In two days, we are graduating to General Community Quarantine (GCQ).
There have been so many levels of quarantine of varying degrees of restrictions that it has become confusing.
Well, it has always been confusing. We started out with GCQ that eventually became ECQ (Enhanced Community Quarantine) which mellowed down into MECQ ( Modified Enhanced Quarantine) then finally back to GCQ ... but wait, there's more ...MGCQ ( Modified General Quarantine).
OK, folks. I will admit it. Litung-lito na po ako. (Translation: I am so confused.) What is that threadbare difference between ECQ and MECQ. All I realized was that when it turned MECQ, I could finally get out of my house and stop talking to my dog.
Meaghan, my feisty-unconditionally-loving Labrador, used to do somersaults and cartwheels each time I come home in the south especially after spending a stretch of a week in the north where I work. One thing I realized was that at the start of the quarantine ( like long ago second week of March), Meaghan was the happiest mammal on earth after having and seeing me every day by the week.
And since we were all literally locked in our houses with only my ever faithful Yaya and assistant doing all the chores with a quarantine pass, I was stuck with Meaghan who loves to play fetch and would sit down quietly while I talked to her. I realized that after around one month and a half of that, she was beginning to respond to my conversations with her --- much to my fear that one day she would answer back.
Hindi pa naman. But my constant presence has someone become quite customary to my canine friend that the excitement is gone. Meaghan has stopped doing somersaults and cartwheels when she sees me. When I call her name, she would still come with that look that seems to say, " Ano na po?" expecting nothing more or nothing less of what we have been doing for what she must feel like dog years.
That is the bane of ECQ --- but now that we are morphing from MECQ ( Puwede na akong lumabas ng bahay at magpa-walking-walking while keeping social distance and talking to other dogs in the neighborhood), I am not quite sure that I am happy/excited or nervous/terrified that in two days, doors will be opened as businesses slowly resume and people are expected to slowly move back to work.
Since the lock down mid-March, I have gone out of the house for a grand total of four times. That is four times I have seen beyond my backyard and the empty lot in front of my house, plus the row of residences that lined up my street. Yes, I do walk around the village but that is a thirty minute ritual I have been doing since the village association allowed us to get some more fresh air outside our enclaves. And the four times I have stepped into what remains of civilization was to go to the bank, go to my dentist (who thankfully accommodated by request) and these past two days to the grocery stores.
And why did I spend my afternoons braving the grocery stores (which have always been happy places for me before we are all compelled to wear face masks --- and I don an extra barrier of face shield) these past two days?
Because I am terrified with the oncoming GCQ. Yes, that is right. I am mollified with the very thought?
Bakit? Should I not be happy that by Monday the trains will be running again, the buses will be plying the main thoroughfares, more stores will be opened?
Straightforward answer: Hindi. Hinding-hindi. Being hesitant to terrified is nothing close to exciting and anticipating. Now why this ... unusual pessimism? Why this fear?
For one thing I have friends who consistently remind me that being a senior citizen leaves me to the vulnerable group. Yes, that's right. But being over 60 does not mean that I will do something stupid like walk around carelessly or in abandon or go around sniffing other people's breaths to check if they ate anything with garlic. Of course I am careful, very careful. "But this is an invisible enemy. You can get it from touching surfaces, yada, yada, yada. You have to spray the soles of your shoes before you enter your house, yada, yada,yada ...You have to take off your clothes before entering your ..."
OK KA LANG?
More than the virus, it is the paranoia that accompanies the pandemic that adds an extra layer of psychological danger, leaving so many people depressed, isolated and ... simply OC to the max. Look, I wash my hands more than ten times a day and in between it has been rubbed with so much ethyl that it has become a certified alcoholic.
Yes, I understand the source of the paranoia but how can we go on living like this? I mean ... it is bad enough to we have wear face masks and shields and assume the fellow next to you is an asymptomatic shredder of the virus, right? Can't we at least have a little bit more room for joy not to think that somebody stupid will go up to you and cough right at your face? (Uhm, don't watch too much YouTube because some freedom-loving-God-trusting Americans actually do that to prove that they come from the Mothership of the Brave and the Free.)
Now why am I not exactly about GCQ this Monday? Because I think I know what other people mean by GCQ meaning Get Corona Quickly.
FACT: We are loosening up the quarantine not because it is already safer ( OK ka lang?) but because of the economy?
Other facts: We have not flattened the curve. The curve is still as big as my senior citizen belly ... and it is very curved. How can we claim flattening the curve when there are more than one hundred cases reported by the DOH as the days go by. Holy Banana! The other day more than five hundred new cases were reported --- and I can imagine an entire room of people peeing in their pants because we are opening up on Monday.
So having realized that sandamakmak pa ang mga taong nagkalat diyan na may beerus, we have to get real And more than just careful
You'd want to beg them to stay home instead and practice social distancing? Malabo yon. Why? Because these people have got to eat ... and therefore work.
Sige. The strangest of times to loosen up the quarantine after almost three months --- then to be told, "God be with you." I will not go into that now. But all of you know how most feel. The decision to go into GCQ is not about health or lives ... it is about a healthy economy and saving livelihood.
Even as I write this, the prospects are not exactly sunny bright down the Yellow Brick Road. And, if it is any consuelo de bobo, the problem is not isolated to our dear archipelago of a republic. It is a problem suffered by most nations when a pandemic hit the planet and nobody was really prepared ... except for a handful of countries like New Zealand and Taiwan. But, as for us .... OK, let's move on.
RUMORS: One of the biggest food chains in the country --- a certified giant --- is in really deep shit. Another mammoth of a corporation may be dismissing as much as 50% of its regular employees. Franchise branches of another food chain are closing down. Most, if not all private schools, are in the red because of the unforeseen closure of these establishments for two months and enrollment for the next terms are trickling in.
Ah, teka ... did you know that they are projecting 300,000 OFWs are coming home because they have lost their jobs from all corners of the globe?
Over and above that, there is a necessity for GCQ even if it is not the right time or place to do so to insure the health of the citizenry.
The battle was simplified: LIFE OR LIVELIHOOD? Livelihood won. Matira ang matibay. Labanan ito ng resistensiya at immune system.
Bluntly put again, there is really not much of a choice. Just like Trump opening up America when the casualties are still on the upswing. Another extended lockdown and the economy collapses. And that is more long-lasting and deadly as the virus.
