Bicycle was ride, not risk

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘Entrepreneur On A Bicycle? John Gokongwei Jr Was Having Twice The Fun’

Watermarking your book with young John Gokongwei Jr riding his bicycle: Are you saying this is the boy image of entrepreneurship? The boy didn’t even know the word existed. He had to buy & sell for his family to survive. Then, at 15 years of age, he started taking risks. That was when within the teenager, entrepreneurship was born. The bicycle was a ride, not a risk.

There is that risk of writing in hindsight on someone who has been hugely successful in business: You attribute his present success to his knowledge in the past, what he has learned in the course of time to what he was going to learn yet. You gloss over his learning process. He was born a genius; his genius lies in entrepreneurship – he was born with a silver spoonful of risk in his mouth.

I rate Marites A Kahnser’s book, John L Gokongwei Jr: The Path of Entrepreneurship (2007, Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University, 244 pages) a 7.5 where 10 is Top. It is well-researched; the story told is in effect corroborated by testimonies of two men of high merit: Washington SyCip and Gabriel Singson; it summarizes the life of the subject in one appropriate word: entrepreneur; it is imbued with the proper business perspective, as far as I can tell; certainly, it has the big words like ‘entrepreneurial mind’ and ‘theoretical perspectives’ – an ambitious book, which is all to the good. But the book does full justice neither to the whole story of Mr John (as he is fondly called) and his emergence from boy seller to boy buyer & seller, the time when his entrepreneurship seized him as he seized the handlebars of his bicycle, nor his capacity to take risk and learn along the way to success, surviving failure. The successes are important; so are the failures – and the learning along the way. I doubt there are entrepreneurs who have never failed. If you claim to be an entrepreneur and have always enjoyed success, you are not an entrepreneur: you are simply a businessman who is afraid to take risks.

Mr John didn’t begin with the mind of an entrepreneur. He began with the mind of a dreamer. And that’s how all entrepreneurships begin, as a dream, a dream that would not go away. Dreaming of the life of the rich. In Mr John’s boyhood, his first 13 years were ‘a life of privilege’ (page 42). ‘He lived in a big house, studied in the big school in Cebu, and had unlimited access to an air-conditioned movie house.’ (They owned it.) Rich is nicer. ‘I’ve been rich, I’ve been poor.’ says Frank Sinatra, ‘Believe me brother, rich is better!’

So, by his own admission, years earlier it was his mother (and necessity) who invented an entrepreneur out of John Gokongwei Jr riding a bicycle. But first, those wheels did not travel the path of entrepreneurship – first, they traveled the path of earning a living.

Entrepreneurship goes beyond buying & selling; entrepreneurship is a ‘willingness to take the risks involved in starting and managing a business’ (turnerlearning.com). To my mind, the defining factor is that entrepreneurs take bigger and greater risks; perhaps, they don’t know when to stop, or where, or with whom, which explains some failures. If I am wrong, then there are thousands of entrepreneurs in the streets today, and we continue to insult them by calling them sidewalk vendors or ambulant peddlers.

The boy John was an ambulant peddler, the boy buyer & seller with a bicycle. When he began, he was also the head of the family. Although he had never heard the word entrepreneurship, he discovered that he had the heart and head of an entrepreneur. You need the heart to be able to take the risk, you need the head to understand the risk and do what has to be done. Again and again. Add to entrepreneurship faith and hope; Mr John affirms this with the names of two of his daughters Hope and Faith (xxxvii, in a middle-of-the-book insert of photographs). Twins? Unfortunately, the book doesn’t say one way or the other. As far as I’m concerned, Faith and Hope are twins – you cannot have one without the other in business as in life.

When the Pacific War broke out in 1941, my first job was to sell the peanuts that my mother would cook in the backyard of our tiny rented home. I would also buy candles, thread, and soap, and travel a few miles to the next town on bicycle to a marketplace where I would lay these goods out on a table, and compete for customers with vendors twice my age and size. These were exhilarating times for me; I not only earned enough money to support my family (in China); I also discovered that I could live by my wits and hard work. I was working while my peers were all playing, but I always thought I was having twice their fun. (xv)

The boy was taking risks.

Entrepreneurs as risk takers also need other risk takers or they will not survive and succeed. In 1955, Mr John saw business in cornstarch, but he had no capital, no big company, no track record, no banking acquaintance (pages 64-65). But he was young, 35 years old; he had hope within himself and faith in other people. The first bank he approached for a loan turned him down: Bank of Communications. He tried again. This time, China Bank granted him a loan of half a million pesos. DK Chiong, President of the bank, would say later why he and Albino SyCip, Chairman of the Board, granted that huge loan to the young Mr John despite himself, saying it was ‘something about knowing a good man when he saw one’ (page 65). Mr DK was taking a calculated risk too. Mr John was lucky – ‘Who takes calculated risks with geniuses?’ is my rhetorical question.

