Category Archive for: middle class

komentaryo

on volunteerism, and the disaster of a government

the cultural discourse on bayanihan and the Filipino’s propensity for kindness and reaching out has undoubtedly changed since the disaster that was Ondoy in 2009. then, relief efforts were galvanized online, like a grand display of how we could all be heroes, how we could help in our own ways, with narratives on heroism cutting across artistas going on their boats and surfboards to help out those stranded on the rooftops of their homes, with the nameless | faceless pinoys all over the world who opened up their homes to donations and spent time packing these for sending to affected areas.

this story was no surprise then, as it is no surprise now, two years after, with the disaster called Sendong. and it doesn’t surprise me either, the questions now being asked of volunteerism and helping out, of the bayanihan that happens online. in fact it is infinitely interesting that these questions are being asked now, because it means we are becoming more and more critical even of ourselves, and the role we play in light of government’s functions and dysfunctions, all the more highlighted in times of tragedy.

on twitter, @complainerchua raised valid points about the use of such a public space to raise funds to be donated to Sendong relief efforts:

complainer1
complainer1

@complainerchua was referring to @franky who was selling his samsung tab to the highest bidder with the promise of giving all the money earned to @gangbadoy’s Rock Ed. @complainerchua then asks: why make this so public? why display the amount of a donation?

the answer of course seems simple: on twitter and in light of the tragedy, people might be willing to shell out a little bit more than the actual amount for the gadget. in as much as it might be seen as a display of how much @franky was donating, it could also be a display of how much people were willing to help.

which might be said of Rock Ed via @gangbadoy as well. on the one hand it might seem like an overload of calls / demands / pleas for every kind of aid that’s needed for Sendong victims. at the same time, it’s entirely possible that companies like So-en and Avon, EQ diapers, LBC, Cebu Pac and PAL would be less, uh, helpful (?) were they not being called upon / mentioned / thanked via social media. it’s not to say that they might not help otherwise, but we can’t know that for sure anymore.

what i’m sure of is the fact that for whatever complaints we might have about the volunteerism that Rock Ed stands for, it has proven itself as a credible NGO through which funds and donations might be generated and can pass through, from donor to beneficiaries. and any organization, non-government and otherwise, would know that credibility is hard to come by in these shores.

but here is the crux of the matter: how can an NGO be more credible than government? how can we trust it more in a time of crisis?

elsewhere in the world private and non-government relief efforts is about helping people in need. when someone like Oprah or Ellen, when Rachael Ray, take on causes, they are doing so to help a particular sector of people; when a huge television special is put together to raise funds, it’s very clear that it’s about helping the victims of one tragedy or other. but here where we come from the line between helping people and helping government is not clearly drawn.

not surprisingly, it’s a line that government itself would rather not draw. because then it allows a president like PNoy to not speak at all in the aftermath of tragedy. it allows him to think that it’s ok to stay silent for four days because yes, his people are doing their jobs, but also because look at the Filipinos! coming together to help CDO and Iligan! because without drawing that line, PNoy can come out and talk about the Filipino as hero, he can talk about falling 10 times and getting up 11 times (paano ‘yon exactly?), he can talk about lending a helping hand, and he can take credit for a nation’s middle and upper classes that rise to the occasion of tragedy, that will do what it can, given its limited resources.

it is because that line isn’t drawn that Rock Ed is being questioned now, on twitter and elsewhere, for the volunteerism that it banks on and celebrates. it is in the blurring of that line that someone like Illac Diaz can shoot from the hip and question rock concerts as fund raising activities. the critical stance is valid of course, but its premises need to be questioned, too. it should be clear to everyone after all, that the demand for a long-term solution is extraneous to the function of an NGO, the insistence on systemic change is different from the demand for volunteerism in a time of crisis — or at any other time for that matter.

and so in the same way that it was counterproductive of Mar Roxas’ DOTC to just set aside the volunteer work that the Cobonpue-Layug-Pineda team put together for the National Competitiveness Council’s NAIA 1 project, it is unfair (and yes, counterproductive) to be hitting Rock Ed and other NGOs for what they do in a time of crisis. this is valid work that volunteers put in, it is work that surely some other NGO would take on if Rock Ed weren’t around, albeit with less organization and probably a less functional network of donors / donations / volunteers.

which is not to say NGOs like Rock Ed should be saved from criticism at all. in fact they should precisely receive a fair amount of criticism because of how they function in light of government, and how they can be and are used by the latter in rhetoric and discourses on how things are ok, when things are farthest from being so.

