tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28841252294589738462024-03-14T10:36:57.008+08:00The Prodigal Mole Cricketthe kámarû (mole cricket) reuniting with kapampángan soil, digging deeper, and to fly high again | pámanúlî ning kámarû kng indû nang tibuan, pámangulkul na pang malálam, at pamanyulapo nang lakuas pang matasJason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.comBlogger244125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-41608747617354195042009-06-07T10:29:00.003+08:002009-06-07T11:34:44.418+08:00Cuyonons and Kapampangans / Kuyonons and CapampangansBy Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Sino manga tao nga Cuyonon?</span><br /><br />There are many ethnolinguistic groups in the Philippines, but we know only the major ones such as the Tagalogs, Cebuanos, Ilonggos, Kapampangans, Ilocanos, Bicolanos, Pangasinenses, Warays, and to some extent, the Tausugs, Badjaos, Maranaos, and Maguindanaos. For us Luzonians, the Cuyonon people are most of the time unheard of. However, if we have seen the movie “Ploning” starring Judy Ann Santos, we might have an idea about the Cuyonon people of Cuyo Island of the Palawan province and the Western Visayan language that they usually speak.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sis0vQmaU7I/AAAAAAAACbs/2ko6999-GPY/s1600-h/ploning+movie.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sis0vQmaU7I/AAAAAAAACbs/2ko6999-GPY/s320/ploning+movie.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344423369319797682" border="0" /></a><br />Surprisingly, I actually knew people in Angeles City of Cuyonon descent. JC Lim, a high school classmate of mine at the Chevalier School, along with his big brother Vincent Lim, who became the Valedictorian of his batch in the same school, have a Cuyonon mother. Their identification of themselves back when I often encountered them in the city has always been either Chinese or Kapampangan though.<br /><br />In our production trip to Puerto Princesa City weeks ago, we got to know more about the Cuyonons—although there is still much to know about them. But in a span of a week, we were able to discover things about them that might interest us Kapampangans, especially those engaged in cultural work and literature.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Letter H</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Dorong dagon den ang ag lolobas</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Ang adlao na ikaw mabagat ko</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Indi ko pa ra engued malipatan</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Imong matang midyo biton sa langit</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Imong mga ngirit indi agpakatorog</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Pirmi ko ing sasadyap imong mga arek</span><br /><br />This is a stanza from the song “Ploning Adin Ka Ren” (Ploning, Where Art Thou) by Bulyaw Mariguen, a rock band that makes contemporary Cuyonon songs. The shooting of the music video of the song was our purpose in flying there. Do you notice anything about the stanzas and the Cuyonon language?<br /><br />In one of our idle sessions, Engr. Johnny Fabello, who is the owner of the house were were lodging in and the father of the executive producer of the music video, told us, “Suwerte kayong mga Kapampangan, immune kayo sa swine flu.”<br /><br />When we asked why, he comically replied, “Kasi wala kayong H!” referring to the presence of the letter H in H1N1. Apparently he knew about the infamous Kapampangan stereotype of H-deficiency in speech.<br /><br />After laughing with his joke, I responded, “E di kayo rin po, immune din kayo? Wala rin po kasi kayong H.” He paused for a moment to think about it... no, they do not have the letter H either! And we found it amusing that they, despite being Cuyonon speaker, never noticed. Take for example the following Cuyonon words, their Tagalog counterparts, and their lack of H.<br /><br />“Indi” for “hindi,” “arek” for “halik,” “kasiguraduan” for “kasiguraduhan,” and “kabui” for “buhay” (“buhi” in several Visayan languages).<br /><br />But since Kapampangans are a major language group—the seventh biggest ethnolinguistic group in the country, with around two million native speakers, versus the Cuyonon speakers who are only approximately a hundred thousand—we have earned the dunce hat of H-deficiency in the world of stereotypes.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Enam, Anem, Anam, Anim</span><br /><br />In Kapampangan, the rootword “atas” (height), when turned into an adjective, becomes “mátas,” because the prefix “ma-” is added. It's a general rule in Kapampangan to drop the 'a' from “ma-” (or “ka-”) thus making it “mátas,” not “maatas” or “mayatas.”<br /><br />The same goes for the following words: “máyap/káyap” (not “maayap”), “maslam/kaslam” (not “maaslam”), “málimum” (not “maalimum”) and “málat” (not “mayalat” or “maalat”).<br /><br />It's the same for Cuyonon. “Mayad” (good) is “ma-” and “ayad” combined, but the sum is only “mayad,” with stress on the last syllable.<br /><br />Unlike Tagalog and Kapampangan, Cuyonon can have glottal stops in the middle of their sentences like the Cebuano speakers. This glottal stop is written in the symbol of an apostrophe. However, fast speech can conceal the glottal stop in the middle of Cuyonon sentences.<br /><br />A last observation we had was regarding the way they pronounce the letter E. It's not like how we say the letter E in Kapampangan words like “sukle,” “betute,” and “eran.” It's more like the way Bahasa Indonesia/Melayu speakers pronounce the letter E—like an “uh” sound—making the Indonesian word “setelah” read as “suh-tuh-lá” and “lelaki” as “luh-lá-kee.” Therefore, in Cuyonon, “gegma” (love) is read as “guhg-má” and “aken” as “áh-kuhn.”<br /><br />With this characteristic of Cuyonon, it makes some words sound like they're Kapampangan. The Kapampangan “anam” (six), even though it has two letter As written the same way, the first A is actually longer compared to the A in the second syllable. Its pronunciation is “ah-nuhm.” In Cuyonon, the number six is “anem.” With what we've discussed with the Cuyonon E sound, can you now try to read “anem”?<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KCzZeM8Ov18&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KCzZeM8Ov18&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CQ vs K Dispute</span><br /><br />Since Cuyonon is not a national or official language, no group or institution has the authority to dictate how the Cuyonon language should be written.<br /><br />The older generation, like those from Cuyonon.org, are advocating for the use of the CQ orthography—just like how the older generation of Kapampangans insist on CQ—because, according to them, “the letter K is not Cuyonon,” just as how confused Kapampangan elders would reason, “the letter K is not Capampangan.”<br /><br />The younger generation goes for the K orthography though, because of their Abakada education, and find it more efficient to write because instead of having two symbols for one sound such as C and Q for the “k” sound and C and S for the “s,” they only need one.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pursuant to the Ordinances</span><br /><br />In Pampanga, the Governor has declared an “Aldo Ning Amanung Sisuan” to be celebrated on the last Friday of August, the Languages Month, and had formed a Pampanga Provincial Language Council to spearhead events that would promote the use of the Kapampangan language. Language advocates rejoiced with the declaration, because they have begun to notice that Kapampangan children born to Kapampangan parents are gradually being turned into native Tagalog speakers with no knowledge or understanding of Kapampangan.<br /><br />A similar case can be seen with the Cuyonons. Years ago, the Vice Governor of Palawan authored an ordinance they called the Cuyonon Provincial Dialect Ordinance (albeit they got it wrong calling Cuyonon a dialect instead of a language). Cuyonon was declared the “Official Dialect” of the Palawan province; a committee had been designated to work on its function of promoting Cuyonon language, literature, traditions, and culture, and institutions were encouraged to take part in the movement to counter the case of Tagalog-speaking Cuyonon children born to Cuyonon parents.<br /><br />Because Palawan must be one of the most linguistically diverse provinces in the Philippines, Tagalog has often served as the lingua franca of the dwellers. Its reputation as tourist destination must also contribute to the interest of the natives in learning the outsiders' languages. However, hints of the struggling dominance of Cuyonon in Palawan is evident—aside from the provincial ordinance supporting its promotion—is evident in the penetration of the Cuyonon language in FM and AM radio stations such as DYPR and DYER and cable television. The Philippine Airlines also acknowledges Cuyonon as the dominant native language of Palawan, as it uses the Cuyonon language in some of its greetings and announcements in domestic flights taken in Puerto Princesa.<br /><br />Pampanga, although diverse in its own right due to the in-migration of Visayans, Maranaos, Koreans, Aytas, Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Pangasinenses, and Ilocanos, is still acknowledged to be a Kapampangan-speaking area, and Kapampangan continuously penetrates various forms of mass and interactive media.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sis0vq5yMXI/AAAAAAAACb0/449I7nR1JZU/s1600-h/palawan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 295px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sis0vq5yMXI/AAAAAAAACb0/449I7nR1JZU/s320/palawan.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5344423376380375410" border="0" /></a><br />Now back to the ordinances—laudable declarations, I must say. But the question is: how well-implemented are these ordinances and the activities spearheaded by the designated councils? Are they even effective in promoting the local language especially to the modern youth?<br /><br />Or do the celebrations just come and go, creating the illusion that the local language is being saved?<br /><br />That we'll have to see.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com833tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-87739582676287170122009-06-05T10:40:00.007+08:002009-06-05T11:34:45.210+08:00Palawan Subterranean River National Park: A Global Wonder of Nature<span style="font-size:85%;">By Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily</span><br /><br />Last month, my Kamaru production team and I flew to Puerto Princesa City, Palawan to co-produce the music video of the carrier single of an upcoming Cuyonon rock album by a band called Bulyaw Mariguen.<br /><br />During our stay, our producer Jocelyn Fabello of Matinlo Productions took us to one of country's pride in the realm of ecotourism—the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (also called St. Paul Underground River National Park), a nominee in the “New Seven Wonders of Nature” competition and one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Trip to the Park</span><br /><br />We woke up early in the morning and rode a van to reach the place. Even though we were staying in Puerto Princesa City, the barangay (Sabang) where the park is located is far from the heart of the city, and the trip can range from one hour to an hour and a half.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLAJdH5CI/AAAAAAAACaw/FnsTp3X_bNg/s1600-h/sabangpier.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 235px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLAJdH5CI/AAAAAAAACaw/FnsTp3X_bNg/s320/sabangpier.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343673792529425442" border="0" /></a><br />It's not all land transportation. Upon arrival to Sabang, we had to take a short banca ride at the Sabang Pier—about ten minutes—to reach the national park, which is on the other side of the beach. The water we had to travel across comes from the South China Sea already.<br /><br />The trip is short but we were stunned with the beauty of the surrounding shores, forests, and mountains. Plus, the water is not murky compared to the waters of Pampanga Bay; the water is also greenish blue—probably a reflection of both the sky and the lush forests from nearby bodies of land—and best of all, clean.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiN3I63KzI/AAAAAAAACbU/jBrw1tdcHhk/s1600-h/sabangtrip.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiN3I63KzI/AAAAAAAACbU/jBrw1tdcHhk/s320/sabangtrip.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343676936301783858" border="0" /></a><br />Upon landing, we enter a safe forest that would lead us to the small port where the City Government of Puerto Princesa. In that short trek inside the forest, we encountered monkeys and monitor lizards (bayawak) freely roaming around.<br /><br />The monkeys, like the ones in Subic, are infamous for snatching stuff from people, so we were advised to keep an eye on our things and to not leave our possessions unattended. Physically harming the monkeys, along with the lizards and the other animals that may be found in the forest, is unlawful.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLAM2otII/AAAAAAAACao/kFS_uuxMawk/s1600-h/kamaruandtheband.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 233px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLAM2otII/AAAAAAAACao/kFS_uuxMawk/s320/kamaruandtheband.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343673793441739906" border="0" /></a><br />The giant monitor lizards, especially for us urban people, were both fascinating and frightening due to their baby dragon-like appearance. Fear not though because they don't attack people.<br /><br />In fact, according to the locals, they are afraid of people. Their seemingly casual behavior around humans is only because they have been used to their constant presence in the area. But if you try to shock one, it will run away fast like a shooed cat.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLArQjEOI/AAAAAAAACbA/nnI7yCe_zMM/s1600-h/bayawak.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 265px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLArQjEOI/AAAAAAAACbA/nnI7yCe_zMM/s320/bayawak.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343673801603485922" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Into the Cave</span><br /><br />After the short trek, we arrived at the port where tourists can avail of group boat rides—paddled by local employees—through the cave. A tour inside the cave, which can last from thirty to forty minutes, would have cost us money, but since our trip was sponsored by Mayor Joel Reyes of Puerto Princesa, we went in for free.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLruFPYQI/AAAAAAAACbI/Ka7C_ugu5Qc/s1600-h/caveentrancefar.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLruFPYQI/AAAAAAAACbI/Ka7C_ugu5Qc/s320/caveentrancefar.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343674541095739650" border="0" /></a><br />We enter the mouth of the cave where it's pitch-black all through. A spotlight is held by the passenger in front though, allowing everyone to scan the surroundings which is filled with stalactites, stalagmites, sleeping bats, and swiftlets that fly around the area. At first, we mistook the swiftlets as bats, but the boatman—who serves as tour guide and entertainer as well with his funny side comments and knowledge of greetings in several Philippine and world languages including Kapampangan and Niponggo—informed us that they were birds, swooping down on insects to dine.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLAQxEVsI/AAAAAAAACa4/qS9dKEIt470/s1600-h/caveinterior.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiLAQxEVsI/AAAAAAAACa4/qS9dKEIt470/s320/caveinterior.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343673794492126914" border="0" /></a><br />The cave, while the lower part is submerged in approximately 30 feet of fresh water (the water at the entrance is somewhat salty though as evidenced by the seashells forming on the walls because the entrance is near the point where the river and sea meet) still had a huge dome space above, where water droplets were falling down mildly at random points.<br /><br />The water was coming from the rainwater accumulated above the terrain, seeping down through soil and rocks, until it reaches the cave.<br /><br />“The water dropping from above can be considered Holy Water,” the boatman comments. “But if what drops from above comes from the bats, it's Holy Shit.” We burst in laughter.<br /><br />Various stone and rock formations inside have names like the Holy Family, LRT, the face of Jesus Christ, Bat Cave, the Pegasus, the T-Rex, and many more. They had been named as such because the formations appeared like them, especially the breath-taking face of Christ.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiK_2_LOoI/AAAAAAAACag/5gurRiRE5pY/s1600-h/jesuschrist.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 233px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiiK_2_LOoI/AAAAAAAACag/5gurRiRE5pY/s320/jesuschrist.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343673787571976834" border="0" /></a><br />We couldn't help but wonder how such place was formed. The boatman said that the cave could have been water-free back in the centuries when sea levels were lower. While the documented discovery of the underground river is credited to a Spaniard, the natives of Palawan could have known the area as well, except that there hasn't been any piece of evidence found yet.<br /><br />After a cozy tour inside, we reached the point where boats are supposed to return. No, it was not the edge of the tunnel yet. In fact, the edge was still far away, and we were even informed that a huge empty lot where a hundred people or so can camp was situated there.<br /><br />“Gusto niyo bang puntahan?” the boatman asked. “Yes!” we all excitedly replied. “Sige, puntahan niyo, hihintayin ko kayo dito... promise!” he answered. Again, we laughed hard.<br /><br />The reason they don't take tourists, or anyone for that matter—except if people with enough reason like geographers and scholars have permits from the proper authorities—to the far reaches is because it could be too dangerous and distant from the port, such that if emergency happened, rescue will take time to come.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ecotourism VS Environmental Protection</span><br /><br />One might wonder why there aren't many boats available to rent, causing people to wait long in line before experiencing the cave. Boats could be enlarged to accommodate more people per trip, but why is it not being done?<br /><br />It's because it's not purely ecotourism for the national park. Concerned with the animals, like the nocturnal bats sleeping inside, they limit the number of people inside the cave to not cause too much noise. “Travel agencies keep on suggesting that we increase the number of boats, but we tell them we don't want to strongly disturb the dwellers inside.”<br /><br />Puerto Princesa City is lucky to have such natural wonder, and the natural wonder is luck to have an understanding and sincerely passionate group of people looking out for its preservation. Even though the government keeps on promoting the place, it doesn't abuse and over-commercialize the whole idea, unlike what happens in other places.<br /><br />For more information about the place, visit the official website of the management. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);">www.puerto-undergroundriver.com</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Photos care of Diego Marx Dobles, Kamaru Photography</span>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com248tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-30824556399700411342009-06-01T04:09:00.000+08:002009-06-01T08:09:31.252+08:00I gave a lecture not in Pampanga but in PALAWAN!