Cory, Saturday Morning

The banner headlines tomorrow will mark the mournful pause that Cory's passing has brought the nation. And I find myself today taking that same pause and reflecting on why I am moved by her death as well.

I never identified with Cory's yellow army from the onset. When my grade school classmates were flashing Cory's laban sign in 1986, what I would interpret later on as a middle class identification, I was the lone Marcos loyalist in the classroom on account of my own social identifications. I thought it was incumbent upon me to toe the official line since I was a military brat. I remember debating with my classmates and the strongest argument that my 10 year-old brain could muster versus Cory's supporters then was that Cory was "just" a woman. I have since repented of course having realized that intelligence, fortitude, grace, on the one hand, and even despotic traits and arrogance, on the other, are not the monopoly of male leaders.

Cory indeed went on to make history in the snap elections of '86 and the ensuing people power revolt but I generally remained ambivalent about her place in history. While the same middle class high school classmates were defending the extension of the US Bases just like Cory, I wrestled away from my own identifications and took a stand against the bases. Since then I have unlearned many social givens and learned about how Cory's presidency supported landed interests, tolerated low intensity conflict approaches to combat the insurgency, and relied on American support to keep her presidency versus the coup attempts that plagued her administration. I have also learned that the decades of organizing and struggle being waged in the countryside and the cities set the stage for the overthrow of the dictatorship. So why am I now mourning her passing?

She was a simple housewife who reluctantly took on the reigns of a popular anti-dictatorship struggle after her husband's assassination. I would like to believe that Cory's patriotism had something to do with the timeless images of ordinary people braving tanks, offering their lives, and finding solidarity in each other in the fight against a tyrant no matter how fleeting or illusory these may have been. Cory in her yellow dress, that man in tears braving the tanks, the nun offering flowers to armed soldiers, and the common folk finding political release in Malacañan after decades - powerful images of men and women who fought for the same nation we continue to fight for till now. Cory remained consistent and uncompromising, even standing up against the present-day tyrant in our midst and she continues to inspire generations both old and new to challenge power with truth.

The lessons of Cory's patriotism and peaceful revolution must continue to be debated upon and our collective gains from these must be defended. But there is reason to pause and mourn her passing. Though she was greatly impaired by her milieu and ideological horizon, Cory Aquino rose to the demands of history as a patriot. The nation, including me, should be deeply grateful.

Of Sad Postmodern Icons and Modernity: A Review of Coppola's "Marie Antoinette"

(For Joseph Palis dahil dumating na ang padala mong tuwalya)

Of all its features, “Marie Antoinette” was an interesting cinematic experience because of the music. It was a joy to watch French royalty in their elaborate garb cavorting with their consorts and ladies-in-waiting to the sound of 80s post-punk. Perhaps to evoke the ironic joie de vivre of the 80s juxtaposed to the dionysian lifestyle (as opposed to hedonism) of the French king and queen and her court, they danced to an adaptation of Siouxsie and the Banshee’s “Hong Kong Garden” which was played by a string ensemble. The song then segued into the original post-punk version signifying a higher level of joy and abandon for everyone. In one scene, The Cure’s “Plainsong” was played during the couple’s coronation - an important and extensive shot taken on the steps of the Versailles. I’ve always thought that the music of The Cure was cinematic but the band evoked visions of modern dystopia for me- of highways, electric poles and sad abandoned factories; instead of men wearing wigs and tights and women with exposed bosoms under dainty parasols during the last gasps of European feudalism. The forlorn but quintessential New Order song, “Ceremony” is played in another party scene to create a contrast to the revelry of the French royal upperclass. Jarring as these may have been, these clever bits of musical scoring not only comprise the best thing about the film but also serve as its ideological heart.

Of course, the average listener is not expected to recognize many of these songs. In fact, in most parts, what one hears are just instrumental excerpts from some obscure track of a particular musical genre from the 90s labeled as “shoegaze” music. While this cultural referencing from the early 90s in film is unusual (only Araki has done this to much success in “The Doom Generation” which was made during the early 90s), it is also apt since these attempts highlight all the more the cinematic traits of the dated but enduring genre. The contribution of Kevin Shields (who also did work for Lost in Translation) from the legendary shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine as well as the excellent selections from current Swedish band The Radio Dept. attest to the “hip” and “cred” consistency in Sofia Coppola’s work as well as indicating her appreciation for the lost musical genre. Remember that in her first critically acclaimed oeuvre, “The Virgin Suicides,” she also featured in the soundtrack the French duo with high “cred” points – Air. However, this time around, I believe that the clever use of contemporary music serves a purpose beyond achieving the “coolness factor” that the director is known for. It foregrounds an interesting but controversial take on a pivotal moment in the history of western society.

Marie Antoinette and the Louis-Auguste were the King and Queen of France at the onset of the historic French Revolution. This event marked the political culmination of the unprecedented social and economic changes that began with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. It represented the victory of an emerging economic order whose political form was represented by the French Republicans. At the prodding of the bourgeois liberals who pushed for the republican ideals of the right to suffrage and democratic leadership, the peasants stormed the Bastille and later the royal palace of Versailles effectively heralding the demise of the French monarchy. The defeat of the royalists as manifested in the violent deaths of Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI by the guillotine and the subsequent rise of the French Republic meant new political and social arrangements that to some represent the defining shift from the “Dark Ages” to the Modern Era. One of this epoch’s key features is the ascendancy of the belief that, finally, man’s destiny is in its own hands and not under the control of some sovereign and God-ordained power as represented by the monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church. This includes the understanding that societies are wholly human artifacts subject to the collective will and power of the people that ideologically challenged the class structure of not only the monarchy and its feudal base but also early capitalism and its liberal pretensions. Many therefore interpret the French revolution as a progressive step away from the extreme inequities of feudal society and monarchical political formations and some quarters even regard it as an event that points to the possibility of egalitarian human societies.

