Category Archive for: pulitika

kultura

2009’s Notable Cultural chevers*

As with all year-ender lists, this is necessarily full of itself, and can be accused of having a false sense of power, imagining itself to be comprehensive and truthful and correct. Unlike many of those Best of 2009! lists though, this is conscious of itself and its limitations, and is willing to be shot in the foot for missing the point entirely. Too, this isn’t really a Best Of list (haha!); this is really just a list of my top 10/11/12? spectacular (-ly negative, positive, happy, disappointing) things that did happen in our shores as far as popular, alternative, online, indie culture was concerned, as distinct from what have been termed notables of the year in books, theater, art and music. All these terms of course are highly arguable, but then again, culture is highly arguable, and is in process, as with everything that is lived. So maybe this is really just a way of reckoning with the past year, looking at what we did, where we are, what else is there to do, given the good the bad, the sad the happy, the almost-there-but-not-quite, that happened for and to culture in 2009. The hope is that we will continue to argue in the year 2010, over and above – and more importantly because of – the relationships we hold dear, the interests we treasure, and well, where we clearly stand about real and relevant change.

1. Uniting Against the Book Blockade. In the summer of 2009, poet and teacher Chingbee Cruz blogged about being taxed at the Post Office for books that she had ordered online. This would begin the fight against the taxation of imported books which, according to U.P. Law School Dean Marvic Leonen is against the law: books are tax-exempt, no ifs and buts about it. And yes, the last we heard, we are going to court on this one. (more…)

komentaryo

the good, the sad, the ugly —

— or the life and death of critical discourse.

so carlos celdran takes jim paredes to task for being, in gay lingo, a negatron, i.e., a nega, a negamall, about the philippines. what paredes had said seems irrelevant now, because what came to matter as far as ANC’s Media in Focus panel that included celdran was this: can you blame media for showing just the bad news? isn’t celdran mouthing government rhetoric that says we must see the positive in all these? and was celdran, praytell, correct in saying that there’s something good in GMA, and that well, it’s worth the news? and for the more exciting part, does paredes’ migration to australia matter in any form or manner?

THE GOOD — or why i was with team carlos for a while there.

between celdran and paredes, it is the former that has me listening. this man just has the balls, you know? he publishes what’s on his mind, then takes responsibility for it regardless of the outcome.  which is really what made for fascinating viewing as well, of the twitter exchanges and that fateful MIF show.

it’s also quite refreshing to hear someone from the same social class dishing it against his own, and well, not minding being at the receiving end of it. i mean of course it’s easy to dismiss celdran as just a konyo boy, at the same time, he is one who seems more involved than his kind, seems more daring in terms of taking stands and having convictions, and really, he seems to have a better sense of his limitations at the same time that he lives his freedoms.

and so yes, he will critique government at the same time that he will openly campaign for gibo; he gets angry at lisa macuja for saying no to the RH Bill campaign, and celebrates lea salonga for being on his side; he will keep the fire going — as many middle and upper class netizens did — throughout the ondoy tragedy and aftermath, even as he has gone on to talk about other things that are more current and well, that are a little happier.

which is why it’s no surprise that he will say, there must be something good to write about the philippines, here and now, right? we must not want to be negatrons, and instead start building a pinoy identity that’s more positive. we must consider what it is that so many in the world think about us, given what it is they know (or not) about the philippines. so he demands for a balance between the bad and good. he also says there must be something good about GMA, even if it’s just that spanking new train.

but here is where celdran’s limitations become clear.

