Category: culture

Balik TVJ

The story-reveal of Tito Vic & Joey’s sudden exit from Eat Bulaga was kind of he-said-she-said — sabi nina TVJ, sabi ng mga Jalosjos — that barely agreed on anything. What was clear lang to all and sundry was that TVJ did not get to bid their audience of some 44 years a proper goodbye. They were unceremoniously replaced by unfamiliar faces of unknown talents, mostly newbies, everyone trying very hard to have fun and be funny a la Legit Dabarkads, as though high energy, never mind history, is all it takes as long as hawak at gamit ng show ang Eat Bulaga title and the “recall quality of the enduring brand.” Big mistake.

Tito Vic & Joey had every right and reason to be offended by the outright grab of a brand that the trio built painstakingly from scratch, fuelled by creative comedic juices unlike any others’ in Philippine TV and pop culture. Sure, the producers had reason to look ahead, the trio is getting on in years, dapat paghandaan ang kanilang exit, sinong ipapalit na kayang i-sustain ang ratings ng said-to-be the longest-running noontime TV show in the world, lalo na’t may Vice Ganda na namamayagpag on the side.

But surely the Jalosjos squad could have treated TVJ with some respect instead of treating them like talents na puwedeng | madaling palitan ng kung sino-sino lang. As if the physical brand were all that mattered when really, without TVJ, Eat Bulaga is a hollow brand that doesn’t match the product and smacks of unfair, if legal, appropriation of Tito Vic and Joey’s creative property. ‘Twould have been smarter to come up with a new name, build a new brand that would match the vibes of an evolving lunchtime demographic.

Obviously I’m a TVJ fan, have been since the days of Discorama and “Tough Hits” where they’d do the singing trio act, punning and playing around with the lyrics of top hits (Billboard and OPM), in perfect harmony yet — it helped that they could really sing — toward punchlines ranging from the sublimely hilarious to grossly bastos. Check out Baby A. Gil’s “How ‘song wreckers’ Tito, Vic and Joey made Tough Hits” and also YouTube where you’ll find some 6 volumes of “Tough Hits” na nakakatawa pa rin LOLZ. And read here “Joey de Leon credits Danny Javier of APO for coining ‘Tough Hits’.

The only time we stopped watching Eat Bulaga was in the year of the RH debate when “Tito Sen” was vigorously opposing the Reproductive Health Bill, refusing women the right to choose. By the time he ran for VP in 2022 we thought he could win anyway if EB mobilized the kalye-serye constituency nationwide. Pero tila napaatras kay Sara?

And no we haven’t forgotten the 1982 scandal, but I must admit it didn’t stop us watching EB, I guess because the culprits claimed innocence and so we were all giving them the benefit of the doubt, that is, until that bomb of a public apology some two months later, which apparently was accepted not just by the victims but also by the madlang pipol. When the trio held that post-apology Saturday special in Araneta Coliseum to test kung mapupuno pa rin nila, the big dome was packed to the rafters.  The high point of the show was Dina Bonnevie’s surprise appearance, topped by a beso kay hubby Vic. All was forgiven.

CORRECTION: the big dome event event took place pala august 7, 1982. my mistake. not after the october 13 apology but two days after marvic sotto, jose ma. de leon and richard reyes filed a 5.5 million peso libel suit vs. pepsi paloma, guada guarin, rey de la cruz, 2 publishers and 2 reporters. the surprise appearance of dina bonnevie, i now suppose, was to send the message that she, too, totally believed that her hubby and friends were innocent of the rape allegations.

In fairness, they’ve been well-behaved naman ever since, LOL. Very occasional na ang mishaps, i.e., the politically incorrect “hurtful jabs” at women, minorities, atbp. na dating narereklamo. Kayâ sobra naman yung Rappler article that says they’re a “sleazy trio” and likens them to Trump (!!!) as “personification of toxic masculinity” hereabouts. Excuse me, ang “sleazy” at “toxic” ay yung convicted  pedophile of a patriarch (sentenced to two life terms in 1997) na pinakawalan ni GMA in 2007.

And what about the non-fan on Facebook who thinks “the boomer TVJ” are no role models and hopes their new show avoids “boomer content and old regressive values”.  Hello?  TVJ never came on as “role models”, rather as entertainers, troubadours singing the songs of the sixties and seventies and joking around to make us laugh, at them and at ourselves, earthy Pinoy humor resurrected, this in the time of martial law when there was little else worth laughing at or about.

