No cheers for new Pampanga tourism program

Pampanga province commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Mount Pinatubo eruption this month, a cataclysmic event that swallowed entire towns and gave every kid who grew up in the ’90s a reason to believe in the Wrath of God.

One eyewitness described it thus:

We would be fearful whenever it rained due to lahar threats. We would hear rumbling sounds of rocks and other volcanic debris as the nearby river system was only about two kilometers away from our house. They sounded like a cavalry of horses galloping and running into the wild. Barangays Dolores and Tabun were entombed. Our village was next in the lahar path.

So what better way to say “meh, we’re so over that,” than by kicking off a tourism campaign called C.H.E.E.R.S Tours? Which, incidentally, is how people back then dealt with having their homes washed away by lahar: drinking and making up acronyms while drunk. (All right, mostly drinking.)

Hardly anybody knows this name

President Benigno Aquino III may claim to be ushering in a new era of Philippine politics, but there are some things that you can’t change overnight. Government agencies loving marginally-clever acronyms, for example.

In this case, C.H.E.E.R.S. stands for Cuisine, Heritage, Eco-Tourism, Educational, River Cruise, and Specialty. It makes little sense, I know, but congratulations to Pampanga for coming up with that one.

No congratulations, however, on what was apparently a disorganized test run that foreign diplomats and members of the media were sent on with no prior warning. A source who went to the Cheers launch said there was no itinerary provided, no announcements on how long the group would stay at a particular stop, and no waiting for people still wandering around when it was time to move on. Some members of the group were apparently left behind to fend for themselves. It is hoped that they will be seen again.

Most of the tour was spent sitting in a bus or a boat (R is for for River Cruise) and having one of 40 tour guides point at a site and say something interesting about it. Still fresh out of training, the tour guides tended to clump together, so it was really like being with one tour guide who had a tour group of tour guides.

It's the same cat...

Our source says one reporter was so frustrated at how things were done that she complained there was little to write about except that she left the office, got on a bus, and was driven around. People were still ranting during an open forum on the bus ride home by the time that bus arrived in Manila, Indolent Indio was told.

I have Capampangan blood myself and my grandmother’s hometown was among those swallowed by lahar, so I do wish the Cheers program the best. Things could have been done better, that’s all.  I mean, it’s not like they didn’t have 20 years to plan for this.

[Edit: Somebody who claims to be a tour guide for the Cheers program has left a comment to “correct our info”. In the interest of fairness, we are publishing it here, albeit edited for style. Thanks, “Eunice Sadsad.”]

Eunice Sadsad says:

We are not 40, just 31 to be exact. And it is so impossible that just one of the tour guides spoke on that tour because first,each boat has a capacity of minimum 10 to 15 persons each. Each boat has a local guide. So, if we used seven boats to bring them to one of the stations of the river cruise,then definitely seven guides were used up already. Each station that is part of the itinerary has a guide waiting for them there to do the briefing.

And, yes, we were fresh from training but we’ve had several dry runs before that launching day and we’ve heard nothing but praises from the guests that day.

So, there. Again, Indolent Indio, and specifically OneTamad, wishes the Cheers program the best. We are nothing if not for the development of the Philippines, and this tour is definitely a step in the right direction.


 


 

Leyte Rep. Lucy Torres Gomez: legislator, TV host, magic fairy

In Worse Than Free (2005), journalist and personal superhero Vergel Santos scored Noli de Castro for shilling a brand of brandy in a television commercial while still a news presenter for ABS-CBN.

He said de Castro, by agreeing to endorse Emperador Brandy, “increased his television exposure, not to mention his
earnings” and ended up topping the 2001 senatorial elections. And it was based on a bald-faced lie.

The point is he got where he is partly by misrepresenting himself and breaching ethics: As one who never touched the stuff, he was less than truthful in his brandy commercial, and as a media person, less than proper.

Since then, the worlds of advertising and politics have overlapped so often that Philippine media is like New york City (Earth-616)in the Marvel Universe.

