Category Archive for: pulitika

komentaryo

why free the morong 43?

Of course the answer must only be why the hell not? But, that’s getting ahead of this story, one that’s only tragic and nothing else, because while we insist that we hold freedom and democracy dear in this country, we will turn a blind eye to the oppression(s) of others, and will for the most part refuse all rationality because they are redder than most, they are activist of the kind that we don’t like or accept.

But also it is tragic because it can only be about Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the number of activists detained, killed and disappeared under her government. It can also only be about President Noynoy Aquino at this point, because his government will want to grant amnesty to 300 military mutineers and wish them a happy Christmas, but this same government will wash its hands of the Morong 43. Let the courts decide PNoy says. When exactly did we begin trusting our courts, I ask. And when did it become acceptable for double standard to be policy?

Because that is what’s obvious if we consider the silence about the case of the Morong 43. The double standard here is so in our faces, it has become white noise on increased volume.

For it can only be double standard that keeps the fight to free the Morong 43 from being a national issue. It can only be double standard if you now want to stop reading this, because you yourself think that the Morong 43 does not deserve freedom.

Because common sense points to the fact that they do. Common sense will make you say, goodness gracious, is this martial law? Because it sure looks like it: on the early morning of February 6 2010, as 43 health workers were preparing for the last day of health training in the house of Dr. Melecia Velmonte in Morong Rizal, they were raided by the military. Using a warrant with a name none of the 43 health workers had, the house was searched, phones were confiscated, and the 43 men and women we’re illegally arrested.

It took days before they were given the chance to talk to their lawyers, even longer to be seen and treated by their own doctors. When later it is revealed that they were tortured, it was no surprise given the illegal detention.

The health workers have since become known as the Morong 43. They’ve been in illegal detention for the past 10 months. Currently, two of the women are in the Philippine General Hospital after giving birth while in detention, five of them are in Camp Capinpin, 36 in Camp Bagong Diwa.

The latter is where Andal Ampatuan Jr. is on tight watch for the massacre of 57 journalists in Ampatuan, Maguindanao. Only the heartless would think the health workers deserve to be in the same space as someone like him.

I could go into the details of the case, give you the SEC registration numbers of the organizations that co-sponsored the health training, give you Dr. Velmonte’s CV and each of the two doctors, one registered nurse, two midwives and 38 volunteer community health workers to prove that they are not members of the New People’s Army as the military alleges, but you can – and should –go on and read about that elsewhere.

What I will say is this: if there is a valid warrant of arrest, and there are valid charges against the Morong 43 – and any other activist from pink to red for that matter – then wouldn’t it be easiest to just file a case against them and bring them to court? Why illegally detain them? Why treat them as guilty when their arrest was not only without effective warrant, it remains as a suspicion still that the 43 are members of the NPA?

Yes, the Morong 43 has been in jail for the past 10 months based on the suspicion that they are communist guerrillas. And as the military, the rightists, the anti-Left, insist that the Morong 43 – and all activists – deserve what they get in the hands of the military, the United Nations since 2007 has insisted otherwise. And right there, you’ve got the deadlock. Or the status quo.

The burden is on us who could for all intents and purposes talk about the case of the Morong 43 and show it more compassion, give them 43 more kindness. Or are we all so scared of activists these days, do we all think them the noisy minority as the Aquinos have called them? Or are we all agreeing with the military when it says that because Luis Jalandoni of the National Democratic Front said that the Morong 43 must be granted amnesty, that this in fact makes them members of the NPA?

Except that for this to be logical it would mean saying that everyone who has called for the freedom of the Morong 43 are suspect, too. This would include: former Department of Health secretaries Esperanza Cabral, Jaime Galvez-Tan, and Alberto Romualdez plus 100 others health workers who have signed a petition to free the 43; the University of the Philippines Manila that has put up a site for the Morong 43; the 150,000 nurse-members of the National Nurses United (NNU) in the US which has called for the release of the 43, as well as the International Association of Democratic Lawyers also based in the US which has asked PNoy to free the 43. Let’s not even begin with the senators and politicians, foreign visitors and the Catholic priests via the CBCP, who have called for the Morong 43’s release, because that would only make things more absurd.

But maybe the most absurd thing here, and the most tragic, is a general disregard for freeing the 43, one that I measure across traditional media and online journalism, blogging, social networking, tweeting and everything else in between. We will blog about the Ampatuan Massacre, type in those statuses of indignation on its anniversary, feature it on our documentaries, but we won’t do it as much – if at all – for the Morong 43. We will riddle our sites with statements and statuses, re-blog and re-tweet many other things and issues, change our profile photos as soon as we’ve got new pictures, but we will not do anything – not a word – for the 43 health workers.

