Calling it his “last performance”, Joseph Ejercito Estrada announces his 2010 bid to regain the presidency but is it really all smoke and mirrors?

Pauline Kael, famed New Yorker film critic, holding court in arch-liberal Manhattan shortly after the 1972 U.S. presidential elections where the darling of progressives, Democrat George McGovern, went down in record-setting defeat with only 37% of the vote. Kael snipes, “I don’t know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don’t know anybody who voted for him.”

I am certain that many people with whom I am friendly with voted Joseph “Erap” Estrada into the presidency in 1998, but I’d be hard-pressed to name any of my friends or even my peers then in college who did so. Even then, I may have already stood apart among my set just by willing to consider voting for him. This same set would march joyously towards EDSA in January 2001, initiating the first text revolution in the world, earning moral victory (as in my case) in defying a professor who had the temerity to insist on holding class while everybody with a social conscience (so I thought) held camp at Ortigas corner EDSA, laughing over jibes at John Osmena and Tessie Aquino-Oreta and singing “Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo.” It was us, the students mingling in the streets whom then-AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Angelo Reyes cited as the reason why he had to deliver the fatal blow to the Estrada presidency by withdrawing allegiance to the president duly elected under the Constitution.

The first signs of my own remorse emerged very quickly, even just as Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was preparing to take her presidential oath of office at the EDSA Shrine. At that moment, I was on an unairconditioned G-Liner bus, on my way to Mendiola to meet up with my fellow student revolutionaries who were preparing “the final push” that would expel the disgraced President out of Malacanang. The commuters were journeying not to change the nation; they were reporting to work. They were glum. Whenever the bus passed by groups of protestors, the passengers glared at them. And when a newspaper vendor clambered onto the bus, hawking a tabloid that screamed of the death of the Erap presidency, a lady cried out, quite in sorrow, “Ano ba itong ginagawa nila kay Erap, wala namang kasalanan ang tao.” People murmured, then paused. They might as well have been silently reciting the prayers for the dead. As I got off the bus, I felt an urge to speak up – evangelist style – and apologize to my fellow passengers, for having the gall to presume that all my sacrifice, I was doing for them. Instead I held my tongue, and when a few hours it was announced that Erap had left the building, I was with people who jumped for joy at the news. I did cheer, but with some hollowness knowing that the insulating bubble that fed my adrenalin those days had burst.

Erap knew, and knows, of the people like me who never liked him, considered him an embarrassment to the social graces, pounced on him every opportunity we could. No other post-war Filipino had thrived so successfully using the us-versus-them theme, and we were “them”. Today, freed from the relatively ornate prison that jailed him for six years, he speaks out with the fervor of the paranoid man whose fears had correctly come to pass. He is envigorated by moral ascendancy as he speaks of “yung mga elitista” who persecuted him as they robbed the masses blind.

The crowds he mostly preaches to these days are mostly the converted – you will hardly find him in an academic-sponsored symposium or a business club forum. The rally where he proclaimed his candidacy for the presidency in 2010 last October 21 was staged in Tondo, the district that once was home to Manila royalty but has since been defined by its slums and a mountain built on sediments of rich people’s garbage. For those watching on television, it was the perfect happening for radio. His friends and supporters crowded the stage, popping in and out of the frame, the glistening of their sweat under the harsh klieg lights providing a distracting backdrop as Erap spoke. The speech was way too long, dragged down by bits where he was reduced to a commonplace emcee introducing his senatorial candidates. The emcee they did hire, however effective his carnival barking played to the crowd that was there, proved an irritating voice on TV. It seemingly was an event that was designed without any consideration at all for the people watching on television, while providing maximal entertainment if you were actually there. The strains of the marching band offered incongruity for the home audience, yet undoubted pep for those there to chant along. Elitista lang ang nanonood ng ANC, so screw them.

Still, those blinded into dismissiveness did miss one hell of a show. Among the classes of politicians I have witnessed in my lifetime, there simply is no more effective public speaker than Erap Estrada. His speeches are not staged for the diplomatic corps or the CNN set, hardly emblematic of the Filipino nation as it addresses the community of nations. Yet they stand out for a distinct trait lacking of many of our other politicians – the ability to go for the jugular. History will forever debate how sincere he was when he thundered, “Huwag ninyo akong subukan!”, yet can anyone conjure any other string of words that could better convey to the Filipino-speaking nation, that warning to those who might abuse the President’s confidence? The most apt compliment to Erap’s political skills – kuha niya ang kiliti ng tao.

It is becoming clear though that Erap Estrada is not as considerable a political force as he was in 1998, or even when he was ousted in 2001. The current surveys have consistently ranked him within the lower tier of presidential candidates in 2010. For all his vaunted mandate in 1998, it must be remembered that such bragging rights were all relative – 60% of the electorate did vote for someone else as president, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo won the vice-presidency by an even wider margin. While he and his successor have proven extremely polarizing figures as well as political rivals, the present reality is that there are very credible alternatives for those who dislike President Arroyo, or both those presidents for that matter. Much as he may presume it so, Estrada is not the only outlet to vent frustration at the current administration. Us-versus-them politics gets trickier when “them” consists of several distinct subsets.

