bato-bato sa langit kung tamaan huwag magalit…

Kanta Filipina: Theresa Calpotura, solo guitar
Compositions, arrangements, & transcriptions of Bayani de Leon
VGo recording 2010, Compact Disc

Choosing driving music is typically unchallenging. All you need is that it matches the beat of the road. In this world of high speed freeways, jet travel, and lighting fast communications, traditional Philippine music may seem like an anomalous rhythmic oddity.  This is the kind of music one would listen on a quiet beach or in some sultry pastoral setting with animals grazing and trees swaying gently in the wind.  The titles in this CD tell it all - Maglalatik (a dance); Paalam sa Pagkadalaga (farewell to maidenhood); Pandangguhan (fandango); these are Philippine traditional songs and dances that evoke much of its pre-modern rural culture.  The other songs are of the same genre – love songs to be precise, composed or transcribed for guitar by Bayani De Leon, of the well-known and respected Felipe de Leon family of musicians. The album also features new gems for guitar music like Jose Rizal’s Pastores de Belen in the style of villancico (ca 1861) and Sa Pinto ng Langit (ca 1882) of the zarzuela genre. Rizal is the revered Philippine national hero, a novelist, a sculptor, and now a musician. The artist, young Filipina guitarist Theresa Calpotura, provided the right timbre and lilt one expects from this music.  Typical interpretations of this genre of music tend to be on the heavy side, playing to its sultriness  and the tradition of the kundiman (tearful love songs). Ms. Calpotura’s rendition displayed exquisite skill of interpretation and disciplined finger mechanics, making the natural bell like qualities of her guitar evoke the freshness and pristine nature of the music.  Her rendering of the dances like Maglalatik and Pandangguhan exhibits a good pulse that highlights de Leon’s rythmic and harmonic innovations for a traditional genre.  No doubt, the excellent training and schooling from the masters of the SF Conservatory of Music has produced an artist of remarkable caliber and promise.

Taking this music on the road was not my original purpose. But after a few weeks on listening to it as I drove the winding road of Highway 17 to Santa Cruz where I teach, I realized that I was driving to the music. The rolling hills and slow curves the vehicle  took   became measured to the tempo of the music swaying as it were at each turn of the steering wheel. This oneness with the music – while driving- produces a relaxing effect one least expects from this music. For a brief half an hour or so, the world seemed to  have  slowed down and it sounded beautiful.

Andres Segovia, the father of modern classic guitar,  declared that  playing the guitar is easy. Playing it well is something else. Kanta Filipina, a collection of Philippine music transcribed for the guitar evokes both characteristics – music that sounds easy to play but difficult to really play well.  The guitarist, Filipina Theresa Calpotura in this album has  accorded  the music and its composer their rightful place in the illustrious pantheon of Philippine instrumental music.

A year a half ago, in 2007, the Asian Museum ran an exhibit of influential Filipino painters, artists who not only defined the aesthetic and pictorial representation of the Filipino but also defined its national public/international image (see post http://kalutang.net/blog/?p=27 ).  These were Juan Luna, the erstwhile and controversial colleague of Jose Rizal; Fernando Amorsolo, the “father of the portrayal of bucolic life and brown beauty”; and Zobel de Ayala, purveyor of 20th century culture and art and scion of the Ayala business empire. Considering the logistics of setting up an exhibit of this scale, the Asian Museum did a remarkable job. The problem was in the context of the museum’s holdings and programming, the Filipino presence is not persistent and consistent.  There is for example, no permanent Filipino exhibit compared to the Chinese, Japanese and East Indian collections.   So two years later, the Asian Museum tried to address this and offered in collaboration with the Office of the San Francisco Mayor and Target Corp., another ‘tasting’ of Filipino culture and heritage, which coincidentally was also a celebration of the Filipino-American Heritage Month, an annual tribute in the State of California’s civic calendar that Filipino-American associations, especially FAHNS, assiduously lobbied for.  This year’s event, in fact was propitious, given the economic environment most cities are experiencing, including San Francisco.  I gathered this much from Rodel Rodis, erstwhile Filipino American spokesman, political gadfly, and activist who described to me how, in fact this would have not happened, had he and others not intervened to encourage the City to find the money to fund this event. The Filipino American public should be grateful to these personalities and associations for the opportunity to offer a slice, a ‘tasting’, of what constitutes some aspects of the Filipino heritage.

This time, I took along with me a good friend, his daughter and her daughter’s classmate for a short adventure in Filipino land. Events like this are tricky from an educational perspective, since they are by logistical necessity, fragmented and inconsistent.  This is not anyone’s fault. What is really needed ia a Filipino-American cultural center, just as the blacks have the Museum of African Diaspora or like the Jewish museum, where permanent collections could be established and where Filipino culture is not merely insinuated within the rubric of Asian or Pacific Islander, and so on, specially when museums need to fill a programming gap. (I digress here. This is a future blog topic.).

