If there’s anything that fascinates about PDAF or pork barrel, and now the Development Acceleration Program (DAP) fund, it’s how much money this country actually has. No, correction: it’s how much money government has.
I’ve said this before, and I say it again: it is fantastic that we are talking about the National Budget, that we are being forced to scrutinize these numbers, that we are looking at the state of nation vis a vis the amount of money that’s unaccounted for by government and our politicians. (more…)
if there’s anything that #noynoying must take credit for, it is more than just that it has trended and landed in international media sites. the activist youth sector — and when i say that i mean Anakbayan — must take credit too for the fact that #noynoying has annoyed the likes of Joel Rocamora enough to speak out against it.
and boy, does he speak out. and does he draw those lines like no one else has done. and boy does he reveal so much more about his kind of activism even as he imagines that what he did was discredit completely the ideological political line upon which Anakbayan and #noynoying stand.
this is the only explanation for Rocamora invoking the concept of the RA (reaffirmist) activists in his essay for rappler.com. here he was drawing a line, one that he must have thought was important to make, yet other than that title he lets it slide and nowhere in the essay does he explain what it means. then he ends with the national democrats as the bane of development as he and PNoy believe it to be.
now i will not pretend that i am equipped to discuss the RA-Rejectionist dichotomy and division at length, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that Rocamora, as does Llamas, are wanting to make a distinction between themselves and the RA activist. and while it would be exciting to find out how they identify themselves as separate from the national democrat, it seems the better question is: what have they done as non-RA activists, as non-national democrats?
alas Rocamora doesn’t quite tell us that in his defense of PNoy — which is really all that his rappler piece was. there Rocamora spoke like he’s with the President day-in day-out, he spoke with all credibility about how the president is no lazy man, about how he is hardworking and diligent behind the scenes (woohoo!). yet it seems that because Rocamora was so ready to point a finger at the kind of activism that has brought about #noynoying, he failed at properly responding to it, too.
why are they not up in arms about the fact that instead of actually truly thinking about the majority who suffer with these oil price hikes, this PNoy government has celebrated its ability at putting together short-term dole-out programs like the Pantawid Pasada program? why are they not up in arms about the growing number of children who will not have access to education because their parents will have no money for it?
certainly we all knew that #noynoying was not so much about what PNoy is like behind the scenes; #noynoying was always — and is — about how PNoy has responded to the issues of these times, the ones that we feel in the pits of our stomachs because prices are at an unprecedented high, and confidence in our capacity to avail of basic services is at an unprecedented low. #noynoying is about PNoy saying the most absurd thing on this side of oil price hike earth:
“Kunwari ‘pag tumataas ‘yung presyo ng fuel, syempre magtitipid ka, gagamitin mo lang ‘yung kailangan mo. So ‘yung kailangan natin angkatin is ‘yung dapat lang na na kino-konsumo natin,” he added.
ano daw? so as more and more Filipinos cease to have the capacity to afford three square meals a day, we shall imagine it all good because they can live off just one meal, and that is the right amount they must consume? so we do not want to control the price of oil because it is teaching us to consume only what we need? PNoy seems to think that the Filipino has lived excessively and in over consumption, which is a horrid misreading of the situation that the majority in this country is in.
which brings us back to the non-natdem activist that is Rocamora, who takes pride in his position in government (wow!), highlighting it as the success of the “left” as they see it. what do they have to say about these assessments of PNoy’s, about these small but brilliant pieces of insight that give us a sense of where he really and truly stands about the dire situation the country is in? certainly the non-natdem activist has a better response than just throwing out the term RA without explaining what it means. certainly they must have more up their sleeve than just pointing at how the numbers here are a lie. certainly the answer must be about real concrete measures like, oh i don’t know, letting go of that 12% vat on oil? certainly they should know to go beyond the false rhetoric of development via stock exchange numbers that PNoy likes to revel in?
meanwhile it has to be said that if anything, Rocamora’s defense of PNoy revealed that while he is so into discrediting the activists who are out on the streets and gathering signatures and easily getting support for #noynoying beyond the online world, Rocamora and his non-natdem friends are still dependent on the idea that they remain leftist, that they are progressive, that they are the ones making the important changes from within. so you’re non-natdem, non-RA, but you remain relevant even as you do not take a stand on oil price hikes and tuition fee increases? oh right, you have to believe the rhetoric of your president. got it.
