nora aunor for national artist!

so.  is it true what coconuts manila and the inquirer‘s lito zulueta say, that the palace deems superstar nora aunor aka ate guy unworthy of the title national artist for film and broadcast media, never mind that she is among the six that the joint boards of the cultural center of the philippines and national commission on culture and the arts named last september?

or is the opposite true.  on the very same day, june 9, when zulueta’s piece came out in the arts and books section, bayani san diego jr had a piece in the entertainment section, posted just a few hours earlier, happily reporting that snags had been ironed out, and nora aunor would be proclaimed national artist along with cirilo bautista for literature, alice reyes for dance, jose maria zaragoza for architecture, francisco coching for visual arts, and francisco feliciano for music.  ano ba talaga, inquirer?

i figure the delay means that it’s a no to nora for national artist.  and the palace knows there would be a collective howl from noranians far and wide, masa and burgis, organized and un-organized, militant and moderate, lol, so of course the timing of the announcement is crucial, dapat kapag tipong ang daming nangyayari, at matatabunan agad ng magagandang balita, like, you know, the senators arrested, jonas burgos resurrected…

on second thought, it could be a yes, and the palace knows there would be a collective sigh of sheer happiness for ate guy, a national high, no less, and celebrations left and right — the president would be so bango, the noranians would love him forever — so maybe it’s not a good time to waste such positive sentiment now, when the president’s annointed could make the announcement himself maybe late next year, panalo sa 2016, argh.

but seriously, i hope that the prez is having second thoughts about those “moral” issues. because, really, to deem nora aunor unworthy because of drug use and erratic behavior and, even, tax evasion, and do i hear lesbianism thrown in for good measure? is only to raise questions about national artists previously proclaimed.  i know of two who were gay and rather decadent, both brilliant and most deserving.  so what’s the beef with ate guy?  maybe her politics?  her love life?  double standard much?  LOL.  o mas type kaya nila si ate vi? o si dolphy?  but ate guy trumps them both, no question about that.

nora for national artist!  now na!

of speeches, dissent, arrests (mercury retrograde)

it’s been one of those times when so much is going on on the family front, there’s always something else more important to think about or attend to than blogging, even on independence day, when i had always managed to post something everytime june 12 came around, to celebrate it kahit paano.  or maybe it’s just that planet mercury is in retrograde motion, as above so below, i’m just not thinking straight, rather, paatras, compelled to go back over old ground, rethinking things, mostly unresolved issues.

i do know that the president celebrated independence day in robredo country where i suppose the widow leni keeps the yellow flame alive, except that he was hounded and heckled by leftists anyway, “Patalsikin ang Pork Barrel King! Walang pagbabago sa Pilipinas!” and the noisiest one was arrested and charged for disorderly conduct.

napaka-mercury retrograde kind of event, basta bawal ang dissent.  i can almost hear the president justifying the arrest along the line of:  “medyo bastos, di po ba?  in the middle of my speech!  sana nakinig muna sila, baka naman nasagot ko pala ang ipinaparatang nila sa akin…” in that self-righteous tone.   but but but what if the noisy minority had simply been ushered out, so the president could finish his speech in peace?   bakit kailangan pang arestuhin at kasuhan?  bakit masyadong violent ang reaction?  nakaka-tense na ba?  so so so uncool. 

before that, i found the time, out of idle curiosity, to listen to the privilege speeches of bong revilla and jinggoy estrada.  swan songs baga?  not really.  i switched off when revilla was introducing his music video, but that lengthy thank you list — lahat magaling, walang masamang tinapay — and the special thanks to the millions of supporters that voted him into office, tells me he will run again, even from jail, a la ninoy no less, and oh okay trillanes.  estrada, in contrast, was quite dignified and seemed quite confident that he would be proven innocent.  tells me we’re in for some serious legal calisthenics.

wag tayo maniwala na handang-handa na silang makulong, as in, i’m all packed and ready to go, bring it on, so we can defend our innocent selves and clear our names.  in fact, since the three cases were raffled off sa sandiganbayan last friday, delaying tactics have come into play, and i bet st jude, patron saint of hopeless cases, if not the virgin, mother, lady of this and that are being stormed with novenas left and right, let not arrest warrants be issued.  ma-delay lang ng mga abogado nila ng isang taon, they could all just run again in 2016, yes, even enrile maybe, kahit for congressman lang uli, and if they win, then for sure they will claim vindication, exoneration, by their constituencies, and what a mess that will be for our institutions.

so, is there absolutely no chance that the three senators will be arrested soon?  at first i thought absolutely no chance.  but on second thought, significant things do happen during mercury retro (na parang moving-on naman ang mode) though it usually means that things won’t go smoothly, for either government or the accused.

so, yes, there’s actually a chance that the three senators could be arrested sooner than later, and that’s mostly because, come to think of it, it won’t be the first time for either enrile or estrada to be arrested, which means it is more likely to happen again than not.  si bong revilla, who knows, baka naaresto na rin siya in some pelikula, haha.

but of course it would all hinge on the president’s preferred strategy.   who knows, he might be up to putting the pressure on the sandiganbayan justices to take the word of the ombudsman na lang on probable cause, the sooner for the arrests and trials to proceed, the better to distract us from butch abad and those allegedly missing DBM records.  because , really, cavite rep elpidio barzaga jr’s defense of abad just really raises more questions.

