The Gospel according to the Rainmaker

Jesus told His disciples a parable of a Sower who went out to scatter seeds in his field

Afterwards Jesus told another story to the people. This time he said: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seeds in his field; but while men slept an enemy came to the field and scattered bad seeds everywhere. These bad seeds are called tares. By and by the good seeds and the bad seeds both began to grow.

And after they became stalks, and heads of grain appeared, the servants of the man came to him and asked, 'Did you not sow good seeds in your field? How then are these tares growing everywhere beside the stalks of wheat?' The man answered, 'An enemy has sown the tares.' Then the servants asked, 'Shall we gather out the tares?' but the master said, 'Wait until the time for harvest, lest while you pull up the tares you also pull up stalks of wheat. When all are ripened together, I will send reapers to first gather out the tares and tie them into bundles to be thrown into the fire. Then they will gather the wheat and put it into my barn.'" When Jesus finished all his stories he sent the people away, and afterwards he left the boat and also returned to the city. Then the disciples asked him to explain the meaning of the story about the tares. Jesus said: "The good seed are the people of God; the field is the world; and the man who sowed the good seed is the Son of man. The bad seed, or tares, are the people of the wicked one, and the enemy is Satan.

The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. Just as the tares are gathered in bundles and thrown into the fire, so the wicked people will be separated from the good people at the end of the world. Then the good people will shine as brightly as the sun in the kingdom of God, their Father."

(Matt. 13:1-53; Mark 4:1-34)
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I was born a Roman Catholic, raised in Catholic schools, and like those kids who read the Holy Bible daily when they were kids, I once dreamed of becoming a priest. No kidding. In this poor country, not unlike doctors and lawyers, priests are one of those who belong to a vocation which guarantees daily bread and freedom from starvation. And unlike doctors and lawyers, priests do not have to look for work or apply for a job. When a man becomes a priest, he does what a priest does: he officiates masses, administers sacraments, and count the donations of the faithful. The faithful never fails to provide the church of its daily bread. Banks may go bankrupt and governments may sink neck-deep in foreign debt but the church will never run out of money. There is only one catch: a priest may never know the many mysteries behind married life. Probably, there may be some hoodlums who disguise themselves in robes and secretly enjoy the best of both worlds under the cover of night and shadow of convents and nunneries, or even sick and perverse ones who prey upon innocent sacristans to satisfy their hunger for lust, but percentage-wise most priests, IMHO, are faithful to the custom of clergy celibacy and remain content with masturbation or in the alternative, perhaps some serious pillow-fucking.

Anyway, I have been invariably going to church again every Sunday, thanks to my wife, who wouldn't have things go any other way. Usually, we hear mass on the local SM mall, but this morning, due to a series of coincidental events that I rather not describe in detail in this post, she decided that we go to Chapel 1 inside the defunct Clark Air Base. The Bible passage above is the topic of the priest's homily. Common in parish priests are the giving of bland homilies. Unless they are bishops or one of those TV priests, parish priests give sermons that only the slow-witted or those not listening would not know its defects both in logic and in the interpretation of scripture. Also, when delivering their sermons in English, they have the tendency to utilize language cliches like "in the final analysis" (Was there a first one?), "firstly" (not following up with "secondly"), etc., etc.. This particular priest, after telling some stories which are boring enough to make an acute insomiac sleep on the pew, interpreted this Sunday's Gospel to the effect that he's saying that the good grain are the good guys and the weed are the bad guys. I cannot help but explain the ridiculous folly of that interpretation.

Let me try to go and tinker with this priest's interpretation of the 2nd parable of the sower. He said the good grain are the good people (perhaps the faithful of his church, but no innuendo was made by him, or none was needed in a crowd of similar faiths), and they are sown by God. He also concluded that the weeds are the bad guys, sown by the enemy who is the Devil under the cover of night. And, in the end time, the grain shall be separated from the weed and the weed shall be put to fire. Meaning, the good guys will be kept by the Lord and the bad guys shall burn in hell.

If this is the case, then we will all go to heaven. Aren't we all good from the very start of our lives? Does not the holy sacrament of Baptism purge the vile consequence of Adam and Eve's original sin? If we are sown by God as grain, we will not turn into weeds. A grain seed will never become a weed even if it grows amongst weeds. In the end of time, God's angels will reap us all and keep us in God's company away from the evil weed.

What are the weeds? This priest concluded that the weed are evil men who will burn at the day of judgment. If this was true, then he is saying that all men do not come from God's grace--that some men are spawn of the Devil. Further, these evil men, from the moment they were born, are destined to burn in the fires of hell and suffer eternal damnation. If he is correct, then are we God's grain living with those of the devil on this earth? Some people may actually spawn of the devil.

