Category Archive for: kapitalista

radikalchick.lit

no money, no Muji

or meeting my middle class self at the Muji Manila opening

There was much talk about a Muji Store opening in the Philippines, and it would only be a couple of days before opening day that it would be announced as a truth: it was here, the brandless brand from Japan, the one that will bring us the best of Japan’s home and office supplies. And I kid you not, I loved it. And yes it was more expensive, but that’s to be expected, and on this opening night it didn’t really seem like the rich of this country cared.

The middle class forewarned

My friend A warned me, that’s going to be filled with the rich, Ina, and of course I was prepared – or so I thought. Now the thing with events like openings and such, for arts and otherwise, is that I’m reminded of how middle class I am, and yes I am proof positive that the middle class exists. And I enumerate:

1. I have a car (broken as it was) to drive to Bonifacio High Street with (which is inaccessible via public transport unless it’s an expensive cab ride).

2. I knew of Muji before it arrived here, have been to Japan once in my life, when there was money to spare, when Papa said that I needed to see Japan, because he worked there when I was a little girl, it would be good for me to experience it.

3. I followed what the invite said: wear a touch of white. And yes that means I had options in my closet.

I mean I understand the argument that the middle class doesn’t exist, but really, let me be myself and insist that I am, just because I live it every day, much like the effect of skin whitening sold by women to women must be seen as mine to talk about (and you can’t convince me otherwise, kahit tunay na lalake ka pa). I was forewarned with the notion of the rich as well because my friend knows of my middle class self, and how I will see it and feel it, my difference from this rich. She had put me in my place without knowing it.

Exclusivity and yayas

So I enter and realize there’s a guest list, and remember that I invited my friend B to come follow me to the opening, there’d be free food and nerdy shopping for school and office supplies. I refuse to worry about it, wanting to get to the merchandise and see how cheap they were and what pens I could buy for Mama who had said she wanted Muji pens, without really knowing what they’re like.

But the store was being prepped for what was “the opening of doors” and we were all crammed and cramped outside the store with endless wine and champagne and vodka sprite and Japanese inspired finger food. I thought I was in heaven, social class notwithstanding. It’s so middle class of me. And I enumerate:

4. I sold this event to my friend in relation to free food. In relation to nerdy supplies, yes, but to the free food too (haha!) and it sure was good fancy Japanese food.

5. I thought the merchandise would be cheap, i.e., Japan cheap, where 1 yen stores exist, spaces that I thought were different versions of heaven. I also thought there would be some free stuff for the press/media, but then again, sometimes good food and drinks are enough. See number 4 above.

6. When I say social class notwithstanding, I don’t just mean me vis a vis the rich and the celebrity. I mean me and the number of yayas in uniform, feeding their alagas, who had obviously been brought by their parents for a Friday night out with family. And yes, some of those alagas were Japanese – how’s that for assimilating into our culture via household help. *hay*

No money, no Muji

And then the doors opened, and we all went up to the second floor of the GAP Store where Muji Store Manila now stands, and it was this peculiar kind of heaven that I love because it is monochromatic. I’m such a Capricorn, really, for being inspired by just blacks and whites, and wood and glass and navy blues. And I was in love with this store, thinking of pens for Christmas gifts, thinking of how cheap it would be when it went on sale, thinking of it as a cheaper (and better!) alternative to Banana Republic because it has nice cotton tops and dresses, with embroidery and ruffle details, and very simple beautiful merchandise. Thinking of bringing Mama the next time we have cash to spare for nice clothes.

But many things became clear to me after I filled a basket with supplies, and at some point I found I could let my basket go. Why let go of Muji products on Muji night? Because there was no discount for opening night, and it didn’t make sense to fall in that long line just to get the products ahead of everybody else, as my friend B agreed. At that point this opening night barely made sense to me, as everything else in that space began making sense. I enumerate my middle class thoughts:

7. This wasn’t for me, obviously, who had no money, therefore no Muji. I could’ve used my credit card, but that would mean this was an urgent and necessary expense. The latter is true for pens and their function in my life, but I wouldn’t be able to defend the former if my life depended on it.

8. This was for the rich who were there, the ones who could spend without thinking, the ones who knew of Muji elsewhere and thought it the best thing that it was now in the Philippines, and were ready to spend. They were in line and leaving the store with bags and boxes to prove it, too.

9. Muji was for me too, who looked at that merchandise and remembered too much of a visit to Japan three years ago, long enough to have forgotten, but easy enough to rewind and rewrite with proper erasures and revisions.

