So congratulations are in order, or at least, a shout out, literally: Mabuhay Ang Federasyon! The landscape of male objectification in cinema has evolved because of you. I might complain, but I do with all my heart, appreciate it. After all, plenty needs to be said about the fact that women can now fawn if they wish to. And that is thanks to you my gay bestfriend who has become the bigger market.
basahin ang kabuuan dito.
the irony should not be lost on any of them, really. after all they’re the newly-created, seemingly hi-tech, and youthful (!) aspect of the Noy government, and as the communications group, they should know of the contradictions inherent in their mere existence.
they who are tasked with “communications” different and separate and new(?) from what we’ve seen as the office of the press secretary all these years. but save for putting up twitter and facebook accounts, and a website, we have yet to hear and see why this is important at all. ironically, they speak of this as if it’s a new and fancy creature that’s all about the Noy government’s notions of change. but really.
you do not need a whole office to create websites and accounts, nor do you need a whole bunch of new people who are purportedly adept at communicating. look at Gang Badoy’s Dear Noynoy. and really Manolo Quezon III’s (now member for the communications group) websites. it seems that all it would take is to hire techies for these sites, and then have Noynoy do the good things that are worth writing about.
but talk about this communications group inevitably leads to how we, the people, are this government’s new boss, and in which case, that this is one way to connect with the citizenry. true true. but really, you will respond to each and every citizen’s complaint? that Quezon and Ricky Carandang believe they can do this is the strangest of things; that they joined government for something that has yet to be defined and constructed and proven necessary (at this point!) is even stranger.
the truth is, you don’t need a whole office of three people to do this. you need a whole fluggin’ call center. I can complain to you easily about 40 horrid things that government in this country has done to me. I bet my parents will have double that, my brother maybe 30 because he’s been gone a while. add my one barkada of 4 people x 40 complaints, another barkada of 4 x 40 complaints, and easily that makes 550 complaints.
and I tell you that these are the valid complaints, nothing on Kris (because they deem that irrelevant don’t they), and just one each on Hacienda Luisita (lest we be called the noisy minority that is the Left when the question should be: why aren’t your activists noisy to begin with?). I can tell you that mine will range from horrible facilities in the public schools I’ve studied in to corruption in education, from the convicted Aquino-Galman boys who have been suffering in jail for far too long, for something that they insist they didn’t do, to the hazy crazy fraternity wars that are all encompassing but which we don’t know a lot about. mine will come from my experiences as a teacher across the different universities, and as an activist teacher who spoke to real live public school teachers about their impoverished lives. mine will come from the violence I’ve experience at rallies, the violence inflicted on activists, and this continued violence: P-Noy refuses to put his foot down and Free the Political Prisoners!
the one thing I wish he would take from his mother, the one thing he doesn’t seem to want to do.
where does this communications group even begin to imagine the possibility of (1) responding to these complaints, (2) justly choosing which ones are “valid”, and (3) that we, the complainants, are the bosses here?
Quezon though points out a more complex job, and this one is infinitely interesting:
if messaging is the task, then please begin with taking down those billboards and tarpaulins with Noynoy saying “Mabuhay ang Mabuting Pilipino!” it’s uncomfortable to be told by my president longlive the good Pinoy, when it’s entirely possible that i will not be considered as such given his standards. same goes for those tarpaulins with Noy and Binay saying “Kayo ang Boss Namin.” as if naman. to have these slogans on the streets makes it seem like hard sell, and really, like it is a lesson being ingrained in our heads. is it suppose to make us feel good about this government? i’d feel good about a government that wasn’t spending on billboards and tarpaulins, to tell you the truth.
too, given advertising on our streets alongside the remnants of Bayani Fernando: pink and blue fences, footbridges, toilets! they must realize that sometimes it’s a reminder of what’s just so wrong on our streets, the cleaning of which should’ve been the first thing done by government. with “Bawal Tumawid, Nakamamatay!” or a Kris Aquino billboard selling appliances within sight, the Noy-Bi tarps and the Noy billboards just seem like advertisements too, that just might be as dangerous as crossing the streets of EDSA.
but maybe this isn’t the point? because there’s also the editorial aspect of it, speechwriting (ooh, how they celebrated after the SONA ‘no?), and the creation of identity. which seems ironic really, as we all know what kind of identity this presidency wants to establish: that of being less than liable for the state of the nation. after all they just began by pointing a finger at who’s responsible for this mess, and throwing the ball on our court: Noy can’t do this alone, we must begin with ourselves.
which is all true, but haven’t we all been helping this country all this time? i pay my taxes, follow the law, involve myself in issues in many ways all this time, and yet. it takes two years for me to get my SSS benefit, i had to put out more than an old business was earning just to renew my permits, have dealt with too many a corrupt public official. i’ve suffered in the face of the civil service code, have been oppressed by both the public and private school system, have lived with very little and delayed pay, and almost no benefits. i have suffered because of the lack of a reproductive health bill that protects the mother, that makes medical institutions more respectful of women’s rights to decide on their and their baby’s lives.
having lived through this, as many others have lived longer with it, there’s nothing in the messages that this government has sent that relieves me, or makes me hopeful. the small solutions – catch a tax evader here, a tax evader there – aren’t what will make me proud. it’s the bigger ones. revise the system, revise the aspects of it that fail to work. talk about education and what it is that two private school officials (Fr. Luistro for Dep Ed and Licuanan for CHED) would know of the public school system that is in the throes of corruption, literally and figuratively. and really, the Aquino sisters giving away school supplies doesn’t solve a thing. not one thing.