The current conventional wisdom writes out Estrada as a spent political force. Conventional wisdom has been his sworn enemy, and I fear it will dictate the writing of his eventual obituaries. Yet conventional wisdom has been lazy and wrong about Estrada before. For example, conventional wisdom had tagged him as a mere “B-movie actor”, never mind that prior to his election as president, Estrada had held elected public office for nearly thirty years, a lengthier public record than Ramon Magsaysay, Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos and both Macapagals. For that matter, one may also raise questions whether a five-time FAMAS winner is truly a “B-movie actor”.

The current conventional wisdom also labels Estrada as a crook, a thief. Many of his supporters today ascribe to his innocence as an article of faith. Yet on September 29, 2007, the Sandiganbayan decided Criminal Case No. 26558, concluding as follows:

After a thorough evaluation of the established facts, we hold that the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt the elements of plunder as follows:

(a) The principal accused Joseph Ejercito Estrada, at the time of the commission of the acts charged in the Amended Information was the President of the Republic of the Philippines;
(b) He acted in connivance with then Governor Luis “Chavit” Singson, who was granted immunity from suit by the Office of the Ombudsman, and with the participation of other persons named by prosecution witnesses in the course of the trial of this case, in amassing, accumulating and acquiring ill-gotten wealth as follows:

(i) by a series of acts of receiving bi-monthly collections from “jueteng”, a form of illegal gambling, during the period beginning November 1998 to August 2000 in the aggregate amount of Five Hundred Forty Five Million Two Hundred Ninety One Thousand Pesos (P545,291,000.00), Two Hundred Million Pesos (P200,000,000.00) of which was deposited in the Erap Muslim Youth Foundation; and
(ii) by a series consisting of two (2) acts of ordering the GSIS and the SSS to purchase shares of stock of Belle Corporation and collecting or receiving commission from the sales of Belle Shares in the amount of One Hundred Eighty Nine Million Seven Hundred Thousand Pesos (P189,700,000.00) which was deposited in the Jose Velarde account.

Conclusions of fact in final court decisions do not merely provide narratives to guide the writers of history. They are, by themselves, enforceable in a court of law. They have equal legal potency as whatever state of facts the representatives of the people in Congress choose to incorporate in the statutes they pass. If you made a bet in a bar claiming that Estrada did not commit the crime of plunder then refuse to pay up, insisting upon his innocence, the courts will make you pay. In the eyes of the legal order – the same legal order which sets forth the operative guidelines that governs our daily lives – the fact that Estrada is guilty of plunder is as settled as the laws of gravity.

Estrada had the opportunity to appeal his conviction by the Sandiganbayan, but he chose not to. Instead, he accepted “executive clemency” granted to him by President Arroyo. Clemency was justified by the President in her order for three reasons: that her administration had a policy of releasing inmates who had reached the age of seventy; that Estrada had been under detention for six and a half years, and that Estrada “has publicly committed to no longer seek any elective position or office”. Nothing about Estrada not really being guilty, or Estrada repenting. Pardon in this case, provided a reprieve from prison, not from disgrace.

This indelible scarlet mark may yet prove no more personally inconvenient to Estrada than an old unwanted tattoo. He enjoys his freedom, a condition more palpable than being sinless in the eyes of the law. He has reconnected with family and his associates, eaten home-cooked meals prepared by the cooks that he trusts, attended fiestas and sponsored weddings he was able to attend. Most importantly to him, he was able to stay by his mother’s side during her final months. The intimate Kodak moments he has been able to witness in the two years since his release from prison will mean much more to him than his 2001 mugshot will mean to his haters. He may ultimately end up as smug as Edison recording sound, Ford and his Lizzie, Hershey and his chocolate bar.

There is a final storm brewing, one which serves as the perfect vehicle for those intent on imposing consequence to Estrada’s legal status as a convicted criminal. It is a tempest which Estrada has invited himself, by declaring his candidacy for President in 2010. Unless he demurs from running, it will ultimately up to the Supreme Court to decide whether Joseph Ejercito Estrada, 13th President of the Philippines, is eligible to become the 15th President as well. Lawyers will be paid good money to argue both sides of that coin. Yet given the polling and the general feeling in the air that the Erap era has passed, the utility of resolving that question becomes less a matter of enabling a new Erap presidency, and more of ascertaining the number of votes to be lost or gained by the other candidates. In the end, as Erap himself would admit, his 2010 campaign will be writ up as his last hurrah – a rite of passage that will captivate the public imagination only if he has a realistic chance of winning. His detractors will hope that his moment passes, and he transitions to irrelevance in the political scene.

There is a potential for a dynamic and eminently beneficial post-presidency for Erap, the one he could have glided into had his term not been rudely interrupted. One could easily envision Erap the action hero during our recent flood disasters, leading his entourage and volunteers past the storm waters to deliver aid, cutting the bureaucracy with a well-timed line or two. This phase will not happen until Estrada’s 2010 ambitions are forestalled, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Still, after Estrada’s political career is punctuated with finality, one question will remain. Can Erap-style politics, rife with unembarrassed populism and class warfare spearheaded by a less-than-slick bumpkin, thrive in the antiseptic 21st century? Those minded to answer “no” better look to South America, where in the years since Estrada, several leaders have been elected to the presidency on the strength of “masa” support, feeding on elite resentment, thriving despite a perceived lack of social refinement or even middle-class moral fiber. Lula of Brazil, Chavez of Venezuela, Morales of Bolivia, Correa of Ecuador, Bishop Lugo of Paraguay. Estrada may have eschewed the leftist ideologies professed by these leaders, yet it is the same populist strain that propelled these leaders into office.

