showbiz – Page 3 – StuartSantiago.com

Category: showbiz

July 31, 2013 @ 8:47 pm.

behn cervantes

i never met him, i mean, we were never introduced, not even in the 80s when i was “running around town” (more like flitting around) with mitch valdes and i had really close encounters with showbiz peeps. but i did have a rather unforgettable brush with him that he may not even have been aware of, haha.

it happened in some studio set where peque gallaga was directing the pilot of a satiric sitcom that would have starred, if memory serves, mitch, behn, and elvira manahan (this was at the height of her talk show, two for the road), and joey reyes was writing the script. i was there because the sitcom was not the entire show. half would be a talk show of sorts on current issues, and i was writing that. and it was a good idea to be around because peque might have something to tell me bigla about writing my half — it was quite a radical format, i wasn’t sure, i didn’t see yet how, it would work (and never found out because the producer backed out).

so anyway. i was behind the cameramen of course, along with other crew, staff, mirons. there were no seats, standing room only. except for one lounge chair, yung you’re half-reclining na, that was empty; i gathered that it was for the director, and while he was busy, one or another would take it briefly, pahinga ng paa, but it was mostly unoccupied, until one of the guys offered it to me (i must have been ready to sit on the floor or something). so i took it.

not long after, ms. manahan and behn arrived. they had to wait, though, stand around, until direk was ready for them, and siyempre, medyo imbiyerna ang mga lola na there were no seats around. they had noted the one lounge chair, of course, and little me in it, on it, and i swear, when i stole a look at them, behn caught my eye, looked down his nose at me, and made irap, lol. not that it was a laughing matter at the time. i could have vacated the seat at once, left it free for them to take it over, if behn hadn’t been so isnooty. had he given me even just the faintest smallest smile, i’d have smiled back, sabay get up and offer ms. manahan the seat myself. instead, i sat on, went back to whispering nonsense with one of the guys for another minute or so, and got up in my own good time.

and then, again, i may have imagined it all. right now, hearing that behn is in asian hospital with a septic infection, no visitors allowed, it doesn’t matter. what matters is that he has a heart for nation, and he was one of the true machos, along with lino brocka, in the war against marcos all the way to EDSA. stories of behn cervantes are writ large in the pages of martial law history, and i salute him.

Awards and Behn Cervantes
By Pablo A. Tariman

ONE wonders how actor-director Behn Cervantes feels about the sudden deluge of recognition coming his way.

Read on

September 18, 2012 @ 4:05 pm.

Sotto ever trying hard

By Oscar P. Lagman, Jr.

TWENTY YEARS ago, I wrote in this space under the title “Unfit for the Senate” that senatorial candidates Ramon Revilla and Tito Sotto were not qualified for the Upper Chamber of Congress. Revilla had run for the Senate in 1987 and lost ignominiously, as he should have since he did not have the credentials to be a senator. But among the senatorial candidates in 1992 he ranked No. 3 in the surveys. His resume had not changed significantly from 1987, when he was rejected resoundingly by the electorate, to 1992, when he was regarded more highly by the same electorate. That was because he ran as Jose Bautista, his real name, in 1987 and as Ramon Revilla in 1992.

I ventured the opinion in the same article that if Sotto were to run as Vicente Sotto he would meet the same fate that Jose Bautista met in 1987. I wrote then that the Harvard-trained and veteran legislator has said he was not seeking reelection to the Senate because he did not relish the thought of debating with the likes of Tito Sotto, the master of toilet humor and sick jokes, host of the asinine TV show Eat Bulaga.

I wrote further that Senator Enrile should have perished the thought of debating with him as Sotto was not capable of engaging in such cerebral activity, as gauged by his participation in the Great Debate on the RP-US Treaty. His best effort in that discourse consisted of getting Eat Bulaga child star Aiza Seguerra, then too young to understand the issue, and the sex star Nanette Medved, a foreign citizen, to join the pro-base rally at the Luneta and leading the chant “Yes to the bases.” Such was Sotto’s grasp of the burning issue of the time.

