Category Archive for: the elite

komentaryo

Jim Paredes: The burgis as bastos

Ever since this open letter from 2011 I have not found the energy to make patol Jim Paredes at length. Maybe because I just stopped following him on Twitter, and ignored his Facebook all this time. Maybe because the world is a more intelligent place if I do not have to listen to the Jim Paredeses of this world.

And yes, I was able to keep it this way even throughout this PNoy Presidency, when Paredes revealed himself to be nothing but loyal to this President, for reasons that are beyond me. No wait, it is not beyond me. It is actually quite easy to explain: when it comes to PNoy, Paredes has become irrational and unthinking, an enamoured fan, who thinks the world of this President, who cannot do any wrong. PNoy is also the best President EVER. And yes, that’s a direct quote.

paredes_july27 (more…)

kultura

The end of the (art) affair*

My tendency in the past four years that I’ve been writing about and reviewing local art has been to be kind. I stopped reviewing art I didn’t like unless my editors assigned it to me; I would look at art events and could not but appreciate the effort that organizers put into it, even when it was clear to me that celebrating local art in this way is the height of superficiality.

Artists earn money in these events, after all, and that is reason enough to be less than critical. Or to trail one’s eyes elsewhere or critique, say, the art that’s just waiting to be placed in some hotel (or hotel bathroom!) or that museum that doesn’t allow photos, when it is all we can take home of art (I’m looking at you, Metropolitan and Ayala Museums)! (more…)

komentaryo

#YesAllWomen

i had watched the hashtag #YesAllWomen take a life of its own on Twitter, and was fascinated that while it didn’t trend in the Philippines, the tweets from elsewhere in the world (mostly the US it seems) resonated with this Pinay so removed from that context.

i’m the last to imagine universality to be a valid enterprise, imagining as i do that we are always more complex than just being / standing for / standing against one thing. yet it is feminism still — no matter how it is not named such, no matter that it denies this label — that i realize i fall back on, if not go back to. (more…)

kultura

Dolphy, national artist*

It’s difficult to imagine childhood without Dolphy, even when all he was to me was the image of a father on television, even as who I identified with was Maricel Soriano or Claudine Barretto playing his daughters in two different sitcoms, across two different generations. At some point this father image became interwoven with that of Enteng Kabisote, father to Aiza.

The images are real to me, the characterization of fatherhood that was protective but had difficulty providing, that was faced with the rich mother-in-law who disapproved, that struggled financially but had a posse who depended on him, underground as the economy was that they all created and fueled. (more…)

kultura

in defense of Enteng Kabisote*

I agree with some of what Lourd de Vera says (or asks) Vic Sotto in his open letter. I agree that Bossing Vic should aim to do better than a movie filled with product placements. I agree that he should do better than a film where he’s not stuck with a non-kiddie-actor Yap and his mother Kris Aquino.

I disagree that this was all Bossing’s doing. (more…)