<span class="insertedphoto">Last week, I was in Palawan to expand my cultural work to Cuyonons, who, like the Kapampangans and the other non-Tagalogs, and experiencing cultural decline. Aside from directing a Cuyonon rock music video in Puerto Princesa, I also delivered a lecture to Mass Communication students of PSU (Palawan State University). <span style="font-style: italic;">See news item below (taken from http://bulyawmariguen.multiply.com)</span></span><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/tiJ1mS2SwQ0vob8LG570lQ/photos/1M/orig/382/DSC-5322.jpg?et=pgaiuiz5mRw%2BjYAOHdw0ZQ&nmid=0"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/bd3ZgUa63V9cBrHhaTv0gg/photos/1M/orig/383/DSC-5341.jpg?et=rFb3%2CO%2CC5g%2BKNBFnt%2C5ofg&nmid=0"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/-3CjXbRm2o21SCzqO2dryw/photos/1M/orig/384/DSC-5353.jpg?et=ukFsQDi7w6xQ59jkqzRa5Q&nmid=0"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/LPuJYU6QShAII9EUFSDqzg/photos/1M/orig/385/DSC-5422.jpg?et=MA6fjmUTLpWMf3khGDIdTA&nmid=0"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/1c0JhESQlXNMRHn20Rv2JA/photos/1M/orig/386/DSC-5433.jpg?et=wCxAX0dfmFQTcaq0gQufXw&nmid=0"><span class="insertedphoto"><br></span></a><br><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/1c0JhESQlXNMRHn20Rv2JA/photos/1M/orig/386/DSC-5433.jpg?et=wCxAX0dfmFQTcaq0gQufXw&nmid=0"><span class="insertedphoto"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/tFIF-PyRqYOLRkDBc0E0SA/photos/1M/orig/387/DSC-5445.jpg?et=1JVhZ3BvTDnmILdfsqWoag&nmid=0"><img class="alignmiddleb" src="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/tFIF-PyRqYOLRkDBc0E0SA/photos/1M/300x300/387/DSC-5445.jpg?et=CBNlhhcj87pnoIvVWl5vwA&nmid=0" border="0"></a></span></a><span class="insertedphoto"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/1c0JhESQlXNMRHn20Rv2JA/photos/1M/orig/386/DSC-5433.jpg?et=wCxAX0dfmFQTcaq0gQufXw&nmid=0"><img class="alignmiddleb" src="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/1c0JhESQlXNMRHn20Rv2JA/photos/1M/300x300/386/DSC-5433.jpg?et=HcQXOHiV6mRVlHjN2CP3VQ&nmid=0" border="0"></a></span></a><span class="insertedphoto"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/LPuJYU6QShAII9EUFSDqzg/photos/1M/orig/385/DSC-5422.jpg?et=MA6fjmUTLpWMf3khGDIdTA&nmid=0"><img class="alignmiddleb" src="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/LPuJYU6QShAII9EUFSDqzg/photos/1M/300x300/385/DSC-5422.jpg?et=lDONHn7Qo9iXq3nkq0%2BlYQ&nmid=0" border="0"></a></span></a><span class="insertedphoto"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/-3CjXbRm2o21SCzqO2dryw/photos/1M/orig/384/DSC-5353.jpg?et=ukFsQDi7w6xQ59jkqzRa5Q&nmid=0"><img class="alignmiddleb" src="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/-3CjXbRm2o21SCzqO2dryw/photos/1M/300x300/384/DSC-5353.jpg?et=F8lZqyZityIw2TvEn%2CK3EA&nmid=0" border="0"></a></span></a><span class="insertedphoto"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/bd3ZgUa63V9cBrHhaTv0gg/photos/1M/orig/383/DSC-5341.jpg?et=rFb3%2CO%2CC5g%2BKNBFnt%2C5ofg&nmid=0"><img class="alignmiddleb" src="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/bd3ZgUa63V9cBrHhaTv0gg/photos/1M/300x300/383/DSC-5341.jpg?et=4EnMQhpY4xDdh8Xxbk%2B%2CJQ&nmid=0" border="0"></a></span></a><span class="insertedphoto"><a href="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/tiJ1mS2SwQ0vob8LG570lQ/photos/1M/orig/382/DSC-5322.jpg?et=pgaiuiz5mRw%2BjYAOHdw0ZQ&nmid=0"><img class="alignmiddleb" src="http://images.thejason.multiply.com/image/tiJ1mS2SwQ0vob8LG570lQ/photos/1M/300x300/382/DSC-5322.jpg?et=rZ%2BtKYidxnpSjUt2Ix1xPQ&nmid=0" border="0"></a></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br><br><br>LOCAL EYES: CREATING WORKS OF ART WITH LOCAL CULTURAL CONTENT</span><br style="font-weight: bold;"><br>As a means to entice young media practitioners in creating works of art or production works with local cultural content, Matinlo Productions in cooperation with Bulyaw Mariguen, Kamaru Productions and JCI Kiao conducted a lecture/workshop entitled Local Eyes: creating Works of Art with Local Cultural Content to 31 3rd & 4th year Mass Communication Students of the Palawan State University last May 27, 2009.<br><br>The lecture started with an exercise conducted by Jason Laxamana of Kamaru productions assessing how the students use their local environment in creating their own superhero. Jason Laxamana then proceeded to explaining the exercise and then to showing the students some of the works of Kamaru. <br><br>In his lecture, Jason laxamana emphasized the benefits of creating production works with local cultural content. His Kapampangan short film entitled Balangingi in Kapampangan or Nosebleed in English which won in the ETC First Philippine Digital Awards for best short film is living proof that using local cultural content in film can give filmmakers a competitive advantage in such competitions. The sense of pride such works bring to the local community was also mentioned. <br><br>Due to a scheduled radio guesting at DYPR Palawan Radyom, Jason Laxamana gave way for Bulyaw Mariguen to perform their carrier single, Ploning Adin Ka Ren. Matinlo productions chose to ask Bulyaw Mariguen to perform in this lecture to show the students the possibility of using the local language in Palawan, Cuyonon, in making songs that are appealling to the young generation of Palawenos and viable for mainstream broadcasting. Joey Fabello of Matinlo productions, also known as DJ Jojo of IFM 99.9 by some of the students, briefly explained the Bulyaw Mariguen project after the performance of the band to reiterate the value of using local content in works of art and production works. <br><br>Certificates were awarded and snacks were provided by Jci Kiao after the lecture.<br><br>Some feedback from the students can be seen below.<br><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Nainspire po kami sa inyong shinare samin and we are hoping also na magkaron ng sariling version ang mga Palaweno to produce music, movies, telenovelas, etc of our own.</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Thank you for inspiring me. Makakatulung po talaga ito sa lahat. Keep up the good work...May God Bless You...</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Nakakainspire. Namulat ako sa dapat kong kamulatan. -Psydz</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Marami po salamat sa mga binahagi niyong kaalaman sa amin, tama nga dapat din nating ipakita sa iba na pwede rin natin ibahagi sa kanila ang culture na mayroon tayo. tnx po. Sana makalat pa ito sa iba.- Rearitz</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Very inspiring. It really gives indication that we have to uplift ones local culture through music and film. -Anna Lissa Magtibay</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Marami po akong (kaming) natutunan. Now I realized na mahalaga maging maka local tayo para narin stain to. galing po ng speakers at nakakatuwa. - Jeric</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Mahalaga po sa amin bilang Palaweno na ipagmalaki sa buong mundo ang katutubong kultura. Sa pamamagitan ng Seminar workshop na ito namulat ang aking isipan na maaari tayong kilalanin. maraming salamat- Anagyn Barrios</span><br style="font-style: italic;"><br style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Matinlo productions would like to thank Ms. Faith Malacao of the Palawan State University for making this event possible.</span><!-- multiply:no_crosspost --><p class='multiply:no_crosspost'></p>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-42262318132262290752009-05-30T22:51:00.002+08:002009-05-30T22:58:19.254+08:00Please save the youth from UNOBy Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily<br /><br />If you ever pass by Balibago on your way to SM Clark, you certainly will not miss a certain area somewhere along the Pagcor building where a lot of people—most of them teenagers and young adults—are chatting with one another as if they are a newly founded religion. I used to think it was a new branch office of some call center or something opening itself to agent-wannabes; hence, the proliferation of people my age wanting to earn something. That was until a close friend became part of that cult and tried to lure me into its cleverly structured clutches.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiFIPt_Z52I/AAAAAAAACaI/9dLeozfARFU/s1600-h/UNO+Manila.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiFIPt_Z52I/AAAAAAAACaI/9dLeozfARFU/s320/UNO+Manila.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341630067918890850" border="0" /></a><br />Unlimited Network of Opportunities or UNO is the name of the company. To use a no-connotation term, we can say that it's all about MLM or Multi-Level Marketing—a more credible term than “networking” or worse, “pyramid scam.” When my friend was trying to introduce UNO to me, I at once asked if he's trying to recruit me in a networking company.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bad college experience</span><br /><br />I certainly had my inhibitions, because back in college, my fellow boarders and I were recruited by the son of our landlady to Legacy, which all also claimed to do Multi-Level Marketing business. We were taken to a confident adult who oriented us about how huge amounts of money could come to our grasps by merely investing Php14,000 and inviting others to do the same. The way the whole thing was presented was so believable and overwhelming, such that my big brother and I weren't able to sleep because we were so overjoyed, thinking “This is it! We're going to be filthy rich!”<br /><br />My mother was KJ then though. When we excitedly told her about the financial opportunity, she quickly aired her protest and told us it was just one of those pyramid scams. Of course, we were offended. We argued back and harshly told her that she was close-minded, and she would definitely fail in life financially by being the skeptic that she was. No matter how hard we fought for it, my mother wouldn't lend us Php14,000.<br /><br />Our co-boarders had some money though. They decided to volt in their money—seven thousand from one person, and the rest from the other person—so they were able to invest the required Php14,000. They began recruiting various people like their classmates and org-mates in UP Diliman, their high school batchmates, and even their relatives. Alas, not one was fazed with the so-called opportunity. After several failures, they gave up. Bye-bye Php14,000.<br /><br />It was a good thing my mother didn't lend us money when we demanded for it. After a few weeks, the excitement resulting from the hypnotizing sweet-talk of the recruiter faded away and Koya and I came to our senses: it was a difficult job—too difficult for the average person, you'd think it's designed to be that way—disguised as a legal and easy-money business.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">How I was reduced from friend to prospect</span><br /><br />I admit—I am not in speaking terms with the friend I am talking about just because of this UNO thing. Let's call him Karl.<br /><br />He used to work in a call center in Clark. One day, he texted me and other friends, begging for us to come to Pagcor. He also begged us to not ask why, because it was something very complicated. The way the message was constructed, I thought he was having some serious problem, probably related to his girlfriend or his family. Unfortunately, I was busy with other matters at that time so I didn't go.<br /><br />Concerned and curious, I called him (from landline to cellphone) early in the morning to ask what his message was all about. He sounded very desperate, like he was receiving death threats from a certain gang, or he had accidentally killed someone and had no idea what to do. Unable to explain via phone his predicament, he asked if he could stay in my place for the night. “Sige,” I told him.<br /><br />Before he even came to my place to sleep over, I found out from common friends that he didn't have the problem I was suspecting he had. Instead, he was recruiting people to try MLM because he joined UNO. To focus on MLM, he quit his call center job without informing his parents. Hence, he sleeps over in the houses of different people including me because he couldn't come home at night. Lest he'll be questioned by his parents about his call center resignation.<br /><br />When Karl arrived in my place, we were trying to catch up with each other because it has been a long time since we chatted about our lives. After catching up, I asked him what the thing he texted me before was all about. Before him even answering, I emphasized, “Are you trying to recruit me?”<br /><br />From the persona of a friend, his face turned vendor-like, and told me, “O di ba, ang sama kaagad ng pumapasok sa isip mo kapag nababanggit ang networking? Pero ito, iba ito. Ako rin noong una, talagang duda ako, pero ni-research ko talaga, pati sa Internet, wala akong mahanap na loophole.”<br /><br />Karl even went as far as assessing my personality. He first flattered me by telling me I am an extraordinarily smart and creative person, but my weakness, he said, was in business; thus, my failure to earn money despite working very hard. “Kilala kita,” he even said. “May tendency kang mag-claim na alam mo na ang isang bagay, pero ang hinihingi ko lang, makinig ka muna. Isang oras lang naman.”<br /><br />I was also touched by his sentence of emphasis: “Kaibigan kita; yayayain ba kita dito kung alam kong ikakapahamak mo?”<br /><br />Yet with all that, he didn't even bother listening to my college experience.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The UNO recruitment experience</span><br /><br />Fast forward. Despite setting my mind to “I will never join,” I allowed him to take me to the UNO office in Balibago, where I saw members trying to recruit innocent-looking people—probably their friends, co-workers, classmates, or relatives. I even saw a woman dressed like a teacher orienting what seemed like her students about the mechanics of the business.<br /><br />Karl then introduced me to a person I met and befriended days before at SM Clark. Let's call him Tim. Back when I first met him, he was this shy-looking but cool teenager who knew a lot of people I knew—bands, DJs, and other people. On that night we encountered each other at SM Clark, we talked about plans in life and the difference of burgers from one burger joint to another (since he claimed to want to establish his own burger restaurant someday). I even told him about my friend Karl and his funny attempts of trying to attract me to MLM. With all the laughter and cigarette-smoking, he was a nice and sensible lad, I thought, and I certainly would want to work with him in future projects (he used to have a band, and I used to produce recorded music).<br /><br />But when I saw him again at UNO, it was as if he was a different person! He spoke like those salespeople you see in department stores promoting state-of-the-art kitchen knives and convenient-to-use floor mops. He wasn't a shy kid after all. He explained MLM like a Master Showman host, joked around sometimes to not bore us, and confidently claimed that in spite of him being just a mere “tambay,” he was already earning as much as Php5,000 per week. He also showed us the products of their company, including strength-enhancing bio-magnetic bracelets worn by ancient royalties and contemporary celebrities, 8-in-1 coffee that boosted energy, and other healthcare and beauty products.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiFIP6hXC9I/AAAAAAAACaY/yv_OiFRcBTs/s1600-h/Main+Products.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 265px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiFIP6hXC9I/AAAAAAAACaY/yv_OiFRcBTs/s320/Main+Products.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341630071282535378" border="0" /></a><br />Tim, with the help of Karl, also showed us an AVP explaining UNO and showing the people who had become instantly rich by joining—people of my age having their own cars, lay people casually withdrawing loads of cash from Union Bank, and segments that tried hard to convince the audience that they were a legal business.<br /><br />Familiar with what they were talking about, thanks to my college Legacy experience, I entertained my mind by identifying what kind of psychological convincing strategy they are using on me. My favorite was that one that used peer pressure (“Huwag niyong isiping pinagkakakitaan namin kayo; kasi, kahit hindi kayo sumama, sasama at sasama pa rin naman yung iba e; ang gusto lang namin, magtulungan tayo sa pag-pag-asenso”).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiFIP2ukjYI/AAAAAAAACaQ/jynm0ZQ8SWg/s1600-h/peer+pressure.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SiFIP2ukjYI/AAAAAAAACaQ/jynm0ZQ8SWg/s320/peer+pressure.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341630070264204674" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Trained parrots</span><br /><br />In the middle of Tim's talking, a loud tricycle passed by. Unable to continue talking, he pretended to have a grenade in his hand and pretended to throw it to the noisy vehicle. It was the first time I saw someone to that kind of gesture, and I thought it was a cool way to express hatred to loud-engined automobiles.<br /><br />Minutes after, another noisy tricycle passed by. I saw another recruiter from afar doing the grenade gesture, too. Listening to other recruiters, I heard them tell their prospects the exact words my friend Karl was telling me that morning—about open-mindedness, about financial success, about researching stuff on the Internet, and all that jazz. All of the recruiters know how to write upside down, too, to make their written lecture readable to the target prospect, who is usually seated opposite him.<br /><br />I even heard someone else say, “Yayayain ba kita dito kung ikakapahamak mo?” That was when disappointment starting growing in my heart. My friend Karl reduced me into an MLM prospect. All the things he said to me, including his knowledge of my need of money to do my dream cultural projects, were all parrot-speak from his fellow UNO members. I would have preferred it if he just told me directly that if I joined, he will be earning. But no, he even used everything he knew about me as a friend just so he could convince me.<br /><br />However, I didn't join. UNO members say that in case you join, you have to work hard to be successful. It's the same thing outside the MLM business. I am slowly working my way to reach my goals, and it was quite offending for both Tim and Karl to predict that I'll be a failure. “Maraming Pilipino,” they would say, “kayod ng kayod pero hindi pa rin umaasenso.”<br /><br />My God! I am only 21 years old. Isn't it too early to determine whether I'm successful in life or not? Other people in the UNO office who gave their testimonials were hopeless people, whose last resort was MLM. I doubt though they were earning as much as what they claimed.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Not-so-obvious richness</span><br /><br />If they were so rich, how come their office looks very peasant? How come there's no free snacks for the prospects? Why are recruiters dressed casually? How come there's no big promotional event to make their claims more credible? Why was it that when a beggar approached us, they didn't spare him some coins, just to showcase that they were easily earning, and giving a beggar a hundred pesos was no biggie (I, a non-UNO member, was kind enough to give the beggar five pesos)? Why did Tim not pay for our jeepney fare went we decided to go home from SM Clark if he was earning Php5,000 per week, just to show that he was indeed making money comfortably?<br /><br />Another friend of mine—let's call him Franz—who is witty in his own way, was recruited on a separate session. He asked Tim and other UNO members if they were confident that if he joined, earning money would be a breeze. With big smiles, they said yes.<br /><br />Franz then said, “Kung ganoon, pahiramin niyo muna ako ng Php7,000 na pang-invest. Pagkatapos, babayaran ko na lang kapag nakaipon na ako. Madali lang naman makapasok ang pera, hindi ba?”<br /><br />None of the UNO members wanted to lend money. Or was it because they really didn't have money in the first place?