For all his political skills and personal charm, Estrada became a potent force in Philippine politics for reasons other than his persona. Many politicians before him had been able to obtain the affections of the “masa”, but it was Estrada who was able to channel the poor’s long-simmering resentment of their plight in life, and translate it into an aggressive voice within the corridors of power. For as long as income inequality in the Philippines remains flagrant, the emergence of an Erap-like figure with a similar base is almost foreordained. Such a new leader may engender the same kind of resentment from the upper-crust society that Estrada did, may harp on the same class resentments, may stumble on the same ill-informed premises. Still, this new leader will likely have learned from the mistakes of the Estrada years, and may even be bolstered by a coherent political ideology that Estrada never had. And if this leader is able to demonstrate a healthy respect for the rule of law and the basic democratic institutions, his or her base may prove more expansive and less fickle.

By Oliver X.A. Reyes

* This article was first published in the Philippines Free Press Nov. 9,2009

It would be a cliché to observe that it all played out like a movie crime cliché. The armed robbers were costumed as cops, and by virtue of their badge they marched into a plush mall whose shops catered well beyond most civil servants’ paygrades. They stopped at a retail store which sold watches that cost as much as an automobile or three. Emboldened by the aura of their uniforms and a lot of chutzpah, they smashed the display cases and seized the watches. Two real policemen happened to be nearby, and a gunfight ensued. One of the fake cops died on the scene, his corpse abandoned by his fellow gang members as they ran past terrified families of shoppers, diners and churchgoers. The mall’s soft ambient lighting guided their way as they glided on marble tiles accustomed to a more genteel set of pedestrians. The corridors of Greenbelt 5 were not intended to echo screams or gunfire, yet those sounds did resonate within the mall on Sunday noon, October 18, 2009, a day which ended with janitorial services bleaching the floors to rid it of the blood of a criminal.

The official police investigation of the Greenbelt 5 incident remains ongoing. Already, a fearsome set of suspects have been named – the Alvin Flores group cited as responsible for a series of visible robberies in Metro Manila these last several months. Chances are that the incident would be adjudged as nothing more sinister than a robbery. Yet in the hours after the assault on Greenbelt 5, speculation was rife online, and probably inside taxicabs too, that it couldn’t just have been a robbery. If the motive was simply to steal property of value, why stage the heist at the poetic yet inconvenient hour of high noon when witnesses would be at a maximum, when the lunch hour traffic poses a hurdle for a speedy getaway. Why be burdened with an increased degree of difficulty by selecting a target inside a guarded shopping mall, on the second floor to wit? There is also the fact that genuine Rolex watches are especially difficult to fence for optimal value as these are marked with serial numbers and thus easily identifiable as stolen merchandise.

If it were a robbery, it appears it was conceived in a bowl of stupid. For that reason, many of us with the mental acuity to design a more efficient robbery entertained the theory that a different motive was in play. What had struck me was how the plan seemed to be the result of a crude word association game. Swanky mall = Greenbelt 5. Rich enclave = Makati City. Family time = Sunday lunch. Luxury item = Rolex. If the masterminds had predetermined to inflict fear and paranoia in the hearts and minds of the wealthy class, at a time and place when they and their families would feel most secure, what transpired at Greenbelt proved an easy fit. And for the historical-minded, Rolex watches have symbolized darker implications, these having been the gifts offered by President Marcos to his favored generals just as martial law was about to be declared.

The confluence of many other people’s plans rarely reveal a grand rational design even as our brains and gut resist the notion that illogic is the driving force behind much of history’s events. As of now, there really has been no concrete evidence that has emerged this was anything more than a brazen yet ill-conceived attempt to steal expensive watches. What is certain is that the incident supplies predicates for those so-minded to assume the ulterior motive of sowing fear, specifically among the upper and middle classes. It would be easy to assume that the Sunday shooting had dented the psyches of those who heard the shots and ducked under dining tables, cowered beside toilets or ran away from what they thought was death; those who frantically paced as they awaited their loved ones to reply via text that they were OK; those who sat through the radio bulletins and mined through their Twitter feeds thinking, hell this could have been me in there. Even if indeliberately inflicted by the Greenbelt 5 gang, the fears they have generated should not be discounted lightly.

“People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday school but it’s true.” So preached Richard Nixon in secret at a moment before his own paranoia ultimately destroyed his presidency. It is an extremely provocative quote, especially for those who ascribe to 1 Corinthians 13. Lives dedicated to defeating that proposition are hailed as those worth living. Yet it presents manifest temptation to those who, by virtue of their careers or causes, need to elicit the reactions from others in order to meet success. Do you send out the company memo pleading for the respect due every person, or the one simply threatening a regime of fines and suspensions. Do you wear the disappointed face, or just spank the child. From the comfort of theory it is easier to assert the more civilized humane option, yet when faced with the expectations and demands of those depending on your decision, the necessity of the “darker” choice often looms as imperative.