However, the film “Marie Antoinette” takes on a different stance regarding modernity. For Coppola and Antonia Fraser, whose book the film was based on, to depict the relatively unknown but human story of the Princess of Vienna who became Queen of France from the other side of “his-tory” so-to-speak, is in itself an important statement. More so because Marie Antoinette is mistakenly vilified in history texts as the callous Queen who, in the midst of France’s bread shortage and general economic crisis, allegedly quipped “let them eat cake” in all her regal pomposity. Coppola shows to us instead a sympathetic and unknown side to the lives of these pampered royalties. The film takes great pains to show the struggle of Marie Antoinette and the King as they fit in to the unreasonable demands of being royalties as well as the privileges that they enjoyed. We are made to understand their humanity as they recapture their innocence in the Dionysian abandon of royal masquerades, deal with deaths in the family, and even suffer the distinct boredom of the rich and spoiled.

That is why when the mob arrived at the palace gates, we are immediately herded by the film to the side of royalty since it is they who we are more familiar with; it is they who we found funny and endearing. Never mind that it is the moment of justice for the angry multitude as they vent out their anger after centuries of carrying the feudal yoke in order to provide the monarchs with the resources for their grand lifestyle and capricious wars. Never mind that it is modernity and human progress that is, in a manner of speaking, knocking on the gates of Versailles and that this singular event would inspire movements of liberation throughout the world including our country’s own struggle against colonizers. Coppola deftly avoids all these issues by framing this historical narrative through Marie Antoinette’s eyes.

What is presented to us instead is the consistent template in film of how individuals, in the general sense, are victimized by history’s unsentimental march. It subtly laments Maria Antoinette and Louis XVI’s persecution since they were merely thrown into circumstances they did not choose. The reach of the royal imagination, the film seemingly apologizes, cannot go beyond the intricate pastries, the petticoats and the other regal accoutrements of their regal existence. Thus, when the mob, who were comprised of the first liberals in their original incarnation, demanded the King and Queen’s literal heads, a degree of sadness was warranted. There was no indignation expressed in the film akin to the moral appleal of the liberal critique against Stalin (“the revolution will devour its own children,” and it seems that the liberals also had an appetite for pale monarchs), but through a somewhat Nietzschean lamentation for the lost of dionysian beauty and innocence. This was expressed in the film in a lingering shot of a defiled royal salon after the mob stormed the palace. The room was once full of vibrant life, colors, opulence and laughter. Now, it was a drab grey room of broken furniture and torn curtains perhaps anticipating the abandoned factories of Manchester (where post-punk ala Joy Division reared its sad dangling head two centuries into modernity later – sorry Ian Curtis). Was Coppola intimating the view that history’s march towards modernity must be interpreted in this way? Does she share the same dystopic vision of modern society as those espoused by this band of angsty and socially dysfunctional philosophers in the persons of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Foucault whose disdain for modernity is legendary and influential to this day?

The use of contemporary cultural references for an otherwise period setting is therefore an important element in the light of these observations. The film achieves an ahistorical sheen as if insisting that its lessons are timeless if not enduring to this day. It seems to argue an interesting point – that the fate of Maria Antoinette and Louis XVI, who also danced to Siouxsie and the Banshee’s “Hong Kong Garden” – they in an elaborate ball and we in our dingy night clubs – are also our shared destinies. We are, in a manner of speaking, modernity’s common victims. If the two were hanged by a vengeful mob at the cusp of modernity, we are its sad disenfranchised heirs existing in the rubble of modernity as a failed experiment two centuries hence. This is the shared stance of thinkers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault. Modern life is synonymous to mediocrity, alienation (or inauthenticity) and debilitating bio-power (that society is one big prison and there is no escape). Our only refuge is towards individualism, introspection, and caring for the self. What better way to drive home this point through music than to employ the sensibility of post-punk’s true heirs – shoegaze.

There are some interesting parallelisms between developments in social theory and popular culture. There was an attempt by the counter-cultural folk movement of the 60s in translating its agenda into a potent political force. However, the failure of the Paris Commune coincided with the cooptation of folk into “hippie”-dom and later corporate arena rock. In the academe, a post-political (or post-socialist condition) also assumed an influential position wherein the likes of Nietzsche, Heidegger and Foucault became the gurus of a veiled individualism that places in its diametrical opposite society and history. Punk presented a brief respite attracting a wide section of Britain’s disaffected and unemployed youth under Thatcherism but eventually folded because of its nihilism and absence of class politics. This resignation is now embodied in the broad post-punk category that includes a variety of styles - self-referential and heavily sentimental at times while being angular and loud in others. Most of these bands eschewed the political and even anarchic stance of punk and insisted on appropriating an introspective tone while salvaging the innocent harmonies of The Beach Boys and the pop songcraft of the Beatles from the 60s. Of course, in the larger context, mass culture was the more dominant cultural form where artists such as Madonna and Michael Jackson represented the new apex in consumerist popular culture. In the sub-cultural field, however, the post-punk ethos was eventually adapted by a new musical movement that melded together the dark undertones of cult bands such as Joy Division and The Cure with the ethereal pop sound of The Cocteau Twins and the drone of The Velvet Underground in the late 80s to early 90s. The result is a musical movement that has come be labeled as shoegaze because of the penchant of these genre’s guitar players to look down on their effects boxes to create their complex and dense signature guitar sound.

Meanwhile, in the academe, the same sensibilities are also gaining ground with the fashionable rise of postmodernism and its celebration of eclecticism, ahistoricity, identity politics and a deep and unrelenting individualism. It is, thus, no accident that these post-punk and the shoegaze movements found its most rabid supporters among the college set. By the 90s, the cult status of these sub-genres has imploded into the mainstream with the rise of the “alternative” and Nirvana.

