Replacing old cinema with the new (3)

One big X-factor: How many filmmakers are going into this kind of work and making a living out of it?

I don’t have exact figures, but I will bet my squirrel’s hoard of streetware VCDs that there are a bigger number of them doing video projects now than conventional movies on film.

The number is sure to increase year by year, not only because the costs are generally going down, but also because demand is going up.

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Small-scale video outfits are all around us more than we realize. Just stroll through a major city’s university belt area, and count the number of shops offering digital video services. It should give us an idea of how large the technical base is for this new medium.

The “DV geeks” only need to team up with local culturati who are not intimidated by digital video technology and are brimming with good ideas and story lines.

Fortunately, the world of NGO-PO’s, media-cultural circles and academic institutions are teeming with such groups and initiatives. Their annual output is increasing by leaps and bounds. They have common problems of funding, packaging, quality control, distribution and marketing, but such problems are not insurmountable.

Even as I write this, UP Baguio is holding Arubayan ni Oble - an Amateur Video Film Festival by BC130 students (“the first-ever,” according to the brochure), featuring 25-minute narratives with such delicious titles as Aniniwan, Payong, Kalso, Litany, Lakad, Banyo Thoughts, Taghoy sa Dilim, Talingkas, Montiniosa, and Fedrang Falad. Like I said, I’m no movie buff, but I will gladly shell out my lunch money to view one or two of the festival choices.

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Is it hard to learn videography (the new term that means film-making in the era of digital video)? Not really.

As in other new media like wireless and the Web, some people who have mastered the medium might at first tend to monopolize their knowhow and mystify the technology with mouthfuls of mumbo-jumbo. But, in the long run, skills will diffuse quickly and widely, like using cellphones, among a wider public who have access to the technology.

The biggest X-factor, however, remains that of content: Where are the filmmakers - the writers, directors, photographers, sound engineers, editors, actors, musicians - who will shape the materials of this new cinematic vehicle, not just by mastering the medium and indulging their egos for self-expression, but more importantly, by ensuring that it contains relevant social messages that the broad public will support?

And who will create those messages?

Will it be another generation of profit-oriented media capitalists who will of course glorify the capitalist lifestyle while catering to our most decadent fantasies? Let’s hope not.

Let’s hope that they will be, for the first time in our history, ordinary folk with cheap cameras and computers, helped by grassroots cultural and media activists. These are people who don’t want to merely make money, but rather to turn common lives into powerful social images, and maybe, in the process, help conscientize and overhaul society.

Dare we hope for a new cinema? Abangan sa susunod na kabanata. #

Northern Dispatch Weekly, Sept. 12, 2004

Replacing old cinema with the new (2)

In the meantime, a new type of cinema is evolving based on digital technologies. The factors shaping this new creature remain in flux. But just consider the possibilities:

Today, you can buy a Digital-8 or Mini-DV video camera and basic accessories for less than P50,000. There is even an excellent-quality Digital-8 handycam priced at P22,000. The quality is not as good as 35-mm or 16-mm films shown in most moviehouses. But it is good enough for CD players and TV broadcasts, even if some professional videographers tend to belittle this cheap CCD camera since it doesn’t pass muster as “broadcast quality”. A good quality Digital-8 blank tape now costs only P105, a Mini-DV tape a bit more.

You can save and edit your video footage on an ordinary PC platform, so long as you install a Firewire-compatible video I/O card, a large-capacity hard disk, and any of the more well-known editing software such as Adobe Premiere or Ulead MediaStudio, or Final Cut.

(It’s a dream come true if you are lucky to use a Mac G4. But it’s not an absolute must. In the mid-1990’s, I worked with a group that edited analog video footage, using what would now be considered as semi-obsolete junk: a Pentium II PC with a Miro card, 64 mb RAM and a 2-gigabyte SCSI hard disk. We sometimes experienced a few dropped frames, but no complaints otherwise.)

Based on current Manila prices, you can buy a basic PC platform at about P30,000, and for another P30,000 install all the other add-on hardware and software needed for a complete video and audio editing and CD-copying equipment.

In short, for less than P100,000, and after a patient canvass of ordinary computer and camera stores, you can acquire the basic equipment to produce all kinds of digital video - from 1-minute spiels and 5-minute MTV and videoke pieces to full-length, 60-minute features.

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Your next concern would be the actual production. To simplify things, let us assume that your first project is not the kind of film that requires a cast of actors, but a plain 60-minute documentary or thinly-fictionalized account of real people’s lives - perhaps a true-to-life story that you are already familiar with.

If so, you need not spend a fortune on cast and crew, elaborate sets, and travel to exotic locations. You could just form a group of two or three, and distribute among yourselves and other interested volunteers the work of research, script-writing, directing, actual camera work, dubbing and editing.

I won’t go into details, and each project will widely vary, but let’s estimate that your first full-length project will require 30 days’ work (from writing the script to final edited master copy) and cost you P25,000. If you are dedicated, skilled and resourceful, a whole month and P25,000 should be more than enough.

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Finally, you will need about P60,000 to mass-produce and package 2,000 copies of your obra maestra in VCD format. You can estimate marketing costs yourselves, but it should not exceed P10,000.

Suppose you sell all 2,000 copies at P50 per. If so, you might not exactly become the next Mother Lily of indie film, but you have just proven the potentials for a sustainable and socially significant business.

You can find ways of including ads in your VCD, or broadcasting it on TV, or producing a DVD version, to maximize income. On the side, you might want to do weddings, graduations, birthdays, funerals, MTV’s, videokes and commercials to ease your cash flow. Don’t laugh! You’d be surprised at how much some people are willing to pay for a personalized 30-minute video package.

With enough bravado, you could even invest in an LCD projector so that you can conduct video showings in schools, offices, and communities to help promote and distribute your work and those of others. #

From Northern Dispatch Weekly, Sept. 5, 2004

Replacing old cinema with the new (1)

I have an idea: why don’t we just abandon the Philippine film industry, as it exists now, and grow something else more vibrant in its stead? Something that’s been sprouting from the mudholes and gutters of the desolate Philippine cultural landscape anyway?

I’m not exactly an avid movie buff. But on my way to Manila and back the next day, with nothing else to do on the road but read two newspapers and watch the onboard video, I realized that the local film industry is being choked to death by forces beyond its control. Scrutinize the newspapers’ movie skeds, take stock of what video stores sell, and you’ll realize the same thing.