Never mind if there is no solution given as to how the returnees to work will get to their offices considering a skeletal mass transport system will only be in place. Eh, di maglakad. O magbisikleta. Poproblemahin pa ba naman nila pati yan? Basta.
So what gives? Better yet, may choice ba tayo? Yes, we can choose to be careful and very good reasons to be afraid.
My paranoid friends will be more paranoid. Others will develop severe agoraphobia --- while they may be others who will be wearing face masks, face shields, goggles and PPEs while lining up to enter S & R. I will not be surprised.
Am I afraid of Monday? Naman. Which was why I bought my groceries to last me for another two weeks. I don't know about you guys ... but I am staying home. Because it is GCQ.
The elimination round of Palarong Panggutom (Translation: Hunger Games ) begins 12MN, 01 June 2020.
Let the games begin.
So I finally finished watching the series that everybody was insisting that I catch.
Well, yes. The World of Married Couple (2020) holds the record of having the highest audience share in a cable network show in South Korea, edging out Sky Castle (2018-19) as the most popular tv drama to grace the highly crowded and competitive world of soap operas.
Unknown to many, The World of Married Couple is an adaptation of the BBC One series Doctor Foster which ran for two seasons starting in 2015 then 2017. A look at the synopses of the series will reveal that World of the Married Couple follows exactly the same narrative points, deriving the characters from the British original and tweaking this to be credibly adapted in the Korean setting.
Even the basic premise of a happy family with a very successful wife in the medical field with a husband in a less structured profession (in the British version, he is a property developer while in the Korean counterpart he is a filmmaker) and a young son. The germ of the series --- the discovery of a husband's infidelity --- is exactly the same: the doctor wife finds a blonde strand of hair on the scarf lent to her by her hubby.
After the wife ( Jo Jun Woo portrayed by Korean veteran actress Kim Hee-Ae) confirms that her husband has been nice but manipulatively naughty, all hell breaks loose. Her obsession to pin down her hubby Lee Tae-ah (Park Hae-Joon) with his scorching affair with younger, fresher and richer daughter of a financial kingpin, Jo Jun-Woo's entire world now centered on getting her comeuppance.
All this happens as neighbors-who-were-once friends become witnesses to the spiraling of a marriage to the pits of hell. The idyllic loving portrait of a marriage has now deteriorated into this exercise in mutual outrage in which husband and wife play a violent game of ping pong of comeuppance, trying to outwit each other and tragically pulverizing their union while remaining in love.
Nakakapagod, ha? Sa totoo lang.
Oh, wait! There's more: in the middle of the private world war between Doktora and Direk is their cute little muffin of a son who is on the verge of adulthood --- and is perhaps undergoing the worse possible trauma for any child of any age to experience: to witness Mama and Papa beat the living daylights out of each other.
Added to that is the gorgeous nymphet of a mistress, Yeo Da-Kyung ( wonderfully played by a Korean actress who looks like the sweetest peach, Han So Hee) who knows what she wants while endless doubting her lover's sense of loyalty and capacity for commitment. As to why she was obsessed with Direk I am still trying to figure out. She of great wealth and social status has fallen under the spell of Direk who is about a decade and a half older and is more wimpy than charming.
But let that all be part of the folly of youth, puwede? Even when her family practically disowns her for being ... an adulteress lang naman, the moment Direk became successful, their union was accepted because the little princess was happy. Anong klaseng pamilya yan? Whatever.
O hindi ba nakakapagod talaga?
This is the series that nudged out what I consider as my personal favorite among the handful of Koreanovelas that I have binged on. This is Sky Castle.
in so many ways there are so many similarities and differences between these two best selling Koreanovelas. But again, we have to revert to the fact that World of the Married in all its sixteen episodes is actually an adapation of two seasons of a British original whereas Sky Castle has that distinct suburban Seoul feel precisely because the series centers on the Tiger Moms of SoKor, literally cracking the whip to get their kids into the best medical school that side of the planet.
The similarities between the two series are as vital as their differences. Both are glaring.
What is interesting is that even if World of the Married is still your standard fare of the Kabit Series, the choreographed catfights between wife and young mistress ( bitch kung bitch ang labanan at utakan) are so well thought out and never more of the same that you have overdosed since you first learned the word TV Infidelity.
On the other hand, with a veteran actress like Kim Hae-ee and an up and coming star like Han So Hee, there is still novelty in what you can expect between the asawa versus the querida.
Here, the wife is made to be the object of sympathy. Too much sympathy for that matter which I feel tends to work against what I had hoped the material to be. Panginoon kong Lord, purgang-purga na ako sa mga martir na missis in the entire history of Philippine telenovelas that I am waiting for a missus portrayal who does not think that being a doormat is an accessory leading to the Kingdom of God. And this whole bit of true love while being cheated on, maltreated and yes, attempting to ruin one's career, is not unconditional love. It is more of ... uh, stupidity?
And that is what I loved (and hated) about the lead in Sky Castle. Han Seo-Jin (an award-winning performance by Yung Jung-ah) was this obsessive mother wanting her daughter Kang Ye Seo (Kim Hye Yoon) to be on top of the game, to be able to become that superstar student to enter the best medical school in the country and to carry the family tradition of her flaky father Kang Joon San (Jung Joon Ho). She would do anything and everything to insure her daughter's success in her not so subtle way of projecting fulfillment and achievement in life which she never had.
There is that dark secret in Han Seo-Jin that she hides from that uppity circle in the exclusive enclave called Sky Castle and she would sacrifice everything for her daughter to be the Queen Bee that she never was. Even the dynamics of her so-called friends and co-residents of Sky Castle is a satiric look at the Korean middle class, treated as a black comedy.
Both lead characters in World of the Married and Sky Castle are middle aged women trying to find affirmation in their choices in life.
For the Doctora of World, it is all about preserving what she has --- ( "my house, my son, my life") and making sure that she does not lose all that defines her existence,. For the Senyora of Sky Castle, it is about revising the past by creating a more perfect future than her already better present. She, bitter of the past, is completely clueless of how she is ruining her present by trying to constantly manipulate people around her to follow the script she has written for the way her future will go.
Doctora, deep in her heart of hearts, still wants Direk to come back to her loving arms despite all her resolutions and inner dialogue about it is time to move on. (Weh!) Yet at the slightest provocation, she literally whimpers back to the territory of that salacious, money-leeching womanizer offering her hand as help.