The author quotes Mr John as saying that Filipinos will be encouraged to become entrepreneurs if these conditions are met:
(1) access to short-term and long-term capital
(2) better labor management
(3) cheaper energy – electrical power and gasoline
(4) agricultural productivity management
(5) foreign exchange management.

That may be so, but that’s the wisdom of hindsight. Mr John, you needed none of those to become one of the most highly successful entrepreneurs of the Philippines. What we have to learn is to take risk despite.

Interestingly, TAU (the author unnamed) explains that C2 is an excellent example of a consumer product launched using a Blue Ocean Strategy. ‘Simply put, a Blue Ocean Strategy is developing uncontested market space that makes your competition irrelevant.’

I don’t think so, TAU. In fact, by definition, in the Blue Ocean Strategy, there is no competition, nothing but ‘uncontested market space.’ C2 is green tea that doesn’t make the other guy irrelevant but green with envy. And, TAU, ‘Blue Ocean’ is a silly metaphor; you don’t put your product to the test in the sea, unless it’s for the fish. But if you insist, the fish won’t bite unless it’s to their taste and liking. Yes, in the ocean, the entrepreneur takes the risk and casts the fly, but the fish is always right.

Simply put, C2 is Mr John taking a new risk, riding a bicycle with wings to a new market. He is 81 this year; with C2, he is showing the risk takers he is more entrepreneurial than 100 of the young ones combined. Mr John is having more than twice the fun now. He deserves it.

It’s easier to curse than to cure

‘Cursing The Darkness Again! Cursing The Candle Too’

If so, may the Curse be with you! Since I’m not a doctor, don’t be surprised I’m studying curses, not cures. And for a very practical reason too: It’s easier to curse than to cure.

In 1962, Eleanor Roosevelt addressed the United Nations General Assembly, and Adlai Stevenson said of her: ‘She would rather light candles than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world’ (phrases.org.uk). The man knew the lady knew better.

Darkness is a metaphor for ignorance or evil. Don’t fall for the metaphor. Andrew Aguecheek says: The advice given is, ‘if something is wrong, do something about it rather than complain’ (everything2.com). Right. But Andrew, it’s easier to complain.

The original Chinese proverb is:
Don’t curse the darkness – light a candle.

Some original Franciscan proverbs are:
Don’t curse the darkness – light candles. Not just one.
Don’t curse the darkness – someone may be listening.
Don’t curse the darkness – it’s not a good. No competing product will benefit from your efforts.
Don’t curse the darkness – everybody is doing it. Unless of course you’re one of the teeming masses, one of their kind, a college graduate of a prestigious university who is a respected professional and yet is nothing but a run-of-the-mill citizen with a dark, un-illuminated mind.

On second thought, I prescribe that you curse the darkness:
(1) If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to call attention to yourself.
(2) It’s safe. Nobody can recognize you even as you spit venom.
(3) If there are thirteen of you and you can’t decide who to light the candle.
(4) It’s a powerful remedy for aches & pains, as it takes your attention away from them.
(5) If you’re with people as in a theatre, you have a captive audience.

Remember: However you curse, don’t forget to curse the candle – because it’s good for the candle industry. That’s elementary marketing, isn’t it? Negative publicity is positive publicity – it positively results in sales.

You don’t have to speak to curse someone; just be yourself. Your selfish self. ‘Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race’ – William Ewart Gladstone.

But forewarned is forearmed: Cursing can be dangerous to your health. In the Philippines, a European-schooled Filipino gentleman named Jose Rizal cursed the friars in 1887 March by coming out with a book – Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not); for me, the best English translation is that by Ma Soledad Lacson-Locsin, 1996, Makati City: Bookmark, 601 pages – describing what he considered the social cancer in the Philippine islands under the Spanish colonizers. The friars ganged on him, haunted him, caught him, hanged him.

Most Philippine scholars, foreigners and Filipinos, more often than not point to the Noli, as the book is often referred to, as Rizal’s peroration damning the Roman Catholic Church. They’re right; it is so – but most fail to point out that the Noli does not represent Rizal’s essential views on the Church. The Church is Roman Catholicism; the Noli denigrates not the theory (or belief) of Catholicism but the practice of it, the bad, badder, baddest examples of it.

