scandalizing the media

i join women’s rights advocate dr. sylvia estrada-claudio in bemoaning the way the media are handling the hayden kho scandal (anc media in focus), wallowing gleefully in the stories being revealed about kho and belo, kho and halili, kho and his friends, kho and the wife of one of these friends, and what about the sexy comedienne, kaya pala siya iritang irita tuwing matatanong tungkol kay hayden…  among many other juicy items…  and, surprise surprise, the media that never takes sides — pa-objective kuno — are now taking sides, mostly the side of halili the woman betrayed violated exposed, championed by the notorious lolit solis, no less, who is screaming for kho’s head…  na nabusan ng tubig, what a scene, pero bakit parang hindi siya nagulat, was he expecting it, was it staged to show how hated he is, kawawa naman, ang cute pa naman…   i hear a bading radio anchor wanted to rush to the senate and help the mother make punas punas hayden, lol…

but seriously, the media should stop feasting lang on the scandal and, sabi nga ni dr. claudio, move on, maybe start talking sexual ethics naman.   yes  let’s get beyond who’s more baboy, who’s more guilty, because c’mon they’re all guilty of one mistake or another that contributed to the mess.   too much misplaced trust all around, i would think.   everyone was being naive, failing to anticipate, and protect oneself against, a fall-out.   so yes let’s talk sexual ethics (or the lack of it). just please not the self-righteous anti-hayden ethics of lolit.   rather, a sexual ethics that’s appropriate to the sexuality of the times, where both men and women are more adventurous and aggressive, and they have a right to be, freedom of expression and all that, as long as it’s private and consensual and walang ibang taong nasasaktan, and with full awareness of the additional risks involved in these days of AIDS and STDs, digicams and the internet, and the huge dvd market for erotica and porn.

and puwede ba, lubayan na si vicky belo.   i heard someone asking on startalk, dapat bang tanggalan din ng professional license ang doctora dahil nagpakuha rin siya ng sex video?   ano ba.   ang dapat tanggalan ng lisensiya ay ang mga kaibigang doktor na allegedly responsible for making and selling copies of and uploading the videos without the consent of hayden and the different women.   if we are making excuses for katrina halili, why are we not making excuses for vicky belo?   besides when it comes to sex, kanya-kanyang trip ‘yan.   i can imagine how being video-ed while making love, and then watching the video after, can be a turn on for some couples.   especially narcissists, ‘yung mga gandang-ganda sa sarili nila, would get a real kick out of seeing their beautiful bodies in the physical throes of lovemaking.  which doesn’t make them immoral.

as for the sexual deviance angle that karen davila insists on pursuing vs hayden kho, medyo masalimuot na usapin ‘yan.   because really, deviant in relation to what norm, the norm imposed by the church, or the norm of our sexual nature?   davila hasn’t a clue.   why not follow up na lang on belo’s appeal sa kababaihan: pag may girlfriend o committed na ang lalaki, huwag nang tuksuhin, huwag nang patulan, or at the very least, huwag seryosohin.   indeed.   what was katrina halili thinking, all is fair in love and war?   what was she hoping for when she settled for being just the “other woman” in hiding?   that it would be temporary?   that eventually, hayden would give up vicky for her, mas bata kasi siya at mas maganda?   or that eventually vicky would give hayden up and she katrina would be next in line?   well, she gambled and she lost.   media should stop glorifying her.

careless women

had a real good laugh over dzmm teleradyo‘s latest version of “woe is me, shame and scandal in the family” : “o diyos ko, kay laking kahihiyan nito” *LOL* referring of course to the hayden kho – katrina halili sex videos that have made a nationwide joke, a laughingstock no less, of vicki belo’s hunk hayden kho to the tune of “careless whisper.”

even the alta-siyudad is enjoying the show and laughing out loud.

All of Social Manila [ as well as Non-Social Manila ] these days are in giggles, squeals, and shrieks of perverse delight on their laptops and PCs… In a series of three downloaded videos from cyberspace, but specially in the longest one, Doctor Stud, on-and-off-and-on-again boyfriend of Doctor Sexy, delightfullymanifests his astonishing sexual prowess in a variety of positions with three different women.

Inevitably, it comes to mind that if the remarkable sexual prowess displayed is what Doctor Sexy is enjoying in her relationship with Doctor Stud, and it must be, then many hotblooded women and even more hotblooded gay men have justifiable reasons to be envious of her.

