Category Archive for: conversations

kultura

Tito Jorge

Tito Jorge would’ve laughed out loud, would’ve teased that this 35-year old was bawling like his widow under the watchful eye of Mother Teresa and an oven called Serenity. The 68-year old man had taught humor well. Irony, too. It seems it took him long enough.

In 1994, Tito Jorge was working at the UP Film Center and on the last day for submission of UPCAT applications, arrived in the rain carrying with him – rolled up under his shirt – an application for this 17-year old. It needed to be filled up within the amount of time it would take him and Angela to catch up on projects ongoing. This would be less than an afternoon, and more like an hour, during which this teenage girl could only be overwhelmed by possibility. (more…)

komentaryo

on self-help and the Pinay

or let’s begin 2012 by talking about oppression, shall we?

My issue with self-help books is that they are mostly American. And anyone who lives off of the Philippines’ contradictions and silences, crises and sadnesses would know that not much of American self-help applies to the every Pinay.

The 11 stupid things women do by Veronica Pulumbarit, based on the book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives among other sources, reeks of a universalizing and stereotyping of the woman that just fails to consider how differently women – and men – live in third world Philippines. Of course Dr. Schlessinger and every other self-help guru or magazine would have its own market in this impoverished nation, but that’s really the phenomenon of a first-world-pocket in the age of transnationalization, where social class differences are becoming more and more stark, and Pinays of a certain class can actually live believing in the ideologies of the first world.

But a majority of us live differently in a nation that’s more chaotic than we’d like to admit. And that whole list? Let me reconfigure it and tell the every Pinay how none of it is stupid, because much of it is totally different where we come from, maybe even totally right given where we stand and how we continue to be oppressed by stereotypes and archetypes that are everything and grounded in what’s here. In that sense those absolutes of self-help are also dangerous, because they make us imagine that being woman is the same across races and nations, and it universalizes womanhood in a way that keeps us exactly where we are, limiting the way we think, telling us to stick with the status quo. How does that even help the cause of liberating the Pinay from her contemporary shackles?

1. Having wrong ideas about courtship? Welcome to the Philippines, where good ol’ panliligaw is consistent – even when reconfigured – ritual, but which also allows kilig and magic to be had. It is kilig that carries us through the courtship, one that in these shores has its own set of rules and guidelines, its own steps towards the final decision to becoming an official couple. There is no “dating” so many men before deciding on one. In fact, where we come from the signals are clear: if we’re not interested in a guy, courtship doesn’t even happen. If I’m interested in you, then the ritual begins. There’s nothing desperate about it at all, and in fact it’s this time of kilig and ligaw that all the power is in the Pinay’s hands. And inappropriate men? Boo. Where we come from even a stretch of a courtship and seven years of a relationship can mean exactly that. Such is the nature of kilig that fizzles out. There’s no American self-help explanation for a word that doesn’t translate into English, yes?

2. Being excessively devoted to the wrong person. We are being told here that women stay with the wrong men because women have low self-esteem. Wrong. Where we come from, the Pinay enters a relationship and is in it for the long haul. We are taught to stay. Here the Pinay is still made to believe that she must marry her first love, here she is still told that going from one boyfriend to the next is bad form not to mention bad for her reputation, here she is still questioned for ending a relationship for no reason other than that “it didn’t feel right.” The Pinay stays not because she’s got low self-esteem, but because she’s got so much of it: she is taught that she can work on a relationship because she can work her man. And when she finally lets go of this man, it’s because the Pinay has gotten tired of devotion, and walking away then becomes her brightest most self-assured moment, too.

3. Being too passionate. Seriously? Seriously. Where we come from women lack precisely this passion because Pinays are also taught to rein it in, hold your horses, not for anything else other than a guilt trip, if not a promise about the fires of hell: the heavens don’t like loose women. It’s the same rationale that keeps us only as good as our virginities. It’s the same religious conservatism that has kept every other Pinay stupid about sex and her own body. I say go find some passion and light that little fire, practice safe sex and go for that one night. Sex in and by itself is always possibly enjoyable; sex without strings attached is infinitely liberating for the Pinay in the context of closet conservative pretentious liberated Philippines. You only know to rein yourself in, when you’re actually the one in control of you – heart / mind / body included.

