ashamed ! #aug23

WHY WHY WHY is president aquino snubbing the survivors and families of the victims of the august 23 hostage-taking massacre who are back in town, no matter how they fear and hate manila?  why has he denied them an audience with his excellent self as they commemorate the painful deaths of their loved ones exactly a year ago today?

WHAT WHAT WHAT is it about this president that he cannot find the time or the face or the grace to properly meet with these aggrieved hongkong chinese who deserve at the very least to be welcomed with shared sorrow and sympathy, at the very best to be heard, by cleaner ears, as they express their continuing, and very very valid, grievances re the botched hostage-taking?

the way i read lacierda’s explanation, it is because the bereaved chinese are accompanied by a democratic party legislator (james to kun-sun), therefore such a meeting would have “political color”, meaning i suppose that it would win points for the legislator but maybe not for the president who has a forthcoming state visit to the communist/socialist mainland?

Days before the first anniversary of the hostage tragedy, Lacierda expressed reservations over the group’s request to meet Aquino.

Lacierda said the request could have a “political color” since the group had been accompanied by a lawmaker with the elections in Hong Kong forthcoming.

But the victim’s brother stressed that they were never interested in politics.

“We are just normal citizens in Hong Kong. We do not know politics. What I can only see in this event is that my brother got killed without any reason. The rescue team in the Philippines could not save my brother. They could not save lives,” Tse Chi-hang said.

…Legislator To also urged the Chinese government to represent the group’s interest in the forthcoming state visit of President Aquino in Beijing.

“We want the Central People’s Government to take advantage of the meeting with the Philippine president in the coming several days to represent the interest of the families to negotiate for the settlement and apology for the Hong Kong families, Hong Kong people and Chinese citizens,” To said.

here’s more on the china visit by manila bulletin’s roy mabasa:

Aquino will be accompanied by senior foreign and defense officials, underscoring the importance the Philippine government has placed on the trip.

The visit was arranged as early as March amid the outrage in the country over Beijing’s execution of three Filipino drug convicts.

President Hu formally invited Aquino during last year’s Leaders’ Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Aquino himself confirmed earlier that an invitation from the Chinese government had been sent to him.

In an earlier interview, Chinese Ambassador to Manila Liu Jianchao said Chinese officials were open to discussing with President Aquino the Spratlys issue during his visit.

“Everything can be talked about, but we can talk about issues in a very good faith and goodwill, in a spirit of seeking well-measured settlement of these issues. More than this we can work ways to maintain peace and stability in the region where we have disputes,” Liu told the Manila Bulletin.

“I’m sure we have the wisdom to keep peace and stability in this region and at the same time both of us could benefit from such a stable and peaceful region,” he added. “In particular, we can cooperate in this region in exploring and developing the resources. This is going to be a wonderful arrangement and at the same time we can reduce the possibility for a possible conflict. So, this is going to be a wonderful one.”

Liu also welcomed the visit, pointing out that this will further promote “the wonderful relations between the two countries in many realms: in political confidence and trust, economic cooperation, trade, and people to people exchanges.”

wonderful daw, lol.  of course we have no idea what the quid pro quos are, ‘no?  given our trade and investment needs, lalo na our spratlys claim, it may be that the prez is walking on eggs, scared of ruffling mainland feathers.  for all we know a formal apology to the chinese government and to the hongkong chinese may be in the offing finally, but in the mainland and addressed to the highest officials first?  better safe than sorry?

unfortunately the snub here and now, when we are confronted with memories of that awful awful day that filipinos would rather forget but cannot, so shameful and disgraceful and horrible was it, boggles minds and hearts.  according to what values and ethics is it all right for the aquino government to behave like it owes the bereaved hongkong chinese nothing: no formal apology, no compensation from the government, and no heads of top guns rolling?

it doesn’t help that history channel‘s docu The Manila Hostage Massacre had as its star resource person no less than mediaman erwin tulfo who had the gall to pontificate re the authorities’ shortcomings.  tulfo, with mike rogas, in my book, deserves worse than the 10,000 peso fine imposed by the KBP for his ill-timed ill-advised intervention in a police matter involving endangered lives, and with international repercussions.

