Thai ‘Sin City’ finds abstaining from sex hard
PATTAYA, THAILAND — In a daring nautical themed outfit, sex worker May confidently predicts the survival of Thai sleaze town Pattaya despite a junta attempt to tame the kingdom’s “Sin City.”
Fourway
By Noel Vera
I REMEMBER watching Takaw Tukso (directed by William Pascual, written by Armando Lao) in a wretched 16 mm print years ago: the film would skip and skitter, and jump (it seemed) entire scenes. Had the vague notion that Boy (Gino Antonio) married Debbie (Anna Marie Gutierrez), and later Nestor (Julio Diaz) married Letty (Jaclyn Jose); also had a notion that Anita Linda played Boy’s mother Aling Conching, but just what happens to her by story’s end I was not all that clear.
What was clear was four extremely attractive people lusting after each other, husband for wife and vice versa — though not necessarily husband for his legally married wife (or vice versa); four young men and women coupling in a variety of combinations and positions, scratching an itch they can’t quite reach. By the time of the film’s violent climax (at least I thought it was violent — the print wasn’t very legible by this point) I came away with the impression of a compelling chamber drama, set in a house beside a small auto repair shop in one of the less affluent neighborhoods of Manila — Bergman transposed to Southeast Asia, all sweaty and squalid and begrimed.
Having again seen the film in reasonably complete form, I can’t say my impressions were off the mark, just incomplete. It’s a marvelously nimble little melodrama touching on the social rules among and between the sexes back when we recognized only two; on the natural trajectory of people subject to the pressure-cooker conditions of the lower middle class (with their accompanying expectations, aspirations, affectations) — in a word: unhappy. Bergman, I imagine, would have approved.
I’d also call it a clever little study on how the human character works out its problems under differing circumstances. Debbie is a spoiled brat, unhappy with her at times tyrannical, at times selfish mother (Eva Darren), who vaguely sees her (when looking at her at all) as a potential sexual rival (shades of Brocka’s Insiang, only Lao’s script moves quickly moves past the initial similarity); Boy is equally spoiled, lackadaisically studying for his commerce degree with his tuition paid for by his mother — at first glance the newly married couple seem perfect for each other, until Aling Coching makes it clear that she hates Debbie for entrapping her son, and expects the young bride to do much, if not all of the housework.
Aling Coching supports her son but holds unspoken affection and respect for Nestor, the nephew she adopted who has become the shop’s best mechanic. Nestor is the eternal outsider looking in, envious of Boy’s relatively higher social status (the family was comfortably middle-class until the father’s death), grimly conscious of what he earns day by day, with each head lamp bulb replaced, each valve scoured, each engine painstakingly reassembled (he even on occasion collects the payment for repairs).
Letty is arguably even more of an outsider — poor and a woman. She loves Nestor, but Nestor is dating Debbie; when Debbie, after a spat with her mother, runs away with Boy, the two are hurriedly married, with Nestor in the uncomfortable position of living in the same house with his former girlfriend, now wife of his employer, cousin, best friend. What does poor abandoned Letty do? Get impregnated — by Nestor no less. The four live under Aling Conching’s roof, in a tense little dance around past and each other, the severe tin-and-concrete walls encircling them physically and emotionally.
Pascual enhances Lao’s script by having the camera come close in, emphasizing the cramped quarters (production design by filmmaker Dante Mendoza); when couples make love the women are often backed into corners while the men surge forward, brown buttocks pumping away. The few times a couple has sex outdoors it’s night and we see them in long shot, the surrounding darkness (shadows and light provided by cinematographer Joe Tutanes) a blessed liberating relief.
As Debbie, Anna Marie Guiterrez is all arched brows and elfin mischief; her scheming after Boy when she’s dating Nestor is what started all the complications in the first place, and, alas, when she realizes marriage only elevated her to the status of glorified housekeeper, she goes on scheming, manipulating, prodding others this way and that, trying to find the right mixture of people and circumstances that will allow her that impossible moment of perfect happiness in her life.
Jaclyn Jose as Letty has the less showy yet braver role, as Debbie’s undesirable ugly-duckling best friend (though calling her “undesirable” and “ugly” is a stretch, she is a skilled actress) with the near-impossible challenge of making Letty’s simple unalloyed love for Nestor interesting. She does so with an intense, open directness.
Julio Diaz as Nestor keeps his balance between heedless libido and watchful caution: on one hand he wants what he lost, now tantalizingly within reach, on the other he’s wary of his position in the household — despite Boy’s trust and Aling Conching’s affection, he knows what their reaction would be if he should ever turn on them.
