With less than a month before the Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival opens at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (July 17), I find myself craving for an indie fix now and then, especially during these lean weeks between last month’s comedy Drag Me To Hell, this month’s Michael Bay porn flick (masturbation) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and next month’s tween flick Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

It’s a good start that some movie houses in the metro have devoted several theaters to screening indie movies, although they’re still subject to MTRCB’s rules and regulations. Cannes Best Director Brillante Mendoza wanted to  commercially screen Kinatay but refused for it to be censored. That hasn’t pushed through yet for obvious reasons. Robinsons Galleria has one lonely movie theater devoted to independent movies, albeit not always good ones. I read some positive reviews, but still. Why would I sit through a movie with the title Kamoteng Kahoy (cassava/yam)? It’s a root crop. Then again, I’ve sat through more harrowing movies like First Day High with Maja Salvador’s atrocious excuse for what seemed to be the English language. My friends and I needed a no-brainer movie. I left a part of mine behind.

In the meantime, I tide myself over with  some of the finalists from this year’s Short Feature category. Something to note: Bonsai has Angel Aquino, Tatang has Pen Medina. I like them already.

Bonsai by Alfonso “Borgy” K. Torre III

Tatang by Jean Paolo “Nico” Hernandez

BLOGOG by Rommel “Milo” Tolentino

Watch the all 20 short and feature films  at the Cultural Center of the Philippines from July 17-26, 2009.

The world has lost Michael Jackson, and Twitter is, once again, the source from which people found out and gave their 140-character eulogies. If Twitter won’t be the cover of Time Magazine’s best of 2009 issue,  then Facebook will have to do.

Eight of the first ten Tweets on my Twitter feed were about Michael Jackson. One that was out of place came from Barack Obama and his Tweet on health care. Close enough. On the popular feeds on the right, nine out of the ten were also about Michael Jackson. Now what happened to Iran, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon?

Click to zoom in

Farewell Michael Jackson. There must be one amazing party wherever you’re at.

While Channel V and MTV air their Michael Jackson tributes, as CNN and FOX News show us the meaning of coverage overkill, and as people continue to blog about MJ and suddenly become fans on Facebook, convicted murderers, rapists, and drug dealers in a maximum security prison in Cebu just dance. It’s what he would’ve probably wanted.

CNN Report on Thriller-dancing inmates’ MJ Tribute

And from Texts From Last Night:

(406): Dude michael jackson died, guess he’s not ‘stayin aliveee‘ any longer.

(1-406): Uh dude that wasn’t a michael jackson song it was the BGs.

UPDATE (07.02.09): Found Michael Jackson’s official YouTube Channel here. It’s an excellent place to waste time online.

The house has been without cable for the past month. Mom has been planing to switch cable providers but is too busy to take care of it. Dad just wants to watch Federer and Nadal. Younger brother wants to watch basketball.  Youngest sister needs her Gossip Girl. And I need my current events and pop culture. Live streaming for the win.

In what has since become a perfect example of how citizen journalism trumps mainstream media, the political crisis  in Iran has been exploding with images, texts, and, of late, videos from people who just happened to be at the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time armed not with guns or placards, but with a camera or a mobile phone.

Censorship in the Islam nation has lead to the government cutting mobile telephone networks, blocking  popular Internet websites like  Facebook and YouTube, and even expelling foreign journalists or placing them under house arrest. With professional journalists  gone and people lamenting the utter lack of coverage of CNN, Fox News, and other news networks, the people on the scene have taken over.

Popular author Paulo Coelho  blogged about the video currently circulating around the internet of  a woman who was  shot, then dies on the same street where rallies are being held in protest of the results of the elections last June 12, saying:

“My best friend in Iran, a doctor who showed me its beautiful culture when I visited Teheran in 2000, who fought a war in the name of the Islamic Republic (against Iraq), who took care of wounded soldiers in the frontline, who always stood by real human values, is seen here trying to resuscitate Neda – hit in her heart.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjBKHkoDgCM&w=330&h=270&rel=0]

CNN Report on  Neda

He (Coelho) has since been exchanging e-mails with the doctor in the video trying to make sure Iran officials don’t hunt him and his family down.  He has left Iran and is now in London. Meanwhile, here’s the amateur video that made everyone stop, think, blog, and Twitter. There are two versions available online. This is the longer one, and just as graphic and chilling.

Iran Amateur Video: Neda

Accompanied by the description:

“Basij shots [sic] to death a young woman in Tehran’s Saturday June 20th protests At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim’s chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers [sic] away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass [sic] used among them, towards Salehi St. The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know.”

