In a nutshell, Mr. Granada, a noted Filipino singer-composer, voiced his sentiments against GMA Kapuso Foundation, regarding a jingle that he composed music for. According to Mr. Granada, GMA rejected his study for the jingle, but allegedly used his revisions for the lyrics (which was provided to him by GMA), and based the final tune on the musical structure of his study, all without attribution or pay. It would be best that you listen to the audio cast and hear it in detail and come up with your own opinions regarding the issue:

What makes this audiocast special, however, is the extent of Mr. Granada’s use of New Media — aka “Web 2.0″ — to detail his complaint, in a totally unprecedented manner, and against Mainstream Media to boot!

In the audiocast, he included a clip of his original study, the final product, and a detailed explanation on the musical structure of both, including the musical theory behind his gripes and a re-rendered tune comprising of his accompaniment and the tune used in the final cut of the jingle. To say that Mr. Granada maximized new media to explain his side is an understatement — he clearly understood that this is the best possible way to make people understand the situation in its fullest extent.

Myself being an amateur musician, I fully support Mr. Granada in this effort, and as an IT professional, commend him for this exceptional and well-considered use of new media and the web to air his side of the issue.

I wish him all the best.

So some pics for now from last Saturday night’s pictures of Pinoy Big Brother Season 2 big winner Bea Saw‘s birthday bash, where I finally stopped envying my sister:

Bea celebrated her birthday at the Elbow Room in Metrowalk.

I accompanied my sister, an avid Bea supporter who got to meet her cousins during the season, and eventually, Bea herself after she won. There were only five of us fans there, the rest were family and friends.

Yes I am a fanboi.

There were a few other housemates as well:

That’s Bodie, Yeng, Bea and Geeann, with companions.

Geeann and Bea

Bodie and Bea. As for the non-housemates,

Bea’s cousins, who organized the party. I first met some of them, along with Bea, at Glorietta a few months back. With an awful lot of kapal ng mukha chutzpah, I introduced myself as my sister’s brother. They figured out who I was in the nick of time, which means a few more seconds of my babbling and they would’ve called security.

Bea, Chim, Apple and Apple’s best friend Che. It’s always a bad idea to have two cameramen stand side by side.

Bea with director Wen De Rama. I wonder if that means she’s doing a movie? Hmmm….

Oh whaddaheck we just partied:

Wasted and puffed up (no thanks to the tasty sisig) me, with Meds, Sheggz, Bea and Angel.

Of course I have to thank my sister Angel for making me her driver and chaperone tagging me along this time.

More pictures from Bea’s party here.

I have, and I’m not proud of it, and that’s a story that I’d talk about some other day. But I can relate with these Japanese guys who have been reprimanded for contributing to Gundam’s wikipedia entry. 260 times. Using the Japanese ministry of agriculture’s computers.

Reminds me of the memo the DENR issued to their employees. The subject? Accessing Friendster during office hours.

Fortunately sometimes both sci-fi and Friendster have their legitimate uses in business. Some businesses actually use Friendster (or more commonly, MySpace, and more recently, Facebook) to market their products. And a guy actually used his obsession for Star Wars costumes to get a job:

I rode to the 6th floor and the doors opened. An Epic Games employee stood there, mouth agape. My trooper voice said, “‘Scuse me sir, ~click-shht~,” and I headed down the nearest hall, looking for any open office door. Another employee appeared and the trooper asked, “Which way to Epic Games.” It wasn’t a question. I was telling him to direct me. Because by now the sweat from my forehead brought on by the humid 95 degree weather was stinging my eyes and I needed to get this done. With a big smile he asks, “Oh cool! Are you here for the meeting?!”

[...]

I told him I was there to deliver a portfolio for Chris Bartlett. You see I wasn’t Chris Bartlett anymore. I was Trooper TK409 on a very important mission. I talked about Mr. Bartlett in the third person. It seemed like a good idea, but sounds kind of geeky now that I write that. He said, “OH, You should talk to our Creative Director! He’s right down here, let me introduce you.” So the CD was just coming down the hall coincidentally and I shook his hand, to which he said, “This is… awesome.” I told him I was there to deliver a portfolio for Chris Bartlett and I thrust the tiny trooper with the web address at him.

