independence day blues

i want a president who has a better sense of nation than gma. it’s not right that we do not celebrate independence day the way we used to. the way we should.

like smoke, i forgot, until the receptionist at a doctor’s office reminded us. when we got home the first thing we did was to bring our flag out and hang it by the window, the way my father did religiously all his life.

i like to think that smoke, who feels the same, speaks for the youth:

It’s what today?

When the taxi driver greeted me with a ‘hapi independens day, mam!’ I had a brief moment of ‘it’s what today?’

When i recovered my wits, I was mortified.

This, i think, is the reason why the independence day holiday should never be moved to the nearest monday or whatever. With all the things you need to do just to survive, the higher things – like remembering to commemorate Independence – tend to get snowed under. If today were a holiday, Independence day would have been the first thing on my mind. Instead, all I could think about was making my ten o’clock meeting.

To a large extent, forgetting was a personal failure. But still, I was pissed to find out that I wasn’t alone in my lapse. After being reminded by that taxi driver, I made it a point to put on a bright smile and greet everyone a happy independence day. Most of the people I greeted returned the same blank stare that I’m sure I gave the taxi-guy. And like me, those blank stares were quickly replaced with memory and a mumbled, ‘I forgot.’

But that’s not the worst of it.

There were some people who just looked at me with a kind of sneer and said, ‘so what?’ They knew it was independence day, but they didn’t care.

This is the kind of trivialization of important observances – independence day included – that ‘holiday economics’ promotes. It kills our sense of history, numbing us to the sacrifices of our forebears and thereby robbing us of the ability to see ourselves as being part of the tapestry of history – if nothing else, then as inheritors of people who fought and died for the freedoms we now take for granted. It’s shameful, I tell you.

By reducing independence day to the status of just-another-excuse-to-skip-work we are slowly but surely inducing a national amnesia of our forefathers’ sacrifices, and we make ourselves more and more incapable of asking what we can do for our country and our people. Instead, we find it ever easier to ask only what our country and our people should do for us.

Without reminders of our place in history, we tend to focus only on what we need to do to ensure individual survival, reducing the national psyche to subsistence levels, and inculcating in us a pathologically mendicant mentality. Ultimately, this will result in psychic stagnation – the state of being so fixatedwith the here and now, with what our entitlements are, and with the utter sense of despair thatwe never get everything we have convinced ourselves we unconditionally deserve thatwe can no longer imagine – much less work for – a grand future.

I’m sorry I forgot it was independence day. I will not forget again.”

me too. it’s not only mortifying, it’s saddening, and who wants to be sad on independence day? but yes, sad for the nation, sad for ces drilon, sad for lorna tolentino, sad for the poor and hungry, sad for us all.

why juday

tanong ng marami, why not claudine, or kris, or ruffa, or sharon? tanong ko, did meralco’s first holdings ask judy ann first because they think she’s the most credible of them all? or maybe she just has the widest fan-base of them all, so wide she got jamby elected to the senate?

jp fenix calls her “the darling of the masses” who was supposed to sweeten the unsavory message that systems losses in our electric bill are real,justified, and legal.

Judy endorses the “systems loss” advocacy with analogy of how some ice melts away on your trip from the store to your home. She adds that systems losses charged to consumers are never higher than what’s prescribed by law.

True enough – but it totally misses the point of what we all find distasteful about this issue. Sure, the kilometers of cables and wires that bridge the generation of power to the consumer at home may result in attrition of the electricity that runs through them. We can accept that, just as we can accept the ice melting on the way home analogy.