For the love of me, I can’t find a passage that speaks of a good priest in the Noli. With the Noli, Rizal cursed Roman Catholicism as practiced in the Philippines; that is why even the old Filipinas (women) practicing their religion are ill-spoken of in the novel.

3 years almost to the day after the Noli came out and when Rizal returned to the Philippines, Father Sanchez of the Ateneo, who loved Rizal much, had this conversation with the man he had become (in the 1890 February 2 letter of Rizal from Brussels to Ferdinand Blumentritt in Austria):

Are you not afraid of the consequences of your audacity?
Father, you are a missionary. If you go on your mission, are you not afraid of the consequences of its fulfillment?
Oh, that is entirely different!
Not at all. Your mission is to baptize the heathen, but mine is to make men worthy.

But JR, you don’t make men worthy by cursing.

I know many Filipinos curse Filipinos here and abroad at the drop of a hat. I forgive them all, hundreds of thousands of them. I forgive them their ignorance. Perhaps they don’t realize that cursing is not a good habit because they are exercising their vocal chords only, not their brains.

Do you curse those countries who have high population growth rates like the Philippines? You mean you haven’t learned the lesson that Japan and European countries have learned about lowering population growth: population is society, a given; it is not the problem. The one who believes that population is the problem is part of the problem!

When you curse the poor for being poor, then you curse the darkness. Why not learn from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and do something positive about it? ICRISAT is teaching them better by encouraging them to do more than those whom Jonathan Swift encouraged for less: ‘… that whoever could make two Ears of Corn, or two blades of Grass, to grow on a Spot of Ground where one grew before, would deserve better of Mankind and do more essential Service to his Country than a whole Race of Politicians put together’ (quoted by Lee Jaffe, 1998, from Gulliver’s Travels, jaffebros.com). The ICRISAT advice? Plant sweet sorghum. Sweet sorghum is a crop that grows where none grows at all, which is twice better than Swift’s Corn or Grass. In another sense, Swift might have been referring to politicians who thought they were doing essential service to their country if they talked about it in a long Privileged Speech in the Senate.

Those who called themselves the Genuine Opposition in the last Philippine elections have almost always been exercising their vocal chords and not much the rest of their bodies top, middle, bottom. They have been denouncing quite a few people in and out of government in the media so much so we have become accustomed to their faces, not their facts. After all those years of practice, swearing now becomes them.

I thought only consumer products are sold by the swearing of individuals who are either popular or respected?

Curses, after all, are of many sizes and missions: Some may be brief, others endure for generations; some are casually rendered, others solemn; some are narrowly focused while others are broadly indiscriminate. And the ultimate success of a curse is enhanced by the social standing of the one declaring the curse. (Stanley Aronson, woai.com). We open our ears wide, not our mind, when the Big Mouths talk.

We Filipinos just simply say: ‘Crooks! Liars! Incompetents!’ We had 50 years of American occupation; either the Americans didn’t teach us the art of the insult, or we didn’t learn any. Some of us are poor teachers, some of us are poor learners.

‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s not polite to curse?’ Yes, but those in the Opposition make political hay out of it. And the intellectuals make academic hay out of it. It’s the stuff that consumers buy and want to buy again and again. Fat curses must make fat purses. That’s what makes newspapers, magazines, TV hosts sell.

They curse the economy. They curse the war. They curse the President. They curse the enemy. Those who curse are blameless. They are careful not to curse themselves, lest they be blamed. The cursers know the adage: Make hay while the sun doesn’t shine.

The cursers are un-biblical; they derive their wisdom elsewhere. In the beginning, did God curse the darkness? Not in anybody’s version of the Bible (Genesis 1:1).

So now it’s plain for me to see that those who curse the darkness don’t believe in God at all, no matter what they claim otherwise.

When you switch on a flashlight, strike a match, light a candle, you are separating the darkness from the light, and you should see that the light is good.

You can’t make light if there is no darkness – there can only be intense heat, overwhelming, annihilating everything in its non-path. A different kind of darkness. As in global warming: warm, warmer, warmest. Curses!

Watch your (science) language!

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘Grammar Of Global Warming. Your English Repaired While You Wait’

Having read many a report, and retort, on global warming, it’s the risqué global scientific language that bothers me, not the rising local everyday temperature. This morning (October 28, Manila) I googled with Safesearch for “global warming” and got 10,500,000 English pages. I looked into 100 maybe; I looked at many more; slowly, I warmed up to the idea that there had been a global cooling off plain words, that if I wanted plain English to heat up, if I wanted it done right, I had to do it myself.