You know that idiom that goes not lifting a finger? Well, in the age of the internet that un-lifted finger is heavier than it seems, because it matters more. The bombardment of words, images, opinions is the name of the game for something – anything! – to go viral. We’ve got no control, and sometimes it surprises us, doesn’t it. Like when the Pinoy female FB community kept that breast cancer awareness campaign going and going by putting the color and design of their bra on their statuses. Like when the Pinoy tweeting community forced Mai Mislang to cease and desist from tweeting.

Like now, when we can spend time to Google cartoon characters for our profile pics and not put up a status for the freedom of the Morong 43. Like now, when they’ve been on hunger strike for seven days and we’ve yet to see an outpouring of support.

We have yet to. And I say this because I have hope. I have hope in our capacity at discernment and confidence in our ability to look at the facts of this case and judge it to the advantage of the Morong 43 fight for freedom. I have hope in common sense, including the sense of compassion and kindness, given the hunger strike, given the fact that only the helpless in the face of injustice would do it, aka, Ninoy Aquino. I have hope in today, Human Rights Day, and our ability to see that the detention of the Morong 43 is nothing but a violation of the human rights we should always be celebrating and holding close to our hearts.

I have hope in Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, the heavens bless her. I have hope in the Commission on Human Rights changing our minds today: because they’re calling for the release of the Morong 43.

I have hope in our capacity to see that human rights must be accorded every human being, you or me, health worker or military officer, activist of every kind.

I have hope in our collective ability to free the Morong 43. As I hope, I write.

komentaryo

the fight for the RH Bill: the failure of those who party

you know I am all for the Reproductive Health Bill, ready to fight for its passing into law, no matter how gruesome that end looks: from being called names to losing the respect of relatives/friends/students who are more conservative than me, who believe in this Church more than I ever will.

to me, the fight for the RH Bill is the most logical one for any Filipino woman. it’s the most matter-of-fact law that’s painfully long in coming that we should want for ourselves, regardless of our religious inclinations. (and maybe after we can talk about divorce.)

to me, the fight for the RH Bill has always been about fighting for it to the last syllable I can speak and last letter I can type out, calling a spade a spade, the Pinoy Church what it actually is. to me, it needs to be said that the Pinoy Church is different from the bigger Catholic Church, just because it is here in third world Philippines that it has been allowed to be devil: governments have acceded to this Pinoy Church’s wishes to the detriment of its citizens.

here in the land where our notion(s) of being woman are created, the Church is certain and consistent; NOT like the Pope who has come to admit certain realities to be true.

but as much as I will critique the Pinoy Church’s ways of dealing with the RH Bill’s passing, I will know to see when the fight for the RH Bill’s passing is failing, if not just wrong, plain wrong. and so it must be said that this whole discourse of ex-communication is the worst thing to have come out of this fight for the RH Bill. the worst.

I admire Carlos Celdran, who has more balls than many of us combined, and who will also call that spade, a spade, AND a hoe for good measure because he can. but really? after his Damaso performance at the Manila Cathedral, we SHOULD NOT have: 1. ridden on the Damaso bandwagon, because in fact it is old and untrue at this point, and 2. latched on to the question of ex-communication, and thinking it a valid guidepost to this fight for the RH Bill. I’ve said this once, and I’ll say it again: when Carlos did his Damaso performance, it was powerful and sparked debate about the RH Bill.

when the Pinoy Church mentioned the possibility of ex-communication, it was laughable at most. what does it say about the RH Bill advocates now that they’ve used ex-communication as part of their campaign tagline, even wanting to party in its name? yes, they are going to party. they’re selling tickets for it, too.

I always thought that the end of debates about reproductive health has to be discussions not so much on choice, but on conception and when it happens. at what point is something preventing pregnancy? at what point is something an abortifacient? I always thought that this process of fighting for the RH Bill wasn’t so much about debating with the Pinoy Church but about discussing reproductive health so intelligently and truthfully that at the very least it would mean more women having a better sense of their choices, and learning that they have this right to their bodies. I always thought the RH Bill was about our rights as women to health services that are exactly for us, and this the debates on birth control and family planning needed to point out.

