Category Archive for: sa kalye

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.

komentaryo

babae kase!

fact: i grew up around men who, whenever there’s an accident on the road, or there’s undue traffic, would say: “Babae kase!” with a shake of the head, sometimes hands up in the air. yes, they let go of the steering wheel to show their disgust.

fact: i grew up around women who are crazy ass drivers, cousins and an aunt about whom is said: “Parang lalake ka magmaneho” complete with that head shake, by the men in our lives.

when the MMDA announced that it would propose that bus operators be required to hire women drivers, that is, ascertain that at least 50% of their bus drivers are women, the reactions, especially from women in media, were wanting. the early morning show hosts made fun of the idea — and in effect of women — saying that this would only mean people being late for work because women drive slow, saying that masyadong maingat the female driver for comfort. this was a general reaction that i now fail to remember who said what, but i do remember Shawn Yao of Sapul sa 5 saying that this reeked of sexism.

though one does wonder, is it the MMDA that’s being sexist? or is it us, all of us, who reacted to this with a shrug and a mental image of very very slow buses plying EDSA?

there was in fact, nothing sexist about the MMDA’s proposal. what was absolutely wrong was the premise for these statements by MMDA Chair Francis Tolentino. because when he said that female drivers rarely get into accidents, which female drivers was he talking about? obviously private vehicle owners, yes? and that’s us who don’t need to drive our cars for a living, who don’t ply EDSA as a matter of feeding our families at the end of the day. more than being sexist, Tolentino created a world where every woman is the same, forgetting that the women drivers he speaks of aren’t the ones who will be driving those darn buses.

those buses are the source of livelihood for driver and the conductor, who need to earn a certain amount for the bus company first before they earn their keep for the day. if that system isn’t going to change, then really, those female drivers will be as reckless on the road as their male counterparts. because they need to be, because they have no choice.

to reduce the issues of class and the systemic dysfunction of the bus industry to an issue of gender is unfair. it’s also just dumb.

and really, some common sense please: traffic and accidents on EDSA and Commonwealth are also such because while private vehicles cannot go beyond that yellow line, buses can. where lies the discipline? it is the rules, the ones that aren’t followed, that endanger lives. those rules the MMDA is responsible for, those lives they are responsible for.

‘wag niyo na kami bolahin na mas okay kami mag-drive, para kunwari magaling kayo sa trabaho niyo. though maybe the wish is for women, especially the ones who drive their own cars and are in media, to see this for what it is: a classist proposal, that they’ve reacted to in the most sexist of ways.

kultura

may nunal sa paa

i remember growing up and being told that i must have a mole somewhere on either foot, because i couldn’t stay put. gala, lakwatsera, may nunal sa paa.

putting it to an amount of good use at http://www.travelbook.ph.

so far:

History Survives in Sariaya

Lost in Lucena

The Quiet of Tiaong

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.

kultura

dreaming of Marian’s freedoms

If there’s anything that’s true about Marian Rivera, it’s that she doesn’t care what we all think: she presents to us what she is, which is probably the closest to a private self we’ve been treated to within the public space that is local popular TV and movie culture.

And when I speak of Marian’s private self, I mean the one that we don’t usually see of our celebrities, I mean that which is usually deemed unworthy of being made public. But Marian doesn’t seem to care that she doesn’t sound as classy or doesn’t move with as much finesse as the usual female star.

But maybe this is telling as well: Marian ain’t the usual run-of-the-mill female star that we see on local TV, and while she isn’t what we expect, I daresay that she’s exactly what we’ve needed all this time. And no, this is not the case of a diamond in the rough – that would mean having to smoothen it out and make it more acceptable. Marian, in fact, for all the negative publicity about her, need not change anything because she’s already the image that’s important for our times, and especially for women who consume popular culture.

the rest is here!