Category Archive for: kalalakihan

komentaryo

Throwback #Duterte (Part 2): Beyond bad words

Been going through my old columns, and realized I had worried about Duterte long before he won the elections in 2016. And that ultimately, we have gotten what we failed to address squarely all these years, and all throughout the Liberal Party presidency of PNoy. This is also what’s making HNP so powerful in the Senatorial fight for 2019. Re-posting because maybe there are lessons to be learned, maybe because I am still hopeful we can get out acts together on this last three weeks of the elections. Hope springs eternal. — KSS.

Beyond bad words, or deserving Duterte redux
December 4 2015

If I did not have concepts of human rights and violations, abuse and killings, in the back of my head, and I watched Rodrigo Duterte for the first time on November 30, I would think it refreshing how this man did his proclamation speech.

It was all extemporaneous – even seemed to lack an outline really – and was without any of the motherhood statements and clichés that we’ve heard from the slew of Presidential wanna–bes we’ve been faced with thus far.

The speech was real and honest. Speaking like no other candidate before him, speaking of everything from the womanizing to the killings, revealing how he would converse with people on a regular basis, and cussing and cursing ‘til kingdom come.

We keep complaining about spin, and how we don’t get a sense of who these candidates really are. And now faced with someone like Duterte, we don’t know what to do either. (more…)

komentaryo

Where were the teachers?

My question really is to the teachers of those kids, both bully and bullied: no one noticed the dynamic was different in relation to that bully? No one saw how the other kids would react to being grouped with him for projects, or being told they had to partner with him for anything? No one saw how the other kids would avoid the bully, or would get nervous, or would not look him in the eye? No one saw that kid and thought, hmmmm, he seems to be more yabang than the others, we wonder if that means anything? No teacher, across all the subjects, discussed with the other teachers if they noticed anything in relation to the kid who turned out to be bully?

Halfway through a semester in a college classroom, you tend to already see the dynamic of the collective, you see the students who dominate the activities and discussions, as you see those who decide not to engage, as you see those who try with all their might to participate no matter how scared or insecure they might be. We’re talking seeing kids, twice, three times a week. I cannot imagine teaching in high school, where you see these kids day-in, day-out, and not be able to see the dynamic of power that exists among the students you gather in the classroom. (more…)

komentaryo

#Duterte to address the nation: here’s what to expect

From two years of experience, i.e., actually living in this country, suffering in real time the daily bombardment of anti-people rhetoric, the large-scale violence that is happening on our streets and in the countryside, the heavy burden of inflation and price hikes, the general exhaustion of having to deal with an incompetent unkind leadership, one already has a sense of how Rodrigo Duterte and his people operate. It is in fact a by-the-textbook populist strategy, one that they’ve been using since the campaign, one that they have continued to use with much success — he’s still President after all — the past two years. We’ve thought this government out-of-control, we’ve thought the communications team stupid and idiotic, we’ve called the President bastos and misogynist — but all of that is part of the plan, it is all chaos-by-design.

The announcement that the President will be speaking to the nation today, September 11, is no different. And because we’ve been here all this time, and we’ve heard Duterte doing his slurred, confused speeches too many times the past two years, we can already imagine what it is he’s going to say. Because unsurprisingly, he is redundant, and repetitive, and goes around in circles like a crazy person. And the only way we can continue to be productive and not get caught up in the shock of hearing him saying something offensive (because he will) and oppressive (because he will), is to already prepare ourselves for the worst. And with Duterte, everything IS already at its worst.  (more…)

komentaryo

The revelation of Robin Padilla

It’s easy to dismiss the Duterte decision to revoke the amnesty that Senator Antonio Trillanes was given (along with 299 others) by President Noynoy Aquino in 2010, as just another way for the government to silence a critic. After all, this is consistent with what Duterte has done the past two years: from Senator Leila de Lima to former CJ Lourdes Sereno, from Teddy Casiño, Liza Maza, Ka Paeng Mariano, and Ka Satur Ocampo to Sr. Patricia Fox. This is the way Duterte has moved against his perceived “enemies,” who are so quickly transformed as he and his followers see fit, into “enemies of the state” for being critical of his policies, for questioning the wars he wages, for pushing back against his anti-people policies.

It has been a successful strategy for them so far. A government that operates on shock is able to keep the populace frazzled and distracted and always preoccupied. The smaller shocks are those soundbites (drop a rape joke here) and the moves that flout the law (order the police to kill or illegally detain citizens here) or dismiss questions about government’s accountability (insert economic managers defending TRAIN here). When those are not enough, have your team create a show of idiocy (insert Mocha here), which can easily be dismissed as government enemies just nitpicking on Duterte and his people (insert anti-elite and anti-Dilawan statements here). 

The bigger shocks are of course the systemic ones: a tax reform law that is taxing the poor and middle class to oblivion, a questionable infrastructure program in the billions that buries us deeper into debt while making traffic even more unbearable than it already is, the highest inflation rate in nine years, two wars that have killed thousands and pulverized a city, the militarization of farmers’ and indigenous people’s lands for big business, a food crisis, a lack of transparency and accountability, an economic crisis. (more…)

komentaryo

Portrait of Spocky Farolan as UP Regent (Part 2)

Does this man deserve two blog entries?

Yes, for two reasons. One, he has not stopped. After he went ballistic on that first thread, he actually posted another status, this time saying that he might now be open to the proposal to make the State University a post-grad university, so that he doesn’t have to deal with UPCAT examinees anymore. He hashtagged this thoughtless assertion “Not really a proponent of this but I’m pissed so screw you” and “galit sa mga punyetang ingrato” and “I have been anger free for a while ngayon pumutok so putangina niyo.”

Two, while he *tries* to admit that he lost his temper when he shouldn’t have, he also spends as much time defending his original violent, angry, and absolutely uncalled for responses to the public on his Facebook page, saying that in fact, if you look at his thread, whenever there’s a proper comment, he actually responds properly as well.

That is not only the weakest excuse, it’s also a lie.  (more…)