Category Archive for: kawomenan

komentaryo

the fight for the RH Bill: the failure of those who party

you know I am all for the Reproductive Health Bill, ready to fight for its passing into law, no matter how gruesome that end looks: from being called names to losing the respect of relatives/friends/students who are more conservative than me, who believe in this Church more than I ever will.

to me, the fight for the RH Bill is the most logical one for any Filipino woman. it’s the most matter-of-fact law that’s painfully long in coming that we should want for ourselves, regardless of our religious inclinations. (and maybe after we can talk about divorce.)

to me, the fight for the RH Bill has always been about fighting for it to the last syllable I can speak and last letter I can type out, calling a spade a spade, the Pinoy Church what it actually is. to me, it needs to be said that the Pinoy Church is different from the bigger Catholic Church, just because it is here in third world Philippines that it has been allowed to be devil: governments have acceded to this Pinoy Church’s wishes to the detriment of its citizens.

here in the land where our notion(s) of being woman are created, the Church is certain and consistent; NOT like the Pope who has come to admit certain realities to be true.

but as much as I will critique the Pinoy Church’s ways of dealing with the RH Bill’s passing, I will know to see when the fight for the RH Bill’s passing is failing, if not just wrong, plain wrong. and so it must be said that this whole discourse of ex-communication is the worst thing to have come out of this fight for the RH Bill. the worst.

I admire Carlos Celdran, who has more balls than many of us combined, and who will also call that spade, a spade, AND a hoe for good measure because he can. but really? after his Damaso performance at the Manila Cathedral, we SHOULD NOT have: 1. ridden on the Damaso bandwagon, because in fact it is old and untrue at this point, and 2. latched on to the question of ex-communication, and thinking it a valid guidepost to this fight for the RH Bill. I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again: when Carlos did his Damaso performance, it was powerful and sparked debate about the RH Bill.

when the Pinoy Church mentioned the possibility of ex-communication, it was laughable at most. what does it say about the RH Bill advocates now that they’ve used ex-communication as part of their campaign tagline, even wanting to party in its name? yes, they are going to party. they’re selling tickets for it, too.

I always thought that the end of debates about reproductive health has to be discussions not so much on choice, but on conception and when it happens. at what point is something preventing pregnancy? at what point is something an abortifacient? I always thought that this process of fighting for the RH Bill wasn’t so much about debating with the Pinoy Church but about discussing reproductive health so intelligently and truthfully that at the very least it would mean more women having a better sense of their choices, and learning that they have this right to their bodies. I always thought the RH Bill was about our rights as women to health services that are exactly for us, and this the debates on birth control and family planning needed to point out.

I always thought the point here was to convince more and more women of whatever religion to see that the RH Bill is her right, and that it will not be a judgment on her that she chooses to exercise this right. I thought that in the process of discussing the RH Bill, with as much intelligence and compassion as we can, that we would also be able to address the crisis that befalls the Pinoy Catholic, in the face of her faith vis a vis her notion of her rights.

because every woman has a personal stake in the RH Bill. and it requires an amount of truthfulness and honesty to face it and come clean on our own misconceptions and missteps given the lack of it in our lives, given the lack of respect for our rights as women. I thought this would be the point: to talk about our own individual feelings, memories, notions of our bodies vis a vis our religiosity and conservatism, and see that every bit of us is there, is here, in this debate about our right to our reproductive health. mine is here, my personal stake, is here.

I always thought the point of the RH Bill was to teach women to speak up about their needs as women, as women who live and use their bodies every day. I thought it would mean a lot of truthfulness about our bodies and the religion(s) and belief(s) we hold dear, and how this means a crisis on the level of the female individual. I always thought that intelligent discussions with regards the RH Bill would mean truly talking about our lives as women in third world Philippines living with the Pinoy Church, in the hope of letting other women see that it’s possible to live the contradictions, because this is our right to life, to our bodies, to our choices.

I thought that the point was to NOT stoop down to the level of the Pinoy Church, at the very least, not be faced with them Katoliko-sarados and not know what to say — NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY!– in the face of being called names.

sadly, the fight for the RH Bill has been sidetracked — perfectly, mind you — by the Church. the fight for the RH Bill has become about ladies who want to party and celebrate ex-communication, come on do it to us! they scream, as if this is the point at all. they fail to see that they latched on to something that’s beside the point, something that the Pinoy Church has articulated, something that was a funny threat at most, an irrelevant one in truth.

because if you didn’t care for the Pinoy Church, if you aren’t a practicing Catholic, and therefore you don’t mind being ex-communicated, shouldn’t that give you more teeth to sink into this topic? if you don’t mind being ex-communicated, then the goal must be to speak out about the things that the Pinoy Church would surely ex-communicate you for: at least speaking out would mean getting more people on your side, deadma na sa ex-communication, wala ka namang paki do’n.

but this whole ex-communication party? goodness. it is a failure on all counts, if not a display of the stark class divide that exists for the women in this country. it will also surely get more Catholics back on the Church’s side, no matter how critical they’ve been of it, no matter that they believe in the RH Bill.