According to an article by Jude O. Marfil in the Aug. 25, 2004 issue of Manila Standard, the number of locally produced films steadily dropped from 164 in 1996 to 80 films in 2003. Film industry leader Esperidion Laxa said the industry may not exceed 60 films this year.

Yes, some films still enjoy top-grosser box office success, such as those shown during the Metro Manila Film Festival, but they are too few and far in-between to turn the tide.

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As I read the Manila Standard article, the reasons for the local film industry’s impending collapse clicked into place.

First, local films are being swamped by foreign films, which are coming in like crazy due to the liberalized import policies imposed by GATT-WTO. Local films cannot compete based on the Western standards and expectations, which are set by Hollywood and ingrained among wider sections of the local audience.

Second, film production costs have shot sky-high, now ranging from P5 million to P20 million per full-length movie. This is not to include very costly digital effects (estimated at P2 million per minute), which some producers consider as de rigeur if local films were to compete with Hollywood.

And third, the industry is burdened by exorbitant taxes. Supposing that the cost of a theater ticket is P50. About P24 or P25 of that are divided between theater owners and producers. The rest goes to taxes: a 30% amusement tax, a 35% corporate income tax, miscellaneous VAT’s, a 5% withholding tax, and an MTRCB fee of P8,500 per film.

The amusement tax (which goes to local governments) is particularly onerous, considering that it is the highest among Asian countries. In comparison, Japan charges only 5%, Taiwan 7.62%, South Korea 6.5%, and Singapore 3%; Hong Kong and Thailand do not charge amusement taxes at all.

###

The article implied without stating at least two more reasons for the malaise of Filipino cinema. So I’ll include them here:

First, the worsening economic crisis is forcing local moviegoers to change their habits. A big percentage of them no longer go to the movies as frequently as before, but content themselves with daily TV fare. Those who can afford rent or buy VCDs, now available on the streets at varying qualities, and at prices less than that of a movie ticket.

In this regard, the local film industry has failed to adapt to the digital revolution. Nowadays, a high-school kid using a PC with a CD-RW drive could recopy a VCD in less than 20 minutes, at the cost of P15 or less. In short, digital video is changing the basic rules of the game.

The industry should have viewed the CD pirates as its allies in redefining the economics of film-making and distribution. But instead, it unleashed the likes of Bong Revilla, Edu Manzano, and the CD-crushing bulldozers of MTRCB. The CD pirates’ operations simply became more sophisticated.

Second (and this is the hardest lesson for movie folk to swallow): The local film industry has long thrived on a defective structure, which employed highly-priced stars and formula stories (read: crap) to ensure box-office success. Those days are gone.

Now that TV networks can offer more glitz with the help of big advertisers, local film producers are left with few options, such as churning out fantasy films for the annual MMFF or sleazy sex films for provincial runs.

In short, the Filipino film industry is being killed by our flawed economy and its own internal defects. # (Next week: Evolving the new cinema)

From Northern Dispatch Weekly, Aug. 29, 2004

Romancing the sword (4)

I hope that you, most patient readers, have followed me thus far. Maybe you sense what I’m trying to say but can’t pin it down. Some might suspect that this is merely a nostalgia trip that meanders from one hazy idea to the next. So let me try and summarize the whole thing in one short paragraph:

War is too important to society to be left only to the professional soldiery. It must be the serious and routine business of the whole citizenry. Let us learn from our rich military legacy, not just through films and books, but by preserving and using what is still of practical use.

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To be sure, the country has a citizens military training program. Our high school military training (then PMT, now CMT), for example, required junior and senior male students to drill on Saturdays. Did that make us capable citizen-soldiers? You bet it didn’t.

We merely trained with mock Springfield bolt-action rifles (of World War I vintage – in the era of M16s and AK47s)! We were taught parade drill basics, like the ABC’s of carrying arms – you know, Kanang balikat, ‘Ta! Handa, ‘Ta! Parangal, ‘Ta! Baba, ‘Ta! – as if those skills were more helpful for a young citizen-soldier than learning how to load, aim and fire a rifle properly.

###

When I joined the cadet officer candidates corps (COCC), I half-expected to learn a bit about real weapons and tactics. Instead, we spent hours drilling with airy goose steps, fancy rifle routines, tiger looks and snappy salutes. As cadet officer-wannabes, we also brandished chrome-plated sabers bought cheap from a military supply store.

“Oh, I’m sure you loved to twirl your saber, huh, while you strutted on the parade grounds. And in front of the adoring girls too!” Kabsat Kandu ribbed me with his double-edged, hinalong-sharp wit.

Being popular with girls was a big incentive, I admit. Only, I didn’t get to reap the benefits since they dropped me near the end for joining an anti-Marcos protest and boycotting the Cadets’ Ball.

###

To be honest, I liked the rigorous training that improved our postures and stamina through plenty of push-ups, squats, and double-time marches around the campus. But I didn’t learn anything that could be of good use in a real war situation.

Most of my classmates felt that our play-soldiering was a waste of time. Campus protests demanded to scrap PMT or replace it with more useful activities. I was reluctant to drop out, but looking back, it was inevitable.

I learned more about first aid and jungle survival in three years of Scouting, than in my entire high school PMT plus a short stint with the UP ROTC. The few arnis routines taught by an uncle gave me a better sense of hand-to-hand combat than the fancy sword moves displayed by cadet officers.

###

If the CMT and ROTC authorities would not allow us to even hold real guns, they should at least train us in martial arts and survival skills, which goes back deep into our nation’s past.

In an Internet interview, Cass Magda, a California-based martial arts teacher and researcher, said he considers Filipino martial arts a most valuable self-defense system. “It is a weapon-based system that evolved uniquely because of the resistance to the Spanish occupation of the Philippines for nearly 400 years.”

It is said that kali, our ancestors’ comprehensive martial arts, was taught to all boys as a course with 12 subjects: olisi (single or double stick, sword, axe), olisi-baraw (long and short sticks, sword and dagger), baraw-baraw (double short sticks, daggers), baraw-kamot (dagger and empty hands), kamot-kamot or pangamut (empty hands), panuntukan (native boxing, which includes the use of elbows), panadiakan or sikaran (kicking, including kneeing and use of the shin), dumog or layug (grappling, wrestling), olisi dalawang kamot (two-handed stick style), sibat or bangkaw (use of spear, staff), tapon-tapon (use of hand-thrown darts and projectiles), and lipad-lipad (use of blowguns, bow and arrow).

