kalalakihan – Page 12 – Katrina Stuart Santiago

my friend D posted this on her FB page:

the tricky thing about plagiarism is that while everyone is in agreement that it is a crime, a violation, the accused is almost never able to exercise his/her right to due process, legal representation, a fair trial, an appeal.

how does one pay for such a crime, really? what does it take?

it seems like there is nothing in the world one can do to gain genuine pardon for an offense such as this. even if the offender publicly acknowledges, properly apologizes, and sufficiently pays for damages, and, say, the aggrieved – the owner of the material – accepts and grants pardon, the offense is never really written off, is it? even when he/she does go through the legal process, and resolution is arrived at between parties, or he/she is able to gain acquittal from and is formally certified as innocent of the crime, the public never really forgives or forgets, does it?

my answer in the form of questions. in the case of the recent proven and admitted plagiarist, are we all in agreement that he committed a crime? is he actually asking for genuine pardon? does he actually feel unforgiven at all here, seeing as there is “a public” that seems to have brushed it off, ignored it, believed Yuson to have valid enough reasons for, uh, plagiarizing?

via Yuson's public FB wall, April 8 2011, accessed April 12 2011

Yuson on Plaridel yahoogroups, April 13 2011, accessed April 13 2011

questions, still: does it matter at all that there is a public who will not forget, when in fact there’s a public –– the one that matters to the admitted plagiarist –– that has forgiven? does our refusal to forget matter at all when the attitude of the culprit is such that admitting to plagiarism just means facing brickbats, instead of his credibility down the drain?

does it matter at all that a public is angry about plagiarism, when the admitted plagiarist is allowed to go on as if nothing happened, invoking the same kind(s) of power he holds as if nothing has changed? at least MVP had the grace to resign from ateneo, return honors given him, and lie low for a while.

via the best statement written on the subject matter (and maybe EVER), the one that has the most balls I’ve seen in the literary world in a while:

“It is, at absolute best, a specimen of offensive—and admittedly, eloquent—victimage. Not only does Yuson resort to flippant, melodramatic, and self-deprecating rhetoric that is calculated to minimize his personal accountability and preempt further criticism, but also he insults the intelligence of his readers by flinging a distinctly noxious red herring into their faces: the concept of editor as co-author, which, though not without merit in and of itself, completely and utterly fails in this situation to explain why Yuson did not credit Joble in the magazine article at all. Were Yuson to discover that a protégé had plagiarized his poetry in order to “arrive over and over / again at art” [1], would he accept from that student what he now expects us to swallow hook, line, and sinker? Or does Yuson ultimately rely on his formidable store of cultural capital to save him in the same way that a wealthy criminal depends on his money to keep him out of jail?”

Equally ominous in this regard is the response from Yuson’s peers in pedagogy and literature, without whom he would not have attained his current stature: they have so far refused to publicly and categorically censure an act that they would not tolerate and likely have vociferously condemned had it been committed by their students, mentees, or non-literary figures (business mogul Manuel V. Pangilinan, say, or Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano C. del Castillo).

the rest of the collective statement on the plagiarism of Krip Yuson is here.

meanwhile, where is the rest of the literary, cultural, and academic world of which the admitted plagiarist is part?

because this is what happened when Krip Yuson apologized for his act of plagiarism: he opened a can of worms about writing in this country, about the hubris of the editor, about the question of writer versus editor, etc. etc. and you know I’m all for letting it all hang out, but given the gravity of an awarded Filipino writer plagiarizing, it just seems like the wrong time for invoking other worms.

Worm #1: Yuson talks about being the editor of the original piece, forgetting that it wasn’t his work pala, mea culpa, honest mistake naman. but where did this statement even come from, when is it acceptable for an editor to invoke his ownership of a text, one that isn’t his at all?

I imagine it comes from what still is the amorphous title of editor at least in these Pinoy shores, one that I learned from mentor(-beyond-death) Luisa Mallari who thought it was an immature profession in this country (addendum: at least in the late 90s, given the ones lording it over as editors versus what Tita K reminds me are the great editors like Joaquin, Locsin, Roces). this is not so much a judgement of current editorship as it is an assessment of its smallness, a smallness that editors themselves impose on the title, on the job, on the profession. because while it is a valid profession, separate from the writer, distinct from being co-author, it rarely seems like such.

