Cunning half-truths and outright lies about their rival to the American presidency make the Republican campaign a parody of democracy insulting to thinking minds and offensive to sensibilities all over the planet. Gosh darn. How’s democracy to be fortified in crisis if survival is defined as keeping the popular mind in the dark? Is America bent on going Third World?

Compelled to observe that nation ever since she could reason, this Filipina finds delicious satire in the ‘McPain’ campaign today: a parochial worldview directly contradicting claims to world leadership as it slips a transparent Bogeyman costume on Barack Obama, a national embarrassment beamed worldwide by the US’s own media. “Naku, ha. (Oh, wow),” as the young and gay put it in these parts, too outrageous for words.

So outrageous that even in Third World conditions, sympathy is aroused at the lengths American media must go to either shout down or explain in writing to the redneck faithful that Barack Obama ain’t no terrorist or socialist, though socialism ain’t that bad in the first place.

The experience is familiar, though. Bend over backwards is also what Filipino media did in extreme history – explaining potential allies, one to the other, in the communist National Democratic Front and the perfumed ranks of the bourgeoisie, trying to help keep the anti-Marcos parliament of the streets together. Bent to that burden, we were among the most surprised when it led to EDSA.

Wonders have not ceased. Now that computers and cable news have entered the political equation, and the world is in throes of discovery in crisis just how inter-connected its economic system has become, why, we find even Russians in the late Soviet “Evil Empire” rooting for black Barack to the White House.

So were the majority of Africans polled, despite consistent aid to their anguished continent that’s been one of the few bright spots of the Dubya years, we hear from CNN. Japanese Obama-maniacs counted 4 to 1. Germans 200,000 strong cheered his speech in Berlin last July, double the Democrats’ record rally crowd in St. Louis, Missouri this month.

But hold the global “Ode to Joy,” as in the historic fall of the Berlin Wall 19 years ago. A 70-country Gallup Poll on the US elections also tells us that, by and large, Latin Americans (except Mexicans) couldn’t care less who wins. More Filipinos at home, with their respective idiosyncrasies in Luzon and the Visayas, prefer McCain, although Mindanao and Metro Manila beg to differ.

Hyphenated Filipinos in America were not polled, but Inquirer.net correspondents uniformly report rabid prejudice in a majority of “little brown Republicans” horrified at the prospect of a black Prez. Brown is not far from black; Obama has the color (and grace) of a nicely suntanned Pinoy surfer. Go figure. Meanwhile here’s more on the Gallup Poll.

Getting Households in Order

What are we to think of all this? A lot more than can be contained in one column, so here’s today’s close-up on the need of the hour: getting our households in order (starting in our minds) for this intensely challenging global moment.

Common sense with a good understanding of history, as far as it can go, is a good place to begin. The more country-specific and culture-sensitive, the better it can ride this wild global loop-d-loop – millions of jobs lost worldwide in credit squeeze and retrenchment; millions losing mortgaged homes; more millions driven to survival mode by devalued pension funds; national budgets drastically revised in dollar fluctuation. Even the concepts “economy” and “future” are due for reformulation.

In Wall Street and world banking fallout is dynamite for the Philippines: the likely shrinking of OFW remittances and loss of overseas jobs as the world economy contracts to a long, ominous slowdown. You know the total – $14 billion in remittances last year, steadily growing from previous years. The real figure is larger than the official one, considering how many OFWs resort to personal padala (hand-carried).

But you know the weight of the final number – the largest source of foreign exchange to service our foreign debt; increase the odds for import-export; support more millions of OFW families and dependents, along with the real estate, construction and retail trade industries (more jobs), all with the sweat and daring of our OFWs’ katas ng kabayanihan. (‘juice of gallantry’?)

