Category Archive for: iconography

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?

kultura

2010’s top TV (and showbiz) distractions / destructions

Now this obviously cuts across networks, so that is its limitation as well: I can’t quite watch two soap operas at the same time, though I will try all the time. There is no list that isn’t biased, and this one for Pinoy TV and showbiz in 2010 is also a measure of my own personal taste for that which is different, and new, and sometimes a  bit inane.

John Lloyd Cruz in a genre all his own. Because he can apparently sell everything from biogesic to fruit juice to crackers, tuna to pancit canton, and just might have singlehandedly brought back Greenwich Pizza in our lives. Of course he has a whole barkada in those commercials, but really now, that’s every other barkada we have. What works in the end is that John Lloyd is so willing and able to make a fool of himself, and to create this image of being the every guy in a co-ed barkada. And even when we hear him admit to girlfriends, and we hear rumors of vaginal locks in his life, in the end all that remains really is John Lloyd as the every boy, like a Juan dela Cruz without the indio or the konyo, and just a whole lot of middle class charm.

An Aljur seems to be in order. Aljur Abrenica opened the Cosmopolitan Bachelor Bash for 2010, with the confidence that we still rarely see in our men after Richard Gomez decided he could just row his way in an ad and wear briefs in a fashion show. Sam Milby just lost so much luster compared to Aljur, also because the former just seemed so darn uncomfortable the whole time he was on stage; it also didn’t help Sam that the new and improved Christian Bautista came before him, who undoubtedly new to strut his new, uh, assets. Aljur meanwhile, had us asking for more, and we wanted to see him on that stage again. After seeing what seemed like hundreds of topless men, that can only be a measure of Aljur’s presence. He’s playing Machete in a GMA soap for 2011; you know what channel I’ll be on for that timeslot.

The Currency of the Kantoboys. If you don’t know who they are, then you are missing something. Composed of Luis Manzano, Vhong Navarro, Billy Crawford (without the Joe), and John Lloyd, and an ASAP XV original, the Kanto Boys go against the grain of on the one hand the now defunct Hunks, and on the other just the standard metrosexual. There are no perfect pretty boys here, instead there is imperfection, one that’s borne of silliness, and these four boys’ willingness to make fools of themselves, with poker faces throughout any performance. It’s an anti-macho creation that just works. That they remain cute — if not become cuter — is well, just their luck. (more…)

komentaryo

pinky and press ethics

you’ve got to give it to the Webbs, yes? I mean you may believe differently about Hubert etal getting that acquittal. you may want to read up regardless, because at the very least those in Bilibid Prisons need an open mind — your open mind. I believe that 15 years is enough, I even think that 10 is enough, even just one year, when there’s a slim slim possibility that anyone’s innocent, a teeny tiny chance that they aren’t guilty of the crime they’ve been accused of. to a certain extent, the shame, the lost years, the lost time, the sadness, the silence, is enough.

and it is silence that someone like Pinky Webb, politician’s daughter, media personality, sister of recently freed Hubert, knows to keep, and consistently. if there’s one thing that needs to be said a day after Hubert’s acquittal, if there’s one thing that we might want to see as one particularly bright light in all of this, it’s this.

in another media personality’s hands, this sister would’ve considered this her scoop, this would’ve been milked all it was worth, almost her chance at fame and fortune given the kind of media stardom that is now possible for members of the press.

especially in recent years when the media personality has made the news not necessarily for her professional achievements or public service, as it has been for the personal news that she herself feeds, Pinky is a breath of fresh air, one that’s surprising actually, but is such a measure of breeding. as it is of a clear sense of ethics that in this case is about the distance she keeps from the media spotlight that wants nothing but for her to speak of her private self.

this refusal to speak, the decision at silence, for me is just a wonderful example — one that we rarely see, yes? — of how the public media personality should handle any news related to her private life.