4. Not realizing one’s worth. Dr. Laura says, “It is your job as a woman, as a person, to become as fully realized as you can by having dreams, forging a purpose, building an identity, having courage, and making commitments to things outside yourself.” Right. Try telling a working class underemployed call center agent that. Or the barista who’s saving up so she can leave the Philippines to become a blue collar worker elsewhere in the world. Or even just talking to a Pinay about “commitments outside of herself” when she’s got a family to fend for. Who’s got time for dreams in the third world, really? What we’re worth is really only equivalent to what we do – that’s not even about being Pinay as it is just about the limits of social class, plain and simple.

5. Not taking care of oneself. Not only is it not cheap to be healthy where we come from, it’s also a question of who’s got the time to think / cook / be healthy? Don’t talk to me about not eating canned goods and cheap fastfood meals, when that’s all a majority of us can afford, literally and figuratively.

6. Not being courageous. Eh? Dr. Laura says that women have a hard time “expressing healthy and righteous anger.” She obviously hasn’t seen our stereotype of the crazy woman kontrabida. Or just the bungangera palengkera. And every Pinay has it in her, every Pinay after all has got her taray to back her up. Taray is the response to the notion that we have yet to learn to speak our minds. In fact when the Pinay doesn’t speak her mind, she is being practical: after all, if you’re going to lose your job by being assertive, your first question has to be will it be worth it? And if not, then we’ve got our pamewang and taas-kilay to reveal our taray. And yes, there are no direct translations for all those words, again because the Pinay is not even imagined by those self-help books.

7. Being jealous and insecure. But what of just being selosa as a matter of intuition? What of pakiramdam ng babae – the woman’s intuition – as the premise of an inexplicable insecurity? Truth to tell the Pinay would gain much by listening precisely to the impulses that are about jealousy and insecurity, not just because sometimes these are revealed to be based on things that turn out to be valid, but also because it balances out our katarayan. My advice? know to draw the line between intuition and paranoia, and you’ve got a handle on jealousy and insecurity, too.

8. Being careless and immodest. Which Pinay is unaware of “the danger of being sexually harassed when they dress immodestly”? Though the better question is, why would sexual harassment be blamed on the woman for wearing what she wants? This is exactly why we have not evolved in the direction of women’s liberation in this country. Because here we are being told that “When a woman dresses to fit into an evil and worldly society by choosing clothes that pleases the tastes of both men and women, she sins. When she dresses to entice or receive the admiring glances of the opposite sex, she defrauds and sins” (Pollard). And I can’t help but ask: in what century are we in exactly? And do we know that this is exactly the excuse men invoke when they harass and abuse women? That “She asked for it”? Que horror.

I’d tell the Pinay: wear what you want mindful of where you are going, who you will be with, and what you will be doing. Be responsible for your body, as you insist on your right to wear what you want, knowing full well that people’s reactions to how you look is a measure of who they are, not who you are.

9. Not being committed to a relationship. You’re telling the Pinay that? I’d tell you to see Number 2. In fact the Pinay is so made for commitment that I’d rather warn her about its by-product: the Pinay who’s got her wedding all mapped out after the good first date. Because much might be said about committing to a man, but even more might be said about knowing when to draw that line, between staying and leaving, between what’s in front of you and forever. The future is what keeps us working on something in the present yes, but the present is also a measure of whether we want to get to that future at all. There’s no point really in planning who the members of your entourage will be when all you’ve got in front of you is a man who’s only willing to spend today.

10. Being dishonest and unfaithful. Loyalty? Check! Devotion? Double check! We are told: “Whenever you are away from each other check in regularly to let them know you’re okay.” Again, you’re talking to the Pinay? We are the champions of clingy and togetherness, and if we were to decide we would be everywhere with our men. In fact the lesson for the Pinay should be about how to keep a life as an individual, separate from the man, without being paranoid about dishonesty and unfaithfulness. Also, there’s the even more important lesson: much might be said about honesty, but there are some questions that need not be asked, answers that we’d rather not hear. The Pinay is obsessed with knowing everything about her man, and sometimes we fuel precisely the dishonesty because we also demand a set of answers they cannot give. In truth: there’s value in letting some things go, especially those things that aren’t about you at all.