I always thought the point here was to convince more and more women of whatever religion to see that the RH Bill is her right, and that it will not be a judgment on her that she chooses to exercise this right. I thought that in the process of discussing the RH Bill, with as much intelligence and compassion as we can, that we would also be able to address the crisis that befalls the Pinoy Catholic, in the face of her faith vis a vis her notion of her rights.

because every woman has a personal stake in the RH Bill. and it requires an amount of truthfulness and honesty to face it and come clean on our own misconceptions and missteps given the lack of it in our lives, given the lack of respect for our rights as women. I thought this would be the point: to talk about our own individual feelings, memories, notions of our bodies vis a vis our religiosity and conservatism, and see that every bit of us is there, is here, in this debate about our right to our reproductive health. mine is here, my personal stake, is here.

I always thought the point of the RH Bill was to teach women to speak up about their needs as women, as women who live and use their bodies every day. I thought it would mean a lot of truthfulness about our bodies and the religion(s) and belief(s) we hold dear, and how this means a crisis on the level of the female individual. I always thought that intelligent discussions with regards the RH Bill would mean truly talking about our lives as women in third world Philippines living with the Pinoy Church, in the hope of letting other women see that it’s possible to live the contradictions, because this is our right to life, to our bodies, to our choices.

I thought that the point was to NOT stoop down to the level of the Pinoy Church, at the very least, not be faced with them Katoliko-sarados and not know what to say — NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY!– in the face of being called names.

sadly, the fight for the RH Bill has been sidetracked — perfectly, mind you — by the Church. the fight for the RH Bill has become about ladies who want to party and celebrate ex-communication, come on do it to us! they scream, as if this is the point at all. they fail to see that they latched on to something that’s beside the point, something that the Pinoy Church has articulated, something that was a funny threat at most, an irrelevant one in truth.

because if you didn’t care for the Pinoy Church, if you aren’t a practicing Catholic, and therefore you don’t mind being ex-communicated, shouldn’t that give you more teeth to sink into this topic? if you don’t mind being ex-communicated, then the goal must be to speak out about the things that the Pinoy Church would surely ex-communicate you for: at least speaking out would mean getting more people on your side, deadma na sa ex-communication, wala ka namang paki do’n.

but this whole ex-communication party? goodness. it is a failure on all counts, if not a display of the stark class divide that exists for the women in this country. it will also surely get more Catholics back on the Church’s side, no matter how critical they’ve been of it, no matter that they believe in the RH Bill.

this party is the perfect example of a failure in the fight for the RH Bill. it fails every woman who needs the RH Bill so she may be protected, it fails the poor woman for whom the RH Bill was created — she who DOESN’T WANT to be excommunicated and might not even know the word.

i wish this was a case of the blind leading the blind, but stuartsantiago seems to be right: it’s a lack of critical thinking. what a waste of time and money, energy and media mileage. and in light of the countless women who die every day because there’s no RH Bill, this party is as pointless as the Pinoy Church’s refusal to enter the 21th century.

it can also only be as tragic.

kultura

Layang Bilanggo frees us from the indie!

the discussions and debates on local indie films come from a place of uncertainty and spectatorship: who views these films, and therefore are we making them for those viewers? is the prevalence of sex and poverty and violence in the indie something that’s overly used to feed the first world’s need to validate themselves?  after all to insist on seeing the bowels of third world Philippines and saying bravo bravo! could also mean yehey! they’re still as poor as we’d like to think!

and then there are stories that are about poverty with some violence and some sex, that just get out of the rut that too many indie films are in. Layang Bilanggo directed by Michael Angelo Dagñalan and written by him with Ma-an L. Asuncion, Melchor DF. Escarcha (Kuwentista Productions), is exactly this story, without it being too self-consciously pa-artist or pa-difficult. instead what it is becomes what an indie should be able to do: speak of the times in a way that deems it as important as the past and the future, in situations that might be cliché but which are handled with a new perspective and a different voice.

because on the one hand, it’s clear that we know of the ex-con story, yet we rarely speak of how corruption within the police allows for the probability that the ex-con is freed, kept under the radar, and used as a hitman. because on the one hand, we’ve seen the story of the ex-con father seeking the abandoned child, yet we don’t know of the probability that this child’s life is so affected by the palpable absence that abandonment creates, making a reunion just impossible.

in Layang Bilanggo this basic story has a layer of what is both funny and tragic about age and aging, within the spaces of a provincial home for the aged, where the exchanges between nurses and boarders are always truthfully painful, making fun as they do of the absurd situation(s) that aging creates, that those who think they haven’t aged actually subsist on. it’s difficult now to think of any movie or TV show that has dealt with senior citizenship in the way that Layang Bilanggo successfully did, where the conversations, the moments of distress and anger, the emotional rollercoaster that abandonment and loneliness wreaks, are all so real. if not in our faces, reminding us of our own inabilities and incapabilities, reminding us how much of ourselves is in the ways in which we let our old get old, our senior citizens deal with age by themselves.

