Category Archive for: bayan

komentaryo

the rich ba kamo?

nakita ko silang lahat.

all under one NBC tent, last thursday, stormy weather notwithstanding. apparently, art can bring all of  our alta sociadad together, given too that this was a first-of-its-kind art event: the Manila Art 2009. with most of  manila’s galleries bringing the paintings, sculptures and mixed-media works under their roofs, this was a free-for-all, really. a one-stop shop for anyone who’s interested in art in the philippines.

this apparently, is what the rich of this country have in common other than their money: art.

but of course being my middle class self, recently becoming familiar with the kind of market that continues to exist for art in this country, i had come in the fanciest of my public-school-teacher attires, flowy skirt, wedge heels, the most make-up i can bear. i failed to take into consideration the rich coming in black coats and barongs, long gowns and cocktail dresses.

my happy flowy beige-and-orange dress could only float above the din of black.

naisip ko: para silang nagluluksa.

but this was no sorrowful night. in fact, for the artists and the galleries, it seemed like the one affair they were thankful to be in. for art critics — and the wannabes like me — it was a rare chance to be in the company of all these artworks. for the rich, well, this was a time to hobnob, have pictures taken, smoke cigarettes outside because you know, it’s not allowed inside.

and it was there that i realized how justice exists in this world.

woman 1: you know, i love this event because we get to buy all this art! i think this is what will keep art alive in this country.

woman 2: yeah, the art world shouldn’t depend on governement, they should depend on the rich for support. that’s the only way.

woman 1: oh, look at that car, he’s in the way, nagta-traffic tuloy. filipinos talaga.

man (pointing at the traffic): now THAT, is art.

if the pinoy artist can depend on this rich to be their clients, and this rich can barely get themselves off of their perch, enough to really and truly understand what ails the filipino — artist and otherwise — then the art worldwill survive as a matter of course. it may remain inaccessible to the majority of filipinos, and it may be used against them by the rich, ah, but it will just fluggin’ exist.

in a tent with the tessa prietos and tim yaps of this world, buying art like there’s no tomorrow, i am reminded not just of how the rich can survive these times of crisis. they can afford to be alive and well, and spend money that can feed a poor family for a full half-year, for one piece of artwork.

such is the social crisis of our time.

komentaryo

what party(list)?

the list of congressmen who voted yes to the ConAss has been making the rounds of egoups and email inboxes. but more than giving us the names of those we MUST NOT VOTE FOR, i have found it more interesting, the partylist representatives and therefore organizations, that are part of this ‘wag iboto list.

BRIONES, NICANOR M. AGAP Party list
ESTRELLA, ROBERT RAYMUND M. ABONO Party List
PABLO, ERNESTO C. APEC Party List
SANTIAGO, NARCISO D. (III) ARC Party List
VALDEZ, EDGAR L. APEC Party List

a look at AGAP Partylist‘s website doesn’t give much information, only that they are “coordinating with” government offices including GMA’s, to “protect and promote the welfare of the hog and poultry industry” in the country.

the three other partylist organization don’t have websites, and there is very little information on them. ARC stands for Alliance of Rural Concerns — which seems like a huge umbrella organization, yes? — but doesn’t seem to stand for a concrete constituency. according to this news article from 2007, ARC advocates for CARP: “We value CARP despite its acknowledged defects, and look to the DAR as a principled partner in the struggle of the rural people for reforms and better life.”

they forget that the DAR and the CARP are both already enemies of the farmers of this country, something that has been proven by the continued existence of the Hacienda Luisitas in our midst, and by even more current events such as Henry Sy’s takeover of 8,000 hectares of prime agricultural land. too, that there is an alternative, one that’s about REAL agrarian reform: the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill or GARB.

there isn’t much on Abono Partylist online either, except for news reports that they were topping the COMELEC count in the elections, and that they are an agricultural-fertilizer partylist.

and then there’s APEC Partylist, which apparently has the richest of congressmen in its ranks. it stands for Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives, which seems self-explanatory.

there is no information on the constituencies of these partylist organizations, a requirement for partylist registration with the COMELEC. and the one org that had a website, listed all of two members — TWO MEMBERS!

but too, what might be more obvious here is that there doesn’t seem to be a clear marginalized sector being representedby any of these congressmen who voted yes to the ConAss. if anything, we have congressmen who represent capitalists who sell fertilizer, hogs and poultry, and electricity.

this tells us that we shouldn’t be giving this vote away. NOT.AT.ALL.

komentaryo

HR1109, ConAss, ChaCha, GMA Forever? WTF!

