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I am the last person to defend SM, and I do think we’ve got enough malls and condos in this country. But one of the first things I asked when the petition to save the Philam Life Theater began to gain ground was: why? And no, not why did SMDC buy the Philam Life property, but why was this property sold at all? Yet that doesn’t seem to be a question that many people are asking. Instead we are asking… Continue reading »
In January, the Department of Tourism (DOT) celebrated the 6.09% rise in the number of tourists to the Philippines. That’s 25,000 more people who have come to visit this country where everything’s more fun. That’s 436,079 tourists who landed in good ol’ Pinas in January alone. It gives me goosebumps. Far from the good kind. Because it would take an amount of delusion to think this all good, and only the naïve would think those numbers equal to development or… Continue reading »
in conversations with my Pinay friend Sunshine who left for the US five years ago, and who came to visit in the middle of January, tears were necessarily in order. what was surprising was that while these would be shed in the first two hours or so for the distance we had kept and the things we had survived separately, the rest of our time together would be spent crying about nation, if not shaking our heads in dismay. by… Continue reading »
for a PNoy government that talks about the matuwid na daan, which is to say doing things correctly and properly and justly, they sure know how to reveal themselves to be on some dirt road. so yes, NAIA 1 is the worst airport in the world, i know that, and i will not pretend otherwise. but of course it will take international disgust over the airport for some change to happen, and in October a world-renowned team composed of Cobonpue-Layug-Pineda… Continue reading »
we should not forget. regardless of the success that is the distribution of Hacienda Luisita among farmer-beneficiaries.
<…> Enjoy the stories, admire the craft. Then put it in your backpack and go. As far as you can, for as long as you can afford it. Preferably someplace where you have to think in one language and buy groceries in another. Get a job there. Rent a room. Stick around. Do something. If it doesn’t work out, do something else. Whatever it is, you will be able to use it in the stories you will write later. And… Continue reading »
1. possible precursor: this pre-nuptial photo shoot of rockstar Jay Contreras and Sarah Abad, in a provincial cemetery. it isn’t the cemetery of heroes and had no crosses, but it sure seems like the peg for the irreverence in the current more controversial pre-nup shoot of Ruskin and Priscilla at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. so no, Priscilla and Ruskin weren’t quite “breaking conventions in pre-nup shoots here.” they were in fact doing a copy of a photoshoot that happened… Continue reading »
Over Rizal, Monuments to a Hero had all the makings of superficiality. After all, in light of Jose Rizal’s sesquicentennial his monuments seem like the most flimsy of subjects; in light of the more important question of his continued relevance, this exhibit risked the possibility of being absolutely irrelevant. But there was more here than just photos of Rizal statues, and while the curatorial note speaks of memory and remembering, the sheer number of these monuments across the country surprisingly reminds… Continue reading »
In The Name of Love (directed by Olivia Lamasan, written by Lamasan and Enrico Santos) had the promise of courage. Its OFW story is one that deals carefully with the fact of male bodies, where Emman Toledo (Aga Muhlach) and his dance group are hostos in Japan: dancing in a club and stepping out of there with blonde women in tow. The crisis of the Filipino family in the face of the OFW phenomenon is shown here with a bright honesty: there is… Continue reading »
Provincial hustle and bustle are redefined in a space that takes pride in its religiosity. In the province of Cebu, on an otherwise regular weekend, there was nothing special to celebrate. Other than stillness, the kind that’s about being anchored in faith that you might not practice a whole lot of, but which in this space is a ride you’re in by default. After all, where religion is part of history and hysteria, rhyme and reason, the irrational and rational, it… Continue reading »