What gets our goat is the system loss due to Meralco’s inefficiency… no, ineptitude… no, incompetence… no, plain katamaran, the cost of which is charged to us, the consumers.”

so really the culprit (among others, of course) is meralco, not judy ann, so why fault her for doing the meralco commercial? she got paid for it. trabaho lang. say ni bong austero, juday has the right to peddle opinion:

I read somewhere that Santos did get paid for that infomercial.Four million pesos, if my reckoning serves me right. I don’t see how anyone can take that against her-she is a celebrity who makes money that way. Last I looked, there is no law in this country against making a living. What I can’t take is the wanton disrespect for Santos’ right to make and peddle an opinion because, “she is just an actress.” It’s all part of this dangerous stereotype that casts actresses as simpletons who simply parrot whatever their benefactors ask them to do. Is it too much to assume that Santos has her own mind and her own advocacies?

I understand that someone as popular as Santos has a moral obligation to her followers. I also concede that actresses like her with a massive fan base have the responsibility to take into account some notion of “the common good” in her actions and statements.  But-and this I insist on-no one in this country, absolutely no one, has the right to dictate his or her own notion of what is right or wrong on another person.

At the end of the day, we all have to account for our own actions. If Judy Ann Santos made a grievous mistake by taking the cudgels for Meralco, then that is something that she has to account for personally. But I don’t think she should be castigated for participating in a national debate simply because she is an actress and has been paid to do so. That’s her right and privilege. Excluding her from the debate because she is presumably “inferior” is just another form of bigotry.”

oo nga, judy ann has her own mind and no doubt she has some notion of “the common good” which is perhaps why she was seen, or so i heard, at the wake of ka bel.

but i don’t know that she’s in any position to truly promote the common good, not as long as she’s pushing consumerism big time, doing tv commercials that peddle all sorts of products – laundry detergent, feminine wash, shampoo, ginisa mix, vinegar, clothes, beer, cough medicine, flawless skin, diet pills, pawnshop, sardines, evaporated milk, texting services, perfume, eyewear, watches – raising needs that most of her fan base have no way of gratifying, which is really quite unkind if not downright cruel.

and then, again, who knows, maybe the meralco ad signals a new stage in the evolution of judy ann santos. maybe she’s into political advocacy now. maybe she has political ambitions a la ate vi? hmm, then she should take a sabbatical, do some homework. politics is complicated stuff.

battle of the blogs

si manolo quezon ba ang pinatatamaan ni benignO?

one blogger’s citation of another blogger’s work serves the double purpose of also promoting the former’s own blog (at least if the latter sets their blog to allow trackbacks). This eureka moment of mine suddenly makes the style of some bloggers suspect in my book – those who pepper their work with so many links to other blogs. I made the observation yonks ago about how the style of a noted blogger has evolved from making very sharp-edged, highly-focused entries to the ones we see today that have more of the stock-take-cum-shotgun approach of a content consolidator.”

the daily dose is the only blog i know that is always peppered with links to other blogs, which style, yes, promotes the daily dose, but also provides a unique service to readers like me who want to know the latest developments and utterances on the political scene but can’t be bothered or don’t have the time to do all that research. i don’t know though that manolo’s posts have lost some edge and focus over time – i haven’t been into the blogosphere all that long. truth is, i never count on manolo for edge or focus. for that i read dean jorge bocobo and ellen tordesillas.

but yes, benignO raises a valid concern re the “establishmentisation” of the pinoy blogosphere where the success of a blog is measured by its popularity, i.e., the number of other blogs that link to it and the comments it gets per post, never mind the substance or lack of it or the vision or lack of it. it’s like preferring formula box-office hit movies to indy films when indy films are easily the more edgy and visionary:

For Indy film producers, an audience is a bonus. For Studio movie producers, an audience is the whole point. The latter is driven by credentialism and the former by insight. We all know mass appeal brings home the bacon, whilst edginess and loyalty to vision attracts a far smaller subset – insightful minds. That ultimately is the choice faced by every content producer, be they film makers, illustrators, writers, and – yes- bloggers.”

which brings me to tonyo cruz (whom i found through manolo’s daily dose) and the filipino blogosphere’s insipid aristocracy.

