#ampoy

by Jose Alfonzo Añes

by: Jose Alfonzo Añes

Far Eastern University has changed the design of the uniform for freshmen students for the academic year 2018-2019. From the type A uniform which was a standard polo with an institute logo and a green pants or skirt to a polo-shirt that comes with three different colors namely green, white, and yellow termed with any kinds of pants (but with reservations).

It was said during the university orientation that the reason why the uniform was changed was to promote ‘gender equality’. It makes sense because many women experience hassle in wearing skirts in coming to school.

It was stated during the orientation that the only prohibited clothing inside the university are ripped/skinny jeans and skirts or shorts that are above the knee. Nothing more.

But why were there instances wherein guards do not let some students enter the university with wearing an appropriate clothing?

There was a time when a student was not allowed to enter the university because the student was wearing a pants that did not exactly meet its ankles but it was still below the knee, in fact, more than below the knee.

There were also times when some girls were not allowed to enter the university because of wearing ‘square pants’. Some guards emphasized that a square pants is considered shorts when in fact, it is considered a type of jeans where in the edges of it are just in square cuts. Besides, shorts, as stated in the orientation, are allowed as long as they are below the knee.

Guards, if they do not let some students enter the university, shout at and emphasize to students that everything was stated clearly in the students’ handbook. If there is really a handbook to guide the students regarding the actions they should act inside and before entering the university, where is it? It’s not even in CANVAS (learning management system) and portal.

Many students say that the new type of uniform is useless. The administration should have removed the standardization of clothing inside the university besides uniform has nothing to do with the knowledge a person acquires in school.

by Jose Alfonzo Añes

Different countries, different places, different faces, different people, and different practices. The differences of persons from one another signify that such culture exists. Thus, it proves that culture also has nuances. Culture is a custom, but it is more of a custom. A culture is not universally applicable to every thing but it is universal. Also, a culture does not die; it fosters just like the people involved in a certain culture.

Culture is in a person; a person holds a culture. This is a conjecture made in order to see how these things circulate and manifest each other. Since a person holds its culture, he or she has the power on how he or she is going to execute, show, or do it. For a more superficial explanation, power is a key element in molding a culture since power is in capacity of a person.

Besides of the perks of culture within the influence of power, how does a culture overlaps another culture? Since culture and power hold each other, and cultures exist in different people and places, such ignorance and conception of superiority come in the midst. By just looking to another culture negatively, the thought of degradation and discrimination are being born.

by Jose Alfonzo Añes

After the controversial twerking of Miley Cyrus at the 2013 Video Music Awards, the song Blurred Lines of Robin Thicke gained 670 million views on its music video alone. The music video shows nothing but faces and bodies, and when I say faces I mean the gorgeous ones, and when I say bodies I mean men wearing closed suits and jackets and women being almost naked. The song itself entails the conception of women want sex from men and the music video further made that conception stronger, as if the world revolves around them.

The women dance for men in the video, they are dancing in a clumsy manner as if they are drained of energy. There are scenes where the women are seducing the men emphasizing the line in the lyrics ‘I know you want it’. Basically, the music and its video want to show that there are women who ‘ask for it’, and that is problematic.

There is still the notion that when women are wearing short clothes, that means, to many people, they are asking for sex. And the music video conveys a thorny conception that women are for men, pertaining on how they were dressed and how they acted on the video.

by Jose Alfonzo Añes

Source Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnBs3RVq_QM

Nita Negrita is a television series in GMA Network aired in 2011. The lead role here is Barbie Forteza, wherein she portrays a half-Filipino and a half-afro-american girl, who struggled being ‘black’ in a society as she seeks for acceptance from the family of her mother who lost her for a long time. This series, for me, is too problematic even in the first day of its airing; why did they need to paint Barbie Forteza with literally a black color, can’t they tan her at least? Why did they get an artist whose skin is as bright as snow to portray a ‘black’ Filipino, can’t they hire an artist who has a more natural skin complexion that embody a real Afro-American Filipino?

After re-watching some of the episodes, the episode where Nita, name of Barbie Forteza’s character, knew who her long-lost mother is and walked out of their house to cry and digest the situation she just encountered, what struck me here was when her lovebird was finding her and saw her sitting on a branch of a high tree (the photo above shows). Assessing the setting where the guy walked to find her, there were things a person can sit to like benches and swings; Nita should have sat on those. It was an emotional scene, but my companions laughed and said ‘unggoy naman pala’ ‘kapre, girl?’.

Analyzing this, I remember, in our history, Spaniards called Filipinos before as ‘Indios’. The word ‘Indio’ is somewhat associated with being a monkey, monkeys have the capacity to process information, but these are ignorant and illiterate creatures in many humans’ perspectives. On the other side of the coin, Kapre is a fictional character that stays on trees; they smoke, they’re big, and mostly portrayed stubbornly in a physical sense (filthy with oily black dirt).

Mojo Story (2021)

VOX POP (APRIL 2021)

by Jose Alfonzo Añes

Gory as it is in the real setting of the war on drugs in the Philippines, BuyBust gives a picture of what is really happening, not only in the context of buy bust operations, but also in the context of how illegal drug trade happens, whether it be in the premises of the considered ‘honorable’ places or in slum areas where prejudices of immorality and uncivilization float.

The opening of the film started with an instrumental music of Pilipinas Kong Mahal, but it did not finish the whole song as its tone was interrupted by a sudden change of sound, from its original tone to a low-becoming tone as if it’s being turned off. Here, it can be inferred that the film is about an aspect where deterioration of power and system happens – from a powerful tone to a weak tone, the sound emits an impression of failure, failure of system, failure of truth, failure of the authorities, failure to life, and failure to people, failure of the machinery of the state.

The rising action and climax of the film took place in Grasiya ni Maria, where their target, Biggie Chen, resides. Grasiya ni Maria is a place of sinners and saints. Endless routes of corners, narrow streets, filthy houses, this is a place where random people live. There were frames where randomness of lives was shown, fights of lovers, love of mothers, fun of friends, mourns of families. These scenes show that there is a different state in Grasiya ni Maria, it does lay in the nation of the Philippines, but it is not connected because they have their own politics, they have their own government.

As they find their target, poverty prevails in the screen. It is like people lived with it already because it shows that poverty was let slip to be complicated and spread. Illegal drugs is what most people do for a living in Grasiya ni Maria. As the state outside its premises view illegal drugs as a sin, this is a lord for them, this makes an irony to the name of the place, Grasiya ni Maria or should it be Grasiya ni Hudas? Poverty was not portrayed as an obstacle in the film, it was portrayed part of their lives, as how they live.

The sense of having their own government was emphasized as the characters in the trading scene knew that the allies were just outside, waiting for them to finish the transaction. The people in Grasiya ni Maria started to make noise by banging metal pots and other others things that make sounds. That was when the agents realized that it was a setup. The plan to chase was not the only thing that got ruined, a chance to take another step in war on drugs got also ruined.

Grasiya ni Maria was in full disturbance, as killings of those who attack the agents take place; others had to take revenge for justice, others are stuck in the middle of the crossfire. When all of the agents are dead except of Manicad, when she woke up, from different angles, dead bodies are around. Silence, only her breathing and the droplets of water from the roof can be heard. A place where different walks of life are seen, a place of noises from laughs, fun, and cries, a place that seems to run all night and day, is now a place of same, a place of silence and blood. BuyBust is a film that can trigger the government in real life, its power of depiction is beyond the power of the authorities. How it was made was too strong, to the point where even in my dreams

I felt I was being chased upon. What I did not like about the film was its too real, I was not ready to accept reality.