With its wall of feedback, unintelligible vocals and sweeping melancholia, shoegaze’s sound performs the sad and confused resignation of the post-political era. Marie Antoinette now follows a long line of fashionably sad cultural icons that include Kurt Cobain (whose death is fetishized in Gus Van Sant’s “Last Days”) and the wind-swept plastic bag in “American Beauty.” These films make a claim for sadness as the universal currency of modernity whether you be of royal lineage or a working class clone (or even an inanimate object) and our only balm or remedy is to wallow in Kevin Shield’s eloquent but loud and beautiful sound of sadness as we mourn the death of all-too-human Marie Antoinette – our new postmodern pop icon. But of course we know better.

This is precisely the problem with the ideological stakes raised by the film and the philosophical persuasions that side with such a dystopic reading of humanity’s past, present and future. For that matter, these also draw attention to the utter lack of radical promise among the educated American youth because an assessment of even indie culture indicates that they are either too emo, fragmented and individualist to wield any form of potent politics unlike their French forbearers who were willing to destroy the monarchy in order to build liberal democracy.

Modernity continues to be a necessary human project in the light of the continuing inequalities of our modern life. Men and women must not relent in the political task of charting the direction of human history, the sadness and violence of the struggle notwithstanding.

Levelling the Egg-Pelting Field: A Draft Manifesto

(Dear Friends, Here is a draft manifesto drafted by a colleague from the University. Another one that proves where the critical minds belong.)

What’s in a Protest?

In a website about military joke, the following joke can be found:
An Army recruiter delivered a windy pep talk to encourage a group of college students to join the VOLAR. But the culminating point of his oration was greeted with cat calls, whistles and projection of rotten eggs and an assortment of no less rotten vegetables and fruits.

A visitor asked a student: "Why you throw tomatoes at the man and now you are applauding him?"

"We want an encore. I still have some tomatoes left!" explained the student.
AFP: Auckland: Around 600 anti-war protesters whistled, thumped drums and set fire to flags outside New Zealand's parliament today as Australian Prime Minister John Howard met leaders inside. The protesters, who included three Green Party MPs, also hurled tomatoes onto the steps of the parliament building in a show of anger over Howard's unstinting support for US-led military action against Iraq.

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer: STUDENTS of the University of the Philippines pelted Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. with eggs and mud on Friday inside the UP campus in Quezon City, the military said. Esperon was leaving a conference hall at the UP where he had been addressing a forum, when at least 10 students began chanting “fascist military” and throwing eggs and mud, hitting the general on his back and pants, AFP spokesperson Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said. (Published on page A2 of the September 23, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)

So what’s the difference between these two incidents? Like the Holocaust there are various ways to interpret UP incident.

• The liberal interpretation: The APSM statement proposes the liberal neutral interpretation:
“Contrary to accusations, APSM stands for academic freedom. We believe that academic freedom means that a person, organization or institution can articulate ideas and political beliefs without the threat of being harmed in any way. In fact, the presentation of the forum is an attempt to achieve that objective. The military as an institution, just like other actors in society, deserves its right to participate in public discourse and present its ideas and policies. Fora such as the one presented promotes transparency by engaging the military in a public discussion of its ideas and policies.”
This is the usual liberal mantra: dialogue please, but no riot! So while a liberal passionately attacks ideas she dislikes and vigorously defends her own stand, she recoils quickly from asserting the consequences of her viewpoint. So let’s all work for the elimination of violence, but when this requires slightest violence, the liberal shirks. So a liberal deep ecologist can retort: “How dare these green parties cause pain and suffering for those tomatoes!” to which the UP liberal animal right advocates can rejoin: “How dare these Leftists cause pain and suffering to unhatched chicken eggs?” (which of course is questionable because the eggs are bad eggs) That’s why she is often defeated by a staunch conservative who goes through the consequences of what she believes without hesitation. Since a liberal proposes non-violent, peaceful way of resolving conflict, she is bound to be peaceful even if she knows very well that her enemy is cruel. One must be reminded here of Herbert Marcuse’s plea for intolerance:

The tolerance which is the life element, the token of a free society, will never be the gift of the powers that be; it can, under the prevailing conditions of tyranny by the majority, only be won in the sustained effort of radical minorities, willing to break this tyranny and to work for the emergence of a free and sovereign majority - minorities intolerant, militantly intolerant and disobedient to the rules of behavior which tolerate destruction and suppression.” are determined and defined by the institutionalized inequality (which is certainly compatible with constitutional equality), i.e., by the class structure of society. In such a society, tolerance is de facto limited on the dual ground of legalized violence or suppression (police, armed forces, guards of all sorts) and of the privileged position held by the predominant interests and their 'connections'.

Can we not therefore claim that what the students displayed is a kind of “liberating tolerance”? A symbolic act to test the tolerance of the liberal tolerators?

We must insist today on Leninist plea for intolerance and the futility of formal freedom. Formal freedom is the freedom of choice within the coordinates of the existing power relations, while actual freedom designates the site of an intervention that undermines these very coordinates. So within the so-called liberal democratic formal space, you can choose among varieties of dialogue: forum, debate, symposium, lecture, colloquium, roundtable discussion, etc. Egg throwing? No, it’s not in the liberal’s civilized menu!

A more radical reading here presents itself: isn’t the angry protest of the students, against the sector of the military that protects the President and not the People, a real expression of highest military honor: the principle of non-toleration of unethical behavior? And that the throwing of eggs to General Esperon is a symbolic act reminding him of the highest military valor, which is saying NO! to politicians who drag the nation to chaos and division? And if General Esperon claims he is innocent (of involving himself in electoral fraud and omission in the face of political killings), then, all the more he has to show vigorously that the military does not tolerate any form of corruption whether inside or outside the military. Any gesture short of this is to diminish military honor!

Liberals can retort: “But throwing eggs could have been substituted by throwing sour arguments against the General in the forum!” What is hypocritical here is that the liberals who flaunt this argument are doing what Lacan calls as acting out: two people with different, irreconcilable, political beliefs, being nice and sharing congenial glances, when there is a seething antagonism between them. What the egg throwers accomplished is a kind of symbolic act: the suspension of the rules and assertion of one’s passion.

