I hate Bakekang

Hell is paved with good intentions, so goes the ancient English proverb, and this "teleserye" on GMA7 is no different.

Caparas's original Bakekang was a figure straight out of Greek tragedy. From what I understand of the character, Bakekang is a character filled with the hubris of vengeance. In that story, Bakekang defines herself by her ugliness to such an extent that she becomes unable to escape her condition. Even though she was once beautiful and kind on the inside, she becomes consumed by her desire for revenge. In the end, she loses all that is dear to her - her daughter. In her grief and despair, she commits suicide, hoping that in that final coup de grace, she may find her redemption. The moral of the story was if that you stop thinking of yourself as a victim, you won't be.

Pa-victim! Pa-victim!

For all of Carlo J. Caparas's many crimes against popular culture, this may have been his one mitigating circumstance - behind the lengthy, winding dialogue (a failing of many Philippine komiks and screen writers) - lies this gem of a story.

In this re-imagining of Bakekang, the tragedy that is Bakekang just got thrown under the bus by viewer demand. First of all, there is absolutely no viewer demand to see those two children playing the child versions of Kristal, Charming, and Lorraine. According to the Wikipedia site on Bakekang, the series was extended to accommodate these "child stars". Any "demand" so claimed by GMA7 must be due to production delays or *gasp* a flaw in the focus group. I have no idea why people would watch two young girls sing for thirty minutes when they can't sing. By can't sing I mean those poor kids couldn't find the right note if it hit them in the face. Why didn't GMA7 just overdub their parts with songs by children who actually can sing? I thought this was television! If it weren't for the inherent sucker in my wife, we'd have switched channels long ago. This is terrible.

Second, I have no idea whether she is tired from the production schedule, but Sunshine Dizon is worse than a block of bricks at times. Perhaps it's because she has no experience being ugly. Ugly people are people and not statues that happen to have speaking lines. On the other hand, Manilyn Reynes and Sheryl Cruz are absolutely wonderful! All those years of experience working under different directors are now finally bearing fruit. Remember how Cherie Pie Picache underwent an acting renaissance several years back (because she was able to refine her craft)? It's the same feeling I get when watching these two at work.

You know how you look thin when you sit beside a fat person? The same thing applies here. Please don't tell me that the director made Sunshine Dizon act so dead, because Bakekang is one of the most hysterical characters in Philippine fiction. Sunshine looks like she's about to burst laughing at her lines at any time. Couldn't they have gotten Harlene Bautista for the job? Where are your seasoned veterans when you need them?

I have the answer, they're playing bit roles so as to let the stars the network wants to promote look real stupid. Who said that showbiz was something logical?

Finally, the whole symmetry and beauty of the Bakekang story is ruined by its conversion into a teleserye. I understand the commercial demand to showcase as many stars as possible, but I honestly believe that promoting these stars at the expense of story quality is in the long run detrimental to the industry. One need look only at the wild popularity of Korean miniseries (on which these new shows are patterned) and their clean lines. I'm sure that a production that is cleaner (better structure in plot and character) and better defined will make more money, post-dubbing, than one that simply caters to market demand at the moment because of the ratings war.

I've got news to the networks: THE BIGGER MONEY IS ELSEWHERE!

So, since I'm stuck with watching Bakekang (my wife is inexplicably hooked, waiting for something good to come up), I've decided to boycott all products placing ads on the show. No to Bakekang-sponsoring companies, and I'm bringing my friends with me!! That way, no matter what the ratings are, hopefully these companies get the point.

I hope my boycott doesn't last any much longer though, because there are some good companies I have to boycott, like Rejoice Fruity Smooth with Apple and Papaya extracts, Ponds Detox Spotless White Cream (black is not necessarily ugly - look at Wilma Doesnt), Milo (ouch!), Jollibee (there goes my lunch budget), Rexona (you finally let me down), Earth and Sky Lemon Iced Tea, and Cloud 9, Touch Mobile (stop wasting Ayala money on that show), Tide (use SM Bonus Detergent! it's the same anyway), Lactum (my baby uses Enfapro - if Lactum use makes my child appreciate this Bakekang, it's not giving my child 100% nourishment - maybe it's only around 10% nourishment), and Cream Silk (all these Unilever products - someone shoot their brand managers).

