I’m talking about Manny ‘Pacman’ Pacquiao, the Pacman that is now a local hero in the country. He once again triumphs a boxing match recently, this time against the Golden Boy, Oscar dela Hoya. Once more, the country had paused in its usual business that day of their fight, and everybody was glued in their TV sets watching at home, some in theaters, some in stadiums, and some on specific public localities nationwide. Crime rate was zero, roads were empty and the outside scenery in every city was like a ghost town. That is how big and grand Manny is in the eyes of the Filipinos, Filipinos here in the country as well as abroad.

Yes, he is a hero. He is the hero of today that the country admires, and I suppose what we Filipinos need. I for one admire his patriotism that I feel comparable to the list of heroes the country has, and maybe more. I admire his passion in his sport and his will to win, and more than that, he is not ashamed of, and he always broadcasts where he came from, what he fights for, and who he is - a Filipino (which is a lot us are ashamed of, especially the ones not in the country). I think that is what we as a nation, as citizens of this country lacks. Every Pinoy is trying to be somebody other than being a Filipino. We are succumbed in a psywar ever since time immemorial. The loud whispers of the egotist, power grabbing, evil narcissist of a nation, who wants everything for themselves, even if it means destruction of peace, homes and lives of others, including us, are echoing in this country, that we are a lesser race than they are, that we are incapable of anything, that we have no right to be. And we have never recovered from it. I don’t think we are even aware of it, or the gravity of it.

We are like a pack of hungry dogs which are being teased of a bone dangling right under our noses but would never get a piece. If ever a bone shall be thrown, you can just imagine how cruel that picture is. Who are the ones savoring that single piece of bone? Only a few, and there’s no way of sharing it, that’s for sure. Today, everybody is just trying to hassle, battling for a glimpse of what life is or what it should be. Everybody is trying to struggle on their own caring only for themselves and not seeing the big picture of what we as a nation could be and do. We are being manipulated like pieces in chess. But I know we can do a lot more to prosper, only if we can be as one nation free from that lingering psywar whispers. And as a new hero, a new character that plays a new game emerges among us, as a new national symbol, I see a chance to educate us Pinoys to be who we should be and to know who we really are, and sway the tides in a different direction. We must shut out that voice of destruction and hear a new hymn of progress in our land. We must make the country rise to its potential and flourish to what it was before or even more.

What we have become is what the history entailed in us. This is what we must all see, open our eyes and stay wide awake from that moment on. This is what I want for the new game of the new Pacman that is a new phenomenon today, not just here in the Philippines but around the globe to cast upon us. I want him to gobble more than what he can, not just for himself, but also for the rest of us Pinoys. I want this new Pacman phenomenon extends itself to a higher goal, and hopefully for us to grasp its meaning, learn from it and start moving. Maybe someday we can gobble up some of those yellow pellets for ourselves and for the country. But like the game, there are a few ‘ghosts’ hovering to our new hero, ghosts that could make Pacman fades its color and glory to its demise. They are visible at every game. They are seen or want to be seen with our hero inside the four corners of the ring. I hope that Pacman overcomes this fight outside the ring which is his kingdom. This fight does not end in twelve rounds but a lifetime, and I do not want to watch my hero, my new Pacman to be defeated by those hovering political ‘ghosts’ and see the words GAME OVER on the screen of this cruel game.

I’m a Filipino, I loved Pac-man and I root for Pacman now. Even though there are a few who look at this phenomenon as a circus and waiting for it to just come to pass already, I on the other hand, am waiting for another bout of the Pacman.

Money makes the world go round, the world go round, the world go round… but the world market has crashed down...now what?

All I can see, hear, and speak is… is… evil. Just kidding! I mean, words like down, drop, decline and plunge were thrown everywhere by the media these past few weeks. I’m not a trader or a banker, and I’m certainly not a fan of arithmetic, but when such words are snug together with big or high numbers in sentences that you read, listen and spoken of by them, pertaining to the world market or stock market, I feel that I have to panic. Analysts are saying that, what is happening right now in the world market is comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s, or even worse. Or worse?!? But that is not the reason why I have this need to feel panicked.