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Save thy souls</span><br /><br />With that, I call on people: let's save the youth from this legalized scam. Wanting money to sustain their needs and luxurious desires in a period of tough competition, unemployment, and rising prices, they are the easy preys of UNO. The senior members even go as far as discouraging prospects to tell their parents about it because parents will naturally be skeptical about the whole thing.<br /><br />“Pero sino bang pakikinggan mo?” they would ask. “Silang mga wala naman talagang karanasan sa MLM, o kaming mga may karanasan talaga dito?”<br /><br />I am not questioning the legality of the business. It could be legal, fine, but not everything legal is for the good. Why are cigarettes sold in spite of the government acknowledging its danger to the citizens' health? If it's dangerous, why is it not banned in the market?<br /><br />It's the same thing for UNO. In any case, I think I'm really interested in buying one of those bio-magnetic bracelets. I certainly need it in my strength-draining and pressure-laden line of work. After all, I need to work very hard to become successful, right?<br /><br />I texted Karl when I got home and told him about my disappointment with his treatment of me as a prospect instead of a friend. I told him that I'll be looking forth to the day when he's already rich with UNO. If he does indeed become rich, I told him I promise to blindly obey his every counsel and burn all the books that serve as my guiding principles in life.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com176tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-46560644338210992462009-05-30T04:51:00.000+08:002009-05-30T08:51:30.065+08:00Official Kamaru Video and Photography MultiplyWe opened a separate multiply account for our photography and video works. Please take time to visit http://kamaruprod.multiply.com<br><br><br> <!-- multiply:no_crosspost --><p class='multiply:no_crosspost'></p>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-36525338978061565362009-05-22T02:13:00.003+08:002009-05-22T02:19:50.383+08:00Kamaru photographs Palawan music video lead actorsKalalangan Kamaru is currently in Palawan and will be back the 27th!<br /><br />MODELS: JR Payuyo, Febbie Sabbaluca<br />LOCATION: Balsahan, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan<br /><br />PHOTOGRAPHER: Diego Marx Dobles<br />POST-PROCESSING: Jason Paul Laxamana<br />LOCATION MANAGER: Jocelyn Fabello<br /><br />Models will be the lead actors in the upcoming music video of "PLONING, ADIN KA REN" (Ploning, Where Are You) by Bulyaw Mariguen, a Cuyonon rock band. To be directed by yours truly.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaipesRsI/AAAAAAAACaA/S2bZJIF9IFA/s1600-h/nakakairita.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaipesRsI/AAAAAAAACaA/S2bZJIF9IFA/s320/nakakairita.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342853358405314" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaird84QI/AAAAAAAACZ4/Bj4mNVcyxE4/s1600-h/oilysmooth.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaird84QI/AAAAAAAACZ4/Bj4mNVcyxE4/s320/oilysmooth.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342853892169986" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaiePCYII/AAAAAAAACZw/N-WQTdoVcy0/s1600-h/maintain.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaiePCYII/AAAAAAAACZw/N-WQTdoVcy0/s320/maintain.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342850339954818" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaiKcpn6I/AAAAAAAACZo/anqBMjgAoFI/s1600-h/luklukbatu.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaiKcpn6I/AAAAAAAACZo/anqBMjgAoFI/s320/luklukbatu.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342845028343714" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWahy1PomI/AAAAAAAACZg/gdyYNSpoo5E/s1600-h/holdhandhaf.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 205px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWahy1PomI/AAAAAAAACZg/gdyYNSpoo5E/s320/holdhandhaf.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342838689047138" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaJbPDHtI/AAAAAAAACZY/BeJDqWkji_A/s1600-h/holdhand4th.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 208px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaJbPDHtI/AAAAAAAACZY/BeJDqWkji_A/s320/holdhand4th.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342420037967570" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaJGEzI1I/AAAAAAAACZQ/eejmJZxC_m4/s1600-h/danumlukluk.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaJGEzI1I/AAAAAAAACZQ/eejmJZxC_m4/s320/danumlukluk.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342414357832530" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaIyxkwxI/AAAAAAAACZI/FxdG_WKvxJw/s1600-h/danumlandsc.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaIyxkwxI/AAAAAAAACZI/FxdG_WKvxJw/s320/danumlandsc.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342409176924946" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaI9rnDUI/AAAAAAAACZA/afJi_jOOLFM/s1600-h/amnesia.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 213px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaI9rnDUI/AAAAAAAACZA/afJi_jOOLFM/s320/amnesia.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342412104699202" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaIm06XCI/AAAAAAAACY4/CShCC4aXOM0/s1600-h/talansamyentu.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShWaIm06XCI/AAAAAAAACY4/CShCC4aXOM0/s320/talansamyentu.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338342405969697826" border="0" /></a>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-20659586164504287342009-05-19T10:35:00.003+08:002009-05-19T10:44:03.942+08:00Another [controversial] Filipino film at the Cannes Film Festival!<span style="font-weight: bold;">Brillante Mendoza: the “Love Him or Hate Him” Director<br />'Kinatay' stirs Cannes Film Festival</span><br />By Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShIcONRA7iI/AAAAAAAACYo/lwcDYboiIpI/s1600-h/kinatay.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 142px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShIcONRA7iI/AAAAAAAACYo/lwcDYboiIpI/s320/kinatay.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337359538792230434" border="0" /></a><br />AFTER participating in the prestigious Cannes Film Festival last year with 'Serbis' -- a neorealist film about the Family Theater in Angeles City, San Fernando-born Brillante Ma. Mendoza is again vying for the main award, the Palm d'Or, in this year's festival with a violent film about the infamous “chop chop lady,” a grim character propagated by the news media in the late 90s. 'Kinatay' is also a co-production between Mendoza's Center Stage Productions and France' Swift Productions, the followup co-production after 'Serbis.'<br /><br />The title of his latest work is 'Kinatay,' with English title 'The Execution of P.' Again written by Armando “Bing” Lao, 'Kinatay' is a story of a newly-married young police trainee who is need of more money to sustain his and his wife's education. To solve his problem, he goes with police officers to a clandestine mission of torturing a drug-addicted prostitute in Manila. Later on, the prostitute is mercilessly beaten, slaughtered, and chopped into bits, the parts wrapped in plastic, and thrown in various parts of Manila.<br /><br />The movie, like in most Mendoza films, again stars Coco Martin. Mercedes Cabral, who played as the girl impregnated by Coco's character in 'Serbis,' is also back, along with Julio Diaz (also from 'Serbis'), and Lauren Novero (from 'Kaleldo'). The movie also stars Jhong Hilario, Maria Isabel Lopez, and John Regala.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Controversial again</span><br /><br />As with last year's Philippine entry to the Cannes, 'Kinatay' has not failed to divide the audience and the film critics. There are those that brand the film as the worst entry in the festival, while others praise it for its unconventional style—no sensationalized scenes, slow rhythm, hand-held camera shots, absence of plot, lack of character development, and minimal lines. This is also partially thanks to the screenwriter, who is known to advocate for real-time scriptwriting.<br /><br />This recurring style in Mendoza's films is what gets on the nerves of film critics who are not fans of the internationally acclaimed director. They describe 'Kinatay' as something that causes the audience alienation, resentment, and a feeling of having wasted money to see the film. Like in 'Serbis,' these critics also complain about the terrible traffic background sound which they describe as too noisy. Mendoza and Angeles City-residing producer Ferdie Lapuz both defend however that they are only trying to show the reality of noise pollution in the urban Philippines, which I couldn't agree more with.<br /><br />The boldness of 'Kinatay,' on the other hand, makes it a probable choice in emerging victorious in the festival. Match, a German film distribution company, has picked up the controversial Filipino artwork for international distribution.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShIcOQyH2JI/AAAAAAAACYw/A6txdb9XOHM/s1600-h/kinatay-2009.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ShIcOQyH2JI/AAAAAAAACYw/A6txdb9XOHM/s320/kinatay-2009.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337359539736402066" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">No more box office</span><br /><br />Mendoza already knows that the films he loves to make aren't the films Filipinos want to see in theaters. That is why he just plans to hop from school to school to screen his films like 'Kinatay' to students, and then talk about the issue featured after the film. Such style of screening makes movie-watching more interactive, and makes education much more exciting than just being stuck in the classroom.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-59739814092158699872009-05-17T08:19:00.007+08:002009-05-17T09:20:57.159+08:00I AM ALWAYS A CONTEST LOSER, WAAAH! But...For the past months, I have participated in a lot of contests both in the literary field and in the filmmaking field. Sadly, I have failed to become finalist in all of them, except one.<br /><br />This is the great risk of writing and filmmaking -- you invest so much time, creativity, and even money (because you ship stuff to Manila, you buy DVD-Rs, print scripts and application forms, etc.) only to fail to become a finalist in the end.<br /><br />Here are the contests I joined in:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cinemalaya 2009 Short Film Category</span>. My Asst. Director and I submitted two entries, <span style="font-style: italic;">Ing Bangkeru</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Balangingi</span>. We were torn between believing we can make it and conceding to the other filmmakers who have the money to produce technically good short films. But then in the end, we failed to penetrate the top 10.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9lrErXJTI/AAAAAAAACYY/4so6Whsz0v0/s1600-h/balangi.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 304px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9lrErXJTI/AAAAAAAACYY/4so6Whsz0v0/s320/balangi.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336595874121721138" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9lrYio5AI/AAAAAAAACYg/yWjjwix0nM4/s1600-h/Coverunflatened.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 304px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9lrYio5AI/AAAAAAAACYg/yWjjwix0nM4/s320/Coverunflatened.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336595879453844482" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cinema One Originals 2009 Scriptwriting Contest.</span> Unlike in the Cinemalaya Full-Length Category, where you have to submit only a synopsis of your film, in Cinema One, you have to submit a full-blown script -- which is what I did! I wrote a dramatic 80-page script about a male newbie in the Philippine literary scene and how the US financial crisis is indirectly affecting him. The title is <span style="font-style: italic;">Tagak at Tau</span> (Egrets and People).<br /><br />After my submission, I reviewed the finalists of the past year (finalists are given P1M to produce their scripts into films) and discovered that Cinema One is looking for out-of-the-box scripts, unlike Cinemalaya where their focus is realism and humanism. Cinema One welcomes experimental, science fiction, fantasy, and even horror. These are the genres I so love doing! Alas, I discovered that fact too late. And so, I lost again.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. </span>Alright, let me get this straight. I didn't join this year because I already conceded right even before I could start writing my entry to the short story category. I have joined for the past two years already -- first in the full-length Filipino stage play category, second in the English essay category -- and I lost, lost, lost! This year, I tried reading the entries of past winners, because the new Palanca website has made them available. The reading experience brings back memories of high school where you are required to read literary works which you barely understand, full of vocabulary words. I had no idea how my "dumbed down" works could fit in their roster. I decided not to join.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1st Philippine Digital Awards. </span>This contest is very memorable to me because it's the first time I won an actual award/trophy. My entry was my <span style="font-style: italic;">Balangingi</span> short film, which was classified under the ETC Short Film contest. The awarding was held at the World Trade Center in Manila, and it was the first time I delivered an acceptance speech on stage in front of the audience, composed of people I don't know and famous people like Gary V.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9kNCh43nI/AAAAAAAACYQ/ip4cTjOY41Q/s1600-h/phil.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9kNCh43nI/AAAAAAAACYQ/ip4cTjOY41Q/s320/phil.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336594258637414002" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ateneo Video Open 10.</span> We joined in three categories: Short Narrative, Documentary, and Music Video. For short narrative, we submitted Ing Bangkeru and Balangingi. None of them made it to the top 5. For documentary, we submitted Sexmoan Adventures. It made it to the top 5! But when all the documentaries where screened at ADMU, Diego and I already conceded to <span style="font-style: italic;">Ang Pasko Ni Intoy</span>. For music video, we submitted the music video of <span style="font-style: italic;">Oras</span> by Mernuts and <span style="font-style: italic;">Alang Anggang Sugat</span> by 5 Against The Wall. We can't figure out why none of those two became finalist, because honestly, the chosen finalists were blah. But hey, that's life. We got nothing in the end. At least our documentary was the funniest during the screening.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Most Outstanding Kapampangan Awards 2008.</span> Lost in the Youth Category to a doctor who sortof like trained young people or something. Lost in the Culture and the Arts Category to a visual artist. Had I been entered in the Mass Media category, I would have also lost to internationally acclaimed filmmaker Brillante Mendoza. Oh well, another case for a 21-year old trying to compete in the contest of adults -- even in the Youth category.<br /><br />Here are some more contests I joined, the results of which are still to be determined:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1st Flash Fiction Script Writing Contest by ACPI.</span> ACPI stands for Animation Council of the Philippines, Inc. Yes! They (along with UNESCO) launched this contest that sought for scripts good for a 5-minute animation! Being a fan of anime and cartoons, I told myself I should join no matter what. I have been dreaming for the past few days of having a break in the young Pinoy animation (original content) industry by joining this contest and hoping to win! Not as an animator though; as a writer, because that's what the Pinoy animation industry needs.<br /><br />I kinda like to think I have an advantage here. You see, scriptwriting for animation is a whole new discipline. It's not just any script. It's a very visual script. Try researching on it and you will understand. Are the literary giants to be feared here? Only if they are into animation and animation scriptwriting. Because no matter how good they are in writing, if they can't transform their works into an animations cript, it won't suffice. On the other side, we have the animators, or the animation students. They have long been exposed to this kind of skill, but the question now is--are they <span style="font-style: italic;">also</span> good in creative writing?<br /><br />Forgive me for sounding <span style="font-style: italic;">mayabang</span>. I'd just like to think happy thoughts to save me from insanity in case I, again, lose in this contest. Anyway, I submitted <span style="font-style: italic;">Ang Mga Tagapangalaga Ng Bundok Arayat</span>. I have often dreamed of making a comic book out of them, but since I can't draw much except for a couple of poses, I brushed off the idea. But I revived them for this contest.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9h6vcRXsI/AAAAAAAACYA/NxFO0c24Rc0/s1600-h/Guardians_of_Mount_Arayat_by_sisigman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 236px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9h6vcRXsI/AAAAAAAACYA/NxFO0c24Rc0/s320/Guardians_of_Mount_Arayat_by_sisigman.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336591745252679362" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Farthest Shore: Fantasy From The Philippines.</span> This is a literary contest seeking for Philippine secondary world-short stories (in English). What's a secondary world? Think <span style="font-style: italic;">Middle Earth</span> of LOTR. Or the world in the Nick toon <span style="font-style: italic;">Avatar</span>. Or the Mario World. Or, heck, even the <span style="font-style: italic;">Ibong Adarna</span> world. In short, they were looking for stories written by Filipinos set in worlds that do not really exist, worlds only created by the writers. I wrote mine while I was having a vacation in the US. Title is <span style="font-style: italic;">The Destiny Twines of Makaru</span>, set in a continent called Quemardican, in the country of Kasulipan. Fusion of local Kapampangan folklore and advanced psychic technology.<br /><br />On the other hand, even though I often lose in contests, there is this thing I find weird. I may always be a contest loser, but how come I often get invited to screen my works? For instance, just last Friday, I was invited to deliver a talk on indie filmmaking at the Red Horze Muziklaban Rock Challenge, which now also embraces Indie Filmmaking, Tattooing, and Extreme Sports.<br /><br />I had my own Indie Film booth at the kickoff party where I was able to screen all of my works to those interested to see. Shorts, docus, music videos, PSAs, and even the first episode of Kalam, I all screened! And then, when it was time for me to give a lecture, I also had two music videos shown (<span style="font-style: italic;">Alang Anggang Sugat</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Kaplas</span>) on the big screen on stage.<br /><br />I'd like to think people were "amazed." After the event, I was even approached by this adult man named Bobby who so loved my work, he said he won't leave the party unless I give him a copy of my works.<br /><br />Speaking of film, I also became the sole Pampanga participant in the Cinema Rehiyon Film Festival last February. <span style="font-style: italic;">Ing Bangkeru</span> was screened at the CCP Dream Theater to represent Kapampangan indie cinema.