Later, Magda says, “elements of Spanish swordsmanship were absorbed and modified to fit [our ancestors’] needs for effective countering attacks and used reciprocally against the Spanish and European invaders.”

###

Magda notes: “Other martial arts have forms that look pretty but Filipino martial arts have the understanding of how the weapon structure of combat really works. Once the principles of this structure are understood then anything can fit into the structure.”

“You see, the Philippines was a blade culture. In ancient times everyone carried a blade, by the time you were 14 years old you could be wearing a sword. It meant that you were now respected as an adult in the society. You were capable of preserving or taking a life. You had a great responsibility as a preserver and protector of the society. You became the servant of the people of your tribe.”

###

Historians are agreed that our ancestors had a mastery of weapons and warfare skills, and a deeply-rooted tradition of combat heroism and mass mobilization. This military capacity could have equalled those of foreign invaders, had we been more politically united.

It wasn’t any superiority of Spanish swords and cannons that conquered most non-Moro areas of the country, but the successful use of “divide-and-rule” tactics combined with Christian missionary zeal. It wasn’t Krag and Gatling guns that finally defeated the Filipino Revolutionary Army, but the warring and wavering factions that wore down its political-military leadership and worked in the US’s favor.

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Sifting through Philippine history textbooks, I am frustrated not to find a well-documented answer to a simple question: What happened to the native weapons of our people after they were subdued by the Spanish colonizers?

There are scattered reports about the conquistadors collecting spears, axes and swords from dead and captured warriors. Were these weapons destroyed, perhaps remelted into musket and cannon barrels and ship fittings? We don’t know exactly.

Repeatedly, though, we read about expeditions into pagan territories launched by handfuls of Spanish troops armed with muskets, lances and artillery, and accompanied by hundreds of “native allies” armed with the usual spears, swords and axes.

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So my guess is that the confiscated arms simply changed hands. The colonizers could not quickly impose a general ban on indigenous weapons – at least during the first two centuries of conquest. While Spain’s control over the major islands remained tenuous, it had to rely on the military strength of “friendly and pacified tribes” led by their respective warrior-datus to augment the small number of its own troops.

In such an environment, even after subjugation, our ancestors would have retained and developed their combat skills, formations, tactics, and training methods.

This is a modest layman’s theory that has to be validated by historical research.

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I speculate a change of Spanish military policy after the British invasion (1762-64), the subsequent, near-simultaneous revolts in wide areas of Luzon (e.g. the Palaris, Silang, and Cagayan uprisings), which also saw the height of the Dagohoy revolt and Moro wars. The colonial regime suppressed the armed groups under the native principalia, cracked down on native weaponry, and relied on direct native recruitment into the colonial infantry and later into the guardia civil.

This would have driven indigenous martial practices underground or into the unpacified territories.

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In colonized territories, the prohibition gave rise to ostensively harmless activities that the Spanish authorities allowed or even encouraged. For example, in the popular practice of moro-moro and sinulog, our forefathers preserved at least the most basic martial skills using mock swords and spears, in the guise of perfecting theatrical or ritualized plays.

Others, not content with theatrics and rituals, practiced real combat skills secretly in nearby caves and mountain lairs, using real kalis and kampilan (which were banned), as well as shorter utility blades such as badang, itak, or bolo (which were allowed as all-purpose tools) and sword-length rattan sticks.

Later on, towards the end of Spanish rule, the various efforts to preserve indigenous martial arts in covert and overt forms gave rise to more sporty, Spanish-influenced martial arts such as arnis de mano (from “harness of hand”), eskrima (from “fencing” or “skirmish”), and baston (from “cane”).

Thus, our native combat skills continued to evolve from father to son, from master to apprentice, from one generation to the next.

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Although the new American colonial authorities must have frowned on combative forms of kali and arnis, it is said that other forms limited to sticks and empty hands went mainstream in the 1910s after the remaining pockets of anti-US armed resistance were wiped out.

The various regional forms began to blend by the 1920s and 1930s, as landless Luzon and Visayas farmers resettled in Mindanao, and even spread overseas as Filipino migrant workers trooped to farms and canneries in California and Hawaii.

But we are getting much ahead of our story.

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In the wide uncolonized areas of Mindanao and the Cordillera, the old warrior traditions continued in full, despite (or probably because of) repeated Spanish punitive expeditions.

Unlike many Native American tribes who became expert horseback gunfighters, the Moro and Igorot resistance fighters continued to rely on indigenous arms even during the 19th century, when the rifle was already a common weapon that they could have seized in battle or bought from gunrunners.

They too were eventually marginalized. US imperialist troops, after defeating the main Filipino revolutionary forces at the start of the 20th century, proceeded to conquer the Moro, Igorot, and other minoritized peoples. The ban on indigenous weapons became more thorough and strict. Confiscated swords, spears, daggers and axes eventually turned up in public museums and private collections.

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Whether it was a matter of indigenous preference or simply due to lack of firearms and bullets, Moro warriors and other native fighters adopted do-or-die tactics that unnerved Spanish troops and later US troops. There was, for example, the legendary sword assault by suicide warriors, variously known as huramentados, pulahans, or tadtads.

Suicide volunteers had their limbs and torsos tightly bound in fibrous cloth or leather strips. Then, on signal, they assaulted the enemy lines with kampilan, kalis or bolos tied with thongs to the wrist of each hand, as they shouted “Allah’u akbar!” or “Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!” or simply “Tadtad!”

The wrappings would not stop a hail of Krag bullets, but they deadened the impact and slowed down blood flow. This enabled most attackers to reach enemy lines, perhaps mortally wounded but still with enough strength to take some dozen unfortunate souls with them on their way to martyrs’ heaven.

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Such suicide attacks struck terror in the hearts of the bravest American soldiers. That is, until some wise guy invented a magazine-loading semi-auto pistol called the Colt cal. 45, which had tremendous stopping power exceeded only by machine guns of that same period, and which proved crucial in close-quarters combat.

Modern automatic firearms eventually decimated the kalis-wielding juramentado rebels. But they did not kill the Filipino faith in the native sword. As late as World War II, the armed strength of guerrilla units in Northern Luzon were doubled or tripled by so-called bolo battalions.

The last Filipino samurais went down to their glorious deaths when the Lapiang Malaya quasi-religious rebels were gunned down with M16 automatic fire by Metrocom troopers on Taft Avenue in 1967.