He says, “Oh, Chris Bartlett, yes I know his work, he’s a graphic designer and animator, yeah, I like his work.” Then he thought for a second and said…”Are you Chris Bartlett?”

Again, uncomfortable? Yes. But honesty is, after all, the best policy. I paused to consider the ramifications of being revealed as the world’s biggest nerd. And then I confessed, “Yes…….. clik-chht.”

[...]

So, they tell me I moved to the top of the pile from that point on. 25 interviews later (this place is like Fort Knox) I was offered the position, and today was my first day at work. [TK409.com]

Some people equivocate a career or a job with “something serious” where they shouldn’t have fun in, but it takes courage to admit that even your most mundane passions can be taken advantage of in your career development.

So if you’re stuck in that 8-5 job and you absolutely hate it but you’re keeping it because it pays the bills, calm down, take a deep breath, accept it, and just shout it out — I HATE MY JOB! And find a way get the job that you really, really like. You can even do something crazy like what Chris Bartlett did.

The point is, do what you really love doing and you’ll achieve much, much more.

Over the comments at the blog post linked above, I saw her say something about being called “uragon” as an insult when I had the impression that it had a positive connotation. See, the Legaspi chapter of IPMS Philippines – Bert Anido calls itself the Uragon chapter, and that made me think that “uragon” was actually positive thru-and-thru.

Reynz explained that, if a person close to her called her “uragon”, it may sound positive and treated like a term of endearment, but if it was someone else, “uragon” would actually be an insult.

It took me a while to get it, but I realized that, among gay Filipinos, if one is called “bakla” by a person close to him, it is likewise treated as a term of endearment. However, it would be insulting if that same gay person is called “bakla” by someone he doesn’t know.

Later in the day, Wake T-Rex posted an entry positing that Desperate Housewives was taken out of context and illustrates through this videoclip:

Likewise, Tess, a practicing physician, and Benj, a med student, both stated that they didn’t find the statement offensive. Tess even laments that a person is annoyed that she wasn’t offended.

There are valid points on both sides of the argument, but at the end of the day, I might ask, were we genuinely offended because the statement was invalid? Or were we riled because the person stating it is a foreigner — an American at that? Forget the fact that it’s actually a comedy show — because the joke is on us? Forget the fact that we’re just as guilty of having racial stereotypes?

Or are we reeling because it rubs salt on the wound opened by the nursing board exam fiasco of 2006?

Apl.d.Ap, in the lyrics of “The APL Song”, a song that was released internationally, laments that life in the Philippines is a mess. Why aren’t we offended despite the fact that he’s American? Or is it okay because he was born here and he’s half-Filipino anyway? If a Filipino character in Desperate Housewives said the offensive statement, would we have been offended?

I agree with those who find the calls for a boycott of Desperate Housewives unnecessary, and I seriously think that this might be a case of oversensitivity. Oversensitivity that can actually be a telling sign of a deep insecurity — a deep insecurity fueled by the painful truth that there are diploma-mill med schools in the country, and many of these schools churn out graduates who has the United States in mind.

Honestly, tell me, are you offended that I am not offended?

Ahay! Charing… nabuking ako. Erase-erase… eto pala:

You gotta admire Bea for the way she handled Maricris’ psychosis early in PBB Season 2 and Wendy’s tantrums towards the end. She really deserves to be a big winner.

As for my sister, she has to be thankful that she’s a girl. If she were a brother I would’ve killed “him” for not tagging me along. LOL.

UPDATE: Guess what: since I’ve written this piece I’ve met Bea, and she’s even kind enough to have commented here.

Thanks Bea! Next time papa-picture din ako kasama ka para may proof. Hehe

Despite it still suffering from some of Filipino telenovela’s perennial flaws and traditional subplots, e.g., dragging extender episodes, a rich-vs-poor love story, overly-”evil” antagonists, amnesia, convenient deaths, and even a sudden and almost immediate recovery from two decades of nervous breakdown (thank God there’s no facelift subplot, at least not yet), it is redeemed by one story-telling skill that’s completely absent in other telenovelas: character development.