Both Sotto and Revilla were elected to the Senate that year, Sotto placing first among the winners, no doubt by virtue of his popularity among what columnist Tony Abaya referred to as the “squealing masa,” the shrieking audience of the inane Eat Bulaga. As Sotto continued to appear in Eat Bulaga during his first term, he was elected in 1998 to another term. In all those years he was hardly heard in the Upper Chamber of Congress.

Then came the historic impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada. When the former Securities and Exchange Commission chair Perfecto Yasay testified, Sotto stood up and addressed Yasay. This is how the dialogue went:

Sotto: Can you tell this court the telephone service provider that you use for your cellphone?

Yasay: “I used at that time Piltel.”

Sotto: “Digital, analog, GSM?”

Yasay: “I was using an old Motorola set.”

Sotto: “Okay, thank you.”

That was the extent of Sotto’s participation in that significant chapter of the country’s history.

After the trial had been aborted, Sotto tried to justify his “no” vote on the opening of the Jose Velarde envelope by saying that he had consulted legal eagles including former justices of the Supreme Court, and all of them advised him to oppose the opening of the envelope. To have to consult legal luminaries on whether to open an envelope thought to contain incriminating evidence against Erap meant he was incapable of making even such a simple decision.

Having served two consecutive terms in the Senate he was ineligible to run for re-election in 2004. He ran again in 2007 under the banner of TEAM Unity, the coalition backed by then President Arroyo. It will be recalled that Gloria ran for the Senate in 1995 and for vice-president in 1998 as a look-alike of Nora Aunor — obviously to win the votes of the “squealing masa.” Had she found a party to sponsor her candidacy for president in 1998, which she had originally wanted to do, Sotto would have been her running mate. Anyway, demonized because of his “no” vote on the opening of the Jose Velarde envelope, as Senator Miriam Santiago put it, Sotto ended up in 19th place in that year’s senatorial race.

To keep his name in the consciousness of the voters, he was appointed in 2008 as chairman of the Dangerous Drug Board by his patron Gloria. During the Lower House’s inquiry in 2009 into the alleged bribery attempt to release the Alabang Boys arrested in a buy-bust operation, Sotto somehow was able to insert himself into the inquiry. He tried mightily to participate in the deliberations but since he was only peripherally connected to the issue at hand, he did not get any chance to voice his thoughts. But at one point, Quezon Congressman Danilo Suarez, another Gloria loyalist, asked Sotto, “Why are there Caucasians in PDEA operations?”

It seemed from the irrelevance of the question that Suarez was merely giving fellow Gloria ally the chance to get some exposure as the inquiry was being televised live. Sotto answered: “The PDEA is structurally different from the US DEA.” The answer equally irrelevant to the issue being resolved and Sotto having gotten his exposure, though fleeting it was, Suarez dismissed the matter. Sotto remained a mere onlooker/listener for the rest of the session.

In 2010 Sotto ran again for the Senate. To distance himself from the discredited Arroyo, he ran under the banner of the National People’s Coalition, the party of Boss Danding Cojuangco, who quietly supported the candidacy of Noynoy. Sotto got elected this time.

Then came the impeachment of Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, Arroyo’s first line of defense against future criminal charges. There was nothing Sotto had done since the Erap impeachment trial in 2001 to qualify him to sit as judge in the impeachment of Gutierrez. In response to the wide speculation that he, being an ally of Gloria Arroyo, would vote to acquit Gutierrez, the Inquirer quoted him as saying: “People should not be judgmental and avoid speculating on the individual stand for each senator. They’re not helping the Senate any by doing that.” Bothered by the wide speculation that he would vote according to the bidding of his former patron, he declared that there are 23 republics in the Senate, implying that all senators are independent minded.

Yet, in the trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona he admitted that he went by the wishes of the people when as judge he should have decided on the basis of evidence presented for his evaluation. Said he when he cast his vote: “The real judge in this trial is the citizenry. They heard the two sides. In my conscience, I have heard their decision. And for them I vote guilty.”

