The Rainmaker's take on the government, the russian mob, and cheap-ass zombies

A friend--a learned law school professor--taught me once, when I was still one of her students that Marcos institutionalized graft and corruption within the framework of the Philippine government. That may be true, but while the late strongman Marcos these days is as stiff as my dick on a Sunday morning--lying there chilled in his goddam glass sarcophagus in forgottenland--the cumulative ill-effects on Philippine governmental culture still haunts us Filipinos to this very day. The government has mutated from being the organization where the will of the people are formulated, expressed and realized to just The Organization whose workings are very similar to that of the Russian mob.

Here's a little background on the Ruskie mob: The breakthrough for the so-called Russian Mafia occurred during the economic disaster and mass emigration of the 1990s that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. Many former government officials turned to crime, others joined the large numbers of Soviet citizens who moved overseas primarily to the United States and the Mafia became a natural extension of this trend. Former KGB agents, sportsmen and veterans of the Afghan and Chechen Wars, now finding themselves out-of-work but with experience in areas which could prove useful in crime, joined the increasing crime wave. The Russian Mob's own members have been known to call their crime group "Организация" ("The Organization").

However, unlike the Russian mob, notorious for its underground operations and clean transactions, the crime organizations operating under the cloak of Philippine government is not known for its secrecy and non-flamboyant manner. These assholes have no shame whatsoever. Under the guise of a republican government, these motherfuckers are characteristically sloppy and have no sense of honor in any sense of the word. Endless barrages of mudslinging and all sorts of dirty tactics have exposed almost each and every one politician as a corrupt crook. I am sure you have all seen the imp and her evil houseband's picture at ZTE's. The Palace admitted that the picture was legit but tried to dismiss the controversial issue as "a mere social call with ZTE officials" and that it "should not be blown out of proportion." A social call my ass. Further, it is my good looks that should not be blown out of proportion, not the ZTE scandal. (BTW, some movie and TV guy in the past told me to call him if I ever wanted to be an artista when I was a teen-ager, but my father said he would disown me and strip me off my heritage if I jumped in the swine-pit world of show-business. So here I am, a lawyer for the public and the default consigliere for the family.) In the Senate, the government pawns who testified under the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee denied all allegations that their boss ever had a meeting with ZTE bigwigs. Now which is which? I understand that the evidence against the duende are circusmstantial, but the rules of evidence provide under Section 4 of Rule 133, that--

Circumstantial evidence is sufficient for conviction if:

(a)There is more than one circumstance;

(b)The facts from which the inferences are derived are proven; and

(c)The combination of all the circumstances is such as to produce a conviction beyond reasonable doubt.

What more can we ask for? An open court admission? Let's get real. Even a street thief wouldn't do such a thing. At least not without some torture or threat of an ass-fucking. Maybe that's what GMA needs, a threat of an ass-fucking by the multitudes of people she had screwed.

Just a few months ago, I was listening to my morning shows on the car's AM radio and I heard one funny-ass comment from Erap. He said something to this effect: "The GMA administration is like a book with a very thick cover. They are very good at making cover-ups." Erap sure has his moments. I almost rammed the goddam jeepney in front of me as I was laughing my dick off after hearing that ridiculous interview. Funny shit, but that goes deep man. Fuckin' Deep. Some friends of mine, not me, but some friends I have believe that president evil and her organization of filthy ass amateur crooks are responsible for the Glorietta bombing, the sky-rocketing oil price hikes, the rice crisis, and even our huge-ass electric bills. They insist that all of these problems we are facing are the brainchild of the government aimed at covering up the multi-million dollar scams they pull on us every single fuckin' time the opportunity arises. I do not agree. They are not that smart. Certainly, they are not part of the solution and part of the goddam general problem but I think it is hasty and erroneous to conclude that they are the proximate cause of these problems. If I believe that they are, I'd probably holding an automatic Kalashnikov (IMO the new tommy gun) right now and not my fountain pen.