10. I become friends with the Kuya/Manong waiters in events like this so at some point they’ll bring me the dessert(s) that I want, or just keep giving me alcohol. I’ve never wondered why, I always thought it was because I’ve got my Papa’s rockstar blood in my veins: he who will talk to everyone, walang masamang tinapay. At this Muji Store opening, it was suddenly clear: no one ever made the waiters chika. No one.

There was a joy to Muji still, my lack of money notwithstanding. There was something special about looking at that merchandise and seeing so much of what I used to have, things I had given away, let go of, released to the world. There was a feeling of freedom here, the kind that allowed me to see these things and thank heavens that I could be there and have no memory at all of when it was it was that I first encountered Muji.

Instead I saw these: teeny tiny staplers and cutters, small sticks of glue and tape and scissors, the kinds that can fit in any kikay kit for fashion emergencies. I saw these for that supply kit that should always be in every person’s car. I saw the containers and thought of all the things I might need or have lost a container for: pills and tablets of all shapes and sizes, lipsticks and eye glasses, creams and soap and cologne. Many of these things are obviously for travel, but too, they are for the working girl Pinay, the ones who commute every day or live out of their cars like me.

And the pens – oh my heart! – I had filled my basket with every kind, choosing the colors very carefully just because I couldn’t afford all of it. This basket I had let go of, knowing I would just come back when it was time. Which is to say when there’s money, and middle class as I am that might not happen any time soon.  Oh heart, poor heart.

komentaryo

a resigned Ressa, a resigned us

why ABS-CBN? why would any network, in fact, let Maria Ressa go? it barely makes sense, if we know of her and her news and current affairs management and the ways she’s changed the news as we see it. and no, I don’t buy that whole refusal-to-renew-the-contract story, because really you can beg/ plead/ grovel to keep someone on your side,  especially when they’ve done so well, have outdone too many, in fact.

and this Maria has done for ABSCBN, allowing for ANC on Channel 27 to be the one and only reason we are still on Lopez-owned HomeCable even when they continue to provide horrible service especially since they forced subscribers to shift to the digiboxes. her management has single-handedly raised the bar for current affairs shows allowing for something as creative as Storyline to be on air, and bringing back the talk show that ain’t showbiz. of course all these have been on ANC, a cable news channel, but  at least for those of us who can afford cable, there’s a better alternative to news that happens so late in the evening because of the stretch of soap operas (beginning at 7PM and ending at 11:30PM).

and if you don’t agree with any of these, or just don’t have ANC (good for you for refusing the cultural empire of the Lopezes), then at least under Maria’s leadership, local channels have again started to do live broadcasts of senate hearings and such, because ANC was doing it.

this is not to agree with Maria’s management decisions all the time, nor is it to absolve ABSCBN (or any other network for that matter) from responsibility in the Manila hostage tragedy. in fact, I didn’t like that her Wall Street Journal article appeared so soon after the tragedy, adding salt to the wound, if not cutting deeper into it.

BUT I appreciate Maria’s chutzpah, her daring, even when faced with the probability of a collective disgust, or just a critical reader. I remember on Twitter soon after the hostage tragedy, her timeline was riddled with angry followers asking her in so many words what was she thinking!?! I thought Maria handled it with much grace and control, responding when she needed to, when it was a new question that she had yet to answer, and ignoring the redundant and the rhetorically angry.

this also isn’t to say that this was all good, or that we agreed all the time with the way the news was delivered/chosen/spun by ABS-CBN under Maria’s watch. this is to say that in truth there were such real and palpable and concrete changes in news and current affairs, and in which case, there were also better conversations about politics, and more creative documentaries about this country.

of course there’s still i-witness on GMA 7 which is still the best local docu-show I continue to see, and there still is Cheche Lazaro Presents on ABSCBN, whose Vizconde Massacre feature last night was just wonderfully done. but really, where else would Storyline see the light of day, or Strictly Politics, or Media in Focus? this doesn’t mean that we don’t complain about these shows, or that they are always without fault, or are always intelligently done. but this is to say that these are wonderful testaments to what can still happen for local news and current affairs, that we need not be stuck on CNN and BBC for better versions of the local.

in fact, under Maria’s watch, I remembered how I grew up with Randy David and Louie Beltran having their regular political and public affairs shows. yes, this was the time of public affairs versus current affairs, the time when relevance was still most important, versus just being news worthy. but that would be stuff for another blog entry.

here and now the question remains: but why? why let Maria Ressa go, what’s the real score here? though maybe we should be happy enough with, uh, tsismis being infinitely more interesting, even when – or maybe precisely because – it’s in relation to news and current affairs.