of course in third world philippines the extreme opposite of Pinky is the peg that Kris Aquino has created, also a politician’s daughter, also a TV personality, who likes to get the scoop, who uses her personal relationships as scoop, whose lack of ethics is most measured in instances when her own family is in the news — and they always are, not just because her mother was president, and her brother is now president, also because she likes to make the news. literally, she creates news about herself. case in point: if you saw that TV Patrol live patch, Ted Failon actually didn’t know what hit him as Kris just kept going on and on. making fun of others should be illegal in Kris’ hands; i wonder about the freedom of speech, too.

and it is because of Kris and every other media personality who has appeared in a magazine talking about her personal life, every media personality who speaks of personal things in 140 characters or less on Twitter, every media personality who has turned — quite shamelessly — into a lifestyle host in the guise of current events host. it is because of all these that we barely know to see Pinky Webb here, maybe because we don’t know how to deal with such class, such grace, such a display of press ethics.

sometimes and here, in the most tragically beautiful of ways, we are still surprised by members of our media. and in this horrid state of affairs when Kris and Boy are considered credible, and Korina and Noli can just go back to being “objective” newscasters, well.

thank goodness for Pinky Webb. may she be remain the peg for the right amount(s) of silence and quiet, the correct refusal to sell private self, that we so aspire for in the members of media. because that is a measure not just of their ethics, but also of their trust in us as audience who are mature enough to deal with media personalities without the personal. we get what we deserve, I know. and maybe Pinky Webb’s proving to us that sometimes we deserve the people with breeding and class, the ones who hold their privacies dear, because we all should, too.

kultura

dreaming of Marian’s freedoms

If there’s anything that’s true about Marian Rivera, it’s that she doesn’t care what we all think: she presents to us what she is, which is probably the closest to a private self we’ve been treated to within the public space that is local popular TV and movie culture.

And when I speak of Marian’s private self, I mean the one that we don’t usually see of our celebrities, I mean that which is usually deemed unworthy of being made public. But Marian doesn’t seem to care that she doesn’t sound as classy or doesn’t move with as much finesse as the usual female star.

But maybe this is telling as well: Marian ain’t the usual run-of-the-mill female star that we see on local TV, and while she isn’t what we expect, I daresay that she’s exactly what we’ve needed all this time. And no, this is not the case of a diamond in the rough – that would mean having to smoothen it out and make it more acceptable. Marian, in fact, for all the negative publicity about her, need not change anything because she’s already the image that’s important for our times, and especially for women who consume popular culture.

the rest is here!

komentaryo

wa’ epek si juana change, or why the RH Bill doesn’t need this

But here being the most important point: the recent Juana Change video Mga Anak ng Diyos is just disappointing. For the most part, it barely gets a discussion going on the truths about the RH Bill versus the lies that are spread about it, nor does it bring the discussion to a level that’s more intelligent as it seems to just be screaming in our faces the whole time. Here, there isn’t a sense of how the RH Bill is NOT about being anti-Church or anti-God, how it isn’t at all about abortion, how it isn’t just about enjoying sex. And yet throughout the video words like cunnilingus, blow job, hand job are thrown around for no good reason and without a clear sense of what these mean vis a vis the RH Bill. This might get extra points for the daring to say these words, but it’s also ultimately dangerous to be throwing them around without a sense of what for.

There is also no good reason to include the issue of priests impregnating members of their flock in this – or any – discussion of the RH Bill. In Mga Anak ng Diyos, Juana herself plays the role of the woman whose first child is the offspring of a priest, now monsignor, the role which Lou Veloso plays, whom she faces in the present as the more critical follower who asks questions abou birth control and has had a ligation. This might be to concretize the hypocrisy of the Pinoy Church, or to point out that even Church leaders commit sins that are bigger than we can imagine, but to point it out here brings the discussion elsewhere other than the RH Bill. It also seems to be pointing a finger at the Church for being sinners too, when the discussion on RH shouldn’t to begin with be about sins, or immorality, or burning in hell.

click here for all of it!