Yuson’s apology doesn’t help the cause of the editor any. when he said he had “re-written” the original essay, he was in fact talking about something an editor isn’t expected to do. when he said he thought he was “at the very least part-author” of the piece, he was in fact crossing the line between being editor and being co-writer of the piece. and all these regardless of what the writer Rey Joble thought, or would’ve thought, about his editor claiming his original work?

in fact in the ideal world, no editor would claim a writer’s work as his own. in the world where editors respect writers, and respect themselves, an editor wouldn’t re-write a text so much that he would begin to imagine it as his. instead the editor would comment on the work and ask the writer to do the major revision. if/when the editor does the major revision himself — in Yuson’s case he calls this revision a re-write — then the editor must know as well to let his work go, and give it to the writer, whose work it still is, whose name should still be on that byline, who will take credit for whatever work the editor puts in, regardless. in fact, once the editor wields his power over a text, the writer has a right to say no, that’s not the way I want to say it, no, this is mine, you can’t touch it that way. the editor respects the writer enough to let this happen as well.*

but the only thing we know about Yuson’s relationship with Rey Joble is what Yuson himself talks about in the apology: Joble understands me, we’re still friends. well yes, but what of everything else this silences? I’d love to see Rey Joble’s original work, and look at Yuson’s editing as an exercise in seeing what editing in the form of a re-write means. I would love to hear Rey Joble speak, about his original work, about his original work being plagiarized. I’d love to look into the struggle that necessarily exists between Rey Joble and Yuson, the writer and the editor, and how this is changed by the act of plagiarism that Yuson committed against Joble.

ah, but I don’t know that any of that will ever be possible. and in the meantime there is:

Worm #2: the notion of deadlines, being pressed for time, in the act of writing (and editing) which Yuson invokes. which to me is the strangest — strangest! — excuse he could give, used as it is by college students who fail to beat the deadline for a major paper submission, unacceptable as that is in the world of adults in general, and adults who write for a living in particular.

I’m not saying I’ve never been pressured by a deadline; I’m saying that the pressure is part of this enterprise of writing, deadlines are necessary in this creative life (and I use creativity loosely here, or as broadly as possible). it was most disheartening to read Yuson invoking deadlines as an excuse for plagiarism, for now any student can say: maam, ang dami kong ibang deadline eh, i was forced to copy and paste na lang from the internet. i agree naman with this site’s opinions eh.

imagine the repercussions for creative writing classes.

but maybe the more dismaying thing about Yuson’s use of the deadline excuse is that it begs this question: why did he say yes to so much, why couldn’t he have said no to one of those deadlines? and maybe the better question, why didn’t he just ask Rey Joble to help him with that Rogue article? why couldn’t it be passed on to Rey Joble altogether? Yuson’s got enough power to anoint someone as worthy of taking his place, especially since he is saddled with so many other deadlines, especially since it’s just one essay after all.

but maybe these questions don’t matter anymore, really. it looks like we’re out to forgive Yuson, complete with but the most chipipay comments thread on facebook (and I say that with love), that only the usual suspects are part of. otherwise, Yuson’s plagiarism seems to be spoken of in whispers, or maybe with heads shaking, or with a dismissal: if the Supreme Court can do it, anyone can.

but even with that we fail to acknowledge the value of the writer, even then it seems like we are wrongly forgiving of Yuson, failing to see that he is famed multi-awarded writer, and that this in itself is important to our cultural identity. as such it would seem right that we don’t forget, that we don’t make excuses for him, seeing as he’s done a pretty bad job at apologizing.

I imagine we’re a wee bit embarrassed for Yuson, maybe because we owe him in some form? maybe because we don’t like seeing one member of the writing and literati community, one so visible and famed, to go down in ashes such as this one? maybe because we know of the deadlines that he speaks of?

yet we also know that in the face of deadlines, the choice is easy: will you plagiarize in the midst of deadlines? or will you admit to being human, tao lang sorry, and say you need an extension? or maybe you’ll just miss the deadline, do a darn good job at the submission anyway, that you’ll be forgiven for being late?

at the very least, I’d like to think that none of us will do a list of excuses for misdemeanors, be they minor or plagiarism, the way Yuson has done. because if we are to learn our lessons here we must see that what this apology inadvertently does, other than opening this can of worms, is to highlight the writer’s / editor’s / literati’s hubris. and given all the stereotyping we already suffer, given our apparent removal from the hoi polloi, this portrayal of ourselves is the last thing we need, a misrepresentation really, that just means too many steps back in the task of demolishing the writer’s ivory tower and everything it represents. sayang naman.

that last bit seems to apply all around.

