Because I let them. While they twist facts and manipulate people and events, I confront them straight up. I tell them how I feel. I don’t stab them behind their backs, even when they do. I don’t resort to dirty tricks. I give them chances, chances and more chances. They fight below the belt; they use everything personal they can dredge up about me.
 
But this is what I say: Be Careful. Don’t Play Dirty With Me, Boy. Play Fair.

You may think you can get away with it. Right now, you’re laughing because you think you won this battle: you’ve swamped me, and tired me out with little details. You’re irritated and provoked me until I got mad. You’ve held money I rightfully earned, tormented me by squeezing me where it hurts most.

This is what I say: Yes, you will win this battle.

But I’m telling you, you will lose this war.

You will lose it precisely because I don’t play dirty. You will lose fully and truly.

Believe me. I may look alone and vulnerable, but watch out: I’m not. There are forces at work that go beyond your wildest imagination. Is it the long hand of justice, or is it…Carrie?

Here’s the batting average:

1. Someone committed an unspeakable crime against me when I was 20. The next year, this person was caught stealing artifacts displayed during a tribal peoples’ conference. What’s worse, this was an international tribal people’s conference. The result: This person is banned for life from the circle of international indigenous academics and NGOs. In contrast, I have built my reputation as a writer with some segments this circle. More, 15 years after the event, the sister of this person was axed from her editorial job. I was asked to take her position.

2. Ten years ago, a young NGO worker came to me to unload her secret: she had been raped by a ranking official in a small town where I was working then. It so happened that the group I was working with then was dependent on this high-ranking person for contracts. When I raised the issue with them, they all knew it was true but they chose to be “pragmatic”—to take his side and cover up for him. They dropped me from the group and, when I continued to insist that what the group was doing was wrong, they spread rumors to destroy my reputation. In fact, the head said it was “easy to destroy my reputation.” I was pregnant at that time (unmarried pa!) and needed the job, but I stood firm. Four years later, I became editor of a regional newspaper. A year later, when I had built a bit of a reputation in the city, I met that high-ranking official again in an event. When he saw me, he tried to hide from me. When I approached him, he was shaking.

And then, things can get even stranger. In cases where the odds are really stacked against me, stranger things happen.

 
1. At one point, my daughter and I had to rent a room in a large house in New Manila. We thought we were safe, since the owner was a businessman and a volunteer pastor in a born-again Christian group. But we were not. This guy was so sick, he did not want to put a lock in our room. He’d come to our room at odd hours to “preach,” except that he’d be staring at my breasts the whole time, as he spoke – and this could be for hours. I couldn’t leave immediately, not wanting to waste the months of deposit I had paid up. It was hell living in a place like that, and I was in constant fear, for myself and my daughter. But just when I thought the events were too much, something strange happened: This guy suffered a stroke. Half of his body was paralyzed. As soon as our deposit ran out, my daughter and I fled the place.

2. In an office where I once worked, one woman felt threatened by my work and led a “lynch mob” against me. I had to defend myself against a whole group – and I had to defend, not only my work, but even the presence of my daughter and my daughter herself from charges that she was “different,” was “ibang klaseng bata.” Two years later, this woman and all those who led the “lynch mob” against me were fired from that office for stealing money (they really did). I’m still friends with people there.

3. At another place, the person I was in conflict with brought up my family history and scoffed at my father (then already long dead). Still not satisfied, came to the office, drunk, while I was working late at night (it was an office-bahay, so there were no guards), with daughter in tow of course, and threatened to harm us. We had to flee, of course. Around a month after, he was found dead in the morning. He died in his sleep from a heart attack.

And then, there are the minor stuff: In work projects where I am squeezed, cheated or not paid? Wait a few months or a year or so, and the whole project collapses.

Here’s the batting average:

• 1 got a stroke
• 1 died
• 3 were fired
• 1 behind bars
• 2 had their reputations marred forever
• 1 ended up in a psycho ward
• 1 had a nervous breakdown

 
I didn’t even have to lift a finger. The only thing that ties all these incidents together is that, at some point I was feeling really, really bad and I was defenseless.

Strange forces at work? Is this the work of the ancestors’ spirits? Or was my mom really a mamkukulam from Leyte?

Or maybe it’s because, having lost my father at age 15, and not having had a family to back me up, I’ve been exposed early on to unscrupulous people who think they can take advantage of me. And because I don’t get even -- or play dirty -- but just stick to what is right and end up simply leaving (like your typical Ibaloi), I grant the space for the wheels of karma to begin their slow grind…

The wheels of justice grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine.

So think again before you squeeze me one more time. You still have time to change your ways and treat me fairly.

I have a gentler, but more radical proposal for these people whose greed has gotten the better of them.

Rehabilitation.