Except with less costumes, more barongs

Senator Francis Escudero’s endorsement of Technomarine is only among the latest, but Senators Loren Legarda, Panfilo Lacson, and former senator Richard Gordon have all appeared in ads for laundry detergent, a dermatologist, and for anti-bacterial soap. Sarangani Rep. Manny Pacquiao falls in a different category altogether for endorsing every product ever made, and for being a part-time congressman.

Those ads, at least, were based on reality. Escudero wears a watch, Legarda wears clothes, and Gordon washes his hands (also, he donated his talent fee to the Red Cross, he said). Senator Lacson has nice skin, I guess.  Pacquiao is Pacquiao, the closest thing the Philippines has to an actual Thor (half god/half congressman). Not so these recent ads by Lucy Torres Gomez, Leyte representative and fairy of some sort.

In a series of TV commercials for a brand of detergent, Gomez is portrayed as some sort of fairy/superhero in the fight against mildew and laundry that smells of damp. She even has corny catch phrases like “Wash out!”, “Kaya ng powers ko (my powers can handle this!), and “More powers to you!”

"Wash Out!"

Sadly, she is not speaking of the powers of Congress to hold inquiries in aid of legislation and to craft laws but of the stain-beating, mildew-removing powers of this detergent of which she is the personification.

Listen, we get that politics is mostly a joke in this country, and we have very low expectations when we elect actors (and their spouses) to the legislature, but come on.

There is a certain gravitas to legislation and we expect our lawmakers to act a certain way. Sure, you can go ahead and steal our money, let your children act like beasts now and then, but at least do it with dignity. Save the silly costumes for the annual State of the Nation Address.

This is no basis for a system of government

Anti-Social Media: Freethinkers game tabloid

When you live in an absurd world, it’s sometimes hard to know when someone is kidding. Like in the case of tabloid newspaper Abante, which apparently lifted a story from the website of the Filipino Freethinkers.

Sadly, that story falls under fake news, a form of comedy made popular in the early 2000s when the world was not yet such a silly place.

 

Satire: not our strong suit

Compare that with this story on Abante.com.ph, which quotes a group whose name sounds vaguely like Tagalog slang for that crud that accumulates on the tip of your penis if you’re a slob (or, as science-minded folks call it, smegma) .

 

Oops.

 

Blogger MisterVader, who tipped us off had this to say:

It’s sad enough that you plagiarized an article from a blog without giving them a single ounce of credit. What makes this steaming pile of fail even worse is that you plagiarized a parody article and passed it off as news. That’s just depressingly pathetic.

Nobody can tell what this will mean for the Reproductive Health bill. Probably nothing. Some reporters are getting drunk tonight, though. That much is sure.

—

Thanks for the tip, MisterVader!

By Jingo!

By Jingo! There is nothing like having a rich and heavily-armed neighbor sniffing around your backdoor to whip our politicians into a nationalistic fervor.

Although the Palace has officialy called for calm on the issue of Chinese navy ships cruising near the Kalayaan Island Group, Paranaque Representative Roilo Golez wants to hit the Middle Kingdom where it hurts: its international image.

“We can deliver speeches and statements in Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), UN (United Nations), Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), IPU (Inter-Parliamentary Union), various parliaments especially the US Congress, Australia, Japan, South Korea. We should internationalize the issue in both official and unofficial channels,” Golez said.

Golez, who believes everything on Wikipedia  is true , said China’s image abroad is where it is “most vulnerable and where a credible attack can be launched and sustained.” He even suggested a “diplomatic alliance” with Vietnam despite that country also claiming the Spratlys as theirs.

 

The loose strategy seems to be to pressure groups like Asean and the UN (where China sits on the security council) to, I don’t know, say some pretty words about sovereignty and freedom.

"Good luck with that, guys."

Over the weekend, Albay Governor Joey Salceda, a former economic adviser to the Arroyo government, suggested a boycott of China-made goods. “Let us boycott ‘Made in China’ products. Buy Filipino. Let us hurt them where it counts,” he reportedly told his constituents on Independence Day a few decades too late. With no real industries to speak of, buying Filipino at this point will hurt us more, and where it counts.

