Battle of narratives | #NeverForget Diary
Week 6: Aug 1-7, 2022
This is the #NeverForget Diary, a weekly summary of what’s happening in the Philippines under Marcos II. In a time of mangled histories and fragile memories, it’s crucial never to forget. (Note: this post may be clipped in your email inbox. Photo above from “Katips: The Movie.”)
This week, two movies—which both premiered on Wednesday, August 3—figured in a battle of historical narratives.
The first is “Katips: The Movie,” directed by lawyer and actor Vincent Tañada.1 It’s a movie adaptation of a musical featuring the lives of activists during Martial Law, and based on actual events. I watched this movie myself, and found myself crying near the end. Many people in the cinema also clapped as the credits rolled, and apparently this happened in many other screenings:
“Katips” movie won 7 awards in the recent FAMAS Awards, and was shown in theaters nationwide.
The torture scenes were especially hard to watch, but that’s all the more reason for every Filipino—especially the youth—to watch the movie (rated R-16).
The group called Project Gunita—which previously made headlines for scanning and digitizing Martial Law era documents and publications—organized a block screening of “Katips” at Gateway Mall in Cubao. Martial Law victims Etta Rosales (former chair of the Commission on Human Rights) and Judy Taguiwalo (former secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development) spoke before the moviegoers:
The Human Rights Violations Victims’ Memorial Commission (HRVVMC)—the government agency tasked by a 2013 law to memorialize Marcos Sr.’s Martial Law and its atrocities—featured the lives of Martial Law victims in a new YouTube series:
By the way, the podcast network Pumapodcast also recently made an episode about a journalist’s exploration of records pertaining to human rights abuses during Martial Law. A great listen:
The second movie is “Maid in Malacañang,” directed by Marcos supporter and propagandist Darryl Yap. It’s supposed to be a movie about the Marcos family’s last 72 hours in Malacañang, told through the lens of maids working there.
Although “Maid” wasn’t even nominated in the latest FAMAS Awards, it made a lot of noise on social media because of its blatant historical distortions, angering historians and other people grounded in historical facts and truth.
Arguably the most controversial scene of “Maid” portrayed ex-president Cory Aquino as someone who played mahjong with nuns as the People Power Revolution unfolded. It’s not at all what had happened.
Although Aquino did seek refuge among the Carmelite Sisters of Cebu owing to security reasons (Marcos Sr. had reportedly ordered the killing of Cory), the Carmelite Sisters aren’t even allowed to gamble in the first place.
Ryan Macasero, lead of Rappler’s Visayas bureau, reported on this before:
The Carmelites issued a response to “Maid.” The current prioress, Sister Mary Melanie Costillas, said:
The attempt to distort history is reprehensible… The truth was that we were then praying, fasting, and making other forms of sacrifices for peace in this country and for the people’s choice to prevail.
Msgr. Joseph Tan, spokesperson of the Archdiocese of Cebu, spoke on this issue, too:
The mahjong scene may have come from a misreading (deliberate or not) of a 1989 piece by journalist Anne Nelson, who issued this clarification on Twitter:
Meanwhile, actress Giselle Sanchez, who starred in “Maid” and played Cory Aquino, said she viewed the movie as “art.” Renowned director and playwright Floy Quintos pushed back hard:
In his Inquirer column, historian Ambeth Ocampo wrote a particularly scathing review of “Maid” after “enduring” the movie in a cinema in Cebu. His review—which uncharacteristically if not shockingly included the word “b*tch”—reminded some of my friends of author Jessica Zafra’s prose.
“Maid” received bad reviews on IMDB as well:
Meanwhile, the director of “Maid” said in an interview with Boy Abunda that “I don’t believe that historians should be a profession…”—to which public historian Xiao Chua replied, “I am just an ordinary person but with whatever little power I have, I will give my middle finger to you.”
People are fighting back strongly against the propagandists—a welcome development. But is this going to last for the next 6 years?
EDUCATION WOES
Scandal erupted when the Commission on Audit (COA) revealed that the Department of Education bought in 2021 about P2.4 billion worth of laptops using the Intel Celeron processor, priced at more than P58,000 apiece.
At that price, many people said that the DepEd should’ve procured Macbooks instead. Here’s a comparison of specs c/o GizGuide.com:
The DepEd, in its defense, pointed its fingers at the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Procurement Service, which was caught before in the multibillion procurement scandal involving Pharmally.
One satire page imagined what could be inside the Intel Celeron laptops:
Meanwhile, after Vice President and DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte ordered the return to face-to-face classes by November 2, the agency is said to be requiring face shields among students.
Haven’t they learned key lessons from this pandemic, like the fact that COVID-19 is airborne and that face shields emphatically do not work?
Speaking of the VP, her office launched a Libreng Sakay Program for students with her name emblazoned on the buses—a far cry from the style of ex-VP Leni Robredo who didn’t put her name on her projects.
Duterte’s program involves only 5 buses: “two [Wi-Fi] ready buses will be deployed in Metro Manila, while the three other units will each be stationed in Davao City, Cebu, and Bacolod.” Will these be enough?
Most depressingly, I chanced upon this tweet featuring an excerpt from the Singapore-based Straits Times. It showed that, based on a World Bank report, the Philippines’ learning poverty rate reached a whopping 90.9%, while the learning deprivation rate was 90.4%. These are the worst rates in the Asian countries included.
This sorry aftermath of the pandemic will surely haunt and set back the Philippines for decades.
PH VS. THE WORLD
Things are getting tense in Taiwan—which is so close to Philippines’ Batanes province—after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (age 82 and second in line to succeed the US president) visited Taiwan.
