Fernando Modesto, Untitled, Pastel on Paper, 109 x 73 cms., 1984. Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art. Rightclicked and downloaded with express permission (thanks much!) from the webmaster at www.kulay-diwa.com
This comment made me laugh aloud today, (ha-ha-ha-ha, sobra) (soweee), from a viewer, a comment on the show “Harapan” (Face-to-face)
From stuart-santiago: you didn’t miss anything worth hearing. it was an awful show. if i were jun lozada i would have walked out and left korina and ricky to their own pathetic devices.
Dear stuart-santiago,
This made me laugh. I plugged the show ten hours before it was shown, so i thought i was obliged to say something lest people think i had endorsed it. So i just said i didn’t have any comment (go figure, ha-ha); although it’s true i just caught the tailend; actually half. (friends who know me know, when i say “no comment”, or when i don’t comment, i either think the question isn’t worth getting engaged in or i’m being polite; i shouldn’t even be in the internet! Yeah i know. Duh.) Here it is: IT WAS A GODDAMNED GAME SHOW-TRADING-OF-BARBS SHOW. (How’s that for being polite, ha-ha). Questions like “Sa inyo bang tingin o opinyon si FG ay kasangkot, etc?” (In your view or opinion is FG involved, etc.), and similar questions like, “Ikaw ba ay isang bayani? Bakit? (Are you a hero? Why?), or “Ano ba ang inyong mga pananaw sa korupsyon? Ito ba ay hindi na bago? (What are your views about corruption? Is this not new anymore?), that just let the guests throw around and toss recycled exhortations, denials, counter-accusations, and nothing more and nothing new, made the show a contest of opinions and the height of inanity, especially for a witness like Jun Lozada who almost got killed, his kids cannot go to school now for chrissake, and you make him jump hoops in a three-ringed circus, gosh. (The Sunday Mass held at La Salle, Greenhills is the saving grace of the week). It should have just been a one-on-one between Ben Abalos and Jun Lozada where the questions would elicit from the two a common timeline, a common set of events, the golf and power breakfasts, the trips to China, the wining and dining, then go into those, get details, what they ate, who sat where, etc., it only becomes real when there are details (that’s what journalists do for godssake), just like Jun Lozada’s narration fresh from the traumatic experience; it’s the details that make people realize the bacchanalia that Gloria, FG, Ben Abalos, and their cabal are engorged in on contracts and taxpayers’ money (i’ll let you in on a secret, it’s the details that in 2000-2001 made people see the Estrada gov’t and midnight cabinet for what they were), (then, for TV, i would have put graphics and visuals for the timeline and events) leading up to airport incident, so that we could reconstruct what really happened and this time it’s something new because Ben Abalos is there and who knows what else you could squeeze from the witness Jun Lozada everytime he remembers something (some witnesses take days of interviews to remember details spanning one year) . I know that would require a lot of skills but the alternative is song-and-dance like what we saw. You’re right, i agree, if i were Jun Lozada, i would have walked out. That’s where you see the character of the person. Mabait syang tao. (He’s a kind man). It’s like, his layers have been peeled off and he’s willing to endure all of the utter senselessness of TV. (i shouldn’t have written that, i know, but i thought i’d let witnesses like Jun Lozada and his family and friends know). To the letter-sender: i’m glad you wrote in, thank you!