• The “Maybe those who threw them were bad eggs” argument: According to this, UP students who participated were not representative of the entire UP system and therefore they must apologize to clear the stained reputation of UP students. The obscene supplement to this argument is the condescending (but unaristocratic statement of General Esperon): “I still have high regards for UP.” This obscene supplement flattens out the difference between Esperon’s statement and the fetishistic statement: “I still trust the electoral system even if it has room for allowing some politicians to cheat.” This obscene supplement abolishes the remainder between egg throwing and political corruption.

What is missing in this argument is the Hegelian notion of concrete universality. The ideals of the University as empty ideals that must be filled with concrete content. Each generation of UP students must struggle to define what will count as UP values. So if academic freedom is part of UP values, we must leave room for antagonistic negotiation on how to define this value. So the struggle now is: Is the action of the egg-throwers part of that this quasi-Kantian transcendental value? What must not be missed here is that the liberals and detractors of the egg throwers had already scored points by invoking the value of academic freedom: egg throwing against a General violates academic freedom! What an irony! The task of those who are sympathetic to the incident should immediately do is to claim universality on their side. “Yes, the egg throwing is part of our academic freedom!” As Marcuse argues, “According to a dialectical proposition it is the whole which determines the truth--not in the sense that the whole is prior or superior to its parts, but in the sense that its structure and function determine every particular condition and relation. Thus, within a repressive society, even progressive movements threaten to turn into their opposite to the degree to which they accept the rules of the game.” Egg throwing is definitely a refusal to play the liberal coy game..

An Aristocratic Response, Yes, Please!
According to one of the aphorism of German military: “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” And Nietzsche endorses this in the Twilight of the Idols. That is why cruelty and power are so dear to Nietzsche. Miller interprets Nietzsche as saying that, “To exercise actively the will to power, he regards as the essence of life. To exercise this power with abandon is not only to court being cruel but, when cruelty occurs, to enjoy the pain the suffering, the agony that cruelty causes. "To practice cruelty is to enjoy the highest"-note the adjective: the highest -"gratification of the feeling of power." To enjoy the exercise of power is, in effect, to be cruel. And cruelty is the virtue of the noble individuals. As Miller points out BE CRUEL in your resoluteness, welcome the harsh renunciations and sometimes brutal costs of relentlessly pursuing any vaulting ideal, be it wisdom, Godliness, or revolutionary purity. This we may call the cruelty proper to the ascetic, an eagerness to suffer the pains entailed by unswerving commitment to any burning faith or transcendent ambition.” Of course the military and the Rightist can claim they can also be cruel. This is where the liberal are out-smarted: they shy away from inflicting cruelty to realize their ideals, but the reactionaries do not!
Fabricating the Bad Egg Festival

In the age of post-politics, and what Giddens calls as post-traditional society, where new traditions are fabricated, the egg throwing incident is a perfect candidate for staging a festival of spectacle, which eventually can rival the Tomatina (tomato battle) Festival in Bunol, Valencia, Spain, every last Wednesday of August, or the Mr. Tomato Head Festival of Ukrainians, during Indpeendence Day (a festival ushered by the great Ukrainian anarchist, Nestor Makhno). If Nietzsche says, “Without cruelty there is no festival,” we must also assert its obverse: “Without festival there is no cruelty.” Bur whereas Ukrainians throw tomato on the picture of the most corrupt politician, and Spain use tomato, the UP festival can be called Esperon Day, or Bad Eggs Festival. If Alpha Phi Omega fraternity has the Oblation Run, then progressive students can have their own “fabricated” festival.

The One Measure of True Love Is: You Can Insult the Other

This festival should be a reminder to future generation of UP students, that for a brief moment, the students are able to equalize their status differences with the highest military official, no less than the Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. (Because if the incident happened elsewhere it could have been catastrophic!) And that UP can be a freedom zone where statuses do not matter! And that is the highest meaning of RESPECT --A VIRTUE being misrepresented by liberals, and being flaunted by the MILITARY! Esperon deserves RESPECT, yes! --BUT RESPECT on equal terms. As Nietzsche reminds us, respect can only be exercised among equals! THE HIGHEST FORM OF RESPECT THEREFORE IS DISREPECT! As Zizek puts it, “For me there is one measure of true love: you can insult the other... That's the truth of it. If there is true love, you can say horrible things and anything goes.”

Tight Huddles and Hushed Conversations (for Benjamin Alamon on the Occasion of his 66th Bday)

Have I touched your life,
has the wind from the mountain of my soul
rustled through your leaves
like mayas on a ledge
moving like rhythmical mannequins,
have I rested your tired eyes?
After the first torrent
amidst a sky foreboding further ill,
has my chirping chipped the stillness—
Tell me:
Have I given?

- from Clarita Roja’s “The People’s Poem”

I was a wide-eyed “promdi” freshman basking in my first University experiences when I first read this poem. It was printed on a mounted poster and was hung at the University Student Council office at Vinzon’s where I was a student volunteer. During my first year, like the generations before me, I was learning about activism from my peers.

To my mind, activism is the grandest of the University’s traditions. When I first entered the University from Katipunan thirteen years ago, it was perhaps fitting that the first building in campus that I ever saw was Vinzons with the Bonifacio monument gracing its front. Because, I would later on discover, within its hallowed halls walked generations of the country’s brightest youths who answered the call of Bonifacio, the revolutionary. Instead of the official and passive Oblation, it is Bonifacio with his outstretched arms and wielding a bolo that best represents the history of activism against tyranny and injustice waged by generations of the University’s students where it matters most - outside the four-walls of the classroom.

