DEAR POBLACION GIRL: AN OPEN LETTER

 01 January 2022

Dear Poblacion Girl:

We would have wanted a happier new year but hours before 2021 ended, the government announced that we are back to Level 3 alert because of the dangerous spike of the number of COVID19 cases in the country in a single day.

It is apparent now. The Omicron variant has come to town like a going-away present of the passing year.  Just when we thought that we were slowly (and hopefully surely) easing back to a kind of comfortable normal, here comes another possible surge.  And it is not going to be just another surge, Girl ... this is the most volatile and dangerous because the variant now plaguing the world boasts of the greatest transmissibility.

You know what? I feel bad for you.  Really.  Why? Because you have become the face of Omicron.  What was merely an imaginary micro ball of protein spikes has found a face, a name.  And it is all because you wanted to party and skip your quarantine. Because you had connections.

I feel bad because you are being blamed for the resurgence of cases --- as well as being branded as the Mothership of Omicron.  You have practically been crowned Miss Omicron Philippines 2021  --- which is funny but unfair.  It is impossible that these massive infections could have come from you and you alone.  I mean, if you can pay off your quaantine requirements because you have connections I can imagine that others are doing it as well.

After gallavanting in the U.S. for a vacation, it would not have really been living hell to be locked up in a comfortable hotel room making sure that you did not bring home the virus together with your other imported goodies, right?  But you know what, Girl? I understand.

If you were right there in the heart of rocking Makati, it must have sheer torture to know that your squad was just a few blocks away gulping down their Jack Daniels and Absoluts singing Jingle Bells. It must have been intolerable to think that they are having fun together while you were confined in so many square meters of industrial carpeted room service operated prison.

If only you realized the possible consequences of your actions and stopped thinking of some temporary pleasure just because you had connections, then maybe all these would not have happened.  According to accounts, you have succeeded in infecting a substantial number of your friends ( you can have a recount after all have recovered to see how many of them would still want having you around) as well as the staff of the bar where you decided to boogie.

You can also start using your College of Business mathematics to estimate the exponential number of infections generated by your simple act of misbehavior.

These friends went to their Christmas Eve and Christmas Day family reunions, presumably asymptomatic thereby opening the possibility of infection of all their family members as well as friends.  For about four days these people have gone around not knowing that they may be spreading the virus --- endangering those with co-morbidities or senior members. And, yes, Girl ... even the children because Omicron is vicious with unvaccinated kids.

I am trying to understand what you did because you thought it was just another kakiyan to party with your friends. I am trying to find any validation of the sheer irresponsibility of your act, its somewhat vulgar implications because you told your peers that you got out of quarantine because you had connections. Proud ka pa, Girl?

Now look at what you are being blamed for --- even though it is unfair to point the finger only at you. Marami kayong ganyan pero ikaw ang umangkin ng korona at sash to represent that entire barangay of people who can get away with what they want including the violation of very important protocols just because you had connections.

In fairness to the Department of Health and the Department of Tourism, great effort has been placed to contain the Omicron from entering our shores.  But it is the connected people like you, Girl ... and these more guilty individuals and institutions who enable people like you who should be answerable to the laws of the land.

Because of the possibility of a surge, everything falls two steps back again.

Plans for hybrid classes may be postponed ... again because of the highest transmissibility of the variant. Restaurants, recreation venues and cinemas are cut back to 30% occupancy and the NCR --- which has already been a safe bubble because of the high degree of vaccination --- has deteriorated into another potential danger zone.

Just when the economy is slowly picking up ... this had to happen all over again.

All because you just had to party that night. Just because you had connections. All because there are others like you who do not take the protocols seriously ... and only think of yourselves and the momentary pleasures that provoke reckless decisions.  All because there are other persons, businesses and institutions that allow such recklessness, corruption and irresponsibility to take place with a corresponding amount of money or delicious favors.

Regardless of how hard the government tries --- or how much work our health workers yield, it is people like you who just ... uh, screw up everything because you don't give a f--k.

I feel bad for you because this stigma will stick to your name for the rest of your life. You will always be the face of a virus.

I feel bad for your parents because they too must carry the burden of being accountable for some decisions you made which they were not aware nor could be held responsible.

I feel bad for your friends (some of who are the children of my students in the University long ago) because they will carry the guilt of exposing their friends and family members to the virus just because they happen to be your friends.

