The enemy is us!

If you have not seen the movies: Inside Out or Heneral Luna, do yourself a favor as well as everybody you know: go and watch these movies. I find it tragic that when intelligent movies hit the screen, they often hit it like an overripe fruit that simply splatters and slides into oblivion with only a handful of people talking about it.

A month ago the movie “Inside Out” was screened but hardly any of the so-called intelligent people saw it or talked about it. I’m hoping the DVD version hits the market soon enough so families can watch this very educational animated film about how our minds work. It’s all serious stuff presented in an animated and often funny and sometimes disturbing way that tackles our thought process, physiological, psychological changes as well as the beginnings or basics of mental illness.

Just for the record some people think becoming a teenager qualifies as mental illness, while others deem marriage as an equally infectious plunge to insanity. Actually, I’m just being funny because half of the people who read the word “mental illness” automatically tune out or turn off. It’s ironic that people can deal with “gay,” “lesbian,” “colored” but still have problems dealing with “mongoloids” or children with Down syndrome. Many churches in all its newfound state of forgiveness still have not wrapped their arms around families with someone who has committed suicide. Many persons of the cloth still refuse to pray for or give the last rites to a suicide victim. The victim is dead, they won’t know the difference, but the families who are shocked and hurting need all the loving!

If we deny it, frown upon it, won’t talk openly about it, how can we in our right mind expect people to talk about their depression, their inner pain or their suspected mental illness? How can we expect people to come out in the open when we slam the door on them?

This is why I encourage people to watch “Inside Out” because instead of being depressing or ugly, the movie gives our various emotions and mind sets “characters” who interact from within and relate or interact to those outside the headquarters of the mind. What the movie achieves is it makes the viewer more informed about the mind and makes us sympathetic to persons especially young people who are struggling with mental or psychological changes they are unfamiliar but greatly affected by.

In many cases we simply can’t help it, don’t know much about it, or are driven to desperation as we find ourselves overwhelmed by feelings and thoughts. It can be puberty, chemical imbalance, menopause, andropause, stress, fear, heartbreak or real mental illnesses. In others it can be excessive passion that becomes uncontrollable obsession that becomes exhausting and hurting. Sometimes you just get so exhausted and tired that you simply want to get away, get a break, get some rest, go to sleep and that’s when unintended suicide occurs.

I have been there at least twice, maybe thrice in my life. Twice with sleeping pills, I almost O-D’d but not really intending to kill myself. I was simply trying to get away from all the emotions, passion and hurt bursting inside my mind that it was already manifesting physically.

The worst bout had me clutching the Bible on one hand and a gun on the other, at 3 a.m., shivering on a hot summer night just calling to God to let the light shine because I knew without a doubt that the devil himself was in the room. I survived that night because of all the prayers and spiritual teaching my mother Marita had imparted to me as a child. It was my spiritual heritage that saved me from becoming my worst enemy.

I share this because I was told by Frances Lim and Jean Goulbourn that their biggest struggle in bringing attention to their work of intervention at the Natasha Goulbourn Foundation is finding people “brave” enough to talk about their experience or their struggle. I’m not ashamed of it. I was fortunate to have survived, I got stronger and I moved on. With our love and open arms many others can do the same, but they need our help.

What I appreciate about Inside Out is that it is a movie that helps. It helps young people get a better understanding that it’s not always their fault, that sometimes the enemy is within and the better they understand the better they can tame the beast. It also teaches parents and adults that we are suppose to be the grown up in the equation and often it is as much about hugging and listening as it is about fixing things. That was always my mistake, I always want to fix things to solve the problem but I have learned through time, humility and lots of love that sometimes that’s what you need the most: Lots of love.

* * * There is very little love in the movie Heneral Luna. It is violent, it is brutal but it is also a very real mirror and representation of Filipino politics, both then and now. To be honest, the movie left me wishing that some dubious revolutionary is now burning in hell, but after recovering my senses and reminding myself that I was watching a movie, I began to study the movie for its socially redeeming values or usefulness beyond art form. If viewers are to learn anything from the movie

Heneral Luna, it would be the valuable lesson on personal relationships and the fact that what may seem to be is often not the case, and that being politically naïve gets us into wars we can’t win. In modern terms Heneral Luna shows us that “Plastikan” or politically correct hypocrisy was far more necessary and deceptive in their times. Idealism often got you killed. Back then, those incapable of “Plastikan” or playing the game, were court martialed and executed like Andres Bonifacio or were slashed, stabbed, shot and hacked to death like a pig, which was the ending Act, but also lacked specified security features, like UV-light fake-ballot detector, voter-verification receipts, and election inspectors’ passcodes;

