Do Not Demand Respect for Them

After insults were thrown and heaped upon them for their being bereft of principles, a shrill voice rang out, demanding respect for the "representatives." But it is the "representatives" who should be asked for respect -- they who are a bunch of serial rapists, they who arrogantly commit crimes in full view of the nation and declare that their words are the law. It is they who should be asked for respect and not a citizen who pointed his finger at them who deserve much worse than finger-pointing. Do not demand respect for them: there can be no respect for those whose faces deserve to be doused with the murkiest water.

The Wowowee Stampede is a National Tragedy

In trying to absolve, before the public, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration of responsibility for the Wowowee tragedy which killed at least 75 people – one of the deaths being a forced abortion – on Feb. 4, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita has shown nothing except the extent of his servility toward Malacañang. Those were among the wisest of words. “Saying that this event is a mirror of poverty is carrying it too far,” he said. “There is a tragedy because of the program.” Either the honorable executive secretary was taking us for a ride or he had yet to acquaint himself with the nature of the television program that marked its first anniversary by being at the heart of a national tragedy. Yes, the stampede that marked Wowowee’s first anniversary is a national tragedy. More than being an issue of reckless imprudence on the part of the show’s organizers – which it definitely is – the Wowowee tragedy is an extremely depressing picture of what this country has come to. An overwhelming majority of the more than 30,000 who had lined up in front of the PhilSports Arena (also known as the ULTRA) were from the margins of Philippine society, a “basket case of a society” in the words of poet and literary scholar Gelacio Guillermo. Those of us who regularly go to the vicinity of the ABS-CBN compound have noticed that those who line up for Wowowee in the hope of getting into its contests look alike: their attires speak of the daily ordeal of surviving with less than the barest necessities, the looks in their eyes speak of hopelessness. They pushed and trod over each other in a rush to get inside the stadium because of rumors that the show was giving away raffle tickets to the first 300 people to enter. The prizes ranged from cash to taxicabs to a house and lot – giving a sense of “hope” that those with raffle tickets would have a chance to lift themselves and their loved ones out of the rut with one stroke of luck. It was this desperate yearning for a sudden exit from penury, or even for a small amount of money to tide them over for a few weeks or months, that drove the people to push and tread over each other in a rush to get in. Because of this desperation, at least 75 people are now dead. Most of the dead are women – the ones who daily confront the question of how to make do with a pittance – and most of the women who died were grandmothers. Only three of those who died were men. The Macapagal-Arroyo government cannot wash its hands of responsibility in this tragedy. Hunger and joblessness statistics have reached all-time highs under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whose supposed mandate in the 2004 election is not even credible to say the least. The gap between the cost of living and the wages of an average workingman in this country ever widens as the government imposes additional tax burdens on the people who already have nothing to spare, supposedly to stave off a crisis they were not responsible for in the first place. You have missed the point, Secretary Ermita. This is a national tragedy. It is not simply “because of the program” – unless you are talking about President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s program of governance. Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria) Feb. 9, 2006 Southern Tagalog Exposure KASIBULAN Women Visual Artists’ Collective KUMASA (Kulturang Ugnayan ng Manggagawa at Uring Anakpawis sa Timog Katagalugan) ARTIST, Inc. (Arts Research and Training Institute in Southern Tagalog) Kilometer 64 Poetry Group Tambisan sa Sining APLAYA (Artistang Pangkultura ng Mamamalakaya sa Timog Katagalugan) UPLB Umalohokan Pokus Gitnang Luson Paolo Martinez Andrea Muñoz Gian Paolo Mayuga Jeffrey Ferrer Onin Tagaro Bobby Balingit Winnie Balingit Lourd de Veyra Dong Abay Ninj Abay Con Cabrera Roselle Pineda Heidi Takama