To me, the priest's interpretation of this gospel is pure bullshit. Why, because it contradicts the very foundation of my faith. I believe in God-given free will. In the words of Don Domenico Clericuzio, "You could will yourself as a slave to earn your daily bread without dignity or hope or you earned your bread as a man who commanded respect." No man is ever destined to become a good grain or become an evil weed. No man is ever destined to become a fisherman or a lawyer. He wills himself to become a fisherman, or he wills himself to become a lawyer. Man is not an animal who live only through instincts and reflexes. To those who are familiar with the study of Criminal Law, this is called the "classical school of thought," to those who have been educated by Dominican friars, this is similar to Aquinas' concept of free will, and to those who do not fancy such bullshit, this just means that "every man is responsible for the consequences of his actions." This is the only dogma that I believe in. This is the stuff my faith in God is made of. God is the owner of an aquarium we call the universe. We are but man, we do not and cannot know His nature, just like the fish we have in the tank who cannot know ours.

This is the meaning of Jesus' gospel for this Sunday: God was the sower of the grain. The grain are all men he put in this earth, for no man is a sinner the day he is born. The weed are all the evil in this world--temptations, hardships, and the attractiveness of sin. Since we are good grain seed, having been chosen to be given life by God himself, we have the capacity to live amongst the weed and survive until the day of the harvest. Meaning, we have been given free will, or the capacity to resist evil and avoid sin. Perhaps this is the reason why God forbade His angels to weed out his crops. Those who chose not to shall die before the harvest, and their useless remains shall be burned along with the weed.

"The world is what it is, and we are who we are."

You hate me, I hate him

Hatred or hate is a word that describes intense feelings of dislike. It can be used in a wide variety of contexts, from hatred of inanimate objects to hatred of other people. Prejudice or Bigotry against an entire class of people (e.g. racism) are examples of hatred.

Philosophers have offered many influential definitions of hatred. Rene Descartes viewed hate as an awareness that something is bad, combined with an urge to withdraw from it. Baruch Spinoza defined hate as a type of pain that is due to an external cause. Aristotle viewed hate as a desire for the annihilation of an object that is incurable by time. Finally, David Hume believed that hate is an irreducible feeling that is not definable at all.

In psychology, Sigmund Freud defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness (source: wikipedia).

I say fuck faggot Freud and his gay shit. Descartes is right. (Now I know the etymology of the word, diskarte). You see something you don't like, you hate it. You withdraw from it. You stay away from it. You want it to have nothing to do with you. That is how simple the emotion of hate really is. You don't necessarily want to annihilate it like Aristotle would suggest, nor is it always a pain as described by Spinoza. Aristotle was gay too and Spinoza, well, was a Jew. My grandmother taught me when I was a small boy that Jews are bad people as they are the ones who crucified Christ. It's not that I really care about that shit, but hey, that's my grandmother who taught me that. She also told me that the Jews are like the Chinese, who are shrewd and cunning businessmen who kept to themselves and cheats the government on taxes. To her, all Jews and Chinese were evil merchants who tried to give her a bad bargain. God rest her soul in heaven. That's the reason why I find it hard to trust a Jew, or a Chink for that matter. No, my grandmother was not a Nazi.

(I am aware of the fact that the arguments I used against Freud, Aristotle and Spinoza are ad hominems but hell, I'm too lazy to do otherwise.)

Hate is cyclic and a common emotion felt by all people. Hate is cyclic because there is an orderly relation or a pattern of hate that progresses in a describable circular manner. Hate bites its tails, so to speak. It is common because all people have felt and will feel hate their whole lives. Now don't tell me somebody does not hate. Priests hate the devil, and in turn, (some) Muslims hate priests.

Hate is present in all aspects of our daily lives. It is present from the time we wake up, to the time we close our eyes to sleep. When I wake up and go to the bathroom to piss, I hate it when somebody is in there when I'm about to go, or whenever somebody did not flush to goddam toilet especially when there are still some residue of crap floating around fortuitously in the fucking bowl. When I eat my breakfast, I want to turn the TV on and watch the morning news show Unang Hirit, because I hate that SOB named A.T. on the other channel. I almost threw my plate once on the small screen after watching that fucker deliver his opinions on national TV like he knows shit. I hate that guy with a passion. I mean, who the fuck does he think he is? He's got absolutely no respect to the people he interviews on air and some of those people have made their bones probably when he was still sucking her mom's blackish tits. Not only that, he talks about issues and stuff that he doesn't have any inkling about like laws, government policy, and in general, the goddam English language. The only people who does not hate him are those folks who are as dumb or ever dumber than him. A.T. is one of the people in the media who thinks that they are gods and they can do whatever the fuck they want and say whatever the fuck they want to say. If I ever get a chance to meet him personally, I will probably collar him and whisper, "be very careful boy, this is the Philippines, where journalists and reporters get shot in the head or cemented alive in steel drums. This is my country, you just live here."

