It's time for a shift to direct democracy, Part 3

(read Part 2)

Who’s afraid of it?

WHY SHOULD congressmen and senators be afraid of losing their jobs under a direct democracy? On Facebook group Direct Democracy's wall, member Occupier Michael Hudson pointed out this passage from a cited source titled “Pros and Cons” on activatingdemocracy.com (a source first posted at the Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines’ Facebook wall by another friend, gallery-owner Simkin de Pio):

photo of the Philippine House of Representatives in session borrowed from http://specials.sunstar.com.ph/noynoyaquino/2011/07/26/sona-fast-facts/

     “Representative and direct democracy are compatible; well-designed direct democracy strengthens and invigorates representative democracy. Initiatives and referendums represent dynamic elements, which prevent the political system from ossification. Both citizen lawmaking and parliamentary legislation are expressions of the same principle of popular sovereignty.
      “Direct democracy does not replace but complement parliamentary democracy. Only the most important decisions are made by popular votes. Most of the decisions remain to be decided by parliament, government and administration. The independence of the judiciary is not questioned by direct democracy.”

     There you go. But the anatomy of this fear of direct democracy may be gleaned from examining what the political elite did with the party-list proportional representation system.
     New Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines member Emil wrote: “In a realm where the moneyed class holds sway, they will use all instruments at their disposal to get themselves into power, even if that means violating the original intent of party lists. I'm sorry to say this, but the party-list system, for all its good intentions, has been co-opted by the trapos [Filipino slang for 'traditional politicians' and Tagalog word meaning cleaning rag]. (The system is) following the footsteps of the traditional political parties that basically represent the interests of the ruling classes -- as expected. You can't win as a party-lister unless you have money or established political bailiwicks, like Bayan Muna, Gabriela, and Akbayan, but these parties too took time to organize, to put up, and required lots of resources before they could be established.”

     Still, the true small parties would have a lot to gain in terms of chances in a direct democracy. So why would they allow themselves to remain as well-paid slaves to masters? Ah, yes, did I say “well-paid”?

     “I dare say again,” says Emil, “if we really want a truly representative democracy, then the poor must be enabled by legislation to be elected into office as well, not just the less than five percent of the families who control economics and politics right now. And I think the only way to set this up is to change the rules of engagement.”

     And that is precisely what the global movements for direct democracy are all about; that’s what our movement is about. The multi-party direct democracy of Switzerland is evidence enough that it can work.

MY FRIENDS Mac McCarty and Lila S. posted on their walls a post-election essay on Business World written by the historian Vince Rafael. Mac says the article takes a look “at the historical dynamic of Philippine democracy and opens some interesting questions to ponder pre-2016.” In the essay, titled “Election Notes,” Rafa wrote:
     “In world historical terms, elections were most effective and meaningful when they were introduced in the wake of social upheavals and movements to democratize society (see for example, the French and American Revolutions; the US Civil Rights Movement). Such elections did not inaugurate change, they simply followed and extended change that was already under way.

     “The promise of electoral change coming in the wake of (rather than before) these social revolutions could only be realized, ironically, through the medium of a strong state and established bureaucracies left behind by the old order. Refurbished by the new regime, these were the only vehicles capable of carrying out legislative changes on a truly national scale.

     “In the Philippine case, national elections have American colonial origins (whereas local elections date back from the Spanish era). They were first introduced by the Americans in 1907 as part of a series of counter-insurgency measures to quell the Filipino-American war. Hence these elections, like the municipal elections that preceded them in 1903, were not meant to further social revolution but precisely to put an end to its populist energy, re-channeling its demands into a conservative, elite-dominated, counter-revolutionary institution called the Philippine Assembly, the acknowledged grand daddy of the Philippine legislature today. . . .”

     Rafa closed his essay with the following questions “to ponder”: “Is it possible to have a strong state given the geographical divisions and strong local allegiances of voters, and given the sway of money and personalities over political parties and issues? Can we ever overcome the colonial legacy of a decentralized, 'weak' state without returning to authoritarian rule? Can the national ever dominate the local, which even under Marcos proved unfeasible? Or does democratization in the Philippines also mean increasing decentralization and localization of power which are anathema to the building of a strong state capable of reshaping all levels of social life?”
     I think the Philippine geography has nothing to do with it. It is not because Switzerland is landlocked that it would be a study in contrast against the Philippines’ case. The main difference, landlocked Switzerland and its cantons practice direct democracy. In contrast, the Philippine islands still curiously kneel down to their sanctified idol, representative (or elite) democracy. There’s the rub!

     Let's keep our representative democracy and we’ll never be rid of our trapos. And quite obviously, trapos gain much from the system of pure representative democracy.

     One of these gains is the facility of maintaining what has been termed in our country “political dynasties,” which involves wealthy families who seek further advantage by being in government instead of being merely in business (especially if one family achieved its wealth within government [or revolutionary government] in the first place and found it hard to get rid of the habit, thereby finding the entrenchment of its little dynasty quite a happy situation).
     When the young sons and daughters of these “dynasties” win elections as either mayors, congressmen, governors or senators, what do they do? They take a crash course in legislation after the win. “Why not?” says my friend painter Dulz Cuna, “Imee Marcos done it.” One would wish they also take up a course titled . . . something like Putting the People above Special Interests 101.

photo of senators-elect Nancy Binay and Bam Aquino borrowed from http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/focus/05/16/13/nancy-binay-take-crash-course

     Platform-less, special-interest trapos are simply a product of representative democracy (elite democracy), not of anything else. They won’t disappear in a near-future Philippine direct democracy, but this latter system will at least force them to talk more about specific issues, if only because the people would have achieved a new culture of involvement in issues (a total involvement that could either be immediate or gradual). The trapos will then have to refine their lying and, alas, direct democracy gives the people the power to vote them out via a motion of no confidence (out of their seats) when they fail to deliver.

