there ought to be a law

senator ping lacson said on tina monzon palma’s talkback that he didn’t think there was anything wrong with doing a TV commercial selling a facial lotion for men because there is no law forbidding it.

i suppose, correct me if i’m wrong, there is no such law in the u.s. either, which might explain why we copycats don’t have one?

yet i’m sure no u.s. senator or representative or governor or mayor endorses commercial products (even if there is no law forbidding it) simply because the american public – which holds elected officials to the promise of public service, nothing more, nothing less, and who are a lot more sophisticated than we are about tv commercials – would raise a terrible howl and question his/her integrity and credibility to kingdom come. s/he’d be the butt of jokes – tagged a sell-out – from jay leno to whoopie et al, and would never hear the end of it, unless/until the tv commercial is made to go away.

pero dito sa atin, inaakalang okey lang itong pag-e-endorse ng government officials ng commercial products. anong masama kung kumita sila ng extra, maliit daw ang suweldo ng senador. the attitude is, basta he or she is (perceived to be) doing a good job as a public servant, okay lang to do movies, tv commercials, whatever he or she wants to do on the side, just like any enterprising citizen.

excuse me, but this is precisely why we get the kind of government officials we do, for whom public service is a parttime job, who say one thing and do another, and who do not have the brains or the chutzpah to get the country out of the economic pits but instead have only a lot of the same old same old faith na hindi tayo pababayaan ng diyos. meanwhile, they make hay while the sun shines, sell soap and skin whitener and facial lotion and fabric softener and herbal supplement and cheap instant noodles, que cheap!

a lot of credibility is lost when a senator peddles a branded product whose advantages over other brands is questionable because it’s just a lot of hype, as all advertising is. a lot of credibility is lost when a senator makes movies to entertain the masses when s/he should be working for higher national interests such as food security, quality education, and a host of other concerns.

and it is certainly not in the national interest to encourage crass materialism and consumerist values, raising needs essential and non-essential that are beyond gratifiying for the masses of ill-fed poor who watch tv in this third world country.

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.

HUWAG IBOTO

sa susunod nilang pagtakbo – ke for president, ke for senator, ke for barangay tanod – HUWAG IBOTO

ang mga senador na ito: LOREN LEGARDA, CHIZ ESCUDERO, PING LACSON, MAR ROXAS, MANNY VILLAR, PIA CAYETANO, KIKO PANGILINAN, DICK GORDON, BONG REVILLA, at ang bise-presidenteng ito: NOLI DE CASTRO, who cannot see, who refuse to see, that by endorsing commercial products for television, or by advertising their so-called achievements long before campaign season, or by making movies, they stoop to the level of entertainers hungry for public adulation and reveal themselves to be ruled by narrow self-interests not befitting the high offices they hold.

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.