On the floor, there were many options and we couldn’t find the story telling group. So we let the girls lead the way.  The two girls in my party, (one is half-mestizo Filipino/Chinese, the other half white/Chinese), enjoyed making sipa (an ancient  game similar to hacky sack, but unlike its volley-ball like technique, a sipa player’s skill is determined by how long he/she can keep the sipa on air by bouncing the sipa shuttle with inside of his foot (or the outside of her foot) repeatedly, a game that is definitely not for arthritic seniors who are now paying for all those Big Macs ingested in a lifetime.  It didn’t matter that the girls couldn’t kick it like natives, the fun was in making the sipa, by far more elaborate that the one I have played with as a child. This contraption had a washer for weight, rice paper to wrap around it and colorful feathers bound by pipe cleaner wire around it to give it balance in the air.  I couldn’t find someone at that time to demonstrate the proper way of kicking it, but I suppose that’s what happens to cultural memory as it migrates across the oceans, just as parol-making  (lantern) and its parade towards Christimas time along Mission Street, is reinvoked as Walter Benjamin would say, not as history but as theatre.  The alibata (ancient calligraphy) experience was less successful, strangely so since the girls have Chinese progeny and would have been exposed to its calligraphy. Maybe it was the presentation. Instead the girls quickly got lost in the Museum shop while awaiting the next show in the auditorium. Like any curious school child, they checked out the books and the expensive displays (gasp!) but realized that with their school allowance, they couldn’t afford a cheap fan at $8 !  So off we went to the auditorium to catch a few songs from Evelie, another one of those erstwhile Filipino -American performers who have been around long enough in the public stage to blend a program of Tagalog songs with Native American and Buddhist music  that at times gave an impression of ethnicized New Age music (no offense). The girls couldn’t  appreciate the music. I was left  to enjoy a couple of nice renditions of jazzy Filipino music from the Little Brown Brothers combo.  The girls  would be back later for the dance show. Left to myself, I went for a quick gulp of Museum coffee which is where I chanced upon Rodel and his friends. Among other things we had a short banter about History,  but I was anxious to catch the showing of the video ” The Gift of  Barong” which unfortunately conflicted with dance show upstairs. The film was a surfers self-discovery of Filipino culture and I wasn’t disappointed (another future blog topic).  Neither were the girls disappointed with dance show. Like most kids, they love movement and as their father told me, they took on to the costumes and the music at once.  By now, the girls were satiated with so much culture but still had  room for some culinary experience. Appropriately enough the Cafe offered adobong chicken (leg) and lumpia. This is not your typical mom’s or lola’s adobo (chicken must be chopped in small bite size pieces, not the whole leg) and the lumpia shanghai was not wrapped in rice but in egg roll wrapper (Filipino dorm kids have ritualized this with authentic panache). Thankfully, there was a vinegar dip to rescue its authenticity.  The girls’ taste buds were not prejudiced to judge the real from the contrived. Their hunger was gustatory not cultural and soon enough the chicken leg adobo was consumed.  Filled with enough heritage, we would have called it a day and head back for Palo Alto except that I thought that the girls should round off their experience with halo-halo at Goldilocks Mt. View, a lone outpost of Filipino gustatory excess in the midst of Chinese and Mexican dives. A concoction of sweet red beans, gulaman (jello) bits, saba (plantain)  chunks, rice (pinipig) crispies, beneath a layer of crushed ice soaked in milk and topped with ube (yam) ice cream; the halo-halo is a reflection of Filipino heritage, an eclectic melange of conflicting tastes and confusing progeny that those who are uneducated in it  find it perplexing and sometimes annoying. The girls obviously loved it.

Under the ebullient and easy cultural jokes of Kevin Nadal, a sad and grim story about the Filipino American psyche emerges. Dr. Nadal, an Assistant Professor of psychology at City University of New York College of Criminal Justice,  grew up and went to school in the East Bay.  He is therefore familiar and accustomed to the difficulties of growing up Pinoy in the Bay Area. Later as a student and then as a Ph.D, he vowed that he would aspire and dedicate his scholarship and academic life towards educating and exposing to the Filipinos in America the basis for their uneasy existence in the United States. An existence that is statistically disturbing in proportion and in relation to fellow minorities and people of color.  The Filipino American earns a dubious distinction  of  having the  “highest” in almost any category of concern and potential areas of social intervention: highest number of men with HIV, highest number of high school dropouts, highest number of incidence of diabetes in women, highest number of teenage pregnancy, highest number of cases in breast cancer, and other litanies of health and social ills that Dr. Nadal enumerated at a talk at Stanford last night.  What is ironic about this revelation of numbers is that despite these recognized ills, Filipino Americans are the least to take advantage of either counseling, health assistance, or to seek intervention.  Dr. Nadal cites many reasons for this among them, the complicated cultural baggage that carry over to the U.S. — colonialism, utang ng loob, bahala na, hiya, kapwa, etc., he named a few,  that serve as a barrier to taking the first step towards accessing  the assistance of friends, services, or mental health practitioners to resolve these inner conflicts. The talk served as an occasion to promote his newly published book: Kevin Nadal. Filipino American Psychology: A Handbook of Theory, Research and Clinical Practice. Authorhouse: Indiana, 2009 (a full review follows later).  Aimed as a guide for mental health practitioners, it is a timely contribution to a  professional practice  not widely accepted within the Filipino community and the reasons for it Dr. Nadal illustrates and analyzes. It also would serve as a guide for parents and  school guidance counselors in dealing with psycho-cultural issues that ensue at home and at school. Buy it. Read it.