11. Not being caring and compassionate. For the Pinay this is precisely the kind of stereotype that keeps them in roles that are oppressive, that renders them immobile to some extent, that makes them think less than they actually are. Being caring and compassionate is our default, this is the way we are brought up, the only way we know to deal with the world. And this is what keeps us in the box labeled submissive / ideal / wife / mother. This is what makes it seem right that we should go beyond ourselves, and sometimes forget ourselves altogether. I say let’s learn to balance caring and compassion with the katarayan that’s in our lineage as women; let’s balance that with caring and compassion for ourselves first. Much might be said about selfishness when you’re a Pinay who’s brought up with an unflinching unthinking selflessness.

Looking at this list, it is clear to me that all those things that were deemed stupid, all those things that we were being told not to be, not to do, all those things don’t apply to the Pinay in this context. When you live and breathe this culture that contradicts itself with regards how to love and treat and trust its women, American self-help of any kind cannot help us any. To impose those rules on the Pinay might be the most tragic thing to happen to our struggle, not just for identity, but for our right to our own bodies.

Of course this anti-self-help-list, in its mere existence is a set of absolutes, too. But I’d like to think that these are only as absolute as they remain open to debate and discussion, as these remain to be practiced where we come from. I’d like to think that because we have yet to even imagine ourselves liberated and free, that we’re still working on lists such as this, versus seeing it as a set of rules. More than anything I’d like to imagine that this is a more truthful, because more particular, assessment of the things the Pinay should learn to do.

Those stupid things women do? We’re already bigger and brighter than all of that.

kultura

the Marge and Jeremy show

i’m one to dish it out and so i know to take it, too. and i will apologize, i will admit to my own faults, as i already have in this case. but Mr. Jeremy Baer has not only attacked me twice, refusing to accept my apology; Dra. Margarita Holmes has also moved the discussion from her and my private Facebook pages to her Facebook fanpage. and so it seems about right to take this one on with as much kindness as they have.

i misattributed this question to Dr. Margarita Holmes in the 13th paragraph from the Rhian and Mo article: “Dr. Margie Holmes asks on Facebook: why weren’t they careful?”

after which i say: “We are after all living in a time when there seems to be no excuse for accidental pregnancies, a time when information might easily be had about birth control. But that is not true.”

about which she sends me a private facebook message:

in the comments section of the link to the article that i myself posted on her Facebook wall (obviously thinking she’d want to read it) she said this. and with it is my response.

Jeremy Baer, husband of Dra. Holmes, launched his first attack in response to the above exchange, quoted below with my own explanations, and pertinent quotes from the second attack he wrote when relevant.

From: Jeremy Baer, asawa ni Dra Holmes
(Primarily) for: Katrina Stuart Santiago but to you

That’s it?!!?
This woman puts words in your mouth that are untrue. Words that you supposedly said, about a subject you know about, makes you come out looking like an idiot, and all she says is, and I quote: “Katrina Stuart Santiago ooooh, yes you’re right tita. the discussion is what became about why they weren’t careful. yours was just mo. true true. that correction should be easy to make though. :)”

let me begin by saying, as i have said in that previous apology, and as is clear with this exchange from someone i call “Tita” and that doesn’t happen for many people in my world if you’re not my relative, that i was working with the fact not just of familiarity, but also with the tone that Dra. Holmes took with me in her reprimand. in the PM she said it was a “minor correction” in the Facebook wall comment she said “itty bitty correction” and a “slight tampo.” she ended that PM with “lovelovelove.”

and so i was wrong in thinking that Dra. Holmes’ tone was equal to how offended she was by that mistake? or i was wrong about thinking that she was giving me a kind reprimand? and i’ve apologized for reading wrongly the tone in the words of someone i respect enough to call “Tita” and who seemed to have been treating me like a “pamangkin” of sorts. Mr. Baer’s accusations though deserve a response too:

This woman puts words in your mouth that are untrue. Words that you supposedly said, about a subject you know about, makes you come out looking like an idiot.

here is where a textual misinterpretation is clear to me. when i said  “Dra. Margie Holmes asks on Facebook: why weren’t they careful?” all i meant to attribute to Dra. Holmes because she was “asking” is that question “why weren’t they careful?” and not the statements that followed it, i.e., “We are after all living in a time when there seems to be no excuse for accidental pregnancies, a time when information might easily be had about birth control. But that is not true.”

