Category Archive for: pulitika

komentaryo

Thinking of FVR

In 2016, I met FVR at the book launch of Carmen Pedrosa in Fully Booked BGC.

It was serendipitous in more ways than one.

This was in June, when those of us elsewhere in the political spectrum (i.e., non-Duterte voters) were still adjusting to the idea of Duterte as President. We saw FVR arrive at the launch while Ma’am Carmen was speaking, and as I have been trained to always have a bunch of our independently published books in the car, we scrambled to get a copy of Angela‘s EDSA Uno Dos Tres for FVR.

After the event proper, during which he spoke and paid tribute to Ma’am Carmen, but also poked fun at her seeming fascination with Imelda (haha!), I went up to him to give him a copy of the book, introducing myself as my mother’s daughter. Ma’am Carmen stepped in to introduce me as well, as a young writer who was with a group of old journos on a China trip the year before. FVR’s eyes lit up, and out came jokes you would hear from your grandfather or Tito, that it was easy to laugh-out-loud and roll ones eyes at him.

At some point we sat down, and he asked how Mama was, what she’s been doing—he remembers having sat down for interviews with her in the 90’s for the first EDSA book, and so I said, all of that is in EDSA Uno, plus whatever new information on EDSA that has since come up. He asked what it is I do, what it is Vito does, when I said I was a columnist with The Manila Times, we talked about politics a bit. But it was a very light conversation, the tenor of which was mostly Lolo jokes: “Totoo ba ang glasses mo?” he asked. And when I said yes, he pokes his eye to reveal that his is just a frame with no lenses: “Ito kasi para matalino lang tingnan.” (more…)

komentaryo

Pointed appointments (Part 1) #MarcosV2

I totally understand many in the liberal opposition that have decided to deepen the political divide and decided to just live in their echo chambers. It is easiest thing to do. And certainly, at this point, maybe the mental and emotional well-being of many depend on this cutting off from the real.

But I draw the line at disbelieving the loss. I draw it at insisting that the 31 million isn’t real, then insisting that we are proud of being one of the 15 million. This defies logic and reason: you cannot believe one number but disbelieve the other. And if you decide you disbelieve both (and even say that the 2016 results were false as well), then you’ve got a problem: the powers were different in 2016, but Duterte won anyway. And really, if we cease to believe electoral results, then elections also cease to be an important democratic exercise for you. Turning anarchist is good, if you’re conscious that you’re doing so. Too: if the elections are not credible to you, then there is no reason to engage in it as an exercise.

I’ve said this often enough: choosing to be blind is a terrible thing. Especially when blindness means practically disassociating ourselves with what’s real. And right now what’s real is this: Marcos is President, and he is making very interesting appointments if we’re looking at all. These appointments are also very important, as these people will dictate what kind of leadership we will see the next six years. They are interesting because they are of course more than just people, but what they actually represent.

The strategy is clear in many of these appointments, if only we were looking. (more…)

komentaryo

23 Days: Words, class, final push #Halalan2022

On repeat: I do not think misogyny and the patriarchy are those big ideas that have made this electoral race an uphill climb for VP Leni. That has no basis if one considers the kind of very feminine, very female, very woman empowerment frames that have been created for the women on the Marcos-Duterte side—from Manang Imee to Tita Irene, to Sara Duterte herself. Let me not begin about Liza Araneta, or even their female supporters like Dawn Zulueta. It has even less basis if we consider that throughout the past two years in this pandemic, it is the women in communities that have risen quickly, worked on survival and recovery efforts, taken on more than they usually do. Yes, patriarchy is here. No, it isn’t as simplistic as saying “majority of voters are patriarchal”—like that dictates the numbers we shade on our ballots.

Let’s be clear: there are many reasons why the Robredo-Pangilinan campaign has failed to capture the imagination of the 90% of voters we need to convert. No, the reasons are not as simple as so many 280-character tweets insist it is. This is not about the campaign being “feminine,” nor about the campaign being middle class.

And certainly, the solution is not to make it “more masculine.” These assertions are borne of terrible oversimplifications, i.e., that since Duterte has high-approval ratings, therefore what we need is more masculinity, more military, on VP Leni’s campaign. That fails to consider that the past four years a majority of us—and yes, that cuts across social classes—have grown tired of the militarized governance of Duterte. No, people are not tired of Duterte, but they are at the receiving end of his military and police, so emboldened by having a President who will forgive them anything. To even imagine that any campaign would benefit from being seen with military and police officials at this point, is failing to read the room. (more…)

komentaryo

Grace #Halalan2022

Talking 2022 means talking about the elephant in the room that is Grace Poe.

It is clear to anyone who has a sense of how elections are won and lost, who has as starting point Duterte-Marcos’s massive propaganda machinery, who looks at surveys critically vis a vis one’s own political biases, that the only way to win this is to bring together the business sector, the middle classes, and the mass vote behind one candidate.

It was clear, since the 2019 Senatorial election results, that this would be Grace.

And no, you’re not talking to a Grace Poe fan. Search through this site and my social media accounts and you’ll see that I have had the worst opinions of her in terms of where she stands on oligarchs, at the same time that I have been impressed by how she takes the side of the transport sector and commuters in the Senate inquiries she’s led. This doesn’t make me two-faced. It makes HER a Senator, and it makes me a citizen who agrees as much as I might disagree with the people in power.

But that IS the thing isn’t it? The right to vote is tied to a sense of our responsibility to nation, not to the people we vote into positions of power. We are not their fans, or their followers; positions of power aren’t Facebook Pages or Twitter accounts. This is about citizenship and about having a sense of what nation needs at any given point, relative to the decisions that our leaders make for us, in our names, using our funds, regardless of whether we voted for them or not.

No one seems to see this anymore, and this is no surprise. Duterte propaganda has pushed even the most sane, most rational among us to turn to fanaticism and troll discourse, which is easy to fall prey to on social media, where people across Left to Liberal leanings have enjoyed deeper echo chambers. Yes, you will get leaders, from VP Leni to Makabayan talking about uniting the opposition, but none of that matters when their actors are first to engage in divisive, DDS-like behavior on public platforms.

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komentaryo

The problem with boomers #Halalan2022

I started 2021 with such hope in the possibility of gathering together the politicized generations X, millennial, and Z towards affecting 2022 election outcomes. I sent out documents, talked to people, revised the documents, talked to even more people and groups, and kept that hope going. The vision, many agreed, was wonderful. We want to talk platforms not personalities; we want to champion the issues that we think are important for 2022, list the demands that we want candidates to talk about and take a stand on, if they want our vote.

I had hoped that if the Filipinos in their 40s, (Generation X, the Martial Law generation) and younger (millennials, gen Z) could organize themselves into the monolith that they are, proven as that is by the fact of our having risen to the occasion of the most vulnerable during the lockdowns last year, then all other generations (hey boomers!), and sectors (business sector, NGOs and CSOs, the Church, the schools) would have no choice but to listen, and join in.

I had thought that this was the perfect time, when so many of us in the middle have been politicized by the past pandemic year, and when it is clear that we have much to unite on not just among ourselves but especially and more importantly, with the masses. We have all suffered in this pandemic and under this governance. There is no reason to imagine we cannot unite on that.

(more…)