Category Archive for: kultura

kultura

hypocrisy, plagiarism, and four (not just three) plagiarized speeches from MVP’s speechwriters

Jessica Zafra posted this in her blog, thank goodness for her, as I had been putting it off, even when it has been in my public Facebook account since yesterday morning.

here is the list of three speeches and their sources that’s been going around, with an additional one — the first one — which hasn’t been posted before.

1. at the ateneo family congress, 2009 — MVP’s speech, original 1, original 2

2. at the opening of the new Ateneo lib, 2010 — MVP speech, original

3. post-Ondoy speech on corporate social responsibility, 2009 — MVP speech, original 1, http://www.google.com.ph/search?hl=tl&source=hp&q=These+trials+also+remind+us+that+we+are+tied+together+in+this+life,+in+this+nation+%E2%80%93+that+the+despair+of+one+touches+us+all.+&meta=&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=”>original 2, original 3

4. commencement speech in Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan, 2007 — MVP speech, original 1, original 2, original 3

why did i think twice about posting it here? i didn’t, still don’t, want it to seem like 1) i’m out to do MVP in and 2) i’m being a hypocrite here.

the hypocrisy, I’m told, comes from my own personal knowledge of how plagiarism happens all the time, in the academe in particular, maybe within the walls of the institutions that I have served as student/researcher/writer in U.P. Diliman, and teacher/writer in the AdMU. hypocrisy has to do with this: to make MVP resign, tell him at this point to leave Ateneo, is to pretend that we — the academic community — are clean.

I beg to disagree. I don’t understand why we can’t work from the big fish that’s caught and let the smaller fish freak out and come out, of their own volition, about their own intellectual dishonesties.

i do not doubt this truth: the moment MVP’s plagiarized speeches are proven to matter because the academe kicks him out despite all his money, then every other academic and scholar will be scared shitless about his or her own intellectual dishonesties. MVP himself says it:

The challenge of leadership precisely is to create an environment where honesty is paramount, where integrity emanates from the top and builds success from the ground.

i think at this point, what would be hypocritical is to deny that money is talking pretty loudly in this case of plagiarism versus MVP. and please, read these speeches, read the originals. you will find that it isn’t true that what he was reading/saying was essentially about him. some of the more emotional/personal/beautiful lines weren’t his at all.

and now for other lessons in citing your sources, Abs-cbnnews.com, when your source quotes another source, then please revert to the primary source, i.e., me. Jessica had the grace to say that her source about the MVP speeches was my public FB note. the least you could’ve done was to cite me the way she did, diba? if not find that original site where the information first appeared.

as with MVP’s plagiarized speeches, all you needed to do was Google me.

kultura

When Indie Fails

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 7 2010.

There are many things to say about the movie Red Shoes (directed by Raul Jorolan, written by James Ladioray), but it’s definitely not that it’s the year’s first best movie. Because this is nowhere near as good as Unitel Pictures’ other films (Inang Yaya, Pinoy Blonde, La Visa Loca, Crying Ladies), and nowhere close to being great at anything. In fact, to a certain extent, it is no better than the commercial romance movies that our film production outfits churn out. To a certain extent, we are reminded that a good premise is not what a good movie makes, nor is it in the mere fact of using the label indie, i.e., independent film.

In truth, the only thing Red Shoes ends up becoming is a montage of various stories that are not well woven together into the narrative that it makes its main protagonist, Lucas (Marvin Agustin), tell. But this is getting ahead of the story, or in Red Shoes’ case, ahead of the many stories here. (more…)

kultura

Missing Popoy and Basha: or What Do You Take Me For? Crazy?

Of course I Miss You Like Crazy had everything going for it. We still remember Popoy and Basha of One More Chance, even know some lines from the movie, and even now speak of UST’s soccer field in relation to it. The three-month rule of breakups has now become law, seeing as Popoy invoked it when he thought Basha had found another guy (and kailangan talaga si Derek Ramsey and mapagsususpetsahang bagong boyfriend). And their barkada, really, was what made that movie. They were macho and bakla, serious and funny, judgmental and liberal, all at the same time. All these were only allowed by the movie’s well-written script that was real to us all, middle class and unapologetic.

Suffice it to say that One More Chance was enough reason to step out and watch I Miss You Like Crazy. But in the first conversation that Mia and Alex have in the movie, something is so obviously off right away. I look at L who’s watching the movie with me, and we realize, it’s Mia’s laughter. It was uncomfortable, obviously put-on, and undoubtedly lost in translation. It wasn’t trying to be ironic, i.e., hiding the sadness through laughter; nor did it sound like real laughter.  Parang bad acting lang? (more…)

kultura

in defense of (art) criticism!

via thepoc.net’s Metakritiko section.

I don’t know Angelo Suarez, Gelo, personally, but I appreciate his (virtual) presence in the way that I tend to love every other person who has the gall/temerity/balls man/woman/gay to speak his mind even when it’s unpopular. The thing is, there was nothing unpopular about Gelo’s review of Pablo Gallery’s Chabet, Tan, Ilarde exhibit.In fact, knowing the kind of consciousness Gelo brings to art, this was a pretty good review – good, being, he liked the exhibit – like, being, he didn’t dismiss the exhibit – didn’t dismiss, being, he actually wrote about it.

Which in these shores is something we should be thankful for, right? Here, where the conversations on art – any art – are praised when they are praise releases, where the critical bent is, i.e., the good review that speaks of the bad in art, is always deemed unproductive and useless. The goal kasi is to sell art.

This goal is what Gelo hits at with http://thepoc.net/metakritiko/metakritiko-features/4794-conceptualism-fellatio-a-the-admission-of-the-futility-of-resistance-as-a-form-of-resistance.html Conceptualism,fellatio, and the admission of futility of resistance as a form of resistance. On that level, the question for the spectator should become: do I agree with Gelo? My answer, as a spectator, is no. I agree with Antares, from whom the more intelligent comments on the Gelo’s article came (and who should really be writing art reviews, please please?). In light of capital, resistance isn’t necessarily futile, and to insiston futility is to place one’s critique very clearly on the side of capital and its contingent oppressions. Parang, ay walang nang resistance, so ‘wag na lang?

But what has become more obvious in the aftermath of Gelo’s article is that this isn’t even the question that’s being asked, and there is a refusal to even begin a discussion on the crucial things about contemporary Philippine art that Gelo raises.

the rest here!

kultura

Boob slips in the age of technology, Or the victimization of Anne

If there’s anything that Anne Curtis’ swimsuit malfunction highlights about us all, it’s that we are ill-equipped to handle the advance of technology. And I mean, all of us, those who hold cameras in our hands, and those who love being in pictures. In this sense, Anne Curtis is a victim of both the one who shoots, and she who has enjoyed being shot, and even makes a living out of it.

Because in fact, the victimization of Anne could’ve began with the fact that the show’s production allowed people to watch the show with cameras and camera-phones in hand – the more famous shot of Anne has her dancing on stage, right breast exposed, a gazillion hands with camera-phones aimed at her from the audience below. A less famous shot is one that’s taken from the other side of the stage, in a higher position, maybe a tree?,  and has Anne being carried by Sam Milby, in the same dance number.

The fact is, we have allowed cameras like these in public exhibitions such as this, because it’s free pre-publicity: in the age of Twitter and Facebook, everything is a status update and photo upload away. Propriety, obviously in this case, be damned. (more…)