komentaryo

dreaming of a president 2010

my friend Andrea Teran wrote and posted this on her Facebook account. absolutely worth reading, and just so goddamn true it’s crazy that we have yet to hear/read speeches such as this. just missing a section on freedom of expression and extrajudicial killings, pero winner pa rin. and presidenteng papatol/gagawa/maniniwala sa speech na ‘to. at si Drey of course. :)

******

For This and No Other

Or, A Draft Campaign Speech for Any of the Next Possible Philippine Presidents, Provided He Who Takes it Up, Makes it Happen;

And If No One Does, Then: If I were President, Because You All Refused To Do Your Jobs, goddammit
by Andrea Teran

Strangely enough, when I began writing this speech, I could not stop thinking about the word ad hoc. I had always thought this word meant temporary, hastily put together for one purpose or another. I had imagined this meaning on to the word because of how we have always created, and treated, the numerous ad hoc committees to deal with and try to solve single parts of our multifarious problems.

Imagine my surprise, when upon closer inspection, I discover that, from the Latin, ad hoc literally means for this, toward this and no other. And it is for this and no other that I am more than willing to work and work hard in the next six years, as your leader and servant, as your next president: I am Filipino.

If not us, then who else?

And these are the things we need to do, that I will initiate, not in June, but starting right now:

(1) I will not only fight, but eradicate, corruption. I will punish those who have and will use the country’s resources to their own ends, past present future. I will punish those who have used their power to abuse others. I will punish and punish heftily, that everyone will unlearn this habit. And I will eradicate it, by not making it easy, by not allowing it to be part of our everyday, by refusing to think it our culture. I will expedite government transactions and services, without shortcuts or short-cutting any one, and build a government that is not only happy to serve her people, but knows what an important job it is. I will get rid of all unnecessary procedures and payments, and make sure that everyone who approaches a government office gets served and served well, without having to be passed on to another office, or another person, or on to oblivion.

It is not only that we currently have corrupt officials in our government, but that we have a government that officially encourages corruption. I will speed things up that no one will have to pay extra to get what they deserve, when they need it. And I will pay our public servants well that they will not need you to pay them any more than what is fair and just.

Our current government only makes one thing easy: It makes it easy for us to leave the country. And though I will not refuse anyone who is not a criminal this choice, I will do better and make them want to stay.

(2) I will make Filipinos want to stay in the Philippines. I will do this not only by giving them jobs, but decent jobs worthy of their education and skills and inclination. I will make it worthy of their time. I will not give them “pwede na yan” jobs, just because the family needs to eat, or the eldest is about to start college, or God knows, because they need pambaon for elementary school tomorrow. And if and when they want to stay, I will give them every reason and opportunity to do so.

(3) I will give the best of the Philippines to the Filipinos, and not to the foreigners. I will ensure that the country and its people cater to the Philippines and to the Filipino. I will ensure that if Boracay is the best beach there is, or Sagada the best mountain getaway, then Filipinos can afford to enjoy them if they are so inclined, to their taste and financial capability. The hotel and department stores and all commercial establishments will serve both the local and the foreigner, the native and the foreign. The flight attendants will be kind and efficient to both the domestic helper coming home and the business man from Hong Kong.

I will make us proud to be Filipinos here and around the world, and I will make the world proud of the Filipino. And I will do this without wanting or pretending to be America, or insisting on America, or asking what America, or any other country, thinks.

And so that the Philippines, in turn, can giver her best to her people, (4) I will pass the Reproductive Health Bill. I will pass this bill because we need to control our population, and so much of our problems are rooted in this one problem. And we need to ensure that our natural resources are enough to support our people, now and in the future.

And I refuse to enter into any pro- or anti-life debates regarding this. I will not allow abortion during my rule, and this bill does not allow it either. What it does instead, is give the woman control over her body, the option to refuse her husband or lover sex, and provides her the option not to get pregnant should she wish to have sex. Neither does the bill judge her for it. Because what this bill ultimately wants, not just for women but for every single Filipino, is a chance at a fair and equitable share to our country’s natural resources, a beginning of a life of quality.

And to be able to continue to that life of quality, (5) I will provide them with quality health care whether they can afford it or not. I will ensure that PhilHealth works to the advantage of both rich and poor, and is used in both public or private hospitals. I assure the poorest of the poor universal coverage. I will ensure too that our social security systems, whether public or private, work for everyone, that our premiums will result to returns when we need them.

(6) I will provide free and quality basic education, and ensure sources of scholarships and study-now-pay-later schemes for college and post-graduate degrees. I will ensure quality education is available to all Filipinos, whatever their economic class, and that information is available to them, and that it is waiting for them and not the other way around.

