Category Archive for: media

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.

kultura

what needs to be said about Manny Pacquiao

No, my household didn’t spend that Sunday morning and the rest of the day excited about Manny Pacquiao’s fight. Papa was fast asleep and woke up only to leave for work. Mama woke up and asked: “May live ba tayo?” To which my answer was no, as always. Not one of the channels on our cable subscription could deliver a real live telecast of the Pacquiao-Margarito fight. Like the past eight other fights, we depend on over-acting super biased radio announcers on AM and FM radio to get a sense of what’s going on.
This time though my Twitter contacts kept me updated; Mama was looking at a live blow-by-blow on Yahoo; one of Mama’s FB contacts posted a link to some free live streaming of the fight – it was a dead link. The radio announcers were ecstatic and announced that the fight was Manny’s. Our TV was still on delayed telecast, showing an earlier non-Pacquiao fight: we were shaking our heads in disappointment. Manny’s advertisements came on one after the other; we shook our heads at the absurdity.

Even more so when it was tweeted that Mommy Dionisia had fainted, and the source of information was nobody else but Vicki Belo; even more so when the image of Jinkee, Manny’s wife, appeared on TV, in a slinky red dress and sleek straight hair, looking whiter than usual. Maybe just different.

All these inform this different perspective I take in viewing Manny, as I look at his particular celebrity and find that while it’s borne of his being the greatest boxer of our time, it is also extraneous to it at this point given its largeness, its breadth. Athletes like Manny are few and far between for this nation, maybe that’s why we don’t know how to reckon with what his fame has become, all-pervasive in the way that only a pop star’s celebrity is. Yes, even when we can’t watch the darn fight like the rest of the pay-per-view world.

the rest of “Pacquiao in Perspective” is here!

kultura

war and wonder in Tsardyer

it might be easy to dismiss Tsardyer a reenactment of the Ces Drilon hostage taking, except that you’d have to be stupid, and half-blind, to see only that in this movie. because if its connection to the Drilon hostage taking is to even be discussed, it must be seen only as a spoiler here, i.e., so now you know that there will be that in this wonderful movie by Sigfreid Barros-Sanchez.

but it isn’t what all of it is about. there is a journalist, Leslie, and her two companions. they are kidnapped in the middle of Maguindanao because the journalist was careless about getting a story, thinking that all they had to worry about was whether or not their cameras’ batteries were charged enough. the layers of this story though happen extraneous to these media people, and within the lives of people within the war torn land that is Sulu. here we are shown how families aren’t just torn apart by death and violence and disorder, but also by the fact of two extreme poles that exist within it: the Muslim who wants peace Ahmad (brilliantly played by Neil Ryan Sese) is up against his brother-in-law Karim (hauntingly played by Pipo Alfad) who heads an Abu Sayyaf splinter group that holds their area of Sulu captive. a little boy Shihab is what links these two, son to Ahmad and nephew to Karim, who finds that he is tied down by his father in a way that his uncle would free him: let him run through the jungles of Sulu, give him a role in the fight against government soldiers.

the soldiers that Shihab had seen kill his mother, the one soldier whose face he remembers is the face of the military officer who enters their house without permission or warrant. it is clear why Shihab would rather be on the side of his uncle Karim.

but he arrives there and finds himself in the face of a kindness that is unknown to him, that he lost when his mother was killed by the evil face of the military that has remained in his head. all that Shirab is required to do in the terrorist camp is to go down the mountain, run to the nearest home with electricity, and charge the cellphones — the lifeline of the hostages, the line to money of the hostage takers.

and then Tsardyer becomes the story of life and death, the dynamic between family and childhood, the familiar and the strange, making the possibility of death even more stark, the loss of life even more possible. the hostages are forced to reckon with their own carelessness, their lives at real risk, their need for freedom. Ahmad goes on a journey to recover his son, get him back as a matter of being father, as a matter of life. Karim is static, but remains the main reason for action, his demands make the world of the hostages’ families move, his phone calls the reason for hope. Shihab goes up and down the mountain for the task of charging the phones, thinking it crucial to his role on Karim’s camp, but later and slowly seeing it as reason for keeping Leslie alive. all these happen with music that changes and shifts depending on whose perspective we are seeing; all these are given life through music, one of the many reasons to watch this movie, one of the many reasons its storytelling succeeds. it has imagined the way it would sound if these characters had a soundtrack in their heads, the songs that would make for their particular journeys to be only their own, separate from everybody else.

but maybe the most wonderful song here is one that speaks of the change in Shihab’s relationship with Leslie. this is unspoken and silent throughout the movie, and just might be the most beautiful thing to come out of it. because elsewhere in it, we are shown how war gives space, if not creates, the crazies, be they from the terrorist group or the military. because elsewhere in it, we are given a sense of how women are necessarily on the losing end, in the face of two other men taken as hostages. because elsewhere in it, we begin to know of the tragedies in war that we rarely see, given the truth of violence and how it affects the psyche of the people within it. in the midst of these, Shihab’s actions allow for a fact of love and compassion for a woman who could be his mother, and who spoke to him as if he deserved the conversation, as if he was the most important person in that terrorist camp.

in the final scenes where the one who was happy with the existing notion(s) of peace, the violent terrorist, the crazy military all kill and are killed literally and/or figuratively, the realization is painfully clear: in wars like this one, where the money transfers hands between the two sides, there is no one who is free.

Tsardyer in fact tells us that everyone, including us who are farthest away from it, is held captive in a war. that war knows no age, no position in society, no space: when it happens elsewhere in this country, it is ours to stop. when it happens in our faces, it is ours to demand peace, right now. otherwise, Tsardyer reminds us, war just continues to senselessly kill. as it has all this time.

komentaryo

wa’ epek si juana change, or why the RH Bill doesn’t need this

But here being the most important point: the recent Juana Change video Mga Anak ng Diyos is just disappointing. For the most part, it barely gets a discussion going on the truths about the RH Bill versus the lies that are spread about it, nor does it bring the discussion to a level that’s more intelligent as it seems to just be screaming in our faces the whole time. Here, there isn’t a sense of how the RH Bill is NOT about being anti-Church or anti-God, how it isn’t at all about abortion, how it isn’t just about enjoying sex. And yet throughout the video words like cunnilingus, blow job, hand job are thrown around for no good reason and without a clear sense of what these mean vis a vis the RH Bill. This might get extra points for the daring to say these words, but it’s also ultimately dangerous to be throwing them around without a sense of what for.

There is also no good reason to include the issue of priests impregnating members of their flock in this – or any – discussion of the RH Bill. In Mga Anak ng Diyos, Juana herself plays the role of the woman whose first child is the offspring of a priest, now monsignor, the role which Lou Veloso plays, whom she faces in the present as the more critical follower who asks questions abou birth control and has had a ligation. This might be to concretize the hypocrisy of the Pinoy Church, or to point out that even Church leaders commit sins that are bigger than we can imagine, but to point it out here brings the discussion elsewhere other than the RH Bill. It also seems to be pointing a finger at the Church for being sinners too, when the discussion on RH shouldn’t to begin with be about sins, or immorality, or burning in hell.

click here for all of it!

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.