A Complete Mockery of Democracy

It was an artist –- film director Lino Brocka –- who, as one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution, formulated the provision for one of the cornerstones of the democracy we are supposed to be: specifically Art. III, Sec. 4 which states that: “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.” If democracy is government by the people, as the word’s etymology tell us, there can be no democracy without freedom of speech and expression –- and press freedom is the freedom of speech and expression as exercised by media practitioners, in the same way that academic freedom is the exercise of the freedom of speech and expression by members of the academe. A truly empowered people are free to say how the government should be run. The freedom of speech and expression is particularly sacred to us artists since it is essential to our work that we have the liberty to say how we perceive the world and the human condition at a given time. If liberty is “the soul’s right to breathe,” as the lead character in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting so eloquently says, the freedom of speech and expression is the artist’s right to be. It is this cornerstone of the democracy we are supposed to be, this right held especially sacred by artists, that is being undermined by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Consultative Commission on Charter Change. Art. III, Sec. 4 of the draft constitution submitted by the Consultative Commission reads thus: “No law shall be passed abridging the responsible exercise of the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances.” The insertion of the phrase “responsible exercise of” is very much worth noting. It is not just an exercise in semantics, it is an insertion that though brief speaks volumes. What is meant by a “responsible” exercise of the freedom of speech and expression? Nowhere in the draft constitution can we find the answer. But the answer lies in the statements President Arroyo has been issuing from time to time. “Let us cast aside the ‘bad boy’ image that the press has acquired,” President Arroyo said in her speech before the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP) in Baguio City last November. “Let us restore its glory as the ‘responsible son’ of a democratic nation.” She uttered these words at a time when she was under fire from the press because of questions on the credibility of her victory in the 2004 election, because of her government’s imposition of policies making life harder and harder for Filipinos –- who mostly live below the poverty line if we go by the very statistics of the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) –- and because of rampant corruption and human rights violations under her watch. We can see that as far as President Arroyo is concerned, we “responsibly” exercise the freedom of speech and expression when we refrain from criticizing the government. For her, the “responsible” exercise of the freedom of speech and expression is to “change the topic,” to talk about The True, The Good, The Beautiful while the country drowns in a sea of wretchedness. This is a complete mockery not only of the freedom of speech and expression, but of the very tenets of democracy. The signs show that a crackdown on freedom of speech and expression is at hand. History tells us that it is when freedom of speech and expression is curtailed that the days of darkness descend on the people. We survived martial law and we must not allow it to rear its head again. Let us exhaust all available means to defend the basic democratic rights for which so many of the country’s finest sons and daughters have given their lives. Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria) January 10, 2006 Southern Tagalog Exposure + KASIBULAN Women Visual Artists’ Collective + KUMASA (Kulturang Ugnayan ng Manggagawa at Uring Anakpawis sa Timog Katagalugan) + ARTIST, Inc. (Arts Research and Training Institute in Southern Tagalog) + Kilometer 64 Poetry Group + Tambisan sa Sining + APLAYA (Artistang Pangkultura ng Mamamalakaya sa Timog Katagalugan) + UPLB Umalohokan Paolo Martinez + Andrea Muñoz + Gian Paolo Mayuga + Jeffrey Ferrer + Onin Tagaro + Bobby Balingit + Winnie Balingit + Lourd de Veyra + Dong Abay + Ninj Abay + Con Cabrera + Roselle Pineda + Heidi Takama + Boom Dizon

Shoot Not the Messenger

We in the Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria) find extremely objectionable President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s recent call to media to focus on “winners” and not “losers.” “The coverage of kangaroo courts, lynch mobs and witch-hunts assails the peace of mind and the hope of our people,” President Arroyo said Nov. 10 in a speech before the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas (KBP). She was apparently referring to the media’s coverage of the Citizens’ Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA) which has been gathering and scrutinizing evidence that was supposed to have been used in the aborted impeachment complaint against her. President Arroyo may boast all she wants about her credentials – as she is wont to do every chance she gets – but her recent speech reveals that she knows nothing of the workings of the journalistic profession and has no right whatsoever to pretend to be an arbiter on how the media should do its job, in much the same way that the censors of the Marcos dictatorship had absolutely no qualification to act as judges on which artistic works should and should not be censored. The job of a journalist is to report, or comment on and analyze the news, as it makes itself through a certain time frame – be it a day, a week, or a fortnight – inasmuch as artists play their parts by expressing uncommon perceptions of the world and the human condition through combinations of symbols, images, and other devices that appeal at once to the intellect, the emotions and the senses. President Arroyo has no reason to blame journalists if at present the press has nothing to publish or broadcast except bad news. It is certainly not the media’s fault that massive corruption under her administration has contributed greatly to a fiscal crisis which the government seeks to remedy by imposing financial burdens on a people already deep in penury. It is certainly not the media’s fault that her alleged victory in the 2004 election is under question because of inexplicably discrepant election documents and tapes of conversations in which she is heard instructing an election official to rig the polls. It is certainly not the media’s fault that she has not lifted a finger to stop state forces from violating civil liberties and other human rights. It is definitely not the media’s fault that her minions in the House of Representatives bent the law and legal processes to kill the impeachment complaint which sought to take up these issues raised against her in a legal venue. By this, her camp left the people no choice but to air their grievances before the CCTA – which, by the way, is not illegal as Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez claims but rather meta-legal, meaning not specifically provided for by law but not against the law either. President Arroyo’s call to media to focus on “winners” and not “losers” reminds us artists of how former First Lady Imelda Marcos, during the martial law period, repeatedly pressured our colleagues to highlight “The True, The Good, The Beautiful” while the economy was on a downward trajectory because of pro-foreign and elitist policies, as well as corruption, and the rights of people seeking a better life for all were being trampled upon on a grand scale. We remember how fellow artists who chose to depict things as they really were – the likes of Pete and Eman Lacaba, Lorena Barros, Bien Lumbera, Ricky Lee, Valerio Nofuente, Wilfredo Gacosta, Lino Brocka, Behn Cervantes, and Bonifacio Ilagan among others – were punished by the Marcos regime. There is reason to suspect that with President Arroyo’s growing antagonism toward journalists, a regime of press censorship is impending. More so because the Anti-Terrorism Bill that she is pushing for contains sanctions against journalists who interview anyone the government chooses or has chosen to brand as a “terrorist” – including those who lead legal and legitimate protest actions. We artists hold sacred the freedom of expression. Freedom of the press is the freedom of expression as exercised by members of the media. Without freedom of the press, journalists cease to be journalists. Without artistic freedom, artists cease to be artists. To tell journalists to focus on “winners” and not “losers,” to tell artists to highlight “The True, The Good, The Beautiful,” is to order them to kill themselves. We refuse to kill ourselves. We enjoin our brothers and sisters in the media to do the same, and stand in full solidarity with all journalists who refuse to be silenced. Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria) November 13, 2005 Southern Tagalog Exposure KASIBULAN Women Visual Artists’ Collective KUMASA (Kulturang Ugnayan ng Manggagawa at Uring Anakpawis sa Timog Katagalugan) ARTIST, Inc. (Arts Research and Training Institute in Southern Tagalog) Kilometer 64 Poetry Group Tambisan sa Sining APLAYA (Artistang Pangkultura ng Mamamalakaya sa Timog Katagalugan) UPLB Umalohokan Paolo Martinez Andrea Muñoz Gian Paolo Mayuga Jeffrey Ferrer Onin Tagaro Bobby Balingit Winnie Balingit Lourd de Veyra Dong Abay Ninj Abay Con Cabrera Roselle Pineda Heidi Takama Boom Dizon

