RECALL
By: Iris P. Concepcion
Seems like the messing up of videos by these modifiers continue. The effect is a downturn to things otherwise expected to shoot up. Why are they dropping? Not the pants, nor the lollipops.
Erwin Romulo said it best: "Frigging in the changes". The intent should not be lost to a director's mind delving into the psyche of the obnoxiously prim and the ridiculously proper.
Anyway.
You might find yourself sneaked in one of the paragraphs. You either fornicate or assume it is an apparition blinking like a mirage in front of your face, uttering the eureka realization: that's her line for me?
This writer is against, first and foremost, forced condescension. I was quite alarmed yesterday how to handle a child's prodding to "just take that money inside the bag; you'd get lots of it" kind of lure. I explained that sometimes, things do not work that way. That help does arrive sometimes unwrapped, in surprise gifts, and only when you need it. I do not like to sound like am a monetary prude but I hear myself repeating this over and over again to people who couldn't seem to get it, still. She had already won my trust and ruined it by a sentence. I simply said, you are not going to say that again, would you? The cute kid said, "yes."
I am taking her word for it.
Let us not joke ourselves with masks here, I know who is feeding you, who you are working for, the network dynamics---I could no longer be played by the dissuading factors. I know the people who have the genuine beat and pulse of this country, have it by the gut, chose to work from the downside of things instead of sneaking some items to validate a terrific detour abroad instead of coming up with plans on infrastructure and other uncutesy stuff like that. Connections work and it is laudable if this link is put to productive use instead of strangling women inside a car using a dole-out vehicle.
I do not know why in almost two or three years that I was feeling my way inside writing circles before, I did not strike any personal connection with any of these groups save for two fellows. I blame it on my lack of expertise (social manners) on that aspect. They do not seem to like circulating around people under them (just an impression) save for the top man who was genuinely humble. I survived an earthquake in that office. When I reconnected, it was with a librarian whom I still call Manang up to this day.
When I started writing this blog, that is when the real "community of writers" took its own dome-like dimension. Whoever invented this site is one sick of a genuine bastard for annihilating the obvious writing divide in one click. It is handy for me to explain now when someone asks, what do you do?
"Oh, read my blog" is my paltry reply.
It diminished my propensity to yack about my life when the proper bolts are plugged in. I was spoken to in hush like nobody should come near me for being too weird or different: I do not know their life under the circumstances then. It baffled me why such mongering should ensue. Realistically, if I am drawn to people in meteorological wavelength, so to speak, it is not because of their assent to my words. It is that common respect for the craft: craft of creating, craft of thinking; craft of living. I disagree with a lot of people I admire but I could not disagree with their precise turn of a semi-colon erupting like a blooming flower out of nowhere in their lines.
It is my blessing that the people I am deeply in Yoda conversations now had been with me all throughout. Yes, they talk to the littlest janitor--different surroundings but you get the drill. That is perhaps the reason why my comfort is just within that kind of sphere. Little things do imprint in a psychological, flashback manner.
Once, I was given siopao by a CEO as my "baon". I yelled one time about my Disney plate getting lost somewhere and did my routinary dissing. This CEO asked me why I am in a sour mood and I told him the reason. He paused and said in jest :
"Don't worry Iris, I'll get you one," just to shut me up.
He also took the bother one time to remind me that I am wearing my dress on the wrong side, in a whisper, so as not to embarrass me. I said, "that's the style".
Sometimes, you meet people this way and those little reminders get stuck inside your head for years to come. The operative word here is having taken a small route to make you feel important as to give persons a small pep talk. Yes, he falls in line and we are wondering why he still does that.
Everyone has flaws, sure. One time or another, you find yourself disagreeing with them but you can never fault good counsel when it arises.
What is my point? It appalls me to hear people treat me as if I belong when I truly am not one of them (that is just okay). I'd rather I am told to and yanked for the right reason than being praised for the worst cause. I do not question their purpose, we are all about inclusive existence.
Sincerity though, could never be bought. A good deed always goes a long way and I somehow remember that whenever I find myself questioning the ways of the world.