     “Citizens’ recall!” says Dulz.
     Exactly. They have that in Switzerland as well as in California. In fact, there are even representative democracies in the world that allow for recall elections. They have it in British Columbia (Canada), among other places I can’t recall as of the moment (no pun intended).
     DD (direct democracy) might therefore frighten the currently-privileged elite which have long been privileged by a system that marginalizes the majority from knowing the issues and the details of the issues, one of the tools of which system of marginalization has been the English language. The English of the educated class has been flaunted as a symbol of wide knowledge, in fact has largely been placed within a system that sells education at a high cost. This is why the currently-privileged elite might be afraid of direct democracy. Because, largely, direct democracy is an attitude as well as a discipline of principles. It doesn’t matter that direct democracy would not ban them from seeking office, or that it does not do away with a Congress (a direct democracy in recent centuries being always a combination of direct and representative democracy), but its attitude will take away a lot of the plates of privilege that the elite have for decades been eating from.

     The attitude says this: we won’t anymore allow the representation of our district’s needs to be the exclusive privilege of the sons and daughters of wealth; we would like to represent ourselves on major questions, us, the hundreds of thousands of us that have been so used to being represented merely by members of the political elite. No more of that exclusivist experiment.
     And the discipline that comes with that desire comes with the knowledge of the issues and the principles behind the issues. In RD (representative democracy) we are constantly either made ignorant or subtly told we are ignorant by the “experts” class; in DD we are expected to decide for ourselves. In DD we complain to ourselves, not to the landlords. That ought to be our collective attitude; and that ought to be frightening to an elite culture that has secretly triumphed over the majority’s engineered ignorance for so long.
     The attitude says, enough of relying on elite representatives to solve our poverty problems, for instance, or of relying on them to achieve our socialized education objectives. For how else can we resolve those? Who will even bother to start to achieve the latter, since private schools and semi-private public schools are making quite a profit for the elite?

     The engineering of our consent has gone on for more than a century now, so much so that many of us have been conditioned to subconsciously think thusly: “let’s just wait for our heroes, maybe the next set of senators will solve our education problems for us.” Let us forever cross our fingers? . . . Oh, and yes, “our system can never be changed” is the problem, and our beloved senators would even sigh with us, but would then promptly follow it up with a lightbulb gesture of having come up with a solution. Or we keep “forgetting that our culture is to forever wait for heroes,” and so we join with our leaders in damning those who are ambitious, those “trying hard” people, the so-called weird social climbers who think they can change the world, who think they are the messiahs, subtly telling us that our messiahs won’t be coming soon.

     Well, enough of that attitude. We’ve got a new attitude. The Swiss attitude, or the state-level DD attitude of almost half of the states in the US, which is the same attitude driving the OurNZ Party of New Zealand, the Direct Democracy Now! party of Greece, Direct Democracy Ireland, the Online Party of Canada, and many more! . . .

BUT HERE’S the catch. The Philippine government ought to be the government of the people and by the people (the people who should also say, enough of the custom of buying us, the people). DD shall therefore be achieved via the concerted effort of the majority of our people, not just via the idealistic few, for otherwise it’s likely to fail.
     The attainment therefore of DD shall be a long and tedious process, for its approval needs to emanate from the people, as that is precisely why it’s called direct or true democracy. If its approval is to emanate from only a minority of the people, it cannot be validated as a truly-made direct democracy and may likely reverse everything. Direct democracy must therefore not be imposed by a bunch of ideologues who didn’t attain the people’s backing. Let me repeat, the campaign for direct democracy is going to be quite a tedious and long process, the end part of which needs to be a ratification of new DD constitutional amendments. Paradoxically, the people have to decide whether they want to decide.
     Well, actually that need not necessarily be so. For since representative democracy was imposed on the nation by the few, so direct democracy can also be imposed by a few who may succeed at forcing the shift. It doesn’t matter if the people doesn’t make use of its new power and privilege and freedom. The important thing is that it is there. Should they choose not to take advantage (avail) of their new right, there is still representative democracy in the background which can continue to happily work on the people’s behalf as before. The advantage of that situation is that it does not give the people a reason to complain. The kitchen is there for them to use, all they have to do is use it. (Just as RA 6735, long hidden from our awareness, has been there waiting for us to use it.) If they, the people, complain about not seeing a recipe they wish someone had cooked already, then I’d believe those people to be really stupid and lazy. But until that kitchen is made more available to their awareness, I will not believe any elite architect’s pronouncement that my neighbors can’t cook a level-headed new Act. . . .


IT WILL be a tedious process. In fact, when we achieve a new culture of direct democracy, some or many of us may not even be around anymore. But the important thing is for the campaign to start now. Not tomorrow, not next month or next year, not next decade, but now.

     A program of work, then, as Emil reminds us. Yes! A program of work, which is what the Forum for Direct Democracy Philippines was built for. So far, its 149 members have yet to come up with a program of work.

     We’ll do this, then, as a labor of love. And, remember, every political model has its favor for a kind of love, facilitating the promotion of its idealized love. Elite democracy facilitates, nay proposes, the primacy of love for elite selves lording it over beneficiary masses waiting for their benefactor lords’ charity. We’ll labor for a contending broader embrace of a love concept, one not derived from generous lords but from all our selves for as many of our selves.

     Our friend from Wall Street Peter Casimiro reminds us also via John Adams to “remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” And, indeed, direct democracy is not the end-all and be-all of the democratic struggle for democracy. I say, democracy is a constant, never-ending struggle, precisely because autocracy never stops at its own. And in our case, I would be referring to the autocracy of elite democracy, better known as plutocracy or oligarchy, which would continue to fight to regain the privileges of representative democracy against the true populism in our new direct democracy.

     Another new friend, painter Arturo Cruz, squeezed out a paraphrase of Noam Chomsky’s “Consent Without Consent” which went thus: “according to consensus of Madisonian scholars, the primary responsibility of government is ‘to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority’. That has been the guiding principle of the democratic system from its origin until today.”

     I would say, “Until today, Arturo, until today,” for while that principle seems to be operative until today, it must prevail only until today. For today we have found an option.

THIS OPTION is really this simple: there are two basic forms of democracy, representative and direct.