Still, I’m not really surprised. Except a handful like Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, David Suzuki, scientists have never been known to communicate well to the public. I suspect they like it like that, because then they can stay and feel safe in their ivory towers.

So, if the whole literate world is not accepting the fact of global warming, I must blame the scientists, especially the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and thank Al Gore. The fact that the panel and the man are co-winners of the Nobel Peace Prize this year suggests to me that the Nobel Committee finally understood what the IPCC had been trying to tell the world since 1988, but only after the committee members watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

One of the things I have been trying to point out is that with improved sweet sorghum varieties from ICRISAT, it should not be too difficult to blanket the forsaken, abandoned bare soils of the drylands of the world – and then, there should be a noticeable cooling of those places on earth. In addition, sweet sorghum is a crop that is a true ally of poor farmers, as it is inexpensive to grow (it can grow well on bad soils), is an energy crop as well as it has other multiple uses. Encouraged by ICRISAT, entrepreneurs have seen the promise of business in this crop. There is now a distillery in India, Rusni Distilleries, making ethanol out of sweet sorghum with thousands of poor Indian farmers supplying the feedstock. In brief, these are the two reasons I say ‘Sweet sorghum is a rich man’s choice of a poor man’s crop.’ The technology of the Rusni model is now being transferred in the Philippines among other countries. It only goes to show that the Indians recognize a good technology when they see one – the Filipinos likewise.

Al Gore deserved the Oscar, in case anybody doubts. Nobody explains like an explainer. So, here’s my unsolicited advice to the Nobel Prize Committee: Abolish the Peace Price and in its place create 2: the Nobel Prize for Explaining, matching it with the Nobel Prize for Understanding. Plain English should be most highly regarded, not disregarded. (That goes for the Nobel Prize for Literature too.)

I suspect it’s the technical language that has on one hand prevented the masses from accepting the conclusion that there is global warming and, on the other hand, preventing them from understanding what’s going on in the first place. I estimate that only half of the scientists in the world know how to communicate in plain English, which means that half of the scientists of the world don’t know what the other half know.

Ladies and gentlemen of science, to do better than that, I recommend that you learn to communicate in layman’s terms. You can test any report of yours by talking to the man on the street and see if he understands what you’re talking about. If he doesn’t, invite me and I will give you my sympathy. Or lend you my ears; I assure you I’m a good listener. I shall come not to bury your Caesar but to raise him from your dead language.

In the meantime, the best thing I can do locally, I think, is put up a sign alongside our street that says, ‘Language Specialist. Your English Repaired While You Wait.’ The pressure will be mine, and the pleasure too. I will be competing against myself translating a paragraph from technical to popular language in 5 minutes flat, even if it happened to be a statistical interpretation, say where the correlation is 0.9 (Very Likely).

The best thing I can do globally is show you right here and now the problem with language that scientists have. They’re all geniuses to be sure; except perhaps NASA Administrator Michael Griffin who is not too concerned about global warming (thinkprogress.org), I find that they’re all talking above our heads. Of course we know some people simply want to talk over our heads.

Those who believe that global warming is largely man-made, are they talking sense? I know they’re talking technical. Those who believe that global warming is largely man talking nonsense, are they talking any better? I know they’re talking jargon too. I must be the only one trying to understand both sides now, and I find the language is getting in my way.

I’m very familiar with technical language because I’ve been reading it for the last 32 years, and it hasn’t changed much: it’s still awfully long-winded and complicated. Particularly for the last several years, 2001-2007, I have been Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science, and I know the technical language is a barrier rather than a bridge to understanding of the whole paper, even by the authors, technical people themselves. A paper submitted for publication is usually a report of a study conducted; often, the author of the paper fails to connect the conclusions back to the objectives of the study because the author gets lost in the complexity of the dialect of the science. I know; I’ve edited too many of them not to have noticed. I suspect technical language was invented as a means to reveal meanings only to a select few, the elite, not to reveal them to the public, the masses.

So, what’s the problem with the global warners on global warming again? Language, not the facts; communication, not data; grammar, not statistics.

For example, here’s Wikipedia on Global Warming:

Global warming refers to the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.

Wikipedia could just have said: Global warming is the world getting hotter and hotter.

Wikipedia continues: The global average air temperature near the Earth’s surface rose 0.74 +/- 0.18 C (1.33 +/- 0.32 F) during the last 100 years.

Meaning: The Earth became hotter by less than 1 degree Celsius in the last 100 years.

Now, that data is not very impressive, is it? It’s only less than 1°C in 100 years; why, that’s hardly meaningful. In fact, it’s very reassuring: The world is not getting much hotter than the global warmers would like us to believe!