It is everything and confusing, this whole enterprise of the Chacha or Charter Change. Because really, you listen to these congressmen and it seems like ChaCha isn’t related to a ConAss or Constituent Assembly isn’t related to GMA staying in power. And where is House Resolution 1109 – which was passed Tuesday night – in all of this?

The ConAss is one of the ways through which changes to the 1987 charter or constitution may be made. The ConAss will create a bicameral Philippine congress, which will bring together the Senate and Congress, to amend and revise the existing constitution. This process of changing the constitution we’ve come to call ChaCha.

BUT HR 1109 actually convenes a constitutional assembly that will be allowed to amend the constitution even without the Senate. To the proponents of this resolution — and the majority of Congress — this will only mean inviting the Senate to join in the ConAss. And yet, really, if the senators don’t need to vote, why the f*^! would they want/need to be there?

On the level of congress, the fact that HR 1109 was going to be discussed in the plenary – that is, to be debated on by the representatives – was problematic to begin with. HR 1109 was rejected by the committee on constitutional amendments two weeks ago, and yet on Monday (June 1), the committee wanted it to be discussed in the plenary.  When BayanMuna Rep Satur Ocampo raised the issue of rules, i.e., no resolution should be up for discussion in the plenary without being approved on the committee level they thought that it would take a while before HR 1109 would be brought up again.

But on Monday night, the committee on constitutional amendments suddenly has a positive vote for HR 1109 being brought to the plenary. By Tuesday afternoon, it was clear that they were going to railroad it – they after all have the numbers.

Now how will all this keep GMA in power?

Once the ConAss is convened, then the process of ChaCha will be underway. The goal is really to change our system of government from presidential to parliamentary, which will allow GMA to run – and obviously win – for congresswoman in her native Pampanga. Given that she has majority of the congressmen in her pockets, and these congressmen will necessarily win – by hook or by crook – in the 2010 elections (which Def. Sec. Puno has promised will happen, obvious ba kung bakit?), this will allow GMA to get elected as Prime Minister.

This was actually the headline of the Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 13: “GMA may run for PM. The use of “May” here isn’t “possibly run for PM”; instead it is “allowed to run for PM”.

Congress has said that having passed HR 1109, they are now aiming for a July 27 opening of the Constitutional Assembly, after GMA’s State of the Nation Address. Of course they also insist that there will be a referendum naman, to find out if the nation agrees with the amendments to the constitution. But really, diyan pa ba naman sila hindi mandadaya?

And as Sen. Pangilinan says, there is no money or time or capability for that referendum. The Comelec isn’t ready, which makes that referendum even more suspicious.

Besides, why the rush? Why the seeming desperation? As stuartsantiago says in “kon-ass (kokak)”, quoting from ellen tordesillas, this is because “Operation Gloria Forever” is “behind schedule.”

GMA and her cohorts insist that HR 1109, the ConAss and the ChaCha, are all about removing the 40% limit on foreign equity on land and businesses in the country.  But this is even more reason to fight the ChaCha. As it is, our farmers are fighting for land and life; as it is, the multinational/transnational corporations are oppressing our workers, controlling wage and benefits, disallowing unions, functioning autonomously from the State.

Using this as an excuse should get us even angrier. Salt on an open wound? Insult to injury? Or, what do they take us for? Stupid?

RAGE!  Today, June 3, in the streets of Congress. Come as individuals, as groups, as Filipinos who want to Oust GMA!

It is so fluggin’ time.

kultura

Finding Juan

a version of this was published in The Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 24 2009.

Projects that deal with the creation of a Filipino identity are always bound to be met by debate and objections, violent reactions and a lot of hair-pulling. And rightfully so. At a time when we are being told that Manny Pacquiao is our sense of identity, we must be able to kick and scream our way towards a better sense of who we are.