 

Not keen on Filipinos basically not buying anything they can afford, the Palace was quick to reject the proposal.

“Governor Salceda, like many other Filipinos, has strong opinions regarding the issue of the West Philippine Sea and we respect that. However, a boycott of Chinese products is not administration policy at this point,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

If you grew up knowing that the Spratlys were in the South China Sea (and if you were born before today, that includes you), then more fool you. As every red-blooded Filipino knows, the Spratlys are in the West Philippine Sea, according to the country’s latest campaign to legitimize our claim over the islands.

 

(Palace spokesman Edwin NMI) Lacierda said the Palace was taking its cue from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) which has been using “West Philippine Sea” in the series of letters and notes verbales protesting China’s incursions into areas that the DFA claims were well within Philippine territory.

The DFA earlier explained that using “West Philippine Sea” to refer to the waters where the disputed territories lie was “in keeping with our tradition and history as well as reflective of its proper geographic location.”

No longer can China use that foulest of the arguments  used by playground bullies: “I don’t see your name on it.” You can see it now, China. You can see it now.

 

Senator Francis Pangilinan also chimed in on the issue with a statement that on one hand is irrelevant, and on the other hand, isn’t true at all: “The Philippines has a long history of freedom and popular uprisings against tyranny and the arrogance of power. We will never allow any superpower to bully us into submission.”

 

Happy post-Independence Day, everybody.

—

Except you, Renato Pacifico, you fink.

Fuck you, guy. That is the Philippine flag.

Doroteo Jose station, LRT Line 1, Manila

Fuck you, guy. That is the Philippine flag that my grandfather spent most of his life fighting for. He did not survive the Death March and a Huk ambush and then ironically die from an incorrectly diagnosed stomach problem at Veterans Memorial Medical Center so you can use it as as a goddamned sun shade.

Fuck you very much.

Also, fuck you, Doroteo Jose station of the Light Rail Transit Line 1 for putting up a Philippine flag near wet paint and letting paint stain that flag so it looks like some guy used it to wipe his ass. If you’re going to put up a flag to mark our Independence Day, know that is not just some funky Pinoy Pride curtain.

Why don't you just set it on fire and pee on the ashes?

Anti-Social Media: bickering on the beat

This is both an illustration and a clue

It’s boys versus girls at one major news beat, an anonymous source tells us.

 

The conflict apparently started at a sponsored excursion (which is what people used to call junkets in the 1980s) where tequila (which people used to drink in the 1990s) and hormones combined in a cocktail of conflict.

 

To keep things wholesome, guys were billeted together in one room, and girls were supposed to sleep in another room. Reporters being a drunken and unwholesome lot, one guy reporter ended up sleeping in the girls’ room after they asked him to hang out for a while.

 

This, apparently, did not fly with the other guy reporters because a. ancient laws of propriety were broken, b. they wanted to hang out with the girl reporters too, c. they said that reporter was just faking drunkenness to sleep in the girls’ room. Not to, you know, get laid or anything like that. Just to get to hang out with girls. Which, I don’t know, should only piss you off for not thinking of it first.

 

So, the guys got pissed off at drunken reporter guy for being better at chicks (and being less married) than they were, and at the girls for falling for it, I guess.

 

The conflict has reportedly resulted in snide remarks being thrown around, passive-aggressive status messages on Facebook and other social media, and an actual shouting match between a hotshot guy reporter and a girl reporter, both from major broadsheets.

 

Another source says the conflict has even reached the people these reporters are supposed to be covering. They have been asking reporters about the conflict, possibly because they think they have the monopoly on petty word wars and easily-offended pride.

 

One one hand, it’s nice to know that the media has been practicing self regulation and respects family values. On the other hand, it’s sad that that self regulation is on something as silly as this.

 

From what sources have been telling Indolent Indio, being on the take is okay as long as you don’t act like you’re a chick magnet.