Music & lyrics by Florante Aguilar and directed by Alleluia Panis

I am a bit ambivalent about this production especially since it was advertised as an “opera”, definitely a misnomer, and especially since I am familiar with the choreographer and the composer/guitarist, both of whom I do admire.  But more so, because at the outset, there was not a single gripping scene that would want me to feel nostalgia nor patriotic or even sentimental. In fact, I felt tired after the performance, tired from struggling how to process the performance, the instrumental music, and the singing. Perhaps because having run out of balcony seats, I had to settle for a midsection seating that unfortunately did not contribute to a satisfactory listening experience, for in that seating section, the instrumental music was blaring and persistently loud, that were it not for the splendid projection of Candida, I would have had the opportunity to savor her pleasant mezzo soprano timbre.  I cannot say the same for Macario who at times sounded as if he was mumbling his lines (it could have been a technical issue). Having said that, overall, the music showed originality particularly in the percussive moments when it broke away from the typical 3/4 slow waltz genre Filipino folk music has come to be identified with, although the volume of the sound from where I sat did not give me the opportunity to fully enjoy the glissandos and “hagod” that was admirably played by the cellist. Now, the “hagod” for the discerning listeners out there, is a momentary cessation of playing at the end of a glissando where the last note is carried across, held in suspense, then  resolves to a tonal focus, usually a minor chord. This is often described as “sugary” but is a mark of a good “harana” (serenade) and if performed well could very well mean a woman’s acquiesce to the serenader. I expected a serenade at least, but was not indulged. Which probably where my ambivalence stems from.  The program notes (unfortunately, until I can get hold of the libretto, this would be only reference point other than my not too precise recollection – it would have been a simple matter to print out the lyrics), describes the song cycle as a sequence of songs that weave into a narrative, pieced together from childhood memories of the composer growing up in the town of Kawit, in the province of Cavite. Hence literally, where the term “lalawigan” comes from – province. Before this term was colonized and transliterated into the English ‘province’ or probinsya (hispanized Tagalog) it was the ideal site of local, romantic, and bucolic sentiments before it was overtaken in importance by the City, a modern phenomenon, of which Cavite (as city) now is an integral part of Greater Manila’s urban sprawl along the coast of Manila Bay. Cavite and Kawit, the historic town which saw the birth of a nation – Filipinas, was far removed from Manila, the City. Until the South Superhighway was built, going to Cavite overland was an ardous trip through the hills of Tagaytay and its backroads. Cavite was so isolated that it had the notorious (unfortunately) reputation as a haven for bandits that made law men afraid to venture into. Just as in the past, it was a safe haven for the Katipunan revolutionaries who fought against Spain and the Americans and where the latter were only able to contain the guerrillas by “hamleting” the province – a method of starving guerrillas from popular support.  Cavite, the lalawigan, therefore offered safe haven for the Macario in this production, whose character was inspired according to the program notes, by a real life Katipunan hero, Macario Sakay.   The notion of lalawigan then is a call for that  idyllic, pre-modern scenario. In the context of the revolutionary Katipunan ideals, lalawigan envisioned the simple life, of honesty, of religion,  of purity and nobility, characterizations evoked by the main characters plain fisher folks, Candida and Isagani, who are played by Kristine Sinajon and Kyle de Ocera. As the narrative unfolds, Isagani (and the whole town no doubt) supported the guerrilla activities of Macario, played by Raymond Bagatsing. Macario’s objective was to capture weapons from the enemy, the Kastila.  Much mention of the Kastila abounds. But curiously, the Kastila remains an ephemeral object and is not physically represented until late in the production, nor were their oppressiveness symbolized or why even they have to be fought. Herein lies, in part, my ambiguity. Is the production a longing for the past and all its virtues as esconced in the notion of lalawigan, or is it a postmodern interpretation of bygone historical event which appears a-patriotic and even a-nationalistic devoid of flagwaving, anticolonial rhetoric cast in a contemporary song genre?  When Isagani is commanded by Macario to attack the enemy, he obeys the ideals of purity, faith, and nobility in spite of  Macario’s agnostic mockery of Isagani’s faith. Isagani dies of course, and the poor heartbroken  Candida agonizes for Isagani for years yet was unable to bring herself to suicide, and instead becomes the town’s mad woman. Colonization does creates severe pychosis.  The final scene puts Macario being dragged into center stage by a soldier. Presumably, a Kastila – tall, boots, tatoo and all (but could very be interpreted as American).  As the music reaches a crescendo, with lots of rasguedos and percussion,  the sound of gunfire drops Macario onto the ground into a crumpled heap. [The real Macario Sakay, was arrested by Americans in connivance with native officials, tried and hanged in 1907, one of the last hold outs of the Revolution of 1896, thus paving the way for the creation of the Philippine Assembly, the first steps in the America's "Benevolent" program of colonization.] If this is what Alleluia means in her introduction to the program when she says we still contend with the “scars of colonialism”,  then this song cycle falls short of  provoking anti-colonial sentiments. It will require a re-reading of Sakay’s biography who was killed on America’s watch in collusion with the local elites and the colonial administration.  The rhetoric of the Katipunan (of which Sakay was a master of) , some of which are still redolent in rural southern Tagalog communities where deep Tagalog philosophies are reminiscent of Katipunan language of “kalayaan”, truth, and noble paths, is  little reflected in the songs. If on the other hand, this program is to reflect an artistic work created from rural sentiments and folk knowledge, then the creators are to be congratulated for a novel, remarkable and prodigious effort. Indeed there are bright spots in the production. Alleluia’s choreography was sparse, rather unlike her previous dance/theater productions. The eskrima (fighting with sticks) scene that has now become a theater cliche to represent a nationalistic warrrior characterization, was rendered with a deft hand,  where the men’s stick strikes were parried by the women’s scarf (panuelo) and where dancing couples manuever a waltz with a escrima stick between them.  Florante’s playing was awesome to say the least, playing as it were for over an hour without a break and sans musical score, knowing very well that the sequence and tempo of the show relies on the guitar music. To his credit, the quartet of cello, guitar, octavina, and percussion proved to be a interesting combination with the cello and the octavina providing texture to an otherwise overworked guitar.