IN DEFENSE OF THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

We, artists, support the "Walk for Democracy" being held today by civil libertarians and other human rights defenders. Lawyer Vicky Avena, former commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), was right on the mark when she said that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is building a "de facto dictatorship." It is the height of bitter irony that just days after the country commemorated the 33rd anniversary of the declaration of martial law, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would come up with two consecutive declarations undermining the civil liberties in the advancement and defense of which so many of our best and brightest compatriots gave their lives. The first is the enforcement of the so-called "calibrated preemptive response" policy, which entails a strict implementation of the no permit, no rally policy provided for by Batas Pambansa Blg. 880 – a measure enacted during the days of dictatorship. The second is Executive Order No. 464, preventing public officers from testifying in congressional investigations in aid of legislation without the President's permission. This measure effectively bars the few principled or conscienticized among our public officers from divulging information on government activities that may be detrimental to the national interest. To top off all of these, Arroyo is pushing for an anti-terrorism bill which, by the broadness of its definition of "terrorism," could be construed to include even legal protest actions in its list of "terroristic activities" and makes people legally liable for simply being neighbors to suspected "terrorists." All this is happening in an atmosphere of unceasing political killings. The past month alone saw the killings of four activists. More than 400 persons critical of the policies of the Arroyo administration have been killed since 2001: the list includes priests, lawyers, journalists and even local government officials aside from grassroots activist leaders. This creeping curtailment of civil liberties by a President who won in the last election by fraudulent means and has long been under fire for her imposition of anti-national and anti-people policies, corruption, and human rights violations has grave implications for artists. In an atmosphere of increasing suppression of civil liberties, a clampdown on the freedom of expression as practiced by artists cannot be far behind. We support this activity, and commit contributions to other forthcoming efforts, for the defense of democratic rights – in the tradition of our fellow artists Amado V. Hernandez and Lino Brocka. Artists for the Removal of Gloria (ARREST Gloria) October 4, 2005 Southern Tagalog Exposure KASIBULAN Women Visual Artists' Collective KUMASA (Kulturang Ugnayan ng Manggagawa at Uring Anakpawis sa Timog Katagalugan) ARTIST, Inc. (Arts Research and Training Institute in Southern Tagalog) Kilometer 64 Poetry Group Tambisan sa Sining APLAYA (Artistang Pangkultura ng Mamamalakaya sa Timog Katagalugan) UPLB Umalohokan Paolo Martinez Andrea Muñoz Gian Paolo Mayuga Jeffrey Ferrer Onin Tagaro Bobby Balingit Winnie Balingit Lourd de Veyra Dong Abay Ninj Abay Con Cabrera Roselle Pineda Heidi Takama

Tuparin Natin ang Banta ng Ating Panahon Music Video

If you cannot view the video, you need to install the Xvid Codec. Download the Xvid Codec here for Windows and here for Mac.

May bagong ebook si Jun!

Galing sa Friendster bulletin board post ni Jun Lisondra:

My second ebook of poems, CHICKENPOX is now out. It may be downloaded at http://www.lisondra.net Mushy, pa-cute, nakakakilig, baduy, bastos at kaibig-ibig ang librong ito. Ang mga laman ay collections ko ng mga unang bugso ng aking talinghaga na sinulat ko noong ako'y binalibag sa Denmark noong 1998. Isinasalaysay rin sa libro ang mga inisyal na pagmomorpo ko bilang makata. Kasama rin sa libro ang (internet hit) mahabang interview cum diskurso sa CYBERLOVE ng aking mga chatroom aliases na sina Kangkong-Kermits, Salbaheng-Tuta, Cultured-Italian-Platito, Leftist-Pedagogics, Pessimist-Poetics, Hahaha, and...

Naputol ata.