Live blogging the Rapture

Well, it has been a long and strange trip, but all things must come to an end. We have had a lot of good laughs here at Indolent Indio, but Harold Camping, “a tireless student of the Bible for over five decades,” says its time to shut things down on account of  the world ending on May 21, 2011.

On that day, the tribulation begins, Camping’s Family Radio Worldwide says. There will be a great earthquake “so powerful it will throw open all graves” and dead good people will go to heaven.

 

The Raptcha! Coming to getcha!

 

“On the other hand, the bodies of all unsaved people will be thrown out upon the ground to be shamed. The inhabitants who survive this terrible earthquake will exist in a world of horror and chaos beyond description,” Camping says. So, it goes without saying we won’t be updating this blog much after that.

As a final gesture of thanks to Indolent Indio readers who have been with us through the years, we shall be live blogging the Rapture. In fact, our last few days of online existence will be devoted to the Rapture (and characteristic laziness).

Please follow us on twitter (@indolentindio) and let’s wail together about the end times. Let us make our cries for mercy a trending topic. And may God bless us, every one.

The Best Motel Discount Card Ever

There are two things that Filipinos love: fucking and saving money.

Unfortunately, nobody wants to admit wanting to either have sex or save money or worse, both at the same time.

Which makes the subject of motel discount cards particularly taboo. In a country where taking a girl to a motel is bad enough (versus bringing her home to meet your mother, say), saying “Relax, I can get us 20 percent off the room rate” won’t earn you any points. Even admitting that you have one will get you gasps followed by awkward silence.

 

Excuse me while I whip this out

The motels have had to be creative with their discount cards, with top-tier Victoria Court coming out with a plain black plastic card that doesn’t even have their logo or name on it. Semi-shady discount hotel Eurotel has a discreet little plastic tab printed with a vaguely European coat of arms ripped off from Fred Perry.

But Sogo Hotel beats them both with its strategy of hiding in plain sight.

 

This isn't even mine. I swear.

Perfect for those times when a. you’re horny and your chances of getting laid depends on naming each station along Manila’s train lines and b. you’re horny and accidentally kill someone/set something on fire.

This Pageant is Decadent and Depraved

Pic in no way related

A dispatch from Calatagan, Batangas reports that a certain beauty pageant is now what “That’s Entertainment!” and talent shows of its ilk were in the 1980s and 1990s: a hunting ground for politicians looking for starlets.

Not that Indolent Indio is in any way a credible source of information, but our baby mouse tells us that many candidates have politicians as backers and sponsors.

Said patronage can get weird sometimes. Like in the case of the mayor of the Municipality of Birdland (obviously not the actual name of the municipality, but it would have been awesome if so) who backs one candidate and wants her to win.

But Birdland already had an official candidate and she didn’t want to give way to the mayor’s bet. So the mayor has his candidate run to represent the neighboring Municipality of Macondo.

With that, municipal support for Miss Birdland dried up and she wasn’t even allowed to use the municipality’s van to get around. It is not a huge leap to think that that support went to Miss Macondo, actually a resident of Birdland.

The questionable wisdom in using municipal funds to pay for candidate aside (a win, could, after all, up the municipality’s prestige), using those funds to pay for a candidate from another town is downright treacherous.

Pageants have also apparently evolved much from the stage mommies (and families)
we saw in “Little Miss Sunshine” and, well, the actual Little Miss Philippines.

Our baby mouse says candidates have managers and handlers now, and they have machinery in place to help ensure a win. Envelopes for reporters and bloggers covering the event, say. He said this will help justify a rigged win.

The managers are particularly worried about one candidate, the favorite of a local politician where the pageant’s finals will be held. They say will likely win because her backer agreed to provide a venue for the finals.

The existence of pageants in a country that claims respect for women is debatable but the backdoor deals and back stories suggest that they are more than just about who is the smartest and prettiest.

If we are picking beauties who will represent the Philippines in international pageants, then the apple should go to the fairest, not to who paid the most.