here’s the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility:

The KBP Standards Authority December 2010 decision declared that:

“The Authority finds cause to hold the following respondents liable for first offenses (against) certain provisions of the Broadcast Code, as follows:

“On respondents Radio Mindanao Network (Radyo Mo Nationwide, RMN), Michael Rogas, and Erwin Tulfo, for having violated Sec. 1, Art. 6, Part I of the Broadcast Code (Coverage of crimes in progress), the following penalties are hereby imposed: The sum of Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00) and censure on respondent Radio Mindanao Network; the sum of Fifteen Thousand Pesos (P15,000.00) and reprimand on respondent Michael Rogas; and the sum of Ten Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00) and reprimand on respondent Erwin Tulfo, all in accordance with the offense classification and range of penalties provided in Art. 4.1, Part III of the Broadcast Code.

“We, however, find no cause to hold Jesus J. Maderazo of RMN liable under the Broadcast Code.

“On respondent ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation, for having violated Sec. 4, Art. 6, Part I of the Broadcast Code (Schedule of Penalties for Grave Offenses) , the following penalties are hereby imposed The sum of Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00) and censure, in accordance with the offense classification and range of penalties provided in Art. 4.2, Part III of the Broadcast Code.

“On respondent Associated Broadcasting Company (TV5), for having violated Sec. 4, Art. 6, Part I of the Broadcast Code, the following penalties are hereby imposed: The sum of Thirty Thousand Pesos (P30,000.00) and censure, in accordance with the offense classification and range of penalties provided in Art. 4.2, Part III of the Broadcast Code.”

The penalties do not seem to be commensurate to the wrongdoing. Among its options, the KBP chose not to suspend Rogas and Tulfo for the major ethical offense of interviewing Mendoza during the most crucial stages of the crisis.

In the first place, however, the KBP decision, comparable to a mountain’s laboring to produce a mouse, had been almost a year in the making. In all that time, its Standards Authority simply decided not to include GMA Network Inc. (GMA-7) in its investigation because the network is not a KBP member.

lest president aquino and the kbp have forgotten: it was a shameful shameful shameful day and the survivors and families of the victims deserve an apology, compensation, and justice.

OMGWTF!!!
command responsibility
command responsibility 2
command responsibility 3
holding back
what if
brief narratives
ressa, media, flunk test
media & national interest
Truth and consequence
vilifying media
no laws broken, no heads rolling

Iconoclasm in art / failure of nerve

By Elmer Ordonez

Senator Edgardo Angara may well have put the “Kulo” controversy to rest by not recommending sanctions against the CCP board. All possible sides were heard at last Tuesday’s Senate probe presided over by the former UP president. Enlightened and benighted views and questions were entertained. Angara seemed satisfied that the CCP board promised to review their procedures for exhibits.

All’s well that ends well? Here’s my take on the issue:

Weeks of pressure from the Church clergy/ partisans including Palace intervention compelled the CCP board to pull out the entire “Kulo” exhibit, not just the controversial installation “Polytheism” of Mideo Cruz.

CCP chair Emily Abrera said the board did not “cave in” to the pressure but a decision was reached, by referendum, to withdraw the exhibit before its expiry today. Against the closure were Abrera, Florangel Braid, and Carol Espiritu while a majority of six including CCP president Raul Sunico were for closure for reasons of “public safety.”

The exhibit had already been shown at Ateneo and UP Diliman and no problem arose from viewers. The exhibit was to commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Rizal by alumni artists of Rizal’s alma mater, the University of Santo Tomas, celebrating its 400th year of its founding. Historically, the UST’s school of fine arts under the late National Artist Victorio Edades was a pioneer in modernist art while the University of the Philippines was still following the classical style with Fernando Amorsolo and Guillermo Tolentino as leading lights. Edades’ 1928 exhibit triggered a running debate between the moderns and the conservatives.

At the about the same time Jose Garcia Villa was suspended from the UP for his “obscene” poem “Man-Songs” by a committee led by traditional poet Dean Jorge Bocobo who must have thought Villa’s modernist work was “bad writing.”

