When Contempt Of Court Does Not Apply

In my years as a law student, way way back into the nineties, I once imagined in my head a situation wherein a witness to a case failed to show up before the court that summoned him and got himself arrested as a result of this. The judge bellowed at him in a thundering voice about why he failed to respond to his order in the most convenient way, and thereby delaying the case that was at hand.

The man who failed to respond to the subpoena answered, “Your honor, I lived about 400 miles from the city. I couldn’t even afford to commute to the barrio market, how much more could I afford to come to the city?” And so the judge scratched his head and thought that the man got a point.

So perhaps nowadays, the law already provides that any person ordered to become a witness and who resides at least 100 kilometers away from the case venue shall not be punished with contempt or be arrested for failing to appear at the scheduled time and place for him or her to testify.

Section 10 of Rule 21 of the Revised Rules of Court states:

Exceptions. – The provisions of Sections 8 (Compelling attendance) and 9 (Contempt) shall not apply to a witness who resides more than one hundred (100) kilometers from his place of residence to the place where he is to testify by the ordinary course of travel…

So if by any chance you are called to become a witness to a particular case, remember that one could not be held in contempt or be arrested for failing to appear in court when one lives at least 100 kilometers from the case venue. In fact, the court directs that any witness who lives in a relatively distant area from the court would be given kilometrage fees or allowance for travel. The last time I read it was pegged at 100 pesos. But what does 100 pesos afford now? Could one travel from Quiapo to Makati and then back to Quiapo at a 100 pesos travel allowance? It would be so tight as an amount.

Now if the kilometrage fees have already been given, the witness would not anymore be in a position to excuse himself or herself from attending court hearings in order to testify and may already be held for contempt upon such failure.

The above discussion on the compulsion and punishment for non-response to a court order to become witness to a case is in consonance with the general provision on subpoenas where Section 1 of Rule 21 of the Revised Rules of Court provides:

Subpoena and subpoena duces tecum. – Subpoena is a process directed to a person requiring him to attend and to testify at the hearing or the trial of an action, or at any investigation conducted by competent authority, or for the taking of his deposition. It may also require him to bring with him any books, documents, or other things under his control, in which case it is called a subpoena duces tecum.

A Senatorial Incident In Minneapolis

In the Philippines, jailed individuals get to become senators…or would become congressmen for that matter. But in America, a senator was actually arrested, handcuffed and according to Idaho Senator Larry Craig, he “was dragged down” by authorities for suspicion of undertaking lewd conduct in a Minneapolis airport restroom.

I’ve already seen boxing and barking legislators of the Taiwanese kind on TV, or a nude woman lawmaker somewhere in Italy—-but in America, they have a senator that had been arrested and handcuffed for a misdemeanor just like any other citizen who had committed or under suspicion of having committed a malefaction.

In the Philippines, the whole Senate would be up in arms in defense of their comrade, invoking immunity from arrest, whether right or wrong. Nothing happens like that in America. In the Philippines, lawmakers are even trying to free a detained elect-senator. But in America, nothing sort of that happens for they even get arrested in the first place. In the Philippines, only opposition leaning congressman or congresswoman get arrested in the most upsetting manner. In America, nothing like that happens. They get arrested notwithstanding their political leaning. Nobody says “You are under arrest! By the way? Are you a Democrat or a Republican?”
Enough of that “walang ganyan sa America” thing going on in the above-written paragraph.

Senator Craig was arrested for suspicion of soliciting a sexual engagement (of the homosexual kind) in an airport restroom in Minneapolis. The complainant had declared how the senator made veiled gestures to signal a sexual request, particularly that of tapping one of his feet under the door of a toilet stall. Was this enough evidence to pin him down for lewd conduct? Ordinarily, if would have been just an harmless gesture, a meaningless incidental movement of the feet. But apparently, police undercovers were actually monitoring the whole restroom area in the airport where the incident had happened and this particular area had in fact became a featured area in a website that features locations and areas where gay men could link up with each other or solicit sexual engagements. You could say, it was just bad luck that the senator had happened to be there and had made that particular body movement that was known there generally to be one that would signal a request for sexual encounter.

This airport incident had happened about two months ago and was largely hidden from media due to the largely embarrassing nature of the circumstances, especially when it involves a US senator. Senator Larry Craig had already pleaded to a lesser offense just to “do away with it” as he says, and had declared unambiguously how he is not a gay as claimed by a complainant. Note that it is not homosexuality per se that had got him under arrest, but for public lewdness, or suspicion thereof.

All’s well that ends well—-But somehow, it opens up once again heated debate on homosexuality in these times where as an issue, it had become a well-discussed topic ever since same-sex marriages were finally allowed in some part of America, Europe and Canada. It is an issue that burns headlines once in a while and somehow had already become part of the psyche of the modern individual.

As an issue, it barrages out of the closet and into our mindset in the past decade or so. Is homosexuality going the way of women’s right libertinism? Gaining credence after a long drawn struggle for equality and social recognition? Just as womanhood had celebrated the day they had finally gained the right to suffrage and election? With the rate of progress on the homosexuality issue, it seems that this would be the way to go and one day—-just maybe one day—-same-sex marriage and relationship would be as universal as a man-woman union.

In the movie “The Dead Poet’s Society”, a character there was lamenting to the main protagonists (Ethan Hawke) how when he was a child, “gay” was such a happy word. But when he had grown up and found out the other meaning of the word—and him being one—it had become a word that had meant ultimate misery for him, of days and days of hiding in the closet, not being able to show his real self and real worth. This is pure misery according to him as he cried away his frustration.

Maybe it is such a difficult feeling; of being gay and not being able to forward such truth of one’s self.

I have no inkling about this sentiment whatsoever for I am not one and mostly, I wouldn’t be able to fathom such emotional quandary as well as possibly. What is really about gayness that becomes unusual to the eyes and understanding of many, even as society often deems it peculiar and to a certain the extent bizarre.

