Category Archive for: middle class

komentaryo

The battle for thought

A couple of days before Christmas, on probably the only time I’ve driven down the stretch of EDSA-Northbound since the March 2020 lockdown, I saw huge tarpaulins hanging on flyovers and walkways obviously released by the Duterte government. In small font on top of the tarp, it said Communist Party of the Philippines and at center it crossed out the number 52. Both of these are secondary to the declaration, in larger font, for us to “Disown and Junk Marxism-Leninism-Maoism” (Itakwil at Ibasura Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoismo).

I remember pointing it out to my younger sestra—a former student—riding with me in the car, to which she cheekily replied: “Ha? How do we takwil class inequality and struggle?” or something to that effect.

It was then that it became clear to me that while this government will insist it is only after “the communists” and “the Left,” it is in fact lying through its teeth. What it fears is not the insurgency or the number of people who might decide to go to the mountains and join the armed struggle. Its real fear is that as more of us see how incompetent and violent this Duterte government is, we might start thinking differently about governance and politics, focused as we become on class inequality, injustice, and rights violations, and the kind of systemic corruption in government that has brought us to this point of crises. (more…)

komentaryo

Divide, Undo, Tag: Dealing with Duterte propaganda (1)

At the Ibong Adorno launch of Kult 3, there was a panel discussion with different organizations on the various ways in which they have dealt with the Duterte government’s consistent and constant attacks on the people and on nation’s institutions. The issues and ways were expectedly diverse, from using platforms to engage with issues of urban poor displacement, immersion and publishing focused on marginalized sectors and workers’ and farmers’ rights, from alternative media work to organizing cultural workers towards more critical resistance work.

I was the only one who carried my name as individual, although I was tagged as someone who has maintained CurrentsPH (on Facebook) since 2017, which originally was to be a website (a beta version is still up here). But as I said in the introduction to my quick talk, it took only the first year of Duterte to realize that there is little value in talking facts and doing timelines at a time when the truth doesn’t matter and no one is spending time fleshing out issues — or even talking issues, really.

The battle in fact is one that’s about propaganda. We are faced with a well-strategized Duterte propaganda program, one that we have been unable to even make a dent on, one that we have been unable to win against, the past three years. I’ve talked about this often enough with friends and peers, and when I’m asked how to beat it, my answer is simple: first we admit we’re in over our heads.

These are strange, difficult, confusing, exhausting times, and the old tools don’t work in exactly the same way. We are weakened by this Duterte machinery, manipulated to forget bigger pictures as we are made to contend with the smaller but real attacks against us. How to move forward? One, admit our weaknesses; two, understand this propaganda strategy; so that three, we can actually figure out how to beat it.

Here, an effort at doing numbers 1 and 2.  (more…)

komentaryo

Dear Smart,

I’d write about this in my column, but there are so many more important things to talk about in that space. At the same time, I couldn’t let this pass, just because this is how big businesses gets away with charging their subscribers more than they should, and often it is an injustice to those who are putting out our hard-earned cash for services that are overpriced to begin with.

I’ve been a super sipag, consistent, and loyal subscriber of what … nine years? with Smart. And when anyone at all would ask me, especially with family and friends who are mostly Globe subscribers, I would always say that it’s Smart that works best for the work I do, traveling more than most, dependent on the internet as my writing is.

I remember being in Tacloban soon after Typhoon Yolanda, and being able to depend on my Smart line better than the prepaid Globe I brought along; and working in faraway Guian Samar so many months after, Smart was ever dependable, too. In Tiaong Quezon, even with a Globe Tattoo wifi service, I can always fall back on my Smart phone for connectivity.

Yet while the services remain the same, Smart is messing up customer care and service big time. (more…)

komentaryo

Elitism in the time of Duterte

The upside to having a President like Rodrigo Duterte is that we are finally weeding out the elitists among us. And I don’t mean those who think that Duterte is so bastos, is so not a statesman, is so not President-material because not disente. No, this is beyond just some good ol’ Liberal Party campaign elitism. This is its more evil, less apologetic, more insidious twin. Elitists who even imagine themselves to be pro-poor, because they feel for them and wish to empower them, because they speak of the plight of the poor and the inequality in society.

Yet in this time of Duterte, they cannot for the life of them understand why the urban poor might deserve decent housing, and neither do they care to talk about farmers disenfranchised from their lands by big business and oligarchs. In the time of Duterte, they cannot agree to the end of contractualization, neither can they deal with the pro-people rhetoric and policies of the best and most rebellious in his Cabinet.

These are the same people who stand against the drug war because kawawa naman the poor!

Apparently one can care about the poor being killed, but not care at all about how they live. (more…)

radikalchick.lit

Bad romance

Probably the only thing worse than the fact that one is silenced in many ways by nation is the truth that in place of that silence is a male voice that says: we love you, we care for you, we will cherish you. That this voice also carries us through any romance we might have with men is foregone conclusion. That we might believe this voice is not surprising.

There’s that thin line drawn between romantic and romanticized after all, that thin line between a romance with you as person and a romanticized idea of you as woman. The former has you as point complete with intelligent conversation, sweet walks in the park, thoughtfulness and laughter and music (yes, my ideal right there); the latter has nothing to do with you. The former is based on a man looking you in the eye because he’s interested in you; the latter is based on keeping you quietly standing in a corner. (more…)