Tag Archives: criticism

komentaryo

Ma’am Lilia #LQS

I’ve always considered myself lucky to have been in the State U in the late 90s to the 2000s, across an undergraduate degree and my MA, because it gave me the opportunity to have the best teachers in the humanities.

LQS was one of those teachers, and she didn’t just welcome me as a sophomore into a basic Filipino classroom, she also would have me in her MA classes the years before she left for the States. I don’t remember much about what those classes were exactly, as much as I have a keen sense of what it was that I learned in them, beyond readings and syllabi, given the kind of teaching she practiced.

It was in that sophomore Filipino classroom, for example, where I had the best lessons in diversity and unity, history and empathy. It was there that I became friends with Anifa, who was the lone Muslim girl in class, and who LQS grouped me with for final projects. This meant being forced into discussions about Muslim Mindanao and the struggle of the Bangsamoro, with the goal of building upon similarities, toward working on truths borne of the multiplicity of voices. I was in over my head. I realized very quickly that there was no cramming all this information about Mindanao into my head, and that I had to settle for admitting that I knew very little, and what I had instead were questions. It was also the first time I had a sense of risk and privilege. Where I realized that a conversation such as this one meant so much to Anifa, whose life, history, heritage were on the line, while it did not, in any way, affect the way in which mine would unfold.

At some point before that final project’s presentation, I told LQS that I felt it was important that Anifa be the one to lead the discussions, and she nodded. Like I had learned the lesson she meant for me to discover for myself. Read the room. Let others speak. Admit your limitations. Be an ally. Know your place. (more…)

komentaryo

Sir Edel

It is uncomfortable, to say the least, that I have been made part of this list of people doing tributes for Sir Edel today. I cannot claim to have known him personally, nor to have had long conversations with him about his work, or mine, or about life in general. But I said yes because his death has left a gaping hole that even I am surprised by. I said yes because soon after Sir Edel died, my college friend Raia messaged me and said she’d wait for this tribute, that I must write it for both of us. I said yes because in the midst of this crisis, that we are unfortunate enough to experience with the most incompetent and violent of governments, we are also in the throes of a propaganda war like no other, even as we can only battle with our own demons and emotional turmoil, and for some reason Sir Edel’s is one of many voices that resonate for me in times like this one.

But unlike many tributes, this thing I’m fashioning will not have fond memories, or funny anecdotes. Neither will it wax romantic about Sir Edel’s value to our intellectual landscape, or his influence on the younger generation of activists and writers. I am in no position to do that.

What I can do instead, is tell a story. (more…)

kultura

Refusing accountability: Liza Diño and PPP Year 2

President Duterte insists that there is no corruption in his government, because (1) just a whiff of corruption and you’re out, (2) there is transparency, and (3) there is an anti-corruption agency — that can even look into his bank accounts if they want (he of course appointed the people in that commission, so really).

But there are many instances in which this has been proven questionable, in fact many instances in which Duterte’s own people discredit the President’s pronouncements, not just because they are not held accountable, but also because they are far from being transparent. We could be talking about Wanda Teo and how she has brushed off even a major complaint against her by DoT employees — officially received and stamped by the Office of the President from June 2017. But it could also be as simple as Liza Diño, chairperson of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), who cannot for the life of her respond properly to valid criticism and questions about her leadership and projects.  (more…)

kultura

MMFF, transparency, big words

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…)

komentaryo

criticism interrogates, questions, shatters

from “on criticism” by eli guieb:

Criticism shatters.  It shatters the shibboleths of our silenced lives, the deep silences about the wrongs of society.  To challenge those silences has often come to mean courting tragedy.  Criticism challenges those silences.  It breaks silence free from its silence.  It proffers breakthroughs that break down debilitating silences, and, in the process, rejoices in the breakdown of unwanted silence.  (more…)