… the Pinoy blogosphere aristocracy are just behaving as expected: aristocratic and elitist. Some would cry “repression!” only when its their own voices that are being muffled or muzzled. Some would gladly lay down a virtual red carpet for their own online writing projects on Philippine issues, but would demean the efforts of others. At other times, these clowns cry for “democracy” when all they really want to say is “listen to me only” or “listen to me first”. Some are fans of a near-total absence of online accountability. As to the threat of repression, the question of the need to fight repression is set aside by insinuations that the new ones may be inviting harm all by themselves (ain’t that the same “blame the victim” outlook which they also detest in posts elsewhere).

There is a danger to the way these characters view themselves. They may be harboring not ill thoughts about others, but an overestimation of their self-worth. Given the discussions on related topics, it is not farfetched that they would soon propose a canon for the Pinoy blogosphere and anoint themselves as the new “gods” to whom we should solely and exclusively look for truth.

That is not democracy. That is only a complete reproduction of mass media and Philippine education in general. Full of elitism and bullshit, exclusivist rather inclusive, and finds as questionable the entry of new voices such as Lozada, Panlilio and the nameless masses.”

i LUV it. this is the kind of “edgy” i’m looking for – not the personal angst-laden kind of edgy but the politically edgy that takes a stand, that selflessly fearlessly speaks out against elitist bullshit, never mind kung makasakit man o makasagasa. ‘ika nga, truth hurts but it cures. (well, it should.)

tonyocruz is, i gather, correct me if i’m wrong, referring to some of his fellow bloggers in filipino voices whose reactions to the recently launched blog of jun lozada verged on the supercilious, judging it wanting just because it’s not like their own blogs? because jun lozada dares do more? because, oh no, he has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of comments already, talbog silang lahat, talbog tayong lahat, pati si kitty go? he must be doing something wrong, like brian gorrell? LOL

even the noted blogger has fallen into the trap. almost belittling lozada’s filipino ideology of nationhood just because it wasn’t crafted with the help of the blogocracy? and even warning of capital flight because jun lozada quoted lenin, never mind that lenin was speaking a truth about land reform? maybe benignO’s right.

there ought to be a law

senator ping lacson said on tina monzon palma’s talkback that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing a TV commercial selling a facial lotion for men because there is no law forbidding it.

i suppose, correct me if i’m wrong, there is no such law in the u.s. either, which might explain why we copycats don’t have one?

yet i’m sure no u.s. senator or representative or governor or mayor endorses commercial products (even if there is no law forbidding it) simply because the american public – which holds elected officials to the promise of public service, nothing more, nothing less, and who are a lot more sophisticated than we are about tv commercials – would raise a terrible howl and question his/her integrity and credibility to kingdom come. s/he’d be the butt of jokes – tagged a sell-out – from jay leno to whoopie et al, and would never hear the end of it, unless/until the tv commercial is made to go away.

pero dito sa atin, inaakalang okey lang itong pag-e-endorse ng government officials ng commercial products. anong masama kung kumita sila ng extra, maliit daw ang suweldo ng senador. the attitude is, basta he or she is (perceived to be) doing a good job as a public servant, okay lang to do movies, tv commercials, whatever he or she wants to do on the side, just like any enterprising citizen.

excuse me, but this is precisely why we get the kind of government officials we do, for whom public service is a parttime job, who say one thing and do another, and who do not have the brains or the chutzpah to get the country out of the economic pits but instead have only a lot of the same old same old faith na hindi tayo pababayaan ng diyos. meanwhile, they make hay while the sun shines, sell soap and skin whitener and facial lotion and fabric softener and herbal supplement and cheap instant noodles, que cheap!

a lot of credibility is lost when a senator peddles a branded product whose advantages over other brands is questionable because it’s just a lot of hype, as all advertising is. a lot of credibility is lost when a senator makes movies to entertain the masses when s/he should be working for higher national interests such as food security, quality education, and a host of other concerns.

and it is certainly not in the national interest to encourage crass materialism and consumerist values, raising needs essential and non-essential that are beyond gratifiying for the masses of ill-fed poor who watch tv in this third world country.