In the meantime, I think I'll take dinner when Bakekang's on and wait for that Korean novella that comes right after. I can't take being a victim anymore.

My self-esteem is fine, f*ck you very much.

(originally on bleedingtodeath, sometime 2002)

Never apologize.

That’s a rule I learned from some marketing seminar I took while I was a bug-eyed college student. I guess for someone who’s been apologizing his entire life it was a big deal: you mean you can be freed from responsibility by just denying it when the shit hits the fan? What a concept.

I can’t really say it’s served me well. I still find myself groveling at the feet of those whom I feel I’ve offended in some way. Take my girlfriend, for example. Guilt has a strong way of making you lose self respect.

I guess that’s why some people don’t bother with guilt or make sure they’re not in a position to feel any.

I’ve now come to the realization (yes, just now, as I write this) that all of our relationships in life, when reduced to its basic parts, are nothing but negotiation and renegotiation. You try to find the upper hand and exploit it for all its worth. When that’s done, you find yet more leverage to make the someone else do your bidding. It’s a selfish way of looking at things, sure, but at least it manipulates people without them really knowing it.

For example, you can be kind to a “friend”. Gratitude is a great way to induce guilt, especially if the person really needs something you have. It doesn’t need to have monetary value. The person might just need to waste your time. As long as it’s something you have that he doesn’t, it’s enough to get you ahead.

My girlfriend once told me that women were better at this than men. Women, she reasoned out, weren’t dense enough to know that they’re being screwed real bad behind their backs. Mothers do it all the time to their daughters, she explained. Girlfriends do it to their boyfriends, they just don’t know it’s being done.

“Take a look at you, for example,” she said while guzzling my beer. “You’re nothng but a bum.”
“So?”
“So it means that you’re an ungrateful sonofabitch. Your mother pays for everything and you do nothing. You don’t pull your own weight.”
“So?”
“So it gives her more reason to say that you’re nothing but a mama’s boy, dependent on mama for everything.”
“And?”
“You’ll never amount to anything. I’m leaving you.”

Ouch. At this point I start groveling, which never works, so I cry and promise to get her the complete set of Ringu videos she’s been dying to watch since forever.

“We’ll see,” she says, and the cycle continues.

I want a PS3.

Master Swordsman

My friend Cliff has one of those newfangled lightsabers that are darned near indestructible compared to those slide out ones. They also look cooler in photos than they actually should. Of course, this light saber costs around ten times more than those old el cheapo ones that fit over those red Eveready flashlights.

Check out how straight that light stick is! If it wasn't so long, you'd think that it was just some overgrown glow stick.

In grade and high school, I used to go to my friends' houses to borrow their comic book collections. I think my habit's crossed over to their more expensive toys.

Not that I'm complaining.

Signs of the Times No. 5: Pinilit

Obviously, the ad copywriters at Dole Philippines have run out of ideas.

Who the hell names their kids Pinellopy. People are bound to pronounce this name pin-YEL-yo-py. Not that there's a Y before that first E, but that it's going to be there by force of habit.

Maybe they didn't want people to pronounce her name pen-ELOWP. That wouldn't jive with pineapple.

What do I know? I'm just a law student.

The Testicle Shrinker

Back when the open space beside the PowerPlant Mall was still a parking lot, many people from the law school who were too arsed into getting basement parking stickers found it more convenient to park there.

Unfortunately, people who do park there run into the risk of parking next to cars that require two parking slots, such as this Ferrari.Of course, if you were such a law student (one who is eternally broke) and driving a piece of junk such as that beat up Sentra to the left of the Ferrari, I'm sure your balls would shrink, too.

Your balls would shrink if your raggedy-ass Nissan had aftermarket door locks haphazardly installed in Banawe because new dealer-installed door locks were way beyond your budget. They'd shrink too if your Nissan's ignition switch could be turned by anything flat, like say, a screwdriver, which happened to be in your pocket.

