Sherlock Holmes (2009 Film)

Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and John Watson (Jude Law)

It was this recent film re-imagining (directed by Guy Richie) that introduced me to Doyle’s classic detective novels. The 2009 movie boasts of a star-studded cast (Downey, Law, McAdams, and Strong), a fancy and gritty Victorian London, catchy Hans Zimmer music, witty Holmesian deductions, and a giant shot of adrenalin (not limited to choke-holds, punches, gunshots, and explosions). Despite the criticism of persons like David Stratton (see Wiki), I think that the action in the film is a faithful consequence of the original novels: The Sign of the Four, the Hound of the Baskervilles, and the other stories do show Holmes and Watson fight their adversaries. If anything, the way Holmes and Watson fight do reflect their characters–Holmes’ analytical prowess is put into his fight scenes just as Watson’s knowledge of the human anatomy and war experience in the Afghan War figure in his strangle-holds and gunshots. Besides, the Holmes of the text does know his boxing, cane-fighting, and baritsu.

What I like best about this movie is its faithful characterizations coming together in an interesting plot. Holmes’ eccentricities and egocentrism shine even as he dreads his friend Watson’s departure from 221B Baker Street to marry Miss Mary Morstan. Watson’s ability to learn and assist Holmes prove the latter’s line, “I am lost without my Boswell.” (And, yes, Jude Law’s interpretation finally asked the question and provided the conclusion–Watson is psychologically disturbed for following Holmes in his cases.) Characters such as the loving Mary Morstan, the resentful Lestrade, alluring Irene Adler (now single again, presumably) and the threatening Professor Moriarty have also kept their original vitality even as they find themselves woven into a fresh storyline. Personally, I am interested with the film’s heavy leanings toward Holmes-Adler, playing on the idea that for Holmes, Adler is “the woman.” I LOLed and awwed at the cameo of Holmes’ “Scandal in Bohemia” picture of Adler.

Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams)

Watson and Mary Morstan (Kelly Reilly)

What I find disappointing, however, is the “magic society plot” and its revelation. The character of Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) per se is convincingly creepy–but for me, the depiction of the occult plans and its aims are somewhat lacking. While it is revealed in the end that Blackwood’s ‘powers’ are actually the product of influence and science, one is led to ask on whether Blackwood himself believes in the occult. Why does he practice his rituals? Does he believe them to be of any value? Or does he only do that to enhance his mystique and reputation and cause fear into the people’s hearts? I personally cannot be totally sure. Moreover, I snickered a bit about Blackwood’s idea of retaking the United States of America. The US in the 1890s was on its way to industrial prosperity, true, and despite the film’s claim, the decades after the Civil War found it stronger than ever. However, America was only then a backwoods country, an international province, a haven for Spring Awakening’s Moritz and Crime and Punishment’s Svidrigailov or a goldmine for Doyle’s other Holmesian characters. America by then had yet to conquer the Philippines and step into the Eurocentric world-stage. Why Blackwood would be interested in such a country is beyond me–unless, of course, it has something to do with the large American audience.

Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong)

As for the deductions and the reasoning–the film as a whole is still a smart one, what with Holmes’ clever disguises, interesting insights into the occult, and Moriarty’s diversionary tactic. And as I’ve said earlier, there are critics who say that the film is too action and not much brains. But while I may agree with that, that does not mean that I would recommend doing otherwise. After all, even Doyle himself was first and foremost a storyteller, and not a detective. Brilliant though the Holmes of the text is, he does not come across as some geek in an armchair spouting highfalutin theory and analysis in the books. Moreover, the film is not about Holmes’ brillant mind–we take that as a given. What we are interested about is the clash between the occult and the logical, the effects of fear and panic to a society, and the triumph of order over chaos. Aka: good guys beating bad guys. And that movie, I think, does just that.

Overall rating: 8/10

Big Fish

Okay, so I’ve actually watched this film on HBO a year or two ago. I really loved the movie because it’s an interesting exploration of how fiction is more vibrant, even more real, than reality itself. In fact, storytelling itself, as well as the act of listening to stories, becomes integral to life–something echoed by the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. This is what William learns as he is finally reconciled with his father, Edward Bloom.

Or, you know, the tall tales Edward Bloom tells his son are not only instructive, but very entertaining. As in time stopped, quite literally, as Edward Bloom found his true love.

So yeah. Tim Burton has done well in not making yet another Batman movie. If only a certain someone would learn not to tamper with another well-established, well-acclaimed series.