<br /><br />The music video of <span style="font-style: italic;">Oras</span> by Mernuts which I directed has been accepted in the Tong Hits segment of MTV Pilipinas, making it the first ever Kapampangan music video to penetrate MTV. Two of my projects have been featured in <span style="font-style: italic;">Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho</span> separately. First was RocKapampangan, in their feature on the regional-language rock scene in the provinces. Second was <span style="font-style: italic;">Kalam</span>, in their feature on regional-language TV dramas and films.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Ing Bangkeru</span> has also served as front-act film to Brillante Mendoza's internationall acclaimed films (<span style="font-style: italic;">Manoro</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">Kaleldo</span>, and <span style="font-style: italic;">Foster Child</span>) when they were screened at the Holy Angel Auditorium. Around two thousand pairs of eyes were watching, and it sent shivers down my spine when they applauded after watching <span style="font-style: italic;">Ing Bangkeru</span> (after watching the arrogant student get mentally owned by the lowly boatman).<br /><br />In the field of literature, I was also chosen by UP Pampanga to represent Kapampangan literary writing (Junior Category) in the 1st Taboan Philippine International Writers Festival held at Quezon City.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9kNHXfaxI/AAAAAAAACYI/R3XK5M_XHkc/s1600-h/tabo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sg9kNHXfaxI/AAAAAAAACYI/R3XK5M_XHkc/s320/tabo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336594259935980306" border="0" /></a><br />In the field of cultural work, I have been invited to speak in various lectures. Language-related. Film-related. Culture-related. In both Pampanga and Quezon City. I've often been interviewed for the theses of different people. Even postgrad theses.<br /><br />This is what I find weird.<br /><br />I often lose in contests.<br /><br />But I often get invited in these non-competition stuff.<br /><br />I should be proud, I know, but I don't know... Maybe I yearn to win in a competition because it will give me a sense of hard-earned victory, defeating all others who joined... which is more valuable than just being "chosen".<br /><br />Oh well, Regine Velasquez will always be my constant reminder. How she lost in more than 50 contests, and now, look at her! She's lovers with Ogie! And, oh yeah, she's a Songbird.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-87975677850699669122009-05-11T15:32:00.002+08:002009-05-11T15:35:54.242+08:00Nievera's 'Lupang Hinirang' - another exaggerated issue, proof of Pinoy shallownessConrado De Quiros wrote pretty well about the Martin Nievera issue. The brouhaha about the so-called "desecration" of the national anthem by proud nationalists is proof how insecure Filipinos are regarding their patriotism. They are superficial.<br /><br />Theres The Rub<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Footnote to a false note </span><br /><br />By Conrado de Quiros<br />Philippine Daily Inquirer<br />First Posted 02:22:00 05/11/2009<br /><br />I beg to disagree with some friends on this. “This” is the way Martin Nievera sang “Lupang Hinirang” in the Pacquiao-Hatton fight, which has brought him into a brawl with preservers of Filipino tradition.<br /><br />The fight has so far been lopsided, with many authority figures, from congressmen to historians, knocking him down with a chorus of irate voices.<br /><br />I myself have no problems with it. In fact I have a couple of reasons for liking it.<br /><br />The first has to do with the barb that Nievera went the route of show biz by aping the American singers (mostly black) who make the “Star-Spangled Banner” sound like Motown each time an American boxer takes to the ring. Which, as the nastier remarks go, is probably because Nievera is an American at heart and on paper. I leave others to argue where Nievera’s loyalties lie, though given all the open and closet “statehooders” here—Filipinos who long for the country to become a state of the United States—not least among the congressmen, I wouldn’t advise pressing this point too loudly.<br /><br />But even if Nievera went show biz, what of it? Boxing is pretty much show biz, of the loud and glittery type. And though Nievera did not sing “Lupang Hinirang” traditionally, he did not disrespect it either, to use a word much favored by African-Americans.<br /><br />The reason Americans do not mind their National Anthem sung like gospel (or its modern reincarnations; I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes hip-hop one day) is that they are secure in their patriotism. They are secure in their sense of country. They are secure in their loyalty to flag and country. Enough to withstand Jimi Hendrix’s “sacrilegious” interpretation of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” which he did in Woodstock, his awesome guitar blaring out the din of discord in protest against the Vietnam War. That version has since been elevated to iconic status by baby boomers.<br /><br />Our prissiness with orthodoxy is in fact a symptom of an affliction as worrisome as swine flu. We like revering tradition because we prefer form over content, because we like showing our love of country in ritual rather than in practice. We like to build busts and monuments to the heroes without liking to follow their ideals and actions, which is really the best tribute to them. The religious equivalent of this is that we like to hear Mass and receive the sacraments without liking to live lives that are not given to lying, cheating, stealing and murdering.<br /><br />It’s like that line in “Lupang Hinirang:” “Ang mamatay nang dahil say iyo” (“to die for you”). I’ve always said that was a perfect, if ironic, commentary on us. We’ve never had problems dying for country, we’ve always had problems living for it. I’ve always suggested—utter sacrilege!—changing it to, “Ang mabuhay ng dahil sa iyo” (“to live for you”).<br /><br />My second point is: Why on earth should we regard tradition as intractable or unchangeable?<br /><br />Even the Rock, or the Church, changes. I still remember the time when the Mass, which used to unfold with Latin incantations, gave way to idiomatic English. Or indeed, horror of horrors, when the Gregorian chant gave way to the “Guitar Mass.” Once things that threatened to make the faithful faithless, plain language and (middle-of-the- road) pop (if not rock) are rock-solid orthodoxy in Masses now.<br /><br />In the case of historical tradition, I should think changes should not just be acceptable to us, they should be welcome to us. I say this because our lack of sense of history—truly notorious in that we can’t even remember the recent past—owes in great part to our tendency to embalm history. To treat it as something dead and gone and remembered only on the historical equivalents of All Saints’ Day. One natural consequence of this is to turn history into sacred text and the heroes into untouchable objects of worship.<br /><br />I still remember how we used to look at Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini and the other heroes that way, courtesy of high school and college. Something the new wave of historians led by Renato Constantino corrected, turning them into ordinary folk who did extraordinary things in their time and place. No less, or more, than the activists did in their time and place. The process of demystification, or “humanization,” would culminate in historians like Ambeth Ocampo who would make Rizal et al. as contemporary as, well, Nievera’s rendition of the National Anthem.<br /><br />Which makes me wonder why Ambeth in particular should disapprove of that rendition. I recall that when he was pilloried by purists for “watering down” history with his “pop” version of it, I wrote a column saying that far from detracting from the worth of history, he added to it. Specifically by making the past present, by making the dead living, by making history not history in the idiomatic sense of “we’re outta here” but history in the sense of current events. The power of history lies precisely in its being living history, or a “continuing past,” as Constantino put it. One would imagine that a continuing past uses the idioms or idiosyncrasies of the flowing present. That’s what makes the past worth remembering. That’s what makes the past worth living.<br /><br />It’s not just that I don’t think Nievera has done any harm by his version, it is that I think he has done much good with it. Anything that hooks the youth in particular of this amnesiac country to their past, even if it feels like a right hook to those who take that past reverentially, is fine by me. History has been known to rock, history has been known to roll. Sometimes, history has even been known to OPM.<br /><br />In any case, I have a lot of friends who’ve always thought the National Anthem wasn’t “Lupang Hinirang” but Juan de la Cruz’s “Ang Himig Natin.”Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-56504395886063226952009-05-10T06:18:00.003+08:002009-05-10T06:30:55.929+08:00New Kapampangan rock music video - Happy Mother's Day!Happy Mothers' Day (<span style="font-style: italic;">Masayang Kayaldawan da ring Ima</span>) to all of our dear mothers! Before I left for the US, we were able to shoot the band scenes of Mental Floss' music video for their RocKapampangan song "Ing Lugud Ning Indu" (Love of a Mother). We really intended to finish the video by Mothers' Day, but sadly, we didn't.<br /><br />So I'll just say: Abangan! Here are some screen captures from the video. If you notice, the vocalist is pregnant, too! She's soon to become a mother! Congrats, Nicole!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDwLRK_AI/AAAAAAAACX4/0TBXyOMh3kg/s1600-h/1_979897453l.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDwLRK_AI/AAAAAAAACX4/0TBXyOMh3kg/s320/1_979897453l.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333954934860348418" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDv1kkqoI/AAAAAAAACXw/Q1xPmkYBw6Y/s1600-h/1_931141604l.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDv1kkqoI/AAAAAAAACXw/Q1xPmkYBw6Y/s320/1_931141604l.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333954929036143234" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDv2cnShI/AAAAAAAACXo/_LUrzmsEw9c/s1600-h/1_929637432l.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDv2cnShI/AAAAAAAACXo/_LUrzmsEw9c/s320/1_929637432l.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333954929271196178" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDvk_9eBI/AAAAAAAACXg/gme-8tpXIIc/s1600-h/1_417294533l.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDvk_9eBI/AAAAAAAACXg/gme-8tpXIIc/s320/1_417294533l.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333954924587612178" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDvml_GmI/AAAAAAAACXY/NOJAfkCPZ2U/s1600-h/1_207779461l.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SgYDvml_GmI/AAAAAAAACXY/NOJAfkCPZ2U/s320/1_207779461l.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333954925015538274" border="0" /></a><br />Meanwhile, here is an old video of Mental Floss performing 'Ing Lugud Ning Indu.' Don't you think it's a nice Kapampangan song?<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/E3m5x1eaP8I&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/E3m5x1eaP8I&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-49213828610727417172009-05-07T09:56:00.001+08:002009-05-07T09:58:22.865+08:00The Pacquiao Victory: Pop Icons and National PrideBy Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily<br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> In a certain forum on the Internet, members are arguing on whether Manny Pacquiao's victory against Hampton should be given that much of a deal, to the point of labeling a boxing champ a national treasure. The thing is, in the Philippines, it's no longer a question of whether it should given that much of a deal because obviously, it already has for past years.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Named the “National Fist” of the country, everytime Pacquiao's match abroad arises, the Philippines—from the urban to the rural—is expected to lay still like it's celebrating a holiday. All eyes, regardless if they belong to Muslims, Christians, the poor, or the elite, are on his match, and the unofficial celebration rivals even Ramadan or Good Friday. Crime rate can go as far as zero percent and comes the time Pacquiao knocks out his opponent, we all jump together in triumph like winning a war against an invading country.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I am not here to judge whether this is bad or good. In the country of Barbados, RnB sensation Rihanna is very admired, in that the government decided to appoint a Rihanna Day in its calendar. It's a national holiday! In South Korea, international pop star BoA has been given an award by their President because her musical prominence in both South Korea and Japan is said to have contributed to the easing of the tension between the two countries (South Korea was invaded by Japan in the past).</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> However, it's slightly different in the Philippines because Pacquiao's victory, whenever it arises, seems to be the most important moment for the Filipinos. Pride rises from the heart to the head, and it makes the Filipinos think, “Damn, I so love being a Filipino.” In fact, I don't think our national hero Jose Rizal has ever causes current Filipinos to feel that way.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Manic with Pacquiao</b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The reason Filipinos are manic with what some intellectuals call “shallow” bases of pride—such as Charice Pempengco making waves in the US, Manny Pacquiao's winning in matches, or even Apl De Ap's inclusion in the Black Eyed Peas, is because we are a quasi-nation state.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> A quasi nation-state is a community (like the Philippines) where the state was formed first before the nation. We know our Philippine history. The Spaniards forced us together into a country, not caring about our cultural diversity, linguistic dissimilarities, and regional competitions. Mindanao, they say, has never been conquered by the Spaniards; that is why they are asserting their “right” to secede from the Republic.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> There were several ethnic groups that, in the past, formed several small “nations,” with their own specific languages, goals, songs, customs, etc. These small nations were forced together against their will. And so, trouble begins.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Now that the physical invaders are gone, and now that the Philippines is left to the hands of the natives, we are struggling to make ourselves a nation despite the long existence of the state. Difference is, the state was formerly in the hands of foreigners.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> This quest for nationhood is the reason we have the National Bird, National Song, National Dance, National Language, etc. even though for example, the Northern Luzon people do not dance the tinikling, or even though majority of Visayas and Mindanao people used to not speak Tagalog at all.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Each ethnic group has its own precolonial gems of pride—local heroes, folklore, dances, literature, and cuisine—but since we are now one, these are usually dissolved. Lucky are those that get absorbed into the national scene, like the Barong Tagalog and the Sinawali style of arnis, to become Filipino property instead of, for example, Cebuano, Pampango, or Igorot properties.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Vacant positions</b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Since the Filipino nation is a new thing, we are desperate in finding other sources of Pinoy pride. Kapampangan pride, Ilonggo pride, Waray pride—these are all to be shut off because regionalism is said to be one of the major hindrances to national unity. “We need Filipino pride!” nationalists wail. The government and the educational institution solve this by trying to produce competent contemporary artists in the realm of high art: painting, ballet, classical music, cinema, etc. But honestly, do the masses look up to the high arts? Does even the middle class look up to the high arts? I think they look up more to pop icons.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> So when popular cases like Pacquiao, Pempengco, Apl De Ap, or even the Filipino chefs in the White House, reach the consciousness of the masses through local mass media, they rejoice and claim they are proud to be Pinoy, because without them, we feel we are losers in the global arena, with all the bad news and reputations we have—corruption, unlawfulness, tax evasions, scandals, and poor waste management. Other countries like China, Korea, or the US don't care if any of their citizens or expatriates make it big in the Philippines because they appear to be not insecure.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>We are insecure!</b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> This artificial, fragile pride of ours is also the reason that whenever someone blasts the Filipinos, we whine like crybabies. Remember the so-called ethnic slur from Desperate Housewives? The 'Family Guy' cartoon and the 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' movie also had made fun of Filipinos in one of their lines, but they're lucky Filipinos didn't pick them up. And let's not forget the Hong Kong-based columnist.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> That's how fragile our national pride is. <span style="font-style: italic;">Atuan me mung bagya, kumiak ne.</span> I am quite sure there are plenty more Filipinos who have wrote negatively about Americans, Koreans, or other nationalities, but I am also quite sure we never heard anything from them—nothing compared to how far we want to go to express our national disappointments. They never made petitions or rallies or whatever, asking for public apologies and stuff. American shows make fun of Koreans, Chinese, Frenchmen, Canadians, and Mexicans more but they don't act like crybabies like Filipinos.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><b>Omitting the Quasi</b></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The transition from being a quasi nation state to being a genuine state is a hard one. It's going against our nature because nationalizing ourselves means extinguishing some items that make up our diversity, as the less powerful ethnic groups are systematically forced to succumb to national policies (that are supposed to be democratic). Remember how Ramadan used to be NOT a holiday for non-Muslims in the Philippines, yet Muslims take a holiday during Christmas because government said so?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> This is not unique to Filipinos though. China is undergoing the same process, trying to eliminate its diversity with its “Zonghua Minzhu” concept. “One China,” the People's Republic says. Rebels like the Tibetans are pacified and Taiwan is endlessly being wooed into unifying with China. Only Mandarin is the language in China and the others are systematically reduced to dialects (like in the Philippines). What makes them successful in their nationalizing actions is that they have an authoritarian government which has access to lots of resources.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The Filipino government cannot do that because it is poor and democracy is highly fought for.</p>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-82245735191582316382009-05-04T10:57:00.001+08:002009-05-04T10:59:35.070+08:00East Versus West (Asians and Americans think differently)<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">By Hana Alberts</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Forbes.com</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />A psychology professor dares to compare how Asians and Americans think.