Now, since I believe that man has contributed much to global warming, that which is undeniable (‘unequivocal,’ in the language of the IPCC), it’s either there is something wrong with the Wikipedia data, or there is something wrong with Wikipedia. Is this Wikipedia’s silent global warning that there is no global warming?

Here’s the BBC on Global Warming: Global warming is the rise in temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. It’s said that by the time a baby born today is 80 years old, the world will be 6 and a half degrees warmer than it is now.

That’s better. But it can still be improved, thus: Global warming is the world getting hotter. How much hotter? By about 0.08 degrees a year. By calculation, by the time a baby born today is 80 years old…

Where did I get 0.08 degrees a year? I computed: 6.5 divided by 80. Now, that gives me an idea: Instead of Wikipedia saying, The Earth became hotter by less than 1 degree Celsius in the last 100 years, perhaps Wikipedia meant to be saying, The Earth became hotter by less than 1 degree Celsius every year in the last 100 years. The experts should watch their language – and their figures.

And the Canadians, haven’t they heard? Apparently not, they haven’t been listening. The Canadian Free Press reject the thesis on Global Warming, Timothy Ball speaks for them:

Global Warming, as we think we know it, doesn’t exist. And I am not the only one trying to make people open up their eyes and see the truth. But few listen, despite the fact that I was one of the first Canadian PhDs in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition. Few listen, even though I have a PhD (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg. For some reason (actually for many), the World is not listening.

That’s very clear, Timothy, very strong – and very wrong. You have been staying in your ivory tower too long. I say you are also arguing from authority, claiming you know more than more than 2,000 IPCC experts combined (I got the number from Miriam Geronimus, dailyprincetonian.com).

At any rate, Timothy Ball shows that the naysayers say it better: full of conviction, full of authority, full of unmistakable words. Now, one lesson we can learn from this is clearly this: We can all learn from the naysayers.

Surprisingly, MSN Encarta is much clearer than most on Global Warming:

Global Warming or Climate Change – measurable increases in the average temperature of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and landmasses. Scientists believe Earth is currently facing a period of rapid warming brought on by rising levels of heat-trapping gases, known as greenhouse gases, in the atmosphere.

Greenhouse gases retain the radiant energy (heat) provided to Earth by the Sun in a process known as the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases occur naturally, and without them the planet would be too cold to sustain life as we know it. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s, however, human activities have added more and more of these gases into the atmosphere. For example, levels of carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, have risen by 35 percent since 1750, largely from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. With more greenhouse gases in the mix, the atmosphere acts like a thickening blanket and traps more heat.

Encarta gets 10 out of 10 from me. The Encarta author (along with the editor) on global warming deserves an award or something. Science seldom gets clearer than this.

And I shall continue writing to help bring about a climate change toward clearer, smarter, plainer English reporting and retorting on climate change. For a change.

Erap: Being funny, being irrelevant

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘The Franciscan Essay. Your Folk Hero? Joseph Estrada’

Estrada’s World is that of make-believe. You make it, you believe it. ¶ Frank’s World is that of the Franciscan Essay. I essay that we’ll see each other soon.

This is all about the education of Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada. I began this one thinking of Erap and my Franciscan Essay. I’m writing this essay with only those two thoughts in mind; I’m making this all up, I’m creating it as I write. I don’t know at this point where I’m going, but I know I’d like to get there. That’s what the Franciscan Essay is all about: you make it, it’s yours.

‘I am a Franciscan!’ I say that in the manner of John F Kennedy, ‘I am a Berliner!’ I wrote that on October 23 in my book, the one that is coming out towards the end of next month, November; now in press, my book is being published inter-continentally outside the Philippines where I am right now; more of it later.

Of course I am. I can’t help it. I’m a Franciscan because my first name is Francisco; I was born on the day of the Stigmata of Saint Francis, September 17; like the Franciscan University of Steubenville, I believe in ‘quality academic programs that combine academic challenge, career preparation, and spiritual growth’ (franciscan.edu). I believe you call that relevance. I believe in the Franciscan order (my own), that is, when I begin to write, disorder is the order of the day. You call that creativity.

Now, about the Franciscan vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity, this time I have a problem. Obedience? I’m not your usual good and faithful servant. I can only satisfy poverty (I have hope but I have no car, no bank account, no home) and chastity (I am a one-woman man, heaven knows my wife knows). What about a life of prayer and fasting? That depends on what you mean by prayer. But fasting, yes, at home we are always fasting: we take 2 meals a day, and we’ve been doing that for years; no, we don’t gorge on the first meal of the day. You do it if you mean it.

