Category Archive for: produkto

komentaryo

the Boy of the arts: not even a patron

ambassador. — noun. 1. a diplomatic official of the highest rank, sent by one sovereign state to another as its resident representative. (via dictionary.com)

granted that diplomacy is what Boy Abunda has plenty of and “his ability to communicate ideas” is the soundbite that’s suppose to explain why he’s been appointed as Arts Ambassador.  of course there are so many other people who do this just as well if not better: i can give you 10 names off the top of my head across culture and the academe. but most of them are not on TV, aren’t almost-sisters with Kris Aquino, and most of them will most probably be critical of government. and right there you have the REAL reasons why Boy has become Arts Ambassador.

it’s not that he’s extraordinarily skilled, or even skilled at this job at all. it’s that he’s the right friend at the right time. and you know what’s clear about PNoy: he is paying his debts. because this ability to speak that they say is Boy’s specialty? he’s a PR guy turned showbiz talkshow host, who can spin, if not wrap you around his little finger: this is every marketing person’s specialty. and this is not to look down on people who do PR; this is to be truthful about PR. it’s about selling, about making something look good, regardless of how bad it truly is. they should just put Boy in PR for the whole government: right there is where they need image boosting and fakery.

but for government to pay its debt to Boy in this way? it’s one that the arts and cultures sector of this country will pay dearly for.

owned by ABS-CBN. not just the photo really.

this is not at all to question Boy’s abilities as talk show host, or as talent manager, or as PR person. this is to point out that Boy’s Arts Ambassador appointment  is just depressing to those of us who are part of the creative sphere and know that it’s in the throes of suffering, of disregard, of neglect. this is to point out that there are countless people more deserving, more experienced, who have for years been at the forefront of and living and suffering within the arts and cultures sphere.

some life advice in a CD for someone who doesn't sing

this sphere that has suffered long enough, because government just doesn’t seem to care about it. Boy is part only of TV and no other cultural production, unless you count his CD of life advice and advertising given his endorsements. this appointment is so telling of what this government thinks about arts and culture, how they imagine that someone who hosts on TV must be the best choice. it’s like saying that anyone who travels can be a travel writer, anyone who eats food a food critic.

which i understand, this uh, horrid dismaying presumptions about what is art and culture; after all Cory’s presidency didn’t just kill the local movie industry, it also put Kris on TV. but surrounded as PNoy is with advisers and writers who make him look good, surrounded as he is with people from the arts and academe, i thought we’d at least have a bunch of better choices for Art Ambassador.

now i’m the last person who will say that popular productions aren’t culture; but i’m also the first person who will tell you that TV is but a drop in the large river of art and culture that we create. the ability to interview people is an even smaller smidgen — katiting lang ‘yan ng kakayahan ng napakaraming manggagawang kultural na kumakayod sa Pilipinas araw-araw.

kayod. Boy did not have to work for this, and hasn’t really worked for culture all this time. i don’t know why the NCCA even believes that he is an “advocate for arts and culture” when in the years that i have heard Boy on TV with the equally noisy presidential sister, they have not once struck me as supporters of the local arts other than when one of Boy’s talents are part of a movie or show or photo exhibit, other than when it’s an ABS-CBN / Lopez cultural empire product.

they will talk about a Cory exhibit, but really talk about Cory and not the art; they will mention art and photography, but only when ABS-CBN talents are its subjects; they will mention a book, but not once have I heard them talking about Philippine literature; they will give you a list of the books they love but it is rare if at all that this includes a local author; they will talk about movies and it’s always just Star Cinema films, or Regal Films depending on whether or not Kris stars in it, and then the rest of the time it’s Hollywood; they will talk about foreign designer clothes in the midst of a sea of local designers; Boy will endorse a foreign book, one that talks about God, which of course already limits the realm of arts and culture that he can even begin to wrap his head around.

and this realm, IS HUGE, just in case it isn’t being realized at all. arts and culture in this country is a diverse dynamic world of crisis and contradiction, and in the ideal world an Arts Ambassador would include all of that — all of us — in his vision.

