In defense of tsismis

Isyu 23 January 96

Natabunan nga ba ng Jenny-Gabby scandal ang EVAT, jueteng, at iba pang isyu? Dapat nga bang lubay-lubayan ng media ang katsitsismis about the private hells of the rich and famous dahil wala naman itong katututuran except as escapist fare for the poor and obscure?

These are questions raised by media mismo, rendered schizoid as we are by showbiz scandals. On the one hand we happily hype up the Jenny-Gabby story, milk it of all it’s worth, the better to sell our papers; on the other, we are defensive about it, express distaste for the whole exercise, and righteously regret the wasted space and energy; sometimes, all on the same page.

The two-mindedness is to be expected, and it begins with the individual, that is, with you and me. Every one of us is just as divided about gossip. We enjoy it but we feel sort of guilty when we indulge. The guilt comes from social conditioning. Our elders’ position has been that, if you have nothing nice to say about a person, it’s better (classier) to say nothing. They are greatly influenced by the Church, of course, which institution discourages gossip or idle talk as the work of the devil for it evokes uncharitable (even, impure) thoughts, and sows disharmony rather than love among neighbors.

Yet gossip persists, and I had always wondered why. Is it a matter of pleasure, like sex? Or is it purely a matter of mind, like curiosity? Basta my gut feeling was, there’s more to gossip than cheap thrills. Like maybe it serves some irrepressible human need, one more intense than the need for social approval. I thought maybe it had to do with a need to connect with community, to be assured that one’s joys and pains are not all that unique, na kumbaga hindi ka nag-iisa.

Besides, as a student of human behavior, I could never help delighting in the rich sociological and psychological data that showbiz gossip provides. Trailblazer kasi ang tingin ko sa showbiz artists; they dare break rules and attempt new ways of being and relating. It’s like they’re testing the waters for us, the better maybe to show us which way to go or not go, particularly when it comes to sex, marriage, and family.

Well, the good news is, I’ve just been lent a book that confirms my gut feel that gossip is as ineradicable as sex. In The Moral Animal (1994) Robin Wright explains why we gossip (among other things) in terms of the new science of evolutionary psychology, which school of thought traces the roots of human nature to the workings of natural selection in the environment in which the minds of our ancestors evolved. According to Wright, “people’s minds were designed to maximize fitness in the ancestral environment” and trading gossip, for one, was in aid of survival.

“To judge by many hunter-gatherer societies where most behavior is public, and gossip travels fast,” Wright writes, “. . . the most common commodity of exchange, almost surely, was information. Knowing where a great stock of food has been found, or where someone encountered a poisonous snake, can be a matter of life or death. And knowing who is sleeping with whom, who is angry at whom, who cheated whom, and so on, can inform social maneuvering for sex and other vital resources.”

Darwinian anthropologists studying the world’s peoples have been finding not only surface differences among cultures but also “deep unities.” Not only Pinoys, but “. . . people in all cultures not only gossip, but gossip about the same kinds of things.” Apparently, people have an inherent thirst for tales of triumph, tragedy, bonanza, misfortune, extraordinary fidelity, wretched betrayal, and so on, which are said to “match up well with the sorts of information conducive to fitness.”

In other words, gossip has always had a place in the human scheme of things. Then as now gossip about failed marriages (especially Sharon’s, Dina’s, Princess Diana’s) and unconventional relationships (like that of Nora, Vilma, Kris) informs the way we maneuver in our own marriages and relationships.

The problem is not that we’re gossiping too much about Jenny and Gabby. I agree with Patrick D. Flores (Isyu 18 Jan), the problem is that media have failed to give the people “an intelligent perspective on what is going on, it has forfeited the chance to imbue the controversy with really useful knowledge about society and people,” in particular, about the politics of marriage and gender.

I disagree, however, with his statement (wishful thought?) that from hereon, “heterosexual couples would have to reckon with the idea that matrimony is from the outset dysfunctional.” That’s a sweeping generalization if I ever heard one. If it were so, then monogamy would not still be with us. Besides, Jenny’s and Gabby’s marriage is / was far from typical and therefore not an appropriate gauge of either the efficacy or inefficacy of marriage.

I think it’s young unmarried women who have the most to learn from Jenny’s exposé. The facts of life are not all about sex; the facts of life are also about men like Gabby and how marriage changes them. Take it from Jenny, girls, look before you leap, especially if the guy’s promising “to court you forever” (what a line!).

(Editor Iskho Lopez: We asked Gabby what his plans for the more immediate future was. His candid reply: “I guess . . . to remain single.” We took it as a joke. Gabby? Single? Instead we presented an alternative. What about an affair with a gay lover? He took it as a joke. But it seems so logical in this day and age that only a gay lover would take all that alleged abuse that Jenny turned into a public issue—and in the end, shoulder the expense and the humiliation as well—all for the love of Gabby Concepcion, that is.)

Coming to terms with Christmas

Isyu 26 Dec 1995

Until last year I always wondered, come December, what it would be like to simply snub Christmas like some people I know who heartily hate the season’s trappings – from the décor na kukutikutitap to the shopping and cooking till you drop (they’d rather drop acid or ecstasy anytime) – but I would always cop out just because the very idea freaked out the kids and their tatay. Besides, I had to admit it, Christmas isn’t all that bad, specially for the family. At least once a year, it gives us the chance to touch base with our larger families, and if only for the children’s sakes, why ever not. Of course I was always sustained by the thought that there’d come a time when the kids would be off on their own (I can hardly wait) and I’d be old enough to retire.

Pero last year, Katrina turned 18 and in lieu of a big party on her birthday (December 22), she settled for a small one. Not out of any great love for her poor parents, however. I mean, it wasn’t to save us the extra expense. It was so she could ask for an extra 3,000 bucks to spend on goodies for giving away to streetchildren on her big day.

She had it all thought out. Sixty bucks per child was not much, but (I had to agree) if she spent it wisely, it could buy enough basic food and maybe a toy and enough candies to sweeten the three days coming. Her tatay, however, was less than enthusiastic. Anak, sey niya, sindikato lang ang makikinabang. Except the sindikato story didn’t faze my unica hija, who was sure there were free-lance streetchildren out there and that she could find them with her good tatay’s help.

She was in charge all the way, from canvassing prices to budgeting to shopping (which included a trip to Divisoria) to bagging to distributing. Each bag contained food for eating at once – two sandwiches (one chicken, one ham; a hundred sandwiches all in all, prepared at the break of dawn para fresh from the bakery ang tinapay) and a tetrapak of fruit juice; also, food that would last – an assortment of cookies and candies to save and / or share; and, for play, either a rubber ball or a plastic badminton set. She cared little for appearances – nothing shiny or showy or glittery, rather the simplest and most sensible, meaning the cheapest paper and plastic bags. She cared more about filling each and every one with her own two hands, para sigurado raw siya na every child gets as much in volume and variety, walang kulang, walang sobra, as every one else.

It was a success, of course, and it felt very good all around. Kahit papaano kasi, bugbog din kaming mga kabahay niya, lalo na ang unica yaya naming si Dorie with whom I shared a deep sigh of relief (thank God she turns 18 only once) the next morning.

Well, a year later, believe it or not, we’re back at it. This time she’s preparing a hundred bags for 75 streetkids and 25 street-lolas and street-lolos; instead of a toy, each lola and lolo gets a pastel-colored face towel and a bath soap. To raise the money, she saved half her daily school allowance for a couple of months (no fancy lunches, no kitkats); the rest her tatay and kuya and I and her lola next-door volunteered in installments as money came in. Right now, a balikbayan uncle is offering to get crayons and pads for the kids, so now I’m wondering what to get the lolos and lolas, maybe candles and matches?

Mahaderang anak that she is, Ina has disabused me of my agenda for a Christmas-less existence. My generation was into making love-not-war and communal living, which meant sharing resources not only on Christmas but all year round. It was hard to sustain, of course, and most of us ended up scrooges or in cynical compromise with the establishment. Now it’s the next generation’s turn and I’m learning a different kind of giving, the selfless and anonymous kind. It’s a whole different trip, and I couldn’t have come up with it myself.

Gotta run. There’s chicken to boil and cheese to grate for the 200 sandwiches we’re making first thing tomorrow. Sana kasing ligaya’t hectic ang inyong Pasko.

