MIRON

Tainted beyond reasonable doubt

In deep shit after her bungled press conference yesterday, Pres. Gloria Arroyo gave a live interview to Mike Enriquez, only to sink deeper and deeper into the mire.

Finally asked THE question on everyone's mind (Was it Garci she said Hello to in that taped conversation?) Gloria refused, saying her  lawyers had advised her not to comment, as it was her right as the accused.

When you can no longer even answer a simple Yes or No question, and you're pleading with your countrymen to respect your right to remain silent, man -- You've got to know you've made a very very wrong turn somewhere and you need Luli and a spirit guide to retrace your steps.

The clutching at straws, the willingness to forsake insitutions like the Presidency to save one's neck, the impulse to strangle at the same time embrace and pose for media --- these are sure signs of moral distress.

In the desperate world of Gloria, Joe de Venecia is probably looking more and more like Yoda.

Bitter Peaches

Is the opposition already laying the predicate for the ouster of Gloria through popular revolt? It sure sounds like it.
Still 38 names short of the required 79 to send the Impeachment case to the Senate, things are not looking good for members of the opposition, many of whom are sounding less and less like peaches and more and more like sour grapes.
Alan Peter Cayetano complained that pro-Arroyo lawyers are laying legal roadblocks to impeachment that make it "almost impossible for a congress to impeach the president of the Philippines."
"We are prepared to accept any kind of reasonable impeachment rules they may be loaded against us," said Ronaldo Zamora. However, "if it's going to be a complete farce" then "we will examine what options we have." (hint hint hint!)
Francis Escudero said, "The opposition cannot conduct and even successfully hold a people power on our own, but should it happen neither can the opposition stop or hinder it." (wink wink wink!)
Guys, we're with you, but stop groveling already. The public expects you to be made of stronger stuff. But the grade school like decorum during the jueteng hearings, the boycott of the Sona, the planned walk out, and your choosing to express yourselves by way of fruit?!!!
Ay yay yay!

Who are the terrorists now?

While all eyes were on the SONA and all ears on the Hello Garci tapes, the world became an even more terrifying place.

Just today, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he is "very, very sorry" for the death of  the 27-year-old Brazilian who was shot eight times by plainclothes police last Friday, the day after the attempted London bombings. The cops chased him down the Underground Station after "his clothing and suspicious behavior at the  station" aroused suspicion.

In the U.S. the Pentagon blocked the release of 87  photographers and four videos from Abu Ghraib that were supposed to be released this weekend. Industry journal Editor & Publisher explains why:

One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images: "I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe.” They show acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he added.

In the same period, reporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: “Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men….The women were passing messages saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.’

“Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out.”

SONow What?

Missed the SONA? Here's the complete speech and the blow by blow accounts provided by inq7 , abs-cbnnews.com and bloggers' favorite manolo quezon III. Take time to read the comments posted in mlq3's blog -- this is the tale of two nations, indeed! Bloggers were divided on the parliamentary vs presidential form of government, concon vs con-ass, calamansi vs peach, and even whether the speech should have been delivered in english or tagalog.

State of the Nation

At last, the much awaited State of the Nation Address. It was, I thought , successful in the sense that it put something meaty on the table for everyone to chew on --- that is, a shift to a parliamentary form of government through a Constitutional Assembly (a nod to FVR and JDV) and a move to Federalism "to take the power from the center to the countryside that feeds it." An idea that excites those fed up with "demo-crazy" Metro Manila and could shake the public out of its current state of apoplexy.

If Gloria had just grudgingly thrown everyone a bone, as was her usual fashion, guaranteed -- the opposition would have taken her presidency apart, limb per precious limb.   

But you can tell even from the reactions of the opposition that the administration has successfully changed the topic and set the agenda.

It's going to harder, from now on, to keep throwing tomatoes at Gloria. Gotta be more selective about those tomatoes...

Speeches leave us speechless

Not even noon and already three speeches.

Senate President Franklin Drilon appealed to the public to remain "calm and sober," in his speech at the opening ceremony of Congress."Resorting to violence to solve this political crisis will serve no purpose but destroy this nation we all love. To our leaders, mudslinging and black and sleazy propaganda will only hurt our nation more. To them I once more appeal: do not subvert the truth."

In his speech, House Speaker Jose de Venecia immediately tabled even the ammended impeachment complaint filed by the minority, and proceeded to make the case for a unicameral parliament under a federal state "over a ten-year transition long sought by Mindanao and the Visayas, the outer islands, the Bicol Region, the Cordilleras and Cagayan Valley long complaining against the excesses of 'imperial' Manila."

Not to be outdone, jailed former president Joseph Estrada issued his own statement called the State of the Nation Inspite of Arroyo or SONIA. "I call on (the people) to establish a caretaker government that will represent the various sectors of society and will serve honestly and with dignity. Because of the problems faced by the country, not one person can handle the task of governing a fragmented nation," Estrada said. 