     Representative democracy says all the people have to do is elect representatives (mis-representatives?) of the millions of the republic’s citizens. These representatives can take care of the nitty-gritty of the major decisions of governance for us, having been entrusted with the responsibility. We can all relax afterwards and watch our soap operas as they do their jobs on our behalf.
     Direct democracy, on the other hand, while also employing representatives of the majority with its necessary retention of a Congress, simply gives the people ample rights to participate directly in governance/legislation as well as the power to amend or repeal laws (even the republic’s Constitution) and recall elected officials.
     Now, almost all of the complaints we hear on the radio and on TV every day can be traced to the failure and shortcomings, and the abuse, of representative democracy as well as the failure of the people to defeat the powers and privileges they have allowed to be allotted to this system. So, now, having been made aware of this, why prolong the experiment? How can we keep complaining to our leaders while also indulging them the privilege of representative-democracy representation powers, which definitely includes the power to ignore our complaints? How can you complain to your abusers while allowing them to continue to operate within a “democratic” form that facilitates abuse?

     On the wall of the Facebook group Direct Democracy, our friend Occupier Michael Hudson had another attractive posting, this time the video of a lecture by the progressive-cum-liberal political commentator Cenk Uygur. Here is that video:

Cenk Uygur’s speech at The Conference to Restore the Republic

     Not to contradict anything in the video except for one tiny thing, our Occupier friend quips that, sure, “a Constitutional Convention [amendment] is a great idea, but for what cause? Let’s try direct democracy. Direct democracy allows the people to petition to place laws on the ballot and then, if enough people sign the petition, we can vote for or against it. Switzerland uses this system, as does over a dozen U.S. states. At least direct democracy gives the people the ability to pass legislation that 90% of us like. And thus direct democracy gives the people a mechanism with which to effect real change.”

     And he’s right. And instead of a Constitutional Convention we can already make it possible, simply by demanding for direct democracy even initially at the provincial or the city or municipal level (especially in the case of provinces and/or cities where the leaders are the type who would be more receptive to the idea-cum-demand). From the municipal to the provincial to the national level, then. Maybe that’s the way to quickly shut up all the naysayers who claim that direct democracy won’t work in an archipelagic system like the Philippines (incidentally, wasn’t that the same argument the naysayers used against election automation not so long ago?).

     But who could mobilize such a campaign in the provinces? Well, there are the party-list groups’ provincial chapters, for one. And, again, with any party-list group that claims to be on a mission to empower the people, I would like to know why it wouldn’t want to join a multi-party movement for direct democracy.

     And there, in the provinces, we could try the beauty of a referendum or initiative.

THE INITIATIVE. A main artery at the heart of direct democracy. Now, here is where fear lurks.
     And the fear is not exclusive to special interest groups who would find it quite easy to convince a bunch of congressmen and senators in their lobbies but think it hard or more expensive to convince whole communities in their plazas as well as entire media staffs in their conference rooms. Other concerned citizens also fear that moneyed special interests who can afford to put their prized laws (and loopholes) to vote in election after election may, at the end of the day, be the ones to own those initiatives or referenda. This is an understandable worry, which derives from the dictum that well-financed campaigns and adverts usually win the day. But this is precisely what happens upon a people not used to listening to themselves but only to TV wise asses and their expert messages talking down to our low-financed voices. Direct democracy gets rid of that just-listeners and just-consumers culture; people get used to debates everywhere, not just in barbershops while watching GMA News TV documentaries. In a direct democracy, the people can actually own the philosophy that sees highly-financed campaigns as suspect.
     We’ll talk more about this in the next part of our series. [END OF PART 3]

 

(Read Part 4)

Men of Irony (sa Buwan ng Wika)

FOR those of you who don't know who he is, Representative Sergio Apostol is that new Liberal Party balimbing who quickly switched parties in post-election 2010---when Benigno Aquino III won the presidency---from the then-ruling Lakas Kampi CMD party where he was also a recurrent lawyer for then-embattled president Gloria Arroyo. (Himself, then, as evidence of the existence of ironic twists in things.) He is also of the Waray people from Leyte province, but is no stranger to the Tagalog-speaking National Capital Region, having been a national legislator since his ruling-Kilusang Bagong Lipunan party days in the Marcos-era Batasang Pambansa. What I mean to say in this paragraph is that I don't trust Sergio Apostol when he implies, as he did last August 24, that he can neither recognize Filipino as an official language (which he never seems to have had any problem with since his early days in the legislative halls, until now) nor understand it very well. I, too, am a Waray, by the way, and---though not as intelligent as Sergio Apostol---do understand Tagalog very well.
     But let's assume that Apostol speaks the truth, having myself been witness to Silliman University professors who could not speak/understand much Filipino, preferring to teach in English and sometimes in Cebuano. It's pretty common among Cebuano-language speakers to find this Tagalog-free culture among them, but must be a rarity among the Warays, who've mostly been friendly with the Tagalogs and their Tagalog radio dramas. But riding the assumption that Apostol truly cannot understand Tagalog very well would help us understand him when he tried to revive at past 5 in the afternoon of August 24 the debate or national issue around Filipino as an official language. Apostol was demanding---in English---that Representative Arlene "Kaka" Bag-ao (Akbayan Citizens' Action Party) answer Apostol's interpellation, on the pending and controversial RH Bill, in English instead of in Tagalog/Filipino. Although at first the two lawyers argued over Filipino's current position as an official language, with Deputy Majority Floor Leader Magtanggol Gunigundo (Lakas Kampi CMD) insisting that it is an official language and presiding officer Maria Isabelle Climaco Salazar (Liberal) ruling that the parties can proceed in whatever language they choose to use, and with Apostol later threatening to demand an interpreter if Bag-ao does not relent, Bag-ao did finally agree to answer the interpellation in English. But not without Apostol's stance's being called deplorable by party-list representative Antonio Tinio (ACT Teachers), which speech Apostol promptly rebutted in plenary session. (Read the ABS-CBN report here)