After the LM massacre, the next generation of rebels throughout the land decided to retire their swords and fight back with their own M16s, AK47s and FALs.

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“Don’t write off Filipino martial arts just yet,” blurted Kabsat Kandu. “We arnis enthusiasts will yet have a role to play in the next revolt.” Hmm. Sometimes my pesky friend has some interesting notions up his sleeve.

True, we are now on the verge of another People Power revolt, and most analysts say it won’t succeed unless backed by the AFP and PNP. I say, our people should not wait for the AFP and PNP to move.

If war is too important to society to be left to the professional soldiery, then more so in the case of politics – especially People Power politics. I say, our people should be out there in the streets in their hundreds of thousands and millions to oust an illegitimate regime.

“I say, it’s time for Oust-GMA rallyists to fit their placards and streamers with sturdy rattan and bamboo handles,” Kabsat Kandu exclaimed.

“Is that an appeal to arms?” I asked.

“You bet it is,” he glowered. #

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From Northern Dispatch Weekly, 21 August 2005

Romancing the sword (3)

In most countries, the collective past is painstakingly preserved in history books, research publications, archives and museums. There are monuments, restored ruins, tombs and landmarks, paintings and prints, bas reliefs, dioramas. There are even live and filmed reenactments, usually on the very sites where memorable events happened.

Some of the most romanticized events and figures of a nation’s history, rightly or wrongly, have to do with wars and revolutions. It is as if the emergence of a nation or a hero required bloodshed, like a person’s birth and passage to adulthood.

This is understandable. After all, most nations were actually born and steeled into maturity in the throes of such violent crises. Many national heroes have emerged as leaders in such conflicts.

The problem begins, however, when the public is fed mostly with over-romanticized notions of war and combat heroics, while only the military establishment is given the chance to study real strategy and tactics.

It is one thing to romanticize armies and wars. It is another thing to educate the public in military science and history so they can cope better in a real war.

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Take for instance Scottish national hero William Wallace and French national heroine Joan d’Arc, and their roles in their countries’ respective wars of liberation against English occupation in the Middle Ages.

Braveheart, a realistic portrayal of the Scottish struggle, and the two Joan of Arc films I mentioned earlier, despite their historical inaccuracies, are okay enough for starters. But here are two cases where the heroes loom much bigger in real life than in the romanticized Hollywood versions.

Try to do an Internet search on the two historical figures. You’ll be amazed at the tremendous amount of historical detail available, whether online or in libraries, archives and museums, about their exploits as real-life political-military leaders.

The actual battles they waged and won are analyzed in terms of battle formations, weapons and tactics. Their battles are also analyzed in the context of the entire war and their impact on the wider theater of politics.

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As Filipinos, are we exerting the same effort to study the history of our own nation’s wars and revolutions? Do we have a comprehensive picture of how our ancestors battled foreign invaders with indigenous weapons and tactics? Is this knowledge popularized in films and other mass media?

For example, how much do we really know about the tactics and weapons with which Lapu-lapu waged and won the famous Battle of Mactan? Have we separated hard documented fact from mere speculation and outright fiction – like when Lapu-lapu was supposed to have instructed his men to strike at the joints of Spanish soldiers, where their armor was weakest?

Through a quick check of sources, I realized that there are several extant eyewitness accounts of the Magellan expedition, yet the only popularized account of the Mactan battle is that of Pigafetta, the expedition chronicler.

Aside from its obvious colonizer’s bias, Pigafetta’s account is so sparse in detail that some would doubt if he really witnessed the battle; perhaps he simply wrote down what Magellan’s surviving lieutenants told him.

###

Even without detailed accounts of battles against the Spanish invaders, we could still try to reconstruct our ancestors’ military capacities. We could use other methods of history and archeology, such as those employed in Scott’s Cracks in the Parchment Curtain.

In his book Barangay: 16th Century Philippine Culture and Society, Scott actually devoted an entire chapter on this subject, “Weapons and War” (in Part One, The Visayas) and substantial sections as well in other chapters.

But the question remains: how much of this is reflected in local story books, films, and websites? Not much, I’m afraid.

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For some time now, I’ve been combing the city’s video stores and sidewalk stalls for a VCD of Lito Lapid’s 2002 film Lapu-lapu – the only cinematic account of the Mactan battle as far as I know.

Although a box office flop, Lapu-lapu garnered the FAP Best Picture award. Recreating an entire coastal village and a full-sized Spanish sailing ship and utilizing 3,000 extras, this lavish film was touted to be worth the P35 million it took to produce it.

Oddly, I couldn’t find a copy. Maybe I didn’t search hard enough. Yet, in almost every stall where I looked, there were rows of VCDs about fake superheroes like Lastikman, Captain Barbell, and Anak ng Panday. This only shows the local film industry’s awful sense of history.

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My intent in reviewing Lapu-lapu was to check my own bias against most local films about pre-modern wars – insofar as we ever made films about pre-modern wars, anyway. We couldn’t even get the most obvious historical details right, such as what our ancestors wore for battle, what their war boats and weapons looked like, and what combat formations or ruses they adopted.

I expected Lapid to disprove my theory. After all, his film was supposed to have relied on research provided by the UP Dept. of History. Now since I couldn’t find a VCD copy, I had to rely on other reviews. Many of them were harsh, some writing off the movie as a poor imitation of Braveheart.

Here’s a sampling from Ambeth Ocampo’s history column in Inquirer: “Lito Lapid was not wearing the historically correct costume. He carries a bad copy of a Kalinga shield when one can order a good reproduction and cheaply, from Baguio City souvenir shops.”

More than that, Ocampo said, Lapu-lapu carried his Cordillera shield upside down. Ay apo, kababain.

But I’m suspending my judgment of the Lapid obra maestra until I get hold of a copy and watch it myself.

###

Meanwhile, should we urge local producers to ride on the recent “sword-and-sandal” hits from Hollywood? After Lapu-lapu’s box office dud, should we hope that another filmmaker will dare tackle the Dagohoy rebellion, or Sultan Kudarat’s exploits, or Amkidit’s resistance, or Raja Sulayman’s defense of Maynilad?

“I’m afraid I can’t wait that long,” said Kabsat Kandu, as he checked the time and channel for his favorite sword-and-sorcery TV series. The force of Encantadia is strong in my neighbor.