I feel bad because I wish you had ... in your heart of hearts ... embodied the values that the University wanted to impart to all its students and graduates:  the importance of social responsibility and thinking beyond one's impulsive needs to care for the welfare of others.

I feel bad for you, Girl. But you --- together with your enablers --- must face the consequences of the law of this land.

Happy New Year.

JoeyR

THE YEAR THAT CAME TO PASS

 In two hours it will be 2022.

I feel that two years of my life have been stolen.  Two years in various degrees of quarantine and lockdown so much so that it has practically become a way of life.  Humans adapt to circumstances and events, givens and variables --- and before you know, you have changed not only in the way you dress, the way you interact with people but more so the way you think and live your life.

I hoped that 2021 will be better than 2020.  Nope, it was worse.  Just when you thought it was going to get better, you find yourself like a hamster running around in a wheel. Just when your paranoia is slowly diminishing, somebody drops a bomb that makes you feel more afraid than ever. And what is worse is that you are getting used to it.

So what has the two years done to me?  Let me count the ways.  Let me jot down all these ideas and realizations as we bid goodbye to 2021 with hopes that 2022 will be kinder ... and more productive.

(1) I have been in so many zoom meetings that I now think of people as talking heads in boxes.  I have just come to realize that for most of the days, I talk to people while seated behind my computer dressed decently only from waist up. Now you think of human interaction as a gallery view or speaker view and you really miss out sitting around a table with real human beings seated across you.

(2) Online stores have replaced the joys of retail therapy. Nowadays Add to Cart is the new panacea. There were days in the distant Old Normal when you decide to stay home to avoid spending  money on unnecessary goods that you will later regret after unpacking from the shopping bag.  Now even sitting behind a computer is dangerous: I surmise that Lazada, Shoppee, Skein, Zalora and NewChic has claimed a substantial part of my Work From Home earnings.  To think online purchases used to be limited to Amazon.Com buys ... but has now become the way to shop.

(3) Online Banking and GCash have spared me the excuse to go out and get cash. Well, this is both good ... and bad.  Online banking spares you of the traffic, the face mask, the (relic called) face shield and all the other anti-virus armor you carry to conduct the simplest business.  But then access to online banking and GCash can also be an unrelenting part of the temptation to go online shopping and enjoy the hidden treasures of Facebook Market. The fact that you only need a passcode to pay up for things you want to buy makes the temptation to purchase almost addictive.

(4) How could we have lived without Grab, Lala and Mr Speedy? Yes, it is cheaper to spend two hundred pesos than to brave Manila traffic and waste money on gasoline.  I would rather depend on the kindness and efficiency of Kuya Biker to deliver goods from me and to me but then again dealing with these men can be an entire blog all by itself.  Pagpasensiyahan mo na when Kuya calls you up and asks for directions on how to get to your house.  That can be quite a problem when you live in Alabang and Kuya is coming all the way from Santa Maria, Bulacan carrying a pot of hybrid gumamela to satisfy your plantito self which leads me to ...

(5) House arrest can make you discover things about yourself which you never imagined before March 2020.   I remember asking God in January 2020 to give me just one to two weeks of respite --- the kind that will not require you to get out of the house while you thaw from brain freeze and seek the comfortable silence in solitude. God answers prayers indeed but he can go a bit too much.  I asked for fourteen days ... not two years.  And being locked up in my house, I discovered the joys of caladiums, monsteras, mayanas, elephant ears, hibiscus and succulents. I would also spend endless hours taking online short courses in Domestika that involve drawing and design --- which I gave up years ago when I opted to pound keyboards rather than draw with pastels and aquarelles. I mean ... would I have done these if I were still living that frenetic pre-March 2020 life?

(6) I realize that there will be an entire batch of graduating students who I have never seen in person.  Let it be said once and for all that online classes are a bitch. Students take time to get into it --- some downright hate it --- and teachers are not exactly doing cartwheels preparing modules or spending hours talking to a monitor while making sure that the kids have not gone comatose on the other side.  But it is sad, really ... oh, so sad ... because I believe that 40% of the joy of teaching and learning involves the interaction of humans sharing ideas in a common real time experience and not a virtual reality.  And, yes, there is this batch of COMARTS majors who will step into the real world after their virtual graduation ... who I have spent terms teaching and interacting but who have never seen me in the flesh.  That I believe is so sad if not tragic.