The bible speaks of “confusion of men” as one wicked incident in an Old Testament era.

But homosexuality as an issue is so part of our modern ways now that everyday, we brush elbows with it, as we let groom our selves in beauty parlors, in the movies and television shows that we watch, in schools, in the neighborhood, in the streets we walk on to—-it had become so ordinary like night and day. And yet, homosexuality remains a controversial subject, not easily taken lightly.

To be frank with you, I have no clear mind on this issue. But I recognize it as one significant phenomenon in our modern world, thru same sex marriages and gay right activism—-and it couldn’t be help that we think about it so often.

The Boundaries of Polygamy

As I was reading the news today, I was full of bewilderment at the latest incident in Texas where 400 young girls were freed yesterday by police authorities out of a polygamists compound being operated by a religious sect known as the Fundamental Church of Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Allegedly, the young girls were paired with old men in polygamous union, often by force and coercion or moral coercion, in accordance with the sect’s religious belief and practice.

It is of note that the above-mentioned sect is a breakaway cluster from the main Mormon religion formally known as the Church of the Latter-Day Saints, which had long ago negated on the practice of multiple marriages as a religious practice, where the U.S. Supreme Court had time and again decided against the practice of polygamy in America.

A landmark case on polygamy, one that is still being referred today as a leading case, is the 1879 U.S. Supreme Court decision entitled Reynolds v. United States where it was cited prominently how polygamy was (is) an “odious” conduct and ultimately contrary to “historic American values and culture”, even “from the beginning of time”, declaring farther how “marriage, while from its very nature a sacred obligation, is nevertheless, in most civilized nations, a civil contract, and usually regulated by law”

Yet, it is still an open secret in America, especially in locations within Utah and Arizona states, that polygamy have and are still being practiced and once in a while, such societal American phenomenon comes out in the open, like the Waco Incident of 1993 and now with this very recent detection of a polygamists compound in San Angelo, Texas.

Of immense interest now is the legal concept of freedom of religion, as to whether or not one’s belief and conviction allows one to practice his or her religion unabated and unhindered by any governmental restriction, as a matter of constitutional right?

Our constitution guarantees freedom of religion where the Bill of Rights, under Article III, Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, states that:

“No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The free exervise and enjoyment of religious profession and whoship, without discrimniation or preference, shall forever be allowed. No religious test shall be requires for the exercise of civil or political rights.”

While in America, the First Amendment similarly proclaims:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

In the end, “freedom of religion” in our territory and in America, where our jurisdiction had mostly structured the form and content of our laws, as well as government system from, remains one constitutional right that is held with enormous weight and sanctity, just like “freedom of expression” that the law and the judiciary often bestows attention to it, resolving questions involving such question of religion and practice in the most prolific manner and in often public spectacle, for the community to relish and appreciate. (Read this very interesting case on marriage and religion – Estrada vs. Escritor.)

Yet, the point of final determination as to the question of ‘freedom of religion’ remains in the one singular rule that proclaims unambiguously how the right to belief is not tantamount to the right to practice, where in the 1940 U.S. Supreme Court case Cantwell v. Connecticut (310 U.S. 296), applying the Belief-Conduct Distinction, it was deemed that:

“The Free Exercise Clause ‘’embraces two concepts—freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be.’’ “

Similarly in our local jurisdiction, it is dogmatic that an individual has absolute freedom to believe in any form of religious belief, ‘he may even believe in the devil and worship Satan’, but once he or she puts this believe into action or outward conduct, then the State begins to interfere in the form of regulation and prohibition where in the present issue, as to whether or not freedom of religion allows one to establish highly anomalous and very scandalous polygamy compound such as the one in San Angelo, Texas where girls as young as 12 years old are compelled to enter marriages with much older men, and where there are persistent rumors of rape and physical harm.

Of course, American laws squirm at and reject polygamous union that despite that the leaders and members of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe in such, the law does not allow them and they have in fact violated pertinent laws, criminal laws for that matter, and their ‘freedom of religion’ would in no way come in towards their protection or the justification of their conduct.

Re-Defining the Territories

In a very fluid geographical scenario of our global condition today,our lawmakers have found the time to re-examine and thereon redefine our national boundaries and re-establish firmly the full and certain content of our territory, which consist not merely that part of the earth’s surface but also the waters underneath it, the seas beyond the coastlines at 200 miles, the air above and even the caverns underneath the sea.

Article I of our Constitution, relating on National Territory states:

“The national territory comprises the Philippine archipelago, with all the islands and waters embraced therein, and all other territories over which the Philippines has sovereignty or jurisdiction, consisting of its terrestrial, fluvial and aerial domains, including its territorial sea, the seabed, the subsoil, the insular shelves, and other submarine areas. The waters around, between, and connecting the islands of the archipelago, regardless of their breadth and dimensions, form part of the internal waters of the Philippines.”

The focal point in this new baseline bill is the Philippine claim over the Kayalaan Islands or that part of the Spratly Islands being occupied by the Philippines. House Bill 3216 redefining our boundaries was put into motion as early as January of last year but somehow, it had encountered major obstructions especially from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) which had advised the Lower House to go lightly in our claim to the whole of Spratley Islands as control and patrimony over it is still being hotly disputed by our country, Vietnam and China.

Obviously, the DFA had foreseen possible diplomatic troubles with China and Vietnam if the bill had pushed through in its original form or wordings. Now finally, the bicameral committee had an approved version where the Spratly Islands are merely referred to as “a regime of islands” belonging to the Philippines.
Clearly enough, it’s a backtracking on our part as it appears to be that our government is overtly resisting conflict with China, which would not be the military kind as this would not be likely to happen, but mostly on the economic and diplomatic side. Being the fastest growing economy today, the Philippines could not afford to disengage from China and that means we have to soften our stand on Spratlys. It’s cruel to be small. We could not be so direct even with our own territorial concern.