Mr. Baerns says i made his wife “look like an idiot” in this section. Dra. Holmes says in her comment above that having mistakenly attributed this question to her that “perhaps could be interpreted” as her saying that “there is no excuse for accidental pregnancies.” but that is not at all what the question “why weren’t they more careful?” means. in fact that latter question is everything and valid, and all i follow it up with — which i do not attribute to Dra. Holmes — is the fact that it is not easy to be careful in these shores.

but that is all moot and academic precisely because i have apologized for that wrong question attributed to her, and as i tell her in my comment, it was what that thread ended up being about, given the question she started with:

but also if i am to nitpick, in fact Dra. Holmes herself kept agreeing with people who in that same comments thread actually said that rhian was as much at fault:

so Dra. Holmes in fact agrees that responsibility falls on Rhian too, and not just on Mo, which in fact points to the question: “why weren’t they more careful?”

and yes that is my interpretation of Dra. Holmes’ stand on this issue, as she and her husband have interpreted what i’ve written, too.

but Mr. Baer has got more things to say:

First, if the correction is easy to make, why hasn’t she done it yet? I’ve just checked. Not only does she attribute a wrong sentence to you; she then corrects you about your supposed misperception. Then she doesn’t even apologise for doing this, once you have drawn her attention to it with your comments. Bloody cheek.

first, i attributed one question to Dra. Holmes, which if you read that thread of comments in fact is practically a question she herself validates. two, the apology or lack thereof is premised again on the kind of reprimand that it was — my bad for misreading the kind of tone Dra. Holmes took with me.

third, re the correction not being made right away: i have no access to the backend of GMANewsOnline, and as such could not have put in that correction myself. as this happened on a weekend (Saturday December 10), i did send my correction to my editor, but knew it would probably have to wait until the following Monday (December 12). ah, but that doesn’t stand with Mr. Baer, as he says in his second attack, after he refused to accept my apology, that:

3 Your excuse for the late response was that GMA doesn’t work on weekends. Perhaps that is true, or perhaps you made it seem not that important. I find it hard to believe that, unlike other news agencies that take themselves seriously, they would not have 24/7 service. This is a news story, and you represent them.

and also:

Perhaps she didn’t spell out that she wanted you to do it immediately but that is what journalists should do automatically when they are serious about their job and hate to find that they have twisted other people’s words. As soon as they realise their mistake, they do something about it, not think waiting over the weekend is ok. After all, you could have made an correction on your wall, and on Dr Holmes’s wall as well.

number one: there is no reason to bring in the 24/7 service, or lack thereof, of GMANewsOnline. this was an opinion piece, one that appears on their site, one that’s all mine, mistakes and all. i am a fulltime freelance writer, and i am not an employee or a boss at GMANewsOnline. in this article as in most of my writing i represent no one but myself. that is clear to anyone who reads me, anywhere online and in print. whether or not i represent any of the publications i write for is a matter of interpretation: what is clear to me and to my editors is that i’ve always kept my freedom to write what i want, how i want it. and they are free to refuse any of my pieces as i am only a contributing writer.

number two: i had corrected that mistake — not a twisting of words at all but a question not even in quotes — but knew of the standard time it takes for corrections to come in. this is not about me waiting on a correction to be made. were this something that appeared in a broadsheet you’d have to wait at least a full week for corrections and errata and apologias. i responded to Dra. Holmes on that same day she posted that comment. that my response was not up to Mr. Baer’s standards confuses me: i was not talking to him.

but given Mr. Baer’s anger, one that was not at all in Dra. Holmes’ note and comments to me, i did write that apology on my blog, and did put it on my wall, as it was posted on the thread in which the attack had happened.

number three: THIS IS NOT A NEWS STORY. this is an opinion piece, as all of my writing is, two of the more recent ones Dra. Holmes had praised. this one she herself praised not just in that PM, but also right above that comment slash reprimand.

this brings me to number four: Dra. Holmes gave me the impression here that what was more important was what i said in the rest of that article, extraneous to the “itty bitty correction” and “slight tampo” she had with me. the sense of urgency was not there at all, but again, that is apparently my fault for misinterpreting Dra. Holmes’ tone.

