I bloghop as often as I can, which unfortunately is not as often as I would want to (same old excuses - long hours at work, a teaching job, a column to write, kids to take care of, etc). Bloghopping is a truly unpredictable experience. There are days when the effort yields nothing particularly noteworthy other than being able to catch up on what’s new in other people’s lives. But every once in a rare while, one comes across blogs that simply, for want of a better description, take your breath away.

Chronicles of E is like that. I learned about the blog through Misterhubs. E is a recovering “bad person” and the blog is about his journey. He writes about his experiences - and what he has written so far make for compelling reading - and the psychologist in me hopes it is working as some kind of therapy for him. What he is doing is not easy, particularly since the ghosts that he seems determined to expunge from his system are the stuff that haunts not only one’s nightmares but one’s living existence as well.

As usual, there are people who only see the fluff and the gross exteriors (or in this particular case, the glint of a sharp blade) . For instance, I was quite taken aback by people who suggest that the blogger drop names and skewer other people (in the mold of the 70,000 dollar blog) as if everything is about salacious gossip. And then there are those who see opportunities to indulge in some fantasies of their own via the blog.

I hope E finds liberation from whatever it is that is weighing him down and I hope the blogosphere helps him in the journey.

Blogs as therapy, hmmm…

This is my Manila Standard column last July 21, 2008.

First, please bear with a little personal story telling. In the last two years I have had the great fortune of working for a company that keeps its head office outside of the Makati Commercial Center. This means being spared the thousand and one aggravations that come with being cooped up along with millions of other working drones within a few square hectares of precious prime property: traffic, congestion, pollution, and the lure of commercial considerations. So in a manner of speaking, I’ve been thankfully insulated from lifestyle and commercial trends.

Except when I have to attend meetings, I rarely find myself in Makati. So I have been blissfully oblivious to the new commercial establishments that have sprouted in the Greenbelt and Glorietta centers like, well, children of Filipinos who have been kept ignorant and without access to contraception methods. (I know I just wrote a really awful metaphor; sorry, couldn’t help it in light of the obstinacy of the Catholic Church to fight the reproductive health bill in Congress through any means possible).

But I finally found myself in the posh environs of Greenbelt 5 over the weekend courtesy of a friend who is into material things of dubious value but whose worth have nevertheless been shot up into the stratosphere by the signature attached to it. It was a painful reality check. Just for the heck of it, I picked up a pair of ladies’ shoes on display and inquired about its price: a whooping P45,000. I was sorely tempted to ask if the pair of shoes had magical qualities that made transformed whoever wore it into Cinderella, had it not been for what I felt was the utter ridiculousness of the whole thing.

If it was any consolation, the saleslady I was chatting up seemed to empathize and intimated that she herself couldn’t understand why such things cost 1,000 percent more than what their counterparts in Divisoria would. The quality is not the same but I doubt if the quality differential was proportionate to the price gap. But there seems to be a huge demand for these accouterments of status even if, as the saleslady pointed out, quite a number would purchase items by maxing out limits on two or three credit cards combined. Why anyone would want to slave themselves paying credit card bills for months for something that can be worn once or twice seems incomprehensible.

There was nothing—absolutely nothing—in the row of stores that we checked that was worth less than P3,000, which, if we come to think about it, is roughly the half-month take-home pay of about 90 percent of the population. I understand that these establishments are meant to cater to a specific clientele. I don’t mean to knock on free enterprise, but I am worried that no one seems to be measuring this emerging conspicuous consumption, reckless luxury spending, and ostentatious display of wealth and materialism against contemporary socio-cultural considerations.

Obviously, there are people in this country who can really afford P80,000 Jimmy Choos or Manolo Blahniks. The question is: Are their numbers increasing? Are we finally seeing the narrowing of the wealth gap in this country? Are we finally seeing the rise of enterprise culture, of value creation that trickles down benefits to the lower rungs of the social ladder? I am afraid not.

Let’s make no bones about this. We are not going through an economic renaissance wherein those who have access to newfound, albeit temporary wealth such as the windfall from the call center industry, are making society wealthier. In short, the seeming rise in personal fortunes, which is illusory to begin with, is not linked to wealth and value creation at all. Nor is it indicative of a real economic boom.

For example, the truth is that the income gap is even more widening as we speak. Just last week, my colleagues and I in the human resource management profession were locking horns trying to find a way to measure the gap between the salary of top executives and the minimum wage earners. We know it is going to be difficult, not to mention, suicidal. But the chasm in the pay gap defies any semblance of logic and fairness. There are many factors that contribute to the gap and I unfortunately don’t have the column space to discuss them today, but obviously, lifestyle considerations are a huge part of it. CEOs and senior executives have to live up to certain expectations in terms of material display of wealth and personal worth—high-rise condos, luxury cars, designer clothes, the whole shebang.

We must address these issues because they portend a number of disastrous social implications.
It was difficult to ignore the tell-tale symptoms of our new collective malady at Greenbelt over the weekend: Far too many people accessorized in iPhones, iPods, and sleek cell phones sipping designer lattes and lounging around in Havaianas. The statement is obviously more of style than substance.

We’re seeing a lot of young and not-so-young people (such as call center agents) who are splurging newfound temporary wealth who have easily latched on to the trend. It does seem that we are nurturing a generation that is not so shy to flaunt wealth—even if its temporary, people who seem to subscribe to the mantra that there is no point to having money if it is not spent on material things.