Way, way back before that Great Depression, from what I’ve learned from primary school… is that goods and other useful commodities were being traded between countries for everybody to have a comfortable (and exciting) living. Within that period, when the people had realized the need of it, money was conceived. All of sudden, everything has been given a value, quantified and price tagged. To have, to own or to experience things of this world, one must have… money. Yes, and who wouldn’t want to have a piece of that? Not just a piece, but a big chunk of it at that.

Apparently, some countries, have managed to get heaps of it. As for the Philippines, even though the country or the land is rich with natural resources of its own, majority of the people are struggling to survive each and every day. Money seems to be culpable of what is happening at the moment, but I don’t think that is so, but people’s greed is. If we go back to the early years… no, not even the Flintstones era, I mean to the beginning, the genesis of earth and life itself, from the version that I believe in, is it not everything supposed to be free? Or that is just when before the evil has been awakened.

I, being here in the Philippines all my life, news such as this do not shock me anymore, same with most of the citizens here, as I see it. It seems that it is not a concern among us, or the masses, the masses being everyone living below the poverty line, which consists of 99% of us. And I don’t think that that is an exaggeration. Well, ok… 98%? And why would it concern us? How would the downturn of stock markets affect us? …Ok, technically, it does, and that is why my stomach churns every time I think of such matters.

As for the Filipinos below the poverty line, the ones really, really down the pit, all that they wish for as every day passes and turns, is to have something to put in their stomachs, even if it means preventing the acids in it from consuming the rest of their guts, or to put it bluntly… themselves. For those however, who are hanging with the tip of their fingers clinging with all force on the line trying not to plummet down the pit, they heed in wait for the deluge of perks that are being spat and thrown down from above that line, and toiling on everyday living to fill their own stomachs, no thought whatsoever of world market affairs.

And for those who are there up the line, they consist only of a handful of families, some, with really huge pot bellies. Those families own almost all the islands and provinces in the country, rolling all around on their beds of money, making the rest of us their footstool, just to make sure they stay above that line. I don’t think they care about such news as well, as long as they live luxuriously and are on top of the social ladder. The few ones that do care though, not just of themselves but for the entire nation to advance as one, unfortunately, are not residing in this country anymore, they are in hiding or in jail, they are being gunned down, missing or worse, buried six feet down under.

I’m not an expert on numbers, money in particular, but I have a pretty good grasp of how money makes the world go round. And I hope it turns the other way around, and this time countries in Asia shall be the ones progressing extremely, including the Philippines. We were doing well once, before all the relentless oppression and corruption in the country. Today, we are considered a developing country, or in other words, a Third World country. And with the term ‘Third World’ as defined in this modern time, and being a Filipino, knowing that my country is in the roster of Third World countries and having to live with it, is not something that I’m ecstatic to be proclaiming. Or should I? For I know for a fact that we were not the ones who have enslaved, tortured, killed, deceived, and colonized other nations for its own country’s gain, and to have a taste of a good life, and, or as they proudly say it, to live in a ‘free’ country. But I don’t think there is such a thing as ‘free’ anymore.

So what will happen now, now that the Richie Rich’s of the world are losing Moolah big time… Must I expect more oppression and more wars, for them to stay afloat? Somehow, I think that is inevitable. As I see and watch the world revolves, everything is taking place, as the famous book of all time has predicted, I feel terror approaching. Is money really the root of all evil?

Evil is swelling up like a pus-full of boil on a butt here on earth and is set to burst, the bulk of that evil is in the form of money, and everyone is succumbed and helpless to it. Must I panic? I think not, but instead, I should have a fervent faith in the Father who made us all, of this entire world and even beyond it, and relax…

…Instead of panicking… maybe I must just see no evil… hear no evil… and speak no evil…

I was in a haze staring at my monitor when I had this phantom scenario in my head one morning, where me and a couple of friends were in a round table chatting and sipping drinks, trying to unwind at a pub after a day’s work. Among us was this fellah which I can’t recognize who he was, out of the blue asked me a question, “What is art?” Whoa! Apparently, this person wants to have a glimpse of my meaning of art. As phantom as it was, I being in the scene, I felt smacked hard right in the center of my forehead. I think I saw my head bobbed back and forth as I was being rammed by the serious questioning. No one has ever asked me that plain yet abstract and so broad a question as I recall it, and I don’t think someone will ask that kind of question to anyone, even to an artist… perhaps in an exam in an art school… but in a pub!?!

