First Love

Last Monday, I found myself in a very familiar place where my thoughts drift happily as if I were on Prozac or something. I was in the Cineplex. I was in my element. Hopping gleefully, I bought tickets for two movies. Finally, after such a long time, real cinematic experience. The MMFF nightmare certainly doesn’t qualify as such. In any case, I bought tickets to Brokeback Mountain and Goal!

Brokeback Mountain

Despite being handed out with spoilers that a certain someone will “disappear,” I still enjoyed the movie. In fact, I was drifting to that point when I recalled that I’ve been told about the part when Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) received the note already. I struggled throughout the film to try and understand del Mar’s thick accent. This film affirms his capacities as an actor. One should see him in “A Knight’s Tale” and in “The Patriot” in order to see the transition from one character to the other. He does it perfectly. He certainly deserves that Oscar (ok, so I’m already assuming he’ll win).

Goal!

Long overdue, this film was released September 2005 in other parts of the world. It’s even surprising that it was given a go for screening here in football’s end of the world. But, as Kuno Becker explains in a BBC interview, even non-football fans would love this one.

It is perhaps due to the fact that the film takes on a heroic narrative that is akin to that of Hercules. I was alerted to this at the onset. What struck me was what one of the announcer in one of the football games in the film said: win the game to make their home city happy. It was the Greek city-states all over again.
While it’s not entirely impossible, the sequel to Goal! will feature Santiago Muñez’ club transfer to Real Madrid. Already Raul (oh how wonderful this movie is), Beckham, and Zidane made cameos. Alan Shearer perhaps deserves a footnote here. I checked the info site for Goal! 2 and it says that it’s due for release this 2006. Iker Casillas also appears, and the whole Real Madrid squad to be more inclusive. Oh… what a treat!

Romantic Moment

1st day of the 20th anniversary of a revolution.

I was but 3 years old, I have no memories of the revolution, except for the faint glitter of our freshly polished marble flooring. The closest thing that I could remember about the political turmoil of the 80's were those of me and my uncle camping it out along quezon avenue at the corner of EDSA during one of the 1989 coup attempts against the Aquino government. I remember the tanks rolling in with the antiquated traffic light hanging through cables attached to the lamp posts. We took some pictures and ran off as the troop movement increased. Come to think of it, I wonder why we were there at all.

It must have been glorious to be there. My mom told me that they went to EDSA to support Enrile and Ramos. She was a staff of then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile. Along with my grandparents they were able to enter the Ministry of National Defense premises. They camped out for a while only to leave shortly after a few hours. It was one of my aunt's birthday.

After 20 years, it is ironic that my family is still a staunch Marcos loyalist. They cling to images of a dictator-father figure who provided well for the people, accroding to my grandfather. During this time of the year, I constantly get into furious debates about Marcos. Obviously, our horizons dont meet at all - we still keep our old positions in the trenches, never letting up.

dead people on top of dead people

A powerful image that is open for interpretation for all. We are all, "in the final analysis," interpreting beings. We cannot move in our worlds without interpretation. The site of the February 4 disaster, the ULTRA, has become a powerful symbolic rallying point for Filipinos. I suppose its not exactly wrong to say that I'm in an Althusserian mode - an interpellated agent. Deeply moving imageries and the cry of pain by so many people and mix of emotions articulated...

I watch the daily gameshow once in a while - trying to remain open to popular movements here in the Philippines; it's also an attempt on my part not to retain an elitist outlook towards social formations. This is perhaps grounded in the last 3 years of my life-experiences - an experience I never thought would happen, which did happened (and I'm kinda glad it did). Ever since I was a kid I almost always got what I wanted. I was spoiled during my pre-teen years. I never took anything seriously except for some computer games and some animated series from Japan. Wowowee moved me in one of their episodes (as I'm easily driven to tears) when nearly everyone in the studio stood to lend their hand (in the form of monetary assistance) to a stuggling housewife, who also serves as the family's breadwinner. The last three years have certainly been transformative for me.

I rarely subscribe or even slightly agree to most of what the Bayan group articulates. But when I saw the list of the dead victims, I was shocked to notice that nearly all of the dead were comprised of women. Is this a symptom of household wives from the C-D-E sectors desperately trying to make ends meet? A flurry of emotions swept me: grief - for all the people who have lost someone dear to them, disgust - to the exploitative and free-riding broadcasting company (ABS-CBN), and anger - at the irresponsible socio-economic-political elites of this bloody country, who for 100 years have failed to uplift the sorry lives of the majority of Filipinos.