THE ECHO (SIGAW): Something to shout about

If you are one of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos "sick of Philippine politics," and "getting tired of being Filipino," here is something to shout about.

Director Yam Laranas's film Sigaw (internationally released as The Echo) has been drawing raves in Hollywood after producer Roy Lee watched the movie and confessed: "I found myself jumping at certain scenes and I have seen many other horror movies where that never happens."

You'll appreciate that quote more if you know who Roy Lee is. He's the hot Hollywood producer who brought Japanese horror movies The Ring, The Grudge and Dark Water to Hollywood and turned them into critically acclaimed, international box office hits. Right now, Roy Lee is executive producing The Departed starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Matt Damon, and directed by Martin Scorcese.

How Roy Lee discovered Yam and Sigaw is fast becoming the stuff of legend in filmmaking circles. It is absolute proof of the power of good word of mouth. Roy heard about Sigaw from someone who watched it and loved it and knew other people who saw Sigaw and were raving about it as well.

Without a single centavo spent on Marketing and PR, Sigaw outlived the hype and hysteria of the 2004 Metro Manila Film Festival where it quietly cultivated a cult-like following.

The cult spread far and wide. Before Yam and his producers knew it, Sigaw had been booked to make its Hollywood premiere as The Echo at the ScreamfestLA International Horror Film Festival, the same fest where the original Japanese film The Grudge debuted.

Amidst the buzz, the respected critic Keith Breese of filmcritic.com  reviewed the film, giving The Echo a stunning rating of 3 1/2 stars out of 5. That's the same rating the critics gave Batman Begins, and higher than the ratings of big budget Hollywood movies Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (3 stars),  The  Island (3 stars) and Fantastic Four (2 stars).

According to Breese, Sigaw "has an atmosphere of fear and loneliness that is positively sinking. Sigaw cuts past all the shock and awe of revulsion to really get to the meat of the traditional ghost story: the human element. Ghost stories aren't about cackling bones, they're about people and people's fear, Laranas knows this and preys upon our emotions expertly."

He goes on to say, "American readers may encounter some difficulty in tracking down a copy of Sigaw (try the net), and I doubt the Hollywood machine will be remaking it any time soon. That’s a shame, because Sigaw is a subtle, human ghost tale that will haunt you long after you’ve forgotten Dark Water or The Ring."

Today , Sigaw continues to echo and haunt its followers through its website. The site itself is a pioneering and an impressive display of film and web design by young filmmaker and web wizard Chuck Gutierrez who pretty much invented the technology behind it.

One good work inspiring another...

Exactly what this country needs to start changing for the better.

Video killed the radio star

I couldn't believe it when I read it. That disastrous apology speech was actually directed by Lupita Kashiwara and rehearsed four times?! I - Am - Sorry, but madam president, stick to radio. Or come to think of it, you were better off silent. The nation's had enough of talk and politics anyway, and the cliche has never been more true: action speaks louder than words.

The full PDI story here.

The President is also said to have personally decided to bring in noted film director Lupita Kashiwara, the sister-in-law of former President Aquino who has asked Ms Arroyo to resign.

Kashiwara directed the President's apology speech last June 27 through the state-owned Radyo Ng Bayan.

"Not all actors can be good politicians but all politicians must be good actors," said a Palace official.

He said the President's clothes, hairdo and makeup as well as the staging, dubbing and blocking of Ms Arroyo's appearance were all Kashiwara's handiwork.

Kashiwara and Ms Arroyo were said to have rehearsed the speech four times.

"Lupita was very specific in her instructions. At one point of the speech, she told the President [in Filipino]: 'You don't cry in that portion, but you have to look like you are going to."

Y the X Tape?

Here's something you won't get from "he said/she said" television news. Randy David offers a likely motive for Chavit's X tape and points out the differences between the Erap and Hello Garci conversations.

Conversations: normal and faked by Randy David.

THE SO-CALLED "X-tape" that Ilocos Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson has brought to the public's attention, which supposedly implicates former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada in a plot to assassinate President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, seems so patently fabricated he cannot possibly think people would swallow it. Its real intent must lie elsewhere.

My view is that the Chavit tape simply aims to show that real voices can be lifted from an original source and then mixed with other voices to simulate a conversation that in fact never took place. Thus, the public is prompted to suspend its belief in the authenticity of any recorded conversation -- including the ones alleged between President Arroyo and Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. This is invalidation by contamination.

Your Unsolicited Advice

See, this is what's great about blogs. It's a sounding board. A trial balloon. A testing ground. A laboratory for mad scientists where people and ideas are probed to see what makes them tick. Where the method is mainly to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks. Where the conversation can lead nowhere and everywhere --- and quite possibly, last forever.

So I'm posting this open call: Drop me a line. Tell me what you think. The questions will change, but your comments will live on and maybe someday (maybe today)  reach the right person at the right time to make the difference.