To save your pride, you could take a picture of yourself beside the shining red Ferrari, as if to claim ownership, but you know everyone who does that doesn't actually own the Ferrari. You're above that. So you stay away and take this picture to commemorate the day your balls shrank so much they retreated into your abdominal cavity. In fact, they retreated so much, you became, for all of two seconds, Nancy Navalta.

And then the moment passes. All becomes well and you worship God's good grace that he gave you an opportunity to ogle a prancing black stallion wearing a red dress without looking like some kind of idiot. After all, he did park beside you.

A Long Story

I had the pleasure of being reintroduced to Kat, the sister of an old, old friend over the weekend. It's always nice to meet people like that. They remind you of earlier, simpler times.

I wish I was back in high school.

***

I was supposed to be conducting a small lecture on how to write newsfeatures for the school paper, while the paper's managing editor managed to convince her to give a similarly small talk on how to shoot good photographs.

We were several hours late enroute to my place in Batangas, and people had yet to eat dinner. Instead of stopping for bulalo as planned, I encouraged the entourage to get food to go from the superhighway McDonald's and from there ride to the beach.

It was then when the introductions were made.

For someone as terrible with names as I am, an introduction made while standing in line for fast food has the same effect as being introduced in the middle of a dance floor to a gaggle of people. It just doesn't happen for me. Adding to the disconnect between name and face was the fact that we were riding in separate vehicles. I rode with my in-laws, while Kat rode with the rest of the workshop participants brave enough to come.

So it came to pass that as we finally sat down to drink cheap tequila and other alcoholic potions later in the evening that I knew nothing of Kat, save that she was a guest in my place and that she had never before gotten piss drunk in her entire life. This had to change.

***

Back when I was working for a non-existent magazine, one of the financiers for the venture told me a truism I've found most useful: you can always tell a lot about someone from the high school that person attended.

Noticing that Kat had a decent accent, I asked her details about high school. Where did she go to? When did she go to high school?

"St. Scho, 1996," she replied. That was my wife's batch.

"No shit! My wife left St. Scho in 1996," my voice turning giddy at the thought of meeting someone who might know my wife but just not recognize her. Ten years does change the way people look.

"I mean I entered high school in 1996," she replied.

Egg on my face notwithstanding, it was all good: most of the people in my law school block entered high school at around the same time, so the level of discomfort at talking to people way younger than I am wasn't that great. The fact that Kat went to St. Scholastica's made it all the easier.

***

No one goes through high school unscathed, and I believe that it's in when people find that their scars are similar to others that they find kinship. It's the same mindset that keeps old fraternities and sororities alive. Philosopher-architect Alain de Botton also notes that bonds forged on shared experiences are stronger, such that those who have survived a traumatic experience (like say, the Boxing Day tsunami) will have a bond stronger than those friends who meet every now and then for coffee.

In Kat's case, it wasn't that I went to St. Scho (which obviously isn't the case), but it I believe that I earned most of my high school scars from that point in my life when I spent more time there than studying in UP or elsewhere. Anyway, I have the yearbook to prove it, and a hundred million stories to boot.

***

When I was in high school, suits were sent through letters. It would be not uncommon for one enterprising student to sell a wide array of perfumed stationery, as if to match the vanity of the girls his classmates admired. The letters would be sent through one of the boys, who would act as a courier.

The courier’s role was to gather ardent letters from suitors in school, for him to later go to a girl’s house at the dead of night to exchange correspondence from with equally ardent admirers from the girl’s school. The courier was usually someone living near the girl. If he was interested in her, then sending the letters was an added bonus. If he wasn’t, then at least he would be the first to open his letter.

Oftentimes, the letters served no other purpose than to relate to the recepient the fears and experiences that person was feeling at the moment, as the story would inevitably be told again later that night in hushed tones as to not wake the parental units.

As for me, I usually spent the better part of the day, Math class included, writing the perfect letter. After all, I was a senior and expected I could get away with anything. I was right.

This scenario of letter-writing and exchanging would be repeated with as many schools as links (made through interactions, official and “underground”, soirées, and older brothers’ birthday parties) would permit – after all, we were all playing the Lotharios mothers warn daughters about.

