I was at the Batasan last Monday to listen to PNoy’s SONA and I could not help but have mixed feelings about what I was hearing.

As predicted, PNoy spoke in Filipino, his language of choice. This has positive advantages since the greater majority of his ‘BOSS” speak and understand Filipino. The spoken Filipino has a natural flare that the masa loves, including inflection and the one word remark like ‘naman’. PNoy has the mastery of the language and he bring his listeners to linguistic ‘ecstasy’!

I spoke with ‘boldness’ giving the impressions that he was not afraid to call spade a spade with no mincing of words.

He further developed his wang-wang symbolism of arrogance and entitlement in public service to launch a platform of good governance. The sophisticated would NOT enthuse on the idea of wang-wang, but no one should begrudge him for originality, ingenuity and a language and symbolism easily understood by the masa.

I thought PNoy’s wang-wang is a veritable lesson on Good Manners and Right Conduct or GMRC in governance.

We, who are older listeners, continue to moan the big CHANGE in citizens’ behavior in the last fifty years. Often, we call the ‘errancy’ in behavior as lack of GMRC, especially when this was taken off the curriculum.

We always hold the lack of GMRC as the primary source why ‘modern’ and younger citizens no longer know how to cross streets. They dispose their thrash with no care for the environment and neighbors. Public servants have become public masters. Vehicles meant for official use only become for OFFICIALS’ use only.

I, myself, was looking forward to a SONA beyond wang-wang since I was getting bored of a slogan that seems to be short in deeds, especially with the rumored triple Ks (Ka-klase, Kaibigan at Ka-barilan).

PNoy’s new twist in his wang-wang symbolism to hammer on good governance as public service is innovative and ingenious!

PNoy gave us new by-words – coffee and ghost!

PAGCOR’s more than a billion worth of coffee elicited shock as well as derisive humor about graft cover-up under the name of the innocuous brew. It is mind boggling and it tickles one’s imagination on how many cups of coffee a billion pesos could buy! No doubt, a billion-worth coffee can flood more than a football stadium!

The other new by-word is GHOST referring to ghost bridges, ghost schools and ghost teachers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao or ARMM. PNoy devoted four long paragraphs on the ARMM albeit all on the negatives. He took the bull by the horn with no mincing of words. He cited the COA reports that speak of 80% of the disbursement of the ARMM budget in the Office of the Regional Governor from 2008 to 2009 with NO proper clearances and explanations.

With this fund, how many pupils could have completed their basic education crossing ghost bridges, going to ghost schools and being taught by ghost teachers! The constituents of ARMM are so helpless that they continue to suffer and there seems to be no chance of any progress whatsoever. In fact, PNoy could have easily added to his enumeration, ghost voters, ghost employees and above all ghost public officials!

There is no doubt, the economic view spelled out in the SONA remains micro with no big plan that would carry the country into the next five years. Economists used to PGMA’s macro-economic plan remain very unsatisfied and knowing full well that PNoy’s macro plan is not forthcoming.

Then, there is a deafening silence on the issue of the peace process. I could only surmise that PNoy would NOT raise expectations on a process that remains intractable. He seems to have aversion on making promises that he cannot deliver. The silence, in fact, spells the big difference with his predecessors. PNoy is NOT easy to make promises and he is NO conjuror of scenarios that would not happen but only increase people’s frustration.

As a Mindanao strong lobbyist and advocate, I am NOT happy that Mindanao appeared simply as a brief ‘blip’ in PNoy’s radar screen. Sadly, it was a negative ‘blip’!

It is good to remind the President, that ARMM is NOT the whole Mindanao! In a similar vein, while I admire PNoy’s boldness, I believe that tact is the better counsel in dealing with the sensitive issues that involve the ARMM.

Definitely, there is more good news in Mindanao! We have charted our macro peace and security plan for the next twenty years dubbed as Mindanao 2020. We have re-activated and pursued with greater zeal the continuing collapse of our quadri-lateral borders in trade and security involving all the nation-members of the BIMP-EAGA Zone (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines). And we have started a security sector reforms on the ground involving the two AFP Commands in Mindanao (Western Mindanao Command and Eastern Mindanao Command).

Though we featured but a ‘blip’ in PNoy’s radar screen, we are NOT daunted! Our hope springs eternal… and we believe that in time PNoy would have a real serious Mindanao 2nd look! By then, we shall not be a simple blip but the ‘centerfold’ in his forthcoming 3rd SONA!

It is a truism that when people of various faiths live together, and not simply in the sense of cohabiting the same space, the question of dialogue does not arise.