“But wait,” I said, hitting the TV remote back to the National Geographic channel, where a film reenactment of the classic Battle of Thermopylae was being shown. “There is hope on the horizon.”

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In many Western countries, there are historical societies and military-style clubs that research ancient tactics and reenact battles of yore as realistically as possible. Often, their people are hired as military consultants, fight choreographers or stunt crews for war films.

It is their fanatic passion for military detail that provides a cinematic realism so authentic that even director and crew are spellbound as the choreographed carnage unfolds before the camera.

I know at least one similar effort here. In the past few years, Lapu-lapu City (on Mactan island, now part of Metro Cebu) has held an annual reenactment of the Battle of Mactan. The cast is composed of 400-plus bit actors from Mactan barangays and arnis enthusiasts of the Mactan Island Eskrima Alliance. I heard they were also involved in the filming of Lapu-lapu.

Maybe local and overseas enthusiasts of arnis and its many variations, from ancient kali and pangamot sword-fighting styles, down to the modern sinawali, doce methodos and lameco escrima, should expand their efforts to include wider areas of native military science and historical preservation.

And that leads us to the concluding part next week of this over-extended romance with swords. #


From: Northern Dispatch Weekly, 14 August 2005

Romancing the sword (2)

War, that most horrible practice invented and mastered by humanity, remains nevertheless a fascinating subject in literature and art throughout the ages.

It is as though the immense guilt of organizing mutual slaughter, the utter pain of violent death, the terror of close-quarters combat, can be easily exorcised through literature, painting and sculpture, music and theater, games, and in our day, through film.

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I fell into such a morbid fascination with war at a young age. I guess it was expected of most boys of our generation. After all, we read about war in comic books and trading cards (teks before the cellphone era). We watched it on TV as regular weekend fare – remember Vic Morrow as Sgt. Saunders in the TV series Combat? We played with toy guns and swords, and formed teams that competed in street-wide war games using slingshots and paper pellets.

My childhood obsession with vicarious war ran deeper. At 10, my most treasured books were several military books given by older cousins: a US ROTC training manual, a US Army manual of artillery and infantry weapons, and a two-volume compilation of World War II stories.

I devoured all the stories, and spent long hours mentally playing out the battles, complete with intricate tactical maneuvers that I thought must have been second nature to infantry COs. From high school onwards, a modest allowance enabled me to buy more books on world war history and to watch more war films on the big screen.

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It took some effort on my part to stare at real-life photos of dead soldiers, twisted as they were into grotesque poses, and staring back at me with dreamy eyes half-closed. Some post-combat scenes replay themselves with persistence inside my head, such as that of a wounded grunt who turns incongruently talkative as others deperately patch his bleeding chest, until he lapses into shock and dies in the arms of his comrades. (This “soldier’s death up close” sub-genre is explored to the fullest in Platoon and Saving Private Ryan.)

Nothing prepared me, however, for the full-adrenalin scenes of massed sword battles and close-up carnage pioneered by Alfred the Great (1969) and later perfected by the recent batch of sword-and-sandal, sword-and-armor, and sword-and-sorcery films (Braveheart, Joan of Arc, Gladiator, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Last Samurai, Kingdom of Heaven, et al.).

Even with repeated viewings, they never fail to wrench me deep in the guts – the way war drums and battle yells signal the start of the massed assault by phalanxes of sword and spear, accompanied by thunderous hoofs of cavalry, all in a mad dash towards a deafening crash as the two opposing waves of armored soldiery consume each other.

With racing heartbeat and sweating palms, I grip my viewer’s seat and watch every excruciating detail. Sharp steel hacking into flesh and bone. Body parts heaved asunder by the sheer impact. Croaks and groans of sweating, grappling, dying men. The nauseous sight of butchery on the dusty ground.

It is as if I am a futuristic reporter in the middle of the battle, barely shielded from the carnage by a timewarp bubble. But I force myself to watch it all.

###

Now, modern conventional wars are generally more violent than ancient wars, in the extent of death and destruction.

On D-Day alone of the 1944 Allied invasion in France, terrifyingly depicted in the film Saving Private Ryan, most estimates (none of them exact) place total Allied dead at around 5,000, German dead at about 10,000, and French civilian dead (mostly through Allied bombings of Norman cities and towns) at a whooping 19,000.

In comparison, in the famous Battle of Stirling Bridge where Scottish forces under Wallace slaughtered the medieval English army, the total casualty was less than 6,000 killed (mostly English, plus some Scots and local civilians).

Yet why does it seem that movie scenes of sword battles affect us more than those of modern firefights? Why do most of us flinch and turn our eyes away from scenes of blades or points piercing flesh, but not so much when movie soldiers are hit by bullets or shrapnel? I don’t know about you, but at least it does so in my case.

###

While we try to search our collective psyche for scientific reasons, let me offer a simplistic explanation:

When we were kids (and up to now among rural children), handling bolos, knives and other bladed or pointed tools for daily chores was a routine skill. Accidental cuts and pricks were not uncommon. We were familiar with the pain and blood. Sooner or later, most of us learned to avoid them, but the primal pain remained in our subconscious, as a constant reminder to wield our tools (or weapons) with great care.

In other words, more people have experienced injury by blade-like or spear-like objects, at some point in their lives, than people who have been wounded by bullets or shrapnel. The traumatic memory of the former is thus embedded in more people. I think it is this common pain that is so easily evoked by cinematic sword battles.

###

Now here’s the twist.

I now observe less and less kids in the urban areas undergoing the same experience, with the routine use of knives relegated to the kitchen, especially to housewives. In a crowded city street, carrying a bolo no longer signifies that you’re a hard-working farmer; it makes you – in the eyes of cops at least – a potential criminal if not an outright crazed fanatic.

More and more, urban kids see the reality of swords and knives only in comics, films, play cards and computer games. They have only the barest idea of the physical skills and careful use that these tools (or weapons) require. Young generations are losing the normal caution and queasiness associated with sharp steel blades, and enjoying them more through movies and games suffused with surreal magic.

In short, swords and knives are increasingly receding from our reality and becoming more and more part of fantasy. To urban youth, our Muslim brothers are now seen not as fierce wielders of kris and kampilan, but of DVD and VCD.

###

“Is that the reason why Encantadia is so popular now?” asked Kabsat Kandu.

My spunky neighbor is of course referring to the current GMA7 primetime blockbuster. This sword-and-sorcery series, reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings, is now becoming serious discussion theme even in university classes.