Anyway. Yeah.

Nick Joaquin

According to Wikipedia, Nick Joaquin is the third most important Filipino writer (after Rizal and Recto) and the most important one in English. But let’s face it: even the Drunken Master (of beer?) of Filipiniana died without winning the Nobel Prize, and it’s doubtful that he ever will. So we lesser creatures might as well abandon all our deluded fantasies of writing the Great Filipino Novel and striking it Shakespeare-famous. Heck, if I may even put my two cents in, I think that the GFN project, were it to someday succeed, would be written not in English but in Filipino. And all us high-horsed English writers and critics would be dropping our jaws. But yeah. Anyway.

Poet, dramatist, essayist, fiction writer–one might almost say that Nick Joaquin was a literary polymath. But for me, and even in spite of Cesar Ruiz Aquino’s critique that the celebrated writer’s “real genius lies elsewhere” (as said of his fiction in a review for Erwin Castillo’s The Firewalkers), Joaquin was most natural, most honest, when writing fiction. Stories such as “May Day Eve,” “The Summer Solstice,” “Guardia de Honor,” “Doña Geronima,” and “The Legend of the Dying Wanton” are, true enough, engaging reads. But they are more than that: these stories are poignant portrayals of our Spanish heritage, charming as well as vaguely nostalgic, moving as reflective, earthly as well as spiritual. This ardor for history–which makes me skeptical of Epifanio San Juan, Jr.’s reading of Cave and Shadows–is what makes Joaquin’s prose honest and effective. Even though he employs a baroque-like style of Hispanic cadence and sustained length (which, in turn, leads litterateurs like Sir Exie Abola to say, and correctly, that Nick Joaquin is an “acquired taste” for readers), one may see clearly that his style is no mere gimmick, no mere “pa-kwela” (unlike perhaps many others in our current days), but an attempt to capture something of that past for his modern audience.

But, however much I disagree with Aquino’s review (“The Firewalkers: Going Farther Back Than Joaquin“), perhaps it is necessary for me to move further back than Joaquin–though maybe not far as Castillo had done; only a little more. Because, for all of his love for the Spanish heritage, Joaquin had first and foremost the project of “searching for a usable past, a usable identity,” as Sir Max Pulan puts it. In this sense, Nick Joaquin was a forward-looking man; his goal is, ultimately, progress–and he found it at the end of the Spanish era, or, to be more precise, just before the Revolution. He hoped to pick up where the Ilustrados had left off. In the end, then, Nick Joaquin was looking for the identity of the triumphant Filipino (read: perhaps the Ilustrado, the mestizo), the “winner” in the coin toss of history. And this is not my field.

Still–I would recommend Nick Joaquin to all those who would listen. Besides his especially poignant fiction, the exceptional play Portrait of the Artist as Filipino provides an excellent read.

Crime and Punishment

When I was in early high school we read an obligatory fic piece. The main character was supposedly a reading prodigy who suggested making Crime and Punishment the topic of her grade school book report.

Only lately have I realized how tall a claim that was. This book is definitely not a kid’s read.

I actually bought the book some time ago (only to find out that my sister had a practically unread copy), but it was Sir Mike Mariano, our Great Books (Ancient Period) prof and member of the Philo department, who encouraged me to read it. Or, to be more precise, he told me to read Anna Karenina first because Tolstoy was the easier read, but then proceed to Dostoevsky’s philosophical and psychological genius. But, yours truly being, well, yours truly, I found Anna Karenina a bore and went straight for Crime and Punishment.

It must be said that Dostoevsky does not seem to have the best writing technique in the world. Unlike the “god of art” (I think that’s Dostoevsky’s own line) that was Tolstoy, he had awkward phrases and sentences, and at times I was confused with who said what. However, what I love about the novel is 1) its ability to sustain interest as it plunges deep into the troubled psyche of Raskolnikov, and 2) its honest take on the dangers of liberal thought. Raskolnikov, believing himself (or at least initially deluding himself to be) a genius, a Nietzschean superman, a Napoleon, kills an evil old pawnbroker to prove a mere theory: that a genius can transgress moral law for the greater good of humanity. And yet, as Dostoevsky’s superb psychologizing shows, there seems to be in man, or at least in Raskolnikov, a strong moral impulse, a strong aversion to evil, a strong conscience that haunts him until he confesses his crime. And Dostoevsky points at this strong conscience and its respective root: Christian piety and grace.