Postscript: Unfortunately, this show was not well publicized in Bay Area papers, nor have I seen reviews of the earlier performances.

Presidio Officers Club, San Francisco. October 22, 2008-February 22, 2009.

The Presidio of San Francisco is currently exhibiting a collection of photographs and artifacts related to Philippine-American War of 1899-1902. The years covered are the textbook periods most American historians subscribe to. It also chronicles the rise of the Presidio as the key military base for the emergent American imperialism in the Caribbean and the Pacific regions.  The Presidio was the major embarkation station for troops shipping out to the Philippines. It is to the credit of the Presidio’s historian, Randolph Delahanty, to make this period inclusive to 1915, a periodization that has slowly gained acceptance among scholars of this event.  1915 was the year that all forms of resistance to American rule was crushed or ceased, notably the pacification of Muslim Mindanao.

The exhibit brochure describes the period as a ‘little-known war’,  a misnomer that speaks more to the intriguing suppression of this memory in the American national psyche than its aftermath, which accounted for than 80,000 native casualties and 4,000 U.S. soldiers killed.  It is quite appropriate that this revealing exhibition is being presented in the midst of the wars being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars, with its glorification of heroism, victory, and military prowess, also reveal underneath it, the dark side of inhumanity to fellow humans. The Philippine-American war was no exception. In fact, its unfolding during those years, bear an uneasy resemblance to later U.S. wars: hamleting in Vietnam has its origins in the ‘reconcentrado’ of civilian populations in Tagalog provinces to ‘starve’ the guerrillas from necessary resources; the Vietnam My Lai massacre  and  the indiscriminate shooting of non-combatants in Iraq mirror the Balangiga massacre and scorch-earth tactics of Colonel Jake “Howling” Smith; the furor about water-boarding as a legitimate intelligence gathering method is mirrored in the ‘water-cure’ torture that was practiced on Filipino guerrillas. The Philippine encounter also brought the American soldier for the first time, in direct confrontation against an Islam fighter. A history of  the ‘little-known war’ does not make these connections especially if the narrative has been forgotten. American textbooks have always treated this episode as a footnote to the ‘splendid little war’ – the Spanish-American War of 1898.  An unforgivable absence, since as this exhibit amply proves, there is no lack of material either in the archives (Library of Congress, Smithsonian, and special collections) nor a lack of visible war memorials erected throughout the country. One memorial in fact, sits at Union Square, San Francisco, where it barely passes recognition by pedestrians and tourists – a monument to Admiral Dewey’s victory against the Spanish armada in Manila Bay.

This exhibit more than compensates for this unforgivable absence of memory. There is a deliberate attempt to provide balance and yet not overwhelm or underwhelm the exhibit-goer. The materials are drawn primarily from the collection of Sgt. Hiram Harlow who served in the US Army during that period. Harlow’s diary reflect the attitude of most Americans during that time in terms of race relations, most of whom found the Filipinos not different from American blacks or native Americans.  The exhibitors were careful to note that such attitudes reflect the period.  The American press was particularly vociferous in portraying the Filipinos as uncivilized and were depicted in political cartoons as black, a few of them as black children as if to emphasize their need for care and civilization.  A section of the exhibit is dedicated to political cartoons published during that period; much of the materials came from the collection of Abraham Ignacio and published in their remarkable book, The Forbidden Book: The Philippine American War in Political Cartoons (2004). I find it interesting that press releases privilege the Harlow collection and make no mention of the cartoon section.  The cartoons reveal, in no uneasy terms, the popular racist undercurrent that persisted at that time – a shameless acceptance of imperialism couched as ‘manifest destiny’.

The exhibit also showcased the memoirs of the Lopez family, scion of the industrialist/business family of the same name. Caught between their nationalist aspirations as part of the emergent wealthy class of native Filipinos who supported the early Philippine republic and the looming possibility of having new colonial masters, the Lopez sought to negotiate the release of their men folk who were imprisoned by the Americans.  Their attempt to enlist the anti-imperialists in the U.S.  to their plight was futile, partly because the anti-imperialist movement whose supporters counted Mark Twain, David Starr Jordan (Stanford president), William James, among a few, could not muster enough political following for the Democrats, who lost to Republican McKinley in the 1900 presidential election. Under McKinley, the war and the Philippine acquisition was justified to the U.S. public as a civilizing mission and as spreading democracy to a then unknown country that suddenly was thrust into the American imaginary.  The late Daniel Boone Schirmer (Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War (1972), the pre-eminent scholar of this movement, noted that at least the anti-war movement shifted the emphasis from outright colonialism to a tacit form of informal empire and the subsequent co-optation of the native elite who eventually gave their support to the American programme. If there were winners from this war, it was the native elite whose pre-eminence in Philippine politics was established and supported by American rule.