Corruption is defined (in Wikipedia) as a general concept describing any organized, interdependent system in which part of the system is either not performing duties it was originally intended to, or performing them in an improper way, to the detriment of the system's original purpose. Its original meaning has connotations of evil, malignance, sickness, and loss of innocence or purity. The corruption in the Philippines is so deeply rooted, that if you trace back its origin, you'd end up in Spain. And, if you go back further, you'll find its origins in China. I do not want to talk about that aspect of this topic because I know, that even if I do not look it, I might have some Spanish or Chinese blood flowing through my veins, like most Flips.

Corruption is a dysfunction which encompasses bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. Rizal said it is a disease similar to cancer with no known cure. Some cancers have vaccines now and some are made currently curable by the advances made by modern medicine. Perhaps the martyr's description has become inaccurate for our times. Perhaps corruption is like a zombie bite. Once you get bitten, you transform into an undead zombie like zombie movie-nuts see in those cheap-ass zombie movies. If that's the case, the only way to cure the corrupted is to blow its head off with a shotgun or cut the damn thing with a bad-ass motorized chain-saw. The only problem is that in those zombie movies, everybody else but the hero and the girl dies. Only they see the sunlight after the overnight onslaught. Now who's the gonna be the hero and the girl? Not me. I'm just a family man who has friends who have some more friends. I cannot afford to play hero and try to chop zombie heads. I just hope the family and these zombies can do business. If not, let's just say that someday maybe I'll make them an offer even they cannot refuse.

Mediocrity

The traditional formulation of the Copernican mediocrity principle is usually played out in the following way: Ancients of the Middle East and west once thought that the Earth was at the center of the universe, but Copernicus proposed that the Sun was at the center. This heliocentric view was confirmed a hundred years later by Galileo, who demonstrated with a telescope that Jupiter's moons orbited Jupiter and that Venus must orbit the Sun. In the 1930s, RJ Trumpler found that the solar system was not at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy (as Jacobus Kapteyn claimed), but 56% of the way out to the rim of the galaxy's core. In the mid-twentieth century, George Gamow (et al.) showed that although it appears that our Galaxy is at the center of an expanding universe (in accordance with Hubble's law), every point in space experiences the same phenomenon. And, at the end of the twentieth century, Geoff Marcy and colleagues discovered that extrasolar planets are quite common, putting to rest the idea that the Sun is unusual in having planets. In short, Copernican mediocrity is a series of astronomical findings that the Earth is a relatively ordinary planet orbiting a relatively ordinary star in a relatively ordinary galaxy which is one of countless others in a giant universe, possibly within an infinite multiverse. (Source: wikipedia)

As a way of life, I despise mediocrity. I always try to strive to be the best at what I do. More accurately, I set a standard for myself which is always above the average. That way of thinking is what led me away from the sport of basketball. As a child, I loved the game. I even had an authentic green laminated Boston Celtics poster proudly displayed on a wall in my (well, mine and my brother's) room. I played varsity ball for elementary school. I thought I was really good. I scored an average of 8-12 points a game and had about the same number of assists as an off-guard. On my first year of high school, my hoop dreams were shattered. I transferred back to the University of Santo Tomas (I started elementary school there, but transferred to Bulacan). I was 12 years old and had classmates as tall as PBA players. All the kids who played basketball were at least 5'8" on their freshmen year. A couple were as big as 6' tall. I got my fair share of hard bumps, sharp falls, and nasty basket rejections. That resulted to a whole lot of (kid) brawls for me. No one could make me look like a fool even as a kid without risking having my foot in his ass. I decided after 3 or 4 games (fights) with these kids that basketball, although I enjoyed the game very much, was not mine. I found out that basketball was not for everyone. That game is only for the tall. Don't get me wrong, I'm no pip-squeak, I'm about as tall as Robert Downey Jr., or George Clooney--just not basketball tall. (Maybe soon I'll post a blog entry about basketball and perhaps other sports)

When I was born, I was the center of the universe for my parents, my grand-parents, my uncles and aunts. I am the first-born son among my brothers, sisters and all first cousins. I was their Copernican sun. When my first-born son (or daughter) is born this November, he (or she) would be like me, first-born among all in his generation. He (or she) will become our Copernican sun. If drowning on the depths of mediocrity means having your own dreams made flesh, then I would love to be labeled mediocre. I can't wait to see my reflection at the sparkle of my baby's eyes.