In actuality, the Kalayaan Group of islands lays clearly within the 200 Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) as defined by the United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea through the Archipelagic Doctrine first championed by our own former Vice-President Arturo T. Tolentino, where our territory spans throughout a line drawn from the outermost point of our territory, and everything within this line, and 200 miles beyond it belongs to the Philippines.

And the Kalayaan Islands, which was first discovered by Admiral Tomas Cloma sometime in the 1950’s and named it “Freedomland”, lays within 200 miles off the farthest western coast of Palawan. The only problem is if a group of small islands fall within the items enumerated as possession in the definition of Exclusive economic Zone, which mostly pertains to marine resources.

However, under Terra Nullus legal doctrine, a state could claim a discovered land when it was not owned by any country previous to the discovery and that this should be the strongest basis for the Philippines’ claim. China’s claim over the Spratlys is singularly anchored on their proposition that since the Spratly’s is located in the body of water generally known as the South China Sea, then therefore it belongs to them. This could be faulty when in fact the term South China Sea does not necessarily mean that it was a sea belonging to China but it was just named that way by Portugese sea navigators in the past as a point of reference for their sea travels. The islands should be “terra nullus” or “land belonging to no one” and since we were the first to have sighted it, it should belong to us unconditionally and not merely as “a regime of islands” belonging to the Philippines.

Chief Justice Puno and Oligarchy

Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno speaks his mind today without any let-up or anything to hold back, concise, clear and direct.

In fact, he hits directly to the bone of our national sickness by pointing at the oligarchy in our midst as the main, if not the primary culprit, as he launched today the upstart Moral Force Movement.

“The Philippines remain in the control of the oligarchs because the government is beholden to them”, Chief Justice Puno says, headlining the country’s most read newspaper.

Nothing should be truer than this. You could say, it is like seeing the sun in broad daylight, and Justice Puno has just to point that out clearly.

Puno enumerates the main problems of our nation today as “the lack of morality, the weakness of our ethics, the problem of inequitable distribution of wealth, the problem of poverty and the problem of peace and order.” And that the wealth of the nation is merely held by the rich few while the multitudes suffer.

The honorable Chief Justice shows why he is so incredibly different from his predecessor, and that is such a good thing for us. He becomes concern with morality and social imbalance and that could provide as a guiding post within the judiciary, becoming a role model to a very critical sector of our country, the men of laws.

I must agree to all his concerns and to supplement his views, I all see how vital is his role now, where the judiciary and the legal people could be imbibe to take a more participative role in nation-building, becoming agent of change and progress themselves. For all we know, lawyers and judges are certainly a congregation of sharp-minded and highly-capable individuals and our nation needs them, the people could look upto to them to keep in touch with the nation’s ails and fallings. A strong and responsible judiciary could eventually initiate a change that could spread easily towards other sectors of our society, for a nation to be strong and progressive; its laws should be strong and forceful, not lain within the hands of mischief and dire intentions, such as self-interest and nonchalance to the well-being of the public.

I am a bit concern if Chief Justice Puno should be a step beyond the realms of his public duty, for being so patently political despite being the highest ranking official of the judiciary, yet that could become lesser of our concern for a time that the Chief Justice shows extreme concern for the suffering of the people is so rare, and may not come again.

There are many talks that he might be running for the highest position of the land, and nothing should be improper in that. He is described in his Supreme Court official website profile as a man of prose and religion. I also think he is also a man of great concern to the plight of the Filipino people.

The Vicious Game Congress Is Playing Today

This new charter change hullabaloo is proving to be a fiercer attempt at amending our constitution and at creating such a political firestorm that now it’s even seriously threatening the economy as local stocks tumbled down on jitters created by all these happenstances.

I was watching Cable TV several days ago when I chanced upon a live coverage of the Congress in session, and it was this very issue that they were so absorbed in, particularly about House Resolution No. 1109, a bill intending to amend or revised the 1987 Philippine Constitution through the formation of a constituent assembly, composed of the present members of the House of Congress.

What is being contemplated is the composition of a constituent assembly—- consisting of the very members of the Congress itself—- which should be approved by at least 2/3 of the members of the Congress, voting as a whole, where even when every senator would not concur to this particular proposal, enough number of votes may still allow such plan to amend the constitution coming from among the members of the Lower House.

Currently, there are 242 members of the Lower House and 23 members of the Senate, for a total of 265 individuals all in all. Under the proposed bill, all members of Congress——that is, all congressmen and senators—- would sit in session together one day (which is being planned just before the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would give her SONA on July 27) and vote on whether or not to proceed with the plan to form a constituent assembly for the purpose of amending or revising the constitution.

The magic number is 177, which is two-thirds of 265. It doesn’t matter if all senators would vote in the negative—-as it is presumed that most of them would have their own presidential ambitions thus making them most inclined to thwart the bill as much as possible.

If enough votes are gathered, a constitutional assembly would be convened, and such body would compose the enumeration of proposed changes. After such procedure, it would be submitted for approval in a plebiscite. (Section 1 (2), Article XVII or the 1987 Philippine Constitution)

Or, there is a more direct manner by which Congress could amend or revise our charter, by directly enacting in a bill, for changes in the provision of the constitution, and the Congress as a whole would vote for its approval, with a minimum of 2/3 votes. Still, the proposals would still have to go through the litmus of a plebiscite. (Section 1 (2), Article XVII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution)

See the full constitutional portion on amendments and revisions:

ARTICLE XVII, AMENDMENTS OR REVISIONS

Section 1. Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution may be proposed by:

(1) The Congress, upon a vote of three-fourths of all its Members; or

(2) A constitutional convention.