Rocamora says in that rappler piece that the national democrats “see reforms as obstacles to the realization of their illusory revolution.” it sure looks like it’s Rocamora who’s living quite happily in the bubble of PNoy’s illusory reformist government.
at least Gilda Cordero-Fernando admits that all she’s written in response to #noynoying is a rah-rah piece.
the breakdown and aftermath of the Rafael Santos debacle is interesting to me mostly for what’s still unsaid.
1. the fact of Santos’ class, and i use that word not just to point to his lack of social skills (for goodness why would he think a joke like that funny?) and bad manners (he was asked about actors he himself worked with for his film, yes?), but also his social class. that humor, if we’d like to call it that, is one that we know exists, that we might have heard before from rowdy boys in some sosy Starbucks, or kids we’ve taught in our time as teachers, and it’s a humor that isn’t surprising in its existence. what is surprising is that Santos did not turn it off for television, that he actually thought this was an interview that would be so comfortable, his humor would be fine. which bring us back to the fact that he might be a rich kid — a konyo kid in our context who feeds his cat catfood and thinks lowly of skyflakes (equals 1 cup of rice kaya and isang pack no’n!) — but apparently rich doesn’t mean classy.
2. which is what that show Cityscape is, more pang-mayaman than anything. Sir Anton Juan is so correct about pointing out how that host is at fault as well, though there’s the mere existence of lifestyle shows for the elite like this one that’s just wrong in third world Philippines. that show, as is David Celdran’s ANC show, is a bubble that allows the ones who are in it to believe that everyone speaks the same language, thinks the same, live the same, i.e., we’re all rich, you’ll get my humor. is this to defend Santos? of course not. it’s to point out that other than this articulation, there’s a fundamental problem in a media system that creates a venue for him to speak this way, and think that it’s ok. it’s telling of a crisis in media, isn’t it, when the rich can be shameless about their lives and lifestyles, as if they were not in impoverished philippines?
3. some critics of Santos are angry because he draws a divide between film and theater. i say it’s a reminder: despite Eugene Domingo, John Lapus moving from theater to film, and despite numerous mainstream actors moving from mainstream and finding more credibility in theater, that divide still exists. and it’s one that’s painfully and obviously about money, i.e., who will make money for TV and movie executives and therefore will get better pay, and not at all about who does the better job at acting or entertaining.
now that divide gets a little more complex when we talk about the indie film industry of which Santos is part. the indie in fact is theater in light of commercial film; it’s where the more artistic, more creative filmmaking happens, where the better actors are found. i always thought the indie employing theater actors meant a team effort of sorts, one that spoke of both industries’ struggle to prove creativity on the most flimsy of budgets, on a dire lack of support. Santos’ articulation pointed to the fact that the indie film industry has it’s own divide to deal with, and it’s one that’s becoming more and more stark as they go about this business of being “independent.” while it’s true that there are countless writers and directors who financially struggle to get a hold of a camera and finish a film, it’s also difficult to ignore this fact: there are also these kids who go to some sosyal film school, are given cameras on a silver platter and think the struggle is just like wow pare, it’s so hard to make the film i want, coz i want to do a tarantino film or like a kubrick? and the philippines is so not prepared for me.
wow pare, ang tindi ng struggle mo.
4. and lastly, Tanghalang Pilipino’s artistic director Nanding Josef wonders:
here’s what i think, Sir: while i’ve got a brother and sister-in-law who were part of theater in the Philippines before they left for Holland, and while i’d like to think myself a theater critic at times (though i cringe at that label half the time, especially with gibbs cadiz and exie abola around), as outsider to philippine theater, i think this emotional outpouring of anger and disgust at the issues that underlie Santos’ articulations is the perfect reason to start talking about a theater actors’ union.*
of course in this country insisting on a union is a red flag up for the powers-that-be. but seeing the theater industry’s united stand against this articulation (even those who have forgiven Santos admit to his fault here), i think the theater world’s 100 steps ahead of the fight for what every creative industry worker deserves: a spanking-new union.
the writers among us can only be envious.
*and i mean a real one, not like the UMPIL for writers, which doesn’t really function to protect writers or standardize how much we might get paid, but seems more like a fraternity of writers. i mean a real artists’ union, much like the Philippine Models Association of the Philippines (yes, they are smarter than us all), that standardizes pay based on seniority and skill of their members, and is responsible for any of its members not performing their jobs well.
