A one-hour time difference; a world away

NEW YORK CITY – Arriving in the Big Apple from Mexico City, meaning New York City, the biggest, meanest, rip-roaringest metropolis in the USA (even minus the Twin Towers, whose disappearance creates a still-aching void in the night sky), used to be a wrenching experience, a case of culture shock.

Not any longer. There are now so many Hispanics manning the store, from the courteous immigration official to the Customs inspector who waves you through, without so much as a glance at your luggage.

This time nobody worries about your shoes. You do get patted down cursorily, but everybody’s in a relaxed mood. This time, nobody even asked about SARS. Since I had a bag of Mexican chicharon in my hand-carry (they’re as tasty as ours), I was vastly relieved to have gotten through.

It was terrific, I’ll have to say, to be back among the Manhattan Towers and the potholes. In JFK, as in Manila, your landing B-757 goes bumpety-bump. Must have been a Filipino contractor who fixed the tarmac, or a Mex, or some other Latino. Millions of Hispanics, like my son-in-law Bob, a Cuban-American, work in Manhattan and live in the boroughs, or in the Jersey shore. The signs in some establishments ought to read: English spoken here sometimes.

In the meantime, New York sparkles. Its hotels are full. We had to settle for a double room in a hostelry which features Tower suites.

There’s a new musical in town, Hairspray, which dominated the "Tony Award" nominations last Monday in 13 categories.

Moving Out, spotlighting Tywla Tyler’s dance show nabbed 10 nominations. Even a straight oldie, a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, garnered seven nominations. (When I was in college here, I went to see it, and began snoring through the second act.) Antonio Banderas, of course, got a Heads Up review, scoring a "10" in Nine, the Musical, according to In New York magazine.

The writer, a man surprisingly, signed: Those eyes, those lips, that jawline… Smolderingly sexy Spanish movie star Antonio Banderas has long been an object of desire, lusted after by fans, the paparazzi, and a stable of Hollywood sirens. Madonna was desperate for him. Melanie won his heart. And now 16 adoring women have him eight times a week – on stage, that is – in the Broadway revival of NINE."

Those Latin lovers get all the breaks nowadays. The Latinos – and Latinas – are in. We Asians are stuck with the SARS label. Quick, quick! We Filipinos must suddenly rediscover our Latin heritage and start syncopating our feet to the salsa, samba, pachanga, millonga, tango, macarena, and not SARS, light-footed Hispanic dances which we do so well, anyway. Somos diferentes, and there’s no better time than now to make a point of it. When we shucked off our Spanish connection decades ago, we lost 32 votes in the United Nations. The Central and Latin American countries, and Spain, vote solidly as a bloc. How many Asian or African votes do we get? It’s time for a reality check.

As for the humanitarian aid and peacekeeping contingent we’re supposed to be sending to Iraq to help the Iraqi people (that’s the usual diplomatic thing to say), but in reality to help out our friends, the Americans and the Brits – where is it? America is dispatching 15,000 more troops to impose law and order in turbulent, crime-ridden Iraq – many of them, this time military policemen. Dubya Bush, appalled by the escalation of anarchy, looting, kidnapping, and violent crime, seems determined to kick ass.

Iraq will be divided into three military zones "policed" by five devisions. The Americans will field one or two divisions, the Brits one. "Allies" are supposed to flesh out the rest of the needed task forces. Where, in the plantilla, are we? The "never cames"?

Outside of UK’s 12,000 and America’s 20,000, Poland is sending between 1,500 to 7,000 men; Italy will send 2,000 to 3,000, mostly police and carabinieri. Spain will assign 1,500. Denmark will have 380; Bulgaria 450. Sus, even Albania and Azerbaijan are dispatching 70 and 150 respectively.

The other countries "expected" hopefully to send troops and medical corpsmen are Argentina, Australia, France, Germany, Honduras, Nicaragua, The Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, and the Ukraine.

Anyway, our President GMA will have dinner with US President Bush in the White House tomorrow night. I wonder whether the conversation will go beyond the usual pleasantries and obfuscations.

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Word from home is that hordes of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels attacked in the two Lanaos, but were repulsed with more than 50 casualties.

I’m glad our armed forces and PNP are fighting back. We must not allow armed insurgents and bandits to call the tune – dolorous, though it is – in Mindanao, or elsewhere in our country.

