Category: books

what will it achieve

i take it as an auspicious sign that the first response to HUWAG IBOTO was a “second the motion without any reservation!” thanks, anna de brux :)

but being contradicted is cool, too, and arbet bernardo‘s quick riposte, “kesa naman kay Miriam o Enrile.= P” made me laugh, oo rin nga!

and then i heard dzmm teleradyo listeners weighing in on the matter, and the winning argument was, “may karapatan ang mga senador to do what they want, sila rin merong freedom of speech!” lol.

say pa ng isa, si vilma santos nga, nagbebenta ng sabong panglaba, pero okey lang sa mga taga-batangas, magaling naman siyang labandera, ehek, gobernadora.

mercifully the next reaction was manolo quezon‘s, which gently reminds me that a boycott of those senators and vice-president will achieve nothing of consequence.

…if stuart-santiago says, don’t vote for politicians who do product endorsements, what will it achieve? It will validate the assumptions of the politicians when they undertook those endorsements. They won’t lose or win on the basis of a boycott on the basis of their endorsements. And those who do win despite such a boycott will only serve to entrench the practice. An advocacy of a boycott would only be effective if done -now, prior to elections- by boycotting the products they endorse. A mass-based approach to an issue raised and ventilated (and most effectively wielded) by the middle and upper classes is self-defeating. It’s not that it’s the wrong fight -just the wrong target, considering those expected to do the fighting.”

true. for now we would be a tiny tiny minority at best whose boycott of these politicians would hardly make a dent in the final count. but i have this romantic notion that the impossible, like EDSA, is possible. that one day, a tipping point might be reached and, as in Jose Saramago’s Seeing, the government will hold electionsbut nobody will come until late afternoon, and only to cast blank ballots.

hope springs eternal.

ka amado, national artist

does it matter that ka amado was a “commie”?

not to pedestrian observer, ligaya, kartunista, and leni whose reactions to my “sassy” posts point to an unexplored facet of the birds of prey column.

pedestrianobserver : was it because she saw him as a “commie” that whatever literary contribution Hernandez gifted us she simply would rather ignore?

kartunista: nasisilip kong sekundaryong dahilan na lang niya ang “paraan” ng pasusulat ni Ka Amado. Tingin ko, mas politikal na pagkamuhi ang nagtulak sa kanya para isulat ang anti-Ka Amadong pyesa. Kapansin-pansin ang pagpapalitaw niya ng punto ng pagiging Komunista ni Ka Amado. at dito ako lubos na na-intriga. ang galit niya sa mga komunista ay ginamit niyang dahilan para kuwestyunin ang pagkakabilang ng “Mga Ibong Mandaragit” sa mga required readings ng mga mag-aaral ngayon. Kasi, kung papaniwalaan siya sa kanyang claim na Tagalog nga ang kanilang pangunahing gamit, lumalabas na pabalat lang ang mga bira niya sa estilo ni Ka Amado. Nadamay na lang si Villa sa pagsisikap niyang maglatag ng iba pang halimbawa ng “crap” na piyesa, para magmukha naman siyang maraming alam. At malamang, yun ang punto niya. Bakit may mga komunistang mas magaling pa sa kanya?

ligaya: magaganda ang mga sulatin ni Ka Amado. I will admit having a hard time with his writing, partly because I didn’t grow up fully literate in Filipino, and partly because I don’t exactly share his Communist ideologies – not because I don’t like Communism per se, but because I’ve seen that the principle and the practise are two entirely different things. . . . Pinababasa ko sa aking ina (a finance director in one of the leading research companies of the world) ang mga akda ni Ka Amado dahil ang salitang Tagalog/Pilipinong ginamit nito ang siyang kinalakhan niya, kung kaya’t natulungan akong intindihin ang “Isang Dipang Langit” at saka “Mga Ibong Mandaragit.” Sa kasamaang palad nga lang, may mga kamag-anak si Inay na pinatay ng ibang mga Komunistang dahil hindi sila sumang-ayon o sumapi sa ideyolohiyang ito, kaya nama’y nahihirapan akong kumuha ng akda ni Ka Amado. 6^_^0 if you have any idea where else to find “Mga Ibong Mandaragit” here in Manila, please do drop a line. v^_~v

last but not least, leni, who didn’t just comment,she blogged about it too, angrily quoting “sassy”s I.D. of ka amado (emphasis leni’s):

I did a little research and found out that the author was the defendant in the landmark case People versus Hernandez, a required reading for first year law students in Constitutional Law and Criminal Law. Hernandez had been charged with rebellion with murder, arson and robbery during the height of the crackdown against communists in the 1960s. No such thing, the Supreme Court said. Common crimes like murder, arson and robbery are naturally absorbed in the rebellion. But enough about why the name Amado Hernandez rang a bell.“

leni : WTF. Hindi ko nainitindihan kung anong punto niya sa pagsabi na may kaso si AH* sa salang rebelyon. Like seriously, when you hear the name Amado Hernandez, do you think communist with rebellion charges in the 60s!! ? I’d like to think not. AH, National Artist for Literature. *ding-ding* Conditioning the minds of the readers, I tell you.

haha, the red bogey! like i said to pedestrian observer: actually mas maganda nga sana if that had been her excuse. at least then we would be exchangingthoughts on nationalism, and how government propaganda through the years since (quirino and) magsaysay has downgraded it to something evil and worthless. at least mas mataas ang antas ng diskurso, di ba naman.

strike two

oh my, the “sassy” one strikes again. how boring. pwedeng di na lang patulan pero on second thought, why not, lalo na’t baka isipin niyang tama siya porke walang response.

having trained in psychology, i cannot but read “tyranny of the insecure” as a demonstration of freud’s “defense mechanisms” (projection and intellectualization, in particular) – the product of a mind feeling “undermined” and “threatened” by criticism. in effect most of what she says applies to herself mismo, if she would only see.

infinitely more interesting, actually, is that she manages – by sticking to generalities – to steer away from the language issue she raised against ka amado’s mga ibong mandaragit, as though that’s all been settled in her favor and there is nothing more to say. (it’s called “being in denial,” another defense mechanism.)

in fact, nothing’s settled in her favor. contrarily, the sentiment is remarkably, wonderfully, pro-mandaragit, such as jaywalker‘s comment to salamat, “sassy”:

This is a classic caseof one spitting against the wind……… naturally it goes smack in ones’ face, lol. . . . So now we know, to increase the sales of Filipiniana books all one has to do is to get sassy to read it, enough for her to rant about it and voila… success.”

salamat, “sassy”

dahil sa iyo, sold out daw ang Mga Ibong Mandaragit ni Ka Amado! ang saya naman!

at dahil sa iyo, merong nang ibongmandaragit.com dedicated to reading and blogging on the book, chapterby chapter. ang saya talaga!