Taken to logical extremes, this Nixonian philosophy justifies terrorist acts in the name of causes one may perceive as correct and redemptive. Terrorism does not merely encompass the deliberate infliction of hurt, it also utilizes violence as a coercive bargaining tool for an ulterior political end. Indeed, the statutory definition of terrorism in our country (under the Human Security Act of 2007) involves a set of retail crimes such as murder or kidnapping, coupled with the intent of “sowing and creating a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace, in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand.” The inevitable irony is that the fear of more severe punishment has been employed to dissuade people from committing terrorist acts which “sow and create widespread and extraordinary fear and panic”. Realistically though, isn’t there really any other way to fight fear than with, fear itself?

Our own national experience is rife with events where fear was employed, whether by States and its political actors or by elements on the fringe, to effect momentous reactions. One horiffic yet creative example came during the Hukbalahap insurgency, when rebels were first slain then inflicted with gruesome mutilations so as to indicate to the rural peasantry that the dead had been victimized by the dread aswang. Godless commies meet godless monsters; and there are few more potent fears than those of supernatural predators. Fortunately, the best-remembered of these moments are those which spectacularly backfired. The public executions of the Gomburza priests, of Jose Rizal, and of Ninoy Aquino, were intended to cower a subjugated population into submission, yet they instead galvanized revolutions that led to the ouster of totalitarian rulers. What is believed to be the worst terrorist attack on Philippine soil – the 2004 bombing of Superferry 14 which killed 116 people – failed to paralyze the national life, or even regular shipping traffic. That attack had initially been thought to have been caused by an accidental gas explosion, and it was only five months later, when the urgency of the disaster had faded in the public eye, that it was ruled as a deliberate act. In contrast, the September 11 attacks were precisely designed by Al Qaeda so as the second tower would be hit as the television sets around the world were broadcasting the first tower in flames, maximizing such panic and fear that resulted into two wars and numerous insurgent movements.

Then there is Joe’s Department Store, once along Carriedo Street in Manila. On September 5, 1972, at 8:30 pm, a bomb exploded at Joe’s Department Store, killing at least one, wounding over 40 others. In the next two weeks, there would be many other bombs that would explode all around what is now Metro Manila. Water mains in San Juan, Meralco substations in Pasig and Makati. Both the Manila City Hall and the Quezon City Hall. One bomb fortunately was defused at the Good Earth Emporium in Santa Cruz. No one thought it the handiwork of a deranged mad bomber a la Unabomber. President Marcos accused the communist rebels, Senator Aquino accused the President and his military. That debate ended decisively with the declaration of martial law on September 21, a date when fear became systemic in the rule of law. Three months later, the point would be punctuated with the public execution – broadcast live on television – of a drug dealer. Ominous acronyms such as the ASSO (Arrest, Search and Seizure Order) and the PCO (Presidential Commitment Order) gave legal color for the practice of disappearing people in the middle of the night – not that unvarnished disappearances did not happen too. Fear of retaliation, exile or arrest allowed for the cession of many business enterprises and media outlets to the President and his cronies.

Our post-1986 polity was founded on a charter that preached freedom from fear by renewing emphasis on rights. Yet the most potent mass movements that have arisen since then were animated by fears that the amendment or revision of this Constitution would lead to a restoration of dictatorial rule. In recent years, it had proven especially convenient for the opposition to draw parallels between the dreaded Marcosian past and the Arroyo present as if the latter were a paint-by-numbers sequel. State of emergency = martial law. Hermon Lagman = Jonas Burgos. We Forum = Daily Tribune. The truth is imminently more complex than the syllogisms would suggest, yet the reductionist popular depictions of the current administration do align with the gut feeling, if not instinct, of a considerable majority of Filipinos that our leadership is not to be trusted.

As things appear now, the defining premise of the presumed presidential candidates for 2010 has been hopeful – that they do not embody a second term for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The conditions are such that it would be difficult for any presidential candidate to intimidate the electorate to vote him or her into power, as none have been able to since 1986. We may still be stuck in an outmoded form of retail politics shorn of concrete ideologies but at least it is joyful, one that promises hope and wealth, couched in song, dance, and the occasional harmonica playing. Philippine campaigns have never really exploited the us-versus-them theme above the level of playful joshing; never engendered a bunker mentality that foments paranoia among supporters. Negative campaign ads with sinister histrionics are part and parcel of American politics, but they have hardly penetrated here, and when they do, they fail quite thumpingly (see, e.g., anti-Estrada themed ads during the opposition-dominated 2007 senatorial elections). We enjoy our politics, and the fear-mongers are wet blankets.

Still, the vast majority of us live lives fraught with insecurity. We are under a fragile economy, under fragile weather. The food supply is not as assured as we would like. Health costs are high and catastrophic medical emergencies hardly succored by government insurance. And concerns over public safety erupt every so often, as it did with the Greenbelt 5 incident, amplified by a mass media captive to a dramatic story. It would be wrong, even foolish, to be dismissive of this instinct to be afraid. Fear, it should be remembered, was a necessary ingredient for our evolution as a species, for our dominion over the earth. In the days of prehistory, it was fear which kept us wary and agile against predators, and it is that same instinct carried over from our ancestors that jostles us from sleep when we are startled by loud noises such as the ringing of the alarm clock. Fear, for all its unedifying facets, allowed for the survival of the species. It is the fear of our death that drives us to invent vaccines, to explore new worlds in space, to care about climate change.