The Presidio administration should be commended for their effort in re-visiting this period in American history that more and more has receded from American memory as the ‘larger’ wars continue to be valorized and memorialized. By threading the history of the Presidio as the pre-eminent Pacific/Caribbean military station through the lives of Sgt. Harlow, the Lopezes, and other representations of the period, it offers a more compelling narrative that war, more than anything else, is about individuals, albeit, in events larger than themselves. An outcome from this perspective, although a sub-text in this exhibition (but perhaps might require a larger presentation at another time, elsewhere), is the effect of wars in the narrative of American immigration. In the exhibit are a couple of photographs quite telling in the context of the emerging American social fabric: one pictured a Filipino mother cradling an apparent half-white infant; in another picture a U.S. soldier is flanked by two Filipino women, on one side appears to be the wife and on the other, his mother-in-law.  It is war’s supreme irony – as it suppresses and displaces people, it gives rise to new ones. In less than a decade, the fortunes of many Filipinos were inexorably tied to America’s destiny.

There was a time, when the Filipino dreamed of becoming  president of the United States. As an American colonial for three decades (1899-1945) his social and political aspirations were a mirror of the American mind. The Filipinos were fed with American ideals of equality, industry, civic-mindedness by an American inspired educational system with the hopeful intention by colonial policy makers, of creating ‘little brown brothers.’ The allure of America succeeded.  Droves of Filipinos, attracted by these ideals, migrated to the U.S. since then and only slowed to a trickle in this century. But on arrival,   what they faced were the false promises that American colonialism hid.  Many of them ended as stoop labor, constrained to labor encampments, subject to racial indignities, and prevented to reproduce and build families. Inspired by the same allure, subsequent migrations fared better albeit subject to more legal and subtle means of  racism. The climate of the civil rights movement gave hope that the allure remained alive and indeed FIlipino-Americans attained the dreams that failed their forefathers, many succeeding in businesses, in education and in political office. Now, the current presidential campaign is rekindling this allure – of America the great land of hope and opportunity, the land where dreams come true, converging as it were, in a person who personifies diaspora.

The greatest dream is the presidency. The beauty that is America is that anyone can aspire to be a president or even “accidentally” be chosen to be a vice-president. While that may be so, the aspirant is ajudged not by the color of the skin nor gender and is tested by the grueling and arduous scrutiny of friends and foes alike, poor and wealthy, men and women, black and white. To emerge from this crucible of trials  is a test of the  character of the intellect and the steadiness of the soul.  Our – the voter’s choices -  are usually towards those that resonate with their own personal aspirations although sometimes wrongly,  we often pander to affiliations with causes that describe the problem but does not resolve the real issue – the transformation of  governance, no less.  It is easy for politicians to pay lip service to what people want to hear but the words can often ring hollow. It is not enough whether Barack supports the Fil-Vet issue – what matters more is that he recognizes the immorality of the neglect heaped upon loyal citizen-subjects. Nor is it enough that  he recognizes the contributions of Filipino-Americans in the U.S.  What matters more is what he does to take these contributions to greater glory and to the benefit of all.  Great leadership requires accepting the obligation to improve the conditions of those being led and to lead them to a greater future.

We know that popularity, charm, attractiveness can all be fashioned and re-fashioned by sophisticated marketing strategies that Americans have been accustomed to and been led to believe as factual and real. Bush’s  charming speech is really a sign of intellectual laziness and Palin’s coyness a lack of intellectual maturity and perhaps of discipline. Thus, they cannot, should not govern. Great civilizations prospered from the wisdom of its rulers not the mastery of it peoples and advertising. Great leadership  requires a disciplined mind and a soul that can embody the aspirations of the human race — not just of Americans.

Now the world watches America and aspires to see Barack succeed not because of his multi-ethnicity but because of what he embodies: a quality of mind and a very old soul. Barack is the epitome of the global immigrant in search of a homeland; we hope he can re-ignite the beacon that once was America’s true allure.

Playing to a sold-out theater crowd, the Bay Area production of the “The Romance of Magno Rubio” was well received and with standing ovation. The play, directed by Loy Arcenas from a play by Lonnie Carter, is adapted from  Carlos Bulosan’s short story of the same title. Bulosan, as many students of the Filipino-American experience in the U.S. will know, was known for his depiction of Filipino field labor in the 30′s that he wrote into his short stories and in his semi-biographical work America is in the Heart. The Romance of Magno Rubio (RMR) does not have the heavy pall of labor exploitation that characterizes much of Bulosan’s writing. Lonnie Carter’s treatment suffuses the play with comic relief throughout and the subtext of exploitation, loneliness, treachery, and disappointment is hidden behind this curtain of humor.

This layering of humor operates on two levels – one is that it plays on the linguistic familiarity of the audience with Tagalog terms and references. Specially effective were references to sexual parts. In what might be constsrued as classic, Filipino slapstick humor,  Magno and Claro duel each other with tokens bestowed by Clarabelle, the woman of Magno’s desire. The humor progressively descends from photographs to pubic hair. This is easily picked up by a Philippine-born audience who, based on the quick reaction to certain words (and actions), were plentiful in audience. The other operates at the level of irony. This requires a certain familiarity with the condition of Filipino laborers during that period of history.

