The way I see it, writing is a craft that requires a certain degree of commitment—a commitment to perfection or at least the quest for it—something that I just don’t have the time or the temperament for. Unlike some friends who can truly lay claim to the title “writer,” I don’t agonize over a misplaced preposition or spend sleepless night searching for the right metaphor to express something. This is not to say though that I don’t value the craft because I do.

At any rate, one question that I am often asked is: How did I get into writing? This question is always mystifying to me because I always get the impression that people actually think that the ability to write is something one is born with. I get the feeling people who ask that question expect me to provide an inventory of the chromosomes I got from my ancestors. Sure I was a co-opted into joining—and becoming editor—of my high school and college papers but the truth is that by no means of the imagination can what I did then be classified as writing. I am aware that there’s not a single “writer” in this world who does not cringe or is tempted to commit self-annihilation when confronted with the stuff one wrote in high school or college. I assure you I am not being facetious and I am being truthful when I say that I produced hideous stuff back then.

There’s actually a story behind how I got into writing; a story that needs to be told now because the man at whose feet I learned the rudiments of real—or serious—writing, the man who inspired me to try to be good at it, the man who took pains to mentor me, even teach me to unlearn bad writing habits, is now gone.

Agustin Gus Arnaiz Sr., the crusading provincial journalist who valiantly championed press freedom in Leyte and Samar for many decades passed away Saturday evening in his hometown of Maasin, Southern Leyte. He was 85.

I was a college sophomore when a couple of my friends and I walked into the offices of The Reporter, a weekly newspaper in Tacloban City to gather some data for a term paper we had to produce for school. At that time, Gus Arnaiz, publisher of The Reporter, was already quite a “legend” in the region. He had just come close to winning a seat in Congress against the powerful Romualdezes, who, incidentally also put him behind bars for writing about rumors around then First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos. All throughout the Marcos regime he was incarcerated four times and arrested a grand total of 19 times. The Reporter was then the lone beacon of freedom and fearless writing in the whole of Region VIII. In the eyes of a then-neophyte activist, Arnaiz was a giant.

Arnaiz granted our group an interview. To this day, I still do not know what he saw in me or what possessed him to do it but he offered me a job on the spot as associate editor of the weekly paper. I learned later on that the post had been vacant for quite sometime simply because Arnaiz didn’t find anyone he liked well enough. It dawned on me many years later that he wasn’t really looking for an employee—he was on the lookout for someone he could mentor like a son. He paid me full wages for a job that was really part-time as I was still studying then. As if to make up for the hours I was in school, I would accompany him some nights and during some weekends in the long drives he made around Tacloban and the Leyte-Samar area. He was always visiting friends and colleagues who were always more than too happy to host him. Arnaiz was a genius at making conversations. I later on learned this was how he got the various “exclusive” stories that he wrote for the weekly paper. It was from these long nights that I learned how to listen, really listen.

It was on those long, very long drives —sometimes we would be driving for hours, even whole days—that I learned so much about writing and life in general. Arnaiz loved to talk—he was conversant about almost anything— from history to politics, from business to current events—despite the fact that he didn’t finish school. He had to drop out from high school due to poverty. I guess telling stories came naturally for a man who lived a very exciting and fulfilling life. Arnaiz was the classic example of a self-made man. He was a war veteran (he finally received his war veteran benefit from the United States government last November). It was from the man that I learned how to weave stories and tell them.

Arnaiz coaxed me out of my shell. He even maneuvered to put me in the board of the regional association of media people where, at 17 years old, I sat as the youngest director for one term. He taught me how to use a typewriter, edited my work right in front of me, and alas, also taught me how to smoke and drink.

I had to quit working for the weekly paper when I was in senior college to yield to paternal pressure to get a diploma. But my relationship with Arnaiz continued, shifting from mentor-mentee to friends. For many years in the late eighties I continued to write pieces for the weekly paper, stuff that I had to send by snail mail every week from Manila where I was already working.

From him I learned how to write letters. Arnaiz was a man who wrote real letters—he typed even social and personal letters using a formal format and with carbon copies too.

The Reporter eventually folded up last year. Although his children tried to sustain the paper with the same fervor and spirit that Arnaiz breathed into it, I guess some things in this world are just never the same without the moving force driving it.

We all have personal heroes that we look up to; people to whom we owe what we’ve become. It had been ages since I last talked to the man but the years have not diminished the affection and respect I keep for the man who taught me how to write.

Farewell, Gus. Thank you for the many valuable gifts you so selflessly shared with me.