Our collecive insecurities as a society are open and ripe for exploitation by the current and future generations of politicians. To diminish these worries through self-hypnosis diminishes too our humanity and blinds us to the realities cast by a less delusional world. Nonetheless, the duty of proving Nixon wrong lies in our discernment over how best to respond to these fears. To combat the insecurities which plague us, some of our would-be leaders will call to action by urging forth our inner demons, others by appealing to our aspirations. Grant us the serene wisdom to know the difference.

by Oli Reyes
*originally published in the Philippines Free Press (Oct.25, 2009)

Album packaging design is fast becoming a dying art now that acquiring music is just a mouse-click away. And as someone who used to design cd sleeves for a living, this saddens me because back in the day, eye-catching covers played a huge role in making sure that records are noticed and eventually purchased. I believe that having a tangible work of art in front of you can increase the enjoyment of the overall listening experience and I ‘m sure you’ll agree that there’s nothing quite as pleasurable as poring through the pages of a fresh-off-the-press, beautifully-designed album sleeve while the corresponding music plays in the background.

So now I present to you five creative album covers that have inspired designers like me to think out-of-the-box when creating album art. I hope that we get to see more efforts in producing gems like these despite the progression of the digital age.

1.

Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy – The package itself is a card stock-bound booklet made to look like a vintage medical volume from the 1920s. This theme continues throughout inside via layouts containing chicken-scratch scribbles and page scans of the said book. Despite the fact that the cover is an almost-exact duplicate of the original medical book’s cover (see comparison below), we have to remember that his album was released in 1994 and so I consider it “groundbreaking” in that it was the first of its kind to break out of the usual plastic jewel case + accordion sleeve/booklet formula. (Art director: Joel Zimmerman)

2.

Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Sweet Revenge – I love the striking canary yellow-on-blue image and the unapologetic simplicity of the cover layout. When you open the case, you will see more of the same vibrant photography on loose-leaf cards that contain playfully-arranged lyrics on the underside. (Art director: Robert Bergman)

3.

Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness – This is an excellent example of music and sleeve art working together to create symbiosis. However brilliant Billy Corgan’s music in this album is, the overall listening experience will never be complete without Frank Olinsky’s stunning Victorian-style illustrations in the sprawling double album’s booklet. Together they form an audio-visual masterpiece. (Art director: Frank Olinsky)

4.

Lou Reed’s Set The Twilight Reeling – Design genius Stefan Sagmeister had the fantastic idea of inserting the yellow-tinted liner in an midnight-colored jewel case so that at first glance, the cover looks simply like a dark blue photo of Lou Reed. Once the sleeve is pulled out however, Reed literally emerges from the twilight and sunny rays in the background are revealed, creating an unexpectedly interactive visual experience. (Art director: Stefan Sagmeister)

5.

The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band – I don’t think any “best album cover” list will ever be complete without this classic. Originally designed for an LP, the packaging shows a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people which came with a page of cut-outs and a special inner sleeve that featured a multi-coloured psychedelic pattern. To think that this was done and conceptualized when Photoshop had not even been invented yet — you’ve got to love the Fab Four for thinking way ahead of their time. The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was created by art director Robert Fraser, mostly in collaboration with McCartney, designed by Peter Blake, his wife Jann Haworth, and photographed by Michael Cooper.

What are your all-time favorite album covers? Post a comment below.

- Cynthia Bauzon-Arre

Acknowledging a Recognition vs. Appreciating an Achievement

John Berger, in his acceptance speech upon receiving the Booker Prize for his novel ‘G’ in 1972, spoke of the meaning of prizes:
“Since you have awarded me this prize, you may like to know, briefly, what it means to me. The competitiveness of prizes I find distasteful. And in the case of the prize the publication of the shortlist, the deliberately publicized suspense, the speculation of writers concerned as though they were horses, the whole emphasis on winners and losers is false and out of place in the context of literature.

Nevertheless prizes act as a stimulus-not to writers themselves but to publishers, readers and booksellers. And so the basic cultural value of a prize depends upon what it is a stimulus to.”

**

“Why is it, that when an athlete competes and succeeds on the world stage, as in the case Manny Pacquiao, the entire country is united in cheering him on, but when a filmmaker competes and wins in a prestigious film festival, this isn’t always the case?” An eminent scholar on Southeast Asia questioned the programmer of an important Southeast Asian film festival during a film conference in Manila late last year.

The programmer had been discussing the nature of film festivals. While I don’t recall everything he said, I remember two things quite clearly, the first an anecdote, the second a statement. They may have been the reason for the scholar’s question or they may have been the answer to it. What matters now is simply to recount them:

Anecdote: “Malaysian filmmaker U-Wei Haji Saari has vowed to always premiere his films in Malaysia before showing them in any film festival in the world, and he does it. That’s why I respect U-Wei: he knows who he is making his films for.”
Statement: “I don’t give a fuck about Cannes.”