Nakakainit talaga ng ulo si Doktora.
There came a point when I wanted to pick up the remote and throw it at my TV just to bonk some sense in the head of this imaginary character I am watching come to life.
Ano ba naman yan? Nabugbog ka na nga, nasipa ka na nga sa trabaho ... and you still sing what I did for love?
That was why I had to exercise maximum self control when she was still behaving sympathetically to his baboon of a husband ... while we have this son who developed a psychological aberration who is worming his way, emotionally blackmailing his parents in his call for a family reunion that was never meant to be.
Nakakapagod talaga ang palabas na yan. Despite all its high drama and intense twists and turns of the plot, there is not a single sympathetic character you would root for dahil gusto mong sampalin silang lahat. Period,.
Maybe that is why I prefer Sky Castle not because of the clarity of its narrative arc but because it was less exhaustive with the depiction of strong, scheming and manipulative women given enough humanity as well as toxicity. If there is one thing I loved about Sky Castle is the way Han Seo Jin was humbled by the very machinations that defined her ambitions. With the case of Ji Sun Woo of World of the Married, it was her ambiguity, her namby-pamby character that degenerated her will and strength into textbook obsession.
But I guess I was so involved, so engrossed and so outraged by World of the Married that proved how effective it was a series. Kahit ngitngit na ngitngit ako while watching, I was still addicted to the series.
The fact that even while I was seething with anger and frustration I was still hooked and wanted to see the very end of this long and twisted tale. World of the Married adapted two seasons of Doctor Foster in sixteen episodes ... and if audience members felt shortchanged or cheated by the ending, I did not. Spoiler alert: some resolutions are not necessarily happy endings.
Life, either in Gowon (where World of the Married) takes place or Sky Castle was never meant to be perfect. Topsy-turvey, convoluted, twisted ... and even perverse but never perfect.
And this is why it is such a delicious guilty pleasure indulging in these Korean telenovelas.
That is why I love Han Seo Jin more because she may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but she is still sharp. She gets herself into trouble because she wants the best for herself and her loved ones but she will never succumb to senseless martyrdom in the name of love. And that is why, in so many ways, I will not forget Ji Sun Woo as she has become the personification of that saying that intelligence and education has got nothing to do with how one handles personal relationships.
OK. Onto the next Korean series. I tried Reply 1988 (Promise!) but I found it too hyper and over-the-top and ... uh, noisy ... that I decided to take friends' advice and move onto a 2016 series called Remember.
Hayan, hooked na naman ako. At umiiyak. Look what COVID19 and self-imprisonment have done to me.
Everybody is talking ... or anticipating the "New Normal".
Bluntly put, it is the world outside our homes that await us until a vaccine is discovered to protect every human on earth from that lethal and oh-so-tricky virus. The "New Normal" is the way it will be until we can be assured that there is protection ... and that there is a cure from an invisible enemy who can invade your body from something as simple as shaking the hand of another human being. Or even touching an infected surface where a micro-droplet from somebody asymptomatic and yet sneezed thereby spreading the enemy far too small for the eyes to see.
But somehow there is nothing "normal" about the alternative left for us. What is even sadder is the fact that we have no choice but to accept that this is reality. We can always remain unwavering in our optimism that a vaccine will be discovered within a few months or a year and we can all go back doing the things we used to do and the way wanted to do them.
Then I caught these little features in YouTube where epidemiologists state that finding the vaccine within a perceivable time span is wishful thinking.
One of these doctors stated that there are so many kinds of corona viruses that have been discovered through the years and not one --- not a single vaccine has been discovered to fight against any of those variations. It seems that the interest in finding that cure-all comes to a petering halt the moment the epidemic dwindles away. Maybe COVID19 will be an exception for not the Spanish Flu nor Ebola nor SARS has had so much impact to the world made smaller by technology and more vulnerable precisely for those same reasons.
I keep repeating my mantra: ACCEPT. ADAPT. ADVANCE.
It is one way to keep your head above the water .... or remain positive. It is not about the tragedy but the challenges that lie ahead as we accept that this pandemic is worldwide --- and there is nothing we can do about it. Then we try to find ways and means of living with these adjusted conditions and adapt to the changes before we can finally ( hopefully, determinedly) advance into the days, months, years to come.
Of course that is more easily said and done when you begin to think of what "the new normal" entails.
Two and a half months of quarantine have changed us. The fact that we were able to stay home for that length of time (and with the prospect that we are still going to remain inside for some more time) is already something beyond our imagination as late as February this year. Yes, we were told that this is not a permanent thing and that one day we will step out of our abodes to go back to the way it used to be. And somehow we are unconvinced. We know deep inside that gallivanting in a mall, going to the gym or even taking long walks in busy streets will not be available until God knows when.
What is even more painful is to realize that social distancing is heartbreaking.
Yes, this is for the good of the greater number of people. Stay two meters away from each other. No handshakes, no high-fives, no tearful embraces in reunions and goodbyes. You cannot blow air kisses because you have a face mask. And as one heartbreaking video narrates about missing that "wonderful world" ... we will be living for quite some time incapable of seeing real face to face smiles because we are wearing masks and face shields to protect ourselves from others.
That was when I realized that there is nothing normal about this new state awaiting all of us when we will be set free from our house arrests but with no clear timeline as to when we can really be safe from the lethal effects of COVID19. Doors are being opened not because we have beaten the virus but to protect the economies of nations from completely collapsing.
It is a choice between life and living ... and the risks are still great so why even pretend that we are about to enter the world with our notion of normalcy. So I was thinking ... how will it be different? And what are the things we need to determinedly adapt in order to survive?
(1) Schools are now going online or resorting to blended education. Yes, we thank God for the internet because kids do not have stagnate at home hooked on their video games or turning into TV zombies. But online education suddenly thrust upon us has its setback. Lord, we do not have the best internet connection in our beautiful banana republic and there the suddenness of the need for online teaching has caught everybody off-guard. Admitted not all schools are equipped with the right facilities to accommodate online learning: worse, not all teachers are trained to handle courses online. Some schools have built-in servers to be used for these classes --- but a great number do not. So is it straight to Zoom meetings, Webinars, Google Meets?
Blended education is the best compromise to accommodate social distancing when schools open: this means 50% of the lessons will be taught on a face-to-face basis while the other 50% will be given online.