Quite frankly, the whole hullabaloo looks like a badly conceptualized, poorly staged moro moro acted out by awfully hammy actors. I haven’t been able to stomach watching those people declaim their appeal for the President to “please listen to them.” One of them delivered this hair-raising monologue about how the President is still young and how she is still their best hope in Congress. Even the first son, Representative Mikey Arroyo has joined in the chorus, making a dramatic appeal to “Her Excellency, my mother” to heed the people’s call. I know; it’s enough to make sober people run out of a room screaming.

I have a strong feeling President Gloria Arroyo will win if she does run for Congress. Randy David will give her a good fight, but my fearless forecast is that she will still win even in an honest and clean election. She will win for the same reason that the Marcoses have always won elections in Ilocos Norte or the Romualdezes have always won elections in Leyte despite their infamy. And I am not talking about recent elections—both families won elections in their home turfs barely a few years after their fall from grace. It’s the same reason why the Ampatuans will mostly likely still win some positions of power in Maguindanao despite the unspeakably evil massacre that happened there recently.

We all indulge in wishful thinking that the electorate has matured and that Filipinos are now more discerning in their choice of leaders. The reality, however, is that people in this country don’t get voted into office on the strength of what they are saying, or because of their platforms, or because of moral issues. People get elected into office because of highly personal, emotional, as well as practical reasons.

As can be expected, Mrs. Arroyo has done more than any other politician for her cabalens than any other politician especially in the last few months. Of course it can be argued that she and her administration also did a lot of really awful things for this country; it can even be pointed out that she brought shame and embarrassment to Kapampangans and to Filipinos in general, but to many voters in Pampanga, in her hometown of Lubao particularly, all those are abstract, ephemeral concepts that pale in comparison to the roads, bridges, public structures and other political largesse that they have received from her patronage.

All these will not make the whole idea right, or comprehensible, or even remotely logical. Why someone who has already reached the pinnacle of power would deign to settle for a lower elective post defies reason.

At the personal level, why someone would willingly put herself through the gauntlet again—subject one’s self to more humiliation and public ridicule—is something that baffles the mind. There’s the possibility of megalomania, of course, even perhaps extreme narcissism, or a bloated sense of self-importance. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, it has been said. People who are drunk with power become numb. All these are convenient analyses to explain this madcap idea of a President of a country running for a seat in Congress after her term.

But as Representative Teddyboy Locsin (who probably has the combined IQ of half the representatives in Congress) remarked publicly recently, the President is one smart woman. Mrs. Arroyo is a lot of things, but she is not stupid.

Of course she has not openly admitted that she will run for Congress, but her body language seems to confirm the message. It is within the bounds of reason that given her legendary short temper she could already have squashed the supposed clamor with a quick dismissal if she weren’t so inclined to heed it. The truth is that at the very least, she is playing coy and even seems tickled pink at the clamor of her sycophants.

So what then is the political masterplan behind all these attempts to confound the general electorate?

The general drift of the speculative drivel out there is that the President wants to run for Congress, become Speaker of the House, and then marshal forces to push Charter change ultimately leading to her installation as Prime Minister. There are a lot of gaps in this conspiracy theory, foremost of which is that it cannot happen without the support of the Senate and everyone knows there is absolutely no way Mrs. Arroyo is going to have enough senators supportive of her or of charter change. Let’s not act naïve here by thinking that any senator’s objection to Charter change is borne out of altruistic reason—the simple fact of the matter is that supporting Charter change is tantamount to political suicide on the part of any senator. They might as well hang themselves in public.

In addition, everyone knows the specter of having Mrs. Arroyo at the helm of the next government is anathema even among those who are politically neutral; let’s not talk anymore about the greater majority of people who hate her with a passion. Mrs. Arroyo becoming Prime Minister? It’s not going to happen.

There is the other scenario being floated of course: The President becoming Speaker of the House and using the vast resources she has presumably amassed as President to control the House of Representatives purportedly to protect herself and her allies from political persecution, or simply to make things difficult for the new administration in the event that the next administration is unfriendly or hostile toward her.

Again, there is a flaw in this logical deduction. The basic truth is that there is no need for all that rigmarole. This country has a rather dismal record of bringing to justice powerful people who have committed serious offenses and wrongdoings. The list includes the Estradas, the Marcoses, the Romualdezes, even the long list of former renegade military men who have not only escaped the so-called long arm of the law but have even bounced back to power. Even if Mrs. Arroyo isn’t in power anymore, she will still have allies, not to mention family members in power who can do everything to block her persecution.