One of the many arguments against citizen journalism is how to verify if the information published is indeed true. Professional journalists are bound by their responsibility to fact-check every piece of information, name, date, place, quote. Otherwise, anything published or aired, if proven to be inaccurate, will greatly affect the public’s sense of trust with the media. Ordinary citizens aren’t privy to such a responsibility. Therein lies the rub. But in tense situations like these, with no other choice but to let the witnesses become the reporters, is verification really important? Or do we need all the information we can get?

UPDATE (06.25.09): The videos were taken down yesterday from Vimeo for “violating the Upload Rules of Vimeo.com: Vimeo does not allow TV shows, movie trailers, or stuff you found on the web.” I argue fair use and insert a false allegation of censorship just to make it interesting. I’ve uploaded them again.

There are several things I loved and hated at the same time while I was in college. Aside from my daily three to four hours breaks, there’s my senior thesis. Others–correction–most utterly hated theirs. They abhor the whole experience with their whole being, curse it to the depths of the universe, and refuse to acknowledge that it ever happened and the people they worked with never existed.

I keep a bound copy of my thesis on my bedroom shelf. In the times I receive a hard assignment, I look up and remind myself how I wrote 100+ plus pages, got an A, and didn’t end-up killing myself or my partner. How could you not have feelings towards the title, PinoyNewsPortal.com: An Analysis of The Gatekeeping Phenomenon in Online Citizen Journalism Initiatives in Asia To Produce a Model for Future Implementation in the Philippines? I meant every word.

This thing called citizen journalism is so simple and easy that you may have already done it, or are currently doing it. It goes by many names: citizen media, we media, grassroots journalism, open-source journalism, hyperlocal journalism, participatory journalism, and many others. However, the basic idea for all is similar: that ordinary people with no professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology such as computers, camera phones, mobile phones, and digital recorders, and the reach of the internet to make media on their own or with others.

With the internet and emerging new technologies, mainstream media reporters are not the exclusive source of information anymore, but the citizens–ordinary people–who collectively know more: the office secretary in Makati  who went to the rally and took pictures, the student who blogs about his classmate with A(H1N1), the congressmen who updated their Facebook statuses in the middle of the House voting on Resolution 1109. And with the power of social networking and other web tools or applications, you’ve got a pretty strong base that’s easy to maintain, cheap, and far-reaching. People are starting to find their own voice, no matter how annoying (and sometimes stupid)  it may be, and, in some cases, authoritarian governments are scrambling to take control.

China just banned Twitter last month. They just couldn’t screen it like they usually do so they banned it altogether. If you’ve been watching CNN, Twitter has been playing an important role in the crisis currently broiling in Iran. Twitter isn’t popular in the Philippines, but Friendster ranks second in popularity to Katrina Halili and Hayden Kho. Don’t quote me on that.

Clay Shirky: How Twitter can make history

However, I don’t think it counts when all you Twitter is what you’re currently stuffing down your throat, wearing, watching, or listening to. That’s just mindless egotistical  crap.

I passed by National Bookstore yesterday to buy a plastic sleeve for my passport. They didn’t have any. The only time I’m a fan of National are the days leading up to the beginning of school. I’ve been using the same brand of pens since first year high school and the same brand of notebooks all through college. Now that I’ve finally graduated, those days are over. Thank god.

Contrary to its name, National Bookstore doesn’t have a very diverse collection of books. Sure, they have your Twilights, Harry Potters, Gossip Girls, Goosebumps, Coelhos, and Shakespeares, but they don’t have Elements of Style. It’s a grammar book; also called Strunk and White. In desperate need for a copy, I once visited two branches but they were both all out. How do you run out of Elements of Style? They’re, well, elements of style.

About a year ago my friends and I went on a trip to Tagaytay. In an old Lite Ace we drove for hours through hard rain and steep slopes. Visibility was extremely low, the engine was groaning in agony, and the thought of suddenly plummeting down a ravine made us all nervous with laughter. Concerned for our safety, we stopped to eat at Pancake House overlooking Taal. Minutes after taking our order of pancakes, the waiter approached us, shuffling his feet, apologizing to say they ran out of pancakes. How the hell does Pancake House run out of pancakes? Does that just make them House? Would you forgive KFC if they ran out of chicken? French Baker if they ran out of bread? The President if she ran out of lies? It dumbfounds the mind.