having said this, it must be said too: Jaime Fabregas, Pocholo Montes, Pen Medina, outdo themselves in the roles of senior citizenship, where the witty repartee is layered with a whole lot of disgust and distress at the way(s) they’ve aged, and why they’re within the space they’re in, where friendships are tongue in cheek, where the end is dealt with as a matter of fact, and not as something that’s unsaid.

that later on it is the ex-Metrocom officer who helps out the ex-con, that later on, this friendship will be tested in the decision to be captured again, do not run away it is said, becomes one of the more touching moments in the film. soon after, we are faced with an ending we don’t like or want or expect, and yet seems to be the only way a movie like this could end, with redemption only in the way of death, only the way that the person who survives holds a gun to someone’s head, and runs away through the forests that are unfamiliar.

and on concrete lies the man who only wanted to be forgiven, more for the crime that is abandonment versus any other one that the law speaks of. down the street, an old man is reading what’s left of the one who could only be a father until the end. within the gates of the old people’s home, a daughter doesn’t know the truth just yet, and will die a couple of deaths upon finding out who her father is.

and right in front of the movie screen, as the strains from the Johnoy Danao original theme song began, it was difficult to hold back tears. because there is no redemption, there is no happy ending. all that there is, we realize, is a world where abandonment is truth but rarely spoken of, a space where love can only be possible given a blanket of lies, where fathers and daughters are unbound but aren’t free, and the freedom we seek isn’t about walls or limits, but about what we aren’t allowed to become given the past we cannot shake off, given the future that can only be uncertain.

and then we realize that maybe the point isn’t to forget, nor is it to be forgiven. the point is to live now, and know to look peace in the eye, and take it on, even when we have yet to think we deserve it. the universe has its own way of judging us worthy. and letting us free.

***

note number 1: Layang Bilanggo won the Cinema One Originals 2010 best picture and best screenplay, with its director winning best director and lead actor winning best actor. and yes, the redundancy is killing me. Miriam Quiambao deserves some praise for acting that was truthful, she seems to be over her learning curve. Pen Medina as lead actor here isn’t just the best, he outdoes himself too, requiring a whole lot of bad words that only the most admirable would know to be about being overwhelmed.

note number 2: the last day of the the Cinema One Originals 2010 film fest was on a non-working holiday (November 16), and the filled theaters for Third World Happy and Dagim were unexpected for someone like me who’s been watching in half-filled theaters for most of the festival. suffice it to say that i was happy for these indie movies, but sad that i didn’t get to watch both movies.

komentaryo

some heart for Hubert

because it was Mama and I who watched and remembered with a heavy heart the story of the Vizconde Massacre on Cheche Lazaro Presents three nights ago, with stories of its victims. and when i say victims, i don’t just mean the family of Lauro Vizconde, he who has kept the house where the murders happened, he who has kept rooms exactly the way they are, living with such violence must be a tragedy in itself, too.

but as well, and this is the truth, the victimization of the Webb family, and how CLP showed what must be true of any family that has lost a member to prison: it is broken and in pain and in constant suffering.

i empathize on this level, having a good friend C in the same prison as Webb for the past 10 years, with no freedom in sight. he who had plans with us, a pretty solid barkada from college, he who we were/are sure is innocent. and i feel that for all of us who know him, there is a broken heart always, a missing, a loss, because he can’t be in our lives anymore, hasn’t been there for 10 years. and yes, that’s even when we visit him in Muntinlupa every time our lives allow, but as our lives outside happen this does become more and more difficult.

New Bilibid Prisons, on a RockEd-volunteer-in-bilibid-wednesday

so i know what Mrs. Webb means when she talks of the humiliation of being body-searched — yes, as in kapkap nang walang pakundangan. i know how it feels when Jason speaks with an amount of anger and frustration. and i understand when Freddie Webb says that Hubert is innocent, he is positive, as Rene Saguisag is, as Winnie Monsod is.

because i am positive too, that C is innocent, but is doing time in jail, one of five fall guys for a crime that was done by a collective they had the bad luck of being part of. and Bilibid is payment enough, i think, 10 years in Bilibid is payment enough. for people who just might be innocent, for people who were judged guilty by our courts despite evidence to the contrary.

because there are many things extraneous to a criminal case in our courts, yes? there is a media circus and public outcry that any judge would be pressured by, even when they deny it. what i remember clearly about Hubert etal at the time they were being tried in court was this: we wanted them rich boys to go to jail. in our collective minds Hubert etal had proven us right about how the sons of the more powerful and rich are spoiled brats. how they always needed to get their way, how they would never take no for an answer.