COINCIDENTALLY, an essay titled "Language, Learning, Identity, Privilege" was posted by Manila Bulletin Newspaper Online writer James Soriano at 4:06 AM, also on August 24. The essay would get much more notice among Facebook aficionados than Apostol's rant, I'd say with about half of its readers agreeing with the author and the other half getting quite offended.
     The essay presented (once again) the reality about the English language as that language used by the privileged class in our country. But ironically also as the language of learning, as the most used language medium of education as well as in the textbook/book/newspaper/magazine publishing industries. Ironically, I say, for isn't education presumably one of the state's activities geared towards socializing learning instead of propping up elitism on a social pedestal? The real situation of the Filipino language, on the other hand, was also presented in the essay as that intra-social class everyday-medium of communication used in the streets and on free TV, but largely ignored by both the education system as well as by the law profession and the corporate boardrooms. There's another irony there, for isn't the legal practice meant to serve justice for all instead of justice for a privileged few? And isn't it funny that boardrooms argue in English over their advertising materials in Tagalog? . . . There may be questionable entries in Soriano's essay: I'd say doctors and nurses in most operating rooms actually converse in Filipino or Taglish more than in English or Englog, but I'd also say the presentation was mostly quite right on the money, especially with lines such as "(Filipino) might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned". (Read the Soriano essay here, where it was transferred)
     My friend the painter Marcel Antonio was the first on Facebook I read to be in agreement with that essay's presentation of the reality concerning our languages, even defending the essay as one that actually used the ironic stance with its doublespeak to those who he thought didn't get it. "This article, particularly the writer's unapologetic privileged positioning, will surely draw a lot of haters. What is scary, though, is he might actually be right," he wrote. Citizen journalist and freelance writer-editor Jenifer Aquino agreed that the essay was indeed a work of irony. She wrote: "It's a sarcastic note that's meant to slap all the 'feeling elite' elements in this country. Ako gets ko ... yung iba, malamang hinde. . . . He's right." "Just yesterday," my painter friend wrote back, "we were watching (Rep.) Mitos Magsaysay (Lakas Kampi CMD) berate Sec. (of the Presidential Communications Group) (Ricky) Carandang in the vernacular (during the hearing on the budget for his group); I imagine the rhetorical effect would be less if she argued in straight English. Mas may talas ang Tagalog, mas gusto natin ang bigat ng dilang kanto kaysa sa mala-coñong dila (that speaks Konyo or Coño English or Englog). . . . I'm hoping that you are right, Jen, that the sarcasm isn't lost on his readers. Sometimes I think most of us are not too appreciative of irony, much more various forms of sarcasm like understatement."
     Allow me now to interpolate unto this manuscript of comments in the vernacular (that Rep. Apostol might deem abominable), Mitos Magsaysay-fashion. My view would lean towards an affirmation of Soriano's points in his web of irony.
     But as regards Soriano's irony itself, ito ang masasabi ko riyan. Isa sa mga pinakamahirap i-handle ang irony. Si Alanis Morissette kinantyawan dahil di raw niya alam kung ano ang ibig sabihin ng "ironic" nung sulatin at kantahin niya ang kanyang awiting pinamagatang "Ironic". Muntik na rin di maisama sa In Utero album ng bandang Nirvana ang kanta nilang "Rape Me," dahil di raw klaro ang irony sa kanta, sabi ng mga execs ng DGC Records-Universal. Nakakatawa pa, nung makumbinsi ng banda ang mga executives na iyon, ni-release ang single CD ng "Rape Me" with a B-side song called "Moist Vagina." Ang tanga-tanga talaga. Wonder what the irony was in that. Ironic, di ba?


BUT let's get back to the main issue.
     Let me focus on those guerrilla English words that are appropriated by our expanding education not based in the English language but in Tagalog/Filipino, by which I mean the expanding education derived from the streets. Again, let me argue in the vernacular, Mitos Magsaysay-fashion:
     Assuming this writer James Soriano was not being ironic but just being honest, tama ka, Marcel Antonio, ang final line ng article---"So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language"---is still right on the money. At kung ating aalamin at sisiyasatin, kahit ang mga Tagalogero na hindi Inglesero ay mag-a-agree na kailangang bigyan-pugay ang wikang Ingles. Ito ang matagal ko nang sinasabi sa mga kaibigan kong purists, na automatic nationalists daw by virtue of their purism, na ang totoo niyan, ang majority ng mga Pilipino sa Tagalog Luzon ay Taglish ang salita at di nila naiintindihan ang mga tula sa purong Tagalog ni Lope K. Santos. Ang labandera namin, maraming English words at phrases na ginagamit na galing TV at showbiz. Ang mga ka-banda ko sa Groupies' Panciteria ay hindi naman mga galing U.P. Conservatory of Music or U.P. Department of English, pero kumukonsulta ng mga tipa sa gitara sa mga websites ng buong mundo, at hindi ko pa sila narinig na nagsalita na wala man lang Ingles sa kanilang bawat pangungusap, kahit man lang sa mga simpleng tanong gaya ng "kuya Jo, may noodles ba tayo riyan?" Ibig sabihin, lahat ng tao rito sa bansa natin, nakakakuha ng edukasyon gamit ang mga salita ng English language. Pakinggan mo na lang si Ka Gerry Geronimo sa agriculture show niya sa TV, parang ako magsalita rito, nag-so-sow ng maraming seeds ng appropriation ng English words para sa Tagalog ng mga magsasaka ng kasalukuyan at ng future. Nakarinig ka na ba ng mag-aayos ng dingding niyo na Tinagalog pa ang concrete nail? Kung di ako nagkakamali, sabi ng makatang si Virgilio Almario sa isang preface o foreword ng isang Tagalog/Filipino - English dictionary, pag ang Ingles na salita ay ginagamit-gamit ng Tagalog na tao sa pananagalog niya, Tagalog word na rin iyon. Dati babaguhin natin ang spelling, tulad ng "driver" to "drayber". Ngayon, hindi na, especially na maraming kolehiyala o colegiala girls dyan na pumapara sa driver para maibaba sila sa corner. Ang mga bata sa elementarya ay binibigkas ang bagong alpabeto ng wikang Filipino thus: "a, b, c, d". Wala na ang dating "a, b, k, d".
     Pero, on the other side of the coin naman, totoo ngang me mga may kultura na nagsasabi sa kanilang mga sarili na "mas superyor ako dahil marami akong alam na Ingles kesa sa mga tao sa kalsada".
     Aktwali noon pa 'tong presumption ng superyoridad na 'to e. Noong panahon ng mga Espanyol, sabi nila, "mas superyor ako dahil mas marami akong alam na Espanyol kesa sa mga tao sa labas ng aming bahay na bato". Kung tutuusin, inferyor ang pananaw ng nagsasalita ng gayon dahil ininvade ang utak niya ng isang aroganteng kulturang Espanyol. Ang indibidwal na nag-Tagyol o nag-Espanlog ang masasabi kong naging superyor, dahil siya ang kumuha ng makukuha niya sa mga lenguwahe na nakahain sa buffet ng kaalaman.
     Kasi lahat naman ng languages may kanya-kanyang kakaibang yaman, maliban pa dun sa mga "talas" na unique sa kanila. Marami kang makukuhang kaalaman sa wikang Ingles. Gayun din sa wikang Tagalog/Filipino. Anong African language ba 'yon na may napakaraming tawag sa ulan, gayung sa Tagalog me buhos at ambon lang? Sa Japanese daw me 50 words for rain. Ayon sa isang writer ng Miller-McCune magazine sa kanyang report na pinamagatang "Rescuing Endangered Languages Means Saving Ideas": "This suggests language systems don’t merely translate universal ideas into different spellings; they encode different concepts. And when we lose a language, we risk losing those concepts." Still, kung ang foreign concepts ay accessible naman, bakit nga ba natin lilimitahan ang isang tao na gustong mag-aral ng as many words as he can keep in his skull's hard disk and who wishes to be able to use them in his daily grind as he speaks to the taxi driver? Unang-una, komunikasyon naman ang objective, di ba? Oo nga't di mo malelectyuran ang taxi driver tungkol sa metanarratives ng colonial literature, kahit purong Tagalog pa ang gamitin mo ("metanaratibo ng mga likha at literaturang kolonyal"), pero di ka lang maiintindihan hindi dahil wala siyang alam na Ingles kundi dahil hindi niya alam yang mga bagay na pinagsasasabi mo. Buti pa pag-usapan niyo na lang ang mga spark plugs na patok at ang iba't-ibang tread ng gulong, baka ilibre ka pa niya sa "flag-down fare" mo.
     Kasi naman, labas sa Kongreso at sa broadsheet journalism, sa mga tao sa araw-araw---tulad ng mga tao sa mga airports---hindi isyu ang language. Ginagawa lang 'tong isyu ng mga ayaw makinig sa sinasabi mo.