The scholar couldn’t have known the gravity with which his question would resonate months later, when Filipino director Brillante Mendoza was given the Best Director Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for his Kinatay, causing impassioned discussion (with merit of otherwise) about the award, and the manner in which it was acknowledged on local shores.
**

Boxing is a sport, and as such is a spectacle of the moment. When Manny Pacquiao wins a boxing match, we witness the reason for the achievement – the fight itself – either by watching it on TV, listening to it on the radio, catching a replay on YouTube or seeing the highlights on the news. We celebrate what we saw and felt, the achievement we were able to participate in.
When a director wins a prize at a foreign film festival we read or hear about it in the news and unless we have seen and think highly of the film ourselves (so rare a case given that our films that win prizes are seldom the ones widely screened), when we celebrate, we celebrate the fact of their recognition, but not, as in the case Manny Pacquiao, the reason for their achievement itself. It often involves what we call blind faith.
This is the great difference between art and sport: in sport the greatness of an athlete’s skill is tested on the world’s stage; in art we look to the world not to test our greatness (which is, unlike sport, is not quantifiable) but simply to acknowledge it. If Manny Pacquiao had only fought local fighters, we wouldn’t be able to tell how good he really was or what he was capable of as a boxer: it is crucial to understanding the immensity of an athlete’s skill that he go outside of the country and fight the best in the world, for the extent of his ability be tested. To remain at home and continue fighting inferior boxers would be to waste his ability.

When a Filipino director wins an award at a film festival abroad, we swell with a distinctly different kind of pride, because the recognition a film (or any other work of art) receives abroad doesn’t change the nature or quality of that work of art. The work remains the same; at most, it is our perception of it that changes. Art is not sport and neither is it competition, sport relies on competition to test ability; ability in art cannot be measured by competition and neither can it reasonably be validated by it: it is industries that organize competitions in the arts in order to put concrete value on what is otherwise intangible: beauty.
***

Brillante Mendoza’s victory in Cannes has been received, if not lauded, by the following local institutions: the City of Mandulong (where he resides), the Province of Pampanga (where he is from), University of Santo Tomas (his Alma Mater), the Director’s Guild of the Philippine Islands (of which he is a member), and the President of the Republic (who, with great craft and in a single sentence, turned her praise of Mendoza into praise of herself, and whose recognition comes with a One Million Peso ‘thank you for bringing the country pride’ check). Mendoza has taken an appropriately cool stance to all the fanfare: “there is a lot of attention but in a week or two, everything will be back to normal”. Many in the media, however, have voiced their displeasure, wondering, as our scholar did at the beginning of the article, why Mendoza wouldn’t receive an even warmer welcome, one similar, say, to the type Pacquiao receives?

While a marching band, a grand dinner, a parade or even a million pesos are all appealing gestures, they are effused more with the pomp of celebration than any authentic attempt at appreciation: a facile way of saying we acknowledge the recognition you have received – a sentiment giving greater premium to outsider recognition than to the work itself. A proposition for the future: perhaps a more generous way to show appreciation for the work of our artists, should we truly believe the work itself important and not just the recognition: show them.

Just imagine: how many free screenings could be sponsored for a million pesos?
–

With thanks to Nika Bohinc.

(Originally published in the Philippines Free Press July 18, 2009.)

- by Alexis Tioseco

Editor’s Note: The potent but rather uneasy relationship between politics and pop music has always been contentious. In America, where “pop music” (i.e. records produced specifically for a market of teenagers) was borne in the 1950’s, it heralded also a shift in how their leaders were elected. Arguably, JFK was the first “pop idol”. There are those who consider the Live Aid concerts in the 1980’s produced by punk also-ran Bob Geldof as the culmination of this union. But between U2’s Bono waving a white flag to Elton John rehashing his Marilyn Monroe tribute for Princess Di, it all just seemed humorless. And that can only be shame since music is after all supposed to be fun. (Politics only less so but just because the joke’s almost always on us.) Perhaps the following piece—written by Philippines Free Press Associate Editor Ricky Torre—is a welcome step back into irreverence.

Can We Just Stop And Talk A While (The Situationist Version)

Music by Jose Mari Chan

Lyrics by Jose Mari Chan and Karl Marx

Fancy meeting you alone in the crowd,

couldn’t help but notice your smile.
While the hoi polloi around us is going about,
can we just stop and talk awhile?

I’ve been often told the pretty-bourgeois

is a social class that’s harder to fight.
Do tell me more about yourself
for my reeducation, if you won’t mind?

A social investigation

awaits the sub-committee
right down in the countryside.
Liberation from cash payment,

hurly-burly of the city life.

Criticism self-criticism.
It’s the first day of the rest of our lives.
Can we just stop and talk awhile

et nous sommes le pouvoir,

sommes tous indesirarles.

There is no place in the struggle for the liberals.
Let’s stop and talk awhile

Let’s stop and talk awhile

Let’s stop and talk awhile

Let’s stop and talk awhile

(the original version)

I love food. More than just the way it tastes, I love exploring its texture, the way it feels in my mouth, the way its different consistencies come together. And while there’s a lot of pressure nowadays to eat food that’s rare, exotic and, for lack of a better word, sosyal, in restaurants that charge you an arm and a leg for breathing their air and using their million peso bathroom, and while I have nothing against establishments like these, as they do serve good food and more often that not, you do get what you pay for, I find that sometimes, the best food is the one you find in your own backyard. Or in this case, your own street.

I am a big fan of street food. Greasy, fattening, of dubious cleanliness, street food is the lifeblood of any nation. It’s the food of the masses, the food that people can eat anywhere, anytime, whenever hunger strikes them. There is a certain delight to be had from dunking a barbecue stick filled with skewered fishballs into a big bottle of sweet-spicy sauce and trying to eat the whole thing before all the sauce drips to the ground. At least, it’s fun until you see the big, funky-smelling mustachioed man with the oily hair and half-shirt beside you double-dunk his.