I related as much to Kat, who, admittedly, had grown up in an era of text messaging and unlimited mobile phone calls.

“Really? That’s so romantic! All we did was text each other.”

And that's the end of that story.

***

The problem with writing letters (especially angry ones) is that they last longer than your intentions at the time of the writing. To remedy this problem, one must either infuriate the recepient to the point that they either return the letters to you or burn them in disgust. Fail to do so and some pretty awkward situations are a sure bet in the future.

This is my personal embarassing letter moment.

So it came to pass that one day I received a call from a dear friend, for whom I had felt some form of unrequited attraction several years back.

“Hey! Kiko! Guess what I found?” It was good to hear her this chipper. “I was going through my old journals when I found your letter. It’s hilarious!”

Oh no.

I had once written her an angry letter when we were younger. I never really meant the things I wrote in the letter, as it was the histrionic outburst of a person who could not understand how everything had gone to shit.

“Please burn it,” I begged. “That piece of shit belongs to the garbage can.”

“I’ll do that later,” she said between giggles. “But not before I show it to the girls.”

Terrific. I can only pray that she knows how mortified I am at the very thought.

“It’s okay, Kiko. I was never mad at you.”

If you’re reading this, I was never mad at you too.

Tawag Ka Uli ni Aling Suming

From the CMC Alumni Foundation, a press release.

Calling all graduates and friends of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication (UP CMC). You are now being called upon to “show some skin.” Proceed to Party Central (in front of ABS-CBN) at 141 Mother Ignacia Street, Quezon City on April 8 (Saturday), 6 p.m.

Remember Aling Suming, the recently retired, longest-staying administrative staff who has been with the college since its early years? This time she is calling you to a fellowship where you will have a good time and have another opportunity to help the college.

The summer fun night is called “Fun Raising: Tawag ka uli ni Aling Suming.” It will be a night of raffles, dancing and singing. Among those expected to perform are Giselle Sanchez, Jaja Bolivar, Rannie Raymundo, Masculados and M-gage. There will also be a Mr. and Ms. CMC Contest and oath-taking of the UP CMC Alumni Association (UP CMCAA) officers led by Maryo J. De Los Reyes, Jessica Soho, “Neny” Pernia, Lois Villanueva, Jane Vinculado, Arminda V. Santiago, Danilo Arao and Erika Dandal; and members of the Board of Directors Dr. Grace “Gigi” Javier Alfonso, Jaja Bolivar, Yasmin Crisostomo, Karen Davila, Ambet Nabus, Egay Navalta and Lourdes “Odette” Portus. The oath-taking will be officiated by the mother of all CMC students and graduates, Mrs. Consuelo “Aling Suming” Agapito.

The entrance fee for the April 8 summer fun night at Party Central is P500 which entitles the holder to food, drinks and a raffle ticket. For inquiries, please call Gina at (632) 928-3188, Luming at (632) 920-6867 or Katkat at (632) 920-6864.

Since I can't make it (because I have an exam in Conflict of Laws) I'm doing the next best thing: getting everyone else from UP CMC to come.

And to those of you who still think I'm from film or from broadcasting, I'm a journalism major, for what it's worth.

Evolution Hates Morons

"Stupidity is relative," wrote Scott Adams in The Dilbert Principle, and I happen to agree.

Now, before you start tagging your bosses and their immediate relatives with the idea that stupidity may somehow be a genetic trait, what Scott meant is that people who are relatively intelligent in one field will somehow act incredibly stupid in another.

The thing is, this lunacy happens every day, to almost every one. Fortunately for the continued existence of civilized society, this stupidity is kept in check by others pointing out your own idiocy just in time.

These stupid acts are done, not because people intend to be stupid, but because they seem rational at the time. I know this from personal experience.

In college, someone I met in online chat told me that she would sleep with me if I drove all the way to her doorstep. The catch was she lived in Lucena and I took my residence somewhere in the middle of Pasig City. Intrigued at the opportunity to prove that no woman sleeps with a man just like that, I took a car early one Sunday morning and, sans cash, drove three and a half hours to a small Jollibee near the city cathedral. I told no one where I was or where I was going.