Gino Antonio’s Boy is perhaps the simplest character with the most interesting twist: a passive weakling who, when faced with pressure (in this case unpaid bank debts), buckles easily; he’s never had to stand on his own, and his unthinking response only leads to disaster. How then, Lao carefully poses the question to us, might Boy react to the prospect of infidelity?
I see two main weaknesses to the film: the 1980s convention of slow leisurely sex with a saxophone playing in the background hasn’t aged well; Pascual apparently hasn’t bothered to integrate some of these sequences into the film’s dramatic arc (not that I mind — far from it — but viewing the narrative as a narrative and not an excuse to string a series of softcore sex scenes together, it’s distracting). The second weakness I find more serious: the film fails to find that extra something — a motif perhaps, or an overall look — to elevate it beyond being a well-made visualization of an excellent script.
The climax (skip this paragraph if you plan to see the film) happens suddenly, the way most violent confrontations go… but there’s sudden and then there’s sudden — a slow-motion sense of impeding disaster as you pump your brakes uselessly and your wheels skid sideways vs. a surprise collision with little impact because you haven’t been adequately prepared. The film’s climax seems to be of the latter sort; while you know Boy is capable of violence (to Debbie for one) and you know he’s aware of Nestor’s betrayal, you’re not sure why he chooses that particularly moment to confront Debbie, nor have you been persuaded he can be violent to Nestor (a cousin and friend from childhood — and a man capable of defending himself). Pascual redeems himself considerably (if not completely) with what follows: the camera roving over the desolation that was the repair shop, accompanied by a tolling bell, later the women meeting at the graves of their respective husbands, two widows whose lives have been so inextricably, bitterly linked with literally nothing to say to each other. Presumably the censors board had insisted on adulterers and murderers being punished (while allowing us to enjoy all the sex and violence they commit) — the same censors that had insisted on changing the ending to Mario O’Hara’s Bagong Hari (The New King), released earlier that same year.
That said, the fact that one feels the film’s failures keenly actually speaks well of Lao’s script, the cast’s performances, and Pascual’s overall directing — that it’s so good you want it to be perfect (again that impossible moment!). One of the best films of that decade, Filipino or otherwise.
Millennials are changing the game in the Philippine Stock Exchange
“A JUNGLE.”
That’s how the trading floor appeared to Mica Tan, who was then in her teens when she walked in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) in high school uniform.
The colossal electronic board, its dizzying figures, bewildering codes, and people shouting from different corners formed an almost intimidating world that the curious Ms. Tan, with a backpack slinging on her shoulder, still set out to explore.
Her first mission was to find herself a mentor. Perhaps amused with finding a kid in a sea of coats‑and‑ties, the head of a brokerage firm agreed to teach her the ropes.
“I saw how important it was for them to make decisions in a second,” recalled Ms. Tan, who founded of an investment firm called MFT Group of Companies at the age of 20. In an interview, she shared the first lessons from she learned on the trading floor: which stocks to buy, how much, if they should hold or if they should sell. “And they’re not talking about some change,” she said. “They’re talking about millions.”
Ms. Tan is part of an ongoing shift in the stock market now seeing an influx of “millennials,” the generational cohort born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, a long way from the market being formerly dominated by the “old boys’ club.”
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Art Samantha Gonzales with Freepik
Jose T. Pardo, the 75‑year‑old chairman of the PSE, compares this to his own career history, reeling in the time where he started trading in his late 30s. With “very limited funds,” he said, he invested only in “very select” dividend‑paying stocks.
“The PSE has joined the digital age, it is now information technology [I.T.]‑driven,” the chairman said. “The millennials, being tech‑savvy, are quick to adapt so we’re seeing an upsurge of younger stock market investors.”
As a result, brokerage firms have been prompted to change their strategy in a bid to cash in on this market.
Ramon Tejero, head of retail equities‑e.commerce of Maybank ATR Kim Eng, has observed that millennials are aggressive and are risk takers. His company regularly mounts coaching sessions for young people interested in investing in the stock market.
“They value speed, they’re highly mobile, and they want to do it themselves,” he said.
While millennials are known to value experiences more than material things, according to a study conducted by Harris and sponsored by Eventbrite, they may opt to go to the stock market because of its competitive nature. Mr. Tejero said that while millennials are “probably not yet at a stage where acquisition is more important to them, it’s all about experience.” He added that people who get a high in winning in sports also enjoy trading. “It also gets you high because it’s like a win. Not only are you sikat (popular), you have money in your pocket.”
Millennials have a higher risk appetite than their senior counterparts. They trade more often but in smaller amounts, while the older ones trade less often but pour in huge chunks of money.