or maybe all the communications group needs to begin with is this: try and be more credible. because saying that Ricky Carandang was to begin with on Noynoy’s side, even when he was working as a journalist in ABS-CBN, has debunked altogether the whole network’s press releases about being unbiased throughout the campaign and in the present. of course that has always been hard to believe about ABS-CBN, but the Carandang question adds another layer to this judgment of the Lopez-owned media empire, and its relationship with the Aquinos. sayang talaga the credibility that Maria Ressa had tried so hard to work on for the news and public affairs division.
oh well, but that’s their loss. of credibility, i mean. and of relevance. and of being seen as objective and critical actors in the newly staged performance that is the Noynoy presidency.
a badly-directed variety show circa 1990s for the inauguration? check!
interviews with image consultants and couturiers for Noy’s outfits? check!
writing the script for this show that seems to be on technical rehearsals within its 100 days? check!
a disbelieving citizen that wants to be surprised, has no institution to answer to, and is as independent as people come: check check check.
this is up at Metakritiko where i’ve been alive in times that this blog isn’t. trying to link ’em all together obviously.
medyo hirap lang sa dating sariling namamayagpag sa blog na ito, na sa kasalukuyan (at dapat pala) ay (parating!) rine-revise. so in the meantime, eto ang isang sariling enjoy sa pagsusulat tungkol sa kulturang popular, lahat pinapatulan, lahat may posibilidad ng subersyon/pag-aklas/pagbabago, gaano man kaliit.
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Mix Tape 1: Ode to Sibling-hood
When I was a kid, my liking for the local was judged as baduy by my Kuya who took to liking everything not Pinoy. We fought over the remote control on Sundays when I couldn’t get enough of GMA Supershow, and he wanted the rerun of any other foreign show or movie on Channel 9. I watched That’s Entertainment, day in day out, to Kuya’s raised eyebrows. Yes, the talentless lived there, and they were “watermelon singing!” Kuya said, exasperated. That is, they didn’t know the words to the songs they pre-recorded and so they just keet repeating the word “watermelon.”
And here, the songs that I love(d) from the height of baduy Origina Pilipino Music (OPM) in the mid-80s to early 90s, all of which I’ve got memorized like a know how to ride a bike, to Kuya’s distress/disgust/despair, of course.
Side A: The Baduy Collection
Ituloy ang pagbabasa todits.
The one thing that resonates about Juan Sajid Imao’s recent work is its pain, and how this seamlessly intertwines with strength in black and red brass sculptures that make up Open Endings (Net Quad, Deutsche Knowledge Services Lobby, presented by Project Art and 1/of, now at 1/of Gallery, Serendra, Taguig City).
In a country where sculptors are few and far between, most of who work on the universal notions of humanity and being Pinoy, there was something strikingly different about Imao’s work here. And no, it isn’t just the fact of its colors against this building’s stark white floors. It’s the fact of relevance and power all in a tightly knit package, ready for the taking. And you leave the exhibit having taken so much more than the imagers of these works. (more…)
and no, this isn’t about hayden kho, at this point staying in bad relationships and publicizing them seems more stupid than it is unacceptable. but really, the way this woman has crossed that line between selling beauty and making it an ideology, even a religion, as if beauty is the end all and be all of our lives, and no do not tell me about artistas.
because there are plenty of artistas who don’t have, and will choose not, to go through medical and dermatological procedures to be “perfect”, plenty artistas who in fact refuse perfect and say, well, i’m talented, and what are you? we grew up seeing Judy Ann Santos’ big cheeks, and what did she do? when it was time she lost weight and lost it, too. Iza Calzado was a big girl on television, and yes with fuller cheeks, and the next this we knew she had lost weight and was being healthy about her diet.
there was no Belo to do an injection here, a tuck there, no Belo to tell them, well, this is what you need to be pretty. because what is this pretty that Belo sells? plumper lips? less of a chin? pointed noses? deep-set eyes?
botox on those cheeks para “mawala ang bulge”? thermage on the face para “lumiit ang mukha”? good lord, Vicky Belo, when does it stop? and at what age, praytell?
because to have even allowed Charice Pempengco to go through that botox procedure, one that’s suppose to bring back how the international singer looked three years ago! is just sick. three years ago she was 15! tell me, show me, how important it is that an 18 year old girl look like she’s 15. tell me how this is all important, the enterprise of the cheeks, let’s all get smaller faces people, this is what’s deemed important by the best-looking woman on the face of this third world planet.
and please, read up on the order of events, and realize that this whole TMJ ailment that they now say Charice had, ergo the botox and thermage? it happens after the fact. and really, if there was an ailment, why not go to a real doctor? Belo meanwhile had what seemed to her a perfectly rationale, albeit shallow, explanation for why she herself recommended these procedures to this young girl. Charice herself would go on to say that she wanted to look “fresh” for her Glee role.
well honey, that show has a guy in a wheelchair, an overweight girl, a chinky-eyed pale teenager, and big-mouthed wide-eyed lead star. the whole point of Glee is that these highschool nobodys, these stereotypical outcasts, find their voices and selves in the glee club through sheer acceptance of their flaws, as it is the realization of their talents. and i say to your supporters, google it and read up.
looking “fresh” is farthest from Glee’s repertoire. and so are smaller cheeks. elsewhere in the world, it is not a Vicky Belo aesthetic or ideology that rules. now Charice appears in websites like famousplastic.com and awfulplasticsurgery.com. how can that be a good thing?