this party is the perfect example of a failure in the fight for the RH Bill. it fails every woman who needs the RH Bill so she may be protected, it fails the poor woman for whom the RH Bill was created — she who DOESN’T WANT to be excommunicated and might not even know the word.

i wish this was a case of the blind leading the blind, but stuartsantiago seems to be right: it’s a lack of critical thinking. what a waste of time and money, energy and media mileage. and in light of the countless women who die every day because there’s no RH Bill, this party is as pointless as the Pinoy Church’s refusal to enter the 21th century.

it can also only be as tragic.

radikalchick.lit

my body, my life: my stake in the RH Bill

here, for good measure, is mine. when I speak of the RH Bill, these are some of the more consistent memories that I battle with, that I live:

(1) an act of infidelity brings me to a room in the middle of nowhere, as the other woman needed a friend while she got herself an abortion: i was her only friend. (2) I skip a pill, and think nothing of it; let me overdose and do the-day-after-thing I’ve read about online. I do not know of its probability of failing. (3) I am pregnant with a sick child and told that the dangers are unknown, it is unclear if it is safe for me, but I have no options. (4) I am pregnant and in pain and in suffering and in even more pain, I am told by doctors that they want to do a caesarean operation on me, forgetting to say that it will mean even more pain for my body, less chances of survival for my baby. (5) I am speaking to doctors who talk about my body and my baby as if we were machines that they can fix, as we were just broken and in the name of their science can be fixed, by golly! we can be fixed. (6) I am in the delivery room and I don’t feel a thing, but I am trying to get the baby out with all my heart and soul, that which every woman on that delivery table must have done before me, and I am thinking of this: please do not let medicine touch my baby, do not let one needle, one piece of cold metal, to touch her. (7) I am alive, it’s been two years, my body’s still battered by the painful pregnancy, by the even more painful uncaring words, said about me and my body and my being woman seeing as abandonment can only be contingent to the death of a child.

when I speak of the RH Bill I remember all these, not necessarily in this order, but always in quick succession, each one a death in itself, each memory I imagine possibly less about pain and loss, if only there were mechanisms in place to protect me — and every other woman — as a woman; if only there was a system in place that would treat my body as worthy of much love and care and respect, because it is mine, and I deserve it.

kultura

the saddest of dreams in Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria

on the surface, there isn’t much to deal with in the movie Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria written and directed by Remton Siega Zuasola (Panumduman Pictures). it is the story of Terya and her family’s struggle with her impending departure for Germany to marry an old man found through a mail-order bride service in her province of Cebu. the struggle begins and ends in Olango Island where she and her family live, one of those islands that’s removed from the cities that are familiar to us from Manila, a space that reminded me of Cuyo Palawan in the indie Ploning.  we see this stretch of space, with idle land and waters as two things: on the one hand the place of a rut, the rut that Terya’s mother speaks of; on the other, the space of possibility — surrounded by waters there is reason to leave, go with the tide, let it bring you elsewhere.

but Terya didn’t want to leave. the story begins with Terya missing, pretend-drowning in water, or maybe really wanting to drown herself, and her mother screaming at her father for having lost her. the father meanwhile is a funny guy, cracking jokes but also making fun of his wife, in the midst of the crisis that was in front of them, the one that involves the daughter who just refused to eat, refused to speak, refused refused refused.

save for showing tenderness and love for the younger sister, the one who didn’t know what was going on for most of the movie, but turned out to be crucial. save for showing compassion and friendship for the crazy man of the town, the one who was the literal crazy in the midst of the Baliw-Baliw Festival that the town was celebrating with, what else, but a bunch of crazy boys making like they’re pregnant women.

in the midst of this, Terya and her family kept on walking walking walking. the beauty of this movie lies in the fact that we don’t even realize how far they’ve walked, or how long. the point being this: Terya had walked from saying no to leaving, to saying yes. she had walked from the space that was familiar, to one that was unfamiliar and scary. she had walked from what was hers, to what she did not know.

in the course of this walk Terya meets up with the boy she loved and who loved her back. she thought of going off to elope, and then backs out: the town wants to talk to her, wants to say goodbye. she’s leaving, she’s one of them, and she’s leaving to become somebody else. her parents look for her and find her, but do not know her. the recruiter thinks she’s like every other girl who’s ready to leave, ready to become rich and send her family money. she doesn’t realize Terya can walk with no slippers, and can walk in her mother’s slippers, as her mother walks barefoot, hot concrete notwithstanding.

this heat was something that the visitor would complain about. but Terya and her family took it as default. on screen, the heat translates to an unbelievable brightness, as if we are being made to see this stark reality of making our young women’s bodies an export product, as if we are being made to see this spotlight on what is a sad sad dream of leaving. as if we are being challenged with its absurdity, if not its insanity.

because there is a dreamlike quality to this the story of Terya. the camera moves with the walking, moves with the people whose roles are important and relevant to Terya’s leaving, with the community small and impoverished and “crazy” as it was as they walked through it. the camera is always in the people’s faces, or highlights a group dynamic. the discomforts within the family, the refusal to deal with the recruiter, the need for Terya to stand with an old friend from school and reckon with both past and future in the face of her present, all telling of the kind of life she was to live, she was to leave.