More precious than gold, the depth and strength of our family-oriented life-support system a.k.a. culture gives awed and grateful pause. America and Western Europe should be so lucky. But world conditions do not allow us to stop counting the tears with the odds as our bayani begin to suffer more difficult circumstances, and chances for continued export of Filipino labor in present volumes shrink with the global market (Notice the rumblings in South Korea, where Filipinos make up the largest number of OFWs?)

As we wait for the latest numbers, measuring bad with good on rosary beads, here’s a modest suggestion to sharpen OFW chops, present or still aspiring against the odds. Use some downtime to get into this newly released book by the Filipino historian Renato Perdon, Footnotes on Philippine History. First-rate scholarship and unpretentious title and style (with enough grammatical Filipinisms to make Filipinos feel at home), situates us squarely in the present, feet planted in national experience as far back as the 16th century.

Perdon makes good his promise to make this a handbook for Filipinos plunged to interaction with other cultures unprepared for deeper questions on where we’re coming from. From three decades of archival research on Philippine history in Manila and Australia, he responds to questions that came up in direct encounters with his fellow-overseas Filipinos in Australia and other countries.

Mainly Perdon found that they need short, quick answers from reliable sources as they swing on the trapeze of world migrant labor. That’s all they have time for as they balance buhay (life) with hanapbuhay (livelihood) in two, three or more cash-paying gigs, depending on how many await their earnings.

And so the first third of the book is all about Filipino identity – a succinct but careful review of Spanish “discovery” and conquest of these islands until the Philippine Revolution. We are reminded of how insulares (Spaniards born in the Philippines), mestizos a.k.a. filipinos (half-breeds), and indios (indigenes) first became Filipino with a capital F; and how they first acquired Spanish apellidos (family names), retained pre-Conquest names, or chose new and tangier native ones. (Some are hilarious, but one Pinay’s giggle is another taking offense. Check it out for yourself.)

After a gentle introduction, the second part is a wake-up call, pointed and surprising. It etches a sharp account of America joining the Big Boys’ Colonial Club 110 years ago, the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico under arm. The rosary beads suggest: Now is the moment to look back with Renato Perdon – as we behold what the wildly expansionist Yankee spirit hath wrought in the world over a century later.

Its financial derivatives and, says Kabayan in NYC, present eyeing of the resources of future generations as “leverage” (that word again) have an unspoken aim he does not name – restoring American-led capitalism to expand beyond space, into time itself. Tell me true, Kabayan. Is this Star Trek really bound for the Death Star?

Casino capitalism is a fitting end to another chapter of world conquest by “free” market that began as a waning Pax Brittania yielded to a new Pax Americana in the late 19th century. Both paxes (poxes?) brought war, sweeping irreplaceable treasures in their path – among them regal heirlooms of art and survival wisdom in Nature, like the North American Indians and the katutubo of our fair isles. All things in life are mixed. Today this pax lodges in modern, free-market, democracy-spouting, inter-connective, media-fuelled, oil-guzzling and globalized souls dispersed throughout the world, largely for survival.

Footnotes on Philippine History ends as globalization begins, slowly closing-up on Australia, site of the first-ever Filipino diplomatic mission in 1946, where Perdon, a thoughtful eye I’ve known in the Philippine National Historical Institute, wrote this book for love of a now “global nation” in the 21st century.

Having revisited the Sabah Claim and the Spratlys conundrum, his last thoughts turn to musical flag-bearers, the artists who brought Miss Saigon to life in London, the first round of many world performances. Written last year, Perdon’s “history in a hurry” notes the total 33 million worldwide moved by yet another romantic tragedy set off by American expansionism, interpreted by gifted Pinoys.

Following that is a portrait of Pura Santillan-Castrence –writer, pioneer diplomat and migrant to Australia, where she ended her illustrious days last year at 102. The book ends in a slice of a modern Filipino epic, Imelda Marcos juxtaposed with Evita Peron – beauty born in poverty clawing its way to great power and wealth at the expense of their countries, and their own sanity.

On where to get this book, click and scroll down to the end.

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