Category Archive for: review

komentaryo

anti-activism, anti-freedom of assembly: who survives?

Ces Drilon is who. And the policeman she featured on I Survived on May 13 (early morning May 14, 1t’s 12:56 am on my clock). It is also GMA who survives in this, even the next president, or every other person who says that rallies are mob rules and should be dispersed or else, forgetting that the freedom of assembly IS A RIGHT.

In the end it is all just lazy research and documentation, and irresponsible journalism.

So in the course of the show, you are made to find out that this policeman was victimized by the crowd during EDSA Tres. You find out that he was injured and all that, that he risked life and limb to fulfil his duty as policeman. Sige na nga.

But. This doesn’t excuse the fact that anti-riot policemen are alwaysthe ones on the offensive. They’re the ones with truncheons and shields. They’re the ones who are pasugod at any given point. Even this policeman Ces was interviewing and who survived said that he was victimized by the tear gas that they threw into the crowd because the wind went in the policemen’s direction. He also said that in the end, what was used against him were the things that he and his team had used against the rallyists. What does that really say about who is oppressed in a rally situation?

Obviously Ces hasn’t been part of a rally in a long time, the kind that’s about rallyists riskinglife and limb to fight for their rights? Obviously she hasn’t been on the receiving end of the police’s/military’s unjust anger.

Obviously Ces and whoever her writers are for this show, were so intent on showing the violence of EDSA Tres that they just decided to interweave videos with no dates, no indication of when and where things happened.  In fact, footage of the police’s preparations for EDSA Dos and EDSA Tres were exactly the same. Footage of rallyists were messed up. When Ces and the policeman were talking about EDSA Dos and EDSA Tres, footage showed the PMP (partido ng masang pilipino) flags that went to EDSA after Erap was impeached, yes, but this was interwoven with an organized rally that had flags of legal and valid leftist groups that are now partylist organizations, including Anakpawis and Bayan Muna.

So these leftist partylist organizations are now considered part of the mob rule, Ces Drilon? You actually are saying that these organizations, which were in fact in EDSA Dos, even on stage in those days, are a mere minority, the kind that was out to kill policemen?

How horrible this portrayal to begin with of rallies and rallyists across the board. How horrid that given the kind of military and police power that GMA has used against the people during her term, here’s a show that says, these policemen/military officers are oppressed by the people, too.  AS IF the dynamics of power between the military/police and the people, rallyists and otherwise, have ever changed.

I wonder if they realize that in the process of featuring this policeman injured during EDSA Tres, and showing undated/unverified footage that cuts across rallies by both valid leftist groups and the political organizations like PMP, that it LOOKS VERY PRO-PRES-ELECT-NOYNOY (and Kris, I dare say given the money she brings into the network). How can ABS-CBN 2’s news and public affairs even begin to say they are responsible and not for any candidate? Come on, this episode of I Survived in fact reeked of the whole Aquino discourse of the left as a noisy minority. So lump them together with the mass mob rule of EDSA Tres, and tadah! you prepare the nation for no rallies, no assemblies, don’t do that because kawawa naman ang pulis.

WTF Ces Drilon. WTF ABS-CBN’s news and public affairs. for people who insist on responsibility and being worthy of our attention, talaga naman, sometimes you just failus. In this case, you fail the freedom(s) you should be fighting for. The freedom(s) in fact upon which you stand. Ang galing. Congratulations.

kultura

Art thinks highly of itself in “The Death of Death”

A version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 19 2010, in the Arts and Books section.

There was nothing exciting about the façade of the space where “The Death of Death (is alive and kicking”) (SM Art Center, 4th FL, SM Megamall) was being exhibited. On one side was a black tarp with the list of participating artists, on the other was a cartoon-like rendition of a skull. Between the dark colors and skull, this told me not to expect much, which directly contradicts curator Igan D’ Bayan’s “non-curatorial statement.” I began reading the note after I had slept on this exhibit longer than I would any other, still not finding some crux from which to begin analysis. The curatorial note, while no god, might give me a sense of the project’s notions of itself, a good starting point for understanding the exhibit. Of course sometimes, as with “The Death of Death”, the curatorial note fails as well.

No limitations equal clichés

There were too many skulls for one thing, and this wouldn’t have been a problem if these renderings didn’t look like things we’ve seen in popular culture before. Kiko Escora’s “Bungi” was funny with its hot pink background and its rendering of a skull with missing teeth, but it’s something we’ve seen in the local comedy films before.  D’ Bayan’s “Armageddon Boogie”, the steel installation that greets you when you enter the space, also looks like something you’ve seen and killed in video games before. (more…)

kultura

the sadness of here in Ypil’s highest hiding place

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 14 2010.

Lawrence Lacambra Ypil’s first books of poems has many things going against it, including the fact that it is poetry and that it is in English, both of which limit it to a particular audience. More importantly, it comes at a time when the kind of Philippine poetry in English that’s celebrated – if publication and recent award-winning collections are any indication – has been about going beyond the person and the personal in the poem, almost a poem-for-and-of-the-world, where the nation is missed/missing/ disappeared, the text existing beyond the page and into a realm of learnedness and influences that it requires the reader to inhabit. This, at a time when people continue to think poetry too difficult, and Filipino poetry too removed from the conditions that are real to us. In this sense, the debate has become too simple: the easy/ confessional/personal poem, or the difficult/conceptual/landless poem?

The Highest Hiding Place (Ateneo de Manila Press, 2009) by Ypil lands right smack in the middle of this debate, not falling clearly on either side of it. There is a refusal to be easily about personal confessions here, even as these poems seem to refuse difficulty. It experiments with forms, yes, and necessarily does with content too, but it does both without refusing the reader entry into the poem. (more…)

kultura

When Indie Fails

a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 7 2010.

There are many things to say about the movie Red Shoes (directed by Raul Jorolan, written by James Ladioray), but it’s definitely not that it’s the year’s first best movie. Because this is nowhere near as good as Unitel Pictures’ other films (Inang Yaya, Pinoy Blonde, La Visa Loca, Crying Ladies), and nowhere close to being great at anything. In fact, to a certain extent, it is no better than the commercial romance movies that our film production outfits churn out. To a certain extent, we are reminded that a good premise is not what a good movie makes, nor is it in the mere fact of using the label indie, i.e., independent film.

In truth, the only thing Red Shoes ends up becoming is a montage of various stories that are not well woven together into the narrative that it makes its main protagonist, Lucas (Marvin Agustin), tell. But this is getting ahead of the story, or in Red Shoes’ case, ahead of the many stories here. (more…)

kultura

Missing Popoy and Basha: or What Do You Take Me For? Crazy?

Of course I Miss You Like Crazy had everything going for it. We still remember Popoy and Basha of One More Chance, even know some lines from the movie, and even now speak of UST’s soccer field in relation to it. The three-month rule of breakups has now become law, seeing as Popoy invoked it when he thought Basha had found another guy (and kailangan talaga si Derek Ramsey and mapagsususpetsahang bagong boyfriend). And their barkada, really, was what made that movie. They were macho and bakla, serious and funny, judgmental and liberal, all at the same time. All these were only allowed by the movie’s well-written script that was real to us all, middle class and unapologetic.

Suffice it to say that One More Chance was enough reason to step out and watch I Miss You Like Crazy. But in the first conversation that Mia and Alex have in the movie, something is so obviously off right away. I look at L who’s watching the movie with me, and we realize, it’s Mia’s laughter. It was uncomfortable, obviously put-on, and undoubtedly lost in translation. It wasn’t trying to be ironic, i.e., hiding the sadness through laughter; nor did it sound like real laughter.  Parang bad acting lang? (more…)