PDI Opinion: Beyond the social media bubble

In today's Inquirer, a rant--here.

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Beyond the social media bubble

Recently, I was involved in a project that gathered the narratives of people who use drugs in the urban poor. In one Zoom meeting, the senior anthropologist of our team told us about a striking observation from a similar work. "It's easy for us to see that every single tokhang victim can be traced back to Duterte himself," she said. "But ordinary people in the communities don't always share this view. They can be angry at the police who violated their homes, or the masked assailant who killed their loved ones, but again and again I was told 'it's not Duterte's fault,' or, 'we can't blame the President for everything that's happening in the country.'"

I was reminded of this anecdote yet again on the morning of Dec. 21, roughly 12 hours after the deaths of Sonya and Frank Anthony Gregorio in the hands of Tarlac police officer Jonel Nuezca. That's really all you need to know about the crime: A Filipino policeman murdered two defenseless Filipino citizens in broad daylight.

As video footage of the incident went viral, social media was in uproar, the online furor nowhere more deafening than on Twitter. And it was so easy to believe that the unending deluge of tweets condemning the murders, demanding accountability across all levels of government and the police force, meant the entire nation was actually angry that day--that in every pocket of this archipelago, people were united in a state of rage, horror, and disbelief. It was easy to forget, no matter how many times this has been said, that the virtual world is but a bubble--and in the case of the Philippines, hardly anything like the "real" world.

Which begs the question: What do you do after posting that carefully worded series of tweets that gets shared by tens of thousands, or after typing the final period to that kilometric Facebook essay replete with academic references? What's next after you like and share that tweet or post or on-point meme?

The thing to understand about impunity in the police force is that it's not, to use the term Mr. Duterte's minions have desperately clung to in describing Nuezca's act of murder, "isolated." What I mean is, it's not only in the police and government where a culture of impunity thrives unchecked.

Seeing people call out the so-called "good cops" for staying silent, I couldn't help wondering: Where were these people when shit closer to their respective homes hit the proverbial fan? Because when doctors choose to stay silent over Health Secretary Francisco Duque III's weak-kneed handling of the pandemic, and when those working in private institutions simply watch as these institutions attempt to pass the burden of COVID-19 to public hospitals, that is also impunity. When writers choose to stay silent while a National Artist for Literature and a national writing workshop blatantly support the government's drug war, that is also impunity. And when lawyers and political scientists choose to stay silent as their former professors and current colleagues abet the running of this country to the ground, that is also impunity.

Obviously, not all doctors, and writers, and lawyers, etcetera.

Allow me, then, to further extend the Wieselian thought (the original being that "silence only helps the oppressor"): When all we do is make noise online, and only on matters that are beyond our own backyards, we are actually barely helping. I am not saying there is no point in voicing out our anger. I am saying we need to carry that anger into the real world. I am saying we need to walk the (virtual) talk.

There is a world beyond social media, its thought-provoking discourses and clout-chasing influencers. It may contain your neighbor who is proudly "apolitical." Your sibling who is a "timeline cleanser." Your parents' business partner who still supports Mr. Duterte because "he is good for business." Your lawyer friend who views the law as words on a page, and not something that should have moral and ethical guideposts. Hundreds of thousands of people who don't even use Twitter, and probably haven't seen, or heard, or seen and heard what Nuezca did on Dec. 20.

Amid this pandemic, which has worked so well to government's advantage in that it has become easier than ever to suppress organized action and stamp out dissent through covert operations, disrupting the fragile comforts of our polite and decent circles is maybe the best that we can do to bring the "discourse" outside our virtual echo chambers. This, too, will never be enough. But it can be a start.

PDI Opinion: Iloilo as Wakanda

New commentary in today's Inquirer--website version here. Let me just add that coming home prior to the start of the March lockdown was the best decision ever.

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Iloilo as Wakanda

ILOILO CITY--Perhaps it's time we stopped referring to this city as the Philippine Wakanda. The title, referencing the fictional African utopia integrated into everyday language by the 2018 superhero film "Black Panther," aptly captured how local leadership marshaled its own pandemic response during the first half of the year, when the national government couldn't even get its act together. These days, however, the moniker is being tossed around in various other contexts, a placeholder asserting this idea of the city as an infallible paradise.

One recent instance involved the Iloilo River Esplanade: On Twitter, it was hailed as a paragon of nature-friendly public infrastructure, the antithesis to that brainless dolomite beach reclamation in Manila Bay.

Separately, as authorities grappled with the rise of biking in Metro Manila--and preoccupied themselves with how best to earn from it--netizens swiftly pointed out how Iloilo already provided a model for this "new normal," justifying this claim with images of the eight-lane Diversion Road with its companion 11-kilometer bike lane. (So picturesque is the highway, in fact, that a year ago, pro-Duterte trolls even circulated a photo of it, claiming it was a picture of Davao City.)

A more clear-eyed perspective would celebrate the long-term vision that doubtless informed these projects--boosting the city's "habitability" and its attractiveness to tourists and investors--while also acknowledging their consequential imperfections.

A quick online search, for example, easily reveals how these esplanades, now stretching several kilometers, came at the expense of the original river flora. As late as two years ago, mangroves lining the river were still dying, as the construction work disrupted the tidal flow and water salinity necessary for the plants' survival. (Good news, though: A mangrove-replanting scheme has, from the looks of it, by far succeeded.)