Section 2. Amendments to this Constitution may likewise be directly proposed by the people through initiative upon a petition of at least twelve per centum of the total number of registered voters, of which every legislative district must be represented by at least three per centum of the registered voters therein.

No amendment under this section shall be authorized within five years following the ratification of this Constitution nor oftener than once every five years thereafter.

The Congress shall provide for the implementation of the exercise of this right.

Section 3. The Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of all its Members, call a constitutional convention, or by a majority vote of all its Members, submit to the electorate the question of calling such a convention.

Section 4. Any amendment to, or revision of, this Constitution under Section 1 hereof shall be valid when ratified by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite which shall be held not earlier than sixty days nor later than ninety days after the approval of such amendment or revision.

Any amendment under Section 2 hereof shall be valid when ratified by a majority of the votes cast in a plebiscite which shall be held not earlier than sixty days nor later than ninety days after the certification by the Commission on Elections of the sufficiency of the petition.

Imagine the circuitous process and imagine the whole economic cost. Its enormous and besides we are not even speaking about the social and political cost that it might entail, at this point, when the presidential elections is just around the corner, its unimaginable.

If these congressmen only realize what kind of toy they are toying with right now, with this so vicious game, they would even be thinking about it in the first place, the amount of time and its political and economic consequences may just tear this nation into ruins once again. They should stop their being fancy about the constitution. They should seek another more convenient time, like perhaps after the 2010 presidential elections.

And besides, the constitutional provisions intended for making changes in our constitution is so general and highly-unrefined, where implementing laws or even mere guidelines have not yet been instituted.

A 2006 attempt at people’s initiative was struck down by the Supreme Court due to the lack of implementing laws that the Congress should have been dutiful enough to enact so many years ago—-but it didn’t.

COMELEC Decides to Allow Estrada One More Shot at Presidency

In the news today is the COMELEC’s decision to allow former President Joseph Estrada to seek re-election this coming May 2010 election, aiming to regain the highest seat in the land, which he had to vacate under duress as a repercussion of the EDSA II revolution in January of 2001.

Common opinion—- and that of public knowledge—- initially believed him to be patently ineligible to run once again for the highest position due to the highly ubiquitous constitutional prohibition for elected Presidents to remain in office after serving one full-term of six years.
That’s how we understood it and were aware of especially that such specific constitutional ban was devised and given effect in order that the dynastic rule of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, one that had thrown the entire nation in great despair and disarray, would not materialize ever again.

But upon closer examination, Section 4 of Article VII of the 1987 Philippine Constitution specifies:

The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date, six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.

Note that the specific prohibition is for a sitting President to seek “re-election” where upon swift interpretation of the terminology, it would be merely be a bar for an incumbent President to seek re-election for another six-year term immediately right after his or her term, and that he or she remains not absolutely precluded from seeking the office once again, for he or she may still do so while not anymore an incumbent (such as the present case of former President Estrada), probably after six years from the last day of his/her service as the highest executive of the land, granting that the president after him/her serves the full term.

Now, it merely boils down to interpretation of terminology, and indeed in our election culture and tradition, the term “re-elect” most often refers to candidates who are running as incumbents, such as those we often see on campaign posters that states boldly “Re-elect Mayor This and That”, “Re-elect Councilor this and that”, etc..

Therefore, despite that the intention of the aforementioned constitutional prohibition, which is to entirely dispel dynastic rule at the highest order, there would still be that one remaining method left in which a sitting Presidents may return to office, after six years of another presidency (which could be by a puppet candidate he or she had merely instated, allowed to win using the ever-vaunted government machinery).

At a young age of 40, any natural-born Filipino citizen, able to read and write and a registered voter can vie for the highest position, and if he or she wins, he or she could still have many runs at it and serve more than six years in office, despite the constitutional bar of serving two successive terms. In this manner, presidential dynastic rule may still not be entirely prevented.

This one method in fact had been often used by many legislators who had already stretched-out their three-term limits, by having close relatives hold positions for them for one term, in order to return after and start a fresh run on the three-term allowance. For one, this kind of situation could easily lead to circumvention of the law.

I wonder if upon closer examination, where we could be allowed to examine the records of interpolations, the transcripts of deliberation when Section 4 was especially debated upon by the framers of the 1987 Constitution and then taking into consideration the very grave political trauma this nation had endured under a tumultuous and dark 20-year reign of one former President, we could find a deviating idea away from the COMELEC decision discussed herein.

Have the framers of the 1987 Constitution intended it that any President may only sit and serve one single term and then absolutely none after that?
Or otherwise.

Ogden Kronengekel: A Wanted Murderer

Note: Another retelling of a dream.

OGDEN KRONENGEKEL—-such is the name of the main protagonists inside my dream, other than myself of course. Have you had yourself a vivid dream? In my childhood days, I had numerous dreams of these sorts, the kind that are so crystalline in clarity that some of them I could still recall until now. I usually dream about angels in the past, flying with them into tree-lined outfields, and falling off from cliffs if I lose some footings while in the act of flying. Every time I fall from the air in those dreams, as I lose control of my body movements, I also fall from my beds that the falling sensation felt so real and everyone in the house could hear me scream.

My dream about Ms. Kronengekel (yes, she was a woman sporting jet-black hair falling down towards her knees) about three nights ago wasn’t purely about angels although some parts of it were about them cherubim. Unlike my other dreams, this one involves a narrator who whispers to me some facts that I need to know as the story progresses within that dream.

The visions in my sleep started as the narrator introduces me to the beginning scenarios (the narrator’s face does not appear throughout the dream and whispers only to my right ear as if he was afloat above ground just behind me and moves accordingly as I moved forward or backward or to any direction. He also has no name but in my mind he wears a huge black hood, just like the one wore by Death.). He introduced to me the people in the story. There was H. a friend who I knew in real life and the narrator also informed me that H.’s father was Mr. P. Mr. P. is a bailer of those arrested for crimes.

