Category Archive for: media

kultura

Run Barbi(e) Run*

But of course she can’t, not with those feet on tiptoes, ready for stilettos. In fact, with those big boobs, she might not be able to run at all. Barbie might be the most impossible and horrifying model for any young girl, who sees the big boobs and tiny waist, sleek long hair and made-up face, and think ah, that’s how I want to look.  And since Barbie apparently now represents the modern woman who has graduated from college and can keep every job possible, earning enough to have her own house (townhouse, 3-story dream house, Malibu dream house, take your pick) with fancy appliances and to party like there’s no tomorrow, then she does become a perfect aspiration, doesn’t she?

Except that Barbie is false, her whole lifestyle is. And even when there are seemingly more powerful images of her as career woman (most recent careers? News Anchor and Computer Engineer!), she has remained the same in many ways: she’s still as thin, regardless of how her hair or skin color have evolved; she still has the same features, the same particular body type, the same… uh… impossibilities. Yes, even when she has already run as Presidential Candidate Barbie (in African-American and White skin colors!).

Because Barbie cannot run, she has no knees for it. Yet as I began to run to get that endorphin high (over the more obvious need to lose weight), I found that much of it was about Barbie. And no, it isn’t about the body, for I got over that (im)possibility long ago, instead it’s about what Barbie does continue to stand for, over and above those jobs she can now have: it’s about being fashionista. (more…)

komentaryo

(Middle Class) Crisis: Why rising from May 2022 has been difficult

It would be silly to talk about the present of politics in this country without acknowledging two, maybe three, things.

First, that we are at a standstill. From the ranks of our specific educated, middle to elite classes, generally woke and politicized, that campaigned hard for a Marcos-Duterte loss in May 2022 — there is little movement happening. Sure we went back to our old lives since May, we went back to the daily grind, but that is a movement that is about survival for majority of us — we have no choice given skyrocketing prices and the multifarious crises nation faces. We have no choice, and know no other way, but to go back to the lives we had pre-elections, no matter how frustrated, angry, sad we are. No matter how little we understand (or how much) of why things turned out the way it did.

Which brings us to two: here, where we are, a year after the 2022 elections, we have to admit the possibility that we have stood still all along — because that is what happens to movement when all it does is go around in circles, or repeat its own mistakes, or deny how big the enemy is and how the battlefield has changed.

It is what happens when we cannot get over ourselves, when we only listen to what we have to say, when we insist that we are the only ones who know what’s happening, who know what should be done, who have the answer to questions — because we lived through a past that was similar, because we are older, we are the fourth estate, which is replaceable with what’s unsaid: we are the gatekeepers, we are the bearers of truth, we are sacred cows, not to be questioned, not to be critiqued.

It is what happens when we refuse to see the possibility that maybe we should start with first asking the right questions, so that we get the productive answers, in dialogue with as large a group of people as possible, open to the probability that the ways we know, the perspectives we take, might not apply to the present anymore. (more…)

komentaryo

Robbed #Halalan2022

A little over a week since the May 9 elections, and one understand why those on the side of democracy, Left, Liberal, and civil society, feel like we’ve been robbed.

In that sense, everyone’s performing like victims. Some are raising their fists against the irregularities on election day—dysfunctional vote counting machines, dysfunctional SD cards, long lines because of both, voters disenfranchised. Some have flexed their privilege: not going to help the poor anymore, not going to help nation anymore, bahala kayo sa buhay niyo. Some have shot back at actual people who they know voted for Marcos: magbayad kayo ng utang niyo! A day or two after elections, we heard of some small NGOs losing their funders—purportedly, people were not wanting to help the new government at all, and that is equated with not wanting to help the most vulnerable.

Many are spreading all sorts of disinformation about the president-elect, letting this permeate social media accounts in the way that rumors do. It is fueled, shared across platforms, thrown around Viber and messenger GCs for good measure. Never mind fact checking—it always feels good to have our perceptions proven right by any kind of information at all.

But I guess we want to forgive ourselves for these responses? Emotions are high. We thought we were going to win after all—especially if we believed surveys were unreliable. And now we are grasping at straws, picking the stories and narratives that serve our purpose, because it is the only way to keep the fire burning.

But at a time like this one, these responses, public as they are, do nothing but fuel this divide that already exists, a polarization that we now know is really about 14 million vs 31 million. And we need to understand that it doesn’t matter whether or not you think or believe polarization is happening—the fact is, it already is.

(more…)

komentaryo

61 days: content wars, elitism, fandoms, radio silence #Halalan2022

After the 2019 elections, I gave a short talk at an event in CubaoX and said very clearly and pointedly: this is a propaganda war. The 2019 results tell us that no matter student surveys, and good debate mileage, and better candidates, we are on a losing streak. The Liberal Party and the Left have public opinion going against it, no matter the delusions our social media echo chambers allow us to have. On ground, and in reality, a chunk of the population (43% is the number I’ve heard) are a hard no on LP, and going into the elections, this would be a hard no against VP Leni.

Did changing to the color pink from yellow mean anything? I think it did, especially for the middle and upper classes who are as incensed with LP and the kind of politics they stood for—2010 to 2016 is very very recent history after all. But the question now, with 61 days to go, is how far the pink has brought us, beyond our echo chambers, despite the rally numbers.

Yesterday a message went around calling on everyone to get out of echo chambers because despite the massive turnout and social and mainstream media noise about the consecutive rallies Robredo had last week, in reality the share of voice online was still dominated by Marcos. Again, as with surveys, this is data—real numbers that should tell us whether or not any and all parts of this campaign are going in the directions it needs to.

Do the surveys contradict the rally numbers? I don’t think so. The rallies and surveys come together as proof of the complexity of the electoral landscape. The numbers out there are important—these give the impression of mass support, and provides us with the content we need. But the numbers on the surveys are just as important, especially given how these also function as a way to prove mass support. (more…)

komentaryo

State of OUR nation #SONA2021 #Halalan2022

It seems apt that the last State of the Nation Address of the worst, most violent, most incompetent president of our lifetime happened right smack in the middle of a vicious Delta variant that State propaganda denies is spreading, 17 months into the Covid-19 pandemic and government’s failed, unscientific, anti-people response.

It also happened after almost a week of endless rains that have sunk the poorest of our communities in flood waters. Which followed a Taal Volcano eruption that meant whole communities being forced to evacuate. Two days before the SONA, there was a level six earthquake in the wee hours of the morning.

None of these warranted an appearance from this president. Then again, that might have been a good thing: after all he thinks cracking jokes in the middle of a crisis is okay, and he believes that every problem can be solved by police presence—just like he finds comfort in IATF briefings filled with retired military generals who know nothing about science or medicine, pandemic response or public health.

Propaganda lang malakas
In the five years of Duterte the only thing it has maintained, has done well, and has succeeded in is its propaganda machinery. It’s so so good that those of us on the side of democracy like to deny it exists, if not like to deny the kind of power it has. Our denial of course is part of why Duterte has stayed in power despite our anger and disgust, the movements we have fashioned. There is no winning a war we are in denial about. (more…)