And while anointing the city as the country's "bike capital" may not be totally off-base, at the very least it conveniently ignores, if not altogether erases, the local lived reality--how the past decade's mad rush to rehabilitate (and even "re-rehabilitate") the city roads, in a place with barely the inherent space to accommodate sprawling, simultaneous road works, meant month after month of perennial, time-consuming congestion spilling across districts.

This is not to diminish the achievements of a city whose push for progress has remarkably included green spaces and cultural heritage in the picture. But in the age of virtual information warfare, a nuanced perspective must always prevail, more so in instances touting supposed progress. In other words, facts--and therefore clarity--above all else.

Scholars have long noted the political nature of names: The very act of naming spawns its own power structure, eventually influencing future thought and action. Iloilo itself is no stranger to the politics of nomenclature: Remember back when someone declared it the "most shabulized city" in the country?

The present case is the complete opposite. Now we're dealing with a name connoting invincibility and impenetrability, at such a critical juncture in contemporary history. The danger, then, in ascribing a status of implied superiority to a single place goes beyond mere misrepresentation. It warps public consciousness, birthing instead an idea of the place that's devoid of imperfection and immune to criticism. To go by a tenet of propaganda, repetition is key to creating the reality. Keep upholding this myth of the Ilonggo Wakanda, and soon you'll have anything but. (In this era of right-wing populism, you might even get an army of blind believers to back you up.)

If there's anything the last four years in Philippine politics have taught us, it's that too much belief in something--or someone--eventually blurs the line between fact and fiction, blunting our collective judgment.

Our cities, and our leaders, should not be placed on pedestals. They must always be rendered on a human scale--to be praised where praise is due, and to be held accountable for their every shortcoming. 

For Iloilo, that may mean commending its government for the way it has handled the pandemic these last six months (establishing accessible mass testing, sustaining open lines of communication, nurturing public-private partnership, etc.). But even this commendation should go hand in hand with recognizing that these mechanisms haven't always been perfect or fully effective in curbing the threat of COVID-19.

Such a duality, in the bigger scheme of things, should be enough. Anything more--anything subscribing to ridiculous superlatives, like this perpetration of the Wakandan analogy--is unnecessary, and may even prove damaging in the long run. 

PDI Feature: On virtual theater

Major-ish news: The Philippine Daily Inquirer's Theater section has been absorbed by Arts and Books (where theater articles used to appear before November 2012). The move makes sense, of course, given how local theater has been at a standstill for the last six months. My first essay under this new arrangement appears in today's paper, and contrary to what the headline makes it sound like, I am in fact not the biggest fan of virtual theater. See you in this same space next month, probably. The website link to the article here.

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Is virtual theater the future of the PH stage?

Four months ago, a video recording of "Ang Huling El Bimbo" streamed for free on Facebook and Youtube as part of ABS-CBN's fundraiser for the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. In just two days, the musical reached seven million views and raised over 12 million pesos.

Those were unquestionably impressive numbers, though to be fair, "El Bimbo" was an easy sell. A massive hit at Resorts World Manila, where it played 115 performances in the span of a year to some 150,000 people, it could rely on solid word of mouth. The show's use of the Eraserheads' music was also an attraction in itself, and would have lured even those who did not identify as theatergoers but were fans of the seminal band. Plus, the audience was already essentially "present": Anyone with internet access anywhere in the world could watch the show--and donate to the cause.

Nonetheless, the case of "El Bimbo" proved that, with the proper publicity and the "right" material, there can be a future for streaming theater in the Philippines. The question now--six months into this crippling pandemic--is how to make it work. One may as well begin by stressing the importance of the quality of the recording. This was never a problem for "El Bimbo"; at Resorts World Manila's Newport Performing Arts Theater, the shows were always accompanied by a "live recording," as strategically stationed cameras beamed the ongoing performance on either side of the stage. (Suddenly, what used to be a distracting feature of the theater became its asset.)

But "El Bimbo" was a rarity: Numerous companies also released archival content on the internet, such as Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas' "Ang Nawalang Kapatid" and Philippine Educational Theater Association's "William"--but often, these recordings were poorly captured and frustrating to watch.

And in any case, "El Bimbo" was no global pioneer. London's National Theatre and New York's Lincoln Center have been in the business of streaming theater for years, recording their shows as if they were shooting films and releasing them in cinemas or through broadcasters like PBS. In fact, when the pandemic struck and London theater shuttered, the National Theatre was one of the first to launch these online shows-for-a-cause initiatives. For Filipino viewers, that meant free and previously impossible access to Tom Hiddleston's "Coriolanus," for example.

But is such a model sustainable in the Philippines? If, for example, in a postpandemic world, "El Bimbo" were to hold regular cinema screenings, would enough people pay to see it?

It's a tricky question to navigate at the moment, and using First-World examples such as the National Theatre, or even "Hamilton's" tie-up with Disney+, to assert the financial viability of this future won't be very convincing.

It's even trickier for original material--this alien thing we now call virtual or "Zoom" theater, after the video conferencing app that artists worldwide have used as a stage. Now the question starts at the time of inception: Playwrights must now tailor their material to the virtual media, with Zoom screens in mind, while actors, directors and designers must navigate their craft in this strange in-between of film and physical theater.

The early local examples can be seen as stepping stones to this forced transition. Playwright Layeta Bucoy, for instance, wrote for Tanghalang Pilipino a trilogy of "monovlogs" that tried to unpack the human experience of COVID-19, the second installment of which starred screen legend Nora Aunor as the eponymous "Lola Doc." Gabay Kalikasan, an advocacy arm of PLDT-Smart, did a couple of revues employing many from the cast and creative team of "El Bimbo"--first, "Songs for a Changed World"; then "Tatsulok: A Trilogy for Change."