</span><br /><br />Richard Nisbett used to be a universalist. Like many cognitive scientists, the University of Michigan professor held that all people--from the Kung tribe that forages in southern Africa to programmers in Silicon Valley--process sensory information the same way. But after visiting Peking University in 1982 and partnering with an Asian researcher, Nisbett found his beliefs challenged.<br /><br />He embarked on a project to probe the thought processes of East Asians and European Americans. His experiment presented subjects with a virtual aquarium on a computer screen.<br /><br />"The Americans would say, 'I saw three big fish swimming off to the left. They had pink fins.' They went for the biggest, brightest moving object and focused on that and on its attributes," Nisbett explains. "The Japanese in that study would start by saying, 'Well, I saw what looked like a stream. The water was green. There were rocks and shells on the bottom. There were three big fish swimming off to the left.'"<br /><br />In other studies Nisbett discovered that East Asians have an easier time remembering objects when they are presented with the same background against which they were first seen. By contrast, context doesn't seem to affect Western recognition of an object.<br /><br />"I thought there wasn't going to be any difference, and then we kept coming up with these very large differences," says Nisbett, a stately, white-haired man of 67, as we sit in the Upper East Side headquarters of the Russell Sage Foundation. In lieu of his regular salary, he has a grant from Sage to research the nature of intelligence while on sabbatical from Michigan's psychology department, where he has taught since 1971.<br /><br />Scientists now attach gizmos to people's heads that track eyeball movement; these experiments have confirmed Nisbett's findings, recording that Americans spend more time looking at the featured object in an array while Asians take in the entire scene, darting between background and foreground.<br /><br />East Asians see things in context, while Westerners focus on the point at hand; the former are dependent, the latter independent; the former are holistic, the latter analytic. There's a social aspect to these differences: Asians are collectivistic, Westerners individualistic.<br /><br />Even if cognition does differ across cultures, why should we care? For one thing, it might help explain why we're prone to bubbles. In Nisbett's 2003 book The Geography of Thought he describes a study in which students were shown a graph with a line snaking upward across it, representing a trend like world deaths from tuberculosis or the gdp of Brazil. Investigators asked subjects to indicate how they thought the trend would continue. Many Americans sketched a line that continued skyward, while most Chinese forecast a peak and then a decline. A colleague of Nisbett's also showed that while Canadians predict a stock whose value is rising will continue to rise, Chinese think what goes up will come down. An intriguing difference, although one wonders if 1998's pancontinental financial crisis in Asia or the real estate and stock market crash in Tokyo affected students; in the U.S. the Nasdaq crash of 2000--02 was not as memorable. Nisbett doubts the theory but admits "the Confucian idea that the future will resemble the past is deeply ingrained in the Asian mind."<br /><br />He reasons that cross-cultural differences can also explain societal phenomena. Nisbett defines a nation's preference for lawyers over engineers as a ratio: the number of the former divided by the number of the latter. When he compared America's ratio to Japan's, he found that the U.S. preferred lawyers over engineers 41-to-1. The American system, he says, prizes win-or-lose judgments, while Japan's preference is for middlemen who draft compromises.<br /><br />In his most recent book, Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count, Nisbett asks why Asian-Americans score higher on the sat than other Americans and why students in Asian nations do so much better on international math and science exams than their U.S. counterparts. The answer is not, Nisbett says, that Asians are smarter. Rather, he writes, "Asian intellectual accomplishment is due more to sweat than to exceptional gray matter." The tests measure proficiency as much as innate skill, and the proficiency comes from cultural forces, such as the Asian sense of obligation to the family. Another factor is that math lessons in Asian schools have a student working out a problem on the board as classmates chime in. That kind of collectivism confirms the commonly held belief that learning by organic induction is more effective than rote memorization.<br /><br />Why do you find, in a music conservatory, a lot of Asian would-be concert pianists but comparatively few Asian opera-singers-in-training? There's a physical limit to how many hours a day a person can sing, Nisbett says, but not to how many hours one can practice sonatas.<br /><br />He attributes these differences to history. East Asian agriculture was a communal venture in which tasks like irrigation and crop rotation had citizens acting in concert. In contrast, Western food production led to more lone-operator farmers and herdsmen. Greek democratic philosophy emphasized the individual; the Reformation stressed a personal connection to God; the Industrial Revolution made heroes of entrepreneurs. But in Asia, Confucius said virtue hinged upon appropriate behavior for specific relationships, say, among siblings, neighbors or colleagues.<br /><br />These tidy generalizations are not without critics. A San Francisco State University professor who edits the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, David Matsumoto, holds that while Nisbett attaches his observations to fascinating raw data, he takes some conclusions too far.<br /><br />"In cross-cultural work researchers are too quick to come up with some deep, dark, mysterious interpretation of a difference with no data to support it," Matsumoto says. "It's difficult to draw one conclusion [from] a snippet of behavior, and that's what this work tends to do."<br /><br />Though Nisbett believes our behaviors are shaped by 2,500 years of history, he also thinks they are malleable.<br /><br />"I got interested in whether you could make people better at reasoning and problem-solving by certain kinds of education, and it turns out you can," he says. If Americans are asked to think about how they are similar to other people they know, they view the aquarium scene more like Asians--and vice versa. "So these things aren't necessarily locked in."<br /><br />When it comes to cross-cultural business, Nisbett observes, East Asians want to establish relationships, while Westerners tend to keep their business connections at arm's length. Westerners operate by the exact wording of a contract, while East Asians hold that if circumstances change, so should the agreement. Marketers, of course, are aware of cultural differences. For the same phone, Samsung emphasized contrasting messages: In the U.S. the message was "I march to the beat of my own drum," whereas in Korea the ad campaign focused on families staying connected.<br /><br />But Nisbett noticed shifts within the Asian cohort last year, after he observed a group of Chinese students at a Procter & Gamble ( PG - news - people ) focus group.<br /><br />"My goodness, they were as lively as any group of American graduate students I've ever had. If I said something they didn't agree with, they let me know. … I would never, ever feel that way with Japanese or Koreans, who are more concerned with harmony," he says. "I think the Chinese will be more successful than the Japanese have been because they have that sense of obligation to family, but they're also going to get this more Western attitude of wanting to succeed as individuals."<br /><br />Perhaps, Nisbett speculates, the personal drive one sees in Chinese entrepreneurs is a consequence of China's one-child policy. Because two parents and four grandparents dote on an only child, individualism is emphasized more than it used to be. As a result, Chinese youth are moving in a Western direction.<br /><br />In the last half-century Japan has undergone a huge shift toward democracy, but this hasn't been accompanied by an increase in individualism, Nisbett says: "Japan is evidence that nothing changes. China is evidence that things can change like mad."<br /><br />Why is Nisbett something of a lone wolf in studying the role of geography in cognition? His answer: "A lot of politically correct academics can't stand to hear about differences. They automatically assume that if you're pointing to difference, you're assuming superiority of your own culture. Well, that's just nonsense."<br /><br />The upshot of Nisbett's research is that differences are real. They might not always be for the better, but they matter. Perhaps Americans should temper their optimism, Asians their reluctance to take center stage. For it seems to Nisbett that those who will be most successful in the 21st century are the ones who grasp what's best about both worldviews.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-17158948366372447212009-05-03T00:08:00.004+08:002009-05-03T00:33:28.058+08:00Violin + Hip Hop Dance = Henry Lau<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img3.cdn.crunchyroll.com/i/spire1/04192008/d/5/5/d/d55d639da983a0_full.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 210px; height: 201px;" src="http://img3.cdn.crunchyroll.com/i/spire1/04192008/d/5/5/d/d55d639da983a0_full.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>There's this 13-member boy group (world's largest number of members for a boy group) managed by SM Entertainment, a Korean record company.<br /><br />This boy group is called <span style="font-weight: bold;">Super Junior</span> and they have so-called subgroups, such as Super Junior M (Mandarin) for the Mandarin-speaking market, Super Junior Happy, Super Junior T (Trot) which capitalizes on the so-called trot music or <span style="font-style: italic;">pongjak</span> of Korea, Super Junior Happy which specializes in happy/uplifting pop songs, and Super Junior KRY for the more mature fanbase of the boy group.<br /><br />A Chinese Canadian boy named <span style="font-weight: bold;">Henry Lau</span>, although not an official member of Super Junior, was admitted as a guest member for the subgroup Super Junior M.<br /><br />I find him very cool because he plays the violin while dancing hip hop! Ain't he enviable?! I sure wish I were him. Or something.<br /><br /><object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/K9XcLbEEMHM&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/K9XcLbEEMHM&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="265" width="320"></embed></object><br /><br /><object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/K5h41_m0wt0&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/K5h41_m0wt0&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="265" width="320"></embed></object><br /><br />He guested in one of Super Junior's tracks titled <span style="font-style: italic;">Don't Don</span>, where he also appeared on the video. You have to wait until the middle part of the video to see Lau in action.<br /><br /><object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YwyXCYQSA6s&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YwyXCYQSA6s&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="265" width="320"></embed></object><br /><br />Cooooooolness! And I learned he plays the piano, too. Now I'll just have to wait for him to come up with ways on combining hip hop dancing and hitting the keys.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-59147803475205423062009-05-01T08:18:00.001+08:002009-05-01T08:19:40.240+08:00Omegle.com: The Thrill of Chatting with Random StrangersBy Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily<br /><br />There are a couple of reasons we chat with people we don’t know online. Back when I was still a Yahoo! Messenger chat addict, I went to chatrooms the name of which sparked my interest, like “Atheist VS Christian chatroom” and “Tambayan Kapampangan,” carrying the assumption that I would have the opportunity of chatting with people who shared the same interest.<br /><br />Some who entered the chatroom merely lurked (an Internet term which means to be a member of a chatroom or forum, but not shouting out anything; an observer of the exchange of messages instead of a participant), while some debated with, or even flamed (an Internet term which means to debate with argumentum ad hominem) people who held beliefs different from theirs. A frequent case in many chatrooms though, regardless of their topic, is the abundance of perverts, meaning people who go online and try to pickup anyone, and probably invite him/her to some SEB (sex eyeball), or the so-called cam-to-cam (cybersex through webcam).<br /><br />Now how about joining a chatroom that sets you up a session with a random stranger from anywhere in the world?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Introducing Omegle</span><br /><br />One of my time-killers in my recent vacation in California was logging on to this website called Omegle (http://omegle.com), which my big brother introduced to me. The introductory message of the site says it all: “Omegle is a brand-new service for meeting new friends. When you use Omegle, we pick another user at random and let you have a one-on-one chat with each other. Chats are completely anonymous, although there is nothing to stop you from revealing personal details if you would like.”<br /><br />I personally found the concept appealing. You know, being paired with a random person in cyberspace. Questions popped in my mind such as: What country will he/she come from? What age? What school level, course, or job? What interests? Will he/she be worth my time? Thinking of all these variables whenever Omegle paired me with a chat-mate gave me excitement, and I have chatted with a variety of people so far—from an interesting linguist from London who knew stuff about the Filipino language, to a Han Chinese university student who was forced to take up English.<br /><br />I had a long chat with the linguist from London, who was not surprised with my proficiency in English, since he knew about the status of English in the Philippines, a country which, he said (and I agreed) had “stupidly big malls for a third world country.”<br /><br />Sometimes, chats become very interesting in that I would chat with them until the wee hours of the morning, and we end up adding one another in some social network website like Facebook, like that Canadian French student whose ambition is to become a famous literary writer in Francais someday, the Mexican girl who is into spontaneous photography, and an independent grunge musician from Holland who hated his country’s wintry weather.<br /><br />Despite the global accessibility of Omegle (even China allows it), the countries where participants usually come from are the United States, Canada, Mexico, United Kingdom, Holland, Brazil, and China. The only Filipinos I know who use Omegle are me, my big brother, and my cousins in the United States.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Disconnecting, Jerks, and Perverts</span><br /><br />But not every stranger is fascinating. In fact, the chance of being paired with an interesting person is slimmer than being paired with a blah person. The good thing though is that you can disconnect with your current session, and Omegle will then pair you with a new stranger. (You can’t chat again with the previous person you’ve chatted with because contacts are not stored unlike in Yahoo! Messenger; unless serendipity is by your side and you get paired with the person among all other users online from all over the world).<br /><br />Many times, the first thing you chat-mate would ask you would be your ASL (age, sex, location). A lot of times as well, if the person on the other line is a typical guy, and learns that you are also a dude, he would then disconnect without explanation. But the obvious explanation is that he is looking for someone from the opposite sex.<br /><br />There are those who disconnect after learning what country you come from, or after learning about your age.<br /><br />I’m not trying to be a jerk, but I usually disconnect without justification when the person on the other line answers briefly with questions. Like when I ask about how it is going with his/her country, and he/she answers with only a word, I disconnect. I yearn for more articulate people who just want to have a nice chat about anything under the sun. Some, usually high school students who are 12 to 14 years old, aren’t just very worthy of my time. Hey, I have the freedom to be a jerk, too.<br /><br />Sometimes, I play pranks with people, too when I feel like it. I pretend to be someone else and make up my own fictional character description. I already have pretended to be a single mother from Japan addicted to communist ideas, an intelligent American male hustler wanting to commit suicide, and even an alien medium from India proclaiming the arrival of the aliens from a faraway galaxy.<br /><br />It’s a nice exercise for fictional writers like me, hehehe.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">About the Philippines</span><br /><br />I have this habit of asking my chat-mate if he knew where the Philippines is, because I have encountered a lot who didn’t know where it is. Some didn’t even know it was a country. One stranger from Belgium thought it was one of the states of the US. One thought it was in Spain.<br /><br />So what are you waiting for! Let’s add more Filipinos to the Omegle community! Log on to <span style="font-weight: bold;">http://omegle.com</span><br /><br />Send reactions to sisig_man@yahoo.com.phJason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com185tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-235131869231460282009-04-29T10:49:00.005+08:002009-04-29T10:55:06.589+08:00Calling all Pampanga-based models and wannabesKalalangan Kamaru—known for making Kapampangan films, producing Kapampangan songs, spearheading Kapampangan projects like RocKapampangan, Kalam, Frequency K, and Cinekabalen—is branching out to Model Photography, with its subunit called "Kamaru Photography."<br /><br />We are building our portfolio, and we are trying to fill it with different sets of our "dramatic character photography".<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcmddQ8I/AAAAAAAACXI/-VZVjaJb2mA/s1600-h/pirated+%281%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 215px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcmddQ8I/AAAAAAAACXI/-VZVjaJb2mA/s320/pirated+%281%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329941381120869314" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcd-iv8I/AAAAAAAACXA/p3FMXghDlxM/s1600-h/DSC_9059.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcd-iv8I/AAAAAAAACXA/p3FMXghDlxM/s320/DSC_9059.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329941378843721666" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcT0RdkI/AAAAAAAACW4/KYD_kl_-F2U/s1600-h/DSC_9008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcT0RdkI/AAAAAAAACW4/KYD_kl_-F2U/s320/DSC_9008.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329941376116291138" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcE9_CyI/AAAAAAAACWw/6cNUB1-JpMY/s1600-h/DSC_8992.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcE9_CyI/AAAAAAAACWw/6cNUB1-JpMY/s320/DSC_8992.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329941372130495266" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcEOKYBI/AAAAAAAACWo/SN5Lt3588QU/s1600-h/DSC_8967.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBcEOKYBI/AAAAAAAACWo/SN5Lt3588QU/s320/DSC_8967.