Category: rodrigo duterte

the 18th congress

it’s too soon to be  arguing over the senate presidency, or the speakership for that matter, is what i gathered from outgoing senator chiz escudero on headstart.   but why aren’t we surprised.  these are different times.  and pundits are keeping track.  will add to list, newest op-ed first.

A society in decay? Pinoy vs Pinoy? by Rene Saguisag
Rumble in the house Inquirer editorial
Cayetano’s zombie victory by Manolo Quezon
Isumbong mo kay Inday Sara by Manolo Quezon
Unsettled by Alex Magno
Business and politics make strange bedfellows by Ernesto Hilario
Arroyo’s successor; Sotto to succeed himself by Yen Makabenta
Passing the baton by Gary Olivar
Lightweights for Speaker by Oscar P. Lagman, Jr.
Fond send off for 6 outgoing senators by Federico Pascual
Cuckoos in Duterte’s nest by Segundo Eclar Romero
Termed-out senators threaten to form Senate majority by Yen Makabenta
In search of leaders for 18th Congress by Malou Tiquia
Disaggregating the incoming Senate by Rudy Romero

overkilling bikoy

i watched all five episodes of bikoy’s “Ang Totoong Narcolist” via facebook, and again all 5-in-1 via twitter.  i thought it was well-done, not a slapdash affair, at walang paligoy-ligoy.  i wondered, of course, how true the allegations were, are, and i hoped that, as promised in episode #5 late april, that he would come out soon, identify himself, and present his evidence in the proper venue.

now that he has, come out, the DDS “internet experts” have been, of course, on frenzied overdrive, first dissing his credibility, pointing out that he has a criminal record, we are crazy to believe his allegations against the duterte family and bong go et al, then insinuating that advincula isn’t really bikoy, but also that this is an old con by advincula, that once upon a time it was pNoy and co. that he was accusing of being drug lords or something like that, yet this time that it is the liberal party that’s behind bikoy, in a bid to discredit digong’s favored senator wannabe bong go, at kung anoano pa.

i have no problem with advincula having a criminal record.  ika nga ni boom buencamino sa twitter:

“Natural. Alanganin naman na seminarista ang magtatrabaho sa sindikato, di ba? Kaya nga kapanipaniwala ang sinabi niya na empleyado siya ng sindikato, di ba?

indeed.  kung hindi siya kriminal na nasangkot sa drug trade, paano niya malalaman, di umano, ang pasikot-sikot ng drug trade?

besides,  i’ve always wondered, like many others, why duterte’s drug war insists on targetting small-time pushers and users — the bottom of the pyramid —  and not the big-time suppliers and smugglers and druglords — the top of the pyramid.  wannabe-senator bato de la rosa in the last cnn debate tried to justify this, saying na grabe na kasi ang drug problem natin, kaya dapat ratsada na, tamaan na ang lahat, rich and poor, top and bottom.  but but but hindi naman iyan ang nangyayari.   we have yet to see one from the top suffer as thousands from the bottom have.

to no one’s surprise, IBP will have nothing to do with bikoy, and the senate investigation ping lacson promised aint gonna happen ’cause bikoy’s allegations are all nonsense daw, ’cause the senate prez says so.  read Man claiming to be ‘Bikoy’ tagged past admin’s execs to drugs, where sotto fleshes out the story hinted at by a DDS “internet expert” two nights ago on a facebook video.  meanwhile panelo fleshes out the theory by another DDS “internet expert” that advincula isn’t bikoy of the videos, complete with voice analysis chuchu.

but seriously.  speaking of credibility, how credible ba is tito sotto of #pepsipaloma and #antiRHplagiarism fame?  sal panelo himself says, you lie in one, you lie in all, LOL.  he would know, surely.

i would prefer to hear tito sotto’s story in a senate investigation where / when he is under oath to speak the truth and nothing but the truth, so help him god, the same as advincula.  level the playing field, guys!

but wait,  wala pang abogado si advincula.  takot bang lahat kay digong?  so paano na.  ganoon na lang?  case closed?  lusot na naman?  WHAT.A.SHAME!!!

between kris and duterte . . .

. . . we are being forced to confront the dementor ways of dynasty.

duterte is a stand-up comic-tragic figure whose mission as president in midterm is to distract us from his failure to deliver on the BIG CHANGES he promised — hindi pala niya kaya, ang hirap pala, akala ay madadaan sa kamachohan, takutan, but how do you make takot the entrenched oligarchy (heavily represented in the cabinet) into changing their ways and moderating their greed for the sake of nation, what do they care about nation  —  and so deliberately he distracts us from the higher prices, harder times, under his watch, and of course he can blame the price of oil only so much, and so he resorts to his favorite pasttime, talking dirty, talking sex, best seller forever, the dirtier the more shocking the better, and boy has he amped it up, nasa bedtime pornography na, for general patronage even.  i hate to imagine what next.  such a low way to go.  meanwhile, the country continues to go to the dogs.  soon there will be nothing left.

kris aquino is only a little less disturbing.  in her latest, current war, this time vs former business manager nicko falcis who has denied her charges of “qualified theft” — woman scorned nga ba? — falcis has  accused kris of seriously threatening his life, “PAPAPATAY KA NG PAMILYA KO  … DARE TO STEP IN THIS COUNTRY, AND YOU WILL BE DEAD.”  totoo ba ito?  bakit hindi dine-deny ni kris?  dahil walang nagtatanong?  bayarán ba ng reyna ang lahat ng media?  totoo bang the queen is  “guarded & sacrificed for above & beyond all costs. No Kris Aquino, no contracts, and no millions. Do not think I won’t go in all directions.” — did she really say this in one of her final messages to falcis?

“PAPAPATAY KA NG PAMILYA KO  … DARE TO STEP IN THIS COUNTRY, AND YOU WILL BE DEAD.”  sounds like duterte.  and sounds like alice in wonderland’s queen of hearts: OFF WITH HIS HEAD!   if true, she threatened falcis, and if she spoke sincerely, what does it say of the family culture of the aquino-cojuango clan, the political dynasty she proudly belongs to?  which could be why she’s distracting us with her health woes, invoking ninoy and cory to boot, tugging at heartstrings grown brittle, bored stiff by her paawa dramatics.  what a waste of ninoy’s DNA.

kris fancies herself a queen — megalomania much?  digong is himself a kingpin, the patriarch who dares break all the rules of civilized society.  kumusta naman kaya ang ibang dynasties diyan?  nakakabaliw ba, nakaka-adik ba, ang sobrang yaman at kapangyarihan?

we should do them all, and nation, a favor by not voting for any of them, or their ilk.

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.

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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