The play begins within a very sparse setting of a bunkhouse, with a harmonica playing “Home on the Range”. Those familiar with the Americanization of Filipino school children during the American occupation of the Philippines will feel the immediate discordance between dreams (prairie home) and reality (bahay kubo). Americanized schooling (which later critics identified as mis-education) promoted American culture at every instance. American folksongs were bundled with translated Filipino folksongs, creating an effective yet false cultural homogeneity. The imagery of this songs became embedded in the national psyche of the Filipinos, especially among those who belonged to the pre-war/post-war generation, Bulosan’s generation in other words. The idyllic home on the range was in reality a bunkhouse in the harsh asparagus fields of California. To this generation (and to many still in the Philippines), America remained the country El Dorado, the gold country where dreams can be fulfilled. Lured by false promises of labor recruiters, the Filipinos quickly became disillusioned by a country that did not live up to its promise of equality and opportunity. Instead of the good life that magazines, newpapers and movies promoted, life became an endless cycle of stoop labor from one crop to another. For Magno Rubio, a short, illiterate and quixotic simple man, the El Dorado of his dreams was to marry a white woman, this Clarabelle,  who he found in a magazine lonely hearts ad and who he corresponded with using a love-letter hack who charged exorbitant rates per word. In this calculus of work per word, the futility of Magno’s romance became ridiculously painful – for each vegetable he picks, he can afford to buy a word which makes the economics of a love-letter not only expensive but humanly impossible, a feat that his bunkhouse mates derided him with. Regardless, Magno Rubio kept writing, ultimately proposed and was accepted. At this point the audience have became painfully aware that Clarabelle was a gold-digger who thought Magno was a prosperous Latino who can western union her funds for her and her family’s needs.  This level of deception is ingeniously conveyed by having an actor (Atoy – Ramon de Ocampo) impersonate Clarabelle reading her letter in full view of the audience and  with an Arkansas drawl. This deception device is continued when Clarabelle comes to California to meet Magno Rubio. Instead of a “live” actress on front stage, the image of Clarabelle is presented to the audience as a silouette, like a shadow play, thereby heightening her illusory nature. Magno, of course, could hardly control his ecstasy. The woman of his dreams came to marry him.  His bunkmates give him money so he take his girl to New Mexico, one of the few states that allowed miscegenation. The final disillusion strikes hard and deep, as he tries to collect his girl (well -groomed and with an unmistakable swagger), he discovers that Clarabelle runs off with another man. At this point, there is a palpable gasp of dismay from the audience. The denouement was executed well. Magno sinks into depression, one that makes him quick to pull a knife. The suggestion of amok was fleeting but effective. Filipinos during that time had a notorious reputation with switch blades. Placated by the elderly Prudencio, Magno and the laborers return to their home in the range that is at once lonely, illusory, sad, filled with frustrated manhood and yet hopeful with dreams of gold.

The performance has a few remarkable moments – choreography, if you will. The harvesting scene using sticks for asparagus knives was novel, mimicking movements of escrima, a stick fighting style popular among Filipinos. Ordinarily an elegant and graceful style of combat, its application to labor work is particularly violent, as if the laborers were in fact in combat with their labor. The much touted balagtasan – a 19th century form of oral combat – that the play appropriates for some of its dialogues, did not come out as recognizable. Seated at mid-theater, the acoustics were horrible, the words became lost and muddied by the echo of stomping sticks and percussion. In its original setting, Balatagsan (named after Francisco Balagtas), is both a witty and mellifluous verbal joust, full of metaphors and hidden linguistic innuendoes so suited to Tagalog’s ambiguities. I would love to hear a recording of the play in entirety recorded under studio conditions. Other than these minor quibbles, “The Romance of Magno Rubio” brings into contempory American theater, an entertaining slice of labor history without the heaviness of polemics and overwrought ideology. Go see it.