• It failed to transmit from precincts to canvassing centers nine percent of votes in 2010 and 26 percent in 2013, comprising thousands of votes for local and hundreds of thousands for national candidates;

• It over-counted the senatorial votes in 2013, prompting the Comelec to fudge the figures, prematurely declare “winners” although only 56 percent of precincts had sent in the results, and surreptitiously overprint more ballots for cover-up;

• It has cost Filipino taxpayers P16 billion so far to lease-purchase, accessorize, transport, and warehouse the 82,000 PCOS units since 2009, or nearly P200,000 apiece for only two usages – yet the Comelec is throwing another P14 billion into 94,000 new ones;

• All that, when what the country needs is to retain the old manual precinct count, and, as Filipino info-technologists demonstrated, automate with cheap ordinary tablets and cell phones only the transmission and canvassing where wholesale cheating used to be done;

• Despite the PCOS’ vaunted invulnerability, syndicates inside the Comelec still were able to sell party-list congressional seats and fabricate fake results, as proven in Compostela, Cebu; Biliran; Pasay City; General Tinio, Nueva Ecija; Dinalupihan, Bataan, and elsewhere;

• During the dry run a week before Election 2010, the randomly picked PCOS test units churned out votes only for the outgoing admin’s presidential bet, requiring the rush replacement and reformatting of 152,000 compact-flash cards by 6,000 Smartmatic techs, thus teaching the cheaters among them the secret programming codes;

• Again in 2013 Smartmatic technicians altered the figures of the Comelec Transparency Server, after PPCRV tabulators noticed the surge of an impossible 20 million precinct results, more than half of the estimated 35-million turnout, within only two hours of the closing of the balloting;

• The PCOS produced a 60-30-10-percent result for admin- opposition- independent senatorial candidates in all precincts, districts, municipalities, cities, and provinces – defying usual

of Heneral Luna.

If you pay careful attention to the political issues and concerns it shows that the problems then are still the problems now and at the end of the day, regionalism, business interest, pride and ego, and most of all deceit and hypocrisy prevailed then as it prevails now. What struck me the most is that the political leadership then was as pathetic as it is now and that at the end of the day, it is always what’s good for the “Boy’s club” rather than what is good for the country. So why should you watch this movie? Because it shows you how and why “We” are the enemy!

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E- mail: utalk2ctalk@gmail.com

The DOE’s odd enticement is called CSP, for Competitive Selection Process. It is far from competitive though in determining the electricity rate in franchise areas. On the contrary, Gencos can jack up the rates through price fixing and supply tightening.

Under the CSP, DUs and ECs are compelled to hold biddings for long-term power supply agreements. But the new Gencos favored by DOE are not bound to join, only if they so wish as friendly competitors. (Most old Gencos already are locked into supply contracts up to their maximum capacities, so naturally cannot take on more customers.) Such process not only fosters collusion; Gencos also may divvy up for contracting among themselves the regional DUs and ECs.

An anomalous situation already has arisen in Central Luzon, where the DOE test-ran the CSP. The winning Genco bidder turned out to not be offering the lowest electricity rate, as the loser turned around and offered an even lower rate in the Ilocos Region.

That’s not the end of it. Gencos that had been left out of the Central Luzon bidding are now declaring ability to supply power at lower rates than ever. The lowest of the last-minute offerers is 50 centavos per kilowatt-hour less.

That discount would have been a big relief for residential, commercial, and industrial customers who are reeling from the costliest electricity in Asia. But the DU that conducted the DOE’s forced bidding has no choice but to sign up with the declared winner. Showing reluctance, it has been threatened with civil damage suits.

There’s another flaw with the DOE’s CSP. The winning bid price may not necessarily be what consumers actually would pay. The Genco can stick them up with the additional cost of fuel. If they happened to borrow in foreign currencies to set up shop, they can collect exchange rate differentials in case the peso value drops.

Worst is in case of a drop in contracted electricity supply. In such case, the Genco may opt out, leaving the DU or EC to scrounge around from the expensive WESM, or wholesale electricity spot market. Greater Manilans experienced price shocks two Christmases ago, when Meralco had to buy from WESM, as Gencos profiteered from the sudden maintenance shutdowns of DOE-run power plants.

The independent Energy Regulatory Commission frowns on the CSP. It believes the present system better, in letting DUs and ECs negotiate for themselves the best rates from tested Gencos. Operating under restraints in price setting and systems losses, they naturally look for the best deals, from which consumers ultimately benefit.

* * * Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

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