The recent Virgin Labfest, the Cultural Center of the Philippines' annual festival of new one-act plays, might just be the biggest such effort yet--and perhaps the most insightful.

For one, the most successful entires of this year's edition, which unfolded on the video platform Vimeo, were those that figured out how to transpose to the screen a script that was originally intended for the stage, such as Floyd Scott Tiogangco's "Pilot Episode," which surely benefited from having filmmaker Giancarlo Abrahan ("Dagitab," "Sila-Sila") at the helm. And as longtime festival production manager Nikki Garde-Torres shared, the dip in this year's revenues was countered by a huge rise in viewership--audiences from a wider geographical catchment--reflected in the postfestival numbers.

Especially in the past decade, Filipino theater has often been touted to be a "booming" industry, but in fact what this "theater" refers to has been largely confined to the stages of Metro Manila--the unfortunate product of, among other factors, theater journalists of prominent publications being mostly based in the capital and therefore covering only shows in that region; and the congregation of talent, from professional theater companies to universities with reputable training programs, in that same, insular space.

Virtual theater is just about our best answer now to solving this question of access--of whose theatrical creations get to be seen and who gets to see these creations.

Live theater is irreplaceable. But now we must also embrace virtual theater, whether streamed recordings of existing shows or completely new productions, as a vital part of the landscape. Doing so will not only be in support of sustaining the art form while the pandemic rages on; it will also be a step toward realizing a truly democratic Filipino theater.

PDI Feature: Impact of COVID-19 on Filipino theater companies

Cora and I do the numbers and economics in today's theater section--here. I can only hope I never again see in my lifetime the theater community besieged by something as crippling and monstrous as this pandemic.

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'Sometimes, the show can't go on': How Filipino theater tries to cope

Twenty-eight productions of 22 companies in Metro Manila have been affected so far by the new coronavirus diseases (COVID-19) pandemic, which forced the government to lock down Luzon and suspend all public gatherings.

From a public health perspective, the move was necessary.

Yet, one simply cannot ignore the economic repercussions of this unprecedented shutdown.

"Theater is time-bound and time-sensitive. Very few productions are able to circumvent the idea of 'It's now or never,' which is why 'The show must go on' has become synonymous with the performing arts," says Pangasinan Rep. Toff de Venecia, the managing artistic director of The Sandbox Collective. "But COVID-19 is a different monster altogether. It has caught everyone in the industry off-guard."

Sandbox canceled 14 performances of a 16-show repertory run of "Lungs" and "Every Brilliant Thing," its two hit nonmusical plays from 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Postponing a single weekend of shows alone, De Venecia says, would already incur a loss for the company, as it grapples with "venue availability vis-à-vis the preferences of both ticket buyers and show buyers for rescheduled performances. What more postponing the whole run."

According to an industry insider, mounting a typical four-weekend run of an English-language nonmusical play by a non-Filipino playwright--covering licensing, salaries, production costs, administrative work and marketing--now costs anywhere between P2 and P4 million. A musical of similar pedigree costs at least P10 million.

For productions of homegrown material--without the need to pay for licenses and royalties overseas--the costs run anywhere between P800,000 (the minimum for nonmusical plays) and P2 million (the usual maximum for musicals).

To break even, or recover expenses, a production would have to net at least 15-20 percent return of investment. This translates to 50-60 percent capacity for every performances--which is hardly the case in the local theater scene, where audiences usually start filling houses only past the second weekend, from word of mouth.

Productions by university companies cost less to mount--according to another insider, P50,000 to P200,000 for a straight play, and around P1.2 million for a musical.

Student-run

Of the 28 productions sidelined by the pandemic, 13 were by student-run theater organizations or university theater arts programs.

That included Ateneo Entablado's (Enta) "Macli-ing," which had only the first of its three-week run; Ateneo Blue Repertory's (BlueRep) "Next to Normal," with a sold-out five-show opening weekend; and Tanghalang Ateneo's (TA) "Top Girls," which never got to open.

Collectively, they incurred P1,121,011.39 in losses, according to the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo.

Missy Maramara, director of "Next to Normal," says: "In student-run companies, the students raise the funds, make the decisions and do the legwork. We apply for grants from the school; we don't get automatic subsidies. The university support comes in the form of minimal expenses for the use of the venues. So our only streams of revenue are ticket sales, sponsorships and the occasional gig."

According to Maramara, "Next to Normal" lost around half a million pesos because of cancellations. "Productions of the following year are dependent on the financial capacity of the previous year, so it's a deficit the company will bring over to its next production."

This snowball effect is felt not only on a micro level (e.g., detailed finances), but also on a macro scale (e.g., the planning of a company's entire season).

Sandbox's sister company, 9 Works Theatrical, has postponed one of two productions set later in the year for next year, says managing director Santi Santamaria.

The 11-year-old company's original lineup included a new jukebox musical using the songs of former Rivermaya frontman Rico Blanco, and the stage adaptation of the Whitney Houston vehicle "The Bodyguard."

No opening night

Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group has preemptively canceled its production of "Oliver!," set for June. Its maiden offering for 2020, "The Band's Visit," managed only a couple of invitational technical dress rehearsals (March 11-12) and shuttered before opening night.

Repertory Philippines' (Rep) "Anna in the Tropics" never got to open, while its "Carousel," to be directed by De Venecia and originally set for May, has been postponed.