NOONG August 26, naglabas ng parodic essay ang Singapore-based writer and blogger na si Kat Nisperos sa wikang "Bekimon" (baklang jejemon) o swardspeak sa kanyang Facebook Notes page. Kinontra nito ang gist ng essay ni Soriano by translating his essay to become his/hers. Read the essay here.
     Do read, however, Nisperos' nota bene regarding his essay, which offered an apologia against judging Soriano's person and person-qua-social-symbol, quickly campaigning for a more magnanimous view, preferably one taking notice of a larger issue. Why the post-Note note?---I ask. Would it seem that there had been readers of Nisperos' essay who mistook his humor for being one by a deeply-offended voice? Ironic, di ba? Dahil isa raw sa mga rason ng pagsulat ni Nisperos ng essay na ito was to "put a lighter note on the entire issue, because too many personal attacks were being made against James".
     Oo nga't kung pagbabasehan lang natin ang parody ni Nisperos ay tila di niya binasa ang essay ni Soriano bilang isang ironic take on an issue. But, nonetheless, his/her essay demonstrates amply well na maraming wika sa Metro Manila, at lahat ng ito ay sources of knowledge. Ang maraming niches dito, whether these involve population segments drawn around social classes, regional classes, various small groups, or whatever, are more diverse than we've come to expect. There are the jejemons that offend some. There are the pure Tagalog speakers that preach Iglesia ni Kristo and Ang Dating Daan gospel truths. There are the bus conductors with three-voweled Visayan accents that would forever be the butt of Manila sitcom and mahjong jokes.
     But yet, Metro Manilans are deemed as belonging to one nation instead of as a compendium of mini-nations or intra-nations or nations within a nation.
     Which should make us conclude, based on this fact alone, na tulad ng mga tao sa mga airports hindi nga dapat isyu ang language. Ginagawa lang itong isyu ng iilan dahil ayaw nilang makinig sa mga sinasabi mo, kahit ilang dekada na silang nakikinig sa wika ng mga tulad mo sa plenaryo ng cosmopolis.
     (Oh, and kasama na rin do'n ang mga sinasabi ng wika ng Irony. At ng wika ng plain humor.) [END]


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ADDENDUM (September 2, 2011):
Tila ngang me irony sa essay ni Soriano, ito'y ayon sa kanyang bagong sanaysay dito: click dito. May mga di naniniwala sa kanyang apologia. Nasaktan sa mga sinabi niya sa unang essay. Ganun kailap ang irony, ang claim sa irony, o ang absence ng irony na sabi ng ilan ay naroon. Pero sabi ko nga sa taas: "sa nakararami, hindi isyu ang wika. Ginagawa lamang itong isyu ng mga ayaw makinig sa sinasabi mo." Ano ba talaga sa palagay ninyo ang sinasabi ni Soriano? Ano ang sinasabi ninyo? Tila tatlo ang naging isyu: 1) ang Filipino language bilang simbolo ng bayan na sing-tatag sa puso tulad ng bandila o ng imahe ni Hesus ng Nazaret, 2) ang privileged class na tulad ng kay James Soriano raw at ang pagkantyaw sa wika ng may wika, at 3) ang irony. Tapos na ang buwan ng wika. Setyembre na, ang pampitong buwan ayon sa mga Romano at sa astrolohiya. Subalit walang pumapansin sa pangalan ng buwan na ito (na ang ibig sabihin ay seventh month), kahit narito na tayo sa Kalendas Ianuarius (o Julian calendar na may dinagdag na Januarius at Februarius). Pa'no kasi, sa mga tao sa kalsada sa araw-araw, hindi isyu ang pangalan ng buwan. Ginagawa lamang itong isyu ng mga taong ayaw ng nasisinagan ng araw.
     Subalit tila ngang me depekto sa depensa ni Soriano sa pangalawa niyang sanaysay. Dahil tila nalimita niya ang isyu sa dadalwang wika lamang, ang wikang English at ang wikang Filipino (o academically-expanded Tagalog). Sabi ko nga sa main essay ko sa taas, ang mas angkop na deskripsyon sa wika ng nakararami sa Tagalog Luzon ay Taglish. O sabihin na nating Tagalog pa rin. Ngunit hindi ito ang Tagalog na mababasa mo sa pangalawang sanaysay ni Soriano. Ito ang Tagalog na maririnig mo sa TV.