In his speech against the RH Bill, he said his son died five months after he was born, attributing his death to complications arising from his wife taking the oral contraceptive pill Diane. However, information indicated that the product Diane became available in the market only after his son had died, destroying completely his sob story. He didn’t sound credible from the beginning. Here is a macho man (what with his mustache and beard) sobbing like a little boy whose large scoop of ice cream had just fallen on the floor. It was obviously plain acting, and it was bad acting, including on the part of his former detractor Enrile, who was not moved one bit by the “emotional breakdown” of Corona during the latter’s trial but who came to console the sobbing Sotto.

Tito Sotto should stop trying to sound and look like a senator in the mold of the senators of the 1950s. The more he tries, the more he reinforces his image as the intellectually challenged student of Wanbol University, the fictional school in the TV variety show Iskul Bukol.

In fact, the TV clip wherein he let out a guffaw after saying he could not have plagiarized Robert Kennedy because what he said was in Tagalog, a language Kennedy did not know, could pass for a scene in Iskul Bukol.

May 13, 2012 @ 1:48 am.

claudine, tulfo, media

i disagree with senior journalist luis teodoro that the naia brawl deserved only “passing mention” in the news, the scuffle was a mere “incident of no public consequence,” and “most of us don’t really care” who threw the first punch.

it’s not as if such a public brawl, involving a celebrity couple and a media personality, were an everyday event around here; in fact it was the first of its kind, and what a sapakan show it was, with a spectacular touch of irony, to boot.

imagine — claudine baretto and raymart santiago* confronted mon tulfo because he was taking photos of her ranting at a cebu pacific rep about missing luggage, photos that would add documentary spice to the story tulfo must have been planning to write which would surely hurt her image, reputation, whatever. in the end, it was a one-minute video (taken surreptitiously and uploaded on the internet by unknown parties) that was made public and it was a hundred times more maanghang, showing the couple and friends ganging up on tulfo the senior citizen. unfortunately for claudine and raymart, the video was incomplete and doesn’t show who threw the first punch.

that’s of no public consequence? we all have lessons to learn from the naia thrilla and the lack of working CCTVs, as well as from all the talk it has generated especially about media, mainstream and new, and appropriate public behavior in a world where everyone has a celfone with camera and can publish on the worldwideweb in a flash.

and, hey, if teodoro is correct that most of us don’t really care who threw the first punch, then media’s job is to make people CARE to know: we should WANT to know who’s telling the truth and who’s lying.

already, media people have passed judgment on claudine based only on tulfo’s story, and tulfo’s after-thoughts, and the viral youtube video. basta, tulfo, their media colleague, is the aggrieved party, and the basagulero moviestar couple and friends are guilty of assaulting, ganging up, on a lone senior citizen who was only doing his job. even inquirer columnist rina jimenez-david was quick to defend him: tulfo daw has a soft spot for the underdog, whereas claudine… and she dredged up past chismis about the actress as though to say, well, what can we expect. the unspoken is, next to tulfo the gutsy reporter, claudine is just a movie actress with a spoiled-brat iskandalosa reputation.

naturally, tulfo is milking the media sympathy for all it’s worth, more confidently and vehemently insisting now that he did NOT throw the first punch, he had no reason to want to hurt the couple: wala akong dahilan na sipain o sumipa dahil, unang-una, hindi ko sila kakilala. i suppose he has been advised: deny and deny until you die, ‘wag aamin — the conventional macho advice to pinoys caught with their pants down.

but there’s this anonymous account from an alleged eyewitness who, it would seem, was closely watching the sequence of events from start to finish. thanks to interaksyon.com:

A woman who claims to have witnessed the Sunday airport brawl involving columnist Ramon ‘Mon’ Tulfo and celebrity-couple Raymart Santiago and Claudine Barretto is corroborating the claims of the actors that Tulfo had kicked Barretto in the moments just prior to the melee.