I am a Franciscan also because I believe in Mother Angelica – in fact, I’m in awe of her. You see, Saint Francis founded three orders: Friars Minor, Poor Sisters of Clare, and Brothers & Sisters of Penance. Mother Angelica is of the Poor Sisters of Clare; I have written about the power of her faith as shown in her birthing and mothering – but not smothering – of the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN); I wrote about her in ‘The Idiot’s Box, The Great American Revolution’ (americanchronicle.com). Her message? Believe in the impossible!

I have just found out that my concept of the Franciscan Essay is just another Franciscan phenomenon. The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal have another; they say in their website franciscanfriars.com: ‘While having a website, we do not have computers or Internet in our friaries – a Franciscan paradox!’ I would say that’s the right Franciscan attitude, creative. Instead of pointing out the obvious, if not your paradigm, shift your metaphor.

My forthcoming book is a collection of articles already published in my name by the American Chronicle, each one of which I now call a Franciscan Essay. While we wait for my book to roll off the press, I can tell you something about the subject, its attributes:

A Franciscan Essay takes you everywhere and anywhere. It is a celebration of life in thoughts, by words, with feeling. It is a belief in the usefulness of the unusual, in the importance of the impossible. Even while the subject matter is not new, a Franciscan Essay is always a surprise.

While I’m not free to discuss my book right now, I am free to illustrate what a Franciscan Essay is. Allow me then to talk about Erap, Joseph Ejercito Estrada, actor, President of the Philippines, ladies man. His is a colorful life, and he looks it; his is a woeful life, and he doesn’t look it. Life is not how other people look at you, but how you look at yourself.

On 2001 April 4, Ombudsman Aniano Desierto charged Erap at the Sandiganbayan with a P 4B economic plunder; six-and-a-half years later, on 2007 September 12, the Sandiganbayan found him guilty and ordered him punished with up to 30 years imprisonment. Then, yesterday, Friday, October 26, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo granted his request for Executive Clemency. His full civic and political rights have been restored. His sins have been forgiven him.

Now then, the life of Erap has been a Franciscan paradox itself. In his public movies, he is the swashbuckling folk hero, defending the weak and downtrodden; in his private moments, he is the swashbuckling anti-hero that most media and many people don’t seem to know. Once an actor, always an actor? Once a fan, always a fan?

For example, here is an entry from a reporter’s notebook: ‘Estrada arrived in San Juan City Friday and addressed throngs of his supporters who crowded the street in front of the city hall to listen to their hero who was released from detention after President Arroyo granted him Executive Clemency.’ Erap is known for eraptions (malapropisms); in any case, to be kind, his English is poor, and so is the reporter’s; in the sentence I just quoted, there is a wrong word used if you can find it. Birds of a feather flock together.

It seems that Erap is simply living his reel life in real life, or he can’t distinguish one from the other. Kirsty Alfredson & Rufi Vigilar tell us (2001, CNN, edition.cnn.com):

Like the action movies he starred in, Estrada’s career is punctuated by dramatic plot changes characterized by extreme lows and dizzying successes.

Maybe he gets his high from extremes. In the presidential election of 1998, he won by the widest margin ever in Philippine history, taking 40% of the votes, his closest rival, Joe de Venecia taking 13%, a difference of 27% (Terry McCarthy, 2000 May 29, Time Asia, time.com). I know personally that even in the University Town of Los Baños, this Ateneo dropout won. The academics must have thought he was honest and true. Or not that they loved Joe de Venecia less, but that they loved Joseph Estrada more.

And how did he fare as President of his country? He was the same man; he didn’t change, a friendly guy who couldn’t let a friend down. Witness this scene (Terry McCarthy, cited):

An old man in tattered clothes is ushered through the crowd. The President recognizes the man, who had been a security guard in San Juan 15 years ago, when Estrada was the town’s Mayor. Master of the common touch, Estrada converses warmly for several minutes. As the man turns to go, the President pulls out his wallet and discreetly slips his old buddy a few bills.

Erap adored his friends too much he could not rise to the level of patria adorada.

But it is not true that Erap was deposed by an uprising orchestrated by the Army. The Army is not that powerful, or credible; no Army ever is, even in countries ruled by military juntas, or Adolf Hitlers. They like to think they can, but they cannot take – or hold power – on their own.