we believed because we had already judged Hubert etal. just like we would believe any random set of fratmen to be guilty of a frat gantihan turned murder. just like we would already presume someone guilty, given our own issues as a society, making it impossible to prove anyone innocent really.

that is ultimately the sadness of this society, as it is the tragedy of our justice system. in the end, i think we are all victims, some more than others, some more painful and broken than others. some doing time in jail, others left with only inevitable distance.

komentaryo

a resigned Ressa, a resigned us

why ABS-CBN? why would any network, in fact, let Maria Ressa go? it barely makes sense, if we know of her and her news and current affairs management and the ways she’s changed the news as we see it. and no, I don’t buy that whole refusal-to-renew-the-contract story, because really you can beg/ plead/ grovel to keep someone on your side,  especially when they’ve done so well, have outdone too many, in fact.

and this Maria has done for ABSCBN, allowing for ANC on Channel 27 to be the one and only reason we are still on Lopez-owned HomeCable even when they continue to provide horrible service especially since they forced subscribers to shift to the digiboxes. her management has single-handedly raised the bar for current affairs shows allowing for something as creative as Storyline to be on air, and bringing back the talk show that ain’t showbiz. of course all these have been on ANC, a cable news channel, but  at least for those of us who can afford cable, there’s a better alternative to news that happens so late in the evening because of the stretch of soap operas (beginning at 7PM and ending at 11:30PM).

and if you don’t agree with any of these, or just don’t have ANC (good for you for refusing the cultural empire of the Lopezes), then at least under Maria’s leadership, local channels have again started to do live broadcasts of senate hearings and such, because ANC was doing it.

this is not to agree with Maria’s management decisions all the time, nor is it to absolve ABSCBN (or any other network for that matter) from responsibility in the Manila hostage tragedy. in fact, I didn’t like that her Wall Street Journal article appeared so soon after the tragedy, adding salt to the wound, if not cutting deeper into it.

BUT I appreciate Maria’s chutzpah, her daring, even when faced with the probability of a collective disgust, or just a critical reader. I remember on Twitter soon after the hostage tragedy, her timeline was riddled with angry followers asking her in so many words what was she thinking!?! I thought Maria handled it with much grace and control, responding when she needed to, when it was a new question that she had yet to answer, and ignoring the redundant and the rhetorically angry.

this also isn’t to say that this was all good, or that we agreed all the time with the way the news was delivered/chosen/spun by ABS-CBN under Maria’s watch. this is to say that in truth there were such real and palpable and concrete changes in news and current affairs, and in which case, there were also better conversations about politics, and more creative documentaries about this country.

of course there’s still i-witness on GMA 7 which is still the best local docu-show I continue to see, and there still is Cheche Lazaro Presents on ABSCBN, whose Vizconde Massacre feature last night was just wonderfully done. but really, where else would Storyline see the light of day, or Strictly Politics, or Media in Focus? this doesn’t mean that we don’t complain about these shows, or that they are always without fault, or are always intelligently done. but this is to say that these are wonderful testaments to what can still happen for local news and current affairs, that we need not be stuck on CNN and BBC for better versions of the local.

in fact, under Maria’s watch, I remembered how I grew up with Randy David and Louie Beltran having their regular political and public affairs shows. yes, this was the time of public affairs versus current affairs, the time when relevance was still most important, versus just being news worthy. but that would be stuff for another blog entry.

here and now the question remains: but why? why let Maria Ressa go, what’s the real score here? though maybe we should be happy enough with, uh, tsismis being infinitely more interesting, even when – or maybe precisely because – it’s in relation to news and current affairs.

and as far as ABSCBN’s concerned?  I don’t think they fool anyone anymore given that the network’s the flagship of a Lopez empire. If anything, it has also become obvious that while they demand that politicians and government be transparent, they can only be farthest from being so themselves. now, in light of their maltreatment of workers finally becoming newsworthy, well, it’s easy to see how Maria’s notions of fairness and justice might not have worked in her favor after all.

so maybe she didn’t resign as damage control would like to point out, but this does feel like resignation, in the i-concede-my-hands-are-up kind of way. and Maria may deny it, but the rest of us can’t: the times when someone like her decides that it’s time to let go, it’s those times that we are forced to concede to the way things are or will inevitably become.

and for some reason, i have a sinking feeling that Maria’s leaving will mean having Kris Aquino back on TV, in what i imagine will be that past-publicized current affairs show. sana ‘wag na lang.