(Un)fortunately for me, she proved me wrong. Apparently some women do sleep with men just like that.

The past can’t haunt you if it wasn’t there, right? Wrong. I found my girlfriend at my door when I got home. Her eyes were bleary from crying. Not only did she know, but every single female in the house knew of my shenanigans. I get shit from them to this very day.

Sometimes, one’s relative stupidity ends up as a legend oft retold as a warning to otherwise brash youngsters who have yet to learn their place. Such is the case in this story of a friend dating from the mid-1980’s.

According to my friend, a provincial warlord’s son was ruling the roost at a fancy discotheque, when he crossed paths with another who felt similarly entitled. The warlord’s son immediately launched into a tirade, and demanded that the other ought to know him. After all, he was the son of an untouchable man who had put away his political foes in his own backyard.

“I don’t know who you are,” the other man replied. “I’m Jackie Enrile.”

The fate of that warlord’s son is not known. I imagine he did not sleep well that night. Now whether or not that other man was really Jackie Enrile is immaterial as the point of the story was to drive home another point – pick your fights.

Sadly, this aberrant stupidity can end in tragic results (i.e., these people get nominated for the Darwin Awards). Take, for instance, the fate of the late Delmar Redota.

Just last March 15, Redota, a nine year old student from Upper Bicutan died from food poisoning exactly a week after her teacher, identified in the Philippine Daily Inquirer as Brenda Elmabuena, allegedly ordered her and a fellow classmate to eat pencil shavings that her classmates had thrown in the air, as a disciplinary measure.

While the classmate who instigated the fracas faked eating the pencil shavings, Redota chowed down on the tasty treats with gusto – in other words, just as she was told. Of course, I need not pontificate on the nutritional value of pencil shavings once found on the floor of a public school.

It is an indictment of society when the innocent, in this case, Redota, die for the seemingly small transgressions of miscreants in their midst.

Redota was later found to have died from a throat infection, but I wonder if the microbes on the floor of the public school did anything to exacerbate the situation. Also, if this was so, then I wonder why Redota was made to eat the shavings as someone that sick - being a week away from death - must seem to be the least likely person to throw pencil shavings in the air in a fit of mischief.

Finally, we are told that Proclamation 1017 and Executive Order 464 are valid by the Executive, and that we should waste no time politicking and immersing ourselves in legal gobbledygook. After all, these issues are moot, what with Proclamation 1017 lifted, and with rumors afloat that the High Court is all set to dismiss the petitions to hold them unconstitutional as they have become for all intents and purposes moot and academic.

They even add insult to injury by venting their fury on the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Their reports were instrumental in bringing down Hitlerita’s predecessor, calling them anarchists and whatnot. Now that the PCIJ's guns are trained on them, they're trying to do something that Erap couldn't: shutting down the truly critical press.

Of late, the object of their ire seems to be Father Bernas. Apparently, when you've run out of FPJ's and Eraps to roast, you go after the intelligentsia that tells it how it is - that this administration is running on fumes.

To paraphrase Mystery, a noted pickup artist, if you’re as stupid as that, evolution should unapologetically weed you out of existence.

Take me to your dealer

This is what happens when you ask Father Bernas too many questions.

God Bless the Child

Once upon a time, The Simpsons were the biggest thing to hit local TV. Everything they touched turned to gold. They came out with books, mugs, shirts, stuffed toys, a larger-than-life arcade game for six people, and wonder of wonders, an album.

Being the sucker for slick marketing and clean packaging that I was (and still am), I wasted no time in grabbing up this case study in spinoff sales. It featured a catchy carrier single, "Do the Bartman". Of course, this was in 1991, and back then I was an impressionable young lad with absolutely no musical taste.

Since that was in the golden age of the cassette tape, you really had no choice but to listen to the whole tape. As lawyers say, back then there was no such animal as repeat. Halfway through the tape, I heard Lisa Simpson sing "God Bless The Child" and I got blown away, and it was the first of many times that a song did that to me.

As the old saying goes, you never forget your first time.

***

I first saw Judy on the first day of class.