This is to address the space requirement for social distancing when students return to classes where now the regular classroom shall be cut to one half its size to comply with the minimum of one meter distancing between kids. But then that is not the be-all-and-end-all of education problems.
(2) Home schooling or Leave of Absence for the next semester has become an option. Of course parents want to make sure that their kids are safe. Admittedly, perhaps 80% of kids in MetroManila use public transportation to get to school from their respective homes --- and that has become a major consideration. Remember that memo saying that to board the MRT or LRT, one should give an allowance of two to three hours because all the coaches will now be designed for social distancing cutting the number of passengers to about to a surmountable few? My God, that amount of waiting time is tantamount to a flight to Hong Kong.
Besides, how are you sure that the kids will be safe considering their exposure to all the strangers populating the bus stations, train coaches or even that simple jeepney?
With these looming fears, a great number of parents have opted for home schooling or asking their kids to go on leave of absence until they feel confident enough to set them free in that virus-infested world again.
This brings about an even much greater problem again. Enrollment projections for the next semester have dropped. Rapidly. Drastically, Harmfully.
Another important consideration is that the virus has completely screwed up the economy not only but of the entire world.
I remember at the start of my blogs, I said that the greatest harm of this virus is not only the sheer number of deaths harvested from this pandemic. It is the economic backlash, the meltdown that shall completely shuffle all the equations that were used by the mathematics of capitalism. In other words, even with just two to three months of economic freeze, businesses are collapsing, closing and undergoing a meltdown never before seen in human history.
OFWS are being flown back because they have lost their jobs. These are the bagong bayanis who actually fill the national coffer with their dollar remittances and keep our economy afloat. Now that our premium export has lost the opportunities for the sustenance of their families as well as their future, they have all been brought home safely but sadly with the loss of income to support the needs of their families. One of those needs is enrollment money for their kids for the coming term.
Yes, business are closing but so are schools. Word is out that some schools are buckling in to the sheer weight of unplanned and an indefinite timeline of closure.
(3) Businesses involving a gathering of people are paralyzed if not threatened by bankruptcy. The first to be hit are those in the food business: restaurants are suffering because not unless they have a take-out service with the option of home delivery through carrier transports like Grab Food or Lala Moves or Food Panda, then kiss the day goodbye. Eating out is a social ritual that is the first to suffer ... and it seems like even after everything slowly eases to normal, no one is still going to be seated in restaurants because this is still not permitted.
So whatever will happen to food courts --- or all these fastfood outlets where people converge and have their daily dosage of conversation? Everybody has opted to stay home, have their food delivered ... or savor home-cooked meals.
The same goes for the entertainment business.
The entertainment business was caught at the time that it was preparing for its 2020 line-up. All that is thrown out of the window now for three good reasons.
One: cinema houses are shut down. We do not know when they will be allowed to open for screenings. But if and when they do, only 30% of its capacity will be utilized to accommodate social distancing. Now how is a producer to make money if at full house you only have one third of the income generated per screening? And when will the cinema houses be considered safe to open for exhibition of feature films?
All these compounded questions seem to point to a discouraging scenario for the rest of 2020. As mentioned earlier, all plans for the year have been scrapped because of the difficulty of shooting and taping (to be discussed next) plus the lack of venues where films can be shown. Ancillary rights, yes ... meaning you can sell the film to streaming platforms, regional exposures, etc. but these would never be enough to cover the escalating cost of shooting a movie. Or even taping a TV series.
Remember that movie houses have been locked down since mid-March, which means over two months of zero income from cinemas for producers. As for TV networks, putting aside the disenfranchisement of ABS-CBN, the other network --- GMA7 --- has also been suffering from a reduced commercial placements because the bigger world of business is frozen.
Two: Of course people cannot shoot movies. Or tape teleseryes. Gatherings are discouraged and to make a movie or shoot a single episode of a teleserye takes literally a village. All that has come to a stop because it has become dangerous. The danger comes not only from being exposed to locations that may be in the periphery of the red spots of COVID19 positives but also the fear that a number of virus-carriers are asymptomatic.
That is the biggest threat of the virus: you are not sure who is sick or infected ... and neither is he or she aware that despite the veneer of good health that the person has actually become a shredder, We do not know who has been infected so we assume everybody is afflicted as we hide behind face masks and shields.
Since shootings and tapings require so many people who need to be secured and assured to be virus-free, the protocols created for the return-to-work situation has become expensive --- raising budgets to as much as 30% whereas producers are not even sure where to get their money back.
Third: Because of the lockdown, people have discovered (since their options have become very limited) to entertain themselves with other options that do not require them to go out of their homes. Cinema watching was already waning worldwide ... and this had to happen. The pandemic added another nail to the slowly encasing coffin of watching movies in cinemas as people discovered the joys of streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Plus and the local IWant. The bigger question now is ... if you open the gates again and tell people that they can go back to the malls and the cinema houses, will they?
Here we are not only talking about fear of the unknown but the fact that we have all changed in the month and a half of being locked in our homes, wearing our pambahays and realizing that a new pair of rubber shoes or a wonderful pair of jeans are really non-essentials in the language of human existence at a time of the pandemic.
We cannot hug our loved ones. We have limited our meetings with friends in Zoom sessions. We buy our food via delivery. We look at tall, empty buildings and stretches of desolation in streets knowing that these are remnants of days gone by ... and may never be retrieved.
There is nothing normal about the new normal. Maybe, just maybe, the greater challenge is to make sure that we have full and filled lives in a normalcy defined by restrictions and social distancing. Can we even call that normal?
So just this afternoon, still sweating despite the air conditioning and an electric fan aimed right at me --- and after three showers by 2:00 PM, I concluded my binge watching of a Koreanovela entitled SKY CASTLE.
After works like Crash Landing On You, Pinocchio, Itaewon Class then What's Wrong With Secretary Kim, I wanted to catch this 2018-19 series which boasts of having the highest rating during its time of airing over and above that whole foray of KDramas available in South Korea. Even more interesting is the premise wherein the entire series is built: it is like Desperate Housewives of Suburban Seoul. But, unlike the Hollywood series on upper middle class American mommies, Sky Castle dealt with themes that are distinctly Asian as they are universal.
I was properly warned by friends of have seen the series. There are some things not quite like what you can find in other KDramas. Yes, the whole story or stories still revolve honor/dignity/destiny but somehow these themes have taken a turn which are unique to the middle class in their tireless (if not manic) effort to preserve the status quo or climb up the social registry.