One might argue that Dostoevsky was making unnecessary polarizations by pitting Greek Orthodoxy and devotion to religion against Western thought and progress. One might argue for the existence of the good atheist, the good liberal, just as much as the deluded fundamentalist. And this argument, for me, seems valid enough. And yet historical experience would tell us that there have, indeed, been many times when errors were made in the name of liberalism and progress. In Dostoevsky’s time, a fanatically liberal student made an attempt at the Czar’s life. A little above half a century later, the Revolution claimed the lives of the reigning Romanov family. The rise of Fascism and Communism also brought about death by the millions. In the end, then, perhaps Dostoevsky had the reason to fear the hasty march of liberalism and modernization. Hence the necessity of this book.

Kingdom of Heaven

Kingdom of Heaven poster
Also, Orlando Bloom as Balian

Because I was in the mood for a ‘cheap thrill’ last night before going to a terrible T-W-Th semester.

Though I should be fair: the movie’s not a ‘cheap thrill’ as you other low-lives may define it. There’s nothing cheap about the movie despite the apparently fail US advertising and mixed reviews (see Wikipedia). What I meant by ‘cheap thrill’ is, well, ‘thrilling’. But after the romance between Orlando Bloom and Eva Green, after all the shiny armor and the shiny missiles blasting against Jerusalem’s walls, the movie sure does make me think. A bit.

So the film is about Balian (Orlando Bloom) who, after his wife’s suicide and the death of his recently discovered father, the Baron Godfrey of Ibelin (Liam Neeson), went to the crusades, offering services to the dying leper King Baldwin of Jerusalem (Edward Norton). Bearing in mind his father’s exhortation for him to be a good knight as well as the King’s ideal of the virtuous Kingdom of Heaven, Balian strives to be a “decent man in an indecent time” (line actually from Christopher Nolan’s movie The Dark Knight) and attempts to hold up the delicate balance in Jerusalem. The catch: arrayed against the Kingdom is a terrible danger—not so much as the sixty-thousand Muslim army led by the great Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) as the racist, intolerant and fanatic ultra-Christians, such as the Knights Templar, led by Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas).

Edward Norton as the admirable leper King Baldwin IV

Now, of course, history will tell us that the Muslims and the Christians both committed atrocities throughout the Crusades. However, what I like in the movie is the noble depiction of the Muslims, especially Saladin and Imad ad-Din (Alexander Siddig). While this is actually an exaggeration, such a portrayal, in my view at least, is much better than the nasty images others hold regarding the Muslims: that they are all terrorists, that they are all unruly—images that, sadly, even my own family members subscribe to. So when Saladin was shown to lift up and re-place the fallen cross after the capture of Jerusalem, I was with the Muslim audience in applauding wildly (see Wikipedia—for the Muslim response, I mean).

Ghassan Massoud as the great Saladin

Also, though critics point out that Christianity was portrayed in an unfavorable light, I think that essential Christian values are upheld in the film: foremost is the idea of standing up for virtuosity and morality even in spite of inconvenience and peril. I would like to point out the interesting interaction between the King Baldwin and Balian here. Having been offered the hand of the King’s sister Sibylla (Eva Green) in marriage—which would mean the execution of her warmongering husband Guy de Lusignan), Balian expresses his unwillingness, repeating the King’s words: “A king may move a man… But remember that your soul is in your keeping alone.” He sets aside his own feelings and risking the stability of the Jerusalem court for the sake of the ideal Jerusalem, the “Kingdom of Conscience”.

Eva Green as the tantalizing Princess Sibylla

In the end, I must admit that there are exaggerations in the film, especially regarding the morality and magnanimity (or the lack thereof) of the Muslim and Christian factions. But perhaps this exaggeration is a necessary means, a necessary step towards reconciliation and peace. Perhaps we must learn to believe that there can be and there are good Muslims, and that there are among us bad Christians. It is worth noting that, almost at the end of the film, Balian and Imad ad-Din exchange greetings of peace: Balian says “Assalamu Alaikum” just as Imad says “Peace be with you”—the Christian speaks Arabic, the Arab speaks in European (presumably French). Perhaps, by seeing things with the other’s eyes, we may come to heal the wounds of history.