… Exhibitionism Galore. And an Orgy of Voyeurism for Everyone Else.

… Enjoy the Show. It’s quite something, really. Until today I thought only Caucasians could perform phenomenally like that. Doctor Stud certainly has a great future in the pornographic movies industry.

on the other hand, my gay friend iskho lopez is unimpressed.   lifted this status from facebook:

The controversial sex videos between a so-called celebrity doctor and his female partners … were familiar and nothing extraordinary. It revealed the sexual appetite of the said performers, particularly the doctor who demonstrated his prowess in “eating” and predilection for using his fingers in the process.

pahabol pa ni iskho, “the routine is rather gay…”

of course i had to see for myself kung sila nga ba ‘yon and not some look-alikes, and also to have a sense of what kind of porn we’re so scandalized about.   soft porn?   hard porn?   here’s the diff:

“Hard porn shows penetration; in soft porn, there is no penetration. We never see the dick because the dick is soft. Hence, soft porn.”

ay, kinda hard porn nga, but an amateur hidden-angle set-up, maya’t maya out-of-frame, and the video quality is terrible.    if we didn’t know kho and halili, thanks to media that celebrate them, these badly done videos would not sell.   the only reason these particular ones are selling is because we know, and know OF, vicky belo’s hunk of a boytoy and of the belo model who is also fhm‘s 2-time covergirl and a gma7 talent, who once denied being a couple behind belo’s back, and here they are engaging in illicit sex that they’re video-recording, and badly, to boot, how spectacularly perverse.

but, really, perverse only in the sense of being pasaway or sutil, not in the sense of abnormal or aberrant sexual behavior.    hayden isn’t a sicko, he’s just a spoiled handsome brat, parlaying his good looks for the good life and hot sex, but he went too far, i mean, you know, a digital diary of his sexcapades with celebrities, omg, what was he thinking?    hindi niya na-anticipate na puwedeng manakaw ang laptop niya, o makopya ang hard disk?    he should have been more careful.   but then i suppose he wasn’t thinking, except with his dick.   or it could even have been hubris.   things were going so well, luck and love were on his side, maybe he thought it would never end, ahahaha.   nothing never ends.

as for the alleged victim, i don’t buy jo-ann maglipon‘s take of halili as an abused woman who just happened to fall in love with the wrong man, or that halili is much like our sisters and nieces and cousins and daughters.

Katrina was a pretty, 21-year-old who was earning her keep in 2007, when she fell in love with Hayden, then a handsome, 27-year-old doctor of medicine. Except for the fact that the doctor was publicly known to be the boyfriend of Vicki Belo, a doctor much wealthier and far older than he, there was nothing especially scary about him. And except for the fact that Katrina was already FHM’s sexiest woman in the world the year before, and would be voted so again that year, there was nothing especially different about her.

She was just a young, liberated working girl, full of life, with the world before her-much like our sisters and nieces and cousins and daughters. And like many of these girls, at some point Katrina fell in love, and gave her all to her man.

She was also not an insensitive girl. In my interview with her early this year, for YES! Magazine, she acknowledged that Vicki Belo was an issue in her relationship with Hayden. This is how she handled it: She played the suffering wife. Her manand Vicki could go out in the open and enjoy their partnership; she would stay in the condo and wait for when he could find time for her. She never imposed on his schedule; she waited, even if oftentimes she cried while doing so. By denying herself the pleasures of having long conversations with him, of eating out in restaurants with him,of attending showbiz events with him as escort, she believed she was already paying for her sins to Vicki.

By her reckoning, she was behaving as decently as any woman in love could. A woman, by the way, who had been told by her man that she was his other partner “in a parallel life.”

Since then, she has admitted on national television: “Ang tanga-tanga ko. Pero na-in love ako. Pasensiya na po…”

Indeed, how was she to know this doctor would have a fetish for videos? How was she to know there would be a sick environment around the good-looking fellow-of a world seemingly measured by luxury goods and travel, with friends he has wronged and who hated him, of a whole value system neither educated nor decent?

