The Four-eyed Journal » Culture

An idictment of not just Willie, but of Media and a broken culture

jhay — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:10:56 +0000

It was never against Willie Revillame per se. At least for me personally. When I joined those who objected to the treatment of Jan-jan on that fateful episode of Willing Willie that is now the continuing subject of public debate in the country, it never occurred to me that I did it because of my contempt or hatred of Willie Revillame.

Dole outs even on prime time TV will never help them out of poverty

I’ll be honest that I never liked the guy, but hated him? No, it wasn’t anything personal. Even remotely. For I have other better use of my time than to troll or send ‘anti-Willie’ sentiments both on the Internet and off it.

That was never the case for me. Neither was I under the influence of any powerful, deep-pocketed or influential enemy or rival of Willie. I did so on my own because the incident was ‘the last straw that broke the camel’s back’, so to speak, for me.

My actions stemmed from my indictment on the way media has been creating and handling their TV programming, especially the noon-time shows. The point I’m trying to put across has been clearly said by F Sionil Jose in his April 17 column on PhilStar.com:

Alas, what Willie and most of us cannot see is that his popular program and so many imitations of it, exploits the very poor as well as our permissive culture; he compels those hapless and disadvantaged Filipinos — the young and the decrepitly old — to give up their dignity to perform as he wants them for the money which he dangles before them.

Willie has to be reminded that he diminishes and demeans the poor; we can even argue that he lures the poor with the promise of easy money and thereby encourages dependency, belief in luck rather than in hard work. His show as it stands should be barred from TV. He should have been fully chastised when so many were killed in the stampede to his show some years back. The market resurrected him. Obviously, popularity and money had swelled his head.

A few months back, at a public forum I enlarged on the Willie ruckus which was first aired by the columnist Conrado de Quiros. I criticized our appreciation of TV personalities who are not talented, who cannot act, sing or give intelligent commentary. I also brought into the discussion quasi-religious leaders amassing wealth while feeding on the gullibility of Filipinos who, in their poverty, search blindly for faith and a better life. I concluded that we must decolonize our minds.

Friends and family know that I do not watch noon time shows, other game shows or any local programming. They are just the same of the old bunch: shallow, absurd, consumerist and often-times rip-offs of foreign films and shows.

The last paragraph above, of which I highlighted the most relevant sentence, is the whole point of why I joined those who are seeking to bring Willie Revillame and TV5 to account.

I would like to have it as a reminder to all TV networks, other mainstream media and even to most of my fellow new media practitioners (bloggers, social networking gurus, Filipino netizens) that it’s about time we do something about our “broken” culture. Media is one of the most powerful player in shaping our culture. So the responsibility of helping our nation to fix, refine and elevate our culture falls on their hands.

My indictment of Willie Revillame is but a part of my indictment of the current popular culture promoted and shaped by Media; one that is shallow, violates the dignity of the Filipino and does little to help fix our “damaged” culture.

Image by Roger Alcantara

How to Ride the Jeepney in the Philippines

jhay — Thu, 20 May 2010 10:04:21 +0000

For the education of every tourist coming into the Philippines, here’s a comprehensive guide on how to ride the number one means of public transport; the Public Utility Jeepney.

It’s in English for your convenience and guidance, starring Moymoy Palaboy for the needed comic relief.

Big props to the director and crew:

Director/writer: Arvin Mancilla
DOP/camera: Japz and Tengie
Editor/Gfx: Lloyd Orjalo
Sound Design: Lloyd Orjalo
Narrator: Andrew de Castro

Hopefully, they’d be back with more informative videos, most interesting would be how to ride the MRT or Public Utility Bus.

PhotoHunt: Violet

jhay — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 00:40:18 +0000

By the time you read this, I’ll be hitting the beaches of Batangas with my family and friends to beat the summer heat and have fun. It would be a perfect opportunity to practice some beach photography.

Speaking of photography, today is another Saturday hence another round of PhotoHunt. This week’s theme is about the color “Violet“.

This is a shot of the CAFFMACO contingent in the Fiesta Street Dance last February 3, 2009. CAFFMACO is a local cooperative of farmers in Cavite who join the annual street dance to pay homage to the Nuestra Señora dela Candelaria, the patroness of Silang, Cavite on her feast day.

For this year, CAFFMACO decided to carry the symbol of their livelihoods as the main theme of their costume, hence the chicken head-dresses and in this photo cows with purple markings!

Isn’t that cute? They even had a giant pig mascot which was also awesome! Check out the whole photo set here, I’ll look forward to visiting the other posts who have joined this week’s PhotoHunt when I come back from the beach! happy weekend everyone!

PhotoHunt

Dulaang UP: ‘Hinabing Pakpak ng Ating mga Anak’ ni Anton Juan, Jr.

jhay — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:10:20 +0000

Something to break the weekend hiatus and bloggers’ bloc this blog and my self, respectively, has been suffering. I’m really looking forward to see this latest offering from Dulaang UP:

Written and directed by Dr. Anton Juan, Jr.
Choreography by Dexter Santos
Set design by Leo Abaya
Lights design by John Neil Ilao Batalla
Sounds design by Jethro Joaquin
Video and poster lay-out design by Winter David

Assistant Director/Dramaturge-in-training: Patrick Valera
Costume design: Carlo Paganuling
Sounds apprentice: Arkel Mendoza
Makeup Design: Carlo Cannu

“A searing elegy that recuperates the social conditions of children from document, memory,” making use of some well loved children’s stories by the late Rene Villanueva.