To do this I will pay the teachers well, and make sure they deserve it. I will ensure that history books teach them more than just dates and places, the science books the correct and updated science, that they learn to read well, and learn to love to read.

I will incent multinationals to train our workers and make them into world-class assets, in order to build on a high-value economy here that rests on its high-value workforce.

(7) I will make this country rich by making our farmers rich, by providing them with the help and support they need, whether it be science or subsidy, or to weather the storm, or the world markets. I will make it their option if they want to own their own land, or if land is not enough, the option to work as a collective. I will support their cooperatives, and watch the corporations that employ them.

(8) I will encourage green growth, not only because we need to cut down on greenhouse gases, but because we need to be energy-independent. Nor will I allow the first world to influence our decisions regarding our energy sources, because while climate change is a global problem, excessive green house gas emissions is not. Instead, I will promote energy efficiency, and natural resources management, because my priority is our development, and the quality of life of our people. I will build on the examples of some of our excellent local government units, who have done comprehensive land-use planning, disaster management, community development, and self-sufficiency outside of Metro Manila.

And I encourage this because (9) I want to move development to other parts of the country, not just in the capital. I will decongest Metro Manila by moving development to the other regions, ensure that most opportunities available in the capital are available elsewhere. And I will spend on the necessary efficient infrastructure that will allow all this.

Lastly, I will do all this without sacrificing what makes us Filipino, and democracy–whether it be in terms of culture or customs, beliefs, religion, region or tribe. If utang na loob is inherent to us, then I will encourage it because we need to help each other, not because help needs to be repaid. If ningas cogon describes our short-lived passions all too well, then we will do everything to fan the fire, and that the fruits trickle down to the bottom of the pyramid. If we have forgotten our Bayanihan culture, then we will teach it to ourselves and our kids again. And if this is trabaho lang like any other job, then let us do good work every single time.

And if we need to do more, when have we ever turned our backs when it is family that asks and needs? We just need to widen our circles a little bit, and slowly widen the scope and capacity of who and how we love.

Let the next six years be temporal and not temporary, our responses to our problems urgent and not hasty. And if it be necessary that the next government act like an ad hoc committee, so be it. If I be judged by these promises, and measured by their fulfillment, bring it on. This is the call, and I will answer, and be answerable.

Through no choice of ours, we were born into this country. And for whatever reason or lack of choice, have remained her citizens. Who else will answer for us? We are the Philippines, we are Filipino. For this. No other.

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…)

kultura

Ethnic-abstraction evolves in Ebarle’s hands

We are told many things about being an artist, one of which is that you must start young. The other is that there’s no money in it, unless you’re one of the lucky ones who ends up having a fixed market for your art, or the one to whom money doesn’t matter. Jane Arietta-Ebarle doesn’t fall under any of these categories. In fact, she falls nowhere near them.

This isn’t just because she has come into painting again only after seeing three kids through to their own careers; nor is it just because she’san established professional and president of the Philippine Art Educators Association. More than any of these, it is because Ebarle has found herself – literally and figuratively – in a kind of art that’s rare in these shores.

In her first one-woman show, Ebarle rendered ethnic patterns onto canvas, using acrylic as her chosen medium. It was in “Pagluwas”, her second exhibit though, where the inspiration of ethnic patterns became secondary to what would become Ebarle’s abstract art. In her Maranao series for that exhibit, the repetition of ethnic weaves are not only less structured, but are stunted altogether by the random strokes that permeate each work. (more…)

kultura

hello, i love you (goodbye!)

Or when Derek Ramsey just ain’t enough.

There are many good things about I Love You Goodbye really, including of course the fact that Derek Ramsey exists in it at all. It did want to talk about the travails of a May-December affair, as it did try to highlight the problematique of class when it comes to love, as it did use as premise the necessity of migration in the creation of a young Filipino couple’s dreams. With all of these issues integral to its plot, this movie could’ve undoubtedly gone beyond the usual commercial movie formula — something I always have high hopes for.

But this movie, more than anything, is proof of how a badly written story, is really just a badly written story, despite all efforts at making it more substantial – and even when the only meat you get is some of Derek’s bare naked back.

A well-written story after all, requires a complexity in its characters that this movie doesn’t have. You prove this through the fact that it was most difficult to suspend disbelief about someone Gabby Concepcion’s age (what, in his 40s?) falling for someone Angelica Panganiban’s age (in her 20s), alongside the fact that Angelica was a waitress and he a doctor; or that someone Derek Ramsey’s age would even imagine using someone who looks sixteen (Kim Chiu, yes despite the thick make-up and more mature clothes) to get to Angelica, who was the love he left behind. Even the whole Kim-Chiu-is-now-an-adult was a stretch here. (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.