This visit supposedly violates China’s “One China” policy. In a show of force, the Chinese government fired off missiles around Taiwan in a series of military exercises/drills. Some of the missiles reportedly reached Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen pushed back:
Interestingly, the UN chief also warned of nuclear annilhilation this week:
Meanwhile, on August 6, US State Secretary Anthony Blinken visited the Philippines and met with President Marcos Jr. Blinken assured that:
…an armed attack on Philippines’ armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the South China Sea would invoke US mutual defense commitments under that [Mutual Defense] treaty.
By the way, this week also, a huge chunk of a Chinese rocket also fell in the sea near Occidental Mindoro on August 3. This is part of a “25-ton core stage of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket” that “fell from the sky in an uncontrolled plungaccording to Time. Other chunks of the rocket fell in Borneo.
#RIP
The nation continues to mourn the passing of Fidel V. Ramos, who served as Philippine president from 1992-1998.
Although Ramos was a second cousin of Marcos Sr. and served during Martial Law as the police (constabulary) chief and deputy chief of staff of the military, his defection in 1986 was one of the crucial events that sparked the EDSA People Power Revolution.
More than being a hero of EDSA, Ramos is remembered by many today as a staunch reformer whose policies and programs as president led to the Philippines’ economic transformation. Millions of Filipinos benefitted from his successful deregulation and liberalization of key sectors such as electricity, telecom, airlines, water, power, and banking—effectively undoing the bad policies and economic outcomes of Martial Law.
I wrote about this in my Rappler piece this week:
President Marcos Jr. visited the wake of Ramos, and said before media that “[Ramos] brought calm and stability to our country.” One must ask: who started the instability and crises in the first place?
In announcing the flowers sent by the president and VP, PTV made this booboo:
Ramos’s wife, Ming, 96, played the piano during the interment:
At the wake, some senators reenacted the iconic jump of FVR. But rather than pay respects to FVR, they effectively mocked him because that jump symbolized the people’s victory in the People Power Revolution. The gang of senators did this jump on the same day many of them sung with Marcos Jr. at Sen. Sonny Angara’s 50th bday bash at the Manila Polo Club (see below).
Meanwhile, this week, on August 5, the actress par excellence Cherie Gil died at age 59.
This is probably her most famous scene in her movie (from “Bituing Walang Ningning, 1985). But in fact Cherie Gil was arguably more amazing as a theater actor, according to some reminiscences.
The iconic Conspiracy Garden Cafe (Conspiracy Bar before) located along Quezon City’s Visayas Avenue is closing down:
INFLATION WATCH
This week we learned that inflation hit 6.4% in July 2022. That’s the highest since the 6.7% inflation of September and October 2018.
The biggest factor behind it was food:
The Philippine Statistics Authority—which measures inflation monthly—said it might also begin looking into the phenomenon of “shrinkflation”:
Sugar prices are skyrocketing, and the factors behind this trend were explored in a useful thread by Business Mirror journalist Jasper Arcalas:
Amid inflation woes, the president along with many male senators were seen singing their hearts out at Senator Sonny Angara’s 50th bday bash on August 6 at the Manila Polo Club
Old habits die hard:
Despite many economic woes among ordinary Filipinos, the Philippines is expected to grow this year. Some growth forecasts even rose, but in imparting one updated forecast from ADB, the Department of Finance published a distorted graph:
Despite high forecasted growth this year, the Philippines still has a long way to go to get back to its pre-pandemic economic trajectory, as shown in NEDA’s 2021 Socioeconomic Report:
Some data indicate that global inflation may be abating. Oil prices are on the downtrend, and so are world wheat prices.
Finally, Ukraine’s grain shipments have resumed:
Despite this, global inflation has momentum due to inflation expectations:
Rising inflation has prompted many central banks to raise their policy rates rather synchronously, as shown by this IMF graph:
There’s a chance that the US officially is in recession, but their recent jobs data says otherwise. Hence this great meme:
POLICY ROUNDUP
On August 1, President Marcos Jr. declared that the Philippines won’t be rejoining the International Criminal Court under his term. Thankfully, this will not affect the ongoing proceedings of the ICC into ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.
Recall that the country officially exited the ICC in March 2019 thanks to Duterte. Rappler’s Lian Buan looked back at this policy:
Ironically, Marcos Jr., signed in 2011 the ICC treaty ratification as former senator:
Marcos Jr. vetoed a bill that would make tax-free teachers’ fees/honoraria for their poll duties. Teachers—who number about a million and constitute the single largest group of professionals in the bureaucracy—are understandably frustrated and angered by Marcos Jr.’s veto.
Meanwhile, Rep. Velasco offered another Band-Aid solution to our traffic woes:
A bit of undeniably good news:
GRAPHS OF NOTE
Drug-related killings have spilled over into the Marcos II administration, even if the president didn’t identify the drug war as one of his priorities:
New COVID cases are on the rise, just as government has detected new cases of subvariant BA.2.75:
Speaking of public health concerns, monkeypox has recenrly been detected in the Philippines, but Marcos Jr. downplayed it by saying it’s not as scary as COVID-19:
On a lighter note, here’s a nifty piece of data viz:
A fascinating graph showing the evolution of US families over time:
Different countries have very different notions of “work” and “places of work”:
Finally, a new study in the US by top research economists found that having rich friends on Facebook is associated somehow with economic mobility:
THIS WEEK IN PHOTOS
Finalists of the 2022 National Election Photo Contest:
The newest crop of UP Law graduates have not gotten over Robredo’s historic pink campaign:
Flash floods in Manila resulted in chaotic scenes and horrendous commutes on August 5:
What’s government doing about it?
Lastly, another humbling reminder of our place in the universe, c/o NASA’s Webb Telescope:
