there’s going to be some serious action in congress next week. speaker gloria arroyo will be setting in motion the final steps toward charter change. she hasn’t dropped the ball, she’s still on chacha mode, and federalism is still on the burner. read katrina’s Winning VS Duterte: Stand against #ChaCha.
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.
*
Statement of the Film Desk of the Young Critics Circle on the 2018 Order of National Artists
It may be true that similar things happen in highly developed countries. But not to the very wide extent that we do. We have allowed political dynasties to be the norm, not the exception. Moreover, our social and economic settings and the scruples of local politicians are far different from those in developed countries.
listened to abby binay-campos on karen davila’s headstart. my smpathies go to jojo binay.
this is what dynasty has come to. abby says she worked so hard to do all the things she has accomplished for the city of makati, so it’s unfair that she’s being asked not to run for re-election, as in, paano na ang projects niya, something about a subway and free wifi, e baka di na matuloy, sayang naman.
crazy, right? para namang hindi niya kapatid ang ibig makabalik sa puwesto. bakit hindi itutuloy ni junjun ang mga project na nasimulan na kung para sa ikauunlad at ikaliligaya ng makati? iyan na nga mismo ang rationale, ang advantage, ng dynasty rule, di ba, yung built-in continuity ng leadership ng isang angkang nagkakaisa, with the good of their constituents in mind. but wait. heto naman si junjun, saying the same thing, gusto daw niya tapusin yung mga nasimulan niya na apparently ay hindi itinuloy ni abby. eh iyon naman pala.
life was simpler back when dad jejomar aka jojo, the original mayor binay, went national and became veep: the lines were clearly drawn, it seemed to me. jojo left the mayor’s seat to junjun, abby went to congress, and nancy made it to the senate. hati-hating kapatid, kumbaga. ang kaso, into his second term, sometime 2015, nakasuhan si junjun sa ombudsman at na-suspend; saglit nakaupong mayor si oppositionist vice mayor kid pena. noong 2016 elections, di pa puwede si junjun, dinidinig pa ang kaso, so si abby ang tumakbo in his place. kaysa mapunta sa iba, di ba. syempre, as with any dynasty, keep.it.in.the.family ang mantra.
perfect timing naman dahil kaga-graduate ni abby sa congress (one of two makati seats), three terms na, so ang asawang si luis campos ang tumakbo in her place, na nanalo siyempre. kumbaga, bonus na kay abby yung biglang run-for-mayor-and-win. ang problema ngayon, she’s enjoying herself much too much (and we can guess why) and simply doesn’t want to give it up / back to junjun now that junjun wants city hall back. she practically tells junjun to clear his name first (or something like that) before going back to public service. in a statement, meron pang:
… when she took over as mayor two years ago, Makati was “in a state of neglect and disorder… worse, dirty politics and shameless political patronage had taken their toll on basic social services.”
teka. the year before she took over was the year when acting mayor kid pena couldn’t get anything done because binay supporters in and out of city hall were forever blocking him on every front imaginable. dirty politics din iyon at dirty politics pa rin ang namamayani sa makati (like everywhere else), or at least that’s the maugong na chismis.
and now here’s junjun on headstart. hindi pala siya bilib sa subway project ni abby, cute and fancy, but is it viable? AND he reinforced some chismis i’ve been getting from three different grapevines about abby’s hubby who’s running for re-election sa congress, nag-e-enjoy din, I suppose, and abby doesn’t have the heart to ask for her seat back, pero si junjun kayang-kaya niya?
OR the chismis goes, okay lang kay campos na bumalik sa congress si abby but he wants to run for mayor in abby’s place? junjun does not say it in so many words but he certainly says a mouthful.
…my father doesn’t like him, may mga issues with him, may nga nagsasabi sa father ko na may sinasabi na hindi maganda tungkol sa family. … I’m sure he has his own ambitions. Isa yan sa naging isyu dun sa ground. Naging isyu yan… my brother in law. Meron siyang iba ring agenda eh. Which is, hindi namin gusto ang agenda niya, it wont be good for the city.
and yet jojo in his wisom has refused to rule, or even just remind, that city hall is junjun’s, congress is abby’s – the husband is abby’s problem. i’m still trying to figure out why.
sabi naman ni rene saguisag who was with jojo sa comelec.
The other day Mayor Abby Binay filed her CONA. The day before, JunJun, her brother, did. Normally, one may say that the Binays and the Estradas enjoy the paradise of pedigree, but not this time. How I wish they could find a way to reconcile, but a Prez Duterte, Mayor Duterte and Vice Mayor Duterte? https://www.manilatimes.net/cream-rises-and-values-dip/453983/
hard to sympathize with either binay or binay-campos. much easier to sympathize with the poor people of makati, and of davao, and poor people everywhere in this benighted land, who aren’t really being given a choice any longer, kept largely without options, caught in the cruel trap set by dynasties who mean to rule forever.
tony lopez rightly asks, what has been the impact of dynastic rule?
Is it a coincidence that the Philippines has one of the worst income equality ratios in the world, that it is the only major country that failed to solve its poverty after the entire world solved its poverty in 2015, that in ASEAN, it has the highest poverty incidence, the highest unemployment rate, the highest inflation rate, the highest interest rates, and the lowest level of foreign investments?
no coincidence. more like cause and effect. political dynasties enrich the dynasty at the expense of the masses. at the expense of democracy. which makes ours a poor and fake democracy.