"Batang Mujahideen," the production of Tanghalang Pilipino (TP), resident theater company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), was the earliest casualty of the pandemic.

Even before its late-February opening night, it already had to cancel five of its 12 performances, as the schools that bought those shows backed out in compliance with the Department of Education's memorandum on prohibition of educational trips.

Despite losing roughly P400,000 from those canceled shows, however, artistic director Fernando "Nanding" Josef chooses to think of TP as somehow lucky. "The onset of the epidemic happened at the tail end of our season. Our Actors Company (AC) and staff were psychologically prepared for the 'off-season' mood, and the show itself was well-received by audiences and critics, so morale did not get too low. Plus, one of the show buyers that backed out instead transferred its reservation to the rerun of 'Lam-ang' in September."

In the meantime, some reevaluation of existing structures and internal policies is needed--what Josef calls starting "a solid, sustainable program of in-depth reflection, analysis and new creative collective action."

Strong business sense

Rep artistic director Liesl Batucan, for one, notes that "there are advantages to being a company that's been in the business for a long time. [Late company cofounder] Tita Bibot Amador ran Rep very well; she had a strong business sense. Now we have financials--not a lot, but enough to help us not shut down the whole year--and the human resource infrastructure."

As Santamaria puts its, "Unlike normal businesses that are accustomed to monthly income flow, theater has trained us to be naturally prudent, as we only really earn or lose income whenever we have a production."

It's this ephemeral nature of local theater that De Venecia sees as both boon and bane. "It's a kind of cushion in that we don't have tremendous overhead, as opposed to those who maintain facilities or have regular employees. But as arts organizations, our engagement with audiences is seasonal and transactional. We put up a show, engage with paying audiences and disengage soon after--which is maybe why theater companies work so hard to scream in a crowded market to attract fickle audiences.

"As producers, we can't not look ahead; we still have to make plans and provisions for future programming. But if anything, this pandemic has compelled micro-, small and medium enterprises such as ours to start thinking medium-term rather than short term--to think of plan B or C in light of force majeure."

Moving forward, after all, is not as easy as it sounds. Rescheduling canceled shows must consider the availability of venues, that of artists and behind-the-scenes personnel.

There is also the emotional toll the sudden forced closures have inflicted on the artistic community.

"Our circles are not just tightknit, but also concentric," says De Venecia. "Workers in the industry vacillate between capacities and capabilities--one actor in this show is a producer in the next, and so on. There is literally one degree of separation within Philippine theater.

Sad emojis

"When we announced the postponement of Sandbox's shows via Viber, 'It is what it is,' said most of our team with sad emojis. We couldn't even have a proper face-to-face company call because by then, Metro Manila was already on community quarantine."

Maramara says "Next to Normal" was already looking into adding shows because it had sold out its three-week run. "People tell us, 'At least you got to open.' That is true, and we are grateful, but that doesn't diminish the intensity of the loss. This isn't a contest of whose pain is greater."

No doubt, it's an even more trying time for freelancers--artists who earn on per-project basis--who constitute majority of the community.

As Audie Gemora, Philstage president and Trumpets artistic director, puts it, "The initial disappointment over the lockdown was frustration over not being able to perform after having prepared for months.

"Then came the realization that it meant loss of income, with no clear view of when this crisis will be resolved."

"COVID-19 has brought the plight of the freelancers into play and provided a startling new viewpoint into their vulnerability," De Venecia says. "Before Congress adjourned last March 11, we tackled an Occupational Safety Bill about the performing arts, known as the Eddie Garcia Bill. It is now in the technical working group (TWG) stage.

"There is a need to find out how many artists there are, and how the pandemic has affected them, since many are not covered by formal employer-employee contracts, and thus, the recent Department of Labor and Employment assistance of P5,000 for displaced workers, for example.

"The displacement of creative workers is an economic reality that the Creative Workers Welfare Bill that I refiled in the 18th Congress hopes to address, by providing access to secondary livelihoods for our affected stakeholders. I've also filed a Freelancer Protection Bill, which is now in the TWG stage."

Taken up the cudgels

In the absence of concrete legislation, theater artists themselves have taken up the cudgels to raise funds for creative works most vulnerable to this lockdown.

A coalition involving Philstage, Artists Welfare Project, Silly People's Improve Theater-Manila, Third World Improv, Ticket2Me and Theater Actors Guild has put up Open House, an online serial fundraiser whose programs have so far included classes on movement (with Jack Yabut) and hurdling auditions (with Rony Fortich), an episode of the five-year-old cabaret series "One Night Stand," and even a song interpretation workshop delivered by Gemora himself.

Another group--made up of JK Anicoche, Laura Cabochan, Jopie Sanchez, Komunidad, Sipat Lawin and the Concerned Artists of the Philippines--has set up #CreativeAidPH, which has gathered much-needed preliminary data on the specific extent of the lockdown's financial toll, from a pool of nearly 500 respondents.

"We have also reached out to CCP and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts to realign their budgets for the displaced workers," says Gemora.

And within companies themselves, the wheels are already turning.

In the case of TP, Josef says it "should continue its research-oriented programming of theater," citing the company's recent partnership with the Asian Institute for Distance Education (AIDE) as an important cushion for these down times.

Under AIDE, TP has launched an online certificate-granting workshop in performing arts led by Remus Villanueva, under its Kamalayang Pilipino Workshop in the Arts program. "We can develop more modules for scriptwriting, production design, etc., and employ not only the AC, but other artist-teachers who are temporarily out of work because of the pandemic," says Josef.