this is not about reading Maya Angelou (who Boy always quotes, goodness gracious). this isn’t about watching Oprah all the time and copying her interviewing style. this is not about supporting one or two or three Pinoy designers for one’s clothes. this is not at all about watching Pinoy TV and film and being a fan of it. this is not about studying for a post, which he promised he’d do when he said no, not yet, to a government post.

this is about having read our Filipino writers all this time,  and having a sense of what ails the publishing industry. this is about keeping track of what’s going on in the academe, in the arts and culture it churns out, and seeing what ails our intellectual production. this is about watching plays and going to art exhibits, watching all of TV and not just ABS-CBN, going to the movies mainstream and indie, and seeing how much more — how so much more — can be done to spread that wealth around. this is about knowing the regions and seeing particular pockets of arts and cultures in languages as diverse as there are islands. this is about not being indebted to anyone — anyone at all — and being responsible for the kind of cultural products you yourself produce.

boy blind tastes a corned beef brand on nationwide television

because as Arts Ambassador, Boy’s own productions come into play. as Arts Ambassador it is respect and credibility that are difficult to earn, locally and internationally, given the diversity and division, given the lack of a clear Pinoy identity and agenda.

but here you have an Arts Ambassador indebted to the greatest cultural empire this side of the earth, which disallows unions and illegally dismisses its workers. he sells — is endorser of —  a mobile service provider, detergent, corned beef, pineapple juice, a beauty center, writer for a particular newspaper and magazine, and is in TV shows only on ABS-CBN 2. this in itself is replete with bias, and a limited view of what else is there about culture, about the arts.

ambassador for the arts sells beauty and surgical center. that's him with a trench coat in the middle of the photo.

and i won’t even go into becoming laughingstock of the bigger international world of arts and culture. not just because of the fact that our arts and culture ambassador is a, uh, product endorser but more than that because when and if they Google him what they’ll see is this:

via http://leviuqse.blogspot.com

and a photo for what is a hypothetical show that regardless, appears on Google:

via http://chuvaness.livejournal.com/557621

ladies and gentlemen, our Arts Ambassador, the guy who will face guests, art practitioners, cultural ambassadors all over the world at the up and coming Philippine International Arts Festival!

you can tell i’m excited.

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!

komentaryo

Lucio Tan wins again? (DOLE naman!)

or why that San Mig Light will taste infinitely better now

because in whose mind would it be normal and rational, just and fair, to lay off 2,600 employees favouring one of the richest Filipinos of 2009. really, now. Lucio Tan’s net worth then was at $1.7 billion dollars. that’s P78 BILLION PESOS. This year, he’s second richest in the land, with a net worth of  $2.1 billion dollars, that’s close to P90 BILLION PESOS (89.67 to be exact).

at ayon sa DOLE, kawawa naman ang mayaman ano, kase babagsak na ang business niya, kaya ayan, tanggalin na lang natin ang mga manggagawa niya!

This is also a man whose tax evasion cases were dismissed on a technicality during Erap’s time – Tan was a crony of Erap’s and earlier of Marcos. It explains, doesn’t it, how he got away with evading taxes that amounted to P25 billion pesos in 2005, which in 2000 was estimated to be at P25.27 billion (yes, I refuse to let go of that .27 billion).

i know i digress, here, but i think this digression points to the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) inability to see Tan as bigger than his current oppression of workers in Philippine Airlines. it points to how DOLE in fact seems to be treating Tan as its very own crony, siding from the beginning with PAL, even having meetings with its officials, as if it is PAL that is aggrieved in this situation.

let’s be clear here: we should feel no pity – at all – for Tan and his PAL management. they are not the oppressed here. and if you think otherwise, you should read up. or maybe try being an employee for once, and then talk to me about oppression.

because oppression is when you’re issued a gag order that disallows you to talk about your salary – not because it’s big mind you, but because it’s lower than most other pilots. in August, 27 pilots resigned because wanted better wages. but this resignation was also about taking a stand against the way they were being treated by Tan and PAL management.

before this, 11 co-pilots had been forced to resign by PAL management because they wanted these pilots to fly planes under Air Philippines and Aero Filipinas – both owned by Tan. the point? these pilots would be hired as contractual employees, which means their wages would be cut in half, low as it already is in PAL.