And then there was Ms. Ogden Kronengekel, a beautiful lad who always wears white t-shirts and fading jeans. When I was in Silliman University for about a year nearly two decades ago, I could recall that most students there wear this kind of generic outfit—-white shirt on the top and faded or tattered jeans down below. It was known to be hip to dress so casually, a coy on pretending like a poor man when one looks so rich. I didn’t dress the same when I was in Dumaguete City because that kind of outfit needed a bunch of Levi’s 501’s which I only have one at that time. So I just was hip in few instances. The white shirt and jeans needed another garment and that was the bandana. In those years (somewhere between 1989 and 1991), to wear a bandana is to bring tribute to rock music, especially glam-rock music and since Axl Rose of the band Guns and Roses wear them always, a hip rocker ain’t hip at all without the head accessory. In those years, riffing guitars and bamboozling drumbeats emanates from every nook and corner of Dumaguete City and as freshmen students, we became so involved in the glam rock movement that spurned notable bands like Bon Jovi and Poison. In those pre-grunge days, new wave bands still had major clamp on the radio listeners and it was the times when the great Irish band U2 reached its artistic peak with a couple of great albums titled “The Joshua Tree” and “Rattle and Hum”. Making the “Joshua Tree” album for them was such an achievement already and yet within a year, they were able to released “Rattle and Hum”—how good can they get?”So the dream was centered on a murder that I have got to know for reason that I was acting as an investigating officer in it and my work companion was H. All along H. wore a casual striped t-shirt, walking short and sporty beach sandals that I wasn’t really certain if he was toddling along with me in the investigation as a police officer himself, like I was, or just an ordinary companion. We went on scurrying up the whole facts of the case and proceeded on unraveling the mysterious death of a certain C., a fairly known rice trader in the city. If he was fairly known in the town despite his being merely a businessman (you know, as differentiated from high profile professionals like doctors and lawyers), it only means that he wasn’t just an ordinary businessman but a very successful one.

The main scene that really stuck vividly in my mind was the one in a downtown store that the victim Mr. C. owned. Me and H. went there to question some people about the murder.

In actual times, the store really existed somewhere in San Jose Road within the city limits and it really sells rice, lots of them. When we got there, we saw Ms. Ogden Kronengekel walk by us and entered a small doorway just beside the rice store of Mr. C. and proceeded to the second level of the building. Throughout the story, I never really seen her face yet I knew she had a foreign-looking countenance. She was pretty, so pretty that she was familiar almost to every one we knew.

H. remarked to me: “ That’s Ms. Ogden Kronengekel. Ain’t she pretty?” I said,
“ Yeah, I am familiar with her. You know, from school.” I then asked: “What she’s doing here?” To this question, H. just smiled and shrugged off his shoulders meaning that he does not have an idea. The way he smiled was a little insidious as if he knew something interesting that I do not know.

Then the scenes went into a cornucopia of various images. Just like any dream, the scenes in my mind change without lead ups or preludes and images and happenstances there intertwine like a spider web or a twirling spiral, at times without rhyme and reason, and they interlope upon each other like layers upon layers of sand.

The next memorable scene was the narrator telling me all the bits of information about the mysterious persona of Mr. Ogden Kronengekel. I bet I must have all the information I needed in order to solve the crime inside that dream—and Mr. Narrator helped a lot on this. Mr. Narrator said that Ms. Kronengekel grew up in Norway until the age of 5, and came to Zamboanga in the year 1986, the year when millions of Filipinos marched into the main highways of Metro Manila to overthrow The Strongman former President Mr. Marcos. Her father was of course Norwegian who married a Zamboangueña nurse then working in one of the big hospitals in Oslo, the most popular city in Norway. On the first time that Mr. Kronengekel went to visit the city, when he and Mrs. Kronengekel was still planning to tie their marital knot, he immediately fell in love with the local weather and particularly the beaches in the islands farther up north, and one just nearby town which is known as Sta. Cruz Islands. He decided then that he would not spend the rest of his life freezing among frozen lakes and icy boulevards in the Baltic Region and planned a scheme on how to make Zamboanga as the Kronengekel’s domicile. After five years of saving every penny they gained in Norway, they packed all their worthwhile things and settled here in 1986. It was rough times in the Philippines at that particular time yet Mr. Kronengekel did not allow any political disturbances to stifle his long-awaited journey to a land which according to him where the sun always smiled.

For quite sometime since they came here, the Kronengekel’s enjoyed a buoyant life full of travels around the country. You could really see for yourself how a man craves for seawater and sunshine in the way Mr. Kronengekel would stay in the water for hours and hours without getting ashore, snorkeling even in places when corrals where not all abound. In most of the beaches of Zamboanga, there are exactly no corrals or sea life to snorkel about except if one gets too deep into ten feet high seawater which would be a little risky with the sea currents so strong around here. There was even a story of some amateur boaters who went toddling in the night water in one of the resorts here while being a little drunk from alcohol. They paddled too far into the sea and apparently lost control of their boat due to the swirling currents that twirls and swirls like giant spirals in the span of both the Sulu Sea and the Celebes Sea. They found themselves in Indonesia a day after.Mr. Kronengekel applied as an English Instructor in a nearby college and was hired initially as a part-timer. Yes, he had professional trainings in the languages, especially in English from a fairly known American University and worked before as a professor in the English Department of a known university in Norway. He became an instant celebrity in the local college and became instantly popular with the students. A blond-haired lean man nearly six foot tall walking along the walkways of a school in Zamboanga was not exactly an everyday occurrence but with Mr. Kronengekel around, it was a daily sight for the students who could not help snickering and making some hush-hush and whispers, every time he passes by.