Two fruits, one tree (or, why there is no such thing as a national artist)

photo from http://pinoyweekly.org/new/2013/03/sining-ng-paglikha-ng-kasaysayan/

Through our friendly exchange of comments on Sylvia Mayuga’s Facebook wall regarding the ongoing National Artist of the Philippines title award debacle, Lila Shahani, a doctoral candidate at Oxford University (London) working on her postcolonial literature in English degree and who used to work for the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the Gawad CCP committee, observed a “somewhat promiscuous and occasionally rather putrid need to constantly canonize in the Philippines.” She went on to propose a national art completed through a process “more natural, more organic, where the cultural minutiae comes alive on its own.” Still, the hanging question was, Why this eternal craze for “canonization” and official recognition by a nation?

     Well, apart from the lack of an audience for many artists which might require forcing such an audience by legal declaration, my other quick explanation to that hanging query is this: we are not a nation. We have never been, and we just might never be. You see, a long time ago a colonizer declared the people of this archipelago “of ours” as one nation of “Filipinos”; then that colonizer left and we were likewise left with the vague duty of continuing the realization of that declaration. However, there are many factors keeping us from realizing that mission—regional, regionalist and religious divisions are just some of these. But I would like to focus on two very important factors, two basic ones responsible for the constant and unflagging division in our nation and which I believe are at the root of such cultural issues as this surrounding the recent National Artist of the Philippines title debacle—viz., language and education. (Let’s lay aside for the moment the issue of politics governing National Artist selection, as I am more concerned in this essay with the masses’ unconcern).
     Okay. Now, some will say we are divided into two nations, the rich Filipinos’ nation and the poor Filipinos’ nation. That is also true. But that view can be tricky in the art of explaining the economics behind it, so I’d rather trace things to the more obvious dividing tool: language. (As I write this, for instance, I’m fully aware of my readership, and that readership does not include my neighbors in our barangay).
     In the Spanish era we were introduced to feudalism, and within that feudal system was entrenched a wedge that would forever keep the poor from reaching the landlord’s sons’ and daughters’ level. That tool was language. Spanish became the mode of instruction in the academies, and—since society operated under a feudal system—the academies would mostly be affordable only to the landed gentry or the merchant class, seldom to working class elements or the peasantry who could only rely on the charity of private or public scholarships. The learned from Spanish, therefore, could thus only become more learned by Spanish. Those denied access to the language from childhood might be able to keep up a bit, but only up to a point (the same way that what we now regard as OFW English can only function for certain functions but not in the alta sociedad ballroom functions, unless you are Manny Pacquiao’s mom).
     Now, when the Americans came and went, that systemic bent of wedging a divide between the poor (Tagalog-speakers) and the rich (now English-speakers) was not removed. Sure, there were efforts to come up with a language we could call our own, which my great grand-uncle Jaime de Veyra was party to. Declared as the national language, Tagalog (which would later be academicized to be known as Filipino) had a nationalist rationale-cum-agenda; but it did not seem to be aware of its potential in ultimately removing the poor-rich wedge tool, the language divide. The nationalists spoke Tagalog in public functions, but kept their snobbery by English’s way with the rest of the upper class in their daily exclusivist conversations concerning keeping up with the white Joneses. The national language mission was designed for nation-making, never for nation-uniting. And the problem with that was, the nation got to be made by the new landed gentry and the new merchant class who were being educated by Thomasite standards.
     Since language and education are like the left and right arms of every citizen that makes coping with daily life a whole lot easier, that wedge in Philippine society separating the left arm and the right arm to make life more difficult necessarily manifested itself in all facets of society’s operations, including that activity called the arts. And so the poor Filipino nation generally listened to radio soap operas and pop music and watched cinema entertainment in Tagalog, while the rich Filipino nation primarily listened to radio news and music in both Tagalog and English and watched English soap operas on TV and English movie-theater movies. Sure, rich entrepreneurs made Tagalog literary masterpieces for the masses, but that doesn’t mean they preferred these to their self-Americanization or self-Europeanization ideals.
     It was logical therefore to see a two-pronged development of the arts. The Tagalogeros’ arts included, among others, still life and Last Supper paintings on plywood or katsa (low-grade cotton canvas) made by maglalako painters (painter-vendors) who intended these for dining room display. Their art, similarly colonial as their upper-class masters’, also included American jet fighter jeepney sticker art, and such other manifestations of colonial idolatry. The Ingleseros’ arts, meanwhile, included—among others—painting inspired by the painting concerns of the moment in New York/Berlin/London/etc., emulations of Italian industrial design, and so on. The former became prisoners in their own country and were only able to do so much artistically, while the latter generally became prisoners of their old and continuing colonialist ideals—but that is a different issue.
     Thus, today, by virtue of that language divide that entrenched an educational divide that in turn created artistic divides, we continue to face the problem of addressing the concepts of what a national art is, who a national artist is, when a national art or artist is, and how national is a national artist.
     Politicians would find it easy to give out answers since their usual concern with the arts is political. Artists seem to have a more difficult time with it, since they would be more genuinely concerned with defining what is art and what is national.

Now, I forget who it was who wrote in the ’80s, in the American magazine The Saturday Review, something like this: “every time I see an I Love New York sticker, I know New York is in decline.” Something like that. Well, every time I see a symbol of canonization, like a National Artist award for someone, I know it’s ultimately a symbol of desperation.

