Category Archive for: iconography

komentaryo

give Ate Guy a break, or what’s wrong with that cig?

Let it be said that Superstar Nora Aunor’s comeback is by all counts a success, if we are to measure it not by media mileage or product endorsements, not by tell-all interviews in every darn showbiz talk show or by grand statements about home being where the heart is.

Ate Guy’s return has been about none of this and that is precisely a measure of this comeback’s success. Because would she be the unbeatable popular culture icon that she is, the film actress par excellence, the Superstar in the real sense of the word, if she came back and fell into the trap of showbiz as created by the Kris Aquinos of this world?

Not at all. Ate Guy is everything that contemporary showbiz is not. And that was true long before she left, that was real to anyone who saw her films and respected her daring, this was always true for those of us who couldn’t help but be astounded on the one hand, and then be downright impressed on the other, by the life choices she was making, given the little that we actually knew of her. She was rebel long before it became fashionable to be one, she was rakenrol like no other, and in the midst of that she was inadvertently pointing out that she was – should be – nothing but actress, but singer, but star.

Ate Guy might be the only icon on these shores who can say to her public: here’s who I am, deal with it.

click here for the rest of it!

kultura

notes on OPM 1: celebrity versus talent

We say it often, and truth to tell in these shores it is true: many of our less talented singers have albums, and many of our more talented musicians are without jobs. But what of the non-singer, someone who doesn’t sing at all, gathering a strong enough following for her CDs that she’s now on her fifth (count that!) solo album—and yes, that’s not counting the one she did with her son, and another about the rosary.

Welcome the celebrity CD! At the center of which is Kris Aquino. Judy Ann Santos began this kind of production with Ang Kuwento ng Buhay Ko (2007) where her TV show and movie theme songs were interspersed with her recorded thoughts about particular times in her life. This album had an all-Filipino, all-original set of songs that still made it original Pilipino music (OPM) by all counts, over and above Judy Ann.

But Kris, unlike Judy Ann, began this enterprise not to do a retrospective on her life, which would’ve meant just planning one CD. Instead, tied as the industry of celebrity is to selling the personal, Kris immersed herself in doing self-help albums, which is what most of these are. But unlike self-help albums done by experts in some form of counseling or other (think Dr. Phil on CD), most of Kris’ albums are only about her: when she came out with first CD Songs of Love and Healing, there was soon after a public marital crisis and pregnancy difficulties; when her mother Cory died she did The Greatest Love (2008), a tribute album; when her brother Noynoy was running for president she came out with Blessings of Love (2010), which was filled with nationalist and campaign songs.

the rest of it is here!

komentaryo

pacquiao, the pits

am i the only one who thinks this has gone too far? and just way low, the discourse on the Reproductive Health Bill.

it’s bad enough that we have to deal with congressmen like Amado Bagatsing who thinks prOscribe can easily be changed into prEscribe (medyo praning), like Roilo Golez who will twist previous DOH Secretary Esperanza Cabral’s words to her face about the risk factors of the pill (medyo sinungaling), like Pablo Garcia who thinks the correct response to the RH Bill is “do you believe in God?” (medyo fundamentalist), that we have to deal with every other religious anti-RH person thinking my rights as a woman immoral. but really.

congressman Manny Pacquiao, fresh from the millions he made from his last boxing match, is the pits. his mother Dionisia is scraping the bottom of that barrel.

and no, don’t even begin to deny that you are forgiving of Pacquiao, that this country in general, including the middle class and rich who would otherwise be more critical, are coddling him. Pacquiao can do no wrong ‘no? he can do no wrong, not when he’s a source of contemporary Pinoy pride: the best pound for pound boxer in the world. finally we can say there’s one of us who’s the best at something, without a doubt. finally.

