Speaker Alvarez is a bad influence to Ilonggos

“One of the most deadly causes of destruction of divine destinies is when a leader is failing, but he or she does not know it. Ignorance about your role is a death plot against people's successes.”
― Israelmore Ayivor

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- If I were a politician in the Philippines seeking reelection or higher elective position on May 14, 2019, I would avoid national leaders like House Speaker Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez.
The likes of Alvarez are morally unfit to lead the Filipinos; they are a bad influence and aren’t good role models for the youth.
Alvarez, 60, who is married to Emelita Apostol Alvarez, the current head of the Congressional Spouses Foundation, did not only defend his extramarital affair with one Jennifer Maliwanag Vicencio, he also “justified” it in public as if it’s a badge of honor.
Ilonggos and their leaders may not be perfect and immaculate, but they know the bounds of decency and indecency; they are cultured and educated in the best universities; and they venerate women as symbols of virtue and epitomes of chastity and courtesy.

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The representative from Davao del Norte, one of the big bosses of the ruling PDP-Laban party, also slut-shamed detained Sen. Leila de Lima for her romance with her driver during a House hearing in November 2017.
He is the same political leader being adored by traditional politicians in many parts of the Philippines who want to remain in power beyond 2019.
He is the same “Speaker Alvarez” being glorified by power-seekers and applicants for higher government positions owing to his closeness to President Rodrigo R. Duterte (although the president has been asserting he will never tolerate this) and for his lofty position in the PDP-Laban.
Every time he was in Iloilo or in Western Visayas, city and provincial incumbent and aspiring officials were in mad scramble to get his attention; they wanted to woo his blessings to anoint certain candidates for the next elections.

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In other words, these Ilonggo politicians are “worshiping” a false political god; they are barking--for “blessings” and campaign moola--at the poisonous and sinful tree.
Ilonggos, who are educated and decent, should reject politicians who glorify Alvarez, et al like they are demigods.
Alvarez and other hackneyed and dirty politicians are not the prototypical answers to the Filipino people’s most fundamental problems.
The Ilonggos, or the Filipinos for that matter, don’t need politicians as bond aides to solve their immediate needs, but leaders with economic and spiritual visions who can truly lead with dignity and inspiration.
We should eschew politicians who are vexatious to the nation’s soul and those with a convoluted sense of machismo and misplaced braggadocio.

My seatmate Jerome

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends."
-- Maya Angelou

.By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- On our way to a four-hour trip to Mashantucket, Connecticut on July 28, I met Jerome.
A Chinese mestizo-looking, Jerome Yap Ramos was my seatmate in a crowded bus. He sat near the window; I was in the aisle.
It was not until he decided to strike a light conversation with me when the bus arrived in Norwalk, the sixth populous city in the United States, that I learned he was a Filipino who arrived in the US in April 1973 and never to return again.
A flurry of smorgasbord discussions ensued. 

"Are you a Filipino?" volunteered Jerome, his gassy eyes are reminiscent of  Genghis Khan, the Great Khan of Temujin and founder of the Mongol Empire.
"Yes, I am," I quickly retorted.
"And you come from a place where the dialect isn't Tagalog?" he mused.
"You got it right," I shot back. "I'm from Iloilo City in the Visayas.

ILONGGO

"I came from Hinoba-an and we spoke Ilonggo there," Jerome continued. "I mean I used to speak Ilonggo but I can no longer speak it now although I can understand when I hear the dailect."
"Hinoba-an is in Negros Occidental and people there also speak Hiligaynon just like us in Iloilo City," I answered.
"We don't speak Hiligaynon, only Ilonggo," Jerome sighed.
I wanted to tell Jerome that Ilonggo is a person or someone who lives in Iloilo and parts of Negros, while Hiligaynon is the Ilonggo's dialect.
Hinoba-an, with a population of 54,624, is a first class municipality in the province of Negros Occidental, Philippines. It is the southernmost town of the province.
Jerome left the Philippines together with his brother chaperoned by his uncle and aunt. His parents, already in the US, had difficulty bringing them to the US. The Philippines was under Martial Law.
He did not believe that the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos gave the Philippines a bad reputation. "In fact," he enthused, "he made the Philippines proud."
Jerome asked why the 1978 world chess championship match between champion Anatoly Karpov and Russian defector Victor Korchnoi was held in Baguio City and why Magnus Carlsen, the current FIDE world chess king, is being compared to the late American genius Bobby Fischer. 