Preexisting coalitions among university organizations have also proven beneficial, as evidenced by the Ateneo theater companies. Starting last year, TA, BlueRep and Enta have collaborated on TresPass, a season pass for their productions running simultaneously toward the end of the school year.

"When the pandemic hit, and everyone's morale plunged, we turned not only to members of our own organization, but reached out to other companies as well," says Maramara.

"It was the officers of all three companies who worked out logistical and financial concerns with the university's Performing Arts Cluster and Office of Student Activities.

"The companies are now competing with compassion. The students talk to each other, which is the best way to learn what each of us can offer."

As with all industries wrestling with this global crisis, the Filipino theater community is starting to come to grips with changes that can permanently alter the landscape. To paraphrase De Venecia: "More than moving forward, this pandemic is forcing us to restrategize and contend with the reality that sometimes, the show cannot go on."

PDI Opinion: Adding fuel to the COVID-19 inferno

What a fucked-up time we are living in now. Every hour, something infuriating just seems to happen in this country. The website version of this rant here.

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Adding fuel to the COVID-19 inferno

It's hard not to envy the Singaporeans. Through a televised address on March 12, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong laid out in a mere 11-and-a-half minutes the state of his country amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and his government's plan of action. The speech was clear, concise, and, most importantly, reassuring, the gist of it being: We are wading on uncharted waters, but your leaders are on top of things.

How nice to have a government--or even just a head of state--that actually knows how to talk to its people, instead of sending them into alternating states of panic and paranoia.

The same day as Lee's address, President Duterte also faced his nation. He was two hours late to the scheduled broadcast, and when he finally appeared, it was to announce--in increments--the provisions of the Metro Manila quarantine. "Announce now, details to follow" was the gist of the whole affair, as if the document he was reading were the most banal and unimportant thing.

Days later, his lackey, presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo, also took to the podium. Mind you, this was before the actual announcement of the "enhanced quarantine"--now the whole island of Luzon was to be locked down. Among the many things Panelo said: The Cabinet was about to propose a Luzon-wide lockdown to the President (so why was he already blabbing about it to the media?); the country was taking South Korea's lead in locking down (Korea has done no such thing); eating bananas and gargling saltwater would prevent you from getting COVID-19 (they won't); and the operations of such services as supermarkets and food cargo deliveries would be impeded (the Department of Trade and Industry had to quickly go on record to refute that statement).

Neither instance was out of character; anyone who has lived through all three-and-a-half years of Mr. Duterte's presidency should by now be familiar with its penchant for chest-beating and noise-making set to maximum. "We can say what we want and get away with it" has always been the gist of this government.

It's only rational, then, to think that, for all the proactive actions it has indeed taken, this government remains blithely unaware of just how extraordinary and precarious a time we are living through--that now, more than ever, the unhinged minds occupying its highest echelons must take responsibility for every single word they utter.

In the two instances cited above, what transpired afterward was only expected. Perhaps for the nth time within the span of two weeks, many people in Metro Manila found themselves panic-buying, prodded by vague, doomsday-like proclamations from above to head to groceries, pharmacies, and other establishments. In other words, crowding in public places--and, quite possibly, transmitting the virus among themselves. The pictures of these crowds--the indirect result, it must be emphasized, of the government's reckless mouth--are just some of the stuff that health care workers' nightmares are made of these days.

And it isn't just its mouth this government can't control; it also doesn't care about the kind of messages it sends out to its already anxious and agitated people.

The country running short on testing kits for the virus? Let's have asymptomatic politicos get tested, anyway, violating the algorithm set by the Department of Health, and have them parade their results in public. Meanwhile, patients under investigation for COVID-19 are dying in our hospitals without even knowing if they were positive for the virus.

A pandemic laying siege to our fragile health care system? Let's have a law-and-order solution to this public health problem, with checkpoints manned by the military, ill-equipped and clueless about the necessary hygienic precautions (though hopefully not as clueless now).

Nobody expects any government to get through this pandemic perfectly. But the least it can do is provide a reassuring voice to its people, and show them it is exhausting every possible means to get them through this unprecedented time--something numerous local government units, through the leadership of their mayors and governors, seem to be achieving.

Our national government, on the other hand, is only adding fuel to the Philippine COVID-19 inferno. Not only are we facing a virus the world still knows very little about, we must also deal with leaders who don't know how--or don't care--to talk to us like they actually want us to survive this pandemic.

PDI Opinion: Normalized inhumanity

My fourth piece for Inquirer-Opinion is dedicated to my alma mater--the website link here.

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Normalized inhumanity

There aren't enough beds to go around in our public hospitals. And if you think the country is in a hurry to fix this problem, think again.

At the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), where I was once a postgraduate medical intern, it is normal to see some admitted patients in the emergency room (ER) being accommodated on Monoblocs. In the charity wards at night, the bantays--the patients' assigned companions, sleep either on chairs or on cardboard sheets spread beside or under the patients' beds.

And that's only scratching the surface of the Philippine public health situation.

The old PGH labor and delivery room, before it was torn down to give way to what has become a protracted reconstruction, could get so crowded it resembled a parking lot: women on steel stretchers placed side by side, with just slivers of space in between for careful movement. Oh yes, charity patients used--and still use--uncushioned stretchers, usually outfitted with just a thin sheet of cloth to separate the woman's body from the cold surface.