     Desperation, I say, because we (consciously or subconsciously) know we have not yet realized the old proposal to be a nation and have thus remained constantly divided—not just regionally but regionalistically, religiously, linguistically, economically. The compounded result of which is finding ourselves eternally crazy about such exercises of false nationhood as following a rigid performance of the national anthem (as against the US’ allowing much leeway in the performance of its own). We have acquired thus a hunger for perfect symbols: a national hero, a national flower, a national fruit, a national fist, a national pasalubong, a national book store, whatever national else. Subconsciously, we know that we really don’t represent anything collectively. Culturally, Sudan’s infighters seem better off, for they know they are fighting for specific ethnic rights and also ownership of specific oil territories. We, on the other hand, celebrate our symbols the way we celebrate our religious days and icons—blindly most of the time, wishfully at best. Rizal the fighter for autonomy or independence is loved on Rizal Day even as we continue to embrace the dictates of the economists of foreign creditors, which is the same behavior we display every time we congratulate ourselves for a nice mass (on a Sunday or Saturday), even as we’ve come to love the things Jesus of Nazareth used to hate.

     Blindly, therefore, unfazed do we march forward—albeit in a haze—toward what could bring us true nationhood. Nationalizing anything and everything has become our desperate and self-assuring habit. I find it easy to say that by simply trying to be a nation and trying blindly, we will never attain our objective. For nationhood, you see, cannot be constructed by imposing wishful thinking on a people within a territory via momentary spurts of sloganeering and songs of “magkaisa tayong mga Pilipino” every time there’s a news-friendly event requiring commonality, or every time we come up with a utopia of obedience under the rubric of a “Strong Republic.” Nationhood takes a lot more effort than that. Some even had to build a nation through a war cause. Or a peace cause. There was always a uniform direction within the internal divide.
     But that’s on the one hand. On the other hand, there is the Karl Popperian idea of a democratic society that proposes to create a nation by constant democratic exchanges, internal economic exchanges, and pluralism. What these exchanges demand is the achievement not of uniformity for the sake of nation-building but plurality and variety for the sake of “free society”-building. This demands an atmosphere akin to a town fair with competing booths, the thesis being that unifying by way of unifying breaks a nation, while enhancing differences under the parameters of opinionated aggression as well as the “acceptance of one’s obsolescence” (Popper) creates the necessary physical human unity consisting precisely of more exchanges and the consequent nurturing of a continuing mutual respect. We do not have that in our idea of democracy. Our idea of democracy remains: to have the freedom to speak and not to own the responsibility to listen—but this, too, is another issue.
      Suffice to say that our nation is not made up of a demos of a people, which should be one and the same thing; instead we have educated lords lording it over the demos, creating two peoples. Thus we continue to nationalize anything and everything to embark on this subconscious mission to hide the truth; it has become our reflex action and attitude towards every frustrating event that occurs in our midst. Instead of decentralizing culture to create that town fair atmosphere, we announce on the speakers that everyone in the town fair should wear blue and red shirts and jeans. We do not just crave for a nation, we try to design a nation, and we take it upon ourselves to act on that duty. The problem is, even with an obedient people we cannot acknowledge the fact that we cannot even give them orders if they are speaking a different language.
     The process of elitist nation-making can be quite funny, too—it shows us how nation-shapers can become parodies of themselves. And that is not just in our archipelago where things are not even funny anymore. The American Grammy Awards, for instance, has a system wherein peers can nominate only those artists who have reached a certain number of sales in the market; this is similar to the Hall of Fame awards system wherein mayors and governors and sports investors take the ritual photo op on the day of conferment, not realizing they actually waited decades before they could say, “oh okay, he's still not forgotten, maybe we can give him the award now.” Who the hell needs that conferment in the first place when the people already gave it to the man/woman centuries ago? What the hell is a Grammy nod all about if what is required is a market nod first? Now, of course there are honors that really honor, and these are usually the awards that do not pretend to derive from somewhere else. But the rest are crap, and these are usually the awards that pretend to have been conferred by an Academy when in fact it had indirectly been conferred by the people firstly, or these are the ones that pretend to have been conferred by the nation, or by the city, or by the barangay, when in fact an institution took it upon itself to speak for the nation/city/barangay. The National Artist title award is that latter type of carabao dung. And the sad part of it is it not only pretends to be an award by the nation for an “artist of the nation,” sans a definition of who a nation is composed of, it even wastes the people’s tax money—the only thing truly of the people and by the people in that award. And from now on, the filmmakers of our land will pay their cultural taxes to pay for C-movie filmmaker Carlo Caparas’ monthly stipend, the new controversial awardee.
     Consider, however, that Carlo Caparas—a product of profit-based movie marketing for the masses created by rich movie producers—is not an “academic” artist, and perhaps also why a lot of arts people were astounded by the conferment. Now, Caparas may be a bad artist, but that says something else again: the world of academic artists and the world of an educated politician like Gloria Arroyo cannot seem to meet on the same plain. Why is this? Perhaps Gloria Arroyo does not really believe Caparas to be worthy of the award; she has been so wily a politician, as many of us have been wont to say. If so, then it would make perfect sense that Gloria Arroyo chose to confer the award on somebody who in her opinion might be her people’s champ able to go against the elite artists’ preferred refined champ.

“What is this constant need to deify, whether it’s the Gawad CCP or National Artist award?” asked Lila Shahani.

