Category Archive for: bayan

it seems that we are in a bind, and are in over our heads, about this whole discourse on racism. and yet we seem to be trivializing it really, by invoking racism when we don’t understand it, when we do not even discuss it on the level that makes it dangerous, we make it even scarier than it is. so we invoke it against Arnold Clavio’s opinions about the Azkals, we invoke it against Jimmy Sieczka who did the 20 reasons i hate the philippines video. both will be discussed at length soon. but this must be said about the former: oh honey, we just missed out on the humor that was in that one. (more…)

Dear Pinay,

March is International Women’s Month and March 8 is Women’s Day.

It’s the perfect time to kick-off The Be Cause. This is a tiny project that I’ve been wanting to launch as a way of dealing with contemporary women’s issues, central to which can only be the images of womanhood that we’re bombarded with everyday. It isn’t just that these images are false – if not impossible – for a majority of us; it’s also that this has normalized superficiality in discussions about being Pinay in this day and age. (more…)

helped out with Better Living Through Xeroxography (BLTX) 2 which happens tomorrow, March 2, at Ilyong’s in Cubao. it’s the one independent book fair that happens in these shores as far as i know, and the one that gathers together the writers / illustrators / artists you wouldn’t see in bookstores. am launching a teeny tiny book to end the life cycle of an essay that should’ve been printed / published a long time ago. do come! (more…)

WTF FHM!

this piece went up yesterday on that horrid cover for March that FHM Philippines was set on putting out. which it has pulled out, announced via that official statement posted on their website. that might be a success, but seriously? why is that official statement not a public apology? it needed to be an admission of having made a mistake, full stop. (more…)

in mid-2010, i wrote this as introductory piece for what was planned as a column on arts and culture in a publication under the editorship of exie abola. it is perfect that i remember it now in light of National Arts Month, with the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) celebrating it via the Philippine Arts Festival 2012. that we are more than halfway through February, and we have yet to feel this celebration at all? that this still applies almost two years since? welcome to the state of the arts and culture in this country.  (more…)