as bad as this kind of treatment? some pilots aren’t forced to resign, but they are forced to take on flights for Air Philippines on top of the flights they do for PAL. that’s being employee in two companies! correction, that’s forced employment in two companies both owned by he who is called the “most notorious crony capitalist” Tan.

and no, this isn’t just about the pilots. flights have been undermanned, which can only mean overworked flight attendants with the same pay.  female flight attendants are also being force to retire at 40, versus 60 for male employees; a maternity leave also means no pay and no benefits. ground  crew also hear of their impending forced resignations in order to be re-hired on a contractual basis in Tan’s various spin-off companies.

but it can only get worse. Tan and PAL management did want to work on these spin-off companies so they might gain more profit, but this wasn’t in the form of hiring old workers on a contractual basis; it was to outsource employment which makes imperative the termination of 2,600 workers.

this is what’s in the news at this point, the DOLE decision being released as it was on November 1. the irony would be nice were it not tragic, too. and just reason for anger.

you ask why didn’t PAL employees hold a strike earlier? why did they wait for things to be so bad, to come to a head, to pile up like this? a history lesson might be in order:  12 years ago in retaliation against striking workers, the PAL management terminated 600 pilots and almost 2,000 members of the cabin crew. and yes, that case of wrongful termination is still in our courts.

so you see, Lucio Tan has gotten away with murder in this country, in so many ways, and too many times. governments have let him kill, time and again.

it might be good to remind PNoy that his mother, seeing as she is always invoked by him and his sisters, never dealt with Lucio Tan – in fact Cory was seen as hostile towards Tan, thank goodness.

and just in case this isn’t enough to convince PNoy that his delegation of this job has fallen on horrible hands. read the DOLE’s justification of its decision, it’s so naive – or maybe just blind – to the workings of a capitalist empire like the one Lucio Tan’s creating for himself. DOLE believed PAL when the latter said it has been suffering financially the past two years, though a look at PAL’s own milestones shows that it has done nothing in the past two years but to acquire and to expand. it sure doesn’t look like a business that’s suffering. Cebu Pacific might have beaten it already, but that doesn’t mean it’s in the red.

oh and just so you know, in 1998 PAL also used as excuse financial difficulties to defend its downsizing of operations and termination of employees. but too, maybe all it takes is to imagine how far Lucio Tan’s money – the one that’s declared in and everything else extraneous to those richest man in the Philippines numbers – could go into spending on PAL employees’ wages or just making lives better all around.

but too, there’s an even easier question to ask: if Lucio Tan is second richest man in this country, howthef*#@! can the same man have a business that’s going under?

ULOL.

radikalchick.lit

no money, no Muji

or meeting my middle class self at the Muji Manila opening

There was much talk about a Muji Store opening in the Philippines, and it would only be a couple of days before opening day that it would be announced as a truth: it was here, the brandless brand from Japan, the one that will bring us the best of Japan’s home and office supplies. And I kid you not, I loved it. And yes it was more expensive, but that’s to be expected, and on this opening night it didn’t really seem like the rich of this country cared.

The middle class forewarned

My friend A warned me, that’s going to be filled with the rich, Ina, and of course I was prepared – or so I thought. Now the thing with events like openings and such, for arts and otherwise, is that I’m reminded of how middle class I am, and yes I am proof positive that the middle class exists. And I enumerate:

1. I have a car (broken as it was) to drive to Bonifacio High Street with (which is inaccessible via public transport unless it’s an expensive cab ride).

2. I knew of Muji before it arrived here, have been to Japan once in my life, when there was money to spare, when Papa said that I needed to see Japan, because he worked there when I was a little girl, it would be good for me to experience it.

3. I followed what the invite said: wear a touch of white. And yes that means I had options in my closet.

I mean I understand the argument that the middle class doesn’t exist, but really, let me be myself and insist that I am, just because I live it every day, much like the effect of skin whitening sold by women to women must be seen as mine to talk about (and you can’t convince me otherwise, kahit tunay na lalake ka pa). I was forewarned with the notion of the rich as well because my friend knows of my middle class self, and how I will see it and feel it, my difference from this rich. She had put me in my place without knowing it.