Last Friday, October 3, CSUEB and the Center for Filipino Studies hosted a symposium on Filipino-American political leadership. The assemblage of speakers and guests were impressive, many of whom are battle-scarred but successful politicians who have taken their stake in Bay Area politics: Michael Guingona, former mayor of Daly City, Joe Esteves, mayor of Milpitas, Manny Fernandez, vice-mayor of Union City, and Gertrude Gregorio, New Haven Unified School District Board member. Students and academics were represented by PASA chair April Tablante; Dr. Lindy Aquino from University of Hawaii, Dr. Penny Flores of SFSU, Emeritus Dean Alan Smith, poet/teacher Oscar Penaranda, and Dr. Rica Llorente, who hosted the event. In the audience were some of the movers and shakers in the Filipino-American Bay Area communities. All of the speakers and those who spoke from the audience were one in expressing a major if not singular concern – we’ve tasted the political waters, yes, there were ups and downs and there are many more hurdles to clear but how do we proceed from here to get there; there, being a political office beyond the city council to state and possibly national levels.  The ongoing national campaign for presidency has clearly struck a resonant chord. If Barack Obama, the so-called “community organizer” have reached the highest political plateau through planning and circumstance focused with a singular vision –the Presidency of the USA and the ‘accidental’ rise of a hockey mom Sarah Palin, to political prominence over and above the more pedigreed politicians from within her party; then  many a child’s ambition  is now  articulated in a very real American dream, a dream that brings color and gender, adding a new dimension to the oft-repeated phrase  -”when I grow up, I want to be President”.  Having said that, it was rather evident from the audience and the speakers, that now is the time for the political vanguards to pass on the mantle of political leadership to the younger generation. Of the presentors, Michael Guingona is the only US-born; the others in fact, were already adults when they came to the U.S. . The general distinction is critical because it poses unique issues in campaign strategies, role-identification, coalition-building, all the stuff that politicians need to get in place in order to succeed.  Manny Fernandez bemoans the baggage of regionalism immigrants carry with them to the US and which is at once and a uniting and a dis-uniting, a characteristic to which Joe Esteves in his campaign can only counter by addressing core values – health care, income protection, education, etc. since much of the baggage gets in the way. A baggage that Greg Macabenta, publisher of Filipinas Magazine, says as one big reason why in spite of high voter registration incidence, Filipino-Americans cannot seem to get their political act together.  Michael Guingona, side-stepped  the so-called “Filipino vote” altogether by appealing to a broader and diverse constituent base in Daly City.

The symposium was also marked by an earnest concern (remarkably, there was little speechifying as politicians are wont to do) and a real desire to see programmatic steps to address the questions brought forward. I will propose some broad, sweep strokes on how to go forward, with the caveat the it will probably take a generation or at least several decades to realize its effects:

-Filipino academics, especially political scientists should engage themselves into dissecting what influences Filipino-American voting; much of what is being written is strong in critical rhetoric usually under the rubric post-colonial, gender, empire discourse of the Filipino-American presence in the U.S. It has become very evident to those who follow national party political campaigns that these are conducted with much background research in marketing, sociology, linguistics, statistics, even cognitive sciences. We should have think tanks which are engaged in studying the Filipino American voter and how this voter can influence local and national politics.

-Re-orient islandic mentalities to global mentalities and that we do not anymore operate from the confines of our provincial and barriotic mind-sets  without realizing its impact on global issues such as environmental concerns, for example. Philippine deforestation does not only cause the flooding of Leyte communities and the misery it brings but also contribute to global warming; that the outsourcing of customer service to Philippine call centers, would mean the lost of U.S. jobs in that sector which may possibly include Filipino American employees.

-Discard the baggage brought to these shores that weigh-down engagement in the political process. Cultivate those that promote progressive values of empathy, responsibility and participation. This is a tall order, largely in part because much of this baggage are embedded in our neural pathways. Language in particular is as much a core brain function as it is cultural behavior of learned signs and symbols. Years of colonization attempted to eradicate Philippine dialects. Spanish did not gain headway except for the educated and mestizos; English only became accepted during American colonization because it was an entry to the bureaucracy. And the Filipinos learned quickly and well. Great examples can be found of Filipino-Hispanic literature and of Filipino-English literature. But Tagalog, Ilocano, Pampango, Cebuano, etc. also flourished regardless, developing its own vocabulary and its own literature.   Under the guise that theirs was a “civilizing” mission, colonializers used language as part of their divide and rule strategy, pitting a Tagalog militia against Ilocano rebels and vice-versa during Spain’s rule and Muslims against christian settlers in Mindanao during American rule.  These antagonisms die hard and were exacerbated by a colonial mis-education. The Phllippine national government tried to shoehorn a national language which was largely Tagalog-based; great debates about this went on for many decades. In the end, a new public language is emerging – part English, part Spanish, part Tagalog and, depending on which dialect region you are in, part Ilocano or Cebuano, etc.  Critics opposed this diversity, citing a need for lnguistic unity, just as there should be geographical unity. This might have been possible before modern communication became widespread around the 50′s as had been possible with Indonesia’s Bahasa. That did not happen and amidst a plethora of communicative devices (cell phone, TV, internet) the ecleticism of the Filipino language will continue to evolve. Perhaps, one way of looking at this is to ask the same question of Europe now, where almost everyone especially the younger generation are multilingual, including in English. It is not coincidental that Europe now as EUR is one of the most prosperous region in the globe.

- Create/Build/Support programs to train 2nd-3rd generation youth on political leadership, community organizing, and cultural work. Schools should offer public service programs that provide internship in non-governmental agencies, or with public servants. Encourage the use of the internet as an organizing tool; as a training ground for cause-oriented journalism and advocacy; as a media of global proportions.   U.S born youth are not obligated to carry their parent’s baggage and will respond better to cultural awareness education.

The path to political prowess is possible now. We only have to take the next step.