At least the patients just stay in bed. I'd been in numerous in-house emergencies where the bantays had to push the drastically deteriorating, bedbound patient alongside the physician on duty all the way from the ward to Radiology. Where was I? Running--in a place where life is oftentimes a literal race to get things done--to have the needed scan approved and scheduled instantly by the radiologist on duty. Where was the hospital aide whose job it supposedly was to push the bed? Pushing another patient's bed.

And yet, there aren't enough voices demanding the provision of more items from the government to employ more health care personnel. There isn't enough outrage at the fact that what is supposed to be our best government hospital still persists in primitive conditions.

It's reasonable to believe the people with the money and power to actually change things don't even grasp the ground-level reality of our public hospitals. Look at how our leaders justify their splurge on a multimillion-peso scam of an ornamental cauldron for the Southeast Asian Games, after having slashed next year's national budget for health by an infuriating percentage. In times of sickness, they inhabit a world of their own: plush suites that can give luxury hotels a run for their money, the bantays with their own beds, and massive TVs and high-speed internet access to pass the time. Even the apathetic middle class have a myriad of private hospitals to choose from; should they opt to go to PGH, there are still air-conditioned private quarters to check into.

The state of hospitals such as PGH is nothing new. In fact, it has been like this for so long, we hear the depressing anecdotes and instinctively think, "That's just the way it is."

As I write this, a hallway continues to substitute for the ER lobby of PGH, threatening to burst during peak hours with all the sweaty, tired bodies jostling for the attention of an overwhelmed team of medical professionals. A single converted ward--the main stand-in for what used to be a multi-part complex--is stretched ridiculously thin to accommodate almost all the patients admitted for emergency care. And these patients on their stretchers have spilled over into neighboring hallways and even a portion of the hospital's central elevator lobby.

We've heard again and again how our doctors are overworked and underpaid; how our nurses are overworked and even more underpaid. When a doctor tweets, "Ubos na ubos na ako (I'm totally spent)," it's now somehow taken as a fact of life and fodder for after-work conversation.

But at least resident doctors who go on 24-hour duties every three days get to go home to a bath, a warm meal and a soft bed at the end of it all. Ditto with nurses who drown in paperwork alone every shift. The luckiest even have well-appointed call rooms to retreat to during down times.

Our patients, on the other hand, have no choice but to endure the deplorable conditions of our government health care facilities, for lack of more humane and accessible choices. Suck it all up, to put it bluntly.

For our patients, it's already a battle just to be seen at the ER. In the wards, bantays continue to sleep on the floor, waiting for that day when the patient finally gets discharged or dies. Behold, this normalized inhumanity.

PDI Feature: Why theater remains relevant in our lifetime

In today's paper, to coincide with the Lifestyle section's anniversary, a manifesto of sorts. A debt of gratitude will always be owed foremost to him whom I consider my trailblazing mentor, Gibbs Cadiz, and Lifestyle editor Thelma Sioson San Juan. 

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Why theater remains relevant in our lifetime

Early in August 2016, just a little over a month since he'd been sworn into office, President Duterte gave his go signal for the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. Needless to say, the uproar that ensued was deafening, the wounds inflicted by this national insult yet another sign that change, to pluck the words out of Duterte's mouth, had indeed come.

In October of that year, the Manila theater community unveiled its swift response in the best way it knew how. Organized in just two months, "Never Again: Voices of Martial Law" assembled nine one-act plays that became a collective reminder of the terrors of the Marcos dictatorship, and, as former Inquirer theater editor Gibbs Cadiz observed, a "stand against the tide of historical revisionism," endorsed so openly by the new government.

That festival, among many other reasons, is why the theater remains relevant in our lifetime--and why its documentation in these pages is more than a simple matter of weekly journalism.

History book in the making

Our stages are no longer just places to project the woes of the human condition and the possibilities of human invention. The theater is now a literal camera, a Filipino history book in the making, our cowitness to the gradual unraveling of society in the hands of morally bankrupt leaders.

A year into Duterte's deadly "war on drugs," Adrian Ho's "Sincerity Bikers' Club" at the Virgin Labfest was already examining how this futile crusade has torn apart even the smallest of communities. Dustin Celestino would take the introspection, the unfounded "othering" even among families, notches further with "Mga Eksena sa Buhay ng Kontrabida."

Halfway through the Duterte regime, we have seen two Lualhati Bautista novels come to life onstage--Guelan Luarca's adaptation of "Desaparesidos" and Pat Valera's musical rendering of "Dekada '70," both the most forceful reminders to "never forget" how our country arrived at its present predicament.

And the fearless Juana Change has toured the world--and will hopefully continue doing so--with her one-woman show "Tao Po"--a series of monologues from the imagined perspectives of both victims and perpetrators of the "drug war," and perhaps the fiercest indictment yet of this current administration's rising tally of crimes against humanity.

Witness

The Inquirer Lifestyle Theater section has borne witness to all these plays--and hundreds more. Since its inception seven years ago, it has remained the only one of its kind: a weekly venue for Filipino theater writing that sees both print and online distribution through a national broadsheet.

Our coverage has always known no bounds--be it a university venue or a fancy casino house, a late-night cabaret or a hole-in-the-wall reading--so long as it is physically possible for us to reach the theater.

We were there when it was just insiders who were noticing the boom of local theater through an increasing annual number of productions. We have seen this community thrive through the decade and eventually take up its cudgels in the continuing fight for social justice. And we intend to be there, writing with the level of fair-minded insight and passion our theater so deserves, for decades to come--for all the cycle of change yet to unfold.

PDI Opinion: 'Theater and politics are inseparable'

My latest opinion piece, on the Irene Marcos debacle last week, is in today's paper.