The advent of modern art or “the shock of the new” came rather late in the Philippines. Mideo Cruz’s installation would have been in its element during the time of “Dadaism” in Europe. Edades’ works were modern in style but were they infused with “ideology and politics” like Picasso’s anti-fascist “Guernica?” Edades’ “The Builders” had a proletarian touch; his students were more into depicting Filipino history and identity like the murals of Carlos “Botong” Francisco.

“Dadaism” itself (with Marcel Duchamp as a favorite example with his “Fountain,” a urinal hanging from his installation) was a protest against the senselessness of the First World War and against bourgeois art. He did not expect the public would tolerate his “shock art.” Just as the academe in Loyola and Diliman did not create a big fuss over Cruz’s work. Thanks to a TV camera man who showed shots to the bishops when the trouble began.

“Kulo” or revolutionary ferment was obviously inspired by Rizal’s iconoclasm in the last decades of the 19th century when Rizal and the Propagandists produced incendiary literature that would lead to the 1896-1898 Revolution that ended Spanish colonial/monastic rule. Rizal and Marcelo del Pilar were particularly scathing in their anti-friar writings. The two novels of Rizal to this day are taught in some schools expurgating or sanitizing passages considered offensive to the Church.

Constantino Tejero of Inquirer thinks Cruz’s “Polytheism” is expressive of “racial memory embedded in the subconscious”— a virtual history of church and colonial abuses up to the present. Lito Zulueta also of Inquirer consigns Cruz’s work to iconoclastic art. Iconoclasm has a long history of idol-smashing (literally and figuratively) in religion, politics, culture and art. The Church itself destroyed images and icons carried by its forces deemed responsible for their defeat in battle.

In Rizal’s time the theocratic state responded to his “blasphemous” and “heretical” novels by banning them and ultimately having him shot by firing squad. Today, if some defenders of the faith have their way, they would perhaps have the offending artist burned at stake like Joan of Arc, and those responsible in the CCP for approving the exhibit, charged in court and made to resign.

Those who find Cruz’s work offensive have the right to protest or to picket the exhibit but do they have the right to resort to vandalism or arson? The latter act conjures images of book-burning, and history is replete with examples of this kind of censorship in totalitarian and supposedly democratic societies. The Church provides the faithful with an index of approved books bearing the phrase “nihil obstat” or nothing objectionable. “Prior restraint” cannot be imposed in a pluralistic society.

The UP Arts studies department statement provides the aesthetic and intellectual justification for engaging controversial art works in discussion rather than banning them. It says: “While there are contending interpretations of an image presented by art, the ethical course of action is to process the contentions and that is what art ensures: a process of communicative action. The closure of an exhibition only achieves the closure of democratic, informed and thoughtful engagement.”

The CCP board may still redeem itself by standing their ground against the recrudescence of obscurantism and repression. They will not be alone.

eaordonez2000@yahoo.com

the path for Revolutionary Routes

by katrina stuart santiago

it was daunting more than anything else, though at some point all that operated was an amount of yabang: i’ve seen friends do this before, i’ve seen wonderful beautiful local books happen without a big publisher behind it, without press releases coming out in papers. and this book, i knew, deserved the major major effort of blood/sweat/tears because it is about family and history. because it is unconventional in form, an almost refusal to fall within the genres that are familiar, a straddling among creative non-fiction/historical essay/memoir. because it demanded a freedom from the standard limitations of publishing, given its refusal as well to deal with the ways in which things are usually written, how they usually look, what can usually be said.

read on

censorship and, uh, karen davila? is that you?

the day after ccp closed the kulo exhibit, the day karen ocampo flores resigned from ccp, a crowing karen davila on teleradyo phoned ccp president raul sunico and said: CLEARLY YOU WILL HAVE TO CENSOR ARTWORK (!)