And he was exactly right on the mark. Elementary school kids now know a lot more about Princess Pirena than about Princess Urduja. They now know more about the magical kabilan than the historical kampilan. #

From: Northern Dispatch Weekly, 7 August 2005

Romancing the sword (1)

Last year, I got to writing a three-part piece on a most unlikely topic: fireplaces. The title, “Romancing the Fireplace,” had a nice medieval ring to it, even though my piece actually dwelt on mundane matters like the secrets of cooking fluffy rice and saving on LPG.

With the country in a deepening state of siege, I feel now is the right occasion to follow through with another multi-part column – this time a nasty medieval piece on war, especially on using swords and other bladed weapons designed for efficient human butchery. Sounds gory to you? Read on, dear friend.

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As I’ve said, I’m no film buff or professional critic who watches dozens of films in a month, speaks fondly of Truffaut and Kurosawa like they were college chums, and renders judgment on a film’s acting, direction and editing, with majestic finality.

I’m a plain street customer who knows what he likes: stories of historical conflict. And in my list, nothing beats real-life, well-researched, and gritty war stories, like A Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, and Platoon. Or at least war stories that follow their own surreal historicity, like the popular Lord of the Rings and Star Wars trilogies.

But let’s set aside the light sabers wielded by Jedi knights long ago in a galaxy far away, and look instead at real swords that killed real people on modern Earth not so long ago and not so far away. One way would be through movies that portray ancient and medieval battles.

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This sort of film – tagged “sword-and-sandal movie” by Hollywood pundits and as “peplum” by Italian filmmakers – dates back to the early days of cinema, when spectacles such as the nine-reel Quo Vadis (1912) and the 12-reel Cabiria (1914) showed how wars were waged by ancient Rome.

The genre remained very much alive up to the 1960’s, with countless movies on historical or legendary warriors such as The Robe (1952), Ivanhoe (1952), The Silver Chalice (1954), The Vikings (1958), Spartacus (1960, re-released 1991), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), the Hercules series, and so on. A few famous figures were even made into movies five times or more, such as Ben-Hur and Cleopatra.

The genre was so successful, in fact, that I now actually hate viewing these Hollywood favorites because, every Lenten season when we were young, they monopolized the only interesting but repetitive TV and movie fare for the family.

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For bad or good, Hollywood practically dropped the genre from the mid-1960’s onwards.

The last notable sword films of that period were Alfred the Great (1969) and Cromwell (1970). Unlike their 1950’s and early 1960’s predecessors, these two films already carried the characteristic grittiness of the hippie protest era. (They were also among the first films that I watched on the big screen on my own, as a gangling and wide-eyed teenage loner.)

A decade later, Hollywood had fully replaced history with high fantasy, with so-called “sword-and-sorcery movies” becoming box-office hits, such as the Conan the Barbarian series (1981 onwards – I never watched any), Highlander series (1986 onwards – only mildly interesting), and Excalibur (1981, a surreal rendering of the King Arthur legend). The only notable historical sword movie of this period, King David (1985), flopped. The sword-and-sorcery genre itself tapered off by the 1990’s.

Why did the history-based genre die out in the late 1960’s, to be replaced by 1980’s fantasy-based sword-and-sorcery? I don’t know. I suspect the underlying causes had to do with the Vietnam War era and the post-Vietnam syndrome.

---

Lately, however, history-based sword-and-sandal films are enjoying a resurgence. Some observers say the genre returned with Gladiators (2000), with Russell Crowe as Maximus – a Roman legion general who escapes a murderous imperial coup and makes a comeback as an avenging gladiator. (I watched the VCD three times until someone “borrowed” it without my permission. Grrr.)

The trend actually began several years earlier with Braveheart (1995) – a memorable, real-life story about Sir William Wallace (portrayed by Mel Gibson), Scotland’s most popular and revered national hero, a revolutionary mass leader who fought side by side with his troops on the frontlines.

The film ranks very high in my list, because it tells how, in the late 13^th century, the son of a minor clan notable led and built up a peasant-based guerrilla army to liberate Scotland from cruel British rule, despite being weighed down by double-dealing native feudal lords. (I watched the movie three times and devoured all the details, flinching only at the final execution scene when Wallace is hanged, drawn, and quartered before a big London crowd.)

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Next came two Joan of Arc films (both in 1999), about another medieval war of liberation, led by the maiden warrior of Orleans – a French peasant girl guided by a foreign ideology. One was the full-feature The Messenger: the Story of Joan of Arc, the other was the CBS mini-series Joan of Arc. Despite criticism that they were full of inaccuracies, I loved both films because of its historical heroine – not to mention falling head over heels with Milla Jovovich and LeeLee Sobieski.

After these films, and spurred by the success of Gladiators, came a Grecian double-treat that no sword-and-sandals aficionado could refuse: Troy (2004), a cinematic retelling of the timeless Homeric tale about the Trojan war and its superhuman heroes and gods, and Alexander (2004), a sweeping if somewhat exhausting account of how the Hellenic city-states grew into an empire through Alexandrian sword, fire, and intellect.

In these past few years came three other films with oddly similar twists about heroic swordsmen being sucked into civilizations about to fall: The Last Samurai (2003), set in the fading years of feudal Japan; King Arthur (2004), an attempt to historicize the Celtic legend, and set in the fading years of Roman Britain; and Kingdom of Heaven (2005), about the fall of Christian Jerusalem in the fading years of the Second Crusade.

You guessed right. I saw them all.

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At this point, Kabsat Kandu, who didn’t have the virtues of patience and subtlety but was able to follow me thus far, rattled off some surprisingly lucid questions:

First, what is the reason behind the recent revival of sword-and-sandal films? Is it of any social significance?

Second, how could you sit through all of these violent movies? Is it just some cult obsession, or is there perhaps some universal human appeal in watching scenes of bloody carnage, up close where steel blade meets sinewed flesh – if only theatrically through the eyes of the filmmaker?

And third, why are you telling your readers all these? Is it of any use in the current efforts to oust GMA – which is now the topic of perhaps 50% of all columnists throught the land?

“Oh, but remember,” I lectured Kabsat Kandu as he peered at the PC screen over my shoulder, “this is a multi-part article.” And so, dear readers, like my pesky friend here, you will have to visit this page again next week for some answers. #

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From: Northern Dispatch Weekly, 31 July 2005

Famous deaths from simple causes

In this season of tampered tapes and stolen votes, allow me a moment to wallow in irrelevance and to talk off-topic – about famous deaths from simple causes.