It is she who has been violated here. It is Katrina who has been abused-not once, or twice, but thrice! First, when her lover took videos of their most sexual moments without her knowledge and consent. Second, when some heartless bastards uploaded the videos on the Net. And third, when an unthinking, unfeeling public viewed the videos and enjoyed themselves.

so, it was all right for halili to make patol belo’s kho, she was in love kasi?   so, she can’t be faulted for agreeing to the videotape, she had no idea naman that he was a sicko or that he had enemies who would steal and upload the tapes?   oh pleasssse.   what kind of messages do that send to our sisters and nieces and cousins and daughters?   for all our sakes i would like to think that our girls are made of sterner and smarter stuff.

what’s true is that our girls may be exposed to the same temptations as halili and this is a good way as any to learn a few lessons in love and porn.   love triangles are hell, girls, and halili could have said no to kho, or at the very least said no to video.    so ingat sa mga hayden camera, girls, better praning than sorry.   unless you wanna be a pornstar.   walang sisihan.

by the way, it’s stupid and unrealistic to ask and expect the public to desist from  watching  the sex videos out of pity and/or sympathy for halili and the other women.   that’s like asking us common humans to deny our sexual nature and our sexual curiosity, and it aint gonna happen.   not when the buzz is, tapes of hayden kho with the sexy commedienne and the beauteous boss are coming soon.   does the production quality improve kaya?   abangan ;))

bookbug blues

i could be more upset about the book tax.   i am a bookbug, after all.   i buy imported and local fiction and non-fiction regularly, mostly imported mostly english, and i read them all as a matter of pleasure, of study, sometimes of survival.   do i really not mind paying more?

i mind, of course.   times are hard, money is tight.   maybe it’s just mercury being retrograde, i’ve been through this before, the post office has been taxing our mail-order books for someyears now, and talaga i know i should could be angrier but i just can’t get beyond a hay-naku sabay buntong-hininga.

kumbaga sa “straw that broke the camel’s back” this is not it, this is far from it.    because a tax on imported books simply is too lightweight and too burgis an issue to get me as mad as i already am about the scandalizingly high cost of basic goods and services e.g. food, shelter, clothing, utilities, medicines, and schooling.    “non-educational”  books simply don’t belong in the same category.

nonetheless i wish robin hemley and manolo and jessica and teddyboy and the blogosphere success in the campaign to jolt the government back to its senses and back to full compliance with the florence agreement. until then, books getting more expensive just means i’ll be buying less.   maybe i’ll even stop going to bookstores, as a matter of protest, as 1read2 suggests:

… the government as represented by the Department of Finance and Customs Bureau has made its stand on the Book Tax and Duty.  “Sue us” seems to be the battle cry: A very arrogant one at that.

…Hopefully, someone does sue thembut in the meantime what to do?

Given that it seems that the bookstores and booksellers are somewhat hesitant to challenge this ruling. Perhaps it would be time to do something against this taxation.

Do not buy books that have duties imposed. Do not buy it. Book readers and book collectors are the customers of this industry. And they make it prosper and if the industry cannot defend itself from unjust and illegal taxes it might be the time to not buy.

Books can be downloaded from the Net . Read and even share the ebook with a friend or fellow book reader.

…Refuse to pay the taxman his unjust taxes

Books can be gained in several ways and not all of them involves buying. No I am not referring to stealing. Borrow from the library or share a book with a friend.

Establish book clubs with libraries…

meanwhile as reminds in his comment to mlq3 there’s the 2010 elections coming.   how about if we not vote for candidates who support the book tax.   or, to be positive.   how about if we campaign and vote for candidates who would rescind the book tax (other things being equal ;)

also meanwhile, there’s always booksale.   i don’t mind secondhand books.   i’m also willing to trade, but first i have to put together a list of books that i can bear to part with, fiction and non-, all of them educational.   promise.

calling out cheche

so what’s winston garcia of gsis up to, doing a mike defensor and doing it worse, harassing bullying persecuting no less than the veteran journalist cheche lazaro, who is highly esteemed, widely loved, and multi-awarded for the excellence and relevance of her body of work in broadcast journalism and nation-building?   and don’t tell me that winston garcia is not calling the shots here, because that’s simply not to be believed in the context of either the public teachers’ gsis pension plight or the war between garcia and the lopezes over meralco, or both.

cheche lazaro is right, she did not break the anti-wiretapping law.    she wasn’t a sammy ong or a vidal doble wire-tapping gma’s phone conversations with garci without gma’s and garci’s knowledge.    she was just cheche of probe interviewing a gsis pr lady on her cellphone for a show she was putting together, and yes she recorded the conversation, in the course of which she informed the gsis lady that it was being recorded, and the gsis lady did not stop talking, did not get off the line in protest, so what’s the crime.   the complaint shouldnot have prospered.   there is no wiretapping case.

what there is however is a breach of journalistic ethics.   when cheche aired a part of the recorded conversation without the gsis pr lady’s consent, cheche gave the lady reason to ask,what about my individual right to privacy?