it would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much… this popular broadcast personality, a u.p. graduate, masscom if i’m not mistaken, obviously doesn’t know that her own freedom of expression should be everyone’s freedom of expression, that the freedom of expression she enjoys was hard-fought and hard-won, that her freedom of expression is contingent on everyone else’s freedom of expression, including, especially, that of artists like mideo cruz, and, yes, works like poleteismo, na hindi pambababoy kundi pagpupukaw ng kaisipan in this very corrupt and catholic country, and not necessarily to the detriment of religion or the undermining of one’s faith.

after all, it could very well be as ust alumnus, now u.p. professor, neil garcia says:

i take issue…with the knee-jerk reaction of some dominican apologists, who are quick to disown mideo cruz with outrageous passion. this artist is indeed a thomasian, for he cares about the church, with which his imagination appears to be slavishly fascinated, even if or precisely as he can only express this care (and this fascination) in disagreeing and disagreeable ways. after all, given the mass reproduction (and reproducibility) of the church’s ubiquitous, habitual and fully habituated images, their willful and disagreeable deformation may in fact be the best way to make them perceptible (and therefore, efficacious) again… this artist may well be an evangelizer of sorts, in which case the philippines’ great thomasian institution should simply revel in this unwitting “accomplishment.”

but i guess that’s all way too high for karen davila who, like imelda and the bishops, simply can’t stand the sight of the penis, can’t see the penis as anything but vulgar and obscene, especially as juxtaposed with images that she holds sacred.  but bong austero, though disgusted and disturbed, too, sees the powerful implications of the images.

There are those who have condemned the art installation for its blasphemous and disgusting images and stop there, dismally failing to see through the powerful implications of the images in terms of preaching morality. Oh please, don’t we all use negative characterizations to preach what is right and moral? Our soap operas, plays, and movies rely on the sheer evil of antagonists to deliver powerful messages of redemption. We tell our kids stories of the big bad wolf and of the evil stepsisters to illustrate the power of positive values by contrast. Why can’t we draw parallels in this particular case? Just because something is disgusting and disturbing doesn’t mean it cannot be moral.

…The art installation takes things to extremes to bring home the message – it is art, for crying out loud, no less different from a play shot through with absurd imagery and over-the-top metaphors and symbolism.

…I have learned by viewing the exhibit that faith is strongest when put to the test. The icons that we revere are mere representations of the Supreme Being that we worship. When one’s faith is strong and resolute, provocation in the form of disgusting images can only strengthen it further rather than weaken it.

The tragedy is that we live in a country where freedom, tolerance and respect for diversity are mere theoretical concepts that are embraced only when these suit one’s comfort zone and never in situations when their application would truly matter.

worse we have a president who, after expressing disapproval of the artwork, now says there’s no censorship.  yeah, right.

the major major question now for karen davila is, paano na ang iyong rh bill advocacy?  and don’t tell me that one has nothing to do with the other.  charlson ong in imelda redux makes the connection, too, especially since anti-rh congressmen and senators have gleefully joined the fray.

Why has Art that has heretofore been the concern of a few gallery-goers, artists, critics, collectors, students and sundry eggheads suddenly become the object of congressional ire?

Might it not be that the Religious Right, gearing up for a final RH fight, and stung by revelations on the “Montero Bishops” are opening up another front in their war against “secularists” and their perceived allies in the Aquino Administration? Your paranoia is as good as mine.

more and more it seems to me this was a test case, the bishops and their anti-rh constituency testing the waters: will scare tactics work, will the media be supportive?  so paano na, karen davila?  you’ve given the bishops an inch, next time they’ll take a foot.  today it’s no to penises on artwork in the ccp, tomorrow it’ll be no to any and all mention of “ari” and “penis” in all media.  paano na ang sex education that young and old alike are in dire need of?

it was a trap, karen davila, and you walked right into it.  so now you’re cleaning up, it would seem.  can’t find your headstart interview with chris millado on you tube, can’t find pinky webb’s xxx either.  good job, girls.  self-censorship after such major major foot-in-mouth disasters?  not that we’ll ever forget.  neither will the bishops who must oh-so-love-you.  i’m sure though that it’s no ticket to any kind of heaven.

the industry of offense, art as sacrificial lamb 
boiling over: Kulo
Kulo full album