I’m not talking about legendary deaths due to dramatic but straightforward causes, like Jesus dying on the cross or John F. Kennedy killed by a sniper shot.

I’m talking about moneyed people dying incongruously of stupid causes, like common diseases that afflict mostly the poor. I’m talking about people like Reyster Langit, rising broadcast journalist and son of veteran broadcaster Rey Langit, dying of falciparum malaria in a California hospital.

###

Falciparum or cerebral or blackwater malaria is the most prevalent type of malaria, accounting for about 50 percent of all cases worldwide, estimated at 250 million yearly, and is responsible for up to 95 percent of all malarial deaths estimated at 2 million yearly.

The very words “falciparum” and “blackwater” give me the creeps since they sound so ancient and mysterious and lethal, and yet the sickness is so common today in rural villages in forested or swampy areas of the country.

As a child, I remember my father telling stories of how, as a guerrilla journalist in Abra-Ilocos during World War II, he watched helplessly as comrades died of the fever, untreated due to lack of drugs. He himself would be stricken with the same illness towards the end of the war, his blood turning whitish and his urine turning ominously black due to massive loss of red blood cells – thus the name “blackwater malaria”. He was saved just in time by the arrival of US Army medics.

(“And that is why I will never join your rallies against so-called US imperialism,” he would later exclaim in our endless dinner-table debates during the First Quarter Storm. But that’s for another story.)

Years later, I would lose a close friend to the same dreaded killer, and experience myself the same feverish and delirious paroxysms, thankfully not of the blackwater variety.

###

The terror is so stark and yet so familiar to many rural people. For some reason, however, killer malaria has not been decisively addressed by the government, nor regularly publicized in the national media if only to warn urbanites and tourists who frequently travel to the hinterlands whether on vacation or business. That is, until Reyster fell sick of falciparum and died a week after covering a malarial outbreak in the Palawan hinterlands.

Ironically, Reyster’s US doctors had to get information from San Lazaro Hospital in Manila – where a member of Reyster’s news team was also hospitalized some days earlier – before they could diagnose and begin treating his illness correctly. By then it was too late.

Did a young and promising journalist have to die first, very tragically and unnecessarily, before the government is prodded into decisive action against malaria?

###

I might sound very cynical, but maybe that’s how things should work out around here.

After all, tuberculosis had been a scourge in the country for centuries (especially among poor people), but the government started a serious anti-TB program only after Pres. Manuel Quezon died from that very disease in a New York hospital.

By now, however, the government’s anti-TB program has become sick itself, as tubercular as its patients. Maybe it’s time for another president to die of TB, if only to revive public awareness and galvanize government action? I hope not! (Un-Christian this might sound, but if I were able to choose the manner of death of the current president, it should be from diarrhea. Of the mouth.)

###

But I digress. Let’s get on with this business of celebrity deaths.

Senator Rene Cayetano’s liver was first ravaged by hepatitis-B, before he ultimately died of liver cancer. So now do we have a revitalized hepa-B prevention program, aside from the costly vaccines being pushed by DOH?

Actor Rico Yan died of bangungot, the scourge of young Asian working-class males. So have you heard of any post-Rico Yan initiative to research and prevent more bangungot deaths?

Actor Miko Sotto fell off a high-rise building. So now do we have better occupational safety measures to prevent more high-rise falls, which should benefit thousands of construction workers if not condo yuppies who are always seeking new highs in more ways than one?

Speaker Joe de Venecia’s daughter was trapped and killed in a tragic fire. So now do we have results from the legislator’s gallant vow, made that same night, to work for better fire prevention laws and fire-fighting technology? Do urban poor slum communities sleep better now, safe from firestorms that are proving much quicker, cheaper and deadlier than demolition squads?

###

I don’t wish that it actually turns out that way, but would provincial bus travel be safer now, had DOTC Sec. Leandro Mendoza and his family been riding that Byron Bus on that fateful day when 30 lives were lost along Marcos Highway?

Would food service in public schools be safer now, had DepEd Sec. Butch Abad’s children been eating the same poisoned cassava cake that killed 28 children in that Bohol elementary school?

Would villages downstream from big mines such as along the Abra River have safer water to drink, had DENR Sec. Mike Defensor’s parents happen to live and farm there?

I could go on and on, but I hope the point has been made.

###

My apologies to the readers of this column for not having posted a piece for the past several months. My Writer’s Muse and I had a bit of a quarrel about Her demands taking up too much of my time, and in a flurry of exchanges, I told Her to go away.

I was thinking in terms of a week or two while I finished some reports. Hayun, nagtampo, lumayas ng tatlong buwan. I’m still trying to woo Her back. Not an easy task, I assure you. #

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From: Northern Dispatch Weekly issue of 10 July 2005

Introducing "Pathless Travels"

Hello world. I'm Jun Verzola, a Filipino based in the Philippines. I have a website, www.iraia.net, but the tedium discourages me from updating that site often. So now I'm trying my hand at blogging. A bit like creating an e-group, and hoping that "if I build it, they will come." I also write a regular column, named "Pathless Travels", for Northern Dispatch, a regional weekly newspaper in Northern Luzon. (Actually, I was a former editor of the paper.)

I had wanted to name this blog "Iraia" to be consistent with my other website. (What "iraia" means, I'll explain later.) But the name was already taken. Next I thought of Pinoy Almanak. A good name, actually, and also reflected a project I had long wanted to pursue. But I backtracked, not wanting to raise expectations too much about this blog. So finally I settled with the name of my column, Pathless Travels.

This blog, hopefully, will contain not merely my column pieces, some of which also appear at the Nordis website, but the many posts I write for certain e-groups, including the topics I was hoping to pursue in the Iraia website.

Blogging is good for humankind.

A fascinating prehistory

My younger son is in Grade 3, and sometimes I'm called upon to help him do his homework or review for his periodic exams.

A month ago, as I was checking his homework, we fell into a heated argument.

He claimed that the people of the Cordillera were descended from the first wave of Malays that came over here, while the rest of Luzon lowland peoples (e.g. Kapampangan, Tagalog) and the Visayans were descended from a second wave of Malays. He proceeded to lecture to me how the Malays were preceded by Indonesians, who also came in two waves ­ Type A and Type B.

