National retorts

Oh my God. That was my reaction to the latest news on the National Artist Awards controversy—specifically the one about former Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB) Chairman Manoling Morato’s defense of Carlo J. Caparas’ getting the title National Artist for Film and Visual Arts. In an interview with a major daily, Morato spewed familiar venom, saying, “Carlo is a damn good painter and artist. I have quite a few of his works. His is an inborn talent, unlike [Cesar Legaspi] who studied it all. I don’t even have any of Legaspi’s works in my collection. I got rid of them. Same with the works of Bencab and Arturo Luz. I won’t hang their works in my collection and desecrate the works of Goya, Van Gogh, Toulouse Lautrec, Picasso and other old masters that I own.”

Well, let us let Morato’s work speak for itself.

Does anyone remember what he did during his stint at the MTRCB? Morato was an ultra-conservative censors chief during the Aquino administration who not only rated films, but wielded his power to actually cut out scenes he deemed violent and sexually explicit. He banned Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and Lino Brocka’s Orapronobis. For some time, it seemed like he was merely safeguarding the morality of the youth, as he claimed, but towards the end of his MTRCB rule, it also became apparent that he was also safeguarding the government’s interest by banning films that were anti-establishment. One of the films he banned was a Gringo Honasan biopic. Honasan is known for having led many coup d’etat attempts against the Aquino government.

If Morato, who is now Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) chief courtesy of Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, can’t see why you can’t protect the interest of the sitting power and act as a movie censor chief at the same time, then I don’t expect him to ever see the point that has the artist community up in arms against this year’s National Artist Awards.

People can go on and on debating about the quality of Caparas’ works, more specifically his films and whatever visual art he has made, since he is being awarded for those, but the bigger point here is that the government, with its characteristic arrogance, went as far as trumping this year’s awards, after the selection committee had done its work. Something’s rotten in the state of the nation, indeed.

No more Willie?

Running head-to-toe with the National Artist controversy is Wowowee host’s Willie Revillame’s latest “foot-in-mouth” scandal. It has been said that he’s thinking of quitting the show—not surprising when around 40,000 and counting have signed the online petition against him. Still, I’m surprised at how so many people—40,000 and counting, to begin with—haven’t considered his side at all.

I never thought the day would come that I would defend Willie Revillame, but I think he’s on the right this time around. When he spoke on TV against the airing of footage from the former Pres. Cory Aquino’s wake, I believe what registered to the public as “arrogance” was addressed towards ABS-CBN—News and Current Affairs, specifically—and has been entirely taken out of context by people who did not know the real situation. 

I’m not a big fan of Willie. In my honest opinion—and you can quote me on this—Wowowee panders to poverty, promotes the dole out mentality, and encourages people to think like victims. Still, if we are to get rid of the current version of Wowowee or, at the least, encourage Willie to see his job in a whole new light, we have to do it for the right reasons. 

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