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329941371929911314" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBASRo3iI/AAAAAAAACWg/slg5mHAsiOI/s1600-h/DSC_9785+%281%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBASRo3iI/AAAAAAAACWg/slg5mHAsiOI/s320/DSC_9785+%281%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329940894666251810" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBAWpErSI/AAAAAAAACWY/-ijhxP9aF_A/s1600-h/DSC_9571+%281%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBAWpErSI/AAAAAAAACWY/-ijhxP9aF_A/s320/DSC_9571+%281%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329940895838285090" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBAIGQWaI/AAAAAAAACWQ/v81SCTWtqdE/s1600-h/underdatree+%281%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBAIGQWaI/AAAAAAAACWQ/v81SCTWtqdE/s320/underdatree+%281%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329940891934153122" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBAPofqXI/AAAAAAAACWI/Ch01P_hzkrk/s1600-h/DSC_9622+%281%29.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SffBAPofqXI/AAAAAAAACWI/Ch01P_hzkrk/s320/DSC_9622+%281%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329940893956811122" border="0" /></a><br />If you're a model (or model-wannabe, or model-material) based in Pampanga (male/female), and you want to add more creative photos in your set cards, then let's help each other out!<br /><br />Just email <span style="font-weight: bold;">sisig_man@yahoo.com.ph</span> your FULL NAME, DATE OF BIRTH, HEIGHT, and please attach <span style="font-weight: bold;">full body and close up pictures (preferrably no makeup)</span>. Indicate in your email, too, if you are willing to go sexy (creative sexy, not pornographic sexy).<br /><br />For inquiries, 0918 699 2459<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-style: italic;">We don't just take pictures of you...</span> <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-style: italic;">We make you a part of an artwork...</span></span><br /></div>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-39713810511475987162009-04-21T01:15:00.005+08:002009-04-21T01:28:45.653+08:00Kalalangan Kamaru to participate in Cuyonon music video production<div><div>(posting this from Joey Fabello's journal)</div><div></div><br /><div><strong>The Ploning Adin Ka Ren Music Video Auditions</strong></div><br /><div></div><div>PURPOSE </div><div><br />Bulyaw Mariguen’s Songs are rock and acoustic songs in the Cuyonon language having contemporary society as the setting of each story within the songs. The stories in their songs represent a reality seen through the eyes of urban Cuyonons who are exposed to both traditional Cuyonon practices and rituals and to the effects of a globalized world. Their songs are also the first Cuyonon rock songs broadcasted, promoted and made available in Palawan through one album, thereby making Bulyaw Mariguen innovators of Cuyonon music.<br /><br />Bulyaw Mariguen’s songs are the first of their kind. Promoting them to the Filipino community thus shows the Filipino community of the existence of the Cuyonons and their drive to be heard in a country monopolized by creative outputs in Tagalog.<br /><br />GOALS </div><div><br />As a means to have Bulyaw Mariguen's Cuyonon rock and acoustic songs heard by and promoted to a greater number of other Filipino cultural groups (through music video channels broadcasted nationwide), Cuyonons (since a lot of Cuyonons has migrated to different parts of the country already) and Palawenos (since most Palawenos patronize national television), a music video of one of Bulyaw Mariguen's Songs, PLONING ADIN KA REN, will be shot in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan this coming May 2009.<br /><br />PARTNERSHIPS<br /><br />Through the help of the Palawan Broadcasting Corporation (DYPR TV PATROL, DYPR PALAWAN RADYO and IFM 99.9), Kalalangan Kamaru, the Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm, cuyopress.com and different individuals (the list of which is ever-increasing as we come closer to the shooting dates of the music video), matinlo productions is able to produce this music video (Ploning Adin Ka Ren).<br /><br />CASTING CALL/AUDITIONS</div><div> </div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326826199197410162" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SeywNJdn43I/AAAAAAAACWA/Z6Sub_lzG-M/s320/poster.jpg" border="0" /><br />Auditions for the lead actor and the lead actress of the music video have already started last April 18 and 19, 2009 at the DYPR Dance Studio (Mabini cor Valencia Street, Puerto Princesa City). Second Batch of auditions starts tomorrow (April 20, 2009) 1 to 3 pm at DYPR.<br /><br />Should you be interested to contribute your skills for the said project, we are also looking for other individuals to form part of the cast of the music video. Please check the characters needed in the succeeding paragraphs.<br /><br />THE CONCEPT <div><br />The Ploning Adin Ka Ren Music Video is not the usual music video that you see in music television channels. For one, the music video will have English or Tagalog (depending on the market) subtitles to make the songs understandable to the viewers of the music video. At the same time, the concept behind the music video is highly symbolic of what is happening to the Cuyonon culture and the struggle of the music of Bulyaw Mariguen to be accepted by the public who seem to condemn than support such innovations in music.<br /><br />THE CAST </div><div><br />LEAD: </div><div><br />The Young Modern Ploning<br />Young Looking (around 20s look)<br />Good at acting<br />Experience in TV production (not required)<br />As long as she is easy to direct<br /><br />LEAD: </div><div><br />Ploning’s Lover<br />Young Looking (around 20s look)<br />Good at acting<br />Experience in TV production (not required)<br />As long as he is easy to direct<br />PLONING’S MOTHER<br />CORPORATE PEOPLE<br />MAN IN SUIT OR IN POLO<br />WOMAN IN SUIT<br />TEENAGE GIRL AND BOY (ANIME LOOK)<br />STUDENTS<br />1 COLLEGE STUDENT (BOY)<br />1 COLLEGE STUDENT (GIRL)<br />1 HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT (BOY)<br />1 HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT (GIRL)<br />1 TEACHER- WOMAN<br />RELIGIOUS FIGURE<br />NUN<br />BABAYLAN<br />MUSLIM WOMAN<br />CLOWN (can perform simple tricks)<br />MUSICIANS<br />FOLK GUITARIST<br />POP GUITARIST<br />INDIGENOUS PEOPLE<br />SOMEONE WEARING AN ALAKAYO MASK COVERED IN BLUE DYE (ANYEL)<br />TAO’T BATO<br />TAGBANUA (MOTHER AND CHILD)<br />TAUSUG- FEMALE<br /><br />NOTES: </div><div><br />It must be noted that the production team took gender issues into consideration. See Religious figure and the attempt to represent girls and boys in most groups. It must also be noted that the indigenous groups chosen to be part of the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE cast are those who can be found in Palawan. </div><div><br />LOCATION<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5326826196879670706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SeywNA1B_bI/AAAAAAAACV4/dzxumAYSZWs/s320/loc.jpg" border="0" /><br />The location of the music video is at Balsahan managed by the Iwahig Prison and Penal Farm. (Thank you for letting us use the location for free...!)<br /><br />THE PRODUCTION TEAM </div><br /><div>The production team behind the music video is composed of people from different production teams such as matinlo productions and <strong>KALALANGAN KAMARU</strong> and different individuals who are interested to contribute their skills for the production of the music video.<br /><br />Matinlo productions is owned by Joey Fabello and in this production absorbed the responsibilities of a Producer and a Production Manager. The director and the assistant director of the music video came from Kalalangan Kamaru.<br /><br />The director of this music video is a multi-awarded Kapampangan director and cultural advocate. He bagged the First Philippine Digital Award in short film category from the Entertainment Channel (ETC) this year, is the director of the First Ever Kapampangan Telenovela in the Philippines (Kalam) and the director of the music video of Mernuts entitled Oras, seen at MTV Pilipinas. He was also the one who spearheaded the Rockapampangan Project together with Holy Angel University.<br /><br />A detailed list of the cast and the production team will be made available in the succeeding pages. If you are reading this entry from a different site, please visit our official blog site at http://www.bulyawmariguen.blogspot.com/. Also, if you know someone who might be interested to be a part of the cast and or the production team, please contact Joey Fabello at 09276275554 or Mares Krishnaa Bajar at 09085421141 or please forward this entry to them.<br /><br />MATAMANG SALAMAT, WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT! SEE YOU AT THE AUDITIONS! </div></div>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-618368953198798492009-04-18T02:37:00.001+08:002009-04-18T03:15:09.303+08:00Sandara Park: Jologs in the Phils, Kinda Cool in Korea<div>So I was randomly watching East Asian music videos when I encountered a song called "Lollipop" by a popular Korean boy group called Big Bang (songs of which I have in my MP3 player currently), featuring a girl group called 2NE1.<br /><br /><object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vsy_m6xk1xw&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vsy_m6xk1xw&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br />I was watching the video, it was kinda bubblegum-pop/hiphop cool. But one of the members of 2NE1 was somewhat familiar in my brain. Then, in the middle of the music video, I had this thought:<br /><br />She friggin' looks like Sandara Park (of Star Circle Quest fame, partnered with Hero Angeles and Joseph Bitangcol)!<br /><br />So I researched on the girl group, and boom! It's Sandara "Dara" Park!<br /><br />To like Sandara Park as a singer/dancer ('Sumusunod') in the Philippines is kinda jologs or uncool, but look at her under YG Entertainment (Korean label)! She's kinda cool.<br /><br />Just goes to show that a lot of Philippine producers are baloney. I am nationalistic and all, and have always believed that Pinoy artists have what it takes, but our producers are just too mediocre to send a Philippine wave abroad. Sorry.</div><div> </div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325740872328243586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 213px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SejVGzznaYI/AAAAAAAACVg/TdzDy_nDWaE/s320/sandarapark.jpg" border="0" />Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-59357614617054943782009-04-06T16:20:00.003+08:002009-04-06T16:32:48.893+08:00Pinoy X-Men and Street Fighter characters, anyone?<div><div><div>By Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily<br /><br />There have actually been a lot of popular fiction titles—in TV, movies, video, and PC games—that offer racially diverse worlds. In these titles, the main characters are not just White Americans, albeit the setting could most of the time be in the United States.<br /></div><br /><div>Take for example the diverse universe of X-Men, where characters are not just from different countries—they are also from different times, from different dimensions, from different planets, galaxies, and even different universes. Let’s focus on planet Earth though. We have popular delegates from Canada, the most popular being Wolverine. Russia is highlighted by Colossus and the Soviet’s prime weapon Omega Red. Storm is Egypt’s proud mutant. We also have Gambit from France, Nightcrawler from Germany, the Jewish Magneto, and many more.<br /></div><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321492772578506770" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 209px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sdm9e3BZuBI/AAAAAAAACVI/W5sF_xwPmq4/s320/xmen.bmp" border="0" /><br /><div>Then we have Street Fighter, which you probably had your first glimpse of with the movie ‘The Legend of Chun-Li.’ I, on the other hand, have known Street Fighter ever since I played Street Fighter 2 back in my Elementary days.<br /></div><br /><div>Being a world geek (in Elementary, I was able to literally memorize the capitals of all the countries in the world in whatever continent; Antananarivo, Ulaanbaatar, and Tegucigalpa were my favorite place names), I found the video game Street Fighter amusing, with each playable character representing a certain country, and at times, representing the martial arts and traditional fashion of that country. You can even choose a country to serve as your game’s location. </div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321492777938207122" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 182px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sdm9fK_QQZI/AAAAAAAACVY/M3P5XB5O040/s320/streetfighter.jpg" border="0" /><br /></div><div>Ryu and Honda represented Japan; Ken, Balrog, and Guile represented USA. Dhalsim, a personal favorite, represented India while his skills revolve around the discipline of Yoga; Saggath, Adon, and Bison (albeit biologically Irish) of Thailand; Blanka of Brazil; Chun Li of China; Fei Long of Hong Kong; Dee Jay of Jamaica; Zangief of Russia, with Sambo-inspired brute skills, a popular sport in Moscow; Cammy of England; T. Hawk of Mexico; and Vega of Spain, among others.<br /></div><br /><div>Kiddie cartoons also have their share of diverse worlds, such as ‘Codename: Kids Next Door.’ Numbah 1, the leader, is a British boy. Numbah 2 is a blonde Australian kid. Numbah 3 is a happy and seemingly slow-minded girl from Japan. Numbah 4 is a techie stout kid from the United States. Last but not the least is Numbah 5, a black French girl. Together, they are known as the Kids Next Door.<br /></div><strong></strong><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321492778406859154" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 269px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sdm9fMu_UZI/AAAAAAAACVQ/3wcx41S3G9E/s320/KidsNextDoor.gif" border="0" /><br /><div><strong>Filipino, wer k?!<br /></div></strong><br /><div>Having been concerned with the status of Kapampangan in the national setting, and of the Philippines in the global setting, I once included in a Kapampangan short story a boy who was wondering why there was no Filipino character in Street Fighter 2. Then, he began imagining how the Filipino fighter would look like and what his skills would be if ever Capcom decided to included Philippines in its roster of fighters and locations.<br /></div><br /><div>Now that you have read the first part of my article, it would be easy for you to tell that I am speaking through that kid, albeit I never thought of that as a kid.<br /></div><br /><div>But I still wonder: why is the Philippines often neglected in these fictional worlds of diversity. Is it our being a poor country? Is it our unpopular local culture, unlike those of Japan, Egypt, and China? Is it our cultural diversity, rendering other countries unable to figure out a single icon—or even a single audio-visual stereotype—that would represent a Filipino character?<br /></div><br /><div><strong>Minute Moments of Glory<br /></div></strong><br /><div>Filipinos have taken small parts in the world of fiction abroad.<br /></div><br /><div>Take for example the demon-possessed Filipina in the opening sequence of the religious fantasy Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves, where she even spoke a Tagalog line ("Papatayin natin siya"), albeit unnatural.<br /></div><br /><div>The original Starship Troopers storyline from the book had Juan Rico, the main protagonist, as a Filipino, accompanied by a multiracial training group.<br /></div><br /><div>Dante’s Peak spoke of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in its lines.<br /></div><br /><div>Ashton Kutcher’s MTV Punk’d once used as accomplice a red carpet correspondent who spoke Tagalog to celebrities passing by.<br /></div><br /><div>A Tagalog-speaking ventriloquist can also be found in the Hollywood movie ‘Big Fish,’ starring Ewan McGregor, when his character was parachuting onto the Korean stage.<br /></div><br /><div>Sinawali, a fighting style credited to the Kapampangan warriors of Macabebe, is included in the Kali Silat martial arts DVD available in the United States.<br /></div><br /><div>We have also expressed our protest in several so-called "racial slurs," from the ‘Desperate Housewives’ to BBC’s ‘Harry and Paul’ show. The latest of course would be that "nation of servants" label from a Hong Kong columnist.<br /></div><br /><div>Filipinos also giggle in mirth upon seeing the name of their country included in global listings and popular world cultural products, such as Philippine English being recognized as a significant dialect of English, the Philippines being one of the most SMS-crazy country, our country being mentioned in one of Britney Spears’ songs ("Piece of Me"), and a lot more.<br /></div><br /><div><strong>We are not alone<br /></strong></div><br /><div>Of course, we are not the only country neglected in diversity-driven titles. We’ve never seen characters from Trinidad & Tobago, Bosnia & Herzegovinia, Vanuatu, Lesotho, Belarus, Luxembourg, Seychelles, Djibouti, Sao Tome & Principe, Malawi, and Azerbaijan except probably in Miss Universe pageants.<br /></div><br /><div>Despite having history with contemporary and former world superpowers such as USA, Spain, and Japan, we still don’t appear in their imaginations, in the shows and games they produce. And whenever we do, it’s either a pitiful bit or a derogatory portrayal.<br /></div><br /><div>We don’t even have to think global to notice our ethereal identity. Whenever the world speaks of Asia, or Asian culture, they are most probably referring to the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and to a great extent as well, the South Asians (Indians). Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia will come to mind on the other hand when we begin to talk about South East Asia.<br /></div><br /><div>A pity, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong though. I wrote this article because I believe we have to know our place, our status, in the world before we can pinpoint how to work about things. Because for all we know, a lot of Filipinos are already complacent, living in the delusion that the Philippines is a very popular country in the world, with all the Manny Pacquiao victories, American Idol participations, foreign film festival engagements, and the Charice Pempengco citations. "Feeling sikat," as we often say.<br /></div><br /><div>It’s an effective source of pride for a lot of Filipinos whose world knowledge is limited to what free television can share; I just hope we can make Pinoy pride injected into the global consciousness, not just local.<br /></div><br /><div>Please email your reactions to sisig_man@yahoo.com.ph</div></div></div>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-58382043889447898882009-03-27T09:44:00.001+08:002009-03-27T09:47:42.956+08:00ABS-CBN news on 'Balangingi' victory<span style="font-weight: bold;">'Nosebleed' wins in digital film awards</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">abs-cbnNEWS.com</span><br /><br />A Kapampangan independent film titled "Balangingi (Nosebleed)" won the [ETC] Best Short Film award from the recently concluded Philippine Digital Music and Short Film Festival held at the World Trade Center in Pasay City last March 12.<br /><br />"Balangingi" is created by a group of young people calling themselves as Kamaru. The bilingual film, which uses English and the native Kapampangan [language], has a mix of intellectual humor and romance.<br /><br />Jason Paul Laxamana, director and writer of a young group called Kamaru, said the film is about the romantic relationship of two philosophers and touches the Kapampangan culture.<br /><br />"Pinaghalong intellectual at love story na may bearing sa kultura," Laxamana said.<br /><br />The film's three characters Xoo, April and Jane were played by actors Jayvie Dizon, Frency Rodriguez and Raco del Rosario, respectively.<br /><br />The three indie stars were thrilled by the award and look forward to making more Kapampangan digital films.<br /><br />"Para sa iba, kung ano ang hilig nila, dapat linangin ang kanilang talento," says Diego Marx Dobles, assistant director of Kamaru, adding that they would encourage young Cabalens to develop their skills in digital film making.