I tried to explain to him, in terms an 8-year old mind could grasp, that the wave migration theory of how our country was populated ­most elaborately developed by Dr. H. Otley Beyer ­ has been debunked by most scholars of Philippine prehistory for quite some time now. No, my son insisted, I was utterly wrong, and how dare I question his teacher and his textbook!

OK, I said, show me where this is taught in your book. He pulled out his Pilipinas: Bayan Mo, Bayan Ko (3), which was the school's chosen textbook for 3rd-grade "Sibika at Kultura." And, to my utter incredulity, there it was indeed ­ on pages 66-71. It even had a drawing of the first-wave Indonesians (tall, lean, with thin lips, aquiline noses and large eyes) side by side with the second-wave Indonesians (smaller stature but stocky build, with thick lips and flat noses).

It appears that many grade-school textbooks continue to perpetuate unfounded myths and obsolete theories about our country's prehistory, not to mention its history. The effect is not just a superficial understanding of how our peoples were constituted, but an overblown depiction of how minute or even imagined racial and ethnic distinctions among Filipinos today are supposedly rooted in migrations from other countries.

From 1916 to 1953, Beyer, then head of the UP Anthropology Dept., had developed an elaborate theory in which he tried to explain physical and cultural variations among the Filipinos by attributing them to a series of racially different migrant peoples who came in waves into
the country.

The first wave was supposedly the "Java men," followed by pygmies (such as the Negritos), then two Indonesian waves (Type A and Type B) and a minor Papuan wave, then separate Northern and Southern Malay waves, and finally the so-called "Jar Burial People," the Orang Dampuan of Sulu, and the Bornean settlers under the legendary Ten Datus led by Datu Puti.

As W.H. Scott explained in the introductory chapter of his Barangay: Sixteenth Century Philippine Culture and Society: "It is probably safe to say that no anthropologist accepts the Beyer Wave Migration Theory today."

Scott proceeded to explain that "most prehistorians today only postulate two movements of people into the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific" ­ the Australoids (generally characterized by very dark skin, such as the Negritos), followed by what anthropologists call the Southern Mongoloid or Austronesian peoples.

Let me quote extensively from Scott: "It is important to note that these migrating populations are not considered to have been physically homogeneous. This means that Austronesian settlers arrived in the Philippines with considerable variations in stature, pigmentation, and facial features, though it is not now possible to identify these differences."

"Settlement and intermarriage in small communities would cause such genetic traits, as well as those of any strangers marrying in from the outside, to be shared by an increasing portion of the population in each generation. Thus inhabitants of a whole valley might come to exhibit a kind of family resemblance, and even to be regarded by outsiders as a separate race."

Where did the Austronesian peoples come from? Let's try to delve a bit into prehistory. There is a very fascinating and scientifically probable theory described in Robert Blust's The Prehistory of the Austronesian-Speaking Peoples: A View from Language (a copy of which Patricia Afable graciously sent me).

The theory is supported by much linguistic, archeological, and other cultural evidence. According to the theory, prehistoric peoples who spoke a hypothetical ancient language (called "Austric" by linguists), from which all Austronesian, Austro-asiatic, and Sino-Tibetan languages are derived, originated in the region of western Yunnan bordering with Burma. In this rugged mountainous region where the three major Asian rivers (Salween, Mekong, and Yangzi) run parallel, a semi-sedentary pre-Neolithic culture that relied heavily on wild rice collection is postulated to have spread outwards to the lower-lying valleys starting around 9,000 years ago.

Some branches of this pre-Neolithic culture would have expanded to the Brahmaputra valley of eastern India and to the Salween and Mekong valleys of mainland Southeast Asia, where the Austro-Asiatic languages (Munda, Mon-Khmer) evolved. Another branch moved into China's middle Yangzi basin, where rice was domesticated in the marshy or seasonally flooded lakelands.

Around 8,000 years ago, the mid-Yangzi rice farming cultures divided into two branches. One branch (peoples speaking Proto-Tai-Kadai) moved south into western Guizhou. Another branch (peoples speaking Proto-Austronesian) moved east around Hangzhou Bay. From there, the proto-Austronesian peoples expanded to Fujian by about 7,000 years ago, and across the strait to Taiwan around 6,000 years ago.

From Taiwan, Austronesian-speaking peoples with distinctive Neolithic cultures sailed into northern Philippines perhaps 5,500 years ago (probably in rafts with sails, or perhaps even in canoes with outriggers). Their productive capacity at that point already included cultivation of rice and other grain, root crops, tree crops and sugarcane; domesticated dogs, pigs, chicken, and perhaps carabaos; hunting and fishing; metal-working; cloth-weaving; and sea-faring as well as warfare skills (including the practice of head-hunting).

From northern Philippines, it is theorized, such peoples and their cultures spread into other parts of the archipelago, and from there branched into the rest of Southeast Asian and Pacific archipelagos. Later, there would have been other migrations in opposite directions and cultural diffusion through trade, but the basic population stock would already have been established.

Going back to Scott, in his Prehispanic Source Materials, it is theorized that the descendants of these Austronesian-speaking peoples expanded throughout the Philippine archipelago during the succeeding millennia, absorbing or replacing earlier populations and languages.

"In the process," Scott said, their original language diversified into dozens of mutually unintelligible languages, and replaced all earlier ones." If this scenario is correct, Scott explained, all present Philippine languages [with a few exceptions] were produced within the archipelago, none of them was introduced by a separate migration, and all of them are more like each other than any of them is with languages outside the Philippines."

In short, as I tried to explain to my son, we Filipinos had already much in common among ourselves long before the Spanish and American colonizers came. We do not need to invent artificial "waves of migration" to explain variations and exceptions within a basically common racial, cultural, and linguistic Austronesian heritage.

Reading the arguments supporting this theory, I realized that we here in northern Luzon have a big responsibility to rediscover, cherish and perhaps relearn these precious legacies of Austronesian lifeways, cultures and languages, nearly lost in the hazy fog of past millennia and in the colonial destruction of past centuries.

So there. Next time your teacher gives a lecture or quiz on whether your ancestors belonged to "Indonesian A or B," or "Northern or Southern Malay," show her a clipping of this column. Or better yet, politely ask her to please read Scott and Blust. #

From NORTHERN DISPATCH WEEKLY, Nov. 29, 2002 (Vol. 14 No. 9)