I have since then never left the University, even when the University has practically pushed me away. Neither have I exactly heeded Bonifacio’s challenge of realizing an activism outside the confines of the University. Wasn’t it him who supposedly shouted “Sugod mga kapatid!”? (strange that this revolutionary call is now a dionysian cry for a night of partying rock and roll style, thanks to sandwich - the band). After all, though belatedly realized, the natural logic of activism is to go beyond the academe, away from the technocrats and gigantic academic egos who fuss over their little Diliman republic while the rest of the country continues to teeter on the edge of a social volcano. And the heat of the on-going social turmoil is now felt even in urban areas, relatively far from the countryside where a movement for change being waged by brave young men and women is met by State violence with impunity.

The daily news tally the increasing number of the dead and the missing but these numbers do not tell the real stories of comrades, friends, and family who will never be seen again. Instead, their quiet heroisms are spoken about in tight huddles and hushed conversations by those who were fortunate enough to have witnessed these. Amidst the climate of controlled fear and the put-on hubris of activists convincing themselves that they are probably far from the military’s order of battle, these stories are welcome encouragements for continued militance and hope.

There is the story of a popular figure in the University who has earned for herself a stature that only the respected in the academe attain. One would think that with her intellect and experience, nothing could unsettle her. Being a veteran of earlier struggles, she displayed skepticism about the persistent logic of the revolution that continues to draw in the young for a cause that seemed to her to be old and tired. She was particularly disapproving of her nephews and nieces’ activism, a number of which took on a revolutionary conviction for change. Echoing the thoughts of many who have turned their backs against the movement, she probably thought to herself that this “revolution” wastes the talent and innocence of those who die for it. But it was the violent yet honorable death of her niece that would touch her perhaps in ways that she never expected.

Her niece was a 20 year-old red fighter who was killed in a military raid just a couple of months ago. It was when they retrieved her body from the community where her niece served that she finally understood what was it that kept her from going home, far from her mother and the comforts of a middle class existence. She learned that her niece belonged to a medical unit of the NPA who used alternative medical practices like acupuncture and herbal medicine and administered these to poor farming communities that needed them most. Her death was deeply felt by the community. They carefully brought her bullet-riddled body down from the site of the raid and then had her washed and embalmed. In a gesture that was perhaps meant to erase the indignity of her death, the town folk then collectively pitched in to buy, for their well-loved Blondie – a moniker she earned because of her light brown hair and mestiza features, a decent ukay-ukay dress from the local thriftshop to adorn her gutted body. It was this outpouring of love and respect for Blondie from the community that allowed her Aunt to witness this other face of the “revolution”.

It is indeed tragically poignant that more than a hundred years since our nation was first imagined in the minds of our revolutionary forefathers, here we are, still in a painful bloodletting just to realize that same dream, where the young and the brightest still offer their lives to fulfill the parched aspirations of this “sad republic”. However, it is precisely the certainty of the young across generations about the possibility and necessity for change that provides us with hope. Edel Garcellano intimated this idea in his piece “Bali-balita” on Karen and Sherlyn, the two UP students who remain missing to this day. Reflecting on the courage of these two as they take the less beaten and treacherous path in serving the people, he writes: “Marahil anuman ang mangyayari, inisip nilang baka pagsisihan sa dakong huli ang di pagsunod sa kutob at lohika ng nararapat sa mundo.” Such an observation captures the steeled determination of those who find themselves on the side of change. This conviction is embodied in their selfless offering of life, trusting that their lives and deaths, no matter how short, violent, and gruesome, would correspond to a nimble yet sure step towards attaining our collective aspirations.

Blondie’s death has already made a dent in the worldview of her Aunt. She now stands shoulder-to-shoulder with students and colleagues in the campaigns against political killings on campus and outside, understanding perhaps that her niece was very much a victim of the same State violence that continues to target dreamers like Blondie, Karen, and Sherlyn together with the 744 victims of this present administration. She may even find herself reassessing her own stance towards activists and even revolutionaries. Because, despite what those who have turned their backs against the revolution say because of its mistakes, this enduring revolution still beats with the hearts of the young and the righteous. Just like them at some point in their lives, they continue to be convinced that there is no other way. And they are correct; there is no other way. Blondie’s death and the UP students’ continuing disappearance are an affirmation of this political truth.

And so I am reminded of this poem by Clarita Roja whenever I hear stories like these in our tight huddles and hushed conversations, whenever I come across people with the boundless love of those who side with change, whenever I hear about how a life no matter how short yet so well-spent is capable of putting fire in the hearts of legions. Among the many ills that plague this nation, let us count ourselves fortunate for there are still those like Blondie, Karen and Sherlyn, who, in my mind, after giving their everything for the future of this nation, still ask the question: “Tell me, have I given?”

MORE NOSTALGIA!

Politics and Nostalgia (for old friends)

(Note: The previous post was a concession to dear friends who observed that my posts were too political for my own good. With their biding, I wallowed in nostalgia and wrote that piece that ended up as an early midlife crisis indicator. So I owe them my thanks for their concern as well as the enjoyment of writing that blog. Here is an explanatory essay for those who are bored, bothered, concerned, etc. over my political posts.)

We all find our own space in this world. That is what I say to myself when I come across friends who do not understand my political convictions. This after I sense their veiled incredulity over ideas that to their minds seem so divorced from the possible and the passion with which I hold them. I guess passion sometimes begets apathy (since this is the age of irony) and I have been dismissively pigeon-holed as the “messianic one” or worse as a “bigot,” of having certain beliefs about our world and its faults and inflicting them against anyone unfortunate enough to be within hearing distance. Some friends once predicted that I would either become a politician or worse a cult leader of a self-made religion indicating the negative reputation I have earned for myself over the years. I ended up as a teacher perhaps to their consternation since I would still have an audience for my “dangerous” ideas. Thus, every drinking session would end with the obligatory return to the good ‘ol times, to nostalgia in order to placate the ruffled feathers of my middle class friends after I challenge the implications of the lives we “chose” to lead. And I would take a swig off my stale beer and mutter to myself that “we all find our space in this world.” After all, who am I to shatter their illusions?