and as far as ABSCBN’s concerned?  I don’t think they fool anyone anymore given that the network’s the flagship of a Lopez empire. If anything, it has also become obvious that while they demand that politicians and government be transparent, they can only be farthest from being so themselves. now, in light of their maltreatment of workers finally becoming newsworthy, well, it’s easy to see how Maria’s notions of fairness and justice might not have worked in her favor after all.

so maybe she didn’t resign as damage control would like to point out, but this does feel like resignation, in the i-concede-my-hands-are-up kind of way. and Maria may deny it, but the rest of us can’t: the times when someone like her decides that it’s time to let go, it’s those times that we are forced to concede to the way things are or will inevitably become.

and for some reason, i have a sinking feeling that Maria’s leaving will mean having Kris Aquino back on TV, in what i imagine will be that past-publicized current affairs show. sana ‘wag na lang.

kultura

suddenly survivor

First a confession: the only Survivor Philippines season I watched religiously was the first one, where JC Tiuseco won, where I was rooting for Nanay Zita and Kiko Rustia (he who kept a diary throughout his time on the island, aaaaw). Another confession: I stopped watching Survivor Philippines because I treat TV shows as one of those things you put in a box to return to your ex. Since I can’t actually do that, I’ve just learned to periodically let go of many shows on my TV list.

But I’m suddenly back on Survivor Philippines, a surprise even to me. And I think it’s because the show has changed, enough to make me forget about the things I equate it with, enough to make me think that it’s a different show altogether. Something that might be easily explained away by the fact that it’s the Celebrity Showdown. But things are never as simple as that.

No stereotypes here

One thing that’s most interesting about this edition of Survivor is that while it does have a set of celebrities, there is no major superstar, no box office king or queen that would’ve surely made ratings soar. Instead, many of the castaways are familiar in this I’ve-seen-her-somewhere-I-just-don’t-know-where kind of way, making the near stranger a real person to us, even when we barely know them from Adam or Eve.

Even more interesting? The fact that there aren’t any clear-cut and solid stereotypes here, i.e., the celebrity castaways weren’t introduced with labels that would tie them down and box them up for viewers. This is what the Pinoy reality show usually does for its contestants from the get-go, which also explains why there’s always a girl and boy next door, a mahinhin virgin, a mayabang hunk, a single parent, a working student, a loyal daughter or son, a geek, someone who’s poor and someone who’s rich, on local TV half the time. These stereotypical labels create characters that are presumed to be more interesting than just regular normal people.

And it is regular normal people that this season of Survivor is able to sell us. Instead of giving each celebrity castaway a producer-imposed stereotype, the castaways themselves talked about the roles they thought they’d play in the game, and were given labels based on these. These defining labels are farthest from the limitations of stereotypes, because definitions can change, are not cut-and-dried, not at all limiting. Instead it allows for a set of possibilities and impossibilities, the latter being the things that will necessarily be tested in the face of group dynamics and isolation on an island elsewhere. Instead it gives us a set of people who speak for themselves, versus characters that are limited by stereotypes, the ones that will surely capture our hearts.

the rest is here! :)

kultura

the revolution cannot be staged

I had high hopes for Banaag at Sikat, The Rock Opera, a promise of good music and singing, a contemporary retelling of Lope K. Santos’ original novel on the winds of change that would bring the country to revolt against the overwhelming conditions that capitalism and feudalism wrought on the nation. But as it began with fake guitar playing between friends Delfin (Al Gatmaitan) and Felipe (Roeder Camañag), attached to what then becomes a fake amplifier, and with dancing from a chorus many of whom seemed uncomfortable doing the robot and dancing hiphop, I had to wonder if this musicale meant to be funny.

Love and revolution, not necessarily together
Because it didn’t stop, not the fake guitar-playing, not the requisite head bang. The beautiful love song between Delfin and Meni (Ayen Munji-Laurel) could only lose its tenderness with Delfin fake-playing the song. In this First Act, the beginnings of love are introduced to us at the same time as the characters, all of whom are perfect stereotypes that exist in an oppressive feudal society. Cigar factory El Progreso is owned by Meni’s father Don Ramon Miranda and Don Filemon, both unforgiving and unapologetic capitalists, who refuse to raise the wages of their workers who are ready to revolt. Nyora Loleng is wife of Don Filemon but is mistress to Don Miranda, a seeming pawn to macho control more than a powerful woman.

the rest is up at gmanews.tv!

komentaryo

month three of P-Noy: notes of a pinay*

and so it must be said, that September might have been the best month ever for P-Noy, at least compared to those first two months where things just weren’t going his way, or his way just seemed to be going wrong.