I’m saying this on the basis of what was known in Europe already in 1892 about staging a successful revolution, and which was unrecognized in the highly dramatic, bloodless People Power / EDSA Revolution of 1986 in the Philippines. In his 1892 January 30 letter, Austrian intellectual Ferdinand Blumentritt begged his best friend Jose Rizal, now the Philippines’ National Hero: ‘I beg you not to meddle in revolutionary agitations’ because:

A revolution has no probability of success unless: 1st, a part of the army and navy rebel; 2nd, the metropolis is at war with another nation; 3rd, there are money and munitions available; and 4th, some foreign country give its official or secret support to the revolution. None of these conditions exists in the Philippines.

I say today, echoing Blumentritt: ‘None of these conditions exists in the Philippines.’

Still, I think Blumentritt’s list misses one important factor of a Revolution, the 5th: a charismatic leader. A leader with appeal, magnetism, captivating personality. Blumentritt didn’t have to mention it; he knew Jose Rizal was that one. Andres Bonifacio was another one, so we had the first Katipunan Revolution. That failed because Emilio Aguinaldo was more charismatic, so it was he who continued the Unfinished Revolution. Jaime Cardinal Sin was that one; he was that one not just once but twice: People Power I (1986, against President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos), People Power II (2001, against President Joseph Estrada), with 15 years in-between Revolutions. Charisma stays with you.

And Erap is that one, yes! Joseph Estrada is charismatic the way Gringo Honasan is not, Jinggoy Estrada is not, Ping Lacson is not, Mar Roxas is not, Aquilino Pimentel is not, Chiz Escudero is not.

Jenny Booth (cited) quotes Erap as saying his presidency was the ‘last and best performance of my life.’ It was. If I could, I would recommend him for an Oscar; it had been quite a performance and continues right up to this moment. It’s a solo performance – sometimes, it’s a great standup comedy, if you have a great sense of humor. Erap, your performance is great, but we need cash.

I said the Franciscan Essay comes up with the unexpected, always. And here it comes: I can look at the news in another way and challenge Joseph Estrada:

Erap, grow up! There is one last great act of your life you have yet to perform: Being a Pied Piper to the poor Filipinos who adore you, you whose words are their command.

And that’s the reason I wrote this essay: To tell Joseph Estrada about himself, to challenge him to be a hero to his face, not the least to his people, not in an acting capacity for once, but in a position of strength.

BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk) reports: ‘But despite his fall from grace, he is still widely seen as the country’s most popular President in two decades.’ My point exactly.

In his first public appearance after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo granted him that which he requested, Executive Clemency, late afternoon of last Friday, he told the multitude who gathered to welcome him in front of the city hall in San Juan, ‘I am now free to pursue my pro-poor programs that I have initiated’ (ABS-CBN News, October 26, abs-cbnnews.com). ‘There is no substitute for freedom.’

Erap, there is no substitute for greatness.

BBC News (News.bbc.co.uk) reminds us about Erap:

He cultivated an image as the friend of the poor, a Robin Hood figure committed to redistributing wealth and power. He espoused the cause of poor agricultural workers, pledging to improve their lot.

Erap, with your influence, if not your money, there are many things you can do for the poor. An Al Gore-like campaign for local response to global warming may be too much for you, but you can do any or all of these:

Help set up little corporations and go microfinance.
Help set up small cooperatives in the villages.
Campaign for discipline among jeepney drivers and bus drivers of Metro Manila.
Appeal for greener and cleaner Metro Manila.

If you want to go into business and at the same time help the small farmers, including non-farmers who own no piece of land at all, I recommend producing bioethanol from sweet sorghum. Global warming is big business now, if you haven’t heard. Ask the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) how this can be done – they are already doing it in Andhra Pradesh, India; thousands of small Indian farmers supply sweet sorghum stalks to the Rusni Distillery. And you know what? Erap, the fellow who captains Team ICRISAT is a Filipino; in fact, you know him well, as he was your Secretary of Agriculture: William Dollente Dar, now Director General of ICRISAT. When the Filipino is good, he is the best.

Erap, if you are truly for the poor, with all your might help them rise above their station in life by working for them, with them, encouraging them, advocating for them, and not simply shooting from the hip, shooting darts at little ladies, shooting your mouth off.

Erap, I hope you realize that that big Executive Clemency granted to you by the little lady is your last chance at being great for your country. At 70, there is no time for you to waste. If you do not rise above politics, then you will remain Joseph Ejercito Estrada, the favorite son of your mother, once President of your country, you who promised redemption of the poor and disadvantaged Filipinos; you will forever be acting out the greatest performance of your life, showing to the whole world that you have only two talents: being funny and being irrelevant.

