Category Archive for: kultura

kultura

jesus as pepe smith as rakenrol

tattoed christs that rock.

Baffling is the tiny art space that is 20 Square in SLab at Silverlens Gallery (Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati City). Sometimes it’s but an extension of the rest of the works in SLab; most other times that I’ve been there, it’s a measure of artists’ creativity in smaller works, something that I imagine is about discipline and control.

And then at other times, I am surprised and want to live in 20 Square. Dex Fernandez’sm/ made me want to do exactly that. I wanted to find a chair and sit in the middle of the small room and stare at the small sculptures attached to the walls. Of course a chair for one would’ve filled that tiny space.

Images of a crowd in a small space is also what the idea of m/ creates; m/  is the symbol for that rock ‘n’ roll signal we do with our fingers (pinky and index fingers up, middle fingers kept down by thumb). It is also what you think of first when you enter that room and see what seems to be a version of a rock poster. Fernandez brings back memories of rock concerts (OPM and otherwise), and crowds, and drinking and noise. I almost wished they were playing some rock music inside the tiny room.

the rest is here!

kultura

are we forgiving plagiarism?

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?

kultura

plagiarism apology as can of worms

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.

kultura

pinoy rap lives!

with  Gloc-9.

kultura

Kilig down pat in Catch Me I’m In Love

And when I say that this movie proves Sarah Geronimo and Gerald Anderson individually and together have the kilig down pat, it’s that someone my age, with my history of bad love, could actually still get kilig. Yes, kilig to the bones circa 1980s, complete with stomping foot, loud laughter, sinking into my movie seat, nudging elbows with my younger sister (ex-student now friend) beside me, in the end tired from the roller coaster ride that a two hour love story can still be. Kapagod pala kiligin. Some things I’ve forgotten.

In Catch Me I’m In Love, the kilig is difficult to ignore, as it carries what is an otherwise expected story through to its logical happy end. It’s also a surprisingly believable love between a girl and boy who are really only bound by country, and when I say that, I mean the government of the Philippines complete with scenes of Malacañang Palace.

Gerald plays Eric, presidential son, who’s unhappy with being in the Philippines and is sent by the President to a far away provincial community so he may learn of purpose. Eric is accompanied by Roanne (played by Sarah), an NGO worker who deals with nation from the grassroots level, a confident girl who inadvertently shoots down the presidential son at an awarding ceremony in her NGO. She is appointed by the President (Christopher de Leon) to be Eric’s mentor in living with a community he would otherwise not care about.

The rocky start is obvious, even more so in the context of impoverished Isabela: between waking up at 4 AM to walking long distances, Eric was beyond his comfort zones of clubbing, girls, the gym. Never mind, since all that would be forgotten by the time he comes home from Isabela and is in his words, “a better man” because of Roanne. She who challenged his spoiled boy sensibilities, pointed out in cliché terms the fact that what these children in impoverished communities need is time and attention, not money.

Eric was changed by the experience, Roanne was only in her turf. But Roanne’s intelligence and confident stance about nation was happening alongside her crisis as a girl, who wants to stand in front of a boy, and ask him to love her. This she will do at the end of the movie, but in the meantime she is just sad about her status as NBSB (no-boyfriend-since-birth to the unlearned in local pop culture), as she is teased by her three older brothers about it, as she is oblivious to the fact that the rapper neighbor Vito (played so well by Matteo Guidicelli) is trying to court her but doesn’t know how.

Suffice it to say that between Eric’s need to become a better presidential son, and Roanne’s dream (literally) of getting a love life, this movie set it up so it all seemed possible. It also speaks of NGO life and the nation it builds as wonderful, where changing the world begins with talking to people and knowing how they live — a great thing to see in a mainstream commercial movie.

It’s in this setting that the NGO worker and presidential son fall in love, without the trappings of the usual. After another trip where boy surprises girl in Isabela (that’s what I call going the distance), they come home to Roanne’s lower middle class family to tell them the truth: without the process of conventional courtship, they were now together (kami na, in the vernacular).

Which as it turns out is unacceptable to the general public who think Eric to be eligible bachelor, and who will make Roanne subject of tsismis, evil as that becomes: she doesn’t deserve him, she looks like a maid, it won’t last long. To add salt to wound, a socialite who is the complete opposite of Roanne in looks (Sam Pinto) enters the picture and makes like she’s out to win the presidential son. Now Sarah is no ugly girl, in fact she was overwhelmingly Pinay pretty in most the movie. But vis a vis the socialite and the trappings of a presidential dinner she pulls out that social class card and it just works.

In fact discomfort and insecurity is a game that Sarah plays well, and it’s in these moments of crisis that we see how she’s gotten better at acting, allowing us to forget her iconic character Laida Magtalas (her role opposite John Lloyd Cruz). In this movie, Sarah’s role as intelligent NGO worker comes in painful contradiction with the insecure girl-in-love, and when Roanne breaks down and breaks it off with Eric, Sarah proves a broken heart in real life does wonders for one’s acting.

Gerald meanwhile needs to get over the fact of his good looks, and into acting like it doesn’t matter. Because his role here is that of Fil-Am heartthrob, Gerald sometimes seems like he’s playing himself. Yet when he was an arrogant presidential son in the beginning, it actually worked; when he became the gentleman who would carry Roanne on his back because she had a sprained ankle, he knew to balance arrogance with machismo; when he became this boy who’s pushed against the wall by Roanne’s insecurities about herself that brings her to suggest they break up, Gerald’s helplessness as he asked “Kaya mo?” will melt your heart. And let you forget his abs.

Which is what there’s plenty of in this movie, generally un-needed since it’s done in relation to pagsasaka, and Sarah isn’t one to show some skin or have a kissing scene. If the goal was to establish Gerald’s, uh, hotness, then one scene with abs seems enough doesn’t it? Plus there are his good looks, which is used to the hilt in this film; and those eyes, the use of which Gerald has mastered.

Sarah meanwhile, has mastered this role of the lower middle class girl getting paired off with the rich guy, fulfilling the layers of impossibility in love. Now this isn’t a new role at all (think Judy Ann opposite Piolo Pascual, Marian Rivera opposite Dingdong Dantes), but it’s one that’s done only by Sarah in her age bracket. This is all fine, but maybe it’s time to give Sarah something she can sink her teeth into. After Laida and Roanne, it would do commercial audiences well to be shown a role that doesn’t peg Sarah to financial and emotional immobility because of love. Maybe a role that doesn’t put such a premium on the latter, and lets the intelligence and independence shine? Maybe a movie that stars as well that bunch of supporting characters who make for Star Cinema movies.

Ketchup Eusebio and Janus del Prado play two of Roanne’s brothers here. These two were not only comic relief, they point to the value of supporting characters that hold the main story up, and remind us of the travesties that surround the fact of star power in this country. That the infinitely talented Eusebio and del Prado are not starring in commercial films has become normal to us. That I dream for these two a bigger project, becomes possible given a star like Sarah, who I think will ably carry a film all her own, maybe with Eusebio and del Prado as (gay) friends to a Sarah without a big time love interest, if with love at all. Now that would be a powerful image, wouldn’t it. One that hasn’t been done before. Ah, the dreaming is what happens after the kilig.