One day, Mr. Kronengekel caused a minor rumpus inside the campus when he just walked away one afternoon from a class he was tutoring and shouted along the hallways, “I can’t take it anymore” Apparently, he was having a nervous breakdown and never entered the campus again, not even once. The talk about him in school did not die down as easily and went own like a legend being told and retold.The day that he found a certain man was the day that started his slide into the downward spiral of a doggoned life. This certain man was a student he befriended in school for reason mainly because this certain man had easy access to a drug seller in one of the mean streets of this town. Everyday, he would take in some puff of marijuana like it was his staple food—-morning, noon and night. He was introduced to this illicit item in one of their travels to the islands farther up north in Visayas by a German tourist who took him for a couple of drink one cold night in the beach. He knew it was improper to take the item but he was too pretentious to let the German guy know that he is such a snob. In person, he is naturally a shy and introspective person but he was always inclined to hide this shyness when among a crowd, which he considered as his major weakness, and tend to overdo his show of coy extroversion by a mile.

So he smoked that illicit item just to do away with the German but it instead became the moment of his future desperation. At first, the stuff made him extraordinarily full of jest, snickered with the German to no end and laugh so hard even at the most humorless joke. His appetite for food became gregarious but what finally made him got hooked was the fact that the grass gave him a feeling of lightness that he never had before.
As his new habit progresses, Mr. Kronengekel had developed a general indolence that made him lose more focus in his daily tasks especially in his vocation as a teacher and soon started to miss on his own classes. He had been called twice to the Dean’s office until that one fateful day when he just stepped out of the classroom and never to return.

Mr. Kronengekel regressed so steeply into a man of unkempt behavior and soon Mrs. Kronengekel left home and went abroad again to earn when the finances of the family dwindled. Ogden Kronengekel became a “motherless” child at the age 9 and lived with aunts and cousins except when Mrs. Kronengekel was here for very brief annual or bi-annual visits. Mr. Kronengekel just wandered around the city drinking with by-standers from every mean streets there is in the city and huffed the prohibited item almost always until one day his body was found lifeless and stiffed as a rock near a city creek; probably by self-infliction as no contusion or bruises were marked on the corpse, and every possession in his body was intact, including a very expensive wristwatch. He just perhaps jumped into the shallow river and drowned himself by having so much alcohol to drink.

At the age of 12, Ogden Kronengekel goes home to a parentless shelter except for aunts and cousins she could bully around and whom she does not solicit for advises. The lack of sufficient moral guidance and the tragedy in her lives had affected Ogden so much that she became a wanderer herself, nearly like her father, taking drugs and alcohol in the night streets often than we breathe, never finishing college and running around with a lot of different men, even in illicit affairs. She became a creature of the night, as we know the term, hanging among many groupies in the city and creating troubles in the night streets as well as the streets of their own lives and of other lives.I asked my friend H. about the person of Ms. Ogden Kronengekel for I could not forget his strange smirk the last time we saw her within the vicinity of the murder scene of Mr. C. At this moment of questioning, we were in the office of Mr. P., H.’s father and the owner of the bail company.

My friend H. told me: “ There is no more need to ask questions. The murderer of Mr. C. has been arrested and he is out on bail, care of our bailing company.”

He handed me the folder of the murder suspect and saw for myself the front-view, left-view, and right-view pictures of some youth with browning hair and dark oily skin, with eyes protruding from perhaps lack of sleep or extreme tiredness. It seems all petty criminals looked like the guy on the folder in my hands, except the case in hand was not petty at all.

I asked in my mind why H. remarked immediately that the murderer was already apprehended when I only asked him about Ms. Ogden Kronengekel’s person. I smelled something fishy and wanted to create a line of thought from this unusual answer of H.. I wondered of course, since I was the investigating officer in the case, how come I didn’t know the arrest of some suspect on the case I am handling myself. In the Philippines maybe, this sort of things happens and since we were inside a dream, everything could happen indeed without explanation. The narrator made the story short and since Mr. Narrator seems to know everything, he saved me a lot of police work.

It turned out that Mr. P., the owner of the bail company, with connections in the police and in the Hall of Justice nearby, created a scenario where the murder has already been solved by the arrest of a pretending murder suspect, the skinny guy on the folder. Mr. P. was able to convince some fish vendor from Rio Hondo to pose as the murderer on the agreement that he would be bailed out after a couple of days of detention and then he could disappear to wherever he wants to go. The guy needed the money so much and the offer was hard to refuse.We asked perhaps why Mr. P. was interested in undermining the truth behind the murder Mr. C.. It turned out that the real murderer was none other than Ms. Ogden Kronengekel, the half-Norwegian wanderer and spoiled brat and Mr. P. was Ogden’s new paramour. Ogden Kronengekel was still then involved with Mr. C. and Mr. P. wanted her to get rid of him. Ogden got rid of Mr. C. in the cruelest of manner, the details of which could not even be spoken here for decency measures. You say, Ogden Kronengekel developed psychotic tendencies as she progressed through a life full of desperate measures.

It was H. unusual answers that gave me the lead to the final resolution of the case and at the end of the dream, the murder of Mr. C, the well-known rice trader in the city, was finally a case resolved.Now, I have said earlier that this dream of mine, which happened about two or three nights ago, was in some part about angels. Where are the angels? This is where the angels come in.

When Mr. Narrator elucidated to me on the true persona of Ogden Kronengekel, I forgot to mention to you that she was also a singer with a local rock band and that explains her rock-and-roll attitude. While telling me this particular fact, Mr. Narrator gave me a view of one of her performances (the narrator seem to have the power to go back and forth in time and view some happenstances in a three dimensional screen where the viewers are in it although unseen by the people inside the screen, like in Hollywood movies where there are repetitions of past events, like for example Bill and Ted’s adventures of years ago.)