Not only is this the only Filipino telenovela I have ever seen that explores, in great depth, why its characters are the way they are, but its characters constantly change places in the traditional antagonist/protagonist roles of tragedies:

The main character, Eli (John Lloyd Cruz), once upon a time gentle and righteous, is now a vengeful, spiteful man.

Eli’s wife Jackie (Bea Alonzo) knows that he’s a different person from the one she fell in love with, but hopes that one day he’ll have a change of heart, just like what happened to his father Fidel (Christopher De Leon).

Fidel, then a rich and powerful banking magnate who used his power to control the women in his life (he once harbored a deep hatred for his manipulative mother), has been humbled, but fails to receive forgiveness from his son-in-law.

Celine (Anne Curtis), best friend and cousin of Jackie, who at the start of the series was portrayed as a liberated bitch-type, is now a hurting foster mother, her husband Brian (Ryan Eigenmann) having recently died.

JB (Sam Milby), then a Vice President in his mother’s now-bankrupt shipping company, had accepted a lowly supervisory job at a smaller company, and is attempting to make amends for his treatment of Celine in the past.

These are just a few of the character transformations in the series, and despite its other flaws, I still think “Maging Sino Ka Man” is a huge leap beyond the traditional Cinderella-evil-stepmother/evil-stepsister-type antagonists that still plague the other telenovelas around.

For an unofficial rundown of its cast of characters and synopsis, click here.

The Wowowee stampede is one of those incidents that has such a wide spectrum of grey in it, and I believe that to be able to prevent such a thing from ever happening again, it’s only fitting not only to look on those grey areas, but also to instrospect on our way of life, our culture, and what we have become as a people.

And I’m sure many will be angered by some of the things that I am about to say.

Mudslinging and Finger Pointing

The usual course of action that people take when a calamity or disaster occurs would be to look for someone to blame. In last Saturday’s stampede, ABS-CBN became the primary target, its management questioned for promoting a culture of mendicancy and its security arm accused of negligence in setting up proper security measures. In the press conference held by ABS-CBN on the night of the stampede, reporters of rival network GMA even went as far as insinuating that ABS-CBN guards hit some people from the crowd with batons. GMA news reports on TV were also playing the phrase “pagbabalitang wasto at walang kinikilingan” so often that it was practically implying that someone else was doing biased reporting.

Similarly, oppositionists and spin doctors have taken the opportunity to lay blame on the government, stating that the tragedy “belies the administration’s claim that the economy is in good shape” . They reiterated that these people were so desperate and in such dire need that they have waited for days in the hopes of being able to watch, and perhaps join in the contests of the show.

The mudslinging and fingerpointing was so sickening and blatant. Not only politicians who are adept at those skills but also a rival network took — or at least tried to take — advantage of the incident to malign their respective enemies.

The Dynamics of Falling in Line in the Filipino Culture

One thing that I noticed immediately, however, is that majority of the casualties of the Wowowee stampede were elderly women. Out of the 75 confirmed dead, only 3 were male. The rest were female, and the majority was beyond retiring age. While it would’ve made sense — elderly women would’ve been more prone to injury and less able to fight off the crush — I asked myself why there were few if any elderly men who died. And then, as if in a vision, it suddenly came upon me at communion time in mass last Sunday. The first to come off their pews were elderly women, and they come walking fast towards the head of the communion lines, many times cutting into the line especially if males were ahead of them.

I wonder if the same dynamics were at play at the Wowowee crowd? Well, it might have been. I couldn’t really tell since I wasn’t there, could I?

On the other hand some “educated” people are quick to speculate that the unruliness of the crowd comes out of the fact that they were mostly comprised of “uneducated squatters.” Now I know that this is very far from the truth. I see this behavior from members of the middle class in the MRT everyday. During the evening rush hour, as soon as the train stops at the Taft Station in Pasay Rotonda, some people push into the train even as everyone has yet to get out. The concerns of many of them (especially… oops… elderly women) are to be able to seat themselves comfortably in the train that will be heavily packed by the time it leaves Ayala, three stations down the line.