After all, most progressives are at their very core, pro-life in the real sense of the word, and against cruel and inhuman punishment and the death penalty. So is the Catholic Church.

Ergo, let's unite on this one and pray for the speedy, comprehensive, truthful resolution of the NBN-ZTE case.

Let’s pray that the Holy Spirit or the spirits of our anitos—ancestors—hover inside the (un)august halls of Congress, helping people there see the light–or even just see beyond those envelopes of cash floating around. (http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=2179)

Let’s pray that they have the courage to begin new proceedings against these criminals… and really bring them to justice.

AND JUST what do we have in mind for these people who have acted for so long with arrogance and impunity?

Rehabilitate them.

Yup, rehab not extrajudicial killing, because evil is the resort of the weak, the challenged and the cowardly. (http://www.newsbreak.com.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3471&Itemid=88889008)

Here are my suggestions:

1. Prosecute them, without impunity, in an impartial court.

2. Read them their rights.

3. Give them time in a jail. No need to give them extra difficult treatment-- I mean who believes in an eye for an eye? -- just the normal treatment in our normal, severely overcrowded jail. (http://pinoycentric.com/2007/10/15/philippine-jails/)

4. While in jail, give them time to review Philippine history, the Philippine Constitution, the Civil Service Code. For a few weeks, put them under a regimented schedule that includes lots of prayer, study time (topics above), and fpr leisure, watching movies like this:  http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/118279/Bayan-Ko-Kapit-Sa-Patalim/overview

5. Keep these images (and that of other heroes) around their room:

Remember, rehabilitation means:

“To restore to useful life, as through therapy and education or to restore to good condition, operation, or capacity. The assumption of rehabilitation is that people are not natively criminal and that it is possible to restore a criminal to a useful life, to a life in which they contribute to themselves and to society. Rather than punishing the harm out of a criminal, rehabilitation would seek, by means of education or therapy, to bring a criminal into a more normal state of mind, or into an attitude which would be helpful to society, rather than be harmful to society.

6. Because we recognize that these people who act with impunity are simply not in good condition, we also suggest psychotherapy. Try Safepricker's passions. There might be a acupuncture spot that lessens greed?

7. Part of their rehabilitation should also include:

a. Labor. Oh, no, not hard labor. Just the usual labor that 2/3 of our countrymates are forced to do everyda. Even better , the kind that Filipino children have to undertake: (http://www.geocities.com/philmovies/films/minsanlangsilabata/minsanlangsilabata.html)

b. Separation from family. For years, please. In the same manner that thousands of Filipinos are forced by a collapsing economy and a dysfunctional government to separate from their families and go abroad. We also suggest a six-month stint, at least, as a DH in Singapore.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4502046.stm

c. Six months living in one of Metro Manila’s slum areas, where 40 percent of Manileños now live. I suggest Payatas or Baseco, Tondo, where generations of generations of Filipinos have lived without hope.

Don’t forget the daily fare of lucky me, lucky me and MORE lucky me!

Oh, for rehabilitation to be effective, we have to take away some things:
No more breakfasts here:

No more limousine rides with a whole barangay of policemen with wang-wangs (sirens) blazing...

Instead, more of riding on this:

You, know, Zen and the art of motorcycle riding…

Oh, and  please, don’t forget the exercise:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o

AT THE END OF IT ALL, I am sure those once-arrogant, greedy and power hungry will see the light:

1. The GDP and the appreciation of the peso are NOT the sole measures of a growing economy.

2. Ang sagot sa kahirapan ay HINDI broadband! (The solution to our economic mess is NOT broadband!)

See, our proposed solution is nothing NOTHING compared what those in power have done to the best and the brightest who offered their lives for a better country.
http://yoopee.multiply.com/journal/item/1380

Let me end with a song dedicated to those who need to be rehabilitated from their greed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnwe8lngFy0

(english translation by jorge calderon)

My personal revenge will be the right
Of our children in the schools and in the gardens
My personal revenge will be to give you
This song which has flourished without panic
My personal revenge will be to show you
The kindness in the eyes of my people
Who have always fought relentlessly in battle
And been generous and firm in victory

My personal revenge will be to tell you good morning
On a street without beggars or homeless
When instead of jailing you I suggest
You shake away the sadness there that blinds you
And when you who have applied your hands in torture
Are unable to look up at what surrounds you
My personal revenge will be to give you
These hands that once you so mistreated
But have failed to take away their tenderness

It was the people who hated you the most
When rage became the language of their song
And underneath the skin of this town today
Its heart has been scarred forevermore

It was the people who hated you the most
When rage became the language of their song
And underneath the skin of this town today
Its heart has been scarred forevermore
And underneath the skin of this town today
Red and black, its hearts been scarred
Forevermore