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'Theater and politics are inseparable'

In a just world, the Marcoses wouldn't be walking free today; at the very least, they would be locked up someplace, paying for all the lives they harmed and all the money they stole from this country during their two-decade-long tyranny.

But this is not a just world, and so you have the wife of the dead dictator still roaming free despite (finally) being convicted of corruption, or his son almost winning the vice presidency, or one of his daughters showing up ever so casually at the premieres of plays and art exhibits.

That last bit doesn't usually land the limelight, mostly because of the ephemeral, insular, small-scale nature of such events. But it happened again last week--so soon after that incident at Ateneo de Manila University in April, when said daughter graced the inauguration of the new amphitheater, the resulting, deafening backlash leading to the resignation of a top-brass school official.

At Friday's opening night of the latest play by Dulaang Unibersidad ng Pilipinas, the official performing arts group of the University of the Philippines-Diliman, one of the audience members was no less than that same daughter herself. The uproar that ensued at the venue, and which quickly seeped into social media, was nothing if not expected.

Caught on record as well via The Philippine Collegian, the university's student-run publication, was the play's director telling off the student protesters that "UP should remain a democratic space."

In a sense, the director had a point: UP is, indeed, a democratic space. For the image of the university as a homogenous body of truth defenders and freedom warriors is but a myth. It is no secret that, while being home to the fiercest activists and patriots of this country, UP is also a nest of loyalists and defenders of despotic political families past and present. There is probably no better microcosm of Philippine society today.

It is ironic that in this school that birthed some of the greatest Filipino protest art--the university theater scene itself responsible for many important, galvanizing pieces--a spawn of the despot can just enter as she pleases, thereby spitting on the memory of all those who bravely, and fatally, resisted the Marcos regime.

It is doubly ironic when you consider that one of UP's most recent stage hits happened to be Floy Quintos' "The Kundiman Party," about a fictional world-renowned songstress who spurned the patronage of the Marcoses.

Anyone who remembers knows how that family used art as a perfume to please the middle class and fool the poor (see: the Manila Film Center). Still, today, there remains a multitude of artists who, having benefited from the Marcoses' patronage in the past (some of them children at the time), persist in their blind loyalty to the family--or at the very least, refuse to bite the proverbial hand that fed them, even if that hand butchered and disappeared thousands of their countrymen.

In this, it is helpful to remember what the playwright Rody Vera said in an interview earlier this year: "Theater and politics are inseparable, not only in content but also in form." He was talking about his new play premiering on the UP stage, "Nana Rosa," which tackled the conveniently ignored history of Filipino comfort women during the Japanese occupation--but he might as well have been talking about any other play, in any other time.

Theater, as with all art, does not exist in a vacuum. It can have far-reaching consequences, and the ability to precipitate change on a national platform. As such, plays do not begin and end with the rise and fall of their curtains; what we see onstage matters just as much as everything and everyone else that surrounds it offstage--who writes the play, who works in it, who finances it, who gets invited to see it first.

The craft may take on many colors, but when it comes to issues as integral to the Filipino consciousness as the Marcos dictatorship, the conversation can only be in black and white. In this climate of blatant historical revisionism, civil liberty should not and should never be invoked as an excuse to fraternize with the biggest crooks in this nation's history. There shouldn't be room for spineless neutrality.

What, then, has UP done, or is doing? Not much, by the looks of it. In fact, this isn't the first time the Marcoses have figured in the university's arts scene, either in name or in person. The issue, I predict, will proceed as such issues have mostly proceeded in this country: First, the outrage. Then, the discourse. Then, the amnesia. Then, the air kisses and bonhomie. 

PDI Opinion: 'Cleaning up' Manila

New op-ed in Inquirer Opinion! Website version here.

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'Cleaning up' Manila

Ascending to the mayoral throne once occupied by plunder convict Joseph Estrada, Isko Moreno pledged to clean up the city of Manila and restore it to glory worthy of a sepia-tinted postcard of the past.

If you happened to be outdoors or aboard public transportation in Manila during those first few, fledgling days of the Moreno administration, you might have seen up close and personal what the rest of the country only marveled at through photographs in the papers or social media: the streets of Divisoria and Avenida suddenly awash in airy brightness--the kind begot not by a change in weather, but by the absence of people.

Cleaning up the filth that filled the gutters and sidewalks is one thing. "Cleaning up" the people whose livelihoods depended on their very presence on these streets is another.

And yet, the general reaction one gleaned from Facebook and Twitter--at least, from the bubble that constituted my social media sphere--was one of glee and relief. Thank the good mayor for getting rid of these street vendors; now we're a step closer to sanitizing Manila!

I've heard this very same logic before. And you, dear reader, probably have, too. Not too long ago, someone deemed radical and "of the people" also won a political post--a most powerful one--and promised to rid this country of those he deemed eyesores to society. That man, you might bloody well know, has made good of that promise.

No street vendors have been unjustly gunned down in broad daylight, of course. But while you laud Moreno's efforts from the comforts of home, silently cheering as you watch footage of this "clean-up drive" from your smart phone or laptop, probably enjoying a warm meal or ensconced in your soft bed, scores of living, breathing Filipinos have actually been rendered jobless. What you might view as necessary birthing pains for the success of this new government in reality translate to families suddenly bereft of breadwinners, informal workers cut off from their only sources of income, parents now clueless as to where to get the money for the day's next meal.