These are not very different times, come to think of it, when there’s so much more wrong with nation and planet, and I’m just glad TVJ & the Legit Dabarkads are back, hopefully for a final season that’ll be a happy mix of live music and comic relief, old and new, boomer to genZ, at LGBTQIA+++ na rin. #GoBoomers

when lies trump truth

“fact-free narratives” have “scrambled” our perceptions of reality…  more dots to connect, but which dots matter?

‘…postmodernism had its strengths and weaknesses. “Its crucial insight is that power in all its dark forms is what often determines what passes for truth in our culture and ignoring that makes you vulnerable to manipulation,” Lynch says.

‘But the big error, Lynch added, “is to infer from this that truth itself was determined by those in power. That collapses what passes for truth with truth itself, which is just a mistake, both politically and logically.”’

that’s from The post-truth prophets by Sean Illing.  a must read.

deserving ate guy

ayon sa fb the grapevine, linaglag ng palasyo si nora aunor bilang national artist upon the request of a prominent vilmanian na bff daw ni executive sec medialdea; tila ni hindi daw nakarating kay presidente ang dokumento ni nora.  hindi ko alam kung matatawa ako o maiiyak.  talaga ba?  hanggang ngayon, pati ito, nasa level pa rin ng nora – vilma war?

say it isn’t so, ralph.  come on, vilmanians.  huwag nang mag-ilusyon.  vilma had her moments but none so iconic or memorable that it has become part of public consciousness, as in “MY BROTHER IS NOT A PIG!” and what about “WALANG HIMALA!” — significant mantras in the nation’s drama.

mas gusto kong maniwala na di totoo ang chismis.  na ralph and vilma are big enough to see, and acknowledge, that nora has long outstripped vilma, that nora is in a different league altogether in the performing arts, in body of work, and scholarship on that body of work, even going beyond current national artist levels kung ikokompara sa output ng ilang nagawaran na na masyado lang sinusuwerte.

sabi nga ni joel david, film scholar and critic:

Time to take a cold hard look at this cycle’s batch of performing-arts winners. Not one of them matches the achievements – in multiple media, formats, genres, and creative functions, as well as impact on pop-culture history – as the only official loser in their midst. Did any of them bother to point out this shameful anomaly? Did their alma mater (the national university, no less) keep tactfully silent over their comparatively undeserving win?

I for one have no intention of looking more closely at their output beyond what I’ve already seen. They’re all grandiose, well-intended, hard-working – yet unfortunately for them, even as a collective they do not measure up to the Guy’s record of accomplishments. They had the opportunity of doing the honorable thing – pointing out what was wrong about the process – but they were too eager for that title, that first million, and that attention. All of which they could still have gotten while doing the right thing. What a sorry bunch of cultural losers.

and what about national artist virgilio almario aka rio alma?  why is he so quiet na naman about ate guy’s exclusion pero ang ingay ingay niya tungkol sa inclusion ni carlo caparas nung 2013?   hindi ba mas nakakagalit pa itong tahasang pang-iisnab at pambabastos kay ate guy at sa inampalan?  not once but twice.

is nora aunor not worth fighting for?  then maybe we don’t deserve her?  she with the golden voice, the perfect diction, the total performer as it turned out, across media, across genres.  read nick joaquin’s “The Golden Girl” (1970) on joel david’s website.

Her starters for Tower Productions, smash hits at the box-office, have turned Nora into a superstar, the superstar of the moment.  She has broken the color line in Philippine movies, where the rule used to be that heroines must be fair of skin and chiseled of profile. Though neither fair nor statuesque, Nora has bloomed into a beauty all the more fascinating because it’s not standard.  Seen close up, the complexion shows fine gold tints, her speaking voice is soft but always sounds full of emotion, even if she’s only asking you to sit down.  Nobody who has been watching the local trend towards sexy and ever sexier stars would have predicted that the next pop goddess to dominate the scene would be a simple demure country girl.

