Tag Archives: Ronald Llamas

komentaryo

The good, the bad, the petty: Chiz and the Sara impeachment #SocialMediaDiscourse

I do not doubt that there is a whole lot of reasons to continue discussing the impeachment of VP Sara Duterte, specifically whether it is right or wrong that Senate President Chiz Escudero is doings things at his own pace, and whether that puts the whole impeachment at risk and / or risking the possibility of getting an acquittal for VP Sara. I tend to think that SP Escudero is far smarter than all of this. He’s not new to this circus, and certainly has engaged long enough with politics in this country to know not to put even his own political career at risk by a failure to thoughtfully and carefully flesh things out, anticipate outcomes, adjust as things unfold.

And if your biases against Escudero don’t cloud your judgment, he actually made a lot of sense at that February 20 press con, talking about how the Senate, in fact, is taking the necessary steps it can take at this point in time, owing to the fact that the Senate is not in session, and many Senators are busy campaigning either for another term in office, or for other elective positions. He is firm in the refusal to rush the proceedings, or to call a session, and denies either side of the political spectrum to pressure him into doing or saying anything: “I will not dignify nor listen to partisan legal opinions or positions for or against the impeachment of VP Sara.”

At this point in our political discourse, that pretty much gives Escudero the license to ignore everyone. For good or bad, partisanship is the rule these days, not the exception. (more…)

komentaryo

Llamas, Heydarian, Esguerra: the post-Duterte macho punditry

The thing with six years of a fascist leadership like Duterte’s, built on fragile masculinity and misogyny and violent rhetoric and male chauvinism is that it changes us culturally. Women and the LGBTQIA+ community are more sensitive, and therefore angrier, and rightfully so. We are also exhausted.

But the men. Oh the men.

It’s one thing to have had to deal with the likes of Banat By and Jeffrey Celis during Duterte years and the first years or so of Marcos governance when SMNI continued to give them a platform. It’s another thing altogether to find that even men who should know better, ones who claim they are better, media personalities even, can use exactly the same tone and tenor, the arrogance, the same machismo, as that which the six years of Duterte had enabled and encouraged.

And of course this could only surface at scale when they are talking about a woman like Sara Duterte. Because there is nothing like a woman in rage to get men frothing at the mouth. (more…)