There are very unique elements in Sky Castle:
(1) Romantic love is not central focus of the series (again): instead it is about the meaning of parental love, of distinguishing that fine line between parental guidance versus tyranny. It is about recognizing just how far you can control and determine your children's lives.
(2) Marital relationships are dissected. Just how much do you divide the responsibility of raising children between father and mother? How will the relationship between husband and wife affect the attitude and outlook of the kids living with them in the same home?
(3) Ambition is the core of the series. How do parents shape the determination and resolve of their children to fulfill their dreams Whose dreams are the kids running after? Are these their dreams or the ones brainwashed into their system by their parents as the offsprings' deliverable to qualify as a good child deserving of love?
(4) Being somebody better by reinventing one's self brings out bitterness and endless happiness if one refuses to accept the past as essential to the journey to one's future.
Sure. These themes may have been done a zillion times before but this is the first time we are given a glimpse of a completely different side of Korean culture.
This has got nothing to do pop music, chestnut haircuts or cutting edge SOKOR fashion statements for kids. Instead, we see a completely mature set of leads, representing four families with their children, comprised of molded-to-perfection professionals and wives with impeccable or noveau riche taste.
As a friend warned me, all the lead stars are forty-five years old and above because they are about parents and living the lifestyle of upper class suburbia. And that tickled my curiosity. Yes, I have seen this before in Desperate Housewives --- and that was snappy, bitchy and campy. But having savored Sky Castle I realized that the Asian variable is no different: this series is quite unlike the other Koreanovelas I have seen before. No, the age of the stars is not the ultimate measure to differentiate it from the field of possible comparisons.
The series refrains from being subtle, goes completely overboard with over-the-top acting, sensational plot twists and practically Walt Disney-like characterizations in order to celebrate the contrast between good and evil not only in emotional intensity but even in something as basic as designing the looks of the protagonists and antagonists.
My God! This series is high camp! It is an overwrought, buwis-buhay kind of drama in which characters perform their scenes of emotional highlight as if they were mainlining caffeine. And when the series takes a turn to be funny, you are brought to near slapstick where you have a noveau riche Jin Jin-hee ( Oh Na-ra ) garbed in a tight silver foil like dress with earrings scraping her shoulders and heels enough to damage your ankles as she wakes up her son for breakfast. Or there are all these catfight scenes between Han Seo-Jin ( Yum Jung-ah ) delivering the favorite line, " I will rip your jaws apart. " Grabe.
In other words, all the twists and turns of Sky Castle can range from the truly shocking to WTF ... but then again you realize after a while that you are not looking for some beautiful organic logic here. The series is about irony ... about how all these uptight mothers and fathers want their kids to enter the best university not because of the so-called future of their children but because kids are their prize trophies.
No wonder the series was such a hit in China because ... well, remember that book on Tiger Mommies who practically raise their kids with a bullwhip, following a Spartan regimen in studies and deliberately depriving their kids of childhood for the sake of their future? Here is a controversial exploration about the value of education as a badge for parents to flaunt their kids like prize horses on a stable.
But I must admit there were times I had to practice maximum self control not to throw the remote control stick at my tv screen because of my irritation for that oh-so-Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes mother Lee Soo-im ( Lee Tae-ran) whose character was meddlesome, sometimes an airhead with a blackbelt in Taekwondo ... and yearning for the Mother Theresa of Calcutta Living Saint Award. All that goodness was deliciously irritating as it was boring that you wished the evil and manipulative Han Seo-jin (Yum Jung-ah) would finally beat the living daylights out of her ... or better yet, rip her jaw.
Then there this dark as Maleficent academic coach named Kim Joo-Young ( Kim Seo-Hyung) who is cool, calculating, perfectly dressed in high-fashion black (while all the other wives and mothers look like models from a fall-winter collection of a defunct Neiman-Marcus catalog) and has enough evil in her person to qualify as an incubus, She is ... uh, deliciously and so camp in her bad that it is so good for indulgence.
And after asking myself why am I getting glued on this dramatic piece that has all the subtlety of an exclamation point, I finally realized why. This was damn guilty pleasure. You know you are overdosing on cheesiness but you just don't care because you're in for the ride.
Art, art ... leche!
Watching series like these is like feasting on a bowl of chicharon bulaklak. It tastes so good that you do not even think of the cholesterol.
Instead you think about just how good the Koreans have done it again in weaving together a very timely issue in a manner engrossing, entertaining and yes ... addicting.
Then I began to think further.
I know. Now is maybe not the best time to be thinking about such things while a number of my friends and co-workers are posting their pictures with fists over their hearts. But then still ... I kept on asking myself these questions:
(1) Here is one series that carried the narrative superbly from Episode 1 to 20 without any excruciatingly sweet lovey-dovey love team running after each other while smiling their toothpaste commercial smiles and looking so good on high speed. Instead we have actors in their mid to late forties, portraying complex yet entertaining and highly relatable characters for an audience to embrace. Why can't we do that here?
Why can't we entrust the Sharon Cunetas, ZsaZsa Padillas, Cherry Pie Picaches, Eula Valdeses, Dawn Zuluetas together with the Gabby Concepcions, Albert Martinezes, Richard Gomezes ... to be the leads rather than to be the parents of the more marketable love team where more of the same story goes around over and over again?
SKY CASTLE was about parents'relationships with children based on ambitions and expectations. Can't we do something as real and as true as that without having the usual habulan sa hardin ng mga rosas at hampasan ng mga lobo while the elders stand on the sides either laughing or crying?
(2) What makes SKY CASTLE really interesting for me is that its core theme is the value of education. It is how we tend to give it premium and sometimes forget that school is only the means and not the end. But still. For an entire drama series to deal with the hard work kids put in to earn grades to qualify into good universities, I am amazed. I am even impressed with the way a very important subject which is culturally rooted yet universal in appeal can be made so accessible to the audiences ... across the region and throughout the world.
SKY CASTLE is not only one of the top rating KDramas to grace the tv screens, nudged out recently by THE WORLD OF THE MARRIED.
So again, I ask myself: when will Filipino telenovela creatives feel the challenge to do something new ... and not be caught like the mouse of the wheel, running furiously at breakneck speed ... but still remaining in place?
