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and so it must be said, that September might have been the best month ever for P-Noy, at least compared to those first two months where things just weren’t going his way, or his way just seemed to be going wrong. the past month, P-Noy conveniently left the country for a visit to the US at around the same time that the Incident Investigating and Review Committee (IIRC) submitted its report on the August 23 hostage tragedy to Malacanang. in the midst… Continue reading »
The noise is overwhelming. SaGuijo isn’t made for long conversations with friends, not even when you’re all outside sitting at the farthest table from the entrance, having drinks and cigarettes. The truth is you’ve been here since dinnertime when it was empty and bright. You almost forgot it was the place of noise and crowds and youth, the one you hadn’t gone to in a while. It had been a long day and, both emotionally and literally, food was what you needed. You also… Continue reading »
today, the Pinoy Catholic Church gathered people to pray away the President’s decision to educate all Filipinos about family planning and give them the right to choose what to do. they also gathered to pray away the RH Bill and the probability that it will be passed into law. the Pinoy Church elders invoke the name of the President’s mother: she wouldn’t do this, they say, she was close to bishops, she was saintly, she listened to the Church. Archbishop… Continue reading »
because on the one hand: it will tell its followers abortion is a sin, those women who do it, they are sinners, they are irresponsible. all you, who use contraception, you are committing abortion. you are sinners. you are immoral. on the other: they will refuse any form of education that has the word sex in it. yes, even when in the same sentence as sex, is the word responsibility. oh no! this Pinoy Church would rather think that every Filipino is… Continue reading »
a version of this was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Arts and Books Section, August 23 2010. Because Mark Salvatus and his work inspired by the Quezon Provincial Jail would be the most logical choice for the Ateneo Art Award 2010, to this critic who has seen most these artists’ exhibits when they came out in galleries and museums across the metro, and who does insist on relevance and resistance, and its possibilities in art. Of the 12 short-listed… Continue reading »
the irony should not be lost on any of them, really. after all they’re the newly-created, seemingly hi-tech, and youthful (!) aspect of the Noy government, and as the communications group, they should know of the contradictions inherent in their mere existence. they who are tasked with “communications” different and separate and new(?) from what we’ve seen as the office of the press secretary all these years. but save for putting up twitter and facebook accounts, and a website, we… Continue reading »
a version of this was published in the Arts and Books Section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 21 2010. In May 1898, Apolinario Mabini wrote his Dekalogo, a list which reconfigures the 10 commandments into one that does not forget nation or nationalism. In May 2010, CANVAS’ Dekalogo (Vargas Museum, U.P. Diliman) forces us all to remember just that. And in the context of an election just done with and a new government ready to change our lives, it… Continue reading »
Ces Drilon is who. And the policeman she featured on I Survived on May 13 (early morning May 14, 1t’s 12:56 am on my clock). It is also GMA who survives in this, even the next president, or every other person who says that rallies are mob rules and should be dispersed or else, forgetting that the freedom of assembly IS A RIGHT. In the end it is all just lazy research and documentation, and irresponsible journalism. So in the course of… Continue reading »
Satur Ocampo is the one senatoriable who has gotten flack for being guest candidate of NP, which is surprising given how this refuses to believe the truth that he and Liza Maza are running with the party, and not within it. Why is it so hard to understand that? The better question is would we give Satur and Liza the same problem had they run with LP? It’s obvious that people who use the NP reason against Satur and Liza… Continue reading »
All this vote requires is common sense, and maybe one Google search. The partylist system is supposed to “enable Filipino citizens belonging to the marginalized and underrepresented sectors, organizations and parties, and who lack well-defined political constituencies <to> contribute to the formulation and enactment of appropriate legislation that will benefit the nation as a whole.” Operative word marginalized. Operative phrase the nation as a whole. One weekend from election day we should not forget these important facts about the… Continue reading »
“Ninoy’s Testament From A Prison Cell and other writings might enlighten Noynoy a little about the Left. if there were no poverty and oppression, there would be no Left; snubbing and demonizing the Left (instead of finding a way for Left and Right to work together for the good of the whole) would not have been Ninoy’s way, is no way to honor Ninoy’s legacy, in fact it dishonors Ninoy’s legacy.” And while Stuart Santiago seems to have decided, I have yet… Continue reading »
This turned out to be a different creature altogether from what I imagined I would write about being invited to a Playboy launch party. Not surprisingly, talking about feminism and womanhood in the face of other Pinays just turned everything personal.
It seems too easy, really. On one July 4, Kawayan de Guia found himself in America, and felt removed from what was a major celebration in the land of milk and honey. On this day, he decides to take a 30-kilometer walk on non-descript Route 66, which may be part of his personal history of walking, yes, but to a spectator who needs no personal history, could really be about so many other things. Which is really what works for… Continue reading »
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… Continue reading »
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… Continue reading »
Though admittedly not the best of speakers, it was difficult not to be enamored by young independent filmmaker Raya Martin on a Saturday afternoon at the Lopez Museum. Even when he sometimes lost his train of thought, and dared speak of filmmaking as an ultimately personal thing – almost a refusal to consider us as audience. What Martin had going for him wasn’t just his youth and its contingent rebellious streak, but a consciousness about his craft that was surprising.… Continue reading »
the only thing that links me to Cory Aquino is really memory. because while yes, it has been about these images of yellow my grandfather and mother carried, as her death sinks in it’s also about many other images in my head. of Butz Aquino and ATOM, and an uncle who was part of it. of Kuya at 13 asking that he be allowed to go with our older cousins to EDSA because, as he told my mother, what if there… Continue reading »