<br /><br />Kamaru is now gearing up for the 1st Cine Kabalen Philippine Film Festival. With a report from <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Mylene Valencia, ABS-CBN News Pampanga</span>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-68455463870041061032009-03-19T11:18:00.005+08:002009-03-19T11:34:36.815+08:00How to make the next gen of Kapampangans smarter<span style="font-weight: bold;">Kapampangan as medium of instruction will produce Brighter Kapampangans</span><br />By Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily<br /><br />Are you aware of DepEd's Lubuagan experiment? If not, watch this first:<br /><br /><object width="400" height="324"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iT0tFkxoYZE&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iT0tFkxoYZE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="324"></embed></object><br /><br />Weeks ago, I got this message in my YouTube Mail from a certain user called Pachungchung:<br /><br />“I am a preschool teacher and I am so sad na king school a pituturuanan ku, bawal ing mag-Kapampangan; it's a mortal sin ada pin ding Supervisor mi. I don’t know why, pero siguru effect na ning modernization.”<br /><br />I frowned at the idea that the Supervisor’s knowledge on the relationship between language and education is still obsolete. I am quite sure many teachers, principals, and even parents scattered all around Pampanga are still thinking that the best way to excel in school and later on in the professional world is to expose kids as early as preschool in English—a method discouraged by linguists and education scholars.<br /><br />That being proficient in English is equal with being professionally viable is another contestable issue, but I want to share with you excerpts from a primer on MLE or Mother Tongue-based Multilingual Education written by Former KWF Chairman Ricardo Nolasco. The author is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics of UP Diliman and an Adviser on Multilingual Education Initiatives in the Foundation for Worldwide People Power.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Introduction</span><br /><br />International and local research studies in the use of languages in education are conclusive—when the mother tongue is the medium in primary instruction, learners end up being better thinkers and better learners in both their first AND second language(s).<br /><br />Sadly, legislators at the House of Representatives continue to ignore the studies and are in fact set to approve a bill “strengthening” English as the medium of instruction (MOI) from the elementary grades to the tertiary level.<br /><br />This primer aims to clarify the issues related to language-in-education in the Philippines by addressing 21 frequently-asked questions about mother-tongue based multilingual education (MLE).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ScG8eqfwkAI/AAAAAAAACU4/RLupD8tGhy0/s1600-h/kids.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 210px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/ScG8eqfwkAI/AAAAAAAACU4/RLupD8tGhy0/s320/kids.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5314736270263488514" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. What is mother tongue-based multilingual education or MLE?</span><br /><br />MLE is the use of more than two languages for literacy and instruction. It starts from where the learners are, and from what they already know. This means learning to read and write in their first language or L1, and also teaching subjects like mathematics, science, health and social studies in the L1.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. When will children start learning Filipino and English?</span><br /><br />As they develop a strong foundation in their L1, children are gradually introduced to the official languages, Filipino and English, as separate subjects, first orally, then in the written form.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. Does MLE only involve changing the language of instruction and translating the materials into the local languages?</span><br /><br />MLE is an innovative approach to learning. Apart from programming the use of several languages, it also involves the following: (a) the development of good curricula (i.e. cognitively demanding); (b) the training of good teachers in the required languages for content and methodology; (c) the production of good teaching materials (i.e., error-free and culturally relevant); (d) the empowerment of the community (i.e. school-based management). MLE will not work when one simply changes the language by translating existing materials into the local languages.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. What kind of learners does MLE intend to produce?</span><br /><br />MLE aims to produce learners who are: Multi-literate—they can read and write competently in the local language, the national language, and one or more languages of wider communication, such as English; Multi-lingual—they can use these languages in various situations; Multi-cultural—they can live and work harmoniously with people of culture backgrounds that are different from their own.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">5. What specific weaknesses in the Philippine educational system does MLE seek to address?</span><br /><br />MLE seeks to specifically address the high functional illiteracy of Filipinos where language plays a significant factor. As one educator, Professor Josefina Cortes, has observed, we have become “a nation of fifth graders.”<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">6. Why use the mother tongue or the first language (L1) in school?</span><br /><br />One’s own language enables a child to express him/herself easily, as there is no fear of making mistakes. MLE encourages active participation by children in the learning process because they understand what is being discussed and what is being asked of them. They can immediately use the L1 to construct and explain their world, articulate their thoughts and add new concepts to what they already know.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">7. But our children already know their language. Why still learn it in school?</span><br /><br />What we and our children know is the conversational language or the everyday variety used for daily interaction. Success in school depends on the academic and intellectualized language needed to discuss more abstract concepts.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">8. Why use the national language or Filipino in school?</span><br /><br />The Philippines is a multilingual and multicultural nation with more than 150 languages. A national language is a powerful resource for inter-ethnic dialogue, political unity, and national identity.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">9. Will the use of Filipino as medium of instruction and as a subject be advantageous to native Tagalog speakers?</span><br /><br />It is partially true that native speakers of Tagalog enjoy a small advantage under the present bilingual education set-up in which some subjects are taught in their L1. But this is nothing compared to the overwhelming bias of the present system for English.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">10. Will the use of the local and regional languages be detrimental to building one nation?</span><br /><br />No, it won’t. On the contrary, it is the suppression of local languages that may lead to violent conflicts, disunity, and dissension.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">11. Why use an international language like English in school?</span><br /><br />Languages of wider communication like English should be part of the multilingual curriculum of a country. The graduates of this system should find relevance beyond their ethnic and national boundaries. Most world knowledge is accessible in English, and so, knowledge of English is certainly useful. It is not true, however, that students will not learn science and mathematics if they do not know English. The ideas of science are not bound by one language and one culture.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">12. Will using the mother tongue as language of instruction hinder the learning of a second language like English?</span><br /><br />No. Many studies indicate that students first taught to read in their L1, and then later in an L2, outperform those taught to read exclusively in an L2. Learning to read in one’s own language provides learners with a solid foundation for learning to read in any L2.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">13. Will increasing the time for English or making it the exclusive medium of instruction improve our English?</span><br /><br />No. This popular belief is increasingly being proven untrue. Large scale research during the last 30 years has provided compelling evidence that the critical variable in L2 development in children is not the amount of exposure, but the timing and the manner of exposure.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">14. What is the best way to attain proficiency in English?</span><br /><br />For non-native speakers of English, the best way is to teach it as an L2 and to teach it well. This depends on the proficiency of teachers, the availability of adequate models of the language in the learner’s social environment, and sufficient reading materials. Simply increasing the time for English will not work.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">15. Are local languages capable of being used as languages of instruction?</span><br /><br />Definitely yes. As far back as 1925, during the American colonial period, the Monroe Commission already recommended the use of the local languages in education.<br /><br />Beginning 1957, the local languages, or vernaculars, became the medium of instruction in Grades 1 and 2. This vernacular education policy was abruptly abolished in 1974, when the bilingual education policy was launched by the Marcos government.<br /><br />Languages grow and change in response to changes in the physical, social, political, spiritual and economic environments in which they are used. As a language is used for instruction, for example, it intrinsically evolves to adapt to the demands of its users.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">16. Why not use an early exit program where the L1 is used from pre-school up to Grade 3 and English is used as the exclusive medium of instruction thereafter?</span><br /><br />Early-exit programs can help but may not be enough. The international experience on the use of L1 and L2 in education, especially in Africa, reveals that children need at least 12 years to learn their L1. It takes six to eight years of strong L2 teaching before this can be successfully used as a medium of instruction.<br /><br />The consolidated Gullas, Villafuerte and Del Mar Bill (or the “English-only” MOI Bill) pending in Congress appears to support the use of the local languages and also the national language in education, as it provides that “English, Filipino or the regional/native language may be used as the MOI in all subjects from preschool until Grade III.” However, the Declaration of Policy section betrays the Bill’s real intention and this is to strengthen English “as the medium of instruction in all levels of education, from the preschool to the tertiary level.” The optional use of L1 and the national language as MOI really means that they may not be used at all.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">17. Don’t we need more English since the language will provide more jobs for our countrymen, such as in the call center industry?</span><br /><br />Many believe that this is an extremely shortsighted view because not all Filipinos will become call center agents. The more important concern is how to solve the current mismatch between industry and the educational system. According to former Education Undersecretary Miguel Luz, the consensus among employers is that a high school diploma with its current coverage is inadequate for its purposes because Filipino high school graduates are weak in their ability to communicate, to think logically, and to solve problems. Luz adds: “It (the Gullas Bill) is a dangerous bill, however, because it places a misleading emphasis on English as the medium of learning. As such, the young learners and their teachers will concentrate on the language, not on Science and Math and literacy (that is more fundamental to learning).” The best way to learn basic science and math, problem solving skills, and reasoning skills is through the L1.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">18. What is a better alternative to the English-only Bill?</span><br /><br />A better alternative is House Bill No. 3719, filed by Congressman Magtanggol Gunigundo II of Valenzuela. The Bill is also known as the Multilingual Education and Literacy Bill, or the Gunigundo Bill, which is far superior to the English-only Bill in many respects.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">19. Is it costly to practice MLE?</span><br /><br />Contrary to popular belief, L1-based education may actually cost less than a system that is based on L2. If we consider the money wasted on drop-outs, repeaters, and failures, as well as other added costs, studies show that L2-based education systems are more costly than L1 systems.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">20. What do Philippine stakeholders say about MLE?</span><br /><br />• The Department of Education, through Secretary Jesli Lapus: “We find the bill (the Gunigundo bill) to be consistent with the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA) recommendations and the bridging model proposed by the Bureau of Elementary Education where pupils were found to comprehend better the lessons in class.”<br /><br />• The National Economic Development Authority, through NEDA Director General Ralph Recto: “From the economic and financial vantage points, we believe that adopting this education policy (HB 3719), in the final analysis, is cost-effective...<br /><br />• The Philippine Business for Education (PBED), one of the largest associations of businessmen in the country: “English and Filipino are languages `foreign’ to most children and legislating either as medium of instruction will do more harm to an already ailing system of education.”<br /><br />• The Department of Foreign Affairs and UNESCO Philippines, through Secretary Alberto Romulo: “Multilingualism is the order of things in the UN and in the world. The unique richness of the world’s national identities draws on the many traditions that make up different countries and are expressed through local and indigenous languages. UNESCO supports mother tongue instruction as a means of improving educational quality by building upon the knowledge and experience of the learners and teachers.”<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">21. Do we have to wait for legislation to implement MLE?</span><br /><br />No. The Lubuagan experience, the DepEd Lingua Franca Project, and other existing programs using the local languages tell us that it is already possible to undertake an MLE program without waiting for legislation.<br /><br />Read the complete version here: <span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">http://mothertongue-based.blogspot.com<br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Below is a video by Rey Maniago documenting a certain Kapampangan class in San Fernando's Filbern school. Check it out:</span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><object width="400" height="324"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/M7Ssdgx6u1g&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M7Ssdgx6u1g&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="324"></embed></object></span></span></span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(153, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-92110985521426444082009-03-17T09:31:00.002+08:002009-03-17T09:35:30.299+08:00Kapampangan art is not acclaimed in Pampanga<span style="font-weight: bold;">‘Balangingi’ is ETC Best Short Film Awardee</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Why are Kapampangan artworks awarded in other places but not in the province?</span><br />By Jason Paul Laxamana<br />Urban Kamaru<br />Central Luzon Daily<br /><br />World Trade Center, Metro Manila—our Kapampangan short film ‘Balangingi’ (Nosebleed) wins the ETC Award for Best Short Film at the First Philippine Digital (Phil Digi) Music and Short Film Awards last March 12. Competing in a certainly Tagalog-dominated category, ‘Balangingi,’ in spite of being the only regional language entry, still impressed the Board of Judges from Entertainment Central (ETC), causing them to declare it the winner.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sb7-AvxVr1I/AAAAAAAACUw/el9A6ss8ClM/s1600-h/awards.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 302px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/Sb7-AvxVr1I/AAAAAAAACUw/el9A6ss8ClM/s320/awards.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5313963899120627538" border="0" /></a>‘Balangingi’ tells the story of Xoo, who seems to be a standard teenager who lives boringly like everyone else, but unknown to people in his surroundings is what happens in his head—philosophizing about things average people would deem mundane, down to the minutest detail. One day, he is forced to attend a blind date. To avoid turning off his date, he struggles to suppress his intellectual side. The short film gives a peek to that minority in Philippine society who are unlikely to survive socially by being themselves—the Filipino intellectuals. Thus, the negative connotation of the local word “pilosopo” when it’s supposed to mean a lover of wisdom (philosopher).<br /><br />According to the official website of the Phil Digi Awards: “There have been a lot of songs composed that are worth listening to. Quality short films are created even with low budget but are amazingly filled with art, ideas and moral values. Unfortunately, because of budget constraints, tough competition in getting radio airplays and film screens, and lack of knowledge, these great songs and films are being shelved. This is why iSYS Business Solutions and Blue Fish Asia came up with first Philippine Digital Music and Short Film Festival.”<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kapampangan Kompetes!</span><br /><br />As usual, being a cultural worker seeking to empower the Kapampangan identity, I participated in the contest to “advertise” what Kapampangan can offer.<br /><br />Note: I said what Kapampangan can offer, not what Kapampangans can offer. There’s a difference. It’s easy to show the world that Kapampangans (by blood) can be excellent. But oftentimes, these Kapampangans drop their being a Kapampangan—either consciously or not—to command the spotlight unto them. This, in my opinion, doesn’t empower the Kapampangan identity much. Whenever this happens, I just shake my head and whisper, “We’ve lost another one.”<br /><br />In the venue of the Phil Digi Awards, there were huge tarpaulins where participants and guests can write anything—a freedom wall. Amidst the Pinoy pride slogans, individual promotions, and indie artist empowerment statements, we decided to write a message: “Kapampangan Ku, Pagmaragul Ku.”<br /><br />Hours passed, and messages became more cramped in the tarpaulins. Checking out the “Kapampangan Ku, Pagmaragul Ku” again, we were surprised to see a reply written by a certain Larry, saying, “Kapampangan ku mu rin!”<br /><br />Fast forward. ‘Balangingi’ was declared winner in the ETC category. I went up the stage to nervously deliver the first acceptance speech of my life—which started with “Mayap a bengi pu” and ended with a message on promoting Philippine cultural diversity—before an audience of both indie and mainstream artists, while being covered by the media.<br /><br />And then we left, but not before checking out again the tarpaulin. Another reply, written by someone else, was suddenly added: “Aliwa la talaga ring Kapampangan!”