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By now, almost everyone knows the saga of Miko Morelos, care of the now-infamous Tweet posted by Tim Yap.  The other side of the story has been told, the apologies have been made, and now I guess it’s time to move on…

But like false reports of celebrities dying in pineapple plantations and calling wine “cheap” before foreign hosts in a state visit, I guess it’s right to stoke the fires of commensurate overreaction with commensurate overreaction…

Or maybe sappiness.

In a world where everything from an opinion to a bathroom break – and opinions about bathroom breaks – can be found in Twitter timelines, it’s safe to say that prudence runs a bit short on social media (or new media, whatever you want to call it).  The medium, in many ways, has provided anything but common sense.  Whenever instances like these happen, I often ask myself:

Is a sense of being human lost somewhere in social media?

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People often ask me how I keep my skin white.  My answer: genetics, anemia, and overdressing.  My mother is fair-skinned.  I have a pretty low red blood cell count.  Wearing black keeps the ultraviolet rays away, keeping my skin a little bit pasty-white.  It is far departed from the tall-dark-and-handsome that defines perfection in males, but for women, it’s somewhat almost there.

How that reflects in the world, I do not know.  In department stores, entire shelves and racks are filled with creams and soaps and lotions that promise fairer skin.  Pills and peels abound, claiming everything from lowering melanin production to exfoliating damaged skin to reveal whiter skin.  Billboards and TV commercials prominently feature glutathione; as if the whole philosophy of the body is towards cleansing.

Skin whitening, as a philosophy of life, lends itself well to dichotomies.  Dark = bad, light = good.  Dark = dirty, light = clean.  Dark = exotic, light = necessary.  Dark = dulled, light = renewed.  Dark = diseased, light = healthy.  From this black-and-white view of the world from lenses smeared with whitening cream, it’s fairly easy to understand where the philosophy of whitening comes from.

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Where there is a stink of shit
There is a smell of being.

- Antonin Artaud, The Pursuit of Fecality (1947)

It was essentially the same kitsch and kaboodle of dancing girls and free money, the game show antithetical to the whole idea of the game.  The Willie Revillame Show is back on air, as with the poor old people given P500 bills and the down-on-their-luck placing all their hopes and dreams on live televised parlor games.

Somehow, The Willie Revillame Show has perfected the science of spectacle.  Theater is a recreation of life, but as Artaud posits it, it’s a recreation of that center that fragile center that forms cannot reach.  Therefore, everything is exaggerated, idealized, and even distorted; in a word, spectacular.  Theater and spectacle is not confined to the stage, but it extends to the viewers as well.

That’s where The Willie Revillame show succeeded in, and perhaps where it is most powerful and even at its most dangerous: that the stage is not that glimmering plexiglass floor, but society itself.

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* – inspired by “Our Poor Individualism,” by Jorge Luis Borges

For our neighbors in Asia, introspection is as much a political, social, and economic endeavor as it is a personal one.  In Japan and Korea, leaders consider it a most honorable deed to step down from their posts when they become mired in scandal.  In Malaysia, even the most corrupt politicians get the scurples long enough to be caught.

Singapore – almost always the case study for good governance and economic progress (the very antithesis of Gunnar Myrdal’s “Asian Drama”) – discipline is intertwined with introspection; enough that doing things “our way” may create diplomatic tension, but ensures domestic survival.

In the Philippines, it’s different.  We engage in retrospection more than introspection.  We pray more than we meditate.  We cast blame and assert that the answers are out there, more than we do look inward and find the answers from within.  We look externally; hence our poor introspection.

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Sun-damaged hair left me with a rather itchy scalp the past few weeks, which made me rethink the whole idea of shampoo.

I was rather surprised to see the phrase “co-creation” used by Sunsilk in their new lines of shampoo.  I always understood “co-creation” in terms of marketing strategy and buzzword bingo: that customers and manufacturers/service providers create value and innovation through interfacing.  Sunsilk’s shampoos are co-created by Unilever and a host of hair care specialists.  That’s great and all, but what about us?

I watched the new Pantene ad featuring Hannah and Jane, but dealing with my hair is a different thing.  See, I use four different brands of shampoo, two different brands of conditioner, one brand of leave-on conditioner, and save for that, gel and mousse do not touch my hair.  I do not use those combs with metal rollers as much as possible (although for the meantime, I use one LOL), because they damage hair like nobody’s business.

Then again I’ve always been at a crossroads when it comes to shampoo and conditioner (I don’t use all-in-one shampoo and conditioner).  Somehow, I feel the need to co-create. Here’s to hoping that shampoo makers listen up, and listen good. (more…)

I believe the blood that runs in our veins is the blood of heroes.  We’re a nation of heroes.  There are many ways to heroism in the present times, and there’s no need for guns or spears, no need to shed blood.

- President Benigno Aquino III, from The Philippine Star

Today is National Heroes’ Day, and it’s a trying time for heroes.

Just a couple of days ago, they laid a flag on Inspector Rolando Mendoza’s coffin, and quite a few hailed him as a “hero.”  In his deathbed, some preferred to remember Mendoza’s contributions to society before he became a hostage-taker.  The outrage of an entire country be damned, to some, he’s a hero for what he has done, never mind what he did at Quirino Grandstand with a rifle and a busload of hostages.

Just a few weeks ago, they glorified Ivan Padilla.  The notorious young carnapper became a victim of police brutality, lionized and glorified in video posts from N.W.A.  The man became, for some members of a generation, the symbol of a state that does not care: that his death is a black eye for the criminal justice system.  All the while forgetting Ivan’s debts to society, that every video post of “Fuck Da Police” was to stress on “Thou shalt not kill” at the expense of “Thou shalt not steal.”

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