the past month, P-Noy conveniently left the country for a visit to the US at around the same time that the Incident Investigating and Review Committee (IIRC) submitted its report on the August 23 hostage tragedy to Malacanang. in the midst of questions on the report — on the fact that it was sent to China before it was revealed to us, on the fact that what we finally saw lacked the section on the IIRC’s recommendations — P-Noy left, with a 57-person delegation to go to the US and address a United Nations delegation.

and as they celebrated the 25 MILLION PESOS to be spent on that trip, it became clear that we were really just hungover from GMA and the kind of spending she did, that we are out to just draw these comparisons, forgetting that 25 MILLION PESOS is a fluggin’ huge amount for any trip. this amount, given the number of travel companions of P-Noy (which apparently includes his barber, baka nga naman humaba ang hair niya, baket ba), could be bigger than that of the Queen of England‘s (oh but maybe sister Kris would be proud?).

but let’s forget about that amount, why don’t we? after all, what should matter is that he has done well, he has done us proud. he delivered a speech at the UN General Assembly, where he promised justice and the fulfillment of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, where he enjoined the world to come up with its own people power (naks) towards balancing inequality and finding unity (naks ulit).

never mind that injustices continue in the country, ones that for some reason P-Noy doesn’t want to handle differently from his predecessor: there are the extrajudicial killings and the forced disappearances of activists, there remain political prisoners including the Morong 43.  maybe P-Noy needs to be reminded that the UN itself had sent Special Rapporteur Philip Alston to the country in 2007, and he promptly “convincingly attributed” these injustices to the armed forces. now i imagine that the P-Noy government thinks (1) that those armed forces aren’t his, which therefore absolves him of responsibility, and (2) that he has delegated this to CHR Head Etta Rosales who will promptly act on this.

if the former is true, then P-Noy has every reason to Free All Political Prisoners, yes? if the latter is true, then P-Noy has every reason to Free All Political Prisoners, yes.

but there’s more to that US trip than just that UN speech. P-Noy also brought home the bacon, the ham, some eggs to boot, all of which are extensions of or improvements on previous agreements with transnational American companies, none of which mean being freed from our foreign debt, something that was offered to Cory during her time, something that i wish P-Noy would ask for now, because i have to believe that it’s possible to repeal all debt.

more than anything else, versus how this US trip might have “saved” the Philippines in whatever way (including meeting Obama, naks, one more time!), the fact is that it was P-Noy who was saved by this trip from what was going on in Manila while he was away.

there was the question of jueteng, the ensuing debate, the truth that what’s needed is a creative alternative to it, versus its abolition which is downright impossible. make the government alternatives better than the illegal jueteng, and it will kill the latter. send me an email if you want a copy of this proposal, which really is premised on good ol’ common sense and a whole lot of living in a province where jueteng lords it over.

there was the attempted demolition of a squatter community in North Edsa QC, in favor of the Ayalas who are going to build (another!) mall on what was government property. now i don’t know about P-Noy, but conversations must be had with people from squatters’ communities because only then will he find that (1) they are squatters in Manila because they are victims of land grabbing and its contingent devaluation of rural livelihood in the provinces to big landowners (like the Cojuangcos) and developers (like the Ayalas); and (2) some of these individuals and households put out money to have the right to this space: there’s always money exchanged between squatters/vendors and local government officials and police. this is all under the table of course, and more than anything explains why Pinoys who live in squatters areas think they have a right to the space. the province-to-city migration meanwhile tells us what the government needs to develop for the squatter problem to be solved. (and pray tell, anti-squatter people, how it is productive that you are nothing but anti-squatter people who are ready to pounce on these people?)

ah, all these P-Noy left behind for his OICs to handle or mishandle. when he finally came home, he did so with a bang by saying that he was now for a birth control and family planning policy, which does tie in — though not completely — with the Reproductive Health Bill.

i can only cross all my fingers and toes that P-Noy doesn’t back down in the face of this Pinoy Church. that he doesn’t back down in the face of the devout Catholics in his life, which include his sisters.

that he doesn’t fear excommunication, reprimand, the loss of the Pinoy Church’s support. because in fact it’s about time that we see the separation of Church and State in this country. because only then will women cease to be sacrificial lambs to notion(s) of morality and correctness, the ones that maims and kills them every day.

come on P-Noy, you can do it!

*because the Aquino sisters are already counting down the months to their brother’s and family’s freedom from us all, seeing us as the burden in their lives as if their brother didn’t choose to run for office and didn’t want to win.