So I went around looking for a plastic sleeve, realized they didn’t have any, and found myself rifling through a pile of used hardbound books selling for 99 bucks each. I like used book sales. If you dive into a pile with enough patience and persistence, there’s always that one book that will make all the inhaled dust worth it: a brand new copy of Beowulf, a first edition Sedaris, Catcher in the Rye with a cover design (they’re not supposed to have covers), or a brand new Grisham novel mixed in by mistake. My dexterity in browsing through pirated DVD titles comes in handy during this time.

Thirty minutes later, I surfaced through a cloud of dust cradling Ian McEwan’s Saturday, Augusten Burroughs’ Running with Scissors, and Christopher Buckley’s Boomsday; all hardbound and at 99 each.  If I bought the same thing from Amazon, it would’ve cost me about P2500, plus shipping. The only thing I feel bad about is the amount of book backlog I now have. I swore to myself I’d finish all my unread books this summer, but Ken Follet’s 1000+ pages in The Pillars of the Earth distracted me. It’s by far, the longest book I’ve ever read. Then again, I’ve never gone through a Tolstoy. Anakarenina looks like a hairy beast waiting to be conquered. But for now it’s an expensive doorstop.

They came already covered in plastic.

Shelved.

What’s been happening with the whole duties on imported books brouhaha? I think I can survive on Booksale. Meanwhile, I asked my brother in the States to get me Elements of Style. He bought the illustrated version (red book on the left).

With eleven months before next year’s presidential elections, six months before the one million or so presidential aspirants file for candidacy, and five months before the deadline for the registration of new and lazy voters, the public and the media (especially the media) are in a state of nationalistic ecstasy. Even before the House of Representatives began dancing the Cha-Cha to the disgust of many, people seem to have been placed in a vicious state of activism and it’s-your-freaking-responsibility-to-register-and-vote obession. Taking off from the success of Barack Obama’s campaign and inauguartion, everyone is invigorated with the realization and hope that we can do that too.

Nearly every ad and space is filled with computer generated images of Philippine flags elegantly whipping in the winds of change, superimposed with the children longingly gazing at the horizon seemingly wishing  for a new pair of socks, accompanied by the  rise of a synthetic string and brass orchestra because hiring a real one just isn’t within the budget of stirring nationalism. Some might even say, it’s too much. Okay, maybe just me.

I have no problem with patriotism, nationalism, fighting to protect your vote, stirring the hearts of your countrymen and women, educating the public, or encouraging youth participation at the polls.  However, like all things that begin with the best of intentions, some end up being as meaningless as the politicians they swore never to support.

I doubt everyone who bought Ako Mismo’s trendy dog tags which they so aptly began selling on Independence Day last Friday knew what Ako Mismo is all about. When I first saw their  ad, I wanted one too. Nevermind what it meant. Those  look really nice. I doubt those who signed-up to be Citizen Patrolers for ABS-CBN’s election campaign knew what they were going to do. But those pins Karen Davila and Julius Babao are wearing will sure look nice on my ID strap next to my  dog tag.  I doubt everyone who joined the “No to Con-Ass” group on Facebook has read House Resolution No. 1109 or at least one competent editorial about it. Still, that image looks nifty on my wall and makes me seem socially proactive.

The youth can’t be labeled as apathetic. We actually care.

About more things than you think.

According to my Information Society class last semester, the rise of technology, specifically the Internet, was accompanied by the reduction of our social presence. From simple talking, to writing letters, to typing them out, to e-mail, instant messaging, blogging, micro blogging, video blogging, avatars, and emoticons, our connectivity has increased but our social presence has, ironically, decreased.

Media guru and “high priest of pop culture,” Marshall McLuhan (1811-1980) did say that while technology serves as an extension of man, it also amputates at the same time. He may not have predicted the meteoric rise of social networking, the term, or it’s similarity to illegal substances that create addicts, but he was still right on the mark. Today, social networking has become anything but social.

So I am in a dilemma: to add or not to add?

We are extremely far from social. It’s somewhere between remote and the future.  She wasn’t my classmate in any of my subjects. Nor were we part of the same org. Our “socialization” reached it’s climax when we’d pass each other in the hallway, her Sun Silk-sponsored hair whipping in the turbulence created by other people scrambling to get out of the way. So I guess that’s a yes, then.

And in other stalker news, Roger Federer was attacked by a  fan during the French Open finals against Robin Soderling of Sweden. Nothing serious though as the intruder, waving a Barcelona soccer team flag,  ran toward Federer and tried to place a red hat on his head. Security tried to apprehend the guy, he ran, jumped over the net, and received a deserving tackle from security with his face tasting clay. So in a way, he was able to literally worship the ground Federer stepped on. Very nice souvenir.