A few years ago, alighting at the Buendia MRT Station, I had to wrestle my way through the group of people who were forcing their way into the train even as I was going out. I wanted to punch everyone’s noses in frustration at the time. More recently, a young woman cut the line at the exact change ticket booth of the Shaw Boulevard MRT Station. While I relentlessly taunted her “singit!” and “miss matuto ka namang pumila!”, she pretended not to hear me.

Outside of the MRT, there was one time when I lined up at the Banco De Oro Edsa-Taft Branch on the first day of the month. As expected, the lines towards the tellers were long. But what irked many of us who were lined up was when the guy ahead of me came to the teller counter, two other women, obviously employees out on an errand, came forward to the counter. There, the two women filled up their forms, for what seemed like three transactions each. Almost everyone behind the guy, myself included, groaned while the biatches were doing their thing, not only because they cut the line, but also because they had all the time to fill up those forms while waiting for their pointman to reach the counter.

The “squatter attitude” argument falls apart when we take note that even educated white-collar workers who frequently ride the MRT or transact in banks exhibit the same kind of behaviour. The behaviour of lacking a sense of orderliness or respect for other people who know how to fall in line is absent even in many supposedly educated middle class.

Aversion to Order?

I have often wondered what is it in Filipino culture that makes it seem that we are a people averse to orderliness. Why is it that a very simple concept such as falling in line, is quite difficult many to stomach? Why did people have to die because of this aversion to order?

Well, I have a speculation.

My speculation has something to do with our society’s acute inferiority complex. Filipinos have suffered from a sense of self-pity for so long. We always think negatively of ourselves and our country, we always take on a victim mentality when tragedy besets us. This prompts us to always self-criticize to the point of depression: this is what happens when we constantly rant “ang mga Pilipino kasi (insert self-criticism here)!”. On the other hand, whenever we do things that are considered illegal, improper, or immoral, we invoke that sense of self-pity: “pagbigyan niyo na lang ako kasi kawawa naman ako.”

The second case is what I wish to point out. I mean, why do you think those tricycle or jeepney drivers vehemently violate traffic violations? Because they think that they are entitled to violating those rules, since it is a perceived necessity to be able to do their work. How do you think public servants like politicians and police justify taking bribes? Because they say that they have very measely pay, and they need the bribes to make ends meet.

Why do you think people were willing to hurt and trample on others to enter the Ultra and be able to watch Wowowee? Why do you think that many of the people who were able to enter Ultra or were still lined up after the stampede wanted the show to go on, hoping against hope, considering that over 70 people had just died? Think about it.

A Question of Values and Critical Thinking

While many people would want to blame poverty or hunger or desperation or “the real state of the economy” to why people lined up to watch Wowowee, my thinking is far simpler than that. So simple, that the explanation is contained in two words: easy money. The same laws which make people line up to bet on Lotto even if the chances of winning it were slimmer than the chances that you drop dead right at this moment (pardon the insensitive pun) are the same laws that made 25,000 people line up for Wowowee.

And I don’t think you could attribute the want for easy money to any degree of desperation or need. Come to think of it; whenever a person receives big money, do you spend all of it on needs? Of course not; in fact, many times people would prefer to spend it on wants that they could otherwise be unable to afford with their incomes (irregular or otherwise). This same principle applies as to why we go on gimmicks and shopping sprees after payday. This same principle applies to lottery winners who end up poorer than they were before they won millions. This same principle is what made Manny Pacquiao buy large houses and SUVs instead of investing on long-term business, the exception of which might be a small convenience store his wife Jinky set up for him.

Another accusation thrown against ABS-CBN was that the people in the crowd lining up for Wowowee were treated like animals. I don’t think that argument holds, neither do I think that those people were like cattle that have to be ‘herded’ or something. They were there on their own accord. Many actively refused to leave after others have already died.

I think that the fact that ABS-CBN took advantage of their inability to think critically and sensitively is just one side of the coin. I think it’s time for people, and that includes most of us Filipinos, to stop blaming others for our own misery and start taking reponsibility for our own actions.

