Newsweek in its December 18, 2006 issue has a short article on coffee connoisseurship. The adjectives are the same as that used to describe fine wines. Thus, a Guatemalan coffee is “very lively”, “with strong citric notes”. Per Newsweek, the most expensive coffee is from Indonesia. It is claimed that Kopi Luwak beans have been eaten first by the palm civet then pooped out. This is then dried and processed. It retails for US$ 200 (P10,000) a pound, quite a lot for roasted cat droppings.

Nothing new there. A local coffeehouse chain, Bo’s, has been serving a palm civet coffee, called “Café Alamid”, for some time now. The civet cat (although it has feline features, it is more closely related to the mongoose ), known domestically as alamid, supposedly eats only the choicest coffee beans which it then passes out whole. This coffee, presumably, is enhanced by gastric juices and various enzymes that only a civet cat gut can provide. At around US$ 4.50 (P225) for a small cup, civet coffee is not for the budget-conscious.

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Dean Raul Pangalangan, in his regular Friday Inquirer column, writes movingly about the murders of Assistant Solicitor General Nestor Ballocillo and his son, Benedict. The Ballocillos, father and son, were gunned down near their home in the early morning of December 6. It was a cold-blooded hit and the gunmen made sure that Atty. Ballocillo was dead before they fled the crime scene. Tragically, his son Benedict was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was chalked up as, in the words of the police, “collateral damage”.

I never met the elder Ballocillo but, from all accounts, he was a righteous man. And like all righteous men, he is measured and defined by how he lived rather than how he died. Scholarly and focused, he was the valedictorian of his class at the Arellano Law School. At the Office of the Solicitor General, he was known as “Obispo” or “Bishop” as much for his fatherly uprightness as for his strong religious faith. He was the epitome of the ideal public servant: honest, competent, frugal and, not the least, patriotic. He could not be bought, a rare trait in this age of easy compromises. This might have been his undoing, as he was government counsel to a number of high-profile cases involving billions.

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It is often said the Philippines and the U.S. have a love-hate relationship. Can’t live with the damn Americans but can’t exist without them. The country hews closely to what the U.S. wants, specially as to matters pertaining to foreign policy.

Although no one can deny that the Philippines is effectively a vassal state of the U.S., the honor of Philippine womanhood was at stake. Hence, the conviction of Mr. Smith. Despite his clean-cut, boy-next-door good looks, he now personifies all the barbaric Americans who have taken advantage of Filipinas over the past century.

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I’ve been to the Neptune Bar in Subic, where Smith and Nicole hooked up. It’s virtually indistinguishable from the relatively upscale, though still sleazy, videoke bars one finds scattered around Manila, Angeles or Olongapo. It caters to a mixed clientele of locals, tourists, expats and periodically, to hordes of U.S. servicemen on R & R. The Neptune is not a place where one expects to meet choirboys.

Nicole wandered in late that hot, fateful night after bar-hopping earlier with her sister and the latter’s boyfriend, an American serviceman. Smith and his posse were there and, by all accounts, he and Nicole hit it off. They promptly proceeded to get even more smashed. So drunk was Nicole that she left the bar on piggy-back, carried by Smith to the Marines’ hired van.

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On December 4, U.S. Marine corporal Daniel Smith was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment of 20 to 40 years for the rape of a 23-year old Filipina in Subic Bay in the Philippines. The rape, which occurred more than a year ago, has again brought to the fore long-simmering political and cultural tensions between the U.S. and its former colony. Three other co-accused, U.S. Marines Chad Carpentier, Dominic Duplantis and Keith Silkwood, were acquitted and promptly whisked out of the country.

The 21-year old Smith now finds himself an inmate of the Makati City Jail, facing a bleak and uncertain future, as his case winds its way on appeal through the Philippine judicial system. The victim and her supporters, given the pseudonym “Nicole” by the media, feels that justice has been done. Others are not so sure.

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