OMG WTF!!!

WHO IS RUNNING THIS COUNTRY BA!!!!! HOW CAN THIS HAVE GONE ON FOR TEN HOURS WITHOUT A SINGLE HIGH GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL TAKING CONTROL??????? FUCK!!!!

ninoy & the hacienda

sychronicity: ninoy aquino’s 27th death anniversary (the filipino is worth dying for) and the hearing of the high-profile hacienda luisita case (scheme sdo) in the supreme court.

there’s good background stuff on the internet, thanks to gmanews.tv, and there’s lynda jumilla’s report on anc, salamat naman, altho sana sa free tv and mainstream media rin, ‘no?

because it’s interesting, revealing, if not really surprising, how inextricably linked the stories of ninoy and cory are with the hacienda’s masalimuot history.

read howie severino et al’s holding on: a hacienda luisita timeline from the spanish to the noynoy eras

read leloy claudio’s ninoy networked with everyone including the reds

if ninoy had lived, would he have handled the hacienda problem differently?   it would seem so, though it would have meant a major rift split rupture with the cojuangcos, unless he could have been really creative and come up with a compromise that both cory and the farmers could live with.

now that noynoy is president, and he seems more of a cojuangco than a ninoy aquino — read carlos conde’s aquino is being shrewd about hacienda luisita — looks like the pattern could persist, which bodes ill for the farmers and the nation but bodes good for other haciendas and big landowners who continue to defy the law, what a drag.

here’s a partial list of other families owning vast tracts of land via KMP via mon ramirez:

Hacienda Zobel in Calatagan, Batangas – 12,000 hectares
Hacienda Yulo in Nasugbu, Batangas – 8,650 hectares
Hacienda Roxas also in Nasugbu – 7,813 hectares
Hacienda Yulo in Canlubang, Calamba – 7,100 hectares
Hacienda Luisita – 6,453 hectares
Hacienda Puyat also in Nasugbu, Batangas – 2,400 hectares
Hacienda Agoncillo in Laurel, Batangas – 2,014 hectares

There are more in other provinces and regions.

To get an idea of the size of each hacienda, compare them with the land areas of these four cities:

QC – 16,000 hectares
Manila – 3,955 hectares
Makati – 2,738 hectares
Marikina – 2,150 hectares

pia hontiveros vs. admiral angue

caught strictly politics last night and was amazed at pia hontiveros’ total lack of objectivity re rear admiral feliciano angue’s complaints.   a lot of whining daw, signifying nothing?   hmm.   her husband is in the military, ‘no?   methinks she protests too much.   angue reminds me of senator trillanes back when he was griping about corruption in the military and the grievance committee wouldn’t act on his complaints.   reminds me too of fvr when he finally broke away from the marcos government on grounds that promotions in ver’s afp were not based on merit but palakasan.   where there’s smoke there’s fire?   senator now congressman once afp chief rodolfo biazon seems to think so.

cherie gil, master class!

joel reserved two tickets for us on friday the 13th, bel castro’s night, and so ina and i got to see cherie gil as maria callas in “Master Class” and, wow, what a worldclass performance, no less than a tour de force!   it’s great material, of course, by terence mcnally, but who would have thought we had a filipina actress who could would rise to the challenge, do a callas past-her-prime, relate to the highs and lows of a spectacularly operatic if stormy life in a virtual two-hour monologue (!) addressed to aspiring opera singers, with bits and pieces of greek and italian thrown in, all so clearly effortlessly seamlessly delivered, it was easy to suspend disbelief, see hear feel maria callas herself, what a woman, what an artist, what a diva, and just as easily snapping out of it and rising to one’s feet, almost electric was the impulse to pay homage with a standing ovation.   BRAVO, CHERIE!!!   and kudos to director michael williams and the philippine opera company for a great production!

willie, wowowee, way to go

writes emil jurado in manila standard today:

Willie Revillame of Wowowee appeared confident when he, along with his lawyers, met media to bid them goodbye. Where Wowowee would be going next, whether to GMA-7 or to Manny Pangilinan’s ABC-5, he didn’t say. But it was evident that he was aware he had the goods on the Lopez-owned ABS-CBN network.

Wowowee, which used to air for three hours every day, made Revillame a sensation not only among viewers here but also to Filipino Americans who could watch him over The Filipino Channel. But the network changed it so that Willie would only appear once a week. That is, in effect, an abrogation of Revillame’s contract. Every lawyer should know this.

Thus, ABS-CBN cannot hold on to Wowowee, a program which gave the Lopez network some P3 million daily (with Willie getting almost P1 million daily). No wonder, ABS-CBN reported a 178 percent surge in income, what with all those political advertisements during the campaign and close to P3.5 billion from Wowowee.

Despite attempts of ABS-CBN to replace Wowowee, new programs just don’t do as well in ratings. . .

like him or hate him, there is no denying willie’s awesome appeal to the filipino masses and i almost can’t believe that the network has chosen to disenfranchise him — it’s like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.   i suppose there’s more to it than meets the eye?

“Willie . . . violated the behavioral provisions of his contract when he threatened the ABS-CBN management during the May 4, 2010 episode of Wowowee, with a resignation if management does not fire another artist of the network. His behavior was generally seen as a display of disrespect and arrogance, completely unacceptable to the Filipino public.

but willie’s may 4 behavior was not “completely unacceptable” to me.   while he may have crossed a line when he passionately if arrogantly reacted to jobert sucaldito’s criticism of a wowowee game calling for contestants na high school graduates with 75-79 general average, i thought that sucaldito also crossed a line when he arrogantly asked, why feature contestants who are bobo?   THAT was completely unacceptable to me.

in the first place, what was he doing, dissing a kapamilya?   he started it, not willie.  (and it wasn’t the first time, i hear.)   wala bang “behavioral provision” ang kontrata niya?   in the second place, what was he doing, dissing these high school graduates given the low and laughable quality of education our public school system provides.   kasalanan kaya nila na mababa ang grades nila?   porke ba mababa ang grades ay bobo na?   and yet willie was quickly sanctioned, suspended without pay, and sucaldito gayly prattles on, i mean, gets off scot-free, nary a public reprimand.

i’m told, of course, that i’m being naive.   that this is political.   that willie is being made to suffer for going orange rather than yellow last may.  the witches won, and the witches rule?