Then after breakfast, I drive to my wife and myself to work. I drive a sleeper Honda Civic Ferio from the mid-nineties, and I don't hate my car. I actually like it. But I absolutely hate most capampangan drivers. They are the absolutely the dumbest drivers in the world, tied at the bottom with Koreans. They have never heard of the signal light switch, or if they do discover the same serendipitously, they don't know how to properly use the damn thing. When they use the signal light to turn, they do it after making the corner. They haven't heard of the horn button too. But what kills me is that they drive insanely slow, especially on open roads. They speed up in traffic but they go 20-25 kph in a clear, well paved, and rain-dry national road. Sometimes I tell myself that the driver is getting a blow-job from his bitch and that's the reason why he's so slow. Then I pass him only to find out that he's intensely concentrated on driving with the driver's seat pushed forward so much that there is no space between the steering wheel, his chest and the seat. I'm serious. Almost all drivers from Pampanga drive like that. Like they all have difficulty seeing the road so they have to sit ridiculously upright, hugging the steering wheel.

Don't get me started on motorcycles. As a self-respecting motorist and car affecionado, I hate most people who "zoom-zoom" (my apologies to the Mazda Corp.) in their crotch rockets. They simply think they are invincible. (My wife always tells me that as she drives too. And mind you, she doesn't drive like a lady.) They have no sense of road courtesy and think that they own the fuckin' road. Perhaps they are of the seriously erroneous belief that traffic rules do not apply to them. To me and others like me (like my brothers and cousins), they are like big roaches on the street, crawling and infesting the highways with filth. The worst are the 4-stroke mopeds and tricycles. Those fuckers mostly do not have licenses to drive anyhow. A Chinese or Korean moped designed for 1 to 2 passengers over-loaded with 4 passengers one or two of which are children is a common sore sight all over Luzon. Indeed, that is a recipe for disaster. I have known and heard about senseless deaths via motorbike accidents over the years but the number of casualties still increase over the years. I do not hate the motorcycle per se, as I have driven one in the past (which ultimately led to an accident and injuries, of course) but that shit is totally dangerous if not driven with a clear head and responsibility. It is a mode of transportation like any other vehicle on the street so the same amount of responsibility should be practiced in driving the same. A couple of weeks ago, my car was rammed in the back by a big bike style motorcycle. It smashed my right tail-light. Immediately after impact, I got out of the car and got psychologically ready to beat the guy down if he made any remark I didn't like hearing. Turned out, he was a really nice guy and admitted his fault instantly. My car sustained no other damage apart from the busted tail-light. He made areglo and gave me 1400 Pesos to buy a replacement headlight. I got a perfect fit JDM (Japanese Domestic Market) one for a thousand bucks. Good thing I didn't shower him with profanities when I came out of the vehicle as I usually do in times like those, or took a swing on him with my big and heavy Maglite flashlight that I keep under the driver's seat--or I wouldn't have emerged from that situation with a small profit.

Since we're talking about cars, let me tell you that I hate clueless ricers. They give a bad name to self-respecting, Japanese car loving fellows like myself. They are the people who put huge-ass speakers in their cars or graphics and worst, those enormous but dysfunctional rear wings. Fuck Fast & the Furious and Pimp my Ride, man. That ain't the right shit. I also hate people who think they hate ricers but in reality, they don't really know what's a ricer. These are the people who drive American and European cars and hate Japanese cars. These are the people who lump Honda and Hyundai in the same category. (Just because they both have an [H] in the hood does not mean they are both made by the same manufacturer and have the same qualities.) These are the schmucks who look down at Civics but wonder why their gas-guzzling V6s and V8s get smoked on the freeway by a 2.0 K series engine-swapped early nineties Honda CRX. So people in BMWs and Chryslers must hate me a whole damn lot because I pass 'em all the fucking time like they were parked on the road.

But all these hating stops when I get to work. There, I have got to do my duty as a public servant and live according to my oath as a lawyer. I have learned to channel my hate and my aggression to more productive things. Hate is everywhere, all around us, present even without our knowledge. That is acceptable. What is not is when we get consumed by our hate and fail to function as a rational human being. Remember the lesson of Descartes:

"You see something you don't like, you hate it. You withdraw from it. You stay the fuck away from it. You want it to have nothing to do with you. That is how simple the emotion of hate really is."