There is this joke going around that one wishes that when he wakes up tomorrow morning that he will hear Christmas songs from Jose Mari Chan. That can only mean that 2020 is about to end. And everybody is wishing for that. This year has been a series of challenging surprises. It is not even midyear and we are already exhausted.
"Wala pang Hunyo quotang-quota na tayo." my businessman friend said. He has good reason. With a shutdown of almost two months, his two businesses have reached the point of bankruptcy. He is not sure if and when the quarantine is lifted that he can still carry on his restaurant and mall store.
Even Jack Ma allegedly said that 2020 is not the year of aspiring for profits. It is a time when what is important is survival. This year is teaching us to be strong ... and strong we must be if every day, every week we are given straight-to-the-solar-plexus punches that make us cringe in pain.
Just this week alone, people in media were shocked by the sudden closure of ABS-CBN. As we were about to gather our wits about to understand how that happened, another piece of heartbreaking news came flying our direction.
Peque Gallaga, the legendary director of Oro, Plata, Mata and other modern classics like Scorpio Nights, Unfaithful Wife, Magic Temple, Aswang and Tiyanak has left us at the age of 76.
A little after noon today, I received a text message from Manet Dayrit of Central Digital Lab to tell me that Peque was gone.
Just yesterday, I called up his son, Wanggo, who is a co-teacher at the Digital Film Program of the College of St Benilde. He merely said that his father was in the hospital and was suffering from a relapse due to ailments from the past. Last night, there was word that it was only a matter of time before Peque would leave. He has said his goodbyes to his family, resolved to the very end to exit from life according to his own terms and design.
I met Peque Gallaga through my friend, Don Escudero.
Don and I were classmates at De la Salle University from grade school through college. After college, he pursued his work as a freelance production designer which was how he met Gallaga. Peque started out as a PD and his most noteworthy works include Ishmael Bernal's City After Dark and Eddie Romero's Ganito Kami Noon, Papaano Kayo Ngayon? (with Laida Lim-Perez).
I had only written one full length screenplay ( Problem Child 1979 with Elwood Perez) before I left for the U.S. for my graduate school grant. When I came back, it was through Lily Monteverde that I was introduced to Lino Brocka to work on his film Caught in the Act (1981) and Marilou Diaz Abaya for Boys Town (1981), In other words I only had three screenplays under my belt when Don offered me to meet Peque.
Don said that Peque had a story he had always wanted to work on as his second directorial job. His first was entitled Binhi, co-directed with Butch Perez. But this narrative in his mind is closest to his heart. It was a story about the elite and privileged Negrenses, living in this bubble where manners, propriety and behavior were paramount. It was tale of survival --- as to how all the social rules are demolished when war diminishes man into the animal that he truly is and will become when pushed to the limits. It was a coming of age movie, a film about the brutal loss of innocence --- and a statement about Philippine society damaged beyond repair because of the Second World War.
I was stunned by the sheer magnitude of the project. I had the story --- he wanted to know if I wanted to do this, to give this my own treatment --- to capture the world of bored matronas playing mahjong in order to consume their waking hours. He wanted me to brutalize these people --- and turn them into mere survivors who were never the same after the trauma of the Japanese invasion.
To listen to Peque Gallaga is to absorb free-flowing lessons.
This mestizo de La Salle was not the cono kid that Teddy Boy Locsin mocked as a representation of the product of Christian Brothers. There are very few men I have met with such brilliance and not merely knowledge of facts --- someone who could talk about Baroque music and at the same time give you detailed instructions on how to pickle bell peppers in olive oil. Peque Gallaga was not a mere compendium of facts gathered together with the scope of an encyclopedia. He was first and foremost --- a teacher. And you listened to him.
In my life I have only met two such people: Peque ... and my late friend, Don. That was the reason why they hit it off so well despite the age difference of twelve years. They were both --- mental supernovas.
What can I say about that first adventure working with not only a director but a master of cinema who has not yet realized that he is a master? There I was, a neophyte writer, being asked to do an epic film which he casually branded as The Jungle Story.
He told me, "Joey, can you find a nicer title for this movie if it gets selected by the ECP (Experimental Cinema of the Philippines)?" I gave it some thought. And it so happened that my Mother was having our house repaired, fixing the stairway insure sturdiness of the banister. And each time she would be climbing up the stairs, I hear Mama say, "Oro Plata Mata." I gave it some thought and took the chance. We were at the living room of his apartment in New Manila with Wanggo, then about ...two years old? ... running around in diapers and talking his Sesame Street jibberish. I told Peque, "What about ORO, PLATA, MATA?"
Peque literally ... and I mean LITERALLY ... screamed. We had a title for our movie.
-- 000 ---
Decades passed. I went on writing and eventually directing my own movie.
And Peque Gallaga never ceased to amaze me as I watched him from the distance churning out all these visual feasts one after another.
The man who gave us Oro, Plata, Mata rocked Philippine cinema with Scorpio Nights, not only for its boldness and sense of daring but because of its innovation in treatment and design. Peque would soon be identified with the genre of horror with his various installments of Shake, Rattle and Roll as well as iconic movies like Tiyanak, Aswang and Hiwaga sa Balete Drive. As if that were not enough, Peque also delved into the world of fantasy, obsessed with creating his own mythology and Philippine folklore in works like Once Upon a Time and Magic Temple.
There was no telling, no pigeonholing in what Peque was capable of doing ... or the kind of movies he offered his audiences.
Yes, Gallaga was brilliant. There was no doubt about that. He, together with Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal and Marilou Abaya were rock stars as they were cinematic titans. Their mere presence, the opportunity of having conversations and discussions with them were life lessons and lectures about filmmaking and society which you can never find in books or classrooms. They were living and breathing film at that time so much so that they became the inspiration of the generation that followed.
But if there was one thing I learned from Maurice Gallaga, it was how to be a director.
Nowadays it is too easy to be called direk.
Technology has facilitated and fast tracked the craft of filmmaking so that all you need is your affordable video camera (even your phone), a couple of lights, a laptop with the right applications --- and you can make your movie You can be direk. But during our time, it took more than just skills and equipment to earn the honor of being called direk. For our generation, it was never a generic term.
