The premise of Dear And Unhappy is a simple question: what of Josephine Bracken? Rizal’s wife and / or lover, depending on who you believe. Or depending on your internalized racism against the Irish woman our National Hero was enamored with — it is after all why Bracken remains marginalized in narratives about Jose Rizal’s life; it also has arguably spawned multiple texts about Bracken — the less we know about someone the more exciting our stories about her. (more…)
Boses ng Masa is deceptively simple and painfully familiar, which is what’s both good and bad about it: the discussion is worth having, but you can see that ending from a mile away.
It’s not that you’ve seen this before, as it is that you have lived it.
The Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) is all of six months away, and here we are already talking with such passion about what the film industry needs and what the audiences deserve, quality versus commercial, small film producers versus big production companies, new versus old, change change change.
There is very little that we know so far, probably owing to what recently resigned MMFF Execom Member Roland Tolentino has said is a “confidentiality clause” on their work with MMFF.
What we do know is this. Four films have already ensured their spots in the MMFF 2017 roster, three of which hark back to the tried and tested blockbuster films of old. Three members of the MMFF Execom have resigned because the current committee is moving in the direction of “putting too much emphasis on commerce over art” (Statement, July 5). Those who benefited from last year’s “changes” are raising a ruckus. Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) Chair Liza Diño is being questioned for deciding to stay as part of the Execom.
We are being told that this is a waste of last year’s gains. Yet no one wants to talk about what those gains were exactly. (more…)
If there’s anything we’ve lost the past year, it’s a sense of propriety and order, of just common sense about what the role is of government and our officials when it comes to speaking to the populace. Sure Daang Matuwid had its own share of communications foibles, and yes they were elitist through and through.
And yet the same might be said of the Duterte government, especially his men, who speak with utter carelessness, and then demand us all to see that they were merely being “taken out of context.” See here likes the problem with these times: we have allowed government officials to get away with insisting that everything’s a matter of opinion, never mind right and wrong.
Case in point: Budget Secretary Ben Diokno has promised “hell” given the government’s infrastructure program. (more…)
In January this year, Budget Secretary Ben Diokno, faced with queries about the contradiction between what was promised by Rodrigo Duterte during the campaign and what he has ended up doing as President, thoughtlessly made this distinction: “Iba ‘yung candidate Duterte sa President Duterte. <…> May napapangako ka na kapag nakita mo ‘yung datos, hindi pala pwede.”
It was a most convenient excuse for the unfulfilled promises of the President – in this instance about the SSS pension increase that he had yet to sign at that point.
It also inadvertently highlighted the way in which this government has operated the past year: one the one hand as if they are merely speaking to their supporters, on the other as if they are still wanting to win an election. Either way this makes for the past year’s tragedy: a government taking discourse down to the level of campaign rhetoric, where it is always about black and white, pro- or anti-, friends and enemies. (more…)