Then the scenario turned into a folly skit in my head. There I was explaining to this stranger, with my friends attentively waiting for my answer, what I think art is, I stammered, “Umm… Art is… Well… Uhh… Art is just like Fart without the letter F.” They all cackled and somewhat puzzled if I’m being serious or not, and deciphering the connection between the two. I went on further, elaborating on my absurd answer, complete with an animated explanation.

This is what stress and lack of nourishment in the morning can do to someone. I can’t remember if I’m having the hallucination, while at the same time, concentrating and doing work on the computer. I’m not sure if that’s even possible, all I know is that, it was so lucid that I can still remember the entire exchange of dialogue.

Art. What is art? The art that I know today is commercial art. I’m in the commercial art business for a couple of years now, and with what’s happening in the world market today, I’m not going to say more about how bad the business is doing right now, particularly here in the country, maybe that is why I’m having such phantom skits playing in my head. I know… I know… traditional artist are wincing right now, trying not to vomit right after reading the words ‘commercial art’.

But isn’t it all art commercial art, every time you make a profit out of it? For those who condemn it, then being an artist (especially in fine arts) is never going to be a profession nor anyone can make a living out of it, but it would just be a mere hobby.

In the world of commercial art where all my masterpieces go, I on the other hand, am at a limbo at the moment. I miss creating art and art-like pieces just for fun and purely of my own. I miss getting dirty with paints and other messy materials, and anything that I can get hold of and use. I have no idea why I couldn’t find time for that anymore. Not that I often do it before, because when I was in art school, dabbing a paintbrush on a heavily color coated palette muddled with assortment of paints, is the least that I wanted to do. Now, every day, as I look at my monitor and shift my mouse here, there and everywhere, I kind of miss the brush thing.

A friend told me about a site which I can finally once again make art without using the mouse. When I first saw the site, it was calling all Filipino artists to participate in THE COVERS PROJECT. Without any hesitation, even with three days to go before the deadline, I conjured up my art wands and magically produced two artworks in a whiz, and submitted it to them. Even though I’m not going to receive any payment for it, I’m ecstatic to have participated. It’s going to be a long wait to really see the outcome of my participation in the project, but nevertheless, I’m looking forward to see my artworks as covers. I’ve been informed that it’s going to be on the first issue! So, I’ll keep my fingers crossed until I see it myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I doodle and sketch (to have a break from staring at my monitor and for my own little amusement), and sometimes make senseless continuous swirling motion with my pencil on a piece of paper that I can find littering around my desk, until it’s all covered with black lead, but that’s about it. After I’ve submitted works for THE COVERS PROJECT, it dawned to me that I would like to have my own art show. Well, the idea of it has been swimming in my head for far too long a time now. It started a little after I’ve graduated college, and originally, it’s an exhibit with some of my friends from art school. I think I’m going to start to contemplate on it now. So where shall I find funds for this massive art show… Will I sell or will I not… Or will I sell out? But first, would it be interesting enough for people to even want it and buy it? Well, maybe if I’ll title the show, “Fart, and other disasters.” Hmm… sounds family, I mean familiar…

…Ok, so someone passed gas in an enclosed area. Would you be in any way be impressed with that? With sound or no sound, the silent killer kind of fart or the loud explosive type, I’m pretty sure the creator will be the only one smirking after having a whiff of it. Just like in an art show, the artist could be the only one proud and pleased with all of his displayed works, while there may be one or two artworks that will make everyone else, raise one of their eyebrows, and maybe bellow… “What the F@#!% is that?!?”

And in my own definition of what art is, maybe that would be the F part of it.