Writing begins when you don’t understand

Selections from my Franciscan essays (hover cursor over link for source or click for full article)
‘Choosing Joy. Being How To Interpret Science Language’

When the customer says ‘No!’ the sale begins. That’s a mantra of sales people, and it’s a daunting challenge to be creative about a critical situation. So: When the science writer says ‘No, I don’t understand this material at all,’ the science writing begins. A problem is not a problem, it’s an opportunity. It’s all in the attitude. Strange as it may seem, but a science writer can learn from a salesman about being creative. In fact, this is a 30-year-old idea; Elmer Leterman wrote his seminal book The Sale Begins When The Customer Says ‘No’ in 1977 yet (amazon.com). The lesson here? One never stops learning.

How does one interpret science language? Note that the two quoted paragraphs (in italics) below both come from the Executive Summary of ‘ICRISAT’s Vision and Strategy to 2015’ (ICRISAT.org). (I chose the material from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics since I’m studying this institute because it’s a model science agency in modern times; it’s an award-winning institute many times over; I like to give credit to whom credit is due; at the same time I’m enjoying trying to learn how it can relate to the poor farmers in the drylands of the tropics armed only with her 5 mandate crops: sweet sorghum, pearl millet, pigeon pea, chickpea, groundnut. And what have I found so far? ICRISAT relates to the farmers by relating to everyone: farmers, entrepreneurs, academe, local government, advocates, funding agencies, not to mention the media who must understand and interpret what the institute is doing. I am media, and my name is legion.

The language is technical English; as a science writer, you are supposed to translate it into popular English. But before you attempt to interpret it, let me give you some advice. First, read it once, fast. You don’t understand a thing? You’re running about average! Read again, this time thoroughly, word for word. Still don’t get it? You’re not supposed to – if you do, I salute you. But I expect you to read once, twice, thrice. Only then are you ready to get to the heart of it.

So, can you explain that as a magazine writer or a columnist in a newspaper? Of course not. Just looking, I can’t do it myself.

So, what do you do? Here’s what you can do. First, get to a PC. (Don’t tell me you cannot be bothered; if you’re a writer, you’re either afraid, in awe, or an enemy of information technology, a Luddite.) Then type the text as you see it – never mind the italics, never mind the indents left and right – just type. Don’t ask someone to type it for you; you do it yourself – but not using a typewriter, for God’s sake. (One of my favorite writers, Ray Bradbury, still uses the typewriter exclusively and rides the bicycle only, as far as I know – me, I ride only a bicycle and type exclusively on the keyboard of the Hilarios’ PC.) I do it all the time, been doing this for 20 years. Writing is a do-it-yourself kit, some assembly required. If you didn’t know it, typing is assembly required, as you will shortly see me demonstrate.

You know what happens when you type onscreen? There are two ways the words and their meanings are registered in your brain: by touch and by sight. You’re two times better off toward understanding your material this way. Some of the meanings of the words, sentences get into your head, even if you are not referring to the dictionary or encyclopedia for terms you don’t understand. (But it’s better if you do refer while reading when you meet a word you don’t understand; just right-click on the word. Me, more often, I refer to the dictionary and the Internet.)

The semi-arid tropics: what does the term mean really? Check the Internet. (Oh yes, when I’m writing, I’m at the same time surfing the Internet searching, reading. It helps me think some more, and in a more relaxed manner – because what I don’t know, I can find out in a few seconds. Thank God for the Internet!)

You don’t need good grammar to understand the story told in the language of science. At this point in time, grammar is the least of your worries.

Going back to Elmer Leterman, ‘Dean of American Salesmanship,’ America’s first multi-billion dollar life insurance salesman, he famously said, ‘And remember, you have to be able to sell yourself successfully before you can take the next step – selling something for somebody else’ (elmergleterman.com). As a science writer, you have to be able to sell to yourself, that is, be the first to appreciate the subject matter at hand, before you will be able (and happy enough) to translate it in the language of others, of the many.

In case you haven’t noticed, in teaching you how to understand the technical language first before you translate it into the popular, I actually was teaching you how to study a difficult subject.

At this point, you’re only beginning! So, I hope you are enjoying the whole thing. The first secret of science writing is not to love what you do, writing, but to enjoy it. ‘You’ve got to find what you love,’ says Steve Jobs, one of my idols (news-service.stanford.edu). Steve, that works with you as an innovator. What works with me as a science writer is to find love with what I’ve got, with what I’ve found. And to find love, I begin with joy.

So, choose joy. Love is immeasurable, so let’s leave it at that. Joy you can gauge, joy you can easily tell, joy you can easily infect someone with.

You can easily tell I’m enjoying all this. And exactly how does one choose joy? Ah, I can write another book on that!