Unfortunately, we’re really all party to it. Advertising, for example, has driven conspicuous spending to preposterous levels that seemed to have perverted the real value of a lot of material possessions. It does seem that luxury shopping is now prescribed as therapy for everything—if you are happy, go out and buy something, and if you are depressed, well, go out and reward yourself by buying something just the same.

What seems clear is that wealth today is closely intertwined with personal worth (note how we often measure the value of a person, even senators and congressmen, by measuring his net worth), resulting in widespread insecurity and frustration.

How these affect the national psyche is something our sociologists should worry about.
Some of my colleagues have been advocating programs on financial planning and wealth and value creation. We must find new measures of one’s worth other than material status. This is why I must admit that I was a little gladdened by the fall of the so-called Gucci Gang because of intense criticism in the blogosphere about the ostentatious display of profligate lifestyles.

Unfortunately, mainstream media didn’t play it up because it would have offended the very people who produce their profit. But if we all play our part in impressing upon people that we are not impressed by excessive display of wealth, then perhaps we can minimize all these conspicuous luxury spending and too much emphasis on materialism that is not creating value to society at all.
Adam Smith once said: “The chief enjoyment of the riches consists in the parade of riches.” I think that’s a capitalist statement that we need to render irrelevant in this country at this point.

This is my Manila Standard column last July 9, 2008.

I am going to make a fearless forecast.

In the next few days, we are going to see a lot more of tempers boiling over, accompanied of course with a lot of screaming as our representatives in Congress try to find someone to blame for the unfortunate sinking of m/v Princess of the Stars.

And then, when everyone has grown hoarse, has his or her fill of strutting around and posturing like some great inquisitors, or when something more earthshaking and newsworthy has come around to divert everyone’s attention, whichever comes first, the whole thing will be promptly dropped and forgotten.

The whole thing will then be turned over to the proper courts where it will fester for some time because we all know that those with the means to throw all sorts of impediments into the system do get away with that kind of tomfoolery.

In the meantime, Sulpicio Lines will be allowed to operate their floating coffins once again because let’s face it, this country needs to transport goods and people from one island to another. Lest we forget, the Philippines is still an archipelago, and ships are still the most affordable and practical means of getting around. And Sulpicio Lines happens to have the largest fleet of transportation ships in this country.

Forget about a government takeover of the company. The government can only do so if it declares martial law and we already know that those two words can’t even be mentioned in this country without sending some people into apoplexy. Besides, this government has already proven itself inutil in the area of providing services to people. I fear for the lives of more people if government takes over the largest passenger shipping fleet in this country.

The business sector, the Filipino-Chinese community, and the other influential sectors in this country may have distanced themselves momentarily from the company that is now on record as the main perpetrator of the number one cause of death in this country since World War II. But when some semblance of normalcy has befallen and it is once again safe to declare affinities and public support, we know that the owners of Sulpicio Lines will be able to regain their standing in the community.

The weather bureau may be getting some media attention right now because the perceived ineffectiveness of its antiquated methods and technology has caused national grief and embarrassment. However, it remains doubtful if major breakthroughs will ever be achieved in terms of finally outfitting our weather scientists with cutting edge technology.

We may be visited by all sorts of natural calamities frequently, but the weather bureau is hardly seen as a priority government agency in terms of budgetary allocation. Besides, in this country where fatalism is the norm, typhoons and natural phenomena are still largely seen as acts of God and therefore perceived as beyond the means of science and human competencies.

I know I am being cynical. But there is more than enough history and a number of indicators in the way this current tragedy is being handled that make it difficult for anyone to be optimistic.
Take for example the way the current investigations are being conducted.

To begin with, there are just too many bodies looking into the tragedy—all of them with questionable intents. Thankfully, the Senate has not yet jumped into the act—at least not yet.
Quite frankly, it looks like these bodies and everyone else involved in the tragedy are more interested in making sure that they don’t get blamed for what happened than in really finding out what happened and more importantly, how to make sure the tragedy is the last of its kind.

I know that investigating the factors that caused the sinking is important, but one wishes that energies are focused on more productive and urgent matters. For example, ensuring that whatever toxic cargo that ill-fated ship was carrying is retrieved before these seep into the waters off Masbate and cause irreparable harm to people and the environment. Shouldn’t these be the main priority now?

This has been said by many and repeating it seems futile since the Go family seems deaf to the criticism anyway, but what really aggravated the tragedy was the seemingly heartless and insensitive way the people behind Sulpicio Lines responded to the situation. They’re still not getting it now. They are still unable to project a more caring and humane way of dealing with the families of those who perished in the tragedy.

Of course people should be held accountable for the tragedy. But must we drag them across the coils in public, scream at them and call them names in the process? Is simply embarrassing them in public the kind of punishment that we want for these people? I ask these questions because the tenor of the ongoing investigations, particularly the initial inquiry conducted by Congress last Monday, seems to indicate that the whole idea is really more focused on scolding people and putting them to task for perceived misgivings than in objectively unraveling the events that led to the tragedy.

It’s really wasted energy because if the whole point is to find someone to blame then we’ll never hear the end of it. Obviously, there are all kinds of ruses, justifications, alibis, and legal gobbledygook that people can trump up to protect their asses. Besides, at the end of the day, it’s the courts that decide on guilt anyway, so the energy is better spent on more productive discussions such as what should we do to make sure the sinking of the Princess of the Stars is the last tragedy of its kind to happen in this country.