THE SAD thing isn’t so much that we must even thank GMA for the good news of a train that is her responsibility to renovate to begin with, it’s really that as we thank her for you know, the elevated u-turn on C5 or the highway to Subic, we cannot but imagine who was marginalized in these processes of “development”.

how must it feel to deal with that elevated u-turn, when you are the commuter who’s public transport isn’t allowed to pass on it, and instead must contend with thetraffic it creates beneath it? how must it feel to be the farmer or worker who now has to contend with destroyed mountains and land, plus a highway that’s impossible to cross, in order to maintain a living?

and yes, how do we imagine the train being a fantastic thing when the impoverished that exists in its immediate vicinity are blamed and ostracized, made to feel unworthy of its existence given it’s new beauty?

carlos conde, who was also guest at the MIF panel, has it right: much of the good news we do have is premised on something sad, if not altogether bad. efren penaflorida‘s success is really about poverty and the sad state of education in this country; manny pacquiao‘s athleticism is based on the fact of necessity, and so is charice pempengco‘s singing style and success.

these successes are plenty true, and there are tons of good news, but context — the bigger picture — is all encompassing. the sad truth is that where we do come from, there is no escaping the sadness. and maybe there is no reason to. because the moment we do, then we might forget. and i imagine that forgetting is also the last thing that celdran wants to happen. or paredes for that matter. regardless of whether they live with it everyday or ehem, have it in theirhearts, as filipino-migrant-apple-picker-and-writer Carlos Bulosan already said decades ago.

THE UGLINESS of this all lies really, in the way things were resolved between celdran and paredes. the catfight via twitter was exciting to say the least, but for it to have been resolved beyond the confines of the online world where it had happened, and then for it to just be concluded without explanation or further discussion, seemed like a cop out. it seemed like the quickest life-and-deathof critical discourse as we know it.

it would’ve been great to get the discourse going, on many things that the celdran-paredes argument had raised. there’s media responsibility, the fact that news are chosen, and yes, that there are certain kinds of news that appeals to the international audience. there’s also the question of tourism and world perception and filipino identity. there’s the question of citizenship and migration, and the right to complain, as well as the need to do something about it.

butmaybe the ugliest thing to come of this is the fact that in the end, as spectator, i am made to realize that there is sameness here. both celdran and paredes are actually in the same boat, and when celdran says at least he’s doing something about changing the philippines even as he complains about it, maybe he only thinks himself better than paredes.

because while there is value in celdran’s daring, his limitations are very clear: the status quo is where he’s at. systemic change, making sure that the problems that create a pacquiao and a penaflorida and a pempengco, an ondoy and extrajudicial killings and an impoverished majority, is not his point here. his is a band-aid, a way of making the healing of wounds a little faster and a little less painful, which is noble in itself. but this won’t keep the wounds from not being inflicted again, won’t make for real change at all.

in that sense, while he is no negatron like paredes, and while he has stayed in the philippines instead of making a big deal about migrating elsewhere, and while there is value in the ways in which he wears his heart on his sleeve, celdran doesn’t seem to be any different from paredes when and where it matters.

maybe that’s good enough for him. and maybe that’s not ugly after all. it’s just downright sad.

komentaryo

an ongoing saga: or why Edu has some explaining to do

and no, i don’t mean in relation to pinky webb, though that would be interesting ‘no? why oh why would any sane individual choose to run under GMA’s party. and what would be so compelling that he would choose it over love?

but no, this is more about Edu Manzano, he who’s running as Gibo Teodoro‘s Vice President, being the Social Security System‘s endorser. yeah, Captain Barbel sells SSS with his Lucky son — the strangeness of that statement isn’t lost on me.

elsewhere i’ve talked about the worst times i’ve had with SSS, and yet, it could only really get worse ‘no?

and so in the age of Duds selling SSS, i try (in vain, i might add) to get money that’s due me. the difficulty of course lies, not simply in its lack of a system, but in its downright disregard for a woman’s right to her name.

it is my maternity benefit that i dream of receiving from SSS, one which requires that i show my child’s birth certificate, and which apparently gives any SSS employee the power to change my name. yes, ladies and gentlemen, while the law provides that i may keep my maiden name (an amendment to an existing law by Miriam Defensor Santiago — this is the one time i thank the heavens for her), in the SSS offices across this country, you are presumed to want to use your husband’s surname — you won’t be asked if you want it done.