Under the tutelage of director Artemio Marquez, Nora is also developing into quite an actress.  She has poise, she moves naturally, she underplays rather than mugs.  Best of all, she’s one local performer who knows how to react.  A person present is mentioned in the dialogue and her eyes automatically turn towards that person; or the ghost of a smile will flicker on her lips at certain words of somebody else’s lines.  She seems to be really listening to the dialogue, to be paying attention to what’s happening on-scene.  Good acting is fifty per cent reactions.  It seems to be instinctive in Nora.  The stories she appears in are mostly foolish and fantastic, but hers is always a real presence, the impact of a live person. In one movie that had elves in it, she played a cripple hobbling about on a crutch, and because you could believe she was really a cripple you could almost believe in the elves too.   [Nora Aunor and Other Profiles by Quijano de Manila copyright 1977 by Nick Joaquin pp 1-16]

in 2013 robby tantingco wrote:

Those who belittle her dedication to her craft and her self-discipline should have seen her in the play “DH (Domestic Helper),” shown at the Dulaang Rajah Sulayman in Fort Santiago in 1992, where she portrayed not one, not two, but four different characters without ever leaving the stage (she changed costumes right there!). Even National Artists for Theatre like Atang de la Rama, Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero and Rolando Tinio would give her a standing ovation.

in 2017 it is said, the president promised that he would do justice to ate guy.  paulit-ulit pa daw sinabi.

Danilo P. Delfin April 29, 2017

Sabi ni PRRD, “She deserves it! I do not want any INJUSTICE to Nora Aunor. I will sign the documents once it reaches the Office of the President.” Nagpalakpakan pa kami and it was almost midnight sa bahay po nila. He was very sincere and he was repeating his statements about his approval.

ano kayang nangyari between then and now?  can it be that someone (maybe the vilmanian’s bff) convinced the president that doing justice to nora, that is, setting aside the imputed drugs case, would undermine his own war on drugs?  but that’s about as lame as pNoy saying no to nora because BAD ang drugs, period.  duterte’s war on drugs is so rife with controversy and inconsistency anyway, what is one more, in an exceptional moment of grace, rising above the fray to right a wrong, honoring nora aunor once and for all?  it would have been so presidential, for a change.  and we would all have loved him if only for that one moment in time.

Choosing National Artists entails the involvement of artists, cultural workers, and government representatives in a lengthy, multi-tiered process that, whatever its flaws, aims to produce a consensus on the basis of judgments that are as sound as its participants can muster. That the consensus around Aunor has now been dismissed twice over through the exercise of presidential prerogative, premised on reasons poorly conceived and ill-articulated, can only register as sheer waste, as wanton abuse, no matter how ostensibly legal. Aunor herself has said, “Bakit pa nila ako isinali rito kung hindi naman pala ako karapat-dapat?” 

nora is a national treasure.  that she has yet again been denied national artist status by the state is a mean blow not just to nora but to nation.  nakaka-demoralize (as if things weren’t bad enough), this latest snub to our superstar, our vicarious thrill, our elsa.

maybe it’s time to make panalangin to santo rodrigo himself, for presidential discretion, or indiscretion, as the case may be.  please, undo the injustice.  pagpalain si ate guy.  she deserves it more than any one so honored.  siya nawa.

*

Statement of the Film Desk of the Young Critics Circle on the 2018 Order of National Artists

The Undeclared National Artist 

Reforms now will redeem National Artist awards 

a marcos milestone: an admission of “questionable wealth”

so, is it to distract us from the alleged links of paolo duterte to smuggling and shabu, this startling revelation by the president that the marcoses are offering to return some of the “questionable wealth” to help the economy?

“The Marcoses, I will not name the spokesman, sabi nila (they said), ‘we’ll open everything and hopefully return yung mga nakita na talaga (those that had been discovered),’” he added. The President said the Marcoses are also willing to return a “few gold bars.”

“Sabi nila na, malaki ang deficit mo, maybe the (sic) projected spending pero hindi ito malaki baka makatulong, but we are ready to open and bring back, sabi niya, pati yung a few gold bars (They said that, your deficit is high, maybe the projected spending but this is not big, maybe it will help, but we are ready to open and bring back, they said, even a few gold bars),” he said. 

in barely coherent sentences, but yeah, we get the drift even if  the president was very careful to say just enough so we get it that there is an offer, and he is open to the offer.  gov imee marcos, for her part, does not deny it, though parang she was caught unprepared, parang the prez didn’t warn them that he would be making it public when he did?

Imee pins hopes on Duterte to end all charges vs Marcoses
MANILA – Ilocos Norte Governor Imee Marcos on Tuesday kept mum about the possible return of the family’s ill-gotten wealth to the government, saying there are no formal negotiations about the matter.