* this is the kind of relationship I have with Howie Severino on gmanewsonline as well, this the kind of respect we accord each other, where a word, a phrase, a sentence, a thought in an article of mine, can be passed back and forth between the two of us until we both agree on a major change.

because I can already hear Willie Revillame’s defense, against all the anger directed at him given this video of the little boy contestant who danced, and did so ala macho dancer on Willing Willie. I can hear him invoking the fact that he did not teach the boy to dance that way, that even he didn’t expect that kind of dancing, which is obvious in that viral video, too. I can hear him saying it’s the parents’ responsibility, that the parents themselves must have taught the boy this dance. I can hear him saying: here, in Willing Willie, every Filipino can be himself, and the boy’s dance was part of that.

worse, I can hear Willie invoking some “us versus them” rhetoric for greater effect: ‘yang mga ‘yan, hindi kase ‘yan mahirap, kaya hinuhusgahan nila ang mahirap, kaya hinuhusgahan nila ang show na para sa mahirap.

then for good measure he will respond to anti-Willie and Willing Willie sentiments: inaapi ninyo ang show na tunay na nagpapasaya sa bawat Pilipino. on cue his eyes will tear up.

I know this because I’ve watched Willie, both in Wowowee (ABS-CBN2) and Willing Willie (TV5), though the latter has been because of Shalani Soledad, which is of course beside the point. my point being: bakit ngayon lang tayo na-offend?

and when I say ngayon lang, I mean this concerted effort to stand up for little boy Jan-Jan and the perceived abuse he suffered on the show. when I point out this fact of public outcry happening only now, I mean what of those countless — countless! — times that these Willie Revillame shows have offended, are offensive, which is really pretty much most of the time.

bakit ngayon lang tayo na-offend? is a question that is not about forgiving Revillame or his show. it’s a question that’s about figuring out how these current conditions with regards Jan-Jan are different from the five years of Wowowee and the less than a year’s existence of Willing Willie. or maybe it isn’t different at all, we just got this one on a youtube video. in which case what does this really say about us?

well, for one thing, it’s obvious that many of those who speak of the Jan-Jan issue now haven’t really been watching Willie or his shows, maybe not a lot of local TV at all. because if you did watch these shows, you’d know that Willie’s responses, the ones I mentioned and the ones I cannot even imagine, have been used before. you’d know that this is rhetoric that’s borne of two things: (1) those of us from the educated and/or middle and/or upper classes calling him crass and bastos and offensive, and (2) Willie turning things around and making it seem like he’s the one being abused here, that we are the ones pointing a finger because we are discriminating against him and his show, and those who watch it.

if you were watching local TV at all before all this, you’d know that this kind of reaction only fuels rhetoric that also always means more money in Willie’s pocket, and about as much for whatever network he works for. it’s rhetoric that has always worked to his advantage, and has just meant making that divide bigger between us who sit and tweet and write FB notes and statuses, and the masses who go and line up for Willie’s shows.

this is class divide at its most stark and painful. yet, only Willie will invoke it to be true, and in the process he’ll run all the way to the bank with it.

as would any company (network or otherwise) he’s worked for. and here it needs to be said that if we’d actually and truly like to pinpoint the culprit in this cultural degradation that has brought about this little boy dancing ala macho dancer on TV, that would be ABSCBN’s Wowowee and the kind of imagination it justified as entertainment. if we were to go to the root of this problem, it would be that contemporary television culture isn’t so much about money for the capitalists, as it actually is about an audience that is willing to die (and already have) for some TV time that’s equal to earning some money.

if we were going to the root of why Willie and his shows even exist, we would need to deal with the fact that there’s a need for it. there’s a need that’s being met by the one show that gives out money like it’s a can of Birch Tree circa Kuya Germs in GMA Supershow.