Street food often gets a bad rap for lack of hygiene but its great taste, convenience and low prices has often transcended class, educational and economic strata, as any colegiala who has made tusok-tusok the fishballs will tell you.
Why do I think Pinoys love street food so much? There are five factors:

It’s cheap – I think this needs no explanation
It’s convenient – You can find it anywhere, anytime. It’s a great way to keep your tummy from rumbling in between main meals.
It’s fresh (or supposed to be fresh) – most street food is cooked right in front of you (like isaw and fishballs), or served warm (like taho and balut).
It’s hot (or cold) – The temperature of the food make a nice contrast to how your day is going (bad day? Most comfort food consists of something warm and oily) or how the day’s temperature actually is (hot day? Eat something cool)
It’s tasty – again, this needs no explanantion

Many people ask, what’s a nice Chinese girl like me doing near a fishball stand at the corner of EDSA? Like I said, I love food, and I think it’s silly to be in a place without trying its street fare. I don’t understand how people who will buy pad thai at a roadside stand in Bangkok or pay for pulled tea from a street kiosk in India will turn their noses up at our own fishballs, taho (bean curd) and kwek kwek (boiled quail eggs coated in bright orange batter and deep fried). Mind you, there are some street food I won’t eat, such as name-this-gut-on-a-stick, and only because I don’t feel the need to try them yet. I’m sure that I will in the long run, but for now, I an still eating my fill of puto and kutsinta, turon, cheese-flavored corn and dirty ice cream (not really dirty, as freezing kills germs).
Of course, the cleanliness thing is no laughing matter. I know one person who got hepatitis from eating fishballs, but that didn’t stop her from having a go again after she got released from the hospital. To address this, a lot of street food vendors, especially in regulated areas like the UP Diliman campus, have been taking extra care to keep their food clean. Instead of dunking your food into a bottle of sauce and re-dunking it again when you run out, you are now given a paper plate to keep your sauce in. Now, he sauces are kept in plastic pourable containers so that you can have as much as you want, without endangering other people.
On some level, eating street food is about feeling the pulse of the people. On another, it’s about having a really good meal. Sometimes, it’s only the later that matters.

-Yvette Tan

Spending time in Agusan del Sur (for work) last week for about five days, I made time to check out the local sights, food, products and anything that distinguishes said town from the other places in the country. For this particular trip however, I wasn’t on my usual traveler mode and didn’t prepare a schedule that allowed much sightseeing or food gorging. I was here for work i.e. interviews and footage for a documentary my organization is undertaking as part of our advocacy to address child labor in the Philippines. The days would be crammed with following our subjects as they go about their daily lives.

Happily it turned out that the workload was manageable. The members of the production team were veterans and knew exactly what they needed for the project. So that should have given me sufficient time and energy to explore right? Wrong.

I had with me the ultimate indoor-plaything: my 2-week-old netbook. Instead of exploring the real world outside the hotel, there I sat down in front of my monitor and basically spent all my free time on the Interwebs. It didn’t help that the place had super-fast Wifi.

It’s kinda sad because there were so many things I could’ve seen or experienced in Francisco and Butuan. Don’t believe me? Well here’s a list:

1.Attend a nearby town’s fiesta. Of course, by the time we found out about the festivities, it was too late.  We only learned that that there was a gathering at a town near us (14 kilometers or so) via the late afternoon local news.

 2.Visit Agusan Mars Wildlife Sanctuary. A protected area, Agusan Marsh is nearly 15 thousand hectares and is “vast complex of freshwater marshes and watercourses.” A great site for birdwatching, it counts among its prized inhabitants the threatened Philippine Hawk Eagle. I was warned though that one approaches Agusan Mash with utmost care and preparation. Its waters are home to some deadly parasites that cause death among humans by invading the liver.

 3.Take a short hike along Mt. Diwata. I just settled for taking a good long look at it whenever I can. This wasn’t hard to do, as the mountain looms large over the town of San Francisco.

 4.Visit the Balangay Shrine Museum in Butuan City. I am truly saddened I wasn’t able to do this. I would’ve loved to see the prehistoric boats called balanghai that date from the 4th and 13th AD.

It wasn’t a complete waste though. I did manage to indulge in some local activities—mainly eating and shopping. The minimum must-dos whenever I go to Mindanao.

1. Eat fresh durian fruit and its variants (e.g. shake, pie, durian cream). I also managed to bring home three kilos fresh durian.

2.Check out the ukay-ukay merchandise. Found a nice black leather bag for P250.00.

3.Eat seafood. In Butuan, we sampled this dish called Sinuglaw. It’s a combination of raw

4.Malasugi fish and grilled liempo ‘cooked” ala kinilaw with gata. Mmmm.

Next trip let’s hoping there’s no wifi in the hotel…

- Earnest Mangulabnan-Zabala

artist: 2 a: one who professes and practices an imaginative art b: a person skilled in one of the fine arts (via m-w.com)

Being someone who makes art for a living, I often get trapped in certain stereotypes so based on my experience, here are five misconceptions people seem to have once you mention you’re an artist.

1. That you’re one of those guys who draws charcoal portraits at the mall or character sketches for police reports. I can’t blame people for immediately thinking that but there are other opportunities for artists in every industry, especially now that computers are must-haves in the workplace.

2. That you’re always in tattered jeans, have paint on your fingernails, and wear your hair long and unruly. I may have been guilty on all counts at one time or another but I do clean up after I work.