in that sense we need to make clear, that whether we volunteer as individuals or within organizations, the work we do will not save the world, nor is this work that should even be here were government functioning properly and correctly. volunteerism, in a time of crisis and beyond, is always a stop-gap operation, always a short-term solution, always always a band-aid for the shallow wounds.

the deeper, more painful, more dangerous wounds, those are for organizations that fight and struggle for a change in the systems that are dysfunctional and corrupt and oppressive, the systems that allow for legal and illegal logging to continue, the systems that let more than a thousand people die in a flood. NGOs are in a box of a cause, or a time of need, or sectoral change at most. its refusal to negotiate on the level of systemic change is its own limitation. that the latter is also what makes NGOs a welcome friend to a disaster of a PNoy government, is no surprise.

komentaryo

take it personally

“An old student once quoted to me Allan Gurganus’ remark that it was the writer’s job to take the world personally. I think that that’s true. When I read about The Who or John Ashcroft, or the disaster at Chernobyl, I’m reading about it because I’m interested in the subject, and by interested I mean to suggest that not only my intellect but my emotions have been engaged. And when I’m reading, I’m trying to read receptively; that is, I’m beginning, if I’m engaged enough, to pay attention to how what I’m reading is affecting me, and why. You might say that, if I’m, for example, reading about the catastrophe at Chernobyl, I’m simultaneously storing away the facts about the disaster and keeping on eye an the spectacle of my own ongoing affective reaction to what I’m learning.

Suffering is everywhere. Drama is everywhere. Why do some things affect us so much, when others don’t? Some things we come across and say, Oh, that’s terrible, and go on to the next thing. Other events, experienced and imagined, stay with us. The fact that they don’t go away is a hint about how important they are to our psyches. That’s a hint to which the writer should pay attention. What’s important about those things? That’s for us to find out.” — Jim Shepard, from here.

because as always this nation’s middle to upper classes rise to the occasion of those victimized by tragedy. because this should not in any way absolve the government of reponsibility, should not make them imagine that there is less to do, that what they’ve done is enough. because i realize now that sometimes rhetoric is all we need, when it is done right away, at that precise moment when a leader needs to be anchor for the task of relief and aid, rebuilding and reconstruction. i realize that where we come from, and right now, leadership is pure fiction.

komentaryo

notes on TEDx Diliman: ideas worth spreading?

TEDx Talks are independently organized TED talks across the world, which is about “riveting talks by remarkable people.” TEDx Diliman was my first. This is a review of each of the TED talks that were part of it, done in 18 minutes or less, because that’s the time limit of a TED Talk. Read more about TED here, and check out this really good video on TEDx here.

Roby Alampay on freedom is our competitive advantage

the thing with saying that the Philippines’ advantage is our freedom is that the only idea it gets across is a romance with the freedom of expression we enjoy (as exemplified apparently by having the TEDx talk to begin with, Alampay says), which of course also means limning over the fact of activists being jailed and disappeared, cultural worker Ericson Acosta still being in jail, and really begs the question: what freedom?

Alampay’s 18++ minutes (yes he was allowed) was spent talking about freedom being our competitive advantage because it can mean making the country the center not just of civil society which feeds off of freedom, but also the center of academic freedom (“Kaya namin ‘yon!” he says). both will mean generating jobs and contributing to the economy, creating an industry out of our freedom.

for Alampay, freedom is the card we can play, because, and i quote: 

freedom is the one thing we do better than anybody else.

do we? really do freedom well I mean? Alampay uses the example of CCP’s closure of the Kulo exhibit (without mentioning it of course), without realizing that in fact in fact more than proving that the gov’t can just take away our freedom, that incident also proved that when we are questioned about our freedom, we have no idea how to defend ourselves. we mess it up completely: our artists, curators, cultural workers. we do not know how to defend ourselves, we do not know how to talk to media, to the people who don’t care for our art but will care about religion, and we mess it up. that is us messing up even as we are free. that is proof that we don’t do freedom well.

even more false? the idea that there’s academic freedom where we are. i’ve lived off of two universities in this country, and when you’re immersed in that manner you also know that in fact your freedoms are false in these institutions, they are limited to what is the intellectual parochialism that’s there, they are limited by the people who have been in the academe all these years.

most importantly, academic freedom, artistic freedom, freedom of expression are all highly questionable when you come from here and know | feel | see that freedom is also overrated when it cannot will not put food on people’s tables and more and more people are falling below the poverty line.

and if you live in the Philippines, you must also know — and must admit — that most of the time we are delusional about our freedom because we are middle class educated English-speaking TEDx speakers. or, as Alampay says, he’s an economy of one, dreaming.