oh but what is the price we pay? to think him faultless, to listen to him talk about fighting poverty and think: wow, what a wonderful speech! versus thinking: wow, how that contradicts the fact that he bought his mother a 1M peso bag. a one million peso Hermes bag that his mother asked for. that’s worse than Kris Aquino, or Willie Revillame, both of whom are undoubtedly rich and live decadently too, but at least they don’t talk about eradicating poverty, as they do helping the poor (two very different things). at least we see them both on free TV. Pacquiao we have to watch on pay per view, even if we’re Pinoy.

oh but we forgive Pacquiao everything, including his mother’s articulations. we forgive Pacquiao the politicians that appear around him, no matter that we don’t trust them. we forgive him, even as he is mouthing lines from the Bible in relation to something that is totally and absolutely extraneous to religiosity. he gets up on that podium in Quiapo Church, and no one no one says he was wrong to do it. he misquotes the Bible, and we don’t correct him, are careful to make fun of the grammatical error. and we don’t invoke this:

It can’t be very difficult for Pacquiao to financially support his brood of four; the champion fighter is worth an estimated $70 million. But 33% of people in the Philippines, a nation of nearly 92 million, live below the poverty line, earning less than $1.35 per day. (Brenhouse, Time Magazine, 19 May 2011)

those anti-RH congressmen are just as bad, putting Pacquiao up to be beaten to a pulp by congressman Edcel Lagman, the worst strategy as far as congressman Mong Palatino is concerned failing as Pacquiao did. the anti-RH congressmen are saying of course not! Pacquiao did the best he could! yes, of course you’ll say that, he’s on your side. congressman Sherwin Tugna says: “<…> dahil sikat si Congressman Manny, marami ang nakinig at marami ang nalinawan dahil sa kanyang mga tanong at dahil sa magiting at malinaw na paliwanag sa sagot naman ng pro-RH na si Congressman Edcel Lagman.”

sige na nga congressman. but we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here, so there has to be media mileage on Dionisia, flared nostrils and fully made up, screaming on nationwide television, defending her son Manny against the big bad wolf that is senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago. just so it’s clear here, it was the anti-RH congressmen who made a puppet out of Pacquiao when they let him make a fool of himself so their cause could get media mileage. just so it’s clear, Jinkee admitted to using the pill in January 2011, Dionisia, not at all when they were newlyweds. and just so it’s clear, this is not just Pacquiao following the word of the Lord, this is him, as congressman joining a discussion on a bill that about women’s rights. and if all he can talk about is the Lord, then really, he deserves the criticism the rest of the congressmen like him are getting.

except that Pacquiao barely gets criticized, and in fact is saved from it mostly by the idea that so many others in congress are worse than him, so many of them are corrupt, so many others are downright evil. Pacquiao meanwhile will build a hospital in Sarangani, has brought commerce to Gen San, has helped the poor more than many others. he’s a nice guy, they say, nicer than most. plus, he’s a world class boxer! oh what more could we ask for?

ah, the question really is: why do we not ask for more? especially since Pacquiao himself demanded for more when he deemed himself worthy of a congressional position? especially since as congressman, Pacquiao necessarily also speaks as national icon, as national pride. Pacquiao-the-boxer is not different from Pacquiao-the-congressman from Pacquiao-the-puppet.

you take pride in one, you are forced to be silent on another. you take pride in all of that, defend Pacquiao to the hilt, or fall silent, then the joke is on us. pride mo ang lolo mong panot.

kultura

pinoy rap lives!

with  Gloc-9.

komentaryo

coming in 2011: The (presidential) Troubleshooter!

yes, it’s as absurd as it sounds.

i now have visions of Mar Roxas as The Troubleshooter, a new superhero, who’s urgently needed for any and every trouble that needs to be fixed in Malacañang. not that there’s trouble now, but Mar will be gifted with those troubles soon.

because this is a gift for Mar, PNoy has said. yet, i do wonder if being labelled The Troubleshooter is a gift, much less an honorable position at all. my personal experience with the idea of troubleshooting is technology. a Windows user for most of my adult life until recently, any Windows problem, i found, had the troubleshoot-this-problem option. this process of course asks the most basic questions, you almost want to get offended. as with a printer that won’t work, it will ask: are you sure the cable’s attached? are you sure your printer ink cartridge is installed correctly? click on this to test. are you sure you clicked at all?

