Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Comments on the Comments of a Post

My my my, Ewik, one of my favorite bloggers, seemed to have stirred a hornet's nest with his post on the transaction of some trannie tricks in a coffeshop.  Actually, it was Rudeboy's equally provoking commentary that added (a LOT of) fuel to the fire.  I'll try to avoid the fray in Ewik's comments section and chip in my thoughts on this post instead.

1.  A coffeeshop is commonly deemed as a public place where people of a certain social class congregate for whatever dealings they might have.  The situation gets even more interesting as the cafe is situated within a mall, an even more public place to begin with.  However, the cafe, and even the mall itself, is a business run by individuals, who, by virtue of ownership, is entitled to run their business as deemed fit.  It is not an issue of alienation leading to the marginalization of a certain sector of society.  Nor is it even about proper etiquette and decorum.  It's not even all about snootiness and the inherent tension between social classes.  It's all about how the owners want to have business conducted within their premises as to their own personal set of standards.

If one cannot stomach the standards of the establishment, the he or she is very much free to bring the business somewhere else.  The one of the wonders of capitalism is that one is given a plenitude of alternatives to chose from.

2.  Mass media is a powerful tool as per dissemination of information.  No one can refute that.  However, it is also important to point out that the very nature of the information itself undergoes several processes of filtration:  from the writer/reporter, to the higher bosses of the company, down to the market, intended or otherwise, of the medium.  The end result is that the information received is already processed in such a way that it is still the truth, but not necessarily the entire truth. 

Caveat emptor, so to speak.  And I rejoin, reality is always best perceived experientially, rather than being dependent on vicarious accounts.

3.  I get the Janina San Miguel analogy of Dabo.  But let me challenge that by refuting it as a false analogy.  Dabo's comparison posits on the property that colonial mentality is the underlying reason why it is acceptable to Filipinos for foreigners who are not native-English speakers to communicate in English that is grammatically erroneous and/or is spoken with an unfamiliar accent.  Dabo then transfers this property of colonial mentality to the situation of Ms. San Miguel in the Bb. Pilipinas pageant held a few years ago. He implies that there is an occurrence of double-standard because while it is all right for foreigners to mangle the English language, a fellow Filipino is not allowed to do so.

However, it is not colonial mentality that was the issue with Ms. San Miguel.  Rather, it was her inability to articulate her ideas in English, the language she insisted on using.  Paolo Bediones, the host of the show, encouraged her to switch to Filipino in order to express herself more clearly.  Instead, she insisted to speak in English, hence the debacle witnessed in nationwide TV.  It was her choice of language, and not the double standard of colonial mentality that was clearly involved in the criticism directed at her.  Therefore, since the original posit does not hold true for the case of Jenina San Miguel, the whole analogy that Dabo uses falls apart.

Okay, I think that's enough brain-farting for now.

The last point just gave me a major headache wahahahaha

8 comments:

  1. hahaha sinagot ka ni erik sa blog nya..

    anyway heto na ako, promise di ko ibubuhos sa yo ang buwanang dalaw ko lol =)


    di ko din napanood ang video na yun, because i personally believe napaka-redundant na.

    --- --

    diba kapag kausap natin ang non-english speaking na aliens, most of the time they also tried to talk to us in english?

    whether it was janina's choice or not, we could have just brushed it off. then moved on.

    pero we don't? why? bukod sa colonial mentality, english as a long standing pop phenomenon in our country could connotes the following:

    socio economic symbol
    intellectual capacity

    para sa iba, english as i've observed is like a high end mall or starbucks or fitness first..it is a tool for social climbing, if it cant be used as a proof of economic status.

    para sa iba, this is also utilized to intimidate (i.e. sa mga guard or saleslady) and allow people para magmura ng hindi nagmumukhang bastos.

    para sa iba, defense mechanism din ito kapag insecure sa sarili nila ang isang tao.

    lastly, people who speak fluently in english are expected to be intelligent, (sorry ewik, nag-stereotype ako). with this in mind, janina is also a victim of her own double standard. it is not just janina's choice pero it was the whole mad SOCIETY that drove the situation. then saka lahat nagtawan ng pumalpak sya. sheesh.

    (i remembered herbs, correcting me one time, when i've used 'p' intead of 'f' in pronouncing the word friend..i think i need to move on. lol=)

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  2. @ Ternie : Well, it's about time you got in on this merry bandwagon.

    Your points are well-made, lucid, and concise. Totes impressed.

    @ Herbs D. : What do we do next? I guess now we can order a machiatto.

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  3. namention si wiwik, rudeboy at dabo...

    kay cool canadian, wat can u say teh?

    hihihihihi... tumbling yung comment section na yun.... kaloka....

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  4. that just made me WOW... I like the 3rd one.

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  5. Herbs: ahmmm enjoy the christmas season? lolz

    Dabo: Prend, naku pseudo-intellectual masturbation lang tong post na ito.

    sumakit bangs ko, sa totoo lang hahahahaha

    Rude: why, thank you :D

    your line of argumentation est trés, trés fabuleaux aussi

    Yj: ay yung media thing, comment ko yun kay CC weeeeee

    Clipped: i can wow you even more.

    by dhl-ing max to you as a christmas gift.

    ahahahahahhaha ibugaw ba talaga si max?! love you max! mmwaaaah

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  6. ngek..

    seriously, you never ceased to impress me too. =)

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