The woman, who had also arrived at the airport’s Terminal 3 within the same hour as Tulfo and Santiago and Barretto, said she was within 20 meters and “hearing distance” of the three personalities last Sunday when the fight – captured and made infamous by a video posted on YouTube – erupted. By the woman’s estimate, up to 100 other people – airport workers as well as mostly passengers from various flights standing around baggage carousels – also witnessed the incident.

“We saw this woman ranting at these personnel over what I presumed was lost baggage,” the alleged witness going by the pseudonym “Anna” told InterAksyon.com over a phone interview. “But what really made me turn and take notice was when she started addressing this man in a photographer’s jacket.”

Anna says she did not recognize Barretto, her husband, Raymart, nor Tulfo, and did not realize who they were until she got home and some hours later saw news reports and the YouTube video of what transpired next.

“The woman started shouting, ‘Abusado yan!’ and ‘Are you taking photographs of us?'”

She said she saw “the man in the gray shirt” – apparently referring to Santiago – approach “the man in the photographer’s jacket” – Tulfo – asking, “Ano ‘yan? Ano ‘yan?”

Tulfo, she said, started making “fast” movements, “not really punches the way a boxer would do, but more like kung fu moves.” He jabbed and “pushed with a kick” – a hand and a foot moving forward simultaneously – apparently trying to create space and ward off the approaching Santiago.

Tulfo has acknowledged shoving Santiago, saying the actor was trying to confiscate his cellphone.

“Sinapak niya,” Anna said, though she could not say exactly where Santiago was hit.

Claudine then started approaching as well, Anna said. Tulfo again moved with his arms and legs, while Claudine was shouting, “What are you doing?” the witness said.

“Tumili si Claudine, and at this point, security was rushing,” Anna said. She then noticed how Tulfo hid his phone in a breast pocket, and, with empty hands waving the air, “mocked” Claudine.

“Wala, wala akong cellphone,” Anna quoted Tulfo. [emphasis mine]

At this point, Anna said, “we had thought that the whole thing was about this dirty old tourist who was taking pictures of this lady. And so we were actually trying to support her.” She admits she wasn’t aware of Tulfo’s own claimed context behind Sunday’s confrontation. The Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist, radio commentator and TV5 talent says he was taking pictures to document Barretto’s behaviour towards the Cebu Pacific ground crew, which he suggested had gone from being rude to being abusive.

In any case, Anna said, they could only make out how Tulfo had hidden his phone and was denying he even had one on his person.

“Nasa bulsa ang cellphone! Nasa bulsa ang cellphone!” Anna said.

Santiago and Barretto supposedly asked aloud if there were any policemen or security personnel who could compel Tulfo to give up his cellphone.

Anna quotes Barretto as saying, “Hanapin niyo ang cellphone. Pakita niyo sa akin.” Within arm’s length, supposedly, of Tulfo, she was egging on security personnel to get Tulfo’s phone, ostensibly to verify whether or not he had taken pictures of Barretto.

Then, Anna said, “We saw him assault Claudine.” She said Tulfo “pushed and kicked” again.

“Natamaan si Claudine. I can’t say where exactly, but sa may thigh area,” she said.

That, Anna said, is what caused Santiago and his companions to pounce on Tulfo. “The video that we saw and that everybody has seen, that was the end of the whole thing na.”

She insists that Tulfo’s account of the incident, as she’s seen in the news, “is not correct.”

sounds credible to me, because unbiased. and it’s consistent with claudine’s and raymart’s stories. if true, it would seem that tulfo was not quite innocent, he was ready to rumble — why else that “kung-fu” stance and those “fast” moves with his hands and feet — and start the rumble he did. he was so palaban, for a senior citizen, which would have been quite in keeping with his brusque belligerent macho persona. all to defend his right to take photos of claudine, sabay deny daw that he even had a celfone? how honest was that.

that tulfo, according to his own account, started out siding with claudine vs cebu pacific, and then ended up siding with the cebu pacific rep, naawa na daw kasi siya, only tells me that by then he knew it was claudine, and nagkick-in na ang paparazzi mode, at biglang si claudine na ang villain. how opportunistic was that.

