. Escudero is a man rich with specific, detailed ideas on how to solve a number of the nation’s problems such as poverty, government reform, and the economy.  He simply doesn’t mouth off high-level, general statements about the nation’s problems.  He provides specific, detailed answers and solutions to those issues.  By doing so, he proves to his listeners that he has a very good command of the issue(s) he speaks of.  As a result, he commands a lot of support and respect from a lot of people, especially the youth.

Some held Mr. Escudero’s previous party affiliation as a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) against him due to that party’s close identification with former Marcos crony (and now GMA crony), Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco.  But aside from intelligence, Mr. Escudero’s other asset is that he has not been tainted by any corruption scandal.  The conservatives and entrenched interests in the party simply found some of his progressive ideas too radical that they decided to not support his run for the Presidency.  His proposals are just way too “people-oriented” for their comfort, short-sighted people that they are.  Now that he’s gone solo, maybe voters will give him a second look.

I say that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Filipinos (borrowing the words from JFK’s 1961 inaugural address) because for the first time, we are faced with the probability that the two leading candidates for the Presidency are men who were both born in the 1960s and who had lived through the martial law years, albeit on opposite sides of the political fence.  Both had a view of how life was like in the country during the pre-martial law, martial law, and post-martial law years.  Both saw how the country worked its way down from being Southeast Asia’s 2nd most prosperous nation (second only to Japan) in the 1960s to one of its poorest. They witnessed how the country got mired into tons of foreign debt due to the free-spending ways of the Marcoses, their cronies, and the political leaders that came after them.  They saw how the Peso lost its value from about P4 to $1 in the late 1960s to the P48 to $1 that it is today.  They saw how the population exploded out of control from a manageable 35 million in the late 1960s to a disastrous 90 million today.

The country deserves a serious Presidential contest with serious candidates to choose from.  Serious national problems require serious and thoughtful solutions.  With that view in mind, Messrs. Aquino and Escudero would be the top two candidates on my list.  No doubt that in the coming months, political opponents along with their hired guns in TV and in print will be throwing mud at these two gentlemen in an effort to undermine their character and their intentions.  But that is part of the game of Politics.  How Sens. Aquino and Escudero deal with all the accusations and attacks hurled against them will help show us either their inner strength or their inner weakness.

Photo Credit:  Keith Abongco/AKP Images

Uncivilized Conduct

I just want to share with you the following ESPN video about what took place during a recent women’s soccer match between Brigham Young University and the University of New Mexico:

Talk about uncivilized behavior.  You can see from the above video how the bitch named Elizabeth Lambert (sorry folks but I have a very hard time calling her a “lady”) “brutalized” the players of the opposing team.   Such rough, animal-like conduct has no place in civilized society.   A truly good athlete does not resort to injury-causing tactics against an opponent just to prove his/her superiority on the field.

Unfortunately, there are many examples of such bad behavior in sports.  We’ve seen free-for-alls erupt in games played in all continents.  It is inevitable that in the heat of battle, otherwise rational people sometimes let their emotions get the better of them.  But in this particular case, one sees a player who repeatedly engaged in rough conduct.  Her behavior clearly showed that for her, winning was everything.

The video above is now being shown all across the US and has rightly sparked a lot of outrage.  Her coach, thankfully, has suspended her indefinitely.  I hope that this woman gets the just punishment she deserves.  I also hope for the sake of the other players that she doesn’t set foot on a soccer field again.

That Structure on the Roof

Across the street from the hotel where I’m staying stands an old apartment building. From its looks, I am guessing that it’s probably at least 50 years old. It stands about 10 stories high and judging from its exterior, the building obviously suffers from lack of proper maintenance. The following picture shows the sight that greets me every time I open my hotel room window:

It shows the apartment building’s 10th floor and its rooftop. Please pay close attention to the structures on the rooftop. The concrete structures house the utility stairways that lead to the rooftop and, I’m assuming, the building’s water tanks. There are also non-concrete structures present, mostly built of wood, galvanized iron, and meshed wire. You will see that all of the non-concrete structures on the rooftop are used as storage sheds except for the one at the right. The one on the right looks like someone uses it as living quarters.

The rather thin layer of iron roofing ought to provide the structure’s resident with adequate shelter from the rain.  However, the roofing becomes more of a liability during very hot and humid days because its thinness hardly provides any buffer between the resident and the sun’s rays.  In fact, the thin metal sheet could even exacerbate the heat within that structure.  As a result, the temperature inside could be much higher than what it actually is outside. 

Unlike residents of the regular apartments on the lower floors, this structure does not have the benefit of any installed airconditioning unit and the absence could be due to a number of reasons.  One reason could be that its wooden walls are probably not strong enough to support the average window-type of airconditioner;  another reason could be either the lack or absence of appropriate wiring to support the power requirements of an AC unit in that particular section of the building; and lastly, it’s also possible that the resident simply decided not to have one installed. 

Let me switch gears now by saying that when I started writing this piece, my original intent was to simply write about that rooftop structure that caught my attention and piqued my curiosity.  I was almost done with organizing my geeky thoughts for this piece when the SO informed me that there are actually two or three Filipino women living in that structure.  She knows it for a fact because she actually saw them come out of that structure one morning to retrieve some clothes that they had hung out to dry. 

Thus, from wondering about an inanimate structure, I now started wondering about the people who have made it their home.  A different set of questions now came to mind.  How long have they lived in that structure?  How long have they been away from their families?  Are they related to each other or are they friends who decided to live together in one housing unit in order to save rent money?  Do their families back home know of where they live and how they live?  Do the folks back home know of the tremendous sacrifices these women are making in the hopes of a better future for their respective families?

I hope that they all eventually do well with their lives.  I hope that they don’t get to stay in such a structure for long.  I hope that when the day comes and it’s time for these women to come home, that a loving and grateful family will welcome them back with open arms and with gratitude and positive returns to show for their sacrifices.  Given all the hardship they’ve gone through for their families, it is only fair to say that these women certainly deserve no less.