When and where: July 15-August 10, 2008, Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater, Palma Hall, UP Diliman. (Blatantly stolen from Gibbs Cadiz )

It’s been more than a year since I last saw a stage production so I’m seriously planning on watching this one. Anything from Dulaang UP has always been something well worth the effort of going all the way from Cavite to Diliman.

A short history of SMS trends: from porno to emo to Inday

jhay — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:30:11 +0000

I’m not sure whether the Philippines is still the texting or SMS capital of the world, but I have doubts that another country has been given that title. All thanks to our mobile phones and the short-messaging system or SMS or texting as we refer to it here in the Philippines.

Just like music and fashion, texting or sending SMS has gone through various ‘trends’ over the past years. I recall back in my highschool days, the first time I owned a mobile phone, that thanks to SMS, ‘green’ or naughty jokes became the first staple of the SMS airwaves. Every hour or so, a friend or someone in my phone book would forward to me one of those naughty jokes. Some are plain naughty yet still funny (pardon my twisted sense of humor), but some were downright so naughty, it’s no longer a joke, but pornography. You’d be amazed that a few dozen dots, parentheses and backslashes could be arranged in a certain way so as to achieve a 3-second porn flick right in your palms.

3 girls make paalam to dad.

Girl 1: Dad, i’m going out with Pete to EAT.

Girl 2: I’m going out with Lance to DANCE.

Girl 3: I’m going out with CHUCK to …

Dad: Ah, hinde! Dito ka lang sa bahay!!!
Shet (>_<)

Thankfully, the Filipino texting community matured and moved on from sending those green jokes. Unfortunately, from being naughty and aroused by some fancy arrangement of backslashes and periods, it seems that everyone else that has a cellphone back then suddenly became either love struck or broken hearted, as the green jokes were replaced by, dare I say it, “love quotes.”

Love is when you sit beside someone…

doing nothing..

yet…

you still feel perfectly happpy…c:

Subjects varied from the search for true love, the longing for it, or the universal definition of it. Of course sending these ‘love quotes’ were most useful for those who were in search for romance or that significant other who would be the one forever, those who had a crush on somebody but couldn’t tell it their face and so the SMS world gave them safe refuge. At first this new trend was alright and peachy, heck even I had a wonderful collection of love quotes that would pinch the heart of anyone even the Ice Queen.

Nonetheless, it all went into excess and eventually, those love quotes became so full of love, sad love in fact, it become emo. Yep. Emo quotes. Scary I know.

“…the hardest part in being loved by someone is the uncertainty that it may stop

…anytime.”

Thank all things good as the texting community finally matured once more and moved on from there. Though there are still some emo texters but they’re not in the mainstream nowadays. At first, this new period saw the return of text jokes, the clean ones to be exact. The maturity of this period is quite impressive as the jokes soon became political jokes. The staple of which, are the jokes about former President, now ex-convict Joseph “Erap” Estrada. However, these jokes about Erap or Eraptions as they were labeled, were already popular before the advent of the texting or SMS craze. So this renewed interest in Erap jokes I’d like to call “Eraptions 2.0″ Thank God Bush wasn’t the real President of the Philippines otherwise we Filipinos could write whole new volumes of “Bushisms.”

Q: Biglang kumidlat, ano gagawin mo?

Genuis: Takip tenga, kukulog eh!

Playboy: Yakap syota, score e!

Astig: La lang, matapang ako e!

Erap: Ngingiti,

Picture taking eh!

Eraptions 2.0 soon died down and eventually replaced by an even bigger phenomenon that owed its rise to such levels to the cellphone, let’s hear it one more time: “Hello, Garci?”

The Mafia in Malacañang succeeded in keeping its skin and the issue soon toned down. Nonetheless, it was replaced by jokes related to GMA, her evil deeds, her being a midget, her teeth and who could forget, her mole.

“Tandaan mo anak, ang batang sinungaling ay di na tatangkad, uusli ang ngipin, liliit ang binti at tutubuan ng nunal sa mukha.”

-Diosdado Macapagal

Since the evil midget is still in Malacañang, this new level of the texting community’s maturity was eventually channeled to other issues of the time. Of course, since it is Filipino-made, humor, if not biting sarcasm, is an essential element to this new breed of text messages.

The following specimen below, I belive will sum it all:

Sa resto:

Waiter: Ano po order nila, maam?

Amo: Ung fried chicken meal na lang. Ikaw inday, ano sayo?

Inday: I would like to partake of a dish of sauteed pork and chicken, boiled in thick essence of soy and cane extracts, with copious amounts of garlic, onion and laurel, sprinkled generously with fine spices and served with a generous helping of root crop and a helping of rice.

Amo: Iho, adobo w/ rice daw.

Quite amazing the evolution of SMS communication here in the Philippines is. All thanks to the cell phone another remarkable fact has has been realized, SMS or texting has become part of the fabric of daily living faster than using the internet and say blogging as almost everyone from every age group owns a mobile phone.

I wonder what would be the next trend in the SMS culture in this country. With the roll-out and slow introduction of 3G and HSDPA technologies, the possibilities would be endless.