Word Made Revolutionary: On Gina Apostol’s The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata

The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, according to the blurb (found behind the Anvil-published copy) by Eric Gamalinda, “creates a new, atonal anthem that defies single ownership and, in fact, can only be performed by the many—by multiple voices in multiple readings.” For him, Apostol is able to present an “alternative [narrative] on history other than those… who claim entitlement to official memory and national identity.” But what is this “new, atonal anthem”? Why must the rambling of Raymundo Mata, a night-blind man creep like a vine around the story of the Philippine national hero, Jose Rizal? Why is there a need for multiple voices: for the rabid nationalist, the overly academic psychoanalyst, and the unreliable translator to compete within the hundreds of footnotes? In the end, is this alternative history true—or, perhaps, we may better yet ask: is it, at least, of consequence? Or, perhaps, does the author’s style, instead of delivering the alternative history, mystifies it, lending it a confused miasma that obscures rather than sheds a clear, penetrating light on our Filipino identity? This paper, then, seeks to explore what kind of alternative history the novel introduces, and whether this presentation is successful. To achieve this, we shall begin with a summary of the novel and then proceed to an analysis of its characters and then with remarks to its themes and structures. From there we shall attempt to see the novel within the context of contemporary Philippine society as well as the tradition of Filipiniana and in the end determine what Gina Apostol’s opus has to say regarding the Filipino identity, especially within the historical (and, to be more specific, revolutionary) lens.

The novel supposedly centers on Raymundo Mata, an uncouth night-blind member of the Katipunan and participant of the Philippine Revolution. In the form of a memoir, the story traces Mata’s childhood, his education in Manila, his love affairs, and his discovery of Dr. Jose Rizal and his books, which in turn involves him with the Philippine Revolution and, ultimately, Makamisa, Rizal’s third and unfinished novel.

Raymundo Mata’s autobiography, however, is de-centered by another story: that of the development of the book. In the foreword(s), afterword(s), and footnotes, we see the translator Mimi C. Magsalin (a pseudonym), the rabid nationalist editor Estrella Espejo, and the neo-Freudian psychoanalyst critic Dr. Diwata Drake make multiple readings of the Mata manuscript. Inevitably, clashes between these readings occur throughout the novel, and in the end no singular and comprehensive interpretation arises: depending on which interpretation the reader follows, one may either conclude that the manuscript contains and/or is Makamisa, or that it is an elaborate hoax perpetuated by the translator.

Perhaps the cause of the different readings is the fact that, in the first place, the novel has multiple protagonists—and this does not merely mean Mata plus translator plus editor plus psychoanalyst. In a quixotic fashion (that is, literally, stemming from Cervantes’ Don Quixote), the interlacing of the story (Mata’s memoirs) and the story of the story (the way it was re-written and re-presented as a book) invites the readers to participate in the creation of the story: we are asked throughout the novel to scrutinize the anglicized text and contrast it with the original Tagalog, Spanish, Chabacano, and (occasionally) Visayan phrases. We are asked either to agree or disagree with an overtly nationalistic reading (where everything, even a plagiarized form of Candide, is a Katipunan code) and/or an extremely academic psychoanalysis (where everything, even young Raymundo Mata’s encounter with his father, is a symptom of the Filipino Psychosis). As the reader progresses in the novel, he finds himself not only a witness, but also a co-creator, an inspired party in the interpretation of Raymundo Mata’s word.

And then there is Raymundo Mata himself, which, one might suspect, is also a multiple character. In the novel we find that this lewd, pun-loving, Rizal-worshipping bibliokleptomaniac is intertwined with none other than Dr. Jose Rizal: both read the same French authors (Voltaire and Eugene Sue), love the same women (Mata’s K., Orang, and Leonor find their parallels in Rizal’s real-life romantic interests), and even write similar diary entries (Entry # 22 is a case in point, as Dr. Diwata Drake points out). And so, we find that throughout the novel Raymundo Mata fulfills at least two roles. On one hand he is the provincial, the base Caviteño providing a lopsided (and one might say irreverent) view of Aguinaldo, Paterno, Mabini, and Bonifacio—in this role he shares in the word of the Philippine Revolution by putting in his two cents, that is, by bumbling through his initiation, the discovery at the Diario de Manila printing house, and the Battle of Balara. And yet, as the bibliophile obsessed with words, Raymundo Mata also shares in the word of Rizal, “the world of words that creates the world of things” (Apostol 123).