(7) You may be locked up at home but you have broadened your world.  One thing that this pandemic brought me is a wider range of vision and perception of human existence.  Damn irony there.  The more you are confined, the more chances you have to savour a much bigger and diverse world.  Yes, I succumbed to the magic of hallyu, suddenly consuming everything Korean and learning to appreciate not only their culture but how they are now conquering the world.  I have started reading fiction from contemporary Asian writers --- mostly Japanese and Korean ---which I would never have devoured with as much gusto before.  And yes all these streaming platforms have literally opened the floodgates for movies and video pieces that would have fallen off my radar if I were too busy.  So you thank Netflix, Viu, HBOMax, AppleTV, Amazon Prime, Gaia, DiscoveryPlus , Upstream, KTX and Vivamax because the menus offered on your table are not enough to consume for a lifetime.

So did I actually lose two years of my life because of the pandemic?  Yes and no.

Yes, I have lost two years of my old life but then no.  No, because by accepting that the Old Normal is no more and that the New Normal is NORMAL I was able to go beyond making do ... and reinventing myself for making the most.

2022 is promising ... or could have been more promising if not for Omicron and Poblacion Girl who represented everything wrong about the people and not the virus.  I had hoped that by the opening of the new year things would have eased out and we could have gone closer to what we knew as life before.  Apparently not.  But whatever.  2021 is done and 2022 will, should and must be better. 

It is all a matter of the way you look at it.

Happy New Year.

MMFF 2021: THREE TO WATCH

 I have seen all the eight entries of this year's MetroManila Filmfest as (again) I sat as one of the jurors together with National Artist Virgilio Almario, editor and post-production head Manet Dayrit, musical director Nonong Buencamino, the iconic Ricky Lee, actress Cherry Pie Picache, Rachel Arenas, MMFF Spokesperson,  Noel Ferrer and Senator Christopher Go (represented by CHED Chairman Popoy De Vera.)

For two Fridays the jurors sat through four films per session.  However I cannot publish this until after the Awards Night on the 27th of December since the group mentioned above has not yet sat around a table to deliberate on the winners.  At this point (as I write this), I am not allowed to discuss whatever choices I have picked but while the films are fresh in my mind, let me jot this down.

There are three must-watch films.  They are not your usual pang-Festival films which mean a lot of kilig-kilig, tawa-tawa and frou-frou. That statement was not meant to be demeaning: admittedly the MMFF is a commercial fiesta --- and the most successful films (box office wise) are not the ones most likely to excite the members of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino or your favorite mataray film critic armed with a thesaurus.

There are disappointments in the offerings this year --- but then again, a jury of so many people do not and cannot dictate what the people should or would want.  There are films as there are movies --- and they do not cancel each other.  Some people want to be intellectually stimulated while others want pure entertainment.  They both pay for the same price of the movie ticket --- so they both have the same rights to demand what they want from their two hour escape from reality.

What I have to offer is my opinion --- because I feel that these works deserve a much larger audience than what the other more commercial ones can possibly generate. Sayang if these films do not get the affirmation from the Christmas crowd simply because they have chosen to make statements rather than service popular taste.

A Hard Day (directed by Law Fajardo) is a well-crafted film that packs suspense, boasts of excellent cinematography, editing, sound, music and design added to the exceptional performance of its lead actor, Dingdong Dantes.

The movie is tight, the narrative is clear cut and the performances delivered by the supports enhance rather than diminish the quality of the output.  It did not bastardize nor compromise the original 2014 South Korean film that it remade directed by Kim Seong-Hun and starring Lee Sun Gyun.

If there is anything to be held against this movie, then it is its very asset. It is, after all, a remake of another movie --- and just how much of the Filipino version can be attributed as original and not merely templated.  But that sort of argument is moot and academic: it is a remake, right? And this an excellently crafted one that deserves credit.

Kun Maupay It Panahon ( Whether the Weather is Fine, directed by Carlo Francisco Manatad) is a feat of a first feature film by an editor-turned-director.

Warning: this is not your Pamasko movie.  The entire narrative is based on the personal experience of the director when he returned to his hometown in Tacloban right after the devastation brought by the super typhoon Yolanda.