Exhibiting (July 2008) in the Ayala Museum in Makati, Manila is the most comprehensive gold collection shown after Martial Law (hidden, I suspect from the gold-mania that Marcos was known to be obsessed with). The coverage is impressive ranging from pre-historic/hispanic to the turn of the century and displays artifacts that are not even shown on history textbooks. Gold ear rings, intricate bracelets and necklaces, paper-thin death masks provide ample evidence of the wealth that Magellan and later conquistadores imagined that they could access once the islands were occupied. Gold however did not become the main extractive motive of Spanish colonization. While these were readily available and obviously naturally abundant (until now the rivers of Surigao are being panned for gold), the volume required would have meant re-organizing the local communities into large scale labor. Spain did not actively colonized the islands until another century after Magellan stumbled upon to it in 1521. By then the consumption needs of Europe have shifted to silver mined in great quantities in New Spain (Central America) and Spices from Southeast Asia (Moluccas). The colonization of the Philippines added a new product for European consumption – chinoiserie and to which the Chinese were more than willing to produce in large quantities in exchange for Mexican silver. Thus the galleon trade was born and remained the major economic activity of the Spanish Philippines until the early 18th century. Human labor in the form of polos and servicios were the “gold” that never was and where the population (and its attendant depopulation by people trying to escape force labor) was re-organized single-mindedly for that purpose. While Europe enjoyed a renaissance and enlightenment, the Philippines languished in medieval monkdom. Only until the English East India entrepreneurs saw plantation economies in sugar, tobacco, rice, and hemp did the colonial authorities awaken, belatedly, to the call of economic reform. By that time, a generation of revolutionaries were born.

Recently, at Stanford University, we had the opportunity to see and hear about the works of its Pilipino American M.F.A. students Michael Arcega and Lordy Rodriguez.  They join a rare cohort of Pilipino Americans artists who have gone through the Stanford M.F.A program: Stephanie Syjuco, etc. The program is unique in that much of the first year is spent on aesthetic and critical theory as well as completing minor exhibits. Ideally these graduates are able to talk about art and THEIR art.  This Stanford event was a first attempt  to have Pilipino American artists talk about their art to a Pilipino American audience in Stanford. Such exchanges are critical and goes beyond merely viewing thier work passively and in a unilateral manner. In this instance, the audience had the opportunity to interrogate the artists about their aesthetics and choices they make in their art practice.  Rather purposely,  the programme I concocted was intented to test the power of symbols, art afterall is the interpretation of symbols, private and public, that a masterful artist is able to manipulate and render into an aesthetic experience or experiences.

Michael Arcega is one such artist. Already known among his peers and with a gallery following, Michael plays with the ironic and parodic sources of Philippine culture to evoke reflection and self-criticism.  We began the program with “Loping Honoring (2007)” an innocuously titled video. To the listener not familiar with the tune which in the video is sung with operatic fervor by a white singer, the song would be any marching tune, with sections sung with much fervor and bravado. To a Philippine audience, the tune is that of “Lupang Hinirang” or “Bayang Magiliw” – the Philippine national anthem. In the video as the tune is sung, Michael provided text captions of the lyrics in English. However, the text was  the output from the Microsoft Word spell check thereby rendering much of the Tagalog text into mangled English. Incredibly, in true Philippine fashion, the audience stood respectfully to hear the anthem to the end.  Grinning sheepishly at the end  the audience realized that they have been taken for a ride but  which in this instance the artist did not even expect.  The moment proves a point, art and its exhibition is usually situated in well defined contexts – galleries, exhibitions, etc.  Placed in the context of  ceremony, i.e. the the start of a programme, it takes on a different meaning. In contrast, when I saw the same video installed in the Art Gallery, it did not evoke a sense of seriousness.  Be it here or the Philippines, civic events are usually prefaced by a singing of the national anthem.  In the Philippines, as every school child remembers, the day always starts with the national anthem, inculcating a “sacred” moment as it were.  It reminded me of my student activist days demonstrating against the Marcos government. When the riot police started charging, the demonstrators sang the Lupang Hinirang anthem. Like automatons, the police halted and stood at attention until the end of the song, and then resumed their charge. By then the demonstrators had dispersed. Eventually, they  got wise to the ruse. It marked a new understanding of song power. In creating “Loping Honoring”, Michael’s obvious intent was to create a disjointed effect between an ideal operatic mode against translated text. There are occasional verbal congruences but for the most part  the text was gibberish English that created discordant text images to perfectly in tune song.  Much of Michael’s work operate on these symbolic puns or play-of-thought. His galleon foray in Tomales Bay  (The Maiden Voyage of El Conquistadorke, 2004) not only proves that Manila file folders are shipworthy by constructing a Manila galleon replica from the material. One can take the references of Manila folders as a double entendre: the Manila galleon that sailed from the Philippines carrying silk and chinoiserie to Acapulco then onward to Spain solidified Hispanic colonialism. Similarly, the “Manila folder”, a coinage that derives from American colonization of the Philippines, symbolizes the efficient bureaucratic scaffolding that marked American rule for 40 years. In another play-of-thought, In his SPAM/MAP work, Michael renders a geographic vision of the Philippines and Oceania in SPAM, that ubiquitous canned meat that America introduced to these peoples during WWII. The war brought devastation to livestock in the region depleting its sources of meat. SPAM as a substitute meat became a popular dish and eventually endearing it into Philippine cuisine and breakfast fare. This accounts why  SPAM as a staple item found in many balikbayan boxes brought home by diasporic Filipinos. Michael’s works are playful, insightful and reflective. It’s criticism is not edgy as seen in some Pilipino American art rather, the criticism is self-induced, asking the viewer to re-evaluate their own understanding of commonly known objects against commonly held conceptions or misconceptions.  These are but a few of his Philippine oriented works. A wider coverage of his installations are found in his website: http://www.arcega.us/Home.html