Beyond Lining Up at Wowowee

Indeed, there are so many aspects of capitalist entertainment, economics, culture, and values; so many grey areas that came into play, that we must look into so as to fully comprehend why people had to die at the Wowowee First Anniversary celebration. And they don’t only affect those who had lined up on that fateful morning: it affects each and everyone of us who need to earn and make a living.

It certainly affects each and everyone of us who have to line up to go or do work everyday.

In the local game show/variety show scene, ABS-CBN’s Wowowee is currently the hottest item, enjoying high ratings and viewership not only in the Philippines but also abroad, wherever Filipinos have access to ABS-CBN’s The Filipino Channel (TFC).

And it’s no wonder that it does.

Its game participants are usually members of the audience, mostly from depressed backgrounds. The promise of cash prizes, ranging from a few thousand to a million pesos, entice these people to take their chances at being able to join Wowowee’s games. On the other hand, Wowowee has set aside a special area from balikbayans who watch the show on TFC, and who usually donate dollars to be added to the cash prizes on top of the set amounts given by ABS-CBN. So naturally, when Wowowee announced it’s big cash-pumped celebration, thousands of people went to see the show.

Unfortunately, 79 people died trying.

Tragedy beset Wowowee’s first anniversary celebration at the Philsports Arena (also known as Ultra) in Pasig, when 79 people were killed and more than 200 were injured in a stampede that occured early this morning. Apparently a huge crowd was jostling to enter Ultra to be able to be eligible for playing in Wowowee’s special game portions for its first anniversary. ABS-CBN announced that a huge amount of prizes await those who can enter the auditorium: consequently, people camped out of the PSC complex as early as Wednesday night.

If this were a case study in marketing, ABS-CBN must have been doing something right. They have successfully bred a culture of dependence that entice millions of people to watch the show and thousands to regularly attempt to join its audience for a chance to play.

The tragedy, morbid as it sounds, proves just how popular the TV show, and its host Willie Revillame, really are. However, it’s not the first time that ABS-CBN was able to market an event so effectively that it ended in chaos and disaster.

In September of 2003, a similar stampede occured during the concert of Taiwanese boyband F4. Ironically, it happened at the same place, in the PhilSports Arena soccer field. ABS-CBN, however, washed its hands regarding the incident, saying that it was “not in any way involved in the production of the concert” and was “merely a media partner” of the event producer.

It was fortunate that no one got killed in the F4 stampede. But did ABS-CBN and the PhilSports Arena administration really have to wait for something like this to happen? Did ABS-CBN turn a blind eye from lessons that were supposed to have been learned in the F4 incident, even if they were the actual (and consequently, most effective) marketers of the event?

While ABS-CBN has pledged to pay for the medical and funeral expenses of the victims of the tragedy, taking responsibility in events organization goes far beyond reparing broken limbs and having bodies buried. It knows how effective their marketing strategy on Wowowee is. It knew that hundreds of people were camped out at the PhilSports complex nights before the stampede. It knew that many more will attempt to come in afterward. Even if details of the start of the stampede have yet to be cleared, ABS-CBN clearly had the ability to have had taken steps at managing the crowd that wanted to participate in Wowowee’s anniversary.

It’s high time that they take responsibility for organizing uber-popular events like this. It’s too bad 79 people had to die for them to realize that.

While they seemed for some reason proud of their children’s fondness for the fictional jurassic creature, deep inside I was telling myself; “A baby watching that sissy bouncing purple dinosaur all day? Shit, I don’t want any of my children to be like that.”

Fast foward to this afternoon. I arrived from the office after lunch, got in the living room and lo and behold, my 13 month old was cheering and dancing to a VCD of Barney. My wife almost cringed when she saw me; she knew I hated Barney to the bone. I asked where the video was from; she said that it was borrowed from a neighbor. Good, I thought she actually wasted money on that crap.

A lot of you might be wondering what my beef against Barney is. What’s so bad about such a cute and cuddly (not to mention purple) amalgamation of nylon, polyurethane, cotton and steel wire? Well, there are three things.