This is a cop-out of course, an admission that ideas, no matter how promising they may be, cannot bridge the contingent paths that our lives have taken. It’s the same as saying that although we share so many beginnings, over time, we have become different people where the only thing common is our past. We have met new people along the way, new loves, new beliefs, new responsibilities that now define the boundaries of our reality. And sometimes, other realities just don’t fit in our careers, lifestyles, family life and other trappings that have come to define our middle class lives. Yet, if only for a moment, for that once a year reunion when I am quizzed about my involvements, there I was pricking their safe cocoons and violating the things that they hold dear by the ideas that I hold. For all I know, these ideas barely registered amidst the din of laughter and at best its effect is an unwelcome headache. Crazy me with my politics and all like a broken record.

But conviction is precisely predicated on the principle that it may be correct, and sharing it with others is in fact a test of validity instead of a belief in certainty. In other words, when one speaks about convictions it is not to pledge to a single bigoted standard of truth, but at the very least, an assertion that certain realities are shared, since we still inhabit “a common space” where it is possible for us to agree and achieve common convictions.

And so “we all find our place in the world” but this does not mean an individual autonomous space disassociated from everyone else. I would like to believe that there is more that binds us beyond the nostalgia for the good ‘ol times. Though we have been thrown together by the contingent circumstances of our childhood, and then thrown apart by fate, we still face the same social realities wherever we may physically be, no matter how rich or poor we are. I am therefore assuming that my truths could be yours. This is the premise of my (and perhaps all) politics.

Innocence and The Dawn (for Cookie and Chaos in China)

(the picture above is my high school band's best impersonation of The Dawn pose taken way back in 1989)

What is the life-expectancy rate of the average Filipino male? If you factor in approximately ten cigs per day since first year College (that’s minus 5 minutes x number of cigs) and the “busy” sedentary lifestyle I’ve been living (Downloading, taking a drag from cigs, writing reports, checking e-mail - how busy could you get without getting up from one’s chair? It’s called multi-tasking baby!), and the hereditary diabetes, cancer, etc. etc. and other negative health-related pre-dispositions that is imprinted in my genes, I figured that it is possible for me to drop dead anytime soon. I am now reminded of the thoughts of the great existentialist sages about how life is about death and death is life. To paraphrase Sartre and all these angsty white dead European males disaffected by the failures of modernity, being truly alive means being conscious of death’s constant presence. To live is to prepare for that final second before death when scenes in your life comes back to you like a sequence from your favorite new wave MTV with the fog and all. The ultimate test of one’s life is when you ask yourself the question, “how has my life been?” in this final moment. And there are only two possible answers – contentment or regret.

These existentialist ideas may very well be the subjective premise behind everyone’s favorite activity these days, especially for our generation who grew up in the 80s. By the law of demographics, those of us who achieved consciousness in this decade are now entering (or even way past) the half-way mark of a 60-year lifespan. Our confrontation with the inevitable truth regarding our fleeting youth and our “creeping death” cause us to wallow in what has come to be called as NOSTALGIA – an act of remembering the artifacts of a time in the past IN defiance of the natural logic of our fading memory and weakening bodies.

Although all generations inevitably have their own nostalgic artifacts as a cultural marker of sorts of their time, like how our parents enjoyed Engelbert Humperdnick, Matt Monroe or if they are a little bit younger and way cooler – The Beatles, the generation of the 80s had That’s Entertainment, McGyver, and other cultural artifacts that defined our time. Of course, we remember spraynet, aquanet, USED jeans, shoulder pads and THE BANGS and all these mementos deserve their own essay (just to ensure that the humongous bangs of the 80s are remembered as feats of structural engineering for the knowledge of future generations). But I will be writing about a band that captured the zeitgeist or the spirit of the times best especially for me. 20 years since they first produced a song, they are gaining a new momentum of sorts with a digital rock film (it’s more Almost Famous than Spinal Tap) and new releases in the pipeline.

Not everyone liked them. For instance, my wife averred that she was into Swing Out Sister instead (Break Out). However, in the heady days of the late 80s, in the period right after the dictatorship, there I was in my puberty, holding a red Octoarts tape in hand. One of my first record purchases ever. On the cover was a picture of the band “behind shadows.” One character was especially striking – he had long hair, wore make-up and he had the most piercing eyes. He was Teddy Diaz, and the band of course, is The Dawn.

I did not know then, since there was still no worldwide web, that Teddy and the group had very strong religious convictions. It was only recently that I learned that they were named after the “dawning” of the Holy Mumu (Holy Spirit for you) – a religious painting. But back then, when we had no choice but watch Christian programs like the 700 Club and The Forerunner (and The World Tomorrow, PO Box 2623 Manila, That’s the World Tomorrow [repeat]…), while waiting for Uncle Bob’s Lucky Seven Club to come on, it was kinda scary putting on the tape on our player and hearing an operatic voice sing out his “enveloped ideas” when the cover of the album had at least one representation of Satan. It was only Teddy of course with his goth look which predated The Crow by a good couple of years. After watching Pat Robertson telling you that rock is the devil’s music and then he would proceed to show a clip of The Cure’s “The Blood” and deconstruct the song from the perspective of Christian Fundamentalism, it can get pretty convincing. I believe it was the height of a curious Christian revivalist movement that swept the islands. Suddenly people professed of being born again and smashed ceramic religious icons on the streets. I remember our practical arts teacher, who, instead of teaching us how to turn used cooking oil cans into dustpans, decided to back-mask Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” in class to prove that Satan is behind rock (“Listen, Freddie Mercury is telling us that he wants to smoke marijuana!”) and that we should, young as we were, accept JC into our lives to be saved from the eternal fires of hell. For a young boy of eleven, in a room by himself, it was a big deal to put on The Dawn, and if Pat Robertson was being truthful, unwittingly court the Devil’s presence. Who knows if the intro of Enveloped Ideas was really a Satanic prayer (there was also talk of Satanic cults kidnapping children in order to rip their young hearts as a sacrifice for the Devil at that time).