ok, ok. that last bit’s an exaggeration, but you get my drift. troubleshooting as a verb is to do some problem solving that, given its roots in technology, means looking at all possible reasons for a problem and eliminating them one by one until you get to the real cause (definitions are here and here). now this of course seems like a valid need of any presidency, to have a troubleshooter, i mean. but to call it this, versus, oh i don’t know Chief of Staff? just seems … juvenile.

of course it’s possible that this is really just a problem with — a failure in — rhetoric, but goodness, if they still don’t know the right words to say, and if they’re still not creating proper categories and labels for the offices and people they include in their Malacañang plantilla, we can only wonder what’s being said behind closed doors. language and communication must be first in a list of presidential image priorities: because really, all we’ve got to hold onto as citizens are words. words! we wish for a government that chooses its words well, especially to go with what it actually does well.

ah, but the already insecure government might say we are picking on them by picking on the petty, which ain’t true. in fact, it is because we take nation and government seriously that we can’t let things as small as this or as huge as foreign policy pass, that we don’t want to. nothing is too petty, especially in the age of double-checking with Google. not tourism logos, not the spelling of scientific names, not claiming to fame wrong animals as indigenous.

but here, to humor government and support Mar in his new superhero role as The Troubleshooter! these are the first things that come up when you actually Google the concept of troubleshooting, the troubleshooter, the troubleshot.

1: Relax. When faced with a problem, don’t panic. — such sound advice really, except that this government has proven itself too relaxed, i.e., as with the way it handled the bus tragedy last year. too steady for comfort they are, eh? and in which case maybe The Troubleshooter! will give them a sense of urgency.

2: Choose which problem you’re having among a list. Remember that this is only some of the thousands of possible problems. For more specific issues, contact Mr. Hope. — yes, naman. there are a thousand possible problems and specific issues for this government, Mr. Troubleshooter, and these are piling up from the petty to the fundamental. this is a long list seven months hence, you do need to enter your troubleshooter role with a whole lot of hope.

3: Standard troubleshooting step: Restart. — yes, let’s. hopefully the kind of restart that means all bad memory and viruses — including Kris food and mouth disease — will be erased. PLEASE?

4: If trouble persists, restart on Safe Mode. — ah, this The Troubleshooter! doesn’t have to even tell this government, we’ve been in safe mode for the past seven months eh? no big change without big dangerous decisions.

5: If problems persist, Delete Program then Reinstall. — yes, please. and delete all instances when the President’s love life was mentioned especially by his four witch-sisters who insist we all stop talking about it, delete all of Mai Mislang’s tweets, delete all of the Pilipina Kay Ganda campaign materials from the face of the Earth especially the smiley PNoy suggested be drawn on the coconut tree. please keep all programs that force us to reckon with our international image such as the Manila Bus Tragedy. only so we can open that program and click on Help.

6: If it’s a virus or worm, take out your Motherboard Manual. — ah, yes, the specter of Cory does live in this Presidency every day. that’s not just a manual that PNoy uses, sometimes it’s also what goes wrong. what of the motherboard that’s also the virus and worm? what of the President who knows not to decide against his mother? yes, we’re getting bored.

7. You can leave it running all the time, but you must restart periodically to fix minor glitches that arise after using it for long periods of time. — oh yes, minor glitches might be solved by some amount of restarting, but what of a government that doesn’t want to be running all the time? dear Mr. Troubleshooter, there must be a way to keep this glitches from happening, which might mean just Googling it.

now i know i might be expecting too much from him, about as much as i do from this government, but there has got to be no problem too small or too large for The Troubleshooter! right? after all this government has got its hands full with problems. who knows, maybe The Troubleshooter! will actually save the day.

the more important question might be: what color costume will he be wearing?