First of all, Barney is now all but a marketing ploy. His show has long ceased to be an educational show that focuses on the 3Rs; rather, each episode appears to be a 30 minute parody of song and dance starring a purple sissy T-rex (who obviously forgot his species) and two boneless proto(or tri)ceratops. The focus of the show doesn’t seem to be on teaching; it’s focus is how these dinosaurs are having so much fun singing their cutesy songs. These cutesy songs and their videos merely find their way to audio CDs, videos, books and CD ROMs, not to mention concerts.

Yes, concerts. For children. As in toddlers and preschoolers. I mean, consumerism doesn’t get any better than that. These are aside from the usual toys having the image and likeness of Barney and the 2 sidekicks, with the perennial I love you theme song included.

Second, Barney is a misguided icon of American pop culture. Although Barney’s cutesy-sissy personality seeks to educate children on good manners and courtesy (issues that seem to be of concern amongst children being reared in an individualistic me-me-me world typical of Western culture), the dinosaur’s image merely enforces the superstar paradigm that children’s shows have seem to have taken.

This is exactly the same argument against Elmo‘s usurpance of Sesame Street. Sesame Street used to be a show that featured a community with people and puppets genuinely interacting with each other in everyday similar-to-real-life activities. Beginning with the popularity of Tickle Me Elmos in the mid-90s, Elmo’s fame soon rose and disloged a lot of Sesame Street regulars, effectively eliminating the community paradigm of Sesame Street.

Thus my belief that Elmo and Barney are pop icons; they are usually either doing their segments alone, or in the case of Barney, he has a small exclusivish clique instead of a large community. And all they seem to ever try to do is to have fun. I don’t know if it’s just me, but this again seems to reflect on the highly individualistic aspect of Western culture, with emphasis on popularity. And I don’t want those to be the things my baby learn from TV.

Finally, Barney’s (as well as Elmo’s) show seemed to have forgotten a very important aspect of society, which is family. Ironic, because Barney’s most popular song goes like I love you, You love me, We’re a happy family. Barney (aside from very few episodes) and Elmo’s shows are nearly devoid of the mention of parents, siblings, and grandparents. If ever they are mentioned, they are mentioned in passing. Again, I don’t know if that’s just making it more appropriate or “politically correct” for their intended market (e.g., American children, many of which have divorced parents) but the family concept for me is just too important to ignore.

My wife asked me to turn off the Barney video after our conversation. At the back of my mind, my fear would that be of my daughter pleading for me not to turn off the TV. Or pleading for me to buy this or that Barney thing. I’m going to try to nip this in the bud; I’d not let my daughter have Barney videos. Except maybe if they come as gifts. But I’m figuring out ways to prevent that too.

One good thing however: my baby’s scared of her Dancing Elmo. It’s gathering dust in the toy cabinet. So it’s just Barney with the LSS-susceptible I love you song playing when you squeeze the left hand. For now.

A few weeks back another feature on Wells’ research was shown, this time, on his search for the man who can be called the Scientific Adam: the ancestor of the current-day homo sapiens.

While most people would think that it’s highly unlikely to have one true Adam, it should be noted that at one point in the history of the human race our ancestors came to the brink of extinction, with no more than a few thousand men roaming the Earth. Wells surmises that it is the “clan” of Scientific Adam who was able to develop speech, and therefore pass on knowledge down the generations which allowed man to have greater chances of survival.

Another interesting facet is the employment of forensic science to try and approximate what Scientific Adam might have looked like. Using 3D modelling software, they created a composite between the average skull of modern man and a skull found around the time of Scientific Adam. The resulting image is the one seen above.

Furthermore, I deem Well’s research to be the greatest if not noblest of all scientific pursuits: that which unifies the scientific and Biblical hypotheses on the origins of man, and that which casts in stone the scientific bases of the equality of man. As a child I have found little sense in the song “Father Abraham” — clearly I cannot see myself as a descendant of a Canaanite. But Scientific Adam brings to a more sensible level.

Speaking of Canaanites, according to the show, Thomas Jefferson’s descendants all showed Canaanite sequences in their DNA. So if anyone could sincerely say that they are descendants of Abraham, it would be the descendants of Thomas Jefferson.

Read more on The Search for Adam, and find out about how we all are related to each other, really, regardless of skin color, culture, race, or religion.