Peque always taught us that we were a team. Film is collaboration. Direk is not omnipotent. Direk is not a god. Direk can only be as good as the people who work for him and his work can only be as effective as the faith his production staff has in him to lead the way. Peque instilled the respect for each and every worker on the set --- making them feel that they are responsible for the task given to them and that all can only work well if everyone did their best. Whether you are the camera man or the gaffer or the art director or the propsman or in charge of the carpentry repairs or the script continuity boy --- you are all vital to make this project work so you deserve the respect in your honorable job.
Precision and professionalism are things that Peque taught me and generations of young filmmakers ... because our job is not merely to deliver entertainment or even awe to the audience. The bigger job is to make it work in the most efficient manner possible.
--- 000 ---
A little after lunch today, I found out that Peque Gallaga had left us.
The last time I saw him was a three hour casual merienda in a condo he rented when he visited Manila.
We were reminiscing. We were laughing. We were talking about Oro, Plata, Mata ... and what the movies have become today. He wanted to know about my other world ... which was teaching. He wanted to know how I was inasmuch as I wanted to know what he was doing and how things were going.
We spent more than three hours making up for lost time but of course what was three hours to cover decades of being apart?
I did not realize until today that that was the last time I would see and talk to my friend --- the man who introduced me to Philippine cinema as the writer of his masterpiece.
I told another friend that I console myself with the thought that Gallaga is in a better place now.
I imagine that right before noon, he was met by my friend Don Escudero and maybe even his good friend Douglas Quijano --- and they all embraced (which is something we can no longer do) and started a conversation full of wit, intelligence, laughter, wisdom ... and they all of eternity to spend together. And all of heaven to keep them safe and far from pain and harm. I, together with so many others, are grieving, in pain and beginning to miss the master that he was. But knowing Peque, he is looking down at all of us, smiling that smile of his and saying: "Oh, come on!"
Almost two weeks have passed since I last made a blog entry.
Yes, I am still watching my Koreanovelas at night. Yes, my work has now been diminished into endless zoom meetings with colleagues from both the entertainment industry and educational institutions. Yes, I am writing screenplays which I am not sure if they will ever get produced and ... if so, when?
Yes, I am still hopeful yet doubtful that after the 15th of May the Enhanced Community Quarantine implemented in the National Capitol Region will be diminished to General Community Quarantine. This will allow greater mobility, permit the opening of certain businesses but retain safeguards for social distancing and human traffic and at least give a semblance of a push to set the economy rolling.
But still. These are not assurances enough. As I write this, there is doubt that the ECQ will be brought down to the GCQ ( now called the new normal ). Even if there have been so many plans laid out, I am still afraid and not convinced that we are ready to step out and work on the road to the designed norm. For one thing, the curve has not flattened. A whole lot of people are still getting sick --- and where the mass testing that was promised last April? I will not even go into that. The point is that people are still not convinced that it is safe to go out but there are some of us who have no choice but to do so because we need to work to earn our daily bread.
So with such a situation and after fifty-three days, you sort of cozy in on the normal that has been your life since the lockdown. You see no clear solution in sight, you cannot make any definite plans ... and you go along each Groundhog day pretending that the day after tomorrow you shall be able to go about the life you once had ... which you know you would not. But still the regularity prepares you for the pretense.
Then it happened.
After a day of zoom meetings, somebody sent a text message stating that ABS-CBN was closing down after its prime time newscast.
Of course everyone heard about the Cease and Desist Order of the National Telecommunications Commission directed to the Lopez network demanding that they stop operations because of the expiration of their franchise last 04 May. For a while I thought that was "transitionally settled. " I knew that the franchise had not passed Congress because ... uh, they never even brought it to the floor since the Speaker of the House said that there were more important matters to discuss rather than to nitpick the renewal of the franchise of the biggest TV network in the country. Oo nga naman, Sir Allan Peter. You are a busy man and the Lower House is a Busy house ... and the country's economy will not be affected even if you put an ungodly end to the life of Cardo Dalisay.
I thought there were assurances that because of the sudden lock down ... a catastrophe not exclusively occurring in our beautiful republic of an archipelago but all over the world ... the unresolved issues of franchises were given extensions until ... was that May of 2022? I mean, really can we focus on the renewal of a network's presence in the scheme of things when there is this virus without a cure, affecting more than ten thousand Filipinos and killing nearly seven hundred plaguing the country?
If there was a time we needed television most to access information, then now is that particular moment.
We want to be kept aware of what is not only happening here but all over the world as far as the pandemic is concerned. We want to know how the plans for the mass testing are taking place, whatever happened to the isolation wards built in Rizal Memorial Coliseum, the World Trade Center and the PICC or even who are the local and national government officials who are deserving of our admiration simply because they are doing their jobs.
OK, I will admit. I am not much of a commercial TV watcher for the past so many years. But then, it took me self-imposed house arrest to complete a Koreanovela, right? But any which way, ABS-CBN and GMA7 were still the staple dishes in my TV menu especially in updating myself with local and national news.
There was no warning whatsoever when the NTC demanded that ABS-CBN shut down their commercial broadcasting. That included free tv as well as their radio broadcasts all over the country. (The shut down did not include their cable channel because the operation of cable and digital platforms are outside the area of contention leading to this controversy. So when certain people go completely rabid when they see ANC still working ... or even iWant still streaming, uh ... cable and digital streaming platforms po yon. Chill lang muna bago magpaka-high blood. Unawain ang situation.)
Then last night somebody told me that ABS-CBN was shutting down. It was to comply with the demands of the NTC.
For a while I was shocked. Then I took in a deep breath and let it all seep in. I was not sure if this was for real because I knew that despite the months of controversy, of all that argumentation in social media about the guilt of a network with allegations of malpractice, I never imagined that in my lifetime I will see ABS-CBN shut down again.
The first time that happened was when I was in first year college.
I remember that moment because it was that bleak and violent September that Martial Law was declared and the Lopez network was shut down and ceased.
But even more than that, I was shaken because ... man, I was there. I was right there at that moment in 1986 when we gave back the studios in Mother Ignacia Avenue to the Lopezes after it was converted as the People's TV Network during the Marcos Regime. What really hit me was that I and my best friend, Manny Castaneda, were on our way to EDSA but was asked by Johnny and Tats Manahan to proceed to PTV4. This was because the rebel soldiers already ceased the TV network and they needed people to help man the tv station and monitor the turn of events in those fateful days of February.