In a recall mood, I suddenly remember these things in slow motion.
Why I will vote for Noynoy, and why he will win
by Krip Yuson
Actually, there’s no correlation. Either won’t be contingent on the other.
The first is a sure thing. I know what I will do come May 10 when I step into the polling place for Valle Verde residents in Pasig City. I will shade that oval, the way the Sexbomb Dancers have sufficiently enlightened me, right before the second presidential candidate’s name: Benigno Aquino III. And I’ll make sure to fight off the temptation to spit at the name that appears before his, whatzisname Acosta.
Just because I think the usual suspects have done their darndest to knock off Aquino from the uppermost perch, and succeeded somewhat despite Acosta’s tardy disqualification, shouldn’t make me express my disgust at Comelec’s apparent ministrations. No, I won’t soil and spoil my ballot.
I will vote for Noynoy and I will vote for Mar, primarily because — and this is the most fundamental of many reasons — I know our country deserves 12 consecutive years of good governance. Yes, I’m scanning far ahead. I’m looking beyond Noynoy’s six-year term. If the Liberal Party’s main ticket wins, it will mark the first time in ages that the tandem for the highest positions in the land gets elected together.
I don’t think they’ll ever quarrel over policy or girls or governance, from 2010 to 2016. Most likely, VP Mar will be highly supportive of Prez Noy2, and that they will conduct themselves in office as a true partnership. They’re friends, they’ve been friends, they’re the sons of a former LP tandem that was just as formidable, maybe even more so.
Both are intelligent, decent men advantaged not so much by wealth but by good upbringing, including education and having nice families. That is why Mar should then become president in 2016, and proceed from the foundation of stability and optimism we hope to have been put in place by then — by Noynoy with the help of his sisters and brethren, which will include all of us who vote him into power so that national corruption is drastically, dramatically decreased. Then Mar can continue the same and push an even stronger economic program forward.
By 2022, and I hope I can still be around to applaud those dozen years as they end, our yet nascent republic would then have attained more than a semblance of competitiveness with our neighbors. I also hope that by then the Catholic Church would have finally taken a backseat in the busybody observance of affairs of governance.
Noynoy thence Mar might have then conducted such a turnaround in national ethics and spirit that the usual bully pulpits would have been silenced on the use of strawberry-flavored condoms. Why, maybe even the matter of divorce might start to stand a chance for official consideration.
This is what I pray for (gulp, okay, that’s being tongue-in-cheek, since I usually just send tons of sunshine vibes to anyone in distress or critical health): that we Filipinos move forward not a hundred steps behind the ways of the rational, pragmatic Dutch, Belgians, Scandinavians, etc. — but only by about 50. Maybe by the time Baby James gets elected as Mayor of Quezon City, our capital can allow cafés to display rainbow colors not just for the aesthetics of it.
But to get back to the present — next month when we troop to the polls, as they say, it should be with much hope.
That is why we won’t vote for Nicky Perlas. Because he can only project himself as an environmentalist, albeit I recall that the organic pechay he grew on the edge of UP Diliman decades ago was priced nearly double that on supermarket shelves, and looked rather unfortunate.
That is why we won’t vote for that young fellow De los Reyes, whose youthful idealism only seems to translate itself into a certain picaresque weepiness — in mien, in voice, in articulation.
That is why we won’t vote for someone with a titular Bro before his name, because he can only be self-righteous, even if he properly belongs to that questionable breed of televangelists who indulge in an industry more than a poor excuse for faith.
That is why we can’t vote for Dick, because he hasn’t quite grown up from the Atenean cheerleader he was, so that the wurz-wurz motormouth capability doesn’t ever give us a chance to reflect and discern our way through matters of intellect and emotion, both.
We are sorry we can’t vote for Gibo, not because he has no chance of making it anyway, but simplistically because of the albatross on his back. He obviously has the intelligence, the youth, the idealism, and very likely the decency to do right by his countrymen. But he cannot proxy for someone whose dislike and distrust rating is much too heavy for anyone’s backbone.