We can all give this bothersome, bewildering enigma of the President’s political plans our best shot at analysis. Mrs. Arroyo rose to power and survived numerous crises because of a confluence of events that ordinary people would ascribe to destiny. Perhaps Mrs. Arroyo is waiting for—nay, anticipating—another confluence of events that would propel her to political center stage again. I think she is pushing her luck too far this time around.

When the newscasts mentioned his name as the victim of that tragic incident that happened Wednesday evening last week, I refused to believe it was really he. I tried to convince myself it was someone else; must be another guy who just happened to have the same name, I told myself. Going into denial was the general reaction among people who knew him. No, it couldn’t be Victor was the same lament that got posted and reposted in Facebook, Friendster and other social networking sites. The denial was improbable, but so were the circumstances around his death.

Many people including the police and media kept referring to the tragedy as road rage as if doing so could explain why someone’s life was suddenly snuffed out by an assailant who—it seems pretty clear by now based on the psychological profile being drawn publicly about him—should not have been allowed to drive a vehicle in the first place. There is simply no way to deodorize the tragedy. Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. was murdered.

Ebarle Jr. really didn’t seem like someone who would be involved in something so senseless. I had close interactions with the guy for a number of years and never, not even once, did he mention or give any indication that he was the son and namesake of a high-ranking government official who worked just a few rooms away from the President of the Republic of the Philippines. In fact, many among us learned that his father worked as undersecretary at Malacañang only last week.

There’s this baseless and therefore grossly unfair insinuation that there was something more to what happened other than it being a tragic case of Ebarle Jr. being in the same place at the same time with someone else with a dark past. The facts as presented by those who witnessed what happened are pretty straightforward. There was a traffic altercation. Thereupon, Ebarle’s car was blocked by the assailant’s car (bearing diplomatic license plates), who then alighted from his car and pumped bullets into Ebarle Jr.’s chest and arms like he was a sitting duck at a shooting gallery.

The victim of that incident was Ebarle Jr. and there was no way he could have provoked his death. The tragedy was not a consequence of a proverbial pissing contest between two scions of highly influential people—one the son of a high-ranking government bureaucrat, the other an economist of the Asian Development Bank with diplomatic immunity and privileges. Many will see this as an attempt at defense by a former mentor, but I say this with conviction and with utmost objectivity: Ebarle was not a brat. He was not the typical offspring of ranking government bureaucrats who walked with a swagger, called attention to himself, flaunted his connections, and got involved in mischief. He was soft-spoken and almost painfully shy. Everyone who knew him personally will attest to this: Victor was a gentle soul and he looked like it, too. He never cussed, never ever figured in a brawl, never got drunk in public, and never bullied anyone.

There is this speculative drivel being passed around that the tragedy is being blown out of proportion and given way too much media attention because the victim’s father happens to be a government official with direct ties to the Office of the President. Like many others, I also felt uncomfortable with the pronouncements of certain Palace officials who hinted at using the full powers of the Presidential Management Office to get the assailant at all costs.

But on second thought, why shouldn’t the government or the Office of the President be concerned with the death of young people like Victor? We all should feel outraged and the fact that his father is a government official should be irrelevant. The circumstances that attended the tragedy are more than enough to be outraged.

In a country where tens of thousands die every day, many for reasons that are also just as inconceivable, there is the temptation to dismiss the death of one more young person to statistics. We really shouldn’t allow ourselves to become numb and desensitized to senseless tragedy, particularly those that could have been avoided with just a little more responsible oversight—paternal or otherwise.

The truth is that there are just too many people who drive around as if they own our streets. There are just too many people who drive around in cars with diplomatic plates, or with special plates assigned for certain government or elected officials, who expect everyone else to pull over and kowtow to them as if they were monarchs. What is even infuriating is that very often, these cars are driven by relatives—wives, children, mistresses, friends—who expect, nay, demand, that whatever imagined perks and privileges due to the registered owners or assignees of the cars are also afforded to them as if rank, functions and official business were also transferable.

The sad thing is that it seems we’re supposed to accept that road rage is a phenomenon that happens spontaneously; something that cannot be avoided. I can already see the line of defense forthcoming: That road rage happens to the best and the worst of us, that it is a medical condition, that it is involuntary. I will not discount the possibility that all these are contributory factors to road rage, just as traffic congestion, extreme heat, or the sight of a half naked model peddling underwear on a billboard are potential antecedents of road rage. Actually, road rage is a complicated thing but all empirical evidence point to one thing—it can be stopped and managed.

Besides, I refuse to accept that Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. died simply because of road rage. It happened because there was another person on the road that night who either had unspeakable evil in his heart or simply should not have been allowed to drive a car, particularly one with diplomatic plates on it.