Jerome, 54, wanted to reconnect with old friends and former classmates in the Philippines. He doesn't have any social media page but is planning to create a Facebook account so he could "upload" the poem he made for Vicky, a "special" woman he met in a Chinese restaurant in Flushing, New York.

VICKY

The poem, entitled "Vicky", reminded me of Peter Abelard's love letters to his student, Heloise, thousands of years ago.
Jerome's four-paged poem dedicated to Vicky lives in a time of broad antiromanticism when teenagers, according to The Times Magazine, have given up on relationships altogether and adults write to the editor to salute their wisdom. "Romance?" scoffed one correspondent. It's just "an excuse . . . to work off sexual energy."
"I wanted Vicky to read the poem I made for her. I wanted the poem to be published in a newspaper. If I have a Facebook account, is it possible for Vicky to read it? I have no contact with Vicky now. She was no longer connected in the restaurant where she used to work," explained Jerome.
Our conversation was interupted when an ovebearing male black passenger sitting in front scolded us an hour before the bus arrived in Mashantucket: "Hey, you have been talking a lot since we left (New York). Can you stop now...(inaudible)?"
Jerome approached my left ear and averred in a lowered voice, "Never mind him. We were not loud."
We stopped talking. After a few minutes, Jerome's body reclined forward. He fell asleep.
In my brief conversation with Jerome. I found him to be very interesting, compassionate, generous, and oozing with emotional intelligence.
Vicky could become this generation's Heloise after reading Jerome's poem.

Thank God for giving us Jhett Tolentino

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." 
--Arthur Schopenhauer
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By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- A Fil-Am doctor from Texas once told a group of sportswriters, including this writer, in Las Vegas that "it will take another 100 years before the Philippines can produce another Manny Pacquiao in boxing."
In musical theater, let me say that 100 years are not enough for Iloilo City to produce another Jhett Tolentino.

The talented JHETT TOLENTINO

Let me say further: thank God for giving Iloilo City and the Philippines Jhett Tolentino.
He is one of a kind. Unassuming and soft-spoken, Tolentino is one of the most intelligent Fil-Ams making waves in American entertainment world today.
If Michael Jordan is considered as the genius of basketball, Jhett Tolentino is the genius of musical theater.
Tolentino is God's gift to the Philippines, now notorious for alleged state-directed EJKs (extra-judicial killings) involving drug pushers and addicts.  

ISSUES

While Iloilo City is being battered by negative issues like "the most shabulized city in the Philippines" and "hometown of (the slain) drug lord Melvin "Boyet" Odicta Sr.", New York City-based producer Tolentino restored the Ilonggo pride by clinching a Grammy award for Best Musical Theater for “The Color Purple” album in Hollywood on February 12, 2017.
The Iloilo-born artist shared the award with fellow producers Stephen Bray, Van Dean, Frank Filipetti, Roy Furman, Joan Raffe, and Scott Sanders; composers Brenda Russel and Allee Willis; and principal soloists Cynthia Erivo, Danielle Brooks, and Jennifer Hudson.
Tolentino's victory was a titanic accomplishment by any producer born and raised in the Philippines. 
No other Filipino producer in recent memory has achieved such international honor.

TONY'S

In fact, Tolentino became only the second Filipino to win a Tony's award in Broadway next to Lea Salonga when he captured three trophies: the first in 2013 for "Vanya and Sonia and Marsha and Spike" which starred Sigourney Weaver; and the two in 2014  as one of the producers of “A Raisin in the Sun” and “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.”
A Raisin in the Sun,” which stars Denzel Washington, and “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” respectively won Best Revival of a Play and Best Musical at the 68th Antoinette Perry (Tony) Awards held at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City on June 8, 2014.
Because of Tolentino's extra-ordinary achievements in the global stage, he has become bigger than life that his name is now synonymous to world class.