<br /><br />Perhaps we need more of these, as I call them, contemporary sources of Kapampangan pride—those that genuinely bring elements of Kapampangan identity to a more prestigious ground. For if we keep on drawing pride from Kapampangans who are successful but don’t carry with them elements of our identity (such as language, heritage, etc.), then we’re perpetuating the idea that the path to being successful is to drop our Kapampangan identity, when it is very possible to stick with Kapampangan (or make it the foundation of our works) and still get national or even global recognition.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ligligan Kilual</span><br /><br />The very reason I join film, music, and other competitions outside Pampanga is because Pampanga doesn’t have these. Hence, if I depended on what the province has, then I would have no means of increasing the symbolic value of my works, in spite of some of them probably being valuable to a certain degree.<br /><br />There are no renowned music awards in Pampanga that would honor the best of the locally produced original songs annually; only specialized areas like those Battle of the Bands and so-so solo and choral singing contests. There are no film festivals. There are no province-wide literary contests except for municipality-level poetry tilts that produce Poet Laureates irregularly.<br /><br />In result, a lot of Kapampangan artists who wish to prove something, feast their eyes on Manila and other countries, where it is actually easier to get formal acclamation than in their own homeland, just for the sole reason that the province doesn’t care much about the artistic capabilities of its residents, as seen in the scarcity of serious award-giving bodies.<br /><br />An unrelenting source of funds, a board of credible judges, sincere support from the government, and media hype—these are the key ingredients in carrying out annual contests which are supposed to be looked forward to by the community, and looked up to by the people. Emerging as a first-time victor in these contests should make one feel as if he has undergone a birth of fire. He should feel several notches prouder, being aligned with the past winners who are supposed to be icons of excellence, as well.<br /><br />But we have none. Probably the highest award from the province that can be bestowed to a writer, musician, visual artist, photographer, filmmaker, or actor would be the Most Outstanding Kapampangan Award for Culture and the Arts. So all your life, you have to struggle with your craft, reap awards from anywhere but your homeland, and when you have enough nice foreign awards up your sleeve, that’s when the province honors you.<br /><br />But the province itself doesn’t make impressive actions in encouraging the best in the various areas of art.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sindi, Patda</span><br /><br />Contests are often held because they serve significant purposes—to encourage the creation of excellent artworks amidst art being a financially unrewarding career path in the country (especially in the province), and to invite the participation of the community in a certain field of art.<br /><br />In a seemingly robotic world where almost everyone is reduced to a mechanical being tasked to perform a dehumanizing routine to survive, sustainable development in the arts will remind people of their humanistic side. I believe that the acknowledgment and exploration of our humanistic side prevent us from being insane from routines; and permit us to choose wisely and embrace elegant world views that will guide us sensibly in our decisions in life.<br /><br />I know for a fact though that fields of art like music and sculpture thrive both in rural and urban Pampanga, but as Phil Digi Awards mentioned, these are usually shelved. They are made, but not distributed. Not all of them are excellent, but I’m sure a couple are, and they deserve to be known.<br /><br />Now I ask: What efforts does the province make to seek for these artworks that deserve attention? What steps does the province take to collect these pieces of consciousness, which in the far future will remind the people how the art scene—which reflects culture, too—in Pampanga used to be?<br /><br />Pampanga is becoming more and more like a parent who doesn’t care much about the promising talent of his/her child. What will the child do? He will either suppress his talent out of discouragement and choose the “more practical ways of life” (read: be like everyone else, go where the flow is, don’t innovate, don’t lead, just follow); or he will seek for other people who will greatly acknowledge his skill—and stick with those people in spite of not having the same blood relation.<br /><br />Or is Pampanga that poor for it to not think about these things? I thought we were boasting of economic progress for the past years. If indeed we are poor, doesn’t the Pampanga government bother to take advantage of national grants, like for example, those of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts, to organize decent tilts?<br /><br />If this is how lifeless the Kapampangan region will be in the realm of arts, then let me have my second thoughts on federalism and having a separate state for Kapampangans.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-24768994896218657672009-03-13T02:00:00.003+08:002009-03-13T02:09:07.277+08:00BALANGINGI (Nosebleed) WINS @ PHIL DIGI AWARDS!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SblO9faHFSI/AAAAAAAACUY/NuCMVK_GLqI/s1600-h/DSCN3785.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 239px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SblO9faHFSI/AAAAAAAACUY/NuCMVK_GLqI/s320/DSCN3785.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312364053770212642" border="0" /></a><br />1:30 am.<br /><br />Just got home!<br /><br />World Trade Center, Metro Manila—our Kapampangan short film <span style="font-weight: bold;">Balangingi</span> (Nosebleed) wins the <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:130%;" >ETC award for best short film</span> at the 1st Philippine Digital Awards! <span style="font-style: italic;">Dakal a salamat pu! </span><br /><br />I'd love to elaborate, but, sorry, I need to rest for now.Have to return to manila tomorrow/later for Cinema One Originals 2009. I'm submitting a screenplay there, too.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Para king Indung Kapampangan!<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SblO84Jfd-I/AAAAAAAACUQ/G6Yc-WhsWlA/s1600-h/jayvieplay.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 212px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SblO84Jfd-I/AAAAAAAACUQ/G6Yc-WhsWlA/s320/jayvieplay.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312364043231524834" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">(L-R): <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jason Paul Laxamana</span>, Writer-Director-Editor of <span style="font-style: italic;">Balangingi</span>, etc.; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jayvie Dizon</span>, lead actor; <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jeremy Cortez</span>, dubbing assistant;<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Diego Marx Dobles</span>, Asst. Director-Music Scorer-Location Manager, etc. Photo was NOT taken during the Awarding. Photo was taken backstage after the last run of Oedipus Rex at the Angeles University Foundation, where Dizon played the lead role as well.</span>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-24111392434853102212009-03-08T20:17:00.005+08:002009-03-08T20:51:38.785+08:00'Balangingi' is Jack TV/ETC short film category finalistI was told just minutes ago that my Kapampangan short film <span style="font-weight: bold;">Balangingi</span> (Nosebleed) is a finalist in the Philippine Digital Music & Short Film Festival.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SbO7x-UZbYI/AAAAAAAACRg/o8MWXV1MQZQ/s1600-h/DSCN3786.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SbO7x-UZbYI/AAAAAAAACRg/o8MWXV1MQZQ/s320/DSCN3786.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310794852816481666" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="writer2"><blockquote>Jack TV and ETC have joined Isys business solution and Blue Fish Asia in the Phil Digi Awards. The Stylish and posh ETC and the Outrageous and Manly Jack TV channels launched their new categories in the Phil Digi Awards Short film competition. <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Jack Short Film Category</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">ETC Short Film Category</span> are the latest addition in the Phil Digi Awards Short film Competition. </blockquote></span><span class="writer2"></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="writer2">Jack TV is looking for chic, witty and funny short films, may it be with a Live cast or better yet an Animated one as long as it can tickle the funny bones and can made a ton of laughs, it's a sure ball for the Jack TV Short film category. ETC on the other hand is looking for reality based Short films, so for those who has a keen and sassy eye for making reality based Short Films, the ETC Short film category is for you.<br /></span></span></blockquote><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SbO5ApIexiI/AAAAAAAACRY/JGtDM5v7jCU/s1600-h/phildigiawards.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 238px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SbO5ApIexiI/AAAAAAAACRY/JGtDM5v7jCU/s320/phildigiawards.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5310791806292510242" border="0" /></a><br />Since people love <span style="font-weight: bold;">Balangingi</span> (and it seems it's effective as comedy), we decided to make a 15-minute version of it and submitted it to the Jack TV category. I don't know how the screening committee reacted to it, especially since it's in Kapampangan, but,<span style="font-style: italic;"> uyta</span>, it's a finalist.<br /><br />It will be a two-day event, but I might be attending just the second day (even though I also want to attend the first day, which has a series of discussions on artist management and other stuff about commercial music, an area I would love to know more about).<br /><br />The second day, the program will be more of a film and business forum:<br /><br />8:00 – 9:30 Registration<br />9:30 – 10:00 Opening Ceremony<br />Opening Remarks<br />10:00 – 10:30 Trends and Opportunities in animation<br />10:30 – 11:00 Producing an Original Content in Animation<br />11:00 - 11:30 Setting up your own Business in Animation<br />11:30 – 12:00 Animation Open Forum<br />12:00 – 1:00 <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Screening of Short Film Entries</span><br />1:00 – 1:30 Movie copyrights and Publishing Rights<br />1:30 -2:30 Producing an original film contents<br />2:30 - 3:00 Finding Grants<br />3:00 – 3:30 E Commerce<br />3:30 – 4:00 Broadcasting and Marketing your Content<br />4:00 – 4:30 Film Business Outsourcing through the internet<br />4:30 – 5:00 Trends and Technologies in Film Making<br /><br />At 8PM of March 12, it will be the awarding of the winning entries of PhilDigi Awards. The event will be graced by the presence and performances of Heber Bartolome, Dulce, Hilera, Typecast, Session Road, Zelle, Moonstar 88, Yosha, DJ Benjo and more.<br /><br />I'm after the screening of the finalists, because I enjoy observing the reactions of people. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Balangingi</span> proved to be effective to Kapampangans; now let's see it fare in Manila. I'm not sure though if many people will be watching, but nonetheless, it's something I'd like to see.<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LewnNdrMRFY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LewnNdrMRFY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object>Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-39995327171865356242009-03-06T10:23:00.001+08:002009-03-06T10:25:21.749+08:00Cinema One Originals 2009: Fantasy is welcomeOf the very few cash-granting film festivals present in the Philippines, the Cinema One Originals Movie Festival seems to be the boldest when it comes to picking up screenplays from the many aspirants vying for the now-one million peso grant for the production of their films.<br /><br />While Cinemalaya does a good job producing ten feature films a year which can serve as alternatives to the mainstream, it seems as though—some Pinoy film enthusiasts would agree—it is beginning to box itself in a certain type of genre others would call “the mainstream indie,” or the “typical indie.” That is to say, realistic stories that give emphasis on humanity.<br /><br />This used to be a good thing because most of the mainstream films produced back then by gigantic studios were purely imagined, ranging from formulaic romantic flicks to slapstick comedies.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wanted: Creative Imagination</span><br /><br />Then came the next problem—the marginalization of creative imagination. Addicted to seemingly true-to-life stories, we have forgotten that humanistic issues can also be artistically expressed in genres like science fiction, fantasy, horror, and even experimental, whatever this genre is.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SbCJaenjfxI/AAAAAAAACQ8/Ma4_pa1j4Ts/s1600-h/vforven.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 217px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SbCJaenjfxI/AAAAAAAACQ8/Ma4_pa1j4Ts/s320/vforven.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309895048658386706" border="0" /></a><br />My favorite “political film” for instance is not a period film or a docu-drama type of work that boasts of a true-story basis. It’s “V For Vendetta,” a cult action-thriller film. It’s social science fiction set in Britain in the year 2038 where the country has come under totalitarian rule. The lead character, V, is a seemingly superhuman anarchist wearing a Guy Fawkes mask attempting to end the fascist dictatorship.<br /><br />With lines that get quoted even in my Sociology 10 class in UP Diliman, such as “We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail; he can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world,” and “...artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up,” the movie has found its way in my Favorite Movies in both Friendster and Facebook.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Enter the Gothic</span><br /><br />It is fascinating how films like “Dilim” and “Yanggaw” have made it to the list of finalists in the past Cinema One Originals. The official synopsis of “Dilim” goes: Dilim is an enigmatic creature that roams the streets at night and does vigilante work, saving innocent victims by literally devouring the villains. Conflict ensues when a do-good policeman goes hot on his trail.<br /><br />I personally haven’t watched “Dilim,” but the synopsis itself proves that it’s not your typical indie film boxed in the world of realism. Whether “Dilim” has literary and philosophical strengths or not is another issue, but Cinema One’s willingness to produce such type of film is laudable.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SbCJZ0AUnJI/AAAAAAAACQ0/Lwujq3LT68g/s1600-h/yangawposter.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 223px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_AHJmYsDWgWU/SbCJZ0AUnJI/AAAAAAAACQ0/Lwujq3LT68g/s320/yangawposter.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5309895037219544210" border="0" /></a><br />“Yanggaw,” a Hiligaynon word for ‘infected,’ is an Ilonggo horror film exploring the life of a family with one member, the daughter, mysteriously becoming sick—she uncontrollably transforms into an aswang crunching on random people in the village every night. Under this dark and fantastic packaging is the screenplay’s tackling of Filipino issues of kinship and community. I was able to watch “Yanggaw” weeks ago at the Cinema Rehiyon Film Festival in the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and “Yanggaw” was an impressive alternative to the “mainstream indies.”<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Struggle of new fantasy and sci-fi</span><br /><br />Our ancestors used to have a lot of interesting stories to tell—from celestial gods that warred in the heavens to a mighty deity that wove the universe like a net, and from a fire-breathing monster tortoise burrowed under Mt. Pinatubo to witches that can burst into flames at will. Even “Ibong Adarna,” which was a required reading back in High School, is of the fantasy genre.<br /><br />With the risen popularity of socio-realism in literature, the biggest propagator probably being Jose Rizal (although at closer look, Rizal’s novels can be categorized as social science fiction), fantastic fiction has been pushed to the kiddie world, comic books, mainstream television, and that endless series of True Philippine Ghost Stories. Queer works have even become “more mainstream” than fantastic or science fiction. Fantasy that is as praiseworthy as “Lord of the Rings,” or science fiction like “The Matrix” are lacking in bookstores and literary celebrations.<br /><br />Literary fantasy is slowly being explored in the country though, albeit some have the tendency to go neo-colonial by pretending to be anime fan fiction writers instead of creating new local fantasy. But while speculative fiction is a genre slowly being popularized in certain literary circles, the annual Palanca Awards chose to remove science fiction from its categories, with reasons I am clueless of.<br /><br />Literary fantasy is showing signs of penetrating movies, mostly alternative ones, as seen in some entries to the Cinema One Originals Movie Festival, but an almost impressive attempt was “Nieves, The Engkanto Slayer,” the third act in “Shake, Rattle, & Roll X.”<br /><br />Currently, Pinoy science fiction and urban fantasies are rare, and I look forward to seeing films and literary pieces under these genres.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">March 13</span><br /><br />The deadline in submitting screenplays to the Cinema One Originals 2009 has been extended up until March 13. See cinemaone.tv for details.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2884125229458973846.post-65216121991220723962009-03-04T08:51:00.004+08:002009-03-04T16:04:42.432+08:00Korean Singers attempt to conquer US market!I wrote before a blog entry about Korean entertainers trying their luck in US—BoA, Rain, and Se7en.<br /><br />BoA has already debuted with a fantastic music video, but I don't know how well-received she has been in the American market. With an obvious Asian accent when singing her English songs, BoA could have either irritated ears or she could marked her identity as an Asian in the US music scene. Nonetheless, "Eat You Up" has astounded people with BoA's dancing skills.<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wUYt_W5g3zU&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wUYt_W5g3zU&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br />And then we have Se7en, my favorite among them all. He seems to be the most fluent in English, even though not a native speaker. A different accent can still be detected in his American English, but people perceive it positively, with girls falling in love with it, finding it sexy and cute.<br /><br />Boasting of an album with popular American producers, the sound is very much like the typical American RnB and pop crooners like Justin Timberlake and Usher. Compared to BoA's "Eat You Up" though, Se7en's debut "Girls" is more lyrically creative.<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/t-DR4s6HhrY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/t-DR4s6HhrY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br />Se7en's official debut video will be released March 10.<br /><br />Both BoA and Se7en are obviously Americanizing their images though. Instead of bringing Korean heritage to the US, they are trying to immerse in the established American pop culture and seek to prove that Koreans are a wave to watch out for in the genres and styles the Americans are known for.<br /><br />As regards Rain, I have no news about him.Jason Paul Laxamanahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11647261796957959034noreply@blogger.com0