It's hard to miss Judy. You don't miss someone with a face that looks like it came straight out of a magazine and hair that you swear you've seen in some long-forgotten shampoo commercial.

On the first day of the seminar I found her standing outside our classroom in her long, tall Manolo Blahniks, straight-line Mango pants, and a black top from the deepest recesses of Dolce and Gabbana. In her hand is a lit cigarette, and as she takes a long drag I begin to swear that she is the most effective cigarette commercial I've ever seen in my entire life.

Sometime later, I get a nudge in the ribs from my wife, who by now saw my jaw on the floor and brought it back to its proper place.

"Quit staring, it's rude," her words a bit more harsh than expected.

***

One year later, and Judy is sitting in a small alcove in my room that is otherwise used for study and the task of writing. Presently, she is in the company of classmates: yours truly, the missus, Jayme (her gimmick buddy this summer), and Manolo (class stud,now co-opted into becoming her driver, at least for the time being).

Earlier, there had been drinking and carousing by more than twenty of us classmates celebrating the end of what had been a grueling first year of classes. Now that only five remained, we gathered in a circle as if by instinct, and paid vigil to the sunrise.

So we talk. We talk about everything that almost always means nothing. Along the way, talk turned to heartache and loneliness, and Judy’s eyes lit up like anything.
“Can I just make kwento,” she cooes, not anymore bothering to hide her thick, convent-bred accent.

***

Once upon a time Judy had a boyfriend. His name was Punch, but to her friends, his name was Perfect. To them, Punch had everything going for him. He was, according to Judy, tall, beautiful, reserved, refined: the kind of boy who you could show to your parents and, once their backs are turned, give you passionate nookie in the most romantic of places.

“In all the time we were together, which was like, two years, all my parents ever thought we did was hold hands,” intimates Judy, with a small giggle. “Who just holds hands these days?”

To hear Judy tell it, their story was just like any other boy-next-door meets girl-next-door story. They met one day in that college along Katipunan, and they were a steaming for each other from day one. “I knew we were meant for each other from the moment we saw each other,” lamented Judy. Unfortunately for her, hers was one of those stories where how it all ends is a lot more interesting than how everything began.

“It’s my fault, really. I cheated on my man.”

Judy’s friends had been trying to get Judy to cheat on Punch for months. They taunted her mercilessly for days on end, on occasion dropping the names of the hottest male models in the country who had a thing for her. Unfortunately for the erstwhile happy couple, it did happen, and at a very bad time, too.

As Punch was Judy’s first boyfriend, they had come to a stage in their relationship where she had started to doubt whether Punch was really for her. Instead of putting him to the test, she put herself to the test and went on a single date with another guy. Although she claims nothing happened, the rumors and the allegations that followed were enough to put an end to all things Punch and Judy.

“What really hurts is that the people who pushed me into dating this other guy were the ones who told Punch about everything. They said they’d keep quiet, and then they stab me in the back like that.”

Finally, out of breath, and racked with tears, Judy, lust object for many men, and source of envy of many women, finally broke down.

***

It is morning before Judy regains her composure. Her china-doll face is close to its former elegance, but not quite, the late nights, alcohol, and cigarettes consumed since classes began having begun to take their toll.

Later, as the elevator doors close, my wife pokes me in the ribs for the first time since she picked my jaw off the floor nearly one year ago. "The guy she cheated with was this guy, you know," says my wife while pointing to a bemuscled, barely clothed man staring back from the pages of a women’s magazine.

“She went out and cheated on her boyfriend with him?”
“Yeah. Small world they live in, actually.”
“If I were him, I wouldn’t feel jealous! That’s like you dating Santa Claus!”
“Honey, you never get jealous.”

Once again, my wife is right, and that’s the end of that. As I close the doors and prepare for bed, I say a small little prayer for Judy.

***

God bless the child that's got her own.

Ten years and 100 pounds ago.

February 5, 1995. That was a Sunday. Incidentally, February 5, 2006 also fell on a Sunday. Of the things in this photo, only the people in the picture survive today. 

Signs of the Times No. 4. Criusing

Somehow I doubt that that's the way one's supposed to spell the word cruiser.