The problem with people calling Corazon Aquino the new democracy icon is that it sounds insincere, or effete. Of course the woman deserves it. She is the embodiment of it, and I'd kick butts if anyone calls her any less of the title. What I have a problem with is, Cory the democracy icon sounds perilously like Apolinario Mabini the Brains of the Revolution. 

Mabini's role in history is vague. All people of think of him is that he's, well, paralytic. And a geek, and like all geeks he was a misfit in battle lines. So his accomplishments as far as we know was that he read a lot and wrote a lot. But that's all that. Brains of the Revolution doesn't really ring a bell, does it. We don't dwell on his memory like we do on Jose Rizal. A handicap can't compete with Jack-of-all-trades slash heartthrob, and I'm saying this without meaning any offense to the physically-challenged. 

Which makes me terribly upset and afraid, now that people are christening Cory with swell titles like people power saint, etc. I'm saying I have no problem we're handing out these to Cory because she deserves it. What upsets me is the shallowness of our grasp on Cory's accomplishments. We're proud of her (as Time Magazine says it) as the woman who changed Asia, the sparkplug of non-violent people protest and civil disobedience. But what these all add up to? My opinion: none. 

You don't have to look anywhere for evidence. You hard-press people on what Cory did, and then they tell you she ransomed us from the lupus-stricken dictator. Which when you think of it, sounds very very easy. It's like, dictatorship is bad so we'll turn it off but everybody's afraid to pull down the circuit breaker except simple-housewife-but-courageous Cory but she needs everyone's cheering her on when she does so.

That's why disillusionment about EDSA was fast. Everyone thought Cory was the Messiah, the long promised savior, one who can expunge our sins through a single act. Everyone thought it's going to be an easy ride to democracy and healthy economy once people stop tanks and guns with rosary and Freddie Aguilar-interpreted songs. When everyone realized it wasn't, Cory had legions of critics (who have now become ardent supporters and eulogy speakers and yes, I'm talking about you Conrado de Quiros) and got a taste of seven military coups.

And what makes me afraid is, our capacity to lavish praise on Cory is matched with our amnesia on why we're extolling her in the first place. Or worse, our skewed habit of giving out grand funerals and even grander epitaphs to our heroes while forgetting what exactly they lived and died for. We let it happen to Apolinario Mabini, there's no stopping us to allowing it to happen to Cory. In fact the symptoms are already prevalent, the symptoms are already festering as we speak. After her burial, the public was rushing to reward the honor guards, visit the twin tombs in Manila Memorial Park, drop by the Times Street in Forbes. 

No one was asking who among our current leaders possess Cory's virtue, specifically the virtue of not using vast presidential powers given willingly by the people for selfish interests. No one was asking who among our current leaders possess Cory's strength, specifically the strength of not yielding to the thralls of corruption that power brings. No one was asking, how can I become the next Cory? No wonder why heroes in this country live such tragic lives and meet such tragic deaths.

Citizen journalism gets a face lift from Iran, the most unlikely of places to seek development of online reporting. Upon ascent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to presidency through dubious election results last June, his government clamped down political dissent and local media, as well as purging foreign correspondents to flee out of the borders. The crackdown of the press, ranging from witch hunting of journalists and regime critics to suspending licenses to operate, restricted flow of information in and, of utmost importance to the global community, out of Iran.

Except that the government of Ahmadinejad underplayed the role of Internet, or probably it thought mauling traditional media would deter other alternative news sources to leak. As bullets, truncheons and water jets rained upon dissidents, ordinary citizens--people who otherwise thought that becoming global reporters is the stuff of wishful thinking---took pictures, video-recorded and broadcast Iran's turmoil to worldwide audience.

So far their works have been impressive. Footages of street brawls between police forces and protesters, the death scene of Neda Agha-Soltan and grisly abuse of power continue to pump up what trickle of information could be possibly had in the blogosphere and Internet news sites. Their works, or importantly their bravery in the face of tyranny, are inspiring. For every photo, video and news article the world sees and reads today is a life of an Iranian, concerned and unfazed at the face of possible death and persecution, put on the line.

It is true, citizen journalism is in its infancy stage. It is up to now an unregulated entity, populated by ADHD/self-absorbed bloggers and dilettantes lacking in taste and ethics. What it does best is cussing in public view, and pass it on as an educated eloquence. The Iranians are stepping up to the plate, defying a despot, hauling in the promises of technology and in the process help prop up their country, if not altogether save it from further ruin.

And while they're at it, they are fast deleting the first puerile tenets of ethics of citizen journalism and are the foremost authority to write the hard rules down—with sweat, blood and smartphones.

The time the camera framed her gliding down the ASAP ramp last weekend, hairs on the nape stood on ends. Many were stunned it took a few seconds to assign the face to a name. Is that Maricar paired with Jason Abalos? No, really? That's not possibly her, it couldn't be her. Why on earth is she there? Why, all things considered, show up?

Of course Maricar Reyes, the victim-lover of Dr. Hayden Kho's—as of the moment at least—two sex videos, had all the right to be there and show up. She looked stunning; peace and hopefulness written all over her like a marquee, standing there among rising and established Star Magic talents. What was uneasy was the public grappling her first TV appearance since the sex video scandal blew up last month. How to place her? How to right a wronged woman when everything about her last weekend didn't show misery and doom?

Vegetarians reads this poem in gloating triumph. Enjoy.

Grace Be Said at the Supermarket
by Howard Nemerov

This God of ours, the Great Geometer,
Does something for us here, where He hath put
(if you want to put it that way) things in shape,
Compressing the little lambs into orderly cubes,
Making the roast a decent cylinder,
Fairing the tin ellipsoid of a ham,
Getting the luncheon meat anonymous
In squares and oblongs with all the edges bevelled
Or rounded (streamlined, maybe, for greater speed).
Praise Him, He hath conferred aesthetic distance
Upon our appetites, and on the bloody
Mess of our birthright, our unseemly need.
Imposed significant form. Through Him the brutes
Enter the pure Euclidean kingdom of number,
Free of their bulging and blood-swollen lives
They come to us holy, in cellophane
Tansparencies, in the mystical body.
That we may look unflinchingly on death
As the greatest good, like a philosopher should.

Another sonnet from the world's greatest bard. Called The Palmer's Sonnet, it is the most popular lifted from tragedy Romeo and Juliet (Act 1 Scene 4), when the lovers met for the first time.


Palmer's Sonnet
by William Shakespeare


R: If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

J: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.

R: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
J: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
R: O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do.
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
J: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
R: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take...

Is this poem speaking of wisdom? Of conscious rationalization? Or of self deception?

When my love swears that she is made of truth
William Shakespeare: Sonnet No. 138

When my love swears that she is made of truth
I do believe her, though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor'd youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.