A lucky nation

The Catholic Church's best kept secrets

Jueteng Republic

Echoes of conscience

The abortion pill

Interactive Pinoy

M. L. Tan

It’s been a bit over a month since I did my "housewarming", announcing a website for the Pinoy Kasi articles and giving out an email address so readers could write in. The response has been overwhelming and I thought I’d share some of my experiences.

The website got 200 hits the first day, which is about the same number of visits I’ve had over the entire semester for another website I set up for my students. (Grumble, grumble.) All those visits got me nervous because I realized I’d have to live up to people’s expectations, e.g., people asking why certain articles weren’t posted yet. It’s like inviting people to visit when you don’t have time to clean house.

I did mention in my housewarming column that it’s difficult keeping a website going, however rudimentary it might be. I’m grateful to the three people who wrote in immediately offering help but I’ve had to decline the offers because even if someone did the web weaving, I’d still need to transfer my files and to discuss designs and all that. Given that time is such a luxury for me right now, I hope readers will understand that the webpage has to be kept to a bare minimum for now. I’ll continue posting articles as they come out but it probably won’t be till next year before I get around to doing the archives.

Now, to my email pen pals. Email’s opened so many more possibilities for interaction because it’s so much easier for readers to quickly dash out their opinions on the computer and whisk it off through the Internet. No more envelopes, no more postage. That does mean the columnist with an email address will get much more letters, including a bit more of unpleasant mail.

I get such letters only occasionally have learned to take them in stride, mainly by disregarding them. But I have to admit I also wonder at times if such letter writers then think they’ve won the argument. In the end, it was the Old Testament that yielded some useful advice. Here’s Proverbs 26:4-5: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." There, simply quoting Proverbs allows me both not to answer, and to answer.

Most other letters have been heartwarming, to use the Tagalog expression, nakakataba ng puso. And what I’ve learned over the last month is that the Inquirer’s online edition is doing so much for Filipinos overseas. On the days my column comes out, my morning email takes so much longer to download because there are these letters from overseas Filipinos. That’s because the Inquirer online edition is posted at midnight, Manila time, which would be about 4 of 5 in the afternoon in Europe, and in the States, between 8 in the morning and noon. In other words our overseas kababayan get to read the Inquirer earlier than we do here at home, and to react.

The volume of letters varies. Usually a column brings in a few pieces but some articles draw more feedback than others. For example, there are still people who write in about the cat with the chicharon article.

Bing Fuentes had some questions about cats. I thought of sharing one of the questions, and the answer. Bing asked if it was true that white cats always have blue eyes. It certainly is true, one of those amazing genetic packages where traits come linked together. Even more intriguing is that if these white cats have both eyes blue, they will very often be deaf and if they have one blue and one yellow eye, they tend to be deaf on the side of the blue eye. There are a few exceptions, Big Boy – the kitten who loves chicharon -- being one.

If you watch Big Boy, you’ll appreciate an excerpt from Pablo Neruda’s Ode to a Cat sent in by Vickie Costina of Baguio. I actually have the Spanish original, which as Spanish goes is much more elegant but here’s the translation anyway:

"O little emperor without a realm,/conquistador without a country,/ tiny living-room tiger,/nuptial sultan of the sky of erotic rooftops,/ you reclaim the wind of love in the open air when you walk by and poise four nimble paws/on the ground,/ sniffing, suspicious of all earthly things/because everything is unclean for the cat's immaculate feet."

I used to think the only ones who read me were my mother and my aunts, who love cat articles but hate my political commentaries (more because they hate politics, period). So I was totally dumbfounded when I got a barrage of email in response to my articles about the Jueteng Republic and the Catholic church’s best secrets. There were a few letters that reflected quite deeply on the problem of gambling. I’m going to save those letters for a future interactive column.

The unexpected bonus from all this electronic connectivity was hearing from long lost friends. One of the first email to come in was from a high school classmate who I hadn’t seen since we graduated five years ago. Okay, okay, so I’m lying and it was really much longer, you know as in six years. I also heard from two former students, both with kids now, and a work colleague from a few years back (here we go again) and who now lives in the States. It’s their letters that make truly appreciate the wonders of the Internet. The Internet could not have come at a better time, the Filipino in diaspora yet wanting so much to keep Filipino. I’m glad the Inquirer, by going online, contributes in its own way toward making this endeavor a bit easier.