if this seems petty, then try it with some of this: none of my IDs have my married name on ’em. and if this seems irrelevant, then try this on for size: you need two IDs for your request for (your own!) money to be even processed by the fantastic SSS office.

add to this the fact that the SSS people DO NOT tell you that they have changed your name, so you can’t even throw the law at their faces.  and so after waiting two weeks for the SSS computer to accept your change in name, you come with your old IDs and you’re told: “ay ma’am, hindi po kayo ito e, magkaiba ang pangalan.”

and you only say watdapak! because really, this same woman knows you to be the woman with the maiden name, and you have in your hands every document to prove that you are one and the same person as that woman with a spanking new married name. instead of SSS acknowledging its mistake here, they tell you to get IDs that have your married name. otherwise, wala ka nang benefits. benefits na dapat ay sa’yo naman talaga.

and so after about two months, you finally have these IDs (a postal ID which costs way too much in Mandaluyong) and a police clearance from the cityhall. you brace yourself for the well-mannered SSS lady who will make you feel like you don’t deserve your money. instead you face someone who says, “o, bakit kailangan pa ng bagong ID, e ang tagal nang approved nito ha, tingnan mo.” and when you say that you were told by the woman in the next desk to get these IDs, she says, “naku naman, pinahihirapan ka pa.”

you want to scream: “po.tang.inaaaaaaaa!”

but you don’t. instead you wait a month, which is the promise SSS makes: a cheque will be delivered to your house by the end of one month at most.

it has been two months and a half of waiting. for money that’s mine mine mine. for SSS to get its fluggin’ act together, and DELIVER — literally and figuratively. the SSS Mandaluyong branch, being the great office that it is, doesn’t help at all when it says: “na-release na po sa main office, in transit na ‘yon, hindi niyo na mafa-follow-up kase wala na kaming alam don, wala na kayong puwedeng tawagan.”

ah ganon. wala nang follow up. wala na kong powers. e pera ko yon.

enter Duds, he who has the gall to run for VP after selling SSS as the greatest thing an individual could have in this country. come on Captain Barbell, you have gotta save this woman’s day.

kultura

kawayan de guia: no compromises

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, October 26 2009.

Kawayan de Guia is clear about his art. It’s his way of talking to the world, engaging it in dialogue, transcending its limits. It’s his upbringing, his lifeblood, his provincial context that is Baguio. It’s his grounding in history, his way of telling stories, his political stance.

Speaking this concretely and categorically about his art, Kawayan just might be the more uncompromising of our contemporary young artists. To explain one’s art may after all be seen as violent to one’s works, if not the end to one’s career: isn’t the appeal of art precisely its lack of clear reason?

But Kawayan tells it otherwise. The human condition is central to his work, cutting across the tragic and comic towards the boastful, highlighting the notions of progress and development as falsities, bringing to the fore the need to see a bigger picture. To Kawayan, the structures that abound in our world are but perspectives that need to be broken down into pieces, if only to take discussions to another place, that’s anywhere but here. (more…)

kultura

N.O.A.H. survives the flood

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, in the Arts and Books Section, September 21 2009.

There is nothing like a Christian musical for kids that can get any adult-with-a-heart clapping with glee and stomping her foot to the beat. Trumpets’ N.O.A.H., No Ordinary Aquatic Habitat surprisingly did just this. I had braced myself for a born-again musical, i.e., one with a lot of preaching and conventional praise songs. Yet, despite some of these, Trumpets still managed to surprise me, what with its wit and humor, and even more so with some political consciousness – in a Christian musical? God forbid!

In N.O.A.H., while God might have been everywhere and anywhere, speaking to Noah from the heavens, he was also quite political. Case in point: when the flood finally cleans up the world, the narrator (Sam Concepcion) doesn’t just talk about the literal trash and decadence that was washed away, he also mentions corruption and politicking. Add to this the fact that one of the antagonists who first appears onstage looks like GMA, complete with the hairdo and the mole, as well as a placard that screams “Vote Me!” and you’ve got a whole lotta politics going on here. (more…)