claudine had every right to be angry and to express her anger at cebu pacific — 9 out 11 bags offloaded without notice! and cebu pacific representatives, as frontline for the company, should have known how to handle irate customers like her, and should know better than to take any of it personally. suing claudine now for abusive language, whatever, is just another distraction, it seems to me, and i wonder if cebu pacific is behind it. hala, bawal nang mag-complain, what a twist.

what if tulfo had been big enough to join forces with claudine vs the real villain, cebu pacific. wouldn’t that have made a bigger better story? claudine and tulfo taking on cebu pacific for its dismal service that has long been a public issue? what a scoop that would have been. instead, tulfo ended up being complicit with cebu pacific.

read cito beltran’s “Aviation crisis in the Philippines”:

Are spin-doctors or public relations specialists working double overtime, or are Filipino consumers easily distracted that we can no longer focus on the REAL problems?

Up until this week, the big consumer issue was about how budget airlines have failed to deliver on their promises to customers and the growing discontent or anger of consumers because of government’s inability to do anything about the problem.

All that have taken a back seat as members of media and opinion leaders are “suddenly” focused on the “Thrilla in NAIA” or the brawl involving columnist Mon Tulfo and the tag team of Raymart and Claudine Santiago. It is sickening how government officials are now redirecting media and public attention to the brawl at NAIA and the non-existent CCTV because at the end of the day the aviation authorities along with DOTC officials should be held responsible for the whole mess.

I can understand the momentary attraction of watching the protagonists in this made for TV celebrity brawl. Unfortunately there was no actual or good video on the brief scuffle so you have to wonder who has been stoking the interest on air, in print or on the web for the “Thrilla in NAIA” instead of abuses in the airline industry?

It’s ironic that Tulfo and the Santiagos, who are both unhappy with the business practice of a budget airline actually ended up slugging each other, presumably because of their frustration, providing the airline timely and awesome distraction that effectively takes away the bad publicity from the airline. In the US, lawyers would have looked at the big picture and initiated a combined civil suit against the airline instead of each other.

read “Claudine’s ‘taray’ is refreshing,” which drew this retort addressed to readers vehemently disagreeing with katrina in the comment thread:

Roy Quintoa: If you wanted Claudine or Raymart to act like children respecting their elders, then TULFO should have acted like a father respecting his children and talked to them with proper manners as well… I would rather see a MEDIA MAN who would show some concern in such situations like approaching them properly and offering some help and suggestions and doing efforts in resolving problems like that. 11 may 1:23 pm

meanwhile, luis teodoro has kind of changed his tune. read “Hyping it” where he takes media to task for its “tayo-tayo” culture:

… although it’s been said before, it still bears repeating: some if not most press people dish out criticism with such enthusiasm you’d think they were perfect. But when the other shoe drops, they can’t take criticism, especially when it’s other members of the media and press community who’re doing it. In one more demonstration of the “tayo-tayo” culture, they demand that everyone should look out for everyone else in the community, and should hype what’s basically an encounter between people who’re simply too quick with their fists (and feet) into an issue of principle. And they use not only Twitter and Facebook, but also the pages of their newspapers and their networks’ airtime to do so — acts that, while ethically dubious, they apparently think they can commit with impunity.

and what about the lady broadcaster who said on her radio-TV show that what happened to claudine happens to everyone, why get so angry, accept it na lang. made me wonder if cebu pacific and/or tulfo has been passing out envelopes or calling in favors. then, again, maybe she sincerely thinks she’s right. i don’t know na which is worse.

and the whole spin that it was so wa-class and ill-bred of claudine to lose her temper and then to throw in some punches, too, no matter how provoked? — the lady columnist has even brought up claudine’s pink halter top and shorts, as if that were indecent, too, hello — is just so telling of how messed up we are.

anger is good, people, and the situation called for it. let’s not lose our capacity for anger because there is much to be angry about. and never mind “class” or “breeding” if “class” or “breeding” means doing nothing, or not fighting back, in the face of oppression.

*no, we’re not related to raymart