Voting for Erap would have nothing to do with hope. He doesn’t even smoke that kind of cigarettes. Instant Alzheimer’s could wipe away any memory of plunder, but would we want anyone slurring his oath once again, with Ernie Maceda right behind him for the photo op?
That leaves us the top two candidates by virtue of the survey ratings. All the skeptics not in my payroll (meaning of my particular ilk) may spoof the way Conrad de Quiros has pared it down, again simplistically, to a mythical fight between good and evil. But there is something there, whether or not it tallies with our appreciation for complexities or the grays in between.
Sure, it isn’t a black-or-white world. But the specter of a Money Villarroyo as a Goliath of Mammon cum Mordor versus a bespectacled son of heroes who hasn’t had Botox or follicle transplants comes very close to silhouetting the protagonists.
I believe Noynoy will win the presidency because that kind of narrative pitting a crusader against a giant crustacean will appeal to most Filipinos.
Sure, the kids may sing along to the earworm of a jingle that professional admen have brilliantly concocted. But their parents will give it a good think as May Day Eve turns the corner, and they will say that Dolphy can entrust his kids to whomever, seeing as how a few of them went astray anyway, and that Manny Pacquiao can endorse anyone as much as he wants, but he’ll still be on a different page from where we regard our politicians and legislators, and that Sarah Geronimo has simply taken up where she left off with Sen. Ed Angara and STI, and that Willie Revillame’s support can only show what sort of company this free-spending candidate keeps… Blah blah blah. But they have heard enough of canny banking and land development practices, let alone “C-5 at Taga,” to take those testimonials for their pure word.
And if we were to see a 60-second TV ad that features Kris, Korina, Shawie and Vilma saying they’re related or married to certain men, but that beyond being kapamilya or kapuso they ‘re asking us to vote for Noy-Mar because “Para sa Bayan Ito!” — then I think we win pulling away.
That’s not even counting PBA MVP James Yap and son Baby James, who already commands such adulation as what got our matriarchal society gushing over the cutesy-tot stereotype of the Sto. Niño since Reina Juana of Cebu first held him in her hands.
Finally, I am confident of a Noynoy electoral victory because someone up there, his Mom more than what you think, will continue to do the supernatural for her countrymen’s sake.
It is also time, and it is our destiny, to break off that slough of despond that has characterized our civil service, once and for all — slash through that Gordian knot of corruption that we sneer at but still laugh about.
It is time for positive change, no doubt. Let’s get it on. And reward the yellow army of volunteers and all of the decent-minded kin and friends and barbers and masseuses we know who’ve asked for yellow ballers and yellow-ribbon stickers for their cars and tricycles.
It gratifies me that when I vote for Noynoy and Mar, I am assured that most of the writers, artists and musicians I’ve beered, whiskied, videoke’d and GRO’d with will do the same. That all my brothers and cousins and aunts and nephews will do, too. That most of my Bedan batchmates of H. S. Class of 1960 will also shade the oval before Aquino, Benigno III.
Not only do we owe it to Ninoy and Cory and their supreme sacrifices for Pilipinas, but to our self- respect as Pinoys.
I recall a night in the late ’90s, when it was still Giraffe at the back corner of the 6750 Tower on Ayala, and the place was jumping in the name of a private party. I went out for fresh air and smokes, that curious oxymoron, and ran into Rapa Lopa, who intro-ed me to his smiling cousin Noynoy, who had also lit up. We exchanged light banter. Someone pulled Noynoy away. Still light-years away from any attempt at gravitas, Rapa and I got to talk about the coming presidential elections, how Erap was posing such a threat for a comedown after FVR.
I said Noynoy should think of running for the Senate after his stint as Congressman, well, sometime, before the Marcos children beat him to it. And who knows, maybe from there something even better will happen in the distant future. I thought I glimpsed a furrow of gravitas overtake Rapa’s brow, but only momentarily, before he smiled again. “Sabi mo yan, ha, Krip?”
Yup. I said it. And now I want to prove myself a prophet in my own country. Unless — or else — it isn’t mine at all.
(Preview of an article for ROGUE Magazine, April 2010, out on the streets this week)