I played the tape just the same. But I always stopped the tape before it reached Susi. Though I was not scared of the devil, I was more scared of engkantos, duwendes and other multo that the song easily conjured. In hindsight, young as I was, it was an act of defiance. You remember when you were young, it was as if God, the Holy Mumu and the whole entourage, spoke to you in booming voices inside your head to remind you what is wrong, that the devil is near? Putting on that tape meant silencing these voices for a moment and learning a different, exciting and brave language against the odds. It was the language of rock ringing poignantly and clearly in Teddy Diaz’s riffs (imagine hearing Teddy’s intro guitar riffs to Enveloped Ideas here). God knows what Jett was singing about with his high-faluttin’ obscure pa-deep lyrics, but I knew it was my language, and it spoke my voice. And The Dawn was not alone in teaching me this new idiom. Music by The Cure , U2 and place-your-new-wave-band-here were all speaking this strange new language which appealed to me in a very strange visceral manner.

Of course, I did not turn into a devil-worshipping, heart-ripping drug addict just because I listened to The Dawn. But something indeed snapped at the core of my young being after listening to The Dawn and other bands like them. My Dawn fanaticism would reach its apex when their second album was released. I Stand With You remains a timeless record. To my mind, it stands there with Boy by U2 in terms of its power to deliver a visceral sonic assault to the heart and body (ISWY was like Metallica in a brit-sophisticated way, did Teddy use metalzone before it was even invented by BOSS?). Whereas I was content learning the simple but effective lead to Enveloped Ideas in my own private time with a borrowed guitar (it took me weeks just to get the notes right), I just had to up the ante after hearing the album’s title track.

The guitar parts of the song was structured like a symphony. It starts out very much like Beethoven’s Emperor and soars just like the piece in the end. Unable to fathom the complex fretwork, and it just would not be effective without a distortion pedal, I smashed my cousin’s cheap acoustic guitar (Hello, Cindy! Now you know, sorry!) and kept the fretboard with a segment of its hollow body. “Now, it could pass off as an electric guitar!,” I thought to myself. Who could resist playing air guitar to “I Stand with You”? In lazy afternoons, or in the morning, whenever the mood hits me, I would play that particular song, and stand before an imaginary crowd with my “guitar” in hand and play in synchronicity with the record. I would reach air guitar orgasm when Teddy’s lead would reach the highest notes and shift to power chords at the songs outro. Damn! What a great song! I would pretend that I was Teddy Diaz playing at “Concert at the Park” in 1987. I would spin around just like him while playing long and indulgent solos. The punks on the crowd would love it. Despite the strong rains, none of them would leave as I play the muted chords of “Dreams’” Intro, you know, the one that sounds like early Cure. My rock star fantasies would be occasionally halted with the arrival of my father. Otherwise, my daily imaginary performances would stretch to a whole complete set, capping the concert with “Love Will Set Us Free”.

With my father’s office nearby, there were many people in the house in most times. At first, they were immensely amused seeing this 11 year-old doing his air guitar without a care for the world (if the drumming part of the song is excellent, like the trademark high-hat of JB, I would switch to air drumming). I remember them in a huddle with my elder brother secretly making fun of me. But I guess my resolute (I had more in my repertoire such as another air guitar favorite - Bad (live) by U2) in being weird gained for me their tolerance. It was the type of tolerance reserved for those who are misunderstood. I guess I just weirded them out in the same way that I weirded out my batchmates with my music fanaticism. Later on, I would find out that it was just a case of me getting ahead of them for a couple of years in terms of musical appreciation. They would finally find their rock and roll “voice” with bands like Bon Jovi (Bed of Roses for Raffy), Fra Lippo Lippi (Beaty and Madness for VJ) and Extreme (More than Words for Anne(x) hahaha). But the Dawn always assumed a special place in our hearts. Especially, when they released the single “Salamat.”

The significance of the song is of course given greater meaning by the senseless death of Teddy Diaz in 1988. In the same way that rock journalists always fetishized the death of John Lennon - they would ask rock icons where they were and how they felt when they learned that Mark Chapman, while holding a dog-eared copy of Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye in one hand, shot John Lennon outside his NY apartment - I’ve never forgotten how I knew of Teddy Diaz’s death. In that fateful August afternoon, of all people, Inday Badiday came on the air in that trademark voice and announced the tragic death of Teddy in her show Eye to Eye. Come to think of it, demographically speaking once again, his passing was my first real and tangible experience of death. When my lolos passed away in the early 80s, I was too young to be affected by their deaths. In my adolescent years, when I have began to understand the meaning of death as a possible disappearing into nothingness and my parent’s still seemed immortal, it was Teddy’s murder which provided my first tangible experience about passing away. My immediate concern was “what will happen to the music?” Apparently, I was not alone in asking this question.

There was no doubt that Teddy was the heart of the band and he provided not only musical direction but was also largely responsible for the phenomenal response of young people to their music. It was one thing to listen to his riffs but it was another seeing him even just on television. Lost in his music, he would conjure a palpable energy between his guitar, himself and the audience. I was too young to watch the Storm concerts live aside from being too far away (I spent a better portion of my growing up years both in Manila and Cagayan de Oro), but seeing the telecast of the Concert at the Park performances (there were two I believe), which I waited for with bated breath every Sunday evening in Channel 4 (or 7? Tama ba?) nearing midnight (to my great disappointment, sometimes they would feature a segment on kundiman instead after waiting for weeks), I could feel the energy that even a taped delayed telecast could not dampen. Did you see the people there in the rain? They were enthralled by this guitar god who spoke a mystical language through his feedback and distortion. With his passing, the question on everybody’s mind was “will they continue or disband?” Can they pull it off without Teddy?