Two themes, then, emerge: the Philippine Revolution as text, as a “world of things” born out of the “world of words” of Rizal’s novels, and the multiple readings that generate multiple meanings, multiple interpretations, of the “world of words”. The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata (the title itself may be seen a Biblical reference to the Gospels), the product of the many voices of Mata, Rizal, Magsalin, Espejo, and Drake, then becomes a word (I do not say the Word) of the Revolution—and the novel’s structure emphasizes its word-iness through the length of the footnotes, Raymundo Mata’s fondness of puns and witticisms, the ciphers, and the onomatopoeias (as employed by Mata just as used by Gina Apostol on naming Mimi Magsalin, Estrella Espejo, and Diwata Drake). The novel, as Mimi Magsalin might put it, is “raped” by words. And the words, as Estrella Espejo implies in the end, pose themselves as Makamisa, Rizal’s unfinished third novel—a final word in the Bible of Philippine salvation, a word that is perhaps, as Dr. Diwata suspects, is ingrained in the Filipino psyche: “That a nation so conceived, from the existential exigencies of a young man’s first novel, will find redemption in the phoenix of his lost words” (Apostol 277).

The line may have, perhaps, more significance than we, the readers, first perceive. Setting aside, for now, whether such a belief shall or shall not actually prove the salvation of the Philippines, the Filipiniana has a tradition of authors striving to write the “Great Filipino Novel” that shall expose the Filipino’s identity. This quest for identity has taken a historical vein, as we can see from the writings of Kalaw, Joaquin, Gonzalez, Rosca, and even up to Gamalinda and Syjuco. Even in spite of the lack of readership (or, at least, when it comes to so-called “high literature”), the Philippine literati have continued to plumb the neglected, forgotten past (whether American, Spanish, or pre-colonial) in search of the Filipino identity. Of course, this is a worthy and crucial task, and the attempt to write the Third Novel to Save Us All should continue. The problem, however, is when people neglect the quest for the right words in order to come up with the Word—erect a singular, “national,” totalizing Tower of the Filipino Narrative.

This is where the theme of multiple readings, multiple meanings, and multiple interpretations come in. It is important to note that in The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, no final, definitive Word appears. Espejo’s interpretation is as valid and yet as flawed as Dr. Drake’s, just as Mimi C.’s final statement is not authoritative: she assures the readers that the Mata manuscript is not a lie and is trustworthy, but she does so in cipher. The text, then, is liberated from a constrictive, imperious, violent summa, a One Message that excludes other readings, puts other perspectives into the background, and eliminates all criticism. The words in the novel, then, by being multiple and open to diverse interpretations, becomes a truly revolutionary one: The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata liberates the reader from one view of history, and hence a singular Filipino identity that may violently exclude the others. As in Entry # 36, we find that “like a novel revolution is never finished” (Apostol 220). The act of reading is both a novelty and a revolution: the Word is de-centered, indeed de-capitalized, and is made new and fresh and accessible to all readings.

So far, this paper has pursued a Biblical metaphor. And perhaps this is just as well. The Bible, after all, is first and foremost a text that has, throughout the ages, been reread and re-interpreted according to the needs of the Church (that is, the community). Just as any one totalizing reading limits the power of the Word of God, indeed making it stale and dead, unresponsive to a different time and a different audience, so must the quest for Filipino identity remain flexible and open to many reinterpretations. The text must be dynamic just as the people who read it are dynamic. For if the world of words is to remain static, then the world of things that it creates cannot be anything but false; being false, such a world cannot but fail and fade.

In the end, then, we, the readers, must ask ourselves the question: is The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, at last, the long-awaited Makamisa, the novel that shall save the country, the country that which the same hand, Rizal’s, created? But as we read and get lost in the maze of the miniscule footnotes, as we get lost in the highly postmodern “mystification” of the novel (for we cannot deny that the novel is, in a sense, mystified, given the highly literary mirroring, footnoting, and other such illusory styles; yet we must bear in mind that the word “mystery” is not merely something that is not understandable, but something more), we must accept that we cannot, and should not, discern the Word. Gina Apostol has—by revolutionizing the Word into an alternate history, a multiple “world of words”—already shown that we must go beyond looking for the Answer. Perhaps, like the realization found within the loop in Entry # 46, the finding of the Filipino identity already lies in the searching.

A Formalistic Approach to the 2008 SONA (from my reaction paper in FA 101 class)

Formalism is a paradigm of analyzing literature wherein the critic applying this approach should take note on the structures, the elements, and the style within an art form. A speech, I believe, is a work of art, of literature to be precise. Therefore, is it possible to apply the formalistic approach to the President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s recent State of the nation Address? I think so.