dreams are good. but as ungrounded and unfulfilled, as romanticized and sophomoric as this? not at all worthy of a TEDx talk. but it sure sounds like something the PNoy government would love to hear.

kultura

too much Torre 2: on Sam’s twang

in 2006, and just the past week, Nestor Torre had the same complaint about Sam Milby, and the same conclusion. complaint: his lack of Filipino language skills. conclusion: his roles and acting are limited by it. in 2006 he said:

<…> Fil-Ams’ generally limited ability to speak Filipino drastically limits their roles to Balikbayan or rich-kid characters, of whom we’ve had much too many on our local screens. <…> That’s the sort of role Sam played in his recent film, and on his new TV series, he speaks in an awkward mix of English and Filipino yet again. — So much for thespic growth. <…>

in 2011 he says:

To make things worse, Sam adds his continuing difficulty with Tagalog to the movie’s insufficiencies. Yes, he’s “improved” in this regard, but improvement won’t do when competence is required. <…> So what is the actor to do—stop performing while he works really hard at finally surmounting his problem? Yes, that’s what the situation calls for, and as a professional actor, that’s what Sam needs to do, unless he wants to consign and resign himself to more years of playing shallow balikbayan types.

now i know Torre’s generally unhappy with the romantic-comedy, thinking it limits actors such as John Lloyd Cruz’s acting (yes, i will respond to that soon), but it might do him well to go through Sam’s filmography. for even when it is a rom-com, he began doing it better than most from the moment he did the fat guy in Jade Castro’s My Big Love. there also wasn’t much comedy in his character in I Love You Babe where he played an irritable architecture professor, and no comedy at all in And I Love You So where Sam in fact proved he could do a character with not a whole lot of cuteness.

Sam as fat guy Macky Angeles in My Big Love by Jade Castro
Sam as fat guy Macky Angeles in My Big Love by Jade Castro

now it isn’t clear to me which “shallow balikbayan types” Torre’s saying Sam has played, but there was complexity even in his characters as the policeman-wannabe in You Got Me and the US embassy consul in You Are The One. it might not have been as complex as Torre wanted them to be, but that might be a limitation of the genre more than anything else. a genre, we repeat, that he apparently doesn’t like much.

now of course Sam’s smile shouldn’t be a problem. except that for Torre, it is:

And in some of the drama’s challenging scenes, he is emotionally “present” and “committed,” unlike his previous starrers, where he just sort of winged it with his dark, good looks, a smile and a prayer. <…> Oh, yes, that smile—it’s one of the inappropriate visual “crutches” that weakens Sam’s latest portrayal. In dramas, cute smiles even if meant to demote bravery and supportive love are distractions—and even contradictions.

this begs the question: there are no cute smiles in a drama about cancer and dying?* or is it just Sam’s smile that we question? granted he praises Sam as “committed” and “present” here, in the same breath Torre says Sam winged it in his previous films. i’d like to know which ones, and how. because his Chris Panlilio resonates not at all with its darkness but with its free spiritedness, even when yes, he was the dark rocker dude there. his Chef Macky Cordova where he was put in a fat suit has yet to be attempted by any other actor in these shores and is still absolutely enjoyable.

Sam broods as Chris Panlilio in andiloveyouso directed by Laurenti Dyogi
Sam broods as Chris Panlilio in andiloveyouso directed by Laurenti Dyogi

in the end Torre fails at considering the kind of development that’s in Sam’s filmography, which would be fine were he NOT making conclusions and generalizations about Sam’s acting, were he just seeing him in light of this recent film and nothing else. Forever And A Day as he says was a storytelling failure. why drag Sam’s whole film career with it? and why suggest that he stop making movies altogether? that’s to simply look down on all the movies and all the work he’s done so far, yes? i’m the last person who will say Sam’s the best actor in these shores, but i will give him credit for roles, in rom-com and otherwise, that are undoubtedly his. without giving him that credit, all Torre does is criticism un-constructive, and where would we all be with that. 