     Apart from the Gawad CCP and National Artist awards, which are national efforts, let me digress to the Palanca Awards, which is a private effort. Some would aver that it would be unfair of me to touch this last as it is not of the same bunch—but they are of the same bunch. First, though, the disclaimer. Palanca’s sin is not a grave one, for it only pretends to be an “award” even as it is really a contest prize for contest applicants with three judges sitting for each category instead of a committee like, say, the Swedish Academy for the conferment of one award. It only pretends to be like the National Critics Circle awards (an honor honest about its being a circle’s honoring someone) even as it is actually the American Idol of Philippine literature. And Philippine writers play along—for the money, or for the credentials (since the literati have already attached themselves to it as an institution). A writer-friend says some of these Palanca-participating writers would even adjust their writing styles for whoever is going to sit as a major judge in a year’s contest (it’s a small community, you can’t keep a secret), but that’s another matter and I cannot name names.
     But at least the Palanca doesn’t pretend very much to be of and for a nation. It acknowledges that it is of and for writers and is only an opportunity medium for . . . actually I think for the propagation of the easy transfer of styles of patronage.
     I do not, however, think the Palanca to be entirely useless. I would only rather that it was a publishing and distribution grant so readers can access/check its winners. In short, so it can be a part of a potential literary market and potentially of the nation.
     Let me discourse further on Palanca’s role in my arguments here later. First, Lila Shahani points out that international publishers like Random House seem more interested in ethnic voices than in national voices, in an Australian aborigine writer than in an Australian writer, at least presently. And that is really because book publishers are moved by the forces of market tastes and market availability and marketability and market niches. They are moved by such principles as positioning, product image, product identity. They know what they are looking for.
     “If you want to make it in the Philippine market,” Ms. Shahani opines from experience to provide a contrast, “it is useful to celebrate some aspect of our national identity. So would a Filipino version of Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger make it back home [Shahani is writing from India], with all its criticisms of India? Unlikely. Instead, even if one is not necessarily formally gifted, as long as one celebrates the pastoral, the indigenous or the national, one is bound to be awarded eventually. Isn’t this as dubious as the criteria for multicultural writing internationally?” In my two earlier blog essays here under the National Artist label, this was what I referred to as a propensity to institutionalize—through the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the CCP—safe art.
     And this is precisely how Filipino movements for idealizations operate, however various the approaches are by the different NCCA directors or CCP chairmen. And if we are to go back to the Palanca, which is governed more by the standards of its sitting judges from a previous or newly-established generation of writers than by any government interest, it sadly still turns out to be another form of convention propagation, or conventional innovation, and all because judges would not be inclined to interest a market, or a people, or a readership. Its judges would be mostly concerned with their aesthetic idealizations for an imagined market, an imagined people, and the small readership who may or may not love those idealizations since the judges and writers would have no way of knowing since Philippine literature is often for free. Almost nobody in my barangay has probably even read a poem or story by a Palanca winner. And if you say not all barangays are like my barangay, I would bet you my whole year’s salary if you can give me a barangay with even at least 20% of its population having read a book by a Filipino creative writer apart from the required Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo in college. I know this is not Czechoslovakia, and I know that neither is this Russia with taxi drivers reading Russian novels in Russian by Russian writers.
     So, what am I saying? Am I preaching nation-making by proposing a mono-lingual utopia?

In the early post-Marcos decades, there have been efforts to democratize the elite arts. The CCP even toured ballet performances to the provinces in the late ’80s through its outreach program. It was the institution’s way of hoping that if you bring a thing to the people, the people would eat that thing. If you give them caviar, they’d go “ooh.” Well, that seemed to be the prayer, at least. The CCP’s nationalizers were understandably offended when they didn’t get those bravos, or got offended more when they got a “mas masarap pa ang bagoong dyan e” sort of response to their West-inspired art.

     But, get this. This approach was not exclusive to the elitist in the arts who thought like Imelda Marcos in saying, the way to erase an elite is to make an elite element out of everyone. No, even the Marxists in the academic world did come up with their own designs for nation-making. They said people should have access to our books, and so our writers should start writing in the people’s language, Filipino. The problem was, and still is, this: language doesn’t seem to operate merely through words, it also takes its personality from the education it got (and the jobs and wages that this education got it), and from the access to a bookstore that went along with its being able to find that meager job thanks to the meager education it got. Sure you can tell a people and their language, “hey, pare, mare, hindi ito sonnet, ito ay isang soneto,” but that, ladies and gentleman, would not change the politics around the art commodity—coining a new local word for an alien object would not readily assimilate that object into the accepted culture of the larger society nor guarantee its acceptance after having been understood. In short, you may change the politics within an art, the language and its contents, but that would not change the elitist aura of all Philippine art that do not derive from the barangays or the people themselves and their education (the education afforded them by a poorly-accorded privilege).

     Ms. Shahani also shared this observation: “the ones we seem to idealize (in this context I have more experience with Gawad CCP) are the ones with fairly obvious and identifiable nationalist references.” That would be emulating or aping the Pulitzer, but at least the Pulitzer is clear on that in all its press releases, and the Pulitzer had had material that involved American characters in foreign lands (Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King almost won). Still and all, nationalism as a rationale for a Gawad is still merely tinkering with the content of the message, not fixing the real root of the absence of a nation-audience. “Unless you’re in awe of the greats, you’re in trouble, it seems,” Lila adds, and to me that’s a signal frustration with our collective fear for the “nationalist greats,” nationalist greats who are however unperturbed by the threat of the nationally uneducated (or unperturbed at least by our money-wasting in all this arts funding).
     So, in the end, what am I preaching? Well, if I am to preach here at all, I shall do it by referencing my admiration for what the novelist and short story writer Jose Dalisay wrote somewhere, sometime ago, to the effect of confessing that he is a bourgeois writer writing in a bourgeois way on non-bourgeois themes for a bourgeois audience. He didn’t put it that way, really; I did. But that’s basically what he was saying and basically what he has been doing. Now, if only the national arts committees of this god-forsaken nation could muster the same boldness to acknowledge its standing in the nation and stop pretending to be of the nation, then maybe we can begin the job of really making this nation one.
     Until that time comes, I will continue to refuse to call any Filipino artist—including myself—a national artist or an artist of the nation. There can be no such animal in this jungle. [END]

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After reading the above blog essay, Sylvia Mayuga emailed me an article that shall be a part of her new anthology to be published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press. The article is actually a review of the book A Country of Our Own by California-based Cebuano writer David Martinez, a poet who---it turns out---seems to carry the same belief as mine concerning the mythology of our nationhood, though he develops his piece in a more researched though perhaps less sanguine way to produce his "tour de force" on the issue (Ms. Mayuga's phrase). Mabuhay sab ka, bay.

     But it gets better. Sylvia wrote "New Morning for Inang Bayan," extolling the positive coming off a negative event, including this blog---along with an interview with Ms. Shahani---in the limelight of her prose as she rose to her finale. That was quite embarrassing and an honor.