Exclusivity and yayas

So I enter and realize there’s a guest list, and remember that I invited my friend B to come follow me to the opening, there’d be free food and nerdy shopping for school and office supplies. I refuse to worry about it, wanting to get to the merchandise and see how cheap they were and what pens I could buy for Mama who had said she wanted Muji pens, without really knowing what they’re like.

But the store was being prepped for what was “the opening of doors” and we were all crammed and cramped outside the store with endless wine and champagne and vodka sprite and Japanese inspired finger food. I thought I was in heaven, social class notwithstanding. It’s so middle class of me. And I enumerate:

4. I sold this event to my friend in relation to free food. In relation to nerdy supplies, yes, but to the free food too (haha!) and it sure was good fancy Japanese food.

5. I thought the merchandise would be cheap, i.e., Japan cheap, where 1 yen stores exist, spaces that I thought were different versions of heaven. I also thought there would be some free stuff for the press/media, but then again, sometimes good food and drinks are enough. See number 4 above.

6. When I say social class notwithstanding, I don’t just mean me vis a vis the rich and the celebrity. I mean me and the number of yayas in uniform, feeding their alagas, who had obviously been brought by their parents for a Friday night out with family. And yes, some of those alagas were Japanese – how’s that for assimilating into our culture via household help. *hay*

No money, no Muji

And then the doors opened, and we all went up to the second floor of the GAP Store where Muji Store Manila now stands, and it was this peculiar kind of heaven that I love because it is monochromatic. I’m such a Capricorn, really, for being inspired by just blacks and whites, and wood and glass and navy blues. And I was in love with this store, thinking of pens for Christmas gifts, thinking of how cheap it would be when it went on sale, thinking of it as a cheaper (and better!) alternative to Banana Republic because it has nice cotton tops and dresses, with embroidery and ruffle details, and very simple beautiful merchandise. Thinking of bringing Mama the next time we have cash to spare for nice clothes.

But many things became clear to me after I filled a basket with supplies, and at some point I found I could let my basket go. Why let go of Muji products on Muji night? Because there was no discount for opening night, and it didn’t make sense to fall in that long line just to get the products ahead of everybody else, as my friend B agreed. At that point this opening night barely made sense to me, as everything else in that space began making sense. I enumerate my middle class thoughts:

7. This wasn’t for me, obviously, who had no money, therefore no Muji. I could’ve used my credit card, but that would mean this was an urgent and necessary expense. The latter is true for pens and their function in my life, but I wouldn’t be able to defend the former if my life depended on it.

8. This was for the rich who were there, the ones who could spend without thinking, the ones who knew of Muji elsewhere and thought it the best thing that it was now in the Philippines, and were ready to spend. They were in line and leaving the store with bags and boxes to prove it, too.

9. Muji was for me too, who looked at that merchandise and remembered too much of a visit to Japan three years ago, long enough to have forgotten, but easy enough to rewind and rewrite with proper erasures and revisions.

10. I become friends with the Kuya/Manong waiters in events like this so at some point they’ll bring me the dessert(s) that I want, or just keep giving me alcohol. I’ve never wondered why, I always thought it was because I’ve got my Papa’s rockstar blood in my veins: he who will talk to everyone, walang masamang tinapay. At this Muji Store opening, it was suddenly clear: no one ever made the waiters chika. No one.

There was a joy to Muji still, my lack of money notwithstanding. There was something special about looking at that merchandise and seeing so much of what I used to have, things I had given away, let go of, released to the world. There was a feeling of freedom here, the kind that allowed me to see these things and thank heavens that I could be there and have no memory at all of when it was it was that I first encountered Muji.

Instead I saw these: teeny tiny staplers and cutters, small sticks of glue and tape and scissors, the kinds that can fit in any kikay kit for fashion emergencies. I saw these for that supply kit that should always be in every person’s car. I saw the containers and thought of all the things I might need or have lost a container for: pills and tablets of all shapes and sizes, lipsticks and eye glasses, creams and soap and cologne. Many of these things are obviously for travel, but too, they are for the working girl Pinay, the ones who commute every day or live out of their cars like me.

And the pens – oh my heart! – I had filled my basket with every kind, choosing the colors very carefully just because I couldn’t afford all of it. This basket I had let go of, knowing I would just come back when it was time. Which is to say when there’s money, and middle class as I am that might not happen any time soon.  Oh heart, poor heart.