Flipping The Narrative

It’s been a year… and it’s only May. We did a live and ended up talking about popes, professors and politicians with an old friend of the pod. We didn’t quite make sense of the rollercoaster 2025 has been so far, but we’ve buckled up for the ride and are trying hard not to keep our eyes closed as we scream into the void. Still, we remain determined to flip it for GOOD.

Who Run The World?

To be a woman these days… it’s a minefield out there! Women are urged to empower themselves in a society that still expects them to conform to outdated notions of traditional - and reductive - gender roles. Palibhasa babae kasi! But the times they are a-changing, thanks to Gen z and Gen Alpha’s more open sexual attitudes, rekindled activism, and embrace of community. Myrza Sison, model-editor-content creator and a woman who’s broken the mold more than once throughout her multifaceted career, tells us why the young women of today may do more than shatter glass ceilings.

Man oh man, we live in unusual times. Bye bye binaries, hello multi-hyphenates. But what does that all mean when it comes to defining masculinity in today’s world? What, indeed, maketh a man these days? And how do we detoxify the particularly toxic strain of masculinity that persists in the Philippines? We take a deep dive into all this with the artist Kristoffer Ardeña, who explores the meanings of “ang tunay na lalake” in his latest installation, Pagkalalake, a massive and provocative assemblage of idioms, expressions, slogans and utterances in English and the vernacular that challenge the traditional notions of masculinity in our society.

And just like that, we’re back! We know, we know, it’s been ages. But one of us got married and opened a restaurant, one of us completed a dissertation, and one of us had to haul a business out of pandemic hangover. Life, what can we say? And that’s just us! The world got (even more!) volatile so there’s lots to talk about. We’re here for the long haul - at least we intend to be - and we’re ready to get in deep into all the stuff that bemuses and befuddles us as Filipinos in our global-parochial world. So buckle up, may asim pa kami!

When we think of the ties that bind us, a nation of disparate people separated by seas and straits, spread out among 7,107 islands and speaking over 70 different languages and dialects, we tend to home in on food, religion and kinship. But perhaps the one thing we really all can relate to is good old Pinoy humor. Sometimes mababaw, often a clever play of words, our humor is side-splittingly punny and funny. It’s just da bess!

Flipping Pinoy humor with us is the legendary Rex Navarrete, one of the first Fil-Am comedians to become a mainstream international comedy sensation. He talks with surprising candor about how laughter heartens, heals, and humbles — not to mention unites — both audience and comic. Life is hard for many Filipinos. And whether you’re an immigrant in the US, or a Pinoy at home trying to get through the daily grind, laughter becomes the balm that keeps us sane. Tawa nalang ng tawa!

Hospitals, airports, cruise ships ... Filipinos are EVERYWHERE. So why are we nowhere? Or why has it taken this long for us to appear, as us, as Filipinos on TV shows and in movies? We chat with two industry experts — one running the show and another facing the audience — about why we need to create our own stories and support our storytellers. Flipping all the narratives with us are director, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging consultant, and veteran entertainment and media policy expert Cris Sales and Victor Lirio, critically acclaimed actor and theatre director specializing in text-based impact theatre, who, before the pandemic, was working at the Old Vic/National Theatre in London.

They raise important questions of identity and visibility, how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen. So we’re on the hunt: nasaan nanga ba ang mga Pinoy? We need to be onscreen, definitely, but we should have a seat at the decision-making table, too.

Girl can’t help it, she needs to tell stories. Ramona Diaz, the award-winning documentary filmmaker, has brought to the screen some of the most disturbing, heart-rending, inspiring and ultimately illuminating tales of the Filipino experience - the fearless journalist facing a lying and vindictive president (A Thousand Cuts), an unknown cover singer with incredible vocals who fronts a legendary rock band (Don’t Stop Believin’: Every Man’s Journey) teachers recruited to teach in inner city schools in Baltimore (The Learning), a delusional former First Lady (Imelda), and more.

She sits down with us to flip the notion of love of country, likening the draw of the motherland to the lure of an ex-boyfriend: we don’t stop believin’ but he still keeps on disappointin’ … so where do we go from here without shattering our psyche? Or further widening the polarizations in our society? Sometimes all we need is a welcome shot of babaw Pinoy humor.

We took a break. It was unplanned. Like many Filipinos, we needed a moment. The last elections were ... something. There are certain things — like the party line, hours of zero electricity, mullets, "salvaging" (the martial law euphemism for extrajudicial killing), and martial law itself — that just shouldn't make a comeback. Yet here we are: back with not one, not two, but three of our history's more controversial leaders back in power. We find ourselves celebrating Filipino Independence Day (and our first year anniversary!) with all sorts of feels. In this episode, we flip and flip again (sometimes frenetically, like oxygen-deprived tilapia on a bangka), trying to make sense of where we are and where we're going, and committed to finding hope and a way forward.

Children in the Philippines are often raised to be obedient and respectful; independence of thought and purpose is unfortunately not as vigorously encouraged. But times they are a-changing. As a demographic, Gen Zs and Millennials have an outsize significance in this election: they comprise 56% of the electorate. It’s no wonder candidates have been assiduously courting their vote. But how else can young Filipinos make their voices heard? Flipping the idea that our youth are timid and quiet are two young women, Yanna Garcia and Katya Lichauco, co-editors of Big Deal (get your copy now: bit.ly/BigDealPreOrder!), a groundbreaking anthology of writing and art by and about young Filipinas and their daily struggles, challenges, traumas and triumphs. They have spoken, and now we listen.

The noontime variety show is a staple of Philippine mass culture. A celebration of the kitsch and the banal, it is often a formulaic whirl of trite skits and musical entertainment marked by toilet humour and even lewd asides with anti-intellectual bent. To be fair, it has at times been a platform from which unexpected singing superstars have emerged. But how have decades of this Eat Bulaga sort of lunchtime diet impacted Filipinos as thinkers and, more importantly, voters? TV gave America Trump; it gave Ukraine Zelensky. What about the Philippines? 

Flipping with us are veteran award-winning journalist Ces Drilon and one-third of the famed OPM (Original Pilipino Music) pioneer APO Hiking Society, Jim Paredes, who once upon a time hosted a noontime variety show. Mula Aparri hangang Jolo, is it just “that’s entertainment”?