Instead, narratives of nationalism and bayanihan proliferate across all media of communication - reinforcing the nation-state and thus, solidifying the hold of the greedy elites. While I have nothing against nationalism per se, I stand disgusted at how this discursive tool is being deployed and reproduced to the detriment of the majority. Wowowee can be viewed, at least from one elitist perspective, as an intstitutionalization of charity in the popular minds - a no-no under the doctrinaire regime of neoliberal and neoclassical political economists, as this encourages the productive forces, well, not to be productive. The influx of remittances for charitable purposes, "dole-outs," challenging dominant notions of how to "efficiently" allocate capital, is perhaps a symptom of the problems of our socioeconomic order. This event can be "used" to shift the gaze from the individuals that are subjected to the disciplines of capitalism, to the bankruptcy of a regime of an anti-development state, in Walden's terms. It's cruel I know, but if it works, it would be worthwhile.

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When will we have our own Latin American "revolution" here? I'm sick and tired of seeing the same old bloody bastards (the Lozezes, the Ayalas, the Cojuanco-Aquinos, the fucking Macapagals, the Chinese mafia) being in control. These are the moments that I feel the marxist in me come to the fore - and I think that I now have the license to be than 4-5 years ago in my activist days. When will we have our own Nestor Kirchner? Our Hugo Chavez? Our Willy Brandt? Our Nelson Mandela? Surely, this is a lapse towards a Weberian problematique - towards a charismatic type of authority. The rational-legal authority presupposes a charismatic leader's ascendance for a bureaucracy to latently replicate charisma through its hierarchization and productive processes. In my defense, I'm merely being pragmatic of our situation - what alternatives do we have apart from a neoliberal tradition, a radical marxist tradition (of the CPP-NPA), or a continued stand-off among elites who failed for 100 years to uplift the general population from poverty? I don't want to establish dichotomies, trichotomies - or any violent logocentric ideas. Still, we have to be cognizant that we still operate within the supposed "logic" of discourses, of narratives. My narratives are of course one among the many, in the Nietzchean sense.

I certainly hope things would be rosier this year despite all the odds set before our paths. That in any eventuality, many paths show us our possible destinations.

the functional prerequisites of a friend and of hope

Lots of garbage in this post. Please bear with me.

Roaming thoughts can't be contained right now. I'm in the thick of reviewing for my comprehensive exams; I'm also trying to write something in the hope that it would resemble a thesis proposal. The problem is, I can't seem to collect my thoughts. My thoughts... I'm smothered all over. I want to roam around the city, around the country to find myself. I know its kinda corny - asking such "esoteric" questions about life. I need a break, I suppose. I'm tired of trying to be smart, of pretending to be stupid, strategically (the latter's very useful in identifying those who'll be future pricks).

I'm thinking of staying put somewhere in the "conflict zones" south of the capital. Spend a few months there and try to taste the bitter realities of life. This is really self-serving - a form of reaffirming the unacknowledged fact that You're better-off than most people. This reminds me of an article we discussed with one of my favorite classes - Epistemology. The ethics and politics of ethnomethodology - the one written by Elizabeth Dauphinee at YCISS (www.yorku.ca). We really cant avoid these things - so am I trapped in one of those Sartrean or Schopenhauresque nightmares? Or should I be returning to a Nietzchean revivalism? Or should I trap myself (in one of those really interestingly peculiarly pessimistic reading of Foucault by he-who-must-not-be-named-in-this-entry?

Or maybe I should do a film marathon like in the old days.

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I terribly miss my mom. I have never been apart from her this long. I wasn't exactly a Momma's boy, I was more of a Lola's boy... Question 1: When will I be following her. Q2: What lies ahead for me in Toronto? Q3: What lies ahead for me in Manila?

I am still in the stage of trying to consider and weigh all the options available for me (Am I framing myself in a Careyesque [neoinstitutionalism] dilemma of constrained options?). But beyond this, there is hope. I just have to jump at the right moment. I guess all will fall into its proper place when time comes. I just have to retain what hope that's left in me.

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(random thoughts from January 22)

Why do we write ourselves in cyberspace? Is this a sign of loneliness in what Fredric Jameson has labeled as the Logic of Late Capitalism; is this a sign of loneliness in what Lyotard refers as the Postmodern Condition? We utter instances of ourselves, factual or fictional to recreate, to reproduce our imagined selves, our individuated selves that we constantly try to disembed from our realities.

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(random thoughts from January 16)

I dont hate user-friendly pricks who don't do things for you. I feel indiferent towards them - a treatment, which I feel is much worse than being abhored. Instance 1: you think you're not sure of what you're doing... of what you're saying in a particular situation - then the prick would simply brush you off instead of helping you out. This outward display of "I'm-so-better-than-you" attitude really gets me ticked off.

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