when Terya finally gets on that boat that was to bring her to the city then to Germany, she is sent off by family, by a friend who’s just passing through, by a cousin who’s done it before and wants her to know it will be hard. and the town’s crazy sends her off, scaring the recruiter who stands for everything that’s horrid about the business of sending our people elsewhere. Terya is made to look at her small provincial town as the boat floats away, as they are all forced to see her leave.

and when the little sister looks to her ate with only the innocent sadness that the young can have, what could only become sadder is the mother telling her to grow up quickly so she can leave, too. and then you know that the mother’s dream, the family’s dream, that which Terya decided to fulfill as her dream, is the whole town’s dream.

it’s the saddest of dreams that we’ve come to think right and just, even when what it actually is, is tragic. and in Ang Damgo ni Eleuteria we are reminded of all this, without being all about poverty and oppression, because it actually also is ultimately about dreams. that one that’s about leaving to live and sacrificing self to survive. this movie reminds us that this is a dream we cannot begrudge the dreamer, a dream we cannot judge. and there is also our tragic existence as the ones who watch it happen.

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!

kultura

the art of lightness by Arlene Sy

The display window of Heima Store in LRI Design Plaza is all about Arlene Sy’s first exhibit of hand-drawn illustrations. Entitled Inflated Dreams, this collection couldn’t be ignored despite its small size of five pieces. It might have been the delicate colours and lines of the works, or maybe it was the fact that it played around with the image of balloons, and women. Maybe it’s all of the above.

Light Headed

Inflated wear

Two works seem cliché in their use of balloons as clothing, but what makes them unique is Sy’s ability to interweave such an obviously avant-garde idea with women’s faces that speak of so much more. In “Airier Than Thou” balloons in pink hues are worn around the body, a seeming random creation of a dress that’s bulky as it is formless. Here, the woman seems to be in action, hands on her waist, looking away from the camera and in the direction that her body’s angled towards. A cape seems to fly from her shoulder and disappears into the canvas’ edge, a strong black and white line that’s lightning-like and which contrasts with the bright round happiness of the balloons. There is a sense of flight here, of being carried by the balloons to elsewhere.

In “Light Headed” a bunch of balloons in various colours and designs make up a hat, the form of which is reminiscent of those that the members of the Royal family wear. That hat is about as big as the woman’s face drawn close-up, looking questioningly into the camera as if she need not be captured in this way. One hand rests against her neck; it holds a lollipop, that could be a balloon, that could be a lollipop. The lightness of this illustration is in this truth: if balloons were on your head, would you feel them at all?

Balloons held

Tread Lightly

An exhibit such as Sy’s wouldn’t be complete without the standard bunch of balloons held in one’s hand, reminding us of how high the sky is. In Sy’s hands though, this is rendered differently with the image of a girl with stringy hair, blush and lipstick, in a black and white striped tube top, holding in one hand a bunch of balloons that seem to fill the ceiling of the canvas. The contrast in color highlights what is about joy versus what is about stability, the sky versus the ground.  And with the title “Bearable Lightness” Sy is able to make this less about cliché, and more about this: some lightness can be unbearable, where this one isn’t.

“Tread Lightly” meanwhile is farthest from being conventional or usual. Here, the balloons still seem to be in flight, but are drawn on the bottom of the canvas. A pair of feet wearing striped stockings is tiptoeing on the surface of the balloons, highlighting a struggle between the one above and below, with the feet being pulled down and the balloon being pulled up. Yet there is lightness here, as the feet refuses to break through the balloons, making the existence of both elements in the picture stable and powerful, a struggle that’s found balance. Maybe because of the pale hues of the balloons, maybe because all these works are on a white canvas, this just seems possible given the rest of Sy’s works in this exhibit. Or maybe this is all in the dreaming.

Inflated space, as space

Happy Birthday

Because this is ultimately an exhibit that dreams, given the way it handles the notion of balloons and air and lightness. This dreaming is taken to another level in Sy’s “Happy Birthday” which surprises in its use of the inflated balloon. Five different balloons surround and encompass a woman drawn from the shoulders above. Her angular face, tense lips, an almost frown on her forehead, a tense neck, and a gaze that’s strong and unwavering, distinctly contrasts with the delicateness of the balloons that surround this woman. It takes a while to realize that the woman is inside one of the inflated balloons, and her face doesn’t look at all like it is suffering for it. Instead this woman’s strong face becomes about resistance and endurance, in the face of what is impossible to survive. Or do in real life.

But we are reminded: this is about inflated dreams, and in Sy’s hands this isn’t just about balloons and its usual representations. Here, balloons are shown to be about the air within and without it, about being lighter than air and larger than life, about changing us by default because it necessarily invokes a certain kind of happiness that’s reminiscent of childhood. But most importantly, here Sy proves that you don’t need huge canvasses and heavy dollops of colour to make art, all you need is an imagination that can take flight and hands that will bring it to life, in all its delicateness, in all its airiness, in all its light.