and no, to say that Willing Willie appeals to the lowest common denominator doesn’t help either. in fact it makes things worse, proving Willie’s accusation correct that we are all just (mis)judging him and his show on the level of class. speaking of these shows’ values (entertainment and otherwise) would also fail at seeing the conditions that allow for it to exist, with or without Willie there. it’s also to discriminate against this audience who are there because life is that hard, and because in truth these people see it as a way to some money, a way that they work hard for, falling in line as they do for hours or days, traveling as they might from across the country. it’s no joke to be part of a Willie show audience. even less of a joke when someone leaves the show with P10,000 pesos.

which is what Jan-Jan did. after he danced the first time, with tears in his eyes, Willie gave him P10,000 pesos. then Jan-Jan’s tears disappeared. then every time that song played he just began dancing, like a wind-up doll. then Willie makes like he discovered a talent in Jan-Jan and made him dance some more. surely to give the little boy even more money after.

and this is what we took offense at, yes? but which part of it exactly? the fact that this little boy was like a wind-up doll? the fact that he was dancing like a macho dancer? the fact that he was crying as he danced? the fact that he was given money?

these are important questions because as I watched that video, while I knew what was offensive about it, I also knew that this is standard fare for a Willie show. this is not to say it happens often that a little boy will do some macho dancing. but it does happen that a contestant will be brought to tears because they forgot their cheer, or weren’t sure what to say, or were just too darn overwhelmed to be in front of the audience and cameras. it happens that little girls — oh a great number of them! — dance sexily skimpily clad in clothes ala sexbomb girls. and you know that ispageti dance is no wholesome dance move right?

and so I do wonder why there hasn’t been public outcry about these instances. I do wonder what kind of double standard we are practicing here as we scream: child abuse! in light of Willing Willie, and every other show like it. I wonder how much of this is us reacting to things we don’t know. or is this all a matter of (our) taste?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrkO70vQQdY

this is Bugoy ~~Drilon~~ Carino (salamat yol jamendang sa correction) reality show contestant and guest who danced for Willie on Wowowee. we didn’t care that he danced hiphop did we? had he cried while doing so would we have cared?

the fact is we don’t quite know why Jan-Jan was crying. what is obvious though is that he wasn’t crying when he was called onstage, nor was he crying when Willie was interviewing him. the camera was on his aunt (who had brought him to the show) for a bit as she cried because she finally got to hug Willie. the camera was back on Jan-Jan to give a message to his aunt and father (who was there, too), and that’s when it seemed like he was close to tears. Willie tells him it’s ok, bakit ka naiiyak? he asks kindly, even giving the kid a hug. those tears would fall as Jan-Jan was dancing an obviously rehearsed performance.

after, he is given P10,000 pesos by Willie, Jan-Jan pockets the money excitedly and stays onstage to play the game. the music plays again, and he promptly dances on cue. he loses the game and is close to tears again. the game unfolds with the other contestant, and after a commercial break, Jan-Jan is back on stage again doing the same dance, this time with no tears.

it’s clear here why this is offensive, even clearer once you see the video, but what it reminds me is how late the hero we all are in taking offense only now. i do wonder if this is just because we’ve got Jan-Jan on video? or if this this is us acting on our hatred of Willie to begin with, being reminded of the fact that he is too crass, too bastos, for our TV viewing pleasures? maybe this is us barking up the wrong tree really, thinking Jan-Jan as a cause to rally around, Willie as the person to rally against, forgetting that in fact there is this:

the conditions of nation are such that parents of impoverished families will knowingly teach their own kids what they imagine is unique and different, at least enough to warrant extra cash from gameshows like Willie’s (and here Jan-Jan’s parents were successful weren’t they). the conditions are such that when this little kid danced, his father and aunt cheered him on; and when Willie poked fun at the whole act, the little boy had stopped crying because he already had 10k tucked in his pocket. the conditions are such that an absurd situation like this one can exist on local primetime TV. these conditions are exactly what must change, this bigger context is what we must be putting our energies into changing, really.

because these conditions are what allow for the crassness of Willie, the production’s lack of sense, TV5’s MVP raking it in the way a capitalist should. at the same time, to that little boy that is Jan-Jan, and to every other little girl that’s been on a game show gyrating in an outfit she shouldn’t be in to begin with, it’s about the money that’s possible to win in these spaces, it’s about the transaction that might unfold given their talent, the more unique and different the better.