Mr. Baer attacks me in these rhetorical questions he addresses to his wife Dra. Holmes:

Finally, it was so easy to check what you really said. Why didn’t she? Too eager to show how you, who should know this field, actually don’t? or just sloppy journalism?

first, Mr. Baer also says that i “quickly sullied” Dra. Holmes’ reputation, that i was being “cavalier about the reputations” i “might have destroyed” because Dra. Holmes is “after all, considered an expert on this field.” and that if Dra. Holmes “were corrected because <she> needed correction, that would be ok.”

Mr Baer works with the premise of malice here, that i intentionally wanted to ruin the reputation of Dra. Holmes, that i wanted to put into question her credibility. again, that question is all i mistakenly attributed to her and nothing else. that he thinks the rest of that paragraph is about Dra. Holmes is his interpretation. that i’ve apologized for this is fact.

two: i am no journalist. i have never fashioned myself as one, have never ever called myself that. i do not even call myself a member of the media. that i’m called the latter is a matter of convenience for the institutions that need to label me as such. anyone who knows me would also know that rarely do i call myself a writer; i say that i write. those are two different things.

in Mr. Baer’s second attack, after he refused to accept my apology, he questioned the correction i asked my editor to make on that section mentioning Dra. Holmes. he also points out

how important it is not to misquote people, especially people who are respected for their knowledge, measured responses and integrity who try to ensure that what is based on research is presented as such, and what is based on opinion is also identified as such.

and what is in that Facebook thread of Dra. Holmes is clearly opinion, wasn’t it? she was not only asserting an opinion about Mo carrying the bigger responsibility here, she was, as she was responding to comments, also agreeing with other people: about Mo being older, Mo being without a career, Rhian being more responsible than Mo, etc etc. i did not even mention any of that because they were irrelevant. again all i attributed to Dra. Holmes was that one question, not in quotes, because it was a question that the thread ended up asking.

oh but let me not even make that correction in the piece anymore. it’s obvious Mr. Baer is unhappy with any correction i am to make, and has made up his mind about me and my writing.

i have asked my editors to remove altogether any mention of Dra. Margarita Holmes in that piece. it will stand on its own.

Mr Baer says:

While my wife is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, she is currently giving a talk at, and for, Occupy4RH at the Batasan. <…>

Finally, this is my own version of events and everyone else is free to give theirs, or decide too much has been said on this already, but for clarity’s sake, I think it’s important that somebody say something. My wife has three clients to see and two columns to write tomorrow (to say the least) and because she takes her work very seriously she may therefore not have time to respond to your apology for a while.

in fact Mr. Baer, while your wife was giving a talk at the Occupy4RH at Batasan, i was at Rock the Riles which raises consciousness about the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. and as your wife has a busy day today, so do i.

but here i am responding to you, because unlike your wife, i have no one to fight my battles for me. especially a battle that she herself — Dra. Holmes herself — didn’t seem to think was a battle to begin with.

kultura

notes on TEDx Diliman: ideas worth spreading? #3!

TEDx Talks are independently organized TED talks across the world, which is about “riveting talks by remarkable people.” TEDx Diliman was my first. This is a review of each of the TED talks that were part of it, done in 18 minutes or less, because that’s the time limit of a TED Talk. Read more about TED here, and check out this really good video on TEDx here.

Glecy Atienza on Buhay: Theater for Life

what Ma’am Glecy had going for her TEDx talk were two things: (1) a life lived in theater, and (2) a theater life that has actually affected change in the spaces it has inhabited. these two should be in every TEDx talk, these are its most basic requirements. but also Ma’am Glecy had an anchor here, something that was the premise of and what drove her whole talk: theater as something that evolves from buhay (life) to buhay (live). i’d argue with that last one and say that it might have worked better had she used the term “alive” but that’s really just a matter of style. what’s important is that Ma’am Glecy allowed this concept to function not just as anchor, but as central idea that’s also a clear assessment not just of theater, but of her life lived within it.

this is what a TEDx talk requires, doesn’t it? because an idea worth sharing is not one that we pluck out of thin air, nor is it the stuff of just dreaming. an idea worth sharing is one that has been proven to work, one that has affected change in some form or manner, one that has, in the course of its existence come to terms with what needs to be done in order to reach a goal that’s about change of some form.