First and foremost, I would like to discuss the President’s choice of using a combination of the Filipino and English languages, more known as Taglish, in the course of the whole speech. Perhaps the idea of using Taglish was to make her speech more accessible and more comprehensible to a bigger audience, whom we assume to be more acquainted with this mix of two languages as against the two homogenous ones. However, by presenting her State of the Nation Address in such a manner, the president seems to be taking the form out of her speech, making her statements a seemingly wobbly harangue without the strength and direction that the formality of the homogenous languages could provide. In short, it would appear as if her very speech was in a crisis, as if English and Filipino statements are battling it out for supremacy in the body of her address. Take a look at this excerpt:

“The result has been, on the one hand, ito [tough choices, i.e. The VAT implementation] ang nakasalba sa bayan; and, on the other, more unpopularity for myself in the opinion polls. Yet, even unfriendly polls show self-rated poverty down to its 20-year low in 2007.”

The glaring, jarring insertion of the Filipino, “ito ang nakasalba sa bayan” between the otherwise English paragraph shows this language tension clearly. I find that I have to actually repeat seeing and hearing the statement (thank goodness for Internet articles and recorders!) to make head and tail out of that declaration. Otherwise, had the President said, “The result has been the security of the country’s financial interest…” I believe that the statement would have been more intelligible.

But enough with the Taglish in the President’s speech. Let us move on with the mood of her State of the Nation Address. We can see (or hear) that throughout the SONA, the President used images such as the housewife taking care of the family affairs, the 41-year-old husband who provides food for the family, and the successes of those who benefited from her technical and vocational course program. These images, of course, are the sample space of the entire Filipino nation, which the chief executive used in the SONA to evoke the audience’s pathos and to have them say, “Indeed, indeed! The President is doing all she can for the common people. Let us then applaud her and support her.” But beware – as the writer Milan Kundera in his Unbearable Lightness of Being pointed out, no one knows the power of kitsch more than the politicians, such as our leaders today, do. Now, what is kitsch? We have, in our classes, defined ‘kitsch art’ as ‘tailor-made’ art, which, due to its tailor-made quality, loses any value. And this is so because kitsch is whatever tailor-made images are all about: evoking tailor-made emotions, just like how we feel so touched whenever we see a politician kiss a baby. And by using the image of the common people in her address, and portraying them in such a way that it makes us feel (or, at least, tries to make us feel) that chief executive is in the right by doing whatever she can for these everyday people amid all the criticism and attack, our beloved President GMA is guilty of employing kitsch.

And not only that. For, despite the many figures that adorn the President’s 2008 SONA, it still seems that she overlooked some elements of logos to achieve her speech’s overwhelming pathos. At one instance the President argued that repealing the VAT law for oil and power consumption would only benefit the well-off, who supposedly consumes 84 percent of the oil products and 90 percent of the electrical power. But let me ask: by what means do we produce the goods in our country? By what means do we transport our goods and commodities? Is it not from the power provided by oil and electricity? True, it is the wealthy who owns the means of production – but even so, this would mean a very grave danger, especially for the less fortunate – have we forgotten about the law of interaction between rising costs of production and the prices of commodities? Whenever the costs of production go up (by higher wages, more expensive raw materials), then the entrepreneurs would tend to increase the prices. And if this is the case, with the addition of VAT, the basic goods would actually be too expensive for the less fortunate to attain! And lastly, take a look at one of her last statements:

“As your President, I care too much about this nation to let anyone stand in the way of our people’s wellbeing. Hindi ko papayagang humadlang ang sinuman sa pag-unlad at pagsagana ng taong bayan. I will let no one – and no one’s political plans – threaten our nation’s survival.”

Surely this is a very emotionally charged, very powerful statement. But far from reassuring, this statement’s very power makes it all the more scarier, for we have always assumed that it is the duty of the police and the military forces to ensure internal and external harmony, and the Ombudsman to check the erring politician. But, unless the President is forgetting her logos, one can actually view her statement as a threat, a threat very much like US Senator McCarthy’s presecution of supposed communists during the Cold War, very much like the President Marcos’ implementation of martial law.

So, as far as my analysis goes, the 2008 SONA delivered by the President has some very big flaws. Now, the formalists would always interpret the meaning of the text in lieu of its structure. Now that I have presented what I think is the structure of the President’s speech, then I guess that by now we very much know what her address truly means.