The answer came in the form of a song. It was one of the last songs that Teddy supposedly wrote and it was a swan song, a requiem aria of sorts that was apt in its allusion to a departed friend. It was so effective and became the band’s break out single since it referenced an almost mythical narrative about the band given the obstacles that they now face without their musical leader. The song “Salamat” became the anthem of the band without Teddy and the people rallied to their support. To this day, the song remains their most recognizable single and proved to everyone that they remain a musical force to be reckoned with despite Teddy’s death. For many early fans like me, the success of the song also meant letting go of a privileged intimacy between a fan and a band that is only possible before a band reaches a degree of success like that achieved by The Dawn at this period. The commercial endorsements ensured that the band’s music reached a greater number of people across the archipelago.

I am no rock historian but I believe when they played in Cagayan de Oro during the “Beyond the Bend” period, it was the first rock concert to have been staged in the City in ages. I would imagine Asin to have played in the City during the early 80s or late 70s, but for a long time, there was no common cultural event for the youthful misfits of the City to take part of. By this time, I have managed to convince some of my batchmates of the genius of this Filipino band. So there we were, five 12 year-olds (Jon, Macoy, Ralph, Raffy and Me – the original members of our high school band Chaos in China!), in our first rock concert that in so many ways would change our lives. We stood out from the rest of the crowd. Aside from perhaps being the youngest, we were all from middle class families studying in one of the more reputable private schools in the City. Around us were teeners who appeared to be from seedier parts of the City or at least projected themselves to be. When the lights went out at the beginning of the show, all of those from the general patronage section jumped the fences and descended upon us in unison (a tactic that served me well during the China Crisis concert at the PICC recently – to the chagrin of the y/preppies from Makati). A punk who was dancing with himself decided to topple the lighting rig that stood on the floor of the gym in a moment of joyous rebellion. Good thing no one was hurt. For sure, the organizers were flabbergasted by the scene of anarchy never before seen in this laidback City in Northern Mindanao. People in the balcony were brandishing bottles of San Miguel Beer Grande as the band ripped through their set list with songs from their first three albums and a San Miguel Beer jingle. It was while the band was singing this beer jingle that a rattan chair (yes, they were foolish enough to have chairs then in a rock concert) flew through the air and hit Jett Pangan. The band stopped playing midway, walked out and the lights went on. They came back and played a couple more songs after Martin Galang negotiated with the crowd. This time the lights of the gym were all left open to control the crowd.

We just stood there immobilized by everything that was happening around us. It was a heady mix of excitement, dread (what will our parents say if they heard about what happened here?), and anticipation. I don’t know about the rest of my friends who were also there, including two of our girl classmates who went by themselves (Bernie and Marge ba? hahaha), but for me, it was my introduction to the sexy and dangerous energy of live performance. These punks were my comrades, they perhaps understood why one can’t help but do air guitar in good parts of a rock song. At the same time, while my first rock concert affirmed all my fantasies about performing before an electrified audience, and the collective joy of moshing, which caused me and my friends to eventually form a band in high school and college, the flying chair incident was also an awakening of sorts for me. The Dawn without Teddy was not what it used to be. For me, the passionate, joyous, and sincere playing of Teddy Diaz stood in sharp contrast to the state of the band at this point. They are now playing beer jingles albeit in arenas before huge crowds. It was the beginning of a long train of disappointments that in hindsight is actually the hallmark of growing up.

But I never lost love for the band. After all, it was only music and I was going to have my own band. Who knows ? We might be able to capture a little bit of that same Teddy Diaz magic? The Dawn became even bigger than ever. They reached their apex with the release of “Iisang Bangka” a couple of years later. Mining the same themes as “Salamat” it was the perfect anthem for graduating high school seniors all over the country at that time. We were a high school batch of three sections, with each section exhibiting its own unique characteristics. I belonged to the nerdy section that had the reputation of being the teachers’ favorites. For four years, there was a clear though unspoken rivalry between our section and the rest of the batch which manifested in our failure to deliver a winning performance for the annual high school-level cheering competition. We were in our final year and we wanted to prove that these artificial boundaries were surmountable. We will win this cheering competition no matter what. And so we brainstormed. Unlike other batches who relied on external help or who took their cues from faculty coordinators, we collectively pitched in to craft our cheer. And our theme was, guess what? “Iisang Bangka.” By this time, the veterans of the Cagayan de Oro The Dawn concert (with a few additions and subtractions) were already a performing rock band, and we volunteered to be the back-up band to the cheering performance of our batch. While the other year levels had drum and bugle accompaniments, we had a full rock band. We never won the top prize for cheering even in that final year but hearing all 119 shout in unison – “Ating liliparin, may harang mang sibat! Ating tatawirin, daluyong ng DAGAT (everyone’s favorite part)! Basta’t kasama mo ako, iisang bangka tayo! Ano man ang mithiin ay makakamtan natin!” we were definitely the victors on that day. (In hindsight, naïve populism wasn’t so bad when you are young and didn’t know any better. Hehehe ) Jett, if only for this moment, you are forgiven for singing that San Miguel Beer jingle in Cagayan de Oro almost twenty years ago, and this forgiveness even extends to the current ideologically-problematic Alaxan commercial.

And so here I am, many years later, in a coffee shop, trying to put a plug to this outpouring of nostalgia by writing this blog. It has been two days since I saw the indie film “Tulad ng Dati” about The Dawn and even though it was fictional I was taken aback by the honesty in the way the band confronted their legacy as well as how the film approached a host of fancy existentialist issues. It is at once an indictment of the present state of the music industry as well as a coming to terms of sorts. The most touching and meaningful part of the film for me was when Jett embraced Teddy’s ghost and bawled in a farewell scene. Teddy was not just a dear friend who was sorely missed but Teddy also represented the kernel of every existentialist nostalgia trip – the sad yet beautiful pining for loss innocence.