Barzaga said Abad was not even the budget secretary from 2007 to 2009, the coverage of the CoA’s special audit report. … Barzaga said Abad was not even the budget secretary from 2007 to 2009, the coverage of the CoA’s special audit report. the DBM has already said before that it cannot locate the documents pertaining to PDAF transactions during the previous administration.

He stressed it was possible that the documents have been intentionally destroyed to avoid leaving any evidence of irregularities in the disbursements of congressional allocations.
The veteran solon stressed that Abad should not bear the brunt of the law because he was not personally involved in any anomalous transaction.

“In some cases, the public is aware that once there has been a change of power in the government, for anomalous transactions, documents are being destroyed to evade criminal prosecution,” Barzaga said.

straight from the horse’s mouth, ika nga.  and while mercury’s retro yet.  hmm, everyone’s suspect, of course, admin and opposition, who were in congress and who used their PDAFs 2007 to 2009.

by the way, heard through the grapevine that mar roxas is absolutely clean vis a vis PDAF, which means what?  never used his PDAF?  used his PDAF but never accepted kickbacks?   interesting if true.

The Tiananmen amnesia

Manila Times Editorial 

Every June 4th, a collective amnesia grips the leaders of China.

On that day in 1989, thousands of soldiers smashed a pro-democracy demonstration of almost a million students and their sympathizers in Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing. In the carnage that ensued, thousands of demonstrators were believed to have died.

The days that followed saw a massive wave of repression spread across China. Hundreds were arrested to quell the dissent the “counter-revolutionary riot” at Tienanmen had spawned.

The carnage in the square was strongly condemned by the international community, but the Chinese government was in no mood to listen, bent as it was in stemming what it saw was a dangerous challenge to its supreme authority.

But it was never the intention of the small group of students that had initially marched to Tiananmen several days before the bloodbath to defy authority. They were there to mourn the death days earlier of former Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang. Hu’s reformist leanings had earned him the admiration of the students and the suspicion of party hardliners.

The students had come to the square to eulogize Hu and hold open discussions on the reforms he espoused. But the gathering quickly grew from several hundred to the thousands. Within days, workers, intellectuals, artists caught the whiff of freedom from Tiananmen, and soon multitudes filled the square. The mood also changed, with the tributes to Hu drowned out by demands for sweeping reforms in government.

The authorities at first tolerated the demonstrators and even held dialogues with them. Flushed with a new sense of people power, the protesters pressed their demands, which ranged from publishing the income of state leaders and their family members to an end to press censorship and more funds for education.

On June 2, party elders led by Deng Xiaoping prevailed on their more liberal colleagues in the politburo to order the army to clear the square of protesters, by force if necessary.

On the night of June 3, a juggernaut of Army troops in full battle gear supported by tanks moved into Tiananmen, mowing down protesters with rifle and machine gun fire. The carnage had begun. Gunshots and cannon bursts would reverberate across much of central Beijing until the following morning.

In the months that followed, security forces all over China carried out hundreds of arrests, as they hunted down the remainder of the protesters and their leaders. It was a methodical, surgical stifling of dissent.

Several countries, including the United States, raged at the bloody crackdown. Some nations clamped a boycott on Chinese goods. Foreign lending agencies suspended loans to China, foreign tourists skipped Chinese destinations. In the midst of it all, Beijing was unremorseful.

It still is to this day, preferring instead to blot out any official memory of what happened in Tiananmen in the spring of 1989.

Mike Chinoy, who was CNN’s bureau chief that year, sees a paradox in Beijing’s denial of Tiananmen. Mr. Chinoy writes: “A quarter of a century later, the Communist Party still feels compelled to use all the powers of the state to convince people inside China that nothing worth remembering happened on a date that, outside the country, will be an occasion for reflection and analysis of what remains the gravest crisis the Party has faced since the revolution of 1949.”

It is this same approach that Beijing is taking in justifying its territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea and East China Sea with Japan. It is using the huge political machinery to brainwash its people into believing that it has the almost divine right to assert its sovereignty on the reefs, islets and shoals that, in fact, belong to its neighbors.

It is a dangerous approach, one that has created potential flashpoints that raise deepening concerns in the Asia-Pacific region.

 

things fall apart

…Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity…

William Butler Yeats