Otaku Attack!: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls

IMHO, this Japanese novel is the east-asian equivalent of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. The Kouga Ninja Scrolls (甲賀法帖, Kōga Ninpōchō) is a novel written in 1958-1959 by the Japanese author Futaro Yamada. The novel has been translated into English by Geoff Sant, and was published by Del Rey in December 2006.

The year is 1614 AD. The story centers around two rival ninja clans; the Iga and the Kuoga; whose no-hostilities treaty is lifted by retired shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu to settle a succession dispute within the government concerning which of Ieyasu's grandsons is destined to become the third Tokugawa Shogun. At the center of the conflict is Kouga and Iga's two young heirs; Gennosuke and Oboro respectively; who had fallen in love in the hopes of bringing their clans together in peace. The novel traces the course of the conflict as both clans endure heavy losses and ultimately bringing Gennosuke and Oboro to face each other on the field of battle.

The classic novel was adapted several times into different forms of Japanese art:

• Kōga Ninpōchō ( Kōga Ninpōchō1963), a manga by Haruo Koyama.
• Kōga Ninpōchō: Aratame ( Kōga Ninpōchō: Aratame 2003), a manga by Torao Asada.
• Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls (Bajirisuku Kōga Ninpōchō, 2003), a manga by Masaki Segawa.
• Basilisk (Bajirisuku Kōga Ninpōchō, 2005), a TV anime series produced by GONZO based on Masaki Segawa's manga.
• Shinobi: Heart Under Blade (, Shinobi, 2005), a movie directed by Ten Shimoyama.

I have seen the movie, read the manga and watched the anime. They're all good. Here's the first episode of the anime for those of you who want to watch it. (For succeeding episodes, click here) I have also included a webpage where you can download the manga for free. For those who want to see the movie, buy it you cheap otaku scumbags!



BTW, what is an otaku?

Pelikulang Tagalog

Unlike my mama, I have never been a fan of Philippine Cinema. I often find local movies cheap and disgusting. Perhaps I too, have been brainwashed by Disney and Universal Studios. Nevertheless, like many Filipino kids who grew up in the eighties, I was also weaned on flicks like Ben Tumbling, Nardong Putik, Sa'yo ang Tondo, akin ang Cavite, etc. I remember most of the titles because I used to play teks when I was around 6 and 7 years old and these movies were the graphical contents of the small, rectangular, carton teks of which I used to own about a ton or two. These old school miniature cards, as I remember, were numbered so whenever someone makes a linear arrangement of the same, they tell the story of the movie. It's really funny--in an odd way--because I have tried doing that a few times and learned that the story in the teks was not the same as that of the movie counterpart. Mostly, the stories in the teks were really short-cuts or distortions of the movie's plot. I didn't care because I thought (and still think) that the art in the teks were really amazing and well, cool. I used to have a Nardong Putik pamato with just a drawing of Nardo's eye which looked really intense and that particular piece never failed me whenever I used it in a game. I swear to God.

The cinema of the Philippines has a history that can be traced back to the early days of filmmaking in 1897, when a theater owner named Pertierra screened imported moving pictures. The first film produced by a Filipino is Jose Nepomuceno's Dalagang Bukid (1919). The first sound film in Tagalog is Ang Aswang (1930), a monster movie inspired by Philippine folklore. The 1950s was the so-called Golden Age of Philippine Cinema, mainly because at this time, the Big Four studios (LVN Pictures, Sampaguita Pictures, Premiere Productions and Lebran International) were at the height of their powers in film making. The Big Four has been churning out an estimated total of 350 films a year. This number made the Philippines second only to Japan in terms of film productions a year, which made it one of the busiest and bustling film communities in Asia. (source: wikipedia) I vividly recall my mama watching all those crazy-ass black and white movies everyday during noon-time when I was still sneaking out of the house to play teks. However, IMHO, and I'm almost sure even my mama would agree with me on this one, Philippine Cinema after the Golden Age has taken the downward plunge. From Chiquito (LOLd at Asyong Aksaya) to Andrew E., Tugak & Pugak to Wally & Jose...from the bomba movies in the 1960's to the super-predictable formulaic romantic comedies we have today, there have been very few saving graces.

The last Filipino movie I saw was senator Lito-lito's Lapu-lapu. Atty. JS, law professor, counsel for the senator from the great province of Pampanga, and supporting actor in the same movie, practically made us watch the flick--under pain of threat of an absent mark in our legal ethics class in law school. That was about four (4) years ago. Needless to say, it sucked. Hard.

