Category Archive for: kalalakihan

komentaryo

Andy-Tish, smoke-mirrors: who gains from this teleserye?

It escalated quickly and shows no signs of stopping, but the past three days of the Andres and Patricia Bautista show, with a cast of characters of lawyers and banks and bank owners, and don’t forget social / media that can’t quite keep its hands off the oh-so-juicy details slowly being revealed, is just too exciting to let go of.

Or ask questions about.

After all, there is nothing like the unraveling of the elite, this one with millions in their bank accounts, not to mention wads of cash on hand. Tish is almost the archetypal kolehiyala, no strand of hair out of place, speaking eloquently about what she had discovered, issuing warnings to an ex-husband about how much more dirty laundry she’s got on him, while also playing the victimized wife, who knows not what her husband’s been doing. And then there is Andy, the portrait of the government official as husband, powerful and well-connected, articulate and self-assured. He who pushed Smartmatic despite all protests, who was charged for being biased, and whose leadership of the COMELEC was questioned by his own commissioners.

The possibilities for this story’s unraveling are multifarious, but of course while we’re all waiting with bated breath for the next juicy tidbit, one realizes that the question we do not ask is who stands to gain from this scandal at this point in time? (more…)

komentaryo

Emily Alvarez: The case for dissolution of marriage

I have absolutely no reason to like House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez — in fact he has fashioned himself as one of the worst Presidential allies, who spreads about as much false information as government’s social media army, and lays it on even thicker by being an unapologetic misogynist boor.

Now, I do not doubt that he has pushed for Congress to work on the dissolution of marriage bill so that he can get out of his own marriage, and continue living with the woman / women he so chooses — he has after all admitted to having fathered eight children with three different women. But that’s just it: without meaning to, and no matter what he says, Alvarez has revealed how he is in fact the best example of why women need a kinder, more compassionate, way to end marriages that have long been dead. (more…)

komentaryo

Welcome to hell

If there’s anything we’ve lost the past year, it’s a sense of propriety and order, of just common sense about what the role is of government and our officials when it comes to speaking to the populace. Sure Daang Matuwid had its own share of communications foibles, and yes they were elitist through and through.

And yet the same might be said of the Duterte government, especially his men, who speak with utter carelessness, and then demand us all to see that they were merely being “taken out of context.” See here likes the problem with these times: we have allowed government officials to get away with insisting that everything’s a matter of opinion, never mind right and wrong.

Case in point: Budget Secretary Ben Diokno has promised “hell” given the government’s infrastructure program. (more…)

komentaryo

A year of candidate Duterte

In January this year, Budget Secretary Ben Diokno, faced with queries about the contradiction between what was promised by Rodrigo Duterte during the campaign and what he has ended up doing as President, thoughtlessly made this distinction: “Iba ‘yung candidate Duterte sa President Duterte. <…> May napapangako ka na kapag nakita mo ‘yung datos, hindi pala pwede.”

It was a most convenient excuse for the unfulfilled promises of the President – in this instance about the SSS pension increase that he had yet to sign at that point.

It also inadvertently highlighted the way in which this government has operated the past year: one the one hand as if they are merely speaking to their supporters, on the other as if they are still wanting to win an election. Either way this makes for the past year’s tragedy: a government taking discourse down to the level of campaign rhetoric, where it is always about black and white, pro- or anti-, friends and enemies. (more…)

komentaryo

Andanar sa PCO: Isang kasaysayan ng kapalpakan (1)

Walang paglagyan ang disgusto at galit sa ipinalabas na video ng Presidential Communications Office (PCO) nitong May 31.

And then you realize that this is also absolutely no surprise. Under Martin Andanar, I went from being hopeful about the PCO (not once, but twice!), to utterly and absolutely dismayed and disgusted by the lack of vision, intelligence, smarts, and all-around common sense.

Early into this government, say August 2016, the policy seemed to be radio silence. I thought it was just Andanar trying to figure out what to do, two months in. At the same time, he needed to rise to the occasion of someone like President Duterte, who hit the ground running. Or whose mouth was — is — faster than his brain.  (more…)