Don't smile for me

I don't want you to just look far into the distance, I'd like for you to look at and actually see something. 

I stopped doing weddings when couples stopped getting married and started staging weddings.

I remember my first wedding gig - I was a back-up videographer/photographer. The groom's father, who was obviously having issues with the fact that his favorite son was naturally being overshadowed by the bride, hired us even if they already had a whole crew from Manila doing the same thing. "That group was hired by the bride, and they might just focus too much on the bride and her family. I want my family to be featured in the video and in photos too."

That set-up worked out well for me. People, particularly the bride and groom, weren't posing nor performing for me. I documented the wedding from afar, from the sidelines, for the crew from Manila made sure I knew who the "real" videographers were and would not hold a pose for me. As soon as they got their shots, they immediately dismissed the subjects to make sure that I didn't get to shoot my own frames or footage.

Stolen shots, they call them, and they were all I was able to get and that's exactly how shooting that wedding felt - I was stealing moments. But from those stolen moments - of the father's silhouette on the balcony waiting for his son to finish dressing up, of the son coming out of the room (a quick steady shot then a quick pan back to the father) and the tears welling up in the father's eyes, a bride's unguarded moment walking out to the garden on her way to a pre-wedding shoot with her bridesmaids... woven together and they told a pretty nice story. They, both the groom's and the bride's families, ended up distributing the video we made instead. But in these days of pre-nups and post-nups and what-nots, I lost interest in telling a staged story. Wedding clients didn't want the photographers to simply capture the ceremony as it unraveled, these days most couples primarily perform for the cameras which make for contrived walks down the aisle, first kisses and first dances, etc.

I'd like to shoot a kiss that happened, one that was motivated by an impulse, an attraction, a desire to express a feeling and not the one that was done for my camera lens. I'd like to take photos that capture beautiful moments, and not moments staged to get the perfect picture. I love the grain in under-exposed photos, the imperfections of an imperfectly framed photo that tell stories, I want that smile that's brought about by a happy thought, and not because the photographer said, "smile."

But these days, there are hardly clients for such photos.

Death and taxes

I made the mistake of commenting on an article written by one Peter Wallace, a naturalized Filipino and a staunch advocate of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion, or TRAIN, a gift the Duterte administration gave to Filipinos last Christmas. Naturally, the supporters of the president having the strongest presence on the Philippine Wide Web, it didn't take long for the comment to be commented on, with one saying: "binasa mo ba yung sinabi ni Wallace o talagang ignorante ka lang?"

He was correct on both points, I did read the article and yes, I am somehow ignorant.

The article mentioned above is mainly a response to critiques of his position on TRAIN, perhaps a lot coming from ignoramuses such as me who are feeling the pinch of higher prices of gas and many other basic commodities, to whom he says, "Let’s put the blame where the blame lies: international price movements and traders using TRAIN as an excuse to raise prices when they can."

Here's my ignorante two-centavos' worth: True, the whole world is suffering from higher prices of petroleum products, not just us, thanks to among other things the resulting global political and economic instability of Trumpism. But while a price increase of a mere few US cents is just that to other countries, local gas price increases are essentially higher because of the peso's poor performance, which as of this writing trades at PHP52.50 - USD1. Currency experts may debunk that ignorante argument, but while local gas prices went up bu a mere 20 US-cents, it meant a whopping 10-pesos per liter increase from last year's prices.

Here's my ignorante layman's calculation. Our family averages 25 kilometers per day in our car, or 750 kilometers a month. Our car uses an average of 8 liters, city driving, per kilometer. So that's about 94 liters of gasoline per month. With an increase of Php10.00, we're spending P940.00 extra pesos monthly. Mr. Wallace, that's a lot of bigas. I haven't included my work's transportation needs there - I do a lot work out of town lugging equipment and a lot of times have no choice but to bring a car. So throw in a couple of hundreds of kilometers in there, or a dozen or two extra liters of gasoline.

Add to that the few extra centavos and pesos that we've had to pay for all the other commodities which prices have recently gone up.

In Baguio, taxi fare recently went up. What was once a 80-peso cab ride from downtown to our place now costs P120.00. Wow, sosyal, naka-taxi... magjeep kasi kayo. Sure, but in a lot of places up here, at certain hours of the day, one has no choice but to take a taxi. A lot of those working the graveyard shift in call centers have no choice but to take a taxi.

That's just gas and transportation.

Wallace, by his own account, came to the Philippines to do business back in the 70's. My problem with Mr. Wallace's justifications is that these are made from a capitalist's point of view. We pay the same extra P10.00 price increase in gasoline, but he has more ten pesos-es than I do, and the rest of his ten pesos-es in banks, trust funds, stocks and what-nots earn him more ten pesos-es, while most of us only have the ten pesos-es we get every 15 days to get by.

But the money generated by TRAIN will be used to fund the government's Build, Build, Build program and other basic social services, Wallace argues, which would spur economic activity and growth. I'm patriotic enough, I believe, that I'm willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. But Mr. Wallace himself admitted that the bureaucracy is a mess. Corruption is still rampant despite the president's broken promise of eradicating it in months. The Commission on Audit has been busy flagging this and that department, government agency, personnel for various questionable transactions. How much of the funds generated by this tax will actually go to pubic hospitals, farm-to-market roads, school buildings and how much of it will be spent on projects like Cesar Montano's Buhay Carinderia project or SocGen Calida's questionable allowances?

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but why does it seem like we were better off economically without the TRAIN under the previous administration? Not too long ago, we amazed the world for having a stable currency, a stronger, resilient economy. Didn't Duterte himself said during the campaign that the problem with the Aquino administration was that it had so much money but didn't spend enough?

My comment on that social media link to Mr. Wallace's article said:

It may not be solely because of Train, but it's everything about the regime put together: misdirected initiatives, impunity, disregard for the rule of law, human rights violations, lack of a concrete policy on various issues and areas of governance, nepotism, cronyism, etc. etc., ad nauseam... = instability, loss of investor confidence, a weakened economy/currency, a weakened republic...

I still stand by that.

Benjamin Franklin was quoted as saying, "... in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Looking at the drug war and TRAIN, it's just so true.