These days, TV stars are bigger than movie actors. There's no more FPJ or Rudy Fernandez of these times. Apart from the fact that they are both dead, their class of actors have died along with them. Richard Gutierrez or Piolo Pascual couldn't possibly make it as legitimate action stars. Nobody would believe. Nobody would put their faggoty mugs in kids' teks. There will never be another Megastar. Judy Ann ruined her career very recently because she played puppet for Meralco, and Angel Locsin destroyed hers when she transferred to ABS-CBN. Give it a few years more and nobody would remember them. Just like how nobody remembers the name Amanda Page.

Today, Philippine Cinema is in the ditches. Tomorrow, it should be in the sewers. There are as much stars in Philippine Cinema as there are in East Asia or Pegasus--so I have heard. LOL. Thank God for RA Rivera and the other good indy filmmakers-even though they are only good at comedies and sarcasm. I remember one short film (actually, it's too long) that consisted of only one scene: a pair of hands scrubbing a skull into a sheet of sandpaper until the skull was totally pulverized--that one you can only watch properly if you have Bob Marley's favorite smokes lit up in your hand.

I should quit smoking. Those things can kill you. Not me, but you.

Kung sumabog sana ang bomba sa lampara

Di nakakibo ang lahat. May nagsabi. Baka lasunin tayo. Binitiwan ang mga kubyertos. Lumabo ng ilawan. Iminungkahi ng Kapitan Heneral kay Padre Irene na itaas ng huli ang mitsa ng ilawan. Biglang may mabilis na pimasok, tinabig ang utusang humadlang, kinuha ang ilawan, itinakbo sa asotea at itinapon sa ilog, May humingi ng rebolber, may magnanakaw raw. Ang anino ay tumalon sa rin sa ilog.


from the novel El Filibusterismo, Dr. Jose P. Rizal


Hindi nagalaw ang pihitan ng mitsa na siya sanang magpasabog sa lalagyan ng nitroglisirina.

Simoun had an excellent plan. He invited and gathered all the government and church officials and their cohorts to a party and then plotted to bomb the place with a nitro lamp bomb to smithereens. To be able to do that, he played the devil. He seduced the colonial powers that be with money and power. He invested all his riches towards the accomplishment of this goal. That is dedication.

It is generally accepted that Rizal saw (at least a part of) himself in the Simoun character. In his letters, he wrote to Blumentritt that maybe, violence is the only solution left. For me, the lamp bomb ain't a bad idea after all. What could've happened if it exploded? Would it be the start of a chain reaction of other explosions? Would it be the spark that would fire the revolution into a blaze? Part of me believes that if the bomb did explode in the novel, those influenced heavily by the good doctor's novels would've had more motivation to fight and do more drastic and radical things. Maybe, if that were the ending of El Fili, history would have recorded beheadings of colonials and their skulls on spikes. The same part of me that believes that also thinks that such ending contributed to the further "pussyfication" of the Filipino.

Yet another part of me feels that such ending is the appropriate one: a failure. Certain people respond to failure as a challenge to overcome. You know how it goes, from the school of thought that teaches It's not how many times you fall but how many times you get up--that sort of crap philosophy. I believe more in the get it right the first time and winning is the only option kind of bullshit. Perhaps Rizal saw the Filipino masses as that kind of people. The kind that would get so pissed off with his second book's ending and end up picking up their sharp guloks and start gutting conquistadores and prayles.

At this day and age, I just wish I could be Simoun and succeed.
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Si Isagani ang kumuha ng ilawan at nagtapon nito sa ilog. Siya ang huling kausap ni Basilio na tanging nakababatid ng layunin ng ilawang iyon. Ang hindi niya naisisip ay ang layunin ni Simoun sa pagpapasabog sa bahay ni Kapitan Tiyago. Ang tanging nasa isip niya nuon ay si Paulita. Si Isagani ang pumasok sa bahay nang makaalis na si Basilio.

Sa salita na rin niya na kung ang magnanakaw ay nakababatid lamang ng layunin ng pagsabog ng ilawang iyon o kung makapaglimi lamang ito ng bahagya . Hindi sana ginawa ng ginawa ng magnanakaw na iyon ang gayon! At sa salita niyang Pantayan man ako ng kahit ano ay di ako lalagay sa tayo ng magnanakaw! ay isang paghihiwalay niya sa katauhan ng lito at baliw sa pag-ibig na Isagani at ng Isaganing nagsisisi at nalason na ng poot at pait ng pagkabigo at paghihiganti. Sa katauhan niya ngayon, ang ibig sabihin ni Isagani, ay hindi niya gagawin ang kanyang gingawang pagkuha sa ilawang iyon.