“Wala pa, wala pa. Tiwala kami sa President na siya ang makakapagtapos ng deka-dekadang kaso at yung pamilya nag-uusap pa pero nasa kamay ng mga abogado,” she said when asked if negotiations have started about the return of the Marcos wealth.  Asked if there was an intention to return, the governor said: “Pag-usapan na lang ng mga abogado.”

The governor refused to take any more questions, advising media to instead wait for the statement of their legal counsel.

this distraction is up there as the most distractive of recent times.  because this is the first time ever that the marcoses are conceding that some plundering of the nation’s wealth did happen under ferdinand’s watch.  there is even a justification offered, acc to duterte:

“Sabi nila, isauli nila para walang ano—and the only reason, sabi nila, was the father was just protecting the economy for the [eventuality] na umalis siya. He thought of regaining the Malacañang, that is why ganito ang lumabas na parang naitago,” he added.

ferdinand and fabian did plan to recapture the palace.  the story is, marcos and ver meant to regroup and set up government in paoay kaya lang the marcoses made the mistake of asking the americans, and not the presidential pilots with choppers on standby, to fly them out of the palace.  upon cory’s request and reagan’s instructions, the americans flew him to hawaii instead.  which is why imelda and bongbong insist that they were kidnapped.

this is not to say that if marcos had made it to paoay, naisoli sana agad o nagamit nang maayos para sa bayan ang questionable wealth.  the only thing that’s clear is that if he had made it to paoay and managed to regroup and challenge the legitimacy of the cory aquino government, it would have meant civil war.  at ibinato pa rin sa kanya tiyak ang isyu ng nakaw na yaman, nadiskubre pa rin tiyak ang mga secret $ accounts at ang tone-toneladang ginto, at kung ano-ano pa.

it is quite conceivable, actually, that this is a sign na suko na, give up na, si imelda at ang magkakapatid.  maaaring ngayon lang nila na-realize o natanggap na hindi bibitawan ever ang isyung plunder in the time of marcos, and they’re finally tired of being the bad guys, still the kontravidas in the current telenovela of nation.  i imagine that they must really really like to be done with this three decades old case and wipe away the stain on the marcos name if only for the sake of the grandchildren and, sige na nga, ferdinand in his centennial year.  why not indeed.  in effect, this is a win for nation, panalo ang bayan — the marcoses blinked first.

save the nation movement‘s butch valdes thinks it’s a real offer.

Butch Valdes : … but it would need the cooperation of Duterte to make official requests to intl banks holding the gold. Their previous condition was that the Marcoses are exonerated from all cases against them by the Phil govt. FM’s will indicated that 90% be given to the filipino people thru acceptable foundations. I think Imelda wants it implemented before she goes.

siyempre galit na galit ang mga anti-marcos sa parteng ito: …”we’ll open everything and hopefully return yung mga nakita na talaga (those that had been discovered),” at dito rin: ‘The President said the Marcoses are also willing to return a “few gold bars.”’  dapat daw ay isauli LAHAT ng ninakaw.  at ang tanong nila ay, ano ang kapalit, ano ang ex-deal with the marcoses.  exoneration from all cases din kaya, as with international banks?  read  Palace vows return of Marcos wealth will adhere to laws.

it would be naive to think that the marcoses would ever give up EVERYTHING.  no doubt imelda has documents galore to prove that some of the wealth is legally theirs.  and they will surely quote from the bible: the child will not be punished for the parent’s sins; nor the wife for the husband’s, yes?  heto nga’t gusto na nilang magsauli ng hindi sa kanila.

kung magmamatigasan, negotiations could take another decade before a final settlement.  but because duterte needs the money now na, who knows, baka ma-fast-track nang katakut-takot, and next thing we know, done deal na.  according to justice sec vitaliano aguirre:

“The president is authorized and has the power to make compromise or any agreement with the Marcoses. If there will be a new agreement, there should be enabling law or initiative law to be issued by the President himself,” he said.

top off my mind:  if imelda and the children are now admitting that ferdinand was guilty of some plunder, is he now still deserving of the burial as bayani?  what about imelda’s jewels?  will she continue to claim them as legally hers?  sana ibalato na niya sa taong-bayan.  she can spin it anyway she likes, basta she gives up her claim on condition that the jewels are showcased along with her shoes and ternos, soaps and perfumes, as artifacts of a time when she was quite the queen.  as tourist attraction, this would be a gift that won’t stop giving.