So Ogden sang a song that was unlike any other song. In fact, despite the catchiness of the song, it was not a song that exists in real time. It was a song I have heard only in that dream. As she sang the song, heavenly choruses were backing her up. As the song progresses, I was taken through a time warp to a place where there was a low hill with trees lined up together like they were planted with great planning in mind and the air was so breezy and the sun was so radiant. It gave me a feeling of great joy like it was Paradise. And the place just faded after the song.

Ogden Kronengekel’s voice reminded me so much of Tori Amos. In fact, her voice was a beautiful combination of Tori Amos’s and of Fiona Apple’s. In real time, I doubt it if there is a woman living with this kind of vocal prowess. But the choral backing in the song of Ogden Kronengekel lifted me above air and gave me a gladness of powerful elation. Cherubim (with trumpets in each hand) sang the choral rendition behind Ogden Kronengekel’s main vocalization. What beautiful angels they were and what beautiful voices. At the end of this post, we can now ask what did the dream meant to me and what message it tried to invoke? I do not know. Some dreams of mine, even as vivid as they were, just do not mean anything except that they were about angels and the angels remind me always of places and times that gives me fond memories and great joy. In my childhood, my dreams of angels were just about flying and nothing much else. No message. No declarations. Their declarations came not by dreams but through other manners instead, which of course if you are a constant reader of my works, you should already know by now.

Some characters in the dream above narrated may resemble some people I know in actual time but the resemblance was unintentional and does not portray their true persons’ character. Dreams are just dreams.

The Chaotic Structure of World Relations

Definitely, chaos is an instance gravely unbeneficial at any given fact or situation. This is most true in the principles and normative values regulating, or self-regulating world relations.

If we do not want conflicts and disintegrations to perpetuate within our own personal lives—- or in our community in general – then as much more that we would not opt for chaos in the relations among states and nations.

Basically, the interaction between and among states—- especially at the beginning of the era where nation had begun to evolve into instituted states (from the prior institutions of kingdoms and empires that had mostly vague territorial and political frameworks) sometime in the 16^th century—- is mostly confined in an environment of chaos.

When we say chaos in international relations, it refers technically to the lack of formal organizational and hierarchical structure among nations, that sheer might and strength becomes the limited characteristics for estimation as to what nation should exert its influence over and against other lesser states. Of course, this form of strength should primordially be in the nature of military force, and then political influence.

This lack of structure had been deemed by political theorists to be the sole basis why in the early stages of human civilization, nations and territories are often in violent and head-on collisions with each other, showing and exerting each other’s strength and resolve almost at every turn, that sad to say, only war and confrontation could resolve a certain status quo. And since power is often fluctuating, nations had been embroiled in repetitive war in those early ages of human civilization.

This despite that international organization such as the United Nations nowadays provides a certain form of arrangement among states; still, this does not strictly refers to a hierarchal form of organization as nations remain co-equal with each other, and no nation or nations holds formalized power over all other nations. It remains to this day therefore that world relations are chaotic in nature, this despite the existence of the United Nations.

For instance, in the time immediately prior to World War I, a form of uncertainty had arose as to what nation state has the most strength in the European region, a fragile balance of power had permeated, and alliances were formed as a result of this insecurity, that eventually, when these states started to question each other’s resolve much more intensely, war broke out among them, eventually and steadily developing into a global war.

The only solution – which is at times dangerous proposition – is the presence of a singular state that could exert enormous power and influence above most, if not all states in the world. This situation becomes the so-called hegemony in international relations.

This hegemonic structure is provided today by the powerfulness and heraldic power of the United States of America that as a singular entity, it wields so much power and political influence over all other nations that its grasp is nearly empiric in nature.

While radical minded individuals resent this situation, where America often involves itself in every conflict and confrontation in almost every nook and cranny of the world, this had become somehow a positive value for today’s world peace and stability.

For instance, in the developing events that had brought China and the Philippines to a head on collision over a piece of island in the South China Sea (or West Philippine Sea), over the disputed Scarborough Shoal, some tactical moves by the United States, specifically the docking of attack submarine USS North Carolina in a port near Scarborough; such move was seen to be in the context of attempting to pacify the tense situation brimming between the two Asian nations. 

Without the veiled intervention of America, any escalation in the Scarborough issue would sway so much in China’s favor. That it would not be too surprising to realize how China becomes too eager to put up a fight against the Philippines over the disputed piece of land protruding over the seas just west of the latter’s territory.

However, with the existence of a mutual defense treaty between the United States and the Philippines, China could not be so forceful or profligate in engaging the Philippines to a full-blown military confrontation. Otherwise, it would be inviting America into the whole conflict—- Which would not be in its own interest for certain.

Somehow, we as a nation, becomes ultimately benefitted from this hegemonic structure being perpetuated by America as the lone superpower in existence today. Despite that it is often vilified as an international bully by many political critics.

The Chaotic Structure of World Relations

Definitely, chaos is an instance gravely unbeneficial at any given fact or situation. This is most true in the principles and normative values regulating, or self-regulating world relations.

If we do not want conflicts and disintegrations to perpetuate within our own personal lives—- or in our community in general – then as much more that we would not opt for chaos in the relations among states and nations.

Basically, the interaction between and among states—- especially at the beginning of the era where nation had begun to evolve into instituted states (from the prior institutions of kingdoms and empires that had mostly vague territorial and political frameworks) sometime in the 16^th century—- is mostly confined in an environment of chaos.

When we say chaos in international relations, it refers technically to the lack of formal organizational and hierarchical structure among nations, that sheer might and strength becomes the limited characteristics for estimation as to what nation should exert its influence over and against other lesser states. Of course, this form of strength should primordially be in the nature of military force, and then political influence.