it’s a transaction that we are not privy to, we cannot even imagine as relevant or necessary in our lives, not one we would think to join ever. yet it’s one that has fed mouths forgotten by government, has fueled movement from across the nation to Manila, unlike any trip we imagine taking. it’s a transaction that parents who are responsible for their children consciously and willfully enter. a transaction we might not agree with, but really, why do we even think we are the point?

we are farthest from the point. our anger towards Willie and Willing Willie will barely scratch the surface of possibility of both being cancelled out of local TV. in fact at this point it’s almost something they can shrug off, and something to use against us. because here we are shooting from the hip, angry and disgusted, in the process revealing our social class. we forget that Willie will know to see this for what it is: the class divide at work, one that we refuse to deal with, one we will deny, and ultimately one we will not put out P10,000 pesos for. even if we could.

when you’re told point blank by a foreigner, and with all honesty instead of malice, that they don’t know anything about Manila, that when he told his friends he wanted to go there they asked “Why?”, that in fact Manila is at the bottom of his list of cities to see, how do you even respond? it gets worse, too. you’re asked do you enjoy Manila? is it a safe city? the answer to the first question is easy of course.

sometimes my honesty does get the better of me. especially since i know they’d see i’m lying through my teeth otherwise.

Tatsu Nishi (Japan) covers up the iconic Merlion, making it into a hotel room.

the happy giddy context of wine in our bodies and the Merlion all covered up by a red box shall save the day: we talk about art in Manila given the art that’s here, Louie Cordero’s paean to the urban legend of videoke singing of My Way, Mark Salvatus’ interest in empty walls and capturing what’s untraceable in people. we talk about the absurdity of what they’ve seen in Manila: a Virgin Mary portrait that is actually made up of words of the Old Testament that you can only read through a magnifying glass (i want to know where that exactly is), the Socialist Bar in Manila where a naive foreigner could only walk into (no it’s not really socialist eh?).

we talk about their horror stories: of walking through the city itself of Manila, across the stretch of CCP and realizing that lamp posts slowly but surely ceased to be lit. of being told by their family and friends to keep safe by hiding their cellphones and ipods, by not wearing any jewelry at all. both of them were men who’ve gone to Manila on almost adventures. and despite the horrible hotel service at Clark Pampanga both (because now they know me, we say) are thinking of going back there and doing things differently, give it another chance.

and then faced with a man who knows nothing about the Philippines, he says. and who, in the middle of talking about Jollibee and Manny Pacquiao, Apl D Ap and carjacking (yes you fall back on all that), says excitedly: oh the au pairs! that is your contribution to the world. he then goes on to talk about his au pair who played favorites, of friends who had au pair trouble. and i could only but mention nurses and teachers, and thank the heavens for the New Yorker from Japan who had a grade three Filipino homeroom teacher, Ms. Caoili (god bless her), who was just wonderful she says.

but there is no escaping Manila and its stereotypes, especially because i could not for the life of me say they weren’t true. i couldn’t lie and say that walking through the streets of and around CCP was safe, given that still stark media memory of the bus hostage taking. i couldn’t say that if they looked at a map, they could go through the galleries and museums across Makati City, and they’d be fine: the lack of a map is contingent on the lack of order that would otherwise protect pedestrians, local and foreign after all. i couldn’t say just come — COME to Manila! it’s totally different from what you imagine.

Louie Cordero's "My We" at the Singapore Biennale 2011

because what if it’s exactly the same as, or worse than, what they imagine.

that they imagine the worst of Manila is just sad, but also it is not unexplainable. you only walk the streets of one of the safest cities like Singapore and you know that there must be something we can do about our own city. you think of Bangkok or Hanoi or Phnom Penh or New Delhi, and while it might be easy to imagine the dangers of these spaces as well, it still seems a lot safer.

or maybe its vibrant cultural images are just more concrete, more real. it seems that the dangers of a third world city (country) are balance out by a sense of its cultural vibrancy, its ability to speak of itself strongly and concretely to be about something, that something making it worthy of a visit, that something as its best cultural product and production, its best tourist attraction.

you want Manila (and the Philippines) to be a tourist destination? let’s begin by agreeing on how we’re selling it and what we’re going to say about its cultural productions. stop making it seem like the cheapest country in the world: because we know how cheap means two things.

and realize that really, being hospitable doesn’t cut it anymore. nor do our notion(s) of diversity and being free-for-all.