A Day Of Victories!

.:Worst Film, Best Director...:.

Indeed, one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Notwithstanding the critical panning one Roger Ebert gave the film "Kinatay", Brillante Mendoza's vision as a director was still recognized, leading to the first time a Filipino has won "Best Director" in Cannes.

As I have yet to see the film, I can only offer congratulations to the director, and oftentimes, there is this trend where a director is recognized for his skill and expertise even if his film may not have quite been as well-received as he himself is.

There have been very polarizing reviews about the film so far. Either people outright loved it, or outright hated it. There's very little opinions in between, and I believe that given the nature of the subject matter, it was certainly going to be the case as the film definitely seems to be more than willing to push a lot of buttons.

So congratulations, Brillante Mendoza! Your work has been recognized, and I'm certain you have more films to do and more stories to tell.

And who knows? Maybe next time, a happy story?

.:The Great Book Blockade Has Been Lifted:.

And as Dominique Cimafranca put it, now what?

In a move people have been praying for, President Arroyo asked that the tax on books be lifted immediately. Say what you want about the president, but she didn't just waste our time with privilege speeches about the issue, and simply just asked it to be taken out.

Indeed, this is a laudable exercise of "blogger power", as it were, but this is merely the tip of the iceberg for us. Our crusades don't end here, and only in a perfect world should we expect never to find a cause worth fighting for.

We've already opened up to the people that reading has merit and that we don't want to leave it to the wayside. Now, what are the avenues we may explore to promote reading to everyone? Even if books become affordable, we need to find a way to aid the declining book-reading population in the country.

At the same time, how much are you willing to bet that some unscrupulous Customs agents will ignore this directive and just play dumb anyways? Somehow, I don't think I'd be too surprised if that happened.

We still have a lot of work cut out for us, but any victory we can take is a victory we must cherish.

Or did they just close this issue so people can focus even more on this silly Hayden Kho brouhaha? Meh.

I'm glad that bloggers managed to do something right, though. Goes to show there's more about us than libel and general asshattery. Much more, I'm sure.