The “Looking for Juan Outdoor Banner Project” of the Center for Art, New Ventures and Sustainable Development (CANVAS), seems to be a step in the right direction. Asking artists to create works that respond to the question of Filipino identity, the first batch of paintings on exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines is telling of the individual minds of our young contemporary artists. Collectively, it is everything and indicative of where we are as a nation.

On that hot evening of the exhibit’s opening night, the slew of paintings hanging on the second floor lobby walls of the CCP was surprisingly refreshing. The youthfulness was difficult to ignore, owing literally to the bright optimistic colors across the canvasses. Even when a given canvass dealt with dark hues, there seemed to be something light and agreeable about the general look of the string of paintings in front of me.

It could have been the familiarity of it all as well. From afar, the amalgamation of images of being Pinoy (the jeepney, the Filipino child, a person sweeping, people smiling into camera phones) couldn’t help but be heartwarming. But too, it was almost a warning: the concern for identity after all is an overdone concern of the arts, visual and otherwise, and as such it does quite often become cliché.

As some of the works on exhibit are, falling into the trap of using overdone stereotypes of the Filipino. The Pinoy as unique in our ability to smile in the midst of pain (Galos Lang by Jeff Carnay) and oppression due to unjust laws (Juan Line by Dansoy Coquilla), to walk to the beat of our own drum (Hataw sa Traffic Light by Marcial Pontillas), and to rise above adversity given our heroic history (Like Our Heroes, We Will Rise by Anthony Palo). The realism that the first three work with don’t leave much for interpretation – a function as well of its being cliché – while the latter is strangely enough a representation of people flying with and on a hot air balloon, an image that connotes social class mobility. Is this to say who can become hero?

Many others, while dealing with realistic images of poverty, corruption and oppression, end up talking about the universal notions of environmentalism (Juanderful World? by Anna de Leon), unity (Maybe we are the pieces… by Jay Pacena II), personal struggle (Sarisari Storm by Maan de Loyola), determination (The Rise of Juan Tamad by Lotsu Manes), and hope (The Traveller by Palma Tayona). Understandably, it is these pieces as well that have more to say on the canvas.

Pacena’s piece in particular screams against the oppression of information, with a blindfolded image up-close, mouth filled with three-dimensional puzzle pieces. With eyes unseen and face half-covered, this was a statement on every Juan and Juana: you are being defined by too much, even as you remain unknown. Meanwhile, the Filipinos’ need for travel and movement is in Tayona’s work, showing an oversized figure carrying wooden children and lifted off ground by two hands. It is a statement on the enterprise of selling laborers’ bodies across the globe.

The clichés notwithstanding, a lot of thinking obviously went into many of the artworks. This was particularly true for the more politically charged ones, those that spoke of the true conditions of nation, and dealt with it head-on. There was the truth of poverty and how it understandably sacrifices hope (Juan Luma by Migs Villanueva), the contemporary Filipinization of what is foreign and how this hybrid identity is problematic in its abstraction (Hybrid Nation by Jucar Raquepo), the static state of the nation as potential never fulfilled (Penoy by Manny Garibay). Expectedly, the latter two paintings used a pastiche of images (popular culture and our unfulfilled, respectively).

But it is the flair for the revolutionary that is striking about this exhibit. The works “Byaheng Maynila” by Omi Reyes, “Aklas… Baklas… Lakas… Bukas!” by Marika Constantino, “Panata” by Salvador Ching, and “Pinoy Big Brother” by Buen Abrigo are priceless not just in its imagery but also in its call to action. Reyes’ close-up image of a jeep seems cliché, but up close its movement challenges the audience to an engagement: where are you going and why? The value of this question is true as well for Ching’s use of a Filipino everyman doingthe Catholic devotees’ sacrifice of flagellation. This man though is facing a bright red moon, his bare back bloodied – the Juan is himself the sacrifice, as he is the one facing the possibility of revolt with the red red moon. And while the image of two arms clasping each other in Constantino’s work could seem cliché as well, its flowing red background connotes the rage and revolt that seem all possible.

