komentaryo

dear UP Manila,

one hopes for some kindness.

four UP Manila students will be appealing their case to the Board of Regents today, March 28. this past semester, all four went to all the classes they registered in, they were accepted by their teachers, and they fulfilled requirements. this past semester, they aimed for graduation and went through their thesis classes.

they did so despite the fact that they could not and did not pay their tuition fees on time. they went to school, did the work, no matter the financial problems that befell their families. they forged through and hoped that soon enough, there would be money to pay for tuition. they did the work, regardless. (more…)

kultura

slow and disjointed: on August Osage County

I have come to the conclusion that accents are good. It is what I expect of most every Repertory Philippines play, given the texts that they choose to stage, and the truth that it is crucial to the insistence on staging plays set in places far away, if not within a historical period that is alien to a local audience.

It is Rep that has taught me that. And with August: Osage County I felt like I was being taught to un-learn it. I was forced to contend with the distance between audience and stage. No one took my hand and brought me into this world strange and different, but also absolutely familiar.

(more…)

kultura

not everyone can make a rom-com: a realization from watching Starting Over Again

There is standard that Star Cinema has set when it comes to the romantic-comedy as a genre, and it’s a standard that has since re-set the formula for the effective rom-com, where effectivity is proven by both a movie’s creation of it’s own cult following and box office success. (more…)

komentaryo

remember by reading: EDSA Revolution 1986

two links for those who are truly interested in understanding and forming an opinion about the EDSA Revolution of 1986: a version of Chronology of a Revolution was published by the Foundation for Worldwide People Power in 1996, and Himagsikan sa EDSA: Walang Himala! was published by the same, in the year 2000, after it got an Honorable Mention in the Centennial Literary Prize in 1998. both have been online, and free to read, since 2000 for Himagsikan and about two years ago for Chronology. 

click here for the Chronology of a Revolution.
click here for Himagsikan sa EDSA. (more…)

kultura

space for troubled youth: on Toilet The Musical

It was funny that before I could find where exactly Toilet The Musical was being staged in the Ateneo campus, I first had to happen upon the Rizal Mini Theater where Antigone The Musical was being staged. It made me want to try and get into the latter — for how fun that sounded after all! — but then again, Toilet was making a promise difficult to refuse: it’s an all-original Filipino musical. That it had Ejay Yatco at the helm might be exactly what kept me walking towards Toilet even as Antigone was calling. Yatco after all was musical director of the underrated success that was Sa Wakas (2013).

In Toilet, Yatco does not disappoint. Neither do writers Bym Buhain and Miyo Sta. Maria. Neither does the rest of Blue Rep.

(more…)