Manny and I would reminisce about this again and again. We spent the entire People Power revolution inside a studio of ABS-CBN with towels hanging from our necks (in case they threw tear gas inside the premises go flush us out) and having the time of our lives knowing we were living through a point in history which will be told and retold in the understanding of our nation. Together with Joanna Santos-Gomez, Mariole Alberto, Leo Katigbak ... and so many others ... we were together at that precise moment when we got word that the Marcoses have already left via helicopter from Malacanang and that the station will be returned to its rightful owners after fourteen years.
We were at the extended rooftop of the main entrance of the studio facing Mother Ignacia singing Bayan Ko led by Jim, Boboy and Danny when we announced to the crowds aside that we were finally free.
We were at ABS-CBN.
I also remember the years that followed as there was an effort to rebuild the station into what it was before Martial Law came in.
I do not know his name but he was one of the Lopezes: I was with the late Patsy Monzon about two days after the Marcos departure and she pointed out a man in a white short sleeved shirt, tucked in conservative pants and leather shoes sweeping the floor of the studio, "He is one of the Lopezes, " Patsy told me. I may have forgotten the name she mentioned but I looked at this weary middle-aged man with a dilapidated broom, cleaning the floor of the studio ... as if he were the owner who has finally returned home and wanted to bring some semblance of order in the chaos that remained.
I was with ABS-CBN for twenty-seven years.
When the Lopezes reclaimed the network, the audience had changed. This was not the same television viewers who were the diehard fans of the shows of the early 1970s. More than a decade had come to pass and a completely different generation of televiewers were now glued to Iskul Bukol, Chika Chika Chicks, Bad Bananas, Eh, Kasi Babae. With Johnny Manahan, the late Douglas Quijano, Boyong Bayteon and so many others, we all marched in and put up the first shows of what was then branded as The Star Network.
That is why any reference to ABS-CBN would bring me not to the shows they have now --- but to those we built from scratch to help give life and yes, resurrect the network.
Our first shows were Let's Get Crazy (with Maricel Soriano and Joey de Leon), Tonight with Dick and Carmi ( with Roderick Paulate and Carmi Martin). Then came the first of the signature shows of ABS-CBN, Palibhasa Lalake (with Richard Gomez, the newcomer Joey Marquez --- and the late Miguel Rodriguez with a shy little girl named Carmina Villarroel fresh from her hamburger commercial, the ever insane Cynthia Patag, this reserved beautiful lass from the Padilla clan named Amy Perez and the icon Gloria Romero as the booze crazy Minerva Chavez).
About two years later, Freddie Garcia wanted a show to the tradition of Kuwentong Barbero. I remember that show clear in my senior citizen's memory as clear as it was when I was Grade Six when Ferdinand Marcos was about to be elected as the president of our country. A hard hitting satire starring the comedians Casmot and Matimtiman Cruz, written by Narciso Pimentel was one of the best television shows in that Golden Age. And I was doing somersaults when Johnny and Mr. Garcia asked me to write this show. This became Abangan ang Susunod na Kabanata.
I practically spent a substantial number of years of my prime in ABS-CBN.
The Production Assistants I worked with when we were picking up the pieces became associate producers, executive producers and soon business unit heads, managers, vice-presidents.
Some became head writers, creative managers, tv directors ... climbing up that corporate ladder, watching them start with Converse rubber shoes and eventually wearing pricey Jimmy Choos or carrying authentic Longchamp totes or LV or Prada backpacks. I was there to see them grow: from nervous interns to accomplished producers calling the shots and making productions work in the most cost-efficient manner possible.
I was given a gold bracelet to celebrate my twenty-seven years in ABS-CBN.
But the years were not perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect work place. It has got nothing to do and yet everything to do with the personal investment you give to the people you work with day in and day out. There will always be arguments. There will always be disagreements. Yet you savor the experience because you work with people like Mr. M ... or you make wonderful friends with P.A. named Laurenti Dyogi who worked in Tatak Pilipino and who you knew would one day be somebody in this set-up. You develop bonds of friendship with those who become so much a part of your life that outside the studio is where they become friends or even family.
I have not worked with ABS-CBN for more than ... what? Five, six, seven years? I would pass by and see how the network has grown from that single long corridor where Charo, Cory Valenzuela (not yet Vidanes), Joanna Gomez (not yet Santos), Leng Raymundo ... where they all had their offices in front of three giant studios where we taped all the shows.
Now I would need a Visitor's ID to enter the studio where once we spent hours on end formulating and mounting the shows. But that is the way it is. Or was. I only kept telling myself that even if the younger generation did not know me ... or the work I have done for the network ... or that they have never heard of Abangan or Palibhasa, I was assured of being part of the history of the network.
So last night when ABS-CBN shut down because of the demands of the NTC due to the non-renewal of franchise, I was immobilized for a few seconds. Hearing news anchors say goodbye gave me a painful flashback to that day when I was in first year college when ABS-CBN became a dark screen cut off from its audience.
I found myself crying quietly.
I never thought I would see the day when ABS-CBN would be ripped from the airwaves again.
We fought to bring it back to the people but circumstances have led to its closure once again. It was painful because there are too many memories embedded in that network I deliberately distanced for all these years because there was pain the last time I walked out of the studios.
But it is not just about the network ... it is about the people in there. And the memories. Those things can never be erased, purchased or exchanged. It is about all these creative partners who challenged you to do work, push yourself to the best and help shape the vision of your nation. It is about ABS-CBN carrying the narrative of the Filipinos --- inasmuch as GMA7 also carries its own stories and put together define who we are at any given point in our history.
Some know-it-all in social media said, "Stop being overdramatic. There are so many news channels to get your info. There is GMA7. Nobody is above the law."
I am not in a position to assess the guilt or innocence of the network. I will not even go into the territory of politicizing this event. I am just trying to figure out what happened ... and speculating on what can become.
What people may not realize is that it is not to the advantage of GMA7 that ABS-CBN has been pulled off the air. I can imagine the pressure left on the shoulders of people working in that equally stressful situation at the height of a pandemic. Without the rivalry, the rules of the game are redefined and a lot of rethinking will be needed.
In these days of uncertainty, this had to happen. Suddenly the regularity of days have been violated and the need to adapt to change is there again.
It will be hard to imagine Philippine popular culture without ABS-CBN.
It is/was not a perfect company ... but it carried the narrative that defined us as Filipinos. Maybe one day we will see those tri-color concentric circles again. But who knows?
In days such as these where certainty is elusive ... who knows?