But it is Abrigo who outdoes them all, creating the image of contemporary times as transnational neo-colonial: an unstable building and tower is filled with everything commercial that permeates our everyday lives; figures beneath these structures, are that of a masked GMA/Imelda, a two-faced man in shadows, and a zombie-like creature with laser eyes. All of these are contextualized in the dark neglected buildings in the background – a telling sign of how the capitalist enterprise silences the nation. The eeriness reeks of injustice and murder, and this is precisely what works for “Pinoy Big Brother”. Because too, it highlights the need for change, the need to end the oppression that capital brings. Hooray for the revolution!

If only for Abrigo’s as well as Reyes’ and Ching’s works, and in the context of the highly debatable concepts of nation and identity, the “Looking For Juan” exhibit is everything and a must-see.

komentaryo

in defense of Nicole

This is a translation of the transcript of Joms Salvador’s comments on the unthinking and insensitive soundbites that have come out of Nicole’s last sworn statement.  Click here for the original Filipino version.

I could not help but respond to the views this note on Nicole’s “retraction” has elicited.

First, on the basis of what’s preferable or not, it is true that it would’ve been better had Nicole and her family not “backed out”, if they didn’t get tired and just pushed through with the fight. From any given perspective — as a woman, as a Filipino, even as a victim — no one can say that in the eyes of the public, it was better that Nicole had executed her last affidavit.

But on the point of what is right and what is wrong — a moralistic enterprise that has as its by-products the notions of whether Nicole is scared or brave, selfish or selfless, shameful or decent — this should not be an issue here.

The reason is simple: we are not Nicole, we are not the woman who has had to face the distaste and ambivalence of the public, we are not the Filipina victim who is fighting a rapist, protected by both the US and Philippine governments.

Also, given thatNicole has conceded, has backed out at this point, does this mean that she wasn’t raped at all? If we analyze her affidavit well, she did not say that she wasn’t raped. What she said was this: she wasn’t sure if a rape happened. She said that maybe it was her fault, maybe she did or said something that allowed for her and Smith to become intimate.

Nowhere in the affidavit did Nicole say that she was taking back all the circumstances that surrounded the rape in Subic on November 1 2005: Smith carried a practically unconscious Nicole from the Nepture Bar as if she were a pig; Smith raped Nicole inside a moving Starex van; after which, Smith left Nicole on the sidewalk of Alava Pier, with her pants down and a used condom sticking to her skin. No one has said or proven these to be untrue, no one has said that none of these instances didn’t happen.

The Filipina Nicole was raped on November 1 2005 in Subic Philippines.

American soldier Daniel Smith raped her.

The law and the decision of the Makati Regional Trial Court are clear about Smith’s verdict: Smith took advantage of Nicole’s drunken state. Physical and circumstantial evidence proved that Smith raped Nicole.

Or have people conveniently forgotten this so that they can continue to view and judge Nicole based on the stereotype they so wish her to be?

Lastly, in order to understand Nicole and this last decision she has made, it is important to understand what rape is, and what happens to women victimized by it, especially for the ones like Nicole, who was raped by a soldier of the most powerful imperialist country in the world, who holds the most puppet-government in Asia by the neck.

This is the thing to do, instead of brandishing moralistic rhetoric to blame the victim of rape.

between the Philippine Daily Inquirer, among other major newspapers, posting images of her for all the world to see and calling the affidavit a “retraction” which IT IS NOT; between the conservative old men who fight among themselves (wow, namecalling! how macho!) and who think they are more intelligent than the rest of us because they (1) love to quote from the law (as if this has excused the Americans from trampling on this country time and again) and (2) blame everything on activism (as if they know what it means, when all they prove is that it has now become fashionable to be America-loving anti-activist fascists), and the women and men across generations who have said that Nicole is a disappointment, a waste of our time, a loser. what has become clear is this: we do not understand. and like the American soldier Daniel Smith, we would much rather work on the presumption that Nicole was a woman who deserved what she got (oh, pray tell, which kind of woman is this?), instead of seeing November 1 2005 for what it is: the night that a Filipina named Nicole was raped by American soldier Daniel Smith, period.

rape has nothing to do with the social class, the career, the life of a woman — much less how much she drank — at that point of becoming victim. rape has everything to do with a man eaten up by hubris, and imagining that he can get away with violence.