Category Archive for: bayan

komentaryo

#33 and #37 on your ballots

choosing senators that are pro-RH.

but here are the two I trust with my life.

The Feminist: Liza Maza

Liza Maza is the only feminist candidate for the Senate in 2010. As congresswoman of Gabriela Women’s Party for nine years, Liza authored crucial pro-woman laws like the Anti-Violence Against Women Act, Anti-Trafficking of Persons Act, and Magna Carta for Women, and is co-author of the RH Bill. Liza’s has been the one voice we can count on when it comes to women and human rights violations, be it as activist or politician. She is unafraid to battle it out in the halls of government to the streets with the women she represents. In the face of Liza’s personal convictions and her political track record it’s difficult to imagine any other female candidate as pro-woman. Liza’s number 33 on your ballots and is online at lizamaza.com.

The Revolutionary: Satur Ocampo

Satur Ocampo is the one senatoriable who can claim to be nationalist and prove it. He was journalist before he became activist, representing the poor and marginalized from the streets to congress halls. As congressman of Bayan Muna Partylist for nine years, he has been integral to the creation of pro-people laws, including laws for woman (Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act) and workers (Tax Relief for Minimum Wage Earners). He is the crucial force in the struggle for real change in society, where every man, woman and child will have their rights protected, and their lives valued. More on Satur, number 33 on your ballots, at Satur4Senator.

komentaryo

20 days to go!

“Ninoy’s Testament From A Prison Cell and other writings might enlighten Noynoy a little about the Left. if there were no poverty and oppression, there would be no Left; snubbing and demonizing the Left (instead of finding a way for Left and Right to work together for the good of the whole) would not have been Ninoy’s way, is no way to honor Ninoy’s legacy, in fact it dishonors Ninoy’s legacy.”

And while Stuart Santiago seems to have decided, I have yet to decide on a president. in fact, i’m almost voting for that one who will categorically say yes to the Reproductive Health Bill in this final stretch, but in this godforsaken country,really, everyone’s more afraid of the Church than the wrath of all womanhood.

so heck, maybe Jamby. I would ratherthat Frenchman in Malacanang than Kris Aquino or Willie Revillame.

komentaryo

on rhetoric and presidential platforms

my chick-self writes for Female Network, and up today is my election to presidential platforms!

what is missing here? is the question.

kultura

in defense of (art) criticism!

via thepoc.net’s Metakritiko section.

I don’t know Angelo Suarez, Gelo, personally, but I appreciate his (virtual) presence in the way that I tend to love every other person who has the gall/temerity/balls man/woman/gay to speak his mind even when it’s unpopular. The thing is, there was nothing unpopular about Gelo’s review of Pablo Gallery’s Chabet, Tan, Ilarde exhibit.In fact, knowing the kind of consciousness Gelo brings to art, this was a pretty good review – good, being, he liked the exhibit – like, being, he didn’t dismiss the exhibit – didn’t dismiss, being, he actually wrote about it.

Which in these shores is something we should be thankful for, right? Here, where the conversations on art – any art – are praised when they are praise releases, where the critical bent is, i.e., the good review that speaks of the bad in art, is always deemed unproductive and useless. The goal kasi is to sell art.

This goal is what Gelo hits at with http://thepoc.net/metakritiko/metakritiko-features/4794-conceptualism-fellatio-a-the-admission-of-the-futility-of-resistance-as-a-form-of-resistance.html Conceptualism,fellatio, and the admission of futility of resistance as a form of resistance. On that level, the question for the spectator should become: do I agree with Gelo? My answer, as a spectator, is no. I agree with Antares, from whom the more intelligent comments on the Gelo’s article came (and who should really be writing art reviews, please please?). In light of capital, resistance isn’t necessarily futile, and to insiston futility is to place one’s critique very clearly on the side of capital and its contingent oppressions. Parang, ay walang nang resistance, so ‘wag na lang?

But what has become more obvious in the aftermath of Gelo’s article is that this isn’t even the question that’s being asked, and there is a refusal to even begin a discussion on the crucial things about contemporary Philippine art that Gelo raises.

the rest here!

komentaryo

Anong problema sa walang harapan?

Full of themselves, is what ABS-CBN seems to be, after the presidential and vice-presidential candidates cancelled on their tandem debates for Harapan 2010. In truth, if I were these candidates, I would’ve backed out too, in favor of a miting de avance or campaign sortie in a far-flung province or city. The point is simple: who watches TV, a debate of all things, and who will go out and listen to the music, watch the fireworks, see artistas on a stage?

What this points to, quite simplistically, are markets, is access, is social divisiveness.And the middle class illusion that everyone has equal access to technology.

After all, ABS-CBN’s disappointments is borne mostly of its celebration of its use of new technology that has people actively responding to the debates they have been able to mount so far.

But where I work, teachers who lost their television sets to Ondoy have yet to buy new ones – it is in fact, far down in their list of appliances to buy. Where I work, we also don’t have easy access to the internet. Where I work, a debate is the last thing that will spell the different between voting for Noynoy and voting for Gibo and voting for Villar. Where I work, what spells a difference in presence and promises.

And this is my basis for thinking that ABS-CBN is all hot air here – it cannot, will not, should not speak as if this is the loss of the greater public. There is nothing extraordinary about the debates they have come up with. It does generate interest, yes, and we do watch and make candidates’ mistakes and fab answers our status updates. But that doesn’t mean it does a lot. In fact it fails horribly at asking the right questions, or even talking at length about the more important issue that might actually solve poverty.

Instead, half the time, it’s all punchlines and laughter and sensational statements, the status quos that we live with. Harapan 2010 will not go in depth about globalization or imperialism, America’s presence or foreign ownership of land, agrarian reform or workers’ rights, because that would point a finger at the industry that it is part of, the company it is created within, ABS-CBN as cultural empire, the Lopezes as oligarchy.

If anything, Harapan 2010, while informative, yes, and interesting and fun for the social classes ready to laugh at and praise our candidates, is also about television ratings, and the social and corporate responsibility of a media organization such as ABS-CBN. That in itself is replete with meanings, and cannot be dismissed as simply about being in the service of the Filipino. Utang na loob.