3. That there is no future in the world of art. How many times have we heard parents say “mamumulubi ka lang” when their kids proclaim that they want to be an artist when they grow up? Being an artist might not pay as much as being, say, a medical doctor or a lawyer, but like I said above, there are more opportunities for artists now because of computers and the internet.

4. That you don’t think, you “just” draw. Yes we do think, how else will we get ideas about what to draw? It peeves me to hear statements like “oh, he’s just an artist,” or “he’s my artist, he draws my ideas”. I believe artists should be given as much respect as any other person.

5. That you’re moody, unpredictable and unapproachable. No we’re not — when we’re not at work, that is.

- Arnold Arre

Let me start by saying I’m no expert on the Transformers. As a kid growing up, because of my filmmaker father’s views on the “idiot box,” we didn’t have our own TV set at home. I used to have to go to my Lola’s house on Friday nights and weekends to get my fix of Night Rider, The A-team or cartoons. And somewhere in my memories, in the haze of Saturday Fun Machine, Star Blazers, and the Thudercats are the Transformers.

I just watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen the other night with my father (yes, Kidlat Tahimik does occasionally watch Hollywood films in the malls). Early into the film I started feeling a bit discombobulated, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I thought it might be the fact that we were seated in the first row (because those were the only seats left) and with the number of cuts in the first 10 minutes alone probably rivaling that of the entire Hitchcock collection, I thought that might be it. But I watched Bad Boys and The Rock on the big screen before and the fast cuts never really bothered me. Then it slowly crept up on me: it wasn’t the cuts or the pace, but it had to do with the content.

As I said I’m no expert on the Transformers, but the memory I have of Optimus Prime is of the archetype of the good, the just, the fair. Combined with his reassuring authoritative deep voice, with him on our side, all would be good. I think the dissonance between this vague memory in my head, and this giant macho robot I was seeing on screen was what was bothering me. They had turned Optimus Prime into this mercenary-soldier type of testosterone-filled robot jock. I think the scene that really did it for me was after they chase down the unicycle robot in Shanghai, and he’s down on the ground, POV shot of the fallen robot, Prime stands above him, says some words, then raises his gun and executes him, bullet right between the eyes.
It’s not so much the fact that they were killing other robots that bothered me—it’s a war, even in the cartoons, some robots had to die—rather it’s the way they were being killed, and the enjoyment Prime seemed to take in his kills. At several other points in the film, it’s almost like he was relishing the way he was killing his opponents. In the forest when he suddenly had the blazing swords and seemed to be going juramentado slicing and dicing his foes, maybe it’s just me, but it seemed like he was enjoying the battle and the kills way too much. And at the final battle, where he finally kills the Fallen, again executioner style, he rips his face off just to make sure he’s dead.
Had it been a full live action flick, I think the violence in some of the scenes would have been toned down, or the film would have gotten a higher rating than the PG-13 it got. But because it was CG robots that were doing all the killing (and enjoying it), it seems it’s all ok. And even with a PG-13 rating, with all the hype around the film I’m sure almost every kid with access to VCDs or DVDs or the Internet will end up watching the film. And so this subtle—or not-so-subtle—glorification of violence will find its way into young kids’ heads all across the planet from Manila to China to America to Africa. And will this affect them in any way? Who knows? I think it may be like all these GM products we’re eating, nobody knows if there are any side effects, the cumulative effects may only show up in years.
In the end, some may say it’s just a movie. I think if the older people who watch the film do a bit of debriefing with their kids after the film all may be well. But if they just plop the kids in front of the TV or theater, letting them watch the film thinking its only giant CGI robots, who knows what the end effect will be? Maybe its just that my memories of Prime didn’t seem to fit the Optimus on the screen, but I guess for most kids watching the film today this is the only Optimus Prime they’ll ever know. The Transformers have now transformed.

- Kidlat de Guia

1. Salita by Angulo

This video just looks so damn pretty. The colors and cinematography is beautiful. It’s like a wonderful photo essay. The song feels melancholy. Visually you would see a lot of dark and night shots but King did a great job to have day shots that also gave that same feeling. And the juxtaposition of both visuals we blended seamlessly.

2. Sugar Water by Cibo Matto

This is one of my all time favorite music videos. It’s difficult to explain the video, but this is a great example how time and prep can aid in achieving an interesting concept. This video was all done in one shot. It’s a wonderful yin and yang metaphor.

3 Wala by Kamikaze

This is a nice political/satirical music video. You can see the inspiration from Rage Against the Machine video “Sleep now in the Fire” http://myplay.com/video-player/rage-against-the-machine/sleep-now-in-the-fire, but has a Pinoy/Kamikazee twist, mixing humor in a sensitive and controversial topic. Some videos are very timely in their release and in the coming elections I think this is something that should be seem more.

4. 99 problems by Jay Z

I grew up in NYC and this video just reminds me of NYC back in the day, but updated. The imagery and the music is a wonderful blend. All the camera angles are dynamic and cinematic. The music is hard and so it the video. Plus it’s interesting to see Rick Rubin walking hard with the thick ass fur coat!

5. Sana by Up Dharma Down

It’s nice to see videos with some abstract, serial, or stylized concepts. What’s great about this video is the use of colors and the play on the old 8-bit Nintendo games. Although I don’t feel it fits the song well, the video was able to inspire some other creative ideas.