Are the media allowed to violate the individual rights of a person? I was asking the court if the media could simply call you up, record your conversation, and broadcast it for the entire world to hear; all these, without your knowledge, much less, your permission.

…”I am a believer of the significant role journalists play in a democratic system. They are the watchmen, protecting us from wrongdoings taking place both in government and private sectors. But even journalists are not infallible. They can have their share of wrongdoings. And when journalists do wrong, how can we – especially private individuals – protect ourselves from them?”

the gsis pr lady gave cheche tacit approval to record, but not to disclose.   “hindi po lalabas…” and cheche agreed, “no, no…” yet she did put out a part of it, on the convoluted ground that the gsis pr lady had insisted that it be explained to viewers that gsis refused to grant an interview because of biased reporting by lopez-owned media entities.   cheche could simply have shown the official letter refusing the invitation to air the gsis side, she could have highlighted, even read out the pertinent parts, and the message would have been sent as effectively.

given her long history in the business, it surprises that cheche chose to publicize what was clearly off-the-record.   of course journalists hate off-the-record, it usually denies them the satisfaction of scooping a juicy story, but it’s a short-sighted view.    some of the biggest stories of corporate scandals, i am told, have been broken based on information that off-the-record statements led to.    there’s value, too, in something said that you can’t write or broadcast but which you can follow up in private and which might lead to you more info you would otherwise have missed out on.

the question is, why did cheche do it?   freedom of the press?   maybe she thought she could get away with it because the larger issue of gsis’s lack of transparency or the teachers’ well-being is more important than any government official’s privacy?   maybe she thought that off-the-record was an outdated ethic, it doesn’t promote nation-building?   maybe she thought that public opinion would be with her given the low satisfaction ratings of government and its institutions?  but says bong austero:

Lazaro is of course a pillar in broadcast journalism in this country with a sterling reputation both in academe and in media. I am a fan of Lazaro; I think very highly of her work … Being dismayed that someone of her caliber has to go through something like this is a natural gut reaction.

But if we really come to think about it, who Lazaro is and what she stands for is important and relevant but is not a foolproof defense and justification. I dread the idea that anyone who feels wronged cannot file a case against anyone on account of that other person’s reputation. I dread the idea that people likeLazaro is deemed untouchable because of who she is.

Moreover, I think it’s a disservice to automatically rile against the whole case, scream suppression of freedom of the press, and make reckless generalizations about how the case is yet another proof of sinister political machination of the powers-that-be without considering the intrinsic value of the case … the whole case is potentially just as much a chance to validate press freedom given the opportunity it offers to vindicate Lazaro’s cause as it is an opportunity to stress the right to privacy of individuals against the often invasive posturing of media.

and says the daily tribune:

The local media community appears to be divided on the issue on whether the Lazaro case is a case of press freedom or a case of a journalist having violated the rules of journalism, as even an instance of a journalist airing or publishing agreed off-the-record statements of his source is already a breach of journalistic ethics.

It will be recalled that veteran US broadcaster Connie Chung was booted out of the major network in the US a decade ago for having aired an off the record comment made by the mother of then Rep. Newt Gringgich that then First Lady Hilary Clinton was a bitch. This was not regarded as a case of press freedom, but a violation of the rules of journalism.

and says alex magno:

The mass media could be intrusive. It could so easily break into anyone’s privacy and brazenly trample on rights to privacy. There needs to be a finer consensus in the journalistic community over the conduct of interviews and the use of phone conversations, outside the formal setting of an interview, for airing.

On this concern, there is public merit in hearing out the arguments in the case filed against Cheche. Ordinary citizens, not only journalists, have rights too.

a qualified yes.    there is public merit in hearing out the arguments in the case of cheche but only on the question of journalistic ethics, NOT on the bogus and ridiculous wiretapping charges which should be dropped, the arrest order withdrawn, and the bail money returned.   in fairness lang naman.