In what looked like a dystopian universe, the Tacloban recreated here is a marvel of design by Whammy Alcazaren brought to even more chilling levels by the camera work of Singaporean cinematographer Teck Siang Lim.  The movie is a painful slow burn, tracing the remnants of the lives of a young man, Miguel (Daniel Padilla) and his mother Norma (Charo Santos-Concio) as well as his girlfriend Andrea (Rans Rifol).  

The entire film is in Waray, the language of Tacloban --- and moves to the level of surrealism as the survival instincts of the victims reshape their very nature and humanity.  The ladies in the film deliver heartbreaking performances but it is Daniel Padilla who you wish will be given far better, meatier, challenging and edgy roles that would test his mettle as an actor.  Padilla is so good and could even be better if studios make him graduate from matinee idol to real artist in the challenges they give him in projects.  

The popular audience may not see this as the kind of film they want to experience in the Jingle Bells season but it still demands attention and consideration for its sheer scope, ambition and statement.

Jun Robles Lana has a way of surprising his audiences with his film outputs.

Whereas his campy/dramatic Die Beautiful married both commercial and critical success, his evolution as a filmmaker brought him to Khalel 15 and now one of his best works, Big Night.

Again, this is not your Pamasko movie to go hand in hand with your hamon de bola or even Eddam cheese. What Lana offers is a cinematic picaresque tracing the overnight adventures of a small time beautician named Dharna (with an H) wonderfully --- nay, exceptionally portrayed by Christian Bables.  This movie, despite its seeming simplicity, is loaded with such statements that you end up thinking about the film after the screening and wanting to discuss its aspects with people who have shared your experience.

The journey of Dharna is a glimpse into the microcosm of Philippine society in the here and now, present progressive, woven together by the absurdity of Pinoy politics and governance. What is impressive about Lana's work is that it never went in your face nor made the apparent obvious because the material made you think then reflect on the mess that we live in.

Over and above the excellent cinematography, music, sound and editing, it is the performances of the chorus of a supporting cast that makes this film one of the best of the year.  Eugene Domingo, Janice de Belen, John Arcilla and Nico Antonio bring together a beautiful symphony of naturalistic renditions of their role further emphasizing the social statements given by the film.

So is it worth the risk of going to a cinema to watch a film? 

These are three very good reasons to do so.  If only to affirm the bravery and effort of the filmmakers who put these three films together, then please do so.

Somehow A Hard Day, Kun Maupay and Big Night justify why there are still very valid reasons why the MetroManila Film Festival should keep on going.

THE SECOND PANDEMIC CHRISTMAS

 Honestly I miss suffering from a major LSS of Joe Mari Chan's Christmas melodies.

In less than a week it will be Christmas.  We Filipinos take this really seriously for as early as September we are all excited to don our gay apparels and go fa-la-la-la.  But not this year.  Even lesser than last.  Understandably so.  We are about to enter the second year of the pandemic --- and keeping us apart has been a standard for making sure we all get to outlive the threat of the virus.

And ever since we have been pulled down to Alert Level 2, malls have come back to life (with whatever shops that have not shut down their businesses).  Restaurants are jampacked as if people have been let loose and are craving for anything but home cooked meals ... or those delivered by Grab or Lala Moves.  Kids are scampering all over activity areas and open spaces --- signifying to an attempt to impersonate the Old Normal except that we are still wearing masks and still threatened by the dreaded Omicron.

So why is it that I still do not have the jittery, happy feeling that Christmas is just around the corner as the world celebrates love and sharing? 

Some say that age has got something to do with the attitude you have about the Yuletide season. As you grow older, the thrill diminishes ... because instead of anticipating the gifts you are about to receive, you worry about the gifts you have to give.  It is harder to put to your mind that, hey ... you do not have to do so but you are pressured by tradition and expectations.  Worse, you hate that Filipino brazenness ( hopefully not impropriety) when somebody not necessarily that close to you asks, "Huy, ha? Yung Pamasko ko, ha?"

Well, I am still trying to feel that it's Christmas.  Why am I not hearing Joe Mari Chan's songs?  Or even Kumukutikutitap?

As early as mid-November, I had my house all dolled up for the holidays.  

I have checked my Christmas list and made plans for a post-Christmas dinner with my closest friends here at home ... and yet, despite all this, it still does not feel like it's that time of the year. I look at the street where I live and there is a dearth of Christmas lights ... as if everybody is thinking more of Meralco than Santa Claus.

Yes, it must be the pandemic.  

Or this surreal atmosphere brought by toxic Philippine politics. 