here Ma’am Glecy asserts that in the course of her years in theater, the notion of actor has since evolved for her: she is also artist, who does her own research, who teaches, who organizes communities around theater productions that can change the way they view their lives, the way they might see themselves. here, it will be difficult to question Ma’am Glecy’s assertions about the possibilities of change through theater, and this is precisely because she knows exactly from where she speaks.

but too, what Ma’am Glecy proves here is that it is not just years that a TEDx talk requires, it is more importantly about being self-reflexive and self-aware, where one’s limitations are clear, but even more so one’s ability at compromise, and role in change. these are the kinds of things we might all learn from, because these things are premised on concrete change done within real conditions of nation.

in the end, Ma’am Glecy would be one of the few who actually had proof of how art and culture can change our world, which was the TEDx Diliman theme. she would, in the end, be one of three people who’d do that here.

out of 11 speakers. go figure.

kultura

coming up for air: notes on criticism 1

it’s been quiet here, which isn’t to say that it’s been quiet where i’m at. been finishing up an MA thesis that’s gone on for too long, and is more about closure to a life lived in the academe more than anything else. while that’s happening, i’ve had more interesting conversations than usual, including conversations about art and the state of things in this country, ones that are kept off the record, unspoken of. sometimes it’s limited to Facebook, other times it just refuses to engage in decent debate and discourse, distinct from the personal.

yet there are many things to write still, conversations to be had. but it seems even brave statements of distrust and disgust, even ones that are relevant and worthy of discussion, become feed and fodder for the personal. here lies our un-critical dead end: we are a sensitive bunch of people, very few of us can handle criticism. yet in times of controversy, or just given the space to do it (blogs, newspaper columns), everyone becomes a critic in this country, everyone will claim the title.

which is fine too, were we all working with a sense of what criticism requires, what it entails, what it must necessarily work with. in recent conversations, forced to answer questions about the work i do, the blogging and the writing, and therefore my life in general (hah!), i realized that much of what i had to say reverted back to my sense of what’s relevant and important, to a sense that what i say is secondary to that text that’s in front of me, which is also always a text that’s about nation. i will never claim that i get it right all the time, or even half the time; but i will say that i come from a very clear sense of myself as spectator in the context of the tragedies and sadnesses that are in this space we all inhabit, that any cultural text necessarily sprouts from, no matter how removed these might be.

and just in case it isn’t clear, i’d like to think that any critic is a writer first, because every critic lives off of words, too, lives off of choosing the right words for capturing how she has experienced a text. and as with any writer, the only way to have the words to say, and to have a sense of what’s relevant to discuss, is to be within the enterprise of culture in this country, half the time suspending one’s notions of taste and order, the other half suspending all judgement. all the time it requires this sense of how things are never black and white anymore, that these are gray times, where notions of power and oppression are interspersed/diluted/interlaced with things that are prettier or tastier or just downright addictive.

it’s because of this that i find generalizations to be painfully unfair, if not just usually absolutely wrong. after the success of Ang Babae sa Septic Tank, this generalization was dropped —

Before it got made in the mainstream though, Ang Babae sa Septic Tank won over the less-forgiving indie film crowd, comprised mostly of hipster students and educated artsy folk who are used to seeing gritty, neo-realist dramas and have the tendency to be just a tad pretentious.

i’d like to find out where this indie film crowd hangs out, just because this girl’s got it all wrong about the indie, and the indie film, and even just the idea that there’s a crowd. had she read up on the indie, watched the indie for the past decade or so too, she’d know that this “crowd” doesn’t exist, the hipster students she’s so critical of are a recent aspect of it (and the hipsters are everywhere), and the neo-realist dramas that tend to be pretentious aren’t at all of the indie as a category, but of a kind of Pinoy film in general, indie and otherwise.

in direct contrast to such misinformed generalizations is something as honest as pinoy drama rewind which does movie and TV reviews, as well as episode recaps of contemporary soaps and seryes. this might not be the kind of critical blog that’s celebrated, but it sure as hell’s got more going for it than the misinformed being given space(s) in broadsheets like the Philippine Star. in the latter we just perpetuate the notion that all it takes is space to write and an amount of yabang. in the former, there is an effort at actually and truly coming to terms with the cultural products that we create and live with in this country, and there is a sense of humility more than anything else.

one that we should all learn from, critic and writer, young and old, in broadsheets and online, alike.