Tuesday

September 28, 2007

 

Everybody must know what's happening in Burma (Myanmar) right now. With the SPDC cracking down on dissenters, the body count just keeps on piling up. The monks won't give ground and so does the junta. Apart from a few condemnations, the ASEAN is not won't to putting more pressure on the junta. So right now, everything is bleak for the Burmese people and other nationalities in the region.

I just want to post here a picture of my Burmese friend, Zaw, a freelance journalist who I think is now going underground. You could guess what day a Burmese is born by his name. Zaw means Tuesday. This photo was taken the night he got a tattoo and up to this day, i still don't understand what it was. I asked  him right after he got his and he, too, had no freakin' idea.

He did like the design though so I guess I could live with that. 

I received an email from him a few days after Yangon, the capital, fell into chaos. And I will post here verbatim what he had to say: 

 

 

On 9/27/07, Zaw Naing Oo <oo.zawnaing@gmail.com > wrote:

 Hi…..Shooting and seven people including BBc reporter were shot…

I share my experience in shooting area in center of Yangon, Capital of Burma. It happens in angle of Anorratha and Sula Pagoda Road at 1:30. Over 100000 people are sitting tight and singing the Buddhasim wishing song by paying respect to Solidiers guarding on the Sula Road . Other people are standing and looking at the crowd around.People add more and more,near 150000,, they make wishing and sing national authum.At 1:30, The four trucks bring the solidiers and police who wear the full equipment ,, drive from the diffrerent side of Sule pagoda road..The trucks pass across the people without horning with hight speed to Sule Pagoda where over 50 soldiers  guarding sulae road facing to peace protesters facing to sulae pagoda . Soldier and poeople so close , 30 feets the trucks stop in the crowdee by waiting the wire fence to be open . So poeople around the track . At that time ,

two persons in the crowed find the stones to throw it to the track . Other people try to catch them to prevent throwing . One of them run to truck to do throwing . I follow to catch them when i get him near the track , so close in front of gun . At that time ,one remaining at the back throw a stone , at one the soldier shoot to people directly by waving the gun .We run to different direction and they follow and shot people . On the sulae road , we run to  Trader Hotel side , a university student boy running in front of me lays down on the ground because a bullet was on his waist . I hear seven people including BBC reporter , foreigner were shot and injured , arrested over 30 peace demonstrators ,

When I write this story I hear that people and soldier are fighting in the southen part of the yangon , others riot are happening and shooting also everywhere in Yangon .

I will send a lot of information about shooting ang killing…on time..

 

Zaw
 

When I first heard the Burmese language, the phrase "a staccato of gunfire" came to mind. Devoid of the mellifluous quality of  the Filipino language, for example. I thought the Burmese language lacked the pause, the inflection, and the tension as words string swiftly together like the sound of two fingers pounding keys of a rusty typewriter.  

But they're actually a gentle people. Then again, you could never account for man's capacity for cruelty when the choice boils down to death and self-preservation.   

Just a shout out to my brother Zaw.  Give the bastards a good fight. 

 

 

Noodle

Following the Senate investigation into the ZTE deal has been very depressing — from the way the senators comported themselves, Juan Ponce Enrile’s supercilious smirk (I’d love to punch that wry grin off his face), Miriam Santiago’s antics – but last Wednesday’s hearing did fling an extra bone my way: watching Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos squirm.  

I knew it was going to be good by the way Abalos has been running the elections like a goddamn personal playground over the years, ramming his shod on each overeager politician’s ass as they grin and bear it. Abalos managed to wrangle himself out of the “Hello Garci” and P1.3 Mega Pacific scandal hearings “in aid of legislation.”

Not this time… no siree! The tough bully was finally given his comeuppance.

Before Miriam Santiago walked out of the hearing over reasons as palpable as her Ilonggo accent, she managed to lay down the predicate: that the investigation couldn’t be possibly be made a venue to sift the truth in cases of two persons hurling accusations at each other, while hiding behind half-truths and half-lies. To illustrate, at one point during the hearings Abalos called former Socioeconomic and Planning Sec. Romulo Neri a bare-faced liar when the latter accused the Comelec chair of offering him 200; Neri’s reaction? He said he has a vivid recollection of the events that transpired at Wack-Wack golf club. The question now is who committed perjury?

To digress, could Santiago have walked out to save face? I mean, after Neri swore that Abalos offered him 200 million(?), there’s no defending the Comelec chair after that point. Not because Neri’s character is impeccable but rather on Abalos’ reputation. As far as perceptions go, the term character and the name Abalos seem a logical inconsistency; unless taken into context of the movie, where “character actors” generally refer to villains. Not to mention that the red-faced Abalos has been caught many times with his hand inside his pants.

I only have one rule when confronted with the he-said-she-said scenario: whoever has more to lose is most probably lying.

Now, I’m not trying to dissect the political and economic repercussions of the continuing investigations or even if the hearings were warranted in the first place. I leave that up to the economists, political analysts and columnists.

I’m just saying that most senators don’t exactly possess the unbiased personality of the justices, for example. All too often, the lofty collective intention to fiscalize the actions of our officials will eventually be deflated by personal motives.

Look at Nene Pimentel: Why does he have to sink so low as to name somebody as Abalos’s mistress? Couldn’t he stop to think about the effects of his accusation, based on text messages no less, on the girl? And how could that, pray tell, impact on nailing down Abalos for allegedly brokering the ZTE deal?

The only logical explanation, of course, is he felt bitter because his son Koko lost due supposedly to cheating in last May 2007 elections under Abalos’ watch. Unfair? Maybe… but he brought it upon himself.

The statement of the year however comes from Abalos’ wife who said that after a prostate problem, her husband has become, well, a limp noodle.

Unless somebody comes forward that could prove to be the smoking gun in identifying the personalities behind the pay-offs, the investigation will go nowhere. So I have a suggestion: Since the grease money has already been advanced, why doesn’t the Supreme Court, who earlier issued a temporary restraining order, just junk the ZTE deal?

Whoever floats at Pasig river, I pronounce guilty.