“Since the seniors also trade in bigger amounts, they tend to be deliberate. They tend to be sure. They tend to study the trade before they enter it,” Mr. Tejero said. “The more senior clients would be still a handover from the previous generation which is a buy‑and‑hold generation. For millennials, it’s price action. You trade what you see.”
The PSE has joined the digital age, it is now IT‑driven. The millennials, being tech‑savvy, are quick to adapt so we’re seeing an upsurge of younger stock market investors.
The younger investors might be more inclined to say: “Tutal naman ₱20,000 lang ‘to, pwede ba ‘tong trade na ‘to? Sige na, may target price naman ako.” (Since it’s just ₱20,000, can I trade this? Come on. I have a target price anyway.)
Their actions are also driven by the “flexible” nature of their jobs—a lot of them coming from, say, business process outsourcing—which allows them to devote more time on their online portfolio and on monitoring the market, compared to the seniors who may be executives with very little spare time.
The main difference between the millennials and the Gen X? They trade daily, weekly, or monthly, unlike the latter who wait for a year or more.
“The frame of mind of the millennial is more different. They’re more opportunistic. They’re more risk takers,” Mr. Tejero said.
This makes online trading a perfect platform for the youth. Aside from providing mobility, it allows them to open an online account for as low as ₱5,000 and start trading real‑time, unlike before when investors would have to call their brokers to place an order, and wait, because with the limited resources that they had, brokers might prioritize those with higher bids.
Online stock market accounts grew 35.6% to 236,669 in 2015, from the 2010 count of 35,559, data released last year by the PSE showed. In the same statement, PSE president and CEO Hans B. Sicat said: “We expect online trading to continue to drive growth in stock market accounts. We are hopeful that the rate of expansion we saw in the last five years will be sustained especially as more trading participants start offering online trading services.”
“If I could google ‘mentors’ 10 years ago, I would’ve done that,” Ms. Tan said. “But now, my eight‑year‑old niece would ask me if she could buy Apple Inc. stocks because she owns an iPad.”
“From old boys’ club to the rich kids’ club, I partly agree that there is a big transition,” Ms. Tan said. “But I also think that it’s not only the rich kids who get to appreciate it now. There’s a growing number of middle class tapping into stocks because they’re more educated on what to do with their money.”
The PSE affirms this view, noting that the income profile of investors has “become more skewed” to the lower income bracket.
Those earning half a million pesos or less every year took up 40.9% of investor accounts in 2015, from just 29.1% in 2010 when bulk of them earned more than P1 million (36.7%).
“Technology levels the playing field in providing access to our stock market as shown by the higher share of online investors from Visayas and Mindanao,” PSE’s Mr. Sicat said.
Even as majority or 72.7% of retail investors still come from Metro Manila, those from Luzon increased to 15% from 14.4% in 2010. Those from Visayas and Mindanao comprised 5.6% (from 2010’s 4.3%) and 2.8% (from 2010’s 1.8%) of the total accounts, respectively.
Investors based overseas accounted for 2.6% of the retail accounts, higher than the 1.2% share registered in 2010.
“It all ties down to the Philippines’ financial inclusiveness. It hasn’t reached yet that certain level that will allow us to be more aggressive to a higher level of financial inclusiveness,” Mr. Tejero said.
He said the fact that “90% of the Philippine population is below economic class C puts us way behind in terms of penetration rate.”
The gamification of the stock market thus seems to widen the access to the formerly old boys’ club‑dominated floors, letting in millennials who get a high from registering their first profit or their first dividend check. “In the terms of millennials,” Mr. Tejero said, “Achievement unlocked.”
Yet at the same time, not all endings are happy. “There are people who also lose money,” Mr. Tejero added. “That’s why education is important. You have to start the right way.”
For Ms. Tan, who remembers already having more than a passing concern about her future and her finances even as early as six, and who also remembers not having enough cash to buy stocks when she was a teenager, the stock market is like a “fast‑forward button” that will allow you to go faster wherever you want to go.
“Being in the stock market allows you to think the way big businesses do,” she said. “I would pretend I’m in Wall Street, when I’m in Ayala Triangle.”
In her own office at the Bonifacio Global City—a concrete jungle far larger than the trading floors she had since conquered—she looked back to the day she saw one company go public at the trading floor. “I said, ‘One day, I’d like to make that happen.’”
Pola Esguerra del Monte and Krista Angela M. Montealegre contributed to this story
The author wrote this feature as a cover story for BusinessWorld University Edition when she was still on the PSE beat as a reporter for BusinessWorld. Ms. Magturo is now an equity analyst.
