Trends of the week

Congress tries to figure out what to do with Uber

MANILA, Philippines - This week in “The Law Struggles To Catch Up With Technology”: Congress is figuring out a way to make Uber legal and wants the ride-sharing app to halt operations in the meantime. Our legislators are faced with a tough conundrum: they want the government to regulate Uber because it kind of operates like public transport, only it’s technically not “public” per se, because it serves as crowd-sourcing for private cars and drivers. Meanwhile, the holiday carmageddon is upon us, so to our dear congressmen: any time you’re willing to resolve this would be fantastic.
                          — Alex Almario

‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ celebrates 30 years of sanctimonious condescension

The song Do They Know It’s Christmas? marks its 30th anniversary with yet another rendition, complete with updated lyrics to address the Ebola outbreak. Bob Geldof and company have ditched the embarrassing lines “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” and “There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime,” which is insane because there actually is snow in the ridiculously large continent that is Africa and why would you wish sub-zero temperatures on a place where “the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears?” Yet, the comically misguided kindness of the original is still alive and now coated in an electronic glaze. Bob Geldof publicly chastised Adele for not participating in this new iteration of the British supergroup Band Aid, saying: “Adele is doing nothing, she’s not answering the phone, she’s not writing.” Apparently not content with the fake humanitarian glow of his patronizing project, Geldof feels the need to shame other people as well. Adele quietly made a donation to Oxfam, however, and didn’t have to presume Africans’ ignorance of Christmas to do so. That’s how you help without having to sing a single note of your abominable 30-year-old song, Bob.    — AA

Beyoncé’s newlywed sister Solange is your new galactic overlord

Solange Knowles, looking like a cross between a leader of a not-really-dangerous-so-much-as-insanely-rich cult and queen of a distant planetary system on her wedding day, finally provides the answer to the question: have we exhausted all the wedding themes imaginable? Before you start raiding Beyoncé’s Instagram for wedding pegs, just know that you have to possess a certain kind of cool to pull this thing off. You have to be so cool as to be uncool and crazy enough to achieve the necessary trajectory to land on whatever new plain of cool Solange just invented. In other words, you have to be a Knowles. So good luck with that, you guys. — AA

The caste system is alive and well

A condo memorandum reminding tenants that their house maids and drivers were not allowed on regular elevators went viral this week. “This is just how the world is,” Katherine Garrido, property manager and signee of the memorandum said, effectively chilling us to the bone with how discrimination can be carried out with a shoulder shrugging, slighting manner, unaware of its own horrors. Except she had a point. The policy is apparently employed in many condominums in Metro Manila. Incidentally, I have former school mates from UP who say they are also required to take the service elevator when they teach private music lessons. These are classically trained, multi-awarded individuals who have had the privilege of performing all over the world — only to come home to bow down to people with less class and breeding than they do. Classism is such a third world symptom. I have a special kind of condescencion and pity for those who swing it around, taking pride in how living in a poverty-stricken country makes it easier for them to be special.                                                       — Cate de Leon

‘Hunger Games’ comes to cinemas, local films die as tribute

It’s been a whirlwind two weeks in local cinema, with back-to-back film festivals taking place, each harvesting a crop of exciting new feature films. First was the Quezon City International Film Festival, which produced 11 movies, including Arnel Mardoquio’s Alienasyon and Baby Ruth Villarama’s sports documentary Little Azkals. Then came the Cinema One Originals festival, which saw one of its best editions ever, with acclaimed entries such as Dodo Dayao’s horrifying, genre-pushing Violator, Antoinette Jadaone’s moving love story That Thing Called Tadhana, and Sigrid Andrea Bernardo’s hilarious dark comedy Lorna. All things must come to an end, however, and this week, it will seem like Philippine cinema has come to an end, as The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is set to take over every single screen in the country. Not that it’s a bad film — initial reviews say it’s pretty good — but we do have an issue with cinema chains filling their screens with one single movie. Imagine if McDonald’s only served one kind of burger today? It’s stupid business, cinema chains. Stupid business.                                                           — Pepe Diokno

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