My favorite Mocha

THERE’S a graduating senior behind every Mocha Uson.

When I saw the face of my colleague emerging from the faculty room toilet, I guessed we were out of water again.

It was much worse.

Mocha Uson was not just appointed as assistant communication secretary last May 9, her salary grade level makes her capable of earning as much as a chancellor, the highest official in a constituent university within the University of the Philippines (UP) system.

How entitled is Mocha Uson to our taxes in the war against misinformation?

Nearly everybody I asked has a derisive opinion about Ms. Uson. This was long before she jumped into the rarefied company of those classed between SG 27 and SG 29, which has a base pay ranging from P87,000 to P106,000 a month.

Yet, whenever I probed about Ms. Uson, I received a stock response so vexatious, I had to search online to name this logical fallacy. Circular definitions use the term being defined in the definition.

For instance: “Who is Mocha?”

Circular definition: “She’s behind Mocha Girls.”

So I remember the answer that stood out because it was informed by several sources of information and a critical consciousness.

Graduating seniors Andrea So and Mary Louise Guerra were, like many others, upset by the blogger during the 2016 elections. However, they convinced their thesis panel to let them analyze why this former sex-advice blogger became a social media influencer engaging more citizens than the most respected news outlets.

The students reviewed the blogger’s posts and generated comments, including comments to comments. To double-check their biases, the students interviewed key informants.

Before this month ends, a research panel will decide if Drea and Louise have succeeded through their scholarship to prove what every Mocha hater has already prejudged as being virtually impossible: that the “Queen of Fake News in the Philippines” can teach us a thing or two about truth.

Some Mocha assertions have become classic, overshadowing even the notoriety of her exertions in shorts and bra. Answering back critics of extrajudicial killings, she posted a photo of a raped victim and challenged human rights activists for remaining silent. It turned out that the crime took place in Brazil.

Yet, it is through these “alternative” facts that this generation receives incomparable instruction. Assistant Communications Secretary Mocha Uson rallying for the “strengthening (of) social media through the help of true members of the DDS (Die-Hard Duterte Supporters)” will be more viral than a dry lecture about fact-checking.

Even with clothes on, Mocha will turn out to be just as revealing.


(mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ mayettetabada.blogspot.com/ 0917 3226131)

* First published in SunStar Cebu’s May 14, 2017 issue of the Sunday editorial-page column, “Matamata”

"Paso"

THE image was upside-down.

A seminar my class recently coordinated was delayed when the image projected on the screen was inverted.

Desiring to orient stakeholders about human trafficking, the students invited speakers to discuss programs that could help trafficked victims move on.

During the lull, I spoke with a speaker representing the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda). He was interested to promote their training programs.

Aside from including materials and a certification of completion, the trainings are free. Residents can also register at their barangay, and the agency will conduct the training on-site, making it more accessible.

Recalling the SunStar Cebu special report series, published last Mar. 3-6, about the rehabilitation of those who surrendered under Project Tokhang, I asked the speaker if Tesda was training drug surrenderers to consider options that did not include peddling illegal drugs.

The speaker said that the reluctance of the Department of Health to certify that they were psychologically stable barred drug surrenderers from certain trainings.

Would you conduct a training in automotive servicing or hairdressing with cosmetology if you feared the screwdriver or scissor in the drug dependent’s hand? he asked.

His candid comment surfaced again amidst the celebration over the passers of the 2016 Philippine Bar Exams.

Not only was the passing rate of 59.06 percent among the highest in recent years, the Bar topnotchers were graduates of schools outside of Metro Manila.

Among the most stirring stories were accomplishments made by ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges: juggling law studies with work, a family, past failures, advanced age, poor health.

Emerging consistently in these tales was the person’s sense of self-worth.

Belief in oneself trumps being born into wealth, having innate brilliance, or developing self-discipline.

How is self-esteem developed? Over the decades, I’ve often wondered how adversity has different effects on different people.

The slightest pressure can pull a person under. And unimaginable obstacles make others soar higher.

Remembering the comment of the Tesda representative, I’ve wondered if I had paid equal attention, too, to the outliers on both ends of the spectrum: the ones who are brilliant, and the ones who are not. The ones who succeed, the ones who don’t.

It only takes a slip of the tongue to pronounce “paso” two different ways. Put the accent on the second syllable, the word means “march,” a metaphor for graduation, a transition prized by every student and parent.

Fix the accent on the first syllable, and the word means “burn”.



(mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ 0917 3226131)

*First published in SunStar Cebu’s May 7, 2017 issue of the Sunday editorial-page column, “Matamata”

Missing

THE FLOWER turned out to be a fruit.

Visiting temples in Hanoi, the older son and I saw several times clumps of these yellow flowers occupying the central place for offerings.

Dedicated to Buddhism or Confucius, the temples drew steady streams of tourists and devotees. So as not to be the archetypal boorish foreigner, I restrained my curiosity until I had a chance to ask Wang, the young man guiding us around Hoa Lu.

The ancient capital of Hanoi has several 10th- and 11th-century temples in a citadel surrounded by limestone mountains and rice fields. In the Temple of Lê Đại Hành, Wang corrected my misconceptions about the citrus-colored “flowers”.

The Buddha’s Hand is a fruit but is not eaten, he explained. Favored as a temple offering, the fruit’s yellow extensions resemble cupped fingers and suggest the hands of the Buddha folded in prayer.

The Buddha’s Hand stands out in the sea of offerings laid out before venerated icons because it is the least ostentatious. Everything else glints and competes for attention.

Art saturates the Vietnamese landscape, from its temples to sidewalks. During stopovers, tourists stepping off buses for refreshments or “happy rooms (toilets)” watch as disabled women turn out paintings that are painstakingly made from stitches rather than brush strokes.

Just as unforgettable as those rooms full of women sewers creating handmade art is their silence. One question lingers: where are the women in Vietnamese history?

In the Temple of Lê Đại Hành at Hoa Lu, I finally came face-to-face with the gilded figure of Dương Vân Nga. After two days of looking up at Confucius, Ho Chi Minh and a host of heroes and sages—all males—it was a relief at first to behold the serene visage of a woman, all but missing in the interstices of Vietnamese history.

Vietnam’s only empress of two dynasties survived the vicissitudes of power through the oldest way women negotiated with men: sex.

Vân Nga married the first emperor of the Đinh Dynasty, and then married the general who plotted his downfall; deposed her son, the child-king; and replaced his rule with his own, the Early Lê Dynasty.

Bestowed a new title by her second emperor, the “Bright Empress of Great Victory” was reviled by Confucian scholars and historians for acts of frailty that violated the strict code of Confucian ethics. She endures today as a popular character in plays and novels.

The temple Vân Nga shares with her second emperor (a stone’s throw from the temple of her first) had few visitors on the day of our visit. It was an opportunity for me to bombard our guide with questions.

As well as to note that the Two-Time Empress was missing a bowl of Buddha’s Hand.

(mayette.tabada@gmail.com/ mayettetabada.blogspot.com/ 0917 3226131)


*First published in SunStar Cebu’s April 30, 2017 issue of the Sunday editorial-page column, “Matamata”