Hiding under the bed

Isyu 20 Nov 1995

Palakpakan, aprub na aprub, ang maraming kaibigan sa media at iba pang tagahanga ng yumaong si Louie Beltran when the Court of Appeals ruled in his favor, overturning the 1992 Regional Trial Court decision that found him guilty of libel. They agree, one and all, with Justice Jose de la Rama that Beltran’s statement to the effect that President Cory Aquino “hid under her bed” at the height of the August 1987 RAM coup attempt was a “fair comment of a public event and was made without malice.” Making matters even happier, President Cory has decided to take no further action on the case. It would seem that Beltran has been vindicated and media can now live happily ever after.

All’s well that ends well? I’m not sure. Ang totoo, I don’t quite agree that Beltran’s statement was “fair comment of a public event” or that it was made “without malice.” Say niya, if you will recall, during that August 28 coup try, “the President hid under her bed while the firing wasgoing on—perhaps the first Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces to have to do so.” He wrote it for his October 12 column (Straight from the Shoulder, Philippine Star) more than a month and a half later. I remember taking him literally. I thought he was stating an objective fact, that he had newly discovered this facet of Cory’s behavior during the crisis – nothing in the statement suggested to me that he was just kidding. That’s fair? Besides, which “public event” was the statement a “fair comment” on? Sure, the coup attempt was a public event and open to comment, but Cory hiding under her bed was not, couldn’t have been, since it didn’t happen.

Too bad Cory and her advisers aren’t into the gender issue. Sa akin, Beltran’s statement smacks of male malice or chauvinism. I ask you. If it hadn’t been Cory in Malacañang when RAM struck, if it had been Laurel or Enrile or Tolentino, would Beltran even have thought of making such a statement? Of course not. Not unless it was true.

Pinoy 2000 blues

Isyu 23 Oct 1995

A new Philippines is rising out there, sey ni FVR to his friends in Hawaii. I swear, I marvel at his optimism, or should I say, illusions. Obviously it’s our good old Philippines he’s talking about, where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and plentier, precisely because our leaders keep selling us out to foreign investors who tend to take the profits and run.

Kung sabagay, rising nga naman ang prices ng mga bilihin. And rising din soon, a centennial tower cum museum cum mall sa Rizal Park, if FVR gets his way, and I hope he doesn’t. I’m with Amando Doronila and Bambi Harper on his one. Not only does such a tower promise to be both aesthetically displeasing and environmentally unsound, it would also be a monument to the Ramos administration’s deplorable values and sense of priorities. A tower, when people are hungry and barely surviving? We don’t deserve a tower.

Say ng isang astrologer on TV, suwerte kay FVR ang solar eclipse. Ibig ba nitong sabhin, suwerte rin itong biyahe niya? Ewan ko. Parang matimbang din yung puna ng maraming kolumnista na tuwing bibiyahe si FVR (at least in the last two trips), may krisis na nagaganap sa bayan nating kanyang iniiwan. First it was Flor Contemplacion, then it was rice. Kung maniniwala tayo sa astrology, puwede ring maniwala sa kasabihang these things come in threes. So what or who might the third crisis involve? Well, how about the situation of lahar victims in Pampanga’s evacuation centers and resettlement sites which have become festeringly desperate since typhoon Mameng? I dread what the next typhoon will bring.

A year ago I wrote (with Jorge Arago) the script for a documentary film Gerry Gerena’s From Victims to Victors, all about what government is doing, through the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the Mt. Pinatubo Commission, to help our kababayans displaced by lahar onslaughts. In the romantic (and rare) version of the story, victims eventually make it to resettlement sites where they live happily ever after (sort of) kasi they’re also given land to till. In real life, however, there is little land and few jobs to be had, most resettlers relying on dole-outs and food-for-work schemes to survive. Meanwhile the waiting list for new housing units in new resettlement sites gets longer and evacuation centers become dirtier and more crowded. No wonder many victims keep going back to their old roofs and haunts.

Sabi sa Public Forum, it’s a cultural thing, itong pilit na pagbalik agadng maraming biktima sa kanilang mga bayang natabunan ng lahar, kahit bubong lang ang binabalikan nila. Matindi raw kasi talaga ang attachment ng Pinoy sa bayang kinagisnan. Ganoon? Hindi kaya dahil wala silang better options, as in, walang lupang malipatan at pondong panimula?