Isn't that a kind of slow, uncertainty-filled death? This isn't even a metaphor when you're talking about people who don't have any health insurance or savings in the bank--people who literally survive on a day-to-day basis.

And all for what? More sidewalk parking spaces? Wider roads for cars to inundate? More people in malls (which, by the way, are real urban eyesores)?

Moreno has said he isn't antipoor; he is, after all, of the poor. He has also provided some justification for this "clean-up drive"--for example, the showy arrest of so-called organizers who extort rent from these street vendors. But his drastic actions have negatively impacted only the very poor people he claims to come from.

The bigger picture reveals only a disturbing lack of foresight. No, not "foresight" in the context of long-term plans and pipeline projects, such as relocating the "cleaned-up" vendors to some other place, but "foresight" as in: Immediately after being "cleaned up," what are these vendors supposed to do? Sit on the streets? Beg for money? Starve?

That is the kind of thoughtless governance the privileged class has apparently equated to bravery, to making a stand, to promise. The choice of language is also telling: Just listen to how we've talked of "cleaning up" Manila, as if these street vendors were mere parasites that must be scrubbed off the body of the city.

And like parasites insufficiently eradicated, "babalik lang 'yan," the more cynical commenters on social media have said of the evicted street vendors. "They will just return." True enough, the other day, a news bit showed some vendors--already back in their vacated spots--scrambling to pack up their wares after receiving word that the mayor was set to visit their area. If this "clean-up" were really a serious policy, how were the vendors back so quickly? Who enabled their return? Who's in cahoots with them and warned them of the mayor's imminent arrival?

There are more questions than there are answers here. But for now, this: So long as leadership isn't grounded on inclusive, people-centric tenets and on policies that seriously consider the plight of the poor, we'll forever be cleaning up this city of its less-privileged inhabitants--and the ones with privilege can keep believing that's genuine change.

PDI Opinion: Nice

Today, I make my Inquirer-Opinion debut! The website version here.

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Nice

Days before the midterm elections, the worst kind of pictures popped up in my Facebook feed: this lady I knew relatively well, posing with her grown children, all of them sporting gray shirts imprinted with the face of that Davaoeño ex-cop with dramatic proclivities. By now, said ex-cop is set to join the Senate, if we go by the Commission on Elections' count, and that Facebook friend is off gallivanting in some European capital.

It was very tempting to comment on that post; I was thinking something short and sweet, like "why"--lowercase and unpunctuated for a touch of genteel curiosity. But after verbalizing the idea, I was told, as I'd been told many times before, to "be nice." Was it really worth the trouble--this vaguely aggressive comment and the arguments it would conceivably entail, the feathers it would ruffle?

As that trending Twitter photo proclaimed, "It's just politics. Don't let our political preferences destroy friendships and relationships."

Sure thing. Social media, after all, is just one huge echo chamber, full of paid trolls, manicured profiles and like-minded people following and preaching to each other. Beyond our screens, we have real lives to lead and real people to interact with. And being nice--which, in our patriarchy- and hierarchy-obsessed society, often translates to smiling pretty, staying silent and bottling up one's political feelings in favor of preserving the peace--has always come in handy.

They didn't give out medals for the "most polite" kids back in kindergarten for nothing. It's simply the way we're conditioned: grandparents doting on grandchildren who are "obedient"; parents handing out easy rewards for "doing what we say without question." And for the grownups, being nice sweetens the parties we throw, expands our businesses through newfound acquaintances, and flavors random incidents with a more palatable taste for the purposes of memory. Why bother rocking the boat of shallow, civil conversation?

I'm neither parent nor aspiring New-Age life coach, but it's a mistake to confuse nice with nonconfrontational. Only a fool would think collective, courteous silence has ever helped anyone.

Nice gets you children who grow up to become adults bereft of the ability to engage in intelligent, insightful discussion on politics, religion or any other "sensitive" subject--or worse, adults who think discussing such matters in places other than the classroom is at the very least inappropriate, the doings of a party pooper.

Nice means making excuses for those friends or family members who openly and vocally support the government's "war on drugs" (after three years, it's amazing how some people still buy this story), thinking, well, there's more to these persons than just their morals or stand on socioeconomic issues; that anyway, they have raised loving families and have known yours for the longest time--plus bonus points for being devout churchgoers--so they must certainly be better people than their poorly crafted Facebook posts make them out to be.

Nice means just keeping quiet and walking away after an elderly relative tells you he's not voting for Samira Gutoc because--and I kid you not--"she's a loud woman," and that Neri Colmenares is a "threat to businessmen," which makes sense only in the context of said relative, who happens to be richer than probably half the people in your hometown combined.

The ending, of course, is that nice helps get elected to the Senate people like that Davaoeño ex-cop, or that photobombing former aide to the President, who, it should go without saying, is all sorts of unqualified.

In some way, this must feel kind of a reach--to say that our individual upbringing is the reason we now have plundering actors, fanatical boxers and theatrical policemen to write the laws of the land. But grand, disastrous endings can somehow all be traced back to the subliminal cracks at the beginning, to minds tenderly kept shut and mouths demurely kept closed.

So while majority of Filipinos, the ones who don't have the luxury to care about "Avengers: Endgame" or "Game of Thrones," eke out a living on a day-to-day basis, the privileged few--the ones with access and the linguistic faculty to read this piece--continue to be nice to each other. There's always church for our weekly dose of thanksgiving and social media for the occasional, intellectual rant.

Maybe what we need is some plain, blunt thinking to reflect on what the American master composer Stephen Sondheim wrote: Nice is different than good.