When they work, study, struggle, celebrate, and mourn together and face the universal crises of injustice, graft and corruption, illness, and death as one, they don’t spend most of their time talking about theories and ideas. Their focus is on immediate concerns of survival, on taking care of the sick and needy, on communicating cherished values to new generations, on resolving problems and tensions in productive rather than in destructive ways, on reconciling after conflicts, on seeking to build more just, humane, and dignified societies.

When believers are actively cooperating in such activities, at certain rare but privileged moments, they also express what is deepest in their lives and hearts, that is, their respective faiths, which are the source of strength and inspiration that form the motive force which drives and guides all their activities.

It is important to keep in mind that the raw materials of dialogue is composed of the issues faced daily in concrete ways by Christians, Muslims and Indigenous Peoples who live in pluralistic societies. Such people are not professional theologians and have not engaged in formal dialogue situations, but grocers, housewives, manual laborers, nurses, students, clerks and secretaries who want to live conscientiously and with faith amid the challenges that arise in the context of religious and cultural pluralism.

These are new “platforms” that capture the dialogue and exchanges that people face as they eke their daily life. They are actual platforms for people to meet, pray and work together.

The famous late Dom Helder Camara of Recife, Brazil was a good example of this emerging platform. When he was once asked about his unsettling involvement with the poor and the cause of justice in the early 60s, he said that his Christian witness in this area was not the big fire that burns a forest but a lighted matchstick in the darkness of poverty and injustice.

These types of witnessing are new streams of refreshing water and hope in the world and in concrete neighborhoods, though small and seemingly insignificant, they may look. In reality, these are attempts to light the proverbial matchsticks. They are rays of hope and strength to many believers seeking to live their faith meaningfully in their daily lives.

They are lighted matchsticks that show the way in the search for new and emerging platforms as they forge ahead in interreligious and intercultural enterprise.

We recognize the wounds of the ethnic and religious divides that mar our relationship as people and communities. The wounds are, indeed, very deep and are closely familiar to us. The trauma and pains continue to exercise tyranny over our spirit on both sides of the divide.

This is one reason why the relations between and among peoples are, largely, shrouded in mutual suspicion and mistrust. There remains the challenge on either side to rise above the general ignorance and bias that have, for years, characterized the relationships between and among faith and ethnic communities and individuals.

I wonder if this is what the martyred President of Egypt Anwar Sadat expressed at the Knesset during his historic visit of the Holy City of Jerusalem on November 7, 1977.

“… Yet, there remains another wall. This wall continues and constitutes a psychological barrier between us, a barrier of suspicion, a barrier of rejection, a barrier of fear, of deception, a barrier of hallucination without any action, deeds or decision. A barrier of distorted and eroded interpretation of every event and statement. It is this official statement as constituting 70% of the whole process. Today, through my visit to you, I ask why don’t we stretch out our hands with faith and sincerity so that together we might destroy this barrier?”

Our life lived together has to give birth to a new relationship that heals and empowers. I affirm that our religious traditions have the power not only to manage conflictual relationships but also to transform them. Here, I echo what Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ said years ago:

“The age of nations is past. It remains for us now, if we do not wish to perish, to set aside the ancient prejudices and build the earth.”

We are living in a fascinating and dangerous age. This is the age of computers and the Internet. In a matter of seconds distances seem to disappear. People and communities are immediately interconnected via satellites. And it is just a matter of time before we find ourselves "hooked". Being "hooked" to a computer and the Internet is an expression of living in what is now popularly known as the global village. While this spells redaction of physical distances, on the one hand, yet on the other hand, people have become or becoming more distant and alienated as ever to one another. No doubt, computerization and the Internet have shaped a new culture. Whether we like it or not we are part of this computer age and culture.

The computer culture is making our life more complex, to say the least.

First there is the "temptation" to modernize our lives and ways. And to modernize means to be "in", that is, to use the latest hardware and software as well as to speak the language of computer and business. The world of computer and business has its own praxis and icons.

The second danger is our easy attitude in immediately consigning to "museum" what is considered as "out" of fashion. Here again, there is that fad to reject what is seen as ancient and Jurassic. Yet, people, yesterday, today and tomorrow, are not "tableau raps". No amount of cloning and robotics shall ever reduce people into mere machines.

More than ever, we have to affirm the fact that people are shaped not only of modern cultures that our present milieu engendered but also by the collective archetypes that are found in our national as well as individual subconscious. As a matter of fact, there is no way of "foregoing" with these archetypes. There can be no "cover up" or technology that will make us escape the reality that these archetypes do govern not only our desires and dream but our fears as well.