In Iraq, anarchy and violence reigned for weeks before the order "to shoot" came down from Washington, DC. Even now, it may already be too late to restore order in that turbulent, hate-torn nation. But the Yanks will have to punch in with everything they got. They can no longer sit on the fence and twiddle their thumbs, or play canasta inside their tank turrets. They’re the targets. The Ayatollahs, Imams, Muslim clerics, mad mullahs, and, of course, the still-active Fedayeen guerrillas left behind to stir up mischief by Saddam Insane, are whipping the population up against them. The last thing the Americans want is to have toppled Saddam and his cruel Baathist bunch, only to replace that dictatorship with an America-hating, America-baiting Islamic State run by Iran-type Ayatollahs and "policed" by green-clad religious muttawas and armed religious revolutionary guards. The Americans have been accused of seeking only to control Iraqi oil. Well, if they don’t control it, the fanatical religious mujahideen and their Ayatollahs and prayer leaders will and invest the proceeds from oil sales and accumulated oil wealth in funding terrorism. This would mean that more fanatics would be hurled against America and McDo-nald’s hamburger outlets. How the lowly hamburger got equated with American "imperialism" is mystifying. However, those Golden Arches must pose some special kind of provocation to the Arabs. I thought Mecca (Makka) and Medina, the two holiest cities and shrines of Islam, also start with an "M".

Max, too.

Make no mistake about it. When they’re pushed to the wall, as they’re now being pushed by Iraqi mobs and the threatening and shouting Muslim bands who’re toting guns and RPG rockets everywhere (great shades of Mogadishu and the Somali debacle), the Americans will shove back, at first – then open fire. Every Yank in Iraq and Kuwait has watched Black Hawk Down, and debated what went wrong. I guess they’re determined not to let that happen again.

American boys who just want to go home don’t make the best "occupation" troops, but we must not underestimate the pain, the personal sense of violation the American people felt when they were assaulted in the 9/11 terrorist rampage right in their own country, by the al-Qaeda, all Arab attackers. Americans are ruthless when they’re forced to the wall or pelted with insults. Just ask the Mexicans. Much of America, including Dubya Bush’s own home state of Texas, was wrested from the Mexicans.

During the rule of that Mexican military gadfly, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Americans (Gringos, as they’re known down there rebelled against his impositions and taxes. Santa Anna forthrightly sent his soldiers and cannot to pulverize a rebel hold-out in 1856 in what’s known as The Alamo, slaughtering the American rebels who included Jim Bowie (the inventor of the Bowie knife) and Davy Crockett (whom Walt Disney later glorified as "King of the Wild Frontier").

In retaliation, a Texas "army" raised by Sam Houston marched against President Santa Anna, surprised and trapped him, and captured him at San Jacinto. El Presidente was compelled to trade Texas for his personal release.

A decade later, the loss of Texas led Mexico into open war on the US, which the Lone Star "volunteers" of Houston had joined. Defeated once more, Santa Anna had to give up California and other northern territories – a total loss of 819,355 square miles.

Finally, the Mexican President had to sell to Washington, DC what now comprise large portions of Arizona and New Mexico for the piddling sum of $10 million.

In just 18 years, Mexico had been reduced in size from an area comparable to Russia or Brazil, to the smaller, but still proud Mexico of today. For all its sweet talk, as everyone can see, America was "built" by war.

On the cover of the latest (11 de Mayo) issue of Vertigo, the popular news and views weekly in Mexico, is a photograph of Mexican President Vicente Fox and Dubya Bush, with their hands out stretched to each other. Did I say "hands"? The coat arms were "handless" at the end. Clever computer-work had erased the hands from the photo – hence, no handshake.

The cover title said in bold print: "Amigos . . . Punto!" (Broadly translated: "Friends . . . period!" – meaning, Not Really Friends).

Fox and his government had very publicly been against Bush going militarily into Iraq. According to polls, 84 percent of Mexicans surveyed were against it.

Now, the politicians here are accusing Washington, DC of trying to pressure Mexico into allowing foreign investors, i.e. Americans, to buy into Petroleos de Mexico (Pemex), the state oil company. This reaction came in the wake of a resolution of the US House international relations committee stating that any accord with Mexico on immigration issues should include an agreement to open Mexico’s Pemex to American investment.

Naturally, there has been a storm of condemnation here. Fox rejected the Congressional idea out of hand.

Fox has no choice. He’s riding high in popularity. If he showed himself too buddy-buddy with Washington, DC and his former pal Dubya, his ratings will sink like a stone Aztec calendar.

The Mexicans, vociferously, dislike America. Many of them, however, would like to sneak across the border at Brownsville (over the Rio Grande, (which isn’t so grand), in Texas, or Nuevo Laredo, or even Tijuana, to join their relatives already working in the USA.

They try everything to get into America, including getting smuggled across in airless vans. Eighteen would-be TNTs suffocated to death when their trailer got stuck. Bannered the big-circulation daily, El Universal: "Cada 45 Hrs. muere un indocumentado." (Every 45 hours, an undocumented Mexican would-be migrant dies).

Since 1997, the newspaper said, 72 attempts which went wrong cost the lives of 897 Mexicans trying to sneak across. I don’t call them "wetbacks" for diplomatic reasons.

Another daily, El Heraldo de Mexico, strives to plumb the reason for desperate migration: "En Mexico, Pobreza como en Africa." (In Mexico, poverty exists, like Africa.)

What are they doing about it? They’re leaving the solution to the politicians. In Mexico, a bribe is called la mordida – the "bite". As in our country, the people are still getting bitten. How can we change things for the better – and achieve true democracy and progress at last?