And then came the winds of Odette with all the devastation left in the islands of Central Visayas --- practically levelling down the haven that was Siargao.

And this is less than a week before Christmas as I feel so saddened by the devastation nature has left on our people making one question if merriment has become inappropriate at a time such as this. I heard about the damage done to Bohol and I wonder how the affected families will spend the next two weeks meant for celebration ... quiet or otherwise.

But then again, how do you put these things in a much larger context?  Yes, somebody will mutter that oh-so-overused phrase Christmas is in the Heart  ... and you try to understand what that means considering what surrounds you.

Well, the least we can do is be grateful that we are still here ... and that we are surviving. 

That we are resilient.  But again, as somebody posted in social media, "It is already exhausting to be resilient."  We must carry on ... learn from all this to justify why we are still alive in the here and now.

We must really mean it when we say Merry Christmas.  We must still find happiness regardless of whatever state we are in because we need the strength and determination to move on.  That can only come when we still have aspirations for a better whatever.

Yes, I am wrong.  Christmas has got nothing to do with annual obligations.  

This season is all about the humanity in our beings as we find an opportunity to express our love and gratitude regardless of the god we  give our prayers.

It is about moving on, determined that the new year that lies ahead will be better and more fulfilling than the one we have just lived through.

MMFF 2021: WILL WE BE BRAVE ENOUGH TO GO BACK TO THE THEATERS TO SEE OUR MOVIES?

 The MetroManila Filmfest (MMFF) has always been the crowning glory in terms of box office returns for Filipino movies.  By law, during the span of the Christmas week ... all the way to the New Year, only local movies are allowed screenings in the movie houses covering the domain of Metro Manila.

But the nearly two years of the pandemic has changed all that.  Yes, we will still have the MMFF mounted this year despite the fact that the poor attendance of moviegoing in cinemas has proven the exercise to be highly unprofitable.  In a mall of so many screening outlets, an average of only one hundred people bought tickets and watched movies throughout an entire day.  And that is not even enough to cover for the cost of turning on the air conditioning.  

Moreover, after twenty months of closure equipment of the moviehouses are now conking out because of a stretch of unuse.  Those who are brave enough to march to cinemas to buy tickets end up screaming in both anger and frustration as images hang or machines completely conk out in the middle of watching movies.

The truth is that the pandemic has changed so many aspects in what we perceived as our daily lives pre-COVID19.  Because of the cost of  tickets plus the additional expenditures of food, transportation, blah, blah, blah each time you go out of the house to catch a movie, people have found a different comfort zone in streaming platforms ... or even YouTube.  The pandemic has also pushed us into that: why bother going out of the house to catch a flick when you can easily stay in your bedroom with your most comfortable house pambahay and not worry about the traffic?

Yes, it will require a lot of convincing for people to see a movie back in the cinema houses.  It only took such a relatively short span of time for the mindset of people to change. Now going out of the house to do anything is a major production number (complete with protocols and precautions) so that more often than not --- it does not feel like it is worth the trouble or the effort.

But in the same way we choose comfort, we also have surrendered the real experience of watching a movie.

What a difference it made to see Chloe Zhao's Nomadland on the big screen as compared to your computer monitor regardless of size and technological wizardry.  Can you possibly fully appreciate any of the Marvel or DC summer epics or Steven Spielberg's reinterpretation of West Side Story in any smaller screen than that of a movie house complete with Dolby sound and all its embellishments?  

Can comfort really replace the experience of watching a film in a totally blacked out movie house knowing that there are other people forming a community and sharing ... yes, a communal experience of embracing a narrative of sound and sight?

I think not.  But nowadays, the bottom line is It better be worth it. 

It is not only the cost of the ticket at stake here ... but the dangers of health that one can be so paranoid about in a world that has not yet purged itself of the killer virus.

Now can the MMFF lure back the Filipino audiences to the movie houses?

This is quite a tall order --- but, as somebody in the organizing committee said, "If we don't go back to the cinemas now ... then when?"  There is a need to create a demand for people to return to the real cinematic experience rather than just be blase with the comfort of streaming platforms.  Now it is a matter of asking if the movies of the festival are good enough, strong enough to convince the audiences to accept the fact that this Christmas, we will try to bring back as much of the old normal possible ... or as we remember it.

So now we ask, "O, ano? Manonood ka ba?"