Perhaps the reason behind our common search for "rootedness" in education and formation of values is the fact that we are not truly home in the new culture of computer and technology. Often this search for "rootedness" finds expressions in simply "replicating" the values and praxis of our ancestors. No doubt, this effort is valid and legitimate as well as noteworthy. But valid and noteworthy it may be we have to soon realize that this is only one aspect of that complex reality of truly being rooted into our tradition.

Outright, there are two great obstacles to this quest. The first is our "forgetfulness" or in computer jargon - the lack of a bigger built-in ram or the stored memory capacity is "short."

There is the preponderance to look west for paradigms not only for the management of wordy affairs but also for values and praxis in communities. The look west is not only dictated by our "forgetfulness" but also by our fascination to be "in" as brought about by our "interconnectedness" in this computer age.

The second is the shallowness of our "return" movement to the values of our ancestors. Often, our so-called "return" movement does not include the culture that engendered, nurtured and sustained through time and place, such a given value. In short, it is a return movement that hardly touches the ethnos and ethos of both the people and the place where the value and belief are planted.

Then there is also the "hardening of our hearts" or the sheer stubbornness by ever deeply digging in our heels in our perceived "right/correct" praxis in modern life and community.

Fr. A. de Mello’s story best illustrates this phenomenon. A woman suddenly stops a man walking down the street and says: "Henry, I am so happy to see you after all these years! My, how you have changed. I remember you being as being tall and you seem so much shorter now. You used to have a pale complexion and it is really so ruddy now. Good grief how you have changed in five years!"

Finally, the man got a chance to interject: "But ma’am, my name is not Henry!" To which the persistent woman calmly responded: "Oh, so you changed your name too!"

It is often said that Filipinos, though displaying a western facade, is governed or deeply influenced by the more primitive in us. Scrape the thin veneer of that western culture, there appears stark naked the primitive values and mores. We are not Henry’s and we have not changed our names, too!

The recent controversy involving the ‘7 Pajero bishops’ has struck the nation with great embarrassment. The real issue is not whether the so-called gifts are ‘unlawful or anomalous or unconstitutional’.

The continued defensive actions and claims that followed clearly show how far off the mark the bishops are. They continue to miss the real issue in the controversy. No doubt, the SUVs are not for personal and private use; the PCSO gifts are for the social and charitable ministries of church; and the gifts are legal and constitutional.

The real tragedy in the said controversy is the fact, ‘wala get mo, sila’. Our ‘excellencies’ have remained, in the language of an Inquirer editorial, ‘clueless’.

'Receiving the fund from the PCSO is NOT the real issue, the crux of the matter is the fact that PCSO donations did not happen within a vacuum, as a happy case of happenstance, with no strings attached and no payback expected.'

Retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz is quoted to have said that it was 'impossible' for President Arroyo to accommodate the bishops without some quid pro quo. 'Kapag humingi ka sa gobyerno, nakatali ang kamay mo.'

The payback required was the silence of their 'excellencies'.

'When the nation needed the moral strength and clarity of the Church as the Arroyo administration lurched from one outrageous impropriety to the next,' there was SILENCE! The bishops’ silence was, indeed, deafening and the PCSO gifts of SUVs clearly come into real perspective. It was around this time, also, that the derisive sobriquet: the 'Malacañang Dioceses' came to existence.

Now, ‘get mo na’!

There is nothing illegal in the gifts. There is nothing unconstitutional about the gifts. And there is nothing unlawful about the gifts. But mind you, there is a PAYBACK time for the gifts! It is no free ride, Virginia!

Again in another editorial, St. Thomas More’s famous quote against his perjurer was artfully conjured… 'Ah! What profits a man to gain the whole world… but for pajeros, your Excellencies?'

But in a more worldly scale of power and gold, an SUV gift is, indeed, a real bargain for a price of silence and cooperation of a bishop. PGMA was noted for giving generous gifts and envelopes knowing full well that for each SUV and envelope, there is a payback!

It was a no mean feat that she survived her nine years of presidency notwithstanding the issues of legitimacy of succession; the Hello Garci scandal; NBN and Fertilizer scams; and that is simply to name a few. For 7 Pajeros? That is super cheap! ‘Kuha mo?’

The CBCP’s letter is a hodge-podge apology of two strands. The first strand consists of the first five paragraphs revealing that the writers have remained 'clueless' about the whole issue of SUVs. These are well-couched paragraphs, on the main, an apologia pro vita sua. The last paragraph is a stand-alone and it reveals that there is a saving grace notwithstanding the attempt to justify.

The last paragraph could have been THE letter: short and 'pointed' devoid of any pretense and finally addressing the real issue involved in the SUVs as it quotes Psalm 51: 'a humbled and contrite heart' as they stand before the Lord that in the secret of their hearts, they may be taught God’s wisdom. Finally, 'KUHA NA!'