Archive for June, 2010

Remembrance of Schooldays Past

Remembrance of Schooldays Past

The morning of the first day of school greeted me with the sun in my eyes, and the ringing of the alarm clock in my ears.  I groggily got up of bed to a meal of sinangag, sunny-side up eggs (the yolk just warmed through – just the way I liked it), hot dogs, and a tall mug of Ovaltine.  My school uniform was neatly pressed; the blue slacks creased to perfection, the white polo shirt bleached and starched, my shoes shined to a brilliant black, and my jacket folded neatly over the ironing horse.  After the bath, Father slathered pomade on my hair and spritzed me up with his cologne, and Mother whisked me off to school.

June 14, 2010 0 comments Read More
Jejemon: An Apology

Jejemon: An Apology

Krip Yuson asks, who’s afraid of Jejemon?  John Iremil Teodoro says, we are all Jejemons.  One can print out everything written about Jejemon over the past few months to come up with a passable anthology.

I didn’t invent the word “jejemon” per se – lots of people can take credit for that – although my obsession with TV text chat channels in entries written over the years sorta kinda makes me an “authority” on the new field of Jejemonology.  Then again, the field has become extremely intellectualized; the field populated with all sorts of cases to the point that Emily Dickinson may be a precursor to Jejemon (whaaaaat), and “Jejemaster” becoming almost professionalized.  Really?

The defenses and critiques of the Jejemon way of life and the use of language by Jejemon (there’s no such thing as a “Jejemon language;” it is a play on existing language), to me, border on the overintellectualization and hyping of hate.  Rather than explain, it marginalizes; it enforces and establishes the border of the “those who can” and “those who can’t,” especially in the proper use of language.  The Jejemon themselves are alienated from the discussion about them: a kind of acceptable backstabbing that comes with dividing society between Jejemon and Jejebusters.

June 12, 2010 11 comments Read More
100 Songs Part II

100 Songs Part II

I did this one last year, so I might as well make a yearly thing of a 100-song list.  I’m breaking out the ShyPod.

June 8, 2010 0 comments Read More
A Pantheon of Shame

A Pantheon of Shame

The Batasang Pambansa is an institution where the laws of the land are made and upheld in the name of freedom and independence.  On a fateful afternoon – June 4, 2010 – it became a Pantheon of Shame, where the members of the House were allowed to go through “graduation rites” without passing the Freedom of Information Bill.

What makes it all sickening is that the House of Representatives is responsible for screwing the people out of freedom.  An essential freedom: the right to know.  What makes it even more appalling is that they didn’t do this out of a higher set of principles, but something much more base and banal: low drama, the fixation with parliamentary procedure, the lack of discipline, and simply not being there when a landmark piece of legislation is supposed to be ratified, for reasons that are best left to speculation.

In a system where almost every transaction with the Government is done under a sort of omerta, the Freedom of Information Bill is not just an accessory: it is essential.  It is the enabling law that guarantees the Constitutional provision, gives it teeth.  It does away with the code of silence that there is in every single level of Government.  It does away with see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil: something so pervasive in the day-to-day affairs of Government.

Forget what kind of freedom is assured by FOI.  Forget the willy-nilly and the nitty-gritty of what it contains, for now.  In this supposedly free and independent nation that prides itself on having “the freest press in Asia” – or merely having guarantees to free speech that none of our Asian neighbors have – our august and honorable Representatives can, on a whim, deny us freedom.  The fact that they did not attend the last session doesn’t just make them absentee legislators; that the FOI was not ratified for the lack of a quorum makes those august and honorable Representatives tyrants.

June 5, 2010 0 comments Read More
In Memory of a Presidency

In Memory of a Presidency

Dearly departed, we have gathered here today to mourn the passing of a Presidency.

She was a good President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; for if she weren’t, she would not have stayed in power for nine years.  She was shrewd, intelligent, tactical, strategic, brilliant.  We shall have fond memories of her in the roads that we travel in, the overpasses that we walk on, the stores and grain silos that bear her initials in the verdant fields of the Philippines.  We shall remember her commitment to the economy, to political stability, to peace and to progress.  Yet though she may leave the Palace, we shall not forget…

The orgies of cheating, the sprees of scandals, the prostitution of our freedoms, and the whoring of our land.

June 2, 2010 3 comments Read More