This lack of structure had been deemed by political theorists to be the sole basis why in the early stages of human civilization, nations and territories are often in violent and head-on collisions with each other, showing and exerting each other’s strength and resolve almost at every turn, that sad to say, only war and confrontation could resolve a certain status quo. And since power is often fluctuating, nations had been embroiled in repetitive war in those early ages of human civilization.

This despite that international organization such as the United Nations nowadays provides a certain form of arrangement among states; still, this does not strictly refers to a hierarchal form of organization as nations remain co-equal with each other, and no nation or nations holds formalized power over all other nations. It remains to this day therefore that world relations are chaotic in nature, this despite the existence of the United Nations.

For instance, in the time immediately prior to World War I, a form of uncertainty had arose as to what nation state has the most strength in the European region, a fragile balance of power had permeated, and alliances were formed as a result of this insecurity, that eventually, when these states started to question each other’s resolve much more intensely, war broke out among them, eventually and steadily developing into a global war.

The only solution – which is at times dangerous proposition – is the presence of a singular state that could exert enormous power and influence above most, if not all states in the world. This situation becomes the so-called hegemony in international relations.

This hegemonic structure is provided today by the powerfulness and heraldic power of the United States of America that as a singular entity, it wields so much power and political influence over all other nations that its grasp is nearly empiric in nature.

While radical minded individuals resent this situation, where America often involves itself in every conflict and confrontation in almost every nook and cranny of the world, this had become somehow a positive value for today’s world peace and stability.

For instance, in the developing events that had brought China and the Philippines to a head on collision over a piece of island in the South China Sea (or West Philippine Sea), over the disputed Scarborough Shoal, some tactical moves by the United States, specifically the docking of attack submarine USS North Carolina in a port near Scarborough; such move was seen to be in the context of attempting to pacify the tense situation brimming between the two Asian nations. 

Without the veiled intervention of America, any escalation in the Scarborough issue would sway so much in China’s favor. That it would not be too surprising to realize how China becomes too eager to put up a fight against the Philippines over the disputed piece of land protruding over the seas just west of the latter’s territory.

However, with the existence of a mutual defense treaty between the United States and the Philippines, China could not be so forceful or profligate in engaging the Philippines to a full-blown military confrontation. Otherwise, it would be inviting America into the whole conflict—- Which would not be in its own interest for certain.

Somehow, we as a nation, becomes ultimately benefitted from this hegemonic structure being perpetuated by America as the lone superpower in existence today. Despite that it is often vilified as an international bully by many political critics.

The Chaotic Structure of World Relations

Definitely, chaos is an instance gravely unbeneficial at any given fact or situation. This is most true in the principles and normative values regulating, or self-regulating world relations.

If we do not want conflicts and disintegrations to perpetuate within our own personal lives—- or in our community in general – then as much more that we would not opt for chaos in the relations among states and nations.

Basically, the interaction between and among states—- especially at the beginning of the era where nation had begun to evolve into instituted states (from the prior institutions of kingdoms and empires that had mostly vague territorial and political frameworks) sometime in the 16^th century—- is mostly confined in an environment of chaos.

When we say chaos in international relations, it refers technically to the lack of formal organizational and hierarchical structure among nations, that sheer might and strength becomes the limited characteristics for estimation as to what nation should exert its influence over and against other lesser states. Of course, this form of strength should primordially be in the nature of military force, and then political influence.

This lack of structure had been deemed by political theorists to be the sole basis why in the early stages of human civilization, nations and territories are often in violent and head-on collisions with each other, showing and exerting each other’s strength and resolve almost at every turn, that sad to say, only war and confrontation could resolve a certain status quo. And since power is often fluctuating, nations had been embroiled in repetitive war in those early ages of human civilization.

This despite that international organization such as the United Nations nowadays provides a certain form of arrangement among states; still, this does not strictly refers to a hierarchal form of organization as nations remain co-equal with each other, and no nation or nations holds formalized power over all other nations. It remains to this day therefore that world relations are chaotic in nature, this despite the existence of the United Nations.

For instance, in the time immediately prior to World War I, a form of uncertainty had arose as to what nation state has the most strength in the European region, a fragile balance of power had permeated, and alliances were formed as a result of this insecurity, that eventually, when these states started to question each other’s resolve much more intensely, war broke out among them, eventually and steadily developing into a global war.

The only solution – which is at times dangerous proposition – is the presence of a singular state that could exert enormous power and influence above most, if not all states in the world. This situation becomes the so-called hegemony in international relations.

This hegemonic structure is provided today by the powerfulness and heraldic power of the United States of America that as a singular entity, it wields so much power and political influence over all other nations that its grasp is nearly empiric in nature.

While radical minded individuals resent this situation, where America often involves itself in every conflict and confrontation in almost every nook and cranny of the world, this had become somehow a positive value for today’s world peace and stability.

For instance, in the developing events that had brought China and the Philippines to a head on collision over a piece of island in the South China Sea (or West Philippine Sea), over the disputed Scarborough Shoal, some tactical moves by the United States, specifically the docking of attack submarine USS North Carolina in a port near Scarborough; such move was seen to be in the context of attempting to pacify the tense situation brimming between the two Asian nations. 

Without the veiled intervention of America, any escalation in the Scarborough issue would sway so much in China’s favor. That it would not be too surprising to realize how China becomes too eager to put up a fight against the Philippines over the disputed piece of land protruding over the seas just west of the latter’s territory.

However, with the existence of a mutual defense treaty between the United States and the Philippines, China could not be so forceful or profligate in engaging the Philippines to a full-blown military confrontation. Otherwise, it would be inviting America into the whole conflict—- Which would not be in its own interest for certain.

Somehow, we as a nation, becomes ultimately benefitted from this hegemonic structure being perpetuated by America as the lone superpower in existence today. Despite that it is often vilified as an international bully by many political critics.