To learn more about Maybank ATR Kim Eng’s coaching sessions, visit their website www.maketrade.com.ph
The Philippine Stock Exchange has a market education site at www.pseacademy.com.ph
Tradition saves the business of religious items
In a predominantly Catholic country like the Philippines, religious artifacts depicting images of saints and the Holy Trinity are considered symbols of faith.
With more than 80 million Filipinos—or roughly 82% of the country’s population—following Catholicism, religious articles have become more than just an ornament.
Faced with a dwindling church attendance, an increasing variety of other religions, and even a critical political milieu, the business of retailing these crafts remains strong.
Video Paolo Lacambra Lopez
In Tayuman, a few meters away from the LRT station, stand a number of these religious craft stores, aged with dust and pollution. Standing guard at the thresholds are Mama Mary and Jesus Christ—in multiples—staring out their plastic covering with their round glass eyes.
Among the first shops established here is Our Mother of Perpetual Help Religious Store, known for its religious figurines made of wood and fiberglass, that come with a price tag of between ₱150 and ₱22,000.
Its current manager Jingle Morante, hails from the family that started the business 40 years ago.
“I think everything is pretty much the same as before,” she said, somewhat distracted by the customers that come in and out the door, picking up a saint or two. It’s another business day for her.
Video Paolo Lacambra Lopez
The store has retained its regular buyers throughout the years: religious groups, priests, nuns and the Catholic faithful from Metro Manila and far provinces. According to her, there is no remarkable disparity between the number of patrons then and now. Nothing is affected by the winds of change in Philippine catholicism.
“There may have been new religions,” she said, “but what people are used to will never change.”
Meanwhile, Salvador Digol, who owns JefStar Trading that sells the same line of products for 12 years now in the area, boasts of his continuously growing network of customers. Like Ms. Morante, he believes that there is only one thing that keeps the industry alive—tradition.
Started in 2005 with a small stall and a capital of ₱20,000, JefStar has become a go‑to shop for buyers in the area with its array of religious merchandise.
Mr. Digol said Filipino traditions such as religious processions during lent season double—and even triple—the demand for the products that he sells.
“People really like these kinds of products because they believe that these perform miracles,” he said.
Philippine’s growth outlook positive but challenges remain
THE PHILIPPINES “will remain a top performer” in East Asia and the Pacific, the World Bank said yesterday, even as it flagged risks that include rising global interest rates that could weaken the peso, crimp capital flows and stoke inflation, as well as fiscal risks as the state ramps up spending while flagship tax reforms aimed at raking in more funds for government struggle through Congress. Read the full story.
Do companies still look at an applicant’s grades?
In a country where a good education comes at an often steep price, academic performance seems to be the sole measure of what one is worth.
As fresh graduates slip in their brand new corporate attire and walk in their first job interviews with a resumé in hand, hangs the following thought: will their transcript of records affect their chances of landing a good job?
At a panel discussion during a student congress organized by online advertising platform JobStreet.com at Baliuag, Bulacan last March 23, hiring officials from three companies weighed in on the impacts of academic performance on a fresh graduate’s job application.
For Judy Chua, senior human resource manager of SM Supermalls, good grades is an advantage for fresh graduates, but not an indicator of their possible success.
“We would like to hire applicants who have good academic background, but this is just one factor or one area that we look into,” she said. “There are also other characteristics of a candidate that will make a person become successful and we look for people that we can develop and train.”
We want someone who is actively engaged in activities outside their existing work because it helps initiate or drive an employee’s engagement.
Employers, instead, consider an applicant’s flexibility and adaptability more than a good academic standing as well as their involvement in extracurricular activities, she added. According to her, it reflects a person’s “determination and purpose” and exhibits a graduates potential as a team player and decision maker.
Ms. Chua is not alone in that opinion.
“Academic achievement is an important trait for a graduate because it reflects the drive of a student to perform well,” said Mark Flores, service management head of construction materials manufacturer LafargeHolcim, but he added: “We want someone who is actively engaged in activities outside their existing work because it helps initiate or drive an employee’s engagement. And I think engagement is one of the most critical components being an employee, especially for millennials.”
Art Samantha Gonzales with Freepik
The 2017 Fresh Graduates Report released by JobStreet on March 15 also suggests that academic standings do not affect a fresh graduate’s chances of landing a job.
The report, which includes the results of a survey conducted by JobStreet among 644 companies, shows that high grades and other academic‑related factors are not among the foremost considerations in hiring applicants who are just out of college. In the previous year’s survey, involvement in extracurricular activities was among the top three considerations that improved a new graduate’s employability.
Still, this is no excuse to slack off and cut class. Field of study still remains among the top attributes that employers seek out among fresh graduates.
But it’s a little reminder to stop obsessing over the figures. It takes more than just a 1.00 to be the chosen one.