 
*and while we’re on Forever And A Day, it’s unclear to me why Torre would think this a romantic-comedy when it so obviously wasn’t from the beginning, not when the main female protagonist was revealing so little about herself. had he seen much of the rom-coms we churn out, it would be clear to him that this was farthest from it from the start. too, he obviously didn’t see Chris Martinez’s beautiful glossy portrayal of a cancer patient’s last 100 days which would debunk his idea that medical conditions and gloss don’t go together. goodness.

komentaryo

pacquiao, the pits

am i the only one who thinks this has gone too far? and just way low, the discourse on the Reproductive Health Bill.

it’s bad enough that we have to deal with congressmen like Amado Bagatsing who thinks prOscribe can easily be changed into prEscribe (medyo praning), like Roilo Golez who will twist previous DOH Secretary Esperanza Cabral’s words to her face about the risk factors of the pill (medyo sinungaling), like Pablo Garcia who thinks the correct response to the RH Bill is “do you believe in God?” (medyo fundamentalist), that we have to deal with every other religious anti-RH person thinking my rights as a woman immoral. but really.

congressman Manny Pacquiao, fresh from the millions he made from his last boxing match, is the pits. his mother Dionisia is scraping the bottom of that barrel.

and no, don’t even begin to deny that you are forgiving of Pacquiao, that this country in general, including the middle class and rich who would otherwise be more critical, are coddling him. Pacquiao can do no wrong ‘no? he can do no wrong, not when he’s a source of contemporary Pinoy pride: the best pound for pound boxer in the world. finally we can say there’s one of us who’s the best at something, without a doubt. finally.

oh but what is the price we pay? to think him faultless, to listen to him talk about fighting poverty and think: wow, what a wonderful speech! versus thinking: wow, how that contradicts the fact that he bought his mother a 1M peso bag. a one million peso Hermes bag that his mother asked for. that’s worse than Kris Aquino, or Willie Revillame, both of whom are undoubtedly rich and live decadently too, but at least they don’t talk about eradicating poverty, as they do helping the poor (two very different things). at least we see them both on free TV. Pacquiao we have to watch on pay per view, even if we’re Pinoy.

oh but we forgive Pacquiao everything, including his mother’s articulations. we forgive Pacquiao the politicians that appear around him, no matter that we don’t trust them. we forgive him, even as he is mouthing lines from the Bible in relation to something that is totally and absolutely extraneous to religiosity. he gets up on that podium in Quiapo Church, and no one no one says he was wrong to do it. he misquotes the Bible, and we don’t correct him, are careful to make fun of the grammatical error. and we don’t invoke this:

It can’t be very difficult for Pacquiao to financially support his brood of four; the champion fighter is worth an estimated $70 million. But 33% of people in the Philippines, a nation of nearly 92 million, live below the poverty line, earning less than $1.35 per day. (Brenhouse, Time Magazine, 19 May 2011)

those anti-RH congressmen are just as bad, putting Pacquiao up to be beaten to a pulp by congressman Edcel Lagman, the worst strategy as far as congressman Mong Palatino is concerned failing as Pacquiao did. the anti-RH congressmen are saying of course not! Pacquiao did the best he could! yes, of course you’ll say that, he’s on your side. congressman Sherwin Tugna says: “<…> dahil sikat si Congressman Manny, marami ang nakinig at marami ang nalinawan dahil sa kanyang mga tanong at dahil sa magiting at malinaw na paliwanag sa sagot naman ng pro-RH na si Congressman Edcel Lagman.”

sige na nga congressman. but we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here, so there has to be media mileage on Dionisia, flared nostrils and fully made up, screaming on nationwide television, defending her son Manny against the big bad wolf that is senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago. just so it’s clear here, it was the anti-RH congressmen who made a puppet out of Pacquiao when they let him make a fool of himself so their cause could get media mileage. just so it’s clear, Jinkee admitted to using the pill in January 2011, Dionisia, not at all when they were newlyweds. and just so it’s clear, this is not just Pacquiao following the word of the Lord, this is him, as congressman joining a discussion on a bill that about women’s rights. and if all he can talk about is the Lord, then really, he deserves the criticism the rest of the congressmen like him are getting.

except that Pacquiao barely gets criticized, and in fact is saved from it mostly by the idea that so many others in congress are worse than him, so many of them are corrupt, so many others are downright evil. Pacquiao meanwhile will build a hospital in Sarangani, has brought commerce to Gen San, has helped the poor more than many others. he’s a nice guy, they say, nicer than most. plus, he’s a world class boxer! oh what more could we ask for?

ah, the question really is: why do we not ask for more? especially since Pacquiao himself demanded for more when he deemed himself worthy of a congressional position? especially since as congressman, Pacquiao necessarily also speaks as national icon, as national pride. Pacquiao-the-boxer is not different from Pacquiao-the-congressman from Pacquiao-the-puppet.

you take pride in one, you are forced to be silent on another. you take pride in all of that, defend Pacquiao to the hilt, or fall silent, then the joke is on us. pride mo ang lolo mong panot.